The Young Turks - TYT Extended Clip - November 25th, 2019

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

The Secretary of the Navy was forced to resign over SEAL fight. 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

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. If you like the Young Turks podcast, I think you'll love a lot of the podcasts on the TYT Network. Old school, it's one of my favorites, one of the favorites for a lot of the listeners. Please check that out, subscribe, share it, that makes a big difference, and give it a five-star rating. Thank you.

Welcome to the Young Turks, Jay Huguer and consparing with you guys. Big show. Look, there's a number of stories that are devastating for Trump in today's rundown, but also for Biden, also for Bloomberg, lots of devastation for everybody, handing it out on the daily. So, but the Trump ones are really bad. So Parnas apparently has videotapes, audio tapes, we're gonna get that a little bit later. Trump, Giuliani on the tapes, apparently. Okay, so I don't, we don't know how damning it is, but we'll get into the details.

But to me, probably the most damning story out of a lot for today for Donald Trump is Mulvaney on the record explaining we've got to come up with a legal justification. So the details on that are super important because if that stuff's written down, oh man, that's really bad, really, really bad among a lot of stories that are really, really bad. Tick, tick, tick, okay. So, Jank, you have an exciting guest coming up on the show today. I do. Let's talk about that. Bill de Blasio will be making an appearance on the, actually during the time where we usually have our post game.

So we have canceled our post game today. So Jank can do a full 30 minute long interview with Bill de Blasio. That's at 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, 5.30 p.m. Pacific. All right, stay tuned for more on the timing. But the bottom line is, so hold on that. But the Blasio is definitely in, and he's definitely going to be at 8.30. And we got a lot of great guests. He's the third guest.

But the reason we're mentioning him other than the fact that he's the mayor of New York is we're going to have a conversation about Bloomberg. So you don't want to miss that, that's going to be really interesting. So that's a little bit later in this program, okay. All right, let's get to the news. There's complete chaos and division within the military. surrounding the alleged war crimes committed by a Navy seal by the name of Eddie Gallagher, and Trump's involvement in it has made things much worse.

So the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, has decided to force the resignation of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer over his handling of the case. This story has a lot of moving parts, a lot of different elements. First, let's go back to see what Eddie Gallagher allegedly did, what he was actually found guilty of and why this is a big story today. So from September of 2018 to July of 2019, he had been accused of committing war crimes during that time period. And he actually faced serious charges as a result, including attempted murder, premeditated

murder, aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon, two times on noncombatants, discharging firearms to endanger noncombatants, a picture with a casualty, operation of drone over grown over human casualty, wrongful use of possession of controlled substance, it was an opioid, and there were other offenses that he was accused of as well that I didn't include in that list. But a charge of obstruction of justice was also brought against Gallagher for alleged witness intimidation according to the claim, Gallagher allegedly threatened to kill fellow seals if they reported his actions.

And by the way, many of them did. The reason why all these allegations came up in the first place is because his fellow Navy Seals had reported him because of what they perceived to be as war crimes. Now Gallagher was acquitted in a murder and attempted murder case in July, but he was convicted of posing in a photo with a dead body of a 17-year-old ISIS member. Trump ordered to rescind the medals of prosecutors who worked on Gallagher's case. So Trump got involved almost immediately, and Pete Heggzith over at Fox kept encouraging Trump to get involved and basically get Gallagher off, you know?

Yeah, and so guys, important context here before we get to who's right and wrong within the chain of command is that understand that Donald Trump, Pete Hags with Fox News are against the military in this case, okay? And they're against the normal rules of the military, and they're against all those Navy seals who reported him and who Gallagher threatened him murder, okay? It wasn't just that he killed an ISIS member. That's the whole point of the Navy SEALs is yes, they kill ISIS members. That's not the issue at all.

He apparently committed war crimes, as Anna pointed out, including murder and including going after non-combatants, to the point that his fellow Navy SEALs all united to say this guy committed war crimes. Now how often does that happen in the military? Not very often. So it has to be outrageous, unbelievable for them to do that. And then this out of control guy turns around and then says, okay, I'm gonna kill all of you SEALs.

And Donald Trump says, oh, you committed war crimes, you've destroyed military morale, and you're attacking fellow Navy SEALs, great, you're my guy. Pete Hankseth, another guy who disrespects the military and the Navy SEALs by saying, hey, threatening to kill Navy SEALs, no problem, I'll back the guy who did that threat. So understand, they're not on the side of the military here. So they're totally against the brave Navy SEALs who originally said, we follow military protocol and we follow rule of law, and this guy committed war crimes. They hegs, Fox, and Trump has united against them.

So understand who the real players in this conflict are. Right, and I want to emphasize one thing just to be fair and absolutely clear about what happened during the trial. So he was acquitted of all the allegations, with the exception of posing with a casualty. But there was an unexpected moment during his trial where a medic claimed responsibility for killing the ISIS fighter. He's the one who said, well, he was suffering, he was going to die from his injuries. So to basically have mercy on him, I decided to kill him.

But- I have no idea if that's true. Right. There was a bunch of people who supported the war criminal Eddie Gallagher. And so I don't know if that medic came in and was like, I don't know, sure, Trump's on our side, who cares? And no one cares about the truth anymore, so why don't I just go through a roll a hand grenade into the middle of this trial, basically. Or maybe he's telling the truth, I don't know.

