The Young Turks - The Young Turks 12.01.17: Flynn, Undocumented Immigrant Acquitted, and Taxpayer Sexual Harassment Settlements

Episode Date: December 6, 2017

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from December 1st, 2017. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1: Cenk, Ana, & John. Flynn pleads guilty to lying to FBI. What this means for Trump’s & GOP’s future. Tax bill update. Trump teases shutdown as Democrats’ fault.  Hour 2: Cenk, Ana, & Stephania Jimenez. Undocumented immigrant acquitted of murder. TX lawmaker used taxpayer money to pay off sexual assault accusers. Minnesota lawmaker: Philando Castile settlement will be spent on crack-cocaine. Man with AK-47 said he was out to fight the lizard people. 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. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off.

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It's because Adam and John are on the power panel. You guys speak so much about you how I do that. Anyway, all right, guys, Giant Newsday. It's hearing when he just goes, drop it, I guess. Yeah, whatever. Okay, so fine, John Liderola, Anna Conspary, and Jake, you are here. Anna's back from doing a panel with Bernie Sanders, not a big deal, slash loved it. Slash noticed when you said Justice Democrats, he went like this.

He did do that. Yes, justicedemocrats.com. Okay. Anyway. So Flynn, obviously giant news. We're going to get to that in a second. But also later in the program, taxes, what did I tell you that that one thing they would pass before Trump goes is tax cuts? All right, we'll get to that.

We'll get to that. And then shut down on the federal government. Why? The Republicans control everything. Well, Trump might want to shut down. It's crazy. Okay, we'll get to that. And then ladies gentlemen, we've got someone else, too, Republican in questionable pajamas

who apparently had to settle sexual harassment claims. So that's later in the program as well. And then, oh, one of the most racist things I've ever heard is the, what is it? The second and the last story. So it's... Yeah, that's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. Okay.

All that's coming up, but without further ado, the Mike Flynn story. Okay. Dramatic news breaking this morning, President Trump's former national security advisor, Michael T. Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador last December, becoming the first senior White House official to pledge cooperation in the special counsel's wide-ranging inquiry of election meddling.

News has been breaking from that all day since then, but although we knew this was going to happen, Flynn has gone down. And so, Jenk, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTRTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you'd 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. Damn straight. Okay, down goes Flynn. Down goes Flynn. Down goes Flynn. So they got them on a shout, shout charge, a little charge.

A little charge, okay? There's a lot more they could have gotten them on, but that's the whole point of a plea deal. Yes. I give you a little charge, you give me a lot of information. Of course, the big question is, what's a lot of information? Yeah. And Flynn could have the mother load.

So, John, more details. Yeah, so we're going to break into a little bit later on our speculation about what could come out of this, who else might be dragged into this section based on what we think Flynn might know. But first, let's break down what Flynn actually admitted to do it. So court documents say that on December 29th of last year, Mr. Flynn called a senior transition official who was with other members of the team at Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, quote, to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian ambassador about the U.S. sanctions. Of course, importantly, this is before Donald Trump was present, this during the

transition period. The next day after that conversation, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his government would not immediately retaliate against the United States, his condemnation of the sanctions. So they talk to themselves, what should we say to the Russians about these sanctions? The next day, Vladimir Putin makes a big change. He doesn't retaliate. But so far, it's just Flynn and maybe he talked to someone. I don't think anyone else was involved.

But then you could look at this tweet. Great move on delay by Vladimir Putin. I always knew he was very smart coming out the day after Flynn's conversation on the phone. Seems like he was paying attention to this issue. I have a feeling they probably looped him in. I believe that's a Robert Mueller. Now, we've got some other stuff that we have to discuss involving Kushner and Israeli settlements. But first off with this, one of the reasons this is important is that although nobody cares about this law, that sort of behavior is technically a federal crime. It goes against the Logan Act. The Logan Act is the United States federal law intended to prevent the undermining of the government's position. It makes it a felony for unauthorized citizens who negotiate with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States, which is obviously. what that's intended to do. It's talking to Russia about the Obama administration's changes to the policy and then trying to change Russia's retaliation against that policy.

Now, no one has ever actually gone to jail for breaking the Logan Act. It's a very old law. It's still technically a felony. I just think it's amazing that some law is just like, eh, it's old. Who cares? You can just do whatever you want. So let's lay out further details about what he could have been convicted on and what he has pled guilty. So he pled guilty on lying to the FBI. But since John is right that most people don't pursue the Logan Act, if he had just told the FBI, yeah, I talked to the Russian ambassador. And yes, technically we're not in office yet.

We're going to be in office in about a month. But I wanted to start negotiations on both the sanctions front, but also the Israeli settlements. Fairly inconceivable that that would have created any kind of controversy. that the FBI would have been like, oh, no, that's a big deal. I mean, Netanyahu called Trump and wanted to make sure that they didn't suffer any international consequences for continuing to occupy the Palestinians. That's American Foreign Policy 101. No way anybody was going to get into trouble for that.

But he lied to the FBI anyway, which is what triggered not only the charges, but then the question of why? Why are you bothering to cover this up? And it turns out he covered a lot of stuff up, and there's good reason for that. Before we jump into more analysis, I do want to show you just one or two videos. It's been a rough year, okay? So this whole thing will make you feel a little bit better. If we can go, here is Flynn leaving the courthouse after what happened this morning.

Lock him up. Lock him up. Lock him up. Lock him up. Lock him up. Now, just in case you're coming to this story a little bit later, and you think that that's just an unruly mob. It's actually a reference to something involving Flynn.

Here he is speaking at the RNC, this last go-around. 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 cyber criminals.

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That's EXP-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We, we do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law. Lock her up. That's right. Yes, that's right. Lock her up.

I'm going to tell you right. It's unbelievable. You guys are good. Damn right. you're exactly right there's nothing wrong with that you know why we're saying that we're saying that because if i a guy who knows this business if i did a tenth a tenth of what she did i would be in jail today uh well can do did do so he's he's not yet in jail and by the way even on this

relatively light charge given what he could have gotten and that's again the point of the plea deal he could still get up to five years in prison so that lock him up indeed and he didn't do one-tenth of what Hillary Clinton did he did far worse right and also you know

you can understand why he would take a plea deal because based on the charges he was previously facing he was looking to serve up to 60 years in prison but you know who knows whether or not he would get that full sentence but that is a serious sentence that I think he wanted to avoid. And one thing I wanted to just quickly add, I think what you see throughout this whole Russia

investigation, whether it's involving Flynn or other individuals who are part of Trump's campaign or I should say administration or Trump himself is this unwillingness to be forthcoming. And why? Why? If you didn't do anything wrong, why don't you just tell the truth throughout this entire process? They just keep, you know, lying and hiding things. So now, there's two possible reasons for Flynn's cover-ups and lies. One is personal, and the other one is about the campaign and the administration. So he's got his own mess when it comes to not just the Russian government, but the Turkish government. So not only did he take about $530,000 from the Turkish government and did not reveal it, which is another violation of the law,

it was done through a shell company that was Dutch. So he pretended it was Dutch, but he knew, in fact, it was the Turkish government giving him the money. So that's a more serious violation. But worse yet, he was in a meeting with Turkish officials where they talked about kidnapping someone inside the United States for $15 million. And now it gets worse. His son was also involved in that. So not only did he face up to 60 years for all the different charges, but his son faced

some serious jail time as well. And that knucklehead, Mike Flynn Jr., is one of the dumbest guys in America. America. So unsurprising that that clown got his dad, who was also a clown into big trouble and Trump as well. So if they had just gotten convicted on the Turkish government stuff and the Russian government stuff that he didn't admit to, he had gotten money, for example, from RT to go visit Putin, $45,000, and he had gotten money from Russian business interests on that same trip for about $22,000. Okay, you think, well, he actually could do that. Jill Stein was at that same dinner. I don't know if she got paid.

But that's not that big a deal, you just reveal it, right? But again, he lied about it, and he pretended it was U.S. companies that paid him on the trip. Why? Because that leads to, is there something else going on with Flynn and Trump in regards to Russia? And I think that that's the mother load. That's the really interesting part here. And Robert Mueller, who is an excellent prosecutor, is not going to give him a plea deal when he was facing all of those serious charges because he gave him mediocre. information. Flynn obviously gave him really good information about people higher up in the chain, and particularly one guy higher up in the chain named Trump. Well, it's interesting that you bring up the sun. People have been speculating for what feels

like months now, that that might be the thing that gets him to finally flip and assist the special counsel's investigation. Here is Flynn's statement that came out today, which maybe gets into that just a little bit. In a statement, Flynn said he acknowledged that his actions were wrong, and through my faith in God, I am working to set things right. I don't know if God was in favor of the $15 million for the kidnapping. I don't know where God stands on that. My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the special counsel's office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of my country.

I accept full responsibility for my actions. Full responsibility for the ones that I am now going to be charged with, not with the others, because I'm doing the deal. There's no responsibility for the other one. And for the best interests of my family. Yes. And now you want to hear something amazing, a kind of a hero in a roundabout way of this story, is in neocod.

What? Okay, it's a guy I totally utterly disagree with. He's helped to start the Iraq war. I couldn't disagree with him more. But James Woolsey, former CIA director, was in the meeting where the Turkish officials are like, hey, you want 15 million bucks for the kidnapping. And Woolsey's like, I'll see you guys later. He gets out and leaves.

And then he's like, what are you guys doing? No, no. And he told the government that the Flynn boys were interested in that deal. And that's part of what got them in so much trouble. So there's a couple of other aspects about this that we're going to discuss, but I want to drill down on one thing because right now we've got these conversations that he lied about to the FBI. That's why he's flipped now. But this really takes the entire thing full circle, starting with the Comey incidents, his firing, you know, why Robert Mueller is brought on. All of that did originally start with Flynn. So I want to go through a couple of steps that really, I think, make that very clear. Now understand that the White House. is saying that nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn, which they're allowed to say for now, I guess. But let's talk about some times. So the charging document shows Flynn lied to the FBI agents January 24th, about two specific conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kisiliak a month before. Two days after Flynn lied to the FBI, acting attorney general Sally Yates warned White House counsel Don McGahn. Those false statements made the national security advisor vulnerable to blackmail by Russian.

Now, understand, importantly, they didn't care originally about that. They thought that, yeah, so what? We can all be flipped. But anyway, going on, the following day after he lied, then January 27th, George Papadopoulos also lied to the FBI about his own repeated contacts with Russian agents. President Donald Trump summoned immediately after that, then FBI director James Come into the White House later that evening for a private. dinner where the president asked for his loyalty, the conversation that originally caused him to no longer feel that Comey would be loyal to him. On January 28th, Trump and his Russian counterpart

Vladimir Putin spoke by phone, and it's believed that Flynn was also involved in that call. So look inside of just the span of one week. You have Flynn and Papadopoulos lying about their contacts with the Russians. You have totally unconnected because Trump didn't know about any of this. Immediately after they both lie to the FBI, Trump has a dinner with the FBI director where he says he's going to need him to pledge his loyalty. And then immediately after that, talks of Vladimir Putin over the phone. That is a weird week early on. It's the first week of the presidency. So way too many cover-ups if this was just about, oh, in the transition, we talked to the ambassador of Russia. No, that's not what this is about. There's way too many

cover-ups for that. Again, Mueller wouldn't offer a plea deal on something so small anyway, if that was just what they were worried about. But secondly, that Comey conversation is so important. And Flynn flipping is so important because if it turns out that Trump asked Comey to take eat easy on Flynn, because hey, he's a good guy, he's my friend. You know, like we grew up together and ate bagels for lunch at the cafeteria. I don't know, whatever, right? Some absurd reason having nothing to do with Trump's cover up, well, that it's harder

to make an obstruction of justice case. But if Flynn tells the authorities, no, Trump was trying to get me off because we were colluding with the Russians together, obstruction of justice, and Trump is screwed. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, I don't know how likely it is that it'll play out that way, but I think you make a really good point about Bob Mueller being a great prosecutor and how he's not going to give him a plea deal that's significant for a lack of really good information, incriminating information. And also remember, Trump just flat out ignored the warnings from Yates, which John mentioned. And then Trump, on several different occasions, tried to get individuals investigating this case to just drop it, whether it were members of Congress that are, you know, doing an investigation or firing Comey. That's another example.

Like, there's all sorts of weird, shady stuff going on, and you pile that on to the fact that they're not being forthcoming about their contacts with Russian officials. Yeah, so as you were just implying earlier this summer, this was broken, I believe, yesterday by the New York Times. Trump phoned senior Republicans in Congress to get them to stop the investigations, including speaking directly with Richard Burr, the leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee probe. Now, Burr and others say, oh, he just doesn't know what's appropriate or inappropriate, but this continues a month's long campaign of trying to stop these investigations, which if all it was was that they misremembered some benign, innocent phone calls seems like a sort of, bizarre level of interest that he's taking. I mean, even pulling Comey aside and talking to him, just because he thought that Flynn had misspoken about some conversations, does anyone actually believe that that's what was driving Trump? Not just to fire the head of the FBI to protect his friend, but then, and I realized so much has happened, it's easy to forget this stuff.

Immediately after, like a few weeks or a month after he'd been fired, he was talking with his aides about rehiring him. He apparently made a phone call to Flynn, even though. No, Bannon had told him not to, telling him to stay strong. And in March of this year, there was the leak from Flynn's team saying that he was looking into potentially doing some sort of deal with the investigation. And at that point, they said that he had a story to tell with the idea being that if you're doing this so early, when barely any of the investigatory work had been done, you're worried not just that you could go down, but that other people have a story too. And if you're not the first to get to the investigators, you suddenly might not be as valuable. And that's why he made the insane move, which is not normally done, of making it public that he was looking to make a deal. And finally, and again, I understand there's two layers of problems for Trump.

One is the actual collusion with the Russians, if Flynn knows about that and then has information. The second is the obstruction of justice where he's trying to stop this investigation. And Anna and John were just referring to that. And there's this quote from Donald Trump on Twitter where he said, Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that it is a witch hunt, excuse for big election launched by media and Dems of historic proportion. Well, there you are committing obstruction of justice in plain sight, saying to a guy under investigation, ask for immunity, okay?

And especially when you're the guy who could one day, for example, give a pardon to that same guy, it's basically saying, look, I try. try to get the FBI director to drop the investigation, he wouldn't do it. Now you're under further investigation. So I'm now telling you publicly to ask for immunity because I, you know, I don't want you to get in trouble and I got your back. So there's, and now that Flynn has flipped and is willing to give information on whatever they did internally, the fact that Trump was trying to cover that up seems apparent and

obvious. So on the obstruction, even if the collusion charge, we don't know much about yet. because we don't know what Flynn is told Mueller. The obstruction charge is right in front of all of us. He did it publicly. The only question was Flynn going to flip. And now that he has, they're almost certainly going to get him on obstruction. And so I'm glad that you brought up that tweet.

So I have that tweet here. And it came just a couple of weeks after it came out from Flynn's team that he was looking to potentially make a deal. So it's not just that he's doing the obstruction of justice, but he's trying to reassure this guy, no, don't turn on me. But if it is just a witch hunt, at the end of the day, they still need to find something. So you wouldn't be worried if there was nothing there. But he's willing to do this public thing to reassure this guy not to flip on him, knowing there is something that he can tell them at that point. And again, while all of this might seem like, we still don't really understand why the phone calls were going on and all of that, understand that there's

some other important, very real aspects to this. If this thing is, as we've believed for a long time having to do largely with sanctions and some other related financial issues, why is it that after the Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, passed new sanctions on Russia earlier this year, they still haven't been put into effect? I mean, they were talking about sanctions with Russia all that time ago, and now they didn't get rid of the old ones to their credit. But now there's these new ones, and they refuse to actually act on them. So it seems like they didn't just have some sort of deal, but they're doing their side of the deal in plain sight every day by not instituting those sanctions. And why is it that immediately after the transition starts, they begin having

all of these conversations with Russia that they feel they have to lie about, as if the first priority for a new president is making sure you talk about these sanctions with Russia. Why is that? Why is that your priority? I understand, okay, there's the thing about the Israeli settlements. And as you pointed out, everybody tries to let that keep going on. And so maybe that's a little bit less sketchy, although why they felt they could speak with Russia about striking down the U.S.'s position in the U.N., why are the allies on that? Fine, that maybe makes a little bit more sense. But that was their first priority coming in is do this shady stuff that you'll eventually

have to lie about. Why is it so important to them? Damn, John, you're going to night school to be a prosecutor or something? That's such a passionate argument. You're out of order. All right. So now let's break down the possible consequences for Donald Trump out of this Mike Flynn plea deal.

Break first, just because that might go into a lengthy conversation. All right, so let's take a quick break here and then possible consequences for Trump when we come back. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free, these are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join, and you'll get the whole five segments, two hours. Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the other than the blah, drop it. since April 2014.

Does the 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock. Emmy nominated anchor there. Steph, great to have you here. Thank you. It's awesome to be here. I've been a longtime TYT fan. I've been watching y'all since 2008. Wow.

We get a y'all out of this. Okay. You can tell she's from Texas. All right, fantastic. Great to have you here. Thank you. All right, let me read a couple of quick tweets about the mass of Mike Flynn news, and then we'll go on to taxes and everything else.

Emily Vandermielan writes in, looking like the first person he flipped on is Jared. Emily, thanks for writing that in. It's a story we didn't get to with John because we're running short on time. But real quick, it turns out that Flynn might have done this deal earlier and told him information about what he knows about Jared Kushner. Then Mueller talked to Kushner, and if Kushner lied in that conversation with Mueller, then they got him because they already know what Flynn said.

And so Kushner might be first up in terms of the next set of charges. Eric Rooney says, I like presidents who aren't about to be impeached. Rita Ann says, I can't see Trump resigning unless the threat of losing money is there. No, Rita Ann, the threat of handcuffs, if any of, like, even if 33% of this plays out is so real that all of a sudden, oh my God, I think I lost my mind. I can't remember anything. I got to resign. The reason I keep talking about Alzheimer's is the excuse to resign is that way he doesn't have to be let out in handcuffs. then you can't, and the Republicans aren't going to want to have him in prison, he's not going to want to be in prison, and then if he stays in fights, we're going to have, we might have civil war. I mean, his MAGA guys are lunatics. Well, I'm worried that if he is impeached and he does step down, that we'll still have that problem. That's why they're going to do a secret deal. They're going to do a deal about like, oh, golly gee, I guess there was a little bit of collusion and obstruction. Let's leave the Russian financial.

deal out, you claim Alzheimer's and we're done with this thing, right? That's my belief, but we'll see how that plays out. And then finally, Frank Tortorello. Tortorello? I'm from Jersey, I should be able to say that. Anyway, why none of this shit has taken him down yet is because the Republicans would not do anything until they push his tax shit through. After that, wait for it.

Bye-bye, Trumpy. And which leads us perfectly into the next story. And exactly what I've said from day one. I said the one thing they'll get done is the tax cuts, and then Trump will go. And here we are. All right, so let's get to it. There are a lot of updates on the Senate version of the tax bill, and I want to make sure you guys know the details. The Senate has tinkered with the original version of the tax bill, and now there are officials saying that the version that the version that they currently have will nail the votes necessary to pass this version.

Now, after Republicans resume negotiations early on Friday with the last few holdouts, Republican Senators, Steve Danes, Ron Johnson, and Jeff Flake announced they would back the bill, as did Senators James Lankford and Jerry Moran. Now, another senator to keep in mind is Susan Collins. Based on the reporting that I've seen so far, she seems like she's still kind of wavering. And I'll tell you why in a minute, but they have made some concessions in order to get these senators to agree to vote in favor of the tax bill? Delegate Susan Collins, too. Can I say it now?

Oh, all these Republicans that said, oh, they're not so sure about the tax cuts are all actually going to vote for giant tax cuts for the rich. Of course. Of course they are. That's the whole point of being a Republican is to give tax cuts to the rich. So there was never any question. That's why, look, a part of me, of course, understands why the mainstream media has to say, well, Susan, Collins is wavering. Ron Johnson says he cares about small business. Because if you're working at Reuters, you can't say Ron Johnson's a liar. He doesn't care about small business. He's definitely going to vote for this tax cut. That's my job. Okay, but I told you from day one, Ron Johnson

doesn't give a name about small business. And at the end, all of them will vote for the tax cut, and they are. So look, some of them did demand things. It appears they've been promised to get. Shows, shou things. Now, you're right, they are shou-show. But Mitch McConnell says, you know, we have the votes. Sometime today, we will wrap up. And keep in mind that they are really in a rush to pass this through, right? And I had no doubt that there wouldn't be as much difficulty with the tax bill as there was with the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.

This is something that Republicans have always been in favor of, and they didn't have to worry about disagreement as much as they did. the Affordable Care Act. Now let's talk about the concessions. So Danes and Johnson, Senators Danes and Johnson, announced their support for the bill on Friday after winning more tax relief for non-corporate pass-through businesses. These include most American business enterprises from mom and pop concerns to large financial and real estate organizations. The bill now features a 23% tax deduction for such business owners up from the original 17.4%. So these small businesses, as you mentioned earlier, will be getting more of a deduction under this bill. But you say it's Shao, Shao. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

No, it's actually more tax cuts for the rich. So yes, some of them will go to mom and pop stores and smaller businesses. Like the Young Turks used to be a pass-through business, and we would have gotten a benefit out of that in the old days, okay? But it also applies to really large businesses like Donald Trump's business. Real estate or businesses. Yeah. And some of those are gigantic worth billions of dollars. So the concession they got for small business owners was more tax cuts for a lot of billionaires and millionaires. That's not a concession. Yeah. That's okay. I'm going to take more from the middle class and give it to richer people. No, but you make a great point because one thing that you should keep in mind as I go through these

concessions, they're not concessions to help the little guy. They're concessions to further help, you know, those who are already standing to benefit somewhat from this tax bill. Remember, this is the Senate plan. The same Senate plan that essentially will tax graduate students if their tuition was waived because they agreed to work on campus. They will be taxed on their stipend, which is a very, you know, measly amount of money that students get to live off of. But on top of that, they'll be taxed on their tuition that has been waived.

So when they file their taxes, they're going to have to deal with the gigantic tax bill, which is out of control. And they're not talking about, oh, we can't do that to students who are already grappling with student loan debt that they can never get rid of in bankruptcy. We're talking about concessions that further help, you know, people who are already at an advantage. And you talk about this a lot on the show. I do. I care about this a lot. Of course, everybody should, but student loan debt has already surpassed a credit card debt. So we already know that it's a big issue in this country. But yeah, I was going over some of the things that aren't discussed directly, as it refers to this tax cut or this bill, excuse me.

It would make it so that, let's just say the House version makes it so that 10% of your gross income. If you spend more than 10% of your gross income on medical expenses, you can no longer write that off on your taxes. So this hurts the sick people. It hurts. Also, it triggers cuts to the Medicare program because the measure requires cuts. to the federal program if the deficit increases. And it's been projected that it will increase the deficit. So that's going to happen to. Step, let me just jump in there for a second because that's the one thing that Susan Collins

pretends to care about. And she says, well, I don't want to cut Medicare because I told everybody for years and years that I wouldn't do that. And so, but it does cut Medicare. So what are you going to do about that, Susan Collins? She's still going to vote yes. But she said yesterday, it's okay. I got a personal commitment from Mitch McConnell that he wouldn't let that happen years from

now. It's the personal commitment in the law? No, no, it's not. Okay, that personal commitment isn't worth the, well, I was going to say the paper that it's written on, but it's not written on any paper. And there's also something else that the Senate bill would end the deductibility of state and local taxes entirely. And we know that seven states don't have a state income tax, Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. Oh, what a co-inking that those are all red states. Well, except for Washington. But yes. Six out of seven are all red states. The ones that pay the largest state and local taxes are California and New York, the biggest blue states.

So it is income redistribution, but it goes from the blue states to the red states. So, and in the case of the pass-through income, it goes from the middle class directly to Donald Trump. So the big concession that Republicans got is don't worry Donald Trump and his family, you're going to get an even bigger tax cut. those are not concessions the only thing last thing on the concessions from my point of view is that these different senators have different donors some of them are the same the banks give money to almost all the republicans and to a lot of the democrats but some of them have specific donors based on their state there's a particularly rich guy in wisconsin there's three rich people in kansas etc that give a giant amount of money to these senators

so they go okay no no no the tax cut i want is this So then they hold up the bill and they go, all right, well, look, man, I'm concerned about people in nursing homes. And then they get a giant tax cut for a guy who runs hospitals in their own state, who's actually a billionaire, right? So almost all the concessions are for other donors. You're right, yes. And remember, the Senate is also, in order to pay for all these massive tax cuts for the wealthy, they also think about getting rid of. of certain deductions that, yes, the wealthy take advantage of, but the middle class also gets to take advantage of.

So salt, the state and local taxes that you were referring to stuff, are very important for a lot of people in California, New York, and some of these states that have state taxes, but also keep in mind that they're thinking about doing away with property tax deductions. Again, something that helps incentivize property ownership by the middle class. And so Susan Collins claims that she's concerned about that, but it doesn't seem like she really has a strong or firm opinion on it. First, let's go to Jeff Flake, though, because you mentioned the deficit jank, and Jeff Flake says that he's very concerned about what this plan would do to the deficit.

Flake, once one of the firm holdouts because of concerns over this deficit, tweeted he would support the bill after getting, again, assurances from the White House and Senate GOP leaders that they would work on legislation related to DACA. deferred action for childhood arrivals. So he's saying that, hey, we need to do something to protect these individuals. I really care about them. And he's saying, okay, well, now I'm getting assurances and I have flipped and in support of this bill.

None of the assurances, as far as I can see, is actually in the legislation. So maybe they'll do something about DACA later. I don't see it. They're shutting down the whole government because of DACA. So they certainly didn't address it and concluded in this bill. So it's a lot of BS from Republicans who just want to vote yes for tax cuts for their donors about, oh, I got assurances that many, many years later that somebody will do something. Jeff, Flake, you're retiring.

When are we going to do anything about this that's relevant to you? Also, when you talk about assurances, what exactly does that mean? So basically Mitch McConnell promised that something would be done down the road because politicians are known to keep their word. That's how that works. Right. Now, going back to Susan Collins, she announced that she would vote yes. Okay, this is one of the reports saying that she would vote yes. The new bill would include her request to allow taxpayers to write off $10,000 in property taxes paid to state and local governments. So that is part of her salt concerns. And we'll see how that plays out. But I am concerned because, you know, again, there seems to be, in the wording of this legislation, there seems to be an effort to, to punish liberal states. And I saw some reporting in regard to disaster relief funding and how that relief funding would specifically focus on hurricanes and storms and flooding and exclude or at least

cut funding for earthquakes. Oh, come on. So, I mean, these types of things matter because there seems to be like this concerted effort by some in Congress, in the Senate specifically, to somehow. punish some of these states that tend to be blue states. So, can I just say if we did likewise, if a liberal president and a liberal Congress purposely targeted Alabama in Texas and said, well, if there's flooding in Texas, we're just not going to cover it.

But if there's an earthquake in California, we're going to send a lot of money. And by the way, you know, and rejigger the rules as they have here so that Texas pays more money and California pays less money in taxes, there would be wholly held to pay. And they would say, how dare you, these are the real Americans, middle America, and you see the liberals hate them. Why is it okay for the conservatives to hate the people that live in blue state America and punish us and redistribute our wealth? It's not that they mind a redistribution of wealth. They just don't like it when it's to the middle class. They like it when it's redistributing wealth to their donors and to, in some case, small cases to their voters, if they could tell them.

take it from the blue states. Right, I was, you know, I was having a conversation with a conservative woman on my Facebook page because I talked about how these tax cuts would actually help those who are disadvantaged, would not help those who are disadvantaged and would actually help corporations. And, you know, when it came to the state taxes, she was all for getting rid of that deduction. She lives in Idaho. She's like, yeah, why should, why should these people be able to deduct this in their taxes? And I tried to explain to her, like, I get it, you hate blue states.

But do you understand that the federal taxes paid by blue states, you know, tend to be a little higher because they tend to make a little more money? And that gets redistributed to states like Idaho, right? And so I even showed her data showing where the majority of the federal revenue comes from, which is usually some of these, you know, blue states and the states that actually require the most funding for some of these social programs, states like Mississippi, for instance. And it's, look, we need to get to a point where we realize we're all in this together. Okay, blue states, red states, doesn't matter. We have to work together and take care of our people instead of wanting to punish one another based on political ideology. This issue with the hurricanes brings up another interesting point, which is that a lot of

the states that will require hurricane relief funding are red states. You know, they're in the south. We're talking about Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, whatever. They usually, whenever there's a hurricane, obviously the infrastructure is destroyed. Well, the infrastructure is already weak because they don't have state taxes, because they don't have enough funding. So they're going to require naturally a lot more relief from the federal government, which is another point to make. Yeah. And look, we're not like those guys. Do we want to take care of people who are in need once there's flooding in Texas? Of course we do, because they're

Americans, and we want to look out for one another, and we want to take care of our own. So that's why it's an uneven playing field, because progressives are never going to punish Texas. But when conservatives are in power, they can't wait to punish California and New York. I mean, you remember what Bill O'Reilly said? He said, why don't the terrorists take out Coyt Tower in San Francisco? So it's an outrageous, outrageous thing to say. And often they refer to San Francisco and Massachusetts like they're not real Americans. Yes, they are.

The person in Alabama is a real American, and so is the guy in Massachusetts and San Francisco. But the conservatives don't care about us as Americans. at large. And finally, on the deficit, the Republicans said, no, no, no, you guys don't understand. It seems like we're creating a $1.7 trillion hole in deficit, but we're going to get the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation to release a report that shows how much the economy is going to grow, and when it grows, there's going to be less of a deficit. They were right, there was less of a deficit. Did it take away

the deficit overall? Even in the rosiest way that they could do this projection? Nope. There's still a one trillion dollar deficit from this tax cop plan. So even under absurd circumstances where the economy is never going to grow that high. But even if you grant them that, it's still a trillion dollar deficit. So for once and for all, Republicans never, ever cared about the deficit. It was just a marketing gimmick to make sure the Democrats don't grow their economy when they're in charge. You know, one thing that I want to say is that you just made a point about how liberals don't usually attack, you know, people from conservative states or whatever.

They do, you know, comedians usually say, usually dismiss Southerners as Hicks and stuff. But as far as people in power, like you don't hear, you know, Andrew Cuomo, someone from New York, you know, kind of dismissing other, you know, southerners and stuff like that. It's usually, so I'm just, I'm just making the point that liberals do do that, but not liberals in power. Yeah, it's, it's, of course, commentators and comedians are going to say what they're going to say. But I think what differentiates this from, you know, what you would see from liberal comedians is that this is policy. They're pushing for policy, something that has real ramifications for people who are Americans, who are paying their taxes, and who shouldn't be punished based on where they live or what their ideology is. Okay, let's just call it what it is, okay?

Who's the guy who makes this sound all the time? Okay, me. Okay, so do I do a southern accent while making fun of Republicans? Yes, okay, does that, but if I was in government and somebody said, hey, should we punish the people in Mississippi because they're a red state? Like, of course not. That's preposterous. That's insane. First of all, there's many people in Mississippi. They're not all Republicans. Second of all, I don't want to punish any Republicans. You see, the difference between us, in my mind, between us and the conservatives is I don't actually want conservative voters to suffer. I believe that our proposals will make conservative voters. way, way better off, right? Could you imagine if your kids also got to live the American dream because they could actually afford college?

Could you imagine if you actually had health care and you got sick? I want to cover you. If you're the most conservative guy and you're the king of the world, I don't care. I want you to make sure that you don't die, you don't get sick, and if you get sick that you get covered. And so when conservatives say that, they do projection. Because in their mind, they're like, I don't care about those guys.

I have no empathy towards that. Whereas for progressives, we have empathy. That's why we actually want to take care of all Americans. You did see a little something when it came to Hurricane Sandy funding versus Harvey funding. Exactly. You had Ted Cruz who didn't want to vote for the funding for Hurricane Sandy, which hit mostly the East Coast. Yeah. You're right.

No, that's because they're bad guys. They are. But he wanted funding for Harvey. Yeah. And what did the representatives from the East Coast who got a hit by Superstorm Sandy do? They voted for the funding for Hurricane Harvey Relief because they're not pricks, unlike Ted Cruz and unfortunately a lot of the Texas legislators in Congress, who mainly voted no on Sandy.

All right, well, let's talk about the government shutdown and how Trump might be looking forward to making that happen, which is insane. So the Washington Post has spoken to a number of White House aides who wish to remain anonymous. And based on these conversations with the aides, Trump has told confidants that a government shutdown might actually be good for him because he'll find a way to place the blame on Democrats, even though Democrats do not have control of Congress at all. So Trump has told his confidants that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hardline immigration. stance as a way to win back supporters who are unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall. So if you could remember, Trump did have a meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, and it seemed like things were on the up and up, and they were getting along. And then later, he got a little criticism from the right for negotiating with them. And so now he is trying to

respond to that with his hardline policy regarding immigration. Now, in the spring, he tweeted that he would like a good government shutdown and thought it would be useful to him. He tweeted about that. So there's another example of him getting in trouble by his own tweets because he doesn't know how to stop and just shut it. But he changed his tune this fall. He mused to others in the White House meeting that he thought about the debt ceiling, often used as a negotiating point in complex spending talks,

should be ended for good and has told advisors that a should. shutdown could make the administration look impotent. Impotent, sorry, impotent. So he goes from thinking it might be good to maybe this isn't a good idea, maybe it's going to make us look bad, he can't make up his mind. And I think my favorite quote was actually from Schumer where he's like, we're just trying to catch him on a good day because we don't know where he's going to land. Yeah, that was Dick Durbin, who's in charge of this pretty little thing for the Democrats.

Here, I have it because I thought it was so funny. He, Durbin said, he has a tendency to move back and forth. We hope we catch him at a good moment. Yeah. Meaning because Durbin said right after the inauguration, Trump told Durbin himself, he said, oh, no, no, we'll take care of those kids referring to the dreamers. Like, don't worry, right? And then, and the whole reason for that Nancy Pelosi-Church-Schumer meeting that got so much press with Trump

was because they actually do need the Democrats a little bit, to be fair. I'll explain that in a second to pass a budget. And the deal was you help us pass the budget and then we'll make sure that the dreamers can stay and then we're not going to deport them, right? So then Trump gets a ton of hate from the right wing, like, oh, no, throw all the dreamers out, why not? And we want our budget. We want everything. Of course, they always want everything, right? So Trump reads that.

In other words, Steve Bannon sent it to him. Okay, and so then he's like, oh wait, he's literally apparently told an advisor, I look like a chump here. Yeah, that's right. He's such a child. Like, you didn't realize that it wouldn't play well with your right wing base to make a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? Of course it would. If I was in a situation, I'd go, okay, but I'm willing to pay that price because we actually do need to make sure the government doesn't shut down. We do need a budget.

And maybe I can get votes in the middle from doing the dreamer thing. But he doesn't get it. He's like, oh, I don't know, Nancy and Chuck gave me a good deal. And then afterwards, he got good press out of it. And he even called him and said, hey, did you see all the good press we're getting? And then he gets bad press from Breitbart in other places. And he's like, oh, my God, it turns out I look like a chump. No, never mind, I'm not doing that deal.

We're going to have a good government shut down. Yeah. Look, what I think is interesting, though, is his interpretation, Trump's interpretation of things and how different it is from Republicans. So, for instance, you know, based on what these White House aides are telling the press, Trump thinks that he could actually use a government shutdown to his advantage, which is ridiculous because, again, Republicans are charged. You have a Republican president.

You have Republicans in charge of Congress. Shutting down or even a partial shutdown of the government hurts a lot of people. That is not good for your poll numbers. But in his mind, I'll just blame it on Democrats. I mean, who knows? He's like a master manipulator. So maybe he'd be able to do that. It could work.

It could work. It could work. And I make that point because when you look at the people who support him through thick and thin, what is the one thing that they really want the wall? They really want the wall. And that's what he's focusing on here. Do you remember the poll that came out a few weeks ago about his support or how they don't believe the media? They believe not flat out that we have, that the media has an opinion, that we make stuff. That we fabricate stories, yes. So, and these are the people who are going to believe whatever he says. So that's who he wants to keep.

Quickly going back to that survey, 76% of the Republican Party who was surveyed said, we believe that the media fabricates stories about Trump, 76%. That's insane. All right. So let me agree and disagree with you guys. Trump is not a master manipulator. He's a moron.

He keeps flipping because he's a child and doesn't know what he's doing. Oh, do I look good? Oh, no, I look bad. okay, I'm for this, oh, I'm for that, because he's a moron. He just, he has no idea what he's doing. But I do agree with you guys that it could work. And so, because it's, you know, more than the wall staff, I think that the thing that his voters love most about him is strength. So, like, when you, when you vote, when you poll Immigrant, Pathway to Citizenship, it actually pulls really, really well. And, and even among Republicans, like, they, you'd be surprised at how well

pathway to citizenship polls among Republicans. It's not that they're like, no, I must have an 18-foot wall, et cetera. They just like him being strong and standing up to people. That's why it could work because I'm so strong, I'm shutting the government down. Well, whose government is it? It's yours, you clown. I know, but I'm shutting it down. Ooh, he looks strong.

Nice job. Well, it could also be about who's going to flinch first. Yes. In that showdown, and who has a tendency, which party has a tendency to flinch first? Excellent point. And we all know the answer to that. It's the Democrats. And if he gets them to flinch, it'll be so sad.

I think he's going to get them to flinch. Oh, my God, that'll be pathetic. Because think about it. I mean, him tying this entire shutdown situation to the immigration policy is, I think it's really going to work. Because if he says, look, I mean, they're not willing to negotiate with us, you know, regarding this issue because of my hardline stance on immigration. I mean, come on.

Even people on the left, I'm not saying progressive, but some people on the left are in favor of stronger immigration policy. So that is part of what got him elected. But look, so let's be fair, by the way. Yes, Republicans control the whole government, but why are we even having a conversation about the Democrats? Because they do have a little bit of leverage here. And so if the Republicans didn't need them at all, they could just, they wouldn't need to worry about a government shutdown. So why did the Democrats have leverage? of all, in the House, there's a bunch of extreme right-wing Republicans who are like, no,

I vote no on the budget because it didn't give the rich enough. I'm going to call that freedom. I want more freedom for my donors, right? And so they're going to vote no on the budget, which then means that even in the House, the Republicans need Democrats to vote yes on their draconian budget, okay, to pass. So then, okay, then the Democrat, then they have to get Democratic votes. And in the Senate, the Democrats could filibuster the budget, okay? Now, if you ask me, why would a Democrat agree to this Republican budget?

I say no, right? Okay, I'll flip it on you. Here, I'm not going to flinch. I want DACA, and that's not all. I also want to make sure that we protect net neutrality. I'm not an unreasonable Republican. Oh, I want everything that are my priorities, even though we're in the minority, right? But I would have a list of two to five things that I want, and I wouldn't say ahead of time,

oh, by the way, I'm kidding, I'm just going to take only one. But look at the negotiation by the Democrats to begin with. They only started with DACA. So your only choice is either DACA or nothing, right? You either protect the Dreamers or you get nothing at all, right? That's already a poor negotiation stance. So at the end, you guys might be right, even though they need the Democrats, the Democrats might vote for a terrible Republican budget, and by the way, put themselves on the hook for that budget and get almost

nothing in return. So as foolish as Donald Trump is, that his advisors like Steve Banning telling him punch the Democrats in the face, you almost certainly get away with it. It might be decent advice. You know, Trump, though, he does get one thing, instincts, how people feel about things. And along with strength, which is the point that you made goes what? Protection. And that's what the border symbolizes, protection. We're going to keep the bad guys away, the bad guys that are threatening you, the bad guys that killed Kate Steinley in San Francisco. So that's why I think if he ties that, it's going to work.

We'll see. It is frightening to see. But last thing on this, a lot of the Republicans and the people in the White House don't want them to do it. And I think all the reporters get this wrong. So they don't, they mean well, but they, so they say, well, I mean, I mean, I talk to my sources inside the White House. White House, and they're concerned about the budget not, you know, if the budget isn't passed, then parts of the government will shut down and that'll hurt Americans. They're Republicans.

When's the last time they cared about hurting Americans? No, it'll hurt the stock market. And so that's why some of the Republicans are in a panic. Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If we have a government shutdown, the market goes down. Be careful, be careful. That's why you have panic comments like this. when Senator John

Corner of Texas says, it seems like an abdication of responsibility. Like, don't do it, Donald. Lindsay Graham says, we'd look like crazy people to shut down the government in light of all of our problems. In other words,

those guys got the memo from their donors. Don't shut it down. This is going to hurt the markets. But Trump, in that case, is too thick-headed to realize it. So it's a combination. It's not a clear win for Trump, even if they do a government shutdown,

even if we're right about our speculative. about the weakness of Democrats. But if the Democrats hold strong and the markets go down and all the Republican senators start to panic, we actually can win and we can get protection for dreamers. But that would require the Democrats to stay strong. Wish us luck. All right. We got to take a break.

Let's do that. And when we come back, an update on one of the more political trials involving an undocumented immigrant and the outcome of that. And then later on, we will talk about one of the most horrible comments I've ever heard in regard to Philando Castile's girlfriend. Yeah, and that Kate Steinle case that everybody's talking about today, it has twists in it. It's not nearly as clear cut as people aren't making it out to be. So let's just come back and discuss that. Thank you for watching or listening to this free podcast of the Young Turks.

We want to make sure that you get some portion of the show every day. But if you want the full show, which is actually five segments, come become a member and support independent media as well. network.com slash join. Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jan Jueger, and I'll see you soon.