The Young Turks - TRUMP INDICTED

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

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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. Woo! It's up! Welcome to the Young Turks and holy cow, we have actually news for you guys. and it's breaking as we speak. It's like, shh, shh, so okay, it's Jane Cougu and a Cusparian,

and apparently we have a hell of a show for you guys. Go, breaking news. Let's do it. Donald Trump is officially the first former president of the United States in the United States history to officially be criminally indicted by a grand jury. Yes, the New York grand jury has in fact voted in favor of pressing criminal charges, against Donald Trump in connection to the hush money payments that were paid to Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 election. Jay can't help himself. Go ahead.

Ladies and gentlemen, we got, well, did we hold on. Ladies and gentlemen. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe we got it. Maybe. Okay. No, listen, guys, seriously, it's just an indictment. It doesn't mean that he's in handcuffs, and it doesn't mean that he's going to serve time in prison. Not yet. But it is a bit shocking.

I mean, Alvin Bragg in New York took action, a Democrat took action, and Trump has actually been held accountable this much? Holy cow, back to the detail. So this story literally just broke. So it is developing as we speak, and we will continue updating you as we learn more. But here's what we know so far, okay? We don't know what the charges are precisely. However, the felony indictment filed under seal by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office will likely be announced in the coming days.

By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, will have asked Trump to surrender and to face arraignment on charges that remain unknown for now. Now, I'm sure most of you are wondering, what is the reaction from Trump? The latest on that is that Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, taking in the information, absorbing the information. I'm sure we're going to hear quite a bit from Trump. Now, his actions surrounding the 2020 election are also the focus of a separate federal investigation and also a Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of investigating Trump's attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election. But those are separate cases. Now, what's likely to happen now? According to the New York times Bragg and his lawyers will likely attempt to negotiate Trump surrender. If he agrees,

it will raise the prospect of a former president with the Secret Service in tow being photographed and fingerprinted in the bowels of a New York state courthouse. And if he does in fact get arrested, he is likely to be fingerprinted, photographed, read his Miranda rights, although I highly doubt that he will take advantage of the right to remain silent. And while it is, in fact, standard for defendants arrested on felony charges to be handcuffed, it's unclear whether they're going to do that to a former president. When it comes to white collar criminals, they make an exception. Instead of handcuffing them behind their backs, they get handcuffed in front of their bodies. I don't know how much of a difference that makes, but nonetheless. And the star witness

in this case is, of course, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who spent time in prison. in connection to the hush money payments because he was the one who gave Stormy Daniels the $130,000, and then it was the Trump organization that covered that cost and then attempted to hide it. And so that is a big part of this investigation and this prosecution. I want to read one more thing, Jane, because it's really important here. Now, a conviction, this is the most important thing to keep in mind, and I don't mean to be a downer. A conviction is not a sure thing, according to the New York Times, an attempt to combine a charge relating to the false records with an election violation relating to the payment to Daniels would be based on a legal theory that has yet to be evaluated by judges, raising the possibility that a court could throw out or limit the charges. Okay, so I want to explain what that is, because it's really important here.

And it's of course being misconstrued, not just by right-way media, but unfortunately by almost all the pundits in mainstream media. So there's two different charges here. One is a state charge of fraudulent bookkeeping. That is when the Trump organization says, oh, I am giving this money to Michael Cohen for legal services. Right. Now, Michael Cohen has already testified that was not for legal services. That was for the hush money to Stormy Daniels. Okay.

That is a state law violation. Okay. Now, the statute of limitations issues here, and that's critical. That's because Alvin Bragg and, you know, all the other prosecutors in Manhattan sat on it forever and ever and ever. I think they were afraid to take action, but here credit where creditors do, they have taken action now. I wish they'd taken it earlier before the statute of limitations. Anyway, the federal charge is about campaign finance violations. Again, Michael Cohen also got convicted of that because they clearly went around campaign finance law to pace, Stormy Daniels because they were trying to keep her quiet before the election.

And clearly related to the campaign. Right. I mean, I'm sure most people know, but keep her quiet in regard to the affair that she had with Donald Trump. He didn't want that getting out there. Exactly. And that affair happened only months after Melania Trump had just delivered their child. And it was just, it was among many affairs that Donald Trump had. And obviously, they thought it would have been damaging, especially to his evangelical Christian base before the 2016 election. So none of those things are unclear. All the facts are super clear. Donald Trump definitely did it, and his co-conspirator already spent years in prison for it, right? That's his fixer, his lawyer,

Michael Cohen. Now, the reason why they say he might get off is on a technicality. They're saying, well, if the statute of limitations ran on one of the charges, can you really combine the two charges to make it a state charge for the Manhattan DA to be able to do it instead of a federal prosecutor doing the campaign finance law violations. So he might get off on a technicality on how they combine the charges. But unfortunately, if you watch cable news now, not just Fox News, but all of it, you might get the impression that, oh, he didn't do it. And it's hard to prove because, my God, he didn't pay her hush money, which is ridiculous.

