The Young Turks - What Do Midterm Election Results Mean And Why Is Trump Praising Nancy Pelosi?!

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

Cenk explains what the results of the midterm elections mean for the Senate, House, and Americans. Trump recently tweeted bizarre praise for Nancy Pelosi; why? Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS 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. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. I'm your host, Jank Huger. Anna's going to join us in a little bit and break down that insane Trump press conference. Is there a sane press conference that Donald Trump does?

Of course not. So he fought with a lot of the press, called him racist, hilarious. But there's logic in it. I'll explain that in a sec. So yesterday, obviously, we had to huge elections and the results in my opinion were mixed. I'm going to explain the great mystery of the election. Why were they so mixed? Why did they win the House but lose the Senate, you know, some big losses, some huge wins?

What on God's green earth happened? I'm going to explain all that to you in just a second. But yesterday in the midst of our 14 and a half hours of coverage, we did an extra post came for the members at the end, too, as if it wasn't enough, because we love you guys, t-y-t.com slash join, okay, to become a member and get all of our coverage. We discovered something fun, right, thanks to the Magotrolls. So the Magotrols came to download our video, our live stream. By the way, I do have to give credit to Fox News.

They were number one last night in online video views of the election coverage for the entirety of the internet, okay? Number two was the Young Turks for the entirety of the internet. Okay, so it was us against Fox News. By the way, kind of as it should be, the center for the right and the center for the left. So, and then everybody else was tiny compared to it. So, but as they came to attack, as they decided they were going to be cute and downvote the video.

And so when Anna and Allison Hudson asked you guys to do the opposite, like a lot of the Like and share the video, the views went up a lot. So why don't we do that every day? It's the easiest thing you can do. You just, if you're watching this live on YouTube or on Facebook, like it and share it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then we can thank the MAGA guys for their infinite stupidity. Okay.

Fight MAGA every day, winning. Hashtag winning, I'm almost getting tired of winning. So, so obviously a lot to do here. In fact, I'll update you on which of the host is winning in our competition of who can get people to sign up more. So let me just say at t.wit.com slash jank because I'm not tired of winning in that race because I'm not winning. I'll tell you what place I'm in a little bit later when Anna comes in so she could rub it

in our face. Anyways, so let's go over here and do some stories. Okay. So last night was weird. It was weird because there was big wins, big losses. Now in an election that is unusual because these elections are now greatly nationalized and there's usually big swings back and forth and there was a big swing in the House obviously but it did not apply to the Senate and the two different camps of the Democratic Party also had significant losses.

So the conservative side and the progressive side See Donald Trump lives in an alternate reality of course and he this morning was talking about what a stunning victory the Republicans had What are you talking about? This doesn't make any sense I'm gonna show you the numbers in a second and you'll see of course it's not based on fact Here we don't just root for our own side. We are homo progressives, but we give you the truth because it doesn't help you to if we're and not being honest with you guys So, let's break down all that happened, then explain why, because I've got my best guess, and I think it's a pretty good guess. And I think there's one fact in here that is really important for you to understand how

politics work. So let's first start with the prominent Democratic losses, because there was some big names in there that people were rooting for, and they did not win. And so then it seemed like it was very deflating, so keeping it real, right? So Andrew Gillum, there was a lot of hope for him to win, Beto O'Rourke. Gillum, obviously, in Florida, Beto O'Rourke in Texas. Richard Cordray not talked about as much, but also important in Ohio for the governor's race.

And I thought he actually stood an excellent chance and he did not win. These were all really narrow losses. Stacey Abrams has not lost yet. She's actually in a, potentially in a runoff in Georgia in the governor's race. But since she didn't win last night, it was a sense of like, well, there's some big names there that on the Democratic side that did not win, okay? Now remember, Betta wasn't supposed to win Texas, and he only lost by three, which was an amazing result for him, but not good enough, right?

And the Democrats were never supposed to win the Florida governorship, but by the day of the election, Gillum was theoretically up by five in the polling. And so that's why it seemed like, whoa. But a lot of these races, including the governorship in Georgia, it's not like the Democrats were favored in any of those races. Ohio was a bit of a toss-up. But we're keeping it real that those are ones we would have loved to have won and didn't. Okay, now the House results.

This is where we had huge wins. So Democrats picked up 27 seats for sure, and there is 17 seats still left on deciding because they're too close. So they're probable pick up once those close races are seven. are about 33 to 35. They're already leading in 33 races, so they'll finish somewhere in that range. And by the let's call 34, by the way, I said they'd win 38, so that's pretty close to where we expected.

And so those are big pickups in the House. Now, when you look at within the Democratic Party, also a bit of a mystery. So you had some progressive losses, and these are great progressive, really, really wanted them to win, and they came close, but they didn't. So Kara Eastman in Nebraska's second district, that's a four-point loss. It's a really red district, but, you know, she had a real great shot. She was a wonderful candidate, but she couldn't quite finish it there, as you can see in the result of a four-point loss.

Randy Bryce, we were very hopeful for, but that was a 13-point loss. Katie Porter, another district that was Republican, but we had a chance, another narrow four-point loss. Beto O'Rourke, you know, people talk about it because it got called early as if like Beto lost big. No, he lost Texas by only three points. So nobody thought before Beto's campaign began that Texas would be within three points. In every one of those losses, those are all red districts. None of the progressives lost the race that they were supposed to win.

That didn't happen at all. And they made those races closer, but some of the ones who were really rooting for couldn't get over the hump. Okay, now the establishment Democratic losses were far worse because a lot of these races they were supposed to win and did not. They were all incumbents and they got routed in the Senate. So you got Joe Donnelly in Indiana, went in with a lead, came out losing by eight. Heidi Heidkamp is incumbent in North Dakota, lost by 10. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, went in with a lead, lost by eight there. So significant losses on the Senate side for the establishment So, you see, the reason it's a mystery is if the establishment Democrats were right, all

you got to do is raise a lot of money from corporations, run his Republican light, and you win. But Donnelly Heitkamp and McCaskill did that and many others, and they lost. If progressives were overwhelmingly right, well, we just run campaigns based on voter outreach, volunteers, small dollar donations, and we win all our races. Now, we didn't win all our races, but we did make them much closer in red districts. The blue districts, we win easily. Fortunately, you can't say the same for the corporate Democrats. So if you're looking at the numbers, yes, you give an edge to progressives, no question.

They made those red districts way tighter than the corporate establishment Democrats did. But at the end of the day, there's still a missing link. There's the issue of, you know, why couldn't you take it over the top and what happens? So I wanted to break it down for you this way, because in campaign, you know, there's a campaign. the ultimate goal is to do what, is to reach the voter. Now, a lot of people make the biggest mistake of thinking, oh, what I know, all the voters know, and they debate that in their heads, and then they make a decision about who has the best ideas.

That's not remotely true. That's a distant second problem. The number one problem is actually reaching them in the first place with your message. So you've got to reach that guy, that woman, and make your case to them. So how are the three different ways to do it? One is direct contact. So that's where progressives have a huge advantage, because we have volunteers. And volunteers can make phone calls, knock on doors, et cetera.

But that is really, really hard. It's hard to get a lot of volunteers. It's hard to reach people with personal interaction. What's easier is media. So what most politicians do is paid media. So they raise a ton of corporate money, billionaire money, and they just buy ads and flyers and, you know, all across media, but mainly TV, to reach the voters. Now, there's a third branch that is not talked about nearly enough, and that's free media,

earned media. So if you're on television a lot or the newspapers cover you a lot, well, then you'll be able to reach the voters with your message more. That is the number one problem for the Democrats, and the number one mistake that the Democratic Party does. They way underestimate this. So here comes the amazing fact. So, people often talk about, oh, Hillary Clinton outraised Donald Trump significantly

in the general election, but she lost anyway, so maybe money is not as important. No, no, wait a minute. That's one of three ways to reach the voters, remember? So, but first of all, let's acknowledge that. So Hillary Clinton raised and spent $768 million in the 2016 election. Donald Trump only raised and spent $398 million. Almost a two to one advantage to Hillary Clinton, but that is where everyone stops the conversation. So they say, well, she had more money.

That's actually not true, because they're not taking into account free media, the one that is actually a much larger slice of the pie. So great story from The Washington Post. This was a little bit after the election. I found it again because I thought it was important in this context. So Hillary Clinton actually got a ton of free media, that makes sense. You're running for president, you're all over the media. She got $3.2 billion in free media.

How much did Donald Trump get? Five billion. So do the math on that. She had a $400 million advantage in paid media, but he had a $1.8 billion advantage in free media. Remember all the empty podiums and all the press conferences and the rallies that Donald Trump would have and would be covered? And by the way, all the debates that the Republicans had. That was nonstop free media, free media, free media to get their message out.

The Democrats, honestly, in their infinite stupidity, decided, oh, I got a great idea, let's not get our message out, let's have only a small number of debates, make sure Hillary Clinton wins, and then clam everything up. Well, then you don't get billions of dollars in free media in the primaries, let alone the general election. So those Donald Trump rallies mattered, the fact that cable news was obsessed with them to the point where they would actually cover it when he's not even on. on the empty podium coverage.

I mean, they give more media the Donald Trump's empty podium than they did into a lot of the progressive candidates. And that made billions of dollars of difference. So now, today, how does it affect today? Well, look, that's the missing link in this election. So as the Democrats had momentum, and Donald Trump had a polling that was the worst of any president going into a midterm election, they should have cleaned up. The progressives should have won.

But even the conservative Democrats, the ones that run those miserable campaigns, yes, they insult their voters, they have a less chance of winning. They take the energy out of their voters. We've talked about that a lot. But in a wave, even they would win. So why didn't the wave materialize? The number one answer is, the Democratic Party does not make their case. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is all over TV.

He did 53 rallies. And what he does is he goes on the offense. And so the Democrats are at best playing defense, and they have no answer to Donald Trump. Did Nancy Pelosi do as many rallies? She did no rallies. Chuck Schumer, no rallies. So Warren did a couple. Bernie Sanders did a bunch, but did the media pay attention to those rallies?

Well, that gets to the second part of the missing link. Fox News amplifies the message for Donald Trump and the Republicans, and then they create a virtuous cycle the politicians support Fox News, Fox News supports the politicians, and round it goes. Is there any equivalent to that on the left? The answer is largely no, so let me pause and explain there, right? So you can say, like in Washington, they say, what do you mean, MSNBC? Really?

Does MSNBC support progressive politicians? How? How do they support them? Do they go to their rallies? Are they at every Bernie Sanders rally? Are they showing the empty podiums of Elizabeth Warren? No, not remotely. From time to time, they'll have Adam Schiff on.

So they'll have some guys who say, oh, we're going to investigate Donald Trump and we're going to look into Russia. That is not the same as putting out an aggressive message and taking charge of the national conversation, a national conversation that gives their candidates an advantage to the tune of billions of dollars. Fox News is always playing offense. If MSNBC does anything at all, it's barely playing defense. Now, there's another media organization that's us.

Well, okay, so we're deeply progressive, and we're, honestly, it's a funny way of saying it, but we're huge online, and it's true. So why do we not have the same effect as Fox News? Look, I'm keeping it real with you guys. It's easy. I can say, oh, you're bigger, et cetera. No, but I'm telling you in reality, yeah, by the way, online, we are bigger. Among young people, we're bigger than Fox News, CNN and MSNBC combined.

But why don't we have that same power that Fox News does? Because there is no virtuous cycle. The Democratic politicians don't want to talk to progressives. MSNBC doesn't want anything to do with progressives. CNN actually does a better job of covering us. CNN also does a better job of covering progressives and actually even challenging the Republican talking points. better than MSNBC.

But overall, the rest of the media does not cover progressives and hence us nearly the way that the rest of the right wing backs Fox News. They all get behind Fox News and they all push that agenda. They get behind Donald Trump and they push that agenda. And when they create that virtue cycle, you get billions of dollars of free media. So that leads us to the last part of the missing way. And that's the mainstream press. In this case, we symbolized it with the New York Times.

But really, it's all the mainstream press. And so what do they do? When Trump says something, they rush and cover. Now that's logical, he's the president of the United States. But even before he was president, even when they thought he was a comical candidate who had no chance to winning, they still showered him with billions of dollars in free media. And they do it to this day. They do the same for Fox News.

What did Fox News say? Oh my God, we have to react. Fox News says Caravan. We have to cover Caravan, everybody covered the caravan, everybody covered the caravan, right? So on the left, does the mainstream media have the same reaction? Not remotely. If MSNBC was pushing an agenda, I don't even know what it would be. They got half their lineup as Republicans.

And they don't play offense, they don't have an agenda, right? Now, we do play office, we attack the Republicans all the time. When's the last time the New York Times covered us? Almost never, because apparently they don't understand the internet, which is a great failing of theirs, right? But they also don't respect progressives. They just think, no, we have to bow down to, what is that? Let's take that off.

Okay. Okay, we're having a slight technical issue here. Let's bring back the sidebar. Okay. So, when's the last time New York Times covers any of the progressive media outlets and pushes out their message, whether it's covering it in a, analytical and critical way, or it's covering it in a positive way? They don't do any of it.

For example, we say on the show all the time, Republicans don't care about deficits. We are right, we have all the facts on our side. Reagan doubled the deficit, George W. Bush destroyed the deficit, Donald Trump is in the middle of destroying a deficit, meaning adding to it, adding to it, adding to it, Barack Obama lowered the deficit. Clinton famously turned it into a surplus. When the Republicans say they care about the deficit, it is a lie and we can prove it with facts.

Does the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media ever talk about that? No, no, because they don't respect the progressive position and they don't think that it's worthy of coverage. And hence in that decision, it wasn't about us and it isn't about MSNBC. They robbed the Democratic candidates across the country of free media that could have helped to win the elections. It is not the job of the New York Times or the mainstream media to help progressive candidates or Democratic candidates, not remotely.

But it is their job to cover them. And when they cover the caravans and the immigrant demagoguing and Donald Trump and Fox News nonstop, they amplify their megaphone. When they do not cover progressive priorities, well, then you've just lost an enormous advantage in the elections. So I believe that's what explains what happened last night. So people were tired of Donald Trump, and they did make a difference in those house seats. But you did not have a tsunami, partly because nobody pushed that wave.

It was just a wave that was on its own. And I don't want you to mistake what I'm saying, saying that it's just the media's fault, not remotely. The number one culprit is the Democratic Party leadership itself because they don't do what Donald Trump does. They don't play offense. They're not anywhere near as aggressive as him. They don't earn that media.

Do they do aggressive policy positions? Do they come out and say the Republicans are liars? They never balance the budget. No, they meekly say, oh, sorry, but we're not so bad, we're not so bad, and Donald Trump's a Democrat, we're a racist, but you know, no, you gotta come out and play offense. They never play offense. So that's how you lose the Senate. That's how it's a wave in the House, but not a tsunami.

And so you've got to demand that attention. The other thing you have to do is, honestly, demanded of the media, and they never do that. They assume that Fox News is right, that the media is liberal. They're nowhere near liberal. They might be socially liberal, maybe they don't hate black people or gay people, not maybe they don't. Generally they are, in that sense, socially liberal. Are they policy, liberal in terms of policy or economics?

Not remotely, not remotely. They treat every progressive position with enormous skepticism. And so, and disdain and they don't cover it. And that is when the Democratic leadership needs to step up. up and go, absolutely. New York Times is failing. Oh, no, you can't do that. That's like Donald Trump. You can't do that. But Donald Trump got billions of dollars in free media by doing that. That is not an incorrect strategy. That is a correct strategy. But the Democrats will go, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Everybody in the New York Times is our buddy. They're on the

cocktail circuit with us. We want to be friends with them. We can't criticize them. But then you lose the coverage. And when you lose the coverage, you lose the races. So of the three ways to reach the voter, direct contact, and paid media, those are actually dwarfed by free media, which the Democratic leadership willingly concedes and gives up by not pressuring the media, not aggressively making their case, and putting out strong policies and going on the offense. That is why last night, it was a good result in the House, but overall, it could have been great.

It should have been a tsunami with Donald Trump's poll ratings and how unpopular Republican positions are. Last thing on this, guys, it's not just conjecture, and it's not my saying, hey, I think my policies should have done better. No, no, the American people agree with us on the policies. Now, I've told you about the polling a thousand times on almost every position, and I challenge the press every time on this, and they're always confounded. I'm like, can you read?

Look at the polls. On almost every policy position, the country is not just center left, massively left. They love Social Security and Medicare, they want to tax the rich, they don't like the banks, they want them regulated, they don't like wars, they want to legalize marijuana, they're in favor of gay rights, I can go on and on. We have 60% or better. But it's not just the polls, it's the elections. Look at the ballot measures.

In Arkansas, they raised the minimum wage, and they did it overwhelmingly. thing in Missouri. But wait a minute, they voted for Republicans who don't want to raise the minimum wage at all. What's the missing link? No one told them. I know that if you follow politics deeply, you've got to be thinking, now, how do they not know in Arkansas that the Republicans don't want to raise the minimum wage?

That Republicans hate the idea of raising the minimum wage. I would argue Republicans hate the idea of you having a higher wage at all, because their donors are the ones who pay you. And they don't want to pay you a higher wage, they want to pay you a lower wage. But you think the people in Arkansas heard that, they didn't. They won higher wages. They voted overwhelmingly for a higher minimum wage. But they wouldn't turn around and voted for Republicans anyway.

In Missouri, McCaskill lost by eight points, even though they wanted a higher wage, a higher minimum wage. Did Claire McCaskill get out there and go, God damn it, Republicans are for lower wages and I'm not going to let them lower your wages? No, meek, I'm sorry, I'd like to be Republican light. What is the leadership new? Chuck Schumer says, sorry, not much, I don't want to go on TV, and did they challenge the press to say, no, you must say, because it is a fact that the Republicans want a lower

minimum wage. That's a fact. Why don't you say it in Missouri? Missouri press, you're a miserable failure. They should have done that. They didn't. They cost themselves a ton of money in free media, and they lost. That's the answer.

Okay, I love my job. I love figuring things out and sharing it with you guys. Okay, now, God, that was long, and I got another long one. Okay, let's do one more. Let's do Nancy Pelosi. Okay, here's another thing we figured out. So, the elections over, the Democrats win the House, and they're going to pick up about 34 seats overall, and Donald Trump does something weird, which I suppose fairly

normal for him, but he tweets out, in all fairness, Nancy Pelosi deserves to be chosen Speaker of the House by the Democrats. If they give her a hard time, perhaps who will add some Republican votes, she has earned this great honor. Now, does he mean that? Of course not. So why is he backing Nancy Pelosi who he just fought against and

criticized throughout the entire elections and said the whole party is going to be like Nancy Pelosi and she's the worst? Why does he turn around right afterwards and say, oh yeah, she should be Speaker of the House? Because he thinks she's weak and it'll be really easy to beat her. It's like, look at how weak she was.

you know, in the elections. Look at how weak the whole entire Democratic leadership was. They couldn't even pick up the Senate when I'm deeply unpopular, right? So, and what does Pelosi do right afterwards? Well, confirms Donald Trump's suspicions. From the, quote of from the Hill here, Pelosi was expected to become the next speaker. Promise after Tuesday's victory that she would offer, quote, a bipartisan marketplace of ideas, saying that American people want results and have had enough of division.

Incorrect. You were supposed to be the resistance. No, your voters do not want you to unite with Donald Trump. That's a preposterous thing to say. I know the base. I would argue I know the base almost better than anybody because of the deep connection we have with them online. We're not on TV.

We're online. I mean, we saw some TV stations bless their hearts. But we get all this feedback. We get a tremendous amount of feedback. I don't know anyone in the base who says, Oh, golly, gee, if only the Democrats would work with Trump more to do bipartisan compromise on some of his goals. Nobody thinks that, no one in the Democratic base believes that.

But somehow Democratic leadership thinks that's a great idea. Gee, I wonder why Donald Trump wants Nancy Pelosi to be the leader. Of course that's why he wants her to be the leader. And he says, and he's got a threat for her too. So let's watch this video. Look, we have a president that's willing to work across aisle to get things done. We feel good about where we are in the Senate. But if Democrats take the House, they shouldn't waste time investigating.

They should focus on what the people have put them there to do. There are a lot of things that the president would love to work with them on. And hopefully they'll come to the table and be willing to do that and not continue to be the party of resist and obstruct. So that's Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying, hey, you better not investigate us. We'll work with you. No, no, no, come here, come here, yeah. No, it's not a trap.

We'll work with you. Of course we will, we'll be reasonable, Donald Trump will be reasonable, but you better not investigate, and in fact, Trump himself doubled down in the press conference this morning. Watch. Let's go to video two. Do you expect that when the Democrats take over the chairmanship of all these important committees, you're going to get hit with a blizzard of subpoenas on everything from the Russian investigation to your cell phone use, to your tax returns?

Ready? Then you're going to, if that happens, then we're going to do it. the same thing and government comes to a halt and I would blame them because they now are going to be coming up with policy. They're the majority of the House. The real question is you just set up here and said that from this podium that it's, are you offering in my way or highway scenario to the Democrats? You're saying that if if they start investigating you that you can play that game and investigate better than them, can you Can you compartmentalize that?

And I think I know more than they know. Can you compartmentalize that and still continue to work with them for the benefit of the rest of the country? Are you, are all bets off? No. If they do that, then it's just all it is is a warlike posture. And so then the, wait a minute, then the follow up, I'm sorry, John. You heard my answer.

Go ahead. Yeah. He's saying, you better do exactly as I tell you and you better not investigate me. Otherwise, we're going to have a warlike posture. And he knows he can push Democrats around. Now, in the bubble of Washington, Democrats in Nancy Pelosi believed, like, oh, we got this. Okay, when they asked her right before the election about, hey, you know, are you going to be Speaker of the House if you guys win, et cetera? She said, I know the territory and I'm really good at what I do.

Based on what? If you're really good at what you do, why does Donald Trump want you to be Speaker of the House? And what have you accomplished? She talks about like, oh, man, we roll the Republicans all the time on appropriations bills. Really? I haven't seen that at all. I don't know any progressive voter who thinks you're killing the Republicans on legislative battles. Really? In Washington, they actually believe that. I've heard other people say that about Nancy Pelosi. That's an alternate reality. It doesn't exist. She said, oh, in the appropriations bill, we rolled them and we got this and we got that,

and then they were going to vote on DACA. Yeah. But Nancy, I got news for you. They didn't vote on DACA. You were totally wrong. As usual, you got played. I mean, it's not just her. Chuck Schumer, he gets played even worse on the Senate side. We got nothing on DACA. He fast-tracked Donald Trump's judicial appointments, and what did you get? You got nothing. But in their crazy mind, they really think they're master legislators as Nancy Pelosi has called herself.

So listen to what she says. She said, that is why it's interesting for us to win every appropriation fight, because they just, well, they just don't win. What? She thinks she's winning. Does anybody in the country think that Democrats are winning on policy issues and on legislation? There, man, Trump lives in a crazy alternate universe, but so does Pelosi. So, and people enable her.

Look, Jennifer Bennery wrote an interesting article in HuffPost. And she said this is one of the options for why Pelosi was doing well, but it's not. I mean, even framing it this way is preposterous. She said it might be because she has a spine literally made of titanium. What? Nancy Pelosi? I mean, they just down a different planet. She's accomplished almost nothing. And her and Schumer concede immediately.

They do preemptive concessions. They just conceded right after they won the house. She said, oh, no, no, bipartisan. I'm going to work with Donald Trump on his prime. priorities. Are you insane? Where's the titanium made spine? Okay. So why? Why does Washington think Nancy Pelosi successful when no one else in the country believes that? Okay, we go to Benderi's report here on Huff Post and she explains it. She says as Politico reported, Pelosi has been quietly courting Democratic candidates who have publicly kept her at a distance. She sent donors

to them. Oh. She's appeared at private fundraisers for them. She sent more than 30 of her staffers to toss up districts to help. Her main goal maybe to win back the house, but it doesn't hurt to endear herself to those candidates along the way. So basically saying, even though people running those ads saying that, hey, I'm not going to back Nancy Pelosi or the people who, when asked my reporters in their races, say they're not going to back Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House. She's secretly getting their money so that if they win, they back her for Speaker of the House. And that's how this game is played. So then now we go to CNN to explain how much money she raised. And this is not at the end of the election. It's in June. Through June,

Pelosi had raised an eye-popping $83 million to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2018 election cycle, more than double the next closest Democrat. Now, that's a ton of money. Now go a little further. A source briefed on the matter said that through July, she had raised nearly $91 million for the party committee. which is spending big in hotly contested races, including where Democratic candidates are running away from Pelosi. In other words, she brings in the cash. She goes to her corporate donors, to her millionaire and billionaire donors, and she brings in money. That is why a lot of people see her as the elite and the establishment, and voters are turned off by that.

But Washington is greatly turned on by that. They're like, master legislator. Did you actually get any legislation passed? No. Well, I got Romney Care passed when Obama was in charge and we had an overwhelming majority. Well, congratulations. That does seem masterful. Okay, but other than that, I got nothing passed, but I got the money.

Oh, congratulations. So, despite facing more opposition from Democrats than any other time in her career, Pelosi's fundraising strength remains her biggest asset. A clear sign why she continues to maintain a hold atop her caucus. So they don't care about legislative victories. They certainly don't care about progressive priorities. I don't really care about fighting Donald Trump. All they care about is, where's the money, Lubowski? I just want the money.

Pelosi gives them the money. That's their only metric. So it's not just Pelosi. The internal DCC list also offers clues to how individual lawmakers are performing for the party committee. Particularly those ambitious members looking for spots at the leadership table. Representative Kathleen Clark of Massachusetts, who is running to be vice chairman of the House Democratic caucus next year, had doubled her fundraising goal through June raising $1.1 million, mostly for vulnerable incumbents,

and those in the red-to-blue program while transferring an additional $300,000 to the D-Triple C. I give you that quote from CNN because I want you to guys to understand how people get to be leaders for the Democrats. They don't do it by winning elections in a big way. They don't do it by passing bills. They don't do it by being the most progressive or fighting the hardest for their voters. They do it solely, purely by raising more money. So in that case, they explain this woman who I've never heard of who's never accomplished anything, never passed any bills, Catherine Clark, oh man, she's in leadership and she's

in line for leadership, man, she's a great, there you go, why? She raised good money from donors. of billionaires like her and corporations like her. Good job, Catherine Clark, you're now a leader in the Democratic Party. One day, maybe you two can be a master legislator like Nancy Pelosi. Okay, but she's not the only one. Okay, one more here, guys. Other prominent Democrats, like Representatives Adam Schiff of California and Joe Kennedy

of Massachusetts, have far exceeded their goals, with each pulling in roughly 2.1 million for the committee. Hey, look at that. Those are the two guys you see on TV all the time, Adam Schiff and Joe Kennedy. It's not a coincidence. If you play the game of corruption, you get rewarded for it. You get leadership positions and you get to go on TV and build your name. If you don't play that game, the Democrats don't care about you.

Their only metric for success is unfortunately one built on corruption. Now they don't view it that way, they're like, what do you mean? I raise money from good people who do it for charity. I mean, they tell us, like, they're good on social issues and they like the right same people that we like. Now, of course, they don't want over-regulation, and some of them are fiscally conservative, and they, you know, they don't want as much tax cuts as the Republicans, but they want tax cuts.

And now, we're not going to push too hard on that, of course, because we've got to know where our bread is buttered. Exactly. That's the corruption. Well, we're not going to, I mean, the wars, we're generally opposed to the wars, but, hey, you don't want to get carried away. There's a lot of jobs in our district from the defense contractors. No, no, no, no, you got paid by the defense contractors.

That's why you don't fight the defense contractors. That's how this game is played. That's why Donald Trump says, yes, Nancy Pelosi should be Speaker of the House. And in her world, she's like, yeah, that makes sense. Everybody loves me, right? I raise so much money for them. But in the rest of the country, there's not a lot of love there for very, very good reason. Because we don't care how much money you raised.

We don't care how much money you brought in through corruption. In fact, it's a negative, not a positive. If the Democratic Party continues to operate this way, they will continue to have surprising losses like they did in the Senate, that wave in the House should have been much larger. And Donald Trump will continue to roll over them, and they'll have no idea why. They'll go around going, I don't get it. I raise a lot of money from the rich and from corporations. I don't get it.

Yeah, you don't and you might never. They need real leadership with an actual spine who actually cares about policy, who actually wants to do something for the average American. I know to a Democratic leadership, that's a foreign concept. It is nowhere in their metrics, nowhere in a discussion in Democratic leadership that someone say, yeah, but who's really good at policy? Who can actually help the average American have a lead a better life? That conversation has never had in Democratic leadership circles.

And that's why they get played. And that's the state of affairs right now. All right. Those are your public service announcements. We're going to take a quick break now. When we come back, Anna's going to join us. Donald Trump with more absurdity on the press conference, attacking African-American reporters for being racist against him.

How's that for a twist? All right. We'll talk about it when we were doing. All right, back on the Young Turks, Jen and Anna with you guys. And I love this little competition we have, even though I'm getting my ass handed to me by you. So if you want to join, you could, of course, and become a member, get all 18 of our shows, etc., you could be, by the way, we had wonderful behind the scenes yesterday. A ton of behind the scenes as we were preparing for the election coverage and in between the breaks, et cetera. Lots of Bitsies going on.

Yeah, we call them Bitsies, BTS.S. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fee-E-The Republic. or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it. You must have learned what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Behind the scenes, get it? Okay.

So remember, First get all that, and so you can do it through t.t.com slash join, but lately we launched this thing, t.yt.com slash the host name, Anna, Jimmy John. Jimmy roaring out of the gate, by the way, immediately in fourth place. So those are the five that we started with, but there's now Mariguana. He's doing pretty well. J.R. is on the board. Ben's got one. He doesn't like to participate. Okay. So the disappointing news today is that John has finally caught and passed me. I love it.

Okay, Anna's almost at 200. Hey, you know what, guys, you know, look, I'm being a Democrat here, okay? What am I going soft, okay? No, help me crush these people. Am I angry? That's an understatement, okay? And you were ahead of me? How dare she?

Okay, Anna Kasparian. Look, Jake, I just think you need to acknowledge what the people want, what the good people want. If you're in favor of democracy, you just need to acknowledge that. All right, well, T.R.T.com slash, Jank, let's see what happens. I'm gonna start making ads against you. Oh, okay, Anna Kasparian, 2018, oh no, don't get me started. I don't know what you would pick on, what would you pick on?

Oh, don't, don't do it, don't do it. Don't wake a sleeping giant. No, but like, no, but don't wake this sleeping giant. Oh, no. I'm not even a sleeping giant. Like, I mean, you know how aggressive I get. No, I'm getting angry already. Go ahead, go ahead, put those ads out there.

Woke giant. All right, a couple of quick comments from our member section. Nostra science says that DNC didn't grasp were speaking unison on a single progressive legislation message like expanded Medicare coverage for all or higher $15 minute wage. Instead, the right of Senator Democrats campaign played the we're not the Donald card and lost a bet to a pair of deuses and dunces, a billion percent right. You know, all the articles talked about, oh, Democrats are running on health care. Now, in the local level, they were, that's true, and that's why they wrote that.

On a national level, did you see any giant rallies, press conferences about health care, and what their proposal for health care was? I mean, we did see one, not one press conference, but we did see one senator who had a very bold proposal, and that was Bernie Sanders. Yep, that's it. And then, of course, what are the rest of the Democrats? He's not with us. He doesn't speak for us.

Right. He's only the most popular politician in the country, so he doesn't speak for us, right? Just losers through and through. Anyway, that should have been a tsunami. That's what I'll look, honestly, I'm pissed that it wasn't a tsunami. It was a win. It was a win. But it was actually, it was half a win.

They didn't win the Senate. They lost ground in the Senate. That's all right. I know the map, please, I hate when the mainstream media condescends to us. They're the children. They don't understand politics. And they're like, oh, did you know that more Democrats were up than Republicans? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew that.

God, you guys are so dumb and you think you're so bright. Anyway, Sartorial Narwhal writes, McCaskill's loss was heartbreaking for me, despite the fact that her campaign was establishment clown shoes. Yeah, she shouldn't have lost. She had a lead going in, and she way underperformed. Why? She didn't excite her own voters to show up. One here, Green Mountain Boy writes, and Jank, you are dead on with your campaign assessment.

We need to be on the office 100% and hard for the next two years especially. We should also be holding near daily press conferences pushing back on Trump's lies. Every time, we have to stop giving the GOP a pass, strength, not weakness. That's why I say if you're going to be strong like that, you join through t.yt.com slash Jenk, that's for strength. Okay, all right. Casper, you're up. All right, I'm just gonna let it slide.

Okay. Because we got stuff to get to, you know, I'm the responsible one here. Okay. Donald Trump has finally done what he has been hoping to do for a long time now. He has forced his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to resign. And Sessions has resigned and has been replaced by someone who will be there temporarily. We will get to that person in just a minute. But we found out about this information, as usual, through a tweet by Donald Trump.

He tweeted that Sessions would be replaced by an acting basis, on an acting basis, by Matthew G. Whitaker, who had been serving as Sessions Chief of Staff. Just to give you a little bit of information on Whitaker, he will, Whitaker will also replace Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now, this is very relevant considering what Whitaker has said in the past, specifically in regard to this Russia investigation, and what he has also written in op-eds in regard to Hillary Clinton.

Now, he felt that Hillary Clinton 100% should have been indicted. However, he has also written an op-ed indicating that he believes that this investigation into Russian collusion needs to wrap up immediately. He thinks the same thing that Trump thinks, that it's far-reaching, that they need to limit the scope, and they need to end it. So let's dive in here as to what's going on. So a part of it is obvious, but there's nuances that I want to explain. So I was wondering why they didn't get rid of Rod Rosenstein, because it looked like they

were going to ask him. He might even even wrote that New York Times op-ed about Donald Trump. It's not perfectly clear, but he certainly was in Trump because if you remember the story, he thought about recording Donald Trump secretly because he thought about recording Donald Trump secretly because he thought what he was saying was so wrong and crazy and perhaps illegal. But Trump didn't fire him. I thought, that's really weird. Trump's not the kind of the guy and the guy to have reservations or pull back on things

when he gets angry. But now this explains it. He doesn't have to fire Rosenstein because he was planning to fire sessions immediately after the election. It's not like we're two, three weeks after the election. And he's like, oh, something went wrong that we didn't expect. No, he expected to fire him immediately. He just didn't want it to affect the election.

He didn't want that to be a controversy. But he knew he was going to fire now why is he firing and then putting Whitaker in charge and saying Rosenstein who was previously in charge of the Mueller investigation because Sessions had recused himself now no longer in charge Whitaker is in charge so Rosenstein becomes irrelevant right anytime Trump appears to be doing something either rational, logical, nice, you know, any positive word restrained any positive word you can think of anytime you see Trump acting that way just understand that there's some sort of scheme in his back pocket, something that no one's thought of, or maybe some people did expect this to play out exactly the way that it did.

Who knows? But either way, when he said, no, I'm gonna leave Rod Rosenstein alone. I just knew at that point, there's something going on behind the scenes that I'm unaware of, and it's not like he has had some sort of change of heart. No, of course, he's not like, he's like, oh yeah, Mueller investigation, it's totally fine, it's not a witch hunt. No, of course not. He planned to basically do this so he could be in a position to fire Mueller.

And he'd planned it all along. That's why he did it right after the election. That is not arguable. If anyone in the press is arguing it, they don't understand the news at all. Okay, it's the day after the election that was planned all along. In fact, and to be fair to the press, they do point this out, and this is something we did not know earlier. So Trump's team had been going to Republican senators who really liked Jeff Sessions and bullying them and saying, hey, I'm going to get rid of it.

Sessions and you better back me and they said wait till after the election and after the election they said, okay, and they bowed their heads to Donald Trump. And all along they'd been like, no, Sessions is our former colleague and he's one of the most conservative guys in the country and no, we won't accept it. But Trump yelled at him enough behind the scenes. They're like, yes, sir, absolutely sir, of course fire him, sir. Now why did he see firing Jeff Sessions? Well, first of all, Jeff Sessions is against immigration and law and order as they perceive

it, right? So he agrees with Donald Trump 100% on that stuff. He was the first senator to back Donald Trump's campaign back when it was super risky. So he was really loyal to Donald Trump. It's not any of those things, but it's not complicated anyway. Donald Trump says it out in open. He said it a million times. It's because he recused himself from the Mueller investigation, and he said, I don't have

an attorney general, meaning the attorney general is supposed to protect me, not the American people. And so since he didn't protect me, and I obviously am a lawbreaker, I'm a criminal, and he Let the Justice Department investigate me, and they're going to find obviously wrongdoing. I know that. And since he wasn't loyal to me, I'm going to get rid of him. So that's obstruction of justice. And he followed through on that immediately after the election.

So, and why is he doing it now? We explained why he didn't do it earlier, why not do it later? Because Mueller might drop the information that he has and release it any day now. He was waiting for after the election as well. Mueller is going to release what he has. So he wants to be in a position to be able to fire Mueller either before or immediately after that. So there are whispers about Mueller possibly indicting more people. We don't know any details about that.

Again, these are just rumors at this moment. But just a quick thought on the whole Mueller investigation before we move forward with some of these other elements to the story, I've given up. I think even if there's real evidence that Trump colluded, there's evidence of obstruction of justice, there's evidence of money laundering for the Russians, there's evidence that he murdered some prostitute in Russia at some point, there's evidence that he murdered a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. He gets away with everything, I don't care anymore.

I mean, look at what just happened in the country right before the midterms. Look at the countless times we've had outbursts of violence in the country that's been encouraged by Donald Trump. Look at what happened with Kavanaugh. I mean, it's case after case of Trump and his cronies getting away with behavior that no one else has ever gotten away with in the political world. Well, so I don't show your pessimism, but I will say that the elections were the moment of accountability.

In the House, we had some of it, but the Senate is more important. The Senate is who would decide whether he's convicted of an impeachment and thrown out of office. And in the Senate, they held and actually grew their lead, which will scare the Republicans from defying Donald Trump. And so that is actually the scariest development of all. I mean, he committed tax fraud. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Anyone else, they would, it's political suicide, you're done, you're done.

With Trump, it doesn't matter. So look, the difference is, look, he's the president. You can't just say, okay, hey, why don't you resign? It's just not how it works. So it's a matter of political capital. And you lose political capital and the rest of your party shuns you and you become powerless if you're a senator or congressman, et cetera, if you do something wrong because they are worried that it's going to affect their elections negatively.

They care more about themselves than anything else. They're politicians. But the reason Donald Trump defies those things is because he goes over the top. And he uses free media in a way that I explained earlier in the show to gather up so much attention and go on the offense so aggressively that his transgressions do not cost them political capital. And so that is why I always thought like, well, what are you going to do to a president before the elections?

You can't do anything. So people are having a fake conversation. You can do something about a congressman or senator because he affects other people and They could basically like they did with Al Franken, they could drive him out of politics, right? So Democrats do that to themselves all the time, to their own, right? The Republicans don't do that as much. But for the president, it's nearly impossible. So the only moment of accountability was the election.

And we only got half accountability. And honestly, the less important half, the Senate's more important because it also leads the more judicial confirmations and easier as well. So now he will be emboldened by that. And the Republican senators will cower from him even more than that. So the chance of getting two-thirds of the Senate to confirm an impeachment and throw him out of office is obviously greatly diminished. So he now feels emboldened to fire sessions, which is what this is.

He resigns only because Trump told him, get out, I'm going to fire you. And your only chance of it saving any kind of faces to say you resign. But obviously, this is a firing. So he's emboldened to do that. and he might be emboldened to fire Mueller, and the question is he's going to get away with it. And the only answer to that is. Is yes. No, no, no.

If what's in there is quote unquote normal transgressions, and by normal I'm not trying to minimize them. But obstruction of justice, you know, campaign finance irregularities, any regular person would be done. Donald Trump has bullied his own party and the other party effectively. enough that he will definitely not be done based on those illegal actions. My hope is that if they got him, if it's true, if they got him on the much bigger transgressions, actually taking money from the Russians, et cetera, if they got him on that, then you're going

to have an open question. No. Okay. Okay, so obviously. We're not. There is no open question. But I'll tell you, if he, if he fires Mueller. and Mueller had devastating evidence on him, and then the Republicans and Democrats do nothing,

and then it's over. Then at that point, Anna is right. There's no rule of law left anymore. The president can break any law he wants, and he has immunity. They will never hold him accountable, and then really brace for impact, because he has fascist tendencies already. And when he doesn't have to abide by the law at all, he can and probably will do anything. Great, it's great news.

Now, months ago, Donald Trump was asked whether or not he was planning on firing Jeff Sessions. And he somewhat skirted the question, but he did say something interesting in his answer. So let's take a look at that. Can you give us clarity, sir, on your thinking currently now after the midterms about your attorney general and your deputy attorney general, do they have long term job security? I'd rather answer that at a little bit different time. We're looking at a lot of different things, including cabinet. I'm very happy with most of my cabinet.

We're looking at different people for different positions. It's very common after the midterms. I didn't want to do anything before the midterms. But I will tell you that for the most part, I'm extremely happy with. My apologies, I thought that was from a while ago, but that was from right before the midterm elections. So he had also said in that statement, or I had mentioned Whitaker's name, which I thought was interesting because it was foreshadowing, but no one really caught onto it.

Yeah. So here's what's not going to happen. Trump's not going to pick Whitaker and not know that Whitaker has his back a thousand percent. Of course, of course. Did he ask Whitaker directly, will you be loyal to me? Of course, I wasn't in the room, but I can guarantee you that's what happened. And he deduced that Whitaker was corrupt enough to do anything he wants. It's not like Donald Trump was going to have like an earnest conversation about like,

now look, you're going to be independent Whitaker, okay, and now you do anything you like and remember you represent the people of America, not me. Mm-hmm. Come on, does anyone believe that that's the conversation? Of course that. He's like, are you going to be loyal to me? Are we clear on what that means? He's transparent about that, I mean, he says it.

And by the way, so I wanted to read you the quote that I was referring to, this was actually from a statement by Trump last month. And so he was asked about Sessions' future, he dodged the question, and then he said, well, I'd never talk about that, but I can't tell you that Matt Whitaker is a great guy. And so now we have Matt Whitaker. So let me give you some more details on what Matthew Whitaker has written about the Russia investigation. As I mentioned, he had written an op-ed saying that he thinks that Rosenstein needs to wrap

this up. It's time for Rosenstein, who is the acting attorney general for the purpose. of this investigation to order Mueller to limit the scope to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel. I'm sorry, limit the scope of his investigation to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel. So he believes that it's too wide in terms of the scope of the investigation. Of course he's gonna fire him.

Of course he's gonna, why are we having this conversation? Okay. So, and look, the only question is a matter of timing, you know, is does he fire him now? when he thinks Mueller is about to release the information, after he released the information, whatever, right? But this is to terminate Mueller. That's the whole point of this. Right.

So mission accomplished, and we'll see how this plays out. Looking forward to collecting the money of our bet. Oh, yeah, yeah. So some people ask about that bet, because they thought it was at the midterms. And it was, but we went double or nothing after the midterms. And so if Trump makes it all the way to the end of his term, then I got to pay Cass for a decent amount of money. A hondo.

I think, right? Yeah. Are you tired of winning yet? Yeah. In this case, I am very tired of winning. I would have much preferred to lose in this case. All right, we gotta take a break, guys. When we come back, Trump attacks a reporter, black reporter, for being too racist against him.

All right, we'll be right back. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from The Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting any independent media become a member at t yt.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Back on a young Turks, Jank and Anna with you guys. If you're watching live on YouTube or Facebook, please like and share the stream. It makes a huge difference.

Let me read some comments for you guys. J.M. Frasier wrote, this is all members' comments. TYT.com slash Jenk to join. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways of big tech companies. are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell

the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXP-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. Anna, J.M. Frazier writes, and Whitaker must recuse himself, major conflict of interest, massive bias.

Good luck with that. Oh, my gosh. I love you. No, you make a good point, but like, welcome to 2018. Yeah, nobody cares. Like, we care, the rule of law cares, nobody in Washington cares. Brendan, NYC writes in, poor Jeff Sessions, getting shown the door just when things we're getting really racist.

It's really funny. Jeff would have enjoyed that. It's a sad day for him. By the way, not a good week for the Sessions. They're not a family, they're not related, but Pete Sessions lost his congressional seat yesterday. So now last one here is an interesting one. Herkels writes in, strange how weak Pelosi is when during the financial crisis of 2008, she was able to get Secretary of State Hank Paulson to literally fall to his knees and beg her.

one could be done if she had that strength today and use it to push for progressive policies. I think he was Secretary of Treasury. And Hank Paulson did that to appease the one thing that Nancy Pelosi cares about, her ego. So that's why that's an interesting story. Like if somebody said to me, okay, Jenk, they're about to get $15 minimum wage or Medicare for All or any issue that I care about. But Hank Polson is on his knees. Will you change your mind?

I'd be like, I don't care, dude, get up. Like, that doesn't mean anything to me, right? But for Nancy Pelosi, she's like, yes, I will give the banks everything you want because you bent a knee. I am now powerful. No, you're not. You're an idiot. He used you to get Goldman Sachs, his former employer, all the money he needed with a stupid

little trick that appease your ego. So that's not strength. That's actually weakness. So, all right. Anyway, one quick note from our sponsor for a Squarespace, both Anna and I have used them, look, you need a website for everything, right? You need it if you've got a brand, you've got a, if you've got a business. They got 24-7 customer support.

They've got award-winning templates, and they're pre-made, so it's super-duper easy. If I can build a website, trust me, you can, but you've got to do it through Squarespace, and they're going to give you 10% off if you go to Squarespace.com slash t-y-T. Squarespace.com slash t-y-t get 10% off. Kasp, you got breaking news? I do. So, we just reported that Jeff Sessions has been forced to resign. Donald Trump has pushed him out as the attorney general.

And there is now a temporary attorney general by the name of Matthew Whitaker, who believes that the Russia investigation is complete and utter nonsense and wants to wrap it up quickly. But CNBC has just reported that in response to Jeff Sessions, no longer being our attorney General, marijuana stock Tilray shot up 27%. Well, look, see, this is what's frustrating about the Democrats not being able to win the Senate and not getting as big of victories as I think they could have had in the House last night, because the American people are on our side on almost all the issues. On the marijuana ballot measures, we won all of them.

And now it's 66% of the country that wants not medical, recreational and recreational and marijuana legalized. We have totally won on that issue. And whenever that you actually have the American people vote, they say yes, legalize. In Washington, Jeff Sessions was our attorney general. He hates pot more than anybody in the country. He said he liked the clan until he found out they smoked pot. Okay, that's a literal thing that he said.

Now he was joking, kind of, okay? But it's a joke that tells you how much he hates marijuana. Right. In fact, The Onion, which is satirical, obviously, published this hilarious. hilarious headline that said, in response to being forced to quit, Jeff Sessions decided to commit suicide by smoking a joint. Because he like totally bought into and spread the fearmongering about marijuana. Of course you can't die from smoking marijuana.

And so we're gonna win on the issue of marijuana, but everybody in Washington is still funny. Do you know that it's still a Schedule I drug? You know what that means? That means it is considered by the United States government. to be the most dangerous drug there is. Marijuana. With absolutely no medicinal value.

Yeah, with no medicinal value and you're not allowed to do research on it. Because if you did, you might find out it's actually good, right? It has, now it's got some downsides, but it's got a lot of upsides on the health as well. Anyway, thank God. Look, Jeff Sessions being out is the most good news, bad news you could ever find. It's terrible news because that means that Donald Trump is going to basically end the investigation of himself. and destroy rule of law in this country. It's good news because Jeff Sessions was a guy who liked the clan until he found out they

smoked pot. I mean, for both of those reasons, he's got a history of racial issues, let's just say, down in Alabama. He hates immigrants and was an advocate for some of the toughest, you know, actions separating immigrants from their kids, et cetera, and absurd over top action against marijuana legalism. So for all those reasons, it's great that he's gone, and apparently some people are smoking up in celebration. So, and by the way, do you know when they fired him at 4.20 in the afternoon? No way. No. I'm so gullible.

Just kidding. No way. Come on, that was a good one. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. T.y.t.com slash jank. Anna. Come on.

We gotta move on. Now that Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, there are claims that some of them are gonna start investigating Trump. In fact, some House Democrats say that they will subpoena Donald Trump's tax returns. These are tax returns that he has refused to release or disclosed to the public. Now Trump has responded to that saying that he will retaliate. Here he is. Do you expect that when the Democrats take over the chairmanship of all these important

committees, you're going to get hit with a blizzard of subpoenas on everything from the Russian investigation to your cell phone use, to your tax returns? Ready? Then you're going to, if that happens, then we're going to do the same thing. And government comes to a halt. And I would blame them because they now are going to be coming up with policy. The majority of the House? The real question is, you just said up here and said that, from this podium, that

That it's is your are you offering in my way or highway scenario to the Democrats you're saying that if if if they start investigating you that game and investigate better than them can you come can you compartmentalize that and I think I know more than they know can you compartmentalize that and still continue to work with them for the benefit of the rest of the country are you are all bets off no if they do that then it's just all it is is a warlike And so, wait a minute, then the follow-up, I'm sorry, John. You heard my answer, go ahead. The ending was pretty hilarious. Okay, he also tweeted about this saying, quote, if the Democrats think they are going to waste taxpayer money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of classified information and much else at the Senate level to complain at that game. Except a lot of those leaks came from your administration. No, I know, I know. But look, guys, so it's funny because he's a clown, and, you know, I see these bumper

stickers and that make sense. You know, if you invite a clown to the White House, don't be surprised that a circus shows up, right? And so we got a circus here, and he puts things in a funny way. And the part that I laughed the most at is, like, I know more than they do. You know less than almost anyone in the country. Here are the guy who came out and said, nobody knew that health care was complicated. Anyway, but there's a super serious part to it, which is when Donald Trump says he's going to

investigate you, especially now that they did not lose the Senate. In fact, he gains things in the Senate. Yeah, that could be really serious. Now, the Democrats investigating Donald Trump, if they do that, and the Republicans go, don't care, don't care how many laws you broke, we're going to back him no matter what. don't care, well, then you'll run into a brick wall and nothing will happen, right? If the, but on the other hand, if Donald Trump says, oh, Corey Booker leaked some information in a Senate hearing, I'm going to put him in prison.

Now, do you think that he's bluffing? And how quickly do you think the Democrats will cower? Pretty quickly. So what he just threatened there, under a normal president, under a normal president, And none of this happens, right? You would say, like, oh, he's going to do an investigation, and then he'll give it to the New York Times, and then Cory Booker will be uprated. Who cares, right?

Under this president, he's liable to do anything. I mean, they didn't check lock him up because they were just because they were having fun. You think that they're not fascist enough to actually lock up their political opponents? And by the way, if you break the law like Donald Trump has, there's good reason why there should be consequences to that. But on the other hand, if you use the law as an excuse and imprison your political opponents on minor transgressions, well, that's a whole different story. And that's a story that Donald Trump doesn't mind doing it at all. You think that he has like this compunction about, well, that wouldn't really be fair.

The laws I broke were way worse than you don't know Donald Trump at all. You might be the one guy in the country that knows less than Donald Trump. I want to talk about how weak Democrats are going to be, you know, to your point, in just Just a minute, but before I do it, I do want to give you a sense of how Sarah Huckabee Sanders is handling questions regarding possible subpoenas and investigations by House Democrats. Here she is, here's what she had to say. Look, we have a president that's willing to work across aisle to get things done. We feel good about where we are in the Senate.

But if Democrats take the House, they shouldn't waste time investigating. They should focus on what the people have put them there to do. There are a lot of things that the president would love to work with them on, and hopefully they'll come to the table and be willing to do that and not continue to be the party of resist and obstruct. Okay, so again, I want to reiterate that she says, if Democrats take the House, they shouldn't waste time investigating, they should focus on what the people put them there to do. I can say that people put them there to investigate Trump.

In addition to, you know, I don't think that Democrats can accomplish anything policy-wise right now, but I do want them to block things. So that's another thing that we're hoping that the Democrats do. But to your point about Democrats being weak, they absolutely are weak. At least the old school Democrats, people like Nancy Pelosi, who have shown us, have proven to us over and over again that they have no interest in being fighters. In fact, here's what she had to say. Pelosi, who was expected to become the next speaker, promised after Tuesday's victory

for Democrats in the House, that she would offer a bipartisan marketplace of a bipartisan marketplace of ideas. Okay, that's it, that's all you really need to know. No, please don't talk about a bipartisan marketplace of ideas. We just had a week of like violence because of this so-called president. And you're talking about a bipartisan marketplace of ideas? The Republican Party is just full of people who keep making excuses for and apologizing for Donald Trump's behavior, some of which is criminal.

And when I say criminal, I'm talking about the way he defrauded students, I'm talking about the He used his own charitable foundation to enrich himself. I mean, there are other things that, you know, haven't been proven yet, but I have some suspicions about. But nonetheless, like she's having a conversation right now about a bipartisan marketplace of ideas. It's not the 1980s or the 1970s, okay? We're in 2018, Republicans haven't worked with you guys, haven't had any interest in working

with you guys, and have consistently punched you in the face. And you're talking about the bipartisan marketplace of ideas. She needs to step down. is embarrassing. Yeah, so no one in Washington agrees with us. I've been there, I asked around, they're like, Nancy Pelosi is wonderful, she's a master legislator. Every person I asked said, oh, she's gonna win the Speaker of the House race, no, it's not

even a question. Like, in fact, they're like, don't dare oppose her. Look, dude, I don't have anything to lose. The only thing we're backed by is our members, okay? T.y.t.com slash join, home of progressives, okay? We don't have to worry about like, oh yeah, but then you won't have any power in Washington. Keep it. Okay?

Oh, well, how about status and privilege? Keep it. Keep it, okay? So, but everybody in Washington's like, what will Nancy say? Will she give us a committee assignment? Will she give us more money next time we run for reelection? Because she raised $91 million through July and disperse it to the other Democrats. That's why she has power, because she brings in money and that's all they care about.

They care about winning and their own race through corruption and policy, they're like, who cares? Who cares? I'm embarrassed, I'm embarrassed to be a Democrat, right? But like what other choice do you have? Like I get the frustration, sorry to interrupt you by the way, but like I get the frustrations with people who hate this two party system, but we literally have no other choice. Yeah, no, no, that's why I keep saying you gotta take over the Democratic Party. So 2019 will be enormous, guys.

I said at the beginning of 2018, it was a giant question mark, don't know what's gonna happen, and turn into a wild ride with, that ends the year in a giant question mark with mixed House and Senate, right? They win the House, but not in the numbers we want, and they lose the Senate, or they lost seats of the Senate, that's unbelievable, right? And so 2018 was the question mark we thought it was going to be. 2019 is the year of the fight. And so, and it'll be within the Democratic Party.

And so, like, no one sees it coming. I don't know why they don't see it coming. They're so weird. I actually think they're, look, and they get so offended, but I got to say it, I think that a lot of the reporters are not very good at their job. You don't see a giant battle coming between in the Democratic Party? I guess they think, oh, progressives will be a pushover. No, we won't. We're going to come and fight like you've never seen before. So, because if you lose the Democratic Party, you're done. Then you've got to go and try to do a third

party that's going to take you decades. It's way too late by then. You obviously can't go the Republicans. The only option is to take over the Democratic Party. And the good news for us is that they're pathetically weak. So, you know, and they don't even realize it. They think they're incredibly strong, right? So look, in terms of what should Nancy Pelosi do now, is it crazy to ever work with Donald Trump? No, it depends, but you've got to do it on your terms.

So they talk about an infrastructure bill, for example. Yeah, okay, let's do an infrastructure bill. Then propose a super progressive infrastructure bill where we spend a trillion dollars on the infrastructure in this country and bring green energy. But not just because for the sake of the environment, but also for it to create jobs, right? And talk to the American people about how you're going to create jobs. Then Donald Trump with counter with, yeah, I want infrastructure bill, but that creates toll roads and bridges all across the country for the benefit of my construction friends who are donors.

And then you know what you do next? You go, what a corrupt son of a bitch. We were trying to help the country. We were trying to give you jobs. And this guy wants to give it to this guy. Look at that. Hey, look at his connection to Donald Trump. I'm investigating it.

subpoena him, I want his records, and I want his connections to Donald Trump. I'm trying to create jobs, and this son of a bitch is trying to do corruption off your backs. Do you think they're gonna do that? There's no chance. Okay, right? In fact, as you were giving that example, I started thinking about what Republicans have been wanting to do in response to the loss of revenue from these massive tax cuts for the wealthy, which is to cut Medicare and Social Security.

And you think those corporate Democrats aren't gonna play ball? The minute they have a conversation about that, we're done with them, and so what is done with that mean? No, no, no, like this, the reason 2019 is so important is, like, where is the battleground, right? Is it, what can you do about Nancy Pelosi? She's going to win her district, and she's likely the Speaker of the House, so what can you do about it? No, no, the battleground is the presidential contest.

They're all going to be jockeying for who's going to win that nomination, and the voting starts at the beginning of 2020, so that means 2019 is a giant battleground. That's where we have to fight our battles, and that's where we have to win, okay? And so when anybody who says, hey, yeah, maybe we should talk to Republicans about cutting Medicare and Social Security, rain down holy hell on them politically, right? And so, oh, go for it, Kamala Harris, join Nancy Pelosi in cutting Social Security and Medicare and see how that turns out for you. And she's not going to do it because she's a savvy politician.

So she's going to go back to Nancy Pelosi and go, Nancy, cool it, cool it, cool it. That might cost me the primaries, so we're not gonna do that. You see what I'm saying? You put pressure on the presidential nominees, they put pressure on Nancy Pelosi. See, that's actually playing chess, okay? Not like the Democrats were like, oh, well, we compromised, are we playing chess? No, you got your ass handed to you, and then you will get blamed. By the way, there's Obama, okay?

I know it's sacrosanct in Washington, you're not allowed to criticize Obama. preemptively offered to cut Social Security in order to get a grand bargain for the Republicans. It's embarrassing, so they don't like to point it out. It's a fact you could look it up anywhere you like, okay? And you know what they did? They're like, ha, idiot. They used it against them. They ran that in ads in the election saying Obama wanted to cut Social Security.

But he had done it in order to try to get the Republicans to compromise. That's not three-dimensional chess, no. That is really, really bad politics, and that is what the government. Democratic Party has done for the last 20 years and we're tired of it. So if Nancy Pelosi can't find his spine and Chuck Schumer can't and the others can't, we're gonna, our only choice is to fight. They're not gonna, they're not gonna come to their senses. We're gonna meet them at the battleground and we're going to defeat them.

Let's take a break. When we come back, we are going to discuss Donald Trump's press conference today where he went after a number of journalists. also April Ryan. That was a pretty heated exchange. And then other stories. So stick around. 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.