April 17, 2024 • 46 mins
This week the gang looks at the first two days of Donald Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan, how Congress is spending it's work days, the hot war between Israel and Iran, and the new TV game show, "Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity."
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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 Kushmeider, backfrom a couple of weeks of hiatus here
at the More Perfect Union, andI am pleased to be joined by Greg
matuzak Hi. I did enjoy ourtime off. It gave me a chance
to come up with excuses not toserve on any juries, so that was
(00:36):
always nice. And as your commonsense liberal from Cincinnati, Ohio, it's
good to be here, all right. And DJ maguire, the last time
we were all together on the air, Ukraine had not received any aid.
Ukraine has still not received any aid. I am considerably angrier than I was
the last time we were together.And you won't like to when he's angry.
(01:00):
In fact, he's turning green.His shirt is shredding everybody. Watch
out. And last, but mostcertainly not least, Kevin Calton. Hello.
Well, yes, the last timewe did talk about Ukraine funding and
DJ, we were on a threada few days ago and DJ said,
(01:21):
well, by Tuesday that probably haveapproved funding for Ukraine. Otherwise I'm going
to be very angry, And DJ, what did I say? I'd be
very angry? I said, we'regoing to have on Tuesday, and we
sure do. I went to seethe movie Civil War, and I know
you guys have heard about it.I guess nobody else has seen it yet.
(01:42):
I saw Gone with the Wind ineighth grade. Does that count?
It does count? Yeah, Soyou know what it's about. It's obviously
a modern day America is in themidst of a civil war when the movie
begins, and they made some veryinteresting choices. And I'm not gonna you
know, obviously no spoilers here,but first of all, it's an incredible
(02:06):
action movie. If you see itfor no other reason, the visuals and
the action are stunning. They alsomade some interesting choices to try to take
politics out of it by aligning Californiawith Texas in the war. Yeah,
and a lot of people are talkingabout that choice. Okay, without seeing
(02:28):
it, does that take something awayfrom it? By like it seems like
they were kind of like tiptoeing aroundthe elephant in the room by saying like,
Okay, we're not going to putthe Red States versus the Blue States,
or we're not going to do thedamn versus the Republicans, So we'll
(02:49):
just make this really generic and veryThis would be the safest, nicest we
all get along civil war and itwill be you know, like, hey,
it won't. But we just don'twant to offend anybody because we you
know, let's not make this aboutlike something crazy like slavery. But does
(03:09):
that take away from the film you'veseen it, Kevin, I haven't,
but I mean at a certain pointyou'd have to say, like, come
on, come on, Well,you know that that's been discussed over and
over again. That's one of thecontroversies about the film. I understand the
choice that the filmmaker's made. Firstof all, you know, they're looking
(03:31):
at trying to get, you know, as large a box office as they
can, and they didn't want toinsult half the country by saying, you
guys are the bad guys. Youknow, if we don't use American red
and blue, but we find otherdividing lines, then we have a larger
pool of people who will respond positivelyto the film. I also think that
(03:52):
the film wasn't about American politics perse, but rather about how American culture
is taking us into a civil war. But that actually concerns me some because
if memory serves apologies for the additionalspoiler. One of the things that causes
the cracks is the incoming president attemptsto serve a third term, correct,
(04:15):
which obviously is ain't no, no, And I don't know. I don't
Obviously I haven't seen the film,so I don't know how that is portrayed.
But if from what I've seen ofthe discussion of the film and interviews
with the director and everything, andit was trying to say, you know,
these cultures are driving us apart andall that kind of thing, it
makes me. It makes me learybecause it could be and Ken, please
(04:42):
tell me if it doesn't, itcould be a situation where it ends up,
however unintentionally sort of grooming the publicfor a president who would go for
a third unconstitutional term, which isa big problem when we have somebody who
probably would go for a third onconstitutional term if you ever got the chance,
I would say, having seen thefilm, and again no spoilers,
(05:05):
I don't think it grooms the publicat all for that. But what I
do think it does group the publicfor is the idea of political violence being
justified. You know, we havetalked on this podcast about the potential in
this coming election cycle for violence basedon let's say, the militia groups or
(05:26):
just the gun nuts or what haveyou. And if there's a problem with
this movie, it's that people likethe four of us would look at it
and see it as a cautionary tale. But I think that there are millions
and millions and millions of Americans whowould see it and see it as an
aha you know, yeah, maybethat ain't such a bad idea. The
(05:46):
action scenes alone justify your tend upbucks for this. Yeah, I actually
like my favorite films are really long, boring films that like you'd be actually
surprised, but I do likes youknow me too well. Speaking of worn
booms, we want people to knowthat MPU the movie is coming out with
(06:10):
plenty of action sequences where all ofour joints creak and we complain about these
kids today. Speaking of complaining aboutthings, Donald Trump. Donald Trump this
week became the first former president inAmerican history to stand trial as a criminal
(06:30):
defendant. And I'm interested to seeif his desire to get this over with
prevents some of the delay tactics thathe usually would encourage his lawyers to employ.
At this time, Greg, whatdo you think do you think Trump
(06:51):
is going to try and hustle thesealong or do you think he's going to
start dragging his heels. You know, we've seen recent polls, and I
know we talk about polls and theydon't mean anything where Biden is now catching
up and we've seen him, andI think if we see more and more,
then he may actually say enough isenough. Trump has to get back
(07:13):
on the trail. I've got toget out of this courtroom because it's not
a good look for him, andthe judges don't like him for some reason.
I don't know why. They justdon't have that connection. And you
might see him speed this up andtry to get out before November. But
right now he's very reticent. He'salways been reticent to ever do the common
(07:41):
sense thing. He always does theTrump thing. So I'm going to say,
no, he's going to do ishe's going to do? You know
when everyone says you should zig,he's going to say, I'm going to
roll on the floor and you know, do my own thing. Oh,
Kevin, what do you think?Do you think Trump is gonna get strategic
about this and try and get outof the court room, or do you
(08:03):
think he's worried about what the verdictis going to ultimately be. He's not
going to get strategic and he's notgoing any place. So all I know
is since the four of Us startedredoing this show, I think it was
some time in the middle of lastyear, I have been saying on the
podcast. I said, people don'tget that come January. I thought it
(08:24):
was going to be in January.It started in April. This man is
going to be in a court roomfour or five days a week, and
people are going to see him notas a presidential candidate, but as a
defendant, sitting behind the defense table, silent and not in control of the
situation. And that's indeed where weare. I think it's only going to
(08:46):
last about six weeks. I don'tknow whether it'll be a conviction. I
don't know whether it'll be a convictionon the felony accounts and the misdemeanor counts.
It'll be a hung jury. Iknow it ain't going to be an
acquittal. I don't think he's goingto get acquitted. Well, Cherry is
Trump's goal? Yeah, yeah,I think there is a sixty six to
(09:07):
thirty three shot, the thirty threebeing the shot that this happens, that
Trump actually goes to jail for contempt, Greg, what do you thank you?
Oh my gosh. One, DJis probably right. He probably will,
but that would be the greatest thingin the world for him. Fox
News has already changed their narrative.If anyone listened to the Fox News podcast
(09:31):
this morning, the podcast was entitledis just as Blind when it comes to
Former President Trump, and pretty muchthe entire talking point for thirty five minutes
was Trump can't get a fair trialin New York. Everything stacked against him.
I mean, it's the same talkingpoints he's been saying for a long
time. If he actually goes tojail for a night or two, it's
(09:54):
like they're putting him up on across for him to be martyred. This
is the best scenario for his base. Greg. Have you and I ever
disagreed before on this podcast? Idon't think it's ever happened. No.
No, You've always been lockstep.People often call you Greg Junior. It's
weird. Well, Greg Junior isstepping off the boat today. I see
(10:18):
it. It was time. Itwas time it had to happen something.
I think if he spends a nightor two in jail. That is a
death knell on his presidency or hishopes for another presidency. I should say,
boy, I think if people seehim being walked out of court in
handcuffs, and I know it's notgoing to be on cameras because there were
(10:39):
no cameras in the courtroom, butjust the idea, the image of him
in jail overnight and then him comingback in the next day and being an
and seething already this week, Ihave a feeling that some of the the
glow of Trump as the businessman,a man in control of his own destiny,
(11:00):
a man who can upend the system. I think a lot of that
mythology is being drained away from him. And the day that judge says,
mister Trump, I'm sorry, butyou've gone too far, bailiffs put him
in handcuffs, remand him to thechelseall, I think that's the day that
Joe Biden suddenly has like forty eightpercent approval and is up over fifty percent
(11:24):
of the polls. What you weresaying about Kevin this venue kind of taking
the shine off Trump, you know, him behind the defendant's table and all
that. It's also the fact thatit's a grungy court courthouse. Like,
this isn't a sexy courthouse. Thisisn't like, you know, some majestic
brick building in a town square.This is just like a gray high rise
(11:45):
in Manhattan. And you know you'veseen the hallways. They're very linoleum.
