The Young Turks - Trump LOSES Border Wall Battle And Extensive Trump Shutdown Damage Revealed

Episode Date: February 14, 2019

Reports suggest Trump will sign new budget deal without the funds he's demanding for the border wall. Federal workers will feel the Trump shutdown for years to come. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right. Okay, or as I've been weirdly calling him Luigi the last couple of days.

Is that, there's something wrong with that or is that okay? Yeah, a little bit, a little bit? Probably racist. Okay, all right. So I'm not sure anybody laughs that hard. They're probably racist. Okay, anyways. So, well, Jesus calls me Muhammad, so I don't know.

Definitely racist. Okay, I mean, theoretically, of course, not really, right? Anyway, so I got a giant TYT announcement coming for you in just a second, but I do want to tell you what's happening later in the program first, okay? So I'm gonna go all the way to rebel headquarters tonight for the last rebel headquarters. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, what is going on? Okay, that's gonna get to the major announcement in a second. In the last rebel headquarters, the person we should have had on from day one, our biggest

error will be corrected on the last day. Seema Hernandez will join us. She ran against Beto or working the primary, and did stunningly well. We did not cover her on rebel headquarters. That was a mistake, and we are going to make up for that mistake today. She's running for a new office, and we want to make sure you guys know about her, okay? And then the last guest on rebel headquarters is an amazing progressive. I haven't talked to her yet, but everything she's done, I was like, wait, which district does

she live in? She's got Justice Democrat written all over. Okay, so, so I think that's Rebel Headquarters. You're not saying who? Oh, I can tell you, who you, I don't think you know the name because of what she's chosen to, but Josie Duffy Rice, some of you might know her. Oh, yeah, no, I know. Oh, you do?

Okay, okay, okay, well, that's wonderful. I mean, I don't know her, but I know what I know. Okay, and- She's actually made on the damage report, I think, next week. Oh, later this week, actually. Oh, look at this guy, stealing all my guests. Okay, anyways. I request her like the show. Now, so you might have noticed the new shirts here.

That's not the exciting announcement, by the way, but it is fun. Progressives versus everybody. Okay, super fun, love this. That is an open challenge to fight him on the streets. But no, no, no, it's not. Don't encourage the Trump people, okay? So I mean, that's what the next two years is, right? Against establishment, against Trump, against everybody, us versus the world.

So shop tyt.com. But you know what's so awesome about that? It is both true and it doesn't mean what some of the leadership in DC thinks it means. That is not as unequal a battlefield as they would like to imagine. Yes, in fact, later in the program, and this is why I tell you about it, because I'm excited about the stuff that's happening later, we're gonna show you quadrants. And quadrants are very exciting. It will show you how massively progressive the country is, including a lot of Republicans.

So, that's a great story, don't miss that. And then Ilhan Omar, that story is back with a vengeance, it will not die, and I'm gonna get even angrier about it today. So there's an extra twist from a Democrat, okay, so if you like fun rage, that'll be later in the program. All right, now the exciting announcement. Tomorrow is Young Turks 17th anniversary, which is unbelievable. We started as a serious satellite radio show.

We were actually their first original talk show on series satellite radio. That was all the way back in February 14th of 2002. We started doing an online video in 05, where YouTube's first partner ever, and obviously we're on all the platforms now. Please check us out on Hulu, Roku, Pluto, Facebook, YouTube, and the list goes on and on, including our local broadcasting partners like WR and N in New York. All of that out. So, but tomorrow we are going from a two hour show to a three hour show.

What? Now that's not just for tomorrow, that's from here on out. So normally we do two hours every day, and you know that it's from 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern, okay? And we cover the news of the day, and we don't have guests on. It is different than cable news. We're adding a third hour so that we can have guests on, half of it will be guests, and then half of it will be for members only. So the last part of the show will be just for Young Turks members, t.t.com slash join

and become a member. And that's extra content that we want to give for the people who actually make this show possible. Without our members, Young Turks does not exist, that's why we're giving them extra content. Now in terms of the guess, I mean, we've got Democratic primaries here. Everybody's welcome. And so we are super happy to have all the candidates on and we are asking all of the candidates on. And some of the candidates have already appeared on and others will come on and we're in the process

of booking that. If you, we call ourselves Home Progressives, I think for a very good reason. And I think that you know and the audience has come to us because of our point of view. They didn't have to come to us, there was no infrastructure, we had no money, we had no marketing, we had nothing to begin with, we only got to the size that we are because we represent you. And so I want those candidates to come make their case. If they don't want to make the case to a progressive audience, that's their call, and

then that'll also be telling. And so this is a real number, and it's actually an under estimate for reasons that I could explain, and maybe I will in the post game for the members. We have 60 million unique viewers every month. We have about a quarter of a billion views, but in terms of unique viewers, it's about 60 million. Now, if you don't want 60 million viewers and present your case to them that are deeply progressive overall, that's a curious decision to make if you're running in the party

that's supposed to be progressive. But that's your call to make, but we are going to have real conversations, substantive conversations and policy conversations, but not just the candidates, we're going to talk to reporters who are on the campaign trail, we're going to talk to people we agree with, we're going to talk to people we don't agree with, we will have some debates and discussions. with the Republicans, conservatives, et cetera. And tomorrow, we start with a doozy. We're actually going to extend the guest time a little bit tomorrow on the anniversary

because we're going to have Bernie Sanders and Adam McKay. Adam McKay is the director of Vice, the movie that came out about Dick Cheney. He is the director of The Big Short. He is the director of Anchorman and almost all the Will Ferrell movies. He is the director of Succession on HBO, an amazing writer and director and a wonderful progressive. So he will join us on the first three hour program of the young Turks. So 17 years are running, they can't knock us out.

And that's because of you guys, t.yt.com slash join, members make all this possible. And you get basically a progressive Netflix where you've got dozens of progressive shows that you could watch to your heart's content, and starting tomorrow, three hours for the Young Turks, the flagship show, the TYT Network. Damn. I actually did not know that he directed Anchorman and those others. Yeah. No, no, he's unbelievably talented.

How does he do the big short and that? They're so different and both awesome. Yes, agreed. All right, we'll talk to him about it tomorrow. That is an exciting change. It is, it's fun. And Bernie. Yep, and look, almost everybody knows.

I'm just going to say it real quick. You all know you could watch it at tyt.com slash live anytime, right? So, all right, let's move forward. Okay, the news. We are one day closer to a potential second shutdown in 2019, so let's take a look to see, is Donald Trump going to accept the sort of deal that we gave you the details on yesterday? Well, the latest from Donald Trump is,

we're going to look at the legislation when it comes, and I'll make a determination. He told reporters he'd be looking out for any landmines, which he's also considering putting on the border, I'm kidding. He reiterated his aversion to another shutdown, the likely result if he rejects the agreement saying one would be a, quote, a terrible thing. And so that, take it, you know, however you want. God only knows what he's thinking right now.

We laid out yesterday on the show, sort of the politics on both sides behind the scenes and made our predictions as to how exactly this is going to shake out. He has spoken favorably in the time since yesterday's live Young Turk show about the Republicans working on this deal where previously he had been fairly critical of them. So to the extent that he gives any real signs, that he is approaching this in a rational, predictable way, this seems like the moves he would make in advance of signing on to the deal. Yes, although privately he has complained about the deal and called the committee members on the Republican side, poor negotiators.

Well, you would know a thing or two about poor negotiators because you started out with a higher number for the wall, and after the shutdown, you negotiated to a lower number. Oops. I think you should give them another less than in negotiations. Yeah, I keep going, Donald, you almost got this thing figured out. You might be down to zero soon. And this again goes to his lack of intelligence. He expressed concern that the plan is being spun as a defeat for him in the media.

Well, number one, that's because it is a defeat. You lost ground after the shutdown, you didn't gain ground, you were humiliated, you took ownership over something that was deeply unpopular for, and you did it as a total political blunder, and then you come out of it with a worse deal that you started with. I mean, how could that be painted as anything but a defeat? Watch Fox and Friends. Although, even Hannity was called it garbage compromise and, you know, and it's obvious even to the Fox News guys, this is a disaster for Donald Trump. So the Republican legislators are basically playing the hand that they have been dealt.

And in the past, to be fair, the Republicans in Congress, they have been very tough negotiators. And it's usually the Democrats who are terrible at this. But Trump is so bad that he outweighed how bad the Democrats are normally at negotiating. So it's on him, and yes, it's being painted as a defeat for you because it is. And the fact that you, that took you by surprise is amazing. It's amazing that that surprised you. So, and then finally, he says, don't worry, don't worry, I know, but the wall is getting belt to everybody, okay?

And he's said a number of things about it. He said, the wall is being built as we speak. Not true, they have not appropriated the funding yet. He said, we're gonna have a great wall. It's gonna be a great powerful wall. I mean, how many times have we heard this? Remember, you need 20 to 70 billion dollars for the wall, okay? Usually most experts think higher end of that range, he's getting 1.4, I think a little less

than 1.4. 1.375. How is it gonna be a big, powerful, great wall with, A tiny fraction of the funding that you would need to complete it. In fact, we know now the negotiators say that they're going to build just 55 miles of it. There's 2,000 miles on the border. Yeah. He's going to shout, shout, 55 miles, and he's a great, powerful wall, okay?

And he, just before we got on air, because you're like, okay, but how can he top a statement that's stupid? Hold his beer, okay, so he says, the wall is very, very on its way. That's a direct quote. Yeah. The wall is very, very on its way. Yes, I'm laughing at you, Donald Trump. I know it's gonna take you by surprise, but I'm laughing at you.

That joke is being spun as a defeat for the president. Yeah, I mean, I fundamentally hate the fact that even one meter of this is going to be built, but yes, it is a very small part of the 2,000 miles. Now, in addition to all these negotiations, there are some even more hardline Republicans Republicans on immigration who are pushing for a shorter term funding deal so that they have more time to sort of press their case. They want to fund the government for just one week so that there can be more negotiations, although I have seen no indications that that effort is going to work.

And it seems like most people have agreed on the bounds of the deal that we've already talked about this week. Now, while we obviously have to cover the politics of this, it matters what deal they actually have with the content of it is, at the end of the day, the reason the shutdown is such a bad thing that we need to avoid it is the effect it has on the American working class, the actual workers who are affected by these shutdowns. Now obviously there are great ripple effects when you do a shutdown, that's why so much economic output was destroyed by the shutdown.

But for the people immediately affected by it, those who are furloughed, who don't receive their paychecks, in some cases with the contractors, the Democrats are pushing for them to get back pay for the time during the last shutdown. Donald Trump says he will not sign any deal that pays the contractors for the work that they've done, which is the most consistent position he has had in his entire life. Don't pay contractors. But he unfortunately has that right now as well. Yeah, and more broadly, don't pay anyone that's already done work for you or giving

you money, just rob people. That's why he declared bankruptcy six different times. He's like, oh, you were stupid enough to give me money, I'll just rob you, I'll just keep it and not give it back to you. Yeah, right? You were stupid enough to trust me to do a job and wait for me to pay you later? Well, I'm just not going to pay you. I can't believe that we're in a situation where the Democrats have to negotiate to get

back pay when they had promised all along Republicans, Donald Trump, a million times had promised, well, obviously they're gonna get back pay. What are they complaining about? And then they turn around, they're like, yeah, maybe we're not gonna give it to him. I'm sorry, did you run out of money because you gave it all to the rich? And this is an amazing fact, we're gonna have another story later today, but I can't help but tell you in this context. You know that the Trump tax cuts on average for the top 0.1% equaled $190,000 a year.

So you're not going to do back pay? We're having a conversation about it. We're having a negotiation about whether you're going to do back pay for those workers when you told them all along that they could rely on it. And you gave $190,000 a year in tax cuts for the richest people in the country. It's just, they're repulsive. Yeah, and the cost of this shutdown is real. I mean, you probably remember at the time during the shutdown, we spent multiple shows where

we were reading from the GoFundMe accounts of federal workers who needed money to pay for their rent, food, medicine, those sorts of things. And we were saying at the time how devastating this is going to be for people's credit ratings, people potentially could lose their cars in that time, they could lose their apartments, all of that. And now we find out some polling has been done of those who are affected. by the last shutdown, just how bad it was. About 26% of the federal workers that were talked to by this poll said they used funds for

their retirements to pay bills or manage other expenses during the shutdown. So that's gone, you know, and in some cases there can be penalties for early withdrawal of funds and those sorts of things. So that damage will continue. About 49% say they fell behind paying bills, 27% missed a mortgage or rent payment, 13% missing a student loan payment and 10% falling behind on tuition payments. So I'm sure in all of those cases, Donald Trump is going to work with the credit rating bureaus to make sure that those people's credit isn't ruined and they have to pay far more

for things like cars and homes and things like that later on in life. I'm sure he's gonna help him out in that way. You also have 40% who borrowed money from friends or family during that time. That's a great position to put any person in. 20% borrowed money from a bank or credit union, 10% from an alternative lender. 25% went to a food bank during the shutdown. That's the one that was amazing to me. And that doesn't necessarily speak well of me.

Because a lot of folks in our position don't know people who need to go to food banks. Now, for a long stretch of my career, I made almost no money. And so I've been there. But most of the people in power have never been there. And so, if you ask those congressmen and almost anyone on television, and again, I can speak to that because I was on television, and so those are wonderful jobs that pay a tremendous amount of money with a great amount of luxury that surrounds it. I would be shocked if they know anyone who goes to a food bank, anyone ever, right? So the fact that a full quarter of federal government workers were in enough desperate straits that they had to go to a food bank because they missed one or two checks, gives

you a sense of what the rest of the country is actually going through. And if you ruin their credit, for the guys who missed the mortgage payments, right, God help you if you miss a mortgage payment, right? Your credit score being ruined and will affect you. for years, possibly decades from then, okay? And it actually makes everything going forward in your life more expensive. But if you get into the hell of, you know, a bank trying to foreclose on you, all day needs a little bit of leeway, and boom, they're in, and you're screwed, right?

So it's gonna have these cascading consequences for all this time, and of course, Trump and everybody else, they don't give a damn. And so to them, it's collateral damage, who cares? I don't know anyone who would ever have to go to a food bank. So it's like watching a movie or something like that. Actually, a movie might be more emotional. They have no attachment to these people. Yeah, yeah.

And during that time, there were bills coming from the Democrats to make sure that these people did end up getting paid in the end. Now there's a fight over the contractors. This is an insane position to put anyone in, let alone hundreds of thousands of people. And that is why bills, like I've seen proposals from both Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard, to avoid these shutdowns from happening at all. This should not be one of the sort of standard expected moves in budget negotiations. Yeah, once every year, once every, like three years, you have a shutdown, that's just what happens.

No, not when it's not your mortgage that's potentially going to be put at risk. It's the workers who have no say in this matter. Something has to happen so that these shutdowns do not happen anymore. 62% of federal workers say they depleted all or most of their emergency savings, gone. So if you get beyond that, then you have to maybe go into your 401k or your retirement plan. And when you break those, there's huge consequences in terms of taxes, penalties, et cetera, when you do that. So devastating.

Meanwhile, to be fair, Donald Trump has privately told people he had hardships during the shutdown too. This is a real story. He said he missed Mar-a-Lago and he did not play golf for 69 days because of the shutdown and the events surrounding it. And now you have to remember, he plays on average about one and a half rounds of golf per week. Okay, per week, I don't, on which days? And he's in the White House, he's supposed to be in the White House. Anyway, so he's like, yeah, but I didn't go to Mar-a-Lago and I didn't play golf and these

guys are still complaining about going to a food bank. Jesus. So we probably want to another shutdown, but if we do, look forward to more of that. And with that, why don't we take our first break? Okay, yes, now when we come back, we've got a lot more for you guys, including that Ilhan Omar's story that's got me very animated and a former ice director admitting their priorities, including not prosecuting the rich. That's a big deal. Okay, it is quite telling. All right.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-F-E-NFTR. The Republic, or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical 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 and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda

and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on the Young Turks, time for comments. Smooth writes in from the member section, Rebel HQ, TYT interviews and main show All in a One, sounds like a Council of Turks. I think that that sounds cool, but these days people might be sensitive about the word

council. A council of anything, like, I'm sure there's good ones, I think Council of Jedi was pretty good. Yeah, all right, Tamara, but thank you to Smooth, we appreciate it. Tamara 517 says, so I was listening on my phone, but after hearing the announcement had to comment, three hours, yes, interviews, yes, Bernie, yes. I already listened all the time. Now I'm going to have to schedule everything else time. I like your priorities, Tamara. That's very good.

Little Musling says, supposed to an Fling, again, referenced the Last Kingdom there. But anyway, little musling says, it's okay, federal employees who lose their homes due to this. can know that rich investors will buy it and rent it to them for more than their mortgage. What else are the rich going to do with their money? Pay taxes? L-O-L-L-O-L-L-O-L-L-O-L. Right. And by the way, that is actually happening across the country where a lot of the houses are being bought up. And that, and they're like, oh, you missed the payment. Sad day for you. I'm going to swoop in and I'm going to grab your house because technically I can, et cetera, et cetera. And then they're flipping it, et cetera.

P. McEnraugh on Twitter says three hours of T.Y.T. Yes. And last one. Okay. Brent Parker, 1995 says, Young Turks, new announcement is music to my ears. And without a pay increase for members, you guys keep me sane. And that's only 50% hyperbole, proud to support independent media, especially when it's geared towards providing extensive, varied content for its audience. Brent, thank you very much. Super appreciate it. And yes, look, when you go to t.wit.com slash join. First of all, you got the week free if you want at t-y-t.com slash trial just to try it out. But if you go to join and you're going to join up, right? You do have a couple of options.

You have the insider package. You have the activist package. And you do get a little bit more in the packages as we go along. But obviously, especially at the $25, $500 ones, you're mainly helping build home of progressives. And we do need every piece of that. We're happy to be self-sustaining, but digital media is super, super difficult, and we do not have the infrastructure of television. And we literally cannot do it without you guys, and that is true every single day, okay? And so, and by the way, if you do want to increase your membership, we'd love you for it.

t-y-t.com slash upgrade allows you to get some of those higher levels as well. And there are some throw-ins at those levels that I think are good. So thank you guys for participating. All right, John, what's next? Okay, more varied content for you. Actually, we have quite a few interesting stories of very diverse topics here for you. So we're going to launch back into it. Investigators looking into a teen migrant center in Florida.

So this is for migrants in the U.S., but all of a younger age. These are not adults in homestead Florida have revealed some startlingly inhumane conditions there. So first, the numbers of people that are going to be affected by this. The Trump administration reopened this facility back in February of last year. and in December announced that it would almost double the shelter's capacity from 1,350 to 2350 children aged 13 to 17. Now, before this was expanded, most children slept in rooms of 12, which still seems like a lot of people in a single room. But now they've refitted one of their buildings to house 17-year-olds in large rooms that sleep 70 to 250 kids. Imagine 250 kids in literally the best circumstance you can imagine, that's too many 17-year-old kids.

To put them in these sorts of conditions, by the way, these rooms are so small that if you walk between the bunk beds, your shoulders clip both bunk beds on either side. To give you an idea of the almost factory farm conditions that these people are being kept in, and also understand this. So we just said there that they have expanded the facility, they've doubled it. Now you're probably not surprised by that because when we were talking about family separation and all that, you found out about these massive tent cities that were being set up in various parts of the country. Bear in mind the facts while all of this is going on, the number of children crossing the border hasn't increased significantly.

So why then would they suddenly need far more beds to have these kids in? That is because the situation on the ground is not changed, the situation in D.C. has changed. Donald Trump has taken it upon himself to change the way the standards we apply for who needs to be kept and for how long. And because of those choices that he and his group have made, people are being kept in conditions that are not fit for human life. And these kids are not being stored there for a day or a week. Some of them are being stored for six months or longer. They receive virtually no contact with their family. We're talking literally minutes each week that they're allowed to use a phone.

They receive very little time outside, very little exercise, and substandard education all along the way. And I want to give you just one quote from Nehadezai, Director of Immigration for the National Center for Youth Law, who described the situation there, saying, these children are in perhaps the most restrictive and least family-like setting possible. I spoke with youth that slept in rooms with 100 other kids at night. Some of them have been there for months on end with no freedom of movement, no privacy, no human contact. And she said many of the children she spoke to had a hunger for human connection and suffered from the quote, sheer emotional deprivation of not getting to touch another human being for months on end.

I wanna explain that because I think that's the worst part. So let me go through a couple of the terrible parts about this. To give you a sense of how cooped up they are in there, they only have one hour they're allowed outside. They're kids. It's prison. That's, and it's kind of a bad prison. So when we talk about, hey, that guy's in solitary confinement and he's only allowed outside

for an hour, right? And they do that in some of the most high security situations and they've done it to basically torment people in the past like Chelsea Manning. So now these kids, they didn't do anything wrong, they didn't commit a crime, they're not being held in jail or prison, but they are being held in some of the worst conditions that you would see in a maximum security situation where they're only allowed outside for an hour. And so that's terrible.

So number two, you want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? You have to ask a staffer and they have to escort you outside to a portable toilet and that's the only way you can go, okay? So there's privacy is gone. Showers, five minutes. You're not allowed to take any longer than five minutes and then you got to cycle out. And when they first talked about the perfect rows of bunk beds, I was like, oh, they got Something, right?

For half a sentence, I was like, okay, there's a, you know, at least it's well organized. No, they're like so that they could be packed in like sardines. Okay, now the worst part is both understandable, but you get why it would be traumatic. They're not allowed to touch each other at all or any other people, okay? Now, I'm, we're not being unfair here. There's a good reason for that, we know that, and we're going to give you that context. The reason is you got 13 to 17 year olds, you can't have them touching one another, God knows what that could lead to and that could be a worse situation, right?

You can't have the adults touching them, you can't have them touching the adults, all understandable. But they're not allowed to touch each other at all. And so sometimes they'll have this bond because they've been sitting there together for three months, six months, et cetera, and one of them is leaving, they're not allowed to hug. So the main thing the kids say to the people interviewing them is, I just need someone to hug me. A 17 year old broke down sobbing. She's like, I haven't touched anyone in months, no one's touched me.

And we're humans, we're social animals. And so they're dying for a hug. I know it sounds weird if you haven't gone through six or nine months of deprivation of human touch. And so, and I get that it's a difficult situation to solve. because you don't want to lift that rule entirely. But we have got to find some sort of balance here. But most importantly, don't keep them for that long.

You can actually easily cycle them out like every other administration did. One of the kids is waiting for his dad. It's taken seven months for his dad because they say fill out paperwork. Then they make him fill out paperwork again. By the way they make him skip work to come out to fill out paperwork. Now he's losing money. Then they made him move to another apartment. They made them fill out paperwork three different times in one particular case, and so that stretches

it out. It's, they're doing it on purpose, they changed the rules and the procedures that other administrations both Democrats and Republicans had to make it more painful. And one of the other huge issues is, people used to come in and pick up kids and bring them home, and that made sense, you don't want to keep them in this sterile, you know, depressing environment, etc. Now they say, look, if you're coming to pick them up, we're going to fingerprint you and we're going to look into your history, okay? And if it turns out you're undocumented, we're going to ruin your life and your family, so you better not come pick up these kids.

So of course they have more kids. There's, again, no bigger influx of kids coming in from the border, as John told you, okay? It's the reason they're all getting packed in more and more and more And more and more is because Trump made the decision, let's make it really difficult for parents and other family members to pick up these kids. Yeah. And so that's why we've created this unbearable cruelty. It's all a choice. Why don't we turn to the other side of this, those who are doing the locking up.

Laura Ingram had a former director of ICE on her show, and during it he revealed perhaps a little bit more than he intended to about the sort of priorities of criminal justice officers in this country. Take a look. Menendez wants everybody to back off on the DUI issues. He wants everyone to back off on DUI convictions for the illegal immigrants as grounds for deportation. And you say? I mean, you're kidding. 10,000 people a year die from DUI.

He said 28 people a day die from DUIs. I'd rather put it in illegal alien jail for DUI than white collar bank fraud. It isn't about if it's a felony misdemeanor, is it a public safety threat, and is it threatening American citizens. So she didn't say, here are two things, which would you prefer to prosecute. It just came to his mind, you know what? It's much more important to do this than to deal with those bankers. Okay, so now let's keep it real with who they actually put away.

So are there some dangerous people that ICE gets from time to time, of course, right? As there are for cops and other parts of law enforcement. Are they all just focusing on DUIRS and other people that are posing an immediate danger? No, of course not. 11% of the people that they round up had no outstanding criminal charges at all. Well, who cares? Round them up anyway, okay? I mean, that is Trump's policy now.

If you're undocumented, I don't care that you didn't break any other laws. I'm gonna come and find you. I'm gonna break up your family. I'm gonna do whatever it takes, and I'm gonna spend resources doing that. In the old days, we had a system that adjudicated those through a normal process and the amount of time that it took, et cetera, et cetera. And we spent more of our law enforcement money and resources and time on dangerous crime. Now we're going to arrest people that didn't even do anything, okay?

25% of the people that ICE arrest last year had no criminal convictions at all in the past. So dangerous, they're all super dangerous. No, no, no. Part of it is I like being a Gestapo, I like being able to come into your house and take your mom away from you or take your kids away from you. And remember, this guy, Tom Homan, he could have gotten to any line of work. So I always think about the guys who tow your cars if you parked illegally, and it's going to cost you sometimes thousands of dollars and ruin your life.

And I'm like, look dude, you could have had a lot of different jobs and you decided to take this one that caused a lot of anguish to people, right? But those, that guy had a lot less choices. Holman had all the choices in the world. And he chose to go and lead an organization that breaks up families and kind of enjoys doing it, as you could tell from his many appearances on Fox News. But on top of all that, he's like, leave the bankers alone. Why?

You were ice. Why are you talking about the bankers? What a weird thing to bring up, like, hey, all the undocumented immigrants are super dangerous, but the bankers aren't. The bankers are great, so we don't want to use any resource to get the bankers. If you actually went and got the bankers, you might create more resources that would allow you to do more things. Because they've actually destroyed our economy in the past.

Here's stunning stats about that. In the 2007-2008 crash, Americans overall lost 30% of their wealth. 30% of their wealth wiped out. Who did that? The bankers did that. And undocumented immigrant didn't do that. He didn't have any power. Couldn't give out any mortgages.

He couldn't control the system, he couldn't give money to politicians. Imagine what we could do with that money. For blacks and Latinos, it's worse. It wiped out half of their wealth in the country in just one downturn, half their wealth obliterated. By the way, the top 10% they're fine. Since 2007, their wealth has gone up by 26%. So whatever you do though, don't touch the bankers. Because that's really important to maintaining the system.

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing to watch. I mean, I'm sort of hesitant to call it real, like, Republican orthodoxy on issues like, you know, like law and order and all that, because I don't think the Republicans were really ever the party of law and order. But, like, think about how they are training their voters, the people who watch Fox News, like, white-collar crime, like, we're still recovering from the Great Recession. And they're training their audience to think those aren't really crazy.

crimes, like a person driving, they can commit a crime, a banker in Manhattan can't really do anything wrong. Like the people, we've had multiple people in the Trump administration go down for lying to law enforcement, lying to the FBI. Those are process crimes, they're not real crimes, okay? And so more and more, they are training their audience to think that there are real crimes, like people putting duct tape on someone's mouth and driving them across the border, the sort of scary, you know, 24-style crime.

All the stuff that really affects you that wrecks the economy, steals your family's wealth, For instance, Economic Policy Institute study back in 2017 found that workers lose an estimated $8 billion a year through wage theft. Those aren't really crimes because they're being done by the best type of people. And we see more of that from ICE. From the former head of ICE, a guy who has no business opining on Wall Street, just he's helping them to fulfill their narrative. If you stole 80 bucks from someone you got caught, God help you, okay?

They're gonna throw the book at you, you got no power, they're gonna come after you. You steal $8 billion of workers pay, hey, look, we got to go do drunk driving arrest, and we got other priorities, we can't be bothered by $8 billion, little alone the trillions of dollars we lost in the 2008 crash. And so now, finally, you might think, well, guys, let's be fair, though. There might be an epidemic of undocumented immigrants committing crime and DUI in specific. And maybe DUI is just out of control in this country. Well, half of you know if you watch the Young Turks regularly, undocumented immigrants

commit half the crime that a natural born citizens do, okay? So an average American born in America is twice as much of a criminal, on average. Every one of you. Every one of you are criminals, twice as much of a criminal. No, that's a funny way of stating it, but it's twice as more likely to be have committed crime than an undocumented immigrant. So this fear mongering, if you're going to do fear mongering, you should do it about people that are born here.

Oh my God, that guy was born in Illinois, he's a danger, danger, he's going to commit twice as much crime As an undocumented immigrant, okay. The second part, I doubt you know, I learned it today. DUI, incidents of DUI has gone down by 48% in the last couple of decades. That's a long period of time, but that's wonderful news. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do DUI arrests. And some could argue, conservatives could even argue, hey, we did a lot of DUI arrests and that's why it's gone down.

Okay, that's all good and fine. My point is, it's not like there's an epidemic of DUIs. And it's gotten way worse. No, it's got, thankfully, it's gotten better. So it's not any emergency around drunk driving. It's not an emergency around undocumented immigrants. It's an emergency around protecting bankers, okay? And that is Fox News's business model.

That's why they invite the guys like Tom Homan on to say the guys with no power, no money, no wealth, no power at all. Those are the ones we should crush, okay, and the ones with all the money and the power that rigged the system in the first place that you're so angry about Fox News viewers, don't worry about it, never ever touch them. We got higher priorities. Yeah, and I will just finally say if you are concerned about people dying in car accidents, which you should be, the answer is not more ice.

The answer is putting your damn phone away because you're gonna end up killing yourself or somebody else. That's why the number of traffic fatalities is going up despite ever increasingly safe cars and people taking drunk driving more seriously. Despite all of that, more people are dying, and it's because people are choosing to do all sorts of other stuff while they're driving around. All right, when we come back, Ilhan Omar, so Trump went after her, she strikes back today, which I love.

Then a Democrat jumps in on Trump's side, of course, okay, which I do not love. And you will hear my lack of love for it when we return. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and

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second. All right, back on a young turks, Jank and John with you. Progressives versus everybody. It's going to happen for the next two years. Shop tYT.com. Okay. And maybe longer than the next two years, actually. Yeah, right. Then it really starts. Yeah, yeah. History never ends. Yeah. And neither there's the news. That's why the word news in it. Okay.

Oh my God, I just got that. Hostmates, that's a great show that we did among the hosts where we coupled up and did kind of like the newlywed game style. So tomorrow, after our big anniversary special where we're expanding to three hours, we will do the first two hours like you normally get, we'll do interviews, and then we will do special half an hour for the members. And if you're a member, yes, that's the post game. And then after that, we're gonna run hostmates, okay?

Tomorrow the post game will be a little bit shorter because we're gonna have Adam McKay and Bernie Sanders on. We're gonna give some time for those interviews and then hostmates after the post game. Okay. And meanwhile, speaking of the network, check out Pitchfork economics. So that's Nick Hanauer's show and they talk about progressive economics. Anna loves it, you guys will love it. And in the next episode, he's got Mayor Eric Garcetti from Los Angeles.

Damn. I'm actually very curious to hear what he talks to Garcetti about. And I know that they're gonna talk at least about the minimum wage and how getting it higher is actually good for their economy. All right. Now, a couple comments from you guys, member section, Kath Thanos says, think about the type of people who would gladly join ICE to do these things to immigrants. The organization above all others is designed for racists to vent their fears and aggression.

Okay, that's one point of view. War Child says, allow me to paraphrase what the guy meant. We need more room in jail for poor people. Yeah. Yep, pretty much, right? And we talked about this a week or two ago on the show. Why is there rich people jail? Like the minimum security prison that has the tennis courts and all that stuff.

I'm not yet. I mean, Tommy Chong was on the show and he said he went to one of those and his, I think his bunk mate was the Wolf of Wall Street. And he's like, no, no, it was good, it was therapeutic, I got to meditate, we played tennis all the time, we had a good time. You go to a normal prison for the rest of us, nobody's having a good time, okay? And you don't even need to make that comparison, I would say, like they have set up a system where even if they break the law, pretty badly, they still get to live a better life than most

of us. Yeah, do you guys have tennis courts in your backyard? No, I don't. Right? No, I have a lot of weeds, actually. Well, that's what got Tommy in there in the beginning with. Okay. That's ridiculous.

It was a weed, by the way. It was weed paraphernalia. It was a total wrong prosecution. Anyway, the last comments are from YouTube's super chat. Jason Mann says, hey, Jank, I don't know if you had a chance to see this yet, but Mitch McConnell thinks he's trying to make some sort of negative political statement by bringing green new deal to the floor. I did see it, in fact, I retweeted it with just two words, Mitch, please.

Has he seen the polling on the Green Deal? Yeah. Kind of popular. But it did scare the Democrats. God, they're so weak. Oh no, my God, only 81% of the country agrees with us. Mitch, please don't bring it up for a vote. Please bring it up for a vote because first of all, I know that virtually every single senator

who's running for president says they support it. If they don't actually support it enough to vote for it, I would like to know that right now, actually. Definitely. You know, some Democrats are like, well, that'll force the Democrats in doing it. Yes, exactly. I don't mind that at all. I'd like to know where they stand. Oh, but that might hurt their chance.

I don't care. What I want to know is where do you stand? Stop hiding. Okay, last one is- You know what'll hurt their chances? Utter weakness. Exactly. That will.

Just think for a second, wrote in. I think the establishment needs a new team name to describe them. I suggest collection of really, really useless people together or corrupt for short. That's good. That was a nice turn. And in fact, it made me just think for a second. Okay, that's their handle on YouTube. Oh, okay.

Thank you guys. All right, let's go. Okay, let's jump into it. Representative Ilhan Omar has responded now to Donald Trump's 100% disingenuous call for her to step down either from Congress or her committee assignments over a tweet that she sent out. She said this, hi, real Donald Trump, you've trafficked in hate your whole life against Jews, Muslims, indigenous, immigrants, black people, and more. I learned from people impacted by my words, when will you?

And that is obviously a very strong language. It's effectively what we were calling for yesterday when talking about this topic. I'm sure she is as familiar as the rest of us are with his long history of saying misogynistic and racist and abelist and all the isms he has attacked them regularly throughout his life in public office, before public office, in serious remarks, in policies, in jokes, in all of that, in private, in public, it's very clear. And so if he wants people to lose their careers over this sort of thing, I invite him to be the first out the door.

Okay, I got a legitimate criticism the other day from a progressive viewer that I shouldn't do the Trump impression anymore because I was making fun of the mentally disabled. And so it was, but like super legit, not joking, et cetera. Like, they're worried that Trump is mentally disabled, and so when I make fun of them and I do the impression that I'm making fun of mentally disabled people, okay, so. I love the where that comes from, because there is a lot of just you're allowed to make fun of people with mental health problems. I totally agree with that.

Yeah. I mean, if, look, hey, how about this, compromise? If Trump is diagnosed, has these issues, we will support him as progressives and getting them dealt with outside of the office of the president. That's right. 25th Amendment to get him out of office and then get him help, which he desperately needs. We all agree to that. And he can afford the best help.

Yes, the strongest help. Okay, see, there I go again. You just did it. Now I'm gonna think that's what you're doing. Okay, so, but barring that, okay, I would go further than Representative Omar. In fact, we talked about it on the post game yesterday at significant length. It was a really interesting conversation. at t.t.com slash join to become a member and get the post game.

And I'll just summarize real quick for you guys. I would do a press conference if I was her, and I would literally play the Trump clips that we showed on the show yesterday, where he goes to the Republican Jewish coalition and says, you know, you guys like to negotiate in this room, and you guys like to, no room, no other room likes to renegotiate as much as you guys. These are anti-Semitic tropes 101, right? Like, the Jews will not stick the deals, they'll renegotiate. And then he says, I know you're not gonna support me because I'm not taking your money.

But that's like way worse than what Al-Han Omar said, way worse. So of course she's right, where's his apology, let alone saying that there were good people on the neo-Nazi side in Charlottesville after they chanted, the Jews will not replace us. So where's your apology? And if you're calling for her resignation, as we said on the show yesterday, where's your resignation? We got a deal, okay, and I feel bad, sorry, Representative.

But I'll take that deal. Okay. So it's not my deal to take, but I'm just saying. And so I loved it at least, even when she didn't do the grand press conference that I wanted my dreams, right? She fired back. Like, hey, I'm not done with this. Like, I'm not just going to bow my head and pretend that my comments were in any way equivalent

to yours. Yours are way, way worse. And yeah. Yeah, and I would say overall, if you believe that she was going to be. be scared off from being strong and advocating for her values as a result of this. In our next story, it's going to be very clear that that is not the case. But I know that there were some on the Democratic side who were also frustrating in their approach to this topic.

Exactly. So that brings us to Steny Hoyer. So he came out and said there might be further action against Omar if she keeps it up. Now, that's needless to say, if Ilhan Omar tweets something that's actually anti-Semitic next, then I would want action against her, right? If she said, I mean, you may name a thousand things she can say, right? Now we had a long debate both on the show yesterday and in the post game about what she, what she tweeted is in any way problematic, and you could, and there are plenty of people who

think that it was a little problematic, okay, although anti-Semitic is a different term. and, et cetera, and there's a range of thought on that, right? But now, Steny Hoyer is saying, if you do anything like that again, you're going to be in big trouble, but we're also watching your actions. Wait, what does that mean? Does that mean she must vote for the positions that APEC wants her to vote for, otherwise you're going to call her anti-Semitic again? Because let's be clear about this, whether she stated it in a way that was too glib or not,

and that was a legitimate point, a legitimate point Brent was making on the show yesterday, she She gets to have any policy she wants on APEC and on Israel, and APEC does have money going to people who are supportive through contributors and their supporters. And so does every other pack, and so do, so does every industry, so does the NRA, et cetera. If Steny Hoyer now wants to say, no, and a lot of the establishment do want this, now you're not allowed to criticize any money coming from anywhere. Wrong again, Bob, no, not interested. So we can't criticize the money, you should be consistent in how you criticize the money,

no matter where it's coming from. And if Steny Hoyer thinks he's gonna intimidate people into voting for right wing positions in Israel, not interested, we're not in the right wing. I know Steny Hoyer, you might as might not know, Steny Hoyer, number two Democrat in the House. So it's not like, hey, some random Democrat, right behind Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi came out, you know, with the Ilhan Omar thing was like, I demand an immediate apology, et cetera, et cetera.

Okay, so one thing to apologize over a badly formed tweet, it's another thing to say you must vote with the right wing. Why is the Democrats, why is the Democratic Party asking you to vote with the right wing in a different country? That's bizarre. Yeah. Why don't we turn to a related topic, to some extent at least? Republicans wanted to have Representative Ilhan Omar thrown off of her committee.

assignments, including her position on the House Foreign Relations Committee. Well, that didn't happen, but as of today, I'm betting they wish they were more successful, because she had a line of questioning with Elliot Abrams, the current special envoy to Venezuela, that was aggressive and actually exactly what was needed after decades of this guy, largely getting away with a number of different crimes inside and outside of our country, Central America, and all of that. So first off, she lays out that he has already pled guilty to withholding information from Congress, needing to receive a pardon from President George H.W. Bush, he should have slunk off in shame

into the shadows, but instead he is brought back by Donald Trump, not despite his history, but specifically because of his history, which she is going to lay out as she continues her line of questioning with Elliot Abrams. On February 8, 1982, you testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about U.S. policy in El Salvador. In that hearing, you dismissed as communist propaganda report about the massacre of El Masote, in which more than 800 civilians, including children as young as two years old, were brutally murdered by U.S. trained troops. Doing that massacre, some of those troops bragged about raping a 12-year-old girl

before they killed them. Girls before they killed them. You later said that this, the U.S. policy in El Salvador was a fabulous achievement. Yes or no, do you still think so? From the day that President Duarte was elected in a free election to this day, El Salvador has been a democracy. That's a fabulous achievement. Yes or no. Do you think that massacre was a fabulous achievement that happened under our watch. That is a ridiculous question. Yes or no? No.

I will take that as a yes. I am not going to respond to that kind of personal attack, which is not a question. Okay, I got to say, look, there's so many reasons why I'm proud of our, I'm going to get into that a second. But it's, no, the personal attack is raping the 12-year-old. The personal attack is murdering those people on the massacres. Your feelings being hurt because you sanctioned it and cheer let it is not a personal attack. That's a legitimate political question.

You were in favor of the people who did that. So I'm asking you, are you still in favor of it or did that shock your conscience and go, oh my God, I didn't know they committed that massacre. Because if you're a decent human, if I supported something that led dent led to massacres, I'd be like, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, I certainly did not mean that. Apparently you're not at all moved by that. The only thing you're moved by is, oh, that looks like a personal person. and if you're sitting at home, you might think that is so strange, right?

But in Washington, they don't think it's strange. Because the biggest crime in Washington is being impolite to another person who's in the elite. You can do any, you could authorize any massacre you like anywhere else in the world, okay? But if you're impolite to someone in Washington, that's a big no-no. And see, that is why these Justice Democrats, these young people that came into Congress, and are not abiding by the so-called rules are making a giant difference. And then some of their critics in the Democratic Party were like, why should they get committee positions?

They should wait in line. And I remember somebody saying, oh, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should quit Congress and go back and campaign for city council and work her way up for 20 years. Okay, now, so why should they get committee spots? Because they're willing to actually ask real questions and put people on the spot. And the rest of you have been sitting on your hands the whole time. No one else asked Elliot Abrams, what I view to be an obvious question about the crimes that he has aided and abetted throughout his entire career.

Yeah. Yeah, she, in less than a week, so she goes into House Foreign Relations, brings this up. I saw people like journalists saying, I'm an old person, I remember when all of this was happening, I've been waiting decades to see someone ask a question of Elliot Abrams the way she did today. And so finally, at least in this case, we have justice. Now he is, because he's powerful and because he's well connected and because he's rich, he's not like being brought briefly out of prison for war crimes to answer these questions. Instead, he is once again exactly back in that same situation because I know he's gonna

come to shock to people that thought that Donald Trump would somehow weirdly be a dove. But he chose Elid Abrams, a guy who brought massacres and war crimes to every country in that region that he touched, he's now the special envoy to Venezuela. Under Donald Trump, who despite, he has said for a couple of years now, AIDS have been saying, he's talking about why can't we just invade Venezuela. He is now laying the groundwork by choosing the people that are going to be fine with that. Either we go in there or, you know, maybe internally some death squads are set up or a faction has given power and influence and money and weapons so they can do exactly the same.

sorts of things had been done traditionally in that area. Elliot Abrams should have never shown his face again once he got the completely unwarranted and unprecedented pardoned that he did. No regular person gets pardoned for crimes that are one one thousandth as bad as what he was enthusiastically in support of. But instead he is once again back in the halls of power and thankfully at least there are people like Representative Omar who will stick it to him when they have the chance. I wanna say one more thing.

And this is a bit ironic and a little controversial, but look, I am personally not in favor of the hijab. And so if, but that's obvious because I, my family is Muslim and I, and I'm not Muslim anymore. I'm agnostic, I rejected all the religions, okay? So if you said, hey, do you want your daughter in a hijab, I'd say under no circumstances, okay? Now, that's my personal opinion. But ironically, seeing Representative Omar in Congress, in a position of power, holding people to account that have never been held to account, and wearing a hijab doing it, may be proud

to be an American. Because we have a free- Exactly thing while I was watching the video. Yeah, because we have a free country, and not everybody has to agree with me. And not everybody has to agree with Trump or anyone else in power. She gets to have her own personal opinion and their apparel and religion and ideology. And there are a lot of people like her in this country. And now they have a voice.

So it's a voice in a couple of different ways, Muslims, people who are more traditionally conservative in Islam, but socially liberal, and most importantly a voice for our entire generation to hold people to account that are used to their arrogance and their ability to stomp over other people while not be in question. And finally, they thought that they were going to keep her quiet by criticizing that tweet about A-PAC, et cetera. Does it look like it worked? I believe the word is unbowed.

So it was just wonderful to see, great work by Representative Ilhan Omar. Yeah. We had more, I wish that we had time to play it, but it's a little bit late in the hour. Okay. You know what, we'll save some of that for the post game. I want to play the other clip in the post game for you guys. dot com slash join to do that. And we've got those rest of the stories, including some of the ones that I love coming

up. The very next one is Republicans in Wisconsin Blot celebrating Black History Month. Of course they did, but wait until you see why. We'll tell you 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.