This is a preview of the full Weekender Friday episode. To unlock the full 50+ minute show, and all future episodes, head over to patreon.com/muckrakepodcast and become a subscriber. You'll gain access to more content, as well as live tapings, and more.
Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the court filing by Rudy Giuliani that admits he lied about voter fraud in Georgia as it reveals the true mindset of the GOP as a whole. While their outrage over the Hunter Biden tax evasion case whips the base into a frenzy, they cannot under any circumstances bring themselves to scrutinize Trump's myriad of evidence based indictments in the same way. They wrap up with the real possibility that we as a society won't have bananas anymore.
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I'm no longer calling from the highways and byways of the United States of America.
I'm Jared Yates.
I'm here with Nick Hausman.
Nick, I'm relieved.
I'm glad we're not going to have any missing parts of conversations that we're having.
A knock on wood, actually, now that I say that out loud.
It is good to be back here for the Weekender edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
The sweet ASMR sound of a can opening of suds that I've missed for a little while.
I'm not sure you did it last week either.
No, I had my traveling mug.
I've got one of those Yeti guys.
This is not product placement.
It's a way of life.
I need water with me at all times.
I drink too much water.
I need my Yeti there.
I don't know if you heard the tinkling of the ice, but that's what happened.
But it feels good to be back and sitting in my home studio.
Nick, we have a barn burner of a show.
Listen, are we going to talk about Donald Trump possibly being indicted for January 6th?
Yes, we are.
Are we going to talk about Hunter Biden?
Unfortunately, we have to.
Are we going to talk about Rudy Giuliani further shaming himself?
Are we going to talk about Mitch McConnell glitching out and what it means?
Are we going to talk about Florida continuing to slide into an authoritarian corporate hell regime?
Are we going to talk about bananas?
I heard somebody ask.
Yes.
Yes, we are.
That's what we're doing on the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
If you want to listen to this whole thing, I know you do, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
It keeps us editorially independent.
It supports the show.
muckrake.com.
Or muckrake.com.
Patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
But, Nick, first things first, we have to talk more about Trump indictments.
I feel like this is maybe the 12th or 13th indictment at this point.
It appears as if he is going to be charged for multiple counts coming out of the January 6, 2021, attempted coup, insurrection, and white supremacist hootenanny.
I don't know how to feel about this.
I don't know exactly how to fully process this.
What are your initial thoughts on the fact that it seems like an indictment is coming?
Well, Jared, you may not know how to feel about this, but Trump certainly does.
Trump knows how to feel about this, yes.
Yeah, let me tell you what he said the other day, maybe yesterday on his Truth Thing Social or whatever that thing is.
Truth Social Gab, Gab Social.
He goes, quote, we'll have fun on the stand with all of these people.
I'd say the presidential election wasn't rigged and stolen.
And he spells stolen S-T-O-L-L-E-N multiple times in his career here.
He doesn't, this is how he thinks stolen is spelled.
And then in all caps, the trial of the century.
Now, I don't know about you, Jared, but like, I can't think of very many normal, rational, sane people that would consider being a defendant in a federal trial fund.
I don't think that would be the word that comes to my mind, but it makes me worried if this is going to, So you're telling me, first of all, that Donald Trump might enjoy a media spectacle and not understand the consequences of his actions?
I don't know if I can believe it, to be honest with you.
We talked a little bit about the possibility he was going to be indicted for the January 6th thing.
I want to reiterate again because it wouldn't be me if I didn't say this.
Yeah, great.
Indict him for that.
Hold him responsible for it.
We also need to go after the people who plotted it and funded it and organized it.
While we're on that subject, I wrote about this on Substack today.
We're recording this on Thursday, July 27th.
Nick, it now appears almost for certain, unless something major happens, unless somehow or another legally he's barred from running for the presidency, it does appear as of today, about a month out from the first Republican debate, it appears as if Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States of America.
Having him be under multiple federal indictments, and not just federal indictments, but being indicted for stealing state secrets is one thing, but trying to overthrow an election that he was involved in.
That is not just unprecedented, that's really worrying.
And what I'm realizing as we're sort of like moving into this time period and into this this primary, which is going to be wild, what we're looking at at this point is a really dangerous situation.
And, you know, I know when we started this podcast, we were talking about how dangerous Trump was and the MAGA movement was and all of that.
Like, it feels like this is stepping it up a notch, doesn't it?
