The Young Turks - The Young Turks 01.26.18: Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, and ICE

Episode Date: January 27, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from January 26th, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk, Ana, Ben, & Michael Brooks. Donald Trump last June ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller fired but backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than follow his directive. Hour 2: The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from civil libertarians. 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. This year, TYT's been making a lot of moves. Now, you can too. Now, how are you going to do that? You want to launch a new business?

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Go do it now. All right, fine, drop it. Apparently back. All right. It's a Friday show. It's a power panel. Jake, your bedbag was Anna Kasparry. Michael Brooks is in the house, everybody.

Michael Brooks, by the way, of the legendary Michael Brooks show. One of the most logically named shows of all time. Patreon.com slash TMBS. Also co-hosts the majority report with Sam Cedar. So Sam was fired from MSNBC, right? Did you also get fired? I got pre-fired. That was part of a pre-firing package.

All right, I'm kidding around. I was going through my tweets to pin of all my horror, most worst jokes. You just want to help out the old right? Hey, if you need, if you're some type of fascist, then you want to get me pre-fired from something. There's a joke I made mocking your agenda at some point. That's right. I like that. You're just trying to help an alt-right brother out.

When you look at Mike Cernovich, he needs help. Yeah, well, that's for sure. That is for sure. All right, and if you guys missed the reason for that joke, Of course, Sam Cedar was fired and then rehired at MSNBC because of some insane alt-right attack. But I wouldn't know anything about that. Okay. All right.

We got a lot of amazing stories for you guys today, including, of course, the famous, the New York Times story about Trump wanted to fire Robert Mueller. We're going to do that first, of course, and that could be monumentally important. But I also want to let you guys know about a couple things that are coming up. state of the union we're going to cover it live here as we always do in the young church and we will do play by play as we always do so as trump is giving you his lies we will give you the truth about what he's saying as they do those incredibly long and annoying collapse and standing ovations at least on the right wing side we will be telling you what the reality is longest standing ovation of any president giving a state of the union ever he got well i mean

he pre-got he pre-got oh i see Well, of course he will. Whether he actually doesn't have. Also, most enthusiastic, they can measure that now. I won't be watching because I hate white presidents. I saw that on Fox, actually. This guy was like, at a certain point, if they're boycotting, do we have to ask, is this racism in the other way?

Yeah, yeah, that was a thing. That was an actual conversation that happened. That was an actual thing that happened in this world. Yeah, but to be fair, guys. And it's true. They had to ask it. They had to ask it. Well, is there racism against whites in a country that is over 70% white?

It's a fair question. They're doing- Overwhelming evidence with all the black presidents that we've had. We've got a video coming up on the show with Fox and Friends. As you'll see, they sometimes just have to, they just have to ask the questions. That's their job. That's why you go to journalism school. That's why you get into asking the tough questions.

Yeah. Yeah. Is there reverse racism against President Trump? It's a fair question. All right. So, you know, normally we do this show. 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern. So next Tuesday on January 30th, the day of the State of the Union, we will do the show. And then we do Rebel Headquarters right after the show at 8.05 p.m. Eastern,

and then the post game for the members. And then we'll pick up our coverage. We'll do some coverage ahead of time as well. But anyway, we'll pick up our coverage for the State of the Union at 9 p.m. Eastern when that begins. And then we'll have some analysis and commentary afterwards as well. It's gonna be me, John and Ann, for you guys at t-y-tnetwork.com slash live. I might be here. And Ben might be here. We've got a might on that. We have a, but I mean, I'm giving it serious, considering. Oh, wow. Ben is like the epitome of maybe replies to RSVPs. You know, like, those annoying people. Not that you're annoying.

No, no, not that. But those people who are like. But all the other people who do the thing that I'm about to distinguish. describe you to all of them, but not you know. Maybe I'll come. I'm gonna surprise you on the day of. I have, I'm totally guilty of that. Everyone does that, I do it, I'm one of those annoying people.

I'm gonna make a bold State of the Union prediction. One, I predict I'll come, but that's not really bold. And two, I predict, this is unlike me. So get ready. I'm super excited. I'm very excited. Melania Trump will not attend the state of the years. Oh, yeah, he said it. He said it. You know why? Reverse racism. That's exactly it. She has an anti-Trump bias. Well, that might be true. She won't even hold his hand.

That's how biased she is against white people. She has a, we were supposed to be divorced by now. Like, she has a pre-divorced bias. Yeah. She got ruined by this, like, scam. Right. She signed up a president. She signed a pre-un-un-up. So, all right, well, another reason to watch our state of the union coverage. Find out if Melania attends or not. And if he doesn't, Ben Mancois with another great call. All right. And by the way, also one last thing, if you're going to be in L.A., February 15th,

or even if you're not, you better hurry up and get here. We're doing a Sweet 16 birthday party for the Young Turks, longest running show on the Internet. And we have, the VIP tickets are almost sold out. So we've only announced it one day, but they're almost all gone. TYT network.com slash party. The BIP guys get to do a meet and greet and take pictures with us. And they pay more, of course, but mainly to finance the show to make sure that we can actually do the show.

