When the gavel strikes and the media circus begins, can we discern justice from performance? Strap in for a rollercoaster ride through the latest courtroom dramas, political showdowns, and the sobering realities they overshadow. Our episode peels back the curtain on a high-profile trial's jury selection mayhem, its surrounding media frenzy, and the somber lesson from a heart-wrenching act of self-immolation right at the courthouse steps. We don't just stop at the hard-hitting; a sprinkle of humor awaits as I recount the oddball courtroom escapades of Donald Trump himself, proving that reality can be stranger than fiction.
Amidst the chuckles, we zoom out to the wider scene of Republican Party infighting, the startling resignation of Kansas Representative Jake LaTurner, and the ripples sent through the political pond by Mike Johnson's aid approval to Ukraine and Marjorie Taylor Greene's opportunistic power grab. As the circus tent sways with the winds of change, we also acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: the relentless news cycle is a beast that devours today's headlines, leaving yesterday's stories in the dust. Our episode serves as both a time capsule and a wake-up call, spotlighting the stories that shape our world and the ones at risk of being forgotten.
When the gavel strikes and the media circus begins, can we discern justice from performance? Strap in for a rollercoaster ride through the latest courtroom dramas, political showdowns, and the sobering realities they overshadow. Our episode peels back the curtain on a high-profile trial's jury selection mayhem, its surrounding media frenzy, and the somber lesson from a heart-wrenching act of self-immolation right at the courthouse steps. We don't just stop at the hard-hitting; a sprinkle of humor awaits as I recount the oddball courtroom escapades of Donald Trump himself, proving that reality can be stranger than fiction.
Amidst the chuckles, we zoom out to the wider scene of Republican Party infighting, the startling resignation of Kansas Representative Jake LaTurner, and the ripples sent through the political pond by Mike Johnson's aid approval to Ukraine and Marjorie Taylor Greene's opportunistic power grab. As the circus tent sways with the winds of change, we also acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: the relentless news cycle is a beast that devours today's headlines, leaving yesterday's stories in the dust. Our episode serves as both a time capsule and a wake-up call, spotlighting the stories that shape our world and the ones at risk of being forgotten.
Yo, what up? This is D-Night and you're listening to the Pardon the Interaction Podcast. Holy forkin' shirt balls, batman. What a crazy week that was. Every single week I'm like, oh man, we've never seen a week like that. And then it's immediately followed by a week where we've never seen anything like that.
Speaker 1:
But before we get to that crazy insanity, let's give a quick shout out to our sponsor, sheets and Giggles. My man, colin D McIntosh, the CEO, sent us some of the most fantastic, incredibly soft sheets on planet Earth. Not only are they soft and delightfully comfortable, but they're also sustainably made from eucalyptus. And they are so delightful that you could set yourself on fire and you would still sleep through that shit because you're so comfortable with your sheets from Sheets and Giggles. So make sure you head to sheetsandgigglescom and pick you up a set today.
Speaker 1:
So I don't even really know where to get started with the past week. Since we've recorded last with the ladies, the jury selection picked up at a rapid pace. We ended up having the entirety of the jury well, the 12 jurors selected on thursday and the entirety of the six alternates selected by friday. So we're heading towards opening statements on monday. Whoop-dee-doo, let's pat ourselves on the back for making it through that entire endeavor, though there were a lot of shenanigans on the way as uh, fox news and trump engaged in their uh jury intimidation strategy to great effect, knocking one seated juror off the jury and having replaced them with someone who, well you know, they get their news from twitter and true social. So that should give you that should give you a hint as to their potential political leanings. Not that we should necessarily make anything of that, but that's quite an alarming switch from the original juror number two, who seemed to be at least a reasonably trustworthy and unbiased individual. We just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best Hope that we didn't have someone sneak in the jury that's going to engage in a jury nullification strategy, as proposed by Clay Travis, and, if so, fuck that guy and the juror too.
Speaker 1:
Also, just on Friday, we had an incredible event. During the lunch break. There was an individual outside of the protest area who was handing out pamphlets that seemed to be indicative of belief in a number of well vague and not well thought out conspiracy theories, who doused himself in some kind of flammable liquid and then set himself on fucking fire right outside the courthouse. Uh, that was absolutely fucking insane. I don't think we've seen anything like that. Um, I mean, obviously republic Republicans are constantly setting themselves on fire, but typically that is of a figurative nature and not like actually setting themselves on fire.
Speaker 1:
I just like the person. So the man whose name I don't feel the need to publicize, he was Florida man. Surprise, surprise, surprise, he was a Florida man. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Who would have thought? Who made his way all the way up to New York to stand outside of the court, the courtroom, in order to self-immolate, in order to bring attention to a number of conspiracy theories that he posted about on his sub stack that I also won't link to. Needless to say, person is on was unstable.
Speaker 1:
Uh, the police did their best in in trying to rapidly address the situation is extinguish the fire and get demands of medical attention. They got him to the hospital but he did not survive and you know that's extremely unfortunate and, on the one hand, well, first of all, let me say that if you're an, that's extremely unfortunate and, on the one hand, well, first of all, let me say that if you're an individual that's suffering from any kind of debilitating emotional distress over our current political circumstances or anything going on in your personal life to the point where you feel the need to self harm or even, in this case, selfimmolate. Please, please, please, seek some professional attention in that regard. We don't need you going through the same thing that dude went through or or anything of like. Lesser self-harm, just like. Take care of yourself, treat yourself.
Speaker 1:
If you got to unplug from the internet for a bit, if you got to cut the news off, if you got to cut off part of the incident well, don't cut off part of the insurrection. But if you got to cut off all that other shit and that's what you got to do to get yourself together. Get yourself together like you deserve to have your mental health. It's okay to you know. Self-care is, it's a positive. So make sure you take care of yourself.
Speaker 1:
And look, we, we know this shit is crazy. That's why, when we get on this podcast, we talk about this shit and make fun of it and make all these jokes and try and make you laugh to make it slightly more digestible. So you don't lose your fucking mind, because I know we about to like. As I prepare for these podcasts every week, I'm damn near pulling my hair out. Pulling my hair out. So I am like the guy who set himself on fire in that regard, where I'm like damn, am I going crazy? Do I need to get the gasoline now? No, I'm kidding, but you know, make sure you take care of yourself. Don't let this stuff drive you to a similar place, is that, dude, where you feel like the only course of action is some sort of extreme act that that people in the most dire of circumstances would not have undertaken?
Speaker 1:
Also, look, there were reports of and I'm sure you've heard them by now donald trump falling asleep in court yet again, but not not only that. As he was nodding off, it appears as though he was suffering from a severe bout of flatulence, where it was nearly unbearable for his counsel in that regard, and they were struggling to make it through the day in the courthouse there. I think we were referring to that as a bout of lawn odor. You know he was doing his best to taint the jury at least with smell. This is just absolutely wild. Uh, I made the joke on on the internets that how did you go from don snorleone to the god farter in less than a week, like that's a fucking incredible transition. You can't make that shit up. Uh, I, I did not come up with the term godfather, that's been around for quite a while, although, don snorleone, that was all me, that was all your boy. But of course we had a good laugh about that.
Speaker 1:
And my friend uh from the Midas Touch Network, ben Mycelis, was one of the first individuals to kind of break that story and he had some concerns about how that was the main takeaway, like it achieved a level of virality from one of the videos that he had posted. He had some concerns about that not necessarily being his intention, like of course, they do a lot of pertinent work in covering all the developments in the news, legal and political and otherwise and he had some concerns that that just you know. While funny, isn't the type of information that he necessarily put out there for that particular purpose. But I would say that while maybe that particular aspect of the story did dominate the headlines and that's not necessarily your intention at the end of the day one of the most important ways that you can disarm the effect that these right-wing nutjobs have in spewing their propaganda and their hold on the population is not only to discredit them with factual information. It's by turning them into a laughingstock, right, because, while it's, it's great to kind of attack these people from a logical perspective, like one of the things that typically happens is you engage their ideas from a frame, like from a standpoint of legitimizing the points that they make, regardless of the topic, even though a lot of their stances are patently absurd and probably unhealthy for the people with which they're feeding them to, and probably unhealthy for the people with which they're feeding them to. But if you can try and approach people from a perspective that's not attacking their identity but instead just highlighting how ridiculous and unserious these people are and in a way that even the most staunch supporter has to kind of laugh at, like that is your path to getting people to start to disassociate themselves from their identity, being entangled with their political beliefs or at least in terms of like identifying with every aspect of the Republican Party in this specific case, like if they can see how ridiculous that is and they can accept that it gives them a permission structure to start questioning a number of other things about trump, about republicans, about the direction that the party is going, and so on and so forth. And yeah, for, like the most brainwashed, like fox news consuming internet, rabbit hole dwelling cult member, like there's probably very little, if nothing, that anyone could ever do to deprogram these people. But for the more normal leaning, republican or just even right wing media consumers, like this stuff is it begins to set the permission structure for them to start veering towards reality. Like in the laughter becomes a substitute for the cognitive dissonance. And like, again, it's not an overnight cure but it's like planting the seeds that can eventually grow into people becoming deprogrammed from the cult.
Speaker 1:
But also, it's just fun for us to just get to laugh at this shit because it's fucking crazy. Like what kind of dude is out here with his freedom on the line, falling asleep in court and sharting all over himself, and like his lawyers are like pulling their shirts up over their noses, probably, and they ended, they, in the damn courtroom looking at the judge and the jury. Like, damn judge, we can't breathe. Like help us out. Uh, turn the fan on in here or something, open a window. But I guess you couldn't really open a window in that case, because then you get all the smoke from the dude outside setting himself on fire.
Speaker 1:
Man, this is like what a crazy fucking week. Just absolutely insane. And and this is on like the heels of a week where, like oj died, so that was bananas, it just it's. It's so wild, just the extent of the non-stop craziness. Um, but yeah, man the god farter, um, but yeah, man, the god farter boy, you like whoever's going to do, like the the 14 season trump series on netflix. Man, that shit is gonna be unbelievable, like you know, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, like how people used to talk about nixon when I was a teenager, like no one's gonna believe this shit and be like, oh, this is just reality tv, there's no way all of this ever happened. That's crazy, like there's no way, just, but it's real. And and that is what's so scary about a second trump administration, because it can actually get crazier than this, and that's if that dude somehow manages to get back in the White House.
Speaker 1:
But there were other developments over the course of the week and the weekend as well, as another Republican is set to announce the fact well, has announced the fact that he won't be running again in November. He will be retiring at the end of his term. This guy, representative Jake LaTurner from Kansas, said that he's up out of there. He don't want no more of this. He's tapping out. He's like Roberto Duran no mas, and I get it when you look around at your caucus and these motherfuckers is crazy and they can't do basic stuff, like I don't know. I mean, you're a House representative. How many pieces of legislation have you passed? How many pieces of legislation has your party passed? And without the help of Democrats, I don't believe they've passed anything as a majority. And without the help of democrats, I don't believe they've passed anything as a majority. So that's. That is quite just, absolutely sad actually that they're that dysfunctional.
Speaker 1:
So I can see why he's heading for the exit, especially given that it appears that it's going to be a slaughter come november. And I don't mean that in like a violent sense, like the way trump uses bloodbath, I just mean like electorally they're gonna lose by a lot. I feel like I have to specify that specifically because you know, while trump's clearly been credibly accused of inciting an attack on the capital and then continuing to use charge language, knowing that his language can lead to that, like ain't nothing I've ever said, been responsible for no coup. So I feel like I'm off the hook here. But yet here I am explaining myself. But no, back to um the turner here.
Speaker 1:
Um, I would assume that, given that the house, their house majority, is now with like one seat, he doesn't want to be the guy that's single handedly responsible. I mean not single handedly because they had more people retire before him, but he doesn't want to be the deciding resignation that gives the majority to the Democrats in the House. And as nice as that would be for me because I get to see the first black speaker of the House, mr Hakeem Jeffries, throw some, throw some flowers at his feet like he prints Hakeem from coming to America, I'm excited for that moment. But you know the Turner is like, yeah, I could get out of here right now, but everybody would be pissed. And you know, one of the things about being a conservative member of congress is you're setting up your retirement while you're at work, right, and I don't mean like the retirement package you get from congress, I mean your next job where you go work at some right-wing think tank or you know some billionaires, company doing lobbying, whatever else the fuck it is these dudes do when they get out of here to make hundreds of millions of dollars. But everybody would be so mad at this dude if he retired that he wouldn't get one of those jobs. But I think like he's not going to have much choice here, because Mike Johnson managed to let a vote hit the floor of the House in order to approve sending aid to ukraine and the right wing nut jobs, and his party was not happy. They was so mad, yo, they was so mad.
Speaker 1:
Marjorie taylor green, specifically, has declared that she's going to do her best to make sure mike johnson is removed. She's got her motion to vacate with a couple of co-signers ready to go. Uh, but you know, obviously that would be ensuing chaos that would follow that. So it appears as though they're looking to try and get mike johnson to announce his resignation in order to give them time to come up with a potential replacement speaker in the meantime. So they don't spend, you know, 14, 15 votes like they did with Kevin McCarthy or or the nonsense that ensued when Matt Gaetz vacated Kevin McCarthy's job last time. Where we're you know we're not on like Mike Johnson wasn't their first choice, or even their second choice. He was like choice number nine. It took him a lot of work, and then imagine like going through that same process, but even more insane because we're closer to the election and there's, you know, really they're digging at the bottom of the barrel at that point anyway. So that would be utter chaos.
Speaker 1:
And I think that if Marjorie does bring up her motion to dismiss and they get the votes in order to do so and can't find a speaker, that will spark a number of resignations on the spot by republican members of the house, causing them to lose their majority before we even get to the election. Like, yeah, so they got a lot of things to consider. It's a lot of chaos, like there's a lot of war going on inter-party over there on the republican side of things. And if you just stop and think about that for a second, like in an election year, where have you seen this much infighting and instability and and nonsense, to the point where you like, damn, it's another intra-party civil war, you ain't seen that shit before. That's because they are in such a precarious predicament. This could be the potential end of their party if Biden wins again in November, if he needs some motivation to turn out and vote.
Speaker 1:
So keep all of those developments in mind, as they coincide with the continued downfall of the Republican candidate for president, whose trial begins in earnest on Monday. I imagine the day that you'll probably be listening to this as I'm recording it Sunday night, but, yeah, opening statements time, baby. The prosecution is ready to go, even though, because of Trump's continued violation of the gag order, the judge told the prosecution that they weren't obligated to turn over the list of, you know, the first few witnesses to the defense council, which is, you know, typically a common courtesy. Uh, we did, however, find out that the first witness will be david pecker from ami, who is going to go into vivid detail about the catch and kill scheme that they had in operation to help trump stop these horrible, negative stories from going out about him during the 2016 election. They could have potentially tanked his chances of winning the presidency.
Speaker 1:
So that's going to set the stage for the hush money deal that trump uh arranged with stormy daniels that he laundered the payments through his company to michael cohen to reimburse him for, like, the money cohen spent by taking out a mortgage on his house to pay stormy daniels. Ain't that some convoluted shit? Like they went through some extreme lengths there and normally like, and trump's gonna make the argument that like, hey, I was just paying my lawyer, this was, you know, legal fees, but damn, what lawyer you ever seen got to take out a mortgage on his house and then you got to pay his mortgage, right. You ain't never heard of no shit like that, and that's how you know. This wasn't on the up and up, but again, the prosecution will get into all the details of all of that over the next couple of weeks here, along with the secret recorded tape that michael cohen's lawyer released a couple years ago. It showed that trump absolutely knew about the payment arrangement and wanted to pay stormy daniels in all cash with. Cohen was like wait, nah, that's gonna get us busted, let's, let's try and be a little more. I mean, I guess I wouldn't say sophisticated, given the nature of the schemes kind of harebrained. This nigga took out a mortgage, like what the fuck? But? And that's just like. Again it's. This is crazy. It's some shit we never seen before. And that's not all that happened over the course of the past few days either.
Speaker 1:
Remember that 175 million dollar bar from the new york civil fraud trial that trump was supposed to come up with. And he hit up his buddy, mr hanky these names, pecker and hanky. You can't make that up either. Uh, you know the one who refinances trump tower mortgage and and other shit like. So this guy owns a company and one of their subsidiaries, night insurance, was supposed to cover trump's bond in a new york civil fraud judgment. But to cover Trump's bond in a New York civil fraud judgment, but apparently the bond, the nature of it, the entirety of it, seems particularly shady.
Speaker 1:
And once we got some of the details and the paperwork, tish James was like nah, son, no, no, no, judging gone, please handle this. We don't believe these dudes. They need more people. Uh, right, and, and there's some sketchiness about the financials of night insurance as it pertains to covering this bond, they don't appear to have enough liquidity. Uh, even if they liquidated a number of their assets, it would be extraordinarily difficult for them to come up with the cash. Also, it doesn't appear that the bond is insured well, at least on in terms of trump's part, like he didn't put up enough collateral to cover the bond, or at least tish james didn't believe the way that it's described in the paperwork that he did. Um, given that the statement about, uh, the account the Schwab account Trump's using is collateral containing cash and cash equivalents, what the fuck is a cash equivalent if it ain't cash? Yeah, exactly right. You need to go into some more specific details about that.
Speaker 1:
It suggests that Knight Financial, or rather Knight Insurance, won't actually be paying the bond, or rather paying the judgments Should Trump lose his appeal. Right, Trump will be responsible for that. That's the whole point of the fucking bond in the first place. And, as we said last week, we were, yeah, pretty sure tish james is gonna call him out on this nonsense, and she did. And I'm sure judging garne is gonna look at this like bro, you got busted for fraud, we had a trial already, and here you are trying to defraud the fucking court after you defrauded the people in new york. He's, he's gonna get hammered for that. Tish james said hey, reject this bond, maybe give him seven more days to come out with another one. I don't think he built he'll be able to, unless hanky's willing to actually, you know, put his ass on the line, or at least put his 175 million dollars on the line, which clearly, the way hanky runs his business, he ain't willing to do such. Otherwise he would have done it with the parent company of night insurance instead of night insurance. But alas, we'll discover more about that tomorrow as well.
Speaker 1:
It's got a lot going on in the trump world on the first day of opening statements. This is going to be fucking wild. And again, that's not all kids, there's even more. So it appears that taking over the rnc was not enough for his greedy ass campaign that he's using to pay his legal bills. Uh, it appears as though he has asked any candidate for office uh, republican candidate that is, whether that be like state or local or federal. Anyone who uses his name, image or likeness in fundraising endeavors sends him a 5% kickback of all the money that they raise using his name.
Speaker 1:
So this dude is. I mean, you know you got to send 5% back to the big guy. That's what it is. He is extorting his own party. It's absolutely fucking wild. So not only is he grifting from the top down by taking his cut of the RNC before they can send their money out to their various electoral candidates, he asking candidates to send their money all the way up to him. It's just wild man. This is what you get when you take marty byrd from the ozark and then put him in a white house in real life, like the republican party is getting everything they deserve.
Speaker 1:
I hope he totally bankrupts the party. That'll be fantastic, because no matter how much money he steals from these candidates. It's not gonna be enough to keep his shit afloat, right, but if they don't have money to spend on their elections, how can they be democrats? Like it's insane, no one talks about this. Do you know how hard no, how impossible it is to win an election with no money? Like, not like you're underperforming your opponent. No, I mean like you're trying to win an election and you ain't got no money because the republican party is broke, son, and their fundraising has faltered here lately. The RNC was broke when Trump took it over, which is crazy. Like they already don't have any money and then you're bribing them for what little they have left and now you're trying to, you know, extort the little man out there and his locals. You know house race for a fight like this. This is crazy. Like the republican party is doomed, son, they doomed. This is wild.
Speaker 1:
Just, I wish the media would spend a little bit more time talking about that as well. But, of course, like you listen to this podcast and I'm sure y'all are like, well damn, there's so much stuff y'all miss. Why don't y'all cover everything? You can't, you can't cover everything. It's too fucking much, it's way too much and it's too fucking crazy. Like again, you already forgot about the dude that set himself on fire outside the courthouse, didn't you? And the trial hasn't even really started yet. That's how fucking crazy it is. And that concludes this episode of part of the insurrection.