The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - January 8th, 2020

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

Trump responds to last night's Iranian missile strikes on American bases in Iraq. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Kasparian and John Adler joins us today in.

Lou of Jank Yuger, he's going to be out quite a bit for very obvious reasons. He's running for Congress. In confidence. Inability to do the job. Out of touch. Out of touch and out of time. He's not listening, is he? No, he probably is.

You never know. That one time he was watching you and Brett make fun of him. Oh God, that's true. It's hilarious. Anyway, as always, it's a giant news day, and we're going to get to everything from the updates on what actually happened with the Iranian missile attack. Iranian missile attacks last night, or I should say early hours of this morning, and also Trump's address. Also, turns out that the executive branch has briefed the gang of eight, you know, the senators

about the so-called intel that just justified the assassination of Soleimani will give you the details on the response to that. Lots of great stuff going on. We're actually going to do something a little different on today's show. we're actually going to interview an expert on Iran. We don't do that often. Usually our interviews are reserved for the third hour of the show, the conversation. But I really felt that it was important to talk to someone who has a better understanding

of what's happening on the ground in Iran and more. So we'll get to that later. Let's start off with one quick programming note. On the conversation today, I will be interviewing California's congressional candidate for the 25th district. I've heard of him, his name is Jank Uger. Okay, so we're gonna do a 30 minute interview with Jank. And then in lieu of a post game show, we're going to interview two other congressional

candidates. So we're gonna have a whole hour of congressional candidates today. Check that out in the third hour of TYT. All right, without further ado, let's get to the news. Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles against two U.S. military bases in Iraq. This was a story that broke as we were on the air yesterday, but we had few details of what was actually going on. There were no reports of casualties at the time, and I'm happy to report that there are no

reports of casualties today. It appears that this missile attack was intentionally done in a way to prevent fatalities, both for Iraqi soldiers and U.S. soldiers. And while the U.S. media seems to hone in specifically on U.S. lives, I think it's important to talk about Iraqis as well, and luckily no Iraqis have died as a result of these missile attacks. So let me give you some more details on what's going on. The missiles targeted the al-Assad air base in Iraq's western Anbar province and another base in Erbil in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The extent of damage to the bases was not immediately clear, but no deaths or injuries

were reported. The al-Assad air base in western Iraq, which houses some American troops, was hit by at least six missiles, and that's according to a U.S. defense official familiar with the situation. No U.S. casualties were immediately reported, but Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed dozens of U.S. troops were killed in revenge. Now, look, that's being reported by U.S. media, it doesn't matter because the fact, the truth is that there were no fatalities and we're happy about that. And I think that that was intentional. And I'll explain why in just a minute. Now, Iran's supreme leader said something about how this isn't the end.

There will be more retaliation. But this is the kind of tough talk that you can expect from Iran or any other country that has been provoked by the United States over and over again, which is certainly the case following Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which of course prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Now, last night, Donald Trump reacted in the form of a tweet, as opposed to. addressing the American people who were full of anxiety about an impending war with Iran. He said the following, and by the way, at this point, we don't know whether or not there

are any fatalities. This is what he tweeted. All as well, missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties and damages taking place now. So far, so good. We have the most powerful and well-equipped military anywhere in the world by far. I will be making a statement tomorrow morning. And he did make a statement today, which we'll get to later in the show. But John, jump in. What do you think about all this? Well, as it was happening, I mean, I think I felt like most people did where, you know,

I was refreshing Twitter every once in a while seeing, is Trump going to tweet that we have invaded Iran? Or that we've launched attacks against their bases or something like that. And I know that now with the power of 16 hours of hindsight, a lot of people are saying, well, I never suspected that. But I think that lots of people were worried that, I mean, Trump had promise to not just respond if our assets, were hit, which this represents, but to commit war crimes as a response that he had targeted these 52 different sites. We haven't heard anything about those 52 sites since then, thankfully.

But his bizarre, insane threats were certainly on my mind as I was watching this develop. Definitely. I was, we know that Trump is the type of person who shoots from the hip. He loves to react immediately and irrationally to situations, which is terrifying, especially in situations like this. And so I was pleased that he decided not to address the American people last night. Yeah, I would be good with him never again addressing the American people. Well, I totally agree with you on that.

The tweet was ridiculous, but he had to put something out there. I'm just happy that he didn't give a speech today. Now, let's go to what I think is the important angle to this story. What were the intentions of Iran? Because if Iran wanted casualties as a result of these missile attacks, they could easily do it, right? But it seems like they were planning this in a way to prevent any casualties. Okay, so it was essentially a demonstration to show the United States, no, no, no, we mean business. But you don't want to escalate the situation where war is a definite, right?