Those tickets are 100 bucks. But the regular tickets are just 10 bucks. That's just to make sure you guys are coming. And to cover the cost of the event. Obviously at 10 bucks, we're not trying to make money off of it. So it's tYT network.com slash party. So there's very limited space for the VIPs because we're going to run out of time to do the meet and greet before the show. And then and also the ticket sales are going pretty briskly overall as well.

So that had said at a theater downtown in LA on February 15th. I'm going to make it, but I will meet. I will not greet. Oh, I see. I make no greeting promise. No greeting promises, just to be fair. I will meet. I will meet.

But you get to say hi. Without greet, do you just like grunt? What did you just get here? Yeah, right. Hi, this is. I've been on the receiving eyes. Here's Jank, here's Anna, here's been. Err.

Yeah. Hey, how's it going, nice to meet you? That seems like you're greeting. I'm going to have to disallow that. All right, and obviously, not necessarily obviously. On Monday at 5.30, Dan Rather's show, of course, will be on T-R-T Network.com slash live,

leaving into our show. And he's going to talk about the state of the union as well. That's awesome. You know, your 16th anniversary, I know we got to start the show. So I had a thing where they described me as an innovator. I'm getting some thing at a film festival. Stable. He's getting an award.

He might or might not show up. He's got a maybe on the IRS. I'm going, but they describe me as I saw an innovator in the thing. And I cringe, so I didn't tweet it out because it was too embarrassing for me. You're crazy. Hold on for this. Why is that embarrassing? So because it's embarrassing, because by it's very, everything about it.

So today I got a text from somebody else. I'm described as a screenwriter and an author also. Really? Well, that's, yeah. So then I actually got mad. I was like, like, really mad. Because we're not in a work. You know, I underplay.

And I do not go around lying about accomplishments. And so I didn't do it. You would never make it in the Trump administration. They stopped it. They pulled it back. But then they asked, so the PR person was like, she would take Intervator out. And I was like, if you guys want to use that word, I was like, I guess we did co-create the show. Yeah.

I guess that's innovating. I think it's, okay. You're the anti-Trump. I have an anti-Trump vibes. Okay, you're like too far than the other direction. But instead of saying innovator, I said, just say a co-creator of the October. Oh, well, that's God bless on that front. Why don't you include innovator in my introduction? Does I look at my new notes and my bio?

That's right. He's, in fact, Michael's such an innovator. He co-created the Michael Brooks show. Yes, that is innovator. Nice. Okay. Super last thing. Sometimes when I retweet an article about us or me, people don't get, I retweeting.

Like, not retweeting, but going to the article and pressing share, right? And it'll say, like, Firebrand, Jank Uger does this. So it seems like you're talking in this third person. You're like, oh, okay, Mr. Firebrand and the third person. I'm like, no, they're just sharing the article. Yeah, that's the headline of the article. Yeah. Anyway, all right, Anna, major, major news.

Yes, major news. The New York Times has just published an explosive report indicating that sources from the White House have leaked information that Donald Trump, back in June of 2017, wanted to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian collusion and also obstruction of justice against Donald Trump. Now, what we know from this report is that they spoke to at least four individuals who know about the matter. They wish to remain anonymous for obvious reasons. But Trump was really pushing to fire Mueller. But Don McGahn, who is the White House counsel, was like, no, homeboy, you ain't doing that. That's a bad idea.

In fact, if you do that, that's a direct quote. If you do that, I'm going to go ahead and quit my job. And then Trump said, why are you talking like a black guy? So Trump apparently had mentioned conflicts of interest involving Mueller for his reasoning as to why it made sense to fire him. Now again, Trump didn't end up firing Mueller because of the fact that McGahn would not have it, okay? But let me tell you what the conflicts of interests were, at least in Trump's perspective.

First, Trump claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump's national golf club in Sterling, Virginia, had prompted Mr. Muller, the FBI director at the time, to resign his membership. That is a long game played by Bob Mueller. That is a, that is hold, hold, hold, no, no, hold for years. Right. One day you're going to leverage yourself into the presidency. You're going to have questionable relationships with the foreign government as well as

just sort of like endless financial improprieties. I'm going to get in charge of an investigation of you, and then. Yeah. You shouldn't have raised my fees by $20. Then you'll see. So there's more. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. But wouldn't that be a conflict of interest that would potentially benefit Trump?

Maybe the conflict between Trump and Jared around Ivanka. 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. You know, also recall that when, you know, when Trump was working it out with Rod Rosenstein to, that initially his complaint for firing Comey, which he then took ownership of in the interview with Lester Holt, that his reasoning for firing Comey was mishandling the Hillary Clinton investigation, but mishandling it because of the incredibly derogatory speech that Comey made about Clinton in announcing that there would be no charges. So again, it's just both of these things show that they're just looking for things. It doesn't matter what the things are, right? Anything. So finally, Trump said that Mueller had been interviewed to return to the FBI director, return as the FBI director, the day before he was appointed special counsel in May. So that was the third potential conflict of interest that Trump had cited. But again, Donald McGahn did not buy any of it.

In fact, after receiving the president's order to fire Mr. Mueller, according to the New York Times, White House counsel Donald McGahn refused saying he would quit instead. Okay, the most important context here is McGahn and who he is. So is he a White House counsel that was already there, like the doctor, the White House doctor was already there? So when he said that Trump is in good health, people were a little skeptical about the weight and the height, et cetera. but they were like, well, that's a respected doctor. He did Obamas, he did Trump's. In McGask's case, that is not the case.

He has been an associate of Donald Trump for a long, long time, and he was the main lawyer on the campaign. Not only that, he goes over to the White House, and he helps Donald Trump, A, fire James Comey. He was okay with that, and he was part of that decision-making process. B, he tried to pressure. Salliates? No, Jeff Sessions, to not recognize. accuse himself from the Russian investigation. So McGahn is solidly, massively on Trump's side throughout.

He is not independent source. He's, of course, a Republican, worked on the FEC before, et cetera. But it's not just like a random Republican or an establishment Republican. He is a deep, deep Trump ally. But even him, when Trump says, all right, now let's fire the next guy investigating me. Don McGahn throws up his hands and goes, no. that's crazy. If we fire two people investigating you, one, it looks like you definitely did it.

Two, that's definitely obstruction of justice. And he might have at that point been concerned. Look, three strikes, and I'm also out. If I help you obstruct justice three different times, I might be in legal jeopardy. But either way, a principled action in this regard, and Mueller doesn't get fired. And it would have, and McGahn is partly right. He's certainly right that it would have caused an enormous, controversy and maybe taking down Trump earlier.

Right. So another component to the story is the role of Ty Cobb within the administration. It's never, ever not going to make me laugh. The name? This name is Ty Cobb. It's just the second greatest hitter in baseball history. And I guess it's his grandson, right? I had no idea.

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I thought he was the grandson of the guy who invented Cobb salad. The Ty Cobb, Tyrus Raymond Cobb, I was an outfielder for the Tigers and the, I think Yeah, a little bit with the athletics at the end. You know, and he was baseball's most notorious racist and dirtiest player. Oh, but he's a good hitter. Spikes high, not, I mean, unbelievable.

Or his 367 career late-time. The greatest man in baseball in all history besides me. Right. Racist and a tremendous hitter. I love that guy. And nobody, and generally not. There's a great line in Field of Dreams about how, you know, when the guys come to the field to play, and they're like, yeah, Cobb wants to play, but we don't, we don't let it.

None of us could stand him when he was alive. We hate him now, too. Wow, all right. That was interesting. Yeah, and I don't even know if you guys know this, but Ty Cob was also a very stable genius. Okay, so Tai Cobb has also been urging Trump behind the scenes to cooperate with Mueller, you know, change the rhetoric involving this investigation

and just cooperate because you will do better cooperating as opposed to just firing people. And so that was an important component of the story for me personally, Trump is the most inconsistent person imaginable when it comes to his public statements about this investigation. He goes from trashing Mueller and talking about how he can't be impartial publicly. And then all of a sudden he goes on interviews talking about how he thinks Mueller will be completely fair and that he can't wait to talk to him. And it's just, it was interesting. So there are forces behind the scenes that are urging Trump to behave a certain way. And to some extent, he's listening, which is fascinating.

I think it's true that, I mean, he is a child. He's a child. And actually, I don't even want to say that. It's an insult to children. He's got a really addled brain, and he's a relentless, delusional narcissist. And obviously, there is this dynamic where the last person who talked to him, he listens to. What I'm concerned about, though, I think it's good that there's pushback inside the administration. But I'm not convinced at all.

Like, that if he fires Mueller, that Republicans in Congress will do a thing. And I think that the dynamic is starting to work now for all of the drama, that when he first got into office, they were like, you know what, this guy is hooklined into the bloodstream of a part of our base. He knows exactly how to speak to them. And he's an idiot and he's a narcissist and he's good at media. Let's let him do that. And then we'll run through the agenda. Do tax giveaways to oligarchs, get rid of health care, the whole thing. And it's starting to actually kind of work.

Right. And that's why you see people like Graham who, you know, several months ago are like, oh, he better not do that. Oh, my Lord, oh, blah, blah, blah. And now all of a sudden, you know, there's a lot of Republican senators in the last couple of months who started to make noises about this investigation in Mueller. So I think the broader picture is that the whole party's running interference for him. And there wouldn't be accountability if he did this move.

Can I jump in on that? Because I actually agree with you for other reasons. So you know who loves Trump? even if so-called establishment Republicans hate Trump, the people who love Trump are the donors, because he will consistently do favors for the donors. And the donors are the ones funding the, you know, the Republicans, the establishment Republicans. So I have no doubt that Republicans will do what they can to avoid, you know, impeachment proceedings should Mueller's investigation find impeachable offenses. He's popular with the base, popular with the donors.

