Speaker 1: Uh, it's it could happen here. It's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it could happen here. A podcast that it is. It's
Speaker 1: happening to you here right now. Bad things, good things,
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, because today we are talking about
Speaker 1: the ultimate and bad good things, Donald Trump's indictment, uh,
Speaker 1: and very brief arrest Garrison Davis, James Stout. How how
Speaker 1: are we all doing today? How are we all feeling
Speaker 1: this week? We did it, Joe, the mission accomplished. Time
Speaker 1: to time to pack up? Yeah, Dark Brandon has come
Speaker 1: for Trump. Uh, finally, So I figured we would wait until,
Speaker 1: you know, a few days had gone by. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of when the initial indictment was announced, we
Speaker 1: didn't even actually know what all the chart es were.
Speaker 1: There was a pretty long period of time that we
Speaker 1: didn't know like what the actual crime at the center
Speaker 1: of this was. But most of that has now is
Speaker 1: now relatively clear, as are kind of the earliest stages
Speaker 1: of the fallout to the Trump indictment. So I feel
Speaker 1: like now is a reasonably good time to talk about it.
Speaker 1: More may have, you know, occur since we occurred since
Speaker 1: we recorded this, But broadly speaking, the thing that Trump
Speaker 1: got indicted by as According to the thirteen page court
Speaker 1: filing outlining the case against him by Manhattan District Attorney
Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg, was what's called a catch and kill scheme
Speaker 1: in which Trump and you know, his trumpets, would basically
Speaker 1: bribe people to not write bad stories about him. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a hush money thing. My assumption is
Speaker 1: that basically everybody at that level of wealth and prominence
Speaker 1: does versions of the same thing, and these, in fact,
Speaker 1: are not crimes on their own. You can bribe somebody
Speaker 1: not to say a bad talk about a bad thing
Speaker 1: you did to the press. Where things get illegal is
Speaker 1: that Trump, you know, made a series of payments, primarily
Speaker 1: these one hundred and thirtyish thousand dollars in payments to
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels to buy her quiet, and then he had
Speaker 1: to falsify company records or his people falsified company records
Speaker 1: to disguise the payments as legal fees. Bragg is arguing
Speaker 1: that not only is this a crime, but it's a
Speaker 1: felony crime because he did this. He falsified these records
Speaker 1: to disguise disguise these payments in order to further additional
Speaker 1: violations of the laws and those additional violations of the laws.
Speaker 1: The actual like core crime here is that disguise. Under
Speaker 1: New York law, disguising these kind of payments in corporate
Speaker 1: records is a crime. It's typically a misdemeanor, but it's
Speaker 1: a felony if the business records were intended to obscure
Speaker 1: a second crime. And in this case, the second crime
Speaker 1: appears to be the use of funds to advance his
Speaker 1: like presidential campaign, which was in violation of campaign finance laws.
Speaker 1: So the core crime that makes the misdemeanor of felony
Speaker 1: is the fact that he was doing this um in
Speaker 1: order to advance his presidential campaign, and thus, like the
Speaker 1: payments that he was making were basically counted as part
Speaker 1: of like the limited amount of money you can spend,
Speaker 1: you know, financing your campaign, and he violated that. Right.
Speaker 1: That's that's the gist of it, as I understand, like
Speaker 1: what's actually being argued here. Yeah, that seems to be
Speaker 1: about the side. Just for people who aun familiar, Bragg
Speaker 1: is Alvin Bragg, the yeah Manhattan da Okay. Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: really concerning about this is that if they can arrest Trump,
Speaker 1: that means they can arrest to any one of us.
Speaker 1: That's right, all the money that I've paid for people
Speaker 1: to up stories about, including Stormy Daniels, you know, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's um like people. There's a lot of talk about
Speaker 1: like is this a weak case or a strong case?
Speaker 1: None of us are lawyers. My I go kind of
Speaker 1: both ways about this. One of them is that Alvin
Speaker 1: Bragg is a guy who, you know, whatever he believes
Speaker 1: about this case, is also a prosecutor. That is a
Speaker 1: political position. Prosecuting someone and failing to get your man
Speaker 1: is bad for your career, and if that man is
Speaker 1: the president who you indict for the first time in
Speaker 1: living memory, that would be really bad for your career.
Speaker 1: So my assumption is that Bragg at least believes he's
Speaker 1: got a really strong case. Otherwise he because this is
Speaker 1: a tremendous risk for him right now. Obviously, can Trump
Speaker 1: wriggle his way out of it. Will Trump is extremely
Speaker 1: good at wriggling his way out of things, and he
Speaker 1: has all of the money in the world for lawyers.
