The Young Turks - Trump Lashes Out After NYT Op-Ed

Episode Date: September 7, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from September 6, 2018. For more go to http://tyt.com/JOIN. Trump lashes out after discovering his staff's ‘quiet resistance.’ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome to the Young Turks, folks. Jank and Anna with you guys. We also have a very important election tonight. Now, that's a little weird because it's a Thursday. Normally, the elections are on Tuesday.

Next week, Rhode Island will be on Wednesday. We're thinking about doing an old school episode of election coverage. Oh, wow, I won't be watching. No, I'm just kidding. Of course I'll be watching. I'm kidding. Okay, but tonight's super important because this is the one Senate seat that just Democrats could take.

So there were just a couple of Senate candidates. The Senate seats are much, much harder to take because they involve whole states. Now, luckily, Delaware is a tiny, tiny state. So it's actually not a big number, it's almost the size of a congressional. district. So Carrie Harris tonight, the polls have not closed yet. If you're in Delaware, go vote. Grab t-y-t.com slash app. Grab your app, get in line and vote. It could make all the difference against one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate, Tom Carper. So tonight we find out if just Democrats take a Senate seat. If they do, it'll be another enormous earthquake.

And even political, if you've been watching our election coverage, even Politico is starting to have positive headlines like, oh, another big, shocking upset win for progressives, right? But Senate's a different animal. That'll rock their world one more time. So I don't, you know, we gave it our best shot. We're continuing to give it our best shot. Kossi Cortez team is there. You've got two hours left.

We'll do the coverage tonight, but make sure you go out and vote. but if you're obviously not in Delaware, come to, and if you are, tune in. One last thing about that. On Rebel Headquarters, they're already covering it, and they will be at Carrie Harris headquarters. Ryan Grimm was down there and caught Carrie Harris going to vote and talk to her about that. You can check that out at Facebook.com slash Rebel HQ. All right.

I want to, so we got a big show ahead for you guys. Trump's lost his mind, of course, about the guy who wrote the op-ed saying we're basically not listening to the president. That has a couple of twists and turns and ramifications that we'll talk about in a second. It does, yes. And some things that are concerning. Alex Jones is further banned. Soon he'll be banned from the planet, in which case I suppose he'll say.

I have so many thoughts on that, okay? I want to go to space. I hope you do. I hope you do, and I hope you stay there. So lots to get to in the show. But we're doing the membership drive. I'm going to tell you one more thing about it here. I don't want to, like, beat it to the other than we've got a whole four months.

And I want to tell you guys that we're actually going to start to release some videos because of the uptick and membership. We're going to have some resources, as we promised you in the beginning, to do some videos that are specific to topics that you can send to your family and friends that are purely informational. So, for example, the myths about Medicare for all. why minimum wage actually increases economic output, doesn't decrease it, et cetera. So I think you're going to love those.

You, Anna, you're going to do one about student debt. Oh, I am. Yes. I like that you're telling me this now. But I would love to do that. I would love to do that. Yeah, I think you guys don't love those videos. Thank you for participating.

But I want to do one more thing here now because I don't think that a lot of people even know all the shows we have. So let me tell you about that. So we're doing a membership drive with the Young Turks, and one of the things we wanted to let all of you know is all the shows that you get as part of the TYT network. And so you guys know you can do $4.99, you get all these shows basically a progressive Netflix. At $10, you become an activist, you get extra privileges, and also help support independent media.

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All of these are for 499. You get the podcast too. Damage Report by John Iderola. We the People with Nina Turner, Mouthy Messy Mandatory Terey show. Happy Half Hour with Brett Ehrlich, the Jimmy Doors Show. And of course, the legendary, hashtag no filter with Anna Kusperian. It is pretty legendary. So that is a hell of a lot of progressive shows that will keep you busy for as long as you need it for what we think is a very, very reasonable price.

And you get to have this as a progressive bulwark, the home of progressives that cannot be shaken if we're dependent on you alone. So t.t.com slash join. And Ann I here, we got a couple of nice comments since we started to drive. Yes, yes. So as part of this drive, we will be reading some tweets and some comments that are coming in from some of our new members. And I love reading these because they honestly keep me going through very difficult news cycles. And so let me read the first comment. This is from Sela Faith. And Sela Faith writes, I've been watching TYT on YouTube since the Bush era.

It's the only way I like to watch. And I was never a member in all that time, 12 years now. But that changed yesterday when I became an activist. What Jank said on the clip I watched yesterday struck a chord in me, this really is the largest non-establishment media in existence, and if we lose this, we lose everything. TYT must continue to exist, and I want to help make that happen. Thank you so much. Yeah, look, thank you again, man. But really, 2020 is coming. And who's going to fight for the progressive side? Whether it's Bernie Sanders or another true progressive, whether it's all those

just Democrats in 2018, the drive to get money out of politics since we've been doing since 2011, with through Wolfpack, et cetera. We did all that because we believe we're true believers. And so we want to fight for you guys. We hope that you want to fight for us as well. It's heartening to read comments like that. It's wonderful. So one more, long, tall, 4711 says, just signed up for the TYT activist package.

I've been watching you guys for years, love you to pieces for the fair and well-rounded coverage you give, and it's worth it. I can't wait for my swag bag to show up and watch all you rise to the top of all news networks. Yeah, so the activists get a swag bag too and you get all the TYT gear and stuff. So you get the shows, you get all these extras, and together we build home of progressives. I wanna thank you guys so much for participating. And now let's take a look, we're trying to get to 100,000 members that is an audacious

goal. When we started a couple of days ago, Anna said let's get the 30,000 immediately. So over the last two days, we've added about, well, let's, we started at it. 27,661, right? So getting the 30,000 in a couple of days is near impossible. Let's see where we are today. 29,047. Come on, guys. So we're past 29,000. Okay. Let's see that 30,000. Okay, I think we can get there. I really do. And I actually think that that might have been from earlier in the day. So, okay, dy.com slash join. And let's see, we can push past 30,000 right now. We appreciate all of your support.

And as part of all this, we continue to give you more and more progressive content. Thank you. Okay, so let's get started on the show. All right. In an unprecedented move, a senior Trump White House official released an op-ed anonymously to the New York Times, criticizing Donald Trump and his mental stability. Now, there has been backlash against the New York Times, and there's been chaos in the Trump administration following the release of this op-ed. And the question is, well, who wrote this?

Which senior Trump official made this decision, has these thoughts, and is fighting, you know, secretly in the background against Trump's own political agenda? Well, every single senior official has denied it. But before we get to their denials, I do want to give you a sense of how Trump reacted to it. Now, of course, he reacted on Twitter. But he also reacted. in video form, and you're about to see that right now. Let's take a look. Nobody has ever done in less than a two-year period what we've done. So when you tell me about some anonymous source within the administration, probably who's

failing and probably here for all the wrong reasons. No. And the New York Times is failing. If I weren't here, I believe the New York Times probably wouldn't even exist. And someday, they don't like Donald Trump. I don't like them because they're very dishonest people. Remember this also about the New York Times. When I won, they were forced to apologize to their subscribers.

They wrote a letter of apology. It was the first time anybody's ever done it because they covered the election incorrectly. So if the failing New York Times has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it? Anonymous, meaning gutless, a gutless editorial. We're doing a great job. The poll numbers are through the roof. Our poll numbers are great. And guess what?

Nobody is going to come close to beating me in 2020. Okay, let's just first acknowledge the fact that his poll numbers are abysmal. They're at record lows. He's in the 30s. He's pulling in the 30s in terms of his approval rating. He is not doing well. But I do want to give him credit for one part of that statement that I actually think is a little accurate. He said that the New York Times was failing and then he was elected, and if it wasn't

for him, they wouldn't be around. Now, of course, it's ridiculous to say that the New York Times wouldn't be around if it weren't for Trump. However, I do believe that their reporting has improved significantly after his election. Same for the Washington Post. That is the only accurate thing that came out of that statement. Yeah, of course, he thinks that they're reporting is more fake. But no, what we like about the reporting is not because it's partisan or against Donald Trump or that it's biased, no, we actually like that they're holding power to account, which we thought they did not do enough during the Bush years famously when we were lied into that Iraq war, but also in the Obama years.

And there was a lot of deference to Obama because he was well liked in Washington, well liked by the establishment, and that's not what the press is supposed to do. They're supposed to be watchdogs. and Trump is so over the top and so outrageous, he kind of forced their hand to do it because he says nonsense lies, you know, in every single statement as he did a couple of times in that clip. I mean, his poll numbers are among the worst that president has ever had. But he creates this illusion for his base.

They think he's really popular because he keeps saying it, when in reality, nearly two-thirds of the country can't stand him. And apparently two-thirds of his own administration can't stand him. Now, that's, of course, the two-thirds is not an official poll within the administration. It is in the country. So there's one of irony here that I want to point out here. So he doesn't deny that it's true because he says the individual is gutless and a coward. They have now attacked whoever it is and they say he should resign.

So obviously you believe it is true. Otherwise, you wouldn't be saying that. If there was an anonymous op-ed here of someone writing outrageous things, et cetera, and we thought none of that sounds true. true, I don't think this person's in the building, we would say, and if it was a right-wing website, we'd say, oh, they made that up, right? We wouldn't be like, who is it? Right.

So it's obvious that the op-ed is from a real person that is a senior administration official. Now, the real irony, though, is, hey, if it wasn't for the New York Times, you wouldn't know that there's somebody inside your administration working against you. Doesn't that help you to know that knowledge, to understand that? And so, I mean, look, you could say, hey, now the whole country knows and he looks bad, but- He looks horrible, but- But on the other hand, it's true. It exists. If I was the president, I'd want to know. You see what I'm saying? I do see what you're saying. I would also want to know. I certainly would not want to be informed the way, I certainly wouldn't want to be informed the way

that Donald Trump was informed about it. However, I think the thing that's, you have to consider the fact that it was an anonymous op-ed. He has no idea who it is. And every single senior official has come forward and denied it. And so who do you trust? Right. So now there's nothing but chaos. I mean, there was nothing but chaos in the administration prior to this happening.

But it's even worse now. There was already a lack of trust. Trump was already carrying out actions and policy decisions unilaterally. at least as much as he could without, you know, the senior officials circumventing him in any way. But at least he now knows that there is. And by the way, we keep talking about it as if it's one person. The iPad writer was very clear that there is a great number of people. That's why I refer to a big percentage of his administration who are working to make sure that he doesn't do something maniacal and that is a threat to the republic.

So if I'm the president, that's incredibly valuable. information I would want to know. I get that it doesn't look good, but in a sense, I'd thank the New York Times for a service of letting me know something I didn't know. Oh, he would never thank the New York Times. Of God. Oh, gores. And look, the reality is, Jank, if you were in his shoes, you also wouldn't thank the

New York Times. You wouldn't, you would hate it. You would hate every part of it. No, I would hate the person who is doing it. And so now that brings us to, I think, what is the most important point. Look, so if, and I said this yesterday when the news broke, if Donald Trump, if Donald Trump was a normal president who was mentally stable and was making decisions we just didn't agree with. By the way, that's George W. Bush.

I would say, no, you got to follow his orders, and this kind of clear and subordination is unacceptable, and you can't have it inside the White House. And I always think, what if the shoe was on the other foot? Let's say Bernie Sanders is president. And there's a bunch of guys who are establishment people left over from Clinton or Obama or whatever. They're like, oh, whatever, man, we're not going to do what Bernie says. That would drive me absolutely crazy. But this isn't that.

These are all Republicans who actually agree with Trump's ideas and policies. They're just saying, no, the guy's mentally unstable. That's right. And even if we wanted to execute his policy, since he changes his mind nonstop, if we do the thing he tells us to do, he's going to change his mind later. And that's not his actual stated policy to begin with. So let me give you guys an example of something that Trump wanted to do, but his officials essentially stepped in and prevented it from happening.

So Trump wanted to go into Syria and just assassinate Bashar al-Assad, right? Now, no one's making the argument that Bashar al-Assad's a good guy, right? But you don't just go in and execute or assassinate the leader of a country without considering the ramifications of that. Like, what would that mean? And also, as we all know, because you guys are smart and you guys know what's going on with, you know, foreign relations and foreign policy, Syria isn't a simple civil war against rebels and, you know, the government. There's, it's a proxy war. Iran is involved.

Turkey, to some extent, is involved. Israel to some extent is involved. Russia is involved. I mean, a decision like that, a flippant decision to just go in and assassinate someone is disastrous. And so it's important to have adults in the room who understand that and don't actually carry something like that out. Let me follow that up with. Look, so if Trump said, no, our stated policy is that we are going to get into the middle of the Syrian war and we are going to take out Assad. Well, that's a stated policy and you've got to execute that. That's not optional. Now, I would disagree with that massively and I'd fight to make sure that that couldn't happen.

But that's politics and the people voted and they voted for Trump. If he said, look, I'm going to make a peace with Russia, so I'm not going to get involved with Assad. All that is fine. It's not our call to make. He's the president, okay, and he got elected. So if Bernie Sanders said, I wanted to withdraw, I wanted to engage, that's their call to make. But in this case, what the people inside his administration are saying is, he's so unstable, and he's like a child, so he hasn't thought through anything.

So if we go attack Assad, it unleashes all these things we are not prepared for. If you said attack Assad, but make preparations, so what are we going to do if Russia counterattacks? What if we do if Turkey comes into northern Syria? Then we go, okay, good, that's a plan, let's go execute that plan. And yes, sir, absolutely, sir. But when one day you wake up and you're mad at something that happened on Twitter and you go, why don't you just kill Assad? Mattis, apparently at the time, according to Woodward's book, said,

Sir, we'll get right on it, okay? Hung up the phone and told his aide, we're not going to do any of that. Right. Because you have to be more measured, like, it's good that there are adults in the room. And to your point, Jank, this isn't a discussion about whether or not an elected official or the elected president should be able to do his job, right? This is, we're not comparing, let's compare two people in the same political party, right? It's not like we're having a conversation about, I don't know, George H.W.

Bush and Trump, they're not the same people, right? In terms of mental stability, they're not the same people. So Trump has proven over and over again that he's erratic, that he's impulsive, that he has a lack of intellectual curiosity pertaining to these very issues that he needs to make difficult decisions on. Okay, and guys, the case proves itself because once Mattis did not assassinate Assad, Trump didn't even notice. So apparently it wasn't a real order, he didn't really care.

It was just that in that day, he was a little bit more unstable than he is on an average day. So I remember when Obama asked for options from the military on Afghanistan, and he said, give me a withdrawal option, a stay option, and an increased troops option. And the military came. There's a real story, and it was leaked as well by the failing New York Times. No, at the time, it was the papers that leaked it. That happens in Washington to both Democrats and Republicans. And the military came back with, we stay and we increase troops.

They did not present the option of we withdraw. Now, if I was the president, I'd say, I think you misheard me. We're going to have this meeting in a week again, and if you don't have the withdrawal option, you're going to be fired, and the guy underneath you is going to give me the withdrawal option. Now, that is a sane president who would like to know what his military options are, and then he's going to make the decision. Trump doesn't ask for options, doesn't say, hey, once we kill Assad, what happens next?

Are we going to occupy Syria? Are we going to have ground forces? He's just a stupid little child who's like, hey, I want to kill Assad. So Mattis rationally says, that's not a plan. I'm not going to go and try to somehow. And what's our plan for killing Assad? How long is it going to take? How much does it cost?

No, this guy's a total moron. I'm not going to listen to an order that makes no sense at all. If he insists on it, he comes back. And then he says, hey, General Mattis, come up with a plan. We are going to occupy. Here's my orders. Then I'll follow it. But as it stands, yes, the guy who wrote the,

And all the people who are not following Trump's asinine, stupid, irrational, unstable orders are doing a service to the country. They are. And this is an important conversation to have because what I've noticed, this is just based on my media consumption, what I'm seeing playing out in the mainstream, is people who would typically be more critical of Trump, now all of a sudden have some sympathy for him, Right? They feel as though this is not the right course of action. He's been betrayed in the worst ways. Trump is the individual that was elected as president of the United States and he should

be able to do his job the way he sees fit, which I think is an incredibly simplistic argument considering who Trump is as a person. Again, this is not about being against a president because of political disagreements. Because I would be against this if it were a Republican president who was mentally competent. But Trump is a president. not mentally competent. He is a danger to this republic, and as a result, I think that what this administration official is saying, it makes all the sense in the world. And whoever this person is, they will be revealed at some point.

And so we'll see how it plays out. I mean- Yeah, one more thing. So Richard Nixon's defense secretary, near the end of Nixon's tenure, told officials, If Nixon tells you to launch nuclear weapons, don't do it. Come and check with me and other officials inside the White House. Why? Because Nixon was in a state of depression and heavily drinking, okay? So when Nixon is drunk and deeply depressed and he tells you to go nuke a country, you are not

to do it, okay? See, that is not betraying the president, that's actually standing up for the country and doing something rational. And last thing, especially when it comes to Trump, if Mattis had actually gone to try to assassinate Assad and followed that order of that second and that day, and things went wrong as they most certainly would have without any plan at all, you know what Trump would have done. We're not winning with our generals. A bunch of idiots go there try to kill Assad. I told him not to do that. And he would have thrown Mattis under a bus. He would have lied about it through his teeth and blamed him for his own stupid idea.

And you know it and Mattis knows it and everybody knows it. So we're all playing these silly little games pretending that the emperor has clothes on when it is super obvious. And I know everybody's getting wrapped up and who is it, who is it? And it's a fun game and we'll play it, okay? But having said that, don't lose track of the overwhelming substance of the story, which is the president doesn't have a stable mind. He just doesn't.

He's not making rational decisions, and it is deeply deleterious to our republic, to our democracy, and to our national security. So I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about the denials, because there have been a number of administration officials who have come forward and denied publishing that op-ed, and I want to share their responses with you. So first, let's go to graphic four, because it gives you a sense of, of the environment or the climate within the administration at the moment. According to the New York Times, a hunt for the author of the offending article was quickly

initiated and scrutiny focused on a half dozen names. Aid said they assumed it was written by someone who worked in the administration, but not the White House itself, although they could not be sure. You know, I don't necessarily believe that. Yeah, same. Kelly Ann Conway is out there saying, oh, it could have been anybody. Could have been thousands of people that have access to the White House. No, no.

And she's like, we don't know they're in the White House at all. Why? Kelly Ann Conway is in the White House. And so to me, that was a little bit of curious. I know what we're doing now. This is the fun part of the story. The disastrous part is that the president has lost its mind. The fun part is playing mafia.

I don't know if any of you have ever played that game where you try to figure out who the mafia is and who the citizens are. Look, Google it, it's a super fun game. And that's basically what we're doing at a national level here. Who did it and who could it be? And when you look for clues, when someone comes out and goes, hey, it didn't have to be somebody in my position or similar. They don't have to be in the West Wing.

I'm in the West Wing, but they don't have to be in the West Wing. There could be thousands of people. You don't know who it is. I go, hmm, interesting. Yeah. Okay. So that's just, but there's a lot of clues. There's a load star of clues.

So, you know, we'll get to him. So let's go to the first video. This is Mike Pompeo. He, of course, is a senior official within the Trump White House. And here's what he asked to say about the op-ed and whether or not he might have published it. Were you the author of that op-ed? Could you comment on it? Thank you. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that the New York Times, a liberal newspaper that has attacked this administration relentlessly chose to print such a piece. They should not well have chosen to take a disgruntled, deceptive, bad actors' word for anything

and put it in their newspaper. Again, if it is what it is purported to be, it is sad that you have someone who would make that choice. I come from a place where if you're not a position to execute the commander's intent, you have a singular option. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood. or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be.

Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search

for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. And just to leave. And this person in Chad instead, according to the New York Times, chose not only to stay, but to undermine what President Trump and this administration are trying to do. And I have to tell you, I just, I find the media's efforts in this regard to undermine this administration incredibly disturbing. And I'll answer your other question directly because I know someone will say, gosh, you didn't answer the question. It's not mine. So a couple of things that are fun there.

First of all, that deep breath in the beginning was awesome. Okay, and disturbing. I want it on the soundboard, although people will be so mystified later. What is that weird breathing? So gross. Number two, again, like Trump, he attacks the New York Times. Are you serious? A newspaper gets someone that they have confirmed is a senior administration official,

Maybe the vice president, maybe the spokesperson, we don't know who it is. A cabinet member comes to any press organization says, I am working against the president. Would you like to print that? Of course. Of course you would, you would, you should immediately shut down your news organization if you don't print that. Exactly. I mean, there's nothing that is more news than I am inside the White House and I will not

do what the president says because the president is potentially mentally unstable. How is that not news? No, but American voters deserve to know as well. We deserve to know. That is our government. That government represents us, supposed to be looking out for us, serving our best interest. We deserve to know about the utter chaos that's happening within the White House right now. By the way, you could argue Trump deserves to know.

Maga deserves to know, like that there's somebody, in your view of the world, if you're a MAGA guy, there's a guy who's looking to undermine the president. Well, now you know and you could ferret him out or whatever you think is the appropriate course. Now, is it Pompeo back to the parlor game, okay? No, it's unlikely to be a Pompeo, not because, oh, he denied it. Of course, they're all going to deny it. But in the op-ed, the person refers to early cabinet meetings where there were whispers of using the 25th Amendment. Pompeo was not in the cabinet in the beginning.

Pompeo joined the cabinet later. So he's at the CIA, and now he's secretary who stayed in part of the cabinet. You sure he didn't work as like a defense attorney at some point? I missed that little nugget right there. Look, I'm not saying that I'm a monk, the defective detective. I'm sorry I said that. Okay, let's move on. I just wanted to comment on one word he said in that statement that was just ridiculous

and inaccurate. So he referred to the person who published the op-ed as disgruntled. Discrundtled, why? It's a senior official within Trump's administration who's currently serving within in Trump's administration. Discrundtled is usually what bad actors will point to when someone got fired and then decided to publish something or say something negative about the company that they got fired from. This is not a disgruntled person.

This is a person who still has a position of power, holds a position of power within the Trump administration. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So more candidates? Yes. By the way, I have the person that I did something very curious.

I got among the top two candidates along with Kelly and Conway. Oh, drums. Okay. Now, Paul Ryan was also asked about the op-ed. Here's what he had to say. Look, the person, the person, a person who works in the administration serves the pledge of the president. It's a person who obviously is living in dishonesty that doesn't help the president.

So if you're not interested in helping the president, you shouldn't work for the president as far as I'm concerned. He doesn't believe any of that. Yeah, I know. In reality, he's thinking, oh, thanks, God, please stay. Whatever you do, don't come out, stay where you are, make sure he doesn't launch any nukes. Yeah. By the way, to give you some more context and some inside baseball, so what the senior officials

are currently doing is they are essentially printing out their strongly worded responses to these op-eds and putting it on Trump's desk because he needs it. Like, he needs that validation on a regular basis. He loves, like, those strongly worded denials and all the negative commentary about this op-ed. Because he's a child. He's a thin-skinned egomaniac, and that's what he needs to hear from people to feel good about himself. And, by the way, he's not very bright.

I mean, so John Kelly and Jim Mattis apparently went in, his chief of staff and his defense secretary, and they were like, no, no, Woodward's book was wrong. We didn't really say those comments, and it isn't us. He's like, okay, then I believe you. Yeah, but the person is going to lie to you. And he's not smart enough to figure out which one it is. So, and by the way, this is something that's been going on for a long time. Remember, Bob Corker, another Republican senator, has said earlier, I know for a fact,

every single day at the White House is a situation trying to contain him. It's a shame the White House has become an adult daycare center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning, referring to something that Trump had done erratic that day. Now, that's another Republican. I obviously talked to a colleague of his. So that's another clue. So perhaps a former Republican senator that would know Bob Corker, Dan Coates is a former

Republican senator. He's the director of national intelligence. Okay, another former Republican colleague of Corker in the Congress? Vice President Mike Pence. Okay. Two strikes against Pence. Load star? Yeah, so there's the Lodestar.

Yeah, so there's the Lodestar that's a word that was used in the op-ed that Mike Pence uses all the time and almost no one else does. certainly within this administration. So that was strike one against Pence. Corker is potentially strike two. Now get a load of strike three. Pence is one of the few guys who didn't say it himself. He had a staffer put out a statement.

Okay, so already I was like, hmm, things that make you go, hmm. And then here's a statement from his communications director. The vice president puts his name on his op-eds. So far, that is an incredibly weak denial, okay? The New York Times should be ashamed, and so should the person who wrote, now it gets better here, the false, illogical, and gutless op-ed, okay? So New York Times should be ashamed, it doesn't mean anything, but hey, the false, illogical and gutless, not bad, that's getting stronger.

But so far, they haven't actually said it isn't him, okay? And then the last part of it, and this is it, last sentences, our office is above such amateur acts. And if you notice, not only did he never say he didn't do it, okay, called it an amateur act, but he didn't, they didn't even say Pence is above it. They said, our office is above such acts. Now, this is what I do. I decode political speak for a living.

And there's a reason why they state things in a lawyerly way. So if they get caught later, they can say, oh, I didn't say that it wasn't me. I just said that it was this and that and the office did it, but I didn't do it, et cetera. So, that's curious. I mean, it would be amazing if Pennston, I would have, if you didn't have these clues, he would have been among the last guys, I would have guessed, because it's too brazen. I mean, he's the guy who would stand again if Trump was removed from office. He would be the president.

He's the one guy who actually has a dog in the fight that isn't just about being a patriot. Absolutely, absolutely. And another thing to keep in mind is that, and this is just my analysis of. It, someone who's been openly feuding with Trump, like let's say Jeff Sessions, although he doesn't really reciprocate, like it's usually just Trump feuding with him. It would be too obvious. If he were to think about publishing something like this, I feel like there would be too many eyeballs on him, like they don't like each other, they're not getting along.

But with Pence, there hasn't really been much drama with Pence and Trump. Yeah, and so he could have snuck this in. Now, but does that mean it's definitely Pence? Of course not. That's why it's a parlor. You don't know. Look, and by the way, there's an argument for Sessions. Number one, also former colleague of Bob Corker, Republican Senator, okay?

And now Sessions won't leave the administration even though Trump keeps harassing him over and over again. Maybe we're overthinking it, and it's just the cup in front of me, right? And so maybe Sessions is like, hey, listen, I'm not leaving because me and the other guys have to make sure that this idiot doesn't run out of control. Sessions does think he's an idiot, obviously, at this point, because it's personal between Sessions and Trump now. So it's entirely possible that Sessions walked in.

It was like, oh, Woodward wrote the book, this is the time to strike. New York Times. Come here. I got this for you. Yeah, by the way, one other thing I wanted to mention about Sessions, his denial was also incredibly short, very weak. So he didn't release the statement himself. There was a Justice Department spokesperson who released the statement.

So let's go to Graphic 12. A Justice Department spokesman told CNN that Sessions was not the author. Wow, that's super weak. Yeah. That is a super weak denial. Now, there might have been another statement that maybe I had missed, but that was the statement that I saw. And you're right, it's very weak.

Yeah. And look, if I was Sessions, even if I didn't write it, I wouldn't give a strong denial. I'll write whatever the hell I like. This guy says, I'm mentally retarded. I'm a dumb Southerner. I'm not a real man. And, I mean, on and on, would, oh, like, ooh, like, I'm supposed to be embarrassed that I told you the truth about Donald Trump? I'm not at all embarrassed if I'm Jeff Sessions.

So, look, knowing how porous Washington is, it would be shocking if the identity was not revealed. I don't know if it'll happen soon, but it can't last that long, you would imagine. It's certainly not like the old days where they kept the identity of deep throat hidden for decades. decade after decade, this will likely come out much sooner. But again, don't lose focus on the real issue, which is the emperor has no clothes. It's not just the person who wrote the op-ed. He says he's working with a lot of people inside the administration and that they are all worried that Trump is not mentally stable. Yeah. We got to take a break when we come back some updates on policies that Trump is sneaking

in there while we're paying attention to the drama and chaos in the white. House. Later on in the show, we will discuss Twitter's decision, final decision on Alex Jones. Come right back. All right. Back on T.Y.T. Let's read some comments. YouTube super chat. Wittio Stankanis says, just got a promotion with my job. And the first thing I did was joined today. I need to see more of your shows. Love you guys. Right back. He's your brother. Love you too. J.R. Panda says Pence is Trump's successor. if Trump is impeached, he wants to put these words out now so that when he steps in, he can come out and say it was him and try to get people on his side.

Ooh. Interesting, could be, could be. I like that theory. Okay. Zappa fan says, I think, this is now Twitter, I think every single person who works for Trump thinks this way, so it could be all of them. Well, that's a fair point. If you want to, by the way, tweet during the show, hashtag TYT live to get us your comments.

Joy says, priceless, you heard it on TYT, the Trump presidency is one job. giant game of mafia. If you've ever played, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah. Remember when we used to play mafia? Yeah, remember when you thought I'd be bad at it, but then I was really good at it. No. Of course you don't remember that. No. Um, Kimberly Matsuzek says this whole New York Times op-ed is turning the administration into a shaggy song. Wasn't me. Wasn't me? Wasn't me? That's right. That's also on our soundboard. Yeah. I used to listen to a lot when I was Mr. Jamaica. Anyway, What are you to do with this guy?

Last thing, Craig Rice, also a member. So Kimberly was a member, Craig's a member. Viewer from England for years recently became a member, even though what you're doing doesn't directly affect me because what you're doing is the right thing. I wish we had you to cover Brexit. By the way, the damage report now has a new segment covering the whole world. It's called Meanwhile In, and so they're doing it on tomorrow's episode. So you should subscribe and get the damage report by John Iderola as well.

And John is also going to be part of our election coverage tonight. So tyt.com slash join to become a member. All right. What's next? All right. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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The Trump administration plans to circumvent court limits on detaining migrant minors. Now, there was something known as the Flores Settlement, which was a settlement that was the outcome of court proceedings in the late 1990s, and the Flores settlement essentially lets the government know, hey, you can't detain immigrant children indefinitely, and if you do detain them, it can only be for 20 days, and you have to detain them in certain conditions. Trump administration hates the Flores settlement, and they've been fighting aggressively to essentially get rid of it, and so now the administration has decided, nah, we're We're just going to basically go against what the Flores Settlement says.

Let me give you the details. According to the Washington Post, the administration is preparing to circumvent limits on the government's ability to hold minors in immigration jails by withdrawing from the Flores settlement agreement. This is something that they've already tried to do, and a federal judge said, no, you can't do this. Now, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee, the person I was talking about earlier, who oversees the agreement, has rejected attempts to extend the amount of time migrant.

children can be held with their parents beyond the current limit of 20 days. So to give you some more context and background into this, as you know, the Trump administration thought it would be a great idea to deter immigrants seeking asylum by separating children from their parents as they cross the border. Now, after that happened, federal judges weighed in, ACLU sued, and it was determined that this was not the right course of action. They shouldn't be detaining these children separate from their parents in all these shelters throughout the country.

And so now the Trump administration is saying, fine, but we're not going to allow these families to be released. We're going to go ahead and detain them with their children in special facilities. And the judges have said, no, you can't do that either because you want to detain them indefinitely, in some cases for months. You can't do that. Now the administration is saying, we're going to do it. So, it's funny, the Orwellian games that people empower play with words.

So when the Bush administration started doing torture again, they called it enhanced interrogation. And you all know that. So in this case, this is not an interment camp. This is not a cage. You know, when they had the children locked up in the cages, they're like, no, it's not a cage's offense. Interesting, word choice. Now when they're locking up the kids with their parents, they're not locking them up. It's not a prison.

It's not any, it's not any of those. It's a family residential center. Wow, doesn't that sound lovely. Wouldn't you like to go to a family residential center? I mean, it happens to have cages all around you, and you can't leave. And if you remember the story about the kids, they would get one to two hours of daylight outside. Does that sound like a family residential center to you guys? No, not at all.

And so there are other parts of this that, you know, everyone should be aware of, Because I've said this from the beginning, even when the zero tolerance policy was imposed. This is a money-making scheme for facilities that want these huge government contracts. So for those of you who think, oh, we're wasting our money on these migrants and we can't have it. No, no, no, we're wasting our money on things like private prisons or these privately operated facilities that are going to house these families. And the thing is, the Flores settlement indicates that if families do get detained together as they await their hearings, they have to be in a licensed facility. But many states do not license these types of facilities.

And so that's another reason why Trump wants to do away with the Flores settlement because he wants to be able to, you know, imprison them wherever the hell he wants. And by the way, final thing, the whole point of this, right? The whole argument surrounding this from the Trump administration is, well, we can't do this catch and release thing because these immigrants come in seeking asylum and then they never show up to their court date. We release them into the country, they never show up. That is patently untrue.

It is untrue. More than 80% of them do come back. Now for the remaining, let's round and give Trump a higher number than it really is. Let's say 20% don't show up. Okay, then find a better way to monitor them. put them in prison indefinitely or a facility indefinitely until their case gets heard by a judge. But look, they're incompetent, so that to be fair to them, they probably wouldn't find

them because of their incompetence. To give you a sense of that, there are still more than 500 children in federal custody without their parents. They just lost them. They lost a lot of them. The parents got deported and the kids left behind, they didn't bother tracking them. It's still the case today. So I know we're now focused on other issues and cable news isn't covering it anymore.

But there's just 500 kids. And they're like, hey, where's mom and dad? Sorry, we don't know where they are. We lost them. We deported many of them. We kept you here, detained, and then deported your parents. Some of those videos where the lucky families finally got reunited, they're so heartbreaking. There's one video where a mother is about to be reunited with her young son.

And the son's angry with her because he's a kid. He doesn't understand. He thinks his parents did this to him. And so she's crying, you know, sobbing and the little boy doesn't want anything to do with her. Can you imagine that happening to you? And, you know, I don't know what kind of re-education they did in these camps. And it sounds like Maoist China, where they get you to turn on your parents, et cetera.

And you're telling me that you don't think that maybe they did propaganda saying, oh, it's your parents' fault for bringing you here, right? And the kid doesn't. In some of the cases, they make the kids represent themselves in court. It's like a three-year-old climbing on the tables without a lawyer. And the judge is like, what are you doing? You can't just bring a three-year-old in the court and have him defend himself. And this is what the Trump administration is.

They don't care about these kids. They don't care about these families. They're just thinking, how do I score political points by stuffing more people into these prisons for longer? And my final point is what might be even more disturbing is here it is, again, the Trump administration going, I don't really care what the courts say. I know that we have to follow the floor settlement. I'm just not going to do it. That's right.

And so that breaks down our system of government. If the courts don't have the last word and the executive branch says, I have the guns, the court doesn't have the guns, I'm not doing it. Well, okay, that's not America, and that's not our system of government. This is exactly how Trump is a danger to the republic. Let's take a break when we come back, some developments with North Korea and then the story about Alex Jones that we've been promising. Yeah, final action on Alex Jones, if you will.

And yeah, let's talk about that when we return. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks if you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, back on a young Turks. Let's read a member comment first. Alia Eccles says, I found you all on Hulu, the best thing could have happened.

I joined a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea of difference between Democrat and a Republican. Now I can rebut with my progressive views. Get it. I love it. And guys, so members, we give you guys more shows, but understand why we do so much of the free content. Because we want people like Alia to find us on Hulu and all the other platforms that we're on. And so we can get the message out.

And another member comment just popped up. Brian Madrigal says Madrigal. Anna, looking at point with that hair, get it, girl. Really? I feel like I'm having a terrible hair day. Like, that's why I keep messing with it on the show. This is why I do the bun, man. I don't have a dog in that fight. I don't know if it's on point or off point.

Okay. All right. Remember the mushroom haircut? She loves that. It was so funny. It's a member's thing. You should watch the post game. It's a member thing.

You would understand it if you remember. Okay, t.y.t.com slash join to become a member. Thank you guys. All right. Gabby Marita on Twitter. A family residential center. Where have I heard that before? Oh, right. It's almost exactly what the Nazi government told German people.

They had done to the Jews in the 1940s. They called it, quote, resettled in the East. That's right. That's exactly what they said. And then YouTube super chat, Stickham's 1983, says, huge number of new executive office appointments today, 22, posted on Whitehouse.gov. Is that normal or significant in the current news context? Thank you. And look, we appreciate the tips that you guys give us.

We'll look into that more. I have to see the context before I can tell you whether it's normal or not normal. Right. Okay? All right, what's next? All right. The Department of Justice has announced charges for a North Korean individual who played a big role in the Sony hack that took place back in 2014.

Now, I'm going to give you the details of what that hack consisted of and some of the ramifications on an international scale in just a moment. But first, let me tell you who the suspect is. His name is Park Jin Hiok, and he was charged with computer fraud and wire fraud. He was part of the attacks on film companies and distributors, including Sony Pictures, financial institutions, and defense contractors. Now, to be clear, North Korea, of course, did target the United States, but it also targeted financial institutions throughout the world.

They targeted the central bank in Bangladesh and stole millions of dollars while doing so. And so these are serious charges, and there was, of course, suspicion that North Korea was behind these hacks and now it appears that they have a specific individual that they're going after. Now he was also accused of being part of the development of the Wanna Cry 2.0 ransomware attack that infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide and also crippled the British healthcare system last year. So this virus would essentially take the data, take the websites associated with various organizations hostage and would demand a ransom. of these institutions actually did end up paying the ransom because they were desperate to get

their data back. So North Korea's version of the CIA called the reconnaissance general bureau apparently also involved. And one of the things they did was they ripped off the Bangladeshi central bank. Man, I mean, it's in a sense a funny thing to do. But I guess since North Korea is a thuggish criminal country to begin with, I guess we shouldn't to be surprised and they don't have a lot of money. So they literally hacked into the central bank of Bangladesh and robbed them. Tens of millions of dollars. Yeah. And so, now, are we ever

going to get our hands on Park Jin Yok? Of course not. He's in North Korea. But this is our way of saying, we know it was you to the North Korean government. And we even trace it to this specific person. So we're on to you. Now, it would have been nice to be onto them ahead of time. And we seem to be constantly behind the North Koreans, the Russians, etc. So it gives you a sense of the depths of how bad the North Korean government is. They don't care. They don't care about their own citizens. They don't care about anybody else. And petty. So that's no wonder Trump and Kim Jong-un get along so well. Because they hacked into Sony because they made a movie that made fun of them. Right. So the interview was the movie that Sony Pictures was releasing. And in the

the movie, there's an assassination, I believe, of the North Korean dictator. And so, yeah, Kim Jong-un is like any other dictator, very thin-skinned, egomaniac. He sees that, doesn't like it, and he gets his cronies to attack Sony. But I would argue, look, North Korea acting as a bad actor is unsurprising. We already knew that. I think the heart of this story, and what I think a lot of people refuse to focus on, is how insanely vulnerable the United States is to these types of cyber attacks, because this wasn't just about so many pictures. It was about financial institutions. It was about banks.

It was about hospitals. I mean, we really need to consider the cyber warfare that could be used against us in the future. Also, what I find amazing, and this is yet another example of the lack of communication and the level of incompetence within the Trump administration. According to the New York Times, hours before the Justice Department was set to act, meaning before they announce these charges and all that stuff, President Trump seemed to praise North Korean leader Kim Jong-un saying on Twitter that he proclaims unwavering faith in President Trump.

Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together. What are you talking about? I mean, he's just, he's so stupid. Look, that tweet just proves all you need to do, regardless of who you are and how terrible you've been to the United States, all you need to do is compliment Trump, and he will do whatever you need them to do. The Justice Department comes to the president, says, we found the criminals who have been

infiltrating the United States. And they didn't just attack Sony. They attacked so many different parts here. And parts of the damage we don't know, do you know that later, to Anna's point about how vulnerable we are, the Office of Personnel Management in the U.S. government was hacked into. The White House email system was hacked into and the IRS was hacked into. We don't know for sure that it was the North Koreans.

But this is obviously a very serious issue. And when the Justice Department was asked by reporters, did you tell the president? Because it's curious that right before you released it, he's like, oh, the North Koreans are awesome, right? They said that it was, Justice Department said it was standard practice, the brief relevant parts of the executive branch. In other words, yeah, of course we told him. And by the way, maybe that's why Trump tweeted that because he wanted Kim Jong-un to know, hey, listen, don't worry about my stupid Just Department and their stupid. rule of law. I don't like him either.

They're also investigating me. I'm on your side, brother. So look, I was super curious about that because it seemed as though that tweet toward Kim Jong-un came out of nowhere, right? Why tweet that amongst all this chaos? And it turns out that Kim Jong-un did say some nice things about Trump recently, and Trump reacts to that. He reacts favorably to that.

Yeah, that's the thing that he quoted in there saying that they, that he had, Kim Jong- Jung-un has unwavering faith in Trump. So Trump's like, hmm, that's it. Me like ye. Oh, they're criminals, who cares, so what? Me-likey. He said he has unwavering faith in me. The dictator likes me.

Yay! Okay, don't worry about our justice department. Well, break our laws, hack into anything you like. Don't worry about it, as long as you compliment me. God, he's such an idiot. Last thing is, guys, I take one more thing away from the story that's deeply disconcerting. I thought North Korea has very, very little chance of ever developing nukes and getting the technology to be able to deliver those nukes to the US, right?

So I didn't think we were in real danger from North Korea. Now I think South Korea and Japan are in massive danger from North Korea, so that's why I really don't want a war there under almost any circumstance. But this is disconcerting, man. When they did the Sony hack and the FBI said that it was likely them, I didn't believe it. I'm like North Korea. I talked to a North Korean defector once. When she got to the South Korean airport, she started stuffing the toilet paper into her bags because she couldn't believe they had by accident left out all this valuable tissue. That's the state of North Korea. It is disastrous.

And I thought there's no way they're sophisticated enough to be able to do that hack. But it turns out they are. And they keep testing those missiles over and over again. So as their country is starving, By the way, another thing that he shares with Trump, as our wages stagnate, Trump's like, let's spend more on defense, Kim Jong-un agrees, they're developing sophisticated technology for their missiles and for their cyber attacks. So now I'm a little bit more worried about North Korea, and they continue their testing their nukes while the idiot Donald Trump says, oh no, they're fine, we ended their nuclear program, everything's fine.

So- Yeah, look, the biggest mistake you can make in every facet of life is to underestimate people. Don't underestimate the North Koreans. What they've done with the cyber warfare is serious. Yes. Okay. We got to take a break because the next several stories are big, meaty ones. We're going to talk more about the Kavanaugh hearings. And then later on, we will also talk about some updated numbers about lead in our drinking water.

So Corey Booker went on the attack there. Unbearable, by the way. Well, I mean, look, that's the conversation we're going to have. Unbearable. Is he fake? Is he a good part of the resistance? Did he help in fighting against Kavanaugh? Let's have that discussion when we come back.

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.