The Young Turks - Trump ATTACKS Murdered Journalist And Mike Pompeo Struggles To Answer Question On Saudi Punishment

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

Trump released a bizarre written statement backing the Saudi Crown Prince after the CIA concluded the ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. When asked about Trump's statements about supporting the Saudi Arabian royals, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo uncomfortably supported his boss. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And that is part of our 10 days of Black Friday, so we appreciate it. Okay, we do have that giant surprise coming out for you later, but let's get going on the news. What's next, Anna? All right. Donald Trump published a statement in response to Saudi Arabia and recent news indicating that the CIA investigation into Jamal Khashoggi's murder found that the Saudis were, in fact, behind it, and that the Saudi royal prince was also behind it. But it appears that through Trump's statement, the White House is not planning any significant.

significant punishment or consequences toward the Saudis. And I'm going to give you the most relevant parts of his statement, although I do encourage you to read the whole thing for yourselves. Now it begins with one sentence, one very simple sentence, a fear mongering sentence, and it goes like this, the world is a very dangerous place. Yeah, we know that because one of your buddies just chop someone up and put them in the luggage and carried their body parts out of one airport and into another. So that's the whole point.

The world's a very dangerous place brought to you by you and your allies and you're about to let them get away with it. He continues to write and let me just note there were exclamation marks throughout his statement. We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Now let me be clear for anyone who may have missed details to this story, Jamal Khashoggi had, was living in the United States. He had left Saudi Arabia out of fear of his own life, for his own life, and he was a journalist

for the Washington Post. And he was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and his body was dismembered using a bone saw. So a couple of things here. One, on the exclamation points, it's clear Trump wrote this, a poor grammar throughout, which I found to be very interesting because this is an important foreign policy decision. And you would think that normally, associates of the president would write this out. And then he would edit it.

Like Reagan would edit his, the speeches that were given to him or the statements that were given to him. And it's not like Obama and other Democratic presidents wrote out everything by themselves either. You know, there's thousands of people who work at the White House. So the only reason why I'm telling you that is either he thought, nah, I don't need anybody. I can run this whole country by myself, which is a preposterous thing to think. Or people were reluctant to write this saying, it's okay to kill and dismember a journalist, right?

So he then might have said, screw it, I'm writing it, give it to me, okay, I'll write it. World is dangerous place, exclamation park. Park. That sounds fun, exclamation park. Yeah, that does, that sounds like a fun place. Right next to the amusement park is the exclamation park. Yeah. The only place is not fun is when Trump shows up.

Anyway, so overall though, him saying basically, look, our relationship is with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Well, but who runs that kingdom? Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince, who according to our intelligence agencies did order this assassination, so it is not unclear. He continues to write, the United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel, and all other partners in the region. So let me explain that a little further.

Trump does see Saudi Arabia as an integral part of his foreign policy, especially in response to Iran. So one of the main reasons why we are fighting this war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen is because of Iran's involvement. It is essentially a proxy war. Syria was also a proxy war, but we're seeing this similar pattern play out in Yemen. And so Trump thinks that, hey, I got to work with the Saudis to carry out my harsh foreign policy toward Iran.

But that is really not the heart of the matter here. The main priority is the financial interests that the United States has, and more importantly the financial interests that Trump specifically has. And to be clear, he also did talk about how Khashoggi's crime was about. was a bad thing, but then double down on how he wants to remain friends with the Saudis. He wrote, the crime against Jamal Khashoggi was a terrible one and one that our country does not condone. Indeed, we have taken strong action against those already known to have participated in the

murder. And if you want to know what that strong action is, he noted that we have already sanctioned 17 Saudis known to have been involved in the murder. Now the crown prince is not facing any consequences and sanctions, what could are sanctions going to do against 17 people in Saudi Arabia? Oh, they're not going to be able to come to the U.S., who cares. They're not going to be able to do business with U.S. businesses. But it doesn't really send a strong message to the Saudis.

Well, he said, it's a terrible crime and we're not condoning it. No, this whole letter is condoning it. That's the whole point of this letter is to say, don't worry, Crown Prince bin Salomon. We're not going to do anything about it, anything. The 17th sanctions, guys who were sanctions, I mean, it's such a tragic story, but it's borderline hilarious. All right, you know what, that team of assassins, we're not letting them into the country. Wow, very, very bold, I didn't know you were going to go that strong.

Yeah, of course we're not letting the assassins into the country, right? And we won't do any more business with the assassins. Wow, okay, man, I didn't know you were that strong. Okay, now I gotta do a little told you here. The very first day, and I told you throughout, that at the end of the day, I thought Muhammad bin Salman and Saudi Arabia would get away with it for a number of reasons. But one of them I said was Israel. Israel is allies with Saudi Arabia and they are united against Iran.

Israel is working with the Sunnis against the Shia represented by Iran. And Trump is not a sophisticated guy. So he just says it, right? Instead of couching it in terms of, oh, no, it's our priorities, et cetera. And he did mention some of that later, but he blurts out right in the beginning, Israel is in favor of it. I don't think that that's even something that he would need to hide because it's an unpopular opinion. You see what I'm saying?

No, no, it's not an unpopular opinion, but it's an uncouth opinion. What I mean by that is, it's in Washington, if you say Israel, everybody goes, yes, yes, right away, sir, absolutely, sir, right? But you're not supposed to say as president of the United States, I'm doing this for another country. Oh, I see what you're saying. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I do see what you're saying.

And you're not supposed to say it's because of me either, and those are the two principal reasons. So he also talks about his love for the Saudi royals, writing King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. It could very well be that Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. Who writes that? Which president writes, maybe he did and maybe he didn't, exclamation park.

Okay. His statements, to be fair, are an exclamation part. They're full of exclamation points. But that was yet another example of him saying two things at once in order to cover all his bases. He knows that the crown prince was very well aware of this and very likely ordered this execution. And he wants to cover himself by saying two things at once in this one particular part of his statement. Then he gets into the financial interests, which I had alluded to earlier. and mentions a bunch of numbers that don't really make much sense.

So he says, the kingdom agreed to spend and invest $450 billion in the United States. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States. He continues to write, and here's where he gets a little more specific and more confusing. Of the 450 billion, 110 billion will be spent on the purchase of military equipment from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and many other great U.S. defense contractors. So let's stop for a second. In other words, these deals are not about helping you Americans, these deals are about helping weapons contractors, military contractors, you know, the very people who have encouraged

us and successfully pushed us toward unnecessary wars, essentially costing the lives of countless military members, you know, trillions of U.S. taxpayer members. money. I mean, it's just, you're right in that there's a level of transparency here, right? I don't care about Raytheon, I don't care about Boeing. I would argue most Americans who are struggling right now don't care about that. And the journalists who might be concerned about their lives moving forward in the future when they want to do foreign reporting probably also don't care about the profit motive

of Raytheon and Boeing. Yeah, see, this is what I mean by, he's too stupid to know how to even lie properly. So you're supposed to say you're doing it for the troops, you're not supposed to actually say, oh yeah, I'm doing it for my donors, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing. Those are not necessarily popular names in America. So if you work for one of those companies, okay, yeah, you want more contracts. Sometimes you build wonderful things like satellites that get us information, et cetera, passenger planes, and sometimes you build war machines that get people killed by a horrible

dictatorial regime like Saudi Arabia. But it's not a thing that's like incredibly popular. Like, hey, everybody, let's go do this for Lockheed Martin. But he's too stupid to realize you're not supposed to write that down, so he does. Now, speaking of the outrageous lies, the $450 billion that Saudi Arabia is theoretically giving us. So we did research because we're like, wait, I never read that. I'm like, with Trump, you have to dig further because you're like, what is he basing the lie on? Like, is there even a strand of like, oh, once they said that over the course of a decade or

two decades, they would spend half a billion, half a trillion dollars or something, right? No, nothing, nothing, you just pulled it out of thin air. Several organizations, press organizations have already looked into the number. They're like, where is he getting this from? Made up out of whole cloth. Saudi Arabia has never promised to give us $450 billion. They've never promised to spend that money here. Out of the 110 billion that's supposed to go to the beloved Raytheon and Lockheed Martin

and the defense contractors, actually 14.5 billion was already promised before Trump, and that is being spent, that's true. The other 110 billion, they actually haven't spent it, and there are no contracts for it. So it's only 14.5 billion out of the 450 billion that Trump lied about. I mean, he's just such a monstrous liar, you don't know what to do with a guy like this. So hasn't Saudi Arabia actually benefited more from the United States and the amount of support we give them, especially when it comes to their military efforts in Yemen. I mean, how much have we spent in taxpayer money in giving them intelligence and giving them

support? It's actually way worse than that. This is the kind of thing that Donald Trump, if he wasn't so biased because of his own personal financial interest, would say it's totally unfair, ridiculously unfair. Saudi Arabia, honestly, would not exist without us. Why do I say that? Saddam Hussein rolled into Kuwait and took it in about three and a half minutes. And it looked like he was going to roll into Saudi Arabia and take that.

