The Young Turks - Tamper Tantrum

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

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You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, welcome to the young Turks, Jank U Granite. With you guys, we got news for you all, domestic, foreign, you name it, we got it. We got it. Two different stories on the assault on abortion rights. Unfortunately, we have that for you, and of course, we'll tell you how to fight back.

So good show ahead. Casper, what do you got? Well, we begin with an update on a story we covered yesterday regarding university presidents and calls for them to be ousted from their positions. We know of one, Liz McGill, who has decided to resign, but that's not the case for the other two, so let's get into it. Despite fierce calls for her ouster, the Harvard Corporation, along with hundreds of faculty members at the Ivy League school have decided to stand behind their president,

Claudine Gay. Now, even a politically motivated attempt at getting her fired due to allegations of plagiarism didn't seem to work. And we'll give you the details on that in just a moment. But before we do, I think it's important to just refresh our memories in regard to why there are calls for Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, to step down. It all really began last week when the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing with university presidents coming from Harvard, from Penn, and also from MIT. They asked about student protests and about the notion that some of these protesters are engaging in anti-Semitic rhetoric that makes Jewish students at these institutions feel unsafe.

And really what got the most attention was an exchange featuring Republican Congress woman, Elise Stefanik, who has never uttered a word against right wingers who spew, you know, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, like the Great Replacement Theory or anything like that. But she did use this hearing as an opportunity to really make a name for herself. And so here's the moment that got a lot of attention featuring Claudine Gay. And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules bullying and harassment, yes or no? It can be, depending on the context.

What's the context? Targeted as an individual. Targeted at an individual. It's targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals. Do you understand your testimony is dehumanizing them? Do you understand that dehumanization is part of antisemitism? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate?

Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment. Yes or no? Anti-Semitic rhetoric when it crosses into anti-Semitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct and we do take action. So Dr. Gay was trying to give a nuanced answer in a world where nuance is increasingly rejected. And so since she didn't clearly say that calling for the genocide of Jews is unacceptable and we will investigate it. She specifically wanted to focus on when that rhetoric crosses over into actual harassment. And look, I would have preferred for her to be a lot clearer. There was a lot of legalese used in the way that these university presidents answered that question and it did not bode well

for them. And that's what led to calls for their resignation. And I want to also be clear that that there is no evidence of students chanting about genociding Jewish people. There have been chants featuring them saying things like from the river to the sea, which is interpreted by some as calling for the destruction of Israel. But I don't think that most students who engage in that rhetoric think that they're calling for the destruction of Israel or the elimination of Israel. They think that they're fighting for the rights of Palestinians who are currently being crushed in the Gaza Strip.

So that's the background. Before I get to the latest details of what's occurred in this story, I wanted to give you an opportunity, Jenk, to weigh in. Yeah, so now that they've launched this weapon of mass distraction, whoever their target is has to be eliminated. So they got the president of Penn to resign, tremendous pressure from the alumni, saying that they're gonna pull hundreds of millions of dollars, how dare you. We love cancel culture, we hate free speech, make sure you cancel anyone who disagrees

with Israel, et cetera, and it worked, they eliminated her. The president of MIT is Jewish, so calling her anti-Semitic hasn't worked as well. That's why you're not seeing her name in the news at all. That's why they're focusing on the presidents of Penn and Harvard, because they're not Jewish. So that's how this hatchage job is executed. And later when we give you the details of the so-called made up plagiarism, I hate that we're even using that word because it's nothing but a lie. And so we'll explain that in a second, and I want to explain the phenomenon in a second.

But in terms of this first part here, you have to understand, Stefanik used to be what was considered a moderate Republican, mainly a corporate Republican, switched over to MAGA when she saw Trump's success and switched a lot of her positions. So she's a standard slime ball politician, doesn't have any corporate. principles at all. So two can play at her theatrics. Donald Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, who were both saying that they were pro Hitler and then the Nazis weren't so bad. Those are quotes. They said themselves. And he had dinner with those two Nazis. There were hearings about that, right? Hey, no, at least Stephanica, are you going to do hearings about

that? Donald Trump said there were very good people on the Nazi side in Charlottesville when they They said the Jews will not replace us. And Donald Trump used a Hitler quote about poisoning the blood of our nation. So is it right to support a candidate that supports Nazis? Is it right or not? Yes or no answer, at least Stefanik. Do you support? Do you support?

Had dinner with Nazis, said Nazis were very good people and used Nazi quotes. Yes and no, at least Stephanie, yes you know. And that part is actually true, whereas what she's doing is based on a hypothetical chant that didn't even happen. Right. So now one more thing about Sephanic, right after these theatrics about how she cares so much about preventing genocide or chance of genocide before they even happen. You know the Stefanik then voted for genocide. She's among the people in the house who voted for $14 billion to Israel to continue the genocide of the Palestinian people.

That is not hypothetical or theoretical at all. It's happening right now. And she said, please take the taxpayer money and send it over there so they could do what now today even Joe Biden is calling the indiscriminate killings of Palestinians. Even Joe Biden, if you could believe it. So with that background, I do want to add one extra layer of context because this is actually a really interesting and nuanced story. Because one of the other reasons why these university presidents have become a target of the right wing is because of their implementation. of diversity, equity and inclusion, and that really began to be implemented in these institutions following the 2020 protests that happened in the summer, following George Floyd's murder

by Derek Chauvin. And so I give you that context because the climate at these universities became a little more hostile toward free speech. And some professors, some students were punished for engaging in free speech. And so the real question is, okay, well, why were they so quick to act when there was offensive speech directed at other marginalized groups, and they're not, you know, treating individuals who have offensive language toward Jewish students the same way. That's really another part or another layer to this story. Now with all that said, obviously huge calls, fierce calls for Claudine Gay to either step down or to be fired. But as I mentioned earlier, the Harvard Corporation stands behind her, and they've decided to put out

statement in support of her. So did hundreds of faculty members who signed on to a petition demanding that she remain in her position. And let's get to some of the other allegations here. Now the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper at Harvard is reporting that the Harvard corporation and Harvard's highest governing, which is Harvard's highest governing body, expresses confidence in her leadership, they will not remove her. Harvard president Claudine Gay is facing allegations of plagiarism though.

They mentioned that as well, after a report in the Washington Free Beacon on Monday and a Sunday post on substack, claim she plagiarized portions of four academic works over 24 years, including her 1997 Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard. Now, this is very complicated, and for those who either believe or don't believe she engaged in plagiarism, I honestly think it's mixed. There are some areas where I do think that there is a case that can be made that she plagiarized, but there's a lot of nitpicking going on by people who very clearly are engaging in a political attack against her. And I think it's important to look at this with a sober eye. Now members of the Harvard Corporation actually addressed the plagiarism claims today by reaffirming

their support for Claudine Gay. The Harvard Corporation wrote that the university became aware in late October of allegations regarding three articles. So apparently there were some claims that she had plagiarized earlier prior to this whole drama unfolding. At President Gay's request, the fellows promptly initiated an independent review by distinguished political scientists and conducted a review of her published work. On December 9th, the fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate

citation. While the analysis found no violation of Harvard standards for research misconduct, President, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publication. So that is a direct statement from the Harvard Corporation. Now they did not specify which articles were found to contain improperly cited material, which they're now going to correct, I guess. But the allegations were further publicized, and this is where the political

component comes in. They were further politicized by right wing anti-woke activist Christopher Rufo. Now, in a post on X on Sunday night, he made it abundantly clear that him drawing attention to the plagiarism claims is politically motivated. I'm gonna read you exactly what he wrote. Real Chris Brunette, that's the reporter that he worked with, and I sat on the Claudine Gay Plagiarism materials for the past week, waiting for the precise moment of Max impact. The Harvard board is meeting tonight and there are rumors that the plagiarism scandal could be the final nail in Gay's coffin. There is no scandal. So hold on, pause. So that was on December 10th. That's when he posted it. Obviously, the update to the story is

it appears that Harvard is standing behind Claudine Gay and they do not believe she's done anything wrong. The story could develop from, you know, this moment to whenever. I don't know if they're going to find other examples of plagiarism that they think are more problematic. But the claim was amplified by Bill A. Akeman or Ackman, an 88 who graduated from 88, he's a hedge fund CEO who has been a vocal critic of gay and has called for her resignation. Ackman posted on X that he sent the allegations to a senior member of the Harvard faculty who found them to be credible. He did not identify a specific faculty member by name.