It feels like things are about to really, really start popping off.
And that is after years of popping off.
Yeah, and you don't forget about Georgia, which also appears imminent, so... Yeah, yeah.
There isn't anybody, really, who could sustain four indictments at the same time.
Especially the way he's acting, you know, and saying things.
And plus, E.J.
and Carol, he's getting himself in problems with that, too, by talking publicly about her, so... Nick, have you ever... You know, something you said right there, and something that you said a second ago, it just made me realize.
It's like being with someone who is off the rails.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
And like, you try and say to them, you're like, Hey, things are getting a little weird.
You know what I mean?
Like things, I'm a little worried about what's going on.
And they like, look at you and they're like, I'm living life, baby.
And things increase.
Like it's, it's, it's, it's honestly, like you said, like this is a person facing multiple Federal indictments and the possibility, let's make it clear, Donald Trump could go to prison.
Donald Trump could spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
And this person obviously does not understand what he's done.
And he's doubling, tripling, quadrupling, whatever five is down.
And you're right.
I don't think he, not only does he understand it, but he's in this delusional state that you're right.
I don't, I don't, I don't think that the gravity of it, otherwise he wouldn't have done this in the first place.
You know what I mean?
Well, hanging out with him is reminiscent of, do you remember the behind the scenes, or behind the Hollywood, whatever, that Dave Chappelle used to do?
They tell us the one story about Rick James.
So it's probably like hanging out with Rick James, like he describes it.
Or even better, it reminds me of, remember Herve Villachez, who played Tabu on Fantasy Island?
The plane, the plane.
Yeah.
So there's a movie, I don't know if you've seen this, it's a great movie called My Dinner with Herve.
And uh it's insane the dude was like off the rails like you're describing and this writer to basically describe his his 24 hours hanging out with the guy.
It's it's like Charlie Sheen you know the original sort of viral moment that that that sort of like defined how this stuff works and I gotta point out like you know people can laugh at it all they want but like This is a person at the helm of, like, an authoritarian movement that is absolutely primed for this stuff.
They see his indictments as an attack on them.
You know, they've been stewing in conspiracy theories for not just years, but many of them their entire lives.
And, like, this is proof to them that the so-called deep state is coming after them.
And what is Trump and the people around him doing?
They're saying, oh, we can fundraise off of this.
We'll raise so much money off of this.
Matter of fact, we'll go ahead and we'll put out cups and t-shirts and stuff like that.
We'll put out videos.
The wolves are coming for me.
The wolves are coming for you.
Like, this environment that we're getting ready to, like, we've been living in a dangerous environment.
We're looking at an absolute tinderbox.
And not only is it, you know, just covered in gasoline, but there are just matches around the entire perimeter of this thing.
Like, it is, it's a really, really concerning situation that's developing.
Well, on my Twitter feed, or, we can't call it that, can we?
Yeah, the X. Get with the times, my friend.
Here's what's so weird about it, like, somebody, I think he ended up getting the domain, x.com, he has, like, control over it, but when you go, if you're on your browser, it still says twitter.com slash whatever.
They haven't been able to even figure that out, how to, like, transfer over URLs, it's so ridiculous.
Aaron Blake, who is, you know, if you look at his bio, he is a senior political reporter for The Fix at the Washington Post, so I'm going to go with what he says is legit.
He says that there's a Marquette poll recently that shows that 50% of Republicans don't even think Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Now, he says later on that this number has declined from 66%.
So, it actually has been going down.
More and more Republicans, I guess, are starting to believe that he did have classified docs.
Which, you know, also folds into January 6th as far as what Republicans want to believe and where they are.
They lie on the Trump scale.
But that's a lot of people still that don't even think that he had classified docs.
And this is the genius, I suppose, of Trump, is he says things long enough, he twists the narrative, he changes the reality.
He says, these are all my papers.
So suddenly the classified docs that everyone could have acknowledged that morph into just private papers of his that he wants to keep, that he's allowed to keep because of NARA.
This is the, it really is, it becomes frightening because I know, it's a lot of fucking people here.
It's an incredible slide.
I remember, I used to have conversations with people.
It's like the Nixon principle, right?
Like, if you talk to people who are Republican or whatever, or conservative, for a long time what they said about Richard Nixon was, he didn't get caught doing anything that nobody else was doing.
You know what I mean?
Like, this is just what presidents do.
