Episode Two Hundred Sixty One: All The King's Men

The Comey indictment, Newsom says there will be no 28 election, inside the Ryder Cup, Zig's 40 year reunion, the latest on Sandusky and the continuing Russification of America.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode two hundred and sixty one of the
Death of Journalism podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
My name is John Zigler. I'm your host.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
In today's show, former FBI director James call Mey gets
indicted by the Trump administration under extremely suspect circumstances.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Gavin Knew some predicts that.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
We will not have a twenty twenty eight presidential election,
and yet for some reason, he still really wants to
be the Democratic candidate. Plus, I'll have a full writer
cup analysis, a recap of my fortieth high school reunion,
and the inside story of Jerry Sandusky's latest appeal. As

(00:37):
we tape this episode of the podcast, the federal government
is in a partial shutdown that I'm not going to
talk about in any specific detail, because, first of all,
I'm just exhausted by this topic in general, I think
most people are. I mean, it's just utterly ridiculous that
now more than once a year, we are going through

(01:00):
this groundhog day situation of the very same circumstances occurring
over and over and over again, nothing ever really getting done,
and eventually the problem of this massive spending issue we
have and debt issue we have being kicked down the road.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Now It does feel as if this.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Shutdown may go on longer than some have in the
most recent past, because it appears as if the Trump
administration is pretty entrenched and they might even be winning
debate over what this is about, and the narrative that
this is about healthcare for illegal aliens, and Trump actually

(01:44):
being thrilled that this will be a chance to do
some of the work that Doge was unable to do
when it comes to slimming down the federal government and
getting rid of waste and workers and aren't doing anything.
I don't know how much of that is bluster, how
much of that is real. I have no idea how
long this is going to last. It may be over
by the time you hear this, or it may go

(02:06):
on for quite a while. My guess is it's probably
the latter more than the former. But because it's such
a fluid situation, and because it's it's really just an act.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
That's all this is.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
We go through this time and time again. The system
is completely broken. It's kind of silly for me to
waste too much time and analysis on that, but I
want to at least acknowledge that as of this taping,
the federal government is in a partial shutdown. Now, the
biggest news story, in my opinion, since the last episode
of the podcast is that former FBI Director James Comy

(02:39):
was indicted by the federal government by the Trump administration
for effectively perjury. Now, perjury in and of itself, when
it is the primary charge, especially in a high profile situation,
especially when there is a clear incentive to indict somebody

(03:03):
because of a political animus or vendetta or agenda, whatever
it is, is inherently suspect because unless it is combined
with another charge that the perjury is about, then you're
really just trying to find a crime in most circumstances.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
So, I mean, you know, it's often.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Referred to perjury is as the last resort for a
prosecutor that has nothing else. Again, if you add perjury
to another crime that is a serious crime, and you
lied about that crime under oath, then clearly that should
be part of the equation. But when it's the primary

(03:48):
meal and not the dessert or the cherry on top
of the Sunday, whatever metaphor you want to use, it's
inherently problematic. And this is probably not going to surprise
you that I am very skeptical of the indictment of
James Comy.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Partially because I predicted it.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
You may recall that on multiple occasions when the whole
Epstein File situation was going down in a way that
turned out to be a fiasco politically for Trump, that
I said, James Comy needs to watch.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Out, because he's going to be forced to pay for this.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
James Comy must pay because everyone is now incentivized to
give the boss something that he wants, because the whole
Epstein Files circumstance was a fiasco. And I don't know
for sure how much of one led to the other,
but my prediction could not have been more pressient, because

(04:51):
that's exactly what transpired. And Pam Bondi is under pressure
from all sorts of angles, including the President United States,
who post to the public social media message that seemed
like a potential direct message to her, either figuratively or
literally saying, hey, let's you know, get on this. Let's
let's get after my enemies paraphrasing. And then lo and behold, shockingly,

(05:16):
a federal grand jury. Now I realize it's a grand jury,
but a grand jury is easily manipulated by a prosecutor
the grand jury passed on at least one other potential charge.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
You don't you know, you don't need a unanimous verdict.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
And one of the worst things about a grand jury,
and we saw this in the Jerry Sandusky case, is
not only is all of the information hidden from the public,
but also those voting in favor of an indictment are
led to believe that it really isn't that big of
a deal that you're you're not voting to convict somebody,

(05:54):
you're not even really voting to have them go on trial,
although that usually ends up being the case. The threshold,
the standard is very low, but then it gets reported
as a grand jury voting in favor. People don't even
understand it's not unanimous. Sometimes it's barely a majority. You
can have a situation where lots of grandeurors do not

(06:17):
vote to indict and you still get indicted, and in
the media, if they want to, they pretend that this
has great weight, and that's what happened in the Jerry
Sandusky case. And this circumstance is a bit different because
you have an enormous divide between the left wing media
and the right wing media as to how they want
to interpret what happened here.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So suddenly in.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
The right wing media, the grand jury indictment carries great
credibility and weight, and there's really very little talk about
how this is only perjury for all intents and purposes
without an underlying crime about which you're lying.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
And from a.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Media perspective, I actually think this part of the equation
might be more important than the indictment of Komi himself,
although I still think that's significant and troubling. Since this
is the journalism podcasts, they're going to start with the
media angle on this first, and that is the massive
partisan divide in our media that is so far beyond

(07:21):
broken and so far beyond dangerous. And there's a comical
aspect to it, but it's really depressing because it happens
on almost every single issue, and this comy indictment was
a classic, perfect example of it. Let me just give
you two very quick examples of what I'm talking about.

(07:42):
So Coman gets indicted, and the national security reporter for
MSNBC A got by the name of Ken Delanian or Delanian,
I guess that's how you say his name, immediately tweets
that this is outrageous and this is prosecutor overreach, and
his sources are telling him that the evidence is all bullshit.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I'm paraphrasing here, but I mean it.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Is exactly, exactly, just by coincidence, exactly what an MSNBC reporter,
this is a reporter, not a commentator, you would expect
to put out there in public. Why because that's what
his audience wants. His audience of liberals on MSNBC wants
to hear that this is a bullshit indictment, that Trump

(08:29):
is pulling the strings, that Komy's a good guy, and
this is an outrageous miscarriage of justice. This is prosecutorial overreach,
this is you know, tyranny, this is fascism, this is
the president going after his enemies. That's the narrative that
liberals want. And so MSNBC's reporter on this, their primary

(08:53):
reporter on this, gave the audience exactly what they wanted. Well, conversely,
let me use Catherine Herriage as an example. Katherine Herridge
is a former mainstream reporter who got fired under very
bad circumstances at CBS. She has decided, I think successfully,

(09:17):
to make herself into an independent journalist with more of
a conservative band. Conservatives have embraced her, and so shockingly
her reporting using anonymous sources is that that this evidence
is actually very strong, the indictment is better than the
media is pretending that it is, and that this is

(09:40):
a very strong case, and that basically call Me's in
big trouble.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, what a coincidence, What a shock?

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right the Catherine herriage is going down the path that
her audience wants her too.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
This is not a coincidence.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
And I talk all the time about how the truth
is no longer the coin of the realm, that what
really pays the bills in the news media today is
giving your target demographic what they want to hear, making
them feel better about the news. It's effectively therapy, that's

(10:19):
what it is. And it's not a coincidence that those
that are appealing to a right wing audience automatically provided reporting.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
It's just important to point out.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
These are reporters, allegedly, not commentators, not analysts, that they
provide reporting that fits with what their audience wants to hear.
So the right wing audience wants to hear this is
totally legitimate. Comy's in trouble. He did something really bad, wrong, illegal,
and don't believe what you hear from the left wing media.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
So right wing quote.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Unquote reporters provide that therapy to their audience, and left
wing reporters like the one from MSNBC that are referenced
do exactly the same thing in the opposite direction. And
this has been a trend for a while, but to me,
it's gotten so far beyond the pale that it's almost
impossible now to be able to find somebody who was

(11:18):
gonna give you the honest truth without any sort of
political bias.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
They didn't used to be that difficult.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, you had people on the fringes of both sides,
but now everybody plays this game to appeal to their audience.
And one of the very very few voices that I trust,
partially because I've worked for him and I know him
and I've appeared on his shows dozens and dozens of
times over the years, is ABC's legal analyst Dan Abrams.

(11:49):
Talked about Dan quite a bit on the show. I
think Dad is a smart guy. I think he's a
fair guy. Is he always one hundred percent right?

Speaker 2 (11:56):
No?

Speaker 1 (11:56):
He and I disagree on a few things, not that
many from a legal perspective, but he is certainly very
well educated, very professional, very experienced, and more than willing
to call out both sides. So what did Dan Abrams
have to say about the James Comy indictment. Well, I

(12:16):
was not at all surprised, and I will acknowledge my
bias here. I had a bias against this indictment from
the beginning, just because of the circumstances surrounding it, and
what I believe the motivations of Trump are and Pam
Bondy is, and what I think of James Comy as
a human being, and what I believe of the facts.

(12:38):
So I will fully acknowledge I am more than willing
to buy a contrarian view of this indictment. But when
it comes from Dan Abrams, to me, that has a
lot more weight. And I was not surprised at all
that Dan went on Good Morning America with George Stebanopholis
and basically explained what a load of crap this indictment

(12:59):
really is.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
And here's what that sounded like.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
And this is pretty extraordinary what we're seeing right here.
The President demanded a prosecution, he got it.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
Yeah, and look what seems like the facts are pretty
amazing as well. It seems this is a case about
whether James Comy authorized a leak by his deputy Andrew
McCabe about Hillary Clinton and about an investigation of the
Clinton Foundation, not a leak about Donald Trump.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
The Inspector General of the Department.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Of Justice investigated this determined that it was James Comy
who was likely telling the truth about what happened, and
not Andrew McCabe.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
Comy said, I didn't authorize the leak.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
McCabe said he authorized the leak after the fact. McCabe
actually was close to getting indicted for this by the
first Trump administration because the Department of Justice Inspector General
had determined.

Speaker 5 (13:52):
That McCabe likely lied.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
So McCabe almost gets indicted in twenty nineteen over this.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
They don't. They're not able to get an indictment.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
And now Komy is going to get indicted for the
same conversation which the Inspector General believed Komy.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
And not McCabe.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
And by the way, even if you believe McCabe's account,
he's not saying that Komy knew about the leak before
it happened.

Speaker 5 (14:16):
He's talking about it afternoon.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Except for the president's former personal attorney, every other prosecutor
look at this, said we don't have the evidence, and so.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
She actually had to file this herself. Very unusual that
the US Attorney doesn't have one of the line prosecutors
signing off on.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
This working on this.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
She had to literally alter herself some of the language
in court, which is very unusual and shows you that
she's at this point kind of in this on her own.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Now.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
I tend to agree with that, not just because it's Dan,
but because what he's saying makes a lot of sense,
and it certainly dovetails with my perception of the reality
of the situation in the larger scheme of things.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
But I can.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Understand that you might say, well, but John, it's it's
just one person. He's on ABC, he's speaking with George Stephanopolis.
Wouldn't Dan Abrams potentially be inclined to give ABC and
their audience what they want to hear and what George
Stephanoppolis wants to hear. Yeah, okay, fine, I mean I
don't think that's the way Dan plays the game.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
But fine, if.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
That's not good enough for you, let me give you
another name. Andrew McCarthy. Andrew McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor,
who is an extremely well respected conservative writer, openly conservative
but also occasionally contrarian, one of the very very few
people left of the right wing media who on occasion

(15:48):
is willing to say, hey, guys.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
We're wrong about this. And he did an interview on
Fox News Channel with.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Maria Bartioma, who's about his big a Trump fan as
you could possibly have in the media.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
She's also not very bright.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
But Maria Bardaroma, surprisingly to me, had Andrew McCarthy on,
and McCarthy completely buys in to the idea that Comy's
a bad guy and Russia Gate was terrible, and there's
all things sorts of things that Comy did that was wrong,
But the indictment itself is based on bullshit. Those are

(16:28):
my words, not his. But I think when you listen
to this, you're going to come to the exact same
conclusion where McCarthy, despite Maria Bartaroma's best efforts, cannot come
up with a justification for why James Comy was federally
indicted for perjury in this particular case.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
And listen to his explanation.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's similar to Dan abrams explanation, but one of the
most bizarre and ironic and telling parts of this indictment
against Call Me, which was incredibly thin even from a
paper perspective. But in order to buy this entire case,
the theory of the case against James, call mey, one

(17:11):
of the people you have to put your trust in.
I can't even believe this is true, but it is
is former FBI agent Andrew McCabe, who is probably even
above James Call Me when it comes to the MAGA
hate list. So in order to come up with a
semi rational theory of the case against James Call Me, you.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Have to be believing Andrew.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
McCabe, which is just frankly hilarious, but also an indication
of just how unbelievably hypocritical this entire concept is. But
here's Andrew McCarthy explaining to Maria Bartaroma just how the
case against Call Me doesn't even make any sense and

(17:56):
sounds like it probably won't even get out of a
batter's box from a legal perspective.

Speaker 6 (18:02):
First, give us your reaction to the indictment.

Speaker 7 (18:07):
Well, I don't think there's a case. You know, the
things that cash Coutel that you just played, that he
was talking about, that you and I have spoken about
for years, Maria, the Russia Gate stuff. I'm as big
a critic of that, probably as there is. I wrote
a book about it. I think it was a disgrace
and history will remember it that way. This indictment is

(18:27):
not about that, and it seems to be premised on
something that's not true, which is that McCabe said that
Komy authorized him to leak to the Wall Street Journal.
If you look closely at what McCabe said, what McCabe
said was that he directed a leak to the Wall

(18:49):
Street Journal and told Komy about it after the fact.
So it's true that Komy never authorized it in the
sense of okaying it before it happened. So I don't
see how they can make that case.

Speaker 6 (19:04):
What about the leaking in general, I mean, what about
leaking a story that they may have known was a
lie to the media, Because if you're the director of
the FBI, you need the evidence to say yeah. I mean,
you know, for years, congressmen and the lawmakers were trying
to understand Devin Nunez, John Radcraff, trying to understand what's

(19:24):
the origins of this investigation? So what was the origins
of Russia collusion with Trump, and so they never really
had any evidence of it, but they leaked it to
the press.

Speaker 7 (19:37):
Yeah, but that's not what this case is about. I
totally agree with you if you were talking about the
information that was provided to the Pisa Court that claimed
that Trump was in collusion with the Kremlin.

Speaker 5 (19:49):
But that's not what this case is about.

Speaker 7 (19:50):
What this case is about is Comy is accused of
lying because what Ted Cruse said and this, yeah right,
And what Cruse and I think this was just a
garble on his part, was that Komy authorized McCabe to
orchestrate the leak and what the inspector General found. And

(20:11):
this isn't even just what the inspector General found, This
is McCabe's own version of events. McCabe said that he
directed the leak and he told Komy about it afterwards.
Now they have a dispute about what exactly McCabe told
Komy afterwards and whether Komy was approving or disapproving of it.
But the charge is that Komy authorized the leak and

(20:35):
he didn't authorize the leak.

Speaker 5 (20:36):
I see.

Speaker 6 (20:37):
Well, the judge assigned to this.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Case, So kudos to Andrew McCarthy.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
One of the very very few, if not the only
legitimate right wing media voice willing to stand up. And
of course he couches it with all the proper language
that Komy is a bad guy, Russia Gate was terrible,
blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
But that's not what this is about.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
And he focuses only on the legal aspects of this indictment,
which he believes, and I agree with him, are illegitimate
and illogical and without evidence. But that doesn't stop you know, Trump,
of course, from way way overplaying his hand. I mean,

(21:19):
no president should be commenting on any sort of federal
indictment of this sort to begin with, but especially given
the history of call Me and Trump. But that doesn't
stop Trump because he has no self control and he
loves nothing more than dunking.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
On his enemies.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
And let's be clear, let's not forget history, which I
think is an incredibly important part of this entire saga,
that James call Me was Donald Trump's original FBI director
after Trump effectively re hired him, literally hugged and almost
him at the event where that was announced, and praised

(22:05):
him far and wide because Comy, in his mind, and
I think accurately so, had effectively thrown the election in
Trump's direction. I mean, how do we just forget about this?
I mean, it's unbelievable to me that Trump fans can
just forget that James call Me ten days before the

(22:25):
twenty sixty election essentially sabotaged Hillary Clinton's campaign by announcing
that the email investigation was being reopened. I'm gonna have
more thoughts on how and why that happened and what
it really means in just a little bit, But can
we just note can we stop pretending magaworld that none

(22:47):
of these things happened. That Komy didn't hand the election
to Trump, that Trump didn't praise him far and wide,
Trump didn't give him the big hug, Trump didn't rehire
him before he then fired heard him for reasons that
were clearly based in his own personal self interest and
not because Comy had done anything at that time to

(23:10):
warrant being fired. But you know, so, Trump can't resist
dunking on Comy. Completely inappropriate for the President of the
United States to say anything about this kind of a
federal indictment, especially given the circumstances. But here's what Trump
couldn't resist saying about James call Mey in light of

(23:32):
this federal indictment.

Speaker 8 (23:34):
Well, I can't tell you what's going to happen because
I don't know. You have very professional people headed up
by the Attorney General and Todd Todd Blench and Lindsay Halligan,
who's very smart, good lawyer, very good lawyer. They're going
to make a determination. I'm not making that determined. I
think i'd be allowed to get involved in at once,
but I don't really choose to do so. I can

(23:55):
only say that Comy's a bad person. He's a sick person.
I think he's a sick guy. Actually he did terrible
things at the FBI, And but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
I have no idea what's going to happen now.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
There are a couple important elements of Trump's comments about this.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
The first is how we got the.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Indictment to begin with, because essentially what has happened is
and Trump has done this before. John Bolton, I think
is a pretty similar example where Trump declares, both publicly
and privately to.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
His cult base and to those that are.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Actually allegedly in charge, that he believes that somebody is
a bad person and or a criminal, and in Trump's mind,
a bad person who dislikes him.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Is inherently a criminal act. That's not a stretch.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I mean, that's the way a king thinks of things.
And in this area, Trump clearly is thinking like a
king that the crime is something we can find later.
We know we have a criminal. He's a bad guy
because he doesn't like me. He's done things I don't like,
even though in the past I've praised him profusely. And
so we have a criminal here, people, Let's find a crime.

(25:12):
And that's what they I believe have done with John
Bolton with classified documents, and what I believe they have
done with James Comy in this incredibly lame perjury charge.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
And so that's the first aspect of this that.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Trump's public comments really matter, especially when you're removing the
US attorney in the district and you replace it with
your personal lawyer, who's this hot babe.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
And then all of a sudden is the few days.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Later the grand jury suddenly comes forward with an indictment.
Just one of a remarkable series of coincidences. This is
obviously an attempt to please the king, and that's what
he got. And because Trump is who he is, he
could reson reacting to it.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
And there is another element of this.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
That is significant because according to Dan Abrams, this could
cause problems for the case against call Me. And here's
Dan once again on Good Morning America explaining how and
why that could be the case.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
US Attorney's officer and Rachel Dan all.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Of these public statements from the President could actually help
James Comy get this thrown.

Speaker 5 (26:26):
Out by any reaction, it's correct.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
I mean, look, that's going to be the first question
is is this case even going to make it to trial?
Is a judge going to throw out this case? And
that is certainly going to be. Part of the defense's
argument is citing each and every one of the social
media posts by the President demanding this prosecution and looking
at the sort of the.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
History of how we got here, and if that happens,
we can see this whole thing go to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
We could, we could, but I think that the more
likely scenario is that the Supreme Court it would be
happy to let the lower courts deal with this one.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
That's my guess.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
The bottom line here for me is I don't think
there's any chance that James call Me ever gets convicted
of this crime for which he has been indicted. I
don't know how far down the line the process is
going to get. There are those that believe this is
going to be tossed out immediately.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
I don't know. I have no way of no.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
This is not an area where I'm an expert, but
I'm confident, even though I've lost a lot of trust
in the jury system, I am confident that they're not
going to get a conviction, especially in this particular district
against James call me in a unanimous verdict. I just
don't believe that's going to happen. Now, that doesn't mean

(27:43):
I'm very uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
With the idea.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Oh well, okay, if that's the case, John, who cares
no harm, no foul.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
You know, he doesn't get convicted. It's just a trial.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
No big deal. I'm sorry, that's a big fucking deal.
It's a big deal to have your life to disrupted
for however long this is going to happen, the expense
that it requires to properly defend yourself, especially when the
President of the United States is making no bones about
the fact that this is a high priority for him,
that you get punished because you are a criminal and
we need to find a crime that you committed because

(28:18):
I'm the king and this is something that I want,
and so my minions are going to give me what
I want because I'm an incredibly insecure person, and so
even people that I hired or rehired like John Bolton
I praised profusely, like James Comy, if they've turned on me,
I need them destroyed. And if all I get is

(28:42):
wrecking their lives for a couple of years is they
have to defend themselves against the bullshit indictment, then that's
good enough for me.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
And I don't really.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Care that much about the actual conviction because I'm not
even going to discipline myself and not saying something the president.
It's just so ridiculous that the President the United States
has come on any sort of case like this, but
especially one where he has such a clear direct involvement.
And I just want to end this topic because I

(29:11):
know that very very very very few people are going
to agree with me on it. I fully understand that,
but I don't really care because this show is about
my view of the truth, and I'm very confident that
I'm in the right on this. But one of the
big picture elements that I think a lot of people
on the right are completely missing, largely because Trump has

(29:32):
led them down the wrong path.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Is who James Comy is.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Now, let me be clear, I don't really like James
Kmy that much. I don't think he's a bad guy. However,
I truly believe that my greatest strength as an analyst,
as a commentator is deciding who the good guys and
the bad guys are. I think my record on that

(29:58):
is as strong as anybody else in public life. Who
are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
Both on my side politically and on the other side.
And James call me me, in my view, is not
a bad guy. He is a guy who is, in
my opinion, in love with his own virtue.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
He's one of those people.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Okay, they can be annoying as hell, people who are
in love with their own virtue. That doesn't mean, by
the way, that Comy is perfect. He's nowhere near perfect.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
No one is.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
But I do strongly believe that James Comy thinks of
himself as a highly ethical person, and that means oftentimes
that he does act in an ethical way or what
he thinks is an ethical way. And this is a
guy who is a lifelong Republican. We seemingly have thrown

(30:57):
that out the window. Who is never This is the
part that completely gets forgotten. He has never had a
similar circumstance. Right, He's had this very long career where
Trump says he's a bad guy, one of the worst
people in the history of the world for all deats
and purposes. Yet Comy has never had a situation where

(31:20):
he did something horrendous except when it came to Donald Trump.
And all they can find is this bullshit count of perjury.
If he was really anything close to the person that
Donald Trump claims, there would be a litany, there would

(31:40):
be a long list of things that Komy had done
wrong that were unethical, that were potentially illegal.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
There would be a history here.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
And yet somehow, it wasn't until James Callby runs into
Donald Trump as president that all of a sudden, this
guy with a pretty darn unblemished career record suddenly turns
into a bad guy. Now is that possible, I guess theoretically,
but it's highly unlikely, especially when there's an alternative scenario

(32:14):
that makes a hell of a lot more sense. And
the alternative scenario is this that lifelong Republican James call me,
who had a stellar career, who is in love with
his own ethics just before and his own virtue. Just
before the twenty sixteen election, he believes that Hillary Clinton

(32:37):
is going to win. Right, He's a man of the establishment.
That's the narrative going into the final weeks of the campaign.
He believes that Hillary Clinton is going to win. And
he now thinks he has a problem because of this
bizarre circumstance involving Anthony Wiener and his computer and Hillary's emails,

(33:00):
and now he thinks, oh my gosh, what am I
gonna do if Hillary Clinton becomes President of the United States.
And it becomes revealed eventually that the FBI had reason
to reopen this investigation but did not do this or

(33:22):
did not declare it publicly and hid it from the
public just before an election. This is going to cause
a massive problem in both perception and potentially even in
reality when it comes to conflicts of interest, especially since.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
He's a lifelong Republican.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Right, So he believes he has a massive ethical issue
and a conflict of interest problem, and in my opinion,
he overthought it because he's in love with his own virtue. Right,
He's in love with his own virtue, and he goes
out there ten days before the election and he does

(34:04):
something that I think was unnecessary and frankly stupid, and
I absolutely believe tip the election in Donald Trump's direction.
Now we're never going to know to what degree that happened,
but to me is inarguable, is it is one hundred

(34:24):
percent a legitimate argument to make that James Cally essentially
handed the election to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump himself
effectively acknowledged that he praised Coy up and down for
what Comy did just before the election. Now, very quietly,
a couple of days before the election, they put out

(34:46):
this statement, no dramatic press conference. Oh yeah, by the way,
we looked at the emails, it doesn't seem to be
much there. I mean, that's again a paraphrase.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
But by then it was too late, and so Comy
essentially hands Trump the election.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
But he doesn't like Trump. He's not obviously a Trump
kind of Republican. And these two guys could not.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Be more different.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
You have a guy who is in love with his
own ethics and his virtue and call me, and a
guy Donald Trump, who acts like a mob boss, and
who does not appear to give a fuck about ethics
or virtue, actually sees ethics and virtue as a hindrance.
And so this is a classic situation where these two

(35:32):
guys cannot possibly get along. But Trump likes call Me because,
in his mind, Comy helped him get elected, and that's
all that matters in Trump's world. In Trump's world, are
you pro Trump or are you anti Trump? And it
doesn't really matter what you really feel underneath, it's about
what your actions create as a reality. And call Me

(35:55):
played a key role in getting Trump elected. So that's
why when and Trump announces him maintaining his position as
the FBI director, and he calls him forward and that
public event at the White House and call Me, he's
all embarrassed, and Trump pulls him in with the tight
handshake and almost kisses him. In Trump's world, call Me

(36:17):
He's a good guy there. But then over time, call
Mey starts to look at Trump as having something to hide.
And there's a key moment when Trump calls in call
Me for a private discussion, and very much like a
mob boss, Trump effectively tells Camy, Hey, you're on my

(36:40):
side on this whole thing, right, you know, I can
count on you. Right again, I'm paraphrasing, but this is
classic Trump.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
As mob boss.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
He's testing call me and ca Mey knows that there's
this Russia issue out there, which, by the way, this
is so important, and hardly ever gets mentioned, ever got
leaked during the fucking campaign. I mean, so, how in
the world can James call me be accused of trying
to pull a coup which Steven Miller just did again

(37:12):
in the aftermath of this indictment, which has nothing to
do with the indictment whatsoever. But how can someone be
accused of trying to pull a coup on Donald Trump
when they both sabotaged Hillary Clinton's campaign and never leaked
any of this information involving a Russia investigation with potential

(37:34):
collusion with the Russian government? How is that possible? Is
call me that incompetent? Is he that much of a
fucking idiot? Or did this not happen that way? Or
was that not his motivation? And look, Comy turned out
to be wrong and a lot of what he feared
about Trump and Russia. But if you're Cally and you're

(37:58):
especially in love with your own virtue, and you think
your job is to defend America at all costs, and
you start to think, what the hell is going on
with Donald Trump? Why is he acting like a mob
boss vis a vime? Why does he need my personal loyalty?
And you're aware of what's going on behind the scenes

(38:20):
regarding the Russia Gate investigation, you start to add two
plus two and maybe you get five or six, especially
when Trump is acting so weird about the whole damn thing.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
So I'm not defending Russiagate at all.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
However, I have never believed that Russia Gate was intended
as a coup. I think it was intended as, what
the fuck is going on here? This is so incredibly weird,
and Trump is acting exactly like you might act if
some of this, if not all this was true. Es Actually,

(39:00):
once Trump fires Camy under the circumstances that he did,
because that's exactly what would happen if what Comy feared
might be true. If you have somebody who's compromised by Russia,
they you know, they go to their FBI director and
they seek their loyalty, and then when they don't get it,
they fire them under highly unusual circumstances, which is exactly

(39:27):
what Trump did. So Trump played right into Komy's vision
of what the worst possible scenario here might be. It
wasn't based in reality, It wasn't based in truth. I've
said many many times that Russia Gate was not a
nothing burger. There were elements of that whole situation that
were very troubling, especially when it came to obstruction of justice.

(39:50):
And I've said many times a lot of this was
about trying to hide Trump leveraging the Republican nomination to
get putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. I
think that was really the primary issue here, because that's
really much more of what Trump cared about. Trump everybody.
I don't even think he thought he was going to
win the general election, and I think he was trying
to use that nomination while he had it. He knew

(40:13):
it was only going to last for a few months.
It was going to make him far more prominent and
give him far more credibility in the international stage, and
so he wanted to use it to try to finally
get what he'd been trying to do for a long time,
which was to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. There
was more to it than that, but that I think
was the primary issue. So what we have here is
a classic clash between two personalities that are destined to

(40:37):
have no chance to get along. James call me Me, who
was full of himself, who is in love with his
own virtue, and Donald Trump, who couldn't give a fuck
about virtue or ethics and essentially as machiavellian as you
can possibly get, as narcissistic as you can possibly get,
doesn't care about principle, doesn't care about any of the rules.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
He just cares about himself.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
And so that's why the relationship disintegrated as fast as
it did, And this is, in my opinion, why Trump
still won't let it go. Why Trump seeks vengeance. Trump
seeks vengeance against a John Bolton or a James Comey,
people who are by and large good guys perfect no

(41:26):
right all the time, no wrong, a lot, yes, but
generally good guys, sincere people trying to do their best,
smart guys with good track records, especially when it comes
to ethics, and Trump hates them most because they were
both once in the fold and they made Trump feel

(41:49):
bad about himself. That's really the ultimate sin, and that's
not unusual, that's not unique to Trump. That's one of
the worst things you can do in humanity. If you
make someone feel bad about themselves and they have the
ability to punish you, they are probably going to do
that every single damn time. It's just in this particular case,

(42:10):
you have a president of the United States with nothing
to fear because he doesn't have to worry about re election,
who has everyone working for him, acting like he's a king,
who's willing to do exactly what he wants. Although in
this particular case, the US attorney in Northern Virginia essentially
refused to do it or was unable to do it,

(42:31):
and they got replaced, and they got replaced with as
with someone as loyal to Donald Trump as could possibly be,
and Trump got his indictment. Now you might be thinking, Okay,
but sick, is this really the worst thing that's ever happened?

Speaker 2 (42:46):
I mean, who cares?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Again, I've already gone through the idea that he's probably
never going to get convicted of anything.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
It's still wrong.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
It is still wrong, and it's unbelievably hypocritical. Theocritical, the
hypocritical nature of MAGA world and Trump when it comes
to Lawfair and cancel culture and free speech and corruption
and government grifting is off the charts. I mean, these
are all issues that were at the centerpiece of why

(43:17):
MAGA wanted Donald Trump to be returned to the White
House because of the Lawfair against Trump, which was wrong
in large part but not in totality. But the Lawfair
got in the Republican presidential nomination and I think actually
helped to win the presidency. But if you get elected

(43:37):
because you're condemning Lawfair the government going after enemies from
a criminal perspective, which is totally wrong and extremely anti American,
isn't it wrong for you to do exactly the same
thing in a more overt fashion. I mean, okay, and

(43:57):
I love this because I argue with mega people online
all the time. They say, but John, you know, you
criticize Trump for publicly demanding the prosecution of his enemies,
but Biden did the same thing. We don't know that
you're basing that on anonymous sources from mainstream media outlets

(44:19):
like The New York Times, claiming that Biden was frustrated
that Merrick Garland wasn't acting sooner or quicker or more
vigorously against Trump. Do I believe that that was probably true. Yeah,
I have no problem believing that Joe Biden wanted that
to happen.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
But I do find two things here.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
It's hilarious that the same MAGA people that wouldn't believe
anything in a mainstream outlet that they didn't want to
believe about Donald Trump are suddenly believing mainstream outlets with
anonymous sources because it fits what they want to believe. Oh,
Biden was just as bad as Trump. That's ridiculous. It's

(45:00):
it's incredibly hypocritical on its face. But there's also a
massive difference, a massive difference between a president, which I'm
not defending by the way, a President Biden being frustrated
in private that, you know, why aren't we going after
Trump after January sixth and everything related to that, you know,

(45:21):
let's get on the stick here, and someone like Trump
doing it extremely publicly, because when you do it publicly,
especially when you have a cult following like Trump does,
that creates enormous pressure on everyone who is in the
chain of command and everyone who is making decisions. And

(45:44):
it may even have an impact on grand jurors because
some of these grand jurors are probably Republicans or Trump fans.
So there's a massive difference, even though the thought would
still be wrong, there is a massive difference in degree
between what may have happened if you believe anonymous sources

(46:05):
in the New York Times with regard to Joe Biden
over a situation where I think you could argue that
there were very legitimate legal issues that needed to be adjudicated,
specifically over January sixth and Donald Trump, and this circumstance
here where you are simply trying desperately to find a
crime because you don't like somebody, because your king doesn't

(46:29):
like somebody because they make him feel bad about himself,
And that is wrong, that is Unamerican, and it is
beyond hypocritical by Magaworld. And I realize that no one cares,
certainly no one cares about what I say to begin with,
especially not Magaworld. But the reality is that Magaworld is

(46:52):
completely unimpacted by any sort of logic or facts. They're
being driven purely by emotion, by vengeance. Trump has created
the narrative that Kmy is a bad guy, he's a criminal,
So we got to find a crime, and thank goodness,
we finally found a crime, and thank goodness, we distracted

(47:13):
from the Epstein issue for a little while and we
gave the base some red meat to go chew on,
even though we've also opened the door further and set
a very bad precedent. And you know, the slippery slope
gets even slip rear when it comes to what happens
then next time the other guys are in charge, which

(47:37):
Trump doesn't give a shit about because they'll probably be
dead by then or you know, playing golf in Florida.
I still think he should be a little bit worried
about the Pandora's box that he has further opened, because presumably,
if he does leave office in twenty twenty nine, he's
going to have some years left and it's quite possible

(47:58):
that Democrats, if they're in charge, especially if it's Gavin Newsom,
may go after him the way that he went after
his own enemy. So I still think it's possible that
Trump may regret this. Who knows, But the reality is
we are heading down a very very dangerous path that
is extremely Unamerican and does not end well for anybody.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
And that's my dog in this hunt.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
I don't really care that much about James call me,
although I don't think he's a bad guy, and he's
certainly not a criminal based upon this particular indictment.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Now, when it comes to the media.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
Divide and how unbelievably partisan everything is now, I want
to at least mention a story involving Tom Homan, who
is Trump's point man on illegal immigration. Trump seems to
love him, Maga seems to love him. He's a very
strong talker on illegal immigration. Seemingly he's done a pretty

(48:55):
darn good job at least in closing the border, although
I think the deep rotation issue has been grossly exaggerated
by both sides. But regardless of what you think of
Tom Homan, you know MAGA loves him right now. And
there was a story that has been reported fairly widely
in the last week that he was the subject of

(49:19):
essentially a bribery scandal, or not the subject, but it
appears as if he may have participated in a bribery
scandal then involved the FBI where he was paid. This
is alleged fifty thousand dollars for potential future influence that
he was promising should Trump win the twenty twenty four elections.

(49:44):
So this happened during the Biden administration, which is very
lucky for Homan for reasons. It'll be obvious in a second.
This happened during the Biden administration, before Trump was elected,
and allegedly Homan took Homan took fifty thousand dollars to
influence policy after Trump is elected. Now, of course, once

(50:09):
Trump was elected, that investigation was shut down because Holman
is a key part of the Trump administration, and you know,
and they their argument is, oh, this was this was
an attempt by the Biden administration to go after one
of our own, essentially making the lawfair argument that even

(50:31):
before Trump was elected, the Biden administration was trying to
entrap Trump's supporters in a way that would allow them
to be criminally charged and indicted, what have you, and
that Homan was just caught up in this. Now, I
don't know one hundred percent what the truth is. The

(50:51):
reporting on this has been seemingly pretty solid and specific.
It looks really bad for Homan except for two very
key issues that shouldn't really matter but they do now.
Number one is he obviously has the support of Trump
and the Trump administration, and even the Press Secretary is

(51:11):
out there vigorously defending him in ways that I don't
even think are fully accurate. And so the investigation has
been shut down and it's going nowhere legally, so as
long as he's in Trump's good graces, he's totally free
and clear from a legal perspective. But politically, Homan also
gets a huge advantage because of the news outlet that

(51:36):
broke this story and has been doing the vast majority
of reporting on it, and that is very much to
his benefit, MSNBC. And look, I have extreme skepticism about
anything that comes out of MSNBC, but I also believe
that every report ought to be evaluated on its own,

(52:01):
whether or not it makes sense, whether or not there's
evidence to support it, whether or not you know it's credible,
is it backed up by other sources or other news
outlets finding the same things to verify and corroborate it. So,
to me, the way I look at this is okay,
if it happens on MSNBC. I'm inherently skeptical, especially if

(52:23):
it's about the Trump administration, but I'm at least willing
to listen. The reality is that inherently, especially a manga world,
and probably throughout the vast majority of the Republican base
simply because a story was broken on MSNBC, it inherently

(52:44):
discredits it, inherently discredits it beyond possibly being redeemed. So
it doesn't matter what the facts are, it doesn't matter
what the evidence is, it doesn't matter what the logic
of the of the case of the story is. It
doesn't matter if it's corroborated. It's started on MSNBC. So

(53:06):
therefore it must simply be an attack on the Trump administration,
and it cannot be valid, and it must be immediately disregarded.
In fact, it probably is a badge of honor for
Tom Holman because that shows how dangerous he is, because MSNBC.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Is trying to take him out.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
And look, I understand why that is the emotional reaction
among many in the magabase.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
I get it. It's unfortunate.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
It is a damning indictment of how broken our entire
media industrial complex is. And frankly, I actually think we've
now reached a point. And I'm not suggesting this happen here,
although many stranger things have happened, but we've now reached
the point where if you are the Trump administration and

(53:59):
you have a legitimate scandal that you want to cash
straight right off the bat, you should leak it to
MSNBC or some other very liberal news outlet because it
will go nowhere, because I mean, no Republican senator or
lawmaker or official is ever gonna cite it, no matter

(54:23):
how troubling it might be, because they'll get attacked because
they have no cover. Well, you're using MSNBC as a source,
you right, Oh, what do you have TDS.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Trump's trumps arrangement syndrome.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
I mean, it's not politically viable, and this is a
fairly new phenomenon, and it is extremely unhealthy. And I'm
as big a critic of MSNBC as anybody. Of course,
it works in the opposite direction too. I personally think
Fox News in general is far more credible and far
more powerful, for sure than MSNBC.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
But you know, we didn't.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
Always live in a world where this is the way
this worked, especially not to the point where we have
now incentivized, especially on the Republican side, a circumstance where
if you want to get rid of a story, just
leak it to a liberal news outlet.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
It will go absolutely nowhere, no matter how.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Scandalous it is, and I think that, to me from
immediate perspective, is the biggest takeaway from the Tom Holman
story slash scandal, regardless.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Of what the actual reality of that is. Now.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
I want to mention two other things regarding Donald Trump
before I moved into other news and Gavin Newsom and
Kamala Harris and Jimmy Kimmel a couple of things real quick,
and both of them, I guess somewhat have to do
with healthcare. Of course, you know, doctor Trump has told
us that tailan causes autism, for which I don't believe

(55:55):
there's any logical or evidentiary basis whatsoever. I talked about
that in the last episode of the podcast, but there
was an episode over the weekend that I don't think
we're ever going to get to the bottom of, and
it is so telling about just how completely fucked up
the times in which we live are and how utterly

(56:16):
weird and I think dangerous this second Trump administration really is.
What I'm referring to is that Donald Trump's social media
account on True Social posted a video about a Fox

(56:37):
News report by Laura Trump about how Trump himself is
making med beds available to the general public. Now you're
probably thinking, first of all, what the hell's a MEDBD?
Second of all, okay, zig, why is this a big deal?

(57:00):
Shares news reports all the time. It's Fox News Channel,
it's a member of his family, Laura Trump, he himself
is even quoted in the story.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
You know, what's the big deal? There are several major
major problems here. The first is.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
The news story was fake, completely totally fake. It was
ai generated, completely fabricated. Laura Trump never did this story,
Fox News never did this story.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Donald Trump never spoke about this story.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yet, in the story that was shared on Trump's social
media account on True Social, it appeared as if Fox
News Channel and Laura Trump had done a story quoting
Donald Trump that he was making med beds available to
the general public. Now, that in and of itself is
extremely troublic especially in this new era where we're going

(58:03):
to be battling on a daily basis with the issue
of what is real and what is fake, and how
artificial intelligence is going to make that almost impossible to discern,
especially the stupid people and the people without a lot
of experience at this I'm seeing this firsthand with my
thirteen year old daughter Grace, who I actually think has

(58:25):
a lot of really good intuition and a lot of
good instincts and is very smart in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
And yet she is terrible, terrible at being able to
discern what is real and what is AI. And so.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Purely from the standpoint of the President United States, putting
out a fake story that could easily be perceived as
being real is obviously, in a semi rational world, incredibly troubling,
I mean, totally inappropriate, completely wrong for the President United

(59:02):
States to do this, and Trump does this occasionally as
obvious jokes. He put out an AI video of Chuck Schumer,
which I thought was totally inappropriate because of the language
that the fake Chuck Schumer AI generated character used but
regarding illegal immigration. But it also wasn't clearly defined as

(59:25):
artificial intelligence. Any rational person would know that it was.
But to me, when it's the President the United States,
you have to protect your credibility at all costs, because
you know what, someday the fate of the world may
rely on people taking you seriously and you be incredible.
That's something Trump doesn't seem to give a fuck about.

(59:46):
And so the AI element of this med bed video
is I think, in and of itself a scandal. I mean,
I think if we stopped right there, this would be
something that in a semi rational world, every American would
know about.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Very few Americans know about it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
In fact, my guess is a lot of people that
are listening to this podcast didn't even hear about this
story because it got very little coverage. It was over
a weekend. Eventually the video was deleted. But there's another
aspect of this whole thing that sends this story from
the bizarre and the troubling to the completely batshit crazy

(01:00:25):
and the bunkers, and that is what is a med bed.
Medbed is something that I had never heard of before
until this controversy, But a medbed is the central element
of a q and on conspiracy theory. QAnon is just
like the craziest people on the fucking planet. I mean,

(01:00:47):
they are absolutely batshit crazy. I mean, these people make
Candice Owens seem totally rational and credible, even post Charlie
Kirk assassination. But these people are insane and they have
this theory that there are these things called med beds
that are essentially magic beds that only rich people currently

(01:01:10):
have access to that they can basically heal any ailment whatsoever.
And that Trump, in this fake AI video was finally
going to make med beds available to not just the
super rich, but to the general public. So, I mean,
this is like a pinball machine of insanity. You have

(01:01:35):
a totally fake AI generated video using Fox News Channel,
Trump's daughter in law himself talking about something that does
not exist that he's going to allegedly make available to
the general public. That is part of a q andon

(01:01:55):
batshit crazy conspiracy theory.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
And this happened.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I'm not making this up, folks. You can go search
it yourself. This happened, and it barely made a ripple
when it came to the news cycle. Mean, we are
so far beyond the gravitational poll of the rational Earth.

(01:02:22):
We can't even see forget about feeling the rational you know,
the gravitational poll of the rational Earth.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
We can't even see the Earth. That's how far out
in orbit we are.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
When the President the United States is doing this, and
to my knowledge, and I've searched for it, I can't
find it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
It's possible I missed it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I'm only one person, but I have not seen any
sort of follow up question to Trump as to Okay,
why was the video posted? Why was it taken down?
Do you believe in med beds? Did you not understand
that this was ai that you didn't actually say any
of these things? Is it possible someone else posted the
video for you, in which case who is that person?

(01:02:59):
They had had their authority to post on the President
of United States behalf taken away. I mean, these are
all very significant questions, none of which, to my knowledge
have been asked and certainly not answered. Again, if somehow
I missed it, please let me know. I'll be happy
to correct that in the next episode of the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
But I don't think so. I mean, this is this
crazy world.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
And then we have, I guess, in the realm of healthcare,
we have, in some ways an almost as bizarre set
of circumstances where Trump, in the presence of RK Junior,
announces this massive, colossal, multi, multi, multi billion dollar deal

(01:03:44):
to try to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
With Phfiser with Pheiser, an event.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
By the way, during which Trump joked about RK Junior getting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
COVID because he coughed or something.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
I mean, I mean, look, I'm all in favor of
joking as anybody, and I think there's a lot about
COVID that should be joking about. But I mean, to me,
this was the worst element by far of Trump's presidency.
He completely shipped the bed on COVID. He shut down
the country, elevated doctor Fauci to godlike status, allowed all

(01:04:26):
sorts of elements of our society to be destroyed from
which we will probably never recover. For two years we lost,
especially if your kit your you know, young children, we
lost two years of real life, all because Trump shit
the bed. And here he is joking about it with R.

(01:04:47):
Kane Junior, the guy who is the head of Health
and Human Services. Largely because of his opposition to some
not all Arka Junior was not nearly as good against
COVID tyranny as his fans want to believe now. At
the beginning, he was actually a classic liberal. It wasn't

(01:05:07):
until much later when it was safer, that our Kae
Junior changed his tune on this. But obviously he's been
very much associated with the vaccines and specifically the COVID vaccine,
and how he was not in favor of it and
is not in favor of it. Being mandated going forward,
or even really being advised to be taken by certain

(01:05:28):
groups of people. But here Trump and Arcade Junior are
joking about COVID much more importantly Peiser Peiser, I mean,
the name most associated in MAGA world with how horrible
the vaccine mandates were.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
And let's also not forget, although the right wing media
is completely forgotten, that it was only a couple of
weeks ago, only a couple of weeks ago, when Donald
Trump and we talked about it on this podcast, posted
on social media in a way that made it sound
like he was starting to turn against his own Operation
warp Speed, that maybe the vaccines hadn't been as safe

(01:06:11):
as he thought, and he even demanded that Pfizer open
up their books when it comes to the statistics. And
I mean, it seemed as if Trump was on the
verge of abandoning the COVID vaccine, which you know has
always been baffling to me as to how he still

(01:06:31):
thinks it's the greatest thing he ever did when his
base hates by and large, the COVID vaccine and especially
all the mandates that ensued and statistically, the argument I've
gone through as many times before. The argument that operation
warped speed was this amazing phenomenon that saved millions of lives,

(01:06:51):
is just not tenable anymore. You know, my basic view
of the COVID vaccine is it seemed to work for
a few short months in reducing the number of cases,
but in the end, some of our worst months when
it came to cases and deaths, both in the United
States and internationally, occurred after everybody that wanted the vaccine

(01:07:15):
could have taken it. And so how you can argue
that the vaccine with this miracle working drug when it
came to COVID is bizarre to me, but not as
bizarre as the idea that Trump, just after having posted
that he was pissed off at Pfizer and wanted some

(01:07:35):
accountability for what might have happened regarding negative consequences of
the COVID vaccine, here he is announcing this massive, unprecedented, colossal, multi,
multi multi billion dollar deal with Pfiser, with ourcaor I
presumed forced to be there and pretend to go along

(01:07:56):
with all this. And Trump's base, based upon the social
media postings I'm seeing, is a little conflicted about this.
There are some people that are like, what the fuck,
How the hell did this happen? But my guess is
why at large, this isn't gonna have any real impact
on Trump negatively politically, much like giving doctor fauci an

(01:08:16):
award on his last day in office.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Never had any negative impact.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
I mean, there were people who thought that that was
going to prevent Trump from winning the twenty twenty four
Republican presidential nomination. Interrational world, it should have, especially when
Ron DeSantis was the primary other option, but we don't
live in that world. And so it's just amazing to
me that Trump can shit on his base to the

(01:08:42):
way that he does so blatantly, and here he is
mister Operation warp speed and in contradiction to what he
has posted on social media a couple of weeks ago,
doing this massive deal with Pfizer. Now, by the way,
it is quite possible in retrospect because no one's see
to understand what Trump was doing with that social media post.

(01:09:03):
Maybe this was part of the negotiations with Pfiser. I'm
sure that there are Trump fans that are thinking that
that post was four dimensional chess and that he was
making a better deal because he was trying to scare
Pfiser that he might turn on them on the vaccine
and whatever. You know, negotiations were going on with regard
to this deal went more in Trump's direction, and that's

(01:09:25):
why they were able to announce this deal a couple
of weeks later. That actually makes a little bit of sense,
but it doesn't change the hpocrisy point, which is that
you know, Trump and his base are in almost total
contradiction when it comes to their view of the COVID vaccine,
the COVID panic in general, and specifically the company of

(01:09:48):
Pfiser with which Trump just did this massive, massive deal
with Rcade Junior being forced to participate in the public event.
Thanks for listening today, free drop of the abbreviated show.
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Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
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(01:10:33):
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