The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - November 21st, 2019

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

David Holmes testifies about Trump's call with Sondland. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jane Gugger, Anna Kasparin with you guys. Walls are closing in on Donald Trump. Trump, Rudy Giuliani. Glenbeck is ready to jump in on a gyroscope and figure all this out for us. So fun for everybody. The story I am most enraged about is Steve Schmidt on MSNBC. Oh, I can't wait for that story. Can't wait.

Can't wait. A little bit of research. No, I'm like, who is this Steve Schmidt guy, right? Like who is he and why is he qualified to give any analysis on politics? And then I just read about his failure of a career. Yeah. Which further proved my point. Anyway, we'll get to that later.

Yeah, that's why of course cable news has him on to say, definitely not Bernie Sanders. Definitely not. I mean, if anyone knows how to lose, it's me. So that's why you should listen to me. Anyway, look, there's so much more on that. We're gonna get to that a little bit later in the show. So obviously plenty on the campaigns and plenty on Trump. So let's move forward.

What do you got, Anna? All right. First, I want to just make a quick announcement. Tonight I will be doing an event with a regular guest on this show. Ramesh Sir Nivasan, he has published a book called Beyond the Valley. And it's about Silicon Valley and how, you know, the very engineers who write the code behind the technology that we use every day is biased, it's problematic. It's problematic, but there are solutions to it.

So we're gonna discuss that today during his book event at Skylight Books in Los Felice. It's tonight at 7.30 p.m. Please check us out. It's at Skylight Books. Anna took that headshot just for that appearance. It's such a good head. Can we just look at that graphic one more time? It makes it look like you're the author, right?

I know, right? Ramesh actually wrote the book. Anyway. Come on, that is the best picture anyone has ever taken of me. Oh my god, I thought for a second then you're gonna pull to Trump and say that anyone has ever taken. No, no, like this is, this is a thing, and I'm glad that I recognize this. I have peaked, like this is it, this is the peak, right? Doesn't get better than things.

Okay, well, let me just recognize this. My peak was about 13 years ago. Okay, so I'm way past it, way past it. All right, what's this? All right, let's do it. The public impeachment investigation continues with more Trump administration officials speaking out about what they've experienced. what they've experienced under his leadership and the clear demands that Trump had when it came to digging up dirt on his political rivals.

Now today, David Holmes testified, he's a diplomat in the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, and he testified in this open impeachment hearing to shed light on the smear campaign that Marie Yovanovitch underwent as a result of shady Ukrainian forces who she was actually investigating. So let's take a look at some portions of his opening statement. Beginning in March 2019, the situation at the embassy and in Ukraine changed dramatically. Specifically, the three priorities of security, economy, and justice, and our support for Ukrainian democratic resistance to Russian aggression became overshadowed by a political agenda promoted by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

and a cadre of officials operating with a direct channel to the White House. That change began with the emergence of press reports critical of Ambassador Yovanovitch and machinations by then Prosecutor General Lutsenko and others to discredit her. In mid-March 2019, an embassy colleague learned from a Ukrainian contact that Mr. Lutsenko had complained that Ambassador Yovanovich had, quote, destroyed him with her refusal to support him until he followed through with his reform commitments and ceased using his position for personal gain. In retaliation, Mr. Lutsenko made a series of unsupported allegations against Ambassador

Yovanovitch, mostly suggesting that Ambassador Yovanovitch improperly used the embassy to advance the political interests of the Democratic Party. So understand that Lutsenko was part of the corruption in Ukraine that Marie Yovanovitch was, you know, trying to get under control. And so she wasn't willing to give him what he wanted unless he proved that he followed through on the reforms that he clearly was not happy about. So rather than follow through with the reforms to root out corruption, he decided, no, I'm going to go ahead and pursue a smear campaign against Marie Yovanovitch.

So that's where it really started. And Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal attorney, helped to carry out that smear campaign. So there's a twist here that is hard to discern right now because it seems like there's There's two differences of people trying to get Yovanovitch out. So there's the Trump angle where he's like, well, if she's not backing my play on doing an investigation on the Bidens that has nothing to do with foreign American national security interests, I want her out. But Trump had to get convinced to that position, so that's really interesting.

So there's another set of folks, and this is partly why Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have been arrested, who wanted Yovanovitch out. But not because of the Biden investigation at all, they have a different motive. Yeah, they do have a different motive. So remember, Marie Yovanovitch was one of the US diplomats who was working to root out corruption in Ukraine. Now there are shady, Russian-backed, dishonest actors in Ukraine who were the target of people like Marie Yovanovitch, right?

So these individuals want Marie Yovanovitch out, and they worked with Rudy Giuliani and his other business associates, Fruman and Parnas, to, you know, put out this smear campaign and get her out, because when she's out, then they don't have to deal with the corruption investigations that were making them uncomfortable, that we're calling them out. You get the picture. Now, look, guys, so there's a couple of connective tissues here, the main one being Russia. So Parnas and Fruman are arrested, and the reason they're arrested is not because they're They were part of the Biden plot, but because they funneled foreign money into our elections.

They got it to our politicians, et cetera. And their mission was to get Yovanovich, our U.S. ambassador to Ukraine fired. Now the prosecutors have not clarified which foreign government wanted that done. But the foreign government most likely to have wanted that done is the Russians, because the Russians didn't like that Yovanovitch was actually defending Ukraine and U.S. national interests in Ukraine. So now we're gonna see if it really is the Russians, presumably in their trial. And Parnas is cooperating and saying, yes, Trump wanted us to do X, Y, and Z.

But he's not yet saying, yeah, I'm guilty, and I got money from a foreign government. He's not saying that, okay? So there's a lot we have to figure out there. But the connective tissue is, if they go to Trump and they say, hey, look, the Russians want her out, and you want her out because she's not helping you do your political hatchage job on Biden, that's where Trump might be like, how many more wins can I get out of this? I help the Russians and I go after Biden once I get rid of her. So Trump makes the ultimate decision to get rid of her, but there's two different plots here.

So in this next video, David Holmes talks about what the allegations were against Marie Ivanovitch and he debunks them. So take a look. Mr. Lutsenko also claimed that he had never received $4.4 million. in U.S. funds intended for his office, and that there was a tape of a Ukrainian official saying that he was trying to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election. Finally, Mr. Lutsenko publicly claimed

that Ambassador Yovanovich had given him a do-not-prosecute list, containing the names of her supposed allies, an allegation the State Department called an outright fabrication, and that Mr. Lutsenko later attracted. Mr. Lutsenko said that as a result of these allegations, Ambassador Yovanovitch would face serious problems in the United States. Public opinion in polls indicated that Ukrainians generally did not believe Mr. Luzenko's allegations. And on March 22nd, President Poroshenko issued a statement in support of Ambassador Yovanovitch.

So again, it was a clear smear campaign by the very people that Marie Yovanovitch had been investigating and very same people she was holding accountable for actual corruption. And so every time you hear Donald Trump argue that his demands for these investigations are not about his own political agenda. It's really about doing something about corruption in Ukraine. That is not the case. He did the exact opposite. The U.S. policy in Ukraine was actually working to root out corruption.

Donald Trump's actions reverse that. Yeah, so again, Yovanovitch is a bulwark against corruption. That's why forces within Ukraine potentially connected to Russia want her out because she actually wants to investigate the corruption. Trump hears this and goes, well, I don't really want to investigate the corruption. I want to do the corruption. I want to make sure that I can corrupt them into investigating Biden. So he's like, oh, you're investigating corruption in Ukraine, you're out, fired, fired

right away, okay? And so look, every part of their defense is absurd and almost everything they say is the exact opposite. I covered in a video yesterday, I'm sure you guys covered it on the show yesterday, but Gordon Sondland comes out and just crucifies them, says it was definitely quid pro quo, basically bribery, and Trump comes out and goes, vindicated, okay, all right, I mean, I don't know what to do with that, okay, you live on a different planet. On this planet, you wanted corruption in Ukraine, you weren't fighting corruption in Ukraine.

Now finally, I want to get to Giuliani's role in all of this. Giuliani was talked about quite a bit in today's testimony, especially in David Holmes' opening statement. So in this next clip, he details how Rudy Giuliani helped with the effort to smear Marie Yovanovitch. Take a look. On April 20th, I was president. I was present for Ambassador Yovanovitch, his third and final meeting with then candidate Zelensky, ahead of his landslide victory in the runoff election the next day. As in her two prior meetings that I also attended, they had an entirely.

cordial, pleasant conversation and signaled their mutual desire to work together. However, the negative narratives about Ambassador Yovanovitch had gained currency in certain segments of the United States press. On April 26th, Ambassador Yovanovitch departed for Washington, D.C., where she learned that she would be recalled early. The barrage of allegations directed at Ambassador a career ambassador is unlike anything I have seen in my professional career. So that's one other thing that keeps coming up, not just in this particular testimony, but testimony given by other officials. They keep arguing, hey, you know what, we are career diplomats, we have been working in this space for quite some time. And what we experienced under the Trump administration is incredibly unusual, it's unprecedented.

This is not normal activity, it's not normal behavior. Yeah, that about describes Donald Trump's entire first term in office. Oh, 2-2 on it being first as opposed to second. Yeah. Okay, but yeah, so look, you guys got it, Yovanovitch fired for doing the right thing. Everyone in the State Department that knows her backs her up, almost no one is against her, with the notable exception of Giuliani and his goons. And of course, Donald Trump, who hates the idea of fighting corrupt.

