♪ theme cenk: everybody, it's a bittersweet moment, the very last show for "the young turks" on current television, so one more time. it's go time. it's go time. it's go time. you know what? it's go time. it's go time. anybody? anybody? what time is it? it's go time. you know what time it is. it's go time. what time is it? it's go time.

anybody know what time it is? you know it, go time. we're covering it. it's go time. >> stay right here. it's go time. it's go time. because it's go time. >> also, here comes "the young turks," it's go time. it's go time. hello, it's go time. it's go time. it's go time. it's go time. it's go time. go time, go time. hello, good night, show's just starting. it's go time. >> as a great man once said, it's go time. >> it's literally time for us to go. in essence, it's go time for the whole show. i brought back all the all stars of "the young turks" here, literally young turks in terms of the guys who have been doing the show for a long, long time,

ana kasparian, jayar jackson, and the epic man. it appears you're the last one there in the war room. >> actually, a lot of people having a good time, but once we punch out tonight, that's it. cenk: i want to reflect back on that some of the fascinating times we've had here, including the very first show and how we started on that first show. do you remember, this is how the first show began. ♪ theme [ cheering ] cenk: welcome to "the young turks." we've got an awesome show for you tonight. cenk: the smoke, that went out fairly early, good idea, bad idea? >> remember the clapping, like the clapping stood out to me, and how like on day two, we were

like. >> i couldn't clap on day one. they were like come on, i'm like nah, i can't do it. when the clapping went on, michael and i talked all the time about the clapping, man, i can't believe we have to clap. >> i would call ben and say i'm calling you right now so that i don't have to clap right now. [ laughter ] cenk: part of the problem was it wasn't real. the whole point of the show was keeping it real and you didn't want to clap, so it wasn't real. clapping is old school t.v., yes, everybody, we're back, right. we're all friends, so why would you clap when a friend walks in. >> we all know you, as you talked about, we know you, don't talk jazz about you. speaking of old school, tweeting throughout the show. >> i am. it's hard to talk and tweet

tame. it's a little confusion, but our core audience kept a live track going even after we had to shut it down officially, i've gotten some great tweets over the last couple of days, you changed my life, this has been amazing, so shoutout to the awesome t.y.t. army who showed up to watch current. cenk: i got thrown for a loop, because you used to sit over there at the beginning. >> sometimes where mark is sitting, and almost get hit by the jib. cenk: for the audience, the reason is part of what was great about the show for us is that we were experimenting, wanted to try different things. it was supposed to be tongue in cheek and the dramatic opening of the curtains, like we're goofy. it wasn't supposed to be for real. after we did it for a couple of times, we were like i think they're going to think we mean it, so that's why we decided to

stop doing that. we did some goofy things worked. if we wanted to introduce michael, we would go to this. ♪ theme cenk: remember when he was epic politics man before he was host of the war room with mike sell sure. >> i don't think i can still fit into it, but i need to get that costume again, because this gig's up. >> michael was kind enough to let me live in his guest room for 17 months. it's not like i saw him naked a lot, but those are not his abs. cenk: that was digitally remastered by your graphics department? >> his abs are not epic, a lot of epic things about him. >> i never said that they were, by the way.

it was like the smoke behind cenk. he doesn't have smoke behind him everywhere he walks. cenk: is that right? one of the fun things we did was brought a lot of interesting guests on. we just put this together. it doesn't have everybody, it doesn't have know noah wiley, president carter who was on the show. >> how does jimmy carer not make the final cut? like daryl hannah's in there. cenk: touche. it might be because we cut this before we interviewed president carter. a lot of the staff are working on an innovative show. it's not just because god bless, et cetera. i pulled a joke back. all right, anyway, because a lot

of the great people who worked on the show are going to be producing great content. now, anyway, let's give you a snip of the guests here. there's a lot to talk about here. >> i never imagined there being an african-american president and that blinded me to the fact that it was a democratic president more than it was a, you know, camelot knight waving a progressive magic wanted to right our wrongs. >> it's offensive the idea that has been floated a lot that we choose to go to school elsewhere, i should give up a quality education in exchange for my health care. >> i'm just worried about people tuning in late and don't watch to like programs like yours or read the newspapers every day and our love information voters. >> those people are friended by the idea that gays could be married are going to take it out on obama. >> what are we doing? we claim there is a problem with a lack of sufficient oil and

we're exporting more oil, feeding the speculators. >> the condition of the political dialogue in the country, especially in the republican party, as i was saying, drives all these candidates towards positions that some of them you just have to believe know that these positions are absurd. >> we're selling about 24 to 28 guns a day, normally six to eight. the hot seller is right here. cenk: you are a dangerous person, larry. you get people killed on a daily basis. >> you can call self defense vigilanteism if you wish. >> i became an american citizen because i didn't want to be a hypocrite criticizing this country. cenk: you really think you can smear the movement for what people outside -- really? >> i'm being too fair, because fair is playing by the same

rules, fair. >> i was just inches away from death, you know, at that time, and i wouldn't wish that on anybody. cenk: so there's a lot i want to discuss there. first of all, we have a wall out by the front entrance of the studio and the guests sign the wall. i always remember and drew's most, andrew breitbart. he passed away a little bit after that interview. he signed it i made you be cenk, andrew. >> he claims because he was a part of starting the huffing to know post and because i started there and did well, that led to my career. at the same time, he turned around and said i think in the middle of that interview, we kind of modeled what we were doing on line based on what you did at "the young turks" because it was doing so well. he was an interesting character. >> we're the only show that would put mel bernstein in, but

not jimmy carter. cenk: just one quick thing about mel. he was a character, this gun owner and our producer found him and then it was like i wanted to have him on all the time, because and he was wild guy. the first time that he picked up one of those guns and pointed at the camera, i literally flinched. >> what kind of a guy named mel bernstein goes around selling guns? the great thing is this is just a sign of how the show developed or developed or devolved. i thought this whole thing was supposed to go in the first flop, but through the whole show, daryl hannah was in that flip. cenk: you had her edited out. >> daryl hannah! she's a lovely woman, fighting for the environment. cenk: we have mel bernstein in,

we can put daryl hannah back in. cenk: rodney king i think asked the most inappropriate question on t.v. >> some people were offended that you asked that question. i was happy you did, because it was an authentic question to you. >> it was a great question. i think it was the question that everybody, i mean, in a playful, but tragic way, this far after it happened, that he was beaten, cenk asked rodney king that he got a $3 million settlement, and you knew beforehand that you would have gotten $3 million to have that beating, would you have had that beating in exchange for $3 million, something like that. rodney king said no, because he went into great detail about how his eye was actually out of its socket and nothing could be worse than that. cenk: oppositely, he also didn't have the money for very long. he wound up losing the money at some point, and he gave an honest answer. it was an interesting thing.

you know, remember, ben, when we started the radio show, one of the very first interviews and articles about us was at a local pittsburgh paper, because we were ohen sirius satellite radio, wichita kansas, local affiliate and local affiliate in pittsburgh and that's it. the paper described us as part howard dean, part howard stern. the reason howard is popular because the best thing he does is the interviews, where he just won't let it go until you give him the answers that people want to get answers to. >> i'm going to disagree with michael and agree with you. there's a certain level of understanding, very t.y.t., certain level of understanding we had, i saw that thought coming to you, but we understand, we have sensitivity towards things. i don't want the wrong impression to come of what the

"young turks" has been and always has been, but howard stern will push people to answer certain questions because it's not that important. this is a very important thing. i'm glad, that's the reason i worked with you this long. there are things you get right after after they answer the question truthfully and honestly. it was a horrific situation and people don't understand the horrific nature of that beating and what that did with the country. >> the problem with the question is in a vacuum, it's an irrelevant question to ask. first of all, i imagine that i would say -- >> vodka soda. cenk: she that just joined us and does not realize that she's on mic. >> somebody should get her a drink. cenk: apparently they are. how are you doing?