It just so happened that he got caught doing it.
We've entered this new territory now.
Which is where everything has now become not just more aggressive, but also weaponized, right?
Like, the illegal activities, the abuses, the authoritarian things, there's not even a need to, like, really explain them away.
I thought what was interesting, I think you said it was like 50% of Republicans think that he had classified docs?
Think about that.
Half of Republicans thought that he had classified material, and they don't give a shit.
You know what I mean?
It's not like they're not gonna vote against him because he stole state secrets.
They're just like, yeah, okay, he had state secrets.
What are you gonna do about it?
That's something he should be able to do.
The same thing with January 6th.
They literally now look at it as an attempted revolution that was thwarted, but in their minds, it was worth it.
Which, you know, I sent to you.
The numbers are crazy right now of how many people are looking for violence as a solution who think that an overthrow of the government is absolutely necessary.
And the more that this moves forward, the more that the contagion of that idea grows.
And I got to tell you, it's not just a train rolling into the station, Nick, for this election.
It's a train that is on fire, like just moving into the station at a speed that you can't even imagine.
And like this guy is not only fighting for his political life, He's fighting for his life.
You know what I mean?
And this is a person who, even when he was just running for president the first time, showed absolutely no caution whatsoever in what he did in America.
Now that he is fighting for his political and his personal life and freedom, I gotta tell you, it's gonna be bumping.
Well, I can't now have the image of the train pulling into the station completely on fire with Kevin McCarthy doing a Kevin Bacon-style Animal House.
All is well!
Remain calm!
There's nothing wrong.
By the way, speaking of January 6th and people who are responsible, Ari Alexander, no friend of the Breakdown, no friend of the pod, Um, Ari Alexander, this is not breaking news, but it could very well be at some point.
He seems to think that he is going to have enough evidence against Marjorie Taylor Greene that would get her kicked out of Congress.
So just throw that out there.
He was going nuts and saying something.
So he might have some receipts, because obviously he's going to be on the hook too, and these guys are going to, you know, pull out any kind of thing they can to protect their own ass.
So, be prepared for that.
There might be some interesting stuff that happens there, but again, you know, Jack Smith in no way in my mind could ever have gotten as close as he could have gotten as he is now to indicting somebody, especially for January 6th, if he did not have not only just like the evidence that Trump was connected, but I think it's the money.
I think they're finally doing what you have been really hoping.
I don't think so.
I think it looks like there's some money component here where they're trying to trace it and figure out My guess is that there were multiple scams that were happening with January 6th.
On one hand there was like the real money that was like making sure this stuff happened and was exchanging hands.
Trump always has a petty scam.
You know what I mean?
Like it's trying to take donations and move them over here into a personal bank.
Can I share a quick little thing that is bugging the shit out of me?
As long as it's not me bugging the shit out of you.
No, it's not.
You never.
No, you're a delight.
Jack Smith.
There is an account on Twitter that proclaims to be Jack Smith.
It is obviously not Jack Smith.
It is obviously a parody account.
And, like, everybody is treating it like it's a real account of Jack Smith.
It's incredible that people really truly think that this prosecutor is on Twitter talking about Donald Trump's days are numbered.
It shows, I don't know what's happening here, but it feels very QAnon-ish.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, here, I'm gonna let you know what's happening before it happens.
And, like, I found it.
Somebody retweeted it on X or whatever we're calling it.
I saw it, and it made me realize, like, how, like, twisted the public mind is at this point.
thinking that like they're they're they're getting like the straight scoop from you know uh smith as this whole thing happens meanwhile you couldn't be more right he has the goods on trump that that's just the way that it is how these things are going to play out i gotta tell you i don't know how our legal system is going to deal with all this i I don't have total faith that these things are going to work out.
And we need to talk about this.
And I'm sorry, I don't want to say the name Hunter Biden.
I don't want to do it.
I don't want to talk about Hunter Biden.
I don't want to get into it.
But I got to tell you, the Hunter Biden case, we do have to talk about it, which is Hunter Biden, as we reported earlier, was going to had a plea deal.
Uh for all these different charges there was a tax charge there was a gun charge uh went to court to do this thing and the judge threw it off the table and why because we are entering into a politica politicalized period with our judicial system and it is uh it is where supposedly we we mediate the differences between ourselves um it's going to turn into a war zone and it already is in certain circles uh but I think it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets
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