The Young Turks - TYT Hour 1 - November 13th, 2019

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

Ambassador Bill Taylor has destroyed Trump's impeachment defense. 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. So we got a big show ahead for you guys.

We always have big shows, don't we? We had a big show yesterday. Sometimes we have little shows. Yeah. Today's a big show, I think. Yeah, impeachment hearings have begun, obviously. We got Stephen Miller, caught. I told you, internet's going to catch you.

Well, I should know, right? Okay, anyway, we also have a big show tomorrow, as I've been telling you, I told you guys there's a dramatic announcement coming tomorrow. Some of you have begun to believe me. So, we will save that obviously for tomorrow, but today we've got a ton of news. One of my favorite stories, obviously we're going to do all the impeachment hearings and all the videos. Don't, don't tease anything. Because you never know if we're going to get to it.

Yeah, just don't. Today's been a crazy news day. Our rundown changed only about a billion times. So I want to thank everyone at TYT for bearing with us and going along with the changes and adapting with the changes. With that said, though, don't tease anything. Okay, but there's a story I love. Okay, we'll get to a late. Let's get started.

All right, well, today marks the first day that the congressional impeachment investigation has gone public, and one of the most important testimonies came from U.S. ambassador Bill Taylor. Now, previously during closed door testimony, Bill Taylor did give damning evidence against Donald Trump involving his relationship with the Ukrainian president regarding the holdup of military aid and some of the other problematic actions by Donald Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, when it came to communicating with Ukraine. Now, with that said, William Taylor shares new information in this public testimony that is

incredibly important. So take a look. Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26th. While Ambassador Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland, Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. Yerbach. Following that meeting in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kiv. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations.

Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff, asked Ambassador Sondland, President Trump thought about Ukraine. Mr. Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for. At the time I gave my deposition on October 22nd, I was not aware of this information. I'm including it here for completeness. As the committee knows, I reported this information through counsel to the State Department's

legal advisor, as well as to counsel for both the majority and the minority of this committee. is my understanding that the committee is following up on this matter. So I want to just reiterate this is new information that's being shared. No one knew of this prior to, no one in the public knew of this prior to what Taylor said today. And it's important because it really does throw cold water on Donald Trump's claims that, you know, he knew nothing about these dealings. That if Rudy Giuliani was making these requests, he was doing it on his own behalf and that Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. But in reality, now you have Bill Taylor saying that one of his staffers overheard Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the EU, talking with Donald Trump about the investigation that Donald Trump

wanted the Ukraine to launch against the Bidens. So those are the facts. Here's my analysis. Ladies and gentlemen, we got- Not yet, not yet. But tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. Look, that was bad. That was gonna leave a mark.

So none of this is gonna work out for Trump. And see, this shows, look, I don't wanna get too much back into the democratic politics, but it shows we were right all along. Just do the impeachment, put them on television, everybody's gonna spill the tea, and there's a billion gallons of tea to spill about Donald Trump. So if it wasn't this, it was something else, he did a hundred things wrong, but I know. Ukraine, they got them, man. They got them in every direction.

So did he know about the investigations? Yes. Did he ask for to investigate his political opponent? Yes. Did he withhold the aid? Yes. Did the Ukrainians know? Yes. Good night, Irene. Look, it's, but again, remember the politics of it is all this will be devastating to Trump's, I believe, poll numbers, okay? Which then has to have a ripple effect to Republican poll numbers.

Impeachments easy in the House, relatively easy, they're Democrats, you never know, okay? But when they go to the Senate for conviction, it's all going to be, if any reporters telling you otherwise, they don't know anything about politics. It's all going to be based on those Republican senators' poll numbers in their home state that are running for reelection. That will decide whether Trump stays or goes, because the evidence is super clear. He definitely did it. So the one thing I will say about Democrats, and as you guys know, I'm not usually very flattered

toward Democrats. When it came to the Mueller hearings, they had absolutely no strategy. I think that it was a complete nutter disaster, didn't work out for them. However, when it comes to the hearings in regard to the impeachment strategy, wow, I mean, they are prepared, they know what evidence they have at their disposal. They do a good job in questioning both Bill Taylor and George Kent, the two individuals who testified today. And it seems like there's some cohesion in their efforts here, and that's important.

Now with that said, one of the things that Bill Taylor was reported as saying during the closed door hearings was that he found it incredibly problematic that Donald Trump was holding up the congressionally appropriated military aid for Ukraine. He thought it was crazy. And at one point, the Democratic Council, his name is Daniel Goldman, asks Bill Taylor about that. Let's take a look. As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with

a political campaign. What did you mean when you said you thought it was crazy? Ms. Coleman, I meant that the important, because of the importance of security assistance, that we had just described and had a conversation with the chairman, because that was so important that security system was so important for Ukraine, as well as our own national interest. To withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with the political campaign made no sense. It was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical.

It could not be explained. It was crazy. Also, what Bill Taylor did during this hearing was a good job of, differentiating between, let's say, a president making deals with a foreign country based on the best interests of the United States versus, and this is what Trump did, the best interests for his own political campaign. And so his testimony was certainly clear. He did not deviate into any type of opinionated territory.

He really did stick to the facts. And I just want to quickly go to this next video because he really drives it home where he mentions what he means by political campaign. Take a look. When you reference help with a political campaign in this text message, what did you mean? I meant that the investigation of Burisma and the Bidens was clearly identified by Mr. Giuliani in public for months as a way to get information on the on the two Bidens.

And those, that investigation at the very least was mentioned by President Trump in the July 25th phone call with President Zelensky, is that right? As we now know, yes. Yes, on September 25th, that transcript was released. Okay, does anyone think that he wasn't asking for an investigation of his political opponents? No one thinks that, right? Does anybody think he didn't withhold the aid? Well, we know he withheld the aid.

Does anybody think those two things are not connected? Nobody thinks that. Of course they're connected, right? Does anybody think it's not a crime? Well, you're not allowed to think that. It's by definition. There's statutes that are involved here. It's definitely a crime.

Ladies and channel? Not yet. Not yet. You never know what could happen. Look, guys, it's going to be one guy after another after another. All the Republicans have, and you'll see it throughout it, squirrel, squirrel, they have nothing about the substance, because the substance is damning, okay? They're in a world of hurt.

So all they got is a bucket full of squirrels. You're right, they do have, they have nothing in terms of a defense. And what we talked about on the show earlier about what the GOP strategy is going to be, is certainly playing out. You can see how they're using this four-pronged approach of trying to undermine the testimony, and essentially paint these Trump administration officials as so-called never-Trumpers, right? And it's not working.

One other thing that they keep trying to focus on is the identity of the whistleblower. And the reality is when you listen to the testimony from people like U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, or George Kent, who also testified today, it's very clear that the whistleblower at this point is completely irrelevant, right? Because you have people who are currently working in Donald Trump's administration, who are privy to the types of conversations that were happening, who know about the fact that Donald Trump withheld that military aid, hoping for an investigation to the Biden. They're the ones who are openly, like, showing up to these hearings and testifying against Trump, testifying about what actually happened. That's what's relevant. Any type of attention on, oh, who's the whistleblower is just another squirrel in their bucket.

100% whistleblower is totally irrelevant. So I mean, what difference does it make who originally raised the flag? We have witnesses. We have witnesses galore. It doesn't matter who originally said, hey, you know what, I think that was a problem. So it's nothing but oh, that's the goddamn rat, we're gonna get the rat and we're gonna show you and it's trees in and blah blah blah, blah, blah. But squirrels, man, they're screwed.

So one more clip from Taylor's testimony that I think is relevant. He answers another question from the Democratic Council. And it is about the type of precedent he has experienced as, you know, a career official within the White House. Take a look. Ambassador Taylor, in your decades of military service and diplomatic service representing the United States around the world, have you ever seen a Another example of foreign aid conditioned on the personal or political interests of the President of the United States? No, Mr. Goldman, I've not.

So we're gonna get into Trump's reaction in depth more later. But one thing he says, speaking of squirrels, is, oh, it doesn't matter, they're using television lawyers. Which is, by the way, something he would totally do. Of course, that's why he says it, because I don't even know what that means. What's a television lawyer? Is the guy Matlock? No, no, Jake, this is such classic projection, right?

He's the one who floated the idea of Judge Napolitano as a Supreme Court justice. That's right, literally a television lawyer. Although it turns out a pretty good one. Yeah. Because he says, oh, Trump definitely did it. So anyway, what's left there to say inappropriate and illegal on every count? So unless, you know, you're gonna play the 50-50 game false equivalencies and bag full of squirrels, if we had any rational rule of law here, it'd already be over on day one.

Well, let's go to George Kent's testimony because there was some new information shared there. And for anyone who is concerned about Biden's role in firing a prosecutor in Ukraine, well, he clarifies what went on there. So let's move on to that story. Assistant Secretary of State, George Kent, testified in the open and public hearing in the impeachment investigation today. And during his testimony, he shared a lot of details into the firing of a prosecutor, which allegedly led to Donald Trump being concerned about the Biden's role in Ukraine, whether Joe Biden got a specific prosecutor fired for investigating Burisma, which is a gas company

that Hunter Biden was working at. Well, I love this next piece of testimony from Kent because he really clarifies what went down and how it went down. Take a look. As a general principle, I do not believe the United States should ask other countries to engage in selective, politically associated investigations or prosecutions against opponents of those in power because such selective actions undermine the rule of law regardless of the country. The pervasive and long-standing problem of corruption in Ukraine included exposure to a situation involving the energy company Burisma.

The primary concern of the U.S. government since 2014 was Burisma's owner, McCulles-Lochewski, whose frozen assets abroad we had attempted to recover on Ukraine's behalf. In early 2015, I raised questions with the Deputy Prosecutor General about why the investigation of Mr. Lachewski had been terminated, based on our belief that prosecutors had accepted. bribes to close the case. Later, I became aware that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma. Soon after that, in a briefing call with the national security staff of the Office of the Vice President in February of 2015, I raised my concern that Hunter Biden's status as a board member could create the perception of a conflict of interests. Let me be clear, however, I did not witness any effort by any U.S. official to shield Burisma

from scrutiny. In fact, I and other U.S. officials consistently advocated, re-instituted. a scuttled investigation of Zlachevsky, Burismas founder, as well as holding the corrupt prosecutors who closed the case to account. Okay, so let me just decode this for anyone who might be confused about what's going on. Number one, George Kent is very honest in his assessment of what happened with the Bidens. First of all, he's absolutely right. Having Hunter Biden serve on that board poses a conflict of interest.

So he's fair in noting that, and I agree with him on that. But secondly, the prosecutor who got fired was a prosecutor that U.S. officials were concerned about because he had stopped investigating the corruption into Burisma, right? And that was when U.S. officials got involved and started pursuing this prosecutor to figure out why that investigation was stagnant, and then they took him off the case, okay? So that prosecutor, and this, we've already reported this, but this is now from George Kent's mouth, that prosecutor who Joe Biden wanted to essentially fire or get off that case was not actually doing his job in investigating Burisma.

Yeah, so there's two layers to this. First of all, if Joe Biden was guilty of anything, I don't think he was, I'll explain that in layer two, but in this first layer, if he is guilty of anything, what does that have to do with Donald Trump and him withholding Ukrainian aid in order to investigate his political opponent. Those two things are, in a sense, unrelated. Well, this is what Republicans will say. Republicans will say, well, you know, this is hard-earned taxpayer money that's going toward Ukraine, and Ukraine is just so corrupt. And Donald Trump just wanted to make sure that taxpayer money wasn't wasted on a corrupt situation.

Which is BS, okay? We know for a fact that the firing of that prosecutor was not a result of corruption. It was the result of actually retaliating against a prosecutor who was not doing his job in investigating Burisma. Trump doesn't know any of the details of what happened with Burisma and what if what Biden asked for or didn't ask for, what the State Department asked for or didn't ask for it. He doesn't know any of that and he doesn't care about any of that, and you know that. But even if Biden was terribly guilty, you still can't withhold aid from Ukraine because you'd like to investigate your top political opponent.

You know, even if you think that investigation is justified, right? So look, he says, look, I withheld aid because the point and it just made, because I'm so deeply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. I don't want to go wrong places. Okay, so how many Ukrainians did you ask them to investigate? Because you're worried about the corruption in Ukraine. Oh, none, I don't care about that at all. Exactly.

Okay, all right, that's what I thought. So that's layer one. Layer two is whether, in a sense, this is a squirrel to begin with, but okay, I'll address the squirrel. Okay, listen, Mr. Squirrel, that's trying to get our attention. So look, Hunter Biden was on that board because his last name ends with Biden. Okay, there's no question about that. No rational human being thinks, like, no, maybe he did know about Ukrainian gas. Yeah, it could be.

Come on, nobody thinks that, right? But here you have State Department officials say, no, we wanted them to investigate Burisma more, not less. So that's a fact, oops. So the whole idea was Biden and the Obama administration was like, oh no, Hunter's got a good scam going, right? So let's make sure that he, the company's on the board of doesn't get investigated. But it turns out they actually wanted the company investigated more, not less, oops, you got

that squirrel? Okay, but that squirrel will keep popping up on your TV screens left. and right because the GOP is desperate. And look, guys, in terms of being unbiased, I got no love for Joe Biden. Let me be perfectly clear. I want him to lose the Democratic nomination. I think he's a terrible candidate, and he's not remotely progressive. But did he do the corruption?

No, no. Look, his son, it is what it is, but the sins of the son can't be passed on to the father. If I thought Biden actually asked them to not investigate the corruption, I would go ballistic against Biden. But that does not seem to be the case. Exactly. In fact, when it comes to corruption and when it comes to shadow foreign policy, George Kent shines a light on the influence of Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani,

and into the firing of Marie Yovanovitch. So he gives those details. And this is very important. Pay close attention to the details he gives here. Take a look. Over the course of 2018 and 2019, I became increasingly aware of an effort by Rudy Giuliani and others, including his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman,

to run a campaign to smear Ambassador Yovanovitch and other officials at the U.S. embassy in Kiev. The chief agitators on the Ukrainian side of this effort were some of those same corrupt former prosecutors I had encountered, particularly Yuri Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin. They were now peddling false information in order to extract revenge against those who had exposed their misconduct, including U.S. diplomats, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, and reform-minded civil society groups in Ukraine. During the late spring and summer of 2019, I became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. They led to the ouster of Ambassador Yovanovitch and hampered U.S. efforts to establish rapport with the New Zelensky administration in Ukraine. In mid-August, it became clear to me that Giuliani's efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now infecting U.S. engagement with Ukraine, leveraging President Zelensky's

desire for a White House meeting. So real quick, Yovanovitch was part of a U.S. foreign policy strategy to actually root out corruption in Ukraine. Now, the corrupt forces in Ukraine, which were influenced by Russia, did not look at the corrupt forces in Ukraine. Not like that. And so they're working with Giuliani to essentially get Yovanovitch fired. And we have more testimony, by the way, not testimony, but we have more information from one of Giuliani's business associates, Lev Parnas, about that.

So there's mounting evidence about how pro-Russian forces within Ukraine were working with Giuliani to get rid of people like Yovanovitch because Yovanovitch was one of the U.S. officials actually investigating corruption in Ukraine. No, but you understand the irony of that Yovanovitch says, there's terrible corruption in Ukraine and I want to address it. Trump, who claims that he called for an investigation of the Biden's because he cares about corruption in Ukraine, fired the ambassador who was pressing for action on corruption. Now, why would you fire her?

She was the most vocal person saying, let's end the corruption in Ukraine. If you actually cared about ending the corruption in Ukraine, you'd promote her if that's possible. You wouldn't fire her. In reality, you got the three stooges, Parnas, Igor, and Giuliani running around going and trying to actually fire the people who actually were investigating the corruption. Exactly. And they talked to Trump, you'll see in a story later, Parna says, yeah, we talked to him. And then Trump did fire that ambassador.

So Trump was, it turns out, and look, if you're following. politics at all in America, you're not at all going to be surprised. Trump is the one who actually was for corruption in Ukraine. He wasn't trying to fight it. So his one excuse of like, oh my God, I cared so much about corruption is the exact opposite of reality. Exactly. And again, what you just heard George Kent say has been corroborated by Giuliani's

business associate Lev Parnas, who is facing charges for illegal campaign contributions to Donald Trump. Okay, and finally, so how are they gonna attack Kent in this case? Again, a terrific witness, appears unimpeachable, if you will. So they're gonna go after his bow tie. Hear me now, quote me later, okay, guaranteed. They're gonna forget that Tucker Carlson spent most of his career in a bow tie. They're like, oh yeah, this is how the deep state does it, look at these guys.

I bet this guy's never eaten a steak well done with ketchup, okay, you know, you can't try These guys, they look smart. So sad. Yeah, so wait for it. Yeah. All right, well, we have more on the Trump reaction to the hearing today. And then later, we're going to show you probably my favorite video, Jim Jordan getting We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing 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 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. member section, tyt.com slash join to become a member. Sport independent media, home of progressives. We're not playing. Pepe Tropicassus writes in. I'm going to watch live because I can't wait till tomorrow to see how the hearings are waiting. Hi to all you, TYT fam. Okay, Philly Progressive with

shots fired here. The Republicans brought in Jim Jordan because he's experienced with protecting sexual predators. That's kind of a fact. Certainly not unfounded. All right. Captain Cornball says, It has to be said, Bill Taylor has a voice arrival, Mark Thompson. Dude, you know what? I will say, I don't even, I probably should say it. His voice is sexy. Who's Marks or Taylor's? No, well, both, I guess.

Got awkward for a second. No, but like I didn't expect, I don't know why, but I didn't expect Bill Taylor's voice to be so like hot. Yeah, well, no, to me, it's so funny. I didn't think about it for one second. The only voice that surprised me was Muller's, because Mueller looks like he has a commanding, booming voice, and he came in, like, uh... Mueller was like falling asleep during his hearing. Yeah, sleepy, sleepy bob, anyway.

Tommy, too strong, I said, I'm so looking forward to the day, Jen, finally gets a tick-tick-tick, boom. Oh my God, whisper of a dream. Steppenwolf says, LOL, Jane, quit pushing that button. My heart skips a beat every time you do it, referring to that. Ladies and gentlemen, all right, so here's some very drama-y tweets. Bernie Bro with a V writes in, okay, I don't know if you understood that, but I don't want to read it. Okay, Jank is saying spill the tea means it's a phrase that's hit its end. Next, your boomer family will be asking you to spill the tea and asking if you've got receipts.

I like it. So you're going to do me like that? Yeah, he is. Okay, all right. No, with a V. She. Oh, she. Okay.

Okay. Anyways. I don't get it, but okay. Bernie, bro, who's a woman? Who's a woman? Let's put it that way. That's a medical term, though. I know, but whatever.

Okay, anyway, guillotine wolf writes in. Is Bucket of Squirrels an actual saying, I've never heard that. Did you all just throw that out there repeated and make it a thing so casually? Yeah, kind of did. Who's the boomer now? Oh, by the way, as soon as I said bucket of squirrels, I thought, oh, that's good, that's gonna stick. You said it so confidently that I thought it actually was a thing that I hadn't heard before,

so now I'm gonna use it too. Guess what? It just became a thing. Hashtag bucket of squirrels. Okay, last ones are YouTube super chat. Tim I just says, this is just a big nothing sandwich, LOL. See, Burgundy will read anything in YouTube super chat. So agree to disagree, brother.

And Silas Graystone says, Trump's goal was to give you. Ukraine and North Syria to Russia for some hotel deal, the Ukraine deal got caught, but we all know how North Syria turned out. Well, we've got that coming up in a little bit as well, but look, it wasn't a hotel deal. All available evidence points to, including Donald Trump's son's literally saying it, he got all of his money for the Gulf properties and a lot of his properties and for his remaining businesses from the Russians. So that's what's at the heart of all of this.

but the Democrats steadfastly refused to investigate it, okay. All right, quick announcement, programming announcement. We will be doing special coverage of the fifth Democratic debate next week in Georgia. So make sure you tune in live. We will go live at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on November 20th, that's on Wednesday. And you can watch us live by going to t.yt.com slash live. The panel will consist of myself, J.R. Jackson, John Ida R. Rodriguez. And by the way, t.wit.com slash rally, because we're gonna do a rally slash meetup in Georgia.

We're gonna have some great legislators there and people running for office. So don't miss it. You go to t.wit.com slash rally. Sign up. We'll send you info on how to reach us. There could be some dramatic speeches there. All right. What's next?

Today, during the first public hearing in the impeachment investigation, there was damning testimony given by acting ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor. and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent. Now, Donald Trump's reaction to all of this has not been good. He had a number of outbursts on Twitter, which you can expect. But he was actually asked about the impeachment hearing during his joint press conference with the Turkish President Erdogan. So let's hear what he had to say.

I did not watch it. I'm too busy to watch it. It's a witch hunt, it's a hoax. I'm too busy to watch it, so I'm sure I'll get a report. There's nothing, I have not been briefed, no, there's nothing there. I see they're using lawyers that are television lawyers. They took some guys off television, you know. I'm not surprised to see it because Schiff can't do his own questions.

Okay, so we'll address the so-called television lawyers in just a second. But before we do, I just want to note that reports indicate and Donald Trump's own schedule indicates that he had the morning free. So he was not very busy. You know, later he had the joint press conference with Erdogan, but in the morning. He was certainly on Twitter and did not appear to be busy at all. You know, that's not true. Fake news was busy watching Fox and Friends.

Oh yeah, that's right, executive time. You stand corrected. Plus little golf, virtual golf president time. Okay, so everybody, like, again, not even the Trump supporters think he was busy. Nobody thinks he's busy. Okay, the guy doesn't read, how busy could he be? What's he doing? doing. Hold that thought, okay? Because I don't want you to forget about what he said about the

central casting lawyers or whatever it was. But before we get to that, I want to just provide a little more evidence regarding how he actually was paying close attention to what was going on. So let's go to some of these graphics showing what he retweeted throughout the day. He retweeted video clips from Republican lawmakers. So there you have one from Representative Matt Gates, Kevin McCarthy, another one from Kevin McCarthy. Wait, wait, I thought you were We weren't watching. So who's, there's somebody else? I'm very busy.

Not watching, I was tweeting about watching. Big distinction. Heard the word distinction for the first time today. You know what I just realized? He is such a mouth breather. Yeah, oh yeah. He's such a mouth breather. Anyway.

Okay, all right, now on to television lawyers, important stuff. So here comes bucket of squirrels, right? Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. No, well, look, I might have done extortion and betrayed America and our national security interest for personal political gain. On the other hand, they're using television lawyers. What are we doing with this guy? How is he still in office, right?

What does television lawyer mean? What does that have to do with anything? And will you please stop being obsessed with ratings and whether things are exciting? You're a president. You're not on Apprentice anymore. You just, he can't, one track mind, there's two cells bouncing around there, they never meet. So- He sees everything through his own worldview, right? And how he would appoint certain people to his administration.

Like, remember, he thinks about everything as if it's a reality show, as if politics is something that should be cast through central casting. Oh, no, he said that, those exact words over and over again. You know, remember when he was considering Mitt Romney for Secretary of State, right, in the beginning of his administration, and people thought, like, maybe he's playing with him, and then Romney had that weak picture, like, all right? No, it turns out, no, he was really considering him, and they asked him why. Romney hates you, you hate Romney.

He tried to make sure that you didn't win. Normally, you hate that kind of stuff. So why are you talking to Romney? He's like, he looks like he's at a central casting. I think he's hot. What, I mean, right? Okay, so, okay, so apparently, he doesn't like that the Democrats are using Matlock to get him as a television lawyer.

Well, okay. But what's incredible, and I have to say, completely separate from what Trump said about the so-called television lawyers, as I was watching the hearing live, you know, the Democratic counsel, meaning the Democratic lawyer, Daniel Goldman, started asking Bill Taylor some questions. And the line of questioning, in my opinion, was so strong and so impressive, it really stood out to me. I was like, look at this lawyer, doing a really good job, right? And look, obviously we know Trump was paying attention and seeing a lawyer do a good job in questioning Trump administration officials about what really went on, didn't he didn't like it, didn't like

it, television lawyers, come on. Okay, to be fair, the reason he was that good, television lawyer. Okay, last thing on that is Stephanie Grisham then went out later. in the day and said, no, none of this matters, it was boring. What, even if it were boring, and I'm pretty sure impeachment hearings where they have overwhelming evidence that the president did it, is not boring. Excuse me, but even if it were boring, so what? Like, how does that absolve you of guilt? Because for them, everything's a circus.

They're like, oh no, impeachment hearing circus, guilty. It was boring. I mean, we have like middle school students running government, it's devastating. But nonetheless, one other thing that's devastating is the fact that Donald Trump is on a stage with a world leader, Erdogan, and he's answering questions about impeachment. And look, he makes a fool out of himself whether he's undergoing impeachment or not. But here he is getting asked about some of the specifics in regard to the testimony given today. and take a look at how he responds.

It was one moment where Ambassador Bill Taylor recanted a conversation that an aide of his overheard, it was the day after the phone call of Zelensky on July the 26th in which the aid says that he overheard you say to Sondland, how are things going with the proceeding with the investigations? Sondland repeated back to you, according to this aid, that Ukraine was prepared to do everything that you wanted to do. Is that correct? And can you fill in some more?

I know nothing about that. First time I've heard it. The one thing I've seen that Sondland said was that he just speak to me for a brief moment. And I said no quid pro quo under any circumstances. And that's true. The other, I've never heard this. In any event, it's more secondhand information, but I've never heard it. Did you recall having a conversation with him?

I don't recall. No, not at all. Not even a little bit. Now, just quickly, in regard to Sondland, as we all know, he later changed his testimony indicating that there was quid pro quo because he was involved in some of the conversations pertaining to quid pro quo. So there was so much evidence of that in later testimony that Gordon Sondland had no choice but to change his own testimony to corroborate what was actually being said by other Trump

administration officials. Otherwise, he would face perjury issues, and so he changed the testimony. Yeah, look, this is just a silly point about body language, but Zelensky, when he was with Trump in that press conference, looks so nervous, and they asked him, like, was there pressure? And he's like, I don't want to get in politics. Erdogan, on the other hand, is like, I know, it's bad. Right.

He's just sitting there, like, with that grin on his face, like, yeah, I ate northern Syria. And this Trump's got to deal with whatever trouble he's in and I couldn't care less. No, but Jank, you're so right because on any other news day, the joint press conference with Erdogan would be the top news story. Because as we know, Donald Trump has a phone call with Erdogan. Right after the phone call, Trump decides to abandon our Kurdish allies in northern Syria. And Erdogan moves in, you know, has a giant military operation there. There's still some questions as to whether or not he's following through with the ceasefire

that he promised to follow through on. And there were ISIS fighters that are Kurdish allies regarding who are later able to escape as a result of Kurds having to flee to protect their own lives, right? So I mention all this stuff because some of the stuff that was said during that press conference, which we will cover later, isn't really getting much news. Because there's so much attention, I guess rightfully so, on the impeachment investigation. So Erdogan's thinking to himself, awesome. Yeah, he's saying, how did I get this lucky?

I mean, this schmuck gets elected, and then I don't know what he's got on him, but he's got something, right? And then he gives me everything I want, and then you would think at the moment that I'm in the biggest trouble, I gotta go to a press conference in America with a lot of reporters that are hostile about my unbelievable aggression in northern Syria, and no, like, barely any questions about it, because everybody's asking this guy about other crimes he committed that were even worse. So that's why he's got that grin on his face.

All right. Well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll give you some of the reaction from Republicans in the media and also Republican lawmakers. And then later in the show, we will talk about what Giuliani's business associate, Lev Parnas, is now telling impeachment investigators. 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 the Young Turks' members section, Adelensia says, no one who hires Giuliani gets a complaint about TV lawyers. Such a good point. And by the way, you know, I should have said it during the story. That's why I love doing the show with you guys. These great comments and it also triggers new ideas and stuff. triggered. Anyway, you know what Trump is? He's a television president. Like he was a reality show host, and now he's a president. He's a television president.

That's why he thinks that way. Anyway, I love our members. TYT.com slash join to become a member, okay? Support independent media, homo progressives. Mariguana for proletariat writes in. Now we need hashtag bucket of squirrels tea in the shop. Thanks, Jenk. Shop tYT.com. You never know. Maybe squirrels will pop up. My gay marriage writes in. Why does Trump say quid pro quo, like how he says Norway? No quid pro quo, Norway. And then like he flips it when it comes to Turkey, Turkey. He did it all day today during the joint press conference with Canada 1.

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey. Okay, Turkey. Yeah, so I think that he has, I know why he does it with quid pro quo, because he's uncomfortable with it, so he wants to make sure he gets it right, quid pro quo. No quid pro quo. He's so nervous saying it. Three. All right, anyway, we've got to get through this.

All right. Nipple, pierce, jank, and skinny jeans. Why? Why do you do this to me every time? In fact, it may be payback because he says, thanks, Anna. I spit my iced tea out when you were talking about Trump and Romney and said, I think he's hot in Trump's voice. All right, there you go.

Love you guys, t.yt.com slash join. Okay, by the way, if you just want to chip in, right, make sure the show is sustainable. TYT.com slash yes, okay? All right, what's next? Luckily, luckily there are some members of the right wing who are honest actors, and surprisingly, Chris Wallace has been one of them when it comes to his opinions and his commentary on the impeachment investigation. Now, today, there were two individuals who testified in the impeachment hearings. We had acting ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, and deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent.

Now, both individuals had damning testimony, but get a load of how Chris Wallace reacted to Bill Taylor's testimony on Fox News. I think that William Taylor was a very impressive witness and was very damaging to the president. First of all, as you pointed out, he took very copious notes. at almost every conversation when he put quotes in his opening statement, he said those were direct quotes from what was said. It also doesn't hurt that he has a voice like Edward R. Murrow. So he's a pretty impressive presence up there. And I think very nonpolitical. He went out of his

way to talk about what he knew, what he was specifically testament to. He, the only thing he talked about was a strong feeling that it was in the U.S. National Security interests to support Ukraine in the fight against Russia, but he certainly wasn't taking any partisan position. So Chris Wallace knows it, I know it, the American people know it, Bill Taylor has a voice like butter. I'm glad that Wallace also agrees with me on that. But no, look, I told you they were fair and balanced. See, no, but look, his read of Bill Taylor's testimony was spot on because it was damaging

to Donald Trump. He did go out of his way to be, you know, nonpartisan. He did not want to make this political. He did not answer questions posed by democratic lawmakers who clearly, you know, wanted to go further than Bill Taylor could go in making assumptions about, let's say, intent and things like that. But Bill Taylor stuck to the facts, and he also provided additional evidence that we didn't know about before, including a conversation that one of of his staffers overheard between Donald Trump and Gordon Sondland. In that conversation, Donald Trump asked about the investigation into the Bidens, and Gordon

Sunland made it clear that Ukraine was planning to move forward with announcing those investigations. I'm so glad that Roger Ailes was fired and doesn't run Fox News anymore. He passed away after that, but he was fired anyway. And so it's not because Fox doesn't do absurd things to defend Trump and Republicans. They do, during the testimony, they kept putting up graphics. They were all like crazy Republican and Trump talking points. In fact, I'll read you three of them. All three, not, it was, there's no balance or anything of that.

October 23rd, President Trump dismissed Taylor as a never-trumper. Okay, but you're Fox News. So is he a never-trumper or did he actually work for the Trump administration, right? So when they put that up there, White House called Taylor's closed door testimony, triple hearsay. Okay, but what was it? Was it actually triple hearsay? All right, and the last one was, GOP says Taylor had no firsthand knowledge about Ukraine aid. Okay, so don't get me wrong, they're still over the top, and they're still giant fans

of Donald Trump overall. But Aeos would not have tolerated any dissent. He would just let Shep say something once or twice a year on things that were not overly important. Now we have dissent breaking out all over Napolitano. Shep Smith is gone, but Chris Wallace, that's one of their heavyweights. And he just keeps coming on TV and going, sorry, that's a crime. And the squirrels aren't working.

Those guys are totally credible. They appear to be telling the truth. And that's seeping into the Fox audience a little bit, but I think it can make a big, big difference? Well, it is interesting to see members of the right speak out against Trump as long as they're not elected officials, right? Because if we're talking about elected officials, that's a whole new ball game. These are people who are worried about their political careers, and they're gonna go ahead

and ride the Trump wave until, in their minds, the electorate or Trump's base decides to turn on him, but Trump's base is not gonna turn on him. Now, these impeachment hearings might change things, but I really don't. don't have a lot of hope for Trump's base, right? Because all Trump needs to do is say, no, no, it's fake news. These people are never Trumpers. And they'll go ahead and believe it, right? Because it's easier for them to brush it off. I'm not saying that these, you know, hearings shouldn't happen. They should happen. And look, there's a portion that is undecided and they don't identify as hardcore avid trumpers. So those are the people that that need to be

I'm just saying that, you know, the Republican lawmakers are not going to speak out against Trump unless they're going to retire or they're not looking to get reelected. No, I get all that, but look, in terms of the polling, there's 28% of the country, totally immovable. Any, it's a fool's errand to try to get their votes, get their support, et cetera, it's not going to happen. But that leaves 72%. And of that, already half are not only against Trump, that they've been against Trump for

for a long, long time, not from day one, but for a long time. But they now say, yeah, impeached and removed from office. So we already have 50%. We know the 28% can't be moved. So the battlefield is just that 22%. That's it. But for that 22%, that's everything. In a rational, sane democracy, you wouldn't need that 22%.

You just need a couple more points than he's done, right? But that's not the world we live in. You almost have to get every non-deplorable to be able to get. Trump out. So let's move on to the second part of what Wallace had to say about Taylor's testimony. In fact, he brings up specifics in regard to the damning evidence against Trump. I thought the two most important parts of his testimony were his recounting, and this is new news, July 26.

He says he has found out since he testified before the committee in closed doors that Gordon Sunland, who was really kind of the point person between President Trump and the new Ukrainians, much more so than Taylor was, who never actually talked to the president, was on the phone in a restaurant in Ukraine with the president on July 26th, the day after the Trump Zelensky phone call, and that he could overhear, the staff member for Taylor, could overhear the president saying, what about the investigations? So clearly the investigations, and by that Taylor thought the investigations into the Democrats in 2016, also the investigation into Biden. That was very much on the president's mind. And then the aide asked Sondland what the president thought about

Ukraine. And this is a quote from the Taylor statement. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for. He was asked, queried about it more than. And Taylor said Ukraine. Yeah. So look, guys, the facts are crystal clear. Even Chris Wallace acknowledging it. Obviously, all he cared about was investigating his political opponent. So this is a debate between all rational people who see the facts perfectly clearly and an insane asylum. It's like you want to, you go into an insane asylum.

I'm like, okay, who wants to debate, politics? Probably a lot of them do, okay, have fun. But what's important about Chris Wallace is he's inside the asylum. And he has a little bit of trust inside the asylum. So the patients are looking around going, oh, wait, is that true? I heard it was triple hearsay, right? I was told that I was supposed to look at squirrels. What happened, right?

And so the fact that he's able to speak inside the asylum, I think, might make a little bit of a difference. Exactly. And that's all you need. So let's move on to a Republican lawmaker who actually got owned during this hearing. And I really appreciated this moment because it perfectly illustrates how Democrats aren't playing. Finally, they're coming at this from a strong position. So, during the impeachment hearing, the first public impeachment hearing into Donald Trump, Jim Jordan wanted to make a big to-do about the whistleblower, who remains anonymous.

Now, as we know, Republicans are really latching on to a very weak and flimsy defense. And part of that defense of Donald Trump is, well, we don't know who this whistleblower is. This whistleblower could be a partisan. There could be some political motivations here. Now, as we know, the whistleblower at this point is completely irrelevant because we have multiple Trump administration officials testifying against him and providing testimony about the quid pro quo between Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. But nonetheless, Jim Jordan goes up and decides to bring up the whistleblower.

Check out how he gets responded to. Now, there is one witness, one witness that they won't be. bring in front of us. They won't bring in front of the American people. That's the guy who started it all, the whistleblower. Thank you. I say to my colleague, I'd be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify. President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there. Oh, owned. Welch for the win. Okay. There's something about men from Vermont, apparently. Yeah, that's right. So, but look, substance of this, let me give you an analogy.

They keep saying the whistleblower, the whistleblower. The whistleblower is in essence the guy who called 911. Now, then the cops show up and they do an investigation of a crime. And let's say that the crime in my analogy is murder. And they have witnesses, and they have three people say, yeah, that guy came in and shot that guy in the head, I saw it. The other one says, I saw it too, and it was all him, and it was all, and they have, it It's amazing evidence, right?

And the defense for the defendant comes up and goes, yeah, but who called 911, huh? Who called 911? We gotta get that guy, that guy's the real frickin' problem, right? The judge and the jury would be like, who cares who called 911? We have three witnesses saying your client shot the other guy in the head. How in the world is the guy who called 911 relevant? So that's exactly what we have with the whistleblower here. The whistleblower says, hey, you guys should check out this call, it seems like it's problematic.

Then a swarmer witnesses come in and go, oh yeah, no, no, the deal was Trump wanted his political opponent investigating and he yelled up military aid and they got him dead to rights of all these different witnesses, documents, text, everything. And they're like, yeah, but who was the whistleblower? Totally irrelevant, bucket of squirrels, that's it. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate, is dishing all the dirt on his conversations with Donald Trump. And it does not look good for Trump when it comes to this impeachment investigation.

We'll give you the details on that and 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 at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.