The Young Turks - Woman DESTROYS Pathetic Trolls And Trump's Twitter Tantrum

Episode Date: April 25, 2019

Woman epically owns bigots. Trump doesn’t understand how Twitter works. Cenk Uygur, Jayar Jackson, and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Anna's out sick, it takes two men to replace one Anna's Experian, so here we are. So lots to get to in this show, including later the program, MetaWorld Peace joins us.

So that's going to be a lot of fun. He's got a lot of things going on, including a new basketball league he started. I'm thinking of doing that. I'm not sure everybody's going to join, but I'm starting to league, Jared. Why not? As long as do I get to coach or can I play? You can play. We play together anyway every Sunday.

So we do it. We have a league. You see we start the league chair? You know that? Draft. Two weeks. Okay. So all right guys, Donald Trump's a madman, you know that, but we've got details.

I mean, really, it's just unreal every time. And lots more drama. I want to get right to it. I'm in a mood to get right to the news. All right, John, what do you got for us? Okay, I've got stories and news. Go. So I'll give you both of those things.

A woman has gone viral after a photo she posted of her smiling in front of a group of Islamophobic protesters. That might seem a little bit weird, but let's take a look at the photo and give you the context. So there you see her, her name is Shema Ismail, and you see the signs in the background. They've got their Jesus shirts and they've got their anti-Islam posters and it looks like a bullhorn. Is that a bullhorn or is that a, I don't know what that is. Is it an umbrella? Yeah, you know when people are preaching in the street they had a thing?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she... Those guys look like the kind of guys you wanna hang out with, right? Exactly. Like, hey, you guys wanna go to Denny's? No. Yeah, and so let me give you some information. She tweeted on April 21st, I smiled in the face of bigotry and walked away feeling the greatest

form of accomplishment. By the way, that photo got 100,000 likes on Instagram and 150,000 likes on Twitter. And I think people just like in this really dark time of xenophobia and Islamophobia and all of that, just seeing someone who is confronted by that and doesn't let it drag her down is a very powerful image. And so she said she felt the greatest form of accomplishment. She said I really wanted to combat their hatred with kindness, honestly. I wanted them to see my face and simply walking by wasn't enough.

And the first thing I thought when I saw it was that seems at least to live. little bit dangerous. I mean, those people are, they're just protesting as far as we know peacefully. But if I was her, I would probably feel quite threatened being really close to them. And so she said, my face honestly lit up when I saw them. I walked up as they continued yelling their hateful speech. I asked the police officer if I could stand at the curb in front of the men. The officer said no. And in that moment, I felt like the biggest rebel. That's my favorite part. It's my favorite part. Yeah. And silly, he was yelling silly things like your face should be covered, and you know it's a cult when you're walking outside wearing

pajamas. Wow, they got her, ladies and gentlemen. They got her. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that spirit is what makes everybody's day, right? We love that, but like fighting with a smile, right? So this is a fun story, it's a good story, feel good, et cetera, but you know, those guys are crazy, and although I hear what you're saying, and she's brave for doing it, especially,

You know, let's put it this way, I'm a big guy, right? So I'm not in danger, I am the danger. So all like, oh, we're gonna intimidate you, are you wearing pajamas or something? No, dude, man, don't make me make you wear pajamas. So I don't know what that means, but it means something. And so look, yeah, look, but I'm, so it's easy for me to say, it's a very long way of saying, it's easy for me to say I'm not intimidated by those guys, I find them to be clowns, I'm amused by their, the fact that they lead sad, sad lives filled with fear

and hatred, and they go home and they believe all these conspiracies, like, oh my God, the Muslims are about to take over America, should we save Nebraska or Oklahoma first? Right? Like they're lunatics and they believe things that aren't remotely true. And that way, you know what she does for a living? She is a therapist who works with children on the autism spectrum. So, wow, what a danger. What a danger.

But in their minds, they're like, oh no, she's coming for us. She's going, oh my gosh, she's coming for us, right? So I feel sad for them, but at the same time since they're hateful people, like secretly amused that they lead crappy lives. So, okay, that's how I feel about it. But it's easier for me to say that. So for her to do that, I think, was just not what I would have done, but really well played, way better played than what I would.

Yeah, I picture that the person taking the picture possibly will. someone that's with her, maybe is jank-like and is the danger, you know, at least there's someone there's some kind of help in case something goes. As she mentioned, there was a police officer there, but that's not always a safe situation from the person that's standing up against bigotry and hatred in our country either. So that isn't always the protection, a lot of protection either. But when it comes to the way these guys are standing, if we see that picture again, and they're standing with their hands out like this and just looking like they're helpless, because

All this left is these signs in their bullhorns, they look like children. It's folks that never made it past eight years old. And maybe they weren't getting enough attention from their parents and they need to get attention from everyone else. And a lot of times it's based on the anger that they had and build up from what they didn't get as a kid. So now what they're looking for is acceptance for each other. Now they're all collectively hating on anybody else they can together.

Because now they're giving each other their credit, their worth now in life. And so sometimes you have to take people as just what they want as attention and give them the wrong kind of tension. Don't give them the attention they want, oh man, see how she got mad and cussed us out and call us all these names and then start flailing her hands? Yeah, she's a crazy Muslim. That's what they wanted. So when you make fun of them, make them look like clowns that they are, they definitely

don't want that because they're just kids on the inside that are still looking for something. Exactly. Can you put up the, I was just thinking of something. Can you put up one of the photos? Because I'm familiar with the sorts of arguments those gentlemen are most likely giving. And what they're worried about is they're worried about America changing. They don't want it to look like her. They're worried that things are changing.

If you had to choose of the two options, what future for America do you want? A smiling, happy, confident Muslim woman, or those fundamentally angry, broken men? And they're like they're choosing to present that dichotomy to you. And I don't think they come out of it looking very good. Yeah, but John, you know, the answer for a lot of Americans, and almost everybody who watches Fox News is, no-brainer, the angry, broken men, right? To them, the idea of America looking like a young, happy Muslim woman, I mean, it's an anathema to them.

It's the worst thing you could possibly imagine. That's their dystopia, like happy people from all different races and religions, ah! No, I mean, many would say it and not be real. The last thing Tucker Carlson wants is to hang out with those guys. Oh, you know, so Ida Rodriguez, who's on the show often, was at the debate I had with Tucker Carlson at Politicon, and she got all worked up about this dinner that Tucker Carlson was referring to about him and his friends. I didn't pay much mind to it, but she keeps going back to that, so I'm amused by it.

So here's who's not getting invited to that dinner. Those guys. No. She's not getting invited either, but neither are they. It's not like Tucker was like, I am, you know, we cannot have these Muslim people. And they're like, oh, great, Tucker, am I coming over to your, you know, mansion? No. No.

No. Yeah. On the weekends, do you think Trump is hanging out with those bikers for Trump? I don't think so. Just on a podium yelling at them, that's all he does. Although I wish he would, because I feel like all they'd have to do is spend like some amount to tie with Trump until the bikers for Trump are like, you know what, this guy's a bit of a bitch.

Maybe. I just thought it was funny. It was tweeted out by Miss Nature in response to that. What I see in the corner of my room after watching a scary movie. Is there any chance he's also it? also it? Yeah, but can you go back to that for one second because you gotta respect a guy who's terrifying and looks like you caught him in the middle of fly fishing.

I get the same exact time. Anyway, so great job by Shema Ismail. Yeah. So look, here's the vision of America that I love, and I guarantee you the right wing will not love. Why don't we open up to more immigrants and say, to the rest of the world, maybe even particularly places like Nigeria that has sent incredibly successful immigrants to America, disproportionately represented at Harvard and the top schools

Nigerian Americans are. So, and say, you know what, if you score, I'm gonna make up standards here, but you're gonna get the point. You score above a 1500 on the SATs. Look, you gotta learn English, you gotta take the SATs, and you gotta score or 95th percent out, 99th percent out, whatever the standard is. You're coming to America for free. You know why?

We want the best of the best from all across the world. And then we have amazing Nigerians and Muslims and Asians and Indians and Hindus and Buddhists all come to America so that we can revitalize our economy and bring that energy and passion and the smartest people in the world to us. Now, if you really believe in the idea of America, you would love that idea. But if you're in that Tucker Carlson group, you think, you're gonna bring Asians and Latinos and Africans, but we're bringing the best of the best. I guarantee you they will find any excuse to be like, well, I mean, I didn't, yeah, maybe

not. So that's the, and if that's what America is, I know that it will freak out the people who hate change. They're like, well, I liked it when it was mainly white people and almost all Christian. But that's the, what's great about America is that we change, we adapt, we adopt, and that's why we are more successful than others. Because if you're just reliant on one race, one ethnicity, one religion, you have less ability to adapt.

And adapting is what leads to success. Yeah. Why don't we take your first break? All right, yes, when we come back. The sad, sad loser, Donald Trump. Every day, he's got a new way of being pathetic, pathetic. So another round of crying when we return. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing the Republic, or UNFTR.

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So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today And get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained All at the same time On the same time On the same time All right, back on the young tour So let me tell you guys about a couple of things Then we'll get to pathetic Trump

On Sunday night, don't miss it Game of Thrones review And this one is for most of the marbles. Yes. Where it's episode three, so not all the marbles, but the big war is coming. So me, John, Brett, and I are going to review the battle at Winterfeld. So that was, this is the actual battle that's coming up in episode.

How do we know it's coming in this episode? Oh, they previewed it and they said it. Oh, it's coming. Yeah. Winter is not coming, it has now finally arrived. And so, I mean, really, for how many years now they've been saying it's coming? Eight years, I think. And finally this episode, it finally gets there.

Yes. And so we made predictions on who would die. Seven deaths is what I predicted. You can get that if you're a member. We do extra coverage from the members, which is predictions for next week. So t.t.com slash join to become a member to get that prediction. So you can watch it ahead of time, our predictions, and then see if it comes true. The review is for everyone and it's free and it's right after the episode.

So come to t.t.com slash live right after Game of Thrones is over and we'll review it for you guys and we have a ton of fun doing that. Okay, the other great thing is aspiration.com slash ty. Guys, we've been telling you about a lot of advantages that this has, but 2% interest rate that you can get on the money that you deposit there, that's crazy. banks are offering 0.02%. On that alone, you're nuts, not to do it. So plus no ATM fees, plus you don't have to pay any fees, plus they give away money to charity, plus it's they keep your money in clean companies. But really, 2% interest rate, when my dad heard

it, he's like, how I sign up, I sign up right away, okay? So go to aspiration.com slash TYT, make that happen. Okay, just a couple of comments from you guys. They're all quick fun. Denise from the member section says about the bikers for Trump and how they would leave them. They totally would, she says. No biker I've ever met could stand even five minutes with that Cheeto 45. Yeah. Okay. Yes. The only thing I'll add, 100% right, there are still some hard bikers or whatever. But as a guy rode motorcycles for many years, as a guy who literally owned a Harley Davidson, the vast majority of bikers are weekend warriors. They're just dentists who own a motorcycle.

So the bikers for Trump have leather vests, that's true. That does not mean that they're bad assets. I love how John is representing the soft biker community. That's not what I was intending by that, but I did ride for many years. Okay. Shifty says, Bikers for Bernie, now that would be cool. Then we go to Twitter and Old Punk 721 says, I know bikers, real bikers, and they can't stand him, every last one is a Bernie supporter.

Dang. Interesting, okay. So I'll imagine this like, Bikers for Trump versus Bikers for Bernie standoff. I don't know how that gets resolved, maybe with a smiling Muslim woman, but I like the idea. She rides by in a Vespa and takes a picture as she goes through. That's not a bad idea. All right, what's next, yeah? Okay, Trump is next.

This week, Donald Trump met with the CEO of Twitter. And although there are a number of, I think, legitimate and serious concerns that people have about the way Twitter is being run, its protections for various groups, its effect on American politics, Donald Trump pretty much made the entire thing about himself. A large percentage of the meeting, which included senior White House officials such as Trump's social media director Dan Scavino, was spent addressing the subject of at real Donald Trump's follower account. The president stated his belief that he had lost some of his roughly 50,000.

million followers in anti-Trump, anti-conservative Twitter purges, according to a source familiar with the meeting. Now, thankfully in this case, the leader of Twitter was there to correct him, and Jack Dorsey had to explain to the president that like other Twitter users, at real Donald Trump periodically loses followers when the site deletes fake or bought accounts. Dorsey even said he himself had lost followers as a result of Twitter's efforts to delete fake accounts, but I am gonna guess that Trump remained sure that he's being targeted. That's the conservative thing.

Dorsey yells fake accounts, Trump yells back, fake news. So look, let's get to the heart of the story. The president is a child. And he, look, all the different things happening in the world. There's a humanitarian crisis in Yemen. You know, in Myanmar, people are being driven out. You've got deaths in Afghanistan, we're gonna report on a little bit later. You've got all the different problems in the country now.

The farmers are being devastated by Donald Trump's tariffs. Wages are stagnant. This guy is spending his day when he's the president of the United States of America. It's supposed to be looking out for 330 million Americans, bringing in the CEO of Twitter to yell at him. It turns out, you know what his number one complaint is? Obama has more Twitter followers than he does. Yeah.

Oh my God. Even though he is so much better at Twitter than Obama is. Oh my God. Evidently not, Donald. Wow. Yeah. I mean, if my eight-year-old was like, not fair, you know, I'm better at Twitter than my sister, but she has more followers, I'll be like, dude, look, I got to teach you

how, you know, about the, I don't want to say man up, I'm just saying like, we got to, you You got to teach you how to exist in the world, right? And realize how you've got to, you know, be responsible for yourself and not complain at every turn and not compare yourself to others nonstop. But this is not an eight-year-old. This is the president of the United States. We cannot get used to what a buffoon he is. And also a conspiracy theorist. Oh, I think Twitter is discriminating against Republicans.

We had the strongest fake bots, and now they're taking them away. He doesn't think they're fake bots. He doesn't understand bots, he doesn't understand anything. And he thinks that Twitter would go after the most powerful man on earth. Yeah, that'd be a logical move for a company. And so it's another Alex Jones move by Donald Trump, but more important than anything else is wasting his time doing this unbelievable stuff. Just a mental, I can't say it, but you know what?

Like, no, one of the lowest IQ people ever, ever in any public office. Because they doesn't have a full thought process. If you wonder what's the reason you want to have your Twitter followers stay up and whatever numbers you have, I think he's at 59 million. Again, as you already point out, his problem was in comparison to the previous president. His problem is the numbers there. But if you worry about your numbers, the point is, like if I lost, I don't know, 10,000 Twitter followers, I'd be like, wow, what did I do?

And I'd be like, man, there's 10,000 less people that might say. see the genius of J.R. Jackson if I was the idiot that this guy is, to say something like that. So I'd be worried about fewer people seeing what I have to say. If I'm the president of the United States, trust me, no one has any problems hearing what you have to say. You're the president. Twitter isn't your microphone to the world. If you can't tweet, no one's going to hear about what you have to say. Hey, take a press conference, idiot. Hey, go in front of any camera. They'll record you every day talking. If you think you need to have a bigger voice in the world.

Yeah. Don't listen. Twitter isn't the only channel. Exactly, yeah. There's Instagram. But he doesn't think that far. He's worried about in comparison. Now, look, one more thing for me, it's so sad how insecure he is.

And nothing is ever going to cure that insecurity. Because he has no confidence, and he knows in reality. And this part, I don't know, but I, you know, and I get I'm doing a little bit of pop psychology to try to explain why he's such a buffoon. His dad, who was a successful businessman, not a good guy, but a successful businessman, must have been so disappointed in this dummy little kid he had. And he called him all those things, sad, baby, dummy, the things that he repeats now as a grown man in his 70s on Twitter, right? And every time he did something, he blew it, and his dad had to rescue him, you know, total failure in high school,

total failure at Fordham, total failure at Penn. And every time his dad rescues him, six different bankruptcies, his dad rescues him. And every time probably his dad, it was a really mean guy, was like, dummy, idiot, sad baby, right? And he internalized all that. One time a biographer asked him, why don't you any do any introspection? And he's like, what? He's like, looking into yourself and trying to figure out what, excuse me, of course, he doesn't know what that word means.

And so he's like, he literally said, and this is the most true thing Donald Trump has ever said, I'm afraid what I would find. So that's who Donald Trump is. That's why he pulls in Jack Dorsey and yells at him for getting rid of fake Twitter followers because he's so insecure. I think that there is a second reason, which we've talked about before, which I do want to turn to, because I think this is important beyond Donald Trump. Although I want to read two of his tweets basically about this topic, to give you an idea

of how deep the conspiracies go when it comes to this. He said, quoting Maria Bartaromo, the best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump. Remember, she was one of the Fox News people at debates in the last cycle, so bear that in mind. So true, but they don't treat me as well as a Republican, very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on, whatever that means, constantly taking people off list, big complaints from many people, different names, over 100 million, I think he's there, he's talking about Obama, but should be much higher than that if Twitter wasn't playing their political games.

No wonder Congress wants to get involved, and they should, must be more and for fairer companies to get out the word. So what happened to like social media bootstraps? Just tweet interesting stuff and then people might follow you, but that's more difficult. Anyway, I think he brings in Jack Dorsey possibly just because it's all about him and he wants more followers. But the argument that he's making, both to Jack Dorsey and also in these tweets, is the same thing that conservatives make to Twitter all the time and to Facebook as well.

And what they wanna do is whine, wine, whine, louder and louder and louder, never relenting until just to get them off their backs. These social media companies don't stop discriminating against them. They begin to advantage them. They get them involved in all of their programs. They give them preferential treatment. And even when they do that, it's still whining, whining, whining. Facebook has done that for a couple of years now and still they're constantly whined at by

the right, even though constant analysis shows that they get the same reach. as anyone else and all of that. And it worked on Facebook. And now they want that on Twitter. They want protections, they want to get involved. And the way that they're gonna do that is by playing the victim card, the fake false victim card as often as is necessary. Any basketball fan knows about this, is winding to the refs.

Phil Jackson was legendary at it. Now he does it a more sophisticated version. Trump does, okay, but Republicans as a party have been doing this for a long time. All they ever do is cry. And it's true, it works. You know who Facebook put in charge of fact checking, et cetera? Nothing but Republican. John Kyle is heading one of the most important projects at Facebook to do fact checking.

John Kyle is a massively right-wing Republican former senator from Arizona. The other day I heard the Daily Caller, a total fake news operation. The job is to do propaganda, not news, they're not at all related to news. And the Daily Color is somehow helping to do fact checking at Facebook. My God, that, what? And look, most of Facebook's board as Republicans. And so, but they still cry. And so then Facebook goes, okay, let me bring in another Republican.

That wasn't good enough. Now Republican propaganda. And now, okay, let's do this, and let's do that. And they pile on and pile on, pile on, I just, one day I want somebody to walk up and actually say the truth to these guys, stand up to them and say, when Trump says, oh, The pick an outlet, YouTube discriminating against me, and they do this all the time. The right wing does. Oh, young Turks, they're so big on YouTube.

Look, you have a right to speech, which YouTube gives you. You don't have a right to be popular. And so they're constantly crying about, oh, we don't get enough news, why aren't we as popular as the young Turks? So I would love for somebody to step up whenever the next time one of these right wingers is crying and go, and God, it would be great if it was. Anyway, just to say, and especially if it was the Trump, are you done crying yet, God, that would be so powerful.

But of course they can't, because they're all afraid of Republican temper tantrums. And what is the result of that? And that's why this story is important. Because Twitter is part of the media, the press. So the Republicans threaten to use their power to attack the press, the government attacking the press, doing a core First Amendment violation, they say, oh, we'll do that. We'll call you in front of Congress, we'll yell at you, we'll take away tax advantages. Trump threatened that with the Washington Post, we'll do X, Y, and Z.

We will punish you if you do not give us an unfair advantage. I'm so tired of their crying. And the last thing I want to say is, I mean, obviously, like, concerns over, you know, whether they're advantaging one side of a political debate and all that is important by itself. But I very much think that this strategy has potentially life and death consequences. Donald Trump has violated the terms of service of Twitter multiple times, but he will never be taken off of Twitter because Twitter is too scared of what would happen if they were to do that, even though his tweets on multiple occasions have materially increased the chance that certain

politicians in America will be assassinated. Maxine Waters got death threats as soon as he targeted her on Twitter. The same thing happened with Ilhan Omar. Caesar Sysoc sent pipe bombs to all the targets that Trump continually tweets about. A lieutenant in the Coast Guard wanted to start some sort of race war by shooting up a bunch of the politicians again that Donald Trump, and almost exclusively Donald Trump, in some cases like with Blumenthal, talk about. And so he gets that platform, he will never be silenced on that platform, even if it means

that you might have to lose a couple of congressmen along the way. Trump can only do things like this from the supporting it. So you know, it's one of those questions. You can't ask Trump about it because we know what blabber is going to come out of his mouth Ask the people who support him, ask the elected officials, Republicans who continue to act like none of this is happening. It's why all that stuff he gets away with, because we act like it just didn't happen, because other people in some level of power don't do anything about it.

So anytime Mitch McConnell stand in front and has one of his press conferences, ask him, do you approve of the president calling in the CEO Twitter to talk about followers when he's concerned about the border, when he's concerned about North Korea, possibly anymore, forgot about those guys, when he's concerned about Iran, the Iran deal, when he's heard about infrastructure, When he's concerned about health care, because, hey, the president said you guys are going to be the party of health care. When he brought in the CEO of Twitter to complain about followers, where does that get your party to become the party of health care?

Can you answer the question, Mitch? Can you tell us? Because you're the one of supporting him. You're the one who we're going to talk about later, said you're going to back him up at every turn to make sure nothing else happens except for what he wants to happen. He wants to talk about Twitter, but do you support him? Yeah. Imagine if Obama had brought in the head of Twitter to complain that he didn't have enough

followers. Fox News would go, no. I can't believe he's wasting the president's time on this. I can't believe it. I think it would have been my space at that time. But yeah. Look, we got a graphic from Fox News of their complaints of Obama, okay? They wound up criticizing him because he puts mustard on his hamburgers.

And they called him President Poupon. Now imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. And he spent every single day crying and deeply insecure and wasting everybody's time as senior advisors of the White House to yell at Twitter for not having enough followers. So look, for the manga guys, I got a question for you. Are you proud that the president that you support cries all day long? Does that make you feel a surge of pride? Like, ah, my president cries better than anyone else does.

And to Donald Trump, I have a question. Are you ever going to stop crying? Let's turn to something slightly different. Donald Trump is apparently done with investigations and not just the Mueller investigation. He's apparently ordering the executive branch to effectively no longer cooperate with any call for documents or testifying before Congress or anything like that. And here we have three ways that that's playing out. So overall, in an interview with the Washington Post, Trump said that complying with congressional

requests was unnecessary after the White House cooperated with special counsel Robert S. Muller's, the third's, I've never seen it written out in a full like that probe of Russian the defender of the realm, you know, the first man and the Andles, and the president's own conduct in office. So he complied with that, so he doesn't need to comply with anything else, although bear in mind that he never testified in that case. And he said in particular, there's no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it's very partisan, obviously very partisan. And so specifically, what is he doing now? Well, on Tuesday, two White House officials said the administration plans to fight a subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee for former

White House counsel Donald McGahn by asserting executive privilege over his testimony. And one little added bit of spice in that paragraph right there is that he's been bragging for the past week after the Mueller report came out, that I never used executive privilege, never, don't testify, executive privilege, never. And so they don't want Don McGahn to testify because Don McGahn knows what actually went on. And in particular, he was involved in the, perhaps the clearest example of obstruction of justice, when Trump ordered him to start the process of getting Mueller fired. Yeah, that's Exhibit A in the case against Donald Trump, if there ever is a case for obstruction

of justice. And then, of course, he also famously told him again to lie about it. So, but here's the great ironic twist in this story. So he says, well, I already had him cooperate with you guys, so I don't want him cooperating anymore, and I'm going to use executive privilege. Well, since he already waived executive privilege to have McGahn talk to Mueller, it's if you, that legal principle is once you wave it, you can't bring it back. There's a colloquial way of referring to that, you can't put the toothpaste back in the

tube. So once you waved it, it's gone, so that means that he definitely does not have a legal ground to stand on. McGahn must testify. Now, I think that as with everything else they're doing, they're just trying to drag it out. They have no case at all. But they're like, well, maybe we'll just come it up in the courts, and then it'll take longer for McGahn to testify.

And so maybe we'll run out the clock and they won't be able to impeach us. Yeah, and we'll see, I think they're gonna keep pushing on it. We do know that William Barr has announced that next week he will actually be testifying before Congress. So that is something, although Barr doesn't have the not, like Barr can talk about why he deceived the public with his memo in the way that he did, why he called that completely unnecessary, weird press conference for the Mueller report came out, but he doesn't really know anything about what the Mueller report covered because he wasn't involved in those actions.

Don McGahn actually was. But in addition to that, the administration directed Carl Klein, a former White House personnel security director, not to comply with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee, prompting the panel to move to hold him in contempt of Congress. In a letter to Klein's lawyer obtained by the Washington Post, White House Deputy Counsel Purra wrote that a committee subpoena asking Klein to appear, quote, unconstitutionally encroaches on fundamental executive branch interests. And so why do they want Klein to testify?

He's accused of retaliating against a whistleblower who raised concerns that 25 people who were denied security clearances by career officials were then granted the clearances by political appointees. Klein allegedly placed files out of the reach of whistleblower Trisha Newbold, who has dwarfism after she voiced her concerns. So for a second, before I read that, I had some sympathy for Klein because his lawyer said, look, we've got two equal branches of government, one telling us to testify and the other one telling us not to testify.

So what are we supposed to do? So Klein has now moved to the Department of Defense, so they're saying that's still an executive branch, so we're going to listen to the people who are employing us, the executive branch. And you can see we're in a hard spot. And I thought, well, you know, I don't agree with the Trump administration, but that's an interesting point that Klein's attorney's making. Then I read what John just read to you and I thought, I have no sympathy for Klein ever, ever, ever, ever about anything.

That's, the administration is filled with monsters. Who does that? Who's like, oh yeah, you want to be a whistleblower? I'm not gonna imitate it. But I mean, it's ridiculous, yeah. I mean, it's just, God, there's such terrible people. The only way you can work for someone and do the things that he's telling you to do, you kind of have to be a bad person yourself because it'd be the first day if you happen,

you know, maybe you didn't vote for Trump and you happen to be still working within the canals of government. And then he says, you know, do this from me. And you say, wait a second, I've been here for a while. That doesn't make any sense. I have to either do something about this or leave. I can't connect myself to this. We talk about it's an everyday thing.

When you're a kid, your mom says it seven, hey, don't hang around any kids are doing any bad stuff. You're going to be connected to them too. That's just, that's basic. So when you, when you decide to align yourself with someone who's doing these types of things, you've already said, I'm okay with that now. So the sympathy definitely doesn't reach that point. And also, we see this pattern.

We talk about the lawlessness of Trump. And when he told the border agents, hey, when there's asylum seekers come in, just tell them there's no room. And when that comes down on you, I'll take, or just forget about it, I'll take care of it, whatever that means. And then their superiors told him, hey, if you do it, it's on you and you alone. He just has a pattern of telling people to break the law for him and him only because he can do nothing about it or something about it and he'll figure it out later.

And he never does actually help him. It's the same thing from the rallies. Hey, punch that guy and I'm sure I'll pay your legal bills. How many legal bills did he pay? He doesn't pay his catering bills, but his legal bills. So Representative Elijah Cummings put out a statement about the Klein incident saying the White And Mr. Klein now stand an open defiance of a duly authorized congressional subpoena with no assertion of any privilege of any kind by President Trump.

Based on these actions, it appears that the President believes that the Constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials it will to violate their legal obligations, and that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight. Now understand, we have a third example of this that we're gonna do, but just based on that, my reaction to this whole thing, all three of these and the other stories like that will come is that's what I've been saying. That's everything that I've been saying. The only reason he complied with any of this was because he was afraid that there might

be some sort of consequences. The Democrats in saying that even though there's obvious obstruction of justice detailed in the Mueller report, they say we're not gonna do anything about it. And so he justifiably responds with, well then why would I go along with any of this? If there's no consequences, if I can do whatever I want, why would I let my people testify? Why would I give documents? Why would I release my taxes? You've said that I am effectively a dictator if I want to be.

If I want to sit on the throne, I can just sit on the throne and you're not going to do anything about it. And this is like one week after the Mueller report. He's just getting comfortable right now. Imagine he's got another year and a half of president. He could get a second term. Imagine what he's going to be like now that he's been told that there will be no consequences for anything that he does.

Yes, and it's not just about the Mueller report anymore. It's not about the Russia investigation, this security clearance has nothing to do with Russia. That's what I'm saying. Right. Why comply with anything? Judicial orders. Yeah, and so Nancy Pelosi has opened the door to him being completely lawless by saying I will not enforce the law.

But it's not just her, unfortunately, Barack Obama also opened the door here because Eric Holder refused to testify in front of Congress on a nonsense issue that they made up about guns, the Fast and the Furious program. totally debunked in the press. If I was Holder, I would have got in and yelled at them, but I would have complied. And so since he didn't comply, now the Republicans are going, well, Holder didn't do it. Don't open the door. And Obama opened the door, just a little bit on a lot of different issues, which now Trump is running through.

Now, the third example of this is, and this is all just in like a 48-hour period, the Treasury Department defied a second demand from House Democrats to turn over six years of President Trump's tax returns. This is, there's no, there's no legal standing to refuse that. The regulation is as clear as any government writing has ever been. They're just not complying with it because, again, what's the difference? There's no consequences. We talk about when people are punished.

You talk about how you're supposed to set a precedent. No one's gonna do this if we punish people. Or this guy's entire life, the president, his entire life he's been let off the hook for doing things the wrong way and bad ways and illegal ways, and he learned his lesson. If you learn the lesson one way, the reason why many people believe in the death penalty, oh man, I'm not going to do that crime because they might kill me, well, if you continue to do the crimes and then we allow it to just move on his entire life, why wouldn't he continue to do it?

Probably in his own words, he'd be stupid to not walk through that door. When you talk about his tax returns, I'd be stupid not to pay no taxes if you let me, and they let him continue to do all of these things, so why not? Which leads to the ramifications of not turning over the tax. I'm actually surprised that the Treasury Department is taking its time with it. Mnuchin says that they're going to give a final answer. They've defied Congress twice, but we're going to give a final answer on May 6th. You know, if he doesn't turn over the tax returns, there could be legal consequences.

If the Democrats had a spine, they could order him arrested. I know, hey, Treasury- You're talking about Mnuchin. Yeah, the secretary of the treasury being arrested, well, that's an elite. I mean, that's the top of the elites. So, of course, the Democrats are like, ooh, that might mean one day, I might have to abide by the law. So they're going to be very, very reluctant to do that. But the reality is, if you didn't follow a subpoena from Congress, I guarantee you, you would be arrested.

Exactly. And so, and now if they did that, then everybody, they'd have everybody's attention. And I wonder if Mnuchin, I mean, look, I can't imagine that he would, he's, he's concerned about that because the Democrats are so weak that it would be just shocking beyond belief for them to actually enforce the law. Okay? But I wonder if Mnuchin is concerned about that and that's why he hasn't made up his mind yet. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

People seem to think there's been an effort to muddy the waters around this. Like Trump has come out and said that I'm not going to release them. That's a nonsense statement. It has no relationship with what's going on. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump. They're not asking Donald Trump to release his taxes. This is the Treasury Department. He is the head of the executive department, but Mnuchin is responsible for complying with the law.

And so if I was Mnuchin, I would be at least a little bit worried. Although I think that there's a better than 50% chance that Nancy Pelosi is just going to say, you know what, we'll let the voters decide in two years. It's a better than 90% chance. Yeah. All right, now you know what we think. TYT.com slash impeach. All right, we got to take a quick break, guys.

When we come back, if you thought all these guys were bad, first of all, you are correct. Second of all, wait till you get a load of Republican in the state of Washington and what he's up to. There is no bottom to the barrel. 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. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

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Check it out today. 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 the Young Turks. Jank John and J.R. with you guys. Matt Strachbine from the member section says, Trump is worried about his Twitter numbers, really?

Has he seen the polls lately? So I'm obsessed with this one poll that I quoted for you guys yesterday. 49% of Americans say they will definitely vote against Donald Trump. Yeah. That's, I mean, already good night, Irene. Yeah, people don't know what they want. Okay, all right, okay. Look, I'm not saying I'm the last guy in the world to be overconfident, but that is a devastating number.

He lost the popular one last time too. Yeah, all right, so DJ McCarthy says, I'd rather have him waste time on nonsense than on his horrible policies. Well, that's fair, okay, good point. I'm me, Papito, says on Twitter, Lady Gaga has more Twitter followers than Lady Trump. Oh, I didn't even realize that. I just, Burgundy will read anything in the Twitter machine. Okay, wait till he finds out, he says. And then finally, YouTube super chat, Ronald Reese says, investigate every top congressional

leader starting with Mitch McConnell. Well, funny you mention that, because the next story is about Mitch McConnell. Really fast, and I only want to say this if we're not going to talk about it for very long, but I just have to know if you saw, so Chris Seleza and that guy that you weirdly said in an email that you think that I'm a fan of, Nate, something? Nate Silver? No, not Nate Silver, the other one. I don't remember exactly.

Anyway, they have, so Crystal Liza has his articles on CNN or whatever, and the article is number one power ranking, Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders, and the whole article is all the reasons he thinks he's the one to beat. Chris Liza and the guy, Harry Enton. And the whole time I was reading it, I was like, is this a trap? Where does the turn come in this? But it was just, I guess it's a trap long term, but the article is just positive towards Bernie. I know, isn't that, but think about how funny that is that, like, when there is one positive

article about a progressive in the mainstream media, we're like, is it a trap? That gives you a sense of which way they go. Exactly. Okay, let's talk about Mitch McConnell. Perhaps fearing a progressive president coming out of the 2020 election, Mitch McConnell is apparently gearing up to once again stop anything from getting through the Senate. We have a video of him talking about his plans right here. So what I want you to know is this isn't just some, you know,

young woman from New York who just got elected to Congress. It's much broader than that. So I think we're going to have a debate next year about what America ought to be like and stay tuned because all of us collectively are going to determine which direction we're going to take next year. Next year, if I'm still a majority leader of the Senate after next year, none of those things are gonna pass the Senate. They won't even be voted all. So think of me as the Grim Reaper.

The guy is gonna make sure that socialism doesn't land on the president's death. Well, before we go on to his record-breaking hypocrisy, Mitch, Mission accomplished. We already thought of you as a grim reaper. I mean, look at how Republicans don't care about voters at all. Like Mitch McConnell, all he cares about is his donors, because which politician in their right mind would tell their voters, think of me as the grim reaper. Yeah. It's like the least popular thing you could possibly be, right?

But he's like, who cares about the voters, these plebians? No, no, no. Hey, Coke brothers, right here. I'm gonna stop all things that might help average Americans, Medicare for all, green new deal. Hey, health insurance companies, I'm the grim reaper. Give me money, give me money, give me money. It is brazen. Yeah, yeah, even if the Democrats yet again win another election, I mean, you know, you have

to go back quite a while to have them losing the popular vote. Just presidential election after presidential election, they just won the midterm. So if you take control of the house in the midterms, then you get the president of your party the next time still, no, don't. I don't care, not interested in what the people are obviously looking for. I'm gonna continue to obstruct. But you also mentioned the hypocrisy. So it was just like two weeks ago, he wrote an op-ed, where he was talking about people being

unfair to Donald Trump with their investigations and things like that. And he said this new, across the board, obstruction is unfair to the president, and more importantly, to the American people, who I love. It's mindless, undiscriminating obstruction for the sake of obstruction. What he just promised you he would do on tape, you saw it for yourself. He goes on to say, it's like they're a bunch of grim reapers. He did not say that last part, but he might as well. I mean, you heard him say, I'm going to obstruct everything, I don't care what it is. And just two weeks ago, he said, can you believe Democrats are obstructing everything?

They don't care what it is. They just don't care at all. And one of the other things that Mitch McConnell relies on other than the donors is the corporate media. He's like, oh, I'm just gonna go to Washington, I'm a respected member of the establishment, and I'm a Republican, so I'll cry and I'll whine and I'll yell and I'll intimidate, and I'll tell the media, you better call it 50-50, even though I broke the record on filibusters when Obama was president, and I blocked the Supreme Court justice for over a year, unheard

of in American history. Then I'm gonna blame Democrats for doing something a lot less. And then I'm gonna do even worse if another Democrats can, but you must call it 50-50. And the media in masks was, yes sir, absolutely sir, 50-50. We can't tell sir who's doing the obstruction. You just told us that you will block every single bill under a Democratic president and that your nickname should be Grim Reaper. But I can't tell who's doing the obstruction.

I'm gonna call it 50-50. It's not the first time. It's just the way it works. Remember at the CNN Town Halls with Bernie, these last ones? They had the marathon of town halls. And Bernie Sanders came out and was talking about allowing people from prison to vote and even the Boston bomber. And they said, oh, aren't you giving your opponents a political ad for you right now?

And he said, I don't care. I'm not sure when we're going to figure out that they're consistently giving political ads. Hey, Donald Trump comes up with nicknames. He has war room meetings about how can I come up with nicknames for my political opponents because that gets everybody jazzed up? This guy gave you a nickname for him. Call him the Grim Reaper every time. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, every time they mention him, call him the Grim Reaper.

The self-proclaimed Grim Reaper of the Senate, Mitch McConnell says this. Grim Reaper, Grim Reaper, Grim Reaper, I'm not making up childish names. He did it himself. In the next ad, there should be a dark cloud that comes over him. And he's got a black hood on his head. The Grim Reaper, Mitch McConnell, the entire election. If I'm here, I will be the Grim Reaper. So say, do you want the Grim Reaper?

Party of Health Care, are you about to die? Here comes the Grim Reaper. It's too easy. He keeps giving you ammunition and you won't take it. I'd like to hear, I'm the Grim Reaper and I approve this message. Yeah. Well, look, what JR said there is super powerful and better than what I was going to say. So if the Democrats were strong, they would beat Mitch McConnell easily.

So I was going to say that one of the things he's opposed to and says that he will never allow a vote on is a $15 minimum wage. So he's saying, I'm the grim reaper of your wages. I will never let you let them raise your wages in Kentucky. And you run that ad and people are going to be mad. But Jair is right, and it's worse, if we don't have healthcare as a right in this country, and that's the current state we're in right now, 28 million people don't have health insurance in this country.

If your kid gets cancer, it's a death sentence from the Grim Reaper. He says too much, I'm sorry, John. Trump says we're the party of healthcare. Mr. McConnell comes and says, please stop saying it because we don't have a plan. All of that is documented, we know it happened. And then so after they come forward and continue to say, hey, we don't have anything to do with healthcare, the Grim Reaper steps and it says, let's keep talking about it because we're trying to kill people.

It will be a direct quote. You don't even have to misconstrue what they're saying or give a political spin. They said it. Remember the death bennels? It said these Democrats are trying to kill you. He just said, I will kill you. Yeah, so guys, spread this video, man. Because unfortunately, the Democratic leadership is not very good at this.

So just, especially if you live in Kentucky or you know someone who lives in Kentucky, let him know what Mitch McConnell is up to. He's up for reelection right now. And he's gonna hurt your family's wages, healthcare, et cetera, he just announced it. So send this video to everybody that lives in Kentucky. I am like 98% on your guys' side. The 2% that I disagree with you is that you guys are both acting as if we are not in our building that is filled with talented writers and editors and if people who can film things

and animators that could, and we got a guy could do voices and we could make that ad, let's do it. Well, we did want against Ted Cruz to help Beto O'Rourke, and he almost won. That was us. He was pulling it three points for that. No, I do want to say one last thing. The Republicans think that calling things socialist is going to work, and they're so cocky and confident about that, oh, we're not going to have socialism in America.

I think they're in for a rude awakening. It's a trap. So come closer, come here, right? Because at some point, we're going to have to have a national conversation about what does socialism mean. It's actually stunning that it hasn't happened yet. And I blame, of course, everyone in the media, because they just keep using the word without ever defining it.

Do you mean Venezuela or do you mean Norway? What do you mean socialist, right? And so it's absolutely a journalistic malpractice not to define it. But I also partly blame Bernie Sanders and some of the other folks who call themselves Democratic Socialists. You gotta get out there and tell people what you mean. But look, there's still plenty of time and there's a long time between now and the election. And we're gonna have that national conversation.

And when people find out that what it means is you get healthcare and you don't have to pay premiums and your wages go up and you get maternity care. They're gonna be like, well, that's socialism? And by the way, the cops, the fire department, and the military are all part of socialism. The government runs those programs. That's what socialism is. So it's in reality, of course, a mixed economy. We have one, Norway, one has one, et cetera, right?

But when you have that conversation, people are going to, that sounds pretty good. So Mitch McConnell, come and see. I love that you take as your catchphrase of Rimsy Bolton. Well, if he could be Grim Reaper. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think you found something where, oh my God. Oh, man, that's scary.

And I approve this message. All right, oh, no, we gotta go. Okay. To everybody, surprise. All right, we got a lot of interesting stories left for you guys, including the one I've been promising you guys about the insane Republican. If you go, Trump was bad, McConnell was bad. until you get a load of the Republican from the state of Washington

and what he's up to. So we'll be right back. 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, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.