The Young Turks - The Young Turks - December 2, 2020

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

Barack Obama criticizes the "Defund the Police" slogan. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks. 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. T-YT, T-YT, T-YT, T-Y-T, T-Y-T, T-Y-T, T-Y-T, T-Y-T. Hey, everyone, welcome to T-YT. I'm Anna Kaspari, and joining us today is John Ida-Rola, which can only mean it's Wednesday. John, what's up? How you doing? I'm good, excited for the news.

Feels like it's been a very long time since we did this. Yeah, except we did it last week, and we did it right. We did it well. And we're going to do that again for today's show. But before we get to that, I would like to encourage you to plant your change. Literally, you can do that. So plant your change is a program that essentially uses, you know, if you use your sign up for this and you use your card to make purchases, the amount will round up to the dollar amount and then you can use that to plant trees.

I am not doing a good job explaining this, but you can learn more about it. it by going to tyt.com slash trees, just an effort to plant more trees. And yes, I know for the very few people that like to tweet me about this every time we promote it, planning trees does not mitigate climate change. We are aware of that, but it doesn't hurt to have more trees in the environment. So check that out. Also, the nation has a new podcast called System Check. It is something you should also check out. Go to Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast to learn more about system check. You know, one of our good friends, former colleagues, Ken Clippenstein works over at the

nation. So I love supporting them and the work that they do. All right, without further ado, let's get to the news. Katie Porter had a pretty tense exchange with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin today. This was during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, and it had to do with the fact that Steve Mnuchin has been trying to transfer. for $455 billion in funding that was part of the CARES Act from the Federal Reserve Bank to the Treasury's general fund.

Now, the reason why he would do that is to essentially make it very difficult for Janet Yellen, the incoming Treasury Secretary, to access that money and use it to provide financial relief to small businesses. With that said, Katie Porter did have some pretty serious questions for some. Steve Mnuchin about his actions. Let's hear how that went down. I'm reading aloud now from section 4027 of the CARES Act on or after January 1, 2026. Any funds that are remaining shall be transferred to the general fund. In other words, set back to the Treasury. Secretary Mnuchin, is it currently the year 2026? Yes or no?

First, a moment, I do believe there's an economic emergency. You're putting words in my mouth that are not correct. Second of all, okay, the answer is that 4027. The time belongs to the gentle lady. Is today the year 2026? Yes or no? Of course it's not 2020. How ridiculous to ask me that question and waste our time? Well, Secretary Mnuchin, I think it's ridiculous that you're play acting to be a lawyer

when you have actually I have plenty of lawyers at the Department of Treasury who advise me so the CARES Act already says an exhibit for in section 4027

it says that you have to stop making any new investments new investments in Fed lending program year end it doesn't say that the Fed programs

must stop making loans or purchase you are making a decision that is not aligned with the statute or congressional intent. I just, I'm so sick of everyone who's associated with the Trump administration. I'm sick of any politician on the left or right who falls under the category of disgusting partisan grifter who would rather play these ridiculous political games rather than do the right thing by the American people and by the small businesses that are currently shutting their doors permanently

because of a lack of financial relief from our federal government. Steve Mnuchin is absolutely disgusting. And what Katie Porter stated there was absolutely correct. The Treasury Secretary would have the ability to transfer that money from the Federal Reserve Bank over to the Treasury Department's general fund. But they can only do that in January of 2026, which is why she opened her line of questioning with the question that Steve Mnuchin seems to think is ridiculous, but is very relevant to this conversation. So it is not 2026 and that money should not be transferred over to the Treasury's General Fund, which would make it difficult for Janet Yellen to access it for COVID relief

purposes, John. Yeah, and look, I will start off with the shallowest part of this. It is unfortunate that some people don't get to be tough and intimidating. And it's weird to live in a world where you can have people who are such villains as Steve Mnuchin is. And yet they're so like his little, and how ridiculous if you'd ask me that? I'm sorry, it's not in the cards, Mnuchin. It just doesn't work. I probably can't do it either. You know, we're not tough, I guess. That's the way it is. We don't have to play any audio, but I would love to throw that video back up just so we can comment on it.

They're a little play by play. Maybe we can comment on this as real body language experts would. Maybe Joy Reid will hire us as a contributor for one of our MSNBC segments on body language. But anyway, look, Katie Porter always knows exactly the right questions to ask during these hearings. And I love how he's so offended by what he refers to as a ridiculous question, when really the most offensive part about all of this is that there's still 400. $155 billion from the CARES Act sitting in the Federal Reserve Bank. It's being unused at the moment. More than 100,000 small businesses have completely shut their doors.

Like they're done permanently. There it's there it's watch. There's a ridiculous question. Wait, did we pass it already? I don't know. I don't like to look at him. My eyes unfocused when he's in frame. He is an unpleasant person all around.

Just everything about him, especially when you look into his record. And you see how he, under his leadership, one West Bank had committed fraudulent acts in order to unfairly foreclose on people's homes during the economic collapse. He's just the worst of the worst. Yeah. And he's really frustrated there because she's pointing out how what he's doing obviously is not within the letter of the law. And he's also, he's more sort of meta frustrated by the fact that he thought he'd have four more years to divert that money to his friends, to himself, to whoever. The timeline is rapidly closing on that. But the amount is just amazing.

I honestly don't understand how they could have that much money left with all of the economic chaos that we've been through. And it's really amazing that we got a little tiny check each, like $1,200 or whatever. You get a little bit of unemployment insurance, which is about to end. And other than that, you've been on your own. And it was always insulting every step of the way knowing that they almost immediately passed a gigantic multi-trillion dollar slush fund of money for corporations, but it's almost more insulting that they didn't even need it. Like all that money's just been sitting there. You could have spent it in any fashion for regular working Americans, and it would have made this year much more tolerable,

but instead it's just been sitting there. They didn't need it even for the corporations in the end. Yeah, I mean, the corporations got, basically what we experienced during the pandemic was the reaction to the financial collapse on steroids, right? Just this notion of the Federal Reserve jumping in, printing money or digitizing money, however you want to look at it, and just pumping this money into the banks. And by the way, corporations thinking that this is going to somehow save jobs. But as we've seen, there are still tens of millions of Americans receiving unemployment benefits as a result of these companies still shedding jobs,

essentially taking that money and doing exactly what we were worried that they would do with it, right? There's a reason why the stock market continues to do so well, even as so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, and aren't really out there engaging

in a lot of consumer spending as a result of that. So one thing that I do want to give you guys an update on is where Congress is when it comes to the next round of stimulus, As we shared with you yesterday, there was the solution from the Problem Solvers Caucus, a around $900 billion stimulus bill, far less than what House Democrats had voted in favor of, which was over $2 trillion in another round of stimulus.

About a month ago, Donald Trump came out and realized, oh, maybe passing another round of stimulus will help me with my chances of getting reelected. And at that point, he offered a $1.8 trillion stimulus, which both Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell rejected. Well, the update today is that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have said that they want to accept the $900 billion stimulus package that's been proposed by moderates in Congress, in Senate, in the Senate, to be specific. And it's just so infuriating because I was willing to give Nancy Pelosi the benefit of the doubt when she was playing hardball with the Trump proposal. Remember, she rejected that as well. Because I thought, okay, well, there's that whole liability issue

involved where corporations, based on how Republicans want the bill written, corporations wouldn't have to worry about any liability if they're not doing what's necessary to keep their employees safe during the pandemic. And so I was like, oh, maybe she's being principled here. How naive, how stupid. I was so stupid. No, it was 100% about hurting Trump's chances of getting reelected. Because now she's like, oh, this $908 billion bill, which by the way, offers that liability protection for corporations, does not offer a COVID relief check, you know, the $1,200 check that most Americans receive, and offers far less in unemployment insurance. I'll go ahead and vote for that. Yeah, we're urging Republicans to accept that.

McConnell has rejected it. He's like, I'm not going to vote in favor. I'm not going to bring it to Congress or to the Senate for a floor vote. He is unwilling to accept anything above $500 billion. And of course, he wants to prioritize more relief to corporations as opposed to average Americans who are really suffering right now. Well, to be fair, he also wants the corporations to not be able to be sued, which is cool. A lot of people have been asking for that for literally months. And he wants to extend the unemployment benefits for one month. which is fine because the pandemic will be gone by then and harsher requirements to get it because of fraud after all lots of fraud and also will provide businesses 100% tax exemptions for meals that they claim. What does that have to do with this? I don't know, maybe it'll be in the bill, I don't know, but it really is something. He just won reelection. You got to kind of give it to him. He gambled that he could do nothing as tens of thousands Americans died all around the country, and he was proven right. Yeah.

And what's Pelosi doing? Yeah. But by the way, can I also mention one other the things throughout this pandemic on the damage report, we've multiple times talked about the particular spikes, the hot zones of COVID in these meat packing plants and things like that. And so right now, one of them is being sued because thousands of people got COVID, and a bunch died, and apparently the manager was made out of game out of it. And they tried to bet how many people would get sick.

Tyson. Exactly. So it's very important that this bill passed now so that those lawsuits can't go forward. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. You guys absolutely need to read the details about that Tyson wrongful death lawsuit. It's just horrifying. To read about management, literally taking bets on how many of their employees who are crammed into this space are are likely to get sick and possibly die from this virus. Yep. Anyway, well, let's move on to other news. If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system

so that it's not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan like, defund the police, but you know you've lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you're actually going to get the changes you want done. Well, that was former president Barack Obama who shed some light on how he really feels about the defund the police statement coming from protesters all throughout the summer. And of course, even today, as people are demanding more funding for social services and rehabilitative programs, as opposed to pumping so much of municipal budgets into law enforcement, which, you know, in many cases is not really prepared to deal with. issues involving people who are struggling with mental health illnesses and all the other issues that we've mentioned on this show before. And so that has led to a lot of backlash toward former President Obama. Before I share my thoughts, I'm curious what you think about it, John.

Yeah, so we did talk about it this morning on the damage report, and it's just the most infuriating thing. A lot of it is Obama, of course, because he's the powerful one in that conversation. But the framing of the questions from that, I believe, Vanity Fair interviewer was just insane, asserting as a blanket statement that all of these activists, not just in criminal justice, but all these activists, they're not modest, they're just emotional, they can't marry logic with passion and things like that. And Obama just accepted it. He didn't stick up for all of these activists. These activists that he was going around the country trying to get to support to Biden, and apparently they did, and it was incredibly important for Biden winning.

But now you can just go back to insulting them. Look, finishing out this year, a year that has seen a bigger, more sustained social movement than we've seen in anything our entire lives, that this is his big takeaway. It's weird, yeah. Not that it demonstrates such a need for solutions, but that we should back off of every method that you're using, back off of the slogans that you're using. And we're going to assert, by the way, that you're just about the slogans, it's not really about the need, it's just that you like things that are on signs, I guess.

then maybe we'll talk. Once you stop protesting, that's always the order of events. Stop protesting, stop making us uncomfortable, and then we'll give you the stuff that we weren't giving you before you protested and made us uncomfortable. Yeah, so real quick, for anyone who wants to read the full interview, it was published for its print version in Vanity Fair because Peter Hamby, who is the interviewer, is a contributor to Vanity Fair, but this interview took place on his Snapchat show called Good luck America. So yeah, I actually 100% agree with your assessment, John, in that, you know, when I first saw the video where Obama specifically talks about this issue, I kind of thought,

well, I disagree with him, mostly because, well, he might have a point that it's not good to have, I guess, a message that you have to explain, right? It muddies what you actually want to accomplished. I think that is kind of a legitimate critique. At the same time, Obama had an opportunity during that interview to make it abundantly clear what this message is really about, right? How this message isn't about completely doing away with any form of law enforcement. Like all of those myths, all of those misconceptions could have easily been debunked in how he answered that question. But instead of, you know, doing a fair analysis and shedding light on that message really means, he just decided to criticize, you know, protesters who have a very

legitimate ask, a very legitimate demand about transferring some resources over to social service programs. So the right people who are trained can answer certain types of calls, right? So if someone is having some sort of episode, at this point, I mean, if I experienced someone in my personal life having an episode, I'd be terrified to call the cops because you don't know how they're going to react to it. Right? So, but he didn't, he didn't explain any of that. And then you're absolutely right, John, when you read the full interview, the way the questions were framed, I feel Obama should have pushed back, right? Because the framing is important and Obama didn't push back. Here's some other statements I wanted to read to you.

If you instead say, this is from Obama, if you instead say, let's reform the police department so that everybody's being treated fairly, divert young people from getting into crime. And if there's a homeless guy, maybe we send a mental health worker there instead of an armed unit that could end up resulting in a tragedy. Suddenly a whole bunch of folks who might not otherwise listen to you are listening to you. Okay, well, here's the thing. That argument has been made over and over and over again. I guess the point I'm trying to make is The people who typically criticize defund the police, I'm talking about public figures, are being disingenuous in pretending like they don't understand what the real message is, right?

They're pretending, like, they're purposely and intentionally skewing what the demand is here. And I have a problem with that. Like, they've been making that argument. So why are you pretending like people who have been part of this movement haven't made that argument? They have. It's just that they're disingenuous bad faith actors who are pretending like they don't know better. They know better. Yeah. Yeah, and it was also frustrating. At one point in the interview, Peter Hamby says something to him about, you were a community organizer. You know that when you talk to people, you go door to door, they just want modest change and things like that, which is a crazy thing to say, just a crazy thing to say. But he's acknowledging that like he's saying basically

Obama was a community organizer, so we need to be really understanding of his experience, because He has experience on the ground actually organizing for change. Sure, he did. That was a while ago. Who are the organizers now? Is he a community organizer? Is he out there protesting? I would argue the community organizers are in the streets right now and they're protesting.

So it is possible that they have a more direct connection to what people want and what people need right now, like pretending that nothing has changed that, yeah, all you need to do is just lay out these things and tons of people listen. What are you talking about? People are listening now as a product of these, these protests, these conversations. Maybe not all of them love the slogan. Maybe not all of them love every part of the solutions, but like with the Green New Deal, at least it is a national conversation right now. And in a time where like the craziest news lasts a day, maybe two, this has lasted months. So where was that more moderate, no protests? Let's just talk about the policy. Where

was that? Why didn't that get everyone talking about finally fixing these problems that have plagued multiple generations? He's implying that they would, but there's no evidence, of that. Yeah. You know, and he did talk about some other things that I thought, well, I agreed with him on. I wish that he shared this message a little more aggressively, but Obama had had a few statements about some of these progressive freshman politicians, people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, let me give you what his statement was. He says the Democratic National Convention I thought was really successful considering the pandemic and really used technology wisely. But, you know, the fact that an AOC only got what, three minutes or

five minutes, when she speaks to a broad section of young people who are interested in what she has to say, even if they don't agree with everything else, she says, you give her a platform just like, this is the important part, just like there may be some young Democrats who come from more conservative areas who have a different point of view. 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. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients designed to

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Right? Because what he's saying there is, you know that if there was like a conservative Democrat, they'd have that person speak for longer. It wouldn't be an issue. Right. But with AOC, Ilhan Omar, with, you know, some of these more like left wing Democrats who do certainly have a much larger following among young voters. Like, let's try to get them in the mix as well. But yeah. The problem isn't that they're fresh blood. The problem is their ideology for the establishment Democratic Party in my opinion. Exactly, and that's a great opportunity for an Emmy award-winning journalist to ask a fall-up question. He makes the good point. They should have given her more time. So the fall question should be, so why didn't they? Why did they give her the absolute bare minimum? And by the way, let's not rewrite history, not even time to just talk about whatever she wants. It was the thing where she introduces Bernie.

Like it was a specific thing that Bernie probably had to push for for her to get what I think was a minute or two. I don't think it was three and it definitely wasn't five. Why didn't they give her more time? And he knows the answer to that, as you alluded to. It's the ideology. And you say, Obama just said, you know, they're listening and they're interested. Yeah, but the Democratic leadership isn't, by the way. They're highly critical of her.

They want to like have other voices be the ones that are actually heard. And honestly, while Obama's sort of, you know, giving her credit there, he just got done saying these crazy slogans at all that. They're not helpful. We should be more. You are effectively kind of like the leaders who chose to give. for just a couple of minutes. You seem a little bit more complimentary towards her, but you don't want her to be the face of the party,

the one who's actually driving the Democratic message. So let's just be real about that. But of course, that fall of question didn't come. The fall of questions were designed to give him what he wanted. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Anyway, we do have to take a break, but when we come back, we will discuss one of Biden's closest staffers and how her record is

possibly foreshadowing when it comes to the possibility possibility of overturning or repealing Trump's tax cuts for the rich. We'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode, of Un-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 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. Ooh, my first break in news. Okay, so, oh, it feels like the damage report again. Okay, so the really cool thing about this document is that not only are your super chats and tweets

and comments on Twitch put here, but there's even like a label for the topic you're talking about, which is a good idea. I should do that myself. There were a few people who had things to say about the Steve Mnuchin interaction. They shrunk Biden's brain says, darn shame, we didn't have the opportunity to prosecute Mnuchin in the past. Right, Kamala Harris? Not a bad point. Not a bad point. People want credit for the work they've done in the past, but they don't necessarily want you to bring up

areas like that where hypothetically could have saved us a lot of trouble. Maybe if he had gotten into big legal trouble earlier on, or at least a bigger fuss was made about some of the absolutely horrendous things that he did, maybe it would have been more difficult for Donald Trump to put him in this position of authority that he's in. By the way, just notice to those in charge, I don't see the timer. Oh, no way, I do. Thank you. It's smaller than I expected. No more trigonometry says there's no policy reason or any legitimate motive why Mnuchin is trying to move the funds. Nothing but political games while people are struggling to eat and pay their rent. Disgusting. Exactly. And they don't even have to pretend like that they get that people are suffering.

Mnuchin has been doing just fine. Every person that he goes to fancy dinners with is richer now than they were before the pandemic. Divided by Zero says, I want to know why it's not the first news item on every broadcasts that senators and representatives are bipartisanly proposing a stimulus without checks to the people. The one thing that any stimulus needs, not on the table. Well, I mean, we are, obviously, and it's possible. I mean, they're going to have so many panels on CNN and MSNBC. Maybe something like that will be mentioned. But the thing is, The economic interests of the vast majority of the people who appear on those sorts of panels are not that dissimilar from the politicians who are passing those sorts of deals. How many people are going to be on CNN tonight talking about this that are on unemployment?

Or have ever drawn unemployment, honestly. Zero effectively. Okay, let's see. Thomas said, and this has to do with Obama, defunding the police is not about abolishing the police. Obama knows this. He just wants us to bow our heads and accept things the way they are. Or at the very least, because look, he was willing to at least explain a few components of the policy package that underlies defund the police. But he also fundamentally agrees. And this is, he's felt this way. Other Democrats like him have felt this way for a very long time. We can try to come up with stuff, a policy or a slogan.

And we'll put it out there. And if the right isn't super polite to us about it, then we're going to run for the hills. We're not going to defend ourselves. We're not going to fight back. We're not going to try to control the narrative or control the message. It's just whatever the right says. And someday, man, we're going to come up with something that the right is going to be really nice about. And then we'll win, I guess.

That's what it feels like. Gravity Boy says, write on Anna. The obtuse ignorance about the issue is a tool they use. Remember Kaepernick and his message. Exactly. He was attacked. Like, you're attacked if you're kneeling. You're attacked if you're rioting.

Like, they're going to attack you either way. Maybe ignore the attacks and just get done what you need to get done. On super chat, Argotti says love you guys. This show has given me hope for the future of our country. Thank you so much, Anna Jenk, John, and the rest of TiT. Argotti, thank you very much for that. Gabby says Katie Porter is the best. Katie Porter, I hope that Katie Porter gets as excited the morning she's going to question

someone as everyone else does because she does great work. She should be able to enjoy it as well. Let's see. Mike says, remember Obama lets pipeline security sick dogs on Native Americans without consequence. Not a bad point, exactly. Now with that, we're going to have more in the future, but we're going to come back to our break. We'll see you in just a few. Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you. Let's get right to our next story. So, give me one second, actually, because, okay, so let's talk about pardons. So the Justice Department, there's been a new announcement from the Justice Department that we should talk about because it coincides with one other breaking story from today regarding Donald Trump and possible pardons that he can announce in the remaining days of administration. So without further ado, the, am I missing something? Hold on. I feel like I'm putting you guys in a weird spot. Yes, Biden staffer. I knew I was doing something wrong.

My bad. So let's talk about that. So one of Biden staffers, who's worked with him for literally decades, has a pretty questionable pass. And it should concern us because she's still very much working side by side by Biden. So Cynthia Hogan, a Biden staffer who has worked with him since the 1990s, lobbied in favor of Donald Trump's tax cuts for the rich. And she did so while she was working as a lobbyist on behalf of Apple, which of course very much wanted these tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Now, she was the lead lobbyist for Apple as she was helping to push for the approval of Donald Trump's tax cuts. The 2017 Republican tax law slash the previous 35% corporate tax rate and passed a range of provisions that mostly benefited the wealthiest 1%. Apple stock quickly

hit record highs and enriched shareholders, including 43 GOP lawmakers who championed the law while holding all sorts of individual stocks. This is fantastic reporting from Ida Chavez over at the Intercept. Please read the full piece because it is fantastic. And it gives you more details into Cynthia Hogan's past. Now, why is this relevant today? It's relevant because she still is very much connected to Joe Biden, is still working with Joe Biden, especially when it comes to the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration. And lobbying disclosures also show that Hogan was lobbying on behalf of Apple for several different things that would benefit the company tax-wise. So corporate tax,

tax reform was listed in the lobbying disclosures. International tax reform was also included state sales tax and taxation of digital goods. So she had this multi-pronged approach as the lead lobbyist from Apple to essentially push for lower taxes for corporations. Now a lot of money was spent by Apple on that lobbying effort. As The Intercept reports for all of 2017, Apple registered spending nearly six. $7 million lobbying Congress and the administration directly. In 2018, still under Hogan's guidance, the company continued lobbying on corporate tax reform as the laws regulations were being implemented, increasing their spending in the

first quarter of that year to $2.14 million. So you actually will see this huge spike in lobbying expenses from Apple in the year 2017. And I think that's telling because that's the year when most of the debate and lobbying took place in regard to Donald Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy. Now, Hogan actually ended up leaving Apple earlier this year in order to join President-elect Joe Biden's campaign. And she also helped select his running maid, Kamala Harris. So again, I'm giving you these details because she is still very much intertwined in Joe Biden's circles. And this goes beyond lobbying in favor of Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy. There are also some issues when it comes to how she's handled the lobbying that she did on behalf of the NFL.

But before we get to that, John, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Wouldn't you love to just follow her for a day in her job and find out what the hell it is that a person like this actually does? In either of those cases, honestly, for Apple or for Joe Biden. Like they went looking for someone to do whatever general staff stuff she does and to choose who the VP candidate is going to be. Well, why not get the person that wanted to lower taxes for Apple? To wealthy, powerful people, that is exactly how they think and that is how virtually every job is filled. But to a normal person looking at this, it makes absolutely no sense. What does this person do?

What is their actual expertise? What is their skill set? I have no idea. And what's the argument for her being involved with Joe Biden, a guy who constantly talks about the fact that we need to get rid of those tax cuts that she worked to make sure that we have. Well, is it that he's, is it that he's being disingenuous? And so he's surrounding himself with people who are perfectly fine with those tax cuts. In fact, they have made tons of money ensuring that those taxes happen.

Or is it that he's surrounding himself with people who have no actual core, and they just do whatever the corporation or person they're working for tells them to. If it's Apple and they wants their taxes cut, they go with that, you know, whole hog. Now with Biden, whatever, I'll do the exact opposite of that. I don't like either of those explanations. Right, I don't either. And I would probably agree more with the first explanation that you pointed to. This is why we have such a huge problem with this revolving door of politics, right? Because on one hand, when she was working with Biden in Congress as one of his staffers,

she actually helped him write the Violence Against Women Act, which is fantastic. The Violence Against Women Act helped to provide resources to women who wanted to leave their husbands and prosecute them for domestic violence, important legislation. She then left Congress to work as a lobbyist on behalf of the NFL at a time when the NFL needed help avoiding regulations in regard to all of the domestic violence cases that were popping up, right? So we talked about those stories in great detail. There were videos of NFL players, you know, abusing their partners. And there was a lot of negative press toward the NFL as a result of that. And so what Hogan did at that time as a lobbyist for the NFL was prevent any type of congressional

oversight or regulation into the NFL in regard to these domestic violence issues. So this is what the, I mean, that's, her legacy could have been great, right? Helping to write this important piece of legislation, but then again, because of the profit motive, she leaves government to go work for the NFL and it wasn't just the domestic violence issues. She also helped the NFL keep its tax exempt status. Amazing. But there's more. There's more. It gets worse. So in 1994, as we all know, Joe Biden succeeded in passing the crime bill. The crime bill that has led to a disproportionate number of black men and people of color getting arrested, convicted of minor offenses, and then imprisoned for a ridiculous amount of time.

When that bill passed in 1994, Joe Biden made a point to thank one of his staffers who helped him write that bill. Let's watch. I want to start off and again pay tribute to the chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee, Cynthia Hogan. She's smart. She's tough. And I think I can say without any equivocation, there is not a Democratic or Republican senator on this floor that doesn't. not respect her and when they ask her something and she tells them, they absolutely take it to the bank. Absolutely just take it to the bank. And the most incredible and important currency in this body, in this Senate is one's word.

And you have no idea, Mr. President, how easy my job is. When all I have, right now, I'll bet you there are 25 senators who can tell me Cynthia's office phone number without having to look it up because they're so accustomed to calling her and asking her opinion or asking her for information, Republican as well as Democrat. Well, that's just great. Fantastic. That's the skill set. Yeah. You have a bunch of senators on both sides that talk to you on the phone a lot and you can use that to write a bill and then you can use that to make a bunch of money. And Apple can use that to make a bunch more money.

Spending, like, was it $7 million on lobbying? I just randomly looked. Their profit that year was almost $100 billion. They didn't even notice the $7 million. It was stuck in like the folds of a chair or something, but it potentially was important in getting these tax cuts that are going to save them tons of money. And if that, you know, cuts down the federal treasury

to an extent that we can't afford to do things for working Americans, Well, that's fine. They made money along the way. Lobbyists like her made money along the way. And it should be noted that Biden is even worse than Obama was when it comes to allowing lobbyists to work within government. Apparently Obama had a little bit of some standards, some regulations that he implemented. But it didn't matter. I mean, obviously lobbyists played a huge role within his administration. as well. In this case, Biden is even more loose when it comes to allowing for lobbyists to work within his administration. So all of this is super relevant. And maybe some of you guys think, man, he just won the election. You're already being so tough on him. And the answer to that

is, yeah, damn right. We heard for months and months and months that you, nope, nope, don't criticize Biden, Not allowed. You can't do it. I mean, we're dealing with Trump. He's a threat. Well, Trump is no longer really a threat. I mean, he's a joke and he's embarrassing himself on a daily basis, but Biden got elected. And now it's time to play. And I'm not doing it to be unfair. If Biden does something great, we'll definitely take note of it. We'll mention it on the show. We'll give you the details. Cynthia Hogan, not great. Not great. Neurotandin, definitely not great. A host of other people that I've mentioned on this show being chosen to serve in his cabinet, not great.

But if there is someone who ends up being great, we'll make sure we'll let you know about that. Anyway, let's move on to other not-so-great people. So, the Justice Department is investigating a possible bribery scheme involving paying bribes in order to secure presidential pardons. These bribes are allegedly being paid to individuals who are close to the White House. And the whole point is to eventually influence the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to pardon certain individuals. Now, here's the problem with this Justice Department investigation. It's heavily redacted. We don't know who's involved.

We don't even know if Donald Trump is aware of this alleged plot. Okay. So that's where we're at. I'll give you the details that we do know. For instance, the Department of Justice investigation involves two people whose names are redacted, who were improperly acting as lobbyists to secure the pardon for a person whose name is also redacted. The plot involved the person offering a substantial political contribution in exchange

for a presidential pardon or reprieve of sentence. Now, again, just to reiterate, at this point, we don't know what Donald Trump's involvement is, or if he's even aware of this plot. And the news also comes at a time when he is considering pardoning a number of his associates, friends, goons, whatever you want to label them as. He's even considering, based on conversations that he's had privately, which were leaked to the press, pardoning his own family members preemptively. He might even consider pardoning himself preemptively, although legal experts say that the... At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways

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So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-E-S-E. VPN.com slash TYT. Check it out today. Law is a little shaky on that. But can the president preemptively pardon someone even before they're facing any charges? Because as we know, Trump's children at this moment aren't

facing any charges, but there are criminal investigations into some of their conduct during the Trump administration and in regard to some of their business practices. Well, it turns out that, yeah, the president can do that. It has happened in the past. Ford had done a preemptive pardon on Richard Nixon in regard to the Watergate scandal. Richard Nixon had not been charged with a crime yet, but assuming that he was going to be, Gerald Ford decided to pardon him preemptively, and apparently that was totally fine. So there is precedent for that. However, there is no precedent for a president preemptively pardoning himself. So I guess we'll see how this all plays out. John.

You ever wonder if Nixon had been sent to jail how different history could be? If it would have just given, just to put a little bit of fear into all the presidents and the people running for president that they can't spend their entire terms breaking the law and get away with it. Because they do. I mean, they do. And we always rely on the fact that the next president is going to be a Democrat who's going to look forward instead of backward. And yet we're still continuing that. Trump is all scared about these investigations. when the only investigations he can protect himself from

are the ones Joe Biden would never launch against him at the federal level anyway. He's just not going to do it. And the state stuff, he can't protect them against. That at least has a chance. I believe it's probably a very small chance. Not even necessarily because Trump is the president, but because he's wealthy and they never seem to go to jail. They can just drag it out as long as they want.

$100 million in legal fees just gives you another five years, I guess. And it's not like Trump is going to last that much longer anyway. The entire thing is just ridiculous. I mean, he, if you're in the DOJ, you had to be ready for this, right? Like, it's the most obvious crime in the world that he's going to try to use this ridiculous king-like power that they gave him to make cash. I can't wait to find out how much money he was asking for, because I bet it's way lower than you think. I'm thinking $25,000 for presidential pardon. I don't think it was in the millions.

The story that drives me crazy because no one seems to care about it is that. the fact that there's proof, there's evidence of Donald Trump basically funneling money to his private businesses to the tune of eight million dollars. And it's a total violation of the emoluments clause, total violate. But anyway- Yeah, but that's just in the Constitution, though. I know, who cares about that? Who cares about that? It's just, it's so infuriating, but we'll see how this all plays out.

I just do think it's interesting that, you know, behind the scenes, the thing that he is really worried about is how he could be held accountable for some of his actions. Legally speaking, as soon as he's out of the White House, I think that's part of the reason why he's been so gung-ho about refusing to accept the election results. But we'll definitely update you guys on this as we learn more. One other quick thing I wanted to mention is, you know, in regard to the Department of Justice investigation, as I mentioned, it's heavily redacted, we don't even know. We don't even know if Donald Trump is part of this plot, aware of the plot, right?

So if these types of investigations were being done on any reasonable person, smart person, then you would just shut up, right? Like don't say anything publicly, no one's been named. But Trump can't help himself. So on Twitter, he wrote, part of an investigation is fake news. Okay, so that tells me that you were aware of the plot. That's what, I mean, that's what it communicates to me. That's the way it reads to, I think, most people.

Because why are you acting suspicious if you didn't do anything wrong? Anyway, all right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we have more for you, including the Trump-Cushner Griff that we have more details on. Come right back. Welcome back, everyone. So we're going to read a few more of your comments. But before we get to that, I want to go immediately to Twitch because I receive the very harsh criticism that I don't stop at the pink spot enough, which just, it's very disturbing. The Twitch spot is pink. You probably need to know that. So first of all, we've got some

subs. Fungai John is a four-month subscriber. Red Shen Dragon, very cool. Six months. Kiyokens at seven. Brother Mucker at four. Y'all are really weird, which is a great reference that most people probably at this point aren't going to get, but it makes me happy. Gifted a sub to pansexual Satan. Tremobitiki gifted one sub. Control Alt delete is at seven months. Whiskey at four. Family of Critters at three. And let's see what's going on with the member comments. Jess I'm anti-racist says, had Obama seriously wanted AOC's voice amplified, it's not as if he didn't have the power to make that happen. I mean, sure, just as the fact that he is the president, he could feature her and whatever he wants to give her time.

Also, he's in a very lucrative, big, wide-ranging deal with Netflix. They could make something happen. She's been very big on Netflix as well. But again, I think it's, he's savvy enough to know that this is going to play better than the mansion, like, way. Like, you want to reference her, sure, but it's better to make yourself appear to be her ally as opposed to her enemy. Okay, let's see. Ecclectic miscellaneous says 100% agree with Obama. Dems need to listen to conservative youth too. The DNC needs to stop excluding the Young Mansions of America faction of the Democratic Party.

Exactly. What young conservatives? I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, let's see. Brent Hudgens says, I remember Jank making this point from the beginning. This is about defend the police as a slogan. He then changed his opinion after receiving some heat over his concern about the slogan being misleading,

about how the slogan will need to be explained. It's really hard to get people on your side if they are confused or feel threatened. I only bring this up because I have had to argue incessantly for five months that abolishing the police isn't the goal, which has been exhausting. But here's the thing, you could propose any kind of cut whatsoever and propose it with whatever language you want to the police and conservatives are going to oppose it. We see that every day with the military, it's not like the conservatives are waiting for the right slogan for a 10% cut to the military.

They oppose ever cutting it in any way. They'll attack the slogan, sure, but they would have attacked you anyway. I don't know, so I find that to be frustrating. Welcome, by the way, to new YouTube members, Katie Bosserman, Danelin Kallai, Alan Clifford, and Joanna Ellis. Thank you for becoming members. And I did want to read just one or two super chats before we run out of time. Michael Drew says the ideology of trickle-down economics has never worked.

Why would it work during a pandemic? Great point, great point. They did the direct stimulus, which seemed like a good idea, and I'm sure helped in the very beginning. Then they just decided that they didn't want to set up a precedent of that being a recurring thing. And so they're not even talking about it now. We're about to enter into a time. I'm like waiting the next 30 minutes when we're going to get the COVID report. We're going to pass those death counts like on a daily basis within the next three weeks or so. So we did all of that help

in the beginning because we were so scared. It's going to be worse now, but they're still going to oppose any kind of aid. They're going to pretend that we don't need it. Let's see. Ray Turner says Dragon Daddy and Salty Dragon Queen. Thank you for telling it like it is. All of you guys on TYT helped Keep me hopeful that things will get better. Ray Turner, I appreciate that. And comments like that make me think that maybe things will get better. Maybe not politically, but we're at least nice to each other, and that's something. With that, we'll be back in just a second.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Hey, Friends, welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you. Story just broke that's very relevant to what we were talking about in the last segment. So I wanted to give you that update and we'll see how this all goes.

So it was reported that Donald Trump is concerned about possible criminal charges that not only he is facing as soon as he's out of the White House, but charges that his family may be facing as soon as they leave the White House. And I'm talking about people like Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Don Jr., and it was just just reported that Ivanka Trump actually has been deposed and is facing possible criminal charges when it comes to the use of inaugural funds. So I'm gonna read from the CNN piece where they state that Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and advisor, sat for a deposition on Tuesday of this week with investigators from the Washington DC Attorney General's office as part of its lawsuit alleging misuse of inaugural funds.

In January, the D.C. Attorney General's office sued the Trump organization and presidential inaugural committee, alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by grossly overpaying for use of event space at the Trump Hotel in Washington for the 2017 inauguration. And so that is just one of the issues that's currently being investigated. So my guess is, considering that one of the big stories today is that Donald Trump is planning on pardoning, preemptively pardoning his own children and possibly preemptively pardoning himself, meaning pardoning himself and his family members before any of them have even been charged with anything. That's the story that broke today. And this update about how Ivanka

Trump was deposed this week makes it abundantly clear why Trump is now thinking about whether, or not whether, how he's going to do these pardons. So I hadn't seen this because I was doing the social break. But yeah, so supposedly they paid $175,000 per day for an event space in Trump Hotel for four days. Come on. I don't know how much that space is worth, but I know it's not that. They definitely did that. But honestly, maybe it matters legally that this was the inaugural fund. But they've been doing that stuff at their hotels the entire time. We've reported on stories where they'll send the Secret Service to stay at some Trump Hotel while he's down in Florida or whatever. And every time they do this, they jack up the price for that day.

And then the price goes back down as soon as it's not the federal government paying anymore. That seems like it's just as illegal. But I don't know if this is controversial. Of all the things that he's done, when he abuses the money that's given to him, I kind of feel like even if this was made 100% explicit to every single person that gave him money for the inaugural fund. The people, like, we do the stories about for his recount fund, the fact that the money doesn't actually go to the recount. I don't think any of those people care. Like, I don't think they just are waiting to have it explained to them that they're being conned. I don't think that they care that they're being conned. I think that that's part of it.

Sure, I get, you're probably right. I mean, Trump loyalists always remain Trump loyalists until they're like literally, not literally, until they're thrown under the bus in some awful way. and then they're dealing with death threats from Trump cronies and supporters. But in this case, I mean, it really doesn't matter if these donors care about being conned or whether they care about this money being misused. If it's proven through this investigation, they committed a crime. And so anyone else, any average person would deal with the consequences of raising money for one purpose, whether it be a charity or something else, and then misusing that money on,

you know, something else, like enriching themselves. Can I ask you a quick question? Before you do, actually no, go ahead, ask me now. Because I wonder, like, I don't know for sure that she is the target of this. Right. It's possible that she was managing or something. But remember that she's also facing a possible investigation having to do with her being paid as a contractor while working as an employee with Trump.

Right. That is a thing where, hypothetically, she could have actually broken the law in being a party to that. Exactly. So I'm glad that you brought that up because it ties into what I was about to share with the audience. We just know that she's been deposed. That doesn't mean that she's facing charges.

But the point here is that there are multiple investigations into the Trump organization, the Trump family. Remember, there are still issues involving possible tax fraud, which is a serious felony. There are allegations of committing fraud in order to obtain loans. that obviously Donald Trump had absolutely no business obtaining as someone who had gone bankrupt so many times. But I also want to share some details about other people who have been deposed. According to the CNN article, it's not just Ivanka Trump. First Lady Melania Trump has also been subpoenaed by the Attorney General's office.

Records have been subpoenaed by her, I should say. Same with Rick Gates, the former inaugural committee deputy chairman. So this is a real investigation and again, the fact that Ivanka Trump was deposed this week now makes it a lot clearer why Donald Trump is thinking about doing these preemptive pardons, right? Like just connect the dots. You know, the urgency for Trump is now there. And he's, he can help himself. He acts irrationally and erratically. So we'll see how this plays out in the coming days. But I don't doubt for a second that he's going to attempt to pardon his family members and himself. Okay, we got to talk about the defense bill because the story is insane. So, Donald Trump keeps threatening to veto the defense bill. And honestly, I'm here for it. I don't care what his reasons are.

Sounds great. But his reasons have been pretty awful. Reason number one was that he didn't want to rename military bases that had been named after Confederate soldiers. But now, he's so bitter, so bitter about losing the election and getting facts. checked by social media platforms that he's threatening to veto the Defense Authorization Act, the defense spending bill, unless Congress repeal protections for tech companies that would clear them of any liability if any user posted something criminal on their sites, right, on their

platforms. So let me give you the details. Trump threatened to veto the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act unless Section 230, which guards tech giants from being held accountable for content shared on their platforms, is repealed, claiming that it is a serious threat to our national security and election integrity. No, it's not. Look, I have a lot of issues with tech companies, many of which we've detailed on this show. He's trying to retaliate against Twitter and Facebook for like, I mean, Facebook barely fact checks him, but Twitter, like, kind of fact checks him? Like, their fact check of Donald Trump's lies about election fraud is, this is dispute. Some people dispute this claim. A tiny, tiny little line.

Some people dispute it a little bit. Yeah. But you still read it. You can share it. No, share it to millions of people. But it's just a little thing. It's amazing. And that has made Trump want to retaliate against these companies. One more statement from Donald Trump. This is something that he tweeted. Therefore, it is very dangerous and unfair. Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. I will be forced to unequivocally veto the bill when sent to the very beautiful, resolute desk. It's amazing. We're getting the last little bit of Trump before he goes. The very beautiful desk. Like, that's like peak Trump there.

I, there's a lot of things about Trump that are very weak. But when you say it's unfair, oh my God, dude, there have been snowflakes before. But few snowflakes have tried to defund the military because of their snowflakiness. And what would it do if they were to get rid of it? So hypothetically they could be, was sued or something. So what? So is he going to sue Twitter? What's the long game there?

Is the idea that his threat to sue them would get them to benefit him? Because if you actually sued them and bankrupted them or whatever, then he wouldn't have the platform. It's not going to stop the shadow banning because the shadow banning doesn't actually exist. People are still going to be able to criticize him. It's not going to allow him to sue random Twitter users. He's just trying to punish them. That's all this is about. It's not about like, oh, in the future I'm planning on suing, which I don't know.

He's one of these guys who does love to file all sorts of phony lawsuits, as we've learned recently. with the 38 that he's lost when it comes to unfounded claims of voter fraud. But nonetheless, what he's trying to do here is communicate to tech giants, oh, you're going to try to kind of fact check me. Well, I'm going to go ahead and abuse my power and retaliate against you. So obviously, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle always prioritize funding the government. I'm not the government, sorry, funding the military. And they've never, they've never missed a deadline for the last 59 years straight.

Congress, we're going to pass the funding bill for the military, not an issue. And so I have no doubt that they're going to manage to do that again. Some Republicans have already pushed back on what Trump is demanding here. In fact, one House staffer, likely a Democrat here, says it's an effing joke. This is a complex debate that has no business as an 11th. hour airdrop. So, no, they get, they are real touchy when someone threatens funding for the military, like both Democrats and Republicans.

It's like, no, no, we got to make our donors happy. We can't mess with that. It's ridiculous. We're going to talk about Ben Shapiro having another temper tantrum about transgender individuals during the post game. It's fun because he's just, like, I can't imagine anything. I can't imagine someone else's happiness and truth. living their true selves, making me as unhappy and miserable as Ben Shapiro is.

But we have lots of other great stories. Become a member. TYT.com slash join to become one. We'll see you there. 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, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.