The Young Turks - Trump Embarrasses Himself During 9/11 Anniversary

Episode Date: September 12, 2019

Trump is making 9/11 all about him. Ana Kasparian, Emma Vigeland, and Ramesh Srinivasan, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. If you like the Young Turks podcast, I think you'll love a lot of the podcasts on the T-Y-T

network. Old school, it's one of my favorites, one of the favorites for a lot of the listeners. Please check that out, subscribe, share it, that makes a big difference, and give it a five-star rating. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Kasperi, and joining me today are Srinivasa? That was perfect. I know I've been practicing. Thanks, Sandra.

Like in front of a mirror. No way. No, I'm kidding. That would be the biggest honor ever. But I think we've done the show enough together for me to get your name right. You got it, you got it. And Emma Biglin joins in as well. By the way, Emma's going to be on the first hour all throughout the week and I love it.

Except Friday. Oh. So just today and tomorrow. Okay, fine. And yesterday and the day before. So watch those clips, especially the one on Tulsi Gabbard. Yeah, yeah. I saw that.

I'll call it at home last night, actually. It was cathartic, yeah. So we have a great show ahead for you. Of course, it is the 18th anniversary of 9-11. We're gonna talk about that a little bit. Later in the show, we're gonna have a different panel on. And so Ida Rodriguez is gonna join us, and Ashley Marie Preston will also join in. We're gonna have a discussion about a new law that passed in California that would help

solve the pain and suffering workers are dealing with in the gig economy. response to it is unbelievable and disgusting, so I'll give you the details on that and more. Before we get to all the stuff we have planned though, I do want to give you a few announcements. First off, as always, if you are interested in moving your money to a financial institution that actually has some ethics, look into Aspiration. Aspiration.com slash TYT, they pay you interest on the savings account, and they ensure that your money isn't invested in questionable corporations or fossil fuel companies. Also, ShopTYT is looking for submissions for their latest climate change shirt design.

So if you're interested in submitting your artwork, shoptyt.com, all you need to do is go to the website, tyt.com slash notice, tyt.com slash notice. And you will receive either $100 or shop TYT merchandise in the equivalent value if your design is chosen. And also, let's keep it real, it'd be awesome to have your design as part of one of our shirts. This week we are going to do special coverage of the debate taking place in Houston. So make sure you check that out. And Jank Yugar is also going to be in Houston for a rally that will take place.

So debate coverage is gonna happen tomorrow night beginning at 11 p.m. Eastern time, 8 p.m. Pacific. And then the Houston rally is also going down before the debates take place. You can find more information about that at t.yt.com slash rally. And then one more little announcement, I will be on Cuomo prime time tonight. So please check it out. I'll be on live close to the top of the hour, 6 p.m. Pacific time, 9 p.m. Eastern. That's awesome. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, I love going on there because it gives me an opportunity to share a progressive perspective and oftentimes debate someone on the right. Yeah, and Cuomo should get credit for putting you and Jank on pretty regularly.

Yeah. It's one of the few shows on TV, cable news that's putting progressive voices on. Well, you know, to his credit, he's one of the only members of media who actually uses his TYT membership. Remember, we had that membership drive, and he's like, all right, I'll check it out. And so this is how you win people over, this is how you persuade people, it's by sharing a message and doing so in a thoughtful and civil way, and so I do give Cuomo a lot of credit for that. All right, now with that said, let's get to the news.

I was down there and I watch our police and our firemen down on 7-Eleven down to the World Trade Center right after it came down. There's Donald Trump back in 2016 referring to 9-11 as 7-Eleven and some might think, what's the big deal? I mean, it was just a little mistake, a little slip of the tongue. But Trump unfortunately has made 9-11 about him over and over again. Today is the 18th anniversary of that tragic day. And Trump again has decided that he is going to make this about him. him and airing his grievances. So first, he started off the day with a tweet that did commemorate 9-11.

It features Melania Trump and himself in a photo that says we will never forget. But only 10 minutes after that, he started attacking Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve demanding lower interest rates. He also complained about an ABC Washington Post poll that shows that his approval ratings are dismal and continue to fall. He was whining about polling that shows Americans are worried about a recession, and they should be worried because Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump's own acting chief of staff, told GOP donors that it's very likely a recession is coming and buckle up.

And then finally, he also lashed out on fake news, which is just a typical thing that Trump does on a daily basis. But I do want to show you how Trump has responded or talked about 9-11 in the past. Let's start off with this next video, which shows him talking to a reporter on the day of 9-11. Did you have any damage or did you know, what's happened down there? Well, it was an amazing phone call. I made 40 Wall Street actually was the second tallest building in downtown Manhattan. And it was actually before the World Trade Center was the tallest.

And then when they built the World Trade Center became known as the second tallest, and now it's the tallest. So on the day of that terrorist attack that has changed this country. He has decided, you know what, it's a good, good chance for me to promote how tall my building is. Yeah, and he also, conservatives are the ones who are supposed to care about this religious observance of 9-11. Now, 9-11 was an insanely awful tragedy, and we should be commemorating all of the victims and their families and everyone in New York who had to feel the repercussions of all of this and the Pentagon and all the other planes that went down.

But at the same time, leftists aren't the ones who are saying, oh, you need to be this sad at this point, and you need to be exactly as repentant as we would expect that. That comes from the conservative side, but because he's a part of their tribe, they explain away all of his behavior, when if Obama had called 9-11-7-11, that's all we would be talking about for two months on end. I mean, we don't even have to go back to years ago. I mean, we could just talk about something that happened, what, a few months ago with Representative Ilhan Omar.

And she's talking about the treatment of Muslims after 9-11, and because she didn't use the exact wording that Republicans deem appropriate, they attacked her as some terrorist who's a believer in Sharia law. I mean, every attack you could imagine Representative Ilhan Omar has had to deal with. At the same time, you have our press. President, on a regular basis, either using 9-11 for financial gain, and I'll give you some details on that in just a second, or more importantly, saying things that are so incredibly insulting to the victims of 9-11, making it all about him and his narcissism.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, there's just a clear pattern again and again and again, and I feel on a daily basis we see it, which is Trump's main comments are generally about himself. about himself, it's about I'm right, and therefore you and everyone else are wrong. But outside of that kind of craziness and that pathology, I think you made a great point there, Emma, that I want to kind of pick up on, which is really about who gets to dictate or shape the conversation we have about 9-11, right? A 9-11 has profoundly transformed this country, not just historically, not just in terms of memory, not just in terms of commemoration, but in terms of military policy.

aggression across the world, the increased growth of our military budget more than ever. And so for me, here on 9-11, 18 years later, I remember very vividly where I was on 9-11. And it's an opportunity here for us to think about where have we gone since then? What did that mean for us? And what might have been another response? And what are paths we can take right now moving forward? But we're the only people doing that reflection? The Republican Party, this is the same party that tries to kill 9-11 first responders

bills every time they come up, health care for those first responders. And yet they're the ones outraged at Ilhan Omar for not using the exact right wording when it's really their outrage that she wears a headdress and is a Muslim person representing a district in Congress. And that's really what it comes down to. It's a political prop to them. 9-11 means what they wanted to mean and when they wanted to mean something at all. That's a great point.

And I also want to add to your list of how 9-11 changed us and in a lot of ways changed us for the worst by adding the fact that our civil liberties were taken away. Unfortunately, many Americans bought into the fear mongering that we heard from the Bush administration and we allowed our privacy rights and certain civil liberties to just slip away out of fear. And I don't say that to insult Americans. I say that because you're absolutely right, it's an opportunity to reflect and to learn from our mistakes and really question what the best path is to move forward. I mean, and Emma, to respond to you, I agree, Republicans are certainly worse when it comes

to this situation, but there are Democrats who have certainly signed on to and have never questioned the Patriot Act. They have voted along with defense spending and they've been pretty complicit in some of the unnecessary wars we've gotten involved in, not all Democrats, but certainly the ones who are willing to accept that defense money spending as well. So this is an opportunity to hold lawmakers accountable and reflect on how we further victimized Americans after that tragic day, because that is what's happening. And we further victimized people in other countries because of what happened on that day.

Civilians, innocent civilians who had nothing to do with it whatsoever. And let me just note that there were Saudis, of course, involved in. in that tragic day, and we are fighting their war on their behalf in Yemen right now. That is what Trump has signed on to, and he does not question. And any time our lawmakers try to reverse course, Trump vetoes it. Well, it's a genocide, not just a war, which I feel like our viewers should know. And I just want to kind of emphasize the point that not only did we give up our privacy, our civil liberties, but it was also, there was an incredible amplification of Islamophobia

that emerged out of 9-11. that existed before, but it was taken to another level. We see the continuation of the Afghan war today. And so I just want to challenge us all to think about what does leadership look like in the context of 18 years after an attack, right? What does that type of leadership look like? Is it about militarism? Is it about reacting in an angry and intense and inflammatory way?

Or is it actually now about setting a new path forward? Exactly. So I wanted to note a few other things, because it wasn't just, Trump racking about his building or getting 9-11 wrong and saying 7-11 instead, he actually took advantage of that tragic event for some government funding. So back in 2002, George W. Bush signed into law budget containing some $20 billion in dedicated funding for New York's recovery. Two billion was earmarked for distribution by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation

and the Empire State Development Corporation. About a quarter of that, some 500 million, was explicitly set aside for helping small businesses in the area recover. Now, what did Trump do? Did he take advantage of that? Of course. Among the 8,214 early recipients was 40 Wall Street LLC, the most valuable building in Donald Trump's portfolio of properties.

Trump applied for and accepted the money, despite the fact that as he acknowledged in an interview with a German news show immediately after the attacks, the property, quote, wasn't fortunately affected by what happened to the World Trade Center. So this man who talks about the need for entitlement reform and talks about the so-called moochers who are living in poverty and need government programs, he'll turn and say those insulting things about them. But when he isn't an actual victim, his building hasn't been damaged from a tragic event, he has no problem applying for and taking federal money.

He's disgusting. And the complicity of someone like Rudy Giuliani, who was a major part of. of his campaign and who was mayor during this time, and he never lets us forget it, that he was mayor on 9-11, and that was his fear-mongering way to gain more political power, stood by his side knowing the corruption that happened when he took those federal funds, because as someone from New York, the entire financial district down there was ravaged for years and years in businesses are literally just starting to recover right now. It's still, in some ways, it goes down at night, but it took so long for those small

actual small businesses to gain traction once again. So to have this grifter come in and actually take the federal funds that they're supposed to be for small businesses in a city that I love and live in, it's just another layer on top of the things that he does that are so harmful. And he did it before he was even an elected official. So the destruction of him knows no bounds. Yeah, he's a scammer. And he has, like many politicians, also used 9-11.

for political gain and has lied about his efforts in the recovery. Take a look. Everyone who helped clear the rubble, and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit. But I want to tell you, those people were amazing. Clearing the rubble, trying to find additional lives, you didn't know what was going to come down on all of us, and they handled it. Trump also claimed many of those affected were firefighters, police officers, and other first responders. And I was down there also. But I'm not considering myself a first responder, but I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there with you.

Well, Richard Alice, who was one of the firefighters, actually he was the chief of the fire department in New York. He fact checked Donald Trump and said, quote, I spent many months there myself, and I never witnessed him. He was a private citizen at the time. I don't know what kind of role he could have possibly played. Besides deeming himself a first responder. So maybe if he is called a first responder, then the Republicans don't need John Stewart to go publicly shame them into voting for health care for those first responders. So how about that?

Trump, we can make a deal here. You can get to call yourself a first responder if you continue to fund the health care for the actual first responders who pulled bodies from the rubble, who pulled women, children, men from all of these dangerous situations and who are now getting cancer and who can't breathe after doing that. You can vote through their healthcare and then maybe you get to call yourself a first responder. And I think there's a common playbook here, which is it's in moments of great shock, in moments of disasters where you see various sorts of policies enacted and that actually can

be incredibly debilitating and they really, they really select who counts and who doesn't, right? Look at us right now, 18 years after, you know, this incredible event, this traumatic event, we can't get first responders health care, but our military budget has blown up. So it's very clear in those moments, as per like Naomi Klein's shock doctrine, or what she calls disaster capitalism, in those disasters are opportunities to pivot and take power, political lasting power. And that is exactly what the Republican Party has done over and over again. It's just, it's devastating and we're supposed to learn from history.

We're supposed to change course depending on the outcome of our policy decisions. And you know, Bush was a complete and utter disaster, but when it comes to foreign policy, think about what happened when Obama came into the executive branch. He not only continued Bush era foreign policies, he expanded upon them. And the numbers of civilians who died because of drone strikes and civilian strikes, I mean, we have to take ownership of our own foreign policy and we need to learn lessons from them. Unfortunately, we don't see that type of lesson learned by our own politicians, our own representatives.

And President Obama had an opportunity to get into that office and restrict the powers of the executives so that someone like Donald Trump couldn't come in and within, what, 14 months, 16 months already kill more civilians in Iraq and Syria than Obama did in his entire presidency. He killed a lot. So even though he identifies himself as someone on the left, he certainly was far to the right and authoritarian when it comes to the powers of the executive. I mean, there's an expression. I really appreciate in moments like this, which is history is what's happening.

And so we can really see that right now on today. Yes, we have to take a break. When we come back, we are going to give you an update on what's happening to refugees from the Bahamas. Donald Trump is an unbelievably bad person. I know it's not shocking at this point, but the way that he's treating these people is unbelievable. And later, we will also discuss some of the other ramifications of what happened on 9-11,

including the waste of our resources in Guantanamo. We'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-E-N-F-TR. 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-B-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 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.

Welcome back to TYT, Anna Ramesh, and Emma with you. So I was gonna wait to promote this and I'm don't worry everyone's gonna freak out because I didn't warn you guys about it But I guess the cat's out of the bag. It's all over the internet. I'm gonna be at Politicon I'm gonna be in conversation with Tommy Laren Who told? Well a bunch of people were tweeting me and stuff about it so I was like how do they know? But yeah, I guess they made it public already so I will be there That's the only event I'll be doing at Politicon. It's in Tennessee this year

So if you are in the area, please come because it would be great to have your support. We don't have a home game advantage this time around, right? Is it in Nashville? It's in Nashville, yeah. Okay, that's a fun city. You guys have no excuse. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Kyle Kalinsky will be there as well.

So please check it out. I just posted information about it on my Instagram if you're interested. Anna Casparian official is my Instagram account. All right, let me read a few member comments. Gabby Marita writes it and says, three days of Emma and row are still awesome, especially after that amazingly hilarious old school last night. It was so fun. We really needed it, I feel like.

You know, my dream is to get the country on the right path and then go back to what the Young Turks was supposed to be, which was that. It was supposed to be old school, just like a fun talk show where you know, but, you know, things got real with politics, so it was kind of a little bit of an understatement. Yeah. Cray Cray Soufley says, Cuomo needs the ratings not to mention ideas for his show. At least he has TYT taste, go get him, Anna. You know, yeah, and look, I don't agree with Cuomo on some things.

But to be fair, he seems to be one of the only cable news hosts who pushes back on, let's say, Trump surrogates or people that we tend to disagree with. And you don't see that a lot in cable news. Usually it's like, all right, I'm the host, I'm now going to sit back and let these two fight. and then I'll come in when the segment is about. And even on his own network, he's, yeah. Yeah, so it's not, we can be critical of the mainstream media, but also say within the confines of the mainstream media bubble, there are some people that do better jobs than

others, and he certainly does a better job than others. Yeah. Ruth, the dog-faced girl, says, thank you for pointing out the first responders are not being given health care. It's a lie that the government cares about them. So, you're right, I mean, we covered that story and it was ridiculous that John Stewart had to get involved and had to publicize the fact that Congress was really stalling on funding the health care for first responders. But luckily, they did get that done. He does it every year, though.

It's literally every year. They try to get away with cutting it. Stop trying. And then I'm going to read from Little Sebastian, because I love your handle. And this is from TYT Live. We took down the Soviets for not wanting to take care of the first responders at Chernobyl, but we let Republicans have their way. But if we let Republicans have their way, the 9-11 first responders would be left in the dust.

Absolutely. Good point. All righty, so let's give you an update on what's happening to refugees in the Bahamas. Donald Trump is refusing to provide temporary protected status to refugees from the Bahamas. These are individuals who have been displaced as a result of the destruction from Hurricane Dorian. And two of the islands in the Bahamas have been completely destroyed. They are, no one is able to live there.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated at this point. As of Monday, NBC is reporting that 1,500 victims of Dorian had arrived to the United States. The New York Times reported a different number, 4,000. And right now we're unsure as to how many refugees have entered the United States. But Donald Trump is essentially saying, yeah, I mean, I guess they can come in, but I'm not going to give them a temporary protected status, which is really important because that protected status gives them the ability to work. It provides a worker's visa.

So while they're here and while they're trying to get their lives back together, they can at least earn some money. I mean, just coming into the United States isn't enough, what are they supposed to do after that. And by the way, before I open this up to the panel, I do want to remind you of what Donald Trump had to say about these refugees earlier this week. Take a look. To be very careful. Everybody needs totally proper documentation because look, the Bahamas had some tremendous problems with people going to the Bahamas that weren't supposed to be there. I don't want to allow people that weren't supposed to be in the Bahamas to come in to the

United States, including some very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers. So we are going to be very, very strong of that. This is the way Donald Trump responds to people who have literally lost everything in the destruction of this hurricane. His mind immediately goes to bad people. Why? Why?

Why does his mind immediately go there? It's both a personal sort of way in which he sees others and obviously wreaks of racism. But it also speaks to a particular strategy that occurs when, again, disasters like this occur. And we see how climate change in this example has such real effects in terms of not just on people's lives, but politically in terms of picking the winners versus picking the losers, right? And so in this sense, we see how Trump rhetorically is able to describe these people as gang members, et cetera, et cetera, as a way to actually basically discriminate against these people from having the type of status that we would want in terms of showing leadership around

climate change. Well, imagine if this hurricane had completely decimated an island like Bermuda, right? Another island where rich people go more so, and they hide their money there. So they're actual criminals too. They just look a little bit more like Donald Trump except less orange. And they are able, and they hide their money there, and that's criminal. But Donald Trump doesn't see them as liabilities or people that need. documentation coming into the United States. I really wonder why. And secondly, it trumps

a criminal. Let's keep it real. He's a criminal. Donald Trump has on multiple occasions scammed Americans just to make a buck. He did it with Trump University. He did it to donors to his own charitable foundation, Trump Foundation, so he can buy a portrait of himself and settle his lawsuits with money from that charitable organization. I mean, he rips people off to enrich himself on a regular basis. He is a criminal. It's comical. We all know that it's comical.

But I mean, again, there's a picture of what Donald Trump sees as a criminal, and it's not himself, and it's not people that look like him, even though his entire administration is stacked with people who have done shady thing after shady thing after potentially illegal thing. But it's really just like, okay, so the Bohemians were just waiting to engineer this hurricane with their weather machine or whatever BS he believes that he heard on Alex Jones about the frogs and then they decided to do it just then so all of these criminals and gang members could come here and sell the drugs and do the terror just specifically now.

What kind of convoluted weird world do you live in? That just doesn't exist. People aren't using the hurricane to come here to do crimes. They're using the hurricane to, or they're trying to come here to flee that hurricane. It's really that simple, but when you don't see people that are brown or black as people, It's really easy to ascribe all of these motivations to them that wouldn't normally be there and then excuse your own inhumanity. I think that's a key point, right?

It's the fact that we're talking about people of color. We're talking about generally rural and or working class people, and we're talking about how those sorts of people because of who they are are criminalized, right? But I also think we should look at this very carefully relative to what happens in Puerto Rico. And we should see these things as very consistent with one another. But the other thing I think we should really look at are what are the agendas economically and politically that are going to come amidst this disaster?

What types of contractor work might be engaged? Where is the money going to go? How are we going to take advantage? Not we, us here in this room, but how are systems of power going to take advantage of this disaster to profit and monetize their own pocketbooks? And one other thing I wanted to add is, you know, I see a lot of commentary from the right on social media about how we shouldn't have any type of obligation to even let anyone into the country.

Why? We're a sovereign country. We can make decisions. These aren't U.S. citizens. Why are we going to allow them in? Well, here's the thing. When the United States not only contributed the vast majority of pollution and the vast majority of human activity that led to climate change and to these extreme weather conditions, we're

now perpetuating the pollution. and the activity that has led to this situation to begin with, right? And Trump has rolled back all these regulations. These hurricanes are more intense now. These weather conditions are more severe because of what's happening to our climate. We are responsible for that, partly a great deal responsible. And we do have an obligation to help people when they've been victimized by these severe weather conditions.

But that's the thing. United States, and this is, this is of course true of the Trump administration, but I think it's true of our culture. It's like this unwillingness to really take responsibility and take a good, hard look at who we really are. Like we've bought into American exceptionalism, we've bought into the notion that we're the greatest country in the world. But when push comes to shove, think about the way we've treated other countries and the way

that we've positioned ourselves as bullies oftentimes when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to making decisions about how many refugees to bring into the country or take in, it's gross and it's embarrassing. Yeah, and it's not just exceptionalism. It's also this cult of individuality that's a permeating force in our own culture. So we see each of, we see ourselves as silo as opposed to other nations where they see everyone as a collective. We have for a really long time.

And progressives and leftists have been trying to combat that. But Donald Trump is not only this manifestation of corporatism and corruption and the interweaving of corporate power and government, but he's also a manifestation of that cult of individuality, someone who purely feels like he can barrel through life as one singular person, and that actions do not have consequences that ripple beyond his very immediate circle of people. I mean, even his family members, he doesn't like all of them. But that's the only way his empathy extends is just to his immediate family members. And that is the worst aspects of the individualism that we see on display in the United States.

It's a- No, no, go ahead. It's a manifestation also of racism and isolationism as well. And you know what, climate change, as we know all too well here in the United States as well, does not discriminate based on where you are. I mean, obviously places in the tropics are getting these hurricanes, but we have parts of our country that are in the tropic regions as well. other sorts of disasters that can occur. And in climate change comes a great opportunity.

And I just want to kind of speak to that for us all to come together to realize that all of us are collectively, across the world, collectively implicated in these massive transformations in our climate that are going to be the greatest risk to all of our security. The Pentagon itself reported on this. The Pentagon agreed with what Bernie Sanders said way back in 2016, that climate change is the greatest security risk to our country. So why not in this opportunity do the very basic dignified minimum of just extending temporary status to these people?

Remember in Hurricane Katrina, Cuba sent its doctors to us. We're not best buddies with Cuba. Cuba decided to do that. When stuff hits the fan here in the United States, we're gonna need other people's help as well, other countries' help. So let's do the right thing here. I wanna read a comment from one of our members, Jay Hufford says, you gotta hand it to the Chinese, they really know how to do a hoax.

And I know that that's, you know, it's sarcasm, but I wanted to read it to you because it really does emphasize the ridiculousness of the right wing and in particular Donald Trump who continue this ridiculous notion that climate change isn't real, it's some sort of Chinese hoax. It's obviously not, people are suffering, and we've definitely contributed to it, and then we turn our backs on people who end up refugees as a result of these extreme weather. conditions. By the way, if you want to share your thoughts with us, we read comments from our members

on a regular basis. You can join and become a member by going to CYT.com slash join. All right, so let's move forward and talk about some other news. Since it's 9-11, I thought that this would be an important story to share with you all. There is a new whistleblower who wants to draw attention to the amount of money that is wasted at Guantanamo Bay. A former Guantanamo Bay attorney has actually filed a federal whistleblower complaint claiming that the prison and military court are guilty of both gross financial waste and gross mismanagement.

So let me give you the details on this. And also just a quick reminder that one of the things that was promised under Barack Obama was closing Guantanamo Bay. Obviously that didn't happen. There are 40 prisoners there today. And now I'm about to tell you how much we spend in federal taxpayer money on Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. military court and prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have cost more than $6 billion to operate since opening nearly 18 years ago and still churn through more than $380 million a year, despite

housing only 40 prisoners today. $380 million a year does not include the $60 million annual expense of operating Guantanamo's base or the salaries of military personnel, including the 1,800 guards overseeing the detention center's prisoners. The 40 prisoners, 1,800 guards. That's right. Incredible. These are just some other figures I looked up, so there were 800 detainees in the history

of Guantanamo, 500 were released under Bush, 197 under Obama, and there has been one person that's been convicted. Because this was just a rounding up of brown Muslim people in the wake of now. 9-11, because again, as we've talked about throughout the show, our civil liberties have been able, were able to be completely decimated and internationally, they were just not even acknowledged. I mean, the idea of a quick and speedy trial, these 40 people have been there for what, two decades at this point, or I don't even know the specificities of these detainees, but

they're certainly not receiving habeas corpus rights or constitutional rights to a speedy trial. It's a human rights disaster, and once again, Obama sort of fought to close Guantanamo Bay when it was a central campaign promise that he ran on in 2008. And then the Senate blocked him, a Democratic majority Senate, by the way. And then he was unable to do it, he didn't really push forward. Go ahead. So I just wanted to, I'm really happy that you mentioned that because I want you all to just

juxtapose how Obama handled that with how Trump would handle it if it was something that wanted to do. What would Trump do? Yeah. He just closed it. He'd be like, I'm signing it an executive order. But Obama's so fetishized procedure and the process and all of these BSing, I can't even do that. But you know what I'm trying to do.

Like just why are we even talking about this? It's the right thing to do. This was a torture chamber, forced feedings, beatings, all of these people who largely didn't do anything to the United States. And then they go back to their countries or we drop them off in some random area in the Middle East because we don't care about them. How do you think they feel about the United States now? How do you think they feel? Do you think that they're gonna be warm and fuzzy about us and tell all of their family and friends that, oh, we should be really nice to the United States and their soldiers?

After being tortured. After being tortured needlessly. Yeah. I mean, it's also, Guantanamo is not just a question of disastrous human rights and inhumanity, but it's also an investment, right? Just like our prison industrial complex here in the United States, how many of us here know that our taxpayer money, as you just said, Anna, is going to fund these sorts of corrupt, honestly corrupt appropriations of money that are being used to torture and dehumanize various

people. And so I just think it's really important to loop this in with not only the military industrial complex, but also the prison industrial complex here in our country. Oh, absolutely. That is one of my favorite topics to discuss. Because with the prison industrial complex, we lose so much. First of all, of course, we lose resources that are desperately needed for, I don't know, things like healthcare, taking care of our own, making sure that people have fulfilled healthy lives. But on the other hand, there's an incentive. There's an incentive to imprison people because there's a profit motive behind it.

Exactly. And it's disgusting. And the second largest employer apparently of Americans outside of Walmart are our prison systems. And these are private, again, private contract. and private corporations that our taxpayer money are funding to administer torture and inhumanity. Yes, GEO group, one of the largest for-profit prisons and Corrections Corporation of America, they rebranded themselves recently.

And I always forget their name. But nonetheless, they've, yes, they've worked with Alec, they've worked with lawmakers, they've lobbied so aggressively since the 1980s to pass tough on crime legislation, to pass anti-immigrant legislation and also to put as many nonviolent drug offenders behind bars as possible. And they specifically target low level nonviolent offenders because they are the cheapest to imprison. And then that leaves the state and the federal government with expensive prisoners. I'll just add that this is why in this election with 2020, I'm actually excited because

a couple of the progressive candidates in the Democratic Party, we know who I'm talking about here, especially Bernie Sanders, are have been making the point about the military industrial complex. It's one of the first times I've heard the military industrial complex being voiced this explicitly in a mainstream election in this country. And the fact that we have an opportunity here in this election to challenge that, to challenge that reign of economic and political power, and put money and jobs in the service of our country and in the service of humanity.

Absolutely. We're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including what are we talking about next? Let me see. I wanna tease you guys. Oh, you don't wanna miss this. Tucker Carlson tries to make the case that John Bolton is a progressive. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Oh yeah. 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.

ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today.

Right back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content, while support. Supporting Independent Media, become a member at t.t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. Welcome back to TYT. I want to read a few member comments for you. Hangary Skywalker makes a point that I've been making. Oh, I love that name.

Hangary Skywalk. We've heard from Henry before. And again, these are members. If you're interested in becoming a member, go to tYT.com slash join. The comment is, I bet if the refugees were from Norway. He would have no problem letting them in. Good work, Bart. Eclectic miscellaneous says Politicon is in Tennessee and Anna is going to be appearing.

I'm in Memphis, about three hours from Nashville, but I need to find a way to make it. That's awesome. I really hope you guys can make it. Honestly, one of the things that I wasn't sure if I was going to go, because it's such a terrible climate right now and Politicon sometimes can feel a little like a blood sport, you know? And I'm like, do I really want to be in a different state in the middle of all that? But I do think it's important. Like, I'm going to be able to challenge Tommy Lerrin. You're going to be awesome. It's going to be great. I'm really looking forward to it. So if you guys

can be there and support, that would help me tremendously. So again, I have the details on the day and the time and all that on my Instagram account, I posted something about it. So just go to Instagram.com slash Anna Kasparian, the Anna Kasparian official. Guilatine Revolution says, I'm fine with keeping Guantanamo as long as we can start putting people like Epstein there. Yeah, I mean, look, the problem with Guantanamo was that there was no due process. Well, we all, and torture. And the torture, we don't, on principle, we have to stand for the fact that no one should

be tortured in the United States, not even Epstein. Yeah, I totally agree. And it's egregious, it's on foreign soil, right? Yes, yes. So even less oversight. Right. All right, a few TYT lives, Marty B says, damn, Emma is on fire and I love it. Jake who?

Yeah. Brian Newton says, Trump thinks people are using a tragic event to capitalize on criminal activity to profit because it's exactly what he would do. Right. I love that comment. Great. So much conservative projection all the time. Yep.

We're used to it. All right, well, let's move on to one of the most insane stories. I can't even believe this is a thing. Everyone knows that John Bolton is possibly America's number one warmonger. He has been working for right-wing administrations. He has been pushing for war. He is still supportive of our decision to, to conduct a preemptive war in Iraq.

But Tucker Carlson has decided that he's going to, you know, try his hand at revisionist history and make John Bolton out to be something else. Take a look. If you're wondering why so many progressives are mourning Bolton's firing tonight, it's because Bolton himself fundamentally was a man of the left. There was not a human problem. John Bolton wasn't totally convinced could be solved with the brute force of government. What's an assumption of the left, not the right? Don't want the mustache fool you.

John Bolton was one of the most progressive people in the Trump administration. Okay, dude, what's you smoking? Who exactly is, who as a progressive has been mourning the loss of John Bolton? If anything, there have been criticisms toward Trump because of the chaos within his administration. But no one on the left, and specifically progressives, has any love for Bolton. If anything, he's always been described as an unfortunate war-mongering force within the Trump administration. He's deliberately using third grade social studies language about conservatism versus

leftism. Conservatives want more government and liberals want less, or no, no, sorry, I switched. Conservatives want less government, liberals want more, right? So that he can mislead his audience into thinking that because John Bolton wanted to be more with the government and really use the strength of the government or the belligerence of the government to his advantage. That makes him a leftist. It's ridiculous.

He served as a bureaucrat under the Reagan administration. How Democrat of him, your beloved Reagan, Tucker Carlson. He wanted to nuke North Korea, Iran. He got into a argument and basically threatened Brazil's diplomat for trying to get Iraq into the chemical weapons treaty to get Iraq to agree to not use chemical weapons because Bolton wanted so badly to go to war with Iraq. So the brute force of government and using it to crack down on people internationally or within the United States as well is certainly not a leftist position.

It wasn't a leftist position when during the civil rights movement, the government was brutal towards the protesters that were trying to get civil rights for black people in America. And it's not the leftist position when we do it internationally either. And it's the straw man kind of gaslighting that he's trying to do, which it works with his audience, I guess. Let's be extremely clear. As progressives, what we care about are one another. We care about government insofar as government protects the basic rights and opportunities

of people. We care about people having education and healthcare. We care about reining in the incredible inequalities and corruptions that are part of systems of power that have unfortunately pervaded our government for decades, right? I think that's a good way of describing progressives. Absolutely. So what we don't like, which we've been trashing the whole show, are disaster capitalist efforts to inflate military budgets,

create basically private prisons that are run by the military, though they're basically like private prisons in Guantanamo. And what we don't like are wars in Iran, Iraq, right, and Venezuela. Iran, and so I'm actually quite relieved, like I bet all of us are, that Bolton is out. Because of this bizarre aspect of Trump, which is what Ezra Klein from Vox calls an instinctive sketch. skepticism of war.

I don't know if I quite believe that, but at the same time, Bolton is a neocon imperialist, militaristic hawk. That is straight out of the conservative Republican playbook. I'm glad that Trump is strange enough to not just fully sign on to that. And I'm so glad, hopefully by removing Bolton and no other Bolton's or Bolton lights that we will avoid potential war with people who do not deserve. to be hurt or killed. Look, there have been fascinating shifts in the Trump era.

And I do think that it's largely due to a change in Republican voter thinking when it comes to some of these wars. Because think about it. I mean, we've been in Afghanistan forever, the longest war in U.S. history. And think about the number of Republican families in the United States who have either lost their loved ones due to that war or their loved ones have come back with life changing injuries and medical bills and all sorts of PTSD, exactly. And so all of a sudden you have the voter base, the Republican voter base, really rethinking

some of our foreign policy efforts. And if you look at the preferences of Trump's base when it comes to foreign policy, they don't want more war. So it's, so that really I think informs Donald Trump's decision making when it comes to foreign policy, and I'm grateful for that. But at the same time, I don't want anyone to forget what the right wing has been about. And J.R. Jackson put together this lovely mashup video to remind us all. Take a look. Those people who claim there were no weapons of mass murder in this case are just plain wrong.

I mean, it'd be nice if the New York Times conceded. It's funny to watch liberals. Bush lied. He hyped. He misled. You're gonna write an apology letter to Bush, and I said you're a liar, but you're not? Alan, President of the United States has been vindicated tonight. I disagree. Hang on. What we've found out today is that there are more weapons of mass destruction, which gives yet another reason for having gone to war in Iraq. Reverend Sharpton, everybody, can't wait for the WMD.

Apologies. How about liberals now apologize to the country? How about for the exploitation? Oh, there are so many things for them to apologize to. I just don't think I can bear to listen to it that long. Liberals attacks against the president were dead wrong. And we see again. the affection Democrats have for terrorists.

I just think for all the people who were so confident that George W. Bush lied and so confident that there was no weapon of mass destruction, 500 chemical warfare shells should at least make them slow down a little bit. They don't care. It's time tonight for your liberal friends that attacked the president for them to come out and admit they were wrong and apologize to the president for undermining him. Well, okay, so what's fascinating about those old cable news? clips is that Tucker Carlson was also on cable news back then, and he at that time was

sucking on the teat of the Bush administration who was exercising an offensive illegal war in Iraq. I can't believe how perfect that B-roll is. Great job. That, like, physically hurts me, and I'm gonna have a conversation with Joe. You can't dance either. Yeah. No, but I mean, that was what he was, and now he's trying to rebrand himself as a Rand Paulian,

Mike Lee asked libertarian when it comes to war. He does not have credibility on this issue because we have tape of you, that's what happens when you're a public figure, dude, I'm really sorry. It's amazing how many people in cable news fail upward, right? I mean, all those people are still public figures, they still have jobs, I mean, they pushed for a war that's been a complete and utter disaster. They still have their jobs. I'd love to know how much money he makes, I mean.

And I think it's important to realize how. In some ways, the optics and maybe what the Republican Party is trying to stand for or does stand for has shifted somewhat. It's not about being against military per se. The military budget has blown up. We've just spoken about that, right? It's about supplanting a certain playbook of neo-con imperialism and militarism, which we pay for as taxpayers, with isolationism to some extent, definitely racism, and just supporting

the interests of the one percent. But as this 2020 election years, we should not think that the dismissal of John Bolton is the dismissal of a possible war. And we got to stay on it, and we got to call it out and make sure it doesn't happen. Absolutely. All right, one final story for the first hour, a little electoral politics for you. North Carolina held a special election for a house seat yesterday. And unfortunately, Dan Bishop, the Republican in the race, won by a very narrow margin. He won against Democrat Dan McCready, who ran as a moderate Democrat.

And this was a special election because there was a little voter fraud, you know, first time around at the hand of the GOP side here, which is usually the case. But to give you some more details on this, and you know, I want to have a discussion of what we can learn from this moving into the 2020 election. The 2018 midterm race for the seat in which McCready barely lost against a different Republican was in question for months because of evidence of election fraud on the GOP side. The election was finally thrown out an embarrassing conclusion for state Republicans who had carved the lines of the deeply red district.

So let's just stop right there. You know, we all know about the gerrymandering that takes place and the gerrymandering is done to give a particular party an advantage in this case. And in a lot of cases, the GOP will carve out the district in a way that gives them an advantage when it comes to these types of races. Even so, we have a Republican who won by a very narrow margin. Just something to keep in mind as I move forward. In 2018, Democratic candidates flipped several GOP held house seats in districts that Trump

had won, a sign of distaste among moderate and suburban voters who reluctantly backed him in 2016. McCready actually performed better in the district's Charlotte suburbs than he did when he lost by a smaller margin last year, and of course that smaller margin was the earlier election that had the fraud involved. Including Charlotte in that sentence is really important because that's a really up-and-coming young person in plant city. A lot of people from the northeast and from other areas are going to live there after college.

It's one of the, it's like what Nashville was a few years ago, right? So a lot of people are, and it's becoming more and more left, and that's a significant part of the district. So it's been drawn in a way that it's really the southernmost part of the state, so there's A lot of rural areas, but Charlotte, as it grows, is going to make a more significant impact on the electoral politics there. And so Trump won that district by double digits, 12 points in 2016. You see a very small victory for a Republican here in the special election.

What does that mean in two years as more and more people come into the city from different parts of the country, specifically young people? That's a great point, because North Carolina is shifting to the left. These places like Charlotte are shifting to the left. The victory here was less than 2%. Trump likes to take credit for that as some sort of mandate of his, but this is a deeply red district that already has shifted from Trump winning by 12% to winning by 2% here. Which means that if a 2020 candidate emerges, and here's my main, the thing I'm super psyched

about, that actually has a legitimate perspective that speaks to working people in that district, then it's going to represent a real contrast with the Trump Republican, with the Trump Republican. And so I think that there's actually a great, this is good news, potentially, not in this victory itself, but overall the trajectory is shifting where if a real progressive comes and challenges that district, they could definitely win that district. You don't think Joe Biden's going to excite that district? That ain't what I'm talking about. He calls himself a progressive. Yeah, right. Well, okay, so I love.

Remember Hillary said I'm a progressive who likes to get things done. What does that mean? I don't know. So one thing I wanted to also bring up, and you touched on it a little bit, is the individuals who did vote for Trump but have this disdain for him, or at least they find him distasteful, right? So these are not people that we necessarily agree with on the vast majority of issues, but they do not like some of the rhetoric coming from Trump.

They don't like his social media activity. And so these are people who went to the polls. And even though Bishop won by a narrow margin, it is important to remember that some of these voters are willing to vote for a Democrat for the general election. Now I mention that because you're right, Trump is taking a victory lap. He believes that Bishop won because Trump endorsed him. He said via Twitter, Dan Bishop down 17 points three weeks ago. He then asked me for help.

We changed his strategy together and he ran a great race, big rally last night. Now it looks like he's going to win, CNN, MSNBC, blah, blah, he goes after the media. But it's important to remember where Trump is when it comes to his approval rating. In fact, he was crying about it on Twitter today. And it's because a new Washington Post ABC poll released yesterday found that 56% of voting age Americans say they disapprove of Trump's performance in office and his approval rating among that demographic, his approval rating among that demographic is at 38%. I also want to note, not note, but I want to quote one of the voters.

that the New York Times spoke to, and she's a young woman, Stephanie Dillon is her name, and she says, quote, the whole kind of sexist persona totally turns me off. Why is Trump spending his time tweeting to celebrities? This is an individual who voted for Trump. Look, Trump acknowledged, which Hillary Clinton didn't do in 2016, the disenfranchisement that many working poor white folk experience. And that's something that we should all feel compassionate toward as progressives. And that's why a candidate in 2020 who acknowledges those concerns, but is actually going to do something about it instead of spinning his wheels and egoism and bizarro world is going to win, is going to win.

So it's really up to us to make that happen. It can't be a moderate Democrat because Trump has a vision. Is the 2020 nominee going to have a vision or is it going to be like, oh, we're just going to, you know, Barack Obama liked me, you know. Yeah, I mean, that is, if that is the only. You can fall back on. That's all we hear from Biden. It's not gonna inspire people. You gotta give people something to vote for.

Yeah, yeah. And I have news for you, people are not gonna vote for, oh, maybe things will go back to how they were before where I was still struggling economically and I was still having a tough time. But at least I wasn't dealing with an offensive president, right? Like that's not gonna make young people especially show up to the polls. I mean, you gotta think about the financial situation that the vast majority of Americans are in. mentioning this because it's important. Americans have more consumer debt today than they did at the height of the last recession. People are struggling. So Trump can mention the GDP numbers all he wants,

but that is not a good indicator of how the average American worker is doing today. People are doing worse. The markets which are capitalized by the elites are doing better, even though there's volatility. And just to buttress what you guys said, 2016 Trump voters are not the same as 2019 Trump supporters. They are able to be swayed based on exact things that you're saying right now. And just a note really on Ben Bishop because, or Bishop himself, I just think it's important to note that he was the architect of the bathroom bill in North Carolina. So he's a despicable individual and we should not be, we're happy that the gains, about

the gains that the Democrats made in that district, but a really bad guy who's very bigoted and hateful is going to be in Congress now. supportive of Trump's immigration policies, yeah, he's terrible. But we got to keep our eyes on the prize and we need to learn from these types of elections, right? What can we do better the next time around? Does it make sense to run as a moderate Democrat? And I get it, it's a conservative district. But if you focus on an economic message that appeals to a broader group of voters, I really think

that's a winning strategy. Anyway, we got to move on to the second hour, Ramesh Sira Nivasan. Thank you for having me. Of course, my pleasure. Anna and Emma, pleasure to be with you both. Yes, thank you guys. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple. At apple.com slash TYT. I'm your host, Jank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.