The Young Turks - TYT Hour 1 - November 11th, 2019

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

A report says Jeff Bezos asked Michael Bloomberg to run for president and Bernie thinks that's hilarious. 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Jake, you're ready to spare with you guys.

Oh my God, it's a super duper excited. week. No, no, no, you guys don't get it. Super duper. Okay, so not one, I promised you one, wrong, two dramatic announcements this week. One will be on Tuesday, the other one will be on Thursday. Could one of them be an endorsement? Could be. Okay, but then what would the other one be? Hmm. Okay, do not miss the Tuesday or Thursday show, okay? Or both.

Now, speaking of which, we haven't asked me anything tonight, okay, at 8 o'clock Eastern. That's on YouTube super chat, so you're gonna have to go to YouTube.com slash TYT to participate. That's tonight. You could ask me anything other than what the two announcements on Tuesday and Thursday are. Keeping it real. All right, we do have campaign news and we do have Trump news, of course. As always, by the way, you can get this shirt on shopty.com, squad goals. All right, speaking of which, these four are not completely united on endorsements.

Right. Yes. Why is that like a foreshadowing? Oh, is it? No one knows. No one knows. All we're doing is having fun. I have no idea, by the way, who he's gonna endorse.

Like, I think I have an idea. Anyway, later in the show, by the way, we're gonna do some international news, including the military coup that just took place in Bolivia. Yes, that's a super important story. Yeah. All right, so let's get started. All right. So tonight we say to Michael Bloomberg and other billionaires, sorry, you ain't gonna buy this

election. That's Senator Bernie Sanders at his Iowa rally over the weekend. AOC also attended and spoke about various campaign issues, but more importantly about Michael Bloomberg entering the race. And now we have some reporting indicating that Bloomberg had a conversation with Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon. And during an interview with the Des Moines Register, both Bernie and AOC had some interesting things to say about that solidarity between Bezos and Bloomberg. Now, according to Vox,

sometime after Amazon pulled the plug on plans for a New York City headquarters in February of this year, the city's former mayor Michael Bloomberg received a call from Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos. Bezos was calling with a question for his fellow billionaire and media mogul, would Bloomberg consider entering the 2020 presidential race? Now, at that time, Bloomberg Essentially said no, but as we all know, he has decided to reverse his decision, and he's considering, he's more serious about running. Now Sanders couldn't contain his laughter to speak when he was asked about this by the Des Moines Register, and AOC stepped in to answer the question, saying, of course, they've got class solidarity.

The billionaires are looking out for each other. They're willing to transcend difference and background and even politics. The fact that Bill Gates seems more willing to vote for Donald Trump than anyone else tells you everything you need to know about how far they're willing to go to protect their excess at the cost to everyday Americans. So with that said, I want to go to one more clip from the rally that took place over the weekend, and then we'll discuss. A campaign is going to end a corrupt political system dominated by billionaires and

wealthy campaign contributors. Our campaign is going to end the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality which exists in America today. You're not going to buy this election by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on media in California. Those days are gone. Yeah. By the way, Bernie Sanders also told the Des Moines register, quote, Jeff Bezos worth $100 billion

supporting Mike Bloomberg, who's worth only $50 billion, that's real class solidarity. I'm impressed by that grassroots movement. To be fair, Jeff Bezos is worth $150 billion, so that's 200 between them. Geez. So, wait, what did I say? You said 100, it's actually 150. Oh, my bad. I misread 150.

Because I'll tell you who's gonna complain about that is Jeff Bezos. They're like, well, hey, hey, you think I only have $100 billion? Yeah. Now remember, poor me. Okay, duly noted. So I wanna note a couple of things that are important about this story. First of all, Bloomberg didn't call Bezos to ask him if he should get in. Bezos, who's not only the owner of Amazon, but the owner of the Washington Post, called

Bloomberg asking him to enter the race. Interesting note, very interesting note. Now between them, the two billionaires own the Washington Post and Bloomberg News. That's a giant part of the media. So when we say there might be corporate media influence in favor of the establishment and the reporters and editors feign outrage, or maybe they really are outraged, but it goes to show you how thick their bias is, they're like, you're saying, like, did the owner of the Washington Post worth $150 billion has a bias in favor of billionaires, and that he would maybe even

call another billionaire to try to enter the race to make sure that his top critics like Bernie Sanders doesn't win, outrageous conspiracy theory, except that it actually totally happened. So now you can say, hey, as a reporter for the Washington Post, it doesn't affect me. I hope that's true, and I think probably in some cases it is true. But I think also in some cases, perhaps it does affect you. At least some of you, and certainly in Bloomberg's case as well. So they say, oh, if you're progressive, then we're gonna call you biased. But if you're in favor of billionaires, well, that's just being objective, right?

I mean, you do see similar behavior abroad. I mean, in Latin American countries, you have staged military coups, right, to do away with leftist leaders. And then in America, I mean, we've been having corporate coups when you really think about it. We've had corporate influence over our elections for how long now, and their influence has only gotten stronger throughout the decades. And so when a progressive calls them out on it, when a progressive calls out Jeff Bezos or other corporate executives for their influence over our elections, they're so aggrieved by it.

Yeah. I'll tell you what I'm angry about is that when the corporate media says that they alone our objective, and that their perspective should be privileged, that the status quo and the establishment, in essence, implicitly, is the correct point of view. It is the objective point of view, and that anything outside of that is by definition bias. That is actually the worst form of bias, saying, no, my perspective isn't even a perspective. It's preposterous, and it privileges wealth and power and the elites. And that is what the Washington Post does on a lot of occasions.

Not all, but a lot, and certainly Bloomberg News as well. And by the way, also, to be fair to them, because that's exactly what we do on the show. A lot of times Bloomberg News breaks fantastic stories. And so they've got real investigative journalists with both of those organizations. They've got good editors in both those organizations. But the billionaires to the top are doing most of the hiring, or it's trickling down obviously. And what you have is, in a sense, trickle down economics in media, where the billionaires do all the hiring decisions that then trickle down to all of the folks who have a group think

that the establishment is awesome and any kind of change, especially from the left, is radical and biased and unacceptable. And I want to add one more thing here. Look, the relation with Bezos and Bernie Sanders is not a theoretical one. It's not, hey, just ideological or hypothetical. It's real. He did a stop Bezos Act, Bernie Sanders did in the Senate. And it totally worked.

It pressured Amazon to increase their minimum wage at their company to $15 an hour across the country. So it costs Bezos money. I mean, he might have been at $151 billion right now if it wasn't for goddamn Bernie Sanders in his mind, right? She don't like that. Yeah, and so, and if you remember, there was just huge celebration of the actual workers of Amazon when that news was announced.

And in fact, Bernie Sanders in that case happens to be one of the very, very, very rare politicians That actually got anything done, let alone increased your wages. That's a gigantic difference. He was joined by Rokana in doing that on the House side. And that worked. And so that is what actually bothers the Jeff Bezos of the world the most. Remember, every dollar they pay you in wages is a dollar they don't get to keep in profit. So they are by definition opposed to their own workers.

The people who are supposed to stand up for you are your representatives, the government. And when the government actually does this job is when the billionaires get the most upset. So they see a guy like Sanders and they think, uh-oh, he might actually represent the people. And we can't have that. Everybody go, let's all join ranks. You run. I'll back you, right? Whether it's with money, it's with media, et cetera.

But we cannot have real representatives of the people. And that's the reality of the powerful and elite in this country. Yeah, and look, I just want to say one final thing, I think that Bernie Sanders and how he's really stuck to this message, this economic populist message, and it's not insincere. He's not doing it for political gain. He's been fighting for the same things for decades. But I think that that message really does resonate with people of all political ideologies, right? It doesn't matter which political group you identify with. If you're a worker in America, you feel how this economic system is rigged against you. So that message resonates with so many people, including people who ended up voting for Trump. So I think this is smart. I think it's really focusing on the issues that matter most to Americans overall.

And hopefully, you know, the primaries work out for him. Because I think that he has one of the best messages when it comes to fixing this broken economic system. All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back, Trump's in a world of trouble, a couple of different reasons why. And then, of course, the hilarious defense by the Republicans. And then Trump getting mad about the defense. You guys have seen this cycle before, right?

It's a new cycle with a similar story, but it all ends with the same four words. Tick, tick, tick, tick. 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 power. 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'd you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today, and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on a young Turks. So lots of comments, of course, Craig Cray Souffle in the member section says, Ooh, stop teasing already, Jenk, it's torture. When are you making these announcements?

Did you give a date? Yeah, Tuesday and Thursday. Oh, okay. Oh, I see, because there's two different announcements. When is the endorsement? I don't know. I guess you'll have to tune in on Tuesday and Thursday figuring out, isn't it? I didn't say there was going to be an announcement?

I said, or an endorsement. I said there might be an endorsement. Yeah, that means there's going to be an endorsement. Come on. I don't know. I don't know, anyway. Inquiring wines apparently want to know. We do haven't asked me anything tonight, YouTube Super Chat. I won't answer those two questions, but you could ask them and we'll have fun with it. Or you can ask it in intriguing different ways. Maybe you'll get something out of me. Ooh, I like that too. YouTube.com slash T.D to participate in that. You can start right now on YouTube Super Chat if you want. All right, anyway, can ask you this right? Said, please, evil Jeff, take Michael Bloomberg and get into the blue origin rocket ship and take off for more Mars, Pronto. Look, I don't know that any of these guys are evil, and maybe some of you guys disagree with me.

I don't even know what the word evil means, but I do know it is weird that the billionaires are planning to go to Mars, right? Yeah, I mean, they destroyed this planet, they need some safety in a different planet, right? Right, how about we fix the planet we're on and the only, for the moment being habitable one? So God, it's such a terrible plan B to literally leave the planet. But how are they going to make their billions in profit? Yeah, well, there's a lot of things to exploit at Mars.

Good luck with that. And I'm angry gumball, or I'm an angry gumball, writes in, Bezos endorses Bloomberg, mafiosos stick together. Again, I don't know if they're mafiosas or not, but monopolies are an issue, and that's where Stone Cold Casparian Stunner writes in. Oh, oh, I like that. By the way, Trump, in response to that last tweet is, I'm the best mafioso. Okay, I'm the biggest mafioso.

