The Young Turks - Trump's Shutdown Meltdown Hysterics And Federal Employees Told To Do 'Favors' During Furlough

Episode Date: December 29, 2018

Trump threatened to close the entire Southern Border on Twitter. Furloughed federal employees were given ridiculous advice to cope with no pay. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Drop it. Power, power panel. Adrian Lawrence, Jank Uyghur, Anna Kasparian. Great to have you here, Adrian. Thank you. So, as always, big show head, when is it not a big show? not a big show, like we're talking about in one of our special coverages last night. We've got a shark nado of news over the last two years because of Trump.

And so he's caused more messes and we'll go around cleaning him up tonight, or at least telling you about him and giving you the context. And then after the show tonight, we've got a three-hour special one more time for you guys. And this one's gonna be just super fun, we're gonna play games, who's down with J.R. Jackson, where he will quiz some of us on African American culture and see how we do. What would Jesus do? Moral Quandries, Dave Kohler's America, TYT Classics. So it's gonna be a world of fun for you guys.

Everybody's gonna get it free and live, 8 to 11 p.m. Eastern. Members of course can get it anytime they want. They can download it or stream it. Have I mentioned memberships $4.99, basically venti macchiato at Starbucks per month? Yeah. The show is always hot and ready for the members. Yes. Like pizza.

And we- That's a pizza thing that people say. That's a pizza thing? Oh, I thought it was a coffee thing. I don't even know. Okay, and unlike Starbucks, we will wish you a Merry Christmas. I'm just kidding. Okay, anyway, you could even actually get it for free. You could do a week trial at t.t.com slash holiday.

And so we only have four days, including today, left on the membership drive. So that means one, you're gonna miss these teases, you know you are, just keep it real, okay? You got it. Number two, we only have four days left to hit our goal of 42,000. Yesterday we set an audacious goal. We started at 41,500 when the show began roughly around that, and we said, can we get to 42,750? We're gonna check the thermometer in a second to see if we got there. Of course, the other part of it is that Anna and I, well, all the hosts are in a competition,

And the competition is almost over. There's only four days left. So I took the lead over Christmas, which was stunning because Anna had at least a 99 person lead. And how many people she had signed up for membership as opposed to me? You could do it through tyt.com slash Anna or tyot.com slash jank. And a lot of you had chosen me. But now Anna has reclaimed the lead this week.

The weeks are great for her. So yesterday she had gotten up to an 18 point lead, no 19 point. lead. Have I closed in today? As usual during the weeks, no, I have gotten further apart. She's now leading by 28. Yes. Okay.

Nice. Okay. But Casper, here's something that you forgot and could be devastating for you. The weekend. No, no, no, I got it. No, no, no, I get it. It's coming. And the weekends is where I roll up my sleeves.

Oh, if I catch you at the very end. But if I also roll up my sleeves, I don't even have sleeves right now. That's how rolled up your sleeves are you? Yeah, I'm ready. You left them at home. I'm ready. Okay, so let's take a quick look at the thermometer. So, t.t.com, anyway, you like it.

Look at that, almost made it to 750. That's amazing. Can we see 42,000 by the end of today? Can we see it? I believe it, I believe it. So we got five hours of programming for you today as we did yesterday and the day before, we're trying to finish strong here for the year. And of course, well, just mentioned one last thing, t.y.t.com slash media.

That actually gets Youngter's memberships to specific folks. You can donate as little as you want or as much as you want. We open it up so that it's not just 50 bucks. Anybody can give any amount they want. And so far through that, we've gotten membership for Fox and Friends, Nate Silver's podcast, and Washington Post. And the slight accounting issue around there, but Washington Post was done and is now I'm almost done again because there was one credit card issue.

Anyway, totally uninteresting. And New York Times is next, New York Times is next. So let's go do that if you can, t.t.com slash media, that would be amazing. Okay, enough of that, Anna, let's go to the wall. All right. Trump's meltdown over the funding for his border wall continues, and his latest threats include just shutting down the US-Mexico border if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, which of course is $5 billion in the spending bill for the border wall.

Now I have to give credit to Democrats who have refused to concede to Trump, and it appears to be paying off for them. At least that's what the polls indicate. But before I get to the polls, I'm going to give you Trump's threat, which he issued, of course, via Twitter. He said, we will be forced to close the southern border entirely if the obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the wall and also change the ridiculous, immigration laws that our country is saddled with, hard to believe there was a Congress

and President who would approve. So that's what he has to say, but can he unilaterally shut down the border wall? And if he can, what kind of consequences would that lead to? Well, luckily, CBS News talked about this, and one of their experts, White House experts, gave us some details about what this means for, I don't know, things like our economy. A look. In theory, the president can use federal law with wide discretion to take lots of different enforcement actions at the border.

Shutting down the entire border, which is something the president has talked about, would be legally questionable and logistically challenging, to put it mildly. There have been times in American history, most notably and most memorably after 9-11, where certain parts of the U.S. border were shut down for legitimate fears of terrorism and in migration and those very, very tense days right after 9-11, all sorts of different security postures were taken because the country didn't know what was coming next. So in theory, the president does have the power to do this, carrying it out across the entire U.S.-Mexico border. As I said, would not only be a great logistical

challenge, it would impose immediate and very noticeable economic pains on both countries. There's a tremendous amount of trade. So let's talk a little bit more about the economic impact if this were to happen. And I don't put it past Trump, to be clear, I think that he would do something like this. But here's what the consequence would be. Keep in mind that about $558 billion in goods flowed across the border in both directions last year. Also the US exported $243.3 billion in goods across the border along with $58 billion dollars

dollars in services. So this is serious, but I don't think that this is something that Trump has studied or really thinks about. And it would again have huge consequences for our economy. And it would be a logistical nightmare. So two more facts. So trade across the border is, according to some experts, about a billion dollars a day. So if you look at those numbers, it actually comes out to more than that.

But this is the part I did not know and did not expect. It's a big number. It turns out nearly half a million people enter the U.S. each day from the border. Legally. Yeah. And so that's just, you know, people going back and forth, Americans coming back into the country. Mexicans coming in legally on visits, et cetera, business, and trade, a ton of trade, obviously. Half a million people every day, if you block the border entirely, it's not going to work.

That's crazy. I mean, the mess that that would create would be epic. But here's a president who never thinks through any consequences. So maybe he does it for half a day. And then everybody's like, you idiot, what are you doing? And then chaos ensues. And then he goes, yeah, Democrats made me do it. I knew it was a bad idea.

So we'll see. That seems to be very much his speed in terms of blaming the Democrats. But the thing that gets me the most in terms of the loss, in addition to that, is just the unemployment right now of federal government workers. and having worked for the federal government for about five years and having a lot of friends still there and speaking to them and just the difficulty that they're going through because some of them still live paycheck to paycheck or they have student loans. And so they're taking out loans from family members if they have them.

And then finding out what, the Coast Guard, 42,000 employees. They're not going to get paid because of their pay structure until sometime in mid-January, depending on when we can start things back up. It's just there's so much loss here. And it all seems to be to feed his ego. Right. I mean, I don't know. Trump said he talked to those federal workers and they're all elated about what's going on.

They're happy because they really want that border wall, except they don't. They're all very upset. Everything that you just mentioned is what's being relayed in the press. There was recently a Twitter campaign where federal workers were sharing what their financial situation is now that the government's been shut down for seven days in a row. Yes. Yeah, but there's a guy who doesn't think through any consequences. So the recent example is when he went and talked to the troops and said, I got you a 10%

pay raise. He didn't think through for one second that of course people would check. They've checked everything you've said, and they would realize that it's nowhere near 10%, and you didn't get it for them. So not only was it a brazen and weird and outrageous lie, but just think about that for a second. He doesn't think through anything, anything. Even if you wanted to lie and you thought, you would probably think through, am I going to get away with it? If you're going to tell a lie to your girlfriend or to your boss, you'd think, well, is there any way they can catch me, right?

Trump doesn't even think about that. He just tells unreal lies that are immediately going to be found out because he has no ability of people keep underestimating how incredibly stupid he is. What kind of a person doesn't think through, oh, I'm the president of the United States. I'm gonna tell an outrageous lie here, hey, won't they be able to check this one second later? He doesn't think that through. You think he knows what's gonna happen if we shut down the border completely? Of course he hasn't thought it through. He's a moron of epic proportions.

He's never really had to think it through though. Exactly. I mean, look at how far he's gotten and how often his base lets him off the hook for the very same things that they would really aggressively go after a Democrat for, for instance. They support him no matter what. I mean, I think that eventually all of this stuff is going to catch up to him. Maybe not with his base, but all of the potentially criminal stuff that he's implicated in will catch up to him.

But he's gotten away with this kind of nonsense without doing his homework or any research. His entire life, he's never had to work for anything. And also no lack of accountability. You know, he doesn't have to answer to anyone, he's never really had to, he just ignores it and goes and gets someone else to do it for him. or goes and gets another wife, whatever it is. But this man doesn't know what accountability is. He doesn't know what telling the truth is.

And it really seems that he also believes his lies, which is strange. Yeah. I mean, he made up a whole conversation about how advisors came in and told him, well, the student, 2% raised for the military. He's like, no, 3%, 4%, no, no, no, no, I wanted 10%. Everything is complete fiction. It's the Department of Labor sets the number. Trump had absolutely nothing new with it.

That conversation never happened. It wasn't 10, it was 2.6. I mean, he's just, and it goes towards not only the stupidity, but you guys are right, the entitlement. But Trump, your dad's not around anymore. So he gave you $400 million. He bailed you out of six bankruptcies, but he's not here. I know you think Putin is your new daddy, okay, but he can't bail you out of this.

So right now, let's talk about the polling. Only 35% of Americans agree that we should shut down the government over wall funding. That's a terrible number. He's not good at math either, he's not good with any facts, but that's a miserable number. They do not support you, the American people are totally against you. So let's go to some of the other findings of this poll. This was a recent poll by Reuters and Ipsos, and it also found that 33% blamed Democrats in Congress for the shutdown compared to 47% who blamed Trump.

Now, again, it's good that 47%, the majority in this case, Trump for this because Trump is the one who took credit for it. Trump is the one who said it. I will gladly take credit for this government shutdown. And then as soon as the shutdown happens and he realizes that it's a politically unpopular move, he tries to blame the Democrats. And it's, you know, honestly, his Twitter account is one tiny violin, you know, reaction after another every time I read what he has to say.

Because he's always the victim, even though, again, he gladly took responsibility for shutting the government down over the sense. Again, 35% said they wanted Congress to fund the wall. So let me be clear about two things. On the number of people who blame Trump, there's also another 7% that blame Republicans in Congress. So together at 54%, that's a clear majority versus just 33. But I got something slightly wrong when I stated it.

I said 35% want to shut down the government over the wall. That's not true. 35% want to fund the wall, period. Like, they don't, only 25% want to shut down the government over funding the wall. So that's an even smaller number. 65% say, we don't even want to fund the wall. Forget shutting down the government. We don't want to fund the wall.

Only 35% want it. So he keeps saying like, oh, the American people want it, the American people. No, no, no, only your base wants it. No one else wants it. Two-thirds of the country does not want it. Three-quarters of the country does not want you to shut down the government over it. You're a liar. Stop lying, I know you can't help yourself.

And the rest of the media should tell everybody, no, every time he says the American people want it, they should immediately do a fact check on air saying that is not remotely true. The American people do not want to fund the wall, period. I'm just dying to know where these 35% are, you know, because if they're on the northern coastline, I don't even want to have a conversation. But who are these people, where are they coming from? I'll give you one of those people. And he actually goes so far as to say, we should just go ahead and fire all these government

employees. We don't need them. We need smaller government. That person is Charlie Kirk. So Charlie Kirk believes that those, you know, members who, federal workers in the Coast Guard aren't important. Let's fire them. Small government.

He said that on Twitter. He didn't specifically mention the Coast Guard. He just said, well, small government is a good thing, so let's just get rid of all these federal employees. That's what Charlie Kirk thinks about the Coast Guard, about the FBI, about the Justice Department. All of these, by the way, essential federal workers who are currently working for free. Like, I mean, it's absurd.

So when progressive said abolish ICE, they were saying, hey, ICE is a newly created bureaucracy within the federal government, and it's a bureaucracy that targets minorities. There is ways to enforce our borders that we used to do before ICE that we should go back to because it was a better process. The Republicans lose and go, oh my God, you want to get rid of ice, how can we have any law in order? Then conservatives like Charlie Kirk turn around and go, get rid of the Coast Guard. Screw the Justice Department.

My God, if progressives said that, they would lose their minds. We knew it, you don't want to protect the country, right? TSA. TSA. There are Border Patrol agents who are currently working for free. So those are all federal employees. Yes, they are. So you want to get rid of them?

You want to fire them all? because you want small government. It's funny because people like Charlie Kirk love big government, but they like spewing nonsense propaganda about how they like small government because they only like small government in the context of financial regulations, consumer protections, basically everything that these rich corporate goons pay him to regurgitate over and over again. But you know what, he does live like a capitalist every day, change. Well, he wouldn't be able to fly like a capitalist without TSA.

So look, these right-wingers who say, my rich donors should have no taxes and they should have no regulations, and they should have no minimum wage, they should be able to crush their workers and let them die in workplace incidents. Who cares? Eventually, people would stop buying their products if they murder all their employees. Right after enough murdered employees, the market would correct itself, you know what I'm saying? They believe in chaos and they're anarchists, right? But they're anarchists in favor of the rich. Yes, but you can't build castles high enough. You can't build moats wide enough. It's just you need order, you need rule of law, and they just don't believe in it.

And neither does Trump, whether it's the just stop department actually trying to enforce a law against him and his cronies, or it's his concept of the government overall. All these conservatives, they don't believe in a functioning democracy. democracy in a functioning government. So that's why they don't mind destroying it. And no two Americans, which you apparently have gotten already, because two-thirds of you are easily on our side and against Trump, is that you might not want to put people in charge the government who don't believe in government.

Well, let's talk a little more about the consequences of this federal shutdown, because as many as 800,000 employees are affected by it. So, the federal government is trying to give some tips to the nearly 800,000 federal workers who are either furloughed or are working without pay. And hopefully they'll get paid retroactively once the government opens again. But what we do know is that the federal government's efforts in helping aren't really helping. I'll give you the example. So there's the Office of Personnel Management.

And what they did is they tweeted some advice, including a sample letter for federal employees who are having financial issues as a result of this government shutdown. And so they're like, hey, you know what? We realize that you're probably gonna have an issue with your mortgage or lender. You might have an issue with your landlord if you're trying to pay your rent. And so here's a letter that you can go ahead and give to your landlord or your loan officer. And maybe this will help solve the problem. So let's go to Graphic 9.

In one of the letters, employees are advised to tell their landlords that they are willing to do odd jobs if they can make reduced rent payments. So one of the letters says, quote, I would like to discuss with you the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance, example painting carpentry work in exchange for partial rent payments. Okay, so I have many thoughts on this, but I want to mention because this is important. This was a letter that was drafted back in 2013 under the Obama administration. That was when the government shut down as well.

And so, you know, this isn't on Trump. I wanna be clear, but it does show how incredibly tone death and out of touch, the federal government really is when it comes to their own employees and their lives. Because to say, like, you offer carpentry work, because carpentry work is so easy. Exactly. And you need insanely expensive tools to do carpentry work. And you could get injured, and who is going to pay for that? You don't get workman's comp when you're doing something for your land.

And then your landlord gets sued and you get sued and it's just mess, mess, mess. No one should ever do this. You don't offer to give your services in exchange for that. It's just, it's a terrible idea. It's not covered by the landlord's insurance. It's foolish, foolish, foolish. And I believe the government said, oh, to the government employees, consult your attorney on this.

Give me a break. How many of them keep an attorney on retainer? And don't call me. So it's ridiculous. How insane is that? No, that does, it goes to the elites. So it's totally right, written originally in 2013, but republished in the Trump administration. So both sides did it.

And they just have no idea of how Americans live. There was a Republican congressman in this shutdown that said, what's the big deal if they miss a paycheck? I mean, who would not have enough money that they would need one paycheck? That was for a Republican lawmaker who has half a million dollars in assets. So for someone like him, maybe it's not a big deal to miss a paycheck. By the way, he's not missing a paycheck because members of Congress made sure to budget in their salaries ahead of time so they wouldn't be impacted by a federal shutdown.

But again, it shows how out of touch they are. They think everyone else is living, you know, the same lives that they're living. And it's just not the case. So amazing fact that we repeat from time to time because it just won't go through the heads of people on TV and people in Washington, 40% of Americans would be knocked out by a $400 payment, Right? That they did not expect. Knocked out meaning that they would have to borrow money or sell items that they have,

sell their possessions to try to keep up because they could not handle a $400 problem, let alone missing a paycheck, okay? That's devastating. But that's okay, you could just call your lawyer and see, you know, how, but your lawyer would cost $400, okay? And you don't have a lawyer. You don't keep one on retainers, as you said, this is such a great point. Mitt Romney and Donald Trump talked about how, no, no, I got started, you know, humble roots.

My parents, Trump, in his case, said, just only gave me a million dollar loan. Now, of course, that wasn't true, is that he gave him over $400 million, and it wasn't a loan. He just gave it to him. But even if it was true, a small loan of a million dollars, what, don't you all have that? Give me a buck. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Everyone's getting loans from Papa.

Seriously. And the thing is, there's so much trickle-down nonsense from this in terms of the people who maybe provide child care to these federal workers who are now not. going to be paid for that. Or the restaurants, because people aren't going out, they're saving their money because they have to keep their reserves. Everything is being impacted by this, and yet Trump doesn't seem to care as long as he can get his $5 billion border wall when that money could go to veterans or could go to a lot

of different other resources. You know, but to be fair to them though, if you do get hurt doing the carpentry, how are you going to pay for that, you asked. Well, you could do the painting to pay for how you got hurt doing the carpentry, and then if that doesn't worry, you could mow the lawn. And so, and let's pause there in all seriousness, also talk about how degrading this is. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, let's say your government working, I mean, there's a million different jobs,

literally 800,000 different jobs, you could be an accountant, and they tell, oh, and you're an accountant, you're a professional, you worked your whole life, you got an education, etc. Why don't you go most somebody's lawn, right? Why don't you go clean your landlord's toilets so you could, you know, make up the money that we're denying you while all of the politicians continue to get paid? Yep, yeah. Yeah. You mentioned trickle-down nonsense, and I had to just do a quick plug because he's on our network

and he's awesome. So Nick Hanauer's recent podcast episode was about trickle-down economics. And that podcast is so good. It's part of our network. Please check it out. It's called pitchfork economics. Yeah, Nick is wonderful. So Nick actually has a good amount of money he sold his company to Microsoft, et cetera.

But he is a wealthy American who says, no, taxes need to be higher. And we need to actually do regulations and we need to watch out for the middle class. We have to take care of them because that's what powers our economy. That would actually help the rich, the middle class, and the poor. It would help everybody. But instead, what do we do? We just shovel all the money to the rich and it is counterproductive. And he has every fact to back it up.

That's why it's a great podcast to check it out. By the way, another great podcast on our network is No Filter, hosted by Anna Kasparian. Yes, definitely check that out. TYT.com slash podcast, TYT.com slash app. They're free. Go listen if you have time. They're wonderful. All right, we got to take a break.

But when we come back, we are going to discuss some new findings in the Mueller investigation, including where Michael Cohen was when he claimed he wasn't. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-F-E-R. 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 unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or,

you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for you and FDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on a young church. Let me read the names of folks who gave to the Amplified program, and you guys are awesome, tyt.com slash amplify to get our message out to both journalism students and people in the media, t.y.t.com slash amplifies the way to do it. But at the very bottom, there's also a link where you could check out all the packages. So look at if there's a person in the media or an organization in the media that you want to get Youngters membership

for, check that out. You could also go straight to t.com slash more to see that list. So So here's the folks who participated recently. Joan Masters from Connecticut, $150, and everybody given $150 gets a t-shirt as well. The Amplified T-shirt I was wearing two days ago. Michelle McConnell from Hawaii, $500. Thank you, Michelle. You also go on the honor roll on the Young Turks website, t.com. Isaiah Bell from Pittsburgh, 150 bucks.

Mike Smith from Akron, 150, Ryan LeBlanc from Richmond, Virginia, 150. Mick Landholm from Washington, 500. Thank you, Mick, and Matthew Bentevegna, 150. By the way, people give him $500 to get the t-shirt and go on the honor roll. And that's 10 memberships, so super appreciated. You could also get one that is specific to Joe Rogan's podcast, for example. There's other podcasts at the link that I told you about, t.com slash more. Those are all 500 bucks.

Aaron Burleson from Okinawa, Japan, $150. Thank you, Aaron. Michael Huff from Amarillo, 150, Katie Evans from King George, Virginia at 150. One of the reasons that I love doing these is because I love seeing where you guys are all from, right? From Amarillo to Okinawa. It's great. Thank you for participating. And of course, ultimately this also helps us build home of progressives.

So we really, really appreciate that. So now let me go to just a couple of quick comments here. Doc Martinez in our member section says, when it comes to me. When it comes to a government shutdown, the rules should be that every congressman's bank accounts and credit cards must be frozen until the end of the shutdown. I guarantee you that there would never be another shutdown again. And man, they are so oblivious that they have these different rules for the elites and for everyone else.

They just can't see it. Anyone would see that that was an injustice, an unbelievable injustice. And they think, well, if it applied to me, I would be outrageous. No, I'm just making it apply to you. They just don't get that that is, that's hideous. It's amazing. The math magician says their suggestion for workers is to offer slavery to help you pay their rent and food. This is America now under both parties.

Gana says, let me get this straight. They are supposed to go to work at their regular job, not get paid, and then go to do odd jobs to reduce their rent. Yeah, that's their suggestion. And by the way, what is this, 1955? Oh, gosh, Beaver's dad had a problem, but it's okay. He did, you know, carpentry work for his landlord and everything was fine. Hey, Jesus. I'm surprised they didn't make it even dirtier, yes.

Yes, yes. I know, right? Quickly, and you had mentioned that, you know, it's insulting to people who, you know, worked really hard to get to where they are in their careers. You know, we're talking about people who work in the Justice Department, the FBI, but at the same time, it's also insulting to carpenters because it just assumes that carpentry is something that's easy, anyone can do it, you don't need any special skills or talent to do it, again, they're just tone deaf, it's insane.

Yeah, look, Jesus spent his whole life being a carpenter, okay, and you think you'd just do it on your own? Anyway, you know how hard Anna's worked to figure out woodworking? Okay, first of all, if I were a federal worker and I was going through this nonsense over and over again, but I somehow taught myself to do carpentry, somehow, manage to afford the tools necessary to do it, I'd be a carpenter, like full time. I'm done with the federal government. I don't want to be a government employee anymore.

Yeah, well, can't blame you for not trusting them, right? Sure. Very unreliable boss. All right, speaking of bosses, on Twitter, T4 wrote in, just bought my conservative boss three months of TYT via Anna, sticking it to the man at its best. That is good. That is pretty amazing. I like that.

That goes deep, two layers deep. And I like one of those layers. Anyway, and last one is J.C. Callie says, anytime T.Y.T. has Adrian on, we're blessed and elevated. Her analysis is impeccable. What a great way to end the last power panel of 2018. Oh, you guys are so great. Thank you. Here, here. Okay. All right, let's keep going. All right, we have some breaking news.

Democrats have just announced that they will not seat a North Carolina Republican as a result of widespread election fraud in North Carolina. Now this is all in regard to the ninth district in North Carolina, and it was a race between a Republican who seemed to do some shady things in order to get elected. Mark Harris is his name, and he was running against Democrat Roy Cooper. Now there were allegations of voter fraud, and those allegations were looked into, and as a result, Republicans in the state of North Carolina agreed that it would be wrong. to officially certify the election until the investigation came to a close.

And now that January 3rd is quickly approaching, the incoming Democrats or the Democratic majority in the House has decided that they will not confirm Mark Harris. Now, something else- One quick correction. Anna just misspoke for a second. Roy Cooper is the governor of North Carolina. Oh, my bad, I'm sorry. The Democratic candidate was Dan McCrady.

It goes to Cooper in a lot of ways now that the election board has been dissolved. And so the governor has to appoint a new election board. Yes, okay. So the election board has been dissolved, and that's the other part of the story, which is huge. And part of the reason why that happened is because there was a court ruling. So a filing came a day after a three-judge state court panel denied a stay to keep the state elections board, which is investigating the allegations.

In its current form and actually ordered the board to dissolve at noon Friday, the board had apparently refused to certify Harris as November's winner amid evidence of irregularities in the absentee ballot count and reports of a fraud scheme directed by a Republican operative hired by Harris's campaign. Yeah, this almost shouldn't be a news event. Obviously they shouldn't seat him. There was voter fraud, it's not just our opinion. The Republicans on the election board said, yeah, no, do not seat him.

There is massive issues here. It was a unanimous vote. Every Republican on the election board said, do not seat him. There was potential significant fraud in this case. And we've told you this story before. One of the people who worked for Harris, allegedly, those allegations are very, you know, backed up by a lot of evidence, took the balance of people, changed the name if they voted for the Democrat, put in the Republican instead.

If they left it blank, they said, oh, good, good, don't worry, you told me, so you vote And then they would fill in the Republican name. And then if none of that worked, they'd just throw away the ballots of the Democratic candidates. So as big a voter fraud case as I've literally seen in my lifetime in America. So should you seat that guy? Of course not. It's not even remotely within the realm of consideration.

Even Republicans in North Carolina have conceded that it is very likely they'll have to redo the election, which of course they should. Yeah, and it's gonna cost everybody a lot of money. And you think about the amount of money that was put into the campaign to begin with, is it really worth this, you know, whole cheating fraud thing? And then just to get bounced, it's just, it's just stupid all around. And it's unfortunate. But Harris barely, barely, quote unquote, won, even with the fraud.

So he might be thinking, yeah, I mean, I'm in trouble not because I hired the, and the guy who, the person who did the, allegedly did the fraud in the first place, had a significant history of doing similar things. And so Harris knew that when he hired him. But he might be thinking, now, look, I would have lost. 100% would have lost without the fraud. So hey, at least I got a second shot, right? There needs, look, of course, a second election makes sense.

I'm not even having a conversation about whether or not that should happen, but the real conversation should be real consequences, you know, criminal charges, because this is serious. And look, just to juxtapose the way certain people are treated in the country, there was a U.S. resident. Now, she wasn't a citizen, but she wanted to vote. And she thought that voting was actually legal, right? Because she's a U.S. resident. She's not in the country illegally, but she's not a U.S. citizen. So she cast her ballot, and when she got caught, she was like, I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to vote. This is my first time voting. And she got sentenced to prison. She's going to be in prison for several years.

And we've seen a few of these stories come out where individuals thought they had the right to vote and accidentally voted. And they are punished. heavily. And it's completely absurd when you compare that to these candidates who are clearly committing fraud, and especially if they go unscathed. You're absolutely right. They need some kind of punishment. So why do they get such heavy punishment for that? Because the Republicans want to prove a point. Like, oh, look at how serious voter fraud is. That's why we have to make sure that we have voter ID laws and block a quarter of all African Americans in the country who don't have driver's licenses from voting. And so they're trying to prove a point.

Okay, you want to put a point? This is actually technically ballot fraud. The person who they think did this is Leslie McCrae, Dallas. I mean, if you're going to give a couple of years to someone who did it accidentally in just their own case, I guess you should give a couple of decades to this person. And furthermore, okay, that's clear. I mean, they should throw the book at this person is the worst case of ballot fraud again in my lifetime. And so, but on top of that, why is Harris allowed to rerun?

I mean, the Republicans can pick anyone they like, presumably. for the new election, Harris picked Dallas knowing their background, knowing that they had serious allegations of this in the past. So that's the guy you want to rerun. Okay, have Adahehaus. But the voters in the 9th District of North Carolina should know that the Republican in the race picked a crook and did, and at a bare minimum, looked the other way or was completely incompetent as this fraud was happening right underneath his nose.

Moving on to other news. As I promised, the Mueller investigation is finding some other super interesting information. So let's get to that. The Steele dossier indicated that Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former fix-it lawyer, was in Prague in 2016 to meet with Russian officials. And Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, everyone related to the Trump. campaign argues that everything in the steel dossier is complete and utter garbage, nothing is true, and Michael Cohen says that he was never in Prague in 2016.

Well, some new evidence indicates that he was in Prague in 2016, or at least near Prague in 2016. So this was a story broken, that McClatchie broke, and what they found, based on numerous sources, was that a mobile phone traced to Michael Cohen briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016, leaving an electronic record to support claims that Cohen met secretly there with Russian officials. So this is super relevant because A, Cohen has lied about this, and B, what he met, what he allegedly met Russian officials for is very relevant to this special counsel investigation. During the same period of late August or early September, electronic eavesdropping by the

an Eastern European Intelligence Agency picked up a conversation among Russians, one of whom remarked that Cohen was in Prague. So what were these conversations allegedly about, according to the Steele dossier? Well, the dossier said that Cohen and one or more Kremlin officials huddled in or around the Czech capital to plot ways to limit discovery of the close liaison between the Trump campaign and Russia. Among the goals of the meeting, the dossier said, was to limit negative news reports of about the Russia friendly relationship of two Trump campaign aides, former policy advisor

Carter Page, and just ousted campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and to ensure that European hackers were paid and told to lay low or lilo. Yeah, so this is a little complicated though because Michael Cohen says to this day, just after the report came out, no way, I was never in Prague, never went to the Czech Republic and he tweeted, Mueller knows everything. So his point is, I already told Mueller everything. I already cooperated with officials. Why would I lie about this?

That's an interesting point. Well, I can think of reasons why he would lie. Maybe he didn't tell Mueller everything after all. And maybe they're actually far worse relationships with Russia than just the Trump Tower in Moscow that he's already revealed. So certainly that's possible. His now ex-law, Lanny Davis, that represented him through this, also insists Hey, we've said a million times Cohen never went to Prague.

Now, Lani Davis is also a democratic operative, let's keep it real, and he'd be huge friends with the Clintons, but he's a lawyer and he was representing Cohen. So it's a mixed bag, maybe he doesn't know. And besides which he was Cohen's lawyer, so he's going to say whatever Cohen says. And then in terms of the intelligence, and the McClatchie reporters, one of them was on television just today saying, look, I did not personally see the evidence. It was reported to me by my intelligence sources. They're very trustworthy.

We've used them for over two years and they've never been wrong. But no, I did not see it with my eyes. And so there's just, it's a mixed bag here. But why would Michael Cohen's cell phone be in Prague if he wasn't in Prague? But maybe those sources are lying in McClatchy newspapers. But why would they do that? So it's just, it's definitely a confusing situation. if you ask me.

Okay, so I don't think it's a confusing situation. I think that it's really up in the air who you want to believe. So do you want to believe Michael Cohen, who had confessed to lying under oath? Or do you want to believe the intelligence? There were numerous intelligence sources that went to McClatchy with this story. So again, if you don't want to trust the anonymous sources, I get it, that's fine. But Cohen had an alibi that did not add up, right? So let's go to his alibi.

First, his denial in response to this McClatchy report, he says via Twitter, I hear Prague, Czech Republic is beautiful in the summertime. I wouldn't know as I've never been. Mueller knows everything. Well, Mueller can certainly find out anything he wants. You know, the thing that really gets me about this, I just feel like someone needs to buy Cohen like a Netflix subscription so he can watch maybe James Bond or Mission Impossible. These basic films that let you know that your phone's being tracked places and that these

These little things called technology that that can get you in trouble and things can be found. IP addresses, those are out there. This just seems like a very basic approach to if I'm going to commit a crime. Maybe I take a burner phone with me and then I destroy it. It's like, I know this from watching movies. It just seems really dumb for Cohen to do this. But then again, he lies in her oath, so.

And by the way, another thing I want to just quickly mention is just being in Prague doesn't necessarily prove anything, right? Like he could have just been in Prague, like just to be in the Czech Republic. You don't have a good time. In the middle of a campaign a couple of months before the election. Right. But again, I mean, I'm personally not buying it, but I just want to make sure everyone knows. There hasn't been proof that he was in Prague meeting with the Russians.

So Mueller does know. I'll get to why he knows in a second, but here's more skepticism from other folks. They say that theoretically, according to the Steele dossier, Constantine Kosashev set up the meeting. He is a member of the Russian Senate and chairman of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs committee, and experts say that is far too prominent a person. It would be like Mike Pompeo, our Secretary of State, setting up a covert meeting. That's not how you set up covert meetings. So that's an interesting point.

And they say, he also, I mean, to Adrian's point, did a terrible job if he was trying to cover this up if this stuff is true. Because what you would do is, you know, your phones, even if they're not on, can be tracked. So what a, like even bare minimum spycraft would be, you would leave your phone in a different country on, and especially connect to the Wi-Fi, so you could say, like, for example, Germany, you say, oh, I was in Germany, you see, there's my phone. And you wouldn't bring your phone like a knucklehead to your secret meeting with Russian officials. On the other hand, Michael Co.'s not that bright.

He's not. Right? But finally, so we don't know now, and it would be relevant because this was, we're would mean that the steel dossier was right about a lot of things, and there's other things in the steel dossier, which are very interesting, including, you know, the infamous tape in Russia, doing things in a hotel room, et cetera. Yeah, and but Mueller does know because they, any prosecutor can get a warrant, especially in a situation like this, and track your cell phone activity for the last 18 months.

So they know, they know, we don't know, but Mueller knows for sure. They know. They know. And also, he does, there's no visa. So how did he, so again, prosecutors can track the visa issue. So it would be stunning if Mueller's prosecutors did not know if he went to Prague or didn't go to Prague. So finally, since we promised you, Michael Cohen's alibi, so he claims he was not in Prague during

that time period. He was actually in Southern California. Cohen has insisted that he was in Southern California with his son from August 23rd to 29th in 2016, but his public alibis have not been so airtight as to preclude flights to and from Europe during the relevant period. So there wasn't enough elaboration there in the report, and I wish there were, but what I do know is something does seem fishy and there is some evidence, unless these intelligence officials are just completely making it up and fabricating it, which I don't know, I just don't

believe that that would be the case. And so one last thing that's very relevant here. Mueller's team said that Cohen cooperated on four different matters. Now we know about the hush money to the mistresses. That's now very, very public, that's a felony, he's going to go to prison for three years, and implicated Donald Trump, obviously. So that's one. But there's three others.

And Mueller also said that he cooperated, Cohen cooperated on the core issue on Russian meddling in the elections. Now we don't know the details of that. It could just be the Trump Tower and Moscow deal, which if you know, if you didn't hear that story from earlier, Cohen said, yeah, we were lying all along. We continued those dealings for financial dealings for another six months, even after Trump won the Republican nomination and having discussions about getting paid by the Russians to do a deal in Moscow, so that's already terrible.

This Prague meeting could be even worse, especially if initially Cohen was hiding it even more than the Trump Tower deal. But either way, Mueller has said publicly, don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, we got them. Let's take a break, and when we come back, we are going to discuss what Americans believe should happen to Trump. Do they believe that Trump should face consequences for things like, I don't know, illegal campaign contributions during his campaign?

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If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, back on a Young Turks. So let's go to the member thermometer, see where we are. Did we pass 41750? Yes, we did. 41,755.

Let's keep it going. We'd love to get to 42,000 tonight. We've got five hours of programming for you guys overall. We've got four hours more for you right now, including some really fun games. We're going to play after the regular show. So everybody stick around for that. It's all available to everyone at t.com. live, and then members, of course, can download or stream any show that we do any time that

they want. And of course, you can sign up one of two ways, tyt.com slash join or tyt.com slash jank. And by the way, Brooke caught Ben. So Haas is gaining on Jimmy, Jimmy's gaining on John, John's gaining on no one. And is John third right now? John's third, yeah. He deserves third. He deserves third.

I don't know if that's a, I believe that's called a backhanded company. No, I love John. Okay. Yeah. For a little while he'd passed me. Yeah, I remember that. He deserves second. Yeah, good old days.

Anyway, I want to thank Kirk Taylor from Rockport, Massachusetts, who also gave $150 to the Amplify program. Thank you for doing that. Kurt, that's t-y-t.com slash Amplify. fine, please check that out, as I've told you now throughout the duration of the campaign that gives either journalism students, membership to journalism students, or to members of the media, please participate in that as well. Now just two comments for you, Ecclectic, Ms. Chalinias says, not seating a Republican

for election fraud, standing their ground about the border wall funding, are the Democrats actually growing a spine? That would be interesting, isn't it? And Gabby Marita, with a good point, she's made this before, but it does bear repeating. She said, I am still super curious how Sean Hannity fits into the Michael Cohen saga. The relationship cannot possibly be purely coincidental and based on random real estate advice. So that is interesting. One of the very few clients that Michael Cohen had was Sean Hannity.

So as the world turns. So we'll see how that works out. I'm also super curious about something. When are you gonna pay me for losing the bet? On the government shutdown situation? Yeah, well, you know, there's a little bit of controversy over the framing. But hold on, hold on, yes, there definitely is. But if the Democrats hold strong like it looks like they're going to and they get to January

3rd and they pass their version of the budget. And if the Republicans in the Senate agree, which there's a very good chance they will actually. And then they go to Trump, he might have just lost. If Trump loses, yeah, then I definitely pay you. No question about it, right? It's just the Democrats have to hold. And by the way, Trump offered to cut it in half to $2.5 billion today. And the Democrats said no.

Oh, yes, ch-ching. So you will very, when I saw that, I thought, oh, you better get that $50 ready. I'm so tired on winning, Jane. I was worried that this would happen. That's why I got a special surprise for you this weekend, and let's see how it turns out. All right, okay, all right. Okay, super last thing, guys. The shop is also having crazy sales all the way through the end of the year, so this is the time

to act, 25% off, the resist collection. You gotta use the code new year, use the code new year as shopt.com and get 25% off now. They don't often do these sales, so it's a good time to partake. Okay, Anna, what's next? A new poll by researchers at Harvard University and Harris found that the majority of Americans actually do want Trump to face some consequences based on various activities he's been involved in, okay? So nearly 60%, according to this poll, of U.S. voters surveyed, say that Trump should be either

impeached and removed from office or formally censured, okay? So not all of them want him impeached, but a good portion do. 39% said Trump should be impeached and removed from office. So nearly 40% of Americans, and this is a nationally representative sample, okay? And Mueller has not even come out with his findings about Trump yet. And we're already at 4 out of 10 Americans say, yeah, go, go, go, impeach him. Not I don't like him and I'm gonna vote against him next time. No, remove him from office, or at least impeach it in the House.

So while 39% do want impeachment, as everything stands today, 20% said that they would actually prefer lawmakers to vote to formally censure the president. So that's kind of a middle ground. And so 20% is very fitting of the country, the 20% in the middle are like, yeah, he clearly did something bad. I don't know, should we throw him out? Let's just censure, right? 20% say censure.

40% say, no, get rid of them. You can't commit crimes, they're felonies, and still be president. And of course, about 40% go rock and roll, no, he did nothing wrong. So let me clarify one thing because it is very important and relevant. So the first two poll results that I gave you just ask the general question. They didn't tie it to any particular action that Trump is involved in. But when you do look at particular actions that Trump is involved in, 49% of the respondents said that they actually favor trying to impeach Trump over the hush money payments.

that he and his campaign made to, you know, National Enquirer, to basically catch and kill the Karen McDougal story. That was one of the women he had, you know, relations with while he was married. And the Stormy Daniels payment as well. So that's right. So the number goes up for people saying, yeah, you should impeach him. When you say, oh, remember, he paid off his mistresses. And that's a campaign finance violation.

They're like, oh, yeah, right. 49% of the country. It's actually amazing that Democrats are not more animated about impeachment. If you're, like, you haven't presented any evidence against Trump formally. Mueller hasn't, the Democrats haven't, and the country's already at 49%. I know, but, and we had a conversation about this, efforts to impeach him could actually backfire. And we had a long conversation about this on one of our post games.

And it was about how people keep comparing these hush money payments. to basically what Bill Clinton did, right? And the efforts to impeach Bill Clinton did backfire on Republicans, but there are two completely different issues, but that's not the way Americans look at it, okay? So here's what I mean by that. 51% of the respondents, so a little more than half said that doing so, meaning impeaching Donald Trump, would return the country to when then President Clinton faced impeachment proceedings on two charges related to his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

My thing is that Clinton was legitimately put into office. My concern is that people don't fully appreciate the fact that Trump stole the election, or allegedly we'll see. But the thought that just impeach him, no, I want criminal prosecution. I want full penalties, in part because deterring other people from doing this again. And also penalizing him, stealing the highest office in the nation, if not the world. Get out of here with a, oh, censure. Whatever.

Yeah, so look, I don't think that they should ask. until Mueller comes in. But I think he's gonna come in pretty soon. So that's why I'm not super animated about it. If Mueller comes in with overwhelming evidence and the Democrats still sit on their hands, then I would say, no, what are you doing? You gotta enforce the law, otherwise you were saying that the president's above the law. And yes, the level of the crime does matter.

And so Mueller might have him on even worse things. So if you say, well, look, a felony is a felony and a crime is a crime, no, not really. If I'm being honest, I mean, Jay Walk, and you know this, Jay Walk is not the same thing in this murder, and lying about an affair, which is what Clinton did, if Trump lied about an affair, and it's Tuesday, so what, right? Trump lies about everything. That's not a thing that I was, even if he did it under oath, I swear to God I wouldn't say impeach him over that.

And I got a pretty good track record here because I was a Republican when I said, don't impeach Clinton over lying about an affair. That's not a thing worth impeaching a president over, right? But this is different. It wasn't that Trump was just lying about the affair. He broke campaign finance laws to funnel money to his mistresses, and then he covered it up so that it wouldn't be revealed that he broke campaign laws. But that's, that's way more significant. And there's $150,000 in one case, $135,000 in another case. So that's a very serious felony. Michael Cohen's going to prison for three years for that felony.

So yeah, no, on that alone, let alone what Mueller is going to come in with, let alone what happened in Russia. Yeah, you gotta enforce the law. You just have to. One final thing that I wanna share with you in regard to these poll results is that the majority of Americans actually think the Mueller investigation is damaging to the country. So look, I'm famous for poo-pooing on polls. Okay?

She's famous. That's what I'm known for. Yeah, yeah. Look it up online. Anna, poo-pooing on polls. Your Wikipedia profiles will be updated right now, just letting you know. Because I feel like people just answer, and they don't think about their own contradictions and the poll answers, right?

And so whatever, maybe this isn't really a contradiction, but I kind of see this as wrong. I think the majority of respondents here were wrong. So, 51%, I'm sorry, 59% of the respondent said that the special counsel's investigation is hurting the country compared to 41% that said that it's actually helping it. So I guess you could say, yeah, Trump deserves to be impeached if the special counsel's findings, you know, implicate him in various crimes, whatever. And you can still say that the investigation hurts the country. But I hate that framing, because it's not the investigation that hurts the country, it's

It's the alleged crimes that hurt the country. Yeah, look, if you wanna hang your hat on that and you're a right winger, that's fine. And look, it is what it is, and we give you all the poll results, you make up your decision on that. But I think it's a very poorly worded question, because it's not clear what you mean by hurt the country. Yeah, it hurts the country that we have a moron president who has committed a lot of crimes. You're right about that.

Or you could be legitimately saying, no, you should not investigate the president, and that hurts the country. So that's why the question is poor, I think. Yeah, see, you're also poo-pooing on this poll. Okay, but I am not famous for it. Okay. All right, that does it for hour one. Okay, Adrian, thank you for joining us.

I really appreciate it. Ida Rodriguez is next, and we've got amazing stories coming up for you guys, including Donald Trump accidentally putting Navy SEALs in danger. Of course! when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.