The Impeachment Episode (Part One?)

In Episode 2, Cody, Katy and Robert discuss all things impeachment, whistleblowers, and 'treason.'

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything so don't don't do. Hey, guys, welcome

(00:22):
back to Worst Year Ever. My name's Katie Stole and
joining me today is always Are Cody Evans, Robert jail
Lovely to see you, Cody Evans and Robert J. Johnston.

(00:43):
Thank you. How's it going terrible? I know? I mean,
I'll say this. One thing that's nice about the last
couple of weeks is that I feel like we finally
as a as a culture in America have gotten over
calling it the Ukraine. You really turned a corner week.
I think that's a really lovely silver lining positive and

(01:03):
I appreciate you bring that to the table. Everything else
is fucked. You gotta look at those little gems. You've
got to find something to hold onto in times like these. Yeah,
when I heard Fox News hosts getting it right, I
was like, we really turned a corner on this one.
Did they get it right or did they correct somebody?
And they they have like a segment on it because
I feel like that, like there was a meeting where
everyone was like, we gotta we gotta start doing this correctly. Yeah,

(01:25):
and they decided how didn't even start everyone calling it
the Ukraine. I think it dates back to Soviet property,
but I really don't know off the top of my head. Um. So,
we were going to talk about Andrew Yang this week,
but we pushed it instead to talk about all this
whistleblower stuff because it's it's a lot and it's a
little bit confusing. We were not expecting the president to
be impeached. It was. It was a surprise, Yes, sure

(01:49):
talking about it, But in are it's kind of impossible
to guess which impeachable offense actually will get you impeached
these days. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of a gamble the
day post inauguration doing a video about how he could
be impeached for because the millions clause the second he
got into office. Um, but they chose, they chose to

(02:10):
not do that. Well, you had to give him a chance.
You gotta give a chance. Yeah, maybe one day he'll
be presidential material. Kind of neat that he actually got
in trouble for the smallest bribe he's tried to make. Yeah,
it's a quarter million dollars. Nothing. Come on, come on, man,
you live in a tower full of gold. What are
you what are you doing? Come on for it. Oh boy,

(02:31):
good times. So we thought we'd start off by talking
a little bit about the whistleblower process and the history
of it and how it's changed. This is also complicated.
It's also complicated, and I think I have about sixty
of the story in my head with as much as
I've read, just because things keep breaking and like, there's
all sorts of stuff that like, it's kind of like
some people are lying, and so some of the information

(02:52):
that's out is not true. Right, It's really hard to
get to the bottom of what is accurate, and it
feels irresponsible to dis us too much about some of
it until we have more information. But speaking of irresponsible,
let's discuss more about this without having more information. Well,
we're going to talk about some stuff that we do
know and yeah, for example, yeah, let's let's give I

(03:15):
decided to try to give a little bit of historical
context and just a little bit because this is all
very complicated and I'm very dumb um, but I have
put together a little bit too page say on whistle
blowing thrilled. If we want to understand us whistle blowing
law as it relates to the intelligence industry, we have
to travel back in time, Cody, can you do a

(03:35):
good time machine noise? That's disgusting acceptable soul, and I
need to like, I got another one? Another one you get?

(04:01):
Is that a cat driving? It is? I opened my
mouth and sounds come out. Well that's worth, that's worth.
All of you so bad? No, stop it, stop it.
There's one time machine noise and it's do do do
a little on the nose, both of you. I am
what a train wreck this episode is. If you don't

(04:24):
understand intelligence whistle blowing law, we have to travel back
in time to two thou I can just I can
hear our listener numbers plummeting. Don't guys, don't go listening
to their cars with the stereos all the way up.

(04:45):
Just started vomiting on the side of the road. Jeeves,
what a terrible idea. You didn't say why it was
gonna be the worst year ever? Twos it okay? Back
to two thousand. Two thousand two is the year that
Thomas drank and then an Essay employee with a super
cool name became aware of a tool called Trailblazer the
agency was using to collect huge amounts of data on

(05:07):
all of us without warrants. Some people might recognize this
as probably a crime. Drake thought that this was not
a good thing and was worth blowing the whistle on,
but he didn't want to break the law, so he
went to the Pentagon Inspector General role to blow the
whistle in the appropriate, legally consistent way. Now, whistleblowers are

(05:27):
protected under federal law. The Whistle Protection Act existed for
a while and then modifications made to it to allow
um contractors of specific federal agencies to report complaints. Um.
And that's kind of where we get the Inspector General's
office and all that stuff. So that's where we established
like the way that intelligence community whistleblowers could could come forward.

(05:50):
But whistleblowers in the intel community are not protected from
legal action and retaliation. UM. Yeah, that's crazy to me.
They're kind of hanging in the wind. Um. So in
two thousand two, when Thomas Drake notices this, like trailblazer
think's happening. Um, he takes a real risk by going
to the Inspector General's office and trying to deal with
this in the legal way. Um. And John Crane, the

(06:13):
Assistant Inspector General, wound up in charge of the case,
and he did what the laws that he was supposed
to do. Crane's team collected thousands of pages of documentation,
and in December of two thous fourteen, delivered a secret
report on the program that led to Trailblazer being shut down.
So so far, it seems like the system marking guys
saw something wrong, went to the people who was supposed
to go to They did their due diligence. Program got

(06:34):
shut down for being unconstitutional. That's good. Why would you
say so far? Because it's me got an uneasy feeling
in my stomach. Word of the program leaked out to
the media. We don't really know from who, but the
New York Times ran a story on it, and suddenly
all eyes within the intelligence establishment turned towards Thomas Drake.
He was suspected of hoarding documentation, which he had been

(06:57):
doing because it's literally what the Inspector General's Office had
told him to do and what he was supposed to
do legally. But the Pentagone threw him under the bus
uh and once the investigation into him started, they illegally
destroyed documents pertinent to his case that made it clear
that he'd been following the law the entire time and
not trying to like, uh lea classified information to the
press or whatever. Are they a good reason to be

(07:19):
hoarding those documents all that stuff. So Drake spent years
fighting the government in court. His career was destroyed, and
he was left penniless, even though in two thousand eleven
he was eventually found innocent. That's good, right, yeah, eventually,
I guess he's good, mean bad good Nick can Yep,
that's these days. So Crane's career was also destroyed. He
was forced out of the n s A in two
thousand and thirteen. This whole clusterfuck of an incident was

(07:42):
heavy in the air at the n s A when
a little fella named Eddie snowed and started to realize
that the n s A was carrying out another sweeping,
warrantless wired surveillance of the American damn it, Oh god, Cody,
that's so good it Cranes, it's snow yeah, pretty good.

(08:02):
All right, let's let's call it today. That's our himbo
by everybody just goin to cash our checks now, and
uh we'll be off that theme song. What's that play
us out? Yeah? Um So Edward Snowden realizes the n
s A is carrying out a sweeping, warrantless surveillance of
the American public. But he also is paying attention to

(08:25):
everything that's happening in the n s A around Crane
and Drake, and it's like, it seems like it's a
bad idea to follow the law here. It seems like
it seems like a terrible idea. In two thousands sixteen,
he said this to The Guardian. When I was at
the n s A, everybody knew that for anything more
serious than workplace harassment, going through the official process was
a career ender at best. It's part of the culture.