The strongest one. In fact, I invented the mafia. You think you won't say it? Anyway, as I told you, that person writes in, far too many monopolies need to be broken up, the concentrations of wealth and power from these monopolies is the backbone of the corruption eating away at our nation, like a cancer.

And, you know, look, we make those point out those issues with the owners of Washington Post, Bloomberg news, and the establishment gets shocked and chagrined and, etc. I have a prediction for you guys, they're going to accuse the young Turks soon of like, oh, it's unacceptable what they're doing. Can you believe what they're doing? In regards to name it, right? How about you guys and your owners?

No, that doesn't count, that doesn't count. It only counts when you do it. Anyway, other Russert wrote in on Twitter, the owners are oppositional to the workers. We're watching Jenk align with workers class consciousness, hashtag up the revolution. Again, it depends, and there's nuance guys. In some companies, they don't have to be opposed. But unfortunately, in the current system that we have, especially for public corporations, where they must legally maximize profit, it does put you in a situation where every dollar

you give the employees, the dollar you don't maximize for shareholders. And that is a deeply problematic system. I believe it can be fixed, but it has to be fixed. It's not right now that that issue is massive and contaminates our entire system. And last one, I'll just do one. Homos here writes in, Bernie by himself is a progressive freight train. Bernie with AOC is an unstoppable force. Hashtag Bernie 2020.

Okay. Anna, what's next? Well, I want to announce that we will be doing special coverage of the debate next week in Georgia. And so you can check us out like you typically do. The panel will consist of myself, Ida Rodriguez, John Ida Rola, and J.R. Jackson. We will go live on November 20th at 11 p.m. Eastern Time, 8 p.m. Pacific. Just go to t.t.com slash live to watch.

And while the debate is happening, we will not be on air. We'll be watching the debate and producing our coverage for you. And then again, at 11 p.m. Eastern time, we will go live and get you. you our analysis. And by the way, guys, if you're going to Georgia, we're gonna have a bunch of great political speakers there, including some of the candidates from Georgia, including a Senate candidate, Ted Terry, and others. So t.com slash rally to get information, sign up there so you can get information about where

the meetups happening, where the speeches are, when they are, et cetera, that'll be on the day of the debate. So I'll be in Atlanta while Anna and John and the others are doing the show here. I can't resist one more tweet. I bathe in Tommy Lawrence's tears, writes in. Jeff Bezos can help fund Bloomberg's presidential run, but cuts health care to 1,500 Whole Food employees. See, that's the thing I can't get past, man.

You know, I think that capitalism and corporatism are totally different. I think capitalism is redeemable. I think corporatism is despicable. I think this, and I've talked about the distinction between the two. But when you have people saying, I'm sorry, I can't afford health care for employees, or have to cut your wages or it can't increase your wages at massively profitable companies run by people who are, you know, billionaire on top of billionaire, there's just no excuse for it at all. Anything they tell you about how they can't do something is definitely a lie.

Okay, I want to be clear about that. All right. All right, well, we have a ton of impeachment related news today. Lots of stuff that's not so good, Very bad for Donald Trump. So a Giuliani associate has communicated with congressional impeachment investigators in regard to the White House's demands for an investigation into the Bidens in order to basically give the Ukrainians certain things that they wanted from the White House. So Lev Parnas is the Giuliani associate at the center of this story. He told a representative of the incoming government of Ukraine that it had to announce

an investigation into Trump's political rival Joe Biden and his son, or else Vice President Mike Pence would not attend the swearing in of the new president and the United States would freeze aid. Now this is huge. This is huge for a number of different reasons. It certainly implicates Giuliani, who is not a White House official. He is Donald Trump's personal attorney. And also, remember, Vice President Biden, I'm sorry, Vice President Pence did not go to

the swearing in for Vladimir Zelensky at the time the incoming president of Ukraine. Now this all went down before the new Ukrainian president was inaugurated, obviously, back in May. Now Rudy Giuliani flat out denies these claims. He told the New York Times, quote, categorically, I did not tell him to say that. Now, Parnas, who is preparing to share his account with impeachment investigators directly links Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, to threats of repercussions made to the Ukrainians something he has strenuously denied, something that Giuliani has denied.

Now another participant in the meeting, Parnas' business partner, Igor Fruman, said Parnas' claim was false. The men never raised the issues of aid or the vice president's attendance at the inauguration, And that's according to lawyers who represent Fruman. Now both Parnas and Fruman are facing some serious campaign violation charges because the two are Soviet born and worked with Giuliani to further Trump's interests. They also use shell companies in order to funnel money to Donald Trump's campaign. So that is against the law and they're facing serious charges as a result of that.

So a couple of things here. Parnas, the others are saying, oh, no, no, no, we didn't ask the Ukrainians to do any of the things that now at least half a dozen government officials have said, yeah, yeah, we... 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. We definitely asked them to do that. And now, of course, these guys are being investigated partly for that. So they say, no, no, no, I didn't do it, we didn't do it. But Parna says, yes, we did do it. My question is, what's Parnas' motivation if they didn't do it?

Well, why would he just come out randomly and be like, yeah, I'm guilty? Maybe there's a reason, right? But it seems unlikely. What's more likely? One guy turns on the others because they actually committed to crime. Or they, none of them committed a crime and one of them just randomly raised his hand and goes, yeah, I'd like to go to jail for something I didn't do and throw everybody else under the bus.

It's possible but not likely, okay? So now in terms of latest developments, now a State Department official, Catherine Croft, we have her testimony and she says that the Ukrainian government knew, quote, Very early on what basically the deal was, which is give us an investigation of the Bidens and then the Nassas conspiracy theory about the server in Ukraine, and in return, we'll release the aid. And apparently it was made clear to the Ukrainians that the holdup of the aid was not a bureaucratic issue.

In other words, oh, it's not held up in red tape, it's not just normal proceedings. No, we wanna be super clear. You investigate my political opponent, otherwise you do not get the aid that the United States government has promised you and has already passed through Congress. So that's extortion 101. That's why John Bolton, who we'll get to later on the show, said, I don't want to be any part of this quote, drug deal. By the way, one other thing that Parnas and Fruman wanted was to do away with Marie Yovanovich,

who was the ambassador to Ukraine. So that was one of the things that they accomplished through their support toward Donald Trump. Obviously Donald Trump did away with her and she later testified to congressional investigators in the impeachment investigation about what was going on in the White House and the types of deals that were being made between the Trump administration and the Ukrainian government. But with that said, I do want to warn you guys about a new defense. that's bubbling up with the Trump administration, and it's this idea that Donald Trump knew

nothing about what was going on. In fact, Donald Trump himself never ordered anything. It was just his own personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, acting independently and doing all this stuff, totally separate from Donald Trump. But that defense makes absolutely no sense. What would Rudy Giuliani get out of that, as Donald Trump's personal lawyer. So look, now there's so many people under the bus, it's kind of tipping over it. And even the people under the bus are a little confused, wait, who's throwing who under the bus here? We'll get to Mulvaney's role in all this in a second, because he's also thinking, wait,

I'm gonna throw you before you throw me. But as regards to Giuliani, this is a really interesting wrinkle. So Giuliani is also under investigation by Manhattan prosecutors and the FBI. over whether he illegally engaged in lobbying for foreign interests in connection with the Ukrainian efforts. Now that is not the same as Trump's extortion of Ukraine. So it's now that opens up a couple of possibilities. Giuliani is getting paid by a foreign government to get involved in this mess and is not working

in Trump's interest, certainly not working in the US interest, and has not registered as a foreign agent. He would be in massive trouble over that, right? And that is a Giuliani issue, and to be fair, if that were true, not a Trump issue. On the other hand, what is more likely and what seems to be on the record is that Giuliani not working for a foreign government, but working for Trump, his actual client, went and tried to do this extortion deal. So now that's why Giuliani keeps saying on Twitter, hey, I was just working for the president.

I wasn't working for any government. We all are looking at this and we covered on the show last week going, why are you admitting to crimes? Because if you're not working for the U.S. government, then you are illegally asking the Ukrainian government for a benefit to just Donald Trump personally. And that would be the extortion as opposed to serving American interests. But the reason Giuliani is saying that is because he doesn't want to go to jail. He's saying, hey, I'm not working for the Ukrainians, I'm not working for the Americans,

I'm not working for any government. So if you're gonna throw Trump or anyone else in jail for extortion, you deal with you deal with that, but I didn't do it. I didn't work for any of those governments. I was just representing my client. So you see how Giuliani and all of those appearances, while wild, erratic and crazed and looking like he's defending Trump, in some ways might not exactly be defending Trump. He might be protecting himself. I wasn't working for any official government so you can't convict me of that crime. And if my client did extortion, hey, I'm just his lawyer. I'm just, you know, what do I know? I'm just helping him carry it out.

That's right, which I don't think is a great defense. Right. But that's why you're seeing these different statements that otherwise don't make sense. And you're not wrong that it's hard to keep up with, wait, who's on which side here? Because a lot of the rats are leaving this sinking ship. And none of them are good guys. They're all rats, but they're fleeing in different directions and have different legal problems. And that's why you're seeing the varying statements that you're seeing in the press.

And I think there's also a possibility that Giuliani is guilty of both, right? Because the work that Giuliani was doing, aside from Trump, was, you know, he was getting involved with foreign governments. And so there could be some wrongdoing there. But he was, based on what we know and what we've talked about on the show, the testimony that we've heard or read about, it does appear that he was acting as Donald Trump's personal attorney as well. I mean, if you look at the memo of the phone conversation that Donald Trump had with Vladimir Zelensky, it's abundantly clear that Trump is telling Zelensky to get in touch

with both William Barr and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Yeah, so guys, I wanna just expand on that for one second here, because this part of the case is very important because it could bring together both of these issues and have Giuliani and Trump be guilty for both the same reason and different reasons. I know it's complicated, but let me explain. Parna's are the guys who are Giuliani's partners and who have been arrested, right? So one of the charges in the indictment that came out on October 10th accused the men of illegally routing $325,000 contribution to a political action committee supporting Trump through a shell

company and linked them to an effort to recall the US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovinovich. Yovanovitch, yeah. Yovanovitch, thank you. And so those guys might be working either for themselves or for a foreign government to remove the Ukrainian ambassador. But Trump also wanted to remove the Ukrainian ambassador because he thought she wasn't pushing hard enough to investigate the Bidens. And Giuliani is right in the middle with both of those different characters and might

have an interest in removing the Ukrainian ambassador because he's getting paid, possibly, this is the investigation, possibly by a foreign government to remove that ambassador. and also under the orders of Trump to remove the ambassador to start a trial of the Bidens in Ukraine, okay? So that's why Giuliani is so important to this, because he could be involved in two different criminal enterprises, which in this case would have the same goal, and they did in fact remove that ambassador. Yep, oh God, the story just gets juicier.

Well, there's more about Donald Trump feuding with Republicans, and this is, probably my favorite update on the impeachment investigation, because no one can get their story straight. So, Donald Trump has been feuding with Republican lawmakers who are not using his preferred defense when it comes to Trump's phone call with Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky. Now, to give you a little taste of what Trump does not like when defending him, let's go to Representative Mack Thornberry. It has been one-sided from the beginning. Congressman, you're again talking about process, the process, ask you about substance. How do you fend against this substance?

Well, as you know, maybe you know, Martha, I believe that it is inappropriate for a president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival. Now, it leads to a question, if there's a political rival with a family member who's involved in questionable activity, what do you do? just let him alone, but set that aside. I believe it was inappropriate. I do not believe it was impeachable. Now, the fact that Representative Thornberry kept referring to the phone conversation as inappropriate is something that's been really getting under Donald Trump's skin because he's been repeating over and over again that the phone call was perfect. It was a perfect call. In fact, he went at it on Twitter saying the call to the Ukrainian president was perfect. Read the transcript, there was nothing said that was in any way wrong, Republicans don't

be led into the fool's trap of saying it was not perfect, but is not impeachable. No, it is much stronger than that, nothing was done wrong. Now we're about to go into the so-called transcript in just a minute to show you just how imperfect it is, but Jake, jump in. So look, even outside of the context of the criminal actions of the president, which I'll I'll get back to in a second. Think about what a lunatic he is. If you had anybody like this in your personal life, you'd run for the hills.

My call was perfect. I've had a lot of really good calls, I don't think any of them have been perfect. What does that mean, right? And not only does he keep screaming into the ether, my call was perfect, like a lunatic, but he is now insisting that other Republicans subjected themselves to this humiliation of having to go on TV and saying, yes, the president had a perfect call. How many other perfect calls as he had? No, he, I mean, he would argue that everything he does is perfect.

He's never made a mistake in his life unless it comes to legal settlements where he has to admit guilt in order to settle the case. Do you know anyone in your personal life who thinks everything they do is perfect and is not a lunatic? Right, okay. So now back to the criminality. So the representative says, well, inappropriate, but not impeachable. Well, what do you mean inappropriate?

It's illegal. Right. Both counts are illegal. You can't ask, solicit work from a foreign government for your own political campaign, and you also can't do extortion. So they're both illegal. So are you saying, and this is what should be clarified by reporters, that yes, you acknowledge that they are clearly, clearly illegal.

I mean, there's statutes, the statutes match this perfectly. There's no disputing it, right? But you're basically saying, and then look, sometimes in some ways the Democrats said this in the Bill Clinton impeachment, yeah, but it's not illegal enough. And so, and maybe that's an interesting case to make, right? In the case of Bill Clinton, he told a lie about his affair. I don't particularly care about that lie, so I'm keeping it real, right? And I said that back when I was a Republican and they were doing impeachment.

Now, so is that at the same level as extorting a foreign government? No, it's not. And betraying national security interests, I don't think it is. I don't think anyone could make a reasonable case that it is, but at least make that case and be honest. Don't give me this stuff with like, I mean, look, it was armed robbery, but I find that inappropriate and I'd rather not prosecute. Okay.

All of these Republican lawmakers are, again, just looking out for their own political interests and the future of their political careers, that's all they care about. On one hand, they understand the nature of that phone call, and they understand that defending that phone call is unacceptable, right? They wouldn't defend that phone call if it was any other politician. But because Donald Trump is still popular with the Republican base, they feel this need to defend him without really defending him. And Trump sees it from what it is.

And that's why he's calling them out and saying, it's a perfect call, it's a perfect call. And he's demanding that they regurgitate that nonsense. Now, in his tweet, he said, read the transcript. First of all, I would love to read the actual transcript, which is still being held in a top secret server because the call was obviously not perfect. But we do have the summary or the memo of that conversation. And so let's talk about how imperfect it really was. I'm just going to read you a few excerpts, right? We can't read the full thing right now, but these are the parts that were problematic to say the least.

So here's Donald Trump during that phone conversation with Vladimir Zelensky. He said the following. I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot, and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine. They say crowd strike, the server, they say Ukraine has it. So that's where he wants Zelensky to do him a favor in investigating that so-called server. This is part of that nonsense conspiracy theory, where Trump thinks Ukraine meddled in the elections, not Russia.

Okay, so number one, you mentioned CrowdStrike that is specifically about your election in 2016. And this is my point about how the rest of the media doesn't acknowledge how incredibly unintelligent Donald Trump is. That's a wild, crazy conspiracy theory. And Trump commits a incredibly illegal act over something that isn't even remotely true. It has no chance of being true because he's such an idiot. Like, if you're gonna bother committing an illegal act, at least investigating the Bindens would hurt your political opponent. That's the second thing that he asked for.

At least I understand the logic of that as opposed to like, oh, here you have a secret server hidden into Ukraine, go find you, do me a favor, okay? So does any of this sound perfect to you? Of course it's not perfect. That's why Republican lawmakers can't defend the substance of this call. Now let's go to Vladimir Zelensky, as you guys already know, but you know, it's not Trump kept urging Zelensky to talk to his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. He is not a government official, he's not an elected official, he's not part of Trump's

administration, he is Trump's personal lawyer. And Trump kept pushing Zelensky to speak to him. And so at one point in this conversation, Zelensky said to Trump, I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently, and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine, and we will meet. once he comes to Ukraine, I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. Okay, it's a little questionable. Then, of course, there was the proposal to investigate the Bidens. And here's what Donald Trump said in the summary of this phone call. The other thing,

there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general, meaning William Barr, would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution. So if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me. By the way, the prosecutor who got fired was actually stagnant in the investigation into Burisma. Now, do I think Biden's son working for that gas company was an issue? Yes, I think that that's a perfect example of abuse of power. But the way that Trump has spun this to make it appear as though Biden interfered in that investigation and did a way with that prosecutor is just a flat out lie.

So if you don't know this, the United States government does not send randos that are not in the government to negotiate with foreign governments. That just never happens. So Obama didn't send his accountant to negotiate with Botswana. Clinton and Reagan didn't send their plumber to negotiate with Canada or China. It's not a thing. And so even if you think that's not illegal, well, It's certainly inappropriate and totally unprecedented.

Does this sound perfect to you? So one other issue in that memo was, it's an issue that comes up a lot with Donald Trump. You have foreign leaders purposely booking rooms in his properties to garner support or favors from Donald Trump. And that came up in this call where Zelensky said, quote, last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park. and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them, and I hope to see them again in the future, meaning his friends in the United States. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically

Washington, D.C. So there was a lot of, look, that's not, you can maybe say, or maybe he's just being nice and he's saying that he's stayed at Trump property. But it's well known that, again, foreign leaders, foreign politicians will stay at his properties in order to get into his good graces. And I think that's the case here. And finally, one other point from Zelensky's portion of that call. He said, quote, on the other hand, I also want to assure you that we will be very serious

about the case and will work on the investigation. So the investigation into the Biden. So he had to keep assuring Donald Trump. Don't worry, we got you. We're going to give you what you want. So as I've told you before, the reason that Trump keeps saying that it's perfect. is because he thinks he committed the perfect crime. Oh, well, I robbed the bank, but I was wearing a mask, so you couldn't tell who it was.

Meanwhile, it's a guy with a long red tie and tiny hands and orange hair, but he's like, it was the perfect entry into the bank, okay? You'd be like, what do you mean perfect, dude, we can see, it's you with a mascot, right? But that's what he thinks he's doing here. He's like, I asked him to do a favor, I said investigate the Bidens, but I told Giuliani ahead of time and Mulvaney to stop their aid and tell him I'm stopping their aid, but I didn't say it on the phone call. Ha ha ha!

That was perfect. Yeah, he is that dumb. And that's why Republican lawmakers are having a difficult time defending the substance of Donald Trump's conversation with Zelensky. And I want to end this with one more clip from Representative Thornberry because just get a load of what he compares Trump to. Process, you know, y'all always want to say substance, not process. There's a reason we let murderers and robbers and rapists go free when their due process rights have been violated.

We believe the integrity of the system, the integrity of the constitution, the integrity of the processes under our legal system is more important than the outcome of one particular case. Not a good defense, right, comparing him to robbers and murders. The process, by the way, is constitutional. There haven't been any issues with the process whatsoever. The impeachment investigation is going to become public this week. And there is no indication that congressional lawmakers who are part of this impeachment investigation have done anything wrong. The closed-door sessions were completely legal, and part of the reason why is because you

You had John Boehner back in 2015 accomplishing closed door sessions in the Benghazi hearings. So. So now I guess we gotta ask Republicans, do you think murder is still illegal or just inappropriate? All right. Well, we gotta take a break when we come back, John Bolton, he might spill the tea soon. Bolton versus Trump, the battle of the bastards. We'll be right back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals.

And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired Magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans.

That's EXPRE S-SVPN.com slash T-YT. t yt check it out today we hope you're enjoying this free clip from the young turks if you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media become a member at t yt com slash join today in the meantime enjoy this free segment all right back on young turks Liam asked in the member section would someone be able to tell me how i can participate in the youtube super chat post game please so liam you're a member and i don't know if you normally watch on t yt.com In this case, for the last hour, and it's a full hour of asking anything. So sometimes we run out of time when we do the half hour.

So you guys get to the full experience here. And everybody participates. It's open to everybody. So you just leave a comment with super chat when you're watching on YouTube.com slash TYT. That's how you do it. If you need more details, other members, help them out. I'm an angry gumballs, writes, and Lev Parnas looks like a sad peach.

Funny, that's all. Oh man, I want to look at his picture now. Yeah, yeah, no, I remember the picture. You're right, he does. They were both not perfect looking. Yeah, not perfect in their mug shots. Juicy avocado says, I was watching Why We Hate on CNN, and there was a clip from TYT with Jen, glad to see you made it into another documentary.

Oh, okay. Honestly, I didn't even know that. Okay, so I'll have to check that out. Thanks for letting me know. So it turns out people watch us online and then put us into a lot of documentaries. Yeah, including, by the way, producers of the Daily. So hey. Oh, really?

Yeah, they've used at least in two episodes. And I like that podcast a lot. So it's like, I'm a fan girl. So when they used a few snippets in two different episodes, I got really excited. Oh, okay. No wonder if she likes the Daily. Bye, yes. Okay, anyway, all right, let's keep going.

Thomas says, if Giuliani wasn't working for the government, why did Trump tell the Ukrainian leader to speak with Giuliani? Why did Giuliani make that call to the Ukrainian leader? It's a great question. Think about it, guys. So Trump, if it's so perfect and Giuliani doesn't work for the American government, who does he work for? And why is he talking to the Ukrainians?

It's obviously for your personal benefit. No hands of her butts. Now last comments from Twitter, Drew says, so Jank is going to endorse someone? I'll bet it's going to be Bloomberg. Can you imagine? I would think I would be so embarrassed. That would not happen. It just wouldn't.

I wouldn't let you. Drew continues. I tie you up in a basement somewhere before you did something like that. So you'd be my ablo? Okay. He drew concludes. The timing is too coincidental. Okay.

So I did tell you that the announcements would be dramatic. So do you imagine? Cloe? No, I literally can't. That would be hilarious. I would laugh because it would be a joke. Two dramatic announcements, Tuesday and Thursday, don't miss the show. Anna, what's next?

All right. A lawyer representing former national security advisor John Bolton indicates that Bolton has some juicy stuff that he can share with impeachment investigators. However, they want a judge to rule on whether John Bolton can actually testify. Now, this is a weird thing to say, because as we know, there have been a number of Trump administration officials who have complied with congressional subpoenas. They have testified, they have given their depositions. Earlier, Bolton was supposed to give a deposition, but he didn't show up.

And the argument was, well, we're getting word from the White House that we should ignore the subpoenas, we should not comply. On the other hand, we're getting these congressional subpoenas, we don't know what to do. Now, I don't really buy that argument, but nonetheless, the letter that was put out by Charles Cooper, who is Bolton's attorney, is fascinating because again, it indicates that Bolton was in on various meetings, was personally involved in many of the events, meetings and conversations about which you have already received testimony, as well as many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed in the testimonies thus far.

Drums. Okay, so that's some significant drama right there. Well, so this is a really weird and interesting game of chicken because Bolton clearly wants to testify and he wants to first absolve himself, so he say, and that's why his people that have been in the meetings with Bolton have already testified that he said, I don't want any part to do with Mulvaney and Giuliani's drug deal. That's how he's referring to this quid pro quo with Ukraine. He also called Giuliani a hand grenade, okay, and said he didn't want any part of him.

So now here he has, first of all, before this latest statement coming out saying, look, I believe in executive power. And so if the White House is saying don't testify, I'm a good conservative soldier, so I'm not going to testify. But golly gee, if Congress is making me do it, I guess I'll have to go to the courts and decide, you know, they'll have to decide whether I should or shouldn't. And I think that he was rooting for the Democrats to press on that and for the courts to to say, yes, John, you gotta go in and testify against Trump.

There's nothing you could do, right? So now the problem became when the Democrats said, ah, then forget it, we don't want your testimony, because they don't want it being dragged down. I want to get back to that and what the Democrats should actually do. But basically, Democrats then go and say, okay, you're now obstructing justice. And it's not necessarily Bolton that they're after, they're saying, this is another article of impeachment against Trump, because he's stopping Bolton and the others from testifying when they have legal subpoenas to testify, this was one of the articles of impeachment

against Richard Nixon. So I think democratic strategy is a little off but defensible. So, but that presents a problem for Bolton because he actually did want to testify because he can't wait to throw Trump under the bus. Right, but so why doesn't he just testify? I just, I don't really understand where the issue is. Like, why is he remaining somewhat loyal to the Trump administration? Why can't he just comply with the congressional subpoenas the same way other Trump administration officials did?

So I have an answer for that. So, and that's where we get into the game of chicken. Part of the reason he's not doing it is theoretically ideological, right? Because he was part of the Bush administration where they said the Cheney rule of executive power. The executive can do anything they want. The president can launch wars, the president doesn't have to check with Congress, has all this executive authority. If he now turns around and goes, yeah, I'll respond to the congressional subpoena, even though the president ordered me not to, well, that's an ideological problem for John Bolton.

Dude, who cares? Just do the right thing. He's John Bolton. I know. I know, I know. And believe me, I don't have all this faith in John Bolton. I know who John Bolton is, okay? I know that he is a questionable mustachioed man who like has, like who cares about your ideology

right now, right? Like, again, everyone in Washington is fueled. by their own, like all of their motivation is about their own reputation and their own political careers. Because he's thinking about his political career, that's what he's thinking about. That's what John Bolton's thinking about. He's not thinking about his principles, he's not thinking about like, oh, let me do the right thing based on my values.

He's thinking about like, how is this going to impact me in the future? You are an old dude, okay? Just do the right thing for once in your life, just once. Before we get back to the thumbs, it's two fun things. I like how it- I'm just so sick of these like self-interested jerk-offs. Okay, and then there's that, okay. That's what happens when you can't curse, you come up with words like that. Okay, yeah.

So that is a real word. So I like when she was imitating John Bolton, she was like this. I don't think John Bolton's ever done that in his life. Okay, and when you said moustachioed, I thought you said pistachioed. And I was like, hmm. Gross. Anyway, so now back to the substance. So what, when the Democrats say, well, we don't want your testimony, then Bolton sends out

his lawyer to do the story we're reporting on today. Where the lawyer goes, but wait, wait, wait, no, no, you don't understand it. He's not just backing up the old stories. He has news stories you haven't even heard of, plus, plus all the other ones are reporting stories of meetings that happened that were ordered by the president, but the president wasn't in the room, whereas Bolton was in the room with the president and got direct orders. So he desperately wants to testify. At first, I wasn't sure.

I was thinking maybe this is his way of helping the Republicans and Donald Trump by delaying the testimony and delaying the impeachment hearings by dragging it out in courts. But now with this latest letter from his lawyer, no question he wants to testify. So that means now the Democrats and John Bolton are in a game of chicken, right? And the Democrats are saying, oh, you want to throw Trump under a bus? Well, I guess you'll have to defy that executive order. And Bolton's like, I don't want to defy an executive order for God damn it, I want to throw him under a bus.

Shank, this is what I, this is also what I don't understand as a salty human being, right? It's very rare, in fact, nearly impossible to find yourself in a situation where you are feeling that salt, right? You have this saltiness toward one specific individual. It's very rare that a gift is handed to you where you get to retaliate. And at the same time, do something right in your retaliation. Yeah. What is wrong with him?

Well, he's never done anything right in his life, so he's totally conflicted. I just don't get it, he doesn't deserve these gifts. So, and you can tell from Trump, he said recently, I'm not concerned about anything. It seems that nobody has any first hand knowledge, there's no firsthand knowledge. Notice that criminals talk about people not seeming to have firsthand knowledge. That's like a criminal saying, oh yeah, you don't have the evidence. In other words, the evidence exists, but you're saying, ha ha, you don't have it yet because I did a perfect call.

So Bolton apparently might have the direct evidence, besides which guys, all the other stuff is direct evidence. That's all nonsense. It's not hearsay, you don't have to have somebody saying, yes, I am going to rob a bank at 7 p.m. for it to be a bank robbery, okay? There's plenty of witnesses, et cetera. But this boils down to Bolton versus Trump, the battle of the bastards, and the question is, is Bolton gonna, are there Democrats, first of all, going to change their strategy

and go, ah, you know, let's also pursue that. I actually would counsel in favor that because I say all of the above, right? Pursue the subpoena through the courts for Bolton. Meanwhile, continue on impeachment, go nuts, right? You don't need Bolton, but maybe by the time you're rolling around to all this being adjudicated in the House or in the Senate, then you'll have your court ruling and then Bolton can come in with a finishing blow, right? So I would counsel them to do both, I don't think either one stops you, and it also doesn't

It doesn't stop you from pursuing the obstruction charge against Trump, because no matter which way the court's rule, Trump is trying to obstruct. That there's no question about that. The very act of Trump telling Bolton and the others not to testify is obstruction. So that doesn't hurt your case at all on the obstruction charge. So give them everything you got, if you're the Democrats, fortunately as usual, they're not doing exactly that. But if I know Bolton, that dude loves war too much not to go to war.

here. Yes, this is the right opportunity, Bolton. This is when you should go to war. And he, and his ego is too large to get fired and not to get payback. What's larger, your ego or your mustache? Okay. People want to know. And in the end, hear me now, quote me later. No matter what the circumstances, courts, not courts, Democrats say yes or no, it doesn't matter. Bolton will testify against Trump because it's eating him up and he can't let it go. He's not a Democrat, he's a super hard right wing Republican, and they love going to war, and they never let stuff go. So Bolton will come back and give one last blow to Trump.

Give it to the salt. Just get in. And the last words Trump might say is, add to Bolton A. It's all right, it's all right. We should probably end that clip on, you know, give in to the salt. That was better. Okay, we got to take a break, but when we come back, Nikki Haley. Oh, I love that story.

This story is bananas, okay? You don't want to miss it. She's also spilling some tea, but what are her motivations? We'll tell you more when we return. 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. Apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.