October 3, 2024 • 21 mins
Are vice-presidential debates really about fiery exchanges, or is there a deeper, strategic game at play? In this episode of the Keystone Reckoning Podcast, we dive into the recent face-off between JD Vance and Tim Walz, where Coach Walz ran the ultimate trick play—choosing calm and civility over aggression. We unpack how Walz’s calculated performance forced Vance to fumble a key question about Trump’s 2020 election loss. Drawing parallels to historic debate moments like Bentsen vs. Quayle, we break down how Walz’s approach wasn’t just smart, but a potential game-changer, resonating with undecided voters looking for leadership over bluster.
But the real kicker? The play didn’t stop there. The very next day, Special Counsel Jack Smith released a bombshell court filing, reinforcing Walz’s debate strategy by spotlighting Trump’s role in the January 6th insurrection. We’ll break down how the Harris-Walz campaign timed this maneuver perfectly, amplifying the stakes and driving media coverage. By keeping the focus on democracy and using strategic restraint, the Democrats may have set the stage to capture voters’ attention in a way that could reshape the 2024 election.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
maybe, just maybe, the old coach was running a
trick play all along.
Hi, welcome to the KeystoneRecording Podcast.
I'm Jesse White.
It is Wednesday, october 2nd2024.
We are now 34 days from thepresidential election and, like
anybody I think that would belistening to this podcast, you
(00:23):
spent last night watching thevice presidential debate between
JD Vance and Tim Walls, andthis general consensus coming
out of the debate in the mediawas that Walls didn't do that
great of a job.
He didn't light the room onfire and that he let JD Vance
get away with an awful lot.
And he let JD Vance get awaywith an awful lot.
(00:43):
And I think that's true to someextent, mainly because JD Vance
, to anybody that's beenfollowing this race, is just
such a muppet and we just can'tstand him right, like we just
(01:03):
can't stand him say anythingsycophant, who is just a
terrible politician but justobviously not a good person.
Anybody that'd be willing to dothat just isn't a good person.
And Tim Walz, by comparison,has been put out there as
America's cool neighbor and allthe things that we like about
(01:24):
him, and I think we wereexpecting the kind of dressing
down and calling JD Vance out ona lot of things and it didn't
happen.
And I think at first I thoughtthat it had to do with that.
That may not just be who TimWalls is Right that it had to do
(01:47):
with that, that may not just bewho Tim Walz is right.
He is a respectful guy and he'snot going to stand there and
get into a shouting match withJD Vance because the thought
being that the American peoplewant to see something better.
They want to see that we can becivil and cordial and there's
some bipartisanship to be hadyet in our government, to which
I would respond I don't know ifthat's even true at this point.
(02:08):
It's certainly not true withanybody that's a trump supporter
.
But we have to also remember thedebate wasn't for people like
me, it wasn't for magna, it wasfor that very thin sliver of
voters that are undecided orpersuadable like that's the
audience.
That's it.
Don't do anything that's goingto ruin your own base.
Do no harm and try to appeal tothat very narrow window of
(02:30):
voters, which means, almost bydefault, the hardcore
progressives are going to comeaway from that feeling
disappointed, because whatprogressives are going to want
to see might not be, almostcertainly won't be, what
undecided voters will want tosee.
They're two different thingsand, quite frankly, you've
(02:50):
already got my vote, you don'tneed to earn it again.
But if you need to go out andget the vote of the person
that's undecided to help you win, I'm cool with that because I
know where you're at.
I get it, no problem there.
There was a lot of hand-wringing, though, about the fact that jd
vance was able to kind of justlie and roll over so many things
and really kind of soften hisimage, and that was the thing
(03:13):
that you know, jd vance is justnot a good person, and it
allowed he.
He was able to humanize himselfand make him a little himself,
a little more personal.
I mean, bar was very low, butthat was where it's at.
But then I had two thoughts.
My first thought was thismorning and I'm 46 years old
(03:34):
I've watched every presidentialand vice-presidential debate
that I can remember, going allthe way back, and I can
specifically remember in termsof a vice-presidential debate.
I can only think of one momentin one vice presidential debate
that I could ever recall being amoment that transcended that
(03:59):
debate, that anybody rememberedafter the debate was over, and
that, of course, was theinfamous Lloyd Benson-Dan Quayle
debate in 1988.
And, by the way, do you think,like, is there any chance in
hell that Donald Trump wouldeven know who, like Lloyd Benson
was Just the name, right?
Would he even have a prayer ofknowing who?
(04:19):
That was Just curious, I mean,it's a bit of a deep cut, but it
just struck me as funny.
But Dan Quayle, who shared,like he was kind of like a
prototype of JD Vance in a way.
He was an empty suit, right,dan Quayle wasn't evil like JD
Vance is, but he was an emptysuit.
And you know, senator fromIndiana, and he stood there and
(04:46):
the question was would you beready to assume the presidency
if need be, or something likethat?
And it was basically, are youexperienced enough for the job?
And he's.
His answer, which against mostother opponents would have
probably worked, was words,words, words.
And then he came back and said,to try to make this comparison,
I'm as experienced ingovernment as Jack Kennedy was
(05:08):
when he won the presidency.
And I would imagine just usingcalling him Jack Kennedy, if you
weren't like a friend of his,probably would piss you off
anyway.
So he gave his answer and LloydBenson did, who was a cabinet
secretary, I believe.
I even don't know really whatexactly.
I who was a cabinet secretary.
I believe I even don't knowreally what exactly.
I believe he was a cabinetsecretary, I'm almost certain of
(05:29):
it, and he was an older guy andhe had like the kind of big old
guy glasses and everything andhe stood there real quiet for a
minute and he said and I'm goingto paraphrase but before they
even got to the question, helooks at Quayle and he says,
senator, I knew Jack Kennedy, Iserved with Jack Kennedy.
(05:49):
Jack Kennedy was my friend.
You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.
Boom, boom, great line.
And unless Quayle had used thatline somewhere else on the
campaign trail and his team gotit which I don't know, I'm sure
before social media was a lotharder to keep track of what was
being said out there If itwasn't a line that Benson knew
(06:10):
Quayle was going to use, thenthat's one of the best pure
political, like quick strikeresponses you'll ever hear in a
debate.
I mean that was just fantastic.
But the point being, ittranscended the debate.
Obviously.
You know Bush and quayle wonthe election and but he kind of
set the wisdom.
(06:31):
That damn quayle was alightweight uh, there was, you
know.
Then he went like attack, likemurphy brown and there's a whole
thing about how he misspelledpotato, whatever like.
Those were simpler days when,like, not being able to spell
potato was considereddisqualifying.
I mean, jesus, that's God.
I wouldn't give that backAnyhow.
The point being, to breakthrough in a vice presidential
debate is incredibly difficultand Tim Walz, it felt like for
(06:54):
the majority of the night, wasnot going to have that moment,
but then he did and you know atthis point, if you've watched
the debate, you know what I'mtalking about.
It was the moment where he wenton the offense to press JD
Vance to acknowledge whether ornot Trump lost the 2020 election
(07:15):
and JD Vance just absolutelyfumbled it.
He could not have done it anybetter in terms of giving
Democrats what they wanted interms of response.
He just would not answer it.
And Walls, who had been very,again, kind of timid isn't the
right word, but deferentialalmost the entire night was
(07:39):
right there with the response.
He said that's a damning,non-response response.
You know he said that's athat's a damning non-response.
And you know, in a world wherethese debates are just words,
words, words, words and so manywords, everybody's talking all
over each other.
It was one of those rare timeswhere it didn't take much to get
the point across and it wasdefinitely a less is more moment
(08:00):
.
And obviously the harriscampaign, you know they were
chopping that up, that was, thatwas the soundbite, that was
what they were running with, andrightfully so, and it was a
quantity versus quality thing.
I would say.
I think jd vance scored moreglancing blows and accomplished
(08:22):
more of what he set out toaccomplish and I think he did a
very good job of it, quitefrankly.
But he's slick.
I mean, he could do that.
But I think if you had it all,when it's all said and done, and
you had a choice, would youhave rather had the night JD
Vance had or the night that TimWalls had.
(08:43):
At the end of the debate Iwould have maybe said it was a
toss-up.
I think that as the morningcame about, I think you would
have said probably leaning TimWalz.
But then later today happened,and the thing that happened
today, just a few hours ago, wasJack Smith released his brief,
(09:08):
or the pleading.
Well, the court released it.
He had filed it under seal.
The judge in this is the DCelection interference case, the
January 6th case, and theargument, the reason the
document was filed was,ironically, because of the
Supreme Court ruling sayingTrump had immunity.
It got kicked back down to thejudge.
The lower court judge said OK,well, make your argument as to
(09:32):
why the immunity here doesn'tapply.
There's, obviously, it's abroad immunity that the Supreme
Court has given to Trump.
But there's, there's, there wasroom.
And now you get to make theargument as to why.
Well, in a way, that kind ofreally opened it up for Jack
Smith because he was then ableto do kind of a data dump.
It was necessary, he didn'thave a choice, but he filed this
(09:52):
165-page document that laid itall out, including evidence that
had not been previouslyreleased, and the judge had it.
Trump's side had a chance torespond via pleadings.
The pleadings were basically itwas from the like the Jim
Carrey in the movie Liar Liar,and you know he can't tell a lie
(10:13):
and he's a lawyer and heobjects.
And the judge says why are youobjecting?
And he says because that isdevastating to my client.
Right, that's what this was.
They were like you can'trelease this because it's going
to hurt him in the election.
Really, all they had.
So the judge released, allowedit to be published into anything
wrong by releasing it.
It was.
You know, it was a docket andit's heavily redacted in in
(10:34):
certain things, but there's likean 80 page rundown of kind of
what happened on january 6th andall the evidence and it is
unbelievably damning and it'sreally filling in the the
coloring book page of what mostof us kind of already knew or
suspected to be true.
But on January 6th Trump'sstaffers and advisors came to
(10:56):
him and said look, it's over,there's nothing here.
They found out that Mike Pencewas not going to step in and go
with the fake elector strategy,so we're like right up against
it now.
We're getting right theretime-wise and all hell breaks
loose.
This is after Trump gives hisspeech.
All hell's breaking loose atthe Capitol.
Trump sits down, is watching TVand his people around and they
(11:21):
said you know, mr President,there's a riot going on.
This is getting out of hand.
I forget the exact words hey,this is for real.
Or this is getting out of hand.
(11:50):
I forget the exact words hey,yo, this is for real.
And they're watching it.
And the one advisor says letthem riot.
Do it Now to be clear thatTrump, that is not attributed to
Trump and some of the socialmedia and everything are saying
that Trump said that he didn't.
No one's claiming that he did,let's be fair but he certainly
didn't say no, that's no, that'snot cool, right like he was
definitely in on it.
And it goes to show, maybe moredeeply than we've ever seen,
just how absolutely brazen andcomplicit not even complicit how
much trump was driving whathappened.
So obviously that's a majornews story and you've got.
You know, trump is likeunhinged posting on true social
(12:13):
like.
Even for him, and this clearlyyou know this is his worst
nightmare.
That this all comes out beforethe election, because he knows
it's true.
Of what would he rather not seewould be like real January 6th
evidence or like the alleged peetape.
I think he'd have to thinkabout it.
(12:34):
But this is obviously a majorissue and anything that they and
I think that a lot of we talkedabout the fake outrage machine
and everything that's going onClearly a lot of it is designed
to distract from the real issue.
As crazy as it sounds likeeating dogs and cats at
Springfields, actually they'drather talk about that than
January 6th, because at leastthey can turn it.
(12:55):
You know, it's that thing whereif you're at a circus, you
better be the ringmaster.
Politically, you need to be incontrol of the narrative.
As insane as the narrativemight be, if you're controlling
it you're doing something.
And they've also kind of numbedall of us to this insanity and
(13:17):
kind of normalized it all.
But if you think about it, theHarris campaign knew that this
had been filed.
I mean, it was public knowledge.
It was filed a few days ago andthe judge had to make a
determination on what she wasgoing to put on her seal.
Again.
The Trump legal team hadn'tresponded.
There were no like gotchathings.
(13:38):
Trump's team knew every step ofthe way.
Everybody knew it was coming.
Now the Harris campaign I'msure didn't know verbatim what
was in it, but I'm sure didn'tknow verbatim what was in it.
But I'm also sure that you know, as the sitting vice president,
forget the campaign.
She is privy to quite a bitabout what actually happened on
January 6th that she can't eventalk about.
I don't know how she couldn'tbe, quite frankly, and what I'm
(14:01):
sure is coming to them throughthe campaign and everything else
through back channels.
I don't think there was a lotof question as to what exactly
was going to be in that filing,or maybe about what exactly it
would be, but it was a matter ofdegrees.
They knew the broad strokes.
So let me just drop that theoryon somebody that this was going
(14:28):
to be dropping shortly after thedebate, by the nature of when
it was all done, and you knewthat this is the one issue Trump
doesn't want to talk about, isit crazy?
Is it crazy to basically tellTim Walz to go in there and say
you know what?
Rope it open.
(14:48):
Go in there, let him get hislittle smug comments.
Let him lie about his childhood.
Let him lie about this.
Let him lie about that.
Let him get a littleoverconfident himself.
You need to come out of thisdebate with exactly one thing Is
you need to get him to talkabout January 6th and whether or
(15:09):
not trump won the election,because that's, that's part one.
Get jd vance to get on therecord right then and there
bring kind of bring it back upto the forefront.
That'll tee it up and then whenthe, when the pleading becomes
public, that will absolutely itwill destroy any credibility
that JD Vance had, despiteanything he might have said, and
(15:31):
because there weren't a lot ofcrazy things that came out of
the VP debate, the news cycle on.
It was going to be shorter,right, if Tim wasn't going in
there and start talking aboutSpringfield and eating dogs and
cats.
That brings that all back upagain.
If he goes in there and reallystarts attacking JD Vance and
(15:51):
Trump on some of these crazythings, it stirs up that tempest
in a teapot again, and thenthat's what the media will talk
about.
That's what everybody will bedistracted by.
But if Tim Walz went in thereand was cordial and civil and
didn't throw a tantrum and kindof put everybody to sleep,
including his opponent in thedebate, because he only needed
(16:15):
to come out of there withexactly one thing Maybe I'm
giving them too much credit here, but if I knew that filing was
about to come out and it wouldbe damning I'd want exactly two
things to happen to maximize theattention that it would get.
(16:37):
This is due.
This is important.
I'm not saying other thingsaren't important, but this is
super important Politically andmore just for me, making people
understand what the hell isgoing on.
The first thing I would wantwould be some sort of recency to
the campaign so they can't actlike it happened a million years
ago, and JD Vance was clearlyready for that right.
We are focused on movingforward.
(16:58):
Okay, well, that doesn't changewhether or not that happened.
And Vance actually screwed up.
He could have said Trump hasacknowledged he lost the
election recently.
I think he could have easilysaid something like you know,
president Trump himself hasacknowledged the outcome of the
election.
I think at this point it's amatter of public record.
(17:19):
There wasn't a whole lot youcould come back with, but he
needs to please daddy so muchthat he couldn't possibly go
against him and imply that helost the election.
So that's the first thing youneeded that recency of his own
(17:41):
vice president speaking up thereon behalf of the campaign.
If the one takeaway you'regoing to get from JD Vance is
now that he's a sick of it,right, he is a true believer for
Trump or a true disbeliever.
The second thing you would wantis and I'll use another sports
analogy here is you would wantthe field cleared right From a
(18:04):
narrative and from a media pointof view.
You wouldn't want a bunch oflittle non-stories or minor
stories to be out there like thelow-hanging fruit.
What you would want would beeverybody all geared up for the
fallout from this raucous vicepresidential debate that was not
at all raucous, and noweverybody's standing around with
(18:25):
their microphones saying, well,hell, now what do we do?
Boom, filing drops, that's it.
That is now the news cycle,because now you've got that, now
they can go back to what JDVance just said last night.
Then you've got Trump goingballistic over it and what have
(18:48):
you done?
You've taken the single mostimportant issue of the campaign
preserving democracy the singlemost important campaign issue to
undecided voters or people thatare on the fence.
You have put it front andcenter and you have now had the
top two people on the ticket inDonald Trump and JD Vance.
(19:11):
Go in there and reinforce itand validate it, validate their
position.
That's beautiful, that's amasterstroke.
Obviously, no one will evercome out and admit it, and maybe
this was just all a series ofhappy coincidences, and I know
(19:32):
they did the bit where they saidoh, tim Walz is nervous about
debating, but that's typicallower expectation stuff.
I mean, yeah, that's all gamesand shit.
I just have to wonder.
I was watching last night,couldn't quite figure it all out
, and then watching whathappened today gives a lot more
(19:53):
context and I think that maybe,just maybe a little.
Coach Tim may have pulled aplay from very, very deep in the
playbook, and it's one that mayhelp them ultimately win the
game.
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(20:13):
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(20:33):
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That's TrueBlueGearcom.
maybe, just maybe, the old coach was running a
trick play all along.
Hi, welcome to the KeystoneRecording Podcast.
I'm Jesse White.
It is Wednesday, october 2nd2024.
We are now 34 days from thepresidential election and, like
anybody I think that would belistening to this podcast, you
(00:23):
spent last night watching thevice presidential debate between
JD Vance and Tim Walls, andthis general consensus coming
out of the debate in the mediawas that Walls didn't do that
great of a job.
He didn't light the room onfire and that he let JD Vance
get away with an awful lot.
And he let JD Vance get awaywith an awful lot.
(00:43):
And I think that's true to someextent, mainly because JD Vance
, to anybody that's beenfollowing this race, is just
such a muppet and we just can'tstand him right, like we just
(01:03):
can't stand him say anythingsycophant, who is just a
terrible politician but justobviously not a good person.
Anybody that'd be willing to dothat just isn't a good person.
And Tim Walz, by comparison,has been put out there as
America's cool neighbor and allthe things that we like about
(01:24):
him, and I think we wereexpecting the kind of dressing
down and calling JD Vance out ona lot of things and it didn't
happen.
And I think at first I thoughtthat it had to do with that.
That may not just be who TimWalls is Right that it had to do
(01:47):
with that, that may not just bewho Tim Walz is right.
He is a respectful guy and he'snot going to stand there and
get into a shouting match withJD Vance because the thought
being that the American peoplewant to see something better.
They want to see that we can becivil and cordial and there's
some bipartisanship to be hadyet in our government, to which
I would respond I don't know ifthat's even true at this point.
(02:08):
It's certainly not true withanybody that's a trump supporter
.
But we have to also remember thedebate wasn't for people like
me, it wasn't for magna, it wasfor that very thin sliver of
voters that are undecided orpersuadable like that's the
audience.
That's it.
Don't do anything that's goingto ruin your own base.
Do no harm and try to appeal tothat very narrow window of
(02:30):
voters, which means, almost bydefault, the hardcore
progressives are going to comeaway from that feeling
disappointed, because whatprogressives are going to want
to see might not be, almostcertainly won't be, what
undecided voters will want tosee.
They're two different thingsand, quite frankly, you've
(02:50):
already got my vote, you don'tneed to earn it again.
But if you need to go out andget the vote of the person
that's undecided to help you win, I'm cool with that because I
know where you're at.
I get it, no problem there.
There was a lot of hand-wringing, though, about the fact that jd
vance was able to kind of justlie and roll over so many things
and really kind of soften hisimage, and that was the thing
(03:13):
that you know, jd vance is justnot a good person, and it
allowed he.
He was able to humanize himselfand make him a little himself,
a little more personal.
I mean, bar was very low, butthat was where it's at.
But then I had two thoughts.
My first thought was thismorning and I'm 46 years old
(03:34):
I've watched every presidentialand vice-presidential debate
that I can remember, going allthe way back, and I can
specifically remember in termsof a vice-presidential debate.
I can only think of one momentin one vice presidential debate
that I could ever recall being amoment that transcended that
(03:59):
debate, that anybody rememberedafter the debate was over, and
that, of course, was theinfamous Lloyd Benson-Dan Quayle
debate in 1988.
And, by the way, do you think,like, is there any chance in
hell that Donald Trump wouldeven know who, like Lloyd Benson
was Just the name, right?
Would he even have a prayer ofknowing who?
(04:19):
That was Just curious, I mean,it's a bit of a deep cut, but it
just struck me as funny.
But Dan Quayle, who shared,like he was kind of like a
prototype of JD Vance in a way.
He was an empty suit, right,dan Quayle wasn't evil like JD
Vance is, but he was an emptysuit.
And you know, senator fromIndiana, and he stood there and
(04:46):
the question was would you beready to assume the presidency
if need be, or something likethat?
And it was basically, are youexperienced enough for the job?
And he's.
His answer, which against mostother opponents would have
probably worked, was words,words, words.
And then he came back and said,to try to make this comparison,
I'm as experienced ingovernment as Jack Kennedy was
(05:08):
when he won the presidency.
And I would imagine just usingcalling him Jack Kennedy, if you
weren't like a friend of his,probably would piss you off
anyway.
So he gave his answer and LloydBenson did, who was a cabinet
secretary, I believe.
I even don't know really whatexactly.
I who was a cabinet secretary.
I believe I even don't knowreally what exactly.
I believe he was a cabinetsecretary, I'm almost certain of
(05:29):
it, and he was an older guy andhe had like the kind of big old
guy glasses and everything andhe stood there real quiet for a
minute and he said and I'm goingto paraphrase but before they
even got to the question, helooks at Quayle and he says,
senator, I knew Jack Kennedy, Iserved with Jack Kennedy.
(05:49):
Jack Kennedy was my friend.
You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.
Boom, boom, great line.
And unless Quayle had used thatline somewhere else on the
campaign trail and his team gotit which I don't know, I'm sure
before social media was a lotharder to keep track of what was
being said out there If itwasn't a line that Benson knew
(06:10):
Quayle was going to use, thenthat's one of the best pure
political, like quick strikeresponses you'll ever hear in a
debate.
I mean that was just fantastic.
But the point being, ittranscended the debate.
Obviously.
You know Bush and quayle wonthe election and but he kind of
set the wisdom.
(06:31):
That damn quayle was alightweight uh, there was, you
know.
Then he went like attack, likemurphy brown and there's a whole
thing about how he misspelledpotato, whatever like.
Those were simpler days when,like, not being able to spell
potato was considereddisqualifying.
I mean, jesus, that's God.
I wouldn't give that backAnyhow.
The point being, to breakthrough in a vice presidential
debate is incredibly difficultand Tim Walz, it felt like for
(06:54):
the majority of the night, wasnot going to have that moment,
but then he did and you know atthis point, if you've watched
the debate, you know what I'mtalking about.
It was the moment where he wenton the offense to press JD
Vance to acknowledge whether ornot Trump lost the 2020 election
(07:15):
and JD Vance just absolutelyfumbled it.
He could not have done it anybetter in terms of giving
Democrats what they wanted interms of response.
He just would not answer it.
And Walls, who had been very,again, kind of timid isn't the
right word, but deferentialalmost the entire night was
(07:39):
right there with the response.
He said that's a damning,non-response response.
You know he said that's athat's a damning non-response.
And you know, in a world wherethese debates are just words,
words, words, words and so manywords, everybody's talking all
over each other.
It was one of those rare timeswhere it didn't take much to get
the point across and it wasdefinitely a less is more moment
(08:00):
.
And obviously the harriscampaign, you know they were
chopping that up, that was, thatwas the soundbite, that was
what they were running with, andrightfully so, and it was a
quantity versus quality thing.
I would say.
I think jd vance scored moreglancing blows and accomplished
(08:22):
more of what he set out toaccomplish and I think he did a
very good job of it, quitefrankly.
But he's slick.
I mean, he could do that.
But I think if you had it all,when it's all said and done, and
you had a choice, would youhave rather had the night JD
Vance had or the night that TimWalls had.
(08:43):
At the end of the debate Iwould have maybe said it was a
toss-up.
I think that as the morningcame about, I think you would
have said probably leaning TimWalz.
But then later today happened,and the thing that happened
today, just a few hours ago, wasJack Smith released his brief,
(09:08):
or the pleading.
Well, the court released it.
He had filed it under seal.
The judge in this is the DCelection interference case, the
January 6th case, and theargument, the reason the
document was filed was,ironically, because of the
Supreme Court ruling sayingTrump had immunity.
It got kicked back down to thejudge.
The lower court judge said OK,well, make your argument as to
(09:32):
why the immunity here doesn'tapply.
There's, obviously, it's abroad immunity that the Supreme
Court has given to Trump.
But there's, there's, there wasroom.
And now you get to make theargument as to why.
Well, in a way, that kind ofreally opened it up for Jack
Smith because he was then ableto do kind of a data dump.
It was necessary, he didn'thave a choice, but he filed this
(09:52):
165-page document that laid itall out, including evidence that
had not been previouslyreleased, and the judge had it.
Trump's side had a chance torespond via pleadings.
The pleadings were basically itwas from the like the Jim
Carrey in the movie Liar Liar,and you know he can't tell a lie
(10:13):
and he's a lawyer and heobjects.
And the judge says why are youobjecting?
And he says because that isdevastating to my client.
Right, that's what this was.
They were like you can'trelease this because it's going
to hurt him in the election.
Really, all they had.
So the judge released, allowedit to be published into anything
wrong by releasing it.
It was.
You know, it was a docket andit's heavily redacted in in
(10:34):
certain things, but there's likean 80 page rundown of kind of
what happened on january 6th andall the evidence and it is
unbelievably damning and it'sreally filling in the the
coloring book page of what mostof us kind of already knew or
suspected to be true.
But on January 6th Trump'sstaffers and advisors came to
(10:56):
him and said look, it's over,there's nothing here.
They found out that Mike Pencewas not going to step in and go
with the fake elector strategy,so we're like right up against
it now.
We're getting right theretime-wise and all hell breaks
loose.
This is after Trump gives hisspeech.
All hell's breaking loose atthe Capitol.
Trump sits down, is watching TVand his people around and they
(11:21):
said you know, mr President,there's a riot going on.
This is getting out of hand.
I forget the exact words hey,this is for real.
Or this is getting out of hand.
(11:50):
I forget the exact words hey,yo, this is for real.
And they're watching it.
And the one advisor says letthem riot.
Do it Now to be clear thatTrump, that is not attributed to
Trump and some of the socialmedia and everything are saying
that Trump said that he didn't.
No one's claiming that he did,let's be fair but he certainly
didn't say no, that's no, that'snot cool, right like he was
definitely in on it.
And it goes to show, maybe moredeeply than we've ever seen,
just how absolutely brazen andcomplicit not even complicit how
much trump was driving whathappened.
So obviously that's a majornews story and you've got.
You know, trump is likeunhinged posting on true social
(12:13):
like.
Even for him, and this clearlyyou know this is his worst
nightmare.
That this all comes out beforethe election, because he knows
it's true.
Of what would he rather not seewould be like real January 6th
evidence or like the alleged peetape.
I think he'd have to thinkabout it.
(12:34):
But this is obviously a majorissue and anything that they and
I think that a lot of we talkedabout the fake outrage machine
and everything that's going onClearly a lot of it is designed
to distract from the real issue.
As crazy as it sounds likeeating dogs and cats at
Springfields, actually they'drather talk about that than
January 6th, because at leastthey can turn it.
(12:55):
You know, it's that thing whereif you're at a circus, you
better be the ringmaster.
Politically, you need to be incontrol of the narrative.
As insane as the narrativemight be, if you're controlling
it you're doing something.
And they've also kind of numbedall of us to this insanity and
(13:17):
kind of normalized it all.
But if you think about it, theHarris campaign knew that this
had been filed.
I mean, it was public knowledge.
It was filed a few days ago andthe judge had to make a
determination on what she wasgoing to put on her seal.
Again.
The Trump legal team hadn'tresponded.
There were no like gotchathings.
(13:38):
Trump's team knew every step ofthe way.
Everybody knew it was coming.
Now the Harris campaign I'msure didn't know verbatim what
was in it, but I'm sure didn'tknow verbatim what was in it.
But I'm also sure that you know, as the sitting vice president,
forget the campaign.
She is privy to quite a bitabout what actually happened on
January 6th that she can't eventalk about.
I don't know how she couldn'tbe, quite frankly, and what I'm
(14:01):
sure is coming to them throughthe campaign and everything else
through back channels.
I don't think there was a lotof question as to what exactly
was going to be in that filing,or maybe about what exactly it
would be, but it was a matter ofdegrees.
They knew the broad strokes.
So let me just drop that theoryon somebody that this was going
(14:28):
to be dropping shortly after thedebate, by the nature of when
it was all done, and you knewthat this is the one issue Trump
doesn't want to talk about, isit crazy?
Is it crazy to basically tellTim Walz to go in there and say
you know what?
Rope it open.
(14:48):
Go in there, let him get hislittle smug comments.
Let him lie about his childhood.
Let him lie about this.
Let him lie about that.
Let him get a littleoverconfident himself.
You need to come out of thisdebate with exactly one thing Is
you need to get him to talkabout January 6th and whether or
(15:09):
not trump won the election,because that's, that's part one.
Get jd vance to get on therecord right then and there
bring kind of bring it back upto the forefront.
That'll tee it up and then whenthe, when the pleading becomes
public, that will absolutely itwill destroy any credibility
that JD Vance had, despiteanything he might have said, and
(15:31):
because there weren't a lot ofcrazy things that came out of
the VP debate, the news cycle on.
It was going to be shorter,right, if Tim wasn't going in
there and start talking aboutSpringfield and eating dogs and
cats.
That brings that all back upagain.
If he goes in there and reallystarts attacking JD Vance and
(15:51):
Trump on some of these crazythings, it stirs up that tempest
in a teapot again, and thenthat's what the media will talk
about.
That's what everybody will bedistracted by.
But if Tim Walz went in thereand was cordial and civil and
didn't throw a tantrum and kindof put everybody to sleep,
including his opponent in thedebate, because he only needed
(16:15):
to come out of there withexactly one thing Maybe I'm
giving them too much credit here, but if I knew that filing was
about to come out and it wouldbe damning I'd want exactly two
things to happen to maximize theattention that it would get.
(16:37):
This is due.
This is important.
I'm not saying other thingsaren't important, but this is
super important Politically andmore just for me, making people
understand what the hell isgoing on.
The first thing I would wantwould be some sort of recency to
the campaign so they can't actlike it happened a million years
ago, and JD Vance was clearlyready for that right.
We are focused on movingforward.
(16:58):
Okay, well, that doesn't changewhether or not that happened.
And Vance actually screwed up.
He could have said Trump hasacknowledged he lost the
election recently.
I think he could have easilysaid something like you know,
president Trump himself hasacknowledged the outcome of the
election.
I think at this point it's amatter of public record.
(17:19):
There wasn't a whole lot youcould come back with, but he
needs to please daddy so muchthat he couldn't possibly go
against him and imply that helost the election.
So that's the first thing youneeded that recency of his own
(17:41):
vice president speaking up thereon behalf of the campaign.
If the one takeaway you'regoing to get from JD Vance is
now that he's a sick of it,right, he is a true believer for
Trump or a true disbeliever.
The second thing you would wantis and I'll use another sports
analogy here is you would wantthe field cleared right From a
(18:04):
narrative and from a media pointof view.
You wouldn't want a bunch oflittle non-stories or minor
stories to be out there like thelow-hanging fruit.
What you would want would beeverybody all geared up for the
fallout from this raucous vicepresidential debate that was not
at all raucous, and noweverybody's standing around with
(18:25):
their microphones saying, well,hell, now what do we do?
Boom, filing drops, that's it.
That is now the news cycle,because now you've got that, now
they can go back to what JDVance just said last night.
Then you've got Trump goingballistic over it and what have
(18:48):
you done?
You've taken the single mostimportant issue of the campaign
preserving democracy the singlemost important campaign issue to
undecided voters or people thatare on the fence.
You have put it front andcenter and you have now had the
top two people on the ticket inDonald Trump and JD Vance.
(19:11):
Go in there and reinforce itand validate it, validate their
position.
That's beautiful, that's amasterstroke.
Obviously, no one will evercome out and admit it, and maybe
this was just all a series ofhappy coincidences, and I know
(19:32):
they did the bit where they saidoh, tim Walz is nervous about
debating, but that's typicallower expectation stuff.
I mean, yeah, that's all gamesand shit.
I just have to wonder.
I was watching last night,couldn't quite figure it all out
, and then watching whathappened today gives a lot more
(19:53):
context and I think that maybe,just maybe a little.
Coach Tim may have pulled aplay from very, very deep in the
playbook, and it's one that mayhelp them ultimately win the
game.
Thank you for listening to theKeystone Reckoning podcast.
(20:13):
If you like what we do and wantto support it, please visit
keystonereckoningcom.
You can make a contribution toour political action committee
there to help Democrats up anddown the ballot.
And also please visit oursponsor, truebluegearcom.
All sorts of funny Trump swag,election swag, non-political
stuff, but kind of all over thespectrum Something for everybody
(20:33):
.
That's TrueBlueGearcom.
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