The Young Turks - Trump Blabbers To NATO, Republican FBI Witch Hunt Backfires

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from July 12, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian. Trump reaffirms commitment to NATO. FBI agent Peter Strzok blasts GOP hearings as a “notch in Putin’s belt.” Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein wants to look into Kavanaugh’s finances. House Republicans try to block DC wage raise for restaurant workers. FL. Rep. Vern Buchanan bought a yacht after voting for GOP tax bill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jane Gannana, with you guys today. And we do have congressional hearings. They are bananas. We're going to get to them a little bit later in the program. And of course, we've got a great rebel headquarters for you later in the day where I'll be interviewing someone who has retired $120 million worth of medical debt for Americans. He's just like, oh, you got medical debt? Here, I'm gone.

Wow. Okay. So that's an amazing story. And what will be the emergency plans for if Donald Trump fires, right? Robert Mueller. There's actually a progressive group that has that all planned out. That's on Rebel headquarters tonight. And then a wonderful post game for you guys tomorrow.

The tweets from last night's old school continue. I'm having a fight with Kurt Schilling online and randomly there's hashtag FU Shekels tweets in there based on last night's old school, which is hilarious. Anyway, join TYt.com slash join to become a member and get all those shows. Yeah, in our post game, I'd like to talk about a closed Facebook page that Schilling is part of, that some people have access to. We'll talk about that. Interesting. Okay, I want to know more about that.

Did I say t.wit.com's last join to become a member? Okay. Yeah. What's next? Donald Trump's meeting with NATO allies ended in what could be called a more conciliatory term. phase, but it's unknown whether or not things will continue to be bumpy along the way with Trump and our allies. So let's talk about that a little bit.

Following Donald Trump's meeting with NATO allies, he decided to have an impromptu press conference where he made all sorts of accusations toward the allies, but more importantly, claimed to have achieved this ambitious goal of getting the allies to pay more for NATO. Now, he had said, and we gave him credit for, that our NATO allies had promised to pay 2% of their gross domestic product for NATO, and they hadn't done that yet. Well, it turns out that they had promised to do that by the time we reached 2024, but nonetheless, we got it, NATO allies should pay more. Now he's claiming to have moved the goalposts and that the NATO allies have agreed to things that they have not agreed to.

So in this impromptu news conference, Trump declared that it was unnecessary for the U.S. to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after telling allied leaders that morning that if they didn't immediately meet the 2% goal, I'll do my own thing. Okay. Okay, I mean, again, I know a broken record, but it's true. He's like a kid. who says, oh, yeah, then I'll take my ball and go home. And then you guys won't be able to play. I'll do my own thing. I, you know, look, I know he's careless with words to say the least. But it's not your own thing. It's the United States. It's about our national security. And telling all our allies, you'll take your ball and go home is not productive. And your constant, stupid yo-yo strategy of, you Germans are working with the Russians. It's unacceptable.

You gotta get to 2% the next day, 4%, otherwise I take my ball and go home, I'll do my own thing, right? Okay, it was fantastic, it was a tremendous meeting. He talks about how it was a tremendous meeting. Yeah, he said- And they had great success. It was a little tough for a little while, but you can ask anybody in that meeting, they're really liking what happened over the last two days. This is a standard tactic that you see from Trump. I mean, he'll slap on random, ridiculous tariffs on our allies, and then turn around and say that the allies love it. He just puts words in people's mouths.

And by the way, to some extent, it works. I mean, he is incredibly good at manipulating the conversation and convincing people that what he's doing is effective, that he's tough. And that while he's punching people in the face, while he's punching his friends in the face, they're loving every minute of it. that no one's ever seen people love getting punched in the face like this before. Not as much as when I punch people in the face. It's tremendous. I do the best punches. I mean, it's laughable.

Anyway, again, this was an impromptu press conference. But I got to look, two things about that. One, on your point about how it works, Democrats take note, it turns out making your own case, even if it's a preposterous one, one riddled with lies, one that makes no logical sense at all. It still works because at least somebody's making a case. Democrats are like, no, no, no, I got it. Oh, my God, we're scared about the Republicans in these five Democratic seats that are up for re-election that are in red states. We're so scared.

Maybe those senators should vote for Kavanaugh and make the Republican case for them. No, make your own case, and it might actually work. And by the way, you have the advantage of being right on most of these issues. And more importantly, having the American people agree with you on almost. all day's shoes. Meanwhile, this buffoon goes out and goes, oh, we had a tremendous meeting, ask anyone involved. They did ask people involved. They didn't think it was tremendous. They thought it was borderline disastrous, right? But he says it. And 40% of the country goes, oh, my, it must have been a tremendous meeting. So just to give you a little bit more of that messaging,

here he is during that impromptu press conference talking about how these meetings went and what he allegedly accomplished. And tremendous progress has been made. Everyone's agreed to substantially up their commitment. They're going to up it at levels that they've never thought of before. Prior to last year where I attended in my first meeting, it was going down. The amount of money being spent by countries was going down and down very substantially. And now it's going up very substantially.

And commitments were made. Only five of 29 countries were making their commitment, and that's now changed. The commitment was at 2% ultimately that'll be going up quite a bit higher than that. Okay. Nobody agreed to have it go up higher than 2%. No one agreed. And I'll give you statements from Macron and other leaders that said, no, we agreed during the Obama administration to increase the spending to 2% by 2024.

We plan on doing that. We will continue doing that. And by the way, Trump keeps talking about how I'm the tough guy, I'm the one who convinced our allies to agree to spend more. No, no, no. And if you don't believe me, you don't have to believe me. You can watch it for yourself. Here is Obama urging NATO allies to spend more to fund NATO.

And as your ally and as your friend, let me say that we'll be more secure when every NATO member, including Canada, contributes its full share to our common security. The problem is he didn't say it in a stupid way. So it wasn't entertaining. It was just dull when he asked for the 2%. So when Trump comes in and goes, what the Germans are doing is very unfair, very unfair, trying to do an energy deal with Russia like I was trying to do a little bit ago, very unfair. Then people pay attention and oh my God, maybe there's gonna be a two by four, et cetera.

What was incredible about Trump's press conference was that he kept looking down at his notes, which indicates that he prepared somewhat for that press conference, and he still sounded like an idiot. Yeah, well, that's not surprising. I guess, but I mean, wow. Yeah. Can I note the irony or the interesting situation that we have found ourselves in where the Americans and the rest of the world to some degree are asking the Germans to spend

more on their military? I'm just saying, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. So, Germany, just keep it at 2%. Okay, don't go to 4%. Okay, so let's talk about how Trump keeps moving the goals, goalpost, because initially, again, in 2014, Obama got the NATO allies to agree to spend more on NATO, and they plan on doing that. Now, Germany had fallen behind, they weren't meeting their goals, and Trump was right in calling

them out on that. But he wasn't right in the way he called them out on it. I mean, doing it diplomatically, doing it in a way that doesn't alienate your allies is, I would argue, a better strategy. But Trump, I'm sure, doesn't really think too much about those strategies. So not only did Trump demand on Twitter on Thursday that countries meet the 2% level by this year, not 2024, but he also said all countries should eventually hit 4%, which is more than even the U.S. currently spends. In fact, spending 4% of GDP on defense represents wartime levels of investment. Now, who would that spending go to? Oh, right, defense contractors. So, and who do they donate to? Oh, right, the Republican Party. So, well, what a nice break that the defense contractors would get

incredibly rich off of this. And so would the corrupt Republican, and by the way, a lot of Democratic politicians, too, who take money from those defense contractors. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-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 wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-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 unlearn 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. My donors say you have to increase your military spending. Did I say donors out loud? In this case, he actually didn't say donors out loud, but we can hear pretty clearly. So what is the response from these allies? Everyone's glad that NATO hasn't been dismantled or destroyed.

So I guess in that respect, in that regard, people are happy. No, I got it. Look, when Bush was talking to Brian Williams a long time ago when he was president, he said, the trick is to keep expectations low. Yeah. Okay, now this is how low the bar has gotten for Donald Trump. He went to a meeting with NATO and NATO did not immediately explode. Like, they did not disband the alliance on the spot and people were like, Bravo, Trump.

Okay, you got out of the meeting without ruining an alliance that has lasted for decades upon decades. Congratulations, that's the lowest bar in history. Right, now, Macron responded to calls to increase the funding by 4% and he just denied that anyone has agreed to do that. He said allies reconfirmed what they already pledged in recent years to increase their defense spending by 2% by 2024, but he didn't mention any country committing to fresh spending following the Thursday discussion. And so-

What that means, by the way, is Trump doing the press conference? going after we talked, you know, now they're all, you know, going to increase their spending. And Macron's saying, no, not a single country agreed to further spending after these discussions. That's right. Just to be clear. And just to be clear, I mean, there are other examples when it comes to talks with other foreign leaders where Trump has completely lied about what they said they would do. So after the summit in Singapore with Kim Jong-un, Trump comes back to the United States and says that they've already sent back. the remains of 200 American soldiers who fought in the Korean War.

Guess what? They haven't sent back a single soldier's remains. Not a single soldier's remains. In fact, North Korean leaders were, or North Korean officials, I should say, were supposed to meet with American officials to discuss the logistics of returning those remains. And guess what? They didn't show up. And that just happened.

So that was a total lie. My favorite lie out of that was, the parents of the fallen soldiers keep asking, me to bring the bodies back. The youngest that the parents could be is a hundred and eight years old. Okay, so, but we've gotten used to a serial liar as president, and here we are. So in his version of events, which is ironically, of course, fake news, he was super tough on the Europeans, and they loved it. They loved getting punched in the face, and then they immediately conceded to his demands.

None of which are true, but the band marches on. So we're going to take a break. When we come back, we have the huge story regarding Struck and the hearings that he's dealing with today, lots of video, lots of commentary. So stick around. We'll be right back. All right. All right, back on a young turf.

I'm with you guys. Eclectic Michelinia says, I'm almost happy to have another story on NATO, just to see the tornado graphic again. Here, here, brother. I thought the same thing. I am socks, says Jank, quote, two things about that, Uger. Funny. K.B. says, today is my 21st birthday.

And all I want is a T.Y.T. shout out and alcohol, but I'll get that elsewhere. Love you guys. Kate, right back at you, sister. All right, happy birthday. Just enjoy this phase of your life. Please enjoy it. Like, savor every moment of it. If you're in college, enjoy college.

Yeah. God bless, man. Yeah. Don't let it go. Stay gold. There Luke Zero writes in on YouTube super chat just with I am Jank Yugar. With a question mark? Yeah, I would guess you're not. No, I have a feeling, because you say that you'd read anything in super chat.

And then I'm Ron Burgundy? Oh, good one and good one out there. Nice job. Okay, I'm Jank Yugar. All right, one last quick thing here in announcements, Kanyella Ng, trying to raise $10,364, I think, to get them the staffers to organize his volunteers so we could win like Acosta Cortez did. So that is Justice Democrats.com slash Coniella Ing. You can see how to spell it down there. And we got 192.

Can I see by the end of the show 250 individual donors? Is that possible? 250 individual donors to JustDemocrats.com slash Kanyela Inc. Also, Allisonhearsen.com slash now, that's just for volunteers, because Allison is going to help Kanyeella win that election. She's going to bring all of her volunteers there. Not physically, that would be super fun if we all went to Hawaii together. But if you're in Hawaii, then it's even more important that you volunteer in person.

But if you're anywhere outside the country, you can make calls and make all the difference, just like in the Ocasio-Cortez race. So for that, Alisonhearsen.com slash now to volunteer, okay? What's next, Anna? All right. FBI agent, Peter Struck, has agreed to voluntarily testify in front of congressional Republicans. Now, there are Democrats involved in this hearing as well, and we will show you some

examples of the exchanges that he's had with them. But he is essentially testifying in front of the House judiciary and House oversight committees. Now, this is all in regard to the text messages that he sent to an FBI attorney by the name of Lisa Page during the time that they were both involved with the Mueller investigation. Now, as soon as Mueller was made aware of these text messages, he took them off of the investigation. So they have nothing to do with the Russian meddling investigation. They have absolutely no impact on the outcome of that investigation. With that said, though, Republicans have seized on the text messages that he sent as a way of discrediting the investigation.

And so they claim that there was, or there is a tremendous amount of bias and that it's a witch hunt. When in reality, anyone who looks into the matter, even a little bit understands that that's not the case. They're just attempting to discredit what's going on. Yeah. So my favorite point that he made, and we'll show you all super fun videos, in a sec, is he said, look, if I wanted to make sure that Trump didn't win, and we had a conspiracy about that, I was one of the very few people in the country that knew that we were investigating Trump's involvement with Russia, or potential involvement with Russia, right? I could have just leaked it.

I could have just said it, in which case, that would have tremendously hurt Trump's chance of winning the election. But we didn't leak it I didn't say anything so if I've got if I was trying to interfere with the election I had a curious way of doing it because I didn't interfere and that is a devastatingly good point So he makes a lot of good points look I I I was not interested in this story until I saw the way that he is fighting essentially During these hearings he represents a level of strength that I wish that we would see from some of our elected officials on the left.

And he is not allowing them to walk all over him. So I wanna give you a quick statement before we go to the first round of videos. Let's go to Graphic 2. He says, I have the utmost respect for Congress, Congress's oversight role. But I truly believe that today's hearing is just another victory notch in Vladimir Putin's belt and another milestone in our enemy's campaign to tear America apart. And some of the exchanges you're about to see really do play into what he is trying to message in that quote. All right. So with that said, the hearings are hours and hours long.

But I want to show you what I thought was the most interesting. So here is an exchange between Strzuck and Darrell Issa. Let's take a look at the first video. You have one sheet of paper that was presented to you a few minutes ago. And I'm going to just go to go to a date and then ask you to read your own words. March 4th, 2016. You want me to read this? Yes, please. Yes, sir. O.M.G. He's an idiot.

May 4th, 2016. Now the pressure really starts to finish MIE. July 19, 2016. Hi, how was Trump other than a douche? Melania? July 21st, 2016. Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his presidency would be.

Yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you for letting him read that. That was awesome. that it's in the congressional record now. So he didn't think that Trump was smart. That makes him perfectly suited for the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Okay, if you investigated Trump's intelligence, you would conclude that he's not very bright.

I would love to conduct a polygraph test on Trump's current advisors and aides and ask them, do you think Trump is a smart person? Or the Republican congressman asking those questions. Remember that Red State, which is a right-wing blog, did an interview off the record with a Republican congressman who said, oh, we all think he's a total idiot. And we just got to survive our primaries. And after that, I don't know what will happen. But he's an absolute disaster.

So if you read their text, they would probably say the same exact thing. And they're not colluding against Trump. It's just obvious that he's an idiot. So this guy recognized it. That doesn't prove anything. So to give you context into what's going on in this exchange. Daryl Issa is trying to prove his point that at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us

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Now, mind you, Strzok has nothing to do with the investigation because special counsel Mueller, a lifelong Republican, found out about the text messages and took him off the investigation entirely. And that is the right thing to do. However, even if Mueller had not done that, keep in mind that in every form of government or every form of governing, including our judicial system, when you're called on to be a jury, a member, you are asked whether or not you can set aside your biases in order to do a fair ruling, or, you know, vote, essentially act fairly as a jury. jurist, right?

Or a jury member. That's the way the world works. Everyone has political beliefs, political thoughts, but you're supposed to be able to put those biases aside and do your job. And that is essentially what Struck said multiple times during this hearing. Now again, if that doesn't make you happy, that's fine because again, Mueller took him off the investigation. All right, I just want to say one thing with this.

So Struck thought that Trump was an idiot. But it's left out of there is that he also did not like Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, particularly Bernie Sanders. That doesn't mean he launched some sort of deep state conspiracy against Bernie Sanders, okay? It just means that was his opinions. Do you think that other people of the FBI don't have opinions? No, they all have opinions, political opinions. Presumably most of them vote, and some of them, and according to inside sources, most of them

are Republicans. So does that mean they can never investigate any Democrats? No, you put, hopefully, if you're doing it right, and you're a professional, you put those political opinions aside when you do these investigations. And yes, some of them voted for Hillary Clinton, yes, some of them voted for Donald Trump. It appears most of them vote, or more of them voted for Donald Trump. But that doesn't mean that by definition, they're biased against Hillary Clinton in the

investigation they did of her, right? Right. All right, so let's see more from Daryl Issa and Peter Struck. August 8th, 2016. Again. And I'll preface it by saying this, for context, Ms. Page said, not ever going to become president, right, right?

No, no, he's not. We'll stop it. Repeat that again? No, no, he's not. We'll stop it. August 15th, 2016. I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office, that there's no way he gets elected,

but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40. On October 20th, 2016. I can't pull away what the, and I defer to the chairman, whether or not he might be just use one letter if you don't mind. Why the F, what the F happened to our country, lease. Okay, read it again that way. Sir, did you not, was not intelligible?

I just want to hear it one more time. You just want to hear it for me to repeat it. Please. Okay, sir. Sure. I'm happy to indulge you. He's salty. Yeah, and with the Putin quote, he struck first.

Here, there, ISIS actually at least parts of those were relevant. The things that people focus on most is him saying, we'll stop it, okay? And so he was given an opportunity to explain that. He does explain it. He puts it in the proper context. It didn't mean we'll do a deep state operation where we let him win. and then afterwards stop it? Right?

He won. We didn't do anything to stop him winning. In fact, we helped him by concealing the fact that we were investigating for an interference in his campaign. Right. So in the next video, Struck gives context into these text messages and kind of explains what was going through his head and what this all means. If I may, what is important is that these texts represent personal beliefs just like those that you'd find on my personal phone. What these texts do not represent is any act, any suggestion of an act, any consideration that we need to do this or not do this. And furthermore, I would encourage you, as I believe I forget who I said this to earlier this morning,

you need to read these texts in the context of what was going on at the time. So when I make the comment about Trump having no idea how destabilizing his presidency would be, that came on the heels of a speech where then candidate Trump said he didn't know whether or not the United States, state should honor its commitment to mutual defense under NATO. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. That's not briefly. Mr. Chairman, in light of these actual-

No, no, no, no, no, no. Give him that opportunity. Every one. Every one. Look, they have no interest in hearing any explanations. This is all about political theater. This is all about GOP, members of Congress, trying to appear like they're these tough guys. because they're not letting him talk.

They have no interest in anything he has to say. They just want to get their point out there. They want to make it abundantly clear and apparent that they are warriors for Trump and they're going to fight for him and they're going to continue this ridiculous narrative that he's undergoing a witch hunt. It's so pathetic. All of it's pathetic. And it's so discouraging to see what's going on right now.

Yeah. Can you read your incriminating text what we believe to be your incriminate takes? Okay, he reads it. Okay, can you explain it? I'm going to explain it. Cut him off. Cut him off, we're moving on. But then what would you have him in for?

You could have just read the text yourself, right? The whole point of the hearing is supposed to be like, and what do you say about that? And he's like, oh, well, here's the context in which, shut up, shut up, don't talk. Then why are we having these hearings? Again, it's for political brownie points, for GOP members that, you know, want to score points with either Trump or their constituents. That's really what this is about. Now, there are more interactions that I want to share with you guys, and my favorite is probably

with Louis Gomer. Can we reset? Yes. All right. During FBI agent, Peter Struck's testimony and also GOP hearings, he had an interaction with Louis Gomer that I found interesting, and so Gomer really wants to hit Struck hard because he believes that Struck has enough of a bias to play a role. in this alleged witch hunt of an investigation into Trump and possible ties to Russian meddling.

