The Young Turks - TYT Hour 1 - November 7th, 2019

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

William Barr has refused Trump's request to exonerate him. 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 Church, Jake Hugar, Anna, Kusperin, with you guys. I start to show with the obvious, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Every day there's more devastating news. It's become fairly irrefutable, as you're going to see the Republicans are down to, he couldn't have done it because he's a dumbass. Literally, that is an argument that's being made right now. Yes, because that's the only thing they got left. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. We've got more devastating results from that. And then apparently warns the frontrunner because everyone's attacked.

No, no, Cenk, what you don't know, because you haven't been here all week, is that there is a theme this week on the show. And hopefully it's a theme that continues. It's called Rich Men Cry. And I just, it is now a branded segment on the Young Turks. Okay, so get ready. We're going to have fun today. Okay, so that's awesome too. And then let me tell you guys, dramatic announcement coming up next week.

Dramatic. So do not miss the show next week. I'm not sure if it's Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, as soon as I am sure I will let you know, but a massive announcement. Okay, hey Anna, what else is going on? Hey, lots of exciting stuff. Just a programming note. Tomorrow, we will have the man named after two universities on the program, Cal Penn.

He's not actually named after two universities, but he is obviously an actor. And he did serve in Obama's administration. He will be joining us for the second hour of the main show. So please check us out on Friday, November 8th at 7 p.m. Eastern time, 4 p.m. Pacific. And he will also have a conversation with Jank on the conversation. Well, that makes sense. Did you ever see Harold and Kumar? Yes.

Oh, you did. Okay. That's when they go to White Castle, right? They do indeed. They do indeed. They do also do other stuff. They do, yes. It's an adventure. All right. What's next? All right. Lots of big news today.

New reporting indicates that Donald Trump attempted to pressure his own attorney general, William Barr, to hold a press conference where he would clear Donald Trump of any wrongdoing in his phone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Now at this point, it's abundantly clear that that phone conversation with Zelensky was an issue that was the phone call that led to an official whistleblower complaint. And in that phone call, Donald Trump asked Zelensky to dig up dirt on his political opponent Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. So here's what we know so far about this new story.

The request for the news conference came around sometime around September 25th, when the administration released a rough transcript of the president's July phone call with Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky. So there's this rough transcript, this memo essentially, and Donald Trump is thinking, all right, well, this is my perfect call. This is the memo of the so-called perfect call. Now all I need is my attorney general to do a press conference where he clears me of any wrongdoing. The request from Trump traveled from the president to other White House officials and eventually to the Justice Department, the president has mentioned Barr's demural to

associates in recent weeks, saying he wished Barr would have held the news conference, Trump advisors say. But Barr ultimately decided that he would not hold this press conference, and I think for obvious reasons. Yeah, so let's just lay it out as clearly as we can. So when Trump says, hey, do the press conference telling everybody I'm not guilty, and Barr says no, that is dramatic because here's Barr who was picked to be Donald Trump's yes man, to say that he never commits any crimes, he has ultimate executive authority, and he believes that I ideologically and has shown every kind of obedience to Donald Trump.

In fact, after Robert Mueller released his report saying, look, there's not enough evidence of collusion, but there are 10 counts of obstruction, William Barr then did a press conference saying Robert Mueller completely cleared Donald Trump. That wasn't remotely true, he did it anyway. So this is a guy, the context is super important. This is a guy who is specifically picked to back Donald Trump under any and all circumstances and has done so in the past. If he's not doing a news conference as Trump has directed him to do, clearing Donald

Trump, that means he thinks I might go to prison if I stick my neck out and defend Trump on something that is indefensible. Exactly, and William Barr didn't personally release a statement clearing Donald Trump or trying to defend Donald Trump, there was a generic statement from the Justice Department. As the rough transcript was released, a Justice Department spokeswoman said officials had evaluated it, and the whistleblower complaint to see whether campaign finance laws had been broken, determined that none had been and decided no further action was warranted. So this seems to be a little bit of a half measure from the Justice Department, but it wasn't

what Donald Trump wanted. Donald Trump wanted this big public spectacle, he wanted William Barr to go out there, do a press conference, and clear him of any wrongdoing. Now, though the rough transcript shows Trump offering Zelensky the services of his attorney general to aid investigations of Biden and his son, a bar spokeswoman said that Barr and Trump had never discussed that. So remember, Barr is mentioned in that transcript, like work with Barr, work with Barr. And now you have, not now, but like, when this story first broke, the Justice Department

had released a statement saying, oh, no, no, no, but Barr knows nothing about this. In fact, Kerry Kouppek, who is a DOJ spokeswoman, says the president has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything related, relating to former Vice President Biden or his son. The president has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine on this or any other matter. The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine on this or any other subject. In other words, it wasn't us, it wasn't us. It's definitely not Barr.

