The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 29th, 2020

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

Trump doesn't want John Bolton's book to get published. 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. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. If you like the Young Turks podcast, I think you'll love a lot of the podcasts on the T-Y-T

network. Old school, it's one of my favorites, one of the favorites for a lot of the listeners. Please check that out, subscribe, share it, that makes a big difference, and give it a five-star rating. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks. We are your trusty hosts, Anna Kaskarian and John Iderola. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to today's show.

We're gonna make fun of Mike Bloomberg. You've been in the best mood that I've seen you in in a long time, like three years. It's actually a huge 180 from yesterday. I was not in a good mood yesterday. I was in a very, I wasn't like nothing in particular. I was just like frustrated at things happening in the world and yeah. Today the news is about like dogs and ice cream. Well later, later.

We have a lot of serious stuff to get to. I do want to give you guys an important update on what's happening in California's 25th district. And later in the show, we're going to talk about how Donald Trump is actually panicking about the possibility of running against Bernie Sanders. So his campaign is telling him, look, don't worry about it. You've got this. You got this crazy Bernie, right? But believe it or not, there are some things that Trump understands better than most Republicans.

And that is the- That should have people in the back? He understands populism. I mean, he exploited it for his own nefarious purposes, but I think he understands the popularity of Bernie Sanders, and we'll lay that out for you later in the show. As always, he's the hashtag TYT Live to tweet to us, and hopefully we can read some of your comments when we return from our breaks. And as always, members are encouraged to also share their comments.

We'll read some of those when we return from our breaks as well. You want to get started? I have to. All right. It's actually obligated. That's true. Well, none of us are under contract here. That's a good point.

Anyway, let's move on. All right, well, Jank Uger's political opponent in California's 25th District has just announced that she will no longer take corporate pack money. Democrat Christy Smith, who has run an unusually cruel campaign against Jank Uger with all sorts of unfounded accusations, has now decided, yeah, you know what, not a good look when I'm taking corporate pack money and my Democratic opponent has. has called me out on it several times. Now this is a victory, make no mistake about it.

We as progressives believe that money needs to be taken out of politics, we need publicly financed elections, but she doesn't go far enough. And so here is a statement from Jake Ugar, he says, since Assemblywoman Smith now admits that corporate pack money corrupts politicians, I'm calling on her to truly fulfill her commitment and give back the thousands of dollars she has received from corporations like United Health and Facebook. And since her backers at the D-Triple-C also take millions in bribes from corporations and lobbyists, Smith must also reject any funds or in-kind support from the establishment or

risk showing that she doesn't actually care about corruption. Has she agreed to do that? Well, who knows? I mean, I'm actually curious to see if she'll ever agree to a debate. She notoriously dodged a debate with the other candidates, including Jenk Uger. And she argues that the reason why she did that is because she's a woman of substance. Because a woman of substance dodges a political debate as she's running a campaign. Okay.

Yeah, that's also interesting commentary on all of the women who haven't dodged debates, including women who have endorsed her. So Kamala Harris, she went to a bunch of debates. No substance there, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, all of them, you know, it's good to have their endorsement, but you'd prefer to get endorsements from women of substance. And they're wasting all their time actually engaging in the American democracy by debating their opponents. Actually, I'm not even sure if Pelosi does.

But Kamala Harris definitely did. Look, I think that when people move in the right direction, we should give them credit to the extent that they earn it. And the later on you make this sort of change and how you're fundraising, it is less impressive. It's still a change, and it is coming right after the D triple C is apparently has a nice. that they're gonna be supporting her. So it's a little bit easier for you to cut off that sort of funding when you know that it's going to be gained on your behalf and spent on your behalf.

And so I think this demonstrates that the pressure works, but also I think that the people are savvy enough that they're not gonna just take one little quote, some assurance. They're gonna wanna see if it actually means something in reality. I think you're absolutely right. And I just think that this does show, to your point, that there is a lot of, you know, So if you're politically active and you apply that pressure on politicians, they will respond. Because what do they care about more than anything? Maintaining their political careers, right?

And so, Christy Smith was not looking good. And she continues to not look good in this district, especially when you look at her record, something that we talked about during our interview with Jank Yugar on the conversation just yesterday, you know, her votes against affordable housing in California are disastrous. And it has to do with the real estate industry helping to find. fund her campaign as assembly woman. And so these are all things that you should take into consideration. But the important takeaway here is that political activism works, political pressure works.

For the longest time, that political pressure was only coming from the corporate side of things. And now you have people getting involved and that activism is so important. So let this be a lesson for not just California's 25th district, but all the other congressional races that are happening throughout the country right now. Yes. All right, well, let's move on to other news. The White House has issued a formal national, or a formal threat, I should say, to former national security advisor John Bolton to prevent him from publishing his memoir, the room where

it happened. Now, in his memoir, we have learned some revelations about what happened behind the scenes in the Trump administration, the fact that there was a quid pro quo in order to coerce the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into Joe Biden. That was the reason why Donald Trump put a freeze on the congressionally appropriated military funds for Ukraine. We also learned recently that Bolton himself was concerned about some business dealings that Trump may have had with the leader of China and of Turkey.

So Trump doesn't like all this stuff. And now we're learning that there is a concerted effort by the White House to prevent Bolton from publishing this book. In a letter to Bolton's lawyer, a top official at the National Security Council wrote the unpublished manuscript of Bolton's book appears to contain significant amounts of classified information and couldn't be published as written. So I want to stop here for a second. Everything is classified. This is how the government works. If something makes anyone look bad in any way, it's classified. No, national security, it's at risk. Not buying it.

Okay, they don't want this book to be published because it appears that there's some damning information and Donald Trump is still in the middle of an impeachment process. Yeah, yeah, I think that going back for a long time, presidents have been way to self-interested in the way they classify what can't be allowed to leak out and all of that. They'll refuse to answer questions, things like that, but Donald Trump has taken it to a whole nother level. I mean, we've seen that for years now, the way that they responded to the Mueller investigation, the way they responded to the House impeachment inquiry, everything was off limits, everything.

I mean, even there were Trump in, he was answering questions about who he'd like to testify. And of course, he wants everyone to testify in Mulvaney and Pompeo and all of them. But they all, they all deal with natural security. That's their job. It's not even that they would say a specific thing that was classified. It's just that they work in the area of national security. And so, of course, they could never testify, which means that if you're going to commit a crime, do it in the area of national security. because then you can, you never have to answer any questions.

It's extremely convenient. You don't even have to do it in the area of national security. They'll just cite national security as the reason for classifying it. You know, look, what Hillary Clinton did with the emails was wrong. I don't want to relitigate all of that. But the one thing that was shady was how those emails were retroactively classified, right? And so things get retroactively classified that weren't even classified in the first place. I'm bringing that up as an example of how things get classified for political purposes,

not necessarily for national security purposes. So let's give you some more details about this letter, this formal threat to John Bolton and Simon Schuster, the publisher of the book. The letter, which is dated January 23rd, said some of the information was classified at the top secret level, meaning it reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave harm to the national security. The manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information, the letter read.

You know, and I wonder, like, to some extent they don't want the book to come out, obviously. It's going to be critical of them. But the, like, sort of overly broad threat there, I wonder if it's designed to also preemptively threaten media outlets that might publish more leaked material that might come, especially if that leaked material was to come about as the result of him realizing he's not going to be able to publish it the way that it is right now, but still wanted to get some. some of it out, this is sort of a threat to CNN or the Washington Post or whoever that you can't publish it in any form.

There was some vague language there. Right, yeah, that's a really good point. Oh, and really fast. The thing too is, look, it's, there could be things in books written by people who used to work in the government that shouldn't be allowed to be released or whatever. And John Bolton was the National Security Advisor. If someone was going to have information that could be damaging, there's a good chance that he probably would.

But from everything that we know about this book, he is describing basically what was done to his staff, what was done, like obviously in pursuit of this quid pro quo. Does he have information about, you know, the US North Korea relations that could be damaging? Yes, is that in the book? It doesn't seem like it. I highly doubt, look, I don't want to give John Bolton too much credit for anything. But I don't, I honestly don't believe that John Bolton would take highly classified top secret material and published in his book.

I certainly don't think that the publisher, Simon and Schuster, would put themselves on the line by publishing classified material. Make no mistake about it, this is an effort to prevent the public from knowing what happened within the Trump administration, any type of confirmation or reinforcement of the accusations against Donald Trump, that's what this is really about. And to your point about the media, the Trump administration doesn't. have a good track record with media. I mean, they consistently threatened members of the press with all sorts of things, including

taking away their credentials, preventing them from doing appropriate reporting. Like the threats are on tape during press conferences. We showed you- Barring them from international trips, they just did that. Threatening to take away the funding of organizations that receive a very small amount of money from the government. And so luckily, we have a good number of free speech activists on the right. right, like the Ben Shapiro's and the Dave Rubins of the world who are outraged by this,

you know, because they really- Free speech, absolutists. Absoluteus, exactly. They're really fighting to make sure that John Bolton's able to publish his book. Yeah. Yeah, if John Bolton, like, rebrands himself as a young alt-right influencer, and gets barred from speaking at a liberal college campus, maybe they'll defend him that. I mean, if John Bolton wants to revive the role of Apu on the Simpsons. Well, they'll, I mean, yes. Dave Rubin's looking to defend you, okay?

Is that really an issue that he opined on? Yes, of my God. Of course. But anyway, one other part of the story that I do want to share with you is, as we've previously shared, the Trump administration is going after Bolton, they're being pretty vicious about it. Donald Trump himself recently tweeted a bunch of nonsense, but I do want to share one tweet with you because it really does just show you how unhinged this man is and how he'll turn on anyone

who has the audacity to hold him accountable for his criminal acts as executive and chief. Why didn't John Bolton complain about this nonsense a long time ago when he was very publicly terminated? He said, not that it matters, nothing. But he's saying something right now. I mean, through his book, and he seems to be itching to testify. And Donald Trump has already said that he'll use executive privilege to block that from happening. But look, there was an interesting exchange on Fox that I want to just quickly share with you because the commentary here really hits the nail on the head. Take a look. We know, John, he used to work here. He has a very intelligent, strong-willed, meticulously honest person. By the way, he was a conservative

icon until he wasn't. He was a conservative icon until two days ago. Now the things they're saying about him, it sounds like they're talking about Nancy Pelosi. I really do respect the fact that Judge Napolitano would like to match his tie to like the graphics package. for Fox business. No, but his commentary there was absolutely correct. I mean, he's like, John Bolton is part and parcel of the conservative establishment. Everyone loved him from, you know, the media to conservative politicians. And now all of a sudden he's public enemy number one.

Yeah, Lou Dobbs is calling him a tool the left. I think it was the Daily Show put together this montage of Lou Dobbs talking about John Bolton. He said nicer things than I've ever said about anyone. Like, he loved this guy up until a week ago, but there's no, like, the sort of the thinking on the right is not flexible in terms of evolution or learning. But if they need to conveniently jettison a position, they will do it with them. There's no looking back. It's totally comfortable for them. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, Judge Palatano has been pretty good recently, willing to, you know, make himself pretty soon probably in exile from Fox News by criticizing Donald Trump. But he is right. The things that Donald Trump just said in that tweet, it's so absurd. Not that it matters, but you're tweeting about it, you're implying that it matters. And he says, why didn't he talk about it earlier? We found out today that he did. He apparently talked to a senator earlier, which we'll get into. He also talked to William Barr.

According to the book, he raised concerns to William Barr. And even William Barr responded with concerns about how Trump might at least give the appearance that he has some sort of deal, personal deal with the leader of China. So, I mean, look, when you're dealing with criminal activity, which is exactly what Trump was engaged in, and that's according to the government accountability office, they released a report on this saying that Trump absolutely did break the law. When you're dealing with that, you've got to understand that speaking out is going to lead to backlash and retaliation. So don't roll around in the mud with pigs. Just don't. You're going to get dirty.

But we'll see what happens with this book. The idea of preventing a book from being published is terrifying in a country where we should have freedom of speech. Quick comment from one of our members thought you'd be pretty foxy, didn't you? That's the handle, says John has a fancy tablet cover. You do, it's very nice. That was not the comment I wanted to read, though. A bucket of squirrels is ammo against logic says, title as blunt as that mustache, which is actually true. The title of his memoir is The Room Where It Happened.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a stupid title, as many great political philosophers and analysts have pointed out. A dumb title from a dumb guy. Well, thank you to our members for their comments. You can become a member by going to t.com slash join. We're going to take a brief break. When we come back, we have more news for you, including the corruption of the very senators who are supposed to be holding Donald Trump accountable in this impeachment trial.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic or You UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-the-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most

sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Welcome back to TYT.

Before I read some comments, I do want to read a few programming notes for you guys so you can know what to expect in the coming week. So next week is gonna be a bonanza. There's a lot of election stuff happening and we got you covered. This is your one stop shop for all of your election coverage. In fact, we're gonna cover the Iowa caucus on Monday, February 3rd. That's, oh my God, that's next week. Is that next week, that's next week?

Do you know what's happening next week? No, next week is a nightmare. Three events. There's a lot going on next week. So there's the Iowa caucus. That's on Monday, February 3rd. Jank, myself, John, and Ben will be covering that starting at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, 6 p.m. Pacific with on the ground coverage by Emma Viglin. It's going to be awesome. So make sure you check that out. It's going to be great. It's going to be so much fun. And then on Tuesday, we'll be covering the State of the Union address live. And that starts at 9 p.m. Eastern time, 6 p.m. Pacific. And on that panel, we have Jank, myself, John and J. You can tune in

live by going to tyt.com slash live. And then just a quick ask, a little favor if you can help us out. So we've actually been nominated for a Shorty Award, which is super exciting. Happens quite a bit. But you can actually help us out if you go to tyt.com slash shorties, plural. So tyt.com slash shorties, and then click vote to help the young Turks win the audience honor for best in news and media and best overall YouTube presence. All right.

So again, go to t-y-t.com slash shorties. All right, a few comments, and then we'll move on with the rest of the rundown. Tamara says, today will be 42 degrees here in, I don't want to mispronounce the city. Adelaide? Yeah, Adelaide, Australia. It will get hotter come February. Our country is literally burning while our current government pretends there's no climate change, the U.S. has a huge sway on our politics. I hope so very much that the Green

New Deal becomes a reality for all of our sakes. I really hope we see President Sanders save our planet, love Bernie so much. I couldn't agree with you more. And those bushfires in Australia are just, we're devastating to people living there obviously, but also to the wildlife. It's just, you know, we're seeing the consequences of climate change right now, and we need a real leader who has a true vision of how to combat it. Whitty sometimes says, why isn't there a formal process of classifying information? No information should be able to be classified specifically to protect someone in power. I totally agree with you.

To be honest, I don't know what the process of classifying information is. I would say that, well, first of all, there's not one process. There are multiple, and there are multiple people that can't classify things. The president is, well, I can't describe all of it or anything, but the president has broadly way to classify things. Yeah. And broadly, way to do things that are in his self-interest. It's unfortunate.

The system is set up in a bad way. Later in the show, we're going to talk about how the Trump campaign is literally going into neighborhoods, giving people money. Just giving people money. So far, that doesn't necessarily sound bad. I mean, it's illegal. You can't just pay people off. You can't pay people to vote for you. There you go.

Yeah. Okay, now it sounds bad. We'll talk about that later in the show, but we have a few more impeachment-related updates to give you. Let's start with Lindsey Graham. So new evidence shows that Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's most ardent supporters and defenders, was sent a letter by Rudy Giuliani in an effort to sanction Ukrainian officials who are actually fighting hard to root out corruption in Ukraine. Now keep in mind that Donald Trump claimed that he wanted to do something about corruption.

Lindsey Graham has propped up Trump and claimed that Trump's telling the truth. He just wanted to do something about corruption in Ukraine. But Rudy Giuliani's efforts to sanction these Ukrainian officials was not only a problem. He had informed Senator Lindsey Graham about it and had basically encouraged him to sanction them. So here's what we know so far. In late 2018, Rudy Giuliani said he delivered a letter calling for sanctions on a host of Ukrainian government officials, including one widely viewed in the West as a brave

reformer and another who helmed the company where Hunter Biden was a board member. Joseph Bondi, the lawyer for Lev Parnas, an indicted Florida businessman involved in the U.S. Ukraine saga, told the Daily Beast that Giuliani showed his client the letter and told him he delivered it to Senator Graham. So before we go on any further with more details, I want to get your thoughts on this, John. Yeah, yeah, well, and the details are important. Yeah, it's funny that there's virtually no one in Trump's like, you know, inner outer circle that hasn't been tied into this.

I mean, so far less actively than some of the others, but I just think it's so amazing. Lindsay Graham at this point, he's not going to say anything critical of Rudy Giuliani, let alone of the president, but he must have thought at the time how bizarre it is that Rudy Giuliani, who has no reason having any interest or knowledge or experience with Ukraine his entire life is dedicating years of his life to supposedly caring about Ukrainian corruption, which is a joke on the same level as Donald Trump caring about it, that he's just tied in with some businessmen that are trying to change things to advance their own economic interests, to any reasonable person who's not an active part of Trump's cult

that is the most obvious thing in the world. Well, what's also incredible is that we now know of two high-profile Republican lawmakers who are very much involved in the impeachment investigation, now the impeachment trial, who were themselves involved in, or at least implicated in some of the wrongdoing, right? Now, when it comes to Devin Nunes, we talked about that, he was very much implicated. We learned details through the impeachment investigation. And now, oh, would you look at that? Before all of this blew up for the public to, you know, learn about,

Lindsay Graham was given this letter by Giuliani, encouraging him to sanction Ukrainian officials who are actually fighting corruption in the country. And by the way, some of these politicians and officials in Ukraine were targeted aggressively by corrupt forces in the country. And I'll give you those details in just a second. The letters claim that an eclectic mix of Ukrainian political figures and business people were part of an alleged organized crime syndicate. The letters claim that the individuals were, quote, actively involved in the siphoning of funds appropriated by the American government for aid to Ukraine. Now, that is not the case. We know that that's actually the opposite of what was really going on.

Rudy Giuliani was representing corrupt clients in Ukraine who wanted to get rid of these Ukrainian officials who were actually fighting corruption. So Rudy Giuliani was representing the bad guys. Make no mistake about it. The letter arrived a month before Giuliani tried to help former Ukrainian top prosecutor, Victor Shokin, traveled to the United States and meet with Graham. Now, Shokin was never given that visa and probably has something to do with the fact that Shokin was one of the corrupt prosecutors, the corrupt prosecutor who ended up getting fired. So now let's get to the details of one of the officials that was included on that letter, right, that Giuliani wanted sanctioned.

Included in the list was Valeria Gontareva, the head of the National Bank of Ukraine from mid-2014 to mid-2017. The inclusion of her is notable. In 2016, she oversaw the Ukrainian government's decision to seize control of a bank that belonged to oligarch Kolomesky. Ukrainian officials alleged that Kolomeski or Kolomoisky and his allies had misappropriated billions from the bank. He has pushed to regain control of the bank even as the FBI has investigated him for financial

crimes. Now here's where things get downright scary. She has faced death threats and danger, okay? So her home was vandalized and someone left a coffin with her likeness inside it outside the central bank offices, as the Washington Post reported. Years after the nationalization of the bank, the danger persists. In August of 2019, she was hit by a car in London and hospitalized the next month. her home in Ukraine was burned down.

So these are the type of people that the bad guys in Ukraine are targeting, right? And that's why Giuliani wants to protect her. And so Giuliani wants to punish her further for actually trying to root out corruption in Ukraine. It's disgusting. Yeah, and look, good on you for going through all the details. I love that you're doing that. It's just so maddening that we have to keep, like we've taken these people by the shoulder.

We're just like, can you just acknowledge that they don't give a damn about actual corruption. They have no interest. Donald Trump has a personal interest. Rudy Giuliani and partners have personal financial interests. They're different interests. All of them have nothing to do with corruption. There was no reference to corruption on the phone call. The Department of Defense had already said that they were complying with all the anti-corruption statutes necessary to be allocated the funds, all of it. And then all of the added people that now have become interested in corruption. So Giuliani and Trump supposedly care about Ukrainian corruption. Now you have people like Graham and Cruz and oh no, they're incensed about it. That's the real

scandal right now is all that corruption that Biden was involved in. But as many people have pointed out, when the Burisma stuff and the Shokin stuff and all that was developing, Graham and Cruz, they weren't off hiking for years. They were in the Senate. And they didn't care at all about it. They didn't talk at all about it. They didn't do anything about it. Because none of these Republicans gave a damn about corruption in Ukraine. But let's just acknowledge that the military aid that was appropriated for Ukraine was a bipartisan effort in Congress, which means that Lindsey Graham was involved, right? Ted Cruz was involved.

So why didn't he raise any of these concerns about so-called corruption in Ukraine as these funds were being appropriated for Ukraine? It's just, it's amazing how they just lie to the American people, right? They lie and they protect like the most evil doers in Ukraine while they're pretending as though they care about rooting out that crime. Yeah. It's disgusting. Yeah.

And it's also amazing that like Donald Trump, more than almost anything else, is immune to when he says something that should be so important that we understand, it just doesn't stick. I forget exactly who it was, I think it might have been Rex Tillerson revealed that he had a conversation with Donald Trump where Donald Trump wanted to change some of the, uh, you internal U.S. government regulations that stopped U.S.-based businesses from bribing foreign governments to get business deals. And he said, how dare they stop us from bribing people in their country to get business? That should matter when he is trying to pitch himself as a person who has waged a multi-year war against corruption in the business practices of countries

like Ukraine. He obviously doesn't want that. He wants to change our rules to allow for more international corruption. Definitely, definitely. It just doesn't matter, it doesn't sink in, Nothing matters. Nothing matters. And just yesterday we talked about how Pam Bondi, one of Donald Trump's defense lawyers, is corrupt herself. And she goes out there on the Senate floor and goes after the Bidens for corruption. When she took $25,000 from the Trump Foundation and is now representing Trump, but more

importantly, dropped the investigation into Trump University. Luckily, they didn't drop that investigation in New York. And Trump ended up having to pay a $22 million settlement because he defrauded students. But this is what we're dealing with, right? So whenever the media pretends like both sides are equal, it's infuriating because you have one side that is not only lying to the American people, but helping cover up Donald Trump's criminal activity in the White House. So let's move on to some real corruption when it comes to this impeachment process.

New reporting indicates that Donald Trump's lawyers have given thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell, who is obviously overseeing the Senate impeachment trial. Now, it seems as though there might be a conflict of interest there, but we live in a country where this type of bribery is legal. And so you end up with senators who don't serve the best interests of the country. They will sell the country out in order to maintain their cozy little relationship with their donors. So let me give you the details of what's going on. Former independent councils, Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who both investigated former President Bill Clinton

ahead of his impeachment, contributed thousands of dollars to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last year before they joined the president's team. So Starr actually gave him $2,800 in July of last year, and Ray gave him $5,600 in September of last year. And that's according to the center for responsive politics, which is trying to shed some light on what's going on, some of the corrupt influences in the Senate impeachment trial. In fact, Senator Mitch McConnell was notoriously said this, and he was very open and honest about it during a cable news appearance. Let's take a look. Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with White House Council. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to

how to handle this. But we'll be working through this process. us, hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with the White House Council's office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate. Well, exactly how we go forward, I'm gonna coordinate with the president's lawyers. So there won't be any difference between us on how to do this. Again, I'm gonna take my cues from the president's lawyers. I'm gonna take my cues from the president's lawyers because the president's lawyers have donated to my campaign and got to look out for their best interest.

So I'll go ahead and sell the country out. It's, this is, this is, this is our democracy. Yeah, and it should, I mean, various things that were just cited should be illegal, at the very least are incredibly unethical to which there are no, there's no consequences whatsoever. And like with each passing day, I keep thinking back to all of the people, like in my personal life on the news that like go on and on about this amazing document, the Constitution, this amazing, this amazing system that was set up. And like, obviously there are some significant historical issues with that that were baked

in the Congress of the Constitution. But in so many ways, almost everything that up until recently did work was resting purely on, well, people aren't gonna be 100% corrupt criminals, right? Because if they are, there are no checks and balances on anything. You can do whatever you want. I mean, like, again, as we've made so many comparisons between the impeachment trial and a regular trial, but nothing that he said there would be allowed. The fact that they can make literal donations right before the trial.

And that honestly, although that's the easiest to pinpoint with actual numbers, it's clearly should be illegal, it's actually the part of this that bothers me the least. Donald Trump can threaten senators that are considering his fate right now. He can raise money for them personally, which he has done very recently. He can provide the promise that he's gonna raise money for them in the future, threats to speak out in support of primary challengers in the future. He's allowed to do all of these things, none of which would be allowed. in any other sort of trial in our country.

That's such a great point. In fact, Donald Trump refuses to do any fundraising for Susan Collins, because Susan Collins, by the way, she has helped Trump. When push comes to shubs, she votes along with Republicans and enables Trump just as much as the other senators do. However, the only difference is she will sometimes say that she's a little bothered by how Trump is acting or how the Senate impeachment trial. is being conducted, but it's just her way of trying to pander to some of the voters in her

state in a tough reelection bid, right? That's what this is really about. But even something as mild as that will lead to Trump threatening her and saying that, you know, I'm not gonna do any fundraising for you, you're dead to me. He didn't literally say that, but that's how he's treating her. Now, that's what you get when you try to play these like games and you do this balancing Act? How about have some principles and just do the right thing? Because trying to pander to Trump is not working, clearly. So I guess this may be a weird thought. And I can already, I'm already

starting to come up with consequences of it that would probably make it unacceptable. But as we're witnessing this obvious ability of the person who's being judged to influence the process and how that's almost certainly going to determine the outcome, do you think that some of these votes should probably be anonymous? Like check to make sure that it's all on the up and up, but allow them to vote the way they actually feel without being able to be personally identified. I know that it's unworkable. It couldn't actually happen. And the solution should be, it shouldn't have to be honest, the solution should be that

if Donald Trump does the things that he has clearly done, that the people would turn against him. And that if he lashed out against these Republican senators, good conservatives and Republicans would side by the non-corrupt, non-criminal parts of their party. Unfortunately, we don't have any of that. We don't have a system that can provide checks and balances. And we don't have a populace that actually cares about what is true and what is ethical. Yeah, that's actually a really interesting proposal. And I have never, I've never thought about it.

It wouldn't work. It really depends on how that anonymous vote is cast. Like, do the senators know what other senators are voting on? Because that'll be leaked immediately. They couldn't, yeah. Yeah, no, there's no way. You give them a special key and they go into a room. Yeah.

It verifies their identity. This is stupid. And look, it's a little bit of a slippery slope as well, because I don't want that to then be used for congressional votes on things that, you know, I know, like let's say, let's say spending bills or NDAA thing, you know, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it's not going to work. I think, I think the transparency is important. All right, well, we need better people is what we need basically. Yeah, we need to apply political pressure and elect better representatives, that's for sure. All right, well, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, one of my favorite stories of the day,

Representative Zeldon gets asked tough questions by an NBC reporter about the impeachment of Donald Trump, and he's just like withering away. Like she doesn't know how to handle it, gets defensive. I love watching them squirm. You're going to love it too. Come right back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

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become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free session. Deep House is not happening today, I guess, but it's all right. I'm into that, whatever that was. That was fun. Light to mid-house. Not house at all, not even close. No, not low-house.

I started running again today, and I was listening to House while I was running. Does that help? It does. It gets me really, like, fired up. Have you ever really fast? I know this has nothing to do with anything, and I'm going to just drive crazy. Have you ever done like marathon, half marathon? We're ahead of the game, Brett, we can have a little fun, okay?

Yeah. Yeah. Anything like marathon, half marathon? My, Brett just said he's not paying attention to anything we're talking about. Although we're free. My friend is actually going to run a half marathon and she's encouraging me to join her. But it's too much of a commitment. You should do it.

You know what our schedules are like. I know, I don't want to do it, but you should do it. I want to do it, but I can't. Okay, I'll work on you. My schedule's too unpredictable with all the election stuff. Anyway, member comments real quick, Nick says two months ago, I wouldn't have of guest Hunter Biden would be made to look like an expert on Ukraine, but compared to Rudy, there you go. Yeah, I don't think Hunter Biden's an expert on Ukraine. But yeah, I guess if

you're comparing him to Rudy Giuliani, anyone's an expert on anything. No, none of these Americans, not one American who's been talked about in a sentence involving Ukraine actually cares about or knows anything about Ukraine. They're all just getting paid, every one of them. Well, I think that a good piece of evidence to reinforce what you're just saying is how so many lawmakers still refer to it as the Ukraine. I don't know, yeah, I watched Seinfeld, so that's baked on it. But honestly, look, you can be frustrated about that, you should be frustrated about that, and I would like to shut down all of it.

I don't want Biden's kids or any of their kids getting these sorts of jobs. But today, Jared Kushner was asked about how he's prepared to deal with Israeli-Palestinian peace process. And he was like, oh, totally, I read 25 books. He didn't read anything. And even if he did, that's not the only, that's better than nothing. Trump hasn't read 25 books, but like that's not the issue. Exactly.

All right, I don't want to neglect our TYT live section, so I'm going to read a few comments there. Super Last Thing writes in and says, could we stop calling him Cruz? That's my last name and I hate it. Let's call him, I don't know, stupid pooped bird face. If I remember, I'll definitely do that. I actually really like the last name Cruz. I like the first name, Cruz as well.

I think Cruz is a cool name. Double up? Big C says, I'm actually appalled and befuddled after listening to the impeachment trial on my way home from work. I did not realize Hunter Biden is actually the potus on trial, not Donnie, thanks Republicans. Such a good point. I mean, they keep going back to Hunter Biden. And look, we're honest on this show about how it doesn't look good to serve on a board

for a foreign country when you have no expertise. And your father is the VP. But the accusations by Republicans against the Bidens have been proven wrong over and over again. But just to be safe, let's ban both of them from being president. Yeah, that'd be great. I'm totally into that. All right, let's move on to the rest of the news. Media, media, if you all would like to, I mean, you're doing a great job as Schills.

You ask a question. Because we're asking a tough question. But this is the problem. The problem is that you're actually insulting your audience. That's Representative Zeldon, a Republican, who did not like the tough line of questioning coming from an NBC reporter. Now, I give her a world of credit. I think she did a really great job here, and you're about to see more of her pushback

against his ridiculous answers in the next clip. But before I do, let me give you a little more context. Republicans keep claiming that there's corruption in Ukraine, and that is the reason why Donald Trump would not release the congressionally appropriated military aid to the country. And so what he's being asked here is very clear, very simple, can you please elaborate on what that corruption is exactly? And he just fails and squirms, and you're about to see it in this next clip. DoD certified this money in May.

They said that Ukraine met all anti-corruption standards. So what specifically happened that made the president all of a sudden concerned about corruption? What specific corruption was he chasing? That's a great question. I'll point out a few things. First off, a lot of the witnesses were talking about a lot of corruption issues that they were working on directly with the Ukraine government. It was a consensus of everyone who works Ukraine policy for the United States government, not just people who are political appointees, but also career officials in the United States government,

all concerned about corruption in Ukraine. It is the top issue in Ukraine, going back, whether it was past administrations, the current administration, current administration right now in Ukraine, past administration, Ukraine. 2014, we passed the Ukraine Security Assistance Act. You can't even provide United States tax dollars to Ukraine unless your kids. convinced at that moment, let me finish the answer, please. And I'll get right back to you. Unless you're convinced that at that moment, that Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to fight corruption. So what Zeldin's doing there is he's giving the reporters a history lesson about

corruption in Ukraine. But the point is that there were officials in place in Ukraine. There were even U.S. diplomats, including Marie Yovanovitch, who were helping to root out that corruption in Ukraine. They were retaliation. against. And so he's not getting into that. He's just talking about the past corruption issues with Ukraine. And understandably, the NBC reporter is getting increasingly frustrated with him trying to dodge the question. Yeah. And one reason is her question involved the reference to the true fact that the DOD said they've met all of their requirements when it has to do with corruption. And then he started talking about a whole bunch of stuff from before that period. Exactly.

So it's like, okay, that's true, that was true, that was true. Okay, and then it was certified. It was Legally allocated, so why did the president, a guy who doesn't know anything about anything you're saying, by the way, he doesn't know about the history, probably doesn't even know about what the DOD did. So why was he suddenly concerned? And what's really interesting, what I would have liked to have asked him was we had this last week, we had the identification to Kelly and Conway that they only released the money like the day after they found out that the whistleblower was talking to Congress.

And she said, it's just coincidence, has nothing to do with it. Okay, fine. Let's say I agree with you. What Lee Zeldin was just pointing out was, it doesn't matter about the DOD, there were still lots of concerns. And Trump cares about Ukraine was super concerned, and he was not going to release it until he'd been reassured. Okay, so then eventually you did release it, and it wasn't because of the whistleblower,

then why was it? If that wasn't the cause, what changed? What stopped you from being so concerned that the money was all going to be stolen? Well, you know, look, John- Nothing changed. Let me go ahead and give you a history lesson about Ukraine and not answer that question. In fact, Zeldon gets increasingly testy in the next clip. Take a look.

And in the NDAA, it was reinforced. You can't provide U.S. tax dollars to Ukraine unless at that moment, you're confident that they're fighting corruption. It is actually in law, a responsibility of the president of the United States. And a lot happened specifically since May. So you pointed out May. What specifically happened since May? Well, first off, so you have a whole new administration that's coming in. You have, you have to let me answer your questions.

I'm just saying anti-corruption platform. That's fantastic. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So after, after you have, and listen, I, if I give a good answer, that doesn't mean that you have to cut me off. Okay. I know that if you let me, if I give a bad answer, you'd probably let me go all day.

I understand now, this is our second day. Right. Well, let me answer you. Go ahead. Yeah, he was giving a bad answer. And she did step in to call him out for dodging the question. Yeah. Yeah, so I believe that I know everything that was going through his head there.

And it might seem at first that it's just like, like frustration or like- Such a great picture. Oh my God, I don't even want to be in the split screen of that. So it's not just frustration, it's not just the normal Republican, like I hate the media. What is going on with- Anyway, what he saw in that moment was an out. And the out was he, like a lot of Republicans, has now been tasked with pretending they care about and know about Ukrainian corruption.

Yeah. Like imagine if I had to, like my job now is I gonna make the case for natural gas all the time. Let's say I somehow signed on for that. My heart wouldn't be there, I wouldn't really remember the facts. It's like, do I really have to go through this? If you keep interrupting, I don't want to keep going through the thing that I really don't care about and don't believe, oh, I can talk about this now, I can talk about how you're

being mean, you're interrupting me. Oh my God, I'm so hot to do that so that I don't have to keep talking about this BS that I don't know about and don't care about. Exactly. And this final clip that we'll show you is the epitome of what you just described, right? He gets more frustrated and tries to kind of like block her from asking more questions. Take a look. Any other questions?

Biden, Crowdstrike, and what is the other specific corruption? So as far as, listen, I mean, yesterday, by the way, anyone else have any other questions? I'd be happy to answer this one. I know it's a hard question, but it's- Oh, no, no. Hold on a second. It's a hard question. Because the president's not on the record mentioning anything other than Biden, Crowdstrike. That's it.

And you haven't mentioned anything else. Okay. I'm happy to answer your question, but all I was asking was, because you have a lot of colleagues here. He just got the answer, right? Okay, I'm happy to. But just, you have a unique style, okay? And it's one that might not be as, I mean, you're not looking around to see if anyone else has any other questions.

But if you want- You're not answering it. You know, he was honest about one thing. He mentioned her style and called it a unique style. Now, if the press were behaving the way that it's supposed to behave, which is a check on power, then her style wouldn't be unique. But far too often, you see these, maybe you'll have like a tough question, but there's rarely a follow-up. And I give her a tremendous amount of credit.

The reason why I haven't said her name yet is because I know I'm going to butcher it. And if she ever happens to watch this video, I apologize. You did an incredible job here. Heidi Prizibla is her name. And she works for NBC. She did a great job there. And this is the kind of follow-up question or follow-up questioning that we need. because look how easily they fall apart once you're asking them the tough questions.

Yeah. He's squirming. And then I love the, I love when he's like, does anyone else want to ask me a question? And all the other reporters are like, no, no, no, that's, we want you to answer her question. No, that's a good one. No, I'm happy to answer the question. Anybody please, save me. Come save me.

He kept saying it. And the weird thing was he kept saying he was happy, but he didn't look happy. No, he looked pretty annoying. And again, he was looking desperately for an outfit. A whole crowd of people asked me something, named one extra thing. And I've said this now, 30 times of the last three months. They have had so much time. They have so much staff.

How haven't they come up with something so that he doesn't have to stand there and look like an idiot? And the thing is, there's got to actually be corruption. Find it. Talk about it. Identify a company and individuals, something. They can't, they can't. And partially because they don't care.

He doesn't care. He doesn't want to know. Once you get caught in a lie, how do you get yourself out of it? By asking for other questions. I don't, I don't, nothing is worth it. Like, no political career in my eyes is worth doing what Republicans are doing right now. It's so embarrassing and so shameful. I mean, if I were Zeldin, I don't know, I wouldn't be talking to anyone today.

Like, I would be in bed. I'd have like the shades closed and I'd be like, no phone calls. Like, I need to live with who I am and how deeply embarrassed and ashamed I am. Well, you don't have the thing that politicians, especially Republican politicians have to have, which is this bizarre psychological mix of, on the one hand, total arrogance and ego, you're obsessed with yourself and your own advancement and a willingness to debase yourself in, like, true online cuck fashion. Like, I hate that term.

I hate the whole thing. It's 100% right. No, look. Like, I am the best man ever now flog me. That's what they do. Ted Cruz, he cares only about himself in his whole future. 100%. To the extent that you can call him ugly, his dad's an assassin.

His wife is-ugly. Exactly, it doesn't matter. They'll take it. They're masochists. It's just so, so embarrassing. It really is. Look, Trump is terrible. We've got to get him out.

We've got to get him out. The only silver lining to his administration or to his presidency is, is how he has become the cuckmaster when it comes to these Republican lawmakers. It's true. And some of these military guys who have dragged us into endless wars. He has strangely enough outmaneuvered them in some ways. And he is an imbecile. So it's even more incredible when you consider that.

That's true. Yes. If we're going to continue the analogy, which we probably shouldn't, he is an expert at cucking them. But at the same time, like the way that he can't help but reveal all of his tiny and insecurities and weaknesses and stupidity, like he's like an emotional exhibitionist too. Like he wants to expose how pathetic he is constantly because he gets off on it for some reason. It is pretty easy. I don't know how we got into this.

The one other thing I want to say though, he was going for an out, that's definitely true, but, and this is not a new thing, I do hate the trend that I'm seeing though, where you had what, the woman, the Republican who was like your liberal hack. I forget who that was it was McSally? Yeah, it was Martha McSally, who we're going to talk about in the postgame show because the Lincoln Project put out a new ad. Oh my God, so good. So she has realized, don't answer questions, just insult them and you are the coolest hero ever. Mike Pompeo, he just yelled at a woman in private for nine minutes and Trump gave him a standing, like they had a standing ovation in a big room.

This guy is realizing if I don't have an answer, like if he had spit in her face right then, they would have cheered for him in Fox News. And they have now provided an out for all of their people. They never have to answer a question. They never have to acknowledge their own hypocrisy, their own past statements. All you have to do is insult the person asking you a question. And the thing is that the audience on the right, they don't want the truth, they want to own the libs. Well, Nando made a really great point on the show on Monday. I wasn't here, but he said something along the lines of Republicans don't care about figuring

out whether a crime was committed or not, they want to figure out how to get away with the crime. And I think that's the devastating difference between the right and the left, but I also don't want to be too naive about the left. I mean, the left never ceases to amaze me with their own issues. But I really don't think that Democrats would lie to the American people and cover up for a president's crime to the extent that Republicans have. Yeah, or they might. But in terms of a performance like that, I don't think that we've seen a great democratic example of that much of a willingness to, no matter how bad it looks, just pretend that nothing's wrong, and then turn the guns on the person asking you a question.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and anyway, in any event, even if there are good examples, I don't want to see more of that. I don't like the normalization of it. I totally agree, yeah. All right, well, we're gonna take a break because when we come back, we're switching gears. We're gonna talk about some election updates, including one of my favorite stories of the day. Donald Trump is shaking in his boots at the very thought of having to run against Bernie Sanders.

We're going to give you the evidence of that and more when we return. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.