The Young Turks - The Young Turks - January 13, 2021

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

The House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of the US Capitol siege. 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. Welcome, friends, you're watching The Young Turks with Anna Casparian and John Iderola, which could only mean one thing. It's Wednesday. We're going to hear the damage report, not just in the morning. with the actual damage report show on this network. But we're gonna get the damage report here on the main show. John, it's always a pleasure to have you.

Thank you for joining us today. Glad to be here. It's a glorious day. You know, it's funny because like we're genuinely friends. So it always feels a little awkward when I treat you as if like, you know, you're just some colleague that you know, it's a pleasure to have you on today. For my podcast. Thanks, thanks for doing the show, friend.

Yeah, we were talking before the show, probably talk after the show. This is just part of our talking. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, you know, it's been a really slow news day, so I don't really know what we're, I'm just kidding. Obviously, it's been jam-packed. Donald Trump has been impeached for the second time. So props to him, he's making history. So we'll give you all the details on that and show you some of the speeches that were given on the House floor. Later in the show, we'll also discuss some pretty awful decisions made in the Supreme Court. This is the kind of story that's gonna kind of, you know, not get a lot of attention considering all of the other Trump-related news.

But I think it's important to share details about what else is happening in the country. So we'll talk about that later. But for now, let's get to the impeachment story. Lots of big updates on that. And a lot of shocking updates, actually. So the House of Representatives has voted to officially impeach Donald Trump on one article of impeachment regarding his incitement of insurrection. direction. Now, unlike the first time that Donald Trump was impeached in 2019, today we saw 10 Republicans vote in favor of impeachment, which is a big deal. Now, this is a historical event not only because of the fact that Donald Trump has been impeached two times, the first president to be impeached two times, but this is the most bipartisan impeachment, which is an interesting

way to look at this, especially when you consider what happened last week. with these insurrectionist rioting in the Capitol. And then you look at the high volume of Republicans who are still serving as apologists for Donald Trump and his, you know, incredibly violent rhetoric, which not only incited violence last week, let's be clear, Donald Trump's rhetoric has incited violence in this country in so many different cases, beginning with the hate march in Charlottesville. You know, you have the Tree of Life synagogue, you have the mass shooting in El Paso, you have Caesar Seyok sending bombs to members of the media and Democratic politicians. Let's not pretend as if we don't know what's been going on in this country for

the last four years. Donald Trump has been inciting violence and this may be the first time that he's actually paying some consequences for it. But before I give you some more details on how this all went down yesterday, I wanted to get your thoughts, John. Yeah, it's great that it is happening. It's going to be made a lot more great if there's anything that actually comes of it in terms of conviction and all of that. Just being impeached again is something. It sends a signal, the fact that it's the most bipartisan. I think people said he's now been impeached as much as all of the presidents combined, which is historic. I think I'm still counting all the votes, but he might have as many members of his own party voting for it as like all

of the others combined. I'm not sure about that one. That's big, but if that is where it ends, then I don't know how much more deterrent power it has than the first impeachment, which didn't change much behavior. It's great to have the 10, sorry, it looked like you were about to say something. No, finish your thought because I do have a response to what you said. Yeah, like, It's good to have the 10 cross over so that we can say that this is an actual bipartisan thing. It's good to get them on the record, although they're on the record in like literally the last week of this whole Trump experience that we've had. You still had 95% of Republicans in the House saying, yeah, no, add up all those things Anna was saying and now add the incitement to the attack. And the attack is the single worst part of a multi-month effort to effectively end Democratic

elections for president in America. So it's the worst part of a much bigger issue. And 95% of Republicans in the House are like, no, that's totally cool. Or I think it's bad, but let's not do something crazy like impeaching him, which is that's the exact same thing as I think it's okay. Right, exactly. I mean, most Republican lawmakers who are against impeachment are like, well, you know, I mean, what he did was really bad. It was really bad. But I I mean like impeachment, does that really make any sense? He only has a week left in office, and so maybe we should do a censure. No, look, this isn't about removing Donald Trump from office.

Clearly, he only has a week left. The two main points to take away from this impeachment is number one. It's meant to serve as a deterrent so people understand that there are consequences for inciting violence the way that Donald Trump has been doing. And then number two, it's an effort to prevent him from running for federal office again. Of course, there have been so many headlines regarding Trump's plans to run for president in 2024. If he is impeached and then also convicted in the Senate, he cannot do that.

And so the update to this story is also the fact that Mitch McConnell, who we learned yesterday is actually in favor of these impeachment proceedings. This was reported by the New York Times, is not going to have the Senate reconvene in order to hear this trial in order to either convict or exonerate Donald Trump. And at first I was irritated by that, but then I kind of stopped and thought about it. With Mitch McConnell and the majority of Republicans in the Senate, I just don't trust them to convict Donald Trump. So the trial is likely to happen when Joe Biden is already in office, when the Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate, and it's more likely that Donald Trump will be convicted for this article of impeachment.

And I think that's actually a better outcome, because again, it helps to fulfill the objective of preventing this person from running for president again. So I think it's actually, whether Mitch McConnell meant it to be or not, a good move that would more likely lead to Trump getting convicted of something that he's clearly guilty of. Yeah, and I don't know, we were talking J.R. and I were talking about Mitch McConnell and that thing about him secretly being pleased behind the scenes. And I'm sure that, look, he, Mitch McConnell has never seemed like a person that was like, you know, wearing a red hat at home or anything. Like he's not a true believer in that way. He's, he's a more old school Republican. And that means he's still awful,

but he's awful in specific sort of policy based ways and judicial ways in terms of choosing judges. And so I get that he would, he would want, if possible, to stop Trump from having, you know, even more control over the Republican Party going forward. It's not like if Trump is stopped from pursuing federal office, that's it for Trump. I was never super convinced that he was going to seriously run in 2024 anyway. I think he might run, but there's barely going to be anything left of him by then. He's still going to be out there, no matter what. You can ban him from Twitter and ban him from running for office. He's still going to exist.

He's still an issue. And so I get that Mitch McConnell would want to throw up a few more barriers there. But I also on the show this morning before we found out about the fact that he's definitely punting until he's no longer in charge, he's not necessarily going to stick his neck all the way out of the shell so his head can be cut off. Like he doesn't necessarily want to be the one who's going to face all the ire. He would prefer that the Democrats do it if the end result is the same. So it's not, it's like, okay, good, you don't like Trump that much.

It's not a profile and courage or anything like that. And so whatever credit we want to give him, I think it's necessarily, I think, quite limited. Yeah, I give him no credit. Let's be clear, I give him zero credit. He has aided and abetted Donald Trump throughout his four years in office. So I'm just saying that the outcome, you know, as a result of Mitch McConnell refusing to have the The current Senate reconvene in order to have this trial is either intentionally or unintentionally a good move for people who want this impeachment to fulfill the two objectives, to serve

as a deterrent and to prevent Donald Trump for running for office again. I think that it serves as more of a deterrent if you have a Senate that convicts him as opposed to a Republican majority Senate that could potentially exonerate him. Remember, in the first impeachment, Donald Trump was impeached in the House. And then he was exonerated in the Senate. And that sends all the wrong messages, right? It sends the message of, oh, I mean, I was acquitted. Like, I didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't found guilty. Like, it's that same feel. And I don't want that to happen in the case. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So, so I think that today's news is important. And I am happy to see at least 10 Republican lawmakers vote in the right way. I believe we have a graphic. I You know, we should know who they are. Oh, we don't. Okay. So of course, Liz Cheney was one of the Republican lawmakers who was the most vociferous in supporting this impeachment effort. And of course, there are nine others. I don't like the reputation rehab that's happening right

now on cable news in response to Liz Cheney. It's like, oh, this is a, this is a profile in courage. But I also want to, she's great. I mean, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, Obviously, not the best. But not to get too sidetracked by that, I do also want to point out that Republican lawmakers are terrified of Trump's base. That's also a big part of this story, which is why so many of them are unwilling to go on the record to do the right thing, to hold him accountable for his actions. So I'm going to go ahead and reset now to kind of talk about what the proceedings were like today. We'll play some sound, show you what the ridiculous arguments were from Republican lawmakers and then get to other details.

So the House of Representatives has voted to impeach Donald Trump for the second time with 10 Republicans voting in favor of impeachment. However, unfortunately, most Republican lawmakers who spoke on the House floor today decided against actually talking about the merit behind the impeachment charge, which is inciting in insurrection. and instead focused on how they just didn't feel so great about the process. They felt that it was just a little too rushed. So here's GOP congressman, Tom Cole, refusing to address the actual issue and instead focusing on the process.

Let's hear what he had to say. Mr. Speaker, I think my colleagues and the majority need to think about this more soberly. We need to recognize we are following a flawed process. We need to recognize that people of goodwill can differ. We need to recognize that while the House may be done with this matter after today's vote, it will not be done for the country. It will not be done for the Senate. And it will not be done for the incoming and Biden administration.

Let me just be clear that when it comes to issues that Republicans are fond of, things that they want to accomplish, they do not hesitate. Amy Coney-Barrant was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. very quickly, and there was very little time left before the general election took place. I point that out because obviously what we're hearing from representatives like Tom Cole is, you know, it's not a sincere argument. It's just an effort to deflect from the very real issue at hand here, which is the President of the United States inciting violence, inciting insurrection, doing so just before the Capitol riots took place.

And he just doesn't feel the need to address that, probably because he's among the Republican lawmakers who are terrified of Donald Trump and terrified of his base, which I'll get to in just a minute. But John, thoughts on what Representative Cole said there. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's just, it's dumb, stupid nonsense. I mean, that's my answer to almost everything that we have to listen to. It doesn't mean anything. It's not a representation of an honest standard. He's applying to this behavior that he would carry forward to a evaluations of other president's behavior. It's just, it doesn't mean anything and it doesn't represent anything.

It just means I would really prefer if you not do this thing to the guy that I still need to profess loyalty for because his base could come from me if we don't. And also like, it would be really inconvenient if you were to point out all the lies around the election that he was telling him because like I and almost every other Republican in here were participating in that, whether because we're genuinely crazy like some of us or because it was just a great way to raise a lot of money. And side question, what happens to the hundreds of millions of dollars that Trump raised to fight the election? Like, that's still out there somewhere. But anyway, and the thing that I want to make sure that we focus on is it isn't

just what happened on January 6th and what might happen over the next few days. That was obviously bad. It was this was, it wasn't even just what happened after the election. Trump spent literally months trying to convince his fans that the election is going to be invalid because of mail and ballots and all of that. After the Republican Party, by the way, not just him, fought to make it as difficult to vote as possible during a pandemic. So you did all of that. And then they spent months after the election trying to convince everyone who would listen that it had been stolen. And he lied to them and lied to them and lied to them and lied to them. And not just Trump, his lawyers, the media, other politicians, whether because they're true

believers or because cynically, they really wanted to overthrow this thing. They tried to do that in every way they could. They did it time after time in court case after court case. And then they tried to send the rival slates of electors. Then they tried to get Mike Pence to overthrow it. If any of this had been able to work, they would have seized power. They tried to do that. January 6th was the most violent culmination of that. And even after that it happened, Trump was still saying things like these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been very badly and unfairly treated for so long, he tried to nullify an election. And many of them,

almost all of them are implicated in it. This isn't just about the sixth. If that cop hadn't been beaten to death, he would still need to be removed from office as a result of what he did as a warning to future presidents that you do not get to say that any election is invalid if you don't happen to come out on top in it. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't have said it better myself. Now, I do also want to bring up what we're hearing more and more about, and it's that Republican lawmakers are genuinely terrified of Trump supporters. And to be clear, I mean, I think any member of Congress should be afraid of them after what we experienced, what we saw in the Capitol. But that does not excuse their behavior. It doesn't excuse the fact that they've enabled

Donald Trump. It doesn't excuse the fact that they continue to be apologists for Donald Trump. And so I go to a statement from Jamie Gangle from CNN. Hopefully I didn't butcher that name. But he says this. I was told that the White House is continuing to pressure Republican Congress members that Trump has not stopped and that members fear for their lives and for their family's lives. And what we saw on January 6th, a week later, that says a lot that the White House is still pressuring people. And then even Representative Jason Cole shed some light on this during a recent interview. Let's take a look at what he had to say.

The number of things that are happening on the Republican side. A very small handful, I think, are kind of morally bankrupt individuals who have given into these conspiracy theories and are too far gone to be redeemed. But the majority of them are actually paralyzed with fear. I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night and a couple of them broke down in tears talking to me and saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment. My response was not to be unsympathetic, but welcome to the club. That's leadership. Our country is in a very challenging time. Many of us have felt that way for a long time. I wonder if those terrified Republican members of Congress had any empathy whatsoever for people like.

Representative Alexander Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Taleb, Ilhan Omar, people who have been targeted by Donald Trump over and over again. I didn't see any empathy from Republican lawmakers then. I don't know if they have any empathy now. But it is, I mean, I love the point that, you know, Representative Crow made there because he's absolutely right. Welcome to the club. This is what people have been dealing with, not just in Congress, but throughout the country as a result of Donald Trump's violent rhetoric and how he incites the violence that we've experienced in this country throughout the last four years. In cases that I outlined recently, I mean, the hate march in Charlottesville, the mass shooting that took place in El Paso by an anti-immigrant

Trump supporter, Caesar Sayok sending bombs to members of Congress that he, you know, Democratic members of Congress, of course, and members of the media. I mean, Let's not pretend like this is the one isolated incident where Trump incited violence. This is what he has been doing without any consequences with the Republican Party enabling him. And it has come back to bite them. And they have to take responsibility for it. And more importantly, every member of Congress needs to see their position of power for what it is supposed to be.

They are public servants. They are supposed to be leaders. They are supposed to be representing the best interests of their constituents, okay? And so many of them have decided to neglect their duties in order to, you know, pay lip service to this insane, you know, tyrant, like wanna be tyrant. And I just, I think that they should be called out. And John, I know I'm going on and on, but I do wanna name the 10 Republican lawmakers who actually decided that despite all the threats that they were gonna vote to impeach

Donald Trump today. That includes Representative Jamie Herrera from Washington, Representative Alex Gonzalez of Ohio, Representative John Catco of New York, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Representative Peter Major of Michigan, Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, Representative Tom Rice of South Carolina,

Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, and finally, Representative David Vallado of California, another name that I probably butchered, I apologize, but I'm giving you credit here, all right. Yeah. Give me a break. Take it. So take it.

You're off her back, man. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're 100% right. Small fact check, Jamie Lego's woman, but you got the name right, I think. But anyway, yeah, the reporter. And I, so two things, two or more things can be happening at the same time.

They can actually be genuinely worried that if they vote to impeachment, to impeach Trump that tomorrow or in a week or in six months, they or their family will be killed. I don't I don't begrudge anyone that fear. This is a pack of millions of crazy people. That's actually what it is. But we can also point out that while it's horrible if Frankenstein's monster is hunting you down, if you and your entire party have spent years making it in some remote mansion and bumping life into it because you are getting something out of it along the way. Well, then we can point that out. We can try to protect you afterward. We can applaud you when you finally turn against Frankenstein, maybe. But we can also

point out that you helped to build this. Like Fox, they're hurting right now in terms of their ratings. They got beat by CNN and MSNBC for the first time in like 20 years. because they drove people to look forever crazier content. And people have gone for it. And now OAN and Newsmax are way crazier than Fox. So again, like you don't, you get to be scared of the monster when it comes for you. You don't get to be shocked that it turned on you. That's what monsters do.

You know, just a quick comment about the more extreme right-wing media outlets like OAN. You know, they have succeeded in convincing some portion of Trump's base to believe that the riots were done by Black Lives Matter. I don't really know, like, but it really is a testament to the power of propaganda, because how do you watch video from what happened in the Capitol and think, yeah, those people are BLM, they're definite, like, all of those, like, white guys, like, angry, white guys in military gear in a lot of cases. Yeah, they're totally BLM, totally. The guy who's wearing a sweater celebrating the Holocaust. Yeah, that guy's part of BLM. What? I just, man,

we- Like, you're, you're a rational person. So you're saying, how can you believe? They don't believe in the way that we believe things. They feel, you know, like, oh, it's convenient. Like, I'm sure you've seen the mashup of Kevin Sorboe, like four tweets. And like the first one's like, we got to fight, take back this election. The second one is like the morning of the attack. It's history will be made today. The third one is like a little bit into the incident. It's like, hey guys, like, you know, don't go crazy.

Don't act like Antifa. The fourth one is Antifa attack the Capitol. It's like, no, you don't get to, like they don't become Antifa when they go too far for you, you don't like that Amaga person beat a cop to death, okay? And I get that. I don't like it either, but I also didn't advocate for it. So yeah, they don't believe facts based on their attachment to reality. They believe what is convenient to believe, or at the very least they say that they believe what is convenient to believe. When we come back from the break, we'll show you the absolutely disgusting reaction from Republican lawmakers to Representative Cory Bush's speech

on the House floor today. And later, we'll give you the details on what's being done for enhanced security measures at the Capitol, the lead up to Joe Biden's inauguration. You don't want to miss the details on that. So stick around. We'll see you in just a few minutes. 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.

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Hey everybody. Welcome to our social break. Just a quick fun programming note. We can all use a little fun. Happy half hour is now live streamed on Wednesdays over Twitch. Our Twitch channel is Twitch.tv.tv. For those of you who aren't familiar with it yet. And so you can actually tune in after the post game. at 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, 5.30 p.m. Pacific, again, at twitch.t.tv slash TYT. and the video on demand is available Fridays to members at TYT.com slash join. So it's one of the best ways to get archives of all of our programs. I love, I mean, I'm not a paying member of TYT. I just work here, but I love having access to the archives because I watch a lot of our programming, to be honest. Like, I watch your show, not every day because I don't have time. But I also watch old school, like religiously. I love old school. It's probably my favorite show on the network. I might like old school more than my own show. But anyway, definitely check that out.

They're kind of different. I like Game of Thrones more than this show, but they're not really competing with each other. That's true. That's very true. It's a really good point. All right, so let's go to some member comments. Brad box wine. Ooh, stay away. I have a headache today. And like wine sounds awful. Brad writes it and says, we got him. Again, 10 Republicans now, how brave. I hear you. Max's mama says, while I applaud the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment,

I find it horribly dismaying that a vast majority of Republicans ostensibly think Trump did nothing wrong. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at least, you know, publicly, they say that Trump did nothing wrong. But what's worrying is that many of them know that Trump did something wrong. And they're either too afraid to say anything publicly or do the right thing publicly, or they're just lying to the American people because they just want to be loyalist to Trump. It's gross. Rob writes in and says, I would imagine that Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans sincerely want to root out Trumpism from the GOP. But my couch side opinion is that he doesn't think that is possible.

Honestly, I don't know if that's possible because Trumpism doesn't just go away after you impeach. and convict Donald Trump, 71% of Republican voters still approve of Donald Trump. That's an issue. You know, QAnon doesn't just go away after Trump either. Yeah, although Alex Jones had a meltdown toward Q&ON recently, and I enjoyed it. I'm like, I think I agree with him. But then I realized, like, he doesn't want any group of people to like out lunatic him. Competition. Yeah.

Yeah. It's sad. Yeah. It's sad. Anyway, oh, we got 30 minutes, 30 seconds left. Okay, Greg writes in and says, maybe the senators will feel more free to vote against Trump if the trial happens after he's out of office. Yeah, I think that's part of it. And plus the Democrats will have a slim majority in the Senate as well, which increases the chances of Trump actually getting convicted.

No Twitter, no social media to use for attacks. And I totally agree with you, it's a really great point. So we'll see what happens. For now, though, we got to get back to the show. See you there. Thank you. Welcome back everyone, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola, host of the damage report. You should be checking that out every day. It's on the TYT network at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. Eastern. John, you are a fan fave in the company, so at some point I'm going to stop promoting you.

I'm just kidding. I'm going to last this long, but are you not merciful? You know, I actually really like promoting people that I appreciate. So you're one of them. So everyone check out the damage report because I'm being, I'm being serious. It's a great show. Let's talk a little bit, though, about something that really stood out during today's impeachment of Donald Trump has to do with racial issues in this country that Republicans deny exist, but certainly does exist. So as members of the House of Representatives were debating and making their case as to why Donald Trump should be impeached. And to be clear, he has been impeached for the second time with even 10 Republicans joining Democrats in voting to impeach him. Corey Bush stood up. And she had an important statement

to make, especially when you consider the influx of white supremacy in this country under the Trump administration. What's important here, though, is her message and how Republican lawmakers reacted to it. Let's watch. Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of black lives. The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy starting with impeaching

the white supremacist in chief. Thank you and I yield back. From New York, wishes to reserve. The gentleman from Ohio So you hear Republican lawmakers in the house just booing her. for saying something that's demonstrably true.

After the riots happened in the Capitol, Donald Trump referred to these people as special. You had a person wearing a hoodie that was celebrating the Holocaust, he's luckily been arrested. You have these Trump zealots and tactical gear holding flexi cuffs because they were planning on holding members of Congress hostage. I mean, Trump, I mean, his statements have gone past dog whistles. And the fact that these Republican lawmakers are still in denial about this, well, a lot of them are white supremacists themselves. A lot of them want to protect Confederate statues, even knowing full well that these were soldiers who were treasonous, who were un-American. It's just, it's amazing to me. But it's not amazing. It's, I guess, to be expected. But in this moment, to feel emboldened enough

to boo her as she's making that statement is, it tells you everything you need to know about the rot in the Republican Party. Also, like, substance aside, which you dealt with, you're booing. It's like 10 people in there. That's not the environment for booing. You're right there, I can see you. It's not, you boo a screen as part of a crowd as like a ritual thing. You're booing your colleague that's right over there? Okay, you disagree with her, I get it, you're going to vote not to impeach him because you're okay with what happened, but booing, it just seems so juvenile. But then, you know, we had Marjor Taylor Green talking about being censored while

literally speaking on national television, so these are not necessarily as smart as people. But anyway, yeah, the only thing that could have been better than her comment there was the immediate demonstration of its validity. Yeah, I mean, it's so true. I mean, way to prove her point, guys, way to prove her point. But I am happy to see a strong progressive like Cory Bush in Congress, you know, joining the ranks of all. It's the squad, people who have been fighting for us, and we'll continue to do so. And so I'm, at least there's that silver lining as we talk about this story, just seeing the strong woman stand up on the house floor and make a strong statement that's true. And her willingness to do it,

unafraid of whatever threats or consequences may come from Trump's zealots, it gives you a sense of the kind of strengths she has. And I genuinely appreciate it. Well, let's move on to what security measures are taking place right now. Because understandably, people are worried about their lives as they, you know, perform their duties as members of Congress. So, thousands of National Guard troops have been deployed in the- On July 18th, get excited.

This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. Capital, in fact, there have been some pretty depressing photos coming from the Capitol building

showing not just the number of National Guard troops who are there, but they're literally sleeping there. You see images of them sleeping on the floor. And of course, they're there to provide additional security following the insurrectionists who rioted in the Capitol last week. That led to five people dying. Members of Congress had to flee and go to secure rooms. They had to shelter in place. Many of them feared for their lives. So it makes all the sense in the world. that these extra precautions are taking place. Now Huffington Post reporter Igor Bobbick also tweeted this. There are at least a thousand probably more national guard troops all over the capital visitor center, Emancipation Hall, and surrounding hall. They're sleeping in reception areas,

the cafeteria, the entrance to the building everywhere. And he did share these images with his followers. So let's just take a quick look at that. I mean, just You know, it's, I don't, I'm bummed out, John. Like, it's really, it's really depressing. Like, what we're, what we're seeing in the country right now is just beyond depressing because we're supposed to be better than this. Um, this shouldn't have to happen, uh, but this is where we're at, you know, and you see these images and it just depressed me. It depressed me that we've gotten, we've devolved so much. Um, but anyway, uh, there's more on what security measures are being implemented to keep people safe. But I want to get your

thoughts. Yeah, yeah. I had Jordan Yule in my show and we had sort of a depressed period of the episode where we were talking about the state of the country. And it's not just like the day to day, I can't believe this is happening. It's the like the deep gut feeling that it's not going anywhere, that there are some durable changes that have been made to the way tens of millions of people deal with and interface with politics, and those people have been successful in dominating right-wing rhetoric online, they've dominated right-wing media, and now they're electing more and more politicians that see politics the exact same way they do. Through a conspiratorial fact-free sense, sure, that's not necessarily new, the fact-free part, but through a,

it's just about inflicting pain on the other side, that it's all war all the time, and you all always have to fight. It's grounded in, it's grounded in seemingly nothing that has to actually do with politics. Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bober, Madison Cawthorne. What are the major policy planks that make them distinct? What are what policies are they there to pursue? I honestly can't tell you. I honestly don't know. And I don't think their voters know or care either. hope that maybe taking Trump seriously accomplishes something. But the fact that in four years we've moved from, you know, joking about how small Trump's inauguration crowd is to having an equally sized crowd of soldiers that are needed there to stop tens of thousands of armed

conservatives from gunning down Congress. It sort of feels inevitable. We knew that this is fascist movement. We spent night after night for years warning people about it. But seeing the images, seeing it play out despite all the work that activists did and some good politicians did, some good people in the media did. It's depressing. Yeah, it's beyond depressing. And what adds insult to injury is when some of the discourse taking place is critical of people like us who have been warning about this, but more importantly who are emphasizing the reality of this situation right now, we get called, you know, we're hysterical and we're overreacting. I mean, like, at what point is it right to these people to take things seriously?

