Episode Description: Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman react to the New York Times report that Donald Trump is a catastrophic failure who's only paid $750 in taxes, the Right's attack on civic duty, and what to expect from these revelations and more. To become a patron of the show, visit http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast to unlock exclusive content, including live reactions and analysis during the upcoming debates.
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We believe not only in transition, but are very friendly.
But when the ballots and when the system is rigged, which it is, obviously it is, and the only one that knows that better than me are the Democrats.
Actually, I paid tax, and you'll see that as soon as my tax returns.
It's under order.
They've been under order for a long time.
The IRS does not treat me well.
They treat me like the Tea Party, like they treated the Tea Party.
They don't treat me well.
They treat me very badly.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm J.D.
H. Saxton, as always.
Nick Halsman is here with me.
We need to dive into a lot of things today, as always.
The circus never ceases to give us stuff that we need to talk about, digest, and just become disgusted by.
But before we get into things, a reminder that when you hear this, it's going to be Tuesday, and it's going to be September 29th, which means that we're about to have the first presidential debate of the debate season.
Unless, of course, Donald Trump pulls out, which is a possibility.
Let's be honest about it.
Is it?
I mean, he's going to show up.
Nick, he's talking about Biden being on performance-enhancing drugs.
Right.
And he wants them tested.
He likes pee, is what he wants.
That's what it sounds like.
These guys like pee in a cup for some reason.
Wow.
Is that the direction we're taking this podcast from the very start?
That's a lot.
But let's assume that the debate is going to happen.
If you want to watch the debate, and if you want to watch it with Nick and me, and we're going to be providing analysis on the spot, instantaneous reaction, if you want you can join us tomorrow night at 8 30 p.m.
Eastern Time.
All you have to do is go over to patreon.com slash muckraker podcast.
If you become a patron, you get to hang out with us and the rest of the Muckraker community.
We're good people.
We have a decent time.
I promise it takes the sting, at least most of the sting, out of this garbage nonsense.
So that is tomorrow night 830 p.m.
Eastern.
Go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
In the meantime, Nick, we have to start with the bombshell that came out yesterday.
We knew Donald Trump was a crook.
We knew that he didn't pay taxes.
We knew that he was a complete and utter failure at everything that he has ever tried to do.
We did not know until yesterday how much of a complete total failure and tax cheat and tax coward that this man was.
What was your reaction when the New York Times dropped their investigation?
Well, you know, I think part of it was excitement, like, oh, OK, we're going to get some of the information we've been waiting for.
But just like the Mueller investigation, when those things come out and you kind of look deeply into it, the next thought was, well, this isn't going to matter, at least to the Trump supporters.
They wouldn't give a shit about this.
We heard him say, oh, I'm smart when he didn't pay taxes or was accused of that from Hillary, which makes me wonder, like, maybe Hillary had this information because she had to say it is maybe he doesn't make a lot of money and maybe he didn't pay any taxes.
But she probably had even a more sense of that.
The bottom line is, is that this doesn't really move the needle, I don't think, for a poll, if that's what we're looking for, right?
And I think that here's the other kicker, and we might need to get, like, for Thursday's or for Friday's pod, we might need to get an accountant or a tax lawyer in here, just because I think the people who really know this stuff might be able to say that, like, it looks a little shady, it's politically, you know, not great for him, but it might kind of be legal enough that it's not going to be anything that could, you know, be prosecutable.
I love that phrase, legal enough.
I'm so glad that you used that phrase, because that covers so much of this.
First things first, in terms of the shady stuff, because there's plenty of stuff to deal with or whatever, and I want to have a larger conversation about taxes, but they paid Ivanka all kinds of money as just a total workaround.
She's a consultant!
She might actually be in trouble.
She might actually be in trouble.
I'll just say.
And by the way, they paid $70,000 in hairstyling, and that's a low-hanging fruit of a joke that I'm not gonna make, Nick.
I'm not gonna make that joke.
You know why?
Because we're better than that.
We're better than that.
Can I make a joke?
No, we are better than that.
When they go low, we don't make that joke.
I will say this, whether or not it moves the needle or not, and I think that I think if it does reach anybody, it's going to be the conservative voters who sort of held their nose and voted for him in 2016.
And they're tired.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the people who are like, I always say there's like the Republican voters who work like your county fair, you know, and they hand out raffle tickets.
They might use this.
This might be this might send a few of them off the ledge.
The question is whether or not they're in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona.
God knows what's a swing state this time.
But I don't think we can have a conversation about this without talking about the absolute ruinous project that is the Republican Party convincing Americans that taxation is theft.
And that's at every level, right?
The idea that they have, and you said it yourself, you said that, you know, that not paying your taxes was smart.
That's something the Republican Party has told people as they've disintegrated our communal and social bonds, right?
What are taxes used for?
They're used for our schools, our roads, our infrastructure.
They're used for health care.
They're used for human projects.
How many human projects did Donald Trump cost us?
That's the question in all of this.
And for everybody who's like, yeah, screw the man or whatever, like, think about your kids.
Think about the kids in your community.
Think about how much better your life could be if people like Donald Trump, who, by the way, can afford exorbitant lawyer fees and accountant fees.
God knows what these people are doing to slip through these loopholes for it to be legal enough.
That's millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars from just a small few, not to mention the corporations and the CEOs, the offshore accounts, all of this garbage that they do.
It's theft.
It's theft from us.
And it has kept us from living better lives.
And that that job that the Republican Party has done, and this is not hyperbole, it's cost lives.
Like we would have a better health care system.
We would have a fairer Law enforcement system, if we had money, if we had the money that they should give us as their part of being a part of this society, and the fact that they don't, and the fact that the Republican Party has convinced us that somehow or another it makes them heroic, it's not just a shame, it's a damn shame.
Right.
And we'd be remiss if we don't really call the attention of firefighters.
Like, you know, these are the guys who also benefit from taxes.
Aside from people who are the garbage picker uppers, all that infrastructure as well is so important.
And by the way, I almost feel like the end of the world is going to be because we run out of place to put our trash.
I honestly feel like that's going to be the thing.
Because who knows where it's going at this point.
We're going to have to shoot it out into space.
But we know what happened in Superman 2 when they tried that, basically.
And I don't want that to happen here again.
But at any rate, the point being...
I had a good friend who was really active in the local democratic politics in LA and at some point a few years ago we were trying to figure out we got to be able to come together and figure something we can talk about with the other side or whatever and he had said in the very, it made me feel good at the time, was like you know it's like we could all agree that we have to pay taxes It's just a question of like, well, how much tax do we have to pay?
And I'm not even sure if we're there anymore.
I don't even know if the, at the right wing of the party, even, or it's probably even the libertarians feel like there's, that's even a discussion to have anymore that could be reasonable about like, what percentage of the tax should we pay versus zero or anything?
Well, so if we have any Democratic operatives, and I've been sending up flares for the Biden campaign, letting them know like how to handle this debate situation or whatever.
If we have any Democratic operatives right now who are listening to this or watching this on YouTube where you can watch Nick and I just stare at each other in screens.
Here's the thing.
This tax thing might not move the needle in terms of people who are like, oh, he's a tax cheat.
He's a fraud.
Do you know where it should move a needle?
Let's talk about patriotism.
Let's talk about duty, right?
So the American right has created this situation where patriotism is waving a flag as aggressively as you can and telling people not to question what you do.
The American right has told us that patriotism is individualism.
It's I am a person and I should never be told what to do.
You should be told what to do.
It's that malleable ethics and it's the rule of law that they've manipulated.
It's not enough that Donald Trump has called troops and veterans suckers and losers.
The fact that he doesn't pay his taxes means he's betrayed society.
It's our patriotic duty.
And by the way, I don't want to get on a soapbox and talk about taxes because let me tell you what, the IRS rubs me over the coals, rubs us all over the coals.
It is a corrupt group of people and it has been used as a weapon of redistribution.
Let's just go ahead and put that out there.
I don't want to get patriotic about that, but there is something about a shared society and the American right, and this is something that the Democratic Party has failed to do, is they have failed to use Republican hypocrisy against them and redefine what patriotism and community and values should be, which is we all should be free to live our lives as long as we're not harming others.
And on top of that, we all have a responsibility that we need to carry out.
That's a great way to phrase it.
Party has every opportunity to take that.
And whoever else opposes the Republican Party has an opportunity to take that because the Republican Party has been derelict in terms of patriotism and duty and honor.
That's a great way to phrase it.
I mean, listen, to tap into the outrage of working class people that have to pay so much more in taxes per year than him.
I just realized last night, so like I was like sitting there, I was going on MSNBC and I was like waiting to go live.
And it occurred to me that when I was 16 years old and I was a cashier at the Walmart, I I paid more in taxes than the supposed billionaire president of the United States.
And that was in, like, 1997.
Right.
Like, how mind-blowing is that?
But let's not forget, you know, the loophole is if you lose so much money in one year, it kind of covers you going forward for a decade or more.
And that's what he was benefiting from.
Meanwhile, I'm sure he was stuffing under the mattress some other income that he wasn't reporting either.
And that's what they need to discover.
Now, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about the fact that Donald Trump and his failed businesses are a perfect, perfect opportunity for money laundering.
And in this report, they didn't come out and they didn't say it.
They didn't say it in the report, but it's in every paragraph, man, which is Donald Trump probably was at the front and was at the face of a huge Organized criminal conspiracy to launder money.
I mean, like, it's pretty obvious in every paragraph that that's underlying.
You agree with that, right?
Yeah, I mean, if you want to say it's laundering money or it's just tax fraud to, you know, to defraud the government of the income that they should be getting.
Right.
And so, because I don't know if I can read between the lines completely, because there's just not enough information in the reporting.
It's all top line, you know, addition and subtraction there.
We don't know, well, who are the creditors that he owes?
Because remember, the big thing that screamed out at me also is, it's two parts.
$420-some million are going to come due very soon that he's personally guaranteed, which we all know you should never do when you're in business.
But he couldn't get it any other way.
He would never, ever, ever have gotten top-secret security clearance with that kind of debt.
And so, because a bunch of people in Wisconsin and Michigan decided, oh, he can be president, it's the only reason why he gets top-secret information.
Jared Kushner is the exact same way, A, for lying on his SF, whatever the number is for the security clearance form is, which should have put him in prison, by the way.
But his debt as well is a real big concern.
And we already know that John Bolton has said he was clearly self-dealing with Turkey.
He clearly was trying to enrich himself while doing the diplomatic discussions with Erdogan.
So that is what's impeachable, really.
Let's go to Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh had a big huge over $100,000 of debt that just disappeared overnight.
How could you be an impartial judge on the highest court of the land, knowing that someone bought you out to, like, get you clean, and they did it on purpose, knowing that that kind of debt would be a problem?
I don't know.
I just went on a rant, but that's, there's a lot of issues there, and it's the security clearance that's probably the biggest issue for me.
I completely agree and I want to get to that in a second.
I want to give people a quick primer on how the laundering business works and why Trump is the ideal money launderer.
Besides failed endeavors in Trump Steaks and Trump Vodka and Trump Magazine and whatever other garbage he put out in the world, Trump's businesses are all based on not having products to sell.
There's never goods or resources that have to actually change hands.
We're talking about memberships in golf clubs.
We're talking about hotel rooms, right?
We're talking about space and apartments that need rented out.
Nothing ever changes hands.
You can simply pay a person for something that you will never ever use or go into the hotel and it creates a complete revolving door.
And it's not only in America.
Trump International is international.
He has these things all over the place.
And it makes for an ideal international money laundering conspiracy.
He is just the wet dream of international money laundering.
What country out there might there be, to your mind, that has a lot of people in it with a lot of money that probably need to launder it so they can get it back into the regular banking system?
Any countries come to mind when you think about it like that?
Well, I don't think that Donald Trump has any weird, inexplicable relationships with any country and or dictators that would lead us to wonder that maybe his financial health depends on that, and that his own sons have gone on the record at their dumbest moments in saying that it is.
That just sounds crazy.
But I will say in the national security standpoint, and we're not even tinfoil hat, wearing here, okay?
Like we're not even talking about, "Oh, are there secret tapes of Trump over here?
"Is there compromise on Trump over here?" You need to understand something.
Desperate men are desperate.
If you have hundreds of millions of dollars, and by the way, we keep talking about this, right?
There's a couple of reasons why Donald Trump wants to win re-election and why he's desperate.
One is to avoid prosecution.
Another is to avoid being humiliated.
But I'll tell you what, my man needs a job!
He needs to...
J-O-B.
There's a reason.
And I'll tell you the weirdest shit, man.
This actually occurred to me this morning as I was drinking my coffee.
You know all these golf trips that he takes?
Do you remember the fact that every golf trip, like the Secret Service, has to pay for all these carts and all of these rooms and all of this stuff?
Like maybe he doesn't even love golfing as much as he golfs and it's just a way to continue making the wheels work, right?
I mean, it's not like his father did that for him either, trying to pass him a whole bunch of money by buying, I don't know, chips at his casino.
Chips at his casino, which by the way is a resource that doesn't diminish.
The chips just continue and continue and continue.
It's not like they actually go away, right?
So one of the things we have to realize is in domestic policy and in foreign policy, we now know that we have a president who needs money.
And by the way, he doesn't care how he gets it, whether it's scrupulous or otherwise.
There's a reason why he sucks up to these criminals and dictators.
They can help him and he needs help.
And you know who is consistently giving him money?
Organized crime.
So everything that he does in America and abroad now has to be viewed through the lens The man needs money and he needs it bad.
And so every decision he makes needs to be viewed through the lens of, does he need money?
And is this a situation where he's trying to get money for his debts?
And let's transcend that even farther because, okay, like you said, obstruction of justice is something he should be prosecuted for the day after he's out of office.
And he needs money and he wants to milk it more and more.
And by the way, he said that as well.
There is a quote of his saying, you know, this would be a real great business opportunity for me if I could become president.
But here's the other thing.
This $420 million that's come owed by Deutsche Bank and a couple other places, they'll never collect as long as he's president.
They won't do it.
They will simply be able to say he cannot be bothered with this while he's president, at the very least.
And I wouldn't put it past him with another term that he would somehow pass a law that would allow him to then wipe it off.
Or he would wipe it off anyway because we've seen in the past when he's had huge debts like this, he's sued the bank.
And he's won for this kind of stuff.
Nick, I have a quick question.
I'm checking my notes.
Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank.
Are they a reputable company?
I mean, they sound reputable.
They sound like they probably are on the complete up and up.
They're not engaged in criminal conspiracies, right?
It's all relative.
It's all your perspective, really.
You know, like the Unforgiven, right?
You know, it's like, is Clint Eastwood the bad guy or is Gene Hackman?
You know, you can look at it from both ways.
You know, Nazi gold over here, an opportunity over here.
Well, so I think what you're saying is exactly right, is Donald Trump, and people need to get this, Donald Trump is always a desperate man.
He's a gambler, and he's been a gambler his entire life.
He has continually pushed the envelope and then escaped consequence, right?
I mean, for those of you who have watched Breaking Bad, You know how in Breaking Bad, like every episode, Walter White gets himself in a predicament?
And then you're like, oh my god, how in the hell is he gonna get himself out of this predicament?
That sort of panicked life...
Is what Donald Trump has lived his entire life.
And he's willing to push all of his chips into the table and then just see what happens.
And he'll figure it out because he's lived a charmed, privileged life.
What we're watching right now is a desperate man that the law is coming after, the debtors are coming after.
It's not the first time it's happened, but he is certainly closer to the end of his life than he is the beginning of his life.
And we're watching a man who has run from consequences his entire existence.
And all of a sudden those consequences are coming up over the horizon.
And here's what we need to remember.
Desperate men are desperate.
And if he truly thinks that all of these things are coming to a head, do you think for a second that he will possibly even hesitate in pushing us to the point of sectarian violence, civil war, authoritarian control?
Absolutely not.
He cares more for himself than literally anything else in the world, and he's already shown us that.
Just be ready for Iran, for us to go to war with Iran before the election.
Be ready.
It's going to probably, something is going to be manufactured in that region with that government, with that country to distract, you know, and to try to say, well, you know, I can't leave office now in the middle of this, whatever he's going to try and say, which is ironic that, you know, the same country, same region that got Carter, you know, bit him in the butt in the October surprise of 79.
I'm sorry, in 80.
But don't be surprised about that.
Now, here's the other thing is, with these revelations, remember Richie Neal?
He's the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee who's supposed to simply snap his fingers and get Trump's tax returns, and he's not been able to.
And he's been kind of ineffective and criticized on the left more than the right for this.
The argument was always that it's clearly political.
It's a political witch hunt.
They're trying to just dig up dirt and to embarrass the president, which, of course, well, what could possibly be embarrassing about this?
Well, they obviously are telegraphing.
They know what's embarrassing at the very least.
Don't you think that this reporting and this information would be enough to say we now need to because this is the whole purpose was to figure out how the how the IRS is auditing people, especially presidents, and make sure it's on the up and up?
Because what we did here in this article was that there was an agreement.
He was audited and they put together a whole agreement.
And then right when he started, got into the race and become president, they like just torpedoed the whole thing.
Now, in my mind, they weren't doing it to protect him necessarily.
I think he was able to get somebody on the inside to sort of protect him from Trump's point of view versus, you know, going after him all over again and starting over.
But it makes no sense whatever this audit was and why it kind of like just destroyed itself as he was running for president.
Well, you just made a really bold prediction that within the next 40 some days or 30 some days that we're going to see like a war.
I don't know if I'd go that far, but let me go ahead and go out on a little bit of a limb here.
I think that there's a real possibility.
If we manage to avoid some really bad shit with Donald Trump, If we manage to like dodge this bullet and get out of the way of authoritarianism and somehow or another through some miracle of the universe we happen to find out the truth about what the Trump administration felt like, do you think for a second that it's not going to resemble and or surpass what Richard Nixon did?
Do you think that for a second?
Like even momentarily?
It will not resemble anything that Nixon did.
It will be worse.
Yes.
It will be worse.
And one thing that you have to remember is that Richard Nixon and Donald Trump are cut from the same sort of cloth.
There's a reason why when they gained power, they were so destructive to not just themselves, but everyone around them.
Do you think for a second that Donald Trump hasn't used the surveillance and power of the United States government to keep track of what people have on him?
Or how they're possibly coming after him?
You think that any person who has spent his entire life in criminality, who suddenly has control over all of the powers of the United States of America, didn't overreach his authority and or create like these organs of control and surveillance?
If you truly believe that, then I don't know what to tell you.
But this whole thing, he has created the perfect criminal enterprise, which is the criminal takes over a suffering institution of power, right, through whatever means necessary, and then is able to use the system that should bring and then is able to use the system that should bring him into justice to probably cover up and protect
We've seen it before in this country, and I simply refuse to believe that he hasn't somehow or another used the same methods that Richard Nixon has used.
Well, you know, and we have Nixon to thank for being in a situation where his cultists will simply say, of course, they all do it.
I'm sure Obama did it.
He just got Yeah, and that's where the headspace they live in.
I got engaged into a conversation on Twitter yesterday or two days ago with a guy who, you know, was doing the same kind of thing about, you know, Obama puts people in the cages, he killed people with drone strikes, and it's like, yes, these are all terrible things.
But we cannot be intellectually dishonest about this.
You know, I mean, it got hilarious because they even try to sort of say that amidst Sandy Hook and there was another big one for him that he was divisive with his language.
Obama was.
And I'm like, if you listen to his impassioned pleas to bring the the country together around this issue.
It was inspiring for about a minute until you realized that the Republicans were never going to budge and the NRA was able to get their teeth into it.
But you cannot say that it was like Obama trying to like, you know, rip apart this country.
The only thing that Obama did is it was his color of her skin was what ripped apart sections of this country.
Yeah.
And what we need to realize is The worst part of the human character is on display here.
I mean, that's the dude.
I didn't.
I wrote a decent check to the IRS this year.
I wrote a decent check.
It was not fun.
No, it really wasn't.
Do you know what never entered into my mind?
The idea of defrauding the government and or shirking my responsibility.
Right.
And I mean, like, obviously there are people who hire accountants to do this stuff or whatever.
I understand that.
I also, you know, I look at the way that he has conducted himself.
You know, I can criticize the wars that we've gotten into, the operations we've gotten into.
I can criticize the fact that the CIA has undermined democratically elected leaders, that the FBI has harassed and persecuted Americans.
I mean, the CIA has as well.
Let's just get into that.
I'm not sitting here like thinking, how can I use this to my advantage to gain a profit and manipulate people and to cover my tracks or whatever.
He's a different type of human being.
He is broken.
He is broken.
You know what else doesn't enter a lot of people's minds, a lot of Americans' minds?
Committing crimes against the election.
There's not a lot of people out there that are scheming trying to figure out how I can manipulate this ballot to make sure that more votes go for somebody else.
It really, you know, there is no evidence for this.
And yet, you know, to hear, it's not just Trump.
I mean, we had Ted Cruz come out on a tweet already calling it inevitable, the need for the Supreme Court to decide this election.
It's inevitable.
So they've already shown their cards.
Like, I think that Trump floating his name for the Supreme Court turned a circuit on on Cruz because he has gotten wild.
By the way, we're not going to have enough time to get into it in depth, but for the record, Amy Coney Barrett is an absolute extremist judge and a threat to this country who believes that only certain people should enjoy rights.
So she is the perfect judge for Donald Trump and this American right.
Let's just put that on the record.
Go on.
But I will say very quickly.
I'll go on the record.
Call me crazy.
If a politician that I supported became President of the United States and said at a press conference that they wouldn't commit to a peaceful transfer of power should they lose, Dude, I would be calling that out too!
Like, right?
We would be having a podcast where we'd be like, I really don't care for that, and I think this is a step too far, and I think this is a problem, and this person shouldn't be in power.
It's not about just hypocrisy.
It is about chosen hypocrisy.
It's about weaponized hypocrisy.
It's about understanding that you are doing something underhanded that is going to hurt other people and endanger other people, but realizing that you have a financial gain, And doing it anyway.
Just going ahead and doing it anyway.
And it's the corporate mindset that we talk about all the time, that we talked about on our bonus episode for Network, where we talk about these people who their entire pursuit is wealth and power.
It corrodes them.
And it drives away their humanity until there's nothing left but a facsimile of a human being.
And we have a president who is You know, and it's that same response when people talk about, well, they all do this, they're all corrupt.
Well, the response to that then is, well, yes, and when they get caught, there are severe ramifications for that, either being prosecuted, losing your position in the government, all those things.
So yeah, fine.
You want to think that every politician since the country started was corrupt.
But when you get caught, you need to pay the price for that.
And it is truly remarkable that he hasn't yet.
And what is also clear about this election is that there is no margin of victory that would cause them to not contest it.
That's the other thing.
If he loses by 20 points, they will contest it and say that it's rigged.
There is a Goldilocks sort of a moment in between all of this.
It probably would say even more reason why it was rigged, right?
If it's a really big landslide.
Yes.
Yes.
There is a Goldilocks sort of a moment in between all of this.
Like if he gets blown out, oh, obviously it's fake.
Obviously something went wrong in this, right?
If it's too close, obviously something went wrong.
There is a place in there where it's kind of a blowout or, you know, it's almost a landslide that I think it will reach some people that it was a legitimate election.
But Donald Trump will never see a loss as legitimate.
That's the problem.
We had Federico Finkelstein on about the idea that fascists have an internal truth that overrides empirical evidence and science and everything, right?
Donald Trump will never accept a defeat.
And what is it?
It's the old, it's Andy on The Office.
He says, Andy has never lost a contest and any that he's lost was unfair or he quit, right?
And it's that idea.
When Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes, Immediately he said there were three million illegal votes.
It just manifested like a vision from the heavens, right?
But that's the whole point, is that this is a person who lives in his own fragile, fragile reality, and it will never be broached.
Period.
There will never be a moment that he actually believes he lost.
Now the article in the Atlantic that everyone got their knickers in a bunch on was about what might happen if you play this scenario out and it gets a contested election.
And I got to tell you that is and we kind of broached the subject a few weeks ago where we were hoping for a free and fair election and it's like no we now need to get beyond that and hope that somehow the Well, I was talking about this... God, I'm trying to remember.
Maybe it was last night on the livestream.
So what could very conceivably happen is that two people will show up for the inauguration.
And there is nothing in the Constitution to help us figure out what you're supposed to do next.
And that is frightening.
Well, I was talking about this.
God, I'm trying to remember.
Maybe it was last night on the live stream.
We're not prepared for this.
There's nothing in our schooling or our politics that tells us how to deal with this.
That's why it's so dangerous is we're not prepared for people to act in bad faith.
Do you know what I mean?
We're not prepared for an authoritarian to take over.
That's not in the book.
Like, you actually have to go back and look at other histories, but never do we broach on that in American history and American politics.
It's a foreign invader, right?
It's like, God, what is it?
It's the fish that gets in the ponds and it just eats up everybody and then it, like, jumps out of the pond and goes over the next pond and eats up all the fish over there.
It's an invasive species, is what it is.
And we're not taught, we're not trained how to take this stuff on.
Right.
The biggest reaction I got from the Atlantic article wasn't anything about Trump.
It was anger at Gore and Clinton for not contesting the election on their own.
Gore bowed out in the name of a peaceful transfer of power, even though they needed to continue counting in Florida.
Same thing in Michigan with Clinton.
And there still seems to be some interesting information about Michigan ballots and how they were counted and who was disenfranchised, legally or not.
um that would have that would have spelled the end of the election for Trump if she had pushed it and she didn't uh that makes me really angry so it kind of then applies to going forward with Biden is a he you know and Hillary told him you better not concede right anything and then b they better fucking prosecute this guy if when Biden gets in the office prosecute his ass to the fullest extent of the law Well, I'm glad you brought up the podcast and where it's been.
he's, you know, which would basically be a life sentence for him.
If they don't do that, we're going to be right back in the same podcast four years, eight years from now, whenever it is, it'll happen again.
Well, I'm glad you brought up the podcast and where it's been.
I have to say, just as a quick aside, because we have built a community of people who listen to this podcast and know us and have listened to enough episodes.
Doesn't it feel a little bit good that finally people are catching on, like in the mainstream Like, they don't quite get it.
You know, like, they're still sort of navigating this stuff, and they're still sort of, like, hindered by the status quo.
My god, I think we talked about, like, all this stuff maybe in, like, our third or fourth episode.
I mean, and that was, like, a long time ago.
So that's nice that now some people who were holdouts are starting to understand we're dealing with authoritarianism and fascism.
Thank God.
Thank God they finally understand that politics is a social construct and it can be overtaken by fascism and authoritarianism.
That aside, I have to tell you, I don't think that even if Joe Biden wins that we'll see prosecution.
I don't think that we will.
To open up that can of worms and say that a president should be put on trial and should possibly face criminal charges.
Presidents are a pretty tight knit group.
And I think Democrats are really afraid if you open up that this will happen and this will happen, it'll go back and forth.
It's like one of the last.
It's like one of the last groups of people that actually looks out for each other.
You know what I mean?
Like that little small cadre, like they take care of each other.
But I will say that I have hope that this attempt to steal the election will not work simply because I have to say 2019.
2000, I think, opened a lot of eyes.
I think there's a lot of us who witnessed that thing take place who understand that an election can be stolen, right, through legal means.
I think there's a lot of us who have now detailed this stuff.
And for a conspiracy like that to work, it takes a lot of people to do a lot of things, right?
A lot of moments of conscience to be overridden.
Now, that doesn't mean it can't happen, because there is still a very good chance that you will steal this election.
But my hope is that maybe we'll avoid it.
That's my hope in all of this.
OK.
And I totally it's a rational take to think that they're not going to prosecute him after the election if he loses.
But I'm not rational right now.
Not on that.
It's like there just doesn't seem to be any.
No, he should be.
Yeah, he should.
But I can follow at least I can follow that train of thought.
That's the thing is we can have an argument about some certain things and I can follow the train of thought and understand where you're going with it.
Like with Comey, for instance, I could follow the train of thought of why he felt like he needed to announce 10 days before the election, you know, reopening the investigation and that whatever.
I read the book, I could follow that at least.
What I can't follow are people who still want to follow Trump, who still want to support him wholeheartedly.
There isn't any rationale that I could get through to walk in their shoes for even a second and figure out, other than the fact that they simply don't care about democracy.
And maybe that's where we have to get back to the playing field.
Just acknowledge that you don't want democracy, you want a fascistic authoritarian government, and that you'll be willing to, and you think that it's okay to do anything possible to get there, you know, and have it be rationalized that way.
Now, again, it doesn't do me any good because that means we're going to have to be moving from this country.
But at least we'll finally get to some honest plane of existence with the other side, I guess.
Before I deliver what I would say is some hope and we wrap this thing up, I just want to laugh because my little cat, I don't know if you heard that, and I don't know if it's going to reach on this thing.
I have a cat right now who's just decided if I am recording something or if I am like teaching or I'm doing anything that she is going to just she's going to be a part of it.
So you're welcome for that.
Muckray community.
She is, uh, she's a little ham, man.
It's pretty incredible.
So my apologies that that happened right before we had to talk about like big, giant, powerful stuff.
Here's what I actually feel.
And I, and hopefully we can end this on a, on a high note because we have the debates tomorrow night.
And by that, I mean, when you hear this, it'll be tonight.
And hopefully you'll come and join us.
That's going to be rough.
Because I have to tell you, the media is desperate for horse race.
You know what I mean?
They are really ready for this thing to tighten up.
And you're going to watch the media sell a narrative that is, it's meant to keep you afraid.
It's meant to keep you unsure and afraid and anxious and continually clicking and retweeting and watching and all of it.
Like it's by design.
So we need to be ready for that.
I think we can beat these fascists, man.
I really think we can.
They're so undisciplined, and they're so transparent, and they're laughably stupid.
I mean, like, the truth is, like, the real secret of Donald Trump is how much of just a laughable, pitiable failure he is.
And that's what we've seen play out.
And it's not even an honest failure, because I have to tell you, I have people in my family who have had to declare bankruptcy.
You know what I mean?
Like, they actually relate to that whole thing.
The fact that he had to declare bankruptcy isn't what's humiliating.
It's the fact that he's been playing with house money his entire damn life.
And he has had every privilege that anybody could ever imagine.
He grew up with a millionaire father.
He was given everything.
His family was completely there every time.
And he has failed and failed and failed, even as this economy tried to hold him up.
He actually got paid to be a mascot to seem Rich, you know what?
I mean for those of you who are listening to have a background It was like the million-dollar man Ted DiBiase and wrestling.
He was given walking around money to pretend like he was wealthy, right?
That's who Donald Trump is.
He's pathetic and he's pitiable.
I think we can beat this fascist I really, honestly, truly think we can.
I mean, let me add on to that.
He actually invoked the Force Majeure clause because of the 2008 housing collapse, as if that was an act of God.
And that worked.
He was able to sue the bank that he owed money to, and they gave him money later after that.
So it really is remarkable.
And one last thing, because I don't want to get too down again, but Trump represents a huge swath of this country that does this, that accounts this way.
There's a lot of people who are probably very nervous about this because if it ever got completely exposed, a lot of people, especially in the real estate business, would be exposed for manipulating the tax laws like this in a way they shouldn't.
You mentioned the IRS at some point where I got audited.
Like, how can I get audited and get dragged through the mud like that?
And actually ended up, nothing even ended up happening with it.
And this guy doesn't.
In fact, he walked away with a $72 million check, which is sort of the root of the whole audit right now.
He was able to quick, they quick cut a check to him.
And then everyone, someone's like, well, wait a minute, wait, should we have done that?
And now that that was the whole thing that they're doing.
And then Michael Cohen, you know, his lawyer even said, That Trump said, look at this check.
Can you believe these idiots are giving me this money?
I mean, you know, that's where we're at.
So more things are going to come to light, by the way.
That'll be the other prediction.
More tapes of Trump are going to come out.
More terrible things that he said.
You know, maybe not as quite as bad as the Access Hollywood tapes, but we're going to get more.
We already did it.
We already got a thing where he just said today how excited he was that the black vote was silenced.
I want to say in Wisconsin, I think, or I don't know if it was overall.
You know what I mean?
And that's bad.
But you know what?
He's got, what, 3% of the African-American bloat as it is anyway.
So it's not like that's going to hurt him in that community.
But we'll hear a lot more, and it'll be better.
And you know what?
I feel like Biden will win the election.
I feel that we can hang our hat on.
It's only what happens after that.
Well, something to be ready for is it's not a coincidence that this came out when it did, Right?
This is part of the narrative.
As we get into the fall before a presidential election, the big bombshells start coming out.
And it's almost like sweeps week, right?
When the ratings really matter on TV.
It's when the storylines get really juicy.
That's why I was talking about this horse race idea.
Like, it's going to come.
And by the way, in order to prove that they're not biased, you're going to see the media take swipes at Biden.
It's just going to happen.
And one of the things that we have to be careful with is that we're not living and dying by these constructed media cycles.
Now, on that note, tonight we are going to be, and when you hear this, it'll be Tuesday, September 29th, we will be hosting live coverage analysis and reactions to the first presidential debate.
We're going to meet on our Patreon over at patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast, where We're going to meet on there at 830.
We're going to get ready for it.
We're going to watch it together.
We're going to give you instantaneous reactions.
And I have to tell you something just to give people a preview.
I think that the American system, not just a politics, but it's true, of debates are pure bullshit.
I have a lot of heat going into this thing, and I really get pissed off at these things, and I really get frustrated by them, and I have a lot of things to say.
So I hope you will come and hang out with me and Nick tomorrow night, 8.30.
Patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Come on over, become a patron, support the show.
We appreciate you so much.
I can't even begin to tell you, especially as things get rough.
We appreciate you.
Thank you.
If you need us, until then, you can find Nick over at Can You Hear Me?
