The Young Turks - Trump Gives Weak Offer For Border Wall And One Republican Thinks Porn Should Pay For Wall
Episode Date: January 23, 2019Trump gave a speech where he outlined what he'd be willing to "give" in exchange for border wall funding. An Arizona lawmaker thinks you should be charged $20 to watch porn. Get exclusive access to ou...r best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jane Kugran and Kusparian with you guys.
Big day ahead as always.
Are we ever going to reopen the government?
We'll find out, Kamala Harris is running for president.
That's a nuanced story, and we'll discuss the upsides and the downsides of that.
I think that's very important.
We will finally wait into the Covington controversy, controversy over the Kentucky students
and what happened with the Native American veteran.
People are dying to know what we think.
Yes, well, in a lot of cases that's true.
I'll often get, why haven't you talked about this yet?
Because it's not Monday yet, or in this case Tuesday, because yesterday was Martin Luther King
Day.
Or you've talked about it too much or you've talked about it too little, and 98% of the time,
neither one of those things is true.
Anyway, it goes on and on.
But we will get into it.
But probably my favorite story of the days at the end where Charlie Kirk has decided that living
like a capitalist is maybe not the best idea.
But he does live like a capitalist every single day, chink.
Well, he did, and then come to find out that sometimes that doesn't work out that
well.
There's some chance you'll love that story.
Okay, all right, lots to get to.
So Anna, let's do it.
All right.
We are on the 32nd day of a partial government shutdown.
Many federal workers are expecting to miss the second paycheck of this pay period.
And it's been a disaster for a lot of people.
number of TSA agents are calling in sick because they literally have to go look for other work
to pay their bills.
But it appears that Donald Trump remains firm on his demand for funding for the border wall.
In fact, over the weekend, he released his latest proposal, which sounds exactly like previous
proposals.
Let's take a look.
This is a common sense compromise both parties should embrace.
The radical left can never control our borders.
I will never let it happen.
Walls are not immoral.
In fact, they are the opposite of immoral.
Our plan includes the following.
$800 million in urgent humanitarian assistance.
$805 million for drug detection technology to help secure our ports.
of entry. An additional 2,750 border agents and law enforcement professionals.
75 new immigration judge teams to reduce the court backlog of, believe it or not, almost
900,000 cases. To physically secure our border, the plan includes $5.7 billion for a
Strategic deployment of physical barriers or a wall.
Okay, so so far he's listing all the things that he wants.
He wants increased border security, something that the Democrats agreed to help fund,
as long as that money doesn't go toward his hate monument,
which would do absolutely nothing in solving some of the crime issues that he keeps bringing up.
The drugs coming into the country, we will check them.
So the opioids, oh, they're already in the country.
They were brought in by the pharmaceutical companies.
I did not anticipate that.
Okay, so I got it, I got it.
You're laying out your case again.
They got them on a teleprompter for a change because they're trying to control the message.
Because, of course, every time he speaks off the cuff, he says something that gets himself
in bigger and bigger trouble.
Like when he initially told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, it'll be the Trump shutdown.
I'll be totally responsible for it, which he's now, of course, backpedaled.
Exactly, of course.
But what I love is how he keeps pushing this narrative that Democrats oppose the border wall
because they find it immoral.
No, but that's not the argument that they're putting out there.
The argument that they're putting out there is that the border wall would not solve the issues
that Trump keeps raising.
So for instance, look, increase technology or investment in technology at the ports of
entry to catch drug smugglers, that makes all the sense in the world.
Democrats are on board for that.
But the wall would do nothing to stop smugglers.
I mean, we just had a record number of migrants cross the border through tunnels.
So what would your wall do with those tunnels?
Absolutely nothing.
Again, it's nothing more than this hate monument for Trump and a way of getting political
brownie points from his base.
But in this next video, he's gonna talk about what he concedes to.
Take a look.
In order to build the trust and goodwill necessary to begin real immigration reform,
there are two more elements to my plan.
Number one is three years of legislative relief for 700,000 DACA recipients brought here unlawfully by their parents at a young age many years ago.
Secondly, our proposal provides a three-year extension of temporary protective.
status or TPS. This means that 300,000 immigrants whose protected status is facing expiration
will now have three more years of certainty so that Congress can work on a larger immigration
deal, which everybody wants. So Nancy Pelosi has already stated that Trump's proposal is a
non-starter. And Mitch McConnell has not brought forth any of the Democrats' proposals.
not want to vote, but when it comes to Trump's proposal, he will bring that to a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring Trump's proposal up for a vote this week
and Republicans signaled support for the measure.
But again, Democrats are not in favor of this.
Also, the Senate will vote on Thursday on two separate bills that would bring an immediate end to
the partial government shutdown, one backed by Trump, what we just talked about, and then the
other would simply extend funding for shuttered agencies through February 8th.
Yeah, so first of all, the reason McConnell's not bringing forward the House proposal
is because the Senate already passed it.
So in case you don't remember the history of this, the House and the Senate actually agreed.
And back then the House was run by Republicans, but Democrats had agreed to a compromise
proposal, they signed on to it, and then Trump said, I won't sign it.
So the Senate had to go back and go, yeah, we didn't mean it.
We didn't mean it, the Republicans in the Senate.
So then Democrats take over the House, they pass the same exact legislation.
And McConnell will not introduce it, because if he introduces it, it might pass.
And if Republicans might vote with the Democrats for just simply to pass.
So that's why he's blocking it.
He puts forward the Trump proposal, which he knows will fail.
But he can go back and say, yeah, I'm with the team that's on hate the people on the other
side of the non-existent wall.
And so it's all symbolic because it takes $20 to $70 billion to build a wall.
And this would be at most a tiny percentage of it.
So it's not like, he says, all the drugs will stop and the crime will go dramatically
down.
Really?
With building like 7% of the wall, somehow crime and drugs are going to, no, it's a symbolic
fight here.
And the reason it's the symbolism matters to his basis because they're like, well, why
you do something about those goddamn immigrants, right?
And so McConnell and Trump are like, okay, all right, we built 7% of a wall and you'll
get to feel like you're safe, and by the way, you will be safe because it's a made-up problem.
It's not to say that nobody crosses the border without documents, they do, right?
But does it lead to a wave of crime?
No, natural-born US citizens commit twice as much crime as undocumented immigrants.
So if we had a higher percentage of undocumented immigrants of the country, we would have
a lower percentage of crime.
So if he builds a wall, we might have a higher percentage of crime.
Anyway, neither one of those is a real reason to have this discussion.
It's all about how conservatives feel afraid all the time.
And what Trump is trying to do, and this is literal in this case, is trying to create a safe space.
He's like, look, I know you guys are triggered, and I know it has nothing to do with facts,
it's about your feelings.
And since you feel scared all the time, I'm going to be the daddy figure who builds a safe
space for you with a wall.
So that's what Trump's doing.
And so in the tunnel, if you told him about the tunnel, he doesn't know anything, he's never
done a homework in his life, he can't read past the page.
So if you tell him about the tunnel, he may be like, oh yeah, now the wall is going to
be 10 feet taller, but underground, right?
I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it past.
Yeah, don't get us in trouble with it.
It's the opposite of immoral, which is moral, okay?
I mean, so we're debating with a guy who barely has any sense of what's happening on the
planet.
So, but I actually do think there can be a deal that could, that we can have here.
So the idea of doing temporary relief for the DACA recipients is absurd.
No, we don't agree that at all.
But I do believe we can do an exchange of hostages.
So let's keep it real, the Democrats are keeping the wall hostage now.
And the Republicans, what are they keeping hostage?
The 800,000 dreamers in the country.
So give us permanent relief for the dreamers, and then the Democrats should give them the
2.5 or whatever that he asked for in a compromise proposal that he already put forward
for the wall, not just for other parts of border security, but for the board wall.
And look, that's how compromise works.
And we're really progressive and the conventional wisdom in Washington is that progressives
don't want to compromise.
That's not true at all.
We just want real change.
So if you release your hostages, which is the 800,000 dreamers, Trump is the one that changed
the law to take him hostage in the first place.
And so in the sense it's rewarding him, I get that, but he's the president and he took
that hostage.
So let's exchange hostages and get a deal.
But if Trump thinks he's being clever and Lindsey Graham thinks they're being clever and
they're gonna offer very temporary relief in exchange for permanent funding, not interested.
Also, the temporary relief for the dreamers shows you just how unbelievably influential
the House Freedom Caucus really is.
Because they're the extreme conservatives in Congress who would not be happy.
happy with a concession that would offer permanent protections for the DACA recipients.
Remember, the conversation about protections for DACA recipients has moved so far to the right,
and it's because of the right wing, the extreme right wing within Congress.
Because a slim majority of Trump voting Republicans wanted protections for DACA recipients.
Yeah.
But not good enough.
No, no, no, it's gotta be temporary.
I don't know, it's just, it's crazy that right now, everything that's happening in the country
is being influenced by the fringe.
The minority of the minority, right?
So look, I'll go on my war horse one more time on this.
And I have to point it out because it creates an uneven playing field in these nonsensical debates.
So a lot of the mainstream media will point, say, well, the House Freedom Caucus wants this.
They might be considered extreme.
But then progressives want that and they're extreme.
No, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Look at the polling.
So the people who want permanent protection for dreamers is over 80% in the country.
So the Freedom Caucus represents less than 20% of the country.
That is actually a fringe.
The progressives, the most progressive people, represent those 80% who don't want to compromise
on dreamers who say permanent protection.
So your fringe has less than 20%, our so-called fringe has over 80%.
So don't equate those things.
No, one side is actually deeply popular on almost every single issue.
The more progressive you go, the more popular the positions are based on the polling.
But the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, etc., are generally lazy.
And so they go, I don't care about the polling, I'll just say, oh, look at this political
spectrum Washington gave me, and I'll just play it, and I'll call it even.
And so then we have these debates that we should not have any debates over, because it's
very clear, 75% of the country does not want to shut the government.
down over a wall.
Over 80% of the country wants to protect dreamers.
So where's the conversation?
No, you have a bunch of lunatic fringe people in the Freedom Caucus, and yes, Donald
Trump, who are blocking progress that an overwhelming majority of the American people want
to.
And yet we still say, we're still reasonable enough to say, fine, let's exchange hostages,
because that guy somehow captured the presidency, because the Democrats ran an establishment candidate
thinking that was a brilliant idea.
Anyway, so all right, let's do it.
Nope, nope, nope, I want more.
No, we can't give more and more and more to 15% of the country, which is a fringe radical movement.
Now there is an interesting solution over funding the border wall coming out of Arizona,
so I wanted to share that with you.
Okay, can I just say, look, before we move on, they're supposed to meet on Thursday.
So maybe they'll have a breakthrough, Schumer and Pelosi and Trump, and maybe they'll discuss
those compromise, we'll track that as things develop and let you know as soon as obviously
there's any real movement, okay?
So the Arizona story's hilarious, let's do that.
All right.
A Republican lawmaker in the state of Arizona has found an interesting way to kill two birds
with one stone.
Now, there's the issue of pornography, which right-wingers in the country think is a real
problem, even though the majority of porn is viewed in the rust belt here in the United States.
And then there's the issue of funding the border wall, something that Democrats in Congress
have been fighting against.
Well, this lawmaker thinks that maybe it would be a good idea to force companies to block porn
on their devices.
And the only way that you can unblock it is if you pay the state of Arizona $20, then
you get the unblocked porn, and that $20 will go toward funding Trump's border wall.
So here's the first word I have to say about this.
What happened?
I thought the right wing was in favor of freedom.
All of a sudden, no, don't watch the things that I don't want your eyes to go to places
I don't want you to see.
So I will now control your eyes, your body, everything you do, because I'm in favor of
freedom.
Freedom, you're not in favor of freedom, okay?
And then second of all, are they going to keep a list to the people who said, yes, please,
I'll pay you the $20 so you can unblock my computer.
And then what, they're going to use that list for what reason, political reasons?
I mean, this is big government.
This is you, like, you would have to pay the state of Arizona.
You'd pay the government $20 so you can get the porn on your computer or whatever device
you choose to watch it on.
And so the representative who proposed this is Gail Griffin, and it's known as House Bill 2444.
It's the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Act, which would make distributors of devices,
Sounds like regulation, that allow access to the internet to install software to make porn
not viewable.
Again, to remove that blocking software, a person would have to pay the state $20.
Now one other thing I want to quickly mention about this, this is the first piece of legislation
that's been proposed in reference to building the border wall.
But similar legislation has been proposed in many other states, including Virginia,
Kentucky, Alabama, Utah, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.
And the person behind this, the person who's been fighting hard to, weird words, sorry.
The person who's been fighting to get lawmakers to propose this type of legislation is a guy
named Mark Sevier, and he has a bunch of other names that he goes by, but that's the main
name.
Of course he does.
What I love about this story is he tried to marry a computer to protest same-sex marriage.
Of course.
And he's been fighting against porn because he was addicted to porn.
He was addicted to porn.
He sued Apple for his obsession with porn.
His addiction, he was addicted to it.
Yeah, Steve Jobs didn't make you buy an IFAP, okay?
No, you made that choice.
What happened to personal responsibility?
I mean, God, right wing, they are the most hypocritical people you have ever seen.
Personal responsibility, no, no, Apple made me jack off.
They made me do it, I wouldn't have done it otherwise.
I'm suing them, it's not my fault, it's not my fault.
Steve Jobs made me do jobs on myself, okay?