I don't know that he's popular with the donors because the don't, I mean, the fact is that whoever replaced Trump will also be popular with the donors. There's no, there's no risk that all of a sudden Mike Pence is going to stand up to the Koch brothers or their ilk. They got what they wanted. And so I think what Michael started off saying is undoubtedly true. They got, look, and so now it's this euphoria of, look, we did it. This is we had to do one thing. My guess is they wanted this more than repealing health care, even. This is the old generational project.

There was something I retweeted today that, you know, the Koch brothers spent $20 million. They're going to spend another $10 million. They made over, they're going to make over a billion dollars a year in taxes saved. I mean, it's the best return on investment you can possibly imagine. You know, electoral politics is the only conceivable thing that will push Congress to do anything. It is significant that we've turned the calendar. It's 2018. We are now in an election year.

And if they want to do more, they got to keep the house. and they have to keep the Senate. So it may suit them at some point to say, all right, we'll stand after this guy and then we'll all bask in the euphoria of... There's a symmetry between national numbers and what is rewarded in those narrowly drawn districts where he's really popular

and there's no problem with any part of this. I got you, but you know they're in danger of losing the house. There's definitely a danger of losing the house. That's true. So I just, I don't... I'm less convinced. I am totally... It'll make what remains even more in transit.

They're not, I think. They're not, no principled stand will be taken. That's clear. They're indifferent to that. It's just a question of autobiography. No principal stand. But electoral politics might love it. That's right.

It'll all be political calculation. So why did I say that McGahn was only partly right? So he's, of course, completely right on legal grounds. Don't obstruct justice. Don't keep firing federal prosecutors or investigating you. But the one thing that he miscalculates and Ty Cobb miscalculates when he, when, they both tell them to cooperate with Mueller, is that they're under the impression that Trump didn't do it. They're his lawyers, and I'm sure they ask him. Now, Donald, you've got to be

really honest with this, because we're your lawyers, and it's okay. This is protected, okay, and you can say anything you want to us, but we got to know in order to defend you. Did you do it? You know what Trump's who said, no way. My integrity is bigly. It's tremendous, right? He's not going to admit it to his even to his own lawyers. So those lawyers, knuckleheads that they are, to think that Trump doesn't have a connection to the Russians. So if you think Trump doesn't have a connection to a Russian, you should advise your client. Don't fire the guy investigating you. You'll look incredibly guilty and it might lead you down a treacherous political path and a treacherous legal path when you don't need to because you didn't do it. What they don't know is

he did it. He says he did it. That's why he's trying to fire every or not. I don't think they're that naive. I don't think they are. I mean, we're not as close to Trump. as they are. And it's so blatantly obvious that he had some sort of financial deal with the Russians in the very least. I would be shocked if A, Trump told him he did it. I would be shocked, B, if he had given them any kind of evidence that he has done it. So you, and they're his lawyers. So they got to get themselves to believe that their client is innocent. So they don't have to, but they got to look at themselves in the mirror every day. And given no counter evidence, and they're not going to go investigate and look into his bank account to see if he was doing money laundering for Russian oligarchs,

then they're going to say, no, no, of course. Why would you fire him? I don't know. That seems wildly speculative. I don't know. I don't know what we're going to find. I think we're going to find a clear obstruction of justice case, but those are hard to make. And they're certainly hard to make politically, and they're certainly hard to make to get 67 senators to vote you out of office. So what they know is that there is, if you fish around this guy's finances, regardless of what happens with Russia, right? If you are in there, and that's why they've tried to draw it so tight, because they're like, well, a deal in Georgia would not be under the purview of this, they have to know that if somebody, and most of the people in Mueller's team, as far as I understand,

have run money laundering cases. Many, right, not all. That's what the dude does. There was just a report on a hotel in Panama. But suppose they get, suppose they find something there. Suppose they find massive financial malfeasance. It's not, that my hunch is not directly related to swinging the election, you know, because the Facebook cat swung the election or whatever. I mean, Russian interference in the election doesn't mean that there was Trump collusion to make that happen. No, I think Robbie Moop is more of a swing in the messing of the election. But so that's, but still you have the ample opportunity to fight that politically. I mean, because even if he, even if that happens, Trump is going to say this is a partisan investigation.

So your lawyer might think, hey, we'll win this politically. Like, you're not going to go to, you're not, he's not going to prison. that's not really looks likely I think he could okay but also do you think by the way that all of a sudden that Donald Trump is we've seen Michael Cohen the notion I don't know anything about Don McGahn except that he has behaved

poorly in general in this but that I mean there's no record of Trump having the best lawyers right so I mean I don't you know this is by far the most principal thing that we've seen Don McGahn do and threaten to quit

so I just wanted to jump in really quickly in regard to the obstruction of justice charges. If they do charge him with obstruction of justice, it's incredibly hard to prove obstruction of justice. And what I mean by that is you have to prove intent. And it's incredibly difficult to do that. How can you prove I've attended anything? A barely cognitively functioning. I'm going to flip on that immediately. This is not a case before a federal jury in court. This is about getting the house to have a majority of the house vote to impeach and then two-thirds of the Senate to remove from office, it's not going to happen.

I mean, unless it's, unless it is significantly overwhelming and it becomes politically, I mean, you know, until for a long time in Watergate, the Republicans held and held and held and held and held, and then really only at the end with the tapes

and the, only then did the Republicans say, we're not with you, Mr. President. They ran interference for Richard Nixon for a very long time. I think there's no question he's going to run for re-election in 2020 as the Republican nominee. I can not even, I cannot picture a scenario where that's not the case. I can't. So let me break it down real quick on the array of potential charges. So I think that there's a lot of miscommunication, including on our part. And so I want to be clear about

this. So interference in the election, what does that mean? So if they say, oh, Robert Mueller's like, I got him. It turns out a couple of staffers talked to the Russians and then the Russians ran Facebook ads. That's nothing. That's, they didn't get them. That's not a thing you take a president down on. And that's what the Democrats think. They started this war path based on that flimsy BS, right? So, oh, no, Hillary would have won if it wasn't for those dastardly Russians who bought Facebook ads.

But even if they proved that she would have won, it still doesn't make any difference. It doesn't make any difference. It doesn't make any difference. No, that's nothing. The Russians told her the campaign with Lena Donner. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're one of the folks who thinks, oh, that's what he collusioned with Russia means and that's

nothing, then I actually agree with you. you, okay? So if, then there's a second charge of obstruction of justice. Now, it's patently obvious that he did obstruction of justice. Whether you could prove intent is a different question, but the more important question and the harder one is the one Ben is talking about, you're going to have to flip Republicans into voting against them, thereby enraging his base, which is strong in their districts, especially at the primary level, as Michael is pointing out, that is going to be difficult. Maybe, maybe, but really difficult. Impossible, right, borderline.

Okay, my contention is, and I don't know if Mueller is going to get there, is if he's in his bank accounts, Deutsche Banking, if he's got his tax returns, et cetera, he will see that Donald Trump has been doing money laundering for the Russians for decades. And at that point, that is a massive crime. And if there is, now this is the hardest part, I mean, finding direct evidence of Donald Trump somehow saying to the Russians, I will now work. for you. That's super hard, right? Now, you don't need that. If you can prove money laundering, he's in a world of trouble, right? I mean, but if he's got anything along the lines of like,

hey, you forgive all my debts, I forgive the sanctions if I'm president, then of course he's toast. Even the Republicans can't withstand that. I would imagine that he has laundered money for, if I had to guess, not just Russians. Like, I thought when he made the comments about Haiti, I thought he was going to come out and be like, I laundered money for Duvalier. How can you say I'm racist? Like, this guy has been involved. I have no doubt. And if that's where it goes, they'll get him on something.

I still don't think it flips Republican votes. No, no, I just look, so if. I mean, unless it's like a tape, maybe a tape. I mean, look, maybe the Russians have the tape. The thing they're like pee tape. Who cares about a pee tape, right? I mean, a guy slept with a porn site where we all know, paid her hush money from a campaign. No one, like, none of that pee tape.

Who cares, right? I care in the sense that it's gross. Right, but I think that none of that matters except. the fact that if we're a Democratic president, they'd be impeached. Oh, of course, of course. Right, but we're way past that. So the only thing that matters is do the Russians have goods on him where he emailed, wrote a letter, or talked when he didn't realize he was being taped saying, yes, I will do a deal.

Now, even if they never get that, which will be extraordinarily difficult to get, if they show money laundering, and I'm right, and that's a big if, maybe I'm wrong, maybe he never did money laundering. If we're right about the money laundering, that guys, that is, that's a lot of money laundering. a different ball of wax. And I think because unlike us, the overwhelming majority of Americans right now have no idea that Trump might have done money laundering. And they will be shocked by it, absolutely shocked. So I think that's a different ballgame and he can go down on that. I'm so tough time, believe in that. But again, it's all of it still, it's all

political calculus. It all comes to Republicans saying the best thing for our party going forward, the best thing in 2020 is not to have this guy at the front of the ticket. That's it. And then when that calculation's made, they'll cast him loose. They got their tax cut and they'll move them up. So I hate to cut this 30-minute conversation short, but we've got to go to break. And when we come back, we're going to get some reaction from Trump himself and Fox News in regard to this New York Times report. And then we will move on to other important stories. So please come back.

We'll see you in just a minute. 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 get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the Young Turks. Jank Ugar Michael Brooks, Bamangu is Anna Kasparin with you guys. Real quick on tweets. Unregistered Chicano says Democrats are doing a great job, making sure people don't vote for Democrats.

He writes in Democrats, K because they don't care. This is why people are not voting. Blame someone, blame the DNC that just doesn't care and continues to disappoint, pushing away voters more and more every day. And, you know,

it's one thing to not agree with that, and I'm sure a lot of Democratic Party officials don't agree with that. A lot of people in Washington don't agree with that. Those sentiments, it's another thing to pretend they don't exist. Those sentiments exist and they exist

in mass quantity. So you might want to address that. figure out a way to address it. One crazy way would be to actually fight for progressive positions. I know, bridge too far for Democratic Party officials. Anyway, member shoutouts are Jimmy Cooley and Donna Rocco. And thank you for being in this show possible. TYT Network.com slash join.

And I should remind folks on February 15th, Thursday night here in L.A. at a theater in downtown we are going to do our 16th birthday party it's a rally we're going to have both political speeches but also a panel of all of us discussing the history of the young turks and having a really great time jimmy's going to do a set there for you guys so it's going to be great t yt network.com slash party to get tickets all right anna go i'll introduce a couple of movies from 1955. It'll be great. Yeah. All right. There are three stories that I really want to get to. Super important, so let's go. Cape Town, the second largest city in South Africa is faced with a dire situation involving water.

They are quickly running out of water, and soon they will have to ration a very small amount per person. Now, Cape Town, according to reports, is set to become the first major world hub to exhaust its water supply once its reservoirs dry up in mid to late April, at least four million people will run out of water when that happens. So they're already going after people in the form of fines if they utilize more water than they're supposed to. So to give you an idea, in less than three months, they will need to stand in line to receive individual allotments of water. At present, those living in the city have been asked to limit themselves to only 87 liters of water per day, that's 23 gallons.

On February 1st, that number will drop to 50 liters or 13 gallons. And if you want to juxtapose what they're dealing with and how much water the average American uses, Americans use about 100 gallons of water each day. So think about how your lifestyle, if you're living in the United States, would be impacted. by this type of limitation. Now, when the water completely runs out, or not completely runs out, when the water is so low that they have to take extreme action, they're referring to that as day zero. The day when taps will run dry, each person will only be limited to 6.6 gallons of water.

So it has begun. And look, there's a lot of factors. climate change, of course, a huge part of it, droughts, just as predicted by the scientists. I know for a lot of conservatives, if it didn't happen to them, it didn't happen. They're like, Cape Town, where is that? Don't care. But it's on planet Earth, if you don't know, and the climate doesn't go, okay, I will only affect Africa. But, you know, America, you guys are number one, so it will not affect you. It does affect us. First of all, we have the extreme hurricanes.

Second of all, we have the extreme fires because of the droughts we're having. So right now, we're not at this dire situation. And there are other factors. Cape Town had, unfortunately, their leadership had incredible incompetence and not preparing for this ahead of time, something that they could have seen coming along the way and built more plants, et cetera. But to be down to 6.6 gallons of war, first of all, we're having conversations about now cities being at day zero. I mean, we had Sao Paulo in Brazil that also had a similar situation. So this is not the end, but it is the beginning, and this is not a pretty picture.

They, some are now having to recycle toilet water. Their recommendations for how long showers should be is one and a half minutes. Can't do it. Yeah. And so this stuff is real, and just because it starts in Cape Town doesn't mean that it ends there. You know, I just want to add, and this sounds like this set up to a joke, but it's actually true. I've had the honor of interviewing this guy, Ronnie Casrells, a couple times, who, was the Minister of Intelligence under the Tabo and Becky government in South Africa and also the water minister.

And there's a much bigger, there's a climate piece, but there's also failed privatization plans in South Africa. There's a broader water distribution problem on the continent. And I just think I want to put this in relationship to that because of climate, it's going to be coming for all of us. But the solutions that we find and how well they're distributed. And I don't really, you know, it matters that it's happening in Cape Town, period. But there is a reason that Cape Town is a very affluent in advanced city. Yeah, it's a western city. It's a western city in South Africa.

And this is a sort of distribution problem that's shown up in a lot of places like Sao Paulo. So I think as we attack these kind of problems, we need to look at the climate dimension and then make sure that the solutions aren't sort of disproportionate and reinforce other inequalities. And by the way, other cities there are concerned might face similar situations. if this keeps going are little-known cities like Tokyo, London, and Miami. So we're all on the same planet, and it keeps on rolling into Michael's point about privatization and the disasters that leads to. In Bolivia, they tried to privatize all the water.

So they were then started to fine and try to arrest people who were trying to capture rainwater in their own homes, in their own backyards. Because it violated private company's rights. That was the reason. And the UN, it wasn't recognized as actually a basic human right until several years ago because Western countries and countries, believe it or not, with bottled water industries, blocked it the notion that water access is a basic right. And as the water gets more limited because of worldwide droughts, again, exactly as predicted by the scientists,

in fact, the scientists were a little too conservative about when the droughts would come and how severe they would be, then the private water companies, the bottled water companies, will have to be. even more leverage and we'll have even more power. And then we're all fighting over water. And that is a state of absolute disaster. So oftentimes when people like Barack Obama made comments about climate change being a threat to national security, you'd have people on the right, they'd scoff at that. They would think it was a joke. But the reason why it's a threat to national security is because if you have limited resources that you literally need to survive, You think people won't go to war over those resources?

You think there won't be unrest? I think most conflicts are actually resource driven to begin with. It's a very smart way of reading Israel-Palestine. It's water access in many respects. Yeah. In the rest of the Middle East, oil is an enormous issue in terms of resource. But in Israel, water is the main issue. And so in a sense, the water wars have already begun.

But this is just more public-facing and more of an obvious catastrophe. All right, switching gears to some other news. The New York Times has recently reported that there was an individual working on Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign who was accused of sexual harassment by another female employee who was 30 years old at the time. And when Hillary Clinton was advised to fire this individual, she refused to do so. So the man in question is Burns Strider, and this all occurred back. He was like her faith-based initiative advisor? Yes, so I'll give you details on what he did, and that will enrage you even more because his role was, in my opinion, incredibly unnecessary. But Ms. Clinton's campaign, according to the New York Times, Ms. Clinton's campaign manager at the time recommended that she fired the advisor, but Ms. Clinton did not.

Instead, Mr. Strider was docked several weeks of pay and order to undergo counseling, and the young woman was actually moved to a new job. So as far as his role, he was her faith advisor and sent the candidate scripture readings every morning for months during the campaign. I mean, maybe Hillary Clinton's faith is very important to her, but I would argue that if someone in your campaign has been accused of sexual harassment by a national harassment by a employee in your campaign, you should probably reconsider whether or not that person should be there. Like maybe fire that person, but she refused to do it.

Now, later, he was hired five years later at an independent group that supported Clinton's 2016 candidacy, correct the record, which was created by a close Clinton ally, David Brock. But he was later fired because of similar issues. Okay. So a couple of things here. So he's working on the 2008 campaign, and that's why five years later he gets hired by correct the record to work on the next campaign. So this doesn't seem to be in any kind of dispute. They've got four sources, including it appears very high officials in the campaign saying, well, we wanted the guy fired.

We try to get Hillary to, and they're all women, whether it's sole store who's the campaign manager or Jess O'Connell. who was a National Director of Operations and who originally field of the complaint and concluded that Strider should be fired. So to Anna's point, look, let's say you're really religious. And by the way, to be fair, I had been pretty cynical about Hillary Clinton's religiosity. But maybe she is. Maybe she's... 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.

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So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. You know, I was going to say Bible thumper. I don't know. Look, I'm not a religious person. I have a bias against it. I don't think it's necessary. and I don't want it informing our leaders because I don't want them thinking that they're talking to God.

So, but even if you are, let's say she, okay, you love it. She's a devout Christian. Okay, well, we didn't know that. You can't pick up a Bible and read a verse. No, but you can't find some other pastor in the country. I feel like if that person's sole role in your campaign is to be your faith advisor and there are credible sexual harassment allegations against him, doesn't that now make him or his faith advisement null and void?

Like, I wouldn't want to be advised, faith advised by someone who's been sexually harassing a 30-year-old on my campaign. And by the way, he was also married. And he, yeah. And look, if he's married and it turns out that he had an affair with someone on the campaign, like, that's not, there's consent there, and I don't care, it's none of my business. But that's not what happened in this situation. So let me give you the details of the allegations against him. The complaint against Strider was made by a 30-year-old woman who shared an office with him.

She told a campaign official that he had rubbed her shoulders inappropriately, kissed her on the forehead, and then he had been sending her a string of suggestive emails. And so through this investigation, she shared those emails to prove it, which is why Hillary Clinton was advised and urged to fire him, and she refused to do it. I just don't understand. And then, you know, the 2016 campaign has the audacity to start judging women. for not voting for Hillary Clinton if they're supportive of Bernie. Oh, I forgot about that.

So that kind of stuff, I mean, it's just... Special place in hell for women who don't fire sexual harassers? You know, people who support... That's what Natalie Albright said. Oh, it's like, no, she didn't. I don't know. I, you know, this was a different time.

They did punish him. You know, he got docked pay. He had to take, you know, sensitivity courses or go undergo counseling. And they didn't demote her. they moved her to another job. So, I mean, I think if it happened today, he'd get fired. There's obviously cultural changes. And I think it's interesting that just to be fair to them, or not fair, but there's a weird tension at the heart of the whole Clinton operation between, like,

this, you know, powerful couple and you're forwarding a woman who regardless of, I mean, it's no secret where I think of her politics, but she's obviously very formidable and wanted to take a shot at the top and was a big part of Bill Clinton's success. And then on the other hand, there was running a lot of interference that like even in the most benign scenario, you know, there was weird stuff going on with Bill Clinton. There's all sorts of weird gender dynamics. And I think that this speaks to that. And I mean, you know, look, if this was in a campaign, I would run with it and try to crucify her on it because I want to win.

Now it's like, you know, it's sad and it's embarrassing and it's fine to bring up her hypocrisy. But like, say Levy, Hillary Clinton. Just don't write another stupid book. I just don't want to hear her talk about how she's this victim. of sexism and all these terrible men who have done all these terrible things to her and said all these terrible things to her. You know, and her campaign slogan was, I'm with her. I'm with her. Well, were you with her when it came to a 30-year-old woman who worked on your 2008 campaign? But Anna, it's literally with her. I got it.

There's a narcissism to it, right? I mean, I don't know. This feels like a stretch to me. Not that, again, with, I'm, that story shouldn't be covered. But, I mean, they did believe her. It's just that they didn't deeat the firing action. They, they punished him in a different way and didn't fire. They didn't not.

So let me share. Let me share. Let's take Hillary out of it. Let's take Hillary out of it. Let's take Hillary out of it. Because for me, no, I have to jump in with this. Because I, I think that there's a blind spot because of gender issues here. And look, if I'm working at TYT.

All right, let's put it in our context. I'm working at TYT. There's a male employee here who is sending me these emails, making me uncomfortable, harassing me. I go to my superiors. They urge Jank to fire him. And Jank says, I'm not going to fire him. I'm just going to have him work in a different position, but within the same company.

I still have to deal with that person. Or actually make you work in a different position. That's actually even worse. Exactly. That's actually a part of I have a much bigger problem with personally. And either way, they're working on the same campaign still. And it's, well, the campaign is huge. I'm with you.

I agree. Your scenario is, but it's not, it's actually, it's just not quite what happened here, that that she asked not to have any more interaction with him, and she didn't. And it's a huge campaign. There's a zillion places to put people. They didn't, they didn't, they should have fired him. But in 2008, they didn't do that. There's a lot of places to spread racist rumors about Barack Obama.

Okay, that's right. But, but, okay, so let me, look, again, as with almost everyone here, I don't have any love for Hillary Clinton and I wish they hadn't chosen her as a candidate, I can go on forever. Having said that, let's also acknowledge that Hillary Clinton is in a tough spot there, a unique spot in that she has the Bill Clinton baggage. And so with the Bill Clinton baggage, if she starts firing people who have done this, right, and then people turn around and go, what about your husband? and what he did with Monica Lewinsky and who was a subordinate that worked under Bill Clinton, et cetera.

Now, does that justify keeping out sexual harassers? No. But I'm giving you, and the other thing I want to be clear about is that Hillary Clinton cannot fight back here. She can't go public and say, oh, yeah, but here's the things you didn't know, because that'll get her in a world of trouble and a mess on top of a mess. She should have had him fired and Bill Clinton should have done it himself. I always assumed that when I read the story, the first time, I just assumed that it was somebody she cared about. Like, she was a friend, like it was a friend and she didn't want to throw a friend.

We might dismiss it, but I think faith advisor matters to her. Because it would never be a, because it would never be a news story then. Like it wasn't, this kind of thing wouldn't have gotten covered. They didn't have to bury it. It's just no one was going to go public with it. It's a different era. But, Anna, your example is true. And it does suggest that there's a significant different interpretation.

If somebody was sending you those things and you had in any way had to work with them. I mean, the guy should be fired no matter what. But if the circumstances were lesser and you had still, yeah, he would have to be fine. And Jake, just to respond to what you said, you know, yeah, she's in a tough position, but it also cuts both ways. Meaning that after Bill, that whole Bill Clinton thing happened, what did Hillary do? What was her response? It was to put down the women who made the accusations against him. And so she didn't support the women in it.

I mean, she didn't have to say anything, but she did say something, and it was to put those women down. And then you have this example from 2008. It doesn't look good. It doesn't look good. So, yeah, she's in a tough spot. But, you know, I think the principal thing to do would be to protect the people who are working on your campaign by firing an individual who's doing something that is inappropriate. Yeah. And by the way, just one more thing that's important.

These are not just allegations and they're not just from one person. It seems heavily backed up, including by the top advisors she had at the time. Right. So given that context, no matter what kind of a bad spot you thought she was in and all the context we've given, at a minimum, it appears to be enormously hypocritical. And it goes to the overall point about Hillary, you know, that like she's in a tough spot because of Bill. But it's all, again, it's a reason why she was the wrong candidate. Like, and that's too bad for her. Like, you know, yes, she played some role, but her role is a minor role in the big picture of Bill's issues with women.

So, but again, like, you don't get to be president. You don't get to be the nominee from your party. It's okay to say, boy, you've had a lot of things happen. And to my mind, the media is misrepresented, 79% of what you say. But you're actually not necessarily the right person to take this fight as a woman. And again, to the original point of right or wrong, people hate you. And again, for all the people who would get on me, the Hillary fans who would then get on me, because that's like, she did lose.

Like, in the end, everything said against you, this is only about winning. This is, in the end, only about winning. And the ultimate measure is not winning to a monster. We got to take another break. Let's do that. When we come back, ICE has some new powers that they will certainly abuse. I'll tell you what it is. And even if you're not an immigrant, even if you're not undocumented, it impacts you.

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

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. podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon