The Young Turks - Whoopi Goldberg Went AFTER Justice Democrats And CNN Prevails In Trump Lawsuit

Episode Date: November 17, 2018

Whoopi Goldberg had some choice (and misguided) words for Progressives in Congress. Donald Trump LOST in Federal Court against CNN reporter Jim Acosta. 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. Drop it. Power, power, power panel. Jake U Granite, Kasparry. Matt Kirsch is back, everybody. Hey, how you doing, nice to be back.

Great to have you. He was in NBC's last comic standing, Comedy Central's Midnight. He's a writer on Jim Jeffries show on Comedy Central, nominated for a Writers Guild for America Award. Thank you. His podcast is probably science, but he's still not sure. And, in fact, Matt, we didn't discuss this. I don't think we discussed this last time,

But you're a regular guest co-host on StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yeah, that's a fun little gig I get to do from time to time. Yeah. Now I'm just jealous of you. They realize that I have just enough science knowledge to be able to sit there and not be a complete idiot, but enough that I can be the idiot. Okay. You know why?

Because it's probably science. Well, that's very much why we put that in the title of our podcast. We knew we couldn't have, definitely. Okay. So lots to get to you today. Unexpected anger at Whoopi Goldberg, of all people. Why is that happening? Where are you going to see that in a second?

Costa's back, and so is Acosta Cortez. I don't know if you guys know this. I'm tidying up in the middle of the show. I like a little housekeeping going on. I need pens, because I'm a writer. Okay, and they're a conservative writer, or I guess he's conservative, worse for the Washington Examiner. on her clothes and honestly on her posterior.

And so we will have that discussion a little bit later on in the show. And then Trump's a little jittery, little jittery about the Mueller questions. I don't know if you know this, but he answered those questions. No one else. Not the lawyers, not the lawyers. He didn't seem jittery at all. He seemed very calm and confident as he always is because he knows it's a hoax. I'm that agitated.

Who told you I'm agitated? People say I'm agitated, but a lot of people say I'm not. A lot of people say, look, there's good educated people on both sides. Okay, and I'm, I answer the questions from the stand-up point of me. Okay, anyways. So, I'm so jazzed up about the first story. Let's go. Let's do it.

All right. There are calls within the Democratic Party to announce a new speaker of the House. Now, Nancy Pelosi still wants to be the House majority leader. She is not planning on stepping down. However, there are calls for her to do so, and there are other individuals within Congress who feel like they would do a better job representing the Democratic Party. Congresswoman Barbara Lee is one of those congresspeople. Now with that said, earlier this week, a story broke involving Justice Democrats and other

progressives who went to Nancy Pelosi's office to protest. And the whole point of that protest was to push establishment Democrats to sponsor a green jobs bill, right? And a push toward 100% renewable energy. Now, of course, the establishment didn't like it. And another person who didn't like it very much was Whoopi Goldberg on the view. Now, she went to great lengths to attack Justice Democrats, a platform that Alexandria Acosio-Cortez was supported by.

And let's hear what she had to say. You know, some of y'all calling yourselves, what was it, it's something crazy, not crazy, but it really kind of freaked me out. Justice Democrats, so I know, so. Okay, we're going to get to the substance of our argument in just a minute, but I don't understand why the name Justice Democrats would freak anyone out. No, I do, because I chose the name, and I chose the name on purpose to freak people like Whoopi Goldberg out.

Okay, so let me explain. So four of us started the Just Democrats. Me, Kyle Kalinsky, on Secular Talk, Barty, who is now the chief of staff for Alexandria Ocaser-Cortez, and Zach Axley, who was a huge part of the Bernie Sanders campaign, and so was Shoycott. So, Shorikot is the most pivotal person. He helped get Alexandria Ocasier-Cortez elected. He ran Just Democrats for a long time.

Alexandra Rojas now runs it, she's a wonderful organizer. Okay, so now, why do we pick the name just Democrats? Because of two things, honestly, one is powerful. The other one is a little fun, okay? The powerful part is why justice? Because we're for social justice and economic justice. And the fun part is the one litmus test, and yes, there is a litmus test, so whoopi, hold on your seat, okay?

Oh, these young people with their litmus tests, why don't they just let Nancy Pelosi to run the Democratic Party into the ground, and I'll make that case for you in a second. Because they represent their donors. So it's a little bit of a play on words as well. Those just Democrats represent just us, okay, and not the donors, okay? And so, but the reason I knew that it would freak people out is because, oh, that sounds aggressive, what do you mean justice? And what do you mean just us?

I mean, why not the donors? Why not the donors? It also sounds a bit DC Comics. Yeah, it does, that's right. There's definitely a sort of superhero vibe going on there, like the justice got. That's right. And people in the establishment, yeah, they don't like rock in the boat, that kind of stuff makes them uncomfortable.

And so in the case of Whoopi Goldberg, to be fair to her, I'm sure that she's totally in favor of social justice and economic justice. And I guess she's getting, in her case, she might be, and look, I'm happy to have a conversation with her about it, because she's not a bad person at all, right? I just think she's wrong about this. I think that she's uncomfortable, like, wait a minute, are you the ones claiming to fight for justice? And what does that mean we're not?

Kind of. And I don't mean you, Whoopi, but I mean the establishment Democrats, really? What kind of economic justice has Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein been fighting for? She mentioned, I'm not just pulling that name out of a hat. Whoopi mentioned Diane Feinstein, I believe, a couple of times in that rant. She did. Yeah. I think that this is a failure on the part of the producers at the view.

And I don't make those types of criticisms, I don't take them lightly. And the reason why I say that is because if you're gonna have someone on the show attack a political organization or attack anyone for that matter, it is your job to research and brief Whoopi Goldberg on the reality of who Diane Feinstein really is, the fact that she She used her position of power in order to enrich herself and her husband, making millions upon millions of dollars in the real estate industry here in California. And we have an affordable housing crisis here in the state. I mean, these are things that are easy to research, and I don't know why the producers

didn't do that. No, to be fair to the producers and to the view overall, no one in television does their research. And so I know that they're not gonna lighten what we're saying at all to them. They're gonna be even more mad about that. But like, who calls out Diane Feinstein on television? What, Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, none of them do it, none of them. Diane Feinstein voted for Bush's tax cuts.

Bush's tax cuts for the rich were even larger than Trump's tax cuts for the rich. You know why she voted for that? Because she's rich, she's a billionaire. And by the way, all of her donors are incredibly wealthy, but you never talk about her donors, so you find that offensive, but that's the reality. So we have so many videos clips to get to. So I want to show you the heart of her argument. So what is she blaming this negative treatment toward Nancy Pelosi on?

Well, I'm sure some of you can guess. Take a look. Are you saying that other Democrats who've been fighting for 25, 30 years aren't justice Democrats? You think that, I don't know, who let's name a couple of people who have been fighting. John Conyers, who's not there anymore. And yeah, I mean, you need the experience. You need experience to handle all this stuff.

And if you don't have it, sit back and learn some stuff and then take over. But you can't come in and pee all over everything and say, you, it's done. You can't do that. Sit back and learn some stuff was my favorite line in that particular clip. As she is giving her honestly ignorant opinion on Justice Democrats, it is, it's ignorant. I'm not calling her stupid, I'm calling her ignorant, which means that she just doesn't know. She's not educated on what this issue is, right? Who the Justice Democrats are and what their very legitimate grievances are when it comes

to members of Congress. I will say one critique, because you say no one in TV does their research. And I work on a TV show, and I can tell you we spend upwards of minutes on Wikipedia for every topic. And so I just want to make that correction. I want to make that clear. So look, we're fair. So you see that point as well represented here.

Okay, honor the substance even more so. So they named a couple of people, and that was interesting. John Conyers, super fair. Now he, look, the scandal that ended his career was super unfortunate and that's his own doing. I felt terrible about it because I actually think he was an absolute icon and one of my favorite people in Congress and I knew him well. I interviewed him many times and so I have great respect for John Conyers. So boy, did you pick the wrong name for, I guess you guys thinking we criticize them because

That's not what happened, okay? And then Steny Hoyer. Hoyer is potentially the most corrupt Democrat in the House. So that goes to Anna's point about lack of research. I mean, he takes so much corporate money. That's the thing Hoyer is known for is taking incredible wads of corporate cash and then delivering for those corporate clients. And that's why he's in the position of power that he has.

If we sat back and learned from Hoyer, you know what we would learn? would learn corruption. So we would learn, hey, you take a lot of campaign contributions from giant corporations and really, really wealthy people, and then you give them tax cuts, and then you turn around and say, well, there's nothing we could do. The Republicans made a steward, go, golly, gee. We lost again, what could we do? We lost again, what could we do?

I know, Jake, but what you don't understand is that Steady Hoyer has a lot of experience in corruption. That is not what I want to learn. Right. Now, there's more. Take a look. Reportedly, some of the newly elected female Democrats are part of a so-called pink wave who are questioning whether Nancy Pelosi should be Speaker of the House.

They say, you know, she's too old, she should step aside and let the new folks. So, okay, if you're going to be the new folks, you also need to do your homework. Let's take it, for example, a Nancy Pelosi or Diane Feinstein, two women, battling and still in, at work, battling their male counterparts on both sides, okay? Nancy Pelosi got most of that Obama bill through. She fought. The Obamacare. She has been on the side of right for most of the time.

She's been in the same with Diane Feinstein and the same with a whole bunch of these folks who have gotten older. You know what age them? Fighting for the right to be an American 100%. No one has ever. accuse Nancy Pelosi of being too old to be Speaker of the House. I mean, a lot of the people who are calling on Nancy Pelosi to step down as Speaker are the very same people who wanted to elect Bernie Sanders as the President of the United States. Bernie Sanders is no whippersnapper.

And I do know people who say that politicians are too old. It's establishment Democrats who say it about Bernie Sanders. nonstop, nonstop, and then they'll turn around and go, Joe Biden's the right guy. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are one year apart. And they say Nancy Pelosi is wonderful, and Steny Horace is wonderful, and all those people in Democratic leadership are about the same age as Bernie Sanders. In fact, I think they're older. But they'll say, Bernie Sanders is too old, we need young blood.

Don't you dare say Nancy Pelosi's old? But by the way, we don't. So if you ask progressives who they support for that leadership position, Barbara Lee has not asked for it and she's not campaigning for it, but I don't care. Barbara Lee is wonderful. And it's not like she's Alexandria Ocasor Cortez, who's 29 years old. Barbara Lee's been around for quite some time and has the right experience. So why does she have the right experience?

Because she was the sole vote not only against Iraq war where there were other votes, but the sole vote against Afghanistan war. And she was brave and she was courageous. On the other hand, the person you named Diane Feistine, voted for not just. not just Afghanistan, but for the Iraq war. And then her husband made money off the Iraq war. He got contracts in that war. But you see, and then, so that's why I then more than agree with Anna when she says, you didn't

do your homework. Because then what be claimed that Justice Democrats didn't do their homework, you want to do a pop quiz on policy? No, you don't, no you don't, okay? So Feinstein has the wrong kind of experience, always voted for wars and tax cuts for the rich, as Barbara Lee has wonderful experience that those young women of color who won those races when none of you believed in them, by the way, but we did, could learn from Barbara Lee's experience.

She would be an excellent speaker of the house, because she's fought for all those right things. I'm gonna come back to master legislator in a second. Oh, I will say, yeah, we had Barbara Lee, Jim interviewed her on our show, she was awesome. I will say, you know far more of the facts than I do, but I do know for a fact one thing that would be said that was wrong, which is she said what aged her was for. fighting for justice. I think it was actually what aged them both was the passage of time. Right. I believe that's a fact.

They actually both, I mean, like, maybe Feinstein less so, but Pelosi looks pretty young for someone, her age. She looks pretty relaxed. Yeah. It's just not. She doesn't look as like someone who was aged before her time.

Yeah. And it's, again, it's not about age. It's not about physical appearance. It's about policy. And this, this push, to slander a very important movement at this moment, especially at this moment, you know, is just sad. It's sad because, you know, all these calls for unity within the Democratic Party solely focus

on getting progressives to fall in line, right? Get in line, fall in line, pay your dues, how dare you, we have a process here. And look, one of the biggest issues that progressives have with someone like Nancy Pelosi is is that after nearly two hideous, horrible years of Donald Trump and his unbelievably horrific policies, after the Democrats win the House, Nancy Pelosi calls for unity and bipartisanship. No, no, we don't want bipartisanship with someone like Trump, okay? The Republicans are too far gone, bipartisanship is over as long as they're falling in line with someone like Donald Trump.

So to have Nancy Pelosi, after all this, come forward and say, it's time to unite, now it's time for bipartisanship. No, we're not having it. Okay, one more clip. Let's take a look. A woman who's challenging her is a 60-something-year-old woman. It's not really about her age. No, but as I said, if you're reading the Justice Democrats thing, and they're talking about gathering all these people to get rid of the old guard who have not been fighting for the justice. as they've been paying money, you know, getting money for the big.

It's like, who are you talking about? Well, she's tough, too. I mean, you need somebody tough like her. She's not afraid of the rain, like some people. She knows how to raise money. She knows how to rally. She'll go out in the rain and fight. I'm just saying do a health.

I don't mind a healthy fight, but don't make it about because you're old, you can't do this anymore. Yeah. No one's made that argument. No one said, oh, Nancy Pelosi's old. She can't do this anymore. I mean, it's just, it's frustrating, it's so frustrating. Okay, so if you notice Abby Huntsman jumped in there, she goes, she knows how to raise money.

Yeah, I know. That's her big claim to fame. My God, if there are corporate interests we need to serve, Nancy Pelosi will go out there, raise money from them and make them promises, which we're going to get to at a second as well, to give you even more specifics. And Joy Behauer, as usual, was the most correct when she jumped in and said, no, the person their backing is, you know, in their 60s. And another point in this rant by Whoopi Goldberg, she said, why don't they ever go after

Mitch McConnell? Have you ever seen what we've done to Mitch McConnell? It's illegal in 13 states. Okay. And so, and this whole idea, and then it was, that segment was labeled online at least, are people charging the Nancy Pelosi's too old, is it ages and or sexist? What do you mean? Wait, wait, wait, they didn't even talk about that.

And that's good. So I'm not blaming him for that. I don't know who titled it. But Chuck Schumer, same exact problems, Denny Hoyer, same exact problem. And so it has absolutely nothing to do with that. And so let's get to me the most important part. Is she good at her job? Nancy Pelosi.

Well, as Whoopi Goldberg started talking about the things she got accomplished, I thought in my head, I guarantee you the only thing she can name is Obamacare. That's the only major piece of legislation Nancy Pelosi has ever gotten past. And now let's see, well, is that a big, big accomplishment? Remember, it was originally Romney Care. It was, that's a fact you could look into it, okay? It was a Heritage Foundation policy out of the state of Massachusetts, which Mitt Romney pushed for and succeeded in accomplishing, again, in the state of Massachusetts.

Almost identical, okay? The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank, and obviously you know who Mitt Romney is. So let's review her only major piece of legislation passed that anyone could ever name is healthcare designed by a conservative think tank heralded by Mitt Romney when the Democrats had a super majority. Wow, I didn't know she was that good at legislating, okay, that is comically a bad record. And meanwhile, let's talk about the rest.

after loss after loss to the Republicans, just humiliated by the Republicans over and over again. They got every war they wanted, they got every tax cut they wanted, they got all the deregulations that they wanted, all under Nancy Pelosi's watch. So if you're actually gonna have a conversation about her record, that's actually the worst case you could make for her. You're trying to bury that and not talk about it because it's deeply embarrassing. Yes, it's time for new leadership. It doesn't mean young, it means new leadership, because this experience has been honest

been honestly disastrous. I'm gonna say one last thing. You know, she said, sit back and Anna objected to that, right? Sit back and learn, right? Look, most progressives talk about how we need to have change from now, the fierce urgency of now. Why, for far too long, the Democratic Party has sold us the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. And we're sick of it.

It doesn't actually lead to bigger victories later. They always talk about like, oh, just be incremental today. Nancy Pelosi came out after the election and not only said she wants to do deals with Republicans, these monstrous Republicans, and not that Republicans from the 1980s when they were doing bipartisanship and it was a totally different party. This said, with Mitch McConnell and in the Senate and with, you know, the horrific people and the Tea Party in the House, et cetera. But then she came out and said, oh, Medicare for all, no, no, no, we have to figure out,

How are we gonna pay for that? That's a Republican talking point. So what did you do? Your first act is concede to the Republicans and use their talking points. That doesn't eventually lead to victories. That is what has led to all of these defeats under the guise of gradualism. Just take that tranquilizing drug, everything's gonna be okay. Yeah, and Nancy Pelosi right now is taking a lead pipe to the kneecap of Medicare for

all by pushing for that soon. supermajority to increase taxes for the bottom 80% of earners. Now on its face, that sounds like it's great, right? Let's not raise taxes on people other than the top 10%. But what this does is it cuts funding for the same programs that Justice Democrats are fighting for, Medicare for all being one of them. And so it's a preemptive strike against these progressive policies. And it gives you a sense of who Nancy Pelosi really is and what she's really pushing for.

She doesn't want single payer. She's been abundantly clear about that. All right, we gotta take a break. Yeah. All right, we got more righteous anger where that came from. In fact, when we return more justice. All right, back on a young Turks. I'm gonna go to Cody here with a great comment from the member section.

A brand new member here, I've been watching TYT since 2011. I was originally a Republican, but the evidence based reporting at TYT quickly made me more and more progressive, keep fighting the good fight. That is awesome. Thank you, Cody. By the way, so, you know, we're doing this competition where you can go and become a member through the host names like TYT.com slash Jenk or TYT.com slash. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing the Republic or UNFTR.

As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve. the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right

amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom 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 you and FDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Jana.

Okay. Oh, you don't like that. Or Jana. That's not a thing. So, and I've been complaining all week that I have not been able to catch John Idola. I'm starting to get pretty pissed about it. You know what? I can't accept that.

You know what will really work with the audience by getting like super salty and agitated about it? I'm sure that'll persuade them to sign up under your name. Yes, I think it will. That's my only move. That's my go-to move. That's the uber maneuver. Okay.

Time from your way to success. Yeah. Is this to the White House? So it has, it's begun to work. I was down by 12 now, I'm only down by 4. So by the end of the show, can we put me over the top here, t.yt.com slash jank, okay? Let's pass- Oh, Johnny Pie. Yeah.

That's my buddy though. Oh, buddy, hey little buddy, okay? Anyway, he's not on the show, is he? Yeah, sad day. Whereas I've been here all week. All right, so let me tell you about specials that I am bringing for you guys. I alone can bring you these specials. No, I'm kidding.

All right, seriously, November 19th and November 20th, that's next week, Monday and Tuesday. November 19th, members get to ask those questions, and a lot of you will be on video, so you'll get to, it's a thing called Shindig and your face, your face, your face appears next to our face. Anyway, you get it, you'll ask questions, and we'll make the post game live for everybody. So make sure that you stick around for after Rebel headquarters on November 19th, and you, but You've got to be a member to ask a question. Okay, so t.y.t.com slash jank, obviously.

All right, and then on the 20th, bananas, bonanza, okay? You're going to love the show on the 20th. We've got a massive surprise for you guys. Massive surprise on the 20th. So we got a regular show and then a three-hour special afterwards with actually a couple of different surprises, but one giant one. So I think you're going to love that. All right, I got to go.

So I'm gonna just read two more compents here. Robert F. Strickland, Whoopi, love you, but you need to join TYT to get enlightened. I like that. And then Mars then 1991 on Twitter says, Nancy Pelosi had a super majority in the House and said it was too hard to pass the full healthcare for all part of the same bill and said she negotiated with the Republicans to the wateredown version that came out. That's not a fighter, that's a Chamberlain. Okay, so that's pretty harsh, but the facts are pretty accurate.

And oh, right, and I also need you to panic about one other thing. It's day three of 10 days of Black Friday. So if you buy over 100 bucks at the shop, shopty.com, free shipping. But this is the only day that there's free shipping, we're not playing. Only day where there's free shipping need to panic right now if you're buying orders over $100. Perfect for Christmas shopping, shopty.com. All right, Casper, what's next? All right, the Jim Acosta press credentials saga has come to an end, possibly, with the judge

ruling in CNN's favor and allowing for Jim Acosta to receive his press credentials in order to cover the White House. Now, Acosta's press credentials, of course, were taken away following a heated exchange he had with Donald Trump a day after the midterm elections, and that was a violation of the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, and it appears that Judge Timothy Kelly agrees. So the judge, who is a Trump appointee, granted CNN's request for a court order that would temporarily reinstate Jim Acosta's White House press pass. Now, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has responded to this by saying, today the court made clear

that there is no absolute First Amendment right to access to the White House. Okay, let's stop right there. That is not what the court made clear. It kind of made the opposite clear, but in the alternative facts, the court ruled in their favor. I don't know why Jim Acosta is back in the White House, but on their planet, he isn't. Her statement continues to say, in response to the court, we will temporarily reinstate the reporter's hard pass. We will also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future. There must be decorum at the White House.

says a woman who is working for a man who says things like grab him by the pussy but that's not in the White House to be fair Yeah, but maybe he grabs them in a decorous way Right, right I mean he does it with grace and charm The leader of this country

doesn't even understand what decorum is I mean he gave a speech today about Antonin Scalia and honored his wife and mentioned how many kids they have And in that speech said, wow, boy, you guys were real busy. I mean, how about let's not talk about the sex life of, you know, Supreme Court justice who passed away. For so many reasons, I don't want to know about Scalia's sex life.

Totally. So anyway, I want to quickly go to Trump's video real quick, and then we'll comment. Take a look. Just people have to behave and they have to do. We're writing up rules and regulations to make a position. I think you were treated very unfairly. Both of you, I think you were treated very unfairly because you have somebody interrupting you.

And if they don't listen to the rules and regulations, we'll end up back in court and we'll win. But more importantly, we'll just leave. And then you won't be very happy. Because we do get good ratings. We want total freedom of the press. It's very important to me. It's more important to me than anybody would believe.

But you have to act with respect. You're in the White House, and when I see the way some of my people get treated at press conferences, it's terrible. So we always have the option of just leaving. You know, we feel that things aren't being treated properly, that people aren't being treated properly. We always have the right to leave. And I think the other media, the other press in the room will not be very happy if that happens. But I've instructed my people when they're not treated properly, you have the right to just leave anytime you want. It's a child going, oh, yeah, I could take my ball and go home.

Yeah, you didn't think about that. So it's that in the Constitution. Yeah, yeah, right there in the- The Constitution says it's the president's ball and he can go whenever he wants to go. Seventh Amendment, look it up. Okay. Now, it's unclear, he talked about regulations within the press pool. It's unclear if for every new press-related regulation he's going to repeal two other regulations.

But we'll see, we'll see, because he does. Believe in the free marketplace of ideas. Yeah, so, but it's also an admission that they clearly did this in a way that was nowhere near legal or constitutional. So when the judge who ruled in this case, Timothy Kelly, it was picked by Donald Trump. Okay, and so Trump appointed judge was like, yeah, no, no, not even close to right. So that's why he goes, okay, we'll get some new strong rules and regulations. Yeah, like maybe you should follow the law next time.

That's a rule and a regulation. And he said, now I'm more in favor of press freedom than anyone would believe. Well, that's true. No one would believe it. For a good reason. He's finally honest for once. By the way, so as we had stated, the press pass at the moment is temporary. So what does that mean?

Well, this case is ongoing. So according to reports, Kelly, meaning the judge, ruled that the White House had violated Acosta's due process, he ordered both parties to file a joint status report next week on how to proceed in the case. This is now my speculation, but my guess is, as with everything that's happened with Trump in the past, this story will just go away. Because you can't violate the constitutional rights of Americans, and especially the press. I mean, the whole point of them being there is to ask you questions, even questions

that you don't like. And so I don't know how he plans on fighting this moving forward. guess is he won't. I mean, maybe what if they do just ask him questions that he likes? Maybe that's a good compromise, like if they just ask things like, how did you get so brave and powerful? But look. But that is really his idea of freedom of the press.

That is absolutely. Like you just, that's a good suit. Where did you get it from and who made it? And the tape you have on the back of your tie? Genius. You're the first person to think of that. But is it unfair to say that the press was kind of like that prior to Trump? I actually think they were.

I'm sure they don't think so, but we saw him during Bush and Obama, and I don't think they were anywhere near tough enough. And look, it might be unfair because I'm sure that there were reporters who did ask tough questions. But the thing about Trump is that it was culture shock. I mean, he's just so shocking in not only his rhetoric, but the policies that he's implemented, including the zero tolerance policy of taking children away from their parents at the border. It's just such a shock that reporters were kind of, I guess, taken out of their complacency and then forced to do their jobs, which is, I guess, one tiny silver lining in the Trump era.

He did say something in that last piece of nonsense that I wish wasn't true, but is true. Because he said, when he said, we'll leave and then you'll be sad because we get good ratings. And I wish everyone in that press pool was like, no, we would be angry if you left because that is a violation of the Constitution and the freedom of the press. But I, no, I'm sure underneath it all, they're like, yeah, it does get good ratings. And that's why we would be more upset if we couldn't do this press conference. Former head of CBS, CBS News? No, CBS overall, Les Moonvis.

Yes, Les Moonvis. He admitted during Trump's campaign that he might be terrible for America, but he's great for ratings. And CNN and so on. Yeah. They made this monster. I was just, I'm going back to the first couple of quotes real quick, because I like that they're like, okay, do you see how the court has ruled that you don't have an absolute right to the first amendment? That's why Jim Acosta is back. What? Okay, wait, that, okay, that didn't make any sense. Anyway, but I want to be fair to them because we're in the fair business, okay? You guys said he doesn't, like Anna, you said he doesn't know decorum. That's not true. I heard him say once. No, decorum is the strongest room I have. I love decorum. It's my favorite room in the world. I'm an interior decorum expert.

Okay. Okay, so let's move on to some other news. Donald Trump has appeared irritable recently, a little agitated, and he denies that he's agitated. In fact, he claims that this whole Mueller investigation and the questions that he's answering for special counsel Robert Mueller, no biggie, he's just chilling. take a look. Can you provide answers, sir? About what?

The special counsel? Do your lawyers are working on that? I'm working on that. I'm working on that. I write the answers. My lawyers don't write answers. I write answers. I was asked a series of questions.

I've answered them very easily, very easily. I'm sure they're tricked up because, you know, they like to catch people, gee, you know, was the weather sunny or was it rainy? He said it may have been a good day. It was rainy, therefore he told a lie. He perjured himself. Okay, so you know, I'd always be careful when you answer questions with people that probably have bad intentions.

But no, it's the questions were very routinely answered by me, by me. All right, so I just want to reiterate what he said. He said, I write the answers, my lawyers don't write the answers, I write the answers. CNN has previously reported that Trump has met with his lawyers several times this week. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.

I go over Mueller's questions. So, I mean, look, in effect, it would be stupid to allow him to literally write the answers. And it's smart that he's met with his lawyers. Now, I don't know. I don't know what the answers are, but my guess is he probably still perjured himself. Look, maybe this is my liberal prejudice here, but I'm not 100% certain that Donald Trump can write. So, like, I don't know.

I haven't seen full evidence that he's ever written anything other than his own name, which he very proudly shows off whenever he does it. So I'm not a hundred percent sure that he's mastered other words. But maybe this is me, maybe that's my prejudice speaking. Yeah. No, to be fair, he does do tweets. And in the tweets, he misspells, you know, what 10% of the words, capitalizes randomly for no reason, 50% of the words, including on this issue that he says he's not concerned

about it all. It was easy. That's why he sent out a tweet saying, it's a hoax. It's a terrible witch-hound. All caps, of course, screaming into the abyss. And that's what people who are not concerned often do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, he has been accused of being agitated.

Is he? I don't know. Let's hear. You on Twitter yesterday, see if it's agitated about what you might be receiving the Mueller investigation. No, I'm not agitated. To hoax. The whole thing is a hoax.

There was no collusion. Did anything trigger that set of tweets? No, not at all. No, I'm very happy. I'm very happy with a one. White House. I'm extremely happy with our country. We're doing better when the economy, maybe it's the best economy we've ever had.

They may be the best unemployment numbers and employment numbers that we've ever had. What does that even mean? Did he say best employment numbers and deployment numbers? No, unemployment and employment. Oh, oh, I see, I thought he said deployment. He denies that he's agitated in the same tone of that a guy in a bar insists that he's good to drive. Yeah.

It's like, I can just give me my keys. Just give me my keys because I am fine. There's no agitation. We're all good. We have the best unemployment numbers and employment numbers, whatever that means. Fuck place. And numbers, numbers. We have the strongest number numbers there are.

So, non-agetated people do not scream on Twitter. That's just not a thing. And so, look, on the issue of the lawyers. And it's totally right. I mean, if they're not incompetent, which is a big if, one of his lawyers is Rudy Giuliani, of course they'd write the answers for him. And at a bare minimum, what they would do is, and lawyers do stuff like this, they'll say now, we want to be clear here, Mr. President, we are not writing these answers, you are

writing these answers. This is just our suggestion for what you are writing, okay? And that way he can turn around and go, no, I wrote the answers, I wrote him. My lawyers told me, I wrote him when they gave him to me. Which, by the way, is so perfect for someone like Trump, because he likes to take the credit for everything. Yeah. So yeah, no, no, no, I got no help, I wrote those answers.

I wrote the answers, I'm a self-made man who inherited no money from his dad. No, only a million dollar loan, which I returned with interest. Which turned out to actually be $400 million, but you know, whatever, nothing. And it wasn't alone, it was just given to me. But so, but the other alternative is actually better slash worse. So look, if the lawyers did that, that's their job. It wouldn't be that big a deal. That's what they should do, right?

But there's some chance that Trump's being honest because he can't help himself. You remember that hilarious doctor's note when he was running for office where he said, this is the healthiest person who has ever run for office. He would be the healthiest president ever. How could a doctor possibly know how healthy George Washington was, let alone George W. Bush, let alone anyone. Like, I mean, I guess Taft you could argue was not that healthy. I mean, we saw those pictures of Obama at the beach.

It's kind of hard to say you're the healthiest president. You're saying you're more healthy than Prime Kennedy? Yeah. So, so Trump eventually, when he was in office, broke into, ordered his goons to break into his doctor's office and steal his own medical files, which is an unbelievable story. But he's done so many outrageous things that nobody even talks about it. Anyway, at that point, the doctor came out and said, yeah, no, I didn't write the letter. Trump wrote the letter.

Of course I didn't write the letter declaring him the healthiest person in the universe, right? What a preposterous thing, right? It was just, it was full of things that doctors obviously don't write. Yeah, yeah, like numerous doctors. Jen Gunter on Twitter, for example, who's a doctor, like broke down numerous things in a blog post of like, doctors don't say that the tests work good or like positive. It was like, it says something in the letter like the tests were all positive and go, well, what does that mean?

In some tests, in some test positive is good. Some test positive is bad. Right. In some tests it's not. It's a range. There's not yes and no. That's not how medical, no doctor in the history of doctoring writes like that. All the tests were positive, including the HIV one.

Yes. Including pregnancy. I test him positive. Right. And the last one is that he wrote the answers in the infamous now Russian meeting, the Donald Trump Jr. and Kushner and Steve Bannon, et cetera, not Bannon, sorry, Manafort, and in Trump Tower. And they said to Donald Trump Jr., hey, did you have this meeting?

And Donald Trump, on Air Force One, insisted on writing Donald Trump Jr.'s response himself. And of course, because he couldn't help himself, he lied all over that response. Then they lied that he didn't write it, later they admitted, yes, the president wrote it, and yes, a lot of things in there were not true. So if we're lucky, his lawyers will be incompetent enough to go, well, Mr. President, because he's going to insist, well, I got this, I have the best answers, I have the strongest words, I'm going to write this. And if we're lucky, his lawyers are like, all right, go for it.

And then in which case, he's in a lot of trouble. We got to take a break when we come back, more news for you, including that explosive New York Times piece and expose on Facebook. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. All right, back on a young turks comments.

Theater goddess says, I want to see a protest that when he starts abusing the press, they all just leave, take their cameras and go home to lower his all-important ratings. Now, yeah, it's absolutely right. If anyone's more obsessed with ratings, then... At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech.

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So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-Y-T. Check it out today. TV executives, it's Donald Trump. Of course. Yeah, if they all left, he'd be in a panic. He'd be like, where's my beloved cameras and spotlight?

Somebody give me this spotlight, please. But like, okay, so just quickly, experience does matter. And his experience, his whole life, has been about marketing and ratings. So he tackles everything from that mindset, and that doesn't work in politics. Yeah, but it has worked because he's managed to gain the presidency through selling empty. I mean, he managed to, in his campaign, he managed to manipulate the press and the TV stations to covering an empty podium for upwards of 45 minutes. Yeah, it works for him, let me be clear, it works for him, it doesn't work for the country

in our best interest, yeah. In fact, Ohio Packer Ash wrote on Twitter, it's amazing that after almost two years in office, The president is still obsessed with ratings. Remember the president's supposed to represent the rest of us? Not be worried about his own ratings. I know. It seems like an antiquated thought. Ross in the member section says the Trump magic decoder ring, take everything that

comes out of Trump's mouth and flip it. And if he says, believe me, that's a definite lie. Believe me, that's true. And Elliot and YouTube super chat says they left another item off their list, referring to Pelosi and Schumer, a record number of federal and local seats. nationwide for 10 years. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have the same problem that cost us 2016. Corruption.

Yes, those two unfortunately have lost, along with Obama, and an unbelievable number of seats in their reign. So if that's what being a master legislator is, no, thank you. All right, I wanna check our thermometer. We haven't checked our thermometer in a long time. So the t.com slash jank to join obviously and become a member. By the way, it's a cup of coffee, $4.99 a month, the lowest level of membership, still get you all the shows.

Yeah, and it's super easy to join, guys. We've made it easy, we've streamlined the process, t-y-t.com slash an Anna. You get to see issues that I'm passionate about on that page. In addition to being able to join as a member, $4.99 to be, you know, a member. And if you want to be an activist-level member, you get some extra goodies, $9.99. Not too bad. Yeah, it's actually $10. We decided to add the extra penny on that.

Oh, really? Yeah, because we're keeping it real. Okay. Okay. Anyway, progressive Netflix for a cup of coffee. All right, let's see the thermometer. On the left side of his, 36,457, God bless. So can I see 36,500 by the end of the show?

That seems reasonable. That seems like a reasonable ask. Can we see that? And by the way, t.yt.com slash gift during the holidays to give the gift of TYT to family and friends as well. All right, Anna, what's next? All right. The New York Times discovered that Facebook had hired a right-wing APA research company in order

to discredit any critics who went after the social media platform over Russian meddling, Cambridge Analytica, or any of the other disastrous news that broke in regard to Facebook following the 2016 election. Now the name of the organization was public, I'm sorry, Definer's Public Affairs, and after After this story broke, Mark Zuckerberg released a statement saying that he knew nothing about it and that they've cut ties with the organization. But here are some details about what this firm did. So Definer's urge reporters to explore the financial ties between George Soros and Freedom

from Facebook, a coalition of groups that had criticized the company. The idea was to persuade reporters that the coalition was an orchestrated campaign by a rich partisan opponent. Now this APO research firm didn't specialize in fake news, so I want to be clear about that. But what they did specialize in is propaganda. So when it comes to this coalition of Facebook critics, they tied it all back to George Soros, when in reality, not everyone in that group was given anything by George Soros. There were a couple people affiliated with this coalition who did receive grants, but they

They didn't receive the grants to specifically go after Facebook. And the coalition as a whole was not funded by George Soros. But it doesn't matter. There are so many anti-Semitic, you know, so much anti-Semitic anti-George Soros hit pieces out there that people will see it and they'll discredit anyone who's a part of the organization. I'm beginning to think that Facebook isn't a force for good. Of course it's not. I mean, come on.

I'm starting to feel, I mean, this is really putting me off Mark Zuckerberg's presidential bid as well. Yeah, you might be having issues with that. So let's break this down a little bit. So if you say George Soros funds money into some elections, that is true. And if you say you're against that, great, I'm against that. I'm against Soros and the Koch brothers. See, if you put it that way, then it seems like you might actually be against private financing

of elections, which is the most reasonable thing in the world, and over 90% of Americans are against that. But if you keep saying, it's just Soros, Soros, Soros, and he's the puppet master behind all of these movies, not just the elections, but he jerry-rigged it a campaign to take down Facebook. Why would he do that, right? So, and why is he the puppet master? Then you're spinning a tail that has old roots, terrible roots.

Yeah, the second you start making any illusions to think, the second you can kind of go, hang on, is the thing I'm alleging something that was drawn by Nazis. Yeah. Like, okay, maybe I'm on the wrong side of this thing. If there's a cartoon that Nazis put out that directly maps to the current conspiracy that I'm putting out into the world, maybe not, maybe not the best. I like Matt's new Nazi cartoon rule. Yeah, that's my solid. If there ever is ever a Nazi cartoon about it, don't do it. Okay.

And so when you say, hey, the Koch brothers and Mercer's, which are Republicans and Soros on the Democratic side and Steyer or whatever, and you're just thinking- Adelson and who- Right, you're just picking all the donors and it is irrespective of their religious or ethnic background, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you focus on and you frame it in a way that has these old anti-Semitic tropes, it is certainly something to be concerned about. Now, look, I don't, Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg, who run Facebook, are not anti-Semitic, they're Jewish, right?

So I don't think that they actively said, whoa, ha ha ha, let's go get source and do it in a way that's anti-Semitic. That would be preposterous. But that's why you should be careful about hiring right-wing hacks, right? And but they're not. And look, to be fair to them, Google gives a tremendous amount of money to Republicans and Republican organizations as well. And the reason they both do it is because, and actually Facebook does not give as much to politicians.

And so this is, but now they've hired a whole squad of Republicans. John Kyle is supposed to tell us what's real news and what's not real news. He's a right wing politician. And he was corrupt to begin with. He's the one that took all that huge donor money in the first place. So hiring all these Republicans because the Republicans yelled at you does not solve your problems. Unfortunately, what I was going to say is about both of them hiring lobbyists, et cetera, is that the system is so corrupt that if they don't hire them, they're behind an eight ball.

And then all of a sudden they get congressional hearings, et cetera. Google puts a lot more money into politics and there were no congressional hearings about Google. Facebook doesn't put a lot. All of a sudden, Zuckerberg's in front of a committee. So what does he do partly in reaction? Let me hire as many Republicans as I can funnel them money so I can buy them off. I get the logic of it, but it's disturbing nonetheless. Rather of fixing the many wrong things with our company, we'll just go on the attack.

We'll start money, we'll put out propaganda. They threw sex workers under the bus as well. They got behind the Sester and Foster Bills when they broke ranks with all the other internet companies to under the guise of stopping sex trafficking, essentially making lives much more dangerous and difficult for sex workers. Because again, it was like they needed to get those senators who criticized them on side. Yeah, exactly. That was buried in the middle of the New York Times piece.

I just want everyone to know, and I think at this point people who are paying attention realize this, Silicon Valley and these CEOs and COOs are not, they're actually, they remind me a lot of establishment Democrats, right? Where they say they're liberal, but they're only liberal when it comes to social issues. When it comes to other things like corruption, for instance, when it comes to protecting their bottom line and their profit. motive. When it comes to those things, they're not so progressive. Yeah, and in the case of Facebook, it goes even further than that. First of all, Anna's 100% right, anytime people say, oh, the media is liberal or Facebook and Google and social media is liberal, it's not remotely true.

It's actually half true. So on social issues, they generally are liberal, and by the way, that makes business sense. So they don't want to insult African Americans because African Americans are a big part of their customer base. They don't want to insult gay Americans, big part of their customer base. Very logical, right? And so, and if you're a right winger and you like insulting those groups, Latinos, Muslims, and the list goes on, well, sad day for you, yes, they are socially liberal, right?

But economically, it's hilarious to call them liberal. No, they want giant tax cuts, they don't want any regulation, right? And almost all their positions on the economic side are 100% conservative. And if you look at Facebook's board, almost everyone on the board is a conservative. Some of them are even social conservatives, but every one of them is economically conservative. Exactly. Yeah. So it's not a surprise that they would use the exact same tactics, OPPO research tactics that

you would see with our elected officials, especially right-wing elected officials, in these corporations. They're massive corporations. There's a bottom line. There's a profit motive. And look, and that's why we have to keep watch. It doesn't mean that the whole company is the worst, like for example, I have an iPhone. I use this example all the time.

I think Apple makes good products, but I also think they should pay their taxes. So oftentimes Apple pays no taxes, even though some years it is literally the most profitable corporation in the world. That makes no sense, that's insanity. And so when they buy off politicians and they do these kind of dirty tricks, it allows them to, you know, get away with something that the average American couldn't get away with. So look, obviously a lot of people like Facebook, that's why they use it. They have a giant customer base.

But that doesn't mean that they should be hiring groups like this to, especially given the kind of tropes that they use against George Soros to do these kind of dirty tactics. All right, we got to take a break, special thanks to Matt for joining us. Thank you so much. So good to have you. It's so nice to be here. Where can people find your work? So Matt Kirchen on most of the social media and all that kind of things.

And then Probably Science is the podcast if you want to watch that. That's Probably Science. All right, thank you. No, no, no. The podcast, by the way, is not like probably it's about science. The podcast is called Probably Science. It's called Probably Science. It's definitely Probably Science is the podcast.

It's definitely probably science, but just probably science. All right. No, I'm confused, but we'll be back. All right. You're awesome. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to 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, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.