Like, at what point? Honest, like Charlottesville? Oh, people are being hysterical. Mass shooting in El Paso that was fueled by Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. Oh, you guys are being hysterical. We were not going to do anything. Okay. the Tree of Life Synagogue, the white supremacist attack there.

Hysterical, hysterical. People just don't like Donald Trump. No, this is not being hysterical. People are dying. And look, just recently, you know, there's been a lot going on with Armenia. And I'm Armenian, so I've been following that news. And so there's an ongoing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I'm not going to go through all the details.

It's a complex story. But the point is the prime minister of Armenia decided to sign a ceasefire and engage in these negotiations with, you know, Azerbaijan that, you know, a large portion of Armenians do not agree with. And Armenia is this small, poor country, let's keep it real. And since they didn't like that decision, they stormed government buildings. They broke into government buildings. And watching that, I remember at the time thinking that's so devastating. So terrifying, by the way. And my family immigrated to the United States for a different kind of life. And to see that happening in the United States. And more importantly, to see members of the

Capitol Police enable it, to see Republican lawmakers, elected officials in government enable it. It's just, it's terrifying, it's disgusting. I want to feel pride in my country, right? And I think that that's where the depression comes from to like reflect on where we are and just understand like there is, how do you even start to heal? Like how do you even start to make things right? Because Trumpism doesn't go away. 71% of Republican voters after the riots happened still approve of Donald Trump. That's not going away, guys. And I don't know what the solution is. Joe Biden simply saying like, we're going to heal and we're going to work together. That's not, It's that's not enough. Being a friendly, polite president, that's not enough. Anyway, go ahead, John.

Yeah. And it's not, yeah, I think I said on the show, it's like the philosophy of looking forward, not looking back, falls apart as soon as someone's actually behind you with a knife. Like the, again, these, it's not like, it's not like, oh, we just hold them off until Joe Biden's inaugurated. And then, oh, they go, they go away, you know, go away. You know, they're going. Gads and flags and they're just they're back to democracy. And these are people who have been convinced and some of them are elected officials. They think they think universal mail-in ballots are diabolical storming the capital is patriotic. Like think about how much work it takes to convince millions of people to hold those thoughts simultaneously in their brains. Well, okay, so let's let's focus on other security measures, including the fact that House Democrats wanted to make sure that anyone who enters the House floor has gone through a metal

detector. For obvious reasons, there have been some indications, and it's an ongoing investigation, indicating that Republican members of Congress were involved in organizing what took place. You also had Q&N supporting Congress people, newly elected Congress people, live tweeting the whereabouts of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as... 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.

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was coming after them and so it's reasonable for house democrats to want you know additional safety measures in order to go to work do the jobs that they're supposed to do and not fear for their lives and so the metal detectors were installed Tuesday to screen everyone including lawmakers before entering the house floor and there was a lot of crying about it a lot of crying coming from Republican lawmakers who, by the way, think that it makes sense to have children go through metal detectors every time they go to school because they refuse to do anything about gun violence in this country. But here's one representative, Republican lawmaker, you know, Lesko, who says this, for members of Congress to enter the House floor

of the U.S. House, we now have to go through intense security measures on top of the security we already go through. These new provisions include searches and being wanded like criminals. But do you have any problem with children being wanted like criminals when they're just trying to go to school? Because that's been going on in this country. We now live in Pelosi's Communist America, again, providing more evidence for how incredibly stupid, ignorant and uninformed our own lawmakers are. To compare that to communism is just pathetic. And then one video, this is Representative Stube, making a similar argument on the House floor today. I would be remiss if I didn't address the atrocities occurring right here on the House floor.

today. A week ago, this building was attacked, and instead of working with Republicans to attempt to prevent that from ever happening again, the Speaker and her Democratic colleagues think an appropriate response is to prevent members from exercising their Second Amendment constitutional rights in the very place that wasn't secure a week ago. This attack didn't come from the inside. It came from the outside. And to respond by restricting member's Second Amendment rights in the very institution that is supposed to uphold those rights is appalling. organizer for the stop the steel rally has implicated three Republican members of Congress for organizing what took place in the Capitol. So again, it's an ongoing investigation.

And I mean, we can see from their public posts that they were very much like hinting it at what was going to go down that day. But nonetheless, yeah, you guys are a threat to the country. You're a threat to people's safety. The fact that he's, he's like, you know, Nancy Pelosi didn't consult with the Republican lawmakers who have been enabling Donald Trump's violent rhetoric for the last four years. It's so weird, why didn't she do that? Because you're not to be trusted. As he stands there and enables Donald Trump, serves as an apologist for Donald Trump, he's somehow shocked that House Democrats do not trust him to help plan a way to keep people safe. Yeah. Like, stop being so delusional about who you are. Like, just take a moment.

of self-reflection, but that's asking too much from congressional lawmakers, Republicans specifically. Go ahead, John. That's true. And look, really fast, it's convenient to distract people. Like, oh, he is appalled about the metal sectors, like not the context of what's been going on the past few months, just that specifically. Yeah, and you correctly pointed out, it remains to be seen to what extent the attack was coming from inside of the building, or could in the future? Like, anyone watching this, do you want to be alone on an elevator, on an elevator with Marjorie Taylor Green, like when she could potentially be holding weapons. Does anyone want that? And not being willing to go through. You showed a Congresswoman,

I think it was Debbie Lesko. I saw a mashup. So it was the tweet you showed of her complaining about how could they possibly ask this? And like three hours earlier it was, thank you to the Capitol police who kept the safe. Okay, they're trying to keep them safe. The police want the metal detectors. So it's convenient okay to praise them as heroes, but not to actually potentially protect them from being shot. Because remember, a cop was just killed. You seem to have moved on from that. that. You seem to have forgotten that very fast. I don't think the cops who are still working in the building have forgotten yet. And they're pushing their way through. I forget

if it was Marjorie Taylor Green or Lauren Bober. I get them mixed up, wouldn't let them look in their bag. I think it was David Hogg pointed out, okay, why don't they have clear backpacks anyway? That's what we've done around the country. Instead of limiting guns, we set up the metal detectors and we make them wear clear bags. If you think it's okay for so many people in areas you'll never visit, why aren't you willing to do that yourself? The whole thing is just such nonsense. They don't actually, it's not about respecting law enforcement. If you're knocking over a cop to get through a metal detector without actually complying with their wishes, you don't get to claim that you back the blue.

When we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about some shady and strange things that have come up. Decisions that were made prior to the riot taking place. We'll give you those details and more when we return. Stick around. I'm going to be able to be. Hey everyone, welcome back. This is our social break. I'm going to read some super chats. And Henry Messenger actually makes a good point. McConnell plans on using impeachment to prevent confirmation hearings of Biden's cabinet. Well, if that happens, Biden absolutely needs to appoint

acting cabinet members, much like Donald Trump did, when he wanted to avoid confirmation hearings for his nominees. So I think, I mean, Mitch McConnell is not to be trusted. So I think you really do bring up a great point. But there are options available to President-elect Joe Biden. Kyle Cushing says in regard to impeachment, do you think Mitch is happy with the impeachment because it will obstruct Biden's agenda and appointments? I don't trust Mitch to do the right thing. As I mentioned earlier, you know, I agree with you. I think that's definitely a possibility. Ryan L says, I had a thought and wanted your perspective. Trump has nestled into the emotion part of his voters' brains.

In debate, would it be better to deliberately avoid his name and just stick to policy? Yeah, I don't know. I think that's the best way I can honestly answer that question. I don't know what the right solution is. But I agree with Donald Trump getting banned from Twitter. I also agree that censorship is something that we should be concerned about, right? But if Republicans and quite honestly leftists are genuinely concerned about how banning Trump is a threat to the left or a threat to the freedom of speech, the big problem here is, you know, these companies, have gotten too big and too powerful. So you should be supporting antitrust laws. You should be supporting

the antitrust lawsuit and investigation that's taking place right now. That's one of the best ways to ensure that no one platform or a few platforms have too much power, right? But in regard to Donald Trump getting banned, that was the right decision. I want to be clear about that. So, and I think that that does really hurt his ability to spread propaganda because he doesn't want to be making, he's He doesn't want to be making videos. He doesn't want to address people through the other avenues in talking to the American people. He just wants to put out a tweet as, you know, hateful and divisive as it might be. And, you know, that's how he's played this game the entire time. Zoltan Hall says, isolated incident, have they forgotten the stand back and

standby comments he made to proud boys during the debates? Yeah, I mean, great point. That's another, you know, just one more incident to add to the long list of Donald Trump inciting violence. Andrew Borth says that Tim McVeigh was reprimanded for wearing a white power shirt while in the Army. So January 6 was inevitable. Can we have a real talk now? Very few rioters appear to be under 40. Maybe a good sign. Yeah, I'm just, I'm terrified about the future of this country. But we do have to get back to the show. So let's do that and talk about whether there were some conspiracies behind the scenes as this right took place. Hey, everyone back to the show

to the show. Make sure you stick around for the second hour of the program today where we will, you know, switch things up and talk about other issues outside of the Capitol Hill riots that took place. But for now, let's talk about possible conspiracy leading up to the Capitol Hill riot. So Representative Ionna Presley, specifically her chief of staff, has raised some concerns about what they experienced as the riots were taking place in the Capitol. Sarah Groh, who is her chief of staff, says that every panic button in my office had been torn out the whole unit.

