The Young Turks - Texas Primaries, Ted Cruz, and Stormy Daniels

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from March 7, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk & John. The most striking thing about the much-hyped Texas primaries is how ordinary they actually were. That was the message from the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith, who has been following the state’s politics for the better part of three decades, when I spoke with him by phone. At the end of the day, 1.5 million Republicans voted in the primary and 1 million Democrats did. Despite the blue Texas hype and anti-Trump national environment, Republicans held a 500,000-vote advantage once all the ballots were counted. “Democrats like to say Texas is not a red state, it’s a nonvoting state. Fine. But the fact that it’s a nonvoting state means that it’s a red state,” Smith, the Tribune’s CEO, told me. “At the end of the day, yesterday was more or less a regular Texas election. More Republicans turned out than Democrats.” Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday that his re-election campaign was "just having a sense of humor" when it released a radio ad teasing Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who won the Democratic primary, for going by Beto rather than his given name, Robert. "In terms of the jingle, some of it is just having a sense of humor," Cruz told CNN's "New Day." "We had some fun with it."  Cruz, meanwhile, goes by Ted instead of his given name -- Rafael Edward Cruz.  "You're absolutely right. My name is Rafael Edward Cruz," Cruz acknowledged. "I am the son of my father Rafael Cruz, an immigrant from Cuba who came to Texas with nothing."   Hour 2:  Adult film star Stormy Daniels sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, alleging that he never signed a nondisclosure agreement that his lawyer had arranged with her. Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels, signed both the agreement and a side letter agreement using her professional name on Oct. 28, 2016, just days before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen signed the document the same day. Both agreements are appended to the lawsuit as Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2. The "hush agreement," as it's called in the suit, refers to Trump throughout as David Dennison, and Clifford as Peggy Peterson. In the side letter agreement, the true identity of DD is blacked out, but Clifford's attorney, Michael Avenatti, says the individual is Trump. 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. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. That's at t-y-T-network.com slash join.

Thanks for watching. All right, welcome. Thank you, John, I don't know, the bottom. Boom. Okay, the show is apparently begun. Or did it really ever end? Because John and I were here last night for about three and a half hours doing election night coverage for the Tuesday, Texas primaries. More primaries after the show today.

We're doing three more hours. Just kidding. But actually, we are doing three more hours because I got Rebel headquarters, I got post game, and I got old school. So, by the way, if you'd like to see our stunning coverage of the primaries, plus an excellent and very fun post game we did last night. It was. It was.

It was fun, too. Yes, about the first time that I ever worked on campaigns and John as well. TYT network.com slash join, and that way you'll get to watch old school live too. So speaking of which we have a lot of news for you guys. Some stormy weather ahead for the Trump administration. Okay, but that stormy day on the story is actually very important. We do, I'm going to do an update for you guys on Texas in a second in a couple of ways, including, oh, my man, Ted Cruz. Oh, my man, Ted Cruz. Okay. Wait, who's this Ted Cruz he speak of?

I'm sorry. their first name. Raphael Edward Cruz, I should say. So, and as we did the election night coverage, one last thing, you're coming to me, Hases for one second, as we did the election night coverage last night, and we're back in the groove of doing election nights, it made me think of a man, perhaps this man, and what's coming in 2019. This shirt, by the way, is called Bernie So Punk, shopty.com.

Yes. Super premature question. If he runs, do we bring it back? The shirt? The shirt? Oh, no, no, it's back now. It's back. Oh, no, no, yeah.

I thought it was gone. No, no, we did. I don't know why we did because we're weird. We, like, banned it for like six months. We're like, we're not playing around with you. Okay, it's gone. It's when we turned on Bernie. Yeah.

The shirt was banned from the show. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's back right now. Check it out on shop, GYT.com. And you could also get one exclaiming that you are a very stable genius. Okay, so last night we had Texas primaries. John and I covered for you guys at length. And if you didn't hear the news, let me tell you all about it. Whoa, no, I'll have to tell you about the Texas primaries.

So on the unsurprising side, we had Ted Cruz winning the Republican primary, of course, to run for Senate again in Texas. Beto O'Rourke, congressman from Texas, obviously, running against Ted Cruz in Senate. He won comfortably, no problem there, okay? And Beto O'Rourke doesn't take any pack money, so he's uncorrupted in that way, and he's very progressive. So that's good and interesting news on that front. But the real drama of the night was, are the Justice Democratic candidates going to win? Now, these are the really progressive candidates. Some of them, the Democratic Party, not only are opposed to, but actively.

openly, Laura Moser, they did OPA research on and then released it publicly. So it was a, the civil war with the Democratic Party had commenced last night. So who's going to win, the establishment guys or the just Democrats who run with no corporate pack money and sign on to a progress platform. So a little bit of mixed results, but plenty of drama and overall, I think very good results. Okay, so, but let me give you the good news, the bad news, and the ugly news. Okay, first, I'm going to tip our 40 to our fallen comrades here. So there were seven Justice Democrats up last night.

There's 52 overall in the country. In Texas' second district, we had Jay Darnell Jones. Now, if you make it into second place and the first place person does not have 50% in Texas, you have a runoff. Now, Jones did get second place, but unfortunately, the person in first squeaked out the majority there at 52.8%. So there will be no runoff. Todd Litton is the Democratic candidate in the second district. So Darnell Jones lost. Now, a fan favorite, Derek Crow is a person who's been involved in progressive politics for a long time. He was in the 21st district, and there we had a really crowded primary with a lot of vote getters. A lot of times it's just first and second, but in this case, really spread out.

And in that district, he had a really good showing, 23 points, but unfortunately came in third. So there is a runoff there, but he will not make the runoff. So as you can see there, 23.1%, but you've got Mary Wilson and Joseph Comster ahead of him. They'll be doing a runoff in May. So those two just Democrats lost. Well, now let me go to some of the winners. So you're getting a sense of the math here. So if you're paying attention.

All right. First we go to the most obvious one of the first just Democrat to win their primary in the country, in history, in fact. Okay, I believe the just Democrat caucus will be an incredibly strong, uncorrupted progressive caucus inside the House and the Senate. and the person who started it when they look back in history will be Vanessa Adia in Texas. She was in the 12th District. Now, we have to confess it was not a surprise that she won because she was running uncontested.

Hence, Vanessa Adia won. And by the way, on our live coverage last night, TYT Network.com slash live on all the primary nights, all Tuesday nights. she came on afterwards and talked about there actually was a person in the race but Vanessa's candidacy was so strong that person dropped out of the race and that's why by the end she was unopposed now another huge winner

and we had her on as well Adrian Bell in Texas the 14th district she won overwhelmingly 79.8% so there will be no runoff she is the winner and she will go on to take on the Republican

take on the Republican in the 14th district, and they better watch out. She told a great story. She's a second grade teacher. A lot of these folks, Vanessa is a teacher, Adrian's a teacher, Rick Trevino is a teacher. And she told the story about how her second graders sent her a note saying, go, Miss Bell, go. So, and we nicknamed her to the Liberty Bell. So she's common, man. That 80%, and she talked about how her volunteers made a huge difference, 140 volunteers in that district.

so people power actually working in a bit of a landslide in that case. Now, one that was really up in the air was Lindsay Fagan. She was in 26th District. Basically two people in that race. And in that race, we had first Lindsay leading with some percentage of the vote reporting, and then her falling into second place. And the person above her above 50%, because it's basically just two people. And it went back and forth, back and forth, all nine.

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or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Until Lizzie Fagan declared the winner. Oh, my God. All right.

52.7% beating out Will Fisher. She will take on the Republican in that district. So that's three winners clearly going forward now, and no runoffs in those. Now, let's get to the last two. The Laura Moser race is the one that most people were paying attention to because the D-Triple-C attacked her in the middle of a primary, violating their own rules to not attack fellow Democrats. It was unprecedented. And she was in sixth place just a couple of weeks ago. Could she make it all the way up to the top two to get into the runoff? Well, it turns out, thank you very much, D-Triple C. She did in fact

do that. She came in second, in a pretty close second at 24.3. There was a lot of people in that race. There was a former Goldman Sachs banker in that race who people thought was going to come in second because of his money. Wrong. People power. Laura Moser, just Democrat, backed by our revolution, backed by Progressive Change Campaign Committee as well, going to the runoff, okay? And then last night, John and I had a lot of fun tracking the Rick Trevino race. Now, Rick is another one of these guys. Real person, teacher, got a bunch of volunteers, and he fought real hard. He was in, he started in third place,

which would have meant that he was not on the runoff. In fact, Gina Jones in that race was above 50% for a while, meaning there would be no runoff. But then all of a sudden, here comes Rick Trevino. He came in and jumped in a second. Gina Jones fell out of the, out of 50%, less, she became less than 50%. And then all was there, Rick Trevenio, pulls it out.

But he is now going into the runoff and, man, he went to second place, third place, second place, third place. And it was incredible drama last night. They haven't quite given him to check yet. They're probably going to check the votes a little bit more thoroughly. But he won by over 200 votes. And by the way, guys, get out there and vote in the primaries. Look at how little these votes are, okay? He won by about 200 votes.

So if you're out in the 23rd district in Texas and you went after it and you participate, You either volunteered for a rig, you donated a rick, or you actually went out and voted for him. You made the difference, so he is likely going on the runoff. So, by the way, the links for all these folks to help them, donate volunteer website will be down below in the description box on YouTube in the comment section on Facebook, if you're watching this later online. And lastly, let's just do a tally here. we got three clear wins going up against Republicans. We got two people on the runoff. And by the way, in the runoff, once you knock out a lot of the establishment folks and a lot of people that are progressive or claim to be progressive, et cetera.

You got one establishment person against one progressive. I think those odds favor us greatly. Okay, we'll find out if I'm right or wrong about that. But two people in the runoff and two people who lost. three, two, and two, that is not bad for the first night of the just Democrats. That is, I think, a very, very strong showing. I mean, remember, look, when I asked the experts when the Justice Democrats first began, how many just Democrats do you think there will be in Congress in 2019?

The answer I got was universally zero or one, okay? Oh, they gave you the one. Right. Some, I don't know, maybe one guy will squeak in, et cetera, right? Now, first of all, there's already two in comments, Rokana and Raul Grijalva, so we're on the... We're already in the over, okay? But these folks are coming, man. If you're not looking out for the Liberty Bell, you're making a mistake.

Okay, so, and of course they've got to get past the runoffs, the ones that are in there, and then they got to beat the Republicans. But these districts are swinging, and Texas is turning more blue every day, and there's a lot more Democrats showing up, but a lot more energy. So here come the Justice Democrats. Yeah. Yeah. And we saw, I mean, obviously there's a ton of analysis about, you know, what happened.

And we saw that both with many Justice Democrats and then also outside of it, a lot of female candidates doing very well in Texas. It looks like based on demographic trends and blah, blah, blah, blah, Texas is about to have its first ever Latina Congresswoman. In fact, it looks like it's about to have two. It seems crazy demographically that it never has. has before, but that's about the change as well. So one of many good changes coming to Texas thanks to this most recent round of primaries. Yeah. And if you want to watch all of our coverage,

tYT network.com slash join, become a member and you can get it anytime you want. If you want to see some of the interviews we did with the candidates, YouTube.com slash tYT politics or the main channel YouTube.com slash tyt. All right. John, what do you got? Okay, a little bit more of the primaries just because I saw it this morning and it was fun. Not the most important thing in the world, but it was actually in the news quite a bit. So we're going to talk about it. Last night, Beto O'Rourke won his statewide primary in Texas. And he will now be the Democrat that will go against Ted Cruz in the general election later on this year. But despite the fact that it's been less than a day where he's been the candidate, he has already been the target of an attack ad

from Ted Cruz, which is funny for several reasons, especially one. We're going to listen to it now and then break it down. If you're going to run in Texas, you can't be a liberal man because liberal thought is not the spirit of a long-star man. I remember reading stories liberal Robert wanted to fit in

so he changed his name to Beto and hit it with a grin. Venture wants those open borders and wants to take our guns. Not a chance on earth he'll get a vote from millions of Texans. If you're going to run in Texas, you can't be a liberal man. I'm Ted Cruz and I approve this message.

All right, I love that, man. I read about the ad. I did not hear it until we just played it live for you guys. And first of all, the country song was hilarious. I'm greatly amused by, we'll break down the facts in a second. But to me, I don't know if you got the same thing that I did out of it. his weenie voice at the head. Oh, no, J.R. mentioned that earlier.

It's like, it's the terrible, cringe-worthy, like, parody of country. And then, and I approve this message. Yeah. I mean, he was so discordant. It was jarring. It was like one of those records like, eh, right? Yeah, it's like, you know what? You're listening along.

You know what? You're in Texas, you're a conservative? I do want a strong man. Then Ted Cruz's voice, ah, shit, I got to vote for Beto. He said, oh, yeah, we're going to vote against it. there, brothers. You have voted for me out takeers. But anyway, his voice is funny.

That's not the biggest issue there. I mean, trying to take the entire race and make it about the fact that he wants open borders and he's going to take all your guns. I don't believe that Ben O'Rourke has come out in favor of those two things necessarily. Maybe do your own research. But the part that I liked the most was they say he remembers whoever the Clint East would want to be in there, remembers reading stories about. Now, little Robert, who wanted to fit in, so he changed his name to Beto and hit it with a grin,

which is amazing on so many different levels. So apparently, look, he came from, he grew up in El Paso. This is a sort of traditional Spanish nickname for Robert. I haven't checked the numbers. I'm going to guess there are some people that speak Spanish in the El Paso area. So perhaps it's not crazy that you could end up with that sort of nickname there. But that's not the big issue. The big issue is that this is an ad being endorsed by Ted Cruz.

Sorry, his name isn't actually Ted Cruz. It's Raphael Edward Cruz. Yeah. So he took Edward and shortened it to Ted. And then attacks Robert, changes to Beto. And my head explodes. He said, real Texans don't have nicknames. You have a nickname.

And it's not even your name's nickname. It's your middle name's nickname. That's got to be worse through weird nickname math. So look, part of what he's implying there is that he changed it to Beto to try to get Latino votes, okay, that he's a pandering politician. So this is the old Trump playbook of calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, et cetera, nice racial undertones, plus it makes him seem like a pandering politician. So it's not like we're unaware of it.

But then, ironically, Ted Cruz, with the first name Raphael. panders in the opposite direction and goes, what, no, no, I'm Ted. I'm, hey, everybody, I'm dead. I'm not Raphael. That sounds a little too Latino, okay? I want to go ahead of you guys. Okay, I'm dead. Although I think even, even Raphael, Edward Cruz realizes that now, you know, demographically and all that, like he's, I think he's willing to accept the name. And you're going to see that because he was asked about this ad and how obviously hypocritical it was. And so we're going to break that down after this. Go after Beto for his name. Beddow is obviously a Nick.

name. Why? One, you didn't like that dirty pool when you were running for president, and the president called you Lion Ted. You didn't like that kind of tactic. And you know, look, your name is Raphael. You know, you go by Ted. Your middle name is Edward. That's an anglicized version of it. He went the other way and has a more ethnic version of his name. Why go after it? You're both doing the same thing. Well, listen, you're absolutely right. My name is Raphael Edward Cruz. I am the son of my father, Rafael Cruz, an immigrant from Cuba who came to Texas with nothing. And I had a hundred dollars in his underwear, couldn't speak English, wash dishes, making 50 cents an hour. In the future, when you tell that story, he came here with $100, that's it.

We're down with it. We don't need to know where it was. You know what that reminded me of the Christopher Walken scene in true romance. Oh, I was thinking of it in Pulpiction. Yeah, no, he had, I think it's in true romance. He had $100 rolled up in his ass. That's when he came in. Remember the ring, right? It was the watch. The watch. The Waltzons. Yeah, it's both fiction. There was a lot of stuff rolled up and put him there.

He was like a human briefcase. But anyway, yeah, and look, to go back to the ad, I get that, you know, he's going to talk about his background and everything. And I love that J.R. he zoomed in on his face when he's smiling like that. Like, if he tries to make this about appealing to some sort of stereotypical traditional version of Texas masculinity, obviously that is not going to be something that Ted Cruz is going to end up winning. I lived in Texas for more than four years or more than five years. There's nothing about Ted Cruz that screams, that screams conservative Texan. One thing on the pattern still, though, Jake, you talk about he patted the opposite direction towards the white Texan vote, because I'm so Ted and not Raphael.

Then when he gets the opportunity to answer why he did it with this ad, he brings up his immigrant father from Cuba. I'm one of the good Latinos, right? I'm one of the good guys. My father came in as one of those good immigrants, not one of those dirty ones that comes in and steals all your stuff and it becomes a criminal. Yeah, I'll admit to being a Latino when it comes to that. Well, when it comes to anything else, I'm a good old white boy from Texas.

He plays both sides. Oh, JR, I didn't notice that. Damn it, that's such a good point. That was good. Because that's his way of saying, remember, I'm not Mexican. Oh, he's such a bad guy. Yeah, and then the overall idea of the song, though, aside from the name is, it's just, if you're going to run in Texas, you can't be a liberal man, because that's not the spirit of us. I love that it's like saying to all the conservatives listening to it, no, you will think exactly the way we say you should think you will never change ever.

But maybe that will even work. But the idea that simply calling someone a liberal disqualifies them. And last night he attacked Beto Verk as a, he called him a left-wing liberal, I think he called him. As if that's case closed, it's done. It's not the 90s anymore. It's not the 80s where for whatever reason people on the left were supposed to be scared of the labels. The country was never what you think it is now. And it certainly isn't today.

People have evolved. Their values have changed. People aren't scared of that. If anything, liberal, is sort of a little bit outdated now, for the most part. But that's just a ridiculous way to attempt to disqualify someone that probably represents the values of Texas far better than you ever will. Okay, so now let's go to the heart of the question here. Did Better O'Rourke make up the name later to pander as a politician? Because some politicians do it, right?

Remember, Ted Cruz picked a vice presidential nominee, Carly Fiorina, near the end. of the Republican primaries in 2016. You remember what she had done, even though she'd gotten to Stanford, they were in the Iowa caucus, and Iowa and Stanford, I think, were playing in a bowl game. And she's like, well, I'm a Stanford alum, and normally I'd be in favor of Stanford, but go Iowa. Everybody was like, boh, okay, I mean, you want to talk about pandering politician. So, did Beto make it up later in life?

Well, we have a picture that he tweeted out, graphic 27, let's take a look at that. Now, this appears to be pretty good evidence. That's him on the right there as a child with a shirt that says Beto. This is only proof that George Soros funded time travel technology to get radical leftists into office. Everybody knows Soros invented the hot tub time machine. And look, normally progressives have usually said things. are not fair and then just left it at that, oh, that's unfair to attack his name. I'm not in that camp. I'm in the counterattack camp, okay?

So Ted Cruz, you frickin' weenie, you're going to talk about how somebody's not a real man in Texas. I'd like to show you a picture of a person that has those issues in spades. Let me see that, Asus. Yeah, that guy, that guy. If I was Beto O'Rourke, and maybe if I'm not even Beto O'Rourke, maybe I do it most solid and I run this ad form anyway. Here's a meme that should be go around the internet. Let's see the next picture. Yeah, not a man. When someone insults your wife and your dad and basically spits in your face and says, what are you going to do about it, Raphael? And you phone bank for him like a broken

man? Don't go around and question anybody else's masculinity. I could say, I don't say worse, but I'm going to leave it at that. I want to see that picture everywhere. Yeah. Well, if we have anything to do with it. Beto O'Rourke will beat Ted Cruz. And then at the end, I hope on election night, he says, hey, Ted, say my name. This is something I was talking about in the production meeting.

It's crazy. It would never work. I also think, in fact, I not only predicted that Better O'Rourke would win, I called it last night. anyone um but anyway let's say something terrible happens he doesn't win at t yt we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data but that doesn't mean we have to let them it's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech and one of the best ways is with express vpn express VPN hides your IP address making your active ID more difficult

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. I think in a year or two I might have to move back to Texas and run against T-Cruz. Oh, God, I would love to just, like, have like a, even one of the suicidal campaigns where I just go in there just to take him down with me in a fiery fury, I despise that little weenie because in a different way than Donald Trump, like I think people should. should be able to see through Donald Trump's stupidity and all of that. And the braggadocia, all that. But with Ted Cruz, he is too oily to still be able to be a politician in this age of things being recorded in audio and in video and people being able to easily see who this person is to listen to them and talk. Maybe he could have skated through back in the 1880s or something

like that. But we have evolved past people like Ted Cruz still holding office. And so one way or another, we need to get him out of there. Yeah, I luckily, I think you're going to be with the young turks in a couple of years because I think Beto's going to beat him. That's probably easier for me. Okay. All right, we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, now, Trump has brought in a whole bunch of people to destroy the departments that they had. Now, in the case of Ben Carson, the housing and urban development often helps minorities. So they brought in a minority, I wonder it was to do what. Well, let's find out when we come back.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free. These are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join, and you'll get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free.

Do it now. Back on the young Turks. Gabby Marina writes in, the U.S. government broker promise it made to someone? Well, that certainly never happened before. I enjoy that sarcasm. Jack McAnally says, going back on your word to protect them, like many Trump decisions, why would anyone make a deal with the U.S. in the future? Yesterday, I talked about at least two broken promises,

but then you could do probably two stories a day on that. One was to Australian government about the steel tariffs, And the other one was about the elephant hunting. And so we shouldn't be surprised at the Trump administration broke its word. And then finally, Lee Cox says how long until every criminal defendant has to wear one while in a courtroom about the stun belts? And Lee, you're exactly right. And that's exactly what I'm worried about. All right, guys.

And by the way, shop t.yt.com for this lovely shirt, Bernie So Punk. Okay. And now you could also get cofefefefe, which is every time I wear it. I still get compliments on and very stable genius as well. Real quick, Brett is wearing a shirt today that just says, are we great yet? It's like my, are we selling that shirt? I don't think so. Oh, okay, no.

It's a great shirt. Anyway, but we have lots of great shirts at Shop TYT, so check it out. Okay. All right. That's hilarious. All right, what's thanks? Stormy Daniels, an adult porn actress known as Stephanie Clifford in her real life, has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump. And of course, this has to do with the $130,000

payment that she received from Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the nondisclosure agreement that she had signed as in return for that payment. Now, the lawsuit essentially claims that since Cohen's been talking about this case and since Trump himself did not sign that non-disclosure agreement, then it's null and void essentially freeing her to share her story and talk about what she's experienced. She's also claiming that Michael Cohen, up until very recently, had been threatening her and telling her not to share the details of this story with the public. Now, she did file a civil suit against the president in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging that since Trump never signed the non-disclosure agreement, their lawyers

set up weeks before the 2016 election. Their hush agreement is null and void. There are other components of this lawsuit, though, that I want to share with you guys. Clifford and Cohen signed the contract, but Trump never did. The suit alleges that he purposely did not sign the agreement so he could later, if needed be, or need be, publicly disavow any knowledge of the agreement or Clifford. The suit argues that even if the hush agreement was valid without Trump's signature, co-invoided it when he made multiple statements to the media, and we know that he did.

He talked about how he paid that $130,000 out of his own pocket, that Trump knew nothing about it. And even if that were the case, there are some potential legal consequences to that. We'll get into that in just a minute. The lawsuit also alleges that when the story went public in January, Cohen used intimidation and coercive tactics to force her to sign a false statement denying that she had an affair with Trump. If that is proven to be true, that could also have severe consequences for Cohen himself. He could potentially get disbarred. And again, we'll touch on that in just a minute. Also, the Hush Agreement says Clifford has confidential information related to Trump, which includes, quote, information, certain still images and or text messages. Okay, that's really important.

So let's begin to break it down. First, let me start with that last part. When this story first came out, I had two thoughts about it. One, I don't care. So he sat with a porn star. Is anyone surprised? Melania, are you really surprised? no one should be surprised by this

and I don't care what he does in his personal life and by the way Trump is not a guy who ran on family values he's a Republican and all the evangelicals loved him but that's their problem not my problem Trump didn't say that he was the best family guy to be fair to me he was on a picture of on the playboard cover when evangelical leaders were posing with him

in his office etc so that salacious part of the story is totally uninteresting to me it's fun but it's not politically important But I was wondering, why did they pay her? There was already 21 women who had accused them of far worse things, sexual assault, sexual harassment. This was consensual. So, okay, he didn't want it to get out because it was right after Melania was having

barren, and that's awkward. But I'm like, but Trump, he could just deny it. I mean, that's the number one go-to move for Trump. I deny it. I strongly deny it, right? So why in this case, did he bother to pay? $130,000 and potentially get himself in the legal trouble. Oh, she had pictures and texts.

So the texts are bad because it's going to show definitively coming from Trump's phone probably. That's why they mentioned in the lawsuit and it's going to say the stuff that's dirty, dirty. That's one thing and maybe bad enough. But if she's got pictures, okay, oh, right? That's why they settled. I'm like, oh, that now when I saw it. that in the complaint. I was like, that's it. Now it makes sense. Okay, so that fits and explains

why we're even in the middle of this mess. Now, let's talk about the legal ramifications. So, now, it's one thing for Michael Cohen to get her to do a non-disclosure agreement or a hush agreement. That happens all the time. That's perfectly normal and legal. Now, that's basically saying, this might or might not have happened, but I definitely don't want you to talk about it. Okay? Sometimes people do do that just to get rid of a headache and if it's a small amount and that's fairly normal. This is a large amount and coming out of the lawyer's own pocket is really weird. That gives you an indication that perhaps it did happen, right? And then they want her to be quiet about it.

But either way, that's fine. But when you ask her to say it didn't happen, that's a totally different situation. And when you have her signing something that they're going to put out publicly as they did recently when the news broke, And you know that it did happen, and that's why you paid her the hush money in the first place. Well, you took a thing that was perfectly legal and then made it illegal. And so even if you don't go to jail over that or anything like that, you're going to get disbarred. I mean, that is disbarment 101 for a lawyer to ask someone to put out a false statement that you know is false. Okay. And now with his own admissions that he was involved, that's also pretty much proving that he knew that those statements.

were false. And that day we're doing this, okay? So look, again, they're going to have to go through legal proceedings to disbar him, et cetera, but a world of trouble there. Okay. Now, point two is way more important. So that's Michael Cohen's problem. That's a lawyer and see what happens, right? But the fact that Trump did not pay her is a bigger problem. They actually handled this in the worst possible way. Because if Trump had said, yes, I slept with a porn star, what are you going to do about it. There's actually no legal issue there at all. If he had said, I deny it, I strongly deny it. Still no legal issue. He lied. Oh, so what? Like, politicians lie all the time. He's lied a million times. That has no legal implications. But when they say Trump didn't pay it, Michael Cohen did.

Trump can give money to his own campaign. Someone else cannot give $130,000 to Trump's campaign. That's an in-kind contribution. They'll make the case, oh, no, it wasn't related to the campaign. happened right before the election, but that's not why we settled it. Good luck with that. But overall, it is clear that it was right before the election related to the campaign. Michael Cohen paid $130,000, which is way above the limit. Michael Cohen's going to jail. Now look, this is a thing. He's not going to jail. Okay, if there was any justice in the world. There's no justice. And the FEC operated. But it's not just the FEC. FEC is useless.

That's the federal election commission. They got three Republicans. that'll block anything. If Michael Cohen came out on national TV drunk, like Sam Nunberg, or straight, sober, and came out and said, yes, I had a do a false statement. Yes, I gave $130,000 in-kind contribution that I illegally shouldn't have given. The FEC 3 Republicans will go, nope, not buying it. Okay, not free to go. But it's also a violation of laws in states. And in the state of New York, local prosecutors can go after them. So we'll see if that's place out. Now, the last part of the puzzle is political. Now, Michael Cohen now in a lot of legal and career trouble, a lot, okay? And apparently, and recent story that came out just yesterday,

Michael Cohen tried to go get the $130,000 from Trump because he's like, man, wait, I thought you're going to pay me back. I gave her $130,000, but I just leave with her, use that with her. He apparently had trouble getting his call return. So what happened? Trump As usual, screwed him. That's what he does to everyone, including his closest allies and now apparently his lawyer. Here's a person you don't want to screw over. You're a lawyer. He knows everything about you.

So if Cohen faced with a lot of legal jeopardy turns on Trump, so I have absolutely no hope whatsoever when it comes to Cohen getting in trouble for making an in-kind campaign contribution. And the reason why I say that is because he could easily say, as his defense, that he had made that contribution not to help Trump's campaign, but to prevent the information from getting out and harming Trump's family. I remember Edwards had made a similar argument or case when there was some money involved in the affair that he had.

I know, but Anna, look, I wouldn't be so sure. I hear you because almost like there's rampant corruption in America. Almost everyone gets away with it. So you're right to be skeptical overall. But some people do go to jail for campaign violations. Just ask Dinesh D'Souza. And so he got his mistress to give extra money, but he paid her back, which was actually meant that he went over the limit and he lied about it.

And he went to jail. So it happens, especially the conservative idiots. who don't even know how to do corruption. Most of it is legal. You can just give it to a pack. You can do an independent expenditure. You can do dark money. You can do it a hundred different ways, but you can't do this,

where an individual gives $130,000 essentially to a campaign, right? Dinesh D'Souza, I think, gave $10,000 with him and his mistress, and maybe his wife, real classy guy, okay, and look up the details online. And then he had to go to prison for it. So, Michael Cohen looks like he's not only in trouble, but reeling. The fact that he's going to the press and now saying, like, well, I mean, there was an agreement, but Trump didn't sign it and I don't have the money. Okay, that's bad news for Trump, man.

Now if Trump pays him the money, he's damned if he does. If he doesn't pay him the money, then Cohen's in trouble, damned if he doesn't. Right? So, and she's going to win on this particular lawsuit. Why? You don't get to do a non-disclosure agreement that you didn't sign. So maybe she is not allowed to disclose things about Michael Cohen because he's signed, but Trump never signed. That's the essence of a contract. You did not agree. You were not a party to that contract. She can say anything she wants about you. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. A wonderful little time bomb there. a wonderful credit to whoever came up with that graphic.

I do. Oh, look at this. Okay. That's why they pay me the big bucks. To come up with porn ultimatum. All right. Another break. When we come back, more service for you guys.

Go. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do, because that's free. We want to have you support independent media. and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall, no ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member.

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