The Young Turks - The Young Turks 02.06.18: Trump/Mueller, John Kelly, Puerto Rica Exploitation, and Edwin Jackson

Episode Date: February 7, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from February 6, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk. Trump refused to say Wednesday whether he would grant an interview to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russians who attacked that election. Trump considering firing Kelly. Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans’ sweeping attacks on the nation’s premier law enforcement agency appear to be working: Nearly three-quarters of Trump voters ― 74 percent ― say the FBI is biased against the president. Hour 2: Cenk & Ana. A "tiny," one-woman firm "inexplicably" won a $156 million federal contract to deliver 30 million meals to Puerto Rico hurricane victims — but managed to deliver just 50,0000 meals before the contract was terminated for cause three weeks later, outraged lawmakers said Tuesday. Atlanta-based Tribute Contracting had "a history of struggling with much smaller contracts" before winning the Federal Emergency Management Agency contract, noted Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands. "It is difficult to fathom how FEMA could have believed that this tiny company had the capacity to perform this $156 million contract," Cummings and Plaskett wrote in a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. The firm ended up being paid $255,000 for 50,000 meals. Following the death of Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson, 26, in a car accident, Trump took to Twitter Tuesday to tie the professional athlete's death to a need for tougher border security. "So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed ... Jackson," the president tweeted, calling the tragedy "preventable" and insisting the Democrats "get tough on the Border." The accident that killed Jackson took place around 4 a.m. Sunday and officials said the athlete was the passenger of ride-share driver Jeffrey Monroe, 54, of Avon, Indiana, who was also killed. Indiana State Police said Tuesday the driver of the vehicle that struck Jackson and another victim was an undocumented immigrant, CNN reported. It is believed the driver, identified by detectives as Manuel Orrego-Savala, was intoxicated at the time of the accident. According to CNN, Orrego-Savala is a citizen of Guatemala who had previously been deported in 2007 and 2009. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. All right, well, I'm the young church. Scott, a hell of a show ahead for you guys. A little bit later in the program, I've got the stock market collapse. You're never going to believe who they're blaming it on. Slash, you will, but you will be amused by it. And did Trump ever talk about the stock market? Stock market?

What name's self? That's going to be an awesome story. Also, we've got a prosperity preacher in the show. They're always awesome. Although this one leading to disastrous results, we will tell you about that a little bit later in the program. And, oh, I had warned you guys that the TYT party slash rally was going to be sold out. It now is. Nana Nana Boo-boo.

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We've got a lot of show, okay? So Donald Trump is considering whether he's going to go talk to special counsel Robert Mueller. Apparently his lawyers are split on this issue. Ty Cobb thinks that he should go talk to Mueller and cooperate with him fully and get the investigation done as soon as possible because Donald Trump. Trump is innocent. That's a good one. Anyway, all the other lawyers for Donald Trump are saying in unison, no, don't go to

Dr. Mueller. And the New York Times has the story, and as you'll see, there's a good reason for him to duck. Lawyers for President Trump have advised him against sitting down for a wide-ranging interview with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, the third, according to four people, briefed on the matter. Let's find out why. his lawyers are concerned that the president who has a history of making false statements

and contradicting himself could be charged with lying to investigators. Yeah, that'd be a good reason not to talk to them. And will he lie to Mueller? That's an absolute certainty. That is more certain than E equaling MC squared. Has Donald Trump ever gone two sentences in a row without lying? or contradicting himself or both. So the lawyer is advising him to restrain himself and basically tie him up,

make sure he doesn't go anywhere near Mueller, I think are correct. So I hope he doesn't listen to them. In fact, Donald, who's smarter? You are your stupid lawyers. Donald, who's smarter? You are Mueller. They're saying Mueller's going to outwit you. Is that possible, Donald?

That someone could outsmart you when you got a 30 out of 30 on a 10? test that tells you whether you have dementia or not? I mean, come on. Don't listen to your lawyers. You got this dog. Ty Cobb's one of the greatest hitters of all time. He knows what he's talking about. You go follow his advice.

Anyway, their stance puts them at odds with Mr. Trump. Yes. Okay. Who has said publicly and privately that he is eager to speak with Mr. Mueller as part of the investigation into possible ties between his associates and Russia's election interference and whether he obstructed justice. And that's because Donald Trump knows something that they don't know. He's got this, dog.

I don't know if you know. Here, in case you don't know it, I apparently have to remind you. Oh, I have to shoot, I have to guess now because I don't have it in front of me. You're a pirate. Nope, no, no, not that one. You know, I'm like a smart person. There he is. He's like a smart person.

What else do you need? New York Times continues. Mr. Trump's pension for bravado has been a factor that his lawyers must contend with. The president has bragged to some aides that he would be able to clear himself if he talked to Mr. Mueller's team. And in fact, Donald Trump has said publicly, quote, I'm looking forward to it, actually. This is why Donald Trump beat George W. Bush in a poll that we had as to who was dumber. Because at least Bush knew that he wasn't that right.

