The Young Turks - Trump's Lovin' It

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Trump poses for a photo op at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. Israel has given the White House its demands for ending the war in Lebanon. Ana and Cenk break down Cenk's latest appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) 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. Frack, frack, frack, frack, like a duck. Frack, frack, frack, frack. Baga! All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jane Hugar, Anna Gasparian, live from the Polymarket Studios. hell of a show for you guys today because the world is on the edge. It's on the edge in a couple

of different ways. So we got about two weeks ago before the election that decides the next four years. And we have massive news about unfortunately the continuing war in the Middle East. All right, Anna, let's get started. Well, let's start with a little bit of election news right at the top of the show. A lot happened over the weekend that continues to get a lot of attention today. So why don't we start with this? Donald Trump manned the fry station during a staged photo op at a Pennsylvania McDonald's over the weekend. Now the reason why Trump was there actually had nothing to do with appealing to the working

class. It was actually to troll Kamala Harris, who through her campaigning has mentioned on multiple occasions that she's middle class, that when she was in college, she had to work at McDonald's and pay for, you know, a portion of her education that way. And Trump, for whatever reason, just doesn't believe her. In fact, that's become a part of his campaign, essentially trolling her, accusing her of lying about working at McDonald's. And we'll get to what the reality likely is when it comes to that part of this story.

But I do want to give you a little bit of what Trump had to say about Kamala Harris as he was engaging in this trolling. Take a look. She grew up in a middle class home. She was the daughter of a working mom. And she worked at McDonald's while she got her degree. Kamala Harris knows what it's like to be middle class. So that's an example of one of her ads. And here's what Trump has to say about it.

I'm looking for a job and I've always wanted to work at McDonald's, but I never did. I'm running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony stories. So if you don't mind, I want to work the French fry counter. I listened to Kamala. She said it was so hot. It was so hot. It was such a tough job. I don't know you have a man that's been doing it for many years at the French fries, right? We're going to learn everything. We're going to learn how to do it right now. Thank you. Now, is there any evidence that Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's? I mean, I personally believe her, but here's what she has said. The vice president worked at McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda,

in the summer of 1983, that's very specific, and that's according to her campaign. Harris was a student at Howard University at the time. Her responsibilities included working the cash register along with the fry and ice cream machines, her campaign said. But since this was around 40 years ago, there's no, look, it's unlikely that there's documentation and the Kamala Harris campaign hasn't provided any evidence. but it isn't far-fetched for no documentation to exist. Like, why would they keep a permanent file of employees from 40 years ago at one franchise?

So look, Trump's attacks on Kamala Harris are on this topic. Are as usual, in my opinion, mental. So what difference does it make if she worked at McDonald's in 1983 or not? What if it was Burger King? Would that make a difference? She was middle class. No one disputes that. She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth like Donald Trump was.

handed $400 million by his dad. So that's a separate topic and Trump's views on the minimum wage and actual fast food workers is a separate topic. All related and we're gonna discuss all of it here. But one of the things that I wanna ask you guys about is the Democrats say and a lot of people in mainstream media say, that was a bizarre photo op, so weird and it's gonna make him look so bad. Wrong.

And my view of it is, no, most people won't know that he's against the minimum. them wage, most people don't know or care about Kamala Harris's time at McDonald's. They'll just see a guy and one of the candidates working at McDonald's and they'll think that's a super like populist way to go. They won't necessarily think the word populism. They'll just think that connects to me as an average person. I think it's effective. Now, we're going to ask you guys that.

Is it bizarre or effective? We'll do a live poll right now if you're watching the show live. This is one of the fun parts of watching out live every day at 6 o'clock Eastern is that you guys get to vote in these polls. And I'm genuinely curious which way you guys are going to go. But let's tell you the rest of the story. Well, I agree with you. And it's a point that I've been trying to make on the show. You know, some people think that it's a tacit endorsement of Trump. But it's just the reality of the situation. There's a difference between politics and policy. There's a difference between the optics that come along with the way in which the

candidates are campaigning. And then there's the substance of their policies and speculation in regard to whether or not they're actually going to pursue those policies should they get elected. So put the policy aside for a second and just think about the optics. I believe it is true what you were saying, Jank, that the average voter who's busy, who's running around, taking care of children, maybe even working two jobs, they're not going to get into the nitty gritty about whether or not Kamala Harris actually worked at McDonald's. They're going to see the videos, they're going to see the images of Trump at that McDonald's in Pennsylvania. And it's not just about the populism that's being communicated here, it's also about, you know, how good he is at retail politics

that I think for a long time I personally underestimated. He's just a natural when it comes to communicating with people, conversing with people, right? Like he seems to be having a good time. Everyone around him seems to be having a good time. Now, yes, this is obviously a staged event, but the workers at McDonald's are the real workers from that McDonald's store. Yeah, look, guys, we've got to be able to make that distinction, because if we do, don't, or if you don't, you're not helping the Democrats by saying, hey, let's ignore what works electorally, what works in terms of optics and marketing for our side. Let's just be earnest and just say the thing. I mean, look, I would love if she fought for policy 200%.

That actually would be both good optics strategy and politics. But if you say, look, the best thing to do is just cover things up and say that everything Trump does is bad, I don't agree. I don't, I think you lose credibility that way, et cetera. So in this case, I'm going to say one last time about how little I care about whether Kamala Harris worked at McDonald's or not. Yeah, for real. There's no reason to believe that she didn't, other than the fact that Donald Trump is a pathological liar, so he assumes that everyone is.

So if he said that he worked at McDonald's, he'd obviously be lying. So he assumes she's lying. He grew up enormously wealthy and privileged and entitled. So he's not smart enough to even understand that other. people didn't. So when Anna says he's an effective communicator, it's not because he doesn't sound like a moron sometimes. He does. It's not like he doesn't sound deranged oftentimes. He definitely does. But when he's interacting with another human being, J.D. Vance is like, hello, do you have donuts? I do not know how to function, right? Kamala Harris is often awkward.

Tim Walz is not awkward. No, she's not. Tim Walz is the best of the four. In fact, Tim Walz had an interview today with the view and it was great. Okay, he's a normal person. Like, he carries himself like a normal, relatable person. So I was happy to see that he was on the view today. I think he should be doing more of these interviews, more of these public appearances. Because guys, whether you like it or not, and I know how smart our audience is. I know you guys know the nitty gritty about policy proposals and all of that. You know the truth about what these candidates represent.

But at the end of the day, you have to think about the electorate overall. Not everyone is as engaged in politics as you are. And a lot of people do vote based on vibes. I mean, that has been a mainstay of our electoral system for a long time now. And Trump comes across as personable, but so does Tim Walls. So I think, you know, Tim Walls was a great choice and I want to see him out there doing more of these interviews and more of these public appearances in the final stretch. And the reason why Tim Walts has always been the most popular of the four candidates

involved is because he not only appears personable, but he actually got things done. So he's not full of crap like Donald Trump. And people like the things that he got accomplished when they hear. hear about his bills, they're like, wow, those are great. Oh my God, it paid family leave, helping kids who need lunch, money, et cetera. And Bill Clinton also went to McDonald's, and that's why the partisanship drives me crazy. So Democrats, when Bill Clinton went to McDonald's, they're like, genius. Way to connect with the average American.

And when Trump goes, they're like, weirdo, bizarre. I wouldn't want it at all, right? Okay, so I think about it always, guys, and please try to do this, shoe on the other foot, right? If you said to me ahead of time, do you want Kamala Harris doing this instead of Donald Trump? I'd say, yes, yes, please go to McDonald's, go wherever you need to go, look like an average person doing an average thing, and show that you have empathy and care about those human beings, right? Whether it's the prices, whether it's the wages, et cetera. Now, Trump couldn't pull off the empathy on the wages, as you'll see in a minute, right?

But the optics of it otherwise was definitely successful, in my opinion. So before we get to the minimum wage portion of this conversation, I wanted to give you guys at least a few of the highlights to kind of reinforce what we're trying to say here in regard to the optics of it, right? So let's go to Graphic 5. I want to jump ahead to that. What a good looking family. How did you produce those people who are you? They look like they look like to look. How are you? Thank you. Thank you. to have you about county and there'll be no charge trump is paying for that okay oh you go to some extra stuff oh okay great this is all on trump now how are you here good looking guys we love you can be able thank you very much i will i promise thank you very much that's on me okay this is fun i can do this all day i wouldn't mind this job i like this job i think i might come back and do it again thank you Thank you, Mr. President.

Nice to speak here. You may be possible for ordinary people like us to meet. You're not ordinary. You are not ordinary. I can see. We pray for you and you are the type of person and we want to be the president. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

So nice. So those are the optics. And I do think, look, I don't know if it's going to make much of a difference in the election overall, but I do think that those are the types of images that the Trump campaign wants to put out there because it is good optics for Trump. It makes him seem relatable. Yeah. So three things about that.

First of all, in the old days, there's something really positive about the media coverage of this story, even though I think most of it is. biased based on their perspective. The positive thing is at least now they're saying that these are orchestrated. In the past, they would do these photo ops and then not tell their readers or their viewers of this whole thing staged. That McDonald's is closed. Those are all of his fans who lined up to drive through the drive-through, right?

And so they could tell them that they love them and all that stuff. And there's a giant crowd outside. And none of this is real in the sense of a functioning McDonald's, right? So I'm thrilled that we're finally getting a little bit closer to reality. When he says, oh, I can do this job, no, brother, you can't do that job. You're doing a fake job for 15 minutes. Yeah. And you have people lining up telling you how much they love you as they drive by.

And you're handing him food. In the real world, you don't have time to have conversations with those people. No. You got to go, go, go and constantly give them the food, give them the food, give them the food, make the food, give them the food. And you did it, your fat ass did it for 15 minutes and thought, oh, I can do this. people tell me I'm great all day long. That's not the point of that job. And it's not just the speed in which you are expected to work on your feet for a minimum of eight hours during your shift.

It's also the fact that you are being greeted by customers who are not fans of yours, who oftentimes are irritable, who might have had a bad day, and are looking for a release of the frustration or stress that they've experienced that day. And oftentimes service workers have to absorb that. Yeah, and because you've been doing it for eight hours straight, maybe you miss the fries in their order. And then they live it at you, right? Meanwhile, you're barely trying to keep up. So don't tell me your fake play at this job is somehow convinced you that you could do this job. And that's the thing with privileged rich people like Donald Trump who grew up rich. They don't know what a hard day's work is. They've never had to do one,

especially with their hands. So okay, but on the optics of it, he's telling people he loves them. He's doing a normal person's job. You're just seeing vision. video after video of Trump doing those fries, so when the Democrats or mainstream media says, doesn't he look ridiculous? A lot of Americans think, no, he looks like me. Why? Do you think I look ridiculous when I'm working at McDonald's? That's a good point. I didn't think about that. Right? You're right. Yeah. So that's why don't do that. If you said to me, should Kamala Harris be put on that apron and have done the same exact thing? I say yes, yes. That would have been great, by the way, if Kamala Harris had done it, the right wing would go, oh, that's so fake,

man, fake news, every guy was caused. What the hell is it's so fake? When Trump doesn't, they're like, yes, he's such an average guy. Can anyone else in this country be unbiased other than the Young Turks audience? So it's a great photo op, but the minute you look behind the scenes, it's a disaster. So let's talk a little bit about the appeal to the working class, which again, I want to reiterate. Trump didn't do this McDonald's photo. to appeal to the middle class. He specifically did it to, in his mind, call out Kamala Harris for in his mind allegedly lying about working at a McDonald's. But a reporter did actually ask him about whether he supports a federal minimum wage increase. And he responded by not

answering the question. He said, quote, well, I think this, these people work hard, they're great, and I just saw something, a process that's beautiful. And to give you some background on on the wages that McDonald's pays on average, McDonald's workers make an average of $13 to $15 per hour nationwide, according to hiring websites Indeed and ZipRecruiter. In Pennsylvania, which follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, fast food workers make an average of $13.20 per hour, according to 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

And while the federal government has been asleep at the wheel in regard to increasing the federal minimum wage, the last time it happened, I believe, was in 2009. And that was enacted actually by the Bush administration, and it went into effect in 2009. There are states that have passed minimum wage increases through ballot initiatives. And they tend to be red states as well. States like Florida increased their federal minimum wage. I'm sorry, their state's minimum wage through a ballot initiative. Yeah, I want to take the show you the video that Anna is referring to and then show you what Trump actually thinks of the minimum wage.

So let's take a look at someone asking him about it in this McDonald's drive-thru. Well, I think this. I think these people work hard. They're great and I just saw something a process. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises. Yes, they work hard. That's why they deserve a minimum wage that compensates them for that. The national minimum wage right now is $7.25. He's in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania does not have a higher minimum wage. So right now it's at a ridiculous $7.25.

Now McDonald's has to be sure that they've got workers in all their restaurants. So they had to move their wages up and a lot of fast food chains had to move their wages up. That's great, but the national should be $15 an hour. And by the way, at that point, you're only making $30,000 a year. If it's up to $15, and Trump has said in the past that he thinks the minimum wage should be lower, lower than $7.25 cents, lower than $15,000 a year. In fact, here, take a look at this. I want to create jobs so that you don't have to worry about the minimum wage.

You're doing a great job, but they're making much more than the minimum wage. But I think having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country, Mika. So having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this guy. He's not in favor of higher wages. Never has been, never fights for it. He talks about jobs. Now, whether he actually delivers on that as a different question vis-a-vis the Democrats. When it comes to wages, he always argues for lower wages.

Remember, he's big boss man. So big boss man doesn't want to pay you higher wages. to pay you lower wages. And he said it on the record many, many times. So hey guys, I'm at McDonald's. I'm great. I'm on your side. But, you know, when I leave here, I'll work with your bosses to make sure that they pay you as little as humanly possible. Yeah. So again, that's the policy end of this discussion. And the policy matters. It matters deeply. But in terms of winning an election, optics matter possibly more, which is unfortunate. But that's the way the election plays out. And it's something that the Democrats and the Kamala Harris

ticket need to take into consideration, especially when they make decisions like skipping out on that, you know, that annual Catholic dinner that, you know, during an election, you have both candidates there traditionally and they're supposed to do like a roast of each other. It's like a way of kind of uniting people and having a fun night. She didn't go and instead submitted a video. I think that might have been a miscalculation by the Harris campaign, but it's just something to keep in mind as they move forward and basically continue campaigning in this final stretch. Yeah, so last two things. On that point, look, Trump went and they laughed at all the

wrong places. Whenever he said something serious, they laughed because it was so ridiculous. Half of his jokes were, a quarter of his jokes worked. The other three quarters, people were like, they didn't understand the jokes. They were laughing in all the wrong places, but at least he went and made it appear that he cared about Catholic voters. When you don't go and you send like a snide video about me kind of almost making fun of Catholics, the SNL character that she used. It's not a good look. Optics matter. If you want to win, they matter, right?

So I'm curious what you guys is. So last thing, let's look at the poll here, results and see where you guys came out on it. Because I know a lot of other folks are saying that it was totally bizarre. And look, most of you guys are saying totally bizarre, 56 to 44% there. So hey, look, I love having an open-minded and open-hearted audience and members. So if you guys thought it was bizarre and that the optics are not going to help him, great. I hope we're wrong about it. And I hope a lot of people look at it and go, oh, yeah, totally weirdo and vote against them.

Well, my sense of it was the optics were great and the substance is terrible. All right, when we come back, we'll do some international news. And we'll also get into Jenks debate on Pierce Morgan. was it today that you did this? Yeah. Yeah, uh, jank was called a parasite during the show. It's just unbelievable discussion and debate. So we'll have that and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, a lot more news. Well, let's get to this. In the month since Israel expanded its attacks against Hezbollah, the country's south has been pummeled by airstrikes and a slow and steady Israeli ground invasion.

But lately, the country's north has also come under fire. This house in the sleepy mountain village of A2 is now the scene of one of the deadliest single Israeli attacks as the war here began. 24 people were killed here in an airstrike on Monday. The Lebanese, this is a crime scene, but it doesn't involve the usual suspects. This is a mostly Christian area. There's no real Hezbollah presence here most of the time. Well, based on all reports so far, all of those killed in that Israeli air strike in the Lebanese town of Aitou or A2 were Christian civilians, including 10 women, two children. the rest were men, but none of them have been identified as Hezbollah, fighters, or militants.

Now, in Lebanon overall, more than 2,300 people, including 127 children, have been killed in Lebanon since the October 7th attack, and an estimated 1.2 million have been displaced. Now, Hezbollah did target one of Netanyahu's homes in coastal Israel over the weekend. They did so through a drone strike, but the strike didn't hit his home. It ended up hitting a nearby building. Neither Netanyahu nor his wife were home at the time of this attack. And the attack came a week after a Hezbollah drone attacked and killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded dozens of others at a military base in northern Israel.

And so as the war continues, more and more people are going to die. And that includes people on the Israeli side, in this case soldiers, because that's typically what the Hezbollah fighters are targeting. Now, Netanyahu described the drone strike as an attempt to assassinate him, calling it a grave mistake. And he added that this will not deter me or the state of Israel from continuing our just war against our enemies. But when will this war end?

And Israel apparently has an answer now. They have now made two very specific demands in order to end the war in Lebanon. And those terms cannot be met because they go against international law. And it also violates the sovereignty of Lebanon. So I'm going to give you the details of that in just a minute. But, Jank, I wanted to give you an opportunity to jump in. Yeah. So first of all, Netanyahu complaining about assassination attempts is rich.

I don't want anybody to get assassinated. But Netanyahu has launched a string of assassinations across the Middle East that is unprecedented and promises a lot more. So he's basically saying, I get to kill your leaders, but you don't get to kill our leaders. And by the way, of course, American politicians and media agree. Why? Because their leaders are no good terrorists that are resisting his occupation. But when he kills 40 times the number of civilians as Yaya Senwar, magically he's not a terrorist.

Because he didn't intentionally kill over 30,000 civilians, even if you take the IDF numbers. He accidentally killed 30,000 civilians. Would anybody take that as an excuse if Hamas did it? Oh, guys, we meant to kill Israeli soldiers. But we accidentally killed 30,000 Israeli civilians, including 15,000 Israeli children. Nobody would take that excuse. We'd call them a terrorist through and through every single day. And we'd say, of course, people should attempt to assassinate them.

Now, I don't want assassinations on any side, but are we going to be fair about this? Of course not. No. Nanyahu is precious, and how dare they? and the others should all be murdered. I got it. So now on the Christian town they hit in Lebanon. So before they used to not hit Christian towns because no one cares about Muslims. So you can kill as many Muslims as you like. And look, I grew up Muslim. Everyone I knew in Turkey was Muslim. And their lives don't mean anything in America. If Israel killed them, no one would care at all.

That's my family members. No one would care. But if you kill Christians, then people in America get a little bit more upset. Okay, not they? No, no, not so upset that they would ever cut a dollar from Israel. No, and I don't mean the politicians in all seriousness. Like the politicians wouldn't care if you slaughtered half of Christiandom as long as you sent them a check. And by the way, that's not just Israel.

It could be drug companies, health insurance companies, military industrial complex. You can kill anyone you like as long as you send American politicians a check, okay? But for the actual American people, you start slaughtering Christians. you're going to have issues. But now Israel feels so confident that they have occupied Washington, D.C. enough that they kill anyone they like. That town reported the number one problem that reporters and humanitarian workers said in that town was the smell of rotting flesh. So 23 people killed. I keep telling you this, and I'm sorry that it's so graphic, but you have to understand. understand what our money is doing.

When a bomb lands, it incinerates those people alive, including two children. They had to put some of the body parts of the children in Ziploc backs because they were blown apart. So this is what our money is doing, and it's now doing it to Christians as well. I hope that that doesn't move you more than when it happens to Muslims, but it just shows you there are no bounds left anymore for Netanyahu. He will do anything, kill anyone. Right now in northern Gaza, UN is saying that it is a humanitarian catastrophe with death

and deprivation everywhere. You see the pictures, they look like they're straight out of the Holocaust. And so, but now we're told no, that Israelis are the moral ones. Netanyahu's, you know that only 6% of Israel thinks that the government has gone too far in Gaza in regards to the Palestinian death toll and humanitarian conditions? 6% of the Israeli population thinks they went too far. So this is the situation where it. So let's get to Israel's demands in order to come to an end with this war in Lebanon. So we're not even talking about Gaza, by the way. We're just talking about another sovereign country.

So Israel has apparently shared its conditions for ending the war in Lebanon with the United States. And to me, it's clear that they literally want to occupy Lebanon. So two U.S. officials and two Israeli officials who spoke to Axios on condition of anonymity, shared this so-called diplomatic solution with the U.S. last week. One Israeli demand is that the IDF be allowed to engage in active enforcement to make sure Hezbollah doesn't rearm and rebuild its military infrastructure in the areas of southern Lebanon that are close to the border, an Israeli official says. And the official added that Israel also demands its air force have freedom of operation in Lebanese airspace. That means you run Lebanon. Yeah, that means that you are occupying Lebanon.

That's what that means. So guys, what is an occupation? Because now the Israelis do absurd things like say, no, we're not occupying anyone. The West Bank's not occupied. We withdrew from Gaza. Gaza's not occupied at all. Nothing is like, just don't believe you're lying. eyes, those people are perfectly free. They can do anything they like. That's absolutely a lie, not just false, but an active lie. So when you don't control your own borders, you are occupied. When you don't control your own military, your own airspace, you are occupied. That means you are under the power of a foreign power, okay, a different government. So, and when they say they're going to do active enforcement in southern Lebanon, that means we're going to have the military,

our military, in your country, enforcing whatever the hell we like on your citizens. That means you don't even have a country anymore. We now own Lebanon. And if you do anything we don't like, we're going to do active enforcement. And since we control the air completely, we're going to kill anyone we want in Lebanon at any time if you disagree with us. That's an occupation. That is a foreign power control your government completely.

Now, if you say, yeah, well, of course, because the Arabs are savages in Camas, be trusted, you're a racist. And so that's obvious. And we can get into terms, okay? But the bottom line is, don't pretend that Israel does not have, you know, a desire to occupy and take the land of the Arabs nearby when they take more and more of the West Bank every single day, as we're talking, where they are now intending to move into northern Gaza with settlers. That's why they're bombing them, starving them, and moving them out, going, what? We gave them a warning to move. We gave them a warning that we're doing ethnic cleansing and genocide.

And if they don't move, we're going to murder them and their children. But they didn't move. They had it coming. Well, all of Hamas's leaders are dead. Who are you bombing? All of Hezbollah's leaders are dead. Who are you bombing? No, this was never about self-defense.

And we've told you the kids with the bullet holes in their heads. And you see the starving children and the incinerated children. This is all about grabbing land. This is this country, this Israel has turned into exactly what they most feared and despised. And it is absolutely heartbreaking to see. So there are two demands are unworkable according to international law. In fact, the UN Security Council resolution 1701 indicates that this is unworkable. The resolution states that the Lebanese armed forces and the UN interim force in Lebanon enforce a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Now, what Israel wants to do obviously would undermine Lebanon sovereignty and it would go against this UN Security Council resolution. In response to that concern, an Israeli official said this, we are talking about 1701 with increased enforcement. our main message is that if the Lebanese army and UNIFIL do more, the IDF will do less and the other way around. So in other words, like we want to be that additional enforcement and we won't have to do much if, you know, the Lebanese military and UNIFIL do what we need them to do. But it still flies in the face of a sovereign country's ability to remain a sovereign country and not have an occupying force within it.

Yeah, look, we're, we try to be as fair as humanly possible. So Unifil, in my opinion, did not do a great job of enforcing that ceasefire from the Lebanese side. Because Hezbo did entrench itself in southern Lebanon and they do fire rockets in the Israel. So if you say, hey, wait a minute, should we change the leadership of Unifil? How do we enforce this ceasefire in a way that's reasonable? That's all a reasonable conversation. If you say Lebanon doesn't control its error anymore, we do. You can't control southern Lebanon.

Israel does. That's not a reasonable conversation. That's an occupation. That's oppression. And that'll be fought day and night. And by the way, not only that, you'll ruin any moderation there is in Lebanon. You'll create more radicalism. And 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced now.

You think they're going to be allies of Israel? Or do you think they might hate Israel for the rest of their lives? Families talking about, well, we had left everything behind. We've lost everything because we were so scared that Israel was going to kill. kill us that we moved. Now we've got nothing left. You think that they're going to be great friends and allies of Israel going forward? No, Nanyahu is purposely driving hatred so it leads to endless wars so he can stay in power. And they can take more and more land while pretending to defend themselves. I don't think that it's a mistake that the Israeli government is proposing

two unworkable demands in order to end the war in Lebanon. I mean, it's very similar, it's a similar pattern to what we saw in the ceasefire negotiations with Hamas. Finally, they would both, both sides would agree, right, on a ceasefire deal. And then Netanyahu would change the terms to something that was unworkable because he didn't want to ceasefire. And I'm seeing a similar pattern so far in regard to Lebanon. So we got to take a break. When we come back, Jank was on Pierce Morgan show. Pierce Morgan gets under my skin more than you can imagine.

And you're gonna see why when we come back? And we do need it, guys. If we didn't need it, we wouldn't ask. TYT.com slash 2024, appreciate everybody who chips in. I'm going to read only one comment here from Super Chat. And that's YTP renewed. And they said, bizarre and effective aren't mutually exclusive, referring to the McDonald's photo op. And I think that's a really good point.

And that's a point that we try to make all the time. Two things can be true at the same time. And in this case, you might be right that they're both right. I love how smart our audiences and how informed you guys are. Thank you for making those comments. All right. Let's get to Pierce Morgan and your appearance on his show today. So let's do it.

Thank you. It's not limited to Gaza. Palestinian is a syndrome. It's a mental illness. It's a universal phenomenon. And Jeng is the perfect example. And if he gets hungry eventually, I would not be surprised that he, will eat his own children. You are a parasite, a bottom feather. This is what you are.

His basement needs to be investigated because he's definitely hiding bodies in there. I mean, this guy, Jank, is there ever a conversation or debate on Pierce Morgan's show that doesn't immediately devolve into a pathetic circus? Well, look, that guy in particular is meant to be a circus. So his backstory is that he became an Israeli agent, turned on his own family, turned them all in, etc. Now that's a debatable and interesting moment. He says he was preventing acts of terrorism, and maybe that's true in that particular case. And so that's a complicated moral equation, right? And if you say, hey, I like that he did that, no problem, okay?

But since then, all he's done is say how great Israel is and how the Palestinians shouldn't exist. Not only that, he doesn't believe they do exist as a people. As a people, he thinks it's a concept that it's made up. Not only that. That guy, if you're wondering what his name is, he's a former Shinbet agent, Mossab Hassan Yusuf. His father was the co-founder of Hamas. He himself was a Hamas militant until he was captured by the Israelis. And at that point, he agreed to be an informant for the Israelis. And so his life literally depends on doing what he's doing on Pierce Morgan show. Yeah, and he's, as you heard him say in that clip, he thinks being a Palestinian is a mental

disability. I mean, he doesn't get any worse than this guy. And so, and then he says, not only that I'm a parasite, dehumanize me, because later he's going to threaten me. You're going to see that. And so, and he threatens any politician who disagrees with Israel. Because remember, he's used to working with agencies that if you disagree with them, especially if you're Muslim like me, they just kill you.

And then they're done with it. So that's what he's used to. So that's why making threats to, it doesn't sound crazy to him. Saying that you're going to eat your own children because you like Palestinians. And that's what people who like Palestinians would do. Or that are, he called me a Palestinian. And I said, thank you. And he said, well, if you're a Palestinian, then you saw the tape.

You're a mental disability. You eat your own children, et cetera. So this is the- The Palestinians provided a safe haven for Armenians who were forced out of Armenia during the Armenian genocide. I know this because my maternal ancestors ended up in Haifa. My maternal grandmother was born in Haifa. And anytime she talked about what it was like being a Christian Armenian in Haifa at the time,

she had nothing but positive things to say about the Palestinian people for welcoming the the Armenian refugees for giving them a home and for protecting them. So I'm sorry, anytime I hear people dehumanize Palestinians as violent, dangerous animals, it makes me sick, okay? It makes me literally like wanna vomit. And, you know, when he turned his own family in, he was saving his own ass. But you could say, hey, maybe he was doing it genuinely to save other civilians. Right, right, that seems like the type of guy who would do that.

Right, but what has he been doing for decades since that? This is the third time I've been forced into debating him, and he's been saying that Palestinians shouldn't exist. It's not an ethnicity, and they should be driven into other Arab countries. And in this appearance on Pierce Morgan, he said that the IDF is the one helping the children of Gaza the most. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

I mean, who would say that? Okay, let's keep this moving. All right, so he stated that, look, yes, the head of Hamas, Yaya Sinwar, has been killed by the IDF. That was big news last week, but there's still more to be done. They can't, you know, wind down with this war. Lots more to do. In fact, we need to expand this war to other countries. Let's take a look.

The most significant assassination that I'm looking for is the assassination of Ayatollah, the head of the snake. The Iranian regime, that includes Ayatollah and the Iranian guard, they are all targets. The next level is going to be massive assassinations in Tehran. And anyone who gets in the way, it doesn't matter where they are, even if they are politicians in the West, they are going to fall. Politicians in the West, if they get in the way, they're going to fall. Just remember that threat that he just issued, okay? But I just want to make a comment about how Pierce Morgan never seems to interrupt that side of

this argument as any public figure who's engaging in that argument is making the argument. When you start talking, Jank, Pierce Morgan can't help himself. Before he could even start answering the question he just asked you, he interrupts you and doesn't let you finish. Why is that? Because I'm disrupting his framing. His framing is on domestic issues. Donald Trump is a wonderful populist and Kamala Harris is a fake, phony, the worst, but I'm unbiased. I'm unbiased. Brother, you're on his show. You're friends with him. I get it. Just own it. That's okay. There's a lot of people on Trump's side. But no, nope, he's neutral. Come on. He's not neutral. Nobody believes that. He can have whatever opinion he wants. That's not my

issue with him, even though I tend to disagree with Pierce Morgan's perspective on these debates. My issue with him is that he'll have someone like you on the show and you're supposed to be there to share your perspective, but he interrupts you before you could even answer his question. Whereas the other guy is literally calling you a parasite predicting that you would eat your own children, but oh, there's no, there's no interruptions when those points are being made. So Anna, to that point, whenever we debate Israel on his show, the person making the outrageous points from Israel never gets interrupted. But when I start talking, it's not just peers, every pro-Israel person will interrupt me every time. Because in their mind, they're entitled to all the airspace, and they're used to doing exclusively Israeli propaganda.

Who's this annoying Muslim they let on the air to give the other side and to talk about saving lives? Ew. No, shut them up. Otherwise, I'll just talk over them or peers, you talk over them. But no matter what happens, don't let him say, just keep talking over him. And so when I shout back, then they go, oh, you're so uncivil. because every time their strategy is, make sure you interrupt them so that he can't get his points out. I would just speak over him, honestly.

If Pierce Morgan wants you on the show, that he should let you make your point. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent, though. I want to go back to what Yusef just did in that last video that we watched because he issued a threat against any Western leader who stands in the way of what Israel wants to do. Okay, so Jank actually, like, pressed Yusuf on that threat, wanted some clarity on what he meant by that threat. So let's take a look at that portion. What do you mean the politicians in the West will fall if they don't agree that to back Israel's war against Iran?

Yeah, we will not vote for them anymore. Oh, well, you don't vote for them now. You're not in our country. What do you mean the politicians will fall? We live in democracy, and we have the right to bring them up and to bring them down. Those who agree with Ayatollah, we don't want them in office. And all the sympathizers with terrorists like yourself, we don't want them even to be in our country. Who is we and how are you bringing down politicians in the West if they dare to defy Israel?

Tell me how you're bringing them down. I already answered you that. Check his basement, Jenk. Okay, so Israel doesn't have any voters in America. They're Israelis, they're not US citizens. That guy, I don't know what his citizenship is, I know where his loyalties lie, but it ain't for America. So if you check the polling, as I explained later in the interview, you'll see that Kamala Harris would pick up four to five points if she said that she was going to do a weapons embargo. So where is the popular momentum on Israel's side that would bring that to politics?

It doesn't exist. There's only two real interpretations. One is we'll just have APAC buy your politicians. And if we can't buy them like Cory Bush and Jamal and Bowman, we'll spend $14 million and $8 million and your politicians will fall under the weight of our financial strength. And the fact that we could just, in America, bribery has been legalized. So that's the generous interpretation. Yeah, but when you-

The ungenerous interpretation is if politicians disagree with Israel today in the Middle East, they kill them. And so now he's saying politicians in the West, you will fall if you dare to disagree with Israel. You tell me what he means by it, because it's not the votes. They don't live in America. It ain't the votes. Yeah, I mean, look, the, there have been a lot of different elements of this ongoing war that have shocked me, especially in regard to how little the U.S. government seems to care

about Americans, because we have now seen many Americans get killed as a result of how Israel is prosecuting this war, whether it be a young Turkish American who was in the West Bank, she got killed, whether it be American journalists who have gotten killed as a result of how Israel is prosecuting this war. And the American government doesn't care. They barely even want to release a statement about it. The only time they will say anything about it is if a journalist does his or her job and presses a state department official about it during a press conference. That should be concerning to the American people. Not only are we funding the atrocities that are currently being carried out in the Middle East by Israel and the

IDF, we're also risking the lives of the men and women in our armed forces as they're being sent there to defend Israel as it's behaving belligerently and, you know, committing all these war crimes, but Americans who are in the region have already been killed by the IDF. And our government doesn't care at all. First of all, they're Muslim Americans, so America, Joe Biden couldn't care less. He has almost no Muslim donors, so he doesn't care at all about Muslims. And second of all, they're American citizens, but they're not donors, so they never care about any American citizen that isn't a donor. So of course Joe Biden doesn't care.

Of course Donald Trump doesn't care. Kamala Harris doesn't care. So this is the world we live in. Final moment that I wanted to highlight is, well, just take a look for yourselves. If after 9-11, America had discovered that bin Laden was hiding in a particular place, as they did many, many years later, but had they discovered it within a year, and they had attacked that place and taking him out, then most people would have said that was reasonable, responsive military action, wouldn't they? What's the difference morally? Yeah. Between, well, I mean, just to be clear, nobody disputes that Simois orchestrated and ordered October the 7th. So if he is the mastermind behind this heinous terror attack,

then using the parallel of 9-11, is that not justification? If that had been bin Laden, would anyone be having too many moral qualms about going after him and killing him? No, peers is a great example, but I reject your framing. So let me explain. So bin Laden, we didn't get, we did get. And how did we get him? We got him through special forces. And if you remember, a year ago when I was on this program, you said, what should Israel do it?

And I said special forces. In fact, something that most Americans are probably unaware of, back in 2000s, the Bush administration had intel on the location of Osama bin Laden. And they had planned a raid. And it was going to be this intense raid. According to the New York Times at the time, the military set into motion one of the largest strike missions of its kind with long-range bombers, attack helicopters, artillery, and commandos all ready to pummel the rugged mountain valley along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. But ultimately, the Bush administration called off that raid. You want to know why? They weren't 100% sure of Osama bin Laden's location.

They were concerned, this intel might not be 100% correct. But more importantly, the civilian death toll would be too high. And they didn't want to risk that. So America chose, even in the midst of two horrible wars that we launched. The Bush administration, like literal war criminals apparently had more morality in this case than what we're saying. seeing currently in the way Israel is prosecuting this war. No question about it. So, but even those guys decided that a couple of dozen civilians was too high a price to pay to kill the world's worst terrorists who had hit us personally and killed about 3,000

Americans. Israel thought 42,000 Palestinians is not too high a price. As long as they get the leaders of Hamas, not only Netanyahu, but unfortunately the public saying, yeah, who cares about those Palestinian lives? 42,000, imagine of 42,000 Israelis had been killed. What wouldn't we do? Who wouldn't we bomb? Who wouldn't we kill?

Who wouldn't we invade? But 42,000 Palestinians die. They got, so what? We got one of their leaders, good enough. No, not good enough. There is no terrorists in the world that I would kill. if it meant killing 15,000 children, 15,000 children. What kind of a monster says, yeah, sure, go ahead.

It's their kids. What do I care? Kill them. It's a disgusting place that we're in right now. And almost all of American media is on the side of that lunatic. instead of the guy who says those outrageous things, they view as, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Israel has a right to defend itself. So they should have slaughtered tens of thousands of women and children. That is insane. No, it would be terrible if it was done to Israel.

It's terrible if it's done by Israel. You can't ask for a fairer standard than that. All right, when we come back, we're going to move off of the Gaza and Israel story. I want to talk a little bit about the glimmer of hope that we're starting to see in some of the polling on the presidential election. So stick around for that and more.