The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 7th, 2020

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Iran has retaliated for the killing of Qasem Soleimani. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur, 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. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jank U Gran and Casparin with you guys. So big day of news, we obviously have the potential impending war with Iran.

We will talk about that in the first hour. And then we've got a lot of campaign news for you guys, including how the candidates responded to Iran and that news. But also very importantly, Bernie Sanders goes after Joe Biden, to which I say, oh, finally, thanks God, as our parents would say. It was, that whole interview was a snack. Like I loved every part of it, it was a strong interview. I haven't seen an interview that strong, you better believe it.

The strongest interview you've ever seen. Surrounded by other interviews from the standpoint of an interview. All right, let's get started. All right. Trump's national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, is defending so-called Intel, indicating that Qasem Soleimani was serving as an imminent threat to the United States, which essentially makes an excuse for Donald Trump's order of an assassination on Soleimani. Now, I want to be clear that the intelligence agencies have not provided any intel, at least

publicly, and the Trump administration has not provided any specifics publicly. However, they're still pushing this narrative about how they have the intel and how they're gonna share the details of that intel with Congress tomorrow on Wednesday, almost a week after this assassination took place. I would argue that if they had that intel to begin with, they would show it immediately to members of Congress to justify what is now, in my opinion, a war crime, but we'll get to that in a minute. First, let's go to Donald Trump arguing that he knew all about Soleimani's action.

when in reality he didn't even know who Soleimani was. Take a look. What could you tell us about what you knew prior to the attack? Well, number one, I knew the past. His past was horrible. He was a terrorist. He was so designated by President Obama, as you know. And he wasn't even supposed to be outside of his own country.

He was. So right there. But that's, in a way, the least of it. We had an attack very recently that he was in charge of where we had people horribly wounded, one dead. In fact, the number now, as of this morning, I believe, is two dead. And that was his. He was traveling with the head of Hezbollah. They weren't there to discuss a vacation. They weren't there to go to a nice resort someplace in Baghdad. They were there to discuss bad business. And we saved a lot of lives by terminating his life. A lot of lives have saved.

They were planning something and you're going to be hearing about it. or at least various people in Congress are going to be hearing about it tomorrow. Our Secretary of State covered it very well a little while ago. I saw him. I saw his news conference, Mike. And if you want to mention a couple of things in addition to what I've just said, but we

had tremendous information. We've been following him for a long time and we followed his path for those three days and they were not good stops. We didn't like where he was stopping. They were not good stops. We saved a lot of lives. Okay, so we have

I'm an imbecile for president, you know this, but so- He said nothing there, let's just be clear. No, Anna, he clarified by saying he was up to bad business and by going to not good stops third graders president, and again, it's insulting third graders. So last week we showed you clips of Donald Trump being asked during the election season who Qasim Soleimani was, and he,

to do you, I know who he is. And then they mentioned the Quds Force and he's like, oh, the Kurds are good guys. And Hugh Heard was like, no, the Quds Force from Iran. He's like, it's a gotcha question. It's not fair. Well, I thought you said you knew who he was. So now here he is a couple of years later, claiming he knows Soleimani really, really well. That's why he did this.

And what do you know about him? He's making not good stops. Yeah, that means nothing. That means absolutely nothing, of course, except that he wanted to show that he was a tough guy. by killing an Iranian general. So we're gonna get to a quote that will definitively tell you that they knew nothing in a second, okay? But I wanna mention one other thing that he talked about there, he said he's a terrorist.

This is a blanket statement that we make of everyone and that's our enemy, and so it justifies all of our actions and all assassinations and all war crimes because we arbitrarily called them terrorists. Now, the Soleimani's actions lead to other people's deaths, yes. Is he also the top general of Iran, yes. So do some of our, the actions of some of our generals lead to death, yes, okay, are they terrorists? No. So now, even if you say, well, yeah, I know, but I don't like Iran, so I'd like to just call

them terrorists, remember, okay, that's fine, you could feel good about that. But remember, it has ramifications. Right. Because they then call us terrorists and our generals and our diplomats terrorists, and they say, okay, well, if you have a right to murder our generals, we have a right to murder your generals and your other officials. And by the way, today, Iran at least actually was slightly more measured than Trump and said what America did was state terrorism.

It's also a little bit more correct. And so Iran has done state terrorism, arguably, and now we have apparently done state terrorism. And so now we're all going to murder one another, and that's how war starts. Look, this isn't, it's really important for people to understand. This isn't a debate to adjudicate whether or not solve. Soleimani was a bad person, right? No, this is about burden of proof, right?

Think of it as like a murder trial because something as heavy as war deserves a high burden of proof, right? So in this case, in order to unilaterally without congressional authorization do a drone strike that assassinates a top general in a sovereign country, you need to provide evidence, irrefutable evidence that that individual served as an imminent threat. What does an imminent threat mean? It means that he was about to carry out an attack that was going to kill members of our military, US personnel, what have you.

