the country it's go time! ♪ the west course version of what cenk just said john boehner, thursday's press conference where he took to task or president president obama for the strategic travel that he has employed in going around the country. this is what speaker boehner had to say yesterday. >> our country is facing major economic and fiscal challenges and yet here is the president wasting time on a fake fight to try to gain his own recollection. these are the types of political stunts and frankly they aren't worthy of his office. this is the biggest job in the world, and i have never seen pat make it smaller, and the president keeps attempting to invent these fake fights because he does haven't a record or success or positive agenda for our country. it is simple as this, the emperor has no clothes. >> cenk uygur how much does this annoy you? >> there are 2 things that drive me crazy. the republicans can say anything they want, and often do. he also called the president pathetic. can you imagine if president obama called john boehner or any republican pathetic! all of their heads would explode. but this goes on and on and on. look i'm not for soft peddling things. all i want is equality okay. so if both sides went at it like that fantastic. but i don't know why republicans get to keep punching democrats in the face and the democrats don't get to respond in kind. >> and when you hear boehner say things like the president is playing petty politics. the president is traveling as any president has done. he is saying you know, baner is all over the place, and he is talking about there's nothing on jobs spending on gas prices. but it can all be sin that sized as we saw yesterday vice president biden i think has the line of the campaign. listen to john boehner say whatever he wants. but cenk listen to the vice president talking. >> osama bin laden is dead and general motors is alive. >> you know, and this is about osama bin laden in a way because the democrats have neutralized with the success of the elimination of osama bin laden, they have neutralized that issue for the republicans. not only that, even bill clinton is coming to the side of president obama, and this is i think a spectacular ad. ♪ >> it's one thing george bush said that was right. the president is the decider in chief. nobody can make that decision for you. look, he knew what would happen. suppose the navy seals had gone in there and it hadn't been bin laden. suppose they had been captured or killed. the down side would have been horrible, but he reasoned. i cannot in good conscious do nothing. he took the harder and the more honorable path, and the one that produced, in my opinion, the best result. >> it's not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. he was referring to the hunt for osama bin laden. >> he had to decide and that's what you hire a president to do. you hire the president to make the calls when no one else can do it. >> cenk is that not an unbelievably powerful ad? >> yeah, it is very effective. let me tie a couple of these things together. john boehner talked about it is petty politics. who are you kidding? of course they are playing politics they are politicians! that's what they do! they play politics! but when president obama is going around the country, i'm a little uncomfortable on how we're spending public money on that tour. george w. bush did that for basically eight years. it was one giant ad campaign. and when george bush got a fly in the house, he was like i caught a fly, they would do a press conference! george bush so tough he caught a fly! who are they kidding? i'm going to bring in another voice here. michael hastings, buzzfeed correspondent and "rolling stone" contributing editor, every other publication i can think of, covering the campaign here for buzzfeed. you were at bidens speech what is your take on it. >> you have the anti-war president, barack obama who is now giving -- one of his major pitches to the constituents that hey, look i killed a guy, and i killed him really good and i'll keep reminding you again and again and again. and you had vice president biden talking to the crowd and hit this bin laden point. and there's an interesting reaction, because i don't know that his base is so comfortable doing the yee-haw sort of attitude. foreign policy victories generally don't win elections. the first bush found out about that when thinking he could ride to victory on the gulf war. so if they overplay their hand on bin laden, it could come back to backfire. >> i don't think that bin laden is going to win him the election by any stretch, but i think it is really important. no matter the hypocrisy of the bush administration the fact that they were a grotesque failure in their enhanced interrogations, if president obama hadn't gotten him, it would be i can't believe obamaing didn't get bin laden. >> i think up to a point, but we saw this in 2004 where you had john kerry reporting for duty. and it turns out the people you really want to get excited about john kerry aren't that type. this might be my whacky crazy there is hastings again being unpatriotic and what not but i personally felt at the speech, listening to this -- the guggenheim documentary, i just thought it was a little unseemly. and maybe they are right. maybe everyone is going to get excited about it. >> you are outliving me on that one. because i rather enjoyed when they killed bin laden but i'm kind of a bad guy. one more thing, michael here. it is really ironic because george w. bush was the one guy that seemed to take advantage of a foreign policy situation. iraq was going so poorly he said don't switch horses in midstream, because i screwed this up so royally, let me finish otherwise we're all in trouble. >> the second bush played foreign policy and politics almost worse than anyone else. i -- i completely agree with that. and i think the best bet for president obama as you say, maybe remind them of bin laden and hope everyone forgets about afghanistan come november 6th. >> yes, because the republicans offered to stay longer in afghanistan. and the american people don't like the afghanistan war at all. >> that's true. and there's nothing the republicans can say, really to counter bin laden. they seem pretty weak and petty bay saying maybe we would have done the same thing. you had eight years to do it, and you didn't do it. >> and they were able guys to rest this issue away which is any time you can neutralize the opponent as they have done it's the most important thing. he is going to have no place to go, is mitt romney. i think they are barking up a tree that they are not going to get up right now. when we come back we'll continue this bicoastal extravaganza of "the young turks." state form under attack because of their involvement with alec. >> $1.2 billion to a solar company that is building a plant in mexico. and half of billion dollars to a car company that is building cars in finland. >>how's college life, honey? >>its great, but i'm already getting homesick. >>i've left something for you in your suitcase. >>thanks mom. it's perfect. if i can't be at home, at least i can have a taste of it. >>hershey's air delight milk chocolate, a lighter, airier meltier hershey's happiness. ♪ , you know, the store storestore store -- story of alec just doesn't seem to end. well, you know come -- a lot of companies, and you can see them here, a lot of companies have been pulling out of alec. it has been a grass root effort by color of change. one name you don't see on this list or the following list because there are a ton of companies that have pulled out, is state farm insurance. they refuse to pull out of this and what was interesting is that we had a viewer write to us and her name is melanie miller from weaverville, california. she reached out to us after contacting state farm and saying why don't you guys pull out of alec like everybody else is doing. and this is what she said: and when we spoke to state farm they said in a response: further to that phil supple the spokesperson for state farm said: it's typical corporate speak. this group is run or certainly funded by the koch brothers, the coal and oil based conglomerate that are just infusing money into our political system. and for more on this cenk you have a special guest to talk about money and politics. >> that's right, michael. thank you for that. it is congressman john yarmuth from kentucky. michael just explained alex the american legislative exchange council, and they are spending so much money to influence thousands of bills all across the country. and you have the koch brothers who are just now running a $6.1 million worth of ads against president obama and karl rove's groups that have $123 million. how do you compete when it seems there is so much overwhelming corporate money stacked against you? >> ultimately it's the people. what we do have is the side that stands for the 99% of the people is we have people power. we saw the sopa bill was a run-away train. big producers, networks and so forth, nobody thought it could be stopped and it was people who stopped it. it was kids. young groups that flooded our offices, basically locked up the system with resistance and that bill was dead so ultimately that can have economic power that supersedes that. >> but couple of things there. first of all on sopa we also had facebook and google on our side. >> that's true. >> so it evened up the score a little bit. it was companies versus companies as well as the people. >> it was the people, yeah. >> but when you take the companies out as they did in cispa, all of a sudden we're back to a steam roller. so my concern with the democratic party is the democrats also take corporate money, but it seems like a losing proposition. >> of course. >> do you think there's a recognition of that within the party, and is there a long-term strategy saying hey wait a minute this is suicide to go in this direction? >> unless we have reverse the citizens united decision, really, we're suck, and we're always going to be at this disadvantage. and i and several others have constitution amendments to try to reverse that decision. i'm hoping the court will revisit that there is a possibility they will. but when citizens united came down, the first thing i thought of was "the day the music dies." this is the day the democracy dies. >> i couldn't agree with you more. so -- and we do have a push et cetera, but let me tell you an interesting story -- conversation i had with ralph nader. i said to him -- i have been doing any "young turks" for a long time. and i said, look you are running rough shot in the 1980s. progressives are lying. you have the seat belt thing you did. osha, you got nixon to pass the epa. and i said what happened? >> he said we stopped cold with a guy named tony [ inaudible ] who convinced the rest of the democrat party that there are new decisions, we can take corporate money. and then the minute that hand, progress ran into a brick wall. >> yep. >> my question to you is you are in the democratic caucus is there a recognition of that within the party or are most people just going along, i'm just trying to survive? >> total recognition. i don't think there's any democrat in our caucus who doesn't understand the disadvantage we're at, and the danger this represents for our system. on the other side they have elections to win. they have to raise money. they are in that game, and they are going to take what they can get. it's an incredible disconnect that we face. and it's going to take a lot of people standing up and saying i'm getting out of this. i'm not going to take your money. i'm going to fight it on the ground. and we may lose, but i think ultimately there's no question that people are on our side. people hate citizens united -- >> 80% of the american people -- >> yeah. not even close. >> yeah, nowhere near close. and that's what i'm worried about because if we had a representative democracy wouldn't 80% of the people make a difference? >> you would think. >> i want to ask you one more thing. nancy pelosi has been hinting that she might be in favor of simpson boles. she was just on charlie rose i want to play that clip for you and have you respond. >> simpson boles is a very good -- >> you say that now, but you did not say it at the time. >> my problem with it is as far as social security is concerned. but apart from that it gave us a great deal to work with. the republicans said they were bringing -- the republicans and democrats, it was bipartisan last week, but it was more of a caricature of simpson boles, so it didn't pass. >> congressman that scares the hell out of me. it cuts social security and medicare, and gives a tax cut for the rich. i know they get rid of some loopholes, but they cut the top rate. i think that's a terrible plan. when nancy pelosi was one of the few people standing against it. are we now in big trouble. >> this is a recognition of the political reality, and that is both sides have to show they have some concern about the deficit. but i think you really need to open the discussion. i think that's probably what she is doing now, just saying we're open. >> would you vote for it? >> as it came out, no. but the idea we wouldn't have talk about making changes in social security for people that aren't even born yet, that's a discussion we need to have. but i wouldn't vote for it if it came to the floor. >> i'm concerned about the deficit too. i'm probably to the right of you guys maybe in the sense i would get rid of all of the bush tax cuts including for the middle class. >> that solves the problem -- >> there you go. it's an easy answer and we don't have to do anything -- >> that's right. and we're good at that. >> normally. but i wouldn't cut social security under any conditions and i tell you why, because it's an easy fix. if you got rid of the payroll tax it's done. >> medicare is easy social security is the real problem. >> all right. thank you for being here. michael what is next? >> we'll talk about a secret report of water-boarding that has come out. and the it gets a huge fail. >> are you getting ready to say something? are you getting ready to say something? what have you got to say? (vo) former two term governor, jennifer granholm, is politically direct on current tv >> what should women be doing? >> electing women to office. attack on women that perhaps the majority of the population woke up? >> idaho is not known as approaching act i.v. you had hundreds of women show up, thousands signed petitions. they made their voices heard. what happens is that now, the legislators are running scared. very similar laws have passed quietly in other states for the past 10 years, really in the past two years have intensified. pennsylvania a similar law was shelved, idaho this proved to be political poison. women are paying attention and having their voices heard. >> thanks for coming in. >> the aclu considers a demand that to get a job you have to let an employer open your private mail, the senate wants to make it illegal to hand over a password to your facebook account. (vo) now, it's your turn. (vo) connect with the young turks with cenk uygur. >> it's go time. ♪ so remember torture? yeah, that was what barack obama said he was going to get rid of when he became president, and they got rid of torture in the united states government. there is a three-year long senate investigation that has gone on. republicans have walked out of this commission, by the way, and they are going to show us that -- something that we could have told them right before they went into this. that there is little evidence that any of this produced any counter terrorism rewards. this is what we're learning from reuters: >> so all of that water-boarding, all of that torture -- they did find out from khalid sheikh mohammed, their sort of enemy number one -- who they by the way tortured 183 times. he was "war room" 183 times, and he was the source of information about the al-qaeda courier but that information didn't come until well after the period in which he was tortured. so this was not a direct piece of information they were able to get. a direct result from "the war room." this was coming afterwards. there is still no justification for what they did. this weekend on sunday the former made of the cia will be on "60 minutes," and he is saying that in fact these things did work. >> this is an individual who probably didn't give a rat's ass about having water pored on his face. >> you never believed for one second you were going to kill him. >> let me just tell you, khalid sheikh mohammed would use his fingers to count the number of seconds, because he knew in all likelihood we would stop at ten. so this doesn't sound like a person who is afraid of dying. >> whether he is or not, what they did to him and what rodriguez endorses as a measure of getting information out of prisoners of war didn't do anything in this case. that's what the senate is going to say, and that's what the republicans haven't wanted to participate in at all. our own kaj larsen went through water-boarding just to see what it was like. >> i think you're getting ready to say something whiechlt do you have to say! huh? >> that is horrible every time you go through it. that is really really horrible because you feel like you are going to drawn you know? >> that is extraordinary to look at. and just the fact he didn't do anything makes it even worse. guys this is just unbeliefable stuff, and we'll be learning more about how this did nothing. >> yeah, thanks michael. let me turn to the other michael, as i watch that clip of jose rodriguez, i think he's an idiot. he is like this guy he wasn't afraid of death. this didn't work on him at all. then why did he do it 183 times? was it not clear on the 181st time that it wasn't going to work? and then they have the audacity to say, the conservatives, because they have nothing left they say many many, many many, many months later, khalid sheikh mohammed told us something. and maybe that is because of the torture. >> they do this a lot. like the arab spring was caused by the iraq war. ten years later we capture bin laden, clearly that was the result. this gets back to this national psychosis that gripped the country after 9/11. we had a cover up with the cia where tapes disappeared and the other thing that rodriguez said he was in no danger of dying. we also know many detainees did die over the past few years when they, doing this. >> and one of the things they would do is slam them against the wall and they weren't likely to get a concussion or blood clot unless they did. look, this lead to a devolvement in iraq and afghanistan, and the next thing you know a lot of people died being tortured. >> right. >> and another one point it was over a hundred deaths. at one point a guy was thrown off of a bridge. >> the jaysoc command were putting people outside in the mud all night, shooting them with paintballs. this was corruption at the top, and now he is selling his book trying to rationalize what he did. >> and it's interesting i'm really glad he came out in a way, because there is this feeling of oh, the cia, i have seen it in the james bond movies, they are so smart and so good. nonsense it's a bunch of morons going let's water-boarding one more time. >> i mean, in iraq what it was funny in the green zone you could tell who the undercover guys were because they had name tags that only had their first name on it. [ laughter ] >> and the ethical lapses that occur, and rodriguez, this was our guy. he was fighting the war on terror. it's sad. >> and one other important factor is the tapes. we had some of these tapes of this so-called enhanced interrogation, which is torture and somehow they wound up disappearing. >> i talked to a cia person about that. who said hey if i got rid of these tapes would i get in trouble? >> and they probably said if the tapes aren't there you won't be in trouble. >> luckily you are going to tell me both the bush administration and the obama administration took that really seriously and there were consequences for destroying evidence. >> zero consequence. i guess you get a book deal out of it. >> finally the upside of it is they do this report it's exhaustive. they look through thousands upon thousands of pages of evidence from the cia itself and after all of that what we get is the dick cheney and all of those guys were conclusively lying, it never lead to evidence that lead to the capture of any of the guys. >> no, and it doesn't work. if no one is going to get in trouble, and no one got in trouble, at least at some point when we face this problem as a nation again, there will be this body of evidence that says hey, we don't need to go down this path, because it doesn't work. >> all right. michael hastings, buzzfeed correspondent and "rolling stone" contributing editor thank you for joining us. great reporting. michael what do we have next? >> an unlikely pair the ryan budget and iran. we'll talk about that holy budget battle. >> i suppose there are some catholics who for a long time thought they had a monopoly of sorts not exactly on heaven but on the social teaching of our church. the country and around the globe. >>dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens current's morning news block. >>we'll do our best to carry the flag from 6 to 9 every morning. >>liberal and proud of it. we're the idea nobody wants to hear. until the truth reveals itself. and there's only one place you'll find us. ♪ >> all right. we are back with a very powerful power panel in the heart of washington, d.c. we have laura bassett, and adam green, the mean green machine, cofounder of the progressive change committee. i love having you guys here. first topic everybody is unfortunately yet another buckle by the white house, caving in on -- it was proposed regulation that children should not be able to do dangerous work actual work on a farm that isn't their family farm on their own family farm they could do dangerous labor, but just not on other people's farm. it seemed like a reasonable proposal. they said, oh my god, you don't understand. and of course president obama said i give up. so bring in the panel here laura does this appear to be the 287th buckle in a row? >> it is definitely a huge buckle. and child safety advocates are very upset about it. there were significant pushbacks from rural areas and rural washington, and it means that children are going to die, which is kind of a big deal. three-fourths of the deaths on these farms have to do with children and these accidents. >> when the law said they are allowed to work on their family farms unlimited, right? so they were lying. democrats were faced with this lie and thought well we can't win because their lie is too good and ran an way. how are we supposed to back this president when he always runs? >> here is my take on this. this is being reported as an election year buckle. given the conservative chatter the white house gave. my question is when are we going to have a cave by progressives. and force them to -- commit not to cut social security or medicare. so this is a small example of what we can do. >> i love what adam is saying but doesn't this prove the case that if you want the president to be progressive, you could aggressively attack him? because if you are cheer leading, it is good, i can ignore our ass. >> the left needs to push as hard as the left on this. and there's no reason the administration needed to cave on this. they could have easily pushed those regulations through and they chose not to. >> it was an executive branch decision and he could have pushed it through. all right. let me turn to the republicans. let me lead you this letter. we would be remiss in our duty to you and our students: now adam the republicans love to use religion when it's to their advantage. when it is not so their advantage, like help the poor they are like no. >> i think giant kudos to his priests that spoke up against paul ryan. in the dark days if a republican came to a college campus or community, there would not be a peep. and the fact that these guys were reallying to stand up really shows the wind is at our back. but the question comes back what are democrats going to do with the wind at our back? will we in this election season have people say not a single penny will be cut from medicare. look, the priests are on our side. >> again, i know -- i agree with you too much adam but couldn't beflip it and say war on religion? couldn't we use the same thing the republicans do. the conference of catholic bishops came and wrote a letter to paul ryan saying your plan is immoral? why are you doing this war on religion, paul ryan. >> absolutely, this is really interesting that this is coming at a time when the republicans thought they had a really cozy relationship with catholic people. and poor mothers who need to take care of their children and they are dropping a ball on that, and i don't think paul ryan was expecting the backlash from the bishops and i think it's good it happened. >> one last thing on this. paul ryan used to constantly brag about being an [ inaudible ] follower and she is the radical philosopher who thinks extreme individuals -- including supporting a serial killer at the time because he was such an individual. and they also wrote about that: and then when he got challenged on that, he is like oh no i reject her. so did they really catch him on this? >> apparently so. they caught him. and again, i think the question is will this be a one-day blimp or long story. and what will activists and progressives to get this story out. one option is print out this letter and put it on ere church car you can find. let people know this budget means cuts to the poor. >> all right. i like it. michael tell me what is next. >> we have a white house correspondence dinner what will happen this year? i know win thing, it will not compare to this. ♪ this man will never stop ♪ ♪ he has got so much to prove, tell me you never saw this man move ♪ new 5 rpm gum. stimulate your senses. ♪ so the big chatter here on turk row on "the young turks" is is that cenk uygur will be going to the white house correspondence dinner. the host ana, they didn't select a host without controversy. tell us how jimmy kimmel ended up hosting the dinner. >> he was interviewed and there was a lot of controversy surrounding him because loui ck said i'm just going to drop out of this. i'm not interested at all. >> as a result, jimmy is a little nervous about his comedy. anyway, we have a little bit of him elaborating on the situation in the political interview. let's watch. >> louis ck was picked for that and then people dug up old quotes when you heard that was there any concern on your behalf? >> i don't really care [ censor bleep ] them. >> cenk i know you have wanted to go to this dinner jimmy kimmel will be there so will everyone else, and so will you. >> couple of things here. i love greta being outraged by loui. you know who guest is here? lindsay lohan. and i'm actually a little conflicted. there's no question i want to go i'm going to have fun, and it will be interesting. but it's incestuous and if you get too 'em meshed in that that you can't cover the politicians subjectively. my cover is i got to go at least once to be a spy for you guys and report back on what is happening, right? but if you do it over and over again, and constantly are going to these cocktail parties, i think it does affect you. and you have to draw the line. the place i would have drawn the line is rap dancing with karl rove. >> it has been the theme of this show for ten years. keep it real. keep it real. cenk is overly excited to go to this dinner. you have this in your brain and you are just covering up but you are going to be there, you are going to love it, and you are going to want to go back again and again and again, and if you get jaded or this washington elite you are not the same cenk i know. >> let's keep it real. jr is exactly right for calling me out. and one of the ironies is i love celebrities. not like oh, my god, what does lindsay lohan think of politics. but i get into it et cetera no question about it, and i'll enjoy it. but it's one thing -- my job is to challenge these guys and see them and challenge them but if the whole industry does it i'm afraid that perhaps some of them might not be as aggressive in challenging these guys. and when you have gone that deep in that it is like yeah let's be buddies with karl rove, you have gone way too far. >> what do you like to do for fun? >> tear the heads off of small animals. >> this is like silence of the lambs. ♪ this man will never stop look at him jumping up and down and ready to hop ♪ >> i think he was pulled out of the crowd there. but you are absolutely right. he is a white house correspondent it is their dinner, so to that end i think that this is where the two mix, isn't it? >> yeah, but there's bounds of reason, if it's rumsfeld or cheney that want to dance with me tonight, i'm not going to be chummy with them. like hey the guys who ordered torture, let's have fun. i think you should go but at the same time -- and i enjoy, it, but you got to make sure it doesn't corrupt you. >> what is the one thing you are most excited about? >> that's a good question. time between kim kardashian -- >> sorry. ana. >> -- and the food. >> i'm so disappointed in you. [ laughter ] >> the dinner. seconds. >> honestly i hear the dinner is not that great. no honestly probably conversations i'll have with conservatives, because those are sometimes amazing. i'll report back on that on monday. >> sitting here i'm looking at you, and i'm thinking you look a little like the crasher last year. so maybe they'll pick you out of the line and you won't even get in there. cenk have fun. and take notes. >> all right. now shareholders are going after the banks in a big way. cenk is coming right back with his take from washington. >> what we need is regulation! fun... indulgence... one square inch of bliss. hershey's bliss. 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[ orbit glint ] fabulous! for a good clean feeling. ♪ eat, drink, chew orbit! ♪ eliot spitzer joins the new news network. >>we don't stop until we get answers that are truthful, serious and not based on simplistic answers. ♪ all right. we are back on "the young turks" here in washington, d.c. and i want to tell you one last great story. earlier in the week we told you about a shareholders meeting at wells fargo where there were thousands of protesters now barclays and credit swisse are having the same problem. they give $1.1 billion in dividends, and took $1.1 billion for executives. here is the quote of the day: