The Young Turks - Tough Life

Episode Date: January 21, 2023

In Texas, a lawsuit is fighting billionaires and their financial influence in politics. Rueben Gallego is ready to launch a campaign against Krysten Sinema. Donald Trump wants to stop Ron DeSantis by “kicking him in the nuts.” A Florida judge fined Donald Trump for his frivolous lawsuit. Host: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Michael Shure Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get's up! Drop it like it's a $50 million contract from the Daily Wire. All right, pow, power panel, Jake, Euger, John Ida, Rollo Michael's sure with you guys. Epic Politics Man 1 and Epic Politics Man 2. Okay, 2.0 and 1.0 are both here. How's it going number 2? Oh, ooh. It's going well, Robin. It's going well. Oh, I don't like that at all. The barbs are already flying here. What is this?

Shapiro versus Crowder? Keep it cool, everybody. Yeah, I don't mind the sidekick thing, but you are not going to put me in the D.C., okay? Michael, there's no idea what you're saying. And now, by the way. Yeah. DC comics, Michael, these comics. Okay.

So, so guys, we have a hell of a show for you guys. Number one, a little bit later, of course, Ben Shapiro versus. Steven Crowder, part do. You're gonna love it. Okay, the gloves are off. I enjoy it when the gloves are off. So that's later on the program. And then, of course, tons of conspiracies on tonight's show.

And when, if we were a right wing show, that would mean, guys, you won't believe the things we're going to make up later tonight and the right wing. All right. No, we mean debunking insane right wing conspiracies, although there's a little bit of truth sprinkled in there. You got to watch the show. Yeah. All right, John. Are gas stoves turning your kids into cats? We don't know. We don't know. Probably. Okay. Anyway. Okay. Let's get into some real news, though, starting with this. She claims to be independent. That's not the case. The case is that she can't win a primary against me. And this is her only option. And more importantly, you know,

So she really has just abandoned the values of Arizona. And her being independent has nothing to do with the values of Arizona. It just means that she has an easier time to run and she could go and talk to her friends in Wall Street and the pharma companies. It is looking like very soon we're gonna be in the middle of a showdown to determine the fate of that Senate seat in Arizona you saw in that video back last month, Congressman Ruben Gallego attacking Kirsten Sinema after she fled the Democratic Party so that she wouldn't have to run in a primary against him or whoever and probably go down in flames.

And it is looking like we're about to have a campaign because according to sources inside of Ruben Gallego's office, he is planning to announce his challenge against Senator's cinema on this coming Monday. And according to this source, he's already got some people on board for the challenge, including members of John Federman's campaign, top strategist Rebecca Katz, Chuck Rocha, who's been on the network many, many times, architect of Bernie Sanders' effort to reach Latino voters back in the 2020 campaign. And so he's prepping for that. Meanwhile, she's busy too. She went to Davos and just cavorted around with some rich people. Wasn't it nice? She talked about the deeply broken two-party system here, which now she's not a part of.

She's independent of it. So don't blame her for any of this stuff. She called Kevin McCarthy a dear friend as he was busy throwing multiple Democrats off of their committees. and putting Marjorie Green in charge of Homeland Security. So that was cool. She'd high five Joe Manchin over there, continued support for the filibuster. So a lot of fun stuff. But she's about to have a challenger. If she does run again, what do you make of that?

Yeah, okay. So a couple things. First, Gallego is set to win this thing entirely. And in almost any scenarios, we're going to lay out it here in a second. Second of all, she's an independent. Now, of course, you need a Democratic candidate. Now, her strategy was, well, I'll bully the Democrats. I'll do a Trump-like threat. Well, if you're on a Democrat and I run as an independent, you'll have no chance of winning. Republicans will win, and maybe it's somebody like Carrie Lake. And she'll become a senator.

Ha-ha, I'm going to hold the entire party hostage as, you know, again, as Trump did on the right. Okay. The problem for her is the latest polling. We're going to show you in a second. that shows that that strategy is not going to work, okay? Then that leads you to another question, which is, is Gallego a good guy or a bad guy? Because if, and of course it's not that binary, right? But is he generally progressive or is he more on the corporate side? Well, Gallego historically has been more progressive. At the same time, Chris's cinema came in as progressive.

And it turns out she was a complete, another liar. So with these politicians, I tread very lightly in terms of what they actually mean. But good news on that end. Those two names that John just read you are diehard, progressive consultants. Rebecca Katz, Chuck Rocha. And they worked on Federman. Chuck Rocha worked famously on Bernie Sanders campaigns. And they are, in fact, progressive.

Okay. So that is a very good sign for who Gallego is. Now, before we go to Mike, let me just lay out the numbers for you guys. Part of the reason the cinema stopped being a Democrat is because she saw the same polling that Gallego put out there and showed to everybody, which is that in a Democratic primary, Gallego would have beat her 74-16. Damn. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, no, no. Bye, Felicia.

This is not West Virginia and cinemas now despised by Democrats in Arizona. And by the way, partly because mainly because of all the things that you've seen, she blocked the entire Democratic agenda, et cetera, but also because they know more personally what a liar she is. She came in as very progressive. That's the senator they voted for. And she lied about all of her positions. She's one of the most brazenly corrupt politicians we've ever had. But this is very important. Now let's go to Graphic 2 about the polling.

What happens if cinema is in the race? Sorry, Graphic 3. But his allies point to a public policy poll on behalf of Gallego in December that shows cinema floundering with 13% support in a three-way general election race. While Gallego was carry, while Gallego and Carrie Lake, a possible Republican opponent, were essentially tied 41% to 40% in a two-way match-up. Should cinema not run for re-election of some Democrats hope Gallego had 48% support and Lake was at 47%. Basically, Gallego and Lake are tied in any three-way scenario and in a two-way scenario. What does that tell you about cinema? That's 13% she has, first of all, sucks, but could cost the Democrat an election.

13% is a big number. But as it turns out, congratulations, Kirsta, cinema. You actually are bipartisan because your 13% is coming half from Democrats and half from Republicans, thereby making it ironically irrelevant. Michael. Yeah, coming too from Republicans who can't stand the Blake Masters carry Lake Wing of the Arizona Democratic Party. A couple of things to also point out is that Greg Stanton and other people who might have run for this seat against cinema have cleared the way for Gallego. So you sort of have this unanimity of choice in Arizona, which is really important.

The other part of this that Kristen Simona can talk about all she wants about how she has. has bipartisan support, but we all know that the money coming from the party is so important in these races, and the money is not going to be going to cinema in this race, and it's going to be going to Gallego. Gallego, it seems more of a genuine article. You know, Janke talked about how we thought that cinema was going to be this progressive lion in the Senate. You know, I don't know that we really knew what we were dealing with with cinema. We knew that she was a quirky person, and the quirk turned out to be that she was going to stand in the way of everything Democrats wanted to do, especially in progressive ways.

That's not going to be the case with Gallego. I think that he does present as more of a genuine article. He also has, you know, the military background. He has the, you know, the parts of Arizona that cinema is losing. He has those locked up. I think it's important that we see exactly what you're talking about, which is that people are going to both sides here, but it's not really going to matter because all the Democratic money and all the Democratic support is going to.

going to be going to cinema. There are a lot of Democrats who are not comfortable voting for her, don't like what she did. Those are the people that are going to Gallego. And there are a lot of Republicans who think that their party has gone too far to the right. Those votes are going to come away from Carrie Lake or Blake Masters. Should they be the nominee? Last dynamic that we have to think about is Carrie Lake has hitched her tail to Donald Trump from the beginning. If Ron DeSantis is on the ballot as the presidential candidate for the Republicans in 2024 or someone who isn't Donald Trump, Carrie Lake stock is going to plummet in Arizona. Well, it's also possible that if it is Donald Trump and if he is choosing for her to be the

VP, then that could influence this race as well. She definitely wants to be that VP candidate, but she's going to have to get past Marjorie Green first. We also have to project. You're right, but it's also, there's also the, the Blake Masters aspect there who lost the Senate seat there. That's going to come into play. So Carrie Lake and Blake Master, hard to draw other than personality-wise, great distinction between the two of them on paper. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And two years in the future, Kerry Lake will have spent two more years talking about how the election was rigged, and that could help or hurt her. You know, Blake Masters could have been training between now and then, you know, using all this billionaire money to raise

his, you know, his name recognition, taking acting classes to pretend that while he's, you know, on the debate stage, he's not thinking about removing someone's skin. I mean, there's. There's a lot of things that could influence the race going forward. Do we think though that if cinema, like it's one thing to make the threat to try to force a Democratic opponent out and have the Democratic Party realize that I guess our only chances to support her even though she's a third party candidate. But if she's going to get such a small percentage of the vote, that doesn't help her politically. Does she still do it anyway?

Does she do it because it still serves the interests of her donors to raise the children? chance that a Republican will end up coming out of this thing as the winner. What do we think at this point, our gut says about how she'll respond to this polling? Does she back out and just become a lobbyist? What does she do? So my guess on that front, Michael, I'm very curious what you think, but my guess on that front is is what Michael alluded to, which is the money. So if she winds up getting a substantial amount of money, and she has a lot of friends on Wall Street, I mean, she delivered big time for them. But remember, those guys don't want to bet on a loser. They're not going to bet on someone

who they think is going to get 13% and get annihilated, they don't like wasting money. So, but if somehow she can move up those polls and get some sort of momentum and get money, then she'll stay in the race. But if she gets no money at all and she's sitting at 13%, yes, she could take, you know, an early retirement package from one of those banks on Wall Street she delivered for, and, you know, retire as a millionaire doing nothing but sitting in an office somewhere, pretending to, you know, or actually somewhat peddling influence with her former corrupt colleagues. Yeah, I mean, I think you're spot on thing.

I also think that what's going to happen is as soon as she is unable to raise that money, Democrats do want to be careful with her too because they don't want her going against Gallego and not being in the race. They don't want her, you know, supporting the Republican not being in the race. They kind of want to play this out in as careful a way as they possibly can. And it is going to come down to money, though. If you can't raise the money, you can't win the scene. And you can't even make the statement you want to make as a candidate.

If you can't raise the money, the Democratic money is not going to be going to her in droves. And even if there's Wall Street money that is given to her in the past, Wall Street money gives to lots of different candidates. They could be giving money to Kristen Cinema and giving money to Ruben Gallego. And by the way, the same pocket could be giving money to the Republican candidate, too, as we know. Well, we're excited about primary challenges starting to be announced, whether it's against Kirsten Cinema or, you know, we're waiting for something maybe with Biden, we'll see. But not everybody is so excited about these. The View was talking about Katie Porter's decision to launch a challenge here in California, and here's what they had to say.

I was surprised, though, because I think what we saw when we saw the Democrats during that House chaotic moment when they were trying to pick speakers was this unity. And I think that unity came from the fact that Hakeem Jeffries waited his turn and waited for Nancy Pelosi to sort of bless him and say, yes, I'm going to step down. You may step up. And I think she kind of earned that right. And so Diane Feinstein has, I mean, she has been a lion of the Senate. And for her, even at 90, I don't know, she's put in her papers for 2024, basically saying, I'm going to run again. And so there's some tension there.

And I'm surprised Katie Porter wouldn't get her blessing first. I understand that generally when we talk about lions of the Senate, we're talking about people that have been there for a very long time. But just to be clear, they don't become lions just by being there for a long time. It's time in which they could have become a lion. So I don't know if it really applies to Steinstein. In any event, what Sunny Hosten is saying there is just wait your turn, don't rock the boat, work within the system, which I think is fine advice if the system likes you and wants you to have power

and is willing to just transfer power to you next. There are plenty of people that the powerful have no interest in taking. you know, positions of any more power. And so sure, the Democrats could just wait for Dian Feinstein to eventually announce she's going to retire. And then Gavin Newsom or Joe Biden could christen who the next candidate is going to be. And that'll be fine for them. But not for people like Katie Porter necessarily who would like to have a shot at this thing and maybe let the people of California decide. Yeah, I take a much harsher stance on that. Why does anybody have to ask permission to run. And think about how that privileges power. Sunny Hosten on

television, of course, part of corporate media is saying, no, unless you have received permission and a blessing from those who are already incredibly powerful, you should not run for office. What an absurd thing to say. What a silly, silly thing to say. And by the way, she also does not acknowledge what everyone knows. Diane Feinstein has some form of mental decline. That is very significant. She cannot remember from one minute to another. How would she even know if she gave permission? Look, these are ugly things to talk about. But Feinstein and the deeply troubled people around her, because Feinstein can't even, she can't make a decision, that sick, sick people around Feinstein who are propping her up in the Senate,

they're going to make the decision, not Feinstein. And if Feinstein did make the decision, she could change her mind the next day. But Sonny's not going to tell you that because on television, their job is to support the powerful. It doesn't matter that it's not even Diane Feinstein anymore. If you thought Diane Feinstein was great in the past, and I don't. I think she was awful. I think she was a deeply conservative Democrat from one of the most progressive states in the country.

I think she did almost nothing her whole career other than support corporate donors. But if you thought she was an angel and wonderful in a line of the Senate, this ain't her. I mean, it's absurd. It's absurd. What an illusion, what a mirage. TV's nothing but theater. And what is their purpose must keep the powerful in play. Katie Porter has not received permission. And by the way, of course, Katie Porter, one of the most progressive members of Congress.

And lo and behold, the powerful do not give her permission. Ooh, okay, I'll take it under goddamn advisement. That makes me want to vote for 2,000 times more. Michael, curious about your case. Okay, well, I don't look at Sonny Hassan as the powerful either. I think of, you know, she's on a show that gets a lot of eyeballs for a TV show now. And I think she's probably sharing a sentiment for people who don't pay close attention to politics, which is it's unseemly. This is an old woman.

This is a frail woman, all of that. And nothing more, right? And I don't have a lot of space for that. And the other part of it, there's context and there is history. Diane Feinstein wasn't endorsed by the California Democratic Party the last time she ran. You'll recall Kevin DeLeon was, and we know where he is now. challenging a sitting senator is not something new. It's not something that should be avoided at all costs.

And I don't think there's anything even indecorous about it. People have been looking at this seat for quite a while. I know you have Barbara Lee talking about it now. You have Katie Porter. I would be surprised personally if Javier Becerra doesn't get into the conversation as well here in California, the district attorney or the, and so the attorney general. And so this is part of politics, right? I mean, and look, I'm a little more forgiving to Diane Feinstein in some regard in that she was very, very instrumental in getting an assault weapons ban passed in the 90s.

But that's 20 some odd years ago. And things have changed. And she has not been a friend to any kind of progressive ideas in the Senate. And she is, you know, a senator from California. And like you said, Jank, her politics have becoming consistent with the politics of this state right now, which has. as a total democratic control in their state houses and the people they sent to Washington almost exclusively. The other part of it is, and very quickly, to compare Hakeem Jeffries and the unity. The unity was there by acclaim.

Nancy Pelosi, were she to have run for Senate again, or her speaker again, even though it would have been for minority leader. There would have been a lot of dissension as there has been in the past. This is what Democrats do. Hakeem Jeffries got there by acclamation. The caucus selected him to be the minority leader. there was no effort at all to pull votes away from Hakeem Jeffries throughout that caucus. So it's not really comparable. Yeah, so last couple of things here for me.

One, I don't like Democratic unity. Why do we all have to agree? It's artificial, it's absurd. And every time the media tells you that Democrats all have to agree, guess what position they tell you the Democrats have to agree to? The corporate position, the conservative position. I have never, and so Sonny Hosen is irrelevant, right? So she's only relevant in that she is symbolic in this case of everyone on TV.

Everyone on TV says you must always support the powerful. You must always unify the Democratic Party. You must always unify the Democratic Party behind corporate conservative positions. I have never seen them, never, ever say you must unify behind the progressive position. Okay, so you're telling me that's a coincidence. That's absurd. Okay. So, and to Michael's point, there's always nuance and everything. So, yes, Diane Feinstein was very good on this whole weapons ban. Yes, it was 20 some odd years ago, maybe, geez, 25 years ago, quarter of a century. If you've been in politics for approximately two 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 date is July 18th. 100 years, and we could point to only one thing you've done, right? You might not be the line of the Senate, okay? So, but Michael, last quick question. Because you have good political argument here. I'm curious, if you had to bet right now, who do you think wins that sentencing? I mean, it's a great. Look, I think if you're looking, I'm still waiting to see who joins that race, right?

I want to see if Adam Schiff gets in that race. I want to see if Javier Becerra gets in that race. Right now, I think that Katie Porter would win the nomination. And I think when you win the nomination in California as a Democrat right now, you win the seat. So I would say that she would be the favorite out of the gate, even if Feinstein were to run. I would not, I would think that. But I do think she gets from fundraising from profile and, you know, from male voters and all of that. I think should Adam Schiff run, it changes the dynamic, should Javier Becerra run, changes the dynamic a little bit as well, maybe not as much.

So that's where I'm looking. The other thing is Democratic unity, sometimes it's great, right? But when you're running for office, it doesn't have to exist, right? There's no mandate about it. When you're trying to show what a mess the other side is, as the Democrats did in the speaker elections, well, it's great that they had that unity. It's great that you have unity behind certain measures, but or fighting against Donald Trump as they were able to hold together and coalesce there. But when you're talking about democratic unity because people like someone who isn't

Diane Feinstein, that's silly. Exactly. Yeah, if you're going to be unified around something, be unified around, I don't know, like what your voters want, what the country thinks, not about, you know, the position of one longstanding politician. Yeah, we just sorry, John, we could have used that unity at build, back better. But there, weirdly, the media didn't insist on unity. They only assist on unity when, hey, get behind Pelosi, get behind Biden, get behind the corporate agenda. So should we

have unity in Democratic Party? Well, it depends, doesn't it? What are we unifying around? And what's the circumstance? Anyone who tells you that it doesn't depend is lying to you. 100%. Well, we're going to unify as we go into our first break when we come back, though. So team Trump is preparing a strategy for Ron DeSantis, the targeting of his southern hemisphere. We'll break it down after this. All right, back on TYT, Jank, John and Michael, with you guys, we're a lot more. story, so John take it away. We do. Let's have some fun. Two years out from the presidential election, Donald Trump's team of advisors is trying to figure out how exactly they're going to

beat Ron DeSantis. And if you're wondering, what overall strategy, what the tenor of the strategy is going to be? Are they going to go hard? They're going to be diplomatic, keep it based on policy. Well, they have a fun little way to describe the strategy. This is where Trump kicks him in the nuts. So if you're wondering if it's going to be a fun campaign, From our point of view, yes, perhaps not from Ron DeSantis' point of view, but I think we're going to enjoy it. Anyway, they have a few different strategies as to how they're going to target the governor of Florida. Donald Trump is apparently getting personally involved in this. He's apparently taking part in discussions asking what do we have on Ron, which is a weird thing to ask a couple of months after you tweet cryptically that you have something on him and his wife.

You've apparently got nothing if you're still asking, but they have found a few things. Some of them are actually based on policy. So one is, in a Republican primary, only Donald Trump could effectively go after Ron DeSantis for wanting to cut Social Security. Trump has a track record of saying the right things in this issue, both when it comes to a general election and also Republican voters in a primary, whereas for DeSantis, his record in the House is very much of the Paul Ryan and privatized Social Security platform type, which is just not where the voters are now.

So imagine it. You got Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis on the debate stage, and it's just an hour long debate about the theory and strategy going forward for Social Security. I sort of doubt it. But they want us to believe that that's what it's going to be like. They also are throwing around overall branding concepts. So for instance, Donald Trump is going to present Ron DeSantis as the establishment candidate, which if you wanted to know what the word establishment, what value it still has, the fact that the former president of United States is going to apply it to a person who's never been president. That seems sort of weird. But anyway, it's a mishmash of some policy, some accusations that Ronda Santos isn't likable enough. They're really throwing everything against the wall. Michael, do you think that any of this is going to end up actually being a focus and what of it might actually help? I mean, it seems to a focus in Trump world for a finite period of time. And then they move away from that. So I think it will be a focus for as long as this the former president's able to keep it a focus, but he doesn't keep focus himself.

So we'll move on to the next thing. What this will do though, I mean, we're seeing it already, right? The Congress just was just seated a couple of weeks ago. You're seeing what's going to make it very, very difficult for Kevin McCarthy and the House majority caucus of Republicans to govern because they are going to be, you know, like at a tennis match looking back and forth between these two guys, wondering what they should support, when they should support it. And a lot of them were part of the Paul Ryan wing of the party. They weren't all Freedom Caucus members and a lot of them think along the same lines as Paul Ryan thought. And that's going to be difficult too when they're gonna have to back one of these two people for president. And Donald Trump is going to be very demanding about early allegiance. I think you're setting yourself up for more mess by him being in this race. Yeah, so we're gonna get the numbers in a second and show you who's winning between DeSantis and Trump.

if the election, the primaries were today. But first, I want to skip ahead to a Joe Scarborough clip. They were talking about it this morning because I think it's telling it and I want to react to it. So let's watch. Maybe DeSantis can take a punch. My guess is, just all of us talking right now, my guess is DeSantis says, wait a second, why do I go to the meat grinder that chewed up and spit out 16 Republicans politically? Why don't I let Trump run again?

I'll serve out in my term. I'll end up with, you know, 80% approval ratings among Republicans. And then in 26th, I just opened my presidential campaign. And I don't have to even take on the champ. Right. I think that's probably what he's sinking in Tel-Azzi because I think he knows. He does not want to cross Donald Trump on a debate stage. Okay, so let me get this right.

Just a couple of, what, months ago, the midterm elections happened, all Trump's candidates lost, and everybody on TV is declaring that Trump is done and we could move on, people are having fireworks, having parties, now all of a sudden, you know, Morning Joe's is about the epicenter of the establishment as it gets, now all of a sudden it's obvious that Trump can't be beat in a Republican primary and the dissentists should bow out. So as you'll see in the numbers in a second, they're basically tied. All right, look, I get what Joe Scarborough is saying. I understand the logic of that political calculation.

Having said that, you either got the stomach for this or you don't. And if you're tied for, you know, the Republican candidacy for the presidency of the United States of America and you don't run, you're coward and you're never going to win. knowing when you run next time you're also going to be scared you're going to be scared of oh what is she going to say what is he going to say and you're not going to win what winners do is they seize a moment like this and they pounce on it and they and they deliver and they don't worry about oh what about Trump but I think that they might be right that DeSantis might be a coward and I know that he didn't say that and he did he used it as good strategy but I think he's scared of Trump yeah yeah I think look there there's

There's the possible dichotomy between whether he's done in general elections or he's done in the primary. That's one thing. And then there's a difference between can you beat him in the primary versus what is going to happen to you during the primary going forward? Will he potentially permanently poison the view of you for a lot of different Republicans? I would be worried if I was Ron DeSantis. I understand that they all think that he's this big culture warrior because he gives a speech about Disney that they never respond to and he seems strong or something. But if you look at his cringy little face, if you hear the weak way that he speaks, he seems like he wouldn't even be one of the more impressive ones to try to take down Donald Trump back in

2016. I think he's going to say a couple of snippy little things when Trump isn't anywhere near him. And if they ever share a stage together, I think he is going to get absolutely mauled. That does not mean that he couldn't beat him anyway, maybe if he spends the rest of his time on the stump attacking vulnerable groups that the Republican Party wants to see driven into the shadows, maybe he could maintain his reputation in that way. But stepping out for someone who I do think is probably a coward isn't the worst strategy, but you do have to also gamble that just because Donald Trump looks like he's on his almost literal last legs. And everybody's counting out that he couldn't, even if he's on life support in four years, that he couldn't run again. Donald Trump seems to be the sort of person that is never going to let someone else take the spotlight.

And so even if there's almost nothing left of him in four years, he might still try to get Republican crowds to cheer for him. So I think that there's a bit of a risk regardless. But as you said, we do have some numbers. So really, let me tee those up and then we can discuss some more. Donald Trump is having some trouble, not only with the fact that the red wave didn't work out for him, but the recent polling is not looking great either for this primary. He does have a slim lead amongst a group of eight different candidates in a Yahoo News, UGov poll.

He's at 37%, but Ronda Sant is at 36%. And then there's a lot of other Republicans that the voters deeply love and respect, like Mike Pence at 5%, Nikki Haley at 1, Glenn Yonkin at 0. Chris Christie's at three. Good news for Chris Christie. He's barely beating Liz Cheney at that point. So anyway, even amongst Trump voters, Trump is still only up one point, 40 to 39 over DeSantis, which, let, that could go either way, but it's probably not where Trump would like to be sitting at this point. No, it's not where the standard bearer of the party should be sitting at this point, especially in a poll that is based entirely on name recognition.

Polls at this stage of any election are based on name recognition. DeSantis' name has been up more than the others. Of course, people know Mike Pence because he was the vice president. A lot of those other names aren't names of people have any connection with it. That's why Chris Christie's at 3%. There's no chance that Chris Christie would get 3% of the vote in a primary now. So I do think that there is a lot, you know, you have to take these with a grain of salt. The other side of this, too, is that I, you know, it's great broadcasting strategy as well for Scarborough, right?

He can, when, if DeSantis decides not to run in six months, he can look back and say, I called it in January. There's no harm in doing that. And if DeSantis does run, no one's going to remember what Scarborough, you know, proffered in January. But, but I do think that there's something to the moment. And I think both of you mentioned it. I think whether coward or not, however you want to qualify Ron DeSantis, I do think this is his moment. I think this is the time when he has the best chance to win the presidency. He's just come off a big win in the governor's race there. He is, whether people like it around the country or not, has to be considered a popular governor because he did win so, you know, in such a big way and such a big important state. I don't think things are going to get better for Ron DeSantis in terms of being a candidate. Now, they could get worse because he could run and be all the things that we predict he might be. And the Trump predicts he might be. And that Trump predicts he might be. But I don't think in terms of getting in the race, this I think is his window.

So I want to ask you guys both real quick. Do we think that Trump still has that magic that back in 2016, he just kept punching them in the face and they were standard politicians. They didn't know how to react. So they just sat there and bled all night, right? So is that what's going to happen this time again? Or does a single Republican candidate have any kind of testicular fortitude. And so now Pompeo took a shot on him the other day, which is surprising, right, given that Pompeo was a secretary of state. And, and so it's possible, by the way, that if DeSantis doesn't run, that someone else wins. And then where's DeSantis then? If another Republican candidate beats Donald Trump, then his career is totally over, isn't it?

Yeah, could be some other line of the Senate, like Ted Cruz, maybe? Not really. People run, especially governors run for, you know, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan. People run for president and don't do well the first time around. And so I think that you have to look at there's other governors that I'm not thinking of right now. Michael, Michael, hold on. No, what I mean, I don't mean if DeSantis runs and loses. That happens all the time. You're right. And then they come back and win the second time. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't know. I mean if DeSantis doesn't run and another Republican beats Trump. Right. Then DeSantis is toast.

Right. And it's not just testicular. I mean, you have Christine Nome and you have Nikki Haley and you have other Republican women who I think will vie for that same, for that same, you know, spot. But no, then you're right. I mean, then the window will have closed. That's why I say this is his window. This is his moment where he has to do it or not do it if he's going to. I mean, you can be proven wrong. But I sort of feel like this is when the sun is shining brightest on Ron DeSantis in terms of the possibility that he runs.

And to answer your question, Jay, does he have the magic? He still maintains some of the magic over the people that found him to be a magician. He's still the only person who could go around the country this past year and get, you know, several thousand people into a hall when he wasn't even on the ballot just to hear him speak and just to have candidates come out and speak well of him. So there is that, and that doesn't go away. I don't know that he's going to have the same pull over the moderate Republicans. I think we're going to talk a little bit later over Christian Republicans.

about that. So I think that a lot of the core constituencies that came to Trump after the primaries last time that weren't with them in the primaries, I don't think they're going to stay with him in a general election this time. I honestly think that the one advantage that he has is that there is nothing he won't say no matter how untrue, no matter how deranged. I think that that is always going to be a powerful weapon. But I'm actually going to let our next story demonstrate that. We're going to take a short break and then we're going to come back with some insane thing he's calling for. All right back on T.O.T. Jank, John. I'm Michael with you guys. John's got more news for us.

I, in fact, do. What advantage that Donald Trump is probably always going to have over other Republicans is that he will give the base what they want, even if calling for it makes him seem authoritarian, insane, fundamentally dangerous, and I have an example for it. So ever since the Dobbs decision was leaked, there's been an investigation on going to find out who exactly it was that leaked it. And they have been investigating that and talking to people, although apparently so far not talking to the actual justices because they couldn't possibly have been involved. But in any event, as of right now, we don't know who it is. The investigation wasn't able to find it. And that is not enough for Donald Trump. And so here is what he took to

Truth Social to bleat. They'll never find out and it's important that they do. So go to the reporter and ask him or her who it was. If not given the answer, put whoever in jail until the answer is given. You might add the editor and publisher to the list. Stop playing games. This leaking cannot be allowed to happen. It won't take long before the name of this slime is revealed. So someone gave the information to a journalist, a journalist who made the mistake of believing that they existed in a democratic country with a bill of rights that protects their ability to be a journalist. And so they should be locked up and their editor should be locked up and the publisher of their

outlet should be locked up and he cares so much about this that he has no idea who it was that even reported on it. He doesn't know if it's a man, if it's a woman, where they work, he has no idea but he does think that a lot of people should be locked up. And the thing is that is crazy. That's unconstitutional, fundamentally, but the right wing base loves it. They want more reporters to be locked up. They want television hosts to be locked up. And so this is the sort of thing where he can just go to this well every single day and say fundamentally insane things that they're going to eat up. But that said, we don't know who it is that actually leaked it. I don't think they're going to be arrested

anytime soon. Jank, what do you think? It's two separate issues here. One is the league. one's Trump. But so let me do Trump first, but it really isn't about Trump. It's about the right wing voters. Because look guys, if you watch Young Turks, you know I've got massive problems with the mainstream media. And then there's a general factor that I think that they support corporate status quo, et cetera. I've talked about it a billion times. But then there's a personal element to it too. For example, Jennifer Medina at the New York Times wrote wildly, untrue things about me when I was running for Congress. It was despicable, she called me anti-Muslim and didn't mention that I grew up Muslim.

Okay, it seems like that might be relevant, right? That my entire family is Muslim might be slightly relevant. So, and then they had to do a correction on one thing that they flat out lied about in an interview that I did. I can go on and on. Do I think Jennifer Medina should be arrested? No, of course not, that's ridiculous, even though I believe her and her editor chose to brazenly lie about me to try to assassinate my character. I think it's a terrible thing to do. I think she's a terrible reporter.

I think that editor should definitely be fired. They didn't bother to do a single fact check. They wrote the most preposterous things anybody's ever seen. But put them in jail? Are you insane? No, of course you're not going to put them in jail. No matter how terrible they were to me or anyone else. Maybe you call for them to get fired because they're not doing a good job of giving you accurate news.

but certainly not jail because we live in America, a free country, right? Where they, where there's freedom of the press. But everybody knows that. But do they? Because Trump can say that. So could a sweaty tooth madman in the middle of the woods, right? The question is, does one have a follower or to have followers or not? Do they get votes or not?

And the right wing has over and over again demonstrated, including in 2020, where 93% of Republicans, full well knowing what a monster and liar and psychopath and an undemocratic person Donald Trump is, they voted for him. Overwhelmingly, 76 million Americans were like, that guy who hates America doesn't believe in freedom of speech, doesn't believe in freedom of the press, has said about a dozen times while he was president how great it is to be a dictator, right? They're like, that's our boy, because the right wing has never believed in freedom or democracy or our Constitution, all they believe in is power.

I'll get to the leak next, but Michael, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, just I think he said it all, Jane, but basically about Trump, he got where he got because of what he did to the press, creating the whole notion, the turn of phrase fake news, which is uttered everywhere you go that he goes and places that he doesn't. So going after the press was the coin of the realm for him, and it got him the realm. And I don't think that's going to stop.

And so whether it is hyperbolic like this case, have them arrested, especially when we don't know who the leaker is. It could be a member of the Supreme Court for all we know. And some people think, some smart people think that it may have been. But the point is that he had great success going after the press, blaming them for everything that's wrong in this country and still being able to go in front of their microphones. And now also controlling a lot of that press from right side news to One American News to Newsmax. So this is going to be the weapon that he wheels throughout any campaign that he runs next year. So all right, now my final point is it's Alito. Do I know that for sure?

Of course not. But the great irony is if they found the leaker, it's probably the guy who wrote the decision. In case you haven't heard that thesis before, if an opinion is leaked, it is much, much harder for the justices to then amend that opinion. Normally, they have internal deliberations, and they almost always amend a decision that was written for the majority. It's a negotiation between the different justices, okay? That's how it would normally work. And there were other justices that wanted to soften what Alito wrote for the majority, but they never got that opportunity because it was leaked.

But once it was leaked, they couldn't change it at all. And it became the most extreme version of the Dobbs decision. I don't know that Alito did it. I do know that it would be the most logical culprit in this case. If a person on the left leaked the decision, they're morons. Because anyone who knows the Supreme Court knows, it makes a decision far more likely to remain, not to be taken down. So I would be shocked if it wasn't Alito.

Plus, Alito has no morals, no ethics. He's a classic right winger who thinks power, power. And that's what he, and he's a religious nut too. So he probably viewed this as some sort of, you know, jihad, personal jihad of his, that he's going to get rid of women's right to choose and they're going to know their role and all that stuff. But if it was, and so since we don't know, we don't have the internal, you know, evidence. And by the way, the Supreme Court saying, oops, we can't figure out who the leaker is. Maybe they couldn't, and maybe they found out it was Alito, and they didn't want to ruin the institution by saying, yes, it was one of our own who leaked it because he's a piece of crap with no ethics.

So I would be shocked if they found out who it was, and if it was a Supreme Court justice, that they would actually tell the public that, whether it was a liberal or a conservative. So I don't believe John Roberts, I don't believe the Supreme Court, and the most logical leaker is definitely Alito. Yeah, unless, you know, Kavanaugh got wasted and accidentally butt dialed someone and then read it out loud by accident. I mean, there's a lot of possible. Right, and he sent it to Snooki or whatever. Exactly, we can't be sure, just start arresting them just in case. Anyway, with that said, we're running out of time. We got one more topic to talk about and it's an important one, so let's jump into this.

There's basically never been enough attention in America on the bribes that millionaires and billionaires give to politicians to get whatever it is that they want in politics. But coming soon, it may even get worse if one billionaire gets his way. So we're gonna discuss Kelsey Warren and I want to give credit to one particular really chill guy who wrote about this story recently, Jordan Ewell. So here's the issue. There's a lawsuit, a lawsuit, brought by Texas oil and gas billionaire Kelsey Warren that accuses former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke of defamation for slamming Warren's $1 million donation to Texas Governor Greg Abbott back in 2021. So, because he attacked the fact that one billionaire gave a million dollars to one candidate, that's a problem legally. He would like you to believe.

So what did Beto do? Well, here's an example of the sort of communications that are at issue here. He sent this tweet saying Abbott's big donors got billions while families froze. Abbott got millions in campaign checks. What do we get? The Abbott tax. And I detect no errors in his point. The big donors did make tons of money and were free of necessary regulations that definitely could have saved lives and still could go forward.

And in return, he got tons of money, including individual checks for a million dollars. But anyway, they have a problem with that. And in particular, it's not just a legal thing, okay? We can be somewhat heartless as lefty sometimes. We should think about the feelings of billionaires. Warren's lawyers have asserted that the natural gas tycoon experienced mental anguish from the comments, ads, and social media posts in which O'Rourke suggested the money was a reward for Abbott going easy on Warren's pipeline company, energy transfer partners

before and after a deadly storm that shut down power to more than four million people. I don't know whether he experienced mental anguish or not. I find it hard to believe because that would imply that he was capable of human emotion and someone who is going to so manipulate the system that you would result in an energy infrastructure that leaves people to needlessly die every single year. I have to assume you don't experience emotions the way most people do. Sorry if I'm giving you any mental anguish, Kelsey Warren. In any event, they had another argument.

It isn't just that he created anguish with those attacks, but also, It's not fair. You can't attack him. He's a private citizen. He's not a public figure, despite the fact that he is a billionaire who has direct regular access to the governor and gets to craft legislation to suit his interests. Nope, it's not good enough.

His lawyer, Dean Pamphalus says, what they're asking you to do here is conclude that a million dollar, or any campaign contribution, makes you a public figure, opens you up to attack that you can't defend against unless you prove actual malice. And there is no precedent for that whatsoever. He's just like you and I plus billions of dollars. What do you think? So I don't mind or care about the billions of dollars.

I care how they spend. So let me break down the timeline for you guys so you understand how corruption works and how these are the poster children for corruption. So they have this terrible storm. If you guys remember in Texas, hundreds of people die, right? Now there's giant clamor among the citizens of Texas. including the Republicans to say, hey, maybe we shouldn't die in a storm like this. Maybe you should have weatherized the energy grid and the different source of the energy

that we get. And we shouldn't have, A, died. And B, by the way, the gas companies wound up using that to charge so much more. Now, interestingly enough, in Texas, actually the oil companies can be regulated and their prices can be capped. But the gas companies cannot be capped. Why? Because Greg Abbott put in a loophole. Now, how much money did energy transfer partners make during that debacle? The debacle where, remember, hundreds of people died because of their mistake, all the energy companies. Well, they made $2.4 billion. They didn't make less. They made more. They made more. They made more.

Now forget the fact that they didn't weatherize that cost them money, right? So they got to rid of their costs because they have a corrupt governor like Abbott that doesn't regulate them. So he says, who cares? There's a storm people die. That doesn't affect my profits at all. Having to weatherize it affects my profits because it affects my cost. So they get rid of their costs. But on top of them, they have this fluctuating pricing system only for the gas companies that allowed them to make $5 billion in the middle of that emergency. because of that emergency, they themselves created.

And of that nearly half of it went to Energy Transpherty Partners, 2.4 billion. Then what do they do? They pay Greg Abbott a million dollars to maintain that loophole. I'm sorry, they gave him a campaign contribution. Now, rightfully, Beto O'Rourke running against Abbott said, well, that looks like a bribe, isn't it? Okay, Abbott gets a million dollars, and next thing you know, he lets him off the hook. And he doesn't regulate them at all, so they think it could rob you again. And then, and that you, by the way, are you protected the next time there's a storm like that?

Absolutely not, because the crooks are in charge. Now, this twist, though, guys, is, this case is a direct danger to democracy. I would argue that this is as direct a danger as January 6th. Because if he wins, he says, not only can I buy any politician I want through legalized bribes, But on top of that, I can sue anyone who dares to speak against me and then bankrupt them. Well, then dissent is dead. And by the way, this comes from the party who says they're in favor of freedom of speech. They say the million bucks is speech, but criticizing the million bucks with actual speech is not speech.

It should not be allowed that better or work should shut up about corruption. And if he ever dares talk about corruption, he should be. bankrupted. If this, if he wins, no one will ever speak of corruption. People barely spoke about corruption in the first place. Beto makes one goddamn comment, not nearly enough in my opinion, and now they're trying to bankrupt him. This is the oligarchs crushing our democracy right in front of our eyes. He cannot win. If he wins, we're going to need a literal revolution in this country. I'm not talking about physical or violent, we're not right wing, but we need a revolution because otherwise, anyone who actually speaks is going to be crushed by lawsuits and

bankrupted and ruined. And the only thing that will speak is money, gobs of money. That is corruption 101. It doesn't get any more corrupt than that, Michael. Except for the playing field. That's what's so corrupt. The fact is that you can give unlimited amounts of personal money to a state election in Texas that is non-judicial. Judicial is capped. So two are federal elections, Congress and Senate.

But any amount of money can be given to a candidate in the state of Texas who is running statewide. That's what you had in play here. If you're Kelsey Warren, you're a moron not to spend a million dollars on a governor's race when you're going to make $500 million from what that governor does not do. This was great journalism. The other part of this story that is, you know, I think important, It's not about winning or losing. This case has to be thrown out. It shouldn't even make it. It shouldn't even see the light of day in a courtroom.

So it would be a loss if the case even makes it to court. They have to throw this case out of court and not hear it. I've got to add one last thing that what Michael is saying. What he's saying is so important. Because if this becomes a 50-50 issue, it's going to have a chilling effect. Then all the other candidates are going to say, well, I mean, if I say something that's true, I might lose my house, I might lose everything that I have because one of these billionaires can just sue me out of existence.

So then they'll all clam up and they'll never talk about the corruption. Even if the guy doesn't win, if it becomes a 50, 50 maybe proposition. No, the courts, look, I don't know if the courts have anything that's left anymore of principle and decency. I mean, the Supreme Court is the one that opened up the door to legalizing bribery in the first place through Buckley v. Vileo, Bellotti, and Citizens United. But if there's any decency, if they care about America at all, if they're not all incredible liars, they should throw this out immediately. It is a direct threat to our democracy.

I can't overstate it. And the nerve of somebody like Kilsa Warren saying, I know the Supreme Court legalized it, but is it a bribe when you give a politician a million dollars? everyone knows. And if you're a Republican out there, you know. You think if somebody gives Nancy Pelosi a million dollars, it isn't a bribe? Of course it's a bribe. You think if they give it to Greg Abbott, Abbott, all of a sudden magically it's not a bribe? Of course it's a bribe.

To say, I can give any goddamn bribe I like, I can buy any goddamn politician I like, but you are never allowed to criticize me. And if you do, I'll bankrupt you. Kelsey Warren, understand that's who you are. You're the one, along with your buddies, just absolutely destroying this country with your deep-seated corruption, your endless bribery. You're a terrible person, terrible. Okay, are you happy now?

Or are you going to try to shut me up? And you're going to spend a lot of money and say, no one's allowed to criticize the oligarchs, right? Kelsey Warren, that's who you are. That's who you are. You're a monster trying to destroy our democracy. We should never allow this. This is not what America is. Kelsey Warren, Greg Abbott, who took the bribe, are the most un-American people in the whole country.

They hate this country. They want it to be them and only them that's in power. No deal, no deal. We'll fight you to the very, very end. We're not like you monsters. We never make it physical. We never make it violent. We're talking about speech, the most American thing in the world.

We will fight you rhetorically and politically. And we're not going to surrender, okay? This is sick stuff. The courts should throw them out. And by the way, everyone should shame Kelsey Warren. If you know Kelsey Warren, you should say, you're the one trying to destroy our democracy. You're the one bribing politicians. And you didn't protect the people of Texas.

Why, for money? You're already a billionaire. What more money do you need? You sick son of a bitch, what more money do you need? Leave our democracy alone. I can't stand the corruption, young Turks. 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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.