Weekender PREVIEW: Trump and Putin Burning Up the Phone Lines
Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman break down the latest, including Bob Woodward's revelations that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are apparently best-phone-friends, the Trump Campaign's bizarre new "anti-woke military" video, Tucker and Elon yucking it up over political assassinations, the January 6 inmates forming an authoritarian prison gang, and details from the recent Kamala Harris media blitz.
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Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the Moncrack Podcast.
I'm JJ Sexton. I'm here with Nick Halseman, who is on a super-secret, confidential mission right now.
Don't ask him about it, people.
Don't ask him about it.
All I want to say is it's very exciting.
We're very excited for our good friend Nick Halseman.
Well, thank you, Jared.
I mean, you know, we can kind of talk about it in the basketball sense.
If something's going on that I'm doing, it's been very rewarding and sort of a culmination of everything I've been doing for my, I guess, my whole life in terms of basketball.
So, you know, we'll hear about it at some point soon, but it's been really exciting.
You can't say it, so I will say this.
On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the most exciting, all I can tell our listeners, this is a 10.
This is a big effing deal, as the former Vice President of the United States of America would say.
Is that correct? A 10 is where we're at?
I mean, there might be, if it's 9, because there might be one other thing that could be the 10, you know, but it's up there.
We're way up there, though.
Yeah, it's way up there. I mean, I walked home from where I was to the hotel and I think I touched the ground a little bit, but it's unclear.
We're so excited for you, and we're so excited that you get to now hang out and talk about the rightward trajectory and radicalization of the United States of America.
That's what we do for a living, and so that's when we have to do the real work.
A reminder to everybody to go to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
If you're listening to a free preview of this show, you want the whole show.
You listen to the preview every week.
We see the numbers, Nick.
We see them with our eyes.
We can do the math.
Come on over to The Good Side, patreon.com slash mycraigpodcast.
Also, because at the end of these shows, we talk about what we're watching, which is probably the highlight of our weekender episodes, I would think, for most of the people listening.
People enjoy the conversations about the type of art and literature that we are experiencing.
So, patreon.com slash mccraigpodcast.
Nick, we have a full show today.
We have a lot to get to. We have to start, though.
And by the way, if I ever bring up Bob Woodward on this show, and we're not talking about Watergate, we are talking about Bob Woodward sitting on information that should have been made public previously because he has a new book coming out.
And that's what's happening.
Bob Woodward has a new book called War that is coming out, and it is full of the type of Bob Woodward Tidbits that we all know that he holds onto until the book comes out.
A couple of things.
We found out that President Joe Biden truly believed that Vladimir Putin was on the verge of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, that he regrets hiring Merrick Garland as the Attorney General.
And we have a lot of reasons why we regret that Merrick Garland is the Attorney General, but it sounds like it's because of the Hunter Biden prosecution.
But in the bigger, more important part of the revelations from Bob Woodward, We have now heard that Donald Trump, since he was president of the United States, has talked to Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia, roughly seven times, if not more, in a citizen ex-president capacity.
So there's that. We're good to go.
I mean, I think now we finally understand, or I believe we already knew, why they destroyed the notes of his meeting with Putin back in Helsinki, I believe is where it was, because you have to imagine all of this stuff that's being discussed and, you know, it talked about then as well.
I mean, this is a guy, Trump, who had said, oh, Putin wants to help us, you know, with, uh, establish a commission to, uh, what was it that, you know, keep, uh, information, uh, misinformation off the internet?
Well, I mean, whatever it was, it kind of made it seem like he wanted to invite Russia into our national security apparatus, right?
Which is like, you know, the ultimate sign of a spy, I guess.
So these are the October surprises we were talking about, right?
These little drips of gaps. Maybe Woodward was just a patriot, Jared, who wants to save this for the opportune time to, you know, make it as most damaging to Trump as possible.
I know that when I like to be a patriot journalist, I like to wait to reveal my patriotism until my book's ready for pre-order.
That's usually how I do it, usually.
I led a presidential race that is basically a dead heat at this point.
But I do want to say, in the midst of all of this, you brought up October Surprise.
This isn't going to change anything.
I hate to say it, but what we're talking about are actual blockbuster revelations.
There is no reason for Donald Trump to talk to Vladimir Putin seven times as a private citizen, except for that Vladimir Putin believes that Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States of America and wants to go ahead and foster a relationship with him that will be beneficial to him going forward.
I want to remind people of something that I've said over and over again.
Donald Trump is a symptom of a larger problem.
Vladimir Putin and other dictators around the world are part of a larger authoritarian
international movement that has taken hold in the United States of America through the
GOP and their billionaire benefactors, all the tech fascists, you name it.
What we're looking at here is information that makes that more and more clear.
Vladimir Putin did not give up on Donald Trump as president of the United States of America.
He has been talking with him.
There have been rumors that they have talked about what should happen with Ukraine, which
means that Putin, like every other dictator in the world, knows that if he sucks up to
Donald Trump, if he, if he, if he, you know, goads him, if he, if he gives him compliments,
if he's affectionate towards him, he will go ahead and do what he wants them to do.
The thing that needs to happen at this point, and we'll talk about the Harris campaign in a bit, and it has been an abysmal stretch for them.
If they do not hammer this home that Donald Trump is a puppet in waiting, that he was a puppet before, and that he was a puppet in waiting, and he'll be a puppet again, they have missed the entire plot of this thing.
And this COVID thing...
It should be everywhere.
We should be talking about this fact that Donald Trump put Russia ahead of the United States of America in a time where the country needed a leader to look after it.
Well, and you can't forget that the COVID test that he was able to give Putin was not like the kind that we opened in the box with two tests in there, whatever, that are 20, 30 bucks each.
We were talking about these machines that they needed way back in the day that were very specific, and people on the front lines in America needed them, and there was a huge shortage of them at the time.
So he was potentially putting Americans in a harmed way just to give Putin an extra contraption to test for COVID. You know, like you had said earlier, I think it's spot on.
It's not going to change anything.
Like, nobody who's going to support Trump is going to change their mind based on this stuff.
And so it's even if Trump is just calling Putin to say, like, hey, what's up?
Or, like, do you like Melania?
Like, you know, if he's asking, like, whatever.
Like, even if they're doing that. And by the way, did I just imply that he's trying to, I don't know what I imply, but, you know, when, like, teenage people on the phone.
Does that even happen? Whatever it is.
No, it's not idle gossip.
It's not kicking your feet up.
Right. Even if it was, that should be disqualifying as it is because here's a guy who's, again, cozying up to a dictator who's murderous and runs his country like a horrible authoritarian place.
But here's the weird thing is that the people that want to vote for Trump kind of want that.
They want that. Yep.
And they want it because Trump convinced them?
Is that where we got to? Is that how we got here?
I mean, it's a combination of a couple of things.
It's very much a chicken and egg type thing.
The environment was ready for it, and Donald Trump capitalized off of it, and it sort of cycled back and forth.
That's one of the issues here is that everybody wants to pretend that Donald Trump is like the thing that set this thing off.
No, this has been bubbling up for a very long time.
They helped create Trump and Trump helped create them.
And so as a result, the Vladimir Putin connection, and this is the thing that I want people to understand.
Did Vladimir Putin interfere in the 2016 election?
Absolutely he did.
Did Donald Trump welcome that interference?
Absolutely he did.
They are ideologically aligned.
It's not that the GOP is just looking for some sort of a step up.
They'll take it. What's actually occurred here is that Russia, as a dictatorial society, and particularly the values, and I'm putting scare quotes around it, the values that Vladimir Putin represents within that authoritarian society are exactly what the GOP wants.
They're the exact same thing.
They're fast friends because they share the exact same worldview.
So it's created itself and it's manufactured and propelled itself.
But there's got to be an October surprise that would do something.
There's got to be, right?
I mean, I know that the tapes, the Access Hollywood didn't do it when it should have.
That must be the answer. But, like, come on.
There's one candidate in this race that an October surprise could do something to, and that's Kamala Harris.
That's it. That's it.
That's the terrible nature of American politics now.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Yeah, that's basically it, everybody.
All right, we will be back. No, I'm just kidding.
So, Nick, while we're talking about this process of radicalization, I want to share something that I don't know if people have had a chance to see.
So Donald Trump went to Scranton, Pennsylvania.
That's, by the way, Joe Biden country for anybody keeping track at home.
And if you want an idea of exactly what these guys are peddling, I'm about to play a clip.
And it takes a little bit of setting up, Nick.
Trump, because I don't know what the hell Trump thinks he's doing, he's starting to show a bunch of videos at his rallies.
I guess it allows him to take a break, maybe, I don't know, go to the bathroom or something.
This video that we're getting ready to watch is supposed to illustrate the difference between the quote-unquote old military, which was hard and aggressive and masculine, and the new woke military.
Now, what you're going to hear, because this is not a visual podcast, what you're about to hear are scenes from the Stanley Kubrick movie Full Metal Jacket, and they are going to be contrasted With a video of Admiral Rachel Levine, who's the Assistant Secretary of Health, a transgender person, and a couple of other military recruits who sometimes dress like women and make videos.
This, I really want to let people know this is an ugly piece of business, but it's important for the purposes of what Nick and I do.
So I'm going to go ahead and hit play on this.
The military of the past...
Let's go with the Trump military.
Compared to the very woke military that we have now, I think you'll get a kick out of it.
You little scumbag!
I got your name!
I got your ass!
You will not laugh!
You will not cry! You will learn by the numbers!
Happy Pride! Happy Pride Month!
And actually, let's declare it a summer of pride!
So you're a killer? Sir!
Yes, sir! Let me see your war face!
Sir! You got a war face?
Ah! That's a war face!
Now let me see your war face!
Ah! Bullshit!
You didn't convince me!
Let me see your real war face!
Ah! You will be a weapon.
You will be a minister of death praying for war.
But until that day, you are pukes.
You are the lowest form of life on earth.
You are not even human fucking beings.
You are nothing but unorganized, rivastic pieces of amphibian shit!
how to dabra, kadabra these bitches know i got answers the way i
it must be like the best part you ran down to crack your mama's ass and ended up as a brown stain on the mattress
i love working for uncle man I love working...
All right, Nick.
Um... Man, that's gross.
That's really disgusting.
You know, obviously they're tapping into their impression of what the military is like.
I have news for you, Jared, that the methods that you see, while based in reality in Full Metal Jacket, have been wholly gone away from in the last probably decade in the military.
Because guess what?
They realized that those methods don't work as well.
They don't work. They don't work.
And I just want to say, by the way, because again, this is an audio podcast, it literally begins, and for people who haven't seen Full Metal Jacket, the beginning of Full Metal Jacket shows an abusive drill instructor who is a predator against young army recruits who ends up being killed by one of the army recruits.
Right? Because he abuses him and picks on him.
The clip that Trump showed literally opens with the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket punching one of the recruits in the stomach.
It opens with a very clear, specific assault Is what it does.
And what do you hear? People cheer.
People love it. This is exactly what they're trying to put forth.
As a result, what's being communicated, Nick, is that America has gone soft.
And we've heard this, like, over and over again.
This is part of the authoritarian push.
It is the idea, and this is something, unfortunately, that we don't understand about fascism, Nazism, other authoritarian movements.
They are always misogynistic.
Is what they are. They're always misogynistic and chauvinist.
And what are they telling us?
They're telling us, oh, women have womanified society, right?
Or gay people have made society soft.
And so what's needed?
It's not a stronger military.
That's not what that's telling us.
It's saying what we need is violence and brutality by a select group of men who can get society in shape, i.e.
