The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - July 9th, 2020

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

Trump is losing the battle on his taxes. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.  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. Thank you. All right. I'm Turcha, you're out and we're having an amazing show. So a little bit later, the Lincoln Project. Who are they really?

Yes or no? Poles question. The project, yes or no. We should have done that poll. You still have a chance to vote at t.com slash polls on Elon Musk. Yes or no? That's it. That's the whole poll.

Okay. So granted it's cheese. All right, we move on. So, guys, two things, we've got programming notes for you guys tonight, 8 o'clock Eastern. Must-C-TV. Twitch.tv slash T-YT. I will be interviewing David West between me and you. David West, NBA legend, coming on to talk to me about what he's doing during coronavirus.

But really, it's just all about life. Those episodes have been bananas. If you still don't know what's buried in Tommy Chung's brothers knuckles, you're missing out. Okay, so check that out tonight. Live, Twitch.tv slash TYT. Okay. And you know throughout this whole time, we are trying to keep Young Turks healthy and sustainable. We cannot do the show without you guys.

Another hand, I love doing the show with you guys. I love reading through your names when I go to the backstage at ActBlue at TYT.com. slash go. I like seeing where you guys are from all over the world. I like seeing your names. So let's see where the thermometer is right now. Oh, look at this, 36,130. 36,130. All right, can I see 40,000? That's a bad, that's too ambitious. Jack, you're too bold. Can I see 40,000? TYT.com slash go. Can I see a bunch of names? I love you guys. All right, Anna, lots of news, go. Well, we'll start off with the Supreme Court's ruling. on Donald Trump's taxes. We've been wanting to see Donald Trump's taxes, financial disclosures.

It seems like he's fought pretty aggressively to keep all of this concealed. But the Supreme Court has ruled that the New York prosecutor can see Donald Trump's financial records, and that includes private business financial records and his tax returns. There was a second ruling pertaining to Congress, and the results of that is a little mixed. But one thing to take away from this, before I get into all the finer details is that it is highly unlikely that any of the voters will be able to learn about these financial disclosures. But this is a bit of a victory when it comes to the prosecutors in New York who have been attempting to get a hold of Donald Trump's financial records.

So one other thing to keep in mind is that two of the conservative justices who were nominated by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate, that's Neil Gorsuch and Breit. Kavanaugh voted along with the liberal justices. So let me give you the details. The court said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. had the authority to subpoena the records from Trump's private accounting firm. Trump had claimed an immunity from criminal investigations while in office. So the argument coming from Donald Trump and his attorneys was that a sitting president is immune from these types of investigations and shouldn't be forced to hand over these types of financial documents. But the Supreme Court in these rulings essentially said,

no, the president is not above the law. Vance is seeking Trump's tax returns, among other records. The president has refused to make them public, unlike previous modern presidents. Because the records are for a grand jury investigation, they would not likely be disclosed before the election. Now, Vance is investigating whether the Trump organization falsified business records or, you know, did that to conceal hush money payments to two women, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to be specific. And Vance is also looking to obtain eight years worth of Trump's financial records. So before I get into the ruling that impacts these congressional committees seeking Trump's financial records, I want you to jump in, Jake. Yeah. I think that the court made a deal.

I think that the conservative and liberal judges, justices got together and said, look, here's how we're going to split this baby. We're going to do a ruling that protects Trump in this election cycle. And at the same time, does not give blanket immunity to any president. Now, if you are one of the conservative justices, and three of them, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and John Roberts, all voted in this direction. Think about how much sense that makes. Because Trump is very likely to lose. He is losing disastrously right now in the polls. Seemingly unrecoverable position. So if you're a conservative justice, would you want the next Democratic president to be

above the law? Well, probably not. And remember, when Republicans are challenging a Democratic president, they launch hearing after hearing. In one of the one. way of counting, there was 33 separate hearings about Benghazi. So four people have died in Benghazi. Over 135,000 people have died in coronavirus. I don't know how many hearings the Democrats have had about that. And Trump's role, the CDC's role, and all of those. So if you're a conservative justice, there's no way you want to say a president's above the law, especially as a Democrat is very likely to be president next. So for the liberal justices, they think, look, we're not going to get to find out before the election. And we're limiting Congress in how they can get it. But at least

prosecutors can get it. And whether he wins the election or doesn't, at some point, finally, both prosecutors and the public will be able to judge Trump's tax returns. It's got compromise deal written all over it. Only the two super hardliners who never want to listen to anything, Alito and Thomas, were like, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, friend, Donald Trump's above the law, I don't care what you guys say. But Anna, before we get into even more details of law, it should be noted, history will not remember much of these details. The number one takeaway, this is not a small ruling.

This is a giant, giant ruling, it's a historic ruling. What history will take away from this is the Supreme Court definitively said the president is not above the law. So if you're going to do a criminal investigation of the president, you are allowed to do that while he's in office and you are allowed to subpoena his records. And by the way, I mean, there's been precedent for this and it was noted by the Supreme Court. So they specifically mentioned how Nixon had to cooperate with subpoenas when it came to the Watergate investigation. And they also cited the fact that Bill Clinton was

forced to hand over evidence when it came to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And so, you know, history indicates that the president isn't supposed to be considered above the law. And I'm glad that in this case, the Supreme Court did rule in the right direction. Now, when it comes to Congress, Congress did vote indicating that they would block Congress from obtaining the financial records anytime soon, right? But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a defeat. The Supreme Court isn't saying that Congress doesn't have the right to see Trump's tax returns or financial disclosures, but they want these congressional committees to be more specific. about why they want to look into these financial records.

So they're going to send this back to the lower courts and allow for these congressional committees to regroup. But what we do know so far about their desire to obtain these financial records is they want to look into possible foreign entanglements, financial entanglements, something that we've been talking about a lot on the show. Conflicts of interest, tax evasion, tax fraud, these were accusations that were lodged against Donald Trump by his own former personal attorney, Michael Cohn, and then also violations of campaign finance laws. And the two congressional committees who wanted to obtain his tax returns

include the House Oversight Reform Committee. And they say they wanted to look into the hush money payments. And then you have the House Financial Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee. They wanted to look into Trump's financial records with Deutsche Bank and Capital one. And by the way, some on the right are trying to twist this or reframe this as some sort of victory because it's unlikely that voters will be able to know much about his financial records before the election. But Donald Trump certainly doesn't see it as a victory because he went nuts on social media. I don't even have all the examples for you. I'll just give you a few. Donald Trump first tweeted that courts in the past have given broad deference, but not me.

No, no, no, I gotta jump in on that one. Is this guy ever gonna stop crying? And he reminds me of a seven-year-old going, not fair! The course always give death rates, but not me! He actually wrote, but not me, in all caps, like he was crying. Every time I see stuff like that, I really don't, I don't think about Trump so much. We already know who he is. I think we're forever humiliated that this guy was president of the United States,

that we elected a baby, a baby for a president. And I still think about 80% of Republicans that still think that he is a strong man that they look up to. Oh, God, that's pathetic. All right, more Trump's reaction, and then I want to go back to one thing I think the court got wrong. Okay, great. Before I get to his next tweet, I just want to note for the producers, let's get the Nancy Pelosi video queued up because I want to go to her reaction as well. Trump also tweeted, we have a totally corrupt previous administration, including a president and vice president who spied on my campaign and got caught. That's not true at all, by the way. And nothing happens to

them. This crime was taking place even before my election. Everyone knows it. And yet all are frozen stiff with fear. No Republican Senate judiciary response, no justice, no FBI, no nothing. Major horror show reports on Comey and McCabe, guilty as hell, nothing happens, catch Obama and Biden cold, nothing, a three-year, $45 million Mueller hoax, failed investigated, failed, investigated everything, won all against, I mean, just, he's having like a manic episode. He's just going nuts. And it goes on and on and on. I don't know if you want to read more of it, Jank, but for Republicans who think that they can find a way to like rebrand, these Supreme Court rulings is a win for Donald Trump. You can't, when Trump is losing it constantly on social media. Yeah, look, it works for his base. His base is like, oh, yeah, my God, Robert Mueller's investigation showed that he was totally innocent. It didn't show any such thing. It arrested dozens of people. It showed that the Russians, in fact, did interfere in the election. I go ahead and cry if you don't believe so.

And we can go on and on, no, Obama and Biden shouldn't randomly be arrested because Trump disagrees with them. It's not how our country works. Yes, one of the things that New York State is looking into is a crime that is campaign finance violations, paying hush money to his mistresses, and not reporting it, okay? And going beyond the legal limits, his co-conspirator. in that is in prison, Michael Cohen, went to prison for that same exact crime. The reason Trump is not in prison yet is because they couldn't prove definitively that it went from Trump's bank

account. Well, when you get his taxes, you could prove definitively that the money came from Trump. Good night, Irene. If there's any rule of law left in this country, look, Look, I don't put it past the Democrats if Trump loses to say, oh, we don't look backwards, we'll look forwards. Oh my gosh. Whatever you do, don't arrest him. Oh my God, his supporters will be really angry, right? But his co-conspirators in prison, he should be in prison.

That's one of many crimes. But that was relevant to this case. That's what the New York prosecutors are looking into. And so obviously the justice said, given that his co-conspirators in prison, obviously you should be able to look at his financial records to see if he committed a crime with his co-conspirator. Okay, now the part of the Supreme Court, in my opinion, got wrong. When they say that Congress needs to be more specific in their spinus, I actually don't even

think that that's necessarily wrong. I think that the requests sometimes were overly broad, you know, for legislation, we'd like to know what your records are. That's poorly formed, right? But in one of the instances at least, when it comes to conflict of interest with the president perhaps receiving money from foreign sources and hence the emoluments clause as well, well, how in the world could they tell if the president is getting money from a foreign government unless they see his tax returns?

And is it relevant for the president to be receiving money from a foreign government as he does favor some? Of course, of course it's relevant. So I think that that is super clear. And if the court actually wanted to rule on the merits rather than striking this compromise, they would have said, yes, of course Congress can subpoena the tax records for that specific purpose. But they chose to punt on that because of my guess is the liberal justices wanted to bring

in the conservative justices. So it could be a resounding 7 to 2 ruling and set a historic statement. that no one is above the law. All right. I'm actually going to move forward because I want to talk about how Democrats have really bungled this in a lot of ways as well. And Representative Richie Neal is a perfect example. So there was one Democratic senior member of Congress who could have obtained Donald

Trump's state taxes from New York, but decided against doing it. And it's actually a senior Democrat that we've talked on the show about recently. And it's Chairman Richie Neal. He's the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. And based on a New York law, he could have easily obtained the New York state taxes for Donald Trump, which essentially contain similar info compared to the federal tax returns. But he decided against it because he thought it would be much better to go through a lengthier and more difficult process of suing the IRS in order to obtain his tax returns.

Now, of course, he didn't manage to accomplish that, which made people on the left incredibly angry and frustrated. So one person who called him out for this is now his Democratic primary challenger, Alex Morse. And here's what he said at the time. There's an urgency to this moment in Massachusetts's first district in our country. And that urgency is not matched. by our current representative in Congress. We need new leadership that understands that we can no longer settle for small, incremental, and compromising progress. We need to be on offense. And so he's not the only one who felt that way. Many progressives felt the same way. And if you have an easy avenue in which to get Donald Trump's tax returns, then go for it. In fact, if you don't go for

it, it makes people question what your intentions or motivations are. Now NBC News reported at the time, And this is from a story back in 2019. While many of his fellow chairman ramped up oversight inquiries soon after the new Congress was seated in January, Neil waited before requesting the president's federal returns. After the Treasury Department refused to furnish them, Neil took months before suing the Treasury and the IRS for the documents. And by the way, this should come as absolutely no surprise. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supported him 100%, backed him in his approach and did so publicly.

Yeah, so I'm going to get into Richie Neal's corruption and incompetence. If you're wondering, Alex Morse for Congress.com is the website, again, for his opponent. His opponent is a very progressive Democrat, a justice Democrat. We'll have the links down below as well right there and does not take any corporate PAC money, unlike Richie Neal. We recently coincidentally did a story about how Richie Neal took money from private equity companies to kill legislation that would help end surprise bills at hospitals. Because those surprise bills pay the bills for corrupt people like Congressman Richie Neal. So whatever you do, support non-corrupt politicians on either side.

Okay, now how corrupt is Richie Neal? So in this issue, there's a There's two different ways to get the tax returns. What is federal to other state? On the federal level, Richie Neal said, no, I have to take my sweet-ass time and I have to get it just right. And that's why I'm going to take months and months before I ask Treasury and the IRS. But the idea is I'm going to craft it perfectly. Supreme Court just ruled on that today.

And they said, this is terrible, it's totally bungled. It's totally broad. And we're going to have to send it back to the lower courts so you can actually do a a subpoena that has any kind of validity. So even if Richie Neal was on the level and not corrupt, and I'll tell you in a second why he might be corrupt in this issue, but if he was on the level, he's grotesquely incompetent. He's like, okay, I'm gonna take forever to come up with a perfect strategy. And then the court's like, this is terrible.

And no, so you lose, you're not gonna get to see them before the elections. So what happened, Richie Neal? I thought you were gonna be so good at asking for the tax return. So then the New York state says, I got the same things. They're the state tax returns nearly identical. And there's only one person who could ask for, the head of the House Ways and Means Committee. That's Richie Neal, okay? At that point, there's no court stopping him. If it was me, I don't know, right now, give it to me right now.

Boom, here they are, they're public. Before the court could even do anything. It took so long for Trump's lawyers to get the court involved in the New York issue. At that point, the courts say, you're not allowed to give them to Congress. But he had all this time and Ritchie Neal never asked for the state tax returns. Now you wanna know why? His ostensible reason was, well, you know, I think it might hurt me in the courts. It might seem political if I asked for the federal and the state tax returns.

One, that makes no legal expert agreed with that. Literally, no legal expert agreed with that. Totally made up, okay? And so, and then the court ruled today, no, we know. We already think it's political and you didn't prove your case. So you're gonna have to come up with more specific subpoenas. So no one believed them and they were right and he was wrong. So why in the world did he do?

Turns out Richie Neal had not released his own tax returns. Oh, for Christ's sake, this is why we argue against corrupt Democrats and corporate Democrats. Finally, after an enormous amount of pressure from a primary from a Justice Democrat, he finally had to release his own tax returns. And so I don't know that he was also protecting Trump. He was certainly protecting himself. There's no question about that. And what do Pelosi and Neil and all these people do? Oh, la resistance. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, they do everything to make sure that they could help Trump hide all this potential criminal wrongdoing. So, and to me, The media is so unbelievable. Credit to NBC News, who did a good story on this. I love giving credit

where credit is to. But everyone else, whenever you point that out, they're like, how could you say that about Nancy Pelosi? Well, what's your counter argument? She loves Richie Neal. She put Richie Neal in that seat to make sure that no one ever got investigated. It's sickening Democratic leadership what they do. Luckily, Alex Morris can do to Richie Neal, what Jamal what Jamal Bowman did to Elliot Engel. And that would be a huge earthquake. And it would send a message to the Democrats. Stop pretending you're on our side.

Actually be on our side. Stop pretending you're fighting Trump and the Republicans. Actually fight Trump and the Republicans. All right. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to ask whether or not the Lincoln Project is a group that we should be allied with. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic or UNFTA.

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-F-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, research, razor sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

You must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on Young Turks, Jank and Anna with you guys. I got a lot of your comments here. First, aspiration.com slash TYT is a bit awesome. I'm not saying that the forest that they've

planted is bigger than the Amazon. I'm just saying it's starting to get competitive, okay? Every time you open an account, boom, 10 trees. When you use the card, boom, more trees. Fossil-free. It's a great place to put your money. Asperation.com slash TYT. in a progressive place. All right, let's go to our members. Effecto says, I still stand by my stance that between me and Yugar is an 80s sitcom title, Jake, but I've been loving to show. Agreed on both fronts. It's like Charles in charge. Totally. It is very like, yeah, 80s-ish. Yeah. When I'm on vacation, Ben might fill in for me, and he might interview Josh Banquets, his brother, who's on Dateline. Then it'd be between two manquinses, which that is a different kind of sitcom.

Anyway, so Trigger Incarnate writes in, the Lincoln Project are neocons who figured that Trump's ship is sinking so as with any good barnacle, they've decided to attach themselves to the SS Biden in hopes of whispering sweet nothings of war with Iran in Joe's ear. Stop stealing our thunder. We're gonna get to it right now, okay? But you're absolutely right. Poor Chop expresses, I can't wait for Trump to start throwing Republicans out of the bus. If he loses reelection, it's going to be epic.

Okay, fun and tragic note, if Trump loses the election, he doesn't go away. So there's a lot of pain in his future, including potentially getting arrested. So that's great. But remember, he's still around, and the press is still going to quote him all the freaking time, and he's still going to be involved in politics. All right, Jake's Instagram, cofefefe writes in, Jake is on point, biggest embarrassment in our history, cries not stop, and he's literally throwing buckets of squirrels on Twitter. I took someone's advice to stop following Trump on Twitter about a year ago. My life has vastly

improved. Also, it's my daughter, Quinn's third birthday. Today is a good day. Happy birthday, Quinn. All right. And last one, even though there's so many wonderful ones on YouTube super chat, but Sonia Otwell says the world's a better place because of TYT, especially you, John, Anna, Brent, J.R. I'll donate $127 for We Press on shirt if you read this on air. Da-da-da-da-da-da, we just did. All right, everybody who is Donate 1727 gets the We Press Signed T-shirt. That's awesome and badass. And you get the hoodie if I had $1,000 and the donor wall in my house.

All right, guys, t-y-t.com slash go. We love you for it. Anna, what's next? All right. Well, while the Lincoln Project has put together some pretty vicious ads against Donald Trump that were amusing and I think highly effective, There needs to be a question about whether or not Democrats particularly progressives want to be in bed with an organization that's run by a number of Bush era individuals who are pretty terrible and have advocated for awful policies that have actually hurt the country and led to someone like Donald Trump becoming president. So, look, I say this as I also toss to a video where the Lincoln Project attacks vulnerable Republican senators.

And I just wish that progressive organizations would produce ads like this one. Someday soon, the time of Trump will pass. This circus of incompetence, corruption, and cruelty will end. When it does, the men and women in Trump's Republican Party will come to you. you telling you they can repair the damage he's done. They'll beg you to forget their votes to exonerate Trump from his crimes, ask you to forgive their silence, their cowardice, and their betrayals as Trump wrecked this nation. Every time they had a choice between America and Trump, they chose Trump. Every time they were called to the service of this nation and their sacred

oath, they chose Trump. Every time, learn their names, remember their actions, and never, ever trust them again. So those types of ads are, again, I've said it a million times, incredibly vicious, and it's the kind of political ad that we've been wanting to see from the Democratic Party for such a long time. And so to see Trump attacked in the way that we would attack him is definitely satisfying. I'm not going to lie. However, who are the people behind these ads? And I think it is important to answer that question and give you details on what they've done in the past. So one of those individuals was called out recently by Nathan Bernard on Twitter. And he asks, wonder why Lincoln Projects video guy, Ben Howe, deleted these posts. And if you click on them, their posts from 2014,

where he decided to chime in on what happened to Michael Brown, the young black man who was shot and killed by a cop named Darren Wilson. And in one of those tweets, he said, quote, give me a gun, put me in Darren Wilson's shoes. I'd have shot Mike Brown right in his face. Okay, that is what the tweet said. It's since been deleted. But, you know, know, like the Vanity Fair reported that like the Lincoln Project's other members, Howe spent years supporting conservative policies and working on various Republican campaigns. In fact, he's a Tea Party veteran. And he helped to get someone like Ted Cruz elected. And so now it's kind of interesting to see that the Lincoln Projects video guy is attacking Ted Cruz in one of their latest ads.

Now, Howe also worked for Freedom Works, which is a co-funded advocacy group, the Heritage Foundation and Red State. And by the way, who else works for the Lincoln Project? As you guys already knew, it's a group of Republicans, right? But what have they done in their career so far? Well, there's Rick Wilson, a defense department appointee under then secretary, Dick Cheney, NGOP strategist who contributed to Rudy Giuliani's winning mayoral ad campaigns. And of course, you have George Conway, a Washington attorney and husband of top Trump aide, Kellyanne Conway, who in 2017 was considered for a number of Justice Department posts before turning on the White House. Then you have Steve Schmidt, a top strategist for George W. Bush's

2004 bid, operations chief for John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, and campaign manager for Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2006 reelection bid for California governor. And finally, John Weaver, the chief strategist for John K6 2016 presidential campaign. And so one thing that we need to keep in mind is, since they are helping, aiding someone like Biden to defeat Donald Trump in the general election, how much of an influence are they going to have on the policies that we're likely to see from Joe Biden? And that is something we should be considered, or we should be considerate about because some of their ads give you a little peek into what they're all about. For instance, the pro-war rhetoric in this ad called Betray.

Months ago, Donald Trump learned that the Russians were paying bounties for dead American soldiers in Afghanistan. He chose to do nothing about it. Any commander in chief with a spine would be stomping the living shit out of some Russians right now, diplomatically, economically, or, if necessary, with the sort of asymmetric warfare they're using to send our kids home in body bags? No, no, war with Russia would be a terrible, terrible idea. And as was reported in the nation, to the extent that the ads articulate any political vision, it is a desire to return to the hardline military aggression of the George W. Bush era. This suggests that these ads should be seen as an attempt to stake a claim in Joe Biden's

victory so that if he becomes president, he'll give hawkish Republicans a seat at the table. Biden already has a tropeism toward bipartisanship, essentially in foreign policy. He voted for the Iraq war and has been criticizing Trump from the right for not being sufficiently hardline on Venezuela and China. So, Cenk, please jump in. Okay, so a lot of the world sees things in black and white these days, whereas we do a nuance on this show. So the Lincoln Project ads, in my opinion, are not only great, but they are effective. So now progressives are criticizing Lincoln Project. Some progressives are saying, oh, well, these ads are ineffectual anyway. No, that's not true. They say, oh, they're playing

them sometimes in Washington to get under Trump's skin, but Washington, D.C. is not in play electorally. Well, that's true. But they are getting under his skin, and they're getting a ton of media attention. And media attention is more valuable than just running ads. It amplifies your message. So those ads that they've done have gotten millions, tens of millions of dollars in free media. By playing them in DC and getting them into Twitterverse, it is getting everyone, including our show, to talk about it. That is smart strategy. So that amplifies your message all across the country, including in swing states. So fair, let's be credit where credit is due. Now, the guy who did that ad against the Republican senators is the same guy who used to do ads for Ted Cruz. Okay, that's

Ben Howe that Anna mentioned. So now, if they saw the light and they came over in our direction, great. Bygones be bygones and I don't care what they did in the past. But they have not come in our direction. They're still Republicans. They still wore my mind. there's still neocons. So, and is Jeet here at the nation right in saying that they're just trying to make sure that they attach themselves to Biden and then influences policy? Of course, that's correct. In fact, one of our viewers just, one of our members just sent that in, t.yt.com slash join. I read that before the story even began. And so at the same time that the first ad we showed you is them burning the bridge behind them. So let's be fair and honest

about that too. It's one thing to go after Trump. When they go after Republican senators, they've basically said it's unless we completely retake the Republican party in its entirety, we burn the bridge behind us and we can't go back to the Republicans. Because no Republican is willing to um allow them to attack up republic vulnerable republican senators no we read you a story in rolling stonia a couple of days ago where republican consultants are furious and strategies furious at the lincoln project not for the trump ads but for that ad against the senators and so you have to give them credit for crossing the rubicon the problem now is they're on some i 18 get excited This is big.

For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only date is July 18th. Our problem to deal with. The minute Biden wins, all the press is going to give all the credit to Lincoln Project.

They deserve plenty of credit as I just explained. All the credit, of course not. Trump is massively down. He was almost certainly going to lose under any situation. And so now if they began, if they begin, to dictate policy for Biden, then what did we really accomplished? We just went back to the Bush days, which were horrific. Exactly. Horrific. And this was something that I, you know, tried to persuade you about in May. And I just want to play you this video because this is exactly

what I saw Biden, you know, getting comfortable with. And I have absolutely no doubt, and I'll give you one policy issue to be specific for why Biden has decided to align himself more with these right wingers as opposed to progressives. Take a look. What I think we need to have a discussion about is the decision that the Biden campaign has made moving forward. And their decision has not been to appeal to progressive voters. Their decision has been to appeal not only to corporate donors, that's been a given. Okay, that's been clear. But to appeal to never-Trump Republicans who obviously prefer Biden over any other Democrat

who ran during the primaries, and they're going to help Biden as much as they can because they hate Trump and they want to get Trump out and they're willing to work with Biden. So I'm talking about the bill crystals of the world. I'm talking about Kellyanne Conway's husband, George Conway. I'm talking about David from, you know, the very people who are actually pretty active during the Bush administration, very supportive of the Bush administration, but just cannot stand Donald Trump. And so if you look at how the Biden campaign is operating, they have gone to great lengths to, you know, really appeal to those people, people to the right of, you know, centrist Democrats.

And look, the reason why I had that instinct back in May is because, first of all, Biden already as a politician, his political ideology is not progressive. So he's more inclined to side with people to the right of centrist Democrats. But at the same time, he's going to go where the money is, where the aid is. He's going to, it's a favor for a favor. And if the Lincoln Project and all these Republicans are providing him, you know, some sort of material gain in his campaign, of course they're going to have a seat at the table. Of course they are. And it was reported just yesterday that the so-called progressive task force in Biden's campaign will not support legalizing marijuana.

They won't support legalizing marijuana because conservatives don't like it. So can we just stop? Let's stop pretending. Let's stop. Progressives, unfortunately, the left in this country, unfortunately, doesn't have any power yet. So I just get super annoyed when people keep playing these games. and pretending as though like, oh, no, no, Biden's going to look out for us. There's this, you know, superficial, like progressive task force and they're working real

hard. No, it's not going to happen. That doesn't mean that we don't fight Biden on policies we dislike. We absolutely should. But we need to also have strategic conversations about how progressives gain power in this country. Because we are not as powerful as people in the Lincoln Project. I'll tell you that. Of course. But, Anna, to be fair, we never were. So even if there was no Lincoln project, would Joe Biden be more likely to listen to Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt and John Weaver than AOC or Bernie Sanders after the election? Absolutely. Especially if they're donating to his campaign, absolutely.

Yeah. So in that sense, look, again, one last piece of nuance here. In our fight to make absolutely sure that Donald Trump does not win re-election, I'll take almost any ally. Okay. So he is an existential threat to the country, to democracy. And it's not Mitt Romney. And I have a ton of credibility here for everybody who watched the show. I told you the Mitt Romney Obama election was half a dozen and won six and the other. Yes, Obama's way better than Romney. But Romney is not an existential threat to the country. And their policies, honestly, were very similar, right? This is different. Trump does not care about democracy. democracy, you will destroy this country. I am positive of it. So I'll take those allies. But you know, the old saying about politics is that you're supposed to be able to, you know, take their money, drink beers with them, and afterwards vote against them. But Democrats never do that. They have beers with them, take their money, and they vote with them. So progressives,

don't get seduced by the Lincoln Project. Don't get into their warmongering ads about Russia, etc. But most importantly, the reality is, Anna, we never had Biden and the Democrats on our side anyway. That's the establishment of Republicans and the establishment Democrats working together. And honestly, they've been on the same team this whole time. So it's not surprising that they're in unison fighting against Trump. That's a good thing. But as soon as Biden wins, in unison, they will fight against us. Of course. We got to take a break. When we come back, will give you an update on Breonna Taylor, a really important story to share. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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All right, back on Young Church, Jane and Anna with you guys. Great comments, as usual. Lots to say on the Lincoln Project. Members first. Colorless Green Idea Sleep Furiously, he writes in, had not expected the Lincoln Project to go after Republicans. That's true. Mickey C says, wow, I hadn't seen that ad.

It's great because it'll help get the, those useless Republicans out of Congress. I like that no matter how I feel about Republicans in the Lincoln Project. LMG 15 says that Lincoln Project ad was so perfect, I screamed. So the people are keeping it real, right? The math magician says, and the Democrats will never produce an ad like this because the leadership's job is to be controlled opposition. They're paid very well to let Americans believe they have a choice.

They don't. We should have learned that during the Obama years, and particularly Pelosi's first term, a speaker, a super majority of Dems and a handful of Republicans stop them from doing anything. Now that's true. The reason why a Lincoln Project, who is opposed to Trump, does better than Democrats. One, they're Republicans, so they're vicious. Two, they're not used to being controlled opposition. All the Democratic consultant strategies and infrastructure are used to getting their asses kicked and liking it. So they just don't have it in them to produce ads. that are vicious and effective.

So it's good to have the Lincoln Project guys do to do that for that moment being. But Obi-Mom Kenobi, by the way, on our Twitch channel keeps donating subscriptions. So go grab those. She's amazing. And thank you for watching on Twitch as well. Last one's on Twitter. Kay said, I'm so happy TYT is talking about the Lincoln Project because I love their ads, but I knew there was something shady about them, though I didn't know all the details.

to why they were shady. This is why I'm a proud TYT member. Well, I love you guys for that. We're proud to have you. TYT.com slash join to become a member. If you're watching on YouTube, we just hit the join button below. That's super easy. And of course, if you want to help protect the show, tyt.com slash go. All right, Anna, go ahead. All right, well, this story is really difficult. So there is now new audio of interviews from the investigation into the cops who murdered Brianna Taylor in her own home using a no knock warrant. I want to remind everyone that she was shot and killed. There were no drugs found in the home and no one has been charged, criminally charged in this case. But there's an ongoing investigation and what you're about to hear shows you

just how little faith we should have in the investigation because the investigator seems to be minimizing what the cops did here. So let's take a look or let's take a listen to the first piece of audio. So in the pre-operational briefing, you guys just considered this location. And I've heard this a couple times throughout this investigation as a soft target. Right. Based on the information that the lead had concerning the entire investigation. the organization of the, you know, drug traffic you may. So that's what made that, you know, that's what kind of made you all come up with the original, hey, we're just going to knock, try to get her to the door, you know, the most passive way into the,

to serve the warrant. So the person that you heard was the investigator interviewing Mattingly, right? So when you heard the statement about it being the most passive way of enter, during the home. That wasn't the cop who said that. That was the investigator interviewing the cop and investigating the cop, essentially helping him out and framing this as if the way they entered Brianna Taylor's home was passive. NBC News reported that in the interview with Louisville Police Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, who led the late night raid in March, the investigator questioning Mattingley describes a raid involving at least seven officers

And a battering ram has the most passive way in and says Maddingly rightfully returned fire after Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a shot. And keep in mind, Kenneth Walker, the boyfriend, had a licensed gun. You have these plain closed cops using a battering ram to enter the home. He was terrified, didn't know who they were. And so he fired a warning shot. And they opened fire. And they, They fired so many times that Breonna Taylor was shot eight times and died as a result. And just to give you a sense of what this horrible investigator thinks is passive, here is the 911 call by Kenneth Walker after Brianna Taylor was murdered. I don't know what's happening. Somebody kicked in the door inside my girlfriend. Where was she shot at? I don't know.

She's on a grill right now. I don't know. Help, oh my God, yeah, it's my name, sir. Oh, my, they're just a little more context, so you guys, you know, everyone knows how this investigation, you know, started. It turns out that the timing of the recorded interviews by the Louisville Metro Police Department's public integrity unit also raises questions about the approach police took to interviewing crucial eyewitnesses. Sergeant Mattingley's interview occurred nearly two weeks after

Taylor's death with a lawyer present. Now Walker, the boyfriend, was interviewed just hours after the shooting. He waived his rights to an attorney and emotionally recalled the chaotic night, saying he shot once at what he believed was an intruder before officers opened fire. Days later, the 27 year old was indicted for attempted murder of a police officer and assault. Luckily, prosecutors dropped those charges later. Yeah. So this is a textbook case of why local police and prosecutors should not investigate local police. Whenever there is a police shooting or charges of police abuse, it should immediately be removed to an independent prosecutor at the federal level, ideally. Because

these guys are all friends, and it is screamingly obvious in everything they did. Walker gets interviewed immediately, gets railroaded into being charged with homicide. If there was not pressed attention to this case, Walker, who was 100% right, the boyfriend, would be in prison for the rest of his life, I guarantee it. In fact, I'm going to give you details that shows you that, okay? And all the cops would have been completely exonerated. There would have been no issue at all, nobody would have been fired. Thank God there was press attention to it. So if you're out there protesting, you made a difference to bring a little bit of justice here. So in this case, they have a local sergeant, theoretically in an internal affairs kind of unit,

Amanda Seale, go and talk to Walker. And she says, encourages him to sign away his Miranda rights and says, it would be good for you to sign this, and then we can get you, get your statement, and then we can leave you alone. No, the whole time, she's working to prosecute him, not the cops she's supposed to be investigating. She then takes what he says and testifies in front of the grand jury, gets him charged this entire time she never even talked to the cops. She's theoretically investigating.

Only a week later does she finally go and she doesn't even do the interview. She's part of the interview process for the cop who's treated like royalty, the cops who did the killings, who actually killed a person, right? Walker's interviewed immediately when he's totally traumatized, they 100% lie to him so that they could railroad him. The cop does not get interviewed until two weeks later with his attorney. and with a so-called investigator who's actually working in his defense. Throughout the leading, you saw, you heard a piece of that there.

But if you listen to the whole thing, he's leading him the entire time. He even says things like, I don't mean to put words in your mouth. But that was an awfully dangerous situation, wasn't it? He later says like, oh my God, you're an experienced police officer for 20 years. I mean, this was a very hard situation for you, right? No, the whole thing is rigged by the local guys to make sure that no cop is ever held responsible and that you actually ruined the life of the guy that you shot at and you murdered his girlfriend and you would have put him away for a life. No way you should ever let a local

cop or prosecutor try these cases. Man, they did. Rihanna Taylor did nothing wrong. Kenneth Walker did nothing wrong. This no-knock warrant happened. at 12.40 a.m. You have plain closed cops entering this home in a vicious way using a battering ram. And there were no drugs, nothing, nothing in the house. And by the way, the judge who approved the No Knock warrant did so in part because they claimed that the post office had said that suspicious packages were being delivered to Breonna Taylor that probably contained drugs that were being trafficked. Guess what? An investigation was done and a post office inspector later told local news that there were no packages of interest sent there. What's happening

with this police department is criminal, period. It's criminal. It's criminal. They lied. They lied about the post office. They lied to get that no knock warrant. They killed an innocent human being And no one's been charged. No one. No one. It's just there's no justice. After the protests, finally, Sergeant Brett Hankinson, one of the sergeants there, was fired. Not charged, no. Why was he fired?

Because he wantonly and quote blindly fired into the apartment, including bullets that went through the apartment into the next apartment where there was a pregnant mother. Who cares just shoot them all? Who cares? We lied about the warn. We lied that it was a, that we came in, by the way, it was a soft target. We came in in the least of truce of way. Every part of this cop story is a lie.

And I want the same standard for every defendant. Either we interviewed them right away and get their real testimony, or we wait two weeks, both for the cops and for everyone else. I'm sick of the cops being above the law. Young Turks. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen 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 Yugar, and I'll see you soon.