He 1,000% paid our hush money, and that it's not a violation of campaign finance law. No, that's ridiculous. It's 100% a violation of campaign finance law. It's a violation of the state law and fraudulent bookkeeping. There's no question about it. They should all clarify, Trump's only chance to get off is either, A, he's a celebrity in an elite, and people think that former presidents should be above the law, and you might get a couple of MAGA guys on the jury, and then next thing you know, he's free to go, or B, he gets off on a technicality.

But he definitely did it. And that should be clear and thank you, not just to Alvin Bragg here, but to the grand jury that looked at and said, I don't care how elite he is. I don't care how rich and powerful he is. And I don't care if you put the handcuffs on the back or the front, he's guilty and we'd like to see him go to trial over this. And again, they don't adjudicate that he's guilty. The grand jury just says, yes, there should be a trial because we think he did it. Exactly. So that's all this means. It means that there will be a trial. A few other things that I want to mention.

So for those who might think that this bars the former president from running for president again, it does not. The vote by a Manhattan grand jury to indict Donald Trump raises novel legal and political questions because he is, in fact, running for the Republican ticket, and we all know that. He's already started campaigning. But any indictment or conviction would not bar Trump from running. This has already been reported, but I just wanted to remind the audience of that in case you might be under the impression that this does, in fact, ban candidates from running for president in Trump's case again.

The reaction from some of the right wing pundits is already starting to trickle in. Of course. So Jim Jordan kept it simple and just tweeted out the word outrageous. Outrageous that a politician would be held to account like one of the masses, one of the plebeian peasants. We are Republican politicians. We should be above the law. I know that's what you think.

Oh, I would love it if that were not the case. Let's go New York. Let's go jury. Right. I mean, look, it's interesting because for the longest time, I felt that I would be giddy about this moment. And it's not that I'm not, I'm happy that he's going to be held accountable as anyone should.

I don't care if you're in a position of power or not. But it's interesting because while the right wing seems to celebrate anything that hurts the lives of their political opponents, but it has nothing to do with material. improving their lives. Like, they don't care. They love it. They're so celebratory about that stuff. But at the end of the day, this is just someone who very likely committed a serious crime

being held to account. It doesn't make my life better, but at least it shows that there's some justice when it comes to people in positions of power. Yes. And look, guys, I'll add these two. So one thing is fun. But the serious one is, if I thought he didn't do it, and I hate Donald Trump. I think he's a threat to democracy.

I would never want them to prosecute him, because that is a super dangerous precedent. Once you start doing political prosecutions, there's A, no end to it, B, you're being to lose your democracy, and C, they will mainly do it to progressives, okay? Because the power system is set up to be conservative, to keep the status quo. Any credible challenge to it, I'm not going to come from the right way, the right one's like, more tax cuts for the rich, they're like, oh, golly gee, don't hurt us too bad, Right? Any credible challenge is going to come from the left. The political prosecutions would be directed mainly at the left. So I would hate that and I don't want that. This is not

that. This isn't, he definitely broke the law. His co-conspirator definitely went to prison for it. There's no question about it. Exactly. I mean, the fact that Michael Cohen was found guilty and served time in prison tells you everything you need to know. And real quick, sorry to interrupt you, but more reactions are trickling in. And it's actually shocking how much right wing media figures provide cover for someone that they clearly don't respect or like and who clearly broke the law. So Ben Shapiro just quote tweets the New York Times reporting on this story and says, an act of legal absurdity in what way?

In what way? In what way? Oh, because we think that the prosecutors took too long to prosecute Donald Trump and he did break those two laws, but hey, I don't want you to combine those two broken laws into one. No, I think. Like, you don't believe that. No. You're all lying. You know he did it. You just don't want him to go to jail for it because he's your, he's your dear leader. Okay, but I want to make something clear. And I also want to say this is speculation, but this is what I think is going on. When it comes to people like Ben Shapiro, I don't think that he's

necessarily saying that Trump didn't do it and it's absurd to prosecute him. I think he's thinking about the political ramifications of this, okay? My feeling, just based on what he has said about Donald Trump versus DeSantis, he favors DeSantis, something like this makes Donald Trump a martyr in the eyes of the Republican electorate. And that does not bode well for the Republican Party because are the independence that they desperately need to get Trump elected going to vote for him, knowing that he is indicted, potentially by the time the election rolls around, maybe even convicted.

