October 22, 2024 • 21 mins
2,500 pages. How can you quickly and easily digest 2,500 pages of material? More than just a summary or table of contents, what if you could dive into the core issues, pull up a timeline, or even create a study guide?
That’s exactly what you can do with Google NotebookLM, a powerful new free AI tool that requires no training, coding, or even RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) expertise to put the power to work on any assets you please. Simply upload your documents, videos, and other digital assets, start asking questions, and let it do the heavy lifting. And if you prefer a podcast format, NotebookLM can even output a podcast style audio file for you to listen to, making content incredibly consumable. Your favorite podcast hosts explaining it all to you during your daily walk, run, or commute.
Recently, a friend introduced me to NotebookLM. At the same time, Jack Smith dropped another 1,600 pages of evidence in four appendices related to the January 6th trial, full of dense assorted text material, tweets, book excerpts, interview transcripts, and pages of redactions to interrupt any sort of consumption flow. Add to that 165 pages in Document #252 and the 845-page January 6th commission report, and I had over 2,500 pages of information to put the NotebookLM to the test. So I uploaded all of it into NotebookLM and started asking questions.
But what I’ve never seen before, and couldn’t wait to try, was the ‘’generate a podcast.’ feature. As a longtime media producer, podcast host, and guest, I was intrigued. How would it turn thousands of pages into a conversational podcast between a host and an educated guest?
I hit "create podcast," and in less than 10 minutes, I had a 15-minute podcast ready to go. I added some simple talking head animation, to give a face to the voice, and hit ‘play.
(the male host sounds a bit like Leo Laporte, legendary long time tech podcast host).
The result is simply amazing.
The podcast is a very digestible way to consume the key points from the all those PDF files. It is an early version, and there are places where the sentence gets divided between the voices a bit more then necessary, but I think you’ll be amazed.
Jump to 03:54 to get to the start of the podcast, within a podcast.
AI and GenAI are accelerating its impact on our lives faster than we realize. These tools are not novelties, they're reshaping the way we work, consume, and generate media, often making information more accessible. We must understand and familiarize ourselves (or master if you can) with them before they get even further ahead. Don’t wait. Start integrating tools like this into your workflow today. Experiment. See what AI can do for you.
We are getting supercomputers in the palm of our hands, that we can talk to, no coding required.
Google NotebookLM: AI, Ingest, Create a Podcast | Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick Ep38
#AI #GenAI #NotebookLM #January6th #Podcasting #DataAnalysis #GoogleAI #AIInnovation #JackSmith #Vote #Automation #Supercomputing #TrialAnalysis #Jan6 #DigitalTransformation #TechTools #ContentCreation #Interview #Podcast #TurnTheLens
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Okay.
In three.
Two.
One
Hey, welcome back everybody.
Jeff Frick here.
Coming to you from the home studio
for another episode of‘Turn the Lens’
And, you know, you almost need a friend
to help you get through this AI stuff.
It's coming sofast and furious.
So we've got somethinga little bit different for this.
(00:21):
This edition ofour AI adventure.
So a friend of minereached out
and he asked me if I'd heard of this new thing
called notebooklm.google.com
or excuse menotebooklm.google.com
It's a Google notebook AI tool.
And, you know, one of the challengeswith, say, ChatGPT
and some of the other toolsis trying to get your own data in there.
(00:42):
And there's things like RAG [Retrieval-Augmented Generation], and
there's a lot of software waysthat you can get
your own data in there to make itmore relevant to your own search.
But as a non coder, you know,it doesn't work so well yet.
I'm sure it will work better later,
but this is aninteresting twist on it,
so definitely worthchecking it out.
So if you go to,
https://notebooklm.google.com/
(01:04):
that's https://notebooklm.google.com/
You can start loading it with documents.
And you know, recently on the Jack Smith January 6th trial
he just released, I think it was,
let me see, [a] 1,300 page appendix,
highly redacted, so there's lots ofblank pages and pages with black.
(01:27):
So it's really hardto get through the whole thing.
So I thought, you know,what I'll just do
is I'll load the January 6th, trial library into this machine
and see what comes back.
So here's what I loaded.
I loaded the October 2nd filing.
It was 165 pages,a PDF,
and I'll put all the links in the notes belowif you want to check these things out.
(01:49):
Or you can do whatever you want to load into yours.
I put in this new October 18th appendix.That's 1,353 pages.
And then I added the January 6thfinal report, which is 845 pages.
So a quick and dirty math.
That's 1,300, 2,000, close to 2,500 pages, thereabouts.
(02:10):
2,200, 2,300, 2,400 [pages]something like that.
Into this thing.
And then there's all types of things you can do once you've loaded your data into the system
and you can add YouTube videos, you can add all types of things,
You can get an FAQ, you can get a study guide,you can get a table of contents,
you can get a timeline,a briefing document, as I said, a summary.
(02:31):
But you can start to alsoask it questions.
Which is pretty cool,
but another feature that it has, which I'd never seen before,
and this is what I really want to experiment
and share with you today, is
you can actually generate a podcast.
So, it will generate a two host or a host and a guest
talking head podcast of
(02:54):
with the data thatyou loaded in.
So, with that said,I went ahead and generated a podcast.
It’s about a 15 minute conversationbetween a male and a female host.
I wanted to sharethat with you today.
I went ahead and used, some of the Adobe tools to add a talking animation head.
I don't play with theanimation very much.
(03:14):
I'm not very good at it,but since I play in video,
it's nice to have somethingto look at while the a
while the audio plays.
But this is a first generation cut
you'll notice there’s a couplelittle hiccups here and there,
but generally pretty amazingthat you can take 2,500 pages
of documentation load it into this thing.
And I think it took about 6 or 7, 8 minutesto generate this MP3, this,
(03:39):
this file that I turned into a podcast.
So without further ado,let me share the podcast,
of basically ingesting the January 6th trial information.
Here it goes about 15 minutes.
All right, so
You ready to unpack
one of the most talked about days in recent history?
January 6th.
You got it.
(03:59):
You sent over the January 6th report
and some filings from Jack Smith's investigation.
Looks like we're going for the full picture here.
Absolutely.
And it's more thanjust the day itself,
Right, it's about understanding the strategy.
The people, all those behind the scenes details.
Exactly. Those details are essential.
This wasn't just a sudden eruption.
It was a series of calculated choices.
(04:20):
Take for instance, the foundation of it all.
The big lie, what the report calls it.
This wasn't just Trump claiming victory.
It was planned.
Premeditated strategy.
Planned wellin advance.
Oay, so break this down.
How could it be planned?
If nobody knew who was going to win?
Because it wasn't aboutwho was going to win,
but about controlling the narrative.
So like... Spin
(04:43):
In a way, yes.
See, the report revealsthat Trump got advice, right?
They told him that early electionresults might favor him
because of how votes were counted.
You got it.
In-person votes tend to get countedfaster than Mail-In ballots,
and those [mail-in ballots] were heavily favored by Democratic voters in 2020.
Interesting.
So there's this potentialfor an early lead
(05:04):
that might not actually meananything in the end.
Exactly.
They even had a name for itthe ‘Red Mirage’
a potentially misleading early lead for Trump.
Okay, I'm starting to seewhere you're going with this.
So they knew aboutthis ‘Red Mirage’,
and knowing that they planned for
Trump to immediately declare victory
if he had any lead on election night,
no matter how many voteswere left to be counted.
(05:24):
Wow, that's bold
To say the least.
And we're not just speculating here.
The report actually cites communicationsabout this very scenario.
Like there's one from Tom Fitton.You know he was
President of Judicial Watch back then,
urging the White Houseto prepare for this exact thing.
So it waspremeditated.
This wasn't about accepting the results.
It was about controlling the storybefore the full picture was even in.
(05:46):
And sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the process itself.
It's incredible how much planning went into this.
Mm-hmm
And it wasn't just about controlling the story, was it?
There was a very real pressure,especially on some state officials.
Oh, absolutely.
And the report really highlights that call between
Trump and Georgia Secretary of State[Brad] Raffensperger.
Chilling phone call.
Is it ever.
(06:08):
Trump straight up pressured him
to find enough votesto overturn Georgia's results?
Even implied Raffensperger could be inlegal trouble if he didn't play ball.
Wow.
Talk about anabuse of power.
And it didn't stop with state officials either, right?
The report also mentions Trump tryingto use the Department of Justice, the DOJ.
Absolutely.
(06:28):
Trying to get themto back his claims.
Even considered replacingthe attorney general
with someone who would,
well, you know.
Do his bidding
Essentially.
See, the attorney general oversees the DOJ
and they investigate thingslike election fraud.
If Trump could put someone loyal to him in that position,
That could have changed everything.
Huge implications.
Wasn't Jeffrey Clark a DOJ lawyer involved in all this?
(06:49):
Yes.
Clark was more than willingto go along with Trump's plan.
And what wasthe plan, exactly?
Trump considered appointing him acting attorney general
because Clark was ready.
No hesitation
to send this letter.
Letter to who?
Several states.
And the letter urged them to basicallyignore the legitimate election results.
(07:10):
Ignore the results.
What would they look at instead?
These illegitimate slates of electors
put forward by, you guessed it,
the Trump campaign.
Wait.
Alternate electors?
What is that? Some kind of ....
Imagine each state's electors,
the people who officially cast votes for president
based on the state's popular vote.
These alternate electors were basically a group of Trump loyalists
(07:33):
claiming falsely to be the legitimate electors.
Even though Biden had won those states.
Exactly.
So you've got Trump trying toinstall people who'd back him,
even if it meant underminingthe entire election process.
It's unsettling how far this went.
And then there's that tweet.
“Be There.Will be Wild!”
I remember thinking at the time,it was reckless,
but I had no idea.
(07:53):
The report directly connects that languageto what happened on January 6th.
It wasn't just reckless.
It was a spark to a powder kegmobilizing extremist groups.
Proud Boys, Oath Keepers who were keyplayers in the violence that day.
And the report actually shows these groupswere inspired by that tweet.
Directly. There's social media posts, messages where they specifically
(08:16):
reference it as a call to action,
their green light to goto [Washington] DC.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
And it wasn't justthese groups, was it?
No. The report also shows how Trump's wordsmotivated thousands of his supporters,
people who are already convincedbecause of the big lie
that the election was stolen.
It's just horrifyinghow it all played out.
And then amidst all that chaos,
(08:36):
there are those 187 minutesthat I think still haunt a lot of people.