Speaker 1: So I think it would be foolish to say it's
Speaker 1: a slam dunk either way. People who are saying that
Speaker 1: like this is a weird thing to prosecute him for
Speaker 1: I guess, but you know it does. I can see
Speaker 1: the logic that this guy that Bragg is kind of
Speaker 1: going with, and it's do I think this should be
Speaker 1: a felony? I guess. I don't care, as long as
Speaker 1: it does some damage to the man and causes him
Speaker 1: some like consternation, which is like the question, right, is
Speaker 1: this actually going to harm him? But yeah, like that
Speaker 1: is the more debatable question, right, Like it's just going
Speaker 1: to harm him? Will help him? There's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about is this a political prosecution? And my
Speaker 1: general response to that is, well, like nearly all prosecutions
Speaker 1: are political, right, Like, even something that wouldn't seem like
Speaker 1: like a decision to go after a rapist will most
Speaker 1: rapists are not actually ever like charged or brought through
Speaker 1: the justice system. So if you're a prosecutor choosing to
Speaker 1: do that in a specific case, there's a degree of
Speaker 1: politics factoring into your decision, even if it's just as
Speaker 1: as simple as like, if I take on this case
Speaker 1: and I lose it, it could harm my ability to
Speaker 1: like move forward in the ways that I want to
Speaker 1: in my career. So I the fact that now this
Speaker 1: is political and perhaps a grander sense. I have no
Speaker 1: doubt that the fact that this is Donald fucking Trump
Speaker 1: and everything that's happened since twenty twenty has happened, that
Speaker 1: he has been a party, and I have no doubt
Speaker 1: that that all factors into this um. But I just
Speaker 1: don't see that as being like the fact that finally
Speaker 1: a prosecutor is making sort of a political prosecution of
Speaker 1: a man at the top of the hierarchy is not
Speaker 1: something that concerns me terribly. Yeah, I didn't think, like,
Speaker 1: I'm more concerned that this seems to have propelled him
Speaker 1: to the front of the Republican race and that he's
Speaker 1: getting a bunch of donations off it than I am
Speaker 1: about any any potential consequences like all, yeah, actual indictment.
Speaker 1: It is certainly an interesting political move for descentis to
Speaker 1: back Trump on this and not not like comply with extradition,
Speaker 1: not that it would ever get to that point, but
Speaker 1: that is still a move that Descent is made on purpose,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting political move considering it is a
Speaker 1: future candidacy and it is. Let's talk about that a second,
Speaker 1: because obviously thirty four felony accounts sounds like a lot
Speaker 1: that is in fact quite a few felonies. But the
Speaker 1: at least the coverage I'm reading is like it's basically
Speaker 1: unheard of for someone to actually do jail time for
Speaker 1: this as a first offense, which I don't know whatever
Speaker 1: like does that. It's absolutely breathtakingly he doesn't have a
Speaker 1: single crime on him, given me, he's essentially a career criminal. Well,
Speaker 1: there are continuing, like there's probably like the potential for
Speaker 1: prosecution still from like that call he had with the
Speaker 1: Secretary of State of Georgia, which we'll talk about a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, I think there are a few sort
Speaker 1: of more, there's a number of things that, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: may not be the last Trump criminal indictment that we see. God,
Speaker 1: we can only hope. We can only hope because because
Speaker 1: it only gets more funny from here, and that's the
Speaker 1: only reason too. Yeah, well, well unless it doesn't. I'm
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of like panic from some people, certain
Speaker 1: certain folks in the progressive and kind of center left
Speaker 1: media sphere who are like, this has just handed Trump
Speaker 1: the nomination. This might have just handed Trump the election
Speaker 1: from what I'm looking at and from the polling I'm
Speaker 1: looking at, I mean, I think there's a good chance
Speaker 1: this helps I mean, I think the polling certainly supports
Speaker 1: the argument that this will help him cinch the nomination.
Speaker 1: I don't really think that was super end doubt before,
Speaker 1: although he has definitely gained onto Santis since all of this,
Speaker 1: this whole process started, there is evidence. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: a five thirty eight article right now. Trump's indictment might
Speaker 1: be make him more popular among Republicans. But kind of
Speaker 1: the point that's actually made is that the group that's
Speaker 1: that's getting more likely to back him is his base.
Speaker 1: Like maybe it's people who were softer on him because
Speaker 1: he didn't back you know, the J six people. Maybe
Speaker 1: some of them from them are just folks who kind
Speaker 1: of drifted away because you know, it's the years in
Speaker 1: between a presidential election, and that's a natural thing. So
Speaker 1: it may have galvanized his base. He's certainly he's raised
Speaker 1: four or five million dollars, he's seven now he's claiming seven.
Speaker 1: I mean, that seems real possible. He is saying that
Speaker 1: a significant chunk of it. I think like twenty percent
Speaker 1: might be more than that. Now we're like first time donations.
Speaker 1: That is what his people are claiming. That is not.
Speaker 1: I have no way of knowing if those numbers are legitimate.
Speaker 1: What we can say is that the polling that we're
Speaker 1: seeing nationally does not back the idea that this is
Speaker 1: causing a sea change in the likelihood of Americans to
Speaker 1: support Donald Trump. About sixty nine percent of Americans, according
Speaker 1: to a very nice according to an economist Yugov pole
Speaker 1: say that in general, failing to report having spent campaign
Speaker 1: money on payments in order to keep someone silent about
Speaker 1: an issue and affect the outcome of an election is
Speaker 1: a crime. About ninety percent Biden voters back this, while
Speaker 1: about fifty four percent of those who voted for Trump
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty said the same, Which is interesting. Now,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they also think that this is what
Speaker 1: Trump did, right, They're just saying they think that that
Speaker 1: is a crime. About fifty seven percent of Republicans according
Speaker 1: to that same or according to a Yahoo News Ugov poll,
Speaker 1: about fifty seven percent of Republicans and Republican leaders said
Speaker 1: they would support Trump and a head to head against
Speaker 1: Ronda Santis, who received thirty one percent. That's an increase
Speaker 1: in support for the president by about ten percent, but
Speaker 1: de Santis has only gone down like eight percent, so
Speaker 1: you can see like he Basically what's happening is that
Speaker 1: this is causing people to flock from de Santist to him,
Speaker 1: which is not kind of evidence that we're seeing like
Speaker 1: a broader national sweep. Quinnipiac University, NPR, PBS News Our
Speaker 1: Merist Pole kind of broadly supported the idea that investigations
Speaker 1: into Trump are popular among Americans, more popular than not.
Speaker 1: At least, about fifty six percent of Americans say the
Speaker 1: investigations into Trump are fair, about forty one percent say
Speaker 1: they're a witch hunt. Independence are pretty split on the issue,
Speaker 1: but obviously like Democrats, wildly supportive Republicans very much against.
Speaker 1: Most college educated adults come down on this being fair,
Speaker 1: as do most Gen Z and millennial people. Adults without
Speaker 1: a college education, white evangelicals, and those in small towns
Speaker 1: are most likely to call it a witch hunt. An
Speaker 1: NPRPBS News Hour Merist poll shows a plurality of Americans.
Speaker 1: Forty six percent believe Trump has done something illegal related
Speaker 1: to those investigations. Number. Another twenty nine percent say Trump
Speaker 1: has done something unethical but not illegal, while only twenty
Speaker 1: three percent say he's done nothing wrong. Overall, fifty seven
Speaker 1: percent of Americans say that criminal charges filed against Trump
Speaker 1: should disqualify him from a presidential bid. Thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: say it should not. That would be an area where
Speaker 1: I actually agree with the Republicans. I don't think that
Speaker 1: having charges against you should disqualify you from running for president.
Speaker 1: But man, I think if you are a fucking murderer,
Speaker 1: you should be able to run for president. People have
Speaker 1: the right to run for and vote for whoever the
Speaker 1: fuck they want, and I think that that is a
Speaker 1: strong core belief of mine. Not going to vote for Trump,
Speaker 1: but I think the fact that he's getting charged with
Speaker 1: a bunch of felonies should not. If he was in jail,
Speaker 1: he should be able to run as people have in
Speaker 1: the past. In my opinion, Yeah, Eugene Debs Trump president,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of more interested actually in I think
Speaker 1: the Republican response is fairly predictable, Like all of this week,
Speaker 1: we could have called that, you know, the moment they
Speaker 1: said they were indicting him. The Democrats like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't think the Democrats are ever going to do
Speaker 1: anything useful that will really change material conditions or make
Speaker 1: things much better for working people in this country. But
Speaker 1: the fact that it gives them the option to pivot
Speaker 1: back to like Orange Man Bad as their only campaign,
Speaker 1: as their only promise, as their only sort of principle,
Speaker 1: which like they put forward as as a reason to
Speaker 1: vote for them, is still bad. I think like it
Speaker 1: prevents even the modicum of accountability that we have for
Speaker 1: all the shit that the Democrats have done and all
Speaker 1: the shit that they haven't done in the past what
Speaker 1: like three two two and a half years since the election.
Speaker 1: I think that's so much broader of a problem than
Speaker 1: just dealing with this set of charges. I am. I
Speaker 1: am sympathy to the idea if you just kind of
Speaker 1: look at history that you can't let people do the
Speaker 1: kind of shit Trump did and not try to fucking
Speaker 1: go after them and not hammer the sons of bitches, right,
Speaker 1: and this is this is not you know, they went
Speaker 1: after after the beer Hall push, Hitler was jailed for
Speaker 1: like a year. So it doesn't mean that like slaps
Speaker 1: on the wrist don't necessarily have much of a protective effect.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, like, like I am so torn
Speaker 1: on this, and I mean, obviously it's really funny. I
Speaker 1: think it if this is kind of the start of
Speaker 1: a series of prosecutions that's going to make this guy's
Speaker 1: life hell, and that might actually even force some consequences
Speaker 1: for him. Then I think that's broadly speaking a good thing,
Speaker 1: as long as it doesn't, like disqualify him from the presidency,
Speaker 1: which I think would be a bad precedent. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm broadly on team yeah, man, fuck him up,
Speaker 1: like we know this guy would have and in fact
Speaker 1: has promised too, if he gets into power again, use
Speaker 1: the state, use the Justice Department, remake it in his
Speaker 1: own image, and destroy his enemies. So I'm not against
Speaker 1: the idea that, like, well, the Dems, I tend to
Speaker 1: agree with you on most things, James, Like I don't
Speaker 1: believe the Democratic Party deserves to have an easy election
Speaker 1: right now because they've failed. I mean, we were this
Speaker 1: is the week where we're getting the announcement from Biden
Speaker 1: that he's essentially taking kind of the soft answer to
Speaker 1: the GOP attack on trans people participating in sporting events.
Speaker 1: We were also about a week out from his most
Speaker 1: recent announcement on or maybe actually it's been more like
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks on the border shit. We just
Speaker 1: had that horrible fire over in Warez like a week
Speaker 1: or so ago. Like the Biden administration has let a
Speaker 1: lot of people down in a number of ways. There's
Speaker 1: you know, some of the drilling shit that's about to
Speaker 1: start up again in Alaska is really unsettling to me.
Speaker 1: So I agree with you. I don't like the idea
Speaker 1: that they can make this be an Orange Man bad
Speaker 1: election again. And I'm hopeful that some of what we've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly like the most recent election in Chicago,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe there's kind of at least room
Speaker 1: at the state level for a lot more progressive to
Speaker 1: edge out kind of centrist Dems and force some consequences
Speaker 1: that way. But I I also am worried about, you know, this,
Speaker 1: this authoritarian who threatened to jail and murder a bunch
Speaker 1: of people I care about, and like I want, I
Speaker 1: want him to spend the rest of his life tangled
Speaker 1: up in that shit. I don't know that that's what
Speaker 1: this is going to be. You know, maybe they'll they'll
Speaker 1: fail miserably here, but I don't know. I do think
Speaker 1: the kind of panic that you're getting from some people
Speaker 1: that like this handed them the election, I'm not seeing
Speaker 1: evidence that that's the case. I think that maybe if
Speaker 1: this had happened in like twenty sixteen or even twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: sure you might get something like that. But at the
Speaker 1: point where at now, I just don't think new people
Speaker 1: are coming to Trump in numbers. Yeah, yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and and it very much makes sense for the liberal
Speaker 1: state apparatus to try to defend itself from what it
Speaker 1: sees as like an insurgent, reactionary factor, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: that is, that is how they view Trump and Trump's
Speaker 1: political power, So it makes sense they will use their
Speaker 1: own powers to try to resist that from gaining control. Again. Um,
Speaker 1: whether or not you believe the state apparatus should exist
Speaker 1: at all, or how how valid you view its existence,
Speaker 1: it makes sense what they're doing. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not,
Speaker 1: I am I mean, honestly, I am surprised they committed
Speaker 1: to it because there is in part because this is
Speaker 1: a tremendous risk for Bragg and the people around him.
Speaker 1: Right if this fails, which it very well might. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously that would have could have consequences for everybody, but
Speaker 1: you know, it could have really serious career consequences for
Speaker 1: this guy. And I am surprised that you've you've got
Speaker 1: someone willing to kind of throw the dice here, and
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that maybe that inspires especially since this case,
Speaker 1: by the way, since I'm sure people are curious. No
Speaker 1: one I've looked at who knows more about the law
Speaker 1: than me expects this to hit trial quickly. Again, Trump
Speaker 1: has all of the money in the world, and this
Speaker 1: is like probably going to be a pretty winding process
Speaker 1: outside of just the normal problems of like a rich
Speaker 1: man as being accused of a series of crimes and
Speaker 1: has many lawyers. The Secret Service has a lot to
Speaker 1: say and when and how the actual trial part of
Speaker 1: this commences, and that has a chance of extending it.
Speaker 1: So my hope is that as this kind of winds on,
Speaker 1: maybe the fact that Bragg was willing to kind of
Speaker 1: take a shot in the dark here, so to speak,
Speaker 1: inspires some of these other prosecutors who have been, you know,
Speaker 1: poking at Trump to take a swing, and maybe with
Speaker 1: enough swings, you know, it'll be like that that guy
Speaker 1: we had on Troy Hurdibes and his bare armor suit.
Speaker 1: You know, you get a bunch of bikers to surround
Speaker 1: him with two by fours and just swing until they're
Speaker 1: all broken and he's on the ground. Um, it'll be
Speaker 1: like it'll be like that scene from a Venger's end
Speaker 1: Game and all of the George Soros DA's are garrison
Speaker 1: absolutely not led by George. Sorry, I've never been angrier
Speaker 1: at you right now than bringing up that fucking adventure scene. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So did y'all watch Trump's video response, Oh, the one
Speaker 1: that played on all of the new stations except for MSNBC. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should talk. I actually did not watch it. Now.
Speaker 1: I attempted to avoid that as well. Actually, well I
Speaker 1: watched give Yourself to that for us Robot. I sure did,
Speaker 1: and I have a summary of the most salient parts.
Speaker 1: First off, I think that MSNBC made the right call.
