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Episode Two Hundred Sixty One: All The King's Men · The Death Of Journalism

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Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and sixty one of the
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Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcasts.
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Speaker 2: My name is John Zigler. I'm your host.
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Speaker 1: In today's show, former FBI director James call Mey gets
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Speaker 1: indicted by the Trump administration under extremely suspect circumstances.
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Speaker 2: Gavin Knew some predicts that.
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Speaker 1: We will not have a twenty twenty eight presidential election,
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Speaker 1: and yet for some reason, he still really wants to
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Speaker 1: be the Democratic candidate. Plus, I'll have a full writer
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Speaker 1: cup analysis, a recap of my fortieth high school reunion,
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Speaker 1: and the inside story of Jerry Sandusky's latest appeal. As
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Speaker 1: we tape this episode of the podcast, the federal government
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Speaker 1: is in a partial shutdown that I'm not going to
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Speaker 1: talk about in any specific detail, because, first of all,
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Speaker 1: I'm just exhausted by this topic in general, I think
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Speaker 1: most people are. I mean, it's just utterly ridiculous that
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Speaker 1: now more than once a year, we are going through
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Speaker 1: this groundhog day situation of the very same circumstances occurring
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Speaker 1: over and over and over again, nothing ever really getting done,
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Speaker 1: and eventually the problem of this massive spending issue we
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Speaker 1: have and debt issue we have being kicked down the road.
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Speaker 2: Now It does feel as if this.
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Speaker 1: Shutdown may go on longer than some have in the
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Speaker 1: most recent past, because it appears as if the Trump
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Speaker 1: administration is pretty entrenched and they might even be winning
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Speaker 1: debate over what this is about, and the narrative that
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Speaker 1: this is about healthcare for illegal aliens, and Trump actually
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Speaker 1: being thrilled that this will be a chance to do
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Speaker 1: some of the work that Doge was unable to do
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Speaker 1: when it comes to slimming down the federal government and
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Speaker 1: getting rid of waste and workers and aren't doing anything.
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Speaker 1: I don't know how much of that is bluster, how
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Speaker 1: much of that is real. I have no idea how
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Speaker 1: long this is going to last. It may be over
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Speaker 1: by the time you hear this, or it may go
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Speaker 1: on for quite a while. My guess is it's probably
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Speaker 1: the latter more than the former. But because it's such
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Speaker 1: a fluid situation, and because it's it's really just an act.
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Speaker 2: That's all this is.
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Speaker 1: We go through this time and time again. The system
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Speaker 1: is completely broken. It's kind of silly for me to
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Speaker 1: waste too much time and analysis on that, but I
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Speaker 1: want to at least acknowledge that as of this taping,
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Speaker 1: the federal government is in a partial shutdown. Now, the
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Speaker 1: biggest news story, in my opinion, since the last episode
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Speaker 1: of the podcast is that former FBI Director James Comy
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Speaker 1: was indicted by the federal government by the Trump administration
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Speaker 1: for effectively perjury. Now, perjury in and of itself, when
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Speaker 1: it is the primary charge, especially in a high profile situation,
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Speaker 1: especially when there is a clear incentive to indict somebody
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Speaker 1: because of a political animus or vendetta or agenda, whatever
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Speaker 1: it is, is inherently suspect because unless it is combined
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Speaker 1: with another charge that the perjury is about, then you're
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Speaker 1: really just trying to find a crime in most circumstances.
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Speaker 2: So, I mean, you know, it's often.
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Speaker 1: Referred to perjury is as the last resort for a
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Speaker 1: prosecutor that has nothing else. Again, if you add perjury
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Speaker 1: to another crime that is a serious crime, and you
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Speaker 1: lied about that crime under oath, then clearly that should
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Speaker 1: be part of the equation. But when it's the primary
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Speaker 1: meal and not the dessert or the cherry on top
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Speaker 1: of the Sunday, whatever metaphor you want to use, it's
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Speaker 1: inherently problematic. And this is probably not going to surprise
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Speaker 1: you that I am very skeptical of the indictment of
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Speaker 1: James Comy.
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Speaker 2: Partially because I predicted it.
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Speaker 1: You may recall that on multiple occasions when the whole
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Speaker 1: Epstein File situation was going down in a way that
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Speaker 1: turned out to be a fiasco politically for Trump, that
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Speaker 1: I said, James Comy needs to watch.
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Speaker 2: Out, because he's going to be forced to pay for this.
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Speaker 1: James Comy must pay because everyone is now incentivized to
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Speaker 1: give the boss something that he wants, because the whole
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Speaker 1: Epstein Files circumstance was a fiasco. And I don't know
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Speaker 1: for sure how much of one led to the other,
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Speaker 1: but my prediction could not have been more pressient, because
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Speaker 1: that's exactly what transpired. And Pam Bondi is under pressure
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Speaker 1: from all sorts of angles, including the President United States,
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Speaker 1: who post to the public social media message that seemed
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Speaker 1: like a potential direct message to her, either figuratively or
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Speaker 1: literally saying, hey, let's you know, get on this. Let's
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Speaker 1: let's get after my enemies paraphrasing. And then lo and behold, shockingly,
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Speaker 1: a federal grand jury. Now I realize it's a grand jury,
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Speaker 1: but a grand jury is easily manipulated by a prosecutor
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Speaker 1: the grand jury passed on at least one other potential charge.
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Speaker 2: You don't you know, you don't need a unanimous verdict.
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Speaker 1: And one of the worst things about a grand jury,
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Speaker 1: and we saw this in the Jerry Sandusky case, is
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Speaker 1: not only is all of the information hidden from the public,
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Speaker 1: but also those voting in favor of an indictment are
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Speaker 1: led to believe that it really isn't that big of
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Speaker 1: a deal that you're you're not voting to convict somebody,
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Speaker 1: you're not even really voting to have them go on trial,
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Speaker 1: although that usually ends up being the case. The threshold,
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Speaker 1: the standard is very low, but then it gets reported
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Speaker 1: as a grand jury voting in favor. People don't even
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Speaker 1: understand it's not unanimous. Sometimes it's barely a majority. You
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Speaker 1: can have a situation where lots of grandeurors do not
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Speaker 1: vote to indict and you still get indicted, and in
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Speaker 1: the media, if they want to, they pretend that this
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Speaker 1: has great weight, and that's what happened in the Jerry
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Speaker 1: Sandusky case. And this circumstance is a bit different because
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Speaker 1: you have an enormous divide between the left wing media
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Speaker 1: and the right wing media as to how they want
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Speaker 1: to interpret what happened here.
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Speaker 2: So suddenly in.
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Speaker 1: The right wing media, the grand jury indictment carries great
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Speaker 1: credibility and weight, and there's really very little talk about
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Speaker 1: how this is only perjury for all intents and purposes
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Speaker 1: without an underlying crime about which you're lying.
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Speaker 2: And from a.
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Speaker 1: Media perspective, I actually think this part of the equation
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Speaker 1: might be more important than the indictment of Komi himself,
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Speaker 1: although I still think that's significant and troubling. Since this
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Speaker 1: is the journalism podcasts, they're going to start with the
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Speaker 1: media angle on this first, and that is the massive
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Speaker 1: partisan divide in our media that is so far beyond
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Speaker 1: broken and so far beyond dangerous. And there's a comical
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Speaker 1: aspect to it, but it's really depressing because it happens
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Speaker 1: on almost every single issue, and this comy indictment was
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Speaker 1: a classic, perfect example of it. Let me just give
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Speaker 1: you two very quick examples of what I'm talking about.
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Speaker 1: So Coman gets indicted, and the national security reporter for
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Speaker 1: MSNBC A got by the name of Ken Delanian or Delanian,
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Speaker 1: I guess that's how you say his name, immediately tweets
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Speaker 1: that this is outrageous and this is prosecutor overreach, and
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Speaker 1: his sources are telling him that the evidence is all bullshit.
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Speaker 2: I'm paraphrasing here, but I mean it.
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Speaker 1: Is exactly, exactly, just by coincidence, exactly what an MSNBC reporter,
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Speaker 1: this is a reporter, not a commentator, you would expect
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Speaker 1: to put out there in public. Why because that's what
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Speaker 1: his audience wants. His audience of liberals on MSNBC wants
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Speaker 1: to hear that this is a bullshit indictment, that Trump
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Speaker 1: is pulling the strings, that Komy's a good guy, and
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Speaker 1: this is an outrageous miscarriage of justice. This is prosecutorial overreach,
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Speaker 1: this is you know, tyranny, this is fascism, this is
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Speaker 1: the president going after his enemies. That's the narrative that
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Speaker 1: liberals want. And so MSNBC's reporter on this, their primary
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Speaker 1: reporter on this, gave the audience exactly what they wanted. Well, conversely,
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Speaker 1: let me use Catherine Herriage as an example. Katherine Herridge
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Speaker 1: is a former mainstream reporter who got fired under very
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Speaker 1: bad circumstances at CBS. She has decided, I think successfully,
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Speaker 1: to make herself into an independent journalist with more of
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Speaker 1: a conservative band. Conservatives have embraced her, and so shockingly
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Speaker 1: her reporting using anonymous sources is that that this evidence
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Speaker 1: is actually very strong, the indictment is better than the
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Speaker 1: media is pretending that it is, and that this is
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Speaker 1: a very strong case, and that basically call Me's in
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Speaker 1: big trouble.
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Speaker 2: Well, what a coincidence, What a shock?
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Speaker 1: Right the Catherine herriage is going down the path that
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Speaker 1: her audience wants her too.
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Speaker 2: This is not a coincidence.
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Speaker 1: And I talk all the time about how the truth
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Speaker 1: is no longer the coin of the realm, that what
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Speaker 1: really pays the bills in the news media today is
10:09
Speaker 1: giving your target demographic what they want to hear, making
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Speaker 1: them feel better about the news. It's effectively therapy, that's
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Speaker 1: what it is. And it's not a coincidence that those
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Speaker 1: that are appealing to a right wing audience automatically provided reporting.
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Speaker 2: It's just important to point out.
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Speaker 1: These are reporters, allegedly, not commentators, not analysts, that they
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Speaker 1: provide reporting that fits with what their audience wants to hear.
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Speaker 1: So the right wing audience wants to hear this is
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Speaker 1: totally legitimate. Comy's in trouble. He did something really bad, wrong, illegal,
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Speaker 1: and don't believe what you hear from the left wing media.
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Speaker 2: So right wing quote.
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Speaker 1: Unquote reporters provide that therapy to their audience, and left
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Speaker 1: wing reporters like the one from MSNBC that are referenced
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Speaker 1: do exactly the same thing in the opposite direction. And
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Speaker 1: this has been a trend for a while, but to me,
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Speaker 1: it's gotten so far beyond the pale that it's almost
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Speaker 1: impossible now to be able to find somebody who was
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Speaker 1: gonna give you the honest truth without any sort of
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Speaker 1: political bias.
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Speaker 2: They didn't used to be that difficult.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you had people on the fringes of both sides,
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Speaker 1: but now everybody plays this game to appeal to their audience.
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Speaker 1: And one of the very very few voices that I trust,
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Speaker 1: partially because I've worked for him and I know him
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Speaker 1: and I've appeared on his shows dozens and dozens of
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Speaker 1: times over the years, is ABC's legal analyst Dan Abrams.
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Speaker 1: Talked about Dan quite a bit on the show. I
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Speaker 1: think Dad is a smart guy. I think he's a
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Speaker 1: fair guy. Is he always one hundred percent right?
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Speaker 2: No?
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Speaker 1: He and I disagree on a few things, not that
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Speaker 1: many from a legal perspective, but he is certainly very
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Speaker 1: well educated, very professional, very experienced, and more than willing
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Speaker 1: to call out both sides. So what did Dan Abrams
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Speaker 1: have to say about the James Comy indictment. Well, I
12:16
Speaker 1: was not at all surprised, and I will acknowledge my
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Speaker 1: bias here. I had a bias against this indictment from
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Speaker 1: the beginning, just because of the circumstances surrounding it, and
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Speaker 1: what I believe the motivations of Trump are and Pam
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Speaker 1: Bondy is, and what I think of James Comy as
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Speaker 1: a human being, and what I believe of the facts.
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Speaker 1: So I will fully acknowledge I am more than willing
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Speaker 1: to buy a contrarian view of this indictment. But when
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Speaker 1: it comes from Dan Abrams, to me, that has a
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Speaker 1: lot more weight. And I was not surprised at all
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Speaker 1: that Dan went on Good Morning America with George Stebanopholis
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Speaker 1: and basically explained what a load of crap this indictment
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Speaker 1: really is.
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Speaker 2: And here's what that sounded like.
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Speaker 3: And this is pretty extraordinary what we're seeing right here.
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Speaker 3: The President demanded a prosecution, he got it.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, and look what seems like the facts are pretty
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Speaker 4: amazing as well. It seems this is a case about
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Speaker 4: whether James Comy authorized a leak by his deputy Andrew
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Speaker 4: McCabe about Hillary Clinton and about an investigation of the
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Speaker 4: Clinton Foundation, not a leak about Donald Trump.
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Speaker 5: The Inspector General of the Department.
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Speaker 4: Of Justice investigated this determined that it was James Comy
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Speaker 4: who was likely telling the truth about what happened, and
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Speaker 4: not Andrew McCabe.
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Speaker 5: Comy said, I didn't authorize the leak.
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Speaker 4: McCabe said he authorized the leak after the fact. McCabe
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Speaker 4: actually was close to getting indicted for this by the
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Speaker 4: first Trump administration because the Department of Justice Inspector General
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Speaker 4: had determined.
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Speaker 5: That McCabe likely lied.
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Speaker 4: So McCabe almost gets indicted in twenty nineteen over this.
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Speaker 5: They don't. They're not able to get an indictment.
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Speaker 4: And now Komy is going to get indicted for the
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Speaker 4: same conversation which the Inspector General believed Komy.
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Speaker 5: And not McCabe.
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Speaker 4: And by the way, even if you believe McCabe's account,
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Speaker 4: he's not saying that Komy knew about the leak before
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Speaker 4: it happened.
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Speaker 5: He's talking about it afternoon.
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Speaker 3: Except for the president's former personal attorney, every other prosecutor
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Speaker 3: look at this, said we don't have the evidence, and so.
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Speaker 4: She actually had to file this herself. Very unusual that
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Speaker 4: the US Attorney doesn't have one of the line prosecutors
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Speaker 4: signing off on.
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Speaker 5: This working on this.
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Speaker 4: She had to literally alter herself some of the language
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Speaker 4: in court, which is very unusual and shows you that
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Speaker 4: she's at this point kind of in this on her own.
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Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 1: I tend to agree with that, not just because it's Dan,
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Speaker 1: but because what he's saying makes a lot of sense,
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Speaker 1: and it certainly dovetails with my perception of the reality
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Speaker 1: of the situation in the larger scheme of things.
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Speaker 2: But I can.
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Speaker 1: Understand that you might say, well, but John, it's it's
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Speaker 1: just one person. He's on ABC, he's speaking with George Stephanopolis.
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Speaker 1: Wouldn't Dan Abrams potentially be inclined to give ABC and
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Speaker 1: their audience what they want to hear and what George
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Speaker 1: Stephanoppolis wants to hear. Yeah, okay, fine, I mean I
15:21
Speaker 1: don't think that's the way Dan plays the game.
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Speaker 2: But fine, if.
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Speaker 1: That's not good enough for you, let me give you
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Speaker 1: another name. Andrew McCarthy. Andrew McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor,
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Speaker 1: who is an extremely well respected conservative writer, openly conservative
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Speaker 1: but also occasionally contrarian, one of the very very few
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Speaker 1: people left of the right wing media who on occasion
15:48
Speaker 1: is willing to say, hey, guys.
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Speaker 2: We're wrong about this. And he did an interview on
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Speaker 2: Fox News Channel with.
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Speaker 1: Maria Bartioma, who's about his big a Trump fan as
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Speaker 1: you could possibly have in the media.
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Speaker 2: She's also not very bright.
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Speaker 1: But Maria Bardaroma, surprisingly to me, had Andrew McCarthy on,
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Speaker 1: and McCarthy completely buys in to the idea that Comy's
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Speaker 1: a bad guy and Russia Gate was terrible, and there's
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Speaker 1: all things sorts of things that Comy did that was wrong,
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Speaker 1: But the indictment itself is based on bullshit. Those are
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Speaker 1: my words, not his. But I think when you listen
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Speaker 1: to this, you're going to come to the exact same
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Speaker 1: conclusion where McCarthy, despite Maria Bartaroma's best efforts, cannot come
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Speaker 1: up with a justification for why James Comy was federally
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Speaker 1: indicted for perjury in this particular case.
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Speaker 2: And listen to his explanation.
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Speaker 1: It's similar to Dan abrams explanation, but one of the
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Speaker 1: most bizarre and ironic and telling parts of this indictment
16:59
Speaker 1: against Call Me, which was incredibly thin even from a
17:03
Speaker 1: paper perspective. But in order to buy this entire case,
17:08
Speaker 1: the theory of the case against James, call mey, one
17:11
Speaker 1: of the people you have to put your trust in.
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Speaker 1: I can't even believe this is true, but it is
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Speaker 1: is former FBI agent Andrew McCabe, who is probably even
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Speaker 1: above James Call Me when it comes to the MAGA
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Speaker 1: hate list. So in order to come up with a
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Speaker 1: semi rational theory of the case against James Call Me, you.
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Speaker 2: Have to be believing Andrew.
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Speaker 1: McCabe, which is just frankly hilarious, but also an indication
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Speaker 1: of just how unbelievably hypocritical this entire concept is. But
17:47
Speaker 1: here's Andrew McCarthy explaining to Maria Bartaroma just how the
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Speaker 1: case against Call Me doesn't even make any sense and
17:56
Speaker 1: sounds like it probably won't even get out of a
17:59
Speaker 1: batter's box from a legal perspective.
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Speaker 6: First, give us your reaction to the indictment.
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Speaker 7: Well, I don't think there's a case. You know, the
18:10
Speaker 7: things that cash Coutel that you just played, that he
18:12
Speaker 7: was talking about, that you and I have spoken about
18:15
Speaker 7: for years, Maria, the Russia Gate stuff. I'm as big
18:18
Speaker 7: a critic of that, probably as there is. I wrote
18:21
Speaker 7: a book about it. I think it was a disgrace
18:24
Speaker 7: and history will remember it that way. This indictment is
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Speaker 7: not about that, and it seems to be premised on
18:32
Speaker 7: something that's not true, which is that McCabe said that
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Speaker 7: Komy authorized him to leak to the Wall Street Journal.