>> hi, i miss you guys. cenk: hermela by the way is in new york city right now. she normally would be sitting right next to us. she's going to be part of a program called "consider this" on al jazeera america. >> good thing to mix with soda, right? >> nobody told me i was on. >> we used to have a drinking game in the control room. nobody drank, but we had certain things that everybody would say and i would yell drink and everybody would pretend to take a drink. one was cenk saying "one more question." everyone would grown and pretend to drink, the other one was anytime michael shure mentioned a dead president. cenk: here's something our audience didn't know. when we had deserrano as the

sponsor, well, after john finishes his show in about an hour. >> way to screw up john's line. cenk: i thought in order to keep it real, i should actually try it before we did the first sponsorship, right? i had forgotten to try it the night before and there was a bar down stairs from the new york studio. i literally right before the show went and took a shot of it before going on air, so that i could say oh, when i said on air it's delicious, i wanted to actually mean it and if it wasn't, i wasn't going to say it. you see what i'm saying? >> was it delicious? cenk: it was! >> they had a delicious spokesperson for a long time that would tell you how to mix the drink. >> how to make serrano on the

rocks. cenk: i thought you were talking about me. wait a minute! we got to take a break. we apparently still have those. when we come back not only are we -- i actually want to discuss two more guests, one, the guy who got us the most press by far, which guest was it and al gore was in that clip. i want to have a quick conversation about that for a second. that could be controversial, obviously no holds barred here and finally when we come back, we're also going to talk about the election, obviously the 2012 election happened while we were on air. we made a bit of a prediction. we'll see if that's right, coming right back.

>> did anyone tell the pilgrims they should self-deport? >> no, they said "make us a turkey and make it fast". >> (laughter). >> she gets the comedians laughing. >> that's the best! >> that's hilarious. >> ... and the thinkers thinking. >> okay, so there is wiggle room in the ten commandments is what you're telling me. >> she's joy behar. >> ya, i consider you

jew-talian. >> okay, whatever you want. >> who plays kafka? >> who saw kafka? >> who ever saw kafka? >> (laughter). >> asking the tough questions. >> chris brown, i mean you wouldn't let one of your daughters go out with him. >> absolutely not. >> you would rather deal with ahmadinejad then me? >> absolutely! >> (singing) >> i take lipitor, thats it. >> are you improving your lips? >> (laughter). >> when she's talking, you never know where the conversation is >> it looks like anthony wiener is throwing his hat in the ring. >> his what in the ring? >> his hat. >> always outspoken, joy behar. >> and the best part is that current will let me say anything. what the hell were they thinking? >> only on current tv. cenk: we're back on "the young turks," and. >> we're back. cenk: yes, we are. >> hi! cenk: everybody's object mic. there's a party attitude here.

>> don't go in there! >> i know. cenk: one thing i should remind you guys, this is the last show of "the young turks" on current. of course as i've been saying, you can always find us on "the young turks".com. starting tomorrow, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. live on the "young turks".com. all our clips are on you tube damn/t.y.t. we have everyone hear, as you can hare on the mics, michael shure and long time contributors of the "young turks." who was the guest that got us the most press attention by far? it wasn't al gore, it wasn't jimmy carter, it wasn't anybody super important. it was mark hamill, big fan of

the show. he knew everything about michael shure. i don't know if he was working for the n.s.a. or using the force. mark compared mitt romney to whatever he compared him to, a star wars character, right? and everybody was like oh, my god, that's so interesting! there were at least 30 articles about that. >> i think that people -- >> people here freaked out. >> people care because what luke skywalker said. the media gets it wrong, too, but the media talks about important issues far more than the rest of the world, that's why when we see these numbers about the n.s.a. spying, it's like ahh.

cenk: there's apparently a pull out today saying james clapper should be prosecuted for lying to congress. >> how many people know who he is? >> apparently enough to say that he should be prosecuted. >> you should get mark hamill to say he should be prosecuted. >> al gore, i know some folks felt he followed current and should have followed through and instead sold it and the report was that it was $500 million. first of all, he was part owner of current, right? he didn't just take it and put it in his pocket, and they had costs, et cetera. we're going to discuss it a little bit here in the "the young turks" idea of keeping it real, but me, i don't have any hard feelings about that at all. i'm almost a little hisled at

meme who do. they gave it their best shot, started the network, hired people, and i think that they had got into a situation where it was hard to maintain it and somebody comes out of the blue and offers $500 million, i'd be honest with you, i don't know if that makes me a bad guy, but i would have taken it in a second. i think al gore is 100% right. >> i don't think they came out of the blue. they were trying to sell the network because it made the most sense. there are some purists on the left, many of whom are my friends and i add my, but they always want the different set of rules to apply to us, and in some ways, those different set of rules should apply, but like we're allowed to try to make money, too, profit off the capitalist system like everyone else. we want to help others out along

the way more than others do. >> i think it's interesting that people that never really cared about climate change to begin with all of a sudden when al gore sold his network to a company that make their money from oil, all of a sudden everyone cares about climate change. i don't think it's fair to call them out on the hypocrisy. they couldn't make money off of the network. it makes sense, $500 million. >> if somebody's not a hypocrite, they're not interesting and i don't want to hank out with them. >> al gore did his part. he's one man, been spreading the message for over a decade and it's not working. i don't blame him. cenk: let's keep it real. so "the young turks" on line network is doing well. if in the middle of doing well, you sell it, people might say hey, wait a minute, it would have been nice if you kept it going, especially if they change

direction, but let's keep it real, current wasn't doing that well. for a number of different reasons, and so if i, you know, if i had a channel or something and it wasn't doing that well and somebody gave me half a billion dollars, kind of a no-brainer. >> a lot of people felt in fairness to the people that make the argument against and i'm more in your camp, it's that they were disenjenous about caring whether it did well in the first place. cenk: that's interesting that all of a sudden your mic was cut. >> there's nobody left in the war room. this is what happens. in point of fact, it didn't have a chance, i do agree with you that they tried something that didn't work and it's ok to profit off of something that didn't work and get out of it. i think that's fair.

cenk: i want to explain one last thing about that, too, you know, people think like oh, well, they didn't want to spend the money on it. you don't know the back story of the business. if you don't have enough financing, you don't have enough financing. >> that's all to it. cenk: right, so you can't run that. look, no one wanted them to run ads more than i did. i wanted them to run ads for the show. we got within a couple of thousand people of catching headline news in the demo at our prime. i would love to have caught headline news, cnn, we were in 60 million homes. i would have loved the ads at that time. my legitimate sense was they didn't have the money. so the other part -- this is awesome. ok, and then look, last thing is whether it's air america or current, it's like liberals can't work on t.v. or in the

media. the same exact people will say hollywood is full of liberals, all we have on t.v. is liberals. which one is it? >> or they'll say the liberal media is changing the conversation and convincing you of this and that, either they're working and saying the right things and convincing people of the truth, or they're not, either it's they're there doing the things that they're mad about doing. you can't have both sides of the argument. >> don't you think what has happened with "the young turks" and msnbc, the most successful thing that has happened, media matters, on line, is we changed completely, we won the conversation about fox news, which was able to maintain to a large portion of the country that they were a legitimate news operation. at the bare minimum, if we succeeded in nothing else, america those that was right wing. >> you decide about what's news

and what's important, there's an idea that there's a small group of people who decides there's important news, what people care about, what their opinion is, even all this data we started getting is people don't want to read that, they want to read this. people got protective in journalism about what that meant. what's amazing about what "the young turks" do on line is prove that people can make their own mass mainstream media and say this is what people care about. people want to talk about civil liberties and hear about these issues. you guys have drastically changed the idea of what news can be. >> i think one of the things that "the young turks" and the specifically, you, cenk and it's changed me, too is that just because you like your president or voted for your president doesn't mean that you should let him get away with some of the things that you don't agree with. one thing i think "the young turks" did a good job of is because you identify as a democratic or liberal doesn't

mean you shouldn't criticize your own group of people when they're doing wrong. >> the other argument conservatives make is current didn't work and hence the country is not liberal. there's a problem with that since president obama won reelection fairly comfortably. it's supposed to be hence they won't elect dependents. that's where you didn't get it right. >> who cares about what conservatives think, it's totally irrelevant. there's a whole empire under the t.y.t. network. the network didn't succeed, but media is changing significantly. we're seeing a shift from traditional television media to on line media, millennials consume their news differently. cenk: one more thing, i saw everybody drink -- so franklin

pierce, every drink again, right. [ laughter ] cenk: a lot of young people don't watch t.v. anymore. that's just the reality. let me give you two amazing numbers. this is the massively keep it real show. cnn's audience is averaging 68, half their audience is above the age of 68. ok? wow. average audience age of "the young turks" on line is 42. ok? 42, 68, a 26 year difference. that's a generation, right? the younger audience is on line, it's not on t.v. as much. and radio, radio's dead, period. air america, current, it might not hit the right media at the right time with the right demographic, we're at 1.2 billion views now on line. it definitely is out there and

they are watching "the young turks," just in a different box. >> speaking of president obama winning the election, there was a certain prediction made. we'll talk about that when we come back.

cenk: all right, back on "the young turks." now, of course, as we told you before, you can find us on theyoungturks.com. 6:00 p.m. east he were is when it starts, live stream as always. one of the fun moments as we break down or two years here on current was of course the election. on september 26, about 6 weeks before the election, i made a bit of a bold prediction. let's watch. cenk: barring a major miracle, i'm calling the election right now. it's already over. no republican has ever won election wow winning ohio.

he's down by 10! you don't have that much time left to go. tick-tock, tick-tock, this thing is over. cenk: did that turn out to be true? we were on election night at current, let's see what wound up happening. >> i understand. cenk: interesting. well, you know what, that gives you a flavor of what the show is like. [ laughter ] >> digital flavor of current's selective coverage, i don't quite catch that tweet from jerk off 27. cenk: i'm not sure you were supposed to say that, and that also gives you a sense. >> i would say your prediction when you said so strongly on september 26, well before the election that obama was going to win in the whole time that the show's been on the air, i read every email, i've never seen our audience more hysterical than

that day. they almost felt so scared, they were so scared at that moment, and you were like the boogie man. cenk: two things, one, i'm positive that's what people thought. what they would say and a lot of them legitimately totally believed this, and i get why, you're going to lower the turnout, because you're going to say don't bother turning out, because obama's already won. what i was trying to say to them is i wish i was that powerful. everybody watching cenk on current, that's it, i'm going to take this election off. >> you said on september 26, exactly one week later, mitt romney and barack obama had a debate in denver. after that, did you have a moment of maybe i missed this? cenk: jayar can attest to this, i never, never reconsidered it

at all. i don't know, like i think among the clips that we're going to show is one we're going to show that the president had won and we called it. i said at that point, ohio has come in for the president, it's now official, barack obama gets reelected, right? the reason i never reconsidered and i remember during the debate coverage, during all the convention coverage, eliot spitzer and jennifer granholm, everybody yelling at me, see one got it wrong, you should admit it, it's like no, i didn't get it wrong p.m. i'm positive he's going to win. i wouldn't have made that call unless i thought he could withstand two, no one, but two huge blows. the debate was one huge blow and he with stood it. it's because six weeks before the election, he had a 10 point lead in ohio. i know through covering politics that 10 point lead six weeks before an election, presidential election is gigantic.

