June 3, 2024 • 44 mins
Rebekah, DJ and Kevin discuss their reactions to the Trump felony convictions, how they think the verdict will impact the rest of the presidential campaign, and take a look at Biden's new Gaza cease-fire proposal and the chances for a lasting peace in the Middle East.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:15):
Welcome to the More Perfect Union,the podcast that offers real debate without the
hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeider Gleeful inKensington, Maryland, and I am pleased
to share the mic this evening withDJ maguire that's right, who is celebrating
the ultimate confirmation of rule thirty fourand Kevin Calton and I'm still on a
(00:40):
verdict high. I gotta admit it. As Kevin said, we are all
at a verdict high here, regardlessof how pornographic we could make it.
Donald Trump has been convicted on thirtyfour counts. The jury in New York
came to the same conclusion as ourmock jury last week. Was that only
last week? That's wild? Yeah, that the prosecutor made their case and
the defense did not present reasonable doubt. Let's go back and relive the moment.
(01:07):
Kevin, where were you when theverdict came down? When you got
the alert that the jury had averdict? I was laying down from my
afternoon kind of rest slash snap whichnever happened. In a few minutes after
it was announced that a verdict wascoming, I moved to the living room,
just joined me on the couch.We watched it. You know,
it was very reminiscent for me ofa couple of other trials that had big
(01:30):
moments like that, of course,the OJ Simpson criminal trial. Much more
recently the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, andthose of course ended in decisions that I
found disappointing. This was I mean, I started to expect it when the
experts started to say a guilty verdict, especially when they said they needed thirty
minutes to fill out the forms.Nonetheless, it hit home in my heart.
(01:55):
What about you DJ I was ina hotel room in Charlotte for then
Caroline Is Convention, and it wasIt was affirming, and not just because
I predicted it, And it willbe clarifying because we are now we're not
(02:16):
just talking about somebody who is asleez. Donald Trump is a convicted felon,
and he will likely be a convictedfelon on appeal all the way through
election day because it doesn't want togo to jail. And now we will
know how many of the American peopleare so alienated, are so angry,
(02:40):
and are frankly so willing to destroythe American experiment that they're willing to vote
for a convicted felon. Going backto the moment it happened, I was,
I was in my car and Iwas a racing home to try and
try and get there before the verdictactually came in because I couldn't read it
while I was in my car.But just before I got the alert,
(03:01):
I had been saying, this ismaking me nervous that they haven't asked you
any questions all day. They've justbeen in there deliberating with no contact with
the outside, and that that wasmaking me nervous. So I was,
I was very grateful to have myfears put to rest in that particular way.
But DJ, you bring up somethinginteresting about how he has now irrefutably
(03:23):
been found guilty of multiple felonies.Well, some people are refuting it,
but I agree with it. Yeah, Well they could refuted all they want.
They're they're slightly ridiculous, and that'syou know, but it's happening all
over the place. We've got theclown Caucus segment of the GOP on all
(03:44):
the conservative cable outlets and sending outthese fundraising emails saying that it's a rig
jury Banana Republic, which hunt kangaroocourt rule of law is Dad, Marjorie
Taylor Green is doing things? Howis that going to play in Peoria?
You know, what do you thinkthat is? What's the resonance of that
(04:04):
likely to be? Kevin? Doyou have a sense of that? I
do. Well. First of all, let me just mention the various cable
networks. You know, I've spokenabout this a few times. I try
to watch all three, especially inmoments like this, to get across reference
of who's saying what and how they'recovering it. It was shocking to me
in the moments in the hour afterthis happened, how emotional the Fox pundits
(04:31):
were. I mean, they reallythought that this guy was getting off and
they were really shaken. It toldme that they have bought into their own
misinformation to the point where they haddiluted themselves. You know, we've been
living for years and years with thisfalse equivalency of MSNBC is the Fox News
(04:54):
of the left. And in theparticular case of this this trial, there
were a lot of people who weresaying they thought that the prosecution had made
a good case, They thought thatthe evidence was there, they thought there
was a chance of a guilty verdict. But there were a lot of people,
even on MSNBC, who said theopposite, who thought that the case
(05:15):
was was thin, that the defensehad made some good points, that the
prosecution maybe hadn't tied up all ofthe legal buttons, And you could in
any given hour here one or morepeople say more than once that there was
a very good chance of at leasta hung jury, if not an acquittal.
(05:38):
You never ever heard anything like thaton Fox. Not for a nanosecond
do they entertain the possibility that theremight be a conviction, and it might
be a righteous conviction. And Ithink that that little microcosm of media coverage
is very telling about this false equivalencybetween the so called left media and right
(06:01):
media. But I do want tosay something about the ability of for lack
of menature, the truth to cutthrough various media media EcoSpheres. I think
somebody put out a little survey ofwhat each jurors, what each juror said
(06:24):
was their primary sources of news.One of the jurors have their primary sources
of news as truth, social andX and nothing else. And they also
voted yes what Twitter used to be, and that jur they voted to convict.
It is a reminder that itself's asmall microcosm of what we've and we
(06:45):
see it in polling. I've talkedabout it for months. The more people,
the more people become aware of DonaldTrump, the more people become aware
of who he is and what hedoes, the more they recoil from him.
Biden is doing better among likely voters, and he's doing among registered voters,
and he's doing better among registered votersthan he's doing among adults. The
(07:06):
more informed voters are, the betterJoe Biden does. That means that the
going forward, that educating voters andinforming voters is the most important thing that
all of us can do. BecauseAlvin Bragg was no part of the Biden
campaign as much as the Trump peoplewould like to think otherwise, and he
(07:28):
may have done more to inform thepublic about who Donald Trump really is than
anything from the from the Biden Fromthe two Biden campaigns and the Clinton campaign
put together, the right, aswe all know, immediately went into offensive
attack mode about this verdict. Ibelieve that the explosive reaction that we've seen
(07:50):
is because they know how damaging thiswill be to his campaign. There is
no political universe. We're being convictedof a felony or thirty four felony charges
enhances your standing in the polls,That just doesn't happen. Now. They're
putting this out to give some heartto their base and to try to fool
(08:16):
some of the people in the middleto think that that's happening. But it
won't. And I'm sure that youguys will agree with me. Whatever the
reverberations of this verdict are into theelection, and the ultimate results of the
election, whatever those reverberations are,will not be known in a week or
(08:37):
a month. It is going tohave to play out through the summer and
probably right up until election day.We don't know what it's going to be
like when the Democrats, whether it'sthe Biden campaign or super PACs, are
filling the airwaves with commercials that areexploiting this issue that Donald Trump is a
convicted felon. So the polls rightnow look like the potential impact can be
(09:03):
significant to the detriment of Trump,but I would say give it time.
On some level, it may getbaked in and some people may turn a
blind side to it. But Ithink the potency of this particular issue is
going to only increase as we getinto the general election. Another thing that
is going to come up, probablyin the next two to three weeks,
(09:26):
is the decision on immunity out ofthe Supreme Court, and that will kickstart
a process in DC. What thatprocess is remains to be seen. It
might be remanded and they have tostart reviewing particular charges a little more closely,
or the trial will will start progressingin Judge Chuckkins Court. So there
is about to be another criminal proceedingregarding this same defendant, which means I
(09:52):
get another courtroom couture opportunity. OnTwitter, I had to come to a
conclusion until we wait for the sentencingtrial, you know. I want to
speak to that because I agree withyou, Rebecca. And for weeks and
weeks and weeks now, pundits ontelevision have been saying it's highly unlikely that
any of the other cases are goingto go to trial before the election.
(10:16):
That may be true. Down inFlorida with canon, I still have hopes
that some progress can be made there, But depending on what the Supreme Court
comes back with and how expansive ornarrow their ruling is on presidential immunity,
I've seen no reason why that casecannot go to trial in the late summer
or the fall. Now, wemay not get through the case before the
(10:39):
election, but a lot of theprosecution side of the case can be presented
in court and to the American peoplebefore the election. Do you guys have
any predictions for what Mershan is goingto do in terms of a sentence.
I do. I think he's goingto to split the baby here. And
(11:01):
the way I think he splits thebaby is he does sentence Trump to jail,
but he allows Trump to remain outon bail while he appeals. I
think it's the best way towards acompromise. And Judge Murchhon has made it
very clear that he is trying tocome up with acceptable compromises every single time
he has to make a ruling oneway or the other. Kevin, what
(11:24):
do you think is going to happenwith a sentence? I honestly can't even
guess because Mrshon is in a really, very very difficult situation because what DJ
is proposing, which seems like avery rational way to approach, it gives
Trump the opportunity to campaign on ifyou want to keep me out of jail,
(11:46):
you have to go out and votefor me. I will be in
jail on November fifteenth unless you goout and vote for me. And I
don't think Mrshon wants to give himthat to run on well my prediction,
I actually do think. I thinkhe will come up with a number of
less than a year that would bea jail term, but he will suspend
jail time with very clear probationary rules. So it's not on him whether or
(12:16):
not Trump is going to jail atany given moment. It's on Trump.
So if you refrain from ABC andD, you can remain out and just
meeting with your probation officer, howeveroften you have to. But if you
do any of these things, youwill be remanded into custody. So it
(12:37):
then becomes Trump's decision through his behavior, whether or not he goes to jail.
I think that is one way ofdoing it, Like I'm following the
law. I don't want to putyou in jail, but if you do
these things. And the other thingto remember is some of the pre sentencing
recommendations that will come out of theParole Board are based on Trump's history and
(12:58):
questions of of is this a patternof behavior has he shown any remorse,
and is he likely to commit thesame crimes again? And the answer is
yeah, he is. He islikely to commit not these exact crimes because
Stormy Daniels isn't going to fall forthat twice, but he will cheat in
an election again. He did itin twenty sixteen, he tried to do
(13:22):
it in twenty twenty. There isno reason to think that he has reformed
his behavior in twenty twenty four.So that's why I think there is the
potential for some sort of custodial sentence. But I do think that Mershawn would
be wise to make romant to prisonbe something that is contingent upon Trump's behavior
(13:43):
post sentencing. But I also thinkthere's a possibility that we'll all get suspended
while everything goes through the appeals process, which I don't understand and I can't
explain because I'm not a lawyer,and now I kind of wish I had
going to law school. It wouldhave made these conversations a lot easier.
I want to talk about another thingthat's come up a lot, especially during
the last couple of days, althoughit's been floated on the right all during
(14:07):
the trial, which is the termit's a political prosecution, And this is
one of the talking points that youhear over and over again. And my
response to that is, of course, it was a political prosecution. He's
the world's most famous politician. Thecrimes he committed, the crimes he was
charged for were political crimes. Hedid them for political reasons, but it
(14:33):
was also based on illegal acts andthe laws of New York. So the
idea that it's a political prosecution,well, you know, Robert Menendez and
Henry Quaar are going in front ofjuris. I think Menendez is already there,
Quay are very soon. Those arepolitical prosecutions, but they're also righteous
prosecutions. Hunter Biden is going infront of a judge and picking a jury
(15:00):
this week in his federal gun charges. That's a political prosecution too, which
the president's son. So this ideathat the Trump verdict is somehow negated or
doesn't count because it was a politicalprosecution is again, it's just word salad.
(15:22):
It means nothing. Rob Blagoyevitch wasa political Rod Blagoyevitch, of course,
Jim trafficking political prosecution. Elliot Spitzer, Well, Elliot Spitzer. I
believe cop de pleat, But AnthonyWeiner was a political prosecution. And I
also think, you know, wetalked a bit about the political implications,
(15:43):
but I do want to get backto that. There is now a I
would call him, relatively prominent Republican, John Bolton, who's calling for Donald
Trump to drop out the party cannotrun a convicted felon. For months,
it was about whispers and the DemocratParty meant whether Joe Biden should continue.
Those are all silent, and nowwe have whispers within the Republican Party,
(16:06):
not whispers, just out and outarguments within the party about whether Donald Trump
should continue. So there already arepolitical implications. There already are people who
would not and probably probably still donot see themselves as Biden supporters saying wait
a minute, this is not agood idea. And John Bolton is somebody
(16:26):
we should listen to in these circumstances, because not only is he fully aware
of what being a criminal means,he also knows Donald Trump is dangerous and
bad at presdenting right. He's beenvery forthright about that. His timing was
not what I would have wanted itto be, but he's he's never minced
words on this and he was there. He was present. You know,
(16:47):
another thing that I think is veryinteresting is that Trump was done in.
We talked about the media echo chambera little earlier. Trump was done in
by his own media echo chamber.And here's what I mean. This Robert
Costello who ended up becoming the defensesone of the defense's to witnesses and imploded
on the stand. He was createdon Fox News and by Jim Jordan when
(17:11):
they both hyped him as the silverbullet that was going to take Michael Cohen
down. Jordan had him in frontof his subcommittee and he said a lot
of shit about Michael Cohen. Thenthey brought him on Fox News a couple
of nights before he was called totestify, and he said the same things.
(17:32):
And everyone on Fox News, includingthe lawyers on Fox News, were
hyping this guy as he is good, it's gonna be so great when he
takes a stand, and he's goingto destroy Michael Cohen. And I believe
Trump convinced his attorneys to call thisguy they probably weren't going to put on
(17:52):
a defense. I believe that amongthe bad decisions or the bad advice that
he gave his legal team was tocall because he saw this guy on Fox
News and he thought, ah,yeah, there's my guy, my witness,
that's who I want. They puthim on the stand, he imploded.
He actually made Michael Cowen look morelegitimate and more trustworthy. And I
(18:15):
think that that's one of a bigreason why Donald Trump now finds himself a
convicted felon. He was. Hewas effectively a mob lawyer for Trump,
and that's how he came across.He he came across as as a Bruce
Cottler. Anybody remember him, No, John Gotty's lawyer. Oh well,
(18:37):
yeah, I never had called tohire that guy, John Gotti, and
I never shared a lawyer. Soyeah, So Bruce Cutler, he essentially
made he he made himself a celebritybecause he was He was John gottisfense lawyer.
He kept winning the cases. Wenow know that they were underhanded,
the understand deals involved and don't sayyeah and and he and he dressed the
(19:00):
mob lawyer part. And ever sinceGotti's conviction in nineteen ninety one, mob
lawyers lose in New York. Thiscase was lost because of Donald J.
Trump, not just because he committedthe crimes, but because of the lying
(19:21):
defense that he has put up sincethe Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougall's stories first
broke in twenty sixteen. You know, we talked about this on the podcast
before. In his opening statement,Todd Blanche told the jury that Donald Trump
denies having ever slept with Stormy Daniels. I don't think he used those words,
(19:45):
but they put forward the defense thatit didn't even happen. I have
to believe there was no one onthat jury that bought that argument. Likewise,
they tried to portray Michael Cohen notjust a as a serial liar,
but they tried to convince them thathe had lied in front of them on
the witness stand over that ninety sixsecond phone call. We referred back to
(20:10):
last week's show where we did amock jury, but as you guys will
remember, the week before that,we also re enacted that phone call to
prove that it could happen well withinninety six seconds, and Joshua Steinlass did
so in the actual closing argument,and he was faster than we were.
It took us over a minute toget to that to get the conversation completed.
(20:33):
He did it in forty nine seconds. And this is something you won't
hear me say very often. Thatattorney wrote a better script than I did.
His script was much better than that. It was much more believable.
Well, he had a writing teamhelping him, I'm certain. Yeah.
But when he did that during theprosecution's closing statement, the jury went into
(20:59):
the the jury room thinking, yes, there was a liar in this case,
but it wasn't Michael Cohen. Itwas the defense. They lied to
us throughout the trial. And Ibelieve if we ever do hear from the
jurors, and I hope we don'tbecause I think it's unsafe for them,
and there's some other reasons why Ithink it would be not beneficial to hear
(21:22):
from them. But if one ormore of them do come forward and start
giving interviews, I'll bet you thatpart of what they say happened to the
jury room was that they totally dismissedthe arguments being made by the defense.
Well, one of the things thatwas said in closing, and I think
I sent you guys the screenshot ofit, was Steinlass noted that the affairs
(21:44):
happened in two thousand and six.The payoffs happened in twenty sixteen, and
there is really no way to saythat that was about Trump's family, at
which point the three of his childrenwho were in the room all looked up
from their phones at the lawyers,and the jury must have noticed that.
(22:08):
Yeah. And also it's just it'sso illogical. Everybody in the world.
Again, the jurors might have beenreading True Social or the New York Times,
some watched MSNBCCNN, whatever, Butthere's no one with an IQ above
ninety five in this country that doesn'thave some formulated opinion about Donald Trump.
And it's been said since he becamepresident and even before that, that he
(22:33):
lies every day. Maybe there arepeople that will say that's not true,
but it's a fact. And theidea that this guy, who we know
to be very, very frugal,would pay close to or actually over half
a million dollars two women that heclaims he barely knew, just because they
(22:56):
were shaking him down never made anysense. And so again, the defense,
it wasn't the prosecution that beat them. The defense beat themselves. Yep.
They did not offer reasonable doubt.No, they didn't, you know.
And part of it was because therewere there were pieces of paper that
(23:18):
detailed what was going on and thesequence of events happened the way the prosecution
said they happened, And they haddocumentary evidence, not people's memories, not
people's interpretations of conversations, pieces ofpaper with handwriting and printed notations on them
(23:40):
that demonstrated these events happened on thistimeline, and there was no way to
refute that. Yeah, why isit that every cable news outlet since Thursday
has been asking how the Biden campaignis going to react to the verdict,
but no one asks how the Trumpcampaign is going to react to the verdict.
(24:02):
It's his bad news. We've seenhow the Trump campaign reacted to it.
They set fundraising emails, they hadthose emails ready to go. They
were first of all, I'm notlet me just say something. I don't
believe that they've raised all the moneythat they claimed they raised. I don't
think it's physically possible to have raisedfifty four million dollars in twenty four hours
(24:23):
when both of your donation sites crashedfor hours on end. So let's wait
until the numbers come in for thequarter to see how accurate those claims are.
Wait, you're saying Donald Trump liedabout the size of something. Yes.
The reason they don't have to askhow the Trump campaign will respond is
because Trump himself did respond in thatrambling whatever the hell it was. The
(24:47):
next morning, nobody has to askhow will the Trump campaign respond? We
all know the Trump can base.The Trump campaign basically is what Donald Trump
says. It is. If hesays something, that's it. Nobody really
has to go around asking what thecampaign thinks. And the reason people wondered
about the Biden campaign is that becausethis does have a political impact, how
do the people who are in theart of politics, how do they react
(25:11):
to it? The Trump campaign,Donald Trump went out and said whatever he
said. The Biden campaign, well, yes, Joe Biden spoke, but
he is president. He spoke froma position as president, not necessarily as
a presidential candidate. There's a bitof a gray area there. I'm not
really upset at the media for thatkind of thing, because this is,
on top of everything else, itis also a political story with impact that
we are seeing even now and evenwithin minutes of the verdict being read.
(25:37):
I'm interested to see how what Bidenwill say about it during the first debate,
because that'll be like putting a safetypin on Donald Trump's seat. You
know, he could potentially get waydeep under Trump's skin with a well placed
remark. And Biden actually does havethe wit and timing to land a well
placed remark, So that could bepotentially be very, very fun, and
(26:00):
it will be one of the firstquestions from the you know, the journalists
there, so Trump is going tohave to deal with it from them and
then from Biden. You're right,how can you do your job when nobody
can in the world can trust youbecause you're completely full of SHITJJ just mentioned
the impact and one other thought thatI want to throw out. I know
I'm kind of hogging the mic here, and I apologize again again. A
(26:23):
lot of people are wondering, well, what will Trump voters do, What
will independence and disaffected Nikky Hally styleTrump voters do based on this verdict and
based on him now being a convictedfelon. Again, what I don't think
has been said, but I thinkis just as important is we talked at
(26:44):
the top of this about how wefelt when we first heard the verdict.
You know, a lot of ushave been getting very disheartened as this campaign
has progressed, and as you guysknow, I have my deep, deep
fears about where this campaign is going. I feel a little bit more comfortable
about it this week than I didlast week. I think this verdict energized
(27:07):
the Democratic base. I think alot of people like us are going to
have renewed hope that Biden is goingto be able to right the ship of
his campaign and use this as acudgel to make up some ground on Donald
Trump. So the impact of thisverdict is not just on Trump losing votes,
(27:27):
but solidifying the Democratic base. AndI don't think we should underestimate how
important a psychological win was on thisdate, going into the summer, going
into the conventions, going into thefirst debate. So Israel continues to make
(27:51):
itself the future of foreign policy byrejecting, without rejecting, Biden's latest ceasefire
proposal that Yah who is pushing backon it is what I read today,
and Hamas is, I don't knowwhat the hell they're doing eating popcorn and
laughing at us. I think,so this continues to be an issue that
we have to think about, thisongoing war. That isn't our fault.
(28:18):
We didn't do this, We're notamas. What's the latest time, Like,
you know, is there a volcanobeybing net Ya who could just fall
into conveniently do jay? I amnot aware of volcanoes that are involved here,
shoot because that would solve everything.From what I've heard is these Yeah,
the Israeli government has that they havelargely agreed, they've not specifically agreed.
(28:45):
But I think the actual reason thiscame out was because the last time
they were negotiations, the Egyptians rewrotethe terms before they gave them to a
moss So what Ama said, yes, we accept the deal. Everyone at
first thought they accepted the deal thatIsrael, that Israel had agreed to,
and then we looked at and thenwe realized, oh wait, the Egyptians
changed the script. I think thisis a way to prevent Egypt from changing
the script on everybody. Why didthat? Doesn't that's a really dumb idea.
(29:10):
Why did they do that? Ithink the I think the real reason
was everyone wanted to say that bothsides agreed to a deal and the assumption
was that they would work out thediscrepancies later after they had been boxed in.
The reality is neither of them feltboxed in, so they just walked
away. I think it was anexperiment that failed, and I think the
(29:32):
I think the Egyptians were willing totake the hit and get thrown under the
bus for it, you know,so long as nobody made a very big
deal about it, and really nobodydid. There was some there were some
whispers to the Washington Post, leaksto maybe an international paper or something.
I think Biden was basically saying,Okay, we're not going to try that
this time, and if anybody elsethinks they can try it again, it's
(29:52):
not going to happen. And sothat's why he publicly said these are the
terms that we want to see ifAmas accept, and well, we'll see
what they do. I don't knowwhat they'll do. Well, I kind
of know what they'll do within away. Actually, in Biden's speech,
he was very explicit that there arestill a lot of details to be worked
out. So it's not like thisis buttoned down, okay, but it
(30:18):
was. It's an agreement in principle. It's not an agreement in principle,
it's an offer in principle. Noone has agreed to it. I don't
know what you guys have heard,but the articles that i've read today tell
me that there are at least twofar right wing people in the War Council
that have threatened to leave the governmentand let it collapse if net Yahoo accepts
(30:41):
the terms of this proposed agreement.Here's what I think the reality is.
Net Yahoo is playing a different gamethan Joe Biden, as he should be
because it's his war and it's hiscountry, and whether we like it or
not, he does not dance tothe music that Joe Biden playsho who is
going to keep this war going?Because one, his countrymen want it to
(31:06):
keep going. They want to defeatHamas. They do not want a ceasefire
that leaves Hamas in place. Two, it is to his advantage to keep
the war going past the election becausehe's hoping Donald Trump will get elected because
Donald Trump is more right wing andpro Israel defense than they perceive Joe Biden
(31:29):
to be. Whether that's true ornot. So whatever it is that Joe
Biden laid out, by the way, I thought it was a wonderful speech
that he made. He was astatesman and he's doing everything he can to
bring this conflict to some type ofa resolution. But as powerful as the
United States is and as much politicalclout as the President of the United States
(31:51):
has, you cannot stop two independentfactions that are five thousand miles away from
you from worrying if they want tocontinue worrying. Neither of them want a
truce, as much as Hamas mightpretend they want, when they don't.
Israel is not ready for a truce. It is to Benjamin Netanyah, who's
(32:14):
political and he believes the security ofhis nation's advantage to continue to prosecute the
war. There will be no ceasefirein the short term. And there are
a lot of people still believing JoeBiden for those facts, and that well,
because they don't understand the world.No, they don't understand the war
(32:35):
they want. It's another situation wherepeople are giving the American president mystical power
no American president has ever had.I saw somebody, I think it was
Tim Scott or some one of thosepeople say he could pick up the phone
and end this in a minute.That is not true. It's ridiculous.
The idea that he can tell BenjaminNetanyah, who End the War Council or
(32:59):
whatever they call it, of Israelto stop the war over some threat that
we're going to pull fore and aid. Israel is one of the not just
militarily but economically, one of thestrongest countries in the world. They're going
to do what's in their best interest. They're not going to bow to the
United States just because we've threatened them. And the United States cannot withdraw support
(33:22):
from Israel, and neither can Europe. And it's not about Zionism. It's
not about support for netanyahuo versus hatingHamas. It is about their location in
the world. It is a geopoliticalmatter, that's correct. It is about
the fact that they are the onlystrong Western style democracy in that region,
(33:45):
and we need them to remain thereand to be our alley. We also
need them to balance out Iran,which is even about center. But we
also need control of that airspace andcontrol of those shipping lands. Yes,
yes, because to hand that overto Iran and to the domino effect that
(34:05):
would happened with Egypt and Jordan fallinginto line with what Iran wants would be
a global catastrophe in terms of economicand commerce. It's you know, it's
like it is that simple and pragmatic. We need that airspace, we need
those shipping lanes. Israel is theonly government there that will guarantee our access
(34:28):
to them. Yeah, we'd beback in nineteen fifty six. Correct.
And the other thing. And wehave to remember, although we saw in
April and early May protests at variouscollege campuses, we really didn't see it
in a lot of Arab capitals.I remember during previous Palestinian revolts, not
(34:50):
that this was that during the duringyou know, the the Arab Spring,
not just the Arab Spring. WhenI'm thinking the Palestinian protests nineteen eighty eight,
which they call the first into Fada, which is basically bunch of kids
throwing rocks, and the second Intefada, which was which was much more violent.
The kids had grown up and gottensomething better than rocks. Yes,
(35:10):
basically the Arab governments either allowed orforced their people to take to take the
streets in support of Palestine and Palestinians. We really haven't seen that this time.
(35:30):
There's no talk from Jordan about howhard it is to sit back and
watch and watch what is happening.There's some concern about civilians and yes,
but the idea that Palestine should haveits state is very different from Hamas should
be allowed to survive. And everyArab government, just about every Arab government
(35:52):
outside of Syria recognizes that if Hamassurvives, then this has been a failure.
And that is why they are notjoining much of the I think manufactured
outrage you're seeing over here. TheArab governments are not joining in on that.
The Arab governments are saying, wewant something peaceful, we want a
(36:15):
recognition of Palestine state. They're notsaying Israel needs to let Hamas survive.
The only people who are saying thatare over here. Well, and they're
also not coming together as a coalitionto broker a deal for a Palestinian state.
Well, right, I mean becausethey can't. They've never been able
to do that. They're not goingto try now. In the West,
we're looking at this as potentially awatershed moment. Arab leaders in other Arab
(36:39):
nations are not treating it as awatershed moment. No, they're not,
you know, they are not lookingat this as the window of opportunity to
create a Palestinian state, to recognizePalestinian state. And if you look at
the two if you look at thetwo places in the Middle East outside of
Israel, where voters do have asay, if only partially in Turkey and
(37:00):
Iraq. You're not saying a lotout of them either. I mean,
President Ernawan is saying ridiculous things,but voters keep voting against him in Turkey
if they ever said anything that wasn'tridiculous, right, it's his game,
Yeah, that's his game. Butbut the Turkish, the Turkish people,
if the voters, if the votethat their votes are in indication the Turkish
people are not with him. AndI think that, I think that really
(37:22):
says something about how how people inthe region look at this war. They
don't see Hamas as the good guys. They don't see Hamas as a useful
tool. They see Hamas as aproblem that needs to be eliminated, right,
They don't see Hamas as a governmentin waiting exactly. Shall we go
to something a little more up toend things on? Yes? But you
(37:46):
know, you know, as wehave just talked about things like Arab spring,
it is now hot girl summer.Kevin is in a bikini as we
record this. It's a good look. DJ is in a cute little sundrass
and I am in pajamas. Butyeah, we're coming up on summer,
which is always a great season forentertainment, you know, is when you
(38:07):
get your popcorn flicks. It's whenyou get your great beach reads. Does
anyone or you know your big summerstadium tours? Is there anything in particular
you guys are looking forward to onthe lighter side this summer. You know
that you're gonna get tickets on presale or Jess and I love going to
movies if there's a decent movie thatcomes out during the summer. We're not
into blockbuster action flicks and Marvel comickind of stuff, but if there's a
(38:31):
really good movie that comes out,we'll be there. In terms of concerts,
we've looked at one or two.Barry Manilow is coming to Austin,
is he? And I am abig Barry Manilow fan from my youth,
so I would love to see him. But it would cost us like eight
hundred to one thousand dollars to gettwo decent tickets, and that's before parking,
(38:52):
So I'm not shelling out that.Okay, So a few years ago
Barry Manilo. One of the thingshe does on cons is he will get
a local singing group to back himup for the last medley of the night,
which is copa Cabana, and youknow, a couple of other big
(39:12):
numbers and so like his people willget in touch with local choirs and singing
groups wherever he's performing. Swear toGod, one year he performed close enough
to my mom that the the rockchoir she sang with was the choir my
mother has sung back up for BarryManilow very at a casino in Connecticut.
(39:37):
So it's worth it just for thatmoment where it's, you know, local
folks that he's introducing. It's there'sa really fun show you might you might
as well splurge and do it.No, I'm not at that place in
life where I'm going to drop seveneight, nine hundred dollars on a single
evening just to see as much asI loved him in the seventies, to
(39:58):
see Barry Manilow. But we diddrop some money the last couple of weeks
on a couple of bicycles, andjust why are going to be adding bicycling
to our repertoire of outdoor activities.It's hard to do in the summer here
because it gets so darn hot.But hopefully We'll find some hours either early
morning or late evening when we canget out and ride and get some exercise
(40:21):
and some fun in that way.That'd be great. What about you,
DJ, I know you've got moreconferences coming up or conventions. I should
say, yeah, there should bethere. There's one more we're looking at
in July. There may be anotherone in August. Mainly for me,
it's going to be trying to getmusic cranked out by then, all right,
to be honest, And I'm lookingforward to Kevin Kwan, who wrote
the Crazy Rich Asians series, whichis just wonderful summer reading, like just
(40:45):
fun, great descriptions of clothes andexotic destinations and jewelry and stuff. He's
got a new book coming out calledLies and Weddings, I believe, and
I actually just ordered it, andI'm waiting for that. And you'll fine,
they parked in my patio enjoying that. Well great, I'm sure now
I'm going to find that on mydoorstep in about five days. You know
(41:09):
what, maybe I need to geta bicycle and start going biking the just
and we can. She'd love that. I would love that. It's you
know, Austin is just not closeenough to reach my bicycle from where I
live. Kevin, It's really unfairthe four of us, and Greg isn't
here tonight. We forgot to mentionthat gridh Yeah, Greg he's yeah,
he's he had a gig tonight.He's off playing music. So but we
(41:30):
have to figure out a way thefour of us could be in the same
place at the same time. Wehave to meet. We've been doing this
show, DJ and I and Greghave been doing it since twenty fifteen,
and I joined in twenty seventeen.Yeah, and we've never none of us
to my knowledge of Vegas. Baby, let's go to Vegas. Oh,
don't I wish? Don't I wishI'm more perfect cured? You just think,
(41:52):
God, could you think of fournerdier people in Las Vegas that would
be sensational? It has been anotherweek of a monumental week, actually,
and I think we're all grateful forthe rule of law. We are.
We're curious to see what the nextfew weeks hold And as always, thank
(42:13):
you for joining us for these discussions, Thank you for listening. If you
like what we do here, pleasefollow us on Instagram at MPU Fanclub.
Don't forget to share our link onwhatever social media is your favorite, and
as always, thanks to Alan Keeneyfor our great intro music. As we
(42:36):
move into the warmer weather months,what is your favorite thing to slap on
the grill? Brons Brons, Kevin, what about you? My kids are
coming out in about three weeks andwe're going to be opening up the Big
Green Egg, which I still don'tunderstand how to work it. It will
be some kind of meat product,that's all I know. Will be here.
(43:00):
He's in charge of going out buyingthe meat product and cooking it up.
And that's I don't know whether it'llbe pork belly or ribs or whatever
it is. But yep, we'llbe firing up the Big Green Egg.
You can you can smoke a brisketin those things. That's you can do
that. Let's get back to ourroots here. Yeah, And I'm just
(43:22):
you know, I'm a I'm ahot dog and hamburger kind of girl.
Nothing wrong with that, Nothing wrongwith that, you know, and maybe
some fries on the side. Sohappy summer, everybody, Happy Conviction week,
and we will see you shortly
Welcome to the More Perfect Union,the podcast that offers real debate without the
hate. I'm Rebecca Kushmeider Gleeful inKensington, Maryland, and I am pleased
to share the mic this evening withDJ maguire that's right, who is celebrating
the ultimate confirmation of rule thirty fourand Kevin Calton and I'm still on a
(00:40):
verdict high. I gotta admit it. As Kevin said, we are all
at a verdict high here, regardlessof how pornographic we could make it.
Donald Trump has been convicted on thirtyfour counts. The jury in New York
came to the same conclusion as ourmock jury last week. Was that only
last week? That's wild? Yeah, that the prosecutor made their case and
the defense did not present reasonable doubt. Let's go back and relive the moment.
(01:07):
Kevin, where were you when theverdict came down? When you got
the alert that the jury had averdict? I was laying down from my
afternoon kind of rest slash snap whichnever happened. In a few minutes after
it was announced that a verdict wascoming, I moved to the living room,
just joined me on the couch.We watched it. You know,
it was very reminiscent for me ofa couple of other trials that had big
(01:30):
moments like that, of course,the OJ Simpson criminal trial. Much more
recently the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, andthose of course ended in decisions that I
found disappointing. This was I mean, I started to expect it when the
experts started to say a guilty verdict, especially when they said they needed thirty
minutes to fill out the forms.Nonetheless, it hit home in my heart.
(01:55):
What about you DJ I was ina hotel room in Charlotte for then
Caroline Is Convention, and it wasIt was affirming, and not just because
I predicted it, And it willbe clarifying because we are now we're not
(02:16):
just talking about somebody who is asleez. Donald Trump is a convicted felon,
and he will likely be a convictedfelon on appeal all the way through
election day because it doesn't want togo to jail. And now we will
know how many of the American peopleare so alienated, are so angry,
(02:40):
and are frankly so willing to destroythe American experiment that they're willing to vote
for a convicted felon. Going backto the moment it happened, I was,
I was in my car and Iwas a racing home to try and
try and get there before the verdictactually came in because I couldn't read it
while I was in my car.But just before I got the alert,
(03:01):
I had been saying, this ismaking me nervous that they haven't asked you
any questions all day. They've justbeen in there deliberating with no contact with
the outside, and that that wasmaking me nervous. So I was,
I was very grateful to have myfears put to rest in that particular way.
But DJ, you bring up somethinginteresting about how he has now irrefutably
(03:23):
been found guilty of multiple felonies.Well, some people are refuting it,
but I agree with it. Yeah, Well they could refuted all they want.
They're they're slightly ridiculous, and that'syou know, but it's happening all
over the place. We've got theclown Caucus segment of the GOP on all
(03:44):
the conservative cable outlets and sending outthese fundraising emails saying that it's a rig
jury Banana Republic, which hunt kangaroocourt rule of law is Dad, Marjorie
Taylor Green is doing things? Howis that going to play in Peoria?
You know, what do you thinkthat is? What's the resonance of that
(04:04):
likely to be? Kevin? Doyou have a sense of that? I
do. Well. First of all, let me just mention the various cable
networks. You know, I've spokenabout this a few times. I try
to watch all three, especially inmoments like this, to get across reference
of who's saying what and how they'recovering it. It was shocking to me
in the moments in the hour afterthis happened, how emotional the Fox pundits
(04:31):
were. I mean, they reallythought that this guy was getting off and
they were really shaken. It toldme that they have bought into their own
misinformation to the point where they haddiluted themselves. You know, we've been
living for years and years with thisfalse equivalency of MSNBC is the Fox News
(04:54):
of the left. And in theparticular case of this this trial, there
were a lot of people who weresaying they thought that the prosecution had made
a good case, They thought thatthe evidence was there, they thought there
was a chance of a guilty verdict. But there were a lot of people,
even on MSNBC, who said theopposite, who thought that the case
(05:15):
was was thin, that the defensehad made some good points, that the
prosecution maybe hadn't tied up all ofthe legal buttons, And you could in
any given hour here one or morepeople say more than once that there was
a very good chance of at leasta hung jury, if not an acquittal.
(05:38):
You never ever heard anything like thaton Fox. Not for a nanosecond
do they entertain the possibility that theremight be a conviction, and it might
be a righteous conviction. And Ithink that that little microcosm of media coverage
is very telling about this false equivalencybetween the so called left media and right
(06:01):
media. But I do want tosay something about the ability of for lack
of menature, the truth to cutthrough various media media EcoSpheres. I think
somebody put out a little survey ofwhat each jurors, what each juror said
(06:24):
was their primary sources of news.One of the jurors have their primary sources
of news as truth, social andX and nothing else. And they also
voted yes what Twitter used to be, and that jur they voted to convict.
It is a reminder that itself's asmall microcosm of what we've and we
(06:45):
see it in polling. I've talkedabout it for months. The more people,
the more people become aware of DonaldTrump, the more people become aware
of who he is and what hedoes, the more they recoil from him.
Biden is doing better among likely voters, and he's doing among registered voters,
and he's doing better among registered votersthan he's doing among adults. The
(07:06):
more informed voters are, the betterJoe Biden does. That means that the
going forward, that educating voters andinforming voters is the most important thing that
all of us can do. BecauseAlvin Bragg was no part of the Biden
campaign as much as the Trump peoplewould like to think otherwise, and he
(07:28):
may have done more to inform thepublic about who Donald Trump really is than
anything from the from the Biden Fromthe two Biden campaigns and the Clinton campaign
put together, the right, aswe all know, immediately went into offensive
attack mode about this verdict. Ibelieve that the explosive reaction that we've seen
(07:50):
is because they know how damaging thiswill be to his campaign. There is
no political universe. We're being convictedof a felony or thirty four felony charges
enhances your standing in the polls,That just doesn't happen. Now. They're
putting this out to give some heartto their base and to try to fool
(08:16):
some of the people in the middleto think that that's happening. But it
won't. And I'm sure that youguys will agree with me. Whatever the
reverberations of this verdict are into theelection, and the ultimate results of the
election, whatever those reverberations are,will not be known in a week or
(08:37):
a month. It is going tohave to play out through the summer and
probably right up until election day.We don't know what it's going to be
like when the Democrats, whether it'sthe Biden campaign or super PACs, are
filling the airwaves with commercials that areexploiting this issue that Donald Trump is a
convicted felon. So the polls rightnow look like the potential impact can be
(09:03):
significant to the detriment of Trump,but I would say give it time.
On some level, it may getbaked in and some people may turn a
blind side to it. But Ithink the potency of this particular issue is
going to only increase as we getinto the general election. Another thing that
is going to come up, probablyin the next two to three weeks,
(09:26):
is the decision on immunity out ofthe Supreme Court, and that will kickstart
a process in DC. What thatprocess is remains to be seen. It
might be remanded and they have tostart reviewing particular charges a little more closely,
or the trial will will start progressingin Judge Chuckkins Court. So there
is about to be another criminal proceedingregarding this same defendant, which means I
(09:52):
get another courtroom couture opportunity. OnTwitter, I had to come to a
conclusion until we wait for the sentencingtrial, you know. I want to
speak to that because I agree withyou, Rebecca. And for weeks and
weeks and weeks now, pundits ontelevision have been saying it's highly unlikely that
any of the other cases are goingto go to trial before the election.
(10:16):
That may be true. Down inFlorida with canon, I still have hopes
that some progress can be made there, But depending on what the Supreme Court
comes back with and how expansive ornarrow their ruling is on presidential immunity,
I've seen no reason why that casecannot go to trial in the late summer
or the fall. Now, wemay not get through the case before the
(10:39):
election, but a lot of theprosecution side of the case can be presented
in court and to the American peoplebefore the election. Do you guys have
any predictions for what Mershan is goingto do in terms of a sentence.
I do. I think he's goingto to split the baby here. And
(11:01):
the way I think he splits thebaby is he does sentence Trump to jail,
but he allows Trump to remain outon bail while he appeals. I
think it's the best way towards acompromise. And Judge Murchhon has made it
very clear that he is trying tocome up with acceptable compromises every single time
he has to make a ruling oneway or the other. Kevin, what
(11:24):
do you think is going to happenwith a sentence? I honestly can't even
guess because Mrshon is in a really, very very difficult situation because what DJ
is proposing, which seems like avery rational way to approach, it gives
Trump the opportunity to campaign on ifyou want to keep me out of jail,
(11:46):
you have to go out and votefor me. I will be in
jail on November fifteenth unless you goout and vote for me. And I
don't think Mrshon wants to give himthat to run on well my prediction,
I actually do think. I thinkhe will come up with a number of
less than a year that would bea jail term, but he will suspend
jail time with very clear probationary rules. So it's not on him whether or
(12:16):
not Trump is going to jail atany given moment. It's on Trump.
So if you refrain from ABC andD, you can remain out and just
meeting with your probation officer, howeveroften you have to. But if you
do any of these things, youwill be remanded into custody. So it
(12:37):
then becomes Trump's decision through his behavior, whether or not he goes to jail.
I think that is one way ofdoing it, Like I'm following the
law. I don't want to putyou in jail, but if you do
these things. And the other thingto remember is some of the pre sentencing
recommendations that will come out of theParole Board are based on Trump's history and
(12:58):
questions of of is this a patternof behavior has he shown any remorse,
and is he likely to commit thesame crimes again? And the answer is
yeah, he is. He islikely to commit not these exact crimes because
Stormy Daniels isn't going to fall forthat twice, but he will cheat in
an election again. He did itin twenty sixteen, he tried to do
(13:22):
it in twenty twenty. There isno reason to think that he has reformed
his behavior in twenty twenty four.So that's why I think there is the
potential for some sort of custodial sentence. But I do think that Mershawn would
be wise to make romant to prisonbe something that is contingent upon Trump's behavior
(13:43):
post sentencing. But I also thinkthere's a possibility that we'll all get suspended
while everything goes through the appeals process, which I don't understand and I can't
explain because I'm not a lawyer,and now I kind of wish I had
going to law school. It wouldhave made these conversations a lot easier.
I want to talk about another thingthat's come up a lot, especially during
the last couple of days, althoughit's been floated on the right all during
(14:07):
the trial, which is the termit's a political prosecution, And this is
one of the talking points that youhear over and over again. And my
response to that is, of course, it was a political prosecution. He's
the world's most famous politician. Thecrimes he committed, the crimes he was
charged for were political crimes. Hedid them for political reasons, but it
(14:33):
was also based on illegal acts andthe laws of New York. So the
idea that it's a political prosecution,well, you know, Robert Menendez and
Henry Quaar are going in front ofjuris. I think Menendez is already there,
Quay are very soon. Those arepolitical prosecutions, but they're also righteous
prosecutions. Hunter Biden is going infront of a judge and picking a jury
(15:00):
this week in his federal gun charges. That's a political prosecution too, which
the president's son. So this ideathat the Trump verdict is somehow negated or
doesn't count because it was a politicalprosecution is again, it's just word salad.
(15:22):
It means nothing. Rob Blagoyevitch wasa political Rod Blagoyevitch, of course,
Jim trafficking political prosecution. Elliot Spitzer, Well, Elliot Spitzer. I
believe cop de pleat, But AnthonyWeiner was a political prosecution. And I
also think, you know, wetalked a bit about the political implications,
(15:43):
but I do want to get backto that. There is now a I
would call him, relatively prominent Republican, John Bolton, who's calling for Donald
Trump to drop out the party cannotrun a convicted felon. For months,
it was about whispers and the DemocratParty meant whether Joe Biden should continue.
Those are all silent, and nowwe have whispers within the Republican Party,
(16:06):
not whispers, just out and outarguments within the party about whether Donald Trump
should continue. So there already arepolitical implications. There already are people who
would not and probably probably still donot see themselves as Biden supporters saying wait
a minute, this is not agood idea. And John Bolton is somebody
(16:26):
we should listen to in these circumstances, because not only is he fully aware
of what being a criminal means,he also knows Donald Trump is dangerous and
bad at presdenting right. He's beenvery forthright about that. His timing was
not what I would have wanted itto be, but he's he's never minced
words on this and he was there. He was present. You know,
(16:47):
another thing that I think is veryinteresting is that Trump was done in.
We talked about the media echo chambera little earlier. Trump was done in
by his own media echo chamber.And here's what I mean. This Robert
Costello who ended up becoming the defensesone of the defense's to witnesses and imploded
on the stand. He was createdon Fox News and by Jim Jordan when
(17:11):
they both hyped him as the silverbullet that was going to take Michael Cohen
down. Jordan had him in frontof his subcommittee and he said a lot
of shit about Michael Cohen. Thenthey brought him on Fox News a couple
of nights before he was called totestify, and he said the same things.
(17:32):
And everyone on Fox News, includingthe lawyers on Fox News, were
hyping this guy as he is good, it's gonna be so great when he
takes a stand, and he's goingto destroy Michael Cohen. And I believe
Trump convinced his attorneys to call thisguy they probably weren't going to put on
(17:52):
a defense. I believe that amongthe bad decisions or the bad advice that
he gave his legal team was tocall because he saw this guy on Fox
News and he thought, ah,yeah, there's my guy, my witness,
that's who I want. They puthim on the stand, he imploded.
He actually made Michael Cowen look morelegitimate and more trustworthy. And I
(18:15):
think that that's one of a bigreason why Donald Trump now finds himself a
convicted felon. He was. Hewas effectively a mob lawyer for Trump,
and that's how he came across.He he came across as as a Bruce
Cottler. Anybody remember him, No, John Gotty's lawyer. Oh well,
(18:37):
yeah, I never had called tohire that guy, John Gotti, and
I never shared a lawyer. Soyeah, So Bruce Cutler, he essentially
made he he made himself a celebritybecause he was He was John gottisfense lawyer.
He kept winning the cases. Wenow know that they were underhanded,
the understand deals involved and don't sayyeah and and he and he dressed the
(19:00):
mob lawyer part. And ever sinceGotti's conviction in nineteen ninety one, mob
lawyers lose in New York. Thiscase was lost because of Donald J.
Trump, not just because he committedthe crimes, but because of the lying
(19:21):
defense that he has put up sincethe Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougall's stories first
broke in twenty sixteen. You know, we talked about this on the podcast
before. In his opening statement,Todd Blanche told the jury that Donald Trump
denies having ever slept with Stormy Daniels. I don't think he used those words,
(19:45):
but they put forward the defense thatit didn't even happen. I have
to believe there was no one onthat jury that bought that argument. Likewise,
they tried to portray Michael Cohen notjust a as a serial liar,
but they tried to convince them thathe had lied in front of them on
the witness stand over that ninety sixsecond phone call. We referred back to
(20:10):
last week's show where we did amock jury, but as you guys will
remember, the week before that,we also re enacted that phone call to
prove that it could happen well withinninety six seconds, and Joshua Steinlass did
so in the actual closing argument,and he was faster than we were.
It took us over a minute toget to that to get the conversation completed.
(20:33):
He did it in forty nine seconds. And this is something you won't
hear me say very often. Thatattorney wrote a better script than I did.
His script was much better than that. It was much more believable.
Well, he had a writing teamhelping him, I'm certain. Yeah.
But when he did that during theprosecution's closing statement, the jury went into
(20:59):
the the jury room thinking, yes, there was a liar in this case,
but it wasn't Michael Cohen. Itwas the defense. They lied to
us throughout the trial. And Ibelieve if we ever do hear from the
jurors, and I hope we don'tbecause I think it's unsafe for them,
and there's some other reasons why Ithink it would be not beneficial to hear
(21:22):
from them. But if one ormore of them do come forward and start
giving interviews, I'll bet you thatpart of what they say happened to the
jury room was that they totally dismissedthe arguments being made by the defense.
Well, one of the things thatwas said in closing, and I think
I sent you guys the screenshot ofit, was Steinlass noted that the affairs
(21:44):
happened in two thousand and six.The payoffs happened in twenty sixteen, and
there is really no way to saythat that was about Trump's family, at
which point the three of his childrenwho were in the room all looked up
from their phones at the lawyers,and the jury must have noticed that.
(22:08):
Yeah. And also it's just it'sso illogical. Everybody in the world.
Again, the jurors might have beenreading True Social or the New York Times,
some watched MSNBCCNN, whatever, Butthere's no one with an IQ above
ninety five in this country that doesn'thave some formulated opinion about Donald Trump.
And it's been said since he becamepresident and even before that, that he
(22:33):
lies every day. Maybe there arepeople that will say that's not true,
but it's a fact. And theidea that this guy, who we know
to be very, very frugal,would pay close to or actually over half
a million dollars two women that heclaims he barely knew, just because they
(22:56):
were shaking him down never made anysense. And so again, the defense,
it wasn't the prosecution that beat them. The defense beat themselves. Yep.
They did not offer reasonable doubt.No, they didn't, you know.
And part of it was because therewere there were pieces of paper that
(23:18):
detailed what was going on and thesequence of events happened the way the prosecution
said they happened, And they haddocumentary evidence, not people's memories, not
people's interpretations of conversations, pieces ofpaper with handwriting and printed notations on them
(23:40):
that demonstrated these events happened on thistimeline, and there was no way to
refute that. Yeah, why isit that every cable news outlet since Thursday
has been asking how the Biden campaignis going to react to the verdict,
but no one asks how the Trumpcampaign is going to react to the verdict.
(24:02):
It's his bad news. We've seenhow the Trump campaign reacted to it.
They set fundraising emails, they hadthose emails ready to go. They
were first of all, I'm notlet me just say something. I don't
believe that they've raised all the moneythat they claimed they raised. I don't
think it's physically possible to have raisedfifty four million dollars in twenty four hours
(24:23):
when both of your donation sites crashedfor hours on end. So let's wait
until the numbers come in for thequarter to see how accurate those claims are.
Wait, you're saying Donald Trump liedabout the size of something. Yes.
The reason they don't have to askhow the Trump campaign will respond is
because Trump himself did respond in thatrambling whatever the hell it was. The
(24:47):
next morning, nobody has to askhow will the Trump campaign respond? We
all know the Trump can base.The Trump campaign basically is what Donald Trump
says. It is. If hesays something, that's it. Nobody really
has to go around asking what thecampaign thinks. And the reason people wondered
about the Biden campaign is that becausethis does have a political impact, how
do the people who are in theart of politics, how do they react
(25:11):
to it? The Trump campaign,Donald Trump went out and said whatever he
said. The Biden campaign, well, yes, Joe Biden spoke, but
he is president. He spoke froma position as president, not necessarily as
a presidential candidate. There's a bitof a gray area there. I'm not
really upset at the media for thatkind of thing, because this is,
on top of everything else, itis also a political story with impact that
we are seeing even now and evenwithin minutes of the verdict being read.
(25:37):
I'm interested to see how what Bidenwill say about it during the first debate,
because that'll be like putting a safetypin on Donald Trump's seat. You
know, he could potentially get waydeep under Trump's skin with a well placed
remark. And Biden actually does havethe wit and timing to land a well
placed remark, So that could bepotentially be very, very fun, and
(26:00):
it will be one of the firstquestions from the you know, the journalists
there, so Trump is going tohave to deal with it from them and
then from Biden. You're right,how can you do your job when nobody
can in the world can trust youbecause you're completely full of SHITJJ just mentioned
the impact and one other thought thatI want to throw out. I know
I'm kind of hogging the mic here, and I apologize again again. A
(26:23):
lot of people are wondering, well, what will Trump voters do, What
will independence and disaffected Nikky Hally styleTrump voters do based on this verdict and
based on him now being a convictedfelon. Again, what I don't think
has been said, but I thinkis just as important is we talked at
(26:44):
the top of this about how wefelt when we first heard the verdict.
You know, a lot of ushave been getting very disheartened as this campaign
has progressed, and as you guysknow, I have my deep, deep
fears about where this campaign is going. I feel a little bit more comfortable
about it this week than I didlast week. I think this verdict energized
(27:07):
the Democratic base. I think alot of people like us are going to
have renewed hope that Biden is goingto be able to right the ship of
his campaign and use this as acudgel to make up some ground on Donald
Trump. So the impact of thisverdict is not just on Trump losing votes,
(27:27):
but solidifying the Democratic base. AndI don't think we should underestimate how
important a psychological win was on thisdate, going into the summer, going
into the conventions, going into thefirst debate. So Israel continues to make
(27:51):
itself the future of foreign policy byrejecting, without rejecting, Biden's latest ceasefire
proposal that Yah who is pushing backon it is what I read today,
and Hamas is, I don't knowwhat the hell they're doing eating popcorn and
laughing at us. I think,so this continues to be an issue that
we have to think about, thisongoing war. That isn't our fault.
(28:18):
We didn't do this, We're notamas. What's the latest time, Like,
you know, is there a volcanobeybing net Ya who could just fall
into conveniently do jay? I amnot aware of volcanoes that are involved here,
shoot because that would solve everything.From what I've heard is these Yeah,
the Israeli government has that they havelargely agreed, they've not specifically agreed.
(28:45):
But I think the actual reason thiscame out was because the last time
they were negotiations, the Egyptians rewrotethe terms before they gave them to a
moss So what Ama said, yes, we accept the deal. Everyone at
first thought they accepted the deal thatIsrael, that Israel had agreed to,
and then we looked at and thenwe realized, oh wait, the Egyptians
changed the script. I think thisis a way to prevent Egypt from changing
the script on everybody. Why didthat? Doesn't that's a really dumb idea.
(29:10):
Why did they do that? Ithink the I think the real reason
was everyone wanted to say that bothsides agreed to a deal and the assumption
was that they would work out thediscrepancies later after they had been boxed in.
The reality is neither of them feltboxed in, so they just walked
away. I think it was anexperiment that failed, and I think the
(29:32):
I think the Egyptians were willing totake the hit and get thrown under the
bus for it, you know,so long as nobody made a very big
deal about it, and really nobodydid. There was some there were some
whispers to the Washington Post, leaksto maybe an international paper or something.
I think Biden was basically saying,Okay, we're not going to try that
this time, and if anybody elsethinks they can try it again, it's
(29:52):
not going to happen. And sothat's why he publicly said these are the
terms that we want to see ifAmas accept, and well, we'll see
what they do. I don't knowwhat they'll do. Well, I kind
of know what they'll do within away. Actually, in Biden's speech,
he was very explicit that there arestill a lot of details to be worked
out. So it's not like thisis buttoned down, okay, but it
(30:18):
was. It's an agreement in principle. It's not an agreement in principle,
it's an offer in principle. Noone has agreed to it. I don't
know what you guys have heard,but the articles that i've read today tell
me that there are at least twofar right wing people in the War Council
that have threatened to leave the governmentand let it collapse if net Yahoo accepts
(30:41):
the terms of this proposed agreement.Here's what I think the reality is.
Net Yahoo is playing a different gamethan Joe Biden, as he should be
because it's his war and it's hiscountry, and whether we like it or
not, he does not dance tothe music that Joe Biden playsho who is
going to keep this war going?Because one, his countrymen want it to
(31:06):
keep going. They want to defeatHamas. They do not want a ceasefire
that leaves Hamas in place. Two, it is to his advantage to keep
the war going past the election becausehe's hoping Donald Trump will get elected because
Donald Trump is more right wing andpro Israel defense than they perceive Joe Biden
(31:29):
to be. Whether that's true ornot. So whatever it is that Joe
Biden laid out, by the way, I thought it was a wonderful speech
that he made. He was astatesman and he's doing everything he can to
bring this conflict to some type ofa resolution. But as powerful as the
United States is and as much politicalclout as the President of the United States
(31:51):
has, you cannot stop two independentfactions that are five thousand miles away from
you from worrying if they want tocontinue worrying. Neither of them want a
truce, as much as Hamas mightpretend they want, when they don't.
Israel is not ready for a truce. It is to Benjamin Netanyah, who's
(32:14):
political and he believes the security ofhis nation's advantage to continue to prosecute the
war. There will be no ceasefirein the short term. And there are
a lot of people still believing JoeBiden for those facts, and that well,
because they don't understand the world.No, they don't understand the war
(32:35):
they want. It's another situation wherepeople are giving the American president mystical power
no American president has ever had.I saw somebody, I think it was
Tim Scott or some one of thosepeople say he could pick up the phone
and end this in a minute.That is not true. It's ridiculous.
The idea that he can tell BenjaminNetanyah, who End the War Council or
(32:59):
whatever they call it, of Israelto stop the war over some threat that
we're going to pull fore and aid. Israel is one of the not just
militarily but economically, one of thestrongest countries in the world. They're going
to do what's in their best interest. They're not going to bow to the
United States just because we've threatened them. And the United States cannot withdraw support
(33:22):
from Israel, and neither can Europe. And it's not about Zionism. It's
not about support for netanyahuo versus hatingHamas. It is about their location in
the world. It is a geopoliticalmatter, that's correct. It is about
the fact that they are the onlystrong Western style democracy in that region,
(33:45):
and we need them to remain thereand to be our alley. We also
need them to balance out Iran,which is even about center. But we
also need control of that airspace andcontrol of those shipping lands. Yes,
yes, because to hand that overto Iran and to the domino effect that
(34:05):
would happened with Egypt and Jordan fallinginto line with what Iran wants would be
a global catastrophe in terms of economicand commerce. It's you know, it's
like it is that simple and pragmatic. We need that airspace, we need
those shipping lanes. Israel is theonly government there that will guarantee our access
(34:28):
to them. Yeah, we'd beback in nineteen fifty six. Correct.
And the other thing. And wehave to remember, although we saw in
April and early May protests at variouscollege campuses, we really didn't see it
in a lot of Arab capitals.I remember during previous Palestinian revolts, not
(34:50):
that this was that during the duringyou know, the the Arab Spring,
not just the Arab Spring. WhenI'm thinking the Palestinian protests nineteen eighty eight,
which they call the first into Fada, which is basically bunch of kids
throwing rocks, and the second Intefada, which was which was much more violent.
The kids had grown up and gottensomething better than rocks. Yes,
(35:10):
basically the Arab governments either allowed orforced their people to take to take the
streets in support of Palestine and Palestinians. We really haven't seen that this time.
(35:30):
There's no talk from Jordan about howhard it is to sit back and
watch and watch what is happening.There's some concern about civilians and yes,
but the idea that Palestine should haveits state is very different from Hamas should
be allowed to survive. And everyArab government, just about every Arab government
(35:52):
outside of Syria recognizes that if Hamassurvives, then this has been a failure.
And that is why they are notjoining much of the I think manufactured
outrage you're seeing over here. TheArab governments are not joining in on that.
The Arab governments are saying, wewant something peaceful, we want a
(36:15):
recognition of Palestine state. They're notsaying Israel needs to let Hamas survive.
The only people who are saying thatare over here. Well, and they're
also not coming together as a coalitionto broker a deal for a Palestinian state.
Well, right, I mean becausethey can't. They've never been able
to do that. They're not goingto try now. In the West,
we're looking at this as potentially awatershed moment. Arab leaders in other Arab
(36:39):
nations are not treating it as awatershed moment. No, they're not,
you know, they are not lookingat this as the window of opportunity to
create a Palestinian state, to recognizePalestinian state. And if you look at
the two if you look at thetwo places in the Middle East outside of
Israel, where voters do have asay, if only partially in Turkey and
(37:00):
Iraq. You're not saying a lotout of them either. I mean,
President Ernawan is saying ridiculous things,but voters keep voting against him in Turkey
if they ever said anything that wasn'tridiculous, right, it's his game,
Yeah, that's his game. Butbut the Turkish, the Turkish people,
if the voters, if the votethat their votes are in indication the Turkish
people are not with him. AndI think that, I think that really
(37:22):
says something about how how people inthe region look at this war. They
don't see Hamas as the good guys. They don't see Hamas as a useful
tool. They see Hamas as aproblem that needs to be eliminated, right,
They don't see Hamas as a governmentin waiting exactly. Shall we go
to something a little more up toend things on? Yes? But you
(37:46):
know, you know, as wehave just talked about things like Arab spring,
it is now hot girl summer.Kevin is in a bikini as we
record this. It's a good look. DJ is in a cute little sundrass
and I am in pajamas. Butyeah, we're coming up on summer,
which is always a great season forentertainment, you know, is when you
(38:07):
get your popcorn flicks. It's whenyou get your great beach reads. Does
anyone or you know your big summerstadium tours? Is there anything in particular
you guys are looking forward to onthe lighter side this summer. You know
that you're gonna get tickets on presale or Jess and I love going to
movies if there's a decent movie thatcomes out during the summer. We're not
into blockbuster action flicks and Marvel comickind of stuff, but if there's a
(38:31):
really good movie that comes out,we'll be there. In terms of concerts,
we've looked at one or two.Barry Manilow is coming to Austin,
is he? And I am abig Barry Manilow fan from my youth,
so I would love to see him. But it would cost us like eight
hundred to one thousand dollars to gettwo decent tickets, and that's before parking,
(38:52):
So I'm not shelling out that.Okay, So a few years ago
Barry Manilo. One of the thingshe does on cons is he will get
a local singing group to back himup for the last medley of the night,
which is copa Cabana, and youknow, a couple of other big
(39:12):
numbers and so like his people willget in touch with local choirs and singing
groups wherever he's performing. Swear toGod, one year he performed close enough
to my mom that the the rockchoir she sang with was the choir my
mother has sung back up for BarryManilow very at a casino in Connecticut.
(39:37):
So it's worth it just for thatmoment where it's, you know, local
folks that he's introducing. It's there'sa really fun show you might you might
as well splurge and do it.No, I'm not at that place in
life where I'm going to drop seveneight, nine hundred dollars on a single
evening just to see as much asI loved him in the seventies, to
(39:58):
see Barry Manilow. But we diddrop some money the last couple of weeks
on a couple of bicycles, andjust why are going to be adding bicycling
to our repertoire of outdoor activities.It's hard to do in the summer here
because it gets so darn hot.But hopefully We'll find some hours either early
morning or late evening when we canget out and ride and get some exercise
(40:21):
and some fun in that way.That'd be great. What about you,
DJ, I know you've got moreconferences coming up or conventions. I should
say, yeah, there should bethere. There's one more we're looking at
in July. There may be anotherone in August. Mainly for me,
it's going to be trying to getmusic cranked out by then, all right,
to be honest, And I'm lookingforward to Kevin Kwan, who wrote
the Crazy Rich Asians series, whichis just wonderful summer reading, like just
(40:45):
fun, great descriptions of clothes andexotic destinations and jewelry and stuff. He's
got a new book coming out calledLies and Weddings, I believe, and
I actually just ordered it, andI'm waiting for that. And you'll fine,
they parked in my patio enjoying that. Well great, I'm sure now
I'm going to find that on mydoorstep in about five days. You know
(41:09):
what, maybe I need to geta bicycle and start going biking the just
and we can. She'd love that. I would love that. It's you
know, Austin is just not closeenough to reach my bicycle from where I
live. Kevin, It's really unfairthe four of us, and Greg isn't
here tonight. We forgot to mentionthat gridh Yeah, Greg he's yeah,
he's he had a gig tonight.He's off playing music. So but we
(41:30):
have to figure out a way thefour of us could be in the same
place at the same time. Wehave to meet. We've been doing this
show, DJ and I and Greghave been doing it since twenty fifteen,
and I joined in twenty seventeen.Yeah, and we've never none of us
to my knowledge of Vegas. Baby, let's go to Vegas. Oh,
don't I wish? Don't I wishI'm more perfect cured? You just think,
(41:52):
God, could you think of fournerdier people in Las Vegas that would
be sensational? It has been anotherweek of a monumental week, actually,
and I think we're all grateful forthe rule of law. We are.
We're curious to see what the nextfew weeks hold And as always, thank
(42:13):
you for joining us for these discussions, Thank you for listening. If you
like what we do here, pleasefollow us on Instagram at MPU Fanclub.
Don't forget to share our link onwhatever social media is your favorite, and
as always, thanks to Alan Keeneyfor our great intro music. As we
(42:36):
move into the warmer weather months,what is your favorite thing to slap on
the grill? Brons Brons, Kevin, what about you? My kids are
coming out in about three weeks andwe're going to be opening up the Big
Green Egg, which I still don'tunderstand how to work it. It will
be some kind of meat product,that's all I know. Will be here.
(43:00):
He's in charge of going out buyingthe meat product and cooking it up.
And that's I don't know whether it'llbe pork belly or ribs or whatever
it is. But yep, we'llbe firing up the Big Green Egg.
You can you can smoke a brisketin those things. That's you can do
that. Let's get back to ourroots here. Yeah, And I'm just
(43:22):
you know, I'm a I'm ahot dog and hamburger kind of girl.
Nothing wrong with that, Nothing wrongwith that, you know, and maybe
some fries on the side. Sohappy summer, everybody, Happy Conviction week,
and we will see you shortly
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