The Young Turks - Trump Wants To Let Putin Help With Russia Investigation, And Republicans LOVE It

Episode Date: July 19, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from July 19, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian. Outrage over Trump-Putin conversation on letting Russia interrogate ex-U.S. diplomat. Trump saw evidence of Russia meddling two weeks before inauguration. Republicans block Democratic attempt to subpoena Trump interpreter. House GOP refuses to boost funding for election security. New poll reveals 79% of conservatives approve of Trump’s conduct at Putin conference. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake, you're out of Kasparin with you on a crazy Thursday evening. What are we doing here, folks? We're having nothing but fun with disastrous stories, which is what we do on the Young Turks. Okay, Trump continues to drive off a cliff. No, ToonSys, watch out. That's an old school, sat-in live reference. You have no idea who ToonSys is, right? No, no idea.

I am infinitely old. does, because Bart, you're also old. I got bad news for you. Okay, how many Republicans think Donald Trump did a brilliant job at that summit with Putin? It's, ah, okay, that's stories later in the program. That was it, that was the story. That was the, ah, okay. But independents are very important, independent numbers are encouraging.

So, speaking of numbers, CNN has come out with what they call a definitive list of the rankings for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. I mean, they do it to themselves, right? They do. They do. Like when they get attacked, sometimes unfairly attacked by Trump, I mean, they do it to themselves. No, no, CNN, you know what you've done? You've done it to yourself.

Okay, later we will do it to them. Where does Bernie Sanders rank? Who's number one? Maybe he's number one. We'll have to find out. Okay, inquiring minds will want to know. And then we'll weigh in on what we think is the correct order. Okay.

And then finally, I just want to let you guys know. I don't know if you guys know this. We're kind of the home of progressives. So we have amazing shows coming out for you for tonight, including our post game. which is going to be great. Did you listen to a little bit of old school? Did you get to hashtag Anna's listening? No, you didn't. No, I didn't. I thought I always missed the good parts. I know, I know. Anyway, members get all the shows. TYT.com slash join to become a member. Ben and I had a lot of fun last night. We decided that Craig and Edwin were not the two smartest stage managers of all

time, but perhaps two smartest people on the planet. Damn. Okay, anyway, and then tomorrow, you don't want to miss the power panel because there is extra power power power coming up on that power panel. So special surprise for you guys tomorrow on the Young Turks. All right, having said that, we got plenty of surprises with Donald Trump right now. All right. There has been bipartisan criticism toward the Trump administration over Trump's consideration

of allowing Russian officials to interrogate individuals that Vladimir Putin had mentioned during his joint press conference with Trump in Helsinki. Now, this was in the context of the Mueller investigation and whether or not Putin would help to either extradite the 11 individuals, or I should say, the individuals that have been indicted under Mueller's investigation. And Putin had said that, you know, maybe there should be a little tit for tat. situation here. Obviously, I'm paraphrasing, but he mentioned that there were some Americans that he himself would want to interrogate. And Trump thought that maybe that was a good idea.

So let me just, first of all, I love the idea of Putin being like, perhaps we can do tit for tat. He's too smart to speak that way. He's an intelligent guy, but he is a scary person. Okay. So I remember during the press conference when Bush, I'm sorry, Trump said, you know, A lot over here says that he might be able to help us with our investigation. I thought that was an incredible offer. That's a quote.

He said, it's an incredible offer. And I thought, help us with the investigation? We're investigating him. That's, and we said it as we were covering it. We're like, wait, that's like asking bin Laden to help us with the investigation on 9-11. That makes no sense. Now, you can say it's a different scale,

although they are attacking our elections, and hence our democracy. So it's a very significant issue here. But no matter what, you don't ask the guy who you think committed the crime to help you investigate the crime. That was already crazy. Right. But we didn't know at the time the things that Anna is telling you now, which is that it turns out part of his offer was you hand over your former ambassador and maybe I execute him. No, okay, hold, hold.

Okay, all right, hold on. So you did add the maybe I execute part. But knowing Putin and the way that he has handled opposition, enemies, journalists who just do their jobs as journalists and write about him critically, it is a concern that he would do something fatal to them. But he didn't obviously say that out loud. No, no, no. Okay, but I want to be clear. One of the guys that he asked for came out today and we'll tell you about it, he said, no, if you hand me over to Putin, he will kill me. Yeah. Okay, so this is mental. This should never be discussed. But, yeah. But it was confirmed yesterday by Sarah Uncleby Sanders. Yeah, we're thinking about it.

That Trump was considering it. Okay, so this is what I need everyone to do. I need the audience to sit back in your chairs, relax as I set up this story. And that means you too, Jank. Sit back in your chair, relax. Let me tell the story because I got a flow going here. And I don't want you to keep, you know, busting up my flow. Okay, little tip for that.

Okay, we go forward. All right, so. We jump in it. So let's start off with Vladimir Putin. Here he is at the joint press conference, specifically mentioning handing over Americans that he'd like to interrogate. Take a look. We can offer that the appropriate commission headed by special attorney Mueller, he can use this treaty as a solid foundation and send an informal and official request to us so that we would interrogate, we would hold a questioning of this individual. who he believes are privy to some crimes.

And our law enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the appropriate materials to the United States. Moreover, we can meet you halfway, we can make another step. We can actually permit official representatives of the United States, including the members of this very commission, headed by Mr. Mueller, We can let them into the country and they will be present to this questioning. But in this case, there is another condition.

This kind of effort should be a mutual one. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate and they would question officials, including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the United States whom we believe are who have something to do with illegal. actions on the territory of Russia. And we have to request the presence of our law enforcement. I have to clarify something very quickly. So understand what he's saying there. He's not saying, oh, the people who were found of wrongdoing, the people who have been indicted under Mueller's

investigation, we're considering extraditing them. That is not what he's saying. He's saying, we in Russia, we'll do you guys a favor and question them ourselves. And are we not merciful? We will allow Mueller's team to be there as we question them. Okay, so understand what that means. I mean, anyone that has any experience in any of this would know this. So a Trump, in a best case scenario, is a total idiot that didn't understand what Putin was saying. Putin's saying, send me your questions, and I will ask it of my agents, my own intelligence

agents, my own spies. He's saying, give me your evidence. Why would I entertain that? Oh, really? You're going to ask your own spies if they violated our laws and give us meaningful answers back. Who would be so monumentally stupid as to believe that that was a real genuine offer? And then he says, oh, you can send Mr. Mueller over here and we see what we do with him, right? Okay, now I don't think that they would harm Mueller, although with Putin you never know.

But if Mueller comes over with all of his evidence, you think they're not going to try to spy in and get every piece of that evidence? only someone who's working with Putin, or again, like mentally damaged, would be like, oh, incredible offer. That's an incredible offer. Okay, busting up my flow. So, yeah, all right, so this is what Putin suggests. And when it comes to Americans, there are 11 Americans that he wants to interrogate. And those Americans include former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and also financier

Bill Browder. Now, Bill Browder has done some lobbying in favor of sanctions against. against Russia, Russia doesn't like that. And so they would like to interrogate him. Now, after hearing this proposal, in the world stage, everyone's watching, what was Trump's immediate reaction to what Putin said? What he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators

with respect to the 12 people. I think that's an incredible offer. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-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-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or.

purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. for as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Look, I know it's hard to break through to Trump supporters, but send this to people you know, send this video to people you know who are Trump supporters or independents,

right? And ask them the same question we're asking them. How could anybody think that a guy who was a former KGB agent like Vladimir Putin, who says, give me your evidence and I will help you in the crime that you're investigating that you think that I committed? How could anybody be stupid enough to think that that was a great? Great offer. What a generous offer that is.

And that's your best case scenario, because the worst case scenario is Trump knows it's a terrible offer, but he's saying it's great because he works for Putin. Which one is it? Because it's one of them. Nobody in their right mind could possibly think, oh, great, let's hand over all of our evidence to the guy we think did it. That'll be a great strategy. I bet he helps us.

So not only hand over our evidence, in exchange for handing him over that evidence, which, by the way, benefits Putin. We will also allow him to interrogate Americans. Look, a former diplomat, that's the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, right? If we allow our diplomats security to be threatened like that, then none of our diplomats are safe. That's the whole point of diplomatic immunity. But if you start handing over diplomats to our enemies,

because you think in return you're going to get their help in a crime that they committed, you've endangered the entire State Department every diplomat we have and made us so much weaker to even entertain that idea that if I proposed that and I had someone on the opposite side negotiating with me and they said oh that's an incredible offer I might think about that I think I got this guy this guy's a total buffoon I'm going to take him for everything he's got I mean, it's like, you're playing poker with somebody and you're like, let me see your hand and I'll help you with your hand. And the guy's like, that's an incredible offer.

Let me show you my cards. You go, okay, I'm going to take every dime he has. This is the dumbest guy alive. Well, he's a great negotiator, Jank. So let's hear from Michael McFall, who is, who was very much concerned about Trump considering this. And there is an update to this story. Luckily, Trump appears to have had a change of heart, but only after there was considerable backlash,

not just from Democrats, but Republicans as well. So let's hear from Michael McFaul. This is the former U.S. ambassador to Russia. With his meeting with Trump, you know, it's classic what aboutism. You know, you got your problems, we got our problems, you have your charges, we have our charges against your American government officials. And what I fear, you know, because President Trump probably is not as conversant in these issues as he should be, or most certainly not as conversant as Putin as, is he probably just

nodded along. And he did. He did not along until he got criticized enough where Trump himself didn't come out and say, no, I'm not going to do this. He had one of his, you know, communications people come forward and say that Trump will not do it. But can I just give color on the Republicans? Lindsey Graham, who's been kissing Trump's ass for, you know, for the last year or so, oh, he's a great leader, et cetera.

He said that Russian allegations against our officials are, quote, A joke, absurd. He said, I quote, I challenge you to find one member of the House and Senate that believes that this is a good idea. So here's a very Republican, very right-wing Republican, Lindsey Graham loves war, et cetera, et cetera, right? But he's been supportive of Donald Trump saying, you can't find one person in the House or Senate who's stupid enough to think this is a good idea.

But Trump does, but Trump does. And he gets that kind of blowback from the Republicans. and Lindsey Graham's not the only one. Tons and tons of Republicans. Marco Rubio is another example. So Marco Rubio was super vocal, also went on Twitter and said the following. Under no circumstances, should Putin officials ever be allowed to come to the United States and question Americans on their list?

I don't believe this will ever be allowed to happen, which is why the White House should publicly and unequivocally rule it out. And by the way, at that point, they hadn't done it just yesterday during a press conference. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether or not Trump is still considering it. And she indicated that yes, he's considering it. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but she did not say, no, under no circumstances, would we allow it to happen. That's when this whole issue blew up.

When Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarified that it was true, because like every time Trump says something, she comes out and goes, he didn't mean it, he's an idiot, sorry, we reverse it, right? So they're like, well, he obviously didn't mean this, right? We're not going to hand over our former ambassador to Putin, are we? And she's like, yeah, we're considering it. And people were like, what? So for here, there's dozens of these.

Well, I'll give you one more. Tom Nichols, professor at U.S. Naval War College, said, if Putin can single out McFall, our ambassador, he can single out anyone. The president's job is to protect us and not to even consider handing any of us over to an enemy government. That is a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. You do not hand over our ambassadors to people who hate them. And by the way, why does he hate McCall?

Why does Putin hate McCall? Because McCall called out his human rights record. And one of the things he did, the main businessman that he asked for is Bill Browder. Bill Browder is the one that got the Magnitsky Act passed because McNitsky was his lawyer that was murdered in a prison in Russia. So you know what the McNinsey ass does? It actually clamps down on Russian oligarchs and crime bosses. So that's Putin's henchmen.

They took Putin's money. And McCall facilitated that, our ambassador, because we were right, right? Because Putin was doing terrible things, and that's why we put the sanctions in the place. So Putin's like, give me McCall. He's the one that cost me and my henchmen money. Give him to me. He's a former U.S. ambassador. And Trump's like, incredible offer.

Sarah can be Sanders, we're considering it. That's when everybody was like, including all the Republicans. No, you are not considering that. shmuck. That is a terrible and incredibly weak thing to do. That's why finally today, Trump administration comes down. I guess we're not considering it anymore. Exactly. So that statement did not come from Trump himself. It did come from Heather Newert. So let's hear what she had to say. I can't answer on behalf of the White House with regard to that. But what I can tell you is that the overall assertions that have come out of the Russian government are absolutely absurd.

The fact that they want to question 11 American citizens and the assertions that the Russian government is making about those American citizens, we do not stand by those assertions that the Russian government makes. Yeah, when they ask the FBI director who is in charge of the investigation ultimately, special counsel reports to him, et cetera, are you concerned? considering taking the Russians help in your investigation of the Russians. He said, it is, quote, not high on our list of investigative techniques. Okay, when they said, how about handing over Americans to Putin so that Russians can help your investigation of Russia? He said, quote, that's probably even lower on our list of investigative techniques. Now, here's a guy who's a Republican appointed by Donald Trump.

He has to find the most polite way of saying, the president is a moron, or it's a man. traitor, but there's no way we're going to hand over Americans to Putin so that he could help us with our investigation of Putin. Now, Trump can't help himself. And so even though Heather Newark came forward and said that the White House is no longer considering making that deal with Putin, Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the White House to D.C., and apparently that invitation has already been sent out. We know about it because Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted about it.

So let's go to her tweet, Graphics 67. She says, in Helsinki, in Helsinki. Okay, in Helsinki, President of the United States agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between two security council staffs. President Trump asked Ambassador John Bolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall, and those discussions are already underway. So it is likely to happen. Look, I don't have a problem with them having a conversation. I don't have a problem with them having a meeting. That's fine.

But what I do have a problem with is Trump agreeing to things that are overwhelmingly in favor of what Putin wants and what Putin wants to do to American citizens and American officials. That is where the problem lies. So this is not, you know, an anti-diplomacy argument. More than anything, this is we have an incredibly unintelligent president. Unintelligent is maybe, no, it's right, an unintelligent president, and he is making deals with someone who is far more savvy than he is. And I'm just, I'm worried that there could be, you know, other motives behind the things that Trump

is doing with Putin. That's my number one concern. But even if you're not concerned about that, even if that's not even an issue, right? The way that he's handling this is problematic to say the least. Yeah. Anna's, bless her heart, is being way more diplomatic than I am. Either traitor or mentally damaged. I mean, that is one of the dumbest people alive if he thinks Putin would actually help him with an investigation of Putin.

Who could be that monstrously stupid? At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install.

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All right. Unfortunately, we have more on the story when we come back, because there's another flip-flop. And again, Republicans, how do they view this? It's stunning. Stunning, all right, we'll be right back. All right, welcome back to the Young Turks. Jane and Anna with you guys, there's a lot of wonderful YouTube super chats. So let me try to get through with them as quickly as I can.

Rachel Simigelski writes in, I've been watching TYT pretty consistently since 2008. That's 10 years, that's amazing. And finally became a member a couple of weeks ago. Yes, excellent. TYT.com slash join. Thank you for doing that. We really appreciate it. Here's a little something to say thank you for the last 10 years of news, laughter,

and the motivation to fight to truly improve our country. Guys, you don't know how much of a difference it makes if you become a member. It really, really powers us. It's ty.com slash join. It's super important. Sean Murphy was a great contribution on YouTube super chat. Thank you, Sean. He says, hi, Jenkin, Alan.

Love your show. I would like to say hi to the Facebook group, Sodahead. And shout out to my contorted friend, William Sisson Nazi face. I, by the way, this is his tweet, not mine. I assume they actually are friends and they don't mean it. Okay, but also what's your response when Trumpers say that unemployment is at a record low? So are wages. Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Wages are stagnant. They're not keeping up with inflation. All right, I could talk forever about that, but I want to answer quickly. Jean-Luc Picard says, engage. No, but I like your handle. Jean-Luc says, Anna, I really like your hair today. Thank you. Okay, all right.

Get the boy off the bridge. Okay, Justin Fernandez's last one says, love the TYT app, but wish you could save the point where I left off in a video when I leave the app. So we try to get, you know, include your constructive critique too. That's a great one. You're right. We're working on a brother. One thing at a time, we've got to get the Android app up next, and that is coming. and we've got a whole list and we've got an order of doing things.

We know that one and we are working on it. But thank you for your contribution. Really appreciate it. All right, what's next? All right. The New York Times has reported an explosive story indicating that just before Donald Trump's inauguration on June 6, 2017, he was notified by our intelligence officials, several of them, that, yes, it was the Russians, and yes, they attempted to meddle in

our elections. And so they also provided Donald Trump proof. And according to the reporting, everyone who is in the room indicated that Trump appeared to be convinced, but that very day and the following day, he proceeded to deny that Russia tried anything on social media, particularly Twitter, obviously. So let's give you the details of the story. Two weeks before his inauguration, Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir Putin had presented.

personally ordered complex cyber attacks to sway the 2016 American election. So what did this evidence include? It included texts, emails from Russian military officers, and information gleaned from a top secret source close to Putin, who had described to the CIA how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation. So who was he briefed by? Well, there were several people in the room, including John Brennan. the CIA director, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and Michael Rogers,

who was the director of the national security agency and the commander of United States Cyber Command. So James Comey was also in the room, and Comey actually took him to the side privately to let him know about the steel dossier. So Trump was aware of the existence of the steel dossier. At that point, it had not become public information. But this is all stuff that Trump knew about. He knew about it before his inauguration and then proceeded to go on social media and completely deny any Russian involvement.

And for two years, he's been saying it's a witch hunt, it's a witch hunt. And the people in the room, there was a dozen people in the room, say at the time he acknowledged, yes, this is convincing evidence. But then he went on on social media and denied it right afterwards and has been attacking the people in that room since then, obviously famously fired James Comey. And Brennan and Clapper are on TV frequently now, honestly attacking Donald Trump. But why? Why do you think they're doing that?

Because they saw the evidence. They were the director of the CIA and the director of national intelligence. They're the ones that initially presented that evidence to Trump in the first place. Mr. President, they are attacking in so many different ways through social media. They try to get into the ballot box. We think they didn't get in. And then on top of that, there's one other thing that they were doing, which is attacking our electric grade, which continued.

I want to tell you about that in a second. So they present all this evidence to them. And then with their own eyes, they were expecting a normal transition, right? Democratic president, hands off to a Republican president. It's happened a million times. And the Republican, like, you know, Clinton handing off to Bush. And they go, okay, we're going to take it seriously, et cetera. And we appreciate it.

And instead they get this clown who comes down and goes, It's a witch hunt. There's no, I don't see anything here. And they're like, what the hell's going on? We just showed him the evidence. Yeah, so let me give you some more information about how Trump handled it. So he hears and sees this evidence, right? It's not like they came to him and said, yo, your election was fraudulent man.

Like, you need to get out of the office. No, that's not what they were saying to him. They never said the word, yo. They never. They never said the word yo. But that, but what I'm trying to get you guys to understand is that their intention was to alert the leader of this country to an issue that needs to be resolved. And I think the way that Trump initially referred to it or handled it was they're trying

to undermine the election, they're trying to find excuses for why the Democrats lost. When that was not the case, no one was calling into question the legitimacy of his presidency or the election. There was just concern that Russians were able to somehow meddle. Okay, so let me give you more information. So Trump issued a statement later that day that sought to spread the blame for the meddling. He said Russia, China, and other countries outside groups and countries were launching cyber attacks against the American government and business and political organizations, including the DNC.

So he did not hone in on Russia. He didn't specifically mention Russia. He tried to make it seem as though we have enemies all over the world and they're all trying to meddle in our elections. when in fact, that is not the information that they were relaying to Donald Trump at that moment. So I want to go to the electric grid because it's really scary. And so, you know, Anna pointed out, this wasn't like an informal presentation. They came with significant evidence.

Now, it has continued. So even if you thought, oh, it's the Democratic attempt to, you know, spread blame for losing the election, et cetera. Well, okay, now it's all Trump appointments, and all those appointees are saying, hey, they're still attacking. They're attacking right now. Dan Coast, Director of National Intelligence, huge right winger, appointed by Trump, saying, Mr. President, we're under attack. You have to do something, right? Still with Putin with incredible offers, and he's a good guy and we're the bad guys. So about the electric grid, this March, so not having anything to do with the election, the Department of Homeland Security declared

that Russia was targeting American electric power grid. This is also according to the New York Times story, continuing to riddle it with malware that could be used to manipulate or shut down critical control systems. Now there's many different reasons why they could do that. One is general chaos, other is there's a lot of things on the electric grid. How does that affect our nuclear power plants? I don't know. How does that affect our readiness militarily?

to be very, very concerned about. Can you imagine if a Democratic president is told the Russians might shut down our electric grid and we might not be able to respond to that militarily? And he's like, yeah, whatever, right? I mean, Republicans would rip his head off and rightfully so. Republicans would rightfully rip his head off and guess what? So would Democrats. So would we, we would sit on the show and we would be outraged and alarmed by that.

But you don't get the same type of standard when it comes to the right wing, which is terrifying. And one more thing about the electric grid. Look, I don't know what they're planning, and that's why the intelligence people have their hair on fire and they're trying to figure it out. But if they knock down the electric grid, could that affect the elections? Everything is done through the internet now. If their power is off, does that allow them to do something else? I don't know. But I'm concerned.

This is national security. It doesn't get any more national security than this. He's talking about MS-13. That's like a tiny, tiny amount of crime in America, percentage-wise. It's like 0.01, as if it's like the biggest thing in the whole world, right? Meanwhile, our enemy is saying could knock out our entire electric grid. And he's like, do, do, do, do, do, do. I think they might be here to help us.

At a bare minimum, a buffoon over and over again. So I really want to go to some of the tweets that Trump put out there on the day of and the following day after he was briefed on what the intelligence community found. Let's go to Graphics 16 in one of the tweets. And again, this is from, oh, I'm sorry, this was a year afterwards. No, no, this was the day of. So on the day of, he said gross negligence by the DNC, allowing, allowed hacking to take place. The Republican National Committee had strong defense.

By the way, it's not true. It's entirely possible that the Russians also hacked the RNC. They just didn't release those emails. Putin himself admitted in the press conference, yeah, I wanted Trump to win. That was him rubbing it in. Yeah, of course I did. What are you gonna do about it? Well, I control the president, and you're not gonna do anything about it.

And he's blaming the Democrats for the Russians stealing their emails. Hey, you could say, hey, they should have also had better security, but as the president of the United States, you should be more concerned that a foreign power attacked us and stole from either party, that should be of concern to you. I know, this is a mind-blowing concept, for some, not everyone, but you can be concerned about the cyber security we have in the United States, you could want us to strengthen that cybersecurity. And you can also be outraged that any foreign country, including Russia, would attempt to meddle

in our elections and be successful in some regard. So let me give you more from Trump on the day after he was briefed on Russian meddling. He said, only reason the hacking of the poorly defended DNC is discussed is that the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed. So, I'm sure Democrats were embarrassed. I'm sure Hillary Clinton was embarrassed, I'm sure he's right about that. It was not a big win. She's still got millions more in the popular vote.

But whatever, that's not what this discussion is about. He is focusing specifically on using this information to his advantage to make it seem as though he's the competent one, the RNC were competent, whereas the DNC was incompetent and had No idea what was going on and allowed this hacking to take place. Okay, speaking of confidence, I'm going to quote New York Times one last time. In July of 2017, just after meeting with Mr. Putin the first time, Mr. Trump told the New York Times reporter that the Russian president had made a persuasive case that Moscow's cyber skills were so good that the government's hackers would have never been caught.

Therefore, Mr. Trump recounted from his conversation with Mr. Putin, Russia must not have have been responsible. I mean, like, you wonder why I keep calling him stupid. And that's, again, being kind to him. Otherwise, the other scenario is he's working with Putin. But who could be so stupid as you talk to Putin? And he says, no, I assure you, my hackers are so good, you would never catch them. He's like, oh, that's good point.

Hey, everybody, Putin told me, Tesla New York Times reporter, Putin told me their hackers are so good, we'd never catch them. So that's evidence that they must not have done it. No, but, Cenk, we keep, I think we keep overestimating Trump. And what I mean by that is, look, Trump, that's the way Trump talks about things. I mean, maybe not as eloquently as Putin does, but Trump responds well to people who say things like, I'm the best, it's the biggest, we're better at hacking, you wouldn't even know if we did it, can you imagine if you figured it out, you wouldn't be able to.

Like, that's Trump's communication style. And so, yes, Putin will communicate to him in that way, and it'll convince him he doesn't need the evidence. Yeah, look, and the answer is, of course, as you know, likely both. So he probably, you know, I thought all along that he has a deal with the Russians. I think it goes back to his days as a businessman, I think he's been doing money laundering for them for decades. And I think that he's been in their back pocket all along.

And he won this election. the Russians are thinking, yes. But on top of that, when Putin says, why don't you just tell them our hackers are so good, they would never be able to catch us? Trump goes, oh, that's a good one. That's so good, I bet they believe it. Hey, New York Times reporter, it's okay, Putin told me his hackers are so good and we never catch him. That worked, right?

And everybody else is like, oh my God, you're so stupid. Like, who wouldn't just believe Putin? Unless you were getting paid to believe Putin, or, once again, you're that dumb, or I want to leave you with one last tweet from Trump, the day after he spoke to intelligence officials about Russian meddling, here's what he had to say, having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, only stupid people or fools would think that it is bad. Okay, all right, well, that broke it down.

Oh, I didn't realize that, yeah. This is a day after he was provided evidence of Vladimir Putin himself. attempting to meddle in our elections. All right, I'm gonna say one last thing. Okay. I think that there's some chance that he's gonna be taken out in handcuffs. So I, and by the way, you're gonna say, oh, but you're gonna be saying that? No, no, I always thought that yes, he would resign in shame, but that they would come

to him with an offer he couldn't refuse. We got you, here's all the evidence, and by the way, here's evidence on your kids, and you're all going to prison, and this is gonna be an unbelievable fight unless you resign. And one morning, we're gonna wake up and he's gone. I've been my thesis all along, and likely that's still the case. But now, after the press conference and after all of this overwhelming evidence that he's in their back pocket, I think there's some chance that any, and one of my reasons for my thesis was that Trump is too stupid to cover anything up, he's just not capable

of it. Even if he wanted to, desperately, desperately wanted to cover up something, not bright enough to do it, I now think there's some chance he went into that Putin meeting when it was him and the interpreters, which is by the way, he's not how things are normally done, right? He's like, no, no, no, I want to talk to Putin just by myself. Okay, that's weird, but all right, fine, right? He thinks, oh, it's president to president, it's private, it's in Helsinki, it won't get out.

God knows what he admitted when he was in the room alone with Putin. And if they, and if it does get out, remember he's not smart, there's some chance he goes in the room. He says to Vlad, hey Vlad, can you believe we pulled it off? Right? So there's some chance now that he actually walks out of the White House in handcuffs. I hope. That's all I have to say.

Okay, let's move on because you mentioned their private meeting. There's actually some news in regard to that private meeting that's pretty relevant. So House Democrats wanted to, House Democrats wanted a subpoena for the Senate. the interpreter who was in the room during Donald Trump's private meeting with Vladimir Putin. Now, it is unprecedented for a U.S. president to call for a private meeting with an individual who is considered an adversary, but this is what Trump wanted, and that is what Trump got. During that meeting, it appears that there were agreements made, verbal agreements made between Trump and Putin, and the only other person in that room, because Vladimir Putin,

speaks in Russian was the interpreter. So Democrats in the House wanted to, you know, have a subpoena for that interpreter so they can ask that individual questions about what was discussed, what kind of deals were made. And House Republicans have decided to block that. These are Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, and they blocked it based on partisan lines. So I'll give you the details. The panel's top Democrat, Representative Adam Schiff, wanted the State Department interpreter to appear in a closed session, saying that Congress must find out what was said during this two-hour meeting. But Chairman Devin Nunez, unsurprisingly, said that, and led the Republicans in a party-line vote to table the motion. So that vote was 11 to

six. Also, you know, this is, I guess this is something that we shouldn't be surprised about. But remember, they made some sort of agreement. There was some sort of deal made. And so I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it. Because on one hand, I think that it's important for the president to be able to meet with someone privately. And I don't like the idea of forcing an interpreter to testify. So I don't know how I feel. No, I do.

I'm against it. So now that might surprise some of you guys, but there's a very important exception. If there is a legal reason that, for example, an investigator might want that transcript, and then they have a legal right to it, and I'd have to see that out. I'd have to see what their case is for having a right to see what was said between Trump and Putin. But should congressmen who are partisan get access to what the president said in diplomatic meetings with a foreign leader?

No, I don't think so. It's important that we be able to do diplomacy, and in order to do diplomacy, sometimes you have to say things that you do not want to be public. If we're going to invade that arena and make everything public, well, then that is going to prevent diplomacy in the future, it's a bad precedent. And even in this extreme case where I happen to think Trump and Putin are working together, I think that Trump is stupid enough that he probably admitted it in that two-hour meeting, and And that would be historic if we got that information, nonetheless, it's not the right thing to do.

Yeah, I think the costs outweigh the benefits, because the benefits would be, okay, we have an interpreter who is now testifying and telling us what they agreed to. But the cost would be opening the floodgates for abuse in the future, by partisan abuse, I think. And so I think if Trump did something shady, Trump is known to share incriminating evidence about himself on a regular basis. He can't help it. So I think that we'll find out soon enough. If an investigator has a real legal reason to get that, that's different. But Adam Schiff wants it so that he can look at it and he's a Democrat in that committee? No.

Yeah, I agree. And look, I wish we had that evidence, but that's not how America's supposed to work where we go, okay, I'd just like to take that even though it's supposed to be private and then make it public to the whole world. And you think partisan guys on both the Republican and Democratic side wouldn't leak that information? They would leak it immediately on second one. So no, I say no. All right, let's take a break.

When we come back, we will give you that poll that we've been talking about all show, throughout the whole show. What do Republicans think about Trump's summit in Russia with the Russian leader? You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now. All right, back on a young turks, lots of comments for you guys.

YouTube super chat star 7434 says, story media is ignoring with Russia hysteria is the alliance between Netanyahu Putin-Trump against Iran. Lastly, Dan Coats said we're, quote, not yet seeing any signs of election meddling for the midterms. So number one, we already saw them try to get into the voting rolls for 42 different states, as far as we know, in the last election cycle. Dan Coat said he is concerned about it, but you're right that he said for now, and he's only saying that publicly, because if he said, yeah, they're in the ballot box, we did be panic, right? But anyway, but it's a fair point. And the other point is even more fair.

Yes, they do have a deal against Iran. Well, look, I think Netanyahu and Trump and the Saudis and the UAE have a deal against Iran way more than Putin does. Putin's backing Bashar al-Assad is not necessarily in that deal. But if you're saying that we should also be concerned about that, absolutely. I totally agree. Okay, rubber piggy says on YouTube super chat, when Obama ran against Mitt Romney, Putin wanted Obama to win. So does that make Obama Putin's puppet? No, because Obama then didn't turn around and do him a hundred favors.

In fact, Obama is the one that slapped the sanctions on him that Putin has been furious about. Trump, on the other hand, came in and said, NATO sucks, European Union sucks, Canada sucks, all of our allies suck. But Putin is awesome. Putin's wonderful. They pass the sanctions. He won't enforce them. On and on and on. Come on, guys.

Overwhelming evidence. I don't know what you're waiting for. Okay, so I got to read a couple of tweets here. Amoeba Hunter 81, which is already an awesome handle, writes in. So you're telling me that the rich kid with bone spurs who said orgies were his Vietnam can't handle the most sophisticated crook on the planet. I don't particularly like the expression beta mail, but his photo should be next to it in the dictionary. Okay, and then Adam J. 2048 says, all I know is that Russians better not mess with the power grid and bust up Anna's flow.

I can attest to that. Not a good idea. And then finally, Kyle Cardinal with a really touching tweet, I'm of fixed income and terminally ill, but I still managed to sub to the young. Young Turks a few months out of the year. Every little bit helps. Keep up the fight, TYT. We love you. Man, that's amazing. Thank you guys.

Look, what we try to do in return is fight for you. And that's why we call it Home and Progressives. That's what we fight aggressively. We're going to talk about the establishment media again going after Bernie Sanders a little bit later in the show. And we promise you that we're going to fight as hard as we can and try to be as honest with you as we can. So every contribution, membership, et cetera, we appreciate.

That's t.com slash join, and you're the best. Thank you. All right, let me leave it at that. Let's keep going. Through several election cycles, Republicans in Congress have argued that they need to make it difficult for individuals to vote in elections through voter ID laws and other forms of making it harsher or difficult to vote. because they're concerned about voter fraud.

They wanna make sure that they maintain the integrity of our elections. Even though there was no evidence that there was voter fraud or any widespread voter fraud, they succeeded in passing legislation that made it increasingly difficult for people to vote legally. Now with that said, the House GOP has just refused to boost funding for election security.

So this is additional funding for state election security, and it's a grant that is usually included in the spending bill. And so Republicans are saying, no, we don't want to add additional funding to that. It's not an issue, it's not a problem. So to give you more information, Republicans argue that the program, which is overseen by the Federal Election Assistance Commission, is fully funded and does not need additional allocations. But guess what?

Representative Jim Jordan says, I know what we need for safe and secure elections, and that's voter ID. So look, the reason why I'm bringing up voter ID laws is because there is a concern right now that our elections moving forward can be tampered with, can be manipulated. We have reason to believe that the Russian meddling that occurred during the 2016 election will occur again and maybe it'll be more widespread and more effective this time around. So in the House, Democrats are urging Republicans to agree with them to offer more funding. So on a state level, state lawmakers can use that funding to ensure that they have secure elections. And Republicans are like, no, it's funded, it's fine.

But that is not the case. And I'll give you the evidence in just a second. So let's go to graphic 23. The Senate version of the financial services spending bill also excluded new money for election security grants. It passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan vote. And also here is the reality of how. the elections get funded for security purposes.

The Federal Election Assistance Commission that administers the election security grant program to states currently only has two of four commissioners. So it's understaffed, not enough to form a quorum and approve new voluntary voting system guidelines against which the voting system can be tested to determine if they meet required standards. So there's an issue right there. Another issue is this. The bulk of the $3.6 billion authorized under the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the wake of the contested 2000 presidential election, was sent

to states well over a decade ago to upgrade voting systems. In many cases, those systems now need new upgrades. So they are referring to money that was given to the states a decade ago. And they're saying, no, no, it's funded, it's fine, it's fine. But those voter ID laws, Let's do something about that. That's actually almost two decades ago. And they say, well, there's still a little bit of money left in that appropriation. And that is true, to be fair. But we've got new challenges.

And look, and if your commission doesn't even have quorum, that means they're not doing anything. Any American who actually cares about our democracy should be deeply concerned that foreign agents are trying to hack in. And by the way, Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence Hunter Trump, says it's not just the Russians, it's also the Chinese, it's also the North Koreans, and the Iranians. So those are the top four countries trying to break in through cyber attacks into America. He explains the Chinese are more interested in trade and business secrets that they're trying to steal. The Russians are the most aggressive foreign actor in terms of trying to mess with our elections. But whether it's Iran, Russia, or China, or any of these people, and if you care about our country and our national security and making sure that we don't have voter fraud, this would be your number one priority. Your hair would be on fire going, my God, the commission doesn't even meet because they don't have whorum?

That's crazy. Instead, the Republicans are saying, don't worry about it. There's some leftover money. We'll be fine. Now, why are they saying that? Trump won, I don't care what you say. I don't care. I don't care, Trump won, Trump one, it wasn't the Russians, okay?

That's point one. Point two is, I think they secretly think, looks like the Russians are on our side, meeting the Republican side. Well, I mean, I know that the Republicans aren't necessarily looking forward to the midterm elections. And so there is concern that, hey, midterm elections are coming up. We want to make sure that our election systems are safe. We want to make sure that we have enough funding put in place so people can secure

elections. And I don't know, it doesn't seem as though Republicans really care so much about securing the election process as much as they care about excluding certain citizens from voting. But including foreign actors and foreign agents. So it's, look, the one thing that is absolutely clear is Republicans never cared about voter fraud. All they cared about was Republicans winning. So, and by the way, most of the voter fraud that's uncovered is done by Republicans. We've shown it on the show over and over again. Right.

And now you have foreign actors that are hacking in. They're like, wait, who are they voting for? Oh, they're voting for Republicans? Oh, Representative Dan Newhouse, Republican of Washington says, there's no crisis. Oh, my God. So if you think for some reason, no big deal, who cares of the Russians and other governments are trying to get into the vote. Who cares? You're weird, but okay, that's fine. That's your opinion. But what you're not allowed to say is, I care about voter fraud. You're not allowed to say that

because you don't. And if you're a Republican, shut up about voter fraud because you just proved you don't care about it at all. I mean, and by the way, I mean, just look at the way they pass laws and the type of laws that they pass to secure the elections against voter fraud. They, of course, overwhelmingly passed laws that put people who usually vote for Democrats at a disadvantage. So these voter ID laws, it makes it more difficult for out-of-state students to vote because if you are a student from California and you're studying in, I don't know, Alabama, well, why would you have an Alabama ID?

But you're a student there. You move to Alabama to learn there, but you didn't go out of your way to get an Alabama ID. So it puts you at a disadvantage. Same thing with the elderly who might not drive anymore, but they want to vote. They might not have a driver's license, but they are allowed to legally vote. They're purposely making it difficult for people to vote in this country. American citizens who have the right to vote.

And then simultaneously turning the other way when there is a legitimate threat to take care of. Absolutely. Yeah. Although I don't know why you'd go to Alabama for school, but that's okay. Anyway, that's just mentioned a random state that came to mind. No, I'm kidding. I grew up in New Jersey, I had a New Jersey driver's license.

I went to school in Pennsylvania. I didn't go get a Pennsylvania driver's license. That's crazy. And yeah, I voted. That was back when, and I was a Republican back then. So they were like, oh, great, go ahead. Vote right away. Vote right away.

Vote right away. Vote twice. Go ahead. No, no. But back then, they weren't trying to do these voter ID laws as much because they hadn't figured out how to block the vote that unfortunately they have. All right, what's thanks? Axios and Survey Monkey, which is always a fun name.

had decided to look into how Americans really felt about Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin. And I guess unsurprisingly, if you divvy up the respondents based on political ideology, there is a significant difference between Democrats and Republicans. So let's start off with Republicans, or conservatives, I should say. 79% of conservatives approve of how Trump handled the press conference with his Russian counterpart. So this is specifically about the press conference. This is the press conference. This is not, hey, let's have a question that just kind of talks about the broader issue

of diplomacy. No, no, no. How did Trump perform during this press conference where he basically went against America and told the entire world that he believes Vladimir Putin over our own intelligence agencies? No, this goes to show you that Republican voters are, they've just a thoughtful. authoritarian, by nature, that's what they are. They'd like to give their banana to their leader, and that's, they can't help themselves. So if a Democrat had gone with a foreign leader, let's say the leader of Iran and had done

a press conference saying, the American intelligence agencies are stupid and weak, I believe the leader of Iran. I think the Ayatollah is right. Their heads would have exploded, they would have been traitor, it would have lost their minds, impeachment, etc. goes and does that with Putin, goes, we're weak and stupid, America's wrong, Russia's right. And then he has a but on top, right? The Republicans look at that and go, oh, great, that's wonderful.

He's still our leader, right? Here's my banana. No, but, okay, let's juxtapose the response that conservatives had to the summit to the way that they reacted to Obama when he met with other world leaders. Now, we're not talking about Obama meeting with enemies and telling everyone in the world that he supports the enemy over U.S. intelligence, but there was a case where Obama, I believe, bowed to another world leader. Was it Shinsoaabe? Yeah, and it was, first of all, you're supposed to, it's custom in Japan, and now Trump has

bowed on multiple occasions of multiple foreign leaders, because, by the way, and I don't blame him for that, because that's their custom, and it's a decent thing to do. Bush walked around with the Saudi leader holding hands in Crawford, because it was custom, and that's diplomacy, and that's totally fine. But they're like, no, Obama bowed a little too much. He was off by a couple of degrees in his bow. No, it became a scandal. And now this guy goes up and he's like bear hugging, if you will.

Vladimir Putin, like, Vlad, what he says, Drew, whatever he says, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The Americans are wrong. He went on an apology tour and 80% of Republicans are like, bravo. Way to apologize for America. Make Russia great again. That's what I always meant. So, 79% of conservatives, they approve of this joint press conference with Putin. Let's take a look at independents.

Independence, luckily, you have quite a difference. 62% of independents said that they disapprove of Trump's conduct. And then when it comes to Democrats, unsurprisingly, 91% say that they also disapprove. Look, the fact that the Republican voters have lost their minds at large is one of my, I don't know if I say pet peeve, I just can't believe. And it's, you would think, like, wait, you would criticize Republicans all the time. I know, but I really, remember, I used to be a Republican. I can't believe that the entirety of the party has lost their mind completely.

And they have no ability to see what is right and what is wrong, what is true, and what is not true. And four out of five of them, there's nothing that Trump can't do where they wouldn't be like, Bravo, bravo, bravo, way to punch yourself in the face. That was genius the way that you did it, right? further than that. Like, if Trump wants to punch himself in the face, that's one thing. But Bravo, way to lower America while simultaneously supporting Putin. Like, no, no, like, I, like, it's now literal. I'm not sure he could do anything. Remember, he famously said, I could shoot somebody in Fifth Avenue, they'd still support me. Look, first of all, they would definitely find a reason to support him on that.

I don't even think that's close. I guarantee you, eight out of ten Republicans would say, well, Of course, he's the president, he has the right to execute anyone he likes. He's got, he's in the executive branch. That's what do you do, you do executions, it's totally fine. Obama did it, I guarantee you they would say that. That's not even close, right? But he could do things that would seem like more antithetical to Republicans. He could spit on the American flag in front of Putin and they'd be like, no, he means that

symbolically his reign, which is a blessing. He's helping the American flag. There's nothing that they won't say yes to with, I'm telling you, look, what else can He said he kissed the Russian leader's ass in front of the whole world. And they're like, nailed it. I will look, to be fair, that ass must have been delicious. Okay. Okay.

So, all right. So there was that. And then, yeah, the way that he did a world tour bragging about how awesome Kim Jong-un is. And it goes on. Yeah. But I'll tell you, look, don't lose track of the good news. It's not that 91% of Democrats thought he was a buffoon. That's actually, in my opinion, too low a number.

Who are the 9% of Democrats who thought that was a good? Anyway, no, the good news is, guys, if you've lost 62% of independence, and it's just on this press conference, to be fair, but they're leaning in that direction. They keep leaning in that direction. You lose 62% of independence. You're never going to win an election. You're just not. I know you think, oh, no, but he did.

He won last time. So there's magic. There's no magic. He ran against a terrible, terrible opponent who represented the elite and the establishment in the minds of Americans, she was the only one less popular than him in American history of all presidential candidates since polling, right? If the Democrats are not that stupid again, although that is a big if, I will grant you that, right?

And they elect, they nominate someone with a pulse. If you've lost 62% of independence, gone, you're gone, it's not a close election. And so, and overall, for the whole country, how did they think he handled the press conference? You think like, oh my god, that's amazing. I can't believe 40% of the country thinks that way he did a good job in that press conference and that's depressing. On the other hand, 58 to 40 is a landslide, it's a landslide. If we had the election today and you put someone that the rest of the country did not view

as the elite of the elite, they would crush him. There is no magic. Numbers still exist and we do still live in the reality-based world. Some voters might not, but they're gonna get outvoted, especially with that number of independents going, this guy's a buffoon. You said a lot of intelligent things, so now I'm gonna add something unintelligent. Isn't it kind of funny how survey monkey constantly tells us about how the monkeys like to give away their bananas?

Well, I'm pretty sure they did not intend it as such, but don't. By the way, you know what, I'm gonna clarify it in the post game. The banana, you've heard me talking about the banana survey, and then I do this. every once in a while. I'm gonna clarify what those things are, okay? So t-y-t.com slash join. And SurveyMonkey's a good company, by the way. No, it is.

I'm not putting them down. I love the name of that organization. And I certainly can't complain having named a pack after an animal myself. That's true. Wolf-dashpack.com. Okay, all right, we gotta take a break. And when we come back, young Turks has broken a very important story, also about the Russian investigation. Actually, I don't want you to miss it because I think we did a great job here our reporters

did. And I think it's very important to understand how Russia is manipulating some of the conservative groups in this country. It's a startling story. And then CNN has ranked the Democratic candidates for 2020. Wait till you get a little ranking. Where did Bernie rank? And why?

Why is the clincher? You'll love that story. be right back. Thanks for watching. We're listening to this free version of the Young Turks podcast. You know that the full show is at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. If you become a member, you get the full show ad-free. We love you for watching or listening either way. There's going to be a new free podcast tomorrow. You can keep on doing that. But if you want to get the full show ad-free, t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more

by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.