The Young Turks - The Young Turks 12.04.17: Brian Ross Suspension, Grassley, Flynn, and Kushner

Episode Date: December 5, 2017

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from December 4th, 2017. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1: Cenk & Ana. Brian Ross suspension. Grassley on people spending money on booze & hookers. Rep Chris Stewart can’t name corporate tax loopholes they are closing. John Dowd: president cannot obstruct justice.  Hour 2: Cenk & Ana. Trump feels badly for Flynn. Kushner didn’t disclose funding illegal Israeli settlements. Trump now supporting Roy Moore. Woman w/ Stage 4 lymphoma booted out of town hall after asking Heller about healthcare. Land reserve will be cut down to nothing by Trump. 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. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm your host. You can win a crazy wild woolly show up on it. It's going to be awesome. Okay, Edwin, can you turn on the monitor for me in a sec? Okay.

So, Donald Trump has gotten himself in a world of trouble with obstruction of justice that he has, once again, accidentally admitted to it in public. Anna and I are going to do that story a little bit later in the program. And then Jared Kushner is in legal trouble. for other reasons. There's no end of the trouble for the Trump administration. But in the first segment here, I want to talk a little bit about the tax cuts. A couple of things that happened over the weekend that I think are really important in telling. One is about the media and the other two are about tax cuts. So without further ado, let's go here. Okay. Now, over the weekend,

we found out that Brian Ross, who is, I would argue a legendary investigative reporter for ABC News, got one part of a story wrong. And now that is important. I'll tell you what the consequences were and what I think is the proper outcome here, okay? And what it tells us about our media overall. So first, let's go to ABC News for their explanation during a live special report to explain ABC News reported

that a confidant, a lieutenant general Michael Flynn, said Flynn was prepared to testify that then candidate Donald Trump instructed him to contact Russian officials during the campaign. Now, they have withdrawn that story and issued a correction to it because it's very important whether Trump told Flynn to reach out to the Russians during the campaign or after the campaign. Now, after the campaign also presents some issues

because he's not yet president, and he might be undermining the actions of President Obama at the time before Trump takes office. We've talked about those issues on a previous show. During the campaign would show collusion. And so people thought, oh my God, Flynn is turning evidence, which he is, by the way, on this specific issue of collusion. And he might yet still do that.

We don't know for sure because it turns out the story wasn't correct, right? So then people react to this story. And this is where a lot of people are flipping out because, oh, my God, the beloved cherished stock market moved based on this news. you can't move the stock market. If you move the stock market, then you've done something horrible, horrible, horrible. Now, look, if you moved it by yourself, something unrelated to anything else and caused the catastrophe and people actually lost money, that might be an interesting story. This is part of a larger story where the market is likely to move anyway. But let me show you what happened on Friday when ABC News reported that. At one point, as CNN money reports,

the Dow plunge 340 points after ABC News reported that Flynn is prepared to test them. that President Trump, as a candidate, directed him to make contact with Russians. ABC later clarified the report, saying that Trump did not tell Flynn to reach out to Russia during the campaign. Now, almost everyone leaves it right there. And I've now seen on social media about a thousand times, oh my God, he calls it 350-point drop and everybody's now bankrupt to the country. All right, well, let's actually take a look at what happened on that day, because there is

that 350-point trap. That part is true. Now, let me show you the whole chart. So when you look at it, there's a ABC report on Flynn. Now, by the way, a lot of other things happen at that time. But let's just concede for now that it was strictly ABC News report that caused that drop. And it drops all the way down 350 points. I'm conceding all that, okay?

And then you know what it does afterwards? It comes right back up. Okay, so what happened by the end? Well, as CNN Money also reports, in the end, the Dow closed only 41 points lower. Oh my God, Brian Ross to cause the fluctuation in the market, that is incredibly normal. That goes up and down 41 points all the time, all the time, based on a thousand different factors. So when you hear the 350 points, it makes it seem like, no, that we're never going to get it back. It's already gone.

All that money's gone. It's not gone. It came back the same day. So to say that the people have overreacted to that is, um, it's, you know, it's a, you know, huge, huge understatement. Yes, they are wildly overreacting. Okay. Now, how did ABC News react to that? Now, I hear from the right wing media and from Donald Trump.

Everybody's fake news, everyone but the right wing, which lies all the time. But anyway, is fake news. See, we showed it. We proved it. Brian Ross, fake news. So that's why ABC News refused to retract it. They said, we know it's fake, but we're going to keep it up there. Oh, no, they didn't.

They did the exact opposite. Isn't that interesting? Here, this is their statement. we deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made yesterday. The reporting conveyed by Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process. As a result of our continued reporting over the next several hours, ultimately we determined the information was wrong and we corrected the mistake on air and online.

So, wait a minute, I thought the fake news just made stuff up and then just kept on making it up. It seems like here, when they have made a mistake, they have issued a correction and said they were wrong. If there were fake news, why would they do that? So right now there's a poll out that shows the 71% of Alabama Republicans believe that the charges against Roy and Moore are just made up. He never met those women, doesn't know those women, they didn't do anything with those women, just totally made up. Somebody just decided to write a piece of fiction about Roy Moore. When asked, who do you think did it?

88% of those same people said, oh, the media made it up out of thin cloth. Well, if they're making things up out of thin cloth, why would they do a retraction? Why would they ever correct this story? They would just keep on making it up. Why would they have an editorial vetting process? Why is it a big problem that Brian Ross apparently somehow went outside of that editorial process? If you're writing fiction, why bother? Oh, it's because they don't write fiction and they care deeply about getting it right.

right? And when they don't get it right, they fix it immediately. Another part of the ABC News statement was, it is vital that we get the story right and retain the trust we have built with our audience. These are our core principles. That's right. And is it Donald Trump's core principles? That's laughable. As the New York Times showed, in the first six months of his administration, he had 800 comments that were provably false. Gee, I wonder who's coming out with the fake news. If you remember, it was a Trump campaign in the first place that put their fake news out during the campaign and on purpose. So then you've got all the bright parts and the gateway pundits and the daily callers that nonstop fabricate stories and never issue corrections.

So we know who has journalistic integrity and understands what that means and who doesn't. Now, speaking of journalistic integrity, what did they do to Ryan Ross? Now, they have suspended them for four weeks without pay. I think that's extraordinarily harsh. He says that's okay. He holds himself to a higher standard and he understands. I don't really agree. I think that, yes, of course you correct the story right away.

Facts first, facts above all else. And do I think that the mainstream press from time to time tilt stories with their bias that they don't realize they even have an establishment bias that I have pointed out? Yes, I think they do. Do they actively make things up? That's preposterous. You have to be detached from reality to think that. So how about Brian Ross specifically?

Look, he's running into this issue a couple of times in his career. You know, you want to know why? Because he's among the very, very few reporters on television who are actually trying. You would be hard-pressed to name any other investigative reporters on television. There are some, but you'd be hard-pressed. You know why you hear from Brian Ross all the time? because he works hard, and he has broken story after story after story. You know me, how often do I compliment the mainstream news?

Not very often. But Brian Ross is one of those guys. You want to see his awards? Jesus rolled through these, graphics 38 through 44, okay? I'm not going to read you all these because it is an endless list. Keep on going. These are all the awards he's gotten. You know why he's gotten those awards?

Because he tries. He's one of the very, very few people, and this is why I respect ABC News more than other organization. They actually try to do investigative reporting and do often do it and often, and sometimes there's a wonderful job with it. So in this storied career of decades of achievements and actual investigative reporting, Brian Ross has made a couple of mistakes. Now we're going to talk about how Brian Ross is fake news. That is preposterous. and how ABC News has reacted to this, which I actually think is a bit of an overreaction, but still shows you that they are, in fact, it proves that they are not fake news,

that they deeply care about what is right and what is wrong, what is correct, and what is incorrect. And this, all from the right-wing criticism, now remember what Ross is reporting about in the first place, the core of the story that is absolutely true and that everyone has covered, of course, is that Mike Flynn has said that he is guilty. He's admitted that he's guilty to the FBI. For what? For lying. I don't see the right way in an outrage over Mike Flores. Oh, my God, this liar.

It turns out Donald Trump's national security advisor and a critical man in this campaign was doing fake news the whole time. He was lying to the FBI. I am so outraged. Where are you, right wing? I don't hear that outrage. All I hear is a fake outrage against Brian Ross and ABC News. I think Brian Ross is one of the best in the business.

and and I think that boy look we don't have as much money these days yet in the digital world as the TV guys do but he would be at the very top of my list for people to hire and I'd be proud to work with him and everybody makes mistakes I think that this was one but in the context of his career it is a tiny speck of a story and unfortunately the one problem that the mainstream news is does have is they take the right wing too seriously. When they attack them for being liberal media or for being fake news, there is an overreaction to those guys. And there's too much of calling everything even and everything equal.

These things are not equal. 800 lies to one mistake is not equal. So stop being so defensive and actually go and do truth to power, hardcore journalism, which is what Brian Ross built his career on. Okay. I think I've been clear about that. Oh, by the way, one last quick thing. If the stock market is in a panic that Trump might have done something during the campaign that was collusion.

And they're going to lose 350 points over it. You should go ahead and panic now. He definitely did something wrong during the campaign. The fact that the geniuses who are the... analysts at the stock market don't think so. And they are shocked and chagrined to find out that Trump might have done something wrong during the campaign shows you that they are not nearly as bright as they think they are. So expect a 350 point drop or way, way worse when we find out what Trump actually did. Okay, anyway, let's go on to Chuck Grassley.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turk's fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most

sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned 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. Hey, Seuss, let me change things up, actually.

