Pardon The Insurrection
Where we discuss the ongoing Congressional and criminal investigations of the January 6 coup orchestrated by the former President. And because insurrection wasn't enough, we'll also cover the Department of Justice espionage investigation, investigations relating to other members of Congress, and more. Don't worry, we're not handing out any pardons.
Pardon The Insurrection
Pardon The Bad Built Butch Body
Could the courtroom become the unexpected arena for the ultimate political showdown? Strap in as we navigate the high-stakes drama encircling former President Trump, where legal antics teeter on the precipice of history. Our latest episode dissects the fiery exchanges that have Congress buzzing, with Representative Jasmine Crockett's blistering retort to Marjorie Taylor Greene standing as a beacon of resistance against a tide of incivility and double standards. We're standing shoulder to shoulder with Crockett, underscoring the urgency for voices of color to be heard unapologetically amidst the chaos.
Witness the GOP's financial high-wire act in swing states, an unfolding story that could spell triumph or disaster in the coming election cycle. We pull back the curtain on the GOP's funding saga, dissecting how this monetary malaise could ripple through campaign trails from local hustings to the grand political theatre. Our exploration doesn't stop there; we're peering into the murky waters of Speaker Johnson's political survival, unearthing the shadowy bargains that could anchor or unseat power. And as the purse strings tighten, we scrutinize the role of every dollar in forecasting the political winds.
The gavel is poised, and the fate of Donald Trump teeters on a knife-edge as we scrutinize his courtroom circus, complete with gag order defiance and proxy ploys. With Robert Costello's contentious testimony potentially upending Trump's defense, we're your ringside commentators, capturing every feint and parry in this legal duel. And as the specter of a Trump conviction looms larger, we grapple with the implications of such an unprecedented event for America's political tapestry. Tune in and absorb our in-depth analysis, where every detail of the trial's theatre could tip the scales of justice and democracy.
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Hey, this is D-Night, this is.
Speaker 2:Carol, this is Ty.
Speaker 1:And you're listening. You don't have to get that close to the microphone. You're listening to the Barney Interaction Podcast.
Speaker 3:Where we definitely do sound checks in advance.
Speaker 1:We're absolutely excited to lock up an insurrectionist, no matter what they're charged for, and you know, in Trump's case we'll take him on whatever we can get. But before we get to that, let's give a quick shout out to our sponsor, sheets and giggles my man, kyle and mackintosh with the softest, sweetest sheets on planet earth. They're better than most of the shit you'll find in expensive hotels. Make sure you go to sheetsand gigglescom, pick you up a set. You'll sleep so great in those. I mean like again, trump's gonna be wishing for them. Joints in prison. Um so it was a crazy week, as is usually is for sleeping or for hanging himself.
Speaker 1:They're so soft and strong you know, they're so soft that even if he tried to hang himself with him, it wouldn't kill him, it would just put him to sleep. But look, if you're listening to this podcast, you're aware by now the insanity never stops, and it's election season, so it's only gonna get crazier from here. So I'm just warning you guys in advance.
Speaker 3:Just be prepared for non-stop ridiculousness oh, speaking of which, I saw a version of the lion king at disney world, at animal kingdom, and they say you're be prepared. And I was like, ah, they put trump's whole election speech in here that is funny um I, I, I resisted because I thought evan would be annoyed if I made political jokes.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you don't ruin your relationship um you save that shit for this podcast, uh.
Speaker 1:But we'll start off with some light-hearted content here. As you know, marjorie Taylor Greene opened her mouth last week. Somebody give her a Grammy. That was a Drake diss joke, anyway. She began a verbal sparring match with Texas representative Jasmine Crockett by attacking her physical appearance, and Crockett responded by referring to green as a bleach blonde, bad built butch body, a comment that immediately broke the internet with endless memes, which now I don't think you're giving um rep, rep Crockett enough credit here because she didn't just like respond like a catty retort.
Speaker 3:I mean, didn't she ask to set a clarification based on? She was asking whether, what if she said this as a hypothetical? Would that be characterized the same way as um representative green's comment about her eyelashes? And so I mean, sure it was in the end still catty, but she, she was so much smarter than just being like, yeah, bitch.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was the it's not like she got up out of her seat and took off her earrings. It was like no you know she's like OK, but what people keep also overlooking is also prior to that, right after marjorie taylor green said that about representative crockett, she then got into an exchange with aoc talking about their debate. Yeah, and aoc was like girl, and you know, and she told aoc that she was like oh well, because you're not intelligent enough, so it was a double whammy.
Speaker 1:It wasn't, but that got overshadowed by being triple six. Triple six, that's three six. Mafia girl B6. They went from J6 to B6.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but she had went after two women of color, on their intelligence and on their looks, which is on par with someone at the bottom of the barrel that Marjorie Taylor Greene is, but that gets missed, so it wasn't like it just went straight from that to that, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, you know right. And I mean like. First of all, typically I don't like to body shame, but marjorie taylor green is one of the worst people on planet earth, so fuck that hoe. And also, we're talking about the person who showed hunter biden's dick pics on on the floor of the house of congress.
Speaker 2:So exactly yeah, these standards, all of the like, all of the so standards and all of the like, all of the so-called like, all of the backlash and everybody like, ooh, ghetto, Shaniqua, oh, ghetto. And I'm like do you know what Republican representatives are in Congress? And did you forget when Marjorie Taylor Greene called Lauren Boebert a little bitch on the House floor?
Speaker 3:Yeah, did you notice?
Speaker 2:they needed an empty seat we're the little bitch on the house floor? Yeah, did you notice they needed an empty seat? You know, did you forget sparkle wayne mullen jumping up and taking off his ring during the senate hearings? Yeah, trying to challenge, you know, freaking the president of the teamsters to a duel the truth is the republican party, at least the members of congress.
Speaker 2:They are ghetto, they some hood rats a whole lot, the whole lot of them. You got what? The pictures of representative mike rogers with his gray toupee, with the hand over his mouth, trying to hold him back, trying to lunge at matt gates. I'm like all of these examples before. You got representative burkett chasing kevin mccarthy down the halls. After mccarthy elbowed him in the kidney he said, oh, I just felt the shots to the kidney. And then he runs after him and the reporters are like this shit is wild. We're just watching a grown-ass man run through the halls chasing down another grown, grown ass man who are legislators in this body here on the Hill.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad you brought all of that up because, with that said, any criticism levied toward Jasmine Crockett for not being above the fray Anyone that's doing that, y'all can kiss our asses. Anyone that's doing that, y'all can kiss our asses. Because, again, like at this point, the the idea that when they go low we go high. Now, that's, that's out of here. When they go low, we send their asses to hell, and that's what, and that's what crockett did, and you know. All of this resulted in like endless memes and numerous songs all over the internet. Your boy even made one himself, a little diss track.
Speaker 3:You know, will you be playing it for us?
Speaker 1:uh, it's on the youtube channel, y'all can go check it out. But yeah, you know, I was inspired by the kendrick lamar drake beef here, so I was I was on my diss myself, you know grabbed a pin and a pad out, actually, so I posted on twitter. It's like hey, does anyone want me to make a diss track? And I was like, but if jasmine crockett retweets this, I guarantee I'll do it. And then she did so get out, did you?
Speaker 1:really. Yeah, she, she retweeted the post. I was like, all right, cool, I guess I got to do it. So I grabbed one of these free beats off the the internet, along with this the guy who did the Motown BBL Drizzy song that Metro Boomin.
Speaker 3:Could have heard a clip by now. D Go on though.
Speaker 1:So I grabbed, you know that, plus this song on the internet and made like this dual track or you know kind of multi-track disc song and look, it went off, got like a million views on twitter. I think it's got something like 16 000 views on youtube. So go check that out, guys, if you want to. I think it's in my pin tweet if you want to check my twitter account for that, if you've. If you've missed out on that so far, but I was the only one. You know my homie tennessee brando. He got off his little country music jam making fun of marjorie taylor green like we. We blew this shit up and then it's only tuesday it's only tuesday ahead of it.
Speaker 1:She like drake, she tried to clap back. She tried to. Her little clap back was like no, no, when she posted a video marge's flex, opposing the video of her looking like the whole like jerking that thing around. Those exercises are so weird doing the same shit that got her the bad built body in the first place. Way to own us marge. Good luck, um, but yeah so moving on yeah, yeah, moving on from that, I guess.
Speaker 1:So there was a billion dollar bribe proposal that we didn't get the opportunity to cover on the last episode of the podcast. Uh, and look, I just wanted to cover this really quickly because this is one of those things. It's so absolutely absurd that you can't believe the story disappeared into the ether in less than 24 hours, but it did so. Trump asked oil industry executives last month to donate a billion dollars to his campaign to retake the white house in exchange for dismantling parts of joe biden's green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to cramp their profits, and campaign finance laws regulate individual contributions to a maximum of $3,300 per election to individual campaigns and $5,000 each to political action committees.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute. Is that more or less than a billion?
Speaker 1:all right. Well, that's, that's one of the key points there. Uh, as far as super PACs are concerned, they can take unlimited money, but the candidates aren't allowed to commute. Well, the candidates in their campaign aren't allowed to coordinate with those super PACs and um, or not.
