The Young Turks - Trump Claims Federal Workers WANT Shutdown And Iraqi Leaders Disgusted With Trump

Episode Date: December 28, 2018

Trump continues to hold on to his ridiculous border wall funding despite severe consequences to federal workers. Trump's last-minute Iraq visit caused MAJOR foreign policy problems. 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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So we hope you guys participate. All right, now let's get to the news. All right. The United States is currently in its sixth day of a partial government shutdown, and it appears that Donald Trump refuses to budge because he still demands the $5 billion for the border wall. Now there have been a series of tweets that have caught the attention of various news organizations for good reason. One of the more recent tweets was put out just a few hours ago.

where he wrote, quote, this isn't about the wall. Everybody knows that a wall will work perfectly. In Israel, the wall works 99.9%. This is only about the Dems not letting Donald Trump and the Republicans have a win. They may have the 10 Senate votes, but we have the issue, border security 2020. Now the 10 Senate votes that he's referring to indicates the 60 total votes needed in the Senate in order to pass a spending bill that includes the $5 billion. for the border wall.

Right now, the Senate does not have 60 votes in favor of that type of legislation. And so Trump is really whining and crying about the fact that the Democrats won't let us have a win. So. Yeah. So of course, it matters what the policy is. So in a sense, the Democrats quote unquote let him have a win just the other day in criminal justice reform.

And we celebrated that because it was a good bill. It's not to end all be all, but it was a good start. I was thrilled to have Republicans join progressives on that issue, led by people like Mike Lee and Rand Paul, rare time they live up to their libertarian principles, but we'll take it. And Trump signed it. So Donald Trump, congrats, nice win there, okay? So if, and look, not everything is going to be something that we want 100%. Of course not.

And of course it's not going to be 100% what he wants, but he can't get that through his orange head. So if you're willing to make compromises, trust me. Democrats will compromise. And as Anna pointed out yesterday on the program, great point, Democrats would have actually given them $20 billion for the wall last year. You just didn't take it because you refused to compromise. Now you're down to $5 billion, and you're not going to get this either because the House is

now going to be in Democrats' hands on January 3rd, so they gain more leverage, not less leverage the longer you wait. And you seem like more of a schmuck. So you're not very good at this for a guy who wrote the art of the deal. So the Democrats have no incentive to play along with Trump's orders here, because it is a politically unpopular position that Trump has put himself in. His approval rating has already taken a hit as a result of the government shutdown. He has taken full responsibility of the government shutdown, which was evident in that video where

he had the meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. So right now, the Democrats are actually shockingly, surprisingly, using the Democrats. the right political strategy and saving us $5 billion in taxpayer money while doing so. Hopefully they keep this up. But with that said, there are federal workers right now who are either working without pay or there are federal workers who have been furloughed. Many people are concerned about their livelihood as a result of this. And if you can recall just recently, Trump said this about the federal workers.

The message to federal workers, sir, who have been impacted by the shutdown in some way. that they're not going to pay it or not. Well, I think they understand what's happening. They want border security. The people of this country want border security. It's not a question of me. I'd rather not be doing shutdowns. I've been at the White House, and I love the White House.

But many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. Now, everyone knew that federal workers are not excited about either working for pay or not being able to work as a result of this. government shut down. And a bunch of people have responded to Trump's comments. And I want to give you a feel for that. So Teresa Garcia is one Texas resident who also happens to be married to a federal worker.

She says, my husband is a federal worker. We need our paycheck next week to pay our mortgage. Alita also says the following, I'm a federal worker who is working without pay. And yes, we live paycheck to paycheck. Who will pay my mortgage January 1st? You? Maybe Trump could step up. He's legendary famous for his charity, so he could offer to pay all their bills.

You want to do that, Donald Trump? I hear you got $10 billion, so it actually wouldn't really dent you. So probably not though, right? You're not going to do that. In fact, I believe the people of the White House are still getting paid. All the politicians are getting paid. Steven Miller, the leading advocate for the wall at the White House, he's very comfortable, getting paid, we should immediately ask Stephen Miller to, you know, furlough his own pay

if he's going to promote this for all federal workers. Take a principled stand. That's right. Alexandria Ocasor Cortez has asked all the people in Congress to not get paid if they're going to make federal workers not get paid. Now one bit of insult to injury. So the people who are considered essential workers, not only do they have to show up to work and they don't get paid.

But if they had a vacation plan, pre-plan, they did everything right, they asked for a vacation around Christmas and they planned it, but remember, they don't have a lot of money, right? So it takes a long time to figure out how you're going to pay for it and to take that one vacation in the year, right? They said, no, since you're essential and the other workers are out, your vacation is canceled and you're not being paid and you must work. That's, I mean, come on, that is insane. Trump says they're thanking him because they wanted the government shutdown.

They didn't want to be paid. They wanted their vacation canceled because of the wall. Does anyone in their right mind believe that? I believe it. I'm gonna give you an example of a federal worker thanking him. Sean writes via Twitter, as a federal worker, I say F the wall, I want my paycheck. Yeah. That sounds a little bit more accurate, that's right.

