The Young Turks - Trump's Mysterious Call With A Foreign Leader

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Who could he have been talking to? Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Hey, how you doing? Welcome to the Young Turks.

Jake U Granik is sparing with you guys. As always, big show ahead. So you know what I want to tell you about real quick? No, I don't know what you want to tell us about. No, and I didn't tell the producers either, so they're going to have to scramble here. I want to tell you about the People's Fundraiser with Morgan Harper that I'm going to do on next Sunday, like this upcoming Sunday, I should say. It's in L.A. So if you're in L.A., I need you to panic.

Chip in 27 bucks so that you can go to this people's fundraiser, get together. that I'm doing with a Justice Democrat, Morgan Harper from Ohio. She's awesome. We're doing it at Rush Street at 7.30 p.m., but you have to RSVP, and that's the fundraiser part of it. What is the people's fundraiser? 27 bucks, if you want to give more, bless your heart, that'd be great. And so you're going to RSVP at this, oh, Jesus, okay.

This indecipherable thing, okay. Nailed it. All right, we'll show you the graphic later, okay? And then you guys can see how to get there. But if you're anywhere near L.A., Sunday night, okay? All right, lots to get to Trump sold us out. Of course. But, you know, then you got Democratic leadership.

Can't wait to get to that story. As usual. You know, look, to be fair to Nancy Pelosi, the only reason she gets more heat than Chuck Schumer is because we control the house. So she could actually do more than Chuck Schumer can. But if the rules were reversed, trust me, that Chuck Schumer would be getting more heat because he also wants to do absolutely nothing. Yeah, Chuck Schumer, as Trump would say, not good. Not good.

All right, let's get started. All right. Donald Trump allegedly had a call with a foreign leader and made a troubling promise, according to a whistleblower who filed a formal report about this incident. Now, this story has led to, of course, fierce disagreement between the left and the right, but we don't know what the nature of the call is. We don't know who the foreign leader is. What we do know is that this whistleblower who is part of the intelligence community found it troubling enough to report it, and then the Director of National Intelligence

didn't do his job by letting congressional lawmakers know about it so they can launch an investigation. Now, Trump's interaction with the foreign leader included a promise that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General for the intelligence community. Now, at that point, the Inspector General is supposed to go report it to the Director of National Intelligence. So Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the complaint was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of urgent concern, a legal threshold

that requires notification of congressional oversight committees. Now, at that point, Joseph Maguire is told about this issue, and he's the director of national intelligence, but he did not report this to congressional lawmakers. After fielding the complaint on August 12th, Aston submitted it to acting director of national intelligence, Joseph McQuire, two weeks later, by law McGuire is required to transmit such complaints to Congress within seven days, but in this case, he refrained from doing so after turning for legal guidance to officials at the Justice Department. Inspector General Atkinson told the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of the

existence of the whistleblower complaint without revealing its substance in early September. So that led to some drama among congressional Democrats, especially Adam Schiff, who is the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. And so there was a little hint that something was awry over the weekend when he had an interview with Face the Nation. Here he is talking about this situation just this past weekend. You issued a subpoena on Friday for the acting director of intelligence, alleging he's withholding a whistleblower disclosure possibly to protect President Trump. That's a pretty significant allegation here. We're putting up a quote on the screen from you.

Have you gotten a response to this letter? We've gotten a response, and the director has said essentially that he is answering to a higher authority and refusing to turn over the whistleblower complaint. This is deeply troubling. No director... Just ignoring the subpoena.

Well, at this point, yes. Ignoring the subpoena, ignoring our request. no DNI, no Director of National Intelligence, has ever refused to turn over a whistleblower complaint. And here, Margaret, the significance is the Inspector General found this complaint to be urgent, found it to be credible, that is, they did some preliminary investigation, found the whistleblower to be credible, that suggests corroboration, and that involved serious or flagrant wrongdoing. And according to the Director of National Intelligence, the reason he's not acting to provide it, even though the statute mandates that he do so is because he is being instructed not to.

That this involved a higher authority, someone above the DNI. All right, so we're going to get into the legal ramifications of this, et cetera, but breaking right now just in as we're doing the show live. CNN has a report that the president did this on multiple occasions. So let me give you the quote from Manu Raju, who is reporting for CNN. And we're told by multiple sources familiar with the matter that the Inspector General told the House Intelligence Committee today that the complaint dealt with in part multiple instances involving the president. We've known so far there was at least one incident that caused alarm for this whistleblower,

a phone call, a conversation with a foreign leader. And that's what we're talking about here earlier. And it involves a promise given to a foreign leader. has made excuses like one, I could do whatever I want, that's of course not true overall. In this case, he can declassify information as the president, but whether it's wise to is a different matter and whether it violates other laws is a different matter. So for example, if he's on the phone with a foreign leader and he says, oh, by the way, our American spy is sitting right next to you.

It's your make up a title, you're a deputy foreign minister. Well, that might violate other laws because that guy's gonna get executed, right? Right. So we don't know what promise Trump made or what intelligence he gave to a leader. And by the way, there are five possible leaders that he talked to. It was in this time frame that's being discussed. Prime Minister of Netherlands, not as likely. Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Emir of Qatar, Kim Jong-un, and of course, Vladimir Putin.

So which of those leaders he gave a promise to? We don't know, what did he promise, we don't know. How many different times he did things that were of urgent concern to national security? We don't yet know, but apparently it's multiple instances we find out today. So very curious what he promised, who he promised it to, et cetera. Right, it really depends on the nature of that call. And so I find it fascinating that so many people are already on cable news making all these strong statements about either the president being completely innocent, he didn't do anything

wrong, you know, this is totally okay, and it's in the purview of what a president can and should do. And then, you know, on the left, you have concern because the executive branch and specifically Trump administration officials, and maybe even Trump himself, are encouraging individuals to do their bidding for Trump, right? Either don't respond to subpoenas, don't cooperate with investigations. In this case, you have the Director of National Intelligence not reporting the content of this formal whistleblower complaint. And remember, Dan Coat stepped down, and then Donald Trump chose someone who he felt more

compatible with. And so there's some concern that the Director of National Intelligence isn't doing his job, and he's just protecting Donald Trump. And by the way, the DNI General Counsel released a statement arguing, quote, this is Graphic 8, the activity at the root of the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communications. So this is the defense that they're kind of coming up with at the moment. No, no, no, this is sensitive information.

Congressional lawmakers who should be investigating this don't need to know anything about it. Yeah, and so there's what Trump has done that's problematic and perhaps the most problematic, depending on what exactly he promised and how urgent it was and how much it jeopardizes our security. And by the way, he's done this on multiple occasions, but this appears to be more severe than the rest, and that's why it's causing such alarm. He also told a Russian ambassador in the White House about our intelligence in Syria. That was a terrible, disastrous thing.

He does it all the time. That's why ICE wouldn't tell them when they were going to do the raids in Mississippi, because they're like he'll tweet about it, it'll ruin the surprise. And so loose lips sink ships and the only question is whether it's on purpose or not. But then there's a second part which is the director of national intelligence or the acting director. Well, that one is not optional. There's laws that say you have to report it to Congress within seven days and you have to tell them what happened.

You don't just get to say, yeah, I don't want to follow the laws. Well, you can't say that, but then you should go to prison. So, like, apparently Nancy Pelosi was really upset at Cory Lewandowski yesterday and thought like maybe we should do contempt of Congress on the spot. What's stopping you? Are you ever going to hold anyone in the administration accountable? If there is a law- She's got to write that strongly worded letter first. Oh, I see.

And then do nothing. If there's a law saying that you must tell Congress in seven days, it's not negotiable. Otherwise it's contempt of Congress. You know what, if you don't do contempt of Congress, then you've just said to the Trump administration, which basically you have over and over again, you don't have to follow anything we say. Right. You could just do whatever you want, and there's never going to be any consequences, congratulations

you're above the law. Well, the Director of National Intelligence, McGuire, likely will face consequences, which is why I find it so fascinating slash incredible that after all these different examples of people who have faced criminal charges and have been given prison sentences as a result of the criminal activity that they've conducted for Donald Trump, there are still people who are willing to protect Donald Trump. Yeah, well, fame and power, it's a hell of a thing, and hell of a drug. So let me go to Donald Trump's tweets, Graphics 10 and 11.

So here's his excuse for why he apparently gave away top secret information to a foreign leader and made a promise to him. So we'll find out the contours of it again. Or maybe we won't, but we should find out the contours of it eventually. Trump said another fake news story out there, it never ends. Virtually any time I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand there may be many people listening from various US agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. No problem.

In other words, it's a problem, but I'll get back to that. Knowing all of this, is anyone dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially quote? quote, heavily populated call. I would only do what is right anyway and only do good for the USA, okay? Well, there are several examples of him not doing right, obviously. So break that down real quick, number one, he's saying like if I wanted to work with a foreign leader, I would do it when there's no one else around.

Well, has there ever been a time like that? Yes, when Donald Trump kicked out the American translators when he was meeting with Vladimir Putin and only had the Russian translator because he did not want any other American to hear what he was going to say to Putin. So now he's saying like, and when I communicate with Putin and give him promises, I usually make sure I kick out all my American aides and translators and everyone else in the room. That's what I do my secret deals. I'm not stupid enough to say it on a phone call populated with others.

No, wrong, you are stupid enough. There isn't anything that you could tell me where I would think that, yeah, oh wow. Well, that's too stupid for Donald Trump. Is it possible he forgot there are other people that could be listening to the call, right? Because they're, when the president's talking to certain foreign leaders, people are listening, but they're not part of the call. They're not like, oh, okay, is Bob here, Sally? Okay, we can get started, right?

No, could Trump have forgotten and be like, oh, what do you need, Vlad? Of course, of course that's possible. Also, I mean, look, Trump has been, the message that Trump is above the law has been sent over and over. over and over again. He has faced no consequences for anything, right, including the clear obstruction of justice that was outlined in the Mueller report. So why would he care? I mean, I know that it's less likely that this is what happened, but it's possible that he just

is brazen in his behavior because he knows he's not gonna have to face any consequences. Remember, he doesn't think one step ahead. He, he, like, people, the number one thing they underestimate is how unintelligent he is. So could I see him on a call with Putin? And forgetting that national intelligence is also listening, going, Vlad, what do you need? Yes, of course, I'll withdraw from Syria, whatever it is. I don't know what it is, right? Yeah, I could definitely see that.

But lastly, these two tweets, if they were a book and had a title, it would be, if I did give away national secrets, this is how I did it. Right, right. So he's like, I mean, I wouldn't do it on a heavily populated call. I do it, you know, like I've done it in the past when I kick out all the Americans from the room, but of course I wouldn't. I wouldn't, I'm just saying there's a way that I normally do it. Well, Trump's not the only one who's defensive today.

And I want to pivot to a reaction that I came across that I thought was just fascinating. So following news that Donald Trump may have given a troubling promise to a foreign leader during a phone call, this was all outlined in a whistleblower report, there are people on the right who have a vested interest, I guess, to defend Donald Trump. And one of those individuals is a CNN analyst Phil Mudd. So he goes on Cuomo show, Cuomo Prime Time, and here he is outraged by the story. I am ticked off. This is completely inappropriate, and the Congress should not be asking the intel guys

to go snitch on the president. All right, so that's a little tasty taste, and the full context of it is even more interesting. So let's just take a quick look at that. Boy, I'm about ready to blow a gasket. Can you explain? That is extremely unusual. And I listened to presidential phone calls when I was an official at the White House under George W. Bush in 2001.

Can you explain to me, A, why it's the U.S. intelligence community's responsibility to listen to the president in the United States speaking to a foreign leader? And B, why the U.S. intelligence community under the rules provided by the Democrats in Congress are responsible to report to the Congress what the President of the United States says. Last I checked, Chris, when I served, we're responsible for chasing the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and terrorists. We're not responsible for reporting to the Congress what the president says. He can say what he wants, Chris. I am ticked off.

This is completely inappropriate, and the Congress should not be asking the intel guys to go snitch on the president. No. We don't know what the content of that call was. The only thing we know is that this whistleblower, who was part of the intelligence community or is part of the intelligence community, was so troubled by the phone call and what was promised, allegedly promised to a foreign leader, that this person filed a formal whistleblower report. So I'm just saying that because if you don't know what the content of that call is, why?

Why are you so upset and why are you so defensive on behalf of Donald Trump? Also, I love how he was part of the intelligence community under George W. Bush in 2001. And he seems very proud of that. I don't know if I'd be so proud of that. Yeah. So look, that small clip opens up a Pandora's box of a lot of issues here. So first of all, to be fair to Phil Mudd, he has been quite critical of Donald Trump as well on television.

So he has a little bit of credibility in that sense. And number two, I get if he says, look, don't willy-nilly tell Congress what the president's talking about with a foreign leader. Like the intelligence community has to keep things obviously and quite literally top secret. So if he's concerned about that as someone who used to be in that community, I totally get it. But the third point is that Anna is obviously right on, you don't know the contents. So you don't know what the president said. if the president said, yeah, I promise to attack Iran on your behalf, right?

Now, given the world leaders involved in the phone calls he made in that time period, that's unlikely. Or if you said to the North Koreans, oh, I promise not to do sanctions if you build nuclear weapons, right? Right. I mean, there's like a million things. And by the way, those might not be the worst because those might be insane decisions, but not illegal, right?

Right, it really depends on the content of the call, period, yeah. So I think that he came in pretty hot there. He has ticked off. Right. And I think that he should have been a little bit more reserved about, it really, really depends. And by the end of the segment, Cuomo got him to say, yeah, okay, fine, it depends. Right. Right.

And so now the last part of it is also what Anna alluded to. Look, there's a lot of folks floating around in cable news, not just CNN, MSNBC's littered with them, who are former Bush people. acting high and mighty about the Trump administration, you know, not buying it. The Bush administration, we know for a fact, started a disastrous war and then at least. We're now worried that Trump is going to start a second one, but Bush already did it. I mean, and the intelligence community under Bush was a disaster. Yeah, they got manipulated by Cheney, but that's, I mean, that's not something to be proud

of. Jake, I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh or unfair when I say this. But again, he referenced being part of the intelligence community under George W. Bush in 2001. I mean, the biggest and most tragic terrorist attack in U.S. history happened in 2003, right? So if you're- 2001. I'm sorry, in 2001, I'm sorry, we invaded Iraq in 2003. Yeah. But come on, like it's just, it's incredible to me because there were some giant failures on behalf

of the intelligence community or in part of the intelligence community, it's just interesting to see him have such strong opinions about A, a call that he knows nothing about, we know nothing about it other than a whistleblower found it troubling, and B, the fact that he feels the need to cite his experience when in reality, citing it really shows a giant failure on behalf of the intelligence community. Yeah, so last two things on that, we do know it's a matter of urgent concern, and that's a legal standard apparently for the whistleblower to say Congress should say, see this immediately because it's not just about the president, it's about anyone that has

committed, that has done something apparently that ranks as an urgent concern. So there's different classifications. So for example, in secrets, there's classified, et cetera, et cetera, different rankings. So this is a, it's a legal definition and it means no, no, you don't get it. This is really big and really important. So I think Phil Mudge should pay a little bit more attention. Like, I get that he knows that, but I think he should be a little bit more concerned about that.

And to the point about 2001, look, I know that the intelligence community said Bin Laden is determined to attack inside the United States, and they gave that warning to Bush a month before they actually attacked, and Bush said, you covered your ass, now go home. He totally ignored it and stayed on vacation for a month, and then we got hit. But still, if I'm in the intelligence community, that's not the thing I'm bragging about, right? And there's this weird phenomenon, and we keep going back to blaming TV. but it's true where they let people get away

with the exact opposite of what reality is. Rudy Giuliani is like, oh, I was mayor of New York during 9-11. Yeah, you put all the emergency response things. The new BMO,

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Like, did you prevent it? No, did you put the emergency responders in the right place? No, right? And George Bush, oh, I was the president during 9-11. That's not a good thing, right? In fact, you were on vacation for a month when you should have been doing your job. And the intelligence community go, oh, we were on our watch, we got hit. Right.

Oops. Exactly. All right, we gotta take our first break. When we come back, we're gonna give you an update on Iran, including an interview with Iran's foreign minister. And then later in the show, way later in the show, we are going to discuss the whole Shane Gillis' SNL drama. There's an angle to that story about appealing to conservatives that I think we need to rant about. Yeah, and I got twists and turns.

Uh-oh. Okay. Here we go. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing 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. We come back. All right, back on TYT. Insane Lane writes in, hello, T.Y.T. Crew, glad to see you're covering the Trudeau story. We would love your thoughts on how fast Trudeau responded in his apology and stories today that he's, quote, pissed off at himself. Do you think we'd ever hear that rumor about Trump, love from Ontario? Ontario. All right, we are going to get to that story a little bit later. I have a controversial opinion on that. Okay.

Drama Lama says on the bright side, the orange oligarch never keeps his promises, so we may be safe. There's a lot of people on Twitter that also said things along the same lines in regards to Trump's promise to a foreign leader. Brent DeCorn says, I honestly think both Jenk and Anna are correct. I doubt Trump would realize other people were listening in on the call. But there's also a good chance that by the time he finally figured that out, he also realized there wouldn't be any consequences. Right, totally.

Right. So that's true, we could both be right. And then finally, Dermachina also a lot of folks said similar notes here on Twitter, but this from our member section, snitching by itself implies something wrong was done. You can't snitch on someone doing what they are supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredible how Republicans, like, they'll blame the messenger immediately, right?

Rather than focusing on the heart of the story, which is there was allegedly a problematic call. Let's find out what that call was about. Yeah, I mean, and you know Trump, he said in the past, like, I think cooperating with law enforcement should be illegal. Right. So I wouldn't be surprised if he tweets out, snitches get stitches. That'd be pretty funny.

I wish he wasn't president because like the things he says are funny and entertaining. It's just that he's the president of the United States. Yeah, if he was the, you know, the lead clown in a three ring circus. Totally. I actually think he's slightly more entertaining, not slightly, definitely more entertaining than a clown. Clowns are scary. Oh, yeah. But maybe that's why he does the orange makeup.

Maybe. Okay. All right, I wanna let you guys know about our power panel this week. So next Friday, September 27th, the Young Turks Power Panel will be available for TYT members and on Pluto TV, Zumo, the Roku channel, and YouTube TV. We won't be on YouTube next Friday, but you can get full access at TYT.com slash join by becoming a member or by watching next week's Friday Power Panel on all the other platforms that I just mentioned. Okay. And yeah, remember, we're on all those right now. And but normally we carry

the show live on all of those platforms every day, plus on YouTube. But on that Friday, we're going to be doing it just on the platforms, plus our website for members. All right, what's next? All right. Of an American or Saudi military strike on Iran now. And all out war. All right, that was Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who had an interview with CNN to discuss the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. Now recently, the United States has accused Iran of bombing an oil facility in Saudi Arabia. Iran denies it. The Houthi rebels in Yemen claim responsibility for it, but both the Saudis and the U.S.

claim that the Houthi rebels absolutely did not have the capability to conduct that type of attack. Now, I want to show you more video from the interview that took place. with Zarif, and then I'll fill in some blanks. Take a look. Of an American or a Saudi military strike on Iran now. And all out war. You make a very serious statement there, sir. Well, I make a very serious statement about defending our country.

I'm making a very serious statement that we don't want war. We don't want to engage in a military confrontation. We believe that a military confrontation based on deception is awful. will have a lot of casualties, but we won't blink to defend our territory. So he's being very clear. He's saying, look, we don't want any type of military action. We don't want any type of war. But if we need to defend ourselves, that is what we're going to do. He was also clear in stating that Iran is open to having talks with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. However, they are not willing to have a conversation with anyone from the United States because,

of their pressure campaign through sanctions. They say, look, if you are willing to raise the sanctions against Iran, then we're willing to talk to the US. But if not, we have no interest in that. Yeah, so first point is that I think he's wrong on the conditions for talking. There should be no preconditions. I get it, we violated the deal, we tore up the deal, and we shouldn't have done the sanctions again.

That's not just Iran's position, that's also the position. of all the European countries that were involved in the deal, Russia, China, everyone else in the world except Donald Trump administration, okay? So even though he's right about that still, you should always go to the negotiation table. And so him saying we won't go until you lift the sanctions, well, that's not going to happen. So that's not good for peace. Number two, is this point about all-out war problematic? No, what do you think would happen? I mean, so we're saying we might bomb Iran. And we always say that about other countries as if they're not human beings. and they don't have sovereignty and who cares, we do whatever we want. Just always think about shoe on their foot. So if Iran was threatening to bomb New Jersey, they're like, I don't know, maybe we'll take out Newark or Poughkeepsie, New York, or I don't know, maybe we'll destroy Hawaii, just

you know, Torah, Torah, Torah, and we'll just bomb the hell out of Hawaii. Now what would happen? It would be a day that lived in infamy, right? And we would immediately launch a massive war. So he's saying, yeah, if you bomb us and attack our country, of course it's going to be all-out war. So I don't find that troubling, I find him not going to the negotiation table more troubling. Yeah, look, okay, so I want to discuss that in just a second. But let's never forget that the reason why we're engaged in this conflict with Iran at this

very moment is because Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. So first of all, I have to admit watching that video, yes, the subject matter is terrifying. The notion of going to another war in the Middle East is also terrifying, but he's so calm in the way that he speaks about this issue. I'm just like, tell me more. Tell me what else is going to happen. Yeah, he's weirdly calm. He's so calm. And look, I only bring that up to juxtapose the way that he talks about this very serious issue with how Donald Trump handles this issue, right?

Now, Donald Trump, again, seems to have the right instinct in not invading Iran. and not going through with any type of military action. But at the same time, his action in pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, his rhetoric, all of that has led to an escalation with Iran that didn't need to happen. And then now let's talk about his Zerif's refusal to meet with Trump or with anyone in his administration. Well, those US sanctions against Iran are serious. So according to CNN, the sanctions have crippled Iran's economy, obviously, causing the currency to plummet and prices to soar.

The economy has contracted and food and medical shortages are rampant. So the innocent civilians, citizens of Iran, they're the ones who are really suffering. And what good is going to come out of having a discussion with someone as unreasonable as Donald Trump? So I think of that. But at the same time, I also know that if you do meet with Donald Trump and you compliment him and you just pander to him, then he might do anything you want him to do. Yeah, he might talk about how you guys fell in love.

So, but let's not lose sight of the single most important thing about this story. Does anyone in the country want to fight Saudi Arabia's wars for it? No. There's, I don't think there's anyone on the left wing. I don't think there's anyone on the right wing who wants to fight Saudi Arabia's wars on their behalf and have our soldiers, our young men and women go die on behalf of Saudi Arabia, nobody in the right wing thinks that, or left wing, or in the middle. The only people to think that are 13 neocons in the military industrial complex.

But yet when you turn on your television, what do you see? The war drums are out, and oh my God, well, you know, we gotta respond. Well, of course we have to fight on behalf of Saudi Arabia. They don't say, they don't say on behalf of Saudi Arabia, but they're having a 50-50 conversation. I don't even think it's 50-50. If you turn on an average cable news channel, it is at any given time, I think that it is more than 50% that they intimate is, you know, that this is a possibility. And they make it seem like the country wants, our country is really mad and they want

a strong response on behalf of Saudi Arabia. That's just horribly misleading. There isn't anybody in the country that wants this war. Well, you're obviously talking about voters and some lawmakers. But as you mentioned, there are neocons who absolutely love war. John Bolton's one of them. Luckily, he's no longer Trump's national security advisor. However, Mike Pompeo is still part of Trump's administration as Secretary of State.

And he just met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a murderer. Someone who ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And so he meets with him, and then he puts out this type of language on Twitter. Met with Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman today to discuss the unprecedented attacks against Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure, the U.S. stands with Saudi Arabia and supports its right to defend itself, the Iranian regime's threatening behavior will not be tolerated. Okay, good, let them not tolerated. Okay, they have a right to defend themselves, of course they do.

So let them defend themselves. Why are we sending American boys and girls to go die on behalf of this murderer, Muhammad been bonesaw, right? So no, our answer resoundingly all across the country is no, except for guys like Pompeo who work on behalf of the military industrial complex. There is almost no neocons, no real person has ever run into a neoconservative in their lifetimes. You've never seen one at a picnic, you've never seen one at a barbecue.

The only neo-concertives that exist are all on cable television. And so they beat the war drums for, oh my God, we gotta go, we gotta go. The Saudis called, we have to fight the war. No, we don't, nobody wants this war. And by the way, look, do you want to talk about disaster, if Trump gets goaded into it, which is still enormously possible, what if things start going wrong? And then Trump, you know he has no control, but if he says, oh, we had trouble, let's nuke them. You think he won't do that?

So we have a very small group of people in this country that are trying to drive the world into an absolute disaster. It's incumbent upon so-called reporters to call out that they're a minuscule portion of this country. Do a poll for God's sake, nobody wants this war, except John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, Racion, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. Well, let me ease your nerves a little bit for the moment. because there is a back and forth with Donald Trump that makes me feel a little better about where Donald Trump is at with war at the moment, but things could change.

So let me give you the details on that. John Bolton, who is no longer part of Trump's administration, is making his foreign policy disagreements with Donald Trump well known. He has basically pushed out all this harsh criticism against Donald Trump during a meeting, a lunch with a group of right-wingers, including people like Rebecca Mercer. So let me give you the details on what he said. According to Politico, Bolton harshly criticized Trump's foreign policy at a private lunch, saying that inviting the Taliban to Camp David sent a, quote, terrible signal, and that

it was disrespectful to victims of 9-11 because the Taliban had harbored al-Qaeda. Also, he claimed that negotiations with North Korea and Iran were doomed to failure, and he also ripped Trump without using his name several times. Bolton said more than once that Trump's failure to respond to the Iranian attack on an American drone earlier this summer set the stage for the Islamic Republic's aggression in recent months. At one point, Bolton suggested that he had the US, that had the US retaliated for the drone shootdown, Iran might not have damaged the Saudi oil fields. Now again, I wanna be clear about something.

It is not definite that Iran attacked Saudi Arabia's oil facility. They deny that they did it. So far, the United States has failed to provide any concrete evidence that this was done by Iran. And so John Bolton loves war. He pushes for war. He wants to invade any country possible. And Donald Trump, of course, is going to respond to this. So let's take a look at what Trump's response is, and then we'll discuss.

John Bolton apparently was critical of you today, both your policies on Iran and the Taliban. Well, I was critical of John Bolton for getting us involved with a lot of other people in the Middle East. We've spent $7.5 trillion in the Middle East, and you ought to ask a lot of people about that. We are doing it the right way. We're doing it the smart way. It's very easy to go in. We could go in in one instant, just one phone call, we could go in. And that might happen. That might happen. But we will see what we will see. John was not able to work with anybody,

and a lot of people disagreed with his ideas. And a lot of people were very critical that I brought him on in the first place because of the fact that he was so in favor of going into the Middle East, and he got stuck in quicksand. We became policemen for the Middle East, and it's ridiculous.

And I've always felt that. I always felt it. From day one, I felt it. Even though I wasn't in government, I felt it. I think John really should take a look at how badly they've done in the past, and maybe a new method would be very good. Yeah, so he's a, I mean, honestly, everything that Trump said there was, most of what Trump said there was right.

Yeah. So look, I want to get back to the donors that are pushing for war in a second that John Bolton was speaking to, but I want to ask you guys an interesting question. And we'll do a poll on this. We'll call it t.yt.com slash Bolton, okay? And we'll put it up by the time you're watching this video later, it's not up right now as you're watching it online. But the poll is, who would you rather be have in charge of U.S. foreign policy?

Donald Trump, and so you're thinking anybody but him, no, or John Bolton. And so I know that's a Hobson's choice and there's no winners there. And Trump is so unstable and he, and we were talking a little earlier about how, look, if we into a mill of war. So here, here's a scenario, Trump gets goaded on, you know, by Fox News or whoever, although half the Fox News guys are against the war. And he goes to war and then Iran strikes back and they take out an aircraft carrier. Is that possible?

It's definitely possible. They take out an aircraft carrier and all those guys die. Trump's gonna start talking about nukes, okay? So now having Trump as the head of our foreign policy is unbelievably disastrous. But your other options, Bolton. So that's why it's a tough poll, okay? Go vote at t.wit.com slash Bolton. We'll have the link down below later when you're watching this later on YouTube or Facebook.

And I gotta say, I'm gonna vote Trump. Yeah. Because Bolton would definitely invade Iran, definitely, okay? And he would definitely take military action against North Korea and very likely against Venezuela. So we got one to three wars under Bolton guaranteed that would be a worldwide disaster. So as unstable and insane and ridiculous as Donald Trump is, he's better than the neocons. And so part of the reason I tell you that, and that's my opinion, everybody, look, a lot of

people who vote no, anybody but Trump. But you got cable news like treating the neocons like they're legitimate actors, oh, Bill Crystal, he's a never Trumper, so it's okay. No, it's not okay. They're the ones who made the worst decision of our lifetimes and they would do it again. And then they're brazen about that. So keep that perspective in mind, it's super important. And then now back to the donors.

So he's giving this speech at Gatesstone, or an event organized by Gatesstone. Of course, there's a couple of billionaires in the crowd, John Katzumattis in New York. He's a well-known lunatic in New York of the New York politics. And so all these right wings. Rebecca Mercer, the worst of the worst. She referred to Bolton as, quote, the best national security advisor our country could have hoped for. Yeah, so her and her dad, Robert Mercer, are billionaires, and they ran, they were a financial firm, and they bought off Donald Trump,

they bought off Ted Cruz, they bought off a lot of the Republican Party, and they go, you give us tax cuts, you give us billions of dollars, and you do as you're goddamn told, and apparently they have some sort of interest in starting wars, so they put, they probably put, if you're wondering how How did Bolton get into Trump's administration when they never agreed in the first place? You just saw the video yourself where Trump was like, hey, a lot of people criticize me. Probably the Mercer's pulled him by his ear and said, hey, bitch, remember who got you elected and who gave you all the money? Put Bolton in there, full well knowing that Bolton had a decent chance at starting a war

even if Trump didn't want it. By the way, the Mercer's have recently pulled their support away from Donald Trump. So they're no longer helping to fund his campaign, they don't support him. It might be due to his foreign policy decisions, I don't know, that's my speculation. But I do find it fascinating how, you know, incredibly wealthy people like the Mercer's want the tax cuts, but they want more war. And guess who gets to pay for that war? It's the middle class and the working class.

People actually do pay the tax. And fight it. Hey, are any Mercer's going to go to the war? Of course not. Are any of the Mercer's going to go fight that war? That's for the riffraff, right? So if you're not going to go fight the war and you're going to make a middle class America is going, die on your behalf, please shut up.

But look at how insane our political system in America is. The mergers get to bribe any politician they like. It's now become legal because of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. And then we're not allowed to know where the mercers who work in finance have invested their money. What if they invested in an oil? What if they put billions of dollars in oil, knowing that if you attack Iran, oil prices will obviously go up?

And they're like, okay, let's make money. Let's give Trump a million dollars, let's give other Republicans a couple of million dollars. And when oil prices go up, as an example, we make $10 billion, $20 billion, $100 billion. Hey, bribing American officials, super easy. America's the most corrupt country in the world, we made bribery legal, and then I can just make billions of dollars off of this bribery. And now, okay, one last guy that was in the meeting, but it's a murderer's row of terrible people that were at that meeting.

Alan Dershowitz was there. Now any media person, that still calls Alan Dershowitz a liberal or a progressive, you just, you're either ignorant or you're lying on purpose. So Dershowitz says about John Bolton that it was a quote, national disaster that he was booted from the White House. And apparently that was met with, quote, thunderous applause. So Alan Dershowitz is like, yes, let's start a war with Iran. John Bolton is my best friend.

Oh, it's such a shame. He left the White House. You called that guy a liberal? I mean, if there's any litmus test at all for progressives, being in favor of John Bolton, trust me, you don't get to pass that test. Alan Dershowitz is a conservative maniac. Trump and Bolton supporter. Any journalist that calls him a liberal supporting Trump is an idiot and is helping his lies

and helping the neo-cons on purpose. And I just want to know, one of the things that Bolton criticized Donald Trump for was the fact that he wants to pull out of Afghanistan. And look, we just killed 30 farmers, pine nut farmers in Afghanistan with a drone strike. We didn't have the right intel. We targeted the wrong people. So 30 innocent civilians were just killed from a U.S. drone strike. 40 others were injured.

Just in the last 10 years and we've been there 18 years, 16,000 civilians in Afghanistan have been killed. So, and then they wonder, oh, guys like Scarborough, so they hate us because they hate us. Dan Crenshaw, they hate us because they hate us. Well, if you choose to be stupid, that's on you, okay? No, they hate us because we went and killed all those innocent civilians. If you say, hey, it was the right to go into Afghanistan in the first place, that's a different conversation.

It's 18 years later, what the hell are we doing there? But Bolton says, no, we should stay longer, we should put in more troops, Alan Dershwin applauds, and then he gets called liberal on television. Insanity. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we have some rage for Democrats, especially Chuck Schumer, who wants to be incredibly weak when it comes to gutting. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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In the meantime, enjoy this free cycle. All right, back on Young Turks, organic panic writes in, Trump is a cross between Joffrey Barathean and Peter Griffin from Family Guy. That's good, yeah, I've said Joffrey a thousand times, but I like that, it's pretty good. You're right, he is kind of a combo of those two. Yeah, look, Peter Griffin's an idiot, but he's also kind of endearing and likable. Yeah. As opposed to this guy.

Yes, I hear you on that. But that's the Joffrey part. Was that right, Sin? Anna is right. What is the point of negotiating with someone that has broken previous deals? Honor that deal first and then maybe you can make new ones. Okay. I like that you, I like that is that Jacori who's directing today?

I like that you went to a shot of me. Thank you. When Anna's right? Yeah. Okay. All right. And on Twitter, Progressive Princess writes in, watching TYT live and Jake made a dad joke about Donald Trump being orange to be a clown.

my 10 year old from the other room, quote, boom, roasted. And she ends with, the joke has landed. Well, I got to tell you, I kill with 10 year olds. Well, I know for my kids, 9 and 6 years old, the dad jokes totally work. Oh, yeah. Enjoy it while it lasts. I know, right? Until I start getting the eye rolls that you normally get from your significant other like.

Yeah. All right, let's go forward. All right. Well, I'm sorry, Anna, and everybody else. You were looking at me because you knew I was going to say something else. We got you the link for Morgan Harper. So we're doing a people's fundraiser here in LA this Sunday, this upcoming Sunday. That's why I want to tell you about it.

But if people's fundraisers, you have to chip in at least 27 bucks to come, you can chip in more. I really want to see you guys, Morgan Harper. A wonderful Justice Democratic candidate. She's running in Ohio against a Democratic incumbent. It's so important for these primary challenges to win, because that's how we're gonna, look, honestly, intimidate the rest of the Democrats to vote for Medicare for all and Green New Deal and get the money out, et cetera. If a couple of incumbents lose, they're gonna panic.

Right now, they're like, oh, it's no big deal, right? But if four, eight more Justice Democrats win, then the chance of those bills passing is so much more important. The URL is right there, T.y.t.m.H. as in Morgan Harper, for the number four, oh, H as in Ohio. Dot, t.y.t.m.m.h.4.org. Go there. Chippin 27 bucks. By the way, even if you can't make it through the people's fundraiser in L.A. on Sunday. Chippin 27 bucks anyway. Okay. All right, Anna, what's next? Better O'Rourke received a lot of criticism from the right wing when it came to his proposal to buy back certain assault weapons.

Now he's receiving criticism from the left as well, including from Democratic leadership, like Chuck Schumer. Now, before I get to their quotes, I just want to remind you all of what I believe was Better O'Rourke's strongest moment in the debates. Take a look. You know, the critics call this confiscation. Are you proposing taking away their guns? and how would this work? I am if it's a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield. If the high impact, high velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body

because it was designed to do that so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers. When we see that being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15, year old girl who was shot by an AR-15, and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland, there weren't enough ambulances to get to them in time. Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We're not going to allow it to be used against fellow Americans anymore. So it's amazing because honestly, no one was talking about better or work at all, at all.

Like, he had to relaunch his campaign because no one was talking about him. And then he gives this unapologetic strong answer defending his proposal, and everyone's talking about him now. I thought that was a great moment for him, but it turns out that not only are Republicans going after him for it, you have members of the Democratic Party going after him, including leadership like Senator Chuck Schumer. Of course, of course, the surrender Democrats are here to give away any momentum we had. So for instance, Chuck Schumer said, quote, I don't know of any other Democrat who agrees

with Beto O'Rourke, but it's no excuse not to go forward, right? Okay, so yeah, yeah, yeah, Chuck, here we go, I agree with Beto O'Rourke. Did you hear that crowd? They agree with Beto O'Rourke. I bet you if you've polled Democratic voters, they agree with better or O'Rourke. The only people who don't agree with better O'Rourke are corporate Democrats like you who love to surrender to Republicans. They love to surrender to Republicans because they're afraid of Republicans.

And you're gonna notice that in some of the other quotes I give you. So there's Senator Chris Coons, a day after the debate, Senator Coons warned that O'Rourke's proposal would be, quote, played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying that Democrats are coming for your guns. It's so funny, no, you know, you don't want to talk about scared, you're scared. Exactly. You're scared, oh my God, what are the Republicans going to say about me? Hey, I don't know if you know this, you also have a mouth, you could also say something about them.

But instead, you're using all your firepower against a fellow Democrat. By the way, what happened to unity? Oh, it's only if you're, take a corporate position that we have to unity, do unity behind you. You take a position that's strong and progressive, all of a sudden, no unity, screw Beto O'Rourke, we're all against them, it says, by the way, let's take a quick note of Chris Coons, this so-called Democrat, right, that I'm supposed to unify behind. So number one, he just said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm so afraid of Republicans,

we shouldn't do anything about AR-15s and AK-47s. Number two, he came out the other day and said, said, oh, we gotta go to war with Iran. If Trump and Saudi Arabia want us to go to war, we gotta go to war, right? He went on Fox News to say that. Yes. Okay, am I supposed to unify behind that? Why doesn't Chris Coos unify behind progressives?

So, and then lastly, you know what else Chris Coons does? He's a national chair of the prayer breakfast. So these are religious fundamentalists nuts that go around the world trying to ban homosexuality. And in some cases, even the death sentence for homosexuality. Like in countries like Uganda, they push for that. And TYT investigates has broken other stories about how they were involved with the Russians. Check that out on TYot.com. And Chris Coons is like, these are my fundamentalist friends.

No, Chris Coons is not my colleague. He's not a colleague of any progressive. And his job is to sell us out to Republicans. And then you have Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg said over the weekend that he thinks the Texas Democrat played into the GOP's hands with his comments. Again, more fear about the right wing. What's the GOP going to do? What's the GOP going to say?

And then you have a member of the GOP who is labeled incorrectly, Senator Joe Manchin. He's supposedly a Democrat, but he told reporters that O'Rourke is, quote, not taking my guns away from me when asked about the program. And here's a direct quote, Beto's one human being, he gave his own opinion, okay? I think it was very harmful to make it look like all the Democrats. I can tell you one thing, Better Ororik's not taking my guns away from me, you tell that okay? Now, Beto knows about this, knows about the resistance he's receiving in his own party, and he was asked about it during an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN. And I liked his

response. Take a look. What you said plays right to the heart of fear of people who don't want to give on any of this. Beto, they're working a deal hard. I've been talking to Democrats that are involved with it. They felt they were getting somewhere. They don't feel that you helped because you played into the fear of a slippery slope. Universal background. Red flag laws, fixing NICS, making it more info-shared, doing real things. They may not be able to get it done if people are worried about confiscation. Listen, if they had made some progress already, I might buy that argument. But many of those Democrats are complicit in what we see right now.

I mean, the Republicans are the most obstinate and the most obstructionists and the most in the pockets of the NRA. But it's been a bipartisan problem that the Centers for Disease. control, couldn't even study gun violence, that here we are in 2019, and we still don't have universal background checks or red flag laws, or we allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, even though it did so much good and saved so many lives. So this old policy and tactic of relying on polls and allowing the NRA to set the terms of the debate no longer works for me and no longer works for this country.

Yeah, that's a great answer by Beto. So look, I feel kind of proud, to be honest, on my analysis of this from day one. Look, I told you better, it was a mixed bag. When he went with the Obama consultants, it was a disaster for him. We said it was gonna be, and it was, and he dove in the polls. He went from running as a clean candidate, no corporate pack, et cetera. He still runs on no corporate packs, but he made a wrong decision. But I told you, he actually has good instincts, right?

And so here's his good instincts coming out, and so he's a mixed bag, and I'm glad he's in the race. Cory Booker is very similar. Some things where I go, I wish he hadn't done that, but some things that he does great, right? Other people like Buttigieg coming in talking, well, I know Norwegian and I know Farsi, and then backing a lot of conservative talking points, and here he is again on an issue that matters a lot. Oh, yeah, we're, you know, I'm scared of Republicans, and so, you know, I don't want to take their AR-15s away.

I mean, fear, we're talking about fear. The real fear that American voters have is that their kids are going to get shredded by an AR-15. Yeah, and it's not as if there haven't been, there's been a ban on assault weapons before, right? In the state of California, for instance. So it's not like we're talking about something out of control, it's never happened, this is unprecedented, it is a gun buyback program specifically for weapons of war.

Yeah. So I don't know, like, again, when you have a party that operates from this foundation of fear, they're never going to get anything done. They're always going to concede to their political opponents. And it's frustrating. And I really do commend Beto in this particular instance, and he should keep going in this direction. Because when you're unapologetic, when you're strong, that gives people something to vote for, something to support.

When you come from a place of weakness, who wants to support that? I'm not going to go to the polls and vote for that. Yeah. Look, Buttigieg is constantly back in these Republican target points. And totally ignoring the African-American community and in South Bend, demoting the black police chief, systematically removing them, et cetera. Go to t-y-t.com, check out the TYT investigative stories about him, and you begin to get a sense of who he is.

Last thing on this, the thing I cannot abide is Democrats pretending that they were about to have a deal with Mitch McConnell. Oh my God, if it wasn't for Beto O'Rourke, the Republicans were going to do a deal. and we were gonna get real gun control in this country. You know what that means? That means if there was gonna be any deal at all, they were gonna give McConnell everything he wanted. It was gonna be the weakest, worst gun control law you've ever seen in your life. But it was gonna give political cover to McConnell and the Republicans and Donald Trump to say,

hey, we did it. We did a gun control. Hey, so you can't say, blame me for all the violence anymore. Because I did the weakest thing in the world. So, and, oh, boo hoo! Hey, Chuck Schumer, I thought you were a master of legislator along with Nancy Pelosi. So what now? Because one thing that one out of 24 candidates said, you can't make a deal anymore, then

I guess you suck at your job. And come on, I was about to appease McConnell, but Beto ruined it? No, actually- There's a poster like child for I shouldn't have the job of Democratic leader anymore. One important piece, vital piece of information to really buttress your point. Earlier this week, there was a story out about how McConnell proposed some gun legislation, not to the Senate, to NRA reps. And all it was going to do was offer some background checks.

And the NRA is like, no. And he scrapped it. Yeah, and then they turn around and go, oh, we were going to do it. But because of Beto were not going to do it. No, you're not going to do it because the NRA owns you. And that's why you're not going to do it. And what is stupid-ass Chuck Schumer do? He comes out and he's like, oh, it's Beto's fault.

No, you idiot, it's McConnell's fault. You're so bad at politics. He goes around the country, Chuck Schumer, saying, who's the richest? Who's the richest? I'm gonna have them run for Senate because I think America's love the elite. Idiot doesn't know anything about politics. All right, we're gonna take a break. Jake is gonna cool off and then we're going to talk about Kavanaugh.

Apparently he asked reporters to lie. Yeah, I don't, I gotta disagree. I don't think I'm gonna cool off. Yeah, I don't think so either. We'll be back. 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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.