The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - December 10th, 2019

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

Democrats have introduced two articles of impeachment against Trump. 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. 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 the Young Turks. I'm your host Anna Kasparian and we have an awesome show ahead for you today. In fact, later in the show, we are going to show you video of a Texas police job. chief calling out Republicans and their unwillingness to vote on gun control, of all things. And of course, we're going to talk about the Democrats announcing articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. But before we get to all of that, I just have a quick programming announcement to share with you all. Jank Yugar, congressional candidate for California's 25th District, will join in as a guest on the conversation this week on Thursday. So you can check that out

on the conversation. That's in the third hour of this show. Again, this Thursday, two days from now, and he will also appear on the damage report. That's John Ida Rola show on Friday this week. So tune in Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific on the conversation on Thursday again. And then on Friday, check him out on the damage report, 1 p.m. Eastern 10 a.m. Pacific. And you can watch live by going to t.y.t.com slash live. All right. Now I'm bringing in host, Jank Yugar, to help me do the show. All right, good to see you guys.

All right, let's get started. We got a ton of news. A lot of news. Okay, so Democrats have announced articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. It is a historic day. However, some are questioning some of the other actions Democrats have taken when it comes to the Trump administration today. But with that said, they have decided to focus on two main charges.

And those charges include abuse of power and obstruction of justice. With that said, let's go to Jerry Nadler making the announcements and also providing some justification for these charges. The House Committee on the Judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, with committing high crimes and misdemeanors. The first article is for abuse of power. It is an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the powers of his power. public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest. That is exactly what President Trump did. And when he was caught, when the House

investigated and opened an impeachment inquiry, President Trump engaged in unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry. This gives rise to the second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress. A president who declares himself above accountability, above the American people, and above Congress's power of impeachment, which is meant to protect against threats to our democratic institutions, is a president who sees himself as above the law. So when it comes to obstruction of justice,

I want to be specific and detailed about why they feel that Donald Trump, is guilty of obstruction here. The second article on obstruction of justice argued that Trump has directed the unprecedented categorical and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole power of impeachment. President Trump has abused the powers of the presidency in a manner offense to and subversive of the Constitution. So we all know this.

We all know that Trump stopped members of his administration from complying with congressional subpoenas. There were a number of individuals who said that they would be willing to comply, but the Trump administration stepped in and told them not to. And Trump himself refused to be part of the proceedings. He and his lawyers were invited to some of these public hearings, and they refused to show up. Okay, as usual, quick fun comment before we get to substance and context. So that was Elliot Engle, you saw creeping into the shot. I must have gotten a note from a staffer, you're not in the TV shot, get in there. So he's got a progressive opponent, Jamal Bowman, you should check him out.

That's why he needed to be on TV in that shot. Anyway, onto the substance. So there's only two counts, I would have gone with four, five, eight. No, all kidding aside, I wouldn't have gone with eight. I would have gone with at least five. So the four criminal counts, one is campaign finance violations, so they don't put that in there. He asked for assistance from a foreign country, I don't know why they don't put it in there. It drives me crazy when they needlessly pull up, right?

Another one is potentially bribery, but there's an important nuance that I wanna come back to that's saying I'm gonna hold up your money, the quid pro quo, if you don't give me. And then I would have put in the obstruction of justice under Mueller, there's an a asterisk there, I'm gonna come back to that too. And I would have also gone for the hush money payments, which was another campaign finance violation, his co-conspirator is in prison for right now. So, and then I would have done a separate obstruction charge on him not providing any witnesses and not cooperating with the impeachment inquiry.

So that one is in there, and then they summarize the Ukraine stuff into abusing his office for personal gain. So I like that, I like abusing his office for personal gain, because it's very easy to prove, and it's easy to understand. And so overall, I'm open to the idea that I might be wrong, that maybe if you solidify it into just these two things, it makes it easier to grasp and easier to prosecute, it's possible. So I'd love to be wrong. I would love for Democratic leadership to be correct here and for it to work and for there

to be enough political pressure that they actually convict him in the Senate or he resigns. So we'll see how that plays out. I have an open mind on that. Yeah, I think I mostly agree with you, Jank. So first, let me just note that when it comes to hush money payments or any type of other financial crime, right? And I say financial crimes to benefit him in his election, they didn't even focus on that at all or investigate that as part of the impeachment investigation, right?

So there was some talk by some Democrats, I'm guessing those on the more progressive end of the political spectrum, who wanted to do more of an investigation into those crimes, they wanted to include the obstruction of justice outlined in the Mueller report, and include that as part of their charges. And the so-called moderate Democrats, meaning Democrats from some of these swing districts, were like, no, no, no, please don't do that, please don't do that. And there are some rumors indicating that two of those Democrats are likely to vote no on the articles of impeachment.

Yeah, just let them vote no, I don't care. I think that it's a stupid losing strategy. who is a Democrat that votes no on impeachment articles, I'd be shocked if they didn't lose because they're basically saying the Republicans are right about everything. We're losers. Make sure you don't vote for us. So let's see how it turns out. Again, I'd love to be wrong about that. I'd love for them to win their reelection as opposed to a Republican. But historically, that's been a terrible political strategy. So now, again, back to the substands of the counts, I agree with Anna. So for example, the two asterisks that I laid out.

One is on the bribery quid pro quo. You could argue that, and of course they are arguing, that instead of saying bribery, which, by the way, is an impeachable offense outside of high crimes and misdemeanors, it is actually laid out in the Constitution. One of the specific crimes mentioned for why you would be impeached. I would have gone in that direction. I'm sure they thought it would be hard to prove, et cetera. I don't think it's hard to prove at all.

But they put it under the umbrella of abusing his office. So it is what it is and take that for what it's worth. Okay, now the other asterisk is obstruction of justice. So they did not include the Mueller charges, but some congressmen including Steve Cohner saying, no, no, no, no, the language is broad enough that if we want to, we could bring that in. So without making it a separate article, Steve Cohen, for example, Democrat of Tennessee said, it is a quote, a reference to a continuing pattern of behavior. So under that pattern of behavior, you could bring in the obstruction on the Russia investigation

as well. I hope he's right about that, and I would go in that direction. But remember, they're gonna vote really quickly, and then boom, Trump's gonna be impeached. And so, and obviously, we've been covering it on the show a lot, so I hope, you know, impeachment doesn't mean he gets removed from office. That's just the first portion, that happens in the House. Then you go to the Senate for a trial, and there, the Senators are the jurors, the House appoints House managers that go to be the, in essence, the prosecutors, and the Senate tries

him, and I, and it looks like that's going to happen next year. So that is, now, another big news here, I don't want to bury the lead here is this means Trump's impeachment is imminent. Yes, definitely, yeah, so he's expected to get impeached. The House is expected because it's controlled by Democrats to vote overwhelmingly to impeach him. Now, I was gonna go to a video featuring Adam Schiff at that press conference. outlining and making the case for impeachment.

But I'm gonna be honest with you guys, he's so bad at making the case, not because the substance isn't there, the substance is there, but he bores me to tears and he seems so dispassionate. So I wanna go to a video featuring Eric Swalwell. And this is actually from the House Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday. And in it, he is questioning both the Republican Council and the Democratic Council. And he perfectly summarizes why Donald Trump should be impeached. Take a look. We know what the president did.

And we know when he knew it. Mr. Goldman, who sent Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to smear Joe Biden? President Trump. Who fired the anti-corruption ambassador in Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch? President Trump. Who told Ambassador Sondland and Ambassador Volker to work with Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine? President Trump Who told Vice President Pence

to not go to President Zelensky's inauguration? President Trump Who ordered his own chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to withhold critical military assistance for Ukraine? President Trump. Who refused to meet with President Zelensky in the Oval Office?

President Trump. Who ignored on July 25 his own National Security Council's anti-corruption talking points? President Trump. Who asked President Zelensky for a favor? President Trump. Who personally asked President Zelensky to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden?

President Trump. Who stood on the White House lawn and confirmed that he wanted Ukraine to investigate Vice President Biden? President Trump. Who stood on that same lawn and said that China should also investigate Vice President Biden? President Trump. As to anything that we do not know in this investigation, who, has blocked us from knowing it. President Trump in the White House.

I thought that that was an excellent line of questioning that perfectly summarized why Donald Trump is in this mess in the first place and why these articles of impeachment have been brought forward by, you know, congressional Democrats. Yeah, look, if we were in a just society that cared about truth and principles, this would be a slam-down case. and putting aside our differences on how to impeach Donald Trump. The count of abusing his office for personal political gain is absolutely positively inarguable. That is why the Republicans actually don't argue it.

That's why they argue process, and I should have gotten an additional hearing, et cetera. Now, the reality is President Trump has the ability to show up at the House or the Senate to defend himself. In fact, he has in the past said, only the mob takes the Fifth Amendment. If you take the Fifth Amendment, that means you're guilty. And in essence, Trump is saying here, I'm gonna take the Fifth Amendment. I don't wanna incriminate myself, so I'm not coming in front of these hearings. Even with all of his counsel and all the Republicans to defend him, he won't show up. In fact, there's news today that in the Senate, the Republicans might not even put on a case for Donald Trump.

Our unit is going to be, well, we are ignoring every piece of evidence that is put forward. In fact, we'll tell you that it is the opposite of what you just heard. So we're not going to bother putting on a case. The real reason they're not putting on a case is they have no case. They have no case. It's absolutely slam dunk. If you cared about the substance, the legality, and the facts, President Trump would definitely be convicted and removed from office on abusing his office for personal political gain alone.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the Republican response to the announcement because it is ridiculous and we're going to debunk some of the claims that they have. So following the congressional Democrats announcing articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, which include one charge of abuse of power and the other is on obstruction of justice, Republicans have come out, of course, in defiance, they're angry, they're upset. They believe that this is nothing more than a witch hunt, which is a talking point regurgitated by them, something that Donald Trump has put out. But in reality, the things that they're claiming never address the substance of the impeachment investigation. A perfect example of that is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the statement you're about to hear him make right here.

Back in 2016, the Democrats called those who supported Donald Trump deplorables. And now they're trying to disqualify their votes. Democrats still cannot get over the fact that the president won the election and they lost. And now and today, we watched them introduce two articles of impeachment. It changed the course of Congress to take away due process for any point of where we are. It is a fear that Alexander Hamilton had came to fruition in this Congress. I just hope no Congress ever repeats what we're going through today. So it's fascinating.

Representative Kevin McCarthy is arguing this is nothing more than a sham. Democrats just want to undo the results of the 2016 election. And again, this is a talking point that we've heard over and over again. But why don't we travel back in time, in a time machine, and find out what Republicans were saying just a few days before the 2016 election happened? In fact, Vanity Fair published an article on November 4th of 2016, and the headline reads as follows, the GOP is warning of a constitutional crisis if Clinton wins. In fact, Republicans are already talking about impeaching Clinton.

That was before the election. Yes, okay. So I have evidence of that. Let's go to the next video. This is Representative Mike McCall on Fox News in November of 2016 before election day. If she wins next Tuesday, what happens to that investigation? Well, that's something I've been talking about that hasn't been mentioned very much, and that is this investigation will continue whether she wins or not, but assuming she wins, and the investigation goes forward, and it looks like an indictment is pending. At that point in time, under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial.

They would go to the Senate, and impeachment proceedings and removal would take place. So everything Republicans say is projection. They were planning on pursuing impeachment to undo the 2016 election if Hillary Clinton had won. In the case of Donald Trump, anyone who cares about the facts, anyone who cares about the truth, would actually pay attention to those hearings, pay attention to the fact that an individual who donated a million dollars to Trump's inauguration, Gordon Sondland, testified against him and said, yes, there was in fact a quid pro quo. Donald Trump held that military aid up in order to get an announcement of an investigation

into his political rival Joe Biden, right? Like how much more evidence could you possibly need? So again, this is what the reality is. This is what Republicans are doing. This is what they would have done if Hillary Clinton had one. They're just projecting when they use these talking points. Yeah, so there's such a disparity between the two parties here, because today as they're Remaining the announcements, Democrats were almost apologetic.

They're saying, look, there was absolutely nothing we could do. We had to pursue this, otherwise any president could break any law and there's, it would be no cause. Why are you apologized for it? Who care? Yes, yes, we're pursuing Trump because he broke the law. It's super important that you hold the president accountable, where, and they're like going out of their way, like, oh, please, please, don't misunderstand this, it's not at all political

and they've said it a thousand times. Now let me go back to what other Republicans were saying before the election when they thought it was going to be Hillary Clinton. Jason Chaffetz, who's now a Fox news contributor, quit Congress earlier. But he said at the time when he was in Congress, thinking that Hillary was going to win, even before we get to day one, we've got two years worth of material already lined up, saying that they're going to investigate her for two years straight. Car plunge, like, we don't care, we don't care, what are you investigating her?

Who cares? Before day one, we're going to pursue her. And in fact, they said that they were promising to make the next four years a living hell for Hillary Clinton, obviously on political grounds. And now they turn around, they're like, can you believe the Democrats are pursuing something when the president has broken multiple laws? Oh my God, it seems political, right? Proposures, I'm not anywhere near done.

Then you've got Representative Peter King, Republican of New York. He said about Hillary Clinton, there's nothing like this where you could have potential criminal charges, you really could have a constitutional crisis here. This is before she came in, and obviously she never did. So Peter King was basically saying, hey, look, if there's any violation of the law at all, no matter how small, constitutional crisis, we have to do something and remove her from office. Right? Now we have massive violations of the law by Donald Trump.

Yeah. And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Obviously the president can break the law, it's not a big deal. You didn't give me enough due process, technical violations, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but you guys, understand, they're citing. a constitutional crisis before she's even had a chance to commit any type of crime that goes against the Constitution or any type of constitutional violation, right? Like, they didn't cite anything in regard to their accusations of a constitutional crisis.

They just said it. Yeah, they, and so that's why when the media treats them as equal parties that do similar acts, it's just not remotely true. And that's why it's so discouraging when Democrats don't fight back against these guys. Here, by the way, it wasn't just the people we mentioned, Louis Gomer, Jim Sensenbrenner, other Republican congressmen, also talking about a constitutional crisis and how Hillary has to be removed even before she won the election. And then I'm going to get to Trump last.

I'm going to, a quick side note here that was fun. And the same article from back in 2016 before the election, they reported that there was, quote, a large swath of FBI personnel who reportedly see the Democratic nominee as the Antichrist personified. So we just did a giant investigation of whether the FBI was politically biased against Donald Trump. It turns out they were politically biased against Hillary Clinton. Large swath of them seeing her as the Antichrist, okay?

That's from the same report back in the day. Finally, we go to Trump. Trump said about Hillary Clinton and the idea of impeaching her even before she won when he was running against her, he thought he was going to lose, obviously, right? He said, quote, you know it's going to happen. So, apparently, Donald Trump believes that political opponents should be impeached just based on politics preemptively, let alone after they get into office and commit multiple crimes. I mean, look, the entirety of the Republican Party, which is why it frustrates me when

Democrats are like, yeah, yeah, bipartisanship, let's work together, yeah, Trump, let's give you a giant political win by helping you pass your trade deal, right, without, you know, on the same day that they announce articles of impeachment, it drives me crazy. We'll get to that story later. But I actually have one more thing to mention. So Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson was also quoted in that Vanity Fair piece. And I just love the framing here because it shows you that they're willing to focus on anything and everything to get Hillary Clinton out of office if she were elected president.

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson declared that Clinton could be impeached for high crime or misdemeanor or anything, right? Like anything that we can think of. harp on it, we'll make her life a living hell, we'll make sure that she's wrapped up in investigations constantly, whatever it takes. That's what they wanted to do. And that is now what they're projecting on Democrats who did everything and anything to ensure that their investigation into Donald Trump, this impeachment investigation was fair, right?

They had the open public hearings, they asked Donald Trump to participate, they gave him an opportunity to get his lawyers involved. He didn't want to do it. He just kept telling people to defy the subpoenas. Yes, we'll impeach her on a high crime or a misdemeanor, we don't know because it hasn't happened yet, or jaywalking or because we don't like her. And then Trump comes in and breaks all these laws, they're like, I can't believe they won't let him break the law, it's political, it's political.

No one should ever take the Republican Party seriously. They're obvious political hacks who turn the truth on its head. We got to take a quick break. When we come back, Donald Trump has met with a Russian official today. We're going to show the details on that and why some are finding it problematic. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful.

But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the convention. conventional wisdom. In each episode of On 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 mind. 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 not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. All right, back on a young turks, I got a lot of comments for you guys here because you've asked some good questions along with good commentary. So let me get started. Member section, Joe at Go Indy Now says, receive my Black Friday, TYT logo T-shirt swag. I got from the store, awesome material, great graphics, and very comfortable, highly recommend grabbing one.

I love when you guys do that. You're awesome, thank you. That's a real person, a real member who loves the stuff they got. It is totally panic time at shoptyt.com. So you've got to go now because they're shipping, et cetera, for Christmas. So shoptyt.com, thank you, Joe. Appreciate it. Juicy avocado says, Dear Anna and Jenk, I have an early holiday present for you.

I have purchased five three-month activist memberships for friends and family to spread the progressive message. Love it. That's awesome. Thank you. I mean, that's cool. It's a good present for your friends. Yeah. Actually, I've got more on that coming later in the week, hopefully. But t-y-t.com slash gift, if you'd like to give it as a gift for either progressives or non-progressives to check out the show. That would be amazing for the holidays. Thank you. Now on to the news.

Sanspan says, I watched NBC News the other day. How do people watch that? I used to watch it. TYT and others in the TYT Network do a much more thorough job of covering the news, keep up to amazing work. Yeah, thank you. With a much smaller group of content producers. Yes, but like when you watch primetime news, it's all squeezing a half an hour. So it almost gives you no context at all. So like my dad said, why anybody watch?

I learn nothing. Okay, it's true, yeah. So anyway, now change my board designation says, do we know the Democrats have the votes to impeach? I know of at least two House Democratic congressmen in red districts that won't vote for impeachment. Are there more? So we know only two as well, or we've heard of that, we of course can't confirm that, but they would need 18 Democrats to switch over to the Republican side and vote no, and

they would have to hold all of the Republicans. That seems very, very, very unlikely. Okay, Jenk, but Italian writes in, Tick, tick, tick, tick. Trump's impeachment is blowing up like Jenks' triceps when he's maxing out. Oh my God. I had to read it. I had to read it. Burgundy, you'll read anything in the Twitter machine.

Okay, my gay marriage rights, my Democrats are so weak, it makes me furious. Why not file more articles of impeachment for the clear crimes he committed? The worst that happens is the Senate says no. Well, actually, you answered your own question. For me and you, who cares about your, like, oh, if they vote, no, so what, right? But for Pelosi and Democratic leadership, they think that losing any articles of impeachment is a personal problem for their reputation. So they're like, we wouldn't want to lose any of those.

So that's why, among the reasons why they file as little as possible. Oh, that's, that is a good point. And I forgot to mention that. Yeah, not just in the Senate for conviction. But if they filed an article that did not pass through the House to go to the Senate for trial, Pelosi would be deeply embarrassed. Who cares? Who cares?

Give them everything you got, but that's not how they operate. Can I also mention one quick thing, so don't underestimate the number of Republican senators who are gonna take a giant risk in voting against articles of impeachment, right? Or against convicting Trump. So there's Senator Collins, in her state 66% of constituents not only favor impeachment, they favor removal, right? So there are some Republicans who are gonna face consequences, hopefully, for their ridiculous loyalty to the criminal in chief.

Yeah, so we'll do more stories of that as we go forward because that's so important and Anna's a billion percent right. On Twitter in bed asked, if Trump is impeached by the House, does he become unpardonable even if the Senate doesn't convict? No. Those two things are totally different. Partons about criminal action, this is a political trial, okay, to remove him from office. And last one, Kara Curley asked, so if impeachment doesn't mean being kicked out, why did Nixon

resign before that could happen? He was mortified. The idea of being impeached as president was so deeply embarrassing, and he was also likely to be convicted in the Senate and the Republicans that in his own party told him that. Now Trump is going to be the third president ever to be impeached. Nixon resigned before he got impeached, so it was just Clinton and Andrew Johnson. So soon Donald Trump will join that list. And so that's all the context for you guys, thank you for asking, thank you for being part

of the show, hashtag TYTLive to participate on Twitter during the show, and of course, t.com slash join to become a member, and we prioritize that because the members make this show possible. All right, Anna, what's next? All right. Donald Trump met with Russian officials Sergei Lavrov today. Now, if you can recall back in 2017, Trump also met with him. And that story made news because of the fact that he accidentally uncovered some classified information

to Lavrov. But this time around, it's a little more opaque as to what they planned on discussing. There are reports that there were a wide range of issues that they were going to discuss, including renegotiating an arms deal between the United States and Russia. And this is not an arms deal in terms of selling arms. This is an arms deal in terms of keeping the number of weapons in Russia low. That deal, the previous negotiation, is set to expire in 2021. And so Russians want to obviously renegotiate it in a way that's more favorable to them.

And we'll see how that turns out. But Lavrov and Pompeo also had a joint press conference today. And that was a fascinating press conference to watch because Pompeo, to his credit, openly said that Russia meddled in our 2016 election. And at that point, Lavrov jumped in. said that those accusations are baseless. And so it was a little bit of a combative press conference. But these days, I never expect anyone from Trump's administration to tell the truth about anything.

So I guess a little tiny bit of credit to Pompeo for telling the truth there. Yeah, I think he's covering his ass a little bit, saying later when, you know, because he's also pulled into some of these Ukraine controversies, he wants to be able to say, hey, look, I said it right in front of the Russians that they interfered with our elections. But nonetheless, credit word creditors do, I'm glad he said that, it was the right thing to do, happy he did it, okay. Now let's talk about the things that Trump has done for the Russians versus the things that he is claiming that he are his real reasons for being friendly to the Russians.

So before we do that, Jank, I actually want to show you a video from Eric Swalwell's questioning during the House Judiciary Committee's public hearing on the impeachment investigation. I only say that because he does touch on that. And it might, you know, just kind of, like, set you off. So let's take a look. Oh, great. Looking forward to it. You talked a lot about the anti-corruption president that we have in Donald Trump,

the person who had a fraud settlement relating to Trump University, the person who just recently, with his own charity, had a settlement related to fraud. Let's talk about that anti-corruption president of ours. Take a wild guess, Mr. Castor. How many times has President Trump met with Vladimir Putin or talk to him? I don't know the number. It's 16. Okay.

How many times has President Trump met at the White House with President Zelensky? It's zero. And who is President Trump meeting with at the White House tomorrow? Do you know? I'm not. It's Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. Now, Mr. Goldman, withholding aid from Ukraine obviously hurts Ukraine. It hurts the United States.

Does it help any country? The witnesses said that that would help Russia. Did you also hear testimony that these acts by the president while being wrong in an abuse of power also harmed U.S. national security? Yes. Jank, go. Yeah, first of all, credit to Swalwell. Great job, man, he was on fire in those hearings. He was, yep. So, and he might be one of the House managers who goes to prosecute Trump in the Senate.

Go get America. Okay, so now, to his point, remember, they held the Zelaya. Zelensky meeting with Donald Trump as a big negotiating leverage so that he would investigate the Bidens. So they said, no, no, no, you're not going to get to come to the White House unless you investigate my political opponent. So come to the White House is a big deal. Meanwhile, not just Putin, a foreign minister of Russia, lower level officials are dropping by

the White House like there's no tomorrow, right? And he's met with Putin and those folks 16 times. And one of the principal problems we have with Russia is that they invaded Ukraine and took a giant chunk of that country over Crimea, right? And so what does the US president do? He rewards that behavior, which the entire United States government is against, by inviting the Russians over endlessly. And at one point he had said, what's the big deal, shouldn't the Russians have that?

Oh my God, right? And meanwhile to the Ukrainies, he's like, no, I won't give you your aid, which you need militarily against the Russians. And I won't even allow you to come here unless you do me a personal political favor. That's how corrupt this president is. Now let's go to the issues that he is dealing with when it comes to Russia. So they annexed a part of Ukraine, but he seems to be fine with that. They obviously interfered with the presidential election in 2016.

He has said many times that he doesn't think they did, he said it in front of Putin, in front of all the international stage. He bowed his head like this and told everybody, no, I think U.S. intelligence is wrong. My government is wrong, and the Russian government is right. I bow to Vladimir Putin, okay, that's who Donald Trump is. And of course, Putin is also backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who we are opposed to. And the withdrawal that we made from only a portion of the country helped Turkey, which Trump

has potentially other deals with and Russia in that case. And now he says, no, no, no, I seem to be helping Russia in almost everything I do, but not necessarily, there's good reasons. Because I want their help with North Korea. What happened? I thought you were in love with Kim Jong-un. He literally said that he was in love with Kim Jong-un, that they fell in love, okay? So why do you need Putin's help on North Korea?

Oh, right, because the North Korean screwed us, you had no deal at all, they built six nuclear weapons on your watch, and you didn't do a goddamn thing about it. You think Russia's gonna straighten that out? No, they're not. I hope that they do, I would be thrilled about that, but I don't think it's gonna happen. And finally, the nuclear nonproliferation deal did it, and at reference. Now, let me remind you that Donald Trump in a meeting with cabinet officials asked if instead of reducing our nuclear weapons, we can multiply them by 10, which would have literally

bankrupted the entire country. That's the meeting that his secretary of state at the time, right so soon walked out. He said, oh my God, that guy's an effing moron, okay? So now we are to believe that Donald Trump is giving the Russians everything they want, because Because he cares so much about reducing nuclear weapons, hilarious. Exactly. So I'm sure we're gonna get more details about the content of that meeting a little later. Again, this time around, things were opaque leading up to the meeting.

Excuse me, but I do want to mention one other thing. There's currently a US prisoner in Russia being held in Moscow. There are espionage charges against him, his name is Paul Whelan, and just going back to the joint press conference that Pompeo had with Lavrov, Pompeo did mention that, and he also talked about the importance of freeing and releasing Paul Whelan. And it's just fascinating because, you know, it doesn't matter what type of aggression Russia launches against our allies or even against us, the United States. It seems like Trump has a very complimentary tone in regard to Putin, in regard to Russia, and

And I think that's one of the reasons why when you go back to the impeachment investigation and what motivated Zelensky, the new Ukrainian president to cooperate with Trump's wants and needs, because he needs that military aid, right? He knows that if he doesn't play ball with Trump and if he doesn't do what Trump wants him to do, he's not going to get the hundreds of millions of dollars he so desperately needs to fend off Russian aggression. And so last thing on that, guys, is that Trump views that as a win-win. Remember, Congress authorized the aid, said you must send the aid.

There's not, it's not an optional request. And Trump thinks, no, I'm going to hold off the aid until he investigates my political opponent. Besides which, the longer I hold off aid, the more it helps Russia, win-win. I don't want to get back into how he's a Russian asset, but they'll come a day. Anyway, all right, let's move forward. All right, so I want to give you the results of the IG report, which we had already predicted and we've already talked about the details, but the Republicans spin on that is so ridiculous. So we're going to get, we're going to go into that, we're going to debunk it when we were

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 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. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install.

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Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks. We're having fun in the off air. Anyways, the comments as usual, I'm an angry gumball says,

I like the idea that schoolchildren are now going to know that Trump got impeached. It's a standard middle school test question. So we have that to look forward to. Jay Hufford asked, did you expect the Russians to not take Crimea in the face of U.S. aggression and lose their only warm water port? It's time we move past this. Yes, that's what I expected. I expected them to not invade another country and take its territory.

So agree to disagree, so I don't think they should have done that at all. And I'm not interested in Russia's goddamn access to a warm water port. I'm sure they need something in Estonia as well and something. in other countries nearby and they're just gonna keep on taking it if you let them. So, and it's not just about the Russians, I don't think we should do that, I don't think we should go around doing coups in Latin America, I don't think any country should do that. I don't think Turkey should do it when they go into northern Syria. So I love you and you're a member, but man, do I disagree with you on that.

And also guys, like even if you, all right, if you don't care about what happened in Crimea, look, the whole conversation that's being had right now is about the future of your Ukraine and preventing Russia from doing the same thing again, right? And so if you don't care about that, then I don't know what to tell you, right? By the way, I mean, that water, Jesus Christ, that excuse. Turkey can say, well, what did you want us to do, not take the 20 miles right next to or a barter from the terrorists are coming from? Israel can say, what did you want us to do, not do the settlements for decades on end?

There's water in those settlements, right? And we need it. So who cares about the goddamn Palestinians, right? So under that excuse, you can make excuse for any aggression from any country. So anyway, you got me worked up. Progressive Gojira writes, and anybody think Trump was discussing his exit strategy with the Russian foreign minister, impeachment may make him a flight risk, we can only hope. I also disagree with that.

Okay, I mean, I like that you're whispering of a dream, but you're not gonna run to Russia. No, that'd be awesome. I know, that would be like the greatest thing that ever happened. Please take him, we'll do a train. You take him, give a snowed back, okay, right? I don't want to prosecute him. I just want to, I want him to get a hero's welcome. God, I want to live in your world, like where, like, your big concern is that Trump might flee.

I know. Wouldn't that be amazing? Yes. Anyway, their last one, YouTube super chat says, their luco writes in, a Republican senator who enables abuse of power of the presidency sure sounds like a nice attack ad, 100%. Can't wait for it. Republicans, you want to vote for Donald Trump and acquitum of crimes he clearly committed? Have that it, Haas.

the North remembers, especially in Maine. All right, I have a fun announcement to make real quick before we move on. So, you know, members get all sorts of perks, including exclusive programming, which I would argue is one of the best perks. And last year we did this special called Hostmates. It's just like a cutesy game show that we did. It was really fun. Shank and I won last year.

But we filmed a new one this year. I mean, yeah, you guys should watch it anyway. But it's been a year, so what? But there was a significant controversy last year. There were so many controversies. But anyway, we did it again this year. And so if you're a member, I wanted to let you know when you can expect it, when it's going to drop.

So for members on Friday, December 27th, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific, you can check it out. It'll be streaming then. If you're not a member, you can go ahead and sign up by going to t.t.com slash join. It was a really, it was a lot of fun to film it this year. And the theme was the OGs versus the newbies. And the OGs, of course, are the people who have been at TYT for a very, very long time versus people who haven't been. Yes. Did John Iderola finally give us our comeuppets?

That's one of the mysteries. Okay, you guys are going to love it. TYT.com slash join to become a member and get that. Everyone who's, at least the ones that emailed us back or wrote back, everybody who watched the original hostmates loved it. And I think you guys will too. All right, what's next? All right. So, we have some more news for you.

Members of Trump's administration and, of course, Donald Trump himself, have been eagerly awaiting the DOJ's inspector general's report on the Russia investigation and whether or not there was political bias in the FBI's decision to, launched that investigation in the first place. Now let me note that this investigation began when Donald Trump was a candidate. He hadn't been elected into office yet. And Horowitz, who has conducted, Michael Horowitz, who has conducted this investigation has found, and this is the heart of the story, there was no political bias within the FBI. There was no political bias in its decision to launch this investigation. In fact, let me read from the actual report itself.

We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations. Now, the four individuals that they're referring to include Paul Manafort, Carter Page. Carter Page is going to come up quite a bit in this discussion, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn, right? Now, a lot of those people ended up paying the consequences for their, you know, relationship with Russia. But we'll get to that in just a second.

Now, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz further concluded that the FBI had, quote, an authorized purpose to launch an investigation to obtain information about or to protect against a national security threat or federal crime, even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity. The report found that the FBI launched its investigation into the Trump campaign, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane, after it received information from a friendly foreign government on July 28th, 2016, that Papadopoulos had suggested the campaign received an indication that Russia could assist in the election process by releasing damaging information on then Democratic candidate Hillary

Clinton. So right there, you have a reason to investigate. because again, the intelligence community was tipped off to a conversation that George Poppidopoulos, who was working on Trump's campaign, had with, I forget the exact title. The Australian, the Australians brought it to our attention. Right, the Australians did bring it to our attention, which is why the investigation was launched in the first place. Okay, so they did find two pieces of wrongdoing, which I'm actually thrilled that they

did. So I'll tell you why, and then I'll go to some of the conspiracy theories by the right wing and Donald Trump that have been totally debunked by this inspector general report. So one is they said that they had to be more careful in getting FISA applications and they had to enhance accuracy and completeness. Well, I love that. I think the FISA applications are too easy to get. And it's an invasion of a lot of people's privacy.

Now this is a political thing that affected Republicans, so that's the only time anybody ever cares. So when civil rights activists, human rights activists say, hey, you're violating people's rights, they just brush it off, like, ah, who cares? No, it's even, but like, think about what Republicans said in response to Edward Snowden's leak about the NSA and how the NSA was indiscriminately spying on everyone, every American, right? Just spying in on phone conversations, emails, doesn't matter. Republicans went after Snowden, accused him of being a traitor, accused him of espionage,

wanted to get him back to the United States, to do what they did to Manning, hold him in solitary confinement, torture him. I mean, that's who the Republicans are. But when it comes to this FISA warrant related to Carter Page, oh, can you believe this? They didn't do everything exactly right. Well, yeah, that is a problem. They should do everything exactly right. And it's far too easy for government officials and the intelligence community to

buy on anyone. So did that precipitate the overall investigation? Not at all, but low level officials did make mistakes in that Carter Page FISA application. And it's important that you do things right for everyone involved. So I'm glad they did an inspector general report. I'm glad they caught those FBI mistakes. And I'm glad that there's going to be some effort to be more rigorous in those FISA applications. The second thing I'm glad about is that they also raised questions about Steele's report.

Now, Steele's the guy who was contracted out originally by a Republican donor who runs a hedge fund and is currently giving money to Republican politicians to this day. And then eventually it went over to the Democrats and Hillary Clinton also funded it. Her campaign did. So both Republican funders and Democrats funded the report. And they explain in the findings that no, we get reports all the time from shady people, including informants who are drug kingpins and criminals, et cetera. It's okay to use that information, but we should be really clear in visa applications.

And when we get information showing that it's not reliable, we need to act on it right away. And especially if it's political opposition research. And so they're gonna be more careful with political opposition research, great. I want them to be really careful at the FBI. I don't want some Republican or Democratic hack going in there and going, here's my opo research. And they're like, oh, fine, let's just act on it. So the fact that they're going to be more careful about that is terrific.

So look, these are things that Republicans find exculpatory that they think helps Donald Trump. But I'm telling you, I'm glad they found those problems in the investigation, and I'm glad that they're going to try to fix it. Now, let's go to what the Republicans mainly say about why this was a witch hunt and why it was so targeting Donald Trump and so unfair, et cetera. So number one was of course that the idea that this was done out of political bias. Anna read you, the quote definitively decided not at all out of political bias, but it goes further. They explained that a lot of FBI agents working on the Trump case were a massive Trump fans

and couldn't stand Hillary Clinton. In fact, they have this quote, quote, one of the agents working on the case said, I saw a lot of scared MFers on my way to work. morning, this is after Trump won. Start looking for new jobs, fellas, ha ha, and the other FBI agent responds, L.O.L. And there's a bunch of texts like this, like thank God Trump won, look at those MF for Democrats, et cetera. But credit to those agents for putting aside their politics and being, doing their job, being

patriotic, and saying, hey, I've been handed a task here, which is to investigate a potential Russian meddling in this election, even if it helped much. my candidate, the guy that I really wanted to win. And it looks like they did do their job right, both Democratic and Republican FBI agents. So credit to both sides there, but definitely not politically driven, totally wrong. That's the most important part. Second of all, back to the Steele dossier that they wrote, the Republicans were saying, oh, it's only because of that that they started the investigation.

The IG report very clearly indicates that the Steele report came to the FBI weeks after they had already started the investigation. That was definitely not the cause. In fact, the report says it played, quote, no role in the opening of this case. And then one last thing, the Trump and the Republicans had this conspiracy theory that, oh, they planted spies inside of our campaign. And the report clearly says the FBI did not seek to put any what they call CHS, that's human sources, okay, inside the campaign. the campaign and in fact it turns out they had a couple of people who are normally FBI informants inside the Trump campaign, that's also interesting. Just naturally they didn't put them there, but they specifically did not ask them for information.

They knew they had them there and they could ask for information, but the FBI said they did not want that because this was so politically sensitive. So there were FBI informants, people who typically serve as FBI informants as part of Trump's campaign. Yeah, isn't that interesting? It's not being talked about much in the rest of the news, but yes. But the FBI made a, and this is the Inspector General, he goes back and looks at all the memos, he has all the evidence, he has all of the emails, all of the texts, okay? And they saw, he saw that the FBI made an active decision not to ask for information inside

the Trump campaign, even though they could have. So all of the conspiracy theories were totally wrong and completely debunked. by this Inspector General report. That's fascinating. Yes. All right. Well, I want to go to some other claims by Republicans, so let's do that. So, Michael Horowitz's IG report, Inspector General Report, into the FBI investigation into Russian meddling, has been completed.

And through that investigation, Horowitz has found, quote, we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influence the decisions to open the four individual investigations. And the people that he's referring to there include George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort. Now with that said, of course, you have Donald Trump throwing a temper tantrum because they had been waiting on this report. They wanted to use this report as evidence that it was a politically motivated investigation

and nothing more. But since they didn't get what they wanted, they're attacking the report and also in some instances even completely lying about what the outcome of the report was. Here's Donald Trump. The IG report just came out and I was just briefed on it and it's a disgrace what's happened with respect to the things that were done to our country. It should never again happen to another president. It is incredible, far worse than I would have ever thought possible.

And it's an embarrassment to our country. It's dishonest. It's everything that a lot of people thought it would be, except far worse. So I'm going to get some very detailed briefings, but they are, it's a very sad day when I see that. Very sad day when a lot of people see that. They had no nothing, it was concocted, and you say what you want, that was a, probably something that's never happened in the history of our country. So I'm glad that Trump was very specific in that video, so it will give us an opportunity

to debunk the very specific claims that he made in that statement, obviously I'm being sarcastic. Seems like he has no idea what the Inspector General report says whatsoever, but it's very It's a very sad. It's a very sad day in America. It's very bad. Yeah, so literally everything he said was the exact opposite of reality. So he said it's far worse than I would have ever thought possible. Well, you said that it was a witch hunt against you and that the FBI started based on the

steel dossier, not true. So that's much less than you expected. That they had informants that they used inside your campaign, not true, less than you expected. and that they did it for political, because of political bias, not true. The report says the exact opposite. So all of that was less than you thought possible. So how could it be worse than you thought it was possible? And you don't cite a single thing.

He says it was an overthrow of the government. The Inspector General tells you the exact opposite. And besides which, he wasn't even in government when the investigation began. Exactly. He was a private citizen running for president. and who everybody thought was going to lose. And so none of it is remotely true. A lot of people were in on it.

No, the report said it was any mistakes that were made were not material to the case and were at the lowest level, not at the highest level. It's the exact opposite of what he said. But look, I'm going to give you a quote from 1984, George Orwell's brilliant pre-shund book. It says the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes. ears, it was their final most essential command. We're right in the middle of it, man. Every single thing the Republicans have said today about that report is the exact opposite

of what your eyes and ears tell you from that report. And what's amazing is how they all do it at once, and then when the talking points change, they all change. So last night, before the talk, the report comes out, but the talking points from Trump have not been delivered yet. Lou Dobbs makes a mistake. He goes on air and hasn't gotten the talking points yet, so he goes after the report. He didn't get the memo yet, we're all gonna lie about the report and pretend it says the opposite

of what is said. So Lou Dobbs, the biggest advocate for the president on television, even more so than Hannity, said this is more evidence of radical dims, that's what he calls Democrats, oh god, they're children. Anyway, and the deep state's awesome control of our permanent bureaucracy. in our federal government. So it was hardly worth the weight, he said. So he's saying the report shows that the deep state has even captured the inspector general.

It shows how devious they are because this inspector general report doesn't say any of the things that we charged. It shows that what we were saying is totally false. So they too must be the deep state. Oops. Because in the morning, the republics come out and go, no, the inspector general report says We were right all along. And it's, by the way, all the Republicans and the commentators, now Hannity turned around

and said, the report, quote, says everything we said, everything we reported, everything we told you was dead on center accurate. What? It said the exact opposite. And he said it was the biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in the history of the country. The report said there was no political bias. and that the mistakes that were made were at the lowest levels.

That is the greatest corruption story in the history of our country. No, they are just absolutely Orwellian. They not only don't care about the facts, no, it's not that they're indifferent. Facts are their opponents. It is to be replaced by their propaganda. That is who these right-wingers are, Shone Hannity, Donald Trump, and the rest of them. Well, one thing that we should be concerned about, to say the least, is that there, excellent at propaganda. They're very effective in spreading propaganda. Because the fact

of the matter is, unfortunately, the media landscape is just as divided as voters are, and people put themselves in these media bubbles, and they only get one perspective. So if you're consuming right-wing news and only right-wing news, you're not going to know the details and the reality of this Inspector General's report. So that concerns me. But one other thing that concerns me is that Democrats, as Jenk has said on this show many times, are serial bunglers. And I think that they actually bungled the impeachment announcement today, where they announced the specific articles of impeachment.

And the way that they did it is by striking a deal with Trump. And Wilbur Ross actually exploited that to Trump's advantage in this next clip. Take a look. This is C3. You expect that we're going to see her bring it to the floor this week? Well, it'll have to be this week or very shortly thereafter if we're going to have it. I think from their point of view, the timing is quite important in that here's this devastating report about the FBI and the way they mishandled everything relating to the Trump campaign.

Convenient to have some news to distract people. Yeah, that's Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discussing the USMCA, that's Trump's North American trade deal, and how Democrats have struck a deal with Trump in order to write legislation and pass it, right? So it's a huge gift to Trump on the day Democrats announced articles of impeachment. Okay, so timing is terrible. But Wilbur Ross is also using that to Trump's advantage when it comes to the IG report. But you notice the same theme, which is that, oh my God, the Inspector General report is so problematic for the Democrats. No, it's not. It's the exact opposite. In fact, on Lou Dobbs' program the night before, not only did Dobbs say all the things that I told you before, but his guest, very conservative, Tom Fitton, he from Judicial Watch, said that without exception, this report is a whitewash.

Okay, so they were saying at the time when they first read the report, they're like, oh my God, it proves us wrong completely, right? Now they turn around and they sent out their cabinet officials, their Republican politicians, their talk show hosts to say, yes, Inspector General has declared us the victors. They're like Baghdad Bob, if you remember doing, when the Iraq war first started. He was the communications guy for Saddam Hussein. And every day he'd hold a press conference saying, we are winning, we are driving the Americans out, we might go to America

and win over there. Like he would say these most outlandish, hilarious things. The entire Republican Party has become Baghdad Bob. So here, I'll give you one last example, although I can give you dozens. Steve Scalise, the number two Republican in the House, he sends out a tweet. Breaking, the IG report proves

Obama officials abused their FISA power to trigger their investigation into Donald Trump's campaign. Just more evidence, Dems will break any rule or law to rig an election against Trump. It proved the exact opposite, but they don't care. They just want to make sure that they lie thoroughly enough that they not only maintain their base, but they can get the media to maybe give their point of view and have people be confused enough

that they manufacture doubt. Wait, what did the inspector general report say? I thought it said that he, that the Democrats were not guilty, that the FBI, I was not guilty. Well, I don't know, I heard that it said that they did ring the, you know, all these investigations of the Donald Trump. That it was politically motivated. That it was politically motivated.

I can't tell that's what they want, that's what they want. And that's what they're gonna get. I think that they're good at messaging and unfortunately that's what's going on. I mean, all we can do is our job in giving you the details of what the reality is. But when it comes to that media war, even with Republicans claiming that the media is overwhelmingly liberal, just Just understand that's not the case. The media is overwhelmingly bad in doing its job, and they treat both sides as if they're equal. So, and let me be fair to the media, and then just say one last thing as a critique of them.

So all the press is reporting the reality of the Inspector General report, which is that it said it was not politically motivated, to be fair to the press. And then even Fox News, Chris Wallace comes out of the Trump clip that we showed you, where Trump says, oh, it was an overthrow of the government, it was politically motivated. Wallace on Fox News says, those theories have quote not been born out. And some of the things that were being said just now in that cabinet room meeting referring to what Donald Trump said, were not born out. So even Wallace says it's not true what Trump just told you.

Now having said that, they've got to call it what it is, lies. See, that's this extra step that they will not go to. They will not say the Republican Party on purpose is telling you the exact opposite of what the Inspector General report says, in order to confuse you and leave you wondering. Well, in this case, not in every case, but in this case, the Republican Party in mass is clearly lying to you, and it's my job as a journalist to let you know that, otherwise I'm not doing my job. I'm being neutral to reality, neutral to the truth.

Don't do that. Report what the Inspector General said, and then point out Republicans' political tricks. you're not giving the context that people need to make decisions in a democracy. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the deal that Democrats struck with Donald Trump on trade in North America. And then later in the show, we're going to share some incredibly important excerpts from Pete Buttigieg's essay on Bernie Sanders when he was a college student, high school student.

We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon