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

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

The Michael Flynn case is being thrown out. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur 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

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And for us to press on, hence you get the press-on t-shirt that was just revealed a couple of days ago on the show. If you do the $127, at $1,000, you go up on my donor wall here and you get the hoodie instead. All right. Let's see where we are right now. Every month, we got to get to $200,000. And so far off to a strong start because of the special we did on Tuesday, 90,776. Can I see 92,500 by then this show? That's a weird number.

Ninety-two,500. And later, I will be challenged by some other hosts on TYT about a controversial tweet that I had. So stay around for that as well. Anna, let's get started. All right. We start off with some breaking news, I guess. The Trump administration is doing exactly what it said it would do. In fact, William Barr, with the Justice Department, has decided to drop.

its case against Michael Flynn. The Associated Press is reporting that the Justice Department on Thursday said that it is dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump's first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, abandoning a prosecution that became a rallying cry for the president and his supporters in attacking the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation. Now, just to remind you all, to drop the case against a man who has pleaded guilty, seems like it makes absolutely no sense, because it makes absolutely no sense. The Justice Department has become nothing more than a hub to help Donald Trump's friends get away with their crime. So what did Flynn plead guilty to? Again, the Associated Press reports that

Flynn pleaded guilty in December. Among the first of the president's aides to admit guilt in Mueller's investigation, he acknowledged that he lied about his conversations with Kisliak, in which he encouraged Russia not to retaliate against the United States for sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over election interference. And Donald Trump has commented on this himself, saying, quote, he was an innocent man. I hope that a big price is going to be paid. Now, it's unclear who would pay that big price because the very person who actually pleaded guilty will not be paying any price, it appears. So that's where we're going to We are.

I have more on this story, but Jenks chime in. Yeah. So we're now officially a Banana Republic, and there is no 50-50 of this story. So let me give more facts to give you a sense of how outrageous this is. And now we don't really have rule of law anymore in America. These thugs have taken over, and they're just doing whatever they want and grabbing power. So, Flynn, in open court said, I did it, I'm sorry, I will look to make amends. There is absolutely no dispute that he lied about contacts with the Russian officials.

No one is disputing that, even Flynn's not disputing that. So he's definitely guilty. The only question is, what is his sentence, you know, what do you, you know, he's withdrawing a plea, okay, then let's bring him to trial, and the Justice Department goes, oh, someone who was cooperating with us, but decided not to cooperate anymore, even though he swore in court that he was guilty, we're going to drop the case. Do you think they would do that for you? Do you think they would do that for anybody that wasn't connected to Donald Trump that did not

involve political favors? There is no person in America outside of corrupt Republican officials that could go into court and say, yes, I'm guilty, and I want you to let me go. Anyway, and the Justice Department goes, sure, yeah, you're free to go. Unreal, unreal. So there is no Justice Department anymore. So I mean, they'll hunt you down, no question about it. But if you're a corrupt official in the Republican Party, you can do anything you want.

There's no rule of law at all anymore. So obviously Trump put a world of pressure on him. When he's talking about people paying a heavy price, he doesn't mean the guilty, he doesn't mean the criminals. He means the cops, in this case, the FBI and the Justice Department. He means, I'm going to target you guys, and he has. He's targeted many people inside the government, including inspector generals who are holding him accountable or even just their own departments accountable.

He fires them, he gets rid of them, replaces them with his copos, his criminal gang. And the head of that criminal gang right now is William Barr, their attorney general. So there's no rule of law left at all. What are they hanging their hat on? They said, oh, the FBI said when they were looking into interrogating Flynn, either he's going to tell the truth or we're going to get him to lie. Oh, my God, the cops in interrogating want people to either tell the truth or they're going to figure out that they're lying and then prosecute them for lying.

That is called prosecution 101. Okay, if that's really our new standard, great, empty all the jails. Because every cop went into an interrogation, looking to either get in the truth or if the guy lies, prosecute him for a lie. Every single cop in every single case. And this isn't the only time that Barr has done this. For instance, in February, William Barr overruled a decision by prosecutors in the case of Roger Stone, another former Trump advisor, in favor of a more lenient sentence for the longtime Trump friend. If you can recall earlier, Roger Stone's home was raided and he was taken into custody because of the fact that he was found to be intimidating a witness who was cooperating

with the FBI. And he was also found to be lying under oath. So this is the way it works. This story didn't surprise me at all. And the second part of this that doesn't surprise me at all is that Trump's. will get away with it. William Barr will get away with it and Democrats will do absolutely nothing. Even though they spent a great deal of time on these prosecutions, even though they put all of their political capital on the Russia collusion story, it doesn't matter. Now that Trump has done what he

wants to do, now that William Barr has carried water for Donald Trump, they're just going to sit back and continue not even working from home. And I'm specifically talking about the house. It's just pathetic. Anyway, let's move on. No, no, one more thing that's really important. You know who fired Michael Flynn? Donald Trump. And they asked another day, so why'd you fire him?

He said, well, you know, la, la, la. What do you mean? No, no, you fired him. I know why you fired him because you said it at the time for lying to, among other people, vice president Mike Pence. So, and wait, why'd you fire him if he's so interested? If he was like the most innocent guy you've ever seen and the people who are persecuting him are monsters.

Well, aren't you among those people? Nobody else fired him but you. So which one is it? Is he a terrible liar that needed to be fired? Or are you a buffoon and you don't know what you're doing and, oh, he's a perfectly innocent guy, but you fired him anyway because you're an idiot and totally incompetent. Which one is it? Which one is it, Donald Trump?

By the way, in case you're scoring at home, the correct answer is both. So, everyone in the world knows that Michael Flynn did it. We don't have rule of law in this country anymore. That is why Donald Trump is worse than even a war criminal, horrific president like George W. Bush. Bush invaded Iraq, had nearly a million innocent people killed in that war, committed torture. I don't think that I'm not, I wouldn't defend Bush under any circumstance. Trump does not believe in democracy.

He doesn't believe in our system of government. If he gets another four years, there's going to be nothing left of this government. So he's congratulations. You're now the worst president by an order of magnitude, even above the previously unimaginably horrific George Bush. So I'm not in the camp of the establishment guys who were like, oh, I wish Bush was back. Now, Bush was horrible. Trump is actually worse because he doesn't believe in a constitutional former government, rule of law or democracy.

He certainly doesn't believe in democracy when it comes to our upcoming election. So let me give you the details on that. So Donald Trump has named one of his donors as the new postmaster, meaning that this individual will have some control over the post office, which is independent. government agency that is struggling right now because of coronavirus and because of the fact that less and less people are sending mail through first class. Now, who is this person and how can it impact our upcoming general election? Well, Lewis DeJoy is a North Carolina businessman, and he will take over as postmaster general on June 15th. He will replace Megan Brennan,

whose intention is to retire. Brennan had been subject to months of complaints from Trump that the Postal Service was losing too much money. But there was a personal bias there, which I'll get to in just a second. But let me give you more on DeJoy. He's been a substantial donor to Donald Trump, as I mentioned earlier, and Republican causes since the 2016 election. His wife served as ambassador to Estonia under President George W. Bush and was nominated to serve as Trump's next ambassador to Canada.

I mention his wife because this is how politics works, right? You give massive donations to a president, and then you get named ambassador to whichever country, and that's certainly the case with this man's wife. But keep in mind that Donald Trump has been going after the post office, viciously attacking the post office because the post office has entered a contract with Amazon, and Trump has always been incredibly bitter about Jeff Bezos, who, you know, even though I have no love for Jeff Bezos, he's a legit billionaire, whereas Donald Trump has been nothing but a complete and utter failure in life. And so just to give you a little taste of his commentary about

the post office and its business dealings with Amazon, here's an older video where he talks about it. Postal service is a joke because they're handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies. And every time they bring a package, they lose money on it. The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times because they don't raise them. For some reason, these people have been in there a long time, but for some reason, they're very cozy with some of these companies. If they don't raise the price of the service they give, which is a tremendous service, and they do a great job, and the postal workers are fantastic, but this thing's losing billions of dollars it has for years, because they don't want to insult

for whatever reason, you can imagine. They don't want to insult Amazon and these other groups. If they don't raise the price, I'm not signing anything. So they'll raise the price so that they become maybe even profitable, but so they lose much less money. Okay? And if they don't do it, I'm not signing anything. And I'm not authorizing you to do anything, Steve.

So I want to emphasize that the post office is literally the only government agents that is treated as if it needs to be a business that turns a profit. And for Trump, this isn't about the post office making a profit. For Trump, this is his bitterness toward Jeff Bezos. And I would argue even more importantly, his concern about what this next general election is going to look like. There are going to be a lot of Americans who are going to be uncomfortable going to the polls to vote.

