The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - December 3rd, 2019

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

Kamala Harris is calling it quits. 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

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All right, welcome the Young Turks. Jake Ugar, Anna Kasparian, with you guys. Yes, I just dropped a highlighter as we were starting the show. All right, so big, big news. We're going to get to Kamala Harris dropping out in a second. Obviously more news on impeachment. And then a lot more on the campaigns, Buttigieg, Sanders, Biden. They're all in the show.

It's a giant, giant show. As I promised on social media in a minute, we're about to explain to you, why Kamala Harris actually dropped out drums. All right, Casper, you want to dig it away? All right, well, let's start with that. So Kamala Harris has dropped out of the presidential race. She was not doing well in the polls. She was expected to drop out at some point, but it was shocking that she did so as soon as she did.

Now, we're going to go through her campaign, what she pretended to support in the beginning, what she actually ended up supporting in the end, and then we'll share our theories as to why she's decided to drop out. But I do want to read from her official statement on this, which she posted on Medium. 11 months ago at the launch of our campaign in Oakland, I told you all, I am not perfect. But I will always speak with decency and moral clarity and treat all people with dignity and respect. I will lead with integrity. I will speak the truth. And that's what I have tried to do every day of this campaign. So here's the truth today. I have taken stock and looked at this from every angle. And over the last few days, have come to one of the hardest decisions

of my life. My campaign for president simply does not have the financial resources we need to continue. She continues to write, I'm not a billionaire. I can't fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it's become harder and harder to raise money we need to compete. So that's her official statement. Before we rewind and take a look at how she conducted her campaign, do you want to jump in, Jake? Yeah, so I think that she's being honest and acknowledging that she's financially strapped, and that's one of the issues.

But that's only half the equation. The other half the equation also has to do with donors. And this is the part that's not spoken about. So when a real contender drops out relatively early, and that is what's happening here, Kamala Harris has always been a real contender. And she was top five when she dropped out. Now you might say, five doesn't sound that close to one, but remember, at different times there's been 27 candidates in this race, and with her exit there still remains 15.

So she was always in the top tier, and she was in the top tier now. She's dropping out a couple of months before the voting begins, so that is definitely surprising. So what happened? Well, as happened on the Republican's guide with Scott Walker back in 2016. another potential top tier contender that dropped out very early. Usually what happens is that the donors call you and go, it's not gonna be you. It's gonna be someone else that we support. So you need to get out now because you're taking away points from the other person we're supporting.

So I believe that is part of what happened here. And so do I have inside information about that from the Harris campaign? I wanna be very clear, no, I do not. This is my knowledge of politics and my experience and expertise gained over a quarter of a century, telling you guys that usually there are conversations like this also within the Democratic Party. Now remember, Bernie's his second place in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and nationally. So we have to coalesce the moderate, centrist, corporate Democrats behind one candidate. And Kamala, it turns out it's not gonna be you.

Now, a lot of people thought it was gonna be her in the beginning, including me. I thought she was going to be the establishment candidate. But as it turned out, she wasn't. And so now there's an attempt by the Democratic Party machine slash the donor class to take out the other moderates so they could focus their energy on likely Buttigieg. So do you think there's a possibility that one of the front runners, obviously not Bernie Sanders, But one of the other frontrunners maybe struck a deal with her as a potential VP pick. Yeah, look, anything is possible, but I'd be surprised by that, because there's too many frontrunners for her to actively and accurately guess as to who's going to win.

Or attorney general, which is apparently trending right now as we speak on social media. Yeah, but who would she have made the deal with, Biden or Buttigieg? Not going to be Klobuchar, not going to be Bloomberg, it's not going to be Warren or Sanders. So I just don't see it. Maybe I'm wrong about that. It's not that I would say, oh, that is unethical and they wouldn't make that kind of deal. No, no, no, no, let's not be naive. It's just that I don't know who would offer her that deal and who she would think would

be credible enough to accept it from. No, I think she really legitimately ran out of money. And when the numbers came out at the end of December for the next quarter, she was going to be very low on that list. And she wanted to drop out before that embarrassing moment and probably got to the number probably got a couple of calls from power brokers in the Democratic Party saying, look, it would be helpful if you were to exit so we could all get behind one person. So Politico reported that apparently there was a super PAC that had cleared a million

dollars in TV ads in Iowa to boost her struggling campaign. So they were about to start that campaign, I'm sorry, that ad campaign. And then right before they were about to do so, this was announced. and they decided to pull it. So it seemed like there was some money and some support by donor. No, she's always had, she had the most support by the Democratic establishment when this whole race began. A Buttigieg rose late, and even the Democratic donors were surprised at how long Biden has stayed at the top. So they always thought that Kamala Harris would be the person that would rise up and take on the progressive wing of the party.

But that did not materialize in the way that she had hoped for and that they had hoped for. So when I talk about the forces within the Democratic Party, yeah, the super PACs are definitely integral to that. So when somebody's thinking of putting in a million dollars or more, either for you or for another candidate, will they have a voice at the table? Yes, yes, they will. So to say that they won't is incredibly naive and purposely ignores the elephant in the room, the major force in today's American politics, which is the donor money, which rules

almost everything. So let's talk a little bit about why her campaign started out pretty strong and then ended up struggling, okay? Because her messaging, in my opinion, and I'm going to provide evidence that really bears this out, was unclear, was wishy-washy. She did start out attempting to appear as though her positions on policies were incredibly progressive. In fact, here's a mash-up that kind of gives you a sense of that. Hey, guys, you know what, America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we're going to put food on their table. This president walks around talking about and flouting his great economy, right?

My great economy, my great economy. You ask him, well, how are you measuring this greatness of this economy of yours? And he talks about the stock market. Well, that's fine if you own stocks. So many families in America do not. You ask them, how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? And they point to the job numbers and the unemployment numbers. Well, yeah, people in America are working.

They're working two and three jobs. So when we talk about jobs, let's be really clear. In our America, no one should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table. So, you know, she's really focusing on economic issues there, issues that progressives have really brought to, you know, front and center when it comes to this election. And then things started to change when it came to her support of Medicare for all. And we'll get to that in just a second. But do you want to jump in? Yeah.

So she had the right lane, which now Buttigieg occupies if you are an establishment candidate. What was that lane? To be brazenly pro-corporate conservative Democrat? No, that's the lane that, for example, John Delaney, Michael Bennett, Amy Klobuchar are in. And that's a lane that's headed nowhere. That's a cul-de-sac. So that is not the correct lane. The correct lane politically, if you're an establishment candidate, was pretend that you're

a progressive, but tell donors and reporters behind the scenes, I'm not really, don't worry. And she did that. Yeah, she absolutely did do that. But then she lost her nerve. And she panicked and then publicly said, no, no, no, I'm not a progressive. I'm turning against Medicare for all, I'm turning against all these proposals. She had him, she had Biden, she landed a couple of really strong punches against Biden in a political debate. I said that she won that debate.

Everybody says she won that debate. But I'm just telling you, as a progressive, I thought she wanted even though I don't totally agree with her policies. Yeah. So she had the right lane, but my best guess, again, is that donors pulled her aside and was like, no, Kamlo, we're not doing Medicare for all. I don't even like you talking about it. So go in the other direction. So now Buttigieg has taken that lane and it has given him success. Pretend to be a progressive, but in fact turn around and give the donors everything they want.

So I wanna help reinforce the point that you just made because you're absolutely right. She did have some strong moments in debates when it came to hitting back at Biden and Buttigieg. I'm sorry, Biden on busing, I mean. So let's go to that video again. This is during one of the Democratic debates, Kamala Harris is confronting. Joe Biden on busing. It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators

who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class. to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me. Yeah, I think that was her strongest performance in the debates. And honestly, after that, she did become even more wishy-washy on Medicare for all. She did waffle on a lot of these policy issues that progressives care about.

And look, the mistake that candidates are making, this isn't just about Kamala Harris. This is about a number of candidates who keep pretending as though they have a lot of candidates. progressive policy stances, they think progressives are stupid. They think progressives aren't paying attention. We're paying close attention to everything these candidates say, both on the campaign trail and on the debate stage. And so they can raise their hand and claim that they're in favor of doing away with private insurers.

They can pretend like they support Medicare for all. But the devil's in the details, and I think over and over again, we have seen candidates suffer when they waffle on Medicare for all. And they say one thing on the debate stage and say something completely different behind the scenes. With the notable exception of Pete Buttigieg, because the media refuses to criticize him under any in all circumstances. Right, but here's the thing, like Pete Buttigieg, I don't think he's ever really pretended

to support Medicare for all. No, he did, you know, in 2018, he boldly said he was for Medicare for All when it was polling well and he thought he was gonna pretend to be a progressive. The media will not criticize him under penalty of law. And I say that in relationship to Kamala Harris, because they did criticize her from time to time on her waffling, on her raising of her hands, but then putting it down after the debates. So when they noticed that she was doing those things, they would criticize her. When she attacked Biden, a lot of the press criticized her for being too hard on Biden.

Right. And that got her waffling, and then eventually she went back to being supportive of Biden. And so that, you know, got into her head a little bit. So I give that as a comparison to Buttigieg because Buttigieg never gets criticized for anything, anything at all. So he gets a free ride. And so I don't know that it's racial or it's, you know, gender related. I really, really don't know that.

But I think it's fair for people to ask why. Why is there even among two candidates that are incredibly similar? They're in the same exact camp. It's not a progressive versus establishment, so that doesn't explain it. Between Buttigieg and Kamala Harris, they're nearly identical. But the press was middling on Kamala Harris to tough and total free ride for Buttigieg back then and today on the same exact flip-flops. But I do wanna go back to Senator Harris's issues here.

She said, that girl was me talking about the busing in the clip that we showed you. First of all, Biden's unbelievable. I mean, you might have seen the very end there. When she says that girl was me, Biden goes, like, you didn't see that coming? It was unbelievable, right? So he's, watch this. I know you're talking about, that was a kind of cut. That was kind of quick.

But so, but she had shirts made out after the debate that they handed out said that girl was me. What are you doing? That's why Maya Rudolph started making fun of her on Saturday Night Live, because she's pre-planning the tweets, the social media reaction, the merchandising based on a line she rehearsed before the debate and they had pre-produced. No, then you look totally inauthentic. You had a great line.

Leave it be, leave it be. And then, in fact, don't leave it be. Keep on going. Why did you backpedal on Biden? You had him. And you weren't competing against Warner Sanders. You were competing against Biden to be the establishment candidate. You should have never let the press and the donors get into your head about don't criticize

Biden. He might eventually be our guy. Who cares? You're running against them. You were right about all those. You should have gone after him on the bankruptcy bill on giving away the taxes. Even Michael Bennett went after him for making Bush's tax cuts permanent. So there were so many things to go after there.

But her number one problem wasn't that she made those initial attacks. That's when she rose. There's no question about that. When she was saying she was progressive and she was attacking Biden, that's when she rose up to the top three. When she was wishy-washy, backpedaled, admitted she was, wasn't a progressive and stopped attacking Biden, she slid all the way back down. There is no question about that chronology.

So now the mainstream media might try to deceive you with false talking points about why she might have, you know, got in the wrong direction. But the timeline is crystal clear. I want to actually look at the timeline because we have a chart from real clear politics that compares all the different candidates and where they stood depending on the month. And if you can see Harris is orange. So the orange line represents Kamala Harris, and you see her spike in July, and then after that she starts to dip considerably, right?

And then in April was, you know, when she started experiencing her first dip, and Warren started experiencing a little bit of a surge. And remember, that was when Warren started to really push this notion that she's a strong progressive, she's gonna hold Wall Street accountable. At that time, she claimed that she was a strong supporter of Medicare first. And so I think that the media, the mainstream media, has an incentive to stay away from the true narrative, what's really going on, what voters really want, because they want to, you know, they want to keep their tax cuts.

Let's keep it real. Yeah, guys, put that chart back up, because I want to show you two things about that. So Kamala Harris goes up right after that debate performance that we showed you guys. So you see the orange spiking up, and then you see it go down. When you start to see it go down is when she changed her stance on Medicare for all. No hands ifs her butts. You see Warren in the brown to where she catches Biden, who's in green, and then she starts to head down.

That is when she changed her stance on Medicare for all and started talking about a public option as a transition, et cetera. I defy anyone to show me otherwise. So those are absolutely clear. You wanna know why? It's not that complicated. Democratic primary voters, New York Times just did a poll on this. 81% of them want Medicare for all.

Where's the hard part? So, but the mainstream media will tell you, oh, no, the voters don't want Medicare for all. It's unpopular. Hey, Kamala and Warren, make sure you're against Medicare for all. How's that working out for you? And to be fair to Elizabeth Warren, she's not against Medicare for all. But that two-tiered idea of going with the public auction first, disaster. And that's what's tanking her numbers.

So at the end of the day, when I look at all of that, I think, all right. You try to win out of the field, big donors, and get behind Biden or Buttigieg. I'll take my chances. If it turns out Sanders is the one true progressive that's left, I like those odds a lot. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll switch gears and talk a little bit about the impeachment. There's a big update today. And then later on, we are going to talk a little more about electoral politics.

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and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on the Young Turks. Let's go to members' comments first. Maga Strength Sudafed writes in, how long until the donors tell Biden to get out in favor Pete Buttigieg? Actually, considerably longer. So, but right now, Biden's down to fourth in Iowa. So let's see what winds up happening in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But Biden is going to hang his hat on South Carolina, where he still holds a giant lead. So it'll be very hard for anyone to push him out of the race. I stole McConnell's shell, writes in, progressives of the power, and we are watching. And Ray for Madness on Twitter says, what happened to Kamla, she met Tulsi Gabbard. It's pretty simple. So we should note that. I don't think that it was the major factor at all. I think that Kamla's changing stance on policy was a major factor.

But Tulsi Gabbard did put some damage on her, and rightfully so. So that was nice political sniper move during the debates, which is what Tulsi does the candidate after candidate in the debates, and I've enjoyed it. Really, which other candidate has she done it to? She went after Klobuchar in the last debate. Did it stick, though? I mean, and Klobuchar is like low-hanging fruit. It's not like she's doing well in the polls.

Yeah, I hear you, and she went after Buttigieg, too. Remember they had the Congress. No, she went, she did a great job. She's the only one that's ever criticized Buttigieg. She talked about his stance of trying to invade Mexico, which she partly did allude to. So, so I think that she's done a pretty good job in those debates in singling out the problems with those candidates. I wish the press would stay on it a little longer. And of course, what happened after Gabbard went after Kamala Harris was she went and had the press interview her because it was a dramatic moment.

in the debates, and all the press asked was, why did you go meet Assad? They totally forgot about her criticism of Kamala Harris, completely ignored it, and instead to attack Tulsa Yabbard. Yeah, it's true. Look, my point is, it worked with Kamala Harris, certainly didn't work with Buttigieg, even though she brought up an interesting point that I didn't even know about. Yeah. The fact that he wanted to go into Mexico with military to do something about cartels was

ridiculous, but it didn't work with him. No, but partly because, again, the press absolutely smitten with Buttigieg. So when she attacked Kamala Harris, they were like, oh, big fight in the debates. It's really interesting. Let's talk to Tulsi Gabbard. Okay, she attacks Buttigieg, put some damage on him. They're like, I don't know, wait, I didn't see it. Do anybody, do you guys see it?

I didn't see it. I don't get why the media is so obsessed with her meeting with Assad, right? Like, there's so much more to talk about. Like her endless support for Modi. I mean, she's open and transparent about it. They don't care about that stuff. They don't. They don't care about that stuff.

All they care about is she is not in favor of the military industrial complex. That is really problematic. In reality, that's actually her best asset. The other stuff is actually problematic, but they don't care. They're like, oh, Hindu nationalism, snooze fast. Okay, let's go back to supporting the military industrial complex. I know, and that leads to the murder and slaughter of Muslims. And the US government is pretty complicit in that, or actively engaged in that.

Has the mainstream media shown any kind of interest in slaughter of Muslims across the world? Whether it's Myanmar, the Uyghurs being locked up in concentration, Christian camps in China or what Modi did back when he ran that region of India. Gujarat. Yeah. And allowed for slaughter of the Muslims. No, they never care about that. Or Yemen, by the way.

Yes. All right, so a few announcements, actually a lot of announcements, let me knock this out. So ShopTYT is actually celebrating Giving Tuesday, which is awesome. And so 10% of all proceeds at our ShopTYTYT store will go to the committee to protect journalists. This is a wonderful organization and obviously it's incredibly important to support and protect journalists, especially with rising fascism throughout the world. So go to shop, TYT to learn more. And if you want to learn more about the committee to protect journalists, you can go to

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So if you have that platform, all you have to do is use your voice remote and just say the Young Turks are TYT, and then we'll pop up. And you can watch us on that platform as well. So I know what you're thinking. is Jank going to flex his triceps on X-Finity flex? They're not thinking that, I guarantee you. Okay, but no, that's not what happens. It's just a part of Comcast, and now we're on it.

So all you have to do is say, young Turks, computer, give me TYT, boom, you'll get TYT. Yeah, I also want to tell you guys a little bit about gifting, right? So a gift that Jank can give to me and probably to a lot of others is to not talk about his triceps anymore. But one other possible gift is the gift of TYT membership. So we bring this back, actually, this is the second time we're doing it. But it's an opportunity for you to give TYT membership to your friends or your loved ones.

Go to tyt.com slash gift to do so. It's a great option. And you really do help to spread the progressive message while simultaneously keeping this company afloat. And then finally, there will not be an episode of Old School tonight. We're gonna be filming some special content, which we can give you more details about later, but no old school tonight. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. We're gonna get you some great, great programming that we're shooting tonight.

I decided, you know what? You guys win. You become members. T.R.T.com slash join. I'll do it behind the scenes on my triceps. Oh my God. You win. You win.

Okay. I should show me working out at the Y, maxing out on the triceps. Are you sure you want to do that? No, I love like a nuts. I gotta do it, I gotta show you the triceps, I'm showing you the rest of my body. Anyway, you've got to stop working out. Yeah. All right, well we have any impeachment updates, let's talk about that.

Democrats are reportedly divided in Congress over whether or not to expand the impeachment investigation to include other things like possible financial crimes or aspects of the Mueller investigation. Now the Mueller investigation did find instances. of obstruction of justice, but again, there's some disagreement among congressional Democrats as to whether or not they want to bring that into the mix. So according to the Washington Post, members of the House Judiciary Committee and other more liberal-minded lawmakers and congressional aides have been privately discussing the possibility

of drafting articles that include obstruction of justice and other high crimes they believe are clearly outlined in Mueller's report or allegations that Trump has used his office to benefit his bottom line. Now, I gotta be honest with you, I think that the ship is sailed when it comes to Mueller's report and obstruction of justice. Really? I do, and I'll explain why in just a minute. But one thing that I think Democrats have done a terrible job in is drawing attention to possible

financial crimes. They haven't even really investigated any of his financial crimes. And I think they 100% should look into that and should see if there's enough evidence to draft articles of impeachment on financial crimes. Now, why do I think that financial crimes are different from the Mueller report? No, look, messaging matters and Democrats have lost the messaging war on the Mueller report, plain and simple, okay? So describing what happened with obstruction of justice, months and months after the Mueller

report came out, it's not going to do anything to convince the American people. What is easy to understand and what I think would help get the American electorate on the the Democrats side when it comes to this impeachment is financial crimes. We all understand what financial crimes are. I think once people, because people are sick of corruption, Jenk, right? Oh, yeah. No, but like- Of course. Yeah, so like this is all about corruption.

It's about using the office of the presidency in order to enrich yourself and your family members. I mean, people are sick of that and I think that they should be hyper-focused on that. Yeah, I hear you. And so all of us have a slightly different take on what they do. should focus on. I agree generally with Pramila Giant Paul, who's co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, she said, one crime of these sorts is enough, but when you have a pattern, it's even stronger. And that's exactly what this shows, a pattern of corruption and a pattern of obstruction.

So me personally, I think their monument's clause is the hardest to prove, because a lot of people will say, I mean, look, they could have gone in the hotels anyway, right? Now I can show you how little they went to the hotels before Trump got elected and how much they went afterwards. And so don't get me wrong, I think it is a good case. But among the different crimes that he's committed, the four that I would focus are, the two in Ukraine, which they are focusing on, and then I would do obstruction of justice because there's no reason that they had to lose the framing on the Mueller report.

They just chose to lose because they lay down. So if you actually come back up and you talk about it, I guarantee you that the American people have largely never heard of those 10 counts of obstruction. Do they know that he told his White House counsel to lie to Congress? Almost nobody knows that. It's very clearly laid out in the Mueller report. The Democrats just refuse to talk about it. So I would do obstruction of justice.

I think there's 10 clear instances of it. And some of it is damning both in legally but also in the court of public opinion. If you can bring Don McGahn in front of the Congress and have them say yes, the president told me to lie to you guys. That is enormously damaging. And I don't think any of this is hard to understand. The last count is the other clear crime, which is the campaign finance violations in the hush money payments.

His co-conspirator is in prison right now. What's hard to understand? He belongs right there with him. They conspired on that same exact crime. They both belong in prison and only one of them is. So I would do those four crimes. And now the interesting part of the conversation, or the second interesting part of the conversation is why they're not, okay?

So it turns out, here we go, moderate Democrats want to narrow focus because they're worried about what's going to happen in their districts. So they say, well, look, my district is leaning a little GOP, and so, you know, we should keep this really narrow, okay? Some of them are saying that. Their view is, well, people running for reelection in purple districts are concerned that if they focus too much on the impeachment and they expand the investigation, well, then it's only going to hurt them.

But the thing that hurts them the most is how devastatingly weak they are, right? They're weak, they lack the art of persuasion. I mean, that's the thing that frustrates me about Democrats the most. They don't understand messaging. They haven't in a long time and they keep drawing parallels between this impeachment process and what happened to Bill Clinton. Because as we know, Republicans in their impeachment investigation into Bill Clinton, you know, cast a very broad, wide net, right?

And it worked against them because it started off with a possibly shady real estate deal. And then it ended up being an investigation into his personal sex life. And so people didn't like that. People had a very negative reaction to it. But when it comes to Donald Trump, we're talking about completely different crimes. We're talking about him using the office of the president to enrich himself, obstructing justice, getting foreign governments to meddle in our elections. I mean, we have an abundance of evidence, not just in the form of testimony from Trump administration

officials, but we have text messages between Trump administration officials in regard to the quid pro quo. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, so look, what happened to Bill Clinton was a little bit of a witch hunt. They pretended to care about real estate and money, and then they're like, ah, screw it, let's go after a sex life. So that is not what's happening here. We have four super clear crimes against Donald Trump. All right, but now I want to go to the other half of the moderates who actually think

it should be broader and more charges should be brought up. And I was like, hey, look at that. Maybe they're finding a backbone. I get excited for like half a paragraph as I was reading that. And then it turns out, no. They want more charges so they could vote against some of them, so that they could go back to their districts and go, hey, see Trump voters who are never going to vote for me? I'm actually voted to acquit him on half the charges.

Oh my God. It's the resistance, guys. This is the resistance, right? This is the impressive resistance by Democrats. Oh, my God, they're vomitous. But, you know, I want to show you something real quick, Jank, because Ari Melburgh on MSNBC recently interviewed Representative Ilhan Omar on. on this and asked whether she thinks it should be narrow in scope.

And here's her answer. Right now, I think it is really important for us to have it be narrowed, because this is a very concise case, regardless of the shenanigans that the Republicans are engaged in at the moment, the public can clearly understand where the violations are. I've used examples where you've had mob bosses who have committed. committed atrocity after atrocity have violated our criminal codes of conduct. And we got them on one narrow case, but they get to serve time. And what's important right now is that for this particular president that we know has many cases where we can impeach him on, that we focus on the one that the public is paying attention to and impeach him on that.

Okay, I disagree. So look, I gently agree with Ilhan Omar, she's a wonderful progressive, but it's okay to disagree on tactics, it's again to disagree on anything. So I don't agree, and one of the things that Pelosi is saying is she wants to keep it narrow because she doesn't want to lose on any of the counts. Look, you're very unlikely to lose on any of the counts, even if you lose some conservative Democrats on a couple of the counts, number one, in your, is it. In their crazy way of thinking, well, good, that gives them something to say to the Republicans

in their district who are never going to vote for them anyway. But any, look, if that's their strategy, that allows them to do that. But you're not going to lose the votes, you have too many Democrats to lose the votes. So you shouldn't be worried about that. So but Pelosi says that she's going to do member management, okay? So what does that mean? She's going to go talk to some of the members and tell them, hey, it's my strategy, everybody power down.

So is she going to tell the moderates that? No. Of course, as they explained in the Washington Post, that she will be setting expectations for the more liberal lawmakers and telling them, no, you'll do as you're told, I'm in charge, and it looks like Pelosi's leaning towards keeping it narrow. I disagree with that, and I disagree with Representative Omar on that issue. It's a perfectly fine disagreement to have. I think that they should hit him with everything they got,

Because otherwise, he gets to say, well, you see that, they didn't need, we had a whole impeachment and they didn't even bring it up. So I must be innocent. And that's not remotely true. And if you don't bring it up in these impeachment hearings and he somehow survives, it's gone forever. Exactly. Yeah, I agree. And Pelosi over and over again shows that she leads from a place of fear. When you make decisions based on the fear of losing the vote or losing on whatever issue, well, then you're going to lose.

You lose automatically if you don't even try, and that's exactly what she's doing here. 100%. All right, well, let's move on to some NATO news. The NATO summit is currently happening in London, and of course Trump has attended, and things have gotten a little tense with the leader of France, Emmanuel Macron. Now, at one point, Macron was interviewed, and he talked about how Trump's actions in various parts of the world, particularly in northern Syria, where he abruptly decided. to pull US troops out of the region, which left our Kurdish allies vulnerable, is an example

of how he doesn't take NATO seriously. It's an example of how he doesn't take international relations seriously. And he said the following, what we're currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO. I don't know whether Article 5 remains in effect, but what will Article 5 mean tomorrow? Now, Article 5 is the collective defense agreement of NATO countries, right, of the NATO alliance. And so his issue is that Trump is making decisions unilaterally. He also says, I'd argue that we should reassess the reality of what NATO is in the light of the commitment of the United States.

And Trump has consistently attacked NATO and our NATO allies for allegedly not contributing enough money to NATO. Now with that said, Trump was asked about Emmanuel Macron's comments, and here's what he had to say. heard that President Macron said NATO is brain dead. I think that's very insulting to a lot of different forces, including Amanda, does a very good job in running NATO. It's a tough statement, though, when you make a statement like that, that is a very, very nasty statement to essentially 28, including them, 28 countries. I think that, you know, you have a very high

unemployment grade in France. France is not doing well economically at all. It's a very tough statement to make when you have such difficulty in France. So they've had a very rough year and you just can't go around making statements like that about NATO. It's very disrespectful. So I don't know why he went off on a random tangent in the middle of that and talked about France's economy. By the way, I have news for you, the economy in the United States is not doing so well.

Nearly half of Americans are working in low wage jobs, making an average of $18,000 a year. So while he touts his jobs numbers, we're not in a good situation here in the United States either. Nonetheless, what? I mean, all he does is trash NATO. That's all he does. That's why it's so hard to react to him. I mean, so you spent three years trashing NATO far worse than Macron and understand what

Macron's actually saying. And the reason why he went on that tangent against France's economy is because Macron is not actually He's criticizing the United States for not sufficiently backing NATO. He's saying we're on the precipice of brain death for NATO because the US will not honor its commitments. That's why Trump is mad. And then he pretends up to stand up for the integrity of NATO, which he's- It's very nasty.

He's pulverized over the last three years. He's done nothing but attack NATO. And so, I mean, so what are you supposed to say? Like, Trump is not a defender of NATO? Doesn't everybody know that? I mean, I know not every person in the country knows that, but every reporter does. What do you do to, it's like Bernie Sanders coming out all of a sudden saying, you know, I don't think income inequality is that big a deal.

You'd be like, what? Right. Right. Can you imagine? Yeah, exactly. I mean, the media, like the follow-up questions to that would be endless. Whereas with Trump, I think, look, the biggest problem with Trump is that he's normalized this behavior, right?

Like, this is the behavior you expect, and it's exhausting to constantly challenge it. Because this is what he does. And so I think people are just like, oh, yeah, of course he's going to change his entire perspective or pretend like he's changed his entire perspective on NATO in responding to Macron, right? Yeah, so also while he was in London, they asked him a question to give you context on how he knows nothing at all about national health service in Great Britain saying, hey, is that on the table? in your trade negotiations, because the Trump administration has criticized the UK for having drug prices that are too low.

You didn't hear that wrong. They're saying, no, yours should be as terribly high as ours are in America. And you should crush your own people like we do on behalf of the drug companies that bribe us. Yeah, you should watch your own citizens die like we do here in the United States. Yeah. So that has been the official Trump administration line on that. So they asked Trump, they said, so is that on the table when you're doing that? these trade talks and he's like, everything is on the table, but no, we don't want a system

like Great Britain, so it's not on the table that America would do something like that. That wasn't a question at all. Oh my God, you don't know your own stance. Like he has no idea what his administration policy is. Not at all. They're like, no, no, we're talking about the drug prices. And he's like, no, no, we're not going to have nationalized health care in America like they're doing in Great Britain, I don't want that as an option.

That's not the question, oh my God, you don't know anything. Barack Obama apparently came out of their first meeting and told people that are close to him that literally that exact line, oh my God, he doesn't know anything. I'm surprised he was surprised. I mean, wasn't it obvious through the election cycle when he couldn't name a single detail on a single policy that he was supportive of? He just spoke in, you know, vague terms about nonsense and claimed that he was. a populist that was gonna look out for people who'd been crushed by this economy.

And then he first, like he got elected, he just accelerated that system. And now he turns around and says, I can't believe this, Macron is being disrespectful to NATO. Who would dare to do such a thing like that? So if you're a Trump supporter, who loved them bashing NATO for three years, are you now super mad at Trump for saying no one should ever disrespect NATO? I don't know what goes through the minds of Trump supporters if they have any. Well, when we come back from the break, we're going to talk about the disgusting corruption

in the Trump administration, including a $400 million sweetheart deal Trump just gave one of his fans who supports him on Fox News. 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.

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We'll be right back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content, while soon. supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, back on a young Turks, members' comments first. Sally goes, OMG, you're on Comcast. I just said the Young Turks in my remote, and you popped up on my big screen.

There you are, Jenkinana. Hey, how you doing? Here we are. And Sally continues, I'm a member and love you, and you look great on a 50. I'm so excited. Well, Sally, we're excited to hear that. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Meg has the same theory as Brett Erlich. Meg said, Macron played that so well. Trump is so easy to manipulate. So Brett during the break was talking about, you know, Macron might have just jujitsu Trump into supporting NATO. Oh yeah, Trump, I do not like NATO. Trump's like, oh yeah, I love NATO. You're very nasty, what you said about NATO.

Nasty. Why does he always talk like he's narrating a porn? Like let's, come on, we all hear it, right? Like he talks in like this weird, like breathy, like low toned voice. Like nasty, what he said? NATO, NATO, I love NATO. NATO is so sexy. Like, why does he talk like that?

It's probably the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. I know, right? Norway. Norway. Okay. Gabby Marina says Donald Trump. just strings random words together into a semantically null sentence to get out of whatever situation he's presently in.

Probably fair description right there. Erica Price on Twitter says, establish indemns won't go after Trump's financial crimes because they're afraid it'll expose. They took campaign contributions from Trump over the years. But we already kind of know that. We know Trump gave money to Democrats. So I don't know if they would go to great lengths to cover that up. but it is weird how they won't go after his financial crimes.

Okay, on YouTube super chat, and we appreciate every time you use that, Mark Turwilliger writes in, James, my wife's 40th birthday, can I get a happy birthday? Ann, happy birthday, Ann, look at me, ask and you shall receive. Now on to substantive points of people disagreeing about Tulsi Gabbard. Richard Atkinson says, a political analysis of Kamo's demise that doesn't even mention her getting wrecked by Tulsi in the debate is embarrassing, do better. No, I think that there was a small part of it, but we did mention in the next segment, and because you guys brought it up, and I think it's a fair and interesting point, but no,

I don't think that it was a big part at all. And then Sebastian Lorenzo, on the other hand, says, appeasing Trump voters who won't vote for you anyway, kind of sounds like what Tulsi Gabbard does when she goes on Breitbart to pander about strong borders. When she advertises on Breitbart, when she goes on Dave Rubin's show and accepts his right-wing, framing of Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders. Yeah, that kind of stuff. Anyway, did Trump just send a note to Kamala Harris to Tulsi Gabbard,

thanking her, like, praising her on knocking out Kamala Harris? Yeah. And Tulsi went and spoke to him about being in his cabinet. Tulsi is a fascinating, strange word. Okay, enough said on that. All right, so let's talk a little bit about Trump's corruption, because it's significant and it deserves attention. So, a construction company owned by a Republican donor who likes to compliment Trump quite a bit

on Fox News, has just been given a $400 million sweetheart deal by the Trump administration to help construct the border wall. So the Department of Defense has announced that Fisher, Sand, and GravelCo from North Dakota will build new barriers in Arizona following reports that Trump repeatedly pushed for the company to be given the contract despite concerns from engineering officials. Trump has been enamored with Tony Fisher, I'm sorry, Tommy Fisher, the company's chief executive who has made multiple appearances on Fox News to promote his firm and insist that it would do a better job than those the government had already chosen.

Now, I want to give you a little example of what Fisher does on Fox News. Let's take a quick look. So have you spoken to the president, have you reached out to the White House, to the transportation department to see if they will hire you company. I'm meeting with DHS tomorrow. We've met with several senators in Congress, congressional staff that will be out there. We've demonstrated our ability to build over a mile a day a few weeks ago where we're going to have congressional members and senators there in two weeks.

And just to prove that when we say something, we mean what we say and we do what we say. The president will, if he allows us to play in our team of Fisher Industries to play, I guarantee you no different than Tom Brady. Once we get in, we never come out. And if we don't perform, the president can fire us. And that's how comfortable and confident I am is when people see what we really offer. I love it. I'm not taking sides on which prototype is best, but this is why you're a good businessman.

Well, he's not really a good businessman because, again, the Army Corps of Engineers looked at this company and the fact that they didn't meet standards. Trump has repeatedly pushed for Fisher to get a wall building contract, urging officials with the Army Corps of Engineers to pick him, only to be told that Fisher's bids did not meet standards. So there were lawsuits that this company faced in the past because of concerns, construction concerns, safety concerns, we'll get to that in just a minute, but doesn't matter. He complements Trump, he does Trump's bidding for him on Fox News, and that's all that matters.

So Trump is gonna push, he's gonna intervene to make sure that this guy, gets a $400 million contract to construct the wall. Yeah, there's one other part of this as to why Trump seems to like him. Because he goes on Fox News and tells Trump what he wants to hear, not just about Trump, but about the wall. So every expert is saying that it's gonna take about $8 billion. But this guy keeps going on and say, no, I could do it for $1.4 billion. Now the Army Corps of Engineers is saying, no, he can't.

It won't meet our standards at all, it won't work. And Trump's like, I like it. 1.4 billion is less than $8 billion. And he's saying that he can do it really quick. An Army Corps engineers is like, yeah, it's an obvious false promise. He can't do it that quick. But Trump's like, I don't need facts, facts are stupid. In fact, can we go to that video?

This is Trump doing exactly what Jenk just described. What's the latest with both the wall? What's the latest on that situation? And what is the, I don't know if you heard about this conference. that said he can build the whole wall for a lot cheaper than anybody else and get it done by 2020. Have you aware of that? Yes, we're dealing with him, actually. It's Fisher comes from North Dakota, recommended strongly by a great new senator, as you know, Kevin Kramer.

And they're real, but they've been bidding, and so far they haven't been meeting the bids, I thought they would. But when we get them for a bid, we're building many sections of wall right now that's under construction right now. And I intend to have by the end of next year, over 400 miles of wall. We've renovated a lot of wall already. A lot of the wall was, you know, I'm good at this stuff. That's what I do. No, what you do is go bankrupt six times. That's what you do.

So, although I got to say he did convince me, and this is a little bit ironic in that interview, that it should go to Fisher. Because he'll build it by 2020, if he builds anything, it's going to be totally flim-flam. This is a classic conservative scam, right? Like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll build it quick. Yeah, that's what I'll do. And I'll build it perfect. And I'll do it for less than a quarter of the price.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's the ticket. And that's why, look, I told you, I saw a guy who works in sales. He said, oh, we sell everything in the right-wing talk shows. gold, shakes, miracle, proteins, et cetera, because their audience will believe anything. And so that's why the guy goes on Fox News and he listens to Trump. Yeah, they should give it to him because he definitely won't build it. So, okay, now I do want to say there was another funny moment there because Kevin Kramer,

the North Dakota senator that Trump alluded to, has been going around and say, look, I didn't have anything to do with it. Now, he got money from Fisher. Kevin Kramer did, he got $10,000. Because these people are such bad people. And then Kevin Kramer then brought Fisher to the state of the union as his guest, right? So they're like, oh, are you the one pushing Trump to pick Fisher for that contract? And he says, no, I'm not pushing to pick the firm at all.

And then Trump in that clip, you heard him say, oh, did Kevin Kramer's telling me to pick him? Yeah, Kevin, I know, that is pretty funny. That is pretty funny. And just to be specific, Kevin Kramer was given $10,000 by Fisher, by the Fisher family for his Senate campaign in 2018. Yes, and then look, going to a Republican donor, this contract is the least surprising thing in the world. But the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers is saying, no, it does not meet the standard.

And Trump still say, no, I don't care, I don't care about standards, let's just give it to him anyway. That's the problem. Yeah, and here's one other problem. It's a shady company, guys, it's a shady company, okay? I'll give you examples. Fisher, Sand and GravelCo, by the way, too long of a name, you've got to change it, has a record of more than $1 million in fines for environmental and tax violations,

according to CNN. And its former co-owner pleaded guilty to tax fraud and was sentenced to 37 months in prison back in 2009. Fisher has worked with some Trump allies, including former Kansas Secretary of State, Chris Kobach and ex-White House advisor Steve Bannon to build border fencing on private land using private donations. Okay, so the $1 million in fines for environmental and tax violations. First of all, Trump's like tax violations, love it, bring this guy in right away. Besties.

That's right, peas in a pod. And then on the environmental violations, Trump probably thinks it's not the bug, that's the feature. I don't want to follow environmental regulations. I don't wanna follow the law. Remember when he told people that were working on the wall before, he's like just seized the land, even if it's private land, I'll pardon you later. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about the law at all.

So this guy's tailor made for him, good, build a crappy wall that doesn't work at all. I know it's a waste of money, but otherwise we're wasting, the second advantage of giving it to Fisher is like the first advantage is the wall won't work, it won't be up by that time, and if it is, it'll be super shoddy. The second advantage is, instead of wasting $8 billion, we only waste. $1.4 billion. Maybe we could make a deal. This is money that he diverted from disaster relief funds.

You know, from other government agencies that, you know, actually help the American people. This doesn't help anyone. All it does is it helps Trump to build his hate monument for his reelection campaign. That's all it is. Anyway, all right, one more story before we go to break. Very rarely do you get real economic updates in the mainstream media, but we're going to give you a real economic update right now when it comes to the quality of jobs in America. Over and over again, Trump claims, oh, the jobs numbers, unemployment is so low, oh, everyone's getting rich. When in reality, a new report indicates that nearly half of Americans are working in low wage jobs, okay, with an average take-home pay of 18,000.

$1,000 a year? How are you gonna live with that? How are you gonna live with $18,000 a year? Anyway, let me give you the details. 44% of U.S. workers are employed in low wage jobs that pay, I apologize, the median annual wages of $18,000 a year. Most of the 53 million Americans working in low wage jobs are adults, okay, in their prime working years, or between about 25 to 54, they noted.

So let's just stop right there. It's important to note that and emphasize that because what we keep hearing from Republicans over and over again is that the only people working in low wage jobs are young people, college students, teenagers, you know, those are jobs that are meant for college students and teenagers. They're not meant for adults. But more and more adults are working in these jobs that are paying very little money and they're not able to make ends meet as a result. Only about 30 million Americans, that's less than 10% percent.

of Americans have good jobs that provide a middle class income and benefits like health insurance. So this is what we've been telling you on the show for year upon year now. All through the Bush administration, Obama administration, this is one of the things that we held Obama accountable for. Almost all the gains from the economic rebound under Obama went to the top 10%. So this is disastrous numbers. In fact, let's finish up that last graphic that we stopped halfway through. The rest of it says their median hourly wage is $10.22 per hour. That's above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, but well below what's considered

the living wage for many regions. In fact, for a lot of the smaller cities in the south and the west, situation is far more dire. Over 60% of the workers there are in low wage jobs. So there's this great frustration in the country as part of the reason why Trump got elected. So the Democratic Party told everybody, isn't everything wonderful? Let's elect Hillary Clinton so you can get more status quo. And they thought, well, the stock market's booming because of us.

All of our rich friends are even richer. And unemployment is low, so they all have jobs. So what else are they complaining about? Like, you know, why don't they eat cake? And so what you're not realizing that is in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Jacksonville, North Carolina, and yes, there is a Jacksonville, North Carolina. And in all these other cities, and it's not just the small cities, it's in almost all of our cities, including cities as rich as San Francisco, a huge percentage of the workers

are barely getting by, how are you gonna get by an $18,000? It's 44% of the country. And then they don't understand their pain. So Trump, as one voter in Western Virginia told us, in essence he said during the 2016 election, Trump had the decency to lie to us and say that he would change things. Whereas Hillary Clinton was like, nope, everything is wonderful. So here we are again, the Democratic Party making the same mistake, the mainstream media making the same mistake, telling everybody, oh, things are wonderful, the stock market is

up, unemployment is down, and not talking about the actual oppression that the American worker is going for. Wages not gone up in 40 years. Adjusted for inflation, 40 years. Meanwhile, by the way, productivity is sky high. So you're working your ass off and making $18,000 a year. And then they can't figure out why you're frustrated and want to throw a brick through the establishment window. That's why I called them the brick voters in 2016. And Hillary got of them. Trump got all of them. And he won by a tiny, tiny margin in three states exactly because of this.

So you always make this point that Democratic candidates need to keep their messaging simple, right? Just say it, we need to increase wages, I will increase wages. I mean, it's, it is a winning strategy because look at how many Americans are struggling under this current system and the fact that minimum wage, the federal minimum wage hasn't gone up in 10 years and then adjusted for inflation, wages have been stagnant for 40 years. And by the way, if you poll Americans, about 6 and 10 workers say that their jobs are mediocre to downright bad, and that's according to a Gallup study.

And one in five workers told Gallup their benefits are actually worse now than they were five years ago. Of course they are. Our health insurance went up 18%. It's killing my family, it's hurting the business. It goes up 18% every year. How the hell is anybody supposed to keep up with that? It's totally insane.

So you've got that crushing you while your wages haven't gone up at all. Do you know that if inflation kept up with, I'm sorry, your wages kept up with productivity? So how hard you're working in other words? The minimum wage right now would be over $20 an hour. Instead it's a $7.25. corporations buy off politicians and use their corporate power to make sure you get paid less and they make more profit. That's how this scam is played.

So when, if you think that the system is rigged, you're 100% right. It is rigged against you, by who? The corporate donors. That's why you're making $18,000 a year. So look, man, there's one guy at the presidential level who's talking about higher wages and who actually delivered higher wages for workers at Amazon. He said they should be making at least $15 an hour. That was Bernie Sanders.

His partner in the house was Rokana, and all the media left. Oh, they called it to stop Bezos Act. It's personal. That's so wrong. You should always kiss the ass of corporate behemists, not challenge them. How uncouth. And guess what happened? Pressure worked.

And now they raised wages at Amazon, and now the minimum at Amazon is $15. But second of all, since they raise their wages, now Amazon thinks, well, I don't want anyone else paying lower wages because it hurts my competition. So now Amazon is using its political power to make sure that everybody gets $15 a minimum wage because now their competitors don't have to do it because of federal minimum wage. So you see, that's how political power can work if you actually fight for higher wages. But most of the Democratic Party and all of the Republican Party lay down and go, yes, our corporate Donors get richer, you get poorer, and I don't give a goddamn about it.

So, well, if you keep going in that direction, these folks, man, at some point this thing's going to blow. Yeah, so Rokana, by the way, will be on the conversation tonight. I'll be interviewing him, so check that out. But we are going to take a quick break when we come back. Emma Viglin joins us, and we're going to talk about Pete Buttigieg and some of his missteps on the campaign trail. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.