Now, with that said, take a look at what Gohmert says to Strzok at the beginning of this interaction. And let me tell you, when you have text messages, Mr. Strach, the way you do, saying the things you did, you'd been better off coming in here and say, look, that was my bias. And you kind of get around to that a little bit when you say, hey, you know, everybody's got. got political views. Those are called biases. And we all have them. And you have come in here and said, I had no bias. And you do it with a straight face. And I watched you in the private testimony you gave. And I told some of the other guys, he is really good. He's lying. He knows. We know he's lying. And he could probably pass a polygraph. Well, you know, if you pass a polygraph, that means he's not

lying. I mean, you could believe or not believe in polygraphs, but if you believe in one and even pass one, that means you're not lying. Anyway, so, no, there is a different between views and bias. Everybody has political views, but if it affects your conduct of your official role, then that becomes a bias. So, for example, I'm not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, But if I was doing an investigation of Hillary Clinton, I would not let that affect me and bias me. I would try to stick to the facts, whether it was as a prosecutor or in whatever role it might be. I would hope that FBI officials would do the same thing. And it appears they have because he clearly struck, did not like Trump, really dislike Trump.

And he had incredibly incriminating information about how he might have been working with the Russians during the campaign. And he didn't release it during the campaign, thereby helping. thereby helping Trump tremendously. See, that's his political views, not leading to bias. Look, let me just remind everyone that leading up to the election, the FBI made it very clear that there was one person being investigated. It was a public announcement that this person was being investigated, and that person was Hillary Clinton.

Comey reopened the investigation. He decided to go against his superiors and call a press conference where he, you know, he announced the reopening of the investigation, and it was a public spectacle, right? On the other hand, there was reason to believe because people like George Popidopoulos were talking to all sorts of people claiming that he had been in touch with Russians, because of those interactions, there was reason to believe that the Russians were involved in Trump's campaign. And so the FBI, you know, implanted an informant to see what was going on.

None of us knew about that until recently, because the FBI didn't announce that, there was no press conference about it. It was all top secret. So leading up to the election, the person who had the upper hand, even though he was also facing an investigation, was Donald Trump. So it's just fascinating to see members of the GOP keep making this point about how, you know, all this unfair stuff was going on, and how can you, how can this FBI person be against Trump? How was he part of the FBI? What a terrible bias. It's all political theater. It's all BS. Okay, look, Democrats are so weak. You know that Obama selected James Comey.

James Comey's a lifelong Republican or was until Trump fired him and worked under John Ashcroft as his number two. For his whole life, he's been a Republican. But Obama brought him in and said, no, that's okay, he won't be biased. Most of the FBI officials are Republicans. No, that's okay, they won't be biased. And what did they do? They actually smeared Hillary Clinton, and you can say, hey, it was a legitimate investigation. but it was not legitimate to say right before the election,

we're reopening the investigation, right? And even though they knew that they had excellent evidence that Trump's campaign was working with the Russians, they wouldn't say it. So they were biased against Hillary Clinton. I got no love for Hillary Clinton, but that's what actually happened. And what does Trump and the Republicans do?

They flip it. No, even though all evidence points to you being biased against my opponent, I will claim that you were biased against me. Meanwhile, the Democrats, nothing, okay? And to be fair, Democrats, they don't want to rip the FBI to shreds. They don't want to destroy their credibility. They actually believe in our system of government. But there is a guy who's being investigated who's a lifelong criminal and doesn't believe

in our system of government and would like to, of course, shred the people that are investigating him. He'd like to take down the cops who are on the beat. And that's Donald Trump trying to take down the FBI who's investigating him today. All right, more from Gomer. A member of this committee just asserted that this witness who is under oath and a former agent of the FBI lied. There is no evidence that. I ask him to withdraw it.

I do not withdraw it. He is not a member of Congress. It's not a violation of the rule. And just as you have been expressing bias through your members about what a hero was a gentleman coming here and lies. There is not a single person on this committee who has ever characterized a witness. The gentleman from Rhode Island. It's my time. That's a just gentleman from Rhode Island will suspend.

No, the discretion. is what this man has done to our justice. The gentleman from Texas will suspend for a moment. There is the disgrace. And it won't be recaptured anytime soon because of the damage you've done to the justice system. And I've talked to FBI agents around the country. You've embarrassed them. You've embarrassed yourself. And I can't help but wonder when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eye and lie to her about Lisa. Mr. Chairman, this outrageous. The inability of a witness is always the main issue.

Mr. Chairman, please, there's help you. Mr. Chairman, this is an intolerable harassment of the witness. What is wrong with that? You need your medication. These are the people that make decisions for us. So, Stork was, Strock was having an affair with the other FBI agent and they were changing these text. That's where these texts come from. And so Gomer brought his affair into it and talked about how he lied to his wife. But to be fair to Gomer, he has been livid about the dozens of

affairs that Donald Trump has had, including paying off Stormy Daniels, a porn star very recently and maybe doing campaign finance violations while having unprotected sex with an adult film star. and also the one with Karen McDougal and possibly Sarah Bouchard and the abortion that she got. But Gobert was out, oh, right, oh, I'm just getting in now. There's no IFP, but still, no, Gobert's never been outraged by any of that, never cared. Bravo, Trump, way to cheat on your wife, way to lie to her, way to lie to everyone else, way to lie to the whole country. But now that I got a guy who sent a couple of texts that I don't like, I am shocked and chagrined,

do you have political opinion? They all have political opinions. The question is, does it affect their work? Let's see more. Well, then why wouldn't you wait until the investigation was over before you have heard the nominee and winning a general election against an opponent that hadn't even been named yet?

A hundred million to zero agent struck. That's how bad she should win. Mr. Gowdy, those personal expressions of my observing the political process of the presidential primaries had no bearing on my actions of any investigation to include the investigation of Secretary Clinton. You couldn't think of us. Or anybody else.

You couldn't think of a single person that would not vote for Hillary Clinton for president? A hundred million to zero. So that was clearly hyperbole, which I... Well, let's say it was hyperbole. Let's divide it by 10. How about we say it was hyperbolic and divided by 10? A hundred million divided by 10, I'm pretty sure it's 10 million. zero divided by 10 is still zero.

You couldn't think of a single solitary person that was going to vote for her for president before you interviewed her and while you were supposed to be investigating her. Congressman, clearly that's not the truth. Clearly, I could envision millions of Americans who are likely and did vote for then-Kin. Well, you wrote it?

