The Young Turks - Trump Ruins Santa For 7-Year Old And Another Migrant Child Dies In U.S. Custody

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

Trump answered a phone call from a little girl and ruins Christmas. A young migrant boy in Border Patrol custody dies on Christmas Eve. 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

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Welcome to the Young Church. Thank you, Granite and Kasparin with you guys. I have dramatic news that I fear sharing with you. And we've got three amazing days of TYT coming up for you guys. Twelve days of Christmas. Wrong, three days of TYT. Anyway, starting with tonight. So we're going to do 6 to 8 p.m. as we always do.

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They don't have to just watch it live, okay? So speaking of which, I wanted to give you just two quick announcements here. And then Trump went to Iraq, ruined Christmas, the stock market crashed and then recovered. There's a ton of news to get to. But real quick, first off, I do have a new leader. leaderboard in the host competition. All right, let's get on with it. Let's get on with it.

Okay. So over the weekend, I tried mightily to try to catch Anna Kasparian. She had a 99 person lead on me in the host signups. I did the six, seven, eight videos, whatever I did. I plug t.y.com slash Jake and almost all of them. Did I successfully catch it? Well, John Ida roll is a fun dream. Who cares about John, Jake?

Let's move on. By the way, I love John. I care about John, but not in this context. I forgot he wasn't in today, and I called him and he's a vacation in Texas. Like, can I help you? Okay, sorry, sorry, I didn't know you were away. Anyway, so Anna Kasparian with a ridiculous 513 signups, okay? Oh.

Okay, no, not a lead. I thought that was the lead. No, no, no, no, 513 signups. I was about to erupt in like song and dance. Okay, go ahead. Jank Uger. 530. Oh, okay.

Okay, no, no, no, I don't need, it's okay. Is that all the takes me to turn on me? It's okay. We do have a new leader. We do have a new leader. Okay, I work hard for you guys, okay. I do fear your wrath, Anna, and in your comeback now. I do fear it a little bit.

Okay, all right, let's see what happens. Okay. Anyways, let me tell you about the other program. That was just the member competition, I mean, the host competition is just fun. Okay, but this is relevant. So what we wanna do for you guys is get a progressive message out to other people in the media. So we've been doing this program called Amplify. And it's worked great so far and thank you to everyone who participated.

So we got messages out to people like Tucker Carlson and his team. And that means TYT membership. So they are now officially TYT members, Laura Ingram. But also Chris Hayes at MSNBC and others as CNN, including Chris Cuomo, Jake Tapper, and so many others, also to allies like Alexandria Ocaster-Cortez and her team, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, et cetera. But we realized there was an issue with what we were doing, which was that it was not as inclusive as it needs to be.

So we wanted to fix that here so that everybody can participate. Look, some of those have already led to us being on air after we got the Amplify package to Brian Stelter. I was asked to be on reliable sources, we've been asked to be on Laura Ingraham's show afterwards. So it's working really, really well, and thank you guys for doing that. And so what we wanted to do was open it up, because previously you had to buy the packages at a thousand bucks or for the podcast, 500 bucks, there's even bigger ones. And that's the fact that people participate in that is amazing.

But we want to let everybody have pride of ownership in that. And of course, it's only if you want to participate and you believe that that's a good way of spending a progressive message. Well, we opened up so now we could all do it together and fill up the $1,000 and then send it off to those different media outlets. So you can give $3, $27, whatever you want to. And as soon as the $1,000 is filled up, we will get that amount of membership, which is 20 memberships to the individual shows and send it to them.

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And everybody giving over 150 bucks gets an Amplified T-shirt, which is wonderful, and $1,000 gets you on the donor wall that we're going to put up here in the studio. And so all those packages are still available at t-y-t.com slash Amplify. So we hope that you can take part of this amazing campaign. And thank you for making it that amazing. We always do this together. Thank you. Okay. Now, Anna, lots of news.

All right. So later in the rundown, we're gonna get to the Syria stuff, what's happening in Syria, what's happening with the stock market. But first, we're gonna start off with a Christmas update, okay? Every year, there is this tradition where children call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command. And the whole point of this is like this cutesy tradition where kids want to figure out where Santa is on his voyage to the United States or to the world where he's supposed to deliver

gifts. Now, a seven-year-old called and Trump answered. And then, of course, in typical Trump fashion, he did something controversial. Let's take a look. You just have a good time. Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at seven it's marginal, right? You just enjoy yourself.

So he was talking to a seven-year-old named Coleman Lloyd, and that was the perspective from Washington, D.C. Let's see the perspective from Coleman Lloyd's home. You just have a good time. Yes, sir. Are you still a believer in Santa? Yes. Yes, sir. Because if seven, it's marginal, right?

Yes, sir. I look at her, catcher. You guys say hi to Mr. President. Enjoy yourself. Okay, there was a pause there where she was like, what? And later reporters did ask her, and she said, she doesn't know the word marginal. I'm actually surprised Donald Trump knows the word marginal. But okay, I was said to give him credit for this because, you know, it's actually,

in a lot of ways, a feel good story because the government is shut down and feels. 1,500 people volunteered to keep NORAD going, the Santa Tracker, so the kids can call in. It's a really nice thing. And Trump actually participated, which is, hey, wonderful, look, maybe you could say, hey, any president would have done that, but it doesn't matter. You have credit to any president that does do that. And he's not at Marlago, and he was at the White House, and his wife joined in, and they

calling these kids a lovely thing. But no one knows how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory better than Donald Trump. Oh, dad, you gave me $413 million? I'll go bankrupt six times. So here, he's got a really nice moment and you can get a nice pat on the back, which he desperately needs. And he tells a little girl, like, yeah, you still believe in Santa? Yeah, that's why she's calling to see where Santa is.

That's why she called in. You know, it's kind of marginal at seven. Like, what are you accusing her, like, not getting it quickly enough? So, let's be clear that Trump wasn't planning on being in Washington, DC at this time. The only reason why he's in DC or was in DC during the holidays was because of the government shutdown. So he had to cancel his trip to Mar-a-Lago.

That's where he was planning to be. So I don't know what persuaded or convinced him to take part in this, but he did it. So I guess credit where credit is due, but if he would have had his way, he would have been in Mar-a-Lago golfing. So let's keep it real about that. Secondly, to the parents, what are you doing? I'm sorry, like, if I think that there's a chance that Trump is going to answer the phone and talk to my kid, sorry, not going to happen.

Now look, I feel bad blaming the parents, right? But just think about what the consequences are once you put your kid in touch with the president of the United States. This isn't any president of the United States. This is Trump, he's a child, he's the guy who said, you know, s whole countries and referring to, you know, countries that he doesn't like, I just wouldn't want to ever use him as a role model for my kids or have my kids communicate with him. Yeah, I really want to lay off to parents because a lot of the MAGA guys are now attacking

them saying, oh, they should have already told them that Santa doesn't exist. It's their fault. That's bad parenting. Oh, for Christ. By the way, you know what that sounds like? Kind of sounds like a war on Christmas. Okay. I mean, look, what we tell you with conservatives, everything is projection, right?

But even the war on Christmas is now projection. Now Donald Trump's attacking Santa and attacking people, seven-year-old girls. He didn't attack her, but at least getting her to question that. Now, in terms of the parents, I don't know if they knew the president was going to be on the line or a scientist was going to be on the line. And that's a wonderful thing. And I'm being, I'm partially kidding when I say that. But Trump is not the kind of person that you want your kids to talk to.

Of course, they don't know whether or not the president's going to answer the phone. But if I heard Trump's voice, I'd be like, give me the phone. You're not talking to him. I think my eight-year-old might do a decent job of trolling him. Well, if your kids control him, then yeah, let them talk. Okay, but leave it to Trump to screw up even Santa. Okay, you were this close, you were this close, but you had to do it. By the way, even conservatives are ripping into him, and I found some of that amusing.

Bill Crystal was having fun, but I want to read you a couple of quick ones. Binyam and Applebaum, and I'm not saying he's conservative, said for once he tried to tell the truth and everybody's still mad at him about Donald Trump. Well, that part is actually true. And Bill Crystal, now the conservative, are you still a believer in Trump? Because at seven, it's marginal, right? I never thought I'd quote Bill Crystal positively. But there you go, Christmas and Donald Trump, ironically, bringing us together.

Right. Well, Trump was probably handling the calls the way that he did because he was super salty over the holidays, because of the government shut down, because of the fact he had to cancel that Mar-a-Lago trip. So I just want to share one tweet because it's so pathetic. And this is a tweet that he put out there on Christmas Eve. He says, quote, I'm all alone, poor me in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed border security.

At some point, the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our country, I don't know why country is capitalized, more money than the border wall we are all talking about crazy. Well, that is crazy. So, I mean, who writes poor me in a message to the world when you're the president? I mean, the president used to say- He has been disenfranchised. You know, he's had to, you know, fight adversity, and he's really had challenges in his life as the president of the United States.

Yeah, I mean, the poor guy only got $413 million from daddy, right? and got bailed out every single time he went bankrupt, and then ran against the worst presidential candidate in American history and was magically gifted the White House by the Democratic Party. Poor me, poor me, right? He wind up adopting the economy and the stock market that Obama had handed it to him, which was doing really great until recently. Poor him, but it doesn't matter. The main point is, really you got, you need a safe space.

at the White House, the president used to say, and Harry Truman originally said this, the buck stops here about the Oval Office, and Donald Trump is the exact opposite. The buck stops over there, over there, oh, poor me, I'm all alone in the White House. He's home alone. He's a child who's home alone. He was, by the way, in one of those movies. So it's perfectly fitting. But for him to cry to melt in front of everyone, like the special snowflake that he

Yeah, he was- It's amazing, it's amazing. Can you imagine if Obama put out a tweet saying, I'm all alone in the White House, poor me. Conservatives would be like, oh, I'm gonna get this leading for me on, no way, right? They would have gone nuts. Well, he went nuts on Christmas Eve. I mean, the tweets were crazy and they were, and the only reason why you're alone in the White House on Christmas Eve, and the only reason why you had to cancel your phone.

fancy little trip to Marlago is because you allowed Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to manipulate you into this government shutdown. Remember, he was ready and willing to accept a deal with Democrats, and the deal was, no, we're not giving you the $5 billion for the border wall, but we'll give you some money for border security that is not to be used on the wall. He was ready to sign on to that. And then he got goaded into the situation that we're currently dealing with by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

I mean, it's so pathetic. So finally, look, other presidents have been in bad shape in the White House. Lyndon Johnson was very strong on the outside, and I respect the strength, but was shockingly insecure on the inside for people who knew him in the White House. But the idea that Lyndon Johnson would go out and put a message to the world going, poor me is inconceivable, no matter how much of a wreck he was, Nixon was an absolute disaster internally. It was a total wreck drinking way too much.

Lennon Johnson also drinking way too much, et cetera, et cetera. But none of them, that's because they're smart. Nixon is a bad guy. Johnson's a mixed record, but they're both unquestionably intelligent. They would have enough sense not to do a public message to the world going, poor me! Because that's what a really... It's what a child does.

It's what a child does. He's what a girl in high school does after her boyfriend breaks up with her. Like she goes on Twitter and, you know, airs her dirty laundry. Like, not to pick on girls, but I mean, it's just a high school juvenile behavior. That's what I'm trying to say here. Yeah, and I think that most people, by the time they're in high school, have grown out of it. And this guy is over 70 years old, he's the president of the United States, and he puts

out messages like that. That's just- Sad. Exactly. It's both, and speaking of projection, to end on that, but. note. What does he write all the time in his tweets? Sad, crazy, just like he did at the end of that one. Exactly right. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to switch gears and tell you about another tragic story about an eight-year-old in border patrol custody. And later we'll talk about what's going on with the stock. We need to talk about a relatively new show

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The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today

and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on a Young Turks. I wanna first give shout outs to all the folks who participated in Amplify over the weekend and up until now. Martin D. Mooderster from Netherlands, $150, you're getting an Amplified T-shirt. Thank you, brother. Really appreciated. Candice Weiss from Seabrook, New Hampshire, Same, Sarah Bet and Brad Koltzler from Olympia, Washington,

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Okay, Mark Garcia from Miami Lakes, $150, you're all getting the Amplified T-shirt. Jade Neighbor are-R. Christians from Miami Lakes. Oh, look at that. So next time Anna is on vacation, you might run into her, Mark. Alexis Haas from Fenton, Michigan, 150, Joan Masters, Connecticut, 150. Matt Spikes, Thornton, Colorado, 150, Sam Z from upstate New York, 150. Devin Mason from Baltimore, Maryland, 50 bucks.

We really appreciate it, guys. Jason Huggin from Santa Cruz, California, 150. Larry Pimentel from Fort Worth, Texas, 150. You guys are awesome, we appreciate it, we help build home progressives, and you get our message out to journalism students and members in the media. I want to look at our membership number right now and see where we are. We're trying to get to 42,000 by the end of the year. There's only five days left, basically.

Six base, if you count today, 41,387. Look, we got five hours on the air today, including a wonderful old school coming up. So I hope you guys can help get us there to, can we see 41,000, 500 by the end of today, that would be amazing. And on t.com slash media, we're on the board, we're on the board. I saw this one ahead of time. Can I see how much that thermometer is? $10, we're on the board.

Okay. Wait, what is this? This is $1,000 to get to Fox and Friends and Amplifying programs so they can get Young Turks membership. Got it. So one person has given so far, we just announced it a couple minutes ago. Thank you to that person as well. And then real quick, let me read your comments which are great.

Eclectic Michelinia, this is all members. Trump being elected president proves that there is no Santa Claus or God for that matter. Yes. That's funny. Matt Strachbein writes in, Just Renewed My Membership, Too Strong, Thank you, Matt. Silver Harlow, maybe if he finds a job too hard and inconvenient, he should consider letting someone else to do it. Excellent point, thank you for writing that in. And Dietrich, finally, world leaders look at this tweet and see weakness.

Of course they do. I mean, how else can you interpret? I'm all alone, poor me. Okay, if anybody, like if I'm playing poker with that guy, I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm gonna take all this money. So, anyway, bless your hearts for all of you for participating and for sending in comments, t.com slash join to become a member. All right, what's next, Dana? All right.

Unfortunately, we have a pretty tragic story. The second minor, an eight-year-old in Border Patrol custody has died. And based on the reports that we're seeing, he died from a medical illness that has not been disclosed. Right now, the story is still developing, and we're only hearing from the side of border patrol. But here's what we know so far. The boy has been identified by a representative, Joaquin Castro from Texas, and the boy who died on Christmas Eve is Felix, Alonzo Gomez.

The boy's father was with him in the hospital where he was initially diagnosed with a cold, Doctors discovered a fever, he was kept for observation for 90 minutes, but then he was released with prescriptions for antibiotics and pain relievers. So the doctors check him in, they examine him, they realize he has a fever, but they give a medication, and then they release him. But then things unfortunately got worse. So the child returned to the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center later that evening, and then he passed away.

So multiple reports indicate that he actually lost consciousness on the way to the hospital and staff were unable to resuscitate him. He was pronounced dead at 11.48 p.m. on Christmas Eve. This is now the second child who has died in Border Patrol custody. And again, the story is developing and we're only hearing one side of the story. But the big question is, why was he released? especially considering the fact that he had a very high fever, over 102 degree fever. And also does Border Patrol have the resources necessary to deal with this influx of minors?

And Jenk, before I go to you, I want to toss to this video. And it features the Border Patrol commissioner talking to CBS's this morning about this minor's death and the reasons why he thinks that these deaths are happening. Take a look. Are you satisfied with the medical conditions and physical conditions? I guess resources that are available at these detention centers, should sick children come back into your custody there? So I've explained to Congress, I've testified in this, I've talked about it publicly for

months and months, that what we're seeing with these flows of huge numbers of families with lots of children, young children, as well as unaccompanied minors coming into border of child custody after crossing the border unlawfully, that they're not, our stations are not built for that group that's crossing today. They were built 30, 40 years ago for single adult males, and we need a different approach. We need help from Congress. We need to budget for medical care and mental health care, for children in our facilities. And I'm committed to improving our conditions, even as we work on the broader problems,

border security, and of course, solving the issues in our legal framework that are inviting these families and children to make this dangerous journey. So the eight-year-old and his father were being held at a border patrol checkpoint, which is not the type of facility that has the resources necessary to take care of anyone with any type of medical illness. So that's one of the issues. But before people make any types of judgments on what occurred, let me just be clear. One of the reasons why resources are lacking, and one of the reasons why Border Patrol

has so many children in their custody is because of the types of policies that Trump has been pushing for. So for instance, they keep talking about people entering the country legally. They keep blocking ports of entry, so it makes it impossible for people to enter the legal way, which is through a port of entry. Secondly, Trump has been so punitive toward sponsors who can come forward and actually claim sponsorship of these kids that people are just not coming forward to take custody of the kids and take care of the situation.

So now we have law enforcement dealing with the issue with limited resources. So what Anna means by punitive is some of those sponsors are undocumented on. And so you can say, hey, listen, we should find those folks and round them up. And I get that that's a right wing position. But probably not the best time to do it when they're coming to pick up kids. And so when Trump did that, they sent a message to everyone that, hey, don't pick up the kids. You'll get arrested. So now a lot of times the kids are not being picked up because there are no citizens

that know that they're here. And so they're staying in facilities for much, much. longer, those decisions have reverberating consequences. So in terms of this death, there are a couple of different issues. What is the hospital decision to send them back? It's impossible to know at this point if that is what they would have done if a citizen had come in, if they would have said, hey, look, you know what, I just think it's a cold or a fever, and they give him ibuprofen, and they gave him an antibiotic, and maybe that's what

they would have done with everybody. And so it was just kind of a freak accident that the situation got worse and deteriorated and the kid died. It's entirely possible. Is it possible that they see that they're coming in with customs and border patrol or protection and they look at the kid a little differently and don't want to waste resources on them? I don't know. I really don't.

And so I don't want to put that on the people who made that decision in that hospital, okay? But I do know that the right wing talks about it in that way. Hey, we don't want to waste our resources on these people. So when we say, for example, they actually pay into taxes like Social Security and Medicare and never get it back. They go, oh yeah, but sometimes they show up at the hospital and use our valuable resources. Yeah, so their eight-year-olds don't die. And so if you think, hey, good, they shouldn't have wasted our resources.

Okay, I'm not saying the hospital said that at all, but I do know that that is a right-wing talking point, no question about it. So understand that if you're using that talking point, this might be one of the consequences. Can you live with it? And maybe the answer is yes. But I hope most of the country can't live with it. That's not shining city on a hill. That's not America as a beacon for the rest of the world.

That's America being barbaric. So now the other issue, why are they, why was this dad and the kid in customs and border protection custody for so long because they're supposed to, and understand this, this is complicated, okay? So they're supposed to be handed off to ICE, actually, or other departments. So Customs and Border is supposed to only keep them for 72 hours and then hand them off to facilities that actually are trained and built to keep people longer. Now we don't want, as people on the left, we don't want them being kept longer by ice either, certainly, right?

And we don't want them keep being kept longer by any other agency. But CBP, CBC, sorry, is not built for that. So it creates unique problems. That is possibly among the reasons why two kids, seven and eight years old, have died so close together because they're keeping them for way too long. So that is an identifiable problem, that we are sure of. Not sure what happened at the hospital, but certainly sure that they should not be holding them a week.

Now, I'm gonna do a little bit of conjecture as to why they're holding them for a week. There's been court rulings saying that other agencies can't hold them for that long if they're kids. So maybe they're warehousing them at customs when they shouldn't be before they hand them off to other agencies to try to extend the clock. And then when you have people who aren't prepared or equipped for this, all of a sudden kids start dying. And so that is why it's important that we have rule of law, that you follow with.

what a court tells you to do. Because a court considered that. That is why they tell you to release the kids quickly. Because these government officials, I mean, the ones that the right wing said are bureaucrats and big government can never do anything right. You're trusting them to take care of these tiny kids and oftentimes if they're not equipped for it, they can't follow the law for God's sake and they won't do it. And so now again, it tragedy strikes that was preventable.

One last thing, that guy that we showed you the video of saying, oh, well, you know, the last part of the puzzle here is, are basically his implication was lax laws in America that encouraged the immigrants to come. Donald Trump's been president for two years. He's been bashing immigrants, calling him criminals, rapists, ripping their kids away from their family members for two years. And yet you're still blaming lax laws? I mean, are they ever going to take any personal responsibility?

No, of course they're not. They'll never take responsibility. I mean, look at our president who refuses to ever take personal responsibility for anything. Whether it's the stock market, you know, in its volatile state, Trump will never take responsibility. And again, the fish always rots from the head down. But I think that you're right in that, you know, based on the reporting that we're seeing, customs and border patrol is detaining families for longer periods of time. And we don't know exactly why that is.

But just to give my view or my analysis on it, the other government agencies that are supposed to be handling these situations literally do not have the resources to do it, right? So all of these facilities that detain migrants are full. They're above capacity at this point. And so why? We gotta figure out why. Is it because there are so many people coming in that we don't have the infrastructure in place to deal with it?

No, we've had an infrastructure in place. It's just that the right wing has been so paranoid about it. So before, right, someone comes in seeking asylum, they'll go in through a port of entry, or if they get caught in the country legally, they can say they're here seeking asylum. And we have a process. And the process back in the day, you know, the Republicans call it catch and release. I call it, hey, this is the smart way to handle it because we don't have the facilities to house all these people.

So they would find sponsors for the kids, right? And they would not be as punitive towards sponsors who might be undocumented. And more importantly, they trusted other forms of technology to keep track of these migrants to ensure that they would go to their court dates, right? So whether it was an ankle bracelet or whatever, they would find other ways to track them rather than keeping them locked away until a judge can finally hear their case. So let's go back to a situation that makes more sense instead of putting all these kids and all these families in detention facilities that have limited resources so we don't

have kids dying left and right. Another official from Customs said, it's a fluke, we haven't had a kid die in a decade. He didn't say that flippantly, to be fair to him, but he did say we haven't had any kid dying over a decade, and the fact that two died in a week is just a coincidence. No, it's not, no, it's for all these factors that we explain. At a bare minimum, and you have to acknowledge this, we're taking a risk with those people's lives. And I guess, again, the right wing in this country feels like, yeah, who cares?

Well, they shouldn't have come here. Okay, but look, your ancestors probably shouldn't have come here. Whether they were starving because of the potato famine in Ireland, whether it was war that chased them out in Italy or Norway or wherever they came from or China or anywhere else. But they came here because they had no other choice and they were desperate running from violence and poverty. So we have a bare minimum that we owe people, which is to keep them alive, even if we're going going to later deport them and say, hey, no, you have to do it legally and you have to do it with

papers and documents, et cetera. And if we can't meet that standard, who are we? And so if you're a right winger and you say, good, okay. And that's fine. At least you're clear. That's fine. If you're a right winger and you're okay with this, that's okay, you're entitled to your opinion. But the only thing that I ask is that you remain consistent in not caring about children's

lives. And when I say that, I mean, whenever the issue of reproductive rights come up, please spare me your fake outrage over abortions. Because you don't care about life, you don't value life, you only pretend you do when it's convenient. That's the only thing I ask, just be consistent in your political ideology. We're taking a risk with these kids' lives, and now a seven-year-old girl is dead and an eight-year-old boy died on Christmas Eve.

If you don't care about that, what kind of person are you? So I think that we need to get them out of customs as quickly as possible. We should follow the law, get him out before 72 hours, and we should go back to a system that was humane and efficient and made sense. And it doesn't mean you allow everybody to stay in the country, but it means that there is an orderly legal process to deal with people, because that legal process has built in safeguards so kids don't die in our custody. It's not too much to ask for.

Moving on to other news. We are currently in the middle of a government shutdown. This is the third government shutdown under the Trump administration. Now this shutdown is all about Democrats refusing to give Donald Trump the $5 billion he demands for the border wall. Now both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer remain firm on this. They say that they, under no circumstances, will give Trump what he wants, which is, again, $5 billion for the border wall.

But to be fair, there are also some Republican lawmakers who disagree with Trump on this issue as well and would like him to agree to sign a spending bill so we can, you know, make sure that the government is back in action. Now with that said, Trump addressed the issue of the government shutdown with reporters, and let's hear what he had to say. I can't tell you where the government's going to be open. I can tell you it's not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they'd like to call it. I'll call it whatever they want.

The only way you're going to do it is to have a physical barrier, meaning a wall. And if you don't have that, then we're just not opening. What's your message to the federal workers, sir, who have been impacted by the shutdown in some way, either they're not going to pay it or not working? Well, I think they understand what's happening. They want border security. The people of this country want border security. You know, it's not a question of me, I'd rather not be doing shutdowns.

I've been at the White House and I love the White House. But many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. So I love that video because of what he said toward the end, which is essentially putting words in the mouths of government employees who are not getting paid right now. They're either working without getting paid or they've been furloughed. sorts of terrible things happening to about 800,000 government workers, all because Trump is throwing this temper tantrum over the wall.

So look, numerous news outlets went out and actually spoke to these employees to hear what they think about it. Like really? Are you happy with what the president is doing? Do you think that it's all worth it if we get the border wall? And the majority of reports that I've seen include quotes where people are not very happy about this. Of course!

Of course! Like who, which federal worker is like, hey, oh, I'm not getting paid and I might actually, because of the way things are structured, might never get paid for those periods, including Christmas and New Year's Eve. It's not like I would need money around Christmas at all, right? I'm thrilled about that. I'm further thrilled that Congress is still getting paid. That politicians are the only ones in the government still getting paid.

I'm thrilled about it. Thank you, Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah. So I gotta just elaborate a little more on that because that's the part that enrages people like me the most. Because our lawmakers made sure to budget in their salaries in previous negotiations about spending bills, right? They wanted to make sure that they covered their bases and they still brought home the money.

But when it comes to all these other government workers, they're playing this ridiculous game of chicken. Now I don't want, don't get me wrong, I don't want Democrats to cave because $5 billion, is no joke, and it's certainly not a joke when you're using it on a nonsense wall that's not gonna solve anything. But with that said, I want you to hear from an actual government employee. This is a man by the name of Justin who actually works as a correctional officer in West Virginia, and here's what he said.

The big thing is, being a correctional officer is already a very tough job. But when you know that you've got to go to work and you're not gonna get paid for it, it's going to be late, no matter what, it really brings you down, right? So they're not happy. Again, that's just one quote. But the majority of quotes that I've seen in interviews that I've seen include people who are devastated by this. Now with that said, I want to give you an idea of how much of an impact this is having on Americans

throughout the country. As I mentioned earlier, there's as many as 800,000 government employees who are being affected by this. Transportation Security Administration or TSA agents and air traffic controllers are working without paid during the busiest travel days of the year. They will probably be paid retroactively, but workers don't know when that paycheck will hit their bank accounts. Also, some law enforcement agents, such as FBI and immigration and customs enforcement workers

and officers at correctional facilities were forced to cancel long-planned Christmas vacations. If they qualify as essential personnel, they are required to work during a government shutdown or face indefinite furlough. So I think they should do a real government shutdown. And I think that they would be incredibly valuable. And it would only last a couple of hours before mayhem broke out. And right now when they do these fake government shutdowns, they have essential employees still work, just not get paid, and they just decide that they're not going to have it

apply to some parts of the government. Well, no, if we're doing a government shutdown, let's do a real one, okay? So no military, no one at TSA, so the airports are all shut down. Look, I know it's a federal issue, not a state one, but if they could, no cops, no fire department. Now you say that sounds extreme. Yeah, that's right, because government does a lot for us. And no one ever gets it. When there's a government shutdown and they're like, oh, I can't go to the parks.

Okay, I guess that's what government is. I can't go to the parks. Big deal. Hey, I'm not a government worker. Remember, right wingers have no empathy. So they don't, if it doesn't directly affect them, they don't care at all. So they're like, yeah, so what, man, yeah, I'm not going to Montana to the parks this year. So what, yeah, it's somebody else's job, right?

So no, let's shut it down for real and see how you like no government. I know because Republicans like to, they're, we can go ahead, communists get upset at this too. But they both have a utopia at the end where government melts away. And we all hold hands and sing of unicorns, okay? That's not how it works. You actually need a government to function, for a society to function. And so, but these stories are gonna break through to people who already don't want a government shut down, to progressives, to moderates, independence, et cetera.

For the right wingers, they're not gonna break through unless it's their ass on the line. And so yeah, some of them are government workers and they'll be outraged. They'll be like, well, I didn't know he was gonna do it to me. How many times have we done that story? I didn't know who's gonna build a wall in my backyard. I don't know that. I don't know who's gonna deport my husband. I didn't know they were going to deport people.

I know, I didn't know that, right? So there'll be some of that, but not enough. So you want to shut it down, shut the whole, shut the whole thing down? Let's see how it turns out, right? And then you know what will happen? People will panic and go, oh, please, please bring the government back. And that would be an interesting situation. Look, we're not, we don't believe the Republican lies.

We're not for big government. We're for whatever government is necessary. Okay, we don't want it to be any bigger than it is. We don't want to starting wars in the Middle East for no goddamn reason, wasting our dollars and our soldiers' lives to do it. We don't want big government. We just want as much government as necessary. So this is the second time that Trump has spoken for other people, though it's done it a million

times. But recently, right, oh, the federal workers, they love being paid for not for even though they're working. They love that. Shut up, nobody believes that, you stupid liar, okay? And then remember he just last week was like, oh, yeah. The dead soldiers and he pointed to the sky, oh, they want me to withdraw from Syria. I actually want to withdraw from Syria, but you don't have the right to lie on behalf

of dead soldiers, you don't know what they want. How the hell would you know what they want? What a preposterous guy. The problem is politicians and people like Trump are so used to using members of our military, veterans and soldiers as props, as political props to exploit. And so he went a little far with that one, but as always, you know, doesn't matter how much He puts words in the mouths of fallen soldiers or how much he insults them in some cases. For some reason, it doesn't break through for his base.

But one other thing I wanted to add is, what is the end game, right? What is the end game? Because he's asking for $5 billion for a border wall that will actually cost somewhere around $20 to $70 billion to construct. So what? We're gonna have this ridiculous fight over and over again every time, you know, debates about spending bills come up, it's ridiculous. And finally, I mean, again, go to the heart of the issue here, which is, okay, undocumented

immigration, we want to do something about that. A wall is not going to solve undocumented immigration, right? There is a huge portion of undocumented immigrants here in the United States right now who just overstayed their visa. A wall is not going to solve it. So again, what is the end game here? He doesn't know, he's never thought about it. All he knows is that he loves cable television, and once you have the Ann Coulters of the world

mocking him for not building the wall, he will do anything and everything to essentially destroy the country to get what he wants, or what Ann Coulter wants. Yeah, and so if you're a right winger, you must concede, although you don't concede to any facts of reality, that $5 billion is not $20 to $70 billion. I don't know if you also have a war on math, I know you have one on science. So that means the wall in its entirety, as he promised you, is never going to be built because now the Democrats have the House. So now you can say, well, hey, it's the Democrats' fault because they took the House, et cetera.

And Trump's doing the best he can. No, no, no, no, no. I want this to sink in. He promised you the wall. He said my school was going to pay for it. You knew that was a lie. Everybody knew that was a lie. I'm past that, okay?

But he didn't prioritize it. He could have fought for the whole, let's say, let's take the lower number, $20 billion. He could have fought for the $20 billion when he had all Republicans controlling the House and the Senate. He had two years to do that and he didn't do it. What did he prioritize instead? Tax cuts for the rich. So that's what his priorities were all along.

The wall was just a gimmick and the $5 billion standoff for a wall that cost $20 to $70 billion. And now he says, call it anything you're like. Nancy Pelosi came out today and said, should we call it a be beaded curtain? Because now Trump is saying it's not a wall. It's going to be steel slats. Wait a minute, I thought you're the one who said it had to be a big, beautiful wall made of concrete with a big beautiful door. You made fun of Hillary Clinton saying that those steel slats were offense. So, and look, we're progressives, but we care about reality.

This is all to do about nothing. The Democrats are also in favor of offense. And it's offense that Trump is now fighting for. So, but understand that if you're a right winger and you supported Donald Trump, he made sure to prioritize the rich and multinational corporations above you, even though he ran ads talking about the globalists and the elites and how he's going to build you that big, beautiful wall. It was a lie all along. This is just the last part of the lie.

We gotta take a break when we come back. Trump finally visits troops in Iraq. We'll give you the details on that and also what's happening in Syria. 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 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 cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN.

And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-T. T.Y.T. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at tYT.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on a young Turks. Some great comments from the members that I want to read first.

Jedi Protector writes in, just thinking about how Trump manages businesses makes me quiver. Doesn't care about human lives, hates to give empathy, and just thinks about money. Child services should have taken away his kids a long time ago and gave them the parents who actually cared. Now, I don't know about that last part, but I do know that the United States government is not a business. And there are different ways to run a business, and there's differences between a private company and a public company.

But if you run the government, which is supposed to represent the people like a business, that has a host of problems. Because the priority of the United States government should not be to maximize money. It should be to maximize the public good for the citizens. I don't think Donald Trump understands that at all, let alone important things like bankrupting your private business is your problem and your creditors problem. Bankrupting the United States government is the world's problem. will lead to an economic crash like we have never seen, okay?

He just doesn't understand it. All right, Jasmine wrote in, the tragic circumstances that led to the death of this eight-year-old boy happens every day to American citizens with no or insufficient health care. That is a great point, Jasmine. I mean, we let kids die in this country if they don't have health insurance. So we don't let them die if they're bleeding. We take them to the hospital. Hopefully, the hospital takes care of them.

But if they have cancer, it's a death sentence. This system is unreal. Manda Kruger writes, and Trump can't take responsibility because he is weak. Strong people take responsibility for their actions. Weak people whine and cry on Twitter. Ah, such a good point. I love our members. Speaking of which, Logan says, hey, TYT, Army, new member here.

Thank you, everyone, for providing a ray of sanity during these dark times. Oh, and Jank, it's okay to lose the subfight to Anna. It's like a college football team versus the NFL. Okay. Currently, I am leading, Logan. A massive, unbelievable Christmas miracle happened over the weekend. I'm not saying anything except for the words I just spoke. T.wit.com slash jank.

Apparently, I don't feel bad enough to promote myself. Okay. But it is very close now. So which means the next six days is going to be dramatic. It's at the top of the show is 513 to 530. So, okay, let's check it on the media thermometer. We're doing, and we're going to be talking about this throughout for the next couple of days. We're doing these Amplify packages.

This one is for Fox and Friends. So if it gets to $1,000, we're going to send 20 memberships to Brian Kilme, Steve Ducey, and the Fox and Friends crew. It's already at 446. You guys are amazing. If it gets to a thousand, we'll send it over to them, and we'll put up the next package. And if you want to do it by yourself, that's also excellent, t-yt.com slash amplify to be able to do that. I want to check the member count real quick. This is our thermometer for what we're trying to get to.

We were at 41,387 when we started the show. Let's see where we are now. 41-398. So let's see if we can get to 415 by the end of the festivities today. And we are going five hours today. And finally, I got to mention the shop. Shop T.O.T.O.T. has yet another crazy sales, 25% off the resist collection. So use the code New Year to get 25% off the resist collection.

Okay, Anna, what's next? All right. Donald Trump received a lot of criticism for his refusal to visit troops in combat zones. Well, today, he actually surprised troops along with Melania Trump in Iraq. And he had some strong words of defense in terms of his decision to pull troops out of Syria. Now, I want to go to the video where he explains himself, and then I'll give you some more details on what's currently happening in Syria. The other reason I'm here today is to personally thank you and every service member throughout this region for the near elimination of the ISIS territorial caliphate in Iraq. And in Syria, two years ago, when I became president, they were a very dominant group.

They were very dominant. Today, they're not so dominant anymore. Great job. I looked at a map, and two years ago, it was a lot of red all over that map. But now you have a couple little spots, and that's happening very quickly. That's happening very quickly. You'll be seeing that. Wow, he looked at a map.

That's impressive for Trump. So he also went on to defend his decision to withdraw troops from Syria, something that we've actually been supportive of. He said he rejected requests by US military commanders for more time to defeat the last remnants of the Islamic State in Syria. And this is what he was quoted as saying, I said, nope, you can't have any more time, you've had enough time, we've knocked them out, we've knocked them silly. Now it does appear that ISIS lost a lot of ground in Syria.

So he is right in stating that. But there are still some ISIS fighters in the country. And so the argument for people like us is if they start to gain ground again in Syria, we We have the capabilities to target them from Iraq, where we still have our troops. We have about 5,500 troops there right now, and he has no plans on withdrawing those troops. But we'll see what happens in the future. Yeah, so the context is, in Syria, we only had 2,000 troops withdrawing them, and the whole media melts down.

They send every general that now currently works for a defense company or think tank funded by defense companies on television, and all the anchors breathlessly say, all of them, My God, our lives are ruined because he's withdrawing from Syria. But we've got 5,500 troops in Iraq, and we got about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan. Now, he says he wants to withdraw from Afghanistan. I think that's fantastic news. So I guess you're not allowed to say that on television. I think they finally allowed Rand Paul to go on TV and say that.

But for a while, it was a blockade for nearly a week where everybody was saying was the worst decision he'd ever made, which is preposterous. arguably one of the best decisions he's ever made. So we gave him grief, rightfully so, for not visiting the troops. Why? According to sources inside the White House, he was scared for his own life, and he didn't want to take chances with his life, which is pretty much on brand for Donald Trump. He ran from Vietnam with fake bonespurs.

It's another story in the news today. And so, but finally, and this is way later than all other recent presidents, Bush went almost Every year, Obama did as well, they would always go and see the troops. Finally he goes, good, I'm glad he went, and the troops gave him a standing ovation. So he's really warmly received. By the way, so was Bush and Obama, but it's good to see that, that's fine. I don't want the troops, it's not a baseball game where you boo the president, right? I want that to be some decorum and respect, maybe you think that's goofy, but I believe

in that. And so that doesn't mean that you then listen to generals who can't wait to work for defense contractors, it means, hey, the troops, that's the commander in chief, as abhorrent as I personally think he is. So anyway, I give him credit for going. I give him credit for the idea to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. And we believe in principle, rather than in just picking sides and being partisan. We're progressives, but if you agree with us, I'm gonna say yes, I'm not gonna say no.

Well, there's another part of this story that I want to get to. So Donald Trump announces that he will withdraw the 2,000 American troops from Syria. But it appears that after his announcement, the U.S.-led coalition in Syria continued on with their previous foreign policy. So according to the Hill, the U.S.-led military coalition announced airstrikes and coordinated attacks against ISIS in Syria days after Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. U.S. troops from the country. So the attacks were actually carried out from December 16th to the 22nd in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. Also, keep in mind that we have allies who have assisted us in what's going on in Syria.

So those allies might continue on with what they had previously planned. So for instance, the U.K. Major General Christopher Gahika says the following, ISIS. presents a very real threat to the long-term stability in this region, and our mission remains the same, the enduring defeat of ISIS. So they're continuing on. And then there's the added layer of Israel's involvement, because the Israeli government has actually gotten more involved following Trump's announcements. Anna, before we go to the Israel involvement, because I think the Israeli actions are

a little different, although obviously related, I just want to say about the U.S.-led military coalition, the bombing. They said after this that this was a, quote, significant blow to the terrorist group's ability to finance this activities. They claimed about taking out all these fighters, as Anna told you, and that they have, quote, severely degraded the group, which I'm always amused by that language. They degraded him, humiliated him, told them they were naughty boys. Anyway, but in terms of how they mean it, I know what they mean.

Like, oh, man, we messed them up. And they're, man, they're now in really bad shape. They're severely degraded. But I've heard that dozens of times. So if I'm Trump, I ask the same question he asks. Wait, can you tell me you severely degraded them 38 times already? How badly can we degrade them? Okay, they're pretty humiliated.

So the military industry complex never, ever wants to withdraw. I don't know who ordered these. I don't know how the reality of how well these strikes went. Because no matter what strikes we do, they always come out and say, oh, we got. They were all terrorists that we killed, and it was a fantastic mission. Two weeks later, in page A17 of the paper, by the way, we hit the wrong place, and it didn't do anything, and that's why ISIS is still around. Well, which one is it, guys?

I mean, I'm asking the military industrial complex, have we severely degraded them 38 times over? Or are they still a significant threat and monstrous that we need to stay in Syria forever for? Make up your mind. So what's happening in Syria is very much a proxy war, something that we've talked about and outlined a lot on the show. And Israel is involved because Iran is involved.

So Iran has influence in Syria, and so Israel sees that as a threat. And following Trump's announcement of withdrawing troops from Syria, Benjamin Netanyahu made a decision to act. And he did so through airstrikes near Damascus. And unfortunately, there were some civilians who were, who could have lost their lives as a result of these missiles, or these airstrikes, I should say. But I want to give you a Reuters news report that kind of highlights and details exactly what happened. Take a look.

Israeli jets reportedly hitting targets near Damascus on Tuesday night. This video from Hezbollah purporting to show surface-to-air missiles fired in response, the nature of the targets unclear, though Syrian state media says an arms depot was damaged. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit bases used by Hezbollah or Iranian forces. No confirmation of the attacks from Israel, but the Israeli defense forces said they had responded to a missile fired from Syria. In the past, Israel's Air Force has struck scores of targets it says are connected to Iran or Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu did release a statement saying, quote, I have said that we will not be deterred from doing what is necessary.

President Trump's decision to withdraw the American soldiers from Syria will not change our policy. We are standing steadfast in our red lines in Syria and everywhere else. Well, good luck with that. So Israel is launching strikes into a different sovereign country. And, you know, I think the government of Syria is terrible. don't support Bashar al-Assad, and I think he's a dictator on anything that civil war has been disastrous, that doesn't mean that I support bombing that country. And so if Israel decides, hey, our policy is to bomb them.

I know we're not ever going to say it in America, but isn't it fair to say, okay, well, then that's your problem, not my problem, we're looking to withdraw from Syria. You want to get involved in deeper in Syria? Have that, Ha' at it, Haas. But keep us out of it, but they're not going to. That's why I tell you this. If they get in any degree of trouble, I mean, they lose one Israeli soldier. They're going to come crying to us, and they're going to say, oh, my God, now you've got to come back in.

And instead of 2,000 troops, you're going to have 20,000 or 200,000. Israel is in danger. But wait a minute, you are the ones launching the missiles. They say, oh, this hasn't happened since November 29th. So Israel bombed them a month ago. They keep on bombing them. Now, they're gonna have their reasons. They're gonna say, oh, Hezbo's bad guys, and in a lot of ways they are.

And so, okay, but just leave us out of it. Are you gonna ask for money for that war? Yes, you are, right? You're gonna ask for billions of dollars from us to finance your wars, aren't you? They do every year, and it gets financed every year. You know, conservatives complain about foreign aid. Foreign aid to help starving kids, they find to be unacceptable. Foreign aid to finance Israel's aggressive wars, they find to be wonderful.

That doesn't make any sense at all. So if Netanyahu and his right-wing government in Israel is willing to say now we will never ask America for help on this, then you do whatever you like in that war between Assad and you is your problem. But you're not gonna do that. This is meant to draw us back in. Netanyahu says, oh, you're strong, I don't like that. So I'm gonna fix U.S. policy, I'm gonna change U.S. policy by aggressively bombing Syria, starting

a conflict that I know will have blowback for my own citizens. And when my citizens are gonna hurt, are gonna get hurt, I'm not gonna take personal responsibility for that, because no right winger ever does. Instead, I'm gonna come crying to daddy, who's Uncle Sam, and I'm gonna make you go back into Syria. We should say hell no to that. But knowing how Washington works, it'll work. It will work.

And just to give you an idea of how well it's worked in the past, under the Obama administration back in 2016, the U.S. government signed on to a giant defense package for Israel. And that is an addition to the annual $3 billion that we give Israel in foreign aid, right? So look, this is, this is, I'm just giving you the facts about where U.S. taxpayer money is going when it comes to these conflicts. And so, you know, exacerbating this conflict in Syria and, you know, making the situation worse by launching these airstrikes, it's not going to make the people of Israel any safer. It's going to lead to more hostility, more tax toward them.

So he doesn't like Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't like Trump's decision to pull out of Syria. But again, we believe it was the right decision. We keep wasting our resources and intervening in wars that we shouldn't intervene in. And unfortunately, Netanyahu just wants to, you know, I'm forgetting the word. Instigate. Not only instigate. Draw us in. Yeah, draw us in and, you know, take a situation, what is it called when cops are supposed

to calm the situation down? Escalate. That's the word that I was looking for. He wants to further escalate the conflict in Syria and it's unnecessary. Yeah, well, it's necessary for right wingers because that's how they win elections. Netanyahu is a lot of political problems at home. He is terribly corrupt and as most right wingers are, look at Donald Trump over here. So he's trying to distract people.

And if it turns out getting Israeli citizens killed, so what is what he thinks? Because that's what the right wing always thinks. So what if I get U.S. soldiers killed? So what if I get Israeli soldiers killed? So what if I get Israeli citizens killed? It's going to improve my poll numbers. That's how right wingers act all throughout the world. And then lastly, spare me your crocodile tears about allies.

Oh, but Jake, you don't understand they're an ally. Yeah, there's a lot of allies we don't agree with. So Canada is a wonderful ally, but they are now supporting pipelines that take out some of the worst fossil fuel on the planet and eventually, obviously we'll put it into the air and lead to a lot more carbon emissions. So Canada's a great ally, I generally like their leader, I hate that decision. I'm allowed to say that I don't like the decision of our ally. That is a perfectly acceptable thing to say.

So please, please spare me, you're really fragile. You know, thin skin about, oh my God, it's Israel. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're never allowed to criticize them. Sad day for you, we are allowed to criticize them, especially their vicious right-wing government that has not helped their people at all. All it has led to more wars. Finally, it's bad enough that we have our own unnecessary wars that we start.

But we should not be fighting the unnecessary wars that other countries start. Whether they're Turkey, Israel, Russia, or any other country. Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, definitely. Get the hell out of Yemen, do not help the Saudis at all, okay? And so we are consistent on that. Of course, right where it's as usual, with very few exceptions, all the rules go out the window immediately when it's Israel.

And this is a naked attempt to draw us back into the war, the disastrous war in Syria. Call it what it is. We've got to take a break. When we come back, the New York Times broke a pretty incredible story about Trump's alleged bone spurs. 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.combe. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.