October 7, 2024 • 36 mins
This epiode looks at last week's vice presidential debate, how a second Donald Trump presidency would harm even his most loyal supporters, and Kevin's review of the new CNN comedy series, "Have I Got News for You."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the More Perfect Union, the podcast that offers
real debate without the hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeider, and I
am pleased to once again share the mic with my
dignified and intelligent compatriots, Kevin Helton.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, Hi, this is Kevin, just back just a few
hours ago from my first vacation in months, went to
northern California where the weather is fine, and so are
the girls, at least the girl.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That I was with.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah. See, is it fair to compare the girls to
the one that you brought on purpose, like you brought
the best one? Yes, it is fair, It is fair.
They all pale.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Jessica Jessica made them all pale by comparison.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And DJ McGuire.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Yes, and I'd like to thank our sponsors Steve Carlton,
Ron Swoboda and the score fourteen to twelve.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
No one knows except me because I read your article, DJ,
Why did you very very briefly describe what you just
were referring to?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Does here debate metaphors? Steve Carlton was a strikeout machine
as a pitcher for the seventies and eighties. Ron Sobodo
is one of the few hitters who actually had his number,
and the score fourteen to twelve.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I will explain later.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay, all right, So, speaking of debates, we had one
this past week. I know that feels a little like
it happened in the Paleolithic era, but I assure you
it was less than a week ago. As we record this.
It is Sunday night. So the two vice presidential candidates
faced off. Oh, I have a take on it, but
(01:48):
I'm gonna let I want to hear what DJ has
to say first.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
So this was a debate where the person who who
looked like they were going to win lost because of
some very big mistakes. To give any I dentity of
what the hell I was talking about earlier, there's a
game in nineteen sixty nine, the year the Mets went
all the way to win the World Series, and one
of the reasons they were able to do this was
because they actually won a game despite having nineteen strikeouts.
(02:16):
Steve Carlton was the picture for the Saint Louis Cardinals
at the time, and in September fifteenth, nineteen sixty nine,
Steve Carlton broke the record at the time for strikeouts
in a nine inning game by throwing nineteen strikeouts, but
he made two mistakes. Each one led to a two
run homer by Ron Swoboda of the Mets. And because
the Cardinals offense was terrible and they could only play
(02:37):
three runs, Steve Carlton broke the strikeout record while losing
four to three.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
That was the VP debate. Jd.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Vance was racking up the yardage. He was smooth, he
was slick. He made his lies sound like truth if
you weren't paying close enough attention. But he had two
very three bad moments that wiped all that out. First
was when he tried to turn illegal alien into aliens
(03:07):
that we just don't like, in reference to the Haitians
in Springfield, who he insisted were illegal, because what he
really meant was he didn't like the way the Biden
administration made them legal, which is not the same thing
as illegal, by the way, and he was called on
that by by the CBS moderator, at which when he complained,
and he said, he said, essentially, the rules were that
(03:29):
there would be no.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Fact checking, and all I could picture was Chevy Chase
as Gerald Ford being told that there would be no.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Math, no meth.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yes, no math, but anybody who didn't know the Chevy
Chase scene. He just looked like a whiner. Either way,
that meme is still with us five days later, and
maybe just but the only thing anyone remembers.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Met the debate.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
For those of us who are policy wonks. The other
big mistake he made was when he refused to acknowledge
that Joe Biden won the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
He was Lucky Howard's the future.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
DJ, yes, he was looking toward the future while complaining
about COVID censorship four years ago. So he basically revealed
to everyone that he is just another Trump psychophant, no
matter what his flowery words are, and whatever trust he
may have built up and didn't piss away with the
no fact checking moment was just gone after that one,
(04:23):
so that even though Waltz was clearly clumsier, even though
he clearly had a harder time with it because of
those two moments, jd Vance loss a debate to Tim Walls.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
What do you think, Kevin Well?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I'm saying this with a big, big smile on my face.
This is tongue in cheek because the last time DJ and.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I disagreed on one or who lost the debate, it
did not go well. So I'm gonna tread very carefully
and say I think I sort of slightly differently. My
take is is that vance one on technical debate points.
I think he looked better, and I don't think DJ
would disagree with this. I think he looked a little
(05:05):
bit more slick, a little bit smoother than Tim Walls.
I think Governor Walls's mannerisms, his eyes that tend to
pop out, made him look like a deer in the headlights.
He did not, in my opinion, start that strong. However,
I think that Governor Walls ended strong. So while I
(05:27):
would say.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
If I had to pick a quote unquote winner in
the debate, I would probably say just by a couple
of points, maybe jd vance. However, given that ninety percent
of his answers were lies, and Governor Waltz was called
on one or two things that he said in the
past where he did stretch the truth, not the same thing,
(05:51):
and I'm going to just go one step further on that.
You know, everybody's making a big deal out of this
China comment of his where he said he had been
in tianam And Square during the big protest, and it
turns out that he had arrived in China some eight
weeks later, and people are calling that like this, this oh,
this gotcha moment, this big lie.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
To me, that's that's a big fish story. That's a
fisherman's story. There's a lot of people who say I
was there when maybe they weren't quite there. I would
venture to guess there are millions and millions of people
who claim to have been at the fall of the
Berlin Wall because they were there two weeks before or
two weeks after.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Oh, that would be me. Yes, I was at the
fall of the Berlin Wall. If by the fall of
the Berlin Wall you mean it happened in February and
I was there in July exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
But a lot of people claim to have been at
the fall of the Berlin Well, anyways, I'm going on
a tangent a little bit. But my point is is
that I don't think that that is anywhere near the
level and the audacity of the lies that Senator Vance
told him that debate.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, I mean I was joking, you know, my take
on it. As a course, JD. Vance was very SMOOTHI
you can be very smooth when you're not constrained by
the truth. You know, when you can say whatever you want,
whatever weird ass idea comes into your mind without having
to try and figure out how to you know, site
(07:17):
sources or verify facts. Yeah, so you sound great, And
I love Tim Waltz as much as the next liberal.
But at some point SNL is going to do a
skit where they have a counter on the bottom of
the screed counting how many times the Tim Waltz impersonator
says the word Minnesota. And Tim's going to deserve it
(07:38):
because he kept bringing up Minnesota. And normally that's actually
a very good debate tactic to talk about your accomplishments
in your home state. And it wouldn't have looked so
odd if jd. Vance had had any accomplishments to talk about.
He doesn't, so he didn't, so he was very theoretical,
and it made Tim Waltz look a little more provincial.
(08:00):
I don't think it harmed him tremendously, but it did
definitely make him look like a governor as opposed to
a national figure.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
You mentioned SNL, and I think probably the greatest, the
greatest luck for Tim Walls is something Harley Macabra and
that's what Chris Farley is dead.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh but you're right, yes, because.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
If Chris Farley had survived twenty twenty four, he probably
would have looked a lot like Tim Walls.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Oh my god, would have been effing perfect.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Oh but Tim Walls would have loved it like he
would have been hilarious. He would have been trying to
find a way to go and be on SNL with
Chris Farley. You know, he's the kind of guy who
can take the joke.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
He would have been like Bush and Dana Carvey. Yes,
but unfortunately we did not get that moment because Chris
Farley passed away so many years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Well, Lesenel did do a very funny impression of Tim Waltz.
A comedian named Jim gaffickin played him in the first episode.
I guess you guys didn't see that, but it was
pretty spot on. He was covered in that way.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Oh excellent. I mean, well, he lends himself to lighthearted, good,
hard hearted imitation. So I think we all agree that
there was a debate. It probably didn't move any needles.
You know, it didn't make me think, well, if Trump
croaks in the middle of his term, at least we've
got this guy coming up behind. I didn't find Ja
d Vance reassuring at all looking forward towards the future
(09:26):
like Jadi Vance DJ. We've got Kamala Harris stepping up
the media game. She is going to be on sixty
Minutes tomorrow night, she has an upcoming appearance on Howard Stern,
an upcoming appearance on the View, and she just did
a podcast called Call Her Daddy, I Believe, which is
like the Joe Rogan for women, but smarter. Probably. What
(09:50):
do you guys think, Is this the right moment for
her to be doing these big media hits.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Well, the right moment would have been three weeks ago,
but she's doing him now, and that's.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I'm not so sure how beneficial it would have been
if she had started in mid September.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
It doesn't really matter. She's starting now.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
And more to the point, she is instead of doing
the traditional well, I mean, sixty Minutes is traditional media,
but she is also doing the non traditional media that
Donald Trump has been doing for a while and basically
trying to show up on Every White Supremacist Man Under
thirty podcast to basically get that constituency all riled up.
(10:32):
Harris is now hitting all of her constituencies in the
social media world, in the podcast world, than that is
good and it will probably have I think it will
have a greater impact now because it is October, and
because now at the point where what fewel undecided is
left are going to start paying attention. I think there
are really two groups of undecided, and it's not undecided
(10:53):
between Harris and Trump. I think it's there are a
bunch of undecideds between voting for Harris or not voting
at all, either from a writer for from the left.
And you know, they will now get their chance to
see her and get to make up their minds whether
they vote for Harris or choose not to vote. So
you know, I think I think she's doing what she
has to do, and I think Trump is doing what
(11:13):
he has to do, which is don't come anywhere near
any media at all, because the more people see of him,
the less they like him.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
And he knows that now.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And we have been in kind of the classic Trump
trap the past couple of weeks where the coverage has
been all about Trump and he has been sucking the
oxygen out of the room again, and that's that's to
all of our detriment because it you know, for the
people who hate him, it's a turn off and it
makes them not want to participate in politics. To the
people who love him, it bolsters his appeal, and it
(11:45):
you know, keep it keeps Kamala Harris out of the
national conversation, which is she needs to be the topic
of the national conversation. So I think that going on
the View, going on sixty minutes, going on Howard Stern
is a great way to you know, sees a bit
of the spotlight at a moment where she really needs
a spotlight.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I somewhat disagree. I think it's better for Democrats if
Donald Trump is the focus of conversation. The problem is
is that the campaign and the media are trying to
torpedo him with kind of glib things like now it's
his age, or the word salads, or his crowd sizes
have diminished, or whatever other critiques they make of him
(12:29):
that aren't really sticking because people just don't care about
that stuff. I think that there are several real issues
where Trump threatens his own supporters, even if they don't
realize it, meaning if he gets elected, they will be
much the worse for it. But these people need to
(12:50):
be really taken by the hand and led down the
logic path of why it will be to their detriment
if they vote to elect Donald Trump. I just wrote
a piece for our substack that outlines fifteen ways that
Trump is threatening his own supporters just by running for
(13:10):
president and will harm them if he's elected. I'm going
to just very quickly go through a couple of them.
If you want to see the whole list, it's on
Substack MPU podcast. Among them, he's going to turn the
FBI and the dj into his personal investigative force. Okay, well,
everybody knows that, But what's the problem with that? Hey,
(13:31):
a lot of people would like to see him go
after Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, or Liz Cheney or
Mitt Romney or whoever it is. The problem is it
diverts resources from things like fighting terrorism, fighting drug cartels,
organized crime, prosecuting civil rights abuses, fighting international money laundering,
(13:54):
and other major criminal threats to America. So the more
he uses the FBI and the DOJ to go after
his enemies, the less resources and time they will have
to do the things that we really need them to do.
Everyone needs them to do, including Trump enthusiasts.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Well, I mean, but that's sort of part of the
overall Trump agenda, the schedule f that he's been talking about,
you know, ways to diminish the federal workforce, fire civil
servants and replace them with his own loyalists. That will
be a diminished amount of government service that affects us
all negative.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, yes, absolutely. Here's another way that he is threatening
to harm his to everyone, including his own supporters. He
will give Israel free reign to attack Iran. Well again,
a lot of people say, yeah, Iran bad, It's about
time somebody dealt with them. Trump is really strong. The
problem with that is it could draw the United States
(14:51):
into a long term regional war, and if Russia or
China backs Iran in that war, we would be creating
a superpower proxy war that would make the Ukraine War
look like Grenada. Let me give you just a couple more.
He wants to harass and prosecute his numerous political enemies,
using the FBI, the DOJ, and the irs to exhort revenge.
(15:16):
The problem is if he does that to let's say
he does that to a Liz Cheney, Joe Biden, maybe
someone in the media it's going to force the rest
of his outspoken critics to flee the country, which will
thereby increase his power and control over the laws and
the culture, and cut down on critiques of the presidency,
(15:39):
which we desperately need to remain a democracy.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
The problem with all those, Kevin is that those are
all those are all forms of indirect harm.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
There are certain direct harm.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Policies that Trump would enact, and it's then the Harris
campaign is already talking about them. The tariffs she would impose,
which would essentially be a four thousand dollars host on
every household. Those are the kinds of things that are
direct and that will smack them all in the face.
But again, it's one of these situations where a lot
of voters don't vote for economic reasons, they vote for
(16:10):
culture reasons, or particularly they're voting against people they don't like,
and that's what we are seeing unfortunately across across most
of the country. And they don't really they don't really
care if they get hurt so long as the people
they hate get hurt more. It sucks, it's a lot
(16:31):
to work through new work against, but it's just where
we are. So Trump is going to hurt a lot
of his own voters. He's going to do it in
a lot of ways, and they're not going to care.
In fact, if anything, they're going to consider it a
noble sacrifice to make this country well, to make this
country wider, because to the extent that there's anything coherent
(16:52):
about trump Ism, it is about making the country wider
at the expense of everything else.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Did you guys see the report was just this week
that during the California wildfires and I believe twenty eighteen,
he wanted to keep aid to California locked up because
he was mad that he didn't have enough supporters there.