That is, I mean, incredibly suspicious. So the buttons had actually been there and Iona Presley had not changed offices, so there's no other real explanation of what happened. She went on to say that the panic buttons were installed because Ms. Presley, a member of the of the House Democrats, dubbed the squad, had been on the receiving end of racist attacks by Donald Trump and his supporters. Remember, there was a period of time where Trump was just laser focused on pointing out members of the squad and using the same type of rhetoric that we've seen in encouraging his supporters to go after them, attack them. Two U.S. Capitol

Police officers, by the way, have since been saying. suspended and at least 10 more are under investigation for playing potential roles in the riot, in the riot. And John, just before we went on air, you mentioned an update to those numbers, which is terrifying. Yeah, so this is at least according to the appeal. The most recent number I've seen is 28 currently serving police from around the country have so far been identified. And remember, we're still in the initial days of this thing. People are combing through all the live streamed video going through the parlor posts and things like that, but 28. But I don't know. Like, it's good that we have a number. I don't know, like I hope nobody

watching this is like surprise. Like really cops would do this? Yeah, I feel like if you were to like rank by job, that would probably be one of the highest numbers that what I would have expected. So there were other questionable things that were noticed by Democratic lawmakers. I want to now turn to representative Cheryl, who, you know, just noticed that a day before the riots took place, there were certain tours happening in the Capitol building. Let's watch what she has to say. We can't have a democracy if members of Congress are actively helping the president overturn the election results. And so not only do I intend to see that the president is removed and never runs for office again and doesn't have access to classified material, I also intend to see that

those members of Congress who embedded him, those members of Congress who had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw in January 5th, our reconnaissance for the next day, those members of Congress that incited this violent crowd, those members of Congress that attempted to help our president undermine our democracy. I'm going to see that they're held accountable. And if necessary, ensure that they don't serve in Congress. So, John, she mentions Republican lawmakers taking people on, you know, reconnaissance tours of the Capitol building a day before, you know, the riots happened. And she didn't provide any additional detail into that. But I wanted to get your thoughts, especially because you've seen a lot of like Alex Jones type people invited to the Capitol.

to the White House by Republicans, by Donald Trump. And I've always wondered about whether that would serve as a security risk in the future. Yeah, yeah. Well, I can say them being invited at the conventions didn't work out great. But anyway, back in 2016, anyway, with the panic buttons and with the tours, I mean, hopefully we will see. Like, there's a lot of little things like this, and I'm sure some of them will end up not being what it seems like, sure. It's like, sure. The fact that the panic buttons were torn out, and I would assume generally, I don't have a lot of experience with panic buttons, I would assume they're hidden, seems especially significant. The tours, you know, that they said that the tours hadn't been going on,

you know, because it's a pandemic. So that seems incredibly suspicious. I'm assuming investigations are ongoing. But I will just say that while we don't know for sure, we can't say for sure that a member was involved in either of this or that Capitol Police were involved potentially or maintenance was involved potentially in removing the panic buttons of what has to be one of the members at the top of whatever list these insane people would put together. If anyone who is sort of new to engaging day to day with what America is like these days thinks that someone being elected into office wouldn't do something like that. They need to look at the history of some of these individuals. Look at the things that Marjorie Taylor Green has said and done.

And they present themselves in a way, we're used to people like Ted Cruz, who like tries to create the image of enough people seem like true believers to me. The idea that they wouldn't help from the inside, I don't think that we should jump to that conclusion. Well, you know, to that point, it's been reported in multiple outlets, including the Intercept and the Washington Post, that the lead organizer for the so-called Stop the Steel Routher. was working alongside Republican members of Congress. Again, this is something that we can't confirm. The investigation is ongoing, but here's what we know. Here's what the allegation is. Ali Alexander, who organized the Stop the Steel movement,

said he hatched the plan coinciding with Congress's vote to certify the electoral college votes, alongside three GOP lawmakers, representatives Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Gosar of Arizona, all hardline Trump supporters. And his statement was, we four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting, Alexander said, in a since deleted tweet, or Periscope, I should say. And then he also said that the plan was to change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud roar from outside. So that was

his periscope, which again has been deleted for obvious reasons. But look, I'm glad that there's an investigation taking place if there is, first of all, anyone who enabled Donald Trump and his lies about widespread election fraud, gone, gone. Anyone who decided to challenge the electoral college votes for their own political careers, they should be gone. They should be removed from office, 14th Amendment. But there should be criminal charges for any member of Congress who has been proven to have engaged in organizing what happened in that insurrectionist riot. And Democrats can't back down from that. Yeah, and look, one way that hypothetically we could come to this is they've begun to track down people. At some point, they're going to

you know, track down people who were involved in the organization, you know, some of the people who are in the building, and they're going to try to get them to flip. I saw that one of the all right like online people who was like live broadcasting from inside of it that baked Alaska person, apparently right now isn't facing any charges, which could mean that our justice system is failing as always, or it could mean hypothetically that he's cooperating with law enforcement. And if the coordination did happen and if it was electronic, there are going to be some people in there who in theory could provide that evidence to investigators. Who knows? We'll see. But it's possible the fact that that every file on parlor or whatever

had been downloaded, that potentially is another way that some of this could be identified. It's going to be complicated. There's a lot of people. It was organized over a good period of time. We don't know how long the investigation will take. But remember that the crazy people who've joined our Congress don't seem like the smartest individuals either. So I think it raises a greater chance that they could have slipped up and made some of this trackable. All right. Well, that does it for our first hour. We got to take a break. But when we come back, we'll switch gears and talk a little bit about what's going on with the Supreme Court. Yeah, they're making decisions, guys. And people should know about it.

And later in the show, we'll also talk about how HHS is doing some pretty awful things on their way out of the Trump administration. So stick around. We got that and more when we return. 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.