The Young Turks - The Young Turks 01.08.18: Stephen Miller, Jake Tapper, Steve Bannon, and “Stable Genius”

Episode Date: January 9, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from January 8th, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Segment 1  Ana, John, & Michael Shure. White House policy adviser and Trump loyalist Stephen Miller tried to finish his combative conversation with CNN’s Jake Tapper after the cameras stopped rolling on Sunday but the anchor wanted no part of it, according to a CNN source. Miller, an architect of Trump’s immigration policy, was cut off by Tapper during an appearance on “State of the Union” during a heated interview. The CNN anchor eventually said, “I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time,” when the two men couldn’t come to an on-camera agreement regarding Michael Wolff’s controversial anti-Trump book. Segment 2  Steve Bannon might be trying to get back into President Trump‘s good graces, but if the White House’s latest statement is any indication, that bridge might’ve burned down for good. As the president flew to Nashville to give a speech to the American Farm Bureau Federation, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley held a press conference with reporters on Air Force One. The Trump Administration is still reeling from the firestorm caused by Bannon’s remarks to Michael Wolff, and when Gidley was asked about this on Monday, he suggested that the administration is not going to accept Bannon’s recent halfway attempt to apologize. President Donald Trump slammed reports questioning his mental stability in a series of tweets Saturday morning, writing he's a "very stable genius" after the publication of an exposé about his first year as President put the White House into damage-control mode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. You're about to watch what we call an extended clip of the Young Turks, and the reality is somewhere in the middle. It's a little longer than our YouTube clips, but it's actually shorter than the whole two-hour show, which you can get if you're a member. You can get an ad-free and make sure you catch every new story we do that day. You're going to love it as a full show. That's at t-y-T-network.com slash join.

Thanks for watching. Welcome back, everyone, to another week of the Young Turks. I'm John Arola, joined by Anna Kasparian, and Michael Shore. Jank is currently out up to something. I don't honestly know what it is. But we do have a lot of news for you. This was one of those weekends where I really wish we had a weekend show. Uh-huh.

Because it was, there's some interesting stuff going on. Some of it is like in the background, sort of social media stuff, a little controversial. and everything. Obviously, we had the Golden Globes as well. But there are some potential legal implications to some of the news coming out of this weekend. That is going to be very interesting. And so obviously lots to get to. But thank you guys for joining me. Thank you for having us slash. I'm on the show out every day. In the first hour with me. That does not happen all that much later. Thank you for having me. How about that? Yes.

Have you met Anna, actually? She's really good. You'll like her. I think she's going to fit in well. Oh, it's great to have you here, actually. Thanks for being on with me. Okay, I don't, this is spun off the rail, so I'm going to try to bring it back. Anyway, let's jump into the news. Last week, we told you about some of the bombshell statements from Donald Trump's former political strategist and notable white supremacist, Steve Bannon. In the book, Fire and Fury, Trump did not like it. And he was pissed.

And so what he wanted to do, apparently, from reports coming out of the White House, is get some of his supporters to go to the media and attack Bannon. And what that led to was sort of a contest to see who could be, Most vociferous in their denouncing of Bannon and most obsequious in their support of the president. Turned out not to be much of a contest, though, because someone has already won. You're going to see that in this clip from Stephen Miller and CNN's Jake Tapper. Did any of those people from that meeting meet with President Trump, as Bannon says, the chance that he didn't, Don Jr. didn't walk these Jemots up to his father's office on the 26th floor is zero.

Can you just settle that for us? Did President Trump meet with any of the people? I have no knowledge of anything to do with that meeting but what I can tell you unequivocally is that the allegations and insinuations in this book which are a pure work of fiction are nothing but a pile of trash through and through and well just to finish Jake because you know your network's been going 24-7

with all the salacious coverage and I know that it brings a lot of you guys a lot of joy to trying to stick the knife in but the reality is is that page after page after page of the book is pure false. So look, the entire thing is made up, although we know it is extremely unlikely that that's the case. I would say likely, I'm about 80% of the way through the book. I would imagine that some of it is probably either exaggerated or recalled in a way that's beneficial to the person doing the recalling. It is, for the most part, a book of the dueling factions

inside of the White House giving information to this reporter. So it seems almost certain that they are presenting things to that reporter in a way that's beneficial to their side. But the idea that it's 100% made up, when reports are coming out that Donald Trump indeed did, this is a quote from Sebastian Gorka, that he did instruct them to talk with Michael Wolf. So we know those interviews happened. Well, we know that he was told to, we don't know that the president told him to talk to him, right? I believe, I thought that he said that. When I read the Gorka stuff, it was just that he was instructed to. I didn't know that it was Trump that instructed him to. So the whole thing's garbage according to him, but it actually got far more aggressive, as you'll see in

this next clip. Do you think tweets like that help or hurt the cause that the president is stable and up for the job? Not only do I think they help it, but I think in the toxic environment that you've created here in CNN and cable news, which is a real crisis of legitimacy for your network. And we saw it, of course, with the extremely fake news you reported about the Don Jr. and WikiLeague story. There was a huge embarrassment for your network. Stephen? Just like the huge embarrassment you had when you got the Comey testimony wrong.

Stephen, I'm trying to get to the issue of the president's fitness. A lot of people are... Well, and I'm getting to the issue of your fairness, but the president's tweets absolutely reaffirmed the plain spoken truth. A self-made billionaire, revolutionized reality TV, and tap into something magical that's happening in the hearts of this country. The people that you don't... The president has approval rating in the 30s.

I don't know what magical you're talking about. The people that you don't connect with and understand, the people whose manufacturing jobs have left, who've been besieged by high-crime communities, and who've been affected by a policy of uncontrolled immigration, those voices, those experiences don't get covered on this network. That's why, I mean, to prove the point, I was booked to talk about the very issues I'm just describing and you're not even asking about them because they're not interesting facts to you. That's not true. I have plenty of questions on immigration. You've attempted to filibuster by talking about your flight to the president. No, I want to ask you a question because

don't have, no, don't be condescending. Jake, Jay. Stephen, Jake, the president and the White House, the president and the White House. Jake, the reason why I want to talk about the president's experiences, what I've seen with him traveling to meet dozens of foreign leaders with his incredible work. Okay, you're not answering the questions. I understand. You have 24 hours a day of anti-drine material. You're not going to give three minutes for the American people to hear the real experience of Donald Trump. There's one viewer that you care about right now and you're being obsequious. You're being a fact totem in order to please him. No. You know who I care about. I think I've wasted enough of my viewers.

You know who I care about? As Republicans lawmakers call for a jury general Jeff Sessions to resign in a major reversal, Democrats are now coming to his defense. What changed? Well, that got exciting at the end. Yeah, by the way, watching him, I'm sure many of you, there's different ways to verbalize this, but it seemed like I've never seen anyone attack someone so much, but looks so bored while doing it. Right, he looks, and this is just based on how he looks.

I don't know or necessarily even think it's true, but he looks kind of sedated throughout that. Even though he's so aggressive, like his eyes, he's got the sad eyes, like he's not moving his face much. He's just kind of like talking as quickly as he can in a monotonous way. Yeah, he's, I mean, he's described in the book as being not nearly as bright as he apparently thinks that he is. I mean, he's smart enough to go on the show and do what Jake Tapper is describing. Clearly, he's, I mean, look, a lot of the guests that will go on a show like that will talk to advance a narrative to present like an idea of what needs to happen in this country, which can be entirely deceitful. But at least you sort of get the goal. But he is going on there, as Jake Tapper describes, literally, to lie to please one person,

the president. And that, I've never lived in a third world dictatorship, but it feels like the sort of thing that you'd find there, where it's currying favor with the dear leader and not caring about anything else. I mean, Steve Miller, like, pretending that he's the voice for disaffected and disillusioned America, that seems a little bit hard to buy. And to back up the thesis from Jake Tapper, this tweet went out immediately. after from Donald Trump. Jake Tapper of fake news CNN just got destroyed in his interview

with Stephen Miller of the Trump administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky. And because you can't have a Donald Trump tweet without projection, Stephen Miller is literally acting as a flunky in that interview. Right. And that's what he is, too. I mean, his job before this was he was communications director for Jeff Sessions. And before that, He had the same honor of holding that job for former representative Michelle Bachman. So the whole idea that he's new to this or that he has not been the sort of sycophant kind of communications figure before is ludicrous. And to your point, John, James Fallows yesterday of the Atlantic, who's a great writer, he said, in decades of seeing White House aides on TV, I can think of nothing remotely like the tone or effect that Stephen Miller has chosen. Even the testiest, Pat Buchanan, Jody Powell with Jimmy Carter, John Sununu, with George Bush, all testy people, James Carville, usually feigned affability when on screen, feigned affability.

This guy came in almost memorizing copy playing to that one person. Yeah, he said the line revolutionized reality TV twice. Before the show we pointed out that, look, I didn't watch The Apprentice, but I understand the basic premise is he brought in people. they competed in a series of competitions and then were steadily voted off the show. I'm not a historian of TV, but that doesn't seem like a revolution. Or if it was, it didn't start with The Apprentice. Oh, yeah, it wasn't a renaissance. He just carried it forward. But he has to say those things. He has to call him a genius because he's trying to appeal purely to the president.

So it's actually pretty, that whole appearance by Stephen Miller was pretty ironic because the whole point of him being on there was to essentially speak out against the book or, you know, the truthfulness of the book. And he's just reinforcing what the book's main thesis is, right? That Trump is this person who needs to be surrounded by individuals who, to his face, will tell him how great he is and how right he is. But behind his back, you know, they have all sorts of insults regarding, you know, his mental capability, his intelligence, his fitness for office, all of that stuff.

I mean, he's just literally sitting there saying all of these great things about Trump that can't be backed up. And he got so incredibly offended when Jake Tapper, you know, accused him of trying to please Trump or, you know, speak to his audience of one, when Trump's tweet proves that's exactly what happened. Trump was sitting there. By the way, he's sitting there watching a CNN segment. He's the president of the United States. He's sitting there watching Stephen Miller's performance and then immediately tweeting about

how he destroyed Jake Tapper, which is not true. Also, he was at Camp David with congressional leaders, right? So everybody stopped doing what we came here to do so we can watch Stephen Miller on Jake Tapper talk really nice things about me. I'm sorry, I'm going to read one more of tweet from Jim Fowles because it's important. The obvious difference would seem to be that all the rest were conscious of playing to larger audiences. The public, congressional foes and allies, the DC opinion machine where it mattered they seemed likable. Miller does appear, as Tapper said, to have one person, one audience in mind. And that's unusual that this happens this way, and it's why Tapper's reaction to it, I thought, was so strong.

Yeah, and so you might think, so look, obviously this is disconcerting, but why have this be the first story we talk about on the show? But I think it does matter that if you, if you analyze based on our experience watching Donald Trump, but also the information given in the book, this is a person who desperately wants to be liked and is predominantly influenced by the last person he talked to, which means that at least hypothetically, if he was surrounded by the right sort of people who could manage the worst impulses of him, his psychological and mental deficiencies, then perhaps he could be pushing a way that he's never going to be a good person, he's never going to be a good president. But maybe you could get a little bit of legislation. that would help this country. We do have problems that could use some fixing. But if he is continuing to surround himself even after the ouster of Steve Bannon by people like Stephen Miller, then it's unlikely that that's going to happen. His need to be liked and his need to lash out at the media that he wishes loved him into his second year of his presidency is the driving force of this presidency right now.

And so if you have any hope for anything positive happening coming out of the White House before the next election, this is pretty good reason to believe that's not going to happen. Right. And I just want to make one more point about, you know, again, the main thesis of that book, which is that he's surrounded by people who think that he's an idiot, but they won't tell him to his face. Keep in mind that this White House, this administration has had one major problem from the very beginning, which is people within the White House constantly leaking things to the media to prove how incredibly incapable Trump is of doing this job properly. Right? Why do you think these leaks? are coming out. They're coming out from White House staffers. And so, look, there might be

hyperbole in the book. There might be some moments where the writer embellishes stories. I don't know exactly where or when he does that. But nonetheless, I think the main point of the book reinforces something that we already knew about Trump and his administration. And again, this is last little thing. First of all, one thing, I remember being on the campaign trail, watching TV and seeing Stephen Miller interviewed, somebody asked him when he became a conservative, he became a conservative after reading a book by Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association. Are you serious? That's how he became, according to this, yeah, Wayne LaPier wrote a book. The other thing, and you and I talked about it a little bit, Johnny, before the show,

the whole idea that he says, or maybe it was during the video, that he says he didn't know anything about this meeting, right? Come on. He even has said who was and wasn't there. So Jake Taffer is telling him about the meeting. He knew nothing about it. Well, Jake, thanks for letting me know about that meeting. And somewhat tangential, I guess, but just a pet peeve of mine. I mean, I sort of hinted at this when we were first talking about Fire and Fury last week.

America clearly doesn't read enough. I think we can all agree on that. People who are supposed to know a lot. People who comment on politics, people working in politics, often don't know what they're talking about. So it's a pet peeve of mind that while Jake Tapper overall did a good. job there. Does anyone watching this video believe that Stephen Miller read the book? Not a chance. No, I think there's zero chance that he read it. And yet he goes on there and says that every word is garbage. If you want to make him look like a fool, I mean, I know, there's

no way you can make him look like a fool in front of the president or in front of Trump's ardent supporters because they don't care about books or what's in them or what's not in them. But have him demonstrate that he actually read the book first. Right. America needs to read more. The death of expertise in this country, the anti-intellectual turn. I mean, I know that we've largely been historically an anti-intellectual country. But it's spreading. I'm excited that people are reading. That's basically the way.

Even if this isn't necessarily the book I would recommend for them. I'm excited that America's reading for us. It was you, I think, because Ben called and said, John Ida-Rollis said the best thing. He said, at least this is getting people to read. We're talking about a book. We had, as a country. We also got a beer sponsorship out of this, which is great, too, I think. We've, I mean, you can, basically we had Harry Potter, 50 Shades of Grey, and now this book.

And I'm worried that there's nothing coming after it. But I can recommend some good books if you'd like something to read. Anyway, we do have to go to our first break, though. When we come back, let's give a little update on the ban and feud. We were waiting to find out how people were going to turn. Were they going to go with the president? We're going to go with him. And what would he do dependent on that?

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

Add free. Do it now. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I know that Bart chooses music, generally based on the host. I don't know what led him to pick that for me. I don't think it's based on the host. I think it's based on the story selection. Sometimes he's mood.

It was classy music. Sometimes he puts Genesis on because I'm the host, but that's beforehand because we can't just play it. Yeah, that's true. Okay, before we jump back on the news, I want to read a couple of tweets. One was a point that I intended to make in the last story, but forgot to. Bud Askins says, self-made billionaire. Really? Miller left out the small detail of that small personal loan of a million dollars from my dad, not to mention millions Trump inherited from Pops, that's a very good point.

But of course, he knows, like he didn't revolutionize TV, he's not a self-made millionaire. There's lots of things you could say about him that are true, but Trump isn't interested in those. He's interested in the myths that he's attempted to spread. And then Chris says, I want to slap the stupid out of Stephen Miller, but I don't have enough hands. I hope you mean metaphorically. It's more violence here. Anyway, let's jump back into the news. Steve Bannon was curiously silent about the quotes that were attributed to him in Fire and Fury in the days after they were initially released, even before the book came out.

And five days later, though, he did speak out. And he did so, I believe, because he was being eviscerated by the president and his surrogates. And so when he spoke out, he wanted Trump to know that he was really, really, really ridiculously sorry for the things attributed to him. especially after this tweet from the president saying Michael Wolfe is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. Again, he's saying it's boring because he's read it. He used sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad.

He says too bad, but he's someone who fired him. Is it too bad? And also, why the dog hate? He always says like a dog. Right. He doesn't like dogs. Is he dumping dogs? I don't know.

But anyway, Bannon did put out a statement, and here are some sections of it. I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr. Has diverted attention from the president's historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency. So he said there, it's inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr. So hold that in your mind as you read this. Donald Trump Jr. is both a patriot and a good man. He has been relentless in his advocacy for his father and the agenda that has helped turn our country around. So that's fine. Remember, inaccurate reporting. He goes on to say this, my comments were aimed

at Paul Manafort, a seasoned campaign professional with experience and knowledge of how the Russians operate. He should have known they are duplicitous, cunning, and not our friends. To reiterate, those comments were not aimed at Don Jr. So were they comments that were aimed at someone else, or were they inaccurately reported? Because it sounds like he said that about the meeting, which if you've read the book, you know, was Don Jr.'s idea. So it's difficult to take a group of the highest up officials in the Trump campaign who go to this meeting and say one of them is treasonous and bad, but the guy who set it up, not treasonous, because he's apparently in the implied words of Steve Bannon so naive or so stupid to not know that Russian agents

might attempt to pull one over on him. Is that what we're supposed to take from this? Yeah, I have so many thoughts. First of all, I don't believe anything that Bannon is saying, especially now, considering his entire career is on the line, there's a significant likelihood that he won't even be employed by Breitbart anymore because Rebecca Mercer is pulling funding, well, not pulling funding from Breitbart, but made it very clear that she is not supportive of Steve Bannon. But I want to just very quickly go back to Trump's tweet. And again, his tweet, in my opinion, just reinforces the main thesis of that book, right? Like he tells himself all these little lies to feel good about himself, the fact that he thinks the book is boring.

If the book is boring, then it wouldn't have dominated the news cycle for what, how many days now? It's all anyone's really talking about. And so no, it's not a boring book. I know that makes you feel better about yourself, but that's not the case. And secondly, look, Bannon is so pathetic. So I didn't expect this to be honest, because he presents himself as this like strong-willed, you know, stubborn guy who won't cowtow to anyone and to see him tuck tail and kiss up to Trump's son like this, calling him a real

American patriot, it's funny and it's pathetic and it's embarrassing for Bannon and I'm enjoying every minute of it. Right, it reminds me of good fellas. It reminds me the mafia and their names are Don. So it's like on top of that, it's even better. But you know, you have the guy who crossed the Don, the Godfather and now he comes back,

hey, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to say what I was saying. No, no, no. I'm saying, you know, great man, great man, this guy's a great man. You know, it's the same feeling I get with Bannon going back to Trump. Of course, not crying any tears. Although, there are some bad parts of this in terms of American policy that I think can be affected by Bannon being out of the White House, too. If I, and also the idea that he was crying for his job, I don't believe that he was crying for his job.

He just, his eyes are puffy, dude. He's not actually crying. That's how he looks. But also, it does seem a little bit odd. I understand Steve Bannon was very highly placed and all that. He was an advisor to the president, but he's being taken down for the things that he allegedly said, but that book is full of every person around Donald Trump, calling him an idiot and a moron, and not just that, but attacking each other, attacking his son-in-law, attacking his daughter,

all of that. It's odd that Bannon apparently is the only one who has a political price to pay for it, which implies to me that it's not primarily about the book, that this is just the latest reminder of the feud between Trump and Bannon. Well, remember, and I want to quickly mention this because it was evident in Stephen Miller's interview with Jake Tapper. There was a lot of emphasis about, oh, Trump accomplished all these things without Bannon, without Bannon. Bannon, you know, he wanted to take all the credit. Remember, Trump is a very egotistical person, and early on in his presidency, Bannon would get a lot of credit for being the mastermind behind Trump's policies.

Calling in his brain. Exactly. And look, Trump did not like that. He does not like someone else taking the credit. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too.

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but we know that this White House has had an issue with leakers in general, including right now with Bannon gone. Yeah, and I mean, look, from early on, there were a lot of leaks coming out. If you believe what's in the book, it was all of them. And primarily, the information about the media, in Trump Tower, it looks like Bannon probably was one of the ones doing a lot of the leaking

there. And so you might wonder, so why is this important? Is this just, I mean, he is not even at the White House anymore. Does this really matter? Is this just fallout from the book? But I think that it does matter, because while I would love for Steve Bannon to be someone that you never needed to know the name of, at least in the last couple of years, he has come to represent a very loud, very dark section of America. His position, not just with the president, but with that section of America is very important for our politics going forward. And if the big backers of his site go with Trump instead of him, if the alt-right decides that they prefer Trump to Bannon, who used to be one of their intellectual leaders, that is extremely significant. So this is

not for nothing that this is going on, whether Trump accepts him back into the fold again. So Willie, it doesn't look like it. From insiders, it did nothing, this apology, to quell Trump's rage at his former chief strategist or the anger of Bannon's former West Wing colleagues, who said the vibe in the president's circle was that people were unmoved by the statement. By the way, that was just a small section. It got really obsequious. Asked whether there's anything Bannon can do at this point to get back in the president's good graces, one White House official said curtly, unlikely. Which certainly doesn't mean impossible.

Trump is a person who his view of you is entirely dependent on like his last interaction with you. If you say something nice about him, generally he will like you. And the inverse is true as well. It might not have worked right now, but, you know, this isn't the last interaction they'll have. And so perhaps at some point they could make amends. And you'd think that Trump would just want to see the demise of Steve Bannon more than he'd want to see Steve Bannon back in his White House. And it goes to what you were just saying about being Trump's brain and really not liking that. I mean, remember Karl Rove was looked at as Bush's brain when George Sovey Bush?

George Bush didn't care. He's like, no, that's good. That's my brain, right? Trump doesn't like that. And so it's a little bit of a departure from what they may have been accustomed to. And I also think that there's no real reason to have Bannon back for the White House either. If they want to get things pushed through, they're better off probably politically doing it without Steve Bannon there. But they don't make decisions that I endorse very often.

So why don't we talk about a little bit more of the fallout coming out of the book? You can come back. 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-F-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 unlearn 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. It's impossible to watch the president for longer, even to read transcripts of his statements without getting at least a little bit of concern for his mental state there. His speeches tend to be long rambling affairs where he, mid-sentence, will distract himself multiple times. And so you might worry about his fitness to be president, but he doesn't believe that you should.

First, though, before we get to his response to these concerns, here's a few sections out of the book about what the people around him, his supporters and backers, his aides and advisors had to say about him. Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes, he'd repeat word for word and expression for expression the same three stories. Now it was within 10 minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions. He just couldn't stop saying something. Everyone in his or her own way struggled to express the boldly obvious fact that the president did not know enough, did not know what he didn't know, did not particularly care, and Taboot was confident,

if not serene in his unquestioned certitudes. There was now a fair amount of back of the room, back of the classroom giggling about who had called Trump what for Steve Munnuchin and writes prebis, he was an idiot. For Gary Cohn, one of his friends, he was dumb as shit. For H.R. McMaster, he was a dope. The list went on. And so while I am confident that Donald has not read the book, he has certainly seen some of these quotes, if on the media, if nowhere else. And so this is what he had to say in his defense. Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats in their lap dogs, the fake news mainstream media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook in screaming

mental stability and intelligence. Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being like really smart. Being like really smart. That is not a transcript. He wrote that. This is a tweet. Let me just finish it before you get into it. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard.

And as everyone know, went down in flames. I went from very successful businessman to top TV star to president of the United States on my first try, which is an interesting note, considering that he has run previously back in 2000. I think that would qualify as not smart but genius. and a very stable genius at that. You went bankrupt so many times that you couldn't get U.S. bankers to give you loans, okay? You are not a smart businessman.

And also, when I first heard this statement, I thought it was a verbal statement that he had made, which is why the word like was included right before he called himself a stable genius. But no, no, no, he thought it was a good idea to include the word like. Which he has done when he says it as well. When he speaks it, he says it, when he says it. I'm like really smart. You know, he does that totally. He wrote it.

He wrote it. Maybe that's supposed to be humility. Humility, I don't know. I don't understand. Okay, so that's a small note. That's a small note. There was something else I wanted to touch on in regard to his tweet, but go ahead. You wanted to jump up.

I was just going to say, look, I mean, obviously we can respond to him saying that he's a genius. That's one thing. It's laughable. A genius wouldn't call themselves a genius. All of that. He called himself a very stable genius. I would be, you mentioned this earlier. And I totally agree.

Like, I would be humiliated with myself. If I had ever posted something like that, like about how smart I am. No, I mean, there's no humility. There's no, nothing like that. And by the way, just really quick, touching on what he said about the Ronald Reagan playbook. So toward the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency, there were signs that he was, something was wrong, right? And then later in the 1990s, I believe it was 1994, it was proven that he had Alzheimer's. So there was no shady playbook where people were trying to defame him and his mental health.

There was something wrong. People noticed it. The way, you know, the rhetoric around it was obviously very different back then because Ronald Reagan wasn't, you know, this vicious clown like Trump is. So people talked about these issues in a different way. But to make it seem as though, you know, people were lying about Ronald Reagan's mental health is a complete and utter lie. Right. And the fact for him to say it's out of the playbook is sort of endorsing because they were right. when they talked about that playbook.

When the media and political opposition were saying that about Reagan, that he seemed a little out of it, he seemed to be forgetful, he wasn't as tuned in. They were right. He had a deteriorating, you know, a mental acuity at that time. And so I think that's important to point out. I think, too, when you heard what he said about, you know, his success and being a genius, one of the interesting things that were people digging these up all weekend, but of course, Albert Einstein saying, I'm not a genius.

Bill Gates saying, I'm not a genius. And then Donald Trump saying, I'm a stable genius. A very stable genius. Charlie Pierce tweeted, secretariat was a stable genius. That's good. Which I thought was really good. You want to get to the horse in the joke, but it's hard. It's hard to, but it's there.

And so look, I mean, it could be, I mean, he doesn't have to be suffering mental decline. It could be, I mean, people are forgetful. I'm actually notoriously forgetful. My girlfriend gives me hell for it all the time because I forget things. But it's not like we have to go looking for things to be concerned about with Donald Trump. It's difficult to see him speak, to read a statement from him, to read a tweet. He never lets us go five minutes without seeing an example of very odd behavior. And we've got now a scoop from over the weekend that was given to Axios, one of his inner circle,

giving his recent schedules that either could be an indication of this or could simply provide you, some, I think, very useful information about the state of the White House these days. So 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 difficult to trace and sell

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That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Here's a couple of examples of his daily schedule. Information that's generally considered classified is destroyed at the end of the day. Oh, shocking, another leak coming from the White House. Exactly. On Tuesday, Trump has his first meeting of the day with Chief of Staff John Kelly at 11 a.m. So his day starts at 11 a.m.

It's a common refrain in these different schedules. Now, George W. Bush apparently started his day at something like 6.45. which is crazy. Barack Obama, sometime between 9 and 1030, something like that. Okay, so maybe that's not a big problem. He then has executive time for an hour. Executive time is described as largely personal time, much of which is taken up by tweeting and TV.

If you follow him on Twitter, that matches up well. So he has that for an hour. Then has an hour lunch. Then it's another one hour, 15 minutes of executive time. So, I mean, we're on into the afternoon with him having had one meeting with chief of staff, John Kelly. Now, those meetings are important. You should meet with your chief of staff. But hitting 1, 2 p.m. at that point, with only that, it's difficult for a president to get his job done at that point. Seems like at that point he would need some executive time.

You'd think, relax a little bit. Then he meets with National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, another important meeting. Who called him a dope? Yes. Then another 15 minutes of executive time. before he takes his last meeting of the day, a meeting with head of presidential personnel Johnny de Stefano, before ending his official day at 4.15 p.m., having done perhaps two and a half hours of work at that point, and that's checking in with your chief of staff, checking in with the NSA advisor. I'm assuming in that first meeting, he gets his intelligence briefing, which we know he doesn't pay much attention to. I mean, this is a guy who says that he has.

This is great news, though. This is great news. Okay. He's presidenting less. And I, you know, so the fact that he's being handled, he's doing these things. I think that the less hands-on he is to a degree, I think the better for everybody. So I agree with you. And there's really two ways to look at it, because there's that perspective and then

there's the perspective of what, I mean, if his time is used tweeting and we know what his tweets are like, he's essentially, you know, stroking tension with other foreign leaders, you know, threatening nuclear war. Right, no, I was a little tongue and cheek. You're right. There's a serious side. And also, look, I feel partly guilty because I feel like we should stay on this story as well.

But, I mean, Puerto Rico, it's been three months since, you know, that hurricane, still no power. Kids are going back to school, I believe today. I've got that for tomorrow show, actually, about that. Yeah, so we'll go back and cover that story. but there are all sorts of issues that are impacting American citizens right now that he is not focused on because he's too busy watching CNN, watching Fox News and tweeting out, you know, whatever he wants Fox and Friends to support on any given day. And so all of that concerns me- Or tweeting in support of whatever Fox and Friends says. That's right. And the reason that I bring this up is for all of his negative attributes and he has many, I've read them before, early on, especially during the campaign, like many people credited him, people who spent time with him. with being very active, that he would do many events.

He would ask for additional speeches, and when he would go would speak, he would speak for long periods of time. Considering the fact that he's not a young man, that stands out as potentially a positive attribute of the president. But now he's struggling to get through a couple of meetings before going to bed with a cheeseburger fairly early. And I agree, perhaps this is better for the country, although somebody is presidenting. Of course. And what they're probably, I prefer to know who it is. There are people behind the scenes who are doing things that we would not really love here anyway, and then they'll hand them to the president, and he'll be the PR guy for whatever that policy is. The other side of it is, people who worked with him in the real estate business for years said it was perfect that he was in the real estate business, because he would get bored of one project very quickly, and then there'd be another building going up or another golf course to build or another offer, whatever it is, because they couldn't keep him interested in everything. So maybe there's part of it, and I say this as seriously as seriously as I can. that presidenting is getting boring to this guy now. And that's not a good thing when you are the president.

Especially when you start to think about what would draw his interest at this point. What could he do with his position of incredible power that would interest him? Well, immigration is coming up. Immigration is coming up. There's always the possibility that they drop some more moabs in Afghanistan or something like that. That's a worry. As you said, tweeting to the North Korean leader, that's a scary way to spend his time. Now, I would say that it's likely that with the election coming up, he will probably find this a great opportunity to do some self-promotion by going around and doing speeches.

Perhaps that will take his mind off of some of the more negative things he could be doing to this country. But I do think it's really fast. I think it's very important that we understand the president's frame of mind, because especially with this president, because he is not a president who is bounded by common sense, an attachment to reality, or the advice of his advisors. He's a person who dwells in his own mind, and so we need to understand it. And he's impulsive. He just tappered me, but whatever. No, no, it was a point you made now because you wouldn't let me interrupt you. I can't think of it.

All right. Anyway, so we'll dispatch with it. Probably for the best. It's probably for the best because I couldn't possibly have anything interesting to say. Once we cut this video, we're going to force you off stage. Here's what it's good, and then write about it afterwards. No, I don't know that people who are running for Congress are going to want them out there making speeches anyway. I mean, that's the other part of this, is he might find himself really obsolete, you know, to a lot of these people.

Well, what, every time he talks about how smart he is and, you know, like, now that we know what his schedule is, because again, it was leaked by his White House, it just makes me think back to a quote that he gave to that New York Times reporter where he's like, oh, I know everything about the big bills. I understand the big bills. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to that effect. And whenever he says something like that, you just know that it's actually, the reality is the opposite of what he's saying. Because, and the reason why I bring that up is because he is known to bully lawmakers who don't vote for the bills that he is, you know, pushing for. But he doesn't even understand what's in that legislation. He doesn't know what was in the tax plan. He doesn't know. Or the health care bill. Exactly.

And you know what they're going to move on to next? Entitlements reform, which is, you know, them planning on. messing with your Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, all of these programs that we have paid into as American taxpayers. And, you know, I have no doubt in my mind that he's going to bully people who realize, A, this is unpopular. And B, this is going to be deeply troubling for the American electorate, the people who are going to go out there and cast their ballots for, you know, for us as politicians. So we'll see how it all plays out. But he is incredibly ignorant about legislation and foreign policy, domestic policy, everything, everything,

And that's the part that worries me the most. Yeah, and it should. Okay, we do have to take our second break, though. When we come back, a lot of big corporations made some promises in advance of the tax bill being passed, that there would be jobs, jobs, jobs as a result of it. We've got a little update for you. Probably not going to surprise many of you, but we'll cover it when we come back to this break. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks.

Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and can watch the whole. whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall. No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.