The Young Turks - Trump Embarrasses Himself During National Prayer Breakfast Speech

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

Trump gave a painful, monotone speech where he praised the "Abolishment of Civil Rights". Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I welcome the Young Turks, Jake U Granite Kasparin with you guys. Lovely day ahead, is it? Trump's at the National Prayer Breakfast is causing trouble, but so are we. So in the second segment, in the first segment, we'll talk about Trump, but in the second segment, hanging there for our interview with the Democratic leader of the National Prayer Breakfast and why are there any Democrats at the National Prayer Breakfast, which is led by a right-wing organization that pushes right-wing agendas and Russian agenda. So that's insane that anybody's going.

We'll discuss that a little bit later in the program. And then Republicans kick out Parkland Survivors, Green New Deal is announced today. That's a giant, giant story. And my favorite story of the day, which is in relationship to that, Nancy Pelosi's very snide sarcastic comments about the Green New Deal. In D.C. lives in their own alternative facts. They laugh at Trump for all of his lies and the absurdities, et cetera. But they all agree to fictions that are preposterous and easily disprovable.

Nancy Pelosi is a progressive leader. Really? She's making fun of the Green New Deal and basically laughing in people's faces and saying, of course we're not going to do that, right? What part of her is progressive? But if you say that, they find that reporters. Reporters will take offense on behalf of Nancy Pelosi. Who are these folks?

Well, I mean, reporters have been willingly hoodwinked into moving the entire country to the right. They have been easily bullied by right-wing conservatives in the United States, and they have essentially allowed them to draw the narrative of what this country is about and what the American people actually want. So I'm, I am in a really bad mood. And I'm, if you want to go after the media, today is the day to do it, because I'm ready to go.

Yeah, well, that'll probably happen. In other programming today, we had an interesting old school episode, by the way, last night should check that out if you remember. On Rebel headquarters today, someone who is going to explain the climate change a little bit more, and then progressive Israeli fighting for the left wing in Israel. So don't miss that, obviously members get all the shows anytime they want. TYT.com slash join to become a member and get all of our shows. All right, Anna, what's next?

The National Prayer Breakfast took place and every president since the National Prayer Breakfast began has spoken at the event. Donald Trump spoke at the event this year and there were some interesting things he had to say. Now keep in mind that his speech is on a prompter, but even though it's on a prompter, but even though It's on a prompter, he somehow said this. Since the founding of our nation, many of our greatest strides from gaining our independence to abolition of civil rights to extending the vote for women have been led by people of faith.

So how do I know he's on a prompter? First of all, he's using words that aren't in his typical daily vocabulary, and he seems very bored with what he's doing at this moment. Yeah, the reason he's on a prompour is because this is the national prayer breakfast, and he has to pretend to be religious. So there's a lot of reference to God that he just doesn't even understand, has never said in his life, et cetera, and they're trying to keep him within decorum, because they're like, look, evangelicals are here, it's about prayer, et cetera, so don't be an idiot

like you normally are, go off the cuff and say outrageous, horrible, offensive things in the midst of this thing that's supposed to particularly emphasize getting along together. It's supposed to be bipartisan, I think that's nonsense, it's totally right wing. And Trump proved it as we'll show you in a minute. But keep him under control, right? But he doesn't do his homework, so he didn't bother reading the prompter ahead of time. So that's why when he says we should be proud that religious leaders did abolition of civil rights, he doesn't catch.

The mistake. Like, look, he obviously misread it. How do you screw that up? How do you screw that up? How do you screw that up? It's like, did he mean abolition? What did the script say? Okay, I have a guess as to what the script said and what he screwed up.

So, by the way, I don't know anyone that's saying that he'd set it on purpose. So right wing will then, you know, get all, they love to get hurt. So they'll get triggered and they'll be like, oh my God, you guys are saying it. No, we're not saying, we're being incredibly fair to him. We don't think he meant that, okay? So I think that he either, it was probably either written as adoption of civil rights. And he said abolition of civil rights, you could say it might have been a Freudian slip, right?

Or abolition and civil rights. Because religious leaders did lead the abolition movement in a lot of ways and did lead the civil rights movement in a lot of ways, i.e. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. So those are two plausible explanations. But if you read abolition of civil rights, you'd probably pause and go, yeah, no, that's not what we meant, correct yourself, right? He doesn't know, he doesn't care, he didn't notice. It doesn't even seem like he's processing what he's reading, right?

Because any other person who's processing, even if you're reading it for the first time, you're processing it as you're reading it, right? And it seems like he's not really doing that, he doesn't really seem present in the moment. So you're right, none of us are thinking that he purposely said that. I think that he did misspeak. But with that said, there were portions of his speech where he said things that he meant to say. And what we're about to show you is a perfect example of that. Now before we get to the video though, I want to make sure you guys fully understand what

the National Prayer Breakfast is. Because even though both Democrats and Republicans attend the National Prayer Breakfast, it is not a bipartisan event, it is very much a right-wing event. There have been a number of experts, including one author who has written a great book about the National Prayer Breakfast. So let me give you some more details about it. The annual event has become an international influence peddling bazaar where foreign dignitaries, religious leaders, diplomats, and lobbyist jockey for access to the highest reaches of American

power. That was written by the New York Times some years ago. The National Prayer Breakfast is used to circumvent the State Department. They are arranging meetings with a real who's who of nasty figures, the kind of government leaders from foreign nations, and also foreign nations who might not otherwise have access to American power, but who the family in pursuit of their strongman vision of Jesus thinks are actually anointed by God for leadership. So TYT Investigates has done some brilliant work on this that we'll share with you a little

bit later in the show, but just in regards to that particular angle, TYT Investigates asked for whether they were going to respond with any new rules for the Fellowship Foundation in regards to this breakfast about influence peddling. Because everybody knows this for influence pedaling. In fact, another part of the TYT investigative is reporting was they talked to one of the top intelligence officials at the CIA, who used to work at the CIA, that told them governments Like Russia target groups like this to infiltrate because they have a lot of influence and there's no oversight.

Since it's a religious group, their American government is scared to death of touching it. So they have widely way and it's a really easy to penetrate and be able to spread their agenda throughout that group. And in fact, we know through the Mueller indictments and again, more on TYJ investigates reporting that the Russians did infiltrate the prayer of breakfast. And the prayer breakfast is actually an affiliated group paid 10 rushes, including Russian oligarchs and Marina Boutuna, who's now been arrested to come attend the prayer breakfast. And so we found out who paid for by accessing their records at TYT Investigates. You should check out all those articles at tYT.com slash investigates.

By the way, that reporting group brought to you by Young Turks audience. Thank you for doing that. It's been some brilliant work. So these guys are obviously influenced peddling. Now the new policy they put out is, well, no, okay, we're not going to do that anymore. Right. That's the whole point of the breakfast, but okay, at least we got them to put that policy out.

So there are certainly foreign influences at this event, but more importantly, at the heart of the event is a right wing religious agenda. And so it's no surprise that Donald Trump would talk about. what his administration is specifically doing to help religious people in the United States discriminate against groups of people that they dislike. Take a look. To ensure that people of faith can always contribute to our society, my administration has taken historic action to protect religious liberty. Unfortunately, the Michigan adoption charity that brought the Buck family together is now defending itself in court for living by

the values of its Catholic faith. We will always protect our country's long and proud tradition of faith-based adoption. My administration is working to ensure that faith-based adoption agencies are able to help vulnerable children find their forever families while following their deeply held beliefs. So in the beginning of that clip, he references the Buck family. He's referring to Chad and Melissa Buck, who had adopted five children through a religious adoption agency, which is now facing a challenge by the ACLU because of the fact that It is discriminating against LGBT families who are looking to adopt.

Now, it's important to also note that the ACLU is specifically going after legislation or laws that allow for these organizations to discriminate against gay couples. There was another adoption agency that not only discriminated against gay couples, but also Jewish people looking to adopt. And so the Bush, the Bush, sorry. The Trump administration is making the argument that, hey, yeah, I mean, it's a religious organization. If they decide they don't want to adopt to gay people or to Jewish people or to whoever, then

they should be able to do that. That's called religious liberty. So it's funny how he mentions civil rights and then the religious liberty and how it should be able to discriminate in the same speech. That's right. But so I actually think that those organizations should be allowed to do that. I don't believe in religion, but they've got their own voodoo and if they want to practice it.

The one that Anna is referencing is called Miracle Hill, it's in South Carolina and they don't let Jews adopt kids because then they'd go to no good Jews, right? And you want them to go to Christian families. Now I put in no good, right? But to be fair to them, seriously, they want to push a certain agenda because that's the whole point, their religion. And by the way, if you believe in those religions, by definition, you don't believe in the other religions.

So to be fair to those religious organizations, they think the Muslims are wrong because they're Christian. They think the Jews are wrong because they're Christians. Otherwise they'd be Jews or Muslims, and they think LGBT is wrong. Are they massive hypocrites? Of course, they all eat shellfish and violate a thousand other clauses in the Bible, yes, I get all that. My point is, yeah, do all that to your heart's content, and that is religious liberty.

don't ask me for my taxpayer dollars, because I ain't gonna give it to. That's exactly right. So many of these religious organizations are either tax exempt, in some cases, taxpayers subsidized just by the fact that they're tax exempt. So if you're gonna get those special favors, then no, you don't get to discriminate and then reference your religious liberty. And there's other forms of funding that they get from the federal government, to which I say on purpose, hell no.

Okay, you got all the liberty in the world in America, and that's wonderful. I would never want to oppress any of the religions. It's a terrible idea, okay? But I don't have to pay for it, because I don't agree with you. I think Jewish families should be able to adopt any kids they like. I think gay parents should be able to adopt any kids that they like. And I'm not going to finance what I perceive to be your bigotry. Now you say it's not bigotry, and that's your religion, and I just made a defense of that.

That's fine, do it with your own money. What you're not allowed to do is claim religious freedom to discriminate against other people and say, now give me your money to do it. So why don't you get out of our lives? I thought that conservatives are against big government. No, they love big government when it gives you them our taxpayer money, right? And they want to be able to use it for anything they like. And guys, if it was any other context other than religion, of course it'd be preposterous.

If a group was set up to hate Jews, but it had nothing to do with religion, right? And like our job is to hate Jews, or can I give us taxpayer money for it? Of course that's a no, of course that's a no. But when it comes to religion, well, no, no, no, no, it's the religious freedom to hate. That's fine. Hate with your own money, not with my money. So the question that I have, I don't know if I really agree with you about whether or not any type of religious organization can just willy-nilly discriminate against same-sex couples,

especially when it comes to issues like adoption. So my mind goes back to the issue of the bakery that refused to bake a cake for a gay couple. So here's the question, what do we value more in the United States, a country that's supposed to have a constitution that separates church and state? Do we value civil rights or do we value religious liberty, right, over civil rights? Because I know that businesses can't discriminate against black people, businesses can't refuse service to some someone based on their race. So why is it that we make exceptions based on someone's sexual orientation?

No, I think that's okay, and let me explain what I mean by that. If you're running a business, if a church is running a business like a bakery or a restaurant, they can't discriminate based on race or even religion because they're running a public restaurant. That would be like banning blacks from sitting at the counter as we had in the civil rights But if they're running a church and the things associated with a church, a charity, and nonprofit, et cetera, in my opinion, if they're not taking government funds to help that in any way, yeah, they get, otherwise Jews, Muslims, atheists can come in and go, okay, now I'm part of your church, now you got to do everything I tell you to do.

And the whole point of the church is in a sense to be discriminatory, even for good churches that look at the great side of the religion rather than the hateful sides of the religion, they are still Christian and by definition, not the other religion. So I think that's part of religious liberty, and obviously we have to balance all of these things. But what I find to be, and I think any sensible person would find to be unacceptable is when they take our money to do their religious bigotry, not on my watch and not with my money. And that should be something that conservatives can readily agree to. Whenever it comes to spending their money to help people, they're like, oh, not with my money,

I don't want to help anybody, hell no, right? Undocumented immigrants teaching their kids, that's taking my money away. No, I want them to be ignorant, treating them in the hospitals. I want them to bleed to death. I don't want them doing it with my money. Religion, oh, you're gonna use it to hate people. Well, of course, take all of our money. No, no, no, no, no way, okay?

So we don't agree to that. But that's why this prayer breakfast is ridiculous. And the fact that Democrats go to it is outrageous. Trump not only was against, it made a plea against LGBT rights and adoption, but he also went after abortion. Of course he did, and he's talking about, nothing makes me, like, nothing's sicker to me than Trump talking about religion. It's kind of ironic because I'm not religious, so why do I care?

His false piety is unbearable when he talks about every soul's a precious gift from heaven. Then the born and the unborn are made in the holy image of God. You never talked about a guy, you never cared about God. You're just, you're vomitous, man. But why is half the room Democrats going there to be like, yeah, abortion is awesome. Abortion is fantastic, I'm sorry, pro-life is fantastic, let's ban women's rights and make sure they ban abortion. Why the hell are you going there to support that garbage?

Because we don't really have a Democratic Party, right, in the sense that people think we do. The co-chair for this year is Chris Coons. He's a Democrat from Delaware, except he's not really a Democrat. Chris Coons, I mean, he went to a divinity school, Yale's Divinity School. Okay, you can be deeply religious and a Democrat, but he campaigned for Ronald Reagan in 1980. I mean, this is the second time he's co-chaired, the National Prayer Breakfast.

He gets money funneled to him through one of these organizations. One of his big donors is connected to the National Prayer Breakfast. All of Washington is vomitous. Like, look, if you got a Democratic representative, you know who entered the breakfast this year? Nancy Pelosi. Oh, big champion of women's rights. And then they take, then they attack progressives.

They're like, oh, are you really sure that you're in favor of women's rights? Progressives are more in favor of women's rights than anybody else's. And then Pelosi goes and supports an anti-choice group like the National Prayer Breakfast, gives some credibility by going there, and then they're talking about how they're gonna make sure that gay people can't adopt kids and Nancy Pelosi goes there to help them? No, no thank you, no thank you. These people, they don't know how to fight for us because they're not us, they're not progressive, get it through your thick skulls.

And I say that mainly to the Washington press, who's just like, I don't know why progressives would have any issue with Chris Coons or Nancy Pelosi. I mean, they go and fluff up a group that wants to take away women's rights to choose. But I don't know why progressives would be upset with them. Well, then you suck as a journalist. It's not that hard. Well, she attacked Green New Deal. She says there's no way they're going to do Medicare for all.

But I don't know why she's not a pro- how dare you say she's not a progressive. She's not a progressive. Neither is Chris Coons and unfortunately a majority of the Democratic Party. They're not on my team. Stop saying they're on our team when they fight against us every day. When we come back from the break, we will talk specifically about Chris Coons. TYT. Investigates ran into him, asked him some questions about the National Prayer Breakfast. What does he have to say? We'll tell you.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of on the Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the

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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. Do that and more. All right, back on any young Turks. I've got a couple of comments for you as usual here. The math and magician writes it from the member section. I think all churches of any kind should be taxed, period.

You don't get to impose your well on the rest of us and get government subsidies to do it. Here, here, brother, I totally agree with that. Engineer rights, and I generally agree with allowing religious adoption agencies to follow the religion, but only if the children place in their care are okay with that. So I don't know how we wind up checking with the children on it. Look, we're not even doing the bare minimum. The bare minimum is you can't your taxpayer dollars to discriminate. But religion, not religions, Christianity is too strong in this country, fundamentalist Christianity

is too strong, and they just roll over, even though it's unconstitutional. Anyway, we got more on the prayer breakfast. Yes. The National Prayer Breakfast is an annual event that TYT Investigates looked into, especially after it was disclosed that Marina Boutina, who has pled guilty to some federal charges, attended the breakfast back in 2017. Now according to TYT investigates and its reporting, the policy, they have since changed some of the policies that they've implemented within the event and within the group because

of some concern that people might feel that international actors or foreign actors would use the breakfast in order to carry out their agenda or influence U.S. lawmakers to carry out their agenda. So as a result of that reporting, they have decided to change these policies. The policy announcement comes two years after Maria Bhutina and Alexander Torshan attended the 2017 National Prayer Breakfast, seeking to make influential connections at the elite, high-powered Washington event. Butina has since pleaded guilty to acting as a Russian operative without registering as one

in the U.S. government. So one of the people who was deeply involved with the National Prayer Breakfast and who gave Bhutina and other Russians access to it was Doug Burleigh. He was actually noted in Mueller's investigation. He gave Butina 10 tickets to the prayer breakfast back in 2017. And one of the 10 went to one of the biggest Russian oligarchs. So the oligarchs themselves infiltrated the National Prayer Breakfast. And I don't know why any Democrat continues to go to this thing.

infiltrated by the Russians to help carry out their agenda and will, and TYT investigators reported on part of that agenda and it is stunning, we're gonna get to that in a minute, and is against LGBT rights all across the world. And then on top of that this year, Trump goes and argues against women's right to choose there, and Nancy Pelosi, Chris Coons, and so many other Democrats go aid and abet that group by giving them legitimacy. TYT investigates has asked other people who have attended the past like Rokana and Ted Lew and they have now said that they are not attending.

So some progressive Democrats are waking up to the obvious agenda of the family as they're called. But yet so many others like Coons continues to support them. In fact, Coons is the co-chair. Yes. So Coons is not only the co-chair for the National Prayer Breakfast this year, but he also served his co-chair back in 2017. And so, TYT investigates caught up with him and asked him a few questions.

The reporter that you're about to hear behind the camera is Michael McCullough. With that said, though, what did Coons have to say about the participation of Russians in the prayer breakfast back in 2017? Take a look. Are you at all concerned about some of the stuff that came out in the indictment of Bhutina that mentions the foundation and the 12 or 10 Russians that they tend to- I mean, I think it raised questions about the process by which folks seek to participate, buy tickets, and become involved.

But frankly, anytime you've got a large public gathering, you've got mixed motives coming. And I do think the vetting this year was done differently, but I as the co-chair am really responsible for the program, not for who ends up buying tickets. Yeah, but if it's being used to access politicians like yourself and you bring in other Democratic politicians to it, then who attends is incredibly relevant. Absolutely. Not only that, I mean, through this relatively short exchange with the reporter, Chris Coons made it clear to me at least that he's not being completely honest in his answers.

So in the next video, he's going to address the issue of partisanship, because make no mistake about it, the National Prayer Breakfast is not some bipartisan event. Yes, Democrats do attend the event, but in terms of the agenda that's been outlined by the National Prayer Breakfast and in terms of the overall goals that they're trying to accomplish, it's very much a right wing event, okay? Now with that said, what did Chris Coons have to say about that perception of partisanship? And I have the Delaware State University choir waiting for me. All right, could we walk and talk?

The problem is that or they're curious about whether you're worried about the sort of growing Republican sponsorship of it. It looks a little less bipartisan. The question I was just answering was that, yes, I'm concerned about the perception that this is a partisan event. As a Democrat, an active Democrat, I still participate in the weekly prayer breakfast. There are as many Democrats as Republicans at our weekly prayer breakfast in the Senate, but Democrats don't talk about it very much.

And I did work closely with Senator Lankford to try and craft a program today that was not partisan and political, but instead had speakers and readings and a keynote speaker that really Speaker Pelosi was present. And there were a number of Democratic senators and House members. So Coons is relying on the fact that there were other Democrats in attendance to make a point about how this is not some sort of right-wing event. But I don't care who was there. What I care about is the type of policies that the National Prayer Breakfast pushes for both domestically

and internationally, and they push for right-wing policies, including the discrimination and the persecution of gay individuals in other countries. So the National Prayer Breakfast is not in any way, shape, or form an organization that looks out for liberal or progressive principles. It looks out for very specific, hardcore right wing policies, period. And look, are there religious organizations that are neutral or progressive leaning? Of course. And so there's some great nun groups out there that fight against nuclear energy and so many

to help the homeless, the needy, et cetera. And obviously the civil rights movement in this country was led by religious leaders. Now, do you think Republicans would go to an organization that was religious but left-leaning? And for example, argued that everyone should be allowed to vote the same, and that we should have easy access to voter registration. For example, and get people out to vote in their churches, for example, in black churches, right? Or we shouldn't allow discrimination of gay couples looking to adopt children in America.

Would right-wingers go to that? They're religious organizations that believe that, that advocate for that. Would they go to any of those events? And you know what the answer is? Hell no. Can you imagine this organization is against a woman's right to choose? Could you imagine Republicans all in mass, including their leaders, going to attend an event where they're like, there's speeches about how abortion is great and should be protected?

Inconceivable. Coons there said, well, we worked hard to get speakers who were not about politics. What are you talking about? Donald Trump spoke and made a forceful argument in favor of ending a woman's right to choose. How, well, if you tried really hard to make sure that it wasn't right when you were political, you obviously failed because Trump gave it deeply political speech. So what, okay, it gets worse. So that's Michael McCall for TYT Investigates talking to Chris Coons.

Let's go to other stories that TYT Investigates covered on this same national prayer breakfast. They unearthed, Jonathan Larson, do most of the reporting here, at least four Republican members of Congress who the foundation, it's called the Fellowship Foundation, its nickname is the family, so it goes by both, and they do the National Prayer Breakfast, okay? So the foundation sent those four Republican congressmen to Eastern Europe, and what were they doing there? Well, there's two great problems with this. One was they were helping local politicians fight against gay rights. And now some of the laws that are proposed in those countries are horrible.

In the past, the prayer breakfasts and the Fellowship Foundation that runs that has been gotten into trouble for advocating similar laws in Uganda, where gay people would be executed for being gay. Yeah, they were putting for their policies. Before the Russians even infiltrated it, how could any Democrat go and participate in this group. And so if you're, you don't have to be a gay rights advocate, you don't have to be gay, you just have to be a decent human being and a progressive to say that, to call your congressman

or your senators and say, don't you dare ever attend that prayer breakfast again, where they go and finance Republicans to fight against gay people's lives, let alone their rights all across the world. That's insanity. And they do it again and again. I'm not interested in Coons's excuses. I'm glad to hear him interviewed and we had a fair interview. We do analysis, our reporters do reporting.

So they went and asked them fair questions. Those were his answers and you could judge for yourself. But I don't find those to be sufficient answers. And sending these guys to go do that has a second element which is also related to Russia. And I get a load of this. Now, Russia is in favor of the National Breakfast, and as Mueller has showed, they have infiltrated and Bettina was there, she's now under arrest, okay? And why does Russia care about Republicans from America, going to those Eastern European

countries to argue against gay rights? Because in order to be admitted into the European Union, you must have liberal laws on gay rights. And so if those countries pass laws against gay rights, they won't be admitted into the European Union and they'll be in Russia's sphere of influence rather than Western sphere of influence. So Russia benefits greatly from the bigotry paid for by this group. And for senators like Coons to co-chair it and proudly tout about how bipartisan it is and how he brought all these other Democrats to go help these horrible right-wing causes.

Not interested. And Nancy Pelosi, of course, as usual, can't wait to help right. white wingers and conservatives. So she rushes over and what meanwhile pretending to be for women's rights. Is she for women's rights in other cases, yes. But we need you to be progressive, not some of the time. You're supposed to be the leader of the Democrats in the House. To go help this group that is fighting against gay rights is hideous, absolutely hideous.

So there's the right wing agenda and then there's the influence from foreign actors, which happens without the same type of oversight. that you would see in other gatherings because this is a religious event. And so the second part is just as problematic as the first part. Knowing that there are foreign actors that have influence over our lawmakers and the decisions that they make, I mean, that's the reason why we have specific laws pertaining to campaign donations by foreigners, right? We're not supposed to have lawmakers looking out for the best interests of people living in other

countries. We're supposed to have them look out for the best interests of America and Americans. Now, with that said, though, after this incredible reporting by TYT investigates, it appears that the National Prayer Breakfast has re-implemented some of its rules and actually added on some additional rules, especially when it comes to lobbying. So let's go to Graphic 34. The Prayer Breakfast policy calls for avoiding any conflict of interest real or perceived. It says those involved with the breakfast may not offer or sell political influence, which

includes tickets to the national prayer breakfast, including access to political, business, community, or religious leaders. You know why they have to pass that new policy? Because they sold political influence to religious, political, and foreign leaders in the past. That's why you do that? So why would you attend a group that the whole point of it is to sell political influence to you, like for people to influence Democratic senators and congressmen in a right-wing agenda or a foreign agenda?

Oh, but they have a new policy that says they shouldn't. Wow, how mighty Christian of them. But you know, it's one thing to say, no, no, no, we now have these rules and we're going to follow these rules, but who's to say that they will, right? I mean, they've gotten away with this type of behavior for so long, and they've been able to do it under this notion that it's a religious organization that doesn't have to abide by the same oversight that other, you know, gatherings do. So if there's not gonna be the same level of scrutiny and oversight, then how do we know

that we're not gonna have foreign actors influencing our lawmakers? Yeah, and one more thing about this, again, TYT investigates, which is a reporting arm of this network, went and asked the group about some of these policy proposals, including one on January 7th about, it appears that some folks are doing this for personal gain. So then on January 12th, so we ask on January 7th, do you have a response to this, we run the story on January 11th, and on January 12th, the foundation puts out a new policy saying, oh, and by the way, you can't do influencing of these politicians for personal gain either. So you can't be angling there for your own business interests or foreign interest to benefit

yourself, okay? So I don't know if it was us asking or the general pressure or a combination thereof, but But I love that we asked, and so- What's the general pressure? Like is the New York Times like on them about this? Really? Is the Washington Post on them about this? Oh, democracy dies in the darkness, does it really? Yeah, well, but it's prayer, oh my God, it's religious people, oh my God, I'm so scared,

I don't want to offend anyone, I don't, so I wouldn't want to do journalism because I don't want to offend anyone. Okay, I mean, that's your call. So anyways, look, they've done other great reporting in the past. Charlotte's done wonderful reporting on the foundation. So there's other great reporting out there as well. And obviously Mueller's indictment of Butina and the mentioning of the foundation in the National Prayer Breakfast obviously had a huge influence as well.

But I'm glad we followed up. I'm glad they have a new policy. I don't think it's nearly sufficient enough. And the fact that the Democrats who are obsessed with the Russian interference are still attending a prayer breakfast where the top Russian oligarchs were. invited in to influence them, and they're still going to it, is amazing. And by the way, not all of them, T.Y.D. Investigates reached out to Rokana, who said he's not attending until they sort out what's going on here, and same with Representative

Ted Lou. So they've made the right decisions. And look, we got volunteers as well in a different branch of the company. I think maybe we should go and ask all the Democrats who are attending, including Coons and Pelosi, why do you keep supporting this right-wing group who's against gay rights, who's against choice of women, and who goes and was infiltrated by the Russians? I thought, I mean, they pretend to care about all those progressive issues, but the one issue we know they care about is Russia, and still they go to this group that was infiltrated arguably more than any other group in America. Oh my God, but it's religion.

Oh my God, oh my God, I have to bow down to the right wing because it's religion. No, you don't. You should be serving your own voters. When we come back from the break, I will tell you how the Trump administration is making it easier for some companies here in the U.S. to sell flamethrowers without oversight in other countries. 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 our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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Joy writes in the member section, the very existence of the national prayer of breakfast is unconstitutional, given that church and state should be separate. So it's a little bit more complicated in that, but all these politicians are going to attend this religious organizations get together is problematic, obviously. Bob FLV writes it on Twitter using hashtag TYT Live. Hillary was a regular at the prayer breakfast, so the organization must be absolutely above board. Hillary is such a wonderful person who cares so much about people.

So, well, that's by the way, totally true that Hillary attended all the time. She was a huge backer of the National Prayer Breakfast. I, me, Papito, writes in, a lot of gay people that love and adore Nancy Pelosi are awfully quiet about her going to the National Prayer Breakfast. And if you're wondering, by the way, why huge human rights groups, LGBT groups, would be signed on an issue like that, it's because generally they fear losing access to powerful politicians. And a lot of them have been taken hostage by the Washington mindset that, well, I mean, look,

I don't want to lose influence. I don't want to lose influence. So let him go and, you know, hate on gay people and maybe even get them killed abroad, but I don't want to lose access to Nancy Pelosi. So that is why a lot of those groups that are in Washington become terribly corrupted by what they think is their genius attempt to gain access to politicians. How about you hold them accountable instead? But thank you for participating, guys.

All right, you know what, I'll read one last one, YouTube super chat. Stephanic 86 says, I would love to run for office, but being a female atheist progressive in Utah, I know I wouldn't stand a chance because the state is run by the Mormon church. One, don't be so sure of that. It depends on where you live in Utah. Salt Lake City is often elected some of the most progressive mayors in the country, so it definitely does depend. And look, you know, Kirsta Cinema is a corporatist, and I got no love for her, but she

is a Democratic senator from Arizona now, and she is atheist and lesbian and got elected anyway in Arizona. So the world is changing. So hang in there and together let's fight for American for real democracy. So you could win anywhere. All right, Anna, what's next? The Trump administration is implementing new rules pertaining to gun manufacturers here in the United States and how they can sell guns to other countries.

Now this is a story that's been developing for quite some time, but now we have a better grasp of what the new rules indicate. And it essentially allows gun makers to sell their guns internationally with little to no oversight. And it also allows them to sell some weaponry that is problematic, especially if the United States government is going to continue pretending like it's worried about terrorist activity in other countries. So according to the rules, gunmakers will no longer need licenses from the Department of State to sell dozens of types of weapons to other countries, including semi-automatic assault weapons.

Instead, though, sellers will need only a no-fee license from the Department of Commerce, which has a less onerous licensing process and a smaller global footprint, making it harder to track how the weapons are ultimately used overseas. Oh, great. That shouldn't cause any problems. So this is me maybe being a little conspiratorial, but I'm just going to share what I think happens, and I've seen it happen over and over again when it comes to our foreign policy.

Now it usually happens in a way where we arm people, you know, abroad, and then later the very people that we've armed end up becoming our enemies, and then we engage in war with them. And I don't think that that's done on accident. I think that that's done because we want perpetual war. But I think in this case, it's a win-win for weapons manufacturers, it's a win-win for private military contractors, because essentially, you're already starting new wars. You don't know how they're gonna develop, but you're arming, we don't even know who you're arming.

You're just allowing people who have a profit motive in the United States to sell this type of weaponry abroad with little to no oversight. Let me give you more details. Those who want to export flamethrowers that project a stream of fire up to 20 meters, about 66 feet, will no longer need a State Department license. No, but to be fair, Anna, there's a lot of people defending their homes in other countries with flamethrowers and grenades. Or maybe the people who buy that kind of stuff would be the exact kind of people who might

be bad guys. And let me list some possibilities for you guys, drug cartels. And here, I'm going to make a prediction ahead of time. I predict that there will be a story in some period of time where a drug cartel burns people align with flamethrowers. Why? They could be the first to buy these. Now that there's no regulation, why wouldn't a drug cartel buy flamethrowers?

They're gonna line up immediately to do it. Could terrorist groups then easily buy these kind of weapons in mass now? Yes, very easily. But hey, right wingers, I don't know, I thought you couldn't stand MS-13 and terrorists, But if that's not enough for you, the government of Venezuela could buy a lot of these for their militias, for their guards that protect Maduro. Have I got your attention yet? And you say, oh, well, that won't happen.

They don't care. They don't care. None of you guys care. And the thing that drives me crazy is that we enable the bad guys in various countries. We enable drug cartels both in our prohibition of drugs, okay, and in the way that we sell weaponry throughout the world. And then when they brutalize people in their own countries, and then women and children flee for safety seeking refuge in the United States, we'll go ahead and we'll demonize

the people that we have enabled others to brutalize. That's what we'll do. That's what this country is all about. And so every time I hear the jingoistic nonsense about how the United States is the best country in the world, no we're not. How much pain and suffering does our policy, which is 100% fueled by profit motives of corporations harm others in other countries. All the time, we do it all the time, and it's not an accident.

So the main reason for this is obvious. The NRA pays the politicians and they say, no, our gun manufacturers want to sell more weapons. Do we care that they go to terrorists or drug cartels? Why the hell would we care? In fact, then the people terrorized by those groups will have to buy weapons to counter them. And will that lead to massacre after massacre in those countries like it has in our country? Yes, and then people will buy more guns.

And that is exactly the poison that we're spreading across the world because a bunch of greedy politicians needed one more campaign contribution and needed independent expenditures from the NRA. So they sold their soul and now far more people will be murdered all across the world with semi-automatic weapons with grenades and flamethrowers. And I guess they'll be laughing all the way to the bank. That's how deeply immoral they are. One final part of this that you should be aware of.

So there are limits in terms of the number or the amount of money that you can make through selling these weapons without oversight. And it's important for you to know. So sales of less than $1 million in arms will not require advanced notification to Congress, which allows lawmakers a period of time to block a potential sale. So if you're selling under a million dollars worth of weapons, you don't have to worry about Congress getting involved and blocking that sale. And I would argue that it's important for people to know what's going on.

It's important to know that there's some oversight involved in what's happening, because you want to know where the weapons are going. You want to know who's buying the weapons. You want to know what the ramifications will be in the future. But no, I mean, again, this country is not run by the people for the people. It's run by corporations, it's run by weapons manufacturers, it's run by private military contractors, the best interests of Americans, American citizens, or people abroad is not considered right now under this current political system, it's just not.

The only thing that the NRA ever hangs their hat on is, no, no, no, good guys need guns too, to protect their families. Which good guys are spending $990,000 on weaponry? And you think that they can't get around the regulation of the million dollars by just doing two, three, eight different orders of $990,000 worth of weapons? Of course they can. So they'll not be able to sell pretty much unlimited number of weapons to anyone who wants it.

It doesn't matter how bad a guys they are, they're never even going to check. I'm gonna move on to the Matt Gates story, so hopefully you guys are ready for it. So let's do it. Following the Trump administration's decision to allow for gunmakers here in the United States to easily sell their weapons abroad with little to no oversight, members of Congress got together and started discussing common sense gun regulation, which quickly devolved once Republicans like Representative Matt Gates got involved. So Matt Gates decided not interested about talking about how gun sales in the United States,

for instance, have led to some serious mass shootings. Why don't we instead deflect and talk about something else? Take a look. As we hear the stories and circumstances for those here, I hope we do not forget the pain and anguish and sense of loss felt by those all over the country who have been the victims of violence at the hands of illegal aliens. H.R. 8 would not have stopped many of the circumstances I raised, but a wall, a barrier on the southern border may have, and that's what we're fighting for. Mr. Chairman. Well, gentlemen, would suspend. So again, I hope that we'll deal with all

of the drivers of violence. The greatest driver of violence in the circumstances that I indicated was not the firearm. It was the fact that we have an immigration system that allows people to come here violently. We engage in... There will be no comments or demonstrations, please. So this is a house meeting about how gun violence is, you know, destroying the lives of countless Americans right now. And Gates decides, you know what, it doesn't make my donors happy to talk about this issue. So let me go ahead and deflect by demonizing undocumented immigrants and talking about Trump's border wall.

So two quick things on that. One is undocumented immigrants, we'll say this every time because apparently no one in the mainstream media is capable of doing any research. And it should be given as context every time this issue comes up. Undocumented immigrants commit half the crimes of natural born citizens in America. So if you're worried about what creates danger for Americans, it's Americans. And so to think that, to frame it as that they are more dangerous is just counterfactual. It's not true, it's a lie, okay?

And Matt Gates knows that and he lies on purpose. So now, so the bigger issue is actually the violence that is happening here created by natural born citizens. Now on that issue, Bernie Sanders made a great point in his response to the state. to the union. President Trump brought up a terrible killing in Reno, Nevada by an undocumented immigrant, but he didn't bring up one of the biggest massacres in United States history. That also happened in Nevada.

That was a Vegas shooting where over 50 people were murdered in one night. But hey, well, that was all the things that we don't want to ban, and those are our donors who profited off that massacre. So let's deflect and talk about undocumented immigrants that commit more. that commit less crimes on average than American citizens do. So that's exactly what Matt Gates is doing. That's to cover the NRA's ass, which is his job as a water boy for the NRA and all of his donors. He's pathetic.

So then he tries to get the Parkland dad who's challenging him thrown out of the meeting. Exactly. So the water boy did get interrupted in the middle of his anti-immigrant spiel by a father who lost his son in the Parkland shooting. Okay, so the man is Manuel Oliver. Again, his son died because of the shooting in Parkland, Florida. And so he's interrupting Gates as he's making this asinine point. And in the next video, you're going to see Gates refer to him.

And then I'm going to give you more on what happened. Take a look. Is there a process in the committee whereby if the very same people are repeatedly interrupting the time of the members that those people will be? be asked to depart the committee or is there I will excuse me if the gentleman repeats that or any other comment I will direct to be removed I will direct to be removed if he repeats it thank you Mr. Chairman and I'd observe that's three interruptions of my time by the same individual and that the chair is not utilizing his discretion or remove that individual

son was murdered by weapons, but I get paid by the weapons manufacturers, so I'm outraged. You're outraged. You're outraged. So we're gonna hear from Manuel Oliver in just a minute, but one more video from Gates, because I want you to get a sense of how unbelievably dismissive our conservative lawmakers are toward Americans who have lost their children to gun violence. I mean, it wasn't enough that some of them will lean on media figures who, spread conspiracy theories about them or their children being crisis actors.

But then you have actual lawmakers like Gates dismiss them and their concerns. Take a look. We all are entitled to our own opinions and views on how to address gun violence, but I don't believe that we are entitled to our own facts. And while I have great personal affection for the gentleman from Rhode Island, it is deeply troubling to me and hurtful that as I share the experiences of people who've lost sons and daughters who've lost friends and neighbors at the hands of violent illegal aliens who have illegally acquired firearms, then my colleague would indicate that that's somehow lying

or making misrepresentations to the committee. And so if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have solutions for gun violence or to secure our border to make sure that illegal aliens don't come into possession of firearms, I'm eager to hear those. If we really cared about safer streets, we would build a wall and secure those. border and we would do it post-haste. Oh, he's the one whose feelings are hurt. Gates, his feelings are very, very hurt right now that someone finally called him out for deflecting

and focusing on a much smaller issue in comparison to the number of white men who have carried out mass shootings in this country through the, through legally obtained firearms. That's the issue at hand here. obtained firearms, what are you as a U.S. lawmaker gonna do to solve that very real problem that people are dealing with, including this father who lost his son in that mass shooting? What are you gonna do? You're gonna deflect because your political donors don't want you to talk about gun control. Okay, fair enough.

So, you know, Matt Gates, you know, he went on Infowars. So it's not like he's, yeah, that's who he is. when he got his hand caught in the cookie jar and people are like, you know, Alex Jones is nuts. And no, no, it's fine, fine. Finally, he was like, oh yeah, okay, sure, I regret going on Info Wars. Wink, right? No, he's a conspiracy theorist, he's a hack, he's an idiot, and he works for these corporate interests.

In this case, this corporate interest, I'd get people killed. There's one massacre a day in America, that's four people or more shot and killed. Every single day there's a massacre in America. It's done by, it's done through guns and we have more guns and we have more massacres. It's an absolute fact, Matt Gates knows it and says, yeah, I know, but you've offended me by interrupting my speech. Yeah, did your son get murdered and gun down? Are your feelings hurt over that?

And the fact that lawmakers won't do anything about it, he's a lawmaker from the state of Florida, right? So this father who's bringing up a very legitimate concern is the person who's essentially paying him, right? That's your boss right there. And you are so dismissive of a very real problem in this country and a very real devastating situation that this father had to go through because of inaction of lawmakers like you. But okay, nonetheless, I don't want to hear from Gates anymore.

I actually want to hear from the father. Again, his name is Manuel Oliver, he did an interview for. following this whole exchange and he explains what's what's really going on. Take a look. He's a salesperson from the Republican Party that it becomes part of the commission. And the reason why I call him a salesperson is because he's selling a project that has no relationship at all with what the discussion was about. What I said is remember my son, remember us.

And then he pointed at me like that. And you don't point at me like that. And then he tried to get me out of the room. And you don't do that. I just reacted as a father. I am still Joaquin's dad, and I will be Joaquin's dad until the last day that I'm here. And anybody that offends my kid will receive an answer from me. Just think for a second if it was your kid.

And you know, you got this guy who's trying to make sure with all this power that we never do anything about it. I mean, how upset would you be? And he's right, you saw it in the earlier clip. Gates points at him like, aren't you going to do something about that guy? I'm here trying to protect the NRA. And this guy's interrupting me. Let's hear more from Oliver. The contradiction is, yes, we want to save lives, but wait a minute, the wall will save 4,000.

What about the other 40,000? You know who's an immigrant? I'm an immigrant. I did things by the book. My song came from Venezuela. I was trying to find a safer life in here. He got shot by an American white dude. So what's the answer for that?

If I don't get it from them, they will get it from me. So now the right wing will get triggered by that and they'll say, oh, he said white, oh my god, blah, blah, blah. Well, the facts don't care about your feelings, do they? Yes, and so the reality is, obviously white people in this country do a lot. lot more shootings. But that's not, nobody's trying to demonize them over that. What he's fighting back on is you're trying to demonize immigrants and you largely do it based

on race. So don't come here telling me that my group is the problem when my son got killed and he goes killed by a guy who was born in America, who happens to be a white dude, et cetera. So I'm not here to demonize them, you're here to demonize me and I'm not going to stand for it. And in fact, to that point, he said a couple of things that was. It was very TYT, and so he said, what's the answer for that? Immediately following the clip that you just saw, he said, if I don't get it from them, they

will get it from me. So look, if you lost your son, what wouldn't you do politically to try to fight back and get some sort of legislation that helps other parents avoid the same fate that you went through? And one more along those lines, he said, you don't get me out of the room, I'll get you out of that room as soon as I have the chance to vote for someone. Bravo. I love that kind of talk.

You do it through politics and you do it through strength. When we come back, we will discuss a breaking news story involving Jeff Bezos and threats to release nude photos of him. Well, Bezos, you know, using the Uyghur ideology, the National Enquirer thought they were coming for him and turns out no, he's coming for them. We'll explain. thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad-free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon