The Chaser Report - Donald Trump's FIRST EVER CONSEQUENCE

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Donald Trump faced court and was found guilty? Madness in the US Senate? Dom and Charles bring you up to speed on the latest news from the wild west that is America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. Do you know who the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States is, the effective leader of the Lower House? Some McCarthy. What's his name? Kevin McCarthy, yes. He is no longer the Speaker.

What? When did this happen? He's been dumped. guess who dumped it? But that never happens. Okay, so who dumped him? Well, but wait a minute. The Republicans have the majority, but it's a slender majority. Have people, wait, but Republicans won't go over to the difference.

What the fuck has happened? We'll find out at a moment. And also take a look at Donald Trump's trip to court this week in a bit of an American update on today's Chaser report. Oh, that was, they were great images. They were great images. One for the ages. So you might remember that Kevin McCarthy took an unprecedentedly long time to become, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

After the Republicans won the lower House, the House of Representatives. Yes. In the Congress, it was only on the 15th ballot that he managed to get over the line. They subjected him to a ritual humiliation. And this is not the Democrats doing it. It's the radical Republicans, the House Freedom Caucus, the Ultra Maga crew, which is a very small number.

Yes. But because the Republicans only won by a very slender majority last time, as you said, Basically, it meant that a small handful of Republicans would hold the rest of them, basically, over a barrel. They're like the fucking Greens. Yeah, well, it almost is because, I mean, you might think, well, okay, like the Labor Party does, okay, we're all part of the same team, we'll just do what the majority of the team who's elected wanted to do. That's not how it works at all in America, where this tiny group, only six or seven congressman big, is able to basically force all this stuff.

So they had McCarthy over a barrel. and the only reason that he became speaker in the first place was by agreeing to a deal where at any point on any day in the future, any one member of Congress could call for a vote of no confidence effectively in the speaker. So any single member. What a terrible deal.

He could subject McCarthy to a vote. And he really wanted the gig, right? McCarthy's always wanted to be the speaker. It was his lifelong dream. So in the end, he had to agree to this terrible deal where at any point, Basically, he could be broken up with it. It'd be as though you entered a relationship with your new girlfriend

who said, look, just at any moment, I'm allowed to have sex with somebody else. It's just, it doesn't matter. You've agreed to it in advance. You can do it. So that's what's happened. Matt Gates, who's the most radical of the radicals, the Florida congressman. Isn't he the pito? Look, there were some accusations about relationships with underage.

Who knows what really happened? Well, the House Ethics Committee has been investigating. The Department of Justice decided not to charge him, but he was accused of, yes, sex trafficking, as well as sexual relationship with mine. So, a fantastic conservative Republican. Sex trafficking. Fuck, hell. And he holds basically the balance of power in America.

He's the key guy. My favorite fact about Matt Gates is that he graduated from Niceville High School. Niceville, Florida is a real place. Nothing nice about Matt Gates. So Matt Gates says, look, Kevin McCarthy's word cannot be trusted. and he has pulled the pin. And even though the vast majority of Republicans voted to keep McCarthy

and wanted McCarthy, that small rump of extremists voted no. And the Democrats weren't sure what to do. There was some talk of them supporting McCarthy and cutting a deal with him to keep him there to frustrate the House friend. What were their deal that at any point? They're allowed to pull the pin.

They're allowed to pull the pin even more rapidly. But under their near minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, they decided, no, we're not going to, we don't like Kevin McCarthy. we're not going to keep him in place. So he lost the vote and therefore the chair is vacant. There's a president pro-temporary, basically a temporary person that was put in up. This rule was put in after 9-11 in case the speaker got assassinated rather than killed by his own.

So Patrick McHenry's there, but his job is just to organise a vote for a new speaker. We don't know who it's going to be. Who on earth will Matt Gates allow to be speaker? McCarthy's not running again. Gates says he won't run. So it's hard to imagine who the majority of Republicans could agree on. Look, I think the one policy that Matt Gates is really clear on is they need a candidate, a speaker who is pro-sex trafficking. Yeah.

There's not enough pro-sex trafficking legislation coming through the Congress. There's not enough sort of decriminalisation of sex trafficking. They're the main issues, I think, that... Well, this is the thing. The House Freedom Caucus, you might have thought, was ultra-libertarian, right? But no, I think it's the freedom to sex traffic that they're most interested in. least the Matt Gates wing of it. And also, look, what is age but a number to Matt Gates?

I don't think he even knew how young the child that he might have slept with was. So there you go. So this whole thing is absolutely going on. And the reason, there were only eight Republicans who voted against McCarthy. And yet that was enough to basically end his career, pretty much. He's not going to run again. He knows he can't win the rights. Oh, right.

Oh, okay. So this is his swan song. Well, he may stick around presumably as a member of Congress, but he's not going to be in the leadership. As a cuck. much as a cuck. So there's hundreds of other Republicans who are pro-McCarthy, in essence, several hundred, and there's eight who were against him, and the eight got to win the day. And the reason for this, Charles, is because McCarthy did something that Matt Gates really

objected to, and it wasn't pito-related. What he did was he did a deal with the Biden administration and the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, to keep the US government open. Now, you might recall, this happens every couple of years, particularly when the Republicans are involved. I actually think it's to do with daylight savings. It happens about once every six months. So in essence, the House and Senate have to pass budget bills in order to fund the US government. And it shut down a few times. It shut down under Obama. I think it shut down under Bill Clinton as well. The Democrats tend not to use this threat when they

control things. But the Republicans love saying, you've got a shutdown down spending. The government spends too much. It's the swamp. It's all that. So McCarthy, being a vaguely responsible human being has tried to actually, you know, keep the military paid and so on and keep the, the military might get paid regardless, but keep things like the millions. Of course the military would get paid, yeah. Keep all that. It's just social security. Yeah, that's right. Things like that. So it's very, very bad. But it also hurts the US economy massively. And it means that the US potentially, if it went on for long enough, couldn't pay their debts. So it had basically become a banana republic in essence. That is not as important to that dates. And that hasn't already happened? Well, it came close.

They don't like McCarthy doing any sort of deal, basically. So what they want is someone who is going to be absolutely hard-line and do everything that this eight, very tiny number of eight want. And shut down the government. Shut down the government. Because of eight people. Whereas the rest of the Republicans want the deal and think that, well, at least the majority of them, I think, wanted the deal

and actually wanted to keep the place open. So just spitballing here is the only way forward moderate Republicans to cut a deal Democrats in order to cut the eight Republicans out of the picture. Like, is there any other way forward? Because it sounds like these sort of extremist characters are not going to think anyone's good enough. Well, I mean, some people say you don't negotiate with terrorists, right? But basically, yeah, it's very unsure what will happen. So the Democrats can make a deal for a moderate Republican speaker.

But that would be very unusual. And they've already nominated their leader, Hakeem Jeffries, as their nominee. But why wouldn't moderate Republicans are the problem, right? It's the Republican Party that's got the problem. Yeah, the problem isn't entirely on the Republican. Well, because then they'd probably get primary and lose their seats in the next election. So the Democrats are basically saying, look, look at its function. And their whole argument is they want to say, look, it's massively dysfunctional when the Republicans control the House, so don't vote for them.

They love the dysfunction. Yes, of course. Everyone loves the dysfunction for different reasons. Yes, that's right. So Matt Gates is basically, you know, drooling over this as though it were a child, the situation. He's very, very happy with this scenario. Yeah. And the Democrats love it.

But the ordinary Americans who might want, you know, the government to function and to be able to actually use federal services without everything being shut down all the time. Not so good for them, but they don't matter to Matt Gates and his buddies, evidently. Yeah. So I don't know what they're going to do. It's not clear whether some compromised candidate will come forward. And I just can't see Charles how any person, no matter who it is,

could possibly keep the eight extremists happy while also appealing to the rest of the Republican. Look, I'm wondering whether... the best way forward for the planet is if the extremist Republicans get their way, the government gets shut down, they can't afford their bills, they default on their debt, and the monetary system collapses. That's definitely the way to go. Because I have a large amount of debt, and if the monetary system collapses,

then you can pay it off with nothing. Isn't it, we just square it away. It's not a bad idea. Reset button, let's start again. I can see the virtue of that. So money doesn't mean anything anymore. That's one solution. I think that's probably my favoured solution.

I can see why you'd like that. Another option... Not so good for the people who are owed money. See, I owe my sister money at the moment. Oh, okay. Well, that's... So that would be good to not have to pay her back and she gets another honour from the government.

Probably. A higher order of Australia level. I deduct a hundred dollars for every honour she gets from the government. So another option that comes to mind, and again, just spitballing here, off the top of my head, is wouldn't it be possible for the island? where Geoffrey Epstein had his little resort, the Epstein Island, couldn't that secede and have it...

Matt Gates becomes the king. He could become the king of Epstein Island. Of Epstein Island. Yeah, and basically, or he can fly his buddies there. They can have a libertarian paradise, which will be where they can do whatever they want. Why it would be paradise for the young people of the island? It would actually be awful. So he'd have to evacuate anyone under the age of, I don't know, 19.

But he can just do... He can have a little libertarian fantasy land over there without inconveniencing 300 million fellow Americans. Yeah. No, I prefer... I prefer the collapse of the monetary system, to be honest. Because I think Matt Gates, the best scenario for him is surely jail. Like, isn't that where you're supposed to put sex traffickers?

I mean, the Department of Justice decided not to charge him. I don't know why. That seems like a very sad situation to me. I think that's a very big mistake. Without knowing the facts. Yeah, without knowing the facts, but just looking at him. You know how you can just tell? And it's not, it's not in any way, a judicial process.

You can just tell, can't you? A bit suss. A little bit suss. Yeah, yeah. So that's where we are. So Suss Boy has basically held the US government over a barrel. I don't know how it's going to be resolved. They tend to just find some sort of weird last minute deal to stop nothing falling over.

Because part of the problem is, like, when America, a lot of America's controversies are quite spectacular, right? Yeah. You know, the Trump gets hauled before court or something like that or, you know, nine, 11, like terrific television. Because these government shut down ones are just a little bit procedural, like two procedural to be interesting. Yeah. I mean, the West Wing did a good job of telling the story when this happened.

But, no, it's not must-see TV. And I think that's a problem. And Charles, really what this teaches us is that democracy is inconvenient. I mean, the US is always going on about freedom and democracy and all this kind of stuff. This is not a system any other country would want to pick up on. This is nothing to do with democracy, Dom. This is, yeah, this is, I mean, America hasn't been a democracy for years. This is plutocracy.

Well, this is the thing. I mean, if you're China and you're looking at the system and maybe there's the odd reformer who thinks, maybe we should give the people more rights. Looking at America right now, you're going to be like, fuck no. Yeah. If anything, let's make it more authoritarian. And let's lock up, by the way, people who are accused of sex trafficking. Yes.

That might be a good thing to. Yeah. Wiggers and sex traffickers. Exactly right. So in a moment, we'll look at the other person who's been accused of sexually impropriety in the Republican Party, Donald Trump. The Chaser Report, more news, less often. So, Charles, you mentioned Donald Trump being his little trip to court. Now, he's very good friends with Matt Gates.

They're both from Florida these days. They're very close, kind of ultra-maga Republicans. Donald Trump previously supported Kevin McCarthy, but of course, as with Donald Trump, there's no loyalty and he's just looking in twisting in the win, he hasn't really said anything so far about this particular crisis. Presumably, they should make Donald Trump speaker at the House of Representatives. It's because it doesn't have to be a House of Representatives person. I can't remember Congress. I don't know that it does, necessarily.

So all they need to do is put him as speaker. Could I put up my hand? You could. No, you actually couldn't because you're not eligible to come president. So the thing about the speaker that's really important, as also dramatized in the West Wing. Line of succession. Number three. So if Donald Trump became Speaker of the House, right?

And then he's probably the only person who could unify the Republicans, to be honest. Yeah. Then you just killed Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Well, Biden would die of old age. Yeah. So inevitably. Within the next week or so. You do that.

Get rid of Kamala. Kamala Harris. Yeah, what would happen to her? Oh, she just fade away. No one did notice. As per-per, she's one of the most vice president of your vice presidents that we've had it. She's the Dan Quayle of vice presidents. And then Donald Trump would be president.

as he rightfully is having won the 2020 election. That's a really good idea. That's the sort of backdoor presidency. Absolutely right. And then he wouldn't run. Next time, he probably still would. Anyway, so let's look at why he was in court. Now, this is a really interesting situation

because you might recall Charles that Donald Trump is facing four separate lots of criminal charges. We discussed them on the podcast before. What was there? There was a document scandal. There was the business in Georgia. Georgia, where he and his team allegedly, tried to pressure election officials into...

You don't need to say it literally. I don't need to say literally. Where he is buddies... We're recorded. We're literally... Literally organising a conspiracy. Telling a Secretary of State to find more votes. That's number two.

It's so hard to keep track of them all. There was the paying a pawn star business. And then the small matter of responsibility for the January 6th attack on the Capitol that left people dead and so on. So four separate things. But this is a separate case. This is an allegation of...

fraud being brought by the Attorney General in the State of New York, who has once a $250 million settlement, Letitia James, because of Donald Trump's habit, which he's admitted to, and which people within the Trump organisation have mentioned, particularly Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, of just making up valuations of things. Yes. Look, I'm going to surprise you here, Dom, but I actually agree with Donald Trump's arguments on this case. Oh, really? Yes. I don't know whether you want to run through the allegations, but I've seen that case.

I've been watching the trial very closely. I think everyone should have a right to be able to value assets at whatever quantity they want. And I want you to know that. I want my creditors to know that. You know, I think, you know, the solvency of the chaser is very much dependent on that. Yeah, actually, that's probably true. Yeah. So the chaser, which as we all know is a billion dollar. Oh, billion, multi-billion. Yeah, yeah. So basically, what he's, did was when he got loans, say from major banks, I think Deutsche Bank is one of the people that loaned in money. There was a massive valuation given. And when you have a very high valuation of a business, you get favourable terms, you get better interest rates and so on. And

they basically cut you a better deal to try and get your business. But there were lots of things that he simply lied about. And one of my favourites is that he said that his triplex, his three level apartment in Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet. It was 10. He just accidentally lost 20,000 square feet of his own apart. You'd think you'd know roughly how big your own house was, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yes. Yes.

I mean, that does seem like a blatant lie. But don't you think it's sort of Deutsche Bank's responsibility to do their due diligence? I mean, the Australia, if you try and get a loan in Australia, they can't actually value your assets and get a separate valuation. Yeah, that's right. They don't rely on you saying, well, I reckon it's worth $100 billion. And one of my favourites is Mar-a-Lago. Mara Lago, according to the Palm Beach County Assessor, they estimated the value of it at about between 18 and $27 million, which seems fairly small for a major kind of resort.

But the thing is you can't do anything with it. It's a heritage property. You basically can't touch it. You certainly can't redevelop it. Trump's valuation was between $426 and $612 million. So basically 20 times what the assessor valued it. No, but the argument that he has about that is that he has about that is that he's. involvement in the Mar-a-Lago made it's basically an artwork that essentially it had the same

qualities as an artwork. And he actually in court, his lawyer said that it was like a Mona Lisa valuation. The very fact that it's owned by Donald Trump massively inflates the value of the property. So these are the same lawyers that were fined by Justice Engeron, but basically making ridiculous arguments that he'd previously told them not to make. So the fascinating thing about this is that the fact of the case was so unambiguous that the judge just made a ruling. So there's not actually a trial to work out the truth. Judge Arthur Engeron has already found that Donald Trump and the other defendants were liable for fraud, to which Donald Trump said, I demand a jury trial, this is so unfair, his lawyers

had not asked for a jury when they had the chance. And it's not usual to have juries for this sort of trial. But yeah, his point was it's so open and shut that it's just a question of the extent of the damages. Yes, right, because he's already guilty. So the Attorney General James wants the $250 million, but also that he and his sons be barred from running businesses in New York, and he may lose Trump Tower over this because he can't run a business in New York anymore,

would have to sell all of his assets there. It also really raises the question, Charles, of whether the guy's got $250 million. This is a guy who always says he's a billionaire and worth all these billions, but a lot of people have said he might not actually be a billionaire. So it might be like he's got $10,000 in the bank, but he said, Oh, no, that's like, I've got a 300 million billion dollars. As a work of art. Yes.

Because the $10,000 you've got in the bank is owned by Donald Trump, and that means it's worth billion. Yeah, yeah. How are we not doing this for the chaser? I think we should. The chaser is a work of art. I mean, basically... I think our listener numbers are a work of art.

I mean, the thing that's... You know how people talk about elaborate frauds, right? Yes. They never get credit for how elaborate they are and the beauty and the creativity of some of the stories that are told. Yeah, I mean, this doesn't seem like an elaborate fraud, though. You seems like a very open and shut. I mean, when you think back on Enron, no one really said how creative their accounting was.

It's like people talk about creative accounting as though it's a bad thing. Yes, exactly. It's art. And if you traded it, you know, hung it in a gallery. If you hung Mar-a-Lago in a gallery, maybe it would be worth a lot more. I mean, I think this gets, this gets so many people I know out of real pickles. So essentially what you're saying is when we file our text returns over the next few months, We should declare ourselves artists.

You should, absolutely. Tax artists. And also, I mean, this gives me a different sense of the people. You know how it's quite common in Australian elections to draw a penis on the ballot paper. Yes, which is art. Which is art. I mean, this is the question. We have to be careful.

I think there's laws about people advocating that people vote informal. Don't vote informal. But if you do, you're going to draw a penis, sign it and get it valued. Yes, exactly. You're an artist. So Donald Trump, yeah, so he could have massive negative consequences. even before any of the criminal trials come to pass. So this has been a really good news.

Usually we have a really dreary podcast, Dom. Oh. But this has been wonderful news. There's chaos and dysfunction in the US Congress. This is fun to watch. And Donald Trump is finally a white man who's rich and narcissistic and powerful is finally meeting up with a consequence. A consequence.

A consequence. Would you like me to just tie it all kind of in a knot with a final fact? I wasn't really sure where to put this in, but I thought we should mention it in the podcast. It's a bit of news that broke in the past week. Oh, yeah. That I think we'll just give sense of perspective on this story, which is that reports from climate models developed in the UK.

The first ever supercomputer climate model produced by science just at the University of Bristol. Do you know what the future of the planet is? Do you remember how there was a massive supercontinent at one point called Pangay, where all the landmasses joined together? That's going to happen again in 250 million years. It will be extremely hot, dry, and completely uninhabitable for humans and mammals. So it will be so hot that none of us could possibly survive. So whatever they decide about Donald Trump, if you play the long game, none of it matters.

We're all going to die. It's true. That's very nature. We should actually be optimistic because none of it actually matters. There's no reason for being anxious or... In light of this, does the House of Representatives in the US even need a speaker? Do we even need a president? No.

Shouldn't we just go and wait for all the landmasses to join back together in a boiling? torment. Yeah, I mean, in some ways what it means is, you know, if your Piccadillo is sex trafficking, then sex traffic away while the world burns. Nothing really matters. The Australian Federal Police note that this was Charles Firth saying this. And Charles, I definitely suggest to take the same approach to your debts.

You should write to all the people you own money to and say, look, in light of the fact that in 2050 million years, all the contents are going to join together in a fiery mess, this doesn't matter. Yeah, the monetary system doesn't matter. There you go. But to give us a five-star review on Apple Podcast, Because that does matter a lot.

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