Now of course, the pro-Trump propagandists are making their media rounds. One of those propagandists is a guy by the name of Mark Lauder. He's a former Trump advisor. And I actually really enjoyed this interaction that he had with Katie Turr on MSNBC. Take a look. The president has now said multiple times that he's heard from a number of federal workers who say that they're all about this shutdown, that they want the wall. How exactly is he hearing from these federal workers?

Are they calling the White House? Because I believe the switchboard is not on right now. How are they getting in touch with the president? Well, I'm not exactly sure how he's reaching, but he hears from federal employees all the time. He hears from them before the shutdown, whether they're coming in, whether he's going and visiting various agencies, even when he is out traveling around, he hears from folks. When has he been traveling? He's been to Iraq. Well, this week since the shutdown has occurred, but even leading up to the shutdown, this was not a, this was not a surprise shutdown that we could see the tea leaves for many, many weeks leading up to a head of it. Presently, not in the past.

Well, and I'm not sure I'm not in Washington, D.T. I haven't talked to him here in the last few days or so, so I don't know exactly how. That was awesome. Yeah, he shouldn't have tried. He knows, because my mom would say- He knows. He knows. He knows that Trump didn't talk to any federal workers. Visit agencies.

Where'd you come up with that one? Trump doesn't visit agencies. He visits fox and friends. Okay, that's what he does. So all he had to say was, oh, look, I haven't talked to him in a couple of days. I don't know, but I'm sure the president, it's. talks federal workers all the time, he just didn't communicate how to me. But no, they can't help themselves, they get his shovel and dig in.

I mean, before the shutdown, yeah, no, but he said during the shutdown, they thanked him. I mean, he visits federal agencies, I mean, I don't know which ones, because I'm making it up. Come on. So Trump and his cronies are using any possible excuse, anything to make their case, and everything keeps falling flat. So another example included Trump claiming on Twitter that this government shutdown only really affects Democrats because all these government workers are Democrats?

I mean, first of all, how would you know? There are as many as 800,000 federal workers who have been impacted by this. You know the political ideology of all of those people? So there's no way of knowing. Look, that one I don't care much about it because my best guess is that probably A majority of them are Democrats, but look, for example, the Coast Guard, 44,000 people in the Coast Guard not getting paid. They gotta show up to work, but they won't be getting paid.

Are most of them Democrats? I don't know. Is it possible that it's, that a majority of them are Republicans, it's possible, right? But does anybody really know? Of course not. It's another thing that Donald Trump just pulled out of, you know where. He just doesn't care about reality or backing up things with facts. But it's further proof that everything in this country, politically speaking, is based on which

team you're on, which team is benefiting, which team is getting hurt. It's not about, hey, what's the best solution for Americans? This isn't about border security for Trump. This is about political brownie points, right? This is about appeasing the Ann Colters and the rush limbos of the world as if they're relevant. I mean, they're freaking dinosaurs, the fact that Trump thinks that they're relevant and he should listen to them instead of the American people and the federal workers is insane. And so again, it's all about, hey, which team are we on?

Who's getting hurt and who's not? That's all that matters to people like Trump. So that's a great point, Anna. So what if they were majority Democrats of the 800,000 federal workers that it affects? You're the president of the United States. You're supposed to be looking at, and that is you're the head of the government. Those are employees that eventually report into you. I care deeply about our employees here, and I work really hard to try to make sure that

things go well here. He couldn't care less. He's like, whoa, you guys, what are you, you're Democrats? Who cares? They go to work and don't get paid because Aunt Colter and Rush Limbaugh told me, okay? That's so sad. It's really quite pathetic. We're gonna take a break.

When we come back, there has been some backlash following Donald Trump's visit to Iraq. What is the backlash? Why are the Iraqis angry with him? We'll give you that and more. 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. All right, back on AI Turks. So let me thank some folks, people who did Amplify program, Moni Androska from Winterthur. That sounds awesome, where is that in- Game of Thrones? I was going to say, which part of the Seven Kingdoms is Winterthur from?

But, Moni, thank you. $150. You're going to get an Amplify t-shirt, the same one I was wearing last night on old school. Patrick Michael from Ohio, $150. You'll also be getting a t-shirt. And everybody participated at t-y-t.com slash Amplify. If you give under 500, it goes to journalism, membership, goes to journalism students, then there's a $500 packages and $1,000 packages.

But I'll get to media in a second. Abdul Latif al-Zamal from Kuwait gave $50 bucks. Please. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. So the media program is so that if you want to give any amount, under 50, over 50, et cetera, we could fill up $1,000 together or 500, depending on if it's a podcast, and then give membership to these folks.

So let's check to see where we are on t.com slash media. So we're at 1,505, that means the first 1,000 went to Fox News, the next 500 went to Nate Silver's podcast. So now we're on to the Washington Post. So the next thousand gets 20 membership for Washington Post. They desperately need the progressive message. So send it to them, donate at t.t.com slash media, and then we send it to them when it gets to the next thousand.

And of course, you help build home a progressive, so we appreciate it. So speaking of our members, let me go to a couple of comments here. Ms. Newman, right, said, if most of the 800,000 government workers are Democrats, why would they support Trump wall over a paycheck? Oh, thank you. How come we didn't catch that? Yes, that's a great point. In fact, Stewart made this very similar point, and on Twitter I suck at math said the same thing.

So thank you guys for catching that. Apparently you don't suck nearly as much as Trump does in figuring out logic. So absolutely right. If they're all Democrats, why would they be like, oh, Trump, thank you, we need that war. Makes no sense at all. Payru writes in, I would give Trump even more than $5 billion versus an infrastructure project or another bill, as Jenk was saying. I believe it's actually very easy to make a deal with Trump as long as he doesn't lose face

in front of his base. So it is an interesting moment and an opportunity in that if, hey, I'll give you $5 billion for the wall, if you give me a trillion dollars for an infrastructure bill, right? And he can't, he sucks at math, so he sucks at making a deal. So, hmm, I mean, look, we were supposed to get the dreamers back and we never got relief for the dreamers. That's a possibility. I mean, so look, I'm not opposed to any deals, I'm not even opposed to like, hey, never

given $5 billion for the wall. Everything always depends, what are we getting in return? If we're getting like empty promises in return like last time, not at all interested, then And it's a hell no, right? But if we get something substantial in return, hmm, now we're having a conversation. Last one, Robert Strickland says, Thug Trump is a liar as usual. As a federal worker for 20 years after retiring from the military, nobody wants to be laid off or work without pay.

Yeah. To which I say, Robert, of course, of course. That's why he's such a ridiculous liar. Oh yeah, people told me, man, I don't want to be paid. I want my vacation canceled. I want to go to work and I don't want to be paid because I think the wall is so important. All the Democrats told me that. Come on.

There's also the added, the fact that they had to cancel their vacations, that's bad enough. But think about when they had to cancel their vacations. They were probably planning on traveling to other parts of the country to visit family for the holidays, right? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's just, it's all messed up. And they don't have money during the holidays. That's disastrous.

And 40% of American workers cannot survive a $400 blow without going into debt or selling off items. So one of the Republican congressmen said, oh, what's the big deal? I mean, why don't they just wait for their next paycheck? Okay, anyway, all right, now more mess from Donald Trump. Donald Trump paid a visit to our members of military in Iraq. This was the first time that he actually visited a combat zone. And it seemed as though everything went okay until we heard from Iraqi politicians who felt

that Trump was arrogant and who felt that Trump actually violated the sovereignty of Iraq. So now there is some discussion about what lawmakers in the country can do to essentially push U.S. troops out of Iraq. Let me give you the details. Go ahead, Jay. Yeah, so look, I think that his visits to the troops was in some ways overly criticized. Even on Fox News, they're saying, oh, it was disrespectful to the troops to talking about politics. Look, it's Trump.

He can't help himself. Of course, he's going to go brag, and he's going to talk about his decision to withdraw from Syria. And he, you know, and he did the usual things about how, oh, you know, people won't pay for stuff, so we're not going to be suckers anymore, and we're going to leave. Syria and the neocons at Fox News are like, no, you can't say that, that you're saying that their lives were wasted for nothing. No, that's just the way that you justify the endless wars. So I think that they were nitpicking on that.

He told an outrageous lie about how much the troops are getting paid. That they're not nitpicking. That was a terrible lie. We'll get to that later in the program. But I did not, so I actually thought it was a rare situation where he was being overly criticized. But I did not expect what happened with Iraq, because I didn't, we didn't know the details of how he went to Iraq, and of course as usual with almost no planning, not letting our allies know, and now it has had severe consequences, I'm actually thrilled about it because we might

now have to leave Iraq, which I want to leave Iraq. So it's a lucky turn of events for us, but not the right way to do U.S. foreign policy. So what I'm gonna do is give you the reasoning that most news outlets are essentially sharing, the narrative that's being created to give the reasoning for the Iraqis wanting the U.S. to pull out. Then I'm gonna give you the reality, okay? So first, the Iraqi lawmakers demanded that U.S. forces leave the country in the wake of this surprise visit by Trump.

The politicians denounced the visit as arrogant and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. So, because of the fact that Trump was scared to visit Iraq, and let's keep it real, I mean, he was pretty clear in that he was fearful about visiting a combat zone. There were extra security precautions taken prior to the visit. So for instance, it was a surprise visit, and the prime minister of Iraq was not even notified until two hours before Trump had landed. Trump also had complained about how scary it was flying to Iraq on Air Force. And he only stayed for three hours.

So look, normally what you do is, yes, you take precautions, of course, Bush did, Obama did, and the military is not going to jeopardize the commander in chief, and it would be disastrous. But they weren't like scared to death of ever going to visit the troops. So they took normal precautions and then normal diplomacy to tell our allies in the country we're coming and, you know, I'm sure they have a reasonable lead time for telling them. It doesn't have to be weeks in advance, things could leak. We understand that. That's normal.

But different reports from White House insiders saying Trump for two years did not visit, which was very unusual, did not visit the troops anywhere. And he literally said it was because he was worried about his own safety. Look, that's why he didn't go to Vietnam. That's why he pretended to have bonespurs. He is a coward. And so he's like, okay, we're gonna go in, but don't tell anybody in Iraq. We'll tell him two hours before we land, and then he said, we'll make the prime minister

come to us. But you have no idea where the Iraqi prime minister is. So again, the Iraqi prime minister finds out two hours before Trump lands that Trump is on his way. And then Trump demands that the prime minister meet him at the air base that he was at. And the prime minister is in a different part of the country. So he was unable to do so, and they had to settle for a phone call. Now, all of these Iraqi politicians are arguing that that was a violation, that it was

an arrogant thing to do, that it was disrespecting the sovereignty of Iraq. But there's another layer to this that I think is important. And that other layer involves Iran. So some of these politicians, in fact, the most vociferous ones, are aligned or allied with Iran. And Trump is not a fan of Iran. That is the reasoning he gives for our involvement in Yemen. He wants to fight Iran's influence in Yemen by helping with the Saudi-led coalition.

And so here you have Iraqi politicians who are fans of Iran who want to work with Iran, and then you have Trump who's very vocal in his disdain for Iran. So I think that's really the underlying issue here. And then you add that extra layer of Trump's arrogance, and they don't like it. And so they want him out. Yeah, so to give them their point of view a little bit more credence, but overall I 100 I'm 100% agree with Anna. So imagine if the foreign leader of a different country, obviously, wanted to visit the U.S.

and just wouldn't tell us. And then he lands in Texas, and two hours before he lands, he says, hey, Trump, why come visit me in Texas, okay? I demand that you come here. Trump's like, what are you talking about? I'm in Florida, I'm in Washington, I'm in the middle of doing things. I didn't even know you were coming. What, you're just going to pop in here and then demand that I go to visit you?

Yeah, it's definitely insulting. And we wouldn't tolerate it. So now, but the underlying cause is definitely more important. And so what happened here was, so we have a very large block that is pro-Iranian, and it's actually the Bush administration that screwed this up in the first place, because they're like, oh, we'll bring democracy to Iraq, and then they'll be on our side. No, Iraq is 60% Shia. If you have real democracy, they'll be with the Shias.

And the Shias are on the side of Iran. Oops, Dick Cheney was so, look, he was bright in other ways, but he just was so arrogant. So I don't want to say dumb, Bush was dumb. But Cheney was so arrogant, he's like, no, we'll just put an Ahmed Chalaby and we'll have a puppet in there and he'll do his eggs as he's ordered. They're like, no, no, we're not going to, Chalbby's a CIA guy. We don't accept that. So Chalaby lost, and now, yeah, the Shia ruler Iraq, what did you think was going to happen? But even more important, the guy who won the election, his party won the election, is

Mukta al-Sahar. He is the leader of the Mahdi army. If you guys remember from back in the day when the Iraqi insurgency with its height, our number one enemy was the Mahdi army. They now rule Iraq. They kicked this out once. Now Mukta al-Sutter is back going, hey, listen, I have the largest block in the Iraqi parliament. You want to roll?

And now they're saying America will leave Iraq. one way or another. So we've got 5,500 troops there, and Trump, as usual, didn't do his homework, too scared to do things right, and now has caused a total diplomatic mess, which might get us kicked out of Iraq, hey, they got a democracy, their parliament votes to kick us out, we gotta go. Now again, I don't mind, progressives shouldn't mind, because I'm tired of these wars. I don't wanna be in the middle of Iraq. Okay, great, we gave them democracy.

Look, it's not, it is what it is, now Mukta-L-Sutter is in charge. So if you didn't want that, you shouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place. You shouldn't have started all these terrible wars. So I'm stuck on your point about how, as usual, Trump hasn't done his homework. Yeah. I mean, look, for an average person, this is a pretty complex story, you know, understanding, you know, the, you know, the populist majority in the country right now, who they're aligned with, the relationship that the United States has with Iran.

I mean, to think that someone like Trump could comprehend even the basics of this conflict, it's just inconceivable. I don't think he saw this coming. I think he showed up thinking, hey, we're helping the Iraqis in terms of fighting ISIS. We've been pretty successful in doing that. He's feeling really good about himself. And then a day later, he's hit with all this criticism. But again, that criticism has, in my opinion, way more to do with Iran's influence with

this populist block than anything else. I mean, yeah, the U.S. is arrogant. I mean, politicians from the U.S. have always been arrogant. They show up to Middle Eastern countries and they do whatever the hell they want. So the idea that they would be angry simply because Trump showed up, you know, or gave word two hours before he landed, I mean, might have irritated them. But again, it's about Iran. I want to give you a few quotes, actually.

So the leader of the Islam parliamentary bloc, so that's the block that we've been talking about, His name is Saba al-Sadi. He called for the parliament to meet to discuss the blatant violation of Iraq's sovereignty and to stop these aggressive actions by Trump who should know his limits. Also, he says that parliament must clearly and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty. And as Jenk had alluded to earlier, Iraq's Shiite militias, also known as the PMF, of which are supported by Iran oppose the presence of U.S. troops in the region.

The PMF has made formally or was made formally part of the security forces this year after helping the military defeat the Islamic State in Iraq in 2017. Yeah, look, it's really sad that I know more than the President of the United States. He has access to thousands of people at his disposal to national security secrets that that I couldn't begin to know. All I did was I followed the news and politics for the last 20 years. So we reported on the Iraq war every day. So I know exactly what Makt al-Assadr is.

And I know what allegiance he has to us and Iran, which is pretty much zero to both, by the way. And he won the elections by being against America and Iran. But the prime minister is more aligned with Iran. But Makt al-Sada al-Sahder is a Shia. And so he kicked out America in the first place. He has no love for us. And the first thing I would ask if I was president is, how will Sutter react? The second thing I would ask is, how will the prime minister react?

Because Sutter has more people in parliament than the prime minister does. So I know it's a weird twist if you're used to our system of government. And then I would wonder about the consequences. But the president is a simpleton. And so he doesn't think through any of these things. He doesn't know any of these things and doesn't care to know any of them. Why do you think he creates one mess after another after another? That's what happens when you don't care to do your job.

Well, there was other news that came out of Trump's Iraq visit. So let's get to that. During Trump's visit to the troops in Iraq, he bragged about something that he allegedly accomplished for members of our military. Take a look. You protect us, we are always gonna protect you. And you just saw that because you just got one of the biggest pay raises you've ever received unless you don't want it. Does anybody here? Is anybody here willing to

give up the big pay raise you just got? Raise your hand, please. Ah, I don't see too many hands. Okay. Don't give it up. It's great. You know what? Nobody deserves it more. You haven't gotten one or more than 10 years. More than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you, they had plenty of people that came up. They said, you know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3%, we could make it 2%, we could make it 4%. They said, no, make it 10%, make it more than 10%. Okay, we're about to fact check and give you the real numbers.

But before we do it, I have to comment on a small part of his statement there where he's like, unless you don't want it. How insulting is that? Like, I thought of how I would react. Like, let's say I'm having a meeting with you, he's my boss, which is why you should help me beat him in the host competition, t.yt.com slash anna. Like, if you're giving me a race, you're like, unless you don't want it, like that would make me very upset.

It would make anybody upset. No, you know, as usually he sounds like a mob boss. Look, all right, Tony, I give it to you, unless you don't want it, okay, all right, kiss the ring, oh, there you go, Tony, there you go, okay? So, I mean, no mature person, let alone president, goes to the troops and go, you like it, you like it? Okay, I do it. Unless you don't want it, I take it back, okay?

And then he said, I got it for you. Now that's part of the fact check, but I got it for you. Even if it was true, what an arrogant, terrible thing to say, right? It's the American taxpayers who give it. It's not Donald Trump out of his pocket. And it turns out, of course, God, he is pathological. None of that was true. None of it.

None of it. So let's give you the facts and then talk about his psychosis. So he claimed that, you know, he didn't want to settle for 2% or 3%. He wanted more than a 10% raise for our military. So what do the numbers, the real numbers indicate? Troops will receive a 2.6%, not 10% pay hike for 2019. They got a 2.4% pay hike in 2018. So in other words, he did not even fight for 3% increase in their pay.

Besides which the president doesn't get to like sit in the Oval Office and make a decision unilaterally about how much members of the military make. It is tied to the private sector and that's how the decision is made. And I would argue that our troops are not paid nearly enough for putting their lives on the to make all these defense contractors wealthy, okay? So we'll get to that in just a second. But American troops have received a pay hike every year, every year for decades. That doesn't happen in 10 years, not in 10 years.

2019's raise is the largest in nine years. Okay, so let me bring you down further. So you haven't gotten a pay raise in 10 years. That's totally untrue, they've gotten a pay raise every year. Number two, they would know that, they would know that. They see their paychecks and their paychecks are minuscule. I'll tell you what they are in a second. And so if you get a little bit of a bump, you'll definitely notice it because you need every

one of those dollars, okay? So number two, 10%. Why do you do that? Why do you lie like that when it's so easy to catch you? He doesn't even know how large it was, of course he has no idea. He doesn't know it was 2.6 this year and 2.4 last year, he's no idea. But to me, the most interesting line is the one where he made up the conversation, where the advisors come in and go, let's give him two percent.

He says, no, no, no, higher. Three percent? No, no, no. Higher, higher. Okay? Four percent? No, I wanted ten percent. I mean, obviously that conversation never happened.

Right. He's, there's something wrong with him. He's mentally unbalanced. That's like the old character out of John Lovitz used to play on Saturday Night Live. You old school guys who remember that, yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. They said to me 2%, I said, no, no, let's do 10%. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. I mean, that was a character that people made fun of, the pathological liar who I had a friend.

Like we were kids, we were tiny kids, I don't remember if we were fourth or fifth grade, and I had this rival in elementary school. He once said, oh yeah, before I came to New Jersey when I was in Virginia, I bought a 300. I'm like, what are you, Kim Jong-un? Okay, I didn't know that back then. So one day we went bowling, you know what he bowled? I'm not kidding, at three, okay, at three, which is unbelievable, okay? So he reminds me of that fifth grader, you know, the fifth grader is insecure and he's lying

because he's trying to puff himself up. That's the president of the United States, he's 72 years old. He reminds me, it's funny because as he was, you know, sharing that fictional negotiation, I was thinking about athletes who win, like let's say they win the Super Bowl or whatever it is, right? Something big. And then they needlessly make themselves the underdogs, right? Yeah.

Just to puff themselves up and make it see it. Like no one thought we could do it, but we didn't. Like you won, dude. No one had a conversation about how they didn't think you would accomplish this. Yeah, I know that's Ben Mangkowitz's pet peeve and I love that. He's like, Golden State Warriors win and they're like, nobody thought we could do it. Everybody thought you could do it. You have the best team ever.

Everybody thought it, right, but you're right, everybody thought we could do it. Okay, okay, so let's just quickly get into what the troops actually make, and it's devastating when you look at the numbers. So basic pay for active duty soldiers can range from $19,659 for a new private. So not even $20,000 for a new private to, if you're lucky, $38,059 for a staff sergeant with six years of experience. Yeah, and so we, if you watch the Young Turks, we've shared that number with you before. And it was when just Democrats were running all across the country in the last couple of

years, and they were up against both Republicans and establishment Democrats. And both of those folks have unfortunately voted for wars and voted for defense contractors, get trillions of dollars, and then brag about how they support the troops. And we're like, wait a minute, we know people in those. districts, and I double checked, we triple checked. Incoming soldiers make $19,000, $19,000, even after all of their pay increases. And then this buffoon goes in there, who got $413 million from his dad, and then ran from war, ran from Vietnam, and made up a lie about his bonespurs.

And he comes in and goes, I got you a big pay raise, over 10%. It was me. It was me who did it. I mean, how insulting is that? Jesus Christ. And finally, it was not remotely him. I just want to be super clear about that. The pay raise is calculated by the Department of Labor.

It's a formula they use, as Anna pointed out, based on private sector wages, it is automatic. The reason it was a large one this year has nothing new with Trump is because the economy had gone up and you could say, hey, you want to give him credit for that, whatever. That's a whole other long conversation. But it's based on how the rest of the economy is doing. Trump did absolutely nothing about their pay raise. It is automatic from the Department of Labor. He is an unbelievable liar.

We gotta take a break, but when we come back, we are gonna discuss Kirsten Nielsen. There was a lot of talk about whether she was pushed in this evil direction by Donald Trump. But no, it turns out she's just evil on her own, and we'll explain why. 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. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-V-P-N dot com slash. t yt check it out today 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 yt.com slash join today in the meantime enjoy this free second all right back on t yt uh on the amplify program josh burnt just gave uh 150 from redmond watching thank you josh really appreciate it uh and You'll be getting a t-shirt as well, and three journalism students will be getting young tourist memberships.

So everybody check out, t.com slash amplify. You can give to journalism students or to members of the media like Don Lemon, Morning Show, New York Times, et cetera. I'm going to go to some comments here. Claude from the member section says, oh man, I miss you guys. Hope everyone had a great holiday. Thank you, Claude. I just wanted to appreciate your words there.

And then Maxillaria writes in, just so everyone knows. The Violence Against Women Act has expired during this shutdown. Yes. The holiday season is a critical time for women in need of resources in escaping domestic violence. This Trump shutdown is terrible in so many ways. So that's a great point. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Dr. Chadenford says, is that like referring to the pay increase for the military, isn't

that like a $500 increase so they get an extra $40 a month or so? So yeah, that's what Donald Trump is bragging about. Here's the same guy, even though he got $413 million from his dad. He claimed, I got a small loan of a million dollars, a small loan of a million dollars. And he can't empathize with the troops or the people on the federal government shut down. So last one is from Twitter, drop kick brat, writes in, I love this one, I got my progressive yet TYT hesitant best friend, a gift membership for Christmas to GILA. him into listening, he agreed and started listening an hour later.

The next day he swore off CNN, proclaimed his lifelong membership and bought and bought two gift memberships for family. Wow. That's awesome. Thank you, Dropkick Brat, for spreading the message. That's exactly what we're trying to do and your buddy for then spreading the message to other people. That's how we do.

And so look, as I said in the Bernie video that I did on YouTube. They got all the press on their side. They got NBC, they got New York Times, they got Washington Post. Progressives have a couple of folks to intercept, Sarota Koch, et cetera. People have almost all worked for us in some point, and us, that's it, that's it. Yeah, I'm actually gonna do a quick plug because I've been listening to a show a lot lately, and it's very good, especially in covering some international politics, namely what's going on in Brazil.

Michael Brooks, the Michael Brooks show is also a very progressive show. It's part of our network, I believe, with Sam Cedar and all that. Fantastic. So, you know, give him a shout out, I really enjoy his program as well. Yeah, his podcast is not part of the network, but the majority report is part of the network. And he fills in for majority report on a regular basis. I mean, look, I think we're in our rights to say a home of progressives. Even the guys that I named Sarota was a TYT contributor, Alex Conch was a TYT reporter.

Ryan Grimm leads their Washington Bureau for Intercept, current TYT contributor. So we're out there fighting for you guys. TYt.com slash join to become a member. If you wanna help spread our message, you can go to tyt.com slash media or tyt.com slash amplify. Those are all different ways to contribute. And lastly, we're doing this fun thing, no one's really done it yet, part taken, but we wanna make sure that you know it's available because we've done it in another membership drives or

other drives that we've had, you can name things in the studio. So you can name some of the chairs. My chair is the Nick Wildchair was from a previous drive. Ben's chair, John's chair are available. The sound board's available. And so this room is available, the studio, my office is available, you can put your name on it. So it's pricier. Nobody's necessarily expecting anything, but if you can, and it helps the home of progressives,

and then you become a part of what we do here, because your name's literally on things. My parking spot, I know it's funny, but we're not kidding. This chair literally says Nick Weil on it. Oh my God, it'd be awesome if you guys bought my parking spot and put my name on it. Like then no one can take it. It's over. Oh yeah, because we have parking wars here. I don't think that one's available, maybe we should make it available.

This is the triptych desk named by Adam Westbrook in a previous drive. Anyway, check out t.com slash studio if you want to partake in that. Thank you guys. All right, what's next, Dana? An eight-year-old Guatemalan migrant was pronounced dead on Christmas Eve. His name was Felipe Gomez Alonzo. And it's interesting to hear the reaction from immigration authorities. And it's also devastating to hear the commentary by our own Homeland Security Secretary

Kirsten Nielsen. Now, if you can recall when the first child death happened involving a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl, here's what Kirsten Nielsen had to say about it on Fox. It's heart-wrenching is what it is. And my heart goes out to the family, all of DHS. You know, this is just a very sad example of the dangers of this journey. This family chose to cross illegally. What happened here was they were 90 miles away from where we could. could process them. They came in such a large crowd that it took our border patrol folks a couple times to get them all. We gave immediate care. We'll continue to look into the situation. But again, I cannot stress how dangerous this journey is when migrants choose to come

here illegally. So the emphasis and the blame was placed on the parents who are fleeing violence in their own countries in order to find safety or seek asylum in a country like the United States. And part of the reason why many of them don't go through ports of entry is because, remember, Trump wanted to deter asylum seekers by taking children away from family members. So if I know that the government is planning on doing something like that, but I'm trying to get away from a violent situation in my own country, maybe I'm going to avoid going through the port of entry. There have also been numerous stories where immigration officials will block ports of entry.

There have been numerous stories involving migrants who immediately get detained and placed in for-profit prisons as they await their court dates. So the fact that she's immediately going to, well, you know, they're in the country illegally and this is what happens when you, you know, go through this dangerous journey. No one's willing to go through a dangerous journey for the fun of it, okay? They're doing it because again, they fear for their own lives. And the fact that she placed the blame on the parents here is ridiculous. Now she's done the same thing with the eight year old boy.

Jank, jump in. Yeah, so she blamed the parents again saying that they're putting their kids at risk and it's their fault. And I don't know if she knows any history because she's a Trump official, but most of the immigrants that came to this country put themselves and their families at risk. You know why they did it? Because they were desperate. So look, people came here from all across.

We don't often talk about the Germans, but the German ethnicity. in America is actually huge. It's one of the largest ethnicities in America. They came at some point as well, but we've often talked about the Italians, the Irish. And so let's talk about the Irish because the potato fam is really well known. The journey from Ireland to here was more treacherous than it is today from Latin America to here. A lot of people died on the boats and they had no money to their name.

They were absolutely poverty stricken. You know why they did that incredibly perilous journey and put their kids in the into that level of risk, because they were starving. And they were more worried about dying in Ireland than dying on the trip. And the same is true today. They're worried about different gangs in Latin America, they're worried about the violence in Latin America, and they're worried about the poverty in Latin America. And that is, they're not doing it because, hey, I decided to take a vacation.

Should I go to Disneyland or Hawaii? No, they're running for their lives. And so they think that staying where they are, their home, where their family and friends are, is more dangerous for their kids than making that journey. And they've done that. And then when they lose it, in this case it was an eight-year-old son on Christmas Eve. Then Nielsen comes out and rubs it in their face and says it was your fault, not our fault for not treating them right, it was your fault for even trying to save their lives

by coming here. You know, and it's interesting because what the Trump administration is doing is they're very publicly making it seem as though these migrants are fleeing their own countries for no reason, just because they want to come to the United States and cause trouble. They're all gang members, they're all dangerous. That's the message they keep pushing out there, the narrative that they keep driving home. But behind the scenes, and we covered this on the Young Turks, they have pledged to give a considerable amount of foreign aid to these Latin American countries to help fight the violence there.

So we're not constantly dealing with the symptoms of that violence. So they acknowledge that the violence is there. They acknowledge that people's lives are in great danger in these countries. But when they go on Fox News trying to justify the death of an eight-year-old, they won't tell you that. Now here's what Kirsten Nielsen released as a statement after Felipe, the eight-year-old, was pronounced dead. She says, quote, our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders.

Okay, let's stop right there. Who's seeking open borders? Like, A, we don't have open borders, okay, that's a false narrative. And B, these people are not coming to the United States seeking open borders. Again, they're coming here because they're fleeing violence in their own countries. She also says smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north. Trump's mom was from Scotland, and he brags about how poor she was.

when she came here. That's curious. I thought, if you're poor, you shouldn't do a dangerous trip like this and endanger yourself and your family members. And we don't want the poor. That's what Donald Trump says all the time. And he says, oh, but if you want a visa where you pay $500,000, we'll take you anytime. We only want the rich.

It's the exact opposite of what Statue of Liberty says, and it's the exact opposite of Donald Trump's family history. But he already made it, so he wants to burn the bridge after him and then blame people like his mom who took risk to get here. She continues to say the crisis is exacerbated by the increase in persons who are entering our custody, suffering from severe respiratory illnesses, or exhibit some other illness upon apprehension. Okay, let's pause right there. Yeah, some of them have traveled, in some cases on foot for more than 2,000 miles.

So yeah, they put themselves through that type of danger because they were desperate. Given the remote locations of their illegal crossing and the lack of resources, it is even more difficult for our personnel to be first responders. So lack of resources is actually a real issue. But there's a reason why there's a lack of resources. Are there more migrants coming in? Yes, but that is a small part of the issue here. A bigger part of the issue is that the Trump administration insists on detaining everyone

who tries to come into the country, no matter what. If you're gonna come seek asylum, you're gonna be thrown into a for-profit prison for For who knows how long until you get your court date. That was not how it worked back then, back before the Trump administration. Some people would get detained, yes, some people would immediately get deported, yes. But now you have for profit prison companies like Geo Group or Core Civic receiving a billion dollars a year from the Trump administration to detain these migrants. And they have limited resources.

So this is, all of their policies have led to the issues. that we have today. And I actually want to skip ahead to one of the quotes from Kirsten Nielsen that was amazing to me. So she's trying to make a point about how rare it is for children to die in border patrol custody. But she ends up saying something like insane. She says to put this in perspective, there were six migrant deaths in CBP custody during fiscal year 2018, none of whom were children.

Wait a minute, we just reported on two children died at age seven and age eight. Everybody knows that. They acknowledge that. She's the perfect Homeland Security chief for Donald Trump because she lies through her teeth. She's vicious. She's like I have a B-rate movie. I mean, if you saw in a movie this cartoonish villain where they say, okay, eight-year-old boy died on Christmas even earlier, a seven-year-old girl died of D.E.

dehydration according to most sources, and they died on our watch. What should we do? And the villain comes in and says, I got it, Mr. President, I'll go blame the parents. You'd be like, come on, this movie's over the top, that's crazy. No real person would say, oh yeah, at a time of their grief, when they're eight-year-old, I don't know if you guys are parents out there, but remember when your kids were eight and seven, and if your kids died, and then this person comes out and goes, oh, don't worry, I got this, I'm going to blame the parents.

I'm going to say in their time of grief, it's your fault. You shouldn't have tried to save your kids from the situation they were in, okay? How dare you do that? I'm going to blame you for it. Well, but they're not in charge of the facilities. They're not in charge of the hospital. They're not in charge of the doctors. You are.

Yeah, I know, but I don't want the blame. So I'll just blame the parents. It's just, it's monstrous. And by the way, to Anna's point, the number of crossings were similar under Obama and Trump. But kids weren't dying under Obama. Why? Because we actually followed regular procedure. There's a reason why that procedure existed.

It was to make sure that people didn't die. And so instead, they hold them for profit now. And then when they die, they go, oh, it doesn't matter, who cares? We made the money. We'll just blame the parents. One other thing that never gets talked about. And I think it's very relevant, especially in this conversation. There are Good Samaritans in the country who realize that this is a dangerous journey for

these migrants and they will go out of their way to go into the middle of the desert and leave water behind for the migrants. So they don't die in the middle of the forest. You know what Border Patrol does? They go in and they destroy the water. They destroy the food, they destroy anything that's left behind by the Good Samaritans. Because why? I mean, why would they do that?

I mean, it's just, again, cruel and unusual. And it's something to be expected by individuals employed under the Trump administration. And then when a seven year old dies of thirst, they go, oh, well, I guess it was their parents' fault. Yeah, or maybe you shouldn't have taken away the water that actually the better angels in America had left behind. And oftentimes very religious people who actually want to save people's lives. And you ruin their good work, and then you come out and pretend to be surprised and blame everyone

but yourself. Let's take a break. When we come back, I am going to tell you exactly how much money these for-profit prisons have been making through our taxpayer money due to all of these ridiculous immigration policies in the Trump administration. Unfortunately, the bribery worked perfectly. We'll tell you how much they gave to Trump and how much they got back. It was a really good deal for them, but not for us.

We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. 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.