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
Trump's Legal Woes Are OVER. Or Are They?
Can a former president evade accountability, or are the walls closing in? Join us as we tackle the sprawling implications of the special counsel's decision to temporarily dismiss charges against Trump related to January 6th. We speculate on the potential for a self-pardon and the hurdles it might face in the Supreme Court. With state-level investigations continuing to swirl around attempts to overturn the 2020 election, we ponder the future political landscape and whether Trump can sidestep these challenges if he re-enters office. Our exploration doesn’t stop there, as we venture into the world of Trump's massive deportation proposals, drawing chilling historical parallels and assessing their feasibility.
Trade wars on the horizon? We cast a spotlight on Trump's tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, dissecting their potential to disrupt the global economy. The conversation shifts to Merrick Garland's Department of Justice and the persistent struggles to hold Trump accountable, even imagining Garland as a Supreme Court justice and the ripple effects of such a scenario. Amidst this, we scrutinize the role of media in shaping perceptions of Trump, questioning whether networks like MSNBC and CNN have inadvertently elevated his profile by turning his presidency into a spectacle.
In a world dominated by powerful figures and shifting political loyalties, how do we navigate the noise? We critique the influence of tech moguls like Elon Musk and the uneasy alliances within political circles, all while addressing the serious issue of workplace harassment and its complex underpinnings. As we reflect on our journey through these dense topics, we can't help but chuckle at the unexpected turns our discussions have taken—proving sometimes the path to understanding is filled with twists and turns. Tune in for a thought-provoking ride through the maze of modern American politics.
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One, two, three, four for the insurrection we will never forget. It's literally in the name of the podcast, um, so yeah, it's been. It's. You know, every single week is a whirlwind around here, whether it's election season or not, obviously. I'm sure you're familiar with the fact that jack smith, special counsel, his office has moved to dismiss the charges against trump in his january 6th case without prejudice. There's quite a few implications there, theoretically speaking here. If Trump were to leave office, that's a big if these charges could be brought again. But I imagine one of the things Trump would likely do while he's in office is, we're never having another fucking election again.
Speaker 2:So so yeah, Look I having another fucking election again.
Speaker 1:So, uh, yeah it. You know, look, I assume that we'll have midterms in some shape, form or fashion and, depending on how those go, uh, if they go poorly, if they go south, that could be the end of republicans ever leaving the white house.
Speaker 2:Uh, but we're all going to die.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's if we don't, if we don't all die before the 2028 election, if one exists. So theoretically here, because these charges are being dismissed without prejudice, they could be brought against Trump again should he leave office. But I assume Trump will likely try to issue himself a pardon once he's in office for any and all federal crimes. Now, whether that pardon sticks, who knows? That'll have to. I mean, again, that'll be an issue should we ever end up in a situation where Trump is charged for crimes that he committed before taking office and then he'll get litigated up to the Supreme Court. But as you've seen, with the complexion of the Supreme Court as it's currently constructed, they're going to bail him out, Even though you know the principle of the rule of law in this country is no man should be his own judge and jury.
Speaker 1:So theoretically you'd have to argue that pardon is something you grant to someone else, not something you can do for yourself. It's President of the United States. But the Supreme Court can make any kind of rules they want to, just like they made up presidential immunity out of thin air, even though in the constitution it says the president shall shall faithfully execute the law and be above it. Um, but in terms of trump's possible liability for attempting to overturn the 2020 election illegally. While federal prosecution is not an option, state crimes are still on the table and there are a number of states still continuing along in their investigation.
Speaker 2:And Alan Bragg said he's not dropping the case.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so well. That's slightly different, but we'll get to that. You know, states decide to charge Trump for attempting to forge fake electors certificates to steal the election. They likely won't ever be in a position to take him to trial because I'm sure the Supreme Court will postpone those cases until he's no longer in office. And if he is charged by even once I mean, I imagine, even given that he's currently facing criminal prosecution already under indictment in Georgia he's never leaving office, at least not willingly, at least not alive in one way or the other Until he, well, until he dies.
Speaker 1:Exactly, Big Mac if you're listening, if you're listening. Now, yeah, fingers crossed, fingers crossed. You know cholesterol will take him out before we even get close.
Speaker 2:McDonald's. You got one job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he's not looking too great here lately.
Speaker 1:Anyway, His health looks like it's questionable as we speak again, and he didn't release any medical information over the course of the election.
Speaker 1:No one cares, but again, just Trump always manages to flout norms and seeming rules of politics and pays no political consequences whatsoever, Also in terms of holding Trump accountable.
Speaker 1:So it is theoretically possible that the Trump administration will go so far beyond you know, reasonably sane, but obviously they're going to be insane but go so far beyond the pale in terms of egregious behavior that he could be impeached. Now, again, Republicans hold the House and Senate slim majorities in both and the Senate slim majorities in both. So the likelihood of that happening is slim, but it's a non-zero number and it's worth considering again, considering what Trump has planned as soon as he gets office, starting with these mass deportations which in reality because deporting a million people a year, even a million people a year, is nearly impossible. There's just no practical means to do it, and also you have nowhere to send these people. And so, as the Nazis discovered when they tried to deport I don't mean to give away this, but as the Nazis discovered when they tried to deport a million Jews in Hitler's Germany- who was going to accept them?
Speaker 2:Who was going to take them? Yeah, and that's what people don't even like, realize, like, okay, every country isn't a deportation country. They don't always accept, they don't many of them Venezuela, cuba, haiti, of course they're not deportation countries, so they don't accept deportation plans. So no, but that's why, um, you know, they're building the fucking jaeger style concentration camps in texas yeah, that is the ultimate solution that the nazis came to.
