May 20, 2024 • 43 mins
This week, the gang looks at the criminal indictments gifted to Rudy Giuliani at his 80th birthday bash, how Samuel Alito let his "Stop the Steal" freak flag fly, the Michael Cohen phone call that could make or break the Trump trial, and NFL kicker Harrison Butker's commencement kerfuffle.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
Welcome to the More Perfect Union,the podcast that offers real debate without the
hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeiter and withme as always as Garth Party on Wayne
Party on Garth. You guys,this trulant. Anyways, I'm happy to
be joined on the mic by DJMaguire, who is not under any subpoena
or indictment, so I can postpictures of myself whenever I want to.
(00:38):
Okay, but I'm going to advisethat you make them tasteful. That was
assumed. I'm just offering my bestlegal advice as a person who has never
studied any kind of law. Also, Greg Matuzac, before we even get
started, I want to just throwthis out that I think Congress people have
to address each other in the futurewith only alliteration and with only description.
(01:02):
Because this week's been awesome, butit's good to be here, your common
sense liberal from Cincinnati, Ohio.And Kevin Calton, whose name is alliteration.
Actually, this week, I thinkI feel like the Amy Winehouse of
politics. They're trying to make yougo to rehab well because I think if
(01:23):
the voters leave me to go backto Trump, I think I'm going to
have to drink myself to death.I mean, I think we've all thought
that at times this week. Theone person who probably wants to drink himself
to death and might actually be inthe process of it, though of course
we wish that on no one inreal life is a former mayor of New
York, America's mayor Rudy Giuliani,who ended his birthday party. He got
(01:46):
a gift, he got a gift, he got a gift. He got
a gift from Arizona. A processserver from Arizona arrived at his birthday party,
and Greg, you'll love this part. He stood there and sang Happy
Birthday. He stood like the processserver was at the party and sang Happy
Birthday before serving Rudy Giuliani with thesubpoena. Did the process server get like
(02:07):
cake? Also? I mean,did he just sort of blended? Because
that guy deserves some sort of reward. I mean, that is awesome.
He definitely deserves a slice of cake, a large one. I would say.
My favorite part of this, andI'm not sure if you guys were
aware, was, and I knowKevin dj is because he kind of alluded
to it, is that twenty fourhours previously Rudy was tweeting out pictures saying,
(02:30):
you know, if they don't indicteme within the next twelve hours or
twenty four hours, they've got torelease this whole thing because I'm so tricky,
which I don't think is how lawsactually work. Well, how would
he know. It's not like heunderstands A wait a second, Oh,
wait a second. He was,he was a lawyer, he was a
(02:52):
prosecutor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, and it's it's just
it's kind the tweet has been eliminatedor deleted, as they say, as
the kids say, but it's justjust awesome that he would write that and
then like it was like a wishfor filming. It was like he told
someone his wish, like, oh, would be great if I got served
tonight, you know. Yeah.So, first of all, I did
(03:15):
not know that story about the happybirthday, which I think is just the
it's the cherry on top of theicingleman Chef's kiss. Well, yeah,
what I love about it is whenI first read this story, there's a
quote where it was either Rudy orRudy's political advisor, and somebody pointed out,
why does Rudy Giuliani at eighty yearsold, after everything he's been through,
(03:37):
have a political advisor. But thisguy was at the party and either
Rudy or his political advisor said theystormed the party like they were storming Normandy.
And I'm thinking, you know,hyperbole has its place, but i
think two guys probably wearing suits ties. I'm guessing middle aged guys show up
(04:00):
at your party and hand you asubpoena or an indictment. Whatever it is
they do doesn't sound like Normandy theNormandy invasion to me? Does it to
you? No? Yeah, Idon't know why Rudy Giuliani would have a
political advisor when he isn't technically inpolitics. I think it says something about
how the Trump entourage think they canfix this that Rudy's warran isn't having a
(04:25):
political advisor than a legal advisor.I don't know if he can get a
legal advisor. Isn't he on thehook for some bills that he hasn't paid?
Yes, he went bankrupt. Infact, as I've mentioned on the
podcast before, my nephew was representingone of the women that is suing him,
and that case is now on holdbecause apparently when you declare bankruptcy,
(04:50):
all of these claims against you arefrozen. So yeah, oh yeah,
that makes sense because they have torestructure all of his debt, and the
legal claims I think fall are loweron the priority list than like bank loans
and shit. I don't know,I've never declared bankruptcy or been sued.
I think we've said this before onthe show. But and I don't know
(05:11):
if it's like a warning tale tothe young folk. But it's just amazes
me how at one point he wasAmerica's mayor. He had more goodwill and
you know, authority than really anyoneelse. I mean, he was,
he was beloved by this country,and then within ten years he's a laughingstock
that's being getting summons at his ownbirthday party. I mean, he's the
(05:36):
punchline of jokes. As someone whohas lived in New York, not during
nine to eleven, but you know, I'm a born and raised New Yorker,
I challenged the myth that Rudy savedanything. I think he was probably
for a Republican, an effective mayor. I think there's probably some things he
did well, but it's not likehe turned New York around and I also
(05:58):
questioned the myth of his poet mostnine to eleven leadership. I think he
did what any politician would have doneon that day. And just the fact
that two weeks later he showed upin the cold opening of SNL and made
a joke doesn't tell me that he'sa great leader. No, but he
is now instead of being considered likesome of the great American leaders, he
is now going to be like theHe's the Rob Ford of American politics.
(06:21):
Well, no, I think RobFord is the Rudy Giuliani. But I
do want to add, since weare talking about the indictments, you know,
this is an indictment in Arizona forelection interference. Rudy is just one
of many individuals who were named there. Also named in the indictment as an
(06:43):
unindicted co conspirator is one Donald J. Trump, And that also happens to
be well in Michigan, where thereis also an election interference case and several
people, probably some overlap of whowere indicted there. Trump is not aimed
in the indictment as an unindicted coconspirator, but the prosecutor has said,
(07:05):
or the Attorney general has said,he is definitely an unindicted co conspirator in
their case. The reason I bringthis up is right now, I think
there's a very good chance that DonaldTrump could be the next president. But
if he loses in the fall,not only are those two or three Jack
Smith cases and possibly the Fannie Williscase coming back on track, but there
(07:28):
could be superseding indictments in Arizona andMichigan that add him to the charges.
So we could be looking in abeautiful world at a future where not only
does he lose to Joe Biden,but that he is facing four or five
or six different criminal court cases wherehe'll be just claiming that everybody is out
(07:49):
to get him. That's what getsme to sleep at night. I think
of that like kids think of cottoncandy and tooth fairies. I mean,
to be fair, everybody is outto get him. At least everybody on
this podcast, given the opportunity,would be out to get him if we
You know, I'm not saying thisis an operant plan for our future,
but if he could, he couldif he was interested in helicopter travel that
(08:16):
seems risky these days. The Iranianpresident and was it the Foreign Minister we're
just in a helicopter crash. Atthe time we're recording this, it's about
nine fifteen on Sunday night, Maynineteenth. The Iranian authorities are saying it
is still a search and rescue mission. I don't believe they have located the
crash. However, not to betoo grim about this, but helicopter crashes
(08:43):
are not known for their survival rates. And you know, I'm curious about
what this means in terms of theleadership in Iran following I guess there's a
vice president who would immediately take overthe role and then needs to be an
election within six months. I don'tknow what their election process looks like,
(09:03):
DJ, can you elucidate that atall? I can tell you it's utterly
irrelevant because the president is not theperson who runs the country. The person
runs the country is the supreme leader, Ayatola Ali Khamani, And unfortunately he
is still very much alive. Didhe, I mean, well, how
did he? How was he interms of popular support? Like? Was
he generally liked as much as anybody'sLike I can I take that one?
(09:26):
Yeah, if he had the jobin Iran, he was popular with who
he needed to be popular with,and this is true. And in the
sham Putin like election that they held, it had the lowest turnout in the
history of these sham Putin like electionsthat they hold. So yeah, there
really isn't a lot of enthusiasm toeven pretend that this guy's popular. But
(09:52):
yes, he was in with thepeople he needed to be in with.
So I have a question. Youknow, I went on to X a
few hours after this happened to takethe pulse, and sure enough, there's
already some chatter about Israel being behindit. Of course that's nonsense, but
it's almost inevitable that Israel will beblamed if this man and the other people
(10:13):
that were in the helicopter with himare dead. I wonder what that portends,
because you know, I'm old enoughto remember the Cuban missile crisis,
and I'm old enough to remember whenKennedy was assassinated and people thought that maybe
Russia was behind that, and itbecame very tense. And here we have
two countries that essentially are in acold war, and they are both nuclear
(10:37):
powers, and we live in atime when conspiracy theories can carry great weight.
So what happens if all of asudden, people in Iran or people
in the Muslim world start pointing fingersat Israel for this. Yeah, I
really didn't hear much of what Kevinsaid because after he said, he went
on X, which I don't wantto go back to. We're not calling
(10:58):
it X still Twitter. Okay,I can't. I can't I second that
motion. Do I have unanimous consentto it as Twitter? Thank You can't
take you seriously when you say X. I couldn't take myself seriously when it
came out of my mouth either.But going back to your point, whether
conspiracy theory, You're right, therewere these theories and this did happen.
(11:20):
But I would like to say thatwith the Internet, this would get better
and it would be disprovable. You'renot going to have as much rumoring,
but it will probably be worse becauseof the Internet, where verification is not
what would someone would assume is anecessary step in finding out something like this,
(11:41):
like is this a real news story? Does anyone have proof of this
before they would do something? Youwill see probably a lot of this and
it could make a major influence onthe world stage. Well, I think
it goes back to having influence onthe people you need to have influence on.
If the remaining leadership in Iran iswilling to trust whatever black box report
they get out of the helicopter wreckagethat says it was a mechanical failure,
(12:07):
if it's in their interest for thatto be the story, it will be
the story. If it's not intheir interest, then it will be a
completely different situation. But let's berealistic here. If Israel wanted to take
down Iranian leadership in a grouping offour helicopters, all four of them would
be on the ground. Conspiracy theoriesare, by their nature not rational,
(12:28):
and using logic to disprove them neverworks to the people that hold those beliefs.
Oh I know, I just sawa nine to eleven conspiracy theory that
was being wielded in recent years bya local school board candidate here. Oh
yeah, oh yeah, a nineeleven. Of course. She also was
in an interview recently and said thatRfk's book is a really good source of
(12:50):
information about vaccines. So she's notto say, is that the RFK,
That is that the RK junior thatlives in Los Angeles, So that one
of the writers should have voted inwhen Chester County. Aren't they the same
guy? He's registered to vote inWestchester County? Yeah, apparently he's registered
to vote in a foreclosed home inWestchester County that no one has ever seen
(13:11):
him live in. So speaking ofrich and assholes, Samuel Alto all right,
this story was so weird. Apparentlyphotographic evidence has emerged that around the
January sixth attack on the Capitol,Samuel Alito had an upside down American flag
hanging in front of his house,which apparently is MAGA for stop the steal.
(13:37):
Help me what happened? What?Oh, I can tell you what
happened. Listen. All we knowis the unnamed sources had spoke to the
New York Times, and then weknow Alito's account, So putting them together
and assuming there's some veracity there,one of their neighbors put up a fuck
Trump flag in their yard post electiontwenty twenty sometime, and I think in
(14:01):
late November of twenty twenty or midNovember. Yeah, I put that on
my Twitter. Then there were somewords exchanged between that person and Alito and
his wife, in which I believethat there was some cursing involved and to
get back at this person or totry to one up them. The Alitos
decided to fly an upside down flag, which is a stop to Steel symbol.
(14:24):
Now I know that everybody is gonnaagree with me, but I have
to say this out loud. Listen, you're a public figure. You're going
to take incoming, whether it's fromthe New York Times, whether it's from
your next door neighbor. And nomatter how bad it is, you don't
get to turn around and say,oh, fuck me, fuck you by
(14:45):
doing something as stupid as flying asymbol of the stop the Steel movement.
And I don't care. I don'tbuy this bullshit that oh my wife put
it up. It was apparently upfor several days, which means unless he
was out of town, he sawit and he let it stay. And
that means it's his flag on hishome and it's a symbol of his attitude
(15:07):
towards the twenty twenty election. Andwhat's astonishing is the fact that he and
his wife felt that they needed toone up somebody whose only source of power,
presumably was a lawn sign and thevote, right, that's what most
of us has. We can voteand put up lawn signs he is a
(15:30):
sitting Supreme Court justice. He isthe architect of the Dobbs decision. He
doesn't need to prove his power orhis position. It's proved. Yeah,
But let's remember this is a manwho had a State of the Union yelled
you lie at Barack Obama, sohis self control is in question. I'm
(15:54):
looking at his confirmation vote from twothousand and five and it looks like nearly
every Democrat voted against his confirmation.He had forty two know's. So I'm
wondering if this is something that wasthat they saw back then as a this
dude could go seriously off the rails. We don't want this, but you
(16:17):
know, it brings into this questionof lifetime appointments. There's nothing that we
have in our current system that allowsus to redress this, and that actually
is a First Amendment right that weshould have the power to redress our grievances.
And we've got this man who ison the side of insurrectionists and there's
really nothing we can do as citizens, and that's pretty upsetting. There is
(16:38):
something, I mean, our representativescould impeach him. It would never happen,
it would never go through. ButIt's not to say that there's no
authority over the Supreme Court. It'sjust that in our bifurcated partisan politics,
those authorities are newted. So I'mgoing to disagree on this. This is
(17:00):
the second time in like five minuteswith Kevin. It will happen. It
will definitely happen, but it won'thappen anytime soon. The next time.
The only the first time it happenswhen a sitting Supreme Court judge will be
impeached or will come about, willbe when the Democrats have a majority.
You are so absolutely right, Greg, And I was thinking that earlier this
(17:22):
week. So I not only doI say you're right, I applaud you
for being so unbelievably right, rightright. And the first time we get
the next time there's a majority,they will find absolutely some some crevice,
some little way to warm the wayin and say you know what this,
You guys got it fair and square, And they are going to pull a
(17:45):
Narcis on one of those three liberaljudges. Oh yeah, if Trump gets
re elected within two years, theyare going to find something on one of
those three judges and try to startimpeachment here. Yeah, they're going to
accuse Alenik Hagen of jaywalking. Yep, yep, yeah, you know they're
they're going to say that she isnot sufficiently respectful of someone. Kid Rock
(18:11):
probably take it to the bank.M m. So, speaking of of
UH polarization and debates, Trump andBiden are going to have two of them,
one of them in only six weekstime, which is you know,
that gives them almost as much timeto prepare for a debate as we have
to prepare for these trenchant and insightfulpodcasts that we do every week without having
(18:37):
to like run debate camp. I'mjust saying that we are better at this
than Donald Trump. So what doyou think the odds are on both debates
happening? Okay, well let's letlet's let's do a. Let's do a
we'll go around here. Tell meif you think it's going to be one,
two or zero. Kevin, Ithink it's going to be two,
(19:00):
all right, DJ. I thinkit'll be one and it won't be the
one in June. Greg. Ithink it will be the one in June,
and it's gonna be called one anddone. And I tend to agree
with Greg. I think we're gonnaget the first one out of I know,
I think we're gonna get the firstone out of the way, and
something is gonna go real sour duringthe broadcast and one of them, will
(19:23):
you declare that the other can't followthe rules and we won't be doing this
again? Right? I think theywill be like a scanner's moment or something.
But something will happen, and therules that Biden has put and he
said these are gonna be a nostudio audience, Mike's will be cut off
timed. I mean, those arethe things that are not playing for the
(19:48):
Donald Trump team. But they've alreadycome out and saying we've got this because
he could still go at him hardand it's past eight o'clock. They have
still made that joke like ten timesso and we've seen him follow We've seen
Biden actually follow through like when heneeds to and he gets good nights.
And I'm not saying this doesn't happen. He'll do it. He'll do fine,
(20:14):
Kevin, what were you going tosay? So? First of all,
I want to applaud the Biden campaignbecause I think they handled this exactly
right. And early on I wasnot in favor of debates. But when
I heard about the specifics of whatwas negotiated, I now think it's a
great idea. I love having onein June because I think he needs Biden,
I'm talking about, needs to dosomething to shake up this race,
(20:38):
because right now I think there's asixty to forty chance that Trump could win.
I also have thought for a while, and may have even said on
this podcast, that I think ifthey do have debates, there should be
a rule that once you stop talking, your mic is cut off, so
that you can't overtalk the other person, as Donald Trump has a proclivity to
do. But now that they've gotthat rule, I'm a little concerned that
(21:02):
that might ultimately work against Biden.And hear's how Trump finishes his answer.
