The Young Turks - Trump's Lawyers Suck

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Lindsey Graham makes odd threats over impeachment, as polls show most Americans want Trump convicted and barred from running for office again. Plus, Republicans claim that the trial itself is unconstitutional, and a look at all the evidence likely to be used during the trial. The QAnon Shaman’s lawyer calls out Trump's 'propaganda’ in inciting the Capitol Riots, claiming millions of Americans ‘did hang on every word of their president.’ 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. Welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Casperian. Joining us today is Francesca Furentini, host of the Bituation Room, and a good friend of the network, common contributor, comes on the show on a regular basis. How are you, Francesca? I'm really good. Thank you. Wow. Who, impeachment deuce, here we go. Jeez.

You know, I will say I'm going to confess this morning when I woke up, I thought about the fact that it's the first day of the Senate impeachment trial. And I kind of rolled my eyes and I'm like, all right, you know, you got to do stories that you don't personally care about. But it doesn't matter. Like you got to do it. But I must say that the first day was eventful. Very, very eventful. There's a lot to get to. And I can't wait to share some of the video highlights with you guys, including some of Trump's lawyers. And remember, he had a difficult time putting together a defense team because lawyers don't want to work with him for obvious reasons and maybe not so obvious reasons, like the fact that he doesn't pay people. And that usually discourages lawyers from wanting to represent him. But we'll get to all of that later. I encourage you guys to,

to write in if you're a member, write in using YouTube super chats if you're watching on YouTube and like and share the stream. It's one of the easiest ways to share the message and help support TYT, take seconds to do it. Ring that bell. There's a bell next to the video. You click on that and you do a lot of service, good service for TYT in helping to spread our message. Later in the show, hopefully we'll get to one of my favorite stories of the day, which is a CNBC segment. with a billionaire crying about the amount of stimulus money that will be used to help, you know, just help Americans survive a little bit. So rich men cry, one of my favorite segments ever, we'll be doing that later,

probably in the second hour. But Francesca, you know what? Why don't we stop, you know, like withholding this incredible information about Trump's lawyers and what happened in the impeachment trial today. Let's talk to you a little bit, to you guys a little bit about what happened today. and buckle up because it's a wild ride. Ready. So it's going to be good.

Today marks the very first day that the Senate impeachment trial has begun listening to arguments by Trump's impeachment lawyers, meaning the lawyers who are representing him and attempting to defend him. Clearly, they don't believe that they need to do much work. But the Senate also held an important vote in regard to the impeachment trial today. The whole vote had to do with the fact that Republicans have been arguing that the idea of holding an impeachment trial for a president who's no longer a sitting president is unconstitutional. Well, the senators have voted on this and they have voted to proceed with the impeachment trial, arguing that the trial is in fact constitutional. And if you guys can recall last week, there were 45 Republican senators who said that they believe that the impeachment trial.

would be unconstitutional. One of those 45 senators, Republican senators, has reneged. He has changed his mind after hearing the arguments made by Jamie Raskin, who's one of the impeachment lawyers. He made a fantastic case, which we'll get to in a little bit. But his case was so good. His statements were so powerful that Trump's lawyer, Bruce Castor, stood up and made a complete an utter fool out of himself. In fact, he conceded that Raskin's opening statements were too powerful and that he had to change his strategy right before getting up there to make his statement. So without further ado, here is Bruce Castor, one of Trump's defense attorneys. Here's what he has to say.

I'll be quite frank with you. We changed what we were going to do on account that we thought that the House manager's presentation was well done. Instead of floodgates, I was going to say originally, it will release the whirlwind, which is a biblical reference. But I subsequently learned since I got here that that particular phrase has already been taken, so I figured I'd better change it to floodgates. We still know what records are, right? On the thing you put the needle down on and play it.

Do you ever notice how when you're talking or you hear others talking about you when you're home in your state, they will say, you know, I talk to my senator. Why is it that we say my senator? You know, I feel proud to know my senators. I mean, the rest of his statement wasn't any better. It was rambling. He didn't really make any legal arguments while he was speaking.

In fact, I saw his statement after I saw David Shone's statement, And that's the other attorney who spoke today. And I thought David Shone was a complete and utter disaster. But then our senior producer, Brett Ehrlich, was like, have you seen Bruce Castor's statement yet? And once I did, I was like, wow, he actually makes David Shone look much better. We'll get to Shone's, you know, sought in just a second. Before we do, Francesca, I wanted to get your thoughts on what Caster said there. You know, not every Batman villain can be a winner, okay?

He had the pinstripes. he was there, like sometimes, you know, they can't all be the Roger Stones, they can't all be, because that's the thing about Trump defenders and loyalists is like, if you're going to be dumb, which a lot of them are, at least have conviction of your ignorance. And like, it was very clear that Castor does not have the conviction of his ignorance. There was a lot of statements where he was like, well, I don't want to take up too much more time. I should probably get going because, you know, my, my co-counsel is about to get up here and he will do well. You know, as a comedian, it made me feel like a, like the opener who's like just kind of flailing.

And, you know, they're the opener anyway. And you're like, okay, look, let me just bring up your headliner. And, you know, the audience is just not feeling it. Getting a lot of those vibes from Bruce Castor there. Yeah, definitely. And just to give you guys more context regarding the reality of this trial with the likely The outcome is going to be, you need 17 Republican senators to vote in favor of convicting Donald Trump on that one charge of inciting an insurrection.

Forty-five Republicans last week came out and said that they find the trial unconstitutional because Trump is no longer a sitting president. But today, after hearing the opening statements from Representative Raskin, Bill Cassidy ended up changing his mind regarding the constitutionality of this impeachment trial. And he decided to vote along with Democrats. He wasn't the only Republican. The Republicans who voted for the trial's constitutionality were senators Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. So I'm very curious to see what type of treatment they're gonna get from their fellow republic

lawmakers and I guess more importantly from Trump's incredibly loyal base. But for now, they see the election, they see this impeachment trial as constitutional and they're going to go forward. Now if you think that Bruce Castor's statement was bad, not very good, get a load of David Shone who was weirdly emotional and angry. He was angry and then later started crying during his statement. We'll give you a snippet of what he had to say on the Senate floor today. Let's take a quick look. They want to put you through a 16 hour presentation over two days focusing on this as if it were some sort of blood sport. And to what end? For healing? For unity? For accountability?

Not for any of those. They don't need to show you movies to show you that the riot happened here. We will stipulate that it happened and you know all about it. This is a process fueled irresponsibly by base hatred by these house managers and those who gave them their charge, and they are willing to sacrifice our national character to advance their hatred and their fear. The water moment was special, special. But you can see shown carrying out exactly the type of behavior that Donald Trump would approve of. Very curious to see how Trump, response to Bruce Castor. But Francesca, any thoughts on Shone's performance there? Once again, I think just marks for the conviction. You know, he clearly believes his own BS,

which is, you know, again, the least you can expect for a Trump loyalist who may or may not get paid. Like, kudos to him. The water moment was super funny. Then I learned that that's something that Orthodox Jews do. Obviously, he usually wears a keepa on his head. And so I think it has something to do with that, so I don't want to be disrespectful. But also, let's remember, this is a lawyer who's defended the KKK before. This is a lawyer who tried to sue Jimmy Carter, former president Jimmy Carter, over his book about Palestinian human rights. He is vehemently Zionist, vehemently pro-Israel at the expense of Palestinians. He, I think a lot of Jewish Americans and Jews around the world would have a big issue with the kinds of people that he's represent.

and their hatred, including the former President Donald Trump. But yeah, it was just the same kind of grift in anger form. My favorite culminating in him, like just basically showing a montage of every time a Democrat said the word impeachment, as if like that's the real crime, is that like, see, you, you said impeachment a long time ago. Yeah, because there were impeachable offenses a long time ago. Since the beginning of this presidency, there have been impeachable offenses. This is just the most egregious of them all. And maybe it says something that some of those Republican senators join Democrats in saying we should go forward with this process.

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that this is more of a bipartisan approach. Again, you're going to need 17 Republican lawmakers to vote in favor of convicting Donald Trump. And that is unlikely, which is why, you know, the fumbling, bumbling nonsense coming from Trump's lawyer. doesn't really matter at the end of the day because you do have Trump loyalists within the Senate GOP who are unwilling to convict him regardless of how good the evidence is, regardless of what Donald Trump has been proven guilty of doing. And I do think that there's a significant amount of evidence indicating that he incited what we experienced at the Capitol on January 6th, with the rioters, you know, breaching the building, vandalizing,

terrorizing people inside the building, threatening congressional lawmakers. And don't forget, there was a Capitol police officer who died that day after being beaten by a fire extinguisher. You had four other people who were part of these demonstrations, part of this riot who also died as a result of their injuries. So this is a real issue. Like this isn't a joke. This isn't some complicated charge to understand. I'll concede that the first, impeachment trial might have been a little difficult for the general public to understand because there was a lot going on. And I was actually really disappointed that that impeachment trial narrowed its scope. Democrats decided to narrow their scope to focus solely on the quid pro quo

regarding Ukraine. But in this case, I mean, it's really, really easy for the general public to understand what's going on. The video footage, the evidence that's being presented already is incredibly compelling. But all of that, all of that, and regardless of how convincing it is, you would need Republican lawmakers in the Senate to want to be leaders. You would want them to actually care about doing the right thing. And we have a mixture of Republican lawmakers who are either terrified of Trump's base or just completely self-interested and have decided that the fate of the Republican Party rests in the hands of Trump's supporters. who still overwhelmingly support him and the actions he engaged in.

So they're looking out for their own political careers by avoiding any type of, you know, provocation or a provocation against them, I guess, for lack of a better phrase. So it's depressing. It's so depressing to see it. They're afraid. They are also afraid. You know, I said this on the damage report the other day, but it's like, look, it's just a matter of time as a Trump loyalist in the GOP where it's, instead of hang Mike Pence, It's hang, insert your name. Just like your name is waiting to be filleted by the MAGA base.

If you say one thing that they don't like, if you do one thing, even if you are a Cheney, a literal like the, you know, the God, the like the family of the Republican Party, the Cheney's, the untouchable, right? Like even if you're a Cheney, even if you're Mike Pence, even if you're Lindsey Graham, who I know we're going to talk about in a little bit. So it's like at what point do you admit like, so are you scared? because I'm hearing you're actually scared, which you should be because we were all scared for our lives that day in the Capitol building. Right, okay, and then to your point, you know, since we started this segment by talking about Castor and, you know, how he's literally Trump's lawyer giving credit to Jamie Raskin's opening statements, why don't we take a look at what Jamie Raskin said and presented as part

of the evidence against Donald Trump. And if we buy this radical argument that President Trump's lawyers advance, we risk allowing January 6th to become our future. I'll show you. We will stop the steel. And after this, we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down. We're going to walk down to look down to live.

the capital. Yes. Take the capital. Take the capital. Take the capital. We are going to the capital where our problems are. It's that direction. The U.S.

The U.S. The U.S. The Constitution says you have to protect. We all number you a million alone out here, go. Take the building. Take the building! The Constitution says you have to protect.

says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution and you can't vote on fraud and fraud breaks up everything doesn't it when you catch somebody in a fraud you're allowed to go by very different rules Go, go! Go, go! South the sea! Stop the seat! It was powerful.

So how do you follow that video up? How do you follow that evidence up? And, you know, you all should watch the entirety of Raskin's opening statement. It was powerful. How do you follow that up with any type of defense for Donald Trump? especially from lawyers who were like put together last minute because Trump had so much difficulty finding a defense team that was willing to represent him. Lawyers were unwilling to work with him because he essentially wants them to go up there and question the outcome of the general election.

The second reason is he doesn't pay people. So lawyers are distrustful. They don't want to work with him because they're worried that they won't get paid for their work. So you have these lawyers who I think did a pretty poor job, especially after seeing that evidence that was presented by Raskin. Yeah, I mean, at no point did they even attempt to be like, well, he put out that statement, which was completely toothless, the president put out the statement about how he wants everyone to go home. Like, they knew that even that, I think, and we will see how the days continue. But even that was like, compared to the overwhelming evidence here inside the Capitol building chanting the name of the march that the president endorsed and that leading Republicans

planned along with these like MAGA activists. Meanwhile on the Democrat side, they accused like, oh, Democrats want to defund the police. No. At what point? Like at what point is any Democrat like actually said that out loud, right? And yet they, you Democrats get assigned these, these calls from the streets all the time. Meanwhile, we hear this literal call inside. the Capitol building among the insurrectionists, like the ties are clear. And poor Bruce Castor, man, oh, he must just all the paperwork. He must have been scrambling. Like, oh, God, well, I didn't know you would present evidence. Raskin, you real little rascal. That's what I call him, Raskin the rascal, just sweats into a puddle. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's exactly what he did.

It was just a terrible, awful fumble. And again, I think what would be interesting is to see Trump's reaction to Castor specifically. But, you know, as I said earlier, when I saw Shone's statement, I thought it can't get worse than this. And then I was told to watch casters, and I just couldn't believe it. So we'll see how this all plays out. There's certainly some positive news that a Republican Senator, Senator Cassidy, switched his vote or his decision from thinking that this impeachment trial is unconstitutional to now believing it's constitutional. We'll see if the Democrats can persuade more Republicans to vote along with them to convict Donald Trump.

But for now, we should take a break. When we come back, there are more Republicans who were impressed by Representative Jamie Raskins' opening statements. We'll tell you who and show you some more video when we return. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-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-B-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 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 app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Hey everyone, welcome to our social break. We got some fun programming news for you. So, TYT is turning 19. Our 19th anniversary is quickly approaching, and we're going to do a fun special to celebrate. So you can check that out on Monday, February 15th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific.

And we're going to have a giant panel of people rotating in, including Jank, myself, John, J.R. Aaron, Dave, Steve, Ben, and Brett. And they're going to talk about TYT throughout the years and reminisce about all the good times and maybe some of the not so good times. Maybe some drums. Maybe some drums. You don't want to miss that. So you can watch live on TYT.com slash live and all the other platforms we're on. Again, that's on Monday, February 15th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. And then also while you're watching, you should probably protect your online activity by signing up for a VPN. You can do so by looking into PureVPN, who we've partnered up with, go to t-y-t.com slash pure VPN for a seven-day trial for only 99 cents. And it's a pretty sweet deal, you know? We're passing out those discounts,

guys. Check it out. All right, I'm going to read some member comments now, starting with a bucket full of dragons. I literally got chills when I watched the entire video. You can feel the suspense. So I'm gonna guess you're referring to Raskin. And you know, Raskin went through something pretty tragic recently. His son, you know, committed suicide. And so he also talked about that in the beginning of his statement. It was a powerful speech for sure. So everyone, I wish we had all the time in the world to actually play more clips of that.

But I highly recommend you guys check it out. No More Trigonometry also writes in and says, is Caster George W's long-lost brother? Maybe, maybe. I mean, Bush Jr. was definitely very good at choking when it came to public statements and speeches. I am SOC says, I want to hear Republican senators point to the well thought defense presented today to defend their no votes. I mean, Francesca, I think they're just going to keep repeating the same stuff. Like, they don't really focus on what happened on January 6th. They decide that they're gonna make all sorts of procedural arguments, right? Oh, you're doing an impeachment trial on someone who's not even a sitting president anymore. We think that's unconstitutional.

You know, they have a problem with Patrick Leahy presiding over the Senate trial, but that's what's supposed to happen when you're, you know, doing an impeachment trial on someone who's no longer a sitting president. Just like nonsense arguments that don't actually hold up to what legal experts say the Constitution actually indicates. Yeah, absolutely. It's deflection and it's get it on process and not the actual crime. Yeah, we're going to see more. We have 30 seconds left.

So I'll read one more from Antifa customer service who says, let's not forget that the reason the impeachment trial took so long to begin with, this is a good point. Mitch McConnell made the House wait until the Senate came back from recess. So remember, Mitch McConnell is now saying, oh, it's unconstitutional, oh, it's unconstitutional. Well, you're the one who didn't want to do the impeachment trial until Trump was already out of office. So what's going on? Anyway, we've got to get back to the show.

Lots more to share with you guys. I'm gonnae. I'm gonna Bhopin'n'n't and I'm B'nett. And

B'i'n'an A B'a-na-a-ta-ta-tour-poh-poh-haw-haw-ha-ha-ha-oh-oh-oh. Hey everyone, welcome back to TYT, Anna and Francesca with you. Make sure you guys check out Francesca's show and subscribe. It's the bituation room. And Francesca, is there any specific place? platform that you want people to find the podcast on? Any preferred method or? Yeah, thanks so much.

Yeah, you can go to YouTube slash Franie Fio. That's where the podcast lives, but also any platform that you get your podcasts on. We talked all about the Indian farmers protests this last Sunday. So it was very good, and I encourage everyone to listen. All right, everyone check that out. We have some more impeachment news to get to, including a somewhat surprising segment on Fox News today as the impeachment trial was going on. So let's discuss. Fox News is Chris Wallace praised Democratic representative Jamie Raskin and also Joe Neguse for their opening statements during the first day of Trump's Senate impeachment trial. He was impeached in the House on one charge, and that's inciting an insurrection. And of course, that's related to the January 6th insurrection

insurrectionist riding the capital. And so Chris Wallace, of course, has been critical of Trump in the past. He's not one of these Lou Dobb types, who's just a loyalist and goes above and beyond in trying to pleasure the former president. Chris Wallace has actually been pretty fair in criticizing Trump on various issues. And it appears that this impeachment trial is one of those issues. So let's hear what he had to say about representatives Raskin and Nogus. I thought it was a very powerful opening.

It had a lot of substance to it. It had a lot of technological slickness to it. The video of the events of January 6th, the use of graphics to make the points about what's in the Constitution, the historical precedent. I thought it was particularly an illegal, as opposed to the emotional side, in a strict legal argument, I thought that Joe Neguse, the congressman from Colorado, made a particularly strong argument. And what he did was he took a conservative legal philosophy, originalism, textualism, read the Constitution exactly as it is written, and use that against the president, saying if you take the look at what the words were in Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution, it provides exactly for this kind of trial of a president who has left office.

And then I thought his clothes was very strong. What happened on January 6th, he said, is the framers' worst nightmare come to life and that a president can't inflame insurrection and run away. You're going to hear this expression over and over again. The fact that Naguze used language that typically appeals to conservatives might, have been part of the reason why one of the Republican senators flipped from believing that the impeachment trial was unconstitutional to essentially voting that it is constitutional today, and that's Senator Bill Cassidy. He joined other so-called moderate Republicans, if you believe

in such a thing, in voting in favor of this impeachment trial proceeding. Again, I mean, this is my speculation, who knows what's in Cassidy's mind. But again, there were 45 Republican senators just last week who said that this impeachment trial was unconstitutional, that they didn't believe it was right. And then one of those senators just today flipped his decision. And that was Senator Bill Cassidy. But what did you think about Chris Wallace's statements there, Francesca? I mean, I think he's being fair. How is he? I mean, honestly, like, why hasn't he, I'm sure he's trying to leverage for a better deal at another network, right? That's probably happening. But like, he's they're tether to reality, you know? And he's asked the president, the former president really

tough questions. Like, tell me about the cognitive test that you took. You know, like, didn't you have to count backwards from 100? So, like, you know, tough questions for Fox News. But like, it does say something that he is, that Fox News is still putting him up, that they're, especially on such an important day. And hopefully, God, I mean, this is the point we, we, are, we're just like, we're, we're like right wing whispering and we're just holding out hope that these institutions like Fox News go in a less Q and on direction. They go in a, in a direction that makes sense. But he listened. He listened, probably listened to the Democrats case more than the senators themselves who were sitting in the actual room. So that says a lot.

That it does say a lot. And to be fair, we've talked about this before, but just to bring it up again, Raskin not only had a really powerful point to make during his opening statement, he also provided evidence from the get-go, and this is what that looked like. And if we buy this radical argument that President Trump's lawyers advance, we risk allowing January 6th to become our future. I'll show you. We will stop the steel.

And after this, we're going to walk down and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down. We're going to walk down to the Capitol. Take the Capitol. Take the Capitol. Take the Capitol. Take the Capitol. We are going to the Capitol.

where our problems are, it's that direction. The Constitution says you have to protect our country, and you have to protect our Constitution, says you have to protect our Constitution, and you can't vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn't it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules. Now, that video is certainly compelling and it provides quite a bit of evidence to make the Democrats case that Donald Trump should in fact get convicted in this impeachment trial. But it's also important to juxtapose what you just saw by Jamie Raskin to what Trump's

lawyers did today. And, you know, we in an earlier story shared a snippet of Bruce Castor's disastrous opening statements in which he admitted that Raskin's statements were so powerful that he had to change his strategy right then and there on the spot. And then he gave this weird rambling impromptu speech that didn't really have a point. And it was so poorly put together that Alan Dershowitz, of all people, on Newsmax, had to call it out. They cut out of Caster's speech, and then this is what Dershowitz had to say. We just want to take a moment here to break down some of what's being discussed, because we do have Alan Dershowitz standing by. What are you making of Bruce Caster's argument so far? Where is he heading with this? There is no argument.

I have no idea what he's doing. I have no idea why he's saying what he's saying. He's introducing himself, I'm a nice guy. I like my senators. I know my senators. Senators are great people. Come on. The American people are entitled to an argument. I love to see it. I mean, not Alan Dershowitz, but I love to see them panicking over the disastrous, you know, defense of Donald Trump during this impeachment trial. Honestly, and to be realistic, not that it's going to matter, Francesca. Again, you need 17 Republican senators to vote in favor of convicting Donald Trump here, meaning you need two thirds of the Senate to convict him. But still, I mean, it does show these Trump loyalists for who they really are, how they're willing to put Trump before the country.

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control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. He is going negative on your strategy. You know you don't have a chance in hell except, oh yeah, they're all going to vote to acquit. So you really don't need to try. You just, you know, it's like when you're, I don't know, when your parent is also your teacher or like your like dad is the football coach.

I don't know. I feel like there's something where it's like it's going to be a slam dunk anyway. We're just sort of going through the motions here. Everyone knows it's rigged in your favor. But what's interesting is what the lawyers are not saying. Like because they can't, there's will be no daylight being put. between the rioters and Trump himself. Zero. Because Trump knows that's it. That is at his request. Do not make this mob turn on me. The mob that I sicked on my on Congress people, don't turn

them on me, obviously, because one, I'm scared of them. And two, they're my, they're my homies. This is my base. I don't want to ignore my base. And so don't ever make it look like I disavowed them because so all the, if you or I are a cold, you know, cold-hearted lawyers going through what we would say in response to the incitement of violence, it would be, well, he's not with them. Well, he doesn't support them. No, no, no. See, there was stop the steel A and there was stop the steel B. And you guys are all focused on B, but that was like not the plan. But no, they won't do that because that is their base. And so for every Senate Republican who's going to vote to acquit, they have to know that they look at a dude taking a dump on

Nancy Pelosi's desk wearing horns and going, yup, that's my voter. Oof, man, at that visual. I mean, it's an appropriate visual, right? It definitely isn't. There was feces in the Capitol building. There was, I mean, there was blood and feces, not to mention the death and the, you know, threat of violence.

But okay, I guess that's your, those are your voters now. And now I think this is a perfect opportunity to just remind the audience, or maybe if this is the first time you're following along with this impeachment trial let you know that the reason why it's important to pursue this impeachment trial is not because you're trying to oust a sitting president. No, it's, first of all, he was a sitting president when he, you know, did these provocations and incited this violence. And there should be consequences to that. And consequences have a purpose, right? I know we live in an overly punitive society, but that's not what's happening here. We're talking to

talking about someone in a position of power who abused his power by refusing to accept the outcome of our democratic process, and then proceeded to incite violence, incite insurrectionist to storm the Capitol. And to not have any consequences in response to that is unacceptable and only emboldens and empowers future sitting presidents who might be even worse than Trump. And so there should be consequences. You know damn well that if any average person broke into the Capitol on their own, right? Much like the hundreds of people who did break into the Capitol that day, they face federal criminal charges, right? And they should, they should face federal criminal charges. Why does Donald Trump, who incited that violence in the

first place, just go home free? Like, no problem, nothing happened. And also, I do think it's important to convict him and prevent him from ever holding office again in the future. Look, I know he's older. I know that there are some people who roll their eyes at the thought of Donald Trump possibly running for president again in 2024. But I've certainly doubted Trump before and didn't think that he would do things that were crazy. And he proceeded to do things that were crazy and crazier than I could have even imagined at the time. And so I think that there is a purpose to this impeachment trial. I think there's overwhelming evidence of what Donald Trump engaged in and what he did. And I know that we're all kind of, our senses have been numbed by four years

of one shocking story after the next, after the next, and everything feels normalized. But I would invite you all to not normalize what happened in the Capitol on January 6th and understand the severity of what occurred and how important it is to ensure that it doesn't happen again. Absolutely. So we should probably take another break. When we come back, though, we're going to move off of impeachment-related news and talk a little bit about the legal defense for the so-called QAnon Shaman who broke into the Capitol on January 6th. And then as I mentioned later in the show, we will show you, Richmond crying, my favorite. Come right back. Thank you.

I just want to give a special shout out to our new YouTube members, Jason Young, Ashley Hoff, Hablondo Comic, and Chris Landry. Thank you so much for supporting the show and doing so by becoming members. We really, really appreciate it. From our super chat section, Sir Smoke It Right, 74 writes in and says, had to give it to the Dems. They did their job today, but Trump's guys were a hot mess, L.O.L. Yeah, totally. I mean, I don't know about you, Francesca, but I wasn't really looking forward to like reading endless articles about the impeachment trial. But once I started seeing how poorly prepared Trump's lawyers were, I'm like, it's kind of interesting.

Yeah, no, it's fun. Yeah, exactly. Watching them flail is very fun. We deserve that minimally, since we know that the vote will probably not go in the favor of real justice. Our Stone writes in and says, Bin Laden didn't crash the planes, but he was held responsible. Charles Manson didn't kill anyone, but he was held responsible. Donald Trump didn't storm the Capitol, but he needs to be held responsible. Arstone, thank you for that comment, because I don't know if it comes from honest.

factors, but we get attacked when we talk about things like the impeachment or, you know, the Russia investigations and all of that. And you have, like, you have to hold people in positions of power accountable. Like, otherwise, what are you doing? Like, what's the point of this whole profession? And what, again, I just don't let anyone try to normalize what happened in the Capitol on January 6th. I see people on the left trying to do that. And it really does not go over well with me. I can't stand it. B.C. Trumpet, the produce, the produce dragon? What? writes it and says, so can I mean, there's a dragon for everything. Oh yeah. So can we can so we can use very different rules against him since he encompasses fraud?

I think you're referring to Trump, but I mean just overall it seems like the rules don't apply to him, which is frustrating. Bing writes in and says, for the B3 Hammond sounds. Cool. Sierra Lee, the defense playing the video of legislators calling for the impeachment of Trump just shows those legislators holding the head of the executive branch accountable for his words and actions and the president's erratic behavior. All right. Oh, we have time left. Alexander Campbell writes in and says, note to Trump regarding his lawyer, you get what you pay for or refuse to pay for. Again, Trump was super. scrambling to put together, you know, a team of lawyers after, you know, a team that he was

previously assembling with the help of Senator Lindsey Graham completely fell apart. And they were worried that they weren't going to get paid. And they were also worried about Trump's strategy, which was just go up there and talk about how the election was stolen for me and I'm the rightful winner. He will not let it go. It's amazing. All right. Well, we got to take, not take a break. Let's get back to the show. And we'll be back later with more of comments. Welcome back to TYT, everyone, Anna Casparian and Francesca Furentini with you. Let's get to our next story.

So hundreds of insurrectionists have been charged with federal crimes after they broke into the capital. Five people died that day. And one of the more visible individuals, that you probably saw in video footage and also on this show as we covered him, was the QAnon Shaman, who has an interesting legal defense that I actually 100% believe. Now the question is, is this enough of a defense to get him off easy considering the crime that he committed? So here we're talking about, you know, the guy that you saw in horns, again referred to as the QAnon Shaman. And his lawyer, Albert Watkins, was on CNN to share what the defense. is, why don't you hear it for yourselves and see if you're buying it?

That propaganda was going on nonstop, not since November, but since prior to Trump assuming the office. Trump's tweets, his social media exploitation. What he said day in, day out, that we all permitted, included untruths. Misrepresentations, out and out lies, not every now and then, every day, not once a day, multiple times daily. You couple that with a protracted period with COVID, social distancing, the absence of humanity around a lot of people who get their news from TikTok and from social media and from this internet coffee clutch. And it was a mess. It was a mess that created an environment on January 6th, which was not one month in the making for people like Jake, for millions of Americans. They truly did hang on every word of their president, our president, the person that we permitted day in, day out, to speak to us in ways and in fashions that simply weren't true. So the defense here is that Donald Trump incited what we noticed and, well, not noticed

what we experienced on January 6th. And that is exactly what Donald Trump is now facing, you know, an impeachment trial on. So I agree with the statements there. I don't know if that's enough to let Jacob Chancelley off easy. That's the client. That's the so-called QAnon shaman. And I don't know. I'm curious what you think, Frances. I mean, it's a point that we need to make over and over and over and over again. I mean, I hope that Jamie Raskin takes that into the Senate trial tomorrow, that exact quote from this guy's lawyer who's basically like, yeah, my client was diluted into thinking that the election was stolen.

Now, whether or not this guy, who's already been transferred to another prison because there wasn't organic food in the one that he was in, you know, a right that is always extended to the many black and brown people who are locked up, irony intended. But like, we should absolutely remember, like, I don't have a soft spot for the insurrectionists, but if your president kept on repeating the lie to you that the election was stolen and you have to defend the republic and democracy, then yeah, I guess storming the capital would kind of make sense to you in your warped brain that, like, like, let's be real, he's right, like years in the making.

The joke when he, when Trump was elected was, huh, our first and last president, as if we didn't all see that there was nothing that was going to prevent Trump from clinging to power. And, you know, and so just knowing just how also unprepared we were for the day of, and we haven't gotten to the bottom of that investigation is also incredibly and still unsettling. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

And, you know, to, I guess, buttress the point that Al Watkins, the lawyer was making in that interview, there has been some analysis done by USA Today to see just how much Donald Trump's words translated to certain discourse on social media like parlor, for instance. So one quick note, though, remember, at the end of Trump's speech that day, he said that he was going to join the insurrectionists in the march to the capital. And he didn't do that. He turned around and went back to the White House, right? So when he said that, understand that it gives this feel of legitimacy to what these insurrectionists did that day. They felt that they had the backing of the president of the United States. And of course they didn't.

Same goes for Rudy Giuliani, who said that there needed to be trial by combat. And he turned around and did not go- didn't in so far as they weren't there. They, like, they had their support, but they were not going to put their lives on the line. No, they're going to turn right around. Exactly. Exactly. So going back to the USA Today analysis that I was referring to, after Trump said to March, one parlor user wrote, quote, time to fight civil war is upon us. As another said, quote, we are going to have a civil war get ready. The analysis by USA Today also found that, the use of the phrase civil war increased nearly four times during Trump's speech as it was used on 156 separate occasions while he spoke. Right. So the point here is that Donald Trump's words, as we had been arguing for four years straight, matter. And there's elaboration on that in the next clip. Let's hear more of what the lawyer Al Watkins has to say. Does he now know that he was being lied to?

So this is a process. The answer is yes. The process, though, is not something that Jake is going through alone. The process of unwinding from years of Trump, years of lies. I think it sounds like he's being deprogrammed from a cult. Well, I've likened the entire thing to 1978 and Jim Jones down in Guyana. This is very real for these people. And these are our brothers and our sisters and our families and they're millions of Americans.

The unwinding process is not going to be complete at the end of this week whenever this impeachment trial is concluded. It's not going to be over by the time of the next election. It's a process that's going to require patience and compassion. It's going to require patience and compassion because these are millions of people, Cheska, who believe Trump, there are brothers, our sisters, our family members, our friends, patience and compassion. What say you? Okay, first of all, let's just be real. He knows that he's got to represent his client the best he can, and he's got to represent a certain amount of remorse if his client is going to get off

or get off with a lesser sentence. And I'm sure daily there's a like debate between him and his QAnon shaman about the reality of reality or his unreality. So like, you know, that's a little bit of dance that his lawyer is doing there. But again, you know, going back to the, which we should never forget the double standard of how these insurrectionists are being treated and which has everything to do with the fact that a large majority of them are white, our male, and hey, 14% of the 150 people who've been arrested, this is as of like last week, are former or current military. So like, these are

scary and embedded folks who are like, I mean, openly, right? So this is a, this is absolutely a cultural thing. And I'm of the belief that we don't need a second war on terror to go after them, but we actually need to like utilize the laws that are already on the books, DHS that is already going after extremism, but actually empower them to go after white extremists, go after people who might be in the military. And you know how you do that or in the police force? You know how you do that? You do what the Black Lives Matter movement is asked for, which is an actual review, which is actual consequences when someone, you know, actually acts out or has like an instance of police brutality or brutalizes somebody. Like, that's, this is all connected.

Anyway, but, but of course, no, I mean, a compassion, I don't know. I don't know, Anna. No, you make so many, you make so many good points, Francesca, and I'm so grateful that you are making those points. Um, because look, in order for the country to heal, we've been hearing a lot about healing, right? The issues regarding what divides us need to be addressed, right? So white supremacy within our military, white supremacy within our local police departments. I mean, you're absolutely right. We do not need a war on terror in the United States, and we can very easily use the laws we have now and actually apply them equally to people, right? So if you have people who are trying to overthrow the government, they should be prosecuted, especially if they put

violence behind that ideology. And that is what we experienced on January 6th. At the same time, though, there are some new regulations that I personally would like to see, but they're not geared at extra surveillance or beefing up the security state. I would like to see the fairness doctrine back in our media. So back before the Reagan administration, so from about the 1940s to the 1980s, Reagan is the one who repealed the fairness doctrine, there were FCC regulations that essentially said the core of these regulations indicated that in order to get a broadcast license, and to be clear, the majority of people consume their news through television, in order to get

that broadcast license, you have to prioritize the public's interest before profits, right? And what that did was ensure that incredibly important topics that serve the public's interest would get appropriate coverage. And how would they be appropriate? Well, the regulations also stipulated that if you are talking about some sort of controversial political issue, you must give time to the opposing view, so the audience is really fully informed on what the situation is. It doesn't mean that you treat it as both sides are neutral. As you guys know, I absolutely hate that. But that's not what you would see in the news to the same extent that you're seeing it now. What you would see in the news is, let's say Rudy Giuliani, for instance, goes on Fox

and, or no, here's a better example, which was given by my co-host during the weekend show that I did for Jacobin, when Joanne Reed had that body language expert on to criticize Bernie Sanders and his body language, if the fairness doctrine were still a thing, if those regulations still existed, Bernie Sanders would have the ability to go on there and defend himself, right? So it's just something that was actually working that was repealed by Reagan because conservatives hated it. And they made this argument that it violated the First Amendment, but it didn't. What it actually did was create more speech by giving audiences and listeners, because this applied to radio as well, different points of view in any given broadcast. And so I think that would

have been, if you take that and you modernize it for what we're dealing with today, I think that could actually be really effective. And you should watch my segment on that. I did it for weekends. Absolutely. And the same goes for like, look, these guys are all planning this stuff on Facebook, you know. And we know Facebook is a monopoly. And once again, talk about having like moneyed interests at heart. They love that stuff. Oh my God. They love referring new extremist groups to people to join so that they'll just stay on the platform. So again, it extends to all these areas. I don't think you can ever fully get rid of misinformation or conspiracy theory or hate on the internet. But they're at all. absolutely tools that can be used to minimize that and breaking up these big companies is also one of those ways. And I know we're doing this on YouTube and I don't mean to bite the corporate hand. Oh no. I mean, we rely on subscribers. So hey, there you go. Yeah. Well, I do want to do one more story before we go to our next break. Because Dershowitz, unfortunately, is making his second appearance on our broadcast today. But it gives you a sense of,

just how disgusting and corrupt our two-tier justice system really is. Alan Dershowitz used his connections to Donald Trump to arrange access to pardons and commutations for his clients. Now, how much he got paid for the work that he did for his clients is pretty unclear. He claims that he just charged his usual fees in most cases, even donated some of those fees to charity, but he was not specific when he said so. But I do I think it's important to understand how he did use his connections to get pretty terrible people off easy, especially when you consider the crimes they committed. Now, I'm going to start off with the most egregious, and I do want to note that this was the one instance where Dershowitz

was looking for clemency, and luckily he did not get it for his client. And the client in question is a Lebanese American businessman named George Nader, who actually pleaded guilty to child pornography charges. Not once, okay? He had been charged with child pornography several times throughout the years. Dershowitz was seeking a deal where Nader, who again pleaded guilty to child pornography charges, would be freed from prison in return to resuming behind the scenes Middle East talks. Because after he was imprisoned for child molestation and child pornography charges a few times, He was still able to engage in Middle East peace talks where he was representing Saudi Arabia

and the UAE. So you have these kinds of people negotiating these kinds of so-called peace deals. He was in prison. So he, by the way, was facing the new child pornography charges. That's why he ended up in prison. And that's why Dershowitz was trying to get clemency. But Trump Trump actually turned that offer down because he ended up being one of the many people who cooperated in Mueller's investigation, and Trump was really salty about that. So real quick, Jonathan Jeffers, who's the lawyer representing George Nader said this. We understand that Dershowitz was seeking clemency on behalf of Nader and that he was rejected for the sole reason that Nader had cooperated in the Mueller investigation.

And by the way, this guy is so awful. Now, even though Trump did not give him clemency for a ridiculous purpose, I'm glad that that happened because in 1985, he was charged with importing child pornography into the United States. That case was actually dismissed based on a technicality. 1991, he was charged for child porn again and convicted. 1993, he was charged with child molestation in the Czech Republic. He received a one-year prison sentence.

And again, he later became an advisor to Saudi Arabia. Arabia and the UAE. Great person to represent. Yeah. Brilliant. This is Alan Dershowitz's homie. And once again, Alan Dershowitz, big old supporter of Israeli occupation, has been on the wrong side of that issue, thinks that like people against occupation, including Jewish

organizations are like anti-Semitic, they're self-hating. Like that guy has just been the propeller of some of the most conservative, warmongering stances for the United States in that region. And now you got this. And look, I really don't like talking about this issue because I just don't want to trigger Alan Dershowitz claiming that he has a quote, perfect sex life, which is literally what he said when he was asked about why he was on the Epstein flight logs. And I'm like, I don't have enough toothpaste. So, but like the idea, and Anna, we've talked about this before, but the ways in which that the conspiracies around Democrats always come back to like child sex trafficking and, you know, this obsession with,

you know, child sexual assault, which is a serious issue that is cheapened every time it's thrown around. But like, this is straight up, these are Trump's boys. This is, these are Trump's homies, Epstein, Nader, Dershowitz, like, come on, how much of your conspiracy is a giant projection? Please look in the mirror. Please look into your own people. Well, remember, Dershowitz was the one who literally wrote an op-ed defending the idea of an adult male having sex with a teenage girl.

I mean, we talked about that on the show before. So, I mean, for all of those QAnon people who, you know, at least pretend to care about child victimization and trafficking and all of that, take a good hard look at the political party that you guys are supporting and representing. The political party that you guys are trying to fight for because they're full of all sorts of creeps, including Dershowitz, including this, you know, George Nader guy who has gotten in trouble with the law, not just he's. here in the United States, but in other countries because of how we victimized children. This is something that we saw happening with the Trump administration over and over again, and it was beyond infuriating to hear unfounded claims made against their political opponents, when this is the kind of stuff they engaged in. And by the way, I gave you an example of someone who did not receive clemency from Donald Trump,

but Dershowitz did play a pivotal role in getting all sorts of shady scammers and fraudsters. either clemency or a pardon. So as the New York Times reports, he played a role in at least 12 clemency grants, including two pardons, which wipe out convictions and 10 commutations, which reduce prison sentences while also helping to win a temporary reprieve from sanctions for an Israeli mining billionaire. And I'm going to read you the descriptions of the people who were rewarded in this case and the crimes that they had engaged in because there is a common theme here.

Commutations to three people on whose behalf Dershowitz personally lobbied Trump after working on cases with Jewish prisoners rights groups. They included two New York real estate investors who had been convicted of defrauding more than 250 investors out of $23 million and a former executive at a kosher meat packing plant who was convicted in 2009 of bank fraud. I mean, these are the kinds of crimes that you can totally see Donald Trump committing himself. So it's like, wait a minute, scam people? They're in prison because they scammed people? Pardon? There's more. A commutation for a New Jersey man who was sentenced in 2013 to 24 years in prison for charges related to a

Ponzi-style real estate scheme that caused $200 million in losses. So Trump's got a warm place in his heart for those types of people. And war criminals, of course. People who commit war crimes, like killing civilians intentionally. He loves them too. He loves them. Oh my gosh. Well, he's got to do business with someone as in his post-presidential career is just getting

off the ground. So you got to have more grifters around you. I'm sure that's probably why a lot of these people weren't nominated to office or because they had these records and now they're they're absolved. So cool, game on. Also, Dershowitz represented a man who killed someone when he was 18 years old, right? When he was very young, well, that man happens to be black. That man was put to death in the final days of the Trump administration. That man, there was no, there was no consideration for him. He's been in jail since he was 18, just like an unprecedented number of other death row inmates who were put to death

in a just a murderous spree of the federal government. That was one person that Dershowitz just couldn't help. I wonder why. But this is again, Scooter Libby gets pardoned. I mean, this is all, like, you talk about the swamp or people who even insist that like, well, Trump was a really big departure from the Republican Party. No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't. He's a very useful tool for them. For sure. He was just, he was way more overt. He was willing to say the quiet parts out loud. That's the only difference between Donald Trump and what we saw with traditional Republicans in the lead up to Donald Trump. So don't you forget it. So let's, let's take a break. That does it for our first hour. When we come back, Fox News has responded to the smartmatic lawsuit. It's a

$2.7 billion lawsuit filed against Fox News. We'll tell you what their response is and more when we come back for our two. 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.