The Young Turks - The Trump Tapes

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

HOSTS: Helen Hong (@funnyhelenhong), John Iadarola (@johniadarola) and Wosny Lambre 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 ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA 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. Is bedtime a nightmare? If you fear the chance of accidental leakage and skin irritation, you need to try tennis sensitive care overnight pads. Its skin comfort formula acts as a barrier to help protect your skin. Try them now and have a smooth night. Merry Christmas!

Woo! Drop it like Santa down a chimney. So everybody's in the holiday mood. By the way, it feels very weird to do the drop it without it being a snarky comment about the right wing, but it's the holidays, we're pushing past it. This is the Young Turks, I'm Johnny Rolla, literally at the desk with me. Helen Hong, you know her, comedian obviously. Also, apparently you have a movie out now.

I'm in a Christmas movie at this very moment. Because you just asked me what my favorite Christmas movie was and I was like the one I'm in right now is called Family Switch on Netflix starring Jennifer Garner. and this kid right here. Take a look, okay, getting the holiday spirit. And Wazi Lombie is here as well. Waz, you know, I'm from Rebel HQ, from Woke Bros. Great to have you here, as always.

Happy to be on the power panel. We got some power, we have a little bit of holiday spirit. You've got the tree, you've got the green, I'm not contributing anything in terms of holiday spirit. Your face is very holiday spirity. I'll get a little bit red probably, likely. Is that count? Yeah, just your general vibe is very cheerful.

John, so we're just happy and grateful for the vibes. Okay, it's elf-like is what it is. I've been working in my shop and putting together a rundown, okay? Which is what every kid wants, depressing political news. But anyway, no, we have some interesting stuff and I was gonna say good news, arguably, arguably good news. So everyone buckle up for news, that's all I can promise you, but it should be interesting. And we're gonna start off with the big perhaps story of the day.

Last night, the Detroit News obtained and then published details of a phone call that Donald Trump and Ronna McDaniel had with two of the then members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers tried to pressure them in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election to not certify the results. And this might seem minor, but it's pretty significant because this is a big area. A lot of people's votes were on the line. Wayne County, notably, if you don't know, includes the city of Detroit. No idea why Trump would want to just nullify Detroit's votes or whatever, but it is a swing state that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020. About 18% of Michigan's entire population is in that county. So it matters if it's certified or not.

And the phone call was on November 17th. And so you've got Donald Trump, you've got the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. And then you have two of these canvassers, Monica Palmer and William Hartman. And so the two canvassers initially had voted to block the certification of the county's election, so withholding the votes that would be needed to approve certification. But later in the meeting, they changed course and supported certifying the election based on the condition that an audit take place of some precincts within Wayne County. And so basically what they're doing there is they are not 100% sure that everything was legit, but they're willing to allow democracy to proceed as long as there's a few extra checks possibly.

That is not good enough for Donald Trump or his campaign. So Trump apparently told them that they'd look terrible if they signed the documents after they first voted in opposition of it. We've got to fight for our country, he said. We can't let these people take our country away from us. This is November 17th. We are two weeks out from the election. I don't know how many court cases the Trump campaign had already lost at this point.

Let's say 40. They have no evidence. They have no proof that there was illegal behavior in Michigan, generally, let alone Detroit specifically. What they knew is that there's a lot of people there, and it's likely to go for Biden. And so just like with his calls to Brad Raffensberger, which we're gonna get into a little bit later on, this is a pressure campaign from not just Donald Trump, by the way, but also Ronna McDaniel, who I think has largely evaded being tied in with a lot of the big lie stuff, just going way

beyond, I would say, what should be the line to try to get a result in an election that wasn't looking their way. And Ronna McDaniel was not just there, she was talking. She told them, by the way, if you can go home tonight, do not sign it. We will get you attorneys, to which Trump added, we'll take care of that. And they didn't in the end go back that night to sign the official statement. Now, eventually, there's some developments that we'll get into. But the pressure campaign was almost instantaneous. And I want to give both of you a chance. I'll start with you, Oz. Like I said, kind of seems a little bit like the Brad Raffinsberger thing. Do you think this is going to break through? It's going to change minds. I ask sarcastically,

what do you make of this? I don't know about changing anybody's minds. I think at this point, if you've, you know, been paying any attention and you're not part of the 30 or so percent of Americans who would literally follow Donald Trump anywhere, it seems plausible that he would do this, that he would call up, that he would exert pressure so that he could keep power for himself. I don't think anybody sees this, reads this, hears this, and thinks to themselves, wow, that seems highly unlikely. So no, I don't think anybody's going to be swayed by this, but this is pretty bad. This is pretty, you know, bumbling idiot stuff, even for Donald Trump, that he would be on the phone doing something this blatantly illegal is kind of nuts.

Hello? Who didn't he call? At this point, I just feel like he just went down like, did he have a yellow, like an old school yellow pages? And he just flips, was like, who's the, who's next? What's the next state? All right, listen, here's the thing. Like, at this point, I feel like there's, he just, he went down the line of every.

single state that he didn't blatantly win and just was calling everybody in that state and was like, listen, this is, you're gonna look terrible? Like you do a better, you do a better terrible impression than I do. But I feel like, like who didn't he call at this point? He's calling everybody after the election and he's like, just don't do it. I feel like he was just calling me, don't do it, is my impression of just him. Yeah, I can see it bothering a lot of people, like you said, he's calling literally everyone. I'm assuming like Donald Jr. and Eric are like, oh, so you can pick up a phone from time

to time. I see how it is. But unfortunately only for his own benefit. And look, I wanna give you a little bit more of what happened. In the days after that call, Palmer and Hartman publicly attempted to rescind their votes. They said that there was intense bullying and coercion, plus bad legal advice that forced them to to agree to certify the election after they had voted no, which I think is fairly hilarious and ironic that like they had initially said no, but then they said yes, as long as we do due

diligence and check to make sure that everything's okay. And then they receive bullying and coercion from the president, but then say the bullying and the coercion that happened before that and hasn't been specified is why they decided to certify it in the first place. So they were hiding the actual bullying and coercion there. In any event, what ended up happening was was that the Michigan Bureau of Elections later told county officials the vote that occurred and the signatures of the chair or vice chair of the four member canvassing board and the county clerk were the only things necessary to advance the certification to the state board of canvassers. So this could have gone in a very different direction. Not even necessarily

that like, oh, we just never get the vote out of Wayne County, but they could just delay. In a lot of cases, that's what Trump was really looking for. He wanted to delay and delay and delay. I don't know, fingers crossed that maybe the Supreme Court decides to pull a Bush v. Gore and just decide that we're just not going to count those or we're going to go with the states that are already decided and oh, what do you know? That goes to Trump. It was a complex long shot process. This, the Georgia stuff, Arizona, we're finding out more about that. Was, as you were saying, very bumbling. But I have to imagine that now four years later, they're going to be better at this. They're going to have people like people that are

more willing to give them what they want and work with them in positions of power. So like we can sort of laugh about this now. I'm a little bit worried that the next time isn't going to be quite so funny. Yeah, I was actually thinking about that. As you recounted what this guy was doing and what these county clerks and executives did after speaking to this guy. And you know, it kind of I shudder to think what this guy would be able to accomplish if our election system were more centralized, meaning there weren't 50 independent state bodies conducting 50 different, you know, electoral experiments every single election night. Like he had to go out and find different people from different states and figure out what

were the different rules in order to try to break them. Like if this thing was, you know, centralized and this guy's, you know, at the height of the the helm of the federal government, who knows what type of power he could bring the bear to reverse, you know, actual democracy, right? And so I think that's pretty scary. As far as, you know, I think his biggest impediment, honestly, John, is that in these swing states, Republicans are going to win. And so the idea that like, like these other Republicans are not getting cheated and they're getting, you know, legitimate results and winning and somehow is just Donald Trump somehow is the only one that the voting is defective for?

That makes no sense. Yeah, I've always loved that. Like Georgia's the best example that like they, even though they don't control the state and Biden didn't control the White House, the Democrats had no control, they still were able to sway the results of the Georgia election. And then in this back room smoke filled sort of thing that they're doing. They're like, should we screw over Marjorie Green as well? And George Soros turns to Biden and says, there are some lines even I won't cross.

It doesn't make any sense. Your conspiracy theories are so stupid. Helen. I did feel a cold wind as you were like, I was like, yeah, this is, I mean, who didn't he call it? And then you broke it down like that, like this is the dress. rehearsal and the next the next time they might be actually more organized. And I was like, oh God, like I felt a shudder because this was the dress rehearsal.

Like nobody, you know, this was the first time where like, you know, he's making calls and they're like, what do we, should we sign it? Should we not? He's got, he's on the phone, he's threatening, he's got lawyers, like, well, maybe we shouldn't sign it and maybe we should sign it. But now the next election, they are going to be a little bit more streamlined because they've done this before and they know a little bit more of like what should happen. Yeah. So that's a little bit scary. Thank you for, thank you for adding to the nightmares

that I'll be having. Apologies for your lack of sleep tonight. Yeah, I'm worried about that too. I mean, look, there's a lot about what they tried in 2020 that didn't end up working. There's some of it that never could have worked. Like if Trump, if you're if you're watching, Mike Pence cannot single-handedly reverse the election. That's not how it works. I know that you still think it, buddy, but that's not actually how it works. But that said, we also know that there were some Republicans, both like secretaries of state, county, you know, Board of Supervisors and in the Trump administration that would not go along with, they'd go along with a lot, let's be clear, but not to the extent that Trump wanted them to or needed them to

to overturn the results of the election. And the thing is, those people will not be in power the next time around. Trump already obviously prioritized loyalty, a top of Now, that is the only thing that they're going to be bringing in people for. Like Mike Pence would not make it as his VP this time around. It's going to be someone who is willing to promise to do whatever it takes. No one is going to be put in charge of the Department of Defense. No one's going to be put in charge of the DOJ that's going to allow a single person who will abide by, you name it, the Constitution, the law, norms, whatever.

It's just, it's not going to happen. And I want to remind everyone of one example of this sort of person. These new details that are coming out of Michigan about Donald Trump's call in 2020 reminds I think a lot of people of what happened with Brad Rappensberger in Georgia in the wake of the 2020 election. In case you've forgotten, here's a little bit of that. The ballots are corrupt, and you're gonna find that they are, and which is totally illegal. It's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're

not reporting it. That's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. All I wanna do is this, I just wanna find. 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state. You dumbass. He said the exact thing, he's clearly reading it and he had trouble reading the number. Sounded out, just sounded out, but like to say we need one more than the gap. And I love the the naked attempt to bully Brad Raffinsberger, he's like, honestly,

it's more legal for you, you're the criminal buddy, you're probably going to jail unless you break the law for me. That was a little bit bumbling, but Brad Raffensberger did in this particular case the right thing. Not doing the right thing seems like it would have been very obvious and very difficult. So I'm not saying that he's like a moral Hercules or something, but he did not play ball with Donald Trump in his transparently corrupt attempt to overturn the results of the Georgia election. So Brad Raffensberger got attacked a bunch. Helen, his wife was receiving threats. I doubt Brad Raffinsberger is going to be in a position to save us in Georgia next time. I love the like, it's going to be more illegal for you than for them. Like, what does that even

mean? I don't know. Anyway, but I think you're right. It's like, it's like he seems like such of moral, like, I did the right thing, but it was like, by like, by the skinnier teeth, really, because not doing the right thing in this case probably wouldn't land at you in jail. But yeah, I think you're right. I think next time it's going to be a bunch of, like we're turning into Kim Jong-un, you know what I mean, like North Korea, like the goose stepping, like if you're not a goose stepper, which is hilarious because Donald Trump can't goose step clearly. He can barely step regularly, not even like a goose.

But like if you're not lock, step in with him, you're out. You're out. So that's the thing that's a little bit scary. And especially in these, you know, these, it's these local, it's these tiny little local elections where these people get in to power, right? And it's like 30 people come in to come out to vote. and you know who the 30 people are. They're the freaking hardcore Trumpers.

So that's the scary thing. I'd be scared of taking legal advice from Donald Trump, that's for sure, because he's no Johnny Cochran. I'd tell you that much. Just the way that this guy is describing what it's like to break the law. But, you know, again, these local yokels in state government, yes, they're definitely more easily corruptible. the corruption and the pettiness of the crimes that you see on the local level are often very laughable

in how minute and tiny they end up being. But again, I think part of it too is that there will be more vigilance nationwide around this subject as it pertains to throw in the election or whatever the case may be or Donald Trump trying to steal it in court or otherwise. So again, I don't think my blood pressure is all that high because I don't know that he has the backing of. of the institutional Republican Party to just pull off a real cool like that. I don't think he has that support. Because again, it's like to what end so that they can cut a couple more taxes? Like what's the point?

Like is some Democrat in there ruining the lives of the powers that be in the Republican establishment? No, it's business as usual. So why go through these great lengths to aid an event a bumbling idiot who you don't like anyway? Yeah, I think trying to answer that. question. Like, maybe they think that Biden could actually pass a Green New Deal or something. I think they have a lot more faith in Joe Biden than I think most Joe Biden voters. Come on, John, come on, John. I thought Helen was the comedian on set. Come on now. Go on.

Come on now. So, yeah, I don't, I don't know if a lot of, if a lot of the establishment Republicans would be down for it. But the people they've been shoving through in like, you know, like the state secretaries of state, I think are, a lot of them are crazy. They're not Brad Raffensberger in this case. So I'm worried about that. I'm worried about, you know, who they've put in just like these individual county boards. Like we know what they think was going on there with Rudy Giuliani's theories about Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss and everything. They think that it was like Democratic plants, what it was just volunteers who go and they're not even being paid and they just do it every four years.

But they're going to fill it with crazy people who are going to cause problems and to try to get votes disqualified. And I also want everyone to bear in mind, this is for you, Helen, just in case you're going to get any sleep. We also had all of those voter suppression bills passed in the wake of the 2020 election in places like Georgia and Texas and a number of other states. They've made it significantly harder to vote. So it isn't even necessarily that we will end up with a close election that they'll then

pull shenanigans on. We might have an election that the Democrats narrowly lose, and we will never know what might have been if people had still have the same access to the ballot that they did four years ago. If they'd been able to vote early or vote by mail, or if people had not been legally barred from helping people get to the polls, or if they hadn't shut down like the pulpit to the polls programs in Georgia or whatever, or try to lock people up for giving water to people waiting in line, like all these million little petty things that they've done to make voting harder, more inconvenient, more onerous, that could sway an election.

And then they don't even need to make these bumbling phone calls. So that's what I'm worried about. I'll just quickly say Stephen Chung, Trump spokesperson, says all of what you just heard on the tape is perfectly fine. It's in further furtherance of his duty as a president or whatever. And Ronny McDaniel says, what I said publicly and repeatedly at the time, as referenced in my letter on November 21st, 2020, is that there was ample evidence that warranted an audit. So They're saying nothing in that call was bad, we just wanted an audit. I will remind you, they were, they were angry at the women they were talking to because they had signed on to the vote certification, assuming there was an audit.

So they're saying we just want an audit, no, you had an audit already at that point. That's what made you so mad was you had a certification with additional auditing and that wasn't good enough for you. But I'm gonna close with this, I want each of your opinions, like they, the call in Michigan, No Trump or cares about what you heard with Raffensberger, none of them care about. Let me ask you one of the most pointless questions that I ask on a weekly basis since 2020. What if Joe Biden had done this? What if Joe Biden had called into Texas and been like, hey, Jack, all I need is 1,343 votes or like, they would lose it.

Fox News would just be, like all of their graphics would just be like, fire, fire! Oh my god like just people everyone on Fox News would just scream you would just see like correspondents screaming with their hair on fire and then oh my god democracy is dead we're in a freaking this is like what are we North Korea like just screaming I'm sorry to be shrieking at you in this way but that's exactly what would be happening at Fox News and everybody, everybody else on the right, like there would no, zero chill would be happening if it was Biden, if the roles were reversed, and Biden was caught on a phone call like that, absolutely zero chill.

100%. Well, any final thoughts? Yeah, I mean, we know, I mean, we know what Fox News and the like would be like. It would be as if, you know, the world had ended for sure. But I wonder if people are so checked out that people who are, you know, lean blue would care either. I don't know that, I don't think that Democrats would be like, oh, no, I hate Joe Biden now. And I want to, you know, jump into the warm embrace of the MAGA Republicans. I have a hard time believing the opposite would happen too.

Yeah, maybe. I mean, you know, I think it's, I think it's important to recognize that no side is, you know, free of self-interest or whatever. I think there is less like transparent desire for a leader that will break all of the rules because you're convinced that he will uphold like the racial hierarchy that you prefer or something. Like I think there's less of that on our side. But yeah, I don't know. Hopefully we'll never find out because we don't put forward candidates that try to do coups and stuff. Come on, John.

You know I'm voting Democrat to subjugate the white so the black man can rise again in a America and be on this rightful place. That's the reason you vote Democrat. Everybody knows that. I do know that that's why you're voting in it. That's why I vote Democrat. And we want to put our boots on the neck of the white man here on the Democrat party. That's right. It's just like Tucker Carlson has been warning. I mean, that's on my bumper sticker, vote blue death to whites. That's literally on my bumper sticker right now. You could probably sell quite a few of those. Anyway, we're gonna take a short break. When we come back though, death threats, not against whites, but against one white.

Joe Biden after this. Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, grab an O'Henry bar to satisfy your hunger. With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh hungry, oh Henry! Welcome back to the power panel, everyone. More news to come, starting with this.

The mysterious gift giver has struck again. You be busted with those toys, you're done, and you made me an accessory. Well, you know what they say? Some accessories are required. Am I smiling? No. Jingles smiles, jingles mouse, stinking all the way. I know what you're thinking, I can't wait to see that.

Anyway, in that you saw actor John Schneider, who back at the The day was Bo Duke in the Dukes of Hazard, big year for John Schneider. That movie Jingle Smells is coming out. He's also a runner up on the mass singer as the donut. Take a look at this. I can't attest to the singing, but the costume is delicious. But there's a third thing that John Schneider is going viral for, and that is potentially being charged with federal charges for threatening the president to end his son.

So Joe Biden had sent out a tweet, it said Trump poses many threats to our country, the right to choose, civil rights, voting rights, and America standing in the world. But the greatest threat he poses is to our democracy. If we lose that, we lose everything. To which John Schneider responded, Mr. President, I believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly hung. Your son, too. Look, in Hunter's defense, he has often been publicly hung. done done anyway your response is sincerely John Schneider so look I'm laughing but he

did say that he thinks the president and his son should be hung which is not what you want to see in a democracy the casual like posting on social media of a call for the death of the president so he eventually deleted the tweet which is a good idea not as good of an idea as never sending the tweet but but apparently it was reported to the Secret Service and they have launched a probe into the statement saying the Secret Service is aware of the comments made by Mr. Schneider, and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence. We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related

to our protectees. And that probe is in the preliminary stage. I don't know how many stages there could be. He sent a tweet. It seems like you could wrap that up in a long afternoon, but Helen, what do you make of this? Does the Secret Service know about his donut costume? because he could, you know, he could just sneak on, like under the radar in that donut costume. John Schneider, I mean, who even is he? I heard he was a Dukes of Hazard back in the day. I've seen clips of that show.

He was a snack back in the day. That's all I know. Like a donut. Yeah, he was a snack like a donut. Now he's a literal donut, a singing donut. And he's in a terrible looking Christmas movie called. Jingle Smells. Who would name a Christmas movie Jingle Smells? Like, why would you want to see that? There's nothing joyful or Christmasy or holiday about a movie called Jingle Smells and that

trailer smelled. Maybe that's why they called it that, stunk up the room. And there's no way anybody who's in vaguely into Christmas is going to be like, that's a Christmas movie I want to watch. And then on top of that, he's like, and hang the president. Wow. John Schneider, oh for oh, or whatever the baseball references. O for three, I don't know how, oh for zero. Whatever the thing is when you say, boo, no good. Okay, I think that's enough out of TYT's resident baseball expert. Was, what do you think?

I'm just disappointed because I was told all of these people in Hollywood were liberals who wanted to give us all free abortions and obviously loved minorities. all of this jazz, and then this guy comes in here. And Duke's a hazard apparently never ended for this guy. This guy is still pining for the days of the Confederacy, and he wants to see presidents get hung. It's really disappointing because, again, I was told that everybody in Hollywood is a crazy, you know,

God-hating, crazy hippie, tree-hugging, great liberal. And this guy has shattered that dream for me. And that's why I'm mostly disappointed, John. Yeah, I look, I'm not, I'm not one of those people that says that actors shouldn't weigh in on politics. That's generally Fox News that does not want most actors, because most actors don't agree with him. And I'm going to say, Helen, I think that you're particularly, like you're a little bit biased against him because now there are two great Christmas movies that are going to be duking it out in Family Switch. Family Switch, the one that I'm in. I'll leave it up to the market to decide.

I mean, is jingle smells on Netflix? Like, let's go head to head. I don't know. The Christmas movie that I'm in is top 10 on Netflix. Let's see where jingle smells. Take that, Sean Hannity. You asked who would name at that? I think that a cinephile four-year-old might come up with jingle smells.

And I will say, I'm not going to see it and it doesn't look very good. But considering it's a movie that I think Sean Hannity made, if you watch the extended trailer, I think the cinematography is not bad. It looks professionally made, which is more than I would have expected, and it remains to be seen if it'll be good. But let's focus on the threat here. Don't post stuff like that, you dummy, that's not a good idea. If this goes through and they say that it's a credible threat, it's a federal class D felony, subject up to five years behind bars and a $250,000 fine, which by the way, for it to be deemed a credible threat,

Prosecution quote would not only require proof that the statement could perceive reasonably be perceived as a threat, which is debatable in this case, but would also require some evidence that the maker intended the statement to be a threat, which obviously that's what the intent was. That said, I don't think that he should go to jail. Is that is that me getting ahead of myself? I don't think he's going to kill the president. I don't think he should go to jail, but I do think he should be under house arrest and forced to watch jingle smells over and over and over for at least 48 hours. I think that's, I mean, that's a pretty good.

It's tough but fair, was. I don't think he should go to prison, but I would like for some federal authorities to go knock on that man's door and scared a bejeezus out of him and let him know how serious this is. I think that would be nice if somebody just scared the living daylights out of that dude. of that dude so you can realize that, you know, you don't make threats against the leader of the free world on Twitter. He just don't do that. Do that with your friends, drunk, you know, chewing tobacco, drinking some rolling rock, you know, do that. But please don't do it on Twitter. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't get like, he's not, he's not some like 14 year old boy mouthing off on like call a duty chat or something. He's a grown-ass man. Does he not know that Twitter is public? Like I know some older people don't necessarily, can't follow the tech that well. You can't publicly post threats like that. And then if you're gonna do that and if you're gonna delete them or whatever, and again, bear in mind, I don't want him to suffer any legal consequences for this. At least like apologize, take some responsibility for it.

Instead, he said, there's a statement to deadline. Seriously, folks, this is my final comment on this. comment on this. I neither said nor implied any such thing. Despite headlines claiming otherwise in my post, I absolutely did not call for an act of violence or threaten a U.S. president as many other celebrities have done in the past. Is that like a Kathy Griffin reference or something? I suggest you reread my actual post and pay attention to the words before believing this nonsense. Oh, let's reread the actual post. Challenge accepting, sir. I believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly hung, your son too.

Well, my favorite part about his statement is that he referred to himself as a celebrity. Run her up on that. Many of the celebrities he's done before me. He was the donut on the mass singer. Come on. That if that's not celebrity. It's him, George Clooney, Leo, you know, saving the planet. They're all just in one great yacht with a bunch of models together.

Oh my God. Anyway, I think you're thinking of Hunter Biden, I think actually. Yeah, so don't throw him in prison for something, he tweeted. You know what? But stop tweeting stuff like that. This is something that old people don't do is that they forget to put JK at the end. That would have saved it. It's like tweet the thing and then go,

L.O.L.L. Mm-hmm. J-K. Or, you know, you do what Elon Musk does, which is just put the like tilted face crying, laughing in every single tweet you send out, implying that you think the entire world is is a joke. Anyway, like I said, don't lock him up. Also, everybody stop threatening people with death and rape online. How about that? Yeah, that's a good one. I don't want to be a buzz kill, but stop threatening death and rape against everyone you disagree with. Yes, yes.

Party people. There's so many more fun things to threaten with, like watching jingle smells 24 hours for 24 hours straight. Like a particularly cruel holiday themed Ludovico technique implementation. Yeah, I mean. Anyway, I'm not the only party pooper, why don't we move on to a dude who is a habitual party pooper? Senator Joe Manchin is apparently going to be participating in a forum in New Hampshire that is historically a place that prospective presidential candidates take part. And this is of course continuing to fuel speculation that he might launch some sort of third party bid for the presidency in 2024.

This is the New England Council and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Politics and Eggs series on January 12th. Half of that sounds good. I do enjoy scrambled eggs, Joe Manchin being there would ruin it though. The announcement gives a nod to the non-profit political organization called Americans Together that Manchin recently founded with his daughter, former pharmaceutical executive Heather Manchin, to promote centrist policies and, quote, stand against extremism in politics, according to its newly launched website. So they are against extremism in politics. Notably, historically, not against extremism in pricing, because I will remember, I will remind you that if you don't remember his daughter, she will, was the president and chief executive officer of Mylan, a pharmaceutical company that specialized in generic drugs. They raised the price of a two pack of EpiPen from around $124 in 2009 to $609 in 2016. And now that organization that they co-sponsored or co-set up plans to spend

$100 million in this election. How did they generate that money? Probably by overpricing on EpiPen if I had to guess. But anyway, that's Joe Manchin. Now, I know what you're thinking. If he ran, then he might serve as a spoiler and ruin this whole thing. But he wants to reassure you that that's not the case. Would you run to be a spoiler? I mean, would you never be a spoiler? I'll never run to be a spoiler. Only to win if you ran. If I'm running, I'm winning. Yeah, so then it's going to be hard. It's a third party. Everything's hard. I've never had it. Not hard, almost impossible to run, to win is the third part.

say hard. We've never had a situation like we are right now. Yeah, no, it's impossible. You literally have zero chance. Like any one of us has a better chance of running and waiting as a third party game. He has no chance whatsoever. He knows that. And by the way, and I really mean that. He knows that. So I don't expect that he will run hoping to win. But that doesn't mean that he won't run. There are other reasons that he might run. He might try to exact something from Joe Biden perhaps or from the Democrats. I don't know for sure. Was, what do you think of these recent moves by Senator Manchin? It's obviously a stab in the back to his fellow colleague Joe Biden. And it feels like just

an extortion attempt essentially to get Joe Biden to ensure that he quote unquote moderates his platform, which for Joe Manchin just means line in the pockets of American executives and, you know, the money class of this country. That's it. However, I think we're kind of overrating this guy's ability to spoil anything. This no labels class of politician has no constituency. Nobody cares about this. What are they moderating, by the way? What message do the Democrats, Some far left wing stuff that needs to be moderated. Like, I don't know that kids shouldn't starve in schools or, you know, maybe people should get some relief for the student loans that they have to,

you know, incur in order to go to college. Like what, like healthcare for people? Like what are these extreme beliefs that this guy is raging against, particularly on the left? They don't exist. Now, if he was really wanted to play, wanted to play a spoiler. He could do a lot of this culture war stuff that I think the average voter might be like, man, that stuff goes a little bit far. The average voter might be a little bit further to the right than some of the most quote unquote extreme Democrats on some of these

social issues. But when it comes to the nuts and bolts, the stuff that Joe Manchin has thrown his body in front of whenever the Dems were trying to do something, it was to line the pockets of his betters. So if that's all this campaign is going to be for, he's not going to have a constituency for that. Okay. So you're not worried. Helen, what do you think? Joe Manchin has for so many years felt like, you know, when you like get almost all of your poop out, but there's that one piece of poop that just, that's stubborn piece of poop that just you can't get that final, that little nugget out, that's Joe Manchin to me. He's the, he's that one poop nugget that just, come on, get out.

That's, that's to me, Joe Manchin. He's just that, that little poop nugget that just stuck in there. And, and yeah, so he is just annoying and stinky and like just a waste of toilet paper. And also, I do think, was to your point, the thing that he is railing against the democratic, wild democratic, extreme views is that epipens are less than $600. Let's get the epipens back to $600 where they should be so we can get the money from those stupid diabetics, those dumbass diabetics. We need that dumb ass diabetic money to do whatever the hell we're doing and also stock up on toilet paper because I can't, I can't. I never knew Joe Manchin could give you a hemorrhoid. This is news to me.

He's hemorrhoidy. That should be his, it's Joe Hemorrhoid's mansion. I know a lot of you. Like honestly, I think of this guy, serious, in all serious, If this guy tries to make the case for the things that he's gung-ho about policy-wise to American people, you would be laughed out of the room, honestly. Yeah. I just want to quickly double down on what one of you said, and it's about Mansion being poop. No, I'm kidding.

Although I do think that to save American democracy, I think it needs more fiber. But anyway, no, I agree with you was about the labels that get applied to people like Joe Manchin. I'm not gonna go on my whole diatribe about the words moderate and centrist again. I will only say that I really, I look forward to a day when a reporter posts a tweet or video where they use the term centrist or moderate, that they're flooded with people saying define moderate, define centrist. Why are you using the terms that don't mean anything like what they should reasonably mean, but are just, they're PR for corporatist Democrats and Republicans. And they, like we, thankfully, we had a lower third and moderate was in quotation marks.

But that's not how they use it. They just say he's a centrist, as if everything in politics can be mapped out along a continuum. And the crazy Dems are over there and the crazy Republicans are over there. But his moderate, moderate positions agree with the vast majority of the establishment politicians on both sides. So they're just doing such a willful disservice to their viewers and readers. And I'm sick of it. But anyway, I think we need to take a little bit of time. head to the toilet, try to squeeze it out, put a little bit more effort into it.

I'm going to vomit a little bit in my mouth, and we'll be back in a few minutes. restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Okay, everybody, we've got a little bit more news for you to close out the first hour. I did whatever you, just one more comment from Wolf Dragon Dino says, Merry, Merry and a very happy 2024, think positively, love and much appreciation for all of you on and off camera, especially Bart. I just love that message. There are so many people that work hard to make this possible and I'm hoping that they have a great 4-day weekend as the holidays roll in. With that said, we got a couple more stories before those holidays. Let's jump

into this. Joining me now is Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Boy, USA. Charlie, this is so sad. You thought that's sad for Charlie Kirk. This announcement's going to be even sadder. Those appearances with Fox News, now a thing of the past. Here he is to explain. I'm going to kind of not break some news, but what's missing? We don't have a single person from Fox here. Yes. Right? And in years past. I gave it the opportunity just now. I was hoping you'd say.

Yeah, and I'm being nice. I love Fox. They've been very good to me. Sure. I hope we can heal our relationship because for whatever reason it's gone off the reservation since Tucker's departure. I haven't been up. So it's not exactly, you know, you just look at, you can just look at Grabeon. No Charlie Kirk for nine months, right? And so we had to kind of do an event without Fox. And that was a great thing, man. Because sometimes, sometimes desperation is the mother of innovation, right? So we kind of grew accustomed to love him, Jesse Waters, love him, Greg Gutfeld. But that wasn't a thing. We couldn't do it. They're not allowed to be here, right? And so we kind of sat in the conference room. We said, well, let's redesign the whole mantra.

Like, let's go culture. Let's still do the politics thing. And man, what we pulled off, it's not that I want credit, but we deserve it. I'll be honest. You know what, I think he wants credit, actually. Yes, it's definitely a shift for Turning Point USA at their events to pivot to culture. Previously, it had just been wonky policy after policy, deep economic theory. Now they move to the culture war. But anyway, yes, the relationship has apparently been severed. And depending on which particular quote you go to, Charlie Kirk implies that it was his choice.

in some cases right there, it definitely seemed like he was a bit confused about why he hadn't been brought on and seemed a little bit resentful, which if you'd been working with a network for a long time, I could understand why you might feel that way. And so they've moved away from having lots of Fox News personalities. And they, you know, based on what he said there, it seemed like they were a little bit like freaking out, like who do we put on? And I just think that that tells on themselves so much. Like, who else would we put on but the personalities from a single news network. And that's the position that you find yourself in when your politicians are jokes,

you have no respect for academia or experts, you're obviously not going to have activists because those don't exist. You just have the Fox News personalities. And what they largely replace them with is online conspiracy theorists and stuff like that. So honestly, I don't think it's changed that much. Was, what do you think about this divide, this chasm between Charlie Kirk and Fox News? Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what's in Charlie Kirk's heart, but I'm going to guess that he hasn't read all of the works of Milton Friedman, and he's something like died in the wool, hardcore, conservative free market hawk, right?

I'm going to assume that this guy's just out here playing the game, and the name of the game is dollars and cents, and Fox News being a huge platform and them shunning him, his feel. feelings were hurt. And so he retaliated in kind. That seems to be all that's happened here. It's not a change of hard. It's not a change of anything. Fox News has cut some of the fat. And Charlie Kirk was part of that trim. And he's been wounded by it as obvious from that clip, right? But yeah, I don't think this is some change in his ideology or his viewpoint of the world. Or he's got an HBO Max subscription all of a sudden. I think this is just a matter of, you know, one of his benefits. There's turning their back on him and that's it. Hello?

I know, wouldn't be shocking if he was like, you know what? I'm gonna buy a membership to TYT. Take back Fox News. I don't think that's happening. I don't think so. But I and I don't care about any of these people. But I do love gossip and I want the tea. Like I want to know the tea of what went down

because it doesn't seem like he knows what went down. Like he just suddenly found himself. not on the air anymore. And he was like, well, if I'm not going to go on the air, then y'all are not invited over here. But I do love your point about like that he's, he is like nowhere else. Like, it's not like he's bringing on academia or like has any other options. Like, what is it now? Just a gun show.

It's just a gun show like buy your guns and listen to even crazier conspiracy theorist guys. because like if Fox News was all of your panelists, then those were the most moderate. Yeah. Like, you don't get less moderate than that. Yeah, and look, there's some reports from behind the scenes on Fox, like implying that maybe the reason they made the switch was following the Dominion lawsuit, they didn't want to be affiliated with so much conspiracy theories and all that, which is an interesting theory, but like, have you watched Fox News?

I don't think they've dispensed with the conspiracy theories that much. They did get rid of Tucker Carlson, that's something. But with Charlie Kirk, I know some people are probably going to greet this news as like, ha ha, Charlie Kirk, I don't have enough vested interest to work myself up to that. And I also, I don't know how much if at all this even hurts him or his organization. Fox News is constantly being attacked by people like Donald Trump and others. They're, despite how wildly right wing they are, they're considered to be rhinos. And his organization is doing just fine.

They're constantly showered with money for millionaires and billionaires. They do the bidding of the wealthiest, you know, establishment forces in America. So I don't know that he needs the exposure anymore for Fox News. So it's definitely a change. I'm sure, you know, everybody wants to be put in front of as many audience as possible. But I doubt he's exactly hurting from this. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday.

Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexsavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. But anyway, we're running very low on time, we don't have much more time, and I don't want

us to be cut off before we're done. You're gonna see how that's sort of a tease for this story as we launch into our last thing. Dozens of students in South Korea are suing the government after a proctor for this year's big college entrance exam ended the test one minute early. And now they're suing, $15,000 each in damages, which is basically how much it costs to prepare for this test for a full year. Now, why would you prepare for a test like this for a full year? Well, it's only offered once a year, and it is critical to the future of these students. So before you say that they're overreacting, hear a little bit about this test. So the 43 students who have signed onto this lawsuit are among the 370 who took the exams at this high school in Seoul.

During the Korean language and literature session, the alarm ending the 80 minute test rang 60 seconds early because a test administrator mistakenly thought there was one second remaining instead of one minute. And to that test administrator, I will say you had one job. Start the timer and the timer. Technically two jobs. You got half credit at best, unfortunately. So the school tried to rectify the mistake. What they did was during lunchtime, they gave the students back their papers for 90 seconds. So longer than the minute, but they only allowed them to fill in their solutions for questions they hadn't answered yet. They could not go back and edit any of the questions they had already responded on. And so that isn't enough for these students. They're very worried about their future.

And we want to give you a little bit more credit about this particular test. It's the Sunung test. And while this is going on, the country to some extent shuts down out of respect for the test. Actually, why don't we want to go to a video explaining a little bit of how serious it is? Welcome to school by younger friends. Students in this notoriously competitive country know the day-long exam can determine not only what university they will attend, but also their career and marriage prospects and ultimately their status in society. Exam day has become a national event.

These students have shown up early to cheer on their classmates. Accomers can have a police escort and planes aren't allowed to take off or land during the English listening test. Yeah, the military draft board takes a day off. The stock market opens late. Like, this is a major thing. It is difficult to exaggerate. And so, you know, like if your whole future was riding on maybe a couple points here or there, I would be pretty bad too. And even if they get the money, by the way, this is still a major hit to them. They might have to spend a another you're studying for it, that's pretty rough. Helen, what do you make of it? So my family is from South Korea, and so I know the significance of this test. And they're not kidding when they tell you, like this test determine, it's the, it's essentially the SAT, but like on steroids.

Like it's the SAT is the SAT literally determined the rest of your life. And they're not kidding, like it determines what college you get into. And the college you get into determines what kind of job you get, and the job you get determines what kind of salary you get, which determines what kind of marriage partner you get. I mean, it is not, none of this is like hyperbole. This test is literally, which I think is a little problematic. I'm not going to lie. I'm not espousing that one test, what, like, what if you're having an off day? Like, what have you had bad oysters the night before?

You know what I mean? Your life is ruined because of this one test. What if you have a mansion Dingleberry that you happen to not be able, I'm sorry to bring it back, but I had to go there. Anyway, the test is so important and so like getting shaken like that, really like I can understand why these, why these students are suing. But also, I think maybe South Korea should reexamine maybe why this one test is determining your entire future. It's a little aggressive, I think. Yeah, was? $15,000 just to prepare for a test, that's eye-opening to me.

Obviously, I don't know the sort of class and societal breakdown of South Korean society, but I would imagine not every student could afford to spend 15,000 bucks in preparation for this test. That seems problematic enough in and of itself. But hey, man, the school, the teacher messed up. These people deserve to get their money back. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%.

By the way, people take it so seriously, their mental breakdowns are not unheard of during the test. People get sick in between subjects and not just because of bad oysters or dingleberries. They're just throwing up between them because they're so absolutely stressed out. And look, like the SAT, I think is a good comparison. It does have a big impact on your life. And look, we can say, you know, it shouldn't, it shouldn't be taken this seriously. But like, if it is, then what are you supposed to do? You kind of have to spend a year prepping or as one student took up a habit for a couple

months of a vegetable focused diet, maybe to avoid the oysters before the thing. Yeah, and as you said was like, if you can afford to put a bunch more money to the prep, then this is sort of going to help to stratify society. Again, we have a little bit of that with the SAT. Some people can afford thousands of dollars in prep, other people, you know, borrow a book from the library and that's the best that they could do. But I will say that I don't know how this particular lawsuit is going to go, but in the past, in April a court and soul awarded $5,200 to students who claimed that in 2021 the bell was

rung two minutes too early. And outside of South Korea, it can go beyond just fines. In 2012, a man in China was given a one year suspended sentence for ringing the bell four minutes and 48 seconds early for their national college interest exam. So you could potentially get the jail, maybe even. But so, you know, if everybody watching is like getting ready. Those folks might need to relax a little bit in East Asia, John. I don't know, man.

We might need to just chill a little bit. As in East Asian, I'm with you us. There's a little, there needs to be a little bit, a little bit. A little bit more chill in East Asia, for sure. A little bit, a little bit. Or maybe offer the test twice a year or something. Like just a little bit. Come on.

You can have computers, great. It can't be that far. Anyway, let's help the kids out. Come on. Try to help them out. It's the holidays. That's all the time we have, unfortunately, for the first hour of the show. Helen, where could people watch you?

I mean, I hear Netflix is a great place. You can find me on Netflix. You can find me on the socials at Funny Helen Hong. And if you're in the Sunnyvale, California area, I'm going to be at Rooster Tea Feathers, New Year's Eve weekend. Come see me there. Nice. And was? Beautiful.

Big Wads on every single social media platform, of course, check out our great work at the Ringer. If you have an NBA of sports interest or, you know, pop culture interest. And then what grows with me and Nando Villa every single Friday? Nice. Everyone, it's been a pleasure. I hope in advance you have great holidays. But stick around for the second hour. It's going to be Jank Uger, Rayvana and Brian Unger.

You're not going to want to miss it. Thank you.