Cringe & Unhinged - September 10, 2026

Cenk Uygur (0:00)

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.

SPEAKER_2 (0:12)

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SPEAKER_3 (0:41)

There is so much NFL on ESPN right now.

Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week.

SPEAKER_4 (0:55)

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_3 (0:56)

And now, NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on all season long on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

Ana Kasparian (6:56)

What you're seeing on your screen over at the Republican midterm convention is Hasan Piker in his underwear?

SPEAKER_6 (7:08)

We control the Hormone Straits.

SPEAKER_7 (7:11)

Oh my God, man.

Cenk Uygur (7:52)

William Turks, Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian with you guys. And just before the show started, I decided to be in a weird mood. So God knows what happens next. So on today's show, very serious topics and some fascinating topics, silly topics. In the news, they're real, but they're ridiculous. So first on the serious stuff, as we're gonna show you in a little bit, Iran reconstituting their ballistic missiles. Oops, I thought we had them totally destroyed. Doesn't look like it. We're gonna bring on an expert talk about it. Yemen has renewed its civil war. Houthis have taken huge swaths of land, including the town of Mocha. So we will explain why that is so important later in the show. And then on the lighter side, Donald Trump promises $5,000 to everyone if they win the elections.

I'm just trying to see if there's a single person in the country dumb enough to believe that.

God, please, I hope not.

Ana Kasparian (8:51)

There were people clapping after he announced it.

Cenk Uygur (8:53)

I know, all right, but we'll get to that. We'll get to some of the right-wing reaction, for God's sake. Anyways, and then finally, we've got socialists. And they say that exercise is fascism.

Ana Kasparian (9:08)

I think it's weird.

Cenk Uygur (9:09)

Yeah, they'll take that out of context.

And losing weight could also be fascist, just in general. So watch out. Okay, so anyways-

Ana Kasparian (9:21)

Are we gonna have a debate about whether or not exercise is fascism, like we did with Trump and I ended up being wrong?

Cenk Uygur (9:29)

Interesting. Okay, no, I don't think we're gonna have that debate, but we might have other debates in the show. So buckle up, everybody, brace for impact. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_6 (9:38)

So if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000.

It will be called the Trump dividend. We'll call it the Trump dividend.

SPEAKER_9 (9:52)

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_7 (9:55)

Man, they are so excited.

Cenk Uygur (9:57)

But it's not the $5,000 because no one believes that. They showed a picture of Hasan in his underwear. And they're like, yes, yes, finally.

The homoerotic image they were looking for. Anyways, we'll get to that in a second in this story. This is their dumb ass convention. And Trump is promising this dumb ass prize, which is never, ever going to happen. But one of the things that we'll talk about is, is it legal? There's actually two potential legal problems with it. One I think is not a problem. The other one is, we'll get to that in a second as well. Ana, what's the whole story here?

Ana Kasparian (10:27)

Well, as we all know, the Republican Party is holding its first ever convention for the midterms. And the whole point is to rally the voters, get them to show up to the polls, even in the face of Trump's incredibly low approval rating. To help either reelect or elect Republican candidates for congressional seats, and also in gubernatorial races as well. But Trump made this offer during his speech at the convention in which he said he would be providing $5,000 dividends or $5,000 checks to Americans if the Republicans win. And he's calling it the Trump dividend. Now he gave no details on how it would work or how it would be funded in a country that's grappling with $40 trillion in debt and an ongoing deficit that only adds to that debt. But he did say that the money would have to be spent here in the United States.