The Young Turks - Trump ARRESTED

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Episode summary: Read Trump’s frenzied rant at New York district attorney Alvin Bragg hours before court appearance. Trump super PAC hammers DeSantis in brutal first TV ad: "Not ready to be President." Union Pacific sued after firing rail worker on medical leave. les down on "Democrats are pedophiles" remark during 60 Minutes interview. A nine-year-old girl didn’t want her goat slaughtered. HOSTS: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) & Emma Vigeland (@emmavigeland) 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

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Woo! Get some! You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. Jank is out today, and I'm sure he's regretting it. But Emma Viglin is here, and I'm certainly not regretting that. Emma, good to have you on the show. Oh, thanks so much for having me back.

I mean, who is going to say down goes Trump? Down goes Trump. I mean, got to be one of us, right? I mean, I kind of just said it, so. First of all, let's start with the, of course, traditional. sound clip that we go with once someone goes down. Let's start. Let's see if DJ Bark Kyle has it. Three, two. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Down goes Trump. Down goes Trump. Not quite yet, but today was his arraignment. And that's going to take up a huge portion of the show

today. We're going to talk about the indictment, the charges within the indictment. we're gonna get through all of that. I do want to also note that tonight after the main show, when we would typically do our bonus episode for our members, we are going to do live coverage of Trump's press conference on his arraignment. John Iderola was kind enough to come in and do that coverage with me. So we're gonna leave that open to everyone. Everyone in the public can watch that coverage. But after that, there will be a shorter members only portion. So we'll put that behind a paywall. But with that said, let's get started, Emma. There's a lot of details to get to. Alvin Bragg has done a press conference explaining what the charges are. And I think

it's actually a really fascinating case. I'm curious to see how it plays out. So let's get right to it. Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned today in the case involving hush money payments to Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 election. As you can see, he is arriving to the courthouse to turn himself in. And he pleaded not guilty, not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. These are felony charges. In fact, they were bumped up from misdemeanor to felony charges because the accusation here is that he falsified these documents with the intent to commit another crime. And that other crime is, of course, illegal campaign activity, illegal campaign contributions, we'll get into the more minute

details of that in just a moment. He had three defense attorneys present with him as he was pleading not guilty to these charges. If convicted, he does face a discretionary maximum of four years in prison. And I say discretionary because it's really up to the judge to decide how much time he serves. But if I were to put money on this, I would bet that he will Nazi the inside of a prison cell over this particular prosecution, there are other cases and other potential trials he could be facing, including his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia in particular. Now, with that said, why don't we go to the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who explained what the indictment means in detail. Let's watch.

Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump was arraigned on a New York Supreme Court indictment returned by a Manhattan grand jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Under New York State law, it is a felony to falsify business records with intent of the fraud and intent to conceal another crime. That is exactly what this case is about. 34 false statements made to cover up other crimes. These are felony crimes in New York State, no matter who you are. We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conducts.

The defendant repeatedly made false statements on New York business records. He also caused others to make false statements. We're going to go to more sound from Alvin Bragg in just a moment, but based on what he said, I wanted to kind of break things down a little more and talk about this with you, Emma, because what I appreciated about Alvin Bragg's statement there was there shouldn't be a two-tier justice system where some people get prosecuted for some crimes, others don't get prosecuted for similar crimes. And while this might very well help Trump with the Republican voter base, and we are

seeing that reflected in the polling. The political ramification should not, in my opinion, should not be calculated into any prosecutorial decisions. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I totally agree that their decisions should not be made based on any kind of political machinations or what this ends up, how this ends up affecting Trump in terms of the presidential race. There's no constitutional provision that says he can't run while under investigation. He could even be sitting in a jail cell, which Eugene Debs was when he ran for president almost 100 years ago, around maybe more. I can't think off the top of my head. So there's no reason legally that he's precluded from running. So might as well pursue these charges. And I what's so ironic about all of this to me is that, yes, he should be treated like any citizen in New York. But he wasn't up until the point that he started running for president. And I'm not

saying that this is a political prosecution. I mean, it's just what caused them to look into it. But the point is that Trump had to clean up all of his messes with these dozens of counts that he's being charged with. Affairs he's had allegedly, maybe an illegitimate child that he may have had allegedly that he tried to allegedly pay a doorman for to cover up. These were all kind of sloppy patchwork CYA attempts because when he ran for president in 2016, he wasn't trying to win, he was trying to make money. And so he did not have his ducks in a row because he has a very sketchy past with Felix Sater, with Roy Cohn, the attorney for the mafia, and other shady characters.

This guy's past is not squeaky clean. And so this was his effort with his dodgy lawyer, Michael Cohen, who went to jail for this to clean up his past record and he just wasn't very good at it. So that's why we are in this situation. And it seems like just based on the number of cases that they have, that they've been able to develop a pattern of behavior, which will be key for any kind of, prosecution. Absolutely. And it is interesting to see all of these criminal investigations

bear down on Trump now because he was always really just thought of as like Teflon someone who kind of brazenly in some cases violate certain laws and then doesn't suffer any consequences for it. But there is more from the press conference featuring prosecutor Alvin Bragg. So why don't we take a look at that? because he gets into more of the, you know, important details into what this indictment really means and why he felt the need to bring this case forward. The defendant claimed that he was paying Michael Cohen for legal services performed in 2017. This simply was not true.

For nine straight months, the defendant held documents in his hand containing this key lie, that he was paying Michael Cohen for legal services performed in 2017. And he personally signed checks for payments to Michael Cohen for each of these nine months. In total, the grand jury found there were 34 documents with this critical false statement. Okay, so let me break that down further for you guys in case you missed these details. as they came out years ago, by the way. I mean, it has taken years for a prosecutor to actually investigate and press charges against Trump on this, because we've known a lot of these details before.

So remember, his former fix-it attorney, the fixer, Michael Cohen, he had mortgaged his own home in order to come up with the funds to essentially pay the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Now Michael Cohen, of course, wants to be reimbursed. Homeboy mortgaged his house. So what happened was the Trump organization cut him a check. And that check was essentially sold as payment for legal services. It wasn't legal services. It was reimbursement for the hush money payments that Michael Cohen had allegedly paid Stormy Daniels. And so since Michael Cohen First of all, Michael Cohen already went to jail as a result of this. But since the Trump camp essentially tried to pass this off as, you know, nothing more than paying some legal fees associated with Trump's campaign or the Trump organization, what ended up happening was that was, of course, false.

And they paid a little extra to Michael Cohen knowing that since this was going to be passed off as income for Cohen, he'd have to pay taxes on it, right? So he pays taxes and there's potentially tax fraud violations involved in this as well, which I think is super, super interesting. unpack that as well. Let's watch. The evidence will show that he did so to cover up crimes relating to the 2016 election. Donald Trump, executives at the publishing company American Media Incorporated, Mr. Cohen and others agreed in 2015 to a catch and kill scheme. That is a scheme to buy and suppress negative information to help Mr. Trump's chance of winning the election. As part of this scheme, Donald Trump and others made three payments to people who claim

to have negative information about Mr. Trump. To make these payments, they set up shell companies, and they made yet more false statements, including, for example, in AMI, American Media Incorporates, business records. So I want to talk about AMI real quick, because it's super important to understand AMI's involvement in this. So AMI is essentially the parent company for the National Enquirer. So when Alvin Bragg mentions the catch and kill scheme, it was essentially an effort by the Trump camp with the help of AMI to buy stories that were incriminating toward Trump and then kill the stories, right? So what was really interesting,

about this indictment was these allegations in regard to how the AMI CEO helped to kill a story involving a possible love child that Trump had. According to the filing, in or about October or November of 2015, the AMI CEO learned that a former Trump Tower doorman was trying to sell information regarding a child that's defendant, meaning Trump, had allegedly fathered out of wedlock. At the AMI CEO's direction, AMI negotiated and signed an agreement to pay the doorman $30,000 to acquire exclusive rights to the story. AMI purchased the information from the doorman without fully investigating his claims, but the AMI CEO directed that the deal take place because of his agreement with the defendant, meaning Trump, and lawyer

I'm assuming they're referring to Michael Cohen when they say lawyer A. Now, AMI later learned that the story might not be true, but they did not release the rights to it or, you know, change anything until Trump had secured the 2016 presidential win, which I thought was interesting as well. So there are multiple payments being made. You've got the payment to Stormy Daniels. You got the payment to the doorman through AMI in the catch and kill scheme. And when we talk about the charges against Trump being bumped up to a felony, they can only be bumped up to a felony if there was falsified documents with the intent to commit another crime. In this case, the other crime is campaign violations, because there are obviously limits

to the amount of money that you can donate to a campaign or spend on behalf of a campaign. candidate in a campaign and clearly $130,000 goes well above that cap. And so does the $30,000. So hopefully that all makes sense. I have got more details. But Emma, I want to jump to you. What are your thoughts? Well, I mean, the whole case in its entirety, as I indicated earlier, does seem to lay out a pattern of behavior. And it just shows that this is how Donald Trump has done his business. He behaves like a mobster. Like this is. is how mobsters handle business. It's no coincidence that he is buddies with, as I mentioned earlier, a guy like Roy Cohn, other shady figures that may or may not have been involved in

the Russian mob and in the mob scene in New York. And this is how he knows how to operate his business. Trump could have handed the cash to the doorman himself. The problem is that he's cooking his books and seems to have a record of doing this within the Trump organization in general, which is the separate civil investigation or the, I shouldn't say that. That's right, right, Anna, it's the civil investigation to the Trump organization. Either way, the other one that the New York. Yeah, with Weisselberg. Yes. The Weisselberg, I think it was a criminal investigation because Weisselberg was eventually sentenced to prison time as a result. Gotcha. It's been a whirlwind of a day. There's a lot of investigations going

not involving Trump. So I hear you. Either way, I want to point out two things that Alvin Bragg is kind of hinging his case on where I feel there may be some pitfalls. One is that he's bumped up these 34 counts to felony charges. And he's, as he made the case in that press conference, it's because of the campaign finance element, the fact that it was involved in the national presidential campaign, that that's the connection that he's making. That's going to be one area where Trump's lawyers kind of try to poke holes in the charges and say, this is egregious, you're going above and beyond because it's a political prosecution. And they may be able to get a toehold there. The other thing that's really interesting, and Ellie Mistal broached this in his piece

in the nation, is that this case would have been much stronger had Sy Vance brought it in 2020. because there's an argument that you can make about bookkeeping charges and particular fraud charges that the statute of limitations has expired because it's a five-year statute of limitations. And so that was in 2021. It would have been five years. In 2023, Bragg is arguing through different avenues that this is, it still falls under the statute of limitations. But Trump's lawyers are going to use, I think, those two things, plus the overall political persecution element to try to fight this. But the reality is, is that Trump is- Yeah, I just wanted to jump in real quick on what you said before I forget, because you just raised really, really important points. So you're right about that.

In fact, Trump's attorneys are trying to get this case completely dismissed using something that's actually unique to New York, known as the Clayton Act, or Clayton. motion. So what that would do is essentially argue, let me get you the exact wording, I can't even believe this is a thing, but the Clayton motion states that it is in the interest of justice, regardless of the merits of the case, to dismiss the case. So I guess the argument here might be that it's better for the country, I guess, to not go after or to prosecute, criminally prosecute a former president who is now a candidate for the next presidential race. The other thing that you mentioned was Cyrus Vance and how Cyrus Vance should have

brought this case. I think that's a fair point for sure. But during the press conference, Alvin Bragg mentioned that he has evidence that Cyrus Vance did not have when he was the Manhattan district attorney. So we don't know what that evidence is yet, but I am curious to find out about that. And then in regard to the statute of limitations, Alvin Bragg is arguing that because of the coronavirus pandemic and because the right to a speedy trial was essentially put on hold as a result of the pandemic, that the statute of limitations should be somewhat extended in this particular case. I don't know if that's going to play out the way that Alvin Bragg wants it to, but I agree with you that it's a little shaky to say the least. Yeah, and so that's going to be his reasoning,

and that's totally valid, right? You have to make the strongest case that you possibly can. Those are just some of the weaknesses in the case. But here's another weakness. Trump's a crook. And everyone knows it, and the lawyers that he has hired are not the top of the line. I mean, basically every lawyer in New York has said no to this guy, because they don't want to do business with him. Everyone knows he's a crook. One in New York, yeah, there's a lot of people who are more liberally minded, even if it's not economically so. But also even the more conservative lawyers, they think that he's uncouth and that they've seen him have all these bankruptcies, not pay his legal bills, not pay bills with contractors and other things. And they don't want to deal with him.

So the thing that helps Alvin Bragg is that most of the legal profession has said, much like how in the US, banks didn't want to loan him money because he wasn't paying them back. Lawyers don't want to hire him because he's such a terrible client. He has a really bizarre legal team filled with guys that look like they're extras in mob boss movies and women that look like, you know, he's like, I have a threshold, you have to be a nine or above. Like, or just they look like their newsmax anchors, basically. And it just, and from what I hear from people who have some, at least, at least, secondary knowledge of the legal profession here in New York. This is certainly not the A team. It's not the B team. It's not the C team. Trump might be in hot water just because of the

pattern of behavior, his long record of being a crook, and also just the fact that the legal team behind him, he shouldn't trust them to give good advice because, you know, it's Trump. Now, great points all around. I mean, just to give you guys a sense of how much of a liability Donald Trump is, if you're looking to defend him, the lawyers representing him in the stolen documents investigation ended up being incriminated because Trump, I guess the story is lied to them about what kind of documents he had in his possession. So then they lied to the FBI. And now as far as 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.

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For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. I've read, it could develop into something more, but at least one of the lawyers will now have to testify in that case. So we'll see how that all plays out. But remember, in my opinion, the Alvin Bragg prosecution is the weakest of them all. And there's the potential Georgia prosecution. There is the investigation into the stolen classified documents. I think those stories, those investigations could potentially yield bigger charges, potentially prison time, although I wouldn't. ever bet money on that, especially when it comes to someone in a position of power or formally in a position of power. We'll obviously update you guys as we learn more about this. For now, though, we're going to take a brief break. When we come back, I wanted to talk a little bit about the conservative reaction to this prosecution. I got to be honest, it's just fun to watch.

So we're going to do that. We're going to laugh at Charlie Kirk and Moore when we come back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Emma Viglin with you. Emma is of course the host of Majority Report. Emma, let the find people know where to find your programming as if they don't already know. The host, the only host, Although truly for the next 10 days, it's just going to, well, thank you. I won't tell Sammy said that. It's, I'll be hosting actually for the next 10 days because Sam's away on vacation. So, YouTube.com slash, actually, I don't even know.

Just look up the majority report and you'll find it. We're live every day at noon Eastern. It's a great show. I encourage you guys to check it out. My favorite thing or favorite mistake I made was yesterday when I told everybody, that there's a new TYT podcast dedicated to Trump's indictment. And then I like actually carefully read what I was supposed to say. And we don't have a new podcast dedicated to Trump's indictment.

So anyway. Well, maybe this one, at least today, this is the new podcast that we're talking about Trump's indictment. There you go. Exactly. Well, we're going to continue on with that coverage. The next story really has to do with the reaction coming from Trump's avid supporters and defenders, let's do it.

We're not going to do the hopium thing. This is a bad day for America. This is unspeakably evil what they are doing to our republic. It's a funeral. Emma, apparently daddy can do wrong because the right wing, especially the right wing media, is not reacting well to Trump's indictment. He has officially been indicted. He has pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying documents, all felony counts.

And I got to say, I mean, watching Charlie Kirk refer to this as a funeral is pretty hilarious. What are your thoughts? I mean, I love to see it. You love to see them cry and whine about it, especially because, I mean, we've heard so much about law and order from the right. and just they only seem to think that prosecutors should be looking into going after black people, poor people, people who they can demonize and make into a permanent underclass in society, non-white people, et cetera. But then when it turns on the powerful, oh no, well, this could happen to you too.

Well, it is already happening to other people, Charlie Kirk. It's just that you don't want people to know that fact and the only people that you truly care about who are seeing justice at this moment are the most powerful. So let me just get this off my chest because for me, having a two-tier justice system leads to distrust of that system for good reason. And we shouldn't have a situation in which people with wealth and power get away with all. all sorts of crimes, whereas everyone else deals with the pretty harsh consequences, if they do the exact same thing. So look, if this were a Democrat, I would have no problem with the prosecution. I would feel the exact same way about it.

In fact, if you want to go back to the Obama administration, he killed an American citizen, drone strike and murdered the guy, which very well could have been a terrorist who should have been prosecuted, he should have had his day in trial, his day in front of a court. And that was Anwar Alawaki, which they not only killed him, they then later did a drone strike and killed his teenage son as well. But that goes against the law. And I would have no problem if there were actually prosecutors, federal prosecutors, who had the courage to bring charges against him.

My point in bringing all of this up is to say, no one should be above the law. That includes the Trump administration officials, Donald Trump himself. That includes Obama era politicians and Obama himself. That includes the entirety of the Bush administration. Well, at least when it comes to the war crimes that were committed under the Bush administration and the illegal wiretapping that was also taking place under the Bush administration. None of these folks were ever prosecuted for those things. This is the first time you have a former president facing criminal charges. And yes, it's a historic moment.

But again, for me, this isn't about a partisan attack. This is really about ensuring that we hold everyone accountable regardless of who they are. With that said, I do want to go to more of Charlie Kirk's whining about his daddy dealing with some consequences after he allegedly paid hush money payments and then falsified records after the fact. Let's watch. Some people say, well, Charlie, you know, come on, give us some of the positive. I mean, we're going to talk about that. But when you go to a funeral, you don't kind of turn around and say, hey, you know, what's the good news here?

You kind of realize the time, place, and manner, and the setting that you're saying goodbye to something. And that's what we're doing today. And we've been calling it a funeral. It's a funeral for our republic, funeral for the country that existed, and we're going to talk about what we can do. That doesn't mean that we're now going to give up. But there is a moment where today you must grieve. You must acknowledge and admit this is nasty, this is ghastly. This is disgusting and this is wrong.

You cannot lie to yourself. This has never been done before. They're doing it for absolutely immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional reasons. I just, I would love a little bit of specificity from Charlie Kirk exactly what is illegal. I mean, all of those accusations against the prosecution here. Can you be specific? What are you referring to? I mean, it seems as though there's quite a bit of evidence that is incriminating toward Donald Trump and his own personal attorney.

ended up spending time in prison for this same issue. Why should everyone around Trump face the consequences, but not Trump himself? It's just ridiculous. Absolutely. And I mean, to add to your point earlier, Anna, it's just, it's so important that the left frames this as just the beginning of what an accountability, what accountability should look like for powerful people. As you said, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should have been in prison, should have been in prison

for lying to the American public and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and on an illegal basis. Plus, you know, just Karl Rove, you name it, other members of that administration. And the reason that Charlie Kirk feels that this is such an existential threat to his ideology and to America as he knows it is because he actually preferred that system where the powerful were able to get away with their crimes. And for Trump, like this is just business crime stuff. where again, the left has to reframe it as well. Yeah, business crimes often are not prosecuted whatsoever. I mean, Trump was a corrupt businessman for decades before this. And he was so in the public eye that anyone could go after him if they actually wanted to because he was so brazen

about it with his gold plated toilet and everything. The business crime element, that's already under prosecuted. Then let's talk about people who actually have been in government and have committed illegal acts. Functioning democracies outside of this country actually go after people for, say, trying to overturn the democratic results of an election. In Bolivia, this just happened with Anez. She is under, because she attempted a coup, she is in the midst of a prosecution, because that's how a functioning democracy should operate. You try to overturn the will of the people, we're putting you in jail. And Trump has tried to do that 10 fold, 20 fold, 30 fold. So let's not stop with Trump. I'm talking about some of the people outside of that courtroom who also were

instrumental in trying to overturn the election. Marjorie Taylor Green. Then we can go to Paul Gosar. We can go to other members of state legislatures that were incredibly aggressive. Sorry? Jim Jordan. I mean, there's plenty of Republican lawmakers who were part of that scheme and have not face any prosecution for it. You're right. Exactly. They're hinging their analysis right now on the fact that this has to do with, you know, business corruption, which largely the Republican Party, they're okay with because they love deregulation. They love rich guys to do whatever they want. But then we're going to get to the Georgia prosecution. Then we're going to see some of the other dominoes fall. And that's the more substantive stuff. And they're going to try to find a way around it and say,

you know, it's all lies and all of that, but the cracks begin to form. And I don't know when that reaches the Republican base that's fully drank the Kool-Aid. And if this even affects Trump's chances, I mean, there was a Yuga of Yahoo poll that showed him go up versus DeSantis in the head-to-head matchup after the indictment. So in terms of his political prospects, who knows, because they have influencers like Charlie Kirk feeding them the same BS over and over. But the point is just that this is just the beginning of what a real society should do when it comes to accountability for the powerful. I totally agree with you. And, you know, one of the critiques that I keep seeing on social media in regard to why this is actually a terrible moment in America,

that this means moving forward, we're all going to deal with endless investigations and potential criminal prosecution of politicians on the right, on the left. And look, my My argument in response to that is, let them have it, good, right? If politicians know that they're not above the law, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, I don't care about political ideology here, right? If they know that they could potentially face prosecution for it, maybe they'll think twice before breaking the law. I don't think that's a bad thing.

Currently there were no deterrence in place. You had a system that essentially communicated to our. our lawmakers, to our executive branch. Do what you want, there really won't be any consequences because we're really concerned that if we prosecute, that'll set a bad precedent. What's the bad precedent? That there are consequences for committing crimes, even when you're a position of power? Let's do it.

Yeah. We'll look into Nancy Pelosi for insider trading. Great. We'll do it now. Love it. I have no problem with that. for his corruption and the fact that he enriches himself off of his own position in the Senate. Like this, the problem that they have is that they're all crooks, basically.

Like there's a much, there's a disproportionate number of people who have skeletons to hide in their closet on the right, then on the left. And on the left, we disavow people like Joe Manchin and Nancy Pelosi and Obama for the illegal drone strikes, unlike you guys who wrap your arms around them because they think, oh my gosh, well, then if they look into me, Charlie Kirk's like, they might look into the funding when I bust a bunch of people in for January 6th. Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting take, Emma. And I think there's something to that. I do want to go to this next clip featuring Dennis Prager, because it's short, it's short, but it just, it tells you everything you need to know about Dennis Prager. Let's watch. I need a sip of my coffee so I don't fall asleep in here. Donald Trump has as good a chance at a fair trial in Manhattan as a black did in the in the south in 1900.

I mean, this guy just can't help himself. A black. The argument is stupid to begin with, but he had to go that extra layer or that extra level by saying a black. because of course it's Dennis Prager, can't help himself. But anyway, the argument has also been made by Donald Trump and his attorneys. They don't believe that Trump would get a fair trial because of the fact that New York is, you know, considered a blue state. They want to move the trial to Staten Island because the argument is that the potential jury in Staten Island

would be more friendly to Donald Trump, maybe lean more conservative. I don't think that's even necessarily true. I mean, Manhattan is solidly blue. It's definitely true. Staten Island is a very conservative area. Every other borough of the five is blue except for Staten Island where all the cops and firefighters live. Ah, okay, that makes sense.

Because I was thinking, is it conservative in the context of super blue Manhattan? Or is it actually a conservative part of New York? No, like deep red over there. Yeah, so that's accurate, that's true. But I mean, they also could just cut to the chase and say they want a white jury. That too, that achieved some of the, a similar outcome for them. But like, but what, sorry to cut you off there, Anna, but what Prager said, like, Marjorie Taylor Green was saying that this is just like Mandela and Jesus.

We have that video, actually. We do have that video. I actually want to skip ahead. Let's go to the Marjorie Green videos. We've got two of them. Let's start with the first one. We will never back down, and we will stand in support of our very incredible, amazing, best president in history of my lifetime and innocent, innocent. And, I mean, think about, gosh, think about this.

President Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus, Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. I'm surprised she didn't say the Jews just right up there. She compared Donald Trump to Mandela and Jesus. Yeah. Jesus. You know who else was arrested?

Jeffrey Epstein. Oh my God. She's a lunatic. She's a lunatic. I mean, absolute lunatic. Ted Bundy. Imagine thinking anyone in a position of power should be above the law. And that's what Marjorie Green thinks.

And in fact, goes the extra mile to compare him to Mandela. I mean, it's so incredibly insulting to Nelson Mandela. I mean, we said it on the show today, Anna, but it would have been a perfect moment for Michael to be here to do right-wing Mandela. Absolutely. But it is just interesting to me how she comes up with those examples. And by the way, not sure if you know this, the guy that she's speaking with there is her new boyfriend. Cool. Just something to know. Is that really? Is that true? I didn't know that. Garret, yes, gazing into each other's eyes there. That's what I, that, that's the word on the street here.

We gotta, we gotta get it off the screen. It's making me super uncomfortable and it courses me out. Anyway, I'm sure there's gonna be plenty more right wing reaction as this case unfolds. We will fill you in as we learn more for now. We're gonna take a brief, break. When we come back, though, we are going to switch gears. There's other news happening today that I want to talk about, including, let's see, what are we going to talk about? Ooh, well, it is a Donald Trump-related story. But I think the ad that he has already put out against Ron DeSantis is a perfect example of how Democrats should play hardball. You'll see what I mean when we come back. See you in a few.

Welcome back to TYT, Anna Caspare and Emma Vigland with you. Let's move right on to our next story because I think this is actually a pretty good example of what Democrats should be doing in their campaigning. again. In Congress, DeSantis voted three separate times to cut Social Security. That's right, three times over three years. Ron DeSantis has not announced that he plans to run for president in 2024, but that didn't stop Donald Trump from releasing his first campaign ad against DeSantis. And I have to be honest with you, it's a pretty good one. Why is it a good one? Well, clearly Trump has gone back to his greatest hits, economic populism. Does he actually mean it? Probably not.

Clearly, the only thing he seemed to care about in his first term was tax cuts for the rich to the tune of two trillion dollars over one decade and deregulation. So is he really an economic populist? No. But it doesn't mean that he's not smart for going after Ron DeSantis for wanting to cut wildly popular social spending programs like Medicare and Social Security. Here's the entire ad in its entirety. You know Ron DeSantis, think again. In Congress, DeSantis voted three separate times to cut Social Security.

That's right, three times over three years. Worse, DeSantis voted to cut Medicare two times. DeSantis even voted to raise the retirement age to 70. The more you learn about DeSanis, the more you see he's. doesn't share our values. He's just not ready to be president. Emma, I am so curious to hear your thoughts on that ad because I just, I personally think it was smart to go after DeSantis for his willingness to cut Medicare and Social Security. What are your thoughts? I love it, obviously, for many reasons. One, because I at this point want Trump to

win the primary for the sake of essentially the Democrats having the easiest path. Now, again, there's no way to know, right? But with him facing multiple investigations being indicted, I have a feeling that he's not winning over a ton of swing or moderate voters with that. But look, we've seen this movie before I understand it, but Biden's the incumbent if he runs again, it is a tougher hill to climb for. any of the Republicans challenging him, regardless of Biden's deficiencies in many ways. But I love this because Trump is putting it out there. I mean, he's saying plainly, frankly, what the Democrats are bad at saying. He keeps returning to this metaphor often of the wheelchair

going off the cliff, pushing the wheelchair off the cliff, which is a metaphor, I believe that the Democrats use like 10 years ago or something. Yep. And that is, um, some, something that the Democrats should be deploying again. And yet Trump is the one doing it in the context of a personal beef that he has with DeSantis. But DeSantis's position on this is much more emblematic of the Republican Party than anything else. There's nothing more foundational to the Republican Party outside of maybe bigotry towards minority groups and towards women. Then the desire to cut Social Security and Medicare when they say they want to raise them in retirement age, that's a cut. When they say they want to privatize it, that's a cut. When they said they want to

move it into discretionary spending, that's a cut. They try all different avenues to do so. And Ron DeSantis has been very much towing the party line throughout his career on that front. But they never say it, they use those excuses that I mentioned. They never say it plainly because they know how unpopular it is. Trump is a crowd surfer. He did this well. And this is why he's returning to his roots because he loves being a WWE style trash talker in the primary. And that's actually the only time he's useful because he attacks other Republicans. He's returning to his roots and he knows as a crowd surfer what is popular, especially among those voters. And these programs, even though these are Republican voters voting against their interests, he understands that the

programs are popular. And going after DeSantis on this front is quite helpful for him in a primary race. And last thing I'll say before I kick it back to you, Anna. DeSantis, going around to police unions and club for growth fundraisers as Trump went to East Palestine and is doing PR stunts, putting aside the arrest today. This guy does not have it. This is Trump understanding the base, DeSantis not understanding. And another way that he does not understand is that he still has not made a decision, he is sitting on the fence and leaving a vacuum for Trump to just attack, attack, attack. And the more of that time goes on, the more Trump can build a narrative without him fighting back on it because he's too afraid. And that's what makes me think

Desantis actually might not choose to run. Because this is getting out of hand. He has allowed Trump to gain way too much ground on this front. I totally agree with you. I think there's a pretty good chance that DeSantis might just decide. I'm maybe I sit this one out. Yeah, because he's certainly not doing well in the polls compared to Trump. And Trump is, you know, he is a bull in a China shop and sometimes it works to his advantage. Like he is ruthless. Anyone he sees as an opponent, he will go after and he will go after viciously.

And that's how he's been toward Ron DeSantis. As soon as Ron DeSantis experienced a little bit of a rise in the polling. Now, he has now, after Trump decided to actually go after him pretty explicitly, he went down in the polling, but that is a point that I've been trying to make, although I don't know if I'm articulating it in a way that people are understanding, because I'm not a fan of Trump, clearly. I'm not a fan of his, I don't want him to win the presidential election, I think that would be a disaster.

However, you have to look at his strategies and analyze them objectively. The guy understands marketing, and he understands what voters want to hear. He might not, and I don't think he ever will, carry out the policies. He claims he wants to carry out that his supporters seem to love. He didn't drain the swamp. In fact, he filled the swamp with more swamp monsters. I mean, the dude took advantage of corruption as a private billionaire, and then he took advantage of corruption as a sitting president.

The guy is corrupt. He loves the swamp. He is a liar when he pretends to be some sort of economic populist. I will give him credit for not trying to go after Social Security and Medicare during his one term as president. However, that's it. And when it came to actions that he took as president, what is the one thing that he accomplished, Emma? Yeah, well, I mean, he cut taxes. He cut taxes for the wealthy. Exactly. Exactly. And then they use that pretext to then try to cut Social Security and Medicare. There's no money. There's no money. There's no money in the trust fund. There's no money. They conflate the Social Security trust fund with Social Security, which is self-funding. And the trust fund, yes, there does need to be

some action on that backstop for the trust fund. But the point is that it could very, very easily be funded and more if we raised the cap on income that is taxable for these programs poor payroll. It's around 140k now. It is outpaced inflation. And that's why we're seeing the depletion of it. So the easy solution is to just raise the cap. I would eliminate it altogether, honestly. But raise the raise the cap a lot more. And then no problem. But Republicans don't want to tell you that. And Trump doesn't actually care about the program. He just doesn't want to take the political hit, which is why he won't propose something like, propose something like that. But like I say this all the time because sometimes we'll have viewers right into the

majority report and say, you know, let's focus more on kitchen table economic issues. Let's not get bogged down than the culture war, which I do here to an extent, right? But you also cannot leave a vacuum for the right to fill that because they will fill it. When you leave a vacuum and you don't respond to hatred, if you don't respond to bigotry, you allow the right to make gains and just fill up that space. And then it's too late. And ironically, DeSantis is allowing Trump to do that to him right now in terms of a presidential race. I got to say Trump is definitely, I mean, he sees DeSantis as a formidable opponent for sure. And he is, I mean, remember, DeSantis hasn't even announced yet. And he's shelling out money, Trump is cheap as hell. But when it comes to winning

elections, he will shell out the cash. According to ad impact politics, MAGA Inc. So that's the PAC behind the ad. Just placed reservations on national cable. So far, we've seen 1.2 million placed. Ads are set to begin airing tomorrow. So this was posted on March 30th. Today's April 4th. The Trump backed PAC placed 16.7 million during the 2022 cycle. And a MAGA Inc. spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer, said in a statement that Social Security and Medicare were two examples of issues on which President Trump is on the side of the American people and DeSantis is on the side of the D.C. establishment insiders. And by the way, he's right about that. So we fact check Trump and his crow,

all the time, but on this issue, they are correct about Ron DeSantis' stint in Congress and what he wanted to champion, what he was supportive and not supportive of. In 2013, for instance, with Republicans controlling the House, DeSantis joined 103 Republicans on a failed resolution that called for raising the age to qualify for Medicare and Social Security to 70, according to a committee for a responsible federal budget analysis. The measure also supported a transition of Medicare, a program funded by the federal government, to a premium support system for which the federal government would designate a pot of money for each beneficiary to spend on a private insurance plan. That's a very long way of saying he's supportive, Ronda

Sanchez is, of privatizing Medicare. So not a popular position. Trump is right to attack Ronda Santis on that for political gain. I think that it's going to work out well for him if he continues on, you know, this track of tapping into his so called roots in campaigning. Final word on this? And the point is just not to trust Trump on it, though, because it's not just about individual people. Like Trump sees this is just a way to attack DeSantis. He doesn't have a principle on it. And it's about the coalitions that these candidates build. I try to say this all the time, you know, it's it's not just about the individual personality. It's about which union is backing this candidate, which organization is backing this candidate,

what are their basis of power? And so Trump could flip on this in a second. But for now, it's incredibly politically useful to tie Republicans to trying to cut Social Security and Medicare. And I hope Trump does more of it. This is the only time that I enjoy Trump, Republican primary Trump, where he's taking down other Republicans, because the Republican Party is a malevolent, malignant force in society and it deserves to be getting all the heat that it gets even if it's coming from an internal wrecker like Trump. I do like it when Trump talks about windmills and water. That's fun, it's always fun. Science. You put the light inside the body. Windmills, win. All right, we're gonna go a little over but I gotta cover this story with you.

It's really important. It's the story I care about the most in the rundown today. So let's do it. When you talk about corporate greed, the rail industry is a perfect manifestation of that, making huge profits, not giving their workers one day of guaranteed paid sick type. That is an outrage. That is an issue where you're going to deal with. Well, luckily, a Union Pacific employee who was fired by that very same rail company wants to deal with them and wants to deal with them now. And has done so by filing a new lawsuit against Union Pacific, which accuses the rail company of literally hiring private investigators to spy on their employees while they're out on medical leave. Now, the lawsuit alleges that the company fires workers if they're on leave, but they leave their homes as they're enjoying sick leave, I guess. The argument here is that, you know, the company doesn't trust their employees, so they hire spies to spy in on them to see if they're actually sick or in need of medical leave.

Now, Nick Thompson, who is the lawyer who filed this lawsuit last month, notes that this is. This is the first lawsuit like this in the state of Texas, and he is representing a specific employee who apparently had a very serious back injury that took him out for about eight months. His name is Duran Rutledge. So after the back injury, Rutledge needed the eight months off in order to recuperate and to get better. But because of the severity of the back injury, ever so often he will experience some flare-ups. And when the flare ups happen, he's immobile, he has difficulty moving around, he has difficulty doing his job, so he needs to rest at home.

Well, the lawsuit alleges that he ended up getting fired because Union Pacific hired hired private investigators to check in on him and see if he was really staying home. So Nick Thompson, the attorney representing Rutledge says, ultimately this has an effect Union Pacific wants. It scares people from using family medical leave or the Family Medical Leave Act. So the lawsuit, again, centers on Duran Rutledge. Union Pacific says it didn't do anything wrong. But let's give you the accusations in detail and you can judge for yourselves.

In the Texas case, Duran Rutledge had worked various jobs at Union Pacific over 11 years leading up to working as a conductor before he was fired last year. According to his lawsuit, Rutledge had to take eight months off to rehabilitate after the back injury in 2017, but after returning to the job, he would occasionally need to take additional time off when his back condition flared up. Seems like that makes a lot of sense. So what happened next? Well, according to the lawsuit, the railroad fired him after a private investigator saw Rutledge drive to the grocery store and gas station near his home in Fresno, Texas, and walk for short periods. And Rutledge said his bosses wouldn't listen when he tried to explain that even if he was

well enough to run a few errands, he didn't feel up to helping operate a train. Now, keep in mind that Union Pacific, much like other rail companies, wanted to maximize their profits by cutting down on labor as much as humanly possible. Okay, so at the very height of the rail industry, they had about two million rail workers. Today, that number is down to 700,000. And the calculation they made was, all right, we'll have less workers, but we'll make the trains much longer. So they're about 25% longer, which makes them less safe. Of course, they didn't ever upgrade their braking systems, they have not invested in making their train safer, and they have far fewer employees to essentially follow the proper protocols to make

sure that everything is being done safely. And since they have less employees, workers are expected to not take any time off if they get ill, if they get sick. And when it comes to conductors, they deal with a special kind of hell because they are not offered any sick. leave. Okay, so let's get to those details. So Nick Thompson, again, the attorney says, the fact that you're on FMLA doesn't mean that you have to lay in bed all day. The fact that you can't work a 12-hour shift is different than whether you can do other things. And so so far the conductors and all of the engineers who work in local motives representing more than half of the rail workers don't have a single paid sick day off, okay? And that was what

led to a possible strike. Congress intervened under the leadership of Biden and under the demands of the Biden administration to prevent the strike from happening and to essentially force a union contract on the rail workers who just wanted some time off to deal with things like family emergencies or illnesses. So this is what we're dealing with here. I love that the now former Union Pacific employee has decided to press charges. We'll see how it plays out. Curious what you think, Emma. Well, I think this is one of the many reasons I love you, Anna. I really think this is an incredibly important story. So thank you for highlighting it on TYT because I'm glad to comment on it. This is a massive problem. This is the problem with efficiency and lean labor

models as likely advocated to these rail companies by consulting companies like the one that Pete Buttigieg used to work for, McKinsey, where they come in as mercenaries. They essentially say, here's where we can trim the fat. And the easiest way to trim the fat is labor. And we have some redundancy. We can really only hire, we can hire and get by with this amount of people so long as they don't take any sick leave. And so someone watching this might say, well, doesn't it cost weight like a lot? Isn't it kind of ridiculous for the rail company to hire a private investigator to follow one worker around and make sure that they're not buying food or getting gas and living? They need to be dying on a sick bed for them to get sick leave. That's not really the what's

at issue here. They see that as the cost of doing business. because it's pennies in comparison to their commitment to a lean labor model, as I mentioned earlier, where as Anna laid out perfectly, like this is, they try to cut down on costs for labor to an extent that the people at the top, they're shareholders as well, because these companies don't have a fiduciary duty to their workers, they only have it to their shareholders. that's a problem of capitalism, they, to maximize the profits at the top end, and that means employing the least amount of people possible with the worst conditions possible for them. When Mitt Romney came out and was speaking to Howard Shulton said,

you know, none of these people have ever created a job in their life. These capitalists at the top of these companies, they're not job creators, they're job gatekeepers. They are making sure that they have the fewest amount of jobs possible to maximize the profits for their shareholders. And that's only exacerbated by the fact that these rail companies are regional monopolies that have no competition. So these conductors who work at railroads, if this is their line of work, they have nowhere to go unless they move thousands potentially of miles away from their home or change their line of work. And so that creates more leverage on these workers. So that you can have a P.I. going after them. And this is why there are only two avenues forward.

By the way, unbelievable that Biden was so afraid of any disruption that he broke the strike. But regardless, it's unconscionable. There are only two options going forward. We nationalize these railroads, which I am in favor of and labor is as well, except that's more of a long-term goal. But in the short-term antitrust, antitrust now, break these regional monopolies up so they cannot do this to their workers. I totally agree with you on that. And I think that's a good short-term goal and a good long-term goal as well. And I leave you all with this, just to buttress the great points that Emma made, I want to add some numbers to it. Because if you're wondering, well, why don't they just hire more workers?

Isn't it more costly to have this private investigator follow a worker around? Well, as Nick Thompson, the attorney says, hiring more people is expensive. mistreating the employees you have cost nothing. And it really is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Union Pacific, one of the major freight railroads that successfully fought off union demands for paid sick days for workers reported another year of record earnings in 2022. The company's employee pay and benefits rose about $500 million or 12%. That sounds like a lot to $4.6 billion. But that's far less than the 6.3 billion that Union Pacific spent repurchasing shares of stock. For the year, the company's net income rose to a record $7 billion, up about $500 million

or 7% from the previous record profit it posted in 2021, while overall operating expenses for 2022 rose $2.5 billion. That was outweighed by revenue rising $3 billion to a record $24.9 for the year. They decided to fire a bunch of employees because they wanted to maximize profits. The proof is in the pudding. You see it in the numbers. And the people who suffer the most are local communities dealing with the hazardous waste being spilled into their environment, into their water, into the air that they breathe. The workers who can't take any time off, even if they're dealing with severe injuries. Ordinary people are the ones who suffer, right? Socialize the losses, privatize the gains.

And that is what we see with these rail companies. So I agree with Emma 100% in what the short term and long term goals should be. The only problem is we need elected lawmakers who want to do the right thing and represent the best interests of ordinary people. We gotta get money out of politics and we gotta ban members of Congress from investing in individual stocks. Emma, you've been amazing, we're super over time, so we gotta go. But everyone go check out Emma's work over at the Majority Report. Any final words before we go, Emma?

No, thank you so much for having on. Always great to chat, and it's an auspicious day to be on TYT. So appreciate you guys always. Thanks so much. All right. Love you, Emma. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Wind, windmills.

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.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.