Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 466: Mueller Report: Ongoing Matter

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

  Thank you to Aaron and Jim for joining us. Please consider donating to this cause. Wyoming AIDS Assistance (WyoAIDS) - on twitter!

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by AdamandEve.com. Just go to AdamandEve.com and type in GLORY, that's G-L-O-R-Y, at checkout, and you'll get 50% off almost any item and free shipping. Hi, Tom and Cecil, this is Ariel, and I just started listening to the podcast about six months ago, and I'm currently in the 300th. And you guys kind of got into a little bit of a tip about danishes versus donuts. I wanted to let you know that over in Burr Ridge, there is actually a little bakery called Kirsten's Danish Bakery. And she has both danishes and donuts and many other things, and they are all delicious.

So, should the two of you ever be over in that part of town, rest assured, there is a place that serves both of your pastries of choice. Glory hole, motherfuckers. Hey, in addition to being a bigoted piece of shit, Josh Burns cream is subliterate. He wants fewer fucking voters, not less. Glory hole. Hey, Cecil, Tom, this is Justin. I just want to say, you guys need to get on board with this Mark Taylor shit.

I mean, it all started a long time ago, back in the 70s, with the Pointer Sisters and Sesame Street. You know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Glory hole. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording live from glory hole studios in Chicago, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad.

It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat this is episode 466 and cecil i almost didn't get here i was nearly obstructed oh yeah don't worry that's not a crime you are going to be just fine whoever obstructed you doesn't matter. The thing is that I can't be prosecuted for obstruction if I'm real important. It's... That all works. What it is is it's only a crime

for like people that matter less. Like if you're... If you're like... Like we're at a place where our politicians are too big to fail. Right?

Literally. I mean, they're almost too big to stand. Right? Literally. I mean, they're almost too big to stand up under their own power. He's like the city bank of presidents, you know?

Just annoying. Bloated. Like, seriously. When you look at him, it's like, huge interest rate. When you look at him,

it's like, how do we get Howard Taft the sequel? I know, right? Some guy who's like five bills. Right. Just what the fuck? Are you going to get stuck in a cloth bathtub too?

Ridiculous. They got a lower end, like a set of pulleys, like Midgley Jr. into his bed every night. He gets all caught up in that thing. He gets all caught up. Hey, that's a reference to Citation Needed, guys. You should be listening to that show if you're not already. Yeah. Have you seen the Trump with kids?

Like, if you Google, what am I, if you just Google Trump with children, you see these images of him trying to, like, politician around kids, right? Okay. And he just looks, just, they look, the kids look horrified. Their body language is like oh god and he looks like he's like stiff and he looks like like like the kids are made out of actual shit like they're made

out of actual turds he looks disgusted to be in the presence mostly I mean I'm not pro kids like I'm not even pro my kids but then like it's so funny they've met my kids but then like if you look at like Obama and kids. Oh, he's like.

He's like. He's like everybody's uncle. He's like crouching down at their level and he's got big grins and the kids look super comfortable and happy. And then like. That's because he took care of his kids. Right. Because he actually had to interact with his children. And Barron Trump was like raised on a farm somewhere.

He's just eating fucking rabbits. His name's Barrett. I know him. His name's Barrett. Like there's no way that that guy, that that kid did not have like a gold-plated fucking crib and a gold-plated first toilet and a gold-plated, gold-plated pole thing

and it makes the quacky, quacky sound. Like there's no way he didn't have that. And so the only people he's ever had to interact with are people he could fire. Oh, baby's first servant. Look at that. Oh, he bit the help with his first tooth. It's adorable. It drew blood.

Anyway, you're fired for bleeding on my baby. Do you think his middle name is Vaughn? Because if you name your kid Baron, don't you have to be like Baron Vaughn? You have to do that, right? Or it's just a missed opportunity. Yeah, I agree. 100%. Speaking of

missed opportunities. Oh, yeah. The Mueller Report's out. You know what blew me away first by the Mueller Report? Honestly, I know this is ridiculous. It's 448 pages. Mueller reports out. You know what blew me away first by the Mueller report, honestly? Sure, what's that? I know this is ridiculous, but like, it's 448 pages. It came out today. By early, late morning, early afternoon, you could read detailed analysis of a nearly 450-page document. You ever see that movie?

Might even be called The Post. I don't know. It's got Meryl Streep in it and Tom Hanks, and it's about the New York Post when they got the Vietnam Papers or whatever. I forget what they're called. I think, I mean, just be called the Vietnam Papers. I don't know. But there was somebody who leaked this study that was done by the government.

Somebody leaked this study to a bunch of reporters and it was sent to a whole bunch of different people and somebody from the Post had gotten a whole box of it. And so this is old-timey times. This isn't OCR searchable, right?

So it's a lot easier nowadays with a couple of people search-terming shit, right? Because you could find every single instance of obstruction, every single instance of exoneration. You could find any single instance of whatever term you want.

But this is back in the olden times when we had actual paper made from trees. They would take these, this big box of papers and then they just spread it out over the floor and there's like seven people and they're all just reading and taking notes as best as they can.

And they're like, I need page 441. I like, I need this. And they're like passing it back and forth. And like, so back then to beat deadlines, these guys, like there's a perfect example in a movie where they basically beat deadlines just by sheer manpower. They just sheer manpowered that shit.

It's impressive. Yeah, you guarantee that everybody at every single major news outlet today was, their face was in the Mueller report all day. It's genuinely impressive to be able to get something this big released and have an in-depth analysis before lunchtime. Have a synopsis. Have a synopsis in an hour. Well, no, to be fair, like, Barr could do that. That's true, actually. He wrote a synopsis in about- He did it already. Yeah, 20 minutes. He did it already. And it didn't take long to read it either. It was very short. He did a good Cliff Notes version, I think. He may have missed a few

things. I think so. He missed a lot of things. You know what I want to say before we even get started? Because we have a story here that you're going to introduce. But I want to talk really quickly about what's in and what's not in the report. And I want to say, just to start out to everybody, if you were on the side of Trump and you weren't paying attention up until now of all the things that happened, then this is no big deal because there's no big, there's nothing really made. There's a few things in it that make it so it's obvious that things that people have said up until now are true. Right. But until then, it was all just speculation on whether or not that was true. But now we know, we can see it in the report that that's a true thing, but it doesn't change your mind, right?

And if you were one of these people who were waiting for the big pop from Mueller to save the country from this tyrant, the report's not going to give you what you want either, right? What the report is doing is it's just clarifying for everyone all the little pieces that we knew were true, but didn't have, you know, any evidence, any real evidence for. We had a lot of circumstantial evidence for it, but they investigated them and came to the conclusion that these things are things that happened. And so that's a real important distinction to have. It's important to have that evidence. It's important to have someone's trained eye that follows it all the way through, follows all these strands as best they can. So that's really

important to have. But this is not one of these things that you just turn on the TV and you read and you're like, oh my gosh, I totally changed my mind. Because it didn't change. It's not going to change anybody's mind. I want to ask you about that. Like this, in your opinion, does nothing, right? The net effect of this is nothing

or is it less than nothing? Could this even backfire? I don't know. It depends. The thing is now we're in a spin zone now, right? We're in a spin zone. We're not in a reality zone because if you were in a reality zone,

which you would have done from the very beginning, is you would have saw, oh my God, that guy got arrested for obstruction, for lying to the FBI. Oh my God, that guy did this. That guy did this. And you start looking at all those indictments. The problem was,

is that every single indictment that came out while this report was coming out, there was no big, and now I play my full house at the end. It was a game of go fish. It was not a game of poker, right? It was a game of, I need one of these, I got one of these. I need one of these, I got one of these. I need one of these, I got one of these. And now they're done, and there's no big uno moment. It's just, I'm done, and the game're done. And there's no big uno moment. It's just, I'm done. And the game is over. And there's nothing really major that's going to happen, except for we're just going to release our findings. But if you're paying attention since the beginning, if you're paying attention to every single indictment, if you're paying attention to

every single person that was brought in and then indicted for multiple, some of them multiple crimes, some of them spending many years in prison now. They were huge bombshells when they happened. But what we did was, we were waiting for the biggest bombshell. And we downplayed this because we were waiting and almost so positive that this was going to turn into something bigger

that we allowed the side that's defending itself from these things that are clearly crimes that have been prosecuted from. We allowed them to control the narrative. And they controlled that narrative since the beginning.

And they've downplayed every single one of these. And it's never really been a sticking point. It should have happened on the very first one. We should have been like, oh my God, we got to impeach. Oh, there's not enough of us?

Well, as soon as we get the moment, we're going to do it. Because that's one too many prosecution. That's one too many prosecution. That's one too many crimes in this president's inner circle. That's one too many crimes for us. That's it. We're out.

I don't even care really what happens. We'll add that on later. We'll add it on later, but I don't care what happens. Well, what's kind of amazing too is like in many other political scandals, something does not have to be illegal to be scandalous.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Unethical. Things can be unethical and can be perfectly legal. Something can be against the country's best interests, for example, and not rise to the level of illegality. Illegal is not, in my mind, is not an important bar, right? It's not the most important bar.

Like, whether something is right or wrong, whether something is in our national interest or not, doesn't necessarily co-relate to its legality. And when you look at like, oh, we hired this guy to act in our best interests. Did he do that? Yeah. And when we know that they didn't do that, that's the scandal.

Sure. That in and of itself is what is scandalous. Yeah. And we're in a place where it's like, well, you know, and we're going to go through all this. It's egregious, but it's not illegal. Right. Well, okay. Maybe I, I mean, am I the only one? Am I alone in being like, I'm not sure that I ever cared that it was illegal. What I cared was that like, you've got somebody who's subverting our national interests in favor of gaining power personally, and they're willing to conspire with a foreign power to do that. Whether they broke the law or didn't break the law matters very little to me. Sure.

I'm, I'm less secure. Yeah. Like my president isn't working for me. Right. I don't understand how that's not the big scandal. Right. I don't understand. I don't even understand the world we live in.

It was, it was the, it was the big scandal the whole time. It's been the scandal. The moment all these people, these pieces started falling, you know, like this report is a bombshell. It's just, it fired its salvo early. Right. And the bombs already hit. That's the thing is people don't get it. They think, oh, well, it's a bombshell.

It's got to have something happen at the end. No, what it has is a fucking bunch of wreckage now. Yeah, right. It wrecks some shit early on when it dropped all the people that were very close to him talking about things that were highly unethical, so unethical that they decided to lie about it to Congress, to lie about it to the FBI. They decided to lie because they knew it was horribly

unethical. They knew that the optics on this was terrible for them. So they decided to lie about it. And if that's the case, you know it's unethical. I mean, like, yeah, shit that's, it doesn't have to be illegal to be unethical. I mean, fucking multi-level marketing is legal. It's still unethical, right? It's still shitty.

So I just, I'm 100% with you. It is absolutely abhorrent that we have a president who took part in all this, and now we have absolute, you know, there's proof of him doing all this stuff, proof of the people who were working for him doing horrible shit. I mean, colluding, and we're going to get to this in a minute, but colluding in a way that is absolutely what everybody in the world would consider collusion. It just turns out that that's

not a thing that we prosecute for. And so that's the real key is that we didn't have a crime. There was nothing that was ever really going to happen with it. There was never going to be a crime for it. It was always just going to be an optics thing. I'm amazed that our bar for whether something is scandalous for our president now is, did he commit a crime? Did he really actually commit a crime? Is there a felony involved? Like, not like, oh, are his actions in our national best interest? Did he use a selfie stick?

Right. Yeah. Did he wear a tan suit? Did he wear a tan suit? Did he? Yeah. You know, and let's not, you know, pretend that that's the only thing that Obama did wrong. Did he keep Guantanamo open?

Did he fucking drone strike a wedding? You know what I mean? Like, you know, even those things seem, they seem so precious. Yeah. Just adorable. Yeah. They seem like you want to give them a hug. Like you want to be like, oh, you can make it on your own. Yeah. Scandal when we bombed a drone, when we droned a wedding. Second veto of President Trump's administration this week to veto the Congress's Yemen thing. They said we're not supporting

Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen anymore. Yeah. It's like, that's my second veto. Yep. I want to make sure I'm in bed with the Saudis no matter what. Of course. He wants to be in bed with the richest people no matter what he wants to be in bed with the richest people on earth he wants to be in bed with the rich people in Russia rich people in Saudi Arabia

you know the rich people have been fucking us forever let's not pretend that they haven't been but they're supposed to pay us $130,000 to steal your tweet they're supposed to hold our hair once in a while they're supposed to tell us hair once in a while they're supposed to tell us we're pretty no but really

they've been fucking us forever and you know it's funny because I heard Bernie Sanders who was on fire at this town hall oh yeah he was

he was on fire and we might talk about it on our live stream tonight Bernie Sanders because it's a good really good story and we might not get to it because this is so

this Mueller report came later today there's no room for anything else really but you know Bernie Sanders he made a statement that I just never

really thought of he said you know like the healthcare industry is a trillion dollar industry and you're like the healthcare industry if the healthcare industry is a trillion dollar industry

it's going to be slow going to get single payer. You know what I mean? Like it's slow going because there's so many forces fighting against you to stop that from happening. Now, yeah, some of those things will easily transfer into now I'm getting government money, right? So some of them will transfer, but some others won't. And so guess what?

The rich people are going to fuck us again. And they're going to fuck us every time until we get somebody in there who's going to change things, right? Who's going to make a change. And this guy was never that. He was never that. All he wanted to do was make money after it's over. He looked at all these senators who, after they're done, they go over and they're like, yeah, I'd love to work for Arthur Dandler's Midland or whatever. I don't even know.

Like, I don't know. But, you know, like, I want to work for, what was it, Halliburton? Halliburton, yeah. I want to work for, I want to be a, not a CEO, what do you call it, a consultant.

I'd like to be a consultant. I'd like to be on the board of some big, crazy corporation. And I want to make a shit ton of money and not do a lot. Right.

And that's what happens to these congressmen all the time. I want that. I do too. To be fair, like that is my dream job. George Soros, I'll be on your board. I'll climb on your board,

George Soros. My dream job is don't do a lot of work. Here's a shit ton of money. I don't care. Admittedly, I don't think anybody in the United States would turn that down. I just want you to recognize people in the United States that there's only a few people in the world that get those jobs and they keep getting them. God damn it. All right. So this story that we're going to go over is from The Atlantic. Came out at 1230 today. We're recording this on Thursday. 14 must read moments from the Mueller report. Again, blown away that this kind of analysis is available. This kind of excerpting is available. Just hours. So the first one, the special counsel's office explains why it didn't bring criminal charges

related to collusion and details how some of the individuals that investigated or interviewed lied or deleted communications. And this is a direct quote from the Mueller report. While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals

with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9th, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer and WikiLeaks releases of hacked materials

was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign finance. Very important distinction, right? You know, because I mean, you look at all those things, the timing of it, everything's so circumstantially perfect, but there's nothing in here that's criminal. Yeah, they're not saying these things didn't happen.

They're saying they happened. They happened. They're just not against the law. Right. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump campaign conspired, and this is important, with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. It doesn't mean they didn't.

Right. It just says there's not evidence sufficient to charge that they did that. Right. The investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign lied to the office and to Congress about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals

and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russia election interference. Oh, that's weird. That sounds like obstruction to me. I don't know, but I'm not a lawyer. I don't know, Tom.

The office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statement statute. So those are the guys that did get it right. Right. Yeah. Those are the guys that got fucked. Yeah.

And it goes on to say the office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated, including some associated with the Trump campaign, deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant periods using applications to feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. So like there was Snapchatting, to relevant periods using applications to feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.

So like, they're Snapchatting their... Didn't they, didn't Kushner, wasn't Kushner somebody doing some Snapchat something?

Was he really? I swear to you. I swear to you. What filter do you put on that one? I don't know. You put in, you put in a, like the tongue sticking out

if it's the Mueller report. It's just like putin' with put in a, like the tongue sticking out if it's the Mueller report. It's just like Putin with like the dog ears and the mouth sticking out. Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob. Everything, everything you do has a big middle finger

to the United States people. Right. That's for sure. In such cases, the office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications

or fully questioned witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts. So they're saying it's like, yeah, in some cases, like we just got stymied because people lied to us effectively. That's what that means.

Yeah. Is like they hid their trail and we know they hid their trail and their stories don't match, but I've got no paper trail. Yeah, there's nothing that says. Against it. Nobody signed like a certification

that said, I really, really, really, really, really want to do this. Everything's not okay. Yeah. Right? Like I read this and I'm just like, everything's not okay.

This is not a series of actions undertaken by people like, well, I don't think I did anything wrong. Absolutely. But I hide everything I do. Like, what do you lie about? You lie when you think you're like, oh, I done did wrong. You fucked up. I did the big wrong what do you lie about? You lie when you think you're like, oh, I done did wrong.

You fucked up. I did the big wrongs, right? Or you did something that you know is going to be shitty optics for your party and you're never going to get reelected because of it. Right. But like, even that bar, so high to lie to the FBI

in an investigation of this. You wouldn't, you almost think that it's silly to do that just for bad optics. Because like, party has to know like, it might not come out. Right.

It might not be public. I can tell the FBI. It doesn't mean the FBI makes it public. Mueller kept everything close to his vest. Absolutely. As close as possible. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And he's a Republican. Yeah. Mueller, by the way, was a Republican. He's a lifelong Republican. Like, I love that it's getting spun by Trump as like, ah, the Democrats did it. Like, Mueller's a lifelong Republican. It's crazy.

He's on your side. He's still found this shit. All right, number two. In a section related to episodes involving the president and possible obstruction of justice, Mueller's team explains how it, quote, determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, end quote. But the special counsel's team also said it was unable to definitively conclude that Trump did not commit obstruction of justice. And here's from the report. Apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation

against a sitting president would place burdens on the president's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. What the fuck? Too big to fail. You can't prosecute him because he's just, he's too important. Yeah. He's just too important. How crazy is that?

I don't know that that's what we want to say out loud. You know what I mean? Right. Do we want to set a precedent called the president gets to do what he wants and we won't even, we won't apply the same prosecutorial standards that we would apply in other cases. That's what he wants. And we won't even, we won't apply the same prosecutorial standards that we would apply in other cases. That's what he said.

We will not apply the same standards because it will get in the way of him doing a job and the job is too important. So he's allowed to break the law and we won't even look that, like, really?

I will say this. Anybody who runs on the platform of I will change this, they got my vote. Anybody who runs on the platform of, I will change this, they got my vote. Anybody who runs on the platform of, I'm going to start limiting presidential power at the moment I'm in office to try to stop something like this

from happening in the future, I'm all in. I'm all in. I don't care who it is. We've talked- Buttigieg, I don't give a fuck. Pick them. I don't care.

Pick it. Because I'm on board for that person because goddamn, this is scary as fuck that a president can walk in there and be, like you say, too big to fail. Yeah, the job's too important for you to be prosecuted. Really?

That's where we're at right now? Because you know what? It wasn't always too big. It certainly wasn't when fucking Clinton was in office. It wasn't when Nixon was in office either. It wasn't during the Teapot Dome scandal. Right. There have been times in our history where it's like, ah, some shit's gone wrong,

and we're going to look real hard at it, and we're going to get real worked up about it. If we're going to say out loud that the president can't be accused of a crime, and he can't be prosecuted for a crime, but also the only thing that matters is whether he committed a crime. So what we're saying is like, if it doesn't rise to the level of a criminal prosecution, it doesn't matter.

The lack of ethical action is not our worry. Our worry is whether something was illegal. And then in the same breath, we're going to say, and also the president can't do anything illegal because he's president. Then we're at a place in history where I can't see a way out of that. Yeah. And we've talked about executive power creep a lot. Executive power creep's a real thing. It's been happening for, I mean, what, three, four administrations now, where more and more of the overall power seems to consolidate at the top. Absolutely. So that combined with a president who's basically saying

like, look, I can just do what I want because my job is so important. Yeah. It doesn't matter. And you can't prosecute me. And ethics aren't a thing anymore. I mean, that's a that's an emperor. That's a dictator. It's a dictator. It's somebody who's above the law. And I was at these marches. There was a lot of chanting of no one is above the law. No one is above the law. There's a lot of chanting of that. But this report basically said, yeah, there is. Yeah, there is. And I know that Barr drafted that opinion for the Department of Justice or prior to his appointment as attorney general, but he drafted an opinion that basically said,

like, a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. That's now the Department of Justice's official fucking position. It's like, one, two, three, not it. Yeah, exactly. This next part is absolutely exactly what I thought about the entire collusion thing the whole time. All right. Number three, on the question of whether the Trump Tower meeting among Donald Trump Jr.,

Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and a Russian lawyer amounted to collusion, the Mueller team writes, quote, On the facts here, the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the June 9th meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful. I don't know how that's fucking relevant. I can't. You know, there's that adage like ignorance of the law is no excuse. Right.

I thought that was true. I thought it was true too. But evidently, if you don't tell me or if I don't know it's illegal, I could just drive around with like 50 kilos of cocaine in my car because I didn't know what about if when somebody's

telling you you put your fingers in your ears and you go la la la la la then sure I mean yeah

the fuck is going on here if you're on base the whole time then you're out I I we're basically saying like these guys were too stupid.

And they didn't know their job well enough. They didn't research. I don't believe it. But also that's bullshit. Why lie about it? Because you know what would happen? If I leave the state and I'm going to another state

and my state has a 70 mile an hour speed limit and I'm not paying attention to the signs, I'm driving down the road in another state and it's 55 miles an hour is the speed limit on this. And I wasn't paying attention. I'm going 70. You think a police officer is going to be like,

oh, you're from another state? Okay, well, you didn't know. No, of course not. I'm going to pay that ticket just like everybody else is going to pay that ticket. Because you don't have to drive that car, right?

It'd be like if you took your concealed carry, which doesn't translate into another state, in all of them, right? In all of them, yeah. Into a state that it doesn't translate into. It'd be like of them, right? In all of them, yeah. Into a state that it doesn't translate into.

It'd be like, well, I don't have a right anymore to do that. These guys don't have the right to act in a job capacity they don't understand. Right.

And then be like, well, the excuse of why I did it is I didn't understand that I wasn't allowed to do it. What the fuck is going on here? I gotta say, too, that the tweeting out of that stuff,

like the actual proof of it, I don't know if you remember, but there was this big thing where Don Jr. actually tweeted out the email or the thing. Yeah. That's a masterstroke.

It's a masterstroke because it showed he was a doofus. Yeah. Right? He's a doofus and so they're just like, oh, well,

he's just such a doof. It doesn't matter. So is he too dumb to fail? He's too dumb to fail. Oh, yeah. Too big to fail. Too big to fail and too dumb to fail? Too dumb to fail. Yeah. This is yeah. Too big to fail. Too big to fail and too dumb to fail?

Yeah. This is the presidential family? Yeah. Well, pretty soon it's going to be the Wizard of Oz. Like you got one without a brain, one without a heart, one without a, I don't know. Penis. Well, it's in there. It's just.

It's just invert? It's just in there. It's just in there. You got to lift things up and move things around. I don't know. You're swimming all the time. Swimming your own lard. He's never swam.

Okay, bobbed like a flesh cork. I just hope his heart is too big and fails. Do you think that if Trump got in a pool of water, it'd be like grease on the top. and fails. Do you think that if Trump got in a like a pool of water like it'd be like grease on the top. Like the oil slick

of orange. Right? It would look like that deep horizon oil slick or whatever. It would look like you just ate

some sort of like Cheeto flavored cereal. Yeah. It's just like it's all around the outside of the bowl. Like if God had Cheeto hands and like washed them in a cereal. It's all around the outside of the bowl. Like if God had Cheeto hands and like washed them in a pool.

It's like. That's a horrifying image. Oh, yeah. And now it's in all your heads. Don't be eating while you listen to this. Alexa, order Cheetos. So I'm going to continue to read the excerpt um that investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign contribution ban

or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context while the government has evidence of later efforts to prevent disclosure of the nature of the june 9th meetings that could circumstantially provide support for a showing of scienter. I don't know what that is. That concealment occurred more than a year later, involved individuals who did not attend

the June 9th meeting and may reflect an intention to avoid political consequences rather than any prior knowledge of illegality. Again, that's the same thing, but instead it's saying... It's your optics comment.

Yeah, but instead it's now, it's just, oh, well, it may, you know, it's reflecting an intention to avoid political consequences. And you're Yeah, but instead it's now it's just, oh, well, it may, you know, it's reflecting an intention to avoid political consequences. And you're like, well, that's, that's shitty. It's just shitty, man.

It's like I broke the law so I wouldn't look like an asshole is my excuse. Did you ever think growing up, and we, Russia was demonized my whole life. Yeah. Not in my wildest dreams did I think that we would have a situation

where people were avoiding political consequences in the sense that they were trying to hide the fact that they were colluding with a foreign power to gain control in the United States. And that is just a, well, it's just political consequences. It's nothing else. And I'll tell you what,

people who are listening, this has to be political consequences. There has to be political consequences to this. Now, there may be some consequences in the sense that they may impeach Trump for being unethical, but not impeach him for any kind of crimes. And that may be, but there has to be some sort of justice for this. And the justice is every single person that ever stood up for Trump needs to get out of office because they were basically protecting an individual

who was willing to work with a foreign power even if they were ignorant of it. I think that there are people on the right who admire this as a Machiavellian do whatever it takes to win sort of a gambit. And it's like,

is this... Politics can't be that. I know that it is that. But it has to change away from that. It has to. If we don't change away from playing politics as a game, we solve nothing ever.

Right. Let's be very, very clear. When it's a game that you just want to win for your team and your side and you do all that, and it doesn't matter what the rules are, and it doesn't matter if you're ethical when you play by the rules, it doesn't matter if you even change the rules as you go, we'll solve nothing ever on either side. Because all that will happen is you'll have a short-term gain, the other side will wipe out. You'll have a short-term gain, the other side will wipe out gain. We will spin our wheels until we are pointless. Yeah.

We are already declining across the world stage. We are declining. We will continue to decline in power, in influence, in every sphere. And all of that is ways that matter. Right. We will matter less if we don't fix this. And that means your life will get worse. My life will get worse. Like, there's advantages to living in a first world country that's a major superpower, economically and otherwise. If we lose that, everybody's life gets worse. It just gets worse. You're absolutely right. There's no winning. You can't win long term with this strategy. You're absolutely right. There's no winning. You can't win long term with this strategy.

You're absolutely right. Number four, the Mueller team details Trump's reaction when he found out that a special counsel had been appointed. Hold on, hold on a second. Let me do this one. The president slumped back in his chair and said, oh my God, this is terrible. It's the end of my presidency.

I'm fucked. Yes, you are. Fucking, the thing is, is that, you know, you had a great point earlier about why he might have said this and not have really thought he was guilty of something.

So it's very likely to me that this could come from one of two spots, right? The one is like, uh-oh, I'm going to get caught. And the other is, oh shit, I'm going to get mired in an investigation that's going to drag on and be distracting.

It's something I hadn't considered. And I'm just like, my presidency is going to be defined by this scandal rather than the things I want to accomplish. And that's true. That's just true. As soon as you appoint a special counsel. So, yeah, he is fucked. He's right. No matter how you spin this, he's right.

He was absolutely fucked. This is less damning, I think, than the rest of the facts of the report. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. No matter how you spin this, he's right. He was absolutely fucked. Yeah. This is less damning, I think, than the rest of the facts of the report. Yeah, right, right. And then the other part was when he talked to Jeff Sessions. He says, how could you let this happen, Jeff? And then I guess he said that Sessions had let him down. Sessions recalled that the president had said to him, you were supposed to protect me

or words to that effect. So, and that, and that to me again is, you know, even though it's not obstruction, right. It's someone who wanted to obstruct, right. Again, like, like wanting to kill my wife as a crime, right. Going through to try to make that happen is a crime, right? If I go and get into a sting operation and say, I want somebody to murder my wife. Yes, right, yeah. And I say, I'm going to pay you this money.

Yes. And they're an FBI agent. And they say, yeah, I'm willing to do it. And they take my money. And then they don't kill her. That's still a crime, right? It's still a crime. It's just because people here

didn't want to protect him by breaking the law and doing stuff, right? He wanted people to break the law. He wanted people to not recuse himself. He wanted to do all these things. These were things he wanted to do and tried to facilitate and it was not a crime. And I don't understand that

because it's a crime for a lot of other things that, you know, in the scheme of things, I love my wife dearly. In the scheme of things, that's less important than the entire country going down the crapper, right? I don't understand how that's possible. Yeah, it's... He seems to... I get a sense from reading all the things I've read. I get a sense that there's almost like a, well, he doesn't know how

it works. Do you know what I mean? Right. There's a sense that he doesn't know that the Attorney General is appointed by him but is not his actual attorney. Sure. Right?, but is not his actual attorney. Sure. Right? Yeah.

Although this one might be. The case could be made. The attorney general doesn't work for him as a person. He thinks he does, because he doesn't know. I get a sense that Trump operates in a way where he thinks that all the people he appoints work for him as a person. They work for Trump. Yeah.

Like a business. Not for an administration. Not for the country. Not for an arm or branch of the government. Which is what they do. They work to facilitate or form a role. He seems to behave like, you'll work for me. Yeah.

You wouldn't be out here if it wasn't for me. That's exactly it. Right? Yeah. That's, yeah, it's peshy. And I'm, it's like, are you, which are you? Are you stupid or are you malicious? Yeah. And we're at a place where it's like, ah, column

A, column B. Yeah. But he gets out of trouble because he's stupid. Well, and the people who work for him are people who are either sycophants who will do whatever he says, right? And, you know, Barr is a perfect example of a sycophant who's trying to help him with this. I mean, because clearly Barr gets out there today. Yeah. And, I mean, they're going to read the report in 20 minutes.

He runs a press conference first off running the press conference holy fuck are you kidding me i know who are you to run a press conference release the report call that shit today you don't get to you don't get to frame it for us anymore dude you already used your black pen to frame it now you get to sit down and shut the fuck up and let other people read it that That's what happens. Instead, he gets out in front of it so he can get fucking a million right-wing talking points out on the fucking right-wing media immediately. The other thing is, is that you got sick fans on one side, then you got the incompetence on the other side. And then you also have people who just won't fucking do what he said, right? And if you, that's another thing, right? So like you got you got the incompetence, and he's clearly had

his share of incompetence in the office. So they just wouldn't know how to fix the problem, even if they saw the problem, they saw the fucking thing broken, they wouldn't know what to do with it, right? So they're the incompetence. They don't really matter in this. Their intent matters, I think,

but that's as far as it goes. But the other people, when he goes to them and says, do this thing, I think, but that's as far as it goes. But the other people, when he goes to them and says, do this thing, I want you to fire so-and-so, I want you to do this, I want you to do that, and they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, or they wave them off

or they don't do it and they don't do it. That's like going to the FBI and saying, I want my wife killed and then them not doing it, right? How is that any different? And I'm willing to hear the argument how that's so fucking different.

But it's not different, man. This is important shit. At the very least, even if it's legally different, it's not ethically different. Yeah, right? So like when we're evaluating whether we want somebody to be our leader, whether we're comfortable with his fitness as fucking president, whether he's worth defending, whether he's somebody that should be kicked the fuck out. Like, look at what he wanted to do. Right. Not what he like. What did he want? If the only reason

he couldn't do it is because his own people were like and we'll get to this. We're like, that's some crazy shit. That's some crazy. I would rather quit. Yeah. I'd rather walk and do that. Yeah. Like pause and consider that. Legal or illegal, accomplished or not accomplished, the intention of this man matters. And you know why it matters when we're judging somebody? Because it matters when they're campaigning. Yeah, it would matter absolutely. When they're campaigning, what you're doing is saying, this is what I intend. This is what I intend. Not what I've done because you haven't done anything yet. Sure. So all you're doing is going out and saying, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. Absolutely

great point. And we judge them based on what their intentions are. So if that matters, then it matters now. Yeah. This is number five. Trump tried to persuade former attorney general Jeff Sessions to, and I love this, unrecuse himself from the special counsel's investigate. Can I ask a question? Yeah. If you flip through the Kama Sutra, can you find an unrecused yourself position? It's like where you're holding her legs and she's doing a handstand on your junk

or something. That's called the unrecused. Please, the finger stand at best. It ain't no pommel horse, that's for sure. I love it like he's like, okay, Jeff, can't you just go take these backseas on conflict of interest?

No. What? Fucking what? How would that even work? What would he say? Like, well, I thought it was, but then the president said it wasn't. Yeah.

Turns out, what the fuck? If we both sit in the room and say, one, two, three, not it at the same time. Unrecuse himself. President Trump reacted negatively to the special counsel's appointments. Really? He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency,

sought to have Attorney General Jeff Sessions unrecuse himself from the Russian investigation and have the special counsel removed and engage in efforts to curtail the special counsel's investigation. That sounds like obstruction. And because it says engage in efforts to curtail the investigation.

All right. And prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through private and public contacts with potential witnesses. These are direct quotes. This is a, this is Mueller type this or his intern type this. Right. I literally don't know how that's not obstructing the pursuit of job.

And let's be clear. The question about obstruction was only set up by, uh, and it wasn't even, was it really even addressed by Barr? Or did Barr say that there wasn't enough evidence for it? What Barr said is that Mueller was not able to make a determination either way.

Not enough evidence. So, yeah. And so this will be something that maybe Congress can take up, right? Because we clearly have his report saying, guys, I have evidence that he tried to obstruct justice. It's right in here. But I don't think that, so, you know, the collusion, it's hard not to marry the two.

But, you know, the collusion is a thing that's not happening. It's not happening, right? There's not enough evidence for it. But the obstruction of justice might happen if there's enough political will and a high enough court can do this. But even if it never becomes a criminal charge, it doesn't sound like it ever will become a criminal charge. This should be damning to his ability to be reelected. I agree. Hard agree. I can't understand a world where it's like, he should be a lame duck go forward. Yep. Yep. At the very least,

what should happen is there should be an impeachment and a removal from office. That's what really should happen. But if that doesn't occur, if that doesn't occur, then it's like, all right, fine. You can't have anything you want. You don't matter. We're going to let Congress be the ineffectual boss.

Yeah. So number six, in June of 2017, Trump told then White House counsel Don McGahn to direct the acting attorney general to remove Mueller as special counsel. Again, this has got to be obstruction, right? And I love this because McGahn was like, fuck that. I'm going to quit my job instead because I've been asked to do, quote, crazy shit. So to read from the Mueller report, McGahn did not carry out the direction, however,

deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday night massacre. That's a reference to Watergate, by the way. That evening, McGahn called both Now what Trump does on Saturday night to a cake. That's not.

All right. So he called both Rance Previs and Steve Bannon and told him they intended to resign. McGahn recalled that after speaking with his attorney and given the nature of the president's request, he decided not to share details of the president's request with other White House staff. Previs recalled that McGahn said that the president asked him to, quote, do crazy shit. Which he normally has to pay $130,000 to do. Yeah, in order to get a little crazy. But he thought McGahn did not tell him the specifics of the president's request because McGahn was trying to protect Priebus from what he didn't need to know.

Priebus and Bannon both urged McGahn not to quit, and McGahn ultimately returned to work that Monday and remained in his position. He had not told the president directly that he planned to quit, and McGahn ultimately returned to work that Monday and remained in his position. He had not told the president directly that he planned to resign, and when they saw each other next, the president did not ask McGahn whether he'd follow through with calling Rod Rosenstein. I love that, like, the only reason this didn't

happen is because the guy he told you to do was like, that's crazy! Yeah, I'm not doing it. I'm not killing your wife! Hell yeah, man! It's the same thing, man. Yeah. It's the same thing. Yeah. The only reason it didn't happen

is because he couldn't convince his subordinate to do it. Unreal. Number seven. A few months before this episode, Trump called McGahn into his office and said he wished Roy Cohn, a longtime associate of his,

were his lawyer. On March 3rd, 2017, the day after Sessions' recusal, McGahn was called into the Oval Office. Other advisors were there, including Priebus and Bannon. The president opened the conversation by saying, quote, I don't have a lawyer. The president expressed anger at McGahn about the recusal

and brought up Roy Cohn, stating that he wished Cohn was his attorney. The president wanted McGahn to talk to Sessions about the recusal, but McGahn told the president that the Department of Justice ethics officials had weighed in on Sessions' decision to recuse. The president then brought up former Attorney Generals Robert Kennedy and Eric Holder and said they had protected their presidents.

Jesus Christ. Bannon recalled that the president was as mad as Bannon had ever seen him and that he screamed at McGahn about how weak Sessions was. Do you remember when there was conversations about, we don't want a woman president, said the misogynists? Because they fly off the handle too much. And we have a fucking temper tantrum in chief.

Sure. We have a guy who just flips his shit whenever he wants. Yeah. We have a toddler. Yeah. We have a grown person throwing temper tantrums. It's a child. It's absolutely right. You're absolutely right. He's a fat,

spoiled, shitty little kid who no one has ever looked in his face and said no. Yeah. Nobody's ever done that. He's a spoiled, shitty kid. But we don't want a woman, right? That's what the misogynists were saying. Like, I don't want a woman because women are too emotional. We have like the red anger guy from the Pixar Inside Out.

Like just walking around, just fuming all the time, blowing his fucking top. I love that that joke did not land for you because you probably didn't see Inside Out. I don't know what you're talking about. But if you have kids, you don't know what I'm talking about. Probably no. It's probably hilarious.

I'm sure it's a very great, funny Pixar joke. It's a Pixar. Let's move on. It's a very funny joke. sure it's a very great funny Pixar joke. It's a Pixar joke. Let's move on. It's a very funny joke. You see, he's the embodiment of... I don't know what you're talking about. All right.

Number eight. Mueller's team details how Trump answered written questions on, quote, certain Russian-related topics, quote... What are, like,

fucking, like, nesting dolls? Like, what the fuck? What Russian-related topics? Like, how Russian hooker pee tastes? Weirdly like vodka. Not weirdly.

It's colored like borscht, too, which is really weird. Weird. Chunky. Smells like asparagus. But did not agree to provide written answers on questions about obstruction of justice or events during his presidential transition. The team explains why it chose not to subpoena him. So he's saying like, they didn't answer certain questions.

And they're like, well, we got to get the answers. The only way to get those answers is to subpoena the president. So here's why they weren't able to do that. Ultimately, while we believe that we had the authority and the legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to obtain the president's testimony, we chose not to do so. We made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation. It would take too long because the president would fight it, and he's the president, and he'll just drag that shit out. And it'll never end. It'll never end. We also assessed that based on the significant body of evidence we had already obtained of

the president's actions and his public and private statements describing or explaining those actions, we had sufficient evidence to understand the relevant events and to make certain assessments without his testimony. So basically, we're like, we don't need him to talk about it. His actions and other things speak loud enough. We don't need him to talk about it. His actions and other things speak loud enough. We don't need to ask him directly. Number nine, after press reports in March of 2017 suggested Trump was under FBI investigation, the president was, quote, beside himself, according to notes from the White House Counsel's

Office. The report says, the president called McGahn repeatedly that day and asked him to intervene with the Department of Justice. And according to the notes, the president was, quote, getting hotter and hotter. Get rid. I don't know what that means. What is getting hotter and hotter? Get rid? I don't get that. Officials in the White House.

Get rid. Get rid. Get rid. Well, I think maybe those are his notes. Hotter, getting hotter and hotter. Get rid? Like, that's what McGahn wrote down in his notes, maybe. Oh, okay. I see.

Officials in the White House Counsel's Office became so concerned that the president would fire James Comey that they began drafting a memorandum that examined whether the president needed cause to terminate the FBI director. So, basically, he was fucking fuming, and he's like, I'm going to fire that guy. Yeah, get rid of him, yeah. And then

they were like, well, we got to figure out if he does that, was he allowed to? Yeah. After the fact. Yeah. After the fact. Right. This is a guy, again, nobody's ever said no to. So they always figure out the justification after it's all done, why he did the right thing so they could pad his ego. It's the right thing when he does it, right? That's that kind of logic. That's the key. Yeah. Right. Number 10, senior White House advisor Stephen Miller wrote the letter from Trump in which he fired Comey. The special counsel explains how an early draft of that letter came to be. At a dinner on Friday, May the 5th, attended by the president

and various advisors and family members, including Jared Kushner and senior advisor Stephen Miller, the president stated that he wanted to remove Comey and had ideas for a letter that would be used to make the announcement. The president dictated arguments and specific language for the letter, and Miller took notes. As reflected in those notes, the president told Miller that the letter should start, quote, while I greatly appreciate you informing me that I am not under investigation concerning what I have often stated is a fabricated story on a Trump-Russia relationship pertaining to the 2016 presidential election. Please be informed that I and I believe the American public, including D's and R's, have lost faith in you as director of the FBI.

Not only is this just a terribly formed sentence. Oh, it's the worst. Following the dinner, Miller prepared a termination letter based on those notes and research that he conducted to support the president's arguments. So he's like,

fire that guy that's investigating. Yeah. That's what we do. Fire him. And, you know, again, this is clear obstruction of justice.

Yeah. Why else do you fire that guy? There's no reason to fire that guy. Right. And he even said when he was asked in an interview, it was because of the Russia thing. Well, and's no reason to fire that guy. Right. And he even said when he was asked in an interview, it was because of the Russia thing. Well, that's what he says, like right there in

the Miller's notes. He's lying. Yeah. Look, I'm firing you because you're looking into things I don't want you to look into. That's I don't know what that can't not be instruction. What could obstruction mean? Yeah. What is it? What does it mean other than that? Number 11, summarizing its investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, the special counsel writes, in some, the investigation established multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the campaign. Huh.

In some instances, the campaign was receptive to the offer. Huh. While in other instances, the campaign officials shied away. Oh. Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities. election interference activities. So it sounds a lot like, the way I read that is like,

yeah, look, I don't understand how those pieces don't contradict each other. Right. Well, and also, again, I think that they hedged their bets and said it's not collusion in the sense that they were absolutely installed by a foreign power,

but they did receive aid. We know that they received aid. We know that they received aid. We learned that they received aid. That's not open for debate. It's not a debate. There's no debate. There's nobody out there saying, at least nobody sensible is out there saying that,

no, there was not a single bit of Russia anything. Right. You got to be an idiot to think that. Well, I mean, here it is. In some instances, the campaign was receptive to the offer. The offer is of Russian assistance to the campaign. This is not a presidency-ending scandal, that the campaign was receiving aid from a hostile foreign government in order to be installed. We should be leery anytime that a hostile foreign power

is like, that's the guy I want. That's always the guy I don't want. When your enemies like your leader, that leader is not working in your best interest. No, no shit. I don't even know how much more fucking clear this has to be. What makes me nuts is that

there's a bunch of people in Washington that are perfectly fine with this. I know. I can't, what makes me nuts is that there's a bunch of people in Washington that are perfectly fine with this. I know. I can't imagine these people, you know, they act real strong, but they just, when it comes out, and this, I mean, this is in black and white. They are going to read this just like everybody else.

I don't know how you can look the American people in the face and say, yeah, he's still my guy. I'm still cool with it, even though he wanted to work with the Russians and they wanted to work with him. And even though they didn't come to a meeting of the minds, they still would have if they could have because they wanted to. How do you stand behind that guy? I don't know how that works.

I don't know how. I mean, I don't know how the fuck you vote Republican in the next 10 elections. I don't know how you talk yourself into that if this is what they're planning on doing. Just abandoning all ethics and saying it's cool if a foreign power installs our leader. What do you think if it was ISIS? Right? What about if ISIS was like working and saying, you know what? Great point.

We really want Trump to be the president. Why do the guys we are afraid of, why do they want this guy? Sure. Well, not because he's strong. Yeah. Not because he's a great leader. Yeah.

Number 12, at the time of Comey's firing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. This is my favorite shit. She's such a clown. Told reporters that FBI agents had told the administration they were unhappy with Comey's leadership. She later told investigators that that wasn't true.

The president's draft termination letter also stated that morale in the FBI was at an all-time low. And Sanders told the press after Comey's termination that the White House had heard from, quote, countless, unquote, FBI agents who had lost confidence in Comey. But the evidence does not support those claims. The president told Comey at their January 27th dinner that, the people of the FBI really like him. The people of the FBI?

It's just the fucking Trump. What the fuck are you talking about? The people of the FBI, they really like me. Yeah, but the androids at the FBI really don't like you so much. Who cares who likes you? Who cares who likes you? Trump cannot differentiate the idea. Like, he can't,

he can't, he can't like differentiate whether people like you versus whether or not you're doing a good job. Yeah. No, he doesn't know. He doesn't know.

You ever have a boss that you really like that does a bad job? Yeah, sure. Like he's a bad boss. Look at Steve Carell in the office. Yeah.

He's a very likable dude. Right. Likable. He wants everybody to like him, but he's a terrible boss. He's a great example of a Trump. Yeah, he's a Trump. He's a perfect example.

I want everyone to love how much they fear me. Yeah, yeah. Or fear how much they love me or whatever. And Comey was Toby from HR. No evidence suggests that the president heard otherwise before deciding to terminate Comey. And Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.

That's the press secretary. We can't trust what these people tell us. Right. And, you know, here's the thing. This is a Republican telling us this. This isn't some news spin. This is in black and white from a Republican FBI agent, right? This is what this

is saying. It's saying they are lying to you. It's not that we didn't know through evidence that they've been lying to us the whole time. But really, this is in black and white that you're a fucking liar. You're a liar for something very important, for something highly important that the reason why he did it like this is this is him obstructing and her covering for him. Yeah, that's all this is. She should be for that lie. She should be indicted or at least fired. Right. Like or at least the people should be up in arms about this. And I can hear it already. People are like, ah, you know least the people should be up in arms about this. And I can hear

it already. People are like, ah, you know, the government always lies. Politicians always lie. Yeah. But when they get caught, it's a big deal. Yeah. When you get, yeah, I, I, I, I'm not saying that politicians don't lie, but when they get caught, it's a scandal. When they get caught, they get fired. Right. When they get caught, there are repercussions. It's not that they, it's not that anyone is shocked that they did it. It's that what's blowing my mind is that we are excusing it as if it's normal, as if it's okay. Not even just that it's normal, as that the normality of it makes it okay. Yeah.

That the ubiquity of the corruption somehow alleviates us- It doesn't matter. From our ethical burden to act on that corruption. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I'm amazed by that. Well, that's how low things have gotten. That's how much things have shifted. There's so many scandals you can't even keep up anymore.

We're reading a 14-point bulleted list of the biggest parts of this. There's 400 pages of this, Tom. There's 400 pages, I guarantee. I was scrolling through the New York Times thing today where they were plucking things out of there. My God, it's 20 pages long. I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. It's 20 pages long. Like, this is not, this is, this is the fucking Reader's Digest version of the shittiest stuff or the most controversial stuff that's in here. But there's

plenty of stuff in here. And they're going to be digging over this with a fine-tuned comb forever. And here's the thing. It doesn't fucking matter. Unless they act on this now, unless they impeach, unless they start really holding people accountable for what is clearly obstruction,

then none of this matters. Then all it is is just bullshit. It's all just fucking game. It's all just a big game. And right now, somebody pulled back the fucking curtain matters. Then all it is is just bullshit. It's all just fucking game. It's all just a big game. And there's no... And right now, somebody pulled back the fucking curtain and we can see behind there, yeah, we know

there's never... It's all rigged. It's all rigged and there's nothing we can do about it. We're fucked. Number 13. In spring of 2016, George Papadopoulos, which I love that name. Yeah, Papadopoulos. So much fun to say. Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos. Isn't that the stuff you get at Papadon? It's different.

It's peppery. George Schnuffleupagus informed fellow Trump campaign members, including Miller, Manafort, Corey Lewandowski. I like the guys that just have last names than the other guys who have full names. Yeah. Manafort, Corey Lewandowski.

Sam Clovis about the possibility of arranging a meeting in names. Yeah. Manafort, Corey Lewandowski. Yeah. Sam Clovis, about the possibility of arranging a meeting in Moscow, the special counsel writes, on April 27th, 2016, Snuffleupagus wrote a second message to Miller, stating that, quote,

big birds waiting for him in Russia. He's going to show up any minute. He's just wearing a spy hat. And everybody's standing around me like, there's no such thing. But then there's like a car crash and they all turn and snuffle up against a spy. I just saw him. I swear I saw him.

He's just got like big black sunglasses and a spy hat. He's just like sauntering, like aiming. Like, look at me. I'm just a furry elephant. I'm sure. Oh, don't look at me. I'm just a furry elephant. Just your friendly neighborhood mammoth walking around.

The fluffa guy. All right. The fluffa guy wrote a second message to Miller stating that, quote, some interesting messages were coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right. The same day, Papadopoulos sent a similar email to campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, telling Lewandowski that Papadopoulos had, quote, been receiving a lot of calls over the last month about Putin wanting to host Trump and his team when the time is right, end quote. On May 4th of 2016, he forwarded to Lewandowski an email from Russian national Ivan Timofeev

raising the possibility of a meeting in Moscow, asking Lewandowski whether that was, quote, something we want to move forward with. The next day, Papadopoulos forwarded the same Timofeev email to Sam Clovis, adding to the top of the email, Russia update. He included the email in a May 21st, 2016 message to senior campaign official Paul Manafort under the subject line, request from Russia to meet Mr. Trump. What the fuck? Our enemies want to make him best friends. Yeah, they do. They do. That should make all of us nervous. It doesn't. It doesn't at all. Criminality aside. Yeah.

Number 14. While Mueller's team did not establish that Trump directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress, the report details frequent communications between Cohen and Trump's legal team. In February of 2018, after Cohen released a statement to news organizations saying he'd used his own funds to pay $130,000 to the adult film star Stormy Daniels and was never reimbursed by the president, Trump's personal lawyer texted Cohen saying, client says thank you for what you do. And in August of 2017, while Cohen was drafting his testimony to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow deal, he spoke with Trump's personal lawyers almost daily. Cohen recalled telling the president's personal counsel, who did not

have firsthand knowledge of the project, that there was more detail on Trump Tower Moscow that was not in his statement to Congress, including that there were more communications with Russia and more communications with candidate Trump than the statement reflected he lied. Cohen stated that the president's personal counsel responded that it was not necessary to elaborate or include those details because the project did not progress and that Cohen should keep his statement short and tight and the matter would soon come to an end.

Cohen recalled that the president's personal counsel said his client appreciated Cohen, that Cohen should stay on message and not contradict the president, that there was no need to muddy the water and that it was time to move on. So it's not clear meddling. It's just unethical meddling. It's just, yeah, the very most charitable,

the most charitable way to read this is that our current president was installed or wanted to be installed by a hostile foreign power. That should make us all pause. That should give us all pause. Why? And then another charitable part of it would be that even though he didn't successfully

work with another foreign power, he was embarrassed by it and tried to cover it up the entire time by firing major power players in the government for that purpose to cover this up. And he throughout tried to coach his people that were on his side, and he, in many ways, tried to get people that wouldn't listen to him, that wouldn't do these things, to do things that would be blatant obstruction, and they just didn't do it. So by their refusal to do it, not by his choice for them to do it, but by their refusal, he wasn't actually obstructing. But he had every will and intent to obstruct.

So that's charitable. That's charitable. That's the nicest way to read this. That's the nicest way to read this. That's charitable. You have an unethical person in this seat. Yeah. Like wherever you land on the Mueller report, it is impossible to look at this and say that is an ethical actor.

That is somebody that we can trust. There is transparency in our government. He acts on our best interest rather than his personal interests. You can't make that argument anymore. That argument's gone. Yeah. It's just fucking gone forever. It was a crazy argument to make in the beginning.

You had to have your fucking head shoved So far up your own ass That your fucking colon was reading material But you can't make it anymore It's impossible It can't be done I don't know what the spin on this What is the right wing spin on this

I think the right wing spin on this is what it's been all along That this is a witch hunt And that the people that were Prosecuted were all process crimes. They were all just lying, those types of things. They would never have happened, right, because of the investigation thing. I hate that argument. It's a dumb argument. It's a dumb argument. We've talked about it many times in the show, but that's their argument. That's their argument. And so they've been talking about this today. They're basically saying there's nothing here. That's what they're

saying. They're saying there's nothing here. Even people like Glenn Greenwald are saying nothing for the Russia collusion. There's been no prosecutions. One of his tweets today was, there's been no prosecutions for the Russian collusion, even though it's plain as day in this report that he tried to collude with Russia and they tried to collude with him. It just didn't work out. They didn't meet in the fucking middle. And that's, but, but even though that's in the report, these people are so, I told you so that they just want to, they, they just want to say, well, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. And you're like, well, you're an idiot. You're either an idiot. You're either willfully ignorant or you're a fool. I don't know what it is.

It's willful ignorance. But I think it's prideful, willful ignorance because they're prideful about being caught up in this. But this is just as damning as all the little indictments that have been leaking out since the beginning. It's damning and it's been as damning all the way through. Now you just have the evidence. Now you just have somebody who actually looked into this

and wrote it down. That's what you have. But it's been a bombshell forever, and it's still a bombshell. Think about most other political scandals that ruin careers. Don't come close to this level. Nothing, nothing.

And criminality or illegality is not the bar that we set. Doesn't matter. You're right. You're absolutely right. So it sounds like Adam and Eve has changed and they are not

swinging for the fences anymore. They are not. See, so they have other offers, bigger, girthier offers. Bigger, wider. You know,

the thing is what you want is more so you can put them in different places. That's what I hear a lot. I want more. You need more. I can't.

And here's the thing. Do that. Adam and Eve will plug you up airtight. I will tell you that right now. First off, you're going to get 50% off almost any item.

You're going to get 10 free gifts from them, a sexy item for him, special gift for her, and a third item you're both gonna enjoy and six spicy movies. Just in case you're in an Echo Town one day and you really, really need to see

some porn, they will send you six movies on physical format. You can't lose them. You can't. This is the thing. This is apocalypse porn. It is. This is exactly what it is. When the shit hits the fan and you've got like your fucking exercise bike you're using to power your fucking personal grid right you know

yeah at least you'll have some spank material like yeah you can go out like that guy in pompeii who jerked it and he's the ash of the guy who died just the ash of the dude holding that's epic as fuck that dude is that dude just fucking, he just owned that. She's like, fuck you world. Jerking it up. Going out. But if you want to

jerk it and go out, I always tell when somebody finishes by looking at the ash. All you have to do is type in Gloria Checkout. That's G-L-O-R-Y and you'll get

all of that free stuff. 50% off any item and free shipping. So we are joined to break up, Tom, to break up this smaller thing just for a few minutes to talk about an amazing charity with the Waiting for Wrath guys, Jim and Aaron, coming on to talk to us about the AIDS charity

that we helped promote last year. Gentlemen, welcome back to the show. Welcome, guys. Real quick, this is not pro-AIDS though, right? This is con. You guys land on the con side of AIDS. I mean, whatever. We're pro people with AIDS.

I mean, it depends on what you're willing to pay us for. We had a good event last year. We had some support from some of your listeners and some ongoing support. We love that. Wyoming AIDS Assistance is the 501c3 nonprofit. And we run Laramie Drag Queen Bingo every year as a fundraiser. And we raise money for people living with HIV and AIDS in the state of Wyoming. And we pay for the stuff that insurance and assistance programs don't always pay for.

So co-pays or rent, travel expenses to get to treatment, all the stuff that you may not be able to get covered but can really screw your life over if you can't afford it. You know what I love is that we're in a country where it's like, we need a charity to cover the part of your medical care that your insurance, which is supposed to cover your medical care, doesn't cover. Doesn't even cover. Right? Yeah. That's what a copay is. It's like, all right, so it costs $1,000, then you have insurance, then you still owe this other balance.

What is happening with this system? Well, we didn't pay anything until you met your deductible of $5,000 either. Yeah. We shouldn't need charities that do this. Yeah. I love you guys. I just want to live

in a world where we just, where you can put all the money to like hot Cheetos. Yeah. I will say, we talked about it a week ago where we talked about like, charity,

the fact that we have to have charity just means that, you know, the government fucked up enough. Yeah. You know, we chip in for all this stuff as we go along. But the government fucked up enough. You know, we chip in for all

this stuff as we go along, but the government fucked up enough where people are getting left behind. They're behind, they're in the margins and they're getting left behind. And it's great that charities exist and it's great that we can help charities. But the fact that this, these sort of people fall through the cracks is an absolute travesty in a country that's supposed to have some of the best quote unquote best medical outcomes in the world well i i'm sure that uh you know everything is going to get better real soon because i keep hearing from the cheeto in chief that uh he's going to have us the very bestest of all health care soon yeah after after we re-elect him i like that he kicked that can down the road like i'll tell you my secret health care plan after I get reelected.

His reveal for the health care was my favorite, too. And he's like, nobody knew that health care was this hard. Everybody knew health care was that hard, you fool. Like literally anybody that's ever paid a hospital. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's why it took Congress and the government so fucking long to get the Affordable Care Act

in place in the first place. It's because this shit is not necessarily easy, dumbass. I love the assumption that Obama was just like lazy about it. Like, ah, turns out it's hard. I'm not reading the whole pamphlet. What are you kids, a trifle? Front and back. They didn't even double space.

So you guys, is AIDS expensive? Because I thought it was free. Like, I thought you got that for free. So why do we, what are some of the associated costs? I mean, we're joking about the co-pay piece. And then, like, what are

the other things that goes to paying for? Like, where does that money go? Do you pay the bills? Do you give it to the people to pay their own bills? How does it work? We pay the bills directly. They have to be working with a caseworker in the state of Wyoming. And the caseworker is the one who puts in the request on their behalf.

And then we pay directly to whoever we need to pay. And so we've paid for all kinds of stuff in the past. One year we paid for a bunch of water filtration systems for folks living in rural areas here. And in Wyoming, that's a lot of people. Yeah, clean water, it's hard to come by out here. So it doesn't go right to the individual who's got it. So you can't get rich by getting AIDS in Wyoming.

I think that's what we're saying. That's correct. So that's not a good plan, guys. We also have some caps on how much a person can receive in a given year. It's not a hard cap. So if somebody's got an extenuating circumstance, they can always plead their case and we'll consider it. But for the most part, if we were to pay $300 to every person in the state of Wyoming who is on the list as being HIV positive or having AIDS, it would cost us $150,000 a year.

God damn. Wow. Does everybody in Wyoming have AIDS? I just did the math in my head. That's the whole population of Wyoming and that's a few animals too there's still that much need

in a state where there's you know a handful of people by comparison by comparison to other states to states that people want to live in yeah the people like where they live

that's an amazing amount of unmet need. What did you guys earn last year to help people out? At Bingo, we raised $28,000 in one night. And then that one asshole got Bingo and lost $27,500. Nobody thought he was going to get Bingo. He had a blackout ticket. I shouldn't have gave him that free space.

Free space fucked us. No, we give out prizes for bingo here versus money. That way we don't run afoul of gaming regulations in the state. That sounds smart. We've also had to, in the last two years, we've also had to start lobbying the state legislature to point out to them that we're not making money and that they need to be very careful about the bingo

bill they keep trying to pass. What the fuck is a bingo bill? Do you guys get visited by Native Americans being like, that's an awful nice bingo you got there. I'd be ashamed of something were to happen to it. No, it's more often that we end up having conversations with the Catholics. Oh, really?

That's right, because church bingos are huge. At least they used to be. Are they trying to shut you down? Are they like nuns kicking over your bingo tables? No, just legislators. They're trying to take out

the nuns and us. Why do you ask to dress like a nun? Right? Well, I don't know about a nun, but there is rumor that this year the Notorious RBG is going to make an appearance. right well i don't know about a nun but there is rumor that this year um the notorious rbg

is going to make an appearance it's amazing our theme this year is heroes and villains so you know lots of we expect lots of spandex a few disney characters and uh rbg is absolutely a hero so as you might imagine drag queens are going to do what drag Queens do with that. And her judge's robe is going to have all of the sequins and jewels. Oh yeah. That's absolutely stunning. My drag sister temple ceiling. My drag sister temple ceiling has been running a bedazzler for weeks now.

So where can we send you a giant novelty size check for $500 from Glory Hole Studios? Because we want to do that. We want to help out. That's everybody in Wyoming gets $2. If we do that, that's... He's going to bag a Hot Cheetos. Reach under your seat and you get Hot Cheetos.

And you get Hot Cheetos. The easiest place to donate is wyoades.org is wyoades.org w-y-o-a-d-e-s dot org You can go on there and there's donation pages. You can set up recurring donations. If you want to give like $500 a month, that's also

an option. $500 for sending you. One-time payment of $500 is what I'm agreeing on. And we love those one-time payments of $500 or $5. We don't care. I am willing to prostitute myself out for a good cause. I'm a whore for cash.

I'll keep my $500. I'll keep my $500. Fine. If you don't give me the $500, then I'll come at you. All right. Good strong arm. How did you guys get started with this charity? Well, back in the year 2000, there had been no AIDS walk, no real AIDS charities or anything in the state of Wyoming.

There had been a couple of real small ones here and there in local communities, but nothing with a statewide reach or impact in the same way. local communities, but nothing with a statewide reach or impact in the same way. And so a group of students at the University of Wyoming, our only four-year institution, and decided to hold the first ever Wyoming AIDS Walk to raise money. And we had a local charity, one of the small ones that had been kind of defunct for years, but still had their status, Albany County AIDS Project. And so we used that to raise the money and then we gave it to another statewide organization to distribute. And over the years, the different statewide organizations folded up. And so we created our own 501c3 and we're now distributing it ourselves. We work with the state of Wyoming and their HIV program so that we're meeting

HIPAA requirements and all that for any of the submissions. There's, there's a lot more hoops to jump through and a lot more red tape than people might think, but we're a very small group. There's about five of us, six of us who are connected to Wyoming AIDS assistance on the regular. And we're the board and the drag Queens and the,

the event planners and the fundraisers and you name it. We do it all. I think it's amazing with all jokes about the size issue, which I'm sorry, guys. Aside, that you guys are able to raise $28,000. I think that's

damn impressive. That is absolutely impressive. We've had a lot of really amazing support over the years. And we have a lot of folks who keep coming back. And we have a lot of newbies every year, or as we like to call them, the virgins. What's the average size of a gift that you guys give

out to a needy recipient? The average is between $200 and $300 at a time, usually. $300 to $500 is about the range of our maximum that we've posted. We raised that after the last couple of years. We have raised it up to $500. It used to be $300.

But anything above $500, we would still consider, given the right circumstances. But most things range around of around two to three. We do have some that are four or five hundred that somebody's needing some help with rent or a deposit for a new place, some dental work. We've helped cover some funeral expenses before when someone has lost a family member who's also HIV positive. We've helped cover all sorts of different things. We don't set any rules as to you can't apply, but we only do stuff that has a direct impact on their quality of care or something that is likely to affect their health if they don't have it.

I'm continuously, not surprised, that'd be the wrong word, but I'm continuously amazed and humbled by how frequently a relatively small amount of money is the deciding factor for people between being okay and struggling so hard. In the grand scheme of things, nobody gets excited about a $200 lottery ticket. Oh, the jackpot at $200, guys. But it makes such a big difference. There's so, so, so many people that are living on that verge, on that edge, where just a handful of $100 makes all the difference in their lives. And it's one of those opportunities I think we have when we think about giving. And you think, what kind of a difference is this going to make? How much impact will this be? And it's a goddamn huge impact.

It's a massive altering impact for some people. So for you guys to raise $28,000 and the average gift being a couple of hundred dollars a pop, that's a huge impact on the lives of scores of people. Yeah. And it's awesome.

It's just awesome. I think that's why, for me, it's always more important and more useful to, you can do more good by finding smaller local organizations and donating your time and money and effort to those versus sometimes some of the national organizations for any cause where you know a 500 donation in a to a national org is a tiny drop in the bucket for us that could

fund one to two maybe even three requests um from from people here in the state. So it goes so much further. And because we are small, it's all volunteer. None of us get paid a cent for this. You mentioned the local and you mentioned dinner. One of the things that I like to mention when we talk about this with YOAids in Wyoming is the unique challenge that some rural people have. You know, you can live a three-hour highway drive from your care provider. So the cost of a dinner will also fill a gas tank.

That could be the difference between somebody going to see their doctor or not. Wow. God damn. And here's where I drop another fact on you that will blow people's minds. In the entire state of Wyoming, we have a total of three doctors who are primary HIV caregivers. Three. If he would have just stopped at three doctors, I would have believed him.

I thought he was going to stop at three doctors. He'd be like, holy shit. I'd be like, okay. No, yeah, that's fair. We don't even have a dentist. That's what the vet's for. He's coming in on the stage coach next summer well they have to have at least three doctors because all those people that are

gonna die from dysentery on the organ trail as many as they can get he has cholera and we have we have some folks that depending on where you live because wy Wyoming, as we've discussed, is a large state and a square state. But there's also not a whole lot in between places. So depending on where you live, there's not a whole lot in the place. Sometimes our folks actually have to drive out of state to get their care. They have to cross the state line down to Denver or over to Salt Lake City, to Billings, Montana, or Boise, Idaho, Rapid City, South Dakota.

So we have a fair number of folks who have to travel just to see their doctor on the regular. So when's the big night? The big night for bingo this year is Saturday, April 27th. Coming up just around the corner. So we're in high gear. I've started shaving things already. I love it. That's a process that's going to take time.

Right? I got a lot of work to do, guys. This is not the work of an outdo. Let's get those guys from Axeman out there. They got their saws and stuff. No, that's me.

I would definitely need those guys to do any kind of manscaping. I'm going to need a drum of Nair. That's what I'll take. Just dip me in like the RoboCop guy. Caution. I made the mistake one year of trying Nair for men on my back. It did not end well. Fortunately, I did a test run several weeks before bingo

so the scabs had healed by the time bingo came around. I used to shave my head to the skin bald and I was like, guys, that pain in the ass grows back so fast. I was like, I'm going to nair it. Oh no. I shaved it

and then while the pores were open, I nair'd it to try to kill. And it worked in the sense that I burned myself terribly. Yep, that'll happen. Wait, I'm confused. I thought nare was for your balls. I would never in a million years

put nare anywhere near my jokes. Oh, God, no. Was that for special scaping? I thought that's what that was marketed for. No, no. I thought it was for a lady's legs. I, God, no. Was that for special scaping? I thought that's what that was marketed for. No, no. I thought it was for ladies' legs. I thought it was legs. In fact,

you guys have saved me a lot of trouble. I appreciate that. Well, we wish you guys luck on this Drag Queen bingo. We hope that this $500 goes to a nice seed so that some of our listeners

will get in on the fun. We'll put a link in this week's show notes so that people can come in and donate from afar. And we hope you guys beat your goal from last year and exceed, you know, 30, 40, 50. I mean, Jesus, if David Smalley can do it, you guys can do it. Well, if anybody is listening and can make it to Laramie, we'll be happy to buy you a beer. Come and

hang out and see a good show. Well, good luck on this, and we will put a link in this week's show notes so hopefully people will fill your coffers for Drag Queen Bingo. Thanks for coming on, guys. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us, and thanks for the donation. It means so much.

So, we want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons. We want to thank our most recent patrons. Rain Panspermia owes Earth back support like that. Eric Aaron Strategic Procrastination and I've got nothing clever. Just

take my money. I love that guy. I like that guy. Poor gal. You're pretty awesome. Thank you so much, patrons. You're the reason Glory Hole Studios exists. We just did,

on Thursday night, we did a live stream. We haven't actually recorded it yet, but we know we are doing it in a few minutes, so we know for sure that we are going to do one.

So you can check it on YouTube or any of the places that you watch video, but you can see the live stream that we did going to do one. So you can check it on YouTube or any of the places that you watch video, but you can see the live stream that we did the other night. And we're not going to cover your emails this week because we had so much to read this week, but we do want to thank

the Waiting for Wrath podcast, Aaron and Jim for coming on. They came on. Please donate to the people in Wyoming who need help. They have AIDS and they need help. So there's a link on this week's show notes and you can donate and help these people

who definitely need it. And I just wanted to thank our patrons again because the reason that Cecil and I are able to do things like donate to the Waiting for Wrath AIDS donation is because of you guys. Yeah. We couldn't do this if we didn't have our patrons. Absolutely.

So much of what we are able to do is because of you guys, the patrons. So although it sounds like it's us, it's really you guys that are making the difference. Yeah, you're the one who made the donation. It's not us. So I'm just really grateful to be in a position where we can do that. So I just want to say thank you to all those who are patrons for the show for that reason. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to check out the to all those who are patrons for the show for that reason. Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to check out

the charity, you can go to this week's show notes. We will cover your email next week. There was a correction. I was snoped last week. I want to get to. I will definitely. The masturbating Pompeii guy

is a snoped thing. I totally thought it was real because I saw a photo and I'm an idiot. But I will definitely get to that next week. I promise. There's a couple other things

we want to talk about from the email. Please send your email. Continue to send your email. We will cover two weeks worth of email next week. But right now we're going to leave you like we always do with the Mueller report and the skeptics' creed. Credulity is not a virtue.

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