But if you're on that jury, that makes it nearly impossible to convict. So well played pro-war criminals. So now let's get deeper into how Trump got involved and how this has led to chaos within the military. Now, when the jury found him guilty of posing in that photo with the dead ISIS fighter, they also decided to demote Gallagher. And at that point, Trump got very involved. So Trump reversed Gallagher's demotion a week ago and pardoned two other service members

accused of war crimes, deeply upsetting military leaders. In response, military officials launched a formal review to determine if Gallagher was fit to serve as a seal, which is protocol after a conviction. That review was expected to lead to his expulsion, but then again, Trump got involved. And ABC News explains in greater detail in this clip. Take a look. Just last week, President Trump intervened in the case, ordering the Navy to promote Gallagher back to his rank, restoring his pay and pension. The Navy then announced it would review Gallagher's case, which could lead to him being kicked out of the seals and losing the highly valued Trident PIN, identifying him in the elite community.

But then President Trump publicly intervening again with this tweet, the Navy will not be taking away warfighter and Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher's Trident PIN. This case was handled very badly from the beginning, get back to business. But Navy Secretary Richard Spencer responded by saying he does not consider tweets in order. But the New York Times reporting that both he and Admiral Colin Green, commander of the Navy Seals, threatened to resign, something they deny. I have not threatened to resign. I am here. I work at the pleasure of the president. So Richard Spencer is a curious guy, because while publicly he spoke out against Trump's involvement, apparently privately, according to reports today, he was working some sort of secret

deal with Trump on this case. So I have a theory on why that is. So Spencer, wanted the regular rules to apply. And Trump said, no, I don't, I don't care about your stupid military rules. I don't care about the military or stupid rules. I just, I like war criminals. And by the way, that's a fact too. If you remember during the campaign, he said, we should not only kill terrorists, we should kill their innocent family members. So he's always been in favor of war crimes from day one. And so now that he's president, we shouldn't be surprised that he is aiding and abetting war criminals. So he told Spencer, no, I like that he's a war criminal. So I'm paraphrasing now, okay, so make sure that he gets all of his stuff back.

Now Spencer is trying to get it to a point, it looks like from the outside here, where to the rest of the military, they could say, hey, we went through a process, remember you can't just ignore the rules in the military because that would cause massive damage to the military, right? And you can't just say, okay, I'm just going to commit war crimes and murder people, threaten my fellow seals or service members and then hope that Trump bails me out with a tweet. So, and in order to effectuate that it looks like Spencer went to Trump and said, what if we said we did give him his tried and pin back, but we said we went through a process so it doesn't destroy military order, right?

And of course, trying to do even half of the right thing is going to get you fired. Well, I think your assessment is completely right. And you're correct about the lack of morale following Trump's involvement in getting Gallagher off. And look, defense secretary, Mark Esper, was unaware that Richard Spencer was working with Donald Trump behind the scenes to do this deal. And so he finds out about it, and he says that he was baffled by it and decided to pressure Richard Spencer to resign.

And that's exactly what happened. And in his resignation letter, he made clear that he disagrees with what. Trump is doing, that even though Trump is the one who appointed him, he completely disagrees with Trump in this case. And then one other thing that I wanted to bring up, look, Donald Trump, why is he doing this? Like what is the point? Like why is he so intent on getting people off after they've been convicted of war crimes? Well look, he gets encouraged by the shows he watches and he loves to watch Fox News.

And Pete Heggzith has been trying to get Gallagher off since the beginning of this case. And so over the weekend, there was a segment that featured Eddie Gallagher, and he had no problem trashing people that he reported to in the military. Take a look. You saw the president's tweet. Ultimately, he allowed you to get your rank back. You reported back to duty. React to everything that's going on right now.

You know, it just keeps getting more and more unreal. The, you know, I got the president's tweet on Wednesday that saying he's going to rest- Or you're Trident. It's not being taken away from it. Exactly. And I'm overjoyed that he stepped in again as being the leader that he is. But at the same at the same token, I just get a feeling of embarrassment for my community that Admiral Green is letting the ego get the best of him at this point.

And he's trying to take my Trident because it's all about retaliation. So Rear Admiral Colin Green wanted to kind of clean up shop within the Navy Seals because he saw behavior that was problematic. to say the least. I'm really underplaying it here. And so he wanted consequences for seals who had, you know, been doing bad things. And so obviously Gallagher didn't like that. He didn't like the fact that Admiral Green was keeping an eye on him and has decided to go on Fox News and trash him. Now, when it comes to the whole issue of Gallagher's retirement and his ability to retire as a Navy SEAL.

He actually did make a plea to Trump directly on Fox. And I want to show you that clip. Take a look. What would your message be to the president? What would about your case? You want to retire. What would you say? You know, I just want to retire peacefully with all the honors that I've earned.

Get back to my family. And, you know, I don't know how many times I thank the president. He keeps, you know, stepping in and doing the right thing. And I just want to, I want to let him know that the rest of the SEAL community, is not about this right now. They all respect the president and what the admiral is doing, showing complete insubordination is not the good example of good order and discipline. When you say the SEAL community, you're saying the guys you've served with have your back

in this. They appreciate what the president's doing. Oh, they definitely do. Wait, the ones you threaten to murder or the other ones? Because the ones that you threaten to murder turned you in. So it doesn't seem like they've got your back. and God knows what you'll do next with your threats now that you are above the law. Now that Trump says, you can kill anyone you like, and I'm not going to do a goddamn thing about it.

I'm going to make sure no one is allowed to do anything about it. Let's look at the irony of him saying that the admiral is committing insubordination as he is way lower in the chain of command and is being insubordinate to the admiral. So apparently words don't mean anything anymore. And military rules don't mean anything. Laws don't mean anything. So he got convicted, right? So you got convicted of taking a picture with a dead soldier, right, the dead ISIS soldier. So a lot of people might say, well, if that's the only thing he actually did, is not that big a deal?

