The Young Turks - The Wind Turbine Conspiracy And Trump Gives Up On Border

Episode Date: April 5, 2019

Wind turbines do not give you cancer. Trump faceplants on border wall. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Okay, so I'm excited today, apparently. We have a hilarious Herman Kane story for you later in the show.

Hilarious and not so hilarious. Yeah, it's funny, but also tragic for the country that he's being considered for a very serious post. And lots of other amazing stories about the insanity of Donald Trump, Republican Party, Democratic, you got it, it's the news. Okay, let's also have fun by telling you that in the third hour of today, you know, show, Glenn Greenwald joins us to discuss Russia collusion. I like how you're hyping the drums.

Okay, so Glenn was saying that, well, if the Mueller report was damning, the Mueller team would have said something. They have, so it'll be interesting conversation. Don't miss that, that should be fun. And then get a load of this guys, on Monday. On Monday, Lance Reddick's on the show from The Wire and many other shows and movies that you might have seen. So we discovered that Lance is a viewer when one day he retweeted that old school was coming

on. No. Yes. What? So we're like, what? No, that's when you know. That's when you know he's actually watching the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Lance is an awesome, awesome actor and apparently a wonderful progressive, so he'll be on the program on Monday. Fun for everybody. Nice. And I just want to let you guys all know. I'm the kind of woman who wears many hats, but my favorite hat. And many dresses, apparently. Is the TYT hat.

Man, that logo keeps getting larger and larger. Yes, it's so true. Jesus. Eventually it'll be the whole hat. Anyway, we have restocked the TYT hat, although it's not really restocking if it's kind of a new design. It is a much larger, much bolder, TYT, just like us, progressives, bold, large in charge. Especially me, on the large front.

All right, shoptyt.com, and guys, I'm telling you, every time I wear my young turst shirt, people go, oh, I like that show, oh, so but in your case, you'll go, oh, I like that show and you'll make a new friend. Yep. Okay, so everybody check it out. All right, big stories. All right, we begin with a few updates. Recently, Donald Trump has been criticized for his comments about windmills and how he believes

that they cause cancer, even though there's absolutely no scientific evidence to back up that claim. Well, his White House director of strategic communications, Mercedes Schlapp was asked about this, and here's what she had to say. To wind turbines on energy production, do wind turbines cause cancer? I don't have an answer in that. I don't have an answer that. Yeah, I don't have an, I really don't have information on that right now.

American families that are concerned today that the president says wind turbines cause cancer. I don't have information on that. If I get a read out, I'm happy to update you on that. No, no, no you are. There ain't gonna be no update on that. Okay, here's the update on that. Google it. Look it up in any way, shape, or form.

They do not cause cancer. Wind turbines do not cause cancer. Wind does not cause cancer, is the president. the president intimated, and neither does noise. He said the noise from the turbines might also cause cancer. None of those things actually cause cancer. But she's gonna look into it and get back to you. That was one of my favorite moments from a government official.

That was one of my favorite moments from a White House official whose title is director of strategic communication. Not very strategic. No, she strategically decided not to communicate with you on that, because obviously the president's a lunatic. Fair enough. But I do want to quickly mention what does cause cancer. Coal plants cause cancer, which is something that Donald Trump has been very much in favor of increasing employment in, even though that hasn't come to fruition for a variety of reasons.

Also, if Trump is so concerned about cancer, there are other things that he could have avoided doing. So for instance, Trump administration officials, and this is according to Vox, have suppressed reports about carcinogens associated with formaldehyde and rolled back health and environmental regulations aimed at preventing childhood cancers that have subsequently become prevalent in communities like suburban Indianapolis. So if he's so concerned about cancer, maybe he should undo some of the rollbacks in regulations and maybe he should stop hiding reports about cancerous materials from corporations.

So, in Trump's world, carcinogens do not cause cancer, but noise does. By the way, one other thing that causes cancer, tanning salons. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Not spray tans though, at least I don't think. But that's a good point. I mean. I don't know how he got to be orange, but whatever's causing him to be orange could certainly cause cancer.

Well, we know he has an affinity for oranges. He wants to look into them. Yeah, that's right. You know what he should really do? There's a perfect combination. He should look into the oranges of cancer. Yep, yep. All right, one other update I want to get to.

Donald Trump has officially backed off from his threats of closing or shutting down the border with Mexico. Take a look. We're gonna give him a one-year warning. And if the drugs don't stop or largely stop, we're gonna put tariffs on Mexico and products. In particular cars, the whole ball game is cars. It's the big ball game. With many countries, it's cars.

And if that doesn't stop the drugs, we close the border. Look, it's both terrifying and amusing at the same time. The whole ball game is cars. That's the whole big ball game. Look, he does not put things in eloquent terms, we know that. Well, that's wins the understatement of the year. I know. But he is right in that what convinced him not to shut down the border was the disastrous effect

it would have on the economy, specifically the auto industry. So, you know, he can't really communicate that in a professional way. So he says it in the way that he likes to talk about the big ball game. Yeah. So you can say, hey, if we shut down the border, the largest effect would be on the auto industry, and I am concerned about that, and that's why I decided not to pursue this. Or you could say, the whole ball game is cars. So we're not shutting it down, but I'm totally consistent.

Okay, now let's be clear about what he did here. This was a 100% reversal. So earlier he said, I could shut it down. I'm thinking about shutting it down. Did Mexico better watch some, I'm gonna shut it down, right? So now he's saying, we're gonna give them a one year warning. Okay, so that's it, we're done with it. Do you know how many times Donald Trump is gonna change?

his mind on every issue within one year, a million and a half. We're gonna come back to it a year from now, okay, we're done with it. Number two, he says, if the drugs don't stop or largely stop. Okay, what does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. That means I'm done with this idea. This is just a back pedal way of trying to save face, like, oh, I'll show Mexico, but a year later, if things don't stop or largely stop.

Okay, and then the third part is we're gonna put tariffs on Mexico's products, and then then see if the drug stop, and then think about closing the border. Well, by that time, he'll be out of office. I mean, from my mouth of God's ears, right? So in other words, total withdrawal from his earlier policy statement, again, Republicans talk to him. I'm surprised that people are able to talk sensing to him. I thought he might do this thing, I really did.

I had no idea what he was going to do, because he is a little unruly at times, but sometimes he does listen to lawmakers like Mitch McConnell. instance. But I do want to point out something. This is what, the millionth story at this point where you have Trump declaring things and threatening to do things. And then there's a big reversal because he's had a conversation with either aides or other Republican lawmakers.

And it reminded me of what Paul Ryan had said in regard to AOC earlier, right? We did that story yesterday. He said AOC didn't take my advice. I told her, hey, you're new. I'm paraphrasing, of course. But his advice to her was essentially, why don't you sit down and just listen and observe before you do anything? I would argue that maybe you need to make that case to Donald Trump, who consistently makes

a mockery of the Republican Party by, again, threatening to do things and then realizing that it's going to backfire on him, you know, tremendously in his words. So Republicans have to convince him out of it. I mean, it's embarrassing. Yeah, Ryan meant more that if you're a new freshman congressperson, you basically shouldn't do anything, which is a hilarious, ridiculous thing. But that most of Washington believes. Now, if you're the president, you can't not do anything.

But you're right that the Paul Ryan advice would go doubly for Trump. We're not asking you to not put together policy proposals. We would love that as progressives, but that's not a reasonable request. No, what we're saying is, if you're going to do a proposal, maybe run it by someone else In the government, like ask the Senate Majority Leader, who is your colleague, a Republican, maybe ask your chief of staff. Maybe have him ask one of the thousands upon thousands of employees that you have at the White House and the federal government overall to look into it.

Maybe do an analysis ahead of time, instead of every single time having verbal diarrhea or go, I'm closing on the border. And then they talk to you, and then you're like, I'm not closing the border. Maybe a year from now, if things don't stop, because I had a new thought. Yeah, try the new thought first. Right. Go talk to a couple of people, see what they have to say before you spew things on Twitter. Look, he's just incredibly unintelligent, as I've said a million times.

He's unintelligent, and while we do make light of some of his nonsensical statements, he's also dangerous. And I think that that element of danger is revealed in this next. Let's take a look. Mexico understands that we're going to close the border or I'm going to tariff the cars. I'll do one or the other and probably sewed off with the tariffs. That'll be a very powerful incentive because Mexico has the strongest immigration laws anywhere in the world.

They don't have courts like we do. We have a stupid system of courts. It's the craziest thing in the world. We could be the only country that has it. You put a foot on the property. You put a foot into the United States. Congratulations, go get Perry Mason to represent you. We're the only country that has a system of courts.

Well, then I'm more proud of being an American than I ever have. What? But like, he thinks, he truly believes that's a bad thing. Yes. That we have courts, that we have judges. How many times has he talked about his disdain for, immigration judges, I mean, it's scary when you really think about it. He sounds like an idiot, we all know that, we all acknowledge that.

Even the MAGA guys have to acknowledge it. But think about the fact that he is just very transparently saying he doesn't believe in due process, he doesn't believe in the rule of law, he doesn't believe in our justice system, he doesn't like judges. Yeah, look, you can't ever expect Republicans to be principled and, but it is, this is astounding. If Obama had said he doesn't believe in a court system and that America is the only country in the world that has a court system and that we shouldn't, okay, you know what would have happened that would have run, not 24-7 on Fox News, obviously, but it would have run for the rest

of time. They would have always gone back to, can you believe how stupid Obama is, he thinks that we're the only country that doesn't mean, imagine of Alexandria Ocasor-Cortez and Senate. Oh, done, done. She misspeak- She misspeaks a little bit and everyone's on her. And by the way, 90% of the time she doesn't even misspeak. They just take things that she said that's perfectly normal and then they twist it, right? So, and oftentimes she's absolutely right and they're like, can you imagine?

Yeah, but look into it. Anyway, in Trump's case, always excuse on top of excuse. Well, he doesn't mean get rid of the whole court system. He just means get rid of due process when it comes to immigration. Number one, is that really a good thing? No, that's a terrible thing, because that's getting rid of a new process, which is a core principle of American government in any regard, let alone. And again, if a Democrat had said it, they would never give them the benefit of the doubt

and say that no, he didn't mean the entire court system. Now remember, he's spoken out against the court system on a number of occasions. Remember when he said the judge was Mexican, even though he's American, and so he shouldn't be allowed to try his case. He says that you shouldn't, maybe you should be illegal to cooperate with law enforcement. It's spoken like a true criminal, right? A true criminal. So anyway, so no, this guy's a danger to our system of government, doesn't believe in

it. And I just think that closing down the border would have been a dangerous idea and catastrophic for our economy. But Anna is right, that the bigger danger is to our system of government in its entirety. And one other thing I'd want to quickly mention is that everything that Trump does and says in regard to the border is part of his campaigning. That's really the thing that he can latch onto to rile his base up. He tried to do that with healthcare and it was a complete and utter disaster.

And so he goes back to the tried and true method of bringing up the others, fear mongering about migrants, and latching on to what we need to do with border security. And so even though this was a giant loss for Trump, again, he's planning this publicity stunt at the border. Let me give you the details. Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke to Fox News and said, quote, the president wants to show the progress that we've made on the border wall. There's a section there that has been finished and he wants to be able to see that, but also

he wants to show a lot of people firsthand exactly what is taking place at the border. So again, it goes back to Trump's campaigning and publicity stunt. That's why he can't help but go back to this issue over. and over again. It's all he's got. One trick pony. Yeah, I think I'm gonna repeat this until he's out of office every day. We've gotten used to the fact that the president knows absolutely nothing and does not believe in our system of government and is mentally unbalanced. We should never get used to that. So a guy who says, what do we have courts? It's stupid. It's stupid to have courts and that no other country has it. It's disqualifying. It's disqualifying.

If he was running for office and he said something like that for at any level of government, you'd say, well, no, you obviously can't vote for that guy. And so, but we've, but he is the president, we've come to accept it. And now the media treats it all as normal, perfectly normal, the president would like to do away with the question. Look, I'll give you one last juxtaposition here. So some of the Democrats have suggested adding more justices onto the Supreme Court. Now, I actually don't agree with that, but it's, it's an interesting idea.

And the media is reacted with general outrage. That seems like packing the courts and it's unacceptable. On the other hand, we had the president and the leader of the Republican Party going, why do we even have courts? How is that not a million times more outrageous? And we, unlike Republicans, are principled. So when Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, talked about drone strikes and he said, if the executive branch reviews it, that's due process.

So due process is not necessarily going to the courts. It was outrageous. The mainstream media didn't seem to find it outrageous. We found it outrageous because it is. And it's against our former government and it's unconstitutional and it's damaging. So now that was a slight opening of the door and that's why we warned you very significantly. Do not open that door. That is not how America operates.

Now Trump kicks the door open and now talks about getting rid of courts and here we are. And still the media barely reacts. I get it. This one, I'm not as tough on the media on because they're overwhelmed by his insanity. And he says 20 crazy things per day. How do you keep up with it? I can't even remember the orange of it. Okay.

That's good. That's good. That's good. But don't treat it as normal. We must get back to America. I mean, how is that for ironic? Let's make America America again. When we come back from the break, we are going to revisit Herman Kane because he's been nominated for something disastrous.

Yes, I love Herman Kane stories. I hope he doesn't get confirmed, but this is going to be a doozy. Don't go anywhere. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew.

about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training, 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. All right, back on a young church, Chang'an, I want to do a very important correction for you guys. In the last segment, I sang true criminal when I meant smooth criminal.

Very important, okay, let no one say that I don't correct myself. All right, eclectic miscellania writes in, Glenn Greenwald, possibly my favorite journalist versus Jank Yugar, my favorite host, on two different sides of an issue. This should be interesting. You are right, eclectic mischelania. Now, I don't know how much we're going to be against each other. I want to do the usual stuff I do with Russia, first clarify what his position is, my position is, and then on the parts that we disagree, we should have a fun conversation.

By the way, this is not the only time that Glenn and I have disagreed. Right after Citizens United, because the show is that old, we had Glenn Greenwald on to debate Larry Lessig on the issue. Lessig was saying that Citizens United was decided wrong. Glenn Greenwald was in favor of it. So he has some fascinating opinions. I would argue sometimes I have fascinating opinions. So that's in the third hour today, don't miss it.

T.y.t.com slash live. Okay, Zoran Kukovitch, which is a fun name, says, I for one love that large logo. Well, thank you, Zoron. We appreciate it. Boom, shopty.com. On Twitter, Cascadia Hermit says they'll eventually be making a version of the TYT hat that is just three letters stuck together and worn like a cheese head hat. You might be on to something, okay?

You never know, man. Don't give shoptut.com any ideas. Aqua Lad makes an important correction as well. Jank, he doesn't have a chief of staff. He has an acting chief of staff. That's true. Mick Mulvaney is his acting chief of staff. By the way, one component of the health care story that I wanted to mention, but we left

out because I forgot, Mick Mulvaney was one of the crazy people encouraging Trump to do what he was doing with health care, trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and propose legislation to replace it. Yep. Theater goddess says, Trump calling our court stupid is like a five-year-old lashing out at a parent that they know is likely to punish them. Yeah. That's good one. And last one is YouTube super chat, greedy bastard writes in, Trump doesn't understand just because

the sound of his voice kills people's brain cells doesn't mean any sound can cause cancer. Okay, good point. Bastard somehow mysteriously spelled with the number 45 in it. Okay, but I got it. All right. If you're a journalism student, I have a fun announcement for you. If you are interested in being a TYT member, you can actually join as a member for free for a full year. Our audience purchased membership for journalism, political science, and communication students.

So all you need to do is email student at TYT.com and confirm that you're a student, and then you'll get access to one year of membership. All right, rock and roll. All right, let's do our favorite, potentially our favorite story of the day. Yes, definitely. Do you remember Republican presidential candidate Herman Kane from back in 2012? Yes. If not, I would love to remind you.

United States, I am in America, one hope. So, oh my God, you know, when they were making that video, somebody should have said, 99. No, somebody said yes, and it's unfortunate. Now, Herman Kane is back in the news because Bloomberg is reporting that Donald Trump is planning on nominating him as a member of the Fed board, so the Federal Reserve. He would be one of the two individuals who would fill vacant seats in the Federal Reserve, and it's a little bit of a disaster.

Now, TYT has been around long enough to have done coverage on Herman Kahn. when he first received some national attention. Now, I want to remind you of that coverage that Jank did, actually. So let's take a quick look at that. He's going to explain his 999 plan. David Gregory is going to challenge him on that a little bit. I'm curious to see what his explanation is. Let's watch.

If you don't pay taxes now and you now have income tax and a sales tax, you pay more in taxes. More people will pay less in taxes. More people will pay less than taxes. Mr. Kane, we've talked to independent analysts ourselves. Yes. We're not just reading newspaper clips here. Understand. They tell us, they've looked at this based on what's available of the plan, and it's

incontrovertible. There are people who will pay more. That's right. Some people will pay more, but most people will pay less, is my argument. Who will pay more? Who will pay more? The people who spend more money on new goods. So he says, all right, some people might pay more.

So who are those people? The people who spend money on new goods. Yeah, that would be all. of us because we need food, we need clothing, et cetera. It wouldn't be the Koch brothers who are saving a lot of their money because they make billions. And their percentage of food is a tiny percentage of their income, or it's a huge percentage of our income. So in other words, it hurts the poor and the middle class the most.

He says, but on the other hand, some people pay less, like all my rich billionaire friends. That guy's pretty good. Yeah, so that's important to bring up because Herman Kane famously had his flat tax 999 plan, and it would have been a regressive tax on the poor, and it would, of course, really limit taxes for the wealthy. And at the time, he was funded by the Koch brothers, who, of course, had a giant incentive to push for this type of tax plan. Now, with that said, in a position on the Federal Reserve, Donald Trump knows that he has an individual who's on his side, but there are some differences between Trump and Herman Kane that I'll get to in just a second.

Now, Kane would fill one of the two open seats in the board. The president plans to name Stephen Moore, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a longtime Trump supporter for the other. I gotta say two quick things about Stephen Moore before we move back to Herman Kane. Stephen Moore is all over television defending Donald Trump. That's why he's getting a federal reserve seat, unbelievable for being basically a TV pundit. And Stephen Moore is such a disreputable, so-called economic analyst that when I was a host on MSNBC, we used to have debates as to whether we should allow him on air because he would

say things not backed up by facts. He was so clownish that it was like it was entertaining and we had an interesting conversation about should he represent the right wing perspective on air. But the problem is he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's being nominated to the Federal Reserve. That's right. And he might be the more qualified of the two nominees. Unbelievable.

He's definitely going on a press tour to defend Trump. And one of the main issues that he defends Trump on is interest rates and keeping them low. So Jerome Powell, who's currently the head of the Federal Reserve, has been incrementally and very, very, in my opinion, insignificantly raising the interest rates. And the banks don't like that because it's going to be more expensive to borrow. money. And so the stock market will dip. It usually does dip as soon as the interest rates go up a little bit.

And Donald Trump doesn't like that because he doesn't want to appear as an incompetent president who knows nothing about the economy and isn't actually good for the economy. Now we all know he's an incompetent president and isn't good for the economy. We've talked about that a billion times. But nonetheless, the one thing that it appears Herman Kane disagrees on Trump with is the issue of interest rates. Herman Kane does believe interest rates should go up. Yeah, but he said that back in 2017.

So things have changed and he can claim the things have changed. I'd be very surprised if he contradicted Trump at this point, given what we're also about to tell you about Herman Kane and his love for Donald Trump. But overall, I want to just clarify one thing. The markets do go down a little bit when the interest rates are increased by the Federal Reserve. So why do they do it? They do it because they want to head off inflation, because if you don't ever raise interest rates, you might get hit with disastrous inflation, which would then have compounding effects

on the economy and could really crater things. But Donald Trump never thinks beyond the first step, and he never thinks beyond his own self-interest. So he thinks, no, keep it artificially inflated. Who cares? If it bursts later, I'll blame it on someone else. That's right. So the Federal Reserve in raising the interest rates three times has actually acted responsibly. But now Trump has put so much pressure on them, including nominating two guys who are clearly

not capable of these positions, just simply based on how much they support him, that he's sending a message to the Federal Reserve, you better never, you better not raise interest rates anymore. And it looks like they're listening because Powell's come out and said that they are unlikely to raise the rates again. Right, exactly. And Powell was threatened by Trump considering firing him, right? Now Trump didn't go through with it, but Powell has essentially listened to what Trump wanted

and is not raising the interest rates for the time being. Now, let me tell you more about what Cain has done in support of Donald Trump and the reason why Trump likely nominated him. Cain in September co-founded a pro-Trump super political action committee, America Fighting Backpack, which has got a nice ring to it. Which features a photo of the president on its website and says, quote, we must protect Donald Trump and his agenda from impeachment. So, if you form a super PAC in favor of Donald Trump, you too might get a Federal Reserve

seat. So look, the only thing that is in Herman Kane's benefit here is, unbelievably, he did serve as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City once. That was surprising. That it's borderline shocking. Yeah. And he does come from the business community, but he thinks we should go back to the gold standard.

Really? You're gonna go on the Federal Reserve thinking that we should go back to the gold standard? That's almost literally unbelievable. And so, I mean, some people have that point of view, but they don't wind up on the Federal Reserve. So I don't know if he still believes that or if that was some sort of gimmick that he was doing on behalf of the Koch brothers when he was running for office, et cetera. But the main thing that Herman Kane is known for is Libya.

Oh, yes, I was wondering how we're gonna fit this in. So, all right, listen, he's known for having run a clownish campaign in 2020. And by the way, he was stopped that campaign when significant sexual harassment cases came forward. So I don't know if that's going to surface back. But in that clownish campaign, there was this wonderful moment where he was asked about Libya. Let's watch. So you agreed with President Obama on Libya or not?

Libya. President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi. Just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing before I say, yes, I agreed.

I know I didn't agree. I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason. Um, no, that's, that's a different one. Um, I got to go back, see, uh, got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Indeed, indeed you do. So I wonder if that's how he's going to make decisions of the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve, my favorite was when he moved the chair. He's like, hold up now, hold up, let me move the chair and see if that helped put

all. We're talking about Libya, right? Just want you to write. My favorite part was when he had already realized he didn't know anything about the issue but decided to dig that whole deeper where he's like, what I didn't like about what he did in Libya was. And I'm like, no, why? Why would you say that?

But why would you dig yourself deeper? Just move on, move on. See, gold standard, gold standard. Let me see if I got this right. It's not about silver, right? Also not about bronze. We're on the same page, right? Gold stand.

Oh, God, we're in a lot of trouble in the country. He's the more qualified of the two people. I don't know, actually, I might have said, Stephen Moore is more qualified. It's a Hobson's Joyce man. Wow, these are the two clowns that Donald Trump is going to put on the Federal Reserve. Amazing. Amazing. All right, let's move on to another amazing story.

House Democrats are fighting to get a hold of six years' worth of Donald Trump's tax returns. And apparently they have the right to do it. So to give you some more details, the Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal sent a letter Wednesday that was yesterday to IRS Commissioner Charles Reddigg requesting six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns from 2013 to 2018 by April 10th. So it's a very specific request. Buyak a shot. Yes.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, I'm back. And there were specific reasons listed in this letter, and I want to give, I'm back that I want to give you. So Neil requested returns from the five business entities that constitute the core of the president's businesses as well as the returns for entities associated with Trump's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey that has been the subject of press reports about tax compliance. Now, Republicans will argue that this is just a political stunt, that they're just going after Trump based on politics.

But Democrats have actually done a decent job in laying the groundwork for this request. So they can easily challenge those accusations by saying, well, Trump's own personal lawyer testified that he would inflate his assets when he was seeking loans and then deflate his assets when it came to his taxes. So there could have been tax fraud involved. Also, I want to read you a little bit from Representative Neal's letter. He says the IRS has a policy of auditing the tax returns of all sitting presidents and vice presidents, yet little is known about the effectiveness of this program.

On behalf of the American people and the Ways and Means Committee must determine if that policy is being followed, and if so, whether these audits are conducted fully and appropriately. So he essentially wants to audit the auditors, which I think is interesting. Yeah, so Congress has a lot of investigative power like prosecutors do. And so they can subpoena people and documents, and in this case they can ask other parts of the government for information, which makes a lot of sense. So look, could it be used for political purposes? I can see how that could happen, but in this case, remember Trump's the only one that

has not given his tax returns all the way back to Gerald Ford, only president. And he keeps saying he's under audit, that's totally irrelevant. The IRS has said, you can show your tax returns even if you're under audit. There's no such law. He keeps repeating it, he repeated again today. So look, what have we at the Young Turks been most concerned about throughout, which is financial crimes? And look, if you say there are financial crimes in his past in the 80s and the 80s.

in the 90s, that are unrelated to anything he's doing as president. You should let that go. I think there's an interesting argument there. Long-bendy Twizzlers candy keeps the fun going. But what we're going. But what we're worried about is, Does it relate to the things that he's doing in office? So are there business interests or financial crimes that he has committed that do directly affect

what he's doing as president of the United States? That's the thing I'm most concerned about. Right, because if he has a conflict of interest, a financial conflict of interest, especially when it comes to his businesses and the involvement of foreign governments, well then is he looking out for his best interests as opposed to the best interests of the American people? Now, in response to this subpoena, Donald Trump used the same old excuse. Take a look at that. The chairman of the Democratic College Ways and Means Committee, moments ago, asked the

IRS for six years of your tax return. Is that all? That's all. Oh, usually it's 10, so I guess they're giving up. Now, we're under audit, despite what people said, and we're working that out, as I'm always under audit, it seems. But I've been under audit for many years because the numbers are big, and I guess when you have a name, you're audited. But until such time as I'm not under audit, I would not be inclined to do that.

Thank you. So Representative Alexandria Accio-Cortez responded to that with the following. Congress, we're going to need a copy of the president's tax returns from 2013 to 2018, 45, no, I'm under audit. Congress, we didn't ask you. Damn, that happened. Fire. Sass. Okay.

Love it. So here's the ultimate situation. The Treasury Secretary is supposed to turn it over. There's no ends up or butts about it. The law is exceedingly clear. Everyone concedes that it's exceedingly clear, but the administration likely will not turn it over. And they'll go, yeah, all right, well, we'll go to the courts and we'll try to stretch it out

for two years. So even though we're obviously wrong, we'll try to gum up the works here so that you don't get it before the elections. Because we don't want you to see his tax returns before the 2020 elections. So how fast will the court system go? Now there is some chance that Mnuchin goes, look, we have no like to stand on. The law is completely clear. I don't even know what case we would make.

What? Did asking for his tax returns causes cancer? I don't know, but it's so. And it's not far-fetched that Mnuchin would come to that conclusion, because there are people on the right who look at this and they say, yeah, I mean, Congress has a right to subpoena the tax returns. One of those right winners is Judge Napolitano. Take a look.

And I understand the president's argument that he's under-audit, and an audit is private. So if he's under audit, he knows it, and the people doing the audit know it. The public doesn't know it. That would not be a defense. I'm sure this is going to end up in the court because it's Manuchin is not going to release it voluntarily, even though the statute says he must. Why would they do this? See, two things there, one is audits no defense, and the statute says he must, Mnuchin must

turn it over to Congress. So I don't know if there's going to be any consequences for him not turning it over, we'll see, maybe he does, maybe he does, but if he does, I'll tell you this, Trump is going to blow his lid. Then he's gonna talk about how Mnuchin betrayed him and he's gotta go, et cetera, because he believes that his cabinet officials are not here to serve the American people. They're here to serve him and his personal interest. And nothing is more important to Donald Trump than protecting his taxes and his financial

records, because that's where the bodies are buried. So look, we talked about a lot about this in the context of the, uh, collusion report, Mueller report, etc. And our contention all along has been that the election is a small part of potentially of the collusion, if any. But his financial dealings with the Russians for a long, long time, well, that could be why he wanted to do obstruction of justice and stop the investigation in the first place. That could be why he appears to be very lenient towards Russia. I know there's some disagreement over that, but we think that it's fairly clear that he is.

And if it turns out you look into his taxes, and no, there's nothing untoward with Russia. Then I'd say, oh, okay, good, well, then we have peace of mind, then we have peace of mind. We at least know if the president is working for a different country. And by the way, it might not be Russia. It might be the Saudis that he's got to deal with. But like I said, all that information isn't in taxes. That's why Trump is most desperate to make sure that those never see the light of day. And we all should be confident that our president is working for us and not someone else.

And the way you're going to know is through the taxes. One other thing that was brought up was his contributions to charity. So he is being investigated for using his own charitable foundation to enrich himself. And I don't know if his taxes have any additional information on that. But that's one of the other issues that has been brought up in this story. Yeah, so there's two possibilities here. One is crimes he might have committed me. Look, if he's right, they didn't know anything wrong.

And taxes will also show that. The other one that's more dangerous and more important is crimes he might have committed or deals he might have done that now affect his decisions as president. And that is why they should definitely get them. And let's also note that there's a pattern here. Trump says that he's incredibly smart, but never wants anyone to see his grades. He says that he's mentally stable, but doesn't want anyone to see his medical files. He says that he hasn't committed any financial crimes, but he doesn't want anybody to see his taxes.

He says that Mueller reports a complete and total exoneration, but doesn't anyone want anyone to see the Mueller report. You see the pattern here? The pattern is he's hiding a lot of things, and he doesn't want you to see it, and there's an excellent reason why, because he's not very smart, he's clearly not mentally stable, it is not a complete exoneration, and those taxes are going to show you things even more devastating than his grades or his medical files. When we come back from the break, we will discuss how Mitch McConnell is probably the biggest

hypocrite in American politics today. Come right back. At TYT, 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 ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more.

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We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks. Math and Magician writes in the member section, Stephen Moore is a monster. He said on Bill Maher during the ACA fight that the protections of the ACA for people with preexisting conditions are so wrongheaded because, quote, you wouldn't insure a broken car, would you? Wow.

Okay. Denise says about Herman Kane, I don't agree with this guy having an important job. Any kind of job. I wouldn't want him working for the post office. Post office. Post office. Let me tell you what I don't like about the post office. No, no, not that one.

Not that one. Silver Harlow has a good idea. Can we open a pro-Trump super pack just to get appointed to positions where we can enact progressive policies? He might fall for it. I mean, if you open up a pro-Trump super pack, your chance of getting nominated to something, It increases by about a million. But to Twitter, March in 1991 says Stephen Moore also wrote a flattering book called Trumpanomics

about how Trump is like an economic god. Oh, come on. Come on. Jesus. Okay. Seth Arseno says Herman Kaine was Trump before Trump was Trump. Pretty true. Melly bitch makes a good point in a slight ironic defense of Donald Trump.

I want to believe there's something super juicy in Trump's tax returns, but there's a huge chance He's simply trying to hide how little money he actually had. I think that's part of it too. Yeah, definitely part of it. Good point. Is it the only part? I'd be super surprised, but that is possible. And last one is YouTube super chat, David G says, crates of asbestos with Trump's face stamped

on them shipping out of Russia is a thing. Trump is a comic book grade villainous cancer. So I think I saw that at some point, but I forget, I'm gonna look into that again as to whether that really is a thing. But thank you for bringing that up. Okay, what's up? All right, if you want to follow us and what we're up to, our appearances, what we're doing, essentially if you want to stalk us, you can do it by signing up for our newsletter.

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Newsletter works, newsletters works. works, you can sign up for the TYT Army or your daily or weekly newsletters. I like the idea of people signing up for the weekly newsletter. Every day seems a bit much for the newsletters. Every day is definitely too much for newsletters. That's what you would do. Oh, for sure. For sure.

Anyway. Anyway, yes, that'd be great. All right, what's next? All right. Before we leave the Trump tax return story, there's one other little angle to it that I want to talk about. Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana was on CNN to discuss the fact that members of the House Ways and Means Committee are subpoenaing Donald Trump's tax returns, about six years' worth

of his tax returns. And it seems as though Senator Kennedy isn't really in love with the idea, but he does a little bit of a defense in this next clip. Take a look. In terms of your credo to let it all hang out, do you want to see President Trump's taxes? Yeah, I would like to, but I think he has, at least if you take the president at his word, a legitimate reason for not turning him over. He says he's in the middle of an audit, and his CPAs say don't turn it over.

And I take him at his word, and I respect that. I think all things being equal, I would like to see president's taxes. You know, I wouldn't be adverse to turning over my taxes. I don't have anything to hide. Okay, Senator Kennedy is an interesting character. So he has at times eviscerated some of Trump's unqualified judicial nominees, and that was a fun video. And at other times, have been obsequious in defending Donald Trump. And so he does a little bit of both here.

But the newsworthy part of him is him saying, yeah, as a Republican senator from Louisiana, I would like to see the president's taxes, that would be relevant. And he's, of course, right about that. He then asked to cover for himself so he doesn't get primaried by going, I mean, I trust him, I take him at his word. When somebody says, I take him out his word, that means I don't really believe him, but I can't say that on air. So I'm gonna say, I take him at his word that he's being audited.

He knows that he's not. We don't know if he's being audited or not, but he knows that being audited is not relevant To whether you can release his taxes, and Kennedy's smart enough to know that. Exactly. And so while he does admit that he would like to see the taxes, in this next clip, he believes that there's an ulterior motive when it comes to the Democrats. Take a look. You agree that it's totally within the purview of the chair of the Ways and Means Committee

to get those taxes and to look at them? I think it's probably within his purview. I think he has an ulterior motive. What's that? I think the chair hates. President Trump. What makes you say that? It's just my judgment based on everything he said.

He doesn't appear to me to be objective. And I think he wishes President Trump hadn't won the election. But what has he said that's hateful? This, well, everything he says is hateful about the president. I just don't think he can be objective. Okay, so as usual, great follow-ups by Allison Kamerata on CNN. And for Kennedy, that's so instruct. for the Democrats to note what he said.

Because Richard Neal is actually a very conservative Democrat. And progressive groups have been pressuring him to ask for Trump's tax returns for quite some time now. And he has resisted that. He's the head of the Ways of Means Committee, the most important committee in the House. He's also not pushing any progressive priorities. He's bottling them all up, Medicare for all, Green New Deal, not going to consider any of that stuff. So, Democrats, it doesn't matter how conservative you are.

They're gonna say you hate Donald Trump, you hate the Republicans, you're extreme, no matter what you do. Right. So Neil might just be a centrist or conservative Democrat because that's truly what he believes. And we don't know whether or not he hates Trump. Although, okay, fine, let's grant representative, I'm sorry, Senator Kennedy that point. But there are also very legitimate reasons that have been cited by Democrats when it comes to obtaining the tax returns.

So for instance, if you go back and you watch Michael Cohen's testimony on Donald Trump, one of the issues that he brought up was the fact that he inflates his assets in order to obtain loans, and then he deflates his assets in order to save on taxes. So is there possible tax fraud? That's issue number one. Not issue number one. I would argue issue number one is, are there conflicts of interest, especially when it comes to Trump's business dealings with foreign governments, because that conflict of interest

could have a negative effect on the policies that he implements here in the United States, right? Or international laws, or policies, I should say. There are other issues like his charitable foundation and how there's evidence to indicate that he used it to enrich himself. Is there anything that could be found in his tax returns to corroborate that? These are legitimate issues. It's not just about, oh, they hate Trump. But even if they do hate Trump, again, you can cite these very valid reasons for obtaining

his tax returns. Yeah, look, I'm actually gonna give Kennedy a little bit of credit here. I think he did a pretty interesting job of walking the line. So he throws out red meat for the Republican voters like, oh, the Democrats hate us and they hate Trump, that's why they're doing what they're doing. Meanwhile, go, but yeah, let's see his taxes. Yeah, that's true, that's true. But can we just note for the record that that B-roll where we're slowly zooming in on his

face is very uncomfortable. Like, I don't know what's creepier, someone kissing the back of my head without me expecting it or a close up of that guy's face. Coming at you. All right, well, look, bottom line is the Treasury Department must turn over his taxes, whether they actually follow the law, as always with the Trump administration, is always an open question. Yes. Moving on to the Senate.

Senate Republicans have officially triggered what is being referred to as the nuclear option when it comes to the confirmation hearings for district court nominees. Now Mitch McConnell has made a big deal about this because he believes that Democrats are making it very difficult to confirm some of Donald Trump's nominees as judges. And the reason why it's ironic is, well, of course we'll get to that in a minute. But first, let's hear from Mitch McConnell and how angry he is at the Democratic. So, Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss the unprecedented obstruction that has faced President Trump's nominees for the past 26 months and counting, and to announce that the Senate is going to do something about it. Mr. President, the systematic, across the board delay and obstruction that have crippled this administration's nominations is unique in American history.

Has he, he has no shame? Has he no shame? It's so obvious that he doesn't. So of course, most of you remember that Mitch McConnell led unprecedented obstruction of Merrick Garland, who was Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. He blocked him for over a year, and he used a filibuster to do it, and he had no qualms about it. That was record-breaking, unprecedented, unbelievable.

And Mitch McConnell was the primary author of that. And he was super proud that he obstructed the Democrats in a way that was never seen before in American history. And so now with a straight face, this straight turtle face, he comes out, and he's like, I can't believe Democrats would do obstruction. It's unprecedented, and it's unique. Oh, come on. And so these guys are a joke.

Look, Schumer's going to get fiery, but I don't agree with either one of them. I'll tell you what my position is in the second. Interesting, okay, so we'll get to Schumer in a moment, but I do want to give you more details on what the Senate just voted in favor of, so this did pass. So the debate time on district court nominees and sub-cabinet executive nominees has been slashed from 30 hours to two hours, which is absurd. Really? Yeah, I totally agree.

What? If you believe in the filibuster, then you would be right. It's absurd to take it down from 30 to 2. But I don't believe in the filibuster. I'm not sure I ever believed in it. I'm now positive that I don't want it. So let's go to Schumer, and then I'll tell you why I don't want the filibuster. Let's seize anger first.

I am sorry. So sorry, my Republican colleagues have gone along with Senator McConnell's debasement of the Senate. To do this for such blatantly political ends is simply unworthy of this institution. Very fiery. That's as fiery as Schumer gets. Okay, take it easy, Chuck. But I like the reference to the debasement of the Senate. Isn't that where Jacob Wall lips in his mom's debasement?

I saw some guy on the street with an air pod just earlier today, and I was like, is he security? Check out yesterday's show for what I'm talking about. All right, so why don't I agree with either one of them? So they play this silly game, and it's a game that almost always cost the Democrats. So when the Republicans or Democrats are in the minority, they go filibuster's Senate tradition is the most important Senate tradition, we have to protect the traditions of the Senate. When they're in the majority and the filibusters blocking them from doing certain things, they're like, oh, if the other side is being obstructionist, I can't believe it, it's outrageous.

And they started killing off the filibuster piecemeal, right? And as usual, Democrats being the serial bunglers that they are, bungled this one, Harry Reid killed off a small portion of the filibuster right before the Democrats lost their majority in the Senate. Of course. And I'm on the record right again, as he was killing it, I said, what are they doing? They're probably gonna lose the election. The Republicans are gonna win the Senate, then they're gonna be in the minority and need

the filibuster. Okay, I agree with you on that. I agree with you on. Okay, so then when Obama later nominated Merrick Arland, the Democrats respected the traditions of the Senate and did not kill off the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. The Republicans used that to their advantage. Then as soon as Trump became president, they immediately. killed off the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, the Republicans did.

Did you think that they were gonna play by the rules, you idiots in the Democratic Party? Of course they were gonna just cheat as the minute they could, so they're like, oh, you use the block one of our, we use it to block one of your nominees, well we're not gonna let you use it. So just be done with the goddamn thing, okay? It's BS and you know what- Okay, but let's just talk about the merits of the filibuster. All you've said so far about that, I agree with you in terms of. of Democrats being incredibly weak and short-sighted when it comes to strategy.

But what about the filibuster itself? Why do you not believe in the filibuster? Because I believe in democracy. If you got 51 senators, then you win. Same thing in the House, all you need is one more than the other party. So the filibuster, if you don't know, it requires you to get to a 60-boat threshold out of 100 senators, and it is used to obstruct legislation when either side is in charge. So, for example, the Disclose Act under Obama should have been a layup.

It just doesn't say that you can't be legally bribed as our current system allows for. It just says you have tell us who's giving you the money. And the Republicans blocked it because at its height, it got 59 senators, but it couldn't get to 60. I can go on and on with the things that have been blocked in the Senate because of the filibuster. But overall, you know what I care about? I think we're gonna win the Senate in 2020. I care about it in principle, but also as a matter of practical politics.

And I think we're going to have the House and I think we're going to have the presidency. And I don't want the Republicans blocking incredibly important change for the American people as a minority. And they will. They don't give a damn about the American people and how the polling is overwhelming. And the mandates of the elections, they'll be like, look, my donors give me money. I block all progress. So just Democrats, please do not be stupid.

So the only part of their filibuster that remains not, because McCollin just got rid of it for the judicial appointees and all executive appointments. The only one that remains is for the legislative proposals. The reason McConnell's keeping it is because the Republicans don't have any legislative proposals. They're not going to do anything in the next two years, and they don't want the Democrats to do anything. So that's the only part of the filibuster he kept. So now when they get into office, the Democrats, if I'm right and they get the Senate,

the presidency and the House, the Democrats will use the filibuster as an excuse for it. I mean, we would have loved to have done Medicare for all, but the Republicans have a filibuster, what can we do? And we have to respect the traditions of the Senate, and it'll be horse crap. It is used by a very tiny minority in this country, which is the donor class to block a lot of progress. Okay, so you often say that you're the most reasonable man, but I would argue that I'm also incredibly reasonable because you made a great- This is an important contest as to who's more

No, no, but obviously you made a good point. So I was actually in favor of the filibuster, but I guess I never really thought about why. And so you made a good, compelling argument. However, I do have to point out your hypocrisy on this issue. Uh-oh, okay, what do you mean? We just said I'm the most reasonable man in America. The point that I want to make is you have to practice what you preach, and you appear to really love filibusters based on your commentary on the show.

Oh, damn, she went there. Oh my god. I did not see that coming. It was good, right? Yeah, well, yeah. When you started the orange of that story, I did not see where it was gonna end up. Take a look at the oranges. Okay, seriously, stop with the nonsense speechifying that both sides do when they're in the minority, the majority, and they constantly flip sides.

Schumer does it, McConnell does it, it's exhausting, it's annoying to look at, and if you're a progressive, I think that the correct ideology in this case and principle in this case is get rid of filibuster because in a democracy, we should have rule of the majority. Let's take a break, and when we come back, we are going to revisit the violence against Women Act and how it's likely to stall in the Senate because of the NRA. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.