If there were American lives lost as a result of this, I have no question that our government would act and unfortunately escalate this to a full-blown military operation, a full-blown war, right? But here's what they did. The Iranians actually talked to the prime minister of Iraq and let him know ahead of time what was going to happen. So when you hear members of the U.S. government say, oh, our notification system was working, what they mean by that notification system is Iran informed officials in Iraq about what they were going to do. And that provided enough time for people to get out of that area, right? To, you know, essentially not get hurt as a result of the missile attacks.

Now, there was also an interesting exchange on Lawrence O'Donnell's show. He had Courtney Kubion. She is a national security expert. And she gave an explanation of what these air bases are like and how this missile attack went. So take a quick look at what she had to say. Is there any indication that the Iranians would have the intelligence and the targeting ability to actually deliberately minimize or try to avoid American casualties in these attacks? Yeah, absolutely, especially when you look at the targets. Okay, so if in fact they were targeting where the U.S. military is in Arbiel at a base,

they have a base there that's co-located with the commercial airport. It's a very, it's an urban populated area, literally that sits right up against the commercial airport there. If they wanted to hit, they could inflict a large number of casualties and destruction with one strike on that location. If that's what they were trying to hit, we still don't quite know that yet. And the fact that they didn't, and now is it possible that the targeting was off? We don't really know. But Al-Assad, it's this large, sprawling base. There's vast areas.

I mean, it has a huge airfield there that really is desert and concrete. And especially when you're talking, it was the middle of the night. It was after 1 o'clock in the morning local time. It is very possible that if they were to strike, you can look at satellite images and get a sense of where the airfields are, commercial satellite images. So if they were to target those or areas of this expansive part of the base, they could go after that and be pretty assured of not injuring or killing anyone. So I thought that was incredibly important analysis and commentary. I was happy to see it on MSNBC.

It's important to understand what the intentions here are, and if they wanted to, again, they could have easily killed people and they could have escalated the situation further. I'm glad that this was a demonstration, almost like a warning to America, hey, we're not kidding. We're willing to use force if we need to defend ourselves. And I think the fact that they didn't kill anyone luckily led to the type of response that Trump gave today, which makes it appear as though he's willing to back down a little bit, and that's important. But we also don't know whether the retaliation is over.

Because remember, there were some Hezbollah fighters who died as a result of the US's drone strike, and Hezbollah is saying that they want retaliation. My point is, Donald Trump's actions in assassinating the top military commander for Iran without really thinking about strategy or the ramifications was a disaster. Right now it appears that things are calming down, but it's important to understand that you can't shoot from the hip and you really do need to have a strategy when it comes to these types of situations. Yeah, and if it had gone differently, whether intentionally or not, they could have been

trying not to hurt anyone, but they still could have hurt someone. Then maybe Trump would have felt like he had to make good. on the insane threats that he'd been making. Obviously, it's a good thing that nobody was hurt, but the fact that this appears to be, you know, this big thing where all of these ballistic missiles are used as a show of force, when we know they have a military, we know that hypothetically they can do it, that a demonstration is necessary. It's like the purest distillation of how stupid and pointless all of this is.

Right. That all of this is just pointless posturing between people on both sides. The leadership of both America and Iran, who will never be affected by any of. this. It's all just them pursuing games. Maybe they want to get reelected. Maybe they think that someday it'll help them in a negotiation somewhere has no effect on the actual people that live in either of these countries. It's a huge waste of money, all of it. But this is the most obvious waste of money. That however much those missiles cost could have benefited the people of Iran have used in literally any other way. And vice versa, the military force necessary to occupy

those bases in Iraq. That money could have been spent to benefit America or Iraq in virtually any other way. And like when a situation like this develops, we get into it and day by day, we're breaking down all the developments. But all of it, even just in a time sense, is a complete waste in comparison to the actual problems that are facing the people of all three of the countries involved in this. Look, I- It's so stupid and so pointless. I 100% agree with you. But look, let's talk about rational actors. And I'm talking about that in a political science sense, right? So Iran, in my opinion, is a rational actor here, because they've been provoked by Donald Trump over and over and over

again. I mean, think about the various times the Trump administration has sent troops or sent, you know, military equipment and provoked Iran. And Iran actually didn't really respond, right? The sanctions, that is a form of economic warfare. Trump has slapped sanctions on Iran to the point where the economy is crumbling. And the people of Iran actually started protesting. And that's exactly what the U.S. government wanted. They wanted an uprising in order to push for regime change in Iran. And, you know, Trump decided to do something very counterproductive for his agenda, which is assassinate Soleimani.

And then what did that lead to? People actually coming together in solidarity in Iran, right? Now, I say all this because through all of these provocations, Iran has avoided taking any type of military action against the United States. But after you kill their top commander, what do you do? I mean, if you're a rational actor, and I know we're from the, we're American, so I understand that's our identity and we're going to stick up for America, but we also have to take accountability for when our government does the wrong thing.

And so if you were- Not all Americans feel bound by that. Well, obviously. But we try to. Right, we try to. Because it's important to be honest and fair when you talk about these incredibly important situations where human lives are at risk. But nonetheless, if you were part of the Iranian government and you keep getting provoked over and over again, to the point where your top general is assassinated, sitting back

and doing nothing is honestly at that point not an option. And I'm glad that they showed some restraint in not killing anyone in their retaliation. That's where I stand on. At least not overtly in the near term. Exactly. But when we were talking about what form retaliation could come in, some sort of strike, an obvious military action, that was a possibility, but it wasn't the most likely one. It certainly wasn't the only form that it could come in.

And I think that there's still a huge possibility that the United States will be targeted by Iran through proxies. I mean, that's been happening already, but I think that there's now cybersecurity threats against the United States. These are all, again, consequences of the short-sightedness of the Trump administration. So speaking of which, why don't we move on to the response by the Trump administration? Okay. So following Iran's missile attacks on two US air bases in Iraq, Donald Trump did not release a statement

or a speech on the night that that news broke, but he did give a speech today. And he appears to have backed down a little bit, which is good news. He gets credit for that because this situation could have escalated to a full-blown war. Now the missile strikes did not lead to any casualties, no Iraqis or Americans were killed. However, Trump appears to take that into consideration in the statement that he gives. Take a look. As long as I'm president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Good morning, I'm pleased to inform you, the American people should be extremely

grateful and happy. No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties. All of our soldiers are safe and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases. Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. So that statement started off a little strange. In television news production, there's something known as a cold open where you start off the segment with like a little tasty taste of what this entire story is about, right? And then you give a little more context and then you go back to the heart of the story. It's like a James Bond movie, basically.

I wish, I wish it was that exciting, but it's not. It's just a way of producing a story to make it more interesting and to hook an audience from the very beginning. It seems like Trump did a cold open for his own speech, and he started it off with something that didn't really go along with the rest of his statement or the rest of the beginning of his statement. So like, let's watch the very beginning of that again. As long as I'm president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear

weapon. Good morning. What? I don't. Okay, so first of all, I don't understand that. Donald Trump's actions in pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal did what? Well, yeah, it's obviously misinformation that he's spreading. Right, so he starts it off with a flat out lie.

And it's ridiculous because had we remained in the Iran nuclear deal, which involved other countries like China, Russia, European countries, and also involved checks to ensure that they're not developing nuclear weapons, we would have a situation in which Iran were not developing nuclear weapons. In pulling out, Trump basically told them, yeah, go ahead, you can enrich your uranium as much as you want because we've pulled out and we've implemented these sanctions. So you have no reason to comply with this nuclear deal. But you want to know something crazy, Iran continued complying with that nuclear deal for

up to a year. And then the economic sanctions became so crippling to their economy that they decided, well, We have no choice at this point. We need to begin enriching our uranium again, that's exactly what they're doing right now. Well, and we were talking about, you know, rational actors, why wouldn't they at that point? If they're- Exactly. If they're gonna have the sanctions, why not enrich the uranium anyway? It doesn't make any sense.

No sense, exactly. But unfortunately the people who are, who don't have a problem with that opening statement are the same people who've been fed these lies over the past few years from Fox News that Obama signing the deal that made it impossible for them to develop nuclear war. weapons actually ensured that it would happen, and getting rid of that, and them now promising that we will resume enriching uranium, that actually makes it impossible. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't take a five-minute YouTube video.

It doesn't take 20 seconds to explain how nonsensical that is. So the good news is that Trump says, or at least implies that he will not pursue Iran militarily, that he's going to focus on more sanctions. and he clarifies that point in this next clip. As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior. So let's just quickly note that any additional,

sanctions really have no impact on Iran. The sanctions that he's already implemented, and the fact that he has coerced other U.S. allies to avoid doing any business with Iran has crippled its economy. I mean, it's really not going to have much more impact. In fact, let me give you this statement from Ryan Fahey, former Justice Department prosecutor, he says, sanctions now touch every part of the Iranian economy and are unlikely to have any further impact. So, but you know what, that's fine. I'm just happy that Trump is not going to continue escalating the matter, at least for now. Well, outside of the ways that he is.

So, okay, they might be limited in how much more effect they'll have, but they are in escalation. Sanctions are, they're not going to see it as fun that these sanctions are increased. He says that he wants NATO to be more involved in the region, and he made no promises in that statement that the U.S. would be leaving the region. They have said since the attack against Soleimani that one of their goals now is the U.S. pulling out of the entire region are maintaining our presence there will be seen as a provocation from the point of view of Iran. NATO getting more involved. I don't even know what that means.

Many of the NATO powers were involved in the Iran nuclear deal that he pulled out of, but it means something. And they were likely to find that to be provocative. He's also been on the record multiple times talking about how he doesn't see any value in NATO. Exactly, yeah. It was a weird switch up in that. But then also a couple of days ago, they said they're going to renew enriching uranium. And he just said, you know, they need to change their behavior. We're not going to allow them to have a nuclear weapon.

Well, they've said that they're on the path to developing one. And so, look, I know that the media frequently is like doing, like they're so eager to give him credit. But this de-escalation speech involves some economic escalation and also sets up possible confrontations of the future. Yeah, no, no, let me be clear about something. I give Trump zero credit. Trump is the, yeah, did you think I was giving him credit?

No, no, I don't mean you. No, I'm saying that at the moment, I'm relieved that he's not going to escalate this situation militarily. Look, I'm glad that he didn't nuke their capital. I'm glad about that. And look, Trump, again, is someone who is thin-skinned, is very irrational, emotional. At any moment, he's unpredictable, you don't know what he could do. So after those missile attacks were launched by Iran, I was terrified that we were.

that we were going to start bombing Iran. We're going to start sending our military there. Me too. Me too. So I'm relieved, but I don't give him credit because he's the one who escalated the situation in the first place. Now, don't, and also don't be fooled. I mean, he kept talking about military mind. Hungry now. Now. What about now? Whenever it hits you, wherever you are, Grab an O Henry bar to satisfy your hunger with its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today. Oh hungry, oh Henry. Hey, and how strong the United States is.

So he's still going to use the same strong language, and you're going to see it in this next clip. But look, it's important to note that. Engaging in another war is not a popular, people kept saying like, oh, Trump's just looking to get reelected, that's why he's going to start another war. But it's not 2008, it's not, you know, the early 2000s. Things are a little different now. People are exhausted and they're fatigued from all these wars, and it is not a popular position to take.

Invading Iran is not a popular position to take. In fact, later in the show, we're going to show you examples of Republican senators who came out, and senators other than Rand Paul, who came out against Donald Trump on this issue, aggressively so. So it's not a popular position to take, and that gives me a little hope. But there's no credit for Trump when it comes to that. Trump is doing what he thinks is best for him and his re-electing chances, and I think he realizes that his base isn't really interested in yet another war.

With that said, though, here he is bragging about the U.S. military. The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration at a cost of $2.5 trillion. U.S. armed forces are stronger than ever before. Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal and fast. Under construction are many hypersonic missiles. The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it. American strength, both military and economic, is the best

deterrent. Oh, God, that was so weird. So, look, this is the kind of stuff that you can expect from Trump, but later he almost pleaded with Iran to tone things down. He, you know, it was almost like a peace plea. So that's a good sign. Again, he gets no credit for it. You don't get to stoke tensions and then brag about how you calm things down, you shouldn't have escalated the situation in the first place. But at least for this moment, and it could change in an hour, things do feel a little bit calmer. A little bit.

Yeah. We'll see. That speech, if nothing else, should be a reminder to everyone listening of what an amazing amount of money we waste every single year in our military. Like the media should be full of like, oh yeah, it's 2.5 trillion. So what have we gotten for that money? We get to occupy Iraq in bases that nobody even knew about before yesterday to take out some terrorists that nobody even knew existed before yesterday, or not any of the regular

people listening anyway, it's a complete waste of money. We could spend it on virtually anything else, and the American people would be far better off. And that should be discussed in the press. But other than independent media, you don't hear of that discussion about how much of our resources get wasted on this weaponry, on the military, never on the troops, right? We're not into giving troops decent pay for risking their lives for these nonsense, endless wars, but we have no problem in, you know, paying these military contractors and weapons manufacturers, untold, you know, billions of dollars each year just to continue this military

industrial complex. But at least we talk about it, and at least for the moment, it seems like Trump is not going to further escalate the situation with Iran. But we'll keep you guys posted on that. In fact, we're going to have an expert on Iran on this show a little later. So we'll ask her about that and more. In the meantime, though, we're going to take a break. When we come back, there were elements of that speech that are worth making fun of.

And we'll do that. 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 UNFTRTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you'd, knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows.

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and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. We return. Hey guys, welcome back to TYT, a few member comments before we move on. I actually want to read, I bathe in a very stable genius's tears. When a child throws a tantrum, the parent shouldn't throw a tantrum in return. Iran seems to be the adult in the room right now. I agree with you.

And I don't think that Iran threw a tantrum in return. I think Iran could have thrown a tantrum in return and actually killed people. And look, think about it. Their top military commander, right? Not a good guy. We all know that. We all acknowledge that. But you have to think in terms of like what you would do if a sovereign country took out our top military commander.

In another sovereign country, by the way. And then think about the pressure that they're going to face. I mean, suppose if he was as popular as the funeral footage seems to imply, and all of those people find out that their retaliatory strike did no damage, is there going to continue to be pressure on them to do more? And so if they don't do any more, then that is a good sign. It shows that they're willing to push back against popular pressure to not escalate the military conflict. And Debbie Bernie 2020 writes in and says on TYT Live, oh, thank God, I thought we were going to have to have. to keep watching clips and not pretend he's not the weirdest dude and the sniffing. I can't.

So yeah, we're gonna now talk about. I had to like take out this part of the conversation as a separate discussion. So let's get to it, Donald Trump, possibly on Adderall, like this. So I said possibly, I said possibly. Can you get in trouble, she said possibly. On Twitter today, there were three words trending. Adderall, Sudafed, and teleprompter, and it was in response to Donald Trump's address of what happened with the Iranian missile strikes against U.S. bases in Iraq. Now, we're going to show you some videos that might show you why these words were trending.

Let's start off with the first one. The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime. Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward. Listen, sometimes when you're speaking quickly, and I know that it happens to me on the show often, I want to get, especially when Jank is here, I want to get my point out as quickly as possible so I can get the point out. So that he won't take over, never stop.

Okay, I don't want to throw him under. bus right now, but yes, yes, I feel this like urgency to like hurry up and finish my point. And when I do that sometimes, I'll slur a word accidentally, but I'll keep going, right? Trump is a little different though, because he's reading a prompter, it's clear he's reading a prompter and he struggled, tolerated wasn't the only word he struggled with. He struggled through the entirety of that statement, that speech, and it seemed very strange to me. I'm not, look, Adderall was trending. I'm not saying he was on Adderall,

but his mouth is always dry when he gives these types of speeches. He slurs his words. And then there was one other noticeable aspect of his performance, I guess you could say, that I wanted to draw some attention to. So let's look at the next video. Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before in America's achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments shades are strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible.

And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil. Okay, listen, the substance of that is irrelevant at the moment. Okay, first of all, no, I guess I am going to comment on what he had to say. The substance matters. The substance matters, but like- It was full of lies. It was full of lies, and if- Remember, he moved U.S. troops away from northern Syria and

then gave a press conference to assure everyone that the troops regarding the oil in Syria. So when he talks about how the United States doesn't care about the oil, it's so ridiculous, Because many of our actions in the Middle East have to do with oil. So it's just such a ridiculous statement to make. You mean democracy. Yeah, yeah. We love the idea of spreading democracy. He loves crude democracy.

We should start here in the United States, where our democracy is single-handedly being dismantled by the Trump administration. Yeah. But nonetheless, let's talk about the heavy breathing. Like, the thing is, I'm sick right now, so I'm breathing in a weird way. And this whole show I've been trying not to cough. and I like to think I've come off as less weird than him. Is he sick?

I assume, look, I saw the stuff that was trending. I don't necessarily believe any of that stuff. I do. That was weird. But anyway. No, but what's going on? What's going on? Is one of the generals wearing like a mohair sweater or something?

Why is he sniffing in such a weird Seinfeld reference? Anyway, yeah, it's obviously weird. I just assume that his mouth is like he's got dentures and he's falling apart mentally and physically. I chalk it up to just that. Okay, all right, well. But I do have a problem with the, like for one thing, I don't even want America to be the number one fossil fuel exporter. I think that that's horrible, but if you think it's good, you should probably care that

we've been that way since like 2012, he wants to imply that he just did it last Tuesday or something. No, it was back under Barack Obama. If we're independent of mid-east oil, I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. The oil prices are set internationally and all that. It's sort of a nonsense statement the way it was used. Then we have been that way for closing in on a decade at this point. And so he couldn't even just have a thing where he's like, look, I didn't launch us into World War III. Now clap for me, people. He also has to throw in a bunch of lies. And that's why I said on my show, while he was sort of de-escalating with Iran, he was definitely like upping the tension with Barack Obama.

He kept bringing up and using lies to attack the former president during that speech. All right, so back to Adderall. So some of the common side effects for Adderall include perspiration, so you perspire, some people experience that, impulsive behavior, and insomnia, and we all know that he doesn't sleep much. I'm not saying he's on Adderall, I'm just saying that certain stimulants tend to do that to people. And it's just- Did you make you sniff? What's the sniffing? That I don't. Well, I mean, cocaine is a stimulant. I don't know if he's on cocaine. I'm just, I'm not- There's a lot of things you're

not quite sure he's on. I'm just putting these things out there. I don't know. I'm not saying he's doing these things. I'm just saying that there are possible explanations out there that should be explored. You're just worried for him. I'm very concerned about your good person. Yes. Let's move on before I get myself in trouble. I think you're there. Yeah. So you think I'm there? Come on. You're good. You're good. You're good, you're good. Please. No, like these disgusting right wingers accuse the left of the most heinous, ridiculous things.

They smear people, they lie about people constantly, and then they'll turn around and they'll point to conversations like this and make us to be the bad guys. Go ahead, come at me, come at me. I think that he's on something. That's what I think, I'm not saying that's what he's definitely doing, that would be defamation, right? Yes. But I believe that he might be using some sort of stimulant.

because his behavior is erratic, he always seems a little sweaty, and he slurs his words and always has dry mouth. I mean, look, the symptoms you've pointed out, those are accurate. We've seen those for a long time. It's a suspicion, and I believe I should share my suspicions with the audience. So let's move on to other news. Stephanie Grisham is the White House Press Secretary. I mean, she doesn't give any, like, speeches, she doesn't address the press, she doesn't

actually do anything. She gets paid for it, and every once in a while, she will try to clap back at reporters. And that's what happened recently. And unfortunately, for Grisham, it demonstrated that she has no idea what's going on in the Trump administration, the very administration she's working for. And it also demonstrates that the Trump administration is completely chaotic and unprofessional to say the least. So let's give you the details of this story.

Now, yesterday, Iran launched missile attacks against U.S. bases in Iraq. The American people wanted to know what was going on. They wanted to know whether or not there were any casualties. And they also wanted to know what Donald Trump's response would be. And so there was a tweet put out by reporters at CNN to let people know, hey, the White House is scrambling to get things in order and eventually have Trump address the American people. So here's one particular tweet. Aides are making urgent preparations at this hour for Trump to address the nation per Jeff Zellini. The specific timing to be determined and could be delayed

given we are still learning info, but two officials say a speech is being prepared and plans are being made for Oval Office address. Now, in response to Caitlin Collins's tweet, Stephanie Grisham writes, this is not true, was never true. And no one even attempted to confirm with the press office before tweeting. In a race to be first to break news, the public once again falls victim to irresponsible reporting by CNN. Okay, except here's the problem. Trump put out a tweet indicating that they're preparing for a statement. And I like that CNN responded to what Grisham accused them of, because this is 100% true. The most shocking thing about this statement is that press secretary or the press secretary

is completely out of the loop in her own shop. CNN's reporting, CNN's reporting that preparations were being made for an address was 100% accurate and was confirmed with multiple White House officials, nice try. And as I mentioned, I like- It's spicy for an official PR tweet. Good, good, good. Yeah. is welcomed, okay?

And so Trump had tweeted earlier, all as well, missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq, assessment of casualties and damages taking place now, so far so good. We have the most powerful and well-clipped, blah, blah, blah. He ends it by saying, I will be making a statement tomorrow morning. So he makes it clear that they're preparing for a statement, CNN did nothing wrong. It's just the right wing's obsession with immediately jumping on certain news sources that they think only report fake news about Trump is ridiculous. Yeah.

And also look, who cares about them attacking CNN? That's really, whatever, it's fine. For me, the biggest issue is that she's the press secretary, right? She has no business being a press secretary, and more importantly, it's chaos within the executive branch. When your own press secretary has no idea what's going on, you have members of Trump's administration constantly contradicting what he says on the record. I mean, the latest example was Trump saying, oh yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna go after those cultural sites in Iran. We're gonna, we're gonna target 52 cultural sites in Iran. And there's nothing wrong with that. And then you have

Pompeo and Esper denying that they're gonna do that. I mean, it's constant contradictions. It's already out there. This is not like a leak or unconfirmed reporting. It's sitting there on Trump's Twitter. And that's the weirdest things that they get into this back and forth on. But of course, there's no consequences. That's, I feel like I say that constantly. Like she, what, is she going to be demoted?

Is she going to be censured for this? Like, she doesn't care at all. It doesn't matter. Yeah. And one of the things that's bothered me the most is not that in these various ways, Trump doesn't want to be bound by the normal sorts of norms or whatever in terms of having to be relatively transparent with the media, potentially consequences coming from the legislative branch when you break the law, it's that as he shows that he will not be bound by these

things, that they can just get rid of the press conferences, not do them anymore, ignore impeachment, set up a sham trial, all of that, that more people aren't, like, outraged by the fact that we have a president who doesn't feel bound by literally anything, doesn't I don't even feel bound by pretending to care about the truth when it comes to the people who are as official representatives for the press? Trump is a reflection of America, and I know it's like a harsh thing to say, but it's true. Even if Hillary Clinton, his opponent, won the popular vote, the truth is he doesn't face consequences because we're not fighting hard enough.

We should be fighting against the gerrymandering that's taking place, the voter suppression that's taking place. The way that this system is specifically rigged to help people like Donald Trump rise to power. It's not enough to put out a few tweets and express how upset you are. You have to go out there and organize, mobilize, and fight, and not get distracted by mainstream media attempts to smear members of our own movement, which happens all the time. I get it, I get it. We all want to be kind to one another.

We all want to be perfect. We all want to pretend like we don't have inappropriate conversation with our friends behind the scenes. But we're all human, right? And so don't allow people in positions of power to distract you with nonsense. Keep your eye on the prize. We need to save our democracy. We need to focus on what matters. And we need to fight to get people the right to vote again in places throughout this country

where that right has been taken away. Yeah. All right. So, John, thank you for joining me for hour one. When we come back, we're going to have a wonderful interview with an expert on Iran. And then later on, J.R. Jackson will be joining me for hour two. Awesome. All right, feel better. 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.

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Welcome back to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian, and we're about to do something a little different during the main show. We're actually going to have on an expert to help us dissect and discuss the situation with Iran. Joining us now is Nagar Mortezavi, who is a diplomatic correspondent for the Independent. I actually learned about you by watching democracy now, and I'm grateful that you took the time to join us today. Thank you, Nagar. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. So I wanted to kind of get your thoughts on how Donald Trump handled his speech today, because there was a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety that the United States would respond to

Iran's missile attacks against U.S. bases with more aggression. But it seems like he's backing down. At least that's my read of it. But I wanted to get your take. I agree with you. It seems like we won't see an escalation today or an imminent war, at least for now, because of the way I I believe the retaliation was designed by Iran. It seems like they made it precisely in a way or even tipped off Iraqi forces to make

sure there will be no casualties. And we see that there are no casualties, American or others. But then basically use this as a warning or deterrence to show the U.S., as Iranians have been saying, you know, Iranian experts are also telling me that they are capable and willing to attack American bases. from Iranian soil publicly. They're not going to hide behind other forces or proxies. They're going to do this and stand behind it. And I think the way it was designed with no casualty, basically the red line that President Trump has draw,

he drew over the summer as well, with that no casualty, they offered an exit ramp out of this situation, which everyone was really worried that might escalate. And they offered this exit ramp, and President Trump took it, basically. Without that casualty, it seemed like it was a one-off, an attack for an attack, but not blood for blood. But also Iranians see this as a deterrence. So Ayatollah Khamenei said something about how, look, this is retaliation, but this isn't nearly enough. He somewhat implied that there's more coming, and I wanted to get your thoughts on that, because oftentimes, you know, you hear a lot of tough talk in order to deter any other or further aggression.

But there's a lot of frustration and anger about U.S. provocation. It's not as though what happened to Soleimani was the only provocation. This has been happening under the Trump administration from the moment he pulled out of that Iran nuclear deal. So what are your thoughts about further retaliation from Iran? So we have to remember this proxy war between Iran and the US has been ongoing, and that is not going to stop. That is going to continue. We don't, this is not a ceasefire to that. But the retaliation for targeting Basim Soleimani, which Iranians really saw or portrayed as an act of war, a massive aggression that they were shocked.

Nobody expected that to actually happen by the U.S., basically assassinating a foreign official on another country's soil. It came as a big surprise, and the Iranian hardliners, the Supreme Leader himself, had been vowing severe retaliation for that. At the same time, there's this sense among Iran experts, at least that I'm talking about, that if Iran didn't respond at all in like this big show of retaliation, something flashy they can play on TV over and over again. If they didn't do this deterrence, then it would mean that attacking them, this type of major aggression will have no cost. So there's obviously a camp here in Washington that thinks attacking Iran, even invading Iran or bombing Iran is not going to have any cost because the U.S. military is so big and mighty.

And it seems like the Iranians wanted to show that the cost of that is going to be severe. And like I said, they're willing and capable, maybe they're not capable of hitting the White House or anyone here in Washington, of course, but at least they're capable and willing to attack U.S. bases in the region. But then at the same time, not willing to start a full on classic war with the U.S. That's why they offered the exit round that I was talking about. So I'm glad we talked about what's happening currently, but it's also important to understand how the United States got to this situation with Iran in the first place. I feel as though the way the media has covered U.S.-Iranian relations has been incredibly shallow and surface level, because in order to really understand it, you need to look into the history of U.S.-Iranian relations. And so you had a great tweet that I wanted to draw a little attention to.

You wrote, every American has heard of the hostage crisis in Iran, but most have never heard that a few years later, our Navy killed 290 Iranian civilians, including 66 children. Both sides have a long list of grievances against each other. This fight is not one-sided. And of course, there was a U.S. orchestrated coup in, I believe, 1953 that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. And so I was hoping that you could maybe talk a little bit about why Iran feels such hostility toward the United States in the first place?

Sure. So the anti-American sentiment in Iran didn't come out of void, or it's not because Iranians are Muslims or they hate the West or freedom or anything like that. Like you said, we have to go back and look at at least recent history. So the U.S. orchestrated coup against Iran was just in the 1950s, less than just over, less than a century ago. And that has, that's a vivid memory in the Iranian psyche, basically the understanding is that there's this other country that's powerful, mighty country that can always undermine

our governance, our regimes, or a democratically elected official. At the same time, there has been this list of grievances that I'm talking about the civilian airline, a major one of them that is also something that many Iranians still see as an unresolved problem with the U.S., But many Americans don't even know about it. I talked to some of my friends and colleagues, and some of them have actually never heard about it. Whereas an event and a grievance on the U.S. side, something like the hostage crisis, attacks by Iranian proxies,

Iranian Revolutionary Guards, having U.S. blood on their hand. All of that is something that's over and over repeated in the U.S. And specifically with this administration, it seems like officials are trying to portray this as a completely one-sided 40-year war of escalation. I think it was Secretary Esper saying it's been Iran who's been escalating and escalating against the United States in the past 40 years. And that's just not not how it's played out. So I want to look to the future and the possibility of actual peace among the United States and Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. And so I know in my mind

who the best leader in the United States would be in order to handle these types of foreign policy issues. I wanted to get your thoughts on it. Now, ideally, after 2020, Donald Trump would not be the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world. But out of the Democratic candidates, out of the options that we have available, based on your read and your expertise, who do you believe would handle the situation with Iran appropriately to de-escalate the situation? I'm not going to endorse any candidates or tell people how to vote, but out of all the democratic candidates, I think the foreign policy agenda in general and specifically the Iran file of the Bernie Sanders team has been the most extensive and the most informed. Bernie Sanders is the only person who talks about the 1953 coup. Bernardi Sanders is the only person who talks about Iran's prime minister, Mossadegh. Bernie Sanders is the only one who talks about how.

this form of escalation is just not going to lead in where he's someone who opposed the invasion of Iraq and now makes clear comparisons to Iran. Of course, others like Elizabeth Warren and other progressives have made similar good comments. But I think as far as the extent of it and the grasp and the understanding of the foreign policy, it's been the camp of Bernie Sanders. that's been most consistent and not afraid of taking a position that sometimes is not necessarily very popular. Yep. Well, that's certainly something Bernie Sanders is known for throughout his political career. Nagar, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us.

I appreciate your expertise, and I hope you'll come back soon. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. All right, have a good night. And for everyone watching, we're just going to take a brief break. And when we come back, Jared Jackson will join me for the second half of the show. We'll be right back.

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