So yes, first of all, he's convicted, and when you are convicted, you lose those medals. So if you say, well, I know, but I kind of like the guy because he is a war criminal, so I want to ignore the military rules, well, then you're going to have chaos. And secondly, it is a big deal. Why is it a big deal? Remember the pictures in Abu Ghraib? They said, don't take those pictures. It's against military rules to take those pictures, but they took the pictures anyway.

And then what happened? They got released. And then what happened? It created a massive civil war where our guys got killed. God knows how many people got killed because of those pictures. That's why they tell you don't take the goddamn pictures, right? And he did it anyway because he thinks, I don't care. And Trump thinks, oh, war criminal, I love it.

And Trump, at every turn, whether it's the military or domestic law, is against the law enforcement. Why? Because he's a lifelong criminal. So he sides with other criminals on a regular basis. Finally, to defense secretary Esper. So he says, oh man, I can't believe Spencer went behind my back and did this deal. And under normal circumstances, that would actually be a pretty good case. Hey, you know what? The Navy secretary should have checked with the defense secretary before talking to the president. Fair enough, right? But that Esper goes, oh, Spencer, you shouldn't have done that. Then who does he back? Does he back the play of, no, we are going to follow normal military rules, or does he back Trump?

He goes, Spencer, you're fired for not following military rules. But Gallagher, you get everything back, everything's fine, Trump wins, it's over, he gets everything he wants, and while I get to pretend I care about military rules, which I obviously don't, because I kiss Donald Trump's ass for a living, okay? So that's what happened with Esper, understand that. Okay, so it is funny because on one hand, you have Gallagher accusing Rear Admiral Colin green of, you know, being motivated by his own ego, influenced by his own ego. But the only person in this story so far who is being influenced by his ego really is

Esper. Because why is Esper upset at Richard Spencer? He's upset at Spencer because he went behind Esper's back and negotiated some sort of deal with Trump. So Esper's ego is a little bruised. And by the way, one other thing that Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper just said. was that Trump ordered him to allow Gallagher to keep his status in the elite service despite resistance from Navy leaders.

Okay, so if you're saying, hey, listen, ultimately the president is the commander in chief and he can't order that. That's true. So in this case, Trump is a rare case where Trump is not breaking a law, okay? I think he's destroying military order and morale and all the things that all of the admirals, the generals are all concerned with, right? they don't want to get their guys killed. Okay, but he doesn't care about any of that, and he's not a deep thinker to say the least.

He is allowed to do it. But Esper, you don't have to follow the rules. Nobody's making you continue to be defense secretary. What I mean by that is, yes, if the president orders something, you have to do it. But you could also resign. You could say, hey, listen, all the Navy leaders disagree with this. It's against everything we've ever been taught in the military, and it destroys our credibility when we go into a different country, and the reason they allow us.

to go into a lot of countries is because we have rules and we actually hold people accountable when they break the law in a different country. Now, when we take that away, which is what you've just done here, you've greatly endangered all of our troops, all of our service members. So I'm resigning. But that would take principle and Esper doesn't have principle. He goes, well, I mean, maybe I was against this because it's against everything I've ever been taught and everything that anybody in the military has ever been taught.

But on the other hand, I love my job. I'm so powerful and famous, yes, yes, Gallagher, you want to be a war criminal? Who cares? I want to break the rules to give you your medals back? Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? Am I still the defense secretary?

Am I still the defense secretary? Okay, great. Yep, going back to ego. Exactly. And so at the end of the day, this unfortunately has done great damage to our military, because now wherever they go, they will be trusted less. And when they're trusted less, people fire at them and more people die. But Donald Trump has never cared about any of that.

All he's ever cared about is I like people who break the law. And just like I said during the campaign, I want you to murder people who aren't combatants. And Eddie Gallagher did that according to, remember, even before the so-called acquittal on those charges, Trump didn't mind that he did that when he thought he did do it, right? And so that's why he did it. that he's a monster and doesn't understand him anything about rules or laws or the military. All right. When we come back from the break, we will talk about Lev Parnas and what he's offering to impeachment investigators, including some pretty incriminating evidence on Representative

Devin Nunes. We'll be right 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-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 and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must have learned what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time.

All right, back on a young Turks. Let me go to your comments as usual. Casparian Stunner writes in. I love Mondays because it's the one day of the week that I can watch TYT live. It's my day off and I choose to spend a few hours watching TYT. Thank you. We appreciate it. Stone Cold. This is the member section, of course, t.com slash join to become a member.

Meg writes in, if there's one thing Trump loves, it's a major criminal. That is certainly true. Jane Locke writes in, I find it ironic that it was reported that Trump felt it was unbecoming of Spencer to work out a safe face compromise for Trump slash the Navy. Yeah, that's unbecoming, but not what the seal did, shake my head. Okay, and now let me go to some other comments here. Let me go to YouTube super chat. Miles Hill says, as a Navy vet, seeing the Gallagher saga unfold, sick as me to my core.

Gallagher is an utter disgrace to the uniform and his behavior makes a mockery of the Navy core values and the UCMJ. And then back to the member section, last one, you've just been Klobuchar, writes in, a veteran here, and really Gallagher, and really Gallagher ego is driving your superior judgment. You're super sure it's not your own ego or that of your orange daddy that are exasperating this situation. So there's a lot of veterans who watch, and thank you and service members who watch. Thanks for writing in with your perspective. Really appreciate it. There was a veteran who challenged Lindsey Graham in the hallway.

At first he thought he was on his side. So, Lindsey Graham's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when he asked him a really simple question about Trump, literally ran for the hills. Gone, gone, not literally because there wasn't hills, but he ran away into his office immediately without answering the question. He rough talked to him and ran him off. That's right. Yeah. The minute you burst their bubble.

Look, I love when veterans get involved because they have a harder time pending in them as like, like, teachers, they're like, who cares about teachers? No, no, dismiss, nurses, who cares, right? Any regular citizen, they dismiss immediately. But if you're a veteran, they're like, oh, good, veteran Republican, right? And then you go, no, they're like, oh, no, okay. And then you do the gram scram. There you go. I can't take someone else's joke.

Brett told me that in my ear. No, he gets mad at me when I give him credit. He did that. Okay, it's fun either way. All right, what's next? All right. You know, other hosts on cable news do that, by the way. They take the credit.

I don't want to take the credit. All right, moving on. What do you mean other? They all do that. Breaking news story. Don McGahn must testify in the impeachment investigation, and this is according to a federal judge's ruling. The story just broke, and it could be a big deal for the Trump administration.

Now, Don McGahn was the White House counsel, and here's what we know based on reporting by Politico. U.S. District Court Judge Kentaji Brown Jackson ruled that McGahn, who spent 30, out of hours talking to former special counsel Robert Mueller's team can't hide behind Trump's claim that he has absolute immunity from speaking to Congress. So McGahn's failure to appear was without legal justification, according to what this federal judge wrote in her two page opinion. Bill Burke, McGahn's attorney, said the former White House counsel will comply with Judge Jackson's

decision unless it is stayed pending appeal. And the Trump administration, of course, is planning to appeal this. But impeachment investigators are asking for this case to go on while the appeal is being filed. So important detail on that that I'm gonna read you in a second. But I want you guys to know there are two huge ramifications of this. So one is about other articles of impeachment and the other is about other witnesses. So we'll get to that in one second, but let me read you the detail. really important here, and that's going to decide potentially, I don't know about everything,

but a lot of things related to impeachment. Quoting Politico here, the Trump administration is expected to appeal Jackson's decision. Okay, it makes sense. But Democrats say her ruling should still take effect immediately to prevent the president from running out the clock on their impeachment probes. That makes any additional decision by Jackson or an appellate court panel about whether to halt Monday's order until any DOJ appeal is resolved at pivotal. moment in the Democrats fast-moving impeachment effort.

So that means if she says no, he can go testify right now, boom, that's gigantic. If they put it to appeal, then it's probably not going to make it in time and it makes it pointless. Right. So and that's what Trump's whole motive is. He knows what McGahn is going to say. We all know what McGahn is going to say, it's in the Mueller report. So it's not like he thinks he's, and he knows he doesn't have a legal like to stand on.

He just thinks, I don't care if I win in court. I just care that the court process takes too long for it to get into the impeachment process. I mean, he's doing the exact same thing when it comes to his taxes. So the Trump administration just tries to run out the clock and they're certainly trying to do that with this case as well. And the reason why it's important to have McGahn testify is because of what he knows in regard to the obstruction of justice charges against him in the Mueller investigation. Now, McGahn sat with Mueller for hours and gave testimony, excuse me, in regard to how Trump tried

to obstruct justice. Now, White House, I'm sorry, congressional investigators are unable to get some of the important details from that testimony in their impeachment investigation. And so that's why his testimony could be very useful here, but it also opens the doors for other Trump administration officials to comply with congressional subpoenas. Remember, John Bolton seems to want to testify before these impeachment investigators, but he wanted a judge to rule on whether or not he could do so, because the White House has said, you know, do not comply with these congressional subpoenas.

You have no right to, right? Right, so that goes to both points. Point one is, I always thought that the impeachment proceedings should have been broader. Mueller also already told us 10 counts of obstruction, it just said, I can't do anything about it because I can't indict him, but Congress can do anything they like. Now, Pelosi and other Democrats have chosen not to pursue that. But if McGahn comes in and says in open hearings, yes, the president instructed me to lie to Congress. At a bare minimum, that's an obstruction charge that will be added to impeachment.

No question about it. And the second part of that is that it opens a door to the other problem. that he has in the Russia investigation and the obstruction charges. And so God knows what happens when that door gets open. So that's monumentally important for that reason. Now, the second reason is the second half of what Anna said. It's not just about me again. Every one of these guys is using the same reason.

Trump is saying total immunity from testifying. And this judge just knocked down the total immunity defense. So if they're not absolutely immune, that opens up John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, the chief of staff and Charles Cooperman, who is a deputy for John Bolton. Now, Bolton's itching to testify. So he wants to throw Trump under a bus, but he wanted an order like this so he could say, oh, fellow conservatives, there was nothing I could do, I got a judicial order, I had to go testify, and then I can't lie under oath, and then tell us all the, what he called

a drug deal, it's an analogy for the clear criminal behavior of Donald Trump in the Ukraine situation. So, and Mulvaney's, it looks like he's itching for some sort of plea deal. So that's a later story, let's not worry about that for now. But McGahn and Bolton could be a one two punch that knocks him out. Not just an impeachment, that's almost a foregone conclusion at this point. But when we get to conviction, McGahn and Bolton's testimony could be devastating. And since they have a small window here before there's a decision on appealing,

or going forward with the order right now, you know what they could do? I don't know if the timing will work out right. But Bolton could be like, well, I guess I'm not immune. What can I do? I'm going to testify tomorrow. I mean, we should just do it because in reality, everyone can see the game that he's playing. Yeah. Because he wants to maintain his cozy relationship with conservatives while also throwing

Trump under the bus. And that is not an easy thing to pull off. So he's transparent. You can see right through it. So just stop being a coward and do the right thing. testify anyway. I mean, you have a number of Trump administration officials who have complied with the subpoenas. Yeah, you think we can't see your intent past your mustache, but we see you. All right, well, let's get to Lev Parnas, because what he's offering impeachment investigators

is super juicy, and can't wait to see how this plays out. So, Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had a business associate named Lev Parnas, and he is now trying to cooperate with impeachment investigators in the Ukraine scandal. Now, what Lev Parnas is now alleging is that he has secret recordings and he has photos that would be useful to the impeachment investigators and they feature Trump and Giuliani. Okay? So here's what we don't know so far. We don't know what type of incriminating evidence is included in those phone calls, in those

recordings are in those photos. The material submitted to the House Intelligence Committee includes audio, video, and photos that include Giuliani and Trump. But it was unclear what the content depicts and the committees only began assessing the material last week. So the committees, the relevant committees in this impeachment investigation have the materials. They've been taken a look at it since last week. And according to the indictment, Parna's sought Then Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch's ouster earlier this year, along with his efforts to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the president's political rival, matters that have repeatedly emerged in the House impeachment inquiry.

So this is super relevant to the impeachment, obviously. And remember, the reason why Marie Yovanovitch was pushed out of her position was because she was actually holding corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors accountable. And those very prosecutors wanted her out and they solicited the help of Rudy Giuliani and his business associate, Lev Parnas, and one other business associate, Igor Fruman. And another associate, Donald Trump. Okay, so the line to see the audio and videotapes of Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump talking about Ukraine is around the corner like it's Popeye's fried chicken sandwich.

Okay, so, yummy, yummy, everybody's interested. Now, we don't know yet how good it is. We really don't. I love this story, partly because there's no honor among thieves. So this guy's like, oh yeah, man, let's do a conspiracy around Ukraine, Parnas, right? And meanwhile, he's like, press record, okay, that's my get out of jail free card. And now, of course, you know how Trump has literally said in the past, maybe you should be illegal to cooperate with law enforcement, which would be actually incredibly ironic.

How do you make that illegal? So anyway, but they're all bad guys, they were all part of these crooked deals. So Parnas thinking like, I'm not the one going to jail, okay, is recording this stuff. So I, God, we don't know what exactly recorded if we got Giuliani and Rudy talking about the core of the deal. Yeah, so we'll see what what those recordings entail. I will say Lev Parnas is facing legal issues of his own because of the fact that he was helping or allegedly helping to funnel foreign money into the campaigns of Donald Trump

and other politicians, right? So you can't do that, that's against campaign finance laws. And so it's likely that he's willing to participate in this investigation with the hope that he might get a slap on the wrist, maybe there'll be a little bit of leniency in his case. He has pleaded not guilty to it, but again, we'll see how it plays out. He also said through his lawyer, Lev Parnas did, that he decided to cooperate with impeachment investigators after Trump threw him under the bus. Yeah, told you, he throws too many people under the bus.

Anyways, another part of this is important, too, because there's also apparently potential side deals. So they wanted to get rid of Yovanovitch, our ambassador, because she was actually against corruption. Okay, so that was part of what Parnas and Fruman and Giuliani were trying to do. Now, Trump agrees with them, but for his own purposes, because he wants to target Biden and Yovanovitch is fair and honest. And so then he decides he's gonna get rid of her. But partisan fruman, according to investigators, might have also been trying to get a contract with the Ukrainian state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz. Okay. And so they were,

Because that answers the question of wait, why are they trying to get rid of our ambassador to Ukraine? What do they care? Do they really care about who's on the side of corruption or against corruption? No, they don't care about corruption. Oh, the question is to what end, right? And it might be that they were doing a favor for someone in Ukraine so that they can get that gas deal and make real money.

And if Giuliani was involved in that, well, that would two things come out of that. is that explains why Giuliani's been on TV going, hey, now remember, I was working for the president. Now that's really damaging to the president, because that means I wasn't working for the American government. I was trying to do a personal deal for the president, which by the way would be illegal. And everybody's like, why is Rudy admitting that? Because apparently the alternative is Rudy was actually working for himself to get that giant deal that would enrich himself.

And so he's tricking Trump into firing Yovanovitch so that Rudy will get rich. Okay, so now, but the second part of that is, so since Rudy might have been doing that, and by the way, now there's, even as we were on air, there was more stories about how much more legal trouble Rudy Giuliani's in. I mean, he's hurt dog, don't ask him if he's all right. So. I heard he's Phenom. Yeah, that's true.

He said that about himself. He did, these guys are so nuts. Anyway, so, but if the prosecutors have Giuliani on the side, If they got them dead to rights and they're like, Rudy, you're going to jail, you're going in jail for a long time, okay? You think Rudy won't flip on Trump? There are no honor among thieves, especially these guys. So we're like, well, you want to see my phone?

I like to show my phone on TV. You want to see the text I got from Donald Trump? Did Rudy record any of the calls? Oh, this could be devastating. So Rudy Giuliani has mentioned in cable. news interviews that he has recorded Trump. And then he later said that he was just joking around. Sure joking.

Sure. If you thought partners' recordings were bad, wait until you get a lot of Rudy's. That's why guys, when he's on Fox News and you're like, Jesus, what is he doing? Why is he doing this? He keeps saying, hey, remember, I have everybody's texts and I have everybody's recordings. Because he has the side deal, according to the prosecutors, he was going to enrich himself and he's busted on that. So he's threatening everybody in the Trump administration, you better not.

Let them get me, otherwise I got the goods on you. How ironic and what a twist it would be if at the end, the guy who took Trump down was Rudy Giuliani. And then they start chanting in the impeachment hearings, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Oh, God, I don't know about all that, I don't know about all that, but I will say, look, sometimes it's tough following the law and feeling like this system works against you if you're a law-abiding citizen. But we all get to go home at night and sleep comfortably while Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are like panicking. Trump on social media on Twitter panicking. I love his panicky texts. Tweets.

And then Rudy Giuliani with his panicky texts to various reporters. It's just delicious. Yeah, and the butt dials and everything. Yeah, no, no. Whenever you see a tweet from Donald Trump going like, total exoneration. That means he woke up in a cold sweat panic and his heart's beating too fast. Oh, so good. You know.

Too much Sudafed, you know, the European version because you can't get that strong stuff over the counter here in the US. We see you, we see you, Trump. I don't know about any of that. I don't know what that means. No, no, no, just take a look at his Taco Bowl photo. There's a drawer open behind him and it's packed with Sudafed and not the kind that you can get in the States.

Yeah, Sudafed, people use it because it has like meth-like effects. Oh my God, I didn't even know that. God, this guy's a giant mess, an unbelievable mess. But to be fair, a very strong mess, a big mess. They're in trouble. Oh my God, if Rudy takes them down, that's gonna be the greatest thing that I- 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 our data.

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All right, back on a young church, lots of comments. Marco says it's good to know that bread is always nearby. He is. He's in the control room where the insanity is ensuing. I stole McConnell's shell, writes in, Just testify, Bolton, spill the tea. Okay. Jank Tapper writes, and can't wait to hear about how Mulvaney and Bolton were never Trumpers.

You guys cannot let them forget, okay? Don't let people forget who they really are. I hate when that happens. I hate like the laundering of reputations that occurs after a terrible administration. He's either voted out or, you know? Of course. It happens all the time. It happened with Bush.

All right, Cerberus Alpha says, L.O.L. I can see someone in the courtroom way in the back chanting. Rudy, Rudy. Okay, do you even know what that's a reference to? No. Okay, it's a movie called Rudy. Okay, so that's why. Nobody's actually chanting for Rudy, Giuliani.

Was it about an unhinged and crooked lawyer? No, it was about a guy who helped his buddy protect a ring. No, I'm kidding. That's the same actor. It was a football movie about Notre Dame. Okay, so she's like, even less interested. Yeah, 100%. Okay.

All right, anyways, Rebel Bear says, looks like Trump really wants to make sure Jank loses that bet with Anna. Is it legal for a congressional hopeful, oh, sorry, I can't read that part of it, okay, rules Sierra Young Turks relating to my race, okay, Santos Juante says, Parnas and Giuliani are generic off-brand little finger and Veris. That comment is hilarious. Wow. Okay.

They're not the European version of Sudafed, they're the off-brand version of Little Fingar and Veris. Santos, great job with that comic. Man, Europe is where it's at if you want to get drugs, I feel like. Yeah. Right? Like drugs you need and drugs you don't need, like extra strength Sudafed that's been outlawed here in the United States.

Yeah, I thought we were bad with drugs we shouldn't be having. Anyways, all right, what's next? All right, quick mention of what's going down at ShopT-YT. So shop TYT is having a wonderful sale and we don't have sales often. So you should take advantage when you can. So we are giving you guys 10% off on the TYT beanie, which is brand new and all TYT hats, 10% off. But you do have to use the promo code, hat and the number 10, hat 10 at shopty.com.

The promo code should have been Mark Thompson. It should have, you're right. Anyways, all right, one more thing, just to be absolutely clear. The Thursday and Friday shows are not live streams. Normally, a lot of you watch the live stream. You might be watching live stream right now, so they're not live streams. But they're free, they're available to everybody, t.yt.com. So make sure you check that out on Thursday and Friday.

You just have to go to the website and get the free versions. The third show, which is a special, what are we grateful for Thanksgiving show, is just for members. Only that one, okay, and that one, obviously tyt.com slash join to become a member and get it. And as Anna pointed out, you can get all these under special coverage. Yep. All right, well, let's move on to more Parnas-related news. But this is even juicier because Devin Nunes is apparently implicated in this entire impeachment

investigation. So Rudy Giuliani's business associate Lev Parnas is offering to testify in the impeachment investigation. And he has some dirt on Representative Devin Nunes, who has been front and center in the impeachment investigation. Now, he has been undermining it. He's been minimizing the accusations against Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. But at no point did he mention that he had been working with Rudy Giuliani and his business associates, including Lev Parnas, in digging up dirt on Joe Biden. Let me give you the details. Parnas, again, a business associate of Rudy Giuliani,

wants to testify to Congress that aides to Representative Devin Nunes called off a trip to Ukraine this year when they realized they would be required to notify Democratic Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. Now this is super relevant because obviously Adam Schiff is the head of this impeachment investigation, the head of the committee doing the impeachment investigation. And we had learned last week that Devin Nunes was again working with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman and Rudy Giuliani in helping to dig up dirt. Not only on Joe Biden, but on this nonsense conspiracy theory that Trump has bought into,

where rather than Russia, Ukraine was trying to meddle in the elections in 2016. Okay, so let me give you a little bit more context here on Nunes' participation. So first of all, understand he definitely did meet with the Ukrainians in 2018. And now there's a new story about how he also thought about meeting with them this year. So I'll come back to that. But for the 2018 meeting, Nunez met with former Ukrainian prosecutor general Victor Shokin. Now, Shokin was ousted for corruption in 2016. So these guys who say, oh look, all we want to do is end corruption in Ukraine.

Nunes is going to meet with a guy who was so corrupt he was thrown out of office. So they're not against corruption, they're in favor of corruption. No, you guys, this is a very big deal, okay? Because remember, part of this impeachment investigation has already uncovered. covered the fact that the ambassador to Ukraine, okay, Marie Yovanovitch was pushed out by corrupt forces within Ukraine. And Victor Shokin was one of those corrupt prosecutors who wanted Marie Yovanovitch out, okay? So you have Devin Nunes hitting up Victor Shokin, meeting up with him and having discussions

about things that are super relevant to this impeachment investigation. And then you see Nunes sitting there, right, undermining the entire process, defending Donald Trump, he has a giant conflict of interest. In fact, he should be one of the witnesses testifying in the investigation. You know, sometimes they'll say, oh, Schiff should testify about what? Nunes, on the other hand, actually was directly implicated in these same crimes. Exactly. So why did he go to meet with Shokin?

Apparently, according to witnesses, for the express purpose of talking about by And only Biden, so not like, hey, man, I'm really worried about corruption. I care, how about that Ukrainian and that Ukraine in court? No, hey, give me dirt on Biden. So he already had that meeting in 2018. Apparently he booked another meeting with him in 2019, and then he's like, but you know how dumb Devin Nunes is? He's like, oh, Schiff can find out where I've been traveling.

Really, Sherlock, you just figured that out. And so when he found out, oh, Schiff will find out, oh man, because in 2018, when he's When he did the trip, he did it during a congressional break, he did it through these channels where he thought, oh, I won't get discovered, because the dude thinks he's Tom Cruise, a Mission Impossible, right? Like in his mind, he's like, dun dun dun dun, right? In reality, it's so obvious what he's doing. So he cancels the trip in 2019, but now Parnas is saying, yeah, he canceled it, but he told

me he was gonna go, and then he told me he canceled it because he didn't want to get caught. Yeah, it's like having, you know, a cop who helped in committing the crime investigate that crime with the detective, right? Like, come on, right? So whenever he's there undermining this entire process, understand that it's because, according to Lev Parnas, he is involved in what the Trump administration is being investigated for right now. Now, Devin Nunes was asked some pretty tough questions, and I don't normally say this by Maria Bartaromo. and take a look at how he answers the question about his involvement here. Were you in Vienna with Shokin? Yeah, so look, Maria, I really want to answer all of these questions,

and I promise you absolutely will come back on the show and answer these questions. But because there is criminal activity here, we're working with the appropriate law enforcement agencies. We're going to file all this. Everyone's going to know the truth. Everybody's going to know all the fact, but I think you can understand that I can't compete by trying to, trying to debate this out with the public media when 90% of the media are totally corrupt. So understand when Nunes cites, oh, there's criminal activity here. He's obviously not talking about himself. He's talking about the journalists who have reported on this story accurately, right? He wants to go after them and he actually makes that clear. He wants to file lawsuits against them for reporting this story.

Take a look. We are going to take both CNN and the Daily Beast likely into federal court right after Thanksgiving. It is not okay to work with someone who has been indicted on serious federal crime to build a media narrative and dirty up a member of Congress. No, but he's the one who's implicated in this case. He's the one who should have to testify as part of this impeachment investigation. He shouldn't be the one helping to conduct the impeachment investigation. Didn't this guy sue his own cow or something? Yeah, like he finds that criminal behavior.

Yeah. But like what about the real criminal behavior you're involved in? No, no, this is clownerama. So when he eventually goes to court and says, oh, CNN might look like they have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but I didn't like what they said. so I'd like you to arrest them. The judge is going to laugh about a court, maybe quite literally, like maybe have him removed from the building. That is preposterous.

There's no like to stand on. All they're doing is third grade stuff. Oh, yeah, I'm not the criminal. You're the criminal. It's like the most juvenile, pointless thing. There's overwhelming evidence now by one of his co-conspirators who's talking to the prosecutors saying yes, he did these meetings, he tried to do more. By the way, his aid eventually did have a Skype meeting apparently with the Ukrainians in 2019

as well, et cetera. And you saying, oh yeah, it doesn't stick on me, it sticks on you, it's not the real thing. It's not gonna work at all. All they're doing is trying to run out the clock on their criminality. At some point, it is definitely going to catch up with them. Okay, so I have to add one final element to the story, because on one hand, you have this evidence, right? And getting evidence against people like Devin Nunes is one thing.

It's all about what you end up doing with that evidence. So will there be consequences for Devin Nunes? And this, and it's from CNBC, really bothered me because it shows you how terrible some Democrats are, right? A lot of Democrats. Representative Adam Smith from Washington, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said that Nunes would likely face a House ethics probe over. allegations he sought to dig up dirt on Biden.

What? What do you mean? Maybe, I don't know, if we get around to it. But let's allow Devin Nunes to be front and center during this impeachment investigation, even though there's a giant conflict of interest here and he should be investigated himself? No, when it comes to progressives, Democrats are lions, they fight like hell, right? So if they're gonna throw one of their own under a bus like Ilhan Omar, they're like, They're like, oh yeah, right away, right away, okay, trumped up charges made up by the right wing, taken out of context, who cares?

Throw her on their bus, throw her on their bus, we've got to get her, right? When it's a Republican who has potentially broken the law and his co-conspirators are talking to prosecutors and he's the lead Republican in the impeachment proceedings, maybe. And then they still can't figure out why we're disgusted by Democratic leadership and how they have no fight in them. at all. Yep, that's just the situation we're dealing with. If you're not going to fight, what's the point in this evidence gathering process that you're doing? There's really no point.

All right, well, let's move on to one other aspect of the impeachment update. Again, the evidence keeps mounting up, and this time it has to do with Mick Mulvaney. So new reports in the impeachment investigation indicate that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and the budget official he was working with tried to come up with. a reason, a legal justification for why Trump had decided to freeze military aid to Ukraine after the fact. So the way that Republicans, and especially the White House, are selling this is, well, Trump was really concerned about corruption in Ukraine, which is why he put a freeze on that aid.

But in reality, behind the scenes, and this is according to email evidence, Mick Mulvaney had to scramble to look for a legal justification after the fact. So let me give you the reporting, a confidential White House counsel's office review of President Trump's decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine has turned up hundreds of documents that reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision. So in early August, Mulvaney asked Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russell vote to how much longer the aid could be legally delayed and inquired about the OMB's progress on developing a legal rationale for the hold.

Trump had made the decision in July without consulting anyone regarding the legality. Now, timing is everything, right? And what you should know is that Mulvaney started scrambling for legal justification after it had become clear that the whistleblower was gonna file a formal complaint against Donald Trump. So of all the giant stories today about how much trouble Donald Trump is in, Parnas has He's got some tapes of him and Giuliani, Don McGahn, his White House counsel, who he ordered to obstruct justice, might testify, oh, out of all these, this might be the even bigger.

It might be the biggest of all from today. Why? Here is Mulvaney, apparently in written documentation saying, find me a legal rationale, meaning there was no legal rationale. So it's after the fact that he's like, let's try to make it legal. So if it wasn't legal in the first place, why did you do it? You did it because you wanted to investigate the Bidens and it was a political decision to help Donald Trump and not the United States of America.

So when you say to the Office of Management and Budget, okay, we already did it and it's not for any legal and rational reason, now let's invent one. You've admitted unquestionably that what you did was not legal. Exactly. And that's why it's important to have people like Mick Mulvane. testifying the impeachment investigation and based on a federal judge's ruling today on former White House counsel Don McGinn and how he must comply with subpoenas, it's becoming more likely that Mulvaney will also have to comply with the subpoena and testify before Congress.

So another important part of the story is the OMB attorneys then ask, and by the way, even if Mulvaney doesn't testify, if they have the emails, they could show his emails. And so the OMB apparently asks, okay, look, we can't hold it indefinitely because that's illegal for any reason. Congress said it has to go, it has to go. There's no hands or butts to Ukraine. So the only thing that I could possibly do is do a temporary hold on it. But even for a temporary hold, we have to have some reason, right? Now the reason, of course, that Mulvaney wanted it in the first place is because Trump wanted it for a political reason.

But he can't say that because that's illegal. So he says, well, why don't you make one up? Okay, so then the attorney has to scramble and try to figure out why on God's green earth you'd be doing a temporary hold on this money. And by the way, when all this comes to shove, two days after the whistleblower complaint becomes known, that's when the money gets released. Yeah. They're like, oh no, we got caught.

Release the money right away, right away, because it's illegal, release it, right? But only after they found out about the whistleblower. Exactly. So this is illegal at eight ways to Sunday and apparently these reports show that they knew it all along. Exactly. And remember, one of the things that you keep hearing as a defense for Donald Trump is, well, the money got released eventually, they released the money, so there's no wrongdoing, they released the money.

But why did they release the money? And it was because of this pending investigation due to the whistleblower's formal complaint. And by the way, if you don't have an actual legal justification for even doing a temporary hold, that's also illegal. So saying, hey, I released it later after I, it's like saying, hey, look, I robbed the bank and I took the money home, but then I got caught, so I brought the money back. That doesn't mean you didn't do the bank robbery. It doesn't absolve you at all.

I have to say, out of everyone, seeing Mick Mulvaney squirm, and maybe, I don't know, I'm not an optimistic person, so I'm not like really thinking this is going to have. happen, if he were to end up in prison, it would be the best day of my life, only because he has scammed so many Americans out of money by doing these payday lenders' favors. I mean, they're among his biggest donors when he was in Congress. So it would be nice to see a crook like him in prison. Just put that out there. He's been terrible to students.

He's been terrible to the average American. He's the bankers and the payday lender's best friend. He lets them charge 300% interest or more. And you'll be shocked to find out his top donors when he was a congressman were payday lenders. So he's taking bribes for a living for a long, long time now. They're legalized bribes because of the Supreme Court Citizens United decision. But you know what they are. And so to see him get busted and to have all of these low lives turn on each other, which

which is like seconds away from happening. So Mulvaney, Trump, and Rudy might all turn on each other, and Bolton's definitely turned on him. He's just waiting to get in the ring and smash all of them over the head, right? This is exactly what I envisioned. And we whispered of a dream, and here they are, you know, total serial bunglers, criminals to their core, and now when they get caught, they're going to turn on each other, and it's going to be a beautiful thing to watch.

We've got to go to our next break. When we come back, though, we're going to switch gears and talk about the Democratic primaries, including Bloomberg's official candidacy. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.