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Dec. 22, 2020 - The Muckrake Political Podcast
46:19
Trump Learns $600 Can't Even Get You A Military Coup

As we read reports of Donald Trump pitching a military coup over the weekend, Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss whether this situation is as serious as it sounds, plus the growing grip of QAnon and what might have laid the ground work for its popularity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to the Speaker of the House and do any of them include things that cost, oh, I don't know, a whole lot less than that freezer full of ice cream.
And I don't mean to be so petty about it, but imagine if you could liquidate that in dollars and add that to the weekly stimulus check.
Wow.
Well, look, it's my responsibility as the president's lawyer, along with Jenna and some of the others, we're going to be extremely aggressive.
We're going to fight for our client as hard as we can.
But we're also going to do it within the bounds of rationality, common sense, and the law.
And it can be done.
Hey, everybody.
It's Jared Yates Saxton here with Nick Altman, as always.
Welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
Nick, I don't even know.
I don't even know What to say anymore?
It's been reported that the President of the United States of America, Donald John Trump, in a meeting at the White House with, let me check the guest list here, Sidney Powell was there, I assume wearing cheetah print.
Rudy Giuliani, who I guess he's feeling better.
I guess all that money will get you saved from COVID.
And who's this?
Retired General Michael Flynn.
Where have I heard this name before?
And it sounds like at this meeting that apparently it was floated.
Let me see here.
Ms.
Powell's client, retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, the former National Security Advisor, whom the President recently pardoned, was also there.
Two of the people briefed.
During an appearance on the conservative Newsmax channel this week, Mr. Flynn pushed for Mr. Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to rerun the election.
When's the last time that happened?
Jared, this happens all the time.
It's happened like 60 times, according to him, in the history of our country.
To rerun the election?
Well, to declare martial law, and I think that must be what he was referring to.
So how dare you, you know, sprinkle dirt on his theory of what the government can do?
I'm gonna read the final part of this paragraph and then we're gonna discuss this because it drives me insane.
This is the sixth paragraph of this article in the New York Times.
Six.
Not one, not two, not three, not four, not five.
This is the sixth paragraph.
Are you trying to say that they should have led with this, is the point?
Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick.
I'm gonna read this.
During an appearance on the conservative Newsmax channel this week, Mr. Flynn pushed for Mr. Trump to impose martial law and deploy the military to quote-unquote rerun the election at one point in the meeting on Friday.
Where was that meeting at, Nick?
Oval.
In what building?
I'm having trouble.
Oh, sorry.
The White House.
The White House.
In the White House, the President of the United States of America asked his advisors if he should declare a military coup to overturn an election.
And, had it not been for somebody named Cipollini, and maybe somebody named Meadows, He probably would have been starting to order it to happen, right?
There was like a shouting match between these people.
I can't call them adults in the room, but whatever we want to call these people.
There was a shouting match about this.
I mean, I don't understand.
First of all, you need to pat on your own back.
Because you called this with Sidney Powell.
We knew that she wasn't out on the outs.
What you had said was she simply went a little bit too early.
She swung a little early on the curveball.
That's right.
With the conspiracy.
She swung so early on the curveball, Nick, that like a cartoon character, she went all the way around and didn't hit the ball on the return.
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what that was.
And so now, yeah, she's right back in the mix and ready to get these things going.
And so all of a sudden, all those conspiracy theories that she was spouting that got her off of the legal team two weeks ago are now, you know, exactly what Trump wants and is saying.
So it is... The worry, obviously, is that Trump is completely unhinged at this point, and I don't see any evidence to refute that.
Well, I want to... Okay.
I don't know how you interact with the world of social media, Nick.
I don't know what you do or how you peruse it or whatever.
Do you ever have days where you just have to say, I'm out.
I don't know how you interact with the world of social media, Nick.
I don't know what you do or how you peruse it or whatever.
Do you ever have days where you just have to say, "I'm out.
I'm good.
I'm good." Olaf Big and Tall says there's some shit I will not eat.
Do you have those days?
I wish I did, but I can't.
I don't put it down.
You can't look away?
I've never done it for like a day where I'm like, I'm just looking away.
Maybe for a brief respite of like an hour or two or three, but that's it.
I had a day today, so we're taping this on Monday, December 21st.
By the way, heads up everybody, in better news, on Wednesday night at 7.30 p.m.
Eastern, we're having the Muckrake Christmas holiday extravaganza party.
Nick's already procured wine.
That's exciting.
I know.
You have pound cake.
You're not going to share with anybody.
I do have pound cake.
I have a lot of treats.
So that is 7.30 p.m.
Eastern.
All you have to do is go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
With that out of the way, Nick, I have to tell you.
So this, this, this, this report that the President of the United States of America floated a military coup, right?
When I got online this morning and I had my coffee and I was like, you know what, Nick, I'm going to make this a good day.
I'm going to be productive.
I'm going to do some research on a project.
I'm going to be positive because I had a good bourbon talk last night.
I talked with some people about hope and what we can do and community and moving forward.
I was like, I'm going to, This week, this Christmas week, I'm gonna make the most out of.
So I'm drinking my coffee, and I was like, why isn't everyone in the world talking about the fact that the President of the United States was calling for a military coup?
But they're not.
They're not.
Do you know what they're talking about?
They're talking about how a journalist, surprise, surprise, isn't that weird?
The Twitter is talking about journalists.
I mean, isn't that bizarre that they're talking about the gossipy world of journalism?
So every journalistic mind and voice in the world today was like, can you believe a journalist covering Martin Shkreli?
The, the, the, the, the asshole who's currently in jail because he defrauded people and, and, and was trying to deprive people of medicine.
Can you believe a journalist fell in love with Martin Shkreli?
And meanwhile, the President of the United States, in the sixth paragraph of an article in the New York Times, floated the idea of a military coup.
That's maddening, Nick.
That's maddening.
Well, I mean, certainly people are talking about this meeting, but there actually is a detachment to it because it just feels like It's always, it's the insanity.
He's just crazy.
It's not going to happen.
Don't worry.
All that stuff that we keep saying, they're not going to steal the election.
They're not going to do this.
And, but every day goes by, they keep doing it.
Like at this point that he always not going to part what it was supposed to have ended.
And you know, the electoral college certified their votes and that was it.
He'll just go and go away.
So no, he's not going away.
And I don't know what's going to happen at this point because he's got another month and it's scary.
By the way, on that note, do you remember, and I know that our memories are shot and what is time, do you remember just like a month ago when all of the pedantic status quo guardians out there were like, he's lost the election and you know, he might put up a front, but we're not in any danger.
I mean, did you really just call that a coup?
That's not, that's not becoming.
To call it a coup.
Here are the reasons we call it a coup.
By the way, I'm so glad Nate Silver showed his ass in recent days so everyone can understand how ridiculous of a human being Nate Silver is.
Just off topic.
But when we actually look at this whole thing, the President of the United States sat in the Oval Office inside of the White House and floated a military coup.
All of these status quo people, who by the way, you can't walk down the street right now without tripping over a column that says the system worked.
Right?
And the system held.
Why is everybody so worried?
Oh, I think we're going to have a return to normal and you don't have anything to worry about.
Fascism.
Coup.
Why would you use these words?
I just think these are problematic things.
He floated a coup.
And people are already moving on to the next thing or they're talking about how, yeah, he may have floated a coup, but you notice that the coup didn't happen.
I don't know, Nick.
This is the stuff that pisses me off to no end, which is We are sliding into an abyss and everybody is just like, isn't this fun?
Aren't we having a good time?
Are we picking up momentum?
What is this?
Well, you know, I'm trying to figure out what is the endgame here?
What are they, you know, nefariously plotting and where are we moving towards?
because it was always about the Supreme Court.
And that was what he was gonna get there and they're gonna support him.
And obviously that's not going to happen no matter what in the next 30 days.
So you're right, then what is left?
And what we all I think had thought was, what was left was simply, he'll go to Mar-a-Lago and he'll tweet from the throne and he won't come back.
But what throws a wrench in that plan is these reports now, or he's still trying to do this.
And certainly it was before, oh, it's raised money.
This is going to be money in his pockets, all he wants to do this for.
But it doesn't feel that way, right, anymore.
It now kind of feels like at some point, there was this, I don't know if you ever saw the play, The Irresistible Rise of Arturo Uy, by, is it Brecht?
Who wrote that play?
I'm not sure.
Yeah, I believe so.
So I saw this play.
I saw this in high class.
Yeah, well, listen, I studied in London for a semester in college and we went to see this play performed.
It's like the Grinch's heart growing two sizes.
Our class is just, like, growing, like, exponential.
Don't worry, I'm gonna get scatological pretty soon, but it's unavoidable.
So anyhow, the point being is that he's this, you know, it's basically the rise of Hitler and the character is a complete idiot, as you might recognize the description, and completely ineffectual, but, like, there's a moment Where he suddenly figures it out and becomes like this dictator.
And it's scary because they loosen you up with all the laughter.
Oh, don't worry, it's not, it's not going to happen, whatever.
And then all of a sudden it hits you.
So this is the concern.
And obviously the only control he seems to have right now would be over the military as far as like getting into some sort of a war with another country.
I don't know if the military is going to turn back onto the country itself and then enable him to do these things.
I doubt it.
I don't think that's going to happen.
But this is the thing.
He's going to break the toys.
He's going to break everything when he leaves.
So it's we can't govern when he's gone.
Well, I first and foremost, I think that's absolutely astute, which is the military does not support Donald Trump.
They don't like Donald Trump.
And again, it's an incredible feat for a Republican president to alienate the military.
It really is.
Like, that's an incredible thing to happen.
He has disrespected them to the point where they're not going to be out foisting a coup on the American people if there is an emergency.
In order to, uh, you know, if there is an emergency where they have to hold order, they will do that, right?
Like as, as a side effect, because that's part of the, that's part of the state.
The state apparatus maintains order through violence and intimidation and force.
But the whole thing, and I'm so glad that you brought up that play because this is a really, really hard thing to really talk about, but it's, it's absolutely essential for us to do.
I talked about this on a past live stream and on the podcast before, that's like Michael Flynn.
Michael Flynn right now, his entire career, and this is weird that this is a career, but it's where we are, his entire career is being QAnon adjacent, right?
He is, like some people think he's Q, some people think he's part of the Q team, and he never says, like, QAnon is real, but he like talks around QAnon.
Do you know, um, Do you know the guy who is pretending to be JFK Jr.?
Do you know this little bit player in the QAnon world?
I've seen the picture.
Okay, and he looks nothing like JFK.
Well, he should be John Lennon is what he looks like.
He looks more like John Lennon.
I think that's exactly right.
But this guy, this is so weird.
There's a guy that QAnon people believe is JFK Jr., right?
He is not.
He is not JFK Jr.
But he makes a ton of money and has a ton of attention by not saying I'm JFK Jr., but sort of letting them believe he's JFK Jr., right?
So, like, it's his career.
Michael Flynn's career is to grift these people by pretending to be a big, strong general who gives QAnon people credence.
He doesn't really want a military coup.
But I want people to think about this for a second.
I'm so glad you brought up the thing about the play by Brecht.
He was in the Oval Office this weekend with the President of the United States of America.
He had floated the idea of a military coup In order to go on Newsmax and make himself, like, the face of the resistance, right?
All of a sudden the President of the United States of America said, what about this military coup idea?
Can you imagine being the man standing in the office and you're like, oh my god, I'm the one who floated this shit?
And here's the thing, if people wouldn't have said no, if they would have tried it, He would have been responsible for it.
It's high stakes poker and theater combined.
It's just trying to do stuff to help yourself financially and in your career, and hoping that you can whip up just enough to make a bunch of money, but also not, I don't know, lead to a coup.
It's madness!
This is no way for a society to actually work.
But correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I had seen at some point in the last four or five months, Michael Flynn and his family around the fire.
I thought it was the Q Creed.
I don't know what they call it, Q Anthem, whatever they have, right? - It's the Oath of the Digital Soldier.
And the Oath of the Digital Soldier is also QAnon adjacent.
So that uses some of the catchphrases, but it doesn't say QAnon.
And in fact, one of the things that we're probably going to see over the next, I don't know, probably next couple of weeks or couple of months, is Mike Flynn is probably going to start a company or a site or something like Digital Soldiers.
He's going to make money off of that idea without probably ever saying QAnon out loud It's the flirtation which by the way, the Republican Party is going to learn from you know what I mean?
Like they're gonna have to they're gonna have to start to accept this thing Well, there's there's a great article that was written over the weekend and it was like the Atlantic or Politico or one of those You know really, you know That was on Salon.
Salon.
out there where they basically said that the reason why QAnon is taken hold by like, especially the people like our parents age is she wanted to blame Dan Brown.
That was on Salon.
Salon.
That was a great article.
Yeah.
And I was thinking about that because, you know, the best part about the article is ripping the shred Dan Brown's writing ability, which I've read.
I was on a vacation once.
This was probably before smartphones.
I was relegated to having to read a Dan Brown novel.
And remember, I'm all scatological, but I do have a highbrow as far as I want to read, you know, some prose.
I want to read, you know, something like you wrote.
That's what I want to read.
So this thing is, you know, it is the worst.
Even the sentence and syntax is terribly written.
But the point she made was that because he made this Da Vinci Code thing and like salted it just slightly with enough of this realistic thing, it became a real thing that you could actually investigate.
And everything he wrote in there must be true.
And he did really nothing to dispel that really.
So as a result, that was the gateway, that was a little bit of the rabbit hole, and now it allows these people to come jump full-throated into this hole and then believe all the other things.
I think there's something to that, and that's the problem is, even if Trump doesn't believe any of this shit, even if he doesn't care about the coup, he doesn't really want to do it, they have now created a movement.
This is a serious movement with a lot of people who are much more passionate than anybody in the government is about it.
And that's the problem.
They're gone forever, right?
These people are never going to be reasonable when it comes to politics anymore.
Well, and it's important to point out, and like all conspiracy theories, it is just a boiled down, easier explanation of larger political machinations, right?
The QAnon thing says, you're not powerless, you can get on your keyboard and take care of things.
Meanwhile, Nick, the Congress is passing a $600 stimulus bill.
$600.
Yeah.
And meanwhile – and by the way, like I hate to tell people but this is a – this is a quote-unquote fair and balanced podcast.
We call it like it is.
Nancy Pelosi was out talking about how $600 is a substantial amount of money.
Well, yeah, it is when there isn't an entire generation drowning in debt.
Because I, and by the way, I don't plan on getting it because I never got my initial stimulus payment, but if I would have got it, I just would have like kept it.
You know what I mean?
Just, like, put it away.
That's not what they're trying to do.
Meanwhile, instead of talking about that, which is something that we could actually come together and discuss, which is that our government does not help us anymore.
It is not interested in helping us.
It is bought and sold and owned by moneyed, powerful interest.
Instead of that, instead of coming together and organizing against that, these people are out slaying dragons.
They're out jousting with windmills, and it's an incredible tactic.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's the same thing that's happened over and over in this country.
Before, it was the Russians.
After World War I and after World War II.
Then it was the New World Order in the 90s, and the Deep State in the, you know, the 2016.
And now it's this QAnon thing.
This whole thing.
And again, here's the problem.
Those things lead to actual actions.
The New World Order conspiracy theory led to the Oklahoma City bombing.
This bullshit is going to lead to something else.
It almost led to a coup.
You know what I mean?
Like, an attempted coup, possibly a military coup if he hadn't spent all of his political capital, and if the election was closer.
Right.
Well here's one thing that's interesting about the $600 is it might actually help Biden because if they get into power right away and then quickly and God if they get to hold the Senate they could pass another one pretty quickly that is more money directly to the people and that'll make him look so much better.
But here's the problem with the $600 deal because two things are happening with that deal.
It took the Republicans and the Democrats to pass this thing, right?
The Democrats wanted to pass it, particularly with Pelosi, because, like we keep talking about, there is a civil war coming within the Democratic Party.
They have to show that they're able to do things to stave off any sort of a progressive challenge.
What do you do for Americans?
Well, we got that stimulus package, right?
Then, meanwhile, the Republican Party is trying to get Loeffler and Perdue to vote on a stimulus package.
Right.
So that can be the last second thing.
Both parties are doing it to their own advantage and they're shipping out these things.
But you're exactly right.
There is a possibility that somewhere over the horizon, we could possibly see something more substantial.
But my God, it's going to take a long time and a lot of effort and energy to get there.
Well, it would only take a long time in theory if they don't win the two Senate races in Georgia, which, by the way, I don't feel good about that at all.
And I'm...
I don't know what the polls are saying polls are bullshit Ugly it's ugly out here.
Yeah, it is it is inescapable and it is Repulsive, okay I don't even want to put my head in the sand.
Wake me up when it's over, but it's almost like you guys need my help.
I feel like everyone needs to contribute somehow.
But if they can do that, though, I do think that that would be something.
Are you aware of this bill?
It's like 700 pages.
They drop it off in the morning and they expect to vote on it tonight, right?
This is how it always does.
And they bury shit.
If I am to believe my Twitter feed, and I like to think that there's enough check marks that would be, you know, there's veracity there, there's a page in here where they want to deal with a Chinese deciding who the Dalai Lama gets to be in Tibet.
Did you see this?
Because it is in there, and the two people I saw seemed to verify.
They had gone through and they found this page on the PDF.
It's all these pages.
It's like, what are we doing here?
And how is that possibly relevant at this point?
And this is what we've been dragging our feet on, and they're throwing this kind of shit in there?
This is another problem.
And by the way, we can blame Democrats more than the Republicans, if you like.
That's the issue here.
It's like they just throw all this crap in there, and it just delays everything.
Yeah, and I mean, there's also talk about money being in there for the wall, you know, this project that never actually took off, that wasn't ever meant to actually be carried out.
It's all symbolism.
And by the way, like you have to do this thing now where anything that gets passed and this is how bad.
And again, like you cannot run a government when one side is actively trying to subvert democracy and the other side is just, you know, harangued constantly as being socialist radicals who are trying to sell the country to, you know, to the United Nations or harangued constantly as being socialist radicals who are trying to sell the country In order to do this, you have to push a bill and make no mistake.
The stimulus payments to the American people would be more if they didn't have to put in all of these projects that people could take home to completely separate worlds, right?
To build a wall.
I did not hear about the Dalai Lama thing, which I think is funny because my understanding is the Dalai Lama says there shouldn't be any more Dalai Lamas.
That's my understanding, but that's neither here nor there.
But you have to pack it full with a bunch of money for projects like a wall that is never going to be fucking built.
Like, it's never going to be built, nor should it be built.
It was never intended to be built.
But you gotta throw money at that, while meanwhile, we're sitting at home, like a bunch of assholes, being thrown out of our houses, not being able to afford our medicine, not being able to pay for education, terrified about whether or not we're going to have any money.
I mean, it's awful.
It's such an absolute sham and disgrace.
I agree.
I had a good point.
The other thing I wanted to make, though, about all this, though, is as this destruction of our country is befalling us.
And I know what the thing was.
The $600 stimulus, it's like you keep seeing people from other countries responding, saying, Like, what the hell is this shit?
We got $1,200 a month or whatever, or more, for, like, six to eight months in order to keep this thing under control and keep us from, like, completely losing all of our stuff.
So that's the other thing here is, in context with other places that are much smaller and have smaller GDPs, those people are able to, you know, those governments are able to support their constituents a lot better with a lot more real stimulus.
Because it's not a stimulus.
That's the other thing.
They outlawed pork barrel spending.
They outlawed that, but they still do it.
They don't use that word anymore.
This is what this is.
And so here we are with this stimulus, which is not a stimulus.
It's simply because they don't want to call it a bailout.
We can't give the people a handout.
They're never going to go to work again.
We give them more than $600, they're going to be welfare queens, right?
They're so lazy, Nick.
They're so stupid, so lazy.
Did you watch Mr. Robot?
Because if you did, did you ever watch that show?
Yeah, I watched Mr. Robot.
Because the central plot of it, and again, that's all I do here is ruin things, but was they were going to just delete debt.
Everyone's credit card debt would just be gone.
They're going to hack and whatever.
It's like, I kind of feel like that's what we need at this point.
At some point, there needs to be some sort of detonation of the sticky, no, what do they have in the in that movie, in Ocean's Eleven.
They need that thing, the pulse, you know.
And just wipe everything clean and we can all start over again.
I think that would help a lot of people a lot more than anything else they've passed in Congress. - For the record, the Muckrake podcast is not advocating for an EMP to be set off in order to wipe out debt.
I will say, real fast for a little bit of historical context, 'cause I'm working on a new project and I like to pass along information as I'm learning it.
One of the things that you actually find throughout history is there are these moments where the moneyed and powered interests like go too far and people are like, We're tired of this shit.
And then you have like these revolutionary moments.
One of the first like quote unquote modern revolutions was around 1381.
It's called the British Rising in which like all the peasants in the merchant class were all of a sudden like we're tired of this shit.
And they started like forming small armies and they would go into the towns.
And on top of you know executing the nobles they also went into all of these like burgeoning governmental offices because they were just starting to keep records.
And like, what did they do?
They destroyed the records of debt.
That's the first thing that they did.
And then all of a sudden they went to London and made the king meet with them.
Just putting that out there.
But how did that work out?
Well, they ended up killing the leaders and drawing in quarter them and sending their body parts to different parts of the country.
But it also ended up leading to colonialism.
But that's neither here nor there.
Okay.
But I will say that that is actually something, the idea of debt, because debt in this country is an incredible tool of leverage.
What you just said is really important.
They do not want to open the door to helping people because they sure as shit don't want Americans to expect that the government helps them.
You know what I mean?
They don't want to open the door for that.
There are other countries that have decided to tax the rich in order to pay for stimulus and aid for their people.
France, which by the way, to be straight up honest, France is a very neoliberal country at this point.
Emmanuel Macron is incredibly, like, pro-business.
He's pushed back on benefits, he's pushed back on unions, labor, all of that.
They are still giving their people more money than we're giving them.
And that should tell you there are gradients to this.
What they are giving us right now is disgusting.
It's really repulsive.
It can be better, and it should be better.
And on top of hundreds of thousands of people being dead who shouldn't be dead, this indignity that they are doing is not even necessary, but it's an absolute stain on our political system.
I think the connection here is universal health care.
The countries that have universal health care have no problem understanding the concept of helping people and not having it become a burden on the society.
And that's where we go back into the Reagan administration, who poisoned that well.
Whereas back in the day, in the 60s and the 50s, there was the notion that we were a community.
And certainly if a pandemic hit, the government would have to help, because that's their moral duty.
And then these fucking assholes come in here in the 80s and that's how profound that effect is because it poisoned it for decades and decades and generations to come and then that leads right to QAnon.
Hell, Reagan would love QAnon right now.
QAnon rallies left and right.
He'd have to walk over bent.
He'd have to be bent over when he's walking because of that.
So that's like... Literally, if Reagan was alive for QAnon, all of the jellybeans on his desk could be red.
It would just be red-filled jellybeans left and right.
You know it!
You're exactly right.
Like, he would be... Because QAnon is all about continuing on the mythologies of things like Hollywood.
I mean, their catchphrases are from, like, a movie.
You know what I mean?
Like a really bad sailing movie.
Like, it's all about continuing on the facade of American popular culture mythology.
Oh, absolutely.
Ronald Reagan, I mean, he'd probably be at the front of the QAnon parade.
No doubt about it.
Yeah.
Encouraging it and standing by or whatever.
Yes, absolutely.
And meanwhile, you know, we probably would be remiss if we didn't even talk about the biggest news today probably is that William Barr on his way out, he's going to let the door hit him in the ass on the way out.
It sounds later, fuckers.
Later, everybody.
Thanks for all the fun.
You know, so he can now his here's the thing we didn't mention before, though, is so first of all, he's saying there's no reason to investigate Hunter Biden and there's no reason to investigate the vote, the election.
And he's not going to appoint a counsel.
So but here's the thing.
He's leaving early because if he is part of the Department of Justice, when Trump starts issuing all these pardons, I think he becomes a witness in obstruction of justice.
And he doesn't want to be any part of that and has to get out of there before it happens.
Well, OK, so a couple of things.
And I'm so glad that you framed it the way you did with the Hunter Biden thing.
So, So, Hunter Biden, you know, of course was very popular until they realized that it wasn't going to change a single damn vote.
Because you have Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump.
If you want to cast stones and say that the son of a presidential candidate is corrupt or on the take or whatever, don't be Donald Trump.
Right?
Because that doesn't work.
That's just, that's done.
But I'll tell you who is pushing Hunter Biden right now.
Fox News.
Fox News right now has this new slate of commercials.
Have you seen any of these?
I have not.
Oh, Nick, they're red meat, man.
They are red meat because Fox News is losing viewers left and right to OANN and Newsmax.
They've made the decision that they're all in.
And we talked about this.
We predicted this.
That they weren't going to move towards the center like everybody thought that they were.
They're in it to win it with the QAnon people, with the Trumpist people, the conspiracy people.
The reason why they're pushing it, and Bill Barr is not, is because Fox News still has an economic incentive within the Republican Party and within the American right.
Bill Barr got everything he wanted.
He's fine.
He doesn't need anything more.
He pushed the idea that we talked about this on the episode where he announced that he was leaving.
He has fundamentally changed the law in this country.
It is now officially a malleable law that only is for these people over here as a means of keeping them in check for a theocratic purpose, for religion.
He's established that.
That's precedent now.
It's always been there.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's always been how it worked.
But you now have an Attorney General who said out loud and operated, that means.
He doesn't need to talk about Hunter Biden.
He doesn't need to talk about investigating Biden.
He's walking out, both fingers up, like Stone Cold Steve Austin.
He's like, thanks for all of it, fuckers.
You gave me exactly what I wanted.
You, you know, this agreement that the American right and the evangelical right have with Donald Trump, it all worked out.
They got everything that they wanted.
Yeah, and then they get to charge one more person with the Lockerbie bombing, which he announced today as well, which... I suppose the connection here is that it's the anniversary of the bombing of the plane, but it's just all... This guy... I can only pray that Bill Barr will not be seen kindly at all in the history books writing him down, because he's just such a... I can't even... He's just a terrible stain on...
On our Department of Justice, that's the only way to say it.
I think when... I think when we look back, so like when we're on like season 22 or 25 of the My Craig Podcast, you know what I mean?
Where we're talking about hoverboards and augmented reality, you know, controversies.
I think at that point, so you know how people talk now about Scalia And they talk about like, you know, original intent, that whole thing.
And there's like this whole school of thought around original intent and which, for those of you who aren't familiar with original intent, basically says that we should only have a Constitution like it was written.
Which is weird because the last time I was looking at the Constitution, Nick, there was legal slavery.
But that's...
Sure.
Neither here nor there.
So these originalists, like, they now have a foothold in American jurisprudence, right?
Like, it's taught.
There are entire, like, law schools where you go where that's what you do.
That's what you study.
We now have a Supreme Court that is based on this idea.
It's based on white supremacy, aristocratic law, all of it.
This thing by Bill Barr, I think, is going to be reviled in most law schools.
It's going to be reviled in most history classes.
It's going to join in with this original intent idea.
You're going to see him slotted in right next to Scalia.
I mean, they're going to be lauded for this thing, and it's only going to build the bridge further and further for other ideas of law enforcement and how law enforcement is supposed to be carried out.
Sure, I can remember back in 2003, 2004, in the midst of the Bush administration, where the principles were, our Constitution was founded on Judeo-Christian values, and the Judeo-Christian model, I think, was even more explicit.
And that's another one, that's where the seed was born, because back then, these activist judges were legislating from the bench, and books were coming out about that, and that was, it took a little while, it took 10 years, to whatever it is, but when it finally took hold, Yes, this gospel that people want to follow is really frightening.
I mean, listen, you could talk about slavery.
How about the fact that women couldn't vote, you know?
And that was written explicitly in the Constitution.
And so for them to say, oh yeah, sure, of course women should vote, of course we shouldn't have slavery, but of course we can't reinterpret the Constitution anyway.
Again, we talk about this all the time.
Isn't that weird?
It's almost like they don't mean it.
Yeah, well, they seem to have opposing ideologies that must be clashing in their brains.
The American right?
Wait, I don't know if I can sit here and listen to this.
Are you saying that the principles of the American right are confused and are not at all consistent and the only thing they care about is power and wealth?
That doesn't check out, Nick.
Sit down, Jared.
You might have to sit down for a second.
understand what I'm trying to say.
Yeah.
You know what they should probably, I think edibles might solve this problem.
I feel like, imagine the frustration you must live in walking around every day when you have 10 different things that are completely opposed each other, but you must believe in them all at the same time.
I couldn't, I would be lashing out at everybody.
But that's the whole point is they're fucked up.
That's the whole thing is we have an entire political movement that endangers all of us because all of these people are repressed, messed up, stunted, unhappy, unhealthy.
And like they, they're holding the rest of us hostage.
And And this goes back, just to bring it around full circle, they were in the Oval Office talking about unleashing the military on everyone because nobody wanted to vote for that fucker.
You know what I mean?
Like, he couldn't handle the fact that America didn't want him to be their leader anymore to the point where he's like, we will rain down terror upon you.
Like, that's who they are.
And they are losers and weaklings who have to use the power of the state.
To make people fall in line.
It's what they've always done.
It's what they're continuing to try and do.
And that is why the Republican Party and Trumpism deserve each other and why they found each other.
It's like peanut butter and chocolate, Nick.
They come together and they're just... I mean, really disgusting peanut butter and chocolate.
That sounds disgusting anyway, but okay.
Peanut butter and chocolate?
I mean, is that what that Reese's Buttercup thing is?
Isn't that the thing where the chocolate fell into the peanut butter?
People aren't jelly.
That's what you want, don't you?
Isn't that what you want?
Are you kidding me?
I just want to take a second.
Yeah, I don't like peanut butter and chocolate.
It's like, no.
This is to the listeners of the podcast.
I apologize for Nick.
You're going to catch so much hell for this.
I'm just living out the same kind of talk that the right must live in every day with these opposing ideas.
I'm sorry.
I'm not going to apologize.
I'm not going to apologize.
You should!
This is the most vehement I've ever disagreed with you.
That's incredible.
Chocolate and peanut butter is the truth.
Capital T truth.
That's incredible.
Wow.
Well, you did a good job.
You threw me off.
I had the best point of the entire podcast coming up, and now it's just gone.
The best point of the podcast is that chocolate and peanut butter belong together.
That's the greatest point of the podcast so far.
Knock it down.
Biggest achievement so far.
Incredible.
Well, hey.
I mean, listen.
My life is like memento.
Literally, if I don't tattoo it on the inside of my arm, it's gone within 10 seconds.
Oh, wow.
All right, everybody.
I can't think of a better place because I'm in absolute shock.
I have to gather my bearings right now that you are not a fan of chocolate and peanut butter.
But by the way, for the record, just put a finer point on it.
Fuck Bill Barr, man.
And fuck this whole gaggle of assholes.
I cannot believe that that happened in this country and more people, their hair isn't on fire with this thing.
It's incredible.
The reason why it's not hard to turn these people into the QAnon and to follow this is Eric Trump tweets out some numbers today.
Okay, I have to say, this is enjoyable.
Can you point out what he said?
Because I got a pretty good little chat.
We can't call it word salad.
It's like number salad.
He basically said, well, look, Obama won 60 some billion votes in like 400 counties.
My father won you know, 67 million or whatever, and 4,000 counties, and Biden wins 200 counties and whatever million.
How could that possibly be?
This is our smoking gun, because he won so many more counties.
And it's like, I don't even, I mean, we all understand this, right?
I don't even need to explain how there's like nobody living in these counties he's winning, right?
Hardly.
And that if, you know, the top hundred cities, Biden wins 91 of them or something like that, right?
So it's like, I don't know, but hey, it sounds good.
Look at those numbers.
It's gotta be a problem.
That's what we're going to keep playing into this.
I, you know, I would pay.
Really good money for a show that does nothing except for gets a camera in the face of the Trump kids before they press tweet.
And it's like, what are you thinking right now?
Do you think this is a good idea?
Like really walk us through, you know what I mean?
Like, do you think this is so it's like, um, and, and I think this is fantastic.
I don't know if you've been following it, but Donald Trump Jr has been like going around the country, you know, talking and like talking about stop the steal or whatever.
And he gets in front of a camera and all he wants to talk about is how he should have more engagements on social media.
And how his engagements on social media are down.
Because he's a loser, Nick.
He's a loser, and he's sad, and he's pathetic.
But he just sits around and whines and complains about his engagements.
Eric Trump thinks that's the smoking gun, which is hilarious.
Meanwhile, and we were talking about this before we got on the podcast.
Meanwhile, Pat Robertson.
Pat freaking Robertson, who, by the way, everything that Bill Clinton ever said or did in his entire presidency was proof of the new world order and that Satan was ruling America and the world.
He came out and he was like, I think it's time that Trump accepts a loss.
And I think it's time to move on.
Like when Pat Robertson is the voice of reason in your circle, they're like, I don't know The Trump kids are going to continue to do this thing because they are their father's kids.
That's who they are.
They're going to take after him forever.
I think that's a wonderful smoking gun.
I'm all on board with that.
Sure, I mean, if Pat no-neck Robertson is gonna come out and say that, that's gonna happen.
I think that what's happened is, like, the more pious you get, the older you get, like, just your neck just disappears.
And next thing you know, he literally just, his head is... Nonetheless, yeah, it's... I blame a conspiracy.
I blame a satanic New World Order conspiracy.
Just taking his neck one part at a time.
One vertebrae at a time.
By the way, I do think that Donald Trump Jr.
and Eric are workshopping their tweets.
They're like, they're really looking into them and researching and seeing how they work.
And then they hit that button and they're like just high-fiving each other and like, you know, whoop whoop.
I'm telling you that's what's happening.
And Sister Christian comes on and they just cruise around.
I agree.
I think they think they nail it every time.
Oh, I'm thinking then like maybe some, you know, guy setting off firecrackers too in the room while they're at it.
Why not?
With Donald Jr., for sure that's happening.
I love it.
I just wish they would go away.
I just wish they would go away.
I was watching footage of Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.' 's girlfriend, who is creating her own little media niche, you know, economic incentive.
And she went out to stop the still rally and was like dancing and like really like showing off her moves.
It is.
It's a really gross alternate reality that these people live in.
And again, the fact that it even got close enough to even think about a military coup.
It just, it should give everyone pause.
It should be a serious conversation.
It actually should.
Well, don't forget that this world you're describing, it's disgusting and gross and all these things, is exactly how they're going to describe the world that you live in.
And worse.
Just know that.
Rural Georgia?
Yeah.
Is that what's happening in rural Georgia?
No, just like anything you think about, anything you espouse, any ideas you have are disgusting and horrible and the most depraved.
I mean, you know, that's the thing.
It's the gaslighting thing, I suppose.
I don't know what else to call it.
And that's how gross it is.
It's so bad.
But I will tell you to bring this thing into harbor.
So again, a reminder, we are going to have the Montgomery The Muckrake Holiday Party.
I about called it a political party.
That's not great.
We don't need a Muckrake political party.
We could launch our own, I suppose.
You know what?
Maybe that's the next step.
I don't know.
But the Muckrake Holiday Party will be Wednesday night at 7.30 p.m.
Eastern.
All you have to do is go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast to go ahead and be a part of that.
By the way, you unlock exclusive content like our... What do we do?
An hour and a half plus on It's a Wonderful Life?
Yeah, yeah.
Hour and a half plus on It's a Wonderful Life, liberal propaganda, the housing crash.
Really good episode, I thought, but that's available right now.
You know, as you're people putting up trees still, I guess, putting up trees, fixing dinner, doing whatever you're doing.
We are going to take this Friday off, so no new episode this coming Friday.
We will be back next week.
Hopefully, knock on wood, we can have a holiday without an emergency podcast.
But I think Trump's going to get itchy.
I think he's going to smell some shit.
I think he's going to try and stir the pot a little bit because he feels the attention slipping a little bit.
We shall see.
I don't know.
I'm going to take the bet that he won't.
I think he'll leave Christmas alone.
Wow.
You think he's going to leave Christmas alone?
I think so.
I don't know why.
I just have a feeling.
That's a bold bet, my man.
I hope you're right.
I would like a couple days of rest.
That would be nice.
But we will be back next week.
We hope everybody listening has an awesome holiday.
Be safe.
Be smart.
All that good stuff.
You know, as always, we hope that you will like, subscribe, share, tell people about this podcast, rate us, all that good stuff.
All of it helps and builds momentum and it's really, really appreciated.
We appreciate you.
If you need Nick, you can find him at Can You Hear Me?
SMH.
You can find me at J.Y.
Sexton.
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