Speaker 1: They kind of summarized what was going on, but like
Speaker 1: didn't just let him speak, you know, uninterrupted. For it
Speaker 1: was like fifteen minutes, something like twenty minutes of interrupted, Robert,
Speaker 1: would you like to be interrupted by some plugs for
Speaker 1: goods and services? Absolutely, Betty. Donald Trump is a master
Speaker 1: spokesman and these are master products. Get your gold. We're back. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's been such a glorious, glorious time. Everyone's everybody's really
Speaker 1: feeling powerful today, mighty anyway Trump, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I watched this fucking thing. I guess my overall sentiment
Speaker 1: would be kind of boring, right, This is not the
Speaker 1: level of energy or the degree of kind of like
Speaker 1: manic violent undercurrents that like his American Carnage speech had,
Speaker 1: or even that like some of his more recent speeches
Speaker 1: in front of crowds have had. I don't see. There's
Speaker 1: so many people I've watched to have takes on this
Speaker 1: who are like and that. One of the joys of
Speaker 1: Twitter is you'll see some guy who's I don't know,
Speaker 1: an analyst at some newspaper be like, wow, Trump was
Speaker 1: really low energy. He seems frightened. You know, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: this is a scared man. He's worried about these charges.
Speaker 1: And then like someone else with almost the same CV
Speaker 1: at a different place will be like, wow, Trump seems angry.
Speaker 1: You know, he's about he's about to lash back. Everybody
Speaker 1: better be ready for his counter strike. And honestly, I
Speaker 1: just thought it was like kind of perfunctor. It didn't
Speaker 1: see he certainly didn't seem low energy, but he didn't
Speaker 1: seem like he had he didn't seem like he had
Speaker 1: much to say other than kind of meander over some
Speaker 1: of his some some talking points that are at this
Speaker 1: point mostly pretty lukewarm. He kind of runs through at
Speaker 1: the start of this a laundry list of right wing
Speaker 1: talking points that like the Democrats spied on his campaign
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, that he was subjected to fraudulent investigations
Speaker 1: from the Russia and Ukraine stuff to the impeachments to
Speaker 1: the raid on Mara Lago. And then he broadens it
Speaker 1: by talking about how the FBI and the dj relentlessly
Speaker 1: pursue Republicans. And I was kind of expecting him to
Speaker 1: lean more into the I am your vengeance shit that
Speaker 1: he's been doing lately. He doesn't really as much as
Speaker 1: I had expected him to in this, Like you can,
Speaker 1: he kind of like dips his toes into it, but
Speaker 1: I think he's so focused on what's happening to him
Speaker 1: that he doesn't he doesn't like push that as much
Speaker 1: as I was kind of expecting. So this is what
Speaker 1: comes after him like ranting about the DOJ and the
Speaker 1: FBI relentlessly pursuing Republicans. He then kind of like goes
Speaker 1: into the election fraud claimed stuff. Again, he gives a
Speaker 1: bunch of lies there about the election, then about there
Speaker 1: being like ballots stuffed and all that kind of shit.
Speaker 1: Then he like pivots straight from that to talking about
Speaker 1: how Twitter purportedly worked with the Biden family to hide
Speaker 1: information about Hunter Biden. This is like debunked Twitter file shifts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: update on Twitter files. Matt to Beebe has just left
Speaker 1: Twitter because it will lay him post substance sub stack.
Speaker 1: We do know obviously like they did stuff like say hey,
Speaker 1: please remove this video that shows Hunter Biden's penis um,
Speaker 1: but also like that's not number one is not supposed
Speaker 1: to be stuff that's on Twitter. That's kind of like
Speaker 1: crossing the revenge porn line. And you know, both sides
Speaker 1: made requests that things be removed. Um. Trump claims, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where he says that, there's like like
Speaker 1: somebody calculated this, but I haven't been able to find
Speaker 1: who made this calculation that if Twitter hadn't intervened against him,
Speaker 1: he would have won the national election by seventeen points um.
Speaker 1: And then he's like, and that's I didn't even need
Speaker 1: that many. You know, you could have dropped that by
Speaker 1: sixteen point eight and I still would have won. Um,
Speaker 1: which is not true. Really again, it's all just lies. Um.
Speaker 1: It goes on. He compares the United States to a
Speaker 1: third world country because of the twenty twenty election. He
Speaker 1: calls Alvin Bragg a Soros backed prosecutor, which he does
Speaker 1: a lot. Um, it's not true, but Bragg, you know,
Speaker 1: people are using Soros backed is like um, at least
Speaker 1: a lot of the Nazis are are are really leaping
Speaker 1: on that one. Yeah, they've gone back to Soros, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: they did the three parentheses for a while, Like Desantist
Speaker 1: mentioned Staris at least twice in his place. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big, big one for them. I think it is.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a good move on their part
Speaker 1: to frame this prosecution as election interference like that is
Speaker 1: that is a smart move for them to get to
Speaker 1: funnel all of this via that narrative. Yeah, it helps
Speaker 1: keep the election fraud lies going. It also helps because
Speaker 1: there's been a number of like you know, Chessa boudin
Speaker 1: Get who got booted in San Francisco recently, is one example.
Speaker 1: But we've seen a number of like progressive prosecutors get
Speaker 1: elected by kind of dim and you know, center left coalitions,
Speaker 1: and that's um allows them to kind of connect this
Speaker 1: to one of their more successful talking points, was is
Speaker 1: the purported like horrible violence in the streets of cities
Speaker 1: like San Francisco and whatnot, the like surgeon crime and
Speaker 1: liberal you know cities with liberal prosecutors. Again, it's all bullshit,
Speaker 1: but it's not a bad tactic for tying into like, well,
Speaker 1: let's make a link between this thing Trump is claiming
Speaker 1: that's hurting him and this thing that people see every
Speaker 1: night on like Fox News that has been a pretty
Speaker 1: durable talking point for the right for several years now.
Speaker 1: Trump makes it. There's a weird line in here where
Speaker 1: he says that like even the Rhinos and the Democrats
Speaker 1: agree that the case against him is bad. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I suspect he's just kind of
Speaker 1: like looking at at Twitter chaff there. He then kind
Speaker 1: of derails a bit by talking about Afghanistan and all
Speaker 1: of the military equipment and lives lost in the same breath,
Speaker 1: and then from that he kind of one of the
Speaker 1: things that comes up over and over in this is
Speaker 1: him talking about how embarrassing this time is for our country,
Speaker 1: how all of our enemies are laughing at us, etc.
Speaker 1: Like that is a I mean, he's been making that
Speaker 1: point for a long time, but it definitely it's It's
Speaker 1: one of those things I think is a little bit
Speaker 1: of a window into the man's thought process, because he
Speaker 1: clearly thinks and perhaps I mean it must have a
Speaker 1: degree of resonance with his base. But the idea that
Speaker 1: like America has been embarrassed because he's facing charges and
Speaker 1: because of you know, Biden's failures as he sees it
Speaker 1: over in Afghanistan and elsewhere, like embarrassment is a big thing.
Speaker 1: He tries to get across in this that like you know,
Speaker 1: lady Lady Liberty's been caught with their fucking skirt up
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's a I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me that that's such a focus for him.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of fun lines in the part about
Speaker 1: the military. He talks about how it's woke at the tops,
Speaker 1: but under him, it was able to defeat Isis in
Speaker 1: four weeks, which man, it took years, Like we know
Speaker 1: it took years. I was there for some of it.
Speaker 1: A large part of that was not Americans at all,
Speaker 1: but like, no no, in a large part of it
Speaker 1: was not Americans at all. There's a weird moment where
Speaker 1: he talks about the investigation over his call with Selinski
Speaker 1: and then that call where he tried to force Georgia's
Speaker 1: secretary of State to discard votes that he's being investigated for,
Speaker 1: where he's like, this is one of like the most
Speaker 1: beautiful Trump moments of the whole speech, because he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, that perfect call I had with Zelinski told
Speaker 1: you all it was a perfect call, where my call
Speaker 1: with Georgia's secretary of state was even more perfect. It
Speaker 1: was it was the best call anybody's ever had. Nobody
Speaker 1: had a problem with it. Lots of guys were listening
Speaker 1: in and they all thought it was great. It's just
Speaker 1: he can be such a funny man. It's not even insane.
Speaker 1: It's just like, I don't know, nobody, nobody else talks
Speaker 1: like that. Nobody else describes a phone call as perfect, right,
Speaker 1: like a normal and this is maybe there's a degree
Speaker 1: of Trump's success you can see in this, but like
Speaker 1: no normal person being accused of, like having attempted to
Speaker 1: interfere with an election during a phone call would describe
Speaker 1: the call as perfect. You know, a normal politician would
Speaker 1: refute the claims against them, would say, you know, I
Speaker 1: never did this, I never did that. You know this
Speaker 1: is taken out of context or whatever. Trump's just like
Speaker 1: it was perfect, But you don't remember the last perfect
Speaker 1: call I told you about that people thought might have
Speaker 1: been a crime, even more perfect. This is the most
Speaker 1: perfect phone call anyone's ever had. Yeah. Then we get
Speaker 1: a long derailment about the Biden, like, you know, the
Speaker 1: classified document shit that got him rated. He talks about
Speaker 1: how Biden's possession of classified documents was like the worst
Speaker 1: that anyone's ever done and was criminal because he was
Speaker 1: just the vice president. But the president's allowed to do it,
Speaker 1: but everybody does it, but the way Biden did is
Speaker 1: the worst that anybody did it. Yeah, it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's there's it's not like it's not an
Speaker 1: interesting Trump speech. Um, I don't think he's like panicked
Speaker 1: or anything. I just kind of I don't know it.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's just sort of like checking off a thing
Speaker 1: on the to do box. But it's not it's not
Speaker 1: one of the it's not one for the speech books,
Speaker 1: right or for the history books. I don't know the
Speaker 1: speech books. That's not a thing. That's not a thing
Speaker 1: at all. There is a really fun moment where he's
Speaker 1: like kind of late in the speech, in between him
Speaker 1: complaining about Letitia James, he like points to his sons
Speaker 1: and he's like, I got two great sons, sons both
Speaker 1: doing really great. And then he's like and Baron, and
Speaker 1: then as an afterthought, he's like, Baron's gonna do a
Speaker 1: great job too, someday. He's tall, an amazing father. Talking
Speaker 1: of tall, did you see that they do say they
Speaker 1: faked a mug shot of him and made him six
Speaker 1: foot five? Who faked the mug shot? The Trump campaign
Speaker 1: faked a mug shot of him to sell much That
Speaker 1: just added like several inches to his A man with
Speaker 1: no insecurities. Ben Shapiro moments Trump a legalist arc. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying there's nothing to be concerned about in the
Speaker 1: right wing reaction here. It is worth kind of looking
Speaker 1: at the response that has occurred has largely been fucking nonsense,
Speaker 1: circus shit. Right. At most of the big rallies, particularly
Speaker 1: in New York, that have happened as a result of this,
Speaker 1: there've been more press on the ground than anyone on
Speaker 1: either side of things. It's not. It's just so far
Speaker 1: not pulling people out, you know. Do I think there's
Speaker 1: a chance of you know, isolated terrorist attacks as you know,
Speaker 1: by people who see themselves as defending Trump or democracy
Speaker 1: or whatever. Certainly not a zero percent chance. But in
Speaker 1: terms of like things that I think are likely to
Speaker 1: have a mass to stabilizing effect, I'm not seeing it yet.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of that's due just to
Speaker 1: the fact that the Trump supporters who are kind of
Speaker 1: have the highest potential of being convinced to do that shit,
Speaker 1: are all scared as hell, both of the FEDS and
Speaker 1: of each other. The sheer number of them that have
Speaker 1: like turned on each other during the J six investigations
Speaker 1: like has it means that whenever there's talk about doing
Speaker 1: another big series of rallies, it devolves in a lot
Speaker 1: of these online places into like, well, you know, this
Speaker 1: is probably being set up by the Feds. This is
Speaker 1: probably a honeypot to trap us um, which is I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's not a situation I would say you
Speaker 1: should rely on lasting forever, but that does kind of
Speaker 1: seem to be where we are right now. One other
Speaker 1: aspect of the right wing response that I think is
Speaker 1: worth mentioning is they have as some of some of
Speaker 1: their like propagandists and unpolitical people have made the promise
Speaker 1: that since since now, since that now there's been a
Speaker 1: precedent set for indicting for former presidents. Now now they
Speaker 1: finally are able to go after Democratic politicians whenever they want.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just I just am worried that they're
Speaker 1: going to threaten us with a good time. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's also it's not just threatening us with
Speaker 1: a good time, because we have seen in Tennessee right
Speaker 1: now they're forcing two Democratic legislators out for their support
Speaker 1: of gun control and like you know, typical. Yeah, I'm not,
Speaker 1: you know, in line with most of the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: on gun control. But what is happening here is anti
Speaker 1: democratic bullshit like that is it is authoritarian. It is
Speaker 1: completely fucking unacceptable, and people ought to be out in
Speaker 1: the like a lot more out to be done, and
Speaker 1: I think probably a lot more, Like I don't this
Speaker 1: that's one of the thorny questions that actually does concern me,
Speaker 1: Like what do you do in a situation like this?
Speaker 1: What do the what kind of leverage do the FEDS
Speaker 1: even potentially have it. Certainly doesn't look like they're in
Speaker 1: the mood to do anything now, because I think that's
Speaker 1: the kind of that's the kind of thing we're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot more of in Red States in
Speaker 1: order to that little resistance it lists and that's really concerning.
Speaker 1: They're not going to go after someone like Obama, which
Speaker 1: frankly somebody, somebody should for the amount of bad Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there should be charges against the man. There should be
Speaker 1: charges against Bush. Uh, you know, the doves, um, there
Speaker 1: should be some charges against Clinton. Fuck it, go after them,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you dig up George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush put them on trial as a corpse like that
Speaker 1: one Pope, Like, I'm on board, But no, they're they're
Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna end up going after there's like small
Speaker 1: like minority politicians who are like yeah, fighting for like
Speaker 1: reasonable things, you know, and who are doing things to
Speaker 1: actually jam up the works of kind of the march
Speaker 1: of far right. Yeah, authoritarian laws Red States exactly. And
Speaker 1: you know, I am sure that as that picks up pace,
Speaker 1: they will point out what's being done to Trump as
Speaker 1: a justification. But like people should be aware that's not
Speaker 1: why they're doing it. They're doing it because it looks
Speaker 1: like it's going to work for them in Tennessee. And
Speaker 1: they did it in Tennessee for third reasons that had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with fucking Trump. Yeah right, Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you want to talk about like what fascism is, a
Speaker 1: big part of it is that weaponizing of the state
Speaker 1: apparatus right against a position against you, whatever your scapegoat group,
Speaker 1: and like that does concern me for people living in
Speaker 1: Red State. Absolutely absolutely. I'm not saying there's nothing to
Speaker 1: be worried about from the right. I'm just saying, at
Speaker 1: the moment, when I'm looking at like the way I
Speaker 1: kind of conceive of a threat matrix, I don't see
Speaker 1: us in a more dangerous position as a result of
Speaker 1: Trump getting charged, And I think an argument could be
Speaker 1: made that it's a positive move. I really hope we
Speaker 1: get another nail gun guy. Oh man, Yeah, that fucking dude,
Speaker 1: you tried to tried to solo the FBI with a
Speaker 1: nail gun. Maybe a neck girl come in with like
Speaker 1: a jigsaw or a yeah no, no, no, I think
Speaker 1: I think ladders. I think it's it's it's time for
Speaker 1: like a ladder mob. Um that that's that's what I'm
Speaker 1: excited to see. Ladders and like simple pulleys. It's getting
Speaker 1: pinned to a building someone twenty feet away with a ladder.
Speaker 1: Make a make a tributche judge. The gauntlet has been
Speaker 1: thrown down. Yeah, let's let's let's have a continuing series
Speaker 1: of competitions to see who can build like the most
Speaker 1: effective medieval siege equipment. I want to see some fucking
Speaker 1: scorpions up on the hill, you know, Yeah, I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: Is it Greek fire? Turkish fire? When you put yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that really that's a boy. That's like the
Speaker 1: Humms debate, James, you don't want cypress fire and we
Speaker 1: can be fine. Um. I don't know where where you
Speaker 1: guys get any of their thoughts on the Trump arraignment, indictment, arrest, etc. No,
Speaker 1: it's very funny. It did enjoy seeing that guy fall
Speaker 1: off his toll bike. That was a highlight of the
Speaker 1: week for me. There was a good video from the
Speaker 1: New York protest of a guy falling off a tall bike. Yeah,
Speaker 1: out to the skateboard. Oh, I will, I will, um,
Speaker 1: let's see I will send send a few things to
Speaker 1: the chat. This the signal chat that I feel like
Speaker 1: people are worth seeing. This is what I spent This
Speaker 1: is what I spent most of my day uh doing,
Speaker 1: um is sending people these memes. I think it's important
Speaker 1: that that is. That is that Ruth bader Ginsburg with
Speaker 1: a biggie crown saying, tell Donald, I want him to
Speaker 1: know it was me, Garrison, Yes, that is Oh no,
Speaker 1: you're joking. If I actually see Ruth bed again, I'm
Speaker 1: for fuck's sake, Kai with a pussy hat. Oh god,
Speaker 1: looks like brunches back on the menu. Boys. That one
Speaker 1: I do appreciate. There was there was a good one
Speaker 1: that was like, um uh, it was like the jailer
Speaker 1: dropping off Trump in Epstein's cell all all of all
Speaker 1: of all of the lights go off, and then from
Speaker 1: the corner, a man in a dark cloak says Brandon
Speaker 1: sends his regards. What a wonderful time for memes. Well, everybody,
Speaker 1: when that's our that's our episode on the Trump arrest.
Speaker 1: We figured we should we should talk about that. To
Speaker 1: answer the question that so many people ask me, are
Speaker 1: we closer to having a civil war? I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It doesn't feel like this this has moved
Speaker 1: the needle on that at all. Um, the national divorce
Speaker 1: is happening any day now. I swear like I think
Speaker 1: the thing that's worrying right now is, you know, not
Speaker 1: just kind of the low level series of exchanges of
Speaker 1: terror attacks and shootings and murders and stuff and just
Speaker 1: street violence that I I do think is going to
Speaker 1: kind of continue to be a problem up through twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, but also just like what we've been talking
Speaker 1: about in terms of states pushing for these increasingly really
Speaker 1: violent laws aimed at doing direct physical harm to small
Speaker 1: groups of people that they consider to be their enemies
Speaker 1: for whatever reason of identity. That is, like the increasing
Speaker 1: criminalization of groups of people in red states, the flight
Speaker 1: of folks from those states, the like the fact that
Speaker 1: you are kind of seeing the country settle into two
Speaker 1: blocks that have wildly different legal systems that are often
Speaker 1: opposed to each other. That's a conflict that is absolutely happening.
Speaker 1: There's no denying that it's occurring. This is not a
Speaker 1: debatable thing, and I don't see the FEDS having any
Speaker 1: idea of how to fix this at the moment. We'll
Speaker 1: see where the elections go in twenty twenty four. The
Speaker 1: fact that Wisconsin that their Supreme Court election went well
Speaker 1: means a lot. It means that that's one state where
Speaker 1: the process that we're seeing happening in places like Florida
Speaker 1: in Tennessee. Um, that is a significant amount of people
Speaker 1: protected from that. And it also means a lot for
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four election. But it's we we are
Speaker 1: in a really rough place still. Um, I'm not like
Speaker 1: thinking we're in at the edge of seventeen seventy six
Speaker 1: point two or whatever the fuck the right way these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five or whatever. Robert Evans is going to
Speaker 1: personally be the next John Brown. Yeah, I I hopefully not. Um,
Speaker 1: but I am. I am. I think I'd be really
Speaker 1: good at a being a terrible farmer. Um, I'm as red. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That picture of John Brown like leading the troops will
Speaker 1: remain one of my favorite pieces. Yeah. And no, he's
Speaker 1: he's got he's got a hell of a beard in
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah. I don't know. I think the threat,
Speaker 1: you know, continues, But broadly speaking, what's happened to Trump
Speaker 1: is either good or neutral, but certainly funny. And that's
Speaker 1: I think a good point to end on for the
Speaker 1: day a great Brandon sends his regards. It could Happen
Speaker 1: Here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia
Speaker 1: dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.