The Young Turks - Trump's Sad Victory Lap And Mitch McConnell Caught In Web Of Lies

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

Trump is ranting about Russia again. Mitch McConnell has been lying for his entire political career. 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. All right, well, the Young Turks. Got a great show ahead for you guys, where just like yesterday I will tell you that I was right

about everything. Triggering the right wing says 2002 right here on the Young Turks. And some members of the left wing too. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm a good triggerer. Okay, lots of amazing stories for you guys today, including the hilarious Republican attack on the Green New Deal. We got the deeds.

Oh, we do, we do, you don't want to miss that story. You know, I don't know if we'll get to it today, so why am I talking about? about it? Well, we're gonna definitely get to it at some point. Here comes Buttigieg. Okay. So, there are some interesting tidbits. Yeah.

So I honestly did not think that there was ever gonna be a chance because he has no, very little name recognition, but you know who also had very little name recognition in 2016? Oh, can I guess? Can I guess. Bernie Sanders. Oh, I was gonna go with Martin O'Malley. Him too, kind of, to some extent.

But, no, Buttigieg just, I think it's interesting to, you know, just get into the details of who he is, why he's running, all that stuff. Yeah, he'd be a perfect guy to come on to make his case here because he's kind of an interesting, open question. Anyway, speaking of presidential candidates coming on, Tulsi Gabbard, later in the week. Sounds like it's going to be Friday, so we will give you details as we are closer to it. I believe it's gonna be Friday at 5.30, that's what it looks like right now, and you never know, but okay, that's the situation as we stand now. It'd be great.

Look, I've actually interviewed Tulsi a great number of times, but not since she's become a presidential candidate, and so that'd be great. In the meanwhile, if you wanna fill up on Tulsi Gabbard interviews on the Young Turks, you could do that online or as a member, kiwt.com slash join. Okay, and then the Purdue, the Sackler family is busted for the opioid crisis. It's just a ton of amazing stories that you don't want to miss on today's show. So let's get to it. Yes, all right.

Following the, not the release, but following the completion of Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's Russian ties and following new information that Trump did not collude with Russia during the election, his team has decided to reach out to various news organizations, specifically cable news organizations and others, to scold them for. having certain individuals on as commentators or as political lawmakers who had some strong feelings about the investigation. So the communications director for the Trump campaign sent out a letter and it said the following. Moving forward, we ask that you employ basic journalistic standards when booking such guests

to appear anywhere in your universe of productions. You sure you want that standard, Doug? You sure? Did you think that one through before writing it down and sending it to everybody? Of course, of course not. Because Teflon Don is probably the best nickname ever of anyone. Because he is Teflon Don, he can lie every single day to the American public, to the media, to whomever, and he gets away with it.

But if someone goes on a cable news show and gives analysis that he doesn't like or he doesn't agree with, well then they should be banned. The producer should ban those people from ever appearing on the show. Now, I'm gonna give you some examples as to why this is ridiculous, right? And I'm gonna give you the names later, but let's just talk about the hypocrisy here. First of all, Donald Trump is very supportive of Fox News. We all know this. His executive time is spent watching Fox News.

He's very supportive of Sean Hannity. He will tweet actual statements that Hannity has said on his show on Twitter. So here is a compilation of what Fox News is really about. And then you tell me, you know, who's really guilty of lying here? Take a look. So more on the story of murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, who was gunned down last July in Washington, D.C. When you look at the timeline of this and 12 days after he was killed that shows up on WikiLeaks, have you ever seen a lot of robberies, which is how they've been looking into this case,

where the person has their wallet and their watch after they've been shot and killed in the back? Is there any evidence that he might have been disgruntled that the treatment of Bernie Sanders and the unfairness and that the fix was in to put Hillary in that position and maybe had evidence of that? So, you know, connect the dots here. It's starting to all come together. We have this very strange story now of this young man who worked for the Democratic National Committee, who apparently was assassinated at 4 in the morning, having given WikiLeaks something like 23,000. I'm sorry, 53,000 emails. And what does that tell you about what was going on? Because it turns out it wasn't the Russians. It was this young guy who I suspect was disgusted by the corruption of the Democratic National Committee.

There have been reports that say ISIS was trained by U.S. instructors at a secret base in Jordan to prepare them to fight President Assad as rebels. Since the Benghazi massacre, reports are that the annex was a front for a CIA operational. shipping arms to the anti-Assad forces through Turkey. You're saying it's a falsehood, and they're giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. But the point remains... Wait a minute. Alternative facts?

Sure. Look, this is a criminal involvement on the part of these leftist groups. It's highly organized, very elaborate, sophisticated operation. A lot of these folks also have affiliates who are getting money from the Soros-occupied State Department. You really, as we can see some more, it looks like a very young man here. He looks to be about 16 or 17, most of them carrying just one sack. And strangely enough, a lot of the young men that I've talked to had absolutely no money in their pockets for what could be a month long trip. One man told me today I rely on people on the road to feed me.

So you have two young male Guatemalans walking, just walking. There's no evidence that they're trying to be part of some caravan and Fox News decided to paint them as individuals who are trying to come into the country illegally. Then you have the Sethridge conspiracy theories, more nonsense conspiracies about the caravan and how dangerous it is. And then of course, I mean, would it be Fox News if you don't sprinkle in a little bit of Soros controversy as well or conspiracy? Yeah.

Look, I think that last one was the least obvious lie, but it was my favorite clip. Because they just take two dudes on the side of a random road somewhere in Latin America. And they're like, oh, my sources are telling me that they only have one sack on them. And they just walked by. You didn't talk to them at all. And they have no money on them. By the way, the implication there is, don't worry, Soros is gonna give the money. That's why they don't need any money.

We're really having a conversation about who lies more. Donald Trump, I think, the Washington Post did an analysis, it's hard to keep up because Because every day the lies keep piling up. And at some point it was like 837 lies in like under two years, something along those lies. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me now, but I think it's over a thousand at this point. Really, you want to ban people lying going on TV?

Great, let's do it, man. It'll wipe out the entire Trump administration and every single Trump supporter. So, you know, I'm bummed that they didn't put me on the enemy's list though, nor did they send us this warning. So all the ones that are on the list? Did they send us this warning? I mean, if they sent us this warning, they would be assuming that we would shut down this whole operation because we don't agree with almost anything that the Trump administration

does. But I want to read you a little more of the note, Jank, because it also says, producers should begin by asking the following question. Does this guest warrant further appearances in our programming given the outrageous and unsupported claims made in the past? I don't know, Tim. I don't know. What about the outrageous and unsupported claims that the president's made in the past?

We have a few of them just to give you an example. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. He may not have been born in this country. His grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth. Two years old, two and a half years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick. is autistic. In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say, oh, that's a conspiracy theory. Not a conspiracy

theory, folks. Millions and millions of people. To come back to the topic we've been all screaming about here, which is Scalia, was he murdered. I know it's pretty brutal to say that. It's a horrible topic, but they say they found the pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow. I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering. So something's going on. We got to find out what it is. I do want surveillance. I will absolutely take database on the

people coming in from Syria. I've made it known. If I win, They're going back. We can't happen. They're going back. We can't happen. We can't happen. A heavy Arab population that were cheering as the buildings came down. His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being, you know, shot.

I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this right prior to is being shot? And nobody even brings it up. Okay. Wow. We're having a conversation about people who should be banned from TV for lying. Is that the conversation we're having? we're having, every one of those was an outrageous, unbelievable, unadulterated lie.

The last one was so bad, even Steve Ducey, who's, you know, a cheerleader in chief. I think he gave him a 12 out of 10. Trump rated all the people on Fox News based on how loyal they were to him. And I think Ducey got literally a 12 out of 10, okay? And even Ducey on that last claim of Ted Cruz's dad having killed JFK was like-Ducy makes A lot of faces, by the way, when Trump is saying crazy outlandish things. So if you pay close attention to his face, it says something completely different from what his mouth says.

But real quick, look, it's amazing because he is going after people who simply shared their perspective or their analysis. Analysis is different from lying about the facts, right? And so you might disagree with analysis. Certainly there are people who watch this show. It might disagree with our analysis time to time. We disagree with one another's analysis. That is perfect, healthy debate.

Trump just simply doesn't want anyone to analyze him in any type of negative way. And so look, I agree that the mainstream media did overhype the Russia investigation. I agree that it would be incredibly frustrating to see people continuously go on TV and just automatically assume that you're guilty. But those assumptions, in my opinion, were also aided and abetted by Trump's own actions on social media, which he essentially incriminated himself when he didn't need to. And I don't know why he did that. But anyway, that's beside the point.

No, he did need to, because he did do it, just not during the election. I don't want to get back into that. Yeah, do I. But I'll tell you this though, but it related to that. So even in that Russia investigation, he made out outlandish lies over and over again. Like, he said, Mueller and his angry 19 Democrats investigating him. Well, if they were 19 angry Democrats who were on a witch hunt against you, why did they just say that you didn't collude with the Russians during the election? So I guess that was another stupid, outrageous lie that you said over and over and over again.

Now you're saying, oh, let's release the Mueller report. Mueller's fantastic. I love the Mueller report. So what happened in the witch hunt? you total granged liar. And so we're like glossing over that. No, part of the reason why he's Teflon down is because the press is as tough as he thinks they are on him and they think they are on him are actually pussycats.

Look, the guy is a monumental liar. It is not an open question. You just saw the video for yourself. I mean, outrageous lies like I, there was 3 million illegal votes in the 2016 election. A preposterous lie. He created a commission simply to look into undocumented immigrants voting for Hillary Clinton, which he claims is the main reason why she won the popular vote. And guess what that commission found?

Nothing, disbanded, gone. So look, if anything, the press should be way harder on him. And part of the reason he gets away with it is because they have this natural instinct of being like, I'm gonna call it 50-50, I have to be neutral. I can't be objective. Objective is bad because objectively, I'd have to tell you, he's an obvious and pathological liar. He lies all the time. So give credit to the people like Washington Post who are actually keeping track of his lies

and misstatements, et cetera. But overall, no, he is not held to the standard that anybody else. Can you imagine if a Democrat did one of those lies? No, I can't. Okay, if a Democrat had said, hey, I think Ted Cruz's dad killed JFK. Guard feathered, ridden out of town, denounced by Nancy Pelosi, every Democrat in the country, including every city council member who's a Democrat, forget the Republicans, okay? And the vaccine, the birth or the original birth and conspiracy.

The thing about Scalia allegedly being murdered. Michael Savage is a lunatic. He went on Michael Savage's show and talked about that insane conspiracy. He went on Alex Jones' show Donald Trump did and said, It was a wonderful program. Okay, the guys absolutely deranged, totally nuts, complete liar. Those are things that the rest of the press should be saying with a straight face. And they should not hesitate at all.

It's not biased to call it what it actually is. You saw it with your own eyes. What the right wing has done in this country is they keep trying to get you to believe that the emperor has clothes on. They're like, no, do not believe you're lying. eyes, anyone who says Donald Trump is a liar is not objective and is being biased. No, you saw it with your own eyes. He makes up things every day.

I don't even think that the media, and especially cable news, is even really that concerned about attempting to appear objective. Look, there are so many political operatives working for these news organizations now. I don't even think that it's about objectivity or neutrality. I think that there are people who worked in politics that have way too much influence over which stories get covered, how they get covered. They have an influencing factor there, and that's really the issue. By the way, just to take this conversation to a more serious place, this is the government,

or at least a part of the government of the United States, sending out a government. letter to news organizations and telling them how they should function, how they should operate, who they should have on. The government has no place in that discussion whatsoever. I'm talking about editorial control or any type of editorial influence. So where are all those free speech warriors? Why aren't they fighting for all of these people who were listed in the letter? So that includes Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut, Representative Jerry Nadler.

I wonder why Jerry Nadler was on the list. He's the chair of the House Judiciary Committee who's also investigating Donald Trump, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, John Brennan, who's the former CIA director, Representative Adam Schiff, Representative Eric Swalwell. And Swalwell actually released a statement about this saying, if he thinks I've made a false statement, he can sue me and I'll beat him in court. Okay, so last two things on this. First of all, cable news guys that got these requests should make a list of all of the proven liars in the Trump administration and send it back to the White House and say, if you want us to ban people who are liars, these are the list of people from your administration that have clearly told lies on our air and will never ever be allowed on our air again.

Of course, cable news doesn't have anywhere near those balls. They want that access. Yeah, and so part of it is they want the access. The other part of it is to them it's not about the news. It's about casting characters in a soap opera. So as long as there's drama and you have one side fighting the other side, who cares what the objective truth is? Hey, we're all getting ratings.

This is all a lot of fun. So as Les Moonvest said on CBS, Trump might be bad for the country, but he's good for ratings. And as Nancy Pelosi said when putting aside impeachment, Trump might be bad for the country, but he does help us raise a lot of money for the Democratic Party. So the people in power love this soap opera. It's the rest of us that are paying the price. And there's one other casualty here, and that's the truth. So it is preposterous that Trump administration would ever send a list of people that should

be banned on TV for lying. is the single most ironic thing that has ever happened. And the rest of the news organizations should be fighting back super aggressively today. But instead, as usual, they are cowering and casting their new set of characters that will defend Trump even more. When we come back from the break, I am going to show you how Mitch McConnell is blocking efforts that the majority of lawmakers agree with. And then later on, we are going to discuss what the real cost is when it comes to the Green New Deal.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-NFTAR. 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,

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A bunch of fun comments from the member section. Prodigious Nick says Trump is too stupid to collude. You know what? That is the best argument yet for why Trump did not collude if he didn't collude at all. Okay, and anyway, I don't want to spend too much time on it, but I hear you. Ecclectic miscellaneous says, don't worry, Jank, you and T.RT may not be on Trump's enemies list, but you can bet that you are definitely on the DNCs. Yeah.

We're on a lot of enemy lists, trust me. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. What was it they did the other day that enraged me? Anyway, all right, I'll remember it in a second. Viscuous Cree says, noted birth certificate expert Donald J. Trump wants higher journalistic Side note, that would be like Jank Yugar wanting fewer dad jokes out of pundits.

But right wingers revel in being massive hypocrites and projectionists. Agreed. And last one is T-Rex says, Jack, the Washington Post says Trump at over 8,000 lies since inauguration. If you thought 800 was a lot, the real number is mind-boggling. And it is, it's mind-boggling. And yet there's a whole bunch of MAGA guys out there going, I knew it Trump's totally right. Totally right. Okay.

So we have some good news, and the good news comes in the form of new designs as Shop TYT. This is a bag, but we also have t-shirts that have this new design on it. It says Young Turks, but it looks like that thank you bag design. Oh, that's what it's about, okay, and at the bottom it's, oh, you can pre-order, ooh. Oh, it's not available yet, it's only pre-orders. Well, this is very exclusive, it says Homo Progressives at the bottom. TYAT.com, and yeah, I'll be wearing the shirt on, if I remember, on old school tomorrow. Oh, you'll remember, you'll remember, you love wearing their shirts.

Like, you can't get enough. Okay, oh, I have a great story for you guys in the postgame today, if you remember, about Game of Thrones, okay, and what happened to me today? Okay, okay. Okay, so look forward to that. TY.t.com slash join. All right, what's thanks, Dana? Senator Mitch McConnell has decided to block a non-binding resolution that would call for the release

of the Mueller report so members of Congress can review it. Now, this is incredibly important considering the fact that the House voted unanimously to release the Mueller report. According to Raw story, the full report will not be made public if McConnell has his way. But when it comes to the House, lawmakers unanimously pass the non-binding resolution. resolution in a 420 to zero vote. It's a lot. I mean, that's kind of amazing, actually.

Right now, we don't have unanimous support for anything. And to see unanimous support for something like this is a big deal. But McConnell is blocking the resolution. I wanna give credit to the Republicans, again, not a sentence often spoken on the Young Turks, especially in the House. But they voted on that before they had an inkling that Mueller was going to exonerate him on the collusion during the election. So they were like, no, we should see them all report either way.

And I'm with you, Anna, other than renaming post offices, I've never seen anything that unanimous in the House. So, I mean, you've got that, now you've got Trump saying you should release it. But Mitch McConnell is blocking it. That is very, very curious. McConnell is an unsavory dude, to say the least. And he has this incredible knack and ability to talk. twist everything that Trump does wrong or that the Republican Party does wrong, and then blame Obama for it.

In fact, I have an example. Take a look. It's deeply disturbing that the Obama administration was apparently insufficiently prepared to anticipate and counter these Russian threats. It was hardly a secret prior to November 2016 that Putin's Russia was not and is not our friend. And yet, for years, the previous administration ignored, excused, and failed to confront Putin's malign activities, both at home and abroad. So this is the leading theory as to why McConnell is not releasing the report, because in the report it's going to say what we all already know to be true, that McConnell is the one that said to Obama, do not do anything about the Russians interfering in the 2016 election.

Otherwise, I will blame you and your staff for being biased. against Donald Trump. I have more details on that actually, and it comes in the form of a Biden video. But before we get to that, I just want to note. And I want to make sure everyone is abundantly clear on the fact that Donald Trump himself has told the press in multiple occasions that he is okay with the release of the Mueller report. He is okay with the lawmakers seeing it. In fact, he's asked that very question in the video you're about to watch and just pay

close attention to how he answers it. I will tell you, I love this country. I love this country as much as I can love anything, my family, my country, my God. But what they did, it was a false narrative. It was a terrible thing. We can never let this happen to another president again. I can tell you that. I say it very strongly.

Very few people I know could have handled it. We can never, ever let this happen to another president again. It's up to the Attorney General, but it wouldn't bother me at all. So it wouldn't bother me at all. It's up to the Attorney General, but it wouldn't bother me at all. Okay, well, Magar guys, shouldn't you be super mad at McConnell? The President wants it released. You guys think it's a co- and the President said it's a complete and total exoneration.

Well, why wouldn't you release a report that's a complete and total exoneration? You'd be nuts not to. Does McConnell hate Trump or something? Is McConnell part of the deep state? I don't know, you should ask Q and on. So now the reality is there's two possibilities. One is Mitch McConnell is hiding the report for his own benefit because he told Obama administration do not talk about the Russian interference in this election while it is happening, otherwise

I'll blame you, okay? Now he, then he turned around after the election, I can't believe Obama didn't do anything about the Russian interference. Because McConnell, so this is the underrated thing about Mitch McConnell and what the rest of the press refuses to acknowledge will never do it because they're deeply biased in favor where the status grow. Mitch McConnell is in a lot of ways a bigger liar than Donald Trump is. The lies he tells are of greater import and more significant politically and consistently.

So Trump is a pathological, sad liar. He makes up weird, absurd lies that it couldn't possibly be true. He says things like that he invented the word fake, okay, so it's easily dismissed. But Mitch McConnell has lied about almost every single policy position, but that's the third rail for the American press. They will not call Republicans liars when they clearly are. McConnell in this case, clearly lying when he says, oh, Obama should have done something about it, right?

And unbelievable hypocrisy. That's why he doesn't want to report release. That would absolutely confirm it, even though we all already know it, and you have plenty of evidence to be able to report that, but it would confirm it without a shadow of a doubt. That's why he might not want it out. The second reason he might not want it out is because Trump is not that bright. So, you know, his attorney general could have been like, hey, listen, there's a clear court in there that says you did not collude with the Russians during the election, but

there's a lot of damaging information on there, including how you obstructed justice. We said you didn't, Mueller didn't say that, we said that, the Trump administration said that. You don't really want that thing coming out, and it's got a lot of damaging evidence against you, Republicans, et cetera. But Trump's like, all he hears is, not guilty, I love this country, I'm totally innocent. Sure, yeah, release it. They're like, oh, God, no, don't say release it. So we'll see, we'll see.

It could be either one of those reasons. It could be that, no, it's actually overall not that bad for Trump, but it hurts McConnell. That's probably more likely. Look, I agree with you in that McConnell is a strategic liar and he lies for specific purposes to help the Republican Party or to help himself. But let's be clear that what Jank is alluding to is absolutely correct. Barack Obama knew about the Russian meddling during the election, and he actually reached out to McConnell because he wanted bipartisan support in order to put out a public condemnation

of what Russia was attempting to do. But according to the video you're about to see, things didn't work out because of McConnell's actions. Take a look. Mitch McConnell, who I get on with well and is smart guy. Mitch McConnell wanted no part of having a bipartisan commitment that we would say, essentially, Russia is doing this. Stop. Bipartisan. Well, they would have no party. They have no part of it. That, to me, hanging around that body up there for a longer than any of you were around doing it,

meant to me that this would have been cast here. This was all about the political play. So look, every reporter and every inside source confirms what Biden is saying, and so I don't like the Biden gets along with McConnell. I'm distracted by that. I can't have a guy running for president who loves these kind of lying Republicans and ones that do great damage to the country. But put that aside for a second, in terms of what happened that day, it is not unclear. And it drives me crazy that the Obama administration went in there.

was like, oh, well, Mitch McConnell is going to yell at us. Yes. So we'll hide the fact that the Russians are actively interfering in this election. Yes. And by the way, for all of you knuckleheads who just see the headlines and think you understand the whole story, the Mueller report clearly stated that the Russians did interfere with the election, but Trump did not collude with them to do so. So those are two separate things.

So the Mueller report does not say that the Russians did not interfere with the election. It says the opposite that they did. In fact, he already indicted a lot of those co-conspirators, but they just didn't collude with Trump. So now McConnell gets that information during the campaign, goes, no, no, no, don't talk about an opponent of ours, a different country, actively interfering in our elections, even though we all know it's true, because it might hurt my party politically. So just understand how crazy and ridiculous all of this is, right?

So imagine if the situation was twisted to the point where Donald Trump is Obama in this scenario, and Chuck Schumer is the individual that Trump is trying to convince to put out this public condemnation of what Russia is doing. Do you think Donald Trump is going to go talk to Schumer and be like, hey, homeboy, let's put out a bipartisan condemnation, let's work together, we need a united- no, Trump would just go do it, Trump would just go do it, right? Whether it's Russian meddling or whatever other issue he wants to bring out to the public's attention.

And so look, the best point that you've made is the Obama weakness issue, right? Why are you going to Mitch McConnell after he screwed you with Merrick Garland, refusing to give him a hearing, why would you go to him and be like, can we work together, please? I want the public to know about what Russia is doing. Imagine here, let's have a fun hypothetical. Trump in 2020 is running against Bernie Sanders, and the intelligence officials have definitive proof that the Venezuelans are interfering in the election, okay? And imagine Trump going to Chuck Schumer and saying, hey, is it okay if I talk about

the Venezuela's trying to help Bernie Sanders? Oh, Chuck said no, guys, let's not talk about it, no, no, let's put it aside. It's just, it would never happen, it would never happen. He would tweet it before they finished the presentation. Okay, let alone go and ask Chuck Schumer, let alone letting Chuck Schumer veto it, right? Are you kidding me? So I know why Obama does his civility and all that horse crap, but when one side is on a war footing 24-7 and the other side is asking pretty please, you have an uneven playing

field, which is why the Democrats over the last decade got slaughtered. They lost over a thousand seats with that terrible strategy of asking the Republicans pretty please. Which NFL team has the worst defense? I don't know at this point. There's a lot of bad defenses out there. Okay, then my analogy is not gonna work. But like I was gonna say, I mean, the Republican Party is always playing offense and the

Democratic Party tries to do defense, but they do defense the way the worst NFL The NFL team does defense. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. They can't do anything right, with the exception of how they handle the funding for Trump's border wall. I thought that that was pretty good.

Anyway, let's move on to much more serious news. Look, one more thing. Of course. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We'll talk about more than the presidential campaign issues. But all these, like, of course, the mainstream media gives credit to all the Democrats running in the campaign now that talk about working with. with Republicans and, oh, no, I can work, I don't want anybody working with Mitch McConnell.

I don't want it, I don't want it, I want someone who's going to go in and destroy Mitch McConnell, absolutely pulverize him and make him beg to leave the Senate, okay, that's what I want. So that's what we should all want. Anybody want a Democratic candidate who's willing to work with Donald Trump? How about we take one, get one that's willing to annihilate Donald Trump? How about that? All right, now we can go ahead.

All right. There is bad news ahead when it comes to the Affordable Care Act. It's no surprise that the Trump administration has been fighting aggressively to dismantle it. And it appears that his Justice Department is playing a role in this debate and Trump might have his way. So the Justice Department is no longer asking for partial invalidation of the ACA or the Affordable Care Act, but says the whole law should be struck down. By the way, that includes protections for preexisting conditions. Not just some of the insurance provisions, but all of it, including the Medicaid expansion and hundreds of other reforms, that's a total bombshell, which could have dire consequences

for millions of people. That was a direct quote from Abe Gluck. He's a Yale law professor who's been tracking this case. It's been making its way through the courts, and things are not looking so good. So note that previously the administration wanted to keep certain parts of the Affordable Care Act. They said that the law's protections for people with preexisting conditions should not be struck down, but the rest of the law, including expansion of Medicaid, I'm sorry. So they first said that people with preexisting conditions should be struck down, but the rest

of the law including expansion of Medicaid should survive, okay? So now they're like, no, we want to get rid of all of it. We don't agree with this law and we find it to be unconstitutional. And there's actually a federal judge who agrees with them on that. So that judge actually put out a ruling earlier. His name is Rita O'Connor. He's from the federal district court in Fort Worth. And he had said that the Justice Department, the Justice Department said that the court should

affirm the judgment issued in December by Judge Reid O'Connor of the federal district court in Fort Worth, who said that the individual man. requiring people to have health insurance can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress's tax power because Congress had eliminated the ACA mandate. And so here's a direct quote from his ruling. He said the individual mandate is unconstitutional and the remaining provisions of the Affordable Care Act are also invalid. This is bad news.

Okay, well, it is policy wise, but politically the Republicans have been to be Better be careful what they wish for. Disagree. Okay, so we'll get to our disagreement in a second. So first of all, let's note that the conservatives love activist judges. So this judge of rewriting the Affordable Care Act and then throwing it out is preposterous. And I'll tell you why it's preposterous, it's not just because I disagree with them politically. No, no, no, no.

In this case, in 2017, a Republican Congress with a Republican president thought over this issue and they could not defeat the Affordable Care Act. They only took out the mandate and they left the rest of the law intact. So that is overwhelming evidence that Congress knew exactly what it was doing. It did not aim to take out the whole law because it tried and failed. So for an activist judge to say no, no, I'm going to overrule Congress, I'm going to make the law, even though Congress already voted on it. You remember the famous John McCain vote like this where he kept the Affordable Care Act?

This one judge in Fort Worth, Texas, saying no, I'm going to be an activist and I'm going to veto the entire United States Congress. See, conservatives as always, liars, total liars. So look, I'm not saying that there was never activist judges on the left. In the 1970s, there were, okay, in my opinion. But now, almost all the activist judges are on the conservative side. They still put out that towing point, and the rest of the media mindlessly repeats that talking point as if the Republicans actually believe it.

So I'm actually gonna disagree with you, but I'm gonna concede already that I might be wrong. Let's see how you, I guess, give me a rebuttal. So look, I think that even though I disagree. with the overall outcome of the Affordable Care Act, if Republicans have their way. Remember, this judge noted, okay, well, you guys have done away with the mandate. The mandate, as much as we all hated it, was a huge part of making that policy function properly, right?

So if you have a pre-existing condition, you are considered more expensive for the insurance company to provide insurance. But the mandate forced younger, healthier people to buy into the system, which would effectively help subsidize older and sicker patients. You do away with the mandate, and then that kind of leads this entire policy to crumble. So I do think that the judge came to possibly the right ruling on this. No. No?

No, not at all. I think that actually proves my point. Because while your point on policy is exactly right, the point is judges are not supposed to make policy. They're just supposed to give legal rulings. That is why the right wing calls the left wing activist judges because they say they're legislating from the bench. So in this case, the argument you're making is a policy one, not a legal one.

That's up to Congress to decide. Now, it would have been fair for Congress to say, well, if we take away the mandate, the rest of the law really does crumble because policy wise, the young will leave and it'll get too expensive. But that's a legislative decision. That's not a decision for a judge. A judge simply has to say whether it's constitutional or not constitutional. If you say the mandate's not constitutional, that is actually a totally arguable position.

If you say, no, I'm going to invalidate the whole law, because I don't like its policy. That's the definition of being an activist judge. Right, but I don't think that he said, I don't like the policy. Of course, those liars don't say that, but by the way, the left wing back in the 1970s when they were being activist judges, they didn't say I don't like the policy either. Of course, they're smart judges and justices who go, oh, I find it unconstitutional. Yeah, that's it, okay? Whatever I don't like, I find unconstitutional.

So that's what it is. So I think that's the activist part, but there's a second part of this story that's very, very important and arguably more important. So if your reporters out there, and I don't mean just the national press, I actually in this case mean more the local press. You should ask all of your congressmen and all of your senators from your area if they agree with the Trump administration in this case, because this case is very important. If they take, if this ruling holds, tens of millions of people will lose their health insurance.

And no one's preexisting condition will be covered again. So the Republicans claim during the election that no, no, no, we don't want to take away protection from pre-existing conditions, even before the Trump administration changed their standing here or their position in this case to say, hey, we want to just destroy all of the Affordable Care Act. Earlier, they had already said they wanted to take away the provision that protects pre-existing conditions. So Republicans, which one is it?

Do you agree with Trump in this case, which would then allow the protections for pre-existing conditions to be taken away? Or do you stand by your position during the campaigns that you wanted to protect preexisting conditions? Which one is it? They should all be forced into a decision. But instead what they do is, oh, I love Trump, oh, my Republican voters, oh, Trump is right about everything.

Trump has got a total exoneration on everything he's ever done, he's the, he's awesome, he's fantastic. Oh, plus I'd like to protect preexisting conditions, but Trump, go ahead and kill that, yes, yes, kill it, I'm gonna get paid so much more from my donors. So the Trump administration is putting some of these Republican lawmakers in a difficult position because they do have to choose between the best interests of their constituents or loyalty to Donald Trump. So I thought the conversation we were going to have was going to talk about the political

ramifications for Donald Trump if he gets his way and the Affordable Care Act is effectively repealed with no protections for individuals with preexisting conditions. I would argue that even if Trump gets his way, it is not gonna hurt him politically. It just isn't. No, you see, that's why I put out a tweet today, because a lot of people, I'm afraid, including you, are, get this total BS thing in the, in your head about how Trump's invincible. He is invincible. No way, no way, no way, no way, no way.

His base does not care, they do not care. But Anna, Anna, look, his base is 35% of the country, not 65%, not. Not 65%. So why did he win and why does he get away with everything now? One is he ran against the most unpopular candidate in American history. According to the polling, that's a fact. More unpopular than Mondale, Dukakis, anyone else. Hillary Clinton was the single most unpopular candidate of our lifetime since polling has begun.

And we forget that and as if like, oh, Donald Trump accomplished something. No, he was gifted the presidency. And the press calls everything even to his great advantage, et cetera. But the normal laws of physics and polling still apply. They did not magically disappear. With 35% of the country supporting you, you do not win elections, you lose elections. Is it possible that the Democrats could bungle it again by picking an establishment candidate just like they did last time?

They all want to, and they all want to lose to Trump. Just like they wanted to lose to him last time, Nancy Pelosi's still bragging about it. Oh, but we're raising a lot of money because of Trump. Okay. They didn't want to lose to Trump. Ah, they're born losers. They're donors pay him to lose. How many times are to be proven right about that?

Anyway, so in this case, I hear your note of concern about the election overall because of what ridiculous losers this democratic establishment are. We're not going to let that happen in the primary. But overall, no, when they got killed, even in this last election in the House, they lost 40 seats. The third largest loss in American history. The physics and polling and facts and math and science still apply. If we have the election with any decent candidate, Trump will be mauled. If they come in here and they take away your protections that Affordable Care Act gave you, they strip

tens of millions of Americas from health insurance, they take away protections for pre-existing conditions, there will be rage in the country. Part of it is those independents, forget the 35% that's immovable. The extra 15% to 20% that are in the middle, they're gonna be like, wait a minute, he promised me all these things, he promised me that everybody would have healthcare. Yes, they were suckers, yes, they believed it, right? Enough of them did. But when they see their actual stuff taken away, they get so mad.

Of course they do, but hold on, hold on. So I want you to understand my reasoning behind why I'm saying what I'm saying, okay? It's not just based on Trump getting away with all the things he's already gotten away with. And it's not just based on who his voters are, his base. Yes, his base is about 35% of the country. But if you look at the Republican Party overall, he almost has unanimous support among the Republican party. And it doesn't matter what he does, they still support him. So for instance, the tax cuts have been, the tax cuts for the wealthy, have been disastrous for the middle class. The tax legislation

that passed into law did away with the very few tax deductions that the middle class and the working class got to take advantage of. So a lot of Trump voters actually ended up paying more in federal taxes than previous years. Did it hurt his numbers? No. The trip. The trade war has impacted farmers who voted for Trump. They are struggling. So it's the trade war, in addition to the floods that have been going on, they are really suffering right now. Have they lost their support for Donald Trump?

No, they still support him. Like my point is, conventional wisdom indicates that if a policy or a politician is negatively impacting the pocketbooks of Americans, they will turn around and they will retaliate. This is one of the, I mean, I don't know if this has ever happened in American history, but for some reason, when it comes to Donald Trump and the Republicans, their failed economic policies here, which negatively impact the Republican voters, has not changed their minds. Look, the independents, no, I understand that. And I base my arguments on polling, not what I wish is going to happen.

So you're right that 90% of Republicans or more in some polls still back Donald Trump. But Republicans are not 51% of the country. are growing every single day. And in the old days, the independence used to be just low information voters. Now a lot of them are high information voters. And they don't trust the Democratic Party, and they certainly don't trust the Republican Party. But some of them are low information, some of them are high information. But those independents are real and growing.

So the reason I'm telling you that is because the Republicans are down to, at best, 40% of the country. So, and yes, 35 out of the 40 is solid Donald Trump immovable, okay? But 40% of the country does not get you a win. It just doesn't. So they're gonna have to keep independence. And if you keep punching independence in the face, especially the high information ones, they're not gonna go along with it.

And here's another piece of proof. It just happened in the House elections all across the country. At absolute tidal wave, 40 seats, I'm telling you guys, like, again, the press bungled it. And I get why, because the Republicans held down to the Senate and it's complicated. But the reality is that was the third largest victory for any party in American history. What happened in the House this time? So yes, reality still exists.

And so if they take it, look, in the end, I don't think the Supreme Court's going to agree with this one judge who's totally activist. But if they did and they made that mistake, there will be rage in the country. They will definitely lose those independents and they will get even more slaughter than next election. I guess time will show. Yes. We gotta take a break, but when we come back, we have some good news involving a pharmaceutical

company. Come right back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free time. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

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But you guys can actually be in the audience. So activists members get exclusive tickets. So t.t.com slash join. Make sure you sign up as an activist member to do that and then go to rebel radio.net slash events. I look so fresh in that picture. Fresh? Yeah, like I look like I'm never stressed out. Look at that.

Oh, yeah, I see it. I live a good life. Yeah. Okay, well, so as Ben Mangwood says, pictures- Don't say anything. Yeah, they don't say a thousand words, they lie. That's just saying. All right, anyway, let's go to your comments. Some dude says, if you want Medicare for all the ACA has to be scuttled at some point.

That's why I actually, in that case of the ruling, we got to fight for Medicare for all. Yeah, yeah. And we're gonna do it. And so if they scuttle the ACA, I think it'll be a political disaster for them and could lead to Medicare for all. I don't want people to lose their coverage. Oh my God, just like how electing Trump would lead to the most progressive country

in the world eventually because there would be a revolution. Like, come on, please. Okay. I believe in Medicare for all. I'm gonna fight for Medicare for all with all I have, but I don't want whatever little protections we have now to be destroyed with the hope that will one day get Medicare for all. People are gonna die in the meantime.

No, no, no. I totally agree. I totally agree. I'm saying if the conservative justices take it away in a way that is wrong, I think it'll motivate people to push even harder for Medicare for all, but I don't want them to take it away. I want that people to have that protection until they get Medicare for all. And by the way, the Democratic establishment has a really stupid and disingenuous talking point on that.

They're like, do you know that Medicare for all would take away the Affordable Care Act? Yeah, because you'd have more coverage. Yeah. What does that even mean? That's adding to Affordable Care Act with much more coverage. Anyway, Colin says, this is all from the member section. That sounds great, I can't wait for all these mega guys to lose their coverage. Their house will keep them safe.

John Marini says, please, Dems, who say they work with people like Mitch McConnell, needs to admit that they'd be in the need to him because their donors tell them to. Wouldn't hold your breath on them admitting that. And then on YouTube super chat, Kirk Williams says, why is everyone speaking as if the Mueller report has been released? All we have is a summary of a summary report created by a Trump Stoge. That is true, but there is one line in there that is a direct quote. We definitely need the context for it.

But the quote is about how that Trump did not collude or collaborate with the Russians during the election. That is a direct, presumably a direct quote from the Mueller report. But it does not exonerate the Russians, they did interfere in the election, and it does not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice. If you hear otherwise, those are things that are not true. Okay, what's next? The opioid epidemic continues in the United States.

Many people have died as a result of overdosing on painkillers. And one of the painkiller manufacturers or pharmaceutical companies, Purdue Pharma, is facing thousands of lawsuits throughout the country as a result of this. And as a result of their aggressive advertising campaigns. Now, turns out that they have agreed to settle a lawsuit coming from the state of Oklahoma. And this is a very, very big deal. So Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, have agreed to pay $270 million to resolve claims by the Oklahoma Attorney General that the company helped fuel the opioid crisis.

So this is again, just one of many lawsuits. I'll get into the other lawsuits in just a minute. Yeah, so Anna, when I saw that number, I furiously read the rest of the story thinking, this is a combination of states, right? This can't be just settlement for one state. Turns out, it's just for Oklahoma. So Purdue, Pharma, and anyone else that has liability that could be attached to these opioids, brace for impact.

In fact, Purdue is already considering bankruptcy options. Because if you're paying $270 million per state, you're not gonna make it. Not even these pharmaceutical companies that are fat with all the profits they made from these illicit drugs. So, a spokesperson from Purdue Pharma tried to tell people, don't use this as a model for how we plan on dealing with all the other lawsuits. Sure, sure, sure. Who knows how the other lawsuits are going to go, but this is a giant settlement.

And I want to give you some details about how it's going to be broken down in terms of where the money is going to go. And I think it's actually very smart what they're planning on doing. So the Oklahoma settlement, according to reports, includes $102.5 million from Purdue to fund an Addiction and Treatment Center at Oklahoma State University and $20 million in medicine to support the center. Purdue will also pay $12.5 million to be distributed to local cities and counties and up to $60 million to cover litigation costs with any balance going back to the center.

So this money isn't going to go directly to individuals who are impacted, like in the form of a monetary settlement, but it is going to go to a rehabilitation center, which hopefully will be effective in helping people overcome their addiction. There is a little more to this though. Descendants of the company founders, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, have pledged an additional $75 million over five years to the addiction center. So they're also going to pay some money out of pocket for this, which I think is, it makes a lot of sense.

And Oklahoma also is blaming Purdue and other drug makers for helping spark this eightfold rise in drug overdose deaths from 1999 to 2012. The state had 823 fatal drug overdoses in 2015 alone. So I wanna give credit to some Republicans here in a second in the state of Oklahoma. But let me give you the state of the damage and then why they paid. So there are 37 other states that are suing. No, no, no. Okay, there's 600 cities, counties and Native American tribes that have gotten together in a federal

lawsuit, so you thought $270 million for Oklahoma was bad, way to get a load of that federal lawsuit. And Elizabeth Birch, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said this, it's got to set off a feeding frenzy. There's blood in the water now. I love that quote. Yes. So they're hurt dog, don't ask them if they're all right.

And I love to see this because they profited off the deaths of all those people for all those years and they thought there wasn't going to be any consequences. Now, at least there's financial consequences at this point. They've got plenty of money to cushion their fall, which I'll talk about in a second. But finally, why? Why did they pay this huge sum to one relatively small state? Well, the Sackler family itself, the family members, were on the hook in this case. They were accused of personally hyping up the marketing of Oxycontin, okay?

And they were about to be deposed. And the thing that rich people care about the most is actually not their money. Money comes in a close second. Number one is their reputation. And so they had built up their reputation by donating to all these museums so that their friends could say, I do declare the Sackler family is just wonderful. If it wasn't for them, I couldn't go to this splendid smashing museum, right? The gala.

The gala's. Oh, they love going to the gala's at the sacklers throw, right? I'll get to the back of the museums in a second, too. But now even the museums are pulling out, including the Guggenheim Museum, first one in America to pull out. And so if they went to do those depositions, they would be devastated. So my sense of it is they panicked here, and they were like, we cannot be deposed under any circumstances that would ruin our reputation and put us on the hook to be personally liable

for the money as well. So that's the top two things that they care about. So they're like, pay it, pay it, whatever it is, pay it. And so at this point, handwriting appears to be on the wall. Now look, don't count them out yet because they've got a team of lawyers, they're gonna regroup, they're gonna, I'm sure they'll appeal this, they'll appeal that is a settlement, but it's Still, they'll fight, they could fight for decades on, but, you know, again, if the Sacklers are personally responsible in any way, that makes it harder for them to defend.

And so, by the way, this should be a note to federal prosecutors. Hold people personally responsible and you'll get way better results. Now this crap about, oh, corporations are a person, my friend, they're people. I mean, nobody ever goes to jail, they never have any consequences of real people, right? They get to shield themselves with a corporation, but nobody's, you know that they already had a giant settlement, Purdue Farmer. In 2007, yeah. In 2007, 12 years ago. So in 2007, Purdue Pharma was investigated by federal authorities because they had lied about how addictive the drugs were.

And so they paid out $634.5 million in government penalties and costs as a result of that. And so, this keeps happening over and over again. I'm glad that they have to pay out this giant settlement, but as you can see in this past government ruling, they had to pay this giant amount of money and they were still able to do their thing and they were still able to market this drug and get all these people addicted. So they paid a fine, but they made so much money from Oxycontin that that fine didn't bother them at all.

If you were gonna send them to prison, that would have bothered them. But we don't do that anymore. The rich are above the law, so they never go to prison. Now even their own personal money being on the line has apparently motivated them to begin to settle. So now let me tell you how much that is. The Sackler family's net worth is, this is not the whole company, it's not all the other executives of the company, it's just one family that started it.

Their net worth is $13 billion. So, oh, the company paid less than a billion dollars 12 years ago, cost of doing business. Oh my god, 2007 was 12 years ago. Yes. So $13 billion they still have. You know how many people died from opioid addiction between 1997 and 2017 in that 20 year period? 218,000 people died.

So that is four Vietnam's. Now, it wasn't all because of oxycontin. There was a lot of different opioids and then a lot of the times that litigms. heroin addiction, sometimes the opioids itself kill you, sometimes the heroin kills you. By opioids, I mean in that case, legal pills like Oxycontin. But that is a lot of dead Americans. And so go back to Oklahoma now.

Look, I know it's because it's affecting everyone and not just minorities that people are motivated into action now, but good, I'm glad they're motivated into action. And so Mike Hunter, who's the Attorney General of Oklahoma, did a great job here in pursuing them to the end of the earth and got a wonderful settlement. So you should get good credit for that and good folks in Oklahoma, the Republican is are totally in charge there fighting and getting this result is a good news. And it's a wonderful change that I like to report when the Republicans actually do a right thing.

We're not set against them because it's personal. We're set against them because they're wrong in the policies. When they're right on the policies, great, I love it. Thank you for looking out for the citizens of Oklahoma. And finally, I want to go back to the museums. So what the Sackler family does is art washing. And so if you give enough money to the arts, well, then the elites are motivated to protect you because they like you.

And it helps you at their country clubs. So it's a win-win for the Sacklers. Everyone they know goes to those museums and thinks the Sacklers are wonderful people. They don't know a lot of people dying from opioid overdose, right? And then they get to clean their reputation. This is what the original robber barons did, and now this is what the new robber barons are doing. So these museums should not allow this art washing.

And so Guggenheim has chosen not to in America, and so has the Tate Museum in London and one other in London as well, the London's National Portrait Gallery. They have also said, we will not take any money from the families, the Sacklers. In fact, we will return their money. Others like the Smithsonian, which has received $7.5 million from the Sackler family, are like, we won't take any more money, but we will not be returning the rest of it. I mean, $7 million is a lot of money, so keep it. Just don't take that.

Yeah, I hear you. You might as well keep it. I'm not gonna lie, I would take their money and I'd be like, see ya. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, it went to a good enough cause in that case. Right, right. But anyway, one last part of this, I gotta tell you in the post game, because it's a really fun twist. So we'll do that for the members, t.yt.com slash join to become a member.

Or you can try for free for a week, t.t.com slash trial. And I'll tell you the last part of this story, which is definitely fun. So we're gonna take a break, but when we come back, we're gonna speed it up a little bit, you know, get through some more of these stories, more of a note for jank. we're going to discuss other things like the NRA and all their shady behavior in Australia. Come right 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.