Biden starts to speak, Trump's mikeis off, Biden is speaking, trying
to answer, and Trump is stillhassling him, heckling him, annoying him,
interrupting him. The viewing audience athome may not hear Trump's comments,
(21:26):
or may only hear a little bitof mumbling of it off screen, but
Biden will hear it, and itcould throw him off, and it could
give the appearance of him stumbling,stammering, losing his train of thought,
and people may not understand why.And I'm concerned about that. I guess
that will depend on whether they outwhether they pull in for a close up
on the on the speaker, orif they yeah, they should go to
(21:48):
split screens. But but you know, by the time they go to the
split screen, Trump stops talking andyou still get the same effect. Now,
that may be something for the campaignsto negotiate. The idea of of
Trump on a silent mic trying totalk and gesticulate and getting agitated on camera
is kind of hilarious. Oh,if they could catch it on camera,
(22:11):
it's gold. It's great. AndI mean and I think I expect the
people, good people at SEENN andABC know that. Okay, So,
just to help you get to sleepat night, Kevin, So, there
have been some debates where the candidatesare like ten feet apart, but you
also have to remember, like dependingon the stage setup and depending on because
(22:33):
of the size of the arena,there have been debates where they have been
like forty feet apart, including twentytwenty. The presidential debates in twenty twenty
were like that. Well, sure, which is good because otherwise Donald Trump
would have given Joe Biden COVID.Right, Well, that was right,
And I think that if if theyjust work it so he's far enough away
so that he can't hear him somuch, so he would hear him,
(22:56):
he would hear him. I meanTrump Trump, For all of his fault,
his voice carries pretty well. Hey, for the record, I just
want to say that I think DonaldTrump lost the election during the first debate
in twenty twenty. And it wasn'tthe moment that Joe said, shut up,
man. It was the second time, not the first time, but
the second time that Joe Biden calledDonald Trump Donald, and Donald Trump let
(23:22):
it slide. The first time itcould have been just distracted. Oh,
he forgot to call him mister president. The second time it was he knows.
Joe Biden knows what the protocol was, and he opted not to use
the honorific with Donald Trump, andDonald Trump led him. And all of
these things are reasons why Trump willfind a reason not to participate in the
(23:44):
jew debate. Right, he thinkshe's ahead. Most people think he's ahead.
I think it's even but I'm onan island out here and between now
and then there's plenty of time forthe New York Times sending of University to
do another poll where half the votersare rural in their sample and skew it
to and skew it to pieces togive Trump the further feeling that he's ahead,
(24:07):
and he will find some reason toback out of it in June,
but by September, after the conventionsare done, and after Biden gets a
Democratic bounce out of his convention,whereas Trump meanders through his acceptance speech and
nobody knows what the hell he wastalking about, and suddenly it looks like
it has Biden ahead, and itlooks like Biden's favored to win. Trump's
(24:30):
gonna panic and say, okay,well I'll go for the one in September.
So that's why I think there willbe one debate, and it will
be in September. Now, JoeBiden will show up in June. He'll
just do he'll, he'll he'll makeit ill time. That should be written
into it that if one of themdrops out, the other gets the airtime.
Obviously, we're just speculating here,and I love you DJ and this
is not personal. There's no wayin hell Donald Trump doesn't show up for
(24:53):
that debate. Well, no,let's hang on. Let's remember one additional
fact about the month of June,or at least late May. It is
very likely that Donald Trump's New Yorkcase, the lawyers will begin summation on
Tuesday and jury instructions from the judgeand the jury may be in deliberation as
(25:17):
soon as Thursday, and we maysee a verdict late May early June.
And that could change the momentum ofDonald Trump's, if not his campaign,
at least his mental state for severalweeks. And if he's you know,
if he gets convicted and is flailingaround trying to figure out what to do
next. I don't think debate prepis going to be top on his list.
(25:41):
There's no way he doesn't show upfor that, especially if he's convicted.
Anyways, it's just an opinion,that's all. Like, unless he
can somehow write it into the contractthat they don't ask him about his conviction.
No, listen, Donald Trump isgoing to deal if he gets convicted,
which I don't think is going tohave and I hope it does,
but I don't think it's going tohappen. He will deal with it Donald
(26:03):
Trump for all of his faults.He bounces back and the idea that he's
convicted by June first, June second, June third, and he's not ready
for debate three weeks later. Comeon, guys, all right, well
we will see how it goes.And you know what, they could each
hire some really really primo debate coachesto help them out because we have Marjorie
(26:26):
Taylor Green and Jasmine Crockett ready tothrow hands and throw words. Were any
of you guys watching that in realtime, or at least watching the social
media in real time as that washappening. I wish I have seen some
weird ass stuff go down in Congresswhen it's after eight o'clock and they're getting
(26:47):
a little punchy like I do.Recall a representative from Arkansas calling Adam Putnam
of Florida a howdy duty look andNimrod, that's a quote, you can
look it up. But I havenever heard a member of Congress call another
member of Congress a bleach blonde,bad bill butch body before. And actually,
(27:11):
frankly, I think we could retireall of Congress because it's never going
to get better than that. We'regoing to move our discussion along to New
York City, which is kind ofwhere we began at talking about Rudy Giuliani.
We're going to talk about the Trumptrial. And Michael Cohen has been
on the stand. He has beenquestioned up one side and down the other,
(27:33):
and he's actually apparently been doing quitewell all things considered. I wouldn't
want to do what he's doing.But there was one line of questioning that
got him a little bit off guard. And Kevin, you've you've been paying
really close attention to this. Doyou want to kind of summarize what this
was? Yes, And I've beenpaying for too close attention to this for
any healthy adult human being. Soyeah, So he's on cross examination.
(28:00):
They're trying to catch him in alie aim. So the defense attorney has
been grilling him until they got tothe subject of a call that Cohen made
to Donald Trump in mid to lateOctober of twenty sixteen, before the election,
after the Axis Hollywood tape came out. And this is a pivotal call
(28:22):
because it's the call in which Cohenclaims he briefed Trump about the payment,
and there was some allusion to thefact that it was that they were doing
something unethical and eventually illegal. Well, it was one of several calls that
dealt with that topic. Yes,but no, but this is a key
call because it's in a particular windowof time Cohen and the prosecution highlighted this
(28:48):
call from the documents of all thecalls off of Michael Cohen's phone that he
says he told Trump some key informationabout the payment. What the defense brought
out was that Cohen had just momentsbefore this call been texting with Keith Schiller
(29:10):
about a different topic, which wasthat Michael Cohen was being stalked by someone
who was calling his phone multiple timesdaily. So he was going back and
forth with Keith Schiller, who wasTrump's body man at the time, and
had just said to him, youknow, I have a problem with these
(29:30):
calls. As it turns out,the dummy actually mistakenly called once from his
own phone, So I've got hisnumber. What do I do? And
Schiller said, call me okay.Now. The reason that I bring all
this up is it's very technical.But the defense is claiming if Michael Cohen
called Shiller for that, then ina one minute, thirty six second phone
(29:53):
call, there wasn't time for themto discuss that and then for him to
talk to Donald Trump about the StormyDaniels payment. So with that in mind,
if anybody remembers the movie or theplay Twelve Angry Men, there's a
famous scene where they recreate the allegedcrime. Well, yes, it's the
(30:14):
angle of the knife, right,and the Henry Fonda character acts it out
with steps and then the knife andwhat have you and convinces these jurors one
by one that the defense version ofevents was indeed plausible. So with that
in mind, I think that theprosecution in this case, their version of
(30:37):
events is plausible, and we're goingto do a little fun exercise to prove
that. Greg, did you havesomething? Well, there were twelve twelve
guys in that movie. Yes,there's twelve guys, so we're only four
angry okay. So with that inmind, and by the way, by
the way, I know I'm hoggingthe mic at this point in the podcast,
I want to plug again that wehope to do a mock jury podcast
(31:00):
next week in which we have asimulated jury deliberation to discuss all of the
facts of the case and see whata group of listeners who would volunteer for
this to see what decision they wouldcome to after like forty five minutes of
deliberation, And if you want tobe a part of that, please write
to us this week at mpupodcast atgmail dot com and tell us about yourself
(31:25):
and you know that you'd like tobe a part of this if we can
pull it together, we'd love tohave you on the air with us,
and we'd love to have you tobe part of our mock jury. So
again, mpupodcast at gmail dot com, I answer all of those emails,
so please drop us a line ifyou're interested. So that said, we're
going to do our own simulation andfind out whether this conversation can happen in
(31:48):
ninety six seconds or not. I'mgoing to play Michael Cohen. I have
cast DJ as Donald Trump because that'stypecasting. And Greg I would like you
because you have such a muscular bodyand you are so imposing. I would
like you to be the body man. Keith Schiller love it the part I
(32:09):
was born to play. And Rebecca, I'm sorry there are no parts for
anyone else in this particular simulation,So we're going to ask you to keep
time on this, Okay, goingto keep time on this. I am
very excited to see. I hopeyou guys have rehearsed this and are speaking
in the right kind of New Yorkclip. Okay, So we're going to
start the call. When you saystart, I'm going to pretend that Schiller
(32:31):
has just answered the phone, oractually Schiller has the first line, and
we'll go until the end of thecall. All right, and three two
one begin Michael Keith. Yes,So I got this person calling me like
twenty times a day, but thedope forgot to block his number on one
(32:52):
of the calls. So what dowe do with this? All right?
Text me the number and I'll haveour people look into it, and of
course I won't answer the calls orengage them in any way. Of course,
of course, don't worry. We'llput an end to this. Great.
I really appreciate it. Hey,can I speak to mister Trump for
a sec sure? Hold on,Michael, Hey, Michael, what's up?
(33:15):
I just wanted to update you regardingthat PR problem. We discussed the
second one. Yes, yes,the Lake Tahoe incident. Okay, So
I just want you to know Iarranged the funding and everything's been taken care
of the payment, Yes, sir, I handled it myself and the DNA
(33:37):
all signed. It's a done deal. Great news. And as far as
the reimbursement, I'll handle that withAlan. Okay, good job, Well,
busy day here, anything else,no, sir, okay, got
a run bye. All right.That timed out to one minute eight point
five six seconds. We could haveasked him what he had for lunch.
(34:02):
Yeah, I mean, you couldhave gotten into the fact that the kid
was the person making the harassing calls, was fourteen, and that Shiller was
I don't think they knew that atthe time. Yeah, well, Shiller
was going to turn it over tothe Secret Service. He did know that
he was going to jinue that.But yeah, so he came in under
a minute thirty. Right, SoI've been watching, you know, I
(34:22):
watched on Thursday when everyone including AndersonCooper. I don't know how he came
to this conclusion, but he goesI think Michael Cohen is lying, it's
not possible to have had this twoconversations at a minute thirty. This I
pulling my fucking hair out because Iknew it was possible. We just proved
it was possible. Obviously, wedon't know the exact dialogue that they had,
(34:46):
but these people don't have long drawnout conversations, especially with Donald Trump
when he's in the middle of thefinal two weeks of a presidential election,
So of course it was possible toget both things done in a minute thirty
six seconds. God, I justhope that there were people on the jury
who think the way I think.Well, I mean, and just the
(35:06):
jury. Remember they heard that recordingof Trump and Cohen talking about I think
it was the Karen McDougall payment maybeor the Steers and the cadence of how
they talked in the amount of informationthey conveyed to one another in the span
of just a few sentences, sothat tape can't be very long. You
know, when Trump was able toask for a diet coke in the middle
(35:28):
of that, I should have writtenthat to the script. You should have
run at coke. Will we stillhave time for that last topic on the
rundown? Harrison Butkers, Yeah,Harrison Butker. So he got it.
(35:50):
He stood up in front of agroup of graduating seniors at a Benedictine college
and told all the women that whatthey really need to do is go have
some babies. And I think allthe women in the room are like,
well, I was gonna, butI have a job that I'm starting on
Monday. I mean, it wasan astonishing thing for me to listen to,
you know, as he's having thismoment where he's choking up and talking
(36:14):
about the beauty of his wife,leaning into her role as a wife and
homemaker, and that's what she reallyfound rewarding. He didn't say her name.
Well, I was going to saythat. One of the things that
we really have not talked about orfocused on by we, I don't mean
just this podcast, but just ingeneral, is the rise of what is
(36:34):
called the rad trad movement in AmericanCatholicism. You know, we focus so
much on how Evangelicals have seemed togo totally off the rails and they have
that we really haven't paid as muchattention to how much a large number of
white Catholics have joined them and haveessentially taken literally backwards backwards, looking at
church teachings as a way to effectivelyjustify their their love for Donald Trump and
(37:02):
stands for radical traditional, radical traditional. So I can't opine on radical traditionalism
or Catholicism, two of the subjectsI know the least about in the world.
Maybe throw nutrition in there those twosubjects. But I do want to
(37:23):
say, listen, after this wholething came, you know, got a
lot of controversy and a lot ofmedia hubbub. I went and read through
the commencement speech that this gentleman gave. I've never heard of this man.
I mean, I probably heard ofhim during the super Bowl, but I
wouldn't have remembered his name. Hewasn't dating Taylor Swift during the super Bowl,
(37:44):
so no one noticed, right right. So I read it and I
was actually impressed. Now, Idon't agree with almost anything that he said
in the speech. I probably disagreewith every major point he made in the
commencement speech, but I was impressedwith how articulate he was, how well
written it was, how thoughtful itwas. Quite frankly, he seems like
(38:07):
a very intelligent man. Or hehas an intelligent wife who wrote it for
him because she does everything else forhim. So he can earn four million
dollars a year kicking a ball.Well, I'll accept that possibility as well.
But here's what struck me. Igoogled Harrison, butker, he's twenty
eight years old. He'll be twentynine in July. But he's twenty eight
(38:28):
years old. Now that's just that'slike a couple of years older than my
oldest son. And even though hegave a very thoughtful, articulate speech,
should a commencement address be given bysomeone with so little life experience? I
mean, they're smart, and Iam not doubting that he's a smart man.
(38:51):
But then there's wisdom, and collegegraduates are supposed to get the smarts
in college, not from their commencementto dress. An address is supposed to
be about adding a touch of wisdomthrough life experience and perspective, and I
don't think that someone that's six yearsolder than they are has yet that kind
(39:12):
of life experience. So I amnot putting him down in any way,
but I really question the decision tooffer someone that young the role of commencement
speaker. Do you guys agree ordisagree? I think he's probably the highest
earner of graduates in the past tenyears from that college, and the development
department said, hey, I know, maybe he'll write us a check if
(39:32):
we invite him to give a commencementspeech. Maybe yeah, I think yeah,
I mean AOC. I can seeAOC giving a speech too, But
she's thirty five and she's a congresswoman. She's thirty probably four if we want
to be really thinking about this,which is only way for six years older.
Yeah, six years older than heis. But if they felt that
(39:53):
that's who they wanted, that's cool. It's a private college, it's they
get to do choice. I'm justquestioning the choice. Yeah, it's a
dumb choice. But that's why Ididn't send my kids there, you know.
And with this in mind, Ithink the next question is what should
we as a country go forward.So like there was all this great goodwill
(40:16):
built up for women and the NFLthanks to one of his teammates and with
Taylor Swift right, and women arenow watching football, and then he comes
out and says, women get backto the kitchen. We don't want to.
So the NFL right now is ina spot because freedom is not free.
Free speech is not free. Weall know that, and there are
(40:37):
consequences. So do we say thisis bad for our brand? We are
looking for more viewers. We wantwomen to come and enjoy. Thus we
should punish him. No, butthey did. They did distance themselves.
They said he speaks for himself,not for the NFL. So they did
actually do what you're saying without punishing, right, But what does that mean?
(40:57):
I mean, oh, well,he's just this guy and we're going
to pay him, and you know, well, everybody has a right to
make a living. I think.I mean, we listen, We could
disagree with what he said, butagree with his right to say it.
Yeah. I mean if I didn'tdisagree with Colin Kaepernick kneeling, and I
did disagree when the league didn't offerhim a new position, I didn't disagree
(41:22):
with I think Chris Kluey said inhis book beautifully Unique Sparkle Ponies. But
he's not working in the NFL either, So I think that those things suck.
That you could lose your job overprivate speech. Fair enough, Rebecca,
Why don't you take us home?Thank you all for listening. If
(41:43):
you like what it is we do, hear, you can follow us on
MPU podcast on Instagram. You canjoin us as a mock jury to deliberate
the Trump trial, possibly contemporaneously withthe real jury deliberating the real Trump trial.
And you can share our link onyour timelines so your friends can see
us as well. On Twitter,not x threads, Facebook, you could
(42:07):
skywrite it. I am not goingto discriminate against people who want to use
older methods of public speech. Ifyou've got a passenger pigeon to carry messages
for you, send our link attachedto a pigeon. And on that Oh,
and thank you as always to AlanKenney for our theme music. May
(42:29):
your memory be a blessing Alan.And on that note, as the jury
goes into deliberation, Greg, whatkind of snacks should we be looking for
from your kitchen this week? Thisweek, I'm I'm too busy working on
(42:51):
mc donald Trump cosplay it. Itseems it's a new TikTok thing that older
white senators and thirsty vice president nominationsare doing. They dressing up as Trump
for this. Uh, it's it'sreally popular trend. I'm surprised everyone's not
doing it because quite frankly, everyonehas a chance to be a vice president
(43:13):
in this election. By the way, should should Samuel Alito be wearing a
flag pin upside down on his justicerobe when he's important his wife dresses in
so in that case, yes,
Welcome to the More Perfect Union,the podcast that offers real debate without the
hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeiter and withme as always as Garth Party on Wayne
Party on Garth. You guys,this trulant. Anyways, I'm happy to
be joined on the mic by DJMaguire, who is not under any subpoena
or indictment, so I can postpictures of myself whenever I want to.
(00:38):
Okay, but I'm going to advisethat you make them tasteful. That was
assumed. I'm just offering my bestlegal advice as a person who has never
studied any kind of law. Also, Greg Matuzac, before we even get
started, I want to just throwthis out that I think Congress people have
to address each other in the futurewith only alliteration and with only description.
(01:02):
Because this week's been awesome, butit's good to be here, your common
sense liberal from Cincinnati, Ohio.And Kevin Calton, whose name is alliteration.
Actually, this week, I thinkI feel like the Amy Winehouse of
politics. They're trying to make yougo to rehab well because I think if
(01:23):
the voters leave me to go backto Trump, I think I'm going to
have to drink myself to death.I mean, I think we've all thought
that at times this week. Theone person who probably wants to drink himself
to death and might actually be inthe process of it, though of course
we wish that on no one inreal life is a former mayor of New
York, America's mayor Rudy Giuliani,who ended his birthday party. He got
(01:46):
a gift, he got a gift, he got a gift. He got
a gift from Arizona. A processserver from Arizona arrived at his birthday party,
and Greg, you'll love this part. He stood there and sang Happy
Birthday. He stood like the processserver was at the party and sang Happy
Birthday before serving Rudy Giuliani with thesubpoena. Did the process server get like
(02:07):
cake? Also? I mean,did he just sort of blended? Because
that guy deserves some sort of reward. I mean, that is awesome.
He definitely deserves a slice of cake, a large one. I would say.
My favorite part of this, andI'm not sure if you guys were
aware, was, and I knowKevin dj is because he kind of alluded
to it, is that twenty fourhours previously Rudy was tweeting out pictures saying,
(02:30):
you know, if they don't indicteme within the next twelve hours or
twenty four hours, they've got torelease this whole thing because I'm so tricky,
which I don't think is how lawsactually work. Well, how would
he know. It's not like heunderstands A wait a second, Oh,
wait a second. He was,he was a lawyer, he was a
(02:52):
prosecutor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, and it's it's just
it's kind the tweet has been eliminatedor deleted, as they say, as
the kids say, but it's justjust awesome that he would write that and
then like it was like a wishfor filming. It was like he told
someone his wish, like, oh, would be great if I got served
tonight, you know. Yeah.So, first of all, I did
(03:15):
not know that story about the happybirthday, which I think is just the
it's the cherry on top of theicingleman Chef's kiss. Well, yeah,
what I love about it is whenI first read this story, there's a
quote where it was either Rudy orRudy's political advisor, and somebody pointed out,
why does Rudy Giuliani at eighty yearsold, after everything he's been through,
(03:37):
have a political advisor. But thisguy was at the party and either
Rudy or his political advisor said theystormed the party like they were storming Normandy.
And I'm thinking, you know,hyperbole has its place, but i
think two guys probably wearing suits ties. I'm guessing middle aged guys show up
(04:00):
at your party and hand you asubpoena or an indictment. Whatever it is
they do doesn't sound like Normandy theNormandy invasion to me? Does it to
you? No? Yeah, Idon't know why Rudy Giuliani would have a
political advisor when he isn't technically inpolitics. I think it says something about
how the Trump entourage think they canfix this that Rudy's warran isn't having a
(04:25):
political advisor than a legal advisor.I don't know if he can get a
legal advisor. Isn't he on thehook for some bills that he hasn't paid?
Yes, he went bankrupt. Infact, as I've mentioned on the
podcast before, my nephew was representingone of the women that is suing him,
and that case is now on holdbecause apparently when you declare bankruptcy,
(04:50):
all of these claims against you arefrozen. So yeah, oh yeah,
that makes sense because they have torestructure all of his debt, and the
legal claims I think fall are loweron the priority list than like bank loans
and shit. I don't know,I've never declared bankruptcy or been sued.
I think we've said this before onthe show. But and I don't know
(05:11):
if it's like a warning tale tothe young folk. But it's just amazes
me how at one point he wasAmerica's mayor. He had more goodwill and
you know, authority than really anyoneelse. I mean, he was,
he was beloved by this country,and then within ten years he's a laughingstock
that's being getting summons at his ownbirthday party. I mean, he's the
(05:36):
punchline of jokes. As someone whohas lived in New York, not during
nine to eleven, but you know, I'm a born and raised New Yorker,
I challenged the myth that Rudy savedanything. I think he was probably
for a Republican, an effective mayor. I think there's probably some things he
did well, but it's not likehe turned New York around and I also
(05:58):
questioned the myth of his poet mostnine to eleven leadership. I think he
did what any politician would have doneon that day. And just the fact
that two weeks later he showed upin the cold opening of SNL and made
a joke doesn't tell me that he'sa great leader. No, but he
is now instead of being considered likesome of the great American leaders, he
is now going to be like theHe's the Rob Ford of American politics.
(06:21):
Well, no, I think RobFord is the Rudy Giuliani. But I
do want to add, since weare talking about the indictments, you know,
this is an indictment in Arizona forelection interference. Rudy is just one
of many individuals who were named there. Also named in the indictment as an
(06:43):
unindicted co conspirator is one Donald J. Trump, And that also happens to
be well in Michigan, where thereis also an election interference case and several
people, probably some overlap of whowere indicted there. Trump is not aimed
in the indictment as an unindicted coconspirator, but the prosecutor has said,
(07:05):
or the Attorney general has said,he is definitely an unindicted co conspirator in
their case. The reason I bringthis up is right now, I think
there's a very good chance that DonaldTrump could be the next president. But
if he loses in the fall,not only are those two or three Jack
Smith cases and possibly the Fannie Williscase coming back on track, but there
(07:28):
could be superseding indictments in Arizona andMichigan that add him to the charges.
So we could be looking in abeautiful world at a future where not only
does he lose to Joe Biden,but that he is facing four or five
or six different criminal court cases wherehe'll be just claiming that everybody is out
(07:49):
to get him. That's what getsme to sleep at night. I think
of that like kids think of cottoncandy and tooth fairies. I mean,
to be fair, everybody is outto get him. At least everybody on
this podcast, given the opportunity,would be out to get him if we
You know, I'm not saying thisis an operant plan for our future,
but if he could, he couldif he was interested in helicopter travel that
(08:16):
seems risky these days. The Iranianpresident and was it the Foreign Minister we're
just in a helicopter crash. Atthe time we're recording this, it's about
nine fifteen on Sunday night, Maynineteenth. The Iranian authorities are saying it
is still a search and rescue mission. I don't believe they have located the
crash. However, not to betoo grim about this, but helicopter crashes
(08:43):
are not known for their survival rates. And you know, I'm curious about
what this means in terms of theleadership in Iran following I guess there's a
vice president who would immediately take overthe role and then needs to be an
election within six months. I don'tknow what their election process looks like,
(09:03):
DJ, can you elucidate that atall? I can tell you it's utterly
irrelevant because the president is not theperson who runs the country. The person
runs the country is the supreme leader, Ayatola Ali Khamani, And unfortunately he
is still very much alive. Didhe, I mean, well, how
did he? How was he interms of popular support? Like? Was
he generally liked as much as anybody'sLike I can I take that one?
(09:26):
Yeah, if he had the jobin Iran, he was popular with who
he needed to be popular with,and this is true. And in the
sham Putin like election that they held, it had the lowest turnout in the
history of these sham Putin like electionsthat they hold. So yeah, there
really isn't a lot of enthusiasm toeven pretend that this guy's popular. But
(09:52):
yes, he was in with thepeople he needed to be in with.
So I have a question. Youknow, I went on to X a
few hours after this happened to takethe pulse, and sure enough, there's
already some chatter about Israel being behindit. Of course that's nonsense, but
it's almost inevitable that Israel will beblamed if this man and the other people
(10:13):
that were in the helicopter with himare dead. I wonder what that portends,
because you know, I'm old enoughto remember the Cuban missile crisis,
and I'm old enough to remember whenKennedy was assassinated and people thought that maybe
Russia was behind that, and itbecame very tense. And here we have
two countries that essentially are in acold war, and they are both nuclear
(10:37):
powers, and we live in atime when conspiracy theories can carry great weight.
So what happens if all of asudden, people in Iran or people
in the Muslim world start pointing fingersat Israel for this. Yeah, I
really didn't hear much of what Kevinsaid because after he said, he went
on X, which I don't wantto go back to. We're not calling
(10:58):
it X still Twitter. Okay,I can't. I can't I second that
motion. Do I have unanimous consentto it as Twitter? Thank You can't
take you seriously when you say X. I couldn't take myself seriously when it
came out of my mouth either.But going back to your point, whether
conspiracy theory, You're right, therewere these theories and this did happen.
(11:20):
But I would like to say thatwith the Internet, this would get better
and it would be disprovable. You'renot going to have as much rumoring,
but it will probably be worse becauseof the Internet, where verification is not
what would someone would assume is anecessary step in finding out something like this,
(11:41):
like is this a real news story? Does anyone have proof of this
before they would do something? Youwill see probably a lot of this and
it could make a major influence onthe world stage. Well, I think
it goes back to having influence onthe people you need to have influence on.
If the remaining leadership in Iran iswilling to trust whatever black box report
they get out of the helicopter wreckagethat says it was a mechanical failure,
(12:07):
if it's in their interest for thatto be the story, it will be
the story. If it's not intheir interest, then it will be a
completely different situation. But let's berealistic here. If Israel wanted to take
down Iranian leadership in a grouping offour helicopters, all four of them would
be on the ground. Conspiracy theoriesare, by their nature not rational,
(12:28):
and using logic to disprove them neverworks to the people that hold those beliefs.
Oh I know, I just sawa nine to eleven conspiracy theory that
was being wielded in recent years bya local school board candidate here. Oh
yeah, oh yeah, a nineeleven. Of course. She also was
in an interview recently and said thatRfk's book is a really good source of
(12:50):
information about vaccines. So she's notto say, is that the RFK,
That is that the RK junior thatlives in Los Angeles, So that one
of the writers should have voted inwhen Chester County. Aren't they the same
guy? He's registered to vote inWestchester County? Yeah, apparently he's registered
to vote in a foreclosed home inWestchester County that no one has ever seen
(13:11):
him live in. So speaking ofrich and assholes, Samuel Alto all right,
this story was so weird. Apparentlyphotographic evidence has emerged that around the
January sixth attack on the Capitol,Samuel Alito had an upside down American flag
hanging in front of his house,which apparently is MAGA for stop the steal.
(13:37):
Help me what happened? What?Oh, I can tell you what
happened. Listen. All we knowis the unnamed sources had spoke to the
New York Times, and then weknow Alito's account, So putting them together
and assuming there's some veracity there,one of their neighbors put up a fuck
Trump flag in their yard post electiontwenty twenty sometime, and I think in
(14:01):
late November of twenty twenty or midNovember. Yeah, I put that on
my Twitter. Then there were somewords exchanged between that person and Alito and
his wife, in which I believethat there was some cursing involved and to
get back at this person or totry to one up them. The Alitos
decided to fly an upside down flag, which is a stop to Steel symbol.
(14:24):
Now I know that everybody is gonnaagree with me, but I have
to say this out loud. Listen, you're a public figure. You're going
to take incoming, whether it's fromthe New York Times, whether it's from
your next door neighbor. And nomatter how bad it is, you don't
get to turn around and say,oh, fuck me, fuck you by
(14:45):
doing something as stupid as flying asymbol of the stop the Steel movement.
And I don't care. I don'tbuy this bullshit that oh my wife put
it up. It was apparently upfor several days, which means unless he
was out of town, he sawit and he let it stay. And
that means it's his flag on hishome and it's a symbol of his attitude
(15:07):
towards the twenty twenty election. Andwhat's astonishing is the fact that he and
his wife felt that they needed toone up somebody whose only source of power,
presumably was a lawn sign and thevote, right, that's what most
of us has. We can voteand put up lawn signs he is a
(15:30):
sitting Supreme Court justice. He isthe architect of the Dobbs decision. He
doesn't need to prove his power orhis position. It's proved. Yeah,
But let's remember this is a manwho had a State of the Union yelled
you lie at Barack Obama, sohis self control is in question. I'm
(15:54):
looking at his confirmation vote from twothousand and five and it looks like nearly
every Democrat voted against his confirmation.He had forty two know's. So I'm
wondering if this is something that wasthat they saw back then as a this
dude could go seriously off the rails. We don't want this, but you
(16:17):
know, it brings into this questionof lifetime appointments. There's nothing that we
have in our current system that allowsus to redress this, and that actually
is a First Amendment right that weshould have the power to redress our grievances.
And we've got this man who ison the side of insurrectionists and there's
really nothing we can do as citizens, and that's pretty upsetting. There is
(16:38):
something, I mean, our representativescould impeach him. It would never happen,
it would never go through. ButIt's not to say that there's no
authority over the Supreme Court. It'sjust that in our bifurcated partisan politics,
those authorities are newted. So I'mgoing to disagree on this. This is
(17:00):
the second time in like five minuteswith Kevin. It will happen. It
will definitely happen, but it won'thappen anytime soon. The next time.
The only the first time it happenswhen a sitting Supreme Court judge will be
impeached or will come about, willbe when the Democrats have a majority.
You are so absolutely right, Greg, And I was thinking that earlier this
(17:22):
week. So I not only doI say you're right, I applaud you
for being so unbelievably right, rightright. And the first time we get
the next time there's a majority,they will find absolutely some some crevice,
some little way to warm the wayin and say you know what this,
You guys got it fair and square, And they are going to pull a
(17:45):
Narcis on one of those three liberaljudges. Oh yeah, if Trump gets
re elected within two years, theyare going to find something on one of
those three judges and try to startimpeachment here. Yeah, they're going to
accuse Alenik Hagen of jaywalking. Yep, yep, yeah, you know they're
they're going to say that she isnot sufficiently respectful of someone. Kid Rock
(18:11):
probably take it to the bank.M m. So, speaking of of
UH polarization and debates, Trump andBiden are going to have two of them,
one of them in only six weekstime, which is you know,
that gives them almost as much timeto prepare for a debate as we have
to prepare for these trenchant and insightfulpodcasts that we do every week without having
(18:37):
to like run debate camp. I'mjust saying that we are better at this
than Donald Trump. So what doyou think the odds are on both debates
happening? Okay, well let's letlet's let's do a. Let's do a
we'll go around here. Tell meif you think it's going to be one,
two or zero. Kevin, Ithink it's going to be two,
(19:00):
all right, DJ. I thinkit'll be one and it won't be the
one in June. Greg. Ithink it will be the one in June,
and it's gonna be called one anddone. And I tend to agree
with Greg. I think we're gonnaget the first one out of I know,
I think we're gonna get the firstone out of the way, and
something is gonna go real sour duringthe broadcast and one of them, will
(19:23):
you declare that the other can't followthe rules and we won't be doing this
again? Right? I think theywill be like a scanner's moment or something.
But something will happen, and therules that Biden has put and he
said these are gonna be a nostudio audience, Mike's will be cut off
timed. I mean, those arethe things that are not playing for the
(19:48):
Donald Trump team. But they've alreadycome out and saying we've got this because
he could still go at him hardand it's past eight o'clock. They have
still made that joke like ten timesso and we've seen him follow We've seen
Biden actually follow through like when heneeds to and he gets good nights.
And I'm not saying this doesn't happen. He'll do it. He'll do fine,
(20:14):
Kevin, what were you going tosay? So? First of all,
I want to applaud the Biden campaignbecause I think they handled this exactly
right. And early on I wasnot in favor of debates. But when
I heard about the specifics of whatwas negotiated, I now think it's a
great idea. I love having onein June because I think he needs Biden,
I'm talking about, needs to dosomething to shake up this race,
(20:38):
because right now I think there's asixty to forty chance that Trump could win.
I also have thought for a while, and may have even said on
this podcast, that I think ifthey do have debates, there should be
a rule that once you stop talking, your mic is cut off, so
that you can't overtalk the other person, as Donald Trump has a proclivity to
do. But now that they've gotthat rule, I'm a little concerned that
(21:02):
that might ultimately work against Biden.And hear's how Trump finishes his answer.