My point, sir. Did you write that? I did write that, sir. Okay. Were you under duress? Political expression engaging in hyperbole. Look at how disingenuous that is. Does anyone really believe that Strach thought literally it'll be 100 million to zero?

No, I think it was literal. What, did you write it? Did you ride it? Yeah, he wrote it as a joke. Come on, if you're a Republican or a right winger, you think that he meant that it'll literally be 100 million to zero. Why is Gowdy wasting time on this? And Gowdy's supposed to be one of the ones that are like, sometimes tweak Trump, and

then people get all mad. No, when it comes to the cameras are on, they're all trying to desperately. give their bananas to Trump. Oh, Mr. Trump, I helped you. I helped you. Do you like me now? Gowdy did how many investigations of Obama and how many investigations of Hillary Clinton when the Republicans were in charge of Congress and Obama was president.

And in all of them, oops, turns out there's nothing that they did wrong, but I'll launch another one. I think they did nine in Benghazi. Every single one concluded, even led by Republicans that there was no lawbreaking, nothing wrong, et cetera. Let's do another one because I want to be on camera and I want my beast to know I'm as stupid as they are. 100 million to zero, you wrote it. I am outraged.

Do you have any idea how many Republican members of Congress have personally invested hundreds of thousands of their own dollars into private prison companies and then turn around and support laws that criminalize nonviolent behavior of Americans throughout the country so they can be arrested. prosecuted and imprisoned in these private prisons so they can make some money. I would argue that that type of conflict of interest is more of a bias that really influences the decision making that they do while they're supposed to be representing the American people. There's no hearings on that. No. Or having hearings on an FBI agent who's not part of the Mueller investigation at all, at all. He's not part of the Mueller investigation.

And having conversations and hearings about his text where he was joking. Wow, ladies gentlemen, you got him. Are you going to investigate, to Anna's point, your own colleagues and say, isn't it a little biased of you to be ruling on criminal justice when you make money every time the stock price goes up for private prisons? No hearings on that. So finally, I want to give Peter Strzuck a little bit of credit. FBI agent Peter Struck really proved himself to be very strong during his hearings with the

GOP, with members of Congress. He was asked all sorts of ridiculous inappropriate questions, but he managed to, in my opinion, fight back aggressively and effectively. So I want to show you a few examples of that. Let's take a look at the first example where he defends his text messages. terms of the text that we will stop it. You need to understand that that was written late at night off the cuff, and it was in response to a series of events that included then candidate Trump

insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero. And my presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior, that the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States. It was in no way, unequivocally. any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process for any candidate. As to the 100 million to one that was clearly a statement made in jest and using hyperbole, I of course recognize that millions of Americans were likely

to vote for candidate Trump. I acknowledge that is absolutely their right. That is what makes our democracy such a vibrant process that it is. But to suggest somehow that we can parse the words of shorthand textual conversations like there's some contract for a car is simply not consistent with my or most people's use of text messaging. That's an excellent explanation that and I like his tone and he's like, well if you were unclear that I didn't like Donald Trump, let me be clear. I didn't like Donald Trump. I thought his actions were disgusting. Right. And he and we'll stop it meant the American people will vote against it. He was wrong about that. They did vote in

favor of it. Well, certainly in enough states for the electoral college to have Donald Trump win. But like you, Anna, the thing that I like most is the strength. Right. He reminded me a little bit of George Galloway there, where George Galloway during the Iraq war was called into hearings, he's British, or he's actually Scottish, and brought in. And they're like, you know, you're doing, saying things that we think are in favor of Saddam Hussein and, you know, total BS.

And he came in and he said, I do not come as the accused. I come as the accuser. Okay, and he let it rip. And I was like, I like this guy. Okay, that's the kind of Scottish guy I like. Okay. There's a reason why I like Scots. Anyway, the other thing it reminded me of is finally somebody fighting back as a,

that's been called into these hearings. You know, usually they, almost everybody lets these Republican congressmen bully them. And this kind of felt like a moment where somebody in the McCarthy hearings finally said to Joe McCarthy, at long last, do you have no decency, sir? Okay, and it started a turnaround. And I don't know why everybody bows their heads to these congressmen. They have no actual power. Because there was a time-

They're just a bunch of clowns putting together a three-ring circus. Well, they do have power, but unfortunately they wield their power in support. of what their donors want, and this is just their effort at appearing strong and appearing as though they are representing their constituents. But if you look at their policies and if you look at what they've actually done for their constituents, it's been nothing but incredibly regressive policies that hurt them economically, that hurt them financially, that hurt them in many different ways. So this is their way of overcompensating and making it appear as though they're doing something.

Again, this is more, nothing more than political theater. What I like is, yes, Struck is fighting back. And the reason why other people haven't fought back in a similar fashion is because I think people have been late to catch on to the fact that politics has fundamentally changed. These members of Congress are not these respectable, you know, buttoned up professional people anymore. They're just not. And Trump running the type of campaign that he did and Trump conducting himself the way he does

publicly on a daily basis has led to the circus that we see in Congress, now in our judicial system, it's all over the place in the way that we interact with one another, the type of rhetoric we use. And I like the fact that Strzok finally realized, these are not people who are interested in having a legitimate discussion and they have no interest in asking me legitimate questions. They just want to attack me and they have no interest in what I have to say. Well, let me give it to them. And I like that, even though I'm sure we don't agree politically.

I'm glad that he struck back. Yeah, me too. I'm here all week. All right, I've had enough of this. All right, we had enough, folks. We're calling it. We're done with the struck hearings. When we come back, man, there's something weird going on with the Kavanaugh here, investigations, like background checks, et cetera.

We'll talk about that. And Congress does have some power, as Anna pointed out. they actually just blocked a bill that would have helped the American workers. Of course they did. We'll tell you all about it. You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join.

You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now. All right, so many good comments here. I'm just going to read one tweet, but it's a really good one. That Spanish lady says these Republicans trying to scapegoat Peter Strach in order to denounce an investigation of the same ones who scream 53 times a day. Go home, irony, you're drunk.

Think about that for a second. You want to see what a witch hunt looks like? It's these hearings, right? So Spanish lady, excellent, excellent point. I got to give you a t-shirt. There's new rules on how to get a t-shirt, okay? Okay, here we go. You have to email orders at t-y-tnetwork.com with a link to your tweet, your size preference, and your address, and we'll send you the T-Y-T-T shirt.

If you go through all that, Spanish lady, you'll get one, because that was an excellent point. It's orders at t-y-tnetwork.com. Okay, if you're not heard, don't do that. We'll figure out who you are and come to get you. Okay, I'm kidding. We're not going to do that. All right, here's YouTube Super Chat. Edward Norton, I would love to read what the Republican text messages have to say about Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Cortez.

Great point. Ben 1, thank you for the contribution on YouTube super chat. We're super appreciated. Courtney Durham says if Roe versus Wade gets overturned, do you think American people would fight for a constitutional amendment to reinstate women's reproductive rights? Courtney, I'm telling you right now, that is going to be super hard. because through Wolfpack, I know how hard it is to get an amendment. But the bottom line is you got to get, no matter what is proposed, you need to get 38 states to ratify.

So you're not going to get 38 states to ratify an amendment on abortion either way. The only thing that you can get 38 states on is to end the corruption, right? Wolf dashpac.com. I wish we could get more progressive stuff in as amendments, but we can't. It's too hard. So Wesley Miller says saw the interview live. The Texas representative was full of it. Strach kept his composure pretty damn well.

He even went back into the emails. Southern Jen says really shaded they decided to have this hearing right before states like mine head to the polls tomorrow. Anna's right that it's all for show. And last one, Maxwell Crystal says, surprises the defendant didn't snap on him for speaking to him like that while calling out the grandstanding he's trying to do for Trump. Thank you all of you for using YouTube super chat. helps the show. By the way, I found the name with a guy who said, have you no sense of decency sir at long last to McCarthy. That American hero was Joseph N. Welch, who was otherwise a soft-spoken lawyer. Let's also note one more interesting, I don't know if it's an irony or an interesting

point about these hearings. The McCarthy hearings were led by McCarthy, whose main henchman at the time was Roy Cohn, who was Donald Trump's first lawyer. So he does the McCarthy. hearings, he does all these dirty tricks, and Donald Trump looks at that and goes, that's not a corrupt, terrible person, that's my lawyer, or that is a corrupt, terrible person, and that's my lawyer. That's, yeah, he, again, he loved that. That was why he wanted to work with him. Yeah, I mean, when you pick Roy Corners, your lawyer, you're sending a very clear message

about who you are. Yeah, and by the way, that's not my, like, feeling or my speculation. If you should watch the Trump documentary on Netflix, he loved that Roy Cohn was a shady guy. And he loved that he, they unfairly did character assassinations of people. That's who Trump is. Okay, all right. On the other hand, we have Bernie Sanders. We literally have him on Monday.

So I need you to check this out. Okay, so July 16th at 7 p.m. Eastern, another town hall, CEOs versus workers. It is on corporate power. Now, that is definitely not going to be carried by cable television. So we're going to carry it here at t.yt.com slash live at 7 o'clock Eastern. T.yt.com slash live home of progressives. That's why we're carrying that town hall. And if you want to support the network that brings you that, please become a member at

tyt.com slash join so that we can bring you all this progressive programming. All right, what's next, Anna? All right. The New York Times has obtained an unusual letter that Rod Rosenstein, who is the deputy attorney general, sent out to federal prosecutors in an effort to help sort through government documents pertaining to Brett Kavanaugh. Now Brett Kavanaugh is Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court. And it seems as though on its face that Rosenstein is doing this in an effort to, you know,

help move the confirmation hearings along because Kavanaugh has a long history working as a federal judge. And that was one of the concerns that Mitch McConnell had when it came to doing a speedy confirmation of this nominee. Now let me give you the details of what this letter indicated, let's go to Graphic 4. In an email sent this week to the nation's 93 United States attorneys, Rosenstein asked each office to provide up to three federal prosecutors who can make this important project a priority for the next several weeks.

He also said, we need your help in connection with President Trump's nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the Supreme Court. So this is unusual, this has never happened before, you know, in terms of an attorney general or in this case a deputy attorney general calling on, you know, these prosecutors to help in terms of going through all of these government documents. They're not supposed to play a role in investigating or vetting a Supreme Court pick. Yeah, it's hard to tell what's going on here. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy is supposed to get the information that the senators can use to vet the pick.

And they've done that for Merrick Garland and many other people that have been important, in fact, all of them. And for Garland, they had 2,000 documents they went through this. It's all normal stuff. In this case, for some reason, Rosenstein is asking criminal prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office, three in each one, which is also a huge number. There's 93 United States attorneys all across the country, times that by three. Even Gowdy can do that math, it's a lot. And so they're gonna bring them in.

Now, there's a lot of material to go through, but it's just a little out of order. But don't get us wrong. Rosenstein, in this case, I know Trump has attacked him in the past. Even though he's his own deputy attorney general, but it's not like he's coming asking these guys to come in and prosecute Kavanaugh or to look for dirt. He's actually asking them to help the executive branch move this along quicker. Yes. So in an effort, in this effort, he's actually helping Trump. At least that's what it appears on its face, right? So, yeah. By the way, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor has chimed in on this.

Christopher Hunter, and he thinks that this is outrageous. Here's this quote. It's flat out wrong to have career federal prosecutors engaged in a political process, like the vetting of a Supreme Court nominee. It takes them away from the mission they're supposed to be fulfilling, which is effective criminal justice enforcement. So the thing about that for a second. Trump's always talking about being law and order, tough guy, et cetera, although when

law and order investigates him, he doesn't like it as much. But he's taking all these prosecutors away from their mission of keeping us safe, prosecuting things like MS-13. He's like, don't do that. Instead, help me move this political process along quicker. Now, I don't know what they'll find, so that's an interesting question. And that weird story yesterday about how much he was in credit card debt, et cetera. I don't know if there's something behind that or it's benign.

we're not sure that's why you do investigations, right? And background stuff, as you would with any Supreme Court nominee. But I do know in the most benign scenario why they're doing this for political reasons, which is the elections are coming up. And so they got to move quick. And if something goes wrong, they might not be able to get Kavanaugh into place before the elections, and the Democrats might pick up enough seats to be able to block the confirmation. So that's why they're like, who cares about MS-13?

Who cares about real crime? Who cares about terrorism? No, no, pull them off those jobs, help Donald Trump get this guy vetted quickly and confirmed quickly for political reasons. That's what appears to be happening. And so we'll see how it plays out. All right, let's move on to other news. It appears that lawmakers on a local level in Washington, D.C., and also federal lawmakers

are doing what they can to block a measure that would essentially increase the wages of restaurant workers from below minimum wage to $15 an hour. Now, this was a ballot initiative that voters in the D.C. area overwhelmingly approved. And because the restaurant industry is in the pockets of these lawmakers, they have decided to do what they can to stop it. So I'll give you the details. Now, the two GOP representatives, Mark Meadows and Gary Palmer quietly introduced an amendment to the House's government spending bill for 2019, which would essentially block a local ballot measure called Initiative 77 from going into effect.

