The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 31st, 2020

Episode Date: February 1, 2020

The Senate has voted to not allow witnesses in the Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump. John Iadarola, David Dayen, 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. It's the power panel. I'm here, J.R. Jackson, David Dayne as well, very excited.

I'm going to preface the show by saying that I am in a horrible, horrible mood. It's nothing about you, don't take it personally. That is not a lie. It's just, you know, that we live in a stupid, stupid, stupid country that believes a lot of BS about itself. But I'm glad that you guys are here. Yeah, nice to see you too. Thank you.

John is famous for never being in a bad mood and actually if he is, you can't tell. This is actually one of those days. If it wasn't for him actually saying it, you'd think, oh yeah, John's just being quiet right now maybe he has a stomach cake. You know what sometimes puts you in a good mood though? Talking news with your pals, you know? So maybe that'll happen. But we're gonna start off with the news that's been developing literally before we came here.

We got a lot that we're gonna get to. My frustration with democracy in the Senate will be followed later with some of the DNC's latest shenanigans, so that's gonna be fun. And then, you know, we're gonna have a little bit of fun maybe with Pita Zad for the Super Bowl, which got rejected. That should be a little bit of fun to analyze. But anyway, look, we got a lot that we gotta get to. We're gonna see what happens, why don't we jump into it?

So we've been wondering, are we going to have witnesses? Oh, maybe Susan Collins, remember all of them? will do the right? No, no, there's no witnesses and there's no evidence because the greatest deliberative body in the world isn't interested in finding out the truth of what actually happened with Donald Trump and Ukraine. Not interested in any of that. So we did find out earlier today that Mitt Romney was going to vote for witnesses. That's great for Mitt. And Susan Collins did too. Once it became clear to her that she would be able to vote in favor of them without any witnesses actually being called. Isn't that an amazing little trick that they didn't do? She's going to be able to go back

home and pretend that she was reasonable, but she waited until the last minute to announce it until it was already proved that we weren't going to have witnesses. I think she was worried about ads being run against her. There better be ads run against her for this cowardly move, almost worse than what we thought was going to happen with her. Yeah, I mean, what they call that is a hall pass. So Mitch McConnell knew he had 53 votes in the Senate, among the Republicans, he didn't want to leave it to John Roberts to have to make a decision

at all. So he had two hall passes and he gave one to Romney and he gave one to Collins and that was it. That's how this works. I mean, you know. Well, there was discussions as they mentioned. Romney was trying to convince his fellow Republicans to maybe consider something like this. And of course, that wasn't going anywhere.

So, you know, reports come up. People complain all the time about things getting leaked, especially from the White House, maybe sometimes in the Senate, hey, how could they actually let Bolton write a book? How could Bolton take notes before he leaves the White House and then be so disloyal to this president? I'm not sure if it was leaked or reported that Mitt Romney was trying to convince other senators to vote his way. No Republicans were upset about that leak because that's okay to leak that stuff because it makes him look good.

And then after Susan Collins came out, oh, man, there's some reasonable Republicans in it's not totally across the board. everyone just in lockstep. There's a couple of people who were thinking about how much they enjoy American exceptionalism and our democracy. But once it comes down to this point, and you see how Susan Collins said, I can say it now, even though Lamar Alexander hinted it, I remember his name came up. I said, why do we care that Lamar Alexander might vote in favor of witnesses?

Because why would we believe that? That was possible. Yeah, and we're there for cover, that's what. Alexander, I mean, this is the crazy thing about Alexander. He's retiring, right? And I saw a thread by Tim Alberta, who is with Politico, and he was actually one of the moderators at the L.A. debate. And he says, well, yeah, even though Alexander's retiring, he still wants a post-Senate

career, and he wants to be able to hit up members, and he can't do, you know, go scorched earth on the Republican Party. Do you know how old Lamar Alexander is? I'm going to guess. He is 79 years old. You know, he actually looks pretty good for 79. Does he need a post-Senate career? Yeah.

Go home and hang out with your grandkids. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is true across the board. Bob Dole is confined to a wheelchair in 96 years old and he's still lobbying. Really, yeah. Yeah, I mean, post-Senate careers, lobby. Yeah, that's what that is.

Yeah, Lamar, Alexander, really, I couldn't agree more. Spend time with your grandkids while they are young enough that they won't understand how much of a craven a hole you are, how you sold out your country and your values to support literally one of the worst public figures in the history of our nation. And thankfully for you, you will have passed away before they understand who you really are. Lamar Alexander, he's going to be reasonable. Maybe Romney. Romney doesn't need the hall pass. Like, Romney could do whatever he wants. He's in basically a stronghold effectively. That's true. Maybe he actually, like he's a big I don't care, whatever, I don't care, it doesn't matter, we got two and only, we would

have only gotten one if it actually mattered. Watching the vote come in and watching all of these Republicans just in turns, no, nope, not thinking about it, because they know that our system has degraded to the point where there will be no consequences. In the Republican Party, you can just effectively say, Trump is all powerful, it's an accurate assessment of the hold that he has over 32% of the country. They are terrified of him. And nothing that you think about America, our democracy, our constitution, and the great ideas of the founders, none of that can stand up to a Senate majority that we only have because the Senate

is, by its very nature, as unrepresentative as possible. It's getting worse literally every year in America. He holds enough people that he can challenge them in a primary, so they will allow him to do anything. This time, it's election interference, but honestly, he's been accused of worse crimes that they don't pay attention to. He's been incredibly accused of rape. They don't give a damn about that. Where would the line be drawn? I know we're supposed to assume that there is still some line. So, what is that line? One of our writers over at the American prospect, prospect.org, Alexander Salmon had a piece today about essentially what this impeachment says, not just about politics, but about our culture.

in general, that we have this, anything goes, L.O.L. Nothing Matters culture if you're rich and powerful. And, you know, it's not just impeachment, although I think after 230 plus years, we can say that impeachment doesn't exist. It's not a remedy. As long as you need 67 senators, you're never going to get that in a partisan environment, a two-party environment. But it's more than that. It's the CIA torture program going unpunished. It's the bankers. on Wall Street who crashed the economy going unpunished. This is the culture, and it's true about the Trump era, but it's been true before the Trump era.

And that, I think, more than anything, is what this signifies, this two-tiered system of justice that we have in America. Yeah, we were talking about how things haven't changed that much. I mean, I was mentioning just before we came on how, you know, the American exceptionalism, at least to talk about how great we are, and then we don't back it up with our actions, is actually nothing new. It's just it's more highlighted now because Trump is so bad at it or doesn't care about covering for his actors. He just does it and then goes, well, it doesn't matter, I'm the president, I can do what I want.

And now the folks who used to maybe hide it and cover for it have to openly cover for things that are blatantly being done in front of Americans' faces. So it looks worse. Well, I mean, look what Alexander and Rubio said in their statements, I agree that he did all of this. I stipulate to everything that the House manager said, I'm just not going to impeach him for it. I'm not gonna remove them for it. Yeah, you know, we like we have, we have the review video and I have some of the Lamar Alexander tweets, it feels it feels like it would be so stupid to actually read it at this point. Like it would be, I would be taking it more seriously than either of those centers combined

take this entire process. To even put Rubio's stupid conniving face on the screen would feel like a dereliction of duty. My duty, as a stupid online host, which I apparently take more seriously than the majority of the senators in our country. Look at his stupid little grin. Like yeah, I know it looks a little bit pathetic, but I'm just gonna keep my head down and in eight years I'm gonna run for president again. That's what he thinks.

And honestly, it might even work. All of their schemes. That's what he's betting on. And I know you don't wanna go through, but there's a couple things I highlighted that point out for me from Alexander's statement. He started by saying no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Biden and son. We admit to it, as you pointed out.

So if you're admitting that it was done, and by the way, I'm sorry, the second part of that, there's no need for evidence to conclude that he did, that he withheld the United States aid, at least in part to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. So you're admitting that it was done, fine, whatever, cool, cool, cool. But then the reason we don't need to go through this whole process of witnesses is because he has a constitutional prerogative to protect confidential conversations. with his close advisors. Which conversation would be revealed from Bolton that is so close because he was an advisor,

except that maybe all this was done strictly for his own benefit. So if you want the conversation to be held secret, fine, except that it's going to reveal exactly what you said didn't happen. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, I never said that, I never withheld aid. Remember, that's how we started. Perfect conversation. How many times we hear a perfect conversation?

Now we're saying it wasn't a perfect conversation, but we can't hear the conversation in reality because it'll actually expose him as the liar that he was. You can't continue to move your lies as they get exposed and say, well, fine, you expose that one, but I don't care. That's the answer. So if you're giving up the conversations that are the prerogative of the president, you can't you can't just cover it and say it's fine. And in this particular area, like my worry is, obviously, I take trying to interfere with an election seriously.

I know that that's an increasingly unpopular position to take. I still kind of think it's important. In the Senate, it's unpopular, maybe not anywhere else. By a lot of people, actually. All the people who have been like, why are you paying attention to this? This whole impeachment is so stupid. Honestly, you're going to get mad about this. No, just let the president accrue more and more power, always more and more power.

That'll be fine. I'm sure later on presidents will be more responsible. But think about how fast, even just in this area, things have moved. That the Mueller report came out and not 100%, but effectively was like, well, on collusion, no, not super strong evidence of collusion, partially because of the entire thing was obstructed. We never actually talked to the people involved with it, but fine. And they were like, well, ha, look at that. He didn't actually collude.

Then like a day later, he has the interview with Stephanopoulos, where he asks him, so what if you could work with, you know, this time around work of the foreign power? And he's like, yeah, I'd probably do that. And the response is, well, he says he'll do that, but he wouldn't actually do that. Now it's, oh, yeah, no, he totally tried to do it, but you shouldn't care about that either. It is, like, things are falling apart literally on a week-by-wake basis, internally inconsistent arguments falling apart, supposed values, institutional norms, all of that is falling apart in real time. And later on we're going to have, like, the Rick Santorum argument that, like, oh,

Trump is going to be chastened after being impeached and all that, how, like, the fact that people could still be this either naive and stupid or corrupt and lying, such a depressing day. I mean, part of that is that why would he have been chastened by the 30 other things that, you know, we have lobbyists and foreign governments streaming into the Trump hotel? Why would he be chasing by anything that's gone on in the last three years? Number one, number two, I'm going to try to give you a silver lining. Okay. I try to give you a silver lining.

At least we don't have the John Bolton welcome to the resistance party of hearing him testify and hearing him become a hero of the left. John Bolton, the guy who wants us to move headlong into a meat grinder in Iran. That is true. That is a good silver line. And let me briefly say, so like, there's been this thing. I understand that some people are incredibly comfortable of, you know, coming to groups of what Trump and has been doing over the past few years, covering it, like some people are like, why are you paying attention to this? I mean, he's only the most powerful person in the world.

No, but seriously, a lot of people say that. And I love that you just pointed that out, because all along the way, as people drop out from paying attention or covering it, who is left to cover it? Hypothetically, the resistance folks in government, in media, Rachel Maddow, you know, and isn't she so frustrating? Why does she focus on the things that she focuses on? I'm not going to do that. Let her do that. But then you are seeding all of that incredibly important territory that role as a watchdog

to people that you think are not up to the task. We can't do that. We have to provide an alternative. And as more and more people are getting politically activated and understanding things about our current government, but bigger. economic and social things that have been changing, how can that be the only thing we allow them to see news through as the filter? If we seed all of that territory and people that we think are in their own way corrupt and not up to the task, then we are damning all of the people

who will be coming into this cycle. Some just naturally as the years go by, but others as a result of the fact that a lot is going on, we're seating all of that territory to them. It is on us to make sure that we provide a counterpoint, that when John Bolton suddenly appears, is a big national figure, we don't just hug him, we acknowledge what he said, and we acknowledge who he is, especially if we don't trust that the rest of the people in the media are going to do that. That's our job, and we have to do it. That's the sole thing about embracing John Bolton is something that's fueled by Republicans

that they said it before and they're like, oh my god, if this guy gets chance to talk, we're gonna have to, well, not we're gonna have to, we're saying, hey, you lips suddenly love John Bolton, when actually what happened was suddenly conservatives hated John Bolton. He's a liar, a snake in the grass, disloyal, turn on the president, on America. They went in on John Bolton right before they said how much libs are gonna accept him, which, yes, there'll be a certain sense of libs will accept him, and that would be very frustrating. Ellen will be sitting next to the football game in four years, and then we'd be frustrated by that.

No, but then that's what forces so many Democrats in general to have to preface everything they say. Every stance a Democrat has has to say, now by the way, I knew he was a bad guy, but he was a bad guy, But in this particular instance, he did this one thing that actually progressed the truth. Anytime, if there's a bank robbery, if there's a drive-by, and someone was in the back seat and said, hey, Johnny was in the front and he shot, I'm not going to jail for 25 years over this. Are the police going to say, hey, Malcolm, sitting in the back seat, how dare you rat on your boy? Or will they say, hey, Malcolm, thanks for providing his evidence so we can get to the bottom of the crime and actually find out who did this. use people who were part of the crime, who rat out the other ones all the time.

I mean, that's true. Look, to the extent there's a resistance, it starts Monday night in Iowa. I mean, there's your silver lining. Robert Mueller is not walking through that door. John Bolton's not walking through that door. Lamar Alexander's not walking through that door. The marshal of the Supreme Court is not walking through that door. this is going to be on us to, you know, go through the electoral process, as flawed as it is,

and run up enough votes that it can't be taken. And that's the only way you're going to get this out in the short term. That's the only way that Trump is going to leave off. So we know that now, you know, we've now had three years of, oh boy, something's going to happen next. It's not going to happen. So let's go to Iowa and let's keep going. And then the next step of that being, now we have to be even more vigilant about our electoral process because we've just opened the door to allow him to do what he wants in this upcoming campaign. So now, anytime someone, say you do find something, say you do see him doing

similar things, and someone says, hey, Trump's at it again, you know what they're going to say? You guys pulled this four years ago and you pulled it after, and you pulled it all through 2019. We don't want to listen to you anymore. That's what it sets it up for. So now even when there's another legitimate accusation or proof, as we've already seen, oh, it's just you guys complaining again. Yeah. And I'm hoping, just like you, Sanders is the nominee. I think he's a very good chance going to happen. And Trump is going to do all sorts of underhanded stuff to him. And some of it hopefully will be able to identify as underhanded and the media hopefully won't take the bait. But some of it maybe not. And maybe it will have an effect on the

election. We'll see. I don't know. But by the way, if you get a minute, maybe during this break, because we're about to take a break, Sarah Smith, who was an awesome progressive candidate in this last cycle, she has a tweet, like, thread about one of the things she wants out of a Sanders presidency that I could not agree more with, and it is that we have always allowed, a Republican gets into office, he accrues more powerful.

Then a Democrat replaces him, accrues even more powerful. Sanders has to do a lot of things. I don't envy him the list, the to-do list he has. One is to put into effect through whatever means. necessary, the most like rock hard, reliable, not norms, not traditions, actual reliable concrete limitations on executive power that will last longer than he does in the presidency. We desperately need it and we can't trust almost anyone else to ever do it. Okay, let's take our first break, come back, lots more to get.

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

nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training, or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the power panel before we jump back into the news. I wanted to read some members' comments.

Dario said David's astute perspective is needed on a day like this. A big fan there. Jenks, Instagram Cofefe says, JR rep in Detroit, that old English D, love it, man. Nice. Low Town Philly right here. And Hughie. Most of the men over here. I love...

Got this at a Tigers game two summers ago when they got dismantled by the Texas. It was a disaster of a game. When you wear it, do you feel like a big loser? Okay, and Huey P. Sanders says, don't pretend like Mainers are stupid. We know what... Kogi Total is more than... just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing

antibacterial mouthwash, all designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. She did. We have eyes and ears. she's complicit and she has Trump stink all over her. 61% of Mainers want Trump impeached. We're friendly people, but there's nowhere in Maine for Collins to actually return to now, and Mainers will remind her of that fact for the rest of her life. There you go.

We'll see. Give me a silver lining, Maine. Let's see if we can get some other ones as well. Let's see. Okay, also, I wanted to let you know, obviously this next week is going to be a big one. We've got so many big events coming up. One of those is that we're going to be covering the State of the Union on Tuesday, February 4th, starting at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific time. But because of that, obviously, we have to make an adjustment to our old school schedule.

For next week, old school will be available for members on Wednesday, February 5th, my birthday. You can find the full schedule under announcements at t.t.com, and you can become a member today at t.com slash join to watch that. And also some of the special event coverage next week, the vast, vast majority of it is going to be totally public. A little bit at the end will be exclusively for members. have been putting off becoming a member, there is no better week than next week. And I don't want to jinx anything. But I am looking forward to celebrating on Monday. I kind of need that to happen at this point. That would be nice. So celebrate with us. Weeklong celebration, John's birthday, potentially, I'll call this the celebration that Trump

is going to have. The birthday is nothing. Monday's bigger. He's definitely going to celebrate at the stadium. Okay, let's turn now to a very important story. Vice President Mike Pence had what became for him an uncomfortable run-in with Dr. Rob Davidson over the issue of the just announced plan to switch over to block grants for Medicaid. Take a look at what the doctor said to the vice president. Emergency doctor, I'm worried about the plans they talked about last week of maybe cutting Medicare and then the rollout today of cutting Medicaid. I work in one of the poorest counties in Michigan and my patients depend on expanded Medicaid. So how is that going to affect my patients.

Yeah. How are we in this? I haven't heard about cutting Medicaid, yeah. The head of CMS announced the plan to let states file for waivers so they could get block grants, so that would essentially cut the amount of money going to the states.

Is that a good idea? Actually, when I was governor of Indiana, we got a waiver from the Obama administration that actually allowed us to expand Medicaid coverage in the states. Right, but now they're talking about scaling back the Medicaid expansion that they that we got with the affordable character. And that 680,000 Michigan or 600,000 in Iowa, a lot of people got help care.

We expanded coverage in Indiana with Indiana. Right, but I'm just talking about the president and your administration right now what they're doing. Right now they're cutting Medicaid. Waivers for states that didn't take expansion. No, it's for people who took expansion money too. I mean, your administration just announced this they rolled it out today and it's going to affect millions of people across the country cutting Medicaid. I mean, is that a good idea? Is that bad at it?

I think you're oversimplified. Well, I think it comes down to that for the people I take care of all the time. I mean, people I see in the emergency department that can't get primary care doctors. You know, once they got Medicaid, they can get primary care doctors. They stay out of the ER. They actually work more. They actually contributed to our community more. That doctor just surgically dismantled.

For a productive conversation, ideally you want something like 100% total understanding split equally between the participants. obviously didn't want to engage with this guy, also didn't seem to know anything about what was actually going on. Nothing at all. And an important issue. Went back to when I was governor in Indiana, which of course was before he became vice president. So this is an incredibly important issue and what's also interesting about it is the lead

official at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verna, it was Mike Pence's health care official in Indiana. So I mean, it does have some sense of what's going on. And this is a consequential issue. You're allowing states to say, give me a fixed amount of money instead of a variable rate depending on how many beneficiaries there are within Medicaid. It is a recipe to cut hundreds of thousands of people potentially off of Medicaid, depending on how many states pick this up.

And it gets worse in a downturn, right? Because there's a downturn. People are unemployed. they need health care, and if they have no income, they can go on Medicaid. But in a block-granted environment, there's no way. So it's literally worse when the economy gets worse, when people need it the most. Yeah. So what I just heard is that next week, the House Democrats, are going to vote on what is called

a resolution of disapproval for this proposal. And what that means is that there's something, it's called the Congressional Reform Act, and Trump's Republicans did this earlier in his term. In the first part of the term, you can vote as a Congress to disapprove of a resolution, then they can't do it. And it's up or down, and they have to vote on it. So once this gets through the House, and I believe it will, it has to go to the Senate. And all those senators like Susan Collins and Corey Gardner and Tom Tillis and all those guys will have to vote on whether to cut Medicaid.

And I truly believe you'll see more ads during the general election on this than you will on impeachment. Well, that certainly makes sense. My question would then be, like, ideally you'd want to live in a country where a political party having as their standing goal, we want to cut as much of the spending, on the poor as possible, but they wouldn't do it. We don't live in that country, but so they still will cut it, but they will hide it as it's a restructuring, it's a different way of funding it. Will they be able to communicate this as the cut that it is? Who's saying?

I would say, Democrats who might be making campaign ads about it, when it has the camouflage of structural change of funding block grants as opposed to sliding scale. Well, the people are saying it, I guess, because I mean, they're saying it that way, but then there has to be a cohesive argument. But the hard part is coming with an intelligence argument to keep blocking down bad arguments that are based in lies, number one, and also emotion, but like these Democrats are coming after you, they're gonna do this, they're gonna do that, and it paints this picture of people that are evil trying to get you when they're actually right in front of you doing exactly

that. So again, this happened in 2017 and with the famous John McCain vote. They were trying this as part of the rejection of Obamacare in the first place. This was in attendance of their appeal to voters. be like, hey, we're trying to get rid of this and have block grants. They've been pushing this for a while. So now after the devastating vote that made, that solidify to galvanize Trump's disdain for John McCain right before he passed away, they're like, oh, we can try it again though.

Oh, he's gone, let's go and go for it again with another mask. So you're gonna subvert exactly what Congress and the Senate voted on and try and do it all over again, just specifically with this one because you just feel like it. I think you ask how are Democrats going to message this? They should hire Dr. Rob Davidson, that guy. That's pretty effective. It was extremely effective because he didn't buy all the, you know, he said, ah, this is just going to cut Medicaid, this is functionally a cut, it's going to cut it for thousands

of people who need this in my community. And that's the way to bring it home is to, you know, just go there. You can cut that ad again right now. Play that part of Pence saying, well, in Indiana I did this one, Indiana did this way, And then again, I did it this way, and then ask the voiceover lady from the Lincoln Project commercials. Hey, hey, Mike, what changed your mind now? Is it Trump? I mean, it's too easy.

Anytime that you used to be a certain way, now you're a different way strictly because of your position, that's exactly what we're looking for to find out your lack of principles. They couch this in reform, they couch it in restructuring and all. But all you have to say is they're going to end Medicaid as we know it. And Democrats sometimes are pretty good at that. They can fearmonger around Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They know how to do that. Exactly, yes. And I think Sanders knows how to do that pretty well.

Better than some of the other front runners, certainly, who have themselves threatened those things, allegedly. I know it's up and the media really hasn't looked into it, so we can say. And bear in mind, so you reference the thumbs up, thumbs down. For all of the terrible things that Donald Trump has done, the ridiculous statements, looking laughable on the international stage, his worst approval rating was when the Republican party in that first year, we're actually trying to get things done, but all of it was horrendous. That was when he was at his worst.

And now, gearing up for his reelection bid, we have a video on the damage report we record this morning. Me and Brenner, like it's 10 ways Trump could win in 2020. I don't think he's gonna pay attention to it because his strategy so far is announcing he's gonna look to cut Social Security. They're already trying to cut Medicare and Medicaid after years of stopping its expansion. They've activated challenge mode for this reelection by doing all the things you're not supposed to do.

It is going to be up to the media to be honest about what they're doing and the Democrats to rightfully point it out because there's nothing more damaging than their persistent campaign of going after the most vulnerable. Now really fast, I just want to run through a couple of graphics for people, especially outside of the country who don't necessarily understand what is happening in this reformation of the funding. So bear with me for just a minute. Currently, Medicaid covers health care for 71 million people across the country.

This is not a small program, it is absolutely massive. Most are low income people, disabled people and children. It's set up as a federal state partnership. A state contributes money to cover its Medicaid population, and the federal government matches that contribution using a formula based on a state's per capita income. Therefore, low income states get more from the federal government than high income states do. There's currently no limit to what federal government contributes. beneficiaries across the country have a right to whatever care they need for however long

they need it, even as you pointed out in a downturn, where you might have more people on it suddenly. You're not talking about they're just divvying up X dollars between more people, you get actually more funding because you have more need for it. With this announcement, CMS is inviting states to design Medicaid plans that work with a new capped funding approach, they have flexibility in how they design these plans and could be exempted from certain Medicaid requirements. For example, the plan would allow states to create a formulary to pick and choose which drug

are covered, normally Medicaid covers all drugs. So under the new system, you're gonna want to be very careful about which illnesses you have. Choose wisely, because you might not be able to get certain types of medication in the future. One thing I'm interested in, I'd love to hear your read on this, is block grants could run into trouble in the courts just as Medicaid work requirements already have if judges find they are contrary to the purpose of the Medicaid program, which is of course actually provide this benefits.

Do you think that's likely to happen? I think you'll almost certainly see an attempt on the part of advocates for patients and progressive groups to try to block it in the courts. I would say two things. So this puts the onus on the states to design a new program. We know what states are going to do that. California is not going to set up a block grant program. This is going to be conservative states, again, widening the divide.

Some of them don't have Medicaid expansion at all, and now they're going to target it so that it's a block grant and even fewer people can become eligible. So this is just going to widen that divide. The second thing is, we already know what this looks like. This is what they did with welfare. So welfare, after the Clinton reform law, became a block grant program. And for the first five years, it was working fine because there was a huge surplus.

And this was one of the better times economically in recent memory. And everyone said, oh, see, welfare reform worked great. And then the dot-com bubble popped, and then 9-11 happened. and there was this big downturn and a lot of people were out of work and suddenly they realized that welfare wasn't there as a safety net support and then the Great Recession happened and then we really understood that nobody was able to get these benefits and so I think we already have the model for what this looks like and it's really really not good. That's what I was, the Welfare and SNAT program thing is exactly what I was thinking

about because the way this will also be posed like it starts by hey you know, Because they have exclusions for a certain elderly, certain sicknesses, all that thing. And that's supposed to be something where their compassion comes into play, when in reality what will happen, it'll continue to get progressed the way that welfare has. It started as you said, oh, we reformed it and it's so great now. But as you keep on pushing and cutting and cutting and pushing and cutting, it keeps getting shaved down. And the way that people are portrayed that are having to depend on this is lazy, how do

you go for your entitlements, you're siphoning off of people who are successful, go get A job, part of it is work requirements. So it'll be treated the exact same way. When someone, people are embarrassed to mention that they ever were on any kind of welfare because you're gonna be shamed for it. You un-American, lazy P-O-S, that's the way we see them. And this is gonna be another program that's trying to make another program that's seen exactly the same way.

Now you mentioned some of the states, like Tennessee was specifically one of the states, I remember reading this article. One of the states that, hey, we wanna go with this too, but they weren't even eligible for it because they didn't even accept the Medicaid, I mean, the Obamacare expansion in the first place. Any kind of way, and that's just an example, of any kind of way for certain states to continue to constrict any kind of help for their citizens. If it's not a simple campaign that had to say, hey, Tennessee, your state hates you.

Which one is it going to be like? But somehow they find a support of the people in their state enough to back up things that hurt them the most. And ironically, you mentioned California won't be the one to do it, but those lives in California and the coastal progressives are trying to destroy the country. The people in Tennessee are voting to destroy themselves. They don't even know it. Those are the people who are going to get affected first and foremost by these types of policies.

Yeah, you know, like they always say, like if a state has high taxes or they're raising their taxes, like, oh, people are going to flee, people are going to flee? They don't say the same thing about, like, what if we change all of our programs, I'll just screw over people who desperately need medical care? Right. For some reason, they're not afraid of their populations fleeing for states that actually care about whether their people live or die. Hey, and when's the last time you guys moved?

Doesn't matter when. Everyone's moved at some point in their life. It's not a $5 expense. Yeah. Especially moving out of state. So when they say, hey, you know, we got states across. We got state right next you that you can easy go to and find new services. Oh, yeah, just move there, leave my job that you said I should keep in my kids school, anything like that.

It's just a simple move. Just jump in your corolla and go. In fact, an aggregate mobility of that nature is at near record lows in the United States. It's hard. Really fast. I saw that there were some member comments about this story, so I wanted to read them. Jenks' Instagram for Gofefefe said, and I can't believe that I forgot this. It says, I voted for Dr. Rob in 2018.

He was a Justice Democrat. Unfortunately, my district is big, I can't believe that I didn't recognize the name. I didn't know. Salty Vane says, come on, John, if we're only going to be saved by the media actually doing its job and Dems handling effective messaging were doomed, I am right there with you. But, you know, if you were going to choose one candidate who could point to a career of protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare, Medicaid as a priority. It'd be Joe Biden.

Obviously, yeah. I think it mean Clobuchar. And then by the way, I'm gonna read this mainly because of the name. It's taking Janky U's bet all day long. I think Brett's gonna like that. Oh wow, a resolution of disapproval. That sounds like the equivalent of a strongly worded letter. Yeah, but it isn't.

I mean, it actually would eliminate the regulation if it passed both houses. Yeah. was signed by the president. Exactly. Okay, so we're going to take a break. When we come back, my bad mood was partially what was going on the Senate, and the other were two stories having to do with the DNC. So we're going to jump into that fun little ball pit. We'll get back from this. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the

prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available. ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this

exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXP-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. Welcome back to the power panel, everybody.

Before we jump back into the news, and it's a couple of doozies. Buttigieg sells time shares on the side said, became an EP for TYT recently, and I know it's money well spent. That's pretty good. Buttigieg sells berries online on the side. It's money well spent. I always look forward to hearing the truth from a real news source. Keep fighting for the masses.

Hashtag Bernie 20, 20, 20, good show to all. Thank you. And let's see. Oh, so on the hashtag TYT live, Ecclectic miscellaneous said, so Pence said, I hadn't heard about cutting Medicaid, but then switched to, you're oversimplifying it. How would you know he's oversimplifying it

when you don't even know what your administration is doing? That's a good point. That's a pretty good point. If you have some good points, and you'd like to share them with Anna and Jank and myself over a delightful meal, I've got to wait for that to happen. You can fly out to LA for a dinner with all three of us.

And the way that you do that is through our aspiration.com sweepstakes. Just head to t.t.com slash dinner in LA to register to win. You sign up for a free aspiration spend and save account and then register your eligibility in the sweepstakes. You have to do that even if you already have an account. Bear in mind, obviously you want to take part, you got to sign up for it. And then you swipe your card to gain entries into the sweepstakes. And one winner is going to get chosen to be flown out, put up in a hotel, have dinner

with us and hopefully at that point later on this year, commiserate over how well the primary is going or not. So we'll have to see, but definitely sign up, okay? And with that, let's get into these DNC stories. The DNC up until this point has been very clear about one thing, they are not going to be changing the eligibility to get into these debates, even if it means that, for instance, suddenly it's only going to be white people up on the stage, even if people have been, or very good in the polling, they just don't quite have the donors or vice versa, we can't get involved

in all that. Tom Perez actually had said at one point, to amend these rules now would be putting our thumb on the scale. He's not going to do that. Bloomberg? Oh, we gotta have Bloomberg on the stage, suddenly the thumb is on the scale. So they are gonna be changing the registration requirements. This is for the February 19th debate in Las Vegas.

Candidates will need to earn at least 10% in four polls released from the middle of this month to the middle of next month, any candidate who earns at least one delegate to the national convention in either Iowa or New Hampshire will also qualify for the Nevada debate. The new criteria, importantly, will eliminate the individual donor threshold, which was used for the first eight debates, including the one coming up next week in New Hampshire. Bloomberg, the self-funded billionaire, has refused to take donations from other individuals, which has thus far precluded his participation in any of the debates since he joined the race late last year.

But maybe not soon. Is that convenient? Well, I have a bit of a different theory on this. Let's hear it. I don't think Mike Bloomberg ever wanted to be in these debates. He has run his campaign in 30-second soundbites where he doesn't have to be challenged by anybody. He has 200 million reasons and counting for not wanting to be in these debates. He is controlling his own message, and he doesn't want to be asked questions or have to

face Bernie Sanders or face Elizabeth Warren or face any of the other candidates on a stage. And the DNC kind of called his bluff and said, look, you, you know, figured out the how to game the system so that you never have to face a voter or a debate moderator ever. And, well, now you can't do that unless he declines to go into debates, which. we'll see. Which would look bizarre. So I actually agree with you about Bloomberg. I don't think he wants to go on that debate stage. Like he's, he's been having fun, as you said, and all these ads. He's been working for him. I mean, let's say, he makes the 10% threshold because he's actually gaining. He's, he is a higher position nationally than Buttigieg.

Than Buttigieg's, yeah. And standing next, like he's going to stand next to Bernie, Bernie would grab him by the snout and rub him ice cream his face. He doesn't want that. I'll be. But I do potentially disagree with you about the motivation, the calling of the bluff. Maybe that's what it is. But it feels to me, and please reassure me that I'm 100% wrong, it feels to me that they're seeing Biden is not as competitive in the early state or the national polls as he was. Is this potentially a Hail Mary from the DNC where they're like, well, I mean, he's not going to do it.

And they look to who's next and Buttigieg is now below Bloomberg. So maybe they could get Bloomberg in there to sort of hold up for the centrists if Biden can't do it. I mean, I think there was a lot of grassroots pressure on the DNC to be like, what's happening? You're not letting this guy who is obviously a top frontrunner into these debates. So there's a lot of pressure at the delegate level of the people, the delegates who aren't, you know, the delegates you think they are. But, you know, I think the DNC at some level thinks, hey, that guy broke our system.

And we can't let you get away with not coming to our pressure. debates. So, I mean, I don't know the motive. Let me just say, I stipulate, I don't know the motivations, but I don't think this is necessarily what Bloomberg really wanted to see. Yeah, whatever the motivations were, it seems like it's a little rushed. I'm not necessarily that they did it fast, but maybe not well thought out, because then it automatically gives the perception that, remember the frustration from Kamala Harris and

Cory Booker and, and, and diverse candidates? that end up dropping out earlier than people, many people thought they would, was, hey, the DNC has things rigged against diverse candidates, and now we got older white folks in it, and what, two women? But so then the thing becomes, hey, look how now they're allowing another old white man back into the debate. Now, I did read one point that they did say, there's the polling threshold, and of course, the donor threshold, and Bloomberg is the only one that would be the one that wouldn't qualify

because of the changes of the rules or that still would have. Everyone else had dropped out, they hit either hit neither of those threshold or just the donor threshold is the one that they hit. So it still kind of wouldn't change it off from them. So they do have that to fall back on. But perception is the problem here because they had a problem in 2016 with Hillary and the fight back and forth with Bernie. So it's just you gotta worry about your perception even if you do have something to

fall back on because people don't read that far a lot of times. I think one problem is these debates shouldn't be so important and they shouldn't be the difference between staying in a race and getting out of it. And that's, I think, the larger problem is that we've become this reality TV-infused culture, where the debates mean everything. And they really didn't up until, you know, a couple cycles ago. Like 2008, nothing really moved because of debates, in my view. But, you know, with Trump being in the, seriously, this is the Trump effect, that has made these things all into spectacle.

And, you know, so I think for the future, we've got to figure out, like, how can we make it so that you don't need to, you know, play some game or hit some threshold in order to be a viable candidate. Well, I'm hypothetically, you know, town halls and things like that being televised could help a little bit. I think one of the things that ties this current Democratic primary with the previous Republican one is that in both cases, the fields were far larger than they were in those earlier cycles. And so maybe just like Obama versus Clinton, they go back and forth, but if there's like 13 people, come on, you got to get them in a room so we can hear what they're about, maybe. And now, funny enough, they're now with the demise of John Delaney today, we're down to 11, and four of them aren't even competing in Iowa. So we actually have the same number in Iowa that we did in 2008. It just took a long way to get there. Yeah, and I want to reassure all of you Delaniites, he didn't die, he just stepped out of the race, and he's gone.

And if your theory is true, if this was like we're going to call your bluff, you know, like did you think about other effects of doing this? Like how much this is going to obviously look terrible for the DNC, that it looks at the very, whether you are or not, it looks like you are finally changing the rules after swearing you're not going to, not doing it after, like, Yang had accused you of, like, rigging it. Gabbard had, and even to stop that bleeding, you wouldn't change the system. But now to potentially help a billionaire, or even to have it look like you're helping a billionaire. Let me say, I agree with that. And under these rules, it's less likely that Yang will actually get onto this debate stage unless he gets a delegate in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Which so far, I don't think of the polling, he would. Right. Yeah. Okay, so let's turn down to other news, also about the DNC. One of the changes that was made over the past few years in the DNC had to do with super delegates, stopping them from voting in the first round at the convention, hopefully stopping the media from reporting those delegates as if they were already pledged, which did so much damage in 2016.

So that was changed, thankfully. They can still vote in later rounds, but not in the first, but maybe soon in the first, at least if a couple of people in the DNC get their way. Because apparently there's according to Politico, in conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting, and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party's national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress, and other top party

officials who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested. And hypothetically would provide a release button for if Sanders is doing too well. We change it, CNN can start reporting that a whole bunch of people are going for Biden because they're all buddies, they have been for decades. If this were to be done, I can't think of anything more obviously, both in its effect and in its appearance more damaging to the process. Which is why I don't think it will be done.

I mean, the number here is about a half dozen members. There are hundreds of super delegates, as we all know. This is a small percentage. I think what this really shows is the ham-fistedness of the Democratic establishment going nuts over the prospect of a Bernie Sanders nomination and coming real late to the game. We did a piece at the prospect, myself and Alexander Sam and our staff writer, called They Forgot About Burn. And the idea was that a week before Iowa, they finally realized, oh wait, this guy who's raised

the most money, who has the most volunteers, who's been in the top two or three of the polling ever throughout the entire process, hey, he might have a shout of winning. So they, you know, that's when these super PAC ads came in. You know, we saw this one rollout this week. Joe Biden has done close to 10 million in Super PAC ads, his pack, in Iowa alone. So you're seeing like this scrambling. And almost that, in of itself, makes the establishment kind of unfit to continue to serve. That you could forget, that you could miss this obvious threat to your livelihood.

I mean, you know, these campaigns are way too long. But one thing that they are is they are a simulation of life in government, in office. And you, you know, you get things thrown at you. react to them, the fact that you couldn't react to the equivalent of an asteroid hitting the planet, it just shows you're not, you have terrible political instinct. And I wonder if they're allowing it to, not allowing, but like this whole idea is getting floated to see how much it'll either get criticized or not get criticized. I'm like, hey, maybe we can pick up some momentum and some steam on this potential

plan if, as you said, there's only a few, what, six to seven that are on this. But to think, hey, maybe it's, with anything with leaks, not that this was a leak, this is reported. But anytime you see something come out when it comes to leaks, you're like, oh, is everyone settled on this? Is everyone's stomach not upset? Okay, maybe we can add some more to this. You call that a trial balloon.

Exactly. You know, they throw it up and see what happens. But if this happened, this would be just, you know, the DEM exit thing that you see here and there would be everywhere. Yeah, look, if this is a trial balloon, or even if it's not, if it's a trial balloon, get out your javelins, everybody, because there has to be as strong of a response to this as possible. Tom Perez, I can't believe, I mean, I get why he's holding the position because he's doing

exactly what they wanted him to do, but as an outsider, like, get him out of there, what the hell is he doing? Like, he is doing everything he can to ensure that Donald Trump wins in 2020. They should be terrified of the blowback against this trial balloon, like, because it could happen. It's only six people or whatever, worse things in the Democratic Party have happened before. It could happen and think about the effect that that would have on the primary when things are starting to line up in the right way.

So I would be tweet the people, be active, okay? Well, John, your javelin may bust the trial balloon, but bubbles, establishment bubbles are a little tougher. So they're in it so tight, like, you know, there's no awareness of how this can look to you. When I was thinking, hey, the people I surrounded myself with think everything I do is a great idea, so why would they think any different? There's a disregard for a different thought process, and that's why they continue to not believe, as you mentioned, that Bernie Sanders can do anything.

It just seems to be like the bargaining stage. of the flow chart, angered denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They're bargaining on how can we get out of this thing with Sanders' nominee, and they'll get very depressed like you were earlier in the show, and then they'll accept it. He's accepted, no. Okay, really fast, I've seen that a lot of people have been messaging about these DNC stories. So I saw that Mike put it, a member message said, I can't wait for Bernie Sanders to replace Tom Perez with dot, dot, dot, no, Miki const.

That's interesting. I mean, I'm excited for a lot of things that Bernie Sanders does become the nominee and does become the president, but like, I mean, nothing's going to be higher than implementing the Green New Deal, but pretty high up there is clearing out the leadership of the DNC because that's going to have a lot of other benefits that come as well. Unfortunately, we have reached the end of our hour, but there's going to be an awesome hour coming up after this. Anna's going to be here in just a little bit.

Thank you, JR. They've worked for people to find out more of your work. Prospect.org. We do it every day, so check it out. Awesome. Thank you, everybody. We're going to take a short break, and I'll be here after that. 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, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.