The Young Turks - Tequila Mockingbird

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

CPAC urged to probe more sexual misconduct claims against chair Matt Schlapp. Jack Smith investigated Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's alcohol use. Hannity grills Vivek Ramaswamy on comment about Israel: "You want me to read it?" The U.S. is pumping oil faster than ever, but Republicans don’t care. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to the Young Jerks, Janeco Granite Kusparian Plus America.

Okay, we got a fun show because don't we always? Was Rudy too sauced to give legal advice and would that somehow hurt Donald Trump? I don't know, stay here and find out, isn't it? Hold on, I'm getting word. Breaking news, Rudy Giuliani, known as a sauce boss. Oh, did not know that. But we do have a Rudy Giuliani inebriated and that being a problem story. Oh, for sure.

And the war against Vivek Ramoswamy has accelerated. It's insane, actually. To be honest, look, as much as I dislike a lot of what Ramoswamy has to say, the, it feels like a coordinated effort almost. Oh, no, but guys, look, look, we'll do it in the stories, but I need you to start with hashtag Jenkwa's right on Twitter right now. Okay, just as a preemptive strike, I told you they hate outsiders, they love attacking outsiders. outsiders. We'll show you the details of that as we go along. All right, but first we start with pummeling of crotches. Okay, let's not put it that way. Matt Schlapp is the one who allegedly did the pummeling. I'll give you the update on that story. So the vice chair

for the parent organization behind the conservative political action conference, also known as CPAC, has resigned over sexual misconduct allegations against the organization's chairman, Matt Schlapp, the gentleman you see right next to me. Now, he's also urging an investigation into accusations by a Republican operative who claimed that the CPAC leader groped his crotch during Herschel Walker's campaign this past fall. Now, Schlapp has denied the claims, he vehemently denies the claims. However, now we're hearing that there are two other individuals who have made sexual misconduct allegations against him as well.

So first, let's get to the details about the original allegation. The vice chair stepping down. We'll read some excerpts from the letter and basically update you all on what's going on here. So earlier this year, as I mentioned, Schlapp was sued for alleged sexual battery and defamation by a Republican campaign operative who claimed that the CPAC leader groped his crew. during a campaign trip last fall. In fact, he said that Schlapp allegedly grabbed my drunk and pummeled it at length. And in the lawsuit filed last January in Virginia, GOP operative Carlton Huffman accused Schlapp of groping his genitals while driving Schlapp to his hotel

in Atlanta after campaigning for Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who luckily did not win a Senate seat. Now, call logs, texts, and videos provided by Huffman and his confidants in his lawsuit matched his account and six family members and friends and three Walker campaign officials confirmed that he told them about the alleged incident that night or the next day. Just to repeat, Matt Schlapp has vehemently denied these allegations. But what's really fascinating is that he tried to settle this out of court. That's new reporting from the Daily Beast. Schlapp allegedly made the offer back in March.

And it was in the low six figures to which Huffman said, no, not interested. The offer was turned down. Carlton Huffman then suggested a different amount, a counterproposal. We don't know exactly how much it is. And at that point, Matt Schlapp said no. Now, the American Conservative Union was not notified of Schlapp's offer, and they did not approve it. And I'm guessing that also played into the decision made by the vice chair to essentially step down and pen this letter to the organization and the executive board. Schlapp surrogates have also highlighted Huffman's own flaws.

This is where things start to get real dirty, right? They're digging up some opera research on him, including a restraining order against him for alleged sexual impropriety with two young women in February. as well as his expression of solidarity with white supremacist ideologies more than a decade ago, Huffman has acknowledged and denounced those previous statements as ugly. So we're going to get to more of the allegations, and we're going to give you some excerpts from the individual who has now stepped down from the organization in just a moment. But first, Jenks, some initial thoughts. So look, people can do things in the past that they regret.

Being in white supremacist is pretty extreme. But what does that have to do with this case? True. So he was, you knew he was a white supremacist when you were pummeling his crotch at length. You didn't seem to mind it back then, right? All of a sudden, now that he exposed to you, I did opposition research. I found out he's a white supremacist. I mean, I liked him back then when he was a white supremacist, but I mean, but now all of a sudden I'm bothered by it, even though I run seat back.

Please, please. Okay, so now look, you can tell whether things are right or not, roughly. You never know for sure and you really got to be on the, you know, jury to hear all the evidence, et cetera, of course. But we let's keep it real. We all judge in the court of public opinion to some degree. So in this case, what are the different ways that you can tell? The number of valuations. So first the guy comes out, if it's one guy, could be he's looking to get paid, could be a thousand different things, right?

But now there's two more people that have come out and said there's been the pummeling of crotches. And one guy said he tried to kiss him. We'll get to that, right? So the allegations are probably up. And then it's also the substance of the allegations, right? Sometimes I'll read a story, and I remember reading one about a year ago at some publication where they're like, well, we have very important complaints. Like they're not hiring enough black models. It was a fashion related story.

And I was like, oh, okay, that's really why, that's so weird, right? And then you read into it and you find out, no, they're hiring plenty of black models. Just the people, some of the staffers thought they weren't. weren't black enough. Okay, that's, then you go, oh, okay, I don't know, I don't know if you're trying to get paid, I don't know what's happening, but that's not a thing, okay? How is that not problematic? Yeah, what does that even mean?

What do you mean they weren't black enough? Should they have not been hired because they weren't black? No, but you see my point. Like we're not talking about fringe cases where somebody's trying to get rich or whatever it is. These allegations against them are very substantive with significant sexual harassment, etc. And they're made by other conservatives. conservatives. This is not like some political hit job. You get what I'm saying? 100%. And then the last part of it is internal reactions. Look, you could have two or three

people inside any company that are aggrieved. That's normal. I wouldn't say like, wow. But as you're going to see here, board members are dropping like flies. And the board members are the most trusted part of the organization. You could say, hey, there's plenty of board members I hate and are cheesy in the general world. But they're most trusted by that organization. They're the adults that run the place. And so they're not going to get shaken by a tiny little thing, generally speaking. And these guys are super big advocates of Schlapp and AC and and C-PAC. And they're going, no, there's something really wrong here. And so this is a very significant allegation against Schlapp.