So I get the, get out of our lives.
And they say livers want to control your lives, we don't want anything to do with your
lives.
With you, whatever the thing you're doing on your I fap, I don't want any part of it.
Just leave us alone, man, Jesus Christ, with this constant oppression and their big government
that won't get off our back.
And all these right wings, I love this stuff.
Ben Shapiro wrote a whole book about who you shouldn't, yeah, you shouldn't listen to you
You can't watch porn.
Who listens to porn, by the way?
I don't know.
I'm sure that's a thing.
I don't know.
Okay, so.
And so, yeah, I'm gonna tell you what to do with your life.
I hate big government.
I'm gonna judge you.
I'm gonna judge for every personal thing that you do.
Okay, well, that's interesting.
So, and another thing I can't stand is they called the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation
Prevention Act.
It has nothing to do with child exploitation.
Nothing.
Nothing.
It has to do with normal porn, right?
So if you, and ironically, what it does is it exploits child exploitation.
for their own political purposes.
They name it that when it's got nothing to do with that just so that they can get people
to say, oh, look, man, porn is their equivalent of child trafficking?
No, it's not.
No, it's not.
You conflated those two things.
And when you do, you actually hurt the cause of stopping people who actually do human trafficking
and child exploitation.
Because now you cried wolf so many times that people are going to go, oh, no, no,
if it's named that it probably is nonsense.
It doesn't mean anything.
It's probably some sort of right wing trap that actually is going to take away your freedoms.
So they're exploiting this same tragedy.
They're the worst.
Well, one thing that I wondered in the context of this story is who's the arbiter of what's deemed pornographic material?
So look, we know that-
I know.
It's gonna be- It's gonna be, wait, wait, wait, I'm on it, I'm on it, guys, I'm gonna determine what's porn or not?
Steve Jobs is gonna make me do it.
Yeah, it'll be his full-time job.
He's just gonna monitor porn all day to figure out what is and isn't porn.
But is, so would photo shoots featuring models who are nude in like a lesbian situation?
Would that be considered porn that should be blocked?
Because then we might have to ban the pictures of the first lady.
And I'm not bringing that up because I want to judge her or anything like that.
No, you guys want to judge her.
I'm just saying that the right wing needs to be consistent.
So if they're against porn and they think that it's disgusting and they think that it's
immoral and it should be looked down upon, then they can't take the moral high ground
when they're defending the first lady when she does get judged by people for taking those
photos.
And look, I think it's greatly counterproductive to their own efforts as well, because
the overwhelming majority of their own voters love porn, can't get enough of it.
I mean, look, some of those dudes are incels.
I'm involuntarily celibate.
Like, they discovered it.
Like, oh, really?
Whereas everybody else was voluntarily celibate in high school.
Okay, anyway, so they're like, what do you think they're doing if they're involuntarily
celibate?
They're not also voluntarily not watching porn.
They're watching it.
But then they're like, yeah, but Ben Shapiro's right.
Porn's terrible.
I've got to watch it again, right?
A good government is terrible.
I'll give you $2.20.
I'll give you $200.
I'll give you $2,000.
Please unblock my computer.
Right?
Just leave us alone, man.
Leave us alone.
If you want to have your own psychosis and your own mania about what you watch and don't
watch and you want to be Opus Day and flag, you know, to beat yourself self-flagellation
in a couple of different ways, okay.
So have at it, Haas, because we're progressives, we're not here to judge, okay?
But leave the rest of us alone.
Let's take a break.
When we come back, a pretty hideous story involving a judge's ruling on humanitarians
who left water for migrants in the desert.
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All right on the young Turks, lots of comments on the stories that we did as usual.
Let me go to the member comments first.
Ecclectic mistralania.
If conservatives care so much about children, how about you stop forcibly separating
them from their parents or holding them in detention camps?
Good point.
The neon donkey writes, and this would be the fastest way to,
get net neutrality in front of SCOTUS.
Go ahead and pass this and see how fast all content restrictions are struck down based
on First Amendment.
So, well, maybe that'll be an upside to this porn bill in Arizona.
Viscuous Cree writes in, the Republicans are now in favor of state sanctioned ransomware.
Lovely.
The right wing is truly a virus infecting all of society.
So, in other words, well, if you would like to open your computer back up, you got to pay
the government, right?
If you'd like to have freedom, well, freedom isn't free, apparently.
And then I'm gonna do one from Twitter.
There will be wit, right, so disagree, Jank.
Negotiating with him at this point would prove that he can shut the government down to get what he wants.
But I got news for you, he's the president, he can, that's right.
And by the way, if the Democrats wanted to, they could as well, and that's kind of how the government works.
They gotta agree.
And so I don't want to reward his temper tantrums, and I understand that.
But at some point, so what's our end game here?
Is it just get him to break and give us 100% of what we want?
That would be awesome and I would love that.
And if I'm wrong and Pelosi and Schumer get him to do that, then I give him all the credit
in the world.
But he's a stubborn guy who doesn't care about anybody else.
So there's a story out about how the FBI is saying now we're having trouble, you know,
staying on cases.
Trump thinks great, you're investigating me, right?
He doesn't care about law enforcement, he doesn't care about security, doesn't care
about the Coast Guard, he doesn't care about anything.
Which is ironic because his whole argument is that he's trying to keep the country safe.
But everything that he's doing right now, everything that's happening right now at this government
shutdown is making the situation in here less safe, way less safe.
That's right.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
A judge has just found four humanitarian guilty for trespassing into federal lands
to leave water and food for migrants who oftentimes die.
in this part of the desert.
Now, the organizers or the humanitarian, I should say, are from an organization known as No
More Deaths.
And this is a common thing that humanitarian do.
They're very much concerned that women, children, people crossing these deserts don't have access
to water and as a result they die in sweltering heat.
But it seems to not matter too much for this US judge.
U.S. magistrate judge, Bernando.
Bernardo Velasco has found four women guilty of entering a national wildlife refuge without
a permit as they sought to place food and water in the Arizona desert for migrants.
Now one of those activists is Natalie Hoffman.
She was found guilty of operating a vehicle inside Cabezza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge entering
the federally protected area without a permit and leaving water jugs and cans of beans
there in August of 2017.
The others were found guilty of entering without a permit and leaving behind personal property.
So the argument that the judge made was this is supposed to be a wildlife reserve.
And if we're going to allow people to come in and leave things behind, it goes against the
whole purpose of a wildlife reserve.
But at the same time, the organization, No More Deaths, shared on social media examples
of how Border Patrol has damaged that wildlife reserve.
And they also showed an example of how, let's go to Graphic 15.
They showed a photo specifically featuring an unexploded military device.
And so it's not like this is a pristine reserve.
I wanna protect the reserve, but I also wanna protect people's lives.
And leaving this water behind keeps people alive.
Since 2001, 155 people have died in that area.
So if you're against them leaving food and water, then don't say you're pro-life.
You're not pro-life.
You might be pro-zigote, that's a different question, but you're not pro-life.
If you say, well, if they're trying to cross the border without the proper documentation, then
I hope they die, and I don't want them to get water in case they're dying of thirst.
Okay, then you're not pro-life, and shut up about it.
And so, and I don't know about these particular women, but generally a lot of times the activists
that participate are religious people because they actually are not hypocritical.
They actually are pro-life and they want to protect those people's lives.
Whether you do return those folks to their original country is a different matter.
And nobody's saying, hey, let's just let him go, right?
And if Border Patrol is going to do their job, let them do their job.
But we don't need to gratuitously help in their deaths.
If somebody is decent enough and you could argue Christian enough to want to help those people
so they don't at least die, and then when we now make that illegal, what does that make us?
Yeah, I mean, if you want to have a debate about deportation, of course, that's a fair debate
to have.
But it is not a fair debate regarding whether or not you keep these people alive.
And so border patrol has a history of looking for that water and that food and destroying
it.
In fact, we have video evidence of that just to show you from previous years.
Take a look.
You get a good shot, picking up this trash, somebody left on the trail.
It's not yours, is it?
All you do is tell me, is it yours?
Not yours.
You're not going to tell me, huh?
248-701-42.
It's just unnecessary cruelty, you know, it's, I don't understand it.
So now let's take their hypocrisy, as always.
So Cliven Bundy did a standoff because he was going into federal lands and he was using it for
profit.
He was using it to graze his cattle, which he profited off of.
And when the government said, hey, you can't do that on federal lands, he said, oh, yeah.
And he pointed guns at the cop's heads, said, oh yeah, I'll murder you guys if you try to do something
about it.
And they said, oh, I'm so sorry, and they never charged them.
So you can point guns at cops, and you could use federal land for profit, and that's all okay.
But if you dare go on federal land to put water there so people don't die, well, nope, you're
going to have to go to prison.
They could get up to six months in prison for trying to save people's lives.
But if you just want to make a buck and then threaten cops' lives, that's totally okay.
So why?
In this country, there is a massive, massive different way that the right wing and the left wing are
The right wing can break laws at infinitum.
I mean, look at the president.
He's broken how many countless laws now?
And while, hey, hey, we gotta be balanced.
I don't know, should we do think about impeachment?
No, no, no, no, no.
I mean, he brought campaign finance laws, emoluments clause, let alone the Russian interference,
let alone the Mueller investigation, et cetera, et cetera.
Trump University, you know, the-
Trump charity, and the list goes on and on.
And the Bundys go around breaking every law you can imagine, they don't care.
You know what, I do have a clever idea, though, and maybe this will get people to be able
to leave the water and the food, because the Bundys, as crazy right wing as they are, are not
against immigrants, because they're Mormons, and Mormons are immigrants themselves.
So they have a philosophical agreement with immigration overall, right?
So they don't want to be unnecessarily cruel to immigrants.
So maybe if we can get the Bundys to leave the water and the food, then the government
would be like, whoa, the right wing did it.
Never mind, it's okay, right away, right away, whatever you would like, Mr. Bundy, please
put a gun to my head again.
I appreciate it.
And so yes, yes sir, absolutely, sir, right?
Or we can just get people to pose as right wingers as they're doing something to keep
people alive.
Again, this isn't even a debate about, you know, whether or not you allow them into
the country, right?
That's a separate debate.
This is just about ensuring that people have a chance to live as they're risking their lives
to flee their crime-ridden country for safety.
I mean, it's just, it's out of control, the lack of human empathy.
So when we have these discussions about what's moral and isn't moral, like Trump brought
up how Democrats think that the border wall is immoral, no, that's not the argument that
you're hearing from Democrats.
But if you do want to have a discussion about what is and is not moral, destroying that water
or preventing humanitarian from keeping people alive, that's a moral.
So if you, I know what they're going to say, the right wings are going to say, well,
they shouldn't have made their choice, man, nobody told them to come here, okay, that's fine.
So your sense of morality is if your living conditions in your countries are so bad, and
you believe in America and you think it's a beacon of hope, well, you're an idiot.
And if you come here, we're gonna let you die of thirst and go, ha ha, it was your fault.
And that's your concept of morality.
Then you're a sick person who is deeply immoral, and you just don't even know it.
And you don't get to argue that you're pro-life, okay, when you support this kind of needless
cruelty.
Like, that's the thing that drives me crazy.
The only time you hear people protesting about how important life is and how sacred life
is is what it has to do with a zygote, what it has to do with a woman making a decision
about her own body.
That's the only time it matters.
Never matters when it comes to situations like this, where people are literally dying in
the desert of thirst.
They don't care about that.
Yeah, and look, we're not like normal progressives.
Normal progressives will say, oh my God, dude, don't talk about morality at all.
It's not fair to talk about your morality or my morality.
No, I think it's fair.
I think that they're the immoral ones, and we should call it what it is.
If you say let people die of thirst, you are immoral.
Own it, live with it.
Let's take a break.
When we come back, Giuliani cannot get anything straight.
I mean, he's all over the place.
He's a mess.
She's a mess.
They're not winning with Giuliani.
It's a Giuliani time, which means time for absolute madness.
Okay, you're going to love this story when we come back.
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All right, back on Young Turks.
So let me fill you in on a couple of things that are happening this weekend next.
First off, members are going to get hour two on Thursday just for those guys.
So we've done this couple of times and hour two on Thursday night is going to be just for
the members.
You can go to t.wit.com slash trial to try it out and see if you like it.
And then on next Monday, Kamala Harris is doing a town hall.
As soon as she announced, CNN jumped in and said, town hall, we're on it, we're on it,
right away, yes ma'am, okay?
Curiously, CNN had no negative articles about Kamala Harris.
So, but we will cover for members.
So we'll do a play-by-play, and I am intensely curious how it's going to go.
Because I don't know how she's going to perform.
And look, we learned a lot when we covered live coverage of the debates of Beto O'Rourke
and Ted Cruz for you guys.
We do that for the members because members make this show possible.
It's just $4.99 a month, that's it, five bucks, a cup of coffee, t.yt.com slash join.
And so together we'll get to find out how she does and what she's made of.
So play by play on that on Monday night, that's gonna be a 645 Pacific after all about regular
shows, and then State of the Union on Tuesday, me, Anna, and John will be covering that
for you guys, live coverage for everybody, and then extra members-only commentary afterwards.
So if you're watching the State of the Union anywhere, for all of you out there, watch
it with us, and you'll get instant analysis of what Trump is saying.
Always at t.com slash live.
All right, so just a couple of emails or comments, I should say, from you guys in this
segment, just jank in it, and a member, I haven't read that name before, that's a fun one,
writes, and going to apply for drilling permits on federal lands, going to dig water wells for
immigrants. That's true. They're opening up the federal lands for drilling. So if you actually
open, and they're doing it for uranium and other things to make a buck, but if you open it up
to get water for immigrants, as long as somebody makes money off of it, they might say yes.
This administration, like, Trump has this incredible ability to destroy everything I love.
Like this government shutdown is destroying the national forests, national parks.
We've talked about that on the show before.
Joshua Tree, which is my favorite, is just being destroyed right now.
I think they shut it down completely and they're not letting people in anymore.
Yeah.
And finally, no, two more.
I'm a derpy panda from Twitter, says, we let people in.
Flint die of poison water, how much empathy does the right wing have when they are fine
with legal citizens dying and then blame them for the problem?
And then finally, back to the member section, McGab writes in, I'm actually concerned
about Giuliani's mental health, well, not concerned, but acknowledge he might have a legit
problem.
Absolutely, I totally agree.
Okay, well, let's do that story and then you can judge for yourself.
All right.
Rudy Giuliani continues fumbling all over the press, and it all started after he shared
what was a direct quote from Donald Trump in regard to the Moscow Trump Tower negotiations.
Now, timeline is everything.
How long did he negotiate a Trump tower in Moscow?
Did it happen through the election?
Did it happen past the election?
And Maggie Haberman in the New York Times had quoted Giuliani as saying the following.
The Trump Tower Moscow discussions were going on from the day I announced to the day I won.
Rudy Giuliani quoted Mr. Trump as saying during the interview with the New York Times.
And that's not the only time that he said it.
He went on talk shows on Sunday morning and very clearly said that those discussions lasted
until October or November.
Actually, we have some evidence of that.
So he spoke to Chuck Todd specifically about this.
Take a look for yourselves.
Can you share what communication the president had with Michael Cohen about Trump Tower Moscow?
And can you share the last time they talked about Trump Tower Moscow?
Before the investigation, during the period that they're looking at, they did have conversations
about it.
The conversations lasted throughout parts of 2016.
The president is not sure exactly when they ended.
So right, it's your understanding it ended when.
in January, as Michael Cohen incorrectly testified to?
No, no, okay.
Well, it's our understanding that they went on throughout 2016, more than a lot of them,
but there were conversations.
Can't be sure of the exact date, but the president can remember having conversations with him about it.
Throughout 2016.
Throughout 2016.
Yeah, probably up to, could be up to as far as October, November.
Our answers cover until the election.
So any time during that period, they could have talked about it.
So just to clarify, talks of Trump Tower Moscow went as late as October or November of 2016,
even in some form.
Could be.
What are you doing?
What is happening right now?
Okay, so that's Giuliani admitting that Trump was negotiating with the Russians for how much you would get paid by building a tower in Russia.
all the way up to the election.
That's a startling admission.
And so I did a live video about it as soon as I saw it in Colorado when I was there.
And I'm like, are they really saying this?
It's mental to admit that.
I mean, unless Mueller's got him dead to rights with conversations like on the eve of the election
that they some have recordings of of something, why would you admit that he was negotiating
with a foreign country about how much he was going to get paid when he's running for
president all the way up to the election day.
And by the way, he says, October or November, through the election, he says, but I can't
be sure of the date.
My God, did they talk after the election about buying off our president?
That's unbelievable.
And his own, it's not a liberal, and it's not just any old Republican.
That's the president's lawyer admitting that.
It's crazy.
So of course, there's going to be a bunch of blowback following those statements on multiple
sources, and he's now trying to walk back those statements.
And this is a common pattern, an expected pattern from Rudy Giuliani these days.
So he did reach out to the press and he said, quote, my recent statements about discussions
during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then candidate Donald Trump about a potential
Trump Moscow project were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the president.
My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such.
discussions.
The point is that the proposal was in the earliest stage and did not advance beyond a free
non-binding letter of intent.
I'll tell you exactly what's happening here.
So he walks it back, but you can't walk it back.
He says it's a hypothetical.
What do you mean a hypothetical?
You saw the appearance on the press with your own eyes just now.
Did it sound like a hypothetical?
Do you know?
Chuck Todd asked him, when were the talks?
He said they were all throughout the election, all including October or November.
Well, part of that was a hypothetical.
And then discussion with the New York Times, he literally said this is a direct quote from
the president.
How is a direct quote a hypothetical?
So no, no, no.
And I told you this, if you watch the young Turks, I told it to you from day one of Giuliani's
mad, mad appearances on television.
This is what Trump does to everybody.
He goes and tells them, go say this specific lie.
And they usually, and we know this from inside sources inside the White House, like leaked
etc, right?
They usually go, Mr. President, are you sure you want me to say that?
That doesn't, not sure that's a great idea.
And he's like, shut up and say it, I'm the boss, okay, say it, right?
And they go out and say it and then it does terribly.
And everybody goes, what the hell did you admit?
So then they go back to the president and the president goes, why'd you say that?
They're like, you told me to say that.
And he's like, no, it's your stupid fault, you got me in trouble, right?
So now, my guess is what happened was, Trump told him to say it.
That's why Giuliani said, this is a direct quote from the president, because he's
tired of saying something, and then Trump making him walk it back.
So that's why he said it's a direct quote from the president.
So then Trump does it anyway, and he's like, walk it back, I don't care, it's not playing
well, it's not playing well, walk it back, right?
So now Giuliani has to come out and go, when I said direct quote from the idiot, I mean the
president, I meant it was a hypothetical.
Now you're gonna see how true that is when you see how exasperated Giuliani is, because
Because we got a quote of him basically saying, all right, man, I give up, this is this is gonna be my legacy lying for Trump.
Right.
He literally said that.
So yeah, that's the second part of this, which I thought was interesting.
But before we get into that, why would Trump think that it would be a good idea to get his lawyer to say that Trump said that these negotiations lasted throughout the election?
I know why.
You know the same reason as every, like we, everyone, everyone underestimates how unintelligent
Donald Trump is.
He thinks if he says, well, it just lasted through the election.
So it wasn't, oh, that's it.
So and it wasn't binding.
So I didn't do the deal.
And so why are they, so tell them it just lasted through the election.
And so that'll show that I didn't do it.
No, you idiot, that'll show that you were negotiating with a foreign government, let alone
an adversary about taking giant amounts of money from them, all the way up to the election.
So then when people say that, he goes, he didn't see it coming.
He literally so stupid, he didn't see that criticism coming.
And he goes, you got me in trouble, Rudy.
Go out there and say it was a hypothetical.
So I wasn't really buying your argument, but then something clicked because Trump has
made the argument that these negotiations, the negotiations themselves, regardless
of the timing are not unlawful, that he's not breaking any rules or any laws by negotiating
this type of deal with Russia.
So you're right, I somehow managed to underestimate how stupid he is, and I can't believe
I did that.
But anyway, let's get to the second part of the story.
So Rudy Giuliani was also on record, essentially saying that he lies for the president, and
it's likely that that will be his legacy.
But what did he really mean?
So first, he says, absolutely, I'm afraid it will be on my
Gravestone, Rudy Giuliani, he lied for Trump. Somehow, I don't think that will be it, but
if it is, so what do I care? Now, this is a statement that he gave to the New Yorker during
an interview, and then he's kind of walking this back as well. He had an interview with
Dana Bash later, and she describes the conversation in this next video.
It are questions about whether or not what he meant was that he's lying for the president.
And that's what I asked Giuliani about when he spoke.
when we spoke just a short while ago.
And this is what he said on this, because I thought it was interesting, Brooke.
He said, I'm not lying for the president.
The reason I said that is everybody is concerned with legacy.
I can't figure out why because you don't get a chance to whatever you do in life.
You don't get a chance to shape the way people see it later.
So you do what you think is right.
No, no.
Again, you guys can read, you can see words for yourself, you know what words mean.
He said, on my gravestone, it'll be that I lie.
for the president.
And that's the, his old lawyer is saying that.
And then of course he has to walk it back because you're admitting that you're lying.
So then he has to come out and go, well, here we go again, another hypothetical, if I was
hypothetically lying, but I'm so I'm, I said I was lying because obviously I meant I'm
not lying.
This is crazy.
Nope, that's not obvious.
I mean, he was asked about his legacy.
The New Yorker asked about his legacy and that was his answer.
that he's somewhat concerned about his gravestone saying that he's lying for Donald Trump.
So now let's analyze what's going on with Giuliani.
So look, some people are concerned that he has mental health issues as well.
And so would Trump hire a lawyer that has mental health issues?
Of course, he has mental health issues.
He wouldn't even notice, right?
So that's a possibility.
But I actually think that's less likely.
I think that Giuliani is in an impossible spot.
I've seen this movie a thousand times, we've all seen it together, where Trump does this
to everybody, he did it to Sean Spicer, he did it to Ryan's Previs, you name it, every
person, he goes, go out and tell that lie, they go tell the lie, and then he turns out and
goes, why did you tell that lie?
We had people that used to work with him in the Trump organization, in his business,
that would say the same thing, they say, he makes you do something really stupid, and then
he blames you for doing it, and with no acknowledgement that it was originally his idea.
Right, so a woman that he worked closely with for a very long time, I forget her name, sorry,
but she had specifically mentioned this one story where he didn't want braille in the elevators
in Trump Tower.
And so he wanted a technician to take the braille out, and they couldn't do that.
Law requires them to have braille there.
And she mentioned, like she'll ask or he'll ask people to do things that they're not allowed
to do, that's literally illegal to do.
And then if they do it and there's blowback, he'll blame them.
If they don't do it, he'll still blame them.
It is an unwinnable situation.
But I do think that Rudy Giuliani has his own issues.
Yes, he's in an unwinnable position, but I'm sure Trump didn't encourage him to tell reporters
at the New Yorker that he's lying for Trump.
No, no, that's his conscious poking out for a second.
And then he has to beat it back.
See, that's the difference between Giuliani and Trump.
I'm not absolving Giuliani of anything.
He chose to be Trump's lawyer, he chose to get into this awful position.
Several other respectable lawyers had already left because he's an impossible client to deal
with.
He's a pathological liar, he's totally guilty, and then he blames you for all of his problems.
It's the worst client you could possibly have.
And Rudy signed up, nobody made him do it, he's not a public defender.
Now having said that, he apparently has some degree of conscience, which Trump doesn't.
So every once in a while, he'd be like, I guess it's going to go down that I was a liar
for the president.
And then he, there was a leak last week about how Giuliani was exasperated.
It was impossible to work for Trump.
And he hates his current situation.
How many times do you have to hear that before you realize, don't go work for the guy?
Everyone who leaves says it's impossible, impossible, because he's a petulant child.
And he doesn't think through any of the consequences of any of his actions.
So he makes you go out there and embarrass yourself publicly, and then he blames you for it.
And then you think Giuliani won't do it again?
Yes, Trump will order it to him to lie preposterously or to accidentally admit things that
are terribly damaging.
He'll do it three, four, eight more times.
And every time he'll have to walk it back, he's already done it at least half a dozen times.
It's incredible.
I feel like this is, the Trump administration is the perfect case study for human obsession
with power because, I mean, people who work with Trump will put themselves through this torture.
Why?
Why do they do it?
It has to be for power.
It has to be for, they're getting something out of it.
Fame, greed, power.
And remember, when Giuliani worked in government and he capitalized off of that.
So no one's profited off of 9-11 more than Rudy Giuliani has.
And then he set up security company that got millions upon millions of dollars because of his connections
in the government, et cetera.
So he wants to get more fame and power and connections and go back and profit off of it.
So he just picked the wrong guy and this is a, it's a bridge too far.
And so good luck to him, but right now he's a national embarrassment.
And he's funny enough though, the two things he said in the midst of all this melee of
disinformation that are true is, yeah, the president was talking to the Russians all the way
through the election, his own lawyer admitted it, and yes, on Rudy Giuliani's gravestone,
it'll say he famously lied for the president.
Maybe not on his gravestone, but certainly in his obituary.
Moving on to other news, 2020 election, there's some updates.
Kamala Harris announced that she will be running for president in 2020.
She made the announcement on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
And she plans on running with a platform that essentially describes her as a progressive.
But is she progressive?
That's something that we're going to dig into in just a moment.
But first, some more information on Harris.
She served as a San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general before being
elected to the Senate in 2016.
And her campaign will highlight her career as a prosecutor with the slogan for the people.
Now, that was purposely, that slogan was purposely decided as something contrary to what Hillary Clinton ran on.
Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan was, I'm with her, making it all about her, whereas Kamala Harris wants to focus on making it for the people.
And it has a reference to her time as a prosecutor, for the people of California, et cetera, in this case, obviously for the U.S.
She's got references to Shirley Chisholm and Martin Luther King, et cetera.
It's a well-crafted intro into the race.
The consultants who were probably paid handsomely, did a nice job with this opening.
And then she goes on to say, look, people are going to pigeonhole me based on certain
factors.
I think she's referring to race.
But you chose to come out in Martin Luther King Day and make the reference to Chisholm, which
I love.
If you were like Martin Luther King and you were for radical change and you believe in the fierce
urgency of now, fantastic.
If you were like Chisholm, I would love it, I would support you in a second.
Or perhaps you'd like to take advantage of that and then be for the tranquilizing drug
gradualism.
We'll find out.
Right.
And whether referencing her career as a prosecutor is a good idea is something that I think
It's gonna backfire on her because her record as a prosecutor is now coming back to honor,
and we're gonna get to that.
But her platform includes, I don't think that these are bold economic proposals.
For instance, she is proposing a monthly tax credit of as much as $500 for families earning
less than $100,000 a year.
That's good.
She also wants to reduce maternal mortality rates and bail overhauls to reduce the federal prison
population.
Now, she also has commented quite a bit on police using excessive force and the fact that we
are increasingly living in a police state.
She said, quote, right now we have an administration that has waged a full-on assault against
American institutions and American ideals.
It is going to be about speaking truth, especially when there is so much that is contrary
to truth, it is going to be about regaining the trust of Americans.
Then she goes on to say, in regard to her record as a prosecutor.
I will say that there's a lot about what I did as a prosecutor that I'm proud of, including
a recognition that there are fundamental flaws in the criminal justice system and that this
criminal justice system needs to be reformed.
And when it comes to police brutality and excessive force, she says it is a false choice to suggest
that communities don't want law enforcement.
Most communities do.
They don't want excessive force, they don't want racial profiling, but nobody should.
Now those are great statements, but what does her record say?
Yeah.
Okay.
So look, I think Kamala Harris record is totally mixed.
And so you could look at that as glass half full or glass half empty.
As usual, the New York Times has decided that it's 98% full.
So they look at that mixed record.
And in the beginning, I was actually hopeful, I'm reading the article, I want to see, like,
and I don't take any of the positive stuff that Kamala Harris did away from her.
That's real, right?
And so, and she pursued the big banks as a prosecutor.
That's really positive, and I gave her credit back then for it.
And all the things that Anna just told you about criminal justice reform, wonderful.
I wish she'd lived it as a prosecutor, I don't think she did.
So to give credit to New York Times, they had an editorial from Lara Bazelan, a law
professor explaining a good critique of her time as Kamala Harris' time as a prosecutor.
Now, they didn't put that in the article, that was an opinion piece, okay, they want
to be clear that somebody's opinion.
If you attack Bernie Sanders, that's a fact, you just put it into an article, right?
If you have critique that is based on facts of Kamala Harris, and that's just your opinion.
And in fact, they panicked so much because they got blowback from the establishment that
they had to do an op-ed that countered their earlier op-ed and said, no, Kamala Harris
is wonderful, okay?
So in this article, I'm looking for balance, right?
I know it doesn't have to be fake balance, it doesn't have to be neutrality, just give me the facts, right?
So in the beginning, I was actually a little hopeful because they say some liberals have critique
of her.
And I was like, okay, good, they mentioned that in like paragraph, seven or so, not bad, kind of up front,
good enough, right?
As good as you could hope for.
Nope, the rest of the article goes back to, well, some progressives, she's wonderfully
progressive in some areas, and in other areas, she's wonderfully moderate, which makes her
an ideal candidate.
Wait, why did you just, why is that not in an op-ed?
Why is it in your main article about how she's such a great blend of progressives and moderates?
But that's your opinion, man.
That is definitely an opinion, right?
So if you're not writing an editorial saying that she's a great mix of whatever, that's
the writer's opinion.
That is something that should not be included in a straight news article.
On the other hand, what you just mentioned, Jank, about the numerous issues that were brought
up in Bazelon's op-ed, those weren't opinions, those were facts, this had to do with
her prosecutorial record.
And I want to share some of that with you because it gives you a sense of how her actions
run contrary to what she is now saying about our criminal justice system.
So for instance, according to the op-ed that we're referring to, in 2015, she opposed a bill
requiring her office to investigate shootings involving officers, and she refused to support
statewide standards regulating the use of body-worn cameras by police officers.
So that's fascinating, that was something that I didn't even know about.
I didn't know that she had a problematic record as a prosecutor, but that surprised even me.
By the way, she didn't support legalization of recreational marijuana until last year, 2018.
Is it, 2018, isn't like a month ago?
Yeah.
Okay, so I'm not saying that she came out at the end of 2018, but 2018 was just three weeks
ago.
So I mean, this is establishment Democrat 101.
After the country's 80% on one side, they're finally begrudgingly pushed to that side.
When she was a prosecutor, she's cracking down on marijuana users left and right.
And look, if you're fighting for criminal justice reform as a prosecutor, but you still gotta do
your job and you begrudgingly prosecute people, but there's different leeway that you have
and you exercise that leeway?
That's a different story.
Right, but that's not what happened here.
But that's not what happened.
Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through
official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony, and the suppression
of crucial information by prosecutors.
So let's give you some specific examples.
Harris was criticized in 2010 for withholding information about a police.
laboratory technician who had been accused of intentionally sabotaging her work and stealing
drugs from the lab.
So after a memo surfaced, showing that Harris's deputies knew about the technicians'
wrongdoing in recent conviction, but failed to alert defense lawyers, a judge condemned
Harris' indifference to the systemic violation of the defendant's constitutional rights.
That is huge.
That is the exact type of behavior by prosecutors that we cover on the show on a regular basis.
Whether it's evidence tampering, withholding information that could prove that the defendant
is in fact innocent, these are the kinds of things that you see time and time again, and
it leads to wrongful convictions.
The fact that she is presenting herself as a progressive while she has these skeletons in
her closet is concerning to say the least.
Harris also championed state legislation under which parents whose children were found
to be habitually truant in elementary school.
could be prosecuted despite concerns that it would disproportionately affect low income people
of color.
Come on, you can't do that, man.
So look, truancy is a real issue, and you want to help those families get the kids back
into school.
Arresting the parents does not help them bring their kids back into school.
It is devastating, and it is not going to affect the middle class.
It's not going to affect the rich for sure.
It's cracking down on the poor, and they're not going to be able to defend themselves.
That is not a good track record as a prosecutor.
If you're look, I mean, if you want to say you're tough on crime and you want to appeal
to Republicans, then it's okay.
Then it's, you're centrist credentials, I suppose, can help you.
Although you'll never be vicious enough for Republicans, so it's a losing strategy, right?
But if you want to say that that was, you were fighting for reform, no you weren't, okay?
So now she is, now she's turned around, and she's in favor of some criminal justice reform,
and I'm super happy to have her.
And there's two different conversations, guys.
So is she a good senator from California right now, given her current positions, if she actually
votes for those positions when it matters, that will be great and greatly welcome, okay?
So if someone is converted, wonderful, take it, right?
On the other hand, if you're trying to figure out who the best person will be to be president,
well, that's a totally different conversation.
Why do I have to compromise?
Why does it have to be Kamala Harris?
Why can't it be someone that is better?
Why can't it be someone who's more progressive?
If you're progressive, if you're not, you're a centrist and you like to arrest poor people
whose kids didn't go to school, then you vote for Kamala Harris and you say she's a wonderful
centrist.
Like the New York Times, New York Times said, quote, this is not in the opinion piece.
The opinion piece has filled to the room with facts.
The non-opinion piece says her centrist standing in the party could also turn out to be an asset.
All right, if you're pro establishment, then you like her.
And so I'm not, I'm telling you, a lot of the stuff she does now is good, and I'm super happy
to have it.
But if we're looking for who's going to deliver on progressive priorities and fight for them,
then you look at people's track records.
Does she have a track record of fighting for progressives?
No, unfortunately as a prosecutor, at least half a record, not our whole record.
At least half a record is fighting against progressives.
Yeah, and, you know, these are questions that I'm sure are going to come up moving forward.
You know, if you're going to position yourself as someone who was a prosecutor who wants
to reform the criminal justice system, you have to answer to your own actions within that
system because you help to perpetuate it in some cases.
And so we'll see what happens, but look, every candidate is a mixed bag.
There is no perfect candidate.
So I think our job here is to give you the facts about their record, what they claim they're
going to do, what they've actually done, and you get to make a decision.
But for me, for the purposes of how I want to think about this election, I don't trust anyone.
I don't trust anyone.
And the reason why I don't is because they say one thing and then they do the next.
And I feel like after the first time Obama got elected, you know, in 2008, that was a huge burn
for a lot of millennials such as myself, because we didn't get that hope and change.
We didn't get, you know, serious reforms that we desperately needed.
And that led to the economic frustrations that convinced people that Trump would be a better
answer because he's so different, right?
And I don't want that.
We need to change the system and we need to find people that are trustworthy, who have
a proven track record.
Bernie Sanders, I trust him the most because he has a proven track record.
He has not flip-flopped, he has not changed his positions.
He's been fighting for the same things for decades now.
Yeah.
So last thing on this is, look, I don't know why all these articles did mention the two things
that I think are most relevant, both positive and negative.
When she fought against the banks, she joined Schneiderman, who was the Attorney General
of New York, but the time was doing good work, and they got some relief for actual citizens
from the banks.
That was wonderful work on our part.
And you should, any profile of her should mention that, because I would argue that's the best
thing she's done in her career.
On the other hand, she let Steve Mnuchin, the current Treasury Secretary, before he became
Treasury Secretary for Trump, she let him off the hook.
And he'd committed, it appeared some terrible, terrible fraud.
And it's a very good question as to why she let him off the hook.
Did it have to do with campaign donations?
Super fair question.
And for that not to be mentioned in any of this, when that's my, out of all the different problems
I have, where they're probably my top problem, because that goes to what Anna was saying,
can we trust you?
Are you doing things for political reasons, for your own benefit, or are you doing it for the
people?
So in, you know, the establishment, they're always flummocks why people like Bernie Sanders.
They just, they hate them so much, they can't understand why anyone would see it differently.
Because the guy's got a 40-year track record.
It's his track record you hate because he was what you consider a gadfly.
He was always for single payer.
And you're like, oh, this guy fighting for single pair, that's never gonna happen.
He's annoying us again with a single payer talk.
Nancy Pelosi says she's theoretically in favor of single pair, and so does Hillary Clinton,
but that we're never gonna get it.
Oh, that's more like it, that's wonderful, right?
So now when Bernie is, you know, he hasn't even announced yet, and I forget if it was
CNN or New York Times, but they did that great twist where they're like, well, since Kamala
and the others have adopted Medicare for all, that well, Bernie's won enough so he should quit.
Why? That makes no sense. So you should take the one guy that has an excellent track record
of being a progressive and make sure he doesn't run so you can run the Johnny Come Lately's, who
we don't know at all what their actual positions are. If you're an establishment figure, you
love that idea because you don't want real change. If you're a progressive, you should not like
that idea.
So I'm happy to have Kamala, we're going to cover her town hall for our members.
Sienna is going to do a town hall.
We'll do play by play analysis for you guys right here, t.t.com slash join, become a member
and we'll give that to you.
Keep an open mind, everybody.
I'm saying it, look, we got a whole year to go here, right?
So maybe Kamala Harris in that town hall or in other events will come out, or maybe
should even come on this show and explain her record.
And maybe it's a great explanation, and we should afford that opportunity to everyone.
No matter what they're considering the progressive camp or not.
And maybe they do have good explanations.
But we also have to judge their record for what it is.
And last thing on this is sometimes the mainstream media guys are funny.
They will say like, oh, saying that you don't believe Cory Booker or that you don't trust
that Kamala Harris is necessarily for Medicare for all.
That's unacceptable.
No, it's- I'm not buying that argument.
To say that it's unacceptable, it's unacceptable that you're not-
find that unacceptable.
When Cory Booker fought against affordable pharmaceutical drugs for the American people, that
wasn't 18 years ago.
That was recent, okay?
So yeah, I don't trust Cory Booker when he claims that he's going to fight for us and
he's going to fight for, you know, affordable health care or universal health care.
I just don't buy it.
They see that progressivism right now really resonates with young voters, with Democratic
voters.
And so they're very happy to take on that label.
You can't just talk to talk, you have to walk the walk, you have to prove it in the way you vote.
You have to prove it in the way you fund your campaign.
You have to prove it in who you are as a person.
And I'm just not seeing it from very many Democratic candidates right now.
And you might not be a journalist if you think that it's illegitimate to question a
politician.
Absolutely.
Now, of course, they have no hesitation when it comes to a progressive.
They're like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, let's serve them to shreds.
I question you, I'm skeptical about you.
In every single thing they do, when it comes to Kamala Harris, et cetera, all of a sudden,
If you say, well, I'm not sure they're genuine, they're like, are you, did you just say
that you're not sure they're genuine?
Remember Anderson Cooper's like almost got red in the face with Bernie Sanders during a debate?
Was like, are you saying that the donor money might have affected Hillary Clinton's votes?
Are you, are you really saying that?
Like, you're supposed to be a watchdog, man.
You're supposed to challenge those politicians yourself.
You're not supposed to be their defenders.
And whenever I see, again, here we go again.
And I told you ahead of time, that's why we tell you ahead of time.
I said, as soon as Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris announced, and it'll be the same
for Cory Booker, there won't be negative articles, there'll be fawning coverage.
And here we are, CNN immediately, their first town hall.
Bernie, you want to do a town hall on climate change, on criminal justice reform, on wages?
You go do that with the young Turks, and he did.
But we're not interested.
Kamala Harris, you're in the race.
We're in the town hall, right away, town hall, right away.
And you've got legitimate critique op-ed and then write a counter op-ed, but in the main article
announcing our candidacy, it's gonna be such an asset to be half progressive and half not.
If you say so, my guess is it's not going to be an asset.
Let's take a break when we come back, the viral video that everyone was talking about over
the weekend.
We're gonna put it in full context and have a probably fiery discussion about it.
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.com slash t-y-t.
I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.