The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 24th, 2020

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

Adam Schiff delivered a powerful speech on the floor of the Senate. John Iadarola, Maz Jobrani, and Jayar Jackson, 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. Fine, drop it. Off to a great start.

It is a power panel and very excited. I'm here, of course, but also Mazrabani, back. Happy to be back. Host of the Back to School podcast, and you're also touring. Touring, I'm on, so the podcast is called Back to School with Masjo Brani. People should listen, and the tour, I'm all over the U.S. So just go to Mazjabrani.com. I'm in Burbank this weekend, D.C. next weekend.

Atlanta, after that, is going to go on and on and on. The kids go to private school. I got to keep going. I'm never going to see my kids, but they can keep going to school. And all of those dates are available at Mazurbani.com. Yes. And Jared Jackson. Less shocking that you're here, but we're still glad.

Yeah, but I'm also touring. I'm going from home to work. And after work, I'm going back home. And I do see my kid all the time. Maybe if you make a play date with my kids, you can send me a video and I can see my kids. It'll work out great. That's a good idea. I'll save him a lot of effort.

We have got an awesome hour for you. The next hour is gonna be great too. Anna's gonna be here, Matha, Jason Carter. It's gonna be great, two great hours for you. But there's so much to get to, you know what, I wanna make sure we get to everything. So why don't we jump right into it? Trying to get Republican senators to take this impeachment trial seriously seems like sort of a waste of time and an impossible. task. But last night, Adam Schiff did his best. And we're going to show you a bit of what he had

to say. Here is the first section, which has gotten a pretty favorable response so far. Colonel Vindman said, here right matters. Here right matters. Well, let me tell you something. If right doesn't matter, if right doesn't matter, if right, doesn't matter, it doesn't matter how good the Constitution is, it doesn't matter how brilliant the framers were. If right doesn't matter, we're lost. If the truth doesn't matter, we're lost. The framers couldn't protect us from ourselves if right and truth don't matter. And you know that what he did was not right, but here right is supposed to matter. It's what's made us the greatest nation on earth. This is why if you find him guilty, you must find

that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters. Because right matters. And the truth matters. Otherwise, we are lost. Okay, so there is definitely going to be more. We have more video. We also have a few of his other quotes. But from that, what do you think so far? Was that an effective appeal?

Is there any chance they'll get through to any of the Republicans? Well, the right has never mattered for them from the beginning. From day one, when he said I grabbed them by the bub, bub, I mean, they were like, well, you know, it was a while ago, and he just said it and let's move on. And then every time something happens, pulls out of the Paris climate, courts, ah, you know, de-da-da-da, you know, deregulation and, and, you know, the environment's getting worse, or pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal or whatever, anything this guy has done, they've always found a way to excuse it, and they do the what-aboutism of it all.

So I was listening to Senator today being interviewed, and he said, well, you know, I'm not sure, I haven't heard anything new, I've already heard all this stuff before, and if they really want witnesses, then there should be, there should be a quid pro quo, we should be able call our witnesses for their witnesses. And then you make the argument of, well, the Bidens have nothing to do with this specific case. If you want to try them separately, go try them separately, do something else. But in this case, we're saying that this president did something that was wrong, and it should matter.

For every American, it should matter. And I run into issues all the time. I have friends of mine who argue, you know, well, you guys, this is a political thing, you guys are politicizing it, you're, you know, what about all the good stuff he's done? They go, what about the, he's lowered the taxes, I go, well, he's heightened my anxiety. Every morning I wake up and look at the news to see who we're going to war with. So, Wright does matter, and it is about, look, they all know from the beginning. They all know the guy's a scumbag.

They all know the guy is a narcissist. They all know all this stuff, but they've just put their heads in the sand, and it seems like they continue to. And I was thinking about this, the only way I think anything can change in this trial is if these types of videos get out enough to influence enough people in the purple states to start calling their senators and going, yo, you're going to lose your seat if you don't vote for witnesses and more evidence. I think that is the key here, because I don't think Adam Schiff or anyone else, any of

the House managers that are pursuing this, that have been speaking for the last few days about this, are actually trying to convince any of the Republicans in the Senate. I mean, it started from the beginning that there was these few that they were supposed to be potentially hanging on, Susan Collins, the Murkowski's and the potential Romneys are supposed to be holding on at some point potentially, even just for the sake of witnesses, is not even to vote, obviously, that he's guilty of these obvious crimes. But so the point is, sir, Adam Schiff took like a courtroom appearance. And you're trying to convince the jury of, like, the public, rather than the jury of

these senators, because they already know where they stand. They've said it openly and brazenly. So now what you have to do is try and put them in this position where they're rejecting what we're obviously and specifically putting forward, which has been detailed to a T here. And now they're on the hook for backing up someone who's done these things that are quite obvious. What frustrated me all the time was the, these Democrats have this cheery mood about impeachment. What happened to being somber and it's supposed to be a dark moment for America?

I hope we skip by that eventually and just go, this is the problem. And you know, you saw the emotion that was potentially building up with Adam Schiff and honestly, I don't care whether or not it's real or not, which is going to be something else, I'm sure people would be upset about or accuse him of not being real on. Is it true? Are these facts? should you maybe be emotional about this? Do you care about the country?

Or are you just kind of floating through going through your partisan debates and saying, well, I'm a Republican, so he must be right? Or do you actually care about the country? And that's where I think the line's being drawn. And Adam Schiff's doing a great job doing it. Yeah. Yeah. I was reading some articles about his remarks because there were a lot of articles written

about it. And one, I apologize, I don't remember the exact source. But it said after he concluded his remarks, it really appeared to have shook some of the Republicans in attendance. And I thought, no, you need to provide some evidence of that, some receipts. What do you talk? I shook them. Like Susan Collins was just like sitting back like, what have I done?

Where have I, what have I become? No, they're not doing that. And look, the fact that Donald Trump gets away with saying and doing everything he wants bothers me, more than any other individual politician. But as a general rule, nobody admits when their person has done anything wrong, said anything wrong, is wrong on something. Like, think about the most obvious disqualifying things that have happened that haven't really disqualified people. Like Trump, the entertainment, you know, the entertainment tonight bus, Access Hollywood, sorry, thank you. Access Hollywood.

That, it shook a few, but he still ended up getting tons of votes. Roy Moore, like they kind of turned against him a little bit. And honestly, on the Democratic side as well, like, okay, they pressured Al Franken to step down. But if they didn't know that a Democrat was going to replace him, would they have done that either? Like, when the stakes are, we lose if we turn on this person. We never turn on the person, no matter how horrible or abhorrent what they did is. Well, you know, somebody was pointing out that this is, I think, the first time maybe either in history or the or in modern times where you have the party that the president is, his own party is the jury.

Yeah. And you're absolutely right. It's really hard. I heard Mitt Romney when he first, when this news first broke and Mitt Romney was one of the only senators who said, I'm concerned, I want to hear about this. And somebody asked me, he said, why aren't other senators concerned? He said, well, because there's one party that has the power and there's no other party trying to get the power.

And he goes, the party that has the power ain't gonna give it up. And so you're absolutely right, that does make sense, but that said, we are in such a situation where these, I think there's some short-sightedness. I'm always, I'm always struck by how short-sighted strategically some politicians think. I was short-sighted when we went to war with Iraq, because they weren't thinking about how that's just going to give Iraq to control, you know, more control to Iran in that region. I thought it was short-sighted when they, you know, shot Soleimani, because Soleimani was a bad guy, but they didn't think about the repercussions.

And the same thing happens here. There's a short-sightedness because this guy clearly, when you have these witnesses coming in, and we all saw those witnesses, and they were, a lot of them were, you know, appointed by Republicans. And therein they're saying, this is all very alarming. A lot of them were saying never in my 30, 40 years of doing this, have I ever seen something like this? Well, you know what? This is going to come back and haunt you if you don't, if the roles get reversed and

you get a Democratic president who does some stuff and you have a Democratic Senate, it's very easy for them to go, well, you guys did it, so we're going to do it. And we're setting a bad precedent. It's not, I wish we could all just come and agree to, because I think what happens is, obviously, you have the power, you want to keep the power. Listen, if Pence becomes president, they still have the power. Obviously, they don't have as much of a cult-like following as Trump does. But I wish we could all just agree on this person being someone who's breaking the laws,

that is a bad person. And I mean, even if they came, the Republican senators came in and said, look, I don't like the guy. He's done a lot of bad things. But we still, you know, we need him. So I'm going to vote for him to stay in power. At least I would say, wow, this guy's got integrity. He's putting it out there. He's honest about it.

Yeah. We do have a little bit more of Adam Schiff. Here he's talking about what Donald Trump's commitment to Rudy Giuliani, what that actually represents why that's a threat to America. This is why he needs to be removed. Donald Trump chose Rudy Giuliani over his own intelligence agencies. He chose Rudy Giuliani over his own FBI director. He chose Rudy Giuliani over his own national security advisors.

When all of them were telling him this Ukraine-2016 stuff is kooky, crazy, propaganda. He chose not to believe them. He chose to believe Rudy Giuliani. That makes him dangerous to us, to our country. Why would anyone in their right mind believe Rudy Giuliani over Christopher Ray? Because he wanted to and because what Rudy was offering him was something that would help him personally. And what Christopher A was offering him was merely the truth. What Christopher Ray was offering him

was merely the information he needed to protect his country and its elections. But that's not good enough. What's in it for him? What's in it for Donald Trump? This is why he needs to be removed. So look, I think

as a general rule, just assuming that anything you hear from one of the heads of an intelligence agency can go really, really wrong. But if the alternative is Rudy Giuliani's opinion, probably don't go Giuliani on that. The thing is, it was just, it was all too convenient. What Trump was hearing for a year and a half from Giuliani and Parnas and Fruman, as we're going to go over a little bit later on, It doesn't have to be true or not, like anything that America loses in pursuit of these investigations or anything, he doesn't hurt him, he doesn't seem to care about that. He really can just divorce his own interests from the interests of the country or its people

and say, well, if there's any benefit to me personally, it doesn't matter if there ends up being some sort of negative effects on Ukraine or if it injures diplomacy between the U.S. and Ukraine, that really wouldn't matter. I mean, I think all politicians are probably, probably too easily, like when the balance is their personal interest and the national interest, they'll side with themselves. But Donald Trump is perhaps the worst example of that that I can think of. I've always said it. When we're doing, when the primaries are happening, even in general election, and you find out

who Donald Trump is, and I say it's with any election, whenever something salacious or disgusting or revealing comes out about any candidate, whether you like it or not what happened in the past, or you have to ask yourself, how does this relate to how they're going to be a leader, if they get elected. So the whole time when things are coming out about Trump, his character, his ego-maniacal ways, his selfishness, his district guard, his bankruptcies, his lack of business skill, all that comes to the play, not because we hate him, that's thinking of, by the way, I do, I hate him.

But that's not because, the reasons people hate him is not just because of those shortcomings in his life, it's because that transfers into bad policy. So when he talks about national security, he's so selfish because he's thinking, national Social security is Trump security. How can I protect myself? You know, American prosperity is Trump prosperity. We've seen how much he's put money in different places for himself and his family. Domestic policy, it's Trump policy.

Trump doesn't care about getting rid of Planned Parenthood, about being pro-life. All that stuff, he's never cared about that. That's domestic policy that's going to help him get reelected for his own self-gratification. And foreign relations, what does he do with every foreign relation thing he does? came from Kim Jong-un to the things with Soleimani in Iran, it's, how can I project myself to be better than Obama? Hey, Obama didn't do anything with Kim Jong-un, Obama didn't do anything with Iran, I did. It's self-promotion.

None of it has anything to do with the country. He doesn't mention anyone else until it has to do with him. This is the basis for how he does. We saw this when he ran. That's why what we saw as Iran transfers into how he is as a president, which is a horrible one, because he's self-centered, and he's supposed to be a representative of the country. Instead, he only represents himself, therefore he'll destroy everyone else for himself. Well, you know, he did actually say in the RNC in his speech, he said, only I can save us or whatever.

He said, only I can make that be the person to solve our problems. And that, as you just said, is not a leader. That is a dictator. That is someone who says, you need me to solve this, as opposed to saying we can do this together. Now, going back to what Schiff was saying about Rudy Giuliani. I think it makes a good point. I'm actually concerned, you know, as people, I have relatives, and the older they get, the crazier stuff they start saying, and they become hardcore conspiracy theorists.

You don't want a leader to be a conspiracy theorist, much less to have his advisors be conspiracy theorist. So you get Rudy, you get Giuliani and Trump in a room together. I don't know what kind of stuff they're saying to each other, but it's one of those things. things where like if you're at that Thanksgiving dinner and you just take your, you know, brother, sister, side, you go, hey man, does grandpa still have everything? Is he losing his mind? And what about his friend? His friend is saying some crazy stuff.

And that's who these two people are. I honestly am concerned not because just of the stuff they've done, but because of the sanity of their minds. I mean, I really think that these guys do believe that a lot of this stuff is happening or happened, you know, they have convinced themselves, because you're right, on the one hand, you sit there and they go, there's a sinister thing where they go, if we can prove that the server was the Ukrainians, then it shows that the Ukrainians were trying to help the Democrats, and the Russians never helped us, therefore we want on our own.

But I also feel that they really do believe this stuff. Yeah. Well, coming up in the second hour, we're going to have some video for Rudy Giuliani on Fox and Friends, and they try to help him keep a hold on reality. and you can see the frustration on all three of the Foxen and friends from just having to talk to Rudy Giuliani and hear what he thinks about the world. With that, though, we are going to take our first break, though. Lots more to get to.

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over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast and tap today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. Welcome back to our power panel. A couple of quick member comments before we get back into it. Disappointed Marlon Bundo says, yay for Maas. I love seeing him on the show. Thank you. So you've got a disappointed rabbit who's very happy to see you. All right. Zach said finally bought my TYT membership, I may be over 100k in debt, but I think this purchase is well worth it. Well, thank you for that, and good luck, because that's rough, although I do have friends from college who are similarly in debt.

Vincent Maskey said, Schiff needs to ask the Senate, why are they protecting this president? Why are they not allowing the evidence to come forward? I agree, if we take it as a given that he is not going to be removed from office and that we are merely getting the Republicans on the record defending him, we need to make that as effective and sticky going forward as possible, I think. Tom Zawaki says, when are we going to come out with TYT ties? I feel like John Adlerl is being discriminated against again. I agree.

And that boy's hell on Turlitz says watching the news during the Trump years is like watching a long, unfunny season of Seinfeld. That does seem rough. By the way, one other thing, before we jump back into it, I did want to let you know that if you are a fan of dinners and of dinners with interesting people, we've got an offer for you. It's a sweepstakes from Aspiration, where you can be flown out to L.A. to have dinner with Jank and Anna and myself. And all you have to do to make that happen is go to t-y-t.com slash dinner in L.A. to register to win. You sign up for a free aspiration spend and save

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ABC News found apparently a tape involving Donald Trump back in 2018 talking about then ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and talking about his desire to get rid of her in very graphic language saying, get rid of her, get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay, do it. And they apparently are fairly confident that the audio tape is of President Trump. Apparently, that recording was made April 30th, 2018 at a dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Now, we don't know everyone who is sort of heard a little bit on the tape, but we do know that Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two men that he totally doesn't know, as we'll get to, were talking to him about Yovanovich,

as he's saying she needs to be taken out. The more we find out about this, the more it becomes Sopranos season nine or whatever that next season would have been. I mean, I think he's grown up in New York around these mobsters. I think he talks like them. I think that we have empowered this really unhinged beast in a way. And he's thrown around orders like that. I mean, there's no, it's amazing, because there's no, even if he wanted to.

fire her and he had some etiquette and he had some level of of of intelligence you would think he would hold it down and then on the way out he'd be hey Rudy can I talk to you for a second get rid of her you know you know what I'm saying like it's like that not throwing I mean I saw the interview with left Parnas and he said he was like just basically throwing it out to a few people here and there yeah and by the way I don't know if you guys listen to those interviews I totally expected that for the pictures I'd seen of Parnas I expected him to have like you know Russian accent on talking like very much like slime bag, but he seemed very reasonable. I was listening, he was very calm, he's like, yeah, and this happened, no accent, and also

just very calm about it all, and very believable. He sounded more rational and put together than I would have thought a person who regularly had dinners with Rudy Giuliani would. Yeah, and his hairstyle usually shows him to be. Exactly. He gave you reason to think that. The reason, I think, Amaz is because Trump still thinks he's on an apprentice. he has to say, you're a fire

and do the finger point and all that stuff. He thinks that's what gets him somewhere because, again, he's consistently performing. He's consistently selling himself. He's consistently making himself think that everyone's there to bow down and cater to him. So he's like, I got to let them know

that I'm powerful and strong. I'm sure many people have had a boss like this who just has, instead of just saying something, has to say it in a way that demeans other people and lets them know to put them in their place. And that's the kind of person he is. So no matter what, we've said before also with other left part instead of you can hear him through the phone.

Many people have said they've heard him through the phone, he and Julie on here like this. When they're talking to someone, they're screaming in phones for some reason. I don't know if they can't hear, but it has to be in the nature that everyone hears what I'm saying, and I'm saying it this way because I mean it, damn it, and that's their approach. You know what, you're right, and I think as you get older, like I'm getting older, as you get older, your insecurities get more and more, especially when you come from a guy like him who, when he was a young dude, playboy, he thought he had it all, and already he was cocky and had all that stuff going. And as you get older, I think you have choices.

He's kind of the opposite of, you know, some people get older and they get wiser, and you meet some people. You know what I mean? I sometimes, my wife does hot yoga, I go once in a while. And there's some people that are just so at peace and older and just, yes, namaste and hey, nice to see you. They're very humble and they've accepted their age and they're just going to be graceful about it. This guy's the opposite of that.

And I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. I think he needs to belittle people around him. little people around him to boost himself up. Those old people have humility. So when they find they've done something wrong or they are wrong or need to make a life change or anything to be at peace, they're like, I can accept that, I can change myself. Instead of the stubborn type who are like, no, I don't care what mistakes I'm never going

to admit to then I'm definitely never going to change. Yeah. Yeah. And let's also, let's recognize the difference between wanting to seem strong and actually being strong. Donald Trump is the sort of guy that when he's in a group of people that doesn't involve the person who wants to fire, he'll be talking about take around. Get rid of her, I can do whatever I want. But remember, how has he fired every high profile person in his administration when they are

halfway around the globe? They get a text message or a tweet that shows that they've been fired because what he is not is strong. A strong person could sit across a table from a person and say, look, this is why we have to cut ties with you. He doesn't do that. He waits till pompe, like whoever is, you know, like Rex Tillerson is on a trip trying to do some damage control for Trump or others have found out literally from a tweet that

they've been fired because he's not actually strong. He just desperately wants a group of goons to think that he's strong. But importantly, the actual content of the tape, pretty rough, but more importantly, it's the context of it, which is that he's having dinner back in 2018 with these individuals that he swears he hasn't talked to. So you put together a mashup of all of the times he claims he doesn't know the person that he's talking about staffing decisions with at an intimate dinner gathering. Here's a bit of that montage.

Love Parnas has come forward and said that you knew everything that he was doing in your He's a convent. Okay, so let me answer that one. I don't know him. Well, I don't know him. I don't know those gentlemen. I don't know him at all. Don't know what he's about.

Don't know where he comes from. No, nothing about him. So I don't know anything about him. No, I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever spoken to him. Parnas, I don't know.

I had a conversation that I remember with him. I don't know about them. I don't know what they do. I don't need the help of a man that I never met before. But, uh, quiet. So like a groupie, he shows up at fundraisers. I guess he attended fundraisers. I guess I had pictures taken.

It's possible I have a picture with him. I was taking pictures with hundreds of people. Thousands and thousands of pictures with thousands of people. I have a picture with everybody. So I take a picture with them. I take pictures with people. I have pictures with everybody. Yeah, you don't have multiple dinners with people who've given you significant amounts.

amounts of money. And the thing is, you could say, well, you know, it's over the course a couple years. He has dinners with a lot of people who should forget, but he's also the person who regularly brags about having some sort of mutant memory. It's like, it's called like up here in everything, remember? That's right. He always seems to forget things, though. You know, the solution is for him to say, because if you look at his eyes on a lot of those

things, he averts his eyes as well, so you can tell that he's lying. So the solution I think for him would be to say, look, he's an acquaintance, I've seen him at some events. shook hands, but I don't know what he was doing specifically. And at that point, you go, okay, well, maybe, because maybe he wasn't, I mean, he probably was, but if you want to really throw Rudy Giuliani on the bus, I think that's the way to do it, to go, look, I met the guy a few times, because the pictures keep coming up, videos come up, they're laughing together. I mean, again, that's not, you know, that's not 100% of the proof, because I've done,

I do, I do stand-of-comity, I meet probably one, one-millionth of the people you have to meet when you're president, and there's pictures of me with people, hey, what's up, I don't know that person, but this is continuous several times. And so, I mean, you know. And places like that. Yeah. And not just, they're not just in line next to each other at the buffet at a big event. Like they're talking about which ambassadors are going to be fired.

That's a very specific sort of conversation. It undercuts his arguments that have been made about why he made the decision to fire her. And it lays out effectively what looks like a multi-year plot involving her and Ukraine. And so him claiming that, well, it's just, you know, I had some concerns about corruption. No, you were tied in with people who were trying to get something done there. It really does seem like this is now laying out a timeline that looks really damning to him, you know, as we already know. But this is just more evidence to that effect. And also specifically, I just want to remind you, when he's talking about get rid of her, take her out, okay, do it.

Remember, the people he eventually dispatches there are bringing people like Robert Hyde, people who we can bring up some of these, you know, text messages. You might recall when Parnas released a whole bunch documents, there were documents of Robert Hyde saying that effectively he was implying that he was stalking this woman, that they were talking about having an inside man, and you know, the guys over there asked me what I would like to do and what's in it for them. Perhaps to get rid of her, okay, do it, take her out. They're joking about possibly assassinating this woman. Now him making sort of mobster-esque comments a year earlier, that doesn't prove anything necessarily. But, he surrounds himself with people who apparently have taken the next step towards really doing

something, and that is pretty spooky. Absolutely, and Yovanovitch has said, I mean, you really got to go to the person in that case as well and say, how did this stuff make you feel? Because if she realized that, because these guys are claiming that they were joking around, and if she really felt that, oh, this was funny, funny stuff, she might have said, you know, I heard about it, and I knew there was a couple bozos and that was it. And I know the president throws threats around all the time, so that was it. No, she has said that she was told, what was it, that she had like 24 hours or something

that said, you should get out of here, you're, you could be in danger. And then he tweeted at her when she was being, when she was testifying in front of Congress. Yeah. So the guy keeps doing it. And that's again, that goes to this whole thing of where, you know, I don't care whose side you're on. But if I'm on, if one of my friends is belligerent and keeps picking fights with people and starts threatening people to the point where I'm going, wow, that's just, that's cross the line, someone's got to step up, a Mike Pompeo or somebody, they're not going to.

They're not going to. But they need to step up and go, look, this language is not appropriate, blah, blah, but once in a while someone will make a little bit of a suggestion. But they, it's, it's, you know, I'm not holding my breath, it's heartbreaking to see it, and all you can hope for is that somehow these clips that we're getting from these hearings find their way into, in front of enough people so that when the election, you know, they're elections happen, we can vote this guy out and move forward. And this is this audio, potential audio tape, give credence to the storyline that he was

out to get people out of the way that weren't on his side. We've mentioned, we've heard how many times he wants loyalty and wants people, I can't believe they went behind my back. He wants people, and he said it openly, people from even up the Justice Department. There's supposed, Jeff Sessions wasn't on his side enough. He's not supposed to work for you directly to protect you from people discovering. the things that you're doing wrong. That's not their job.

So when he found and he discovered people within administration or even within just any parts of government that weren't going to be that person, this one being Yvanovitch, even back in 2018, he's like, we've got to get her out of the way. And they've denied that that's why he wanted to get her out of the way. So he can continue to do lawlessness. And he's like, well, Ukraine, that's where I want to do some work. She's in my way. Yeah, I know some people, you might be watching this, you might be a Trump fan and think,

well, you know, I don't care about this. She was bad. He was strong. He got rid of her. Yeah, but that's one way to look at what just happened. But think about another one. All it took for Parnas and Fruman, who wanted her gone, all they had to do was sit next to him at dinner and say, she's talking spec about you.

She doesn't like you. She thinks you're going to get impeached. And he's like, well, get rid of her. Get her out right then. Think about how dim-witted, how gullible you have to be, that these people that on site alone, Parnison Fruman, you look at them and you know that they're sleazy scumbags, they can manipulate him into firing an ambassador, with a couple of offhand comments.

That is a person with pudding for brains who is incredibly powerful. And there's reports of people within administration that start battles with him and someone that they disagree with. I forget the specific names, but there was two people who were disagreeing with the administration. They're like, well, if I just take Trump to the side and talk about that other person in a bad way with him, he'll start leaning negatively towards them. And then therefore, he's going to get my enemies within administration out of the way, because he's that easy to persuade.

It's not strength, it's weakness. Weakness, obviously, a body, but also of mine. His allies know it. Yeah. Okay, well, why don't we move on to another story? We're going to jump over to the Democratic primary. It is winter, which means that if you are not in L.A. with us, you might have bad weather. And if you're a campaign worker, one of these big campaigns in the early states, like in Iowa,

like that can be dangerous. You're driving all over the place constantly, bad roads and all of that. It's bad news. And right now it's bad news for the Biden campaign. because Ken Clippenstein formerly of TYT has a new report with some internal communications from the Biden campaign. So this is from back on December 30th, with Iowa then sheathed in snow. The Biden campaign instructed staffers that its inclement weather policy was being suspended

according to staff text messages that a staffer for the Biden campaign turned over the nation. The policy had allowed them to avoid driving during potentially hazardous weather conditions, but at that busy time it was being called off. And here is the most damning message. I was from K. Glad, Biden's regional organizing director for Iowa, said, hey guys, all weather policies dissolved throughout the entire state because we have five weeks left until the election. If it feels like unsafe driving conditions, then talk to me separately. But quite frankly, I don't want to hear any complaints because you know how important this is

and how much time we have left. She goes on to say by showing an ability to be adaptable, flexible, and willing to presumably do what you've been hired to do, then that is the most best. basic threshold of demonstrating your ability of leading others, every single day is an audition for post Iowa. And that is Ken Clippenstein there. Thankfully, he's not driving on icy Iowa roads. I think that this should obviously be unacceptable.

Okay, I'm willing to be persuaded by this, but my first thought is that this cannot be an original or a for a, the first time. Particular to the Biden campaign. Right. I just, I'm guessing, but I would assume many campaigns are like, hey, we got five weeks left driving the snow. I don't know, or hey, I don't care, work those extra hours. Things that you probably shouldn't do to your staff, but they do it anyway.

So I would normally see this and go, man, it'd be rough to work in this, in these conditions. Like, you know, there was those reports about Klobuchar and how she's angry at her staffers. It doesn't mean that she should no longer be a sinner. Just means, hey, maybe if you have an opportunity, you may not want to work for her because she might yell at you and you don't want to be in that position. So it's not that it's damning, it's just more it's like uncomfortable to me. And I wouldn't put it so much as something where he would become this, this like, crack the whip slave master type of person that's like hard on people unnecessarily.

None of these messages imply that he was involved in this decision. Now, there's one line that this stick out to me from K. Glad, the regional organizing director. She goes, if it feels like unsafe, then you should talk to me. But quite frankly, I don't want to hear it. So which one is it? You should talk to me if it's really bad. But if you talk to me, I don't want to hear it. So don't talk to me.

Look, you're absolutely right. There's times when in whatever business you're in, it's crunch time and someone's going to come through and say something like this and you're right is inappropriate, especially when it's unsafe like this. My bigger question is, aren't we living in the time of technology? Isn't there a better way to do this than to have to get in cars and go knock on people's doors? And this whole system to me, but the whole system seems backwards to me that these guys got to go to Iowa and they got to convince you. And then you're going to go convince them and you're going to tell those people. I mean, it seems like, yo, like let's get online.

I'm going to be in my warm house. You can be in your warm house. Here's my pleading. Go ahead and vote. I mean, especially when it's unsafe like this, because you're right. I mean, listen, people are, you know, this is every point counts here. So you're going to get people, I bet you're right. I bet you there's other campaigns that are saying it maybe not in a text or a message.

Maybe they're just doing it in a speech or something going, guys, it's crunch time. We need everybody out there. You know, if you need X, Y, and Z let us know, let's make this happen. Look, it might be. States like this in January. How about we stopped starting in Iowa? How about we start in California? It's California and Hawaii next time.

40 million people. Let's start with us. We should make a difference with all this. 72 degrees today in Los Angeles. I'm totally down for that. Alternatively stronger unions for campaign workers and virtually ever worker in America, I think it would be good too. It might be possible that other campaigns are doing this.

We have documentation for this one. And thankfully, she was chastised and they've supposedly reversed this decision. That is a wise thing to do, especially considering. that this is not just hypothetically dangerous, this is unsafe in a documented way. Apparently there have already been five different car accidents among that campaign's Iowa staffers between Christmas and New Year's Day. So just for Biden, just in Iowa, they already had five accidents. Earlier in the cycle, a staffer for Elizabeth Warren died in a car accident.

Back in 2016, a staffer for Ben Carson died in a car accident. It is dangerous because they have to do so much driving, which means there cannot be any room for, well, if you really want to show how dedicated you are, if you're auditioning for post Iowa, you have to like swallow down your fear that you could die in a car accident and go out there and do it anyway. That's not acceptable. Once again, Skype. Very easy.

Just Skype. I've always wondered that. Just sit there and do your thing and people can tune in and you can do your Q&A. Don't make people drive around. And by the way, I just realize the reason we can't do it in LA is because there's so much traffic, no one would ever get anywhere. You know what I'm saying? They'd be like, you know what I'm saying?

I tried to convince some people to vote, but I never got there, man. I was trying to get from the valley to the west side. It took me seven hours. Yeah, no, man. Oh, Jesus. In clement traffic. Anyway, good job, Ken Klippenstein. Get out there, give him help.

Okay, we're going to take another break. Yes, we are. When we come back, huge demonstrations in Iraq, we're going to show you all about that. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing 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.

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Welcome back, everyone. A few more members' comments before we get back into the news. Gabby Marita says, there is a better chance that Trump knows Lev Parnas' birthday than Tiffany's. Definitely true. And then, let's see, eclectic miscellaneous says, J.R. does better, more revealing political mashups than all of the mainstream media combined, if conservatives got to actually see this, maybe it would finally hit them that

Trump is nothing but a huge con man who lies over and over and over again. Quiet. Yeah, maybe, maybe. And Diane Morrison on TYT live, the hashtag says, Rocky My New Shop, TYT shirt, which we got with a coupon for a one-year activist membership. Thanks, this is a small, it's comfy, and fits great, we'll be buying more. Well, thank you. That's awesome to see.

And with that, why don't we jump back into the news, a couple important stories to get to. Today in Iraq, there were absolutely massive demonstrations, we're gonna be showing you some footage of that, depending on you talk to, it is either between 200 to 250,000, some sources inside the country say as much as a million people, it is always impossible to know for sure. But in any event, massive demonstrations calling for international troops to be taken out of the region, obviously the vast majority of those being U.S. soldiers. We know that many marchers were carrying the same signs, most of them written in England.

English and aimed at an American audience. One read, to the families of American soldiers, insist on the withdrawal of your sons from our country or prepare their coffins. Another read, America the devil, you have no mercy. Others were simpler, no America. And for, that's pretty clear. So for context, these demonstrations came about three weeks after the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, and also there was a vote in the Iraqi parliament endorsing a measure

are demanding the expulsion of foreign forces from Iraq. We responded to that with, well, that's just your opinion, man. But apparently many Iraqi people agree with the Iraqi government there and do not want to see more, you know, the presence of the occupying force. It's weird how this, I'm sorry. Go ahead, go, go, go. It's weird how there's so much gray area in other countries. Someone mentioned this before when the whole thing went down with Soleimani and then there's

people that were like, oh man, he was a bad guy. We were totally against him and we're celebrating his demise and like, see, that does it. Yeah, but there's people in the country that aren't just people who are based in this type of back and forth political debate. Also, in Iraq, there's this many hundreds of thousands of people gathering saying, hey, America, get out of here. I'm sure that didn't just start a few weeks ago after that whole thing went down. Definitely, right? But we ignore that until it fits whoever's saying it's narrative. So yeah, you know, by the way, you guys say those Iranians, man, they were, they're totally

against Soleimani, you see all those people that are celebrating it, sure, you know what? Maybe you guys don't know this, but when we killed Osama bin Laden, there was many Americans, not the majority I don't think, they were like, man, we're celebrating us killing someone. And the majority of us were like, got him, right? Because that was the pain that was inflicted on us on 9-11 that we've been talking about ever since. But there were still many people, many Americans, they were like, this seems kind of filthy. My wife was one of them.

So if another country says, hey, all of America was celebrating Osama bin Laden's demise, that would be inaccurate. So we can't put that same kind of onus on another country and say, hey, you know what? We saw this many people doing this and that must be it. We don't analyze things deeply enough at all. So when we see a protest, yes, this many people and many more want us out of there for many reasons. That's what we should be discussing.

What are we doing? Why do people want us out of there? And versus why do people celebrate what Trump decided to do with Soleimani versus people that were against it? We have to think on just one more extra level, because then that'll help us get a better foreign policy. It actually has something, as you mentioned Maas earlier, not thinking just through to the short-term ways of, hey, let's do this, it'll be okay, no, what might happen? What might the people do the react?

There's people that are in college, there's people that are living normal lives. Everything in our perception of what we see in other countries, especially these countries, isn't just flat out black and white. We have to determine that better. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, I think, first of all, as an Iranian-American, I know. So what you were saying about Soleimani, obviously there's people that support Soleimani in Iran, but there's a lot of Iranians, especially in the West, that don't like

Soleimani because they don't like the government of Iran. The government of Iran is oppressive to its people. There's a lot of human rights stuff to the people, to women. There's a lot of bad stuff going on. However, what you just said is true, the question becomes what is the strategy, right? So let's go back to what you said about Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was the leader of al-Qaeda, that's a terrorist organization. You take it down, and now you've done major damage to that organization.

Possum Soleimani was the leader of basically an army of a country. And so they just replaced that guy, and you can't just attack a country and think, oh, no one's going to do anything. So strategically speaking, if I'm in that room with Trump and going, look, this guy's a bad guy, you want to get him. I know you want to get him for multiple reasons. One of the reasons they were saying was possibly for him to appease some of the hawkish senators who he was about to go in front of.

on trial in front of. However, I would say, think about the fact that when you take this guy out, there's going to be repercussions, not just in Iran, but everywhere else where there's Iranian proxies, including Iraq, and now they're going to want these soldiers out. And that's been one of the big things for us to keep our soldiers in. We have more soldiers now in the Middle East than before Trump came in. When Trump came in, he said, I'm going to get us out, get us out of the Middle East. Well, we have more in the Middle East.

But, you know, one thing somebody pointed out to me, they said, what happens if Iran plays this game? What happens if Iran or Iraq play the game where, as these soldiers are coming in, eventually they, let's say they capture some American sailors in August leading up to the elections. And they go, we're not going to let these sailors go until you get all your troops out of here. Now we're heading towards a nice war with, again, in the Middle East. And it all goes back to no strategy when they started. What's your strategy? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's incurious, emotional people in charge of a military they don't understand and don't respect.

Yeah, totally. I'm glad that you pointed out that this is a guy who kept promising he was going to take us out of the Middle East. He's going to end wars. I thought it was insane that people believe that he would ever do that. And he has not done that. We have more soldiers there now. There's more drone strikes than there were. It's worse. But also, while this is certainly the fact that the past few weeks has had an effect on these demonstrations, and this is the biggest demonstration that I can think of. of in some time there, this is not the beginning of Iraqis wanting us to get out of their country. And it's not universal. Reporters have been there today, and there are some Iraqis who they've talked to that are like, no, like, I'm an old man. There was this guy selling coffee. He was like, I don't think I could continue to do this if it got more chaotic. But apparently that is a minority opinion. And I just think it's a little bit odd that we can certainly

have an opinion of what we think the future of the strategy should be. But if a country's government says get out, and it's people organized and say get out, it's just weird that we can be like, no, we're just gonna be there. Oh, and it's not an occupation, by the way. And not only that, but then- You want us here, even though you don't. Right, you saw what Trump said in response. It was like, I'm gonna hit Iraq with the biggest sanctions they ever heard of in their life.

So then it goes further from more aggression, more threats, and more anger based off of without listening and finding out, man, why do they want us out? What is it we can do? If you want to stay and you think it's beneficial for us to stay, figure a way to do that Rather than telling someone, I'm who I am, and therefore, you're going to do what I say to another sovereign country. Well, how do you mention the economic sanctions? Because it's really something to be like, no, no, no, no, we're not going to leave. We're protecting you, and we're going to crush your economy, okay?

That's a really bizarre message to send. Yeah, well, he is not in any way a statesman. So he doesn't know exactly that you guys were saying, which is to maybe he comes forward and says, look, these things that happened were unfortunate. It was happened because X, Y, and Z, we will be talking to the Iraqis to see if we can safe face and move forward. And then you go behind, closed doors, you let your diplomats do their work, diplomats go in, we're here to protect you, X, Y, and Z, whatever it is.

But when he goes out and he's like, we're gonna take the oil, you're gonna take the oil, we're gonna take the oil, we're not helping the situation anybody. You're not helping the Iraqis that want you to stay sell that story to their people. So, I mean, this guy's just a bozo. It goes to, and I mentioned earlier, his approach in anything, when he first came in a Nazis run for president, he talked about people he doesn't like, who he doesn't trust, who should have travel bans on, all these things, it's an indication of how he's going to approach any foreign policy. This foreign policy has nothing to do with his travel ban, but it shows his disdain for other folks. He's like, these people want me out? I don't care what these people think.

I don't think much of these people, so I'm going to tell them what I'm going to do, as you said, somehow we're they. to protect you, but we're going to threaten you into oblivion. How does that match up? It doesn't matter. It matters if you don't think these are real human beings. You can say whatever you want to them. It's an indication from the beginning of how he would pursue these things. And by the way, they flip it around a lot of times ago.

These guys are, you know, saying negative things about America. They're saying get out. It's like, yeah, because we went in and we're still there. And the honor is true that if you look at a lot of these other countries, you know, you've got guys like Newk English and stuff saying like, oh, they're saying death to America. America, people in the Middle East aren't thinking about you that much. They, in all honesty, it's like they're just trying to live their lives. They're trying to provide food for their families and maybe, you know, watch some sports at night.

I mean, they're just trying to get through their lives. Once in a while, American television, you know, cameras show up and they go, oh, hey, death to America, you know. So, really, I'm serious. So it's like, you know what? We're like this. We think we're hot. We think we're like, people are thinking about us, right? We're the one who think, oh, they've got to be talking about it.

No, they're not. So if you leave them alone, they won't talk about you. And if you don't bring your cameras around or your soldiers around, let them be, you know. And obviously, again, we all know it always goes back to the oil. So I would say if you have oil, it's like being a drug dealer, they're going to come for you, and you just got to know when to get rid of the stuff. So here we are in this situation, and they want us out. Yeah.

They want us out. Let's turn to another, a very different story. I just want to briefly get your impressions, because it's not the sort of thing. A lot of people I think are thinking about, but it is potentially a big threat and it involves climate change. Scientists have apparently discovered another potential negative outcome that could develop as a result of our climate crisis. And this came about from experiments taken on two ice core samples from the Gulea ice cap

on the Tibetan plateau that were collected back in 1992 and 2015. And so what scientists did was they sterilized the whole area, very clean, very scientific. They got into those ice cores, and then they just wanted to see what can they find that's been locked down there in the glaciers in ice for thousands of years. Well, the experiment revealed 33 groups of virus genuses in the ice cores. Of these, 28 were previously unknown to science. So this is two little ice cores, and just in those two little random bits of ice taken out of this glacier, they found 28 different types of viruses that we had never seen before.

And what's really cool about the ice, literally, is that those things stay in there. But when it melts, then they can come out. And then we might become familiar with those 28 or more types of viruses. So according to the study authors, the microbes deferred significantly across the two ice cores, presumably representing the very different climate conditions at the time of deposition. And they warned that in a worst case scenario, these and possibly other pathogens can be released as the climate crisis melts glaciers around the world. And so remember, these are not just small variations.

We don't have any familiarity with them, which means we don't necessarily have any medicine that can deal with them. We don't have any experience with them. But in some parts of the world, we're already seeing these glaciers starting to release these toxins. There have been mass dioffs of reindeer herds and things like that in parts of the Arctic. So it's not a hypothetical that these diseases could wreak havoc. It's just a hypothetical of whether or not it'll eventually affect the human population in a major way. This is a John Ilerola 101, and this, but the thing is, it's a good thing because I've said it many times, and it sounds like I'm talking trash.

It does. You're one of the few people who will have detailed things behind what's going on. Like, you know, there's the push in Davvo's what last week or earlier, Trump kept talking about how we need to stop with these climate radicals who were trying to scare us and say, oh my God, we're going to die, we're going to die, we're going to die. But, you know, when you give actual detailed reasons and real life scenarios of what's happening and what's happening and what. could affect people, it actually means something. Now, the depressing part is that people in certain positions of privilege and power don't have to worry about having any issues with any kind of viruses. We're blowing aside to what's the coronavirus is going around right now.

We're blowing that aside because we're like, well, that's in China. Oh, two people we haven't know if we've seen now in America? Possibly Minnesota. Doesn't matter. Because you know who's not going to get the coronavirus? Donald Trump, any senator, any representative, anybody of any kind of. power, privilege, or barriers will not have to deal with this. So those people in positions of power to determine whether or not other folks will get it.

They don't care, I'm not getting it. That's the way this things work. So when it comes from like this, you may see this and go, man, 28 ancient viruses in just a couple of spots of ice, oh well, it's not going to affect me. Nothing good is coming out of this global warming climate crisis. Like every time, I mean, we're going to keep getting more and more shocking news like this as we go. Originally it was, you know, temperatures are going to go higher. It's going to be, you know, there's going to be waters are going to be flooding in some of these cities that are

coastal cities. Animals are going to be dying off. Now you hear about the viruses. It just keeps getting worse and worse. No matter how much you deny it, it's going to get worse. It reminds me of the Netflix show, you. You ever watch you? Oh, I have watched you. So you, for those you don't know, it's about a serial killer. But at the beginning, he kind of starts out slowly. Like, we don't know. Like, I heard it was a serial killer, but it took a few episodes. and then he kind of kidnaps his one dude and you're like, oh God, this ain't gonna go in a good direction.

And then he puts him in a box. I'm like, it's not, it got worse. And then he starts experimenting with it. I'm like, this is not getting good. And it just keeps getting worse. So climate change is like the Netflix series, you. It just is going to get worse and worse. Stop denying it.

Take it out of the box. Come back next week for our analysis of how the witcher is basically about income inequality. Although, actually, the dark crystal is, watch it, it's totally about American politics. But anyway, now I want to re-watch it with that lens. Watch it. It's not about a serial killer, it's about climate change. Exactly.

Most people don't know that. Greta's discovered it, though. Okay, listen to Greta. She knows a lot about climate change and Netflix shows. Yeah. Anyway, that's all the time we have. Thank you, Maz. You're on tour and you're also performing in L.A.

Yeah, I'll be at Flappers in Burbank this weekend, and then I'll be at in D.C., Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Vancouver. I'm all over the place. Go to masjobrani.com, get your tickets, come see it live. And also, if you do have Netflix and you're watching you, also watch my special. It's called Immigrant. And even if you don't watch it, just turn it on in the background and vacuum. So people think you're watching it.

Yeah, and the interesting thing is it's called Immigrant, but it's not about the immigration crisis. Not at all. It's about the TV show, you see. My show's about you. Yeah, exactly. And J.R., thank you as always. Oh, it's actually, thank you.

Okay, everybody, stick around. Awesome second hour coming up after this. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.