The Insurrection Evidence Closes In On White House
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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss more revelations that the Oath Keepers were working in concert with the "powers that be," as well as Biden's low polling numbers and the inability to pass the voting rights bill.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the weekender edition of the Munkerick Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates Sexton.
I'm here with Nick Halseman.
We've got a show packed to the gills.
We've got Cinema Mansion voting down the voting rights bill.
The president got in front of some microphones and talked to some people.
He could not be pulled away from this.
We're going to discuss all of that and more.
But before we do, Nick, we got to talk about insurrection.
We got to talk about dudes in eyepatches with weapons and plans to overthrow the government of the United States of America.
The eye patch is always a nice little detail.
Wait, where's your can of beverage?
Listen, to pull back the curtain, because again, this is for our patrons.
Reminder, if you're listening to the preview, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Why haven't you done it already?
Come along on this journey with us to pull the curtain back a little bit.
I'm finishing my book this weekend.
I've got Fifty-ish pages to get to.
It's going really, really well.
I'm going to get there.
I need to be clear-headed.
I need to be ready to play, is what I need.
You need to be sharp.
I hear you.
It's bring your A game, perhaps.
I need to bring my A game, exactly.
Okay, well then that's fine.
We'll have to sacrifice the AMSR.
What is it?
What's that thing where everyone speaks and they whisper?
ASMR.
That's the can opening.
That's the ASMR that we all love to hear.
I'll make a deal with everybody.
When we tape our episode on Monday, which is the day that my book is due, that episode, listen, you're going to notice a marked difference in my personality and how I approach the world.
It's going to be like a a butterfly let loose into the world. - I might have a beer with you then. - Love it, I absolutely love it.
And hopefully we can be toasting at that point to these people being held accountable.
And for anyone who hasn't been keeping track of this thing, and what I love by the way, is how many critics of this situation with January 6th have just been saying, has anybody been charged with an insurrection yet?
Like, how are you saying it's an insurrection if nobody has been charged?
Well, guess what?
We got a shit ton of people at this point who have been charged with trying to overthrow the government of the United States.
First and foremost is a delightful fellow named Stuart Rhodes, who for the past, since 2009, has basically been running around the country, gathering together militia members, anti-government extremists, under the banner of fighting the New anti-government extremists, under the banner of fighting the New World Order, which Nick, as you know, is code for your people are trying to control the world and we have to stop them. - Yeah, hang on, I'm just finishing our meeting.
Okay, go ahead.
It was special instructions, right?
And they've been running around the country doing all of this.
Gathering weapons, working on stuff.
And they were one of the main actors at January 6th.
They engaged, allegedly, we gotta legally do that, allegedly, in a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
I have to tell you, for anybody who's interested in these kinds of things, the developments over the past couple of days, the things that have been revealed, Nick, I would just I would throw this out there.
I don't think that the situation ends with the Oath Keepers.
I think maybe it goes a little bit higher than Stuart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers.
Right.
Well, the plausible deniability is always the key here, and how can they have separated, how can the powers that be, which is a big phrase that this guy likes to use, the powers that be, how separated are they from the underlings, the grunts on the ground who are actually carrying out some of this stuff?
Yeah, it definitely feels like the coordination points continue to bubble up and we keep seeing closer and closer ties.
I remember, and it's kind of been kind of hushed at this point, but I remember seeing reports and like photos of Oath Keepers with certain members of Congress like leading up to January 6th.
So I imagine they have video surveillance of this stuff too if that really comes about and that's going to be another layer here.
But yes, to me it sounds like, I don't want to take away your thunder because I feel like you have the real conspiracy of what you think is going to happen, but it seems to me that this goes to the White House.
And I think that they were dumb enough to speak about it and write about it and have it in paper.
They're going to have evidence, as the Supreme Court voted, they're going to have to release all these papers, it looks like.
And they're going to find out that there is a bit of a paper trail, if not a huge paper trail, that connects the old keepers in the ground to, at the very least, who do you think goes to?
I think at this point, and listen, I'm not a betting man, but I like to talk about possibilities.
You're a lover, not a fighter.
I like to talk about things that seem more likely than not.
And as we were talking about before we started recording, you know how like, and I hate Las Vegas, but I know that these things exist.
I'm not a Las Vegas guy, I'm sorry.
But you know how they have the boards You know what I mean?
And they tell you like what the odds are on like a game.
I'm familiar with that.
I think that the board just moved a little bit and as you look up from the absolute hellscape that is Las Vegas culture, apologies to any of our Las Vegas listeners, you will notice that the board now shows that the numbers have moved around and it now looks more likely that Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to Donald Trump, Could very well end up being the fall guy in a lot of these things.
And we'll talk more about why that is and what this is looking like.
But before we do that, let's get to what we're certain of at this point.
First of all, that they are dumb enough to have engaged in some of these things.
Let's be very clear.
People like the Oath Keepers.
People like Stuart Rhoades, they are very dangerous people, right?
They're just dangerous enough and they're just dumb enough to be incredibly useful to people.
You know what I mean?
Like to be on the ground proxies for people who Who would love some of these dangerous, violent, and a lot of them, by the way, are ex-military.
A lot of them have training.
Enough of these people that they can make situations move in one way or another.
That is without dispute that these people come in handy.
But they went to January 6th, and they didn't go to pick up a MAGA hat.
They didn't go to livestream to their followers and advertise their real estate business.
They came ready to do some business, right?
Well, it's funny because if you read the revolution in this country way back in the late 1700s, if you read that in a certain frame of mind, then perhaps you can put yourself in that same mindset where you're like, okay, we're in the same exact situation here.
The British are coming.
We got to see the whites of their eyes.
We are going to now cosplay that whole scenario in real life.
Again, that is their rallying cry.
And listen, some of these people we already say, especially on the politician side, don't believe what they say.
These Oath Keepers are fully on board and truly believe.
They are true believers, my man.
Yeah.
And so their whole thing is like, and we'll get into a little bit more of the specifics, but like, you know, they were convinced that Trump was going to simply do a big data dump and, you know, and show all of the work, show all of the, you know, the ballot stuffing and all of the illegal voting.
And before he left office, that was going to be a really big thing, which also would have been another Green light for them to have more of a revolution and have a violence in the streets and be justified.
Did you see the reports that a lot of people who somehow left articles of their belonging in Nancy Pelosi's office called the next day to ask if it was in the lost and found?
Did you see that?
No, is that real?
That is real.
Now, do you know what that says?
Because it's interesting.
You want to make fun of these people.
Hey, why do you leave your phone somewhere?
I never leave my phone anywhere.
What does it say to you that, and it wasn't just one, the report were like, you know, numerous people called to say, hey, did you find my backpack in her office?
What does that say to you about what they felt like they were doing?
Well, I think there's a lot of different things, and whenever we talk about January 6th, it's always important that we talk about the fact that this was a disparate group of people, right?
There were, on one hand, there were a lot of MAGA heads, much like there are parrot heads following Jimmy Buffett around, right?
There were a lot of people who wanted to be at a MAGA party.
They wanted to be around Donald Trump, they wanted to hang out, they wanted to be around their own kind, such and such.
We also had a bunch of QAnon diehards who literally believed it was going to be the storm or the Great Awakening, right?
They believed that this was the prophesied moment of truth in which humanity would, you know, reach some sort of newer, higher level and that all of the criminals would be rounded up.
Well, they were looking for a military coup, right?
Then we have a bunch of people like the Oath Keepers.
And the mindset of revolution is really important.
I'm glad you brought that up because It changes, right?
So like, you're in a crowd.
You're with all of these people in this crowd of January 6th.
Let's say that you're an Oath Keeper, right?
The entirety of your philosophy and ideology is that the government has been taken over by global elites, Jews, and that you need to take it back, right?
You are a revolutionary.
You are a true patriot.
As all of a sudden people are going into the Capitol, what enters your mind?
You think, Oh, this might be it, right?
I might be in this at this moment.
This is an opportunity to do something.
Also, there's a possibility it had been coordinated with some powerful people that maybe this would be it.
This would be the moment, right?
Well, guess what?
It wasn't the moment.
Guess what?
It didn't work out.
It didn't, you know, so maybe some people didn't make a call.
Maybe some things didn't come through.
All of a sudden, on the other side, you're like, oh, come on.
That wasn't a revolution.
What are you talking about that was a revolution?
It's like George Costanza in Seinfeld coming back the day after he quits his job.
Oh, I didn't mean that!
You thought that was real?
Come on!
It's a state of mind, and the Oath Keepers think of themselves as a revolutionary vanguard, and that they're going to lead the revolution, and eventually all these MAGA heads and all these people are going to come along with them.
But you're right.
The mindset changes and shifts.
But I can tell you, they went to Washington, D.C., ready to roll.
So here's what I understand, because we're seeing a lot of the communications leading up to January 6th, where there's a lot of planning, a lot of coordinating.
People understood the laws of Virginia or D.C., which is you cannot have concealed weapons, carry concealed weapons.
So you saw a lot of these messages saying, I want to send guns ahead of me or, you know, have them delivered somewhere.
So they're waiting when I don't.
So I'm not carrying my person.
But when when the time comes, boom, people are going to rush in there with our guns and arm us.
Right.
Tell me if I'm wrong, because I am I'm simply a caveman lawyer.
These times frighten me.
That sounds to me like forethought.
Yeah, that's a pretty good definition.
Would it also be forethought if this group was preparing for special operations including barricades, ambushes, and urban warfare?
Would that also be forethought?
Oh, you would expect that.
And don't forget, like you said, they all have, or many of them have, if they don't have military training directly, then they teach themselves.
Remember how we talked about when you teach the animals how to do sign language and then they teach the other animals?
This is what they're doing.
They teach them all the military stuff, right?
What if the founder, a certain eye-patched individual, while he was on the way to Washington, D.C.
After, by the way, going to Washington, D.C.
repeatedly to carry out surveillance to see what was what and where things were.
While he was on the way to DC, while he was coordinating people to put weapon caches just away from the place where you couldn't have weapon caches, what if on the way there he was spending thousands of dollars on things like platform semi-automatic rifles?
What if they had a drone that could be used for surveillance?
What if all these things were being trafficked?
That seems to me to almost border, and again, I'm merely a caveman lawyer.
That seems to border on forethought.
You're a caveman lawyer who did not sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, Express last night.
No, I only stashed my weapons cache at the Holiday Inn Express.
And the reason why you're bringing this up in this manner is because what you'll hear Republicans say time and time again is that not only was it not an insurrection, but it was a spur of the moment.
But it was a spur of the moment.
Just sort of everyone got out of control a little bit here.
Just sort of everyone got out of control a little bit here.
They got a little too excited about what they were believed in about this country.
They got a little too excited about what they were believing about this country.
And they got a little rowdy.
And they got a little rowdy.
Like that's what they wanted.
Like that's what they want to – It doesn't get a little drunk on patriotism every now and then.
It doesn't get a little drunk on patriotism every now and then.
Right.
Revolutionary further.
Revolutionary further.
But here's what I understand.
But here's what I understand.
So the bottom line is they had what they called quick reaction forces ready to go, stationed in and around the capital to descend upon it when they felt like the green light was turned on with their weapons and make it an official military operation or run like a military operation.
They didn't do it, though.
And that is what was so strange.
So, A, we're very fortunate that it wasn't completely and utterly bloody, and it would have been very easy, right?
In the melee of what was going on, and they're smashing everything, and they're killing, well, whatever.
The deaths and the police are getting just beaten up.
That would have been the signal.
And I've seen, like, have you ever been in a bar fight?
Have you ever been around a bar fight that's, like, chaotic and out of control?
I've seen people who I have been talking with, you know, in a very calm, interesting, about movies or whatever, turn into You know, like commando.
It's insane.
It's crazy.
It's scary.
So I just don't understand why they didn't ultimately go in and do that.
Well, so there's a couple things happening here.
And this brings us to the wider narrative that I've been having conversations with people about this, that people are being very, very careful about how they talk about this in public.
I'll just say that, right?
Because I'll just go and throw this out there.
Investigations are ongoing.
Investigations are ongoing.
So, let me just present to you in that arena.
How about this?
We'll try a thought experiment.
Okay.
Yeah, you know, just a thought experiment.
How about that?
Okay, I'm in.
Yeah, you know, there's nothing happening here.
We're just a couple guys hanging out, talking on a podcast, talking about, I don't know, things that might have happened or things that could have happened that have no relationship to reality or such.
So, while the Oath Keepers, who, it's weird enough that why they were at the Capitol, do you know who they were there with, by the way?
I don't, well, all the other three percenters and whatnot, that kind of stuff?
No, hold on.
Here's an individual.
The name doesn't ring a bell.
I need to read this off this.
Roger Stone?
Oh, yeah.
Weird.
I've heard of him.
Yeah, I've heard of him, too.
Anyway, I knew the name sounded familiar.
So they're there with Roger Stone.
They just had lunch together, and I think he covered the tab.
That was all, right?
Right.
Roger Stone has never covered a tab.
Oh, fair enough.
Do not, do not do that.
Even as a joke or a bit, do never, ever give Roger Stone credit for covering a tab.
But you know, Roger Stone has interesting ties to people in power, including the President of the United States at that point.
the Oath Keepers are starting to plan for January 6th, a weird thing starts popping up, Nick.
And the weird thing that starts popping up in all their communications, their speeches, all of the things that they're doing trying to get Oath Keepers to Washington, D.C. on January 6th, they start bringing up the possibility that something might happen at January 6th.
And Donald Trump, as President of the United States of America, and again, we're just, we're doing a thought experiment here, that Donald Trump, as President of the United States of America, would have a reason to invoke the Insurrection Act.
And what the Oath Keepers came to believe, probably independently on their own, Like, there's probably no chance that Roger Stone, you know, served as a liaison between, you know, the Oath Keepers and the White House or anybody like that.
Even though it's kind of weird that we talked about this not too long ago, that there were a bunch of presentations on Capitol Hill with members of Congress and Republicans talking about the possibility of declaring Insurrection Act and, you know, going after it that way.
There were all kinds of PowerPoint presentations going around.
Mark Meadows obviously had to turn this over to the January 6th Commission before he realized that he had committed what we call an oopsie.
So somehow or another, they came to the conclusion that if the Insurrection Act was enacted, that Trump would then designate the Oath Keepers as members of a peacekeeping militia.
It's very odd that they would have that idea and that that would be floating around the halls of power among the Republican Party and the White House at the same time.
Again, a thought experiment.
I assume that all of this is a big, giant coink-a-dink, as we like to say.
I can't imagine that there's anything else to draw from this.
Well, listen, if you want to ignore the big story from last week, which was that all of these fake electors that were sent from various states were almost the same exact, you know, written statements, which definitely indicates coordination.
Then sure, it sounds completely coincidental.
Who knew?
This is just a bunch of random things, but there's no question that this is shaping up to be.
Now, here's the funny thing is we are now sounding a little bit more like they are as far as deep state and coordination and all this kind of stuff.
But like, at least we have some evidence to that.
I mean, at least there's paper trails at this point.
And I got to tell you, I don't think it's a coincidence that all, a coink-a-dink again, That we're talking about these investigations and the rhetoric around the investigations from official channels are about, hey, you build and you move up because here's what we're looking for at this point, right?
Stuart Rhodes, probably going to jail for a long time.
That's probably where this thing is going.
And amazingly, by the way, immediately as he got arrested, everyone was just like, ah, he's obviously a federal agent.
He's obviously an informer.
Which is how this whole thing works, right?
As Fox News helps with this shit, as Alex Jones helps with this shit.
By the way, weird fact, Stuart Rhodes kind of gained momentum going on Alex Jones' show.
So that's fun, too.
So as all of this stuff is happening, Stuart Rhodes is probably going to jail for a while.
The question is, can you go higher than that?
And you and I pay attention to this stuff.
We've paid attention to history.
Mark Meadows has all of the trappings of a fall guy in this situation.
It's high, but not too high.
It's quarantine there.
He bites the bullet.
He goes in.
He does his time, hoping that Donald Trump could probably, you know, give him a pardon or a Republican would give him a pardon.
But doesn't he just stink, a fall guy, in this situation?
Yeah.
I mean, John Dean is what instantly came to mind here.
When you look at different conspiracies or what the government has participated in that have been sort of nefarious behind-the-scenes stuff, this is always how they set it up.
You need to be able to have what seems to be rogue people who are acting on their own because they are placed into a situation with some thought about this and how to influence their actions.
By, like, you know, having a rally per se, right?
If you have a rally there, and then that gets them there, then who knows what's going to happen, right?
How could I possibly be responsible for what people do at this rally in which I claim that the election was stolen and I told them to go to the Capitol?
And I'll go with you.
By the way, can we just take a quick moment and just appreciate how that might be the most uniquely Donald Trump thing ever.
I'm going to go with you to the Capitol and then he goes and watches it on TV.
Yeah.
You know that one of the aides would have been like, well Mr. President, are you ready to go?
He's like, fuck no, I'm not going.
What are you kidding?
You think I'm going to go with these people?
It's cold outside.
No, it's chilly.
Also, that's a far walk for him.
He's not going to the Capitol.
He's going to go watch it on TV.
Remember, he wouldn't go out in the rain in France, so it certainly wouldn't go out in the cold in there.
Here's another thing I didn't understand because you read the article that has all these excerpts of the Yield Keepers leading up to this and the interviews on these different podcasts.
Well, at one point, he actually comes out.
I think it's Rhodes or one of those guys says that QAnon is a PSYOP.
They were convinced.
He was convinced it was a PSYOP, which means like it was set up by the CIA, false information, yadda yadda yadda.
Okay, that's actually encouraging because that kind of means like maybe they understood that QAnon really wasn't real and what they were really saying is a bunch of horseshit, right?
But then, like, within a few sentences, he starts to continue to call these politicians pedophiles, among other things, that are straight out of the QAnon canon.
And it's like, if that doesn't completely encapsulate what we're dealing with here, I don't know what does, because it's like they've assimilated that stuff, and then they can somehow turn around and pretend like they understand that it's not real, but they still believe it anyway, right?
It's such a strange time we live in, or such a strange mindset to be in, it's hard to understand how you're supposed to communicate with people like that.
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