The Young Turks - $TRUMP Dinner - May 23, 2025

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month Shopify trial and start selling today at ⁠shopify.com/tyt The Trump administration blocks Harvard from accepting international students, citing immigration concerns. Trump escalates his trade war, threatening 50% tariffs on the EU and targeting Apple with a 25% penalty. Donald Trump hosts dinner with investors of his memecoin. Hosts: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Wosny Lambre SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. There's some problems. Drop it like it's a random tariff threat out of nowhere. All right, power paddle on the Young Turks. Jank Uger, John Iderola, Wazdi L'Alambre. All right, so John's, of course, the host, Damage Report.

Was is a staff writer at the Ringer, and he's the host of Waz speaks, which makes sense. And today he will. Yeah, I almost thought about calling this show, Jank Talks. But, you know, or throwing the kitchen sink at it. But decided against it. Okay. So a lot to get to in the show today. So Donald Trump tries to beat his own record for corruption.

We'll have that soon. He tries to ban Harvard. At least some students from Harvard. We'll have that soon for you guys. And then a little bit later in the program, John Stewart has a new motto for the Democratic Party. I don't think they're going to like it. And I have strong opinions about that topic. I know you guys are surprised.

And then, oh yeah, and then AI is going to take over the world and kill us all. And there's actually pretty good evidence of that. That's also later on the show. All right. But before we all die, let's do the news. John. Okay, let's start off with a little bit of a little bit of a break in domestic news. A judge has blocked the Trump administration's recent move to Harvard University from

enrolling any international students. This is Judge Allison Burroughs, who issued a temporary restraining order against the federal edict, agreeing with Harvard that they'd shown that its implementation would cause, quote, immediate and irreparable injury to the university. Because it would stop them not only in the future from enrolling them, but the current students as well, which is chaotic. And we're going to give you all the numbers about how crazy that would be. But to rewind just a little bit, this move comes after the head of the Department of Homeland Security And enthusiastic dog murderer, Christy Noem ordered the university to hand over all records of international students illegal and violent activities, which is code words for advocating

for a ceasefire, an end to genocide, whatever. And so if this had been allowed to stand, or if it in the end goes through, maybe the Supreme Court will allow it, that would affect fully a quarter of Harvard's student body. About 6,800 international students attended Harvard in the last year. And so that's a significant percentage of their student body of the money that Harvard brings in. It's part of why Harvard is not only known as, you know, this famous and respected American university, but it's known worldwide, partly because people all over the world wants to come here. Well, if it's up to Trump, then that may end. And Christyneau wants to make clear that this isn't just about Harvard. That's just the beginning of much more.

Take a look. This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together. Get your act together because we are coming to make sure that these programs, that you are facilitating an environment where students can learn, where they're safe and that they're not discriminated against based on their race or their religion. Anti-Semitism will not be stood for in any participation with a country or an entity or a terrorist group that hates America and perpetuates this kind of violence. We will stop it.

Okay, so again, a lot of that is just code words. I mean, there's great reporting earlier this week on the close ties, multiple members of the Trump administration have to anti-Semitic organizations and figures. They don't care about that, they're not doing anything about that because this isn't actually about anti-Semitism. It's about cracking down on pro-Palestinian speech, op-eds, signs, whatever. And so, Jenks, she says there, she just wants people to be free, not to be discriminated against while trying to stop anyone born outside of the United States from coming here. That seems a little bit inconsistent.

Yeah, there's a lot of different things here that we got to go over. So first of all, Randy Fine, a Republican congressman said yesterday that we should nuke Gaza. And it's because Muslims know nothing but about violence. And today he said that he would be concerned about going next to a Muslim like Ilhan Omar. So I'm sure that they're taking away all of his funding and there's congressional hearings. No, we're not concerned about Islamophobia or any other problem, only anti-semitism. Now, even if that were true, which it isn't, if only if that were true, that's already disastrous and makes no sense. And by the way, would lead to more anti-Semitism because you're saying we will only protect Jewish Americans.

We will not protect anyone else. So you can say anything you want about Muslims, Christians, Americans, Buddhists, who cares? Level them. Say anything you like, okay? You say something against a Jewish American, oh, we're gonna kick you out of the country. That's gonna lead to way more anti-sevenths. I mean, in fact, that at least point number two, which is that Chuck Schumer and I believe seven other Jewish senators signed a letter saying, don't do this, don't, what are you doing?

No, no, no, no, no, no, don't take people's, you know, Harvard's funding away or anything else like that. They're not in favor of the so called anti-Semitism task force. So what we have here is not just a battle between Trump and Harvard. We have a battle between right wing pro-Israel donors like Miriam Edelson and APEC and everyone else, including all of the other Jewish and not just Americans, but senators and politicians, et cetera. So I don't want anybody to get it twisted like, oh my God, all of the Jews in America have asked for this or some, you know, or the powerful Jews are doing this or that. No, no, no, everybody's divided, totally divided.

This is asked for by ludicrous. Like, and calling them right wing doesn't even do it justice. Absolute radical, pro-Israel pro-genocide donors like Miriam Hidalson. Okay, so now that leads to point number three and the most important point. Mainstream media is so frustrating. None of them even point out, hey, this is to make sure that you should, shut down any critic of Israel. And by the way, Christy Noem says, yes, we will not allow anti-Israel bias.

Not just anti-Semitism, but anti-Israel bias. But to be fair, they also said you can't discriminate against Norway or Peru or Botswana or Cambodia. Oh no, right, they didn't say that about any other country. They just said you are not allowed to do free speech in this country if it's against Israel. It can't be any more blatant than that. And mainstream media is like, I don't say it. It looks like they're having a legitimate effort to come back. anti-Semitism but maybe perhaps they've gone a little too far and then on the

side they say Harvard says they might not comply but do they ever say this is not a legitimate fight against anti-Semitism almost all the Democratic and not even Democratic but Jewish senators overall in Congress are against us so how could it be you know battling anti-semitism etc no no no no no no no God forbid anybody on cable news should accurately point out that some donors that favor Israel obviously control our politicians. And this is in the context of Donald Trump, they've called every dirty name in the word. I'm sorry, every dirty word in the in, in the world, right? So it's not like cable news is shy about criticizing Donald Trump. But when it comes

to his action supporting Israel, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's pretend this is about anti-sevist. Let's pretend this is about fighting hatred overall. No, this is, this is cold, hard cash from pro-Israel, and they're not just pro-Israel, a lot of people are pro-Israel. Pro-genocidal current Israeli government saying, finish the genocide, finish the genocide, and don't let anybody in America criticize Israel. And the dogs, which is ironic, Kristy Noem, I thought you shot dogs. But anyway, the dogs of this administration like Kristy Nob and Donald Trump go, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, how can I serve you, Mr. Netanyahu?

And cable news is like, I don't see it. I don't see donors affecting politicians. Oh, that would never happen. That sounds conspiratorial. Anyway, it was. Yeah, I mean, they're doing the thing where they conflate being pro-Israel with being Jewish, when we know that's just not true. The pro-Israel faction has evangelicals in it.

Those people love Jesus. Neocons, obviously. And then of course, there's the Israel lobby who, just love this regime and want to tamp down any level of protest, be it nonviolent or otherwise. And that's why they're behaving in such an aggressive manner. Like if the objective was for universities to make sure Jewish students weren't being discriminated against, everybody would get behind that. Nobody would think that was a terrible thing to do, but we know that's not what it is. Like the pro-Israel sort of faction in our country, the

coalition, if you want to even call it that, it's not just Jewish people. And, you know, the funny thing too to me about these evangelicals who also are just so gung-ho about this Israel stuff is that they're gung-ho about it because they want, they think the rapture is going to happen and Jesus is going to come back and kill all these Jewish people anyway. Like, it's so strange the bedfellows that end up lining up on the pro-Israel camp. But I think the reason why they're taking such an aggressive posture is because they are just losing the, you know, propaganda war. They just, nobody is behind this. Absolutely nobody supports it. The entire Democratic Party base has completely turned against Israel and this war. Even Republicans are now,

most Republicans, except for, you know, a faction of older Republicans, don't support this war. And that's why they have to be so aggressive in tamping down speech. Yeah. In terms of tamping, I have only been doing this for like 13 years or whatever, but I've been new following politics since roughly around 2001. And not everything is worse than it was back when George W was president. Like there were plenty of terrible things happening back then. But I was thinking about like these these two times when they've tried to really clamp down on free speech, they've really like gone in hard against Muslims in America. And like when they did it in the wake of 9-11,

They took a terror attack that some Muslims had committed. And then that was it basically for your civil liberties and civil rights. If you were Muslim in America, they were infiltrating groups and everything. They were passed the Patriot Act. So like some Muslims committed a terror attack. And then that was it for the rights. In this case, it's crimes being committed against Muslims like war crimes, genocide against Muslims and we're also still going to take your rights away. Like you're not even the ones who are doing it. It's you are facing the genocide. It's your land that we're talking.

about stealing and don't you dare talk about the fact that you're the target of the most heinous war crimes we've seen in living memory. I mean that's again, not everything's worse than it was 20 years ago, but I feel like this is pretty significantly worse. And also on the actions against Harvard, like it has been moving so quickly. Like they came up with this thing where you can't have international students. Again, not everyone can't. It's very targeted. That's how the Trump administration works right now. Everything is individual individualistic personal against organizations, corporations, law offices, an individual. They're doing this to Harvard.

They already, they froze $3 billion in contracts. They want to tax just their endowment. It is so specific and biased. And that's the way they're operating. They talked about the Biden administration, his DOJ doing this weaponizing, going after against individuals. But Tom Homan is demonizing AOC talking about locking her up on a daily basis. They're doing charges against politicians.

They're strong arming law offices into providing this pro bono services. They've taken their individual donors and they shut down all the investigations, all the fraud and all that on their corporations. Like I don't, it's not just that we're seeing more of this type of stuff, biased, weaponized government. I feel like we're seeing more of it than there has been in the rest of our lives all in the period of about three months. And I just wonder how much worse it can get over the course of a full four-year term.

Well, there's no question. This is as bad as I've ever seen it. seen it. So Trump, I'm sorry, Bush was worse than other ways. He invaded Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of people died. It's hard to get worse than that. And he restarted torture, so and warrantless wiretapping, and crashed their economy and sunk New Orleans. So he did a lot of terrible things. And by the way, destroyed the budget. And past tax cuts even bigger than Trump's. So I get all that, right? But in terms of constitutional violations, and constantly overreaching and cracking down ironically on freedom of speech and freedom

overall, oh, this is easily the worst administration. I mean, I get asked every single day online. Well, if you're so anti-establishment, why'd you vote for Kamala Harris? This is why I voted for Kamala Harris, because Trump said before when he lost the 2020 election, that we should terminate the Constitution. He has no respect for the Constitution at all. then immediately gets in, starts talking about how he's going to run again when he obviously that's unconstitutional. And it's just gotten worse and worse. Oh, we are sending undocumented

criminals to a dungeon in El Salvador. Oh, just kidding. Some of them are not undocumented. Oh, in fact, some of them are legal. In fact, some of them have court orders saying we are not to deport them. And we did it anyway, because who cares about court orders? Then Stephen Miller comes out and goes rid of habeas corpus, established, you know, back in the Magna Carta, one of the cornerstores of Western civilization, yeah, we might throw that in the trash and then burn it, right? So these are these are dangerous guys. Now at the same time, I mean, Wads alluded to it earlier, they've got a rebellion going on in their own right wing ranks. I know if you're on the left and you know you watch other shows, you're totally unaware of that

because they'll tell you no, they're all robots, they're all in a cult, they all think the same exact way, et cetera. so you don't know that that's not at all true. Like there's an open rebellion against Israel for sure. I think the Dave Smith, Douglas Murray debate on Joe Rogan was a tipping point. And at that point, Maga started mocking people who are demanding obedience to Israel. Pures Morgan the other day saying that's it. It's definitely a genocide is another tipping point. And they're getting tipping point after tipping point.

Candice Owens the other day. And look, I'm not saying that she's someone you should trust or rely on. I'm saying what is happening within right wing ranks, okay? Cannes owns this huge speech about how we've all been lied to and that there's nothing wrong with Muslims. We were all told to hate Muslims so that we would fight Israel's wars in the Middle East. And you're telling me that there's no dissension on the right? No, the right's an open revolt and it's about to boil over.

And when that happens, I don't know what Trump's gonna do. And again, if you watch other left wing shows, they'll tell you. No, no, no, once Trump says, you are all dogs of Israel, Maga will immediately fall in line and they will all become dogs of Israel. That's not true. I'm saying it now. I said it, by the way, at the beginning of the Trump administration when absolutely no one believed me, okay?

So I'm telling you right now, there's no way that all of those shows that have already come out and said, why are we still funding Israel? Why are we talking about in attacking Iran on behalf of Israel? Why did we not get the Epstein files? They're all going to turn around and go, oh, yes, sir, of course, sir, we should all serve Netanyahu loyally and Israel should be first. It's not going to happen. And so here, here's another case for you guys. I say things ahead of time.

Everybody else does Monday morning quarterback, okay? So if it turns out, no, I was wrong. None of the right wing shows flipped on him. And when if he attacks Iran or does all these things, they will all say, oh, of course, sir, we love war, sir, we love Israel, sir. Then I was wrong. And then you say, oh, you're okay, I'm not going to watch young tax anymore. That guy doesn't know anything.

But if it turns out that the right wing is an open revolt, and we were right about that, maybe you should think about who's telling you the truth and who's hiding the ball from you. Was, what do you think? Just a couple of things. I like that John brought up 2001 and 2002 time, where, You know, right now with the bludgeon that they're trying to use against people is this quote unquote anti-Semitism if you don't believe that 14,000 babies should die of starvation, right? They're using anti-Semitism back in 2002. It was patriotism. It was like, if you don't think we should invade Iraq, if you don't think we should start as many wars as possible, you are a treasonous, traitorous, bad American. That's the cudgel that they used to silence people. And, you know, what I would say about Trump. Trump is like, yes, he's horrible, but all of the stuff that he's doing has precedents in previous

presidencies and especially the 9-11 era George Bush presidency where, you know, all of this stuff that Jenk mentioned, torture and the Patriot Act and all of this stuff was just an insane increase of presidential power. And Donald Trump is taking those cues and escalating them to, you know, quite disturbing degree. But yeah, none of this stuff is new. Yeah. I'll say one other quick thing. That whole charge of anti-semitism worked like a charm for about 50 years straight, right? The minute is slightest critique of Israel, anti-Semite, your life is canceled, right? You're banned from cable news, which by the way, I'm banned from cable news. I don't know if that's why, okay? There's a lot of things that happen where I'm

like, I don't know why that happened. There might be a bunch of different reasons. Anyway, your career is ruined, et cetera, et cetera. Now that stuff, there's too many things going over the wall. They can't contain it, right? And against the left, it works pretty well because you get triggered. Oh my God, I've been called a dirty word. I apologize profusely, right? I'm so sorry. That's like, anyway. With the right, go ahead. Keep calling them anti-Semites. I dare you. Keep calling them anti-Semitic, basically racist, bigoted. See how that turns out for you. Yeah, because the right wing loves being called words like that. So keep doing it, Douglas Murray, keep doing it, Mark Levin, keep doing it Ben Shapiro,

Miriam Adelson, go ahead, Israel first. Keep calling MAGA anti-Semitic and see how it turns out for you. My guess is it's not going to turn out very well. And guys, I don't know what's going to happen when both the voters of both parties say, that's it, we're done with Israel. I'm not gonna fund one more dollar to kill one more baby in in Palestine. And by the way, good Christians, pro-life Christians. It's incumbent upon all of us, I'm not singling you out.

But my whole life, I have heard for 40 straight years in this country about big-hearted Christians who always helped the needy. And I believe it. This would be the time. Over 16,000 children slaughtered in Gaza. And now the cabinet of Israel is saying, oh no, we're gonna slaughter a lot more than that. We're going to drive them out of the country. We're going to take all of Gaza. And if you dare complain, not only will we, you know, if you're a student, we'll take

your diploma away, we'll arrest you, will deport you. And if you're a university that doesn't take drastic action to ruin the lives of anyone who criticize Israel, including in a benign op-ed, if you don't do that, we'll take away all of your funding, the cancer research, et cetera. they're they're poking the bear poking the bear and at some point that bear's going to get up and it's not going to be pretty we should probably take our first break but lots more to get to after that all right this episode is brought to you by square you're not just running a restaurant building something big, and Squares there for all of it, giving your customers more ways to order,

whether that's in-person with Square kiosk or online, instant access to your sales, plus the funding you need to go even bigger, and real-time insights so you know what's working, what's not, and what's next. Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca to get started. All right, back on TYT, Jake, John, and was with you guys. John, what's next? Okay, let's jump into some corruption, starting with this. 220 winners of a contest to meet President Trump, the top holders of his crypto coin. I don't know much about it other than I launched it.

