The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 10th, 2020

Episode Date: January 11, 2020

Is this the real reason Trump killed Suleimani? Cenk Uygur, Michael Shure, and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Drop it. Look at this old school power panel.

Jake Uger, John Idol or Michael Shore, Epic Senior, Epic Junior. This is really old school. So, and I'm here too, that's also old school these days. Arguably. All right, we got a great show ahead for you guys. You guys, really interesting details on the killing of Soleimani and why Trump might have done it in the first place. Okay, and then hey, we're finally going to have impeachment.

Pelosi is sending it over next week. What are the details of that? What does that mean? How quickly does it go? What are the rules involved? And of course, most importantly, will there be witnesses? So lots to get to on tonight's program. So without further ado, here's John Aiderot.

Okay, let's do that. Let's do that. Why did Donald Trump authorize that strike against Kasim Tulemani about one week ago? Well, the official word out of the White House has shifted over time. There was always some imminent threat. We've got later on the show some more detail about Mike Pompeo attempting to explain what that means. But last night, the Wall Street Journal had an article, and in it, they had a reference

to one other thing that might have been on Donald Trump's mind as he was making that decision. The section read, Mr. Trump, after the strike, told Associates he was under pressure to deal with General Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said. That's not something that he or Mike Pompeo have brought up when asked about the rationale to launch us into this conflict. To be fair, John, they have constantly been talking about an imminent threat. And maybe they just crossed their wires and they meant the imminent threat of impeachment. And Mike Pompeo's been saying he doesn't know how imminent when it's going to happen. It's because Nancy Pelosi has held her cards close to her chest. That's true.

Now they know though, it's coming next week. So this is really inappropriate, I know, welcome to Trump world, right? But other presidencies and administrations would have at least had the DCC to cover up if their actions were guided by totally inappropriate. at political considerations. Now, do politicians play politics? Of course, right? But when it comes to issues, especially of war, and putting our troops in danger, well, that's a whole different level.

And for them to be such knuckleheads that they're allies in the Wall Street Journal, because the rest of the article is framed as like, they made quick and bold and decisive moves, right? For them to let them know, oh yeah, yeah, we didn't want to be impeached. And by the way, the second implication of that is senators like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton are such war mongers that apparently there's a little bit of an implication that hey, you know what, maybe we would be open to being tougher on Trump in the Senate if we don't get our bloody war.

And that's also really interesting. You know, one thing that people aren't talking about after reading this is not just the sort of the impeachment distraction argument. that people were talking about. I don't know how much I believe that. But what this speaks to me is also the fragility of support. Even though it's widespread, it seems that there's some fragility to the support the president enjoys among Republicans and in the Senate.

And as you get closer to an election, as you get closer to another even year in 2022, you have this feeling that maybe Republicans are starting to look at these poll numbers and think that these things matter. The other part of it is you have lots of members of the military. former members of the military, testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee, and military members of the U.S. Senate, Republicans and Democrats, but Republicans in this case, will look at that, and they will say, you know, we have to actually give some sort of leverage to the people who testified who were members of the military.

But the fact that they would even need to do something to appeal to Republican senators, if this is true, says a lot about where they feel their support is in general. U.S. Senate among Republicans. So that's what I want to ask about, because obviously I think this is, you know, this is compelling. And I am certain that whatever his reason for authorizing the strike was, it wasn't just I thought it was in the best interest of our country. We know that that's not the case. But is this what was actually, like, does he, is he worried that Lindsey Graham is going

to vote to remove him? Really? Or Tom Cotton or whoever, I just find that to be so hard to believe. Now, that doesn't mean that Trump couldn't still be scared of it, he's an idiot. But I don't think, I think he's been given every reason to be confident of how this Senate trial is going to go to do something this out of left field because of that fear in particular I find hard to buy. Well, so let me partly agree with both of you.

So I don't think that it's a credible threat that Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton are going to vote against him in impeachment. No way, no way. On the other hand, the part I'll agree with Michael on is he only need four Republican senators to call witnesses. Right. And the witnesses could be very, very damaging. So- But, Jack, these weren't the Republicans that were gonna be voting for witnesses.

Presumably, Tom Cotton is with the president, Lindsey Graham's with the president. You don't do this to appeal to Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. No, no, I know, but the only card that Graham and Cotton have, the war margars have, is, Well, like, it's such a preposterous idea that they would vote against them in impeachment, but it's not preposterous for them to be the fourth vote if McCrosky, Collins, and Romney vote to allow witnesses. Now, but do I think that that, even that is a credible threat? No, not really.

And so what is, what do I think it shows? I think it shows that the president is super easy to bluff. And remember, I mean, we don't know if there's a secret deal with Turkey to enrich Donald Trump, But we do know that Erdogan bluffed and said, I'm going into northern Syria tomorrow, whether you like it or not, and Trump panicked and pulled out our troops immediately. And remember, Trump himself is a giant bluffer. Throughout his entire business career, all he's ever done is bluff. So he could be doing projections here.

And so it's possible a Graham and Cotton came in there with like, I don't know, how do we start a war? The guy's not that bright. Maybe we just bluff him, right? And maybe it worked. But overall, obviously, all of these are illegitimate concerns if you actually care about national security and not your own political career. But I want to say one of the things about the Wall Street Journal article, they also framed all of his advisors as much more hawkish than previously known.

So Pompeo's wanted to go to war with Iran for a long time. By the way, he's not the defense attorney. He's the secretary of state. He's supposed to do diplomacy. He's doing the opposite. Esper, who is the defense secretary, went to West Point with Pompeo and they're apparently old friends and apparently Esper will do what Pompeo commands. But the key here is Mark Millie, the head of the Joint Chiefs.

And Lindsey Graham gave a quote like, hmm, Mark Millie's been a pleasant surprise, willing to take more risk than we had imagined, meaning he is more happy to go to war and listen to orders from Donald Trump to take impulsive military action. And apparently they didn't check with a lot of folks, including our allies, obviously Congress, other parts of the State Department, other parts of the Pentagon that you normally do to execute these operations. The Trump administration rushing in haphazardly, who could have guessed? But it turns out the people that are around him now in the Oval Office are simply enablers.

He's gotten rid of any dissent. So that's more dangerous because that means any given impulse driven by, you know, insecurities or political calculations at any given moment, which could change later, but at that moment will be executed and could lead to disastrous consequences. It says a lot that John Bolton was not hawkish enough for this crew, apparently, but they've just- Yeah, John, sorry, you gotta get out of the room. But you can just sort of picture, like, all of them, like, in a room in the White House, cheering as they go to, like, get ready for war with Iran, and, like, the window looking

in as Bolton with his hand on the glass, like, he just wishes he'd be part of that club. But let me talk, you were talking about impulse and insecurities, so I want to throw it back as a potential alternative explanation that I believe might be a simpler explanation. So we had this sort of bombshell accidentally, kind of, from the Wall Street Journal last night. Over the weekend, we had New York Times reporting that was like ignored by everyone, and I don't understand how. But effectively what they said is, and I'm going to skip ahead one graphic, initially you had the death of the military contractor in that attack in Iraq, And then you had the heads of the Pentagon coming forward and giving a menu of potential options

from least severe and crazy to most severe and crazy, including the option to take out Soleimani, which was considered to be, well, no one would actually do that. But apparently they like to put things that seem crazy on to make other options seem more reasonable. And so at first, it seemed everything was going according to plan. Trump rejected the option to kill Soleimani to respond to a wave of recent Iranian-sponsored violence in Iraq. Instead, he authorized airstrikes against Khatayib Hezbollah. Then things changed when protesters gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday. Iranians saw the U.S. response as disproportionate, but Trump became increasingly angry

at the images he saw on television as protesters stormed the embassy. Suddenly, Trump was worried that failing to respond to the protests would look weak. By Thursday, Trump had decided to go forward with the killing of Soleimani, and top Pentagon officials were stunned, that's a direct quote from the New York Times article. They had assumed he would go with the less risky option. And I think to buttress that this might be explanation enough, how many times over the past week has Donald Trump said, this was the anti-Benghazi, this was the opposite of Benghazi. And so the idea that he could be, like, he could think, well, my only option to not be pitched

as basically Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in this situation is, I need to do something crazy. That's the craziest thing they gave me as an option, so let's do that. Well, that goes two points. One is, as young Turks viewers will remember from earlier in the week, the minute we had the Soleimani killing, I said he's trying to, you know, respond in a way that so he doesn't get painted as Benghazi-like, okay? So, and it's not hard to discern. You know, it's good to get the confirmation from the papers and inside officials. But Trump himself, before the strike, kept saying, like, oh, I'm not going to do a Benghazi. It's not going to be a Benghazi.

I mean, he looked absolutely panicked about the idea that there would be a Benghazi-like situation. So I thought that was the number one reason that he did it. And it looks like now it's fairly confirmed that it was. But apparently there's also these political considerations. So maybe in his mind he thought it was a win-win. I helped myself politically with impeachment and I look tough. Which gets me to the last point, look, the guy is deeply insecure and he's so concerned about looking weak, that he oftentimes acts irrationally and rashly.

And now we have a team, according to the Wall Street Journal, again, they're largely allies of the president, but they're telling us, yeah, his team will do whatever he says, and they're comfortable with more risk and more war, and they don't really want to check with anyone else. That sets up an absolutely explosive situation. Seems like we barely avoided it this time around, apparently thanks to Tucker Carlson. But God knows what happens next time, and if Donald Trump is listening to the wrong Fox News show, well, the whole world better brace for impact. Yeah, it reminds you of President Cheney when he had this kind of control over that

part of the White House. Yeah. Yeah, but even with Cheney, he always wanted to go to war. But ironically, his slight check for six years was Bush. And in the last two years, Bush even rejected Cheney. But in the last two years, but the first six were a disaster. Yeah, the first six were the Cheney administration. But he had to maneuver things.

He had to move things around in the chess board. Whereas these guys just come in and go, hey, Trump will hurt you slightly politically. Okay, I'll do it. Hey, Trump, you look weak. Oh yeah, I'm strong, I'll do it. So that's much, much easier because, I mean, I remember during the Bush years, we just thought there's no way a president is ever going to be this unintelligent again. Oh, boy, were we wrong.

So I'm not afraid to- What's coming next? Yeah, exactly. I mean, remember, in the old days, Reagan was considered very unintelligent. That was the main, you know, knock on him. And then the Xerox copy got way worse in Bush, and then it got way worse in Trump. Oh my God, what's next? Yeah, and two other quick considerations. One, I guess thank God that the craziest option they came up with was taking out Soleimani

and not, yeah, bomb Tehran or whatever, which could have been an option or bases in Iran. And also, like, imagine if as he's sitting stewing, he's watching the news, people have surrounded the embassy, they set the outer room on fire or something, and he's just getting so mad and he feels like, I look weak, I'm going to look like Obama. Imagine if he had just relaxed, that would have been it. We wouldn't be talking about the storming of that embassy anymore. It wouldn't even be a story. No one died.

But now hundreds of people have died as a result of his freak out over it. Yeah. Anyway. Imagine what he's going to do if there's a rogue militia group, a rogue terrorist group, somebody who has no affiliation with any national government at all doing something that is perceived here as on the level with what happened at the embassy. Imagine that response if what Jank is saying is true is that everybody's just a yes man and one maybe yes woman in the room. It's an amazing thing.

Look, last thing, guys, it's amazing we've made it this far without him blowing up the planet. But we still have one long year left. And remember, in that year, the market could crash, which then could make Donald Trump very, very insecure. And either because of that or just for other reasons, his poll numbers could get even worse. They've always been terrible, but they could get into the 30s, in which case that would inspire panic. Then what is this irrational, insecure fool going to do surrounded by yes men who like war? Oh boy. That's why I tell you to brace her impact.

Why don't we take our first break? Yes. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic, or, a 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-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring

in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get

informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back in the Young Turks, let me read a couple of comments as usual. Jody's son, Jody's ones writes in from the member section, yay, Michael Schurr, I was just wondering earlier this week, where the hell he'd gone? Well, it's right here, right here, Jody, thanks, so it's good to be back. I bathe in a very stable geniuses, tears writes in, Republicans have hitched their rotting wagon to a horse frothing at the mouth. They have to have a united front in order to survive, even if there's some dissent.

I kind of like that a metaphor though, and political cartoon. Yeah, a year from now, we'll see how that goes, right? I'm me, Papito writes in on Twitter, I started watching Game of Thrones recently and oh my god, Jank was right, Trump is Joffrey Barathean. Keep watching. Yes, well, anyway, so that's not a prediction or anything like that, it's just anybody who's watch Game of Thrones. He's an immature, spoiled little brat who is malicious and has no empathy, kind of a layup.

Yeah. So, and then Little Mac and YouTube Super Chat says, this country has been going down a dark path for quite some time. We're coming to an abyss, help us, TYT, you are our only hope. I like that we're the Obi-1 Canobi of media. Thank you though. By the way, thank you for using YouTube Super Chat. Thank you for being members.

t.y.t.com slash join. In fact, guys, I'm going to talk about the affiliate program here. So a lot of you know we're doing an affiliate program. What that means is you guys selling membership. And that way you get commission. You get commission on everyone you sell, but not just the time of sale. You get it as long as the person remains a member. So once you sell it once, that income keeps coming in every month, okay? So it's at t-y-t.com slash win-win. We're trying to get to 2,500 basically sales affiliates that are used. You guys were trusting you to help us increase membership, which is, it's well, literally unprecedented.

No media company has ever done this before. And so far, we're trying to get $2,500 at the end of the month. So far we're at 446 affiliates. So look at that. We just added 446 salespeople to TYT staff. So you guys are awesome. And make sure you're signing up. And if you do, the whole process is really easy.

But go all the way through, make sure you pick your avatar so that people know who you are when you send them the link. But there's also the chat room. So you guys can talk to one another and people are already talking to one another, sharing tips on how to sell and asking questions and getting answers back on how to make it easier. And so far, look, the sales are a little harder, but we're picking up a little bit of momentum, 16 members added through you guys. So let's keep it going, I love it, and hopefully it'll be the win-win that we are imagining.

and so far off to a great start. Thank you. All right, John. Okay, let's jump back into it. We have been trying to get specifics on what the intelligence actually was that led Donald Trump to order the strike on Kasim Soleimani last week. And Mike Pompeo has been interviewed multiple times about this. We're not necessarily learning much, but let's see from his appearance last night on the

news, what do we know about how imminent the attack was, what it might actually look like. There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani. We don't know precisely when, and we don't know precisely where. See what, look, all right, the where is funny and interesting, we get back to that. But if you don't know precisely when, by definition, it was not imminent. Right, that's the basic part of it, is that that is a part of the word imminent is that you, it implies that it was imminent it was about to happen now or it's about to happen the next day or week, you know.

Which implies you knew when it was happening. Otherwise, all right, slow man, he might have planned an attack two and a half years from now, or he might not have. And also, to what Pompeo just said, is there ever a time where these people are not plotting attacks? Does that mean that we have, we are warranted to go in and do it at will like that? No, that's what they do. That's what terrorists do. As far as we know, historically and modern day, they plot attacks, right? So when they get to a certain stage of it, they're always thinking about it, what defines plotting?

I mean, this is so not worth what they did in response. It gets, they dig themselves deeper, and again, who knows if it matters. And let's say their response to what you said would be, yes, he is always plotting attacks. Well, he's not a rogue operator, he's one of the generals of the Iranian military, which means is that if you want to have carte blanche, you can take out their leadership whenever you want, declare war on Iran. Because you clearly believe that we are in a state of war with Iran. Exactly right.

That you're justified to take out their political and military leadership whenever you want. Completely. I was just referring to it as far as imminence, but you are 100% right about that, because that's what would warrant something like that. There are actors within a government, and then you take on that government. we took them on by stabilizing them with a nuclear peace deal. So that's one way of doing it. The other way is the way you just suggested.

Well, John, obviously I don't support. No, yeah, right. Well, the other person that agrees with you is Jim Webb. So he's not only a former Democratic senator from Virginia, but he was actually Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Navarie, and he said, when did it become acceptable to kill a top leader of a country we aren't even at war with? And so, because under that logic, and they say, well, Sillamina killed a lot of Americans. Okay, wait, when did he kill the Americans?

They said, oh, largely during the Iraq insurgency. First of all, that was a long time ago. And by the way, Pompeo had earlier also said something absurd. I mean, the Trump administration, but specifically in regards to this, when they had asked them a couple of days ago, what evidence do you have that it was imminent? He said, well, we know because of what he has done in the past. No, imminent means in the future, it doesn't mean in the past, so that's also absurd. But they went so far back about the Iraqi insurgency.

Okay, but if we were to accept that logic, again, I don't. But if we were to accept it, well, under that logic, you could drop bombs all across Saudi Arabia all day, all night, because the Saudis funded the Sunni insurgency against our troops in Iraq. That's a fact. So now they say, well, technically we don't know for sure that it was a Saudi government. It might have been just some Saudi, you know, billionaires, princes, et cetera. Okay, then do we have carte blanche to execute them anywhere on the spot? Whether it's in Saudi Arabia or Paris or London, where they go often.

So are we gonna just start executing foreign leaders left and right because of what they've done in the past or because maybe they might do something in the future, which apparently now means imminent. Yeah, and again, we're trying to drill down, what did it actually look like, was there anything to this? And so the interview that you saw a bit of earlier, we're gonna give you a little bit more, but And understand that Pompeo is going to have to respond to something that Donald Trump had said yesterday at his rally, where they had been saying imminent attack for days now. But all of a sudden at this rally, Donald Trump came up with, it was the embassies.

They were going to attack all of the embassies. And so Pompeo's asked to respond to that. And here's what he said. Well, the president said Soleimani wanted to blow up the embassy. Is that accurate? He wanted to blow up the embassy. It was his forces that penetrated our embassy just a handful of days before that. Khatib Hezbollah warriors, orchestrated, directed by Qasem Soleimani himself.

I don't think there's any doubt that Soleimani had intentions not only to take action against our forces, our diplomats in Iraq, but in other countries around the region and world as well. That does not confirm what Trump came up with, apparently spontaneously, at his rally. Well, policies are pretty good at getting around in question. If you notice, he did not answer, were they planning to blow up the embassy? He said, well, I mean, they did something in the past, which actually didn't even really cause any casualties at the embassy and didn't really, I mean, barely penetrated the embassy.

There's some dispute as to whether it did or not in the reporting. So that doesn't answer whether they were going to blow up the embassy at all. And when he doesn't answer it, you know that means there was no such force. Right. Well, and now we'll get to see because that was last night. This morning they have their little press conference and he's asked about some of the comments. made in that interview. And let's see how capable he is of making what he believes now square with past statements and Trump's recent statements as well.

Mr. Secretary, the administration said this strike was done based on an imminent threat. But this morning, you said we didn't know precisely when and we didn't know precisely where. That's not the definition of imminent. The president has also suggested that there was some sort of attack being planned against an embassy, perhaps several embassies. Can you clarify, did You have specific information about an imminent threat, and did you have anything to do with our embassies? We had specific information on an imminent threat, and those threat stream included attacks on U.S. embassies, period, full stop. So you were mistaken when you said you didn't know precisely when, and you didn't know precisely where? No, completely true. Those are completely consistent thoughts. I don't know exactly which minute.

We don't know exactly which day it would have been executed, but it was very clear. Qasem Soleimani himself was plotting a broad, large-scale attack against American interests, and those attacks were imminent. Against an embassy. Against American facilities, including American embassies, military bases, American facilities throughout the region. That is maddening, because think about what, it's so insulting, what they want you to believe is true, is that this man, Qasem Soleimani, he was plotting imminently.

So not just plotting in some general sense, but it was about to happen. And it was facilities, bases, and embassies in Iraq and across the region. But taking out just him, it's done. We don't have to worry about it anymore. They were going to attack multiple facilities and military bases across multiple countries. This is the Iranian military. But we took him out, and so now we're good. All of that planning is just gone, no threat anymore.

It doesn't make any sense. And in fact, of course, after you kill their top leader, they want to react less. That's normal, right? And there's nobody to replace him either. Yeah, no, that's what I was going to hit to. John, what John doesn't know, he's a rookie, is that Iran has no other generals or colonels or anyone else who could take his place and carry out those so-called imminent threats, which they would be far more motivated to do now that you kill their top general.

Okay, so it's all a lie. And it reminds me of the Bush years when Bush would constantly talk about plots and plans. He'd say, they got plots and plans. Okay, it always sounded like pots and pans. And so there are no plots and plants, okay? And Saddam Hussein, of course, was not connected to allocate and it turns out he did not have weapons of mass destruction. And they had been lying through their teeth the entire time.

And now we have more talk about vague plots. And as Edwin, our stage manager pointed out a couple of days ago, it reminded us of Rumsfeld saying, oh, we know where the weapons of mass destruction are. They're in the north, south, west, and east of Tikrit. Okay, in other words, you don't know, okay, and they never knew and they never existed. And so here we are again. One more thing about that, Mark Esper, the defense secretary, before we did the strike against Soleimani, said we have the right to do preemptive strikes.

Now that he knew they were gonna kill the top Iranian general, that's why he said we're gonna do a preemptive strike. Well, a preemptive strike, by definition, means, well, the Iranians were not yet going to hit us, we decided to hit them first. That's the whole point of a preemptive strike. So now that they're in some trouble over it, all of a sudden, well, you know, maybe it was in it. I mean, we didn't know when, but, and he says, oh, that squares, yeah, sure, two plus two equals

four and it also equals five. And if I say both of those things, I just have to say, not because I'm a Republican, yeah, that means the same thing, except it doesn't. Except it does. And look, we've talked a lot about this, about this rationale. We talked about this morning on the damage report. We've been talking about it for the first half of the show today. But it's not just like, man, we want to get them for their lie.

It's because this is not over. Trump is still president. He will still be president for a minimum of about one year. He is still surrounded by people that are desperate to go to war with Iran. And he is just as thin-skinned and irrational as he was when he launched that attack. And if we go out of this entire news cycle and the media and the public has landed on, yeah, they can be sort of vague, but as long as they say there was some reason to do what they did, they will do that same thing in the future.

I don't know how we stop them at this point. They seem bound by literally nothing, but I think that we have to give it the old college try if we want to avoid actual war with Iran in the future. And the reality is, unfortunately, guys, there really isn't much we can do it. I think the last hope was the defense authorization bill, because that needs. needed to pass. And so if we had put a check on there that Rokana or Barbara Lee wanted to do, where we took the authorization of military force away, that's Lee's proposal, or say that you must get approval

before you attack Iran, that was Rokana's proposal. And it was attached to a defense bill that must pass, then that would have had teeth. And that could, could maybe have prevented war. Or if it didn't prevent war, could have led to an actual removal of the president through impeachment, because that would be an unbelievable violation of what Congress passed. Now, maybe you say that's not realistic that we could have gotten that done because of the Republicans in the Senate, but that would have been a college tribe. That would have been the best attempt at stopping him.

Now that that bill is gone, we can and we are doing resolutions, but it's not going to work, and it has no teeth. And no, as long as the Republican senators don't break from Donald Trump and he can't be removed from office, there's nothing that could stop him. Well, why don't we, why don't we turn now to that one without teeth, actually, because that is our next story. Today, the House passed basically an invocation of the War Powers Act, and that passed with a vote of 224 to 194. Eight Democrats joined Republicans in opposing a limitation on Trump's ability to initiate future conflicts with Iran. Three Republicans voted in favor of it.

Interestingly, seven of the eight Democrats who voted against it are a freshman. So that's an interesting thing to bear in mind in future elections. But in any event, the resolution, which is called a concurrent resolution, which is different than a joint resolution with the Senate, and means that in effect it's a little bit easier to pass, but more difficult for to have any actual effect on Trump's future actions, directs the president to terminate the use of the U.S. armed forces to engage in hostilities in or against Iran or any part of its government or military unless Congress has declared war or specifically authorized engaging in hostilities, or of such use of the armed forces.

is necessary and appropriate to defend against an imminent armed attack upon the U.S. And just bear in mind that that last little clause, the whole argument we've been having for the past week is whether there was an imminent threat. The imminence clause. And they believe that it means anything they want it to mean. So even if they abided by this, they got imminent stuff that they can pull out of their pocket anytime they want. Yeah, look, overall I'm in favor of it.

Yeah. It's definitely better than nothing. It's at least getting them on the record saying Congress has authority. and so I'm not unhappy that they're doing this at this juncture, so good, and I love giving credit to Democratic leadership or anyone else where it's due, but, and it comes with a giant butt, this cannot have any real effect on Donald Trump. A concurrent resolution does not have to be signed by the president, so the Supreme Court has conflicting cases on whether it is applicable or not.

Given that it's the War Powers Act, it actually might be applicable, so at least they're in the ball game. That's why again, I'll give them credit for it. But the way that this would have had a lot of effect is if they had attached it to the defense bill, which Democratic leadership got absolutely no compromises from Trump on, passed easily. And there, that bill had to pass. If you had attached this to the defense bill, then we could have had teeth. It at least would have had a real shot at blocking Trump.

So there's some degree of a shell game the Democratic leadership plays to get a little bit of credit without actually ever checking the Republicans. Yes. But getting Republicans on the record, I don't disagree with what you're saying. Getting Republicans on the record important here too and getting some Democrats on the Yeah, so look, let's, I mean, it would have been 10 times better, 20 times better to do it in the defense bill. But the reason I'm saying at this juncture, after they've already lost the battle, at least

to win this much, much smaller battle is still good, because at least guys like Matt Gates, who was one of Donald Trump's biggest defenders to turn around and go, no, you should check with Congress. And to Michael's point, that's something. And it's a real division in the Republican Party, and not for the sake of division, but for the sake of there being an ideological difference where we could actually get some Republicans to vote with Democrats on really important issues. Well, that matters.

Yeah, and we should add that, well, Matt Gates and Francis Rooney of Florida were Republicans that voted in favor of this. You also have Thomas Massey of Kentucky. So those are the three Republicans. But all this is, all this is, is a specific invocation of the War Powers Act. And all the War Powers Act was basically saying, hey, this section of the Constitution, I know that we've just ignored it for the first couple hundred years of our country, but it's still in there.

And you guys love to say how much you love the actual text of the Constitution. We're supposed to be in charge of declaring war. and it's not just an esoteric sort of academic distinction. The current state and extent maintenance of the American Empire depends on the way that the distribution of power over military force has been divvied up between the legislature and the executive branch. If you actually had to have a declaration of war, the president keeps coming back and updating the legislature on the state of the war, it receives funding for short periods

of time until eventually we end the war, we pull our troops back. That would be sustainable and it would make sense. Instead, we have this case where we have military bases in dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of dozens of countries. Most Americans don't even know that, let alone none of them could explain why. Why do we have a massive base in Germany? Does anyone understand why? They don't have to because it never gets brought up. Because we're not at war with Germany or any of the countries near Germany, obviously.

We can just maintain all of this forever. And nobody needs to know about the vast majority of it even going on. Yeah, well, John, I mean, I am a little concerned about Slovakia. I'm plotting. Yeah, I hear. Lots of plans. But I want to say one more thing about the Democrats now, because some Democrats voted with the Republicans, as John alluded to.

One of them was a guy who gets under every nerve I have, Congressman Max Rose from New York, and he said, I refuse to play politics with questions of war and peace. No, actually under the Constitution, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. Congress authorizes war. And so that's not playing politics. whole point of politics. So if you're not willing to do that, then you should retire and go home. Yeah. Okay, why don't we take a short break? When we come back, we might be moving closer to that Senate trial of Donald Trump. All right, we'll be right back. At TYT, we frequently

talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top

VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN, VPN.com slash T-Y-T. You can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on the Young Turks. So, member comments, Jack Barnett 77 says, just signed up to be an affiliate. Time to start getting paid for converting my conservative

friends and family back home. So I love that. And I have run into a lot of former Republicans recently who say, oh yeah, young Turks flipped me. I talked to three last night. Okay. So it's you're really, really encouraging. By the way, t-y-t.com slash win-win to be part of the affiliate program where you sell membership and you get commission on it. And I forgot to tell you guys, there's actually going to be a conference call for all the affiliates next week. So sign up today and then probably Allison Hartson will talk to you guys and help you out also

with how to get started and how to do better in the program. And then Lieutenant MacM-Machee, right, so with a great, great point, he said, Well, and let's be real, we quote, plot and plan attacks as the United States Army all the time on all sorts of countries. Not because we have the intent to do it, but you have the plan in case things get bad. It's there. When I read those comments from the members, I'm so mad I didn't make that point during the video, right? You're absolutely right. We have a thousand plans in the United States military.

That doesn't mean we're going to execute all of them, but you have to plan ahead. And based on that, if they killed the head of our joint chiefs of staff, we would go to war. Right. Right. Somewhere in like a filing cabinet, there's a 200-page plan to invade and occupy Canada, somewhere in D.C. Yeah. Doesn't mean we're gonna do it today.

Right. Last one. Corey Moore on YouTube super chat says, I'm in Iowa, got into a spirited debate with a Buttigieg supporter, showed them the Jonathan Larson investigation article had zero effect, infuriating. That was waiting for a better conclusion. Not effective. But go to t.yt.com. We did a great joint article with the route, Michael Harriet, the guy who wrote the Buttigieg's

a lying MF article. He actually got the same source as Larson. They worked on it together about how 10 cops, 10 African American cops in the South Bend police department complain about discrimination and Buttigieg did absolutely nothing about it. Tyt.com, check out that article, it's really important. Okay, and just a heads up. If we're going to have Supreme Court, we've got to go through this one fast. All right, let's do it.

Let's see if we can do it, okay? We're on the clock. Okay, we've been wondering when does the next step in Donald Trump's impeachment and a possible removal come? Well, apparently it's soon because Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today, I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate. That announcement is obviously consequential for the Senate trial, but also important for

the Democratic primary, because it means that the three Senate Democrats who are currently seeking their party's presidential nomination. That's Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Amy Klobuchar. And Michael Bennett, by the way. Okay. Yeah. We'll now be able to attend a presidential debate, assuming they were invited, on Tuesday night without worrying about the start of the impeachment trial.

But it does also mean that throughout the rest of the month of January and into early February, that trio along with Cory Booker and Michael Bennett, you know, there you got your reference. I got it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Will likely, that is, it's very nice of those writers that they include them. Will likely be tied down in the Senate participating in the trial, as opposed to campaigning in the initial, the early states. Right. Well, so I mentioned this as a possibility, and now Anna believes it more, more than

I do, and that part of the reason Pelosi might have been, and I look, this is controversial and it's just, I don't know if it's remotely true, but you do have to consider it in terms of the politics within the Democratic Party. The possibility that Pelosi and Democratic leadership were holding the impeachment being sent over the Senate, not just because of politics against Republicans, but if you hold it until the critical weeks before the Iowa caucus, the two out of the top three contenders are progressives. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and they would be tied up in the Senate and not really allowed to, not not allowed the campaign, but taking off the campaign trail.

And that would help moderate Democrats who Pelosi is more aligned with. Interesting. I bring it over to you, Michael. I disagree. Not that it's interesting, it's interesting, I don't buy it at all. If you know the way and we'll just leave it that, do you know the way that House members think, they don't think about the campaign trail, they don't think about the US Senate. They think about the US House and what they're doing and the power that they want to have.

If you look at the House of Commons and the House of Lords in the UK, the same demeanor, the same thing happens here. I don't believe that they're thinking that in such a granular way. Because as it stands right now, this is early to them in terms of the nominating process. So I don't see that as being a motivation. What they wanted to do was see if they could get more testimony out of the Senate and see and take the temperature of which senators might be willing to weigh. So I'll say one more thing about it.

And look, if I was sure, I'd tell you, I'm not shy, right? It is, and it's, it's an interesting theory. But- Which I agreed with. Yeah, is that Pelosi has attended dinners about how to stop Bernie Sanders. And there's top four contenders at this point fairly clearly. And the two moderates that are more aligned with Pelosi are Biden and Buttigieg, who are not senators, and the two progressives are Warren and Sanders, who are senators. And so if she's attended dinners, and Schumer is also attended,

the dinners where they talk to Democratic donors about how to stop Bernie Sanders, well, this would be one way to stop Bernie Sanders. Yeah. Well, look, I don't know about that, but I do know that I'm assuming that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in their campaign have got to be thinking, what are they going to do to get out of this, obviously? They have to be involved in the process. And also, Mitch McConnell is implying that this process is going to be over like that,

like it's going to be done in a day. So perhaps it won't affect them over much. But they should be coming up with some. They need to either dispatch surrogates, like, as much as possible. I don't know, send representatives who support their candidacies. You know, maybe you can think of a couple, over to Iowa. I don't know, but they have to send backup. Two weeks from today, right?

What's today, quickly? The 11th, right? So it goes to the 10th. So it goes to the 24th. That's 10 days before Iowa for people who've been in Iowa this long who have surrogates all over Iowa. It's 21 days before New Hampshire. So I don't see it as.

being this kind of a play. Okay, but if you were to act to affect it, this is when you would act, because it could easily go three weeks and boom, there goes I would. If you were to do that, right. If you weren't to do that. But look, guys, let's get more realistic about the other parts of it. The main thing here, I don't want to bury the lead, is that Nancy Pelosi tried a gambit of, hey, I'm gonna try to get McConnell to cave in and call witnesses.

And I said on there, it's never gonna work, she has no leverage at all, I don't know on what she's thinking, and the longer she waits, the more people get restless and go, wait, maybe she has a weak case. And that's exactly what happened. And at the end, she concedes and gets nothing in return, because she never had any leverage in the first place. Well, I disagree. Oh, really?

Yeah, I do. Oh, this one's interesting, okay. Because I feel like she did have leverage. She's the Speaker of the House, the most powerful Democrat in America right now. And she had the articles of impeachment. She went in saying she just wants to know what the parameters. of this trial are going to be, right? And in doing so, she got some people who are Republicans on the other side to say that

quite possibly they think, and they may think during this trial, I don't think it's going to happen, but they may think during this trial that John Bolton and other witnesses should be called. She brought the attention there rather than railroading it in, having them get acquitted, and having it be over. I do think that now there are a lot of Americans, and I know what you're going to say, you're listening to me, you're shaking your head, then you're saying, no, wrong. I've sat across from that face before, but I do think that nothing was lost at the very least

here, and possibly something was gained because the American people realized that there should be witnesses there. Not only that, some Republicans do, and they're allowing for the possibility that could happen. I don't think anything was lost. No, no, I actually think that's the best possible case you could make for this move. And maybe created a tiny bit of pressure on Collins-Borkowski-Romney, et cetera. to call witnesses later. But for now, the reason why Pelosi's given up and is now sending it to the Senate

is because Murkowski and Collins said, no, we agree with McConnell, we will not agree to call witnesses ahead of time. It's over. And now you have absolutely no leverage. If you had this much leverage before it's now gone, that's why she's sending it over. And just to be clear, all of the previous trials have involved witnesses, sometimes many, many witnesses. Right.

It's absurd that they were called mid-trial, too. They said, hey, we want to hear more from this person, we want to hear from this person. It could happen, all it takes as a majority. The fact that many more people know that all it takes is a majority to a degree, she slowed the role. And I don't think anything was lost, it's arguable if anything was gained, but I don't think anything was lost. Okay, well, that's it, unfortunately.

He's got a heart out. Oh, okay. Well, how long does the Supreme Court take? At least five minutes. Unfortunately, I have a hard app. Yeah. All right, guys. Okay, that's all right.

We got a great rest of the program. Yeah, doing next week. Yeah, doing next week. So I'll also check out Michael Scherer on I-24, obviously John's damage report. If you're a member, you can get that anytime. T.y.t.com slash join. We got a great panel. J.R. and Ida Rodriguez coming up next.

Some really, really important topics. And did Fox take an anchor off air for criticizing Donald Trump? Interesting. Okay, we'll be right back. 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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.