The Young Turks - White House Lawyer Chats It Up With Mueller For THIRTY HOURS; Jake Tapper Vs. Reality

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from August 20, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian. WH counsel Don McGahn cooperated in Mueller inquiry. Giuliani says “truth isn’t truth” during NBC interview. Bomb used in Yemen airstrike was made in US. Bernie Sanders vs Jake Tapper on Medicare-for-all. #Metoo leader Asia Argento paid off alleged sexual assault victim. 08/20/2018 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. Well, the Young Turks, da la la la. This guy. All right. Jank Huger, that's this guy.

Anna Kusparian, that's that person over there. And her is a woman. She is. Your host, a Turkish barbarian. That's right. We should take calls again. No. Those voicemails we used to run were hilarious.

Do I have him here? Let me see if I have it. My house is big off the show of it. No. Well, that's a different one. Anyways, okay, twist and turns in today's show. So CNN with an excellent report. How's that for a twist to begin with?

Okay, and then not such a good report. So, twist and then turns, okay? Asia Argento. Oh, boy. Man, okay, I don't know what kind of trouble I'm going to get myself in in that story. Okay, so buckle up, brace for impact. You might want to tell the right wing to set the recorders on record. Anyway, so are there recorders on the internet?

Is there anything not recorded on the internet? All right, and then we've got two great stories to start for you guys. The McGahn story has an awesome, awesome quote, super, super relevant. And then Rudy, of course, will think awesome quote of the truth isn't the truth. Yeah, come on the. All right. So, Casper, take it away. All right.

Over the weekend, the New York Times published an explosive report indicating that the White House counsel, Don McGahn, is not only cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump's potential obstruction of justice, but that Donald Trump's administration, his advisors, and his personal lawyers are completely unaware of the extent to which McGahn has been testifying and the information that he has given to Bob Mueller. The story is insane, and it shows a pretty significant divide among Donald Trump's personal lawyers, or at least previous personal lawyers, and the White House counsel. There's a lot of backstabbing, a lack of trust. I'm going to give you all the details right now. So in at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, McGahn described the president's fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged McGahn to respond to it.

He provided the investigators examining whether Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president's most intimate moments with his lawyer. Okay, so let me clarify a few things. Some might wonder, well, isn't there attorney-client privilege or in the case of the president executive privilege that would help protect the lawyer, the White House counsel, from cooperating with Bob Mueller? Yes, there is a protection called executive. privilege. However, Donald Trump's personal lawyers, which included Ty Cobb and John Dowd,

encouraged McGahn to cooperate with Mueller because their idea was if he cooperates, if we cooperate with the special counsel's investigation, this will all go away. Then there will be proof that there was no obstruction of justice and that there was no Russian meddling, or that at least Trump is not guilty of any wrongdoing. Okay, so there was two massively wrong assumptions in this series of events. One was the reason Dowd and Cobb, Trump's former personal attorneys in this case, they have now left with their hair on fire. Anyway, decided to let McGahn testify is because they believed Donald Trump that he had

nothing to hide. What a preposterous assumption. I mean, are you serious? I know that they barely knew him at the time, but of course Donald Trump has something to hide. Of course! So they thought, oh, well, he didn't do it, so there's no harm in McGahn talking to Mueller. If you thought he didn't do it, you would be correct. But you believe Donald Trump?

I mean, I guess they assume, no, no, no, the client opens up to their attorney, tells him the whole truth so they could help in fighting his case, right? No, Trump's not even going to tell you guys. It's not going to tell you, right? So that was wrong assumption number one. Wrong assumption number two might be even more important. So understand what Anna was saying is that McGahn is not Trump's lawyer. He is the White House's lawyer.

It's a different role. So now, still, an executive privilege is debatable as to what it applies to and what it doesn't. Attorney-client privilege, in this case, probably would have applied, could have been debatable, but it doesn't matter because they waived both of them. Not only did they waived them, but in their infinite incompetence, they also didn't ask him again after he testified, because he testified actually to Mueller, talked to Mueller all the way back in November, long time ago, right? And he talked to him for 30 hours. That's a ton of time that he spent with Mueller giving him all the details of what Trump did.

His Trump's lawyers didn't bother asking McGahn, hey, what did you tell the special counsel? Right, they were not- Unbelievable incompetence. They were not at all brief because they did not ask on the interactions that he had with Mueller. What did you tell Mueller? What did you not tell Mueller? Like it's insane.

And it wasn't until the New York Times published this piece that there was panic at the White House, where there was a lot of stress about, okay, there's a lot that we don't know. And they didn't really understand the extent at which McGahn had cooperated with Mueller. So McGahn also laid out how Trump tried to ensure control of the investigation. investigation, giving investigators a mix of information both potentially damaging and favorable to the president. But again, the president doesn't know. The president's lawyers don't know. And what's interesting about this is that McGahn is the White House counsel. McGahn has his own lawyer, right? So there are all these lawyers involved. There's all this disagreement in regard to the strategy that Trump

should utilize in, you know, fighting back against the special counsel's investigation. It's a complete an utter disaster. So let me give you one little piece before you jump in, Jank. So McGahn and his lawyer, remember he has a lawyer, William Burke, could not understand why Trump was so willing to allow McGahn to speak freely to the special counsel and fear Trump was setting up McGahn to take the blame for any possible illegal acts of obstruction. This is a very important part of the puzzle because McGahn's like, why would you, why would you want me to do this? And so he gets together with his own lawyer, and then they start to realize, wait, there's a possibility that Trump is going to make McGahn take the fall for any wrongdoing.

Trump has questioned McGahn's loyalty. In turn, Trump's behavior has so exacerbated McGahn that he has called the president King Kong behind his back to connote his volcanic anger. So they don't like each other. They're not getting along. There's a question of loyalty. And at the same time, McGahn is being encouraged to answer Robert Mueller's questions. Which leads us in a second to massively wrong assumption number two.

But I want to make clear that Anna is not using the word insane lightly. She said it twice so far. That's literally the word McGahn's lawyer used to describe the strategy of allowing McGahn to testify to Mueller. They thought it was, quote, insane. And so the fish wroughts from the head down. Trump is monumentally stupid. I've told you that a hundred times because it's true. and the rest of the media and even his own lawyers and even political actors in Washington

don't understand the depth of it. And it's relevant. So it's relevant in this case to assumption number two. So they get this note from Trump and his lawyers saying, yeah, you can testify. They're like, you guys know what we know? We're the White House counsel. That's insane. They're like, oh, it must be his strategy to throw McGahn under the bus and say that he was,

He just took McGahn's advice to obstruct justice, because that's what Nixon did to his White House counsel, John Dean. John Dean wound up going to jail. So McGahn's like, I'm not going to jail. And so he says, and it's now in this New York Times report, that he answered Mueller's questions honestly and it was-fulsomely. Fulsomely, which is a fun word, okay? Meaning like, no, no, I give him everything I got, brother, because I ain't going to jail,

right? So then they realized later, oh, no, it turns out Trump. didn't have that strategy. So I'm going to quote the New York Times here. As the months passed on, it became apparent that Mr. McGahn and Mr. Burke, that's his lawyer, had overestimated the amount of thought that they believed the president put into his legal strategy. What did I tell you?

He's an idiot. He didn't have a legal strategy. He's never had any strategy. There is no three-dimensional chess. There's no two-dimensional chess. And he'd be lucky to make it through a game of chess. So he let McGahn testify because he's an idiot and he is insane. He's like, oh, I got this, I got to, sure, yeah, okay, yeah, let him testify.

He gave a million documents, and by the way, you can give him credit for transparency that he gave a million documents and let McGahn testify. And if he was really innocent and Mueller comes out afterwards and goes, oh, no, no, they were open and transparent, at least on those counts, and it turns out they didn't do it, then I take it back and it turns out, hey, he was transparent for a good reason. my guess is, and now McGahn and his lawyer's guess is, oh no, this moron, he wasn't going to throw us under the bus. He just had no idea what he was doing. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the

government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of On 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 wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today, and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. McGahn now having spent more time with Trump probably realizes, of course, what was I thinking? This is one of the dumbest guys in the country. He had no strategy at all. Right. Look,

even if McGahn was incorrect in his assumptions about Trump and what his real agenda was, I think that McGahn still did the right thing in cooperating with color because Trump is a wild card. And we don't know whether or not Trump is, I mean, I would speculate that Trump has obstructed justice. I mean, there's so many examples of firing James Comey as one example, constantly badgering Jeff Sessions for recusing himself as another example. I mean, these are all things that he's doing very publicly. But nonetheless, even if you're on the fence and you want to give Trump, the benefit of the doubt and believe that he's not attempting to obstruct justice, I still think it's important for McGahn as the White House counsel to protect himself, because if Trump

goes down, everyone around him is going to go down with him, anyone who continues to protect him. And by the way, if you can recall last year, there was this huge story regarding Trump's personal lawyers, Ty Cop and John Dowd. They were at a steakhouse in Washington where reporters, like, roam freely. Like, there's reporters everywhere, right? They're eating steak. They're listening in on conversations. And they were openly saying disparaging things about White House counsel Don McGahn

because they really believed in this strategy of transparency and cooperation with special counsel Mueller. And McGahn was like, this is a bad idea. What are you guys doing? So I bring that up because it shows you how incredibly incompetent some of the people involved in this story are. I mean, these are Trump's personal lawyers. You're right, they just take Trump's word for it.

And who knows, who knows what Trump is really guilty of, right? But it's just fascinating how his own personal lawyers gave him that benefit of the doubt and constructed a strategy around that. Yeah, and that was a terrible mistake. So, by the way, in the story, it's revealed that Trump did not understand that McGahn is not his personal lawyer. He lacks understanding of very simple concepts. He is the White House counsel. He represents the office, not the person sitting in the office.

Well, but that's me. I'm the person sitting in the office. He's my lawyer, isn't he? Oh, God, you're so stupid. Okay, so that created an issue. Now, again, they say, and he claims, well, I didn't testify that he broke any laws, but he has a very expansive definition of executive privilege. and what Trump is allowed to do in the White House.

So did he give them information that might indicate that there was obstruction of justice? Well, first of all, a huge part of this is that he's the one that told him that Trump ordered the firing of Mueller. It's just that the others in the office would not do it, including McGahn. So the prosecutors did not know that until McGahn talked to them. That's enormous when it comes to building obstruction of justice case. And McGahn also has details on why he fired the people that he did. why he wants sessions to quit, right?

And if it turns out, it is because he wants to make sure to block the investigation of himself, that's obstruction of justice. So then when you turn to the prosecutors, according to investigators that the New York Times spoke to, McGahn was, quote, a fruitful witness. Trump's in a lot of trouble, and he's too stupid to even realize it. No, he realized. No, no, no, no. He's in a panic overall, no question, and when they got Cohen and all the information that

comes with Cohen, it went to a, you know, five alarm fire, right? But he was too stupid to realize, hey, that White House counsel can actually testify against you, don't let him go speak to Mueller. And he didn't know until this New York Times story came out about how much McGahn had talked to Mueller and revealed. And so that's why now you're right, Anna, that they go to Bedminster, they do a panicked get together, Trump's again in a fury, he's just too small-minded to understand the consequences of his decisions and his actions.

Once they finally land on top of his orange head, then he's like, oh my God, I didn't know, I'm so angry. And hence, McGahn's nickname for him, King Kong. Yeah, I remember back in the day when we would cover some more local news, we would do stories about really dumb criminals, like people who would go to. to banks, rob the bank, and then forget a jacket at the bank with their ID in the pocket. And it makes me happy to know that criminals on all levels are stupid. No, that's why I've been saying from day one, he's going to get caught and he's not going to

make it to 2020 because he's just flat out too stupid to execute any way near an efficient cover-up, right? And it doesn't take much when you're the president, you have so much power. and you have executive privilege, you have all these things that you could use. You, if the FBI was investigating you, you would be toast, right? But the president could actually use the law to shield himself, even if he did it. But my thesis was he's too stupid to do that. And I believe, and this is yet another example of it, that I was right.

He's just too stupid to even do the simplest things to cover up his crimes. So here we go again. tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah. The only thing that I will say I'm a little concerned about is, it seems like Mueller is really boring in on obstruction of justice, et cetera. And I'm worried, I haven't seen. The money laundering stuff?

Yeah, I haven't seen stuff about money laundering in a long, long time. And it looks like they might have brought the money laundering lawyers to deal with Manafort, not Trump. So I'm starting to worry that Mueller is like too careful. and did not go to why Trump is working with the Russians in the first place. Right, but you're forgetting about, you know, the investigation into Michael Cohen, right? Because if anything, Michael Cohen would, and those documents that they managed to get in that raid of his place, I think those documents might have something in there that would put Trump in a bad situation regarding money.

And he's done money laundering. Like, it's, he couldn't get a loan here in the United States. couldn't do it. He went bankrupt too many times. He got his loans from Russia. That was a big story during the election. So what? Did Russia just decide to give him these massive loans to be nice? I don't know. There's something shady going on. Yeah. So I hope they get to it with Cohn, but I'm not sure. Knowing how why I say Mueller's too careful is, knowing how carefully he is, he's run out of time to investigate the money laundering. So what does that even mean, though? Like, He's investigating him, like this whole thing about, oh, you got to wrap up the investigation.

Is there a time limit? Well, look, there is a couple of, yes, in the real world there is, politically there is, right? And they're bringing a ton of pressure. And every day the mainstream media goes along with it. Look, so they're tough on Trump in other ways. But on that talking point, they should be like, he's done when he's done. Okay, yeah, go ahead, keep crying about how it's taking too long. That's irrelevant, right?

But no, the mainstream media goes, well, has he taken too long? People are now concerned he's taking too long, right? And they call it 50-50 and now pressure mounts. I see that more from partisan media, but mainstream media, if you're talking about cable news, CNN, MSNBC, they're very much in favor of this investigation, they support it, they won't stop talking about it. I don't see pressure mounting from them to wrap things up. Yeah, we're getting a little bit of conjecture here, but look, and if things go on, and if things go on, on too long, he will fire him and say, hey, look, man, this is a, this witch hunt took so many so long, and I had to let him go.

Like, and part of the reason I say it, last thing on this is that when Emma and Eric Biler went and interviewed Trump supporters, my, having watched all that, and you can watch it at Rebel headquarters, my take away from that was a lot of, the most common thing they said was, it's taking forever. No, he's got to, he's got to end it. So it gives Trump a justification for firing everyone investigating him. So that's a reality. And Mueller's got to deal with that. So I'm definitely worried that he didn't go into the money laundering and why he worked with the Russians at all. So that would be really disappointing. And then we'd have a, we'd have a mercury situation, which is what I'm worried about. All right, anyway, let's keep

All right. Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lawyer, was on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, and he was explaining why Donald Trump so far has refused to answer questions by special counsel Robert Mueller. And during this exchange, Giuliani said something that later turned into a meme. Take a look. Look, I'm not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury. And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't worry, well, that's so silly because it's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth. He didn't have a conversation about. I don't mean to go like, no, it isn't truth. Truth isn't truth. The President of the United States says I didn't.

Truth is a truth. Mr. Mayor, do you realize what I mean? No, no, no. This is going to become a bad mean. Don't do. Don't do this to me. Don't do truth. Don't do truth. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our own. 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 express vpn is rated number one by c net and wired magazine so take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top vpn solution available express vpn and if you go to expressvpn.com slash t yt you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for t yt fans that's e x p r e ssvpn dot com slash t yt check it out today so okay the truth isn't the truth, that's the statement that everyone's talking about. But I want to read you what Giuliani said. Because I don't know, maybe I'm reading it incorrectly, but it, okay, let me just read it. When you tell me that he should testify because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't

worry, well, that's so silly because that's somebody's version of the truth. So are you saying that Trump is going to lie when he testifies? And that's why you're concerned that he's going to be caught a perjury trap? Yeah. So let's break it down. You're absolutely right in your reading of it. And presumably Giuliani meant to say that someone else could lie about him and they could accept his word instead of Trump's word and then call what Trump is saying a lie and hence

the perjury trap. But he didn't say that. He said he was referring to what Trump was saying that he might not give an accurate account. So it might be his 28th misstatement in a row. No, but his literal words are indicating that Trump wouldn't tell the truth. I mean, you are a lawyer in the most high profile case in the country. There's no room for, oh, I misspoke, or that was just a small error. I actually meant to say this.

How many times is he going to do this? Now, and the fish rots from the head down. And so if I was being investigated by the FBI, would I hire Rudy Giuliani? Hell no. No way, the guy's a total buffoon. I wouldn't hire him because I'd hire a competent attorney, a regular attorney, and one who has a specialty in this case and is careful like most attorneys. But Trump hires someone as reckless and stupid as he is.

And Trump looks at Giuliani and thinks, nailed it, right? Yeah. Even if what he meant is that Trump isn't going to lie and someone else is going to lie, don't say the phrase the truth isn't the truth. How unsavvy are you that you don't realize that, People will immediately take that as, oh, these guys have no connection to the truth. They don't care about the truth. What a terrible thing to say as an attorney.

Right. And as someone representing the president, even if you meant it the right way, which it's not clear that you did mean it the right way. So I want to give you guys a little more context into this conversation. So you can, he clear, he clarifies what he means a little bit in this next clip. So let's take a look at that. Donald Trump says I didn't talk about Flynn with Comey. Comey says you did talk about it.

So tell me what the truth is. Don McGahn might now. If you're such a genius, Don McGahn doesn't know. If that's the situation, they have two pieces of evidence. Trump says, I didn't tell him. And the other guy says that he did say it, which is the truth? We have a credibility gap between the two of them. You've got to select one of the other.

Now, who do you think Mueller's going to select? One of his best friends, Comey, or the president who he has been carrying on a completely wild, crazy. Is it possible? On Orthodox investigation. Wild crazy on Orthodox investigation. Okay. So, look, the truth isn't the truth, did turn into a meme. And so Rudy Giuliani felt the need to clarify what he meant on social media.

I want to read you those tweets very quickly. He says, my statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology, but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic he said, she said puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn't. So just to answer his question, you know, you have Comey saying one thing and Trump saying the other, who do you believe? I would believe Comey because he doesn't have a history of constant deception as Trump does.

So no, no, so I understand what Giuliani is saying, I think most people understand it, even though he misstated it and stated as if Trump would be lying. And he said this phrase that is of course going to get him in trouble. And he's credibly stupid for saying. But overall, we all get it. He's saying that, hey, Trump's going to tell the truth, but the other guys are going to lie about him. And then the prosecutor will just believe Comey and the other guys and then call what Trump is saying, perjury, even though it isn't. That's the claim that Giuliani is trying to make.

But that's not how it works. And you wouldn't actually just decide, hey, is one guy telling the truth or the other, who do I like more? Who do I believe more? You would look for other evidence. That's why Chuck Todd pointed out, well, McGahn would know. If McGahn was in the room and he's the White House counsel and we found out over the weekend, he very honestly talked to Robert Mueller because the idiot Donald Trump let him and waived

attorney-client privilege and executive privilege, then if McGahn's in the room and he backs up Comey's version of events, as an example. In that case, he might not have been in the room, but McGahn was in the room for a lot of these things. So if Trump says X, and it turns out the other guys say why, the other people in the room also say why? Well, then you have your answer. So the rest of the evidence will determine who's telling the truth.

That's why Trump should not testify. If I was his lawyer, I would say, are you kidding me? We're going to go nowhere near Mueller. We're never going to be in the same state as Mueller, because Trump isn't telling the truth. And he will get caught. He will definitely get caught because most of those cases, there were other people in the room and they don't want to go to jail. So they will tell the truth of what happened, including potentially the White House counsel.

The second reason why Trump might get caught is because he constantly contradicts himself. So you don't even need other witnesses. Trump will say I fired Comey because of the Russia investigation on national television. Then he'll turn around and say, no, I didn't fire him because of that, I fired him because he was mean to Hillary Clinton. That's literally what they, that's their going thesis now. They fired Comey because they didn't like the way he treated Hillary Clinton. That was the original memo that Rosenstein wrote, and now they've come back to that.

But you contradicted yourself, so you're by definition lying in one of those cases. And not only that, I mean, think about the way he tries to slander Robert Mueller or James Comey, I mean, Robert Mueller has been a lifetime or lifelong Republican, but he keeps painting him as this Democrat who's on a witch hunt. I mean, he's lying about who Robert Mueller is. Look, Robert Mueller is not, it's funny because in this weird, topsy-turvy world, you know, you find yourself as a progressive defending Robert Mueller. When in any other situation, any other scenario, Robert Mueller is not someone that we would

typically defend. But he keeps going after him as if he's like this, this hardcore progressive who's trying to get Trump impeached. But that is not the case. So the fact that he's lying about that shows you what his character is. He lies time and time again. Look, I don't think Robert Mueller even needs to talk to Trump, right? Trump incriminates himself on a regular basis on social media. He can't help himself. So collect that evidence, do your job, talk to the people that matter, and let's get to a conclusion. Yes. And finally, I think that what we're going to be left with in remembrance of this administration, once Trump is taken out of office, for the nonstop pathological lies.

I mean, perjury would be the bare minimum of his problems. We will remember things as truth isn't truth. Kelly Ann Conway saying, we believe in alternative facts. And Donald Trump saying, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. That is another direct quote. And by the way, let's all remember that he told Leslie Stahl, I keep attacking the press, because when you guys write negative things about me, I don't want people to believe you. So Anna's right, he has incriminated himself a thousand times publicly.

It'd be great if we went to go talk to Mueller on the record because he would, it's plainly obvious who Donald Trump is. We all see, by the way, even the MAGA guys know it. Do you think they don't know that he's lying nonstop? They know they just don't care, right? You know that he went to, if he goes to talk to Mueller. He'll lie about approximately 200 times, you know, in a half an hour. So, but even if he doesn't, he still toast for all the lies he said in public, let alone

the obstruction of justice, let alone the underlying crime. I hope so. I'm not as optimistic. I think even if he's found guilty, somehow miraculously, he'll be able to skate through this. No. Like Oksana Bayul style. Do a triple double.

Wow. Random old school skating reference. I know skating. Didn't he collude with Oksana Bayou? Just kidding. Okay. So, anyway, hopefully we'll find out soon enough. And the law of physics still do apply.

I don't believe that Donald Trump has any magic. I think that eventually life will catch up with him. And that eventually is pretty soon. So, all right, we got to take a quick break when we come back. We will give you the excellent report from CNN. That's a nice twist on a very important story. And then the fairly terrible report from CNN on a completely different story. So we'll be fair about both of those.

All right, we'll come right back. All right, back on the Young Turks. There's so many comments here. Gabby and Reed 86 on Twitter says, I like how people are acting like Trump could be playing some grand 3D chess strategy. In reality, he's acting more like a drunk toddler who doesn't get why the square doesn't fit into the triangle slot of his object permanence puzzle. That's so funny.

By the way, just real quick thing that I wanted to get to, but we didn't have time. So in regard to that New York Times article about White House counsel McGahn testifying for Mueller, like yada yada, Trump went on a Twitter storm about that, of course. But my favorite tweet was where he claimed that the New York Times has apologized for that piece. No, they didn't. New York Times responded by saying, we stand by our reporting. No one's apologizing. Get out of here.

Who, which maniac doesn't realize he's pathological liar? He's crazy. Look, they think that the press is hard on him. They're not hard enough. No, they should call him what he is. A narcissist, pathological liar. It's not an opinion. Like, at this point, it's super obvious.

Anyway, Minnitz, Zach says, Bill Maher consistently calls the Trump administration actions a slow-moving coup, but these days this also remembers slow-moving the departed climax, where they all turn on each other in the most incompetent way possible. Thank God I didn't read that tweet earlier, because I was re-watching The Departed, and I was talking about it on old school, and I think the post came, and I finally got to the ending, and I hadn't remembered any of it. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so cool. My memory sucks enough that I could just re-watch old movies. like new to me. Anyway, get all those fun old school and post games by becoming a member, t-y-t.com slash join to become a member. I got more on that in a second, but one more tweet for you guys. Reto Riku writes in, Trump would look awfully good in an orange jumpsuit, or would it clash? That's more thought than has gone into his legal defense. Maybe he just doesn't have one because he's guilty of everything and more. I don't think Trump believes that there's any such thing

us too much orange. Right? Indeed. Player 2 writes in on YouTube super chat, referring to old school. See, he says, old school, I've also thrown out my old underwear and socks a few weeks before you talked about it. In fact, over the weekend, we did one more sock and shoes funeral with the kids. Okay, now they're having a total blast.

Like they're looking to throw away their stuff so we're gonna have a funeral. Anyway, I know you're confused by it if you do and watch it, but become a member, you'll love of all the shows, including old school where we talked about that, t-yt.com slash join. All right, Stabby 666 says on YouTube super chat, are TYT ever going to address Jimmy Doors still defending Russia and blaming Clinton and Obama for everything after two years? Look, we have difference of opinion. It's okay. Massive difference is an opinion.

Let me just be clear about that. That's okay. Look, Jimmy and Steve yelled at each other in aggressive progressive, and they're both aggressive progressives, right? And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's okay, we got a whole range here. Check out all the shows, see what you like, and go for it. I just hope that you guys understand that TYT is not one person and that we have varying

views, different views. But look, I'm not gonna bother talking to people who can't understand simple concepts like that, okay? So what do you want me to, like, people are obsessed with that, like, hey, do you, it's like somehow criminal for me and Jimmy to disagree, or if Jimmy's part of the network, that That must mean that I support everything he says 100%, and he supports everything I say 100%. Or maybe we just disagree on some issues and agree on a lot of other issues. Well, our problem solved.

It wasn't that complicated. Okay, anyway, let's go forward. All right. In a rare piece of excellent reporting, CNN looked into the weapons used by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which have killed countless civilians. This is all part of a civil war, an ongoing civil war, that began in 2015 in Yemen. It was a rebellion by Houthi rebels. And the Saudi-backed coalition, which supports the Yemeni government, has been aggressively going after these rebels.

And unfortunately, many civilians have died as a result of that. Now, the story that we recently talked about had to do with the bombing of a school bus, which carried dozens of children. The bomb used by the Saudi-led coalition in that devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was sold as part of a U.S. State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Now, I mention that because in the update to this story, CNN did a great job in finding which weapons were used, where the weapons came from, and of course, they come from the U.S. government. These are weapons that we've sold to Saudi Arabia. Now, the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9th was a 500-pound laser-guided MK82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top U.S. defense contractors.

And just to be clear, regarding the casualties of that bombing, of the 51 people who died in the airstrike, 40 of them were children. Now, I want to just quickly show you a video of what that bombing was like and how devastating it was for the people who were victimized by it, who were in the area. The video I'm about to show you is graphic, so I want to give you warning. But with that said, let's take a look. On August 9th, Zed's son Osama filmed his class on their long-awaited school trip, a reward for graduating summer school.

Within hours, and it had all gone horribly wrong. A plane from the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition struck a bus carrying them. Dozens died. Some of the bodies were so mutilated, identification became impossible. Okay, so first of all, I want to give credit to CNN for an excellent report. We oftentimes criticize them for just taking what the Pentagon says at face value, etc. but credit where credit is due, terrific reporting here. And we'll have the link to the full CNN segment in the description box below if you're

watching this later on YouTube or Facebook. And the numbers that Anna gave you in the CNN is quoting is the bare minimum. Others are stating higher numbers, but at a very minimum, 40 kids were killed. And unfortunately, a lot of the kids that you saw in that school bus video are are dead. And they having to take that video before the bomb hit, obviously, and then you saw some of the kids that were injured. And that last kid in the hospital, they were all incredibly hard to look at.

So why are we subjecting you guys to that in CNN, et cetera? Because you have to know the consequences of our actions. So when we sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and they use it to bomb school children, well, that's partly on us. Even if you don't think so, they certainly think so. And so when Joe Scarborough the next time he tells you they hate us because they hate us, remember that video, no, they hate us because of that bomb was made in the USA that killed their kids.

Right. And I also want to mention that it's not just that we sell these weapons to Saudi Arabia, but we also supply Saudi Arabia with fuel necessary to carry out some of these attacks. And more importantly, we're helping them with intelligence. So we're very much helping Saudi Arabia fight this war, and it does have consequences. I mean, one of the consequences is civilians die, and that leads to hostility toward the United States. I mean, the hostility to the United States is bad, but let's just keep in mind the worst part

about all of this is that children, innocent people, innocent civilians who are caught up in this civil war, are losing their lives, and we're playing a role in that. Now, I wanna give you some more information about these weapons and what Trump did versus what Obama did in Yemen. So the bomb that was used in this particular attack is very similar to the one in an attack on a funeral hall in Yemen in October of 2016, in which 155 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded. So in March of that year, a strike on a Yemeni market, this time reportedly by a US-supplied

precision-guided MK84 bomb killed 97 people. So this is happening in 2016 and the Obama administration realizes, okay, this is not good. There are human rights issues here. In the aftermath, Obama banned the sale of precision guided military technology to Saudi Arabia over human rights concerns. But guess what happens when Trump comes into office? He decides to essentially get rid of that ban. The ban was overturned by the Trump administration's then secretary of state, Brexit.

Tillerson. So I want to give you James Mattis' court. He's a secretary of defense on whether we're helping them target. He said, I will tell you that we do help them plan what we call kind of targeting. He said, we do not do dynamic targeting for them. So the distinction he's trying to draw is we didn't tell them to bomb that bus fulfilled with school kids. But we help them with intelligence overall so they know the general areas to bomb, where the rebels are moving, et cetera, et cetera, right? So you do with that whatever you please. So number one, you should always question the Pentagon and the government. And so I don't even know if that's true.

But even if you believe that it is true, I don't know that that makes it that much better. Right. And so, and we're giving them a lot of technical capabilities like the refueling. of their jets that they couldn't do without us. And the bombs, they wouldn't have without us. So could they have done that bombing without our help? The answer is very literally, no. So it's possible that they could have gotten to China and Russia.

Maybe they might not have the capabilities that we have in executing these type of missions, such as they are. So I want to go back to the CNN report here because they show you the bomb and how we know definitively that it was a U.S. made bomb. So let's watch that part. This video of shrapnel was filmed in the aftermath of the attack and sent to CNN by contact and Sada. A cameraman working for CNN subsequently filmed these images. Munitions experts tell CNN this was a U.S. made Mark MK. 82 bomb, weighing in at half a ton. The first five digits there are the cage number. The commercial and government.

entity number. This number here denotes Lockheed Martin, one of the top U.S. defense contractors. We're at the forefront of the science that makes them real. This particular MK82 is a paveway, a laser guided precision bomb. It's targeting accuracy, a particular point of pride for Lockheed Martin. So one more time, credit to CNN, not just because they're covering this topic matter, which is really, really important. But they bothered to send a reporter to the ground to confirm that it was an American-made Lockheed Martin bombs. So now they went a little bit further and gave you a map of all the different places where American bombs have landed. It's not a pretty picture. Let's take a look at that as well.

The devastation inflicted by the MK82 is all too familiar in Yemen. In March 2016, a strike on a market using the similarly laser-guided 2,000-pound MK84. killed 97 people. In October 2016, another strike on a funeral hall killed 155 people and wounded hundreds more. Then the bus attack on August 9th, where they're still counting the dead. As Anna pointed out, one of those terrible attacks is what caused Obama administration to pause our military and technical help to Saudi Arabia in specific areas. Now, Trump, comes in and goes, no, no, no, just bomb them to pieces. Who cares? I don't care about the human rights concerns. I am lifting that block, which we put into place because we thought

you were bombing the wrong people and doing it basically without care. So, and then he sold him $110 billion of extra weaponry. And no one is innocent here. With our Democratic and Republican administrations have been supporting Saudi Arabia and their human rights abuses for decade after decade after decade. This war in particular that's been going on for three years is literally the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. According to the United Nations, they have 22 million people in Yemen. Three quarters of the population is in desperate need of aid and protection as we continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia that devastates the country of Yemen. So yes, he made it worse. And hence, Saudi Arabia, understandably, took that as a green light to continue to these

bombings. So finally, when asked about this bombing in particular, the Saudi military and their coalition said that this was, quote, a legitimate military action. You saw the kids. And then they were even more specific. They said that it targeted Houthi leaders that were responsible recruiting and training young children and sending them to the battlefields. In other words, Yeah, we meant to hit that bus full of young children because we thought they were going to be trained to be rebels by the Houthis. You saw the video on the bus. Did they look like they were being trained?

They were on their way back from a picnic. They were so excited because this was their rare treat for going through summer school. They weren't getting trained as rebels. They just obliterated that bus full of kids. And part of the reason is we gave them the green light. and then we gave them the bombs, and then we showed them how to use it. They don't hate us because they hate us. They hate us because of our actions.

Yep. All right, let's go from one great CNN report to one terrible CNN report. Recently, CNN's Jake Tapper decided to fact-check Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their proposal for a Medicare for all system. Now, as we had previously reported, there was a libertarian institute funded by the Koch brothers that came out with a report indicating that Medicare for All, even though they tried to frame it as if it would cost us a lot of money, it would actually save us $2 trillion over the next decade.

Now, Bernie Sanders loved that report, loved that study. He used it to highlight the fact that a Medicare for all system would save US taxpayers, meaning Americans, $2 trillion over the next 10 years, which, by the way, is an underestimate. But Jake Tapper tried to fact-check it and screwed up terribly. Let's take a look. This week, we're going to take a look at a claim made by two self-identified Democratic Socialists, Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, and New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

They say that a study funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, who are generally, I think, it's fair to say, libertarians and conservatives, that the Medicare for all proposal would actually save the government money. Let me thank the Koch brothers of all people for sponsoring a study that shows that Medicare for All would save the American people $2 trillion over a 10-year period. It shows that Medicare for All is actually much more, is actually much cheaper than the current system that we pay right now. Is that true?

Did a study funded by the Koch brothers indicate that Medicare for All would actually save the U.S. government trillions of dollars? No, it's not true, at least not according to the author of the study. Okay, okay. There's a lot, there's a lot. But the first thing that I want to get to is a very obvious mistake here. And I don't know if it was an intentional misleading statement, but Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Acosio-Cortez on multiple occasions, men.

that a Medicare for All system would save Americans $2 trillion. But Jake Tapper said that Bernie Sanders claims that it's going to save the U.S. government $2 trillion. So which one is it? What has Bernie said incessantly? Who's right, who's wrong? I don't know. Let's take a look.

Sponsoring a study that shows that Medicare for All would save the American people, the American people, the American people, $2 trillion. is. Yeah, he didn't say the government. He said the American people. But that's actually the smallest part of this story. So I saw that Jake Tapper story, so called fact check. And I fact checked his fact check and it was all over him on Twitter.

And then a lot of you guys were and then a lot of other people were. And then now they're beginning to backpedal. So let me give you just a little bit of context. Look, we did a story just earlier in this show giving Sienna a ton of credit for their report on Yemen. In the past, when people ask me who's some of the best anchors on mainstream media, I often say Jake Tapper. And I've credited Chris Cuomo and Allison Camerota, et cetera.

So we're not like the right wing where we're just all blanket, they're all terrible, et cetera, right? But this one was terrible. And I can guess as to why they're doing it wrong. but I'll tell you the two parts I got the most wrong in a second. My guess is, hey, we say Trump's wrong all the time, which he is. So we have to balance it out. So let's just find something, anything we could pin on Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the left wing.

And then we go, hey, you see that we're even. Let's call them liars. They can't wait. They can't wait to call them lies. Okay. So now, if you ask Jake, he'll be like, no way, you're crazy, no way, right? But every time Bernie Sanders, during the 2016 election and on, right, talks about anything, is it practical?

Is it true? It's that dismissive attitude. What Jake Tapper and a lot of those hosts don't realize is they do have a bias. They don't realize it. It's not a conspiracy. They didn't get together in a room and decided. They have group think in Washington. And the group think is the establishment and the status quo are correct.

Whatever is in that what they perceive to be the center is correct. That is why they will often attack the right and the left, constantly attack right, attack right, like, hey, guess what? Your bias is what you call the center and what the rest of us call the establishment. So look, I, in this specific case though, there was no attempt at, you know, hitting the center of the issue. Because if you are trying to be objective and then do what CNN usually does, which is fail at that and actually end up being neutral, you would have.

least have the decency to reach out to Bernie Sanders or reach out to an expert other than a super biased individual who's funded by the Koch brothers to get their side and try to figure out whether or not, you know, the claims made by the author of the Koch brothers funded study if those accusations are true, right? They didn't do that. They didn't reach out to anyone. They just took the study. They took the word of Chuck Blahouse who authored that study at his word, and they didn't

ask anyone else. They didn't ask an expert. They didn't reach out to Bernie Sanders. They didn't talk to Alexandria Acosio-Cortez. In fact, in the next video, Tapper says the thing that actually frustrated me the most, which was essentially giving the benefit of the doubt to someone who's been funded by the Koch brothers to essentially lie about a Medicare for all system. Take a look. Now, while it's true that the Koch brothers have given millions of dollars to the Mercatus center at George Mason University, and an AP investigation earlier this year suggested that the Koch brothers do have control and influence over the hiring and firing of professors, we should note, for whatever it's worth, the authors of this study said the Koch brothers did not influence

them in any way. You shouldn't note that. You shouldn't note that. You just mentioned that they have a say in the hiring and firing of professors in departments that they're funding. Really? You think that they have absolutely no say over what this author publishes? The Koch brothers have been funding these fake scientists for years to put out climate denial

studies, okay? That is what, that's what they do. That's their business. It's propaganda to protect their profits. Now, two points about that. One is, if you go ask the author, hey, are you lying on behalf of the Koch brothers? Do you think he's going to say, oh yeah, of course, Jake, you caught me, and Bernie caught me. Yes, I got hired to tell people that Medicare for all is bad, because that's what the Coke

brothers believe, so, but okay, you caught me red-handed, so that's a useless thing to ask them. But secondarily, more important in my opinion is not whether the Koch brothers wrote a memo in the middle of that study saying, hey, remember, I'm paying your checks, and if you want the checks to clear, you're going to write what I tell you to write. No, they hired that guy in the first case because they knew what he was going to write. Did they hire a progressive to be in that position? No.

Did they hire a normal scientist, economist, whatever it might be for that position? No, do they hire one of the 97% of world scientists to study climate change? No, they hire the 3% that deny climate change. And that 3% know they're gonna get paid by the Koch brothers. I'm talking about, of course, a different topic in that case. In this case, it's all in the hiring decisions. So when you go say, no, but I asked the author, I asked the author, and he says the Koch brothers didn't interfere, it's kind of a preposterous caveat.

Also, Bernie Sanders has been touting a Medicare for All system for a very long time now. And so I find it fascinating that the update to this story is this study that was funded by the Koch brothers. And the framing of this whole fact-checking video is all about fact-checking Bernie Sanders, Rather than fact checking the study. Exactly. So that leads us to inaccuracy with this fact check number two. One was the American people or the government.

The second is just saying, hey, I wouldn't ask the author, and the author insists that Bernie Sanders is wrong, is not a fact check. CNN has several billion dollars at a minimum. And then all the fact checking organizations you're working with, that's their job. You could actually check the actual facts. Instead of going and calling the other, oh, yeah, your Koch brothers paid, you do that, and you say they didn't interfere and that Bernie Sanders is wrong, okay, well, you say he's wrong, okay, I'm going to tell everybody that he's wrong, right?

Do the actual fact check. Do the actual fact check, which now leads us to the most important part. So what's actually true? Even in the middle of Jake Tapper's story, he concedes that if you pay the Medicare rates, which is by definition what you would do in men. Medicare for all, that the study, even the study and even the author concede that, yes, it would save the American people $2 trillion. Their only caveat, and it is preposterous, it's not preposterous in the real world of, hey,

what's how is it going to be applied? It's preposterous in the caveat in the context of this fact check. Their only thing is, well, it could cost more, maybe Medicare will wind up paying higher rates to doctors and hospitals, because they might not take it. Okay, that's an interesting conversation and debate to have. But did this study say, if you apply Medicare rates in Medicare for all, it would save $2 trillion? Yes, the correct answer is yes. That is indisputable.

So now Jake Tapper, Sienna, et cetera, you know that's indisputable. So now it's on you. Are you going to correct it? And how thoroughly are you going to correct it? And are you going to admit that you were wrong? Or are you going to say, well, that's embarrassing. I don't want to actually admit facts because they're embarrassing to me. So I'm not going to admit it.

That's on you guys. By the way, if you are infuriated, if you're angry at Jake Tapper's video, the next portion of his fact check video will probably frustrate you even more. I'm going to skip ahead, guys, to video 10, because this is, this was, in my opinion, the most insulting part of all of it. Take a look. Now, we're not here to make a judgment on the viability of Medicare for all, and we have no idea if the Koch brothers influenced the writing of this Mercatus Center study.

But it does seem pretty clear that the presentation being made by Senator Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about this study lacks a lot of context, and the author of the study says they are not being accurate. A reminder to all you politicians out there, you're perfectly entitled to your own opinions, not to your own facts. I can't. I mean, that was ridiculous. So, look, I commend Bernie Sanders for actually responding to this, and he did it in a multi-tweet

series. But I want to get to the heart of it. So I'll give you some of these tweets. So he said the following. I thank Jake Tapper for, let's go to Graphic 44. I thank Jake Tapper for admitting his fact check on Medicare for All was not factual and editing his video. So later, Jake Tapper actually apologized because there was enough criticism and enough backlash

that Jake Tapper finally realized, okay, we got it wrong. And so he made that correction. Let me give you more of that tweet though. Sadly, Tapper's video on Medicare for All along with other fact checks is riddled with errors peddled by Coke funded Mercatus Center. Let's go through them. Okay, great. So Tapper says the study's author says that $2 trillion drop is not actually his conclusion.

He says that's based on assumptions by Senator Sanders. Wrong. Provider payment rates in our plan are not assumptions, they are written into the bill. So my question is, did Tapper and his producers actually look at the bill, the wording of the bill, how we would pay for the bill, how the bill would work. I mean, that would be an incredibly important part of the fact checking process. Because then you would fact check the study and realize that there are misconceptions based on what the study put out there.

And even so, the study finds that Americans would save $2 trillion in healthcare. Look, Bernie Sanders is more gracious than I am because he's accepting the apology or whatever. I think that it needs to be far more thorough than that. And you could disagree with that and that's fine. But that condescending thing at the end about you're entitled to your own opinions, but not your facts. When you didn't bother checking the facts is unbearable. Are you gonna tell me now that Jake Tapper and his producers read the bill?

They didn't even know that, hey, were you applying the Medicare rates? So look, mistakes happen. I'm not trying to say that that's it. You should never trust Jake Tapper or CNN again, et cetera. But what I think we're being reasonable. What I think that the mainstream media oftentimes lacks is the context of their own bias, that things that are funded are considered legitimate. that are, that, you know, what they consider centrist politicians, which I think are massively

right-wing politicians, and polling indicates are out of touch with the American people, they consider centrist, and they favor greatly. If Claire McCaskill, now that's a Democrat, if Claire McCaskill says something, Jake Tapper and CNN takes it way more seriously. If Bernie Sanders says something, like Alexandria or Casimir Cortez says, let's go, let's have fun here, okay? How many of those anchors voted for Bernie Sanders? I almost none of them. And by the way, how many of them voted for Trump? Probably almost none of them.

Almost all the anchors on television, I'm guessing this is not a fact check, okay? I'm guessing voted for Hillary Clinton. But they never thought in their, hey, hey, isn't that a weird coincidence that we all agree that the so-called centrist Democrats and Republicans are Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton are awesome. And somehow the left wing and the right wing are terrible. That's funny. I wonder if somebody hired us because they knew we thought that. Oh, that's interesting.

And I know that you're going to find that outrageous because that gets to the core of why you were hired in the first place. But do you see them hiring a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters as anchors on cable television? I don't see that. You think that that's an accident. It's just a coincidence. More importantly, I mean, forget about anchors, right? They're still playing this ridiculous game where they're all pretending to be objective. What's more important to me is what kind of guests do they have on their panel debates?

Because they have absolutely no problem hiring nonsensical maniacs like Scotty Nell Hughes in the past, who was a huge Trump surrogate, huge Trump supporter. But what was the left wing version of that? Was there a progressive there? There wasn't a single progressive there, not a single progressive. And it continued, it's a pattern that you continue to see in cable news. One last thing, okay, on cable news, if you guys care, and it's obvious, generally speaking, that you don't care what progressives think, and I know that comes like a big surprise to you

because the right wing has been yelling at you and calling you liberal media for 40 years, so you internalized it, you're not remotely progressive or liberal, okay? You're part of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and so when you say, well, yeah, But I have to have Trump people on because, you know, Trump won and they're apparently half the country. Well, the other half the country are progressives. And someone who supports Hillary Clinton and Joe Manchin is not necessarily a progressive. You didn't check your box. Well, everybody I knows is a Hillary Clinton supporter.

No, but most of the country didn't like her. That's why I didn't vote for her, okay? So when you say, hey, I every once in a while I have Nina Turner on, that actually proves our point. You could point to one person that comes on some of the time as the one progressive you have on. If you want to count Vangels, we're up to woo two, okay? And everyone else is either a Trump or a Hillary Clinton supporter. Does that sound balance to you? First of all, you don't care about that balance because you just dismiss progressives as not relevant.

And you don't even know it. I don't think any of this is done out of malice. Some people might disagree, but I really don't think it is. It's just your assumptions. The assumption is the establishment is right, and the right wing is to be respected, and progressives are to be dismissed. And this was a perfect example of that, and as usual, based on no actual facts. We got to take a break. When we come back, one of the most outspoken women in the Me Too movement has been accused of settling out of court with someone who had accused her of sexual assault.

That's a hugely controversial story. Yeah. All right, anyway, come back and we'll tell you what our thought sawed at all. All right, back on the Young Church, Jank and Anna with you guys. Lots of comments. I only have time for a couple. EF. Uso writes in on Twitter, what do people want an echo chamber that agrees with you at all times? You want that mentality, watch corporate news.

TYT is actually an open form of ideas. Thank you for saying that. We really, really appreciate it. We try hard to do that. We appreciate you noticing that. And of course, if you want to be part of the Young Turks, you know, when you sign up to become a member, you help support what we do. And if we weren't here, I don't know there's a lot of other video outlets doing this.

So t.com slash join. Thank you guys for making that possible. Juan Lanuzza writes in, these people are not journalists. The whole point is to do your job and research the topic you're talking about. Jake Tapper is a hack. So, Juan, is a stronger opinion. That was on YouTube Super Chat. Last two, also on this topic, back to Twitter.

Gentleman's Hall says that level of misinformation should never come from an outlet which can afford to have 50 researchers on staff at all times. There are dozens of studies on universal health care which state how much money it saves and the quality of care people receive. Look, I can attest to the fact that maybe we'll talk about this more in the post game too. when I was at MSNBC, I literally had more producers than I knew what to do with. I could have them doing research all day long if I wanted. So that's, it's a fair point in that tweet. They have the producers, they have the money, they have the resources, and they somehow do the shittiest job of any so-called journalists in the country?

Like, do you know how infuriating that is? Like, if we had those resources, do you know what we would be capable of doing? But we'll never get those resources, right? We'll never get the advertisers who want to dole out a ton of cash because we're not going to play by their rules. Anyway, I'm going on an unbearable rant right now, because it's frustrating, it's frustrating. No, we will get those resources. T.y.t.com slash join.

Okay, anyway, last one, Adam J. 2048 says, nobody told Jake Tapper that healthcare was so complicated. All right, by the, I just got to say, we'll talk more about it in the post game, but did it It never occur to a single mainstream cable news anchor that perhaps you should look at other countries and how they pay half of what we pay per capita and get better results. Like, that never occurred to you. Like, you just look at it in the context of, I don't know, but the Koch Brothers funded study tells me that's not true.

What are the actual facts? All right, anyway, all right, let's keep going. One of the earliest participants and most vocal participants of the Me Too movement was a woman by the name of Asia Argento. She was also in a relationship with Anthony Bourdain, and she had alleged that Harvey Weinstein had sexually assaulted her when she was extremely young in her early 20s. Now there has been a report indicating that she had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to her own accuser. in an effort to, you know, keep him quiet so he wouldn't share his story publicly. Now, I want to be clear that part of this settlement did not indicate that there was an NDA, non-disclosure agreement, because it's in the state of California.

And in California, NDAs are not allowed in this context. However, the details of this settlement are jarring and we're, you know, going to give you those details and have a discussion about it. So according to the report, Argento quiet. arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser to an actor by the name of Jimmy Bennett. He's a young actor and a rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room when he was 17. She was 37 years old at the time.

The age of consent in California where this occurred is 18, so he was underage. So the documents which were sent to the New York Times anonymously through an encrypted email include a selfie dated March 9th, 2013, of the two lying in bed together. As part of the agreement, Mr. Bennett gave the photograph and its copyright to Argento. So this has not been published, but there are other photos that have been published as part of this piece. To give you some more details in this, Bennett was seven when he was cast in a movie in 2004 that Argento was the director for.

She also starred in it and she helped write it. So she has a long history with him. She's known him since he was a child. And some of the information regarding this settlement, including a note that Argento's lawyer had written to Argento, make me, I don't know, there are certain things that raise red flags for me personally in this story. But with that said, you know, anyway, let me give you the note that the lawyer gave to Argento. We hope nothing like this ever happens to you again. Remember, the lawyer is writing

this to Argento. You are a powerful and inspiring creator and it is a miserable condition of life that you live among individuals who've prayed on both your strengths and your weaknesses. Again, that's Carrie Goldberg, the lawyer for Argento. So this was a note that she wrote to her you know, knowing that or thinking that it was going to be private. This was in the middle of this huge $380,000 settlement after this entire case was done. Anyway, go ahead, Jake. Look, look, I think there are two sides of the story. And I don't think it's clear cut as it's being portrayed.

So, on the one hand, was what happened at a bare minimum creepy? Yes, okay. And also, by the way, he's not old enough to consent. He's 17. Yeah, so that's a huge issue. And nobody's disputing that. So in that movie from back in 2004, he played her son when he was a kid, right? Now, that's not when this happened.

This, what he calls a sexual, or apparently what he alleged was a sexual battery, happened much later. In 2013. In 2013, at that point, as Anna explained, he's 17, she's 37. But on Instagram, on that day, she had written, waiting for my large, long-lost son, my love Jimmy Bennett, in trepidation, Marina del Rey smoking cigarettes like there was no next week. He writes back, I'm almost there, this is all in public, okay?

So she refers to him as her son. In that case, they then sleep together that day. And then she writes afterwards, happiest day of my life reunion with Jimmy Bennett. He writes positive things later on as well, but that actually does happen oftentimes with people who have gone through something traumatic and they don't know, and they're trying to justify it. So that doesn't mean that it didn't happen the way that he is saying it, okay? So those are all the things that are clearly against Argento in this case, okay?

So it's weird, it's creepy, she's known him for a long time, and it's he does, he's not at the age of consent, so super clear, okay? The things that give us pause or give me pause is, so he had Bennett had made a lot of money in the past as a child actor, he'd made three and a half, no, sorry, made more than $2.7 million over five years before that meeting. But then he had to sue his mom and stepfather, because apparently they'd taken a lot of his money, and then that suit eventually got resolved. He's saying he's not getting a lot of work now, and he thinks it's because he was so traumatized

by the incident. He also claimed that because of what his mother and stepfather had done, he was completely broke. Yeah. Yeah. So he needs money. Now look, it doesn't mean that he's not telling the truth. Maybe he needs money, but he still could be telling the truth about everything that happened here. And in fact, Argento is not really denying any of this yet. She hasn't given a comment to the New York Times as they did the story, et cetera, right? Now here's the part that is troubling that nobody else will talk about, right? Or that gives me pause. So you're supposed to end the story right here, and you're supposed to say, you know, men and women should be treated the same

exact way, no matter what, et cetera, right? Okay, but, and everybody is different, and we'll give you all the nuance. If you asked 117-year-olds, when they're 17, or later, when they're 37, would you have wanted to have this happen to you? You're specifically talking about males. I'm talking about males, okay? And look, we didn't tell you what happened, but so I'll read that to you. She kissed them, pushed him back on the bed. I'm quoting the New York Times here, removed his pants and performed oral sex. She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse. And then she then asked him to take a number of photos and some of which are now in the record, okay? I'm guessing, my guess is 85% of males would say that would be a great thing,

Not a bad thing. Okay. Now, that doesn't make it right. I'm just, and I'm guessing as to what the number is, and you can guess as to what the number is. So when people equate that to, okay, what happened to her? Where Harvey Weinstein raped her when she was 21. If you asked 100 women, if they would think that that was a good thing, my guess is you would get an answer of zero, zero, right? So are we supposed to, I'm asking you guys, are we supposed to take that into consideration as a society?

It's not an easy answer. Because you want to say no, the law should apply to men and women equally, right? Yes, and I agree with that. Okay. On the other hand, we all, relatively speaking, acknowledge that most 17-year-old males in that position would be thrilled. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm totally wrong.

And no, they would be horrible, like, oh, you're going to give me oral sex and you're beautiful and you're going to have sex with me. I don't want it. I don't want it under any circumstance. Maybe, and by the way, and everybody's different. Me, I'll be honest with you, I would have not liked it, loved it, okay? And sometimes people will say, oh, no, no, no, you think you would have liked it, but you would have been traumatized.

No, I know myself, I would have loved it, okay? Now, that doesn't mean everybody's like me. People can be traumatized. Everybody's different. They might go through that. He says he was devastated on the road back. And maybe he was. And the law might not be able to take that into account, right?

I'm just giving you the full context because I know that no one else is allowed to say these things and that there are people at home who are going, you got $380,000 on top for that. I'm just acknowledging that. So I disagree with a justice system, a two-tier justice system based on socioeconomic status, based on race, based on anything, right? The justice system should be fair and should be applied equally. And I think that that's certainly the case when it comes to statutory rape, when it comes to sexual assault, regardless of the genders involved, regardless of the people involved, if he's underage, she broke a law. And a male in this situation would have to deal with a pretty strict standard in our justice system. But we can't have a different standard if the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator is a woman because some men would become.

or would love that situation, right? Because you can't speak for all men. No, I can't. And even if you could speak for all men, which you just admitted you can't, you cannot have a double standard in the justice system based on gender. Okay. I'm just laying out what the different range of thought here is. So he says that he began to feel on the ride home, extremely, quote, extremely confused,

mortified and disgusted. And that is totally possible. So, I guess the bottom line is, as we now go around judging Asia Argento, I'm asking you to keep the full context in mind, and then you make any judgment you're comfortable with, okay? And maybe you think like, yeah, of course, my God, that 17-year-old boy after receiving this sex from this attractive 37-year-old woman was obviously disgusted. Then you have your opinion and you have your conclusion, no question.

And others might have different conclusions. And I'm going to say one last thing that, again, will probably get me in trouble, which is males anatomy is different than a female's anatomy. If you were, I don't know, can you enjoy that act at the moment and then later decide you were disgusted? I know certain things have to work and people can say, that's not fair, and maybe it's not fair. I don't know, but we do know that he did participate in that act. And for a man, you do have to participate.

So, I don't know. These are hard, hard questions. So if you think they're easy and you want to judge me as well, bless your heart, go forward and do that. But I don't think they're easy. And I think there's a lot of guys in the country right now going, really? She had to pay $380,000. And now I'm supposed to hate her for giving that guy sex.

and pay $380,000 and I'm supposed to judge her. And now we're having a conversation about her in the same sentence as Harvey Weinstein. I don't think they belong in the same sentence at all. One other thing that I wanted to just quickly bring up is that oftentimes the perpetrators of sexual assault happen to be victims of sexual assault. Like they have sexual assaults in their past. And we know, based on what she said about Harvey Weinstein, that she was essentially abused by him, right?

And so people are now asking, oh, well, can we consider her a valid member of this Me Too movement when she has this dark, you know, element in her past with this 17-year-old actor? And the answer is yes. Because, again, oftentimes people who perpetrate these crimes are people who were victimized by them in the past. Yeah, those are two separate questions. Is she part of the Me Too movement? Well, yes, she got raped by Weinstein, she says at the age of 21.

If that's true, she's clearly part of the movement. In terms of what she did, well, you can say, it's super fair to say there needs to be consequences for that action, and by the way, there were. It was $380,000 that she paid. I don't know what the statute of limitations here, and if you want to talk about legal consequences, that's a legitimate conversation to have as well. To say that her previous trauma and what she lived through is now vitiated, like in hindsight, we're going to take it away from her because she doesn't deserve to be in this category.

Well, that's a weird conclusion that I don't agree with. Yeah. We got to take one more break, actually two more breaks. But let's take this break. And when we come back, we're going to tell you about a Houston doctor convicted of rape and he's getting no jail time. That is maddening. And there's one line in that that will absolutely infuriated me.

My guess is it will do likewise to you. 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.