They're going to rely on mail-in voting, and it should concern everyone. that now the postmaster is a Trump donor and loyalist. Yeah. So the reason why the post office has financial troubles in the first place is because Congress very, very specifically passed the law requiring the post office to have enough money in the bank for pensions for decades on out, decades on out. No one else has that burden, only the post office does. It makes no sense at all, but the Republicans have been targeting the post office for destruction

for a long time. Look, Donald Trump is a cancer, but he's just stage four. We saw stage one, two, and three right in front of our eyes. He's the ultimate dream of what the Republican Party wants, a stupid, corrupt person that just wants to destroy everything that the government does and replace it with corrupt crony capitalism. So the Republicans have been doing this, not just Donald Trump. Anyway, so now you have a post office that is in financial trouble, not because it actually doesn't run a good business.

It does. I don't know why it's running a business inside government, but it is, and it does a spectacular job. Not only is it financially healthy outside of these stupid laws that they are burdened with on purpose by the Republicans, but on top of that, it costs almost nothing to mail. Has anybody used FedEx or UPS recently? They do a good service, and they charge you a lot of money, a ton of money, okay? So post office does it for, what is it now?

Half a buck? Wow, you could deliver mail anywhere in the country. So one of the reasons the Republicans hated is because it shows that the government can work efficiently. And that drives them nuts, they're like, why is it everybody incompetent like us? And the real reason, of course, is destroy them so that our donors, FedEx, UPS, whoever else, is giving them money can make even more money. Can you imagine how much money FedEx would make? If instead of paying 51 cents for a stamp, you had to pay them $25 every time you want to mail

something, it makes so much more money. And the Republican politicians and Donald Trump would get rewarded with campaign contributions because this country has legalized private. Exactly. And just to really drive home the point about the mail-in voting, and this is going to be an issue. I mean, this is something that I think the Democratic Party needs to be way more aggressive about because who knows what's going to happen now with this guy in charge. And AOC brought it up via Twitter saying GOP is naming a political operative with no United States Postal Service experience as the Postmaster General right before an election where millions of people will try to vote by mail to save their own lives. They're eroding our democracy. I mean, they've been

eroding our democracy and crushing our public institutions before our very eyes. And if you can recall earlier, Donald Trump had some thoughts about mail-in voting, even though he himself had done mail-in voting in Florida. Take a look. Highly critical of mail-in voting, mailing ballots for voting. I think mail in Florida's election last month. Sure, I could vote by mail for that. How do you recognize that?

Because I'm allowed to. Well, that's called out of state. You know why I voted? Because I happen to be in the White House and I won't be able to go to Florida and vote. And you get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody's living room signing ballots all over the place. No, I think that mail-in voting is a terrible thing.

I think if you vote, you should go. And even the concept of early voting is not the greatest because a lot of things happen. But it's okay. But you should go and you should vote. I think you should go and you should vote. You look at what they do where they grab thousands of mail-in ballots and they dump it. I'll tell you what, and I don't have to tell you, you can look at the statistics.

There's a lot of dishonesty going along with mail-in voting. Yeah, he also admitted that if you do mail-in voting, no Republican will ever win again. There are no cases of thousands of fraudulent votes from mail-in votes, totally. imagined, made up 100% lie has never, ever happened when press to see, okay, name one case where there was thousands of things, or hundreds of fraudulent mail-in ballots, dozens, any, anything, anything, give me anything, nope, nope, nope, because there are no such cases because they're liars. But the rest of the press has to play patty cakes. Well, I can't tell. And by the way, not only I can't tell, they go along with the mythology. Every article I read today about

the post office talks about how it's failing. And Democrats, a lot of times accidentally feed into that talking point. They're like, well, the post office is in a lot of trouble. They need help, et cetera. No, guys, no, it's the laws that the Republicans passed that put that extra burden on them. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with mail and voting. How do we know Donald Trump did it? So then why did you do?

Why you're the president of the United States, fly down to Florida and vote, right? No, giant hypocrite. So this guy, he's a donor, look, this is not correct. corruption has taken over the Republican Party 100%. At the national level, you vote for a Republican, you have voted for a crook. But it's not like the Democratic Party isn't corrupt, are you kidding me? So whenever Democratic president comes in, all the donors get ambassador positions in a Democratic administration.

Oh, you give me a million bucks, okay, you get Estonia, you get Latvia, you get, oh, you give me $10 million, you get Germany. It's a frickin auction. This is how stupid our system is. And we all sit here like sheep and take it. And when somebody like us doesn't take it and we go, that's obvious bribery and corruption, the rest of the media yells at us. Oh, my God.

Look, they're so excited. They seem to care about what happens in America. Real news people don't care. And real news people don't tell you the truth. They don't say when somebody gives you a million bucks to a politician, it's a bribe. They don't say, hey, a real news person doesn't say, hey, this guy gave a ton of money to Donald Trump. And that's why he's now going to run the post office. God knows for what political interest or personal financial interest.

Nope, nope, no, no, no, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, I can't say it. I'm a news person. I'm not allowed to tell you the news. Yes, it's definitely corruption. Anyone who doesn't tell you that isn't doing news. They're doing political correctness. When we come back from the break, we will talk about a failed coup attempt in Venezuela and how it's likely that the Trump administration was behind it.

We'll be 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 narrative. that were taught in school. For, as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training

or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on Young Turks. I wanted to thank one of our sponsors, Aspiration.com slash TYT is the way to sign up for them. They're a great progressive financial institution.

If you keep your money there, you get the best rates. Plus, they try to save the environment. Your money will not. If you deposit it there, will not go into anything that goes into fossil fuel projects. And when you sign up, they actually, we together plant 10 trees for you guys. And you can plant more trees with more purchases. Please read up on that. Aspiration.com slash TYT.

Make sure your money is where your heart is. Ooh, I just came up with that one. All right. Anyways, let me read some of your comments here. Voting for the other Biden, the Hayden Biden, writes in from the member section, Michael Cohen must be feeling pretty sore. The reason I read you that is, it's true. If you cooperated with law enforcement, you've got to feel like an idiot now.

No, it turns out you should, you know, ignore that. If you're a right winger and you're a part of the criminal enterprise of Donald Trump, you shouldn't cooperate with law enforcement. You'll get away with it. There's no rule of law anymore. And the only people that are in jail are the ones that cooperated with law enforcement and were suckers and did the right thing like Michael Cohn. I'm keeping it real.

That's exactly right. Okay. So, Flomann Ramble Nucci says, gaining control of the House in 2018 sure has done something for the Democrats. Yeah, that's true. So I'm sure Nancy Pelosi's happy. I don't know what else is happening. Charles Massey on YouTube Super Chat says he's so jealous of Bezos being a real billionaire that we have to pay for it, remove him now. And of course, the Democrats won't do that.

And along those lines, let me read you the last one. Tim Joyce on Twitter says, how should refuse to vote for a budget for the Justice Department until a bar resigns, hashtag power the purse? Yes, that would be a great and effective way of control, putting some check on the executive branch. Will the Democratic leadership do that? Not under penalty of law. No way, no way. They'll give Trump pretty much everything he wants. Later in the show, Nancy Pelosi finally looks out for the average lobbyist. We'll tell you. you about that. Those are facts, but you won't see it in the mainstream media because they're

corrupt and hide the corruption of Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership. All right, we, on the other hand, do real news. So if you want to help that, that would be amazing.T.com slash go. Let me show you where we are in the audience fundraising. 91,563. We're trying to get the 92,500 by the end of the show. We got about a half an hour left. Love you guys. Just get us through 2020. For God's sake, Just get us through 2020. And then we got it from there. All right. Anna, let's keep going.

All right. Well, two U.S. mercenaries have been captured by Venezuela and authorities after their stage coup went awry. The mercenary group, known as Silver Corp, was founded by a former Green Beret in the military. His name is Jordan Goodrow. And Goodrow apparently met one of Trump's security guards at a conference that he was a security guard at. And through a conversation with this individual, later there was a meeting set up with Juan Guaido

and his political strategist in Miami specifically. Now after that happened, plans were made and a contract was signed in order to get Silver Corps to essentially carry out a coup attempt. And at some point, that coup attempt really did go awry because Jordan Goodrow, based on what Juan Guaido's political strategist is saying seemed to act a little erratically. They got into some sort of verbal spat or argument. And there was some miscommunication, according, again, and take this with a grain of salt, what we're hearing from Juan Guido's team.

Now, Juan Guaido is the individual that the United States would like to place as the leader of Venezuela in their efforts to oust the currently. of Venezuela. So let me give you more details on what we know. And the reporting here, really you have to look at the sources that are reporting it, see if it's a source that's usually in line with supporting U.S.-led military coups. But we do have a video that was released by Venezuelan authorities featuring one of the mercenaries and his name is Luke Denman.

Now, Luke Denman, along with other American mercenaries and Venezuelan nationals, plan to storm Venezuela and abduct Maduro, but were soon captured as they entered La Guaria from Colombia by boat. Now, Denman and fellow former U.S. servicemen, Aaron Berry, were among those captured. They were in like a fishing vessel when they were captured, which is really fascinating, while eight were reportedly killed. Now, Denman explained that the plan was to capture Maduro, secure an airport, and then fly the Venezuelan president back to the United States. A general services agreement between the mercenaries and Juan Guaido indicated that Silver Corps would advise ex-Venezuelan soldiers to in exile for the operation.

Goodrow had 45 days to force preparation, I'm sorry, for force preparation, equipment procurement, and mission readiness. Now, with all that said, with all that constant, I do want to go to the video that was released by Venezuelan authorities. Now keep in mind that these types of videos are basically shot with coercion because this person has been captured. But this is what he says. And I think it's important because there are some ties to the Trump administration.

Take a look. Jordan. President Donald Trump. Who gave you the weapons? the weapons and the tactical uniforms? Jordan through Silver Corps? What jobs does cybercorp? Private security contracting and consulting, known in some places as mercenary work.

And I do also want to note that Goodrow did provide evidence to the Washington Post in regard to the contract that was. signed by Juan Guaido. And in a secretly recorded audio clip that was shared with the Washington Post, Juan Guaido is quoted as saying, you can hear him saying, we are doing the right thing for our country. I'm about to sign. Okay. So one other piece of evidence that I want to share with you guys, or at least one piece of perspective I want to share with you guys before you jump in, Jank, is an expert on what's happening in Venezuela. He's a professor in the United States. Democracy now interviewed him and asked, like, is there any possibility that the Trump

administration didn't know about this, didn't know about this attempted coup? And here's what he had to say. I actually presented the contract to Patricia Poleo, an opposition broadcaster in Florida. And she posted it and reported it on her website and invited Guaido and J.J. Rendon, the person in charge of Maduro's publicity and a campaign. individuals to come forward and deny it. None have come forward to deny it. So this plot could long-term implicate not only the U.S. government, also the opposition of Venezuela, Guaido, and others. It also allows them plausible deniability. I mean, what they want from this is to say, if it's succeeded, we would take credit for it. They would be part of this transition

government. And if it failed, well, we were not a part of it. We have plausible deniability, the same way that Trump has plausible deniability, or at least tries to claim plausible denyability, but I insist, it's the context in which Pompeo, Elliot Abrams, and the Trump White House have created that during the pandemic seeking regime change, imposing further sanctions, tightening those sanctions, and authorizing movement of U.S. military to the Caribbean and others that sets the context in the landscape for which this event happens. And I think that perspective is really important, Jank, because we already know that the Trump administration has attempted a coup in Venezuela. That failed. And during this pandemic, while

everyone is incredibly distracted for good reason on staying safe and focusing on coronavirus-related news, the Trump administration has implemented more sanctions against Venezuela. And they have taken a more antagonistic approach toward Maduro. Let's go over what we know for sure and what we are not positive about and then get into what likely happened. So was this an attempted coup? Yeah, the guy who let it said it's an attempted coup. I'm not talking about the guy who got captured who you saw in the video.

Look, those videos, you should discount 98%, 102%, it doesn't matter, right? So whenever somebody gets captured, they pretty much, in order to protect themselves, have to say whatever their captors want, okay? I'm not talking about Denman. I'm talking about the guy who sent them. The guy who sent them, as the coup was happening, did a video saying, we're doing a coup of Venezuela. There's no question about that.

Are they mercenaries? There's no question about that. Did the Venezuelan opposition talk to them about doing a coup together? There's no question about that. In fact, Rendon, one of the opposition figures, when he saw this going arrive, went to the press and said, here's the contract that we had with them, but we didn't sign it. Here's an unsigned copy. Now, the guy leading the coup, the mercenary, head mercenary, says, I have a signed copy

of it, and I have the tape of the opposition leader Guido saying, we're doing this, okay? Now, okay, let's say you don't believe him. say at the last second, the Venezuela opposition was, thought, you know, we were planning on murdering our political opponent or kidnapping him, and we were going to pay apparently over $200 million for it. But, you know, we thought maybe this guy's not the right murderer for the job. Because, by the way, according to the press, and they're saying this to the press, They interviewed many different mercenaries. Other mercenaries asked for $500 million.

That's why originally the opposition went with these guys because at the low, low price of about $212 million. Okay? And they were going to, how are they going to pay them? Oh, with the money of the Venezuelan people. They say, once we take over, we'll have the money of the taxpayers of Venezuela and we'll give it to you mercenaries since we hired. I mean, we've gone so far backwards.

in the world. So now the Trump administration, did they say to these clowns, go ahead and do this? I don't know about that because they appear to be clowns to everyone. But certainly the opposition, by the end, it appears, had pulled out whether they signed a contract or not and was like, ah, total bozo the clown, don't do this, because in the beginning, The guy promised that there would be 800 troops that he would bring in as part of his private army, right? Well, it turns out there was like two dozen guys at most.

So on the other hand, did the US government know they were training in Colombia? How could they not know? They work with the Colombian government. We have aerial footage of Colombia, which is an ally of ours, let alone Venezuela. So it would be shocking if they didn't know that they were going to do that. this coup? So what is the likely answer? They're like, let them try.

If it turns out it works, we'll say, oh, it was us, it was geniuses. And if it doesn't work, well, Anna, what would Pompeo say then? Well, we have video of that. And, you know, of course, as the professor in the last clip you watched said, the Trump administration wanted to treat the situation in a way where they could have plausible deniability and say that they know nothing about it. this was done. The mercenaries did this without the U.S.'s knowledge. And then on top of it, keep in mind that the Trump administration attempted a coup against Venezuela recently, like last

year. And of course, they failed. And then Pompeo has the audacity to go up in front of the general public and make statements like what you're about to see. able to tell us, or does the U.S. know who may have initiated or bankrolled this operation in Venezuela from over the weekend? There was no U.S. government. direct involvement in this operation, if we'd have been involved, it would have gone differently. As for who bankrolled it,

we're not prepared to share any more information about what we know took place. Come on. Look, I know that we don't know for sure, right? So, of course, please take note, this is my speculation. They knew, they knew, they knew. You can tell when he's lying.

And like the arrogant nature of his statement, Like, it wouldn't have gone differently. Really? It didn't go so well last year. Did it Pompeo? I mean, they're such clowns. It's amazing to me. And I have two other pieces of evidence I want to share with you guys.

But go ahead, Shank. So when I saw him say that, I was like, oh, no, this is exactly how it would have gone if you guys did it. You now have ironically convinced me that you were a bigger part of it than I originally suspected. I mean, this just looks like the exact kind of clown show that Trump would put on. So give more evidence, and then I want to say one last thing. All right. So two other graphics. So I want to start off with some evidence that Goodrow shared with the Washington Post.

And it was a text message from Rendon, who is the PR strategist, political strategist for Juan Guaido. Washington is fully aware of your direct participation in the project. And I don't want them to lose faith, Gujarra warned, in an October 10th message to Rendon. Okay, so he sent that to Rendon. So I guess take that piece of evidence with a grain of salt. But here's something important.

According to a biography on the company's website, this is for Silvercore, Goudreau planned and led international security teams for the President of the United States as well as the Secretary of Defense. Now again, it's coming from Goudreau, and I will grant you that he seems a little kooky to say the least.

But I just have this gut feeling based on the Trump administration's previous behavior and previous actions against Venezuela, that in the very least, minimum, they knew about this. And they didn't try to stop it. They didn't try to get involved. They just wanted to see it happen. And I guarantee you that if this coup was accomplished, the Trump administration, including Mike Pompeo, would hold multiple press conferences patting themselves on the back.

The way that the Trump administration handled this, you know, for more. most people who aren't really paying close attention to the details of the story worked out perfectly for the Trump administration because there is plausible deniability. They can say, oh, we had nothing to do with it because they failed, right? But I guarantee you that if these mercenaries succeeded, the Trump administration would be bragging about it and would take all the credit. So Goudrode's security for some events. He met with Trump's former personal bodyguard, who now also is a security company. Some reports are that that guy thought Godro eventually, eventually he thought Goodrow was a clown

and backed away. Goodro did provide security for a so-called charity event in Colombia to raise money for Venezuela that Richard Branson put on. He was close enough to those guys to have the air of authority. And so, but like most clowns and like the guy he emulates, Donald Trump, Goodro, of course, didn't go on the mission. eight people got killed on the mission. Goodro took a big game, wanted the money, but he sent other people to go die.

And they did. And two were captured. And now, you know, Pompeo is talking about, well, look, these are Americans and we're going to get them back. Really? I mean, if somebody tried to do a coup against the United States of America, I guarantee we ain't giving them back. That's not how it works.

When you go to murder someone or kidnap them, including their wife, that was part of the plan, Okay. When you go to kill or kidnap somebody's family, they don't let you out. That's not how it works. And real quick, I just got to get this out because we need to go to break soon. Why are we trying to stage a coup in Venezuela? Like, what is their excuse now? Especially as the Trump administration has proven over and over again that it doesn't care about, you know, democratic values or making sure that a president is elected democratically. I mean, look what's happening in our own country right now, where Donald Trump puts his donor as the postmaster general in a year where it's very likely that we need to vote by mail because

we're dealing with a pandemic. Okay, so does that mean that Venezuela should start staging coups here because our democratic process is being tampered with? This is crazy. So this is like the Bay of Pigs, except that was the biggest scandal of Kennedy's career. And for Donald Trump, it's Thursday. No big deal. Like, oh, Bay of Pigs, that's like number 987 on the list of failures of Donald Trump. And finally, wise Cadro not arrested.

Are we just letting people do completely illegal coups of other countries from the base in the United States with no consequences? What if Goudreau, by the way, they looked up the law, and one of the things they tried to figure out was, can we use a law meant for pirates to justify this illegal coup? And by the way, they concluded they couldn't. So it's totally illegal. If Goudreau wanted to do a coup against Trudeau in Canada, would he still be? be free? And apparently they ask us, yes. Apparently, you could run private armies out of America.

You could be mercenaries or pirates or anything you want. And as long as you say nice things about Donald Trump, there is no rule of law. Yeah, Donald Trump's Justice Department just dropped its case against Mike Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying, to working as a Russian agent. That's what we're dealing with. So, yeah, I'm not surprised at all. We do have to take a break. Let's do that. And when we come back, we have more for you guys. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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Spicy Tuna writes in, Babe Chuds. That's funny. Jay Hofford writes in. This is definitely where Trump is better than Hillary would have been. Hillary Clinton administration would have been nearly a wouldn't have been nearly as incompetent at doing coups. I hadn't thought of it that way. It's a really interesting point. If you wanted to do a coup, she could have pulled it off. Matthew Petronovich, thank you for your comment on YouTube super chat. We'll take your questions about Anna's fierce eyebrows in the

post game. Lots of stuff after the show today. So we'll do that in the post game. Plus, we found Trump's batting average from high school. You're going to love it. So t.yt.com slash join. But today, before the post game, Adrian Lawrence and Mayfah Alhassen are going to come on to yell at me. I did a tweet about punishing red states, and we're going to have a really interesting conversation about whether that was right or wrong. But last one here is from Twitter. Rita Ann says, dumb question, but what's the U.S. obsession with Venezuela? How much oil do they have? Rita Ann, not dumb question, perfect question. Their top five oil producer. Guess who else is? Iran. Huh, the two countries that we threaten. You know what? Another one?

was Iraq. These are all amazing coincidences. All right, Anna. Okay. Well, following the story of the armed protesters who showed up to the Michigan State Capitol in order to intimidate lawmakers who were trying to decide whether it made sense to extend their stay-at-home order, the governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is considering possibly changing the law. So any armed individual would not be allowed in the state capital. Doesn't mean that they'd lose their gun rights. Doesn't mean that they would ban certain types of guns. All it means is that lawmakers would be able to do their jobs without being threatened with firearms and people yelling at them. So this is what she told NBC News. There are legislators who are wearing bulletproof vests to go to work. No one

should be intimidated by someone who's bringing in an assault rifle into their workplace. And so there is conversation about changing that law. I think it's long overdue. I absolutely support that change, you shouldn't be intimidated going to be the voice of the people who elected you. Now, I just want to quickly note that it is unlikely that Gretchen Whitmer is going to accomplish that because the state does have an open carry law, and the open carry law does not specifically exempt government buildings, including the state capitol. People can go in there with firearms. In order to change that, you would need the report. Republican-controlled state legislature to do something about it. And it's unfortunately unlikely

that they would. Now, connected to this story is something that's incredible. One of the state lawmakers, a black woman who was very much intimidated by what was going on, had a security detail with her when she went to work recently. And the men were armed. They were African-American. And I completely understand why she feels the need. Well, she says that she didn't ask for this private security detail that they offered. And she felt that, hey, you know, if they want to protect me and make me feel more comfortable going to work, awesome. And her name is, by the way, Sarah Anthony, Representative Sarah Anthony. And the men explain their reasoning behind doing this in the next clip.

Let's take a quick look at that. You start off by talking me about why you're here and what your group represents. Well, it's not a group. It's just citizens of the city of Lansing and it felt that we needed to do something. We're here because we watched our state representatives that we elected and elevated to the level to come to make laws for us. Feeling intimidated by the crowds of the route here, the white supremacy that was out here. So we figured we wanted to do something about that to make them feel safe, but also to change the narrative that we can carry legally here as we're out here. well as anybody else can. So we wanted to come out here and set that precedence. Look, I'm just really happy that no one got hurt. And I'm happy that they were able to

protect this lawmaker without any type of like retaliation because we know how people react to armed black men in this country. And so that was kind of terrifying to read about. But I'm lucky. I'm happy that no one got hurt. Yeah, I'm thrilled with this and I'm horrified by it. So the The thrilled part is, they do this two more times, and you'll have the strictest gun control Michigan's ever had. The minute black folks get in the building with weapons next to Republican legislators is the minute that Republican legislators forget about their Second Amendment rights. Did we say, do you have unlimited right to carry weapons?

I see a black person with a weapon. Okay, so that's, by the way, literally what happened in the state of California and the governor who then flipped on his position was Ronald Reagan and did in fact pass the strictest gun controls because Black Panthers went in armed to a capital building just like this, and they had every right to. And then so they changed the laws and said, okay, gun control. So I love that they did that and they have just as right as much right as any American to do it. Now, the horrified point, is, what are we doing America? So luckily, and he said the gentleman they referred to white supremacists, they were. Some of them carry Confederate flags and Nazi flags. So what happens with the Confederates, fully armed, show up, and the African American citizens fully armed show up on the same day? And then they start screaming at each other, and then what happens? because they've all got giant weaponry on them. This is insanity.

We're never going to do anything about it because our politicians take bribes from the NRA. NRA loves that. They're like, yes, God, please shoot each other because every time there's a giant shooting, people then buy more guns. It's shoot out at the OK Corral except the entire country's the OK corral.

All right. Well, we have one more story for you that I'll try to get through quickly. So there's a lot of talk about what the next stimulus bill will include. And unfortunately, according to reporting by Lee Fong over at The Intercept, Nancy Pelosi is entertaining the idea of bailing out lobbyists. So lobbyists have stepped up a campaign to make sure professional influence peddlers are eligible for PPP or P3 funds. The push also includes a demand for an additional $25 billion for canceled events.

and other lost revenue from the coronavirus pandemic. Now, this money that they're looking to qualify for is money that's specifically allocated for small businesses, small businesses that need this money in order to survive. Senior Democratic lawmakers, though, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, plan to accommodate the demand and change the eligibility standards so that small business bailout money can flow to business advocacy groups. So, by the way, some of these lobbyists have absolutely no trouble making due during this time of self-quarantine and social distancing.

The American Society of Association Executives, which represents trade group leadership, explained in a letter to lawmakers that the trade group lobbyists need federal funding to better advocate for their clients. And to give you a sense of how much some of them make, the letter was signed by many of the most influential Beltway lobby groups. The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association, one of the trade groups requesting this bailout, pays its top lobbyist, Chet Thompson, $1.8 million a year. This is madness, madness.

And I tweeted out the list of Democratic lawmakers who are pushing for this. If you live in a district that they represent, please reach out to them and tell them that this is unacceptable. Jank, go ahead. Yeah, this is corruption defined. Understand how this works. So now the politicians are going to give money to the lobbyists. That's our money, taxpayer money to the lobbyists.

Then the lobbyists will give them campaign contributions in return. How is that anything but bribery, total, utter bribery. And they steal our money to give to the lobbyists to bribe themselves. And then they turn around and give subsidies to the multinational corporations that those lobbyists represent. to just finish the trifecta of corruption. National press, where are you? The Intercept, wonderful job. Support the Intercept.

They do real independent, fierce journalism. The rest of the journalists are joke. Total utter joke. Democratic leadership. Joke, the definition of corruption. Yeah, Lee Fong is incredible. Anything he publishes, I read it. And, of course, no surprise.

I'm getting attacked on Twitter for shedding light on this story. I don't care. Jenks' conversation with Mayth al-Hasson and Adrian Lawrence is next. Make sure you check that out. And I'll see you for the postgame in about 30 minutes. 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, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.