Barr had nothing to do with this, okay? Now, guys, think about it this way. If William Barr or any other part of the administration was involved in the al-Begdadi raid, do you think they'd be in the witness protection program? Or do you think they'd be in front of cameras going, oh yeah, I was there, man. I was there, man, look, I don't know that they could have done the raid without me, right? They'd be, if it was something positive, in other words, they jump all over it. And as Barr is shown in the past, even if it's something really deeply negative, he thinks

if he's got just a tiny little light to stand on, he'll jump out there in front of all the cameras go, Trump is innocent, Trump is innocent, right? In this case, they put out that little memo saying, well, I mean, on the campaign finance reform issue, we don't think he violated any laws. Now Barr didn't sign it, so he has plausible deniability, right? And then you ask them, did you guys do a real investigation? They're like, no, we looked at the rough transcript and thought that was good enough. Well, wouldn't you want the whole transcript if you were doing a real investigation?

You could just ask the White House, your Department of Justice. Oh, you didn't ask for it. You didn't ask to talk to anyone else on the call. Obviously not a real investigation. It was a half measure so that Donald Trump didn't blow his top. But Barr is like, I, this is nuclear and I don't want to touch it. That's how bad this is. And now finally, the kudagra, so you just heard Anna read the statement about the, from the DOJ

saying, Barr, ain't got none to do with Ukraine. I never talked to Ukraine, I never talked to the president about Ukraine. No, right? No. So then Trump says, Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. Love it. Love it. Okay, elbow from the sky.

So now, you see, he's such a dumb ass, then you're gonna get asked and your attorney general is gonna get asked, but he says he didn't talk to you. You're saying that you did talk to him and tell him to go make that request of the Ukraine and that he did not deny that request. So you're disagreeing with your own attorney general in three different ways in that one simple statement. So don't you see how that's gonna create a political mess for you? Because now we're gonna go back to the attorney general and ask, hey, the president says you guys

did talk and that you were part of pressuring Ukraine. No, I love it. I love that it's gonna create a political mess for both parties. I love the fact that Donald Trump not only incriminates himself, he incriminates the people around him. And remember, William Barr, his whole ideology about the executive branch and the president specifically is, in my opinion, unconstitutional. He believes the executive branch has almost unlimited power, right?

And so he went to do a press conference to defend Donald Trump in regard to the Mueller report. And what he said about the Mueller report was so problematic and so false that it led to Mueller, writing him a letter to say, yo, home boy, you're totally mischaracterizing what I said in my report. This is ridiculous. Not in so many words, but you get what I mean. Really? Mueller didn't say, yo, home boy.

No, didn't say that, didn't say that. But that's what was implied. And in this case, again, as Jenks said, and you're absolutely right, this is so new. nuclear that William Barr is like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go over there. Look, Giuliani might at some point be arrested. And in Giuliani's putting out tweets, talking about how, oh, it wasn't the US government that I was worrying for, it was Donald Trump personally. Oh no, why are you admitting that in a tweet?

This is dumb and dumber, right? So what that means is when we asked for a quid pro quote, it was not on behalf of America, It was on behalf of Donald Trump, well, that's the biggest violation of your oath that you could possibly have as president, where you say, I don't care about the American people, I don't care about their national security. I'm going to hold up this aid that would help American national security for a personal favor against my political opponent. Giuliani, his own lawyer, basically just admitted guilt in that tweet. They're so dumb. All attorneys responding are like, what are you doing? go get counsel.

Giuliani should have a lawyer telling him not to tweet. You just admitted a crime. So let me actually elaborate a little more on that. Giuliani actually had a difficult time finding lawyers who were willing to represent him. Who could blame them? Now he finally did find some counsel, and he's ecstatic about that. But I also want to note, Giuliani was regularly going on cable television, giving all sorts of crazy interviews that made him and Donald Trump look incredibly bad in this.

case. And I've noticed that lately, he's been staying away from television. He's, well, if he got an attorney, his first job as Giuliani's attorney would be to lock him in a basement. Definitely. And take his phone away and make sure no cameras are allowed in. And then finally, Bolton now is apparently going to testify. Mmm, delicious. Now remember, Bolton is pissed because Trump basically fired him. Bolton is a neocon right winger. No, no, meaning like he ain't the

no soft Democrat, right? If he wants to kneecap Trump, he'll kneecap Trump and he won't hesitate, right? And then third of all, he's the guy who stopped Sunland and Volker and all those guys when they were talking to Ukrainians and saying, hey, you gotta investigate the president's political opponent. And even Bolton was like, no, meeting over. And then pulled him aside and saying, what are you doing? No, we can't do that on behalf of the president.

So we already know, because of the other testimony, that Bolton was definitely opposed to this illegal act. So in the only like positive maneuver of his life, right? If he goes to go testify about that, look guys, I mean, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. There's no way out here. He definitely did it. He did both crimes. He asked for helping a political campaign already a crime, and he did the quid pro quo.