Right, and I have to show you one final clip from his opening testimony, because in it, there was an interesting, I guess, anecdote about what Gordon Sondland had said about Rudy Giuliani and his involvement in all of this. Over the following months, it became apparent that Mr. Giuliani was having a direct influence on the foreign policy agenda that the three amigos were executing on the ground in Ukraine. In fact, at one point during a preliminary meeting of the inaugural delegation, someone wondered aloud, why Mr. Giuliani was so active in the media with respect to Ukraine. My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland stated, quote, damn it, Rudy, every time Rudy gets involved,

he goes and Fs everything up. And that's true even today, Rudy Giuliani, in the middle of this impeachment investigation has decided to go on Fox News, I'm sorry, not on Fox News, on The Blaze, to talk to Glenn Beck about how he's still trying to help Trump take up dirt on the Bidens. Unbelievable. The three amegos, by the way, are Volcker, Sumlin, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. But even within the circus that is the Trump administration, there are layers of corruption, right? And so Sondland is actually really corrupt. He got in by giving Trump a million dollars and was okay with generally doing this extraordinary thing where they try to pressure a foreign government to help Donald Trump. Later, when he's caught, he's like, I don't want to go to jail, I'm really rich.

So, okay, fine, we actually were doing a quid pro quo. But even for all the people involved in that scam, the very outer edge was Rudy Giuliani. And even the other crooks were like, oh, man, I don't want to deal with Giuliani at all. That guy's a total mess. So what you're seeing on TV is not strategy. He's actually a mess. Absolutely. As John Bolton described him, he's a hand grenade.

Not the right person to do your drug deal with. Apparently not. And that's what Bolton referred to all of this as a drug deal that he did not want to get involved in. All right, well, there's a second part of the testimony that David Holmes gave that I want to share with you, so let's get to that. While David Holmes testified in the public hearing in the impeachment investigation, he talked about overhearing an unusual phone conversation between Donald Trump and Gordon Sondland, the

EU ambassador one day after Donald Trump had his phone call with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. And so he said during his testimony, quote, this was a very distinctive experience. I've never seen anything like this in my foreign service career. Someone at a lunch in a restaurant making a call on a cell phone to the president of the United States being able to hear his voice, very distinctive personality. Okay. So we all know that Trump has a very distinctive personality.

But what was that phone call about? We've talked about it on the show before. In the July 26th call, Trump asked Gordon Sondland if the Ukrainian president planned to, quote, do the investigation. So this is an important aspect of the investigation to bring up because one of the things that Donald Trump is likely going to lean on is that this was all happening without his knowledge, that he wasn't involved, that if Rudy Giuliani was pushing for these investigations, he He was doing it on his own.

Trump did not ask for it, right? Now that is a weak defense, but even so, we have more evidence in the form of this testimony that proves that Donald Trump was connected to all of this directly. Yes. So I love Trump's excuse, which we're gonna get to in a second. But there's several different problems here. Number one, the reason why he says it's unprecedented is it's an unsecured phone line. The Russians could hack into it, let alone everyone.

else who's hearing it in the cafe. Okay, this is really important confidential information that the president, one of the ambassadors talking about, especially on a corrupt deal that they're trying to make with Ukraine. And they're so careless, they're like, did they do the investigation yet? No, Jake, I mean, look, this is bad, obviously. But I mean, we knew that he really had no sense of, hey, these conversations are sensitive. stuff could be classified. I mean, he still goes to Mar-a-Lago all the time where a bunch of, you know, foreign leaders

have bought the membership and they're like hanging out. And Donald Trump's hanging out there as well. Like you don't think he's having conversations about classified material, like in the middle of like the dining room or whatever. Look, I assume and hope that the Secret Service is good at their job and they've debugged the place. But that Mar-a-Lago has got to be a nest of sense. spies.

Right. I mean, the Russians, the Chinese, et cetera, they'd be nuts not to put spies into Mar-a-Lago, as Donald Trump is spewing his secret information. Remember, these are the guys who chanted lock her up about Hillary Clinton, because she has a private, she had a private server in her house that maybe, maybe people could tap into. Meanwhile, Trump's like, hey, man, did you do the crocodile? Blah, ah, ah, in front of everybody.

Totally. So in response to what Holmes said during his testimony today, Trump tweeted, I think, I I thought he wasn't paying attention to the impeachment investigation. I thought he found it boring. But he tweeted the following, I've been watching people making phone calls my entire life. Good for you. My hearing is and has been great. Of course it has.

Never have I been watching a person making a call which was not on speakerphone and been able to hear or understand a conversation. I've even tried, but to no avail. Try it live. President of the United States. So my favorite part of that is like, no, no, I even tried. I was trying to listen in on our conversation because that's the kind of guy I am. And I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it. Am I hearing?

Fantastic. Everybody's talking about my hearing. I have the best hearing. The best hearing, the strongest hearing. Okay, so, but, okay, now we apparently have to address this absurdity. Yeah, in the old days when you had phones that you put up to your ears, it was very hard to hear. Now everybody has the earbuds and the other earbud is usually hanging out there. And so it is really easy to hear people's conversations.

I've heard it all the time, I have tried it live. Yeah, but like even without the earbuds, you can hear it. It all really depends on the volume of the phone, right? So if you have the volume up, you can hear it. And I know, because I have tried to listen in and I've heard things. Yeah, look, the thing is, he is human on that. We've all tried to hear a conversation from time to time that somebody was having next to us. But I like that he's president just like, no, no, I try to listen in on other people's calls.

But to no avail. Can't do it to no avail, no avail. But perfect hearing, my eardrums are the best. Okay, so look, now let's not lose track of why this part of the testimony is so important. Because that is Donald Trump himself. The last, last line of defense was, yes, everyone got the memo that Donald Trump wanted the Biden's investigated and it was for his own personal political career. And yes, he held up the money.

Everybody knows it. As Sondland explained, everybody was in on the plot. But, hey, you know, you don't have some Donald Trump telling a person to do it, to do the investigation. No one has heard them, except Holmes did hear it. Yes. So he says, yeah, I heard him say, I heard the president say, did they do the investigation yet? And of the Bidens, obviously, right? So there goes that defense.

And so that's why Trump's like, you can't hear, he doesn't say I didn't do it. He says, you couldn't hear it, you couldn't hear it. That's why he always like, since he's a lifelong criminal, whenever he defends himself, he doesn't say I didn't do it oftentimes. He says, so a lot of times he does though, to be fair, okay? But a lot of times what he says is, you don't have the evidence, it was a perfect call. You don't have the evidence, okay? You couldn't hear me doing that crooked deal.

You don't have the evidence. It's exactly what criminals say to the cops. Oh, yeah? Where's your evidence? I have a question. So it sounds like they weren't careful at all with their communications. Yeah. And it sounds like they were just communicating on a regular cell phone.

So couldn't we subpoena the phone records? Doesn't that exist? I had to get this. Look, Anna, I know what Trump would call an internet lawyer. Okay, so you don't know the answer's the question. We can go ahead and move on now. Yes, that's correct. I don't know.

All right. Well, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to go to Fiona Hill, who also testified today. And she's lovely, actually. And she said some things that were really important in terms of U.S. foreign policy and how Trump has undermined it. 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 kind of... Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that... does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.

Constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it,

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Okay, what's next? All right. Fiona Hill, the former senior director for Europe and Asia in the NSC, testified today in the impeachment investigation. And during her opening statement, she specifically talked about the importance of following through on U.S. foreign policy, especially when it comes to Ukraine and protecting Ukraine. the United States from Russian aggression. So here is what she had to say about Russia and its involvement in U.S. elections. Based on questions and statements I've heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country,

and that perhaps somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.

The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. So what really stood out about her opening statement was the fact that she called out these Trump loyalists in the Republican Party who are trying to twist the narrative of Russia's involvement in our elections. But more importantly, Russia's involvement in further polarizing American voters, right?

And so she's gonna get into even more detail on that in just a minute, but Jane, go ahead. Yeah, guys, as I'm watching these hearings, you know, I don't know how many Americans are watching, how many are independents, and how much it affects them. But for any rational person watching them, the Republicans are doing enormous damage to themselves. They think that they're defending Trump and that they're defending their own party, but they look patently absurd. But okay, so one part is all their answers and questions are totally nonsensical. Like, you almost can't believe that they're in the same room as the other people.

It almost sounds like they have come from a different room where a different conversation is happening. But that's point one. Point two, though, is where the damage really begins. So they attack Lieutenant Colonel Windman. Their whole thing, shtick for Republicans for all these decades was, jump military, we're the military guys. Those guys are weak. We're American sports troops, right?

And here they are, they're like the minute they gave it an opportunity for their own political purposes, they're trying to shred this guy who has a stellar record. Right, 100%. So then I'm thinking, I kept thinking, if I'm a military guy watching this, even if I'm a Republican, I don't like the way this is going, right? Like I'm starting to think like, wait a minute, am I positive who the good guys are? Because I know that that dude went into battle and a bomb went off under him. And so he had light injuries, et cetera, but that dude is real, okay?

I serve with guys like that. And then on the other side, you got these guys saying like, oh, why'd you dress like that? I think like any, I do, I believe in rationality at the end of the day. And I know it's been a tough couple of years for that point of view. But I think that even right wing military guys, of course, there's a bunch of left wing military guys too and independents, et cetera. But even right wing military guys are like, oh, I don't know, right? I know, Jake, sorry to interrupt you, but John McCain, right, Jim Mattis.

Like, how many military people has Trump thrown under the bus? I think the answer is too many. I think that it's starting to pile up and we're getting to a tipping point. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, and so, and now on this, she just said, you guys are Russian tools. Don't get, you know, wade through the fun British accent and get to the conclusion. She's like, what the idea that Russia did not interfere in the elections and that Ukraine did is literally Russian propaganda. I'm from the security apparatus in this for our country.

And all of us in the intelligence community agree that the Russians are planting that idea that is now coming out of the mouse of the Republican congressmen. So she's like, look, you, you and you, you were doing Russian propaganda as we speak. Yeah. And look, this, I know that our intelligence folks haven't always gotten it right, and sometimes they say something's propaganda, and it's not, and they do their own propaganda. I get all of that, right? But in this case, it's not unclear. It's really astoundingly clear, almost everyone across the political spectrum in Greece, except

now the Republicans are saying, no, the Russians aren't so bad, I kind of like their propaganda. I think their theory makes sense. Yeah. And there's no basis for the Ukrainians attacking us and interfering. in our elections. That's just cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Look, I used to think that the only motivating factor for Republicans in defending Trump was the Trump's base.

We're afraid of Trump's base, we need to defend him and protect him no matter what, because if we don't, the base is going to retaliate against us, we'll get voted out of office. But we're also learning now that some of the Republicans who are in that room, including Devin Nunes, worked with people like Levin. Parnas in investigating the Russia investigation, right? And so I'm starting to think that some of these people have a conflict of interest and they shouldn't be part of these hearings to begin with. In fact, they might be investigated in the near future themselves.

So how much could Republicans be on the side of the Russians and against our own military and against our own intelligence before at some point the camel's back breaks and even their own base goes, man, this is really weird. This doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, imagine if Bernie Sanders was so enthusiastically defending the Russians and making up insane conspiracy theories about how they were right and our allies were wrong. I mean, Republicans would lose their minds, let alone Democrats. He has, I mean, he hasn't even done that.

And they've already, like, made him out to be like some crazy Soviet-era communist who's gonna come and get everyone. Yeah, so they're now attacking all. All of the talking points they've been doing themselves for decades. We're the pro-military guys, we're the anti-Russia, strong American interest guys. And they're pulverizing their own marketing, basically, that they built up over all these decades, right in front of our own eyes. So let's go to the next part of her testimony.

This is where she sheds even more light on the political motivations of the Russian government. U.S. support for Ukraine, which continues to first armed Russian aggression, has been politicized. The Russian government's goal is to weaken our country, to diminish America's global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance. I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable.

I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow, even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia's security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advanced Russian interests. So I like the way that she laid that out because she's making it,

clear that there's no interest in having a long-term conflict with Russia. But with what Russia is doing now, there needs to be a concerted effort by the U.S. government to mitigate the damage they're trying to, you know, due to the United States and to our elections. But, you know, obviously Donald Trump has completely minimized the impact of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, but more importantly, he's believed nonsense conspiracy theories about how it's really Ukraine that's meddled in our elections. And there's no evidence of that whatsoever. Look, man, right now she's saying this is not just about the past.

The Russians are trying to do it again, interfere in our elections right now. And so I know there's some on the, certainly on the right, and I suppose some on the left who were like, no, the Russians would never interfere in our elections. I'm not sure there is anybody on the left who thinks that. I think that there are people on the left who are worried that it's going to lead to hostilities. That's legitimate concern, and we don't want any hostilities, okay? But it's real. The intelligence community is not making it up.

We have told you on this show many times when they are making it up. We're the first ones to challenge them, right? And go, hey, that doesn't make sense, it doesn't jive with the facts that we know in public. This does, this does, they are. And so what the Republicans are doing is now not just Trump anymore, it's all those folks in Congress. She's saying you are aiding and abetting the Russians interfering in our elections by putting up these crazy conspiracy theories that it's actually the Ukrainians and that we shouldn't

be concerned about the Russians. So, and maybe that is what the Republicans are doing. Now this sounds crazy, but they're gonna get clobbered in the elections if the polling is Anywhere near correct, I know people get, oh, so skeptical about polling, no, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but it's real, they're deeply unpopular, Trump is deeply unpopular, the Republican senators that are up for reelection and the congressmen are deeply unpopular. They weren't always, but they are today. So maybe, I've gotten to a point where I think, maybe they think, I don't know, the only

way we could win is if the Russians come and help us. This is the insanity that's happening in this country right now. That is a top intelligence official saying, hey, over here, guys, it's happening right now. And these puppets are repeating Russian talking points. And then Fox News goes, yeah, yeah, Russia's awesome, I don't know what they're talking about. It's probably our allies' fault. It's our allies. Attack our allies, but make sure you don't touch Russia.

So that's what the Republican Party has turned into. It's pathetic. All right, well, let's talk about what might be motivating some of these right-wingers, I think it actually is now more than their career or their political future. So let's go to the next story. Giuliani's business associate Lev Parnas has been speaking out more and more about what he knows about Donald Trump, his involvement with Ukraine, his demands for investigations into Ukraine, and now how Devin Nunes worked with him in order to do an investigation.

into Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russian involvement in the Trump administration. This story is out of control, it's insane. Remember, Lev Parnas, along with Igor Fruman, two of Giuliani's business associates, are now facing serious federal charges for breaking campaign finance laws, funneling foreign money to Trump's campaign. And here's what we know based on what Parnas is now saying through his lawyer. He's saying that Nunez worked with him in order to go to Europe and do an investigation into Robert Mueller's probe into Russia. And congressional records show Nunez traveled to Europe from November 30th to December 3rd, 2018.

Three of his aides, Derek Harvey, Scott Glabe, and George Pappas traveled with him. U.S. government funds paid for the group's four-day trip, which cost just over $63,000. Why is it, first of all, I know that's a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but why are U.S. taxpayers paying for this nonsense investigation into the investigation, which was obviously politically motivated? So when congressional investigators began probing Russian interference in 2016 campaigns, Nunes made a late-night visit to the White House and announced the next day he'd found evidence of egregious wrongdoing by intelligence community officials.

So one of the things he claimed was that Obama had been spying in on the Trump campaign. Remember all of that? And then they provided no evidence of it. The move appeared to be an effort to corroborate a presidential tweet claiming that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Nunes then stepped back from the committee's work scrutinizing Russian efforts. Instead, he ran a parallel probe looking at the origins of Mueller's Russia probe. So this is a conflict of interest.

isn't it? Yeah, he's involved in the story. So he worked with Lev Parnas, who's now arrested. So he's right in the middle of the story, and he's the one that is leading this investigation for the Republicans. So he's questioning witnesses that are directly involved in a case he's involved in. I mean, Republicans, I think, have forgotten what the word ethics even means, or did it It even exists.

They're like, ethics, what name so? No, I don't care about that conflict of interest at all, I'm just gonna plow forward. And so what I was trying to determine from the story is what's Nune's his story? Is he just like a guy who wanted to prove to daddy how loyal he was? Oh, like, oh, Donald Trump, oh, I love you, I love you, okay, and he goes and he leaks some the information about investigations, it goes to the White House of what Anna read you. And then he goes on this like fun little European trip with Giuliani's go. And trying to help- Yeah, who were trying to find this counter-narrative for Trump that the Russians were innocent and it was actually other people who framed Donald Trump, etc. Okay, that or is he like Dana Rohrabacher. Now, Dana Rohrabacher was, they never, you know, proved it on a court of law, but both Republicans and Democrats in Washington suspected that he was the friendliest congressman to Russia. Now, he lost his election, right?

But there are such congressmen from time to time. So I was trying to figure out, is Nune's in on it. Okay, so let me just mention a few things that could connect everything. Remember, Lev Parnas, Giuliani's business associate, helped to spread a smear campaign to get rid of Marie Yovanovitch. And that was a U.S. diplomat who was working to deal with corruption, actual corruption, in Ukraine. She was trying to root out that corruption and hold people accountable if they were found guilty

of corruption, right? Lev Parnas worked with the shady people in Ukraine to spread this, you know, smear campaign about Yovanovitch to get her out. So left Parnas is also working with Devin Nunes to launch this investigation into the investigation, the Russia investigation. So since Parnas has already been charged with working for foreign government and following money to Republican politicians here in America to influence them on behalf of a foreign country.

The question is, did Nunes know that and he was part of the plot, or is he just a schmuck? And I have an ironic acquittal of Nunes for the moment being with the facts that we have. I really think he is a schmuck. Okay, so look, I like to provide at least a little bit of evidence. And I will admit this evidence doesn't go far enough in proving my case. I don't think he's a schmuck. I think that his insane loyalist behavior makes no sense. He has been willing to defend Trump in ways that go above and beyond any other Republican.

Remember, other Republicans have avoided defending Donald Trump on substance. Whereas Devin Nunes is going as far as he possibly can. And yesterday, after Gordon Sondland delivered probably the most damaging testimony during the impeachment hearings, there was a notable change in Devin Nunes' demeanor. And I want to show that to you. Take a look. Oh, interesting. You understood, did you not, that President Trump either himself or through his agents required

that President Zelensky make a public announcement of the two investigations that President Trump cared about in order to get both the White House meetings. and to release the security assistance. Is that correct? I believe that is correct. I now recognize Mr. Nunes. Oh. Okay.

Why don't we take a five or ten minute break? Thank you. Okay. Why don't we take a five or ten minute break? Okay, that's fun and he does appear to have the look of a man who's been caught. Okay, okay, now the counter evidence, he sued his own cow on Twitter. So- My God, but Jake, I don't know if that's, like, if that's counter evidence. He thinks that some satirical account on Twitter is like engaging in unlawful behavior while

he sits there and defends the clear criminality of the Trump administration. Yeah, that to me is evidence that this is not some sort of criminal mastermind. He really is one of the dumbest people you've ever met. So he's like, this, now I'm gonna give him the Trump voice. This cow of mine, he says Devin Nunes is this cow, it's not true. I don't have a cow and if I did have a cow, it wouldn't be on Twitter. Right, he sued that person. I mean, he is really preposterously stupid.

So I think that he got easily roped into this thing. There it is. Well, okay. And you say it didn't exist. Okay. So I think he got roped into this. He was like, oh yeah, I bet there is a counterplot. Oh, yeah.

You know, oh, the Russians didn't do that. Was it Norway? Okay. And so if anyone were to get roped into it, it'd be that schmuck. That's my theory, but we'll hopefully get more evidence and find out if he's part of the conspiracy or if he's just the dumbest guy in the world that is unwittingly participating in it. Well, in the meantime, he should recuse himself. There is a huge conflict of interest here.

And then one final point to the story that's actually not related to Nunez, but I know that you're gonna appreciate it because it proves your theory a little bit. So why is Lev Parnas speaking? Is it simply because he got caught funneling foreign money to Trump's campaign? No, there's a different reason. According to his lawyer, President Trump's recent and regrettable disavowal of Mr. Parnas has caused him to rethink his involvement and the true reasons for his having been recruited to participate in the president's activities. Mr. Parnas is prepared to testify completely and accurately about his involvement in the

president and Rudy Giuliani's quid pro quo demands of Ukraine. Droms. Okay, what did I tell you? He throws too many people under a bus. So he's like, oh, this is the Parnas, I don't know about him. He looks like a sad peach, I heard that on the Young Turks. One of their viewers said it, and was in fact a member, they do the show together, they say. Okay, so Parnas sees that in general.

He's like, oh, you throw him me under the bus, all right, dude, you're good. And then it's on. Yep. He's like, I'll tell him what I know, and then you're screwed. So Trump, not, now Trump is what we're just talking about, Nunes, he's both. Right. He is part of the conspiracy, he is the conspiracy to commit all these different crimes, but he's also so stupid he can't cover it up at all.

Yeah, you know what, I think I mostly agree with you. I think he was a little more aware than you're giving him credit for, but I do agree that he's incredibly stupid. Nunes. Yeah, yeah. So we're on the same page with that. Okay, see, are we not merciful? All right, well, if you think Devin Nunes is stupid, wait till you get a load of Rudy Giuliani

speaking to Glenn Beck and further incriminating himself like a moron. We have that story and more when we return. 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,

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Shout out the Daedalus and Liam for TYT help desk for helping me fix the issue I had with not being able to post. Don't make your name too long when you're a member. So love you all and keep up the great work. Thank you, Leroy, we appreciate it. And yes, if you're a member, we do try to get to you as quickly as we possibly can. Thank you for noticing that. So t yt.com slash join if you want to become a member.

A very unstable idiot writes in, not buying it. Why are those guys getting membership at Mar-a-Lago? They should get TYT membership instead. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Good point. Now I'm buying it. David writes in, the Republicans don't care about anything but their own power in their oppressive policies that includes military service members.

100% of course, David. Go to Twitter real quick, notorious ETC says, Jenk, win, When will we see Killer Mike or Nina Turner on the power panel? Well, first of all, Killer Mike was on the power panel. So if you remember, go back and check that show out because it was great. T.wit.com slash showing. Nina Turner was, gave a great and very fiery and fantastic speech yesterday with us in Atlanta. So you should check that out.

And then, so now let me go to Seth. If Devin Nunes gets mad cow disease, do we call him Devin Munes? We can call him that now. Why do we have to wait? Seth is here all week. Don't forget the tip to waiters and waitresses. Last one from YouTube super chat. Silas Graystone says, I'm sick of people saying this impeachment is low ratings.

Impeachment is not some action drama, reality show or situation comedy. It's a serious constitutional initiative. It should be taken as so. Thank you, Silas. That's right. Totally agree. All right, fun announcement. So Thanksgiving is next week and we will be away on Thursday and Friday just to celebrate

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And if you're not a member, you can help support the show and become one by going to t-y-t.com slash join. So I just want to be clear, you guys are actually going to get shows on Thursday and Friday. everybody is. It's not going to be live, but it's cool shows we already taped, and I think you're going to love them. We're trying to give you extra coverage. But then on top of that is the extra, what are we thankful Thanksgiving special for

just members. So t.t.com slash join. All right, what's next? All right. Rudy Giuliani has proven himself to be the dumbest lawyer of all time, and he continues to prove that with his media appearances. So recently he was speaking to Glenn Beck on the Blaze, which is apparently still a thing. And during the interview, he further incriminated himself in this whole impeachment investigation.

Take a look. There are several prosecutors sitting in Kiev right now that want to come to the U.S. to testify to that. And they are not being given visas by our State Department. Pompeo is the head of the State Department. President Trump is the president. All I can tell you is that. that for three or four years, that embassy has deliberately interfered with the ability to develop this story by not giving visas to Shokin and now four or five other parliamentarians who are ready, willing, and able to testify to this and go on television, testify before committees. They are direct evidence about the bribery, the collusion.

The case is a massive pay-for-play multi-million dollar scheme. We will go to Ukraine to get them today. Okay. And when you see that guy Ambassador Taylor on television, he's the guy that could give them the visas. So Giuliani also told Beck, like, yeah, we're still trying to do this investigation to the Bidens. I'm still trying to dig up this dirt, which is, what are you doing? Like, how does he think this is a good idea? Yeah, he said at the very end, quote, I will give you their names.

I was in contact with two of them today. Amazing. You mean, look, I don't think you get it, Rudy. They're saying that you guys did a quote for a quote with Ukraine in order to investigate Biden. That's bribery, right? Hey, for Donald Trump's personal political career, you guys held up military assistance to Ukraine that the American Congress had approved. And so your way of disproving that is, no, no, no, I'm still trying to do that conspiracy.

Like, I'm still trying to get dirt on Biden from Ukraine. Why would you admit that? I know. And let me give you further context, because the timing of this interview is also important. So a mediate mentions just hours before Giuliani's latest wild claims went on air, U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, offered sworn testimony to the house. House impeachment inquiry that Giuliani personally directed a quid pro quo campaign demanding Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced a corruption investigation to former Vice President

Joe Biden in exchange for a one-on-one meeting with President Donald Trump. So that had just happened, that had just happened. And he's like, I'm gonna make it worse for myself, I'm gonna go talk to Glenn Beck and further prove what these, you know, Trump administration officials are testimony. about me. Yeah, Rudy, you're not in the government. You're not supposed to talk to any foreign government on behalf of the United States of America. If you're talking to them on behalf of Donald Trump, as you have now repeatedly admitted

all over television, that means you are doing it for the personal benefit of the president, as opposed to the benefit of the country, which perfectly proves the Democrats' case, that Trump was not holding up the aid for American interests, he was holding up to Ukraine for his own personal interest. That's the bribe, you idiot. So he goes on the blaze again and on air. He's like, yeah, that's well, yeah, I'm working with the Ukrainians right now. Doing it for Trump, right?

Not for America, for Trump. Meanwhile, Beck is, I guess he's holding it together. His rationality is hanging on by a thread, but I'll get to that in a second. But enough so that even he was like, wait, why would the, Trump administration block the visas of people that you think would help Trump. Right, so Giuliani is claiming that the State Department, which Pompeo is the head of, is blocking people from coming to the country to give testimony to defend people like Pompeo, by the way, because Pompeo's implicated in a lot of this as well.

And then look, you know the situation is bad when people on Fox are in a pan. about Giuliani speaking to the press. Take a look. The administration's got to get it together. They're all on different pages, and Rudy Giuliani says yesterday, I'm going back to the Ukraine to continue the investigation. Okay. Can someone bring them in? Or, I mean, are we still letting Rudy Giuliani run through the Ukraine? Rudy, call us.

What is going on with that? So good. They look like us. So good. My friends almost look like TYT. They're like, Rudy, what are you doing? What are you doing? So, by the way, Glenn Beck has an even crazier theory about all this and how the whistleblower is, quote, the accountant.

You're going to love that theory, but we're going to do it in the post game. Okay, that's the last half hour for the members. TYT.com's last join to become a member and get that. But as insane as Glenn Beck is, Rudy's like, oh yeah, Glenn, hold my beer. Okay, he's like, watch this. And so it even, even Beck's like, man, your conspiracy theory is finger looking good. Oh, God. All right, we got to take a break.

All right. So let's take a break. When we come back, I'm going to show you how MSNBC loves talking Schmidt about Bernie Sanders. Oh, that was good. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon