June 11, 2024 • 35 mins
Buck Sexton is joined by Tara Palmeri, a senior political correspondent. They discuss the Hunter Biden trial and its implications. She shares her involvement in reporting on Hunter's firearm case and the community's sentiments towards him, noting how the incident unfolded and the reactions from both sides. They deliberate on potential impacts on the Biden campaign if Hunter is convicted, exploring the strategic considerations and contrasting perspectives within the Democratic Party. Additionally, they reflect on the evolving landscape of political discourse and the challenges of navigating partisan perceptions as a journalist.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, welcome to Buck Brief.
On this episode, Tara Paul Mary is with us. He's
a senior political correspondent at Puck. Also has a podcast
over at The Ringer. Somebody's Got a Win, which is
definitely true about the twenty twenty four election. I think
(00:34):
it's true. I guess if things got really bad terror,
maybe nobody wins. But I'm hoping that's not where any
of this goes. No, I think someone is going to
end up winning. That's that goal. That's not the goal. No,
that is for sure. Before we get into this, because
I want to ask you about the Hunter Biden the
implications of the Hunter Biden trial that is probably ending
this week, maybe they'll go to next week and it
(00:55):
depends on but you know, meaning that the vert. You know,
we'll have a verdict pretty soon. But you have a
particular connection to all things Hunter Biden firearm case. Tell
everybody about this.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So it was really weird back in January, right after
the inauguration January twenty twenty one, I got a tip
about a story in which Hunter Biden got in a
fight with Haley Biden, who's.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Bo Biden's widow.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They were together at the time, they were call them
lovers or whatever, and she had found a gun in
his car, in his truck, and she took that gun
and threw it out in a public trash can across
from a school and you're like fancy grocery store. And
so I had the police report detailing all of this
(01:43):
because the police got involved when Hunter realized, oh my god,
you threw the gun out in the trash can, like
this is going to cause us a lot of problems, right,
And they go back to try to find the gun
in the trash can and it's not there. So I
have this tip, and I had heard from my sources
that the Secret Service tried to take the firearm transaction
record from the store where Hunter Biden bought the gun
(02:05):
in Delaware, because if that gun was used to commit
a crime, it could go back to him, right, Like
that's usually people always trace the gun. And so I
was told that Secret Services were going there, and so I,
you know, immediately like went to Delaware, did reporting on that,
(02:26):
and for the most part like I was able to
corroborate it from those sources, but uh, the Secret Circuit
Service said they don't have a record of it.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Okay. So I thought to myself when I.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Was driving down or it was down to Delaware because
I was in New York at the time, that it
was really a I thought it was a story about
a Secret Service scandal, even though I did have a
copy of that of that transaction form, right because the
gun owner is supposed to hold onto with the gun
the store, the store owners supposed to hold onto a
record of that, and it did say one of the
(02:59):
line said, you know, do.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
You are you a drug user? Or do you take drugs?
I can't remember exactly what it is, and he said no.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And I when I saw that, I was like, oh
my god, that's obviously not true because I had a
police report from the same time, and obviously this is
like I think, even on the police report, there was
something that implied that there was drug use. You know,
from his memoir he was just disapinably discharged from the
military for use of cocaine.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
He was pretty open about it.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But at the time I was like, people don't ever
prosecute anyone for this like that people are rarely prosecuted
relying on gun forms.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
They just are.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
They just really are. So I didn't think that anything
was going to come to that. I thought that the
Secret Service angle was more interesting. But there was something
that I did see when I was down in Delaware
talking to law enforcement and just neighbors and people around town,
was that they were like kind of fed up with
a Hunter Biden at that point and the Bidens in general,
because he was really going through the worst of his
(03:53):
addiction in Delaware and it was sort of being protected
by a place where the Bidens had ruled over for
like five decades. I mean, it's like ninety six miles
of land and you've got the biggest family being the
Biden family and the DuPont family, and they were just
kind of like over Hunter, Like they felt like he
was like a Tommy Boy kind of character that was
(04:15):
just able to get away with everything. And I think
that's where the secret the anger over the Secret Service
getting involved sort of came through. And I guess I
was surprised to hear that he was going to be
you know, that he would be tried for this, But
at the same time, like, I'm I'm also you know,
I'm not surprised that that the you know, the general
(04:36):
community was like annoyed with him at this point, and
even his lawyers, his the defense attorneys, were like, please
don't document how much money was spent on you know, restaurants, hotels, hookers,
et cetera, drugs, because like he was living really lavishly
at the time. He was making millions of dollars, and
(04:57):
it was in the middle of this kind of wild
drug induced lifestyle. And I just got the sense from
being down there in Delaware that, yeah, a lot of
people are just were annoyed with the bidens and and
little did I know that that document and was going
to be the crux of a case that might put
the president's son in jail for up to twenty five years.
(05:17):
It's pretty clear cut too, if you actually prosecute this case,
it's pretty clear cut.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, I mean, he did it. The facts are not
in dispute. I don't know, if you've assume you've been
watching some of the coverage of the trial, the defense
that is being leveled that he thought that he was
signing something that said he wasn't high or on drugs
when he was buying the gun the way that I can.
So I've bought a lot of guns, so I've gone
through this process many times. If he can claim that defense,
(05:44):
anyone could claim that defense, because basically nobody goes in
when they're like high on crack and buys a gun,
right Like, that's not a thing that really happens. But
there are people that are drug users who are not
supposed to go in. So what I mean is that
law would essentially be nullified entirely, or rather that statute
would have to go away because anybody could say, well,
I thought that, you know, I thought that at the
(06:04):
time that I was signing it. So it's a preposterous defense.
I think that what you have is a situation where
a jury member may decide. Clay and I were actually
talking to this on radio. He thinks somebody may, out
of love for Biden just hold out, and I was like,
I don't think it'd be out of love for Biden either, Biden.
I think somebody may be politically minded enough that just
to spite Trump in this moment, they wouldn't go along
(06:27):
with a conviction, even though the fact, like I said,
the facts are not in dispute he did the thing,
and it is a crime. So that's I didn't realize
that you had such close ties to the origins of this.
Let me ask you this, though, Do you think it
matters for the Biden campaign if he is convicted? Right?
I mean, Trump just got convicted of something farcical in
New York. But put that aside, his numbers looking great,
(06:48):
maybe better than they ever have before. Is Biden's conviction hunter,
Biden's conviction of a problem for the campaign?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know, it's a good question.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I think that it's not great in the same way
that Trump getting not great.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Like, yeah, you can think what you.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Want about the charges, but there's like such a small
this is going to be such a close election that
such a small number of voters are going to decide,
and you don't want anything that's going to push them
one way or another. The Republicans have like spent a
lot of time on the idea of a Biden crime family,
so to put one of those members in prison helps
bolster their their claims.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
At the same time, some might say it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Shows that like the Biden administration is showing, you know,
equanimity by making sure that if Trump is indicted and
then so is their son that they're not getting involved.
I think it cuts both ways. It depends, like I
think it's just going to be such a close election.
But back to the argument about like whether they're on
drugs or not, there's also an argument to being made,
(07:49):
like what does addicted mean?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Because I think that the wording is are you addicted
to drugs? And some people might not think they're addicted
or what? How do you define addiction?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right? Like there's no.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Doctor that's going to hand out a form and says
like you are addicted to drugs. So I think that
might be an argument that they were trying to play
as well.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But that's the.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Idea that Hunter is a drag on Biden. Yeah, he's
a drag on Biden in the same way that an
eighty or whatever eighty eight indictments were a drag on Trump.
Like to some people, they feel like poor Hunter, like
he's they want to like wrap their arms around him.
They feel bad for him because he's, you know, this
poor person who suffers with addiction and other people who
(08:28):
are like this as a coddled adult who's in his
fifties who needs to deal with it in the same
way that some people look at the Trump indictments and
they're like, these are all politically motivated and ridiculous, and
others are like, he's a complete felon. I think it
cuts both ways, and it really only comes down to
such a small handful of votes. It'll probably come down
to like a few hundred thousand votes in a number
of battleground states that like how those people feel about
(08:50):
it is really all that matters, and if it moves
somebody one way or another, like someone's like and I
think it'll probably be a lot of low information voters
who have been like half listening to the news and
know there's something up with Hunter Biden and they're like, oh,
and anyone to jail. And maybe they don't even know
how to connect it. Maybe they think it is related
to Barisma or you know, Ukraine, and they think that's
(09:10):
why it's in jail, because most voters are low information voters, right.
It's all about like the impression, and that's why words
like convicted, felon or you know, those words matter.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Well. So this is interesting because I think that the
Democrats strategy, at least in New York was just to
get to the conviction, and then to your point, it
just becomes a property. It just becomes the propagandistic repetition
of convicted felon. However, you talk to Democrats, you talk
to Republicans. I would talk to more Democrats in you know,
off it, but they won't talk to me. Tara. You
(09:43):
need to tell them that, you know, I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Got them, so they want to know.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Probably not, but like they should talk to me anyway.
But so it's I'm not saying they're wrong for not
talking to me. Necessarily, they should be just.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Like Gavin Newsom and just be willing to go after
go at it.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah. Oh, they should definitely be willing to exchange ideas,
I think. I mean, one of the problems we have
in politics these days, in my opinion, is that nobody
has to defend. No one has to defend anything they
say or their propositions anymore. It's all just everything is
appreciated to the choir, Everything is siloed to the base.
I want to say it too, and it's boring. When
I got into this business, I worked at CNN for
two years and all I was just basically like there
(10:24):
to get punched in the face by by communists and
it was very annoying. But you know, I did learn.
I did learn from the communist ambushes how they do
what they do. But I would just say when I
got into this business in twenty eleven, there was a
lot more debate. There really was, Like you, I was
on MSNBC. I had a debate with Glenn Greenwald on
(10:45):
MSNBC way back in the day, Like that's what would happen.
That never happens anymore. Like you never have people who
are real representatives of their side anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Both sides though, Oh no, I know, I don't see
any Democrats on Fox. I have friends though that work
for like or Biden allies or used to work in
the White House, and they're like, I'd love to go
on Fox, Like they do want to go on, but
some of them don't. I think there's like I don't know,
and I think it's I think on the other side too.
It just I think what happened was it went a
little too far after the Trump was elected and like
(11:19):
during his campaign and he was just like so clashy
that you couldn't hear anything at all, and the audience
didn't like it. And I think now they went to
the other extreme where everyone is sort of like drinking
the same juice and they're sitting there at the table
and it's like a Kumbaya session. I don't think the
audience likes that either, Like, there needs to be a balance,
and we went too far one way and we now
we're too far the other way, and we need to
(11:40):
come back to the middle. And I'm not saying people
in the middle, being like there's one person who is
the referee, Well, it should be probably the host, but
people should at least have dialogue on both sides, you know,
it shouldn't just be like five people with the same
points but so boring.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Back to the I agree with you on that, but
back to the initial premise. Do you talk to Democrats
and Republicans?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Is there is there a recognition on the Democrat side
that Trump the quote convey well, I mean he is
convicted felon. Now that that is a fact, right, Trump,
the convicted felon has made the Republican Party more unified
behind Trump than I think at any time before.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Honestly, Yeah, for sure, Yeah, no, totally, I think that
And never before have I seen the Republican Party like this.
Before after Charlottesville, people were disanting themselves from Trump, even
just like day to day, like when he wanted to
pull out a NAFTA, there were some Republicans who were
(12:42):
like hiding in corners around Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
There were you know, the.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Muslim band in the insurrection, the I don't know, like
it just felt like every time he said something people
were there was never like alignment around Trump, from like
the Mitt Romney's, the Mitch McConnell's, the Susan Collins all
the way to like the Macki's.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
We on the right call them the establishment of what
we have? Are quotes with that or this squad? Right?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yes, yeah, the swamp.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Okay, from the swamp to the swamp, I don't know
what you want to like, from the swamp to the
ideologues or maga I whatever you want to say. Everybody
is in alignment only except for Larry Hogan, who basically
said respect the rule of law because he has to win.
He's got to beat Trump by thirty points in Maryland
to win the Senate seat, and that probably isn't going
to happen. So but across the board, they all are saying,
(13:36):
you know, this is a this is a injustice.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So what's the plan? Don't respect like, what is the Democrat?
What is the plan? What are they going to do?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, that's the thing. They're still working it out, and
I remember, still work all right, Yeah, because some of
the some of the some of them are worried that
if if Biden leans too far into it, it looks
like he was behind it, right, and that supports the
claims by all Republicans pretty much including Trump, that this
was politically motivated, right, and that this was a way
(14:08):
to interfere in the ELC. So if he leans into
it too far, then you know that it only bolsters
Trump's claims. And some Democrats worry that they're missing an
opportunity and that if they don't lean in enough into
this convicted Felon into the fact that he's convicted felt
and they've missed this great opportunity to brand their opponent
(14:30):
this way. And you know, someone compared it to after
when Al Gore ran after Monica Lewinsky and he was
afraid to campaign with Bill Clinton because they just didn't
know at the time but what the public was going
to feel about him. And so looking back on it,
they think, oh, he probably should have campaigned with Bill
Clinton in the same way that people say, well, the
(14:51):
Lord Clinton probably should have campaigned in Michigan and Pennsylvania too, right,
And it's kind of one of those like moments where
they think that they'll look back on this and wonder
if they should have played harder into the idea that
Trump is a convicted felon or not. I've seen over
the weekend his campaign start to put out press releases
that call him a convict. It fell in, and they're
starting to do ads and things like that. But it's
(15:13):
the campaign. It's a little bit separate from Biden. I
think surrogates are going to keep like leaning into it.
But they're in kind of a weird space and there's
no like instant polling. There's nothing that will give them
the answer. It's really something you could probably only look at,
like you'll need hindsight for this kind of thing. So
they're they're trying to figure out what to do and
if anything, we look at the polling and it really
(15:35):
hasn't changed much. Yeah, I mean, like we said, because
this is such a tight election and it's going to
come down to such a small number of people, like
it's almost impossible to really know how that small number
of independent voters, those people who those people who know Trump,
those people who know Joe Biden and still haven't made
(15:55):
up their mind. Which I'm just like at this point,
don't you think it's kind of crazy? Or no?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, yeah, I wonder who it is that doesn't have
beliefs that would lend them to at least make a
decision already about this. But let's come back into that
in a second. And just quickly from our sponsor here,
this is we have a little t if you want
take a moment, Tarah, We'll be right back with you.
Ox There you go, Oxford Gold Group. Everybody, if you're
thinking about buying precious metals, this is who I've gotten
(16:22):
my gold from in the past. And here's why you
might want to have precious metals on hand, tangible currency
if you need like a bug out plan, portfolio diversification,
a hedge against inflation, a store of value. There are
many good, sound reasons to have precious metals as part
of your portfolio. If you're paying attention to global events,
you know that the dollar could be under pressure. There
(16:45):
could be all kinds of financial calamity in the future,
you want to have some gold and silver on hand.
Nobody can predict the future, but you can prepare for it.
The Oxford Gold Group are pros. They make owning gold
and silver simple and easy. Call the Oxford Gold Group.
You may qualify for up to ten thousand dollars in
free precious metals eight three three nine nine five gold
eight three three nine nine five gold. Okay, now this
(17:11):
is fascinating again, even just talking to somebody who talks
to Democrats on Capitol Hill, for me, this is like,
oh wow, this is so cool. Tell me, yeah, do
they really think that they so funny? Though?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I will say this, but depending on what I report,
because like no one can figure out if I'm a
Republican or Democrats, So my Wikipedia page constantly changes. Like
they'll either bump up if they think I'm like a
right winger, They'll bump up, oh she worked at the
Washington Post and sorry, the Washington Examiner in the New
York Post, or then they'll be like or then it
will pop up like oh she's uh, she worked at
(17:43):
ABC News. Like it'll it'll try to like someone was saying, oh,
she's a conservative calumnist. It's like every time I write
something that or produce something that people don't like, they
try to pick try to paint you on one side
or another. So it's kind of a funny space to
be in the middle because I don't think people like that.
It's so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
No, they expect, they they want they want partisan clarity
right at all times. So yeah, exactly, that that's the
that's the media environment that we that we all operate
or existed.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I'm the middleman, punching bag.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I guess right, that's kind of where we're well, this
is what this is what they said reporters for my
you know, for most of my adult life, that's what
we're told that there you shouldn't be able to tell.
And I was like, I can tell everybody at CNN,
everybody everybody at ABC News, Like I know, they're politics
and none of them are fooling me at all. But anyway,
that's kind of funny. You know, my first internship and
(18:33):
I didn't even think I wanted to go into media
at all. It just was like an internship that I
had a high school connection to somebody who worked he
went to the high school. Anyway, was at CBS evening
News and I remember, yeah, I remember even then. I
was the only intern I remember even then. It was
kind of a big internship at the time, and it's funny,
I had no interest in doing that, so I was
kind of like, I'll do this internship. I was eighteen
(18:54):
years old, so it was very, very very young to
be doing it. And I just remember thinking like, oh wow,
these people are all like they all absolutely hate Republicans,
like it was very I kept mine. No, it was
Dan it was Dan rather Era. I was there at
the Dan rather I'm old, yeah, yeah, it's Dan rather Era.
So and he would sort of show up and they
would do the they'd sit there and the comba's hair
(19:15):
for like forty minutes and then they'd read his lines.
I'm like, this guy gets paid eight million dollars a
year to do this is amazing anyway, as crazy, I
think all those days are definitely gone. You can't just
be a guy who sounds and looks like a news
anchor and get paid millions and millions of dollars for it.
Same at least not the same way. Yeah same, oh
you no, but so so what I want to ask though,
(19:36):
is is to the degree that you can play a
psychiatrist on this, you know, and analyze, analyze them. Do
do Democrats? So they say crazy stuff about Trump, as
you know, and like really crazy stuff like Trump is
hitler early. You know, they go insane and I know
this about getting votes and stuff. Do you talk to
Democrats on the hill or in DC media circles who
(20:00):
really think that, like are they scared of Trump winning?
Or are they just very upset? No? No, no, no, no
no no us. But what I mean is like frightened,
as in their worried about the future of the country.
The stuff they say, Like do they are they actually
hysterical about it or do they just say that because
they want Biden to win? Do you know what I'm saying?
There's like a difference, Like I know, if Biden wins,
(20:23):
it's going to be bad, but I'm like, oh, the
country's gonna end, Like I'm not a baby. Are they
actually like that delusional about this?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
They no, no, no, no, no, no, they think like it's kind
of no. They believe it's an existential threat. Oh and
it's because of the things that Trump has said, like
he's like I'm going to be a dictator on day one.
They're worried about how he's going to use his prosecutorial powers.
He says he's going to enact retribution. I mean, I
do think some of them are truly, really, really worried,
and they haven't for a while. But they're also fully
(20:51):
aware that their candidate is probably one of the weakest
candidates that they could be running against Trump, the same
way that like, Trump isn't exactly the strongest candidate that
Republicans could be running either. I think I said this
to you offline, like there's a feeling that, like, the
only person who could lose to Biden is Trump, and
the only person who could lose to Biden, Sorry, the
only person who could lose to Biden is Trump. The
only person who can lose to Trump is Biden. They're
(21:12):
both like kind of they're kind of weak candidates.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And my Trump supporting listeners are getting very upset, as
they say, because they would point out in their defense,
in their defense on this point Trump, Biden's an incumbent
president trailing in every swing state and now even a
Democrat who's losing in the popular vote in some polls, right, Like,
(21:35):
how could he be? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Like, I think he's historically he's historically unpopular. But like
when Biden beat Trump last time, Trump was historically unpopular.
I don't think at any point in the election in
twenty twenty, Trump was never ahead of Biden at any point.
He was always down five to ten points, always in
every poll. And I've been saying this all along that
(21:57):
I think Trump could win because I think that, and
in the end it was a much closer election than
we thought it would be. I think it's really hard
to pull Trump voters. I think he's doing better than
we think he's doing in the polls. I think Trump
is actually doing better than what we see.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
If it's this close, that's probably true.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, yeah, because like polsters just don't know how to
And I think.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
But here's the test of what you're saying before about
how Trump is as a candidate. I know you could
argue this either way, and I can't. It's it's an opinion, right,
I mean, anyone could make this argument. But would would
Nicky Haley be running these kinds of numbers against Biden
right now?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
I think so?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Do you think so?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I mean, yeah, I think should we take a different voter, like,
do I think like that Trump has a group of voters.
They're kind of they're low information voters, and they don't
tend to always engage me.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh throw a flag. Trump's low information voters. I don't
think that's fair to the Trump voter. I think that
there's a lot of there's one hundred and fifty million
people that are.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
All Trump voters.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But I'm saying he brings out a group of voters
that don't traditionally vote.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Ah. Okay, So now as we can say low propensity voters,
how about that low propensity density voters?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Probably and they and they don't get their news from
traditional sources.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
That's what we can Maybe there's a sort of media
bias to say low information. You're right, they don't get
it from the traditional media sources. But and I don't
think those people would bring I don't think Mickyla would
bring those people up out. But I think she would
take back all the people that Trump lost from the party.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That suburban women. Is that kind of the main Democratic.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, I think she would take back all the soft Republicans.
I think she would take back all the Independents. I
think she would take those people away from Biden because
and I think she'd take Democrats from Biden.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Now do I think she's like the best politician ever
walked face there?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I think Trump has star quality and powers that no
one has ever seen in politics before.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I really do. And it's like, but at the.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
End of hes he lost last time as an incumbent too,
he's not the strongest candidate. Like, no party would ever
rerun the same candidate that just lost in the last election.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, see, it's interesting because that's where generally I think
that that is true, right, And that's that's a true
statement that usually you wouldn't have. I think there have
been some people historically who have lost in run again,
but not I don't know if there's ever been an
incumbent who lost ran again and won, i'd have to
I don't think so. I mean, you know, when you
get into like the late eighteen hundred, some of these presidents,
(24:24):
it's like nobody remembers them, you know, who cares Some
of them then last that long, but number it was
like whatever, it's very it's very it's a very different time.
But I would just say with Trump, this the the
only reason it's interesting, the only reason that he I
think he has gotten to the point where he was
even the lead candidate in the primary before all of
(24:46):
the stuff, you know, the indictment, now the now. The
conviction is that there was a sense among a lot
of people that he got cheated out of twenty twenty, right,
So that whole narrative, whatever one may think of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean that that that put him in a position
to run again. I want to ask what you think although.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Rohn DeSantis was beating him in the polls in the beginning.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
That's true, I remember, yeah, and then that in December.
There is an argument that maybe Ron it was impossible
for anybody to run against Trump in a environment even
just where the mar A Lago raid happened, Like that
was really that really, uh, that's what fired up the base.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I don't think Ron was the best candidate of all time, Like.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
None of them.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I didn't find many of them to be very compelling.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Ron is I live in Florida, and I moved here
in part because of what was going on in Florida
at just like the job that I think was being
done here. So I think Ron is an A plus governor.
I think his campaign was a C minus. It was
not good.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
There was he had more money than anyone ever to
run a primary. Nearly two hundred million dollars he spent
on his primary campaign. It's insane. No one has ever
spent them kind of money. And I got to give
Trump credit to like, if you look at the amount
of money that he's spent so far compared to Biden,
I mean, not including legal fies, he hasn't spent much
money at all, and he's still neck and neck in
(26:11):
the polls with Biden.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
And it was interesting. So I know, you say, like, oh,
our Democrats, how do democrats really feel? On my show?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Somebody's got to win tomorrow. I've got a former White
House official long time, you know, Biden ad on the
campaign and Nancy Pelosi who said to me they shouldn't
be hyping up the fact that he's a convicted felon,
because it only makes Biden look weaker that he's in
neck and neck with a convicted felon. Like, this is
a candidate that's not even beating a convicted felon. We
(26:37):
shouldn't be hyping it up for that reason alone. And
so like, I don't think I think Democrats are like
very much aware that they have a weak candidate. They
are terrified of Trump. They are terrified it, but they
have been all along.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
They really they really right.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
But you understand the distinction that I'm making between there's terrified,
like terrified in an exaggerated sense that he will win
because like, oh God, we need Biden to win, and
then there's oh, I need to leave the country because
Trump is actually going to be a dictator, like they
say things about him. He said. I heard he said
(27:10):
I on day one, I'll be a dictator on one thing,
which will be like sealing the border, and then I'll
stop being a dictator. He's being very true.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
He did say he will.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Okay, fine if you could parse it that way. But
I think there was another thing he said though about
like that there'll be retribution and that alone, like if
I was judge, Mrshawn, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'll tell you something. I actually think in some of
these cases, and I've made this, uh this case already publicly,
there should be retribution within the law for abuse of
power of the law, meaning that people that have done
things that are in fact illegal or like, yes, I
think you should go after them. But the people that
are advocating for like, let's just indict like Gavin Newsom
for you know, for murder for accessory to murder because
(27:55):
of like the wide open border. Like no, that doesn't
that that just turns into a into a food fight
and a mess, and that doesn't actually advance anything. I
don't I don't believe that. I don't believe that Trump
will do retribution. By the way, and do you.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Think kills like do you think kill like in prison journalists?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Not even, not even I think that that kind of
talk is completely insane. I think that Trump is going
to be like he was the first time around, you know,
the first year, he'll maybe go after a couple of
big things.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Actually prosecute Hillary Clinton. I think this time around he
would have Prosecutedhillary Clinton.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That mean, I mean, look, Hillary broke the law. I know,
the classified law is better than ninety five percent of
the people that were going on TV talking about it
because it was the CIA and I had to actually
live by them. She did break the law, There's no
question about it. And he decided This is where you
get into like does the DOJ work for the president
or not? Like we like to live in this world
and I think it's semi fictional where the attorney general
is independent, not really. He actually serves the president up
(28:46):
pleasure of the president. So there's it's like this gray air.
It's like Supreme Court justices don't have pology.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Barr didn't tell him that Hunter was being investigated before
the election.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
That was shocking to me.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Wait, that Hunter was being investigated before the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, he didn't tell He never told Trump that, and
that would have been like a useful piece of information
in a campaign draw.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I think, I look, I think Bill Barr I and
I get that a lot for this. I thought Bill
Barr was I think he's a very a very fair minded,
very smart guy and a very good lawyer. And uh,
you know, had already been the attorney general before, like
didn't need this, you know. And so it doesn't surprise
me that he would abide by the traditions or the
you know, the the values of the institution in a
(29:28):
way that.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Trump wanted to fire Jeff Sessions when he put a
special counsel because the Mollar investigations.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
So it's like I interviewed Trump and there was the
first time and he said he didn't have an attorney
general when Jeff Sessions was his attorney general. That was
the big line. He's like, not even have an attorney general.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And I was like, whoa, I remember that.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, yeah, that was me sitting down Sessions yea, And.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
He really wanted to fire him, Like there were a
lot of times when people were like, you can fire
a special council, and you cannot fire the attorney general.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
You have to just stick with them.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, But what will actually happen is Trump will be
Trump if if he were to win, and I think
we'd get tax cuts, and I think there'd be some
effort to do some stuff about the illegals. The Libs
will tie it up in court as quickly as they can.
And you know, will he be able and will he
be able to deport even let's say a million two
(30:17):
million people in the first year, as he has said,
and whatever, we'll see. I mean I would put my
money on no, So I think it'll be a far less.
It sounds like this really serious and intense presidency that's
so right wing and crazy to liberals, But if you
actually look at the Trump presidency as a matter of policy,
like what actually happened, a lot of this stuff was
(30:37):
pretty traditional Republican and you know there's a lot of
Kim Kardashian selfies in the Oval office, like it's not
it wasn't this far right thing.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
There's a difference. Though.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Here's the thing. I think that he didn't understand the
power of the presidency. He was not like Biden. He
was not a career politician. He didn't even have his
people around him who was doing the transition for him,
Jared Kushner and Chris Christie.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now you've got like huge the.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Mood was running his transition. Scaramucci, who now makes a
living on MSNBC trashing him exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
So.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
He did not have he did not understand the lovers
of power. He didn't have people like actually staffing him
up the way he wanted to. He didn't have even
policy proposals.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It was a mess.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
It was like Steve Bannon fighting with you know, this
person or the globalist. It was all about personnel. He
had no control over the presidency. It's going to be
totally different this time. I agree with you. He wasn't
able to accomplish as much as he wanted to because
he didn't know how to do it. He knows how
to do it now he has better support. Just look
at his campaign. This is the best campaign he's ever run.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, look, you're getting me, you're getting me excited about
Trump two point Oh this is great. But that's why
this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
To believe what he says. I think he'll be able
to do it this time. I really do.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I hope. So that'd be amazing. We'll get we'll get
back into this, uh in just a second. But I
got to tell you about our sponsor, Porter and Company
for a moment. Everybody. Porter Stansbury's a guy known for
a decade. He built a billion dollar business starting out
of his dorm room at the University of Florida back
in the nineties. So this is a guy who knows
(32:09):
the markets, knows finance, and makes huge predictions that make
his readers a whole lot of money. But Porter's got
something he wants to talk to you about. He says,
there's a new form of money in America that's making
some people incredibly rich. In fact, a lot of the
richest people in America are already using it, and you
can too. It's not gold or bitcoin. Porter points out.
(32:29):
What's interesting is that while every American is entitled to
use this secret currency if you know much about it.
Porter's hoping to change that. He thinks it could be
the most critical way to protect and grow wealth in
the years to come as the dollar continues to be
under pressure with our thirty four trillion dollars in debt.
Check out Porter's latest detailed presentation at Secret Currency twenty
twenty four dot com. That Secret Currency twenty twenty four
(32:52):
dot com. All right, give me a terror, give me
a prediction of what you think the outcome here of
the Hunter. I want the Hunter Biden trial outcome, and
I want the Trump sentencing prediction.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Damn god. I could be wrong about this, but next week,
which sucks. That's okay. You are you are your followers vicious?
Are they going to attack me?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
They're brilliant, kind patriots. They're the nicest people ever. That's
why they follow me.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
So go ahead, Okay, let's see Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Not guilty.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I think he'll be guilty. Yeah, because it's just too
clear cut.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I don't know, I think so. No, I've said, you
don't know what I've said on radio, So I'm already
on the record.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
There's enough.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
There's enough Republicans there, they're like there's enough people tired
of the family, Like it's just yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
The bidens are gross. That's a whole that's a whole
other conversation, all right, And then the big one. Does
Trump go to prison in any kind of incarceration starting
in July? No, definitely not, I think so.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I think that's gonna appeel it. First of all, Yeah,
he's going to appeal it. So that's why. And I
know there's been talking like, oh, he's been a few
days in jail, this and that.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It's like no, and by the way, there's no jail,
you gotta go to rikers. And yeah, he's going to
appeel it. And I was talking to Elie Honig, who's
a pretty fair minded former Southern District of New York
Attorney General, has worked with the prosecutor and the defense
on this trial, and he said, like, seventy to ninety
percent of these cases don't go to jail. It's either probation,
(34:32):
community service, a fine, and maybe house arrest. You know,
but it wouldn't happen even now. But I'll say that
the White House is basically house arrests.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So I'd like to say house arrest and Trump towers like,
I've been there in his apartment there. It's not that bad.
It's like three stories, pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Well Clinton used to call the White House a penitentiary,
you know, so well.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
He definitely, he definitely made it into something. Bill Bill
was a Bill was kind of a wild man. Tara, Paul, Mary, everybody. Tara,
thanks so much for hanging out. We went a little
long on this one. Where can everone go to follow more?
They got to go to Puck for reading your columns
and tell me the podcast again.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Somebody's got to win, because somebody's got to win, guys.
And uh yeah, if you want a discount to sign
up for my newsletter, you can use the discount code
Tara twenty.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
There we go, sign up, check it out. Everybody, thanks
so much. Sarah.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Thanks
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, welcome to Buck Brief.
On this episode, Tara Paul Mary is with us. He's
a senior political correspondent at Puck. Also has a podcast
over at The Ringer. Somebody's Got a Win, which is
definitely true about the twenty twenty four election. I think
(00:34):
it's true. I guess if things got really bad terror,
maybe nobody wins. But I'm hoping that's not where any
of this goes. No, I think someone is going to
end up winning. That's that goal. That's not the goal. No,
that is for sure. Before we get into this, because
I want to ask you about the Hunter Biden the
implications of the Hunter Biden trial that is probably ending
this week, maybe they'll go to next week and it
(00:55):
depends on but you know, meaning that the vert. You know,
we'll have a verdict pretty soon. But you have a
particular connection to all things Hunter Biden firearm case. Tell
everybody about this.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
So it was really weird back in January, right after
the inauguration January twenty twenty one, I got a tip
about a story in which Hunter Biden got in a
fight with Haley Biden, who's.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Bo Biden's widow.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They were together at the time, they were call them
lovers or whatever, and she had found a gun in
his car, in his truck, and she took that gun
and threw it out in a public trash can across
from a school and you're like fancy grocery store. And
so I had the police report detailing all of this
(01:43):
because the police got involved when Hunter realized, oh my god,
you threw the gun out in the trash can, like
this is going to cause us a lot of problems, right,
And they go back to try to find the gun
in the trash can and it's not there. So I
have this tip, and I had heard from my sources
that the Secret Service tried to take the firearm transaction
record from the store where Hunter Biden bought the gun
(02:05):
in Delaware, because if that gun was used to commit
a crime, it could go back to him, right, Like
that's usually people always trace the gun. And so I
was told that Secret Services were going there, and so I,
you know, immediately like went to Delaware, did reporting on that,
(02:26):
and for the most part like I was able to
corroborate it from those sources, but uh, the Secret Circuit
Service said they don't have a record of it.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Okay. So I thought to myself when I.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Was driving down or it was down to Delaware because
I was in New York at the time, that it
was really a I thought it was a story about
a Secret Service scandal, even though I did have a
copy of that of that transaction form, right because the
gun owner is supposed to hold onto with the gun
the store, the store owners supposed to hold onto a
record of that, and it did say one of the
(02:59):
line said, you know, do.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
You are you a drug user? Or do you take drugs?
I can't remember exactly what it is, and he said no.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And I when I saw that, I was like, oh
my god, that's obviously not true because I had a
police report from the same time, and obviously this is
like I think, even on the police report, there was
something that implied that there was drug use. You know,
from his memoir he was just disapinably discharged from the
military for use of cocaine.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
He was pretty open about it.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
But at the time I was like, people don't ever
prosecute anyone for this like that people are rarely prosecuted
relying on gun forms.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
They just are.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
They just really are. So I didn't think that anything
was going to come to that. I thought that the
Secret Service angle was more interesting. But there was something
that I did see when I was down in Delaware
talking to law enforcement and just neighbors and people around town,
was that they were like kind of fed up with
a Hunter Biden at that point and the Bidens in general,
because he was really going through the worst of his
(03:53):
addiction in Delaware and it was sort of being protected
by a place where the Bidens had ruled over for
like five decades. I mean, it's like ninety six miles
of land and you've got the biggest family being the
Biden family and the DuPont family, and they were just
kind of like over Hunter, Like they felt like he
was like a Tommy Boy kind of character that was
(04:15):
just able to get away with everything. And I think
that's where the secret the anger over the Secret Service
getting involved sort of came through. And I guess I
was surprised to hear that he was going to be
you know, that he would be tried for this, But
at the same time, like, I'm I'm also you know,
I'm not surprised that that the you know, the general
(04:36):
community was like annoyed with him at this point, and
even his lawyers, his the defense attorneys, were like, please
don't document how much money was spent on you know, restaurants, hotels, hookers,
et cetera, drugs, because like he was living really lavishly
at the time. He was making millions of dollars, and
(04:57):
it was in the middle of this kind of wild
drug induced lifestyle. And I just got the sense from
being down there in Delaware that, yeah, a lot of
people are just were annoyed with the bidens and and
little did I know that that document and was going
to be the crux of a case that might put
the president's son in jail for up to twenty five years.
(05:17):
It's pretty clear cut too, if you actually prosecute this case,
it's pretty clear cut.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, I mean, he did it. The facts are not
in dispute. I don't know, if you've assume you've been
watching some of the coverage of the trial, the defense
that is being leveled that he thought that he was
signing something that said he wasn't high or on drugs
when he was buying the gun the way that I can.
So I've bought a lot of guns, so I've gone
through this process many times. If he can claim that defense,
(05:44):
anyone could claim that defense, because basically nobody goes in
when they're like high on crack and buys a gun,
right Like, that's not a thing that really happens. But
there are people that are drug users who are not
supposed to go in. So what I mean is that
law would essentially be nullified entirely, or rather that statute
would have to go away because anybody could say, well,
I thought that, you know, I thought that at the
(06:04):
time that I was signing it. So it's a preposterous defense.
I think that what you have is a situation where
a jury member may decide. Clay and I were actually
talking to this on radio. He thinks somebody may, out
of love for Biden just hold out, and I was like,
I don't think it'd be out of love for Biden either, Biden.
I think somebody may be politically minded enough that just
to spite Trump in this moment, they wouldn't go along
(06:27):
with a conviction, even though the fact, like I said,
the facts are not in dispute he did the thing,
and it is a crime. So that's I didn't realize
that you had such close ties to the origins of this.
Let me ask you this, though, Do you think it
matters for the Biden campaign if he is convicted? Right?
I mean, Trump just got convicted of something farcical in
New York. But put that aside, his numbers looking great,
(06:48):
maybe better than they ever have before. Is Biden's conviction hunter,
Biden's conviction of a problem for the campaign?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know, it's a good question.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I think that it's not great in the same way
that Trump getting not great.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Like, yeah, you can think what you.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Want about the charges, but there's like such a small
this is going to be such a close election that
such a small number of voters are going to decide,
and you don't want anything that's going to push them
one way or another. The Republicans have like spent a
lot of time on the idea of a Biden crime family,
so to put one of those members in prison helps
bolster their their claims.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
At the same time, some might say it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Shows that like the Biden administration is showing, you know,
equanimity by making sure that if Trump is indicted and
then so is their son that they're not getting involved.
I think it cuts both ways. It depends, like I
think it's just going to be such a close election.
But back to the argument about like whether they're on
drugs or not, there's also an argument to being made,
(07:49):
like what does addicted mean?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Because I think that the wording is are you addicted
to drugs? And some people might not think they're addicted
or what? How do you define addiction?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Right? Like there's no.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Doctor that's going to hand out a form and says
like you are addicted to drugs. So I think that
might be an argument that they were trying to play
as well.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
But that's the.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Idea that Hunter is a drag on Biden. Yeah, he's
a drag on Biden in the same way that an
eighty or whatever eighty eight indictments were a drag on Trump.
Like to some people, they feel like poor Hunter, like
he's they want to like wrap their arms around him.
They feel bad for him because he's, you know, this
poor person who suffers with addiction and other people who
(08:28):
are like this as a coddled adult who's in his
fifties who needs to deal with it in the same
way that some people look at the Trump indictments and
they're like, these are all politically motivated and ridiculous, and
others are like, he's a complete felon. I think it
cuts both ways, and it really only comes down to
such a small handful of votes. It'll probably come down
to like a few hundred thousand votes in a number
of battleground states that like how those people feel about
(08:50):
it is really all that matters, and if it moves
somebody one way or another, like someone's like and I
think it'll probably be a lot of low information voters
who have been like half listening to the news and
know there's something up with Hunter Biden and they're like, oh,
and anyone to jail. And maybe they don't even know
how to connect it. Maybe they think it is related
to Barisma or you know, Ukraine, and they think that's
(09:10):
why it's in jail, because most voters are low information voters, right.
It's all about like the impression, and that's why words
like convicted, felon or you know, those words matter.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Well. So this is interesting because I think that the
Democrats strategy, at least in New York was just to
get to the conviction, and then to your point, it
just becomes a property. It just becomes the propagandistic repetition
of convicted felon. However, you talk to Democrats, you talk
to Republicans. I would talk to more Democrats in you know,
off it, but they won't talk to me. Tara. You
(09:43):
need to tell them that, you know, I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Got them, so they want to know.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Probably not, but like they should talk to me anyway.
But so it's I'm not saying they're wrong for not
talking to me. Necessarily, they should be just.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Like Gavin Newsom and just be willing to go after
go at it.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah. Oh, they should definitely be willing to exchange ideas,
I think. I mean, one of the problems we have
in politics these days, in my opinion, is that nobody
has to defend. No one has to defend anything they
say or their propositions anymore. It's all just everything is
appreciated to the choir, Everything is siloed to the base.
I want to say it too, and it's boring. When
I got into this business, I worked at CNN for
two years and all I was just basically like there
(10:24):
to get punched in the face by by communists and
it was very annoying. But you know, I did learn.
I did learn from the communist ambushes how they do
what they do. But I would just say when I
got into this business in twenty eleven, there was a
lot more debate. There really was, Like you, I was
on MSNBC. I had a debate with Glenn Greenwald on
(10:45):
MSNBC way back in the day, Like that's what would happen.
That never happens anymore. Like you never have people who
are real representatives of their side anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Both sides though, Oh no, I know, I don't see
any Democrats on Fox. I have friends though that work
for like or Biden allies or used to work in
the White House, and they're like, I'd love to go
on Fox, Like they do want to go on, but
some of them don't. I think there's like I don't know,
and I think it's I think on the other side too.
It just I think what happened was it went a
little too far after the Trump was elected and like
(11:19):
during his campaign and he was just like so clashy
that you couldn't hear anything at all, and the audience
didn't like it. And I think now they went to
the other extreme where everyone is sort of like drinking
the same juice and they're sitting there at the table
and it's like a Kumbaya session. I don't think the
audience likes that either, Like, there needs to be a balance,
and we went too far one way and we now
we're too far the other way, and we need to
(11:40):
come back to the middle. And I'm not saying people
in the middle, being like there's one person who is
the referee, Well, it should be probably the host, but
people should at least have dialogue on both sides, you know,
it shouldn't just be like five people with the same
points but so boring.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Back to the I agree with you on that, but
back to the initial premise. Do you talk to Democrats
and Republicans?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Is there is there a recognition on the Democrat side
that Trump the quote convey well, I mean he is
convicted felon. Now that that is a fact, right, Trump,
the convicted felon has made the Republican Party more unified
behind Trump than I think at any time before.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Honestly, Yeah, for sure, Yeah, no, totally, I think that
And never before have I seen the Republican Party like this.
Before after Charlottesville, people were disanting themselves from Trump, even
just like day to day, like when he wanted to
pull out a NAFTA, there were some Republicans who were
(12:42):
like hiding in corners around Capitol Hill.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
There were you know, the.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Muslim band in the insurrection, the I don't know, like
it just felt like every time he said something people
were there was never like alignment around Trump, from like
the Mitt Romney's, the Mitch McConnell's, the Susan Collins all
the way to like the Macki's.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
We on the right call them the establishment of what
we have? Are quotes with that or this squad? Right?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yes, yeah, the swamp.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Okay, from the swamp to the swamp, I don't know
what you want to like, from the swamp to the
ideologues or maga I whatever you want to say. Everybody
is in alignment only except for Larry Hogan, who basically
said respect the rule of law because he has to win.
He's got to beat Trump by thirty points in Maryland
to win the Senate seat, and that probably isn't going
to happen. So but across the board, they all are saying,
(13:36):
you know, this is a this is a injustice.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So what's the plan? Don't respect like, what is the Democrat?
What is the plan? What are they going to do?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, that's the thing. They're still working it out, and
I remember, still work all right, Yeah, because some of
the some of the some of them are worried that
if if Biden leans too far into it, it looks
like he was behind it, right, and that supports the
claims by all Republicans pretty much including Trump, that this
was politically motivated, right, and that this was a way
(14:08):
to interfere in the ELC. So if he leans into
it too far, then you know that it only bolsters
Trump's claims. And some Democrats worry that they're missing an
opportunity and that if they don't lean in enough into
this convicted Felon into the fact that he's convicted felt
and they've missed this great opportunity to brand their opponent
(14:30):
this way. And you know, someone compared it to after
when Al Gore ran after Monica Lewinsky and he was
afraid to campaign with Bill Clinton because they just didn't
know at the time but what the public was going
to feel about him. And so looking back on it,
they think, oh, he probably should have campaigned with Bill
Clinton in the same way that people say, well, the
(14:51):
Lord Clinton probably should have campaigned in Michigan and Pennsylvania too, right,
And it's kind of one of those like moments where
they think that they'll look back on this and wonder
if they should have played harder into the idea that
Trump is a convicted felon or not. I've seen over
the weekend his campaign start to put out press releases
that call him a convict. It fell in, and they're
starting to do ads and things like that. But it's
(15:13):
the campaign. It's a little bit separate from Biden. I
think surrogates are going to keep like leaning into it.
But they're in kind of a weird space and there's
no like instant polling. There's nothing that will give them
the answer. It's really something you could probably only look at,
like you'll need hindsight for this kind of thing. So
they're they're trying to figure out what to do and
if anything, we look at the polling and it really
(15:35):
hasn't changed much. Yeah, I mean, like we said, because
this is such a tight election and it's going to
come down to such a small number of people, like
it's almost impossible to really know how that small number
of independent voters, those people who those people who know Trump,
those people who know Joe Biden and still haven't made
(15:55):
up their mind. Which I'm just like at this point,
don't you think it's kind of crazy? Or no?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, yeah, I wonder who it is that doesn't have
beliefs that would lend them to at least make a
decision already about this. But let's come back into that
in a second. And just quickly from our sponsor here,
this is we have a little t if you want
take a moment, Tarah, We'll be right back with you.
Ox There you go, Oxford Gold Group. Everybody, if you're
thinking about buying precious metals, this is who I've gotten
(16:22):
my gold from in the past. And here's why you
might want to have precious metals on hand, tangible currency
if you need like a bug out plan, portfolio diversification,
a hedge against inflation, a store of value. There are
many good, sound reasons to have precious metals as part
of your portfolio. If you're paying attention to global events,
you know that the dollar could be under pressure. There
(16:45):
could be all kinds of financial calamity in the future,
you want to have some gold and silver on hand.
Nobody can predict the future, but you can prepare for it.
The Oxford Gold Group are pros. They make owning gold
and silver simple and easy. Call the Oxford Gold Group.
You may qualify for up to ten thousand dollars in
free precious metals eight three three nine nine five gold
eight three three nine nine five gold. Okay, now this
(17:11):
is fascinating again, even just talking to somebody who talks
to Democrats on Capitol Hill, for me, this is like,
oh wow, this is so cool. Tell me, yeah, do
they really think that they so funny? Though?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I will say this, but depending on what I report,
because like no one can figure out if I'm a
Republican or Democrats, So my Wikipedia page constantly changes. Like
they'll either bump up if they think I'm like a
right winger, They'll bump up, oh she worked at the
Washington Post and sorry, the Washington Examiner in the New
York Post, or then they'll be like or then it
will pop up like oh she's uh, she worked at
(17:43):
ABC News. Like it'll it'll try to like someone was saying, oh,
she's a conservative calumnist. It's like every time I write
something that or produce something that people don't like, they
try to pick try to paint you on one side
or another. So it's kind of a funny space to
be in the middle because I don't think people like that.
It's so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
No, they expect, they they want they want partisan clarity
right at all times. So yeah, exactly, that that's the
that's the media environment that we that we all operate
or existed.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I'm the middleman, punching bag.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I guess right, that's kind of where we're well, this
is what this is what they said reporters for my
you know, for most of my adult life, that's what
we're told that there you shouldn't be able to tell.
And I was like, I can tell everybody at CNN,
everybody everybody at ABC News, Like I know, they're politics
and none of them are fooling me at all. But anyway,
that's kind of funny. You know, my first internship and
(18:33):
I didn't even think I wanted to go into media
at all. It just was like an internship that I
had a high school connection to somebody who worked he
went to the high school. Anyway, was at CBS evening
News and I remember, yeah, I remember even then. I
was the only intern I remember even then. It was
kind of a big internship at the time, and it's funny,
I had no interest in doing that, so I was
kind of like, I'll do this internship. I was eighteen
(18:54):
years old, so it was very, very very young to
be doing it. And I just remember thinking like, oh wow,
these people are all like they all absolutely hate Republicans,
like it was very I kept mine. No, it was
Dan it was Dan rather Era. I was there at
the Dan rather I'm old, yeah, yeah, it's Dan rather Era.
So and he would sort of show up and they
would do the they'd sit there and the comba's hair
(19:15):
for like forty minutes and then they'd read his lines.
I'm like, this guy gets paid eight million dollars a
year to do this is amazing anyway, as crazy, I
think all those days are definitely gone. You can't just
be a guy who sounds and looks like a news
anchor and get paid millions and millions of dollars for it.
Same at least not the same way. Yeah same, oh
you no, but so so what I want to ask though,
(19:36):
is is to the degree that you can play a
psychiatrist on this, you know, and analyze, analyze them. Do
do Democrats? So they say crazy stuff about Trump, as
you know, and like really crazy stuff like Trump is
hitler early. You know, they go insane and I know
this about getting votes and stuff. Do you talk to
Democrats on the hill or in DC media circles who
(20:00):
really think that, like are they scared of Trump winning?
Or are they just very upset? No? No, no, no, no
no no us. But what I mean is like frightened,
as in their worried about the future of the country.
The stuff they say, Like do they are they actually
hysterical about it or do they just say that because
they want Biden to win? Do you know what I'm saying?
There's like a difference, Like I know, if Biden wins,
(20:23):
it's going to be bad, but I'm like, oh, the
country's gonna end, Like I'm not a baby. Are they
actually like that delusional about this?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
They no, no, no, no, no, no, they think like it's kind
of no. They believe it's an existential threat. Oh and
it's because of the things that Trump has said, like
he's like I'm going to be a dictator on day one.
They're worried about how he's going to use his prosecutorial powers.
He says he's going to enact retribution. I mean, I
do think some of them are truly, really, really worried,
and they haven't for a while. But they're also fully
(20:51):
aware that their candidate is probably one of the weakest
candidates that they could be running against Trump, the same
way that like, Trump isn't exactly the strongest candidate that
Republicans could be running either. I think I said this
to you offline, like there's a feeling that, like, the
only person who could lose to Biden is Trump, and
the only person who could lose to Biden, Sorry, the
only person who could lose to Biden is Trump. The
only person who can lose to Trump is Biden. They're
(21:12):
both like kind of they're kind of weak candidates.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And my Trump supporting listeners are getting very upset, as
they say, because they would point out in their defense,
in their defense on this point Trump, Biden's an incumbent
president trailing in every swing state and now even a
Democrat who's losing in the popular vote in some polls, right, Like,
(21:35):
how could he be? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Like, I think he's historically he's historically unpopular. But like
when Biden beat Trump last time, Trump was historically unpopular.
I don't think at any point in the election in
twenty twenty, Trump was never ahead of Biden at any point.
He was always down five to ten points, always in
every poll. And I've been saying this all along that
(21:57):
I think Trump could win because I think that, and
in the end it was a much closer election than
we thought it would be. I think it's really hard
to pull Trump voters. I think he's doing better than
we think he's doing in the polls. I think Trump
is actually doing better than what we see.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
If it's this close, that's probably true.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, yeah, because like polsters just don't know how to
And I think.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
But here's the test of what you're saying before about
how Trump is as a candidate. I know you could
argue this either way, and I can't. It's it's an opinion, right,
I mean, anyone could make this argument. But would would
Nicky Haley be running these kinds of numbers against Biden
right now?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
I think so?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Do you think so?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I mean, yeah, I think should we take a different voter, like,
do I think like that Trump has a group of voters.
They're kind of they're low information voters, and they don't
tend to always engage me.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh throw a flag. Trump's low information voters. I don't
think that's fair to the Trump voter. I think that
there's a lot of there's one hundred and fifty million
people that are.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
All Trump voters.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But I'm saying he brings out a group of voters
that don't traditionally vote.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Ah. Okay, So now as we can say low propensity voters,
how about that low propensity density voters?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Probably and they and they don't get their news from
traditional sources.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
That's what we can Maybe there's a sort of media
bias to say low information. You're right, they don't get
it from the traditional media sources. But and I don't
think those people would bring I don't think Mickyla would
bring those people up out. But I think she would
take back all the people that Trump lost from the party.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That suburban women. Is that kind of the main Democratic.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, I think she would take back all the soft Republicans.
I think she would take back all the Independents. I
think she would take those people away from Biden because
and I think she'd take Democrats from Biden.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I really do.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Now do I think she's like the best politician ever
walked face there?
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
I think Trump has star quality and powers that no
one has ever seen in politics before.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
I really do. And it's like, but at the.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
End of hes he lost last time as an incumbent too,
he's not the strongest candidate. Like, no party would ever
rerun the same candidate that just lost in the last election.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, see, it's interesting because that's where generally I think
that that is true, right, And that's that's a true
statement that usually you wouldn't have. I think there have
been some people historically who have lost in run again,
but not I don't know if there's ever been an
incumbent who lost ran again and won, i'd have to
I don't think so. I mean, you know, when you
get into like the late eighteen hundred, some of these presidents,
(24:24):
it's like nobody remembers them, you know, who cares Some
of them then last that long, but number it was
like whatever, it's very it's very it's a very different time.
But I would just say with Trump, this the the
only reason it's interesting, the only reason that he I
think he has gotten to the point where he was
even the lead candidate in the primary before all of
(24:46):
the stuff, you know, the indictment, now the now. The
conviction is that there was a sense among a lot
of people that he got cheated out of twenty twenty, right,
So that whole narrative, whatever one may think of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean that that that put him in a position
to run again. I want to ask what you think although.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Rohn DeSantis was beating him in the polls in the beginning.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
That's true, I remember, yeah, and then that in December.
There is an argument that maybe Ron it was impossible
for anybody to run against Trump in a environment even
just where the mar A Lago raid happened, Like that
was really that really, uh, that's what fired up the base.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I don't think Ron was the best candidate of all time, Like.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
None of them.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I didn't find many of them to be very compelling.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Ron is I live in Florida, and I moved here
in part because of what was going on in Florida
at just like the job that I think was being
done here. So I think Ron is an A plus governor.
I think his campaign was a C minus. It was
not good.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
There was he had more money than anyone ever to
run a primary. Nearly two hundred million dollars he spent
on his primary campaign. It's insane. No one has ever
spent them kind of money. And I got to give
Trump credit to like, if you look at the amount
of money that he's spent so far compared to Biden,
I mean, not including legal fies, he hasn't spent much
money at all, and he's still neck and neck in
(26:11):
the polls with Biden.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
And it was interesting. So I know, you say, like, oh,
our Democrats, how do democrats really feel? On my show?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Somebody's got to win tomorrow. I've got a former White
House official long time, you know, Biden ad on the
campaign and Nancy Pelosi who said to me they shouldn't
be hyping up the fact that he's a convicted felon,
because it only makes Biden look weaker that he's in
neck and neck with a convicted felon. Like, this is
a candidate that's not even beating a convicted felon. We
(26:37):
shouldn't be hyping it up for that reason alone. And
so like, I don't think I think Democrats are like
very much aware that they have a weak candidate. They
are terrified of Trump. They are terrified it, but they
have been all along.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
They really they really right.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
But you understand the distinction that I'm making between there's terrified,
like terrified in an exaggerated sense that he will win
because like, oh God, we need Biden to win, and
then there's oh, I need to leave the country because
Trump is actually going to be a dictator, like they
say things about him. He said. I heard he said
(27:10):
I on day one, I'll be a dictator on one thing,
which will be like sealing the border, and then I'll
stop being a dictator. He's being very true.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
He did say he will.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Okay, fine if you could parse it that way. But
I think there was another thing he said though about
like that there'll be retribution and that alone, like if
I was judge, Mrshawn, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'll tell you something. I actually think in some of
these cases, and I've made this, uh this case already publicly,
there should be retribution within the law for abuse of
power of the law, meaning that people that have done
things that are in fact illegal or like, yes, I
think you should go after them. But the people that
are advocating for like, let's just indict like Gavin Newsom
for you know, for murder for accessory to murder because
(27:55):
of like the wide open border. Like no, that doesn't
that that just turns into a into a food fight
and a mess, and that doesn't actually advance anything. I
don't I don't believe that. I don't believe that Trump
will do retribution. By the way, and do you.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Think kills like do you think kill like in prison journalists?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Not even, not even I think that that kind of
talk is completely insane. I think that Trump is going
to be like he was the first time around, you know,
the first year, he'll maybe go after a couple of
big things.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Actually prosecute Hillary Clinton. I think this time around he
would have Prosecutedhillary Clinton.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
That mean, I mean, look, Hillary broke the law. I know,
the classified law is better than ninety five percent of
the people that were going on TV talking about it
because it was the CIA and I had to actually
live by them. She did break the law, There's no
question about it. And he decided This is where you
get into like does the DOJ work for the president
or not? Like we like to live in this world
and I think it's semi fictional where the attorney general
is independent, not really. He actually serves the president up
(28:46):
pleasure of the president. So there's it's like this gray air.
It's like Supreme Court justices don't have pology.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Barr didn't tell him that Hunter was being investigated before
the election.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
That was shocking to me.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Wait, that Hunter was being investigated before the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, he didn't tell He never told Trump that, and
that would have been like a useful piece of information
in a campaign draw.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I think, I look, I think Bill Barr I and
I get that a lot for this. I thought Bill
Barr was I think he's a very a very fair minded,
very smart guy and a very good lawyer. And uh,
you know, had already been the attorney general before, like
didn't need this, you know. And so it doesn't surprise
me that he would abide by the traditions or the
you know, the the values of the institution in a
(29:28):
way that.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Trump wanted to fire Jeff Sessions when he put a
special counsel because the Mollar investigations.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
So it's like I interviewed Trump and there was the
first time and he said he didn't have an attorney
general when Jeff Sessions was his attorney general. That was
the big line. He's like, not even have an attorney general.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And I was like, whoa, I remember that.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, yeah, that was me sitting down Sessions yea, And.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
He really wanted to fire him, Like there were a
lot of times when people were like, you can fire
a special council, and you cannot fire the attorney general.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
You have to just stick with them.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, But what will actually happen is Trump will be
Trump if if he were to win, and I think
we'd get tax cuts, and I think there'd be some
effort to do some stuff about the illegals. The Libs
will tie it up in court as quickly as they can.
And you know, will he be able and will he
be able to deport even let's say a million two
(30:17):
million people in the first year, as he has said,
and whatever, we'll see. I mean I would put my
money on no, So I think it'll be a far less.
It sounds like this really serious and intense presidency that's
so right wing and crazy to liberals, But if you
actually look at the Trump presidency as a matter of policy,
like what actually happened, a lot of this stuff was
(30:37):
pretty traditional Republican and you know there's a lot of
Kim Kardashian selfies in the Oval office, like it's not
it wasn't this far right thing.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
There's a difference. Though.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Here's the thing. I think that he didn't understand the
power of the presidency. He was not like Biden. He
was not a career politician. He didn't even have his
people around him who was doing the transition for him,
Jared Kushner and Chris Christie.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now you've got like huge the.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Mood was running his transition. Scaramucci, who now makes a
living on MSNBC trashing him exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
So.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
He did not have he did not understand the lovers
of power. He didn't have people like actually staffing him
up the way he wanted to. He didn't have even
policy proposals.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It was a mess.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
It was like Steve Bannon fighting with you know, this
person or the globalist. It was all about personnel. He
had no control over the presidency. It's going to be
totally different this time. I agree with you. He wasn't
able to accomplish as much as he wanted to because
he didn't know how to do it. He knows how
to do it now he has better support. Just look
at his campaign. This is the best campaign he's ever run.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, look, you're getting me, you're getting me excited about
Trump two point Oh this is great. But that's why
this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
To believe what he says. I think he'll be able
to do it this time. I really do.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I hope. So that'd be amazing. We'll get we'll get
back into this, uh in just a second. But I
got to tell you about our sponsor, Porter and Company
for a moment. Everybody. Porter Stansbury's a guy known for
a decade. He built a billion dollar business starting out
of his dorm room at the University of Florida back
in the nineties. So this is a guy who knows
(32:09):
the markets, knows finance, and makes huge predictions that make
his readers a whole lot of money. But Porter's got
something he wants to talk to you about. He says,
there's a new form of money in America that's making
some people incredibly rich. In fact, a lot of the
richest people in America are already using it, and you
can too. It's not gold or bitcoin. Porter points out.
(32:29):
What's interesting is that while every American is entitled to
use this secret currency if you know much about it.
Porter's hoping to change that. He thinks it could be
the most critical way to protect and grow wealth in
the years to come as the dollar continues to be
under pressure with our thirty four trillion dollars in debt.
Check out Porter's latest detailed presentation at Secret Currency twenty
twenty four dot com. That Secret Currency twenty twenty four
(32:52):
dot com. All right, give me a terror, give me
a prediction of what you think the outcome here of
the Hunter. I want the Hunter Biden trial outcome, and
I want the Trump sentencing prediction.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Damn god. I could be wrong about this, but next week,
which sucks. That's okay. You are you are your followers vicious?
Are they going to attack me?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
They're brilliant, kind patriots. They're the nicest people ever. That's
why they follow me.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
So go ahead, Okay, let's see Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Not guilty.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I think he'll be guilty. Yeah, because it's just too
clear cut.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I don't know, I think so. No, I've said, you
don't know what I've said on radio, So I'm already
on the record.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
There's enough.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
There's enough Republicans there, they're like there's enough people tired
of the family, Like it's just yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
The bidens are gross. That's a whole that's a whole
other conversation, all right, And then the big one. Does
Trump go to prison in any kind of incarceration starting
in July? No, definitely not, I think so.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I think that's gonna appeel it. First of all, Yeah,
he's going to appeal it. So that's why. And I
know there's been talking like, oh, he's been a few
days in jail, this and that.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It's like no, and by the way, there's no jail,
you gotta go to rikers. And yeah, he's going to
appeel it. And I was talking to Elie Honig, who's
a pretty fair minded former Southern District of New York
Attorney General, has worked with the prosecutor and the defense
on this trial, and he said, like, seventy to ninety
percent of these cases don't go to jail. It's either probation,
(34:32):
community service, a fine, and maybe house arrest. You know,
but it wouldn't happen even now. But I'll say that
the White House is basically house arrests.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So I'd like to say house arrest and Trump towers like,
I've been there in his apartment there. It's not that bad.
It's like three stories, pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Well Clinton used to call the White House a penitentiary,
you know, so well.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
He definitely, he definitely made it into something. Bill Bill
was a Bill was kind of a wild man. Tara, Paul, Mary, everybody. Tara,
thanks so much for hanging out. We went a little
long on this one. Where can everone go to follow more?
They got to go to Puck for reading your columns
and tell me the podcast again.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Somebody's got to win, because somebody's got to win, guys.
And uh yeah, if you want a discount to sign
up for my newsletter, you can use the discount code
Tara twenty.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
There we go, sign up, check it out. Everybody, thanks
so much. Sarah.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Thanks
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.