(08:46):
If your boss in the mail room lies on his
time sheets, the i G might look into it. But
if you're Thomas Drake and you find out the President
of the United States order the warrantless wire tapping of
everyone in the country, what's the i G going to do?
They're going to flush it and you with it. Now.
The good news is that twelve right before the Snowy
went public with his whistleblowing, President Obama issued Presidential Policy

(09:06):
Directive Number nineteen, which required to the intelligence community agencies
to protect employees from retaliation if they disclosed classified information
that met the criteria for being a protected disclosure. But,
as the Brennan Center for Justice notes, the directive leaves
several gaps. It does not apply in cases where the
head of an agency determines that an employee should be
fired for national security reasons. It does not apply to

(09:28):
persons in a position of confidential policy determining, policy making
or policy advocating character or two members of the armed forces.
If disclosures through approved government channels proved unsuccessful, there is
no provision for disclosure outside the agency or intelligence communities.
Is that that was the improvement? Obama use the Spionage
Act against more people than any other administration. I don't know.

(09:53):
I think this might have been because, like this is
before Snowdon goes out, So I think Obama might have
been trying to reform things and then he realized that
and he's president, he actually hates it when people do
stuff like that, and so he started being a giant dick.
I think he was. This is like two twelve. Those
are still good old days. Yeah, the halcyon days, back
when we were only mostly disillusioned. One in time. Now

(10:17):
this brings us to Edwards Snowden. Um critics of Snowden
will note that he did not exactly follow the established
procedure for trying to blow the whistle in a legal fashion,
and they will say that that's why he should face punishment.
Snowden defenders will point out that he just watched Thomas
Drake get sucked over by the n s A and
he had no reason to believe he would be handled
any differently. Very valid points, very very valid points. Seems

(10:39):
like he had realistic things to be concerned about. Now.
There are also a branch of Snowden critics who acknowledged
that he did the right thing in revealing the truth
of the government spying program, but he did the wrong
thing and fleeing the country. The school of thoughts says
that whistle blowing is fundamentally an act of civil disobedience,
which requires the disobedient individual will be willing to accept
the legal consequences for their actions. I've a really interesting

(11:00):
article talking about this sort of school of thought on
the law Fair blog. Classic Punishments of Civil Disobedience suggests
that it must be undertaken with a willingness to submit
to punishment. Doctor King's letter from a Birmingham jail focuses
on this feature. One who breaks an unjust law, according
to King, must do it openly, lovingly, and with a
willingness to accept the penalty. As Jessica Bowman, Posen and
I have written the civil disobedience, willingness to accept legal

(11:22):
consequences evinces her commitment to the police and humility before
fellow citizens, notwithstanding her momentary turn away from the law.
It is thus, for many theorists, a critical way of
negotiating the paradox of lawbreaking that is nonetheless law respecting,
a paradox that inheres in the pairing of civil with disobedience,
and that any satisfying account of civil disobedience must resolve
and line with these arguments. Critics of Snowden have repeatedly

(11:44):
insisted that his flight from the United States and from
criminal prosecution disqualifies him from civil disobedient status. Then Secretary
of State John Kerry, for example, told a television interviewer
in two thousand and fourteen that if Snowdon has a
complaint about what's wrong with the American with American surveillance
and seeks to himself as a civil disobedient, he should
man up, come back here and stand in our system

(12:04):
of justice and make his case. Interesting set of arguments.
Interesting set of arguments. I don't I think I agree
with them. I'm not a big law respect or part
of my problem. I don't feel like if I don't
respect this law, I don't see why, you know, if
I'm going out of my way to disobey this because

(12:26):
I don't know. I don't think I should be jailed
for this thing. Yeah, and I don't think he should
be shaped. And there's also there's like, okay, so in theory,
maybe like I understand these quotes. I understand like you're like, okay,
that's otherwise that negates your civil disobedience. But how am
I supposed to trust this system? How am I supposed

(12:46):
to trust that I will get a fair shake or
that this standing up in front of the court of
law will actually allow me to truthfully tell my story
if it won't conscued in some capacity. How do we
trust the systems where the system where it seems like
the people who have worked in it say that, oh yeah,
if you blow the whistle on blatant crimes, it's the
end of your career and maybe life. Yeah, Thomas Drake

(13:07):
works at an Apple store. Now really yeah, yeah, worked
at an Apple store. He ran into Eric Holder while
he's working there because Eric Holder was buying an iPhone
sure and he was. He asked him why the government
is going after him? Um, and so Eric Holder left
the store didn't get an answer. I think an Apple store.

(13:31):
We should record an episode of this podcast, Thomas Drake.
If we can talk to you about half this MacBook
Pro and half your court case for the next hour
and a half, will that count against your time. We've
got a lot, a lot of questions about these apps
that are available. We want another screen screen stuff. Talking
about the screen stuff, but also tell me about the

(13:54):
Inspector General Office. That's pretty saying like it's heartbreaking to
me because it seems like with an agency's problematic as
the n s A and his problematic the intelligence community,
a guy like Drake and a guy like Crane are
kind of like your best case scenario of people who
are like, Okay, they believe whatever they believe about their
being value in the the security apparatus we live under,

(14:14):
but at least they also believe in that our apparatus
being accountable to democracy, which is not super common as
far as I can tell, in a lot of those corners,
and those people just get fucked out of town on
like a river of razors. Know they don't, they don't,
they don't belong town in a river of razor blade penises. Yeah,
I think Thomas Drake would agree with that. That's not

(14:34):
how I want to leave town. I'll tell yet, literally
down the river. Another whistleblower apparently lives in Yellowstone and
fly fish is most time, that actually seems like great.
I mean, that's that's the way to that. Yeah, that
before Apple store, Yes, fly fishing and Yellowstone over selling
people iPhone. He might be able to get access to

(14:55):
a lot of people's secrets at the iPhone store, though
not as many as he can through fly fishing. But
most people don't know that if you put a fish
up to your ear, it will whisper secrets about public policy. Yeah,
most people don't know that, and I wish they, well,
they know it now most Yeah, they know that now.
They know that the sea bass have been bugging Mitch
McConnell for years. And remember, people, we only share facts
on this podcast. Only facts. Go outside and then dunk

(15:17):
your head in a river and hold it there until
that's actually word for word the next T shirt we're
going to start. Go outside and dunk your head in
a river and listen to fish whisper secrets into your
ear one cream. Okay, So before I broke from my

(15:37):
little essay, I noted that there's a lot of people
who think that Edwards Snowden, if you, if he wants
to be civilly disobedient and show respect to the law,
will also holding it accountable um or holding the system accountable,
should should stand in judgment um. And we just stated
what we're not sure we agree with that. Uh. And
there are some reasons to be very concerned if you're
Edwards Snowden about that, because a lot of his critics

(15:58):
have been less than warm and fuzzy than say John
Kerry Um, who did not call for his murder. For example,
in two thousand and fifteen, Donald Trump told CNN of Snowdon,
if I were a president, Putin would give him over.
He would never keep somebody like Snowden in Russia. I
guarantee you this now. In a little bit of fairness
to the President, he's been very consistent about this, this

(16:20):
single thing. In two thousand thirteen, he called Snowdon a
trader and directly asked for his execution. So as soon
as the story broke, his line the entire time has
been we should kill this current president. Yeah, he's been
very consistent specifically but in general, like you can generalize
from that, right, yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, Mike Pompeo is on

(16:40):
record as saying the trader, Edward Snowden, should be brought
back from Russia and given due process, and I think
the proper outcome would be that he would be given
a death sentence. Meanwhile, Eric, I'm sorry, but like you're
talking about due process and you skipped too. But by
the way, like we should kill him, that's a process.
There's a process to kill people. Eric Holder Form Attorney
General and Apple Store acknowledge that Snowden performed a public

(17:06):
service by revealing the extent of our government's a legal
surveillance of us, but added that he still thinks Snowdon
broke the law and harmed American interests. I'm glad you
didn't say, but added I still think he should die.
I didn't say he should die, just that he should
return and face trial. But if Snowdon does go to trial,
or if this most recent CIA leaker winds up in court,
or if whoever leaked the CIA leakers leak to the

(17:28):
newspapers winds up in court, it is possible that those
men or women will be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
This Act was originally created to punish spies during World
War One, and because laws are a perfect, flawless system,
it is still in effect, and it explicitly prohibits disclosures
of national defense information if the person doing so has
reason to believe it could harm the national defense. According

(17:50):
to the Brendon Center quote. As recently as two thousand
and six, a federal judge interpreted this language to require
the government to prove bad faith on the part of
the defendant. The judges in the case of John Kerria
Cow and Chelsea Manning, however, disagreed, declaring that the defendant
subjective intent is irrelevant. Another judge recently through the case
law into even deeper confusion. She held that the government
does not even need to demonstrate that the disclosure would

(18:11):
be potentially damaging to the United States or useful to
an enemy of the United States. So, um, it's very possible.
Because like judges don't all agree on this. Some judge
just say that, like you can't prosecute a whistle blower
like this under the Espionage Acts, but some say you do.
In one of the penalties if you're prosecuted under that
act can be getting hung That's what um, yeah, my

(18:34):
favorite thing about uh specifically this time, but in general, Uh,
like laws and our our system where the thing will
happen and then people will say it's a certain way
and then the will say, actually it can be the
other way. Yeah, and so uh, every law is interpreted
it in a way. It's kind of dependent on who's

(18:54):
doing it, and that the fossil blowers always know then
whether or not it's safe. Who informed the public of
things that are in the public's interest. Yes, our flawless system,
it's helpful. Yeah, yeah, really a productive, efficient system that
is promotes whistle blowing, promotes accountability. I think this whistle

(19:15):
blower has been very emphatic about how safe and secure
he feels or she it's a he oh do we
know I've heard on the daily Actually somebody said, like, no,
we do have a confirmability. It might not be, but
like I believe it is for Dick's good. That's good. Yeah,
I'm interested in what that process was like of confirming

(19:38):
I have to I don't. I do not know what
that is. I mean, there's only one way to know,
there's only one way to find out real gender, gender reveal.
But I like that fishe Um, yeah, wow, yeah, this
this whistle blower. You want to talk a little bit
about what's going on here with this story? Yes, about

(20:01):
that for the rest of the episode from Yeah, well,
so this whistleblower is with the CIA. Apparently he used
to work in the White House, does not anymore? Um,
and he was not there or you know, he didn't
hear this phone call himself. Of course, the phone call
and referring to is the phone call from July twenty
where the President was pressuring the Ukrainian President Zelinski Uh

(20:27):
to give him Derham Biden pertaining to this whole story
with Joe Biden's son. Maybe we'll get to that later. Anyway,
he wasn't in the room. He didn't hear this, but
he heard from several other people who were very nervous
and scared and didn't know what to do about it.
I mean, it's not true. So he didn't even go.
He went to the top lawyer in the CIA, but
he didn't go. He brought it to somebody else who

(20:48):
then brought it to the top lawyer in the CIA.
He took it to the White House. And then instead
of and like they were supposed to be fishing around
looking for information on the phone call, but instead it
became kind of like a witch hunt in the White House,
stuff looking for who's talking, who's sharing information. Eventually it
gets to William Barr who looks at it is like,
nothing to see here, folks, it's fine and psych do

(21:11):
not send this to Congress and then but that didn't
happen famously from then. But luckly the Inspector General had
already notified Congress that there was a whistleblower complaint. Yeah, yeah,
so I I got something a wrong a little bary.
The Whistleblower Protection Act as pertains to the Intelligence community

(21:33):
was pasted in UM, and the Office of the Intelligence
of the Inspector General UM wasn't created until I think
two ten UM. But the way the process is supposed
to work now is that the employee submits a complaint
to the Inspector General, who's kind of a watchdog of
the intelligence community, and the Inspector General has fourteen days
to review it determine whether or not the complaint is

(21:54):
of urgent concern um, which is defined as conduct relating
to the administration in our operation of an intelligence activity
within the authority of the Director of National Intelligence involving
classified information um. And if the Inspector General says it's credible,
they have to forward it to the d and I,
the Director of National Intelligence, who then has a week
to send the complaint to a Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee.

(22:16):
In August twelfth, the complaint was made and he handed
it to the Inspector He gave it to the Inspector General,
Michael Atkinson, who was like, oh, yeah, this is urgent,
incredible and absolutely should be talked about. And he sent
it to our d and I and Mr McGuire, who
was like, I don't need to send the ship to
the intelligence communities after seven days because he didn't think
it was that big of a deal. Um. Yeah, so

(22:40):
that's cool. Um, that's really cool. It sounds like it's
not a big deal, so we don't have to worry
about it. Yeah. There's a fun quote from the Washington
Washington Post article on this that's really telling to me.
The law did not require the Director of National Intelligence
to forward it to Congress because it involved conduct by
someone outside the intelligence community and did not relate in
any intelligence activity within the responsive and authority of the

(23:00):
d and I. Because it's the president. Yeah, because it's
the president. And that's what's crazy about this is just
how easy it was for the President to get away
with this. It's just so how easy it is. This
easily could have not come to light. And there's another
quote I'll read that that exactly gets into that, like
they never nobody anticipated this. Um. The Intelligence Community whistle

(23:22):
Blower Protection Act has no provisions for what should happen
if the Inspector General determines something is of urgent concern.
But the d and I refused forward it to Congress.
The scenario has never come up before, so we just
nobody thought that this should be part of the thing.
And in the course of the last couple of weeks,
it's like there's this news damn has broken up open

(23:42):
and you're getting all sorts of reports about, you know,
the President calling other like the Australian Prime Minister and
pressuring them to help, you know, discredit our intelligence agencies
in the Russia investigation and makes you wonder what other
things and what other one o the things like this
have been ignored or like determined like well that's not
actually these calls that were with MBS and uh, you

(24:08):
know putting there's different calls that are on the same
highly secure server as this call. The transcript was like,
there's just lots of stuff that people haven't had access to.
Speaking of a lot of stuff that people haven't had
access to. Do you know what stuff people do have
access to thanks to listening to this podcast, products and services.
That's goddamn right, thank you. You just jumped in there

(24:29):
with a smooth transition. Easily the best AD transition I've
ever seen. That was like, butter, that was the best transitions.
Talk about it. Yes you're done, Yes you do, like
then you unpack how it works. It's sort of like that.
My first AD transition was the report to the Inspector
General and and now it's caught up in the d

(24:50):
n I and I'm still talking. We haven't analyzing McGuire. Yeah,
is it worth doing the transition? Is it incredible? Yeah?
Nobody this never come up before fact that actually isn't
involved with the actual person that like can be hell account,
you know, it's there's a lot. There's so much too,
there is and it all makes for quality podcast Speaking

(25:11):
of quality podcasts, put us together everything, So don don
don we're back from so back. We just walked in
to find us here with these sad looks upon our faces.

(25:34):
We should have read more about whistleblowing. While I don't know,
I don't know, you wrote a quite a lot about
whistle blowing law. Yeah, you did a pretty good job.
That to syllables for the melody it was. You're right,
keep working on it. It's not the most important thing,
right now, get your mando out. We'll figure this out. Yes,
I'm gonna start bringing it to every recording well, because
my goal this year is to call a mandolin a mando. Yeah,

(25:57):
it's it's definitely makes it sound pervilier, thank you. Hey,
look at that, Look at that. Look at that mando.
Guy covered in lanyards, they'll say, Mando Lano the all lander.
Speaking of lanyards, this people the organizations often wear them,
and some organizations before they yeah, yeah, do we think

(26:22):
this guy is going to get executed? So that's that's
a good question. According to the president, that's what he wants. Yeah,
it is according to him. Um no, because I don't
think I don't think he can get away you'll get
away with well, I mean, we'll see what he can
get away with. Yeah. I trust our country's reputation and

(26:44):
protecting whistleblowers. Um, but like the execution, that seems that
seems a little much. Um. I wonder there's a lot
of stuff that America is capable of, and when Donald
Trump does them, uh, people react negatively to it, even

(27:05):
if it's something that like we've done before. Um. So
I wonder if people will be like, oh my god,
I can't believe they were you know. Um, in the
same way that there's a there are a lot of
people now protecting this whistleblower, calling him a patriot. Uh,
when just a few short years ago they might have
been calling Edward Stowen a trader. Sure, Um, we're talking

(27:28):
about the hypocrisy. Maybe maybe there's a there's a double stand.
They're quick to jump to this person's defense. Yeah, like
the patriot got to protect him when Yeah, this is
a really important conversation if we're about Bowers because it's
also like, but where was the where is the outrage

(27:48):
for Thomas Drake, which had it? Because nobody And that's
part of like we have we have all these people
have been paying more attention. But um, over the years
people cared about Chelsea Manny. But it's not the same,
it's not the same thing. I would say, the fundamental
difference that you have, UM, not that this means that
like I think that Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden should
be executed. Um. You have this difference between there's the

(28:12):
people who tried to do it within the system, and
there's the people who who did not, who just decided
that the system was not going to provide them a
realistic way to deal with it. And you can feel
about that the way you do. But it is if
someone is saying if someone is saying, I think that
Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning should be tried because they
broke the law and didn't go through the system, this

(28:32):
person should not be tried because they stayed in the system,
I would say that's not an inconsistent position, and they
disagree with it, but it's consistent. UM. But I would
say one of the issues in terms of like my
fearing for this whistleblowers life is one of the things
we saw with Drake was that he did everything by
the book and then as soon as somebody else leaked
it to the media, everyone just assumed it was him
and they threw him under the bus because the colud

(28:54):
been waiting for an opportunity to funck this guy. Um.
And that's my worry for the whistle blower is that,
like Trump's can it like you can't punish him for
going to the i G. But you can claim he's
a leaker, because that's what Trump's been talking about, is
trying the leakers for treason, leakers and spies. Yeah, I
think this person has some costs to be concerned. Absolutely,

(29:14):
he does well, especially since the president's up there tweeting
about it. The president's making it, you know, talking about
civil war. He's talking about you know, yeah, how traders
deserve to die. And and that isn't something that we've
experienced from an American president. That's something you see in
Richard Nixon would say all that stuff, but he'd say

(29:36):
it drunk into his desk microphone on Twitter. Here. That's
the best thing about recordings, No one will ever hear about, well,
you can't replay recordings. You know you can't. That's what's
good about recordings. It's also like, amidst all of this
and this concern, the New York Times just starts like
writing about the whistler's identity. Good, well, yeah, speak truth

(30:02):
to power. It's just it's so I mean, it's not
weird if you know The New York Times, but like
just a consistent every like big institution like that just
really just not helping. One of the things that was
really entertaining to me was I think it was a
member of Castro's team who like they put out a

(30:22):
bunch of information that was like publicly available information on
Trump donors, the people who would like maxed out Trump
and the New York Times. There was someone in an
opted on the Times criticized that as endangering those people's
lives and like potentially directing harassment towards itself. It's like,
and all we did was published publicly available information, and
then The Times published a defense of why it was

(30:43):
newsworthy to reveal personal information about the whistleblower. And it's like, interesting,
you guys think that might be inconsistent, Maybe that word again. Yeah, yeah,
I bet it was Brett Stevens or David Brooks. Maybe
it's probably one of those teams, maybe some amalgam of
them both, like that monster and the thing's just like
bubbling with Brett Stevens or Brooks is truly horrifying. Yeah,

(31:06):
probably some Charles Croudhammer in there. Probably, Yeah, cool, not great. Yeah,
I don't love when the president talks about treason in
in this way not really really not good. Um, a
person that's called for the death penalty for for a
lot of different reasons, but a lot of reasons, a

(31:27):
lot of reasons, um, for his entire life. Not a
flip flopper, not a flip flopper at least consistent about
might be flip flopping on that one tweet about can
you impeach a president for gross and competence? But he's
some flops on that. Yeah, um, but but like he knows,

(31:49):
he knows what he's doing too, with like the oh,
they're all witch hunting me and they're all coming after me,
and actually I'm the one that's under attack and you
need to protect to me from the treason and the
spies who were going to kill Maybe I have a
civil war. Maybe maybe we'll like slowly tweet about how
there's gonna maybe we should do a civil war. Hasn't

(32:10):
he already said several times that Adam Schiff is also
committing treason? Actually are are exciting? New segment of the
show Who Does the President Want Dead? This week? Number
one on that entry is Adam Shift? Can I read
you all a quote from the Daily Beast please? President
Donald Trump showed no sign of ending his weekend twitter rampage,

(32:31):
starting his Monday off with a tweet calling for the
arrest of Adam Shift for treason and mocking China on
its birthday. The President first attack the Democratic House Intel
chairman for fictionalizing his call to Ukraine's president during a
coggressional investigation hearing into the whistleblower complaint last week. During
his opening statement, Schiff hypothesize what Trump might have said
to make him sound like a mob boss. Rep. Adam Shift,
I legally made up a fake and terrible statement and

(32:53):
pretended it to be mine as the most important part
of my call to the Ukrainian president and read it
allowed to Congress and the American people, Trump wrote Monday morning.
It bore no resemblance to what I said on the call,
arrest for treason. It's it's a question that it's a
question for treason, treason, putting that out there, let's just
have a conversation about it. Rest for treason. I think

(33:17):
that's what I'm gonna ask, Like when I'm out with
friends and like we've been drinking a little while and
like we're considering with that to get a bite to
eat or going to the next bar. Arrest for treason,
for treason, Yeah, arrest for treason, arrist for treason, Yeah,
kill because me want stay president. We want to stay president.
Dead shift, consolidating power, yeah, great. Pattern of him just