Now, that is the ballot initiative that I was speaking about earlier. Now, to give you more details on what that ballot initiative would do, and now that it's approved, was supposed to do, voters in the nation's capital approved the initiative to require DC businesses to pay restaurant servers and other tipped workers, the full minimum wage. The new law would slowly raise the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers from $3.33 to $15 an hour by 2025. Now, the sub-minimum wage is something that has been banned in seven states in the U.S., and it essentially says that in the states where it's still legal, the employers in these restaurants

do not have to pay the waiters, waitresses, bartenders, the standard federal minimum wage, they can pay them a lot less as long as their tips make up for the difference. And so essentially the customers end up subsidizing the salaries or the wages for these workers. So the federal subminimum wage is just $2.13. That's how much you get if you're a waiter or valet, a bellhop, or a bartender. at a minimum, and then you get your tips, right? In D.C., the sub-minimum wage is $3.33, and they wanted to bring that up to $15, which is the minimum wage in D.C.,

all the way to 2025, so it's really gradual, right? And there's two important issues here. What is the substance of this particular issue? And I'm pointing out that there's seven states who have banned the sub-minum wage, which means that, yes, the bartender. and the waiters and waiters and waitresses, et cetera, make $15, and then they get tips on top. And in some states, it hasn't affected the tips at all. They still have very high tipping in those seven states.

In some states, the tipping is actually a little bit lower. California and Oregon, actually I was surprised to find out. Is lower Alaska is one of the highest in the country, even though they've also brought up their minimum wage for the waiters, right? So, but the restaurant owners are saying, oh my God, we're all going to go out of business, But how come none of you went out of business in California or Alaska or any of the other states that banned the sub-minimum wage, just like Washington did? California is the equivalent of fifth or sixth largest country in the world if it was its own country.

So if there was some sort of disaster in California because they're paying waiters $15 or whatever the minimum wage is in their local area, we'd know. And it didn't have, in fact, it's not a matter whether we'd know or not. They've already studied it. And the studies show that it had no effect. They did not, these companies did not go bankrupt. So why did they care so much? Well, if they pay their workers $2 and you tip them, they get to minimum wage.

And to be fair to the restaurant guys and the law, if they don't get to minimum wage. After tips. After tips, then they have to at least get their employees to whatever the minimum wage is in that jurisdiction. So they have to put it on top. A lot of them do get past the minimum wage, and that's their whole salary. And that way, hey, I just had the diners pay for the salaries of the waiters and waitresses. If you have minimum wage, then the restaurant owner has to pay the actual salary, and

then you guys tip the waiters and waitresses. And meanwhile, the owner's thinking, I want that money. I wanted that money to go to his wages so I wouldn't have to pay it. And make the customers pay it. The customers pay it. Like, as is the case with so many companies and corporations throughout the country that refuse to pay a living wage to their workers, and then we, the taxpayers, end up subsidizing those corporations in the form of government programs to take care of their employees

who they refuse to pay a living wage to. That's what happened with Walmart. That's what's happened with major corporations throughout the country. But look, that's a big issue that's reoccurring. We talk about it on the show all the time. regular basis. But the second part of this that enrages me is what's the point of having a ballot initiative where the voters overwhelmingly support the initiative if the lawmakers are gonna block it?

What's the point? And obviously you don't believe in democracy, you just don't. It's actually even a little worse than that. Anna is absolutely right, the second point is even more important. So I'll tell you why it's worse, because if you pass conservative ballot measures, they go into effect right away. Now, if you pass progressive ballot measures or ones that are against corruption or ones that are against corporations, the lawmakers come in and go, sorry, nope, I'm gonna block all

of those, I'm only gonna let the conservative ones pass. Well, that's not a democracy, and then why are we having these ballot measures? I mean, you already corrupted Congress, you already corrupted the Supreme Court. Now you're saying I'm gonna corrupt a ballot measure process by only counting the conservative We do not have a democratic system in the United States. We don't, and we haven't for a long time. We just don't, we don't. I mean, this is just another example of it.

Doesn't matter if you go out there and vote for these ballot initiatives and overwhelmingly approve it, because you'll have lawmakers on a federal level, and you'll even have local lawmakers, local politicians step in and block it if they're in favor or if they're in the pockets of these corporations and restaurant owners. Okay, so let's give you examples of some local politicians. Seven, seven of the city's 13 council members introduced the bill Tuesday to repeal it. No, you don't get to do that, man. They do, though.

This has already happened in Maine. So right now we're talking about Washington, D.C., but the exact same thing happened in Maine, and I have no doubt that they will succeed in doing this in D.C. So in Maine, they pass the ballot measures with this same exact proposal, and the legislators came, and they're like, yeah, that's like your opinion, man. So I don't know, I get paid by my donors. My donors say no, so I just threw your democracy in the garbage. The GOP doesn't care about you.

They don't care about you. They don't care that you're the little guy. They don't care if you're in the middle of the country and you've lost your coal jobs or your manufacturing jobs. They've never cared about you. They're exploiting you and what you're going through in an effort to win elections. But other than that, they've never cared about you. And this is another example of that. They keep making arguments about tax cuts and how fantastic they'll be because they'll create jobs and increase wages.

Wages remain stagnant, and they've created jobs, sure, but some of those jobs are not paying, most of those jobs are not paying a living wage. A lot of them are temporary jobs. A lot of them are part-time jobs. So the states that have sub-minimum wages, the waiters and waitresses are at the poverty line or below at a much greater rate than in the states that actually have minimum wage for their waiters and waitresses, in those states, they're fine. So this actually makes you an enormous amount of difference.

The Republicans say we're going to give tax cuts for the rich, which will eventually increase your wages. They passed a law that actually increase your wages. And they go, no, don't increase their wages. Wait a minute, I thought it was for the workers eventually. Oh, it turns out it's just for the rich. They don't care about the workers. And I'll give you the most egregious example of a ballot measure being voted down by the legislators afterwards. It was in South Dakota, represent us, a wonderful group that fights to get money out of politics, went and got a ballot.

measure passed overwhelmingly in a deeply red state. I think it might have been like three quarters. And because it was very logical. It said, no more gifts from lobbyists. In South Dakota, they have some of the worst laws. They just take unbelievable gifts from lobbyists. And it had a lot of other great anti-corruption measures in there passed in a landslide, right? And they came in not only did they say, no, I'm repealing because I want gifts from lobbyists. But then afterwards, legislators took pictures with their gifts from the lobbyists to rub it in, and they put it on social media. Like, ha ha, you don't have a democracy, this is my corruption, and I'll rub your face in it.

So this destruction of democracy is unacceptable. And what you'll see in media is, yeah, they'll talk about Trump's tweets and some people will fight back against Trump, others will be on his side, et cetera. But these issues that actually affect your lives, well, he says this, she says, if they even cover it. And if they do cover it, it's a lot of, well, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. No, it's not. No, corporate power, it has bought off our government, and it's keeping your wages low so

it can maximize profit. And that's why your wages are so goddamn low. That's what's happening. TV won't tell you that because they're also giant, multi-billion dollar corporations. So, let's move on to what our lawmakers are doing with the tax cuts that they've received, because they've also experienced some of those tax cuts that they voted in favor of. And Vern Buchanan is one of those people. So let's move on to him.

GOP lawmaker, Vern Buchanan from Florida, apparently bought a very nice yacht, a day after lawmakers passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Now, Buchanan happens to be one of the wealthiest members of Congress. In fact, he's the eighth richest member of Congress and has a worth of $74 million. And so the tax cut passes, and he goes out and buys this gigantic yacht. Now, apparently he bought this yacht on November 16th of last year from Ocean Alexander. And the price of their yachts range between 3.5 million. That's the, 3.5 million is the least expensive yacht this company sells.

Now, he has to disclose what he spends his money on. Apparently, he spent somewhere between $1 to $5 million. He didn't spend $1 million. As I just mentioned, the cheapest yacht they have is $3.5 million. Let's be fair, Anna, you could buy one for $3.25 billion. I mean, either way, even if he bought a yacht for $1 million, this is a lawmaker who is supposed to represent the best interest of the American people. So what we're showing you is a yacht with a boat in it, which I didn't know until today is actually quite common. It's a boat within a boat.

And the reason why I'm bringing that up right now is because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is probably the only person who's given me any hope today, tweeted something that I absolutely love. Let's go to Graphic 19. She said, new rule. anyone that was cool with the GOP inventing $2 trillion out of thin air for freebies for people with yachts that have tiny yachts inside doesn't get to demand how we pay for people who need chemotherapy treatments. Thank you. Yes, I think that has over 160,000 likes on Twitter. And so what happened? Before no one outside of Young Turks viewers knew about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she wins a stunning election. Now she has... has a lot of followers, and it turns out people love her message.

And this is the message of all the Justice Democrats. But the problem was it wasn't getting any media attention. The minute it gets media attention, people are like, yes, yes, like, retweet, yes. I love this, right? She jumped up from almost no Twitter followers to 700,000 Twitter followers. Okay, and now that, you know, that those, we've got a candidate who won and it's being taken seriously, that message is on fire. So Medicare for All was already polling at 60%.

That's amazing, that's wonderful. We lived in a democracy, it passed tomorrow, right? And she's pointing out, what we've been pointing out on the Young Turks for a long, long time, but what the rest of the media won't ever cover, or if they do, they cover it with tremendous bias. Well, Mr. Sanders, how could you possibly afford Medicare for all? Well, why didn't you ask him how they could afford $2 trillion for people with yachts within yachts? Okay, how did you afford your boat or your goat? So let me go to Vern Buchanan, okay?

The person that Anna mentioned in the beginning, to me the most damning part of it was not that he bought a yacht at worth at least $3 million, it's that he bought it on the day that they passed the tax cuts in the house. That was to, I guess that was his victory dance. And so it was just to rub it in your face a little bit. Ha ha, I gave myself a tax cut, and with that tax cut, I bought myself a yacht. I just, look, if someone's wealthy, right, I don't hate on people simply because they're wealthy.

Like if you earned your wealth, good for you, go out there and buy that yacht, okay? Do you, boo? But for me, it's more about what these people represent. This lie that the tax cuts actually help the economy, that the people who are on the receiving end of these tax cuts take it and stimulate the economy, they create the jobs, they take care of the American people, they reinvest in America. But they do the exact opposite. And that's what someone like Buchanan does.

He celebrates, you're right, Jank, this travesty of legislation by going out there and buying a $3.5 million dollar yacht. Yeah, and by the way, with a straight face, hosts on Fox News have said, well, that stimulates the economy too for yacht makers, literally, okay, now, but let me give you the reality. So Buchanan, the Center for American Progress estimated that he, without tax cuts, saved $2.1 million. Okay, so he gave himself a $2.1 million by voting for the tax cuts. Now, if you took that same 2.1 or the 3.25 or whatever he spent on the yacht, and you gave

it to the average American in tax cuts for them, or in the form of jobs if we created a project for infrastructure across the country in so many different ways, right? Earned income tax credit, that's for the working poor, they're working, so that's a great way of doing it. What would they spend it on? They spend it on food, they spend it on rent, they spend it on clothes, they spend it on books, and all of that goes back into the economy, into the companies that make all those things and the employees behind those companies, and it actually lifts the economy up.

So that's a real way of lifting the economy up, but that wouldn't help your rich donors, Or if you're an incredibly rich Republican congressman yourself. And to be fair, people like Diane Feinstein in the past have voted themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in tax cuts since she's a Democrat. Yeah, Diane Feinstein, I mean, it's devastating that she still gets an opportunity to represent the people of California because she's nothing more than a fraud. I mean, she has pushed for and succeeded in passing sweetheart deals for herself and her husband to the detriment of people living in California who are having affordable housing

ripped away from them. Diane Feinstein is a pathetic excuse for a representative because she has done nothing more than represent herself, corporate interests, and her husband's business, and that's it. And then television hosts can't figure out why people in the country are angry and why they might want a populace, whether it's one on the right like Trump or one on the left like Bernie Sanders. Now, of course, Trump's a fake populist, and all he did was give people with yachts more yachts. Bernie Sanders would actually do the opposite. And that's why they're even more scared of people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And sad day for them, now people

know. And once people hear that message, they love the idea that maybe a representative representing them instead of the rich is possible. And it is if they're Justice Democrats or others who don't take corporate pack money. All of a sudden, voila, they wind up representing you instead of their donors. Yeah, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Thanks for watching. We're listening to this free version of the Young Turks podcast.

You know that the full show is at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. If you become a member, you get the full show ad-free. We love you for watching or listening either way. There's going to be a new free podcast tomorrow. You can keep on doing that. But if you want to get the full show ad-free, t-y-tnetwork. com slash join 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 dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon