The Young Turks - Trump Turns Republicans Into Shills

Episode Date: May 31, 2019

Conservative politicians are bowing to Trump’s will. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right, Young Turks, Jane Hugar, J.R. Jackson, everybody, New York football Giants, L.A., baseball, Dodgers, the whole thing's ready. You know, we're bicostal, you know, we go everywhere in this country, you know, we make sure we cover all bases.

Literally, with a Dodgers. John Iderola is here, and so are a lot of presidential candidates. John Delaney is going to be on the program in the third hour. We don't, normally we have an hour long post game just for the members on Friday nights. But tonight we got John Delaney and then the post game for you guys. So he'll be live in the studio at 8 o'clock Eastern. He's obviously running for president. Speaking of running for president, earlier today I talked to Bernie Sanders and we'll show

you some of those clips within the first two hours, because he said some things that are interesting. And perhaps controversial. So, and we're not done with presidential candidates yet. Next week, Pete Buttigieg has a town hall, and we will be covering that, Anna, J.R. and Francesca. That's on Monday, so don't miss that. That's 8.5 p.m. Eastern right here on t.com. We'll have instant analysis for you guys also next week. Dana Gould's going to join us.

And by the way, from yesterday, Jordan Klepper did a TMI. Too much information. Oh, is it most embarrassing moments? Best moments, worst moments of his life, and apparently it was a doozy, but they all are. I mean, so was Meadows and so was Matt Walsh's, et cetera. Members get those. TYT.com slash trial. Now, you can actually rip us off.

You can just go become a member, try it for a week free, watch all the TMIs, a bunch of old schools, et cetera, and then leave. But don't do that. Just look around, see if you like it, if you like it, stay. So, anyways, we got a ton of show. for you guys, like I said, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren. Oh, Nancy Pelosi. Aye, aye, aye. Went on Jimmy Kimmel.

I'm going to shred her totally nonsensical arguments. Jake Uger, known for his political acumen, not known for his selling tactics. I know, right? Go ahead and rip us off. We're the most honest show in America, and you know it. Probably more than we should be. Yes, yes, indeed. Oh, actually, just speaking of which really fast, so I am not going to be here all next week.

I'm going to finally be out. But you might know I'm the host of the damage report. There's probably at least some of you out there that like the idea of the damage report, you know, bringing on activists and educators and authors and all that, but hate me for whatever reason. Well, this is the week for you. Because you can tune in all next week and you're going to have shows led by Brooke and Anna Kasparian. Ida is going to be there. J.R., Francesca, Brett, a bunch of people.

Not any of me. You won't see me at all, so take a look next week, damage port. Yeah, on Twitter I just saw a ranking where I was ranked, I was ranked the ninth best young Turks host and John was 10th. So if you're in that camp, you're gonna love next week. Exactly. And of course, guys, June 8th, huge rally in Iowa, Des Moines, I need you there, t.yot.com slash rally.

And on the ninth, we're gonna go to Cedar Rapids. So it's gonna be a hell of a weekend for progressives, the revolution. begins. We're calling it Revolution Rally. You'll see why when you get there. All right, John, let's get started. Okay, let's talk about the news. Donald Trump has announced a new round of tariffs, not against China this time.

Now it's going to be against Mexico. And there is a very real chance, a way to bear in mind that all of this is designed to distract you from what Robert Mueller revealed earlier this week, but that's where we're at as a country. So let's talk about these tariffs and what effect they could possibly have on the U.S. and US workers. He initially tweeted, on June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% tariff on all goods coming into our country from Mexico until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico and into our capital country, stop.

The tariff, again capitalized, will gradually increase until the illegal immigration problem is remedied. So that seems reasonable, he'll just do the tariff until there's no undocumented immigration. We should get this wrapped up by mid next month. No, not mid-next month, before June 10th. So we've got about 10 days. Ideally before that, yeah. So if we could crank it out, that'd be good.

So that's 5%. In a presidential statement that followed, he said that tariffs would be raised to 10% on July 1st if the crisis persists, and then by an additional 5% each month for three months, it would remain at 25% until Mexico acted, he said. Now, bear in mind, I don't think that a lot of Americans necessarily think about the trading relationship between the United States and Mexico. it's a pretty significant and important one for our country as well as Mexico. Mexico is Washington's largest trading partner, sending across the border items like tomatoes,

cars, and rugs. Mexico sent the United States $346.5 billion of goods last year, meaning that a 5% tariff on those products would amount to a tax increase of more than $17 billion. Most of those costs would then be passed on to businesses and consumers. That, for whatever reason, always gets left out of these conversations, but that tariff is It is not a tax on Mexico, it is a tax on me and Jank and J.R. and you. Well, don't encourage him. If you put it that way, he'll like it. So yes, Donald Trump to this day does not understand that concept.

He keeps saying that China and now Mexico will have to pay the tariffs. That is literally not how they work. The companies that are getting those goods are the ones that pay them, American companies. So last night, this story broke right after the first two hours of the show. So on the third hour, I gave you a quick summary of it, and then I gave you my least bold prediction of all time that the market would crash today, and of course it did. So GM stock collapsed, they're like, we make all our cars in Mexico. So now we have a giant tariff that we have to pay, so we're gonna make less funny.

Of course, the value of our stock's gonna go down. And so look, there's one of two ways that this goes. Trump digs in and goes, nope, I'm not moving, I don't care what happens, and the market goes down and down and down. And then, by the way, in the midst of that, what will happen is Nancy Pelosi will all of a sudden find her backbone. Because all of a sudden, the donors will call her up, impeach, go ahead and impeach right now. So if he really keeps going by July, not July, no way, June 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, some, in that

window somewhere, Pelosi will be like, yeah, impeach, impeach, I got the call from the donors. Now she'll never say that, okay? It depends on how much the market crashes. Or at some point, everybody will pull just trump aside and go, look, we told you not to do this. You said it wouldn't be a problem. The markets are bleeding out. And markets are like ratings, Donald. You don't want your ratings to go down.

Oh, wait a minute. Now remember, he backpedals all the time. He earlier said he was going to close the border completely. And the markets were like, ah, right? And he's like, yeah, yeah, I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I don't want my, you know, I don't want my ratings to go down. So we'll see if he actually means it, and by the way, if, and I went on CNBC, not a place

I normally go and I think that their economic point of view is very conservative, but it is interesting to see how they are reacting to it. And they had an article about whether the markets ever believe anything Trump says, because he's so unreliable, and at least businessman have enough sense to know that he is a pathological liar, so they're like, we're gonna have to see, we'll believe it when we see it. But they've begun to believe it. Yeah. When it comes to people's money, they understand what's happening.

If we understand it, they understand it. It's a pattern and we know how it works. As you point out, you alluded to already, Jake, this is something he'll backpillar on or at least, as we already know, a lot of times when you're gonna throw out some trade wars with another country that you, first off you're trying to set up some kind of trading partnership of North America, which is similar to NAFTA, but completely different than NAFTA because NAFTA was a disaster until NAFTA wasn't a disaster until I called it something else, and it's mostly NAFTA anyway.

So with that pattern, usually these types of things happen if it's a trading violation and other countries have. When it's not, there's going to be battles in court, which he wouldn't necessarily know because he loses those. But people around him wouldn't know, and like, fine, you can say this nonsense, we'll move on past it and people will forget. But the red meat on Friday that you threw out there, at least Thursday night you threw out there to your supporters, that sticks.

That sticks to their rib cage, and they remember that you still hate immigrants. Yeah. And so let's talk about how significant this could be. You alluded to obviously some of the car companies, very worried about this. I saw one estimate that GM could lose $6.3 billion. Ford, $3.3 billion just as a result of this change. And again, it's not like Mexico has to cut us a check for the tariffs. The prices are higher.

Presumably, people might buy less stuff abroad. That's one of the supposed effects of this that goes into making them. But if you do, you'll just be paying more. And let's talk then about what you might be paying. So passing the costs on to consumers would raise the price of vehicles roughly $2,400 for GM, $2,200 for FCA, and $1,600 for Ford, according to Deutsche Bank. Factoring in foreign brands, the average consumer price increase is calculated at $1,300 per vehicle. So, oddly, with his America First policy, you're paying more no matter what, but if it's an American car, you're definitely paying a lot more.

And obviously, if the whole car is being manufactured there, put together there, and then shipped back, you're going to pay on that. But Mexico produces tons of the parts that go into products that are manufactured in the U.S. And so even if the plant for the final product is not in Mexico, you might still end up paying more just because the parts needed to make it come from Mexico. Is American plants in other countries? Exactly, it turns out. And so yeah, it's going to cost the businesses a lot of money. It's going to cost you a lot of money for the products that you still want to get out of Mexico. So I think one more thing here that's important is the lack of planning.

So if he was gonna go do this, and Steve Bannon comes out of the woodworks and he was calling Donald Trump a scumbag the other day, but now he loves this for the reasons that J.R. laid out. He's like, oh, he's back to being against Mexicans. I don't care what the damage is, who cares? Bannon says, now he dropped the hammer and the ratcheting up to 25%, we'll get their attention. It'll also get our attention because we're the ones paying it. Okay, anyway, but there's no planning.

So if you're gonna go down this path, and if I was advising the president, I'd say let's think about how long we're gonna dig in, how much pain we're willing to tolerate, are we going to let the markets go down to X number or even lower than that, and what's our plan B if it gets to be too painful? Now there's a couple of different reasons, I keep talking about the markets, and if you're wondering why, look, it mainly does not affect you, I get that, the top 10% has something like 97% of the capital income in this country, but that's the donor class. And so it is very relevant politically.

So once the donor class is heard, the top 10% is heard because their money's in the stock market, there'll be hell to pay. And it won't just be Pelosi, it'll be Republican senators with their phones ringing off the hook going, hey, I just lost a ton of money because this jackass, don't support him anymore. Okay, and then he's gonna be, then all of a sudden you're gonna hear Republican Senator and Chuck Grassley has begun already from Iowa, saying, well, I mean, maybe Amash wasn't so wrong about that impeachment thing. Now Grassay hasn't gotten that far, but he is criticizing him very strongly, which is very unusual

for a Republican senator. And so all of those things, you would have to plan out and think, okay, this might take seven and a half months, two and a half weeks, what's our range? And then once it actually starts affecting real Americans and you're starting to pay $3,300 is more per car, but then you're not buying it? And then the real economy starts to go into a tailspin? How much of that can we tolerate? And what is good enough for Mexico?

What actions do they have to take before we say we declare victory, right? Now do you think any of that has been planned out? Nice, Stephen Miller's all over it. Inconceivable, he hasn't planned any of it. There's another story out today about how all of his top economic advisors, when he's He said he was gonna do this and basically said, no, even the Trump guys are like, don't do this. This is a bad idea, we don't know where this ends.

And Trump's like, I've never known where anything ended. So let's go forward, see what happens. The issue for my point of view is that the people who support Donald Trump don't look at a policy he proposes or some sort of change and then say, does that make sense based on the reality of what's going on? And let's watch it for a while and see what effect it has. And I'm going to use that to adjust how I evaluate Donald Trump. That's not how almost any of them think.

They think he says Mexico is screwing us, he's being strong against Mexico. So if he raises tariffs, that is in of itself proof that tariffs needed to be raised because obviously Mexico is taking advantage of us. If he wants to send the military down to the border, well, he must have to do that because of the crisis he says is there. If he wanted to park a tank every 100 meters along the border, many Americans would just say clearly tanks are needed at the border. And so this could decimate, you know, not just the economy in general, but a lot of the personal

finances of Trump supporters. And I don't know if that actual will get through to them. But I just want to cover one more thing, and I mostly chose this for you. You're talking about what senators might turn on him. Let's look at the willingness of some senators to stay strong in the face of the wild policy of Donald Trump. So if we go all the way back to January of 2017, Lindsey Graham tweeted, border security, yes, Tariffs, no. Mexico is third largest trading partner. Any tariff we can levy, they can levy.

Huge barrier to economic growth. And he went on to say, simply put any policy proposal which drives up costs of corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big time bad idea. Much sad because you have to add a little bit of bizarre racism to your economic philosophy. But that's what he said. No, it makes no sense. We buy a lot of products from them and they'll just do it to us. It is pointless. And then Trump did the policy and so he tweeted this. I support President Trump's decision to oppose tariffs on Mexico until they up their game to help us with our border disaster. The illegal flows from Central America must stop and Mexico needs to do more.

So again, a little bit of racism there. No, but more importantly, of course, the point that John is making is there is no bottom to Lindsey Graham's barrel. Okay, let's put it that way. So he has to have someone he clings onto. And as we all know before, it was Joe Lieberman and Kelly Ayan and of course famously John McCain. But now none of them are in the Senate, so he's found a new friend.

And there's nothing he wouldn't do to further humiliate himself. I mean, he has now turned on everything that he has ever said. He called Trump a wacko and all these things. And now there's Jamie Harrison running against him on Democratic side in South Carolina for that Senate seat. And he did a wonderful ad where he showed all the things that Lindsey Graham said before and about Trump and all these terrible things and all the ass-kissing things he has said recently. Now he's gonna have to update that after this.

I mean, think about that, the last thing for me at least. That was in January 17, so it was right after the election. He's still testing the winds of change for Lindsey Graham. He's like, who do I follow? John McCain is still here, you know, his buddies are still hanging around, but he's like, man, I still had that thing with Donald Trump. I didn't think he'd get elected. Now he did, I'll kind of say some more things that I mean about him, and we'll see how that changes. But even when he did that then, there's still generalities that he has to come up with.

So when we asked, what's Mexico supposed to do to fall in line with these tariffs? He said, Trump said, until the flow into our country stop all capitals. What does that mean? How many numbers are stopped? So zero, zero migrants coming to our country anymore? Which ones are illegal immigration? Which one is legal immigration? So first off, how do you gauge that number?

watching those numbers. We still need that wall in those desolate parts of the desert where people are just flowing across, throwing drugs and packs of drugs across the border. If we don't have that wall, which you still haven't built, how do you stop that? So if it's illegal, run across the border, throwing drugs everywhere. If it hasn't stopped yet, how is Mexico gonna stop it? And then, so they asked this question. One of the people said they need to increase security at the border of Guatemala.

What does that mean? They need to crack down on criminal gangs that help migrants and help the United States more with asylum seekers. What does that mean? What numbers, if you have a policy, there has to be an end game for that policy. So when these tariffs are lifted, what basis for all these parameters that Mexico has to do, when do they meet them? It's not a policy.

The relevant number is less than 100 points of IQ in our president. That is the fundamental issue that we're dealing with this country. People that know better, people that know better. People that are smart, that know better will go, yeah, they need to stop it. Until they stop it, we're going to put, they have numbers on the amount of tariffs they want to put down on people. There's numbers on the amount of money we're going to lose and consumers are going to have to pay, but there's no number on how it stops. Yeah. Well, why don't we take a break and come back to a couple different candidates?

Yes, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Look, I'm on a war path. The mainstream media is so unreal biased. Right now, one of the talking points is that Bernie Sanders, candidacy is already over. He's polling at number two. Does that mean the other 22 are also over? No, no, they're in great shape. What in the...

Okay, so we're going to discuss that when we come back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging the Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves

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takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it, the New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast. tap today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. All right, back on the Young Turks. First, our partner aspiration, takes about five minutes. And you know what? You don't have to put all of your money there. I would because they pay so much better interest rates and you don't have to pay any fees and no ATM fees. All those

things, but you could just try it. You could move some of your money to Aspiration and be like, is it true? Oh my God, it is true, right? So that takes about five minutes. So go to Aspiration.com slash TYT. They don't put any of your money in the dirty companies like fossil fuel companies and that you get all the better things. So there's just really no reason not to do it.

So check it out when you get a chance. Okay, True North Remember, right, sin, are they sending John to the North Pole for good this time, J.K. Or am I? He writes. Oh, is that like a hair thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that'd be awesome. Let's go back. I mean, we got to film something so that people can actually see it. Yep. I can't see Trin North. Okay, that's another issue. Anyway, Emilio DeMilio writes in, John, you are so thick. I love you. Okay, that's what, that's what he wrote. Okay, bless your Thank you, sir. On the other hand, I thought I was thinking.

John, just stand up and show the pippy your thickness. I don't want to do anything that you just said. Okay. Steppenwolf says, Jenks always been my number one. Thank you, Steppenwolf, finally. You know what, I'm changing the name to Steppenwolf Pack. Steppenwolf dash pack.com, I'm sure. All right, and do you know why I was so low on that rating, by the way?

As you said, imagine a world without dogs. Yes. But you didn't mean that in a negative way. You love dogs. Everybody responded negatively. And JR ironically moved up the list when in reality. Okay, anyway. I'm just the Joe Biden of this group.

I find my way to the top as soon as I say one thing. I know, right? That's funny. And you are popular among African Americans. So I said consider a world without dogs so that you would appreciate that they're here. He moves up in the rating. He's a guy working towards that world. All right, eclecting miscellaneous says, Jank, John, and J.R are the best three, TYT

hosts. The question is which one of them is number one. Anyway, thank you guys, we appreciate it. No, everybody's wonderful. And then last one is real. The Stone Buddha says, not to mention how us truck drivers are going to be screwed with these tariffs, do we get a bailout too? I love that question, because, oh, farmers, they vote for Donald Trump, they're getting

a giant bailout because of the tariffs. What happens to the rest of us and in other industries that are more directly? impacted, including truck drivers. Oh, well, sad day for you. You get no bailout. Does GM get a bailout? Of course not. I don't know what the outlet was, but there was some interview with a truck driver about

how this is going to hurt them. And he's like, yeah, it's going to hurt us. And I'm 100% supporting Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, look, that's the antonym of an aspiration.com slash t-y-t. That's a lose-lose. All right, anyway, let's keep going. Okay, let's move on to more fun topics. said earlier this week that indicting Donald Trump was never an option that they could consider

in their investigation because of a longstanding Justice Department policy. But there's at least one candidate, Elizabeth Warren, who's looking to make a change in that area. She said this, Donald Trump believes that he could violate the law and he believes that the role of the Department of Justice is to help him get away with it. That's not how our country is supposed to work. I pledge to nominate an office of legal counsel head who will reverse the Watergate era rule that a president cannot be indicted for criminal behavior. gave a little bit more detail about what she would do where she'd become president, saying,

here's my plan. Number one, pass a law clarifying Congress's intent that the Department of Justice can indict the President of the United States. Number two, amend the obstruction of justice statutes to explicitly allow for indictment when the president abuses the powers of the office. And number three, we need an Attorney General who does not believe the president is above the law. And if you watched William Barr's recent interview, it is pretty clear that he is the conductor on the MAGA Express at this point. Yeah, so I want to explain why this is good policy and good politics. So in terms of policy, think about it for a second, we're going to do this late in the

program, but a quick preview of it is that Nancy Pelosi went on Jimmy Kimmel's show last night and said, unless the Republicans in the Senate are willing to go along with impeachment before we even start the hearings, so a preemptive agreement from the opposing party ahead of time, we will not pursue impeachment and that it doesn't make sense to. Okay, now if that's the standard, then the president really could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and he doesn't even need all the Republicans

because you need two-thirds to convict, and that's a political conviction in the Senate if they pursue impeachment. So if just a small group of Republican senators say, Yeah, no, that's okay, the president can murder someone. Then right now, as things stand, because of the office of legal counsel, you can't indict a sitting president. So there would be no legal consequence and there'd be no political consequence.

And so he'd get away with it. And amazingly, amazingly, somehow the Democratic Party will have proven Donald Trump right about the most outrageous example he gave about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and getting away with it. That's where we are, that's where we are. So as a matter of policy, of course Warren is right. The president can't be above the law, and that's not what this country is about. And of course, if he commits these crimes, he can be held accountable and he should be indicted

just like any other person. Now, in terms of politics, I don't like, this is not complicated, guys. You're in a Democratic primary. Of course the Democrats want to impeach Donald Trump, and of course they want to hold him accountable. Remember the whole thing about resistance? And now that Nancy Pelosi has turned into the assistance, so, but she's not running for president. It's so easy for someone running for president to go, yeah, we should hold Trump accountable. How is that controversial?

How is that not a layup? So Elizabeth Warren's like, all right, if all you guys are sitting around doing nothing, I'll take the ball and run. It's not that complicated. Yeah, we've been talking about impeachment and everything. And to a degree, I understand the reason why Democrats don't want the American people. people to be against what they're doing because they'll get mischaracterized as it always happens and they always lose that argument.

It's weird how that happens. But every time Republicans paint them a certain way, they get stuck with it because there's a certain way that they don't approach it. So fine. So since now, I think the label is sticking out with Elizabeth Warren that she's the, I have an idea for that. Here's my plan for that. I think it's the term that's going to that's my plan for that.

So if you're gonna dispute everything that a Democrat proposes or says, they usually say with this dark tone that like, oh man, they're trying to destroy the country. So now if you're going to oppose everything Elizabeth Warren says, and she puts it in terms to let you know she's working for the American people. And then she goes, you know, I'd like for the president not be above the law. And so the opposition that would have to be, no, I would like for the president to be above the law. So when someone says it, they go, you can ask, you can ask from Fox News and Fox and Friends

in the morning. So if someone steps on, if McCarthy steps on and says, yeah, you know what, I actually would like the president to be above the law, then people stop and go, that's kind of crazy. He had to say he's against a policy that is very American. Yeah, no, that's why when Pelosi is now going on a speaking to her, when they ask her, why won't you impeach, she winds up defending Donald Trump over and over and over again. She said today, oh, well, if the Senate doesn't convict him, then he would be exonerated. No, he wouldn't.

No, he wouldn't. That's not what two-thirds of the Senate means, and it's not, that's not a criminal action, that's a political action. So that's terrible politics. So it's not like, so it's the Democratic Party. So you might look at us and go, you guys are talking about this too much, this is the most obvious thing in the wall. Most obvious thing in the world, water is wet, the sky is blue, of course a Democrat running

for president should be in favor of impeachment and holding him legally, any president legally accountable so they're not above the law. But you gotta remember they're Democrats, it's not at all obvious to them. That's why Warren's keeps leading on these issues. She was the first impeachment. She's the first two, we should hold the president criminally liable. And then others will look at the polling and poll. Oh, wow, yeah, that's 89%.

Okay, yes, I'm in favor, I'm in favor. And it's not just Democrats, by the way. Just to J.R.'s point, any time you say, should the president be above the law? I mean, not only is that obvious, you're hoping your opponents say yes. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a great move by her. I hope more, you know, move in that direction. I think that for most people, it seems ridiculous that the president can largely do whatever

he wants, there'll be no accountability. The only thing I sort of disagree on is I don't like the willingness of almost everyone in the country to just pretend that that Office of Legal Counsel regulation is constitutional. That has never been adjudicated. I mean, they ruled back during the 90s that civil lawsuits could target the president. The idea is that you could not have a criminal indictment of the president, but the Supreme Court has not weighed in on that. When Robert Mueller said that during his press conference, that was basically his opinion, man.

And I understand why he's not going to go against it. He's an avatar of the Department of Justice and its history. But I don't like that we've simply surrendered on that, that that regulation written literally decades ago could be so binding on us that we would not even be willing to allow the Supreme Court to consider it. You said it so simply, but it flies over a lot of people's heads. What sticks to people is, are you willing to let a president be above the law? You have to put it in sometimes elementary terms because that's how direct and easy this is.

put it in those direct terms. And if they say, yeah, go, so do you think President Obama broke the law which a lot of Republicans for some reason do, which he did in other ways, you know, killing his things. But anyway, so, but then he'll say, well, hell yeah, he did. Would you like him to get away with it? Because they definitely didn't then. Yeah. Yep.

Yep. I like the way JR put it. All right. So let's go to Bernie. So earlier today, I got a chance to talk to Bernie Sanders. I don't know if you guys know this. He's running for president. And we were talking about the fact.

the fact that he is in the top two. And now a lot of the media apparently don't realize that because Sanders campaign had to put out a memo to reporters today saying pointing out the CNN and Washington Post recently ran articles saying, you know, basically is Bernie's campaign over already? Now I'd just like to note for the record before we go to portions of the interview that there are 24 candidates, Bernie's in second place. So if his campaign is over, boy, do I have bad news for the other 22? Okay, so I mean, the bias of the establishment media is unbelievable, and it's actually stunning

that they can't see it. They say, oh, Kamala Harris got a good chance in fifth place, Bernie Sanders is the second place? No chance. I mean, Bernie Sanders is eliminated. How is she not triple eliminated, right? But they're so blind, so biased, they can't see it. So anyway, I asked them about Joe Biden being pretty similar to Hillary Clinton on policies,

and that perhaps if you're running against Donald Trump, we might have seen that movie before. And I was curious what his response was, here's what he said. If the Democratic Party selects Joe Biden as its nominee, would it be making the same mistake that it did in picking Hillary Clinton who lost to Donald Trump? I fear that it could be. I really do. I fear that you would have a campaign without a lot of energy, without a lot of excitement. Could Joe beat Trump?

Yeah, I think he could. I'm not saying that he can't. But I think, you know, we don't want to make the same mistake that we made last time. And sometimes this is where the establishment talks to itself. I think that what the American people want right now is not only defeating Donald Trump, they want a candidate to speak to the pain that millions of people are forced. feeling right now, and to get those people involved in the political process, the stand up and fight back so that we can improve the lives of all people in this country.

You know, I don't know if the rest of the media will find that controversial. I think it's fairly straightforward. Joe Biden's policy positions are incredibly similar to Hillary Clinton's, and yet somehow the mainstream media tells us that he is more electable. I don't, I literally don't. No, more electable than Bernie Sanders. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I literally don't understand that logic.

The only thing that they have to hang their hat on is their feeling that Joe Biden is more likable. Yeah, you like him more because he protects the status quo. You don't like Bernie Sanders because he's ending corruption. But I don't care what you think, who you like more in your club. He has the same policies that are, you know, against the things that the Midwest wants. He's in favor of trade deals written by corporations. He isn't fighting for higher wages.

He isn't fighting against corporate power. So I just, I don't understand the logic of it, but I don't know that there is logic to it. Well, I think they would say, certainly if it was Nate Silver, I guess, and I bring him up only so that I'll get into his next podcast, he would say based in the polling right now. So in the polling right now, Biden is doing better against Trump than Bernie is doing against Trump. Now, we would respond, we've seen Biden run for president before. I don't think that's going to last once he actually has to be a candidate.

A lot of that is based off of people's longstanding views of him that have nothing to do with the candidate he would actually be. But that's what they would say now. I don't think that that makes sense to make your evaluation based purely on that now. I think that we need more time. Eventually it will be fairly reliable. I mean, we were making the case during the last months of the Democratic primary that the polling showing Bernie doing better against Trump did prove that he was more electable than

Clinton versus Trump. And I would say largely, I think if I had to pick, like right now, if you would press a button, one button gives you Biden against Trump, one button gives you Hillary Clinton against Trump, I would put the Biden button, I would think that in America he probably would do better for some understandable reasons, for some sadly misogynistic reasons. Yeah, so, but let's talk about what happened in 2016, because in 2016, Bernie was doing better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton was in all the polling. And what did the same exact people say in the mainstream media?

They said, oh, no, no, don't believe the polling. That was a leapier, though. Oh, I see, right. So they're like, no, no, that polling can't possibly be right, we're gonna completely ignore it. Now, when you have a little bit of data to the other side, they're like, that's it, the polling, the polling, it's what it is, right? Well, and of course, we're talking about polling with Bernie Sanders being, doing better against Clinton, that is far closer to the actual election day than the polling we're

talking about now with Biden. Yes, and the reason why Biden does well in the polling at this early stage is the same reason Hillary Clinton did well in the polling in the early stages, because she has, she had tremendous name recognition, so does Joe Biden. Now, Bernie Sanders also has a name recognition advantage. We are not, we have a perspective, but we do not twist the facts. So if you say Bernie Sanders has an unfair advantage over Kamala Harris because he has more name recognition and hence he does better in the polling, I would say yes, that makes sense.

He does, he has a bigger name recognition than Kamala Harris. But Biden has bigger name recognition than Bernie Sanders. So if you say Kamala Harris, hey, hey, give her a chance. She hasn't had a chance to get her name out there enough yet. Well, then the same logic would apply to Bernie versus only against Biden, right? And nope, don't care about logic. So I'm just worried to death they're gonna run a guy who has the same positions as Hillary Clinton when we saw that movie before.

It's shown with the power of the media and the way it works. There's many smart people know how these things work, but they don't even realize some, don't realize the way if they're convoluting the whole conversation. Look, who had heard of Pete Buttigieg before this cycle when he came in as one of the 27 folks? And then suddenly he's on the cover of magazines and, oh, the newest guy off the block. You know that huge town of South Bend, Indiana that only people know about is in Notre Dame's there?

That's the only thing people know about South Mitt, if they even knew that. But now this guy's is exploded onto the map, because that's what they liked about. I'm like, oh, man, he's like, he's, we can, we can take him in, and it's not a big deal. It isn't scare us. He's not over the top. He's not screaming, but they love him. So it's just weight strikes certain people. And those certain people have such a, they can change the dial in America what people think

because people will go like, oh, man, suddenly he's on a cover of this magazine. He looks like the 40-year-old virgin cover. And then suddenly everybody likes it. It looked just like it. Let's keep it real. They did Buttigieg's wrong. No, but that's the only time they've done Buttigieg's wrong. That's also his profile picture.

That's his fault. Look, I'm gonna call it what it is. The rigging has begun because there is no logic to the guy in second place, his campaign is, I'm gonna write articles and talk nonstop on air about how his campaign is almost over. But the person in fourth place, fifth place, 22nd place has a perfectly good chance. There is no logic to that at all. And hey, let's run a person that's got the same exact policies as Hillary Clinton, the only person who lost the Donald Trump.

There's no logic in that either. One last thing though, yeah. Can I just say on that, and I know that this will be persuasive to literally no one. I get what you're saying when you say that. I don't like the term rigging in this case. Because rigging to me makes something virtually impossible. And it's not that, it's influencing, it's manipulating, it's attempting to move the dial. I worry that if we present something as an impossibility, it leads people to apathy, to check

out, to think what's the point we couldn't possibly win? When Bernie came so, so close the last time, it was not impossible. certainly wouldn't say that it's impossible. The many volunteers who worked for him wouldn't say it's possible. No, no, no. So look, the good point you're making, John, and in the beginning of that interview, and obviously we'll put up the whole interview on TYT.com, I actually talked about rigging, and I said there are many definitions of rigging.

So, but don't assume that one of the definitions is the correct one. So rigging doesn't mean that there's an impossibility. It means one group, whether it's the DNC or one individual like Donna Brazile giving answers to or the questions to Hillary Clinton before debate. Now that's rigging it. That didn't mean that they didn't have the debate or that Bernie couldn't win the debate. It just means that she rigged the debate in Hillary Clinton's favor. I guess I would just want to know what people think of.

How much of an influence do people think it has to have for it to be considered rigging? Okay, now, so that's a great question because I think that the mainstream media has an enormous influence, way more than the DNC, way more than the Russians, way more than almost any other factor, they gave Trump a couple of billion dollars in free media coverage. So right now, they're talking about, oh, but did you speak seven languages, he plays the piano. He's unbelievable. Biden, what a likable guy, what a swell guy Joe Biden is. Bernie Sanders is already finished.

Bernie Sanders didn't agree to death squads in Nicaragua or El Salvador. Now, you're telling me that that isn't going to influence people. And they say with a straight face, no, we're covering him equal. Oh, get that. Nobody believes that. You don't even believe that. And again, let me be clear, I am not saying there's not an influence. Obviously there is.

I'm just saying we need to be careful with our language because we can put something out there and mean a specific thing. But once it's out there, people just use it. And I have noticed that terminology starts to get looser and looser and looser as more people use it and more time goes by. Words are drained of every ounce of meaning once they're released into the wild. Yeah, but I do, I'm saying this word on purpose, because the mainstream media is incredibly biased, and they say, no, my perspective is the correct perspective, and if you're outside

of that, then you're biased. And yet they cannot see that that is the deepest bias you could possibly have. My perspective is privileged, and I will enforce it upon everyone, but yet you don't get to call me biased. Well, that is how you rig a system. And in fact, they did this last time in 2016. And CNN was good enough to have me on to explain it on Brian Stelter's program. I said, you said the superdelegates voted when they didn't vote.

You put it out right up in the beginning and said, Hillary Clinton has a 99% lead before there was a single vote. That's how you rig something because your perspective is the establishment is correct, and Bernie Sanders should never be president. So they're doing it right in front of our eyes. So one more thing about this though, there was a follow-up question, because it's a follow-up because Naomi Klein, she had this great life, she always does. And when she was on here, it, look, I agree with her, but it rocked my world the way that

she framed it, talking about if we just get rid of Trump and hey, Hillary's back, or Biden is in charge, or someone who promises no change at all is in charge, we're back to the system so terrible that it produced Donald Trump. So I asked Bernie Sanders about that. Naomi Klein once said on the young Turks, if we just get rid of Trump, we'll be back to a situation that was so bad it created Trump. She's exactly right. Yeah.

That's exactly the point. And that is, look, we all want to beat the worst president in American history. No ifs, buts and maybe is about it. And I will support if I lose this thing, I will be there doing everything I can to defeat Trump. But you want to address the reasons why Trump got elected in the first place. What was that? because for too long, the Democratic establishment has ignored the needs of working people all over this country. People work longer hours for low wages, 40 million people living in poverty.

The only major country not to guarantee health care to all people is a right. A vigorous effort to combat climate change. Dealing with criminal justice reform, immigration reform, those are issues that are not only the major issues facing this country. Income and wealth inequality, how do you not talk about that? We have got to talk about that because it's the right thing do and it's the way you win an election. And to the core of that point, look, wages have been stagnant for 40 years. If Biden runs a campaign just like Hillary's saying, no, everything's great, let's just go back to quote unquote normal.

That is not a winning strategy. So the winning strategy is no, you're getting screwed and you're right, your wages have not moved at all. And I'm actually going to change that for the better. Now, people are so afraid of him winning again, that being trump, that instead of doing something about the damage, there's like, or doing something to change and prevent the damage, it's like, you know, it's just stop the bleeding. And that's going back to what we did before.

We're bleeding because he's even worse, but let's just go back to having a cast. And that's one of the things I was saying before Trump won the first time, that if you put someone that horrendous into power, people are not going to be demanding a revolution necessarily. They're going to be demanding an end of the pain. Now, hopefully that won't be the case, but that was my fear then. And based on the polls, because I can't come up with a much better explanation for why Biden is doing as well as he is, people seem to want to go back to the relative pain and bad situation that at least didn't have Donald Trump. That's my fear. You know, if we were the mainstream media, we'd say Biden's already eliminated.

Well, if Bernie is eliminated by being in second, if success is so bad, then Biden's twice as screwed as Bernie. All right. So we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, the world ends. So enjoy the break, the couple of minutes you have left. Because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ted Cruz have found something to agree upon. What? We'll do that when we were.

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In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on a young Turks. The Madlib writes in on Twitter. The president that's above the law is not a president. That's a dictator. Fairly clear. Melissa Matrice writes in, how dedicated is this, TYT fan? I'm scheduling my ER trip around today's show.

Oh my God. No worries, I'm a professional sicky, but you are my reason for not going now. Okay, I don't make sure you're all right, okay? We don't have a great healthcare system in this country, all right? Make sure you take care of yourself. And besides which, you can just get the app and then take the show with you and watch it live. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Speaking of which, by the way, the Bernie Sanders interview will be put up later today and on

TYOT.com and also in the apps, obviously, under special coverage. coverage, okay? So check out special coverage for the Bernie Sanders interview that I did today. And the last thing here, because I want to address this. Kagnosco, this in the member section says, Jank, the American electorate is obviously more centrist than you, make them out to be, either that or all the polls are lying or is statistically invalid. No, no, no, no. I know this is, it's a very big issue. Let me try to do it as quickly as I can. No, if you look at the polling based on the policies, the American electorate is very left-wing. Okay, there's no question about that.

And when you look at the polling, usually done, certainly in 2016, there's a little bit of a difference here in 2019, as John pointed out earlier. They still prefer progressive candidates, populist candidates, to so-called centrist democratic candidates. The only polling that you're referring to is of Democratic primary voters. And why? Why do they prefer centrist? Because every single day, all of television and all of the print media tell them, centrist is

is more likely to win. Centriots are more likely to win. Trump, we gotta take out Trump, centuries is more likely to win. No one ever says a progressive is more likely to win outside of us. And maybe the intercept. And that's it. So if you're bombarded with that and you're dying to get Trump out of office, you're gonna say, oh well, I guess, yeah, I'm gonna go Biden, a centrist is more likely to win.

That's why I say the mainstream media is rigging this election. All right, but we cover that already. Let's go to the next time. Okay, let's talk about something fun or bizarre or both. In the most ambitious crossover event of the year, Representative Alexandria Casa-Cortez and Senator Ted Cruz might be working together on a new plan to stop former members of Congress from becoming lobbyists ever. And so this is obviously weird, we don't normally do this sort of coverage of them working

together. So let's walk you through how we got here. AOC, as she often does, did a tweet thread about an important issue going into great detail. And she said, if you're a member of Congress and leave, you shouldn't be allowed to turn right around and leverage your service for a lobbyist check. I don't think it should be legal at all to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress. At minimum, there should be a long wait period. Keeping it real, the elephant in the room with passing a lobbying ban on members requires

a nearly impossible discussion about congressional pay. It is understandably unpopular to discuss giving Congress any raises or perks, and because of that, there's incentive to keep money loopholes open. And she gives a few examples, I'll read just one. For example, members of Congress have strict restrictions that most of the public don't have. case, because of our jobs, we have to have two residences and pay for it out of pocket, but we're banned from writing it off as a work expense. Boo-hoo, right?

Well, that incentivizes loopholes. And so she had tweeted a little bit more, but that was enough. For Ted Cruz to tweet this, here's something I don't often say. On this point, I agree with AOC. Indeed, I have long called for a lifetime ban on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists. The swamp would hate it, but perhaps a chance for some bipartisan cooperation. and AOC, she likes the sound of this, but she also knows that Ted Cruz is a literal snake

in human form, or roughly human form. So she said, Ted Cruz, if you're serious about a clean bill, then I'm down. Let's make a deal. If we can agree on a bill with no partisan stuck in clauses, no poison pills, et cetera, just a straight, clean ban on members of Congress becoming paid lobbyists, then I'll co-lead the bill with you, to which he responded, you're on. Wow. Okay, so I would like to remind everybody, she is a freshman congresswoman, 29 years old.

Now why haven't the so-called senior leaders among Democrats ever propose anything like this? It turns out if you try, you might actually get some Republicans to vote with you. Think about it, on several different issues. And then I remember when she was running, and this is in the movie knocked down the house you can see on Netflix about her run and other just Democrats run. People said to her and Cory Bush and others, well, we got a senior member of Congress. Joe Crowley is the number four Democrat in the House, so I don't know if we should give up that power.

What power? And when did Joe Crowley or any of those other Democratic incumbents that have been sitting there for decades ever use that power for you? No, they're using for their donors, right? Instead, you get someone who represents you, and look at this, she fights for you, and she fights against corruption. And all of a sudden, it turns out if you try, which none of those older incumbents are doing, almost none, well, it turns out you might actually get it passed.

And this is not new. Bernie Sanders has the best track record in the Senate of any Democrat of getting Republicans to work with him on amendments that he puts into bills. Now why is that? Because he actually comes out of from an uncorrupted point of view, and he says to some portion the right wing, hey, you know how you're always talking about, you're against the swamp, et cetera? Well, either you're going to be exposed as a hypocrite or peel off and vote with me.

And sometimes they do actually peel off and vote with him. And so that's why he winds up getting amendments in. If you're a normal establishment Democrat, you're like, okay, now I'd like to help my donors instead of your donors. They're like, yeah, no deal. So that's why they never get anything done. So we always talk about, you know, you said the old established Democrats have, you know, they have worked with Republicans across lines.

And this is what always frustrated me about it is every time they do, they're doing it on the terms of those other establishment Republicans. So like, yeah, we worked across the aisle and we're like, man, you worked with them on something they've been telling you they want? What kind of working is that? So when everyone's just on one side, instead of, there's a reason for bipartisanship is because both sides actually want it. Rather than, oh, you know, I want to have a couple of bills under my belt so I can campaign on being bipartisan by jumping across the aisle and doing everything they want to do. So, in doing that, I also like how we talked about Elizabeth Warren earlier, and she's putting bills for where people have to learn about what's happening through a bill that's trying to make become a law, but without just criticizing someone. So even while AOC has done this and said that she's going to work with Ted Cruz, without saying, hey, Ted Cruz, you know, you're part of that swamp. You're one of the creatures that likes to throw in poison pills and do things sneak into the table.

Because I know we all know this, but a lot of people don't know that's how it works. Tons of people don't know how it's how it works, but say it in a way where, hey, as long as you guys don't, she didn't say, do what you usually do or try and screw this whole thing over, just says, yeah, let's not put those things in and you have a deal. So make sure you have that clause is there. Other old school establishment Democrats wouldn't say anything like that because they would do it too. They would put in a poison pill too, exactly right, because they're like, hey, I want to go work as a lobbyist after somebody like AOC meets me. Which, by the way, guess what Joe Crowley's doing? working as a lobbyist, including, yeah, sorry, 60% of former members of Congress are now lobbyists.

60% they're looking for, because you know why, it's a huge paycheck. That's why she's like, look, if you actually increase the salary of Congress, it wouldn't be as much of an incentive to go sell out. I would do that in a second. People always like over-obsessed with like, oh no, congressmen are getting, politicians are getting paid too much, or in public financing of elections, oh, well, we're, we're supposed to pay for the politicians to run for office? If you don't, then Sheldon Adelson does, and the Koch brothers do it, if you're a right-winger

George Soros does. And then they work for them and not us, and they give them trillions of dollars. That's much more expensive. I get what you're saying. I think mainly the money they're being given is for their campaigns, which even if they had millions more dollars, they wouldn't want to sell fund. And the thing is, a lot of these congressmen, let alone the senators are millionaires. Like, they're not struggling like AOC to get by.

I'm not saying that she's wrong and perhaps changing some of those loopholes and stuff is important, but a lot of them have some money. And I don't want to be a Debbie Towner on this, maybe Ted Cruz, like he's occasionally pissed off his own party in the past, he's been willing to do that. But I mean, the same guy who's like running and begging Sheldon Allison or whoever for money during the last election that like, I don't know how authentic. He doesn't want to become a lobbyist after he gets eventually booted out of his spot in the Senate in Texas.

I don't care. I don't care. No, I know, I know. I'm just saying, like, try for it. Try for it. And there are others. Michael Bennett is running for president. He's in support of this.

There are other senators and congressmen, both on the Republican and Democratic side. I just don't know for sure that Ted Cruz would go the full way. And I want to be super clear. I ain't raise it no congressman's salary or senator's salary unless they say we're gonna ban all of them from being lobbyists, okay? We're not gonna just raise it randomly, hell no, right? And so finally, so should you be for bipartisanship or not, understand that that question makes no sense, okay?

But the mainstream media, they don't have to make sense, they're always like, oh, bipartisanship is great, bipartisan. Well, what are we working on, brother? Does that matter? So to J.R.'s point, if you say, hey, it's great when Democrats vote with Republicans for the Iraq war, I say, no, not so great. Oh, it's great when they work together to pass the tax cuts, which they did under George W. Bush, not under Trump, but they did under Bush.

No, not great. That's terrible bipartisanship. They both sides want to cut Social Security. Terrible bipartisanship, right? But if you're working together to make sure that our representatives are less corrupt, take yes for an answer. Yeah. So I'm sorry, last small number because I know we didn't mention it.

But they said at least 187 political appointees in the Trump administration worked as federal lobbyists. And they're also positions that supervise the same industries that they were lobbying for. So it's a full revolving door. You're in office, you get booted out, you go out for lobbies, you come back in and still influence things within the administration. So there's so many incentives to continue this rotation. Yeah, that can't be true because Trump said he was going to drain the swamp.

I think he got swamp in his eyes and now he doesn't know what he's going. Yes, totally in favor of a total ban. You want to talk about one more story? Yeah, go. I think we have a little bit more time. We have this saying, don't shoot the messenger. I'm not sure that Kim Jong-un has actually heard that because he's a fan of doing exactly that.

This is new reporting coming out of the largest newspaper in South Korea saying that after the February summit in Vietnam between Donald Trump and the leadership of North Korea, after they failed to reach a nuclear deal, the regime in March killed five diplomats by firing squad at a Pyongyang airport. Wow, Jesus Christ. And there had been, I believe, in March of this year, there was some initial reporting that there had been reprisals against some of the diplomats. It wasn't as specific and bear in mind that as of right now, this particular report is based

off of one anonymous source, but it does confirm at least the general content of previous reporting. We have a little bit more details. Kim Jong-Chol, one of North Korea's top overall officials who visited the White House last year, has been subjected to hard labor and ideological education. Among those who were killed was Kim Hyuk Chol, North Korea's top working-level nuclear negotiator who served for months as America's key counterpart. He was accused of spying for the United States for poorly reporting on the negotiations

without properly grasping U.S. intentions, which sounds like a roundabout way of saying he didn't get what North Korea wanted. He was one of those who was apparently shot to death. Now, I want to remind you guys that Donald Trump said that he loved Kim Jong-un, and they wrote letters back to and forth. I mean, he has had overwhelming praise of Kim Jong-un. He just said the other day, this week, he said, he's a very smart man. And he said, in his country, when the president says something or when the leader says

something, everybody stands up and applauds. And wouldn't that be great if it was here? You know why they stand up and applaud, Donald? Because if they don't, they get executed. And so I don't know what your intentions are. But let's give you a best case scenario that you're incredibly ignorant. The guy has concentration camps. He executes people that it's not even that disagree with him.

Again, Trump might think that that's, the worst case scenario is Trump thinks, awesome. I love that idea. The best case scenario is Trump doesn't have any idea of anything happening in the world and doesn't know that. Hey, do you ever, hey, you watch Fox, right? Fox, please run the story. Steve Duce, please. Right. Well, they don't want to.

Trump obviously loves them. But to John's point about how, you know, there's one source with this, it's reported by one particular person. So there has been several senior officials that have said that they have said that they They've reappeared after it was considered to possibly have been executed for whatever random reasons. But that's a fact, but it's also realized that several officials that were rumored to have been executed did not reappear.

So even if this is, you know, maybe a report that doesn't get confirmed completely and verified and under all terms, the point is it has happened. It's definitely not a zero percent thing. So as our president goes in and kisses this guy, and then makes sure that he exalts him is this really smart guy, and he's a tough guy running a tough country. You kind of have to do that. It's something else he liked to say. He's still exalted someone who has done things like this before.

So there's a reason why people will believe this, because it has been true before. And so as to the earlier reporting, not this particular report, but earlier reporting that there had been these reprisals, asked by ABC News about those reports back on the 5th of May, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo smiled, as he said, quote, it does appear that the next time we have serious conversations, that my counterpart will be someone. else. That is ghoulish. That is dark.

Not something a smile over. By the way, North Korea is demanding that Pompeo be replaced. I don't know what they mean by replace, but that's not what we do, okay? And so I don't know if Trump will give in to their demands because he seems to give into all their demands. I wasn't joking. The quote from Donald Trump about Kim Jong-un was, we fell in love. That's a direct quote.

And earlier in the week again, when they fired off missiles and his intelligence officials told him the North Koreans have fired off missiles and he said, no, they haven't. And he went on Twitter and said, no. And then he laughed with Kim Jong-un about how Joe Biden was low IQ. I mean, get a load of that irony. And so not only is it against American interest to laugh along with a dictator as he criticizes one of our vice presidents, but the fact that he understands nothing at all about what kind of a monster Kim Jong-un is, or again, the other scenario is worse.

He does understand what kind of a monster Kim Jong-un thinks, oh, that's awesome. Sadly, this North Korean official that was potentially murdered for not getting information out of Donald Trump, it's sad because he couldn't find any. Yeah. I want to read one more. That's right, they're like, hey, can you get some intelligence from Donald Trump? Really? That's the standard?

He sends back these reports that Donald Trump keeps changing his mind, and they're like, this can't possibly be true. I want to read one other quote, though. So this is about loyalty, basically. It says it is an anti-party, anti-revolutionary act to pretend to be revering the leader in front of him when you actually dream of something else. There are traitors in turncoats who only memorize words of loyalty towards the leader and even change according to the trend of the time.

Now, that is from an official mouthpiece for the North Korean regime. Like, do you really believe that Donald Trump doesn't want Sarah Huckabee be saying things like that when they so gleefully cast off the people who had formerly been insiders in the White House? Look at how we talked about Rex Tillerson or Steve Bannon, all of these people. Like, as soon as they are no longer in his good graces, is it really fundamentally different language that they're using? No, I thought you were gonna say it's the same.

He talks about, Donald Trump talks about traders all the time, him. He says, and he wants, and he says he wants to round up. up the traitors who committed treason against them by daring to investigate and question the dear leader. Look, the parallels are haunting and I guess that's why it makes sense that he fell in love with Kim Jong-man. And if you're not freaked out by that, there's something wrong with you. Doesn't mean you can't do a peace deal with monsters, but you shouldn't go around celebrating

who they are, what they've done, and tell us how in love you are with them. They're going around murdering people in their own regime. And remember, Kim Jong-un also murdered his half-brother and legitimate reports out that murdered several ex-girlfriends after he took power. Also an uncle. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right, we gotta go. We got a great second hour coming up for you guys. Everybody check out Damage Report. Actually, JR will be on next week, so check them out there. And we'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.