Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / What Jamie Raskin Said About Civil War
Transcript
- 0:10Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
- 0:16Speaker 1: theory podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
- 0:33Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy The Show. I'm your host,
- 0:37Speaker 2: Adam Todd Brown joining me as co host this week. Ooh,
- 0:42Speaker 2: my favorite co host of all No co host. I'm
- 0:45Speaker 2: actually going it alone this week, mostly for scheduling reasons.
- 0:50Speaker 2: This is a conspiracy news roundup episode.
- 0:53Speaker 3: I've done them before.
- 0:54Speaker 2: We just talked about a bunch of news stories that
- 0:57Speaker 2: strike me as things conspiracy types would be interested in.
- 1:02Speaker 2: Not every conspiracy related story has enough meat on its
- 1:06Speaker 2: bones to carry an entire episode, you know, Except things
- 1:11Speaker 2: took a bit of a turn in that. For one,
- 1:13Speaker 2: the first story I wanted to talk about is going
- 1:16Speaker 2: to end up being almost the only story I talk about.
- 1:21Speaker 3: Also, this was.
- 1:22Speaker 2: Gonna be a bonus episode, and I will be doing
- 1:25Speaker 2: a lot more solo stuff on the bonus side of
- 1:28Speaker 2: things going forward, but this one seems like it deserves
- 1:32Speaker 2: some public attention. I think it will be a little
- 1:36Speaker 2: bit shorter of an episode than usual. I can't talk
- 1:40Speaker 2: by myself for an hour to ninety minutes. It hurts
- 1:44Speaker 2: the voice Anyway, a video started making the rounds earlier
- 1:49Speaker 2: this week in which Maryland Congressional Representative Jamie Raskin says
- 1:55Speaker 2: some pretty shocking things about the upcoming election. And I
- 2:00Speaker 2: know it has become a bit of a cliche to
- 2:04Speaker 2: say this story is a story nobody's talking about, but
- 2:09Speaker 2: in this case it is weirdly true.
- 2:13Speaker 3: Conservatives, right wingers.
- 2:16Speaker 2: Some but not all MAGA types are super duper talking
- 2:21Speaker 2: about it. But at this point it seems like that's
- 2:24Speaker 2: kind of it. In this video, Representative Jamie Raskin tells
- 2:30Speaker 2: a crowd of onlookers at a panel of some sort
- 2:34Speaker 2: that and I'm paraphrasing here, if Donald Trump wins in November,
- 2:39Speaker 2: Congress is going to disqualify him from taking office, and
- 2:44Speaker 2: that we should all expect civil war next. Again, I'm paraphrasing,
- 2:48Speaker 2: but that is what he says before I get to
- 2:51Speaker 2: the exact quote. Though a little background. Why don't we
- 2:55Speaker 2: do you remember when Colorado tried to have Trump removed
- 2:59Speaker 2: from presidential ballots in that state on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
- 3:06Speaker 2: That's the amendment that says, in part that if an
- 3:09Speaker 2: officer of the United States government participates in an insurrection,
- 3:13Speaker 2: they can't be president. Well, that went to the Supreme
- 3:17Speaker 2: Court eventually, and they ruled nine to zero that Colorado
- 3:22Speaker 2: could not do that. But there was a plot twist
- 3:26Speaker 2: in the actual ruling.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Here's a quote.
- 3:28Speaker 2: Because the Constitution makes Congress rather than the States, responsible
- 3:34Speaker 2: for enforcing Section three against federal officeholders and candidates. We
- 3:39Speaker 2: reverse end quote, we reverse, meaning they reversed the lower
- 3:44Speaker 2: court ruling that Trump could be kicked off the ballot.
- 3:47Speaker 2: And did you catch it? They aren't saying no one
- 3:50Speaker 2: can disqualify Trump. They're saying Congress has to do it,
- 3:54Speaker 2: which brings us to Jamie Raskin's exact quote. Let's listen
- 3:58Speaker 2: to it.
- 3:59Speaker 4: It's necessary, but it's not sufficient, because what can be
- 4:02Speaker 4: put into the Constitution can slip away from you very quickly.
- 4:06Speaker 4: And the greatest example going on right now before our
- 4:08Speaker 4: very eyes is section three of the fourteenth Amendment, which
- 4:11Speaker 4: they're just disappearing with a magic wand as if it
- 4:14Speaker 4: doesn't exist, even though it could not be clearer what
- 4:18Speaker 4: it's stating. And so you know, they want to kick
- 4:20Speaker 4: it to Congress. So it's going to be up to
- 4:22Speaker 4: us on January sixth, twenty twenty five, to tell the
- 4:26Speaker 4: rampaging Trump mobs that he's disqualified, and then we need
- 4:30Speaker 4: bodyguards for everybody in civil war conditions, all because the
- 4:35Speaker 4: nine justices, not all of them, but these justices, who
- 4:38Speaker 4: have not many cases to look at every year, not
- 4:41Speaker 4: that much work to do a huge staff great protection,
- 4:45Speaker 4: simply do not want to do their job and interpret
- 4:50Speaker 4: what the great fourteenth Amendment means.
- 4:51Speaker 2: Pretty incendiary stuff. I was a little thrown off at
- 4:55Speaker 2: first because it seems like the only real response from
- 4:59Speaker 2: any one, even sort of left leaning about this was
- 5:03Speaker 2: to question if it was a deep fake. That's how
- 5:06Speaker 2: shocking this quote is. It is essentially a high ranking
- 5:10Speaker 2: Democrat publicly confirming every Trump voter's worst fear. And I
- 5:16Speaker 2: guess I understand why people would ask if the footage
- 5:19Speaker 2: was fake. The first versions of this that went around
- 5:22Speaker 2: on social media were cropped in really tight on Raskin's face,
- 5:28Speaker 2: and some of them looked sort of grainy, like maybe
- 5:30Speaker 2: someone filmed it by pointing their phone at their computer screen.
- 5:34Speaker 2: It is a complete and total fluke that I even
- 5:38Speaker 2: saw this video. When I researched these round up episodes,
- 5:42Speaker 2: I literally just typed the word conspiracy into an RSS
- 5:46Speaker 2: reader program and comb through whatever it spits out to
- 5:50Speaker 2: find stories that seem like they might be of interest
- 5:53Speaker 2: to this audience. Like I mentioned at the beginning of
- 5:56Speaker 2: the show, if I didn't do that this week to
- 5:59Speaker 2: research this episode, I don't know that I ever would
- 6:02Speaker 2: have even seen this video. I don't follow right wing
- 6:06Speaker 2: media enough to have seen it. It's just that that
- 6:09Speaker 2: search in that RSS reader produced a right wing leaning
- 6:14Speaker 2: outlet result. But I am one thousand percent confident that
- 6:19Speaker 2: this video is real. Everyone pushing it on Twitter currently
- 6:23Speaker 2: known as x might be a right winger. The small
- 6:26Speaker 2: handful of outlets reporting on it might all be right
- 6:30Speaker 2: wing outlets, but listen, even the blind squirrel finds a
- 6:34Speaker 2: nut Sometimes those right wingers and their respective websites are
- 6:39Speaker 2: not the original source of this video. It comes from
- 6:43Speaker 2: a February seventeenth, twenty twenty four, live stream held at
- 6:48Speaker 2: and posted to the YouTube page of a Washington, DC
- 6:53Speaker 2: bookstore slash coffeehouse called Politics and Pros. They are super
- 6:59Speaker 2: well known, been around in the DC area since nineteen
- 7:03Speaker 2: eighty four. They have a massive online following massive online presence.
- 7:09Speaker 2: The current owners are a husband and wife team who
- 7:12Speaker 2: used to write for the Washington Post. The wife was
- 7:15Speaker 2: also a speech writer for Hillary Clinton. Raskin was on
- 7:19Speaker 2: a panel with civil rights lawyer Sherylyn Eiffel and UCLA
- 7:23Speaker 2: political science and law professor Richard Hassen. Does any of
- 7:27Speaker 2: that sound right wing to you? Because that is the
- 7:30Speaker 2: source of this quote, So either it's legit or politics
- 7:34Speaker 2: in Pros's YouTube was hacked in February and some nefarious
- 7:39Speaker 2: it genius uploaded the absolute most convincing deep fake of
- 7:46Speaker 2: all time, and no one has noticed or bothered taking
- 7:50Speaker 2: it down on the politics and prose side of things.
- 7:54Speaker 2: This is why sometimes debunking a story solely based on
- 7:59Speaker 2: its source isn't enough. The website I first found this
- 8:03Speaker 2: on at first glance looks like any other local, small
- 8:07Speaker 2: town news outlet. It's called The Minnesota Sun and its
- 8:10Speaker 2: slogan is leading the way in news and education. You
- 8:15Speaker 2: only need to scroll through a few headlines, though, to
- 8:18Speaker 2: suss out that, if nothing else, this is a highly
- 8:21Speaker 2: right wing leaning outlet. The website media bias fact check
- 8:26Speaker 2: calls it a quote questionable source end quote, and that
- 8:30Speaker 2: it acts as a propaganda imposter website for the right
- 8:34Speaker 2: wing in this country. But they also add this quote.
- 8:39Speaker 2: Sources listed in the questionable category may be very untrustworthy
- 8:45Speaker 2: and should be fact checked on a per article basis.
- 8:49Speaker 2: Please note, sources on this list are not considered fake
- 8:54Speaker 2: news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source.
- 9:01Speaker 3: End quote. And I'm sure.
- 9:03Speaker 2: Everyone reads that far when they see that a news
- 9:06Speaker 2: outlet is labeled as questionable. What I'm getting at is
- 9:10Speaker 2: that I don't care who's telling me the story if
- 9:14Speaker 2: the story is true. The National Inquirer has printed some
- 9:18Speaker 2: real damn whoppers in their day, and their reporting also
- 9:24Speaker 2: legitimately solved the nineteen ninety seven murder of Ennis Cosby.
- 9:29Speaker 2: The National Inquirer probably should have won a Pulitzer for
- 9:32Speaker 2: their coverage of the oj trial. And I'm not saying
- 9:36Speaker 2: that as a joke. They covered it better than anyone.
- 9:39Speaker 2: And in this case, what's being reported about Maryland Representative
- 9:44Speaker 2: Jamie Raskin, the lead manager on Trump's second impeachment.
- 9:49Speaker 3: For the record, is clearly true.
- 9:51Speaker 2: Now am I overthinking it? Or would this be a
- 9:54Speaker 2: goddamn bombshell if it became a really big story in
- 9:59Speaker 2: the twent four election? And I guess there's still time
- 10:02Speaker 2: for that to happen. But if there's one thing I've
- 10:05Speaker 2: learned trying to cover it over the last few years,
- 10:09Speaker 2: the news cycle moves really fast these days. Apparently this
- 10:14Speaker 2: video started circulating on the socials on Monday. This episode
- 10:20Speaker 2: goes up on Friday. At least as I'm recording this
- 10:23Speaker 2: on Thursday night, I can't find anyone but sources that
- 10:28Speaker 2: a site like media Bias fact check would label as
- 10:32Speaker 2: questionable mentioning the Civil War comments anywhere, you usually at
- 10:37Speaker 2: least get a Newsweek or a Daily Beast article. When
- 10:42Speaker 2: a story's being suspiciously underreported, you know an outlet like that,
- 10:47Speaker 2: And the way Google works, those outlets are going to
- 10:50Speaker 2: be way in front of the search results over say
- 10:54Speaker 2: the Federalist, which is the top result for several different
- 10:58Speaker 2: variations of the search term Jamie raskin Civil War. Don't
- 11:03Speaker 2: get me wrong, I absolutely understand why someone somewhere in
- 11:09Speaker 2: the dark recesses of the American government does not want
- 11:13Speaker 2: major media outlets making a big deal.
- 11:16Speaker 3: Out of this.
- 11:17Speaker 2: If a story about the lead manager of the second
- 11:20Speaker 2: Trump impeachment, a sitting member of Congress vowing to disqualify
- 11:26Speaker 2: Trump from taking office even if he wins, was plastered
- 11:30Speaker 2: on everyone's social media feed right now, reported on by
- 11:35Speaker 2: the outlets We Trust, it would be a nightmare for
- 11:39Speaker 2: Democrats in this election when one of his fellow right
- 11:42Speaker 2: wingers says something especially wacky, Trump has the luxury of
- 11:46Speaker 2: just calling them fringe and saying they don't represent his campaign,
- 11:51Speaker 2: even if we know he's lying, and he's taken flights
- 11:53Speaker 2: with him in recent months things of the like. But
- 11:57Speaker 2: this isn't some fringe extremist saying he wants to hang
- 12:01Speaker 2: the Satanic cabal on the White House lawn again. This
- 12:04Speaker 2: is the lead manager on the second Trump impeachment, a
- 12:09Speaker 2: sitting member of the exact body that would have to
- 12:12Speaker 2: initiate a move like this. And unless I'm missing something,
- 12:16Speaker 2: it seems like all they'd really need to make it work,
- 12:19Speaker 2: at least until the lawsuits start, is to have a
- 12:23Speaker 2: majority in Congress to at least run.
- 12:25Speaker 3: It up the flagpole.
- 12:26Speaker 2: If you recall, there's a part of that election certification
- 12:30Speaker 2: process where everyone gets a chance to object. There were
- 12:34Speaker 2: a lot of objections in twenty twenty one, but they
- 12:37Speaker 2: were on suspect enough grounds that a lot of Republicans
- 12:42Speaker 2: didn't go along with it and voted to certify the
- 12:46Speaker 2: results of the election. But what if next time that
- 12:49Speaker 2: happens a Democrat majority objects on constitutional grounds.
- 12:55Speaker 3: It could happen, and.
- 12:56Speaker 2: They would probably even pick up a Republican vote or two.
- 13:00Speaker 2: Whether it would ultimately work, and whether it would be
- 13:03Speaker 2: the right thing to do our questions for another day.
- 13:07Speaker 2: But I failed to see what is stopping Democrats from
- 13:10Speaker 2: trying exactly what Jamie Raskin is suggesting if Trump wins,
- 13:16Speaker 2: and if that is indeed the plan. Again, I get
- 13:19Speaker 2: why the current incarnation of our American government would be
- 13:23Speaker 2: hesitant to say that part out loud, But now someone
- 13:26Speaker 2: said it out loud. Does the government have the power
- 13:29Speaker 2: to keep the media from talking about it?
- 13:31Speaker 3: Though?
- 13:31Speaker 2: Let's pretend we're still unsure of the answer to that
- 13:35Speaker 2: question and reflect on the prisoner swap with Russia that
- 13:38Speaker 2: just happened.
- 13:39Speaker 3: One of the.
- 13:40Speaker 2: Stories that emerged in the wake of that was that
- 13:42Speaker 2: a Bloomberg reporter was fired for publishing a story about
- 13:46Speaker 2: it before the government had lifted an embargo on reporting
- 13:50Speaker 2: on it.
- 13:51Speaker 3: And yes, that happens all the time.
- 13:52Speaker 2: It's called an embargoed press release, and there were prisoner
- 13:56Speaker 2: safety aspects involved here. I get all that, But with
- 14:00Speaker 2: how crucial government access is to the major media outlets
- 14:05Speaker 2: in this country. Is it so unthinkable that the government
- 14:09Speaker 2: could also reach out to their most trusted news sources
- 14:12Speaker 2: and embargo a story forever under threat of losing that
- 14:17Speaker 2: access again, just a reminder, the United States ranks number
- 14:21Speaker 2: fifty five on the Press Freedom Index at last check.
- 14:26Speaker 3: And that was like a week ago.
- 14:28Speaker 2: There are absolutely some limits on what media outlets can
- 14:32Speaker 2: report on in this country.
- 14:34Speaker 3: Or maybe this just isn't newsworthy? Is that it?
- 14:37Speaker 2: Because I don't feel like that's it. This feels highly
- 14:42Speaker 2: newsworthy and it's been sitting on the Internet for anyone
- 14:46Speaker 2: to find since February. And speaking of things that are
- 14:50Speaker 2: hard to find on the internet, I don't know. This
- 14:54Speaker 2: next story probably isn't related, but it's kind of related.
- 14:59Speaker 2: Here's the g The promotional campaign for the recent A
- 15:03Speaker 2: twenty four documentary The Sixth has been weird. It's a
- 15:08Speaker 2: documentary about the January sixth Insurrection, pretty hot topic these days.
- 15:14Speaker 2: Very respected documentary filmmaking team behind it. A twenty four
- 15:19Speaker 2: arguably the biggest movie production company in all the land
- 15:23Speaker 2: right now. That name attached to a film instantly makes
- 15:27Speaker 2: it at least worth a courtesy watch. They are widely
- 15:30Speaker 2: respected by fans and critics alike. They were the company
- 15:34Speaker 2: behind everything everywhere, all at once, a movie literally everyone
- 15:40Speaker 2: saw everyone. So how come no one knew this documentary
- 15:43Speaker 2: was coming out? I only knew about it because while
- 15:46Speaker 2: researching this episode, I stumbled upon a Politico article from
- 15:51Speaker 2: May of this year questioning why A twenty four wasn't
- 15:56Speaker 2: promoting the documentary's May third release date. And when I
- 16:00Speaker 2: say not promoting, it wasn't even listed on A twenty
- 16:04Speaker 2: four's website before Politico asked about it, and that was
- 16:08Speaker 2: like a day before it was released. I wasn't paying
- 16:11Speaker 2: enough attention to the A twenty four website at the
- 16:14Speaker 2: time to verify that claim, but I can tell you
- 16:16Speaker 2: I found a November twenty twenty three IndieWire article called
- 16:20Speaker 2: every A twenty four movie coming out in twenty twenty
- 16:23Speaker 2: four and beyond, And despite being published four short months
- 16:29Speaker 2: before the sixth was released, it's not mentioned in that article.
- 16:33Speaker 2: An unnamed Steve Martin documentary earns a mention, But this
- 16:37Speaker 2: highly relevant to our Times documentary made by one of
- 16:42Speaker 2: the biggest filmmaking companies out there, does not get a mention.
- 16:46Speaker 2: Apparently the lack of promotion came as a surprise to
- 16:51Speaker 2: several of the people who participated in the film, which
- 16:54Speaker 2: focuses on the stories of six people who were at
- 16:57Speaker 2: the capitol that day, but not on the insurrectionist side,
- 17:01Speaker 2: on the side that was getting attacked. Here's a quote
- 17:04Speaker 2: from one of them. The subjects were all told that
- 17:07Speaker 2: the movie would be available on Prime starting at the
- 17:10Speaker 2: beginning of May, and I was certainly telling that to
- 17:12Speaker 2: people because the premiere was completely sold out. I was
- 17:15Speaker 2: telling people they'd be able to access it on Prime Video.
- 17:19Speaker 2: And then the filmmakers told us that although that was
- 17:21Speaker 2: the original understanding, it was now not going to be
- 17:25Speaker 2: available for streaming on Prime Video and.
- 17:28Speaker 3: People would have to pay for it.
- 17:29Speaker 2: That obviously will change by millions the number of people
- 17:33Speaker 2: who will see it.
- 17:34Speaker 3: End quote.
- 17:35Speaker 2: And that was a quote from let me see here.
- 17:39Speaker 2: Oh God, damn it, Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, one of
- 17:43Speaker 2: these six people featured in the documentary. With that in mind,
- 17:47Speaker 2: here's another quote from him.
- 17:49Speaker 3: I think it.
- 17:50Speaker 2: Would absolutely sweep the country if it were made available
- 17:53Speaker 2: to the public easily.
- 17:55Speaker 3: End quote. Does he mean this.
- 17:57Speaker 2: Documentary or that clip of him talking about disqualifying Trump
- 18:02Speaker 2: from the election and starting a civil war. Sorry, the
- 18:05Speaker 2: government won't let me tell you which one it is.
- 18:08Speaker 2: You'll have to figure it out for yourself. There's more
- 18:10Speaker 2: to the a twenty four story. I'll link to the
- 18:13Speaker 2: Politico article about it, but the rest mostly just amounts
- 18:16Speaker 2: to people speculating about whether the decision to hide the
- 18:20Speaker 2: sixth from public view was motivated by money or politics,
- 18:25Speaker 2: And to that, I say, to quote a famous taco
- 18:29Speaker 2: shell commercial.
- 18:30Speaker 3: Why not both.
- 18:31Speaker 2: But also, one thing I haven't mentioned about Jamie Raskin's
- 18:35Speaker 2: civil war comments and the reaction to them, or lack thereof,
- 18:40Speaker 2: is one other person who, at least as I record this,
- 18:43Speaker 2: has been oddly silent about that video, Donald Trump. How
- 18:49Speaker 2: why did he not see it? Is he just not
- 18:52Speaker 2: on social media enough? Because we all know for goddamn sure,
- 18:55Speaker 2: that isn't the answer. This guy loves, loves loves talking
- 19:00Speaker 2: about a stolen election, And just a reminder, even as
- 19:04Speaker 2: a candidate, Kamala Harris will be the one who ultimately
- 19:07Speaker 2: certifies the results, just like Mike Pence did in twenty
- 19:11Speaker 2: twenty one. Sure, that's a mostly ceremonial role, but it
- 19:15Speaker 2: seems like Jamie Raskin's comments, combined with the Kamala will
- 19:20Speaker 2: do the certifying angle, make this a thing the Trump
- 19:23Speaker 2: campaign could immediately rally their supporters around. And since when
- 19:29Speaker 2: does he not leap at a chance to claim the
- 19:32Speaker 2: system is rigged against him? The only thing I can
- 19:35Speaker 2: think of that would explain Trump's silence on this is
- 19:38Speaker 2: that maybe it would inspire his supporters to not vote
- 19:42Speaker 2: if it became a big enough talking point during the campaign. Maybe,
- 19:46Speaker 2: but that would be an unprecedented display of restraint on
- 19:49Speaker 2: Trump's part, and that's way out of character for him.
- 19:53Speaker 2: And that still wouldn't explain why absolutely no media outlet
- 19:57Speaker 2: except the sketchiest of right wing outlets, have even touched
- 20:02Speaker 2: this story. It seems like journalist Matt Tayibi and the
- 20:06Speaker 2: host of a podcast called dark Horse took to Twitter
- 20:10Speaker 2: currently known as x to ask if maybe it was
- 20:13Speaker 2: a deep fake and when no one replied, that's where
- 20:17Speaker 2: the curiosity ended. It's not fake, though he said it,
- 20:21Speaker 2: and why absolutely no one is talking about it at
- 20:24Speaker 2: all is a question that is way above my pay grade.
- 20:28Speaker 2: I think post your own personal theories in the comments
- 20:32Speaker 2: or something I guess and Hey, that's our episode. Thank
- 20:36Speaker 2: you so much for listening to me talk by myself
- 20:39Speaker 2: this week just an fyi. I host a whole entire
- 20:42Speaker 2: solo podcast called in Broad Daylight that you can get
- 20:46Speaker 2: every Tuesday wherever podcasts are at, or even better, get
- 20:50Speaker 2: it as a video podcast on YouTube at Adam Todd
- 20:53Speaker 2: Brown Comedy. One of the recent episodes is about that
- 20:56Speaker 2: weird rfk assassination souvenir program I talk about all the time.
- 21:00Speaker 3: Go watch it, why don't you? And thanks everybody, We
- 21:03Speaker 3: love you.
- 21:09Speaker 1: People of your planet has to be destroyed. Stro