They have failed to provide that. Again, this is not a debate about whether or not Soleimani is a bad guy. There are many bad guys around the world that the United States is in bed with. Trump is specifically in bed with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the murder of a US journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi. Guys, can we just at least all agree that obviously Muhammad bin Salman is a terrorist by this standard? He chopped up a journalist, literally dismembered him.

It doesn't get any more terrorist than that. So are we allowed to murder Muhammad bin Salman? Should we, do we have an obligation to murder Mohammed bin Salman? Because this is not my philosophy, this is Donald Trump's philosophy. Now do you have any idea what would happen if we random, not randomly, but because of that assassinated Mohammed bin Salman? A lot of terrible consequences would come from that. I can't stand the Saudi government, but I wouldn't want to assassinate Solomon, I'd want

to do it through legal processes and bring him to justice for the murder of Khashoggi. But we don't just drop bombs on people because we felt like it, or it was in our political best interests. Because that escalates war, and that actually threatens the lives of more members of our military and US personnel abroad. That's why you have to think about strategy, not whether or not you emotionally find someone appealing enough to not attack them. So look, I have to make one quick clarification as well.

In the beginning of the clip that we showed you, Trump said something about how Soleimani was designated by Obama. He wasn't designated by Obama. In fact, since we're talking about Saudi Arabia, Obama in 2011 sanctioned Soleimani specifically because he was targeting our ally Saudi Arabia. So it's not as if the Obama administration was like buddy buddy with Soleimani. That is not the case at all. In fact, Obama in 2011 again sanctioned him.

Now with that said, let's go to the national security advisor to Donald Trump, Robert O'Brien. He's going to explain, again, very vaguely that there is intel that pushed them to do this. Take a look. The intel that we had, the information we had, which we believe was very strong, I showed that Soleimani and those he was plotting with were looking to kill American diplomats and soldiers in significant numbers in the coming days. And that's why the president authorized the successful operation that was undertaken by the US military.

So it's important for you to understand that everything that's coming out of these Trump administration officials is a flat out lie. They're being vague on purpose because they don't have the intel to prove that Soleimani was an imminent threat. In fact, if you don't believe me because you just think, oh, well, she's a progressive And she doesn't want this war. First of all, you're right about that. But let's hear from General Mark Miley, or Millie, I apologize.

General Mark Millie, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'm gonna read you his quote. He said, I will be happy when the appropriate time comes and in front of the proper committees and anybody else through history and every, I will stand by the intelligence I saw that it was compelling, it was imminent, it was very, very, very clear in scale scope. Okay, fine. No, that sounds pretty definitive, Anna. That sounds definitive, right?

And then he, I'm not joking, immediately follows that quote with this. Did it exactly say who, what, when, where? No, but he was planning, coordinating, and synchronizing significant combat operations against U.S. military forces in the region, and it was imminent, he said, adding that, quote, we would have to, we would have been culpably negligent to the American people had we not made the decision we made. No, it's over. It's over.

Did it say when, who, where? No. In other words, you didn't have anything. Okay, you didn't have anything. It's a lie, it's a lie. Did we know who they were going to kill? No. Wait a minute, you didn't know who they were going to kill it?

Did we know when or where? No. So then what the hell did you know? You didn't know anything. Everything else is a lie. That's the Joint Chiefs right there, admitting on the record, we didn't know who the hell he was gonna target, or if he was gonna target anyone, we just made it up, we just made it up.

Why Donald Trump thought, okay, well, I mean, I have to show that when the embassy is, you know, attacked, it's not gonna be a Benghazi, I guarantee you, that is the number one reason. Yeah, this strat from impeachment, yes, wanna prove a tough guy, et cetera. It was the Benghazi thing that he, that I think motivated him the most. Like, I'm gonna show that I'm tougher than Obama. I'll do Obama once for once. No, guys, it's over. It's over there.

Head of the Joint Chiefs said, we had no effing idea. You just saw the quote. All right, so I want to move on to a different angle in this story. I'm going to actually reset for Zharif's response to this, because it's actually pretty fascinating how measured he was in his interview considering what the United States has done. So, Iran's board minister, Javad Zharif, granted Stan in an interview. following Trump's decision to assassinate Iran's top military commander.

And what was interesting about this interview was how Zerif had urged Iran to be measured in its retaliation against the United States. In fact, he used the word proportionate. So let's take a quick look at what he had to say. They killed one of our most revered commanders and most senior commanders. And they took responsibility for it. This is state terrorism. This is an act of aggression against Iran, and it amounts to an armed attack against Iran,

and we will respond. But we will respond proportionately, not disproportionately, because we are committed to law. We are law-abiding people. We're not lawless like President Trump. So one other thing to note is that the Iranian government is also urging that its military stay away from American journalists, tourists, American people. in general who are not anything other than civilians, right? So they're not planning on targeting Americans, but they want proportionate retaliation for

what Donald Trump did. Look, this is gonna, if they do that, unfortunately, it will further escalate this situation, I think to a full-blown war, because Trump isn't gonna respond proportionately. Trump isn't gonna sit back. In fact, he's threatened to bomb their cultural sites. He walked that statement back a little bit today. But he's a wild card. You don't know what he's gonna do and he's incredibly unpredictable.

In fact, he said he would do disproportionate response. Because why not violate several international laws while we can? Why don't we want him to violate international law? Just because we think it's the right thing to do, yes, it is the right thing to do. But mainly because then we can enforce that law on other nations. If we ourselves violate international law, when the Taliban blows up cultural sites, we have no like to stand on, when if Iran now attacks and kills our troops, they get to say, well, you did it first.

And so now what is Donald Trump saying in response? Oh, I'm going to send you 3,000 more troops to be sitting ducks. What are they doing there? What are they going to do? Invade Iran? No, they're not going to do that, right? This 3,000 is not enough. So what are they going to protect Iraq?

Iraq wants us to leave because we also murdered military leaders connected to Iraq. And we also murdered civilians in Iraq. So they want us to leave. So what are we sending 3,000 troops for? I'll tell you what we're sending him for to be sitting ducks to get killed so Donald Trump can feel like a tough guy and respond through war. And the fact of the matter is we're inching closer and closer to war, which means that U.S. personnel in the Middle East is less safe.

Israel is preparing in case Iran attacks them as a proxy, right? I don't know if you saw this, Anna. You know what Nanyahu said now? He turned around and said, oh, look, man, this war's got nothing to do with us. This is America's war, not our war. It's amazing. After you pushed us to do this for year after year after year, now he has the nerve to turn around and say, oh, you should attack America, not us.

We don't have anything to do with it. No, look, honestly, none of that surprises me. And look, the Israeli government is one thing. But what everyone should be concerned about is the people of Israel, they are put in harm's way as a result of our actions. U.S. personnel and military abroad, they're put in harm's way as a result of what Donald Trump did. There was no thought of strategy, no thought of repercussions.

And what I also found interesting about Zarif's interview with CNN is he asked a question that I think all Americans who are considering supporting this war should ask themselves. Take a look. You have said that Iran will retaliate for the targeted killing of General Qasem Soleimani. President Trump has said there would be a disproportionate response if you do that. What do you make of President Trump's threat? His threats will not frighten us. But he's showing something.

He's showing to the international community that he has no respect for international law, that he is prepared to commit war crimes because attacking cultural sites is a war crime. In this disproportionate response is a war crime. But he doesn't care, it seems, about international law. But has he made U.S. more secure? Do Americans feel more secure? Are Americans welcome today in this region? Do they feel welcome?

So look, I'm sure there are people in the right wing who will have a very different response or answer from the response and answer that someone like I would have, right? And my answer is no, I of course don't feel more safe. In fact, I don't feel safe for the people who are serving in our military. And they're, as you mentioned, Jank, earlier, sitting ducks in the Middle East right now. This is, you don't provoke war and feel safer as a result of that. Iran says we're not going to kill U.S. civilians will only target proportionally the military as they targeted our military.

Trump goes, oh, great, then I'll serve up 3,000 people for you to kill. Why? Why? What are they doing there? What are the 3,000 troops going to do when Iraq doesn't want us? And Iran says, the only reason you bring them here is for me to attack them. They're not gonna invade Iran. Okay, look, let me give you the Netanyahu quote, because even Netanyahu knows it has made

us less safe, it has made Israel less safe, he agitated for that war a thousand times. And then now apparently he's telling his own ministers, quote, the killing of Salamane is a US event, not an Israeli event, and we should stay out of it, saying we shouldn't quote, get dragged into it. You're the one who insisted that we attack Iran, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. And it's not just him, it's also the neo-conservative right wing here in America. The John Bolton's of the world, the Dick Cheney's of the world, all of these people who

said, oh, you've got to attack Iran. Now, as soon as Trump does it, they're like, idiot. Ha-ha, hey, I don't want anything to do with it. This thing's really, really unsafe. Well, that's what we were saying ahead of time. And now after the hostilities begin, all of a sudden, then you're always, oh, I don't I don't want to get dragged into it. Ha ha, it's the Americas.

I mean, look at the nerve of the guy to basically say, go attack the America is not us. So there is no one safer now. The idea that Pompeo's of the world and Trump is saying that now people are safe, does anyone in their rational minds believe that? Even then Yahoo, in his irrational mind, doesn't believe that. No one believes it. We have made the world far less safe by doing this killing.

We gotta take a break. When we come back, luckily there are some people on the right who are skeptical about this war and they are calling Donald Trump out publicly. You'll be surprised at one of these individuals. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies. debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary,

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

We return. All right, back on a young Turks. Let's go to our members' comments first. Silent approval says, Anna, you can't just fabricate evidence overnight. It takes about a week. That's why they're probably taking a week. to tell us what the evidence is that they don't know. It's not even to tell us, it's to tell the gang of eight.

Yeah. Right? So I mean, you're supposed to talk to Congress about these things. But no, Trump's just unilaterally making these types of decisions. Theater goddess says, I wore my first T-Y t-shirt that I got during the 25% off shirt. And it's now one of my favorites. It's super soft and fits like a dream, even though I usually wear a bigger size than was available. What did I tell you guys, okay?

I told you those are the best shirts on earth. Okay, shop tyt.com. Thank you, theater goddess. On Twitter, Adam Johnson says, nobody knows more about bad business than Trump, believe me. And Storm and Norman makes the same point that Edwin, our stage manager did during the break. They found Intel about Iran in the north, south, east, west, and around the region.

That's pretty specific. It's an old Don Rumsfeld quote about where the WMD was. Okay, so there they are again. Now YouTube super chat, Matthew Hahn says, how do I become a YouTube member so I can watch full shows that way? The app closes out for me when I try to watch live that way, probably my internet. Yes, that works fine. It probably is your internet, but you could download it if you remember. So look, on YouTube, it's the join button underneath the video, and there's three layers.

The top layer, 999, gets you all of our content. But you could also do it through our website, and you'll definitely have access to all of our content for sure. t-y-t.com slash join. But we love the YouTube membership as well. French Fry says this is why Pelosi should have moved faster with impeachment. Trump is out of control. He needs to be given boundaries. And finally, Janine Mary, also on YouTube super chat, says, thanks for your clear reporting.

Well, thank you for using YouTube super chat and becoming YouTube members and members on our website. Otherwise, we very much literally cannot do this show. All right, Anna, what's next? Right. Well, the majority of the right wing seems to defend Donald Trump's decision to assassinate Iran's top military general. There are some people in right wing media and even in government who are calling him out and disagreeing with him in a very public way.

Now, we're gonna get to Tucker Carlson in just a minute, but before we do, I actually want to go to an elected official, Rand Paul, take a look. This is sad. I mean, the death of Soleimani, I think is the death of diplomacy with Iran. I don't see an off-ramp. I don't see a way out of this. So did the president make a major mistake? I think that he got bad advice.

I think that basically, even though he let John Bolton go, this is John Bolton. John Bolton's clapping and jumping up and down and rubbing his hands together. Really, as part of this whole recipe, the administration, mainly at John Bolton's behest, tore up the Iran agreement, placed a significant and severe embargo on Iran, and then killed one of their major generals. Nobody in their right mind would actually think that that would lead to negotiation. So when Secretary of State Pompeo is out there saying, well, maximum pressure, our goal is to get them back to the negotiating table. No naive child would believe that. You would have to be brain dead to believe that we tear up the agreement, we put an embargo

on you, and we kill your major general, and they're just going to crawl back to the table and say, what do you want America? I mean, military escalation is really what you would predict with this. All right, well, look, that was incredibly strong. He said you'd have to be brain dead to think that. And he said that right after he clarified that Pompeo did say that. So he's calling Pompeo brain dead. He's also calling Trump brain dead.

Which is obviously true, but that's a Republican senator saying that. And so, and he's right. And that's why it's like when Republicans actually say something that's true, which is such a rare, rare exception. It really is like a clarion call because the Democrats are usually so weak. They've been okay on this actually, surprisingly okay. But Republicans usually say it clearer. So, I mean, you never catch a Democrat saying, calling Trump brain dead.

But there's a Republican. He's a Republican. He's like, look, man, if you break the agreement and you do embargo and sanction and you murder their general, of course they're not going to come to the negotiation, negotiate it We're gonna do the opposite. Right. Everybody knows that. So what he's saying is Pompeo and Trump are liars, and what they want is war.

And he conveniently threw in Bolton a bunch of times there. It's true, Bolton does want war, but Bolton's out of the government. Bolton didn't do this. Trump did this. Trump did this. But look, I actually think that Trump, his motivations are a little different from the warhawks, right? Because what Trump wants is to one up Obama.

That's the reason why he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, because in his ridiculous, like narcissistic head, he thinks, oh, I can get a better deal, I can get a better deal. That's why he pulled out. And then, because he's an idiot, the situation with Iran escalates to the point where you have this situation at the embassy with protesters showing up, lighting certain portions at the embassy on fire, which is serious. And Trump doesn't want to be seen as someone who's weak, like how he says Obama was during Benghazi.

And that was his motivation to react in the way he did against Soleimani. But look, the problem with Trump is that he doesn't know anything, right? Like he doesn't know anything in business and he certainly doesn't know anything when it comes to foreign policy. He shoots from the hip, he's a guy who just bases everything on how he's feeling on that given moment or in that given moment. And he doesn't think about the consequences or repercussions. But with that said, look, I love everything that, ugh.

I can't believe I'm saying that, but everything that Rand Paul said there was right. Tucker Carlson is also about to make some pretty strong arguments from a kind of different perspective, but I want to see what you have to say about it. Take a look. So striking is how many people appear to accept this uncritically. Just the other day, you remember, or intel agencies were considered politically tainted and suspect. Certainly on this show they are, were, and will be for quite some time.

Keep in mind, these are the people who invented excuses to spy on the Trump campaign purely because they didn't like Donald Trump's foreign policy views. And they're the ones who pretended he was a Russian agent in order to keep him from governing. Remember that? Russia Gate? Our friends at the intel community did that. And by the way, these are the same people who lied about Iraq's weapons amassed destruction way back in 2002. And by doing that, got us into an utterly pointless war that dramatically weakened our country.

The people pushing conflict with Iran are the same people who did that. It seems like about 20 minutes ago we were denouncing these very people as the deal. state and pledging never to trust them again without verification. But now for some reason, we do seem to trust them implicitly and completely. In fact, we believe whatever they tell us, no matter how outlandish. So look, all we do on this show is give credit where credit is do and call out things, not based on partisanship, but based on reality. So that is why we often criticize democratic leadership.

But today, I said Democratic leadership's actually doing a pretty good job on this. They're calling for open hearings on Iran. So we don't do it blindly. Now, when it comes to Tucker Carlson, there are things that I disagree with him. I don't know if you can, 100% is enough or a thousand percent. So immigration, he is horrific on. I don't agree with him that there is a deep state that was conspying against Donald Trump. But at least he's being consistent, and it is something that is very noteworthy coming

from the right wing in this country and on Fox News. Sean Hannity, for example, as a counter to Tucker Carlson, will mindlessly, brainlessly repeat any talking point of any president that is a Republican at any time. And whatever a Democrat says, he will say the exact opposite. It doesn't have to be logically consistent at all, okay? As Tucker Carlson says, wait a minute, didn't we just say 20 minutes ago that we shouldn't believe the intelligence community at all? Now we're turning around saying our beloved intelligence community, by the way, the people

saying that are on Fox News. Fox on Friends, Sean Hannity, et cetera, are going, how could the Democrats question our intelligence community? They should bow down, bow down to the intelligence committee. And Tucker Carlson points out an incommany, in fact, you were the same people 20 minutes ago saying how they could never, ever be trusted. So you do have to give him credit for that. He is right about that, and look, guys, it is important for there to be voices on the right

that are correct, and don't look a gift horse in the mouth. The problem with establishment Democrats like Joe Biden is that they agree with the Republicans on their ground. But if Republicans are right-wingers come to our ground, and for example, in this case say, we don't want endless wars for no reason, take it, take yes for an answer. Parker Carlson there is certainly correct, at least about half of his analysis, which is that these guys have been wrong a thousand times and sometimes on purpose, and certainly about war.

Yes, that's what I was about to say. But look, I mean, you should always be skeptical of anyone in government in any type of position of power. But in the case of the Russia investigation and the impeachment investigation, the intelligence community showed their work, they showed their proof, you have witnesses testifying, right? There's actual evidence that was open to the public, and in terms of the Russia investigation, there was hundreds of pages produced by the Mueller report that's open to the public right now that people can read.

When it comes to this alleged intel to encourage the assassination of Soleimani, nothing. We haven't gotten anything, just vague responses from the Trump administration, and that's not good enough. So he's right in that regard. Now, Laura Ingram went on a very lengthy rant, talking about how the Democrats are the ones who got us into this mess, which is ridiculous. Insane. Insane.

But there was a relevant part at the very tail end of her commentary. And I don't think it's an accident that she structured her argument this way. But in the argument at the very end, she makes a plea to Donald Trump. Let's hear what it is. It's important that the president listens to his judgment here. That he doesn't listen to the same people who got us sucked into Iraq in the first place. The Bush doctrine is dead, and Trump helped bury it. Thank God.

His recent tweets, notwithstanding, the president, I think is very smart, is very smart enough to know that another war of choice or needless escalation will end up harming American interests, not to speak of his reelection chances. America first, America safe, America strategic, America smart. And that's the angle. So you have Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram, speaking out against escalating war. with Iran, and in a little bit I'll show you how Hannity, who's a huge Trump supporter, no matter what, actually went after them on his own show.

So that is also very, very important, guys. Look, she has to do a lead-in about how everything is a Democrat's fault. It's insane, but it's understandable given that she's on Fox News and appealing to that audience and to Trump. If you notice at the end, she spoke really, really slowly because she's speaking to Donald Trump. And so she has to speak to him like he's a baby. your re-election chances, America first, America safe, right? So, but it's super important, guys, for both Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram to say, this is

a war of choice and needless escalation. The fact that there is now a division in the right wing where even some of the worst people in the right wing are saying, nope, nope, we don't agree to endless war. We don't agree to it. We will not repeat talking points given to us is a giant breakthrough. I haven't seen it in 20 years in this country. Before, when Roger Ailes was in charge, everyone was forced to say the same goddamn thing that Roger Ailes told him to say.

That was a whole point of Fox News. Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch controlled it with an iron fist. And so no one was allowed to dissent. Now, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram a little bit, but you saw it right there, are saying, you know, a lot of the people in the right wing, and the reason our shows are popular and more popular than Hannity is because a lot of people in the right wing don't want war either. And look, and now let me point out of hypocrisy. Now the Bush Doctrine is dead, thank God.

I remember when you love the Bush Doctrine. We have ears, we have eyes. We saw you, Laura, when you were, at least. Tucker in the beginning, Iraq, agreed with Iraq war, but changed his mind quickly. He's on the record on that. And he changes his mind for terrible reasons, because he said he didn't care about the Iraqis at all and said some terrible things about them. But he was a little bit more consistent.

Laura Ingraham, you love the Bush Doctrine, you loved the Iraq war. You couldn't get enough of it. But now she sees not Trump, not right, you know, people like Roger Charles Rupert Murdoch, but her own audience saying we don't want the war, we don't want the war. So now she regurgstates that back to them in order to be popular. That's a super important development. Definitely. All right, so with that said, let's go to Hannity, who attacked his colleagues for refusing

to defend Donald Trump. You knock out those three refineries, their economy will totally and completely collapse. And despite the whining and the complaining, predictably among Democrats and the stupid commentators on TV and the media mob, top military experts. agree that the president's strategy is effective. Effective in what, exactly, in escalating the situation to a full-blown war? Because he's real effective at that. Hannity's a blockhead.

He's one of the dumbest guys on TV. I love the audacity of him saying stupid commentators on TV. Stupid commentators on TV is you define Sean Hannity. So now I guess he's in open warfare with Tucker Carlson, who came on right, before him said we shouldn't do a needless war in Iran. So that's a fascinating development. But Hannity, look at the incredibly dumb thing he's saying. He said, well, we knock out the refineries, then they'll see.

Same stupid thing he said about Iraq. Oh, we'll knock them out, then they'll see, and they'll be greener as liberators. How'd that turn out for us? Oh, they'll give in right away. Then they'll know, they'll know that we're better than them. Is that how it turned out? No, it turned out with bomb after bomb after bomb. 4,500 of our troops killed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed.

And now that same idiot is making the same point about Iran. Oh, we'll just knock them out, okay? It'll be real easy. And then they'll know we're tougher guys than them. I can't believe people don't see that. Hannity, the single dumbest person on television. When we come back, we'll show you how Democrats are responding to this. Adam Schiff gave an interview.

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Not more. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on a young Turks. Let me get through the comments as quickly as I can because we have breaking news. 100 decibels of booing in the member section says there's nothing more troubling and cringe-worthy than being forced into a position where you agree with Tucker Carlson.

Well, here we are, right? T.Y.t.com slash join to become a member and get your comments read. On Twitter, Lion Dog Face Pony Show says, saw USA Today headline passively at the convenience store, quote, more strong words from Trump or some BS like that. damn it, they failed us. Good old school reference. Jack Maska on YouTube Super Chat says, will Ben be attending primary election coverage like the 2016 cycle? Yes, from time to time.

So that's going to be great. Check that out. A lot of debates and primaries and caucus is coming up. So it is super exciting. Last one also from YouTube Super Chat. All Things Knoxville says, Trump does stuff like this because it makes him forget for a moment that he hid like a coward during Vietnam and quies the voice of Papa. Yes, of course, his dad used to make fun of him all the time, rightfully so, and did get

him out of Vietnam with a fake doctor's note about bone spurs. Okay, breaking news. All right, Iran State TV is announcing that there is further escalation of war with the United States. In fact, the nationally owned news service says that they had launched tens of surface-to-surface missiles at Iraq's al-Assad air base, housing U.S. troops over America's killing of top Iranian general Soleimani. This is a disaster and it's a developing story. However, the Iranian Farsi news agency showed footage that it said showed tens of missiles being launched toward

the air base in northwest Iraq, which again houses both Iraqi and U.S. forces. The attack was, quote, the beginning of a harsh Iranian revenge for the death of General Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian said. And there are a number of tweets out already showing that the Iranians have taken full responsibility for this attack. In fact, let me give you a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The brave soldiers of IRGC's aerospace unit have launched a successful attack with tens of ballistic missiles on al-Assad military base in the name of martyr.

General Qasam Soleimani. All right, so unfortunately, the counterattack has begun, exactly as predicted. Our troops are sitting ducks, exactly as predicted. Now Soleimani's successor spoke at his funeral, his name is Hussein Salami, and yes, he has a successor. Oh wow, nobody could have predicted that. Guess what his successor is? fundamentalist and more of a zealot and extremist than Soleimani was.

Oh, nobody could have predicted that except every rational person knew that would happen. Because if you kill their top general, what are they gonna do? Put in someone who is not a hardliner? No, they're gonna put in the hardest, you know, extremists that they have. So he does a speech at the funeral saying, quote, we tell our enemies that we will retaliate, but if they take another action, we will set ablaze the places that they like and our are passionate about. Then the crowd started chanting death to Israel.

Now Netanyahu today saying, oh, Israel's got nothing to do with this, even though I told you to attack Iran a thousand times, you should attack the US instead of us. So, but it doesn't look like they're listening, they're going to attack us and I'm afraid also Israel as well. The reason we said not to do rash actions like this is not because anyone likes Soleimani. He has been a problem and a scourge for a long, long time. But there are consequences to our actions. And when we attack the top general of a sovereign nation, you know what they do?

They put in someone who is more extreme and attack us back. So that is right now exactly what we're in the middle of. It's breaking news. So we don't know how many people are going to get killed. We don't know how many of our troops are going to get killed by those strikes. I hope none. I hope they all miss. I hope we have good technology to be able to deflect that.

But of course, now what will happen, especially if any of our troops are killed, is that Trump will go out. Fox News, most of the folks on Fox News will probably rally, although now there's some dissenting voices and go, well, now that our troops, a couple of troops have died, they'll pretend like it was just fresh out of nowhere that Iran wasn't counterattacking that they started it. And they'll say, well, we must murder more of them, and we must do more and more and more until we're in the middle of a full scale war. Even that idiot Sean Hannity, as he pushed for more wars, said, I'm not looking for ground

troops in Iran. Really? Okay, what do you think happens when you have nonstop bombing of one another? You have a war. Do they really think that this is what they need to do to get Iran back to the negotiating table to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal? Is this the way they really go about it? How stupid is this?

Literally no one can believe that. Even Rand Paul, we showed you earlier in the show, said you would have to be brain-downed to believe that? Trump still thinks that there's a possibility. In fact, he was asked by reporters, what are you looking for here? Are you looking for regime change in Iran? He's like, no, no, no, I don't want, I don't want military action. I don't want war. I want to renegotiate this Iran nuclear deal, right? I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what he said. I don't want regime change. Okay, the way you're going about this is not going to lead to any type of negotiation. What he did provoked war with Iran, and of course they're going to retaliate in kind.

Of course they're going to do this. And look, that base that they attacked, right, that Iran just bombed with missiles. There are Iraqi soldiers there as well. This is the reason why Parliament wants U.S. troops out of their country. Yeah, look, he does these stupid maneuvers in business, but the consequence in business is not that extreme. Sometimes it works when he, and we've told you this in a couple of instances, I'll really quickly retell you the story.

Sometimes he would threaten to take over a company, and so he would buy some of their stock and say, I'm going to buy all of their stock, but he was bluffing. And so, but it would drive up the stock price, and then he'd make a good profit. You'd think, oh, well, that's a good business man, right? First of all, it's not the right way to do business, but even so, no, because he kept bluffing and bluffing, and guess what happened? Eventually, they called his bluff. Then he was stuck with all the stock, and it started going spiraling down, and he lost all of his money.

Now, I can give you a dozen examples where Trump does that in business context, and then he goes, oh, well, that's why he went bankrupt six times. But in the military context, when they call your bluff, what we have is a war. All right, well, let's get to the Democrats and how they're responding to all of this. So you think that they've been pretty good. I kind of have a different perspective. Oh, interesting, let's do it. So Democrats are attempting to take action following Donald Trump's decision to assassinate

Iran's top military general, Qasem Soleimani. Now, Adam Schiff had an interview with The Washington Post, and he thinks that it might be a good idea to call a public hearing on the matter in order to determine whether or not the Trump administration is bluffing on the alleged intel that showed that Iran served as an image. threat. So Representative Adam Schiff says he wants to see the household open hearings on multiple aspects of this spiraling situation in Iran. Here's a direct quote from Schiff, I think there should be open hearings on this subject.

The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran that requires the Congress to fully engage. Also in open hearings, Democrats could seek to grill Pentagon officials on whether Trump's threats represent real planning and on whether, in their view, such as well, in their view, threats could recklessly lead to more negative consequences. Another thing that could be explored in open hearings is how the decision was made and whether the intelligence supports it. I'm also very curious to see whether the Pentagon and the Trump administration coordinated

in any way, because it seems like there's chaos within the Trump administration. In fact, just yesterday the Pentagon put out a letter accidentally indicating that they were going to pull US troops out of Iraq, and then later they had to do damage control because it was an accident and they didn't actually mean that. Yeah, so I'm curious about your opinion here because I think there's a good development, but you sound a little bit more skeptical. So I'm actually surprised the Democrats are saying, no, no, no, you need to have congressional hearings before you start war with Iran.

That's stronger than they would normally act. I'm ready to give them credit for that. And in fact, Schiff also said Pelosi has announced that something constricting Trump will be voted on this week. If that's real and they actually have a vote, that would be terrible. Now, I'm withholding judgment until they actually do it, because now Iran is currently, as we're doing this show live, bombing our bases in Iraq. So my guess is Democrats will get scared and run away.

But if I'm wrong, I would love that. I would love to give them credit. So so far, to me, this looks like a really good development, and I'm looking forward to giving Schiff and Pelosi credit. But what were you not buying in this? Look, you can't stab yourself. And then when you have like blood gushing out of your body, like find the smallest band mandate possible to try to make the situation better, right?

So while I'm not opposed to the open hearings, and I think it's important for them to ask the appropriate questions to get to the bottom of the truth, the reality is Democrats have enabled what the Trump administration is doing right now over and over and over again, right? They did it in the lead up to the preemptive war in Iraq, right? Voting along with Republicans to allow the executive branch to unilaterally make these types of decisions. Okay, they kept voting in favor of those types of policies. They keep voting in favor of increasing the military budget, handing almost a blank check

to the executive branch to carry out whatever nonsense they want to carry out, including Trump's stupid space force, right? That's the latest spending bill that we criticized on this show. So look, it's not good enough to try to deal with the symptoms of a virus that they help create. Now here's where I would give them overwhelming credit. And look guys, I don't tell you things against democratic leadership because it's fun. I tell you because it's true, I wish it weren't the case.

So if it isn't the case, I can't wait to say they did a wonderful job. So what would lead me to saying that if they actually stopped Trump? Now how can they do that? Well, Rokana suggested an amendment to the defense bill that said you cannot attack Iran without getting congressional authorization. Now, you don't actually even need that bill because it's already in the Constitution. But it would be wonderful, it would be great because it was sent a sign you are not allowed to attack and we just voted on it, okay?

Now, Democratic leadership took that out. Barbara Lee said, let's take away the authorization for use of military force from 2002 against Iraq, because they're using it as an excuse. By the way, Obama also used it as an excuse. When Trump is now going over the top, as usual, in saying that, you know, they're using it as an excuse. saying that gives me authority. So why did you take out the Barbara Lee amendment? That is my criticism of Democratic leadership.

But it's okay, as AOC pointed out over the weekend, hey, you know what? So you took it out of the bill, it doesn't mean you can't vote on it now. So if Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, et cetera, come out and say, you know what, we're gonna vote on Barbara Lee's proposal and Rokana's proposal. I would love it and I would give them all the credit in the world. And the only person who could determine that is them, not us. So if they do it, we're gonna give them credit. If they don't do it, we're gonna criticize them.

That's how reality works. Now of course, the mainstream media doesn't see it that way. You have to kiss their ass no matter what, facts don't matter. But for us, in the reality-based world, facts matter, they're everything. Absolutely. And look, to be fair to Schiff, the statements that he gave to the Washington Post were good statements. For instance, he did chime in on the alleged intel, which no one has seen. In fact, the Trump administration hasn't even talked to Congress, the gang of eight about this intel.

He plans to do so tomorrow. But here's what Schiff said, I'm certainly not satisfied that the intelligence supports the conclusion that the killing of Soleimani was going to either prevent attacks on the United States or reduce the risk to American lives. If anything, that risk is going to go up, not down. And Adam Schiff made this statement prior to a giant story breaking today about how Iran just did missile attacks against a military. base in Iraq, right?

So you have U.S. soldiers and Iraqi soldiers base there. So look, these hearings are good no matter what. I want to back up Adam Schiff, I like his quotes. They're focusing a little too much on the attacking Iran's cultural sites, because it's low hanging fruit, I get the politics of it, but Trump's already backed away from that. But guys, guys meaning Schiff Pelosi, Hoyer, it said, Democratic leadership. If you actually pass a resolution saying Trump is not allowed to attack Iran without getting congressional approval for war, we've got your back a thousand percent.

All we care about is policy. Pass that bill and now look, I get it, it's got to go to the Senate, and I understand that. But it is rhetorically and legally, and as a matter of moving the national conversation, super important, okay, you fight back effectively, we're on your side. Now the jury's out. We're going to see now that the rockets are flying, are they going to get scared and run for the hills? Or are they going to double down and be strong? If they are, then yes, we're super happy to back them up.

All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, just remember that there's no such thing as moderate Republicans during the Trump era. And Nikki Haley proves that perfectly. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon