It Could Happen Here - The Trump Indictment

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Robert, James, and Gare sit down to discuss Trump’s indictment and what it means for the future.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. It's it could happen here. It's it's it's it's it could happen here. A podcast that it is. It's happening to's, it's, it's, it could happen here A podcast that it is, it's happening to you here, right now Bad things, good things, all sorts of things Because today we are talking about the ultimate in bad good things Donald Trump's indictment and very brief arrest Garrison, Davis, James Stout,

how are we all doing today? How are we all feeling this week? We did it, Joe. Mission accomplished. Time to pack up. Yeah, Dark Brandon has come for Trump. Finally. So I figured we would wait

until a few days had gone by there were a lot of when the initial indictment was announced we didn't even actually know what all the charges were there was a pretty long period of time that we didn't know like what the actual crime at the center of this was but but most of that has now is now relatively, as are kind of the earliest stages of the fallout to the Trump indictment. So I feel like now is a reasonably good time to talk about it. More may have occurred since we recorded this. The thing that Trump got indicted by, as according to the 13-page court filing outlining the case against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, was what's called a catch-and-kill scheme in which Trump and his Trumpettes would basically bribe people to not write bad stories about him. It's a hush money thing. My assumption is that basically everybody at that level of wealth and prominence does versions of the same thing. And these, in fact,

are not crimes on their own. You can bribe somebody not to say a bad talk about a bad thing you did to the press. Where things get illegal is that Trump made a series of payments, primarily these $130,000 in payments to Stormy Daniels to buy her quiet. And then he had to falsify company records or his people falsified company records to disguise the payments as legal fees. Bragg is arguing that not only is this a crime, but it's a felony crime because he did this. He falsified these records to disguise these payments in order to further additional violations of the laws. And those additional violations of the laws, the actual like core crime here is that disguising – under New York law, disguising these kind of payments in corporate records is a crime. It's typically a misdemeanor, but it's a felony if the business records were intended to obscure a second crime. And in this case, the second crime appears to be

the use of funds to advance his like presidential campaign, which was in violation of campaign finance laws. So the core crime that makes the misdemeanor a felony is the fact that he was doing this in order to advance his presidential campaign. And thus, like the payments that he was making were basically counted as part of like the limited amount of money you can spend, you know, financing your campaign. And he violated that, right? That's that's the gist of it, it as i understand like what's actually being argued here yeah that seems to be about the size of it and just for people who aren't familiar bragg is

alvin bragg right the uh yeah manhattan da manhattan da okay yeah what's really concerning about this is that if they can arrest trump that means they can arrest any one of us. That's right. All the money that I've paid for people to hush up stories about me, including Stormy Daniels, you know. Yeah. No, it's like people, there's a lot of talk about like, is this a weak case or a strong case? None of us are lawyers. My, I go kind of both ways about this.

One of them is that Alvin Bragg is a guy who, whatever he believes about this case, is also a prosecutor that has a political position. Prosecuting someone and failing to get your man is bad for your career. And if that man is the president who you indict for the first time in living memory, that would be really bad for your career. So my assumption is that Bragg, at least, believes he's got a really strong case. Otherwise, because this is a tremendous risk for him, right? Now, obviously, can Trump wriggle his way out of it? Well, Trump is extremely good at wriggling his way out of things, and he has all of the money in the world for lawyers. So I think it would be foolish to say it's a slam dunk either way. People who are saying that this is a weird thing to prosecute him for, I guess, but I can see the logic that this guy, Bragg is kind of going with. And it's do I think this should be a felony?

I guess I don't care as long as it does some damage to the man and causes him some like consternation, which is like the question, right? Is this actually going to harm him? But yeah, I think that is the more debatable question, right? Like it's going to harm him or help him? There's a lot of talk about, is this a political prosecution? And my general response to that is, well, like, nearly all prosecutions are political, right? Like, even something that wouldn't seem like, like a decision to go after a rapist. Well, most rapists are not actually ever, like, charged or brought through the justice system. So if you're a prosecutor choosing to do that in a specific case, there's a degree of politics factoring into your decision.

Even if it's just as simple as like if I take on this case and I lose it, it could harm my ability I have no doubt that the fact that this is Donald fucking Trump and everything that's happened since 2020 has happened, that he has he has been a party. And I have no doubt that that all factors into this. that finally a prosecutor is making sort of a political prosecution of a man at the top of the hierarchy is not something that concerns me terribly. Yeah, I don't think like, I'm more concerned that this seems to have propelled him to the front of the republican race and that he's getting a bunch of donations off it than i am about any any potential consequences like of the actual indictment it is certainly an interesting political move for desantis to back trump on this and not not like comply with extradition not that it would ever get to that point, but that is still a move that DeSantis made on purpose, which is an interesting political move considering the ways of future candidacy. And it is, let's talk about that a second, because obviously 34 felony counts sounds like a lot. That

is, in fact, quite a few felonies. But at least the coverage I'm reading is like, it's basically unheard of for someone to actually do jail time for this as a first offense, which I don't know, whatever. Like, does that man not? It's absolutely breathtaking that he doesn't have a single crime on him, given that he's essentially a career criminal. Well, there there are continuing like there's like the potential for prosecution still from like that call he had with the um secretary of state of uh of uh georgia which we'll talk about a little bit yeah i think there are a few sort of more serious there's a number of things that yeah yeah this may not be the last trump criminal indictment that we see um oh god we can we we can only hope we can only hope. Because it only gets more funny from here.

And that's the only reason to hope. Yeah. Well, unless it doesn't. I'm seeing a lot of like panic from some people, certain folks in the progressive and kind of center left media sphere who were like, this is just handed Trump the nomination. This might have just handed Trump the election. From what I'm looking at and from the polling I'm looking at, I mean, I think there's a good chance this helps. I mean, I think the polling certainly supports the argument that this will help him cinch the nomination. although he has definitely gained on DeSantis since all of this whole process started. There is evidence, I'm looking at a 538 article right now,

Trump's indictment might be making him more popular among Republicans. But kind of the point that's actually made is that the group that's getting more likely to back him is his base. Yeah. Like maybe it's people who were softer on him because he didn't back the J6 people. Maybe some of them are just folks who kind of drifted away because it's the years in between a presidential election and that's a natural thing. So it may have galvanized his base. He's certainly, he's raised four or $5 million. He's claiming seven now.

He's claiming seven. I mean, that seems real possible. It's possible, yeah. He is saying that a significant chunk of it, I think like 20% might be more than that now, were like first-time donations. That is what his people are claiming. That is not – I have no way of knowing if those numbers are legitimate. What we can say is that the polling that we're seeing nationally does not back the idea that this is causing a sea change in the likelihood of Americans to support Donald Trump. About 69% of Americans, according to a very nice, according to an economist, you go of poll, say that in general, failing to report having spent campaign money on payments in order to keep someone silent about an issue to affect and affect the outcome of an election is a crime.

About 90 percent of Biden voters back this, while about 54 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2020 said the same, which is interesting. Now, that doesn't mean they also think that this is what Trump did. Right. They're just saying they think that that is a crime. About 57% of Republicans, according to that same, or according to a Yahoo News YouGov poll, about 57% of Republicans and Republican leaners said they would support Trump in a head-to-head against Ron DeSantis, who received 31%. That's an increase in support for the president by about 10%. But DeSantis has only gone down by like 8%. So you can see, like, he basically what's happening is that this is causing people to flock from DeSantis to him, which is not kind of evidence that we're seeing like a broader national sweep.

Quinnipiac University, NPR, PBS NewsHour, Marist Poll kind of broadly supported the idea that investigations into Trump are popular among Americans, more popular than not, at least. About 56% of Americans say the investigations into Trump are fair. About 41% say they're a witch hunt. Independents are pretty split on the issue, but obviously, like, Democrats, wildly supportive, Republicans, very much against. Most college-educated adults come down on this being fair, as do most Gen Z and millennial people. Adults without a college education, white evangelicals, and those in small towns are most likely to call it a witch hunt. An NPR PBS NewsHour Marist poll shows a plurality of Americans, 46%, believe Trump has done something

illegal related to those investigations. Another 29% say Trump has done something unethical, but not illegal, while only 23% say he's done nothing wrong. Overall, 57% of Americans say that criminal charges filed against Trump should disqualify him from a presidential bid. 38% say it should not. That would be an area where I actually agree with the Republicans. I don't think that having charges against you should disqualify you from running for president. Look, man, I think if you are a fucking murderer, you should be able to run for president. People have the right to run for and vote for whoever the fuck they want.

And I think that is a strong core belief of mine. Not going to vote for Trump, but I think the fact that he's getting charged with a bunch of felonies should not, if he was in jail, he should be able to run as people have in the past in my opinion yeah eugene debs famous trump trump president and i'm kind of more interested actually in i think the republican response is fairly predictable like all of this we could

have called that you know the moment they said they were indicting him the democrats like i'm look i don't think the democrats are ever going to do anything useful that will really change material conditions or make things much better for working people in this country but the fact that it gives them the option to pivot back to like orange man bad as their only campaign as their only promise as their only sort of uh principle which like they they put forward as as a reason to vote for them is still bad i think like it prevents even the modicum of accountability that we have for all the shit that the democrats have done and all and all the shit that they haven't done in the past what like three two two and a half years since the election. I think that's so much broader of a problem than just dealing with this set of charges.

I am sympathetic to the idea, if you just kind of look at history, that you can't let people do the kind of shit Trump did and not try to fucking go after them and not hammer the sons of bitches. Right. And this is, this is not, you know, they went after,

after the beer hall putsch Hitler was jailed for like a year. So it doesn't mean that like slaps on the wrist, uh, don't necessarily have much of a protective effect, but I don't know. Like, like I am so torn on this. I mean,

obviously it's really funny. I think if this is kind of the start of a series of prosecutions that's going to make this guy's life hell and that might actually even force some consequences for him, then I think that's, broadly speaking, a good thing as long as it doesn't disqualify him from the presidency, which I think would be a bad precedent. But I don't know, I'm broadly on on team. Yeah, man, fuck him up. Like, we know this guy would have and in fact, his his his promised to if he gets into power again, use the state, use the Justice Department, remake it in his own image, and destroy his enemies. So I'm not against the idea that like, well, the Dems, I tend to agree with you on most things, James. I don't believe the Democratic Party deserves to have an easy election right now because they've failed. I mean,

we're, this is the week where we're getting the announcement from Biden that he's essentially taking kind of the soft answer to the GOP attack on trans people participating in sporting events. We were also about a week out from his most recent announcement on, or maybe actually it's been more like a couple of weeks on the border shit. We just had that horrible fire over in Juarez like a week or so ago. Like the Biden administration has let a lot of people down in a number of ways.

There's, you know, some of the drilling shit that's about to start up again. And Alaska is really unsettling to me. So I agree with you. I don't like the idea that they can make this be an orange man bad election again. And I'm hopeful that some of what we've seen, you know, particularly like the most recent election in Chicago, you know, maybe there's kind of at least room at the state level for a lot more progressive to edge out kind of centrist dims and force some consequences that way. But I also am worried about, you know, this authoritarian who threatened to jail and murder

a bunch of people I care about. And like, I want him to spend the rest of his life tangled up in that shit. I don't know that that's what this is going to be. You know, maybe they'll fail miserably here. But I don't know. I do think the kind of panic that you're getting from some people like this handed them the election, I'm not seeing evidence that that's the case. I think that maybe if this had happened in like 2016 or even 2020, Sure, you might get something like that. But at the point we're at now, I just don't think new people are coming to Trump in numbers. Yeah. Yeah. And it very much makes sense for the liberal state apparatus to try to defend itself

from what it sees as like an insurgent reactionary factor, right? Like that is how they view Trump and Trump's political power. So it makes sense they will use their own powers to try to resist that from gaining control again. Whether or not you believe the state apparatus should exist at all or how valid you view its existence, it makes sense what they're doing. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I am, I mean, honestly, I am surprised they committed to it because there is, in part because this is a tremendous risk for Bragg and the people around him, right? If this,

if this fails, which it very well might, you know, obviously that would have, could have consequences for everybody, but, you know, it could have really serious career consequences for this guy. And I am surprised that you've you've got someone willing to kind of throw the dice here. And I'm hopeful that maybe that inspires, especially since this case, by the way, since I'm sure people are curious. No one I've looked at who knows more about the law than me expects this to hit trial quickly. Again, Trump has all of the money in the world, and this is probably going to be a pretty winding process. Outside of just the normal problems of like a rich man is being accused of a series of crimes and has many lawyers, the Secret Service has a lot to say and when and how the actual trial part of this commences, and that has a chance of extending it. So my hope is that as this kind of winds on, maybe the fact that Bragg was willing to kind of take a shot in the dark here, so to speak, inspires some of these other prosecutors

who have been, you know, poking at Trump to take a swing. And maybe with enough swings, you know, it'll be like that, uh, that guy we had on Troy Herdaby's, uh, and his bear armor suit. You know,

you get a bunch of bikers to surround him with two by fours and just swing until they're all broken. And he's on the ground. Um, it'll be like, it'll be like that scene from Avengers end game and all of the George Soros DAs are going to come in through the portals. Garrison. Absolutely not. Led by George Soros DAs are going to come in through the portals. Garrison, absolutely not.

Led by George Soros himself. I have never been angrier at you right now than bringing up that fucking Avengers scene. Yeah, so did y'all watch Trump's video response? Oh, the one that played on all of the news stations except for MSNBC. Yeah, yeah. We should talk about that. I actually did not watch it.

No, I attempted to avoid that as well, actually. But have you subjected yourself to that for us, Robert? I sure did. And I have a summary of the most salient parts. First off, I think that MSNBC made the right call. They kind of summarized what was going on, but like, didn't just let him speak, you know, uninterrupted for, I think it was like 15 minutes, something like 20 minutes. Talking of interrupted, Robert, would you like to be interrupted by some, uh, plugs

for goods and services? Absolutely. I thought you would, buddy. Donald Trump is a master spokesman, um um and these are master products get your gold welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network,

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Mighty. Anyway, Trump. So I don't know. I watched this fucking thing. I guess my overall sentiment would be kind of boring, right? This is not the level of energy or the degree of kind of like manic violent undercurrents that like his American carnage speech had, or even that like some of his more recent speeches in front of crowds have had. I don't see, there's so many people I've watched

have takes on this who are like, and that one of the joys of Twitter is you'll see some guy who's, I don't know, an analyst at some newspaper be like, wow, Trump was really low energy. He seems frightened. You know, I'm telling you, this is a scared man. He's worried about these charges. And then like someone else with almost the same CV at a different place will be like, wow, Trump seems angry. You know, he's about to he's about to lash back. Everybody better be ready for his counter strike. And honestly, I just thought it was like kind of perfunctory. He didn't he certainly didn't seem low energy, but he didn't seem like he had. He didn't seem like he had much to say other than kind of meander over some of his some some talking points that are at this

point mostly pretty lukewarm um he kind of runs through at the start of this a a laundry list of right-wing talking points that like the democrats spied on his campaign in 2016 that he was subjected to fraudulent investigations from the russia and ukraine stuff to the impeachments to the raid on Mar-a-Lago. And then he broadens it by talking about how the FBI and the DOJ relentlessly pursue Republicans. And I was kind of expecting him to lean more into the I am your vengeance shit that he's been doing lately. He doesn't really as much as I had expected him to in this. He kind of dips his toes into it. But I think he's so focused on what's happening to him that he doesn't push that as much as I was kind of expecting. So this is what comes after him ranting about the DOJ and the FBI relentlessly pursuing Republicans. He then kind of

goes into the election fraud claim stuff again. He gives a bunch of lies there about the election and about there being like ballots stuffed and all that kind of shit then he like pivots straight from that to talking about how twitter purportedly worked with the biden family to hide information about hunter biden this is like debunked twitter file shit yeah um update on the twitter files matt to bb has just left twitter because it were let him post sub stack. We do know, obviously like they did stuff like say,

Hey, please remove this video that shows Hunter Biden's penis. Yeah. But also like, that's not number one is not supposed to be stuff that's on Twitter. That's kind of like crossing the revenge porn line. And, you know, both sides made requests that things be removed.

Trump claims, and I'm not sure where he says that there's like a like somebody calculated this, but I haven't been able to find who made this calculation that if Twitter hadn't intervened against him, he would have won the national election by 17 points. And then he's like, and that's, I didn't even need that many. You know, you could have dropped that by 16.8 and I still would have won, which is not true, really. Again, it's all just lies.

It goes on. He compares the United States to a third world country because of the 2020 election. He calls Alvin Bragg a Soros-backed prosecutor, which he does a lot um it's not true uh but bragg you know people are using soros-backed as like um at least a lot of the nazis are are

really leaping on that one yeah they've gone back to soros like yeah they did the three parentheses for a while like um dosantis mentioned Soros at least twice in his thing. Twice, yeah. Yeah, it's a big, big one for them. I mean, I think it is a good move on their part to frame this prosecution as election interference. Like that is a smart move for them to funnel all of this via that narrative? Yeah, it helps keep the election

fraud lies going. It also helps because there's been a number of like, you know, Chesa Buden who got booted in San Francisco recently is one example. But we've seen a number of like progressive prosecutors get elected by kind of dim and center left coalitions. And that allows them to kind of connect this to one of their more successful talking points, which is the purported horrible violence in the streets of cities like San Francisco and whatnot, the surge in crime in liberal cities with liberal prosecutors. Again, it's all bullshit, but it's not a bad tactic for tying into like, well, let's make a link between this thing Trump is claiming that's hurting him and this thing that people

see every night on like Fox News that has been a pretty durable talking point for the right for several years now. Trump makes it there's a weird line in here where he says that like even the rhinos and the Democrats agree that the case against him is bad. I'm not sure, I mean, you know, I suspect he's just kind of like looking at Twitter chaff there. He then kind of derails a bit by talking about Afghanistan and all of the military equipment and lives lost, uh, in the same breath. And, uh, then from that, he kind of, one of the things that comes up over and over in this is him talking about how embarrassing this time is for our country, how all of our enemies are laughing at

us, et cetera. Like that is, uh, uh, I mean, he's been making that point for a long time, but it definitely, it's, it's one of those things I think is a little bit of a window into the man's thought process because he clearly thinks, and perhaps, I mean, it must have a degree of resonance with his base, but the idea that like America has been embarrassed because he's facing charges and because of, you know, Biden's failures as he sees it over in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Like embarrassment is a big thing he tries to get across in this, that like, you know, Lady Liberty's been caught with their fucking skirt up or something like that. It's a, I don't know. It's interesting to me that that's such a focus for him. There's a couple of fun lines in the part about the military. He talks about how it's woke at

the top, but under him, it was able to defeat ISIS in four weeks, which, man, it took years. Like, we know it took years. I was there for some of it. A large part of that was not Americans at all. No, no. And a large part of it was not Americans at all. There's a weird moment where he talks about the investigation

over his call with Zelensky. And then that call where he tried to force Georgia's secretary of state to discard votes that he's being investigated for, where he's like, this is one of like the most beautiful Trump moments of the whole speech. Cause he's like, you know, that perfect call I had with Zelensky.

I told you all it was a perfect call where my call with, with Georgia secretary of state was even more perfect. It was, it was the best call anybody's ever had. Nobody had a problem with it. Lots of guys were listening perfect. It was, it was the best call anybody's ever had. Nobody had a problem with it. Lots of guys were listening in and they all thought it was great. It's just, he can be such a funny man.

It's not even insane. It's just like, I don't know. Nobody, nobody else talks like that. Nobody else describes a phone call as perfect, right? Like a normal, and this is maybe there's a degree of Trump's success you can see in this,

but like no normal person being accused of like having attempted to interfere with an election during a phone call would describe the call as perfect. You know, a normal politician would refute the claims against them, would say, you know, I never did this. I never did that. You know, this is taken out of context or whatever. Trump's just like, it was perfect. You don't remember the last perfect call I told you about

that people thought might've been a crime? Even more perfect. This is the most perfect phone call anyone's ever had. Yeah. Then we get a long derailment about the Biden, like, you know, the classified document shit that got him rated. He talks about how Biden's possession of classified documents was like the worst that anyone's ever done and was criminal because he was just the vice

president, but the president's allowed to do it, but everybody does it. But the way Biden did is the worst that anybody did it. Yeah. It's like, I don't know. It's there.

There's, it's not like, it's not an interesting Trump speech. I don't think he's like panicked or anything. I just kind of, I don't know, maybe he's just sort of like checking off a thing on the to-do box. But it's not one for the speech books, right? Or for the history books. I don't know, the speech books.

That's not a term. That's not a thing at all. There is a really fun moment where he's like kind of late in the speech in between him complaining about Letitia James. He like points to his sons and he's like, I got two great sons, sons both doing really great. And then he's like, and then as an afterthought, he's like, Baron's going to do a great job too someday. He's tall. Amazing. What an amazing father. Talking of tall, did you see that they'd also, they faked a mugshot of him and made him six foot five?

Who faked the mugshot? The Trump campaign faked a mugshot of him to sell merch. And then just added like several inches to his, a man with no insecurities. Ben Shapiro moments. Trump a legalist arc. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Presented André, won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonoro. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to

dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents.

Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture.

Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm not saying there's nothing to be concerned about in the right wing reaction here. It is worth kind of looking at the response that has occurred has largely been fucking nonsense circus shit. Right. At most of the big rallies, particularly in New York, that have happened as a result of this, there have been more press on the ground than anyone on either side of things. Yeah.

Um, it's not, it's just so far not pulling people out. You know, do I think there's a chance of, you know, isolated terrorist attacks, uh,

as you know, by people who see themselves as defending Trump or, or democracy or whatever, certainly not a 0% chance, but in terms of like things that I think are likely to have a mass destabilizing effect, I'm not seeing it yet. And I think a lot of that's due just to the fact that the Trump supporters who are kind of have the highest potential of being convinced to do that shit, are all scared as hell, both of the feds and of each other. The sheer number of them that have turned on each other during the J6

investigations means that whenever there's talk about doing another big series of rallies, it devolves in a lot of these online places into like, well, you know, this is probably being set up by the feds. This is probably a honeypot to trap us, which is I don't know. It's not a situation I would say you should rely on lasting forever. But that does kind of seem to be where we are right now. One other aspect of the right wing response that I think is worth mentioning is they have is some of some of their like propagandists and and political people have made the promise that since since now since that now there's been a precedent set for indicting former presidents now now they finally are able to go after democratic politicians whenever they want and yeah i i just i just uh am worried that they're

gonna threaten us with a good time yeah yeah and it's it's also like it's not just threatening us with a good time because we have seen in tennessee right now they're forcing two democratic legislators out for their support of gun control and And like, you know, Specifically two black Democratic legislators. Yeah, two black Democratic legislators. Not the white lady who did the same shit. I'm not, you know, in line with most of the Democratic Party on gun control, but what is happening here is anti-democratic bullshit.

Like that is, it is authoritarian. It is completely fucking unacceptable. And people ought to be out in the, like a lot more ought to be done. And I think probably a lot more, like I don't, that's one of the thorny questions that actually does concern me.

Like, what do you do in a situation like this? What do the, what kind of leverage do the feds even potentially have? It certainly doesn't look like they're in the mood to do anything now, because I think that's the kind of, that's the kind of thing we're going to see a lot more of in red states um in order to erode what little resistance it lists and that's really concerning they're not gonna like go after someone like obama which frankly somebody somebody should

for the amount of bad yeah yeah yeah there should be charges against the man there should be charges against bush uh uh you know the doves um there should be some charges against clinton fuck it go after them all right yeah yeah you won't dig up george hw bush put him on trial as a corpse like that one pope like i'm on board but no they're gonna they're gonna end up going after just like small like minority politicians who are like yeah fighting for like reasonable things you know and who are doing things to actually jam up the works of kind of the march of far right yeah authoritarian laws in red states exactly and you know i i am sure that as that picks up pace they will point out what's being done to Trump as a justification,

but like people should be aware. That's not why they're doing it. They're doing it because it looks like it's going to work for them in Tennessee. And they did it in Tennessee for reasons that had nothing to do with fucking Trump. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. If you want to talk about like what fascism is, a big part of it is that weaponizing of the state apparatus against opposition, against whatever, your scapegoat group. And that does concern me for people living in red states. Absolutely, absolutely. I'm not saying there's nothing to be worried about from the right. I'm just saying at the moment when I'm looking at

the way I kind of conceive of a threat matrix, I don't see us in a more dangerous position as a result of Trump getting charged. And I think an argument could be made that it's a positive move. I really hope we get another nail gun guy. Oh, man. Yeah, that fucking dude who tried to solo the FBI with a nail gun. Maybe the next guy will come in with like a jigsaw or a. Yeah.

No, no, no. I think I think ladders. I think it's it's it's time for like a ladder mob. That's that's what I'm excited to see. Ladders and like simple pulleys. It's getting pinned to a building. Someone 20 feet away with a ladder. Make a make a trebuchet. Judge judge the gauntlet has been thrown down

yeah let's let's let's have a continuing series of competitions to see who can build like the most effective medieval siege equipment i want to see some fucking scorpions up on the hill you know yeah i'm gonna do is it greek fire turkish fire when you yeah yeah i mean that really that's a, oh boy, that's like the hummus debate, James. You don't want to land on one side of the other. Let's just call it Cyprus fire and we can be fine. I don't know.

You guys get any other thoughts on the Trump arraignment, indictment, arrest, et cetera? No, it's very funny. I did enjoy seeing that guy fall off his tall bike that was a highlight of the week for me yeah there was a good video from the uh the new york protest of a guy falling off a tall bike yeah shout out to the skateboard oh i will i will um let's see i will send send a few things to the chat the the signal chat that i feel like our people are worth seeing this is what i spent this is what i spent most of my day uh doing um is is sending people these memes i think it's

important that that is that is that ruth bader ginsburg with the biggie crown saying tell donald i want him to know it was me garrison yes that is oh no you're joking i i if i if i actually see ruth benningham for fuck's sake now that would be an uruk-hai with a pussy hat uh oh god looks like brunch is back on the boys that one i do appreciate appreciate yeah uh there was there was a good one that was like um uh it was like the jailer dropping off trump in epstein's cell all all of all of all of the lights go off and then from the corner a man in a dark cloak says brandon sends his regards. What a wonderful time for memes. Well, everybody, that's our episode on the Trump arrest.

We figured we should talk about that. To answer the question that so many people ask me, are we closer to having a civil war? I don't know, man. It doesn't feel like this has moved the needle on that at all. The national divorce is happening any day now. Any day now, I swear. I think the thing that's worrying right now is not just kind of the low-level series of exchanges of terror attacks and shootings and murders and stuff and just street violence that I do think is going to kind of continue to be a problem up through 2024.

But also just like what we've been talking about in terms of red states pushing for these increasingly really violent laws aimed at doing direct physical harm to small groups of people that they consider to be their enemies for whatever reason of identity. That is like the increasing criminalization of groups of people in red states, the flight of folks from those states, the fact that you are kind of seeing the country settle into two blocks that have wildly different legal systems that are often opposed to each other. That's a conflict that is absolutely happening. There's no denying that it's occurring. This is not a debatable thing. And I don't see the feds having any idea of how to fix this at the moment. We'll see where the

elections go in 2024. The fact that Wisconsin, that their Supreme Court election went well, means a lot. It means that that's one state where the process that we're seeing happening in places like Florida and Tennessee, that is a significant amount of people protected from that. And it also means a lot for the 2024 election. But we are in a really rough place still um i'm not like thinking we're in at the edge of 1776.2 or whatever the fuck the right calls it these days yeah 1865 or whatever robert evans is going to personally be the next john brown yeah i i hopefully not um but uh i am i am i think i'd be really good at uh uh being a terrible farmer um i i'm already yeah yeah yeah you know that picture of john brown like leading the troops will remain one of my favorite pieces oh yeah i've ever seen

no he's he's got he's got a hell of a beard in that one. Yeah. I don't know. I think the threat, you know, continues. But broadly speaking, what's happened to Trump is either good or neutral, but certainly funny. And that's, I think, a good point to end on for the day. I agree.

Brandon sends his regards. the day. Great. Brandon sends his regards. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks slash sources.

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