The Young Turks - Turkey Exploits Trump's Weakness

Episode Date: October 10, 2019

Well, that didn't take long! Turkey exploits Trump's weakness to attack another US ally. 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. Welcome to Young Turks. Jank and Anna with you guys.

When is it not a big day? Turkey's invaded Syria. It's official. Not a big deal. Super big deal. Pretty big deal. All right, so that's coming up. Trump defies court orders, makes up judicial precedent, of course.

Great news out of Elizabeth Warren camp. These days, kind of an, of course, so that's good. So lots of show to get to. Let's do it. Yeah, I'm going to tease the show by just saying, the very people who believe that American should have no rules when it comes to obtaining guns, because those guns are necessary to fight tyranny, are the very same people who are now saying that we should treat Donald Trump as a god, literally.

I'm not even kidding. Yeah, and a king. So those are two different stories. Yeah, no, when we get to God and country, I will be animated. Let's put it that way. All right. All right, let's start off with an update on Syria. Turkey has officially launched a military operation in northern Syria.

This is what Turkey had already threatened to do following Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull US troops out of the region, effectively abandoning our Kurdish allies. Now the Kurdish allies do not get along with the Turkish government. The Turkish government believes that at least some of those Kurds pose a security risk to their country, which is why they are pushing forward with this military operation. Now here's what we know so far, a number of countries have weighed in, including Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is not happy about this, France is not happy about this. There will be a meeting of various countries who are part of the UN to discuss what the next

step should be. But we also know that this morning Turkey, a NATO ally, according to Donald Trump, invaded Syria. The United States does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea. There are no American soldiers in the area. part of the reason why the military operation is able to go forward. Because there are no American forces in the area, Trump pulled them out. Trump's statement continues to say, Turkey has committed to protecting civilians, protecting

religious minorities, including Christians, and ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place. Just want to note that just the mere history of Turkey indicates that they don't really care too much about protecting religious minorities. But his statement continues, and we will hold them to this commitment. In addition, Turkey is now responsible for ensuring all ISIS fighters being held captive remain in prison and that ISIS does not reconstitute in any way, shape, or form. Now his statement conflicts significantly with what Turkey has put out. The advisor, senior advisor for the leader of Turkey Erdogan says, quote, in terms of the ISIS

fighters held in prisons, which are closer to our border, of course, initially our priority is to provide security and stability in the areas we move into. We will safeguard any areas that contain these prisons. However, we would like the management of the camps in particular, something that has to be undertaken as a joint effort with the international community. So Turkey is effectively saying, yeah, I guess we'll help out with securing these ISIS prisoners, but we're not gonna do it alone. We refuse to do it alone.

We want assistance from other countries. Yeah. So as usual, full context here. One thing that I've now noticed is that most of the stories covering this have dropped explaining why Turkey is going into northern Syria in the first place. So I don't think they should go in, I'm going to explain why not in a second. But if you give the full context, they're not going in there for their health. There are terrorist attacks inside of Turkey.

They are done by Kurdish separatist groups. Some of those realistically are connected to the Kurds in northern Syria. So that doesn't mean you should go in. One, you're violating the sovereignty of Syria. You're making the Middle East a bigger mess than it already is. And several civilians have already died. And many people are fleeing the area, understandably so, because bombs are dropping into those cities. So look, on this show, we're consistent throughout.

So I don't think Turkey should occupy northern Syria. I don't think Israel should occupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But when Israel ever does any actions, everyone in the American media constantly says, it's because of the terrorists, terrorists, terrorists, terrorists they had to, human shields, et cetera. Now when Turkey does it, there's no context given, bad Turks going into northern Syria, just you know, because they felt like it, no, it's a similar situation. But we're also consistent in saying Israel shouldn't occupy and neither should Turkey. They should not roll in tanks, they should not do the aerial bombardment that they did today.

And there are, I believe, better ways to handle it. I think we had a better way to handle it until Donald Trump came in here and screwed everything up. So I have a question because while I understand that Turkey perceives the Kurds as a threat or a potential threat, why is it that Erdogan pushed Trump? to take US forces out of that region, right? Wouldn't you argue that the US forces, if they continued on, the Pentagon was able to continue with the plan that they had in place to create a- Nah, so look, it's complicated.

And so there are bad actors interspersed within the groups. So first of all, understand that Turkey does not dislike Kurds in general, okay? Kurds are a huge percentage of the population. They're a minority, but a very significant minority in Turkey, and they are some of the top politicians in Turkey, et cetera. On the other hand, there is PKK that's a terrorist group within it, that is Kurdish within Turkey, and the Turkish majority has a loathing for them, which is understandable given that they actually do commit terrorist acts.

Now, does that loathing then sometimes extend to other Kurds that are innocent? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Does the Turkish government overreact at times? Definitely, okay? So I think the right answer is to give Kurds every piece, every right that every Turkish citizen has, et cetera. The Turkish government used to be terrible on that. They've gotten significantly better, but it's not completely solved.

There are better diplomatic answers. Okay, now when you look at northern Syria, those guys who are fighting are American allies. They did fight against ISIS, having them die now, because if they're, you know, because if you're America left is terrible for America, because it's not just about the Kurds, it's about do we ever keep our word as America? When we say, hey, we got your, if you get our back, we're gonna get your back. Now when we say to the Kurds, hey, you get our back, well, it depends, what mood is Donald Trump in, what tower does he want in which country, or what different things has, or did a

foreign leader kiss his ass or yell at him or whatever his stupid fickle mood is. So now we're not have trouble getting allies. But now when you talk about the Kurds in northern Syria, yes, they're heroes in helping America fight ISIS. And I put it in quotes because it's not that simple. Of course they're heroes for doing that. But that's also in their interest because ISIS hates them and would kill them as well. But do some of them help PKK new terrorist attacks inside Turkey?

Very likely. So when America had military had a plan to have a safe zone in northern Syria. Was it an awesome option? No, was it the best option available? I think it was, okay? Now does Erdogan and the Turkish government agree that it was the best option available? No, they're very frustrated at how slow it's going and how the terrorism inside Turkey continues. So they want to do a very Turkish reaction, which is get out of the way, I got this, I'm gonna bomb the hell out of that area, and that'll solve it.

I don't agree that that will solve it. And so I think it's a bad idea, but yes, they are reactions. to those things, and yes, they think the US is not moving quickly enough. So now given that though, you still can't betray the Kurds, it's still a bad idea to invade. And so there are no angels here, and there's also like, Turks have some proper motives, some terrible motives, the Kurds have some proper motives, some bad motives, et cetera. Now let's talk about what we definitely know. We know is, Erdogan needed the American troops out so he could start bombing.

Because he doesn't want to accidentally bomb an American soldier, then he's gonna have massive problems on his hands, okay? You can kill non-Americans all day long in this world. You wanna kill the Yemenis, hundreds of thousands of them, nobody cares. You wanna kill the Uyghur Turks in China or put them in concentration camps, nobody cares. North Korea, Myanmar, Kurds, nobody cares. So, oh my God, if you kill an American, then you're gonna have massive problems on your hands. So that is why it was important for Erdogan to get Trump to move that chess piece off the board.

And Trump, the idiot, did without thinking it through. So now he's moved the piece, he comes out with these statements that we've been reading to you for the last two days, where he's like, oh, yeah, Turkey's great, they should roll into northern Syria. I mean, I will destroy their economy if they do something wrong. I mean, they have every right to go in and fight terrorists, I mean, if they're not moderate in their actions, there will be terrible consequences. God damn it, what the hell do you mean, you idiot?

You don't know what you mean. Do you know that in 2015 while he was running for president, a conservative talk show host, Hugh Hewitt interviewed him and asked him about the Quds force. Now the Quds force is from Iran. They are Shia, they are Persian, and they're part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. They are against us. Trump starts answering, oh, I love the Kurds. And Hugh Hewitt's like, no, no, no, I'm sorry, Mr. Trump, not the Kurds, the Kud's force.

And he's like, well, of course I knew that, but the Kurds are great. And there's one thing we gotta protect is the Kurds. Now notice, of course, he didn't do that as president. It is his billionth lie in a row. Also, he's an idiot and doesn't know anything about the region. Right. If you, look, if you're a plumber or a dentist and you don't know the difference between the Kutz force and the Kurds, of course you don't.

That's totally normal, there's nothing wrong with that. pretty deep into Middle Eastern politics. But if you're the president, you don't know who our enemies are, you don't know who our allies are, you moron of morons, so you didn't think the Turkey was gonna bombard northern Syria? What did you think they wanted to do? An incursion means an invasion. By definition, it means bombing.

What did you think they were gonna do, you idiot? No, he knew. He knew. I mean, as we talked about on the show yesterday, his own White House put out a statement indicating that if it was a mild military incursion, then he would maybe be okay with it, the troops would remain. But if it was going to be a giant military incursion, then he would pull the troops out. So he knew exactly what Turkey was going to do, which is why he pulled the troops out. You just explain that yourself.

But one other thing that I want to mention, and I alluded to it in the beginning of the story, is that not only are we abandoning our allies, immediately after they helped us accomplish our objectives, but remember, there are tens of thousands of ISIS fighters in these prisons that are being managed and overseen by the Kurds. And now they're saying, we have to defend ourselves, we don't have time to focus on ISIS anymore, that's not our priority, we're gonna do our best. So think about how much that destabilizes the situation. And it's not just about Turkey, the United States, and the Kurds.

You have all these other countries involved in Syria, in this proxy war. Now Saudi Arabia is getting involved. Saudi Arabia specifically said that the military action could have negative repercussions on the security of the region. So who knows what their next move is going to be? This is a disaster. So why does Saudi Arabia care? They now view Turkey as not an ally of theirs, because they want to start a war with Iran.

Syria is linked with Iran. Now look, the one part that we agree with as progressives is, let's get out of the area. It's not our business. If Saudi Arabia wants to start a disastrous war with Iran, that is their stupid idea. We should have no piece of it. But instead, Trump goes, okay, Turkey, why don't you start a war, then maybe Saudi Arabia will join in on the other side. And now I have a NATO ally, one of the top NATO allies, Turkey, second largest army in NATO,

and my actual top ally, Saudi Arabia and Israel on the other side, what are we going to do? Did you think that through? Of course he hasn't thought of through. That's why he shouldn't be president because he's a child and a very, very dumb one at that. So look, one more thing about ISIS that Anna brought up. Actually two repercussions of it. One is Kurds go just today they announced, we are not, we don't have time to fight ISIS anymore or to really guard the jails with those tens of thousands of ISIS fighters.

Now, you say, well, that's outrageous. How could you possibly say that's outrageous? They have an excellent point to make. They're like, I'm busy getting bombed by Turkey. I don't have time to figure out what the hell is going on with ISIS. That is now a secondary concern of mine. The primary concern is the bomb about to land on my head. So very reasonable thing for the Kurds to say, and it's not their fault, it's America's

fault because of Trump. And then the second part of the ISIS situation is, Turkey said, according to Trump and not call that they would take all the ISIS fighters, that that was the deal. Trump said, oh, yeah, well, Europe didn't take the ISIS fighters and we don't want them. So Turkey's going to take them. And as Anna read to you earlier, the Turkish government today said, ah, it's kidding, we're not going to take the ISIS fighters, we want the international community to help, we're not going to be solely responsible for them.

So what did America get out of the deal? We got nothing out of the deal. Nothing. Okay, as usual, Trump got played because he's stupid. One of his advisors is talking to Mandia Hassan, Stephen Moore, I believe, and said, He said, he believes Trump has 180 IQ, lower, lower. You literally take 100 points off that. I don't think he clears 80 IQ points.

One of the dumbest people we have ever had in any political office. And he's making decisions that are leading to worldwide war. And finally, even though the majority of the discussion on this issue centers around the Kurdish fighters in Turkey, in reality, the- The individuals who are really gonna suffer are the civilians in the area. And according to the International Rescue Committee, as many as 300,000 people are likely going to miss out on humanitarian aid that they've been providing them, people will be displaced. And this military operation has already begun.

The bombing has already begun. So civilians are already dying as a result of this, and people are trying to flee the country for their own safety. So there are people, innocent people caught in the middle. who are going to suffer as a result of Donald Trump's uneducated and unknowledgeable action. So, yep, all right. Well, we got to take a break. And when we come back, we have some updates on the impeachment investigation, including just the crazy things, arguments coming from the DOJ that just need to be aggressively debunked by Democrats.

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All right, back on the Young Turks, we're having a slight technical issue with the member comments. So we'll do those a little bit later in the program. But speaking of members, I wanna make sure that I meet some of you guys when we're in Ohio. It's in Westerville, Ohio. That's where the primary is on that day, on the 15th, I'm going to be there, and we're gonna have a couple of candidates with us as well. Xavier, who's running in Ohio's fifth district is gonna be with us, and Morgan Harper. There's a great story about her in The Intercept today.

She's running in the Columbus area for as a Justice Democrat. She raised $323,000 in the last quarter. That's a giant number for someone running against the Democratic incumbent. So she's doing fantastic. She's organizing and she'll organize with you guys if you're in Ohio with us. It's going to be at two o'clock that we're gathering. And that is in the Renaissance Westervold Polaris Hotel, okay? And go to t.com slash rally and they'll send you the information so you don't have to remember

it right now. And shop TYT is having a sale. Yes, let's talk about it. All right, go. All right, so 15% off, that's the deal, today only. That's it, today only. You get this one shot, guys, shopt.com. And you need to use a promo code act fast.

You need to not only act fast, you need to type that promo code in when you go to shoptyt.com To get that 15% off discount site wise, site wide. Yeah, if you try to do it tomorrow, or the thugs at shoptyt.com will break your kneecaps. Gone. Okay, or you'll get it, but without the 15% off. Okay, get a hoodie, it's awesome, I was wearing it yesterday on old school. One last thing about that, if you didn't catch last night's old school, if you remember, Make sure you watch it.

And if you're not, probably worth the price of admission. The story I told about Kevin Smith and me from back in the day and his reaction to it, priceless. So t.com slash join. Check that up. All right. All right, moving on to impeachment related news. Justice Department lawyers are asking a federal judge to block the House Democrats' request to obtain access to grand jury material that was part of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

Now, House Democrats have access to the redacted version, what they're asking for is the unredacted version. And the whole point is to have more evidence in regard to Donald Trump's obstruction of justice. Now, this is good news because it indicates that they're actually pursuing possible charges against Trump when it comes to obstruction of justice. I was under the impression that they had let that go, but it appears that they want more information about it. But the lawyers for the DOJ are jumping in and they're saying, no, we want to stop that

from happening. Did you want to jump in, Jay? Yeah, no, look, as usual, unprecedented claims making no legal sense at all. Yep. At one point, the judge goes, wow, that was my favorite part. Yeah, seriously. It might have made my grandma when she go, whoa. It's absurd.

It really is. There's legal orders, you have to follow them, they just go to court and go, no. And what's your argument? I don't know, I just don't want to follow the law. So Elizabeth Shapiro is the DOJ lawyer in this case, and she told Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell that the House Judiciary Committee has not gone through the correct legal process necessary to obtain the secret material, which was redacted in the version of the Mueller report given to Congress and then later released to the public.

The argument turns in part on whether the White House or whether the House is conducting a formal impeachment inquiry and whether it counts as a judicial proceeding. While grand jury transcripts are secret, one exception allows them to be shared for judicial proceedings. Republicans argue that impeachment is not underway until a formal House vote. Democrats say, no, no such vote is necessary. And it's a view that the judge seems to share. Now the judge hasn't made a ruling on this yet, but it does appear that the judge isn't buying

what the DOJ lawyer is selling. The discussion, oh, this is amazing. The discussion also turned back the clock to 1974 when the judge who presided over the Watergate cases granted Congress access to grand jury materials as part of the House's impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon, right? And so this is where it gets good. Elizabeth Shapiro, the DOJ lawyer, was asked, well, what you're asking for kind of changes precedent.

Are you not accepting the precedent that was set during the Watergate case? And here's how she responded. The answer would be that if that same case came today, a different result would be obtained. And that's when the judge responded with, wow, okay. And as I said, the department is taking extraordinary positions in this case. Well, yeah, when you say I have really no legal opinion to rely on, I just don't want you to do that. That is extraordinary.

And so that's why he referred to the Watergate rulings. He's like we, there's very clear rulings on what we should do, and yes, the house is allowed to get this stuff. So how do you respond? Me no like that. It's not a legal argument, man. It's just ridiculous. So now, it's not the only time that that happened.

A lawyer said that there needs to be some degree of formalities, what Anna was referring to about whether there's technical impeachment proceedings or not, to pierce the grand jury and to be able to get the grand jury materials. So then the judge asks, okay, where should the line be drawn then? How formal does the proceeding need to be? Trump's lawyer or the Justice Department lawyer says, I'm not advocating any specific line. The judge answers, that's so not helpful. Hey, like, okay, so you made up a thing that doesn't exist.

The judge asks you, okay, well, then what's your new standard? Where do you draw the line? And you go, I don't know. No, but this is- It's absurd, it's a comedy. It is absurd, and I would laugh if I weren't so frustrated with the super timid response coming from Democrats, like you're, this is what they're dealing with, right? dealing with an administration that contains lawyers that have no shame, right? There is no limit to the nonsense that they'll demand, and Democrats are allowing the DOJ and

the Trump administration specifically to frame everything, right? So no, no, we're not going to take this seriously until there's a formal vote in the House and is this a formal, he's being investigated, this is an impeachment investigation. Like, they're constantly moving the goalposts, they have no shame, and I just feel like if the shoe was on the other foot and you had Republicans doing an investigation on a Democratic president, no, they would steamroll. Like there's no, they're not even entertaining this stuff. Yeah, so look, then, all right, so there's two parts of why the Democrats are problematic

here, to say the least. One is, come on, man, attack, attack, go on TV, read the quotes we just read. Most people are not gonna know about this exchange. No one knows about this, okay? The reason we're covering it, because it's important, it's important to find out if there are still rules in this country, if there's still laws in this country. But if the rest of the media won't cover something, and it certainly will not stay on a story. They might cover it once as they do here, right, and then they move on, right?

Because it's not their job, their job is to cover the news. So Democrats, you have to make news, then you do a press conference, and you read the quotes out loud and go, look at how absurd and ridiculous these people are, right? And the judge is laughing at them in court, et cetera. Now that's one side. The other side of it is this argument that the Trump team is making, you have to have a formal impeachment vote to proceed. Well, Beto O'Rourke and others are now saying on the campaign trail, why don't you just

have the vote? So if you're wondering, why don't the Democrats just have the vote? It doesn't really matter. Legally, it doesn't matter. They have the rights to the grand jury material. They have the rights to witnesses. They have all these rights. It doesn't, it's not a really illegal argument, okay?

But as a matter of optics, why not have it? Well, Nancy Pelosi is always like, oh, I'm worried about the conservative Democrats. Oh, come on, come on, come on. Are you doing the impeachment or aren't you? So what are you gonna do? You know, we know what that means? That means she's still thinking about backing out. Oh my God, I just-

Because you're gonna have a vote on impeachment anyway. Master legislator. She gets things done. Like, look, the only reason why you wouldn't hold a formal vote to begin impeachment, you don't need it, but as I said, it's a matter of optics, and they have done it in the past. The only reason you wouldn't hold one is if you think you might not vote at the end on impeachment. Because if you're going to vote at the end on impeachment, what difference does it make if you vote at the beginning and the end?

It doesn't make any difference, right? The only reason why you wouldn't vote in the beginning is, oh, the conservative Democrats in the Trump districts, what if they vote yes to start the impeachment proceedings? But later they get cold feet or we change our mind. And then I've exposed them when I didn't need to expose them because I wanted to have an escape hatch so they might never have to vote. Oh for God's sake, Speaker Pelosi, make up your mind. And proceed from strength for once in your life.

I agree with you on that. But at the same time, since there is no legal precedent to have that vote in the first place. You should have access to the very documents you're demanding as Democratic leadership. Why don't you get super aggressive with the Republicans and the DOJ in this case and say, no, no. The criminal president that you are enabling right now does not get to set the standards for how we do this investigation. He is being investigated, the DOJ, which is supposed to be independent rather than a serving as lawyers for the president specifically should not get in the way of this.

He is obstructing justice with this new investigation. You can play this in a way where you protect your important moderate Democrats while not allowing the Republicans to frame this. That's the thing about Democrats. They allow Republicans to frame everything, why? So last thing on this, guys, if you're concerned about those districts, you're concerned about those districts that could go back to Republicans and then jeopardize the House, I'm concerned too, brother, but do you think that the best way to preserve those seats is to frame things

in a way that's helpful to Trump or in a way that's hurtful to Trump? I don't know if the Democrats know this, they're in the opposite party, they're in the other party, you're supposed to fight back against the Republicans, which helps you win elections. But they really have internalized, they have Stockholm syndrome, and they've internalized I said, oh my God, if I'm in a district that's anything near purple, I have to kiss Republican ass. No, you have to fight harder against Republicans. You have to make sure that your framing is crystal clear.

Exactly. Instead of constantly helping them with their framing by kissing their ass. There's a growing number of Republican voters, according to polling, that are supportive of this impeachment investigation. And my guess is, more and more Republicans are signing on to this because the summary of the transcript, the whistleblower report, all of that stuff was crystal clear, it was concise, and it was easy to understand. There is no question that on multiple occasions Donald Trump spoke to foreign leaders with the

intent of digging up dirt on his political rivals, which include Joe Biden, that's getting a lot of attention, but also Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren. Okay, so he hit up China and was like, yo, what's Elizabeth Warren up to? When you look into her, why, out of all these politicians, is Trump directing foreign leaders to look into these two individuals? Come on. The top two in the Democratic primaries right now.

Anyone who thinks that's a coincidence is, look, no one could actually be that stupid. Even if you're as dumb as Donald Trump, you still wouldn't believe that. No, you're dishonest. You know that he's looking into his political, he's asking foreign governments to look into his political opponents, and that's a crime. Everybody knows it, the only people that say otherwise are dishonest actors. So this should be the layup of layups. So that means the Democrats have a 50-50 chance.

All right, well let's move on to another story. An increasing number of Republicans are arguing that Donald Trump should be treated as a king. And the latest individual is Joe de Genova, who was previously considered as one of Donald Trump's lawyers, but there was a conflict that prevented that from happening. When news of Ukraine came up, that was nixed in the White House. But nonetheless, Joe DeGeneva goes on Fox, Laura Ingram show specifically, and he makes this case. What you're seeing is regicide.

This is regicide by another name, fake impeachment. The Democrats in the House want to destroy the president. They don't want to preserve the republic. There's nothing honorable about what is happening. We get first one anonymous informant that a second anonymous informant, I refuse to call them whistleblowers. These two nonentities are suicide bombers that the Democrats have unleashed on the democratic process.

It's pretty obvious that this first suicide bomber who sent that complaint to the inspector general was a paid democratic operative of the Democratic Party. Political suicide bomber, obviously, before we start getting people who mess up. So he really met suicide. Get a sense of humor, okay? If you still think that, then you really shouldn't. You will watch another show where we have to spell it all out for you. So before we get into the disgusting rhetoric that was used in that clip, I do want to just quickly

note that the inspector general for the intelligence community specifically weighed in, released a statement, which is rare and unusual, released a statement on the whistleblower. and his or her political leanings. The statement specifically said that that person's political ideology played no role. There was no bias involved in the formal whistleblower complaint. And by the way, the whistleblower complaint doesn't even matter. What matters is the transcript. Now I know we have a summary of the transcript, but that summary of the transcript that was

released by the White House is damning, okay? And no one knows who this member of the intelligence community is, no one. They're just preemptively smearing this individual because they're going after their dear leader, in the case of Degeneva, a king. Yeah, so let's bring it down. First of all, there's this great irony. The reason is Anna partly explain to you guys that Degeneva couldn't be Donald Trump's lawyer is because he was helping one of Manafort's associates.

In other words, he was a lawyer for one of the people that were involved in the Ukrainian Corruption. How do you like that for irony, right? We're really concerned about corruption in Ukraine. That's why I was gonna hire the guy who's defending the guys who are corrupt in Ukraine. And then the general comes on and Fox News is like, oh, you were helping to corrupt people in Ukraine? Oh, that's perfect irony.

Come on on. And we'll pretend we're really concerned about corruption in Ukraine. What we brought on the lawyer, who's defending the corrupt people in Ukraine? Hilarious, hilarious, okay. So now, but let's talk about what he said. Regicide means killing a king, not a president. It's the definition is king. And so he's just saying it.

He's saying it out loud. Well, of course. They just, they don't believe in democracy. These guys are fascists through and through. Okay, and then move on to the next choice of words he used. So he said, I refuse to call them whistleblowers, their informants. Like, does that really make it better? Informance means that you're informing on a criminal activity.

We don't like information. Yeah. And law enforcement, their bread and butter is using informants against mob figures, against drug dealers, against murderers, that's what an informant is. And this idiot who is a lawyer that Trump was considering highing as his lawyer comes out and goes, no, no, no, Trump is totally innocent, I can't believe these, now I gave him the Trump hands. Anyway, I can't believe that these informants are turning evidence with law enforcement.

That sucks, okay? Yeah, and then later refers to them, of course, as suicide bombers. So now I'm getting to that. Now let's break that analogy down. So one, suicide bombers die. So that's an interesting way to refer to them. Two, they take, their job is to blow things up and are they're terrorists. So we have laws protecting whistleblowers for good reason, because we don't want the government

to be above the law. And we don't, and if there's evidence that someone in the government, not just the president, anyone in the government is doing something wrong with, they killed someone, they broke a law, whatever it might be. That's why we have whistleblower protections. Now, these thug fascists go on Fox News and say, oh yeah, okay, goddamn informants, trying to blow us up. Okay, I guess they're going to die along with it, huh?

Okay, suicide bombers. Now, that's not an accident that you're using that. and the new bemo v i porter mastercard is your ticket to more more perks more points more flights more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card and then some get your ticket to more with the new bemo v i porter master card and get up to twenty four hundred dollars in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bemo dot com slash the i porter to learn And Laura Ingram clarified that they're political suicide bombers. I'm glad she did that actually, because with Fox News audience, I mean, other people in the

Fox News audience have heard rhetoric like that and went and tried to kill people. So, and if you notice, the Genoa didn't play along with that at all. He didn't back that up, he almost seemed to shake his head when she was mentioning that. So, okay, so all of this is in service of their beloved king who they know is corrupt. And that's why they call the people against them informants. They hate law enforcement, they hate rule of law, and law and order. They just want to be able to get away with their crimes. That's who they are.

And I just want to note that the right wing is notorious for making this argument that the Second Amendment is necessary and a lack of gun laws is necessary in order to protect the American people from a tyrannical government. So, they're disingenuous about all of that. We know for a fact, it's all about the NRA money, it's all about the corruption that they're guilty of, it's all about protecting their own special interests, while at the same time pushing for authoritarianism, like he referred to Trump as a king, it's disgusting. They never believed in democracy.

Those guys, the Genoa, Giuliani, Laura Ingram, they're all deeply un-American. They don't believe in democracy at all. They don't believe in rule of law. They just believe in power. We have the power. We use it to oppress people. Historically, that's exactly what the right wing in this country have done, and they want to do it again.

And one of the things that they're absolutely terrified of, and that's why they hated Obama so much and why they love Trump so much is, oh my God, minorities now are rising as a percentage of the population, and we might have to treat them equally. Instead of having to be able to oppress them, that is why they are now talking of kings and talking about and who cares about the Constitution and impeachment proceedings. Donald Trump is going around and his stupid allies are going around saying impeachment is unconstitutional. Well, that's funny because it's kind of in the Constitution. I mean, they're making absurd arguments like this because they don't believe in democracy. It was a thing that they used to oppress others and to lord over them.

And now that they're gonna lose their majority in their opinion, and according to the facts, they're like, well, there's screw democracy. No voting rights, voter suppression, screw the constitution, we got a king. All right, thank you for revealing who you really are, authoritarian fascist to your core. We gotta take a break, but when we come back, there's a breaking news story. It looks like Rex Tillerson is ready to talk. There's some drums. Oh, that would do it, man.

Oh, God damn it, please let that be true. It's breaking news. We'll read it. We'll get it to you as soon as we come back. 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. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech.

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So let's go to member comments first. A guy says, and that's his handle that guy. Trump is working on the assumption that the Supreme Court has his back. I would love for him to be mistaken. Yeah, it definitely could depend on the case. And on impeachment, it might never make it to the Supreme Court. It might have nothing to do with the Supreme Court. So obviously he doesn't really know how the system works.

So Taylor said, conservative Democrats are a dying breed, step up Pelosi. Ronan 1 said basically Trump's strategy is what they did to Nixon was very unfair. Yeah, I'm sure he believes that. Chris Dunran says, I've heard of the queen of the damned, Trump is the king of the dumbed. That's funny. And then stands her satanic majesty on Twitter says, when do we start calling this fascism? Now. Right now.

Okay, I did it earlier in the segment. earlier in the show. All right, Friday Power Panel. This Friday is going to be on Roku, Zumo, Pluto, and YouTube TV. It's also going to be, of course, for our members. So tyt.com slash join to become a member, and then you can check it out on tyt.com or on any of those wonderful outlets. Normally we'd be live on YouTube proper as we are every day 6 to 9 p.m.

But this Friday, just on those outlets. You almost certainly have one of those somewhere in your house. I have it in several different places. We have 24 hour channel there. Check it out. I love watching the other TYT shows anytime I want as a cable channel basically that we have on those outlets. Okay.

Anna, breaking news. Yeah, this is a pretty big breaking news story. So a new report indicates that Donald Trump had pressured his former secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to then pressure the Department of Justice. justice to drop an investigation and case against an Iranian Turkish gold trader who was laundering money for Iran. He later pleaded guilty, but luckily Rex Tillerson refused to do what Trump wanted him to do. According to Bloomberg, Tillerson refused arguing it would constitute interference in an ongoing

investigation of the trader. His name was Reza Zarab. Now, the lawyer representing this individual was Rudy Giuliani, who wasn't even Donald Trump's personal lawyer at that time. Now, there were other participants in the Oval Office as Donald Trump made this request, and according to Bloomberg, they were shocked by the request. Tillerson immediately repeated his objections to then chief of staff, John Kelly, in a hallway conversation just outside the Oval Office, emphasizing that the request would be illegal.

Now, what's also interesting is Rex Tillerson has been on the record talking about how often Donald Trump would request that he does illegal things. Tillerson has said publicly that the president frequently asked him to do things that were illegal. Here's his direct quote. So often the president would say, here's what I want to do and here's how I want to do it. And I would have to say to him, Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can't do it that way.

It violates the law, it violates treaty, and you know, and he just, and you know, he just, he got really frustrated when we'd have those conversations. Look, again, it goes to Democratic incompetence. The former Secretary of State for Donald Trump has said publicly, he would often ask to break the law. You just heard the quote. It would be a violation of not only treaties, but laws, Mr. President, and we cannot break the law.

And Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were like, be, d-de-de-be-de-be-be-d-be-de. It's amazing. It's amazing. Can you imagine if Obama's Secretary of State, one of whom was Hillary Clinton, said, oh, yeah, Obama would often ask me to break the law. Do you think the Republicans might have investigated that? So the Democrats finally kind of started impeachment on Ukraine. Tillis said that way earlier.

He said, oh yeah, yeah, Trump would ask me to break the laws. Nothing, nothing from the Democrats. So anyway, look, Trump's in a world of trouble, man. You get Tillerson testify, and if he is even 20% honest with what has happened, it's over. I mean, the guy, he has all the goods, and Tillerson hates Trump. The only reason he wouldn't testify is because he might have dirty hands in Russia, and he doesn't want to implicate himself, okay? As former CEO of Exxon Mobile, Exxon had a giant oil contract.

with Russia, that's the only reason I still assume was Secretary of State in the first place. I mean, what the hell is the CEO of Exxon Mobile doing as Secretary of State? The corruption was obvious from day one. But Tillerson is, unlike Trump, is smart. So he thought they'd go in and they'd do a sophisticated corruption where they would follow the laws but they would manipulate things and finally get the sanctions lifted so they could, Exxon could do that deal and him and all of his buddies would get rich.

But Trump comes in, he's like, oh, Giuliani's representing this. criminal, break the law and get the criminal out, send it back to Turkey and I like Turkey because I've got deals with them. And Tillis is like, that's how we're gonna do it? Yeah. No, I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna go to jail, you idiot. So let me fill in the blanks on that because this story is actually a pretty good combination of what's happening with Turkey in Syria and also Donald Trump and his disingenuous comments

in regard to Iran. Now, Erdogan wanted the charges dropped against this individual, Zarab, right? So he was the one urging Trump to get these charges dropped. This guy was being investigated by our DOJ because he was laundering money for Iran. And remember, Iran is dealing with sanctions, right? So that's why the DOJ would investigate this. So in order to do a favor for Erdogan, Trump then pressures Rex Tillerson. to then go around and pressure the DOJ to drop the charges and the investigation against

this individual. Look, we have to, look, we have to, there's two things here. He's helping Rudy, who's a buddy of his. By the way, Rudy Giuliani, as usual, change the story. First, they said, hey, did you ever have conversations with anybody in the Trump administration about this individual that you're representing? He said, no. Then they caught him, and they said, okay, fine, I did.

Yeah, he's like, yeah, maybe I did. And if I did, so what? He literally said that. He literally said that, okay. These are fools. They're criminals, they're crooks. It's so obvious. Okay.

So at this point, given the several massive favors and unexpected and ridiculous favors that Trump has done Turkey, you got to start wondering what does Turkey have on Trump? Because look, some of his ironic defenders on Russia will be like, well, he does a lot of big favors for Saudi Arabia too. I know. He has financial interests in Saudi Arabia. He's the guy who said, the Saudis buy my apartment's at $40 to $50 million. What am I supposed to do?

Not like them? So what other promises have Saudi Arabia made? One of the calls that are hidden away in the secret server are from Trump to Muhammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He's got a Trump tower in Istanbul. What favors have the Turks ask for? Or what do they have on him? What favors have they promised them?

Because this is again, just like over the top. And look, it's not surprising that Trump would go over the top, but why? Why? Like is he randomly doing favors for Norway? No, he's not doing random favors for random countries, there are certain corrupt countries that he absolutely loves and will go out of his way and break the law in favor of. So it's a good question as to why, but the Democrats are still debating whether they should ask for his New York state tax returns.

It's ridiculous. So we- Hold on, I've got- One thing I wanted to note though. So Rex Tillerson was, you know, the press reached out to him for comment. He hasn't commented. The DOJ, of course, is not going to comment on this. But I do agree that this is a great lead for the impeachment investigation and he should absolutely be subpoenaed to testify.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, it is unconscionable not to have Tillerson testify. And so why, by the way, why does Tillerson hate Trump now? They used to be great friends, and that's why he, and they were, you know, had mutual financial interests. So why that, because Rex Tillerson is one of the few guys in the Trump administration with any degree of pride. And so the rest of them are weaklings.

So when Trump bullies them in the preposterous ways that he does, they cower. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen. But Tillerson ran Exxon Mobil and has been used to being in charge for his whole life, right? And he has some degree of pride. So when an idiot like Donald Trump tries to bully him, Tilliston was like, no. And so eventually he called him an effing moron and left. So Tillerson, he hated being humiliated by Donald Trump. It got under every, you know, it got under his skin.

And I think that he'd almost like, even if it got, had a certain percent of chance of getting him in trouble, he'd be like, oh, let me at him. Let me add him. And only, of course, Democrats are like, oh, should we ask him? I don't know. Okay, all right, last piece of irony here. The guy that Trump wanted to get off and Giuliani wanted to get off, is Anna explained to you, violated sanctions against Iran.

Because are U.S. imposed sanctions. Donald Trump tore up the peace deal we had with Iran. Where we were getting their nuclear energy out of the country because he cares so much about the sanctions against Iran. No, he doesn't, he doesn't care about that at all. He was, in fact, he was willing to get that crook out of jail illegally. He doesn't care about sanctions against Iran. The only thing he ever cares about is Donald Trump.

So money, money, money, money, where is it? I want it, I want it. And so he has no principles whatsoever. I mean, that is the biggest hypocrisy you could imagine. And so if you're one of those Maga Chuds who are like, oh yeah, that's right, Iran, we need to do tough sanctions against Iran. That's why we have our King Donald Trump. Well, that's the guy who wanted to make sure that the guy who violated Iran sanctions got

away Scott free. Because it's not about that, you idiots. And one, sorry, sorry, last thing that's relevant here. If you're wondering, why the hell does Turkey care about the guy who's violating the Iran sanctions? Well, he's working with the head of the Turkish state bank. And now, why do you think the government of Turkey and the officials in charge there are worried about what the head of the state bank might reveal?

Hmm. Now all those countries, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, many others, they've got to get some of their money out of that country if they're the leaders of that country. and into places where they could wash it a little bit and have it come out clean the other side. Now, could the head of a state bank help them do that? Could sanctions hurt their efforts to do that as we did with Russia? All of this has been about helping corrupt authoritarian leaders in other countries wash their money. And Trump has been helping the Russians do that for a long time.

I don't know if he helped the Turks or the Saudis do it before. So you might wanna look into his business dealings. And for all this time, the Democrats still have not looked into his business dealings. It is unconscionable incompetence and negligence. All right, let's move on to some other news. So we have this theme going where you have right wingers treating Donald Trump as if he were a king. And now there's a growing list of right wingers who think that he should be treated like a god. So let's give you those examples.

Donald Trump has a spiritual advisor, which is hilarious when you consider who Donald Trump is as a person. But nonetheless, Paula White, this prosperity person who is serving as Donald Trump's spiritual advisor, recently put out a video where she basically believes that saying no to Trump is like saying no to God. Take a look. How the advisory board, like what literally the God. aspect, what God told me to do, how I even got involved.

Because one thing I said, I'll never do politics. But when it came down to it, it wasn't about doing politics. It was about an assignment to say no to President Trump would be saying no to God. And I won't do that. Now she's one of these prosperity preachers who tricks people into thinking that they have to give money to her, a lot of money to her, because saying no to her is like, like saying no to God. So she has exploited religion for financial purposes, and she's lived a very wealthy life

as a result of that. And now she's using the same ridiculous argument in regard to the criminal in chief, Donald Trump. So a couple of different things. One, obviously scam artist, if you believe her, you're an idiot. I feel sorry for you because I know you got brainwashed, and it's a lot of, since you were a little kid, oh, the person who's the preacher, read the boss. Bible, don't believe your lying eyes about what's in the Bible, believe them, they speak

for God. So give them all your money, give them everything, and make sure you have nothing. Don't worry, the poor are going to get into heaven later. But meanwhile, well, if that's true, why she's so rich? Why does she need all that money? Okay, anyway, the obvious scam artist, lunatics through and through. Second of all, did she talk to God and did God really direct? I mean, come on, really?

I mean, look, the reality is the certain percentage of every country is fundamentalist. And they're almost all lunatics. And so, and I don't know that they're born lunatics. I think it's mainly born out of ignorance. And I think that obviously an education could help them, but they act like lunatics. And so it's true in the Muslim religion, it's true in Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and it is certainly true in Christianity here in America. So our evangelical right wingers who believe that scam artists like that talk to God, and

that's why they should, and God told her, oh man, that guy who likes to grab women by the the genitalia, that's my boy, okay? And by the way, did God also tell you to let him do that to you? Because that's what he says he does, and you don't mind that at all. Apparently God told you, he's great. So if he did that to you, would you be okay with it? Because that's, God told you, support whatever Donald Trump does. Look, I just think that they want to protect a deeply religious and pious president like

Donald Trump. In fact, I want to show you just how religious he is. There's an interview he did back in 2015. You mentioned the Bible, you've been talking about how it's your favorite book. And you said, I think last night in Iowa, some people are surprised that you say that. I'm wondering what one or two of your most favored Bible verses are. I wouldn't want to get into it because to me that's very personal. You know, when I talk about the Bible is very personal.

So I don't want to get into it. There's no verse. It means a lot to you that you think about or cite. The Bible means a lot to me, but I don't want to get into specifics. Even to cite a verse that you like. No, I don't want to do that. Old Testament guy or a New Testament guy? Probably equal.

I think it's just an incredible. The whole Bible is an incredible. I joke very much so. They always hold up the art of the deal. I say my second favorite book of all time. Man of God. Second favorite book of all time. It's amazing.

Okay, look, if you're an evangelical and you support Trump, you're a joke. You're a joke. You don't believe in God at all. You don't believe in anything that Jesus said. You don't believe on the Sermon on the Mount, you don't believe any of it. You're just like, who does he hate? Who does he hate? Oh, he hates brown people?

I hate brown people, yeah, Donald Trump. All right, well, since we're talking about liars and evangelical lunatics, there's one other person I want to mention, his name is Ralph Reed. And he's the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. He's putting out a book that essentially argues that Americans have a moral obligation to enthusiastically back the president. Now this is a response to individuals who feel that evangelicals have been hypocritical in supporting Donald Trump because obviously Trump has done numerous things that go against

what evangelicals claim they stand for. But let me give you the details on what this book would essentially try to message to people who are critics. Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, according to Politico, became a loyal foot soldier for Trump immediately after he nab the Republican presidential nomination in terms. 2016, commanding hordes of white evangelical voters from his perch on the candidate's religious advisory board to trust that the New York businessman would grow the economy, defend religious freedom, and dismantle federal protections for abortion if elected.

Now, according to his book's description obtained by Politico, the original title for the book was, Render to God and Trump, a reference to a well-known biblical verse, rendered to Caesar, the things that are Caesars. The message from Jesus in Matthew 22 has been used in contemporary politics to justify obedience to government or in the case of Reid's book to Trump. What happened to these like small government Republicans? What happened? What happened to needing the Second Amendment to fight an authoritarian government?

Come on. So a couple of things. First, this is the definition of sacrilege comparing someone to God. They're such jokes, none of them are Christians, they're all scam artists to their core. I feel so sad for the poor schmucks who follow them and give them all their money. You're so easy to rip off. So now on to his argument as to why Donald Trump is so heavenly. So part of it you might understand, you say, okay, abortion.

Now abortion is God, is Bible is actually pro-abortion. I don't want to get back into that, but okay, let's say that you believe as they brainwashed you that the only thing God cares about is abortion. Okay, so I'm going to put that aside as I'll give that to you as legitimate, okay, even though it's not. So then he says taxes, lower taxes. Where in the Bible is it, is Jesus in favor of lower taxes? He says he throws the money changers out of the temple first. He says it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. You goddamn liars, yes, I mean that.

So no, none of that is cutting taxes. You didn't scam artists, because they're all millionaires, because they built all their idiot followers, so they want lower taxes for themselves, not for Jesus. And he says, Israel. Now, why Israel? Because they're so pro-Jewish. A Judeo-Christian heritage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, I don't want to get into the whole long history of how that's a total myth. And Christians have been brutal to Jews throughout history, including in this kind of country and the ones who are the most fundamentalists that are the most brutal to Jews. But so why do they care about Israel? Because Israel is part of their insane end times theology, which also is not in the Bible, but although mention of Armageddon is they filled in a lot of the details and they think, oh no, Israel has to occupy the land, they have to destroy a mosque and start Armageddon. So these lunatics are the most dangerous people on Earth because they want to start a war that

kills most people on the planet. So this is the level of lunacy we're dealing with. And finally though, notice that there's no talk of family values. So what happened to, hey, don't get divorced? I remember when the religious people used to insist on that, that was in the Bible, remember how pissed Catholics were, if anybody ever got divorced and you had to do the annulment nonsense, et cetera, et cetera, Protestants too, et cetera, nope, nobody cares, he's divorced twice, married three different women.

How about adultery? Committed endless adultery with porn stars, don't get me started on how, and the details. the details of it, and he's done it over and over again, grabbing women, assaulting women, and now 43 different women have accused them of some sort of sexual harassment to sexual assault. They, okay, so you can say abortion, you can say, hey, I'm rich and I want lower taxes. But what Republicans and evangelicals are never allowed to say again is that they're the party of family values. Because you're not, and you've even dropped that, because even they're a little embarrassed

of the hypocrisy. Oh, come on, absolutely. I mean, it's been a while since I've heard. a right winger cite family values. It really has because they really don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to that issue anymore. All right. So we got to take a break.

But when we come back, we have more news for you, including what Donald Trump has done to allow the wealthy to keep their money in offshore tax havens. 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 slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.