The Young Turks - Trump Tariffs, Mike Jeffcoat, Putin Missile Strike, and Trump vs Alec Baldwin

Episode Date: March 3, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from March 2, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk, John, Emma Vigeland, & Mark Thompson. Trump doubles down on tariffs. Trump on Friday defended his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum, even as he acknowledged the move could trigger a global trade war. In a series of early morning tweets, the president continued to defy members of his own party — and some of his top advisers — by insisting that the tariffs would benefit the U.S. economy. “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump tweeted.  Hour 2:  Mike Jeffcoat, the coach at Texas Wesleyan University and a former major-league pitcher, has been fired after saying in an email to a Colorado high school prospect that the university no longer recruits players from the state due to failed drug tests. Trump has posted a furious, rambling and misspelt tweet about Alec Baldwin, the actor famous for impersonating him on Saturday Night Live. In an early morning post that rambled on multiple tangents, misspelt the word "dying" and called Mr Baldwin by the wrong name, Mr Trump suggested that the impersonation of him on the programme was painful to watch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Thanks for watching. tonight. Mark Thompson, Jake, you who are Epiagel and everybody, do you like do one things? What is this? And John Ida Rola. Hey, John has so many

nicknames, I couldn't pick one there in that half a second that I had. I'll take that. Lately, I've been accidentally rolling the Rola and calling him Ida Lola. That's the latest. Okay. That could be potentially damaging, yeah.

John doesn't like any of them, which is the best part. I think if we help it, it could be damaging, yeah. Okay, all right, lots of new. We laugh, although we are in a state of disaster in the world, and certainly in the Trump administration, where disaster is set in quite feverishly this week in particular. Earlier in the week, we were talking about how his communications director, Hope Hicks, is leaving, and so is H.R. McMaster, the National Security Director.

In any other administration, that would be colossal, earth-shaking news where everyone would be asking, is everything all right? What in the world is going on? That is two of about 13 disasters that have happened this week. I don't know where Jared Kushner, the son-in-law's security clearance being downgraded ranks in those disasters, but it might be number five or seven. And then today the disasters continue as the markets drop because of apparently an impromptu statement that Donald Trump made. We will explain that's on the tariffs, why he made that statement, why it's potentially disastrous. And then we've got Orrin Hatch attacking Democrats in outrageous ways and now backpedaling. There's so many things in the news constantly.

Okay. And, oh, by the way, did I mention corruption? So two giant stories of corruption at a minimum coming up. That's Emma's forte, by the way, in TYT Politics. A little bit of it. Yeah. It's depressing, but it's fun to talk about here. That's right. It's a busy time for that particular beat. Oh, my gosh. They've taken all the veneer off of it. It used to be kind of in the shadows, but now they're just out front with it. Yeah. What do you do all day long? Corruption. Yep. So, likely in your case, exposing it as opposed to participating in it. You never know. Well, okay, just let me know. Okay. All right, so having said all that, let's get started.

John, what's up? Obviously, tons to get to. We've got a number of amazing updates from yesterday's announcement that there would be new tariffs on both steel and aluminum. 25% tariff on steel, 10% tariff on aluminum. Now, the first part is that there are very real concerns that this could spark some sort of new international. national trade war. And in fact, today we have indications that that might be underway. Officials in China are said to be considering some sort of strikeback in the forms of tariffs or something related to that. But we already have details on one area. The president of the European

Union said that they're going to be instituting new tariffs on products like Harley Davidson's, Kentucky bourbon, and blue jeans. And I don't remember the exact breakdown. But for each of those, they are chiefly manufactured in the states of the leaders of the Senate and the House. You have Pelosi, you have McConnell and Ryan for those products. So they're sending a message, and they're some of sort of the most typically American products. But this is what we can expect and indeed did expect when we were talking about this topic over the past couple of years. But despite that, Trump isn't worried at all about a trade war. He tweeted this this morning, when a country, USA, he had to be clear, is losing many billions of dollars on trade,

Virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore, we win big, it's easy. Okay, I love that he put an example in, because I was confused. And so when he gave me the example, I'm like, oh, well, that clarifies it, isn't it? Just think of the cutest country you can think of. Clearly that's Luxembourg. I was thinking in Japan.

Hello, Kitty, all that. So I was led to believe that trade was complicated and nuanced, but it turns out it's actually really easy. If you have a trade deficit with a country, stop trading with them, and then you won't have a deficit. Easy. No, that's not how it works. And so some people have a theory that Donald Trump is just trying to make it more simple

that he could relate to his voters. No, he doesn't understand. It's not for the purpose of his voters, for the edification, or... or to appeal to them in some way, he does not understand complicated issues. In fact, you will come out and say things like, no one knew health care was complicated. No, all the rest of us knew it was complicated except for you. So trade deficits are not as easy as, well, okay, you know, we're down $100 billion in trade with China, for example, to pick a random cute country. And that means that if we stop trading, well, now we're even.