18:43
Speaker 7: If you look closely at what McCabe said, what McCabe
18:46
Speaker 7: said was that he directed a leak to the Wall
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Speaker 7: Street Journal and told Komy about it after the fact.
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Speaker 7: So it's true that Komy never authorized it in the
18:57
Speaker 7: sense of okaying it before it happened. So I don't
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Speaker 7: see how they can make that case.
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Speaker 6: What about the leaking in general, I mean, what about
19:07
Speaker 6: leaking a story that they may have known was a
19:11
Speaker 6: lie to the media, Because if you're the director of
19:14
Speaker 6: the FBI, you need the evidence to say yeah. I mean,
19:18
Speaker 6: you know, for years, congressmen and the lawmakers were trying
19:21
Speaker 6: to understand Devin Nunez, John Radcraff, trying to understand what's
19:24
Speaker 6: the origins of this investigation? So what was the origins
19:27
Speaker 6: of Russia collusion with Trump, and so they never really
19:30
Speaker 6: had any evidence of it, but they leaked it to
19:33
Speaker 6: the press.
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Speaker 7: Yeah, but that's not what this case is about. I
19:39
Speaker 7: totally agree with you if you were talking about the
19:42
Speaker 7: information that was provided to the Pisa Court that claimed
19:46
Speaker 7: that Trump was in collusion with the Kremlin.
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Speaker 5: But that's not what this case is about.
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Speaker 7: What this case is about is Comy is accused of
19:54
Speaker 7: lying because what Ted Cruse said and this, yeah right,
19:59
Speaker 7: And what Cruse and I think this was just a
20:01
Speaker 7: garble on his part, was that Komy authorized McCabe to
20:07
Speaker 7: orchestrate the leak and what the inspector General found. And
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Speaker 7: this isn't even just what the inspector General found, This
20:14
Speaker 7: is McCabe's own version of events. McCabe said that he
20:18
Speaker 7: directed the leak and he told Komy about it afterwards.
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Speaker 7: Now they have a dispute about what exactly McCabe told
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Speaker 7: Komy afterwards and whether Komy was approving or disapproving of it.
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Speaker 7: But the charge is that Komy authorized the leak and
20:35
Speaker 7: he didn't authorize the leak.
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Speaker 5: I see.
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Speaker 6: Well, the judge assigned to this.
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Speaker 2: Case, So kudos to Andrew McCarthy.
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Speaker 1: One of the very very few, if not the only
20:45
Speaker 1: legitimate right wing media voice willing to stand up. And
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Speaker 1: of course he couches it with all the proper language
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Speaker 1: that Komy is a bad guy, Russia Gate was terrible,
20:55
Speaker 1: blah blah blah.
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Speaker 2: But that's not what this is about.
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Speaker 1: And he focuses only on the legal aspects of this indictment,
21:03
Speaker 1: which he believes, and I agree with him, are illegitimate
21:08
Speaker 1: and illogical and without evidence. But that doesn't stop you know, Trump,
21:14
Speaker 1: of course, from way way overplaying his hand. I mean,
21:19
Speaker 1: no president should be commenting on any sort of federal
21:24
Speaker 1: indictment of this sort to begin with, but especially given
21:27
Speaker 1: the history of call Me and Trump. But that doesn't
21:32
Speaker 1: stop Trump because he has no self control and he
21:36
Speaker 1: loves nothing more than dunking.
21:38
Speaker 2: On his enemies.
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Speaker 1: And let's be clear, let's not forget history, which I
21:44
Speaker 1: think is an incredibly important part of this entire saga,
21:48
Speaker 1: that James call Me was Donald Trump's original FBI director
21:55
Speaker 1: after Trump effectively re hired him, literally hugged and almost
22:00
Speaker 1: him at the event where that was announced, and praised
22:05
Speaker 1: him far and wide because Comy, in his mind, and
22:09
Speaker 1: I think accurately so, had effectively thrown the election in
22:13
Speaker 1: Trump's direction. I mean, how do we just forget about this?
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's unbelievable to me that Trump fans can
22:22
Speaker 1: just forget that James call Me ten days before the
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Speaker 1: twenty sixty election essentially sabotaged Hillary Clinton's campaign by announcing
22:33
Speaker 1: that the email investigation was being reopened. I'm gonna have
22:36
Speaker 1: more thoughts on how and why that happened and what
22:39
Speaker 1: it really means in just a little bit, But can
22:42
Speaker 1: we just note can we stop pretending magaworld that none
22:47
Speaker 1: of these things happened. That Komy didn't hand the election
22:51
Speaker 1: to Trump, that Trump didn't praise him far and wide,
22:55
Speaker 1: Trump didn't give him the big hug, Trump didn't rehire
22:58
Speaker 1: him before he then fired heard him for reasons that
23:02
Speaker 1: were clearly based in his own personal self interest and
23:06
Speaker 1: not because Comy had done anything at that time to
23:10
Speaker 1: warrant being fired. But you know, so, Trump can't resist
23:16
Speaker 1: dunking on Comy. Completely inappropriate for the President of the
23:20
Speaker 1: United States to say anything about this kind of a
23:23
Speaker 1: federal indictment, especially given the circumstances. But here's what Trump
23:28
Speaker 1: couldn't resist saying about James call Mey in light of
23:32
Speaker 1: this federal indictment.
23:34
Speaker 8: Well, I can't tell you what's going to happen because
23:36
Speaker 8: I don't know. You have very professional people headed up
23:39
Speaker 8: by the Attorney General and Todd Todd Blench and Lindsay Halligan,
23:44
Speaker 8: who's very smart, good lawyer, very good lawyer. They're going
23:48
Speaker 8: to make a determination. I'm not making that determined. I
23:50
Speaker 8: think i'd be allowed to get involved in at once,
23:52
Speaker 8: but I don't really choose to do so. I can
23:55
Speaker 8: only say that Comy's a bad person. He's a sick person.
23:59
Speaker 8: I think he's a sick guy. Actually he did terrible
24:02
Speaker 8: things at the FBI, And but I don't know.
24:06
Speaker 2: I have no idea what's going to happen now.
24:08
Speaker 1: There are a couple important elements of Trump's comments about this.
24:13
Speaker 2: The first is how we got the.
24:15
Speaker 1: Indictment to begin with, because essentially what has happened is
24:19
Speaker 1: and Trump has done this before. John Bolton, I think
24:24
Speaker 1: is a pretty similar example where Trump declares, both publicly
24:29
Speaker 1: and privately to.
24:31
Speaker 2: His cult base and to those that are.
24:34
Speaker 1: Actually allegedly in charge, that he believes that somebody is
24:38
Speaker 1: a bad person and or a criminal, and in Trump's mind,
24:42
Speaker 1: a bad person who dislikes him.
24:45
Speaker 2: Is inherently a criminal act. That's not a stretch.
24:48
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the way a king thinks of things.
24:51
Speaker 1: And in this area, Trump clearly is thinking like a
24:54
Speaker 1: king that the crime is something we can find later.
24:58
Speaker 1: We know we have a criminal. He's a bad guy
25:00
Speaker 1: because he doesn't like me. He's done things I don't like,
25:03
Speaker 1: even though in the past I've praised him profusely. And
25:07
Speaker 1: so we have a criminal here, people, Let's find a crime.
25:12
Speaker 1: And that's what they I believe have done with John
25:15
Speaker 1: Bolton with classified documents, and what I believe they have
25:19
Speaker 1: done with James Comy in this incredibly lame perjury charge.
25:25
Speaker 2: And so that's the first aspect of this that.
25:29
Speaker 1: Trump's public comments really matter, especially when you're removing the
25:35
Speaker 1: US attorney in the district and you replace it with
25:38
Speaker 1: your personal lawyer, who's this hot babe.
25:40
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden is the few days.
25:42
Speaker 1: Later the grand jury suddenly comes forward with an indictment.
25:46
Speaker 1: Just one of a remarkable series of coincidences. This is
25:51
Speaker 1: obviously an attempt to please the king, and that's what
25:56
Speaker 1: he got. And because Trump is who he is, he
25:59
Speaker 1: could reson reacting to it.
26:01
Speaker 2: And there is another element of this.
26:04
Speaker 1: That is significant because according to Dan Abrams, this could
26:09
Speaker 1: cause problems for the case against call Me. And here's
26:13
Speaker 1: Dan once again on Good Morning America explaining how and
26:17
Speaker 1: why that could be the case.
26:19
Speaker 2: US Attorney's officer and Rachel Dan all.
26:21
Speaker 3: Of these public statements from the President could actually help
26:24
Speaker 3: James Comy get this thrown.
26:26
Speaker 5: Out by any reaction, it's correct.
26:27
Speaker 4: I mean, look, that's going to be the first question
26:29
Speaker 4: is is this case even going to make it to trial?
26:32
Speaker 4: Is a judge going to throw out this case? And
26:35
Speaker 4: that is certainly going to be. Part of the defense's
26:38
Speaker 4: argument is citing each and every one of the social
26:40
Speaker 4: media posts by the President demanding this prosecution and looking
26:45
Speaker 4: at the sort of the.
26:46
Speaker 3: History of how we got here, and if that happens,
26:48
Speaker 3: we can see this whole thing go to the Supreme Court.
26:50
Speaker 4: We could, we could, but I think that the more
26:53
Speaker 4: likely scenario is that the Supreme Court it would be
26:55
Speaker 4: happy to let the lower courts deal with this one.
26:58
Speaker 5: That's my guess.
27:01
Speaker 1: The bottom line here for me is I don't think
27:04
Speaker 1: there's any chance that James call Me ever gets convicted
27:09
Speaker 1: of this crime for which he has been indicted. I
27:12
Speaker 1: don't know how far down the line the process is
27:16
Speaker 1: going to get. There are those that believe this is
27:18
Speaker 1: going to be tossed out immediately.
27:21
Speaker 2: I don't know. I have no way of no.
27:23
Speaker 1: This is not an area where I'm an expert, but
27:25
Speaker 1: I'm confident, even though I've lost a lot of trust
27:28
Speaker 1: in the jury system, I am confident that they're not
27:32
Speaker 1: going to get a conviction, especially in this particular district
27:36
Speaker 1: against James call me in a unanimous verdict. I just
27:40
Speaker 1: don't believe that's going to happen. Now, that doesn't mean
27:43
Speaker 1: I'm very uncomfortable.
27:44
Speaker 2: With the idea.
27:46
Speaker 1: Oh well, okay, if that's the case, John, who cares
27:49
Speaker 1: no harm, no foul.
27:50
Speaker 2: You know, he doesn't get convicted. It's just a trial.
27:54
Speaker 1: No big deal. I'm sorry, that's a big fucking deal.
27:57
Speaker 1: It's a big deal to have your life to disrupted
28:00
Speaker 1: for however long this is going to happen, the expense
28:03
Speaker 1: that it requires to properly defend yourself, especially when the
28:06
Speaker 1: President of the United States is making no bones about
28:10
Speaker 1: the fact that this is a high priority for him,
28:12
Speaker 1: that you get punished because you are a criminal and
28:14
Speaker 1: we need to find a crime that you committed because
28:18
Speaker 1: I'm the king and this is something that I want,
28:22
Speaker 1: and so my minions are going to give me what
28:24
Speaker 1: I want because I'm an incredibly insecure person, and so
28:28
Speaker 1: even people that I hired or rehired like John Bolton
28:31
Speaker 1: I praised profusely, like James Comy, if they've turned on me,
28:38
Speaker 1: I need them destroyed. And if all I get is
28:42
Speaker 1: wrecking their lives for a couple of years is they
28:43
Speaker 1: have to defend themselves against the bullshit indictment, then that's
28:47
Speaker 1: good enough for me.
28:49
Speaker 2: And I don't really.
28:50
Speaker 1: Care that much about the actual conviction because I'm not
28:53
Speaker 1: even going to discipline myself and not saying something the president.
28:57
Speaker 1: It's just so ridiculous that the President the United States
28:59
Speaker 1: has come on any sort of case like this, but
29:02
Speaker 1: especially one where he has such a clear direct involvement.
29:08
Speaker 1: And I just want to end this topic because I
29:11
Speaker 1: know that very very very very few people are going
29:14
Speaker 1: to agree with me on it. I fully understand that,
29:16
Speaker 1: but I don't really care because this show is about
29:19
Speaker 1: my view of the truth, and I'm very confident that
29:21
Speaker 1: I'm in the right on this. But one of the
29:24
Speaker 1: big picture elements that I think a lot of people
29:27
Speaker 1: on the right are completely missing, largely because Trump has
29:32
Speaker 1: led them down the wrong path.
29:35
Speaker 2: Is who James Comy is.
29:38
Speaker 1: Now, let me be clear, I don't really like James
29:40
Speaker 1: Kmy that much. I don't think he's a bad guy. However,
29:46
Speaker 1: I truly believe that my greatest strength as an analyst,
29:51
Speaker 1: as a commentator is deciding who the good guys and
29:55
Speaker 1: the bad guys are. I think my record on that
29:58
Speaker 1: is as strong as anybody else in public life. Who
30:02
Speaker 1: are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
30:05
Speaker 1: Both on my side politically and on the other side.
30:09
Speaker 1: And James call me me, in my view, is not
30:12
Speaker 1: a bad guy. He is a guy who is, in
30:17
Speaker 1: my opinion, in love with his own virtue.
30:21
Speaker 2: He's one of those people.
30:23
Speaker 1: Okay, they can be annoying as hell, people who are
30:28
Speaker 1: in love with their own virtue. That doesn't mean, by
30:32
Speaker 1: the way, that Comy is perfect. He's nowhere near perfect.
30:35
Speaker 2: No one is.
30:36
Speaker 1: But I do strongly believe that James Comy thinks of
30:40
Speaker 1: himself as a highly ethical person, and that means oftentimes
30:46
Speaker 1: that he does act in an ethical way or what
30:49
Speaker 1: he thinks is an ethical way. And this is a
30:53
Speaker 1: guy who is a lifelong Republican. We seemingly have thrown
30:57
Speaker 1: that out the window. Who is never This is the
31:01
Speaker 1: part that completely gets forgotten. He has never had a
31:06
Speaker 1: similar circumstance. Right, He's had this very long career where
31:11
Speaker 1: Trump says he's a bad guy, one of the worst
31:13
Speaker 1: people in the history of the world for all deats
31:15
Speaker 1: and purposes. Yet Comy has never had a situation where
31:20
Speaker 1: he did something horrendous except when it came to Donald Trump.
31:27
Speaker 1: And all they can find is this bullshit count of perjury.
31:33
Speaker 1: If he was really anything close to the person that
31:37
Speaker 1: Donald Trump claims, there would be a litany, there would
31:40
Speaker 1: be a long list of things that Komy had done
31:44
Speaker 1: wrong that were unethical, that were potentially illegal.
31:49
Speaker 2: There would be a history here.
31:51
Speaker 1: And yet somehow, it wasn't until James Callby runs into
31:56
Speaker 1: Donald Trump as president that all of a sudden, this
32:00
Speaker 1: guy with a pretty darn unblemished career record suddenly turns
32:05
Speaker 1: into a bad guy. Now is that possible, I guess theoretically,
32:10
Speaker 1: but it's highly unlikely, especially when there's an alternative scenario
32:14
Speaker 1: that makes a hell of a lot more sense. And
32:17
Speaker 1: the alternative scenario is this that lifelong Republican James call me,
32:23
Speaker 1: who had a stellar career, who is in love with
32:27
Speaker 1: his own ethics just before and his own virtue. Just
32:32
Speaker 1: before the twenty sixteen election, he believes that Hillary Clinton
32:37
Speaker 1: is going to win. Right, He's a man of the establishment.
32:41
Speaker 1: That's the narrative going into the final weeks of the campaign.
32:46
Speaker 1: He believes that Hillary Clinton is going to win. And
32:50
Speaker 1: he now thinks he has a problem because of this
32:54
Speaker 1: bizarre circumstance involving Anthony Wiener and his computer and Hillary's emails,
33:00
Speaker 1: and now he thinks, oh my gosh, what am I
33:04
Speaker 1: gonna do if Hillary Clinton becomes President of the United States.
33:11
Speaker 1: And it becomes revealed eventually that the FBI had reason
33:18
Speaker 1: to reopen this investigation but did not do this or
33:22
Speaker 1: did not declare it publicly and hid it from the
33:25
Speaker 1: public just before an election. This is going to cause
33:30
Speaker 1: a massive problem in both perception and potentially even in
33:35
Speaker 1: reality when it comes to conflicts of interest, especially since.
33:39
Speaker 2: He's a lifelong Republican.
33:42
Speaker 1: Right, So he believes he has a massive ethical issue
33:49
Speaker 1: and a conflict of interest problem, and in my opinion,
33:53
Speaker 1: he overthought it because he's in love with his own virtue. Right,
33:58
Speaker 1: He's in love with his own virtue, and he goes
34:00
Speaker 1: out there ten days before the election and he does
34:04
Speaker 1: something that I think was unnecessary and frankly stupid, and
34:10
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe tip the election in Donald Trump's direction.
34:15
Speaker 1: Now we're never going to know to what degree that happened,
34:18
Speaker 1: but to me is inarguable, is it is one hundred
34:24
Speaker 1: percent a legitimate argument to make that James Cally essentially
34:31
Speaker 1: handed the election to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump himself
34:35
Speaker 1: effectively acknowledged that he praised Coy up and down for
34:40
Speaker 1: what Comy did just before the election. Now, very quietly,
34:43
Speaker 1: a couple of days before the election, they put out
34:46
Speaker 1: this statement, no dramatic press conference. Oh yeah, by the way,
34:49
Speaker 1: we looked at the emails, it doesn't seem to be
34:51
Speaker 1: much there. I mean, that's again a paraphrase.
34:53
Speaker 2: But by then it was too late, and so Comy
34:57
Speaker 2: essentially hands Trump the election.
35:01
Speaker 1: But he doesn't like Trump. He's not obviously a Trump
35:05
Speaker 1: kind of Republican. And these two guys could not.
35:09
Speaker 2: Be more different.
35:11
Speaker 1: You have a guy who is in love with his
35:13
Speaker 1: own ethics and his virtue and call me, and a
35:16
Speaker 1: guy Donald Trump, who acts like a mob boss, and
35:19
Speaker 1: who does not appear to give a fuck about ethics
35:23
Speaker 1: or virtue, actually sees ethics and virtue as a hindrance.
35:28
Speaker 1: And so this is a classic situation where these two
35:32
Speaker 1: guys cannot possibly get along. But Trump likes call Me because,
35:38
Speaker 1: in his mind, Comy helped him get elected, and that's
35:41
Speaker 1: all that matters in Trump's world. In Trump's world, are
35:45
Speaker 1: you pro Trump or are you anti Trump? And it
35:48
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter what you really feel underneath, it's about
35:51
Speaker 1: what your actions create as a reality. And call Me
35:55
Speaker 1: played a key role in getting Trump elected. So that's
35:58
Speaker 1: why when and Trump announces him maintaining his position as
36:03
Speaker 1: the FBI director, and he calls him forward and that
36:07
Speaker 1: public event at the White House and call Me, he's
36:09
Speaker 1: all embarrassed, and Trump pulls him in with the tight
36:12
Speaker 1: handshake and almost kisses him. In Trump's world, call Me
36:17
Speaker 1: He's a good guy there. But then over time, call
36:23
Speaker 1: Mey starts to look at Trump as having something to hide.
36:27
Speaker 1: And there's a key moment when Trump calls in call
36:31
Speaker 1: Me for a private discussion, and very much like a
36:35
Speaker 1: mob boss, Trump effectively tells Camy, Hey, you're on my
36:40
Speaker 1: side on this whole thing, right, you know, I can
36:42
Speaker 1: count on you. Right again, I'm paraphrasing, but this is
36:46
Speaker 1: classic Trump.
36:47
Speaker 2: As mob boss.
36:49
Speaker 1: He's testing call me and ca Mey knows that there's
36:53
Speaker 1: this Russia issue out there, which, by the way, this
36:57
Speaker 1: is so important, and hardly ever gets mentioned, ever got
37:00
Speaker 1: leaked during the fucking campaign. I mean, so, how in
37:05
Speaker 1: the world can James call me be accused of trying
37:08
Speaker 1: to pull a coup which Steven Miller just did again
37:12
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of this indictment, which has nothing to
37:16
Speaker 1: do with the indictment whatsoever. But how can someone be
37:19
Speaker 1: accused of trying to pull a coup on Donald Trump
37:22
Speaker 1: when they both sabotaged Hillary Clinton's campaign and never leaked
37:30
Speaker 1: any of this information involving a Russia investigation with potential
37:34
Speaker 1: collusion with the Russian government? How is that possible? Is
37:39
Speaker 1: call me that incompetent? Is he that much of a
37:42
Speaker 1: fucking idiot? Or did this not happen that way? Or
37:46
Speaker 1: was that not his motivation? And look, Comy turned out
37:50
Speaker 1: to be wrong and a lot of what he feared
37:53
Speaker 1: about Trump and Russia. But if you're Cally and you're
37:58
Speaker 1: especially in love with your own virtue, and you think
38:01
Speaker 1: your job is to defend America at all costs, and
38:06
Speaker 1: you start to think, what the hell is going on
38:08
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump? Why is he acting like a mob
38:11
Speaker 1: boss vis a vime? Why does he need my personal loyalty?
38:16
Speaker 1: And you're aware of what's going on behind the scenes
38:20
Speaker 1: regarding the Russia Gate investigation, you start to add two
38:25
Speaker 1: plus two and maybe you get five or six, especially
38:29
Speaker 1: when Trump is acting so weird about the whole damn thing.
38:33
Speaker 2: So I'm not defending Russiagate at all.
38:36
Speaker 1: However, I have never believed that Russia Gate was intended
38:42
Speaker 1: as a coup. I think it was intended as, what
38:46
Speaker 1: the fuck is going on here? This is so incredibly weird,
38:50
Speaker 1: and Trump is acting exactly like you might act if
38:56
Speaker 1: some of this, if not all this was true. Es Actually,
39:00
Speaker 1: once Trump fires Camy under the circumstances that he did,
39:05
Speaker 1: because that's exactly what would happen if what Comy feared
39:10
Speaker 1: might be true. If you have somebody who's compromised by Russia,
39:15
Speaker 1: they you know, they go to their FBI director and
39:17
Speaker 1: they seek their loyalty, and then when they don't get it,
39:20
Speaker 1: they fire them under highly unusual circumstances, which is exactly
39:27
Speaker 1: what Trump did. So Trump played right into Komy's vision
39:32
Speaker 1: of what the worst possible scenario here might be. It
39:36
Speaker 1: wasn't based in reality, It wasn't based in truth. I've
39:41
Speaker 1: said many many times that Russia Gate was not a
39:44
Speaker 1: nothing burger. There were elements of that whole situation that
39:47
Speaker 1: were very troubling, especially when it came to obstruction of justice.
39:50
Speaker 1: And I've said many times a lot of this was
39:52
Speaker 1: about trying to hide Trump leveraging the Republican nomination to
39:56
Speaker 1: get putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. I
39:59
Speaker 1: think that was really the primary issue here, because that's
40:02
Speaker 1: really much more of what Trump cared about. Trump everybody.
40:05
Speaker 1: I don't even think he thought he was going to
40:07
Speaker 1: win the general election, and I think he was trying
40:10
Speaker 1: to use that nomination while he had it. He knew
40:13
Speaker 1: it was only going to last for a few months.
40:14
Speaker 1: It was going to make him far more prominent and
40:17
Speaker 1: give him far more credibility in the international stage, and
40:20
Speaker 1: so he wanted to use it to try to finally
40:22
Speaker 1: get what he'd been trying to do for a long time,
40:24
Speaker 1: which was to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. There
40:27
Speaker 1: was more to it than that, but that I think
40:29
Speaker 1: was the primary issue. So what we have here is
40:32
Speaker 1: a classic clash between two personalities that are destined to
40:37
Speaker 1: have no chance to get along. James call me Me, who
40:40
Speaker 1: was full of himself, who is in love with his
40:43
Speaker 1: own virtue, and Donald Trump, who couldn't give a fuck
40:48
Speaker 1: about virtue or ethics and essentially as machiavellian as you
40:54
Speaker 1: can possibly get, as narcissistic as you can possibly get,
40:57
Speaker 1: doesn't care about principle, doesn't care about any of the rules.
41:01
Speaker 2: He just cares about himself.
41:04
Speaker 1: And so that's why the relationship disintegrated as fast as
41:08
Speaker 1: it did, And this is, in my opinion, why Trump
41:12
Speaker 1: still won't let it go. Why Trump seeks vengeance. Trump
41:17
Speaker 1: seeks vengeance against a John Bolton or a James Comey,
41:21
Speaker 1: people who are by and large good guys perfect no
41:26
Speaker 1: right all the time, no wrong, a lot, yes, but
41:31
Speaker 1: generally good guys, sincere people trying to do their best,
41:35
Speaker 1: smart guys with good track records, especially when it comes
41:39
Speaker 1: to ethics, and Trump hates them most because they were
41:44
Speaker 1: both once in the fold and they made Trump feel
41:49
Speaker 1: bad about himself. That's really the ultimate sin, and that's
41:53
Speaker 1: not unusual, that's not unique to Trump. That's one of
41:56
Speaker 1: the worst things you can do in humanity. If you
41:59
Speaker 1: make someone feel bad about themselves and they have the
42:02
Speaker 1: ability to punish you, they are probably going to do
42:05
Speaker 1: that every single damn time. It's just in this particular case,
42:10
Speaker 1: you have a president of the United States with nothing
42:13
Speaker 1: to fear because he doesn't have to worry about re election,
42:15
Speaker 1: who has everyone working for him, acting like he's a king,
42:19
Speaker 1: who's willing to do exactly what he wants. Although in
42:23
Speaker 1: this particular case, the US attorney in Northern Virginia essentially
42:28
Speaker 1: refused to do it or was unable to do it,
42:31
Speaker 1: and they got replaced, and they got replaced with as
42:35
Speaker 1: with someone as loyal to Donald Trump as could possibly be,
42:39
Speaker 1: and Trump got his indictment. Now you might be thinking, Okay,
42:43
Speaker 1: but sick, is this really the worst thing that's ever happened?
42:46
Speaker 2: I mean, who cares?
42:47
Speaker 1: Again, I've already gone through the idea that he's probably
42:49
Speaker 1: never going to get convicted of anything.
42:52
Speaker 2: It's still wrong.
42:53
Speaker 1: It is still wrong, and it's unbelievably hypocritical. Theocritical, the
42:58
Speaker 1: hypocritical nature of MAGA world and Trump when it comes
43:02
Speaker 1: to Lawfair and cancel culture and free speech and corruption
43:08
Speaker 1: and government grifting is off the charts. I mean, these
43:13
Speaker 1: are all issues that were at the centerpiece of why
43:17
Speaker 1: MAGA wanted Donald Trump to be returned to the White
43:20
Speaker 1: House because of the Lawfair against Trump, which was wrong
43:25
Speaker 1: in large part but not in totality. But the Lawfair
43:30
Speaker 1: got in the Republican presidential nomination and I think actually
43:33
Speaker 1: helped to win the presidency. But if you get elected
43:37
Speaker 1: because you're condemning Lawfair the government going after enemies from
43:45
Speaker 1: a criminal perspective, which is totally wrong and extremely anti American,
43:50
Speaker 1: isn't it wrong for you to do exactly the same
43:53
Speaker 1: thing in a more overt fashion. I mean, okay, and
43:57
Speaker 1: I love this because I argue with mega people online
44:01
Speaker 1: all the time. They say, but John, you know, you
44:03
Speaker 1: criticize Trump for publicly demanding the prosecution of his enemies,
44:07
Speaker 1: but Biden did the same thing. We don't know that
44:12
Speaker 1: you're basing that on anonymous sources from mainstream media outlets
44:19
Speaker 1: like The New York Times, claiming that Biden was frustrated
44:23
Speaker 1: that Merrick Garland wasn't acting sooner or quicker or more
44:28
Speaker 1: vigorously against Trump. Do I believe that that was probably true. Yeah,
44:33
Speaker 1: I have no problem believing that Joe Biden wanted that
44:36
Speaker 1: to happen.
44:37
Speaker 2: But I do find two things here.
44:39
Speaker 1: It's hilarious that the same MAGA people that wouldn't believe
44:43
Speaker 1: anything in a mainstream outlet that they didn't want to
44:46
Speaker 1: believe about Donald Trump are suddenly believing mainstream outlets with
44:51
Speaker 1: anonymous sources because it fits what they want to believe. Oh,
44:55
Speaker 1: Biden was just as bad as Trump. That's ridiculous. It's
45:00
Speaker 1: it's incredibly hypocritical on its face. But there's also a
45:04
Speaker 1: massive difference, a massive difference between a president, which I'm
45:09
Speaker 1: not defending by the way, a President Biden being frustrated
45:14
Speaker 1: in private that, you know, why aren't we going after
45:17
Speaker 1: Trump after January sixth and everything related to that, you know,
45:21
Speaker 1: let's get on the stick here, and someone like Trump
45:26
Speaker 1: doing it extremely publicly, because when you do it publicly,
45:31
Speaker 1: especially when you have a cult following like Trump does,
45:35
Speaker 1: that creates enormous pressure on everyone who is in the
45:41
Speaker 1: chain of command and everyone who is making decisions. And
45:44
Speaker 1: it may even have an impact on grand jurors because
45:48
Speaker 1: some of these grand jurors are probably Republicans or Trump fans.
45:52
Speaker 1: So there's a massive difference, even though the thought would
45:58
Speaker 1: still be wrong, there is a massive difference in degree
46:02
Speaker 1: between what may have happened if you believe anonymous sources
46:05
Speaker 1: in the New York Times with regard to Joe Biden
46:08
Speaker 1: over a situation where I think you could argue that
46:11
Speaker 1: there were very legitimate legal issues that needed to be adjudicated,
46:14
Speaker 1: specifically over January sixth and Donald Trump, and this circumstance
46:19
Speaker 1: here where you are simply trying desperately to find a
46:24
Speaker 1: crime because you don't like somebody, because your king doesn't
46:29
Speaker 1: like somebody because they make him feel bad about himself,
46:34
Speaker 1: And that is wrong, that is Unamerican, and it is
46:38
Speaker 1: beyond hypocritical by Magaworld. And I realize that no one cares,
46:45
Speaker 1: certainly no one cares about what I say to begin with,
46:46
Speaker 1: especially not Magaworld. But the reality is that Magaworld is
46:52
Speaker 1: completely unimpacted by any sort of logic or facts. They're
47:00
Speaker 1: being driven purely by emotion, by vengeance. Trump has created
47:05
Speaker 1: the narrative that Kmy is a bad guy, he's a criminal,
47:08
Speaker 1: So we got to find a crime, and thank goodness,
47:10
Speaker 1: we finally found a crime, and thank goodness, we distracted
47:13
Speaker 1: from the Epstein issue for a little while and we
47:16
Speaker 1: gave the base some red meat to go chew on,
47:20
Speaker 1: even though we've also opened the door further and set
47:25
Speaker 1: a very bad precedent. And you know, the slippery slope
47:29
Speaker 1: gets even slip rear when it comes to what happens
47:32
Speaker 1: then next time the other guys are in charge, which
47:37
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't give a shit about because they'll probably be
47:39
Speaker 1: dead by then or you know, playing golf in Florida.
47:44
Speaker 1: I still think he should be a little bit worried
47:47
Speaker 1: about the Pandora's box that he has further opened, because presumably,
47:53
Speaker 1: if he does leave office in twenty twenty nine, he's
47:55
Speaker 1: going to have some years left and it's quite possible
47:58
Speaker 1: that Democrats, if they're in charge, especially if it's Gavin Newsom,
48:02
Speaker 1: may go after him the way that he went after
48:04
Speaker 1: his own enemy. So I still think it's possible that
48:07
Speaker 1: Trump may regret this. Who knows, But the reality is
48:12
Speaker 1: we are heading down a very very dangerous path that
48:16
Speaker 1: is extremely Unamerican and does not end well for anybody.
48:21
Speaker 2: And that's my dog in this hunt.
48:23
Speaker 1: I don't really care that much about James call me,
48:25
Speaker 1: although I don't think he's a bad guy, and he's
48:28
Speaker 1: certainly not a criminal based upon this particular indictment.
48:32
Speaker 2: Now, when it comes to the media.
48:34
Speaker 1: Divide and how unbelievably partisan everything is now, I want
48:40
Speaker 1: to at least mention a story involving Tom Homan, who
48:44
Speaker 1: is Trump's point man on illegal immigration. Trump seems to
48:49
Speaker 1: love him, Maga seems to love him. He's a very
48:52
Speaker 1: strong talker on illegal immigration. Seemingly he's done a pretty
48:55
Speaker 1: darn good job at least in closing the border, although
48:58
Speaker 1: I think the deep rotation issue has been grossly exaggerated
49:03
Speaker 1: by both sides. But regardless of what you think of
49:06
Speaker 1: Tom Homan, you know MAGA loves him right now. And
49:11
Speaker 1: there was a story that has been reported fairly widely
49:15
Speaker 1: in the last week that he was the subject of
49:19
Speaker 1: essentially a bribery scandal, or not the subject, but it
49:24
Speaker 1: appears as if he may have participated in a bribery
49:27
Speaker 1: scandal then involved the FBI where he was paid. This
49:33
Speaker 1: is alleged fifty thousand dollars for potential future influence that
49:39
Speaker 1: he was promising should Trump win the twenty twenty four elections.
49:44
Speaker 1: So this happened during the Biden administration, which is very
49:47
Speaker 1: lucky for Homan for reasons. It'll be obvious in a second.
49:52
Speaker 1: This happened during the Biden administration, before Trump was elected,
49:57
Speaker 1: and allegedly Homan took Homan took fifty thousand dollars to
50:01
Speaker 1: influence policy after Trump is elected. Now, of course, once
50:09
Speaker 1: Trump was elected, that investigation was shut down because Holman
50:15
Speaker 1: is a key part of the Trump administration, and you know,
50:21
Speaker 1: and they their argument is, oh, this was this was
50:24
Speaker 1: an attempt by the Biden administration to go after one
50:27
Speaker 1: of our own, essentially making the lawfair argument that even
50:31
Speaker 1: before Trump was elected, the Biden administration was trying to
50:34
Speaker 1: entrap Trump's supporters in a way that would allow them
50:38
Speaker 1: to be criminally charged and indicted, what have you, and
50:44
Speaker 1: that Homan was just caught up in this. Now, I
50:48
Speaker 1: don't know one hundred percent what the truth is. The
50:51
Speaker 1: reporting on this has been seemingly pretty solid and specific.
50:56
Speaker 1: It looks really bad for Homan except for two very
51:01
Speaker 1: key issues that shouldn't really matter but they do now.
51:04
Speaker 1: Number one is he obviously has the support of Trump
51:07
Speaker 1: and the Trump administration, and even the Press Secretary is
51:11
Speaker 1: out there vigorously defending him in ways that I don't
51:15
Speaker 1: even think are fully accurate. And so the investigation has
51:18
Speaker 1: been shut down and it's going nowhere legally, so as
51:22
Speaker 1: long as he's in Trump's good graces, he's totally free
51:25
Speaker 1: and clear from a legal perspective. But politically, Homan also
51:31
Speaker 1: gets a huge advantage because of the news outlet that
51:36
Speaker 1: broke this story and has been doing the vast majority
51:40
Speaker 1: of reporting on it, and that is very much to
51:43
Speaker 1: his benefit, MSNBC. And look, I have extreme skepticism about
51:51
Speaker 1: anything that comes out of MSNBC, but I also believe
51:55
Speaker 1: that every report ought to be evaluated on its own,
52:01
Speaker 1: whether or not it makes sense, whether or not there's
52:03
Speaker 1: evidence to support it, whether or not you know it's credible,
52:09
Speaker 1: is it backed up by other sources or other news
52:12
Speaker 1: outlets finding the same things to verify and corroborate it. So,
52:19
Speaker 1: to me, the way I look at this is okay,
52:20
Speaker 1: if it happens on MSNBC. I'm inherently skeptical, especially if
52:23
Speaker 1: it's about the Trump administration, but I'm at least willing
52:26
Speaker 1: to listen. The reality is that inherently, especially a manga world,
52:33
Speaker 1: and probably throughout the vast majority of the Republican base
52:39
Speaker 1: simply because a story was broken on MSNBC, it inherently
52:44
Speaker 1: discredits it, inherently discredits it beyond possibly being redeemed. So
52:53
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what the facts are, it doesn't matter
52:56
Speaker 1: what the evidence is, it doesn't matter what the logic
52:59
Speaker 1: of the of the case of the story is. It
53:01
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if it's corroborated. It's started on MSNBC. So
53:06
Speaker 1: therefore it must simply be an attack on the Trump administration,
53:10
Speaker 1: and it cannot be valid, and it must be immediately disregarded.
53:15
Speaker 1: In fact, it probably is a badge of honor for
53:18
Speaker 1: Tom Holman because that shows how dangerous he is, because MSNBC.
53:23
Speaker 2: Is trying to take him out.
53:26
Speaker 1: And look, I understand why that is the emotional reaction
53:32
Speaker 1: among many in the magabase.
53:35
Speaker 2: I get it. It's unfortunate.
53:38
Speaker 1: It is a damning indictment of how broken our entire
53:41
Speaker 1: media industrial complex is. And frankly, I actually think we've
53:46
Speaker 1: now reached a point. And I'm not suggesting this happen here,
53:50
Speaker 1: although many stranger things have happened, but we've now reached
53:54
Speaker 1: the point where if you are the Trump administration and
53:59
Speaker 1: you have a legitimate scandal that you want to cash
54:03
Speaker 1: straight right off the bat, you should leak it to
54:07
Speaker 1: MSNBC or some other very liberal news outlet because it
54:13
Speaker 1: will go nowhere, because I mean, no Republican senator or
54:18
Speaker 1: lawmaker or official is ever gonna cite it, no matter
54:23
Speaker 1: how troubling it might be, because they'll get attacked because
54:27
Speaker 1: they have no cover. Well, you're using MSNBC as a source,
54:33
Speaker 1: you right, Oh, what do you have TDS.
54:37
Speaker 2: Trump's trumps arrangement syndrome.
54:39
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not politically viable, and this is a
54:42
Speaker 1: fairly new phenomenon, and it is extremely unhealthy. And I'm
54:46
Speaker 1: as big a critic of MSNBC as anybody. Of course,
54:49
Speaker 1: it works in the opposite direction too. I personally think
54:53
Speaker 1: Fox News in general is far more credible and far
54:57
Speaker 1: more powerful, for sure than MSNBC.
55:00
Speaker 2: But you know, we didn't.
55:02
Speaker 1: Always live in a world where this is the way
55:04
Speaker 1: this worked, especially not to the point where we have
55:08
Speaker 1: now incentivized, especially on the Republican side, a circumstance where
55:14
Speaker 1: if you want to get rid of a story, just
55:16
Speaker 1: leak it to a liberal news outlet.
55:18
Speaker 2: It will go absolutely nowhere, no matter how.
55:21
Speaker 1: Scandalous it is, and I think that, to me from
55:23
Speaker 1: immediate perspective, is the biggest takeaway from the Tom Holman
55:27
Speaker 1: story slash scandal, regardless.
55:29
Speaker 2: Of what the actual reality of that is. Now.
55:32
Speaker 1: I want to mention two other things regarding Donald Trump
55:35
Speaker 1: before I moved into other news and Gavin Newsom and
55:40
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and Jimmy Kimmel a couple of things real quick,
55:44
Speaker 1: and both of them, I guess somewhat have to do
55:47
Speaker 1: with healthcare. Of course, you know, doctor Trump has told
55:52
Speaker 1: us that tailan causes autism, for which I don't believe
55:55
Speaker 1: there's any logical or evidentiary basis whatsoever. I talked about
56:00
Speaker 1: that in the last episode of the podcast, but there
56:03
Speaker 1: was an episode over the weekend that I don't think
56:07
Speaker 1: we're ever going to get to the bottom of, and
56:08
Speaker 1: it is so telling about just how completely fucked up
56:13
Speaker 1: the times in which we live are and how utterly
56:16
Speaker 1: weird and I think dangerous this second Trump administration really is.
56:22
Speaker 1: What I'm referring to is that Donald Trump's social media
56:28
Speaker 1: account on True Social posted a video about a Fox
56:37
Speaker 1: News report by Laura Trump about how Trump himself is
56:42
Speaker 1: making med beds available to the general public. Now you're
56:51
Speaker 1: probably thinking, first of all, what the hell's a MEDBD?
56:54
Speaker 1: Second of all, okay, zig, why is this a big deal?
57:00
Speaker 1: Shares news reports all the time. It's Fox News Channel,
57:02
Speaker 1: it's a member of his family, Laura Trump, he himself
57:06
Speaker 1: is even quoted in the story.
57:09
Speaker 2: You know, what's the big deal? There are several major
57:15
Speaker 2: major problems here. The first is.
57:19
Speaker 1: The news story was fake, completely totally fake. It was
57:26
Speaker 1: ai generated, completely fabricated. Laura Trump never did this story,
57:33
Speaker 1: Fox News never did this story.
57:36
Speaker 2: Donald Trump never spoke about this story.
57:38
Speaker 1: Yet, in the story that was shared on Trump's social
57:42
Speaker 1: media account on True Social, it appeared as if Fox
57:46
Speaker 1: News Channel and Laura Trump had done a story quoting
57:48
Speaker 1: Donald Trump that he was making med beds available to
57:53
Speaker 1: the general public. Now, that in and of itself is
57:58
Speaker 1: extremely troublic especially in this new era where we're going
58:03
Speaker 1: to be battling on a daily basis with the issue
58:06
Speaker 1: of what is real and what is fake, and how
58:10
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is going to make that almost impossible to discern,
58:15
Speaker 1: especially the stupid people and the people without a lot
58:18
Speaker 1: of experience at this I'm seeing this firsthand with my
58:22
Speaker 1: thirteen year old daughter Grace, who I actually think has
58:25
Speaker 1: a lot of really good intuition and a lot of
58:28
Speaker 1: good instincts and is very smart in a lot of ways.
58:31
Speaker 2: And yet she is terrible, terrible at being able to
58:34
Speaker 2: discern what is real and what is AI. And so.
58:40
Speaker 1: Purely from the standpoint of the President United States, putting
58:44
Speaker 1: out a fake story that could easily be perceived as
58:48
Speaker 1: being real is obviously, in a semi rational world, incredibly troubling,
58:56
Speaker 1: I mean, totally inappropriate, completely wrong for the President United
59:02
Speaker 1: States to do this, and Trump does this occasionally as
59:05
Speaker 1: obvious jokes. He put out an AI video of Chuck Schumer,
59:09
Speaker 1: which I thought was totally inappropriate because of the language
59:12
Speaker 1: that the fake Chuck Schumer AI generated character used but
59:17
Speaker 1: regarding illegal immigration. But it also wasn't clearly defined as
59:25
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. Any rational person would know that it was.
59:28
Speaker 1: But to me, when it's the President the United States,
59:31
Speaker 1: you have to protect your credibility at all costs, because
59:35
Speaker 1: you know what, someday the fate of the world may
59:38
Speaker 1: rely on people taking you seriously and you be incredible.
59:43
Speaker 1: That's something Trump doesn't seem to give a fuck about.
59:46
Speaker 1: And so the AI element of this med bed video
59:50
Speaker 1: is I think, in and of itself a scandal. I mean,
59:54
Speaker 1: I think if we stopped right there, this would be
59:56
Speaker 1: something that in a semi rational world, every American would
1:00:00
Speaker 1: know about.
1:00:01
Speaker 2: Very few Americans know about it.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: In fact, my guess is a lot of people that
1:00:05
Speaker 1: are listening to this podcast didn't even hear about this
1:00:07
Speaker 1: story because it got very little coverage. It was over
1:00:12
Speaker 1: a weekend. Eventually the video was deleted. But there's another
1:00:17
Speaker 1: aspect of this whole thing that sends this story from
1:00:21
Speaker 1: the bizarre and the troubling to the completely batshit crazy
1:00:25
Speaker 1: and the bunkers, and that is what is a med bed.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: Medbed is something that I had never heard of before
1:00:33
Speaker 1: until this controversy, But a medbed is the central element
1:00:40
Speaker 1: of a q and on conspiracy theory. QAnon is just
1:00:44
Speaker 1: like the craziest people on the fucking planet. I mean,
1:00:47
Speaker 1: they are absolutely batshit crazy. I mean, these people make
1:00:51
Speaker 1: Candice Owens seem totally rational and credible, even post Charlie
1:00:55
Speaker 1: Kirk assassination. But these people are insane and they have
1:01:01
Speaker 1: this theory that there are these things called med beds
1:01:05
Speaker 1: that are essentially magic beds that only rich people currently
1:01:10
Speaker 1: have access to that they can basically heal any ailment whatsoever.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: And that Trump, in this fake AI video was finally
1:01:21
Speaker 1: going to make med beds available to not just the
1:01:25
Speaker 1: super rich, but to the general public. So, I mean,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: this is like a pinball machine of insanity. You have
1:01:35
Speaker 1: a totally fake AI generated video using Fox News Channel,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: Trump's daughter in law himself talking about something that does
1:01:47
Speaker 1: not exist that he's going to allegedly make available to
1:01:51
Speaker 1: the general public. That is part of a q andon
1:01:55
Speaker 1: batshit crazy conspiracy theory.
1:01:59
Speaker 2: And this happened.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: I'm not making this up, folks. You can go search
1:02:03
Speaker 1: it yourself. This happened, and it barely made a ripple
1:02:09
Speaker 1: when it came to the news cycle. Mean, we are
1:02:15
Speaker 1: so far beyond the gravitational poll of the rational Earth.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: We can't even see forget about feeling the rational you know,
1:02:25
Speaker 1: the gravitational poll of the rational Earth.
1:02:27
Speaker 2: We can't even see the Earth. That's how far out
1:02:29
Speaker 2: in orbit we are.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: When the President the United States is doing this, and
1:02:32
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, and I've searched for it, I can't
1:02:35
Speaker 1: find it.
1:02:35
Speaker 2: It's possible I missed it.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: I'm only one person, but I have not seen any
1:02:39
Speaker 1: sort of follow up question to Trump as to Okay,
1:02:42
Speaker 1: why was the video posted? Why was it taken down?
1:02:46
Speaker 1: Do you believe in med beds? Did you not understand
1:02:50
Speaker 1: that this was ai that you didn't actually say any
1:02:52
Speaker 1: of these things? Is it possible someone else posted the
1:02:56
Speaker 1: video for you, in which case who is that person?
1:02:59
Speaker 1: They had had their authority to post on the President
1:03:02
Speaker 1: of United States behalf taken away. I mean, these are
1:03:05
Speaker 1: all very significant questions, none of which, to my knowledge
1:03:09
Speaker 1: have been asked and certainly not answered. Again, if somehow
1:03:13
Speaker 1: I missed it, please let me know. I'll be happy
1:03:15
Speaker 1: to correct that in the next episode of the podcast.
1:03:17
Speaker 2: But I don't think so. I mean, this is this
1:03:19
Speaker 2: crazy world.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: And then we have, I guess, in the realm of healthcare,
1:03:26
Speaker 1: we have, in some ways an almost as bizarre set
1:03:30
Speaker 1: of circumstances where Trump, in the presence of RK Junior,
1:03:36
Speaker 1: announces this massive, colossal, multi, multi, multi billion dollar deal
1:03:44
Speaker 1: to try to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
1:03:48
Speaker 2: With Phfiser with Pheiser, an event.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: By the way, during which Trump joked about RK Junior getting.
1:03:59
Speaker 2: COVID because he coughed or something.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, look, I'm all in favor of
1:04:05
Speaker 1: joking as anybody, and I think there's a lot about
1:04:08
Speaker 1: COVID that should be joking about. But I mean, to me,
1:04:13
Speaker 1: this was the worst element by far of Trump's presidency.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: He completely shipped the bed on COVID. He shut down
1:04:20
Speaker 1: the country, elevated doctor Fauci to godlike status, allowed all
1:04:26
Speaker 1: sorts of elements of our society to be destroyed from
1:04:30
Speaker 1: which we will probably never recover. For two years we lost,
1:04:35
Speaker 1: especially if your kit your you know, young children, we
1:04:38
Speaker 1: lost two years of real life, all because Trump shit
1:04:44
Speaker 1: the bed. And here he is joking about it with R.
1:04:47
Speaker 1: Kane Junior, the guy who is the head of Health
1:04:50
Speaker 1: and Human Services. Largely because of his opposition to some
1:04:57
Speaker 1: not all Arka Junior was not nearly as good against
1:05:00
Speaker 1: COVID tyranny as his fans want to believe now. At
1:05:04
Speaker 1: the beginning, he was actually a classic liberal. It wasn't
1:05:07
Speaker 1: until much later when it was safer, that our Kae
1:05:10
Speaker 1: Junior changed his tune on this. But obviously he's been
1:05:13
Speaker 1: very much associated with the vaccines and specifically the COVID vaccine,
1:05:19
Speaker 1: and how he was not in favor of it and
1:05:22
Speaker 1: is not in favor of it. Being mandated going forward,
1:05:25
Speaker 1: or even really being advised to be taken by certain
1:05:28
Speaker 1: groups of people. But here Trump and Arcade Junior are
1:05:32
Speaker 1: joking about COVID much more importantly Peiser Peiser, I mean,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: the name most associated in MAGA world with how horrible
1:05:44
Speaker 1: the vaccine mandates were.
1:05:46
Speaker 2: I mean.
1:05:47
Speaker 1: And let's also not forget, although the right wing media
1:05:52
Speaker 1: is completely forgotten, that it was only a couple of
1:05:54
Speaker 1: weeks ago, only a couple of weeks ago, when Donald
1:05:58
Speaker 1: Trump and we talked about it on this podcast, posted
1:06:01
Speaker 1: on social media in a way that made it sound
1:06:05
Speaker 1: like he was starting to turn against his own Operation
1:06:07
Speaker 1: warp Speed, that maybe the vaccines hadn't been as safe
1:06:11
Speaker 1: as he thought, and he even demanded that Pfizer open
1:06:16
Speaker 1: up their books when it comes to the statistics. And
1:06:21
Speaker 1: I mean, it seemed as if Trump was on the
1:06:23
Speaker 1: verge of abandoning the COVID vaccine, which you know has
1:06:28
Speaker 1: always been baffling to me as to how he still
1:06:31
Speaker 1: thinks it's the greatest thing he ever did when his
1:06:34
Speaker 1: base hates by and large, the COVID vaccine and especially
1:06:39
Speaker 1: all the mandates that ensued and statistically, the argument I've
1:06:44
Speaker 1: gone through as many times before. The argument that operation
1:06:47
Speaker 1: warped speed was this amazing phenomenon that saved millions of lives,
1:06:51
Speaker 1: is just not tenable anymore. You know, my basic view
1:06:55
Speaker 1: of the COVID vaccine is it seemed to work for
1:06:58
Speaker 1: a few short months in reducing the number of cases,
1:07:02
Speaker 1: but in the end, some of our worst months when
1:07:06
Speaker 1: it came to cases and deaths, both in the United
1:07:09
Speaker 1: States and internationally, occurred after everybody that wanted the vaccine
1:07:15
Speaker 1: could have taken it. And so how you can argue
1:07:18
Speaker 1: that the vaccine with this miracle working drug when it
1:07:22
Speaker 1: came to COVID is bizarre to me, but not as
1:07:26
Speaker 1: bizarre as the idea that Trump, just after having posted
1:07:31
Speaker 1: that he was pissed off at Pfizer and wanted some
1:07:35
Speaker 1: accountability for what might have happened regarding negative consequences of
1:07:39
Speaker 1: the COVID vaccine, here he is announcing this massive, unprecedented, colossal, multi,
1:07:47
Speaker 1: multi multi billion dollar deal with Pfiser, with ourcaor I
1:07:52
Speaker 1: presumed forced to be there and pretend to go along
1:07:56
Speaker 1: with all this. And Trump's base, based upon the social
1:08:01
Speaker 1: media postings I'm seeing, is a little conflicted about this.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: There are some people that are like, what the fuck,
1:08:08
Speaker 1: How the hell did this happen? But my guess is
1:08:10
Speaker 1: why at large, this isn't gonna have any real impact
1:08:13
Speaker 1: on Trump negatively politically, much like giving doctor fauci an
1:08:16
Speaker 1: award on his last day in office.
1:08:19
Speaker 2: Never had any negative impact.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: I mean, there were people who thought that that was
1:08:22
Speaker 1: going to prevent Trump from winning the twenty twenty four
1:08:25
Speaker 1: Republican presidential nomination. Interrational world, it should have, especially when
1:08:29
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis was the primary other option, but we don't
1:08:34
Speaker 1: live in that world. And so it's just amazing to
1:08:39
Speaker 1: me that Trump can shit on his base to the
1:08:42
Speaker 1: way that he does so blatantly, and here he is
1:08:45
Speaker 1: mister Operation warp speed and in contradiction to what he
1:08:50
Speaker 1: has posted on social media a couple of weeks ago,
1:08:53
Speaker 1: doing this massive deal with Pfizer. Now, by the way,
1:08:56
Speaker 1: it is quite possible in retrospect because no one's see
1:09:00
Speaker 1: to understand what Trump was doing with that social media post.
1:09:03
Speaker 1: Maybe this was part of the negotiations with Pfiser. I'm
1:09:06
Speaker 1: sure that there are Trump fans that are thinking that
1:09:08
Speaker 1: that post was four dimensional chess and that he was
1:09:13
Speaker 1: making a better deal because he was trying to scare
1:09:15
Speaker 1: Pfiser that he might turn on them on the vaccine
1:09:18
Speaker 1: and whatever. You know, negotiations were going on with regard
1:09:22
Speaker 1: to this deal went more in Trump's direction, and that's
1:09:25
Speaker 1: why they were able to announce this deal a couple
1:09:27
Speaker 1: of weeks later. That actually makes a little bit of sense,
1:09:30
Speaker 1: but it doesn't change the hpocrisy point, which is that
1:09:34
Speaker 1: you know, Trump and his base are in almost total
1:09:38
Speaker 1: contradiction when it comes to their view of the COVID vaccine,
1:09:44
Speaker 1: the COVID panic in general, and specifically the company of
1:09:48
Speaker 1: Pfiser with which Trump just did this massive, massive deal
1:09:53
Speaker 1: with Rcade Junior being forced to participate in the public event.
1:09:59
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