Gorka's New Rules - May 14, 2026

In this pivotal episode of The Young Turks, host Anna Kasparian delivers a blistering critique of President Trump's foreign policy, particularly his handling of the Iran conflict and his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. She exposes how the war in Iran has backfired on the U.S., giving China strategic advantages in military, economic, and soft power domains—despite Trump’s claims that the conflict harms China. Kasparian highlights a classified Pentagon intelligence report revealing that U.S. allies in the Gulf have turned to China for weapons due to America’s depleted missile defenses, and that China is positioning itself as a trusted global energy provider amid the crisis. She also dissects Trump’s hypocrisy in bringing a corporate delegation to China for profit-driven deals while claiming to stand tough on Beijing. A major focus is on Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s counterterrorism czar, whose new national counterterrorism strategy labels critics of the administration—including Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes—as domestic terrorists, raising alarming First Amendment concerns. Kasparian interviews journalist Ken Klippenstein, who reveals the administration’s broad, arbitrary criteria for defining terrorism, creating a chilling effect on free speech. The episode also covers Israel’s threatened defamation lawsuit against The New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’s exposé on systemic sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees, which Kasparian argues is a desperate attempt to silence truth. She juxtaposes this with Israeli media’s open boasting about prison rape, demonstrating the normalization of violence. The show concludes with a fiery debate on AI, where Kasparian critiques the industry’s disregard for workers, emphasizing Tucker Carlson’s genuine concern about job loss and the need for universal basic income. She also details a $25 million super PAC-funded primary challenge against principled Republican Thomas Massey, funded by AIPAC and Miriam Adelson, underscoring the foreign influence on U.S. elections.