But the Sunland revised testimony saying yes, it was definitely a quid pro quo. This thing is over. So the only way that he could escape now is the Democrats somehow in an epic bungle. So that's the only reason why it's not really over, because that's always possible. All right, well let's move on to a pretty giant story regarding Zelensky and whether or not he knew there was a quid pro quo in play. defenders of Donald Trump keep arguing that there's no way there was quid pro quo because in order for a quid pro quo to occur, Vladimir Zelensky needed to know and understand that Donald

Trump's intentions were to dig up political dirt on his political rival in order to release military funding that Ukraine desperately needed. Now we have an abundance of evidence indicating that the Ukrainian government absolutely did know there was a quid pro quo in play. So this is new reporting by the New York Times in a flurry of WhatsApp messages and meetings in Ukraine's capital, Kiev. Over several days, senior aides debated the point. Avoiding partisan politics in the United States had always been the first rule of Ukrainian foreign policy, but the military aid was vital to the war against Russian-backed separatist

forces in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that has cost 13,000 lives since it began in 2014. So internally, in Ukraine, government officials were debating what they needed to do to move forward. What was the best choice? Because on one hand, they understood that it would be disastrous to get involved in domestic politics in the United States. But they also understood that if they didn't play ball with Trump and they didn't get that $400 million in military aid, you know, the country's future was in jeopardy because of aggression

by the Russian government. So Zelensky's staff actually ultimately decided that they had. had no choice but to comply with Donald Trump's demands. Aides were arguing in favor of bowing to what was demanded. They were willing to do so despite the risk of losing partisan support in the United States by appearing to assist Trump's reelection bid. The cost was high. And that's a statement by Petro Berkovsky, who actually is very close to the Ukrainian

government and has some insight into the dealings that were happening. A tug of war ensued between a senior agent. to Zelensky, Andre Yermak, and another of Trump's envoys to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, over the wording of the proposed public statement. Volker went so far as to draft a statement for Zelensky that mentioned both investigations. And the two investigations, of course, were, one, the investigation into the Bidens, and two, the investigation into Ukrainian meddling into the U.S. elections. That's a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump has really lacked.

on to. Droms. Yes, indeed. Look guys, this was again one of the last threads that they had, the Republicans. Well, look, Zelensky said once in public that there was no pressure, so Trump must be innocent. Well, now internal reporting shows that Zelensky absolutely was pressured, knew he was being pressured, was about to go on CNN and say, yes, we will investigate the Biden. will investigate the Bidens until Congress got mad.

We'll get to that in a second, right? And in fact, our own diplomats wrote out a statement for him saying, here it is. You must say that Donald Trump's political opponent is being investigated by your government. There is absolutely no question in the real world. I mean, cable news can have a conversation about real world versus bizarre world. But on this planet, there's absolutely no question that they're not. They pressured and that there was a quid pro quo and the Ukrainians knew it. So Kurt Volker, who is a U.S. official, is writing this statement for Zelensky, right?

And Yermak, who is the aid for Zelensky, starts to push back and he's like, okay, look, we really need to consider the ramifications in the future. And so Yermak pushed back suggesting language that mentioned investigations, but in general terms so as not to antagonize the Democrats. So look, they're thinking ahead in the future. What if the Democrats are in charge in the future and we're antagonizing them through this statement that Volcker has prepared for us, we really need to be cautious moving forward. But again, this is further proof that shows there was a quid pro quo.

The Ukrainian officials were debating about what to do, what the next steps needed to be. And also, even as Yermak negotiated the wording in August, the stakes were clear. While rumors had been swirling for months about a possible hold on military aid, by early August, high-level Ukrainian officials had confirmed the freeze. So again, every time you hear the nonsense talking point from Republican lawmakers who are looking to get reelected, and they say things like, oh, well, you can't have a quid pro quo without a quo. There was a quo.

It's obvious. It's clear. They absolutely knew what was going on. They knew that money was being dangled in front of them. And they wouldn't get it unless they made this public statement about an investigation into the Bidens. Now, where were they supposed to make this announcement on Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN? That's what Trump wanted. Yeah.

And as it turns out, they got lucky because he was booked. He was definitely going to do it. On September 13th. Yes. And then Congress stepped in and said, what are you doing? Because they got win the fact that the aid that they had authorized was being held up. Like, you can't hold up that aid. It's already authorized.

Give us the reason why you're holding it up. And the White House is like, eh, I don't know he gets corruption in Ukraine. No, release the aid. So the aid gets released. Zelensky immediately cancels his appearance of Fri Zakaria. Why? Because now he doesn't have to say things that aren't true. He doesn't have to say that he's investigating Biden and get involved in American politics.

Look, guys, this is the, Trump calls it anti-corruption when he goes after the Bidens. I know, hilarious, right? But remember someone's testimony from just a couple of days ago? This is the end. There's no question about it. He said, quote, I said that the resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. end of this, okay, over, OV-A-H, definitely quid pro quo, no doubt about it.

And by the way, I'll go further. Anyone arguing the opposite is an obvious liar. They're biased, they have a political agenda, and they are desperately trying to cover up the reality. But anyone who can read can tell that this is clearly the case, no question about it. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we are going to show you some of these lame defenses, including one Republican lawmaker arguing that Donald Trump is just simply too stupid to do a quid pro quo.

Well, at least they got a shot there. Okay, we'll talk about it when we go. 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.

The reason why Bill Barr refused Trump's request to clear him, Barr read the transcript, y'all. He read the transcript, and he doesn't know what other shoe may drop. So remember, the real transcripts hidden away in the secret server. And there's a bunch of stuff that's missing from the one that's public. And remember, being the fairest man in America, before I left, I had said that, hey, look, There was people who saw, like Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, who saw, who heard the call and who in his testimony, I had said at the time, did not say that there was anything missing

from the call. Later, he came back and said, yeah, there were things missing. So what does Barr know that we don't know? Good point, guys. Mark Antonio says, Jenk is the best, Jenk haters are the worst. Damn right, okay, I like this Mark guy. Okay, lots where that came from, which is nice, so I'll read them. Adel Anceles says, welcome back to Jenk.

Not that we didn't enjoy Anna and the guests on Monday through Wednesday, just loving on all TYT. Thank you. I'm into that. I'm into that. Definitely. Top Cat says, glad Jank is back. Hubby has been asking all week, what is Jenks saying?

I had to keep checking to make sure Jank hadn't done any quick videos. Now normally when I'm away in New York or other trips, I will do some live videos for you guys. Either you can get on t.com and on youtube.com slash t yt. In this case, it was super busy with business stuff, but I have very interesting fun stories about that in the post game, okay? What does New York, the powerful folks in New York, and I was some powerful folks in New York, I'll tell you in the post game, okay? I can't say what they said because it's off the record, but I can give you a general

sense of it. What do they think of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders? I mean, I think we know. We've been covering it all week. Yeah, no, I hear you. I hear you, but interesting stuff, okay. I love, that's why I love these trees. I ruined your teas for the post game.

You're right, it is interesting. It's gonna be good, it's gonna be good. No, no, you know generally, but I- Yeah, I learned some things where I was like, oh wow, mm. Okay, anyway, post game, t.com slash join to become a member and get your comments read and get the post game. Last one, Pedro, not Pedro, not Pedro, right? Sorry.

I love the TYT membership because I know my funds only go to them. It was the best call I ever made. It was the perfect call, perfect quid pro quo. There you go, Pedro. Okay, so thank you guys. Again, t.yt.com slash join. You can also make some good calls when it comes to how you make your own money grow and work for you.

So we've partnered up with Doe. It is this company that helps to direct you in the right direction if you're looking to invest your money. Now investing money is incredibly complicated and scary for a lot of people, but it doesn't have to be, Doe will help you by asking you questions about your passions and your interests, and then they'll give you suggestions in terms of where you can invest your money. So if you're interested, go to Doe.com slash TYT and download that app today. It's super helpful.

All right, let's move on to more impeachment related news. Republican lawmakers like Lindsey Graham are scrambling for any defense they can come up with in the impeachment investigation. Now as we all know, there's more and more evidence every day that shows that Donald Trump was in fact withholding military aid and a meeting in the White House from Ukraine on the condition of an announcement of an investigation into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. Now, Lindsay Graham doesn't know what to do with all this evidence, doesn't know how to defend Donald Trump.

So he's scraping the bottom of the barrel. And here's an example of him putting out an insane conspiracy theory about EU ambassador Gordon Sunland. Bill Taylor, what does he base his belief that there's a quid pro quo on? What is the factual basis? A conversation with Sunderland. Now, here's a question. Why did Sunderland change his testimony? Was there a connection between Sunderland and Democratic operatives on the committee?

Did he talk to shift? Did he talk to shift staffers? I've been a lawyer for a very long time. When somebody changes their testimony, they suddenly recall something they didn't know before. It makes me incredibly suspicious. So he's referring to EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland in that video clip. Sunderland is not an individual who exists at all. I don't know where that came from, but what he's referring to is the fact that Gordon Sunland did revise his testimony because he had said that he did not recall a quid pro quo.

But there were so many other Trump administration officials who had testified that not only was there quid pro quo, but that Gordon Sunland was involved in communicating that quid pro quo. So that's perjury, the fact that he wasn't upfront and honest during his testimony. And so he had to revise his testimonies and he said, quote, I said the resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks. That was his revised testimony. So now you have Lindsey Graham putting out all sorts of ridiculous conspiracy theories.

I've heard statements about how he's a never-trumper. This guy donated a million dollars to Donald Trump's inauguration. He was not a never-trumper. No, no, I mean, we have these conversations with people who are on a different planet, so I don't know how to argue with them. They're like, Sunlin gave a million dollars, a million dollars to Donald Trump's inauguration. They're like, yeah, never-Trumper, okay, I mean, what do you do with that, right?

I think Trump is a human being, they're like, no, he's an interplanatory dog who is going to save the entire planet, his code name is Lassie. Okay, I don't know how to respond to that. I don't, the Sondland's obviously, he gave a million dollars to Trump so he could then come in and then do quit pro quo and break the law with Trump and help him do that. But once discovered, he said, ha ha, the Democrat all along. What? They will turn on you in a heartbeat.

Like, it's incredible, I mean, Sunland donated a million dollars. That was a million dollars of his own money. Can you imagine donating a million dollars just so you can get caught up in a crime like this? Well, I love that part. Look, the reality is he's a Trump lackey and this is part of the swamp, this is the corruption. So, you know, he has no diplomatic experience at all. And Trump's like, oh, you gave me a million dollars for my inauguration, which by the way, a lot of that money was funneled to interesting sources that folks who worked with Melania

Trump, that's a separate story, right? So everybody gets rich off of guys like Sunland. So Trump's like, oh, what do you need? Oh, you want to be ambassador? Great. And by the way, since you're my boy and you gave me a million dollars and I can trust you, here, break the law with me. And Sondland's like, yeah, sure, I'll break the low with it, oops, we got caught.

And then they're like, I knew it, never Trumper, interplanetary dog, I don't, whatever. How do you have a conversation with people who don't care about facts? Right, and Sondland really had no choice but to revise his testimony. I mean, you had Bill Taylor, that is the U.S. ambassador confirming that there was quid pro quo. You had Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who also said that there was quid pro quo and it implicated Gordon Sondland. You had Marie Yovanovitch who had some damning testimony as well. So he was in trouble and he realized, oh, I better be up front and honest now or else the consequences

could get much worse. Now, Graham has one other line of defense for Donald Trump, and this is my personal favorite. because he could actually have a case here. Take a look. What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward the U-Train, it was incoherent. It depends on who you talk to. They seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo. So, no, I find the whole process to be a sham and I'm not going to legitimize it. In other words, Donald Trump is too stupid to do a quid pro quo.

That is his defense. So Donald Trump almost accidentally proves him right. Because if you remember, a couple of days ago, Donald Trump said, if I wanted to do a quid pro quo, I'm definitely smart enough to do it. What are you doing? What are you doing? God, you're, oh my God, you're so dumb. Okay. And the Washington Post broke the story today about how, in fact, William Barr did not want to do a press conference for Donald Trump, saying that he was innocent.

So it's interesting that he didn't want to do that. So, and Barr said, hey, listen, man, Trump never asked me to do that press conference. I didn't even talk to Trump about Ukraine. Trump jumps out and goes, I did tell, you know, Barr to talk to Ukraine, and he wouldn't deny me saying, go talk to Ukraine. Why did you just admit that? It's amazing. So that's why when, that's even his top ally in the Senate now, Lindsay Graham, is like,

Well, you gotta remember the president's a moron, even if he wanted to do quid pro quo, he doesn't know how to do it, dumb as a brick, he's totally incompetent. It is also interesting how, first off, Lindsey Graham has said that he refuses to read any of the transcripts that are now being made public by congressional committees. These are the transcripts that have testimony by current and former Trump White House officials. He doesn't want to read it, okay? And then he keeps referring to Gordon Sunland as Sunderland. And then he turns around and says other people are stupid, which I think is interesting.

I wonder if people are hanging out with Trump get stupid by osmosis. Because Rudy Giuliani clearly lost his mind, right? Now it's being the seep into Lizzie Graham, he knows that little band-aid there. Yeah, did they like inject something into his head? They're like, no, no, Lizzie, it's okay. Yeah, no, you're right. Oh, best defense is that Trump is too stupid. Anyway, seriously, Trump's not going to like this.

I bet you that- Oh, I love it, yes. Yeah, I bet you he reiterates that he is smart enough to be a criminal. And so then Lizzie Graham's gonna have to come up with a new excuse. God, I don't envy them. In fact, I'm having a great time watching them flail like this. It's so good. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Tick.

So I'm not afraid to admit that I love drums. So I'm gonna enjoy talking about this next story just as much as the previous stories we've talked about. Donald Trump is refusing to back his former attorney general in his Senate run in Alabama, which means we're due for another episode of as the White House turns. Some very big mistakes. I asked for his resignation. I'm disappointed in the Attorney General.

Donald Trump was in fact disappointed by his former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Now Jeff Sessions was a senator in Alabama for two decades, and then he decided to leave his post in order to serve as Donald Trump's Attorney General. He recused himself from the Mueller investigation, and then Donald Trump berated him over and over and over again publicly. Now he wants to run for the seat that he left behind. And that is the seat that's currently being filled by Democrat Doug Jones. Now, Trump has discussed attacking sessions with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

And McConnell has shared that he also has concerns about sessions running because it could create a messy primary contest for a seat Republicans feel they have to win. In fact, the GOP donor by the name of Dan Ebbhart says, this is a nightmare for DC Republicans that just want to defeat Doug Jones. This is going to tie Trump and McConnell in knots, which is why I love the story so much. Now, this is really the ultimate test to see how much sway and how much influence someone like Donald Trump has in a state like Alabama. As we know, voters in Alabama do like Trump. They favor Trump. However, they also really supported and enjoyed the leadership of Jeff Sessions when he was a senator.

And so now the question is, are they going to go with someone they know, Jeff Sessions, who served them for two decades? Or is their love and affection and zealous admiration for Donald Trump going to trump their admiration for Jeff Sessions? I guess we'll see. Right. So now, there's a bunch of great drama and quotes here that I love. So Richard Shelby is the other senator from Alabama. He's a Republican. He talked to Trump a couple months ago about the possibility of sessions running. And he said, quote, he was not exactly on board. How's that for a great understatement? So fear not if you're a Trump sport in Alabama. There is one person running who is a total kiss ass. And he'll do anything that Trump asks, and he'll lick any boot that Trump has. So it's the guy, Representative Bradley Byrne. And in fact, he took a veiled shot at, not so veiled shot, at Jeff Sessions. He said, I won't sit back and watch them, destroy our country.

Destroying it how? You guys are in charge. Anyway, here's the important part. Alabama deserves a senator who will stand with the president and won't run away and hide from the fight. Okay, so in other words, since you didn't cover up his crimes, you ran away and hid from the fight. Right. And me, I'll stand with the president, even if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue. Well, what do you think I have principles?

So, of course, he's leading in the race. Yeah, he is leading in the race. So look, we'll see how this plays out. But I have noticed that Jeff Sessions has refused to attack Donald Trump, right? And even Mike Pompeo, Mike Pompeo, who's currently serving in the Trump administration, is eyeing a Senate run in the future, which is why he is in this like really difficult situation. Donald Trump is becoming more and more, you know, implicated in this impeachment investigation. There's more evidence coming out against him.

And Pompeo is in this difficult position where he can't really defend the substance, defend Trump on the substance of the investigation. But at the same time, he can't really turn on Trump because it hurts his chances when he seeks to run in the Senate in the future. I mean, it's insane. So let's get more into the mess of the Alabama seat when it comes to the Republican side. Why does McConnell not want Jeff Sessions? He liked Jeff Sessions.

I'm positive that he likes Jeff Sessions way more than he likes Donald Trump. But number one, he's going to have a giant mess within the Republican Party if Sessions runs because he knows the president's going to attack him nonstop because he can't help himself. He was disloyal to me. He was loyal to the law. I don't like that. Maybe there should be a law against that. So that's one angle.

The other is, he's like, I got a perfectly good corrupt guy in Bradley Byrne. And he'll come in and do whatever the donors want. Just stop like messing this election up because there's a lot of people in. There's Tommy Tuberville who used to be the coach of Auburn, and he's ranking number two right now. But Roy Moore's still in there. So the guy who was disgraced and lost the Doug Joe's last time around, he's back for more. And so he's trying to grab at everything he can get his hands on as usual. So now one of the things McIll's worried about is, oh my God, if in this mess,

Byrne and Tuberville and Sessions split up the vote, you know, the lunatics that love Roy Moore, the fundamentalist, in other words, the Republican base, they might just stick with Roy Moore enough for him to win the primary. And then here you go again with the guy who, you know, allegedly molested kids against Doug Jones. That's how they lost last time. So McConnell's like, no. So final great quote is from Jeff Sessions himself. He was at Northwestern earlier in the week.

As Anna pointed out, he has been very reluctant to talk about what happened to the Trump administration for understandable reasons. But he did say this snarky quote. He said, I never watched Trump's program on TV. I didn't know how many people he'd fired. Maybe I'd have been more careful. The president is allowed to fire you. But fortunately, he doesn't get to shoot you.

So apparently that was on the board. Geez. Well, I mean, that's not surprising because as I mentioned earlier, Trump was pretty vicious towards Sessions and he was vicious publicly. In fact, we have one of our famous JR rated mashups for you. Okay, hold, before you go to remember, Jeff Sessions was the first senator to back Donald Trump. He took a lot of political risks to say, I'm with Donald Trump.

return that favor by making him attorney general, assuming that he would cover up for his crimes. When Sessions didn't cover up for the crimes, he's like, well, I don't get it. I thought we're criminals partners, right? And that's what drove him to such anger. But remember, he's going after the guy who stuck his neck out to support him when no one else would. I would say if I had one do over, it would be I would not have appointed Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse him. and then you wouldn't have put him in.

He should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used to put a different attorney general in. You know, the only reason I gave him the job, because I felt loyalty. He was an original supporter. I'm disappointed in the attorney general for numerous reasons, but we have an attorney general. I'm disappointed in the attorney general for many reasons, and you understand that. When everybody sees what's going on in the Justice Department,

I always put justice now with quotes. I told you before, I'm very disappointed with the Attorney General, but we will see what happens. Time will tell. Time will tell. He took the job, and then he said, I'm going to recuse myself. I said, what kind of a man is this? But wait, I can't tell. Is he disappointed in Jeff Sessions? He's such a dummy. He thinks if you repeat something twice, it must be true. Right, right.

So, by the way, if you're wondering if you forgot what the recusal thing was, it's not like Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Trump is guilty of anything, it's not like he prosecuted Donald Trump, he just said, oh, we're talking about the Russians, well, I lied to Congress, I said that I didn't talk to the Russians during the campaign, and I did, oops, I'm in a lot of trouble, so you know what I'm going to do, I'm just going to recuse myself, so I'm not the one making decisions about the Russian case. He didn't appoint a special prosecutor, he didn't appoint Mueller. All he did was the bare minimum of saying, I'm not the one making decisions because I'm

involved in the case. Like, every lawyer has to do that. And so he's the top lawyer as attorney general, he had to do it. And so Trump was like, I don't get it, you're supposed to, you're supposed to defend. No, he's not supposed to defend you. He's the attorney general of the United States, not of Donald Trump. But Trump, once again, just doesn't understand that simple concept. He thinks if I'm president, I'm emperor.

And the attorney general shouldn't work for the people, he should work for me. And if I committed a crime, since he works for me, he should cover it up. So that's why he was so mad. If you were a smart person, you wouldn't let on how mad you were that the guy wouldn't cover up your crimes, because it kind of makes you look guilty. But he's not a smart person. No. person.

A lot of people say I'm kind of like a smart person and I'm known for two things in my life. One is being mentally stable, the other is hating Jeff Sessions. I'm a very stable genius. All the stable geniuses are heading down to Alabama. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We gotta take a break. When we come back, we're gonna move away from incredibly dumb people to incredibly smart people. Bernie Sanders has rolled out his immigration plan, and we're going to give you the...

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Let's go to some comments from the member section. Big Doc D. Nice, right, said, what's up guys? My wife's birthday is tomorrow. I'm humbly asking for a birthday shout out. Her nickname is D. Nice. I remind you all tomorrow. Too late, I'm doing it right now. On her birthday in 2016, as she was pregnant with our child who was born on 420 by the

way. Nice. All right. And hashtag Donnie Tiny Hands was elected. Please help me make this a better birthday. Okay, indeed. Happy birthday, D. Nice. Yeah.

All right. Thanks for being members, guys. We appreciate it. Beck due 71 says half the country is frozen. Winter came early because Anna put up her Christmas tree too soon. That's on you, Anna. Did you know that? I've already put up my Christmas tree.

I am generally supportive of that. Yeah. Jane gets it. Yeah. Look, I thought about getting a Christmas tree because I went shopping a couple times. The Christmas decorations are all over the stores. Yeah. There's like, hmm, Christmas tree.

But unlike Anna, I didn't want to have a Christmas tree. I was looking at for you guys. So look, part of the reason why I put it up, and I haven't announced this yet, is because we're working on something a little special for our members, and my Christmas tree makes an appearance. Okay, well, that's fun for everybody. All right. So it was worth it to freeze the country.

Okay, Lilith says, the only good thing about Sessions is Melissa McCarthy's impression of him. Dr. KSMD says, if Sessions runs and tanks the GOP's chance of regaining the to send its seat, it will literally be the best thing sessions will have ever done. And then last one is from Twitter. NMlea says MAGA, facts don't care about your feelings, Graham, my feelings don't care about your facts. Totally.

100%. All right, nice job guys. All right, what's next time? A few announcements. So we've been doing more and more of the YouTube super chats and the upcoming YouTube super chat that we're gonna do will be open for everyone as usual, but instead of doing it for for only 30 minutes, we're gonna dedicate a full hour of the show to the super chat. So we're gonna be doing this on November 11th.

So it's next Monday, please check it out, 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific. You have to go to YouTube.com slash TYT to participate. It's open for everyone, but only the individuals participating in the super chat will be able to ask the question. So again, check that out. And then happy half hour will premiere tomorrow. Emily Barros is going, Barras is going to be on the show, and she's actually one of the writers for HBO's hit show Veep. And I love Brett's show.

It's just a nice, like relaxing, funny, entertaining way to decompress from like the super serious depressing stuff that we have to talk about every day. I'm with you. I'm going to read one more tweet, actually. I'm the Derpy Dragon Rights. Trump's like a dumb borg that assimilates the Republican Party. Resistance is futile. You will be cucked. Totally.

Totally. Totally. That's the best, and only good part about Trump, how he is completely humiliated all other Republicans in the country. Absolutely. All right, well, let's talk about some good politicians because they do exist and Bernard Sanders happens to be one of them. What do you, Nina Turner?

I know, I love that she calls him Bernard Sanders. Bernie Sanders has officially rolled out his plan on immigration and as usual, Bernie likes to center workers rights in the heart of every policy he puts out. And immigration reform is certainly no exception. So he is the only Democratic candidate who has decided to focus on workers' rights in addition to immigration reform. And I want to show you something that he posted today actually on Instagram. It was a photo of his family.

And he explained in the caption of this photo on Instagram that immigration is personally. personal to me. My father, Eli, immigrated from Poland to flee poverty and persecution. The rest of his family was wiped out by Nazis. We built, he built a life for himself and his family working as a paint salesman in Brooklyn, New York, hashtag, I know where I came from. Okay? So he personalized it, but then he gave some real proposals in this plan. So for instance, he says, he's not a proponent of opening borders, despite what Republicans will say. If you open the borders, my God, there's a lot of poverty in this world, and you're gonna have people from all over the world.

And I don't think that's something we can do at this point, can't do it. That was a statement that he made during the Iowa Town Hall back in April. Now in regard to his plan, the most sweeping part of his plan, a proposal to use executive action to protect unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years from deportation, which, according to the Pew Research Center's estimate, could cover almost 9 million people, more than any other legalization plan in the field. So this is really good news. And look, this is a smart way to approach immigration reform.

Because if you create a pathway to citizenship, right? And you make legal the status of all these undocumented immigrants, then they won't get paid unfair wages, right? I mean, a lot of times they do get hired and they're paid under the table. And that does unfortunately lower the wages of American. So that's an issue that people pretend like they care about. So you legalize them and you ensure that they have the ability to report employers who are underpaying them. But more importantly, you can then, in a more regulated way, tax them and tax the income that they're earning.

And then, you know, that'll help pay for a lot of these programs that progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders have proposed, like Medicare for all. Green New Deal, you get the picture. So let's give context though. You know, Anna read you that quote about how, you know, we can't have open borders. First of all, let's be clear, there's not a single Democratic candidate that is for quote unquote open borders. It's not a thing Trump or the Republicans say that as a talking point, but it doesn't actually mean anything. The furthest that anyone goes as Castro says, Julian Castro says, instead of making crossing the border illegally a crime, a criminal offense, let's make it a civil effect. So it's still an issue and it's still wrong, but it's a civil issue, not a criminal issue.

So he goes the furthest. Now as you can see from the quote from Bernie though, in the past he has cared more about worker rights. Now it's not an either or but some folks do paint it as an either or you either care about worker rights or you care about immigrants. So Bernie here is trying to thread the needle and he does have to overcome this issue where people have thought he has lean more in favor of worker rights than immigrants in the past, partly why he's talking about his immigrant story personally, and partly why this proposal is so aggressive. Now is it, has he threaded the needle correctly? Well, in my opinion, yes.

So why do I say that? Well, the immigration reform that didn't even pass, because the Republicans at the end of the day were still too vicious for that, had a pathway to citizenship, but it took 14 years. years, that is twice as long as indentured servitude. So we read about that in our textbooks, like, oh my God, they would bring people here and treat them like chattel and make them work for really low wages for seven years before they gave them their freedom. In essence, in the so-called moderate approach in the Senate, it would have taken twice as long.

Now Bernie Sanders is saying, no, five years, okay, so that's a big, big difference, still trying to look out for workers' rights, you know, and everybody will have a different point of view on this. And I think it's fair to say that until this proposal, some were further left than Bernie Sanders was on the immigration issue. After this proposal, I think it's fair to say that he's at least caught most of the candidates in being as progressive as possible on both of the issues. Yeah, I mean, look, under his proposal, he would legalize more undocumented immigrants

who are in the country today than any of the other candidates. Look, it's not a perfect plan, though. I think that there is one flaw that I wanted to bring up, and it has to do with the refugee cap. Now, as we had reported earlier this week, Donald Trump had severely lowered the refugee cap to 18,000 people a year, okay? So just to give you an idea of how much Trump differs from other Democrats, you have Senator Cory Booker and former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro proposing to go back to the

pre-Trump refugee cap, which was about 110,000. Senator Sanders, though, would go further with 175,000. I'm sorry, with 175,000. Senator Warren, Elizabeth Warren. Oh, I'm sorry. I misspoke. I meant Warren. So Senator Elizabeth Warren would go even further by setting the cap at 125,000 initially, and then increasing it to 175,000 by the end of her first term. Now, in Bernie's plan, he says that he would also raise the cap, but he does not specify a number. And so I would have liked to see more specificity when it comes to the refugee cap number.

Now, a couple more things that are good in this. He, of course, protects DACA, the dreamers, but everybody does. He also wants to bring back temporary protective status for people who are from countries suffering from natural disasters or wars, that's really good. And this is very important, and he'll be attacked by the right wing on this. But he includes undocumented immigrants in Medicare for all and in college for all. So that'll make right wing heads explode. Now you're gonna bring these people in here, and if they're bleeding to death, you're gonna

actually save their lives, boo! But even further on the college for all, now you're gonna give them the American dream, oh my God, I don't want them to have the same rights as my kids, my kids are better than them, or whatever arguments they make it. But they make it in that voice, I'm pretty sure about it. Sounds like it. Yeah, look, and lastly on the context of why these issues were conflicting in the past, is old school liberal idea was a little bit populist. No, we need to protect American workers and bringing undocumented immigrants hurts their wages.

And Bernie's an old school liberal, so he's been in that camp for a long time. And in this proposal, he's saying, look, I'm not going to go after the employees. In fact, I'll protect some of those undocumented immigrants if they're whistleblowers, but I will go after their employers. Now, for people who care about workers' rights, that's fantastic. But remember, if he goes after the employers, if he actually does do that, that will also affect the employees that are hired in those places. So just full context of what the plan is.

Right, well, my read of that was, you know, it's meant to serve as a deterrent, right? And also one of the biggest issues when it comes to, as I don't know if I meant, explained it eloquently enough, but if you have undocumented workers who employers are underpaying, well, they're going to prefer employing those individuals as opposed to American citizens, right? So again, I think the pathway to citizenship is important in that regard. And going after the employers who do this is a way better strategy than criminalizing and going after undocumented immigrants. Yeah, last thing on this is, if you go after the employers today, it'll have those

ripple effects on the employees. But it's a totally different situation if you've actually done immigration reform and there's a pathway to citizenship in five years. Because at that point, yeah, you should go after the, in my opinion, you should go after the employers and say, hey, everybody's got to do it the legal way. Because we gave you a pathway to citizenship. So don't try to subvert the system to pay people lower wages and try to get away with it. So all in all, I'm happy with the proposal, I think it's very, very progressive.

So I don't know if it'll make both workers' rights and immigrant communities perfectly happy, but there was a little bit of a needle to thread here, and it looks like he did that. When we come back from the break, we are going to talk about more rich men crying about a proposed wealth tax. This is one of my favorite stories, not just in the day of the week. There's been a theme, and it's lovely. And then later in the show, we are going to show you some snippets from Don Jr.'s appearance on The View. It was a circus, and we'll discuss it.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.