(33:40):
sort of uh, because so many people talk about like, oh,
he's the treason president. He did that. He's a trader
and stuff, and like, yes, there are just people, but
he's the literal president. Yeah, maybe he shouldn't be saying
we're gonna kill these traders and maybe um, maybe he
was talking about the Second Amendment and like they're trying

(34:02):
to take away, take it away, saying like, oh yeah,
maybe the Second Amendment, people can take care of it.
Maybe just like a slow pattern of like literally the
president promoting violence real quick did you guys see that story, uh,
Wayne Lapierre, I believe n r A. No, it's so
President there was no he met with Donald Trump is

(34:23):
saying that the n r A would back his defense
impeachment defense if he like, but Nick gun, you let
the gun stuff slide. I wonder how they'll back. We'll
see what happens here. I will say one of the
things about that Trump tweet on Shift that I think
has been under reported. Um, everyone's talking about like the

(34:43):
arrest for treason, and then it's implicating he wants Shift dead,
which is a problem. That's a problem, um. And the
thing that concerns me also is Adam Shift illegally made
up a fake and terrible statement. How do you illegally?
How do you do that? Do you do that? Pretty sure?
First Amendment covers rhetorically what Adam Schiff was doing. You

(35:03):
can argue it was a good idea of that idea
for optics. Pretty sure the First Amendment covers that. Oh yeah,
if you listen to the actual context of a statements,
doesn't understand the First Amendment. So like when the President
just constantly calls anybody disagrees with them scumb and the
enemy of the people that and that now is saying that,
like just saying words is illegal. Yeah, that's a concern
to you. That might not be the like I would

(35:26):
consider it a a better trend line if the president
were saying, maybe we should increase the ice cream stockpile,
that would be less worrying than decreasing the amount of
speech that is legal. So a guy like a guy
who uh sued somebody over a joke, Yes, and who's
been constantly talking about repealing and like revisiting libel laws,

(35:48):
you're concerned about this someone who like historically is like
praising other leaders who jail and murder, jail and who
criticize them. Yeah, I don't know, might be reaching there. Um.
The Heritage Center is holding an event um uh called
Preserve the Constitution? Should the Press be restrained? Re examining

(36:12):
the Constitution. That sounds preservation, doesn't It doesn't it sound
like you're preserving the Constitution by restraining the press. The
Constitution loves the press not being allowed. That's my favorite
thing about the Constitution. Yeah, they thought about the press
after they wrote it, and like, we won't add anything.
We won't we won't make we won't address this In fact,

(36:34):
the first thing that happened after they signed the Constitution
was Thomas Jefferson walked outside, saw a newspaper and said,
what is this, Oh boy, who else is the president
threatening to have killed? This week? The whistle blow? That's
that's like the leakers to the time. Um, half of America,

(36:57):
half of America. UM. We could argue that those people
are illegal immigrants and consinuating a civil war. That I
I think that could fall into the category of UH
saying that half the country is going to be dead. Well,
are you pro or anti civil war? Cody? I I'll
lay it out here. I am generally anti civil war,

(37:18):
but I'm pro some people's anti civil war tweets because
some of them have been fun. This week there's some fun,
some fun. I mean, it's you know, I think it's interesting.
I'd rather than not be a talk about civil war
trending on Twitter for days. Well, the civil war thing is, UM,
it's really insidious and weird because the UH the idea
that people are like gunning for a civil war. I

(37:41):
didn't mean to say gunning, UM, but they are that.
Not only is it a desire of a lot of
people in the far right, but it also the claim
that people want it also comes from like right wing media,
and it's been this way for a long time. We've
been waiting for this, this has been building right. The
claim that, uh, you you'll see it a lot like

(38:01):
all the all these liberals they want they want a
civil war, that's actually not true. Um. It's usually said
in reaction to like liberals are like democrats following the
law to a t to hold people wanting only the
cops to have Usually the civil war wanters don't want
only the cops to have guns. Yeah, it's interesting, Um,

(38:23):
it's it's especially interesting to me these like far right,
like even like the Fox News folks being so uh
scared about a civil war, but they always talk about
a civil war. But they're also really anti government, so
it's just interesting that they choose the term civil war
when their ideology would indicate a revolution. I mean, has

(38:45):
there been some time in the past where like a
small extremist chunk of this country tried to fight for
their ability to do the shitty things they wanted to
do without any oversight from anyone else, and then maybe
that cause was lost? Did that happen? I just come
so no, Okay, good, good good. I'm glad there's no president.
Did you guys see this tweet from the oath Keepers

(39:07):
response tweeting the president's threat. I mean he was talking
about quoting somebody talking about a civil war. That's Donald
Trump and the oath Keepers quote tweeted. Retweeted that this
whole thread is important to read. The term civil war
is increasingly on people's tongue, tongues people's tongue, and not
just cold civil war, full blown hot civil war. Fact is,
patriots consider the left to be domestic enemies of the

(39:30):
constitution bent on the destruction of the republic. So I'm
trying to figure out, Now there's this like eight hundred
dollar night vision scope that I could get from my rifle. Um,
that is about the cheapest I can get thermal opticsful
for but the really good ones are like bucks. And
like it kind of depends for me on like how
soon the civil war is going to because the money

(39:51):
is not going to matter as much as thermal optics
if it starts well, but and if it's happening during
the winter, when you know the days are shorter, you
need at from the night time. Do I want to
make sure it's rubberized because rainy. It's going to be
when the civil wars have time to save up for
guys wouldn't be aware to the civil war because I
need to figure out now, oh, plate carriers, plate carrier carriers,

(40:14):
and uh maybe like a run the jewels hoodie. If
I talk about this near my phone, maybe I'll start
getting targeted ads on civil war here, maga hats and
pussy hats. Yeah, that's yeah, it's going to be terrible.
Pussy cats. Don't do I need to put like some
metal in my pussy you know, I know you're right,
you do need to. You need to get some plates

(40:35):
in there to protect nit knit around. I'm going to say,
run the jewels, hoodies, Run the Jewels. I think I
think Killer Mike would be on board with that. Um.
That seems like a pretty good time to pivot to
an ad break. Speaking of executing large numbers of political dissidents,
you know who doesn't do that? Tell me, tell me

(41:00):
corporations who support this podcast. Okay, I love corporations. No dissidence.
We've met all of our corporations to make sure they
do not execute dissidence. That's good. That's good. This is
why we're not running cocacola ads, not stockpiling weapons. Sophia
were running cococola ads. No, fantastic. That's the only problematic company. Yeah,

(41:23):
the only thing that's your ad break thought it was good,
was terrible. You're gonna start doing your God damn it.
I hate that's so much because not my fault. I

(41:46):
wasn't going to make any sound effects today, but I
was asked. You were asked, and then you made the
wrong one. You did like a cockroach eating something. It
sounded like cockroach eating pussy. It sounded like Tom Green's
playing with a dildo. There we go, Yeah, a cockroach
eating pussy. Together everything so down, down do what's Oh

(42:17):
my gosh, those I bought all of them. I bought
all the ads you did. Yeah, but I've also paid
for the products in the ads. You are now the
proud ender of a Coke Industries Tar Sans refining plant. Congratulations,
thank you. This is everything I've ever wanted. I think
you're gonna be bummed when you learn what tar sans are,
but I'm not going to ruin that for you. I'm

(42:39):
not going to look into it. Let's talk about about
Joe Biden crane a little bit about a backstory of
what's happening? Here? Can I give the back story of
Hunter Biden in two headlines no quotes, alright. The first
is the headline of a Washington Examiner article, Cocaine laced cigarettes,
cracking vodka binges Hunter Biden details is a drug and

(43:00):
alcohol abuse And the second is a Vanity Fair title
Hunter Biden has reportedly broken up with his late brother's wife. God, well,
there is some stuff going on with Hunter Biden. He
is a character that is a character wild. He reminds
me of, um, what you imagine the son of a

(43:21):
politician would be like, well, I think he's just the
case example of what happens when you name someone Hunter
going to smoke, crack and funk widows. That's crazy. Well,
I don't know about that Washington Examiner headline. No, no,
I mean it's a bad newspaper, but a fun headline
and not untrue and not untrue because wait, first of all,

(43:46):
Hunter Biden joined Bresma Cranian Gas company. Yes, while Biden
would still vice president, And I want to circle back
that in a second, But first I want to point
out that, Okay, the investigation into Bresma, and this whole
scandal uh started in just a month after Hunter joined

(44:06):
the company. So it is on its surface hard to
believe that any of the crimes or the things that
would be investigated have anything to do with Hunter, but
or that he would know how to commit that time,
because right before he joined Barisma, Hunter was discharged from
the Navy Reserve after yes testing positive for cocaine. But

(44:29):
what was interesting is that he had only been in
the Navy Reserve for about a year and he was
in his forties when he joined, so he had to
go get a waiver, which presumably also came through because
he's the vice president's son to join the Navy reserve, uh,
and he also had to get a waiver because of
past cocaine drug use just wild to me a little bit, Like,

(44:55):
I mean, sure he's got some stuff going on. It
seems like somebody that's like not finding his way in
the world, which further vice president. But see, like I
think that that's important when talking about the issue of
the vice president's son sitting on a foreign company. And
we talked about earlier about how people don't you know,

(45:16):
look at past whistleblowers with the same scrutiny as like
how we're reacting now to Donald Trump. Well, yeah, actually
that is a little shady and it is worth bringing up.
I mean, I'm not saying that it's worth Donald Trump
going through all of this dig of dirt on political
opponents and all that, and you know, he's looking for
information as to like why Victor Shogun got fired and

(45:38):
that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about
right here, which I just think is important to note. Um,
all right, this isn't like, this isn't perfectly legal influence. Yeah. Yeah,
it's something you can look at and go, we shouldn't
allow that kind of things. But it's not like a
shattering scandal that like, it's not this deep insidious corruption.
It's just like, yeah, that sucks that we operate that way.

(45:59):
If this is this was influenced pedaling on behalf of
the Ukrainian government, they suck at it because the Obama
administration barely gave them shit, uh, and they could have
used some ship like one thing you can actually say
in Trump's favors that at least he was willing to
sell them stuff like the javelins, which have been like
really useful in stopping Russian armor. Uh, and the Obama
administration was much more reticent to hand out weaponry. Um.

(46:21):
And this is maybe a war where we should have more,
But it's certainly you have a hard time making the
case that the Obama administration embraced some like super pro
Ukraine narrative when they were just kind of barely like
I guess will kind of help you not get invaded
as much as you otherwise might have, but still a

(46:43):
lot invaded. I mean, it's just a rat is trapped
in the corner and he's pointing at this thing this happened,
and uh, because he does it a lot too, where
he'll point something to be like this is that, this
is the real thing. This is the thing we're like,
the dangerous, bad thing we have to worry about because

(47:03):
he is feeling attacked and trapped. You mean that the
firing of Victor Shogun, the whole thing. Yeah, just like
he'll overblow these things to distract from the thing that
he's also projection. Yeah, there's so much. There's so much
wrapped into it, um that if you look into it
slightly like oh that's yeah. So I'm sure everybody is

(47:25):
aware of it, but this story is just like so
back in UH, Biden threatened Joseph Robin Biden Jr. Ukraine
with withholding this aid UH if they didn't fire Victor Shogun,
who was tasked with rooting out all of this corruption

(47:46):
in the Ukraine. The Ukraine, but sure getting there, um
and you know, Robert, you've spoken about this Ukraine is
full of corruption. This is something they do a lot
of times, and and and and the problem is that
they aren't actually a lot of people aren't actually interested
in getting rid of the corruption. And Victor Shogun but

(48:06):
by all accounts seems to be somebody that was not
doing a good you would job. You wouldn't call him
a Thomas Drake type figure, No, no aspirations to work
at the Apple store. You would call him and everyone
else in the intelligence community type figure. If we're comparing
the two. I mean, apparently he was going out of

(48:27):
his way not to investigate the owner of Barisma, who
was like an oligarch Nikola's Lovski I can't do if
you did the accent half, he was like straight up
refusing help and not investigating leads. Um and and so
that was the incentive for Biden to push so are
suggesting that his firing would actually possibly negatively negatively effective,

(48:52):
actually suggesting that because after that they hired a different
investigator who did investigate the company, and from all we know,
everything was in the clear. Especially that's Hunter Biden. You
find on one thing about Ukrainian Yeah, sure, corporations, it's
that they don't commit corrupt acts. That's why says about Ukraine.

(49:14):
That's the favorit thing about Ukrainian corporations, and my second
favorite thing about just corporations in general. But this is
it's interesting because Cody and I talked about this a
little bit yesterday, Like, you know, you can't compare that
with what Trump is doing withholding AID to try to
get personal information on his political opponents. You know what
I mean, you have a very different set of circumstances

(49:36):
that there is no comparing them if you have a
goal of that's sort of embraced by the international community
of we should do something about the corruption in this country.
We're gonna hold this aid, which other organizations also did.
A lot of international organizations were like, no, we're not
gonna do this money until you deal with the corruption.
That is slightly different than withholding AID that everyone agrees

(49:57):
should be given so that your personal grievances and political
opponents can be swept out of rubber taken. And also
my favorite thing about just the shade Throne is him
when in the call in the not a transcript transcript
of the really frustrated that just stop calling it a transcript,

(50:18):
just stop in the summary of the phone with a
collection of people's memory that's written as a script. For
some reason, probably that rhymes with piss monist flee um
uh nailed it um that that in that like, Trump
goes from complaining that the EU isn't spending enough, hasn't

(50:39):
spent enough money to help with Ukraine's defense um to
then sort of subtly threatening to not provide four hundred
million dollars in aid when the EU has added something
like sixteen billion dollars it spends on hoping like which
there's still in the an argument to be made that no,
actually you should should have spent a lot more, and
this is a European war and it's not being taken

(50:59):
seriously by the Member States. Very fair criticism to make.
But Trump dangling a four hundred million dollar aid package
and complaining the sixteen billion they've spent is not enough.
Is pretty rich? Um like him? Like him? He is
pretty rich, not as rich as like the four million
dollars that yeah, yeah, you got there, quicker. I I

(51:21):
just had a thought on Hunter Biden, a hot take
out there, which is, Joe Biden is kind of right
owned and kind of bafflingly so among liberals in the left,
pretty much all of whom were agreed that at least
the drug war shouldn't continue in its current form, even
if everyone sort of disagrees on how many substances should
be legally criminalized and forgets people's roles, And there's still
a widespread understanding for both liberals and the left that like, well,

(51:44):
we should stop most of this drug war thing, except
for Joe Biden, who's very much on board with the
drug war still. Maybe he just thinks that all drug
users are like his son, little party, little real, just
fucked up, and I'll constantly make in trouble, like like
I I will go to bat for all crack users
who aren't Hunter Biden very responsible, cocaine smokable and otherwise

(52:09):
um not Hunter Biden. Not I do agree in drugs
being illegal. For Hunter Biden, you're looking at that, You're
looking at the situation with the father's up. Yeah, different stance.
I'm saying, we need a new, narrower war on drugs.
Just focused on Joe Biden, Hunter Biden this campaign. Let's
get him in here and have that specific conversation and
see how it goes. D e A will have something

(52:30):
to do. Um, yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me.
He probably yeah, distanced himself from it somehow. He's a
he's a crusader. He's a crusader. Actually this, Um, he's
got my vote now, yeah, because well, because I want
to take care of Hunter Biden to uman end, you know,

(52:52):
oh yeah, yeah yeah, um, And if Joe is going
to do that, then then that's your person. Un disappointed Cody. Well,
because everyone else, like all the other everyone, all these
are the candidates are being like, oh yeah, uh Warren,
drugs ain't so great. Maybe we should like take care
of this and like get all these like non violent
offenders out of prisons. Throw on. And Joe Biden is
saying that, but he's also saying but also fuck my son.

(53:17):
So a one issue but voter and that issue is
hating Hunter Bright solid one. Yeah yeah, it's hard to
know like how much of this to get into, just
because it's so wide ranging. One thing that I think
that's really interesting is that, um, there's a couple of
things that have happened that are still kind of like,
uh controversial. One of them is that, uh, somebody leaked

(53:40):
to sixty Minutes that the whistleblower um was under federal
protection in part as a result of the President's tweets
and part as a result of Jacob wall bounty on
the leaker's identity. Wall was not mentioned in the leaked uh,
but we all know a press conference today, know that.

(54:06):
So this is a get Like talking about this is
like going through one of those Wikipedia summaries for like
a Star Wars movie. Like every page you're like clicking
of Lincoln Togger, Like, who, uh fucking um, who is
that guy we're making fun of in the episode that
hasn't dropped yet with the weird head dangly things. Oh h,
you gotta read about kid fisto exactly. The kid fisto

(54:29):
of this particular thing is that earlier today Jack Berkman,
Jacob Bowl's partner, who during the press conference to try
and uh slander Robert Mueller had his fly open. Oh
my gosh, they're just they're living art. So Berkman tweeted
that there was going to be a press conference at
noon real the identity of the whistle blower, and Jacob

(54:50):
Wolt around the same time released through his social media
that they weren't going to go public with the whistle
blowers because they needed extra extra time or something like yeah, um, well,
oiled machine, you are crossing. Yeah, I'm sure they just
need more time. Oh, it's it's just it is chaos.
There's just there. There are all these things that just

(55:11):
keep breaking, and you're not sure exactly how it all
connects or like what's going to pan out from all
of it stuff that we do seem to be seeing happen.
I already mentioned reports that you know, Trump is pushed
the Australian Prime Minister to help William Barr gather information
coming after like, lord knows how many conversations like could

(55:34):
you do could you do me a crime? Yeah, but
I'll do well, do you do you do a crime?
I do crime. I feel like all of the world
leaders who talked to him on the phone now have
to have a lawyer sit again. Just to be like,
I don't want to accidentally breaks that so complicated because
he also talks in such a weird way where like
you don't know if you're necessarily agreeing to do do

(55:57):
the crime. I mean, yeah, we've also learned that as
approached Italian and British intelligence agencies for the same thing
to Europe with Sebastian Gorka. Gorka was that Pompeo that
flew with Gorka? I don't know. He got Rudy Giuliani
flying all over the world going to Ukraine and Russia.
There's a smart and he's gonna and Mike Pompeo apparently

(56:18):
was on this July twenties just forgot about He just
forgot about it. Um. And he's been subpoena to appear
before three congressional committees. Um. But he's being a real
little bit about it. He's trying to avoid a civil war.
He's trying to avoid a civil war, which is inevitable
if you impeach the president, which is why he's working

(56:38):
with famous not civil war wanter. Sebastian carries two guns
of different calibers on a daily basis. Yeah, that's his
full name. Yes, Trump is, um has no interest in
a civil war? Yeah, real quick, sorry, this is it's unimportant, Um,
Donald Trump. Obviously it's alluding to like, if you impeach me,

(56:58):
we're gonna do a civil war. Um. He's previously talked
about the Civil War. Uh, in many, many different ways.
He has a plaque for the what the River of Blood,
which does not exist, the battle that didn't happen, never happened. Uh,
it's a plaque that they got made and it's installed.
There's still there. But at one point, you're talking about
the Civil War and he said, and I'm gonna this
is a direct quote from the President of United States.

(57:20):
People don't realize, you know, the Civil War if you
think about it. Why people don't ask that question? But
why was there the Civil War? Why could that one
not have been worked out? What? I've changed my mind
on this, President Trump? Yeah, yeah, that sounds really strong.

(57:40):
And why couldn't have worked out? You know, we could
have worked that out. We can't work out this impeach
a president thing. Yeah, but we could work out I
You run into stuff like that all the time, like
people like talking about like it's not just Trump. I
remember as a younger man watching a History Channel documentary
about World War Two that referred to it as like
five years with the world lost their mind, and I
was like, no, wait a second, Wait a second, there

(58:01):
was really just a couple of people who went crazy
and then everybody else had a lot of trouble cleaning
it up. Like yeah, it's one of those like who's
to say how it happened. It's like like, is that
girl Tenant bombs quote? We all know Custer died a
little big horn, But what I question is is what
if he didn't? What if But what if he didn't?

(58:26):
It's like, well, I guess if you were there, you
would have fixed it. It's just this whole like it's
like all this like movement of like forgiving the civil
warfare happening and like justifying it in the wrong way
and then being like we're going to do it again.
Like even like tanis to Susa a fascist propagandist, I
feel calling him that made a film called Death of

(58:48):
a Nation, which is fascist propaganda. Talking democrats are even
fringes on some copyrights. Arthur Miller had but a little bit,
a little bit, but um like clearly a reference to
the nation um. And it's so it's like all this
imagery of like Trump is the new Lincoln and he's
going to do another civil war. Like it's just this
constant like wanting to do it the whole time. And

(59:13):
you can hear it when they and how they talk
about it, like like there's like this love and desire
and need to like murder liberals, and like you see
these tweets and these people like, oh, you fucking want one.
They want it so bad, they want it so bad,
and they want to blame the other side for wanting
it just like own it. Say you want to kill people? Yeah,

(59:36):
you're saying, well, I think we're getting there. It's been
really to watch. I've been on the not popular side
of of saying, okay, guys, gun control debates aside, maybe
now is not the time to disarm uh people on
on the left. Maybe maybe now is the time to
consider some some training in some of these things, because

(59:56):
it seems like we're heading in a bad direction. And
I saw Dave Anthony of the Alup, who has been
very very much pro gun control and whatnot, recently put
out a tweet along the lines of, uh, maybe it's
time for leftists to start arming themselves. Um. And if
you're someone who's considered that and you want some reading
on the matter that's not at all propagandistic and not

(01:00:16):
at all um um sort of like filled with jingoism
and like the traditional sort of like Hollywood bullshit. There's
a great book by Scott Crowe who's an activist in
Texas I think currently called Setting Sites, which is a
bunch of essays on the history of liberatory community self defense.
Really good book. Maybe maybe look into it. Setting Sites
a s I G h T S solid book. Um, Yeah,

(01:00:40):
there's a There's two things I wanted to still get
through on the fucking whistle blower thing. One of them
is that so we before we got on this digression
because again this is like one giant convert um sixty minutes,
was like the whistleblowers under federal protection because of all
of the threats, um, And then the whistleblowers attorney was like, no,
he's not. And then I think USA today is still

(01:01:02):
standing by the reporting. So yeah, we don't really know what.
Very confusing. Another confusing thing, well, another interesting thing. So
the Inspector General is sort of like the government watchdog.
That's like kind of overseeing a large chunk of this
because that's their job, is dealing with the whistleblower complaints.
They're not a very political position. They do not make
statements to the nation. That's really not their job as

(01:01:24):
a matter of fact. That their job is to kind
of determine whether or not the whistle blowing complaint is
like credible and then move it up to chain and like.
But they're not famous for their addressing of the world press. Uh.
The President and several of his allies started to claim
that the whistleblower complaint was not credible because it was
entirely based on hearsay and based on just things he'd

(01:01:45):
heard from other people rather than anything he had witnessed.
In The Inspector General's office made a public statement saying
that is not true. The whistleblower at least a significant
of what some of what the whistle blower was saying
was based on things the whistle blower witness um. So
in but yeah, it's not just like he also talked
to people, but like some of this he witnessed yes, yeah, um,

(01:02:07):
which means default it's based on more than just the
conversation that the not a transcript. Transcript was released on
because it means that because he definitely was not the whistlebler,
was not present for that other ship. Yeah, there's just
there's more stuff that you be coming, and it's gonna
be coming on the pipe really fast when it starts
to come, like there's just going to be so much.
It's changing more and more, and like when it comes,

(01:02:33):
Adam shifts gonna get hung when it so just so
showed me. A headline of Pompeo accuses Democrats of impeachment bullying,
and I rou hey be best best. I never thought
about the best best God. This is good advice from

(01:02:57):
my beautiful wife, Milannia, who couldn't make it here today.
Actually she's standing right next to you. Oh, my beautiful
wife's right here. Just a little trip down memory lane?
Was that? Are we sure that that moment wasn't was
the president fucking up and not the president actually just
being a huge talking hits fan Because you may say

(01:03:19):
to yourself, this is not my where's those big suits?
Or and he does let the days go by? It's
not an animal's an for a home? You guys, Oh boy,
you know what's better than following politics? Listening to the
talking Heads, great music. Oh my god, do you guys

(01:03:44):
want to end it by saying that talking ship about
how honest says he's gonna have the best podcast ever? Yeah,
let's do that. I think there's a couple of things
we've got to break down on the Rudy Jewel. Uh.
One of them is him shouting at a reporter who
was interviewing him, the whistleblower is not going to be
the hero. I'm going I'm the hero, which is a like. Honestly,

(01:04:07):
I have to think that when Donald Trump read that,
even the President would have been like, dude, Rudy, come
on like you You don't think he thought like, how
dare you? I'm going to be the hero, the biggest buffoon,
and look what's happened to his life? America's what's happened
to him? It's it's pathetic. It's it's it's beautiful. It's

(01:04:29):
a real, beautifully pathetic. He's my beautiful man. It's a
real case for enforced term limits. It's the same thing
with like Joe Biden. If Joe Biden obviously did a
lot of bad stuff before he was VP, but if
he just ended his political career, there nobody would be
making fun of him for anything. We would every now
and then there'd be a picture of him and Barack
Obama holding hands at a ball game and be like, ah, nice,
and then we could continue being worried about things that

(01:04:50):
matter protein strings through hand holding. If Rudy Giuliani after
eleven had just been like, well, I'm just going to
be America's mayor forever and live in a house in
the Atta Rondex, I wouldn't have any issue. I wouldn't
say anything about Ruddy Julie. Nobody would care anymore. We'd
have moved on. Whatever problematic things he had done in
his past and as mayor would have been forgotten and

(01:05:11):
we could we could just focus on the other problems.
But instead it's Rudy Giuliani Cigar Club podcast. It's him.
There's so many people surrounding the president now who are
in that category of like, how did you come back?
Why do you come back? It's because power is addictive.

(01:05:32):
In being those positions is addictive, and even if you
know it's going, like, even if you look into getting
like undeservedly in Giuliani's case, a great reputation, because you
you don't like ship your pants when eleven happens that
anyone asked a couple of days later, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah, even when like, if you're that guy, you
would rather go back and work with a historically corrupted,

(01:05:52):
unpopular regime than not be powerful, to not have that
attentions of taste. It's a drug. M'll get your bowl full.
As Jake Tapper would say, God, let's not get into that.
We're well over an hour here now. Talked about the
West the other day. Oh, we are getting into it.

(01:06:16):
Um yeah, it's all frustrating, but I think we should
in this episode by acknowledging that our friend Rudy Giuliani
was overheard at a cigar club in New York recently
talking about the new podcast. How many minutes do you
think he'll get into the first episode before he legally
reveals confidential, Not that it's going to be, it's just

(01:06:38):
him reading redacted parts of the it's not capable of
doing this without stepping and all sorts of breaks. Anyway,
I just wanted to my crime, My Crimes by Rudy Giuliani.
I do want to congratulate our producer Sophie Lichter forgetting

(01:07:00):
the root of Giuliani job. You're gonna do a great job,
so if you were very smells as much like onions
as I assume he does. It's like onions and like
menthal like I would say, baby farts. Yeah. Oddly enough,
he doesn't smell like cigars, which would really be in imprement.

(01:07:22):
Smells like he smells like Cody's Uh. He smells like
the sound Cody makes when he's trying to make the
sound of time, the famous time Have you not seen
any time travel movie? Apparently not. I'm not in Primer.
Can I send to before Cody started doing that? Just

(01:07:47):
rewind the episode and started again from the beginning, and
that will erase this from Primer stops. You can check
us out on the internet on Twitter, at Worst your Pod,
on Instagram Worst your Pod. Sooner or later we'll have
a website not yet. Also merch stores Rudy if you

(01:08:09):
want to. If you want to be a guest on
the show, hit us up at Worst your Pod. We
have a seat for you and I will smoke a
cigar with you. I love cigars actually, and I love
baby fart, so works love. He's my He's my beautiful man.
Oh Cody loves Rudy. That was weird. Cody didn't blink
dark terms, it's deep. It's deep love. Cody never blows

(01:08:30):
when he's talking about lust, and neither should you. That's
the podcast. Worst Year Ever is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(01:08:53):
listen to your favorite shows.