you'd have to that i can three massive blows to lose a 10 point lead. >> if chenk uygur is going to give a prediction and give a disclaimer, which he did, it's because it has to be something extremely significant, as he pointed out. when he gave that, he's thinking something significant, like he was caught in bed, there's pictures of him with a miss stress, something like that instead of something like he lost the debate. cenk: that's not a miracle, it's normal. >> i love that i'm about to argue with you about something you've been proven right on. you took one poll. cenk: no, no. >> there was no average 10 points. cenk: look, i'm telling you man, at the time we were living and breathing it. it was a collection of polls. i wouldn't have done it on one polls. cenk: 10 point lead, he was never that far ahead. you're right, we knew it, we talked about it. we felt really strongly about it, there are certain european sites that allow you to put

money on the election and i know people who may have done that and made money on it. >> i was upset that cenk made the prediction, because i knew he would be right and we all know what it's like when cenk is right. [ laughter ] cenk: by the way, michael, i think you owe me money. he won iowa, he got more delegates. >> we'll look at it again. we're going off the air. >> i had rick santorum, he won ohio. >> the election are really interesting, but what about my hair, are we going to get to my hair? [ laughter ] i mean, i'm getting bored. [ laughter ] cenk: all right. >> we were supposed to do a mash up about my hair and it didn't happen. >> hermela made a great

observation about president obama and democrats going against each other, nobody told her it was a great observation. i know hermela. i know she was upset about that, so she's chiming in now, turning it on the hair. >> exactly. you're absolutely right. cenk: a lot of the hair does get discussed oftentimes on the show, michael's beard, your hair, the different hairstyles you've had. >> hello? cenk: oh, yeah, what did you call them today? your hair? >> my hair, that's all i'm saying. >> you have a different hairstyle right now. >> i mix it up, but not as much as hermela. >> what is it today? >> it's wavy. >> the wave. cenk: we're going to take a break here. you've got to come back and see this. we did a mock debate.

you guys remember. michael was in it. we was in it, but there's a special guest appearance. the only time he appeared on the show, but he knocked it out of the park. wait until you see this, when we come back.

cenk: all right, back on "the young turks." we had a mock debate here. it was a fascinating experiment. ben was rick santorum, i was newt gingrich, michael shure was mitt romney and dave coaler made an appearance. he is a staple of the show, founded itual with ben and i. he was part of the commercials when we first started and part of the crew, but he didn't make a lot of appearances on the show. the only appearance he made was in that mock debate, playing ron

paul. he kept using ron paul's voice stating that the government should get out of everything, including this clip. >> you think that this rule goes too far? >> the government has got to get out of your anus and on to your beard. [ laughter ] >> oh, my god, i love it. cenk: one time, but he did knock it out of the park a little bit. that now, i'm going to do and awkward transition here. we had a lot of fun times as we did there. i'm not sure that debate worked. it was goofy, but we had fun. cenk: we talked about the keep it real block, that was the beginning. [ laughter ] >> i was standing on the outside and when we planned that, i shook my head through the entire episode, like this is a disaster, but it was fun, that's what i'm saying. >> so fun. >> there's a lot of things we

see retrospectively and go it was funny, but at the time, i was taking it way too seriously. >> i was rick santorum and wore the sweater vest. i had to tie my hair in the ponytail. >> so rick santorum had bi-curious hair. cenk: yes or no. >> sweater vest. his hair is definitely, and that sweater vest is definitely bi-curious. cenk: good enough. we also of course had serious times. just a little while back, actually, a couple months ago, we had one of my favorite panels of all time. we had david si sirota, glenn

greenwald on the same panel. i remember saying if we just had jeremy scaho who was in a couple of days before, those are the guys i called the four horsemen of reporting, the four loft reporters that really challenge the government, take on the establishment and et cetera. they were on the panel with us. i want to show you a quick clip. it's kind of interesting, because shane in a was doing a u block segment where she had the audience ask questions. >> all right, one more from dan again, he asked the rest you have, not cenk, what would you change about t.y.t. if you could be in charge for a day? cenk: oh, god one. keep it real. anybody? >> i'm happy to be here, this is awesome. i mean, i -- i would have a segment on little wang. he was dropped by mountain do, the corporate oligarchy and

forget the mountain dew. >> have a studio in denver with craft beer flowing all the time. [ laughter ] cenk: gee, i wonder where david lives. you can't quite tell. >> i would impose a dress code. [ laughter ] >> i'd impose a dress code mostly by mocking him on twitter, whatever he wears. cenk: i think we're out of time. >> that is kind of tough to look at. so much has changed even in those couple of months. michael hastings passed away in a tragic car accident. he was a regular contributor to "the young turks." we had a make name for him, the notebook. david was the uprising and david was the guardian. michael was just such a great part of the show. i want to talk about him a little more, too.

after that, glenn greenwald broke the edward snowden n.s.a. story. it was like for people who were asked hey was it worth it, you did the two years on current, the station didn't work, of course it was worth it. who else was putting those guys on? who else had them on regularly, who else had them breathing fire against the establishment? to that point, let me show you the michael hastings clip here. like i said, regular contributor, came on all the time. you want to talk about a guy who didn't mind taking on the government and establishment, here he is. >> i started my first job at newsweek when i had just graduated from college. >> where did you go? >> n.y.u. then newsweek. >> i interviewed the polester for obama for america. the staffer ran into his office and said oh, my god, joel, mitt romney just called 47% of the

americans deed beats. >> make these phone calls, we have to realize we're putting someone's career in jeopardy, even if they don't even tell us anything, because their name can show up, we had a conversation. >> you had this very collective leaking process that goes on, widespread throughout the government now where you have this really powerful executive branch that will only leak things or declassify things when it makes them look good and use classification as a weapon to attack critics. >> the only recourse of this kind of behavior by the government is to say back to the government we declare war on you, and from this point forward, we should no longer as a media as a whole cooperate in any manner with the government in terms of when we're doing national security stories. cenk: now there was a guy who in his reporting was absolutely fearless, and i couldn't be more proud to have had him on this show as a contributor. we'll be right back.

cenk: we're back on "the young turks." i've got to tell you, of course, that once we're off the air here, which will be in approximately 10 minutes, you can always find us on theyoungturks.com. you can watch the whole show on theyoungturks.com. we tried stunts, wiley producers would come up with stuff, all the guys you see here and the ones you don't see, james gannon, amy, the list goes on and on, maureen, our egyptian correspondent who you see from time to time. >> she's our egyptian correspondent. cenk: no. >> she's al jazeera's egyptian correspondent. they're taking her. >> good for them.

cenk: lucas, i'm going to forget everybody, so one of the goofy things we did here was i decided we were going to do a segment called if i were obama, because i'm that kind of an obnoxious guy with that we added some twists, too. >> if i were obama, what would i do? first of all, let me show you. i'd come you out with a two buy four. say that line about the 5 trillion again. >> i'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. my plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit. my plan is to bring down ducks us and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in but that we bring down rates to get more people working. >> that sounds pretty good. now you're telling me you're going to do a 20% tax cut across

the board, then you're going to do a $2 trillion increase in the defense budget and then, you're going to keep most of the popular deductions, and then you're going to balance the budget. and then, you're going to give everybody a free unicorn! you're lying. done that 50% of mitt romney's benefits and tax cuts go to the top 5%? mitt, that's who you're for. you're for that top 5%. you give them half of the entire tax cuts and they're $5 trillion, $2.5 trillion to the top 5%. that's what's going on. all right, before i break it. >> i was so worried i was going to break one of the screens. >> a two by four. cenk: that's the one portion that wasn't keeping it real was that was nowhere near a two by

four. >> two by four inches, not two feet. >> that still wasn't a two by four. cenk: no. the producers will remember we came up with the idea during out of our legendary lengthy morning meetings, an hour and a half discussing the news. we should have taped those. >> no, we shouldn't have. that would last like three hours. >> the best were the two hours before you got there, cenk. >> i'm notoriously late. don't you miss it a little bit? i miss being in the same room and going back and forth with everybody's ideas. i do. i get that they were super long and not always very productive, but it was great. cenk: no, no, ana's the only sour puss.

cenk: we couldn't find a two by four. one time we found a musket, ray found it when we wanted to do a gun segment, but couldn't find a two by four. >> michael hurt my feelings when he said ben doesn't know anything about lumber. cenk: so the other thing that of course, looking back on the show, et cetera, we look back on the two years that we've been on air. you know, again, it's a little bitter sweet, president obama won reelection, so that's swell, except again, we didn't get much change, so did we do any good, i guess is the question that i wind up constantly asking myself. cenk: contain have 30 seconds here, because you won't bring this up. >> 30 seconds? >> the reason this whole show exists -- i know, fair point -- >> that's a long time. >> the reason this show exists because cenk was offered a big job at msnbc. he thought that msnbc aside from

shuffling you to the weekend to be replaced by al freaking sharpton, also ms in my bc sort of had a directive to speak the white house talking points, definitely in the obama camp. cenk turned down more than a million dollars over the course of the contract for nothing, with nothing in his back pocket, except he said al gore is starting this channel and you thought there was a possibility. you had no way of knowing. that was as balancey move for a guy who talks about making a balancey move. you had an opportunity and you did it. that was incredibly courageous. you got the show here, now a lot of these people are working or al jazeera and gotten other jobs. it was massively courageous. it took a lot of courage. >> you're not a schmuck, ben.

cenk: thank you, ben. i appreciate that. hermela, did we make a difference in two years? >> oh, i don't think you made a difference. [ laughter ] >> well, i mean, keeping it real, i think a lot of our checks were a little bigger because of current and we all got to meet each other. i don't know if in the grand scheme of things in the world if we made a difference, but i think it was all worthwhile. cenk: yeah. look, we had a blast, and the country deeply progressive and we showed them the polls every single time. of course, just get that money out of politics and then it might make a huge difference. >> it's also, and i want to say something, cenk, very, very quickly. it's also where you begin to make a difference and all part of beginning to make a difference. during this time, you talked about getting money out of politics and walked that walk.

a difference doesn't happen in two years, but you will make look back in eight years and say when i was on current during those two years, we started talking about this and sharing those ideas and this is where it happened. they didn't get to the moon with pal gees when john f. kennedy said let's go to the moon, it was when richard nixon was president. i think you started a conversation that's very important. cenk: thank you, guys. let's take one more break here. as we came in with go time, you might get a sense of what we're going to go out with.

if you believe in state's rights but still support the drug war you must be high. >> "viewpoint" digs deep into the issues of the day. >> do you think there is any chance we'll ever hear the president even say the word "carbon tax"? >> with an opened mind... >> has the time finally come for real immigration reform? >> ...and a distinctly satirical point of view. >> but you mentioned great leadership so i want to talk about donald rumsfeld. >> (laughter) >> cutting throught the clutter of today's top stories. >> this is the savior of the republican party? i mean really? >> ... with a unique perspective. >> teddy rosevelt was a weak

asmatic kid who never played sports until he was a grown up. >> (laughter) >> ... and lots of fancy buz words. >> family values, speding, liberty, economic freedom, hard-working moms, crushing debt, cute little puppies. if wayne lapierre can make up stuff that sounds logical while making no sense... hey, so can i. once again friends, this is live tv and sometimes these things happen. >> watch the show. >> only on current tv. ♪ theme cenk: it is the last show here on current bub it's never the last show for "the young turks." tomorrow, catch is 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on theyoungturks.com. one last mash up for you guys. bye bye!

bye bye! bye bye! bye bye! bye bye! bye bye! bye bye! bye bye! bye bye! everybody else? bye bye! cenk: this whole crew who we love is all here, made the show happened, the best crew in the business and altogether now, guys, one last time. bye bye! [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> welcome to the future home of al jazeera america. good evening. newt gingrich today came out and said the republican party has to be less vicious and negative. newt gingrich called other republicans vicious and negative, and somewhere, an angel coughed up blood. also, rick perry is going to run for president again, the man who thought arab spring was a saudi