The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - May 18th, 2020

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

Trump HATES government watchdogs. 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. All right, one of the young Turks, I almost had old school. Jake, you were Anna Kusparing with you guys. The reason I almost said old schools is because we're taping it later tonight. Tomorrow, when you see old school and people, all of you will get it live in the beginning and then the whole show is just for members, t.y.t.com slash join to become a member.

Anyway, I will be unveiling the new pastrami. So there's a big episode of old school. Big. You don't want to miss it. Membership has its privileges, although keep watching after the Young Turks tomorrow and you'll see the beginning part of the show. All right, so obviously big news, today on a Monday, there's always giant news. There's three days worth of the news.

A lot of it is disastrous as normal in these times, but a bunch of it is good news. We might be inching towards a vaccine, which would be just the best news we can get. At the same time, Trump is saying the wrong drug. Whether that's good news, we'll leave up to you to decide. Anyway, that's a little bit later in the program. So big show ahead. And let's say look at the thermometer and see if we're healthy. We're trying to keep going to turn strong and sustainable.

132,000. We're trying to get the 200,000 by the end of the month. Now, the end of the month is pretty close. So we've got to get going, if you will, on t.com slash go. Guys, just get us to 2021. get us to 2021 and we'll be all right. All right. I love you guys. Oh, one last fun reason why I'm excited today. Today on the shop, shop t.com, my dad's new book drops. The original young Turk was sick a lot. Stories in life unless is from an American dream come true. And it's

true. He lived the American dream and he shows you how that is among the and why I became progressive in a sense is through those life lessons of my dad. So shop t-y-t.com. That's where you can find the book, fun for everybody. All right. Anna, let's do it. All right. And by the way, sorry. Classic, Jank. Classic Jank. Go ahead. Last Jank. Before you get started with that story, good to have you back. Oh, thanks, Jank. Thank you. And thank you to all the kind messages that all of our viewers sent me. My mom is recovering at home now. She's been discharged from the hospital. We all feel

super, super lucky. So thank you for helping me get through it. Okay, so let's get to the news. Yeah. Donald Trump has fired four attorneys general in the spring alone. And I keep saying attorneys general for some reason. I don't know why, but let me start that again. So Donald Trump has now fired four attorneys general. And the latest one, Donald Trump has fired four inspectors general in the spring alone. And this is an issue because these are supposed to be government watchdogs who hold people in positions of power accountable if there is any indication of wrongdoing. Now, this particular Inspector General was actually investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for misuse of government funds. And I want to give you some of those details in just a moment.

Now, Inspector General Steve A. Linnick, who leads hundreds of employees in investigating fraud and waste at the State Department, had begun an inquiry into Pompeo's possible misuse of a political appointee to perform personal tasks for him and his wife. So this seems to be an issue with the Trump administration. As you guys can remember, early on in Trump's term, there were other federal employees who were fired for misusing government funds. And so I want to give you some of the details of how this money was spent. So in the summer, members of Congress began examining a whistleblower complaint, accusing Pompeo of asking diplomatic security agents to run errands like picking up restaurant takeout meals and retrieving the family dog.

Sherman from a groomer, okay? And then there's the issue with how he travels with his wife on the taxpayer dime. Many of these trips are abroad. Many of these trips are to a state where he plans on possibly running for Senate. So in January of 2019, Pompeo's wife, for instance, went with him on an eight-day journey across the Middle East, which raised questions among some officials because most State Department employees, including those supporting the trip, were working without pay during a partial government shutdown. Mrs. Pompeo had also flown with her husband on multiple trips to Switzerland and Italy, which included a visit to the Secretary's ancestral home region.

And then in October, a Democratic senator called for a special counsel to investigate his use of State Department aircraft and funds for frequent visits to Kansas, where he was reported to be considering a Senate run. Now, Jank, before you respond to all of this, I want to give you some of Donald Trump's response to these allegations that, you know, the inspector general was fired because of retaliation due to the investigation he had launched against Mike Pompeo. During a roundtable discussion today, Trump was quoted as saying the following. Here's a man supposed to be negotiating war in peace with major, major countries, with weaponry

like the world has never seen before. And the Democrats and the fake news media, they're interested in a man who's walking their dog. And maybe he's busy. And maybe he's negotiating with Kim Jong-un about nuclear weapons. So he says, please, can you walk my dog? Do you mind walking my dog? I'm talking to Kim Jong-un. I'm talking to President Xi about paying us for some of the damage they've caused to the world

and to us. Please walk my dog. To who a secret service person or somebody, right? I don't know. I think this country has a long way to go. The priorities are really screwed up. Okay. So there's a big wildcard here in terms of why the inspector general might have been investigating

Pompeo. We're going to get to that in a minute. But within the range of charges here, somewhat shockingly, I will agree with Donald Trump. And the media does sometimes underplay. crazy Donald Trump is. They never talk about the 25th Amendment. They think it's illegitimate, et cetera. They talk about his strategies when he's an idiot, et cetera. But sometimes they overplay certain things, like, oh, an unhinged speech about dogs and dishes and stuff. No, I don't think so. I think he was saying, look, Ben, walking dog is not that big deal. Now, did he get it right?

Of course not. It's not even about walking the dog. It's picking him up from the rumor. And it's So, the thing that I find least problematic is the one that seems most elitist and annoying. Go pick up my dog from the groomer. Don't ask career people whose job it is not to do that. If you're at a company and you've got an assistant and that's part of their job, that's life and that's no problem, right? But if you're a government official, don't use Secret Service or whoever else to pick up Sherman, your dog from the grooming place.

So it's wrong, but would I launch an investigation on it? No, I wouldn't care, honestly. I wouldn't care enough to launch an investigation on it. So on the other hand, as you get closer to official actions and things that matter, then wait a minute, wait a minute, like, so the worst of it is going to Kansas, where if he doesn't run for Senate at this time, he certainly might later, but this is what he's thinking about. And when he went on the trip to Kansas, he met with Charles Koch. He also did an appearance with Ivanka Trump.

The Ivanka Trump appearance is obviously to get his name recognition and positive branding for conservatives up in Kansas. That's already greases enough, but it's a Trump connected to the White House. Maybe you make an excuse. But Charles Koch, you're going to meet with a donor who's financed your entire career and will finance your Senate run. Why are United States taxpayers paying for that? That is totally outrageous.

And by the way, illegal. It's a violation of the Hatch Act. So that's your range for not that important to really important. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I mean, I think that the reporter referenced among all of the accusations against Pompeo, the weakest accusation. And when it comes to taxpayer money, you got to keep in mind, like we're being told right now as average citizens that we can't increase the deficit to help Americans who have lost

their jobs during the pandemic. But you can't make that argument. simultaneously pretend as though Pompeo misusing taxpayer money to go on these like trips with his wife is totally fine. It's not fine. And we would want any other government official to be held accountable for misusing that money. But there is one other wrinkle to the story that I want to share with you because it's not all about the use of or the misuse of government funds.

It turns out that Mike Pompeo was also being investigated for fast tracking arms sales to Saudi Arabia. So let me give you those details. Representative Elliott Engel said during a CNN interview, quote, I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linnox firing. His office was investigating at my request, Trump's phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia. We don't have the full picture yet, but it's troubling that Secretary Pompeo wanted Mr.

Linnick pushed out before this would, this work could be completed. And by the way, Pompeo did confirm today that he did, in fact, urge Donald Trump to fire Linnick, but he says that he was unaware that he was facing any type of investigation, which you can go ahead and believe that if you want, but I got a bridge to sell you. Also, Mike Pompeo said at the time when he fast-tracked these weapons sales, so this was last year, these sales will support our allies, enhance Middle East stability, and help these nations to deter and defend themselves from the Islamic Republic of Iran. And, you know, this is a huge issue. So if this is really what the investigation was about, and then if the Inspector General

was fired in retaliation for conducting this investigation, it's a huge problem. Yeah. Pompeo hadn't spoken to the Inspector General yet, but it seems almost perfectly clear that he knew that the Inspector General was looking forward to talking to him about this. It's totally unbelievable that, oh, golly, gee, was he investigating me over a series of really important allegations? And I happened to fire him right before he talked to me and got me on the record? Oh, well, imagine my surprise. Okay, no, that's total nonsense. Okay, so now in terms of this allegation, this is super serious. Now, by the way, the inspector general could look at this and go, no, he didn't do anything wrong. Because one of the questions here, and a really important one is, did they do something that Congress prohibited?

So if the Inspector General finds out that they didn't, then okay, didn't they sold arms to Saudi Arabia. think policy-wise we should have, but that's why we have elections. And Trump was very clear that he would sell arms to people like Saudi Arabia, then it would be a non-issue completely. But if it turns out they were bringing a law and in contravention of something that Congress had dictated, well, then Pompeo would be in a lot of trouble. And this would be the most important allegation that the Inspector General was looking into. Yeah, definitely. And so a reporter asked Trump about it during a roundtable discussion.

today, the reporter asked, and let me give you the exact wording. Congress passed a law to restrict sales to Saudi Arabia over certain arms over their use in the Yemeni crisis. So the question is whether Secretary Pompeo tried to subvert the deal with actions he may have taken. And Trump's response clearly was to defend Mike Pompeo's decision to fast track the Saudi weapon sale. He says, I mean, I think when somebody pays us a fortune for arms, we should get the deal done. I will tell you that. I don't know what you're talking about. I know this, that we have countries that want to buy our arms and we make it so difficult

for them. This is insane. We make it so difficult for them that they end up going to Russia and China. And under my administration, if they're friendly countries, I try to make it as easy as possible. Now, remember, Saudi Arabia, the Saudi crown prince. was the one who ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. So to say that, oh, well, yeah, we just want to sell weapons to countries that are friendly. They killed a U.S. resident.

And we're okay with that? I guess we are. He also said, if they want to buy our fighter jets and if they want to give us billions and billions of dollars and they have other alternatives, including China and Russia and others, I think we should make it as easy as possible for them, and we should take the jobs and take the money because it's billions of dollars. Okay, so there's a couple of different issues here. Number one, should we just sell any arms to anybody who wants it that's quote unquote friendly

to us? No. It totally depends on the circumstances. So for example, Turkey bought weapons from us historically has bought almost all their weapons from us because they've been a strong NATO ally. But recently they bought weapons systems from Russia, which then compromises some of our weapon systems. So that's a giant issue.

You don't solve that by going, a turkey friendly, it's okay, sell them whatever they want. No, it depends on the context, it depends on the situation. And in this case, the more important point is Congress has weighed in and said you are not allowed to do this. So you don't get to just break along, go, whatever, man, they wanted it, I wanted to sell it, So it just did. That's not how this country works. That's not how democracy works.

We have three equal branches of government. Again, Trump doesn't care about any of that. But that's why you have inspector generals. So they can investigate that and find out if you broke the law or not. So I want to bring up, I think a valid point coming from defenders of the Trump administration, specifically people who want to defend Trump's decision to fire inspectors general. They say, look, it's the president and the president can decide who he hires, who he fires. He has, he's within his right to fire these people.

And that's actually true. But what I find incredible is that these are supposed to be independent watchdogs who hold the White House, the executive branch accountable. Isn't it a huge flaw when the White House has the right to fire the very people who are supposed to be independently investigating them? Yeah. Well, so there's a very important exceptions to that. You can fire inspectors general overall whenever you want, since you run the executive branch

if you're the president. But if they're in the middle of finding out something illegally you did, then other laws kick in. And so as this scandal, I mean, everything is a scandal with Trump administration, but this, under a normal administration, this would be a giant, giant scandal, probably the largest of their entire administration, you're doing a purge of all the inspectors general that are holding your administration accountable. That's a massive Watergate-like scandal. And so we will hopefully, if the Democrats can take action here and they have begun to,

and by the way, I'm about to give you guys credit for that, and now you'll see why. But if they do, then we will find out, wait, was there a specific law broken in even firing the inspectors general in the middle of an investigation where they might unearth your illegal activity. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I feel like there's been quite a bit of criminality in the Trump administration. And even in cases where Democrats did try to hold him accountable, you know, including the whole quid pro quo issue with Ukraine, he seems to get away with everything.

So to me, these, go ahead. Yeah, sorry, Anna, he does, but only because the Republican senators back him. As long as they do in our system of government, you just cannot remove a president. You just can't without two-thirds of the Senate agreeing. So then he feels like there is no law, but one piece of real politics that's coming much later than I anticipated, but has finally begun to arrive as you'll see later in today's news, is that Republican senators are now in general elections, they're past their primaries. And for whoever is up for reelection, all of a sudden they're being much harsher, even

including this issue, Chuck Grassley, Susan Collins, et cetera, against Trump, because now they got poll numbers showing if you back Trump and certainly you do it without question, you're going to lose, you're going to lose your Senate run. So all of a sudden they're going, wow, I think we need to do some accountability here. So we might have to do an investigation of the Trump administration. are Republican senators. So that check in balance in an honest government would have come three years ago. But it is now finally arriving with like six months left ago in his term slash the election.

But I want to explain. Yeah, go ahead. I got to respond to that. Like, thank God, because Susan Collins is the type of Republican politician who doesn't just talk the talk. She walks the walk. So if she's publicly criticizing Trump's decision, she's definitely going to do something about it and hold it accountable, right?

It took me a second and a half on your sarcasm. Okay, but even the talk of it is like unfortunately leagues above what it was even a couple of months ago. But last thing here, guys, on this, the reason I want to give you guys credit for this story, the Saudi part of the story even breaking is, and this chain of events is absolutely true and is how politics works. So we created Justice Democrats. You guys funded it.

They won four huge seats, new seats. They got seven, now soon to be eight overall. They gained some degree of power and leverage. So when Justice Democrat, Jamal Bowman started running against Elliott Engel, it created huge pressure for Elliot Engel in the House, who's among Democratic leadership and leads a committee, to then go, oh yeah, I'll show you.

you how tough I am and how progressive I am, Elliot Engle used to support the war mongering against Iran. He gets a progressive primary opponent from just Democrats. All of a sudden, wait, wait me, we're selling weapons in the Saudis so they could fight Iran. I'm against that. I'm a, yeah, I'm a progressive. All of a sudden, I'm not as concerned about, you know, I don't want to do war mongering on Iran. We've got to keep the Saudis in check. Really, really, after an entire career of doing the opposite. So political pressure works. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

And by the way, go support Jamal Bowman because he's the one that's actually causing all this. But hey, Elliot Engel doing the right thing at the end, I'll always take it. So I'll give him credit for that. Thank you for at least following up on this. That's how we found out about the Saudis angle on Pompeo. But overall, it's not that much of an exaggeration at all to say that you guys started that chain of events that led to that accountability.

All right. Well, when we come back from our break, we have some more news about injustice in the Trump administration. Dr. Rick Bright had an interview with 60 minutes to share some of the unbelievable incompetence within the Trump administration responding to coronavirus and Trump has a meltdown in response. We'll give you that meltdown and more when we come back. 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-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, 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 first, philosopher Yoda once put it. You must not learn 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. Jake and Anna with you guys for a submission of our sponsor Aspiration. So I just got the results in for how many trees that the Young Turks audience has planted so far. I love the change that we do throughout the world. I mean, we're trying to drive to as much of our actions leading the positive change in

the world as we can, including our sponsors. So through your signups plus your use of the card, that's for you. card. We've so far planted 28,000 trees. So we basically have a TYT forest now. So let's keep it going. We plant 10 trees for every sign up, plus when you use the roundup feature on Aspiration, they also plant trees based on that. So Aspiration.com slash TYT is where you sign up. Okay. Now let me go to your comments in the member section. Maui, Greg, says, It was great to see you, Anna, and don't worry about the Attorney General slip up. I smoke weed before TYT every day, too.

No, I don't. I never smoke weed before the show, and I never will. Yeah, we kid around about in the postgame, t.com slash join to get the postgame kid around about it. But never before a show. Otherwise, we wouldn't remember a goddamn thing. There's no teleprompters. Anyway, Keldo had said, today I had, today at work, I had two clients tell me they were TYT fans because I wear all my, I wear my hoodie to work. I love that. Look, you're going

to find out you wear your TYRT gear anywhere and you will run into a ton of new friends. A lot of people watch this show. So shopty.com has the hoodies, the shirts, et cetera, and now has my dad's new book out, the originally on Turk. So check that out. Effecto strikes in. I mean, of course Trump would focus on the dog walking. Putin has a a short leash after all, but don't- Oh, my God, that one's good. Okay. And last one is from YouTube Super Chat.

Hanny-Banney says, just simply, Anna, for Attorney General. You know, unlike power-hungry people who serve in Trump's administration, I would not want to do a job I'm not qualified for. But it would be kind of cool if I were qualified for that. Like, I would love the ability to actually, you know, fight for justice in the country. Now, if you were a regulator, boy, would you regulate, Anna. Then it comes to the wrong regulator. No mess around.

All right, everybody, thank you for using YouTube super chat. And, of course, you can join and become a member through YouTube by clicking the join button down below as well if you're watching on YouTube. All right, Anna, what's the next story? All right. Donald Trump is continuing his pattern of unhinged attacks against anyone within the government who happens to disagree with him. And one of those individuals was Dr. Rick Bright, who was with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now, he was one of the government officials who refused to promote the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus. And he shared some of his views during a 60 Minutes interview. As you guys can recall, Bright was out. because of his disagreements with Donald Trump. And he shared some of those experiences during his 60 Minutes interview. In the interview, Bright said he was removed from his post in retaliation for cautioning against the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus.

He also warned, quote, we don't yet have a national strategy to respond fully to this pandemic. Here's more of what he had to say. The best scientists that we have in our government who are working really hard to try to fight this out aren't getting that clear, cohesive leadership, strategic plan message yet. Until they get that, it's going to be chaotic. And it certainly has been chaotic. That's what we've experienced as Americans in this country, where we keep getting conflicting messages from Donald Trump. And if you remember last week, he testified before the Senate. And here's a little snippet of what he revealed to senators during that hearing. Our nation was not as prepared as we should have been, as we could have

been. Some scientists raised early warning signals that were overlooked, and pages from our pandemic playbook were ignored by some in leadership. Without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history. First and foremost, we need to be truthful with the American people. Americans deserve the truth. The truth must be based on science. Mass supply or 95 respiration supply was completely decimated. And he said, we're in deep. The world is. And we need to act. And I've pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS. I got no response. I was told that my urges, urges were causing a commotion. And I was removed from those meetings. I believe part of the removal process from me is initiated because of a push back

that I gave when they asked me to put in place an expanded access protocol that would make chloroquine more freely available to Americans that were not under the closed supervision of a physician and may not even be confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. So, Jank, as you can expect, Donald Trump handled negative commentary about, his handling of coronavirus like a true gentleman, a real adult. He went on Twitter and had a temper tantrum. So he, uh, in response to the 60 Minutes interview, he tweeted 60 minutes in third place anchor, Nora O'Donnell, are doing everything in their power to demean our country, much to the benefit of the radical left Democrats. Tonight they put on yet another fake whistleblower,

a disgruntled employee who supports Dems, fabricates stories, and spews lies. 60 Minutes report was incorrect, which they couldn't care less about. Fake news. I don't know this guy, never met him, but don't like what I see. How can a creep like this show up to work tomorrow and report to Secretary Azar, his boss, after trashing him on TV? He trashed him on TV after he was ousted, by the way, for refusing to promote the use of a drug that has been disastrous in clinical trials. It has caused permanent heart problems in the study participants. And it's been so disastrous that countries like Brazil actually stopped clinical trials for hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment.

So it's just, it's insane. I don't even really know. There has to be more to this hydroxychloroquine story than we know at the moment. Because Trump seems awfully invested in pushing for this drug. has not done well in clinical trials. And there has to be some sort of financial element to it. I don't know yet, but I guarantee you the story is going to continue developing and we're going to find out that there's some sort of disgusting greed angle to it.

So we're going to talk about this more in full in a little bit, but Trump today said he's just taking it out of the blue, is that he's been taking it for a week and a half. And so I don't know if that's sure he's just saying it, but it's another case of him pushing it. And when he has an agenda, facts and science be damned. And if you're trying to do the right thing as Dr. Bright was inside the government, God help you. They're going to come for you because political correctness is more important than factual correctness in authoritarian governments like this. So they say, look, you're correct. As it turns out, hydroxychlorican lead some more deaths, not less deaths, including VA study, where more of our veterans

died because of this drug. And the government, under Trump, goes, we don't care what's factually correct. You will report that it is good, and if you don't, we'll fire you. And then we'll say that you're a loser, and Nora O'Donnell's a loser, and anyone who interviews you is a loser, and then we'll complain to her boss as well to try to get it. her fired. And we'll do all this because what we care most about is not facts, but again, political correctness. Yeah, that's exactly right. And this isn't an isolated incident. As we know, Trump fires anyone who disagrees with him or could possibly be investigating him or members of his

administration in retaliation. This is what Trump does. And, you know, for all of the people out there protesting, you know, the use of masks when you're in public or protesting state home orders in their state. You know, the argument that we hear over and over again is that this is tyranny. This is big government. This is what we need to be concerned about. This is what, you know, we need to fight back against. But the real abuse of power is happening before their very eyes.

Like there is real abuse of power in the federal government. And they don't seem to care about that at all. You are supposed to have a system of checks and balances that prevents someone like Donald Trump doing the things that he's doing right now. And they seem to be willing to give him a pass and they green light this type of behavior because, hey, it's Donald Trump. He's in their political party and they're going to go ahead and support him and defend him to the death, literally in some cases.

Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of abuse of power, a story that's not getting much attention today, but should be because this is another example. of our civil liberties being violated. So Trump has created an expansive national security watch list that actually includes Americans, U.S. citizens who have absolutely no connection to terrorism whatsoever. They have not done anything wrong.

There's absolutely no cause to investigate them. But nonetheless, Trump has taken policy that was supported by previous administrations, including the Obama administration and has expanded it to the point where he is not only abusing his power, but violating our civil liberties. So Newsweek broke this story. It's an excellent investigative report, and here's what they found. The new watch list authorized through a classified attorney general order that launched in 2017 is expected to grow to well over one million names.

It also allows the government to track and monitor Americans without a warrant even when there's no evidence they're breaking the law. The authorities circumvents criminal justice requirements for due process, equal protection under the law, and freedom of association under the constitution. So the Trump administration broke the law, by the way, by not even announcing the watch list or the changes that they've made to previous policy to allow them to expand this watch list. The two laws, the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002 require the federal government to notify the public of new and altered systems of records containing personal information on Americans and to assess its potential impact on civil liberties.

Government officials familiar with the new watch list say it will eventually include tens of thousands of Americans reaching into more than two, reaching more than a hundred cities across the United States. I'm going to give you the origins of this watch list in just a moment, but understand that if you have the misfortune of being included on this list, your bank transactions will be monitored, your travel could be hindered, and it could be a giant mess. So if you're, let's say, trying to travel outside of the country, just to go on a trip for whatever reason, you are going to be pulled aside for extra screenings, extra investigation.

And it is, and you won't even know why. You won't know why, you won't know that you're on this watch list, but the government will be tracking you and they will be basically watching your every move. So it's important to tell the whole story here. And so a huge part of the blame in this story goes to Barack Obama. And let me explain how the evolution of this thing happens so that you understand the full context. are always going to want more power.

Why? Most of the time for legitimate reasons. So they say, look, there's a guy hanging out with these MS-13 gang in LA, and we don't have anything on him, but he looks to be connected. In fact, they're taking things to him as if they're taking orders from him, so can we start to investigate him? But you don't have any real evidence that he's involved in a crime. But the cops have a sense in this example that he's up to no good, so they want to be able to

So if you let them, the cops, the authorities, the FBI, et cetera, would want as much ability to investigate as possible. And some of that would actually lead to legitimate investigations and stop real crime. The problem is, if you do that, it allows for invasion of privacy of everyone. So once you open the door, you do solve some problem, but you create a much larger problem. That's why the United States Constitution is so careful. not to allow for that kind of invasion of privacy that's why you need warrants and they know that it makes law enforcement a little harder

but that's the trade-off that they're doing so under obama the justice department the FBI go to ham and go hey look we're tracking terrorists in this way already we're doing warrantless searches but are there are foreign citizens et cetera but look is an MS-13 in these gangs and the drug cartels just as dangerous as the terrorists maybe more dangerous And Obama, because he always wants to appease, and it's, I think, honestly, in his nature,

and same with Eric Holder, who was his attorney general, they willingly open the door. And then once they open the door and said, yes, you can begin to do warrantless searches of those people that are U.S. citizens that might or might not be connected to foreign criminal organizations, then Trump comes in and just breaks the door and says, okay, now if you're You're talking to anyone in a foreign culture country like El Salvador, then you might be a person of interest, even though we have no evidence against you, boom, we're tracking you, we don't need a war. Then if you know the guy who's talking to his family member in El Salvador, now we're going to track

you. Well, that's it. We just opened it up to almost all U.S. citizens through that expansion. So the door that Obama opened, Trump ran through and right now, Trump who claims, oh, he's so concerned about government overreach and witch hunts and hoaxes and all these things in reality and in secret is doing the worst kind of spying on regular American citizens because of this. Exactly.

And this is why we need to hold all administrations accountable for abusing their power, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, because if you trust a Democratic administration, you should keep in mind that it's not always going to be a Democrat in office, right? So you could have someone like Donald Trump come in right after and expand this policy to something that's far more invasive and, of course, you know, violates your civil liberties and your freedoms. And look, one of the things that Trump did, I'm going to go to the second to last graphic, because this is the exact wording that we should be concerned about.

It's this whole guilt by association issue. In May of 2019, Trump further signed an additional executive order that broadened the definition of a transnational criminal from a foreign person to a group of persons that includes one or more foreigners or one or more foreign persons. And so I say that because let's say that you are an American citizen, but you have family in El Salvador, just by the nature of you having family in El Salvador, the Trump administration will argue, well, El Salvador, MS-13, we had reason to monitor this person, right, or to spy on them. But there's absolutely no, like, evidence or any indication that the person they're spying

on, the U.S. citizen they're spying on, is involved in any type of crime or has anything to do with MS-13. And when you consider who Donald Trump is fundamentally as a person, someone who loves to retaliate against anyone for any tiny slight, you should be concerned, okay? If you're a journalist who just wants to do your job fairly and you might cover Trump in a negative light because he's a negative person who does negative things, he can totally retaliate against you by spying on you without talking to a judge without obtaining any type of warrant. This is terrible. So, but they will not do great investigations of this. And soon this will peter out this story. And I'm going to explain why to say it. But first, I just want

to be clear. We mentioned El Salvador, but it could be any country. And it could be someone, you could be ensnared in a way that you have no idea. There are criminal gangs that run out of Ireland, for example, right? So it could be that one of your relatives or someone that's in a group with you is talking to somebody in Ireland. And they might not even be in a criminal gang. But that's how they got into the list. But since you're in a group with that person, even though you don't even know who that guy is talking to do in Ireland. all of a sudden, they can investigate you without your knowledge at all, without a court order, without a warrant, and boom, they can get all your information.

So, and if Trump wins a second term, good night, Irene. He's going to use this against any and all political opponents. The second expansion that they did, by the way, was not just this web that we just explained, but different categories. They say, well, you know, well, there's cybercrime, and there's stock market manipulation. So now, wait a minute, based on a random stock market trade, you're a person of suspicion or you're connected to a person of suspicion, et cetera. Oh, somebody did a so-called cybercrime, whatever the hell that is.

Some are legitimate. Some are things that the government just doesn't like. And the people that are connected to that, that's it. We're spying on all of them. One final thing about how this could really destroy your life. If let's say you're on this watch list and you apply for a job that requires an extensive background check, it will come up in the background check. And you can't do anything about it.

You will not get that job. You will not know why you're on the watch list. You won't get any answers about it. And it's, you know, it's the administration basically messing with your livelihood. This is, this has far ranging ramifications and it could really destroy people's lives. And just at the root of this is a giant civil liberties violation. Yeah. And so why did I say that you likely won't hear much more about this?

If you did it based on what the voters care about, this would be a giant story. Because the right wing hates the government overreach. That's certainly what they say. They certainly say it in defending Donald Trump, the voters themselves. Democrats don't want warmless wiretapping. We hate that when Bush did it, et cetera. But the Republican Party and Fox News ain't ever going to talk about it, because this is Trump violating your privacy, and the Democratic Party ain't going to talk about it because Barack Obama

started it. Now, he didn't do it expansively as Trump did, but he opened the door. And probably a lot of them okayed that, especially the Democratic leadership. So they're going to, even though it's a huge violation of our privacy and something they could use against Trump, they're like, no, nope, don't talk about it, because they're not. They'll blowback on us, and our careers, of course, are the most important. And honestly, the mainstream media, they're pretty much controlled by Democratic leadership. So if Nancy Pelosi doesn't make a big issue out of it, nobody on cable news is going to make a big issue out of it.

And so, and if you're in cable news and you cry over that, oh, my God, that sounds conspiratorial. Nancy Pelosi doesn't write memos. We know she doesn't write memos to you. But when Democrats don't make it a big issue, then you say it's not big news, right? Right? That's how it works. So that's why stuff like this says both parties agreed to totally screw us gets dropped in the news cycle.

And so you'll hear about it on this show and a couple of others. But mainstream media will bury this story. When we come back from the break, we'll give you an update on a possible vaccine for coronavirus. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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jank and anna with you guys at least I think we're back with you guys yeah okay there we are all right so real quick as we're all using our computers more and more

you got to protect it with nordvpn.com slash t yt My subscription actually ran out this morning and I panicked a little bit. I'm getting it back on as soon as possible. So it's 70% off a three-year deal plus one additional month off if you use the code TYT. So jump on it right now. Make sure you protect yourself. All right, Anna, what's next?

All right. Following multiple reports that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for coronavirus, Donald Trump today has told reporters that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine for the last week and a half. He shares in detail in the next clip. Rise at how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers before you catch it. The frontline workers, many, many are taking it. I happen to be taking it. I happen to be taking it. Hydroxychloroquine. I'm taking it, hydroxychloroquine. Right now, yeah. A couple of weeks ago started taking it. Because I think it's good. I've heard a lot of good stories. And if

it's not good, I'll tell you right, I'm not going to get hurt by it. It's been around for 40 years, for malaria, for lupas, for other things. I take it. Frontline workers take it. A lot of doctors take it. Excuse me. A lot of doctors take it. I take it. No, I hope to not be able to take it soon because, you know, I hope they come up with some answer. No, I think for whatever it's worth, I'd take it. I would have told you that three, four days ago, but we never had a chance because you never asked me the question. The White House, do the White House doctor recommend that you'd take that? Is that why you're taking? Yeah, White House doctor.

It didn't recommend. No, I asked them, what do you think? He said, well, if you'd like it, I'd like it. I'd like to take it. A lot of people are taking it. A lot of frontline workers are taking hydroxychloroquine. And it seems to have an impact. And maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But if it doesn't, you're not going to get sick or die. Yeah, I've taken it for about a week and a half now, and I'm still here. I say, hey, you know the expression I've used, John? What do you have to lose? Okay, what do you have to lose?

I haven't taken it for about a week and a half. At some point, every day. No, no, he's not. Obviously, I'm speculating. I don't believe him. I don't trust him. I think he's completely making it up. He's also saying that he's taking it in addition to zinc.

and he took the initial, you know, Z-PAC in addition to hydroxychloroquine. But look, hydroxychloroquine has not yielded positive results in clinical trials. For instance, in Brazil, they had to halt the clinical trial they were doing on hydroxychloroquine as a possible coronavirus treatment because people were developing serious heart problems and other trial participants died from those heart issues. And our own FDA has warned against using it as a coronavirus treatment because people were, again, developing serious heart conditions. I don't believe for a second that Trump is taking it.

What I don't know and what I don't understand is why he continues promoting this. Like, what is the incentive in promoting this drug that has not been proven as an effective treatment for coronavirus and has only led to negative results like heart problems and death? So, I'm torn on whether he's saying, you know, on the one hand, is he stupid enough to take it? Definitely. Is he stupid enough to ignore a doctor recommendation? Definitely. On the other hand, he had classic Trump-like signs there, where he was like, I've taken it for a couple of weeks.

I've been taking it for a couple of a week and a half, week and a half. Do you have I take it every day? Yeah, yeah, I've taken it every day. Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. No, I've been taking it. I could take it. taking it. Wait, is it could take it or have been taking it? Is it two, three weeks, or is it a week and a half? Like, he's always like a kid caught in a lie that just continues to embellish

and double down and triple down. But, by the way, a lot of you don't believe it will sometimes do comments for our members during the show. So per particular time wrote in, there's no way Trump is actually taking it, either his doctor is humoring him with a sugar pill or he's boasting to look correct and tough or to continue whatever grift he's a part of. So, by the way, t-y-t.com slash join to become a member and have your comments read in the stories as well. Yeah, I totally agree with that comment. I think that, you know, it's giving him the benefit of the doubt if he's like unknowingly

taking a sugar pill or some sort of placebo. I don't, Trump is not the type of person who puts himself in any type of position. of risk, especially when it comes to his health. Like, this is the guy, I mean, he's definitely incompetent. He's not the smartest person. You know, previously he said that he doesn't believe in exercising because he thinks we have a finite amount of energy that we waste while exercising. So if he's scared of exercise, I find it highly unlikely that he would willingly take a drug that our own FDA has warned against using off-label. But look, and when I'm say like, what's the incentive? Like, I suspect, because this is how Trump operates, that

there could possibly be some sort of like corruption issue or financial incentive issue. But there's also the fact that Trump just wants this pandemic to be over so the economy can improve and he can increase his chances of getting reelected. I'm sure that that's a motivating factor as well. But I would be shocked if it's somehow proven that he's been taking hydroxychloroquine. And if it is, I'll come back on the show and admit that I was wrong in my speculation. But just the way he speaks, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the doctor, the doctor. No, go on. No, I hear you.

And he keeps saying, what's the downside? Even Fox host, Neil Cabuto, came out right afterwards and said, the downside is you die. In the studies, it led to more deaths. And it can create heart problems. So Trump, if he's saying it, could be causing himself serious issues. And if he's not taking it and he's lying to his followers to try to get them to take it, that's extra terrible, right? He's not willing to risk it himself, but he wants you to risk it for whatever grift he's running.

Real quick, on Twitter, Melissa Matrice pointed out a different problem. She says, so I have friends who are dying of lupus because they can't get their hydroxychloroquine, but Trump can get it for no reason. Awesome. Good job, America. It's another really good point. There are a lot of downsides to this. It's a drug meant for lupus and malaria.

Let those folks take it. But if you don't have those conditions, it can cause you serious health problems. Yep. Don't miss the postgame. TYT.com slash join where we'll talk about Trump egging on harassment of reporters. And then you don't want to miss face mask Karen. Become a member at tyt.com slash join. Everyone else.

Have an awesome night. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. 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.