I'm going to go graphics one and two, then to 46 through 49. Yeah, we're doing it in the middle of the show. That happened, okay? So recently the Republicans passed tax cuts. They did it actually in the middle of the night, almost two in the morning on Friday. Actually, that would be on Saturday, because that's how late it ran. And they barely passed it, 51 to 49. They got every Republican except Bob Corker to vote for it.

Why? Because they served their donors, and there was the number one thing on the donor's wish list. And they said it over and over again in the media. They said, we're going to cut off the funding to the Republicans if they don't get us what we want, which is this multi-trillion dollar tax cut. 80% of the tax cut goes to the top 1%. And the top 1% are the donors who control people like Chuck Grassley. Chuck Grassley is their servant and always has been.

So he's a senator from Iowa. He doesn't represent Iowa, as I'll show you. in a second. He represents his donors. So when the Des Moines Register was talking to him about one particular part of the tax cut plan, which is cutting estate taxes, well, he got quite animated about that. Now, if you don't know the estate tax is for incredibly rich people who leave behind their estate. Now, you and I might not leave an estate, but they do. And bless their hearts, nothing wrong with leaving an estate, but also nothing wrong with taxing that as it goes to the next generation.

And right now, you can exempt $5.5 million per spouse. So if you're leaving money to your kids, you can leave up to $11 million and it won't be taxed at all. Now, even though the kids never got taxed on it, right? But they'll get, if you made $11 million because you worked your ass off, it'll get taxed. If Paris Hilton gets $11 million gifted to her from our parents, it will not be taxed. I think that's fundamentally unfair.

But Chuck Grassley is not happy with that. He says, that's not enough. The Senate version says that they're going to move the cap up to $22 million. You can leave $22 million to your kids who didn't work a day in their lives to get that money. You work your ass off to get the money. They're going to tax you. Paris Hilton doesn't get taxed for $22 million. Chuck Grassley thinks that's not even enough.

He had co-authored a bill before to completely get rid of the estate tax. so that if Paris Hilton is going to, she can get billions of dollars and never pay any taxes on it. Not Conrad Hilton who built the empire. We're talking about Paris Hilton, who was in air and didn't do anything to get that money. But you work, you get tax. She doesn't work, she doesn't get taxed. That's what Chuck Grassley thinks is fair. But it wasn't good enough.

He had to rub it in a little bit more. So he said this. I think not having the estate tax recognize that people are investing. as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it's on booze or women or movies. Oh, that's what Chuck Grassley thinks of you. So if you're not a multimillionaire, he thinks, yeah, you're a schmuck. You're a bum. You spent all your money on booze.

That's why you didn't get rich. If you got rich, well, then you didn't spend it on booze because I know the rich never drink alcohol. and they never go to the movies because all they do is work really, really hard. By the way, for some of the rich, that's absolutely true. A lot of them did work really hard. And some of them just inherited it. Even the Koch brothers joked about it.

And they said, we did everything right. We worked hard, pulled ourselves up by the boost traps, and then got rich the good old-fashioned way. Our dad died and left us $400 million. That's a joke that the Koch brothers have told. And Trump got $200 million inheritance. So, oh, no, no, no, everyone who's rich is working super hard. But more importantly, anyone who didn't get up to $22 million in their estate is just a bum who drinks our money away.

That's what he thinks of you guys. Now, of course, he gets in trouble for that because it turns out that his state of Iowa does not have very many multi-millionaires that are going to benefit from the estate tax. 99.99.998% of Iowans are apparently alcoholics who like to date and go to the movies, and he just insulted all of them, right? Well, then he says, no, no, no, my point regarding the estate tax, after he gets in trouble, by the way, he says this. My point regarding the estate tax, which has been taken out of context, is that the government shouldn't see the fruits of someone's lifetime of labor after they die. The question is, on a basic fairness and we're going to create a tax code that doesn't penalize frugality,

savings, and investment. Basic fairness. First of all, he makes it sound like the tax is 100%. It's not. It's 40%. He makes it sound like Paris Hilton works so hard. The fruits of our labor. Oh, Grandpapa, have you done working?

Because I'm partying. I've been partying for decades now. Oh, where's grandpa's money? Good. Chuck Grassley. Did you do as I told you? As my parents told you, give me all the money for free. I don't want to pay any taxes.

Oh, yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, man. That's Chuck Grassley for you. So she didn't spend any fruits of her labor. Look, the Conrad Hiltons of the world. He built the Hilton Empire with the Hilton hotels. He paid taxes once.

He paid taxes once. He built up a huge empire with a lot of money, and he spent it, bless his heart. He saved a lot, he spent a lot. Is this his right to do that? We all aspire to the American dream. We all want to be rich. We all want to make that kind of money. Okay, God bless.

Then he died. He is not double taxed. He's dead. There's no second taxation on Conrad. He would like to give his money to his kids and eventually his grandkids and set her all the way down to Parasilton. Parasilton never worked a day in our life. You want to talk about basic fairness? You guys work your ass off and you get tax, tax, taxed.

Paris Hilton, no tax. And Chuck Grassley says, that's not fair. Poor Paris Hilton. Poor poor, poor donors of mine. Basic fairness. What a joke. So as I explain to you here, I'll read it from HuffPosts, the Senate tax reform measure, which would double the exemption for estates to $11 million for an individual and $22 million for a couple.

Errs. would inherit the estates tax-free up to that number. But again, if Grassley-Head in his way, there would be no limit. You can give billions of dollars to Paris Hilton, and she would never pay a dime of taxes. Okay, now let's look at the Des Moines Register because they did great work on this. They thought, hey, Chuck Grassley, he's a senator from Iowa. Maybe there's just all these billionaires in Iowa, and we didn't know it. And it turns out, man, he's really representing his voters. Maybe Iowa's 51% billionaire.

Could be. Let's find out. No, by the way, it can't be. Anyway, the number of Iowans paying the estate tax actually numbers in the dozens. Each year, out of roughly 1.4 million who file federal tax returns each year, IRS data from the last five years shows the number of Iowa taxpayers owing estate taxes ranged from 32 in 2012 to 61 in 2015. And that, the vast majority of those probably were not farmers or small business owners.

Because they said that all the time. They say, oh, these are the farmers in Iowa? Which farmers got $22 million sitting around? Which small farmer has $22 million in their estate? They say that not because they're representing the farmers or the small business owners. They say that as a cover. They're using you as a shield to do their donors bidding. 32 people.

Here, let's break down the math. The Des Moines Register noted that the number of Iowans owing estate taxes was just 32, in one of the years, as we explained. of the 1.4 million taxpayers in 2012, or 0.002% of the total. You think these guys represent the voters? As you all know, and in fact, 93% of you say this in a poll, they represent their donors. Chuck Grassley doesn't give a damn about the voters in Iowa. He doesn't care about small businesses and farms in Iowa.

He cares about those 32 to 61 folks who financed most of his campaign. Private financing of election leads to politicians who work for private interests. Here's the capper. Now, this is Representative David Young, and he also wants to get rid of the estate tax. He said, quote, it is a myth that repealing the estate tax is a massive giveaway to the wealthiest Americans. But wait a minute, it only applies to the wealthiest of Americans. Are there any middle class people who are making $22 million or leaving $22 million to their heirs?

Are there any poor people leaving $22 million? By definition, there aren't. But they are so used to lying that when it comes to this issue, they're like, let's just pretend that the estate tax, which affects multi, multi-millionaires is not just about rich people. No, no, no, no. They are brazen. If you don't get the money out of politics, they will always represent their donors. This is the swamp. And by the way, of course Donald Trump loves this, also wants to get rid of their state tax, also loves the swamp, also wants to help his own self-interest. That's the Republicans, that's the Donald Trump.

And yes, some Democrats, unfortunately, Democrats like Diane Feinstein also voted to get rid of the estate tax. You're going to be shocked to find out her family has billions of dollars and they don't want to pay taxes either. So pretending to be a Democrat, but when it comes to voting time, Feinstein votes for the Bush tax cuts. And then it says, oh, we should get rid of the estate tax. I hear that's really hurting the middle class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those were the old days when TV was your ally. and you could lie and you could hide and we'd never find you.

Well, to all those folks, and in this case, Chuck Grassley in particular, we found you. You don't represent the voters. You represent a couple of dozen guys who put money into your pocket and into your campaigns. That's who you are. You're a servant of the rich, and it's kind of sad and pathetic. Okay, I'm not done with these guys yet, though. Now I'm going to move to Representative Chris Stewart. Okay?

Right? Representative Chris Stewart's from Utah, and he wants to tell the American people, no, no, these tax cuts that are going to the rich into corporations, they're really for you. Now, as I've told you numerous times, it turns out that 80% of the tax cuts are going to the top 1%. So how is it for me? Sounds like it's mainly for the top 1%. Well, Stephanie Ruhl is going to ask him about that on MSNBC. He is not going to have a good answer. This is going to be fun. Let's watch. In terms of simplifying the tax code, what simplification, what loophole is being closed specifically for corporate America?

I agree with you. Our tax rate is too high and it's too complicated. Let's lower it and close the loopholes. What loopholes for corporations are going to be closed? Oh my gosh, there will be dozens, but I'm talking primarily. Excuse me, sir. Please tell me one. There's there's with interest deductions with expensing accounts there's all sorts of deductions Just tell me one one example of a loophole that's being closed I just did. You didn't primarily we're focused on those loopholes for individuals and simplifying for individuals. Oh for individuals so let's clarify a couple of things there.

So he lists a couple of loopholes being closed not for corporations. No for you. So they're going to take away a lot of. the things that you used to deduct from your taxes, state and local taxes, a number of other exemptions. So that is why a third of the middle class will instantly pay more in taxes, not less. By the year 2027, in other words, 10 years from now, everyone making under $75,000 is going to pay more, not less. So he is raising taxes on you guys. He is taking away whatever you used, I think legitimately so. But she asked about corporations. And by the way, I don't agree

with Stephanie rule. I don't think the corporate taxes are too high. It's just not true. And their effective tax rate is actually down to 22%. It is not among the highest in the world in that sense. So I think there's a lot of mischaracterization there. But she is doing a great job of asking, hey, even if that were true, and I don't know whether she actually believes that or not, but in other interviews, she seemed to indicate that she does believe that, okay? That the corporate tax rate is too high, but we can lower it if we take away the loophole so it's revenue neutral. not revenue neutral. This entire tax plan costs at least $1.5 trillion, and they put that onto the debt. So where are the loopholes that you're closing? So she's going to ask one more

time, let's find it. Why wouldn't we close a loophole for corporates? The argument was you have to lower the tax rate and get rid of all these loopholes that they go through. And you broaden the base so that everybody pays a lower. So what loopholes are being closed for corporates? Because if you don't close any loopholes, you're gonna lower the base and keep the loopholes so they'll end up paying even less. Please give me an example of one. That's our point is for corporations to pay less. That's the point. That's how you get economic growth. We're not trying to achieve higher taxes on corporate costs or on corporate taxes. We're trying to have them pay less. No, he did answer the question. You got him. That was seen out a few good men. Your goddamn

right I ordered the code red. In case you missed what he said, let's repeat it for you. Go to video three here. 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 that. advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices.

But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. That's our point is for corporations to pay less. That's the point.

Indeed, that is exactly the point. Those corporate interests because of our private financing system of elections pay in campaign contributions in lobbying and in independent expenditures. They pay basically politicians. They funnel that money to them. And oftentimes after the politicians stop being in Congress, they will then become lobbying, get literal pay from these same corporations. And what are the corporations paying all those politicians for?

Why do they spend billions of dollars lobbying? You think it's for their health? No, they're looking for a return on investment. And that investment on sleazy politician is a pretty good investment. And here is Representative Chris Stewart saying, oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole point is to lower taxes for corporations. Not for you guys. Oh, if you lower taxes for corporations, he forgot to add the last part.

Not only do we create one and a half trillion dollar deficit problems down the road, but we also have another $4.5 trillion that we have to move on. to other people. So that's why if you make less than $75,000, 10 years from now, you're all going to get your taxes increase. Why? Because the whole point was the lower corporate taxes. Why?

You don't donate to these guys. The corporations donate in the tune of billions of dollars. They bought them all. So sometimes our conservative brothers and sisters will come out and say government is corrupt. I actually completely agree with them. I think it is systemically corrupt. I think that we've created the wrong incentives. We allow private financing, they work for private interests.

Wolf-dashpac.com to get the money out, okay? We'll put a link down below. Do whatever you can to fix the system. If you're conservative, libertarian, liberal, it doesn't matter. But to the conservatives, let me ask you something. Not the politicians, they're all corrupt, they're all bought, and they work for their donors. But to the conservative voters, who do you think corrupted them? Yes, they're corrupt.

corrupted them. Did you corrupt them? If you gave any politician $27? They don't care about your $27. Right? I think there's one guy who cares, and that's why he collected a lot of $27. But no politician, even the best meaning one, even Bernie Sanders is not like, hey, Bob from Nebraska gave me $27. I'm going to call Bob and ask him what he wants, and I'm going to deliver for that. No, they do that for people who give them tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. They work for them and everybody knows it. So if you want to know who corrupted them, it is these corporations that are allowed to give now unlimited money through dark money, independent expenditures, et cetera, and that just flat

out bought all of Congress. They bought our democracy. They bought our government. So if you're mad at the politicians, as you can tell, I'm right there with you, brother. But you should also be mad at the guys who bought them in the first place. Corrupted them in the first place. And the answer is to get the money out of politics. It's to make sure that we don't do private financing.

Otherwise, they will always work for their private donors. This system is insane. Unfortunately, we have made America arguably one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Why? Because we made bribery legal. At least in other countries, you have to come in surreptitiously with a bag full of money and you might get arrested and go to prison for it. Here, we just legalize the bribery. So Chris Stewart can come out and go, take away loopholes from corporations.

No, the point is to give your money to corporations. We're going to lower their taxes and it's going to fall on you. Well, thank you very much for at least admitting it, young Turks. You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.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 a young church, Jank Huger, Anna Kasparin, with you guys. We have breaking news on Manafort in a second. First, let me read a couple of tweets. Soul Rebel writes in, vote for people, not corporations, should be the Democrats' new motto if they want to win. Well, luckily, it is, but for a wing of the Democratic Party, and that's the Justice Democrats. That's why they don't take any corporate pack bunny, so they don't work for corporations. They work for you guys. JustDemocrats.com.

Lucifer writes in, these are so fucking critical times, I know these handles are awesome, these are so fucking critical times, I love being alive right now. Really? Okay. I like his thirst for adventure. Yeah. Yeah. And if you are Lucifer, it is a good time to be alive.

Bill Wetzel says, Grassley's right, I do spend 99% of my money on booze, women, and movies. The other 1% is just waste. And Ray says, thanks, Chris Stewart, we appreciate your honesty. Your answer should be made into an ad against this corporate tax cut immediately. Agreed. And I wanted to actually say one more thing about that. We went and tried to find a loophole that they closed for corporations. And it turns out there is one, which he didn't bother to research because he didn't care.

Right. He's like, I don't want to cut the loopholes. He'll probably add it back in later, right? And it's on CEO pay and how it is deducted from taxes. So they are, they capped for only the top three executives at a company. You cannot deduct their pay after a million dollars. You can deduct it up to a million dollars. You can't deduct it afterwards, okay?

But you know what that is? That is a tiny, tiny percentage of the corporate tax cuts. That's half of 1%. So that would qualify as a whoop-de-do. So in theory, they were supposed to close enough loopholes to pay for the corporate tax cuts. It's supposed to be 100% to 100%. Right. Instead, it's 100% to 0.5%.

Right. And they're making up for that lost revenue, as you guys know, by increasing. tax is on the middle class and the working class. Absolutely. All right. Breaking news. Go for it. All right. Special counsel, Robert Mueller's team has released some information indicating that they have stopped the negotiating process in regard to Paul Manafort's bail terms. And the reason why they did this is because they found evidence indicating that Paul Manafort attempted to ghost write an op-ed piece with an individual with ties to Russia.

So he recently ghost wrote an op-ed with a Russian with ties to the country's intelligence services, special counsel Robert Mueller's team alleged on Monday. So to give you some more details on this, the notice that Mueller's team released to the public said that Manafort worked on the draft with a longtime Russian colleague of Manaforts, who is currently based in Russia and assessed to have ties to a Russian intelligence service. Now, the point of this op-ed was to sway the public's opinion in regard to this Russia investigation. It was an incredibly brazen thing for him to do, especially considering that this attempt was on November 30th. Mueller's team has not disclosed which publication they attempted to publish this op-ed with,

but they did put a stop to it before it was published. Mueller's team also says that the editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public's opinion of defendant Manafort or else there would be no reason to seek its publication. Now, there are consequences for Manafort as a result of doing this. First of all, he has violated a court order. So there is a legal issue here. But more importantly for Manafort, he wanted his bail to allow him to travel. from one state to another.

Currently he is on house arrest and he's not able to leave his home. Robert Mueller was negotiating with his lawyers in regard to that and now the negotiations are done. And I hear he wanted to travel to a state called Moscow.

I mean. All right, look, number one, when I first read the story, I was like November 30th, which November 30th? Because before Mueller arrested him and like he knew the depth of the investigation and Trump had just gotten elected last November, right? You know, he's got a million ties to the Russians and this is one of them, I would understand. No, no, November 30th, as in just like after Thanksgiving this year, last week.

Yeah. Okay. Like a week ago, less than a week ago. So he's either got some serious kohanness on him or, and or, he's incredibly stupid. And, definitely and. Right. So you're under investigation for having too many ties to Russian interests. So you call up a friend in the Russian intelligence agencies while you're under that investigation and go, hey, you want to go, sorry to op-ed together?

Okay, and by the way, the feds are tracking everything you do. How stupid are you? Incredibly stupid. But I think that this just adds to mounting evidence indicating that certain people are under the assumption that they're above the law because they have been treated as if they're above the law for such a long time. And so, yeah, he's stupid, but he probably, you know, has a lifetime of experiences to make him think this is totally okay. I'm going to, you know, be above the law and not have to face any consequences for this. It's incredible. And maybe his overall strategies, because they got him, they had the rights from the evidence that we can see publicly.

And by the way, you say, not even the stuff related to Trump, the stuff that he had, the deals that he had with the oligarchs, which are in violation of the law, we went over it when he was first arrested. They got him in really bad situation. You can spend the rest of his life in prison. And then he's still brazenly doing this stuff right on their nose. One possible explanation is like, what difference does it make? Trump's going to pardon me. If he doesn't pardon me, I'm going to turn evidence on him. And then he's totally screwed.

So maybe he just thinks, go ahead and have fun, kids. And the president doesn't care about the law. He doesn't care that I violated the law. And potentially when it relates to Trump, he might have even asked him to violate the law. So of course he's going to pardon me. He doesn't have a choice. Maybe that's why he's doing this. Yeah, that's a potentially scary outcome, you know, the possibility of Trump pardoning him.

I know that, you know, just based on speculation, I feel like that would be likely. But remember, things are starting to look really bad for Trump himself, especially considering this whole kerfuffle involving a tweet that Trump sent out over the weekend and then claimed that his lawyer sent out, which doesn't matter who sent it out. it makes it very clear that there's an obstruction of justice issue when it comes to this Russian investigation. We'll get to that later. But that's why he would pardon Manafort and then Kushner and then Flynn and then himself because he thinks he's above the law and he doesn't understand the concept of American justice. And so. But he's the law and order candidate, remember?

That's funny. All right, well, let's get to the other stuff then. All right. Over the weekend, there was a controversial tweet on Donald Trump's personal Twitter account. Now, that's not news. He's usually tweeting pretty crazy things. However, this tweet could have some possible legal ramifications for Trump because it appears to show that Trump knew that Mike Flynn had lied to the FBI prior to the charges being filed against Flynn. Now remember, Mike Flynn, his previous national security advisor, had basically told the FBI lies in regard to his relationship and contacts with Russia. He pleaded guilty to that.

Now, the tweet that Donald Trump's account had over the weekend was as follows, I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. it is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful, there was nothing to hide. Okay, so there are two things that I want to draw attention to when it comes to that tweet. First issue is that he clearly states in that tweet that he had to fire Mike Flynn because of the fact that he lied to the FBI, which indicates at the time of the firing, he knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI. The second thing is he used the word pled. And so keep that in mind because pled is not the correct grammatical way of using the past tense of plead. It's pleaded.

Now, that's relevant. I'm not being nitpicky about grammar. It's very relevant. Now, that got a lot of heat because, all right, this could mean that there was obstruction of justice, right? If he knew that Mike Flynn had lied to the FBI, then why didn't he immediately fire Flynn after Sally Yates approached him about Flynn's ties to Russia. Also, why did he fire Comey? There's a lot of issues. And let me just say one point of important clarification there, that if he knew at the time that Flynn had lied to the FBI, well, a couple of weeks after that, he then told Comey, according to Comey's notes at the time, not after he got fired. At the time, Comey wrote down, he wants me to let go of the Flynn investigation. So if you know

that Flynn has lied to the FBI and you tell the head of the FBI, I don't care, let him go anyway, well, that's the most clear obstruction of justice there is. Right. So I actually put together a little timeline for you guys, just to clarify the date so you understand why the obstruction of justice issue is relevant when it comes to that tweet. Let's go to Graphic 14. So it all started on January 26th, okay? That was when Sally Yates had warned the White House about Flynn. February 13th is when Flynn was fired. So it took a while for him to fire Flynn even after Sally Yates had warned the White House. February 14th is when Trump asked Comey to drop the Russia investigation. So he fires Flynn and then the morning after that he tells Comey to drop the

investigation. May 9th was when Comey was fired. And if you can recall, Trump was pretty forthcoming about the reason why he fired Comey. As you can see in the following video, let's take a look. John Dad said over the weekend that he tweeted for the president. Does that happen a lot where other people tweet for the president? Yeah. Well, yes, in terms of the lawyers, the lawyers. And please.

Over the weekend that he tweeted for the president, does that happen a lot where other people tweet for the president? Does that happen a lot where other people tweet for the president? Yeah. Well, yes, in terms of the lawyers, the lawyers are the ones that understand how to put those. All right, sorry, guys. There's a little bit of miscommunication. It's okay. Let's try video eight, please.

What I did is I was going to fire, call me, my decision. It was not. You had made the decision before they came in the room. I was going to fire, call me. And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. Yeah.

So he had said there that he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. And now if it turns out their excuses, yeah, Yates told us that Flynn was lying to Pence and was lying to the FBI. Well, that's made it way worse. Right. That means weeks earlier, you knew that he'd lie to the FBI, then you told the FBI to drop the investigation anyway, and then when they wouldn't, you fire the head of the FBI, and then you went on TV and admitted that that's why you fired him.

Open and shut, they could try him tomorrow for obstruction of justice. Now, Trump's team realized that that tweet was problematic, and they immediately scrambled to make it seem as though it wasn't Trump who tweeted that, it was actually his lawyer. So officials leaked to the Washington Post that the tweet was drafted by, Don Dowd, that is the top lawyer representing Trump personally, rather than the White House in the Russia investigation, right? So let's go to Graphic 11, Dowd subsequently came forward and said that he drafted the tweet and then sent it to White House social media director Dan Scavino to publish.

When NBC News asked Dow to, for a copy of the draft of the tweet, Dowd then said that he dictated it orally to Scovino. Sure he did. So, okay, so that's all relevant, but what's also relevant is if you go back to the tweet on Trump's account, they use the word pled, or he used the word pled. Again, a lawyer wouldn't use the word pled. They would have used the word pleaded because that is the correct way to refer to it. In fact, he just put that up, look great graphic dying back up.

So this is Donald Trump's tweet that his lawyer fell on the sword as pretending it's his tweet. There's a number of things here. First, let's just tackle whether this is Trump himself or not or a studied lawyer of the president. Yeah, as Anna pointed out, you've got the mistake on pleaded versus pled that the lawyer wouldn't make. Then you've got him writing, it is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. Who writes like that all the time? It's a shame. You think a lawyer wrote that?

It's a shame what they did. Then there was nothing to hide, exclamation point. Really, the lawyer put in an exclamation point, just like Trump does. All the time. So, no, that's Donald Trump through and through. We've seen a million tweets. And we know that there's an official Twitter account that from one phone and then the one that Trump uses from another phone day, both lead to the same Twitter account.

So you can tell them, the official ones come in nice and clean, kind of official sounding with vocabulary to Donald Trump doesn't even understand, right? The Trump ones are like, sad, shame, exclamation point. The only thing he left to that tweet was baby. That's true. We're sad. We're sad. So, look, this is another example of Trump getting himself into trouble with his Twitter account.

And it doesn't matter who tweeted it. It doesn't matter if it was Trump himself or if it was the lawyer. It makes it clear that Trump had fired Mike Flynn because of the fact that he had lied to the FBI, meaning that Trump had knowledge that Flynn had lied to the FBI. That's a big problem. And by the way, they're still scrambling at taking control of the narrative, right? At taking control and doing a little bit of damage control. Now, his lawyer, Dowd, gave an interview to Axios, and during that interview, he claimed that

the president cannot obstruct justice. It's impossible for the president to obstruct justice. Let me give you his exact quote. The president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under the Constitution's Article 2 and has every right to express. his view of any case. Okay. Oh, God, this is amazing. What?

Maybe he would make that grammatical mistake. I don't know. He is Donald Trump's lawyer, so by definition, a bit of a clown. All right, so let's bring you down. First of all, saying somebody else wrote a tweet for me is not a legal defense. It's Trump who published a tweet. Court cases have already determined that Trump's tweets are his quotes and are his actions. It's in the Muslim ban, the travel ban cases that courts have said if Donald Trump is tweeting something, that is Donald Trump saying something.

That's the president of the United States setting policy and his own words. Saying, if you went to court and then said something, which is the Twitter is him publicly saying it, if you went on TV or you went to court and you said something out loud. And then the judge asked you, why did you say that? That sounds like obstruction of justice. And you said, my lawyer made me do it. That is not a legal defense. you actually said it, it doesn't matter, right? Fine, your lawyer should be fired and he should be disbarred. Okay, so I mean, I guess credit to doubt for being loyal enough to ruin his career

for Trump, but discredit to both of them because they are, in my opinion, I think based on the evidence here, both clearly lying, which then creates huge legal jeopardy, not just for Trump, but also for doubt. So I'm looking forward to him being in prison as well. Lock him up, lock him up. Now, to this point about the president cannot commit obstruction of justice. Are you just trying to copy Richard Nixon? Well, when the president does it, it is legal, right? It cannot be illegal. I am not a crook.

Okay. Yeah, no, no, the president can break the law. I thought we established that already. And that's partly why Nixon left office in deep shame and resigned because he was going to be impeached. So now, technically, there is a legal issue about whether you can prosecute a sitting president for obstruction of justice. But it doesn't matter because Congress would consider that a high crime and misdemeanor

and have every ground on the world to impeach him based on that. And it's clear as they. And by the way, impeachment is a process and a hearing and you get convicted, et cetera, but in Congress. So they could have a trial over this and they can say the president says he knew that Flynn was lying to the FBI, told the FBI not to investigate it, and then fired the FBI when they did investigate it. And guilty, impeach, Sayonara, gone.

So TikTok, TikTok, they're doing their crimes right in front of everybody. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. And when you take everything into context and look at all the different instances where it was proven that Trump and his team were not forthcoming with their contacts with Russia. And then you look at, you know, this tweet. And I just, I know, it's a slow and steady and kind of. kind of annoying drip of information that's starting to implicate Trump and his team further in this Russia situation. But it's all starting to come together and it's not looking good for him.

And him scrambling to do damage control is comical and entertaining. Yeah. If they don't impeach him for this and they just let him get away with it, we don't have rule of law anymore in the country. And then we start to slip into fascism. It's not an exaggeration or a hyperbole. That is what will happen if we allow this to happen. So fascinating times, we'll see.

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