Biden starts to speak, Trump's mikeis off, Biden is speaking, trying
to answer, and Trump is stillhassling him, heckling him, annoying him,
interrupting him. The viewing audience athome may not hear Trump's comments,
(21:26):
or may only hear a little bitof mumbling of it off screen, but
Biden will hear it, and itcould throw him off, and it could
give the appearance of him stumbling,stammering, losing his train of thought,
and people may not understand why.And I'm concerned about that. I guess
that will depend on whether they outwhether they pull in for a close up
on the on the speaker, orif they yeah, they should go to
(21:48):
split screens. But but you know, by the time they go to the
split screen, Trump stops talking andyou still get the same effect. Now,
that may be something for the campaignsto negotiate. The idea of of
Trump on a silent mic trying totalk and gesticulate and getting agitated on camera
is kind of hilarious. Oh,if they could catch it on camera,
(22:11):
it's gold. It's great. AndI mean and I think I expect the
people, good people at SEENN andABC know that. Okay, So,
just to help you get to sleepat night, Kevin, So, there
have been some debates where the candidatesare like ten feet apart, but you
also have to remember, like dependingon the stage setup and depending on because
(22:33):
of the size of the arena,there have been debates where they have been
like forty feet apart, including twentytwenty. The presidential debates in twenty twenty
were like that. Well, sure, which is good because otherwise Donald Trump
would have given Joe Biden COVID.Right, Well, that was right,
And I think that if if theyjust work it so he's far enough away
so that he can't hear him somuch, so he would hear him,
(22:56):
he would hear him. I meanTrump Trump, For all of his fault,
his voice carries pretty well. Hey, for the record, I just
want to say that I think DonaldTrump lost the election during the first debate
in twenty twenty. And it wasn'tthe moment that Joe said, shut up,
man. It was the second time, not the first time, but
the second time that Joe Biden calledDonald Trump Donald, and Donald Trump let
(23:22):
it slide. The first time itcould have been just distracted. Oh,
he forgot to call him mister president. The second time it was he knows.
Joe Biden knows what the protocol was, and he opted not to use
the honorific with Donald Trump, andDonald Trump led him. And all of
these things are reasons why Trump willfind a reason not to participate in the
(23:44):
jew debate. Right, he thinkshe's ahead. Most people think he's ahead.
I think it's even but I'm onan island out here and between now
and then there's plenty of time forthe New York Times sending of University to
do another poll where half the votersare rural in their sample and skew it
to and skew it to pieces togive Trump the further feeling that he's ahead,
(24:07):
and he will find some reason toback out of it in June,
but by September, after the conventionsare done, and after Biden gets a
Democratic bounce out of his convention,whereas Trump meanders through his acceptance speech and
nobody knows what the hell he wastalking about, and suddenly it looks like
it has Biden ahead, and itlooks like Biden's favored to win. Trump's
(24:30):
gonna panic and say, okay,well I'll go for the one in September.
So that's why I think there willbe one debate, and it will
be in September. Now, JoeBiden will show up in June. He'll
just do he'll, he'll he'll makeit ill time. That should be written
into it that if one of themdrops out, the other gets the airtime.
Obviously, we're just speculating here,and I love you DJ and this
is not personal. There's no wayin hell Donald Trump doesn't show up for
(24:53):
that debate. Well, no,let's hang on. Let's remember one additional
fact about the month of June,or at least late May. It is
very likely that Donald Trump's New Yorkcase, the lawyers will begin summation on
Tuesday and jury instructions from the judgeand the jury may be in deliberation as
(25:17):
soon as Thursday, and we maysee a verdict late May early June.
And that could change the momentum ofDonald Trump's, if not his campaign,
at least his mental state for severalweeks. And if he's you know,
if he gets convicted and is flailingaround trying to figure out what to do
next. I don't think debate prepis going to be top on his list.
(25:41):
There's no way he doesn't show upfor that, especially if he's convicted.
Anyways, it's just an opinion,that's all. Like, unless he
can somehow write it into the contractthat they don't ask him about his conviction.
No, listen, Donald Trump isgoing to deal if he gets convicted,
which I don't think is going tohave and I hope it does,
but I don't think it's going tohappen. He will deal with it Donald
(26:03):
Trump for all of his faults.He bounces back and the idea that he's
convicted by June first, June second, June third, and he's not ready
for debate three weeks later. Comeon, guys, all right, well
we will see how it goes.And you know what, they could each
hire some really really primo debate coachesto help them out because we have Marjorie
(26:26):
Taylor Green and Jasmine Crockett ready tothrow hands and throw words. Were any
of you guys watching that in realtime, or at least watching the social
media in real time as that washappening. I wish I have seen some
weird ass stuff go down in Congresswhen it's after eight o'clock and they're getting
(26:47):
a little punchy like I do.Recall a representative from Arkansas calling Adam Putnam
of Florida a howdy duty look andNimrod, that's a quote, you can
look it up. But I havenever heard a member of Congress call another
member of Congress a bleach blonde,bad bill butch body before. And actually,
(27:11):
frankly, I think we could retireall of Congress because it's never going
to get better than that. We'regoing to move our discussion along to New
York City, which is kind ofwhere we began at talking about Rudy Giuliani.
We're going to talk about the Trumptrial. And Michael Cohen has been
on the stand. He has beenquestioned up one side and down the other,
(27:33):
and he's actually apparently been doing quitewell all things considered. I wouldn't
want to do what he's doing.But there was one line of questioning that
got him a little bit off guard. And Kevin, you've you've been paying
really close attention to this. Doyou want to kind of summarize what this
was? Yes, And I've beenpaying for too close attention to this for
any healthy adult human being. Soyeah, So he's on cross examination.
(28:00):
They're trying to catch him in alie aim. So the defense attorney has
been grilling him until they got tothe subject of a call that Cohen made
to Donald Trump in mid to lateOctober of twenty sixteen, before the election,
after the Axis Hollywood tape came out. And this is a pivotal call
(28:22):
because it's the call in which Cohenclaims he briefed Trump about the payment,
and there was some allusion to thefact that it was that they were doing
something unethical and eventually illegal. Well, it was one of several calls that
dealt with that topic. Yes,but no, but this is a key
call because it's in a particular windowof time Cohen and the prosecution highlighted this
(28:48):
call from the documents of all thecalls off of Michael Cohen's phone that he
says he told Trump some key informationabout the payment. What the defense brought
out was that Cohen had just momentsbefore this call been texting with Keith Schiller
(29:10):
about a different topic, which wasthat Michael Cohen was being stalked by someone
who was calling his phone multiple timesdaily. So he was going back and
forth with Keith Schiller, who wasTrump's body man at the time, and
had just said to him, youknow, I have a problem with these
(29:30):
calls. As it turns out,the dummy actually mistakenly called once from his
own phone, So I've got hisnumber. What do I do? And
Schiller said, call me okay.Now. The reason that I bring all
this up is it's very technical.But the defense is claiming if Michael Cohen
called Shiller for that, then ina one minute, thirty six second phone
(29:53):
call, there wasn't time for themto discuss that and then for him to
talk to Donald Trump about the StormyDaniels payment. So with that in mind,
if anybody remembers the movie or theplay Twelve Angry Men, there's a
famous scene where they recreate the allegedcrime. Well, yes, it's the
(30:14):
angle of the knife, right,and the Henry Fonda character acts it out
with steps and then the knife andwhat have you and convinces these jurors one
by one that the defense version ofevents was indeed plausible. So with that
in mind, I think that theprosecution in this case, their version of
(30:37):
events is plausible, and we're goingto do a little fun exercise to prove
that. Greg, did you havesomething? Well, there were twelve twelve
guys in that movie. Yes,there's twelve guys, so we're only four
angry okay. So with that inmind, and by the way, by
the way, I know I'm hoggingthe mic at this point in the podcast,
I want to plug again that wehope to do a mock jury podcast
(31:00):
next week in which we have asimulated jury deliberation to discuss all of the
facts of the case and see whata group of listeners who would volunteer for
this to see what decision they wouldcome to after like forty five minutes of
deliberation, And if you want tobe a part of that, please write
to us this week at mpupodcast atgmail dot com and tell us about yourself
(31:25):
and you know that you'd like tobe a part of this if we can
pull it together, we'd love tohave you on the air with us,
and we'd love to have you tobe part of our mock jury. So
again, mpupodcast at gmail dot com, I answer all of those emails,
so please drop us a line ifyou're interested. So that said, we're
going to do our own simulation andfind out whether this conversation can happen in
(31:48):
ninety six seconds or not. I'mgoing to play Michael Cohen. I have
cast DJ as Donald Trump because that'stypecasting. And Greg I would like you
because you have such a muscular bodyand you are so imposing. I would
like you to be the body man. Keith Schiller love it the part I
(32:09):
was born to play. And Rebecca, I'm sorry there are no parts for
anyone else in this particular simulation,So we're going to ask you to keep
time on this, Okay, goingto keep time on this. I am
very excited to see. I hopeyou guys have rehearsed this and are speaking
in the right kind of New Yorkclip. Okay, So we're going to
start the call. When you saystart, I'm going to pretend that Schiller
(32:31):
has just answered the phone, oractually Schiller has the first line, and
we'll go until the end of thecall. All right, and three two
one begin Michael Keith. Yes,So I got this person calling me like
twenty times a day, but thedope forgot to block his number on one
(32:52):
of the calls. So what dowe do with this? All right?
Text me the number and I'll haveour people look into it, and of
course I won't answer the calls orengage them in any way. Of course,
of course, don't worry. We'llput an end to this. Great.
I really appreciate it. Hey,can I speak to mister Trump for
a sec sure? Hold on,Michael, Hey, Michael, what's up?
(33:15):
I just wanted to update you regardingthat PR problem. We discussed the
second one. Yes, yes,the Lake Tahoe incident. Okay, So
I just want you to know Iarranged the funding and everything's been taken care
of the payment, Yes, sir, I handled it myself and the DNA
(33:37):
all signed. It's a done deal. Great news. And as far as
the reimbursement, I'll handle that withAlan. Okay, good job, Well,
busy day here, anything else,no, sir, okay, got
a run bye. All right.That timed out to one minute eight point
five six seconds. We could haveasked him what he had for lunch.
(34:02):
Yeah, I mean, you couldhave gotten into the fact that the kid
was the person making the harassing calls, was fourteen, and that Shiller was
I don't think they knew that atthe time. Yeah, well, Shiller
was going to turn it over tothe Secret Service. He did know that
he was going to jinue that.But yeah, so he came in under
a minute thirty. Right, SoI've been watching, you know, I
(34:22):
watched on Thursday when everyone including AndersonCooper. I don't know how he came
to this conclusion, but he goesI think Michael Cohen is lying, it's
not possible to have had this twoconversations at a minute thirty. This I
pulling my fucking hair out because Iknew it was possible. We just proved
it was possible. Obviously, wedon't know the exact dialogue that they had,
(34:46):
but these people don't have long drawnout conversations, especially with Donald Trump
when he's in the middle of thefinal two weeks of a presidential election,
So of course it was possible toget both things done in a minute thirty
six seconds. God, I justhope that there were people on the jury
who think the way I think.Well, I mean, and just the
(35:06):
jury. Remember they heard that recordingof Trump and Cohen talking about I think
it was the Karen McDougall payment maybeor the Steers and the cadence of how
they talked in the amount of informationthey conveyed to one another in the span
of just a few sentences, sothat tape can't be very long. You
know, when Trump was able toask for a diet coke in the middle
(35:28):
of that, I should have writtenthat to the script. You should have
run at coke. Will we stillhave time for that last topic on the
rundown? Harrison Butkers, Yeah,Harrison Butker. So he got it.
(35:50):
He stood up in front of agroup of graduating seniors at a Benedictine college
and told all the women that whatthey really need to do is go have
some babies. And I think allthe women in the room are like,
well, I was gonna, butI have a job that I'm starting on
Monday. I mean, it wasan astonishing thing for me to listen to,
you know, as he's having thismoment where he's choking up and talking
(36:14):
about the beauty of his wife,leaning into her role as a wife and
homemaker, and that's what she reallyfound rewarding. He didn't say her name.
Well, I was going to saythat. One of the things that
we really have not talked about orfocused on by we, I don't mean
just this podcast, but just ingeneral, is the rise of what is
(36:34):
called the rad trad movement in AmericanCatholicism. You know, we focus so
much on how Evangelicals have seemed togo totally off the rails and they have
that we really haven't paid as muchattention to how much a large number of
white Catholics have joined them and haveessentially taken literally backwards backwards, looking at
church teachings as a way to effectivelyjustify their their love for Donald Trump and
(37:02):
stands for radical traditional, radical traditional. So I can't opine on radical traditionalism
or Catholicism, two of the subjectsI know the least about in the world.
Maybe throw nutrition in there those twosubjects. But I do want to
(37:23):
say, listen, after this wholething came, you know, got a
lot of controversy and a lot ofmedia hubbub. I went and read through
the commencement speech that this gentleman gave. I've never heard of this man.
I mean, I probably heard ofhim during the super Bowl, but I
wouldn't have remembered his name. Hewasn't dating Taylor Swift during the super Bowl,
(37:44):
so no one noticed, right right. So I read it and I
was actually impressed. Now, Idon't agree with almost anything that he said
in the speech. I probably disagreewith every major point he made in the
commencement speech, but I was impressedwith how articulate he was, how well
written it was, how thoughtful itwas. Quite frankly, he seems like
(38:07):
a very intelligent man. Or hehas an intelligent wife who wrote it for
him because she does everything else forhim. So he can earn four million
dollars a year kicking a ball.Well, I'll accept that possibility as well.
But here's what struck me. Igoogled Harrison, butker, he's twenty
eight years old. He'll be twentynine in July. But he's twenty eight
(38:28):
years old. Now that's just that'slike a couple of years older than my
oldest son. And even though hegave a very thoughtful, articulate speech,
should a commencement address be given bysomeone with so little life experience? I
mean, they're smart, and Iam not doubting that he's a smart man.
(38:51):
But then there's wisdom, and collegegraduates are supposed to get the smarts
in college, not from their commencementto dress. An address is supposed to
be about adding a touch of wisdomthrough life experience and perspective, and I
don't think that someone that's six yearsolder than they are has yet that kind
(39:12):
of life experience. So I amnot putting him down in any way,
but I really question the decision tooffer someone that young the role of commencement
speaker. Do you guys agree ordisagree? I think he's probably the highest
earner of graduates in the past tenyears from that college, and the development
department said, hey, I know, maybe he'll write us a check if
(39:32):
we invite him to give a commencementspeech. Maybe yeah, I think yeah,
I mean AOC. I can seeAOC giving a speech too, But
she's thirty five and she's a congresswoman. She's thirty probably four if we want
to be really thinking about this,which is only way for six years older.
Yeah, six years older than heis. But if they felt that
(39:53):
that's who they wanted, that's cool. It's a private college, it's they
get to do choice. I'm justquestioning the choice. Yeah, it's a
dumb choice. But that's why Ididn't send my kids there, you know.
And with this in mind, Ithink the next question is what should
we as a country go forward.So like there was all this great goodwill
(40:16):
built up for women and the NFLthanks to one of his teammates and with
Taylor Swift right, and women arenow watching football, and then he comes
out and says, women get backto the kitchen. We don't want to.
So the NFL right now is ina spot because freedom is not free.
Free speech is not free. Weall know that, and there are
(40:37):
consequences. So do we say thisis bad for our brand? We are
looking for more viewers. We wantwomen to come and enjoy. Thus we
should punish him. No, butthey did. They did distance themselves.
They said he speaks for himself,not for the NFL. So they did
actually do what you're saying without punishing, right, But what does that mean?
(40:57):
I mean, oh, well,he's just this guy and we're going
to pay him, and you know, well, everybody has a right to
make a living. I think.I mean, we listen, We could
disagree with what he said, butagree with his right to say it.
Yeah. I mean if I didn'tdisagree with Colin Kaepernick kneeling, and I
did disagree when the league didn't offerhim a new position, I didn't disagree
(41:22):
with I think Chris Kluey said inhis book beautifully Unique Sparkle Ponies. But
he's not working in the NFL either, So I think that those things suck.
That you could lose your job overprivate speech. Fair enough, Rebecca,
Why don't you take us home?Thank you all for listening. If
(41:43):
you like what it is we do, hear, you can follow us on
MPU podcast on Instagram. You canjoin us as a mock jury to deliberate
the Trump trial, possibly contemporaneously withthe real jury deliberating the real Trump trial.
And you can share our link onyour timelines so your friends can see
us as well. On Twitter,not x threads, Facebook, you could
(42:07):
skywrite it. I am not goingto discriminate against people who want to use
older methods of public speech. Ifyou've got a passenger pigeon to carry messages
for you, send our link attachedto a pigeon. And on that Oh,
and thank you as always to AlanKenney for our theme music. May
(42:29):
your memory be a blessing Alan.And on that note, as the jury
goes into deliberation, Greg, whatkind of snacks should we be looking for
from your kitchen this week? Thisweek, I'm I'm too busy working on
(42:51):
mc donald Trump cosplay it. Itseems it's a new TikTok thing that older
white senators and thirsty vice president nominationsare doing. They dressing up as Trump
for this. Uh, it's it'sreally popular trend. I'm surprised everyone's not
doing it because quite frankly, everyonehas a chance to be a vice president
(43:13):
in this election. By the way, should should Samuel Alito be wearing a
flag pin upside down on his justicerobe when he's important his wife dresses in
so in that case, yes,
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