The Young Turks - Trump FIRES John Kelly And Jamal Khahoggi's Last Moments REVEALED

Episode Date: December 11, 2018

Trump impulsively fired Chief of Staff John Kelly without a backup. Transcripts for Jamal Khashoggi's murder have been released. 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, everybody. Welcome to another week at the Young Turks. I'm John Adiola and of course Mark and Anna joining on the first hour. Awesome to have both of you here.

Jenks not here. Good riddance, I say. We're going to have a lot of fun without him. covering a huge variety of awesome stories in the first hour and the second hour. Anna, in a second, I'm going to give you a second to tease the second hour. So I'll let you prep for a second as I tell you what you can expect in the first hour. I don't want to spring it on you too much. So big things actually on the environment, both domestically and internationally.

We've got gigantic protests in D.C. We've also got protests off in Europe. So we're going to be talking about both of those stories. Turmoil in the White House, apparently nobody wants to work there, except Rudy Giuliani, and they don't want him. So, we're gonna be talking about the troubles getting a new chief of staff for Donald Trump. And the transcript of the last moments of Jamal Khashoggi's life have now been revealed from a source familiar with it.

We're gonna be reading through some of that. Heads up, it is dark stuff, but I think it's important that we talk about that. I don't want this story to fall by the wayside. So many people have already moved on. We're not gonna be a part of that. But very excited to have both of you. What can we expect in the second hour? Well, we are going to do a deep dive into the protests in France.

There are a lot of similarities between the French and Americans, believe it or not, especially when it comes to some of the economic frustrations that they're feeling in France. So we're gonna give you guys all the details of that story. And then later on, we are going to discuss one of my favorite stories of the day, criminal nuns. Criminal nuns. I love that story too, and I love the first story, the French story for just the reasons that Anna said, which is that, you know, we see it as France, but it's actually a very

well-established parallel to what's happening here in the U.S. So we'll get to that in the second hour, I guess. And we're just about to jump in the news. Before we do that, I did want to let you guys know about the Amplify program. It's been doing very well. This is, of course, the program that we launched not long ago, where you can help to amplify the progressive message by providing gifts of TYT membership, either to journalism students, the students who are eventually going to be shaping and producing the news later on, but also politicians, celebrities are politically active, members of the media, and things like that. Just last week, membership packages were bought for Jim Carrey and Colin Kaepernick and their

teams or their families, which is absolutely awesome, especially Jim Carrey, I'm sure will like that. Supposed that he's familiar with the show. We've also got a couple of new packages, if you'd like the team of John Oliver and last week tonight, or Political Morning Media. Both of those are now Amplify packages that you can sponsor. There are also still memberships for The Intercept, The Washington Post, C-SPAN, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi. So you're seeing there both major media organizations and also the leadership of the Democrats.

It's interesting that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, those ones haven't been bought yet. People have interest in those. They need it more than possibly anyone else. Right. Political too. But they would definitely benefit from getting here. Although they don't know how to work the app conceivably, so they probably have to be an education. You're thinking of Rudy Giuliani.

Oh yeah, he certainly doesn't know how to work. Yeah, head of cybersecurity. So if you'd like to do that, either for the individuals that we've talked about or for journalism students, you can go to t-yt.com slash amplify, and if you amplify for at least $150, you get access to an exclusive t-shirt, which is absolutely awesome. And this is the only opportunity you have to give that t-shirt, so take advantage of that while you can. And with that, let's jump into the news.

John Kelly. Ah, they thought I was going to say. Oh, okay. Okay, I see how it is. Force of habit. We just assumed someone could have been able to leave us into the news. Yes, pit bullhards. Okay.

All right, anyway, happy to be back. John's leading out. There you go. John's going to do this? John's a hefe for this hour. Who's directing right now? Who's in there? Okay.

Okay, you know what? I'm going to do the news anyway because I care about the news. Anyway, John Kelly is apparently out as chief of staff, and Trump is apparently finding it harder to get her replacement than he thought that he would. Now, he apparently offered the job to Pence's chief of staff, but it turns out that he didn't want it, actually, and that was like his big pick. Nick Ayers, a 36-year-old, young chief of staff of the vice president, actually, has announced that instead he is returning to Georgia with his wife and three young children, according

to people familiar with his plans. And what is so interesting about that is that Donald Trump's offer of one of the most important, respected, and influential positions in the White House was so distasteful to him that not only did he not take it, but he's leaving the position he has now and he's going home. He doesn't want to even be affiliated with that whole thing. Well, one of the questions that comes up over and over again when it comes to people in Trump's cabinet or individuals who have been appointed by Trump, why is it that they feel the need to continue being loyal to him or working for him when he has proven himself

to be disloyal, and he's proven himself to be someone who is ready and willing to throw them under a bus at any given moment. And so it would be, in my opinion, political suicide to continue working for someone like Trump. Because eventually the chickens will come home to roost, and it will be seen as a bad idea to have worked for Trump. So I think that Ayers is actually making the right decision here. And given the fact that his position would be charged with managing an unmanageable guy,

why take that job? Yeah, Ayers has no incentive. As Anna says, there's no loyalty that's reciprocated by Trump. So, you know, why be loyal? It makes perfect sense that heirs would turn it down. Can I just say one other thing? If one of the longest serving military generals, John Kelly, was unable to control Trump and also had, through his position as chief of staff, proven himself to be a very devastating

coward. He couldn't control Trump, like, how would we expect a 36-year-old to do that? And in the case of John Kelly, striking in his departure that Trump didn't take a shot at him. That was the most striking thing. That Kelly didn't last. Hold. It's coming. Yeah. So interesting. So it's a guy that you, is very difficult to manage Donald Trump, but also a guy that has, he hasn't liked the experience of Kelly. He doesn't want to be managed. So in choosing errors, is he's a very difficult to manage. Is he choosing a person that's going to try to manage him? I find it hard to believe at this point that he would.

I would say that him choosing you is an indication that he doesn't think that you will try to tightly control him. Yeah, that's a great point. In any event, he's not going to do the job. Now, why are we talking about this, beyond the palace intrigue? The chief of staff position, apparently nobody wants it, but it is still incredibly important. You are like a mini shadow president. You help to set the agenda of the White House.

You coordinate response to domestic and international issues as chief of staff. You coordinate with those who are going to try to push through legislation that you care about. You set the agenda for that legislation to be pushed through in the first place. If you are not going to be president and you want as much influence as possible over that position, you either should be chief of staff. I was gonna make a joke about being president of another country, but in the U.S., it's chief of staff, that's what you want. So what would it have meant if heirs had taken the position?

Why did he want him in the first place? Well, Ayers has been viewed as the favorite candidate of the president's daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have been seen as maneuvering for greater control and influence around the president, Matt Drudge and ally of Mr. Kushner, weeks ago posted a photo of missed errors on the Drudge report as the next chief of staff. And what's interesting is that apparently, there might be other reasons as well. But one of the reasons that Ivanka and Jared liked him is because they thought that he would be a sharp contrast from Kelly, who had tried to set up much more regimented avenues

of communication with the president. And they don't want that. They want Trump Tower. They want to be able to use their family connection to him to push for whatever they want. And what's interesting is that he's not taking the job, but Trump did want him. So if Jared and Ivanka were pushing him for him and Trump accepted him or would have wanted him to have that position, that might show that their influence of the White House is higher than it has been at some other points.

Sure, which doesn't make me feel any better. And, you know, the fact that Jared and Ivanka wanted him in that role, I think, for proves the point that you were trying to make. That he could, if heirs had taken that job, he would serve as an even bigger pushover than John Kelly was, which would essentially allow Trump to do what he wants, but more importantly for Jared and Ivanka, would allow them to have greater influence over the White House. Yeah, Kelly had tried to dig that moat around Trump that would prevent Jared Ivanka and others who had unfettered access to Trump, allow, keep them a little further out of the game,

little more distant. Yeah. But I think, yeah, Trump's looking for a yes man now. He would have had it in Ayers. Ayers got, was hip to that and realized that there was, again, no arithmetic that would leave him in a better place when things were done. Now, there's a couple of other interesting sort of wrinkles to this. One is a potential other explanation why he wanted Nick Ayers in the first place that

is so perfectly appropriate for the political climate we've had the past couple of years. Mr. Errs was apparently the only person Mr. Trump had focused on since he made up his mind to part ways with Mr. Kelly. you have some time ago, with a head of blonde hair, Mr. Ayers somewhat resembles Mr. Trump in his younger days, a fact that the president often looks for as a positive signal. Because he is a moronic chimpanzee. What kind of reason is that to choose a person for one of the most important non-elected positions in our entire government?

Because he kind of looked like you when you were younger? It's what a shallow narcissist would do, and he did just that. I mean, but it's consistent with his previous pattern. I mean, he's all about image, he's all about appearances. This is part of the reason why Fox News has become a propaganda outlet for Trump. Because every single one of those hosts know that they could be up for a huge, you know, administration role if they play the part, if Trump takes a liking to them. He's all about appearances, that doesn't surprise me at all.

So who knows what's going to happen, but I also found the other names that have been floating around. Yeah, I'm gonna get that in just a minute. We got a couple more graphics. And by the way, you bring up the Fox News, how much would you bet that it isn't going to be Steve Ducey? Are you actually willing to bet a significant amount of money that they won't choose someone from Fox and Friends?

They might well do that. And so, look, the fact that it was gonna be Nick Ayers and that he doesn't want to do it, and he's saying that it's just because of his family, which is what they always say when it's some other reason. That embarrasses Trump, it doesn't deal well with embarrassment. So he tweeted this, I am in the process of interviewing some really great people for the position of White House Chief of Staff. Fake news has been saying with certainty it was Nick Ayers, a spectacular person who will always

be with our MAGA agenda, I will be making a decision soon. Which is interesting because two people close to Ms. Trump said that a news release announcing his appointment had already been drafted and that the president had wanted to announce it as soon as possible. So as always with Trump, he cannot allow anything true to exist without chiming in. He has got to lie about it. And apparently, one former senior administration official called it a humiliation for Mr. Trump, an emotion that the president tries to avoid at all costs.

So as Anna was getting into, if not him, then who? And apparently some names are being tossed around. Who could potentially be the next chief of staff? Let's see, we've got Representative Mark Meadows. He's a North Carolina Republican, chairman of the Conservative House Freedom Caucus. We also have a few others, names you might be familiar with. You have the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, Mr. Trump's budget director, Mick Mulvaney, and the United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

We also potentially have, this is the most oddball one, former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, has apparently been mentioned. Now, I want you guys to weigh in on those, but first, what do we know about these current people? Well, a person familiar with Mnuchin's thinking told Politico that he is very happy in his current spot and thinks that's where he can be of best use. It's closest to the money, that's Steve Mnuchin, that's where he wants to be. Exactly.

So no on him. In appearance on CBS's face, the nation, Lighthizer signaled he's not interested, telling Margaret Brennan that no one had talked to him about the job. But even though they hadn't, he wants to be very clear that he's not interested. Politico's Nancy Cook reported that Mulvaney is also no longer interested in the job. And CNN reports Meadows has said he's absolutely not interested in the chief of staff job. So that's your top five. Yeah.

Who comes after that? I don't know, but what I do find, I find it to be a huge relief that Mick Mulvaney is not interested in the job. I mean, Mick Mulvaney has essentially done everything that he's wanted to do. He's had his site set on dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He has successfully done so, which Americans and consumers are going to be feeling the ramifications of very soon, if not already. And so I want Mick Mulvaney to go away.

I know that that's not gonna happen, but to have him as the chief of staff is just a joke, to say the least. Look, they are the swampyest of swamp creatures, all of these people. As Anna says, Milveni is despicable in his policy. Chris Christie is an odd choice given the fact that he jailed Jared Kushner's dad. Yeah, I don't think he's gonna get much support from Ivanka and Jared. I mean, if he's looking for, yeah, so internal support, he likely won't find it. I think Chris Christie's a fighter, which I think Trump likes, you know, and he's a former prosecutor

and all of that, but apart from that, I don't see Christie surviving it. It's weird that this job has sort of 10-foot pole marks all over it, you know, nobody really wants it. Yeah. I do want to also add one thing, and it's about the graphic that you read where Trump wants to avoid humiliation at any and all costs, that is a strange thing for Trump to be concerned about, especially considering the fact that he embarrasses himself on a regular basis. I mean, no one else gets involved. He does it on his own.

I mean, one example, and we'll get to it in a later story, he just misspelled smoking gun on Twitter today and wrote smocking gun, which sounds like it could be a fashion tool. Sometimes you need to, you need a smocking gun, you know? You want to, like, singe the waist or something with a smocking situation. I think he's trying to expand his base to include people who smock. But we'll talk about that more later. I guess we'll get to that. I was trying to figure out when that happened whether that was deliberate, because he did use it twice.

I think it was delivered. Yeah, probably. And I just want to quickly say on this, there's several reasons why a lot of people who might otherwise in normal years jump at the opportunity to be chief of staff, maybe not for Trump, but even for Trump. It's a very important position. Not only is there the concern that if Donald Trump were to go down or something like that, this could end up looking really bad for some of them on their resumes.

They want to run for other offices later on. They don't necessarily want to be tarnished. I mean, everybody's Trump, Trump, Trump right now, but they're also looking. to the future, which is a non-Trump future for the Republican Party. So that could hurt them. But also just when you take that position, you immediately need to get a lawyer and begin to pay that very expensive lawyer for the legal costs you'll have being affiliated with Donald Trump.

You're going to be involved in these investigations and things like that. That's a costly process. And so it hurts you in a number of different areas. And Trump, I think, to your point, asks you to do a lot of things that are illegal. Yes. Or that maybe borderline illegal to be kind about it. And certainly dishonest. I think Johnny's right.

I mean, you better be ready to lawyer up when you need to. Yeah, not to mention the fact he's not going to let you do the job. So there's a lot of reasons they might not want it. Anyway, we are going to take our first break when we come back. The last moments of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's life now documented on a transcript. We're going to read you excerpts from that after this. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Lots to get to, but I'm actually surprised by this, so this is going to be one of our product

read some admitting that up front, but I didn't know that we even did hats, but we have a hat actually. Are you serious right now? I didn't know that we had any hats right now. You are the most oblivious person on the planet. Thank you, random YouTube commenter. Let them say that. You're still in the rest lines. Jeez.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing 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-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

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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. You just read that on my Twitter bio. Anyway, we do have a hat and you can get a hat if you're a member.

It's actually a member. members-only hat, it's available exclusively members, you can go to t-y-t.com slash notice to get the secret product link, and it will tell you where in Long Beach you need to go, what alley to find this, I'm kidding, it's gonna be there. If you are not a member, you can become a member to then get this hat by going to t-y-t.com slash, it's misspelled. It's John, this says join, guys, you gotta fix the graphics, t-y-t.com slash John, thank you. And you can get that members-only hat.

Yeah, I don't know why they keep doing the type, it must be auto-corrected. Anywho, speaking of hats, people are wondering where my hat is, it is my strength, you're right, and it is coming an hour, too. Okay, okay. By the way, a lot of you out there participating in the Amplify program, I wanted to thank some of you individually for doing that. First of all, James Simon from New York for doing the Colin Kaepernick sponsorship, so thank you for getting that for Colin and his team.

John Astonda doing a journalism package, James Simon, similarly. Kelly Devers from Pennsylvania, actually, also participating in that for some journalism students. Alex Wolfe, he sponsored 10 memberships for journalism students. He's from Bamberg, Germany. Wow. Thank you, so much for that. Thank you, by the way, if you're not from Germany. It's just that it's farther away, so it seems more impressive.

But thank you to all of you. That's true. Bamberg. Oh, I like it. It's not Hamburg? No, I think it's Bamberg, unless it's also a misspelling. It might be a typo, but like Bamberg. But then again, I don't know.

It sounds like a fun place to be. And two others. So Tom Carnicelli from Waterloo, Illinois, thank you for doing an Amplify sponsorship. And then, so we give these to these teams, you know, the politicians, the media outlets and things like that. And then when they actually redeem it, like when they've used it, we want to let you guys know to know that it's working. And I love that I get to read this one, an Amplify sponsorship was redeemed.

It's a member of the U.S. Congress. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. She's awesome! She could be watching right now, but she's busy today, so I don't think she is. But anyway, thank you. Bamberg is a town in northern Bavaria, so welcome Bamberg. Awesome. Okay, with that, why don't we jump back into the news?

A source familiar with the transcript of the last moments of Jamal Khashoggi has revealed exactly what was going on in those last few minutes. Now, if you're not familiar with Jamal Khashoggi, he was murdered in the beginning of October. The US resident journalist at the Washington Post, widely believed to have been killed by Saudi agents at the command of the leader of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman. So here is some of that transcript. First of all, this quote is coming from Mahair Abdulaziz Mutreb, a former Saudi diplomat and intelligence official for bin Salman.

He says, you are coming back, to which Khashoggi replies, you can't do that, people are waiting outside, speaking about his wife's who is waiting outside of the embassy. At that point, it simply says several people are heard attacking Khashoggi. Apparently multiple people began beating him at that point. The transcript notes the noises that can be heard on the tape, almost in the manner that subtitles describe moments in a movie where there's no dialogue. And this is the dark part. It says scream, scream, gasping, then saw cutting.

So what you had previously seen in the last graphic were the last recognizable words from Jamal Khashoggi and then his death shortly thereafter. And so you had the Saudi diplomat cited there. You also have, and we'd previously known about this, the head of forensic medicine at the Saudi Interior Department, Dr. Salah Muhammad al-Tubaki, is in one part of the transcript, noted giving some advice to other people in the room, apparently to help them deal with the appalling task of sawing a person to pieces. He says, put your earphones in or listen to music like me.

And one other thing revealed in this transcript is that multiple phone calls are placed, both before and after Jamal was murdered. And according to the source, the transcript suggests that Mutreb, the former Saudi diplomat, who I previously mentioned, is updating someone on the phone, whom Turkish officials say was in Riyadh, back in Saudi Arabia, with almost step-by-step details of what is taking place. He says, tell yours, the thing is done, it's done. And that is believed by the source to be a reference to a superior or boss. So this source, I'm not familiar with who it is, but a Democratic senator who is briefed by the

CIA on that transcript confirms that everything revealed by that source is true. I don't think we need the CSI team on this one. We knew very early on exactly what happened. We really knew almost beat for beat, as John has just said and taken us through beat for beat what happened. This is completely consistent with every early report and every early account that we got. All the intelligence agencies associated with this from different countries and governments all agree on what happened.

Again, beat for beat. It just leaves America as led by this guy, Trump, in the most bizarre situation. And one thing, John detailed for you, and I'm sure most are familiar with Khashoggi, the one thing left out is that he's a notable dissident, right? That's the reason they were carving him up alive, because MBS didn't like what he was saying. And look at those who are coming to the Saudis rescue on this, others who jail and carve up dissidents. It's a real bad place for this country to be.

Exactly. And I think that we're at a crossroads right now where we as a country need to make a decision about whether or not we're going to allow someone like Mohammed bin Salman to slide after calling for the murder of a Washington Post journalist. And before this even happened, he had kidnapped the leader of Lebanon, you know, and forced him to do this hostage video where he claimed that he was no longer going to be the leader of Lebanon. And of course, he was later than back in Lebanon and said, no, I take all of that back.

I was obviously under duress. But the reason why I'm bringing that up is because it's one thing for a terrible political leader in any given country to do terrible things to his own people, right? Now that's bad by itself, I'm not trying to take anything away from that. But what Mohammed bin Salman has done is he's essentially gone into other people. countries and, you know, flexed his muscle. And we have a president here in the United States who has given him a pass. And that's unacceptable.

That sets a dangerous precedent. 100%. There's other dictators around the world who are seeing this and thinking, oh, I can kill my political opponents, I can kill journalists, what's the difference? The US, as long as I buy some planes or some bombs, the US isn't going to do anything about it. And so we're going to play some video of Donald Trump, the various things that he's said since this story broke in the beginning of October.

While you're watching this, I want you to bear in mind that there are other politicians in the U.S., Rokana in the House, Bernie Sanders, even Mike Lee in the Senate, who are trying to get us to cut off our support for the Saudi war on Yemen, at the same time, try to cut us off us off from selling billions, tens of billions of dollars of weapons that will likely be used to kill civilians in Yemen to cut off support for this regime. That said, here is the leader who we've given all of our political power to Donald Trump. I don't like stopping massive amounts of money that's being poured into our country. The king firmly denied any knowledge of it. Hopefully that will sort itself out. Right now, nobody knows anything about it. They're spending $110 billion on military equipment.

Saudi Arabia, and they have, I can only say I've been here for almost two years, they've been a great ally to me, to me. It sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows? This took place in Turkey, and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen. Is that right? It's a permanent resident, okay.

Yeah, so to the best of our knowledge, he didn't even know what was going to end that sentence. By the way, so I can't attest to all of that video, but for the vast majority of that video, he had already been briefed on this transcript when he was lying to you about, oh yeah, this rogue killers, they have no connection whatsoever, he knew the identities. He knew the communication, he knew the techniques, him and the rest of the White House have been lying about this from the very beginning for obvious economic reasons, whether national or personal.

It's scary. It really is. It's scary to see this kind of just brazen, you know, like friendship with someone who is a murderer, who's a dangerous person and who wants to carry out these types of actions in other countries. I mean, this is, Trump is a sociopath. If he can see that type of transcript, if he can, you know, really understand the way in which this journalist was murdered and still think that his personal financial interests and America's economic interests are more important, I mean, that's the way a sociopath thinks.

Well, he has no conscience or ethical underpinnings whatsoever. I mean, and on the, just the X's and O's of the arms deal, I love this. idea somehow that the arms deal wouldn't go through. First, I have something about arms deals, just in general. It's not as though the government of the United States makes money on an arms deal. Exactly. Those are wealthy military, that's the military industrial complexing its muscle. Those are weapons manufacturers who make money on those arms deals. Okay, so that doesn't help the deficit or the bottom line of this country. So when he says, you know, we've got to deal with Saudi Arabia. No, you're rich pals in the military industrial complex, the ones that you're

you're giving a big Pentagon budget to, they have a deal with the Saudis. Anyway, on the X's and O's, as I say, though, that deal's not going to go away. Who do you think they're going to buy the military hardware from? You think they're going to buy them from the Russians? No, because their other stuff is already American. They want stuff that works with the stuff they've got. So that isn't even a line that you can take that somehow we need the money. Of course, as Anna says, that's an absurdist line anyway.

It's disgusting. It's despicable. it's immoral, it just shakes you to your core. But even on the weak logic of it, it doesn't hold water. And if you believe still somehow that there are people in the White House like Jared Kushner, who aren't as obviously evil, that they might be exerting some sort of moral imperative on issues like this, I read yesterday, Jared Kushner, in the days after the murder, began communicating directly with Muhammad bin Salman on a first-name basis and giving him advice

on how to weather the storm of this bad PR. It's disgusting. That is about as disgusting as I can imagine. Yeah, but by the way, last thing on that point, just because you mentioned, and I'm so glad you did, John, because the idea somehow that this will blow over, this is a big part of what Trump does with a lot of different issues. And he's not wrong. You know, he serves up a lot of controversy, and this administration serves up a lot of controversy

like a short-order chef, and we begin to forget no matter how heinous what the last serving was. And so the idea somehow that we can kind of just hang out, MBS, it's going to blow over. That hasn't proven completely wrong, and that's disturbing. Yeah. Okay, let's turn to a little bit more positive news. Let's mix it up a little bit. This morning, climate activists from the sunrise movement once again demonstrated in

D.C. in the halls of Congress, actually right outside of Nancy Pelosi's office, a number of other very important, high-profile Democrats. And they brought not only hundreds and hundreds of activists, but they all, also brought some results, because apparently Nancy Pelosi is finally starting to get it. She apparently offered a meeting to the Sunrise Movement after about 61 people were arrested for demonstrating outside of her office earlier today. That is very necessary. We're gonna get in in just a little bit into what we can actually reasonably expect from

her at that meeting. But luckily, we had boots on the ground at these protests. Emma Vigland of Rebel HQ was actually reporting from there. Here is some of her reporting. So guys, a lot of what people are protesting here are the fact that Democrats continue to take fossil fuel money. The DNC reversed its pledge to not take any fossil fuel money now that Tom Perez is the head of the DNC.

And Sennie Hoyer himself in his career has taken over $2 million from energy companies. And by the way, on Rebel H.TQ, you can see more videos of Emma's reporting from earlier today. Before we get into our commentary, though, I want to show you some of the actual protests. So as I said, these are climate activists. But in particular with this organization, they are quite young. Like they top out in the mid-20s. Some of them far, far younger, and yet filled with the sort of passion and concern for the threat facing us from climate change that I wish our 70 and 80 and 9-year-old representatives at. So at this event, multiple speakers, we want to show you excerpt from a couple of their speeches.

We are here demanding that Representative Steny Hoyer support a select committee for a Green New Deal and prove to us that he takes the climate crisis as seriously as we do. I call upon all politicians to provide opportunities for people marginalized for far too long to mitigate the effects of climate change on poverty and health. And most importantly, to provide a chance for a livable future, for me, my community, and the 43 million other Americans under the age of 25. We are the future. Please allow us to live up to our potential. That was absolutely amazing. And she's right, she is the future. Thankfully, people like her in there talking to the past who still hold many of those elected offices.

Although they're talking to Democrats who will be the most receptive. I mean, you know, it's despicable that the Democrats are awash in oil money and that they haven't been out front on climate change the way we'd hope that the Democrat or anyone who claims to be progressive would be. But at least the Democrats are now engaging because they really can't look the other way on it, John. As you say, it's just too noisy. These spokespeople who are there are passionate, young, and articulate. and they just can't look the other way on it any longer. I think the strategy that the Sunrise Movement is using is a good one. They're getting to the root of the issue, which is the money in politics, the money

that's being funneled to these Democratic politicians through campaign donations. So they have the right strategy, but I also want to make sure, and I don't think anyone in the Sunrise Movement is, you know, thinking that just because Pelosi is taking a meeting with them, that things are going to be better. Pelosi had taken a meeting prior to the vote to confirm her as the speaker, she had taken up a meeting with some of these freshman congresspeople, including Acacio-Cortez, Rashida Talib, and she wanted to hear what they had to say, but her response to them in regard to their demands was, well, you know, I have the more moderate people that I got to look out

for too. I got to get their votes too. So, you know, so I just taking up a meeting isn't good enough. It's the first step and I hope that something good does come from it. But Nancy Pelosi's claim to fame is how much money she raises. And so the sunrise movement is specifically going after the one thing that Pelosi feels that she's successful in. So we got to fight, we got to fight hard, I love seeing all these young people.

I think that they are eventually going to be successful in getting what they want. They will prevail, but 61 people got arrested for protesting. Yeah. Like that's absurd. It's so frustrating because if you can't win elections without taking fossil fuel money, you don't deserve to win elections at all. I mean, we've just seen- The most reasonable thing in the world, don't take that money. Well, we've just seen members of Congress get elected without taking corporate PAC

money. Exactly. And by the way, she likes to say that she cares about the climate. So look, I want to give you two takes from this announcement. First from Stephen Hanlon, one of the leaders, spokespeople for the Sunrise Movement, saying we look forward to meeting with Leader Pelosi and hope she joins her colleagues in supporting the Select Committee on a Green New Deal, which 22 Democrats in the House have signed on to, which is impressive.

And we only have that because of the work of the Sunrise Movement and representatives like Ocasio-Cortez and others who participate in that first protest. But it is still a small, tiny fraction of the total Democrats in the House. And that is pathetic. By the way, well, speaking potentially pathetic, but Pelosi put out a state. saying addressing climate change remains a top priority for Speaker designate Pelosi. She has proposed reinstating a select committee on climate and looks forward to caucus-wide discussions with the committees on jurisdiction to determine the appropriate path forward.

Which sounds like she agrees with it, but if what we are saying we want is a committee that will set up the path going forward for a Green New Deal, the actual solution to the climate change, saying, no, I don't want that, I just want a committee on the climate. We've already had that. It's called the scientific method. There's a lot of people on that committee. They're scientists all over the world. And they've been pretty clear about what's going on right now.

We already know the science. Now we need the solution. We know pretty well what that is too, by the way. We don't need nor can we afford years of study. We need to get going right now. If you want to be the leader, if you say you want to be the leader of all of those in the house, then act like the leader. You should not need leadership lessons from people who haven't even been sworn

into those positions yet. Yeah, that was so well said. I also was, I felt that was a watered down statement. I was not really too encouraged by it for just the reasons that John articulated. The evidence is clear. We need to move forward. If you're really a leader, be a trailblazer in this area. Who would think that for the very survival of the planet, and even if you only care about

the economics of the planet or your country, this will dramatically affect in a bad way those economics. It requires urgent action, and it didn't seem as though they're looking at. at urgent action based on that statement. Yeah, it doesn't at all. Anyone can say anything. I mean, I think at this point, people who are privy to what's going on in the political world are sick of the statements and they want real action.

So she can say she cares about the planet, the environment, and doing something about the climate, but actions speak louder than words. And so far her actions haven't proven that she really genuinely cares about this issue. Yeah, the thing is, I'm sure on some level, even compared to a lot of other Democrats in the house, she probably does, or she at least thinks that she takes it very seriously. She's done stuff in her career that seems pro-environment that was politically dangerous at the time to some extent. The problem is that simply thinking you accept climate science and feeling like you're being

genuine does not mean that you take it seriously enough for the size of the problem that we face. I have become so sick with this definition of a climate denier being someone who says, the scientists are wrong. That is only the most hardcore version of a climate denier. But anyone in a position to do something about climate change who is not willing to do what is necessary to stop it is, in effect, a climate denier. It doesn't matter if they say they believe the scientists. It doesn't matter if they walk around with scientists every once in a while. It doesn't matter if they set up fancy committees and talk about it and hold meetings.

If you're not willing to actually address the problem, you are no better than Donald Trump. It's frustrating, especially with the international news on the climate that's going on, which we're going to get to on the other side of the break. Yeah. Last, last word, exactly. We've got the science. All the science, all the research necessary. We just had a 1,600 page peer review report. This is done, that part. Now it's time to act. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, we're going to take a short break when we come back. More climate change, this time internationally, an opportunity, a UN climate conference, an opportunity to do big things, will the U.S. sign on or will he actually stand in its way? After this.

We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Lots more news to get to. I mentioned the hats in the last block. I did want to let you know that our resist line of.

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I don't know if that's in hat form, but maybe Anna knows. Anyway, there's shirts and stuff. 15% off the Resist Collection for another few minutes. Don't patronize me. I was really making fun of my own self there implicitly. Okay, so I also want to read some of your messages. First, a super chat from Grant Defayette, who says, support politicians, local and greater, that don't take corporate money and help them beat

corruption, make democracy great again. I like that. I like that plan. I do. And some member comments. Dr. Chaos MD says, let's not forget that MBS also jailed all the protesters who fought for women's right to drive, MBS's crowning achievement that people used to point out how he was changing Saudi for the better, and I believe those women have been sentenced to death

as well. Yeah, it was a really, really cynical thing that he did where he's like, okay, I'm gonna give you his extra rights. But all the people who fought for, I'm locking them up. So to those of you who have other things you'd like to organize around, consider whether it's actually worth the sacrifice that you will definitely have to pay. And to see the bro-down session that everybody did with MBS when he came to this country and in total denial of the stuff that we're talking about now was just awful.

And he was the one who under the guise of getting corruption out of the government, jailed a lot of his rivals and a lot of those who were its economic rivals and essentially shook them down until he got what he wanted and then he released them. Yeah. Yeah, that tour was something that the media just loved him. One of my celebrity idols actually had dinner with him. That was really disappointing to see. Anyway, Shahara also sent in a member comment saying so inspirational to see these young men and women fighting for our future talking about the sunrise movement protesters in the Capitol. I couldn't agree more. It is those sorts of things that are keeping us all going during this dark time. Okay, with that, why don't we jump back into some news?

Right now, the 2018 UN climate conference is going on, the COP 24, and the US is perhaps unsurprisingly not taking it very seriously. Our representative had an announcement, so he's gonna have his own special little event at that climate conference. According to a statement from the US State Department, the event will showcase ways to use fossil fuels as cleanly and efficiently as possible, as well as the use of emission-free nuclear energy. We're gonna take the coal out, we're gonna clean it.

I'm just statement by Trump, for anyone who might have missed that. I want to quickly mention because we had a member who was frustrated with Jank and I joking about that quote, who pointed out that there is something called coal washing. That is true. 100% agree with that. That is not what Donald Trump is talking about. And when people say clean coal, politicians say it 98% of the time they're talking about carbon capture and sequestration.

So we will just have to agree to disagree on that point. In any event, we're sending our representative there not to talk about what we can do internationally as a community of states to deal with climate change, but instead to push for more fossil fuels to be used. And this is one of the sickest things, and is saying, hey, by the way, our emissions had gone down between 2005 and 2017. First of all, in 2018, they went back up, so stop playing those old games with the numbers. of all, they went down because we started taking it at least somewhat seriously in some

areas, going and pushing for more international use of fossil fuels is the exact opposite thing that you want to see after a little bit of intermittent progress on carbon emissions in the U.S. These are businessmen, and they're pursuing business, and that's all the U.S. is really now about. They're about making money. I mean, they're led by businessmen, a businessman who have no regard for the environment. They have rolled back restrictions, I mean, basic regulations.

are safeguards for water, for soil, for air. They're rolling them back at record paces. I mean, really, the damage done will be felt for decades moving forward. And just on the climate change issue, they are in denial of that, only because it serves their bottom line. I mean, they're not morons. I mean, a lot of them are not morons. We know the moron chief is a moron. But even he gets it, I'm just, he trots himself out there and just maintains the party line.

They are doing this because they are craven, greedy businessmen, period. Period. And did you want to say something? I mean, you guys have pretty much covered everything. There isn't really much more to add to it. It's just kind of fascinating to see how unwilling the fossil fuel industry is to adapt to renewable energies. And remember, these are fossil fuel companies.

They're making a killing and they're being subsidized by the U.S. government. And they have the resources to adapt. It's not as if these are struggling small businesses. They don't have the funding or the ability to switch over to solar. They can very easily do it, and it's a renewable energy. And they just don't want to do it. That's how incredibly greedy and unwilling they are. They don't want to spend a dollar on readjusting and doing the right thing here.

And they see now, I'm glad Anna has said this because they're seeing now an avenue by which which they don't have to. Because Anna's right, you know, the restrictions modest though they were that have been placed on these companies, they have met them. They are able to hit these various environmental goals in service of this bigger goal, which is to roll back climate change. And still be fabulously profitable. Exactly.

And it's still not good enough. And they fully expected that they were going to have to do that. That was not going to be an issue. But now they see this avenue that's been open by a new administration by which they don't have to make any of these changes. And of course, if you don't have to make any, then, you know, drill baby drill and carbon emissions go up. But their bottom line is best served.

But that's a great point, Anna. They could make these changes and remain wildly profitable at the same time. Exactly. Yeah, these relatively minor changes. We're talking about cutting the emissions from the coal plants slightly. Okay, maybe that's what we can do right now. But we should be talking about a schedule for decommissioning all of those coal plants and putting whatever amount of money is necessary to get enough renewable energy spread across

the face of the, well, I was going to say the Earth, eventually too, but the U.S., that's what we have more direct control over, with the battery capacity necessary to use that renewable energy and make sure that the grid is stable. That's what we should be having a conversation about, not cutting 10 or 15% of the emissions from coal plants. In any event, while we held this fossil fuel event at the COP 24, our influence on that event also went even more negatively. So there's a debate going on right now of a report at the COP 24.

It was a report that was commissioned by the 2015 UN Climate Conference. So a previous edition of this conference said, we want this all-encompassing report to let us know how we're doing as a world. And it says that we are completely off track, that we're heading more towards three degrees increase in temperature this century rather than 1.5. So it's bad, and it's worse than we thought it was. And that is scary, I suppose, keeping to the preferred target that previously we thought that we would be able to hit theoretically, would require rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes

in all aspects of society. Emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be reduced by 45% by 2030. That is scary. I understand that. If you're a regular individual or if you're a business leader or a politician, that is scary. That's fine. Sending men to the moon, also scary. We managed to do it.

I think that we can do this too. And the cool thing is that the bonus, if we're successful, is not that we get to go to the moon. It's that we get to survive as a species and as a civilization. So there's some incentive, I would say, to succeeding at it. But how was it greeted by the countries at the convention? So they have this report, and they have to vote on how it's going to be received. And when it was submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, only four countries had an issue with it, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the U.S.

They rejected a motion to welcome the study. Instead, it would merely be noted, which would make it much easier for governments to ignore And with no consensus under UN rules, the passage of text had to be dropped. So three years in the running waiting for the results of that big study. Hopefully some countries will still willingly, voluntarily adopt some of the recommendations in it. But as a body, it has been unable to unequivocally accept it because of four holdouts. And we as a country get to have the embarrassing position of being one of those four.

Well, the other naked fact is that we are one of the countries that produces the most fossil fuel emission in the world. And so you need the big countries, the big sinners like the U.S. to step up. And yet those big nations that produce the fossil fuel emission, led by the U.S., are in denial. Yeah. You want to move on to one more study? Yeah, let's do it. We don't have to do any more breaks, do we do?

I think we do. John, do a story. I think we're good. I'm going to do a story then. Okay. Okay, Donald Trump is either being incredibly deceptive or very, very naive in talking about the severity of the crimes that he has implicitly been accused of in last week's sentencing memos. So it was very clear in those documents that he is effectively an unindicted co-conspirator

to campaign finance crimes, let alone anything else that might come up. That is what they apparently, the federal prosecutors have so much evidence for that they're willing to state it as fact in a sentencing memo. However, this is how Donald Trump has greeted that news. Democrats can't find a smocking gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey's testimony. No smocking gun, no collusion. That's because there was no collusion. So now the Dems go to a simple private transaction.

Wrongly call it a campaign contribution, which it was not. But if it was, it was only a civil case like Obama's, but it was done correctly by a lawyer. And there would not even be a fine. lawyer's liability, if he made a mistake, not me. Cohen just trying to get ascendants reduced. Which hunt? Wow. There's a lot to attack there.

But look, we're going to break down all parts of that. But we do have to admit that guy seems innocent. It's amazing how guilty he is and how he can't prevent himself from sounding guilty on his own social media accounts. He's guilty. I don't know. I'm amused by those tweets. I enjoy them.

I enjoy them because he tweeted that at 6.43 a.m., okay? And I'm just amused that it's like early in the morning, it's my favorite time of the day. I'm drinking a cup of coffee, I'm reading the news, I'm enjoying myself, and the president, who I hate, is panicking. And so it's just a small bit of enjoyment and pleasure in a very dark time. Yeah. Anyway, and I want to clarify what he said about Obama. So Obama did get in trouble, but it was because there were some donors to his campaign late

in the game. And if a donor is making a large contribution, you're supposed to reveal the identity of that donor. And so there were, I believe, around 1,000 donors that had not been identified yet. And so the Obama administration was fined for that. And they paid the fine, I believe it was around $375,000. But it's very different from what you did Trump, right? Assuming he's watching the show right now. Sorry, individual one.

Yeah, please. Please refer to him as Mr. Individual one. Individual one. You paid two different women in two different ways, let me be clear, hush money to prevent yourself from, you know, losing an election. Like what you did was very different from what Obama did. And I'm not trying to take anything away from, you know, what Obama did, what he did was wrong as well.

But it was on a different level from what Trump did. Yeah. It was also incredibly short-sighted, because the idea there that they seemed very clear in the sentencing memo is that they paid off these women so the stories wouldn't come out. While we're talking about the Hollywood access and all that, this would theoretically make him look bad and he could lose the election. Which is such a naive way to look at the American relationship with respect for women. Like, have we really shown that we care enough about women that that would have caused

him to lose if they access Hollywood and all the other women coming out with stories of him sexually assaulting them? That didn't lead to him losing. How much would people actually care about? this. And by the way, since it's come out, how much have people actually cared? So this is a fascinating case study because it goes against pretty much everything that we've experienced in US politics.

Anytime there's been a scandal, especially a scandal involving an affair or sex, that has led to the downfall of the politician who's involved in the scandal. At the time that Trump paid off these women, he didn't realize that for some reason his voters just don't care, like he is immune from the type of consequences that other politicians have faced when they've, you know, been involved in other sex scandals. So it's just, I don't know, I wonder if he looks back now and thinks to himself, man, I don't even really have to pay them off. That's a lot of money.

Yeah. That's a really good point. The sex stuff doesn't stick to Trump at all. Nothing does, it seems like. Yeah, although let's be clear in this case, it is about sex stuff, but it is a campaign finance violation. Right. Far exceeding the amounts that you can spend in that way without reporting it, specifically

to influence election in the last days. I'm glad that you brought up the thing that he keeps coming back to with Obama, because anytime something about that case comes up, you're gonna see a bunch of right wingers completely disingenuously compare it to that. They had to report those names inside of 48 hours. They missed that deadline. There's no indication that they were never going to report it. I don't even know what it would mean if they hadn't, but that's fine, they paid the fine.

He's saying that it wouldn't have been an issue even if people had known about it. That's interesting, because then why did he lie about it for over a year? Why was the money routed through shell corporations? Why, if it was so fine that no one would care, and it wouldn't be in a crime, did you hide it so thoroughly like you're some sort of cartoon mob boss? Fake news, John. Fake news, John. You're just fake news.

That's it. That's probably the case. That's his answer. In any event, some people are taking it seriously, we had some people who are theoretically going to have the power to investigate these sorts of things in just a short period of time, saying that these are serious crimes. I realize that so much has been normalized over the past couple of years that even an accusation of campaign finance violations, let alone obstruction of justice and all the other stuff,

isn't enough to change people's opinion of a president, but not everyone has moved to that dark place. And so thankfully some people are still taking it seriously. I also think that the concealment of the Russian connection and I'm talking about government connections that are associated with Trump properties, that's a lot of. That's going to yield even more potentially more outrage because that without question affected public policy. In other words, U.S. policy is affected by Trump's relationship with foreign governments.

That's a big deal. So we're going, we're getting into what I think is for him, much choppier water than just a campaign violation. I think we're really going to get into some discussions over what this president has done in terms of compromising this country because of his personal relationship. with foreign leaders. And I would say hypothetically, were there a relationship to look into his connection business wise and personal with Saudi Arabia, you would probably find very similar things.

Exactly. I don't know. I mean, we have some great incoming freshman congressmen and women, maybe they'll do that. As of right now, we can only look at his behavior and realize this is clearly a guy that has been compromised, even if we can't point yet to how. That said, that's all the time we have. I wish we had more time. Thank you so much guys.

All the time we have for hour one. Thank you, John, for leading. Of course, more importantly, transitioning to the main event. The second hour, prepare yourself. I'm really looking forward to the second hour today. As I had mentioned earlier, we will come back from the break and talk about the protests in France. It appears that there have been a few concessions from Macron. And later on in the show, we will talk about some gangsta nuns out of California.

Okay, I wish I was in that. Anyway, thank you guys, short little break, come back, Anna is going to be taking charge. 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