Letters from an American - May 28, 2024

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

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Starting point is 00:00:00 May 28, 2024. The defense and the prosecution today made their closing statements in the New York criminal case against Trump for falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels. The payment was intended to stop her account of her sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the days before the 2016 election, when the Trump campaign was already reeling from the Access Hollywood tape showing Trump boasting of sexual assault. The Biden-Harris campaign showed up at the trial today with veteran actor Robert De Niro and former police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, who protected the
Starting point is 00:00:53 U.S. Capitol and members of Congress from rioters on January 6, 2021. In words seemingly calculated to get under Trump's skin, De Niro said, we New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot and called him a coward. When Robert Costa of CBS News asked campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler why they had shown up at the trial, Tyler answered, because you all are here. You've been incessantly covering this day in and day out, and we want to remind the American people ahead of the first
Starting point is 00:01:31 debate on June 27th of the unique, persistent, and growing threat that Donald Trump poses to the American people and to our democracy. So since you all are here, we're communicating that message. So since you all are here, we're communicating that message. Yesterday, in remarks at Arlington National Cemetery in observance of Memorial Day, President Joe Biden honored the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands of women and men who've given their lives for this nation, each one a link in the chain of honor stretching back to our founding days, each one bound by a common commitment, not to a place, not to a person, not to a president, but to an idea unlike any idea in human history, the idea of the United States of America. Freedom has never been guaranteed, Biden said. Every generation has to earn it, fight for it, defend it in battle
Starting point is 00:02:27 between autocracy and democracy, between the greed of a few and the rights of many. And just as our fallen heroes have kept the ultimate faith with our country and our democracy, we must keep faith with them, he said. His speech at Arlington echoed the message he delivered to this year's graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he urged the graduates to hold fast to their oaths. On your very first day at West Point, you raised your right hands and took an oath, not to a political party, not to a president, but to the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, he said to applause. Soldiers have given their lives for that Constitution. They have fought to defend the freedoms that it protects, the right to vote,
Starting point is 00:03:21 the right to worship, the right to raise your voice in protest. They have saved and sacrificed to ensure, as President Lincoln said, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. Nothing is guaranteed about our democracy in America. Every generation has an obligation to defend it, to protect it, to preserve it, to choose it, he said. Now it's your turn. Biden spent more than an hour saluting and shaking the hand of each graduate. In contrast, Trump ushered in Memorial Day with a post on his social media company saying, Happy Memorial Day to all, including the human scum that is working so hard to destroy our once great country.
Starting point is 00:04:14 And to the radical left, Trump-hating federal judge in New York that presided over, get this, two separate trials that awarded a woman who I never met before a quick handshake at a celebrity event 25 years ago doesn't count, $91 million for defamation. to attack Judge Arthur Ngoron, who presided over the civil case of Trump and the Trump Organization for falsifying documents, and Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the current criminal case in New York. The message behind this extraordinary post was twofold. Trump can think of nothing but himself, and he appears to be terrified. On Saturday, May 25th, Trump had an experience quite different from his usual reception at rallies of handpicked supporters. He was resoundingly booed at the National Convention of the Libertarian Party in Washington, D.C., where Secret Service agents confiscated squeaky rubber chickens before his speech. Attendees jeered Trump's order, you have to combine with us, even when he reminded them of his libertarian credentials,
Starting point is 00:05:32 tax cuts, and defunding of federal equality programs, and promised to pardon the January 6th rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol. Trump also promised to pardon Ross Ulbricht, who founded and from January 2011 to October 2013, ran an online criminal marketplace called Silk Road, where more than $200 million in illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services, such as computer hacking, were bought and sold. Most of the sales were of drugs, with the Silk Road homepage listing nearly 13,000 options, including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and LSD. The wares were linked to at least six deaths from overdose around the world. In May 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison and was ordered to forfeit more than $180 million. Libertarians want Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison and was ordered to forfeit more than $180 million.
Starting point is 00:06:27 Libertarians want Ulbricht released because they support drug legalization on the grounds that people should be able to make their own choices, and they see Ulbricht's sentence as government overreach. Trump has repeatedly called for the death penalty for drug dealers, making his promise to pardon Albrecht an illustration of just how badly he thinks he needs the support of libertarian voters. But they refused to endorse him. Trump appeared angry, and on Sunday, as Greg Sargent reported in the New Republic, he reposted a video of a man raging at MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. posted a video of a man raging at MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. In it, the man says that when Trump is reelected, he'll get rid of all you effing liberals. You liberals are gone when he effing wins. You effing BJ liberals are done. Uncle Donnie's going to take this election. Landslide,
Starting point is 00:07:22 landslide, you effing half a BJ. Landslide. Get the eff out of here, you scumbag. Trump's elevation of this video, Sargent notes, is a dangerous escalation of his already violent rhetoric, and it has gotten very little media attention. Last November, Matt Gertz of Media Matters reported that ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News provided 18 times more coverage of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's comment at a fundraising event that you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables who are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic. Then they provided of Trump's November 2023 promise to root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC mentioned the deplorables comment nearly nine times more than Trump's vermin language.
Starting point is 00:08:34 The ratio for the five highest circulating U.S. newspapers was 29 to 1. Clinton's statement was consistent with polling, and she added that the rest of Trump's supporters were people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. She said, those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well. Sargent noted that news stories require context and that Trump's elevation of the violent video should be placed alongside his many threats to prosecute his enemies.
Starting point is 00:09:25 respect toward right-wing voters, Sargent writes, there has been very little attention to the presumptive Republican presidential nominees posting of a video that declares a large ideological subgroup of Americans done and gone if he is elected. Scott McFarlane of CBS News reported yesterday that Republicans have ignored a law passed in March 2022 requiring the placement of a small plaque honoring police officers who protected the U.S. Capitol and the lawmakers and staffers there on January 6, 2021. It was supposed to be in place by March 2023, but has not gone up. A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican of Louisiana, says his office is working on it. Kayla Tausch of CNN reported today that three of the police officers at the Capitol that day, Sergeant Aquilina Gannell and Officer Harry Dunn,
Starting point is 00:10:19 both retired, and Officer Daniel Hodges, who is still with the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police, will be traveling to swing states for the Biden campaign to tell voters that Trump threatens Americans' fundamental rights. Finally today, Melinda French Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, announced a billion dollars in new spending over the next two years for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States. Only 2% of charitable giving in the U.S. goes to these organizations, she wrote in the New York Times, and for too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women's rights into a defensive posture
Starting point is 00:11:08 while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match. Letters from an American was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dedham, Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.

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