In fact, I just want to make clear that when the initial sexual misconduct allegation came out against Schlapp, the board was unified in believing Schlapp and defending him. But as the discovery process in this lawsuit has moved forward, as more shady details have come out, all of a sudden people are changing their minds, including now the former vice chair of the parent organization, Charlie Jeroe. We'll get to him in a moment, but let me give you a few details on the two other sexual misconduct allegations against Schlapp. As the Washington Post reports, in one incident, a staffer said Schlapp attempted to kiss

him while drinking late after a work function in 2017. The staffer also provided documentation from that night to the Washington post showing physical contact that the staffer said was unsolicited. And then in another incident, Schlapp allegedly made unwanted physical advances on someone else's employee during a CPAC business trip in Palm Beach, Florida. This happened in early 2022, according to multiple people informed of the incident. Now, all of those allegations led to the resignation of the CPAC parent organization's vice chair, Charlie Jero, and the vice chairman of the board.

of the American Conservative Union announced his resignation on Friday of last week in a letter to other directors that called on them to authorize an investigation, including any additional allegations that they or staff have become aware of. And in a statement released after his resignation, he said the following, I am calling on my former colleagues to authorize an independent investigation into the charges against Matt Schlapp to conduct an independent forensic audit of the organization's finances, to obtain a written opinion of counsel that the organization is in full compliance with its own bylaws and all applicable law, and to thoroughly review all the exit interviews of the large number of staff who have recently left, you know,

shedding some light on people who have resigned since these allegations have come out. Now, his resignation letter also raised some concerns about the organization's potential liability for legal costs in the Huffman lawsuit, and that's according to people familiar with the letter. Matt Smith, who is a member of the ACU executive committee, thinks the resignation was more about personal grievances than anything else. Although with the now growing body of evidence against Schlapp, I would take this following statement with a grain assault. However, I want to be fair and read it to you. You could decide for yourselves. So Matt Smith says the following. These allegations are completely fabricated and represent a blatant attempt by Mr.

Jero and disgruntled individuals to force Mr. Schlapp to step down. Only when it became clear that he was not going to be reelected to the board, did he fabricate these false allegations. Now, this is the third resignation by a member of the board's eight member executive committee in recent months. And that's pretty damning, to say the least. Yes. And so, look, I think the financial impropriety is the maybe even more interesting. So when they ask for a forensic audit, that means I think these books are cooked. And I'm not remotely surprised by that. I'm actually surprised that their head finance guy actually has ethics.

Look, fair or not fair, as a general thing, I kind of assume that conservative organizations rob their donors, that they funnel money to themselves in ways that they don't let people know about. Like Project Veritas? Yeah, I've never seen a conservative organization be honest. So like every time one is revealed to be honest, I'm a little bit shocked. So but to be fair to this organization, their head of finance was like apparently cares about financial and propriety already. I'm surprised by that.

So maybe they were doing things right before. But he's like, now he won't even let me see the books. Well, wait, your head of finance can't see the books. That doesn't make any sense. And another board member says, no, you really got to let us see the books. That's what the whole point of the board is. And he won't let him see the books. And one of the issues is, is Schlapp potentially funneling money from the organization

and from their donors to himself? That's what they should look into, right? And number two is, and now this is just my theory. I think Schlapp wants the organization to get sucked into the lawsuit, which it hasn't yet. But he's egging that on, this is my theory, okay, egging that on so that once the organization gets involved, he goes, okay, you guys pay for everything. Yeah, that's not a bad theory. Yeah, joint legal defense, because he doesn't, he doesn't want to pay for it. Well, one of the issues that the board had, or at least the individual who just resigned, was the fact that Schlapp reached out to, you know, the plaintiff in this lawsuit.

and offered a low six figures settlement, they were not notified about that. They did not know about that. And to your point, Jank, the now former treasurer who quit back in May said that he does not have confidence in the organization's financial statements. So you're right to be suspicious

of the financial wheeling and dealing that's going on with the organization. I don't think that it's necessarily every member of the executive board who's in on it. I think that, you know, the blame, at least for now, based on what we're reading and seeing reported, is placed squarely on match lap. Yeah, so, look, I'm amazed by these guys because, so look, he does the financial impropriety, potentially maybe we'll see how it goes, but the organization itself is worried that he did it. Okay, that's the kind of shlippity slap that I expect. Okay, but when it comes to the sexual stuff, over and over again, the head of a conservative group, hitting on guys, trying to kiss them, lunging at their crotch.

Allegedly, yeah. Without consent, without, I mean, like, he assumes those conservative guys are also gay or bisexual. Or, or he assumes that he's entitled to do what he wants with no consequences. Yeah, no, you're far more right. That is absolutely right. But then it makes me think, Jesus, how many times did he do this? Because a guy like that, either one, he has absolutely no self-control, which is entirely possible, right? Or he's done this so many times and he's shocked that the last couple of times didn't work.

Normally he can intimidate them into getting some sort of sexual favor out of them. And then they're usually quiet about it because they're conservative. And be, if they're, think about it. If you're a sexual harasser, who would you target? Would you target someone on the left who's very likely to speak? out against it or would you target someone on the right, especially in same gender issues where you think that person is very unlikely to speak out about it, right? So those conservative staffers are an enormous target for a sexual harasser, especially

in the same gender. I think that this is true of pretty much any context where you're dealing with a significant power imbalance, right? I really do think that someone like Matt Schlapp felt that he was above and any consequences for his actions if it is proven that he engaged in the sexual misconduct. But the other thing that I am curious about, look, he wants to settle this case. He doesn't want to go to trial. And the discovery process is brutal, right? I think through the discovery process, potential financial improprieties will come up.

No, no, he's got to settle. I'm telling you, I look, I think he's waiting for, to agitate the guy enough to he sues the organization, which has more money in for pockets anyway, because he can't, A, he probably can't afford the defense overall, and B, he can't afford the settlement overall is my guess. And then why am I guessing that, by the way? Because one of the sources in one of the stories said, this is all he has. If he loses this job, he's a goner. And so he's got to hold on to the job with dear life. But then if he's dismissed from them, especially, and he has to pay the legal defense, oh, He's totally sunk, right? So he's got to attach that liability to the organization so they could pay for his defense

and they could pay for the settlement. Again, that's my conjecture, but it's informed. Look, I think the Pumlee, by the way, it's kind of a cheesy move to release the settlement talks. But, and usually you're not supposed to do that, et cetera. But look, he's aggrieved, whatever, right? Bottom line is, if they go to discovery, match slap is in a world. of trouble. He must settle this case. No, don't settle. Matt, don't settle Matt. Yeah, and by the way, we believe in you, Matt. By the way, go for it. Go for the trial, Matt. No, no.

Do it. Seriously, Matt Schlapp and his wife Mercedes Schlapp also being sued for defamation. If you guys really think you're right, go for it. Go to the trial. Definitely go for it. And discovery will help you then. Definitely will help you. Right. You'll that way you'll get evidence showing you did no financial impropriety. You never sexually harassed anyone. You'll get them on tape, you'll embarrass them, et cetera. You need to prove your innocence. You need to prove your innocence. And the only way to move forward is to not settle, go through the discovery process,

go through the trial, and prove your innocence. We're looking forward to it. All right. Good luck with that. All right. The next story is a banger, but it's also gigantic. So we're going to take a brief break so we have ample time to cover it. Because the media is viciously going after Vivek Ramoswamy.

I mean, it's a little overboard if you ask me despite my disagreements with his policies. So stick around for that story and more when we come back. De Jesus, I assume, as opposed to the Jesus, but either way, it's a fun name. And speaking of fun names, Ryku Sensei. So everybody's here now. Look, the bigger the TYT army grows, the more invincible we become. Hit that join button and let's go do honest news and positive change in the world. Happy Warrior gifted a membership and we appreciate you. You'll of course also join through t.com slash join. Casper. All right, let's get to a pretty big update in regard to Donald Trump's federal indictment.

Did Donald Trump engage in willful recklessness when he took election advice from Rudy Giuliani, knowing that Rudy Giuliani has a problem with alcohol consumption? That's the question that special counsel Jack Smith is asking in the federal indictment against Donald Trump over his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Now, what's fascinating is that Trump's defense, or at least part of his defense, is that, golly gee, what could I have done? I was just taking advice from counsel. And in this case, the council he's referring to is Rudy Giuliani. He's essentially throwing his own lawyers under the bus and pretending as though he did not engage in any illegality, any type of bad behavior. And if that is his defense, well, he should know that Jack's

is now looking into whether or not Donald Trump was aware of Rudy Giuliani's drinking problem as he was accepting that advice. Now, the council in question, again, is Trump's lawyer and ally Rudy Giuliani? As detailed by reporters, Asowin Su-Seng and Adam Ronsley, apologies if I mispronounce that name, the disgraced former mayor of New York was not only witness to have, was not only witness to have been inebriated at several points throughout the campaign, but that Trump knew Giuliani was a heavy drinker. That's the allegation here. Now, in their questioning of multiple witnesses, Smith's team of federal investigators have asked questions about how seemingly intoxicated Giuliani was during the weeks. He was giving Trump advice on how to cling to power,

according to a source who's been in the room with Smith's team, one witness's attorney, and a third person familiar with the matter. Now, Jack Smith's team is also questioning the witnesses on other things, including whether or not Trump ever gossiped about Rudy Giuliani's drinking problem. And if Trump claimed Giuliani's drinking impacted his decision making or judgment. And what did the witnesses tell Smith's team so far? Here's what the Rolling Stone reports. They say that some witnesses told Smith's team that they saw Giuliani consuming significant quantities of alcohol. Some told the special counsel's office that they could clearly smell alcohol on Giuliani's breath, including on election night, and that they noticed distinct changes in his demeanor from hours prior.

The sources tell Rolling Stone. Got a few more details. But, Jank, it is interesting that the potential defense, which I think is a weak one to begin with, could even backfire on Trump in this regard where he could be accused of willful recklessness. Yeah, I'm going to give first word to one of our members, Funkin for Funcun, For Fun, For Fun, Rodin, the only proof Rudy has is 80 proof. Oh my God. I love our members. Hey, you know what?

$100 blue apron gift card. We sometimes give that to members for great comments. TYT.com slash join to become a member or if you're on YouTube, hit the join button below the video. And Funk and for fun, go to rewards at t.com to claim it and show that you're a member. Okay, so Rudy Giuliani, does he have a drinking problem? Come on, okay? And now the problem again for Trump is verbal diarrhea. Has he mentioned that Rudy Giuliani has a drinking problem?

Almost certainly, right? So they're going to go fishing to find if he has said that, and if he has, that it shows you that he should not have relied on that counsel. First of all, it's a super weak defense to begin with. Let me explain why. So you can't say, well, my lawyer told me it was okay to murder him. I just trusted my lawyer that it was okay to murder. That's a terrible defense, okay? But made only worse by, my lawyer was passed out in the corner.

And I went over to him, is it okay to murder him? And he went, uh, yeah, okay. Good advice. Good advice, I'll take it. What could I do, advice of counsel, right? And in the courtroom, they'll probably play the tape of Rudy's hair polish going down his face, right? And several different appearances where he's slurring his words. They might even bring out some of that stuff we made fun of where forget the name of the thing where you pay him 30 bucks and then he debases himself.

Cameo. Cameo things where he looks super drunk and is saying ridiculous things. Right, there was also a lengthy piece. I believe it was in the New York Times, if I'm not mistaken, where they report. on his constant accidental dials of reporters, like he would accidentally call reporters, and then he would just kind of engage in, like, you know, questionable speech. There's quite a bit of evidence of Rudy Giuliani's drinking. It's been public for quite some time now. In fact, during the January 6th committee's investigation, a former Trump campaign senior advisor

talked about Giuliani drinking too much. We have video of that. Let's take a look. Anyone in that conversation who, in your observation, had had too much to drink? Mayor Giuliani, there were suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani to go and declare victory and say that we wanted outright. It was far too early to be making any calls like that. ballots were still being counted. Ballots were still going to be counted for days. And it was far too early to be making any proper mission like that. I remember saying that to the best of my memory,

and I was saying that we should not go and declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers. That is pretty damning. Jason Miller is a huge Trump advocate. Yes. That is not a guy who's on the outside. He's very much on the inside. Still till this day. Yeah, and he's an enormous loyalist.

He hasn't turned on Trump 1%. He had no idea at the time that admitting that Rudy is obviously sauce to everyone around him could be damaging when Trump makes an absurd defense that, well, I mean, I was, my lawyers told me I could commit any crime I like, right? And my lawyers told me that a coup is totally fine. And you set up fake electors and you have to sign fake documents. My lawyer told me fake documents are awesome. Well, now the problem is your lawyers are drunk and you knew it.

And remember, Trump, a little bit to his credit, I guess, doesn't drink at all. His brother died from issues related to alcohol. And so he's not very tolerant of drinking. So that's why he's likely to have said things about Rudy that were not kind related to his alcohol consumption. And all of this is obviously problematic. And remember, guys, come on, Rudy was an obvious hot mess in front of the whole country. Remember when he said he was going to do the press conference into four seasons? And then it turned out that the four seasons was a porn shop and they got the wrong four seasons.

That's the one where his face melted. And they're like, no, it's fine. No, we meant it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're like, no, we meant the four seasons porn shop. That's the point where we meant to do it. Well, that's where you would mean to do it if you already had three martinis at breakfast. Was it a porn shop? I don't remember that.

Oh, wasn't porn? What was it? No. It was a landcaping. Oh, it's a different kind of book. Why are you doing them dirty like that? Oh, there was a porn shop next to it. Okay. Edwin's our boss. So he figured this out. Yeah. Okay. So I knew there was signed off with it. So look, a few other things I want to quickly mention, though. Even if it is proven that Donald Trump was fully aware of Rudy Giuliani's issues with alcoholism and he is, you know, using the, I listen to my lawyers and that's why I did what I did defense, you have to keep in mind there are other individuals around him who gave him similar advice, John Eastman being one of them. I don't believe that John Eastman is an alcoholic or someone who's under the influence or inebriated as he's cooking up plots. to essentially undermine our democratic process.

But again, I think it's really important to keep in mind. This is a, in my opinion, a small story, because fact of the matter is that defense is pathetic, right? If you believe that the election is stolen from you, you're gonna want to see the evidence, right? And there was no evidence presented, not a shred of evidence presented in the more than 60 cases that they brought before federal judges. And every single federal judge is like, where's the evidence? We don't have the evidence, okay, then let's wrap this up. So Trump knew that there was no evidence, but he pushed ahead till this day he claims that the election was stolen from him.

Yeah, guys, John Eastman also wrote, he has no alcohol issues so we know, but he wrote that, hey, we all have to get pardons and we all have to get lawyers. You know why you write that? Because you know you've committed a criminal act. And he's, when the lawyer says, like, you could do this, but then you'll have to pardon all of us. that might be a clue that you're doing something that is a criminal conspiracy. I mean, to me, that probably ends the case. I mean, when your, when your defenses, I relied on my lawyer, and your lawyer told you he's going to need a pardon because what you guys are doing is criminal.

Any regular defendant not named Donald Trump guilty and doing serious time. Yeah, sounds like willful recklessness, if you ask me. So why is Jack Smith doing this? Final thing I'll share with you based on the reporting in Rolling Stones. Let's go to graphic six here. Now, the subject could help demonstrate that Trump was implementing the council of somebody he knew was under the influence and was not thinking clearly. If that were the case, it could add to federal prosecutors argument that Trump behaved with willful recklessness in his attempts to nullify the 2020 election. And if federal prosecutors were to make this argument in court, it could undermine Trump and his legal team's advice of counsel defense.

That is the whole point of looking into this. And I think on this area or in this area, Jack Smith has a lot of public evidence to work with. But look, aside from taking advice from questionable counsel, there is a lot more evidence that is going to be used against Trump in this case. case, including of course the Georgia phone call, pressuring secretaries of state to essentially overturn the results in these battleground states from essentially supporting Biden to then voting for Donald Trump. All of this stuff is going to play a role in this trial. So obviously we'll update you all as we learn more as the trial progresses. Hey guys, one last thing that's important in this regard. Remember, they're getting tried together in the Georgia case. Right. So he's gonna have to say these losers gave me the wrong advice. It's Giuliani's fault and it's Eastman's fault. Now, what are Giuliani and Eastman going to do other than go to lunch and get sauceed? They're gonna push back, presumably. Or who knows, maybe they're the biggest betas in the world. And they'll be like, yes, give me 40 years. I don't care. I'll take it. I'll take the bullet for Trump. But as Trump's team goes, their fault, their fault, their fault, right?

At some point, Rudy might go, all right, that's it, I've had enough. Here's what we actually did. And we all knew it was illegal. We all knew we were doing a coup. We all knew this. And if you do it to Eastman enough, he's like, brother, how much clearer could I have been? I asked her a pardon. Obviously, we all knew we were part of a criminal conspiracy.

I can't get past the fact that there was a memo written by someone in Trump's team that literally had the subject line. like fraudulent electors. Yeah, fraudulent. They knew they were fraudulent. They knew it. Yeah. They wrote it down. I mean, just it's big brain activity here, big brains.

Yeah, and look, one last thing on this particular case. For MAGA, I know they say, oh, you national secrets who cares, you can zap them and blah, blah, blah, and who, like if Biden had done it, they'd lose their minds. But then they'll say, oh, well, Biden kind of did do it, and so did Pets, well, you can get lost in all those weeds if you want. to because you're trying to find an excuse for Trump, right? But in this case, he was trying to overturn democracy. And you guys are good with that? Like, it's super obvious that's what he was trying to do. That's why they wanted fake electors, not the real electors. You think Trump didn't know he lost? He knew he lost. Everybody knew he lost. Trump has zero loyalty to this country, to our democratic process and to the American people. Zero loyalty. And while he expects loyalty

from his supporters, he expects loyalty from all his aides and the people who surround him, he doesn't show a shred of loyalty to anyone else. But again, to me, what matters the most, if you actually care about freedom, is maintaining and protecting our democracy. Donald Trump doesn't care about that at all. 100%. All right, let's move on to the, all right, let's move on to the, it feels like an orchestrated effort by media to just really rain hell on Vivek Ramoswami here. Incredible story, let's do it. You said aid to Israel, our number one ally, only democracy in the region should end in

2028 and that they should be integrated with their neighbors. I have an exact quote. Vivek Ramoswamy, who of course is a Republican presidential candidate, is dealing with a pretty big media effort to essentially crush him. And what you just saw was Sean Hannity's efforts just last night in regard to. to Vivek's foreign policy proposals and a statement that he had made in regard to the United States and its financial support of the Israeli government. Now earlier this month, Ramoswamy said the following during an interview with the Washington

Free Beacon, and this is what Hannity was asking him about, Ramaswamy said, quote, if we're successful, the true mark of success for the US and for Israel will be to get to a 2028 where Israel is so strongly standing on its own two feet, integrated into the economic and security infrastructure of the rest of the Middle East, that it will not require and be independent, will not require and be dependent on the same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S. And by the way, we do provide quite a bit of money in foreign policy or foreign aid to Israel with absolutely no strings attached. I want to be clear about that. Let's go to the last three graphics here, because I want to give you a sense of what he's referring

to. So the United States has finalized, this is in 2016 under the Obama administration. At that time, the United States had finalized a $38 billion package of military aid for Israel over the next 10 years. The package provides an average of $3.8 billion a year over the next decade to Israel, already the largest recipient of American aid, including financing for missile defense systems. And under a previous 10-year agreement that expired in 2018, the United States provided about $3 billion a year. But lately, Congress has added up to $500 million a year for missile defense. And by the way, that wasn't enough for Netanyahu. He was actually kind of salty about the fact that the Obama administration signed off on $38 billion.

He wanted $48 billion. I'm sorry, $45 billion. Netanyahu initially sought as much as 45 billion. So we do provide a lot of aid to Israel, and again, with no strings attached. Ramoswamy didn't get into that, but I do think that what he's kind of implying here about, hey, you know, let's get to a place where we don't have to provide as much in foreign aid. That might be a good idea, but you're not allowed to say that, as he found out through the press over the last two days. So look, two different things here. Number one, if he was going towards saying we should begin to reduce the aid, or by the way, another way of framing it is the welfare that we give Israel, and you can frame it that way for Thailand, Greece, wherever we give aid, you could frame it as essential aid to an ally, or you could frame it as a giveaway welfare program to people who don't need it.

In the case of Israel, their economy is perfectly good. Their military is by far the largest in the area and the most capable in the area. So the fact that they don't need it is fairly clear, this whole idea of, oh my God, it's a hostile region. They obliterated their enemies in that region. So that would be interesting. If he just did that, I'd say, well, I'm gonna give him a little bit of credit for having at least courage to go in that direction when almost no politician does that. But he can't help himself. He's a slime ball.

So there's two different things going on here as you watch these clips. One is he says anything slight thing against Israel and the press, including Fox News, roars. How dare you, right? That is a rule you cannot violate in American media. And everyone who wants to cry about it can go ahead and cry about it now. But it's a stone-called fact and everyone knows it. Okay, but the second thing is how slimy Vivek is. He does the same old Sam Harris trick.

He says one thing and then he surrounds it in a paragraph where he says other things so that he can later, so you can get the attention from the attention grabbing comment, which is cut funding to Israel, but he surrounds it with languages. But not really, but actually I want to help Israel more. And so you can't criticize me before. You're taking me out of context. Taking me out of context. So it's a very old trick.

Look, I have to be honest, I think that the initial statement from Vivek Ramoswamy was not at all controversial. I don't even think he said anything anti-Israel. He's talking about making Israel independent and not reliant on the United States and the foreign aid that we sent to the country every single year. But that's the thing. The media and many of our politicians don't want to stop providing that aid, right? In fact, the person who I think looks the worst in all of this as Nikki Haley, hold for that. But first, let's watch Ramoswami now take his, I think, agreeable point and just crush it live on air while talking to Hannity. What I said is it would be a mark of success if we ever got to a point in our relationship with Israel.

If Israel never needed the United States as aid. And Sean, you know how politics is played. A lot of the other professional politicians who have been threatened by my rise have used that statement to say that I would cut off aid to Israel. That's not correct. I've been crystal clear. But do you, here's what I want to know. Do you understand the importance of the strategic alliance? I understand it, I think, more deeply than probably anybody in this race.

I've traveled to Israel. I have business partners in Israel. The reality is this. By the end of my first term, our relationship with Israel will be stronger than it ever has been. Because I will treat it as a true friendship, not just a transactional relationship. Why did you say that they should not have preferential treatment? Why did you say that Israel should not have preferential treatment from us? That's a direct quote.

Sean, I understand. No, those are direct quotes from headlines summarized by opposition research fed to the fake news media. The reality is, here's what I've said is Abraham Accords 2.0 is my top priority. Abraham Accords 0.2.0 is my top priority, which is to get Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, into that. packed with Israel. So, Jank, very curious what you think about his handling of that Hannity grilling in that segment. Yeah, so look, he doesn't have courage.

He said that they shouldn't have preferential treatment. If you stick by that, by the way, the right wing voters would actually reward you. But instead you can't help yourself, I mean, you're gonna try to slime your way out of it because you do notice how he changed the topic. He said you should, you said Israel shouldn't have preferential treatment. Well, the reality is I'm in favor of Abraham, of course. 2.0. That wasn't a question, brother. You obviously changed the topic because you did say that. And there's nothing wrong with you saying that. Like, I know that a big part of the

Republican voting base is evangelical Christian. And by the way, I don't want anybody get a wrong impression here. You know, there's those awful anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Oh, the Jews run the world, they run America. And that's why we give so much money there is, et cetera. No, the biggest driving factor is evangelical Christians in America who think that we need to support Israel because they need to first have the state and then take over the West Bank and destroy the mosque so we can get to Armageddon and everyone dies, but Jesus comes back. So they're thrilled that most of us get murdered. That's the insane plot that evangelical Christians push.

No one can actually say that on air because you sound like an absolute lunatic and a deranged lunatic, But they have to appeal to that. That's part of what drives this. But I would be shocked if the Republican voters, even with that factor factored in, were super angry at the statement of Israel shouldn't have preferential treatment. But the media is super angry about it. They're so angry. And the media is like, how do you? Of course.

I mean, look at Hannity saying, of course, Israel should have preferential. treatment. Why? Why? Over Canada, over UK, Norway, over everyone else on the planet. No, he's saying we must be biased in favor of a country that's actually doing pretty well. Look, I think Israel should have Iron Dome. I think I was, I think we should support Israel. But the question is, how do you support Israel? And is there ever a limit to how many billions of dollars we're going to give this government, especially given what they're doing in the settlement? Yes, to me, that is the catch, right? Like, that is the area where I have the biggest issues. because look, we provide foreign aid to many different countries, but the fact that the money

goes to the right wing government of Israel with zero strings attached, even as they're breaking international laws, even as they're building illegal settlement, even as they're brutalizing Palestinian people, ordinary civilians. I have a problem with that. That is our money. Where do you think that foreign aid money comes from? That's our hard-earned taxpayer money, going to a country that does not care about the issues we might have about these illegal settlements of the open air prison that Palestinians are currently living in. They don't care, right? And at the same time, you have our politicians like Nikki Haley, which you will hear from

in just a moment, saying, no, no, no, Israel doesn't need us. We need Israel. For what? Do we? They have universal health care in Israel. Universal health care. We don't have universal health care here in the United States. We have Americans literally dying because they're denied health treatments.

They deny themselves the health care treatments they need because they don't want to put their family in bankruptcy. That is what we're dealing with here in the United States. You're telling me that we need Israel? If we're the ones who need Israel, why are we sending them billions of dollars every year? Anyway, sorry. Yeah, why don't they send us money if we're in such dire need of their benevolent help? No, Nikki Haley set me off. We're going to get to that in a moment.

I'm jumping ahead of myself. I apologize for that. But I do want to get to one other video. This is a different show on Fox, essentially. Going against Ramoswamy over this Israel issue. Let's watch. By the end of my first term, our relationship with Israel will be stronger than it ever has been. Because I will treat it as a true friendship, not just a transactional relationship.

I don't get it. He's wrong about all that foreign policy stuff. It's that easy. Andrea Mitchell also interviewed him today and same line, same issues, very, very upset. very, very upset with his foreign policy proposals, which again, by the way, he has other foreign policy proposals having to do with China and Taiwan and Russia that I think are incredibly naive and he hasn't really thought through clearly. This is not me supporting Ramoswami at all. This is me making a point about how the media almost like in an orchestrated effort

tries to crush someone over raising concerns that in my opinion should be raised, especially in regard to Israel. So guys, what do we tell you all the time? The cultural wars are a distraction, so they get you to fight one another, right? But whenever it's something that affects the powerful and the establishment, all of a sudden, MSNBC and Fox News agree. And that's Andrea Mitchell's on MSNBC. These guys are on Fox News, and they all agree, you must bow your head to Israel.

You must. And if you don't, we're going to bury you. And so, and if Vivek had any courage, at all. He had one ounce of courage, then I'd say, look, I hate the guy in every other respect, but I respect this. But no, he's just constantly trying to slime his way out of it. Oh, yeah, I don't, maybe we should cut off aid, but no, I love Israel more than anyone else. Okay, okay. He doesn't even, by the way, let me just be clear. He never even said, let's cut off aid. He said, we will know we have succeeded once we get to a point where Israel is self-sufficient,

where they're independent and they're no longer reliant on foreign aid from the United States. That's set off the entire American media. How dare you? We will give welfare to Israel for all of eternity. Sorry, I don't agree, given the brutality of the settlements. Let those people go, and then we're having a conversation. But I don't know why we're, I mean, you won't talk about America first. None of this is America first at all, not 1%.

So why are you lying to Republican voters, Fox News? Why are you lying to them that you're in favor of America first? No, Sean Haney just told you Israel first, America second. Now, in response to some of the attacks that Vivek Ramoswamy has been getting from the media and also from Nikki Haley, on his campaign website, he posted the following. First, there was this headline. Vivek doesn't support Israel with a clowning the people who say that. Yeah, he's like, ah, I love Israel, I love Israel, I love Israel. Congratulations, Rebecca, you're an ass kisser, just like everyone else.

Then he made reference to Nikki Haley and the name that she was given at birth, which she's, He has since kind of Americanized, we've talked about that on the show in the past. Here's what he said, because again, Nikki Haley has been attacking him for the same reason. Wrong, keep lying. Nimirata Rondawa, by the end of Vivek's first term, the U.S. Israel relationship will be deeper and stronger than ever because it won't be a client relationship. It will be a true friendship. Most importantly, he won't cut aid to Israel until Israel tells the United States. states that it no longer needs the aid. Don't believe the opponent's lies that he wants to cut

aid to Israel, which makes zero sense as a foreign policy priority any time in the foreseeable future. Now, Nimirata is Nikki Haley's first name, her real first name. Her last name changed after she got married. Her husband's last name is Haley. So her maiden name is Rondawa. And so I don't know why it's so offensive for him to bring up her actual, like, birth name. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I don't think that her name is a bad name. I mean, that's true. Her culture and her background.

What's wrong with that? We know exactly what's wrong with it. They're in the Republican Party. And the Republican Party will hate it if they find out she's any of them. I guarantee you tons of them. I have no idea that Nikki Aili is Indian. Remember Bobby, first of all, the names are not a problem. A lot of Indians in America take Americanized names.

Like Bobby Jindle, Bobby's a very common name because it's a subject. is similar to a name in their language, right, et cetera. So, and she did get married to a guy named Haley. So her being Nikki Haley, I've got zero issue with it, perfectly normal, right? But he's emphasizing that you're hiding your real identity, which happens on the Republican side from time to time. For example, when Bobby Jindal ran for president, his slogan was tanned, rested, and ready. Oh, my God.

Brother, you aren't tanned, you're Indian, okay? And so, so Nikki Haley's constantly skirting that issue, and he's calling her out on that. And of course, she's going to catch feelings over. Don't tell any Republicans, I'm a minority. They'll never vote for me. But to be fair to Vivek, his name is Vivek Ramoswamy, and he's not running from it, and he's actually picking up popularity. He is, he is.

So I think that the Nikki Haley's and the Bobby Gendels of the world, maybe assume that Republican voters are more racist than they actually are, which is an amazing assumption. Yeah, that's a good point. Now, Nikki Haley did not take kindly to that message on Ramoswami's website. So she was asked about it during an interview. This is what set me off. Let's watch. I'm not going to get involved in these childish name games. It's pretty pathetic. I first of all, I was born with Nikki on my birth certificate. I was raised as Nikki. I'm married to Haley. And so that is what my name is so he can say or misspell or do whatever he wants, but he can't step away from the fact that, look, he's the one that said he was going to abandon Israel.

Those were his words. Now he's wanting to walk it back. And the reality is you have to understand the importance of our allies and those relationships. And then she went on to say that the United States needs Israel more than Israel needs the United States. And as a taxpaying American citizen, that infuriated me. As a taxpaying American citizen who sees my fellow Americans without health insurance, giving their hard-earned money to the right-wing government of Israel that provides universal health care to its citizens, it set me off a little bit, just a little bit. Yeah, look, I don't know why the media does it. I know why the politicians kiss Israel's ass, because the lobbies that are attached to Israel, like APAC and Democratic majority for Israel,

are enormously powerful and they spend tons of money to defeat you if you speak out against them. Anyone who denies that or call someone anti-Semitic for stating that obvious, overwhelming fact, is full of crap, okay, and they're cowtowing, they're cowards, etc. So I know why the politicians do it. I know why the evangelical base matters to Republicans trying to pick up their vote. Why the media is obsessed with proving their obsequious fawning of Israel and how we should never be fair to anyone. We should put Israel above everyone else in the world, including America.

I don't know why they do it. And I think it's disgusting. I think it makes no sense. And the minute Vivek said anything about Israel, you remember on the debate stage? Who jumped down his throat first? Nikki Haley. How dare you say that about Israel? And I said right afterwards, that's it.

The press is going to love her. And what happened immediately after the debate, Nikki Haley won, Nikki Haley won. Nickyaley's the best. It's probably connected to defense contractors. And in the Hannity interview, he also brought up Ukraine and Hannity was like, we have to give them more money, more money, we have to have more defenses to build up against Russia and China. So it's probably related to defense contractors getting super rich off of this and spreading that largest to the powerful in Washington. But no, no deal. So there's no winners here. The press definitely attacking

Ramoswamy here, not coordinated, because they don't have to talk about it, it's group thick, right? But they're all attacking him at the same time because the foreign policy establishment, the defense contractors, the Israeli lobby are upset and I've told them he must be destroyed. And Vivek doesn't help us cause by sliming all over the place and never actually clarifying what his actual position is. Show some strength, but that's not what he's doing here at all. All right, we've got to take a break. When we come back, more greasy politicians, including individuals essentially lying to you about why gas prices are so high at the pump. Come right back.

Ranger Park and Michael Lorette. So Michael and Ranger, you guys are awesome. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it, Casper. Well, let's talk a little bit about what will probably annoy you during Labor Day weekend. Global oil prices are rising, which translates to higher prices at the gas pump. Not great news considering Labor Day weekend. However, the country, meaning the United States, is in fact pumping a record of

amount of oil. In fact, the Biden administration currently is pumping more oil or is allowing for the pumping of more oil than even the Trump administration had. And you wouldn't think that considering what you hear Republican politicians argue. They claim that we were on the path to energy independence. And because of Biden's climate change policies, they are impacting our ability to produce the fossil fuels necessary to keep the prices low at the pump. Those are all lies. The problem is, Joe Biden ran a campaign where he promised voters that he would not allow for any new drilling. So if he came out and defended himself by saying, no, no, no, I'm actually allowing for more drilling under my watch.

Might hurt him at the polls. So it's this difficult position that Biden has put himself in, but he deserves it because you should make campaign promises that you do not intend to keep. Now, U.S. oil production, as I mentioned earlier, was already the highest in the world, but it's now on track to set a record this year. U.S. oil production is forecast to average an all-time high of 12.8 million barrels a day this year and keep growing to 13.1 million in 2024, according to the Federal Energy Information Administration. And that's up from the most recent trough of 5 million barrels a day back in 2008. And Biden is literally pumping more oil than Trump did. Oil production from federal lands and waters has risen on Biden's watch,

reaching past 3 million barrels per day last year. The high mark during Donald Trump's term was 2.75 million barrels a day. So again, Biden can't brag about this because his voters don't want to hear it. This is not something that would help him politically with Democratic voters, especially progressives. But it could have an impact on independence and whether or not they support him. But I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that while Republicans claim that Biden's policies are having an impact at the gas pump, that is a lie. But the prices have gone up quite a bit. The national average price for regular gasoline rose to three point, I'm sorry, $3.87 a gallon last week, up more than 30 cents in a month.

And that's according to the American Automobile Association. Prices had held near $3.50 for most of the year, but it may be a while before drivers see that level again, especially after an explosion, forced the shutdown of the nation's third largest refinery in late August. And so former vice president Mike Pence has capitalized off of the high gas prices by putting out this incredibly goofy ad. Take a look at this. Hey, everybody. Mike Pence here. Remember $2 a gallon gas? I do. And then Joe Biden became president of the United States and launched his war on energy. Since that time, gasoline prices are up 60%. Electricity prices are up 25%. Joe Biden's war on energy is causing real

hardship for working families, small businesses, and family farms. But we've got a plan to relieve all of that. We just unveiled the Pence Energy Plan that will not only put our country back on a path to energy independence, but by 2040, we will reclaim America's role as the leading producer of energy in the world. Join us in the fight for American energy leadership by going to Mike Pence, 2024.com. We can lead the world once again to a more prosperous and a secure future for America with energy independence and American energy leadership. One of the other forgettable Republican candidates for President Tim Scott also did something similar, although he did it in social media on X. Gas prices are sky high because

the Biden administration has shut down energy production in America. A flat out lie. Total liar. Senator Tim Scott's a liar. And you'll see all of media kissing his very respectable politician. Even MSNBC and CNN love that guy. Why corporate establishment Republican goon? So they love guys like that. Oh, you're gonna lie about and to help the oil companies? Bravo, Tim Scott, bravo. Now, Cenk, why don't we actually talk about what's actually going on here with the international market and how this really works? Because the idea that private industry, these fossil fuel companies are basically keeping these resources here within our borders is ridiculous because they are playing the international market.

So how does this work? So a couple of things here. First of all, as Anna pointed out, we're now producing more oil, and by the way, more gas than any other country in the world. And Biden is producing more oil and gas in his term in his administration than any other administration in history, in American history. So if you see them saying, oh, Biden's not drilling enough, that is 100% false. Yet, the theory was, and this is not a right wing theory, this is all over corporate media, MSNBC Fox and Saturday. They all say the same line. Oh, we just got to drill more to get energy independent, energy independent, right? And then that gas price will go down if we drill

more. Well, we've never drilled more in our history and gas. prices aren't going down. Why? For two reasons, we've been telling you all along, and of course we're 100% right about. Number one is, it's not our oil. It's the corporation's oil. It's not the American people's. If we said, hey, it's American people's oil, they'd say, communist, what do you mean? A country keeping its own natural resources? No, of course, you give it to a private corporation, and they make the profit and the American people get nothing out of it, okay? So since it's their oil and not American oil, what can they do with it? They can export it. They can do whatever they stand well pleased with it. Exactly. And they do

export it. So they drill it here and they sell it elsewhere. They sell some of it here and some of it abroad. So this idea that we're going to keep the American oil has been a lie told to you by American media, every part of American media, your whole life. And you can go, you could look it up, You can research it, you can do anything you like it, I want you to do that. And you will find out, no, of course we don't keep the oil we drill here. The companies keep it and sell it for a profit wherever they get the largest profit. The second issue is, it's a global market. And the global market is gigantic.

So even if the largest oil producer, America, drill significantly more, it still doesn't affect the prices enough globally because of simple supply and demand issues. There's so many other factors across the world. There's what OPEC is doing, there's the Russia-Ukraine war, etc. So this idea that if we just drill more here, gas prices will go down has now definitively been proven false. And it was obviously false if you knew anything about basic economics. But yet everyone in media makes it seem like, well, if we just drill more, we'll be energy independent and gas prices will be lower. Why do they lie like that?

because a lot of their top advertisers are oil companies. So they lie on their behalf and pretend to be objective. Thousand percent. And one of the other games that is currently being played by the OPEC plus cartel, these are the oil producing countries, is they will intentionally withhold production in order to have limited supply on the market to keep prices as high as possible. Russia and Saudi Arabia have been playing that game recently. Absolutely. And then it has to be noted in this story.

You know, we're beating up on Republicans or beating up on the media. But how about Biden? Yep. Biden said that we would do less drilling. He said on public land, he wouldn't do any of the drilling that Trump's talking about. He's now drilling on public land more than trumped it. Total, utter lie by Joe Biden. Broken promise again, right?

And he's bragging about it. And remember, they said Joe Biden did so much. No progressors should run against him. No one should run against him. He's such a great Democrat. He delivered so much for you. And the number one thing he delivered was he delivered on climate change. Now he's bragging about I didn't deliver on climate change at all.

I pumped more oil and more gas than Trump did than Bush did than any of them did. Ha ha, I'm the worst on climate change. Congratulations, Joe Biden. You must be so proud. Well, one correction. He's not bragging about it too much or publicly because it would hurt him with some of the voters. No, that's why he's having. having other Democratic corporate senators like Chris Murphy and others go on Twitter

and go, oh, we're doing the most, we're doing the most drilling, we drill more than the Republicans. We lie to our voters all the time. We're not going to do a goddamn thing about climate change because of our corporate. Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. I mean, we think that climate change is irrelevant and oil is the best thing in the world and we're now, and Biden sent me out here to brag about it. Of course, Biden's not bragging about anything because he's in a basement asleep somewhere. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, a lot of news to get to, including an update on the singer Anthony Oliver

and how conservatives, well, at least some conservatives have turned on him after he refused to claim them as part of his political ideology. That and more coming up, don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon