The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - December 26th, 2019

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Don't let Lisa Murkowski trick you! 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.

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off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Hey guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five-star rating. If you like it, thank you for listening. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Thank you, Granite, Experian. Merry post-Christmas.

We hope you had a lovely Christmas, filled with. with beautiful presents. Maybe we'll talk more about this in the post game I should say today. That's the last half hour of the show for Just for members. I asked my son what religion he was. Yeah, we'll save for the post game. And he had a fascinating answer that I think you will love. I will say though, I'm grateful that we're saying Merry Christmas now thanks to the Trump's.

Oh yeah, I mean if it wasn't for him and Bill O'Reilly, us heathes would be saying happy holidays, but we've been liberated. I think some people were like, I don't know if they made a hat out of it, but they were just a Twitter thing like, make America Christmas again. I don't even know what that means. Yeah. Anyway, so speaking of fun things for our members, next Monday, it's a special time. Normally old school's not on Monday, but this upcoming Monday, we've got a special old school for you guys with Gabriel Iglesias.

Otherwise, notice, oh, to Fluffy. Fluffy's on. Okay, so how cool is that? Members get to see that live. They're the only ones who get to see it live. They get to see the whole show. They're the only ones who get to see the whole show. So t-y-t.com slash join to become a member.

Get our post game today and every day get Gabriel on old school. And then one more programming notes to be your members. Hostmates gets released tomorrow night. It drops tomorrow at 8 o'clock Eastern. That's after a regular show. That's our second edition of Hostmates, Anna and I are reigning champion champions, but we'll see if we get to keep our title this year. I actually have a fun note about hostmates.

So we will be watching along with you guys. We're not gonna stream along with you guys, but once it's available here at TYT, we're gonna have like a little internal party to watch. I know, it'll be fun. But what we will be doing is interacting with you. you guys via social media. So follow us on Twitter or Instagram. We'll be posting stories of us watching and reacting to it. So it'll be a good time. All right, phone for everybody. And that's just for members. TYT.com slash join to become a member. You guys keep us afloat. So we appreciate

that. All right. Anna, let's get started. All right. As always, the media is giving credit to so-called moderate Republicans in the Senate because they have said that they might maybe disagree with Mitch McConnell a little bit when it comes to the impeachment trial in the Senate. The latest example is Alaska's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who claims that she's very much dismayed at how McConnell is approaching the Senate trial. Take a look. In fairness, when I heard that, I was disturbed. To me, it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense. And so, I heard what Leader McConnell had said.

I happen to think that that has further confused the process. Me to prejudge and say there's nothing there, or on the other hand, he should be impeached yesterday, that's wrong. In my view, that's wrong. I don't know what it is about this particular story, maybe it's because I'm fed up with the media preemptively giving Republicans credit for something they don't deserve. Like words or words, I don't care about your words. I care about your action.

So it's one thing to be like, I don't know if I agree with the way McConnell is approaching this. And the way they cover it is, oh, strong words for McConnell. Oh, Murkowski shows that she's independent and she likes it. No, she's going to do what McConnell wants her to do. She's going to do what Trump wants her to do. Can we not give her credit until we see how she actually behaves when the Senate trial happens? Yeah, so that's fair, but, and I actually want to add something to that, but let me give

both sides here, because both sides do it. No, seriously. No, both sides do do it, but Democrats actually do cave to Republicans. Yeah, which I'll get to in a second. But no, to be fair to Murkowski, on a couple of important votes, she has actually voted with the Democrats. Now, it is very rare, and when she's called a moderate throughout all the campaign, or the overall coverage of politics.

It's not really true. I mean, she votes with Trump an overwhelming percentage of the time. So I don't know if there's a categorization of like non-insane conservative, but she would be in that category but on some important votes, okay? And remember, she got attacked by Republicans in her primary and then one as an independent. So I mean, there's a, there's a lot of like nuance Lisa Murkowski, okay, now having said that, The non nuanced part is what Anna said, which she overwhelmingly votes with Trump and the rest of the Republican Party and is likely to do in this case, McConnell's going around bragging

that he's not going to lose a single Republican senator. Now another important addition to what Anna is saying is oftentimes this is theater, but the media never covers it as theater, they go along with the Kabuki theater. So what do I mean by that? McConnell will sometimes talk to people like Murkowski and say, I'm going to say for the sake of the Republican Party that I'm going to do everything Trump wants me to do. And that's what McConnell said, and that's why Murkowski's making these comments. He said, we're going to work hand and glove with the Trump administration.

There's going to be no distance between me and Trump's lawyers. Now, the senators are supposed to be impartial, laugh along with me. But so when he says that, he does it brazenly and on purpose to show strength, to say, I don't care about rules, I don't care about fairness. All of us Republicans are with Trump, no matter what, don't primary. Republican right wingers and media were showing you that there's no chance of acquittal here. So talk about him as if he's already innocent. These are the reasons why he does it.