No, that there's that trade affects so many other industries inside the United States and has ramifications. It's not just a matter of, you know, there's a deficit and we just wipe it out by not doing it. That is unbelievably ridiculously, not just simplistic, but wrong. Yeah, so you're implying that there might be some sorts of ripple effects, and indeed there are, and so we're going to try to educate the president here. It turns out that while he seems to think that you set up this big tariff and then the country, say China, just pays for it, and then the products continue on as they always have.

That obviously isn't how it actually works, especially when you're talking about raw materials like steel and aluminum that are used in so many different products in the U.S. And so we're going to do just a brief, and this is not nearly all encompassing. You can go and find more examples of this, an overview of different areas of the U.S. economy already talking about how this is going to affect them. First, we have in the automotive industry. Auto sales have flattened in recent months and manufactured. This is from the American International Automobile Dealers Association.

President Cody Lusk. Auto sales have flattened in recent months, and manufacturers are not prepared to absorb a sharp increase in the cost to build cars and trucks in America, obviously. The burden of these tariffs, as always, will be passed on to the American consumer, closes by saying this would place the U.S. automotive industry, which supports more than 7 million American jobs at a competitive disadvantage. And was it Wilbur Ross that went on TV today and said, oh, it'll just make your car a few hundred dollars more. Who cares about that? Well, perhaps the billionaires do not care about that. But for most people, it will be significant. And you will be the one to pay for it, not the automotive industry. But it's not just cars. It's also smaller products that you're more likely to buy on a daily basis. Miller Coors, one of the biggest sellers of beers in America, says, we buy as much domestic canned sheet aluminum as is available. However, there simply isn't enough supply to satisfy the demands of American beverage makers like us.

American workers and American consumers will suffer as a result of this misguided tariff. I'm not even going to go through all these, but you have the boating industry. is concerned about this. You have the American retail manufacturers association saying that, no, this is going to affect almost every industry. And what it is, in effect, is a tax on American consumers, every single American consumer. And the less money that you make, the more likely it is that you will spend all the money you make. And that means you will be affected far more than those higher up on the economic ladder. Because so many things that are associated with things that we buy are made up of parts. It's not as though you're buying the entire thing. And many of those parts,

come from countries that we're now going to be in a trade war with. And as Jenks says, he doesn't understand our president. And by the way, he was, I remember that rap about, oh, but he's a billionaire, and so he's going to know, you know, so much about the economy. As it turns out, he doesn't know anything about the economy. He doesn't know any of the subtleties, has no any of the complexities. He was a bad businessman who had six bankruptcies and basically stiffed a bunch of contractors and ended up in court with them.

So he's that kind of businessman. and now he's having to do real business. And the subtleties of a very delicate economic relationship with countries worldwide are lost on him. This is a war you can't win. You know, he should just remember, you can't win any war. Economic war, trade war, or fighting war. And we would be better served. But he doesn't get that.

Yeah, and his focus on trade, it's not about making jobs come back to the United States. It's not about raising wages for American workers. It's really just about who's on top, who is going to win in this trade deficit. There's no progressive angle. Like when progressives criticize NAFTA or TPP, it's because, you know, it's giving out handouts to corporations or it's essentially making wages lower and sending jobs overseas, making us compete with people in Mexico or China, et cetera. There's no nuance in that.

It's just essentially, we're not winning with this. And it's also just an effort to kind of just say, I'm going after China, too. Yeah. So let me give a little bit more context to it as well. So, okay, and it's not, by the way, a black and white issue, so under no circumstance with any tariff would ever make sense. And by the way, it's not just a right wing or left wing position. Some on the left are in favor of protectionism.

And in fact, the labor unions like AFL-CIO applauded this move. So it's nuanced in the political landscape as well. But to give more context to what John was saying, all right, so let's say we protect our steel workers more, and you would, and that's why the labor unions and the steel companies are happy with it. But now your cars are more expensive. So, wait, what happened to your trade deficit? Because now, not only are the cars more expensive inside the United States, but when you go to sell them in other places, they will also be more expensive, hence less people will buy them, which will create a larger trade deficit. So, now let's look and say, is steel

an aluminum bigger, or are the products that steal aluminum affect a bigger part of our industry? Well, there is an answer to that. The industries that use steel are employ 80 times as many people as steel producing industries. So they affect 80 times as many employees as there are in the steel industry. Just that's on steel alone. So when you have that effect go all across our economy and affect our exports, this might ironically actually increase our trade deficits. Now, again, you'll have to see how it plays out and see, let alone the consequences of China and most especially European Union and our allies like Canada who were enraged by this

striking back, which would then have a different effect on our trade deficits and would move the numbers again. But Trump looks at and goes, what do you mean? What do you mean? I do a tariff. Then, you know, my steel is stronger. And then the trade deficit drops. That's not how it works.

And it's unfortunate that we have a president who doesn't understand. understand complicated policy matters and then makes decisions off the cuff on an issue of great importance for jobs and the entire world economy. And what you just described isn't a solitary action either. We were talking earlier about the solar industry. And in a very similar way, he announced massive 30% tariffs on solar cells and sorts of technology that are brought into the U.S. and then are used to install solar development and stuff like that, we need that stuff

from outside of the U.S. And so to seemingly to protect the coal industry, maybe the oil industry, things like that, because we know that solar power is becoming far more cost competitive over the past few years. He puts up this big tariff and it's going to end up costing more jobs from the solar industry than

it will ever gain back in the coal industry and it's possible over the next few years, you might lose more jobs from the solar industry than are currently working in the coal industry. And yet that's what he went for. And if I could just quickly summarize, it's willing to talk about the individual companies, and I think that we need to, because I don't think people understand how many ripple effects this will have. But we know immediately what the,

I mean, one indicator of the economy anyway thinks. Initially, stock markets took a nosedive early today after he doubled down on the tariffs in his early talk. We showed you one of those tweets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down roughly 300 points, and the S&P 500 also dropped more than half a percentage point. It's possible some of that might stabilize over time, but initially it certainly doesn't look like this is a very popular move. And we're going to talk a little bit more, but we do have a far more personal component of this and an area of corruption that is going to be very interesting. Yeah, one last thing on what Emma mentioned.

So the left is split on this in some ways, and it definitely matters how you do the execution. But one of the reasons that the left is opposed to a lot of these trade deals is not because of tariffs. Some on the left are, right? But I think the major concern, and certainly the one that I have is, who writes the trade deals? So it's not to say that we shouldn't have trade, that would be preposterous, right? So the question is, what's in the trade deals and who's in charge? So the main issue with, for example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was that they were written largely by corporations. And in fact, for a long time, our congressmen were not even allowed to see the deal.

And now when they were allowed to see it, they were not allowed to bring staff or, lawyers or any help to look at the deal, then you go, well, who's in charge and for whose benefit are we writing these deals? Because just because Coke is ostensibly an American company, which doesn't really mean anything, its shareholders are all across the world, doesn't mean that that benefits to American citizens. And the government is not supposed to be run by and for corporations. It's supposed to be run by and for people, the actual citizens. So those are the bigger issues in trade that, of course, Donald Trump doesn't touch and doesn't mind much because he likes the corporate donors. And so he's only done, in my opinion, the worst part of

protectionism without actually doing the positive parts. And I will add that it may just dupe a few people. Unfortunately, the Democrats have pinned themselves into a corner by Hillary Clinton being for TPP and then kind of backing out of it. And Obama being a champion for it, a lot of Democrats being for it, you know, unions and people in the middle of the country hate that. And now Trump can at least put a feather in his cap and say, I did this. And so now Democrats look like the party of shipping job overseas. And Trump looks like, at least I'm putting tariffs on steel and, you know, making sure that we keep steel in the country or jobs in the country.

But these are trade agreements. And just like he was down on the Iranian nuclear deal, these are trade agreements that are in place. We do have trade relationships that have been codified. They've been, you know, this is a real agreement. And I mentioned the Iran deal because just like that, he wants to swim away from that deal. And to whatever extent he wants to bust up these arrangements that we have with existing global partners on trade, people are going to be less trusting of the U.S. on future deals.

So there is a ripple effect just from the standpoint of diplomacy and future economic and trade agreements that we'll make worldwide. And look, I saw I oppose this for all the reasons that we've stated here. I think it's a bad idea overall, and I think the president doesn't understand all the consequences that'll flow for him. But I do want to give him credit on one thing. To Emma's point, he promised on the campaign trail that he would do tariffs. He's doing tariffs. So I think that that is a populist position. It might not necessarily be a great policy position.

The Democrats did get outflanked on it when it comes to unions and the average American worker. Now, it might wind up having really bad consequences for our economy, in which case it'll blow up on Trump. But you do have to give him credit, oftentimes politicians say one thing and do the other, which Trump has done on dozens of cases. Every other issue. Every other issue. But on this issue, he said he would do tariffs, and he did tariffs. Okay, I'm not going to give him credit, though. I'll be an army of one on that.

Anyway, another incredibly interesting component of this. So Donald Trump announces a new round of steel and aluminum tariffs. And we know the economic impacts, the stocks of a lot of companies that are dependent on those materials. dropped. Those companies now are going to have to charge higher prices. People are worried about that and so the stocks go down, which means that if you're one of the people who've invested in those companies, you might have lost a lot of money. We're talking about a lot of different companies, a lot of different shareholders. It's really complicated. So to simplify it, let's talk about one person and one company, an individual that didn't end up losing a lot of money. And let's try to figure out how that happened. The company we're going to be talking about is Menatoic, which uses steel and aluminum, things like that. And the individual is Carl Icahn, a name that you might have heard before because he was a former special advisor to Donald Trump, who, by the way, really fast, ended up leaving the administration because of concerns of conflicts of interest, which was a prescient position, which we're going to now return to this graphic. He sold $31.3 million of shares in Manitowic,

company heavily dependent on steel imports, last week. Now, according to a regulatory filing that he put out. He was able to sell his shares for between $32 to $34. After the announcement about the tariffs, it had dropped to $26.37 per share. The value of the shares he sold has since dropped by around $6 million, which means that just due to dumb luck, since he sold the stocks last week, he saved himself $6 million. $1. Carl Icon, former advisor and close friend of the president, the man who unilaterally decided to do these tariffs. Isn't it interesting how it works out in government these days? So two more piece of context on Carl Icon. So he gave a huge loan to Donald Trump earlier in

Trump's career and saved his skin. The other guy who did that was Wilbur Ross, who's now the Commerce Secretary, who, by the way, also pushed for these tariffs. In fact, was the leading person inside the Donald Trump cabinet pushing for these tariffs. I don't know what Wilbur Ross's economic gain in this is or not. We do know Carl Icon's gain, but they are both close allies of the president, and the president said, well, look, I trust Carl Icon. And the second piece of context is he talks to these friends and allies all the time. In fact, he greatly frustrates the White House staff and especially chief of staff that they'll

go set positions. And then at night, Trump will call all of his buddies. and go, what do you think? And in fact, one of the hilarious revelations about the Trump White House was that when they kept searching for who the leaker is, and it turned out it was Trump because he was calling all his friends and blabbing about everything that happened, and the friends were leaking to the press. So is it possible that Carl Icon got a call from Donald Trump before he made this decision?

And perhaps not even in a nefarious way for Trump. Like, hey, buddy, you're never going to believe what I'm going to do. I'm going to do a 25% tariff on steel. Carl's like, oh, thank you. Really good to know. I got to go. Yeah, and as he's talking to Trump, Trump can hear keyboard. He's clicking.

By the way, there are congressional laws against this, right? I mean, at least in Congress, you're not allowed to say outside information about policy that could affect stock prices and stuff like that. This is insider trading, but maybe doesn't fit the exact definition of insider trading. Also, ICAN is another New York billionaire who Trump is friends with and kind of has these shady ties as well. So he's just still remaining within his own New York bubble when he was on The Apprentice and just shuffling those people in and out of the White House with his influence. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR.

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For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn 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. Yeah, yeah, it's insider trading. It's funny to say Emma's making a point that's interesting because insider trading is typically thought of as coming from inside a company,

and then you're sharing proprietary information to those who are not inside the company. In this case, you're sharing public policy or what will become public policy with someone who has a, vested interest in that policy. It does happen on Capitol Hill. You know, there is no law forcing divestiture in a lot of these different holdings that senators and congressmen have, and they have committees that are actually in charge of many of the corporations and corporate interests that they still maintain. Financial interests I'm talking about.

Tom Price got in trouble for that. Exactly. Yeah, and so let me just be clear about something. There's no law saying you've got to get rid of all of your stocks that you might weigh in on. But to Emma's point, a number of years ago, they passed the law saying, yes, but you can't do, because they were doing it rampant, of course. I know you're going to be shocked to find out that the congressman might be corrupt. But before their votes in committee, et cetera, they would then do trades, either buy or sell something because they knew it was going to have an effect on the economy. So it got so bad that finally there was a lot of public pressure and they passed the law saying you're not allowed to trade on information that you know, even though you're not.

not inside a company, you're inside the government, and you're going to affect the markets. Now, that applies to people in Congress. Whether Donald Trump, as president, is allowed to do that for a friend is a different question. I mean, we all know ethically that's a terrible thing, and you shouldn't do that, and that gives your friends who are billionaires and probably also donors and gave you money earlier in your career. And unbelievable advantage, millions of dollars in advantage over everyone else, but it would be interesting to see if it's something that they could investigate to see if Trump broke any, you know, rules of the White House or laws in terms of giving that

information to Carl Icon, whether he realized he was giving it away or not. Yeah, that's why I say it's interesting. It may not pass the litmus test for what is purely insider training as we think about it. It's toes the line, but it's certainly unethical, as you said. Who knows if there's a statute in place? I mean, we've never seen a president. like this who would brazenly do something like this, so I doubt there is a law in place. Yeah, I mean, look, if I was going to, if I was the president and Mark's my friend and he runs an oil company, and I'm going to start a war in the Middle East, which is going to create instability and drive oil prices up, and everybody in the world knows that.

And I give Mark a call beforehand going, Mark, I might or might not start dropping bombs in Iraq, if you know what I mean, and then he sells his shares or increases his shares. Come on, it's obviously wrong. Then he has information that other people don't have. That's the whole point of insider trading as a concept. And so that's what Trump is doing here. By the way, one last thing, again, I might be being too kind to Donald Trump and saying he doesn't know, he might not know that he's given Carl Icaon this information that would be really valuable.

I say that partly because in not being generous to him, he's not very bright, so he might not realize it. But Carl Icon is bright. And so not only would he receive that information and know exactly what to do with it is apparently he did, but he might also pull. plant that idea in Trump's head. Oh, yeah. So now, in this case, I doubt it because ICON was holding stocks of the companies that would

actually go down, right? I think he's just reacting to the information. But if you wanted stuff that he wanted to put into Trump's head, I mean, those late-night calls powered by quarter-pounder and cheeses, you know, he'd be like, oh, Donald, you're going to let China push you around? I mean, they're just a cute little country. You're not going to let him do that to you, are you? And then Trump, by the way, wrote on Twitter.

Twitter, I mean, it's how hard is it to manipulate this guy? In big, all-cap letters, if you don't have steel, you don't have a country? So I could just call him and be like, Donald, you want a country, don't you? Yeah. And really fast. I also, I've heard that there have been in the past week or two, there have been ads on some Fox programs sort of pushing for a policy change on this to protect the steel industry. Oh, there you go with him. And doubly real fast, a lot of the more recent Trump projects, I'm talking about building projects, have used, as we've probably detail on this on TYT many times, overwhelmingly imported steel. So, I mean, his buildings, his structures, those Trump landmarks, that's imported steel you're looking at.

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And we've got, that was our just an appetizer of corruption when we come back, the entree. Thanks for listening to this podcast. You're only halfway through. So hold, hold, stay right here. Just want to remind you if you want to get all five segments of the Young Turks commercial free, these are just two of them. Every day we do it. So go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join, and you get the whole five segments, two hours.

Add free. Do it now. All right, back on the Young Turks. By the way, of course, I just introduced our. guest hosts just like you all know them. And some of you do. But Simone Boyce is on KTLA 5 here in L.A. doing morning news. But she's also reporter for Mike.com. So that means everybody can check you out no matter where they live. Exactly. Yeah. Working on some issues that are pertinent to women, young women right now. So check it out. Mike.com. All right. Excellent. And Katie does the

Katie Halper show, which is not surprising. Very creatively named. That's right. It took months to name it. WBAI and podcast, so everybody can just check out the podcast. And you've got a movie coming at, Comic Camp? Yeah, we're going to release it soon, yes. All right, looking forward to it. That sounds good. Sounds fun. All right, Anna, what's next?

All right. A baseball coach in Texas has made the decision to refuse recruits from a specific state. Jeffcoat, Mike Jeffcoat is his name, and he believes that anyone coming from Colorado is super suspect. So it's probably better to not bring them on his team to begin with. Now, he sent an email to a team prospect, someone who wanted to join his college baseball team. And he responded with the following. The email was sent by this baseball coach, Mike Jeffcoat, from his university account and has since been posted on Twitter. The message to the aspiring college athlete at Cherokee Trail High School states that Texas Wesleyan, a private school in Fort Worth,

no longer recruits players from the state of Colorado because of drug problems. Okay, let's stop for a second. Understand that this recruit has never met the guy, has never undergone any type of drug test, nothing, nothing like that. The letter backed him or the email backed him said the following, Unfortunately, we are not recruiting players from the state of Colorado. In the past, players have had trouble passing our drug test. We have made a decision to not take a chance on student athletes from your state.

You can thank your liberal politicians. Best of luck wherever you decide to play. That's so good. Hilariously preposterous. And the kids coach in high school had to clarify, he's never had any. problem, no disciplinary problem, never a single issue. Like the poor kid now, like, it creates like this presumption of guilt on him just because he's from the state of Colorado.

It's insane. And you have no idea if the kid's a liberal or a conservative. He's probably, since he's under 18, never voted. You don't know what his parents think. I mean, what if he's like an evangelical Christian Colorado is Colorado Springs? It's one of the most evangelical places in the whole country. Maybe he's straight edge. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's probably, I mean, he's probably a great athlete because Colorado, you do all these things outside. It's a beautiful state. Yeah, I mean, it's just textbook discrimination. That's really what it is. And the funny thing is this, this coach is actually being investigated for something else, some sort of violation of this national collegiate athletic association, you know, violation of their rules. Now they didn't specify what that violation is. But clearly, I mean, it's not someone that you really want to have on your staff. He doesn't sound like the type of person who would sit down and, you know, really think about his actions before he takes action. I mean, what kind of judgment is this? It's crazy. And it seems like he's just this bitter, conservative guy who's just trying to insult anyone who has anything to do with liberals. Again, we don't know anything about this kid's political leanings. We don't know anything about his drug use. Besides which, I'm curious to give Jeffcoat a drug test and see, you know,

whether or not he's ever, you know, taking advantage of a nice spliff after work. It's give him a hair test, just so that we get the whole history. It's regional profiling, right? It's not racial profiling. It's like state-based profiling. Yeah, and that's the thing. This story apparently went viral, although I didn't really see it anywhere myself. I saw it on cron.com.

But that's it. I mean, I haven't seen this widely reported. I feel like if a liberal did the exact. same thing. Let's say a liberal did this, a liberal in California, a coach in California, did this against an athlete from West Virginia. No, they'd be fired immediately. It's not only would they be fired immediately. It would be Fox News. It would be 24-hour coverage on Fox News. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't want people to misunderstand what I was saying earlier. I'm like, you have no idea if this kid

happens to be liberal or conservative and you're just, you know, he might be the most conservative kid in the world, and you're not letting him in because of the liberal politicians of Colorado. But so what if he was liberal? Who cares? Can he hit the ball or can't he hit the ball? And why are you bringing politics into this when it makes no sense at all? And by the way, I would want the coach fired if he was in California.

And he's like, all right, since you're from the state of Alabama, I'm not accepting you. Well, there's two more layers to that. One, it's discrimination and it's strong. But two, you're not very bright if that is how you're picking your baseball. players based on which state they're from and whatever politicians are in that state. Okay, so I'm progressive. So should I not take any baseball players from Texas? That would be pretty foolish, right?

Instead of giving them like a drug test, you should give them a voting test, right? You should ask them, like, who they voted for the last election, if they're a voting age. Yeah. And by the way, ironically, and it doesn't make sense because Mike Jeffco is very conservative, but was a very good baseball player back in the day. He was in the majors. And so if I had done the same test as him, like, you're a consumer. I'm not taking you.

Then I wouldn't have taken a really good baseball player. It also shows just a terrible, like you said, lack of judgment to say this stuff out loud, to put it down in writing. You get that, he would think that maybe. But it shows a real lack of judgment and also abuse of power. So I wouldn't want him being in this position anyway. Yeah. And one last thing to Anna's point.

There is a double standard here where if you, if progressive say, who would want anything? or anyone from Alabama or Mississippi. They go, oh, how could you? Kansas, right? That's the heartland. That's real America, right? Whereas conservatives are like, oh, Texas.

And O'Reilly once said the terrorists should blow up to Coy Tower in San Francisco. Right. And so now apparently Colorado's not real America, right? So they get to attack progressive states all the time. And it's not right either way. Right. All right, moving on to some other news. Recently, Vladimir Putin decided to show off some of the new nuclear capabilities that Russia has.

In fact, while he was doing so, he demonstrated how this new nuclear capability could target the state of Florida and potentially destroy it. Now, interestingly enough, there wasn't much of a reaction or any reaction from Donald Trump. And that was fascinating, considering who he decided to attack rather than focus on giving some response to what Putin has been saying. Now, Putin unveiled a new hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missile, which cannot be shot down by anti-missile systems, by the way. He did this Thursday during his annual address to Russia's Federal Assembly in Moscow. Now, he was quoted as saying, other countries listen to Russia only when it comes to comes out with new weapons. You will listen to us now. He showed a video of nuclear missiles raining down on what appeared to be Florida's Tampa Bay Area, home of the U.S. military's central command.

So, like, no one's making this up. This happened, okay? There's no, like, DNC member or D-Triple-C member who's, you know, using. a hologram of Putin to make this up. He did this. He said this. And there was no response from the White House. It was kind of amazing. Now, one of Trump's spokespeople said, we're not going to react to every word or idea that world leaders express. It was the State Department spokeswoman Heather Newart. And also, she said it was certainly unfortunate to have watched the video animation that depicted a nuclear attack on the United States. We don't regard that as

the behavior of a responsible international player. But Trump's reaction has been pretty much no reaction. And it's strange because he usually reacts to any type of provocation. Now, he did though get into a Twitter fight with Alec Baldwin. He said the following, Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL. Now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch bring back Daryl Hammond, funnier, and far greater talent, and a far greater talent.

So I'm glad that he's doing commentary on the issues that really matter. Yeah, I was, as Putin was demonstrating how he could destroy our U.S. Central Command, I was happy to hear that Daryl Hammond

was back in the news, because that's really the thing that we need to be discussing. Where is Daryl Hammond? So look, Do I want the U.S. President to fly off the handle and be like, then we're going to attack him? No, I don't. That's not necessary. Yeah, I don't.

But has Trump done that in the past in other situations? Yes. I get that there's a lack of consistency, but I have to say I'd way prefer him fighting with Alec Baldwin on Twitter than saying provocative things, as is his want, when he's talking to world leaders, about to Putin. And this is one of the things that I really find puzzling about, the Russia gate discussion, which is what is the end game? Like, what is it that people want to

have happened? Do people want Donald Trump to strongly condemn Putin, nuclear power and in his, in his usual kind of disrespectful, hyperbolic, insane way? So that what happens? So that Putin and Trump escalate things? Do they want? You know, like what's the- No, of course that's not. Well, I can answer that question. It's got a very clear answer. So look, first, let's note the difference because when North Korea didn't demonstrate how they would destroy the U.S., but said something. Sure. He's Rocket Man, we're going to destroy you, we're going to pulverize you, we're going to kill everybody in North Korea. So that is how he normally reacts. So let me give you, let me give you some examples, okay? Because look, and let me be clear about one thing. I do not want him to react to

Russia, the way he has reacted to North Korea. The way he's reacted to North Korea is dangerous, reckless, immature, juvenile. I mean, I can't think of enough words to describe how incredibly damaging that could have potentially been. And I'm lucky that things have calmed down since then. I'm happy things have calmed down since then. But at the same time, the reason why I think it's important to highlight this story is, look, when it comes to the sanctions that Congress passed in regard to Russia. He hasn't implemented them, refuses to implement them, refuses to ever criticize Russia. And then we have this act of provocation from Putin, no statement from Trump whatsoever. Again, it's not that I want a statement from him so much as I want to know

that he is keeping the country safe from all bad actors. And I feel like he has this really interesting bias in Putin's favor. And I'm not quite sure why. I don't want to engage in war with Russia. I just want to make sure that the country is safe. So if they're creating nuclear capabilities that are so advanced that our anti-missile systems wouldn't work against it, are we doing anything to stop that? Like, are we doing anything to respond to that? And also, are we doing anything to prevent meddling by Russia or any other foreign country in the future so we can protect our elections? He's not doing anything like that. He has no interest in it. So that's what my issue is. And by the way, when it comes to

North Korea. Here are some examples of Trump's tweets. He said, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un just stated that the nuclear bottom is on his desk at all times. But bottom would have been awesome too. Well, okay. Nuclear button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food starve regime please inform him that I too have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his and my button works. Okay. So there's more examples. I have plenty of of them. It's just, again, a weird difference in how he reacts to North Korea versus Russia. And inconsistency, for sure. And I think, look, I think anyone could acknowledge that it's troubling that he chose to tweet about Alec Baldwin over this. And we know that he watches Fox and Friends quite

religiously. And we know that a lot of his tweets, his Twitter rants, come from things that are discussed on that show. And Alec Baldwin was discussed on Fox and Friends. And then an An hour later, Trump tweeted about him. But Condoleezza Rice was also on Fox and Friends later that morning and discussed. She actually voluntarily discussed this animation that Putin put out of this nuke hitting Tampa, and he chose not to tweet about that. So there's clearly a disconnect there. I'm not really looking forward to Condoleezza Rice commenting on this either.

But it just shows that she's a Republican figure who's very knowledgeable about this topic, and she is able to speak about it. Why can't he speak about it? No, but I think she should. To me, it's like there's been this whole rehabilitation also of Bush and the Bush administration. And I think that Condoleezza Rice, as someone who insisted on WMDs and, you know, said that there was no evidence that 9-11 was going to happen despite the presidential daily briefing that said, what was it, Osama bin Laden likely to attack United States. I mean, I think that that's a scary sign of kind of historical, our short-term historical memory or how Trump's existence and how his kind of horrendous personality and policies have made

everyone else who I think should still be persona non grata, honestly. He's kind of rehabilitated everyone by contrast. And all these people who the left used to see, as they should, as villains, right, are now seen as honorable people. But if people in the Republican Party are able to talk about Putin disparagingly, why can't he when that is an appropriate response? So let me get to the answer that you asked for earlier. So Katie, as usual, I agree with a lot of what you're saying because we're both deeply progressive. So I don't want him to be bellicose towards Russia.

I don't think that is necessarily productive. Even Alec Baldwin, in his tweets counter to Trump, talked about, you know, I'd rather vote. I would want Mitt Romney back or something like that. No, I don't want Mitt Romney back. I don't want George W. Bush back. And Bush actually did a war that killed all those people. So I hear you on all that. But so what is it that people are looking for?

We're looking for some sort of sign that Donald Trump is not in the tank for Russia. Right. It's not because I want him to go to war with Russia. It's not because I want him to even create more hostilities or do any of the stupid tweets he does with North Korea. It's that I want to have some degree of certainty that he's not in the pocket of another country. Now, people might think that that's overblown. I don't think it's overblown at all. I think that Donald Trump, there's excellent evidence already externally that we can see

with our own eyes that I've talked about and that have been reported on that Donald Trump did money laundering for the Russians for decades, okay? Now, if he did do that, like the election interference is important because they went to the voter registration. They broke in in 22 states. And if they didn't get to the actual votes as far as we know, and that's, but if we don't, don't do anything about it, then they might get to the voter rolls. And it might be China, I mean, might be Russia, it might be China, it might be someone else.

So we have to act. And Mike Rogers, the national security agency director, said, Trump has not ordered me to do anything. Right. So now, and if he actually, whether it's money laundering or anything else, if he is beholden to Putin for some reason, then he's not going to take the precautions that a president who represents us should take. That is deeply troubling. So I'm not worried that he didn't tweet about this in particular. I'm worried that he never, ever criticizes Putin from a guy who will criticize Alec Baldwin and everyone on the, Rosie O'Donnell, everyone on the planet but Putin.

To me, it is exceedingly clear that in one of the articles here they said Trump rarely criticized Putin. No, he never criticizes Putin. And he hasn't done the sanction. He hasn't done anything with. And that doesn't mean that I think the sanctions are wonderful. Right. It's just obvious that there is something going on with Putin and Trump.

And hence, I'm not sure that Trump represents our interests above Putin's. But do you think that like our national security state would really let? Well, they're not letting him. They're going all over TV going, watch out. He's not doing anything about Russia. Yeah. I mean, I guess so I think that my concern, and I hear what you're saying, My concern is that a lot of the hashtag resistance is focusing on Russia in a way that actually will just make it easier for some kind of war to happen and for the public to be kind of massaged and ready for that to go because there's so much.

And I find a lot of, you guys aren't doing this, but there's a lot of, like, Russophobic language. And we saw this with Jen Pamieri, who was, who tweeted about getting to a cab with a driver or the Russian name. And if she goes missing, look for this car. And I see a lot of scary tendencies. Yeah, she gave the make of the car. I just look, and I feel like it's unfortunate because people who are reasonable on this issue get stuck in no man's land, as Jank and I often say, because look, there are plenty of people who are not interested in, you know, getting involved in a war. I certainly don't want to start a new war. But what I'm more concerned about, again, as Jank said, is having a leader who has our best interests in mind.

And making sure that we protect ourselves. I mean, yes, Russia is an issue, but from any foreign country that might want to do something to impact our democratic process. And also, I want to make sure that we do have what's necessary to protect us when it comes to these weapons. We can't have, you know, Putin's showing us like, hey, look at this nuclear weapon I have. It could wipe out the state of Texas or Florida and your anti-missile defense can't stop it. That is a scary situation to live in, especially if you have a president who's influenced by that leader. Yeah. And so last thing on this, just to double down on what Katie's saying about the over sensationalizing it, about unfortunately a lot of cable news. MSNBC, it's the only thing I talk about.

Yeah, if I never watch cable news. So that's why I have a slightly different perspective than other people. For people who watch cable news, if you're vomiting Russia, I totally get it. Like, Jesus, can you do a segment that isn't about it? Russia, right? So you're right about that and you're right about, you know, forces driving more militaristic responses, which we don't want. But you, that shouldn't cloud our judgment at the same time so that we can't see that clearly Donald Trump doesn't want to do something about Russia. And it's for a reason he hasn't stated publicly.

Seems like a real missed opportunity for another bigger button tweet. I mean, it's like right, It's like, it's right there. It's right there. But, and we do it in any other circumstance unless it's his daddy. Right, yeah. All right, we got to take a break, unfortunately. But we will be back in a few minutes. And when we do come back, turns out there's some new technology that could be able to read our minds.

It's not BS. It's amazing. Oh, no, let's use it on Trump. Find out what his real intentions are. Thanks for watching what I hope was a lovely edition of the Young Turks. Now, you know that that is two of the five segments that we do, because that's free. We want to have you support independent media and come watch the whole show that we do every day. That's five segments overall.

No ads at all. That's at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Come become a member. Thanks for watching either way. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple podcast at apple. dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon