The Young Turks - Trump FAILS With Kim Jong Un And His Comments on Otto Warmbier Death

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

Trump travelled to North Korea and accomplished nothing. Trump spoke about believing dictator Kim Jong Un about his knowledge of Otto Warmbier's torture and death. 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

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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. We are unconventional, to say the least. Jake Uger, Anna Kasparin with you guys, looking forward to having some fun.

Here's a twist right out of the gate. Let's defend Donald Trump a little bit. Twisty twist, things that people did not expect, okay? Okay. All right. Now, in the third hour of the Young Turks, which I know some of you get some of you don't, but you should at t.yt.com slash live. I'm going to introduce you to a black businessman and silver ice leader who is a legend

that you might not know about. We're going to talk to his granddaughter. It's an amazing story, you're going to love that story. Okay, so that's fun for later on the program. And then Paul LePage, I mean, I got a thousand stories. I make big ones, I make little ones, right? But with a wonderfully, deeply racist statement, which, you know, I don't- It's not even veiled.

It's just very- Not remotely veiled. Yeah. But I guarantee you that mega dudes will be like, no, but if like you say like you want to protect white power, does that really mean you're racist? Yeah, yeah, it kind of does. So anyway, we'll get to that a little bit later as well. Kassar, we've got a lot of things. So I say we blast forward.

Yes, we will blast forward. I want to make a note about something. So AOC gets a lot of credit for, you know, just. Being a fighter, and I think that it inspires a lot of women, and certainly inspires me. There's no question about it. But she inspires me when it comes to having the courage to wear hooped earrings on the show. Yes, yes. So I've always loved hooped earrings.

And sometimes if I have my hair down, I'll wear hooped earrings. But today, I'm like, no, I'm gonna power button it, and I'm gonna hoop earring it, and I'm gonna have a great time. So that happened. That happened. And nobody can take it back. Okay, you know what, I'll do one. She's a national treasure, like, let's keep it real, in so many ways.

When it comes to politics, when it comes to style, she's the best. Yeah, that's what a lot of people say about me when it comes to style. No, they don't. No one's ever said that to you when it comes to style, ever. Okay, we do have a story about AOC later too. She rocked it during the hearings. It's the one thing we left out yesterday, but it's super important, real kind of like moment.

I mean, again, three just Democrats with the best moments. Yes. God, they're so good. And Giant Paul introduced Medicare for all yesterday. Unfortunately, boys, you couldn't have picked the worst day. But it's a great bill and I want to celebrate that too. And then finally, last thing, we had a lot of fun on old school last night, Ben and I did. Talking about- Yes.

God, that was a good episode. That was one of the best old schools that I've heard. Like you guys talked about politics, but I love like the nonsense small talk that happens to. The Brutter Bruters. So if you remember, check out last night's old school. That's t.t.com slash join, obviously, to become a member. And in Omaha, and since we talked about Gene Simmons a little bit, Anna's prepared a wonderful

postgame today for the members in the third hour of the show about Gene Simmons' disastrous 2002 interview on NPR. Yes. So it's a lot of fun. Don't miss that. Okay, Anna, what's next? All right. Following Donald Trump's second summit with Kim Jong-un, this time in Vietnam, it was reported

that their negotiations unfortunately fell apart and they have not reached a deal. Now it's unclear what will happen in the future, but here's what we know so far, according to reporting from the New York Times. Kim had offered to dismantle the North's most important nuclear facility if the United States lifted the harsh sanctions imposed on his nation, but would not commit to do the same for other elements of its weapons program. And so there are various facilities in North Korea that are currently producing these weapons. And so the United States argues, hey, if you want us to completely lift these sanctions, you

have to completely denuclearize, and it appears that Kim Jong-un was unwilling to do that. Now with that said, I want you to hear from Donald Trump, who did give a press conference on this in the early morning hours. Let's take a quick look. We spent pretty much all day with Kim Jong-un, who is, he's quite a guy and quite a character. And I think our relationship is very strong. But at this time, we had some options. And at this time, we decided not to do any of the options.

And we'll see where that goes. But it was a very interesting two days. And I think actually it was a very productive two days. But sometimes you have to walk. Okay, so we're gonna get to the substance of the negotiations in just a minute, or at least he is. I wanted to start off by showing you that portion of his press conference because that gives you a sense that things at least didn't end with a lot of tension and anger.

That was my concern. So when the news first broke and I get the news notifications on my phone and I see that the negotiations completely fall through, I was scared that Trump, as temperamental as he is, is gonna I believe, you know, ranting and raving, and it appears that he's not doing that. So that's good. Remember, we don't want things to become dangerous, we don't want tensions to escalate. It appears that's not happening, so that's good. Okay, so two things to look out for.

One, I'm gonna defend Trump, pretty decent amount in this story. So I'll get into it more as we get into the different details. I'm with Anna that, yeah, thanks God, at least things didn't literally go nuclear at the end. of those guys, not just Trump, but Kim Jong-un could melt down pretty quickly. They're both snowflakes. And I'm going to do a fun prediction for you guys, you know how fun that is. But it requires an additional thing that I can't control, so it's not a great prediction in that sense.

I mean, all your other predictions are so good, so it sucks. You want to go ask Keith Abla how my predictions are? Okay. Okay, I mean, you might have to talk to him through his lawyer, okay, but anyway. That's fair. Okay, so if anyone whispers in Trump's ear, like, hey, you know you can make an unjoke, like Summit was unbelievable, he would love it and he would definitely do it and then do it 12 times over.

Okay, I'm just, but somebody's got to tell him because he's not creative enough to think of it on his own. Okay, so that's kind of a weird prediction. That's just fun. All right, let's get into substance. All right, so let's take a look at the next video, again, this is from the same press conference. Is this mostly your decision or, and what would message would you want to send Chairman Kim as he's listening to this press conference about the future and your relationship?

Well, Sean, I don't want to say it was my decision because what purpose is that I want to keep the relationship and we will keep the relationship. We'll see what happens over the next period of time. But as you know, we got our hostages back. There's no more testing. And one of the things importantly that Chairman Kim promised me last night is regardless, he's not going to do testing of rockets and nuclear, not going to do testing. So, you know, I trust him and I take him at his word, I hope that's true.

Okay, so here comes part of the defense. So he's getting criticized on a couple of fronts here. First, they're saying, well, the talks fell through, so that is a loss for him. And the talks have gone, well, that would be a victory for him. him. I can't stand that framing by the media. Or so Jeddah was, I can't accept that. And the reason is you don't want to make it a political victory if he just gets some sort

of artificial deal, because that incentivizes him to do a nonsense deal that doesn't necessarily benefit us. And that's what we were worried about last time, that it was a nonsense deal that had no specificity, but it was called a win for him. Now don't do that, right? If it's not a good deal, you should walk away. So I want him to get a deal, but our side was not comfortable with it. So I don't want to discourage him from talking to Kim Jong-un.

I also don't want to discourage him from walking away if he has to walk away. And now the second thing he's getting criticized for there is that people are going, ha ha, Sean Hannity accidentally got him to admit that it was not Trump who walked away, but perhaps Kim Jong-un. And the facts do seem to indicate that. Now, Trump said, I don't want to say it was me who walked away. He walked away. Before that question, he said about three different times that it was him, okay?

But I don't care. That's minor, okay? We got a lot of issues with Trump. Don't get into minor stuff, okay? The bottom line is he's doing the right thing in that answer by allowing Kim Jong-un and himself to save face so that they can continue to negotiate instead of saying, I walked away, I'm the tough guy, right? Don't do that.

And he didn't. That was a rare restraint from Trump. Yes, yes, okay, so I agree with you on that. I'm going to criticize Trump, not on this part of the story. There's another part that I think he does deserve some criticism for. But remember, the very first summit led to us criticizing him pretty aggressively because he wanted to concede everything, like right from the get-go. And then he turned around and told the American people, you have no need to worry anymore.

They're gonna denuclearize. I solved this entire problem. Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but he put that tweet out. And that wasn't true. And I felt like there were way too many concessions right off the bat to Kim Jong-un. Now it turns out, and I don't know if it's because Mike Pompeo is playing a role here, that we didn't actually follow through with those concessions. And more importantly, he handled the second summit as someone who appears to be somewhat

competent and understands the gravity of this meeting. And so you know how bombastic Trump is. Again, I was worried that it was going to end either with Trump giving North Korea everything that they wanted without them having to really denuclearize or Trump would get angry and you know, use the temperamental part of his character to escalate tensions. And that did not happen. So that's good. Hopefully they continue negotiating.

Yeah, I'm going to add one more quick thing to that. Look, no matter how much we can't stand Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un, we have to be fair. So in this case, it would be unfair to say, well, if you gave him a sweetheart deal that didn't get us anything, that's bad. And if you draw the line and don't give him everything he wants, that's also bad. No, you gotta make up your mind, right? So I want him to talk last time it had no specifics and it was just for a political quote unquote win, which I can't stand.

This time he put aside the political win to actually walk away when he thought we didn't have a good enough deal. You have to reward that. And I also want to do likewise for Kim Jong-un, who is bold to have a haircut like that. And no one gives him credit. I mean, that's a very unique haircut. I don't know, almost anyone else in the world that has it. And he was willing to walk away from traditional haircuts to do that instead.

That is pretty bold. Okay. Okay. So yeah, I think we agree on our analysis when it comes to this part of the story. But I want to get to a second part. So during Donald Trump's press conference, where he made it clear that there is no agreement with North Korea or Kim Jong-un, he also was asked about auto warm beer. Now this was an American who had traveled to North Korea.

He was accused of tampering with some sort of propaganda banner and then was imprisoned. When he was returned back to the United States, he was in terrible condition. It appeared that he had been in a coma for a long time, up to a year, and unfortunately he died. Now, Trump has been very complimentary to Kim Jong-un following their first summit. And so during this press conference, reporters wanted to know, well, what about Otto Warmbier? Any discussion about that? Take a look. Well, I know the Warm Beer family very well.

I think they're an incredible family. What happened is horrible. I really believe something very bad happened to him, and I don't think that the top leadership knew about it. And when they had to send him home, by the way, I got the prisoners back, I got the hostages back, and Otto was one of the hostages, but Otto came back in shape that was not even to be talked about. I find it, I thought it was horrible.

Now, the others came back extremely healthy, but Otto came back in a condition that That was just terrible. And I will, I did speak about it. And I don't believe that he would have allowed that to happen. Just wasn't to his advantage to allow that to happen. Those prisons are rough. They're rough places and bad things happened. But I really don't believe that he was, he, he, I don't believe he knew about it.

Did he say, did he tell you that he did not, Kim Jong-un tell you that? He felt badly about it. So, this is the part of the story. I mean, we gave him credit for how he handled the negotiations, but I can't give him credit here because, okay, two sentences stood out to me the most. I believe something bad happened to him in regard to auto-war, oh, you believe, was that, do you base your belief on the fact that he died after he was returned from North Korea? And then he was in a coma for a year, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that

out. Okay. And then he says, I don't believe he, meaning I don't believe that Kim Jong-un would have allowed that to happen. How many people have died under Kim Jong-un's watch? I mean, do you not know that there are, you know, horrible, horrible crimes against humanity happening in North Korea right now as we speak? Yeah.

So we've lowered the bar for Trump so low that, you know, when he doesn't trip over his own feet into a face plant, we're like, well, we're like, well, we're not. Okay, all right. So that's why I think my interpretation of this is just a little bit different than yours in that I don't think he's capable of doing nuance. So if it was Obama or an intelligent president, they would walk the line between not insulting Kim Jong-un too much to keep the talks alive while not, you know, saying, oh, I believe the dictator. He would never do that.

Of course he would do that. That's a ridiculous thing to say, and he's done it in fact hundreds of thousands of times, arguably millions of times, they have concentration camps for their citizens in North Korea. So, but that's a tough line to walk where you don't want to insult Kim Jong-un too much because of the important, really important and sensitive negotiations. So, but you also don't want to let them off the hook for how they treated a US citizen who wound up dying. Trump's just not capable of walking that line, he doesn't even know that that line exists.

So he's always all in, so in this case, you know, that was him. He was not all in, he was like 80% in, which is as good as he can do. Where he was like, no, Kim Jong-un, I believe him, I believe him. Okay, there's another video that I want to get to, same press conference. Again, this is on the topic of auto warm beer. Take a look. I did speak to him. He felt very badly, but he knew the case very well, but he knew it later.

And you got a lot of people, big country, a lot of people. And in those prisons and those camps, you have a lot of people. And some really bad things happened to Otto, some really, really bad things. Why are you willing to call? But he tells me, he tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word. Like just stop talking, right? I mean, I get it, I get that you have to balance the efforts in negotiating the denuclearization, and you don't want to anger an evil dictator in the country that you're negotiating with.

But a good way to handle this, it's just one sentence. What happened to Otto Warmbier was terrible, I don't accept it, and there are real human rights issues at play here, but we need to focus on the bigger issue, which would affect the lives of countless people, not just in America, but in other countries, and we need to focus on these negotiations and these talks, and we need to get North Korea to denuclearize, period, done. That's more than one sentence, I got it, but you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

Well, the problem is he doesn't take any advice because he's too insecure to take advice. But a normal counselor would tell him, when you have a sensitive issue like that where it's hard to walk a line, keep that your answer as short as possible, don't keep repeating things endlessly like you always do, because then that reinforces things you don't necessarily want reinforced. You don't want to keep saying Kim Jong-un, oh, no, he wouldn't do that. And then you're actually, he's hurting himself on both ends here, because he keeps talking about, well, there's a lot of people in those camps, and those are rough, rough places.

Yeah, he's got concentration camps, he's probably not that half. happy that you're talking about that. So just get out of there, get out of there, just say it's a tragedy and we're definitely looking for, you know, to make sure that it never happens again, et cetera, you know, we've been over it. But guys, you know he's not intelligent enough to do that. But he also has this pattern of covering up or making excuses for, you know, dictators and bad guys who essentially murder others.

I mean, it happened with Khashoggi, it's happening now with Otto Warmbier. Don't make excuses for these guys. Yeah, get off it, get off it immediately. Yeah, so last thing here, look, I think it's in his nature that he thinks people have to just follow the leader and that's how he ran his organization. It was actually a relatively small organization, Trump org, and he would just tell people what to do and they would have to do it and there was no discussion, there was no votes, there was no counseling, there was none of that stuff, right?

And so he gets deep and he would give it crazy orders. and people would try to fulfill them. And sometimes they just ignore them because they were so crazy. So he has a natural inclination to like authoritarian leaders. He's deeply bothered by our checks and balances in our system. Oh my god, I got a check with the legislative branch. Well, I want to spend the money on the wall. So why don't they just spend it without asking them, right?

Oh, he hates it when the courts rein him in. So yes, he's got this like almost longing for these dictators, right? On the other hand, I'm going to do a weird, another somewhat positive point about Trump, but it's quite ironic. Him saying that made me think, hmm, I mean, look, he said it in regards to Putin, you know, like I take him out his word, I take him out his word. And we all assumed, I think, right? 90% rightfully so that, yeah, it's because he doesn't want to make Putin angry.

I believe that Putin has compromising information on him, et cetera. Another hand, he just did it with Kim Jong-un. So that actually mitigates what he did with Putin a little bit, not completely, but a little bit. He seems to do it in the context of there's something for me to personally gain from saying this, right? So in this case, he would gain a decent relationship with Kim Jong-un, hopefully because he wants to continue on with these negotiations with Putin. I mean, we can only speculate. But he seems to do that a lot when there's something for him to gain. Well, certainly true, and he doesn't hide it or hide it very well at all.

He's certainly not sophisticated enough to hide it because like for the Saudis, even before he became president, and he said, am I not supposed to like them? They buy my apartments at $40 to $50 million apiece. He's like, of course I like them. But they're like, but they chop people up. He's like, yeah, I know, but they're buying weapons from us. So I like him. I got that sentence in before this things I feel good about it.

All right. Okay. We do a live show, everybody. We do a live show. Okay. Yeah. I'm done with this story. Okay, me too.

So we have a fun video to share with our audience, right? Oh yeah. All right, so we're gonna take a break here. When we come back, we've got more stories. Hey, CNN responds to the town hall debacle. I can't wait to talk about this story. Okay, so that's great. But as we go to break here, guys, we did an end of 2018 reel to show you guys.

Admittedly, a couple months like, but still, okay, but it's great and I love it. And our editors here did wonderful work on it. And it was, 2018 was a bit of a rough year, obviously. It had some great upsides, as you'll see in the montage here. And it just sometimes felt like a decade, not a year. But 2019, I think, is pretty hopeful. And we try to capture all that in this video. So if you're watching on t.com slash live or on YouTube, you'll watch that next and then we'll come back from the break.

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

But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time.

All right, back into the York Turks. Sorry, Jank and Anna with you guys. Let me tell you a bunch of programming notes. First off, Bernie is going to be in Brooklyn and we're going to cover it. It's this Saturday, it's at Brooklyn College. If you're in that neck of the woods, you can go check it out yourself too. And our own Emma Viglin will be there. And we will be broadcasting it starting at 11.30 a.m. Eastern on Saturday at 4,000.

Facebook.com slash RebelHQ. Remember, whenever there's a progressive event, Facebook.com slash RebelHQ, okay? Now, we also have a random 20% off sale on shopty.t.com. Stated reason, none. Just super random. It's a flash sale. Over in the blink of an eye, it'll be over at midnight Pacific tonight. But you got to go to t.com slash notice, okay?

And it's for members only. That's why. Members can get the special way of buying it. I don't even know how that works, but bless your heart. Go to t.wit.com slash notice if you're a member, and you're going to get 20% off of anything is shoppedy.com. Real quick, Brooke Thomas says something that I love and I've adopted it in my own language, I guess.

She said, whenever she likes something, she says, I'm here for it. So I'm here for it. I like that. I love flash sales. Flash sales are the worst, are the best, I'm here for it. I don't know why I said worst. That's okay. That makes sense.

All right, that makes sense. I liked what Adrian Lawrence said yesterday in the coverage. She was making a similar point about how, like they keep saying Cohen's a criminal and a liar while not pointing out that he worked for Donald Trump, who hired him for that reason. And she said, criminals run with other criminals. That's so true, and it's stuck in my head. All right, one more note, aspiration, wonderful sponsor for us. I'd like to remind you that it's almost March, and are you keeping your New Year's resolution

to do right? Good question. One way to do that is to put your money in a progressive financial institution. So it never goes to oil companies, gun companies, et cetera. We're gonna get a story about guns a little bit later in the program. Right now, if you're in a normal bank, that's where your money is. Not all of it, but some percentage of it, and that doesn't make people feel good. And you can set your own rates at Aspiration and they give away 10% of charity as well.

So go to aspiration.com slash t-y-t and check that out. Perfect kind of progressive partner for us, okay? Just two tweets here or comments for the member section. Kamala Harris is a cop, writes in, come on. That never gets old. It never gets old. Okay, come on, that would be like blaming Trump for every time an innocent black person is shot.

You can't assume that Kim Jong-un is directly responsible. Interesting point of view, I just wanted to throw it out there because it's a little different, okay? I don't think it's the same. I don't think it's the same because we're talking about, we're talking about Americans, right? I find it very difficult to believe that Kim Jong-un would be unaware that American citizens like Otto Warmbier have been imprisoned for something as stupid as allegedly messing with some sort of banner.

Stealing a propaganda poster, come on. Anyway, and it's his regime that made that choice as opposed to the systemic problems we have in America. It's a little different. But anyway, I wanted to state it because it was different. Wait, one other thing that I want to say, it's not like he was imprisoned for a day. He was imprisoned for months, and you think that the United States wasn't trying to get him back?

I mean, there were officials in the U.S. were actively trying to get him back. You think Kim Jong-un didn't, he knew, he knew. He made that decision. It's different. It's apples and oranges, what we're talking about here. Logan also challenging us, writing Anna, Jenk, I love you guys, but you're way too naive on North Korea. Kim Jong-un has done nothing and only use these talks of the way to do.

legitimizes regime, while I agree talking to North Korea is good, this has played entirely into Kim's hands. So far, yes, I actually agree with you on that. Yeah, I get it, and we're aware of that, whereas Trump doesn't seem to be aware of it. But I actually, I don't love that point, and that's why we're disagreeing, and that's okay and healthy. But the reason is that whole, like, legitimized and so what, right? Like, legitimized and we lifted the sanctions, that would be real, right?

Kim Jong-win and Trump took a picture together. I know he uses it for propaganda at home, I'm aware of that. But under that ideology, we'd never talk to our enemies. Oh, you don't want to legitimize the grand diatola, so we can't do peace with them. Not buying it. I have a far bigger problem with legitimizing evil-doers like the Saudis without having any demands of them, right? I mean, there are no demands.

We're not asking them to change their behavior or to, you know, maybe treat them. People better? We're not doing any of that. No, no. To be fair, there are demands, Anna. Like what? That they work with our oil companies so they can make incredible profits. And they work with our defense contractors so they can make incredible profits.

And they keep working with Trump organizations so he can make incredible profits. So for the American people, squat. But that's a lot of money for a lot of powerful people. And so if you make that much money for the people at the top in America, apparently you can literally chop anyone up. So, all right, let's go on the kind of good news. Yes. Earlier this week, there was a lot of criticism, including criticism on this show, in regard

to how CNN identified the participants of the Bernie Sanders Town Hall. Now, they identified various people who asked questions as mother of two or community organizer, But upon further research, you'd find that these people actually have political careers, and the audience should know about that. Now, it wasn't a criticism about the questions asked, the questions were good, but of course, the audience deserves to know the backgrounds of the people asking the questions, so you understand whether or not there might be a conflict of interest or something like that. Well, it appears that some of the decision makers at CNN, we don't know exactly who,

because this is an unidentified spokesperson, have heard the criteria. criticisms have acknowledged it and have somewhat conceded that they did the wrong thing, okay? So the National Review, which is a conservative outlet, reached out to CNN and a spokesperson responded with the following. Though we had said at the beginning of the town hall that the audience was made up of Democrats and independents, we should have more fully identified any political affiliations. So look, I'm not completely happy with that response because simply saying, saying, oh, they're Democrats and independents.

I mean, yeah, voters who have other careers that are not political are Democrats or independents or whatever, conservatives, liberals, that doesn't say anything about them. We want to know what their job title is because if they are running a PR firm in DC, okay, well, it's in DC, are you representing some of the other candidates who are running against Bernie Sanders? That's stuff that the audience should know about. Yeah, or by the way, if you're for Bernie Sanders, and apparently a Virginia delegate Lee J. Carter that was there tweeted, that he recognized not only a lot of the people

as within Democratic Party officially at the event. He said that they actually asked the Democratic Party to bring people. And maybe if you're doing it in New Hampshire, that makes some degree of sense. But again, as much clarity and transparency as we can. But he also added that a lot of them were Bernie Sanders delegates. That's also good to know. And some of the questions were framed very positively for Bernie, including one that said, you know, how your healthcare plan has been misrepresented.

But some, I take a little bit harder line on than Anna does, including the question about, you know, his, or how are you making sure that your campaign is not infiltrated by the Russians? No other candidate's been asked that. It's if he had asked about it generally about the Democrats, okay, asking his specific to Bernie seems like a talking point against him that's a little bizarre. It makes it seem like he's working with the Russians. And by the way, the individual who asked that question runs a PR firm out of DC. And we don't know who he represents.

And God forbid we find out, because that would be doxing. So it wouldn't, by the way. But it's okay, we just look for a little bit more transparency, but I'm actually very happy with this. I think that it was responsible for CNN to at least clarify, hopefully address it going forward. If they just not addressed it at all and brushed it off like we don't care, I think that would have been egregious, but at least they did address it, which is the far more responsible thing to do.

And let me be clear about one other thing, actually two things. First off, for me, the whole point wasn't, oh, they're going after Bernie Sanders and they're being unfair to Bernie Sanders. Of course there is definitely some concern about that, considering how he was treated during the last election. But my whole issue with all of this was not about Bernie, it wasn't about, you know, people running against him, it was about ethical standards and how we can't just allow any organization that parades around as a news organization to not follow through with ethical standards,

which is to disclose to the audience the political ties of the individuals involved in the discussion. That was it, right? For me, that was the heart of my criticism. So I'm glad that they addressed it. We'll see if they make the same mistakes in the future. My guess is, and this is just a prediction, they will, but we'll see. Yeah, but look, it's not just us, it was a couple other places like Pace magazine that held them to account.

And so they responded to independent media, which in the past they wouldn't have, partly because also Fox News criticized them and National Review did, and if the right wing criticized you, You have to respond. But still, overall, overall, look, guys, don't lose sight of the fact that independent media did a check on Establishing media. Establishment media did the right thing by saying we hear you and you're generally speaking right and we'll try to do better next time. That's a pretty good result.

Okay. Let's move on to other news. During Michael Cohen's testimony in front of members of the House Oversight Committee, AOC, as always, was shining because she asked a line of questions that were incredibly important when it comes to obtaining Donald Trump's tax returns. Now before we get to the videos, let me give you a little more context. Republicans were planning on fighting requests for Donald Trump's tax returns by arguing that there's really no legal reason for obtaining it.

it was nothing more than a political attack. But what you're about to hear from AOC through her line of questioning to Michael Cohen is a case that is perfectly made in order for them to obtain those tax returns legitimately. Take a look. I want to ask a little bit about your conversation with my colleague from Missouri about asset inflation. To your knowledge, did the president ever provide inflated assets to an insurance company? Yes.

Who else knows the president did this? Alan Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman, and Matthew Calamari. And where would the committee find more information on this? Do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them? Yes, and you'd find it at the Trump org. Thank you very much. Boom. We're not even done yet.

There's more, right? But again, boom. So that's super important. Because we told you at length yesterday about all the different possible crimes that arise out of the Michael Cohen's testimony that affects Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., others at the organization. And Rokane did a brilliant job bringing down financial fraud that happened in the Trump organization. I don't think he's getting enough credit, and that story's not being talked about enough, because

the checks were for that to pay back Michael Cohen for the hush money were for a different stated reason in the organization, you can't do that. fraud, right? Now, Casimir Cortez picks it up Afrikanah by saying, wait, you said that he artificially inflates and deflates his wealth, depending on who he's talking to, so how about insurance companies? Well, that's a brilliant line of questioning, and that would be insurance fraud, very important and serious crime, and Michael Cohen said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we were doing that, and would

that be in his tax returns? Yes, it would, and it'd be at the other papers of the Trump organization, and so that That would be crimes that he, not just at the federal level, but it could also be at the state level if you're doing it in the state of New York. So, oh, oh, big, big trouble for the Trump team. So let's give you a little more of AOC's questions. To your knowledge, was the president interested in reducing his local real estate bills, tax bills?

Yes. And how did he do that? What you do is you deflate the value of the asset, and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction. Thank you. Now, in October 2018, the New York Times revealed that, quote, President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from

his parents. And it further stated for Mr. Trump, quote, he also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents' real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing his tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings. Mr. Cohen, do you know whether that specific report is accurate? I don't. I wasn't there in 1990s.

Who would know the answer to those questions? Alan Weisselberg. And would it help for the committee to obtain federal and state tax returns from the president and his company to address that discrepancy? I believe so. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Mr. Weisselberg. The House Intelligence Committee is planning on interviewing Alan Weisselberg. Told you. As we were doing a live play by play yesterday, I kept saying Weisselberg straight ahead. So if you think Michael Cohen knows a lot, he only worked with him with Trump for 10 years. Weisselberg's been there much longer and he wasn't just the lawyer or the fixer, he was the finance guy.

He must, by definition, have known exactly where all the money went, where it came in, where it went out, and all the accounting there. That's where the bodies are buried, or in this case the crimes are buried. And Weisselberg is working with prosecutors. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And when you got them on state level charges that cannot be pardoned, they're in a lot of trouble. And now I want to give credit to the mainstream media who are giving AOC credit here. Because we try to hold them into account all the time, but pretty much universally today,

the mainstream media are covering this like, we might have underestimated AOC. And it's not just one place, many different places saying, unlike some of her colleagues on both sides, she did not do grandstanding. She just dove in to a really important line of questioning and unearthed two important things. One is the illegal action, potentially illegal actions of the Trump team, including the president, And how to get his tax returns. That's a double win and she did that in about four minutes. Yeah, it was incredible and look, we've seen AOC deliver over and over and over again, which

is why we weren't surprised. I wasn't surprised. I knew that she was going to kill it. And she's always prepared, she does her homework and it was fantastic. But I'm going to push back a little bit because while I do agree that overall it appears that the media, you know, gave her, you know, shining reviews following that line of questioning. It was clear to me that there were a few who begrudgingly did so. Okay, so I'm gonna read you, so this is by Ed Kilgore from New York Magazine.

And maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'll let you guys decide for yourselves. This paragraph bothered me a little. True, she's lucky to be the rare member of Congress who will get attention no matter what she does, but this time, this time she earned it, and if nothing else, it's a solid indication that she hasn't let her early celebrity go to her head. Yeah, I hear you, Anna, but at least Ed, I don't know him, but in that case, Ed was honest about it, he said, I'm not in her camp in an earlier part of the article, and so, and that's where almost all the mainstream media is, they just don't admit it, he at least

had the decency to admit it, and to be swayed by facts. Look, you know the right wing's doing nonstop propaganda about her. Like they'll be they'll take anything, they'll be like, oh, she did mac and cheese so she's too poor, oh she ate spaghetti so she's too rich, oh she's an airhead because she's young, it goes on and on. And unfortunately the mainstream media are enormously swayed by right wing media. So they bought into a lot of that. And then when they see this line of questioning that's, you know, excellent, they're like,

oh, Fox News might not have been right about her, yeah, duh, and it's not just Fox News. The establishment doesn't love her because she's challenging them. Of course, yeah. Which is understandable, right? So now here's some reporters at least being open-minded enough to see maybe we were wrong. And that's a wonderful thing and it doesn't happen often. Sure, okay, fine. I just, I don't like the condescending tone and this notion that, you know, she gets all

this attention for no reason, no, she gets attention because she challenges the status quo. She does what other elected leaders throughout our nation's history, for the most part, have been refusing to do, especially in the last few decades. And so she's getting attention for that. It's not like she's just some rando who just got elected into Congress and she's not doing anything special, but for some reason everyone's paying attention to her. Yeah, that's a great criticism of Anna because they make it seem as if it's superficial. Right.

When it's, no, the reason that she is followed by so many people on Twitter, et cetera, is because she has struck a cord. And so you should be thinking about why does she strike that cord? Why is she so popular? And I interviewed Dave Katnese from U.S. News and World Report yesterday. We had an interesting discussion. We don't agree on a lot of the framing, but it was good to have an intelligent back and forth on the issues of the day.

But he calls, you know, progressives in social media, loud voices on Twitter, right? But did you think about why they're loud? So yeah, you've got some all right guys who scream, right, and talk about threats, et cetera, et cetera, and that's one reason to be loud. The other reason is they're loud because they're large, there's a lot of them, right? And so that is what indicates that a politician is popular. And then you have to think about why are they popular? All the folks that like and honestly love AOC don't love her because of her hairstyle, right?

And I know that a lot of the mainstream media is stuck in the 1990s, so they're still obsessed with superficial aspects of, oh, do they give a good speech, or do they have good consultants? Do they do good hand motions while talking? No, this new generation grew up on the internet, they actually care about substance. They like someone, not based on any of that. Think about it, just last thing on this, think about it, guys. That same cohort loves Bernie Sanders and Acacia Cortez. Yes.

Two people on their physical attributes could not be more different. They're the exact opposite, right? Very true, yes. So why do they love both of them? Because they love their policies and they love how authentic they are. That's the lesson to learn here. Right, and her fire style is just the cherry on top. So just keeping her real.

All right, we gotta take a break. But when we come back, Lynn Patton, the woman who was- Used in the Cohen testimony to prove that Donald Trump is not racist speaks out. 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.

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Just this segment, okay, but you're all members if you're watching this, so God bless, let's go forward. A couple of comments here, Meg writes in, AOC makes me proud every day, maybe I'll write to her and tell her. Sure, why not? Do that. Cole says, I'm with you, Anna, CNN is completely not news. Zero.

Okay, zero. Okay. Burn. Old Turk says, after Cohen questioning yesterday, I'm thinking of calling AOC, president after next day, O. Hold, hold, hold, just everybody bring it down, okay? I would love that, but bring it down. It's a long time away, okay?

Because it's, yeah, I just, chicken should never be counted before they hatch, okay? So anyways, but it's wonderful that you guys love her. I love that. Let's keep supporting her and all the other progressives to make sure we get policy wins, okay? Old Punk 721 on Twitter says, this is why I love TYT. They just read a tweet that was critical of them. What other news source does that? Thank you.

We appreciate that. As I tell you all the time, we do this show together, and that's why we also do these members-only sections. Last one. Mauricio F-7 says, just became a member. I've been watching TYT live through YouTube for years, but I've finally made the move to membership. Love and enjoy the work you guys do every day. TYT Army or nothing.

Love it. Welcome! And you get this segment as well, since you're a member. And lastly, everybody check out, no filter, okay? So that's Anna's show. It's excellent. I was just watching it the other day. I became aware that she's apparently a boss.

That's what the kids are calling her. That's funny. So it's got a podcast that's free for everybody, but you guys are all members. So obviously you can get the video version of it. Okay. What's next, Anna? All right. During Michael Cohen's testimony before the House Oversight Committee, he had alleged

that Donald Trump is a racist. And that led to a bunch of back and forth with Trump loyalists and Democrats. Now, Mark Meadows, who is a Republican, felt the need to bring up Lynn Patton, who is apparently a longtime friend of the Trump's, and she's currently working in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Now, an awkward moment happened where she was brought up. In fact, if you didn't see it, I want to show you what it look like right now. Do you know Lynn Patton?

Yes, I do. I asked Lynn to come today in her personal capacity to actually shed some light. How long have you known, Ms. Patton? I'm responsible for Lynn Patton joining the Trump organization and the job that she currently holds. Well, I'm glad you acknowledge that because you made some very demeaning comments about the president that Ms. Patton doesn't agree with. In fact, it has to do with your claim of racism. She says that as a daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, that there is no way that she would work for an individual who was racist.

How do you reconcile the two of those? As neither should I as the son of a Holocaust survivor. That line is always devastating. So look, this is a walking ad for diversity. in hiring, because it's, and it's very ironic because he's bringing up like one of the very rare African Americans working for Donald Trump anywhere in the administration. By the way, almost all of them are in housing and urban development. That's right.

Because he's a walking stereotype, that all he thinks is stereotypes. Anyway, but if he had any African Americans on his staff, Mark Meadows did, and I don't know if he's got any at all, but obviously they didn't counsel him, because if he has any, Because he would then know that at a bare minimum, this is very racially insensitive to bring up an African American person but not let them talk and talk for them. You see this prop over here? Now I'm gonna tell you what she thinks. This white guy is gonna tell you what this black person thinks.

Right. I mean, again, bare minimum, racially, deeply racially insensitive. But the reason he was flipped out by Talib calling it racist is because he doesn't even know that. He doesn't know a lot of black people. I know he says he has black people of color that are nephews and nieces, but they should tell him, hey, unc, okay, that's not cool. And he just doesn't seem to know it at all.

So Lynn Patton was invited on Fox News to talk about this whole incident. And I think it's really important to hear what she has to say. So let's take a look. Said it before and I'll say it again. The president does not see color, race, creed, release. religion, what he sees is success and failure. And whether that manifests itself as a person, a place, a property, a restaurant, a TV show, a policy, you know, a country, a community, he makes no differentiation.

And so to me, that's what makes people uncomfortable is that he doesn't care what people think and he's going to tell it like it is. Okay, so she alleges that Donald Trump doesn't see color. But if you know anything about Donald Trump, I'm sure you'd beg to differ. Take a look. Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. Go into the middle of the caravan. Take your cameras and search.

John, take your camera, go into the middle and search. You're going to find MS-13. You're going to find Middle Eastern. We had a case where we had an African-American guy who was a fan of mine. Look at my African American over here, look at him. So we have an African American guy at one of the rallies a month ago, and he's sitting there behaving. Unbelievable, he's sitting there behaving.

Look at my African American, he wasn't joking. So look, these guys grew up in such deep racial stereotypes, again, I'm being overly kind here, okay, that they don't even know that their racism is horrible stereotypes. And they think like it's like a badge of honor to have your African American, one person show up at a rally. And so, but there is one part of what Lynn Patton is saying that is true. It's a, it's, now, Trump would know this phraseology, but it's a rebuttable presumption for Trump.

If you're black, as Michael Cohen explained, he told Michael Cohen, blacks won't vote for me because they're too stupid, hilarious, given that he's the dumbest guy we've ever had in office, but he thinks about it that way. But it is a rebuttable presumption. On the other hand, if you are really wealthy and you like Donald Trump, those are two things you need, right? Then he can get past the fact that you're black. So if you're Don King or Mike Tyson and he knows you from hosting some of the fights and

you're wealthy and you kiss his ass, okay, then you're in, okay? Muslims, we have to ban all the Muslims, right? And she mentioned that he doesn't care about ethnicity. He called for a total ban on Muslims. How can he not care about ethnicity and religion when you do a total ban on one particular religion? Anyway, but it is a rebuttable presumption. He hates all Muslims unless they're Saudis, and he says, well, they give me $40 to $50

million for my apartments. So if you're rich and you kiss his ass, those are two requirements, he will get past his racism. Yeah, and I also want to add one other thing to, in response to what Lynn Patton said. Look, I don't know her relationship with Donald Trump. I think that it's difficult to be overly critical towards someone who's given you certain opportunities and there's like a power dynamic there. But let's say we take her out her word, right?

One thing that I try to think about it as, okay, well, how would I feel if I were in her shoes? First of all, I wouldn't like to be included in the testimony in the way that she was, but that's just me. She seemed to be in favor of the hatch. She agreed to be there. But I also thought about how, you know, when people were attacking you, Jank, and trying to make it seem as though you're like this terrible, misogynistic guy, people would put words

in my mouth about how I feel about you, right? And in fact, when reporters, when these people writing hit pieces on you, reached out to me to ask me how I feel about the environment here and how I feel about you considering I'm a woman, And I gave them exactly how I felt. It was never published. My views never published, and I hated people speaking for me. How's that for irony? Because they say, well, you know, and it was an alt-right attack, so you know where it's coming

from, total nonsense, right? But they're like, okay, the alt-right says that Jake Hugar is sexist, what do you think about that? And you state your opinion. Well, I don't want to hear your opinion, so I'm not going to write that. I'm going to write something else. Well, wouldn't that be sexist to ignore? You asked, she's certainly the most important women on air.

We've got a lot of important women here, our head of programming, et cetera. But you asked, and then if you ignore it, then apparently you didn't care. Yeah, and so the reason why I bring that up is because I want to be as fair as possible to patent, because I don't like the idea of people speaking for her. If she genuinely believes that Trump is not racist, okay, well, that's a lot. her perspective, but I hope that she understands why everyone else has a completely different perspective, and it's because of that mashup video that we just showed you right now, because of the way that he's talked about race in the past.

Yeah, I mean, if I had done likewise on that issue, then if you couldn't understand it, that would be weird. If I said, okay, now everybody, welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, you're going to Anna's not allowed to talk. Anna's not allowed to talk. I'll be talking the whole show, she's just going to stand there, just sit there, okay? And then if people question me, and Anna said, well, he gave me a job, I mean, he doesn't let me talk, okay, but he gave me a job, then you go, okay, and then I'm looking down.

I don't know if you guys know this, but Anna's now the executive producer of the Young Turks, so she actually decides what's on the show. I do. Okay, so watch out. Okay. I've come a long way. Okay. And then the final point I want to make about this story is the statement, I don't see race.

So that statement actually used to be perceived as okay, but I think that the culture has shifted to recognizing that when you say I don't see race, you're kind of discounting or minimizing the different life experiences that different races have, right? And so it seems as if you're like neglecting or ignoring that there's a very different reality for someone who has fair skin versus someone who does not. Right? Yeah. I'll go further.

Saying I don't see color is almost an admission of ignorance, because the system sees color and there's great disparity in this country. Bernie Sanders recently pointed out in a town hall, wealth disparity in this country is 10-to-one between white families and black families. And that is legacy left over, yes, from slavery, Jim Crow, and all of those things. Because if you start at a certain level, it's much harder to excel up. You have to overcome those obstacles. We're not saying you can't overcome those obstacles, but that's a reality for a group of

Americans. And if you say, no, I don't see it. Well, that's not fair not to see it, that institutional disadvantage that people have. And then there's the statistics about crime that we tell you about all the time where I give you the most common one, marijuana smoked at the same rate for whites and blacks. But blacks get arrested at three to four times the rate. Well, if you say, I don't see color, well, then you're saying, I don't see the problem. Right, exactly.

The problem exists, you're just choosing not to see it, and hence not addressing it. That doesn't help the situation. Yeah, and I think some people do acknowledge the differences and the different experiences and the fact that discrimination exists, but they say it in a way to make it clear that, hey, I don't discriminate based on. So like, I think sometimes people get a lot of like harsh criticism when they use that sentence when they don't mean any ill will by it. But I'm just kind of bringing this up because I think a lot of well-meaning people use that

phrase without understanding that for some the way it's perceived is, yeah, you're being ignorant to what we're going through. Yeah, and guys, it's progresses, we gotta do nuance. So if you see someone who's genuinely trying to say like, hey, to me your race doesn't matter, I'm going to treat you fairly equally either way, you have to be able to distinguish that from some right-winger coming up going, I don't see color, I don't see any problems, right? Yeah. That's two totally different things.

Exactly, yeah. Okay, so let's move on to something completely different, the issue of the electoral college and what some states are doing about it. Various states have realized that, hey, you know what, if you really want a democracy, you should probably ensure that the person that most Americans vote for becomes the president of the United States. The electoral college sometimes can fail us, as it did in 2016, where the candidate who had 3 million more votes did not win.

And so right now there are states like Maine, for instance, who are considering legislation that would essentially bypass the electoral college and end up voting for the individual who has the most votes. Okay, so let me give you the details. The bill currently being looked at by Maine's lawmakers would have the state enter into an agreement with other states whereby they would all agree to have their electors vote for the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide, setting aside the current system of voting according to how their individual states vote.

So let me explain it with an example. So let's take the 2016 election. If it turned out that enough states, enough states have 270 electoral votes, 271, which would give you the victory, said, yes, we're going to just go by the popular vote. Whether our state voted for it or didn't, okay, then that would be enough for the, that you wouldn't have to amend the Constitution to get rid of the electoral college. So if Alabama was part of that compact and Alabama did not vote for Hillary Clinton, but she won the national popular vote, Alabama would send their electorate to vote for Hillary Clinton, and so she can get 271 votes and become president. Now, that's what freaks out conservatives, but the reality is it also works the other way.

So if Donald Trump had won the popular vote but lost electoral college, California has already signed on of this. So California would vote for Donald Trump because he won the popular vote. That's how this works. That's exactly right. Now, there are some right-wingers who are not too happy about this, and the former government of Maine, Paul LePage spoke about it and shared his criticisms on a radio show. So let's hear what he has to say.

That would see Maine sign on to a popular vote for president as opposed to taking part in the electoral college. There are those that say it's better representation for minorities in the United States. It's an insane, insane process. Now, why would we give the authority to Ohio, New York, New York, Florida, Texas, and California, and Illinois. This is so insane. Why don't you just forget about it?

Why don't we just adopt the Constitution of Venezuela and be done with it? And what they're trying to do now is saying, well, you know, the president, we're just going to forget about. Minorities are going to, well, actually, what would happen if they do what they say they're going to do, white people will not have anything to say. It's only going to be the minorities that would elect. I find that very sad. It saddens me that we're willing to just take everything we stand for and just throw it away.

Okay, we're going to get to the race part of it in just a second, but I just want to make note of how Venezuela is now used to fearmonger about everything, including the way that we vote in the country. No, but there's an extra irony there that I absolutely love where he's like, if we allow democracy in this country, where the person who got the most votes wins, we would be Venezuela. Yeah. I don't know that Maduro has ever gotten a better compliment. That's not what happened to Venezuela. That's why we're concerned about Venezuela because we think that those elections were not legitimate. In this case, what they're arguing for is whoever gets the most votes wins the definition

of democracy. Right. And the decision to do this is complete, like no one thought, like, thought about race when doing this. It's all about ensuring that the person who gets the most votes actually ends up being the leader, right? So California is a minority majority, right? So there's more minorities than white people in California.

But they have agreed that whoever wins the popular vote, we're gonna give our electoral votes to them, right? So if Trump had won the popular vote, all those minorities would give their votes to Trump. Why? Because he won, he got more votes than the other person. This doesn't have anything to do with race. But racists can't help themselves. So they bring race into it.

See, like we cover issues based on what's in the news, what happened, et cetera. They bring race into issues that had nothing new with anything, right? Like we're talking about, hey, shouldn't the person with more votes win in a democracy? And they're like, but we gotta protect white people. What? Where did that come from? And so, by the way, are white people the majority in this country? Yes, yes.

Now the numbers are going down as a percentage. percentage over all these different decades, but they're still 60.7% of the country is white. So it's not like, oh, minorities are the majority of the country and so poor white people will be crushed. No, whites are still the majority. So I don't even understand his point other than he can't stand black people. And by the way, he specifically mentions like California and Texas, so while it might be sure that he can't stand black people, I think when he was making that statement, he was thinking

about Latinos. I think he was thinking about the Hispanic community. Now I wanna just go back in time a little bit, 2016, and give you a different statement from Paula Page, who was, I believe he was governor at the time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so here's what he said in 2016. These guys with the name D-Money, smoothie, shifty. Really?

Is that their name? Really, Shifty, that's their name? Whose name is smoothie? Like, what kind of gangster name is smoothie? Smoothie, that's their names, I know it. All right, these are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty, these type of guys. They come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home, incidentally half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave.

What? Wow. Okay, so look, if a Shifty do, if a dude named Shifty from Connecticut's coming, he might work at Goldman Sachs. Okay, so, oh, here comes smoothie from Connecticut. Well, smoothie would probably come from California, Los Angeles, to be specific. So, look, Paul the page is not subtle. He's like, I don't want minorities impregating white girls.

Later, when they're like, look, we're going to have to impeach you or something. We're going to have to throw you out. I mean, this is, you're so over the top. You're supposed to do dog whistles. I know it's the era of Trump, but this is even over the top. for that and he was like, fine, fine, let's say they are impregnating Maine women. And so now again, he brings up how he doesn't want white power diminished in this country. And I guarantee you, there are right-wingers that are watching this right now going, I can't

believe you guys brought racism to this. He brought race in. And then the second thing, I'm like, what do you mean? That's not racist? Then what's racist? Like if you say, I want to protect white power over minorities. That's about as close to the definition of racist as you can get. And it is interesting because he also spoke out against this idea because he's like, oh,

then states like California, Texas and Florida would have more of a say. And the reason why they'd have more of a say is because they're populated, they're more populated than certain states in the middle of the country. And those are red states, you know, so. Florida and Texas. Yeah, yeah, not California, obviously, but yeah, Florida and Texas. So it's for him, it's not about politics. It's about race, period.

It's kind of crazy. Yeah, so last couple of things here. I love this proposal. We gotta go to popular vote. I mean, of course we do, otherwise it's not democracy. And so they keep making these absurd points about like, oh my God, now the votes of people in Maine won't count if you have a popular vote. Yes, they will, they'll count just as much as the vote in California.

Whereas now, both blue states like California and New York don't count, which have an enormous population, But Alabama and Mississippi don't count at all. No presidential candidate ever goes to Alabama or Mississippi are going to vote Republican. Everybody knows it. You'd be wasting your time and money by going to Alabama and Mississippi. If you went to a popular vote, well, vote in Alabama counts just as much as a vote in California. Exactly. So their argument makes no logical sense at all.

There's only two reasons. Okay, the whole battleground state thing, which drives me nuts. Like, oh my God, oh my God, New Hampshire isn't going to matter as much anymore. Like, they want the politicians to go to the states like New Hampshire, you know, the battleground states. Yeah, and kiss their ass. Yeah, and it's super annoying. Like, no, we're all Americans, so it shouldn't be that way.

Like everyone's vote should matter. It should matter just the same in California versus New Hampshire or Maine or any other state. And like that argument, you don't win with that argument. If you believe in democracy, the person with the popular vote should win, period. So they're close, Colorado's gonna join next. So they're at 181 electoral college votes. They just need 90 more. And so if you're in a red state, there's no reason why you wouldn't want to join this except

for one, which is that as a matter of fate, and partly because of the electoral college giving an advantage of smaller states, it wound up and there's more red states that are smaller for just that's, again, twist of fate. We've had two Republicans elected president when they did not win the popular vote. Now if you care about democracy, you'd say, well, you know, I'm a Republican, but that's obviously not right. But Republicans, of course, only care about power. So they're like, that's awesome.

Screw democracy. We didn't want minorities voting in the first ways. That's why we do voter ID laws, et cetera. And so that's why we did Jim Crow in the past, and it goes on and on. So they're like, oh, we don't have democracy, awesome, because that's our one chance of winning. So it's quite pathetic, really. But if a Democrat ever wins the electoral college when they didn't win the popular vote, this will be solved the very next day.

The electoral college will be gone and there'll be riots in the streets. That's a good point. Iowa, like every time there's a general election, Iowa. Well, Iowa's more in the primaries, but yeah. No, I know. I can- It's still a swing state in the general, you're right, but yeah, why should Ohio matter more than any other state? any other state.

Exactly. It's absurd. It is absurd. All right. We got to take a break. We will be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work.

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