The 187 minutes
between the start of the riotand when Trump
finally told his supporters to leave the Capitol.
187 minuteswhere he refused to act.
His own Vice President [Pence] was being hunted by a mob and nothing.
What was even doingduring that time?
What didthe report find?
Well, that's where things getespecially interesting and very troubling.
(08:59):
The report paints a pictureof a president
who was more focused on holding on to power
than on actually protecting the nation.
The report describesa scene just chaotic
in the Oval Officeduring those 187 minutes.
So paint the picture for us.
What's happeningwhile the Capitol is under attack?
White House aides practicallybegging Trump to call off the mob.
(09:21):
To tell them to go home.
Members of Congress, even his own familytrying to get through to him frantically.
And Trump glued to the television.
He's watchingthis happen.
Watching it unfold like it was some kindof spectacle put on just for him.
It’s just. I can't even imagine.
He's watching his supporters stormthe Capitol, putting people's lives at risk.
And he's
Doing nothing.
(09:41):
At least that's what the report details.
And even when he does finally release that video message
tells the rioters to go home.
Well, it's full of contradictions.
You mean the one where hetells them he loves them?
That's the one.
Even as he's telling them to leave,
he can't bring himself to condemn what they did.
Calls them very special.
Says he understands their anger.
(10:01):
It's almost like
Like he's trying to appease them even then.
Almost. And get this.Releasing that video.
Not even his idea.
At least not initially.
Really.
According to the report,
it took a lot of back and forth,his advisers really pushing him.
Can you imagine having to push a presidentto tell a violent mob to stay peaceful?
It's mind blowing.
(10:21):
It really makes you questionhis state of mind at that moment.
And what about Pence during all this?
He's in the Capitolliterally being evacuated.
And Trump's
Nowhere to be found.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's a stark contrast.
The report really highlights how Pence, facing this direct threat.
He steps up, fulfills his duty.
His constitutional duty.
Right.
He's in constant communication[with] military leaders
(10:43):
even giving orders
To deploy the National Guard.
Yes.
In Trump's absence.
Pence is making sure the electoral votes can be counted.
And the president is now totally derelict in his duty.
It's incredible.
You've got the vice president,someone who is so loyal to Trump
basically having to become
Acting president.
It's like something out of a movie.
And that's what the report drives home.
(11:05):
While the Capitol is under siege,elected officials fearing for their lives,
the actual president of the United Statesis totally absent.
Not part of any decision making.
It really makes you questionhis understanding of the presidency
of the oathhe swore to uphold.
Absolutely.
The report also mentioned something about
Trump wanting to join the march to the Capitol himself.
(11:27):
Yeah.
According to witnesses,he was insistent on it.
Even threw a tantrum when the SecretService told him it was too dangerous.
Hold on.
He wanted to be with the mobas they stormed the Capitol.
That's what multiple witnesses say.
Including a Secret Service agent.
They claim he was furiouswhen they told him he couldn't go.
But I thought I read that Mark Meadows, his chief of staff,
(11:48):
denied that in his book.
Meadows claims Trump never intendedto actually go to the Capitol,
but the report directlycontradicts that
because the firsthand testimony of those who were there.
So why would Meadows,you know,
Try to cover it up?
Yeah,
It's a good question.
And this back and forth between Meadows’ version
and what othershave said,
(12:08):
it raises questionsabout his role in all of this.
Unfortunately, we don't have all the answers.
The report talks about how some key Republican lawmakers
Kevin McCarthy, for example,
refused to comply subpoenas and all that
Stonewalling the investigation.
Essentially.
And that obviously makes it harderto get to the full truth,
to figure out the extent of the coordinationbetween Trump and members of Congress
(12:31):
in the lead up to January 6th.
So we've got Trump pushing the big lie,
pressuring stateofficials,
trying to put his own people in the DOJ,
inciting his supporters with that tweet.
Yeah.
And then he'sessentially missing in action
for 187 minuteswhile the Capitol is under attack.
It's a lot.
It's starting to feel less like a spontaneous riot
and more like
An attempted coup.
(12:51):
And that gets to the core of what Jack Smith's investigation is looking at
whether Trump's actions, his inactionduring those 187 minutes
add up to a criminal conspiracyto defraud the United States,
obstruct an official proceeding,
Which are.
Very serious charges.
And his court filings,they seem to be
Building a case.
(13:11):
Yeah
They do.
One filing, for example, arguesthat Trump's pressure on Pence
to overturn the election results
completely outside his authority as president.
And therefore
Not protected
No presidential immunityfor something like that.
Because what he was asking Pence to do was
Illegal.
Yeah
Exactly.
Smith, he cites all these legal experts who agree.
(13:32):
Yeah
The Vice President's role,
counting those electoral votes, it's ceremonial.
Pence had zero legal authority to reject electors
to change the outcome.
What Trump was proposing was,
well, it was a coup.
But trying to makeit sound legal.
Exactly.
So Trump was demanding that Pence violate the Constitution.
That's the argument.
And the filings, they go even deeper,
(13:52):
detailing the pressure on state officials
attempts to weaponize the DOJ.
His role in inciting the riot itself.
It's a lot of evidence.
It is.
But it's important to rememberthis is just what's been made public.
There couldbe more.
Oh, there's definitely more we haven't seen yet.
What about this schemewith the fake electors?
Ahhhh yes, the fake electors.
(14:12):
Another tactic.
The Trump campaign organized these groups,
individuals in a few different states, all loyalists
to declare themselvesthe legitimate electors.
Even though Biden won those states.
You got it.
But how could they thinkthat would actually work?
It was a longshot.
Even some of Trump's own advisers thought so.
The idea was to create chaos, disrupt the official count.
(14:35):
They were banking on Pence.
You know, he was overseeing the count
to use these fake slates to justifyrejecting the actual results.
So basically createenough confusion that,
Yeah,
the election would have to be decided by
Congress, potentially
declaring Trump the winner
but they would have never
gone along with it.
Right. It seems farfetched even for
Trump.
Yeah,
(14:55):
It was dubious legally and ethically.
But it just shows you how desperatehe was to hold on to power.
It's almost funny, in a way.
If it weren't so terrifying.
Exactly.
A blatant attempt to just toss out democracy,
the will of the people.
And it wasn't just about political gamesmanship, either.
The money
The money
The report goes into detail about how the Trump campaign, the RNC,
(15:19):
they use these claims of election fraud
totally baseless
to raise millions of dollars
from his own supporters,
telling them they needed tofight back against a stolen election.
And then they usethat money to,
among other things,
paying off campaign debt, funding Trump's new PAC.
Very little actually went to legitimate legal challenges.
So they were deceivingtheir own supporters
(15:40):
For personal gain.
It's just appalling.
[laughter]
Let's shift gears a bit.
The report also talksabout foreign influence.
It does.
And while it doesn't find any direct foreign interference
in the election itself
Okay,
It highlights how foreign actors, especially Russia,
They saw an opportunity.
They saw the divisions, the tension,and they took it.
(16:00):
Social media, online forums,even traditional media,
they used it all
To spread what exactly?
Disinformation
Conspiracy theoriesencourage violence, distrust.
They were watching ustear ourselves apart
and decided to
Throw gasoline on the fire.
Yeah.
And it worked.
They were able to makethe big lie even bigger,
erode trust, push people further apart.
(16:22):
It really wasthe perfect storm.
Yeah.
Trump's lies.
Foreign interference.
Those extremist groups
and a whole lot of people who were
Ready to believe the worst.
Exactly.
And that brings us backto those 187 minutes.
A perfect illustration of how fragile our democracy really is.
During those crucial moments
when you need a president to be a beacon of truth, a defender.
(16:43):
There was nothing but a dangerous silence.
That's a lot, you know,
to really wrap your head around
the manipulation,the abuse of power, the violence.
It's hard to believe this is at onceyou know,
Yeah
The same country that's supposed to bethis beacon of democracy.
And that's exactly why it's so importantto understand it.
What happened?
How it happened?What it means going forward.
And that's where the January 6threport comes in, right?
(17:05):
The special counsel,the court cases, it's all
Essential.Yeah
Pieces of the puzzle.
And they're notjust about
holding peopleaccountable,
which is important, but
Of course.
But it's biggerthan that.
It's about having a historical record.
About learning from this.
And about protecting our democracyfrom [it] happening again.
So it's about protecting ourselves,
Yeah
Our institutions.
(17:26):
Yes.
January 6th, it was a wake up call.
Democracy is not
Well, it's not a guarantee.
It's not somethingwe can just take for granted.
We have to.
We have to participate,be vigilant, defend it.
Especially against those who want to undermine it.
Against those who want to
What, take it away?
Essentially, yes.
It's a reminder that our rights our freedoms.
(17:47):
They're
Fragile
Yeah.
Mm hmm
And that we can't stay silent.
Not when we see thembeing threatened.
And we can't let our leaders off the hook, either.
No matter their political party,their position.
We have to demand more
transparency, integrity, a commitment to
well you know,
the Constitution.
So after all of this,the evidence, the different arguments,
(18:10):
what really stands out,
what's the most important thingfor people to understand
about January 6th?
You know, for me, it's realizing that this wasn't just a one day thing.
This riot, it didn't justcome out of nowhere.
It was,
Well, it was the result of this long campaign
to undermine our elections,
create distrust,
overturn the will of the people.
And that campaign.
(18:30):
It didn't end on January 6th.
No. Not really.
The forces behind it are still out there,
still trying to,I don't know,
chip away at our democracy.
That's pretty disheartening.
It's real though,
and it's why we can't just pretend it never happened.
We have to learn.
We have to be stronger, more vigilant.
We have to protect the,you know,
The ideals this country was founded on.
Exactly.
(18:51):
And that starts with
Staying informed,
talking to each other,
being careful about what we believe, who we trust.
We all have a role to play here.
We definitely covered a lot today,
but it seems like this story,
the story of January 6th,
it's not over yet.
Not by a long shot.
More investigations,
court cases, unanswered questions.
And those answers matter.
(19:11):
They do.One thing's for sure.
January 6th, it changed things.
And it's going to continueto shape this country.
For years to come.
But what that looks like.
Yeah
Well, that's up to us.
Democracy. It's nota spectator sport.
You have to participate.
Be engaged.
Stand up for what's right.
Never forgetwhat happened.
(19:32):
And never stop fightingto protect our freedoms.
Well said.
This was a heavy one.
Thanks for divinginto this with me.
Any time.
All right.
Welcome back.
Well, that is crazy.
You know, as I've said,we don't have any clue
how fast this thing is moving,and it's only going to move faster.
Find a friend to help you on your AI journey.
(19:52):
Get these tools, play with these tools.
Experiment with these tools.
You know, you can do a lot of other things with the tools.
I was asking it, you know, what are thepillars of the government's case?
In this trial and it lists all the things.
And, and then what's great isyou can also ask for the references.
So it will point backwithin that 2,500 pages
as to where it pulled,what references.
(20:15):
So pretty amazing things.
The AI journey is only going to get crazier as
as has been saidmany, many times, there's
massive amounts of capital,being deployed here.
There's massive,new companies.
Everyone is trying to integrate it
both within their existing productsas well as create brand new products.
(20:36):
So it's somethingyou want to try to stay on.
You'll never get ahead of it,I don't think,
but you at least need to try tostay with it so that you're not completely
left in the dust.
As these new toolsand basically infinite computing power
delivered to to your mobilephone is coming.
And, pretty crazy times.
I hope you enjoyed the, the video.
Thanks for checking in. We'll see you next time.
(20:58):
Thanks for, watching on YouTube.
Thanks for listeningon the podcast.
Take care.
Okay.
In three.
Two.
One
Hey, welcome back everybody.
Jeff Frick here.
Coming to you from the home studio
for another episode of‘Turn the Lens’
And, you know, you almost need a friend
to help you get through this AI stuff.
It's coming sofast and furious.
So we've got somethinga little bit different for this.
(00:21):
This edition ofour AI adventure.
So a friend of minereached out
and he asked me if I'd heard of this new thing
called notebooklm.google.com
or excuse menotebooklm.google.com
It's a Google notebook AI tool.
And, you know, one of the challengeswith, say, ChatGPT
and some of the other toolsis trying to get your own data in there.
(00:42):
And there's things like RAG [Retrieval-Augmented Generation], and
there's a lot of software waysthat you can get
your own data in there to make itmore relevant to your own search.
But as a non coder, you know,it doesn't work so well yet.
I'm sure it will work better later,
but this is aninteresting twist on it,
so definitely worthchecking it out.
So if you go to,
https://notebooklm.google.com/
(01:04):
that's https://notebooklm.google.com/
You can start loading it with documents.
And you know, recently on the Jack Smith January 6th trial
he just released, I think it was,
let me see, [a] 1,300 page appendix,
highly redacted, so there's lots ofblank pages and pages with black.
(01:27):
So it's really hardto get through the whole thing.
So I thought, you know,what I'll just do
is I'll load the January 6th, trial library into this machine
and see what comes back.
So here's what I loaded.
I loaded the October 2nd filing.
It was 165 pages,a PDF,
and I'll put all the links in the notes belowif you want to check these things out.
(01:49):
Or you can do whatever you want to load into yours.
I put in this new October 18th appendix.That's 1,353 pages.
And then I added the January 6thfinal report, which is 845 pages.
So a quick and dirty math.
That's 1,300, 2,000, close to 2,500 pages, thereabouts.
(02:10):
2,200, 2,300, 2,400 [pages]something like that.
Into this thing.
And then there's all types of things you can do once you've loaded your data into the system
and you can add YouTube videos, you can add all types of things,
You can get an FAQ, you can get a study guide,you can get a table of contents,
you can get a timeline,a briefing document, as I said, a summary.
(02:31):
But you can start to alsoask it questions.
Which is pretty cool,
but another feature that it has, which I'd never seen before,
and this is what I really want to experiment
and share with you today, is
you can actually generate a podcast.
So, it will generate a two host or a host and a guest
talking head podcast of
(02:54):
with the data thatyou loaded in.
So, with that said,I went ahead and generated a podcast.
It’s about a 15 minute conversationbetween a male and a female host.
I wanted to sharethat with you today.
I went ahead and used, some of the Adobe tools to add a talking animation head.
I don't play with theanimation very much.
(03:14):
I'm not very good at it,but since I play in video,
it's nice to have somethingto look at while the a
while the audio plays.
But this is a first generation cut
you'll notice there’s a couplelittle hiccups here and there,
but generally pretty amazingthat you can take 2,500 pages
of documentation load it into this thing.
And I think it took about 6 or 7, 8 minutesto generate this MP3, this,
(03:39):
this file that I turned into a podcast.
So without further ado,let me share the podcast,
of basically ingesting the January 6th trial information.
Here it goes about 15 minutes.
All right, so
You ready to unpack
one of the most talked about days in recent history?
January 6th.
You got it.
(03:59):
You sent over the January 6th report
and some filings from Jack Smith's investigation.
Looks like we're going for the full picture here.
Absolutely.
And it's more thanjust the day itself,
Right, it's about understanding the strategy.
The people, all those behind the scenes details.
Exactly. Those details are essential.
This wasn't just a sudden eruption.
It was a series of calculated choices.
(04:20):
Take for instance, the foundation of it all.
The big lie, what the report calls it.
This wasn't just Trump claiming victory.
It was planned.
Premeditated strategy.
Planned wellin advance.
Oay, so break this down.
How could it be planned?
If nobody knew who was going to win?
Because it wasn't aboutwho was going to win,
but about controlling the narrative.
So like... Spin
(04:43):
In a way, yes.
See, the report revealsthat Trump got advice, right?
They told him that early electionresults might favor him
because of how votes were counted.
You got it.
In-person votes tend to get countedfaster than Mail-In ballots,
and those [mail-in ballots] were heavily favored by Democratic voters in 2020.
Interesting.
So there's this potentialfor an early lead
(05:04):
that might not actually meananything in the end.
Exactly.
They even had a name for itthe ‘Red Mirage’
a potentially misleading early lead for Trump.
Okay, I'm starting to seewhere you're going with this.
So they knew aboutthis ‘Red Mirage’,
and knowing that they planned for
Trump to immediately declare victory
if he had any lead on election night,
no matter how many voteswere left to be counted.
(05:24):
Wow, that's bold
To say the least.
And we're not just speculating here.
The report actually cites communicationsabout this very scenario.
Like there's one from Tom Fitton.You know he was
President of Judicial Watch back then,
urging the White Houseto prepare for this exact thing.
So it waspremeditated.
This wasn't about accepting the results.
It was about controlling the storybefore the full picture was even in.
(05:46):
And sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the process itself.
It's incredible how much planning went into this.
Mm-hmm
And it wasn't just about controlling the story, was it?
There was a very real pressure,especially on some state officials.
Oh, absolutely.
And the report really highlights that call between
Trump and Georgia Secretary of State[Brad] Raffensperger.
Chilling phone call.
Is it ever.
(06:08):
Trump straight up pressured him
to find enough votesto overturn Georgia's results?
Even implied Raffensperger could be inlegal trouble if he didn't play ball.
Wow.
Talk about anabuse of power.
And it didn't stop with state officials either, right?
The report also mentions Trump tryingto use the Department of Justice, the DOJ.
Absolutely.
(06:28):
Trying to get themto back his claims.
Even considered replacingthe attorney general
with someone who would,
well, you know.
Do his bidding
Essentially.
See, the attorney general oversees the DOJ
and they investigate thingslike election fraud.
If Trump could put someone loyal to him in that position,
That could have changed everything.
Huge implications.
Wasn't Jeffrey Clark a DOJ lawyer involved in all this?
(06:49):
Yes.
Clark was more than willingto go along with Trump's plan.
And what wasthe plan, exactly?
Trump considered appointing him acting attorney general
because Clark was ready.
No hesitation
to send this letter.
Letter to who?
Several states.
And the letter urged them to basicallyignore the legitimate election results.
(07:10):
Ignore the results.
What would they look at instead?
These illegitimate slates of electors
put forward by, you guessed it,
the Trump campaign.
Wait.
Alternate electors?
What is that? Some kind of ....
Imagine each state's electors,
the people who officially cast votes for president
based on the state's popular vote.
These alternate electors were basically a group of Trump loyalists
(07:33):
claiming falsely to be the legitimate electors.
Even though Biden had won those states.
Exactly.
So you've got Trump trying toinstall people who'd back him,
even if it meant underminingthe entire election process.
It's unsettling how far this went.
And then there's that tweet.
“Be There.Will be Wild!”
I remember thinking at the time,it was reckless,
but I had no idea.
(07:53):
The report directly connects that languageto what happened on January 6th.
It wasn't just reckless.
It was a spark to a powder kegmobilizing extremist groups.
Proud Boys, Oath Keepers who were keyplayers in the violence that day.
And the report actually shows these groupswere inspired by that tweet.
Directly. There's social media posts, messages where they specifically
(08:16):
reference it as a call to action,
their green light to goto [Washington] DC.
Unbelievable.
Yeah.
And it wasn't justthese groups, was it?
No. The report also shows how Trump's wordsmotivated thousands of his supporters,
people who are already convincedbecause of the big lie
that the election was stolen.
It's just horrifyinghow it all played out.
And then amidst all that chaos,
(08:36):
there are those 187 minutesthat I think still haunt a lot of people.
The 187 minutes
between the start of the riotand when Trump
finally told his supporters to leave the Capitol.
187 minuteswhere he refused to act.
His own Vice President [Pence] was being hunted by a mob and nothing.
What was even doingduring that time?
What didthe report find?
Well, that's where things getespecially interesting and very troubling.
(08:59):
The report paints a pictureof a president
who was more focused on holding on to power
than on actually protecting the nation.
The report describesa scene just chaotic
in the Oval Officeduring those 187 minutes.
So paint the picture for us.
What's happeningwhile the Capitol is under attack?
White House aides practicallybegging Trump to call off the mob.
(09:21):
To tell them to go home.
Members of Congress, even his own familytrying to get through to him frantically.
And Trump glued to the television.
He's watchingthis happen.
Watching it unfold like it was some kindof spectacle put on just for him.
It’s just. I can't even imagine.
He's watching his supporters stormthe Capitol, putting people's lives at risk.
And he's
Doing nothing.
(09:41):
At least that's what the report details.
And even when he does finally release that video message
tells the rioters to go home.
Well, it's full of contradictions.
You mean the one where hetells them he loves them?
That's the one.
Even as he's telling them to leave,
he can't bring himself to condemn what they did.
Calls them very special.
Says he understands their anger.
(10:01):
It's almost like
Like he's trying to appease them even then.
Almost. And get this.Releasing that video.
Not even his idea.
At least not initially.
Really.
According to the report,
it took a lot of back and forth,his advisers really pushing him.
Can you imagine having to push a presidentto tell a violent mob to stay peaceful?
It's mind blowing.
(10:21):
It really makes you questionhis state of mind at that moment.
And what about Pence during all this?
He's in the Capitolliterally being evacuated.
And Trump's
Nowhere to be found.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's a stark contrast.
The report really highlights how Pence, facing this direct threat.
He steps up, fulfills his duty.
His constitutional duty.
Right.
He's in constant communication[with] military leaders
(10:43):
even giving orders
To deploy the National Guard.
Yes.
In Trump's absence.
Pence is making sure the electoral votes can be counted.
And the president is now totally derelict in his duty.
It's incredible.
You've got the vice president,someone who is so loyal to Trump
basically having to become
Acting president.
It's like something out of a movie.
And that's what the report drives home.
(11:05):
While the Capitol is under siege,elected officials fearing for their lives,
the actual president of the United Statesis totally absent.
Not part of any decision making.
It really makes you questionhis understanding of the presidency
of the oathhe swore to uphold.
Absolutely.
The report also mentioned something about
Trump wanting to join the march to the Capitol himself.
(11:27):
Yeah.
According to witnesses,he was insistent on it.
Even threw a tantrum when the SecretService told him it was too dangerous.
Hold on.
He wanted to be with the mobas they stormed the Capitol.
That's what multiple witnesses say.
Including a Secret Service agent.
They claim he was furiouswhen they told him he couldn't go.
But I thought I read that Mark Meadows, his chief of staff,
(11:48):
denied that in his book.
Meadows claims Trump never intendedto actually go to the Capitol,
but the report directlycontradicts that
because the firsthand testimony of those who were there.
So why would Meadows,you know,
Try to cover it up?
Yeah,
It's a good question.
And this back and forth between Meadows’ version
and what othershave said,
(12:08):
it raises questionsabout his role in all of this.
Unfortunately, we don't have all the answers.
The report talks about how some key Republican lawmakers
Kevin McCarthy, for example,
refused to comply subpoenas and all that
Stonewalling the investigation.
Essentially.
And that obviously makes it harderto get to the full truth,
to figure out the extent of the coordinationbetween Trump and members of Congress
(12:31):
in the lead up to January 6th.
So we've got Trump pushing the big lie,
pressuring stateofficials,
trying to put his own people in the DOJ,
inciting his supporters with that tweet.
Yeah.
And then he'sessentially missing in action
for 187 minuteswhile the Capitol is under attack.
It's a lot.
It's starting to feel less like a spontaneous riot
and more like
An attempted coup.
(12:51):
And that gets to the core of what Jack Smith's investigation is looking at
whether Trump's actions, his inactionduring those 187 minutes
add up to a criminal conspiracyto defraud the United States,
obstruct an official proceeding,
Which are.
Very serious charges.
And his court filings,they seem to be
Building a case.
(13:11):
Yeah
They do.
One filing, for example, arguesthat Trump's pressure on Pence
to overturn the election results
completely outside his authority as president.
And therefore
Not protected
No presidential immunityfor something like that.
Because what he was asking Pence to do was
Illegal.
Yeah
Exactly.
Smith, he cites all these legal experts who agree.
(13:32):
Yeah
The Vice President's role,
counting those electoral votes, it's ceremonial.
Pence had zero legal authority to reject electors
to change the outcome.
What Trump was proposing was,
well, it was a coup.
But trying to makeit sound legal.
Exactly.
So Trump was demanding that Pence violate the Constitution.
That's the argument.
And the filings, they go even deeper,
(13:52):
detailing the pressure on state officials
attempts to weaponize the DOJ.
His role in inciting the riot itself.
It's a lot of evidence.
It is.
But it's important to rememberthis is just what's been made public.
There couldbe more.
Oh, there's definitely more we haven't seen yet.
What about this schemewith the fake electors?
Ahhhh yes, the fake electors.
(14:12):
Another tactic.
The Trump campaign organized these groups,
individuals in a few different states, all loyalists
to declare themselvesthe legitimate electors.
Even though Biden won those states.
You got it.
But how could they thinkthat would actually work?
It was a longshot.
Even some of Trump's own advisers thought so.
The idea was to create chaos, disrupt the official count.
(14:35):
They were banking on Pence.
You know, he was overseeing the count
to use these fake slates to justifyrejecting the actual results.
So basically createenough confusion that,
Yeah,
the election would have to be decided by
Congress, potentially
declaring Trump the winner
but they would have never
gone along with it.
Right. It seems farfetched even for
Trump.
Yeah,
(14:55):
It was dubious legally and ethically.
But it just shows you how desperatehe was to hold on to power.
It's almost funny, in a way.
If it weren't so terrifying.
Exactly.
A blatant attempt to just toss out democracy,
the will of the people.
And it wasn't just about political gamesmanship, either.
The money
The money
The report goes into detail about how the Trump campaign, the RNC,
(15:19):
they use these claims of election fraud
totally baseless
to raise millions of dollars
from his own supporters,
telling them they needed tofight back against a stolen election.
And then they usethat money to,
among other things,
paying off campaign debt, funding Trump's new PAC.
Very little actually went to legitimate legal challenges.
So they were deceivingtheir own supporters
(15:40):
For personal gain.
It's just appalling.
[laughter]
Let's shift gears a bit.
The report also talksabout foreign influence.
It does.
And while it doesn't find any direct foreign interference
in the election itself
Okay,
It highlights how foreign actors, especially Russia,
They saw an opportunity.
They saw the divisions, the tension,and they took it.
(16:00):
Social media, online forums,even traditional media,
they used it all
To spread what exactly?
Disinformation
Conspiracy theoriesencourage violence, distrust.
They were watching ustear ourselves apart
and decided to
Throw gasoline on the fire.
Yeah.
And it worked.
They were able to makethe big lie even bigger,
erode trust, push people further apart.
(16:22):
It really wasthe perfect storm.
Yeah.
Trump's lies.
Foreign interference.
Those extremist groups
and a whole lot of people who were
Ready to believe the worst.
Exactly.
And that brings us backto those 187 minutes.
A perfect illustration of how fragile our democracy really is.
During those crucial moments
when you need a president to be a beacon of truth, a defender.
(16:43):
There was nothing but a dangerous silence.
That's a lot, you know,
to really wrap your head around
the manipulation,the abuse of power, the violence.
It's hard to believe this is at onceyou know,
Yeah
The same country that's supposed to bethis beacon of democracy.
And that's exactly why it's so importantto understand it.
What happened?
How it happened?What it means going forward.
And that's where the January 6threport comes in, right?
(17:05):
The special counsel,the court cases, it's all
Essential.Yeah
Pieces of the puzzle.
And they're notjust about
holding peopleaccountable,
which is important, but
Of course.
But it's biggerthan that.
It's about having a historical record.
About learning from this.
And about protecting our democracyfrom [it] happening again.
So it's about protecting ourselves,
Yeah
Our institutions.
(17:26):
Yes.
January 6th, it was a wake up call.
Democracy is not
Well, it's not a guarantee.
It's not somethingwe can just take for granted.
We have to.
We have to participate,be vigilant, defend it.
Especially against those who want to undermine it.
Against those who want to
What, take it away?
Essentially, yes.
It's a reminder that our rights our freedoms.
(17:47):
They're
Fragile
Yeah.
Mm hmm
And that we can't stay silent.
Not when we see thembeing threatened.
And we can't let our leaders off the hook, either.
No matter their political party,their position.
We have to demand more
transparency, integrity, a commitment to
well you know,
the Constitution.
So after all of this,the evidence, the different arguments,
(18:10):
what really stands out,
what's the most important thingfor people to understand
about January 6th?
You know, for me, it's realizing that this wasn't just a one day thing.
This riot, it didn't justcome out of nowhere.
It was,
Well, it was the result of this long campaign
to undermine our elections,
create distrust,
overturn the will of the people.
And that campaign.
(18:30):
It didn't end on January 6th.
No. Not really.
The forces behind it are still out there,
still trying to,I don't know,
chip away at our democracy.
That's pretty disheartening.
It's real though,
and it's why we can't just pretend it never happened.
We have to learn.
We have to be stronger, more vigilant.
We have to protect the,you know,
The ideals this country was founded on.
Exactly.
(18:51):
And that starts with
Staying informed,
talking to each other,
being careful about what we believe, who we trust.
We all have a role to play here.
We definitely covered a lot today,
but it seems like this story,
the story of January 6th,
it's not over yet.
Not by a long shot.
More investigations,
court cases, unanswered questions.
And those answers matter.
(19:11):
They do.One thing's for sure.
January 6th, it changed things.
And it's going to continueto shape this country.
For years to come.
But what that looks like.
Yeah
Well, that's up to us.
Democracy. It's nota spectator sport.
You have to participate.
Be engaged.
Stand up for what's right.
Never forgetwhat happened.
(19:32):
And never stop fightingto protect our freedoms.
Well said.
This was a heavy one.
Thanks for divinginto this with me.
Any time.
All right.
Welcome back.
Well, that is crazy.
You know, as I've said,we don't have any clue
how fast this thing is moving,and it's only going to move faster.
Find a friend to help you on your AI journey.
(19:52):
Get these tools, play with these tools.
Experiment with these tools.
You know, you can do a lot of other things with the tools.
I was asking it, you know, what are thepillars of the government's case?
In this trial and it lists all the things.
And, and then what's great isyou can also ask for the references.
So it will point backwithin that 2,500 pages
as to where it pulled,what references.
(20:15):
So pretty amazing things.
The AI journey is only going to get crazier as
as has been saidmany, many times, there's
massive amounts of capital,being deployed here.
There's massive,new companies.
Everyone is trying to integrate it
both within their existing productsas well as create brand new products.
(20:36):
So it's somethingyou want to try to stay on.
You'll never get ahead of it,I don't think,
but you at least need to try tostay with it so that you're not completely
left in the dust.
As these new toolsand basically infinite computing power
delivered to to your mobilephone is coming.
And, pretty crazy times.
I hope you enjoyed the, the video.
Thanks for checking in. We'll see you next time.
(20:58):
Thanks for, watching on YouTube.
Thanks for listeningon the podcast.
Take care.
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