Speaker 1:Certainly they can't explicitly solicit the funds uh, I mean, typically you're not supposed to solicit funds in exchange for legislative action. I mean that would typically be soliciting a bribe. I don't know how this is an under criminal investigation, but it could be and definitely should be. But to the extent that there's a suggestion that those executives can raise a billion dollars on Trump's behalf potentially violates federal law, because a billion dollars is, you know, far above campaign limits. Now I suppose, theoretically, trump could direct him to send that money to a super PAC, you know, in exchange for when he's elected, and I, it's entirely possible. I'm not a lawyer, but you know that that's the loophole that you can request people fund your super PAC, since it's not the money's not going directly to you. But again, as far as Shep is concerned, look, I'm sure he's coordinating with his super PAC in secret. I mean, it's and there's ways to go about these things. You know you can drop these websites.
Speaker 3:The problem is he just keeps spending it all on legal fees.
Speaker 1:Well, having a billion dollars show up overnight would bail him out in numerous ways, because his campaign is floundering. Ty, you might correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I think as it currently stands, biden has like one hundred and fifty million dollars cash on hand and Trump's got like forty million. He's he's like down.
Speaker 2:It was more than I know that he had about one hundred million dollars more than Trump. I think Biden had between one hundred and between 170 190 and trump had like 90. But he was like a head and so that was don't have 90 well, no, not himself, but uh, someone had posted I think it was uh jody, and she was like quote to eating, because eric trump, you know, fresh off of eating glue, he was like trump raises.
Speaker 2:Uh, and I love how they refer to their dad like by his government name, but he was like trump raises 76 million in april and biden raises 52 million dollars in april and and they had posted they go 76 million is going to trump legal fees to 52 million is going to buy yeah not the flex, you thought gums no, not the flex you thought and well, that's why it's so important for trump to get this money from, from these corporations, because, uh, otherwise this campaign is cooked now.
Speaker 1:Money I won't say money is necessarily like you can't buy an election with money alone, but you can't win an election with no money if that's no money, that is.
Speaker 2:That is a fact that's a distinction that and he's not putting any of it into his actual campaign. So that already is a red flag, because all the motherfuckers in the rnc like they are strapped. I think I read like the michigan gop has like 56 dollars and that's not missing zeros.
Speaker 1:They some, some broke ass bitches.
Speaker 2:They selling like buildings to put money in their coffers. So, as I said, that's the red flag to me because I'm like.
Speaker 3:So you're saying we should really hold on tight and just like, do not stop until they are completely beaten into the ground.
Speaker 2:No, I'm saying we should pay attention because if they don't have the money but they're still putting up these candidates and they are confident that they have a chance and they're getting these votes and like millions are coming from here or there, they've got, they own some fuck boy shit, like they have some stuff up their sleeve or they just keep paying for polls to be swayed in favor of Trump.
Speaker 1:So that they can that?
Speaker 3:people will think they have it. You know that their chances are better than they are. And then, when Trump loses, they would be like this is a baby, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this fake crowd outside of the courtroom that doesn't exist or no, but that wasn't the flex they thought, because they were like, oh, biden could never get a crowd like this. Bet you're using Biden's crowd.
Speaker 1:Like from his trip to New York in April Eric. Trump posting videos of the crowd there to support President Biden and saying they were there to support Trump, which you know. Your campaign is damn bad when you gotta use video from the other dude shit and be like no, our, our guys got all the support look at these videos for my inauguration in 2021 no, this is 2016.
Speaker 2:That was really a crowd out there for trump. Why wasn't their video of his motorcade with Trump waving to the crowd through?
Speaker 1:because he's such a narcissist.
Speaker 2:He's not going to let that go by without showing him. You know waving to his crowd.
Speaker 1:Not a single mega hat, not a single Trump flag.
Speaker 3:So do you think Eric only has this sort of useless, sycophant employee who would just get? A video clip from someone who doesn't respect him and then or like him and they just be like. Here it is.
Speaker 2:I think eric is jealous that um trump has traded tiffany. Uh well, I call her tiffany. She's the new tiffany laura trumper, because we've seen more of la Trump. We've only seen Eric in the last what week or two? Lara Trump has been out there, front and center at Trump's events.
Speaker 3:Eric is nowhere to be seen well, he's probably sure in front of the RNC yeah, well, first of all, I do think it's entirely possible.
Speaker 1:Someone said Eric Trump up with that video. They don't like him, they try to fuck him up, but yeah. So once they put laura in charge of the rnc there, I mean that really upped her standing in in the right wing, magalan uh, probably for the worst of the long run. I don't know how that's a winning proposition, because if she runs the rnc any worse than well it's been run in the previous election cycles, she's going to be up out of there after the November election if they lose.
Speaker 1:But back to the whole money issue. So, like you said, with Michigan, the GOP is broke there, I think they're broke in Wisconsin, maybe have a few hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, they're struggling in Arizona, they're struggling in Pennsylvania. Hey guys, have you noticed that's a bunch of fucking swing States where Republicans don't have any money. You know, not only is it going to be difficult to try and pump up Trump's numbers in terms of getting people out to vote for him, just like the damn ballot effects of not having any money to advertise for the other candidates, it's going to destroy the Republican Party, because this is like the House is closed now and that was like after a midterm election, where they were supposed to run away with things and they, you know, barely scrape by with the majority.
Speaker 3:So come November, keep losing, one at a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one at a time. Yeah, one at a time. Well, you know what? They're lucky that Democrats decided to bail them out when MTG tried to move to vacate Speaker Johnson, because I think that if that had been successful, if they had been able to out Speaker Johnson, I think more Republicans would have quit. Had been able to out speaker johnson, I think more republicans would have quit, and then you would have had a real opportunity for hakeem jeffries to become the first black speaker of the house. Because it's possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a couple democrats did vote for the vacancy yeah, well, they you know.
Speaker 1:so I, the way I understand it is, the deal they cut under the table Was just to like get Marge to shut up.
Speaker 3:They would rather just try to get put her in her place than get an outcome that was oh, it's also, you don't want to have no speaker again. It's hard enough to get anything fast, and they're just like.
Speaker 2:well, I think the thing is Hold on a second.
Speaker 1:Give me a second. So the deal I understand that they cut under the table After Mike Johnson put those bills on the Florida Fund, the defense spending for Ukraine and the aid to Palestine, etc. Etc. Was that if, as a result of those moves in allowing a vote on that legislation, result of those moves in allowing a vote on that legislation, if anyone tried to vacate mike johnson, then they would siphon off enough democrat votes to keep him as speaker of the house. And this was like a one-time deal. This is as it pertains to that. If mike johnson does something to screw up, screw over democrats in the future and then there's a motion to vacate, then you know he'll have to renegotiate and he'll have to offer them something else of value to keep his job.
Speaker 2:People seem to think that the motion to vacate is exclusive to Republicans.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 2:But that's how it's been formulated or portrayed, because they're the only ones that have been you know doing it.
Speaker 1:But Well, Democrats don't have any incentive to try and vacate the speaker until they have a majority.
Speaker 2:Well, well, but also, if he isn't there, it's. It's, if they want to get shit done.
Speaker 1:The devil it's, it's. How can I say this If they want to get shit done?
Speaker 2:The devil. You know scenario. They know who Mike Johnson is. They know he's extreme ultra MAGA. They know what he's about, period. But who knows who the hell would be put up next if not, if it's?
Speaker 1:not him right. So that's that's the issue. They could always get someone worse than mike johnson, and mike johnson is showing himself to actually be more effective in passing legislation than kevin mccarthy. So that's the issue. But again, you know there's also the flip side of that coin, where, if johnson goes, other republicans could leave, and then you have a situation where democrats have more house members than republicans but leave. And then you have a situation where democrats have more house members than republicans, but you need to peel off a few republicans to vote for um hakeem jeffries in order to make him speaker, and I'm sure that you know they'd be able to pull that off. You offer them some, some committee chairs in exchange for their votes, or whatever, or you know?
Speaker 1:you know, maybe some legislation that they're keen on passing, uh, whatever the the, the larger picture is it's going to be a fucking struggle for republicans to try and scrape up this money in six months to try wait, yeah, november, six months to try and win this election, uh, and keep the house and try and win back the Senate when they're so far behind in every single way financially, which is one thing these media outlets don't seem to take into account when they cover, like the polls and the horse race. They're like oh see, you know, look, it's going back and forth, it's a close race, like Biden's up, oh, trump's up, biden's up, trump's up. What they're not keeping track of is how much money is being donated to Democrats and Biden versus Republicans and Trump, and that's how you know there's a massive gap between reality and the polls, because the money Not only that, but how many small dollar donations, like when people put up, like when Biden was with you know, obama and Clinton and he raised that 25 plus million dollars.
Speaker 2:There were 5000 people in attendance and they had allowed people as donating as little as $25. And the smallest to be in attendance at that event was $225. And so then, of course, because Trump is Trump and it was like, oh, raised 25, 50 million dollars. Yeah, people paid eight hundred thousand dollars a person and it was relegated to. That's not the same, that's not.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna be honest, I don't even know if he raised that much money. I think they lied like we don't know. No, until they put in the quarterly.
Speaker 2:But just going on the number of people there who signed up to be like uh, it was like oh, if you want to be a chairperson, you or you want to sit at trump's table at those minimum dollars and you couldn't even be in the room unless you donated 250 000 and then he turned around and still berated them for not giving enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was like no, like, if anyone, like people, need to donate a million dollars basically to come out hang out with trump, and nobody wanted to do it and he got mad. And then somebody finally stepped up. Yeah, that's crazy. But yeah, again, the long story short. That's why trump's begging the fucking oil company for a billion dollars, because they're getting their asses kicked. Um, so on to the trump trial. I know it's funny that that's like topic number three, but I wanted to make sure that, like again, the media memory hold a presidential candidate soliciting a billion dollar bribe. That's how fucking insane the times are. But yes, the trump trial. So the trial of the century is.
Speaker 1:It's basically reached its conclusion at this point, and there were a few notable events last week where there was an uproar over a perceived incongruence in michael cohen's testimony you know we had ari melba out here calling it a bloodbath when Cohen was being cross-examined on this particular phone call in October of 2016, where he says he called Trump's bodyguard in order to speak to Trump and it was to basically tell him he was going to green light the payment to stormy daniels, um, to keep her silent and to keep her story out of the, out of the public and on cross, uh, trump's defense lawyer, todd blanche, brought up some text messages between cohen and uh keith schiller, uh, trump's bodyguard. We were talking about this 14 year old who was harassing him with phone calls and such and they were like aha, we got you. You didn't actually speak to trump. This didn't have anything to do with the payments. You know, everything you said was a lie. Um, it wasn't actually that dramatic.
Speaker 1:A lot of people in the courtroom said it was like you know, it was like, okay, maybe you hit on something, but this didn't improve the entirety of Cohen's testimony here and I think the media and Trump's lawyer, they made a big mistake in hedging the entirety of, like, cohen's credibility on this one phone call, because if the idea was he's lying about this phone call, then he was lying about every single other bit of testimony, even the stuff that was corroborated by the evidence. Then, well, they were not prepared for the fact that uh, earlier this week, upon redirect the prosecution, had the opportunity to dig up some pictures and video of trump and schiller together at a political event at the exact same time that these phone records suggest that michael cohen called and it was like poof, voila, there goes the defense argument.
Speaker 1:So now this corroborates cohen's testimony and, as opposed to discrediting the entirety of his testimony, it him seem like a terrible person and a piece of shit, like, ok, that's a dangerous game you play again because this is the guy who, when he was working for trump, trump said he was a great attorney. Because they have, you know, endless mountains of evidence saying how of trump, saying how great michael cohen was. And if you, the more you like slime cohen, the worse you make trump look yeah so exactly
Speaker 1:yeah, piss poor strategy on part, but it actually got worse from there, as, because that went so poorly for the Trump and for Trump and the defense counsel that I'm imagining, trump ordered his His counsel to bring Robert Costello in to testify. He was the only witness to testify on behalf of the defense counsel. What a shit show. Yeah, total dumpster fire. So they bring Costello in. He's basically, you know, a paralegal who worked for Trump. You know, lawyer paralegal did paralegal work and over the course of the indictment of michael cohen, he had done his best to try and recruit cohen so he could represent him in his case.
Speaker 1:And I gotta tell you if well, I mean you guys have seen um the sopranos.
Speaker 1:This motherfucker was the most mobbed up looking ass lawyer you've ever seen in your life, even Even more so than phony soprano that represented Trump in the EG and Carol case. That somehow managed to get that judgment down to five million dollars before Alina Haba went on to cost Trump one hundred million dollars. But so Costello was in there off the rip giving the judge a hard time, just saying smart ass shit back and giving him the stank eye and trying to stand down, and the judge was not having it. I heard a number of people talk about how explosive of a moment this was, where the judge kind of lost it. And again this is with Trump doing all this crazy shit and violating the gag order and it's like a shit show with the defense council yelling at witnesses and shit. But at this point the trump was like uh, the judge was like get the fuck out of my courtroom, everybody but you guys everybody get the fuck out all of you get out of here.
Speaker 1:I need to handle this. And apparently he had to straighten costello out and he was basically like man, don't you ever try and stare me, the fuck down right, he had to get him all the way together.
Speaker 2:He was like are you? Are you? Are you staring me down?
Speaker 1:yeah, get the fuck out.
Speaker 2:You looking at me like this yeah, no, come here, look at me, look at me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I gotta tell you I look I'm not a lawyer, but rarely have I ever heard of a judge emptying the entire courtroom to straighten out a witness like this. This is great. I've been in some courtrooms, I've seen some trials, I've seen some stern judges who don't put up with no bullshit. I ain't never seen nothing like this also to me.
Speaker 2:It actually lends more credibility to judge marchand, because he could have done that shit in front of everybody if it was about trying to posture, trying to. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Well, to be fair, that if he had done that that probably would have left it open for appeal upon a conviction, but yeah, well, yeah, but I'm saying like he could have, because if it was a trump judge it probably would have they're, you know, performing for an audience of one. But he was like OK, we're going to do this. Man to man. That. That's like you remember when Officer the Gentleman with Lou Gossett Jr. He was like OK, ok, all right, we're going to do this. This is just you and me. I ain't got no stripes on right now. I'm not your sergeant, this is man to man. Yeah, I'm gonna handle this right now, like that he was. He was, yeah, he was on some lewis gossett jr shit. He was like all right, yeah, the judge.
Speaker 1:The judge was not playing. He richard geared his ass um, and then you got to think, like typically in a case where you feel like you're not going to put on a real defense, what you don't want to do. You basically just want to say we feel so confident in the fact that the prosecution didn't meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that we don't need to call any witnesses. The defense rests meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that we don't need to call any witness. Witnesses the defense rest. But if you are going to put on a witness in this case, where you know the cards are stacked against you, you're aiming for a home run. What you can't do is have that shit where the most absurd witness presented in the entire trial was the one that you brought up there on your defense.
Speaker 2:A witness where even like the jury is like this is a clown show right when they were, uh, when they were talking, I was listening to my discussion and they were like the faces on the drawers with some of the stuff that costello was doing and they were like, yeah, they were over it, they were over it yeah, carol.
Speaker 1:So, legendarily, from everyone who's been in court over the past couple of weeks, they're like this is one of the most straight-faced, stern juries they've ever seen. Like they are there for business, they take this seriously, they get the weight of the moment, they don't break character. And for them dudes to be sitting there rolling their like, rolling their eyes at this guy, like just dramatic facial expressions and how ridiculous this shit is like it's a rap, it's a rap form. And again, this is more. This was more damaging. Just this, and I'm going to get to more in just a second. But this incident was more damaging to the trump defense than if they had not called a defense witness at all also, was trump not supposed to testify on his own behalf today Getting?
Speaker 1:that into the oh he's under a gag order, carol, yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, she's not a Karen, you take that back. But no, we'll get to that in just a second. But if you thought that was bad, it got even worse for Costello because so when he was being cross examined by the prosecution well, actually, when he was being examined well, he's being examined on direct by the defense council he had testified that he had Cohen's interest in heart and representing Michael Cohen. And on cross examination, costello was presented with an email where he communicated with his law partner. In an email that said he was basically saying that Michael Cohen is slow playing. Quote us and the president. You know what should I say to this asshole? He's playing with the most powerful man on the planet.
Speaker 1:And this was in direct contradiction to costello saying that he wasn't working on president well he wasn't working on trump's behalf when he was president, that he was only trying to represent cohen and look out for cohen's direct interest. And now you've got this email that says the exact opposite. And then the prosecutor was like the email speaks for itself, correct, and casella's like he basically has to see. Yes, it does. And then the prosecution rests after that. And this is the actual gotcha moment slash bloodbath that ari melber and and motherfuckers on cnn were talking about last week with michael cohen, where I was like, guys, relax, it's not that big of a deal. And plus, uh, the prosecution will just be able to clean this up.
Speaker 1:On redirect, which they did, they were able to rehabilitate cohen's image. Nothing is bringing costello back. He has. It was a wrap. After that, his testimony was contradicted in such an extreme fashion that when the judge gives the order to the jury, it's basically falsus in uno. If you find that a jury, rather a witness, is lied egregiously in one instance, then you can discredit the entirety of their testimony. That's going to apply to costello here. So everything that he could have, whatever influence he could have made in a positive manner to help trump's defense his own that's all thrown out the window.
Speaker 2:But the jury is not going to forget how much of a fucking asshole he was and how he lied on the stand and that that was trump's only defense witness I honestly think that it was costello's behavior and his disrespect to the court, to the prosecutors, and his all outright arrogance, his brazen arrogance, that turned the jury off more than anything else, like testimony notwithstanding, but his entire attitude and the way that he approached things, I think it made the jury feel some type of way and it wasn't good no, he was.
Speaker 1:He was everything that the media tried to paint michael cohen out to be no, absolutely they tried to make michael cohen seem like this hothead and unserious and unprofessional behavior.
Speaker 1:And I'll try to tell you guys last time on a podcast. Y'all better be worried about my like y'all. Y'all better respect michael cohen. No one's tested, no one spent more time testifying to prosecutors and at trial than before congress in the last four or five years of michael fucker cohen. Uh, the dude knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1:Uh, now you can talk about how you feel about his legal acumen. That's that's up for debate. I won't argue with you there. Uh, given that you know the work he was doing for trump as a fixer, that's that. That part's not up for debate at all. But michael cohen can handle himself and I try to tell you and the people who were like quick to try and jump down his throat last week because you know the media's got this thing where it seems like at every turn they're rooting for trump to succeed I was like man, hold on, so your horses. And then the very next week you got robert costello up there engaging in all the antics that they wanted to portray michael cohen out to be, and he totally destroyed trump's defense. And that's what them fuckers get for rooting for trump in the first place. Everything you know rooting for trump's always going to come back to bite you in the ass. But also, carol, as you were saying, trump had been promising over and over that he was going to testify, and what do you know?
Speaker 3:he invoked his right and I read that he cried like a little bitch that he did well.
Speaker 2:Carol in all in Trump's defense.
Speaker 1:It is cold in that courtroom, so he says well, you can't talk when it's cold, it is cold that's what he says, although that's up for debate, and if you hold on, just if you give me one second, I have a video, uh that was it.
Speaker 2:Katie, katie fang or stephanie rules, it was like it was.
Speaker 1:It was quite warm today yeah, everyone was talking about it. They're like actually it was like 73 or 75 degrees in there. The fact that he found this coal was very weird, but we also have some video here that might actually contradict what he was saying and we'll play the clip To gain the respect back we have to the appellate court has to step in and something has to happen.
Speaker 4:Think of it the Republican Party, one of the two great parties nominate somebody to be their candidate and that candidate now has been sitting here for almost five weeks in a freezing cold icebox listening to this stuff, no crying.
Speaker 3:He looks very sweaty. For a freezing cold man he is very sweaty.
Speaker 1:Yes, for someone who was in a refrigerator, he was sweating his ass off. If you had the opportunity to see that video.
Speaker 3:No, when I'm very nervous, I also sweat, even when you're freezing, Well it also could be the adrenaline. I don't know. I'm not usually both very nervous and cold at the same time.
Speaker 2:Unless you're on amphetamines.
Speaker 1:Maybe Usually I don't have to spend a lot of time outside well, he might have a reason to be nervous because the trial was going so poorly for him. But that was, yes, that was trump claiming he had been in a refrigerator, yet he's like sweating like a fucking pit, like he's. He's drenched covered in sweat. You know what he really looks like. He looks like the dude from total recall, with like the bead of sweat drips down his head and that's how arnold schwarzenegger knows he's not in a dream and he blows his head off. Except this is like trump's entire face is like dripping wet with sweat. Um, but yeah, that's just and that was a absurd that he's claiming his ice cold in the air, yet he's like, just, he's drenched. It was pretty fucking disgusting, but also I mean that's why he's so cold.
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess Flop sweat. He's probably sitting in his diaper, you know.
Speaker 1:I guess that's.
Speaker 2:All mushy and shit.
Speaker 1:That was nasty. Ty.
Speaker 2:Nasty, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1:Also, we have another clip from CNN that we'll play.
Speaker 4:That's right. Well, my colleague Kristen Holmes and I are told that, overall, when they're looking forward to this, you know, whatever the verdict may be and whenever it may come, we're told that the former president is preparing for a potential conviction, at least on some of the counts, and that's largely because Donald Trump personally believes that the jury is biased. He has long believed, even before the trial began, that he could not get a fair trial in Manhattan, a mostly Democratic city, and so he's preparing for that potential option. Now I'm also told that some of his attorneys are still considering, you know, maybe this could be a hung jury. Of course, this is all speculation, but as for the former president, he is preparing for that potential outcome.
Speaker 1:Now I also just yeah, of course he's preparing for a potential guilty verdict, because the trial was fucking devastating, the evidence that was laid out against him was overwhelming, and now again predicting what juries will do. That's totally different from whether or not you feel like the prosecution met its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, like the two aren't necessarily.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's a correlation I think they did that 115 witnesses ago well, here's what I'll say about this.
Speaker 1:So a lot of people accuse me of just like being a democratic shield. You know I'm in the in the bag for the democrats, or I hate trump, uh, you know, or I'm. So you know, some people on the left accuse me of selling hopium or whatever. But I feel like I try and call it fairly, you know, reasonably. Uh, just, I try to be objective based on the information that's currently available, and I'll give you some examples of when I'm not selling a hopium. So you know, it was like last year, you know, november, december, where I basically said, just based on the evidence, that as long as judge cannon stayed on the classified documents case in Florida, that thing wasn't going to trial before the election. That was like six months ago there, like six months ago, it was six months ago I was telling you, hey, this thing probably ain't going to the trial before election. You listen to all these other political podcasts. No, shame at them, like no shade at them. Rather, I do actually want to be informed about the developments going on in the classified documents case. But you know, I was telling, telling you, months ago, this thing wasn't going to the trial before election. Hey, guess what found out, judge cannon? She just rescheduled the trial. Well, she postponed it indefinitely. It ain't going to trial before the election. She's on the case. So, and you know, look about me, above all, I'm rooting for jack smith to nail his ass. You know, I'm a I'm a huge supporter of the work that jack Smith and his team have been doing, and I was saying that unless they found a way to get her to recuse its curtains on that until 2025. Well, that's, that's the case, you know.
Speaker 1:There's also the instance where the Supreme Court granted. Where the Supreme Court granted, well, basically put Trump back on the ballot in Colorado after he had been removed, based on the Colorado Supreme Court decision to invoke the Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. And I was telling y'all, watch out for the Supreme Court. They're going to find a way to thread the needle so that they don't completely eliminate the Insurrection C clause of the constitution, but they'll basically neuter it and they'll find a way to get trump back on the ballot. And guess what they did? They got trump back on the fucking ballot.
Speaker 1:Was I selling hopium then? No, I mean, and I'm going to warn you again, in this case with presidential immunity, that the supreme court is likely to pull some fucking shenanigans and try and find a way to narrowly tailor uh, you know presidential immunity in such a way that it bails Trump out for trying to overthrow the government. Now they might have a little bit more of an uphill battle with that because of some recent developments that we'll get to later, with um you know, judge Alito flying his freak flag. But I'm telling you now I'm not, I'm not out here sugarcoating this shit. I I give my legit opinion and you know, sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong, but I'm not out here sugarcoating anything.
Speaker 1:And, with that said, trump is fucked in this new york trial because the evidence was so overwhelming. Now it's possible. Maybe you get one juror on there. It was like a heart. Yes, I know Right, maybe you get one juror. That's a fucking hard ass and like no matter you know what evidence is presented before them and no matter you know what the other jurors say.
Speaker 1:Uh, that juror won't relent and you get a hung tree that's possible but in all likelihood, especially with a couple of lawyers on the jury and, again, people who are typically prosecutors people who are prosecutors typically tell you, generally speaking, they don't want prosecutors on the jury will will help in this. One regard is specifically with the instance of Michael Cohen's billing Right. So he was an employee for the Trump or the Trump organization. Why was Trump paying that man legal fees as a retainer when Michael Cohen was an employee legal fees as a retainer when Michael Cohen was an employee? And these are lawyers who, I'm sure, totally like Carol, I'm sure you understand, you know as a lawyer, an attorney or a lawyer yourself like you have an employment agreement with your company.
Speaker 1:What fucking sense would it make to pay you under a retainer that wouldn't?
Speaker 3:No, no, I mean you don't have an employment. I greet most people in the most states in the us or at will employment and I do not have that. But yeah, I'm paid by my employer like any other employee yeah.
Speaker 1:So why the fuck was trump getting? Why the fuck was trump paying cohen as part of a legal retainer when he had an employment agreement? Well, there you go that's why we're here, carol. Hence the indictment, because these payments weren't what they uh the trump organization claimed that they were.
Speaker 1:And they were actually reimbursements for not only Stormy Daniels but also the tech company that Michael Cohen was using to rig those polls, which we don't have enough time to get into right now because, again, there's been so much going on. But long story short of it, based on the evidence, I believe the prosecution did their part and met their burden. And if they didn't, I would be the first one to tell you hey man, like Trump's going to get off. The prosecution blew it Blame. The prosecution Can't say that they did their job. They did their due diligence, they put on a hell of a prosecution and they should come away with the conviction.
Speaker 1:Now a lot of people are asking whether or not Trump is going to go to jail. Six weeks ago I would have told you probably not. You know, as like there's no minimum sentence on any of these charges, even as felonies, you know, I think it's anywhere from zero months to three years at the max. But with Trump violating the gag order numerous times, like I think he said, like a dozen instances at this point, even the joke of the judges so far only found Trump to have violated the gag order 10 times. He's since made comments about witnesses outside of the court and I'm sure those will probably be taken out by the judge.
Speaker 3:How many does he need to fill up his punch card?
Speaker 1:12 violations of the gag order and he gets 13th one free. 12 violations of the gag order and he gets 13th one free. I think what's gonna happen if trump is convicted, when it comes to the sentencing, that the judge is actually going to give him some time at this point, because I mean, like, the fucking shit that trump's doing is absolutely outrageous. And the judge ain't stupid. He knows when he's having the entirety of congress show up to say all the things about the witnesses. And the judge ain't stupid. He knows when he's having the entirety of congress show up to say all the things about the witnesses and the trial and the judge's daughter. That trump can't say that he's manipulative.
Speaker 1:Well, he's, you know, ordering his surrogates to violate the gag order on his behalf, which is also a violation of the terms of the gag order, and I think it's that kind of behavior that's going to get Trump some prison time. And now I don't know when the sentencing hearing will be. I'm assuming after the verdict, if he's found guilty, it'll be within, you know, 30, 45 days, and you know the judge will hand down a sentencing if he gives him, you know, three, six, eight, 12 months, it's entirely possible we could see trump doing time before we even get to the election in november.
Speaker 3:Cross your fingers, hope for the best yes, indeed, that brings us to the next thing, because it is the time is moving in a linear fashion, making my head feel sleepy.