I heard it was very successful. NBC News has learned each dinner gas paid between $55,000 and $37.7 million for the Trump coin. Donald Trump's dinner is a, is a an orgy of corruption. So that got even grosser than it already seemed with the orgy of corruption. But she's Elizabeth Warren is not wrong. This is one of the most corrupt things I can think of in terms of the presidency. Anything following up the $400 million plane is going to seem slightly smaller by comparison. But Donald Trump did bring over 200 of those who've given him the most money for his cryptocurrency, handed him money, they got nothing in return. And because most

Americans don't have any investments, these 220 are the elite of the elites. And they got to do this dinner with Trump. Now there was an elite of the elite elites. The top 25 had an ultra-exclusive private VIP reception from him. You can see a little photo promoting that. They describe it as an intimate private dinner, which is very exclusive. I don't even think he does those with Melania, but these 25 people did get to do that. So they're in a lofty company there. And we don't know who the identities of all the investors are, which is going to save journalists a lot of time,

because if you had to look into all these people who are bribing the presidency, like, you're not going to get any sleep this weekend. So Ken Klippenstein will be able to relax a little bit. But anyway, we know that many of them aren't American. These are just foreign executives of companies, foreign billionaires, just handing over money to Donald Trump. One of them that we do know about is Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire who runs the crypto platform Tron. He spent more than $40 million on Trump coins. Back in 2023, he was charged with market manipulation and offering unregistered securities. And in February this year, Trump's SEC agreed to a 60-day pause on the suit in order to seek a resolution. And so,

Maybe Justin's son wants something in the future for the $40 million he gave Trump, or maybe this is him paying back what he's already gotten. But I really, before we jump into the discussion, I just want to make sure everyone knows, we've had these big dinners before where politicians get handed millions of dollars and you sit and you do a photo and you eat salmon or whatever it is that rich people do with these things. But that money is like only mostly a bribe. It goes to a pack or it goes to their reelection campaign. They can't technically use it. This just went directly in a Donald Trump's bank account.

Tens of thousands, millions, tens of millions of dollars from individual people going directly to Donald Trump. You don't even get to know who they are. And then they get to just hang out with Trump. And he doesn't have to pay them back for that. But if he'd like them to buy millions more dollars of his cryptocurrency, he definitely could make promises to them. And so, Jank, I mentioned the plane.

I don't know how this compares to that. That I keep calling the biggest bribe in world history. This is a little bit more distributed, but this also feels like about the most corrupt act I've ever seen a president engage in. Yeah, no, this is as direct as it gets. Because there's two reasons why this is the worst bribes I've ever seen in American history. And that is saying a lot given how we've institutionalized and legalized bribery in this

country. So number one is what John pointed out. This is not a campaign contribution. It goes directly into his pocket. So no ends if served butts. The campaign contributions are legalized bribes, in my opinion, and an opinion of any rational person. These are not legalized bribes. These are just bribe bribes. They're old school bribes. Okay. The second reason is because of the nature of the vehicle that they are putting the money into. So to give you, Now back up to Justice Son, the guy that John mentioned, and he's the poster child for this. Although there are many people from all across the world at that dinner, and we'll talk a little bit more about how many foreign investors came to that dinner, including a Korean

guy who was saying, yeah, I came here to influence the president in my direction, you know, because they think, I guess, bribery's legal in America. So he's letting me do it. Everybody's letting me do it. So they're just bragging about it, right? But Justin's son is, by the way, a Chinese citizen. I mean, I hear that if you have a Chinese app like TikTok or in any way related to China, that that ban app should be banned, it's super dangerous, etc.

But here comes a Chinese guy to give Trump two different things. One, he gave him $75 million for World Liberty Financial. Now, world liberty financial is a crypto scam that is at least related. to Trump's media companies, which are also a scam and make no money at all or a giant boondoggle. But at least there's something there. You could pretend that Trump's entertainment companies are one day going to be profitable, and somehow World Liberty Financial is related to those. You can keep on stretching on that, but you have something to hang your hat on, right?

And by the way, after you gave the $75 million, the SEC dropped their investigations of Justin's son. Huh, what a wild coincidence, okay? But this new 40 million is a different thing. First of all, the SEC already dropped to investigations. I mean, they could restart it, but it seems like he probably thinks, hey, that's 75 million turned out to be a great bribe. I got out of jail, right? I got out of an investigation, I won't be going to, and I could keep scamming anyone I like, right?

The 40 million, he probably wants something new. Do we know what it is? No, because we weren't at the VIP reception, right? But the 40 million doesn't go into World Liberty Financial. or anything legitimate or even a business. It goes into his, Trump's meme coin. The meme coin is literally worthless. And even the biggest crypto fans in the world will tell you, no, meme coins are definitively

worthless. And you put whatever worth you want into it. And then it just becomes at best an exercise of speculation. Hey, I'll get in at $2 and try to get out at $8 before I lose all my money, because everyone here is going to lose all their money. It's a meme coin, right? It's just, there's no value at all. So that's taking $40 million and depositing in Donald Trump's bank account. Nothing but the most unadulterated bribe you will ever see. Yeah, you guys said it all.

This is literally the definition of pay for play. And to me, this is the fatal flaw of every MAGA diehard's argument to me. Because, I mean, I think there's a myriad of reasons why somebody wouldn't like or want to vote for Donald Trump. Number one for me was always that the guy seems to be completely in it for himself and nobody else. And I don't think that's how a politician should operate. And generally, when you hear MAGA people talk about this obvious fatal flaw in the guy, they'll be like, they'll talk out of both sides of their mouth. It's like, oh, he's so rich already.

He's incorruptible. Then you'd be like, well, why is he cheating on taxes? Why is he running a fake school? Why is he like all of this stuff's for money? Well, he's a businessman. He likes money. So which one is it? Is he imperious to money and its trappings because he has so much of it or does he absolutely love it and therefore is so obviously corruptible?

And this pay for play scheme with the meme coin is just another example of that. These people just come in and again, all I ever heard in previous administrations, oh, the corruption of foreign influence. Oh, foreigners are the enemy. foreigners are messed up. Hunter Biden was working for the Ukrainians. Foreigners. Like most of the people that hold the biggest shareholders in this Trump coin are foreigners. This is by definition, foreign influence and it's right in everybody's face. Yeah, I find myself at a bit of a loss. I think of myself as a generally smart person.

But this whole thing over the past six months, Like, I feel like there's a lot of really fundamental questions that aren't being asked. So like, Duke Cunningham, Jake, you remember him? Yeah. He got in trouble for bribery. I looked it up. One of the things he got in trouble for was he sold his home at an inflated price. It wasn't the market value.

Dude really should have gone into crypto instead because there's no value. You could just do anything you want. They complained that Hunter Biden was selling the paintings he made for too much money just because of who he was connected to. Well, dude wasted his time. Painting, that takes hours. He should have just launched a meme coin, and then I guess he could have taken as many millions as he wanted. Like the money under, like the stall in a bathroom or whatever, why do that in cash launch a meme coin? Anyone can do it. If AOC launched a coin today and said I'm selling one meme coin, whoever gives me the most can have it, and George Soros is like,

I'll give you a billion dollars for that straight to her bank account. That is evidently not illegal in any way. And I feel like this is just such a massive gaping hole in the law that nobody wants to even look at it. Why are there any campaign finance laws anymore? When you can launch a cryptocurrency, you can sell a digital trading card. I can make 30 of them right now on chat GPT in five minutes. We sell a bunch of a million dollars each rich donors can just hand me literally as much money as they want. Doesn't have to go to a pack. No, no disclosure. Just go straight to me. Like, am I an idiot that I'm asking these? Like, I don't understand what any campaign finance laws are meant to accomplish anymore since there's nothing

that can be done at hundreds of millions of dollars being handed over directly to a politician. Yeah. Jank. I'm not trying to ask rhetorical questions. Yeah. Is anyone discussing this? So look, No is a quick answer, but let me give you a bunch of details that are maddening. So the Korean guy that I mentioned earlier is Sangrook O, and he said to the New York Times, because they're brazen, is graphic three. It's kind of a fundraiser for Trump, and he'll always be good to his sponsors. So they're just saying it out loud, yeah, okay.

And it's a fundraiser, not for his campaigns, just for Trump. We're all bribing Trump because he's good to his sponsors. So he'll look out for Korean citizens first. Hey, congratulations America first. That was frustrated. You're frustrated that it was turned out it was Israel first. Oh, no, now you got Taiwan second and then Korea third and Qatar. Well, now Qatar is second.

And then we're going to have to move those guys. It's just an open auction, okay? John mentioned Duke Cunningham. So that guy was a hilarious story, right? We covered that a million years ago. We've been around forever. he did this weeping press conference right before going to prison. And he was like, oh, I'm so sorry, but I found Jesus.

Oh my God, I apologize to Jesus. We found out that just a couple minutes earlier, as he was driving to the press conference, he had loaded up some of the bribes that he had gotten into a laundry bag and tossed it while driving out of the car and onto his wife's front lawn. Okay. Oh, and then just minutes later, he found Jesus. But now, yeah, he's a rank amateur compared to Trump. And he's got to be thinking, I went to jail.

I went to jail for inflating the price of the house and a couple other trinkets. This guy's taking $40 million at a time in unadulcated. The Bob Menendez, the gold bars. Yeah. Could he have just sold? Yes. Yeah. Yes.

I'm going to get to that next. But just so you know, well, who's gonna watch the watchers? No one, Trump has now pardoned several people who have committed white collar crime, almost all of it, financial fraud. By the way, has gotten money from almost all of those folks. There's one guy I can't trace the money from. I don't know why he did it, or maybe they did the meme coin, etc. And we don't know about it, but almost every person that he's released from white collar

fraud charges has given him money in one way or another. And then he fired the white-collar crime investigators at the SEC, the IRS, et cetera. So he's firing every cop that might look into white-collar crime. So who the hell is, even if it's illegal, no one is allowed to prosecute. Imagine a Pam Bondi at the Department of Justice and Cash Patel. We're like, oh, yeah, we're opening an investigation against the president because he's obviously taking bribes. There's a 0% chance of that. Imagine Republican senators impeaching him overtaking bribes.

Zero percent. So there's no law left. This is the lawlessness that I despise. This is the corruption I despise. And let's note the great irony of this brother running a campaign on Drain the Swamp. Please. So now to John's point, it's devastating. And John, I hadn't even quite connected it until you said it.

You're absolutely right. Now every politician is going to open up a meme coin. Like, they'd be stupid not to. And by the way, foreign countries, I mean, now Israel and Qatar will have the biggest auction you've ever seen in your life. All right, now I've got a senator from Texas going once, going twice. Which foreign country would like to buy this, son of a bitch? Okay, he's open and he will not only, you know, serve you loyally, he'll screw over every

American, send over all the taxpayer money to you so you get 10 times, 100 times, a thousand times the money you're bribing him with. And plus, he'll let you sleep with his wife, especially if it's Ted Cruz. So this is the open auction that's going on. And if you're Maga and you said drain the swamp and you think this is okay, you don't have any principles at all. And you're blinded by your bias and you're and then you're a zombie, right? Oh, Donald Trump cannot do corruption, even though it is worthless. I bet they are the foreign influences are giving him $40 million because of their health. and because they love America so much.

And they're saying, golly, gee, Donald Trump, please be more America first. Come on, guys. You'd have to be a moron not to realize this is a bribe. 100%. Yeah, I think we should probably take our second break, right? Yeah, we're getting on into it. But we need to talk a little bit more about some of the recent developments, including breaking developments on the topic of tariffs after this break.

All right back on TYT, Jank, John and Was with you guys, but also Jessica Cato. Jessica, thanks for joining. She hit the join button below on YouTube. You could also do it through t.com slash join, and we appreciate that a lot. I'm gonna read one quick super chat guys, because it relates to the story we did in the beginning. In Guns We Trust wrote in, I'm a right-leaning libertarian, and I'm sick of funding Israel. I'm not anti-Judaism. I'm not anti-Zionist, expansionist, colonial, ethnocentrist. Oh, I am, I was like, wait, I am anti-Zionist, expansionist,

colonial, ethnocentrist. Many Jews like Dave Smith and Norm Finkelstein are great. I would go way beyond that, but I hear you. And no, it is not anti-Semitic to criticize a foreign government. All right, John, what's next? Okay, let's jump into this. Donald Trump is once again ramping up his chaotic and boneheaded trade war, threatening a couple different types of tariffs. The first is a big one, a blanket 50% tariff on all imports from the EU, one of our biggest trading partners, as well as a 25% percent tariff specifically on Apple products unless iPhones are made in America. And so we're going to handle both of these. Well, let's start with the EU. He says it was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the US on trade, which I had forgotten because I haven't been in university for a while, but I'm glad to give us that little history lesson. It's been very difficult to deal with. Again, strange because he's a master negotiator. So then lists all things he doesn't like about them. He says that we have a trade deficit with them, which is unacceptable because again, he doesn't understand what a trade deficit is. He says our discussions with them are going nowhere.

Therefore, I'm recommending a straight 50% tariff on the EU starting in eight days. There is no tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States. Because that's not, why would there be? There's never a tariff on something that's built here. Again, I don't think he knows anything that he is talking about. But look, a 50% tariff on the EU, that's a very big tariff. I mean, collectively on both sides of the trade, we trade nearly a trillion dollars with each other as of last year. So this is very significant. And I thought, well, look, he's clearly having trouble making deals.

He said there'd be 100 and 100 days. Instead, we have most of one. Maybe this is him strong arming them. Like you've got eight days to do some sort of deal. And I thought that that was unlikely to work because, of course, he already put smaller tariffs on them. And the bond market tanked and everybody freaked out. So he retreated from that position. He capitulated. So they already called your bluff. Like, how are you going to bluff him again? But there's actually breaking news. He says, I'm not looking for a deal. There's not going to be any deal. It's just going to be 50%. So I guess the significant portion of that stock market damage, which we are already seeing, that'll be back. And the damage done to bond markets also, I guess, will be back. He's just

saying, if you don't want to pay this tariff, you build the products here. Because he seems to think that they can just set up factories later this month, I suppose. So again, you can't trust anything he says. It's one of the issues he has as a negotiator and as a diplomat is that his word has no credibility because he doesn't stick to it. But he's promising these. And as I said, there's also there's the Apple thing. He potentially wants to add a couple hundred bucks to the cost of every iPhone because he's mad at Tim Cook or sometimes Tim Apple. So, Jank, what do you make at this? Look, I'd like to think that I'm very consistent. And you can see it on tape over the last 20 years. But I think the thing I've been most consistent about is Donald Trump is not bright.

He just doesn't know anything. And he never does. And you know, part of the reason why he doesn't know anything is because he never does any homework. He's the laziest man in America. So like when he's campaigning for himself or golfing, he's got plenty of energy. I'll give him that, right? But if you ask him to read something to learn something before he opens his mouth, no chance he's going to do that. None, right? So every statement he says about this is wrong. But again, Now, let's go to the core of this issue, and you can judge me on what happens next, okay? Because I'm going to tell you what happens next, and then you decide whether I'm right or wrong about it, okay? So 50% tariffs on the EU, mental, mental, okay?

So now, first, I think this time he'll try to be more stubborn because last time he folded like a cheap suit, like instantly, right? So this time he had the statement like, and we're not even asking to do negotiations with the EU. I'm done with them. Right? Yeah, you're going to have 50% tariff on a trillion dollars worth of trade. No, you're not. 50% tariff means that you can't sell any products. People have 15, 20, if they have an amazing business, 25, 30% profit margin.

If you add 50% on top, you're losing money. You don't sell that product. Doesn't make any sense, right? Guys, if you don't know economics and business, it's okay. everybody's got a different job right but I can guarantee you this 50% is not a little number it's a monster number okay in terms of tariffs so what'll happen over you know the next eight days as this leads up to it is the market will start to going down more and more and panic will start to set in and then

people start yelling at Scott Besson and then CNBC will be filled with Trump donors go well look you know we like Trump but I don't know about this come on come on come on and either he'll fold before the eight days up or in In this case, he was going to want to be a little bit more stubborn. He might actually wait till it starts to kick in. And then a little while later, then panic is going to start spreading and spreading. And then he'll fold because, and then of course, he won't say that he folded. He'll say, oh, yeah, EU gave me something back.

Switzerland sent me, they're not, potentially and I might not be in the EU, but still send me some Swiss cheese, okay, and Italy sent me a bribe of a Ferrari. So that's what we got back. I'm such an awesome negotiator, but there's no way a 50% tariff last. That's insane. Was. I think we need to dispel of the notion that America is somehow being taking advantage of by the system that we invented and created for our own ends. Like the global economy functions the way that it did because America made it so to turn around and say, We're being taken advantage of by the thing that we created is insane. Like that's it's just not true. Now, this is my problem with Donald Trump in his trade policy.

It's like the way things are are unsustainable. Like this idea that we make absolutely nothing in America is unsustainable. Like they do need to resure certain types of. manufacturing, not socks and t-shirts, but you know, this high-tech sort of manufacturing that we don't do here. And if Donald Trump was smart, if anybody around him could convince him to have a freaking brain, we would do what China did, which is what? Obviously, we have the biggest consumer market in the world. You want access to our customers? You got to give us access to your technology. You got to make stuff here. We're going to learn how to do it here.

and then eventually do it ourselves. And China would be like, yeah, we know they're taking our tech, but guess what? We want the customers in the meantime. Like having this huge consumer market is our biggest advantage, and that's what we should be pressing. Saber rattling and pretending we're the biggest bully, and we don't need any friends or allies anywhere, and we threaten the EU. Like, it's just nonsensical, and it's not going to work. And iPhones can't be made in America.

The jobs that actual humans do, not very well paying. And it wouldn't be that many jobs anyway. And we don't have the technology. We don't have the machinery. We literally can't make iPhones here. It's just quite nuts, like the stuff that this guy says in public. And it's no wonder that these people on the market are like, you know, basically crap in their pants.

And again, to the earlier point that I made about how freed up and is confident this administration feels to specifically target very, like, I didn't know you could do a tariff against an individual product that only affects one company. I feel like the Constitution kind of has something to say about that with unlawful bills of attainder and everything, but I guess you could do that. So I guess a future Democratic president could put tariffs on Tesla vehicles if Elon Musk stops doing X, maybe trying to buy judicial elections or something like that. I guess you can target individual corporations and products with tariffs to affect policy, which is exactly what he's trying to do. It's a wild time we live in. So real quick on that, John, so later today, not later from now, but after he first made the announcement about Apple, somebody told him, hey, that's illegal. So he came back out and was like, I mean, all iPhones, on iPhones, all smartphones. And so it also applies to Samsung, of course, right?

Yeah, that's actually what I guessed on TDR he would do this morning. Yeah. He probably should have thought of that before announcing this, just so that, I don't know, so the job of the judge who's going to eventually go over this thing will be a little bit harder. It's pretty clear what his goal was here. Yeah. In any event, I think we have time for a final. Hold on, sorry.

Sorry, just one more thing about, or a couple of things about that, John. So on the smartphones, by the way, the iPhones in particular, bank analysts today came out with an estimate of what these tariffs will cause the iPhones to be worth, to cost now. So average is about 1,200, which I'm stunned by how high that is. And they say now the price to go from 1,200 to a minimum 1,500, it might go all the way up to 3,500. Well, ain't nobody buying an iPhone at 3,500, okay, that's not going to happen. And even if it goes to 1,500, you had $300 to anybody buying an iPhone or any kind of smartphone. Oh, forget the stock market. American people will grab pitchforks, right?

They'll go nuts. This is that, this is, it'll make the Biden inflation look like kids, child's play, right? So that's why I say it's totally unsustainable. To Waz's point, you know, it takes at least three to four years to, build a factory. So if we're going to make the smartphones here, we're going to do them in the next administration. And you're really going to keep these giant tariffs for four years until we built those factories? Come on, nobody believes that. No one in their right mind believes that. And lastly, worst case scenario is that the rest of the world realizes, hey,

you know what? Why do we keep giving into this schmuck? He's an obvious bluffer. Why don't we just unite? And if we unite and we cut America out, then America will be in a lot of trouble. And that would be an epic disaster. And he's flirting with it and flirting with it and pushing them to do it. So if the EU starts going to China, India and other places and starts making alliances without us in it, then the era of American dominance is over. So, I mean, that would be intensely ironic for a guy whose slogan was, Make America Great Again. And now all of a sudden Medicaid doesn't look anything like it was supposed to. And it's 95% financed by the federal government is supposed to be a state program.

And the longer we leave it that way, the more permanent that becomes. Right, because people get addicted to the free money. Yeah, so people get addicted to that free money. A thing that you only ever say about the poor is getting some minimal return on the money they pay in through taxes. If it's billions going to Elon Musk or loans that'll eventually be forgiven, going to rich people under PPP or whatever, that's not free money. They're not addicted. It's only the pores that are lazy parasites. But that is Brian Kilmead, a multi-millionaire talking about how people who are in $17,000 a year have it too easy.

And they've had it too easy for too long and they really need to stop sucking off the government. And anyway, there was also some issues with what he said, not just moral issues, but fact. actual issues. It's not free money. We paid for it. That's what taxes are. That's the states getting a return on the money that they paid. Americans pay into it. The states pay those taxes. And also the individual people don't get checks. They're not cash in Medicaid checks. It's going to doctors. It's going to hospitals. The idea that you're going to shame people for having the minimal health insurance that they're allowed to have with their incredibly tight incomes. And you're being told that by that guy that doesn't have to worry about a damn thing for the

rest of his life in terms of his money, in terms of his health insurance is just grotesque. And Kilmead every once in a while, he's one of the few Fox people that can say something that's not actually absolutely god awful. But this is just terrible. And he's not the only one, by the way. We can actually show Maria Bartaromo has been encouraging the Republicans to be even more harsh when it comes to Medicaid. Look, obviously you're zeroing in on Medicaid reform right now. And unfortunately, you don't have any help from your colleagues and the Democrat colleagues. I mean, they are attacking you saying you're going to cut people's Medicaid and yet they can't even stay awake in the meeting, right?

The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the legislation. Congratulations to contain those cuts to Medicaid and health care provisions. Thank you for your work on the House Energy and Commerce. committee. Everybody was, you know, rooting you on. You advanced the biggest Medicaid rewrite in the program 60-year history yesterday. Those changes expected to generate at least 715 billion in savings. But this debate over Medicaid reform is now being framed by Democrats as a life or death issue. Well, you've got $36 trillion in debt. Isn't it time to start looking at the mandatory spending and trying to figure out how you're actually going to cut? I mean, I know nobody wants to

say this. But you've got to cut stuff. like Medicaid, don't you? So, so it's unfair to say that it's cuts as she encourages cuts to happen. She's celebrating the over $700 billion in cuts while pretending that nobody's going to lose their health insurance and also saying the Democrats are being hyperbolic by describing this as life or death. When she's literally talking about health insurance, that's the area of life and death. That's how medicine works. But yeah, it's it's amazing that they can that they can get away.

with this, Jenk. They're just so bloodthirsty at this point. Yeah, so I'm gonna get back to free money because I got a great number to show you guys in a second. First, I'm Bartaromo. She's like, out this $36 trillion in debt. I mean, it's outrageous. That's why I'm in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut for the rich. But let's make sure that we cut Medicaid because that'll show the pores, right? Like, know who your master is. It's people who watch, it's awful CEOs and executives who watch my despicable show, Maria Barteromo says, right? She doesn't care about the debt, she's never cared about the debt.

Every time she talks about the debt, she's a giant liar, she's been in favor of every giant tax cut. All she wants is more money for the rich, that is a whole purpose of Maria Barteromo, okay? Now, next thing is, we asked the poll here in the live show. Show is live, of course, 6 o'clock Eastern every day. And you guys get to participate. And so I'm curious what you guys think is will Republican voters turn on Trump if he cuts Medicaid? Okay.

Oh, look at that, even 59% already saying yes, okay? I might drive that number up because of the number of the stats. I'm about to tell you. First of all, they're going to cut over 8 million people from Medicaid. If you think those are all Democrats, you don't know anything about Medicaid in this country. Okay. So at least half of those folks are Republicans. So there goes four million votes because you think they're going to be like, oh, Trump cut my Medicaid. I guarantee you what they're going to say is, I thought he was going to cut other people's Medicaid. Or I thought

that he wasn't going to touch Medicaid. He said he wasn't going to touch Medicaid. No, no, no. He's a uniparty. He's an establishment Republican who serves the rich. And this is going to be a giant wake up call. By the way, by the end of this process, they'll have cut. 15 million people from Medicaid, okay? So now the next part of that is 62% of Republicans know either have been on Medicaid themselves or know someone else that has been on Medicaid. So when you cut Medicaid, you think there's going to be no consequences for Republicans, you're wrong. So will hardcore MAGA be like, yes, cut, cut more? Yes, they will. But not all of Trump's voters, tens of millions of Americans are hardcore MAGA. A lot of them have no idea

what Trump's about to do and they're gonna get in for a rude awakening. In fact, here's graphic two. In the most recent KFF tracking poll, more than three-fourths of Americans held favorable views of Medicaid, 77%, including six in ten Republicans, 63%. And at least eight in ten independents and Democrats, 81% for independence, 87% for Democrats. So 63% of Republicans like Medicaid and they don't want you to cut it. And they're going to cut it and what is it in service of and that leads me to my final number.

So free money, okay, well, they're cutting a tremendous amount from Medicaid. They're going to also cut from Affordable Care Act and they're also going to cut SNAP. That's food stamps. That's 1.1 trillion in cuts. Well, that's a lot of cuts, okay? I mean, it's kind of terrible who they're cutting from, but at least that's a number, right? So where's that 1.1 trillion? Finally, Maria Barter-Rowman is going to so happy.

because it's going to make sure that we pay down the debt, right? Nope, it is going to tax cuts for people with incomes above $500,000. The entire $1.1 trillion is just for people making over $500,000 a year. It is literally robbing the poor to pay the rich. If you think this is populism, you might want to buy a dictionary. dictionary yeah this is going to be deeply unpopular it's going to be a disaster there's just no way to justify cutting Medicaid which this idea of free money as if it's an extravagance that people are participating in when they go to the doctor

when they're sick like this like that's what they're selling this as people getting free free money, some entitlement or whatever, meaning they get to go to the doctor when they have medical issues. And in order to, again, the richest people in our country, corporations and individuals making $500,000 or more, it's unconscionable. There's just no other way to put it. And if you guys will remember during the previous Trump administration, the most unpopular thing he did. The thing that tanked his, his, his approval rating, the single biggest thing was the tax could that he did the first time. This will be the exact same thing. Yep. And so after you wrecks the economy with the tariffs and then ruins our credit rating

with this giant tax cuts for the rich, then they'll say poor people want too much free money. hilarious. Okay, we're out of time. Everybody check out Waz at the ringer and Waz speaks. Everybody check out John 1 o'clock Eastern every day damage report. And when we come back in the second hour, John Stewart takes on the Democratic Party. I love it. AI planning to kill all of us, hate it. We'll give you both of those stories. We'll be right back. I'm gonna... ...you know. ...that...

...you know.