This is back in the early 1990s, the first Persian Gulf War. And we came in and saved the kingdom. We saved Saudi Arabia. Saddam would have definitely taken Saudi Arabia, and it would have taken them about a week to do so. Their incompetent, pathetic military couldn't have stood a chance against Saddam Hussein. And we did Operation, you know, Liberate X, Y, Z made up name, et cetera. out, and we did bring Kuwait back to the dictators of Kuwait, and we let Saudi Arabia

still be ruled by these monsters. So you want to talk about unfair? They should give us half a trillion dollars. We saved their ass, but they're not going to. The only thing they did was they bought $14.5 billion of weaponry, and that they're dropping on innocent civilians in Yemen. So that's what happened. And so right now, for those of you who don't care about Yemen, and I know we don't

have monsters watching the show, but sometimes we do, sometimes we have people hate watching. Either way, we're selling weapons to people who could potentially, and very likely be our enemies in the future, right? I mean, this is a US foreign policy pattern, we've done this before, we're doing it again, and so why, why are we doing this? Is it actually benefiting us as US taxpayers? No, it's actually a giant liability in the future, and the only people who are enriching themselves through these arms deals are the very people that Trump listed in his statement.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, they're the ones making all this money through the weapons deals. Yeah, and so the last couple of things on that, everything he said about Iran in the beginning of this statement is actually a projection about Saudi Arabia. He said that Iran is doing a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Well, at a bare minimum, they're both doing it, but Saudi Arabia is the one that actually started it. Saudi Arabia is doing a proxy war against Iran in Yemen. It's the opposite of what Trump said. And they said they're trying to destabilize Iraq's fragile attempted democracy.

No, Iran actually helped to stabilize Iraq. You know why? Because they're smart and they're like, hey, that's 60% Shia country. We're Shia, their Shia. Their democracy would be naturally aligned with us. Thanks a lot, idiot Americans for giving us a massive ally in the Middle East that did not exist before, and whereas Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars funding a Sunni insurgency against us and Iraq at that time. One last quote in that regard, he's, Trump said, additionally, Saudi Arabia has agreed to spend billions of dollars in leading the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. Well, they'd have to lead the fight that they started in the first place.

They're 15 out of the 19 hijackers or Saudis, and they started the Sunnis, or they helped the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and killed so many of our troops, so many of our citizens, and now he has audacity to turn around and say, oh, so what, did they, this fundamentalist Muslim government, beheaded someone, tortured him, dismembered him, and chopped him up, put him in luggage, and carried him through the airport. But now the last thing, not having to do with Iran and the proxy wards is about us. He said in the middle of the letter, representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an enemy of the state.

Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So you're using that as justification, and you at the same time call our media the enemy of the people, almost the same exact phrase. So you're saying it's okay for a government to chop up people they call enemy of the state that are actually journalists like Khashoggi was. He worked for the Washington Post, they beheaded him. And you're saying, well, I mean, the Saudis call him enemy of the state, and then you turn

around and call other Washington Post reporters and other American reporters, enemy of the people. Jesus Christ, that is incredibly dangerous. And he put this out there with a straight face, like, who cares? I'm going to make money. All my friends are going to make money. You kill journalists any way you like and saying we don't condone it. This whole letter is condoning that beheading and dismemberment. That's who Donald Trump is.

Money above all, especially Donald Trump's money. Yeah, how does that liberty and freedom feel for you now, all you right wingers who voted for him thinking that he would actually expand your freedoms? He's done the exact opposite. And all the right wingers who always talk about freedom of speech, they're big proponents of freedom of speech. Here's a member of the press who was speaking out against a dictatorial fundamentalist Muslim government and got beheaded for it.

I mean, this is not, hey, I couldn't speak at Berkeley and I couldn't get a speaking fee. The guy got beheaded for speaking out against a. terrible tyrannical government that you claim you're against. And your dear leader just said, ah, it's okay, who cares for making money? Behead anyone you like, free speech, I don't care at all. Freedom of the press, First Amendment, I don't care at all. So are you guys all speaking out against it, right, Wagers? No, because you don't care about freedom of speech at all.

Just a punchline for you. Let's take a break when we come back. A little bit of good news coming from a federal judge and also what's the update on that migrant caravan that's supposed to be infesting our country. All right, back on the Young Turks, Jane and Anna with you guys. Great member comments here. Ronan once as right wingers say that Obama went on an apology tour with our allies in Europe and the Pacific.

Meanwhile, Trump goes on an ass-kissing tour to Russia and Saudi Arabia. God, that's such a great point. We want to talk about an apology tour. he's, you know, basically apologizing for our relationship with Saudi, like, for the Saudis dismembering someone. He's like, oh, let's just forgive it. Let's just apologize, you know. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing the Republic, or UNFTR.

As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional. conventional wisdom. In each episode of On The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my

word for it, the New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's even worse than that.

He's just straight up lying about what the CIA found in their investigations of that murder. He's just lying about it. He's, I mean, we can't be surprised. Yeah. So look, this is very complicated, but ANOVA writes in Trump's statement about affecting the global economy regarding Saudi Arabia is unfortunately true, the prince can wake up and flip from the petro dollar to the petro yuan end of the American Empire. So that's way more complicated and requires a lot more conversation.