Trump really thinks that acing a dementia test means he's a very stable genius. This buffoon thinks he's smarter than Robert Mueller and would, in the middle of an interview, convince Mueller that he didn't do it, he'd just talk him into it. Oh, please try, please try, Donald. Whatever you do, do not listen to your advice. They don't have your best interest at heart. You, on the other hand, can convince all those prosecutors that you didn't do it. good luck with hey and by the way if you didn't do it what do you have to hide right um so um here

are people counseling otherwise though they new york times explains it would be certain to prompt accusations uh if he doesn't do it that the president is hiding something and a court fight could prolong the special counsel inquiry casting a shadow of republicans as november's midterm elections approach or beyond into the president's reelection campaign so that's another good reason to do it because it will cast a shadow, and you might have to face a grand jury, which would be even worse for Donald Trump. Now, refusing to sit for an interview opens a possibility that Mr. Mueller will subpoena the president to testify before a grand jury.

There it is, setting up a court fight that would drastically escalate the investigation and could be decided by the Supreme Court. So, you know, look, it could go either way, his advisors are saying on a political front, maybe you could just stretch it out until Mueller's investigation becomes untenable and they can ever talk to you, or it creates a constitutional crisis when you don't listen to a prosecutor. And by the way, you must. Because of the Nixon tapes, we came to the conclusion, which should have been obvious all along, that the president is not above the law.

And if he has a subpoena, he must actually go and follow through on it like any other citizen would. So if he doesn't, that would create a constitutional crisis and we don't know how that would wind up. But in all seriousness, I think that Donald Trump should speak to the prosecutor because he has legitimate questions to ask. And it's true. If he really didn't do it, then he doesn't have anything to hide. I tend to think that his lawyers are right that he's not going to help himself in those cases. Part of that belief rests on the fact that I think he does have a relationship with, Russia. I think it is financial. But that's the whole point of the investigation. And if he

really is innocent, then maybe Ty Cobb, his lawyer is right that he should go talk to Mueller and clear it up and say, look, here, I don't have any financial ties. I didn't do anything for the Russians, et cetera. And only Donald Trump would know that. So it makes sense to talk to him. But one last note of caution comes from Donald Trump's friend, Newt Gingrich, who said, the idea of putting Trump in a room with five or six hardened, very clever lawyers, all of whom are trying to trick him and trap him, would be a very, very bad idea. In other words, they are clever, and I'm not convinced that he's a very stable genius. And so that could be a recipe for disaster.

So either way, it doesn't look good for Donald Trump, but for the sake of the country, I hope he does go testify one way or another so we can get out the truth and either have a conclusion that where the prosecutors do actually find out that he did something wrong or a conclusion where they find out he didn't. But either way, have a resolution. And for the rest of us, also a bit of entertainment because that testimony is going to be outrageous. Anywhere you slice it. Okay. Now, moving on to another.

Donald Trump story, this time about his instability, and I think that this, it's a little bit of fun, but it's mainly very important for what could happen next, okay? Fun, I mean, fun's a relative term in the Trump era, right, when anything can go wrong. Okay, so Vanity Fair has an interesting article from Gabriel Sherman about Donald Trump, and more internal drama at the White House. Now, this could have huge consequences depending on how it shakes out, because I believe Donald Trump is unstable, unstable, although, again, he claims to be a very stable genius, and that, in fact, that's one of his top two traits in his life, that he has mental stability. If you got to brag about that, you might have stories like this. So, we go to Vanity Fair.

After the much-hyped newness memo failed to deliver the narrative reset to the White House hoped for, Donald Trump is discussed. a shake-up to his west wing, three sources familiar with the president thinking told me. These people say the president is increasingly frustrated that members of his administration aren't going to war for him, and he's being encouraged by his daughter Ivanka to bring in new blood. Excellent. That's what I like to hear. Now, here's why.

Now, look, it's a little bit dangerous. John Kelly is the only guy keeping this guy on an even keel. John Kelly is his chief of staff, former general. And I'm not a fan of John Kelly. I think he's deeply right-wing. That's why he's part of the Trump administration. But at least he's not a lunatic. So he has kept out a lot of the crazies from the White House,

try to keep Donald Trump as even tempered as he could possibly do, which is an unenviable task. Without John Kelly, these clowns will go to war with each other again. They'll form more circular firing squads. They'll be more leaks than ever. And Donald Trump will become more unstable than ever. The reason I say it's dangerous is because, of course, he's the president of the United States and has access to nuclear weapons, and that's the main concern about Donald Trump. The good part of that is that you can speed up the clock for when he's leaving office.

If John Kelly goes, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick until Trump blows himself up, hopefully he doesn't blow up the world along with him and not the economy, but certainly his own administration. So, which leads us to a GOP source that says that Trump and some of his closer advisors are frustrated with John Kelly because, quote, it's like Kelly views Trump as a mushroom. He wants to keep him in the dark and feed him a bunch of shit. Well, what else would you do with Trump? So what do you want to do? Oh, yeah, Donald, go out there and tweet like crazy. You got him, dog. Oh, go on non-Fox news shows, absolutely.

Remember when you went on NBC and admitted that you fired the FBI director because he was conducting an investigation of Russia and your connections, which was obstruction of justice that you admitted publicly? Have at it, Hoss, do more of that. You're a genius. You got this, Donald. Of course, you have to keep him in the dark. And they say, oh, Donald, man, things are going great.

Are you kidding me? Whatever you do, you don't need to tweet. You don't need to go on TV. Everything's great. Just keep it going. Talk to congressmen where you could tell them different things every other sentence and confuse the hell out of them and make things harder for the Republicans. No, you don't need to talk to congressmen.

So look, I think Kelly's the only thing keeping this place together. And it looks like they've got their knives out for him. So let's do a couple of ships here and see where it winds up. Here we go. Trump has recently told advisors he wants a killer. to continue the analogy, to steer the White House's response to Robert Mullen's investigation and craft a mid-term election message for him to stomp on this fall. John Kelly was a general, but apparently not killer enough.

At the end, I'll tell you who he thinks are the real killers. That ought to be great. So, who's driving this? Look at this. Ivanka, who's been frustrated with Chief of Staff John Kelly, has told her father that he needs people around him that will put his interests above their own. quote, she wants the clean house, a Trump friend told me. You know, there's this theory that Ivanka Trump was a smart one in the Trump family.

Now, that is a low bar. I mean, have you seen her father? Have you seen her brothers? So, but it turns out her and Jared Kushner, her husband, are going around shipping all of their political enemies inside the White House. Bannon's gone. Some of the base, I mean, not much of the base, but he at least could help craft messages for the base. So that's gone. Prebus was with the establishment. He's gone. You know, Sean Spicer's gone. Everybody's gone. Scromucci's gone. Gone, gone. And so if you're wondering who shiv them all, well, the last man standing, or in this case, last woman standing, Ivanka, the one person he'll never ever fire. It's his daughter, the one person that he cherishes

outside of himself. So now she's frustrated that she's not in charge and that John Kelly's in charge. So here come, you know, a couple of homemade shives that have got John Kelly written all over it. But once you fire him, too, who's left with experience in the White House? Who's ever done this before? So now you're going to have Ivanka and Jared running the whole White House? Recipe for disaster. More where that came from.

In recent weeks, Trump has publicly clashed with Chief of Staff John Kelly after Kelly took a more active role in White House policymaking and messaging. Now, why? Why are they clashed? Because John Kelly said some things on television that were sane. And Trump did not like that. He's like, why isn't he defending me 100% and calling me a stable genius? And why isn't he telling everybody the Democrats are all traitors? Well, because he has a shred of credibility and not much decency, but a little bit. And he feels bad about saying things that are patently untrue and ridiculous.

So Trump, of course, is furious with him. Kelly's not going to help his cause because today, Manu Raju from CNN reporting, John Kelly on whether Trump has read the Schiff memo, that's the Democrats' answer to Nunes memo, about the FBI, quote, no, no, it's. quite lengthy. We are told it's 10 pages. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging 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 not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. So Trump will get mad at that. He's saying I didn't read a memo because it was 10 pages long.

Did you read the memo? No. Why? It was 10 pages long. But he shouldn't say that. He should say I'm a stable genius and that I'm like a smart person. Okay. So tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

So he gets through to Kelly, who's he going to bring in? Brace for impact According to the sources Trump speaks regularly by phone with a quote unquote brain trust that includes Sean Hannity Oh this is a doozy Jason Miller

Corey Lewandowski Rice Previce is back Look at that And RNC chairwoman Rana Romney McDonnell I mean McDaniel He's like She sounds delicious

I like Ronald McDonald a lot Bring her in. Okay, that's good. I'm going to bring rice back in. I don't know why. I kind of miss old fella. I like to make fun of how short he was, which is what he used to do when he was in there.

Okay. Okay. That's a murderous row of idiots. So you get rid of John Kelly. You're bringing those guys. Tick, tick, tick. Look, we had the stock market go down significantly on Monday, Friday and Monday.

It's come back up a little bit today, but still overall an absolute mess. overinflated just like we told you. We've got, his poll numbers are not, they peak at 42%, which is a terrible number. I guarantee, and then the poll after that, it already started to go back down. You've got Trump now going to try to respond to troubles that he's having. If they get rid of Kelly and they bring in these, they bring the old circus back into town, the level of instability we're going to have is going to be unprecedented.

If you thought 2017 was bad, what do you get a load of 2018 if these are the guys inside the tent? The minute Kelly's fired, if he's fired, set the timer because Trump's presidency is in a world of trouble and it will just only get worse from there. vicious cycle that spirals down. Okay, I know I can see the trolls now. Oh, yeah, right, you said that before and you have him so awesome. You're going to see it in the devil genius.

If they get rid of him soon, he ain't going to make it to 2018. I've been saying that from the beginning, to be fair, okay? And I mean the 2018 elections, and he ain't going to. Let's see what happens. Okay. So, now, on to. how his own folks react to Donald Trump. And that is a completely different story, his own fans.

Okay? So the Republicans have been attacking the FBI at the behest of Donald Trump for quite some time now. Why? Because the FBI is investigating Donald Trump's connections to Russia. Now, if you didn't do it, I've got to say, again, I'm not sure why you'd be on the attack and trying to rip our law enforcement agencies down, it sounds like you're against the rule of law and against cops. The FBI are the top cops in the country. But one of the reasons that they do it, of course, is to poison the well against Robert Mueller. So they want to say, oh, the leadership

is wrong, and they had all these connections to Mueller, and we've got to fire the special counsel. Now, in order to help do that, Devin Nunes, who worked on Trump's transition, wrote a partisan memo as part of the House Intelligence Committee. They released it publicly, and it was a total dud. And everybody who looked at it said, yeah, but you admitted huge parts of the story. A lot of this stuff is misleading. It doesn't tell us anything we didn't know before. So they had hyped it up beyond all reason, as you're about to see in a second.

And it turns out there really wasn't much there at all, as we told you on this program. So was it a mistake to hype? it up that much. And the common, the conventional wisdom right now is, yes, what a bunch of clowns, they hyped it up, and then it fell flat. I think that conventional wisdom is wrong. I think it did serve the purpose that it was intended for. Now, I'm going to show you how much they hyped it up, how over the top it was. Now, remember, after it was released, even other Republicans, including Trey Gowdy, who Nunes said knew more about the intelligence than he did, came out and said, This doesn't prove that there was no Russian connections.

I support Mueller 100%. So all of this was wrong, but nonetheless, watch it, and then I'll tell you the fact that it did have. Requirement to determine the full extent to which the FBI, the DOJ, and special counsel's office have been compromised and corrupted. We know how the deep state has been trying to undermine Donald Trump from the days he was a candidate. Sean, this is bigger than anything anybody can imagine. When you say that, this makes Watergate like stealing a Snickers bar. This, this is a hundred times bigger. This is our government spying on political adversaries.

The Department of Justice and the FBI are corrupt. They're crooked. There's so much smoke here. There's so much suspicion. The evidence has been mounting and mounting and mounting. And one smoking gun after another, it's incontrovertible at this point. Here are two bureau agents talking about a secret society. I don't have any, I don't have a clue what they're talking about.

Secret society within the Justice Department and the FBI. I don't know whether one existed, but you know what, Aaron, it's not my responsibility to prove that. What this is all about is further evidence of corruption, more than biased, but corruption at the highest levels of the FBI in that secret society. So we know the deep state can mobilize if they want to, and they can create false narratives that everybody in the media believes. We are dealing with the world's premier investigative agency here, and people that come forward to us fear retaliation. It's a scary night, but there's going to be a lot of news all week long. We are part of a small group of people. Now, at one point, they said it was what a hundred or a thousand times worse than Watergate.

If you missed it, Sebastian Gorka said it was a hundred times worse than what led to the American Revolution. Now, how's that for hype? Now, as I told you, other Republicans came out afterwards, oops, yeah, it didn't have much in it. But get a load of this. The Huff Post reporting, a new poll that came out, of those Trump voters who've heard about the memo, 79% think it shows that the FBI did something wrong, and more than 80% described the memo's contents as accurate. Now, if you ask that 80%, did you read the memo? I guarantee you that the percentage you read it is in the ballpark of 0.000-0.08, right?

Nobody read that memo. They're like, no, I'm positive. It's accurate, though. And they heard about it. Gee, I wonder where they heard about it. We'll get to more on that in a second. And they never heard that it was inaccurate. That message never reached them. I'll give you some facts on that in a second as well.

So now nearly three quarters of Trump voters, 74%, say that FBI is biased against the president, according to a new Huff Post UGov survey. Now, let's go further. Just under one third of Trump voters say they have even a fair amount of trust in the FBI, while 64% say they don't trust the FBI very much or at all. So he got most of his followers, at least three quarters, to believe. that the FBI is working against them. It's unfair. They're biased. And then he undermined trust in the FBI among Republican voters almost completely. Now nearly two-thirds of Trump voters

say they don't even trust the FBI for anything. Look at how quick that worked. In essence, mission accomplished. He was never going to convince Democrats, and he might have missed some independence, but overall, he wanted his base to think, oh, they're coming to get us unfairly, and they do believe that. And Trump, of course, finished the propaganda circuit by saying, after the memo was released by, by the way, Donald Trump, that it, quote, totally vindicates Trump, calling himself Trump and the third person, of course. Now, it didn't know such thing, but it doesn't matter.

All you have to do is keep lying about it. In fact, the last Republican president explained this phenomenon nearly perfectly. It's the third time I've said that. I'll probably say it three more times. See, in my line of work, you've got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in. To kind of catapult the propaganda. So somebody told Bush that that's how we catapult the propaganda. He was supposed to stop the sentence for the truth to set it, but he couldn't help himself

and accidentally actually catapulted the truth in that last part of the sentence, which was this is how we do propaganda. We just keep on repeating it. Now, they explained that Hillary Clinton voters and independents did not see the memo or the FBI in the same light, and that they still support the FBI overwhelmingly. Now, here comes the interesting part. The two groups are also, meaning the Trump voters and the people who didn't vote for Trump are also getting their news about the memo from distinctly different places.

The majority of both Clinton and Trump voters who followed the story say that cable TV was among the sources they relied on. But while those Clinton voters tuned in largely to CNN and MSNBC, the Trump voters who watched cable coverage of the story were overwhelmingly likely to say they'd seen it on Fox News. So that is why we have the different reality. that we do in America today, where one side gets some degree of facts from traditional media, and you might say with bias loaded in, and everybody's got a different version of what that bias is, the other side has a completely different reality detached from facts altogether. Did the memo actually prove that the FBI was trying to do a coup against the president

or overthrow him or get him out of office? No, not remotely. But Fox News says it anyway, and that becomes the reality for the Trump voters who are not even watching anything else. They're not reading anything else. They're getting all their news from Fox, so they think that's what's true. So that leads us to this divided nation. Huff Post explaining here, overall, that leaves 35% of Americans who've heard about the memo saying that it did, that it shows the FBI did something wrong. and another 34% that it vindicates the Bureau with the rest onshore.

And that's kind of where we have it. A third of the country says Trump is right, facts be damned. A third of the country says Trump is wrong. By the way, that's 34% saying that the memo vindicates the Bureau makes no sense either. The memo is damning of the Bureau. The memo's wrong. That's a different question.

But it doesn't necessarily vindicate the Bureau. So, now you got another third that says, no, Trump is always wrong, and another third sitting in the middle confused. And somewhat rightfully so, look, when you have one side that job is to just do propaganda, because the facts do not suit their purposes, and they attack all the different sources that bring you news, media, professors, schools, schools, scientists. And they replace it with their propaganda that they are catapulting. You set up a dangerous situation where we have a country that lives in two different realities. And that's where we are today. So the FBI, if they come out, the special counsel, with overwhelming evidence that the president has broken a law, or maybe several laws, one third of the country will never believe them. They won't even bother to look at the facts. They won't read it. They'll

tune into Fox News and whatever Fox News tells them and whatever Donald Trump says on his Twitter account, they will repeat. So that sets us up for a crisis. Let's hope it doesn't happen. Let's hope cooler minds prevail at some point, if there is a reckoning. Let's hope that somebody can talk Donald Trump into settling this amicably. As I say that sentence out loud, it certainly doesn't appear that that'll happen. And by the way, it's also possible that Mueller doesn't get him, in which case, yes, then he'll continue on with the rest of his term, and the reckoning will come in an election, and which is great, and they should.

And let's hope those elections are fair and honest, and that they don't pull two different realities on an election. But as things stand now, if Mueller does find evidence of a crime, about 35% of the country will likely never believe it. That's pretty dangerous. All right, we got to take a break. Afterwards, like I told you, we're going to talk a little bit about the stock market collapse and the Republicans' hilarious excuse for it and a prosperity preacher spreading disease. Amusingly so, but still problematic. We'll show you.

You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like to full show, which is actually five segments, go to TYT Network.com, slash join. You become a member. You support the show. You support independent media. And you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now. All right, back on the Young Turks, Jen and Anna with you guys. So, you know, one of the problems with the Copeland's is, I'll read you a tweet first. Chris says, is it just me or does every prosperity feature have the most stereotypically southern drawl ever?

Yes, the only thing missing is at the end of it, you know, but look, among the different problems that they create, one of them is that they give all other religious figures a bad name. And so listen to any Martin Luther King's speech. It talks about Jesus nonstop, but talks about him in a positive light where he's going to lift you up. And he's not going to rob you of your money to buy a private jet. He's not going to tell you that, hey, don't worry about this flu shot. I already gave you the flu shot. It's not going to lie to you, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's some good preachers out there, but man, the right wing has perverted it in a way that is unfortunate.

So now when you hear, you start, you know, unfortunately because these guys run for the hills. Real quick, isn't it true, though, of pretty much everything? I mean, it's always the worst in every organization, every business, every industry that gets the most attention, and then it basically brings an entire profession down, you know? Unfortunately, the squeaky wheels do get the grease. Always. And squeaky and corrupt and bad intent and all that stuff. All right, last couple of tweets for you.

Trey Beatty says, thank you for the folks at TYT and Vestis for the great work following breaking and following up on stories that the mainstream media isn't covering. Well, thank you, Trey. And thank you to you guys in the audience, because you made that possible. You're the guys who funded TYT Investigates, so that is what allows us to break those stories on issues of policy where people are not paying attention. And Jashiro says,

Jank, I casually made my roommate listen to you guys. He's now a member of TYT. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Jashiro. We really appreciate that. Speaking of members, members of the day are James Underwood and Sheila Campbell. And today in the post game, Anna, I am going to give you a bomb, B-A-L-M, a bomb to cure the... Like a lip-bomb?

Like a bomb that heals. To make the wounded hole. Okay. So, as Martin Luther King would say. Because I'm going to read you conversion therapy stories from TYT. Oh, okay. Okay. Conversion therapy has a negative. I know, I know, but we, this is from conservative to progressive. Okay. You're going to love these stories. Okay. Okay. TYT Network.com slash join to hear all that. All right, Anna, what's next?

Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee are investigating FEMA and its inability to grant contracts to companies that are doing, that could do a decent job in providing disaster relief to the victims of hurricane, Korea and Puerto Rico. Now, the New York Times wrote this explosive piece indicating that FEMA has granted contracts to groups of people and companies that are shady and questionable to say the least. In fact, it profiles the story of tribute contracting LLC, which was given the task of delivering 30 million meals to Puerto Ricans who are suffering from the ramifications of that storm. Well, they failed to deliver those meals. In fact, they only delivered about tens of thousands of them before their contract was terminated. So the Department of Homeland Security has doled out more than $1 billion in contracts related to Hurricane Maria.

So it's quite a bit of money. But a lot of those contracts went to companies that haven't done a sufficient job in fulfilling their role. FEMA taps Tiffany Brown, an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large-scale disaster relief, and at least five canceled government contracts in her past. FEMA awarded her $156 million for the job of delivering these 30 million meals. Now, you might be wondering, okay, what are these other government contracts that got canceled? And why would FEMA give her a contract if she's had problems with the federal government in the past? Well, four cancellations involved the federal prison system, which found that tribute failed to deliver meat,

bakery, cereal, and other food products to various correctional institutions. A fifth termination involved the government publishing office, which terminated a contract for 3,000 tote bags after tribute failed to print the Marine Corps logo on both sides of the bags. By the way, the government publishing office also noted that she never sent anything on time. She was always late. I figured it out, Anna. So I was wondering, why give her another contract too? Well, if your job is to destroy the government, she's actually a perfect candidate.

Because remember, Scott Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times to try to destroy the EPA's regulations. They put him in charge of the EPA. Department of Energy, Rick Perry said we should eliminate it. It comes to the Secretary of Energy on and on and on. So here's another person. Oh, we want to deliver food? No, we don't. We want to destroy government.

So let's hire the most incompetent person we can to do it. So look, I don't blame you for thinking that way because we need. know that Republicans and Republicans are in charge right now hate government programs that aid Americans. They don't want our taxpayer money going toward helping our fellow Americans. But this type of behavior happened during the Obama administration quite a bit. So some of these contracts do date back to Obama's administration. Now, just quickly going back to the issue of delivering meals to Puerto Ricans, remember, her company, by the way, she is, the only person in that company. All she does is hire subcontractors to do the work.

Was supposed to deliver the 30 million meals, but by the time 18.5 million meals were due, tribute had only delivered 50,000. The food had been packaged separately from the pouches used to heat them. FEMA solicitation required self-heating meals. So once they realized that they weren't packaged the way that they were supposed to be, FEMA was upset. And so They sent her a notice indicating that they are going to terminate the contract. The notice indicated, do not ship another meal, your contract is terminated. This is a logistical nightmare. So look, it's just interesting because, again, she had five previous contracts that had been terminated.

Yes, there were other government organizations. It wasn't FEMA. But shouldn't they communicate with one another and understand that, hey, maybe this isn't the right person to hire? to do this job, especially to the tune of millions of dollars, $156 million. Yeah. So, look, the government needs to do this job because you're not going to get people, companies set up to just do charity. Companies are set up to do for-profit stuff.

Now, government can contract out to companies, obviously, but this is what is part of the essential services of the government. Yes, it is frustrating that oftentimes the government has a bureaucracy that doesn't work. And if we were Republicans, I'd say, well, the reason she didn't do her job under Obama is because of Trump. That's what Hannity claimed today. The stock market crash under Trump was because of Obama. Right. Okay, but we're actually honest people.

So, no, it was terrible that she didn't deliver under Obama. But we already knew that. So why hire her again under Trump? So that is deeply frustrating. And it doesn't mean, by the way, that the government shouldn't do this, that if you are a victim of a hurricane and you need food, the government shouldn't come to your rescue. Ah, small government, yeah, it doesn't give you the answer. What we need to do is have government work better, and oftentimes it does, but in this

case it clearly did not. So what I'm about to say is pure speculation, so I want to be clear about that. This is just where my mind is kind of going when it comes to these. government contracts. We know that when it comes to government contracts given to defense contractors, it's because there are campaign donations involved behind the scenes. So I don't know. I haven't investigated this. As far as I know, I haven't found any investigation indicating that people like Tiffany Brown had contributed some campaign dollars to politicians, which then led to these contracts. But I do find it strange that she repeatedly gets these contracts and then

fails to deliver. Well, speaking of big government, small government, and what the government should do and shouldn't do, those defense contractors often build planes that cost us billions upon billions of dollars that never work or ships likewise. And they're giant boondoggles. So if you say you don't like big government in that respect, I hear you, brother. And it's one thing when you absolutely need to feed people who are hungry who are suffering from a natural disaster. It's another thing to build extra ships and planes we didn't need in the first place. So all the money that all those defense contractors pocketed and a lot of those planes never when they are in the first place.

Now the Republican logic is, well, look at that. Now we're unsafe. Are we? Now we're unsafe and now we've got to throw more money in defense spending. Yeah. So, look, the correct answer is not small government or big government. It is a government that is suited for the purposes that it is addressing and should be addressing. So this is a core function of government.

We need to do it better, and we need to have the contractors picked. And I totally empathize with Anna's speculation on this story because what are we seen in the past? It isn't about the size of the government. it's about who's doing the job. Why? Because oftentimes they gave donations to the politicians. So right or wrong, competent or incompetent, they're going to get the contracts, which certainly applies to the defense contractors as well. And so that is the heart of the problem oftentimes.

In this case, we know the symptom, which is that those poor people didn't get their food that they were supposed to, maybe somebody will look into and figure out what was the root cause of the problem. Right. And Democrats, again, in the House Judiciary Committee, are investigating this to figure out what's going on. But I do want to leave you with one fascinating tidbit that just, you know, perfectly sums up this story. In November, the Associated Press found that after Hurricane Maria, FEMA awarded more than $30 million in contracts for emergency tarps and plastic sheeting to a company that never delivered the needed supply. So that's what's going on.

Okay, let's move on to some pretty devastating news and our president's ridiculous response to it. 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 the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install.

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On Sunday morning, there was a tragic death involving an NFL player by the name of Edwin Jackson. He was the Indianapolis Colts linebacker, and he was in an Uber at that time when a drunk driver, unfortunately, hit the car and he lost his life, and so did the individual driving the Uber. Now, CBS's this morning has more on the story. Let's take a look at that, and then I'll give you Trump's reaction to it. Around 4 o'clock Sunday morning in Indianapolis, Jackson and his Uber driver, Jeffrey Monroe, were killed. Their car was pulled over on the side of Interstate 70 because Jackson felt sick. Both of the men were outside of the vehicle when a black Ford F-150 truck plowed into them.

The force of the impact threw one of the men into the center lane where he was later accidentally struck by a state police vehicle. You know, he looked at me like a brother, just like to look to him like a brother. That's Jackson's roommate, Chad Boucher, who had gone out with him. him the night he was killed. He actually did the right thing and he took an Uber. He was making the right steps to get home safely and not put anyone else in harm's way. The driver of the truck, Manuel Oriego Savala, was arrested with a blood alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit. According to a police affidavit, the suspect used an alias and was in the country illegally. Investigators say he was deported to Guatemala in 2007 and again in 2009. So he was deported twice.

but he found his way back into the United States. He was undocumented, obviously, and drunk behind the wheel. He is in custody. Now, Trump used this as an opportunity to push his anti-immigration agenda. In a tweet, he said the following, so disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed Colts linebacker, Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the border and with illegal immigration fast.

So this is, to be expected from Trump, he continuously makes the case that people who are in the country illegally are more likely to commit violent crimes and more likely to drive drunk. But the studies that have been done on this very issue prove otherwise, and we'll get into those details in just a moment. But it is a tragic story, and I'm devastated for Jackson's family. So look, if you wanted to target any group, you could do it super easily. there's thousands of homicides, for example, every year. There's thousands of drunk driving accidents every year. And so if you want to target Asians, for example, you could take examples of three drunk driving crashes, five, 17 in the country easily.

And just talk about it nonstop. Go, oh, my God. And then this person was killed by an Asian driver. This person was killed by an Asian driver until everybody's like, oh, my God, what's going not with Asian drivers? Oh my God, this is an epidemic. But in reality, you can look at the numbers and say, wait, is there a disproportionate number of people being killed by Asian drunk drivers or Asian homicides or whatever it is that they're making up? I'm taking a random hypothetical. And the reality would be, no, there is no epidemic and it is not statistically different

than anything else. In this case, let's find out. Let's go to the facts. Do undocumented immigrants create and commit more crime or not? Right. So let's first go to data that we have from the census. So analysis of census data from 1980 to 2010 show that among men ages 18 to 49, immigrants were one half to one fifth as likely to be incarcerated as those born in the United States. So, you know, this talking point that we hear time and time again from the hard right is not true. They're not more likely to be violent criminals. No, no, but it's worse than that. No, citizens are more likely to commit crimes, period.

Period. Period. In that 18 to 49 year old group, and that is a huge study from 1980 to 2010. So when you hear, oh, these immigrants are creating more crimes, it's just not true. The opposite is true. Now, that doesn't mean we should kick out all the citizens and leave only the undocumented people. That is preposterous. But understand that it is demagoguery not backed up by the facts at all. It is the opposite of what is true. So if you look at the general undocumented population in the United States, about 7% of the nation's population are non-citizens, while figures from the Justice Department show that about 5% of inmates in state and federal prisons are non-citizens, right?

So, you know, if you take into account the general population of non-citizens in the country and then look at the number of inmates, you can tell that there's a, you know, there's a bit of a gap there. And by the way, what are they in prison for? Well, about one-third of non-citizen federal inmates are serving time for immigration offenses, usually re-entering the country after being deported. So it's not like these are all, the people who are behind bars are all violent non-citizens, oftentimes they just came back to the country after they had already been deported. And so they got, you know, they were put in custody again.

So look, we've got 7% of the country's non-citizens, but only 5% of the prisoners are non-citizens. So they are, again, another fact showing that they are less likely to commit criminal acts. Now, a lot of them are minorities. We've shown you other studies that show that minorities are disproportionately targeted by police. So they're actually more likely to be in prison because of that fact, but still they're in prison less than the average citizen. And then on top of that, a third of them are in prison just for being undocumented. If you took that away, it's even more disproportionate

and gets you to about what the other study showed that they're half as likely as an average American to commit a crime. And what's interesting is that the Cato Institute, you know, has investigated this. Kato Institute is by no means a progressive organization. They're, they're libertarians. And they've looked at this issue. And one of the researchers with the Kato Institute said, it doesn't matter what I try to do with the numbers, no matter what, we come out with the same result. Non-citizens are not more likely or even as likely as U.S. citizens to commit crimes. Now let's look at drunk driving specifically, because that's what this story, of course, has to do with. Now, as the percentage of inmates without papers rose in the United States

population between 1990 and 2014, arrest for drugs and drunken driving dropped. And that's according to a study in the American Journal of Public Health. So we have more undocumented immigrants coming into the country. But if you look at the stats involving drunk driving, you see a significant drop. With every 1% increase in the proportion of undocumented immigrants in a population of 100,000, There were 42 fewer drunk driving arrests, 22 fewer drug arrests, and roughly one less drug overdose. Also, the number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States tripled from an estimated 3.5 million in 1990 to an estimated 10.9 million in 2014. At the same time, violent crime rates fell by half. So if there was an epidemic of crime brought in by undocumented immigrants, crime would not have gone.

down, it would have gone up. Now, there are actually many factors as to why violent crime went down significantly in that time period. But the idea that immigrants brought in a wave of crime is preposterous, totally counterfactual. So when you see stories like this, it's easy to say, oh, okay, if we didn't have undocumented immigrants, well, then that wouldn't have happened. And Edwin Jackson would be alive today. Well, Edwin Jackson would likely be alive today if that particular immigrant was not in the country or had not been drinking, et cetera. And it is

a tragedy. But to use that tragedy for your own political purposes and demagogue over it and to create a misleading anecdote which is the opposite of what the reality in this country is, that's where the problem lies. That is where the problem lies. And I also just want to make a quick

point about how Trump loves, absolutely loves to use certain people as props when it fits his political agenda. But as soon is it doesn't fit his political agenda, he'll turn around and call them sons of bitches. So that's something to also keep in mind whenever he has the audacity to tweet about a tragedy like this for political purposes. Yeah, so if you're a black football player who took a knee during the national anthem, you're a son of a bitch who should be fired. But if you got

run over by an undocumented immigrant, all of a sudden, he's like, oh my God, now I get to blame them too. Thank you for being my prop. And that makes this story particularly sick. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, Uma Thurman speaks out against Harvey Weinstein and also shares an incredible and devastating video. And then later on, Ryan Sechrest clears his name after he was accused of mistreating an employee. Come right back. Thanks for watching.

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