Speaker 1:There was, like we have nowhere to send these people, all right, send them off to work camps and concentration camps. And you know again the quote-unquote final solution. No pun intended, there were the ovens. So in all likelihood, trump's plans to round up millions of people and deport them to anywhere, because that part's not going to happen, is going to result in people being forced into camps. That's just what it's going to be now again, obviously you know the people trump, or trump, is hiring. They're largely incompetent, they're going to fumble this and they probably won't even successfully round up a million people. But hey, they, they could theoretically get a hundred thousand over the course of a year. And and those people got to go somewhere.
Speaker 1:And it ain't going to be pretty when it happens. And you know again, who knows what kind of atrocities Trump's going to commit while he's in office. That will bring to bear political pressure on a handful of Republicans in the House to open an impeachment inquiry. And you know the likelihood of that resulting in a successful conviction in the senate is low. But again, it's a non-zero chance. We were a handful of votes away from convicting trump in his second impeachment after january 6th, but mitch mcconnell told a few of them to hold off and he did so.
Speaker 1:Um, a lot of people out there upset with mayor garland, jack smith, etc. For not holding trump accountable and, like I, while I get your frustrations, I would say trump was indicted twice by mayor garland's department of justice like not one time, but two times, and the it's not the only reason, but a major reason why Trump didn't face either criminal, with Alito Roberts and Clarence Thomas doing their-.
Speaker 2:You know what? Now, looking back and I look at Merrick Garland and I think maybe he wouldn't have been the best choice for the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1:He would have been better than he would have been better than any of Trump's picks. Well, so next week, what I'm going to do is for the people who are. You know, merrick Garland critics in generally the criticism levied against him. I find it be unreasonable, not not because he's above criticism, it's just the specifics of the criticism, like you know.
Speaker 2:But I do wish that garland would have made any kind of statement though, because he knows the criticism that's coming down on him right now, or whatever. But if he would have made any statement to say, like I, I dropped the bag, like I would, or okay or even just to assuage any fears or whatever. I mean he? He said he was going to hold.
Speaker 1:Trump accountable. He charged him twice. And look so next week, when I have the opportunity, I will put together a list of 10 things Mary Garland could have done differently that people actually really don't spend enough time talking about, if at all. People are just like.
Speaker 2:Mary.
Speaker 1:Garland should have done this and that and the things that they wanted him to do wouldn't have changed the outcome at all. Now again, the things that he possibly could have done to end up in a different situation may not have been successful, but it would have been an opportunity. Probably a better opportunity in hindsight, given what we know now. Probably a better opportunity in hindsight given what we know now but if he still had addressed us to say what exactly?
Speaker 2:you know what is he? Okay, I don't know. I don't know what you want him to say people feel like they need to hear from him Anything, anything to say like, hey, this is why we did blah blah blah, this is why we didn't do blah blah blah, but to feel like he's at least aware.
Speaker 1:One thing about specifics of the investigation is, generally speaking, the attorney general cannot talk about specific actions taken or internal debate and really only the charges at hand and how DOJ policy interacts with that. But look again, I know people want reassurance, but that's not like that's not always feasible for an attorney general to do. Uh, when talking about specific cases and that's that's one of the hang-ups of the department of justice like if obviously trump's attorney general is going to do whatever the fuck he wants to and break the rules and and whatnot. I mean that's you know. Again, if you don't like that set of circumstances, we should have just got more people to vote for comrade Harris.
Speaker 1:But Eric Merrick Garland does try to do things by the book.
Speaker 1:And again, like there are things that I wanted Merrick Garland to do that he could have done, that possibly could have resulted in Trump being in prison before the election took place, took place, but it's not a sure thing.
Speaker 1:And also the Supreme Court made it clear once they stepped in, first of all delaying the prosecution of Trump in DC and then ultimately granting him presidential immunity for any acts that intersect with his official responsibilities as president, and also the part where they basically changed the rules of evidence where you couldn't even use any evidence of his actions in court, whether he was being charged for them or not. That opened the door for like, regardless of what Jack Smith did after that in court, even if those charges had been brought a year earlier, if we got that same decision. Well, so any decision that the special counsel made in terms of what evidence he wanted to use against Trump, trump could appeal that. It would end up back in the Supreme Court, delayed for months again. So the only way that we were going to get Trump in prison in 2024 was to win the election. That's just what it comes down to. In that regard, there was nothing really to Jack Smith.
Speaker 1:But again, I do have something. There is something that I believe that Merrick Garland and later on Jack Smith likely could have done to prevent that whole scenario, but we'll save that again for next week. So if we do want Trump to be held accountable for any of his criminal activity, the most likely pathway we're going to have for that is state prosecutions, and the only way we're going to get those is if he's pushed out of office by impeachment likely because there's no way he's leaving even after the next election. He's just not going to do. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:We're having no more elections so let me ask you d yo what's your program fit? My who oh, what am I wearing?
Speaker 1:what am I wearing to the camps, man? I don't know, man, don't they make us wear all gray? Uh, yeah, we'll probably have like uniforms or something, although, again, I don't even know if we'll be allowed to have uniforms, because they won't be able to afford them.
Speaker 1:That's true with all the tariffs, so um again. So in case you missed it, trump announced that he will in fact be placing tariffs on every imported good from Mexico, canada and China. On his first day in office. That sent the stock market futures into a tumble. He's already taking the economy before he's even in office.
Speaker 2:I already took money out of my 401k because I was like I need to figure out what to do with my yeah, do I need to?
Speaker 1:just go ahead and try. Do I need to roll it over to a with my? I work too hard for this shit. Yeah, do I need to just go ahead and try? Do I need to roll it over to a Roth account or something? I'm going to have to get some financial advice before the year's over to figure out what to do before the economy crashes.
Speaker 1:Because when he was in office the first time by the end of his presidency, my 401k was just a one. There was no four, there was no O, there was no K. That bitch said one. It was terrible. Yeah, it was rough out there.
Speaker 1:I was looking at it. I actually I had to stop looking at it. I stopped looking at it at the end, you know, the middle, I don't know. Somewhere in midst of pandemic, I was like I just can't even look at this no more. Yeah, and then I didn't look at it again until like 2023, um, because it just it hurt my feeling so bad, uh, yeah, so again, you know anyone out there planning on retiring in the near future. I would suggest you amend those plans, uh, and anyone who wants to figure out what to do with their 401ks. Can we come up with a plan together because I ain't got no answers. But yeah, so trump's gonna tariff uh, you know nearly everything to some fashion from those three countries, if not others. I I can't remember the exact numbers, maybe 25% from Mexico or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 25% for Mexico and Canada and like 10% on China, in addition to whatever the already tariffs are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so maybe up to 35% in the form of tariffs on goods imported from China. Now I know what you're probably thinking. You know you don't really actually. You know I can't imagine a lot of people out here looking at macro economic trends, but the amount of goods we import from those three countries combined every year is over a trillion dollars. He's, he's about, he's about to add a fucking. He's about to add a fucking $250 billion tax. Oh my God, it's insane.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, the tariffs aren't just a one-off in this regard, because we're not just going to tax the goods that are imported from these countries. These countries are also going to issue retaliatory tariffs. So instead of us paying higher taxes on goods from other countries, they're also going to tax our goods at their port of entry, which means American companies will make less revenue because the goods will be more expensive and likely there will be lower demand, which means he's hurting our economy both ways. So the tariffs are a double-edged sword, but in the worst way, where it hurts us, cutting well, it cuts us both, going and coming. So if you're ready for the economy to collapse, I got good news for you You're about to get your wish. It's going to be hard out here for like a long time.
Speaker 1:It's going to be hard out here for a pimp If we theoretically yeah, it's tough If we do happen to have elections sometime in the future. You know, after the Trump presidency, whatever Democrat gets that job. After the Trump presidency, whatever Democrat gets that job, as for all of the Democrats before him or her, they're going to have a humongous mess to clean up.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a lot and of course I live here on the border where of course trade is super important here on the border.
Speaker 2:You don't say so, say this shit is about to get motherfucking wild, like it's going to be crazy as fuck here. Yeah, because literally, they literally make the fucking the windmills I see them coming across the border every fucking day like we have. There are in Mexico, well, not even in Mexico. In Juarez, just over the fucking bridge, there are 300 maquilladores, which are the you know plants, plants. 90 of them are fortune 500 companies, which are american companies. Right, so you've got 90 fucking companies over here and you're doing this bullshit or whatever. Like David, my fucking husband, his dad.
Speaker 1:When they came from New York, he was hired by because he worked for GE oh wait. And then his company. Aren't they laying off a lot of employees? Yeah, ge, oh wait. And speaking of GE, aren't they laying off a lot of employees? Yeah.
Speaker 2:He was put in charge of the company there. Him for working for GE, ge. So him coming from fucking upstate New York to come down here to be in charge of a plant, there is the head of GE. That's how David ended up being here. So, yeah, this shit's about to get fucking wild as fuck it's rough.
Speaker 1:And then if Trump does something crazy at the border with Mexico, I mean it would be sadly ironic if Mexico decided to close down the border to Americans. It would be funny.
Speaker 2:And Claudia Scheinbaum when she was there they've already been deporting Americans. They're like, oh, you overstayed your visa expats or whatever. They're like, oh, you overstayed your visa expats or whatever. But she was like I, I'm kind of digging her. I wasn't sure at first about her, but she was like, oh, what's our uh solution to trump saying this there's yeah, we'll just deport 2 million Americans.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go for it. And she is, of course, the lesser of two evils. You know people talk about the lesser of two eagles in elections. She is literally like, look, maybe she'll be good for Mexico in like a broad sense. But uh, you know she is. Basically she wants to help her party maintain control in mexico. The same way republicans want to maintain control here and again yeah, I mean that's the morena party.
Speaker 1:So yeah, again yes but, we're not saying she's a hero, but again, look, at least she's going to, in all likelihood, stand up to Trump in some ways that might be meaningful, and maybe other ways that might just be for show, and she's possibly just calling Trump's bluff, who knows? Hoping for the best, but prepare for the worst in every sense when it comes to what the future Trump administration is about to bring.
Speaker 1:So, there was breaking news today, as it was reported that oh shit, what did I miss? Israel reached a ceasefire Just the wrong war. So they reached an agreement that was partially negotiated by President Biden's administration that created a ceasefire in Lebanon. And here's President Biden talking about just that.
Speaker 5:Today I have some good news report from the Middle East. I just spoke with the prime Minister of Israel and Lebanon. I'm pleased to announce that their governments have accepted the United States' proposal to end the devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah yeah, so good news in that regard.
Speaker 1:Now I would say, like a lot of people, like, well, why can't you? You know, okay, he negotiated a ceasefire with gaza. Um, so that's more complicated. But part of the reason why israel reached this agreement is because they basically succeeded in reaching all their military strategic operations and plans. All of those were effective. They reached every goal they set in terms of basically reducing the possibility of Hezbollah pursuing any kind of serious arm conflict for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1:They decapitated the leadership, uh, with that, those, those explosive devices planted in the pagers. That was crazy. They basically reached every single goal they set forth when they started these major, you know large-scale operations against has bella a few months ago. And once you know mission was complete, they're like all right, it's time for a peace deal. Now the reason why they haven't reached a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is a lot more complicated. But part of that is because, well, the military goals that they've set forth in terms of removing Hamas from Gaza are impossible. It's not something that can be done militarily and also, even if it were possible I mean theoretically three or four or five months into the war, there was a path forward to basically removing Gaza from control. The problem is, netanyahu wanted to drag this war out on purpose, and that's exactly what they're going to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because they kept the elections from happening yeah, well, and then they, every time they would capture some territory, they would cede control of it back to Hamas, just by basically just dallying around. They had no real intentions of ensuring this war came to a quick close and that is largely the responsibility and the outright plan by Netanyahu. And now they're in a situation where there is no way to achieve a military victory and, look, I don't know what the situation will be going forward. I'm sure Trump's probably not going to help them negotiate a ceasefire. I would imagine this war is going to go on indefinitely until Gaza is likely annexed. But again, you know, no one cares that Trump was calling Netanyahu behind the scenes and encouraging him to drag out this war to hurt Biden and then Kamala Harris's chances of winning the election. No one cares about that.
Speaker 1:But you know again, biden's been working on this for months. It's hard to do that and be successful when your cohort is working in bad faith. But he did get the job done in Lebanon once Israel achieved its military objective. So I guess kudos to him. Pat him on the back achieved its military objective. So I guess kudos to him, pat him on the back, you know again, if it were me, once you push me out of the election, I'd be like, all right, I'm putting my two weeks notice in.
Speaker 1:I'm going on vacation, but by now he's working. He's been working ever since. I mean I'm sure he's doing things behind the scenes as we speak to try and protect our federal government from a second Trump term, but I mean I don't know necessarily what it is that he can do in terms of protecting the American people, but I'm sure he's making arrangements with our allies around the world at least try to protect some of our classified information and possibly the protection of, you know, future alliances that Trump may threaten just once he's in office.
Speaker 1:Because he has a tendency to go overboard with his love of our enemies and also, simultaneously, constantly attack our allies and ruin our allyships. So I'm sure Biden's doing what he can Again. The problem here is, the situation is just. It's just drastically. It's so drastically unmanageable that the only real solution to all of these problems was to never let Trump win a second election, and we failed to do that. You know I can't blame Biden for that.
Speaker 2:That was on the American people.
Speaker 1:We didn't make the right decision and you know there are many reasons why the election turned out in the fashion that it did, but largely it's because people are stupid and I can tell you how stupid people are because one of the things in terms of Google searches that hit record highs after the election was a search for the term tariffs tariffs yeah, you got. You voted for the. I can't, I can't, but people voted for the tariff guy without knowing what a tariff is.
Speaker 2:No, I, I can't. And the fucking realization that people are like oh my god, the affordable care act, andamacare, is the same fucking thing.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I hate these people Speaking of right-wing morons engaging in total ignorance. The Trump transition team is having a rough time. It's just it's not going over there.
Speaker 7:We are following more breaking news involving the president-elect. Sources tell CNN that Trump's lawyers are investigating allegations that a top aide sought to gain financially from his influence with the president-elect.
Speaker 6:We have CNN's Sarah Murray on this. Sarah, tell us what you're learning. Well, we're learning that lawyers for Trump have been investigating whether Boris Epstein sought to gain financially from his access to Donald Trump and others in Trump's orbit. Now, this is something, this internal investigation that was confirmed to me, Kristen Holmes and our colleague, Kate Sullivan, by half a dozen sources. Again, this is an internal investigation. This is not a criminal investigation. In one instance, though, the investigators looking into this learned that Boris Epstein requested as much as $100,000 per month in exchange for his services. In one of these instances and I want to tell you what Boris Epstein said in response to this reporting. He said I am honored to work for President Trump and his team. These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from making America great again. Not distract us from making America great.
Speaker 1:Okay, so those claims are probably absolutely true, but the reason they're becoming public is not because Epstein is a grifter trying to sell access to Trump. Many people were doing that in the first Trump administration and have been doing it ever since. Part of what's going on here is turmoil within the inner circle here, because you know, look, everyone bought access to trump in terms of trying to fund his presidential campaign and now that trump won, there's a vie for power to be the shadow president, or, you know, one of the shadow presidents pulling the strings um of trump in his cohorts, um, and not everyone's getting along over there in magalan, in borscht. Epstein, it's going to be one of the first casualties here, um, and so obviously it's not a criminal investigation. These are like internal trump transition lawyers doing this investigation, but really, what this is is a move to get epstein out of the picture. Now, epstein's connected to trump's theft and illegal retainment of classified documents and also connected to january 6th in numerous ways. So I would imagine in terms of, like, what information epstein can hold over trump in order to stay in his good graces and and not be expelled from the next trump administration.
Speaker 1:He's probably got a few aces up his sleeve and maybe a joker and a queen and a jag and a two. They got a deuce up there, uh so, but you know, we always knew one of the issues that was going to just be, is going to be, a hurdle for trump to try and get a lot of the worship that he wants done, and not only because you know the people around him are incompetent, but this is. But it's impossible for them to work together, and that's not even counting the fact that Trump simply likes to pit his I don't even really know what to call them his stooges against each other. So it's going to be a lot more infighting. I mean, they're already going at Elon Musk. Trump's sick of his face. He's been in every day there at Mar-a-Lago since the election was over. He'd be there every day. Every day He'd be on Twitter doing drugs and chilling at Mar-a-Lago. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:Elon has not left his fucking side. Somebody called him the first buddy.
Speaker 1:They was calling him the first buddy of the United States first buddy, that's perfect cause he won't leave Trump's side.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I expect expect more turmoil in the Trump transition team and once Trump takes office, Rachel Maddow is going to need a new board with all the Trump transition team. And once Trump takes office, Rachel Maddow is going to need a new board with all the Trump employees or appointments and the Trump officials that get fired or quit their jobs. Because in the first four years that list just got longer and longer and the board was big at first and it had like 20 names on it and then they would zoom out and then it was like 40 and then it would get even smaller and it would be like 100 people. Yeah, it was wild. I was going to need a new board. She's going to have to start off with board number two because of all the people he's going to have to get rid of because of the infighting and the incompetence and you know the backstabbing and of course, there's going to be an endless amount.
Speaker 1:One thing that I can say the Biden administration and like, I don't necessarily believe that leaks are bad per se, but one thing the Biden administration didn't have a lot of was leaks. Occasionally you had people going on background, you know, talking about gossip, but nothing serious in terms of like what's going on behind the scenes and the Biden administration, the Trump administration it was just nonstop leaks. Kellyanne Conway, in particular, was quite known for leaking an extraordinary amount of information to the press about Trump scandals and Trump administration scandals. So I'm sure there's going to be a new Kellyanne Conway. We don't know who it is yet, but someone's going to be disgruntled with their position amongst the ranks and they're going to be leaking to the press constantly.
Speaker 2:It's going to be a whole ass mess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely going to be. I mean, yes, in every way for the country and for Trump himself, it's going to be rough. But you know, look, I mean this is what people voted for, in saying it like we saw it the first time and they people got like a four-year hiatus. They forgot how good they have it and how bad it was.
Speaker 2:They chose it like oh, I want some more of that yeah, people's memories are fucking short, so short.
Speaker 1:Um. So yeah, beyond the Trump campaign, the Trump transition in a turmoil Elon Musk's dad had some comments about. Elon's current legacy here.
Speaker 8:May was a slightly heavier built girl. Ok, may was a slightly heavier built girl, okay. And actually what happened was we broke up when she was in final year and no, wait a minute when we were going out. Yeah, she was still going out. Her parents, by the way, were very fanatical in favor of apartheid. This is quite interesting. Her parents came to south africa from canada because they sympathized with that, with the afrikaner government. They used to support hitler and and all that sort of stuff. But they didn't know, obviously I don't think they knew what the germans would, the nazis were doing, but they, they in canada, they were the in the Nazi, they were in the German party in Canada and they sympathized with the Germans. So when the Afrikaners government came into power here in 1948, then May's father who was quite an interesting guy, he was a very good pilot he said he wants to be with the afrikaners because he agrees with apartheid. You see, you see what I mean, yeah, and he came out here with his family okay, long story short there.
Speaker 1:Um, elon musk, elon musk maternal grandparents were fucking nazis, um, and you can see why. And that had quite an effect on his mom. She's a right-wing nut job and it appears as though, um, you know, they moved to south africa because they were like, yeah, apartheid's fucking awesome. So if you're wondering what kind of, just what kind of lineage elon musk hails from, yeah, let's go there, because they got apartheid yeah, so you know elon musk taking a sharp right wing turn here.
Speaker 1:Not only was it predictable, he's he's always been far right wing, he's just been hiding it this entire time. So it's not surprising that he would like again, he would want to align himself with the presidential candidate. That's the most like Hitler that we know. People title that fucking person but the presidential candidate in the United States, that's most like Hitlerler, since hitler not surprising, not not surprising at all in that regard. And I totally expect him to try and implement some form of apartheid here is probably why he left south america. He was like damn, this apartheid thing is, is, uh, you know it's for the birds here. It's about to be on its way out. Let me hop on over here to the americas. Make me some money.
Speaker 2:Let's say we can do that a part-time thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah you're gonna try and do the same shit here. Uh, yeah, and then, like you know, look the people on the idiots on. You know, formerly known as twitter, now currently known as x-chan, I talk about how elon musk is a proponent of free speed, so how can he be a Nazi? Hey, let me tell you. Let me tell you how this Nazism, nazism shit works in regards to free speech. See the way the U S constitution, uh, the way it embodies free speech is in the idea that the government can't persecute you for the things you say. It does not mean that there are not consequences for the things you say, but the way these nut jobs trying to co-opt the argument is well, we're Nazis and we should have the freedom to speak about being Nazis and no one else should be able to complain about it.
Speaker 1:But the problem there is, the whole idea behind being, like you know, a neo-Nazi, fascist type is that eventually you want to suppress the free speech of others if they don't want to become a Nazi, and if you allow that to continue on like an online platform, at some point, what have is a nazi platform and then all the normal people leave. And that's why I and, look, you know, social media websites have been dealing with this since the beginning of social media right, and that's why, generally speaking, every platform comes to the same conclusion about regulating hate speech and whatnot. It's because if you don't stamp it out, what happens is the normal people leave, the advertisers go and your platform becomes 4chan or, in this case, xchan. Um, so yeah, like, the free speech argument isn't about protecting people's right to not be persecuted by the government for what they say. It's about emboldening and empowering the worst possible voices and giving them a platform in order to spread hate.
Speaker 1:And again, like, that's just not what the idea of free speech is. I mean, it's not even remotely related to the principle of free speech. But again, you know, elon's a Nazi. When he bought the platform, he returned the worst possible people who had been banned from there and gave them not only access to their accounts, unbanned their accounts, but he also boosted their accounts so they're able to spread their shit even more far and wide than they had previously been able to. So, yeah, fuck that guy. Fuck elon's version of street free speech. It ain't about free speech. Yeah, it's about promoting fucking fascist. Uh, and again, you know he's just carrying on the legacy of his grandparents there. I hate that guy. You know we ain't done shithole of the week in months, for a couple of reasons largely because he would win it every week.
Speaker 1:He quickly, quickly shot up to the top of the list of nominees for the shithole of the. You know, I think this is year two of the Donald J Trump shithole of the year award that he'll be receiving in January. So, like we is no point, it was him every week. Every week, he was doing some insane shit or saying some insane shit, you know, kidnapping black people to canvas for Trump and throwing them in vans and driving them across the state lines and what could be considered a form of human trafficking.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that's still under investigation in Pennsylvania, or maybe that was Michigan, I can't remember. But also, you know the lottery. That wasn't a lottery where he was paying people basically a million dollars to vote for Trump. Really is what he was doing. Vote for Trump really is what he was doing. He was encouraging people to register. Well, actually it was only open to people who were registered to vote, which is basically an illegal election lottery, just like this guy in every single fucking term is doing some terrible shit. Now there's also some strife in the campaign with Elon. Now it appears as though Vivek Ramaswamy has prioritized cuts to federal subsidies for electric vehicle companies, which would directly impact Elon, like Elon's. Hey, we need to stop all this government spending.
Speaker 2:And Trump, literally at every rally, said how much he hated EVs.
Speaker 1:He made a joke one time about Elon's cars exploding and his rockets. It was pretty good. Pretty good Again. And Trump was only cohorting around with Elon because Elon was willing to put hundreds of millions of dollars into basically a shallow campaign and try and help Trump win. And even though Trump hates his ass, he's got to put up with him because he's the money. And you know that's what happens when you get in bed together with evil people, they'll eventually stab each other in the back. We don't have to worry about that. You know, if you were downtrodden about the prospects of a second Trump administration, at least you get to look forward to Trump and everyone around him trying to kill each other. That's going to be some fun times. So last week, joe Scarborough and what's. Mika's last name.
Speaker 1:Mika I don't fuck her last name. So morning, joe from MSNBC, along with his co-host and wife, mika, made their pilgrimage down to Mar-a-Lago in order to break bread with Trump, presumably because they were afraid of retaliation. The presidency and is likely to carry out vengeance against the media and his adversaries, especially for people like Joe and Mika, who empowered him in 2016 on his way up to the presidency and who quickly turned tail, and they spent the last couple of years here. They've been detractors of Trump. I think that's fair to say, but here are their comments about the situation.
Speaker 3:Over the past week, joe and I have heard from so many people, from political leaders to regular citizens, deeply dismayed by several of President-elect Trump's cabinet selections, and they are scared. Last Thursday, we expressed our own concerns on this broadcast and even said we would appreciate the opportunity to speak with the president-elect himself. On Friday, we were given the opportunity to do just that. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. It was the first time we have seen him in seven years.
Speaker 7:Now we talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit and it's going to come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show has watched it over the past year or over the past decade that we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and we told him so.
Speaker 3:What we did agree on was to restart communications. My father often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That's a task shared by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to President Trump since March of 2020. Other than a personal call Joe made to Trump on the morning after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. In this meeting, President Trump was tearful. He was upbeat. He seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.
Speaker 1:And that's a fucking lie, as you can see here, before the election.
Speaker 2:He was tearful, according to Micah. So before the election, election, their whole goddamn couch fuck, their couch fuck, fuck everything okay rick james, yeah, so before the election they were they were clearly willing to criticize trump and now they turn tail.
Speaker 1:They they're cowards and as a result of that, I think their viewership has dropped like 35 40 percent um, since. Good, yeah, oh, look, you know I love that for them they deserve it yes, treating your audience as though they're fucking stupid is and and like they can't see through this nonsense, you want to reopen talks with.
Speaker 1:No, you just don't want him to fucking have you detained and possibly executed live on air y'all some bitches Now generally speaking, msnbc is considered to be a left-leaning network and it is only in the sense that if you're comparing it to CNN and, obviously, fox News, you know just like Well, only if you're like okay, you got George Reed, you got Richard Maddow and used to be Joe ande and micah, but they fuck them laurence o'donnell, katie fay, you you do have left wing or at the very least left-leaning voices on msnbc, but if you look at the lineup, you might have noticed this.
Speaker 1:You've also got a bunch of I. I really don't actually know what to call them other than like closet Republicans Katie Turd, for example who were actually Trump supporters or at the very least, they're extraordinarily conservative in their personal life, despite how they may talk about things on the air. And if you're like an astute observer of MBSNBC and you watch all their shows constantly, you can pick out all of the Trumpers. I ain't got to point them out to you, you'll know them. But so if you were thinking that, with the coming Trump administration, that MSNBC is going to be some kind of bulwark or some kind of check on the Trump administration in reporting out the facts and making sure they try and hold the Trump administration accountable, I got. I got news for you it. It's not going to happen. They. They'll half ass it. You know.
Speaker 1:Look, msnbc, and specifically Joe and Mika here, are largely responsible for Trump's rise to power in 2016. So they enabled him quite a lot. They gave him free airtime, they covered all his rallies. They treated it like a spectacle instead of a danger to democracy. And they normalized Trump and you know, a couple of years ago, even though he lost the election I think it's been about two years now as though the network made a pivot to try and make it seem as though Trump was a viable candidate, despite the fact that a lot of his actions, including attempting to extort Ukraine and investigating the Biden family, and also the coup on January 6th, the mishandling of COVID, like all, like the sexual assault conviction, the criminal fraud conviction in New York They've since decided to pretend as though those should not be factors when it comes to electing a presidential candidate in office. And they've spent the last two years or so normalizing Trump. Now, it's not every host at NBC, but it's been a significant portion. In the way that news coverage is framed, the way these stories are framed, the way Trump has talked about, the way he's covered, they've done a great disservice, considering they were supposedly held up as, like the left wing counter to Fox News. Now, not in terms of being the propaganda network, but just countering the propaganda from the right. They've done a poor job in that regard. I've got numerous complaints about them, too many to tackle in a single, probably a series of podcasts. But again, if you were thinking that those people are going to be the ones to save us, you've got another thing coming. Don't count on it Now. Another mistake that MSNBC and even CNN has made is in their attempts to normalize Trump and present him as a viable candidate, which inevitably helped propel him to an electoral victory for the second time, despite the fact that he's a convicted criminal and fraudster. Insurrectionist.
Speaker 1:All of that, I'm assuming one of the motivations here is like, if you know anything about mainstream media companies, especially those who, primarily their revenue is generated by cable, so just in terms of just generally speaking, cable subscriptions are declining.
Speaker 1:Whether people watch these shows or not has never really been a factor.
Speaker 1:Just the fact that you own a cable box or a satellite service provider, you're putting money in these networks' pocket.
Speaker 1:Now, with the advent of streaming and internet services and connectivity cable subscriptions, they're subsiding, they're decreasing at a rapid rate, which means revenue for these companies is taking a tremendous hit, and they are likely in a position where if Trump hadn't won the election or at least what they would believe is if Trump hadn't won the election people wouldn't be turning into the news, which means their ratings would be going down. They're also not getting this revenue from massive cable subscriptions, so they presumably thought that a Trump presidency would be good for ratings and therefore good for revenue, and would keep the cash cow going for a little bit longer. The mistake they've made is that, now that Trump has been elected president, people are like, oh well, fuck it, yeah, we're just going to let it burn. I'm not going to be checking the news fucking every day. The shit is just going to go to hell. I'm checking out and this is like just the average news viewer and in that regard, cable news viewership, at least in terms of CNN and MSNBC, is nearing a record low.
Speaker 2:I think they've lost 30 percent of their view at 25, 30% of their view.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it dropped substantially, substantially, yeah. So the calculation that they made that Trump is going to be their cash cow, it appears to not be paying off. People have already just started to tune out the news. They don't give a fuck, and I think it's because they correctly identify that the role that MSNBC and especially CNN have or have had here recently, in terms of just sane washing Trump and all of his horrific scandals and horrific behavior and insane promises of what he'll do in the second Trump administration, from the debate with joe biden on and on, it's just endless, endless examples that you could be, I could provide you with well, you know like people people are at this point.
Speaker 2:They're over it. They are fucking over it. They are fucking over um fucking mainstream media and what they've been doing and what they're saying. We're like you know what. You're not gonna gaslight us anymore. You're not going to um try and bullshit us anymore. We're done, yeah, we're done. We're done, fuck it.
Speaker 1:Completely. I've been done. I can tell you, since the election I've barely tuned in to any mainstream media. I check out Katie Fang because that's my girl. I'll check out Rachel I love her, I love her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's my girl. Uh, you know, I'll, I'll check out her.
Speaker 1:I love her. Yeah, that's my girl. Um, uh, you know laurence o'donnell, he'd be doing his thing at night. He is one, one of the few hosts that likely will not be holding back over the course of the next however many years trump is in office. And you know, rachel maddow works on Monday. She, like you know the the star work, the star of MSNBC that everyone holds up, is like this you know, person who keeps, keeps it real and tries to keep the Trump administration in check in the most important times of our lives in terms of the 2024 election. She was like you know what? I think, think I'm just gonna work one day a week.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, all right, so you're obviously what I saw too, like where she took a five million dollar a year pay cut to keep doing what the fuck she's doing, which I I have nothing but mad respect for that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, look, I mean if you cut your work week by 70 percent, or yeah, no, if you cut your work week by 80 percent and you make twenty five million dollars a year and you only take a 20 percent pay cut.
Speaker 2:You know what I don't hate it. I will.
Speaker 1:No, no, you know what In fact? Get your money, rachel, and cut your hours down. Now, look, rachel, she's not out here, just not doing shit. She puts together these podcast series. She's working on movie scripts I think she had some input on the Apprentice movie about trump and all these other things that she's doing on the side works on all these side projects books and such but also uh, it was really a super important election here and you was on tv one day a week when you used to be on tv5. So, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say rachel is out here. I mean, you know, look, I again. This is not a criticism of rachel, but I just wouldn't necessarily say Rachel is out here. I mean, you know, look, I again. This is not a criticism of Rachel, but I just wouldn't hail her as the hero that we all need when she's like.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that either, but she's like I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna take this L here, and that's not something that you see a lot of so I'm still gonna still give her I'm willingness to give her props for that kudos to her for taking the pay cut, because the contract is the contract, but and she didn't have to take a pay cut.
Speaker 1:She chose to in order to help, presumably, her employees, although, look, I don't really know what like the deal is with mbc, msnbc, behind the scenes in in terms of compensating their employees who aren't on camera, and whether or not this pay cut will actually make a difference. I don't, I don't fucking know, but I will say this uh, everyone at the network is hyper aware of the fact that joe amica took that trip down to mar-a-lago yeah you know, I think kayla collins has been down there trying to cover mar-a-lago and we can talk about.
Speaker 1:That's a version of what Joe Amica did. Everyone at the network is highly aware of what happened with Joe Amica and your stalwart Rachel here. I checked out her show immediately upon hearing the news of Joe. Amica that last Monday, and you know who didn't say shit about the prospect of the media complying in advance with the future dictator, Rachel. She didn't say shit. So you know, feel about that how you want to, that's fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you expect MSNBC to be these you know strong critics of the Trump administration, well, you're probably not. I mean, you're not going to be rewarded in those expectations if they're not even willing to criticize their own hosts for kowtowing to Trump. So yeah, just that is.
Speaker 2:That is true, it's tough veering away from politics momentarily.
Speaker 1:There was just this insane incident with this doctor where well you know what. We'll just let you see the clip. Oh shit, according to, more documents.
Speaker 4:This video was taken in 2019, a diffine family practice in blival. In it, dr david diffine can be seen walking around naked, including in the hallway between patient rooms. Another video clip sent in shows him in the receptionist area walking around three women and performing a sex act directly in front of one of the women. The clip ends with him ejaculating on her. According to the documents we received, not only did the woman work in Diffinet's office as a lab tech for another company. She was one of his patients.
Speaker 4:According to the person who sent the board the videos, this all happened during business hours. They also claimed Diffinet used his quote position of power sexual grooming salary increases to groom employees and patients into repulsive acts. At least one person agrees. Dr Bradley Diner with the Arkansas Medical Foundation wrote. The pervasive behavior leads to concerns about a sexual compulsive disorder of paraphilia, which may, in fact, cross boundaries with his delivery of medical care. An investigator with the Arkansas Department of Health interviewed Dr Diffenine in September. According to the report from that interview, dr Diffine was informed there were video clips of his actions.
Speaker 1:You know how crazy you gotta be to be wandering around your office butt-ass naked.
Speaker 2:And ejaculating on staff.
Speaker 1:No, wait, wait, wait before we even get there, just to be wandering around the office, ass naked, dick swinging just nude during the day during office hours at a medical facility. You know how out of control that is. That is out of control. That's out of control. Now, what's really crazy is you would think if you were in a position where you've gotten so comfortable with your job that this is how you kick it and like, generally speaking, I don't judge people if they're not infringing on like other people, like if this is how you kick it and this is what you're getting away with, you would think maybe if you wanted to keep doing this, you would probably try to figure out where the line is and not cross it. You know what this nigga did keep it as far past the line is and not cross it. You know what this nigga did. He went as far past the line as you could. He sprinted past that fucking line like Wile E Coyote Roadrunner style, as fast as he could in shooting his shot on a co-worker at the job.
Speaker 2:That shit is wild as fuck.
Speaker 1:You know, what?
Speaker 2:I'm going to get bucket ass naked and I'm going to walk through my fucking office and then I'm going to fucking, I'm going to skeet on this bitch.
Speaker 1:What the fuck like it's not, like he's like oh you know I'm at the office late. I just want to let it all hang. It's like. Let my boys breathe down there like we solo, it's all good office is closed.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna take my clothes off.
Speaker 1:It's like it's lunch time. This was during office hours it's lunchtime.
Speaker 2:This was during office hours he?
Speaker 1:it's lunchtime. They got the pizza out. Your boy is. He's just dribbling all over the pepperoni. What is you know he? You know who he voted for, out of control. Now, look, I know this is not so look, the video is funny. There's no denying that. What is not funny is the content. The circumstances are not funny, because there are a lot of women all over America and the world for that matter who live in workplaces and are subject to sexual harassment on a regular basis and are subject to sexual harassment on a regular basis and are, you know I don't really know a way to frame it other than, like women are such good sports about men's unacceptable behavior that, like I I don't know whether I like should applaud you or be upset that, like women, don't make more. I just but again. So it's not fun. That part is not funny. I understand anyone who's listening to this, who's been in a situation. You've been sexually harassed or put in a situation like that where your job is on the line and you have to no, we are not condoning that.
Speaker 2:No, we're not condoning, Totally no, this this.
Speaker 1:This is an exotic control. But also like if you're going to do that dog, you can't work somewhere that's got cameras. You can't work somewhere that's got cameras. True, don't make no sense.
Speaker 2:True.
Speaker 1:And I just, you know, look over this past year, this podcast has talked far more about dicks than I ever thought would be possible on a political podcast.
Speaker 2:We can't get away from dicks. What the fuck. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:This is not what I planned on when we started. I don't know how we ended up in this situation, but this is this is the world we're in, and for the next next four years we're just going to be sitting around with our dicks figuratively in our hands. And that concludes this episode of Pardon, the Interaction.
