The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 16th, 2020

Episode Date: January 17, 2020

Lev Parvas is implicating EVERYONE in the Trump Administration. Ana Kasparian 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. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Casparian.

John Ida Rola is Mike. He's a host on the show. Now, like you're, that's it, you're a mainstay. It's me, okay, it's okay, so we're in a different, my hair is like super voluminous right now, I'm feeling good. When I come around, stuff gets voluminous. We have a great show ahead, obviously we're gonna talk about Lev Parnas, we're gonna talk about the multiple interviews he did yesterday and some of the revelations from those interviews.

Later in the show, we're gonna shift gears and talk about what's going on with Democrats, particularly the feud between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rand Paul. You didn't expect me to say that, did you? Wait, they're not getting along. Shocking, right? I thought they'd make it. So Rand Paul thought he was cute in making some ridiculous joke about climate change. AOC responded in the way that she typically does, in a boss way.

So we're going to talk about that. And I was on Cuomo last night. I do want to have a discussion about that. But before we even get to it, I just want to tell you guys, look, I'm a big girl, okay? So I get that I'm not always going to agree with Cuomo on things. You're not always going to agree with Cuomo on things. But he invites me on that show, and no other show on CNN or cable news, for that matter, invites progressives on to share a progressive perspective.

So I'm grateful that I get to go on that show and share a perspective that's oftentimes neglected. and I want you guys to just be civil and nice. And if you might disagree with him, that's okay. But err that disagreement in a civil, you know, adult way. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Let's be productive online. Yeah, let's be, I mean, that's hard for a lot of people. But I know you guys are smart.

You have good arguments. You have the truth on your side. Just don't be needlessly rude to a person who's actually giving us an opportunity to share our perspective. That's all I'm saying. Yes. All right, with that said, let's move on to the news of the day. The government accountability office has released a report indicating that Donald Trump did, in fact,

break the law in withholding congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine in an effort to get Ukraine to announce an investigation into his political rival. So let me give you the details on what this damning report says on the eve of the Senate impeachment trial. GAO, an independent nonpartisan government watchdog that responds to congressional requests, said the White House attempted to justify its decision not to notify Congress by claiming it was simply a programmatic delay. So the acting chief of staff, as we all know, Mick Mulvaney, informed the Office of Management

and Budget on July 12th that Trump was directing them to halt the congressionally appropriated funds to Ukraine. But he did not give any reason for it, he would not answer any questions about it. Trump actually didn't even release the aid until there was word of the whistleblower complaint. Once Trump heard of the whistleblower complaint, at that point, a few hours later, he releases the aid to Ukraine. That's important contextual information to know. Yeah, and really fast. Since then, some Trump supporters have used him releasing the aid hours after the whistleblower complaint comes out as evidence that he wasn't doing anything wrong.

Look, he released the aid, not noticing the weird timeline there. Right, I mean, look, which is so damning. That's an incredibly poor defense, it's wafer thin, and even the government accountability office, which is an independent investigative body, acknowledges that. But GAO rejected that claim saying Trump's decision carried out by the budget office was a violation of the impoundment control act, which requires notification to Congress of any such delay in an appropriation of funds. So that impoundment control act of 1974 curbs the executive branch's authority to alter

congressionally appropriated funds, okay? And this is an important law to have because it ensures that our system of checks and balances remains in place. That the executive branch can't just single-handedly or unilaterally change a decision that Congress voted on. Yeah, well, they can, but they have to do it the right way. Hypothetically, he could veto the bill. Yes.

Why this is important is because vetoing it is a big thing that draws media scrutiny and can be then replied to by the legislature. If instead you just sign it and then you just never appropriate the aid, well then we don't have checks and balances and, you know, I mean, would the media even catch onto it? It would be totally just, it would be to end round our checks and balances. Exactly. And since Trump did not release those funds until way later in September, September 11th, when the word of the whistleblower was, you know, they were informed of the whistleblower.

Since it was so late, Ukraine actually never even received the entirety of the funds that they were supposed to receive. So that's an important part of the story as well. So the GAO report says, faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. The GAO report also states that the Office of Management and Budget, and the State Department failed to provide all the information that was necessary for its investigation. I note that part of the report because it, of course, coincides with what congressional Democrats have been arguing about the Trump administration in this whole impeachment investigation. Remember, one of the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump is obstruction of Congress, because he is telling individuals who have been subpoenaed by Congress to not comply with those

subpoenas, and the White House is also refusing to release documents that have been subpoenaed by Congress. These are important things that are hopefully gonna be used in the Senate impeachment trial. But as we've talked about quite a bit, since Republicans control the Senate, they get to make up the rules. And I have no doubt in my mind that regardless of how damning the evidence is against Donald Trump, congressional Senate Republicans are going to do what they can to protect him. Yeah, they're going to see their obstruction of Congress and double down with an obstruction of at least one half of Congress from the other half, basically. Yeah, we still don't know for sure that we're getting any witnesses, even though there's

been this bombshell release of documents and interviews over the past few days. I know we're going to break down. And so Donald Trump is getting a huge assist from the Senate in that way. Now the GAO can only go so far in terms of, they're not imputing motivation. for holding the aid. They even use the terminology of they can't substitute their policy priorities as if what Donald Trump was doing was having an honest disagreement on policy. It was interested in policy, he was interested in his own personal political game.

Definitely, exactly. So again, this is just another piece of evidence that is damning for Donald Trump. And we know how this is going to play out in the Senate. I don't have high hopes that the Senate is going to convict Trump and remove him. But I would like to have high hopes that congressional Democrats hold these Republican lawmakers accountable for enabling the criminality of Donald Trump. Yeah. Because we need to win back the Senate.

And if they're not going to follow the law, they're going to enable this type of criminality, that is something that Democrats should be campaigning on aggressively. Yeah. So let's move on to left partners because that is probably the juiciest story of the day. and there's so many different parts to get to. So Rudy Giuliani's business associate, Lev Parnas, is talking to reporters. Not only is he complying with impeachment investigators, but he's also talking to reporters about what he knows, how he worked with Rudy Giuliani and the Trump administration,

and just how many people within the Trump administration knew about Trump's dirty dealings when it came to Ukraine and the congressionally appropriated military funding that was supposed to go to Ukraine. Now, as we know, he withheld that money and demanded that Ukraine announce an investigation to Donald Trump. So what exactly did Parnas have to say in these interviews? He talked to both Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper, we're gonna show you clips from both. And in this next clip, I would argue you hear something that is the most damning when it comes

to Donald Trump. What do you think is the main inaccuracy or the main lie that's being told that you feel like you can correct? That the president didn't know what was going on. President Trump know exactly what was going on. He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn't do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these officials.

I mean, they have no reason to speak to me. I would President Zelensky's inner circle or minister of Akoff or all these people or President Poroshenko meet with me. Who am I? They were told to meet with me and that's the secret that they're trying to keep. I was on the ground doing their work. We all knew or at least suspected that Donald Trump was in on all of this because who is the person who stands to gain the most from this announcement of the investigation

into the Bidens. Donald Trump, whose political rival is Joe Biden. In fact, Donald Trump himself in front of a helicopter urged China to investigate Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who at that time, before this whole debacle with Bernie, was really spiking in the polls, right? And so he didn't really hide the fact that he was in favor of these types of announcements that would hurt his political rivals. And I think that Parnas makes a really good argument there. Like, who is Lev Parnas and Why was he, out of all these people, encouraged to work with Trump administration officials and Zelensky? Yeah, yeah. If you want, like, the first interview of a figure of Lev Parnas to not win as many people over,

then don't, like, cede the ground with a transcript that shows you wanting investigations, you on live television asking for investigations, all of your cronies in the media continually pushing, even to this day for investigations, the Republicans in the Senate were going to protect you, We're still trying to bring in Joe and Hunter Biden in lieu of investigations. They all want it so bad that when Lev Parnas comes out and says, yeah, I wasn't over there randomly. They wanted me to get these investigations. It is very easy to believe.

Even if Lev Parnas and his whole thing gives us reasons to not necessarily 100% believe him. Right. I mean, look, I think Lev Parnas, who's, of course, facing some federal charges for campaign fundraising that he's not supposed to be doing, a legal campaign contributions to the Trump campaign. Yes, of course. So there's criminality there on his part. But I think part of the reason why he's being honest, he's releasing documents. Remember that.

We talked about that on the show yesterday to help bolster what he's saying. And he wants a little bit of, he wants the feds to take it easy on him, which is part of the reason why he's complying with this investigation. But in this next clip, he talks about motivation. So what was it that Trump cared about the most? When you say that the president knew about your movements and knew what you were doing, are you saying specifically, and I want to sort of drill down on that, that the president was aware that you and Mr. Giuliani were working on this effort in Ukraine to basically try to hurt Joe Biden's political career.

He knew about that. Yeah, it was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and also really, really, you know. Rudy had a personal thing with the Manafort stuff, the black ledger. That was another thing that they were looking into. But it was never about corruption, it was never strictly about the Burisma, which included Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. So it's clear. I mean, he's essentially really reinforcing what we had already suspected.

And one of the other things that we suspected was that Donald Trump, and the Trump campaign, the Trump team, the Trump administration, everyone associated with him, we're trying to push this conspiracy theory about how, no, Trump was not colluding with Russia to get an upper hand in the 2016 election. In fact, it was Ukraine that was helping Hillary Clinton win the election. That was one of the conspiracy theories that we kept hearing about over and over again. And according to some of the Parnas revelations, he worked with Trump in order to do. get or to spread misinformation about that conspiracy theory.

So Parnas played a central role in arranging an interview with the Ukrainian prosecutor who claimed there was a plot in his country to help Hillary Clinton, and then urging a senior contact at America First Action to get Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to tweet it, which he did. Links to stories about Ukraine that Parnas sent to America First Action finance director Joseph Ahern were tweeted by both the president and Trump Jr., the material shows. And again, that's just another piece of evidence showing that Trump was very much aware of what was going on.

This was very much an orchestrated effort to spread this conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton. And that includes some other figures, too, because some of the documents that were revealed earlier this week from Les Parnas involved text messages that in a very similar form ended up being an op-ed by John Solomon, one of the figures who helped to initially spread the Ukraine conspiracy theory, and he also coordinated with Sean Hannity. So it really does involve, like, all of those people who've been floating around Donald Trump over the past couple of years. Exactly.

So let's go to the next clip where Parnas talks about his personal relationship with Donald Trump. He said about you and Mr. Fruman, Igor Fruman, I don't know those gentlemen. I don't know about them. I don't know what they do. You're saying that was not a true statement from the president. He lied. The president has said, when you arrested, the president of the United States said, He didn't know you.

I don't know those gentlemen. I welcome him to say that even more. Every time he says, I'll show him another picture. He's lying. He's lying. Yeah. Again, something we suspected. Yeah, and it's, I mean, the whole thing is frustrating.

Like, I feel like I say this every day. So we have to work overtime to prove what is obviously true, even though it'll then just be disregarded anyway. idea that Donald Trump knew this guy. I mean, he can show as many pictures as he wants, we can show all these pictures. We know for a fact that Rudy Giuliani was working with the guy, they're cavorting around on Instagram Live and all that stuff. They were over there working together. Rudy Giuliani for a couple of years now has been the unpaid henchman of Donald Trump. Why did Rudy Giuliani choose Lev Parnas to go? And they're continually taking trips and

continually communicating all of this stuff. The idea that, like, what does it take? 100 photos, 200 photos to prove that Donald Trump has a connection of this guy. Donald Trump still hasn't disavowed Rudy Giuliani, and Rudy Giuliani was best buds with this guy. They were clearly working together on this. It's just so at this point with all the different people within the Trump administration who have testified against him in both closed and open house hearings, the documents that were released by Parnas, the interviews that are so specific in detail with Parnas, all of this

evidence, look, you couldn't pay to get OPPO research this good. Yeah. This is such a layup for Democrats. Do I think that Trump's going to be removed? Okay, do you think that the Senate trial is going to go the way that it should go where lawmakers do the right thing and they remove him? No, I already know how the Senate is going to handle the situation. But again, this is a layup for Democrats.

It's here, it's here, there's so much damning evidence. There's so much material for your campaign ads. I hope they wake up and they realize that they should, they should be using this stuff now in their campaign ads, now, right now. Just read those text messages and then say, why are the Senate Republicans trying to protect these guys, these apparent, like these guys who fantasize about killing U.S. officers. And so you said you couldn't buy Apo research this good. You also, unfortunately, can't buy media cover for a politician as good as Donald Trump gets.

That's true. So, like, Sean Hannity is already a part of this story. But Sean Hannity is also, because this is a media figure, every day he's opining on the story. And what he had to say today is, is that the Lev Parnas stuff shows how desperate Democrats are. They're pinning their hopes on this guy, this guy who's like going to go down for multiple crimes, is involved with organized crime, all this stuff. And think about how maddening that is, that the Democrats look bad because Rudy Giuliani has been working with and cavorting around with this fairly obvious.

this kooky criminal. So as long as Donald Trump, as long as his henchmen are laughable, then the Democrats will look bad if they ask why he's surrounding himself with criminals constantly year after year. And Rudy Giuliani, sorry, Sean Hannity in this case, like he brings on Rudy Giuliani. Ask him if you want to know why people are working with Lev Parnas. But he doesn't want to know that. He doesn't want to know. I mean, and let's not forget, and we're going to talk about this in more detail later

in the show, but Devin Nunes, who is a ranking congressman who took part, of course, in the impeachment investigation, is very much implicated in all of this. Yeah. It's insane. And so there's a lot of criminality going around, and the very people on the Republican side who are supposed to be holding Donald Trump accountable happen to be implicated in the very situation that Trump is being investigated in. It's insane.

So are we going to allow this type of rot to take place in our country? Is this what we're okay with? And that's what Democrats should be asking in their campaign ads. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And really fast, we keep talking about precedent, and that is why one of the reasons we wanted impeachment to be pursued is we're worried about precedent being set. Think about the precedent that is being set.

Like so many politicians are being trained day by day through the story that, man, even if you make your crimes really obvious, you'll probably be okay. Like if you're the least bit savvy, the least bit clever in the way you go about this, you don't make your communications as easily trackable, you don't surround yourself with obvious rogues and thieves and people with no honor whatsoever that are going to turn on you the second they can, that as long as you don't do that, you are going to be 100% fine. Any corruption you want, any crimes you want to commit, you'll probably be just fine. Before we end this story, I do want to go to one member comment, and it's from Farmer Phil.

Please, please, please talk about the lawyer's creepy looks. I was not going to do that. The lawyer is sitting next to Lev Parnas. I don't know if we can go to B-roll featuring Lev Parnas sitting next to his lawyer, but I see you. I totally notice the same thing. In fact, I would be a little freaked out if I were Rachel Maddow because he's like giving her the look. I'm sure he doesn't intend to.

But he's like giving her the look of death. Yeah, I didn't see the... So let's go to the first video that we played in this segment, just so I make the point. That, we can use that as B-roll. Yeah, he's just like sitting there as left partners is answering the questions. And he just, yeah, he looks intimidating. I'm not going to lie. So, anyway.

He looks great. I mean, I can't tell about the other guy yet. They both have super bloodshot eyes. They look like they haven't slept in like 58 years. Yeah, he is staring. He has not blinked yet. Look at him, look at him. No blink.

Look at the lawyer. The lawyer like freaks me out. But anyway. No, that's what I was talking about. The lawyer didn't blink once in that video. Rachel Maddow. What you asked? I'm intimidated.

All right, well, we gotta take a break. But we're not done with the Lev Parnas interviews yet. We have more clips, including a harsh message that he was sent to deliver to Ukrainian officials. What was that message? And later, we'll talk about how William Barr. is implicated in all of this. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations

are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-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 unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time.

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on this table effectively. And so just, just bear that in mind going forward. We have no money and no resources, okay? And not that many people. Yeah, so just be aware of that. What we have is you. Yes. All right, so a few member comments, I bathe in a very genius, stable genius's tear says,

remember when Jenks said he was going to get back at John for making fun of him on the damage report? Seems John has won the war. But have you? He doesn't even want to get into Congress. He's just doing this for vacation time. Yeah, right. Currently carrying mail deep in Trump County, California, says,

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So if you would like to support independent media, specifically the Young Turks, Please go to tyt.com slash join and become a member. Few TYT lives from the Twitter section. Real time writes in and says, I bet the people in the government accountability office are just fun A.F. Doubt it. But still, I'm glad they did that report. Yeah, they know how a party.

Eclectic miscellaneous says at this point, it might be easier just to list the laws that Trump hasn't broken. Yeah. He got so many ones free. It's insane. It really is. All right, and then just a quick announcement about our TAP program. Our TAP program is meant to create a win-win between our viewers and us here as employees

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I think so. All right. In a series of interviews by Lev Parnas, Giuliani's business associate, we learned quite a few things, including that Donald Trump personally knew and worked with Lev Parnas, and that Parnas was given a harsh message to give to Ukrainian officials. What was that message exactly? Take a look. The message that I was supposed to, that I gave Sergei Schaefer, was a very harsh message

that was told to me to give it to him in a very harsh way, not in the point. pleasant way. Who told you to give it to him in a harsh way? Mayor Giuliani Rudy told me. After, you know, meeting at the president at the White House, he called me. The message was it wasn't just military aid, it was all aid. Basically, the relationships would be sour that you would, that we would stop giving him any kind of aid, that unless... Unless that there was an announcement, well, several things. There were several demands

at that point. A, the most important one was the announcement of the Biden investigation. Did you also convey to him that the U.S. government would stop showing support for Mr. Zelensky, that they wouldn't attend the inauguration. That was the biggest thing, actually. So that's huge, because this wasn't just about the $400 million that was appropriated by Congress for military aid to Ukraine. There was a threat of freezing all aid to Ukraine if Vladimir Zelensky refused to give Donald Trump what he wanted. This is a clear quid pro quo. And what Trump wanted was the announcement of the investigation into the Bidens.

Yes. And that is, of course, Donald Trump's political opponent. So this is a huge deal. These revelations certainly do not help Donald Trump on the eve of the Senate impeachment trial. And Parnas has provided documentation, including handwritten notes, to help bolster this case against him. Yeah. And like I always repeat, I don't think I've ever heard. anyone involved in this scheme say that what they wanted was an investigation of Joe Biden.

It is always an announcement of an investigation of Joe Biden. It is the most, Trump is such a simple creature. In the run-up to the 2016 election, like a week before, they announced that they were looking to Hillary Clinton. And he loved it, and he just wants it again. It's really as simple as that. He wants the media to be focused on an investigation of his rival. That's it.

Yeah, and I like that you further clarified that, John, because I always, when I talk about this story, I always make sure to mention the announcement. You did. Yeah, because I think it is important to make that distinction. Because the way that Trump and his allies frame this is, well, we were just really concerned about corruption, you know, in Ukraine, and that's the reason why we didn't want to release the aid to the country. But first of all, they did end up releasing the aid after they found out that there was

a whistleblower who was about to blow the whistle. And secondly, they didn't actually want the investigation. They didn't care about the investigation. They didn't think that there was actually any corruption. All they wanted was the negative press for the Biden campaign. Yeah, and I will say, this is something I said early on. It's now been, what, four months since this whole thing started. They could have gotten all of this pressure off themselves.

In four months, if they could just come up with another name or another company, literally anyone else who was corrupt that they're worried about. They have had like a hundred days to do their homework and come up with one other instance of corruption that they were looking into. And if they could have done that early on, it really might have avoided all this trouble for them. If they had done the minimal homework necessary to make it not clearly a thing that is just about Joe Biden and his family. Right, right. But think about this. Donald Trump has gotten away with so much And he's been told over and over again, not just during his administration, but throughout his entire life, that he's above the law. He created shell companies in order to dodge taxes that he was supposed to pay when he inherited more than $400 million from his father.

He has his own former personal lawyer on the record under oath testifying that Trump inflated his assets in order to obtain loans that he had no business obtaining, which means that he committed fraud. He also committed fraud when he deflated his assets in order to prevent paying more taxes than he would like. And so, look, that's tax fraud. That's fraud in general when it comes to obtaining the loans. He has gotten away with these things. Illegal campaign contributions when it comes to the hush money payments that he paid to two women prior to his election. I mean, how much more evidence do you guys need? And he gets away with it.

So he thinks he's above the law. He doesn't even think he needs to do the bare minimum to, you know, provide cover in case he gets caught. There are so many examples like the ones you just listed that perhaps we don't need anymore. But literally just this morning, we got another example of supposedly Donald Trump is furious, not about himself and his electoral chances, but the corruption of Joe Biden supposedly doing something for the Ukrainian government to benefit his family, his son in particular. There's a book coming out on January 21st. I think it's called The Stable Genius or whatever.

It's two Pulitzer Prize winning investigators or whatever. One of the things that they detail is that Trump back in 2017 had a conversation with Rex Tillerson about one of the U.S. laws that stops U.S. businesses and individuals from bribing foreign officials to get business incentives, basically to have that company, that country, then do business with them. Which is effectively what he's accusing Joe. And by the way, Trump was furious about that. He thought it was unfair to U.S. businesses. John, his own kids went on television and complained about how Hunter Biden was working on a

Ukrainian gas company board and how it was nepotism. They'd know. His own kids complained about nepotism. Yeah, he just, he wants to open the path for him and his family to do more of this. He was trying to do that for literally years. In this particular instance, Rex Tillerson was actually on the right side. He was against changing that law. Right.

But yeah, he cares about corruption. That's what he's worried about. Well, one of the Trump administration officials who's implicated in this investigation is the top law enforcement official, the attorney general, William Barr. And so Parnas talked about him in his interview as well. Let's take a look. Do you know if Mr. Giuliani was ever in contact with Mr. Barr specifically about the fact that he was trying to get Ukraine to announce these investigations into Joe Biden?

Oh, absolutely. Mr. Barr knew about that. Mr. Barr, had to have known everything. I mean, it's impossible. Did Rudy Giuliani tell you he'd spoken to the Attorney General, specifically about Ukraine? Not only Rudy Giuliani, I mean, Victoria and Joe, they were all best friends. I mean, Barr was, Attorney General Barr was basically on the team. So William Barr should testify in the Senate trial. William Barr was mentioned in the summary of the phone call that was released by the White House.

We know that Barr was somehow involved. We now have even more confirmation based on what Lev Parnas said in this interview, that Barr was very much aware of what was going on. And so Barr 100% should be forced to testify. But again, unfortunately, the Senate is controlled by Republicans who have no interest in doing the right thing in protecting our Constitution. and serving their obligated role as a check on executive power. What they're doing is protecting their own political careers, and they're covering up for a commander-in-chief who is clearly guilty of criminality here.

Yeah, yeah, the interesting thing is that whole interview is being pitched as he's just, he's lying, he's making it all up, he's giving the Democrats or Rachel Manor or whatever, whatever she wants, but there were there were two areas where he doesn't really do that. I mean, in one, he said that Robert Hyde was just kind of crazy or drunk. He wasn't really surveilling Maria Ivanovich. I think one of the reasons he might have the incentive to do that is because he would be implicated in that same threat, at least to some extent. But with William Barr, he says he had to have known, but he doesn't state definitively

in the same way that he does about Donald Trump. He says Donald Trump knew. He knew everything. There he said, William Barr had to have known. He was part of the team. He was friends with all of that. I think that William Barr was involved. I think that's why Donald Trump was bringing him up with President Zelensky on the call.

And we already know that William Barr, if he had had his way, we would have never found out about any of this. Because he tried to eliminate the whistleblower complaint. So he's definitely involved. He should definitely be removed from his position while this investigation is ongoing. And he should definitely testify. But I actually found that part of Lev Parnas's interview to be less damning than some. some of the others. You know what, you're right.

I think that's an important distinction. And I'm glad that you mention that because he isn't, it isn't as definitive. But it's still, in my mind, helps to support the argument that William Barr should testify to see what he did know. And so we can get a little more information and confirmation on that. But there- Can I mention it one other things just because I mentioned this while we were watching the video. So like Donald Trump, he tried to do this scheme.

And it blew up in his face and ended up with him being impeached. But that does not mean that he's going to have learned his lesson or anything. Like the Senate Republicans are still trying to get Joe Biden or Hunter Biden in a testify to create the media thing that Trump wanted. And they still have William Barr. Like we have months to go until the election. You don't think that William Barr on the FBI and the DOJ will investigate Bernie or Biden or whoever.

Like these people are 100% corrupt. they're there to serve Donald Trump. If he needs to gin up some sort of investigation to produce headlines, he's going to do that. If the whistleblower complaint indicated that Donald Trump was urging or coercing the Ukrainians to launch, not even launch, to announce an investigation to Bernie Sanders, as opposed to Joe Biden, we would not have an impeachment trial. Yeah, no. The Democrats would have pushed him out.

It's speculation, obviously. but I would argue that Democrats would assist Trump in that effort. Well, you know, we care about corruption if we got to look into it, that is possible. But, you know, like I guess knock on wood, if Bernie's the nominee and there's a very good chance that's going to happen, Donald Trump is not going to run a fair fight against Bernie Sanders. He can't, he'll get destroyed, he's going to have to come up with something and unfortunately, like in that case, I don't think that the Democrats are going to be like actively charged. I know everybody thinks that they'll be actively trying to undercut Bernie, and they have a lot of things to fear about Bernie Sanders. Why would anyone think that?

That's weird. I understand that. But I really don't think that most Democrats, even if I disagree with them on a lot of stuff, want Donald Trump to be reelected, that's an absolute disaster for the Democratic Party. But the media, either just for the drama or because they want to look like they're unbiased for the Republicans, they will go along with anything. Like I always said, if Fried Zakari and Had Zelensky on, we would be in month. Two of, oh, Bernie, or Biden in this investigation is looking pretty bad for him.

Right. The media would be very serious. And it is presidential of Donald Trump that he cares so much about corruption overseas. Okay, well, there's one other part of this interview that I want to share with you all, and it has to do with witnesses. So, Lef Parnas has strong feelings about which witnesses will testify during the Senate trial in the impeachment of Donald Trump. Now, we have made this case, and Lev Parnas is making a very similar case in this next clip.

Did Mr. Bolton know that Vice President Pence was supposed to secure that agreement from Zelensky that he'd announced these investigations? I don't know exactly what Mr. Bolton know, but I know Mr. Bolton was definitely involved in the loop because of the firing of Maria Ivanovich. Also, his interactions with Rudy Giuliani, they started budding heads. and he was not agreeing, I mean, from Venezuela to Ukraine, Bolton didn't agree with Giuliani on the way of dealing with it. So there was tension there. There was definitely tension. But you believe he knows what the administration was pressuring Ukraine to do? Bolton, 100%. He knows what happened there.

Bolton seems to want to testify before he was telling congressional Democrats that he wanted to avoid complying with their subpoena. He wanted a judge to make a ruling on whether or not he had to comply. But through his statements, through his own personal lawyer, it was clear that Bolton wanted it to go to the courts and he wanted the courts to pressure him to comply so he could testify. Democrats didn't bite, he decided to just say, I'm gonna comply if I get subpoenaed in the Senate trial. Yeah.

Now whether he will get subpoenaed in the Senate trial or will get pressure to testify, that remains to be seen because Donald Trump can point to executive privilege to prevent that testimony from taking place in the first place. But I do think it is important for him to testify because clearly Bolton, and I can't believe I'm saying this, this is shocking, had some principles and saw what- the Trump administration was doing as wrong and criminal, and he didn't want to take part in it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, he was involved, he should testify. We haven't heard anything from him, he should testify. But he's, like a lot of these people are massive liars. He's,

I have very little faith in what he would have to say. More importantly, though, I guess Lev Parnas is implying that he would have something to add to this, but it really does feel like he was removed from his position so early on in the process that I don't know how much he could actually know about the plot, but I guess we won't know until he testifies. Exactly. And remember, he was the one quoted as saying that he didn't want to get involved in this drug deal. Yeah.

It's not a drug deal, but that's how we refer to it to draw attention to the criminality, or at least what he perceived to be the criminality of this action that Trump wanted to take. So there's all sorts of people who have been named, people who were either previously in Trump's administration or currently in Trump's administration, who should absolutely be pressured to testify. And if the Senate blocks the testimony of these various individuals, Democrats need to hold Senate Republicans accountable for that. They need to campaign aggressively against them using that information in their campaign

ads, on their stump speeches, whatever it takes. And there was also mention of Mike Pence and how Mike Pence was involved in pressuring the Ukrainians for the announcement of the Biden investigation. That was one other thing that Lev Parnas mentioned. So Pence has kind of remained in the clear for the most part when we have these types of discussions and based on the accusation against Parnas, Mike Pence needs to answer some questions as well. And in like zooming out a little bit, Mike Pence has done a pretty good, it's been years

now that he's been in that position and he has kept a very low profile. He's avoided being implicated in any of the major scandals. His name didn't crop up that much in the Mueller report. And just now, he's starting to get linked with things. But Mike Pence, there's a lot of people in DC that seemed like, okay, Trump is coming in, I'm going to keep my head down, eventually he'll go away and it'll be our Republican Party again, like people like Ted Cruz, Lizzie Graham, people like that. Mike Pence might not actually survive.

If he was a part of this plot, he's easier hypothetically to take out than Trump, I think. Not necessarily by the Senate, I'm saying, but. I agree with you. I agree with you. And Pence and Trump almost had a feud large enough for Trump to oust Pence. Because Pence made mention of possibly running in 2024. And Donald Trump does not want that because he's considering one of his children running in 2024. That was a story.

We talked about it a few months ago. What is he worried about? The entire party's a cult. It doesn't matter if Pence runs. They're going to go for whichever Trump is on the ballot at that point. True. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll discuss how Devin Nunes is implicated and how he had to change his story after previously denying that he even knew left partners.

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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 it. independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Deep House. I'm into the Deep House. At last. One of our viewers, our live viewers, message me and asked if I was being serious or

sarcastic about Deep House. I like Deep House a lot. So I'm not being sarcastic. I'm being serious. Is that a joke? I do like... She's honest about one thing, her love for Deep House. The deep house.

The deepest. I also miss my raver days. That was when I was fun and not bogged down by too much work. But nonetheless. I can't imagine that. Oh, so much fun. Like laser shows and like... Wow, lights everywhere.

Okay, aspiration. Let's talk about aspiration. We are doing an aspiration sweepstakes because we want to encourage you to move your money out of one of these big banks that invests in fossil fuel companies into a financial institution that does not do so. So if you do that, if you open up one of these aspiration spend and save accounts, the account that I have actually, you get all sorts of perks. But what's even better is that you get to enter into this sweepstakes.

And the winner of the sweepstakes gets to have dinner with me, Jank and John in Los Angeles. It doesn't matter where you are in the country. We will fly you over to LA, put you up in a hotel, and we'll have an awesome dinner together with awesome conversation. Now, opening up a spend and save account isn't enough. You actually have to register your eligibility, okay? So in order to learn more about this, go to t.com slash dinner in LA to register to win. You gotta open up that account, spend and save, register your eligibility.

And then after that, after you go through this process, all you have to do is what I like to do best. Spend some money, swipe that card. So every time you swipe that card, it's an entry, right? And the person who swipes the most wins the prize and we will fly you out to stay in L.A. and have dinner with us. Sounds like fun. And I want to be clear, you have the highest chance.

Because each time you're being entered in. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it should be fun. It's pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to the dinner. I am too. We have no idea where it's going to be.

It's not going to be Burger King. Oh, food fit for royalty. I think I should pick the restaurant. If you wanna pick the restaurant, every time you promo this, just say the restaurant you wanna go to. Well, I gotta get it cleared. No, no, keep saying it and it'll obligate them. Okay, Brett's giving me dirty looks, we gotta move on.

Also, just to be a little more specific about old school, old school is still happening every Tuesday, but we're doing a 30 minute show every week as opposed to, I believe it was an hour and 30 before. We don't have enough bandwidth guys, please bear with us. For now, as Jenk runs for Congress, this is what we can manage to do. So every Tuesday night, we have old school for 30 minutes, okay? All right, without further ado, let's get to the next story. Representative Devin Nunes is one of Donald Trump's fiercest defenders, especially when it came

to the impeachment investigation in the House. Well, now it turns out through various documents that have been obtained by impeachment investigators and phone records that have been obtained by impeachment investigators. Devin Nunes was very much in contact with Lev Parnas, who was Rudy Giuliani's business partner and who also assisted the Ukrainians in ousting the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Now, previously he denied even knowing who Lev Parnas was. But now things are a little different. Now Lef Parnas is calling him out.

Let's go to the video. Do you know Congressman Devin Nunes? Yes, I do. What's been your relationship with him? We don't have too much of a relationship. We met several times at the Trump Hotel. But our relationship started getting, basically where expanded was when I was introduced to his aide, Derek Harvey. And the reason why Derek Harvey was more of, I understood.

But I was told at that time is because Devin Nunez just had an ethics, something to do with the next ethics committee. And he couldn't be in the spotlight. He was kind of shunned a little bit. And that they was looking into this Ukraine stuff also wanted to help out. And Devin, they gave me Derek Harvey to deal with. You told Mr. Harvey what you and Mr. Giuliani were working on in Ukraine, trying to get Ukraine to announce these investigations.

He was aware of that already. He knew everything. He already knew that by the time he talked to you. He had a lot of information already. Wow. So he would deal with an associate of Devin Nunes. Devin Nunes was very much part of this. And again, as we cited, and we'll show you some evidence of this a little later in this segment, Devin Nunes denied ever talking to Lev Parnas, pretending as though he didn't know who Lev Parnas was. In fact, going so far as to mispronouncing

Lev Parnas's name to try to show that he didn't know who he was, which was pathetic. But we have a- It's very clever if you're a dumb person. It seems convincing. Yes. And And as we're going to show, in his denials, I don't believe he ever outright says, no, it didn't happen. He always left room, which hypothetically is the mark of a reasonable person. You can't totally deny something if you're not sure. But in politics, it means you did it. You don't want to get caught, basically.

You don't want to get caught lying, exactly. So you want to leave enough room to say something like, oh, you know what? I'm just, I'm such a busy person. I went back and I looked at my records and it turns out, yeah, totally. We traveled together, we went to the Bahamas, we dined at a buffet. No, he didn't say any of that. But he did say something along the lines of, oh yeah, I went back and looked at my records. But before we get to that, one other piece of this Lev Parnas interview with Rachel Maddow

that I want to show you, because remember what I cited in the very beginning of this segment, Lev Parnas very much did know and very much did work with Devin Nunes. Nunes is a ranking Democrat who took part in this impeachment investigation in the House. So what's up with that? Let's take a look. Given that interaction that you just described with Congressman Nunes and his aide, Mr. Harvey, does it strike you as unusual or inappropriate that Devin Nunes would be one of the lead investigators into this scandal on the House Intelligence Committee? He's obviously the top Republican on that committee.

I was in shock when I was watching the hearings and when I saw Devin Nunez sitting up there And then there was a picture where Derek Harvey was in back over there sitting. I text my attorney. I said, I can't believe this is happening. Because? Well, because they were involved in getting all this stuff from Biden. I mean, Derek Harvey had several interviews, Skype interviews that I set up with different prosecutors, like Nazar Haladitsky, which is the anti-corruption prosecutor of Ukraine,

Kulik, Konstantin Kulik, who's one of the major guys that said, had this whole Biden stuff. So it was, it's hard to see them lie like that when you know it's like that, it's scary. Because, you know, he was sitting there and making all these statements and all that. When he knew very well that he knew what was going on, he knew what's happening. He knows who I am. So it, to me, he's telling the truth. And I also want to just correct something that I said previously, I misspoke.

Devin Nunes is clearly a Republican, not a Democrat. Clearly. Yes. Yes, and thank you to everyone who tweeted in a hashtag 2IT live when they noticed that Parnas's lawyer indeed can blink. He did. So let's give him credit for that. Very intimidating guy though.

Yes. So look, it's clear Lev Parnas is citing all the different ways in which he communicated with Devin Nunes. He makes it clear that Devin Nunes knew what was going on. He was taking part in this criminality carried out by the Trump administration. And so what does Devin Nunes have to say about all this? Well, very recently, right before Parnas actually did this interview, he goes on Fox News and he changes his story.

We also talked back then about the fact that your phone number showed up with calls to him to Lev Parnas in a list of data numbers. And you said that you didn't recall speaking with him or whether it was on your cell phone or your office phone. Have you, have you figured out the answer to any of those questions? Yeah, and if you, if you recall, that was brand new when that had come out when I came on your show. That's right. I just didn't know the name, this name Parnas. So, you know, what I always like to remind people is, you know, we are dealing with people every day. We're an oversight committee. So we have incoming calls that come to my office, to my cell phone, et cetera,

and then, you know, you know now that he had called my cell phone. And I didn't know his name. I didn't remember the name, but I did remember going back looking at where I was. at the time, because you know, you can do that now. You actually know where you physically are, checked it with my records, and it was very clear. I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things. And I said, great, you know, just talk to my staff and boom, boom, boom. So he has changed his story and he's saying, you know, I'm a very busy guy, I'm a very busy guy.

I didn't recognize this name, Lev Parnas, and now all of a sudden, you know, I know is, wink. Now I know that this interview is going to happen. And he's probably going to disclose how he personally knows me and is very close to the details of how I was involved. So let me go ahead and change my story and talk about how I checked my records and changed my mind about how I know him. If the Republican Party ever scrapes together a couple dozen intelligent, clever people, we're doomed.

Okay, thankfully it's all chuckleheads and jokers, basically. Such terrible liars. So I don't mean to make light of this. I can't help but laugh at how incredibly stupid they are. Yeah. And what you just said is so right, I mean, they're, they don't, they're so incompetent and so bad at covering up their own crimes. But look, the heart of the story is that these crimes are taking place within the White

House with the help of a Republican in Congress whose sole job it is to represent his constituents and hold the executive branch accountable, right? checks and balances, doesn't matter. These are people who refer to themselves as constitutionalists. These are people who talk about themselves as if they're the greatest patriots who have ever lived, and they're the ones who want to protect and love this country more than Democrats. But they're the ones who take advantage of their own constituents. They're the ones who look out for their best interests, for their financial interests, for their own political careers. I mean, you have Devin Nunes in bed with Donald Trump on national television pretending like he doesn't

know who Lev Parnas is, but in reality we have irrefutable evidence indicating that he did. Why was he still part? This is what I don't understand. Why did Democrats allow him to remain in that committee as part of that impeachment investigation? Because these revelations came out while these public hearings were taking place in the house. I don't know that they could stop it. What do you mean? I don't think that they control the minority representation.

He's been implicated in this. Yeah. Yeah, but nothing matters. No offense, no offense. We're not talking about the Senate. We're talking about the House. Okay? Democrats control the House.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a Democrat. When are they going to flex their muscle? Yeah, it's just about how exactly they can flex. I can be wrong, I'm not Michael Shore, but I don't know that they can actually bar someone from membership on a committee. He's implicated in this criminal situation, that's crazy. Yeah, I agree. It's like finding, it's like finding out that a prosecutor is actually part of the crime

that he's prosecuting. It feels a lot like that. That's exactly what's happening right now. Yeah, exactly. It's insane. Well, and William Barr, I think, is a similar sort of figure. He's someone who is involved in this. He has a personal incentive, let alone a loyalty to, you know, his god emperor.

He has a personal incentive to quash it because it could make him look back. potentially land him in legal trouble. The thing that this makes me think of actually is I don't remember which election it was. I don't know how many years, I love that picture. So you remember Duke Cunningham, the like the bribery and corruption scandal, the I believe is a California Republican congressman. And like there was a whole midterm election that was around like the voters are striking back against corruption.

There have been a few like that. But now we're not gonna have anything like that because the problem is that all these Republicans to an extent even greater than ever before, they don't care. about any of this corruption because it's intended to protect the guy that they love more than their own lives. Like if Devin Nunes was breaking the rules to help protect Donald Trump, good, I love Donald Trump. If Donald Trump was trying to sell out our foreign policy to win an election, good, I want him

to win that election. Why would they care about any of this stuff? The only hope we have is that if we continually shout from the rooftops, how ridiculous things have become, that our side will vote. And some of the people in the middle who aren't necessarily committed Dems, but also aren't members of the Red Hat Club, that they might vote too. But none of those people, like there's no, this is the problem we have with Biden all the time.

There's no like waking them up, there's no like, oh, they'll come out of their trance. It's not going to happen. All of this criminality is intended to protect the movement they love. And so they have an incentive for the criminality to continue. I that's a great point I don't have anything to add to that and you're absolutely right I do want to give jr some credit because he put a great jr rated video together just showing you the many faces of devon nunes when it comes to his recollection of lev parnus and here it is great mashup video did you ever talk to this guy less parnese or whoever his name is you know

it's possible, but I haven't gone through all my phone records. I don't really recall that name. What did you discuss with Lev Parnas? Well, I don't even know because I don't, I've never met Parnas. Somebody concocted this story in order to try to get this Parnas guy who I've never met. And so, you know, it's a great question because many people want to know, including myself. It seems very unlikely that I would be taking calls from random people. I got a call from from a number that was Parnas' wife. So you never had any phone conversation with him? We have not been able to confirm that yet.

Adam Schiff is the guy working with Parnas. Yeah, Adam Schiff is not working with a Lev Parnas, okay? The only person- That's less Parnas. Or less Parnas is handed he said. I mean, pretending to not know his name is just hilarious. Also, I don't even know how to use a phone. So stupid. Do you believe me yet? Good.

So I want to include the thoughts about. some of our members in the context of these stories, members helped to make this show happen. And so this is one of the many perks of being a member at TYT. You can join by going to TYT.com slash join. Listen, this isn't necessarily a substantive comment, but I enjoyed it. So I wanted to share it with everyone. Member Wet Scrum writes in and says, Devin Nunes looks like a Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloon of Steve Carell.

Oh, geez. By the way, I saw a comment that I have to read. This is from eclectic miscellania. And he says, Parnas must be the cool, stylish version of Parnas, just like Urkel was the cool stylish version of Urkel on Family Matters. Such a good reference. All right, well, we leave you on that high note. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about other news, including, God, I really

want to move on to other things. But there's one more story related to the Parnas interviews, and it has to do with a congressional candidate threatening the life of a Ukrainian ambassador. 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.combe. I'm your host, Jank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.