And maybe we'll do it in one of the post games for you guys. Because yes, there is some truth to the fact that the petro dollar is very important to not only the global economy but to our economy, but we have enormous leverage over Saudi Arabia. Like I said, they wouldn't even exist without us. If we pulled away our protection from Saudi Arabia, they'd last about a month, okay? Almost anyone can walk in and take that country. So anyway, that's a longer story. Look, the surprise that I told you guys about the beginning of the show, I can't wait, okay?

So I don't think we're gonna wait until the Thanksgiving special. Next segment, we're gonna announce it, okay? Yeah, you do it right now? Next segment, I'm gonna jump the gun, okay. So, by the way, if you don't get the whole show, we're on a lot of different platform, and people get different portions in the show, tyt.com slash join to become a member and get all of our programming, including this entire show every single day. Another way you can get that, of course, is tyt.com slash janked.

Okay, what's next? All right. There was one other element to the Khashoggi story that I wanted to get to. Following Donald Trump's official statement indicating that the Saudi royals will not face any punishment for their part in the murder of a Washington Post journal. journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mike Pompeo had a press conference and was asked about the statement released by Trump. Here's what he had to say.

What the president said today, the United States will continue to have a relationship for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They're important partner of ours. By the way, this is a long historic commitment and one that is absolutely vital to America's national security. We are determined to ensure that we continue to make sure that we take care of the American people in all of the strategic decisions we make. So does the America first agenda mean putting U.S. business interests ahead of human rights concerns?

There has been an enormous effort with respect to fact-finding, pertaining to the death, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. A lot of U.S. resources have been devoted to determining the facts to the best of our ability to determine precisely what happened there. The United States took a very strong response. We have sanctioned 17 individuals in connection with that investigation. We are at the same time, committed to making sure that we place America's national security interests and all the actions that take place in the context of doing the right thing to make sure that America continues to thrive and grow. That was amazing. I mean, you, Anna told me to watch for his body language before we watch the tape.

He literally did this like, oh, yoy, yoy. There's been a great effort in investigating. I mean, and then also at one point, he just like nervously chuckled while he was was reading the statement or saying whatever he was saying? I've never seen Pompeo that nervous. He looked uncomfortable. Yeah. And so understand what he knows and we know now through reporting but is not officially

acknowledged, which is that the CIA and other intelligence officials have told Pompeo and Trump, yeah, the crown prince did it. It was him who ordered it. We have that on both reliable circumstantial evidence and the fact that there's, we're We know that nothing gets done in Saudi Arabia of any import without the Crown Prince authorizing it. Now Pompeo has to walk a line there. One day Trump will be gone and everyone will be held to account.

And he can't say that the intelligence officials said that they weren't sure, because they were sure, and that's clearly what it says. On the other hand, if he dares say anything that's 1% off from Donald Trump, he risked getting fired and berated and Trump coming out and going, I don't have a secretary of state. He's not loyal to me. If I knew he wasn't going to be loyal, I wouldn't have hired him, right? And then you're in the dustbin of history, you're no longer a congressman, you got no power, et cetera, et cetera.

So that's why he comes out and he's like, well, you know, so it's important to our national security and we've had a long history with them. So wait, did they kill him? They ordered the killing? They ordered the killing and he knows it. But his boss has made, and I got no love for Pompeo, I think he's a terrible guy. But in this case, Trump made the decision. And his boss told him, you go out there and tell him, it's okay to behead a journalist,

we're not going to do anything about it. So he goes out there and tells the press. If the Saudis behead you and dismember you, it depends on how much money we're making from them. We'll probably let you get away with it. He said it. I mean, look, he's only in a tough position. because he's allowed himself to be in a tough position.

He has his own free will. He doesn't need to go out there and just regurgitate what Trump tells him about the Saudis. He doesn't need to repeat the ridiculous narrative that the crown prince knew nothing about what happened. I mean, it's so stupid, but that's just what we have to deal with. I mean, these are the people who are supposed to be keeping the country safe. We had, again, a journalist living in the United States writing for the Washington Post, who who was murdered by the Saudis.

But the government's not gonna do anything to punish the actual perpetrators of this. Yeah, last thing is unprecedented. Now, if you're a journalist man, if you walk into any embassy that pays Donald Trump a lot of money or that he thinks, I don't know if you really believe this or not, pays our defense contractors a lot of money or somehow makes money for the U.S. Again, I think it's mainly Trump's own personal financial interests. He got all those permits to do business in Saudi Arabia right before he was elected. That's not an accident.

If he needs money later after he's president, which is very likely, who do you think he's going to go to? But either way, whether it's U.S. financial interests or Donald Trump's financial interests or weapons contractors' financial interests, you walk into a wrong place and they murder you, they're probably going to get away with it. All right, let's pivot to some good news. A federal judge has ruled on whether or not Donald Trump can deny asylum to migrants who come into the country illegally, and that judge has decided that he's going to go ahead and block

Trump's efforts to ban these migrants from getting asylum. So the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security previously had published a joint rule prohibiting certain people caught crossing the U.S. southern border from Mexico between ports of entry from claiming asylum. Now, the way the law works right now, and I wanna make sure everyone's clear on this, we were a little unclear because it's a complicated law. Even if there is an undocumented individual in the country already, let's say someone came in with a tourist visa and then they overstayed their visa, then they get caught, they're

They're still able to apply for asylum. They can claim to immigration officials that they are in fear of their lives or for their lives and they want to stay in the United States so they don't get targeted by whomever. And they will have the right to apply for asylum. Trump wanted to ban that from happening moving forward. So a federal judge comes in and says, no, you can't ban that. They have the right to seek asylum, they can apply. In fact, the judge, who was an Obama appointee, Judge John Tiger, says, whatever the scope

of the president's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden. Asylum seekers will be put at increased risk of violence and other harms at the border, and many will be deprived of meritorious asylum claims. The government offers nothing in support of the new rule that outweighs the need to avoid these harms. So there's two parts of this story. One is the logic behind the law and the other is the fact that the law exists.

So the logic behind it is, let's say that you're suffering persecution in a country, North Korea, you escape one of their detention camps and they have millions of people locked up in those gulags and you made it out of there somehow and you got to the US. But you entered illegally, you didn't have the proper visa or the paperwork, whether you came on a plan or by foot, right? We don't just send you back and go, I'm sorry, you had to do legally, don't care, go back to the gulag, right? Or you're in fear for your life from a fundamentalist government or a dictatorial government.

Like, say, for example, Saturday Arabia is going to behead you and dismember you and put you into a suitcase, okay, but you got here, but hey, you know what, your papers aren't right, or you crossed in the wrong part of the border, right? we don't send you back, we give you asylum normally, and there's good reason for that because that's the whole point of asylum isn't, hey, you get to stay here for no reason, or hey, you wanted a job, or you even wanted hope for your family. No, that doesn't count. Asylum is a technical definition.

You're escaping from another country that has got oppressive conditions where your life is literally in danger, okay? Now, whether you agree with that or not, and I guess there's some people immoral enough to say, yeah, I don't care if their life's in danger, I don't care about anything, I don't care if you're gonna send them back to a gulag. This is America and I don't like those people, right? For whatever reason, I don't like them, okay, I don't want them here, and yeah, okay, we saved his life, but then the guy might take my job, I don't want them, okay?

Okay, you're that guy, but it doesn't matter. The law is the law, you didn't win on that. In a democracy, we have a system of government where Congress passes the laws, the president signs them, and then we abide by those laws. In fact, Donald Trump ran his campaign on the rule of law. Well, the judge here is pointing out the president can't unilaterally undo a law passed by Congress. That is the most elementary thing in our form of government.

And the same right-wingers who say, I can't believe Obama is doing things through executive orders, are now turning around saying, ah, who cares about this? The three branches of government and the Congress has to pass a law and the president can't just revoke a law, who cares about the rule of law? I just don't like those people. So I just want to get rid of the law that clearly, clearly exists on the books and have the president ignore it and in essence be a dictator who says, I don't care what your Congress passed.

I will do whatever I like off the top of my head. Well, here's the court system going, no, that's not how our government works. And I think that this is important, this ruling was important in maintaining our democratic process, democratic system. So even if you don't care about the issue, as Jake mentioned, in regard to immigration and whether or not we allow people to apply for asylum, really the heart of the matter here has to do with maintaining and preserving the way our government is supposed to work, the checks and balances and how they're supposed to protect citizens and protect laws that we can

currently have on the books. And so I like the fact that the judge really emphasized the importance of Congress, its role, and how Trump can't just come in and undo something unless, you know, there is an imminent threat to the United States if he does it in the name of national security. In this case, it was just a punitive action against people he doesn't like and also an effort to gain brownie points among his base. And they try to drive out to vote, et cetera. Yeah.

Look, and last thing is that it's not that we don't get that it costs us money, it does. And we're not naive thinking that everybody who crossed the border either through a port of a port of entry or through a place that's not a port, it all deserve asylum. They don't know, they don't. That's why we have a process where we adjudicate whether they actually do deserve asylum or not. And most people do not make it through that process and they are sent back. So, yes, having that process costs us a little bit of money.

But what it does is it preserves our dignity and America being a shining city on a hill, where if another government is trying to kill you or oppress you for your religion, for your ethnicity, for anything else, for any other reason, for your political opinion, we will protect you. Even though it costs us a little bit of money to do that. If we say, we're throwing that in the garbage, we don't care anymore, I cost my, I don't want to do court cases. to adjudicate things. Judges, I don't like that.

I'm just going to say, send them all back, no matter what we're sending him back to. Okay, well, then your position is clear. I don't agree with it. The overwhelming majority of the American people don't agree with it. And your position at this point is irrelevant. You should lobby Congress to repeal that law. That's how this country works. And if you don't like it, ironically, you can get out.

When we come back from the break, we will talk about how Trump used Nearly 6,000 members of the military for his own political gain and for his own advantage. We'll give you the details on that. Yeah, so that story is amazing because of how brazen it is. But I kind of figured out why Trump does things that over the top brazen. I'm gonna explain that. And then I'm gonna jump the gun when we come back. I gotta tell you about the special surprise we have for the media.

You don't wanna miss it. Share the stream, like the stream wherever you're watching, because this one's gonna be a doozy. We'll be right back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, welcome the Young Turks.

We've got a huge show ahead for you guys today. You've got the regular two-hour show and then the Thanksgiving extravaganza starting in about an hour and 15 minutes. We're going to rotate all of our hosts through. But I can't help, but I'm going to go right to our special announcement right now. out, so I want to tell you guys about it. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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So we've got a special announcement for you guys, and we think that it is a win-win, and it's a very unique program. So you know we're doing our membership drive and getting membership to all the people who are progressives, and some are even doing t-y-t.com slash gift to give to people who are not progressives so that we can get the message out. And then I was talking to a report of the other day, and he said something that was interesting. He said, I said, why don't you cover, honestly, progressive media, the progressive message, and us more.

He said, it's not that you guys aren't interesting, you're super interesting. And it gets a lot of views online, but you're not in our regular routine. We just watch normally watch cable news. That's it. And then I had an idea. Well, if they don't have it in their regular routine, why don't we put it into their regular routine? So look, every once in a while I have these ideas like when I announced my candidacy for the MSNBC

spot and people thought it was nuts, but you guys rallied and you sent so many emails and messages to MSNBC, I got that slot. We got that slot and we put our message out there until they tried to stop us, obviously. And so we're gonna launch a new program. here. It's called tyt.com slash amplify. So what we're going to do is we're going to get sponsorships and memberships to TYT to the media. Now, we're going to do it in three different ways. And they're going to, boy, they're going to cry about this. I mean the right wing. They're going to say we're trying to influence the young. That is true. We are trying to influence

the young. So in the first part of the program, if you buy packages under $1,000 in membership, we are going to give away Young Turks membership to journalism students. Well, that would influence the future media. That's right, that's exactly what it would do, okay? So you can do $50, $150, and $1,000. You can do anything in between. You can buy multiples of membership. All of this is on t.yt.com slash amplify.

But we take it and then we give it to those students at Columbia, Missouri, Northwestern, USC, all these wonderful journalism schools. We're going to do it through that program. By the way, if you give more than $150 or more, you're going to get an exclusive TYT shirt that is designed for this campaign. Now, here comes the super interesting part. If you give $1,000, $2,500,000 or $5,000, we are going to send it to specific individuals in the media. So Wolf Blitzer is going to get a package.

Anderson Cooper, but this is the package of truth. It is TYT membership sponsored by you guys so the media can no longer. longer say, well, I don't know, we never heard. Where are the progressive fighters? Where where's the progressive message? We don't know. Well, you're going to tell them, okay? So I think that it helps build home of progressives and gets a strong progressive message to all of the media. And then the final portion of it is, look, this is outlandish. I don't know if anybody will do it in previous campaigns. You guys have been wonderful to us and have done it. But if you give more than $10,000, then to a college of your choice, we're going to give free TYT membership

for a year to those college students. So if you say, hey, you know, I went to University of Michigan and I want to give $25,000 worth of membership to the people at the students at the University of Michigan, we're going to do that for you guys. Okay, all this is through t.yt.com slash amplify. So, and from 2,500 up, you're going to also get to name different things. For example, the chair I'm sitting on is the Nick Wildchair. This is the triptych desk that was named in previous campaigns before, but we're going

to give away the naming rights to the studio overall, et cetera. I'll give you all the details as the campaign goes on and it'll also be on the website. And so $150 gets you a free campaign t-shirt. $500 gets your name on the honor wall that we're going to put up on our website. $1,000 gets your name on the donor wall. We have a physical donor wall of you guys. guys, we already had one from the first campaign we did, we're going to put up a second one for this campaign, $2,500 and up gets to name a studio item.

By the way, if you do anything above $150, the t-shirts included in all of them. And so is the honor wall above $500, et cetera, and $10,000 gets to sponsor your college of your choice and also gets to name different things here in the TYT studios. And so we're gonna go, and here's the extra twist, we're gonna go one by one. So up first is Jake Tapper, okay? Jake has done some segments on Medicare for All that really needed correcting. The good news is we correct that on a daily basis. So what we're gonna do is $1,000 gets membership not only to Jake, but to his entire

production team. And some of the costs are based on how many people are in their production teams, how many are in their teams overall. So the morning shows and the late night shows have a huge staff. Some of the cable news guys have a smaller staff. So we're gonna get it to their bookers, to their executive producers, et cetera. And look, even if all 20 on Jake Tapper's team don't listen to the Young Turks every day, even though they got the membership, or even if Jake Tapper himself doesn't listen,

three out of those 20 start listening, and it gets into the bloodstream. And it makes a giant difference. So that's how you can get the progressive message out. It is certainly a unique idea, and by the way, we're gonna do our best to deliver to all of these people, and so we're going to make our best efforts to do it. If for some reason we can't reach one of these particular teams, then we'll contact you if you're giving over $1,000 and we'll try to figure out who else to give it to in the media.

So, and once you do it, if you fill out, after you give the money, a pop-up will come, and if you fill that out with your name, I will read your name on air. Filling that out says, hey, it's okay. You can give and not fill out your last name, that's totally okay, then we won't read it. But if you do fill out your last name, we'll read it on air, and forever, you will be the person who gave Jake Tapper and his team TYT membership. And if they start then quoting progressive ideas that they heard through that, that's totally because of you, 100% because of you.

And we're gonna go one by one and we will have other media figures, and once Jake Tapper comes off the board, we'll put new ones on. So by the time some of you are watching this, he might already be gone and there might be other media figures there. And so lay claim to these folks and get them a strong progressive message. That same reporter said, well, the good thing about you guys is you're the fighting left. And that's exactly what we are. And we need to have the mainstream media realize that.

And for young journalism students and for people going to college as well. So t.t.com slash Amplify. Let's all go to this, as always with the young Turks, together. Thank you. Okay, I'm excited. And as soon as Jake Tapper comes off the board, we're gonna tell you guys and we're gonna put five new guys up. Okay, so find out who the five are when somebody takes Tapper.

That's a thousand dollar package, okay? All right, Anna, what's next? All right. Donald Trump's recent efforts toward the migrant caravan approaching the border proved that his fearmongering prior to the midterm elections was nothing more than a political stunt. Here's the stunt that I was talking about. A large group of people, they call it a caravan. The evidence that there are terrorists, is more of this caravan.

You know what you should do, John, go into the middle of the caravan. Take your cameras and search, okay? As the caravan, and look, that is an assault on our country. You're going to find MS-13, you're going to find Middle Eastern, you're going to find everything. can do a lot of your people, and they're going to form a wall, different kind of a wall until we get the other one built. We need a wall built fast, fast. Now we did not find MS-13, we did not find Middle Eastern.

But what we did find is that Donald Trump exploited vulnerable migrants in order to rile up his base and get them to prevent Democrats from taking over the House. Well, that political ploy did not work. And even though Trump decided to take advantage of our military and use 5,800 troops, send them to the border as part of this stunt, he is now deciding to send them back because everyone's acknowledged that this migrant caravan is not really a threat. So a new report indicates that the 5,800 troops who were rushed to the southwest border amid Trump's pre-election warnings about a refugee caravan will start coming home as early

is this week, just as some of those migrants are beginning to arrive. That's unbelievable, man. That's, so look, everybody knew that it was a stunt, except conservative voters. They really believed it. Yeah, they were peeing in their pants at home. Like, oh my God, the migrants are coming, all those vulnerable women and children. All that Middle Eastern. Right.

And so I'm gonna ask a question to you, conservative voters, in a second about that. But you were the only suckers who actually believe that. But a normal politician would wait. They'd wait a couple of weeks. Maybe they'd make a couple of arrests and do a photo op at the border. And they'd say, look at our troops, protecting the homeland, et cetera. And then a month later, they'd pull back the troops because it was always a political stunt. But Donald Trump, he's amazing in a sense.

One, because he's brazen, two, and I just, you know, having read so many of these stories at this late date, figured out something new about him. He doesn't care about hypocrisy, why? Because he was never held accountable his whole life. And he's not being held accountable right now, sorry to interrupt you, but the reason why he's brazen is because his base doesn't care, they don't care. And his dad didn't care, he bailed him out from six different bankruptcies. So to him, he's like, well, so what if I'm a hypocrite?

What difference does it make? There's never any consequences. And so, you know, I've never told a story before, and I'm going to tell it in a postgame. Either I'll tell it tonight in the Thanksgiving special or in a post game tomorrow, about an interaction I had with Al Jazeera that I've never told publicly. And it made me realize why folks like this react in the way that they do. Okay. So t.t.com slash join, and you get all of our special coverages, the postgames, et cetera, where I'll talk more about that, because it's going to take a little while to explain that. And it's a little controversial, but I want to, I want you guys to know it, okay?