There's metal sliding doors. This isnot a cool place for him to be
delivering these speeches. And there areno flags behind him for him to hug.
So it's it's not great. Andit definitely that they looks institutional.
Yeah, yeah, and I wouldI would say two things about Greg's comments.
(12:05):
One, we don't know how manyindependent and swing voters fox News actually
reaches, let alone impacts. Certainlynot on a weekday morning. Yeah,
it could just be. It couldjust be part of the epistemic closure that
we are seeing on the right ingeneral, where Fox News will rev up
all the people who are going tovote for Donald Trump anyway. But just
(12:26):
it's following on deaf ears outside ofTrump's base. Number one, number two,
Manhattan has eighty five thousand Trump votersin it. Yes, Joe Biden
carried the count carried Manhattan Island veryheavily. That is true. But it's
not like there are zero Trump votersin the state, in the county,
(12:48):
anywhere at all. There are eightyfive thousand of them. There's plenty of
folks out there for whom you forwhom Trump could find one in two sympathizers
to land in the jury. Hell, America's where sports sports guy Clay Travis
is is begging all Trump voters inManhattan to sneak themselves on the jury to
(13:09):
get the jury hog, which mightactually be illegal, but we'll leave that
it can't be done. They were, it was It was said to like
five hundred very specific people. Youcan't just like show up and volunteer like
they were. They were solicited.They had to fill out a questionnaire before
even arriving, right, So Ijust I don't think that kind of that
(13:30):
kind of logic doesn't really sell politically. It didn't sell for Paul Manafort when
he was tried in Washington, dC. And ever, sin oh,
that's a heavily Democrat, blah blahblah blah blah. No, when Paul
Manaford is convicted, like, okay, he's a criminal. Now, that's
how people reacted to it. People, Remember, I will agree I will
agree. Let me let me feel. I will agree. They are trying
(13:52):
to make lemonade. There's some degreeof making lemonade out of urine. Out
of this, I mean, there'snothing they can do. Ew nice.
Speaking of crimes, let's talk aboutCongress. They made it back. The
other prediction we had is that theywould make it into town by today and
that they would not actually legislate.So that was another prediction that we got
(14:13):
right. This week, Mike Johnsonis juggling more balls than a clown and
a tennis ball factory. He managedto sign the Mayorkismpeach miracles and send them
to the Senate. I believe hesent Marjorie Taylor Green to carry them whatever.
And he's announced that there will bewhat four different foreign aid bills to
(14:35):
address Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan,and I can't remember the fourth one is
djill lecture me about it in aminute. And MTG, even though she
got to be the special messenger inthe GP classroom today, she and Representative
Massey are saying that they're going totry and call for his removal. They're,
(14:58):
in fact, they're asking him topre resign so that there won't be
a leadership gap, Dijay, Youknow, since I can see your head
exploding about the four to four andaid bills, do you think any of
them are going to pass? Isthere any money going to the people who
need it? I genuinely have noidea what's going to happen, except that
(15:18):
there is no way any of thesebills will pass with solely Republican support,
meaning that Democrats will eventually be broughtin to discuss how to get something anything
at it there And at this pointwith Massy already, with Massey saying that
(15:43):
he'll support Moscow, Marjorie's call toVAK, with Mike Allagher resigning next week,
two defections will be all that theythat they will need. Mike Johnson
is on the clock. He isrunning out of time. I don't know
(16:04):
what he's going to do. ButI have seen the worst happen for Ukraine
over the last six months, Sountil I see differently, I'm going to
assume the worst will continue to happen. What scares me the most is that
I think Johnson, who really hasnot really had a good record on Ukraine.
If you look at his photo record, it's terrible. My fear is
(16:26):
that he is going to keep tryingto go through the motions and pretend that
he wants to pass Ukraine funding untilthis summer when the new Russian offensive comes
in and they have a breakthrough andit looks like Ukraine is going to lose,
and then he's going to throw uphis hands and say, well,
you know, it's too late,so much for a too bad, so
sad that, frankly, I thinkis going to be the actual outcome.
(16:48):
It's not going to go the waypeople think. Park Kiev may fall,
Kiev may fall, Leaviev won't fall. It's up there in the mountains in
the way. It's not that easyfor them. It's not going to be
that easy for the Rustians to getahold of it. And you are not
going to have an easy conquest,even if Ukraine runs out of artillery shells
(17:12):
or or they run out of themnow, because as long as they hold
a portion of that country, therewill be countries in Eastern Europe who will
keep feeding them weaponry, who helpthem protect what they have, and it
will be bloody, and it willbe horrific, and there will be thousands,
possibly tens of thousands, who willdie who would not need to die
(17:36):
if Ukraine had the weaponry they needednow to defend themselves and deliberate the eastern
parts of their country. The Republicansdon't want that, because Donald Trump doesn't
want that, because Ladimir Putin doesn'twant that. I hope, I hope
someone has sense. But you knowwhat won't help is impeaching Alejandro mayor us.
(18:00):
So that's what the House is doing. They did, yeah, they
did it. They impeached him,and now the Senate has been given the
articles of impeachment. You know,let's let's light in the mood. Let's
give some predictions. What do youthink Chuck Schumer will do with those pieces
of paper, greg you've been aclassroom teacher, what do you predict with
(18:23):
them? He could, he couldput it in the round file, and
that is where the Senate can doits own performative display. If I were
Chuck Schumer, I would entertain emotionto table, emotion to table the articles
so that they don't get talked about, have two or three days of debate,
(18:47):
and make sure that every Democrat whospeaks talks about the border protections that
the Republicans walked away from because DonaldTrump told them to and frankly, if
it gets traction with it should Iwould actually send a couple of Democratic Senators
off the Senate floor or when thevote happens, so that it doesn't actually
get tabled and the trial goes forwardand you can spend another week talking about
(19:12):
all the border patrol policies that theRepublicans walked away from because Donald Trump told
them to. I recently had aconversation with a Republican friend, and I
brought up all the border productions thatthey walked away from, and the Republican
Party walked away from part of themthat the Republican Party negotiated in good faith
(19:36):
with and then walked away from.And they pretended like they've never heard of
this. They were like, oh, what bill was this? I've never
heard of this. They are nowpretending like it never happened. And so
you have Democratic Senators remind them thatit happened. We'll keep reminding them.
And everything from asylum being granted onlyat the at border patrol stations, I
(20:00):
mean everything. They got everything inthere, everything that they could have wanted.
They're like, no, I havea question for DJ and I don't
know whether this will stay in thepodcast or not. But this is something
I've been curious about. One ofthe big contentious elements of the border bill
that the Biden administration put forward wasgiving him the legal justification that if more
(20:25):
than I think the number was fivethousand people come into the country illegally in
any given week or whatever it is, that he can shut down the border.
Okay, what does that mean?He has the authority to shut down
the border? Do you know,DJ, Because I don't know as far
as I understand it. What itbasically means is anybody who comes to any
(20:49):
border crossing is automatically turned away.Okay, so that's all I thought it
meant. That's what I thought about. All the normal provisions that would allow
them to fifer asylum to this andthe other. Nope, forget it.
So no sense to me, becauseyou're saying, if five thousand people cross
the Rio grand or whatever river itis that they cross, and all of
(21:11):
these illegals suddenly burst in, thenpeople who have that are doing it the
right way are told no, gohome, which gives them the motivation to
do it the wrong way too.I don't think the illegal numbers count against
the port of entry numbers. Ithink it's if more than X number of
people are processed at ports of entrythat he can put a pause on it
(21:33):
to allow the administrative tasks to getunsnarled and get caught up before admitting more
people. Whatever's happening with the peoplecrossing illegally, they are still subject to
whatever law enforcement operations are taking placein the non ports of entry. And
the confusion here, Kevin is thatwhen people here doing it the right way,
(21:56):
Folks who stay in their home countryand go through all the various paperwork
and all these other kinds of thingsto compute, they are not affected by
this kind of thing. What's worseis that visa overstayers, which is the
real which is the largest source oftrouble in terms of unauthorized immigration. They're
(22:18):
not affected by this either. Butthe people who are coming in and filing
and filing for asylum are actually doingit the right way. They're doing what
they're supposed to do. You comeinto this country, you don't have the
paperwork that says you're allowed. Yes, but I'm fleeing into whatever it is
in my home country. I'm filingfor asylum. Okay, for asylum.
(22:38):
This is your court date here go, and most people, actually the overall
majority, actually do show up fortheir court date. The problem is we
are dealing with the Republican Party thatdoesn't want immigrants of any kind, legal
or otherwise. But more to thepoint, they don't actually want to solve
(22:59):
the problem, They just want toexploit the problem. Okay, DJ,
have you and I ever disagreed onthis program in the past, because we
have several times. Oh we have. Oh, I thought, no,
No, It's one of the thingswe advertise for the show. Is it
(23:21):
the debate? Yeah, this isthe debate with pay I comment, you,
guys, they are going to bebraiding each other's hair after we finished
recording. It's really cute. Ifyou saw their hair, you would understand
why this is funny. Well,DJ made some interesting points. I fundamentally
disagree on what the problem is,which I know is just a euphemism that
(23:45):
you pulled out of the air.DJ. I think the problem is is
that there's four of us here.Now Greg really hasn't weighed in on this,
but at least three of us whoare pretty informed about politics, who
take the time to research things likethis, who are advocates for the Biden
administration and the three of us can'tagree on what that bill is talking about.
(24:11):
So the idea that it was thisperfect bill that the Biden administration put
forth that the Republicans unfairly shot down. I think we have to be a
little bit more intellectually honest and saythe bill had its good points, but
the bill had some rough patches aswell. I think there was some validity
(24:33):
on the right that the bill wasnot as clear and as hard hitting as
they would have liked it to be. Yes, not at all. This
was literally almost everything that they wantedand it was as hard hitting. And
in fact, the Border Patrol endorsedthis bill. They went on Fox and
defended it the Border Patrol Union,which is Verius right. Yeah, they
(24:59):
went on they endorse Trump twice.Yes, and they said, look,
we're a Republican group, we arealmost entirely Republicans, and we've never endorsed
anything the Democrats done, but thisis the bill. And they said this
is not a perfect bill. Andthe Fox hosters like, I don't think
that's right, and the guy said, this is what I do for a
(25:21):
living. Of course, I knowwhat I'm talking about. Everything from more
detention facilities, more judges to makesure that asylum courts can go much faster.
There's a backlog of asylum court casesanywhere from three to five years right
now. That's unacceptable. That wasone of the points Biden made at the
(25:41):
State of the Union that one ofthe reasons that it's worth taking the gamble
to make the asylum claim is thatyou will then get to be in America
for six years while you're waiting foryour first hearing. And Biden made the
comment that if we could speed thatup to six months, it's no longer
worth it. Okay, that isa that is a lie of the bill.
(26:03):
There is no amount I mean,there's an amount of judges, but
it's not the amount of judges thatare funded in that bill that can take
us from five or six or eightyears to a six month waiting period.
No fallacy that the Democrats that theDemocrats say we're going to hire more judges
and we're going to take that windowof six years down to six months.
(26:26):
Never could happen. Never, Butit definitely won't happen if we reach the
end of this Congress without passing thebill, because bill is not what it's
advertised to be listen. But thebill is more of what it's advertised to
be than doing nothing. I thinkwe would have been better off with the
bill passed than not because it didsomething. I'm saying that the bill is
(26:48):
not what it's advertised to be,and they're selling it to Democrats under false
pretenses because again, three of ushere don't aren't even sure what the bill
does. That's none of that isthe point, Kevin. The point is
that they can take Jim Langford,Republican of Oklahoma, talk about it.
(27:11):
He had for that bill. I'dsay they walked, and they didn't walk.
Donald Trump didn't say it's a badbill, stay away from it.
Donald Trump actually said it's a goodbill. Stay away from it. Because
I don't want Joe Biden to fixthis. I want to fix it myself.
(27:32):
So, speaking of things that areunder threat, the border, Kevin
and DJ's friendship, the future ofthis podcast, Kevin's kept strin hair,
my hair whatever. Yeah, No, it's it's it's all, it's all
up in the air. Israel cameunder threat this weekend. Iran responded to
the recent death of a top Iraniin general after an Israeli bombing rate in
(27:56):
Syria this weekend, of Ron launcheddozens, maybe hundreds of drown weapons of
Israel, giving sufficient notice to notjust Israel, but surrounding nations for Israel
to repel the attack with the helpof US forces. The most the ninety
nine percent of the missiles were shotdown. In the aftermath of that,
Biden has strongly warned Netan Yahoo notto respond further, not to attack Iran
(28:21):
directly, and said plainly that theUnited States will not help in any offensive
attacks against Iran. And this iscoming as Mike Johnson is announcing the intent
at least to vote on an Israelaid bill. How do we think DJ
that possible aid vote will influence netand Yahoo in at least the coming days,
(28:48):
if not longer. I don't thinkwhat happens in Congress is necessarily an
affect what bebe does. I dothink what Biden is telling him will have
some influence. I think what hewill be hearing from Riad and Aman will
have greater influence because the Saudis andthe Jordanians in particular basically stuck their necks
out when they helped knock a bunchof these missiles down. They made it
(29:12):
abundantly clear. In an Israeli aroundbattle, they made it clear which side
they were on, and the messagesthey send BB are going to be much
more important than whatever Biden sends,Be sends to BB, because Bbe already
knows what Bien's gonna say. Takethe win. You knocked out a bunch
(29:33):
of Iranian bad guys and nothing happenedexcept a poor Israeli Arab girl got hurt.
Things are cool, everything's fine here. Don't don't ruffle any feathers.
Maybe Bbe chooses to do that,maybe he chooses not to, but that's
going to be more on what hisSunni Arab allies tell him in terms of
(29:56):
what they think would happen if Israeltook this to another level or took two
different level. So I don't thinkIsrael is going to attack Iran directly.
I do think there may be somemore shots against Iranian assets in Syria because
I think because there's plausible deniability ondoing that. Yeah, it's because it's
(30:21):
not affected her on directly, andJordan and Saudi Arabia is going to go,
yeah, good job, knock outthose Syrian batties. Whether that's going
to ruffle the bi An administration ornot. I'm not really sure. I
do think this all but ensures thatthese are the idea I will go into
RAFA. I think the question isgoing to be are they going to are
(30:44):
they going to try the rubble don'tmake trouble policy which doesn't actually work,
or whether they'll try something more surgical. I don't know the answer on that
one, but to give that here'syour question. No, I don't.
I don't think the congressional vote willinfluence what Pebe does. I will say
one other thing though, the Iraniandrones and missiles that were all laughing about
because they all got shot down byUS, UK, French, Jordan and
(31:07):
Saudi air force and defenses, theyare the drone. They are the exact
things that Russia is using Tarik havocon Ukraine because Ukraine doesn't have the material
to defend itself. I think thatIsrael is still going to do what Israel
wants to do. They have amendedtheir military tactics already. I think that
(31:32):
happened a while ago. You don'thear about the bombing raids anymore that we
were hearing about back in November,December and January and I think that they're
going to do something to retaliate againstIran. I don't know how they do
it cleanly, if you know,DJ said, and I'm not saying you're
wrong, DJ, but you postulatedthat maybe or postured that maybe they're going
(31:56):
to hit an Iranian target in Syria. Well that's what started this whole thing.
So I don't know that that's necessarilythat the Uranians are gonna go.
Oh, that's just in Syria.We called their bluff. So I see
this thing as continuing. The cycleis not over yet. It feels like
we're on the brink of regional warand I don't think that serves anybody's interests.
(32:20):
Gregged, do you have thoughts?There? No thoughts, Ye trying
to stay out of it. Iwish we could all stay of it.
And what do you What do youguys think about Iran? Is are they
going to hold hold their fire ordo you think they're going to launch another
offensive? I think they're going tolaunch another offensive. It may I think,
why do you do this to me, Kevin because of Greg Junior?
(32:43):
Is this is this payback for everytime I disagreed with my father? I
mean, geez, I'm gonna callhim tomorrow and apologize wrong, tell me
what they're wrong. No, Imean I think I think. Look Iran,
something happened to Iran. It wasbad. A general died. They
felt like they had to justify somethinglike we've got to do something, let's
(33:06):
launch a bunch of missiles. Andnow they realized they do not want to
get into it with Israel or realsease. They do not want to get
into it with America. They donot want to even though Biden is that
he wouldn't. They don't want toget into it with France or UK or
Australia. They're perfectly happy just beingIran for the most part. And I
(33:28):
think that they said, hey,we pushed back, and now they are
done. As long as and nomore of their people die, as long
as no more of their generals die, as long as they're going to be
fine. They're not going to pushthis one. I see it the same
way. But I know this isthe Iranian regime is the most disruptive power
(33:52):
in the region, the most disruptivepower that has survived over the last forty
five years. They're not going tolet this one lie. This This was
an attempt to kill a bunch ofIsraelis and wound them and hurt them into
doing something that would lead to aconflagration. I think to the extent that
(34:13):
there is political division within Iran betweenthe ones who want to kill us slowly
and the ones who want to killus quickly. This barrage was a sign
that the ones who want to killus quickly are now in charge in Iran.
We have to remember that that Israelhit an Iranian consulate in Seria,
which technically is in Iranian territory.I don't know how they would respond if
(34:34):
it's a more unofficial asset, butthey retaliated against us when we took out
Solemoni in twenty twenty, and DonaldTarmp pretended that traumatic brain injuries were just
headaches, not power is going tosit back and relax. I just don't
see that happening. And I'm pickingon you in good fun, Greg in
(35:00):
good fun. But I got tosay the line, Iran's just happy being
Iran. Well, right, Iranis happy being Iran. And granted they
would want the rest of us tobe a little more Iranian, they are
dicks most of the time, andIran is happy being Iran and they are
dicks in the natural state, butas long as no one is attacking them,
(35:22):
they are not going directly. Infact, they issued a statement was
it two days ago, a dayor a half ago, saying look,
we're done unless you guys attack usagain, and they're not. And nobody
also said, but if you daredto attack us again, we're going to
unleash weapons that you don't even knowwe have. It's going to be hell
on the earth. I'm sorry,Greg, I just see it. Yeah,
(35:45):
gosh, would would have been greatif we had like an agreement with
Iran to not develop weapons that we'dnever heard of. Yeah, like what
kind of an administration would work outto the kind of a nuclear arms yet,
I don't know like that would beyou know, I definitely like,
I can't imagine somebody would just tearone of those up. If you got
(36:05):
it, why would you tear itup? Proble idea. Donald Trump,
I would remind all of you thatthat was an agreement that would have done
nothing to reduce a number of ballisticmissiles that were just thrown at Israel.
It would do nothing to reduce Iran'sfun with Hesbalah and Hamas and Syria now
(36:28):
Donald, but it would have increasedit would be visibility that the West had
into Iran, and that could havechanged the trajectory of something. So you
know, it's it's no, itwouldn't have. It didn't. It didn't
change the trajectory of any of thosethings between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen.
Now, Trump walking away from theagreement without our allies was politically stupid.
(36:49):
Yes, that's true. But theagreement itself, which by the way,
would have expired by now, isnot the panacea that that that Democrat let's
say it is. I know whyyou want to beat up Trump from walking
away from it. It was astupid thing to do without our allies.
But the idea that that agreement itselfsomehow meant that Iran was going to behave
itself in all geopolitical facets, nothingcould be further from the truth. I'm
(37:13):
sorry. Well, all right,well we are all second guessing foreign policy.
I think it's time to move onto an area where we might actually
be able to sound like we're smart. In to a segment we're calling are
you Smarter than a celebrity? Takenfrom apparently a new television show hosted by
Travis Kelcey called Are You Smarter Thana Celebrity? Greg pleasetill listen on this.
(37:34):
You're the one who put this onthe rundown. So supposedly it's a
it's an offshoot or spin off ofthe classic American TV show Are You Smarter
Than a Fifth Grader? And it'sgonna pit normal Americans against celebrities, I
assume. So we haven't gotten afull rundown, we haven't gotten guests,
(37:55):
so I wanted to discuss Let's thinkabout if this the four of us think
that we might be smarter than acelebrity. And I've chosen some celebrities and
we can speculate on our personal intellectualcapabilities against celebrity intelectual capabilities. And I'm
(38:20):
gonna go ahead and start with theobvious one. Since we are talking about
Travis kelce Greg Matusac, do youthink you're smarter than Taylor Swift? No,
not at all. I think she'sbrilliant. I think she sees things
like colors in sights, and sheprobably sees things physics that I don't even
understand in depths. So no,I think she's brilliant Yeah, Kevint,
(38:45):
are you smarter than Taylor Swift?I don't think I'm smarter than anybody until
they say something dumb. Once theysaid something dumb, then I think I'm
smarter them. So I have neverheard her say anything overtly dumb, so
I can't say that I'm smarter thanhim. All right, well let's mess
some of the next name on thelist, Kevin, This might actually meet
your qualification. Kevin, do youthink you're smarter than Aaron Rodgers? I've
(39:08):
never heard the man speak. I'veheard people characterize things that he said,
So until I hear him say directlyfrom his own mouth something stupid, I
don't know whether I'm smarter than himor not. Did you take ivermectin when
you had COVID? No? Idid not. Yeah, you're probably smarter
than Aaron Rodgers. Then did Ithink I think he's dumb as a board?
(39:34):
I think he's got like on hissocks. I think he's got one
that's his left and one that's hisright, and they're usually on the wrong
feet, you know, And he'slike, oh, this is a left
sock. What am I supposed todo with this? And if it's on
his hand and he does a littleYeah. I think Aaron Rodgers is just
(39:54):
honestly, and he deserves to bewhere he is. He's with the Giant,
so is he No, he's withthe Jets' course definitely deserves to be
and he definitely deserves to be there. Yeah, DJ, my next,
I'm going to give you the nextcelebrity. Do you believe, DJ that
you are smarter than William Shatner.I do think I'm smarter than William Shantner.
(40:17):
I don't think. I don't thinkI can act as well as he
can. I'm not going to saythat, and normal, under normal circumstances,
I assume that you know different peopleat different skills. They put their
brains a different uses, so Ican't automatically assume that one person is smarter
than the other. I have,however, heard William Shatner say some really
(40:38):
dumb things about the show that madehim famous, about how Star Trek used
to not be political and it wasabout utopia. I know I know I'm
smarter than William Shanner because I knowthat Star Trek was political from watching it
(40:58):
and knowing what the nineteen sixties was. Kevin, what do you want to
ask. I just want to say, no matter which celebrity you name,
I'm going to say, I thinkDJ is smarter than all of these celebrities.
So that's a different game show.But I think DJ is smarter than
pretty much all of them. ButI do have a serious question for you
guys, and we could continue this. This is a fun little segment,
(41:21):
but I just have a question foryou without saying the number. If you
know the number, please do notreveal it. But I wonder do any
of you or all of you knowyour IQ. I know roughly, I
don't think. I don't think I'veever been tested, or if I have,
I haven't seen results. I knowit roughly as far as I'll go.
Yeah. So when I was aboutfifteen years ago, my brother and
(41:45):
I went to our elementary school.We used the I think it was the
Freedom of Information Act or something likethat to get to look at our school
records, and I saw my IQtest score, so I know mine.
Yeah. Yeah, when I wasshould get William Shatner to do that and
you guys can compare. Yeah,when I was twenty two, I was
writing a paper for a graduate schoolabout test scores. Testing. This is
(42:08):
the week four and I went backto my school and I said I'd like
my records and they were like,no, we can't let you have that.
And I was like, I'm prettysure you can. It was awesome,
but yeah, it's the same thing. I saw my test scores,
so I have an idea. Buthow much credence did I put in public
(42:29):
school testing and things like that.I do want to say this. I'm
not going to mention with the number, and I'm not going to say which
brother, but mine was higher thanmy brothers. And it has been a
point of contention between well, we'removed on by celebrity list. Do you
(42:50):
think you're smarter than I Lean Canon? Yes, yes, we might be
better judges than I Lean Cannon,and then we'd be better at practicing law
than Nileen Cannon. All right,the next one, this is a courtesy
of my son. This was hissuggestion. Greg will give this one to
you. You are you, GregMatuzac, smarter than j Low? I
(43:15):
don't know. Let me think aboutthat. Jenny from the block, Jenny
from the block. Don't don't bewhat is it? Don't be shocked by
the rocks that I got. Don'tbe fooled by the Rocks got because she's
still Jenny from the Block. Yeah, you know, there's that whole thing
like, oh, you know,I got street smarts. But people who
say they have street smarts just meansthey're dumb. That's that's all. That's
(43:37):
all that is. Yeah, you'reyou're you're a bad test taker and yeah,
you never finished college, says that. Yeah, yeah, but okay,
but let's look at Jay Low.She's she's been around since the nineties
when she was a flaggirl on inLiving Color. Yeah, she Jlo like
Madonna before her Lady gagas a littlebit the same way they have sold us
(43:59):
a product we did not need andwe brought it for decades on end.
And you can't do that if youdon't have some basic smarts. Now,
I will put an ask risk byj Low because she took Ben Affleck back
and that's question judgment, But it'sjudgment that's not smart, that's true.
Yeah, I'm gonna give her thebenefit of the doubt. I think she
(44:21):
is probably smarter than me, Andmaybe that's a low self esteem on my
part, but yeah, I'm gonnasay she's smarter than me. Yeah,
and Ben affleck has has two oscars, so that's not too bad. So
thank you all for listening again.If you enjoy what we do here,
please follow us on Instagram at MPUfan Club. Don't forget to share our
podcast link on your social media feedsso your friends can discover us as well.
(44:45):
And as always, thank you toAlan Kenny for composing and playing our
theme music. And as we headinto the second half of jury's selection,
Greg, what flavor notch will yoube eating as they try and round it
all the way up to twelve?I was going to do it like a
(45:07):
twelve spice. Hold on, whatabout a twelve layer dip? Oh?
A twelve layer dip? But youknow, I just going back to the
j LO thing. Do you knowhow many different fragrances she has? I
don't. She has beauty, shehas lost beast, she has promise,
she has glow, she has stillmight I heumbly submit that for this trial,
(45:30):
you appathezets or snack of choice shouldnot be nachos, but rather stuff
mushrooms. Oh that was the worstdouble on tundra because I and I think
Stormy would say no, nothing wasstuff. He included tens of
Welcome to The More Perfect Union,the podcast that offers real debate without the
hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeider, backfrom a couple of weeks of hiatus here
at the More Perfect Union, andI am pleased to be joined by Greg
matuzak Hi. I did enjoy ourtime off. It gave me a chance
to come up with excuses not toserve on any juries, so that was
(00:36):
always nice. And as your commonsense liberal from Cincinnati, Ohio, it's
good to be here, all right. And DJ maguire, the last time
we were all together on the air, Ukraine had not received any aid.
Ukraine has still not received any aid. I am considerably angrier than I was
the last time we were together.And you won't like to when he's angry.
(01:00):
In fact, he's turning green.His shirt is shredding everybody. Watch
out. And last, but mostcertainly not least, Kevin Calton. Hello.
Well, yes, the last timewe did talk about Ukraine funding and
DJ, we were on a threada few days ago and DJ said,
(01:21):
well, by Tuesday that probably haveapproved funding for Ukraine. Otherwise I'm going
to be very angry, And DJ, what did I say? I'd be
very angry? I said, we'regoing to have on Tuesday, and we
sure do. I went to seethe movie Civil War, and I know
you guys have heard about it.I guess nobody else has seen it yet.
(01:42):
I saw Gone with the Wind ineighth grade. Does that count?
It does count? Yeah, Soyou know what it's about. It's obviously
a modern day America is in themidst of a civil war when the movie
begins, and they made some veryinteresting choices. And I'm not gonna you
know, obviously no spoilers here,but first of all, it's an incredible
(02:06):
action movie. If you see itfor no other reason, the visuals and
the action are stunning. They alsomade some interesting choices to try to take
politics out of it by aligning Californiawith Texas in the war. Yeah,
and a lot of people are talkingabout that choice. Okay, without seeing
(02:28):
it, does that take something awayfrom it? By like it seems like
they were kind of like tiptoeing aroundthe elephant in the room by saying like,
Okay, we're not going to putthe Red States versus the Blue States,
or we're not going to do thedamn versus the Republicans, So we'll
(02:49):
just make this really generic and veryThis would be the safest, nicest we
all get along civil war and itwill be you know, like, hey,
it won't. But we just don'twant to offend anybody because we you
know, let's not make this aboutlike something crazy like slavery. But does
(03:09):
that take away from the film you'veseen it, Kevin, I haven't,
but I mean at a certain pointyou'd have to say, like, come
on, come on, Well,you know that that's been discussed over and
over again. That's one of thecontroversies about the film. I understand the
choice that the filmmaker's made. Firstof all, you know, they're looking
(03:31):
at trying to get, you know, as large a box office as they
can, and they didn't want toinsult half the country by saying, you
guys are the bad guys. Youknow, if we don't use American red
and blue, but we find otherdividing lines, then we have a larger
pool of people who will respond positivelyto the film. I also think that
(03:52):
the film wasn't about American politics perse, but rather about how American culture
is taking us into a civil war. But that actually concerns me some because
if memory serves apologies for the additionalspoiler. One of the things that causes
the cracks is the incoming president attemptsto serve a third term, correct,
(04:15):
which obviously is ain't no, no, And I don't know. I don't
Obviously I haven't seen the film,so I don't know how that is portrayed.
But if from what I've seen ofthe discussion of the film and interviews
with the director and everything, andit was trying to say, you know,
these cultures are driving us apart andall that kind of thing, it
makes me. It makes me learybecause it could be and Ken, please
(04:42):
tell me if it doesn't, itcould be a situation where it ends up,
however unintentionally sort of grooming the publicfor a president who would go for
a third unconstitutional term, which isa big problem when we have somebody who
probably would go for a third onconstitutional term if you ever got the chance,
I would say, having seen thefilm, and again no spoilers,
(05:05):
I don't think it grooms the publicat all for that. But what I
do think it does group the publicfor is the idea of political violence being
justified. You know, we havetalked on this podcast about the potential in
this coming election cycle for violence basedon let's say, the militia groups or
(05:26):
just the gun nuts or what haveyou. And if there's a problem with
this movie, it's that people likethe four of us would look at it
and see it as a cautionary tale. But I think that there are millions
and millions and millions of Americans whowould see it and see it as an
aha you know, yeah, maybethat ain't such a bad idea. The
(05:46):
action scenes alone justify your tend upbucks for this. Yeah, I actually
like my favorite films are really long, boring films that like you'd be actually
surprised, but I do likes youknow me too well. Speaking of worn
booms, we want people to knowthat MPU the movie is coming out with
(06:10):
plenty of action sequences where all ofour joints creak and we complain about these
kids today. Speaking of complaining aboutthings, Donald Trump. Donald Trump this
week became the first former president inAmerican history to stand trial as a criminal
(06:30):
defendant. And I'm interested to seeif his desire to get this over with
prevents some of the delay tactics thathe usually would encourage his lawyers to employ.
At this time, Greg, whatdo you think do you think Trump
(06:51):
is going to try and hustle thesealong or do you think he's going to
start dragging his heels. You know, we've seen recent polls, and I
know we talk about polls and theydon't mean anything where Biden is now catching
up and we've seen him, andI think if we see more and more,
then he may actually say enough isenough. Trump has to get back
(07:13):
on the trail. I've got toget out of this courtroom because it's not
a good look for him, andthe judges don't like him for some reason.
I don't know why. They justdon't have that connection. And you
might see him speed this up andtry to get out before November. But
right now he's very reticent. He'salways been reticent to ever do the common
(07:41):
sense thing. He always does theTrump thing. So I'm going to say,
no, he's going to do ishe's going to do? You know
when everyone says you should zig,he's going to say, I'm going to
roll on the floor and you know, do my own thing. Oh,
Kevin, what do you think?Do you think Trump is gonna get strategic
about this and try and get outof the court room, or do you
(08:03):
think he's worried about what the verdictis going to ultimately be. He's not
going to get strategic and he's notgoing any place. So all I know
is since the four of Us startedredoing this show, I think it was
some time in the middle of lastyear, I have been saying on the
podcast. I said, people don'tget that come January. I thought it
(08:24):
was going to be in January.It started in April. This man is
going to be in a court roomfour or five days a week, and
people are going to see him notas a presidential candidate, but as a
defendant, sitting behind the defense table, silent and not in control of the
situation. And that's indeed where weare. I think it's only going to
(08:46):
last about six weeks. I don'tknow whether it'll be a conviction. I
don't know whether it'll be a convictionon the felony accounts and the misdemeanor counts.
It'll be a hung jury. Iknow it ain't going to be an
acquittal. I don't think he's goingto get acquitted. Well, Cherry is
Trump's goal? Yeah, yeah,I think there is a sixty six to
(09:07):
thirty three shot, the thirty threebeing the shot that this happens, that
Trump actually goes to jail for contempt, Greg, what do you thank you?
Oh my gosh. One, DJis probably right. He probably will,
but that would be the greatest thingin the world for him. Fox
News has already changed their narrative.If anyone listened to the Fox News podcast
(09:31):
this morning, the podcast was entitledis just as Blind when it comes to
Former President Trump, and pretty muchthe entire talking point for thirty five minutes
was Trump can't get a fair trialin New York. Everything stacked against him.
I mean, it's the same talkingpoints he's been saying for a long
time. If he actually goes tojail for a night or two, it's
(09:54):
like they're putting him up on across for him to be martyred. This
is the best scenario for his base. Greg. Have you and I ever
disagreed before on this podcast? Idon't think it's ever happened. No.
No, You've always been lockstep.People often call you Greg Junior. It's
weird. Well, Greg Junior isstepping off the boat today. I see
(10:18):
it. It was time. Itwas time it had to happen something.
I think if he spends a nightor two in jail. That is a
death knell on his presidency or hishopes for another presidency. I should say,
boy, I think if people seehim being walked out of court in
handcuffs, and I know it's notgoing to be on cameras because there were
(10:39):
no cameras in the courtroom, butjust the idea, the image of him
in jail overnight and then him comingback in the next day and being an
and seething already this week, Ihave a feeling that some of the the
glow of Trump as the businessman,a man in control of his own destiny,
(11:00):
a man who can upend the system. I think a lot of that
mythology is being drained away from him. And the day that judge says,
mister Trump, I'm sorry, butyou've gone too far, bailiffs put him
in handcuffs, remand him to thechelseall, I think that's the day that
Joe Biden suddenly has like forty eightpercent approval and is up over fifty percent
(11:24):
of the polls. What you weresaying about Kevin this venue kind of taking
the shine off Trump, you know, him behind the defendant's table and all
that. It's also the fact thatit's a grungy court courthouse. Like,
this isn't a sexy courthouse. Thisisn't like, you know, some majestic
brick building in a town square.This is just like a gray high rise
(11:45):
in Manhattan. And you know you'veseen the hallways. They're very linoleum.
There's metal sliding doors. This isnot a cool place for him to be
delivering these speeches. And there areno flags behind him for him to hug.
So it's it's not great. Andit definitely that they looks institutional.
Yeah, yeah, and I wouldI would say two things about Greg's comments.
(12:05):
One, we don't know how manyindependent and swing voters fox News actually
reaches, let alone impacts. Certainlynot on a weekday morning. Yeah,
it could just be. It couldjust be part of the epistemic closure that
we are seeing on the right ingeneral, where Fox News will rev up
all the people who are going tovote for Donald Trump anyway. But just
(12:26):
it's following on deaf ears outside ofTrump's base. Number one, number two,
Manhattan has eighty five thousand Trump votersin it. Yes, Joe Biden
carried the count carried Manhattan Island veryheavily. That is true. But it's
not like there are zero Trump votersin the state, in the county,
(12:48):
anywhere at all. There are eightyfive thousand of them. There's plenty of
folks out there for whom you forwhom Trump could find one in two sympathizers
to land in the jury. Hell, America's where sports sports guy Clay Travis
is is begging all Trump voters inManhattan to sneak themselves on the jury to
(13:09):
get the jury hog, which mightactually be illegal, but we'll leave that
it can't be done. They were, it was It was said to like
five hundred very specific people. Youcan't just like show up and volunteer like
they were. They were solicited.They had to fill out a questionnaire before
even arriving, right, So Ijust I don't think that kind of that
(13:30):
kind of logic doesn't really sell politically. It didn't sell for Paul Manafort when
he was tried in Washington, dC. And ever, sin oh,
that's a heavily Democrat, blah blahblah blah blah. No, when Paul
Manaford is convicted, like, okay, he's a criminal. Now, that's
how people reacted to it. People, Remember, I will agree I will
agree. Let me let me feel. I will agree. They are trying
(13:52):
to make lemonade. There's some degreeof making lemonade out of urine. Out
of this, I mean, there'snothing they can do. Ew nice.
Speaking of crimes, let's talk aboutCongress. They made it back. The
other prediction we had is that theywould make it into town by today and
that they would not actually legislate.So that was another prediction that we got
(14:13):
right. This week, Mike Johnsonis juggling more balls than a clown and
a tennis ball factory. He managedto sign the Mayorkismpeach miracles and send them
to the Senate. I believe hesent Marjorie Taylor Green to carry them whatever.
And he's announced that there will bewhat four different foreign aid bills to
(14:35):
address Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan,and I can't remember the fourth one is
djill lecture me about it in aminute. And MTG, even though she
got to be the special messenger inthe GP classroom today, she and Representative
Massey are saying that they're going totry and call for his removal. They're,
(14:58):
in fact, they're asking him topre resign so that there won't be
a leadership gap, Dijay, Youknow, since I can see your head
exploding about the four to four andaid bills, do you think any of
them are going to pass? Isthere any money going to the people who
need it? I genuinely have noidea what's going to happen, except that
(15:18):
there is no way any of thesebills will pass with solely Republican support,
meaning that Democrats will eventually be broughtin to discuss how to get something anything
at it there And at this pointwith Massy already, with Massey saying that
(15:43):
he'll support Moscow, Marjorie's call toVAK, with Mike Allagher resigning next week,
two defections will be all that theythat they will need. Mike Johnson
is on the clock. He isrunning out of time. I don't know
(16:04):
what he's going to do. ButI have seen the worst happen for Ukraine
over the last six months, Sountil I see differently, I'm going to
assume the worst will continue to happen. What scares me the most is that
I think Johnson, who really hasnot really had a good record on Ukraine.
If you look at his photo record, it's terrible. My fear is
(16:26):
that he is going to keep tryingto go through the motions and pretend that
he wants to pass Ukraine funding untilthis summer when the new Russian offensive comes
in and they have a breakthrough andit looks like Ukraine is going to lose,
and then he's going to throw uphis hands and say, well,
you know, it's too late,so much for a too bad, so
sad that, frankly, I thinkis going to be the actual outcome.
(16:48):
It's not going to go the waypeople think. Park Kiev may fall,
Kiev may fall, Leaviev won't fall. It's up there in the mountains in
the way. It's not that easyfor them. It's not going to be
that easy for the Rustians to getahold of it. And you are not
going to have an easy conquest,even if Ukraine runs out of artillery shells
(17:12):
or or they run out of themnow, because as long as they hold
a portion of that country, therewill be countries in Eastern Europe who will
keep feeding them weaponry, who helpthem protect what they have, and it
will be bloody, and it willbe horrific, and there will be thousands,
possibly tens of thousands, who willdie who would not need to die
(17:36):
if Ukraine had the weaponry they needednow to defend themselves and deliberate the eastern
parts of their country. The Republicansdon't want that, because Donald Trump doesn't
want that, because Ladimir Putin doesn'twant that. I hope, I hope
someone has sense. But you knowwhat won't help is impeaching Alejandro mayor us.
(18:00):
So that's what the House is doing. They did, yeah, they
did it. They impeached him,and now the Senate has been given the
articles of impeachment. You know,let's let's light in the mood. Let's
give some predictions. What do youthink Chuck Schumer will do with those pieces
of paper, greg you've been aclassroom teacher, what do you predict with
(18:23):
them? He could, he couldput it in the round file, and
that is where the Senate can doits own performative display. If I were
Chuck Schumer, I would entertain emotionto table, emotion to table the articles
so that they don't get talked about, have two or three days of debate,
(18:47):
and make sure that every Democrat whospeaks talks about the border protections that
the Republicans walked away from because DonaldTrump told them to and frankly, if
it gets traction with it should Iwould actually send a couple of Democratic Senators
off the Senate floor or when thevote happens, so that it doesn't actually
get tabled and the trial goes forwardand you can spend another week talking about
(19:12):
all the border patrol policies that theRepublicans walked away from because Donald Trump told
them to. I recently had aconversation with a Republican friend, and I
brought up all the border productions thatthey walked away from, and the Republican
Party walked away from part of themthat the Republican Party negotiated in good faith
(19:36):
with and then walked away from.And they pretended like they've never heard of
this. They were like, oh, what bill was this? I've never
heard of this. They are nowpretending like it never happened. And so
you have Democratic Senators remind them thatit happened. We'll keep reminding them.
And everything from asylum being granted onlyat the at border patrol stations, I
(20:00):
mean everything. They got everything inthere, everything that they could have wanted.
They're like, no, I havea question for DJ and I don't
know whether this will stay in thepodcast or not. But this is something
I've been curious about. One ofthe big contentious elements of the border bill
that the Biden administration put forward wasgiving him the legal justification that if more
(20:25):
than I think the number was fivethousand people come into the country illegally in
any given week or whatever it is, that he can shut down the border.
Okay, what does that mean?He has the authority to shut down
the border? Do you know,DJ, Because I don't know as far
as I understand it. What itbasically means is anybody who comes to any
(20:49):
border crossing is automatically turned away.Okay, so that's all I thought it
meant. That's what I thought about. All the normal provisions that would allow
them to fifer asylum to this andthe other. Nope, forget it.
So no sense to me, becauseyou're saying, if five thousand people cross
the Rio grand or whatever river itis that they cross, and all of
(21:11):
these illegals suddenly burst in, thenpeople who have that are doing it the
right way are told no, gohome, which gives them the motivation to
do it the wrong way too.I don't think the illegal numbers count against
the port of entry numbers. Ithink it's if more than X number of
people are processed at ports of entrythat he can put a pause on it
(21:33):
to allow the administrative tasks to getunsnarled and get caught up before admitting more
people. Whatever's happening with the peoplecrossing illegally, they are still subject to
whatever law enforcement operations are taking placein the non ports of entry. And
the confusion here, Kevin is thatwhen people here doing it the right way,
(21:56):
Folks who stay in their home countryand go through all the various paperwork
and all these other kinds of thingsto compute, they are not affected by
this kind of thing. What's worseis that visa overstayers, which is the
real which is the largest source oftrouble in terms of unauthorized immigration. They're
(22:18):
not affected by this either. Butthe people who are coming in and filing
and filing for asylum are actually doingit the right way. They're doing what
they're supposed to do. You comeinto this country, you don't have the
paperwork that says you're allowed. Yes, but I'm fleeing into whatever it is
in my home country. I'm filingfor asylum. Okay, for asylum.
(22:38):
This is your court date here go, and most people, actually the overall
majority, actually do show up fortheir court date. The problem is we
are dealing with the Republican Party thatdoesn't want immigrants of any kind, legal
or otherwise. But more to thepoint, they don't actually want to solve
(22:59):
the problem, They just want toexploit the problem. Okay, DJ,
have you and I ever disagreed onthis program in the past, because we
have several times. Oh we have. Oh, I thought, no,
No, It's one of the thingswe advertise for the show. Is it
(23:21):
the debate? Yeah, this isthe debate with pay I comment, you,
guys, they are going to bebraiding each other's hair after we finished
recording. It's really cute. Ifyou saw their hair, you would understand
why this is funny. Well,DJ made some interesting points. I fundamentally
disagree on what the problem is,which I know is just a euphemism that
(23:45):
you pulled out of the air.DJ. I think the problem is is
that there's four of us here.Now Greg really hasn't weighed in on this,
but at least three of us whoare pretty informed about politics, who
take the time to research things likethis, who are advocates for the Biden
administration and the three of us can'tagree on what that bill is talking about.
(24:11):
So the idea that it was thisperfect bill that the Biden administration put
forth that the Republicans unfairly shot down. I think we have to be a
little bit more intellectually honest and saythe bill had its good points, but
the bill had some rough patches aswell. I think there was some validity
(24:33):
on the right that the bill wasnot as clear and as hard hitting as
they would have liked it to be. Yes, not at all. This
was literally almost everything that they wantedand it was as hard hitting. And
in fact, the Border Patrol endorsedthis bill. They went on Fox and
defended it the Border Patrol Union,which is Verius right. Yeah, they
(24:59):
went on they endorse Trump twice.Yes, and they said, look,
we're a Republican group, we arealmost entirely Republicans, and we've never endorsed
anything the Democrats done, but thisis the bill. And they said this
is not a perfect bill. Andthe Fox hosters like, I don't think
that's right, and the guy said, this is what I do for a
(25:21):
living. Of course, I knowwhat I'm talking about. Everything from more
detention facilities, more judges to makesure that asylum courts can go much faster.
There's a backlog of asylum court casesanywhere from three to five years right
now. That's unacceptable. That wasone of the points Biden made at the
(25:41):
State of the Union that one ofthe reasons that it's worth taking the gamble
to make the asylum claim is thatyou will then get to be in America
for six years while you're waiting foryour first hearing. And Biden made the
comment that if we could speed thatup to six months, it's no longer
worth it. Okay, that isa that is a lie of the bill.
(26:03):
There is no amount I mean,there's an amount of judges, but
it's not the amount of judges thatare funded in that bill that can take
us from five or six or eightyears to a six month waiting period.
No fallacy that the Democrats that theDemocrats say we're going to hire more judges
and we're going to take that windowof six years down to six months.
(26:26):
Never could happen. Never, Butit definitely won't happen if we reach the
end of this Congress without passing thebill, because bill is not what it's
advertised to be listen. But thebill is more of what it's advertised to
be than doing nothing. I thinkwe would have been better off with the
bill passed than not because it didsomething. I'm saying that the bill is
(26:48):
not what it's advertised to be,and they're selling it to Democrats under false
pretenses because again, three of ushere don't aren't even sure what the bill
does. That's none of that isthe point, Kevin. The point is
that they can take Jim Langford,Republican of Oklahoma, talk about it.
(27:11):
He had for that bill. I'dsay they walked, and they didn't walk.
Donald Trump didn't say it's a badbill, stay away from it.
Donald Trump actually said it's a goodbill. Stay away from it. Because
I don't want Joe Biden to fixthis. I want to fix it myself.
(27:32):
So, speaking of things that areunder threat, the border, Kevin
and DJ's friendship, the future ofthis podcast, Kevin's kept strin hair,
my hair whatever. Yeah, No, it's it's it's all, it's all
up in the air. Israel cameunder threat this weekend. Iran responded to
the recent death of a top Iraniin general after an Israeli bombing rate in
(27:56):
Syria this weekend, of Ron launcheddozens, maybe hundreds of drown weapons of
Israel, giving sufficient notice to notjust Israel, but surrounding nations for Israel
to repel the attack with the helpof US forces. The most the ninety
nine percent of the missiles were shotdown. In the aftermath of that,
Biden has strongly warned Netan Yahoo notto respond further, not to attack Iran
(28:21):
directly, and said plainly that theUnited States will not help in any offensive
attacks against Iran. And this iscoming as Mike Johnson is announcing the intent
at least to vote on an Israelaid bill. How do we think DJ
that possible aid vote will influence netand Yahoo in at least the coming days,
(28:48):
if not longer. I don't thinkwhat happens in Congress is necessarily an
affect what bebe does. I dothink what Biden is telling him will have
some influence. I think what hewill be hearing from Riad and Aman will
have greater influence because the Saudis andthe Jordanians in particular basically stuck their necks
out when they helped knock a bunchof these missiles down. They made it
(29:12):
abundantly clear. In an Israeli aroundbattle, they made it clear which side
they were on, and the messagesthey send BB are going to be much
more important than whatever Biden sends,Be sends to BB, because Bbe already
knows what Bien's gonna say. Takethe win. You knocked out a bunch
(29:33):
of Iranian bad guys and nothing happenedexcept a poor Israeli Arab girl got hurt.
Things are cool, everything's fine here. Don't don't ruffle any feathers.
Maybe Bbe chooses to do that,maybe he chooses not to, but that's
going to be more on what hisSunni Arab allies tell him in terms of
(29:56):
what they think would happen if Israeltook this to another level or took two
different level. So I don't thinkIsrael is going to attack Iran directly.
I do think there may be somemore shots against Iranian assets in Syria because
I think because there's plausible deniability ondoing that. Yeah, it's because it's
(30:21):
not affected her on directly, andJordan and Saudi Arabia is going to go,
yeah, good job, knock outthose Syrian batties. Whether that's going
to ruffle the bi An administration ornot. I'm not really sure. I
do think this all but ensures thatthese are the idea I will go into
RAFA. I think the question isgoing to be are they going to are
(30:44):
they going to try the rubble don'tmake trouble policy which doesn't actually work,
or whether they'll try something more surgical. I don't know the answer on that
one, but to give that here'syour question. No, I don't.
I don't think the congressional vote willinfluence what Pebe does. I will say
one other thing though, the Iraniandrones and missiles that were all laughing about
because they all got shot down byUS, UK, French, Jordan and
(31:07):
Saudi air force and defenses, theyare the drone. They are the exact
things that Russia is using Tarik havocon Ukraine because Ukraine doesn't have the material
to defend itself. I think thatIsrael is still going to do what Israel
wants to do. They have amendedtheir military tactics already. I think that
(31:32):
happened a while ago. You don'thear about the bombing raids anymore that we
were hearing about back in November,December and January and I think that they're
going to do something to retaliate againstIran. I don't know how they do
it cleanly, if you know,DJ said, and I'm not saying you're
wrong, DJ, but you postulatedthat maybe or postured that maybe they're going
(31:56):
to hit an Iranian target in Syria. Well that's what started this whole thing.
So I don't know that that's necessarilythat the Uranians are gonna go.
Oh, that's just in Syria.We called their bluff. So I see
this thing as continuing. The cycleis not over yet. It feels like
we're on the brink of regional warand I don't think that serves anybody's interests.
(32:20):
Gregged, do you have thoughts?There? No thoughts, Ye trying
to stay out of it. Iwish we could all stay of it.
And what do you What do youguys think about Iran? Is are they
going to hold hold their fire ordo you think they're going to launch another
offensive? I think they're going tolaunch another offensive. It may I think,
why do you do this to me, Kevin because of Greg Junior?
(32:43):
Is this is this payback for everytime I disagreed with my father? I
mean, geez, I'm gonna callhim tomorrow and apologize wrong, tell me
what they're wrong. No, Imean I think I think. Look Iran,
something happened to Iran. It wasbad. A general died. They
felt like they had to justify somethinglike we've got to do something, let's
(33:06):
launch a bunch of missiles. Andnow they realized they do not want to
get into it with Israel or realsease. They do not want to get
into it with America. They donot want to even though Biden is that
he wouldn't. They don't want toget into it with France or UK or
Australia. They're perfectly happy just beingIran for the most part. And I
(33:28):
think that they said, hey,we pushed back, and now they are
done. As long as and nomore of their people die, as long
as no more of their generals die, as long as they're going to be
fine. They're not going to pushthis one. I see it the same
way. But I know this isthe Iranian regime is the most disruptive power
(33:52):
in the region, the most disruptivepower that has survived over the last forty
five years. They're not going tolet this one lie. This This was
an attempt to kill a bunch ofIsraelis and wound them and hurt them into
doing something that would lead to aconflagration. I think to the extent that
(34:13):
there is political division within Iran betweenthe ones who want to kill us slowly
and the ones who want to killus quickly. This barrage was a sign
that the ones who want to killus quickly are now in charge in Iran.
We have to remember that that Israelhit an Iranian consulate in Seria,
which technically is in Iranian territory.I don't know how they would respond if
(34:34):
it's a more unofficial asset, butthey retaliated against us when we took out
Solemoni in twenty twenty, and DonaldTarmp pretended that traumatic brain injuries were just
headaches, not power is going tosit back and relax. I just don't
see that happening. And I'm pickingon you in good fun, Greg in
(35:00):
good fun. But I got tosay the line, Iran's just happy being
Iran. Well, right, Iranis happy being Iran. And granted they
would want the rest of us tobe a little more Iranian, they are
dicks most of the time, andIran is happy being Iran and they are
dicks in the natural state, butas long as no one is attacking them,
(35:22):
they are not going directly. Infact, they issued a statement was
it two days ago, a dayor a half ago, saying look,
we're done unless you guys attack usagain, and they're not. And nobody
also said, but if you daredto attack us again, we're going to
unleash weapons that you don't even knowwe have. It's going to be hell
on the earth. I'm sorry,Greg, I just see it. Yeah,
(35:45):
gosh, would would have been greatif we had like an agreement with
Iran to not develop weapons that we'dnever heard of. Yeah, like what
kind of an administration would work outto the kind of a nuclear arms yet,
I don't know like that would beyou know, I definitely like,
I can't imagine somebody would just tearone of those up. If you got
(36:05):
it, why would you tear itup? Proble idea. Donald Trump,
I would remind all of you thatthat was an agreement that would have done
nothing to reduce a number of ballisticmissiles that were just thrown at Israel.
It would do nothing to reduce Iran'sfun with Hesbalah and Hamas and Syria now
(36:28):
Donald, but it would have increasedit would be visibility that the West had
into Iran, and that could havechanged the trajectory of something. So you
know, it's it's no, itwouldn't have. It didn't. It didn't
change the trajectory of any of thosethings between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen.
Now, Trump walking away from theagreement without our allies was politically stupid.
(36:49):
Yes, that's true. But theagreement itself, which by the way,
would have expired by now, isnot the panacea that that that Democrat let's
say it is. I know whyyou want to beat up Trump from walking
away from it. It was astupid thing to do without our allies.
But the idea that that agreement itselfsomehow meant that Iran was going to behave
itself in all geopolitical facets, nothingcould be further from the truth. I'm
(37:13):
sorry. Well, all right,well we are all second guessing foreign policy.
I think it's time to move onto an area where we might actually
be able to sound like we're smart. In to a segment we're calling are
you Smarter than a celebrity? Takenfrom apparently a new television show hosted by
Travis Kelcey called Are You Smarter Thana Celebrity? Greg pleasetill listen on this.
(37:34):
You're the one who put this onthe rundown. So supposedly it's a
it's an offshoot or spin off ofthe classic American TV show Are You Smarter
Than a Fifth Grader? And it'sgonna pit normal Americans against celebrities, I
assume. So we haven't gotten afull rundown, we haven't gotten guests,
(37:55):
so I wanted to discuss Let's thinkabout if this the four of us think
that we might be smarter than acelebrity. And I've chosen some celebrities and
we can speculate on our personal intellectualcapabilities against celebrity intelectual capabilities. And I'm
(38:20):
gonna go ahead and start with theobvious one. Since we are talking about
Travis kelce Greg Matusac, do youthink you're smarter than Taylor Swift? No,
not at all. I think she'sbrilliant. I think she sees things
like colors in sights, and sheprobably sees things physics that I don't even
understand in depths. So no,I think she's brilliant Yeah, Kevint,
(38:45):
are you smarter than Taylor Swift?I don't think I'm smarter than anybody until
they say something dumb. Once theysaid something dumb, then I think I'm
smarter them. So I have neverheard her say anything overtly dumb, so
I can't say that I'm smarter thanhim. All right, well let's mess
some of the next name on thelist, Kevin, This might actually meet
your qualification. Kevin, do youthink you're smarter than Aaron Rodgers? I've
(39:08):
never heard the man speak. I'veheard people characterize things that he said,
So until I hear him say directlyfrom his own mouth something stupid, I
don't know whether I'm smarter than himor not. Did you take ivermectin when
you had COVID? No? Idid not. Yeah, you're probably smarter
than Aaron Rodgers. Then did Ithink I think he's dumb as a board?
(39:34):
I think he's got like on hissocks. I think he's got one
that's his left and one that's hisright, and they're usually on the wrong
feet, you know, And he'slike, oh, this is a left
sock. What am I supposed todo with this? And if it's on
his hand and he does a littleYeah. I think Aaron Rodgers is just
(39:54):
honestly, and he deserves to bewhere he is. He's with the Giant,
so is he No, he's withthe Jets' course definitely deserves to be
and he definitely deserves to be there. Yeah, DJ, my next,
I'm going to give you the nextcelebrity. Do you believe, DJ that
you are smarter than William Shatner.I do think I'm smarter than William Shantner.
(40:17):
I don't think. I don't thinkI can act as well as he
can. I'm not going to saythat, and normal, under normal circumstances,
I assume that you know different peopleat different skills. They put their
brains a different uses, so Ican't automatically assume that one person is smarter
than the other. I have,however, heard William Shatner say some really
(40:38):
dumb things about the show that madehim famous, about how Star Trek used
to not be political and it wasabout utopia. I know I know I'm
smarter than William Shanner because I knowthat Star Trek was political from watching it
(40:58):
and knowing what the nineteen sixties was. Kevin, what do you want to
ask. I just want to say, no matter which celebrity you name,
I'm going to say, I thinkDJ is smarter than all of these celebrities.
So that's a different game show.But I think DJ is smarter than
pretty much all of them. ButI do have a serious question for you
guys, and we could continue this. This is a fun little segment,
(41:21):
but I just have a question foryou without saying the number. If you
know the number, please do notreveal it. But I wonder do any
of you or all of you knowyour IQ. I know roughly, I
don't think. I don't think I'veever been tested, or if I have,
I haven't seen results. I knowit roughly as far as I'll go.
Yeah. So when I was aboutfifteen years ago, my brother and
(41:45):
I went to our elementary school.We used the I think it was the
Freedom of Information Act or something likethat to get to look at our school
records, and I saw my IQtest score, so I know mine.
Yeah. Yeah, when I wasshould get William Shatner to do that and
you guys can compare. Yeah,when I was twenty two, I was
writing a paper for a graduate schoolabout test scores. Testing. This is
(42:08):
the week four and I went backto my school and I said I'd like
my records and they were like,no, we can't let you have that.
And I was like, I'm prettysure you can. It was awesome,
but yeah, it's the same thing. I saw my test scores,
so I have an idea. Buthow much credence did I put in public
(42:29):
school testing and things like that.I do want to say this. I'm
not going to mention with the number, and I'm not going to say which
brother, but mine was higher thanmy brothers. And it has been a
point of contention between well, we'removed on by celebrity list. Do you
(42:50):
think you're smarter than I Lean Canon? Yes, yes, we might be
better judges than I Lean Cannon,and then we'd be better at practicing law
than Nileen Cannon. All right,the next one, this is a courtesy
of my son. This was hissuggestion. Greg will give this one to
you. You are you, GregMatuzac, smarter than j Low? I
(43:15):
don't know. Let me think aboutthat. Jenny from the block, Jenny
from the block. Don't don't bewhat is it? Don't be shocked by
the rocks that I got. Don'tbe fooled by the Rocks got because she's
still Jenny from the Block. Yeah, you know, there's that whole thing
like, oh, you know,I got street smarts. But people who
say they have street smarts just meansthey're dumb. That's that's all. That's
(43:37):
all that is. Yeah, you'reyou're you're a bad test taker and yeah,
you never finished college, says that. Yeah, yeah, but okay,
but let's look at Jay Low.She's she's been around since the nineties
when she was a flaggirl on inLiving Color. Yeah, she Jlo like
Madonna before her Lady gagas a littlebit the same way they have sold us
(43:59):
a product we did not need andwe brought it for decades on end.
And you can't do that if youdon't have some basic smarts. Now,
I will put an ask risk byj Low because she took Ben Affleck back
and that's question judgment, But it'sjudgment that's not smart, that's true.
Yeah, I'm gonna give her thebenefit of the doubt. I think she
(44:21):
is probably smarter than me, Andmaybe that's a low self esteem on my
part, but yeah, I'm gonnasay she's smarter than me. Yeah,
and Ben affleck has has two oscars, so that's not too bad. So
thank you all for listening again.If you enjoy what we do here,
please follow us on Instagram at MPUfan Club. Don't forget to share our
podcast link on your social media feedsso your friends can discover us as well.
(44:45):
And as always, thank you toAlan Kenny for composing and playing our
theme music. And as we headinto the second half of jury's selection,
Greg, what flavor notch will yoube eating as they try and round it
all the way up to twelve?I was going to do it like a
(45:07):
twelve spice. Hold on, whatabout a twelve layer dip? Oh?
A twelve layer dip? But youknow, I just going back to the
j LO thing. Do you knowhow many different fragrances she has? I
don't. She has beauty, shehas lost beast, she has promise,
she has glow, she has stillmight I heumbly submit that for this trial,
(45:30):
you appathezets or snack of choice shouldnot be nachos, but rather stuff
mushrooms. Oh that was the worstdouble on tundra because I and I think
Stormy would say no, nothing wasstuff. He included tens of
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