Someone had to show him voter roles from Orange County
to prove that there were enough Republicans to make it
worth his while to release federal wirefire wildfire aid, not
(17:20):
like his own personal accounts, are taxpayer dollars that are
supposed to help all the Americans who are facing disasters.
He wanted to turn that into a partisan issue and
they had to use partisan arguments to win. Yeah, and
that wouldn't just hurt Democrats. You know, if he decides
that he doesn't want to help your county because it's
a little too Democrat. There are also still Republicans there,
(17:42):
and they're going to come to harm as well. You
do not want a petty, vindictive, sectarian dictator deciding whether
you are entitled to the benefits of citizenship or not.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Speaking of petty sectarian dictators, what about the guy that
runs X the website formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
That fucking guy did did you guys see any of
his joint appearance with Trump and Butler, Pennsylvania this weekend?
Yeah Elon Musk, the Musky oders of the Yeah Muskyoders
emanating from the GOP a distinct Musky oder. He was
with Trump this week and in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site
(18:25):
where Trump was attacked, assassinated, and nearly assassinated. I don't
know what we're calling that one these days. The ear
injury and Musk looked higher than a kite. He was
jumping and dancing and I didn't listen to his speech
because he's boring, but it occurred. As I was watching
the clips of this, I was thinking, my god, we
(18:47):
spent all of twenty sixteen nitpicking whether or not Hillary
was likable enough, and we've got the pussy grabber in
chief with Captain horse for hand job bargain, marching around
a stage like their God's gift to politics, and we're
supposed to just accept that and not acknowledge that they're repellent.
(19:08):
And then you've got Elon's mother, who like, is she
even I don't Is she a citizen? I'm not sure,
but she was like tweeting something about if you want,
you know, we should everyone should just go to ten
different polling places on election day and drop off different
provisional ballots and that'll eventually overwhelm the system and all
(19:29):
the provisional ballots like they counted. And that's not how
it works. That's not how any of it works. It's
just you can't do that. They check the provisional ballots
against voter registration role roles. You can't go in and
say your mickey mouse and get your vote counted. Doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Look, when it comes to Elon Musk, he fails a
very a very simple, if jarring test. Elon Musk's father
is married to his stepsister. I don't trust someone who
is literally their own uncle.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
So, speaking of the written word, fingertips typing, Jack Smith
published a bombshell report this week one hundred and sixty
five pages of legal descriptions of what happened in the
week's leading up to the election, the week's following the election,
and up to January sixth and twenty twenty. Did you
(20:33):
guys read it?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I haven't read it, you know, like most people, I
just read excerpts.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
And some music.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I just want to I just want to clarify something.
The word published. I mean, I don't want to be
the grammar Nazi here. He submitted a brief to the court.
The court made it public, not Jack Smith, right. A
lot of people are saying, oh, Jack Smith did this
to get Trump into embarrass him and of the election
or to you know, interfere with the election. It was
(21:04):
the judge in the case, Judge Chuckkin, who made the
decision to release it at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
And she did it without She did it without objection
from Trump's legal team. They agreed to whatever level of
redaction was in this version, and because they didn't object,
she then hit submit or whatever you hit in the
court system. So it is out there with minimal redactions,
many of which are very easy to translate. For example,
(21:31):
when it says things like P. Nine, the sitting Governor
of Georgia, like, oh, yeah, that's a puzzler. Brag keV
and I read about two thirds of it the night
it became public, and the narrative is so damning. It
(21:54):
is so damning, and in the sane world you would
read it and think, my god, this as the vast
right wing conspiracy that we were warned about all those
years ago. Even Neil Cavudo commented on it, saying, this
reveals crimes that Trump resorted to crimes. It's not really
(22:14):
disputable that he was doing things that were illegal. And
then what Jack Smith very masterfully did was explain how
the crimes Trump committed were being committed by candidate Trump
and could in no way be inferred to be official duties,
including conversations with Mike Pence. And it was because nothing
in the official delineation of the role of the president
(22:39):
gives him any oversight over elections as a process. So
everything he was doing as was as a candidate.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
Even if he does not win the election, and even
if he gets convicted by Jack Smith on these charges,
I think the Supreme Court is going to find a
way to overturn it. They're going to say no. A
president ensuring that a national election was indeed fair and sound,
it is part of his job description. I could see
(23:10):
Justice Roberts writing that brief right now.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
The problem with all of that is that the filing
has numerous examples of Donald Trump admitting that he lost,
being told there was nothing behind any of his accusations,
literally him telling other people there didn't need to be
anything behind the accusations.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
We'll figure the details later.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
You just tell the commisial Republic to do something and
I'll worry about the details.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
It's all this other kind of stuff, And it.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Was happening in advance of the election. He was saying
that he will declare victory regardless of what the election
night counts looked like. He was saying that prior to
the election, So he wasn't ensuring a free and fairly
executed election by saying that in private meetings.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Right now, there's it is quite likely that we have
two Supreme Court justices who believe the big lie, who
can't get themselves off the big lie, which means Justice
Chief Justice Roberts is dealing with two wackos in his
midst So we don't.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I don't know how we will handle that.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
No, we've seen how he'll handle it. He capitulates to them.
But that's very predictable so far. But I mean, the thing,
the thing that struck me when I was reading through
this is that Jack Smith was not willing to roll
over and take the broadest definition of presidential duties as
sort of thrown at the wall like so much proverbial
(24:37):
spaghetti by the Supreme Court. He was surgically excising the
role of the candidate from the role of the president
and was very right, and he was he was doing
it in an exemplary manner, and in a way that
it is very hard to argue that he was being
(24:58):
too broad with his judgment. And it became a I thought,
a masterful legal pushback to this idea of presidential immunity
that could give judges at other points in the judiciary pause.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I hope you're right. So what else might be in
the news this week?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Apparently Kamala Harris performed a transgender surgery on a felon.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Okay, that this was mine I'm I am trying to
This is me trying to sort out how much of
an how much of an impact. This will be pretticular.
I'm undecided voters or whatever. Now on certain issues, I've
always sort of fallen over left, even when I was
a Republican, and transgender issues happened to be one of them.
(25:46):
So maybe I have a political blind spot here.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Wait, you don't care what other people do with their genitalia?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Amazing, DJ, It's not something that I worry about.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
But the notion that a prison policy regarding gender reassignment
surgery in California while Kamala Harris was Attorney General, that
that would be something that most Americans would think had
a dramatic and tremendous effect on their lives is just
not something that computes for me. I'm not seeing how
(26:17):
that how that could be something that could get a
majority of Americans to decide, Oh, yes, I'm going to
vote for Donald Trump. I'm just missing something. I'm clearly
I'm missing something here. What makes them think that that
kind of ad is going to work? Because I'm having
trouble seeing it, which means that which must mean I'm
(26:38):
missing something.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
What you're missing is that people will believe it his
base voters who they are trying to turn out. En
Muss would buy it in a hole.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
That's not the point, because it actually happened. It's not
whether it's not true or not. It is true that
this was the policy. My point is, why is that happening?
How is that events?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
They're calling it fiscal mismanagement that you are spending taxpayer
dollars on gender confirmation care for felons, money that could
be spent to, I don't know, put more locks on
schools so school children aren't shot. That was jd Vance's
plan better basically.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
So, basically because the majority, because the majority of Americans
possibly and the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters, are so
enumerabs as to think that a gender reassignment surgery has
a dramatic effect on the taxpayer bottom line that they're
just willing to go into a froth fort and vote
for Trump.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yes, that's what some people. Yeah, because they think they'll
just be doing gender reassignment surgeries on everybody in prison,
and it's going to this cost will spiral out of control.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, it's going to be. Hey, they're paying thousands of
dollars to cut the penises off of prisoners so that
they can get into a women's prison. But the good
people of Western North Carolina only gets seven hundred and
fifty dollars because their house floated away.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And Trump is still standing up on stage saying the
whole story about imagine your child goes to school, you
say goodbye, little Jimmy, and they come back three days later,
having had a brutal operation, and they're now a girl.
He's still saying that is that is.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
How stupid he believes the American people are.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's I mean, clearly they've got some you know, dial
focus group where they like, oh yeah, they get really
excited when he says stuff like that, so they just
keep saying it. And apparently they're also saying things like
illegal citizens. Are these the ones who are going to
polling places and dropping off ten provisional ballots due? What's what?
Where did you see? This is what happened?
Speaker 4 (28:39):
This is what's something else? I noticed? It was said
at one of the Trump one of the Trump rallies.
It wasn't Trump himself, but somebody said, if you're an
illegal citizen and you vote, we will find you and
we will deport you.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
The quote I heard was Trump said, if you vote illegally,
you will go to jail, to which someone on Twitter replied,
but if you vote legally, he will go to jail.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
It only works if you follow that. And this is
actually something Stephen Miller has been talking about about. Essentially
a denaturalization program that they have in mind, take people
that became citizens in a way they didn't like and
make them not citizens against they can kick them out.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Of the country.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
There's already a process for that.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Yes, I know, then they're going to put it on steroids.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, I mean they don't. I know. A friend of
mine is a lawyer at DJ and actually oversee some
cases like that. But it's like if you come here,
become a citizen and then start like, I don't know,
trafficking humans, Like if you commit major, major crimes, they
will revoke your citizenship. But it's not it. They don't
do it because you look funny.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Yeah, but it's just another reminder that when they say illegal,
it basically means people they don't like. Again, the Haitian
immigrants in Springfield, Ohio who've actually revitalized the town are
actually legal immigrants who came through on a particular government program.
Trump and Vance don't like that government program. They're declaring
the program illegal and thus they're declaring anyone who took
(30:03):
advantage of it illegal.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Weren't Haitians given the TPS status under Bush the younger.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
This is a.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Particular one that I think was driven by the driven
by the or at least in part, either by the
earthquake of twenty ten or by the complete collapse of
the central government in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
When the post was okay, now, the earthquake, I remember
because that was a huge Clinton initiative. They went into
to do a lot of the aid there, and I
was saying, yeah, okay, But.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
The main point is to Trump advance.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Illegal now means anybody we don't like, right, It doesn't
mean what actually would have been considered illegal in the
aughts of the nineties or even the tens. It's anybody
we don't like and we won't kicked out of country.
We're going to tick them out of it.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
It's anybody who came to this country that we can scapegoat.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, it's anybody who came to the country after Stephen
Miller's grandparents were brought here in their caskets of Transylvanian dirt.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So we've discussed Trump and the election to death. What
else is it the news that we can end on
maybe a more of a high point.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, it seems like pop culture is finally catching up
and getting a little bit funny. So, Kevin, have you
got some news for us?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Have I got news for you? Have you guys know
that CNN has a comedy show now, their first original
comedy show.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Who do they have writing it?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Have you looked at the writer's list to see if
it's anybody good?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well? I always look at the writing credits. I didn't
notice any names that jumped out at me. They're probably
fine writers. The show itself is hosted by a very
fine comedian, Roy Wood Junior, who comes out of the
Daily Show. He's great, but unfortunately the material is not
supporting him. They may have news for you, but what
(31:52):
they don't have is a lot of laughs for you.
Oh dear, And I hate to be caddie about television programs.
I've worked on some Dogs myself, and SNL, which I
played a tiny part in its history, certainly go through
its up and down years and is never one hundred
percent the left riot that it's still to be. But
(32:14):
this show is not even a left mild disturbance, let
alone a left riot.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Not even a left tango.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
A left war, not a left tang. It's not a
left wold. All I can say is, having now seen
parts of three episodes, I think I can say with
confidence that we will not be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary,
and I highly doubt we'll be celebrating its first anniversary.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
This is actually not original. BBC actually has Have I
got news for you?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Yeah, they did this before anybody else did. And it
does not surprise me that CNN one is trying to
do a riff of a British comedy show, and two
that they do it badly because CNN is not supposed
to be about comedy.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
God damn it. Knock at the hell off.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I mean, theoretically, you could always hire good writers to
make comedy happen. I guess CNA doesn't have that kind
of budget.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
No, sometimes it's the premise. The premise sometimes fights you,
even with good writers.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
One of my proudest moments as a parent was when
my son had written an essay he was in sixth
grade about Sparta and Athens for his history class, and
he was really proud of it. He read it aloud
to me, and it was all very funny and very
sharp and actually very correct, And at the end of it,
he wrote, I hope my casual tone is okay. I
(33:34):
was trying to write it in the tone of a
Daily Show monologue. So my sixth grade son was trying
to imitate Trevor Noah for history class. And I've always
felt really good about that.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
And the fact of the matter is CNN does have
comedic moments, just anytimes Scott Channings opens his mouth.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yes, thank you all for listening to another trip down
campaign super Highway with us. Thank you for listening. If
you enjoy what we do here, follow us on Instagram
at MPU fan Club and our substack page where we
publish opinion pieces and really deep cuts into the history
(34:16):
of baseball And DJ, did you just know that? Like,
are you a walking baseball almanac? Or did you have
to google parts of it?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That was something I read.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
I read about when I had this when I was
a kid and I had this gigantic, you know, his
baseball thing that I got for my birthday or something,
and that one just stuck with me because it was
my God, it's a core memory.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, I can't claim to remember it, but I did
live through it, and I now having been reminded of it,
do remember it.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Well. If you want to read about about both sports
and politics and the fact that we are all tremendous nerds,
check out our substack page and don't forget to share
our link and our substack posts on all of your
social media feeds so that your friends can discover us
as well. As always, we thank Alan Keaty for our
theme music. And all right, the Big sixty Minutes Interview
(35:15):
is tomorrow evening. What snacks do you plan to consume
while you watch Kamala Harris?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Well, I will be probably snacking on Junior Mintz because
like Kamala Harris, they're always refreshing.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And I might be on a PTA call. Shit, I
should not have agreed to be on the boards of
so many ptas this year. It's really cutting into my
Tuesday nights. Oh well, try to be a responsible parent
and look what happens.
Welcome to the More Perfect Union, the podcast that offers
real debate without the hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeider, and I
am pleased to once again share the mic with my
dignified and intelligent compatriots, Kevin Helton.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, Hi, this is Kevin, just back just a few
hours ago from my first vacation in months, went to
northern California where the weather is fine, and so are
the girls, at least the girl.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That I was with.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah. See, is it fair to compare the girls to
the one that you brought on purpose, like you brought
the best one? Yes, it is fair, It is fair.
They all pale.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Jessica Jessica made them all pale by comparison.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And DJ McGuire.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Yes, and I'd like to thank our sponsors Steve Carlton,
Ron Swoboda and the score fourteen to twelve.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
No one knows except me because I read your article, DJ,
Why did you very very briefly describe what you just
were referring to?
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Does here debate metaphors? Steve Carlton was a strikeout machine
as a pitcher for the seventies and eighties. Ron Sobodo
is one of the few hitters who actually had his number,
and the score fourteen to twelve.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I will explain later.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Okay, all right, So, speaking of debates, we had one
this past week. I know that feels a little like
it happened in the Paleolithic era, but I assure you
it was less than a week ago. As we record this.
It is Sunday night. So the two vice presidential candidates
faced off. Oh, I have a take on it, but
(01:48):
I'm gonna let I want to hear what DJ has
to say first.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
So this was a debate where the person who who
looked like they were going to win lost because of
some very big mistakes. To give any I dentity of
what the hell I was talking about earlier, there's a
game in nineteen sixty nine, the year the Mets went
all the way to win the World Series, and one
of the reasons they were able to do this was
because they actually won a game despite having nineteen strikeouts.
(02:16):
Steve Carlton was the picture for the Saint Louis Cardinals
at the time, and in September fifteenth, nineteen sixty nine,
Steve Carlton broke the record at the time for strikeouts
in a nine inning game by throwing nineteen strikeouts, but
he made two mistakes. Each one led to a two
run homer by Ron Swoboda of the Mets. And because
the Cardinals offense was terrible and they could only play
(02:37):
three runs, Steve Carlton broke the strikeout record while losing
four to three.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
That was the VP debate. Jd.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Vance was racking up the yardage. He was smooth, he
was slick. He made his lies sound like truth if
you weren't paying close enough attention. But he had two
very three bad moments that wiped all that out. First
was when he tried to turn illegal alien into aliens
(03:07):
that we just don't like, in reference to the Haitians
in Springfield, who he insisted were illegal, because what he
really meant was he didn't like the way the Biden
administration made them legal, which is not the same thing
as illegal, by the way, and he was called on
that by by the CBS moderator, at which when he complained,
and he said, he said, essentially, the rules were that
(03:29):
there would be no.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Fact checking, and all I could picture was Chevy Chase
as Gerald Ford being told that there would be no.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Math, no meth.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Yes, no math, but anybody who didn't know the Chevy
Chase scene. He just looked like a whiner. Either way,
that meme is still with us five days later, and
maybe just but the only thing anyone remembers.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Met the debate.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
For those of us who are policy wonks. The other
big mistake he made was when he refused to acknowledge
that Joe Biden won the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
He was Lucky Howard's the future.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
DJ, yes, he was looking toward the future while complaining
about COVID censorship four years ago. So he basically revealed
to everyone that he is just another Trump psychophant, no
matter what his flowery words are, and whatever trust he
may have built up and didn't piss away with the
no fact checking moment was just gone after that one,
(04:23):
so that even though Waltz was clearly clumsier, even though
he clearly had a harder time with it because of
those two moments, jd Vance loss a debate to Tim Walls.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
What do you think, Kevin Well?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I'm saying this with a big, big smile on my face.
This is tongue in cheek because the last time DJ and.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
I disagreed on one or who lost the debate, it
did not go well. So I'm gonna tread very carefully
and say I think I sort of slightly differently. My
take is is that vance one on technical debate points.
I think he looked better, and I don't think DJ
would disagree with this. I think he looked a little
(05:05):
bit more slick, a little bit smoother than Tim Walls.
I think Governor Walls's mannerisms, his eyes that tend to
pop out, made him look like a deer in the headlights.
He did not, in my opinion, start that strong. However,
I think that Governor Walls ended strong. So while I
(05:27):
would say.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
If I had to pick a quote unquote winner in
the debate, I would probably say just by a couple
of points, maybe jd vance. However, given that ninety percent
of his answers were lies, and Governor Waltz was called
on one or two things that he said in the
past where he did stretch the truth, not the same thing,
(05:51):
and I'm going to just go one step further on that.
You know, everybody's making a big deal out of this
China comment of his where he said he had been
in tianam And Square during the big protest, and it
turns out that he had arrived in China some eight
weeks later, and people are calling that like this, this oh,
this gotcha moment, this big lie.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
To me, that's that's a big fish story. That's a
fisherman's story. There's a lot of people who say I
was there when maybe they weren't quite there. I would
venture to guess there are millions and millions of people
who claim to have been at the fall of the
Berlin Wall because they were there two weeks before or
two weeks after.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Oh, that would be me. Yes, I was at the
fall of the Berlin Wall. If by the fall of
the Berlin Wall you mean it happened in February and
I was there in July exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
But a lot of people claim to have been at
the fall of the Berlin Well, anyways, I'm going on
a tangent a little bit. But my point is is
that I don't think that that is anywhere near the
level and the audacity of the lies that Senator Vance
told him that debate.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, I mean I was joking, you know, my take
on it. As a course, JD. Vance was very SMOOTHI
you can be very smooth when you're not constrained by
the truth. You know, when you can say whatever you want,
whatever weird ass idea comes into your mind without having
to try and figure out how to you know, site
(07:17):
sources or verify facts. Yeah, so you sound great, And
I love Tim Waltz as much as the next liberal.
But at some point SNL is going to do a
skit where they have a counter on the bottom of
the screed counting how many times the Tim Waltz impersonator
says the word Minnesota. And Tim's going to deserve it
(07:38):
because he kept bringing up Minnesota. And normally that's actually
a very good debate tactic to talk about your accomplishments
in your home state. And it wouldn't have looked so
odd if jd. Vance had had any accomplishments to talk about.
He doesn't, so he didn't, so he was very theoretical,
and it made Tim Waltz look a little more provincial.
(08:00):
I don't think it harmed him tremendously, but it did
definitely make him look like a governor as opposed to
a national figure.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
You mentioned SNL, and I think probably the greatest, the
greatest luck for Tim Walls is something Harley Macabra and
that's what Chris Farley is dead.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh but you're right, yes, because.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
If Chris Farley had survived twenty twenty four, he probably
would have looked a lot like Tim Walls.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Oh my god, would have been effing perfect.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Oh but Tim Walls would have loved it like he
would have been hilarious. He would have been trying to
find a way to go and be on SNL with
Chris Farley. You know, he's the kind of guy who
can take the joke.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
He would have been like Bush and Dana Carvey. Yes,
but unfortunately we did not get that moment because Chris
Farley passed away so many years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Well, Lesenel did do a very funny impression of Tim Waltz.
A comedian named Jim gaffickin played him in the first episode.
I guess you guys didn't see that, but it was
pretty spot on. He was covered in that way.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Oh excellent. I mean, well, he lends himself to lighthearted, good,
hard hearted imitation. So I think we all agree that
there was a debate. It probably didn't move any needles.
You know, it didn't make me think, well, if Trump
croaks in the middle of his term, at least we've
got this guy coming up behind. I didn't find Ja
d Vance reassuring at all looking forward towards the future
(09:26):
like Jadi Vance DJ. We've got Kamala Harris stepping up
the media game. She is going to be on sixty
Minutes tomorrow night, she has an upcoming appearance on Howard Stern,
an upcoming appearance on the View, and she just did
a podcast called Call Her Daddy, I Believe, which is
like the Joe Rogan for women, but smarter. Probably. What
(09:50):
do you guys think, Is this the right moment for
her to be doing these big media hits.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Well, the right moment would have been three weeks ago,
but she's doing him now, and that's.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I'm not so sure how beneficial it would have been
if she had started in mid September.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
It doesn't really matter. She's starting now.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
And more to the point, she is instead of doing
the traditional well, I mean, sixty Minutes is traditional media,
but she is also doing the non traditional media that
Donald Trump has been doing for a while and basically
trying to show up on Every White Supremacist Man Under
thirty podcast to basically get that constituency all riled up.
(10:32):
Harris is now hitting all of her constituencies in the
social media world, in the podcast world, than that is
good and it will probably have I think it will
have a greater impact now because it is October, and
because now at the point where what fewel undecided is
left are going to start paying attention. I think there
are really two groups of undecided, and it's not undecided
(10:53):
between Harris and Trump. I think it's there are a
bunch of undecideds between voting for Harris or not voting
at all, either from a writer for from the left.
And you know, they will now get their chance to
see her and get to make up their minds whether
they vote for Harris or choose not to vote. So
you know, I think I think she's doing what she
has to do, and I think Trump is doing what
(11:13):
he has to do, which is don't come anywhere near
any media at all, because the more people see of him,
the less they like him.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
And he knows that now.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
And we have been in kind of the classic Trump
trap the past couple of weeks where the coverage has
been all about Trump and he has been sucking the
oxygen out of the room again, and that's that's to
all of our detriment because it you know, for the
people who hate him, it's a turn off and it
makes them not want to participate in politics. To the
people who love him, it bolsters his appeal, and it
(11:45):
you know, keep it keeps Kamala Harris out of the
national conversation, which is she needs to be the topic
of the national conversation. So I think that going on
the View, going on sixty minutes, going on Howard Stern
is a great way to you know, sees a bit
of the spotlight at a moment where she really needs
a spotlight.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I somewhat disagree. I think it's better for Democrats if
Donald Trump is the focus of conversation. The problem is
is that the campaign and the media are trying to
torpedo him with kind of glib things like now it's
his age, or the word salads, or his crowd sizes
have diminished, or whatever other critiques they make of him
(12:29):
that aren't really sticking because people just don't care about
that stuff. I think that there are several real issues
where Trump threatens his own supporters, even if they don't
realize it, meaning if he gets elected, they will be
much the worse for it. But these people need to
(12:50):
be really taken by the hand and led down the
logic path of why it will be to their detriment
if they vote to elect Donald Trump. I just wrote
a piece for our substack that outlines fifteen ways that
Trump is threatening his own supporters just by running for
(13:10):
president and will harm them if he's elected. I'm going
to just very quickly go through a couple of them.
If you want to see the whole list, it's on
Substack MPU podcast. Among them, he's going to turn the
FBI and the dj into his personal investigative force. Okay, well,
everybody knows that, But what's the problem with that? Hey,
(13:31):
a lot of people would like to see him go
after Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, or Liz Cheney or
Mitt Romney or whoever it is. The problem is it
diverts resources from things like fighting terrorism, fighting drug cartels,
organized crime, prosecuting civil rights abuses, fighting international money laundering,
(13:54):
and other major criminal threats to America. So the more
he uses the FBI and the DOJ to go after
his enemies, the less resources and time they will have
to do the things that we really need them to do.
Everyone needs them to do, including Trump enthusiasts.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Well, I mean, but that's sort of part of the
overall Trump agenda, the schedule f that he's been talking about,
you know, ways to diminish the federal workforce, fire civil
servants and replace them with his own loyalists. That will
be a diminished amount of government service that affects us
all negative.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yes, yes, absolutely. Here's another way that he is threatening
to harm his to everyone, including his own supporters. He
will give Israel free reign to attack Iran. Well again,
a lot of people say, yeah, Iran bad, It's about
time somebody dealt with them. Trump is really strong. The
problem with that is it could draw the United States
(14:51):
into a long term regional war, and if Russia or
China backs Iran in that war, we would be creating
a superpower proxy war that would make the Ukraine War
look like Grenada. Let me give you just a couple more.
He wants to harass and prosecute his numerous political enemies,
using the FBI, the DOJ, and the irs to exhort revenge.
(15:16):
The problem is if he does that to let's say
he does that to a Liz Cheney, Joe Biden, maybe
someone in the media it's going to force the rest
of his outspoken critics to flee the country, which will
thereby increase his power and control over the laws and
the culture, and cut down on critiques of the presidency,
(15:39):
which we desperately need to remain a democracy.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
The problem with all those, Kevin is that those are
all those are all forms of indirect harm.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
There are certain direct harm.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Policies that Trump would enact, and it's then the Harris
campaign is already talking about them. The tariffs she would impose,
which would essentially be a four thousand dollars host on
every household. Those are the kinds of things that are
direct and that will smack them all in the face.
But again, it's one of these situations where a lot
of voters don't vote for economic reasons, they vote for
(16:10):
culture reasons, or particularly they're voting against people they don't like,
and that's what we are seeing unfortunately across across most
of the country. And they don't really they don't really
care if they get hurt so long as the people
they hate get hurt more. It sucks, it's a lot
(16:31):
to work through new work against, but it's just where
we are. So Trump is going to hurt a lot
of his own voters. He's going to do it in
a lot of ways, and they're not going to care.
In fact, if anything, they're going to consider it a
noble sacrifice to make this country well, to make this
country wider, because to the extent that there's anything coherent
(16:52):
about trump Ism, it is about making the country wider
at the expense of everything else.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Did you guys see the report was just this week
that during the California wildfires and I believe twenty eighteen,
he wanted to keep aid to California locked up because
he was mad that he didn't have enough supporters there.
Someone had to show him voter roles from Orange County
to prove that there were enough Republicans to make it
worth his while to release federal wirefire wildfire aid, not
(17:20):
like his own personal accounts, are taxpayer dollars that are
supposed to help all the Americans who are facing disasters.
He wanted to turn that into a partisan issue and
they had to use partisan arguments to win. Yeah, and
that wouldn't just hurt Democrats. You know, if he decides
that he doesn't want to help your county because it's
a little too Democrat. There are also still Republicans there,
(17:42):
and they're going to come to harm as well. You
do not want a petty, vindictive, sectarian dictator deciding whether
you are entitled to the benefits of citizenship or not.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Speaking of petty sectarian dictators, what about the guy that
runs X the website formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
That fucking guy did did you guys see any of
his joint appearance with Trump and Butler, Pennsylvania this weekend?
Yeah Elon Musk, the Musky oders of the Yeah Muskyoders
emanating from the GOP a distinct Musky oder. He was
with Trump this week and in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site
(18:25):
where Trump was attacked, assassinated, and nearly assassinated. I don't
know what we're calling that one these days. The ear
injury and Musk looked higher than a kite. He was
jumping and dancing and I didn't listen to his speech
because he's boring, but it occurred. As I was watching
the clips of this, I was thinking, my god, we
(18:47):
spent all of twenty sixteen nitpicking whether or not Hillary
was likable enough, and we've got the pussy grabber in
chief with Captain horse for hand job bargain, marching around
a stage like their God's gift to politics, and we're
supposed to just accept that and not acknowledge that they're repellent.
(19:08):
And then you've got Elon's mother, who like, is she
even I don't Is she a citizen? I'm not sure,
but she was like tweeting something about if you want,
you know, we should everyone should just go to ten
different polling places on election day and drop off different
provisional ballots and that'll eventually overwhelm the system and all
(19:29):
the provisional ballots like they counted. And that's not how
it works. That's not how any of it works. It's
just you can't do that. They check the provisional ballots
against voter registration role roles. You can't go in and
say your mickey mouse and get your vote counted. Doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Look, when it comes to Elon Musk, he fails a
very a very simple, if jarring test. Elon Musk's father
is married to his stepsister. I don't trust someone who
is literally their own uncle.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
So, speaking of the written word, fingertips typing, Jack Smith
published a bombshell report this week one hundred and sixty
five pages of legal descriptions of what happened in the
week's leading up to the election, the week's following the election,
and up to January sixth and twenty twenty. Did you
(20:33):
guys read it?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I haven't read it, you know, like most people, I
just read excerpts.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
And some music.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I just want to I just want to clarify something.
The word published. I mean, I don't want to be
the grammar Nazi here. He submitted a brief to the court.
The court made it public, not Jack Smith, right. A
lot of people are saying, oh, Jack Smith did this
to get Trump into embarrass him and of the election
or to you know, interfere with the election. It was
(21:04):
the judge in the case, Judge Chuckkin, who made the
decision to release it at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
And she did it without She did it without objection
from Trump's legal team. They agreed to whatever level of
redaction was in this version, and because they didn't object,
she then hit submit or whatever you hit in the
court system. So it is out there with minimal redactions,
many of which are very easy to translate. For example,
(21:31):
when it says things like P. Nine, the sitting Governor
of Georgia, like, oh, yeah, that's a puzzler. Brag keV
and I read about two thirds of it the night
it became public, and the narrative is so damning. It
(21:54):
is so damning, and in the sane world you would
read it and think, my god, this as the vast
right wing conspiracy that we were warned about all those
years ago. Even Neil Cavudo commented on it, saying, this
reveals crimes that Trump resorted to crimes. It's not really
(22:14):
disputable that he was doing things that were illegal. And
then what Jack Smith very masterfully did was explain how
the crimes Trump committed were being committed by candidate Trump
and could in no way be inferred to be official duties,
including conversations with Mike Pence. And it was because nothing
in the official delineation of the role of the president
(22:39):
gives him any oversight over elections as a process. So
everything he was doing as was as a candidate.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
Even if he does not win the election, and even
if he gets convicted by Jack Smith on these charges,
I think the Supreme Court is going to find a
way to overturn it. They're going to say no. A
president ensuring that a national election was indeed fair and sound,
it is part of his job description. I could see
(23:10):
Justice Roberts writing that brief right now.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
The problem with all of that is that the filing
has numerous examples of Donald Trump admitting that he lost,
being told there was nothing behind any of his accusations,
literally him telling other people there didn't need to be
anything behind the accusations.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
We'll figure the details later.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
You just tell the commisial Republic to do something and
I'll worry about the details.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
It's all this other kind of stuff, And it.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Was happening in advance of the election. He was saying
that he will declare victory regardless of what the election
night counts looked like. He was saying that prior to
the election, So he wasn't ensuring a free and fairly
executed election by saying that in private meetings.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Right now, there's it is quite likely that we have
two Supreme Court justices who believe the big lie, who
can't get themselves off the big lie, which means Justice
Chief Justice Roberts is dealing with two wackos in his
midst So we don't.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I don't know how we will handle that.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
No, we've seen how he'll handle it. He capitulates to them.
But that's very predictable so far. But I mean, the thing,
the thing that struck me when I was reading through
this is that Jack Smith was not willing to roll
over and take the broadest definition of presidential duties as
sort of thrown at the wall like so much proverbial
(24:37):
spaghetti by the Supreme Court. He was surgically excising the
role of the candidate from the role of the president
and was very right, and he was he was doing
it in an exemplary manner, and in a way that
it is very hard to argue that he was being
(24:58):
too broad with his judgment. And it became a I thought,
a masterful legal pushback to this idea of presidential immunity
that could give judges at other points in the judiciary pause.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I hope you're right. So what else might be in
the news this week?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Apparently Kamala Harris performed a transgender surgery on a felon.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Okay, that this was mine I'm I am trying to
This is me trying to sort out how much of
an how much of an impact. This will be pretticular.
I'm undecided voters or whatever. Now on certain issues, I've
always sort of fallen over left, even when I was
a Republican, and transgender issues happened to be one of them.
(25:46):
So maybe I have a political blind spot here.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Wait, you don't care what other people do with their genitalia?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Amazing, DJ, It's not something that I worry about.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
But the notion that a prison policy regarding gender reassignment
surgery in California while Kamala Harris was Attorney General, that
that would be something that most Americans would think had
a dramatic and tremendous effect on their lives is just
not something that computes for me. I'm not seeing how
(26:17):
that how that could be something that could get a
majority of Americans to decide, Oh, yes, I'm going to
vote for Donald Trump. I'm just missing something. I'm clearly
I'm missing something here. What makes them think that that
kind of ad is going to work? Because I'm having
trouble seeing it, which means that which must mean I'm
(26:38):
missing something.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
What you're missing is that people will believe it his
base voters who they are trying to turn out. En
Muss would buy it in a hole.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
That's not the point, because it actually happened. It's not
whether it's not true or not. It is true that
this was the policy. My point is, why is that happening?
How is that events?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
They're calling it fiscal mismanagement that you are spending taxpayer
dollars on gender confirmation care for felons, money that could
be spent to, I don't know, put more locks on
schools so school children aren't shot. That was jd Vance's
plan better basically.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
So, basically because the majority, because the majority of Americans
possibly and the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters, are so
enumerabs as to think that a gender reassignment surgery has
a dramatic effect on the taxpayer bottom line that they're
just willing to go into a froth fort and vote
for Trump.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yes, that's what some people. Yeah, because they think they'll
just be doing gender reassignment surgeries on everybody in prison,
and it's going to this cost will spiral out of control.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, it's going to be. Hey, they're paying thousands of
dollars to cut the penises off of prisoners so that
they can get into a women's prison. But the good
people of Western North Carolina only gets seven hundred and
fifty dollars because their house floated away.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And Trump is still standing up on stage saying the
whole story about imagine your child goes to school, you
say goodbye, little Jimmy, and they come back three days later,
having had a brutal operation, and they're now a girl.
He's still saying that is that is.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
How stupid he believes the American people are.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's I mean, clearly they've got some you know, dial
focus group where they like, oh yeah, they get really
excited when he says stuff like that, so they just
keep saying it. And apparently they're also saying things like
illegal citizens. Are these the ones who are going to
polling places and dropping off ten provisional ballots due? What's what?
Where did you see? This is what happened?
Speaker 4 (28:39):
This is what's something else? I noticed? It was said
at one of the Trump one of the Trump rallies.
It wasn't Trump himself, but somebody said, if you're an
illegal citizen and you vote, we will find you and
we will deport you.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
The quote I heard was Trump said, if you vote illegally,
you will go to jail, to which someone on Twitter replied,
but if you vote legally, he will go to jail.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
It only works if you follow that. And this is
actually something Stephen Miller has been talking about about. Essentially
a denaturalization program that they have in mind, take people
that became citizens in a way they didn't like and
make them not citizens against they can kick them out.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Of the country.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
There's already a process for that.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Yes, I know, then they're going to put it on steroids.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, I mean they don't. I know. A friend of
mine is a lawyer at DJ and actually oversee some
cases like that. But it's like if you come here,
become a citizen and then start like, I don't know,
trafficking humans, Like if you commit major, major crimes, they
will revoke your citizenship. But it's not it. They don't
do it because you look funny.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Yeah, but it's just another reminder that when they say illegal,
it basically means people they don't like. Again, the Haitian
immigrants in Springfield, Ohio who've actually revitalized the town are
actually legal immigrants who came through on a particular government program.
Trump and Vance don't like that government program. They're declaring
the program illegal and thus they're declaring anyone who took
(30:03):
advantage of it illegal.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Weren't Haitians given the TPS status under Bush the younger.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
This is a.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Particular one that I think was driven by the driven
by the or at least in part, either by the
earthquake of twenty ten or by the complete collapse of
the central government in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
When the post was okay, now, the earthquake, I remember
because that was a huge Clinton initiative. They went into
to do a lot of the aid there, and I
was saying, yeah, okay, But.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
The main point is to Trump advance.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Illegal now means anybody we don't like, right, It doesn't
mean what actually would have been considered illegal in the
aughts of the nineties or even the tens. It's anybody
we don't like and we won't kicked out of country.
We're going to tick them out of it.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
It's anybody who came to this country that we can scapegoat.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, it's anybody who came to the country after Stephen
Miller's grandparents were brought here in their caskets of Transylvanian dirt.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So we've discussed Trump and the election to death. What
else is it the news that we can end on
maybe a more of a high point.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Well, it seems like pop culture is finally catching up
and getting a little bit funny. So, Kevin, have you
got some news for us?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Have I got news for you? Have you guys know
that CNN has a comedy show now, their first original
comedy show.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Who do they have writing it?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Have you looked at the writer's list to see if
it's anybody good?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well? I always look at the writing credits. I didn't
notice any names that jumped out at me. They're probably
fine writers. The show itself is hosted by a very
fine comedian, Roy Wood Junior, who comes out of the
Daily Show. He's great, but unfortunately the material is not
supporting him. They may have news for you, but what
(31:52):
they don't have is a lot of laughs for you.
Oh dear, And I hate to be caddie about television programs.
I've worked on some Dogs myself, and SNL, which I
played a tiny part in its history, certainly go through
its up and down years and is never one hundred
percent the left riot that it's still to be. But
(32:14):
this show is not even a left mild disturbance, let
alone a left riot.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Not even a left tango.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
A left war, not a left tang. It's not a
left wold. All I can say is, having now seen
parts of three episodes, I think I can say with
confidence that we will not be celebrating its fiftieth anniversary,
and I highly doubt we'll be celebrating its first anniversary.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
This is actually not original. BBC actually has Have I
got news for you?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Yeah, they did this before anybody else did. And it
does not surprise me that CNN one is trying to
do a riff of a British comedy show, and two
that they do it badly because CNN is not supposed
to be about comedy.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
God damn it. Knock at the hell off.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I mean, theoretically, you could always hire good writers to
make comedy happen. I guess CNA doesn't have that kind
of budget.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
No, sometimes it's the premise. The premise sometimes fights you,
even with good writers.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
One of my proudest moments as a parent was when
my son had written an essay he was in sixth
grade about Sparta and Athens for his history class, and
he was really proud of it. He read it aloud
to me, and it was all very funny and very
sharp and actually very correct, And at the end of it,
he wrote, I hope my casual tone is okay. I
(33:34):
was trying to write it in the tone of a
Daily Show monologue. So my sixth grade son was trying
to imitate Trevor Noah for history class. And I've always
felt really good about that.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
And the fact of the matter is CNN does have
comedic moments, just anytimes Scott Channings opens his mouth.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yes, thank you all for listening to another trip down
campaign super Highway with us. Thank you for listening. If
you enjoy what we do here, follow us on Instagram
at MPU fan Club and our substack page where we
publish opinion pieces and really deep cuts into the history
(34:16):
of baseball And DJ, did you just know that? Like,
are you a walking baseball almanac? Or did you have
to google parts of it?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That was something I read.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
I read about when I had this when I was
a kid and I had this gigantic, you know, his
baseball thing that I got for my birthday or something,
and that one just stuck with me because it was
my God, it's a core memory.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, I can't claim to remember it, but I did
live through it, and I now having been reminded of it,
do remember it.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Well. If you want to read about about both sports
and politics and the fact that we are all tremendous nerds,
check out our substack page and don't forget to share
our link and our substack posts on all of your
social media feeds so that your friends can discover us
as well. As always, we thank Alan Keaty for our
theme music. And all right, the Big sixty Minutes Interview
(35:15):
is tomorrow evening. What snacks do you plan to consume
while you watch Kamala Harris?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Well, I will be probably snacking on Junior Mintz because
like Kamala Harris, they're always refreshing.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And I might be on a PTA call. Shit, I
should not have agreed to be on the boards of
so many ptas this year. It's really cutting into my
Tuesday nights. Oh well, try to be a responsible parent
and look what happens.
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