Back to Trump. So he says, all right, I sent the troops there, election is over. Even though the caravan's arriving right now, as Anna just told you, it's like, let's pull them back. It costs $200 million. So conservative voters, I have two questions for you. I thought you hated big government wasting your money. He just threw $200 million in the garbage because the caravans arriving now and they're pulling

back, they're not going to do anything about the caravan. And that's my second question to you, if you were, if you believed Donald Trump and you were in a panic, oh my God, it's an invasion, it's an infestation, they're coming. Well, he just screwed you because he's pulling out the troops that you thought were going to protect you. What happened to the infestation and the invasion? Don't you care about it, Donald Trump? No, no, no, no, you were just another sucker and another one of his scams, like Trump

Trump University, and now this, he took your money, he burned it, he used our military as a political prop, and now brazenly rubs it in your face afterwards, hey idiots, you thought it was real? No, of course it was a political stunt. You know the military can't even arrest anybody inside our borders in a situation like that? So it was always a lie. It was always a political ploy, it was always meant to use our soldiers as props, And mind you, many of them won't be back home in time for Thanksgiving.

The first troops will start heading home in the coming days. All troops should be home by Christmas as originally expected. So again, there are thousands of troops who were sent to the border for no real reason other than to help Trump with his political messaging, and they're going to miss Thanksgiving with their families as a result of his actions. And so what does Joni Ernst have to say about this? Because it has become abundantly clear that this was nothing more than a political stunt. So what is Ernst gonna say?

What is her excuse for sending the troops to the border? Well, let's hear it. Your vet is deploying 6,000 troops to the border a good use of resources? It does actually provide them an opportunity for real live training in their roles. Many of them, if they serve in logistics type positions, they will actually be doing those missions on the border. So it is a very good skill as someone who has commanded troops, both in peacetime and in wartime, to make sure that they keep their skills sharp.

And so when they do deploy, they are in harm's way overseas. They know exactly how to support the men and women on the front lines. So I don't know if you guys caught any of the reporting regarding the troops at the border. Many of them were bored out of their minds. of them were suffering in extreme heat, they were used and abused by the commander-in-chief for his own political stunt, plain and simple. And there's a Republican senator pretending that it has some value as a training exercise. Training for what?

They literally had no authority there and could not do anything even if they wanted to. And she knows that, and she doesn't care either. She's like, well, look, our voters are all ignorant. So we could just lie to them all day long. In fact, Donald Trump this Sunday, even though he knows he's ordering the troops back, said, the US is ill prepared for this invasion and will not stand for it. I bring the troops back. I don't, you know, we're done with the elections.

Who cares? Idiots bought it. My side showed up, we won. We lost most of them, but we want a couple of them based on them believing my lies. We're done with it though. Wrap it up. Maybe some of them will get home by Christmas. Who cares?

I didn't visit the dead in Arlington National Cemetery. I didn't go visit the dead for our World War I heroes because it was raining. I've never been to a combat zone because as the story today shows former administration officials saying he is literally scared to go, he's afraid for his own life. But when it comes to using them as props, oh yeah, yeah, he'll do that all day long and burn your goodwill and your money while he's doing it. The final part of the story that I want to draw some attention to, one of the media outlets that aided and abetted Donald Trump in fearmongering about these migrants was, of course,

Fox News, Fox and Friends in particular. And during the same broadcast, they both went after the mainstream media for not covering the migrant caravan enough, and then I want you to pay close attention to the very last portion of this following video. Take a look. So obviously the networks were rallying to tell the true story what's going on there. Of course they were. Can we see some of that? ABC, zero seconds about this in their news coverage yesterday. NBC, zero seconds in their coverage.

And CBS gave the story 21 seconds. The Army Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan, who's in charge of the deployment, told Politico that the mission is complete. And they're going to start heading home as early as this week. and the rest will be done by December 15th, so that the U.S. military force on our southern border, it looks like the meter's running, and soon they'll be heading home. No, but that's amazing. It was the same broadcast. It was the same episode of Fox and Friends. It starts off with, can you believe it? CBS, zero seconds. They talked about the migrant caravan, zero seconds. By the way, the troops are going to be sent home because I guess the mission's over.

Anyway, let's move on. Well, can I ask them what was the mission? If the mission was accomplished, they went there, arrived there before the caravan came, and now they're leaving just as the caravan is arriving, what was the mission? Because I'm curious, you said it was accomplished. The Republicans are famous for declaring mission accomplished when it wasn't. In this case, I don't even know what the mission was other than a political stunt. That Fox News just aided and abetted there.

They're really sad. They're pathetic little lackeys for the government. They must be so proud. We gotta take a break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including right wingers essentially telling the state of California that we deserve the destruction that we experienced during the fire. We'll tell you who. And other- Yeah, and then another congress, not a congressperson, but a Republican politician

who actually said much worse. Yeah. And look, a lot of progressives say, oh, they're offended by it. No, no, no. I'm going to come at him, okay? Then he'll be offended by me. That's what we'll do when we would come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.