But the last reason is so that he can go tell Murkowski and Snow and Gardner some of the vulnerable Republicans, hey, you know what, you could speak out against me. Don't vote against me. But speak out against me when I say I'm gonna work 100% with Trump. So that way you will have the appearance of independence and then you'll vote, you'll vote with us and everything will be fine and you'll get credit ahead of time for appearing independent. Yes. So the fact that that conversation does happen on a regular basis, we don't know if it happened in this case, but happens on a regular basis, but the political reporters never cover

it is troubling. Yes, yes. So that's the reason why this story, which broke yesterday, really struck a nerve with me. Because it happens over and over again. It happened with Jeff Flake, who's no longer in Congress. But, you know, he would say things in the media. that made it appear as though he was an independent thinking Republican who was against Trump. But then when push came to shove, he gave Trump everything he wanted, including voting in favor of policies that he claimed were disastrous and he wasn't in favor of. Now, I want to go to what Jenk was alluding to earlier, which is how the media gets played. Okay, these are the so-called journalists that get paid the big bucks to do their analysis

and their reporting, but they get played by these Republicans and their ridiculous theater over and over again. And what I can't stand more than anything is politicians insulting our intelligence, and then the media playing along with that. So let's take a look. Despite President Trump's claims that Republicans are united in the impeachment fight, and they largely are, there are a handful of senators who may be making the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nervous. One Republican Senator, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, is expressing frustration. One of them is Alaska's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski's remarks are significant.

Brianna, it is remarkable, and here's why. A high-profile Republican is not in line with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. House Republicans have been on the same page. But in an interview Tuesday, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski signaled a possible crack. Today, she is now voicing concern about McConnell's vow. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledging total coordination with the White House. And that's not sitting well with at least one member of his own party. It's pretty remarkable that she said anything really dinging him for this.

Senator Murkowski's remarks are the first signs so far of any dissent. This is an important thing because it shows a little bit of a break here. Why is Senator Murkowski's vote so important? She's disturbed by some of McConnell's comments. There really hasn't been, it has seemed as though the Republican Party is completely unified. And this kind of steps away from that. She says she'll have an open mind. Lisa Murkowski is a moderate Republican who doesn't

always walk in lock step with her party. She's seen as one of three swing Republicans, and she embraces her image of independence. She has not always voted with the party. She voted present instead of yes on Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation. She's a moderate who very memorably did not vote with the Republicans on Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation, you will recall. Okay, so let's just recap that. Remarkable, significant, voicing concern, not sitting well, important thing. Yeah. I just, let's just wait. Let's just wait for a second. So now let me tell you what percentage of the time in Murkowski votes with Trump.

Now look, most of the Republicans are over 90%. And but so I'm giving you that to be fair and to give you context. But Murkowski votes with Trump 74% of the time. So a moderate seems to indicate 50-50, right? No, not moderate. Yes, most of the Republicans are worse, but three quarters of the time, she's like rubber stamps Trump, awesome, wonderful, et cetera. Now again, one more piece of context to be fair. Some Democrats, like Quayar in Texas, vote with Trump 70% of the time.

So Murkowski and Quayar head to head. That's a great reason to vote for Jessica Cisteros, Quayar's primary opponent who's a just Democrat. on justdemocrats.com. But so, and then they'll call Quayar a moderate. He's not moderate, he's a massively conservative Democrat. Right. So anyway, you get the point.

The point is that Murkowski almost always votes with, you know, I just told you the percentage with Trump. And so it would be very surprising if she voted to convict him in the Senate. And she, and the last part of the theater guys is that sometimes they do do that, and sometimes she does vote against Trump, but only when they know they're already going to win, and not necessarily when they're the deciding vote. Murkowski from time to time has cast deciding votes, okay? But that is extremely rare.

A lot of times McConnell will release senators, Republican senators, who are in vulnerable seats to vote against them, but only if he knows he's already going to win. Exactly, and look, that's the big difference, I think, between. Republicans and Democrats in swing districts or swing states, people who are facing a tough re-election. Look, Democrats always make decisions from a place of deep fear, right? Let's just give Republicans what they want. Let's give the Republicans, because I don't want the Republicans to run against me and use this against me in my reelection campaign. Whereas Republicans, they'll do the theater, they know how to play the media, they do it perfectly, and then

when push comes to shove, they give their party what the party wants. Right? We don't have fighters in the Democratic side. In fact, quite the opposite, just last thing here on Democratic side, we go to Dick Durbin. He is the number two Democrat in the Senate, and oftentimes the press paints him as someone who's liberal or progressive, et cetera. So Dick Durbin, on the other hand, is also criticizing the Democratic presidential contenders for saying that they're likely to vote to convict Donald Trump.

Why are you attacking your own senators? Like, that doesn't make any sense. And he's, and it's one thing to say, I haven't seen enough evidence to convict him yet. It's another thing to say, like, it's outrageous to think that you've seen enough evidence to convict him. Fifty-five percent of the country thinks that they've seen enough evidence to impeach and convict Donald Trump and throw him out of office. And we all have eyes and we all have ears, we saw the evidence.

It's not like the House didn't already have their hearings. It's not like we didn't already see 17 witnesses. So it's not like it's a trial that has no information. A juror walks in out of the blue and it's like, oh, well, I gotta keep an open mind. I have no idea if he did it or not, I didn't see the witnesses yet. In this case, we've all already seen the witnesses. He definitely did it. So when Durbin goes and turns around and hits Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for saying

they're likely to convict, he's helping the Republicans. See, this is why we have asymmetrical situation here in politics in America, where the Republicans are over the top strong and Democrats are over the top or under the bottom week. I don't know what phrase you want to use, but oftentimes pathetically we, again, Durbin saying we will not, this is another separate quote, we will not whip this vote, meaning we will not put pressure on Democrats to convict Trump. Why not? He's the guy who's supposed to whip the vote, who's supposed to actually put

pressure on though Democrats to vote their way. And Durbin's like, I'm not going to do that. I mean, we're just, we're going to let them vote their conscience. In other words, we're already telling Mansion and Doug Jones and Kirsten Sinema and anyone else, yeah, sure, vote against us. Who cares? It'll actually, and the Republicans are already bragging about it. Republicans are like, oh, yeah, we're going to get Democrats to vote for this,

and it's going to be a bipartisan acquittal. And Durbin's like, yeah, you should do that. Go ahead. I'm encouraging you. He's the number two senator on the Democratic side. And this is why Democrats lose, and they suck at this game. And it's because they pretty much throw the game ahead of time. Well, let's move on to public opinion when it comes to impeachment and removal because there is a poll that's really standing out.

And it has to do with the majority of Americans supporting the removal of Donald Trump. So over the holiday break, a new poll indicated that a majority of Americans not only support the impeachment of Donald Trump, they also support the removal of Trump during the Senate trial. So to give you the details on this poll, which was done by MSN, 55% of those asked said they were in favor of the U.S. President's conviction by the Senate, a figure which has shot up from 48% the week before. Meanwhile, the number of people against Trump's removal has dropped to an all-time low, according to the MSN poll. On Christmas Day, 40% were opposed to the Senate voting to convict the president. I want to be clear that this is one poll. There have been other polls that are concerning for me, including some that indicate that Trump has experienced a rise in his approval rating.

I don't know if that's because of what's happening with the impeachment investigation, but you would expect that if the majority of Americans are in favor of removing him, then his approval rating wouldn't increase. But let me give you more. The gap between the two views has become much wider since last week when there was little to no divide then. So it was 48% in favor of Trump's removal, 47% against. So as you can see, the number has moved up considerably when it comes to wanting to remove Donald Trump.

I think I have an explanation. But before we get to that, 55 to 40 is unreal. The press has this weird relationship with Donald Trump. Do they criticize him, yes. Do they call out some of his fabrications? Yes, they do, okay? But having said that, they have this weird awe and respect of him. They're like, oh, Donald Trump, he's some sort of tightened that no matter what happens,

he's still popular. But he's not. If any other president had a poll where 55% of the country wants to impeach him and remove him from office, the press would savage them as not just unpopular, but weak. Imagine if Jimmy Carter had a poll like that. I mean, they absolutely destroyed Jimmy Carter with no such poll, right? In fact, Jimmy Carter was, for most of his presidency, popular. And so, but the pressers were like, oh, Donald Trump, he could beat anybody.

He go, oh, my God, how could Elizabeth the war possibly be Donald Trump? Oh, my God, there was a thing about Native America. Oh, Donald Trump. The guy, 55% of the country says, kick his ass out. We hate the guy. We hate him. Kick his ass out. remove him from office today, not in the election, impeach it and convict.

And yet the press is like, oh, Donald Trump, he's a loser. He's a loser, for God's sake, be clear about it. Call him weak, that's what he is, but they never do that. They only do that for Democrats. They never do it for Republicans. All right, now, why the big movement? Here, look, I love this talking point being put out. And if I was biased and I wasn't doing my job, honestly, I don't.

I tell you this is it and I'd be ecstatic about it. David Rothschild who is referencing the polling said, this polling is a clear sign that Republican policy of complete obstruction is not selling well to the voting public. I wish that were true. If that's true, that's great because then the republics might stop obstructing, they might put some witnesses up, et cetera. Honestly, I don't think that's it. Because they've been obstructing from day one and the poll was 48, 47 last week.

So what changed last week? Well, two things changed. I think one is more important than the other. One was how we went after John Dingell and said he might be in hell, okay? Now a lot of the media gave him very negative attention to that, okay, including conservatives. But the second one I think is even larger, it was the Christianity Today post saying, if you're a real evangelical, this guy's clearly immoral. And I said at the time, that's a giant difference maker because it burst their bubble.

It goes into the bubble of the people who think Trump is right about everything. And within the bubble, it says, no, guys, you're not the one who took the crazy pill. If you think he looks and acts totally immoral, you're right. And so it was like a big moment for a lot of people in that circle to go, yeah, right? No, we're not supposed to be for the guy who cheats on his wife with porn stars while they're pregnant. We're not supposed to be for this guy who's a liar and a cheat, right? Which we all know he's a liar and a cheat and a fraud, right? Well, it does break the cycle of group think, because remember, your political ideology,

and especially if you're deep into politics, it turns into a community issue, right? Your political views and the community that you're part of that holds the same political views, you want to be part of that family, you want to be part of that community, and speaking out against it, that takes a lot of courage, because you could be rejected by your community. So to have someone part of your community speak out against Trump kind of warrants you to be a little more independent thinking when it comes to Trump. Yeah, so those two events had a bigger impact, one because it went to his base, and that's why the numbers moved, because you couldn't move the numbers past his base, but now you're

moving into his base because they didn't like that talk about how a U.S. congressman might be in hell after he passed away earlier this year, and his wife is grieving, and he attacked his wife that way. That's a little bit of a religious thing, and then Christianity today coming in, well, that made a two-for right away. And in both of those cases, Republicans, not all Republicans, but some Republicans came out and said, yeah, it's true, right, especially in the Dingle case. So that's why the numbers move.

So I think when they look back at Trump's presidency, I think the two most underrated events that hurt his popularity was withdrawing from northern Syria and abandoning the Kurds. That's number one. And I think the Christianity Today Post is much bigger than people realize, because of, you got coverage everywhere, including inside his own bubble. And so that's why the numbers have moved. And guys, 55 to 40, that's a 15 point difference on not just a slight issue, not how is he doing on healthcare or trade or, and these are big issues overall.

Not on, I mean, this is on impeach and remove from office, and it's a 15 point golf. He's in massive, massive trouble. The media needs to start acting like it. The Democratic Party starts to act like it. And look, if the Republican Party doesn't want to acknowledge it, great, you vote with him and risk your careers. But the Democrats have to pounce on that and make them pay the price. That's where oftentimes things fall short.

When we come back from the break, we have some internal Fox News emails. And it has to do with gaining access to Trump administration officials. don't want to miss that story and more. 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 conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it.

The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. When we return.

All right, back on a young Turks, let me read some member comments first. 100 decibels of booing, right, said. Guess I heard wrong when I thought you weren't having a show today. It's like it's still Christmas. Well, that's very sweet of you. Thank you for saying that. I will take 100 decibels of cheering, I suppose. And by the way, if you guys are members, you also got shows.

the last two days. So make sure you check that out. TYT.com slash join. We shot shows ahead of time for you guys. Okay. And then Sohalia writes in. Democrats cave into Republicans because they hold fundraising in the billionaires wine cave.

That is largely the reason why. That is right. Now I'm going to go to a YouTube super chat. What the? writes in. First super chat and first time watching in my new TYT hoodie. I got for my wife, hashtag Bernie 2020. All right, thank you.

Pocket in a pocket. Thank you for going to shop, t-y-t.com. You guys can still do that, pocket in a pocket. And thank you for using YouTube super chat. Last one, Craig Reeves says, remember, white evangelicals supported Trump. It's a good point. I often say just evangelicals, but in fact it's white evangelicals in specific that were overwhelmingly in favor of Donald Trump. That's just a fact.

Okay, now, last thing that I want to tell you guys about before we head back into the stories is the affiliate program that we're doing. Speaking of Christmas, we hope that it's a gift for you guys as well. So this is where you guys sell young tourist membership. It helps maintain this show in this entire network, and you also get a commission. So, and it's not commission in like hugs and adoration, it's actually money. Okay, so go to t-y-t.com slash win-win. And we want to do a drive soon where we get as many affiliates as we possibly can to at least try the program. It's a free account.

You can begin sharing with everyone. As soon as you get your link, it's super simple. And so far, we have 228 affiliates. Okay. So become a TYT affiliate today, sell membership and get commissioned. TYT.com slash win-win. Thank you guys. All right, Anna, what's next?

All right. Oftentimes when critiquing the media, the topic of access to politicians comes up. And recently, the Hollywood reporter gained access to some internal emails with Fox News, and it determined that, yeah, they're very much concerned about access to Trump administration officials, including Steve Mnuchin. Now, interestingly enough, they backstab one another between shows within the network in order to gain access to these politicians. And I want to give you a few examples. So in April of 2017, a producer for Lou Dobbs' Fox Business Network program played,

up the show's ratings advantage over Maria Barteromo's morning show when trying to land an interview with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. So here's what the email read, and this is written by the producer. Secretary Mnuchin next week, you think? The producer said in an email to Mnuchin's spokesperson, he's doing Maria Bartoromo, you know, much lower ratings than us. And I say that in an endearing way. No, you don't.

Nope, not at all endearing. trying to s-talk her, if you will. So he comes on your show instead. Let's just be honest. It's incredible. I mean, okay, so let me give you more. In June of 2017, the producer wrote back, my dearest Tony. I already love this story. No, okay, let's stop for a second. My first role here at TYT, this is, you know, this is after my temporary position filling in for J.R. was up and I really wanted to say here, and you're like, you want to be the guest booker in addition to doing like marketing or whatever. And I never wrote an email like that in my life.

My dearest Tony, my dear is so-and-so. Like, it's so, it's condescending. I almost thought they were going to write, my beloved. Okay, let me give you more. I'm sorry, that's reserved for Kim Jong-un. We fell in love. All right, my dearest Tony, I see Manuchin is doing Varney tomorrow. I am hurt.

I am hurt, I am hurt, my dearest. How have you betrayed me? I thought we were betrothed and there you are on another Fox program. I am hurt, I really, really need him for Lou. She then added, thank God, I just asked someone from Stuart Varney's show and they said he won't be doing their show, that's great news. This is some shady stuff, man. Yeah.

Can you imagine if I wrote an email like that to like the spokesperson or the assistant for whoever? Like let's say Obama, I'm just throwing a name out there. Like I want Obama on no filter, but then I hear that Obama agreed to do the damage report. Right? I love that idea. And I'm like, oh, my dearest so and so, I am disturbed that you would allow Obama on the damage report. This damages their reputation, disgusting.

All right, by the way, damage report's a great show. You should watch it. Okay, no, I was gonna do something similar, like Nina Turner, you like, is already booked on damage report. You undercut John with, do you know my view count is higher than damage report, please. It's so shady. So my betroth, please come on my show instead. Okay, there's an important commentary here when it comes to access to politicians.

We've talked about it before, we'll talk about it again. But I will say that this shows me how different TYT is from almost any other so-called newsroom, Right? Because we genuinely like each other. Like John's my legitimate friend, I did a toast for his wedding. You know, I can't ever imagine like sniping him like that behind the scenes. When I was at MSNBC, people were super competitive. Like I had a producer warn me when I was getting great ratings as a villain host.

Be careful, people are going to be out for your head. Oh my God. I'm like, why I'm doing great. He said, what kind of a sucker are you? What do you mean why I'm doing great? Because you're doing great. And he told me that other hosts don't want fill-ins who do better than them, which almost never happens.

But if you do better than them in the ratings when they're out, they're like, no, I'm done with that guy. No way. That's embarrassing. Look, I get that. I get like the human instinct because if you have a fill-in that's better than you, right? And somehow like the ratings skyrocket when you're on vacation and a fill-in comes in, well, So then your job is really gonna be jeopardized there, right?

But within a company where you're talking about two full time hosts, two full time shows, you want that network to succeed. It's not gonna succeed with one well performing show. They don't care about it. All they care about is themselves. But I mean, like the idea that you would have someone fill in for you and then take over a show, like, wait a minute. See, folks with, I know I seem to have an name.

ego, for good reasons sometimes you'll think. But if you don't, then you're happy when other people succeed. I know it seems crazy to TV people, right? But it is possible that especially if you agree and you want to actually empower people, it's wonderful when they succeed and they're part of your same network. Let me give you some more of these emails. By the way, this is all like fighting for Steve Mnuchin, which I can't imagine. I wouldn't fight for Steve Mnuchin if my life depends.

I wouldn't even fight for my own life to get Steve Mnuchin on the show. I'd be like, all right, but just take me, I'm done. Okay, it's over. All right, let me give you more. A few months later, a different Fox Business Network producer requested that Manutian appear on Bartaromo show. During a discussion of when to schedule the interview, the producer said, as long as he is not on CNBC or another Fox Business Network program, please.

Okay. By the way, just look, legit reason why they care so much is not just the exclusive because people think, oh my God, Mnuchin's on, I got to turn on to Fox Business, a sentence that has never been spoken in English language. Never. It's because then the clips that come out of that interview get covered by the rest of the press. But if you're the second one to do the interview, you get a lot less coverage. The first person to do the interview gets all the coverage for the rest of the media, which

might then help your ratings later. So that's the phenomenon, just giving you the context. And then Brett Bear got involved in one of these instances. So in the fall of 2017, a planned interview with Mnuchin on Brett Bear's weekday Fox News show was scrapped after his production team learned that Mnuchin would also appear two days earlier, not even on the same day, two days earlier on Chris Wallace's Sunday morning show. We would really like to have some sort of exclusivity with our interview, Bear's Booker wrote, and then eventually Bear himself sent an email.

And this is what he said. Okay, we assumed you knew that a major Sunday show interview or two, two days before a sit down with me would take a little of the steam off the booking. We would love to have the secretary on, but maybe later in September now. So like, that kind of goes to what you were saying, Jank. You want to make sure that someone doesn't steal all your thunder before you have your sit down interview with the Trump administration official or any politician for that matter. But I think the important lesson to take away from this is think about what this signals to a person in a position of power, right? When you have so-called journalists fighting for you.

If they're fighting for you, then you're able, you have leverage and you're able to reject people if they critique you even a little bit, or if they say something hard-hitting about the Trump administration, something honest or truthful about the Trump administration. administration, you're far less likely to grant that particular show an interview if you know that they've been critical because you get to take your pick, right? It's like a buffet of friendly media outlets and shows that you can choose from. So why go with someone who's going to be critical? In fact, that might partly explain why Lou Dobbs is so over the top.

The other day he said that Trump might be receiving accolades for centuries from here, right? And it was so over the top, it's literally sounded North Korean. And they're this close to saying he has no anus. And so there isn't anything that Lou Dobbs couldn't take and make it into like reverence for the dear leader Donald Trump. It's so overwhelmingly over the top. Part of it is he wants to get an audience. Partly he's lost his mind. But the third reason is access.

Because if he can kiss Trump's ass harder and longer. then Barteromo, then he's going to get access to more guests from the Trump administration than Bartero's. So that's how this game is played. Now, to be fair to them, they actually do have access. Whereas, and with the stuff that's set on their shows, does get covered widely. And that's an advantage that TV has, which drives them to this level of competitiveness. Here, a guest could say anything, unless it's, like, damaging to progressives, it'll never be covered, right?

I'm just keeping it real. matter if they say it on no filter or damage report or secular talk or young Turks, etc. I remember Mel Brooks was stopped in this is a million years ago and broke huge news on our show. Young Frankenstein was going to go to Broadway. At that time, he was super hot on Broadway and he's Mel Brooks. He's a legend. And it was like a big deal. We told all the press, oh my God, Mel Brooks said on the air and here's the tape of him saying he's going to bring Young in Frankenstein. No one ran the story. Two weeks later, he told the New York Times or something. And the coverage exploded.

And every outlet covered it like, oh my God, Mel Brooks is bringing Young Frankenstein to Broadway. But dude, we sent you a video of him saying where you could see it was him saying it. And you're like, oh, it doesn't count. It's just the mainstream media is so weird. Yeah, I mean, it seems like they didn't really have any taste for you from the very beginning. No, no, they view people with power already and money. as legitimate, anyone who is not already incredibly wealthy or incredibly powerful, the mainstream media views as illegitimate.

And it affects all of their coverage. So yeah. It's interesting because it really depends on, if you're in the media, it really depends on what your objective is. Because if your objective in the media is to get these big names on your show so you can make news. So other news outlets, you know, applaud you or run some sort of coverage of your interview, Then yeah, you're going to go out of your way to not really do your job, just do things

to attract those people onto your program because it's really ego driven. Like you want that attention. But really the whole point of getting people on your program is to have interesting conversations that your audience can benefit from. Your audience is supposed to have something to take away from that conversation. But a lot of these big wig, hot shot people in cable news and the mainstream media don't care about that at all. It's all about their own egos and getting media attention. Who cares about that?

The idea that they would care about their audience is hilarious. Part and parcel of those promises to gain that access is, don't worry, you won't get any tough questions here. And so our audience will not get to find out the whole truth about you. We'll cover it up and make you seem better than you actually are. And that's obviously the number one problem with this craven desire to get access to officials. It's just being friendly with folks and getting them on your show is not a big deal unless you're tilting your coverage.

And you could see clear as day from Fox News and Fox Business, but it is as tilted as it could possibly be. And now you see from the internal emails that they pretty much promised that. One last thing, the Mel Brooks story and how we got them on the Young Turks like 12, 14 years ago is a super fun story. And there's a young Turks host who's a really good. friends with Mel Brooks, although those two stories are different. I want to tell that in the post game, okay? So t-y-t.com slash join to become a member and get all of our fun post games

where we also dish about other inside baseball about the media and how it works too. So check it out. It's great for members and members make this show happen. Thank you guys. All right, we got to take a quick break. But when we come back, there is some evidence that the FBI is looking into some of the pardons that former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin has granted. the details on that. 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. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your

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All right, back on a young Turks. Eclectic Michelinia writes. supposed to speak truth to power. Sounds like Fox News hosts speak lies and cower. I like that rhyme. Yeah. Poetic. That's right. Okay, speaking of journalists, I'm gonna come back to your comments in a second, which are more about journalism. Have we got good news for you? We're hiring a journalist to cover climate change and money and politics's effect on it in specific. So we're almost there. We just need to get to $200,000. If we can do that by the end of the year, that would be amazing.

T.y.com slash climate. I love this because every time there's a vote, we're going to see who donated to which politicians, how are they voting, and we're going to hold them accountable, and we're going to get it to the rest of the press, and we're going to get it all over social media, because it isn't that not enough people agree with us. Three quarters of the country believes climate change is real, and we have to do something about it. The problem is the politicians that take money from fossil fuel companies, and that's what we're

going to expose with your help. So t-y-t.com slash climate for that. All right, more on that. So Jolla says, I would love for TYT to be first in covering Mnuchin going to jail for his crimes, putting families in the streets. Unfortunately, the Democrats didn't do that, and Republicans haven't done that, but I would love to cover that. That would be amazing. Emanimal writes in, journalists have lost their way. They used to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Now they seem to do just the opposite. It really is overwhelmingly true and really disgusting.

And don't get me wrong, journalism as a profession should be something that's wonderful. And there are amazing journalists all over the world that risked their lives reporting things that Putin has done, Duterte is done. And a lot of them lose their lives. lives and in war zones, etc. I know, I know that there are some people who disagree with Glenn Greenwald on like the Russia investigation, all that stuff. But Glenn Greenwald consistently does excellent journalism and he has risked his own life to cover Zaire Bolsonaro.

Yeah, fairly. So there's wonderful journalists in the world, including a person who broke a story we're gonna get to in a little bit. But unfortunately, in the establishment media, in order to get hired and promoted and not fired, you have to tow the line. And the line is, politicians are awesome, the elite and the powerful are awesome. Anyone who challenges them is a radical and is illegitimate. Anyway, last one is from Twitter.

Stephen Payne says, we know Trump has an anus, it's in the middle of his face. 100%. A lot of poop comes out of there. I'm gonna leave it at that. I used an okay word, okay? Okay, all right. Not banned. All right, you ready for more?

Sure. Okay. The FBI is looking into the pardons that Matt Bevin, the former Kentucky governor, has granted. And he granted these pardons right before his governorship was up. As we all know, he lost his reelection bid. And what we know is that a state representative has disclosed that the FBI has reached out to him. And here's what he has to say. State representative Chris Harris told reporters that a criminal investment,

contacted him last week and asked what he knew about Bevan's pardons. Now, I want to be clear about something for those who maybe haven't followed this story from the beginning. Matt Bevin didn't pardon nonviolent offenders, maybe people who were caught with possession of marijuana. Now, in that case, those pardons would be completely fine. That's something that we're very supportive of because nonviolent individuals who had possession of drugs do not belong behind bars.

What he did do was pardon convicted felons who were convicted of violent crimes, things like homicide and rape. Let me give you more. Harris did not elaborate on what questions were asked by this investigator, and he declined to say which law enforcement agency contacted him, but here's what he did say. I can confirm that I've been contacted by someone looking into the pardons that were issued by Governor Bevin on his way out the door. The impression I got is there was an investigation.

ramping up. It may be a formal investigation or it may not be a formal investigation, Harris told the Courier Journal. It may be just calling to see if there's anything there to warrant a full investigation. I can tell you, at least, there are questions being asked. Now, two sources with knowledge of the inquiry told the Courier Journal on Monday that an FBI agent had spoken with Harris. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment saying the agency could neither confirmed nor deny the existence of said investigation when reached late Monday night. So just to go back and give you specific examples of the type of people, Bevin pardoned. The Courier Journal reported that Patrick Baker's brother held a campaign.

Patrick Baker was one of the people that was pardoned. He was convicted of homicide. His brother actually held a campaign fundraiser at his home for Bevin in July of 2018 that raised $21,500. The former governor also received a letter from business executive Terry Forch, one of the state's Republican mega donors, urging Bevan to pardon Baker. Okay, guys, so we talked about this on Friday, but that's a really important development about Forched. So that information was not available to us at that time. And so now the Courier Journal in Kentucky is reporting that there's actually over 650 people that he has pardoned or commuted the sentence of. And one of my theories on Friday was that part of the reason he pardoned so many people is to hide the donors that he pardon in the middle.

And so some of the pardons are so heinous, as we're going to get to in a second, that it kind of distracts you from the Baker pardon. And Baker is a guy who committed murder and tampered with evidence, impersonated a police officer, and did a robbery. And this is not a pardon of a guy from, oh, but he did it back in 87 or something. No, he did it in 2017, two years ago. And so his family is very well connected, gives what I call legalized bribes to Bevan. Now, the media oftentimes says, no, those are not bribes. In fact, every time they say, no, those are legitimate campaign contributions. Well, when these guys give him $21,500, and then they say, hey, wouldn't it be great if our brother was out of prison?

And then all of a sudden his brother comes out of prison, what the hell do you call? call that. That is a bribe. And by the way, it's a bribe when these guys do it. It's also a bribe when Exxon Mobil does it, when Pfizer does it, when any company does it, it's obviously a bribe. But Forced is a super important development because he is given at least $2.8 million to state and national political causes over the last 40 years, including more than $100,000 to Bevin's campaign and inauguration fund. So it's not just $21,000. It's Forcht, who is a mega donor. When a mega donor calls you and he's bribed the party to the tune of $2.8 million, you're gonna do what he says.

It doesn't matter how heinous, doesn't matter how awful, you will do as you're told. These politicians are not leaders, they're followers, they're water boys, they're errand boys, for the rich and for multinational corporations. So when Forch says jump, Bevin says, how high? And how many killers do you need me to pardon? I'm here to serve you and that's that's exactly what happened here. Yeah, that's exactly right. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, some of the convictions were for rapists, child rapists.

And recently, Bevin was asked to explain his reasons for partying people like that and he's gonna explain why in the clip that we're about to show you. But look, before we go to it, I have to say it was disturbing for me to listen to. So I want to give you a fair warning before we go to it. And the guy is Miko Shodl, and he raped a nine-year-old girl. Okay, and now you'll see Bevin calls a speculative or whatever. You'll see the exact words he used in a second. Remember, he was convicted.

It's not at all speculative. He was convicted. Now let's listen to Bevan talk about it. A child rapist, though. That is the lowest form of human life. Absolute scum of the earth. You know, for people who have raped children, anybody who volitionally assault and the person and any kind of a sexual assault in particular and especially on a child to me is

reprehensible. To assume, however, that everybody who has ever been accused of this and even convicted of this has in fact done this is a big assumption to make. It really is. This was the second one. This is a guy named Micah Skodley or Skod, I don't even know how to pronounce his last name. Let me tell you about this fellow. He was accused of. of sexually assaulting repeatedly for over the course of almost two years, well over a year, every single Wednesday, I believe it was, repeatedly sexually assaulting her and her sister. This girl claimed. She said that every week he came in and sexually assaulted me and my sister.

Well, the sister who was in the same room every time, denied all of it. These girls both were examined medically. They were examined physically. There was zero evidence, zero. Both their hymins were intact. This is perhaps more specific than people would want. But trust me, if you have been repeatedly sexually violated as a small child by an adult, there are going to be repercussions of that physically and medically.

There was zero evidence of that. Jesus Christ. Okay. Other than being monstrous, he's, of course, wrong, as we pointed out on Friday. Only 2.1% of subjects examined had visible lesions on the hymen in. in survey pediatric child abuse rape cases. So 98% of the time the hymen is intact. And this guy's like, what, what, her hymen was intact, it's fine.

And after the guy was already convicted, the first case he was talking about was a 15 year old that was raped so brutally that the child had internal injuries. And they took pictures of it and put it on social media. And he did the pardon anyway. So I don't know if he's some sort of sadist. It's disgusting. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, oh God, lowest of the low, scum of the earth, really, right? Where that money for your campaigns was way more important than actual human lives. And hundreds and hundreds of pardons, right? Because he believes that these were, well, this is the excuse he's giving, that they were wrongful convictions. If he genuinely thought that, wouldn't, wouldn't that, you know, light of fire under him? Wouldn't he want to do something about the justice system if it's that wrong that often? Yeah, well, so I don't know that he picked those cases because he's a particularly brutal

and sadist guy, or maybe it's and, but or to kind of distract people from the one he got bribed on. Oh my God, everybody's talking about the nine year old and the 15 year old and maybe not talking enough about the guy whose family did the fundraising for him. Now look, I love that the FBI might be investigating this, but if we're being honest, what are they investigating? In this country, it's legal to bribe politicians. It's called campaign contributions. There's not a goddamn thing you could do about it. The Supreme Court says that that murderous family was just talking to Bevin. And when Forch gave $2.8 million to Republicans

and $100,000 to Bevan, he was just using his freedom of speech to talk to Bevin. That's what the Supreme Court says. Mitch McConnell from the state of Kentucky, same state, is the biggest It's defender of that. He says, no, no, no, no. When multinational corporations and rich donors give us millions of dollars, they're just talking to us, and they have a right to talk to us. So it is legal in this country to bribe politicians that way. I know it seems shocking, but it's absolutely true.

So I don't know what in the world they would be investigating. So the problem isn't that it's illegal. The problem is that it's legal. So that's why I tell you guys about Wolfpack all the time, wolf dash pack.com. Because if you don't get the money out of politics, what the hell are we doing? I know other groups that care about money in politics and they mean well, but they say things like, well, we're gonna take action when there's a big scandal. The whole thing's a scandal.

And can you get a bigger scandal than this to let murderers and child rapists go because of campaign contributions? And what are we doing about it? What are we doing about it? What is the Republican Party doing? They're celebrating it. They're celebrating this bribery. No answers or buts, if you're a media person and you say that the Republicans don't celebrate

these legalized bribes, you're a liar. You're an absolute liar. Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party love this system where you could give campaign, unlimited campaign contributions to politicians through super PACs, fundraisers, wine caves, et cetera. Which leads me to the Democrats. Unfortunately, 80% of the Democratic Party also loves the system, also celebrates it. So spare me their fake outrage on this issue. For real Americans, by the way, 93% of us, including Republican voters, hate this system.

They know that it's corruption. But the ban marches on and pretends that Bevin is an outlier. It's some sort of unusual case. No, it's the same exact thing as everyone else, except instead of getting bribes to help the oil companies destroy the planet, as an example, or from insurance companies to destroy our healthcare system, where by the way, because of private insurance, 45,000 people a year die. 45,000 people a year. But those bribes are no, just campaign contributions, right?

In this case, it happens to be murderers and rapists. But it's a bribe any way you slice it. I need a break after that story. And you're right, you're 100% right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're gonna switch over to Democrats and Michael Bloomberg's campaign, where it was recently reported that he was using prison labor in order to help him campaign.

We'll be 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.