Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Let's go over to Trump trial.
Speaker 2: I want to give everybody an update. Yes, I know
Speaker 2: that the details are maddening, but yesterday genuinely was an
Speaker 2: important moment at the Trump tile. Let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. This was chaos at the trial.
Speaker 2: Judge clears the courtroom over irritation with the Trump defense witness.
Speaker 2: So everybody stick with me here because it basically comes
Speaker 2: back to a lawyer. His name is Robert Costello, was
Speaker 2: actually called by the Trump defense team to discuss a
Speaker 2: previous meeting that he had with Michael Cohen. That meeting
Speaker 2: allegedly took place in April of twenty eighteen, after the
Speaker 2: FBI had raided Cohen's hotel, room, home, and office.
Speaker 3: Now, according to Costello.
Speaker 2: He says, quote he was putting on quite a show
Speaker 2: referring to Michael Cohen, and that he was actually introduced
Speaker 2: basically to call into question Michael Cohen's both state of
Speaker 2: mind and to say that he was suicidal, that he
Speaker 2: was quote a drama queen, and several others. The judge
Speaker 2: ended up actually clearing the courtroom because they were very
Speaker 2: upset with Costello apparently like audibly jeering the judge and
Speaker 2: his own rulings, saying before clearing the courtroom, merchants said,
Speaker 2: the jurors out scolded Costello for saying geez in response
Speaker 2: to objections from prosecutors and forgiving the judge quote side eye.
Speaker 2: So there was some shenanigans that were happening there. So
Speaker 2: all of this was actually called Ryan in the defense,
Speaker 2: you have anything you want to say before we get
Speaker 2: to what Michael Cohen admitted to say.
Speaker 4: At one point the judge said to the witness, are
Speaker 4: you staring me down yet?
Speaker 3: Now? So they were square enough. The witness of the.
Speaker 2: Judge almost almost fought, yeah, these are Trump. Trump really
Speaker 2: does bring out the words to us, doesn't he. But
Speaker 2: let's get you know, the actual major part here. The
Speaker 2: media was all focused in on this part, right on this,
Speaker 2: on this Costello thing. I couldn't coult noticing that Michael Cohen,
Speaker 2: on the stand under oath, straight up admitted to stealing
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars from Trump in this alleged transfer of
Speaker 2: fund So again, if we'll all remember, Cohen takes out
Speaker 2: like a mortgage on his house, he pays off Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 2: Trump then has a portion of his Trump organization funds,
Speaker 2: which are then reimbursed to Michael Cohen. The allegation is
Speaker 2: that reimbursement, which Trump reported as a payment, was not
Speaker 2: actually for compensation. It was done for election purposes. To
Speaker 2: make it even more convoluted, in New York state law,
Speaker 2: what I just described there is just a misdemeanor and
Speaker 2: not a felony. So to make it a felony, it
Speaker 2: had to have been done in order to cover up
Speaker 2: a second crime. Even that second crime is a federal,
Speaker 2: unprosecuted crime. Are you guys sticking with me here, Well,
Speaker 2: what Cohen admitted to does not require any convoluted logic.
Speaker 3: Don't even have to ask me.
Speaker 2: Here is a CNN analyst who is like, honestly, this
Speaker 2: is a worse crime than what Trump is being charged with.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 5: Michael Cohen explained this whole thing.
Speaker 1: Quote that's what was owed, and I didn't feel mister
Speaker 1: Trump deserved the difference. That's a lot different than I
Speaker 1: stole sixty thousand dollars from my boss on the transaction
Speaker 1: at the heart of this case.
Speaker 5: And by the way, the fact that he was never
Speaker 5: charged with larsening is important because stealing sixty thousand dollars
Speaker 5: through fraud, which would be larceny in New York State,
Speaker 5: is more serious of a crime than falsifying business.
Speaker 2: More serious of a crime and falsifying business records. Also,
Speaker 2: just so everybody is one hundred percent clear, I'm going
Speaker 2: to read you a direct transcript from the trial. So
Speaker 2: you stole from the Trump organization, right, Trump's lawyer asked Cohen, Yes, sir,
Speaker 2: that's very sad, just like you can't even.
Speaker 3: Make this up.
Speaker 2: He also later testified that he stole as a form
Speaker 2: of self help. In response to Trump slashing his bonus
Speaker 2: from the hunt fifty thousand dollars bonus that he received
Speaker 2: to the one hundred and fifty thousand they had previously received.
Speaker 2: He says I was angered because of the reduction. So
Speaker 2: I just felt like it was a form of almost
Speaker 2: like self help. Self help. And he admits, so you stall,
Speaker 2: he said, yes, I stall. He said that under oath,
Speaker 2: but he's given immunity by the prosecutors.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: I looked at up Statute of Limitations on grand larcenity
Speaker 4: in the New York five years.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so I guess his past.
Speaker 4: But you know, you can always you can always fiddle
Speaker 4: with a statute of limitations, which Alvin Bragg did in
Speaker 4: this case too, because the statute passed. But like you said,
Speaker 4: he figured out ways to like, you know, extend the
Speaker 4: clock on that.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: But yeah, like stealing fifty or sixty thousand dollars is
Speaker 4: a serious crime, right, I mean, I mean that's a
Speaker 4: lot of money. That's the average American salary. He goes,
Speaker 4: have you paid back the Trump organization?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I mean this is odd. This is part of the transcript.
Speaker 2: Now, why are we even focusing on this because from
Speaker 2: my estimates, so again, if you go watch CNN Primetime
Speaker 2: and I try and check up on what these people
Speaker 2: are all doing ahead of their shows, they are all
Speaker 2: leading with the Costello thing. But they're not even mentioning
Speaker 2: the Michael Cohen thing. Well, the Michael Cohen admission of stealing,
Speaker 2: of previously lying on behalf of Trump, and also of
Speaker 2: straight up shenanigans has really wrecked a lot of the
Speaker 2: prosecution's case. All the prosecution or all the defense has
Speaker 2: to prove is that Michael Cohen is a politically motivated liar,
Speaker 2: admitted criminal, and that they have enough reasonable doubt that
Speaker 2: he's not telling the truth that it was purely done
Speaker 2: for election purposes. As long as there is a single
Speaker 2: juror who is there in the box who believes that
Speaker 2: Trump did this just so he didn't want his wife.
Speaker 3: To find out he's Scott free.
Speaker 2: I mean, and I don't think that there is anything
Speaker 2: yet in this trial where you could prove beyond a
Speaker 2: reasonable doubt that this was one hundred percent for election purposes,
Speaker 2: because I wouldn't believe that for anybody, including Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Right, It's basically a.
Speaker 4: State of mind, Yeah, trial prosecution, and Trump has one
Speaker 4: of the most inscrutable states of mind and also one
Speaker 4: of the most readable.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, it's a funny case because it turns on the
Speaker 4: question of whether or not he would feel personal or
Speaker 4: private shame before his wife or before his friends or
Speaker 4: the public.
Speaker 3: If news of this affair broke out.
Speaker 4: And with almost every human being on the planet, you
Speaker 4: would say, well, of course there'd be some shame associated
Speaker 4: with that. Then the question for the jurors is, is
Speaker 4: Trump one of the unique figures on the planet who
Speaker 4: actually wouldn't care at all if this was out and
Speaker 4: is only concerned about is only concerned about the election?
Speaker 4: And how this appears in the wake of the access Hollywood, Yes,
Speaker 4: tay it all, And so they have Michael Cohen test fying, No, No,
Speaker 4: it was one about the It was one percent about
Speaker 4: the election. And I know that because he told me
Speaker 4: this and because I've known him for a very long time.
Speaker 4: So then it does hinge on Cohen's credibility. Prosecutors asked him,
Speaker 4: you really want you hate Trump? Yeah, He's like, yeah, yes,
Speaker 4: you want him to go down, right, don't you. And
Speaker 4: he's like, yeah, I want him to go down, and
Speaker 4: then he does, so he's motivated.
Speaker 3: He's a liar, right.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, Trump did the thing he did.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that that's that's the wild question that this
Speaker 4: turns on. Was it purely for the campaign? Or was
Speaker 4: there some shred left of decency in him that didn't
Speaker 4: want that exposed.
Speaker 3: That's the funny question for the jury.
Speaker 4: Does Donald Trump have a single human shred of decency?
Speaker 3: And that's literally all you need. You just need a
Speaker 3: single question of there.
Speaker 4: So you could find twelve New Yorkers who are like, actually, no,
Speaker 4: he's yeah.
Speaker 2: But then you know, then we have questions about appeal
Speaker 2: and all that. It's not like things just end a
Speaker 2: single in one way. So just so everybody understands Trump's
Speaker 2: lawyers are actually expected to rest their case in the
Speaker 2: criminal trial that actually happened on Monday, and then as
Speaker 2: the testimony right now has gone forward, we would understand,
Speaker 2: at least procedurally, we will not get anything. I think
Speaker 2: by the end of the week, just because I think
Speaker 2: the prosecutors get another term, they might call somebody.
Speaker 3: We have closing arguments, etc. That we'll all play out.
Speaker 2: So the rule of the actual judgment from the jurors
Speaker 2: will come soon, but it's not going to come this week.
Speaker 3: That's another reason we wanted to check in with every.
Speaker 4: And the content guys appear to have cursed us in
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump will not be testifying. Yes, we all
Speaker 4: do our some type of content dance for those gods.
Speaker 2: The irony is that he always wants to testify in
Speaker 2: his own difference. I remember covering all of the Mueller
Speaker 2: stuff and he was desperate, you know, to he was
Speaker 2: desperate to do an interview with Muller and to prove
Speaker 2: that he didn't do anything wrong, which you know, he
Speaker 2: can read the report and tell me what you want.
Speaker 2: But his lawyers were like, absolutely not, we can't allow
Speaker 2: that to happen. So in this case, it does appear
Speaker 2: that he has been convinced not to testify in his
Speaker 2: own defense, and he'll be very happy, I think, to
Speaker 2: get out of this regardless of what happens.
Speaker 3: He can at least campaign again. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be stuck.
Speaker 2: In court until until those are going to be after
Speaker 2: the election. Yeah, because of the in confidence of all
Speaker 2: the prosecutors. So there is not a lot I think
Speaker 2: that Trump needs to worry about. I think in the
Speaker 2: immediate future. Although listen, what do I know. Maybe he
Speaker 2: gets convicted, and that's a whole other story.
Speaker 4: Even if he's convicted, you can still appeal to conviction exactly,
Speaker 4: and you could be free on bond doing that.
Speaker 3: Appeal. We'll see. Let's go to the debate section here.
Speaker 2: We want to give everybody an update on the presidential
Speaker 2: debates actually going to happen next month, which is kind
Speaker 2: of incredible, you know, not a very long turnaround the
Speaker 2: earliest debates in modern American history. Trump agreeing to do
Speaker 2: two to actually three debates. Biden only agreed to do
Speaker 2: two debates. There's been lots of questions around the format,
Speaker 2: what that's all going to look like. The very first
Speaker 2: debate is going to take place on CNN. But this
Speaker 2: time around, Trump has an interesting stipulation. And remember this,
Speaker 2: the rules are not up to anybody except the two
Speaker 2: campaigns and the network. It's a trilateral negotiation. There is
Speaker 2: literally anything could happen. It's the only campaigns. There's no
Speaker 2: preset rules like with the Commission on Presidential Debates. Trump
Speaker 2: is saying that he is going to demand a drug
Speaker 2: test for Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: No, I have fake tappers. They said, I just want
Speaker 6: to debate this guy. But you know, and I'm going
Speaker 6: to demand a drug test too, by the way, I am, no,
Speaker 6: I really am. I don't want him coming in like
Speaker 6: the State of the Union.
Speaker 7: He was high?
Speaker 3: Is the kite? I said? Is that Joe up there?
Speaker 6: A beautiful row And by the end of the evening
Speaker 6: he's like, well it was exhausted. Right now, we're going
Speaker 6: to demand a drug test. But fake Chapper and these
Speaker 6: people are they going to be fine.
Speaker 3: They're going to be fair. I think they've got to
Speaker 3: be fair.
Speaker 6: And if they're not, you know, you have.
Speaker 2: To deal with it, right, you have to deal with it.
Speaker 2: They're going to be fair, but they're fake. But they're
Speaker 2: not fake. I'm going to demand a drug Is that
Speaker 2: really Joe up there? As I said, it's not a
Speaker 2: terrible idea. We should drug rest them all and anybody
Speaker 2: who's up there on the stage, why not.
Speaker 4: They're now betting odds on what he would test positive
Speaker 4: for right now? To your point, yes, both candidates should
Speaker 4: take a drug test, and if RK Junior we should,
Speaker 4: we should. We should test him too. I want to
Speaker 4: see his test. I would actually really like to know
Speaker 4: his testosterone levels. Yeah, what what it looks like, and yeah,
Speaker 4: who knows what holistic stuff he's I'd be interested working
Speaker 4: on interesting. But yes, Trump a lot of pseudo fed
Speaker 4: you know, probably coursing through those vans.
Speaker 3: We've seen that before you.
Speaker 4: The irony, of course, is that in the previous debate
Speaker 4: there was a COVID test requirement.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Trump flew in late circumvented it skip the COVID test
Speaker 2: had appears too likely likely had COVID at the time,
Speaker 2: tried to assassinate all right, all right, think about it
Speaker 2: if by.
Speaker 3: I mean he is very old.
Speaker 2: But that that's actually a point against Biden, is that
Speaker 2: this is so old that he's that vulnerable to COVID.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it breathes all over him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe Biden somehow dodged that both dodge that one.
Speaker 4: It was the only interaction he had paid practically for
Speaker 4: like six months, right, he.
Speaker 2: Just literally is the only time that they brought him
Speaker 2: out there. They're like, you will win as long as
Speaker 2: we just leave you in this house. Your only risk
Speaker 2: is you will be with twelve feet away from Trump
Speaker 2: and we're golden as long as he doesn't have.
Speaker 3: Any And it works. Yeah, it actually worked out.
Speaker 4: For him, and he made so Biden could agree to
Speaker 4: the drug test and then just show up.
Speaker 2: Lad Well, here's the question about Biden and the drug test,
Speaker 2: whether what is actually needed in terms of the cocktail
Speaker 2: just the latest thing. You know. Somebody was pointing out
Speaker 2: the debate is only a month away and we're still
Speaker 2: in the middle of Biden quite literally forgetting episodes of
Speaker 2: modern history. Here he is thinking, he was the vice
Speaker 2: president during the pandemic. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: And when I was vice president you're kind about during
Speaker 8: the pandemic. And what happened was Rock said to me,
Speaker 8: go to Detroit, he'll fix it. Well, poor Mary spend
Speaker 8: more time with me than he ever thought. He's going
Speaker 8: to have.
Speaker 2: To say that again, he was the vice president during
Speaker 2: the pandemic. It's like, what are we talking about? Like,
Speaker 2: you know what, even was tasked with the bola but
Speaker 2: that was so bad Africa one case. It was a
Speaker 2: long time ago, you know. And also I checked this
Speaker 2: is the most dystopian part. And you'll appreciate this too.
Speaker 2: So when I'll explain it for everybody. When you're in
Speaker 2: the White House correspondent and you're transcribing things live, it
Speaker 2: can be a little bit tricky. So sometimes you're like, hmm, okay,
Speaker 2: did he say that? How did he say it? So
Speaker 2: for the official government record, there's something known as the
Speaker 2: Official White House transcript. Now, officially, the White House Transcript
Speaker 2: is run by nonpartisan actors. They're like bureaucrats. They're not
Speaker 2: hired necessarily by the president or not. But recently under Biden,
Speaker 2: and this is something that not even Trump administration ever did.
Speaker 2: They have been going in and his remarks to mean
Speaker 2: what he actually meant. So again, nonpartisan official government record
Speaker 2: does not include that remark. It meant to say the recession.
Speaker 2: So they literally in the official transcript strike out the
Speaker 2: word pandemic and put in he meant recession. So historians,
Speaker 2: let's say, you know, forty years fifty years from now,
Speaker 2: who want to come back and to study this episode.
Speaker 2: Let's say there's a what nuclear holocaust or something this
Speaker 2: video and everything is all gone. But for some reason
Speaker 2: the White House Transcript as this is a very confluent scenario,
Speaker 2: they would look back and they would actually have no
Speaker 2: idea what happened. I mean, that is kind of terrible.
Speaker 2: Does the transcript have both he actually said it first
Speaker 2: has a strikeout, but the official published record is not
Speaker 2: going to have that in there. Yeah, So they had
Speaker 2: an initial version, and they usually have an edited version
Speaker 2: that comes second.
Speaker 3: That becomes the official draft of history. Which is going to.
Speaker 4: Distort historian's understanding of this period in the sense that,
Speaker 4: let's say Trump does win, when historians go back, they'll
Speaker 4: be like, why didn't the American public reelect this guy exactly?
Speaker 3: Unemployment was really low hat. Trump seemed crazy, it's all
Speaker 3: right here, right, I mean, and his speeches seemed quite coherent. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Again, this may sound dumb, but this is actually very
Speaker 2: important for thirty forty one hundred years or something like that.
Speaker 3: It is sobey. It's like that photo where Stalin had
Speaker 3: that guy like a.
Speaker 2: Photoshops photoshopt out of the photo, and that's currently the
Speaker 2: state of the US government right now. And then, finally, though,
Speaker 2: we can't forget about RFK Junior, who, as we've all
Speaker 2: said that we do believe he should be up there
Speaker 2: on the debate stage, he actually believes and has been
Speaker 2: saying now for quite some time, that he will be
Speaker 2: on the stage.
Speaker 3: Here. He laid out his logic in a Fox News interview.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: So your reaction to you not being offered this position.
Speaker 7: Have you heard from the campaigns or from CNN or
Speaker 7: ABC to ask you your plausibility of being on that
Speaker 7: debate stage?
Speaker 9: We are in discussions with CNN. CNN published a list
Speaker 9: of crime year of four criteria for four candidates getting
Speaker 9: in the paid and we have shown CNN that we
Speaker 9: meet all of those criteria and that President trumpet President
Speaker 9: Biden cannot meet those criteria. The key is that every
Speaker 9: candidate has to have be on the ballots in enough
Speaker 9: states to get two hundred and seventy electoral votes by
Speaker 9: June twentieth, and we will be we will qualify for that.
Speaker 9: President trumpet President Biden cannot qualify for that because they
Speaker 9: don't have any electoral votes at this time. They are
Speaker 9: presumptive nominees for their party, but they themselves are not
Speaker 9: on the ballot.
Speaker 3: I will be the only one on the ballot.
Speaker 9: The other criterion is four polls that have me at
Speaker 9: fifteen percent national polls, and they listed the polling firms
Speaker 9: that they would take those polls from, and we've given
Speaker 9: them five national polls that show me, including the CNA,
Speaker 9: the most recent CNN poll that has me at fifteen percent,
Speaker 9: the Harvard Harris poll, the Monmouth poll, the Quinnipiac poll,
Speaker 9: that all have me at fifteen percent or more. So
Speaker 9: I qualify for the debates. They have now made they
Speaker 9: made a public offer. We consider that a contract, and
Speaker 9: we're in discussion with CNN now.
Speaker 3: So this is actually fascinating because I noted this.
Speaker 2: I remember immediately when Crystal and I were talking about it,
Speaker 2: and I was like, you know, Crystal, technically, you know
Speaker 2: they say you have to be on the ballot for
Speaker 2: two seventy states. Well, neither of these candidates has actually
Speaker 2: been nominated by their parties. They're not on the ballot.
Speaker 2: So he's right because he named it in Cole Shanahan.
Speaker 2: And this is part of the reason, by the way
Speaker 2: that they named her is in several states you are
Speaker 2: not allowed to be on the ballot unless you have
Speaker 2: your running.
Speaker 3: Mate and others.
Speaker 2: So the real question is is that is CNN going
Speaker 2: to allow him on the stage, because according to the
Speaker 2: published rules that they have put out, he should be
Speaker 2: on the stage. Now, technically, according to them, you know,
Speaker 2: neither of those should be either. What excuse are they
Speaker 2: going to come up with to keep him off? He
Speaker 2: should be there? Sociald jill Stein.
Speaker 4: This is like the Palestinians thinking that the rules apply
Speaker 4: equally to everything, rather than made up by people in
Speaker 4: power to benefit them. What's unique about this situation is
Speaker 4: that Biden and Trump both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, neither want them up there. They're not quite clear
Speaker 3: who he benefits.
Speaker 4: If it was clear, then whichever one of them was
Speaker 4: going to win would be like standing up for the
Speaker 4: rights of democracy and free expression and let everybody on
Speaker 4: stageous because you know, process is always subsumed by your agenda. Yes,
Speaker 4: but yeah, in this case, they don't know. So your
Speaker 4: point earlier where he said that this is a tripartite agreement,
Speaker 4: like the negotiating between CNN and Biden and Trump is
Speaker 4: the key one. It's a negotiation between those those three. Yes,
Speaker 4: and they don't care what the rules are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm fascinated to see what the official rationale is
Speaker 2: because you can't ignore him at this point.
Speaker 3: He's just too big.
Speaker 2: And even CNN analyst Harry Enton, you know, their own
Speaker 2: polling guys like, look, you know, according to have to
Speaker 2: include Commission on Presidential Debates criteria, they would have he
Speaker 2: probably would have qualified for this. So then they put
Speaker 2: out this QTc two seventy thing. But I mean, California
Speaker 2: and Texas is half the battle, and you've already he's
Speaker 2: already on the ballot or allegedly on the ballot in
Speaker 2: both not not officially yet, but you throw Michigan, Ohio,
Speaker 2: maybe you get Florida, New York, and then you're good
Speaker 2: to go. That's it, you know, That's that's all you
Speaker 2: need for two seventy just because of the way that
Speaker 2: the electoral College works. So in that regard, it's pretty
Speaker 2: clear according to their rules, he should be up there.
Speaker 3: There's no question about it.
Speaker 4: And I think ultimately it probably won't. It will not
Speaker 4: be up to CNN, as much as I love to,
Speaker 4: They'll just say we're not going to do this. Yeah right,
Speaker 4: CNN would probably love it, Like what do they care?
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure, though I think they would. I
Speaker 2: think they would care, and their their bias is probably
Speaker 2: toward that just keep it in the two party system.
Speaker 2: They do love ratings, they love they love a spectacle.
Speaker 2: And if if if the candidates were like, yes, we
Speaker 2: want RFK Junior on stage, then CNN's like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: absolutely put him on stage. They would not fight against it, right,
Speaker 2: because that's not their first, second, or third agenda, even
Speaker 2: if that is where their bias lies.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the question.
Speaker 2: Then, would Biden and Trump pull out if RFK were included.
Speaker 3: I actually think the answer is yes.
Speaker 4: It's an interesting game of chicken for CNN to play,
Speaker 4: to be like, look, we're putting now.
Speaker 3: They don't care. So that's where the bias comes in.
Speaker 4: But let's say they played chicken and they're like, he
Speaker 4: is a serious candidate. Some of our viewers want to
Speaker 4: hear from him. We think he deserves to be on stage.
Speaker 4: He is accepted, he's going to be on stage. Then yeah,
Speaker 4: do one or both of them back out. Let's see,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be fun. All right, Let's get to the Congo.
Speaker 4: So we've got some coup drama going on over in Congo.
Speaker 4: Let's put up this New York Times headline. So the
Speaker 4: military there saying that it foiled a coup, which appears
Speaker 4: to be true based on the fact that a bunch
Speaker 4: of dudes were kind of shooting up the presidential palace
Speaker 4: and lives live streaming it. What actually happened behind that
Speaker 4: is really anybody's guests. But Sager, let's unpack what we
Speaker 4: know about it because it's absolutely just incredible the details.
Speaker 4: So the main character here at Christian Malanga, who fled
Speaker 4: the Congo when he was a child for Utah and
Speaker 4: became a made a lot of money in Utah.
Speaker 3: He's only forty one years old. He has his eight children.
Speaker 4: He went back about ten years ago to try to
Speaker 4: basically launch a political career in Congo. Failed, did a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks in prison after that failure, and then
Speaker 4: managed to get back to Utah, which is where the
Speaker 4: story could have ended instead.
Speaker 3: But he didn't there. Didn't end there.
Speaker 4: He came back over used his wealth to do a
Speaker 4: decent amount of business over in the Congo, some of
Speaker 4: it with an American pot entrepreneur, which.
Speaker 3: Is to be already is going to be part of
Speaker 3: this soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this white guy who's into pot who goes over
Speaker 4: to Congo to make a fortune. Okay, let's sketchy already.
Speaker 4: So recently he went over there also with his son.
Speaker 4: Marcel Maloga is one of his sons.
Speaker 2: Social media influence, Yeah, twenty one year old social media influencer,
Speaker 2: very pro Trump. People have loved to point out that
Speaker 2: he's just maga to the core and like all these
Speaker 2: photos of him like just flashing money and like just class,
Speaker 2: just absolutely classic Trump style. Influencer is going to stop
Speaker 2: being funny in a moment, but not really so this,
Speaker 2: so there was a very contested presidential election at the
Speaker 2: end of twenty twenty three, which didn't resolve until early
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, essentially because of all the allegations of irregularity.
Speaker 2: There have been very few presidential elections in Congo period
Speaker 2: since you know Congo was you know, became Zaire and
Speaker 2: then Underbuto and then and then becomes Congo again, and
Speaker 2: so it's a very very fragile hold on democracy. And
Speaker 2: so out of nowhere you've got this Christian Malana guy
Speaker 2: who with a handful of other armed men.
Speaker 3: First they go to basically.
Speaker 2: The home of the incoming speaker of the Assembly and
Speaker 2: they shoot that up. One of their one of the
Speaker 2: one of the assailants is killed. They're live streaming all
Speaker 2: this on the basically on Facebook.
Speaker 4: A couple of guards are killed, and then Malanga says
Speaker 4: to the cameray, says, Felix were coming for you next.
Speaker 4: And Felix is the head Felix, she's the ketty as
Speaker 4: the president of Congo. So that they this is early
Speaker 4: morning hours, and so they march their drive down to
Speaker 4: the presidential palace and they start to shoot that up too.
Speaker 4: He's never there. The President of Congo is never there.
Speaker 4: He lives far away, very very rarely in there. He
Speaker 4: wasn't there at the time. None of these are the
Speaker 4: power centers like this. It's not an army base, it's
Speaker 4: not a radio station, it's it's not anywhere where you
Speaker 4: would need to actually take control in order to gain power.
Speaker 3: They're very quickly arrested.
Speaker 4: It's a pitiful coup attempt, and Malanga is killed they
Speaker 4: say resisting arrest. So we don't know exactly what happened
Speaker 4: at that point. We don't know if he was actually
Speaker 4: resisting arrest, if he was just summarily executed after getting captured.
Speaker 4: His son it was successfully captured Marcel, as were two
Speaker 4: of these Americans. So these the Congolese military puts out
Speaker 4: video the next morning US citizens saying yeah with US passports, yeah,
Speaker 4: saying look look at these guys like the entrepreneur Matt
Speaker 4: Miller was asked about this at the State Department and
Speaker 4: he said, because of privacy laws, we can't say anything
Speaker 4: about these citizens period. He said, as with any American
Speaker 4: citizens in custody, we are requesting consular access. So we're
Speaker 4: going to be We're going to go visit these these
Speaker 4: folks who were captured in their failed coup attempt. Now
Speaker 4: let's get into the different theories on what is going
Speaker 4: on here, because clearly the idea that a handful of
Speaker 4: people with assault weapons we're going to take over Congo
Speaker 4: by attacking these residential areas that had Even if they
Speaker 4: take them over, then they're just hold up in a
Speaker 4: house and they would be finished off by the morning.
Speaker 3: So there's a couple theories.
Speaker 4: One theory is that Malonga had a bunch of allies
Speaker 4: within the opposition who betrayed him at the last moment
Speaker 4: and said, there's like this guy, We're not doing this.
Speaker 4: I'm not so sure about that theory. Another theory is
Speaker 4: that he was goaded into this by allies of the
Speaker 4: president because the president is on his heels. The president
Speaker 4: is facing serious opposition right now. Anytime you have a
Speaker 4: coup attempt that is foiled, we've seen what every country does.
Speaker 2: After that coup attempt. Yes, they suspend every law, right,
Speaker 2: take a Claire martial law. He consolidate the center. So
Speaker 2: they may think it was a false flag operation.
Speaker 4: He was killing though, right and yeah, in a false
Speaker 4: flag in the sense that the perpetrator would.
Speaker 2: Not know so he didn't know he was being writed
Speaker 2: into that. That would be the theory that he doesn't know.
Speaker 2: He's not part of a team here.
Speaker 4: He's just a crazy person who was very able to
Speaker 4: be even manipulated by more powerful.
Speaker 3: What about the CIA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that here I'm looking at a multi millionaire
Speaker 2: African businessman with ties to Utah, an American citizen, cannabis entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: By the way, all cash business. Last time I check,
Speaker 2: which are good?
Speaker 3: Are good? Front?
Speaker 4: The CIA has always been in bed with drug runners.
Speaker 4: Now would be funny if they're like.
Speaker 2: This classic one, the one guy doing business in Africa
Speaker 2: that isn't involved, It would almost be negligent to not
Speaker 2: have involved.
Speaker 3: It kind of you're right, because the.
Speaker 2: Geopolitics here is that they have a ton of cobalt, yes,
Speaker 2: and other rare earth mineral right if Joe Rogan talks
Speaker 2: about this all the time, right, like the amount of
Speaker 2: cobalt and you're in my cell phone, if you drive
Speaker 2: in Tesla, probably eighty percent of the cobalts in your
Speaker 2: batteries from you know, from the Democratic Republic of the Congos.
Speaker 3: One of the most mineral wretch places in the entire world. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and guests. Who owns almost all of that is China. Yes.
Speaker 4: And so while the US has spent its last seventy
Speaker 4: years kind of overthrowing governments and you know, doing our
Speaker 4: aggressive elbow throwing foreign policy, China just kind of comes
Speaker 4: in and just cleans up the mess and then just
Speaker 4: buys the rights.
Speaker 3: To zero interest.
Speaker 1: Long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like here, we'll build you.
Speaker 4: Some roads and we'll take the mining routes for all
Speaker 4: of this. And so you've had a whole bunch of
Speaker 4: coups in Africa over the last several years, many of
Speaker 4: them involving US trained kind of military figures, and most
Speaker 4: of those involved internal you know, African politics.
Speaker 2: Well, we should say too, This also comes I'm sure
Speaker 2: you can expand this as well. This comes on the
Speaker 2: heels of what just happened in Niger or Nize. In Niger,
Speaker 2: there was just another coup where the US had what
Speaker 2: was it four thousand troops or something like that, which
Speaker 2: have basically summarily been kicked out.
Speaker 3: Of the country. They've already kicked the French out, they
Speaker 3: kicked out the French.
Speaker 2: US troops are basically have no idea what's going on,
Speaker 2: and they've invited Russian troops actually onto their soil. So
Speaker 2: US position in Africa right now is actually quite shaky.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the irony is that the new jerkup was
Speaker 4: carried out by a lot of officers who would US training. Yeah, literally,
Speaker 4: so you a conspiracy theorist might look at that and
Speaker 4: be like, well, clearly the US was involved in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it didn't work out to our benefits.
Speaker 4: In fact, yeah, like it appears that it was much
Speaker 4: more organized, you know, Wagner Group Russia because all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, Yeah, now French are being thrown out because
Speaker 4: they're French with a real colonial power in the ger
Speaker 4: But yes, now they're saying the US troops need to
Speaker 4: go too, right. And so not only did we produce,
Speaker 4: you know, just absolutely indescribable amounts of pain and suffering
Speaker 4: and suppression of people's democratic will and nationalism over the
Speaker 4: last fifty years, we're not even coming out on the
Speaker 4: winning side. Yeah, we're not doing well, folks.
Speaker 2: But times with Congo was I was like, I bet
Speaker 2: you this is in response to you know, the US
Speaker 2: is And again most people have no idea about this.
Speaker 2: This is totally flying under the radar. But this was
Speaker 2: a very important military basis. I understand it for monitoring.
Speaker 2: You know ISIS in Africa and all that a big
Speaker 2: part of the counter terrorism footprint for NATO, for France
Speaker 2: and the US.
Speaker 3: But I think most importantly from what I understand, there
Speaker 3: was a big as drone based down in Niger.
Speaker 2: It's Djibouti and Niger were the two that we really
Speaker 2: relied on. So the loss of this, people in AFRICAM
Speaker 2: are freaking out about it. Just the command, It's like
Speaker 2: trying to explain like scent Com is like the Central
Speaker 2: Command AFRICAM is for US Command of all Forces in Africa.
Speaker 2: As I understand, this was like a code read event
Speaker 2: for them. Then you look at the Congo, the wealthiest
Speaker 2: nation by mineral rights in the entire African continent. Oh,
Speaker 2: in a US citizen cash business entrepreneur, just with a
Speaker 2: multi millionaire UTAP businessman happens to get caught up in
Speaker 2: a coup on the government.
Speaker 4: And if people want the background, Emily and I interviewed
Speaker 4: the author of the new biography of Patrice Lamumba. Oh, yes,
Speaker 4: the Lamomba plot. I know you love these kinds of books.
Speaker 4: I haven't read that one yet. I would like that
Speaker 4: put that on your audible.
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 4: But Patrice Lamumba was a very American leaning national I remember,
Speaker 4: and you know, he wanted a close relationship with the
Speaker 4: United States. He even like like sold a bunch of
Speaker 4: mineral rights in Congo to this like fraudster American businessman.
Speaker 4: Like he had to revoke it when it became clearly
Speaker 4: the guy with the frauds, but he wanted to be
Speaker 4: like an American ally.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: He flew to New York to try to make that case.
Speaker 4: We in the United States looked at him and saw
Speaker 4: a communist like we like because uh he wore glasses basically, uh,
Speaker 4: and helped with the Belgians to assassinate him and replace
Speaker 4: him with eventually Mobuto, who led absolutely brutal dictatorship, changed
Speaker 4: the name of the country for He led that for
Speaker 4: decades and results in this civil war that kills like
Speaker 4: five six million people. Uh, creates all this instability.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: And and it's not long from there to where we
Speaker 4: are here. And so yeah, this there's major power politics
Speaker 4: going on here and it's it's something to watch because
Speaker 4: the the surface level story of this Utah guy thinking
Speaker 4: he's going to take take the country over.
Speaker 3: We remember those guys.
Speaker 2: It's like, all of a sudden, we hear oh, they're
Speaker 2: x DA And I was like, well, you know, they're
Speaker 2: all from Miami.
Speaker 3: You're like what, and they're like, oh, they all speak English.
Speaker 3: Too interesting