The Young Turks - Trump Nominates RFK

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Trump is nominates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS. Billionaire Jamie Dimon doesn't make the cut for Trump's administration.Tommy Tuberville claims that senators should not vote against nominees, saying, “It’s not up to us to determine that.” Matt Gaetz resigns just days before the Ethics Committee was reportedly set to vote on releasing a “highly damaging” report." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jakey and Kusparan with you guys live from the public market studio in L.A. So we got a lot of new appointments. Here comes. Bobby Kennedy Jr. Here comes back. Actually, that's part of the problem. Are you excited about your bestie? My bestie, we're going on a high. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So look, I have strong thoughts on that, which we'll get to in a second. You're gonna be shocked to find out that they're honest and go in both directions. So, but tons of news here to dissect as the Trump guys start to come in, some disastrous. Some again, I have unique thoughts on. So let's

Let's have some fun. Yeah, I have, now that the cabinet is becoming, if everyone gets confirmed, of course. Now that his picks though are becoming clearer and clearer and you're getting a better sense of what his administration is gonna look like, it's quite an experiment. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah. No, no, and on Gates, I have a unique theory on that too, which I'll share it.

Okay, okay, great. All right, so let's do it. Well, let's start off with the biggest announcement today, and that had to do with, who Donald Trump is choosing to lead HHS, Health and Human Services. Let's get to it. Look, we're not going to let him go too crazy, Elon, with the oil and gas stuff. Because Robert F. Kennedy cares more about human beings and health and the environment than anybody. And he's going to be absolutely, having him is such a great honor.

I've been friends of his for a long time. I'm going to let him go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on medicines. Looks like Donald Trump is keeping his promise because the president-elect is going to allow RFK Jr. to go wild on health. He has tapped RFK Jr. as the potential head of health and human services.

So the HHS secretary should he be confirmed. And he made his announcement via social media, writing, quote, I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. As the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, for too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to public health. The safety and health of all Americans is the most important role of any administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country. Mr. Kennedy will restore these agencies to the traditions of gold standard scientific

research and beacons of transparency to end the chronic disease epidemic and to make America great and healthy again. Before we get to more on this story, I have to pause and just make a general comment about Donald Trump's social media posts. I can't say this about every post that we've been seeing from him, but I have noticed that he's kind of reining it in a little bit when it comes to, like at least when it comes to who he announces for his, you know, secretaries and cabinet picks. Yeah, you mentioned this earlier in the week. I think that a staffer is writing those official ones, right?

So that's why it appears that as a fake appearance of raining it in, that brother cannot be rained in, okay? He'll be out in the wild very soon. No, no, I totally get it. But I think it's good that he's letting a staffer write these. I hear, but it's not going to last. But on Kennedy, I have a lot of strong thoughts. So first off, I really hope they have a real hearing.

And what I mean by that is, so look, Bobby Kennedy was on the show. You should go check out that interview on YouTube. And it was a really interesting conversation. We agreed and disagreed in parts. And the part that I disagree with him on is the part he got put in charge of. Oops, oh well. It is what it is. That's right.

We lost. They won, right? And I don't agree with him on that. But I do agree with him on a bunch of other things that have said. a hundred times, great on housing, great on corruption, et cetera. But what I want to do is I don't want to have hearings about dead bears and brainworms and whales. Okay, we know all that.

We got it. We got it, right? So I want them to have a real hearing about the substance. Like, okay, so this brother's got points about pesticides. Well, that's interesting. I kind of want to hear that one out, right? Right. Seed oil, vaccines, et cetera.

Well, if you guys are all 100% sure that he's wrong, great. There's a perfect opportunity in these hearings to prove them wrong, okay? So I hope that they choose a tiny bit of something. And I got to tell you my experience with this, because I knew him a little bit before any of this. And nine years ago, he asked me, hey, can you arrange a debate on vaccines on the young Turks? And I tried. And I went and looked and asked a lot of people that are scientists, et cetera, because I'm on their side, right? But I'd moderate, that'd be fair.

I couldn't find one person. And they said, no, we refuse to discuss it. Well, now they're going to be forced to discuss it. And guys, stop saying you refuse to discuss things. If you're right, which I think you are right in this case, go make your case. I totally agree. Now, let's talk a little bit about what he would be in charge of, like what his duties would be, should he be confirmed as the HHS secretary.

So this department oversees quite a bit, including the FDA, CDC, National Institutes of Health, which funds a lot of the research and development for pharmaceutical companies. Medicare and Medicaid, I'm sorry, Medicare and Medicare service programs, aka many smaller agencies that fall under the umbrella of HHS. Now, since Election Day, Kennedy has pledged to take major steps to reshape the nation's public health guidelines. Last week, for instance, Kennedy said he would immediately begin studying vaccine safety and efficacy, but promised, and this is important, to not take vaccines away from anybody.

He also committed to formally recommending states and municipalities remove fluoride from public water. You know, I don't know enough about the fluoride issue to comment, but I find it interesting that among those who are passionate about it, they're super passionate about getting the fluoride out of the water. So I'm curious about that. So that's exactly what I'm talking about, Anna. First of all, the fact that he's saying, I'm not going to take vaccines away from anybody is reassuring.

Because that's the extreme scenario where this is a disaster, right? So, okay, we've eliminated at least one disaster. It doesn't mean we've eliminated all the disasters, okay? But I'm looking forward to an actual national conversation. And I'm looking forward to those scientists and doctors that I believed in my whole life and still believe into to this day, going out and proving that he is wrong. But you've got to do that. You can't just stay in a cave and go, we are going to just cancel him on mainstream media.

We won't allow him on anything. We won't platform. You can't not platform the nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, right? Right. So you engage, engage, win over the country. If you're right, which I think you are, please try to win over the country to your sign. And you might even win some anti-vaccers to your side, because you're right. Because guess what?

They've never heard your side because you keep it hitting in a cave. Right, they just assume that we should take their word for it without having to hear any explanation or having them provide any evidence to basically debunk some of the claims that are being made. So you make a good point there. But Jake, I am not naive and I know that if he gets confirmed, you know, things could go south. But there's also a possibility that a disruptor in this government agency could be a good thing. Because honestly, when I look at the FDA, for instance, there is a lot of corruption with the FDA. And by the way, we should all be asking, why is it that we live in a country that has all these regulations supposedly?

But every week you hear about a Listeria outbreak in our food, you hear about E. coli outbreaks. I mean, it just goes on and on. Food being recalled all the time because of these issues. And it's because of the lack of regulations that the FDA is totally willing to provide cover for because they've got some cozy relationships with industry as well. And so when I read about how, you know, RFK Jr. will be tasked with rooting out corruption within the, within this government agency, that kind of rhetoric excites me. And if they actually carry that out, I mean, that could be a legendary part of Donald Trump's administration. Now, that's if things go well. Obviously, I am not naive and things could really go poorly. We'll see.

As with the entire Trump administration, it could go very poorly or interestingly positive in some ways, right? So here's what I mean by that. And I've got it at 75% going poorly, 25% with at least a little bit of a chance that it might go well. And maybe anyways, let me just spit it out. So the way that it goes poorly is they start saying, okay, Bobby's conclusions are the conclusions. And we're not listening to 99% of the world scientists or doctors, et cetera. And these are now things that we're enforcing whether you like it or not. It's kind of the equivalent of what the right wing was worried about in taking away gas stoves and burgers and planes.

Now that was all overly hype. Gas stoves is tiny bit of truth. Plastic straws is totally true. Anyway, so that kind of stuff, we don't touch that. right? If if the Trump administration does the same but opposite end of the spectrum where they go, okay, now we're doing this and you're not allowed to have vaccines or you're not allowed to have seed oil, you're not allowed to have fluoride, et cetera, that's going to be a holy mess. It's going to be a giant, real enormous problem for the health of this country, right?

If on the other hand, he goes back to his roots as an environmental lawyer in holding corporations accountable, well, now we're having a conversation, okay? Exactly, yeah. So let me give you So let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean by that. So he often talks about it, nobody ever listens to him except us, that the liability shield that vaccine companies, the drug companies have for their vaccines. I understand the logic of why they need that immunity from suits, but I also understand the logic of challenging that immunity. And I think that's a super interesting conversation, and we've never really had that conversation nationally. So I'm really looking forward to it. And I'm not quite sure which side I'm going to come out on, right?

And I can't wait for the scientists to emerge out of their cave and actually make their point of view on this. And then the FDA and Anna's right. We will live under corporate rule. There's nonstop, like, food poisoning, et cetera. Is Bobby going to be allowed to rein them in? Or is Trump going to say, oh, no, no, no, no. Those are our donors. Shut up.

You get back to your seed oils, okay? You're not allowed to touch corporate rule. If that happens, well, that exposes Trump to some degree. Of course, yeah. Right? And I'm gonna come back to why I have a little bit of faith in RFK Jr. Hold, hold for that thought. But the last one, and there's many others, but my God, imagine if he said,

and they're gonna say this is a little bit outside of his scope because this one's nuclear. But what if he said, you know what, as the head of HHS, I think we should negotiate drug prices, all drug prices. I think we have to, it's a health emergency, okay? Okay, now that is the mother load of corporate rule that they are the big pharma is the biggest lobby in the in the country and way bigger than APAC way bigger than oil than anything else and they have us under their thumb and they won't let us negotiate drug prices. They're robbing us blind.

My God, if RFK Jr. does that, he walks away here who walks away at Kennedy in the in the lexicon of American politics. Now, I'm perfectly aware that he can go in the other direction. I just told you there's a 75% chance they go in the wrong direction. But if he goes in that direction, now we're having an entirely different conversation. I got to say, I know how much Trump supporters like to own the libs, like they live for it, and I get it. But can you imagine the ultimate owning the libs that the Trump administration could do? because Biden desperately wanted people to believe that he was FDR 2.0.

Can you imagine if Trump actually carries out the types of policies that would lead to people calling him FDR 2.0? Are you kidding me? That's my entire plan. That would be the ultimate own. Oh my God. So guys, look, go check out the populace plank and sign that pledge on t.com. We'll have the link in the description box.

one of the six things that I picked was negotiate all drug prices, okay? So, and I pick those six, not because they're my, those are the six highest priorities I have. I picked those six because they are the ones that we all agree on, populist left, populist right, average Americans, et cetera. They're pretty much indisputable, right, money out of politics, anti-war, et cetera. So if Trump couldn't check off two, three out of that six, I don't care about party labels. No, me neither. And the Democrats have been yelling at me my whole life because I don't care about party labels. And they'll keep doing it.

Right? So I know I'm not going to support a Democrat if they're corporate stooges and they do nothing positive. And if Trump gives you, look, again, it's not likely, okay? I know his nature, I know his instincts, right? But if, if he goes in the right direction, am I going to give him credit for that? Of course. And would he be owning the libs if he stole their policies, implemented them, and then became enormously popular?

Of course. I mean, what do I care if Bernie does it or Trump does it? I just, or Biden does it. I'm happy to give anyone credit. Again, unlikely, but these are like, so now let's get to the two advantages of Trump and RFK Jr. We've talked endlessly about Trump's disadvantages. Have I changed my mind about those? No, not at all. His disadvantages are still a mountain and a giant problem. Let's hold on that. Can I finish the rest of the story? Because there's more details I think are

worth knowing about at least. So Kennedy has also floated significant employee turnover at public health agencies. He said in an interview with MSNBC that he would cut workers in the nutrition departments at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While speaking at a conference in Arizona on Saturday, Kennedy proposed replacing 600 officials at the National Institutes of Health with hand-picked staff. That's a little scary. Yeah. Yeah, that's scary. Yeah.

I mean, there's, look, guys, you replace a couple of people because you want a diversity of thought. Oh, my God, you replaced 200 out of 600. I'm a little worried, right? But you get rid of everybody, you bring in everyone who agrees with you. Yeah, that's a problem. Then we don't have a diversity of opinion. We don't have that conversation we're looking forward to. I agree with you on that, yeah.

So Kennedy also told NPR after the election that Trump gave him three specific things to focus on. So what are those three things? Well, President Trump wants the corruption and the conflicts out of the regulatory agencies. He wants to return the agencies to the gold standard, empirically based, evidence, based science and medicine that they were once famous for, and he wants to end the chronic disease epidemic with measurable impacts on the diminishment of chronic disease within two years. And by the way, this is an interesting and shocking move. So seeing as Trump's transition co-chair, Howard Lutnik told Caitlin Collins just two weeks

ago that R of K Jr. was not getting a job at the department. So let's take a look at that. One other person who was on stage recently and was talking about coming into the administration is RFK Jr. He said that Trump has promised him control of the public health agencies, HHS, which would be also, you know, CDC, FDA, USDA, all of these agencies. Is that true? Has Trump promised him basically the HHS job? So I spent two and a half hours this week with Bobby Kennedy, Jr., and it was the most extraordinary thing, because let's face it, we've all heard on the news. all sorts of sort of snarky comments about him. And I said, so tell me, how's it going to go?

And he said, why don't you just listen to me, explain things? And what he explained was when he was born, we had three vaccines, and autism was one in 10,000. Now a baby's born with 76 vaccines, because in 1986, they waived product liability for vaccines. Okay, I mean, his point is really interesting. But vaccines don't cause autism, which is what RFK pushes, which is why people are concerned that he could get a job like HHS.

And I don't even think he could get- He's not getting a job for HHS. What he's trying to do, here's what he wants to do. He said, I want data. Looks like he might be getting a job at HHS if he gets confirmed. And by the way, now, according to CNN, Lutnik's answer set off an internal uproar in Trump's inner circle with Trump making clear to Kennedy, he'd be the one making the ultimate decisions.

Okay, yeah. So that's, I love how cocky they are on mainstream media and it turns out to be totally wrong. Okay, so now the upside of Trump is twofold. One is he likes to be popular. Well, that's good news. Why don't you do popular things like paid family leave and lowering drug prices, et cetera, right? Now, remember, he had a first term to try to do this. And that's why I'm saying I'm skeptical. I think it's unlikely that he'll do this because he didn't do any of those popular things. He did giant corporate tax cuts. He did all these like weirdo strike back against his enemy stuff and it just was obsessed with himself and never figured out how to be popular.

Remember, he's surrounded by like the worst people on earth who all have their own different agendas. He's serving their agendas and it's making him less and less popular. So he can go down that spiral and maybe and likely he will go down that spiral. But there is a hope that he wants to be popular and is not going to run again and hence will be a little bit unchained, which leads me to my second slight positive about Trump. We're no longer boxing. guys. So now that chaos has significant danger and that's why I was against Trump. But but what sucks about corporate rule is everything was so regimented. You have to be exactly within these lines. And I never trusted the lines. And it was always some person that you

never saw, oh, trust us. These are the rules and you can't go past those rules. And you can't even have a discussion. And if you have a discussion, you're a terrible person and we're going to do a character assassination of you, right? So we're not boxed in anymore. And in some sense, God help us, right? Because there will be some, man, maybe a lot of chaos that is not positive that comes out of that. But since we're not boxed in, maybe at the end of Pandora's box is a little bit of hope.

I know that's way too hopeful, right? But at the same time, it's not impossible anymore. And then the upside of RFK Jr. is, at least he's not a fraud. Look, I massively disagree with him on a lot of things in his position on Gaza. Oh, atrocious, okay? And, and you know, things that he's done in his personal life, yeah, I definitely don't agree, but it's why do I care about his personal life? Why is that relevant to me?

Why is that relevant to you, right? So I know we're supposed to hate him because of his personal life, but I just, like, sorry, it's just not relevant to me. If I was his cousin, then maybe is super relevant to me, but I'm not. So a lot of people in Trump's administration, I think, are frauds. I think J.D. Vance is a fraud. I think Tulsi Gabbard's a fraud, and I can go on. But at least Arkin Jr. is not in the fraud category. You might have them in the dangerous category. You might have him in the wacky category. But I don't have them in the fraud category.

That means you can have a conversation. Okay. And so let's see what happens. All right, we got to take a break, though. There is some fascinating breaking news about Donald Trump and Jamie Diamond. So we're going to take a break, and I'll give you the details on that when we come back. Back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys also, box and flourishing recovery. Thank you for gifting young turks memberships. I thought for a second that was Flora and I was like, that's going to get banned. Anyways, we got more news for you. All right, so this news broke recently and I think it's interesting.

So Donald Trump has made clear that he will not pick Jamie Diamond, the billionaire banker for J.P. Morgan Chase as his treasury secretary, which is great news based. I saw that and I got real excited. Instead, he will be picking a different billionaire banker. Bruh, bruh, it's either going to be a billionaire banker or one other person who is an investor, who I'm not familiar with. So, first of all, in regard to Jamie Diamond, who, by the way, there were rumors that Jamie Diamond was going to be chosen as Treasury Secretary of Kamala Harris got elected. Obviously, we'll never know if that would come to fruition. But this is what Trump had to say about Jamie Diamond.

quote, I respect Jamie Diamond of J.P. Morgan Chase greatly, but he will not be invited to be part of the Trump administration. Now, a source who spoke to Reuters basically said that Diamond will remain at the bank and had no plans to join Trump's administration. Instead, Trump, while yet to announce a treasury pick, is likely going to choose between billionaire banker Howard Lutnik and investor Scott Bessent. Do you know who that is? No, I haven't heard of the second guy. But look, I'm gonna take a, this just broke, I don't know anything about it.

It's while we're live on the air here, I'm going to take a wild stab at those guys or donors to Donald Trump. Oh, for sure. Okay, we'll see how that turns out, but look, the reason why I warned the right wing populace that Donald Trump is not who they think he is, is because he was considering guys like Jamie Diamond. And remember, he stacked his first cabinet with more Goldman Sachs appointments than any other president in history. So he's been trying to get into that establishment elite in New York for a long time. And they've rejected him. And that's part of why he hates them. And they hate him now

because of his overreaction. But secretly, he loves those guys. That's why he's been trying to get into that club. That's why, oh, Goldman Sachs, oh, Jamie Diamond. So in this case, though, he's saying Jamie Diamond's out. That's great. But I told you before the election, whether Kamala Harris won or Donald Trump won, their first consideration for Treasury Secretary was going to be Jamie Diamond. Why? Because that's what the donors want, and they both serve the donors. So that's why I call Trump a fake populace.

So, okay, it's not Jamie Diamond. When Anna first told me that during the break as the story was breaking, I was like, oh, pretty good, pretty good. And then he's like, she just explained to you guys, it's a different billionaire banker. then what's the point? Oh, okay, that guy bribed you more than Jamie Diamond. Wow, what a populist. So here comes the robbery. All right, well, let's move on to some other news, including whether Senate Republicans are going to confirm Donald Trump's cabinet picks. So let's get to that. There's no question he's a leader of our party. So now he's got a mission statement, his mission,

and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch your heads. That's it. Well, I don't think this country's founders really considered the fact that the system of checks and balances that they have made part of our government might not work if you have sycophants for the executive branch essentially saying that they'll take orders from the president and do whatever he wants. But who you just heard from is Congressman Troy Nell's, obviously a Republican

lawmaker who swore complete devotion to Donald Trump following the president-elect's meeting with House Republicans. And that blind loyalty is not rare among Republican lawmakers. So last night, for instance, Senator Tommy Tuberville declared that senators should just confirm any and all of Trump's cabinet nominees without question. Will Matt Gates get the votes in the Senate? I don't know. You're finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now. Everybody's got an opinion up here, but at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote, and he deserves a team around him that he wants.

It's not us to determine that. We've got 53 votes in the Senate. We can confirm with 51. I've already seen where a couple of them says, I'm not voting for him. Wait a minute. You are not the United States or America. You have one vote, and you have one vote, and you have. Senate, you did not get elected president. Vote with President Trump. This is the last chance we're going to have us saving this country. And if you want to get in the way, fine. But we're going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you try to do that. Now, of course, there is a lot of controversy in regard to Donald Trump choosing former Congressman Matt Gates, who just stepped down from Congress as his AG. There's a lot of questions about whether senators will confirm him.

But before we get to that, Lauren Windsor of the undercurrent posted this yesterday, saying that a senator told me that the rumor on the hill is that Elon Musk is threatening to fund a primary challenge to any House Republican who doesn't fall in line with Trump's agenda. Now, we'll get back to this ongoing catastrophe, some might call it. But yesterday, Senator Mark Wayne Mullen threw his full support behind Trump's nomination of Matt Gates for Attorney General, and that's despite the fact that he has had some extremely harsh words for Gates in the past. Let's take a look. Are you going to vote for Matt Gates?

You know, Matt Gates and I, there's no question that we've had our differences. They've been very public about it. I completely trust President Trump's decision making on this one. You got to think about this guy. This is a guy that didn't have, that the media didn't give a time of day to, after he was accused of sleeping with us. underage girl. There's a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the house floor that all of us had walked away of the girls that he had slept with. He'd brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night. This is obviously before you got

married. And so when that accusation came out, no one defended him and then no one on the media would give him a time of the day. All of a sudden he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the house back in November, and he's always stayed there. And he's not, he was never going to leave until he got this last moment of fame by saying, by going after a motion to vacate. Well, it looks like everyone is basically bending the knee to Donald Trump and whoever it is that he wants to choose. There are a few exceptions, which we'll get to in just a minute. But, Jake, you weren't here when we covered Trump's nomination of Matt Gates for A.G. What say you? Okay, so I have a lot to say about all this. So let me come back to the

Gates in one second. First, I got to say about Tommy Tuberville. That was a hilarious interview. He said, it's not up to us to agree or disagree. No, it actually is. It's literally your job. It's in the Constitution. You have to say yes or no, agree or disagree to his appointments. So this guy just, I mean, Louis Gomer, it's no longer in Congress. So Tommy, congratulations. He's dumbest man in Congress. Okay, so then the second thing he says is, now look, you only have one vote in the Senate. That's why you have to vote with Donald Trump. No, you have one vote in the Senate and you vote any way you like.

And if you like his appointments, you say yes, if he puts Jeffrey Dahmer in a position that you don't want, then you say no. That's why you have your one vote. You're not the president. You're not the one picking the nominee, right? But your job is to say yay or nay with that vote. So he just doesn't get it. And guys, to me, I don't mind the bullying. I think in order to get the job done, you have to do a whole bunch of bullying of the other corrupt politicians.

So now, in this case, they're not trying to get a positive job done in my opinion. But if like, let's say Bernie had won and say congratulations, Jenk, you finally get the role you've always wanted, enforcer. Okay, I'd bully the living hell out of those corporate Democrats. And how would I bully them in a similar way that they're talking about, where they say, look, you vote against us, and let's see how it turns out for you in a primary. Okay, that's normal politics. But when they say things like, no, we should just give them a blank check and the Senate should not do its constitutional duty, nah, that's not right.

That's not anti-constitutional, right? I agree. That's not our democracy and our system of government. So you have to know how to play within the bounds of the constitution. You have to be for the system of democracy and constitutional republic that we have, but against the current corrupt system of the establishment. Separate out those two systems because one is great and the other one's horrible. To be clear about which system you're attacking.

Okay, now to Matt Gates. So look, he's got a history of saying terrible things, doing terrible things. He came on the show and it's not like we were shy about challenging him. He pretty much ran at the end, right? And we brought up those things as well. But he is the, why are they having this gigantic outsized reaction to Matt Gates? So one is justifiable for the reasons that I explain. But I think that there's a second reason.

And so the second reason is he keeps challenging the establishment of the Republican Party in a way that is super grating on their nerves, right? And he calls out corruption. Exactly where I was going on it. And he is one of the very rare Republicans. who stopped taking corporate pack money. And then as soon as he stopped taking corporate pack money, he started introducing bills to end corruption.

And that got all the way under their skin. Because remember, the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party are corrupt cronies of the establishment. He has called for the federal government to pardon Edward Snowden. He has said glowing things about FTC chair Lena Khan, much like J.D. Vance has.

And he's not all talk. I mean, his time in the House of Representatives was of course mixed. I mean, we had him on the show before and it did not go well, okay? We fought with him pretty aggressively. But nonetheless, you can't erase some of the legislation that he co-sponsored that were very much in favor of, including wanting to ban members of Congress from being able to trade individual stocks and things like that. So he really is a mixed bag. I don't know if the, no, it's not that I don't know, I don't think that the AG role is a good

role for him. But you know, Jake, I got to be honest, I really do think that there's a possibility that choosing him was meant to be so outrageous that every other pick pales in comparison. It makes it easier for the Republican senators to just confirm everyone else. Well, that's going to mind to the theory that I promised you at the beginning of the show. First, let me also note other incredibly dangerous possibilities with Matt Gates. Steve Bannon is now talking about, oh good, Matt Gates is going to come in. We should start arresting Ari Melburgh and other critics. Dude, if Trump were smart, he would distance himself from Steve Bannon, honestly.

Steve Bannon is not his friend, and Steve Bannon is not looking out for him. He's a loose Bannon. So if Matt Gates gets in and goes in that direction, the darkest of times, and he would be hated forever and ever in American history, not just now, but in the future, for trying to destroy the core positive constitutional system of this country. Okay, now, why do I think Trump appointed him? I think he's the sacrificial lamb. So that serves a couple of roles.

Number one, if he gets voted down, he gets to say, all right, you voted one down, but I want the rest of them. You better not mess with any of the rest of them, okay? Second of all, he was about to have the ethics report released a couple of days ago or a couple of days from now. He immediately steps down from the house as soon as he's appointed, so now they can't release it. Now they'll leak it because they hate him so much.

They can still release it. It's just that they no longer have any jurisdiction over him. Right. So it's convenient for Matt Gates, too. He had to get the hell out of the house before they released that report, right? Now, he could say the leaks are BS, et cetera, and he has more plausible deniability. But it serves his purposes because he was toast in the house anyway. So it gives Matt Gates a giant gift, even if he's going to be voted down.

But then one other element of it, remember, the worst of his picks are not these picks that people generally considered to be kooky. right? They're the team Miriam picks. Yes, right? Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio at state, Elise Stefaniq is UN ambassador, Huckabee as Israel ambassador, and Mike Walses' national security advisor. Those are hardcore establishment neocons who will do anything for Israel. They're the Israel first team. Those are the worst picks. And if you wanted to distract everyone from those picks, what would you do? Shiny objects, Squirrel, Matt Gates. 100%. That's such a good point. That is such a good point because as more and more news breaks about who Donald Trump is picking to, you know,

lead all of these different government agencies, I can't help but think about how, like, the ideological diversity among the crowd is really interesting, right? Because you've got the neocons, and I agree with you, they're my least favorite picks. And then you have people like, you know, Tulsi Gabbard as head of DNI, right? Who's, you know, who's, you know, She's not an establishment person, I have my issues with her, but nonetheless, she's very different from the neocons in some ways. You know, you have a Fox News anchor, you know, Pete Heggseth in the State Department. So I'm really curious to see how that plays out, right? He's in defense.

Oh, he's in the defense. That's right, that's right. So I'm curious to see how it all plays out, right? Are there going to be clashes with all these different individuals because they come from different, I, ideologies in a way. Yeah, you know how the Democrats always love to say, we're gonna do team of rivals, right? And then what they'll do, all establishment Democrats, and they'll pick one or two establishment Republicans who completely agree with them. Right.

And pretend that it's a team of rivals. And they'll go, oh, should we give everything to corporations? Yes, yes, yes, yes. What a team of rivals. And then if there's never any disputes between them and if there are, the Democrats immediately squash it and whoever's not in favor of corporate rule gets shown the door immediately, right? This could potentially be an actual team of rivals, right? So like for example, I'm not sure that Matt Gates is, I mean, he says he's anti-war, there's

some percentage chance that he means it. If he does, does that have, I mean, but he's attorney general, so it's domestic and not foreign, right? Right. Like Tulsi Gabbard is in a conflict in and of herself. She claims to be anti-war, but loves bombing Muslims. So where is she gonna go? What is she gonna do?

be fair to her and I'm just relaying what she has said on the record. She's against regime change wars, Jenk, but she was in favor of the war on terror. What the hell does that mean? That doesn't mean anything. Yeah, so I don't know. So sometimes a team of rivals is even within the one person. She's on the record. You can go back and watch it. People are sharing it all over social media today. She's on the record skewering Donald Trump for assassinating Qasem Soleimani. And if she still holds those same beliefs, then I will allow it. That's good, because that was irresponsible. And that's coming from Anna Kasparian, who originally exposed Tulsi Gabbard as a right winger.

Yeah. Was proven spectacularly correct after taking a giant amount of crap from so-called progressives, who by the way, never came back and said, oh, right, you were right all along. No, no, to be fair, they did, and I give them kudos for coming back and saying that. Now they need to come back and tell me I was right about crime and how that led to political backlash. Okay, but anyway, I got to show you a few more videos because they're amazing. So this morning, Representative Jeff Van Drew, a 71-year-old man called Trump Daddy on national television.

Even in the Mideast, where Hamas is saying, well, we were just trying to defend ourselves. Or, you know, countries indicating that they're going to be boys and girls now, you know, just to liken it to an old parable here, daddy's home, you know, and things are going to change. And we're going to go back to being a strong America. Congratulations. So there's that. I don't know how I feel about calling anyone other than your husband, daddy. But okay. And then there is one person who's pumping the breaks when it comes to Matt Gates. Let's watch. Are you on board with him as Attorney General, Senator Cruz? Well, I think it is critically important that we root out the partisan bias that under Joe Biden has infected the Department of Justice and has infected the FBI.

Joe Biden has weaponized our law enforcement and used it to target his political enemies. That has to end. Now, as for that particular nomination, look, we have a process under the Constitution where the Senate provides advice and consent. And I trust that process. That nominee, like every other, will have a vigorous vetting, we'll have confirmation hearings, and every nominee is going to be judged on the merits. I will say that was a pick that was, I think, very surprising to the entirety of the Senate. And so we'll assess the nominee on the merits, but there's a process that will unfold

that examines a particular nominee's background, their experience, and their suitability for a role. Senator Cruz will do as he's told. That's what he excels in. so I have no doubt that he will confirm Matt Gates. However, the two senators who I think will actually vote no, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. So they're very skeptical of Matt Gates and on the record about that. The fact that the Republicans picked up at least 52, maybe 53, depending on how the recount goes in Pennsylvania, sees in the Senate is disastrous because it'll allow the Susan Collins and the Murkowski's to pretend to be moderates throughout.

So they'll rotate those senators pretending to be moderate depending on the states that they're in. Meanwhile, they'll vote, but the entirely of the Republican Party will vote with Trump, the overwhelming percentage of the time as they always do. So it lets them off the hook completely. If it was like 50-50 and they needed all their votes, guarantee you that Susan Collins and Berkowski would bow. And they always do when the chips are on the line. They're fake moderates and they've been doing that their entire career. So in my opinion, sometimes very rarely I'll go, okay, they actually did need their vote and they voted no, but that is super rare, okay?

So now one of the thing about Ted Cruz, he says it's a very surprising pick. And I think that that's also part of the reason why they picked Matt Gates or Trump did. Because not only does he want to distract you with that big shiny object that they're all going to go nuts over those hearings and not listen to the other hearings as much, but also. It was an effue to the establishment. Like that's Trump saying, I'm not going to be like the others, right? So no, I'm not gonna pick, you know, this senator, the honorable gentleman from Connecticut and the honorable gentleman from Alabama and what every other guy does. I'm gonna pick people that are way off the board, right?

And Matt Gates is, as you can see from Cruz's reaction, even for Ted Cruz, way off the board. So he's sending a message, I'm not. a regular politician. We gotta take a break. When we come back, we're not quite done with Matt Gates yet because I do want to dive into his decision to resign from Congress. If you think it was about his AG nomination, don't be naive, there's something else behind it.

We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. Guys, remember 20% off of membership at t.com slash team for the monthly membership. So check that out when you get a chance. Bang, okay, good time for it. All right, Anna, what's next? Well, we gotta give you an update on Matt Gates's decision to step down from Congress. So let's get into it.

I just think it's silly. I believe that the president is probably rewarding him for being such a loyal soldier to the president. But the president is smart enough and his team is smart enough to know that Mr. Gates will never get confirmed by the Senate. It must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history. I think choices are very good except one. Look, Gates won't get confirmed. Everybody knows that. We're going to give the president a chance to put his people forward to every Republican give Matt a chance.

A lot of mixed reactions among Republican lawmakers in regard to Donald Trump picking former Congressman Matt Gates as his AG pick. But he stepped down from Congress just yesterday, which seemed like a weird preemptive move to make. There could be a reason behind it other than the AG nomination. So let's get into it. So here is the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson making the big announcement. yesterday. I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately

of Congress. That caught us by surprise a little bit, but I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, well, you can't have too many absences. So under Florida state law, there's about an eight-week period to select and fill a vacancy. And so by doing so today, that allows me, I've already placed a call to Governor DeSantis in Florida and said, let's start the clock. He's in Italy at the moment, and so we're gonna talk first thing in the morning about this. And if we start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as January 3rd when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress. So Matt would have done us a great service by making that decision as he did on the fly.

Yeah, that was all BS. Okay, complete and utter BS. What's really going on? Well, one potential reason why Matt Gates stepped down has to do with something that was reported by Jake Sherman over at Punchbowl. He says that Representative Matt Gates, or Matt Gates is, resignation from Congress came two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing a highly damaging report outlining its investigation into the Republican, according to multiple sources

familiar with the probe. And more importantly, the committee plan to vote Friday of this week on releasing the report. loses its jurisdiction over Gates when he leaves Congress. Now, as a reminder of what this investigation is all about, the House Ethics Committee has been investigating Matt Gates on and off since 2021 over several allegations, including sexual misconduct, elicit drug use, and obstruction of an investigation. Most recently, over the summer, the committee announced that it had also identified

new lines of inquiry that merited review, including whether Gates dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct. The committee also cleared him of some of the allegations, so I think it's important to be fair and mention that. So it would take no further action at the time on the allegations that Gates may have shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use and or accepted a bribe or improper gratuity. Now, according to the Washington Post, the Ethics Committee is still planning to meet

and they could still release their report as soon as tomorrow, so brace for impact. They could also potentially send the report to the Justice Department or the Senate ethics committee. And it does seem that senators are on board with the committee releasing the report for obvious reasons. The senators are tasked with confirming Matt Gates's nomination for AG. And it does seem that some senators, you know, are, you know, pushing for the report to be released, including Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin. I should also note that one of the more outrageous or controversial things that Matt Gates has been accused of is engaging in a sexual relationship with a minor, someone who's 17 years old. And we're

learning more about that. So John Clune, who's the attorney for that woman, says that Matt Gates did in fact have sex with her when she was 17. So there's that, there's more information about that as well. I can get into it. But, Jank, I want to give you a chance to weigh in. Yeah, so look, whenever they go to things about their personal character instead of attacking them on policy, I go, uh-oh, they probably disliked him for another reason, right? Having said that, in his case, some of the details are pretty sorted. But there's only really one that I care about. I don't care that he did drugs, who cares?

And I don't care what kind of sex he had. Oh, my God, I never want to hear about it and don't care at all, okay, with the exception of the 17-year-old. So if you had underage sex, then that's a significant problem. So let's figure that out, right? And if that's the case, obviously that's a giant issue. So the rest of it is just like salacious. And they're like, oh, he might have paid for sex.

I'm still trying to find a way to care. Nope, don't care. Couldn't find it. And so if that bothers your morals, okay, we agree to disagree on that. That's for me, that's their business, not my business. Does it affect what they do in government or doesn't it? Okay, so now, in terms of why they're doing this and the timing of it, yeah, this is a big thank you card from Donald Trump to Matt Gates to it's basically a gift to get him the hell out of Dodge. He's got to get out of the house before they release that report, especially if the stories about the 17 year old are true because then it would be official, it would be public.

They're going to probably, he has so many enemies, they're going to leak it anyway, like just like they did to Matt. Madison Cawthorne, right? The minute he starts talking against other Republicans, all of a sudden, we're seeing him in all these salacious pictures that they had all along but never released. And look, honestly, I want to understand why the DOJ dropped their investigation into Matt Gates, because they did, and let me just give you some information. The 17 year old at the time girl actually testified before the DOJ that they had a sexual relationship when she was 17.

Yeah, that's the thing, you know, so they dropped the, they give a super light sentence to Jeffrey Epstein many years ago, and that was under a Democratic administration, but the prosecutor who did that then was rewarded by Donald Trump and made Labor Secretary, a giant promotion that had nothing to do with his expertise. No one even noted it, right? So in this case, why did the Department of Justice under Biden drop this case? And that's always made me think, well, did they have it or did they not have it, right? Because if they don't have any, you're smearing the guy, that I'm going to get mad in the other direction. But if you have it and the Department of Justice dropped it, what are you guys doing? What are you doing, right? So, so that's why I've got, I still have a question mark around that. Me too. So let's, well, apparently we're going to find out one way or another. And obviously, Matt Gates is also deeply concerned about it.

And that is why he, he loves this because it lets him get out of the house with dignity. They were almost certainly going to kick him out no matter what. Right, let alone the releasing of the report. Once he went after Kevin McCarthy, the die was cast. Those establishment Republicans were never, ever going to let it go. They were always going to kick Matt Gates out of Congress no matter what happened. And it might well be that Matt Gates definitely deserved it, right? But whether he deserved it or not, they were going to kick him out. So he gets to get out of Dodge saying, well, I was going for a promotion. And I was going for attorney general. And he gets his brand in a sense uplifted by getting this nomination for

one of the four most important positions in any administration attorney general. Yeah, but look, I actually don't know if Trump did him a favor. I mean, Trump might have tapped Gates for AG thinking that he's doing him a favor. But I have no doubt that this report by the House Ethics Committee is going to be released one way or the other. And now with Matt Gates, getting this nomination, people are paying even more attention to him on a much bigger scale. So it's very likely, if it is a damning report, it's very likely going to be used as the reason why Senate Republicans rejected him for the AG role. So how does that lead to Gates winning? Because he didn't get kicked out of the House.

Oh, he stepped down on his own. He stepped up to try to get the Attorney General thing. And then he'll paint it as, but they did a character assassination of me and the deep state and all that stuff, right? Fair, okay, I guess. Now, I just want to reiterate what I said earlier in the show. Remember, this is also both sacrificial lamb and squirrel, right? So the four neocons that he nominated Rubio, Stephanic, Huckabee, and Walls were all pro-Israel, Israel firsters who say that yes, one of them said we should have a multi-generation. war and that your grandkids should be fighting that war. And so he wants to distract away from that because he pretended to be anti-war, but those guys

are all pro-war. And now no one is talking about those guys. For two reasons, by the way. One, because successful squirrel operation, hey, look over there, there's Matt Gates. And everybody stops looking over here. But number two is mainstream media loves those guys. They're like, oh, you brought in some professionals to make sure Israel's first and America's fourth, right?

Because you've got to put Saudi Arabia, Russia, a couple other things in there, right? So, so that's the sacrificial lamb. Like he knows he's going to take him, they're going to take him out. But then he gets to say also, hey, listen, you guys took him out. I'm drawing the line. No one else. I want everyone else confirmed, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, all the neocons, etc., etc. So that's the squirrel in the lamb.

And then, as I said a little bit earlier, he gets to say, Trump gets to say, I'm not like the others. I pick guys that are way off the board and what the establishment doesn't want, you want an FU to the establishment, this is an FU to the establishment. Yeah, so we'll see how it all plays out. But man, that report's probably going to be released tomorrow when I'm not on the show. You guys wait till Monday to cover it, okay? We'll see, we don't know what's in here.

All right, we're going to take a break when we come back. We'll talk a little bit about how it is that Donald Trump. managed to flip 10 different counties in the great blue state of California from blue to red. We'll be right back.