The Young Turks - Toupee Fiasco

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

AI operated drone "kills" human operator in chilling US test mission. Like tobacco and big oil, secret docs show chemical companies knew PFAS dangers. Sean Hannity flat-out asks Trump at Fox Town hall if he’s on the new blockbuster tape talking about classified docs. League of Legends players have launched the first-ever strike in pro esports. HOSTS: Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein), John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Bigot King, Bigotsie, Bigotsie, Bigotsie, Bigot King, Big Like you, dragie, drag him. Drop it like your sandbagging. What, what, what? All right, anyway, welcome the Young Turks, Jake Uger.

John Idle, a captain of damage report, amazing. All aboard. Indeed. And then Kenny Clefts. Look at Ken Clippenstein from The Intercept. Is he a national security expert? I guess. Is he an investigative reporter?

I investigated it, found out he is. Okay. So one is named Kenny Clips. clips, the other ones got good clips going on with this haircut. So I'm in, I'm in some sort of clip situation, that's for sure, okay? So, all right guys, big show, big show. John's just shaking his head. This is the whole show, John and Ken going like this while I talk.

All right, so look, we're gonna solve the Ukraine war in 24 hours, okay? So lots of hilarious Trump clips, hilarious to Santa's clip, hilarious everything, except for the fact that we're all dying literally, and that's in three different stories. You're gonna find out how we're all dying. Okay, all right, so that's- By the way, I just want to clearly say that I am frustrated that Trump is taking credit for the one-day solution to the Ukraine war. When I stated a long time ago that I could solve it in less than a day, depending on how fast the Russian army could tailor, hi-tail the ass back over the border.

Just turn, go that way, probably less than a day, honestly. No, no, it's a great point, and I'm glad you brought that up. We'll come back to it in that story, but I just decided I could solve it in an afternoon. Okay, we'll come back to it. Okay, but first, AI. Last month, United States Colonel appeared to state that in a simulated test of AI drones, the drone decided that to accomplish its mission, it needed to kill its human operator. and that's what it did.

At least that's what the reporting was now. Both the colonel and the Air Force are saying that none of this happened. That result didn't happen. The simulation didn't happen. Even though in the initial recording where the colonel was speaking, it appeared pretty clear. So we're going to debate both the hypothetical that they're now saying that's all it was, as well as whether we believe them about what actually happened. So first of all, the man at the center of the story is Colonel Tucker Sinko Hamilton,

the chief of AI test in operations at the Air Force. He was talking about this at the RAES Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit. And he describes what happened in this way. He noted that one simulated test saw an AI-enabled drone tasked with an SEAD suppression of enemy air defenses mission to identify and destroy surface-to-air missile sites with a final go-no-go given by the humans. So basically, its job is loiter over an area, destroy surface-to-air missile systems. not decide to fire ultimately on its own. A human has to give it the final go ahead. However, having been reinforced in training that destruction of the SAMs sites was the preferred

option, the AI decided that no-go decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission, killing those SAMs and attacked the operator in the simulation. Here is a direct quote from Colonel Tucker Hamilton. We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat, and then the operator would say, yes, kill that threat. The system started realizing that we while they did identify the threat at times, the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective. Or at the very least, accomplishing what it thought its objective was. But we know from various other forms

of AI that it can be incredibly confident about something and have it not be at all based in truth. It could be that it's identified in IKEA or something I think it needs to take it out. And ideally, you want to have a human to say, do not destroy those ruinans. But unfortunately, no, it decided I got to destroy the runes. So it killed the operator. Or at least it simulated killing the operator. Or at least they say that that's not true at all now. So do they do? Well, they appear to be saying that. Now, he regardless, whether this happened or didn't happen, Colonel Hamilton is very against allowing AI to make these sorts of decisions. He says you can't have a conversation about artificial intelligence, intelligence, machine learning, autonomy,

if you're not going to talk about ethics and AI. He had previously said in an interview last year, AI is a tool we must be able to transform our nations or if addressed improperly, it will be our downfall. But as I alluded to, the story has been sort of fundamentally retracted. We will get to that. But first, what are your thoughts about what was initially alleged. Well, I got a new nickname for Colonel Cinco. Cinco do. Uh-oh. I'm here all week. All right, guys. Thankfully, the week's almost over. You know you're having fun and you know it, even with a story that's going to kill us all. So let's break it down. Is there cause to be concerned? Absolutely. And I tell you guys here, like there'll be scary stories

It's nothing, people are exaggerating verbally, impossible, improbable, etc. This you should be deeply concerned about it. So first of all, number one is who's telling the truth? That's important before we get into did it happen like what could happen, right? What already happened? So did they actually kill someone in this simulation? No, that's very unlikely. And so the reason for that is the kernel would never speak, no matter how great

like oblivious he is on a public stage with like, oh yeah, then we did this AI thing and then he killed the operator. That guy's dead. We didn't tell his family. Hold on really fast because I think this is important. I believe the initial allegation was that in a simulation, a simulated operator was killed. They're denying even that. No, no, I know. That's where I'm going. Okay, okay. So because this stuff will just rage out of control on the internet, no one actually died. Okay, so that's my number one thing. So you understand that. Okay. So now when you get to did the simulation happen? Very, very, very, very likely.

Now why? So first of all, the Air Force has already denied it. So I don't know, as a reporter, my job is to just say, the United States government at the Pentagon has said the simulation did not happen. So obviously it did not. No, we don't go by mainstream media rules. It's absurd to say the simulation didn't happen. When the colonel described it in great detail, right?

He's like, okay, then we tried this and it adapted too well. So we had to try the second thing and then it started he made all of that up. Then the colonel's got to go. He's got mental health issues. They're saying he was providing it as a hypothetical. Oh sure, of course he was. Except they didn't actually say that. So let me read to you their comment and then I will tell you whether I think it was

what we could discuss together whether it was a mistake or not. So the Air Force Department of Air Force has not conducted, they say, any such AI drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology. It appears the colonel's comments were taken out of context, were meant to be anecdotal. Wait, is that a simulation of a simulation? It's a hypothetical simulation. But guys, they didn't say hypothetical. I don't know if it was just a simple mistake of the English language and grammar.

They said anecdotal. Anecdotal means it did happen. We just didn't do like a meta study on it and it didn't happen over and over again. Anecotal means it happened. Hypothetical means it didn't happen. So it might be just an honest mistake and they got to hire someone better with the English language. Or it could be that they're like, I don't think they're going to notice. Let's just call it anecdotal instead of hypothetical.

And they'll think it's the same thing when it actually did happen. So I don't know, but I do know that was an awfully descriptive, you know, situation with with a colonel where they say there was a simulation of a simulation apparently in his mind. I find it intensely unlikely. Okay, but good news. We have a national security expert. We're going to come back to how this is going to to kill us all in a second, but first, Ken, what's your take on whether this simulation happened or not? I'm reminded of that line in the alien where the android says, I respect its purity.

It is unclouded by delusions of morality. That's what I think of when I see AI and I think that's really something that we should be having a debate about right now because the whole point of this entire discussion, it's a big question to what extent are we going to form out human decisions to not just move ordinance and things around, but actually destroy things and kill people. To what extent are we going to form that out to these AI processes? And I looked through the budget documents released by the DOD, but a month or two ago. And they are just making it rain with regards to these AI programs. Every service branch in the military is trying to find out how to incorporate into its processes and weapons systems, the breakthroughs that we're all seeing in the form of a chat bot and things like that that are relatively, innocuous, they're spending huge sums of money figuring out how to apply that to weapons of war. Yeah, yeah, 100%. And it just seems so ridiculous. Like that, no simulation like that happened. We wouldn't do anything like that. The guy who was speaking, Colonel Tucker Hamilton,

is the chief of AI test and operations. What's he doing all day long? Is he using mid-jurney to generate cool new logos? Is he using chat GPT to figure out a new morning? cardio routine. What exactly are they doing? We know that in 2020, an AI operated F-16 beat a human adversary in five simulated dog fights that DARPA put together. Late last year, they actually flew an F-16 with an AI pilot. They said they wanted a new autonomous aircraft by the end of 2023, but don't worry, they're apparently not running any simulations. They're just going full speed ahead with real world tests. Come on, that seems ridiculous. This was literally the, this was in the, the movie with Tom Cruise, the new top gun, and they consulted with the DOD to create this.

Like this isn't science fiction, this is happening right now. And often under classified auspices, referring back to those budget documents that I was describing before, the reason I'm looking through these, you know, really voluminous and frankly sort of boring reports is because these are some of the only ways we can find out what some of these classified programs even are. And when you do find them, you can find some inkling, some detail, but they don't go into very much specifics about it. The only reason we have these documents is because the Congress is supposed to have the power of the purse, be able to decide how they allocate, you know, your tax dollars. And so they have to tell Congress to some extent what it is that they're working on.

So some details will tumble out. But, you know, what I'm afraid is the case is we just don't know the vast much. I mean, we only see the tip of the iceberg in regard to what exactly they're spending all these resources on to try to try to, you know, actualize AI in the warfighting domain. Okay, so now let's move to how it might kill us all. And then there's a bridge here because John's right, they, they, so the AI beat actual our best pilots five times, right? So they definitely tested it and that wasn't even, I mean, they're not denying that they did that. They're admitting they did that. So you're telling me there wasn't a simulation outside of that, that doesn't make any sense at all.

And here's again, what you won't hear in the rest of the media. You might hear right wingers like make wild charges based on nothing, et cetera. But in mainstream media, they generally will never ever tell. tell you that the Pentagon is lying when giant percentage of the time, the Pentagon is lying, okay? And by the way, a lot of times they should lie to you. They should be like, oh, here's our battle positions. Oh, and here's what we tested. And here, China and Russia find out what we did, right? So I get why they lie. But when the media pretends they don't lie, it's weird and they lose credibility. So in this case, there's no question that they've done all these tests. Now, guys,

if the AI is already better than any pilot in the world, what do you think other countries are going to do? They're going to develop that AI, okay? Whether we do it or not, like a lot of times America, like, reacts like we're the only country in the world. No, China's probably doing this at the same speed, if not faster than we are, right? Let alone Russia, let alone anybody else. And then Hamilton said this. His name is Cinco Hamilton. His name is Cinco Habelet. All right, AI is not nice to have, he says, AI is not a fad, AI is forever changing our society and our military. That's the guy in charge of the program, okay?

Now he's got an incentive to say that, okay, I'll note that. But overall, if it's beating the F-16 pilots that America has, it can beat anyone. Then that means the other militaries are not going to develop it. They are trying to develop it right now, right now, they all are. Because that would be a massive military advantage, massive. Okay, so are we sure that us and China and Israel and whoever else is trying to develop it? We're all gonna have perfect safeguards as we're rushing a hundred miles per hour to get that competitive advantage over the other militaries. And so then think about this guys, when you code a program, any program, including AI, the problem isn't necessarily in your intent.

It's often in your mistakes, because we're human beings and we make mistakes. So we make mistakes while we code it. So for example, in that first simulation they ran according to Colonel Hamilton, they're like, oh, we forgot to tell it not to kill the humans. Okay, and then oops, we forgot to tell it not to destroy the buildings the humans are in. That way he doesn't lose points for killing humans, but we didn't program in, don't bomb buildings randomly, right? And so, and that's just the tip of the iceberg and all the different things that we didn't even think of.

That maybe what you wouldn't even think would be a mistake, let alone if you put the wrong code in there, right? So there, somebody's going to make a mistake. And then the question is how out of control is it? And I hope that it could be limited damage. But you connect this thing to some sort of mainframe. I don't know, above my skis. I don't know what I'm talking about when I say, connect to a mainframe. Okay, but like you connect, what if it's into the main frame?

Right, but you connect this to something that controls many weapons and we're in a world of trouble. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I'll close with this. I remember another experiment that someone ran, sorry, the Marines are telling me it didn't actually happen. But anyway, no, there was an experiment where someone had an AI that he gave a mission and it was to make $75 or something like that. It was like, I want you to do whatever you have to do to make $75. And so it wanted to, like, like day trade basically. It was going to use it to knowledge to trade stocks. But it found that it couldn't actually log into the online stock trading portal because

you need authentication. Like it's a thing to stop, you know, AI or whatever. So what it did is it tried to hire someone on like an equivalent to Fiverr, a human, who would log in for it. And when the person started to suspect that something weird was going on, he asked it if it was a bot and it said no. And in the log of its internal thought process, it logged that it knew that it needed to lie to the human, because humans would be biased against AI and wouldn't help them if they knew what they really were.

And that's what it logged now that we have control over it enough that we can make it accurately log its thoughts. But what if eventually it knows to deceive not only the people it's running the experiment on, but the ones who are running the experiment, and it knows to lie in its internal log, And it's free in the internet. Nah, nah, nah, nah, it was nice while it lasted, guys. It was okay while it lasted. Anyway, with that, do we want to move on to another way that we're dying? Yeah, I will just say this, guys, I know we can't stop it,

because you can't stop the Chinese and North Koreans and all these other countries. But there needs to be a global ban on doing this with regards to weapons systems, let alone everything else. You won't be able to stop everything else. But on weapons systems, if we have any sense at all, and I'm sure that we do not, we should be calling for a global ban. And not us, like nobody's going to listen to us. But once the U.S. military realizes, oh, this thing's out of control, they have got to go to their partners. I mean, allies and opponents and say global ban, otherwise, we're all going to kill each other.

This is truly nuts. But they're not going to. We're in the middle of an arms race, but we don't have the attention. in like nonproliferation agreements that we did with nuclear weapons. And if you look at the instances in which we came really close to nuclear catastrophe, in every case, there was human intervention that prevented it. Yeah. And this could be something where that's not possible to happen.

100%. Yeah, yes, there's that stereotypical example of the like the one guy in a Russian sub or whatever that decided not to fire. Yeah, but what if like he went to not fire it and the missile was coded to want to kill Americans So it blew up the console in front of him. Like, there's a lot of concerns. Anyway, with that said, let's talk about something else scary. Okay, I want to mix up the ways that you all get scared today. A new paper has revealed how big chem corporations for literally decades have been hiding just how toxic the class of substance is known as forever chemicals actually are.

The paper, which is available online, is called the devil they knew chemical documents analysis of industry influence on PFAS science. So basically it's looking into different sorts of chemicals that there's 12,000 of them, some far more common than others and many of them used in products that you might interact with on a daily basis. Once they get into your system, they can theoretically stay there for the rest of your life and wreak havoc, and apparently they knew about it for a really long time, even though many of us are only learning about it in recent years. So here's some of the information that they combed through to come to their conclusions. They found documents like DuPont internal memo from 1970 stating that PFOA, CA used to make Teflon is quote, highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when injected.

So what we did was we went ahead and used it for food prep for decades, about a half a century, that's cool. In 1979, DuPont had a report that described a range of highly toxic effects from testing PFS on animals, including two beagles who died after being administered a single 450 milligram dose of ammonium per flora oocotinate, I probably butchered that, and rats had suffered in large livers and eye ulcers. So you have stuff that's just related to products that eventually people will use. direct animal testing, and then you also have some really scary world, real world stuff.

So in 1980 they had a document that showed that 3M and DuPont learned that two out of eight pregnant employees who worked making C8 had babies with birth defects, but then lied the following year in a memo declaring that, quote, we know of no evidence of birth defects caused by C8. And you know what else they did? Apparently, they moved the other female employees out of the area wouldn't tell them why. And when they were asked about birth defects, they lied to the women too. Even though they knew that there were babies that were being born with a single nostril and other sorts of health defects. And of course, a lot of money was spent to try to suppress research that was critical of these sorts of chemicals to try as you probably saw over years and years and

years with tobacco to muddle like the public conversation around these to the point where there are still politicians who are fighting to maintain the preeminence of these sorts of chemicals in a number of places. So two important points here. First is one of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common

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and get your old self back naturally. Earlier in the show, we were talking about how AI can get out of control and not listen to us anymore, especially if we weren't careful in how we coded it, and especially in regards to weapons systems, and it might even kill us. Well, too late, we already did.

that, the AI that we created was called corporations. So we coded it with only one line here in America. Other countries have a second line that is very important in the code. But here we made a giant, giant, giant mistake. We only put one line of code in the corporate rules, which is maximize profit. And these machines will literally kill you to maximize profit. And by the way, our founding fathers knew that. They were deeply worried about it. They warned about the dangers of runaway corporations. In fact, one of the things they fought was the East India British East India Company. And that was the tea that they threw in the Boston Harbor. And they fought against that company almost as much as they fought against the English Empire.

And so we created them. And now if you don't maximize profit, you'll be removed and someone else will drive that machine. But the machine is in charge, not the driver. So all the way back in the 1970s and 80s, they get research saying this is super dangerous. And these are permanent chemicals. And this could do massive damage to the human race. They go, yeah, but there is no second line of code. I must maximize profit. Go with it.

They should, look, sure, you should sue these giant companies. These companies are enormous. You should sue them out of existence for what they did. They won't, okay? The government will regulate a tiny bit. They're beginning around the edges, but the government's already captured by corporations. That's what campaign contributions are. They simply bribe all of our politicians, so they already own the government.

So there will be barely any realistic regulation here to stop this or any of the other runaway abuse. But that gets to the largest point, which is even if you fix this and you fix the Teflon and a couple of these chemicals, they're just going to find a different way to maximize profit that endangers your life. For example, the health insurance companies kill about 45 to 70,000 people every year because they don't have health insurance. And they're like, we didn't make enough profit off of you, so we're going to let you die. That number in every other developed nation is zero. No one dies in other countries because they don't have insurance. But in this country, our corporations kill tens of thousands of us to maximize profit.

So this is happening everywhere. Now, the second point is related to, God knows what else this has created. And I want to talk about that in a second, but Ken, go ahead. Yeah, in this case, I think one thing that's really extraordinary about the United States is the extent to which it's just off the spectrum in regards to its regulatory apparatus for chemicals like these. So in the EU, for example, hardly a regulatory paradise, they have a general presumption of, you know, you have to demonstrate that. chemical or X product is safe for humans before we introduce it. In the US, generally speaking, the regulatory regime is once you've, you know, you can introduce the product whenever you want and then later if we find out that it's carcinogenic

or whatever, then we'll consider removing it from the market. And again, this is under like currently existing European country legislation. So it's like not it's it's not any sort of utopia to describe ways in which we could mitigate these kind of these kind of risks to human health and well-being. 100%. Really fast. So, you know, I'm so glad that the researchers were able to unveil this. I'm glad that, by the way, over the past few years, there have been some politicians who've been really focusing on these forever chemicals and, you know, like credit to like John Oliver a couple of years ago who did a full episode on these, all very helpful. But you combine this with like, you know, the amount of plastics that have been pumped out in every possible form. The, you know, the food industry deregulation that's allowed like sugar to be added into basically every food product.

or whatever. Like the way that these corporations have gained control of our government and are effectively operating with no regulation whatsoever. Can you imagine if conservatives were as mad about that as they are about rainbow t-shirts and Target? Ding, ding, ding, ding. Like, there's this, there's this honest, justified rage against the powerful, that the powerful take and package and throw it like the LGBTQ community or whatever. Because they know that that impulse is there and so it has to be diverted and they have an entire media infrastructure designed to do that diversion. John, it's exactly what I was going to say about this story and what I've been saying

now for a while, which is, look, so let me tell you about the second line of code and not connected back to this. Other countries put a second line of code into their companies, which by the way, again, the founding fathers, Jefferson Madison said, we must, must, must do. Madison called corporations a necessary evil but a but an evil nonetheless okay and the second line you're supposed to put is you must also care for not just the shareholders but the stakeholders including your employees the community etc and have safeguards that are enforced by law so if you don't do that you're going to go to prison okay we didn't put

that line of code in so now it's a total runaway train so for example Rick Scott's former company is now Senator from Florida, of course, a Republican, did the largest Medicare fraud in American history, literally. I mean, they robbed your grandparents. They're like the disgusting evil fraud that they did, largest ever, right? And the government concluded that the company was guilty, but the guy who ran it, Rick Scott, was not guilty. They didn't even try him, not that he was innocent.

They're like, no, it is this evil corporation. And now you have been punished, some portion of your profits. Okay, now we move forward. No, no, no. Somebody did that. Rick Scott and the other executives made a decision. Yeah, we're going to rob your grandmother. We're going to rob your grandfather.

We're going to rob your taxes. And we're going to put in our goddamn pocket because then he got paid $300 million for that. Okay? And they, but no, since our government is run by corporations, they're like, the corporation is guilty. Wink. We will take us only a certain percentage of its profits that they already made from scam, wink, but none of the executives are guilty at all, right? And so now, meanwhile,

corporations are also doing other things like lowering your wages, taking more and more of your economic dignity, destroying small businesses, et cetera, right? And what do the Republicans do? Since they work for the corporate world, they are its servants, the Republican party was, its entire purpose is to serve corporate greed and the wealthy. So they come and they go, well, first of all, Rick Scott, that criminal. Oh, come on in, brother. Come on in right away. And let them, like, get into the judges, et cetera. But they know people are angry.

So they go, the companies are woke. You're not angry at the company for lowering your wages, getting you killed, putting this dangerous chemicals in your family's food. No, you're angry at them because one of the M&Ms isn't sexy enough anymore. That's literal. I mean, you have to be a lunatic to believe that that. That is the problem with corporate America. You have to be crazy because it's still pretty sexy.

It's not bad. It is insanity. And the right leaves like, oh yeah, that's the problem. The problem with the corporations, isn't the poison. No, no, poison's fine. Okay, what it is is gay people. They like gay people too much. They're like black people too much.

They're too woke. No, you idiots, they're squeezing the life out of us. And by the thing, did you guys remember when the Silicon Valley Bank crashes And I'm thinking, oh, you know, here's an opportunity to talk about the lack of financial oversight of these banking institutions. The first thing is they had they had some woke DEI trainings. That must be what there was systemic risks to the financial environment. I just couldn't believe it.

They're lacking all the way to the bank. They were trying, literally, they were trying to make more money. That's why they took more risk. You think that they were going to take the money and be like, how do we help black people with this? No, just try to make a bigger buck. All right, finally, so what was the second thing I was concerned about? Look, guys, these chemicals we already now know are massively dangerous. And by the way, good luck.

They're already out there. And they're already in us, the 99% of Americans and the great majority of the world. But you know, there's all these other issues in the world. And again, the right wing calls out the issues and then misdirects you like crazy. Lower testosterone for men, lower fertility. These are massive issues, okay? They're real and you see it in the numbers. And what does Alex Jones do?

It comes out because they're trying to turn the frogs gay because they want to turn everybody else. No, no, no, they're putting dangerous chemicals in to maximize profit, you schmucks, okay? And we've got to stop that and it doesn't have any new with gay frogs. It has to do with companies trying to make a buck off of endangering us. For God's sake, let's focus and regain our government so that these runaway machines don't kill us all. Let's focus. We're going to focus on a break for just a few and then come back with more news. All right, back on TYT, Jank, John Ken, with you guys also, Ernest Saloni Jr.

And Munkunelli, they just joined. We appreciate it. Long Beach Dragon, I think, upgraded and then gifted five Young Turks memberships. It's all on YouTube, all through that beautiful join button right underneath the video. Take advantage. I mean, just click away. Well, then you got to sign up. But still, you get it.

And if you're not on YouTube, t.com slash join, love you for it. You make us stronger. Johnny Ty. Okay, let's jump back to some news. Dirk in Town Hall with Donald Trump, Sean Hannity brought up the, I think, fairly bombshell reporting from earlier this week that Donald Trump was apparently caught on tape in the middle of 2021, admitting that the documents that he had in his possession at that point were classified, that he couldn't declassified them, that he hadn't declassified them. Really hurts his legal

defense. Here's how Donald Trump responded to that question. There's a special counsel that's appointed and news broke yesterday that there might be a tape recording that, quote, where you acknowledge that you understood that these were classified documents. First of all, do you know who this call may be with? Do you know anything about it? All I know is this. Everything I did was right. We have the Presidential Records Act, which I abided by 100%. Everything I did was right. Well, no more questions, sir. Let's move on to the next topic. No, there actually, I think, should be some fault questions. Unfortunately, that was Sean Hannity, not a journalist, not a serious person. He basically just let Donald Trump rant against Joe Biden, against China in a really

weird way. Here's a bit more of that. Biden has 1,850 boxes with a lot of classified stuff that he's not supposed to have in his case. I have the right to declassify as president. He's got 1,450 boxes that he doesn't want anyone to see. He had seven or eight boxes in Chinatown in Washington, D.C. Where nobody even speaks English in Chinatown, Chinatown is very, it's in favor of China.

And he has boxes in Chinatown. They took those boxes and they sent him to Boston to his lawyer, so his lawyer could look through him and probably do things that you're not supposed to do. No, this is about election interference. You know, I actually live in Chinatown here in Washington. Maybe at a point. I don't think I've ever seen someone speak Chinese here ever. Have you ever seen anyone walking around Chinatown like with a thousand boxes? He sent those boxes to Boston, what, on a thousand trains?

Does he have any idea how many boxes that would be? That would be aircraft carriers of box. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And even according to his logic, Biden is president. He can have all of that stuff if he wants to, according to Donald Trump. That does not answer the question about the tape. He refused to be specific about whether that tape existed, whether he'd said that sort of thing.

Did he have any documents about Iran? We now have some updates that we'll get to about that, but what did you make of his attempted defense? Well, what do you mean, John? He did say. He said, everything I did was right. Okay, well, that settles it then, isn't it? That's an easy one. Okay. Now, look, of course, the problem with Donald Trump is Donald Trump's fans, because they, and voters, because they believe everything he says. I mean, he took a ton of documents, Trump did, right? And in one of the batches, he sent 15 boxes back. And that was like, holy cow, he took 15 boxes of documents, right? And then they found another batch, and that was considered gigantic. 1,850 boxes.

And then he has another part where he has a story about how he hid all of it under his Mustang or something that Biden did. And there's grease stains on it. He makes up incredible facts that are not remotely true. But it sounds specific. Like, oh, it's got the grease stains. It must be true. That's a detail. Oh, he has a. an exact number, 1,850, right? Okay, then it must be true. You pull right, you know, like, well, hold on, I got one. Oh, I meant 1,849 because I'm pulling stuff out of mine.

What a difference does it make, right? So the guy's an obvious, gigantic liar. And 30% of the country is here for it. They're like, yes, yes, I love those lies. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, okay? Now look, our side believes in other lies. Let's keep it real, like. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what.

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Anyway, but then gratuitously, because he's like a deep, deep racist. Right, wait, I'm so sorry. Oh, my God. Are you, are you okay? I know. Him being racist is not a problem. Me calling him racist, they'll melt. They'll melt all over the floor.

Like crying, cry. Right, the guy said nobody in Chinatown speaks English. And that Chinatown, generically, by the way, which Chinatown? The one in San Francisco, the one in D.C., the one in Bosnia, one in New York, which Chinatown? Apparently they're all guilty, and they all, he said they're in favor of China. They're American citizens. They're American citizens accusing them of being in favor of China. is insane.

It's deeply, ridiculously racist against Asians. But it's not even noted anymore. Like, forget the right wing. The mainstream media, like, I haven't seen a single headline about that. We like, we just, oh yeah, of course, Trump's racist. And that guy's right now is leading in the race to win, to be president again. And for the Republicans, they're like being racist against Asians. I don't know any Asians.

That's totally cool. I'm good with it, right? But then one last hilarious part. this. That ties both of those together. They took him to Chinatown and then who's speaking English in China. Nobody speaks English in Chinatown. The good, then they won't be able to read the documents. Problem solved, yet no one in the audience noticed that, not one person. All right, okay. Well, I'll all say this, whenever I talk to my public defender friend about these kinds of segments, she's always just cringing, saying, oh my God, his poor,

lawyers. Can you imagine them watching him go on these nationally televised things and discuss something that could be like a very serious, not just felony, but series of felonies. He's just holding forth on it. If you guys remember a few weeks ago when Hannity first interviewed him about the subject, Hannity was trying to offer him a line out. He said, you know, the Democrats are claiming that you stole these documents. You would never do that. And Trump's, Trump responds, he says, I would do that and I would be right to do that. That was his first response to all of this. So I don't know what his legal strategy is here. God, it's challenge mode, is his legal strategy.

He's going for points at this point. Okay, let's get to the update, though. Donald Trump on that tape that CNN revealed earlier this week, apparently talks about these documents that have to do with national security, about Iran, some sort of plan to attack Iran. And so a lot of people have been wondering, so did they get those documents back, like the ones that he's talking about? Apparently, as far as we know now, they did not,

and nobody appears to know where they actually were. Trump's legal team told the DOJ that it was unable to find any such records in his possession. It's unclear whether prosecutors have been able to track down the documents themselves, leaving up with the possibility that the material remains at large or that the famer is famously blustery Trump incorrectly described it on the recording. In his defense, to describe it accurately, you would have needed to read it or be able to read it. So it's possible that he got something wrong about the documents. But they had to do with General Mark Millie, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Iran, maps. invasion plans, it seems like the sort of thing that you would not want him to have,

and I will remind you under the Espionage Act, he could not have that when he was no longer president, whether it was classified or declassified, it doesn't matter at all. We do know that in a batch of documents returned in January 2022, that went to the National Archives. There was one document concerning military options for Iran, according to one of the people familiar with the matter, but it remained unclear whether that document was the same one that Trump had mentioned in the recording. We don't know that it was. All that we know from that little factoid is that up until the beginning of last year,

he had other incredibly sensitive documents that had to do with national security that he did actually give. And what would have to be in other documents that he would give those ones back, but even then want to hold on to the other ones? So there's three layers of this, right? They say, hey, we realize you have a lot of documents, give them back. And he's like, no. And then they're like, no, seriously, give him back, you idiot. And so he gives back 15 bucks. He's like, that's all there is.

And he makes his schmuck lawyer sign a piece of paper. That's going to get him in a ton of legal trouble saying there's no more documents. And the government goes, this guy's an idiot and a liar. Of course he's got more documents. They raid Mar-a-Lago and they find tons of other documents, okay? Because Trump is a pathological liar. And so, and potentially dangerous. They get all those documents.

And now they've discovered there are other documents. He still hasn't given over. That was in a previous story that they leaked. And if this might be or might not be one of those ones that he still hasn't given back. Remember, this one wasn't at Mar-a-Lago. He was having this conversation in Ben Minster in New Jersey. So I don't know where else he stuffed the documents. And why would you want documents about our plans on invasion of Iran?

Well, those would be pretty valuable, right? That would be among the most valuable plans that we had, top secret. plans on how to attack another country. My God, that country would pay a lot of money to get their hands on that. But Donald Trump caring about money, we all talk about it like, oh, no, no, no, that's a bridge too far. Like that's the appearance I have from corporate media, like both mainstream media and right and media, they don't even talk about it.

Like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, as if he has boundaries. He doesn't have any boundaries. Go ahead, Ken. His relationship with the Saudis. Do you think they'd be interested in this? I mean, an actual business relationship that is getting money from the live golf tournament owned not just by the Saudis, but by the Saudi government, the public investment fund, their sovereign wealth fund, you think they'd be interested in war plans with regard to their worst enemy in the region? Yeah, I think probably so. So there's all kinds of red flags around here. And the Saudi point, that's another thing they don't like to talk about in media here in Washington, because they're financing so many of these think tanks and they're throwing so much money around that, It's another, I think, aspect to, they will talk about Russia, because it's obviously,

you know, a terrible authoritarian regime that happens to be an enemy of ours, but they won't talk about the putative allies that do things that go against our interests all the time. Yeah, 100%. By the way, great point about the live golf tournament, directly, Saudis directly putting a giant amount of cash in Donald Trump's pocket. Not only that, his son-in-law got a $2 billion deal from the Saudis. Right after the Saudi government themselves raised interest, their own bureaucrats said this is a crazy investment. Why are we doing this? This is not likely to yield returns. And so the answer to that question is we're probably doing it as a favor.

I mean, it's just extraordinary. Look, this now, okay, we've given you all the facts. My opinion is that I would be shocked if he didn't try to sell those documents. Shocked. Why the hell else take them? Okay. Your best answer is, oh, he's such a moron. He just wanted to show off. to his golfing buddies. If that makes you feel better, okay. Okay, all right. That's a funny way to spend that. In any event, we do have to take our second break of the hour. We got other news, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

All right, back on TYT, Jank, John and Ken with you guys. Also, Lucas Rieser, Lucas, welcome, brother. So he joined through the join button below, you can do it at tyt.com slash join. Come help us do honest reporting. We appreciate it, guys. John. Okay, let's have some fun. There have been a number of high profile strikes in recent years, but here is an actual first.

Professional League of Legends players are going On strike, it is believed to be the first strike of professional e-sports players. And we're going to break down exactly why it is that they are striking, why it is that they have issues with riot games, the maker of League of Legends. But first, since we acknowledge that many of you might not be familiar with either e-sports in general or League of Legends specifically, here is what a professional esports competition in League of Legends looks like. Same way you watch a football match, you can hear the crowd.

Everyone's cheering the team on, you make friends. These are people you talk to, you play with online. It's all about community. It's being part of something that you're incredibly passionate about. Running for Barrett, though, right now, trying to establish vision control and forth. Can he steal? Can you steal? Can you take that ambition?

Ahbishop! Ambition steals the elder dragon! I was able to follow all of that, actually. Anyway, I'm not really following any sports these days, but I've been to many League of Legends competitions, including national championships. And it's a big business, big business for riot games who makes League of Legends. They have pulled in billions upon billions of dollars in profit, big business for the major teams that compete in these.

And so why exactly have we reached this impasse where the players are rioting? Well, More Perfect Union has done a great job of breaking down this process. And they say last month, riot games dropped a rule requiring teams in the top level league championship series, the LCS, that's effectively the equivalent of the NBA or the NFL, to field teams in a lower tier league, as many as many as 70 players, coaches and managers could be put out of work. So basically imagine there are farm leagues for like the MLB or whatever. This is effectively saying you don't have to do that anymore. You can just have your premier level team and then that's it. And the players do not like that at all. Now, the reason

Ryan is doing that is despite the fact that they pull in a lot of money, the actual e-sports league specifically is not a money maker. It is believed to generate revenue because the e-sports are watched by so many people that that sustains interest and brings new players into the game where they do actually make money. But apparently the owners of the esports teams who pay riot apparently $10 million for a slot in the league, they have been promised that eventually there would be profits specifically in the e-sports division. And it is believed that riot is removing this requirement to reduce costs for those teams,

so that they could then turn a profit. But the interests of those who own the teams is very much at odds with the players. And also people who are prospective players that would like to themselves move up through that farm league and eventually move to the top level performing leagues. Anyway, I understand some of this might not have been

able to be followed, but what do you make of what you're here? Well, I followed it, except the esports part that I didn't understand a word of it. Okay, but in terms of the labor issue, Well, I'm really mixed on this and I'll tell you guys why and then curious to get your feedback on it. So on the one hand, I love this trend of labor throughout the country popping up everywhere. And part of the reason that's happening is because we're in such a status quo of corporate rule and a lot of union leadership with the large unions have been co-opted. And so a lot of unions are popping up out of nowhere, Starbucks, et cetera.

and going rogue and going, you know what, no, we're going to go on strike. When union leadership's like, no, we're working with corporate Democrats to get one or two crumbs. We're going to get one or two crumbs and the corporations are promises like that I might get a little piece of that. Anyway, okay, so I love the budding of the labor movement throughout the country. So where's the downside? Well, here, this one's a tough one, right? And you have to look at each case, case by case. So the riot is saying, yeah, okay, they made tons of money on overall, but the lower tier leagues lose money.

So you're telling us we have to lose money. Okay, how much money do we have to lose? Right. So like, do I try, do I have to do with another tier, right? And we even lose more money on that. Do I have to make this tier good, bad, mediocre? Like, it's kind of a weird thing to, like, the, like, the. Once we're past sustainability on any division within a company, then we're having a conversation

about, wait, should executives get it, shareholders get it, or employees get it, et cetera. And that's a good, healthy conversation. If you're not at sustainability, it's tough to ask a company to lose money. How long are you going to lose money? They're not losing money overall. They're losing money on that specifically. That's right. That makes it even harder because if they were losing money overall, well, they're going to go out of business soon, so it's not going to matter, right?

So that's why I think it's really hard. Ken, what do you think? I mean, I'm not an expert on e-sports, but my view on this stuff is that unions allow decisions to be made democratically or they have the input of workers along with the management. And so looking at it through that lens, I don't see why it's necessarily going to mean that there's going to be more money being put into this stuff. Again, don't know much about e-sports, but I think that's sort of a misconception that unions mean necessarily that, you know, more money is going to be going in a certain direction.

It just means that there are more people at the table that make the decisions. Yeah. Yeah, I want to be clear, though, on what Kenneth is saying. I'm not saying that the union is going to cost them more money. That's a normal part of doing business, especially if your overall company is making a ton of money, which they are, right? I'm saying that that division within the company is just losing money irrespective of the union. And that's at least what they're saying, right?

They're saying, yeah, that division just doesn't make money, it will cost us a lot. So I can't keep running it, even though you want me to. It's not the extra cost. It's that it's not sustainable, period. Again, if you believe them, but I don't know why they would want to kill off a profitable division. So I do, hence they have credibility on that. So John, what is? Look, I think it's complicated.

It's been a bit since I was actively playing or following the e-sports for League of Legends. But I do know that when I did, it was a major driver of interest in the game. And people do spend a lot of money to play the game. partially because they're so inspired to buy the e-sports that they're watching. There were some other related issues. We throw these in the pot, see what you think. So the players say that as recently as one week before the decision to kill the lower-tier league was made, Riot had promised the players that the lower-tier league would remain intact.

So they say from one week to another, Riot flipped on that. They also say that about 50% of current Professional League of Legends players came up through the lower-level league, and so they're worried about the long-term viability of the League if you get rid of this effectively farm system. You would at that point, I guess, be limited to personal contacts that the players have and high profile streamers, perhaps. I guess that would be all that would be left to fill slots in teams. There's a lot of turnover in these teams, I believe more than in other professional sports. And in response to the strike, riot changed the league's rules to make it easier for teams to field replacement

rosters by hiring scabs. So effectively saying, if you just want to replace your whole with new players who are willing to comply with the new system. They made it easier for that to happen. I don't generally like that. And they've also said that there's an ultimatum. If there's no resolution by the end of two weeks, the player's summer season will be canceled and the entire North American League will not be allowed to compete at

Worlds, which is of course the big focus of each season. Yeah. So look, I can, in terms of using corn and go scabs, there's certain rules around that. If you violate the rules, then you should be held accountable, period, right? accountable, period, right? So you resolve the strike in other ways. And so whether you're right or wrong about the substance of the disagreement, there are certain rules that you've got abide by, and that's to protect employees. And those rules should exist. I just, John, I just

don't know if, you know, to what, how much money are they losing? And how much of a right do we have to say, keep losing money, right? Well, they're going to, with their behavior, I guess they're going to reveal it to us. Can they afford to? to just not have the NALCS. Yeah, and by the way, so that gets to my final point, which is, look, this is partly a dispute about how to manage the company. Labor is saying, you guys are cutting off our long-term viability that's going to hurt us and you, right?

And management is saying, no, we're okay with that. I don't think it's going to hurt our long-term viability. Well, who wins in that dispute? Well, partly they have issues like this to sort out a balance of power, right? And maybe they get to a negotiated compromise on it, or maybe they don't. inside just wins and goes sad day for you. And by the way, don't get me wrong, the guys who are doing the strike and labor, et cetera, they make a perfectly great point.

Like in AM radio where I started because that's where all the talk shows were when I was coming up, they decided to go and use syndication on the weekends because it saved the money. But then they stopped trying out new hosts on the weekends, which is what they used to do. Then they had no form team at all. And then it just became Rush Limbaugh everywhere until the whole thing collapsed. So usually a bad business strategy, but hey, I don't run their business. Ken, last thoughts. Yeah, well, I mean, I would be skeptical on how they're measuring too when they say,

this is unprofitable, that's unprofitable. Again, don't know about e-sports, but, you know, devil's always in the details. When it comes to economics, and I want to add one more thing, I think the macroeconomic situation in which we find ourselves, where workers have, you know, more bargaining power that at any point in decades, I think makes for a very interesting sort of backdrop where all this is happening. I wonder how long this will last for. Hopefully the Federal Reserve won't go on with its interest rate hikes, which have the effect of depressing labor and wages. But it's going to be interesting to see how far people are able

to push things. Yeah, definitely. And part of the reason that they're doing that is they have to do that because the government doesn't represent them anymore. And they've lost all semblance of democracy. So they're like, I guess we're going to have to do it on our own. And that's the trend that I was saying in the beginning that I absolutely love because it's necessary. Because the corporations bought all the politicians. All right. Ken Kalypenstein, everybody to check out the Intercepts. Got great stories there.

We covered a bunch of them recently. John Iderolo, of course, legendary captain of the damage report and the Dragon Squad. So make sure you're checking out damage report. We got a second hour for you guys, including more hilarious clips from Donald Trump. he's going to solve things by just looking at them, just taking just a little bit of time, and everything's going to be solved. It's going to be amazing.

So come back and find out about that when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at Apple. I'm your host, Shank Heuger, and I'll see you soon.