Yeah, look, I get it, but I, the only person in media that's gotten this right outside of us, I think, I'm sure that there are others, but then I have seen it, especially in mainstream media, is John Stewart. John Stewart said the only sensible thing, which is like, did he break the law or didn't he? You either prosecute him based on that or not, all these political considerations of, oh, he'd be a martyr, it might help him. You shouldn't consider whether it would hurt him or help him. You should only consider whether he broke the law. 100% right so even if I thought hey this is going to help Donald Trump I would hate that politically that it helps him you should still do it because you can't say oh well people running for president or people who are already president are above the law and they can't break any damn law they like we can't have it prosecutors aren't supposed to make political calculations that's ridiculous 100% yeah 100% and by the way all these prognosticators I don't believe any of them so this will definitely help Trump And before they were saying that it was definitely going to hurt Trump. Oh, whatever, they don't know anything.

And it doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter. Just uphold the law, period. Now, final fun fact, this does mean there will be a Donald Trump mugshot. Really? I was wondering about that. That's what happens normally. Whether they release it is a different question.

But they just told you they're going to take fingerprints and take a picture. That's called a mugshot. No answers or butts. Now, whether they make an exception because it's the former president, they don't want to embarrass him or help them or whatever it is, that'll be a political decision. But that's a mugshot. Yeah, and it's likely that Trump will negotiate the arrest with the prosecutor. Yeah, and rich people get to do that. That's normal. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's hilarious, but it's normal. He's not getting special privileges there. Any rich person gets to say, I'll tell you when you're going to arrest me, and I'll tell you how you could arrest me, and they have their lawyers negotiated.

Of course, poor and middle class people have the door broken in, handcuffed, if not shot, and then brought to prison. So we'll do a story a little later as we gather some of the other reactions to this and some of the other updates. But for now, why don't we move on and cover some other news, including yet another train derailment this time in Minnesota. You're watching footage of yet another train derailment, which occurred in a small town in Minnesota called Raymond early this morning. The train, which is operated by rail company BNSF, was carrying hazardous materials and caught on fire after its derailment, residents within a half mile radius of the the derailment, we're told to evacuate their homes as a result. Now, the story is still developing. There is now an investigation into the cause of this derailment. But the reason why you see the train cars on fire is because they were carrying ethanol. And so as a result of that, when the

derailment happened, it caused a bit of a fire, which continued burning for hours. Now, four cars containing ethanol, which is a highly flammable product ruptured, caught fire, and continued to burn. For additional cars containing ethanol may also release, the local fire department is currently the lead for the response and ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. The evacuation remains in place. And that is a statement from the Environmental Protection Agency. The fire was still burning more than eight hours after the derailment. And that's also according to the EPA. Ethanol, by the way, is absolutely a hazardous material. So it can explode when mixed with vapor and air. Ethanol exposure can also lead to coughing, dizziness, and the feeling

of burning eyes, drowsiness, and unconsciousness, which explains why the firefighters told the local residents to evacuate their homes. And while the derailment happened at 1 a.m. in in the morning, the EPA was on the scene by 6.30 a.m. to begin their investigation. They're on the ground, also conducting air quality tests. So we've got more details to the story, but Jank, I wanted to give you a chance to jump in. Okay, so look, I'm going to start the story in what you might consider a bizarre way, but knowing media and politics, this is the truth. All of this is thanks to the reporting at the lever. That's David Serota's organization. And after the East Palestine derailment, there actually was almost no media about it, which is normally the case.

Remember, there's almost a thousand derailments across the country every year. The train companies get to do this all the time, endanger your neighborhoods. But since they're corporations and they bribe politicians and the media loves those bribes, et cetera, no one ever covers it, right? The lever went nuts covering the East Palestine situation. Then right wing media picked up Sirota's reporting, the levers reporting, and started covering it 24-7, which then led MSFCCN, New York Times, et cetera to start covering it, and it became a big issue. So now when a new train derailment happens and a new ball of fire erupts in a city, it has become news. Before it wasn't news at all. That was like, oh, corporations, you know, leading to death and destruction.

That's normal and not a big deal. Now every time it happens, it's like, whoa, another ball of fire, what the hell? Yeah, it's kind of like mass shootings. It happens over and over and over again. So will Pete Buttigieg do something? Of course not. He never does anything, right? His job is to protect corporations.

That's his number one job. And so, but at least more pressure builds, more pressure builds. The only downside here is establishment Democrats will get high on MSNBC and go, no, there should be trained arrailments and the government shouldn't do anything about it. We're going to protect our beloved Buttigiegs. And Biden, no, that is not the right reaction. Hold them accountable. You're supposed to hold your own politicians accountable. The most frustrating part is that people will pretend that Pete Buttigieg is effective at his job, that he is holding them accountable. When the fact of the matter is,

he got what he was hoping for. The Norfolk Southern train derails. There's a big controversy because of what it did to the local community in East Palestine. People were outraged, but then they forgot about it. And Pete Buttigieg did nothing. We looked into it. Nothing was done. The head of the transportation department has the power to unilaterally implement regulations that would, you know, ensure that the local communities that these trains derail in are kept safe. But we're not seeing any of that. All we keep hearing from the Biden administration is Trump, you know, decided to repeal some of the regulations that the Obama administration had implemented. And even though we've been in power for two years now, we've decided to do nothing about it. If the Trump administration can unilaterally repeal regulations, in particular the regulations having to do with the breaking systems for these trains, then why couldn't the Biden administration re-implement them? I don't know what the problem is.

But anyway, let me give you more details on what the Transportation Secretary said following this latest derailment. He says preliminary information suggests 14 of the train's 40 cars were carrying hazardous materials. including ethanol, which was released leading to a fire. Now, other cars on the train were carrying corn syrup and other freight. As far as we know, based on what has been reported so far, there were no other hazardous materials, but that could change as this story develops. I just want to be clear about that.

And we don't know what caused the derailment, but a team from the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to arrive today to begin investigating the matter. Now, the local community has already talked to the press about what they experienced with this derailment. Brittany Phelps is one of those individuals. She and her family were startled by a knock on their door at 1.30 a.m. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what.

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She soon smelled the stench of ethanol. And we've talked about the deregulation and also the practices for these rail companies that have led to an outrageous number of derailments each and every year. So more broadly, these issues are compounded by staffing cuts by the railroad companies that are seeking to maximize their profits. Rail workers, government officials, and industry analysts have long warned that such disasters are an expected constant. of an industry that has aggressively cut costs, slashed its workforce, and resisted regulation for years. Yeah, look, our politicians are supposed to protect us, and that's their number one job as government officials. And they have no interest in it at all. So don't get me wrong, if the Republicans were in charge, they would have passed a law. It would have been something about the Anti-Woke Act. We won't let train companies hire.

black people or gay people or trans people anymore. We won't let them do drag shows on a train, right? It would have nothing to do with actual regulations. As you'll see later in the show, Republican Congress people take tons of bribes from all these companies, and they use comical excuses to cover for them, right? So it wouldn't be any better, it would be slightly worse on the Republicans. But don't believe the hype for mainstream media that Democrats care about you.

They never do anything to protect you. to protect you. Remember, guys, it's good cop, bad cop. And the role of Democrats is to go, golly, gee, there was nothing we could do. So Trump can do all of those things right away, unilaterally. But the Democrats just can't find any way to do anything. Even when they hold the House, the Senate and the presidency, golly, gee, the freaking parliamentarian. Last thing on this case, how many times did you hear Trump talking about the parliamentarian? Zero. Zero. Didn't even know that it exists.

It couldn't care less. But whenever the Democrats go, oh, my, did we bungle this again? Did we help another corporation blow up your neighborhood and do nothing about it? Oh, there was nothing. We can do the parliamentarian, the filibuster Senate traditions. Because cinema mansion that was raining, the dog ate my homework. All right, we got to take a break. But before we do, I leave you with this.

One of the greatest intellectuals of our time has weighed in on Donald Trump's indictment by the Manhattan Grand Jury. And Dave Rubin says this. The truth is the New York grand jury indicted itself. The most unintentionally funny he has ever been. Congratulations, Dave, you did it. You got us to laugh once. sad day that it was at you. All right, we're going to come back. We have a lot more reactions to the Trump indictment and more news when we return.

All right, back on TYT. We got more Trump updates for you guys. Chank, Anna, and look at all these wonderful new people we're doing the show with Asha and Natalie with Artistry Wilde, eFunk, Biggest, She's 12, Claire G, Jarrell 5 and T-Sig F. You guys are all amazing American heroes for signing up. We do the show together with our members. You make this possible. Hit the join button below on YouTube to do that as well. Casper, updates. Well, let's do it. Let's talk about this first reaction from Donald Trump. Former President Donald Trump has reacted to the Manhattan grand jury voting in favor of indicting him in connection to the hush money payments paid to Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 election. He is not happy, as you can imagine, and I'm sure this is the first of many statements that he'll have in regard to this case.

He writes that the Democrats have lied, cheated, and stolen in their obsession with the trying to get tried. Trump, but now they've done the unthinkable, indicting a completely innocent person in the act of blatant election interference. What? Okay, well, by the way, he's facing other criminal investigations having to do with his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Maybe he has the investigations and the trials mixed up, but the one that we're talking about now and the one where the grand jury voted to indict him has to do with the hush money payments, not the 2020 election. Never before in our nation's history, writes Trump, has this been done. True, true, he's right about that. The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent who just so happens to be

a president of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for president has never happened before, ever. And then he has a statement in regard to the district attorney Alvin Bragg. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, he writes, who has handpicked and funded, who was handpicked and funded by George Soros is a disgrace rather than stopping the unprecedented crime wave taking over New York City. He's doing Joe Biden's dirty work, ignoring the murders and burglaries and assaults. He should be focused on.

This is how Bragg spends his time. So a lot of distraction. a lot of deflection, a lot of denial in regard to his part in the hush money payments and the fraudulent documents that were created in order to provide cover for those hush money payments. Yeah, so look, he's just getting started. So he hasn't threatened violence yet, which is a bit shocking. He's going to build up to it, right?

Right. So why? So Steve Bannon has already called on Trump supporters to peacefully protest. He said that during his show immediately after the indictment news broke. So hopefully, look, people have the right to protest. I have no problem with that. But the key word is peaceful. Yeah, and look, he put peaceful in there.

So so far, fine. I mean, I didn't see the video and I hope he didn't go wink, right? And I hope that people don't misinterpret that. But there's nothing wrong with peaceful protests. You want to protest that Trump's getting arrested? You think he should be above the law and he should be able to violate campaign finance laws? Who cares if you lie to the government and how you keep your books? Okay, that's a questionable position, but okay, go ahead and protest.

Let the rich break the law, let the powerful break the law. Have at it, Haas, as long as you keep it peaceful. Oh, man. What happened? This paints a picture. So the New York Times keeps updating the story with reactions and more important, what those close to Trump are saying. So interestingly enough, over the last week, over recent weeks,

Trump's been at Mar-a-Lago, keeping his typical schedule, dining with guests, playing golf. In fact, in recent days, it was reported that he was in an incredibly good mood because he was under the assumption that Alvin Bragg's case against him had fallen apart. Remember, he thought he was going to get arrested two weeks ago. Yeah, I'm just going to interject for a second. Because everybody keeps saying, oh, I think Trump wants to get arrested because he thinks it's going to help his chances in the primary. No, he doesn't.

He hates the thought of being arrested. He thinks it's a huge embarrassment. He thinks that New York society will mock him. He's talked about those fears openly in the past. And so he wanted to be among the elites and stuff. And he thought, well, I'm president now. So I'm finally made it into the club, right? And here they are.

And they're saying, no, you're not in the club. you're like, we're going to treat you like a regular schmo and actually uphold a law against you, which they don't often do. That's the one thing that right wingers are a little bit right about, right, when it comes to other establishment politicians. So, no, he was ecstatic the other day when he really thought that the case was off. And he bragged words. He said, ha, ha, I told me, I'm a brag, you got scared.

Now it turns out back to Depends. Okay, so his aides, though, those very, very, very, very. very close to him who apparently aren't really good friends of Trumps because they were leaking this to the New York Times are saying that the good mood that he had been in in recent days was just a front. It was a mask that he put on because internally he was incredibly, he was just racked with anxiety and fear that he would eventually be prosecuted for this. He was also trying to tamp down his own behavior after he posted on his social media site a news article with an image of Bragg on one side and an image of Trump holding a baseball bat on the other side. So apparently after he did that, he's like, maybe I should calm down a little bit. But I mean, the crime was already committed home boy. Remember, that's a new crime.

That's why. He's such a coward. You know, it's funny because we're the fair show in America. We tell you all the time, the one upside of Trump is, well, he's got a couple of upsides. One is he said, F you to the establishment, I enjoy that. Then he took it in an insane direction, I did not enjoy that. But he also made, showed you how much the other Republican politicians are cowards. He bullied them and they all were like, oh, I'll do it or you want. And you showed how, you know, how pathetic they were.

But don't forget, he himself is a coward. The idea of going broke or going to jail are his worst nightmares. And every internal report from every Trump insider, not just on this issue, always says about how scared he is and how worried he is and how stressed he is. No, no, I retract what I said previously in an earlier video that we did on this story. I lied, this is making my life better. Every update, every update makes my life incrementally better. Let me read you this, okay, Maggie Haberman reporting in the New York Times, a large group of former Trump organization employees is sending texts, quietly cheering the latest developments, a reminder of how many people have felt burned in various ways by Trump over the years. How many times did we talk about the day when all the people Trump turned his back on would get together and screw him over or at least celebrate something terrible happening to him?

he shift so many of his allies, so many of his friends, so many people were so incredibly loyal to him over his weird, perceived disloyalties. Yeah. And look, I know if you're in Maga World, which is honestly 93% of the Republican Party, you think everything about Trump is a lie. He's an angel. He's never done anything wrong. He sometimes says outrageous things.

You'll concede, right? But overall, you know, he's an angel and all of his current advisors, former advisors, current, you know, allies and former administration officials, every single one of them is a liar, even though they're all incredible, like huge conservatives, massive right-wingers for the last 40, 50, 60 years. But they're all liars, right? But for any of you who hasn't lost their mind and all objectivity, they're not all lying, brothers, okay, they're telling you, like, everybody who actually deals with Trump in person, which you haven't, if you're a MAGA, you've only seen them on TV or on tweets and posts, et cetera, right? Every person that goes in a room with him and interacts with him behind the scenes goes, whoa, that guy's crazy and dangerous and not very bright at all. Like does not know one thing from another just keeps doing giving us nonsensical orders. Keeps telling us to break the law and then throws us under a bus. Everyone who's had an interaction with him is celebrating like crazy today,

except for the people who think this will help him win the election, in which case they're super scared of what he's going to do next. And by the way, he's run out of people. The only people he can now bring in is like maybe literal former mobsters to run the government. Like, because there's no one left loyal to him because he's not loyal to anyone else. No matter how much you do for him, he will try to bury you at the slightest infraction. He has no brakes in his car. So what's going to happen next?

Only God knows. But I do know today's a good day, not if you hate Trump, but if you actually love the rule of law and believe we should be a democracy. Absolutely. Why don't we take another break? When we come back, we will update you. if there are any new updates on this story. But we also have stories we pre-produced earlier in the day. So we might get to those, including a Republican congressman who spoke at a banking association summit to essentially tell them,

don't worry, you guys are paying me enough to say that regulations have no impact on the banking system. Yeah, the politicians are so corrupt. We'll get to that. And then hell has frozen over, not just because Trump is indicted, but because I agree with Jesse Waters. What? On one issue alone, we'll share that with you later in the program too. We'll be back. the video on YouTube, became an American hero, helps us do this show, get the truth out there, get an honest perspective out there. You could also do it at t-y-t.com slash join. Oh, that makes sense. Casper. We have a story about corruption. Let's do it. What you have is people preaching

their solution from a month ago and using that as a solution for the circumstance. I don't think that's fitting. I think it's unbecoming. I think it's quite hackish. And especially, especially in a serious circumstance like we're currently in or have just gone through. We need to be a little more patient and find out what the facts are. Find out what the facts are. The man you just heard from is Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry speaking at the American Bankers Association, a massive pro-banker lobbying group, as you can imagine. And yes, you heard him correctly, he thinks placing blame for the Silicon Valley and signature

bank failures for their collapse on deregulation is hackish. Now, he says it's too soon to draw conclusions. But he also forgot to mention that he's also heavily funded by banking association, people there at the banking association. He takes a lot of money from those lobbyists, as was reported by the lever. We're gonna get into those details in just a moment, Jake. Yeah, the amount of money that they give out to these politicians is astounding.

So look at one quick thing here. When he says we have to wait, it's a trick. And I'm going to explain exactly how that trick was used on me when I was an anchor on MSNBC in that case to protect President Obama. But that is really important to this story. But in the demeaning way of saying, oh, hackish and unsophisticated and unbecoming, those are classic establishment Republican and establishment democratic phrases meant to say, any outsider who actually wants to help you is unbecoming and uncivil.

Those are the tricks that are being played. Now more details. So during this conversation, Representative McHenry is speaking to the CEO of the American Bankers Association. His name is Rob Nichols. And what they're discussing was the deregulation that took place under the Trump administration in 2018. Now, the deregulation was a bipartisan effort.

And Donald Trump signed it into law. And essentially what it allowed for banks to do, these regional banks, these mid-sized banks to do is essentially increase the threshold of assets within the bank in order to have extra regulation and extra oversight. So at first the number was about $250 million, a billion dollars, my bad. So $250 billion, I'm sorry, $50 billion was the original amount. So once a bank has that much in assets, $50 billion, the original law would allow for extra stress tests and oversight to ensure that the bank's practices wasn't putting the country's economy in jeopardy. But with heavy lobbying by bankers, they managed to get that threshold to go from $50 billion to $250 billion. And so Silicon Valley Bank and signature bank were no longer

worried about that extra oversight after they passed the 50 billion mark. Now with that said, Nichols heaped plenty of praise onto McHenry during this conversation, especially for condemning calls for stricter oversight. Because keep in mind, this is the American Bankers Association meeting. I mean, they don't want more regulations, they hate regulations, they just want to maximize their profits. So let's take a look at how that portion of the conversation went. I appreciate your comments around 2155 because there have been, I think, to your point of your opening remarks,

some knee-jerk analysis already of what did or didn't contribute to this. Let's establish the facts first, and then we can decide what kind of appropriate response we need. We're in heated agreement, and I saw you make those very comments on Face the Nation just a number of days ago. Thank you also just for your thoughtful approach. the comments you just delivered about trying to figure out what happened and why and then figure out what the path forward and steps should or should not be as it pertains to a legislative response is, I think, incredibly thoughtful. You've been called in the press, the adult in the room at this moment, and so I just wanted to thank you for your leadership at this moment in time.

I completely agree on some of the knee-jerk comments we've heard from folks. I saw an elected official the other day say, well, we need to make bank, based on what just happened, of these two banks have got to make banks safer, therefore let's just jack up capital requirements. I'm like, well, that's not, this is not a capital failure here. And then your comments about the overall nature of the banking system, I think, are really spot on. But it was a capital failure because there was a run on the bank and Silicon Valley Bank did not have the capital necessary to make those depositors whole as they were withdrawing money. Now, Jake, I have one thing I want to quickly mention, because this is the thing that

This is the thing that's incredibly frustrating about the regulations overall, right? Even the regulations before some of it was weakened in 2018. So it is considered liquid like liquid assets if you have investments in treasuries. Why is that considered liquid? Yeah, because you could sell them. But so let me explain. Right, but the value can go down as interest rates go up. That's exactly what happened here.

100%. But let me, so let me explain. So first of all, that, that guy that's talking there and giving all that praise to the Republican is a bank lobbyist, okay? So, and understand how this game works in 2021 alone, that one lobby in money that we can see, let alone the dark money, let alone all the banks themselves, let alone all the other lobbies, that one bank lobby gave $141 million to politicians. And yet mainstream media says, no, that's not bribery.

They just care about people's health, the general welfare. Okay, absurd. It's out and out bribery. So I'll come back to him in a second. To answer Anna's question, that guy is 100% lying. It was definitely an issue about having enough capital. And he's lying because he's a freaking lobbyist for bankers. Right.

So here's what happened. So they have all these treasuries that you can turn what they call liquid, turn them into cash, because they're they're not a, for example, a real estate holding takes a while to sell. I got to sell that commercial property. It's going to take a while. The treasury, you can sell like that. That's why it's considered what they call liquid, almost the equivalent of cash, okay? Now, the problem is when you sell it and the interest rates have moved, you can lose money on it.

So let's say that they're worth $100 million and you sell them now, but now they're only worth $95 million. Okay, you got the $95 million, so it is cash, right? But you lost $5 million in that transaction as an example. So now you've got a problem because you don't have enough reserves because you're losing money every time you sell the treasuries to pay people who are leaving your bank. And what happened was word got out in the street, the Silicon Valley Bank wanted to raise extra capital. And that's what set off the panic.

Because everyone in Silicon Valley was like, oh my God, we all have our money in this bank. They're asking for more capital. That means they're in trouble. it was 100% a capital problem, 100%. And then everybody made it run for it. And then they definitely didn't have enough capital at that point. And that's why they went under. So understand that when you see people in suits and they look professional and they say

demeaning and patronizing things to others, like, oh, you're the only adult in the room. No, they're huge liars. They're actors who are professionals and lying to you to have. help the powerful rob you, okay? That's who those two crooks are that you're watching there. And they get up in like bow ties and they look so sophisticated. But in reality, he's saying, let us just keep robbing you. We don't need to have much capital.

Who cares if there's a run of the bank. The government's going to save us anyway. And we have this crook, Patrick McHenry. We bribed up to Gazoo. And he now runs the committee. And be patient. I'll break down that code word too in a second. I just love that he's a hack calling others hacks.

I mean, you're a hack. You are bought and paid for. I mean, come on. So let's get into who McHenry is. As I mentioned earlier, he is a Republican congressman. But he's a Republican congressman who serves a leadership position in the House of Representatives that he has no business serving in considering the massive conflict of interest here. So he's the chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

And he is bribed by banks like you wouldn't believe, including the banks that he's talking about during this Bankers Association meeting. Now, he has also, so let's get into those details. He received $275,000 in donations since 2013 alone from executives at Signature Bank, making him literally the top House recipient of their campaign donations in every election cycle since 2014. And it's not just signature bank. Let's take a look at this next graphic because it'll show you his top, top contributors. And as you can see, his top contributors include a lot of financial institutions, banks. You've got signature bank at number one, $275,150. Fidelity investments, $149,700. Wells Fargo, $133,250. Google is the one thing that was a little different from the other contributors

here. But then get right back to the banks, Bank of America, $117,99. That is to say that this is a man who is bought and paid for by the very banks that do not want to deal with any regulation. Because for them, regulation means we might have to follow some rules and we can't maximize our profits through incredibly risky behavior and risky maneuvers. And so what's frustrating is, look, we both agreed that when it came to Silicon Valley Bank, it was important for the depositors to be made whole, right? Because that would have spread across our financial system. There would be a run on many other banks if the FDIC decided against making all depositors whole. However, there was a big caveat that we talked about. And that caveat was regulation, right? There's no conversation about regulation.

There's no conversation about re-implementing the already, in my opinion, weak regulations that were in place prior to the 2018 deregulation. So that's why I said I want to come back to the words they use about being thoughtful, being patient, making sure you study the facts first for a long time before you do anything. They just wanted to get it out of the news cycle. So the example I'll give you on a completely different story is President Obama had given a speech about the Egyptian Now obviously a while back when I was a host on MSNBC and I was going to criticize him and I said that on air. My producer got in my ear in about a second and a half and said, do not criticize him. I asked later why, of course I didn't listen, but they said you can't criticize the president right after he gives a speech. And I was like, wait, when would we criticize him?

And is that true for all presidents? Could I have not criticized George W. Bush right after he gave a speech? This is MSNBC, I'm pretty sure I could have, right? And they said, no, no, no. And then we had, and then I was like, oh, is it an hour later, and a day later, a week later. And eventually, basically, I got the memo until it's out of the news cycle. And then we'll tell you it's irrelevant, so don't criticize them. Because we don't want you to criticize politicians, especially democratic politicians, especially Barack Obama.

But that's the same trick being played here. Oh, we'll get to it many months later when no one's talking about it anymore. They're not going to get to it. They're not going to actually study it. everything you just saw there is a lie, and you would all know that if we had real reporters in the country. But instead, reporters look at those guys and go, that is the powerful head of the financial committee, and anyone's saying that those hundreds of thousands of dollars given to him

every single year, our bribes is illegitimate and radical. He is an honorable politician having an honest debate, and that lobbyist is super honest, too, because he's wearing a tie, and he looks like us, the elites. Finally, I have to also just talk about the American Bankers Association and their contributions to McHenry. So let's look at that second graph showing his top contributors. And at the bottom there, you will notice American Bankers Association, $105,500. And then the lobbyists, we're in heated agreement. Heated.

Well, I believe it. A couple of million dollars in total from all those banks. That'll put you in heated agreement. unless you're mainstream media reported and the millions of dollars was just a coincidence. Let's take a break. When we come back, we have a lot more news to get to, including a study looking into the demographics of AR-15 owners. Who owns AR-15s in the country? Some of the information here will surprise you. And later in the show, we'll have a little bit of fun and give you some updates on the Donald Trump indictment. We'll be back.

I'm a very stable genius. 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 podcast at Apple.com at Apple.com slash TYT. I'm your host, Jenk. and I'll see you soon.