And so the free beacon article mentions four specific works first. from Claudia and Gay that they believe give examples of her engaging in plagiarism. A 1993 essay in origins, a shared publication between the Ohio State University and Miami University. Her 1997 PhD dissertation from her time as a graduate student at Harvard. That particular example I think is kind of funny because they claim that she lifted quotes or work from the very person who was her her dissertation advisor. Yeah, yeah, it's nonsense, 100% garbage. But I'm, okay, keep going.

And also two papers that she wrote while she was a professor at Harvard in 2012 and in 2017. So the Crimson, according to their reporting, independently reviewed the published allegations. Though some are minor consisting of passages that are similar or identical to gays sources, lacking quotation marks, but including citations. Others are more substantial, including some paragraphs and sentences nearly identical to other work and lacking citations. Some appear to violate Harvard's current policies around plagiarism and academic integrity. So I'm going to give you one example, but I also want to note that it's unclear what Harvard's, you know, code of conduct on plagiarism was at the time that she put this work out.

So here's her. Okay, before you do that, let me just explain. After she's done with this, these are all hatchet jobs. It is a hatchet job. All horse crap. I'm going to explain why this is all garbage, a piling, a burning pile of total garbage. Go ahead. Okay, so, but let me also say this, okay, I, it's clearly politically motivated, okay?

The hatchet job is clear to me as well. But if there are specific, and hold on, Jake, listen to me for a second. If there are substantial examples of her engaging in plagiarism, it is a problem if she's the president of a university. Yeah, I, okay, I'll explain later, just get through the BS first. Okay, no, go ahead, Jake, go ahead and get it. Okay, it's garbage, it's garbage, okay, go ahead. So guys, here's what happens, okay?

Once someone sticks their neck out and challenges the powerful, they then dig into their lives. And they go, okay, we got to find some transgression so we can invent a scandal. And they'll get some hack like Rufo and some rando at a rando place like Washington Free Beacon and a substack account, okay, whatever the hell that is. Okay, and they'll say, okay, oh, this is just serious charges. And they'll repeat words like plagiarism 24, 100 times. And all the headlines will say plagiarism, plagiarism. And then when you look into it, what did Harvard conclude? Four inadequate citations.

Jaywalking is a significantly higher crime. Okay, that when you could, when the best you got is for inadequate citations, basically you're saying we dug and dug and dug to try to bury her and find one thing wrong in her life. But we couldn't do it. We couldn't do it. So we got something where she left out quote marks but left, but put the citation in. We got a thing where she joined with another author. She got a thing where she quoted her own advisor. Sometimes in cases like this, because whenever they go after academics, their number one

hatchet job is plagiarism. Why plagiarism? Because it sounds so bad, right? And the average person doesn't understand plagiarism at all. And so they go, inadequate citations. And it makes it sound like, wow, wow. It's nonsense. Total.

So sometimes on plagiarism, charges they'll say, when you look into the details, She quoted herself, but didn't cite it. Oh, come on, guys, come on. So this is what I call needle in a haystack. So are they trying to represent the totality of her career, the haystack, or are they trying to find a needle in that haystack? Pull it out and go, look at this needle. That's what she's about.

That one time that she got a citation wrong. Fire her, fire her. And who's Bill Ackman? Bill Ackman is one of the worst people in the country. He's a hedge fund manager who bribes, I'm sorry, campaign contributions to politicians, buys them off left and right, left and right, gives a ton of money to his alma mater. And when he heard this, he's like, oh, the new criticism of Israel ever, fire her. I mean, I'm worried about an inadequate citation from 1987.

So I'm really concerned about her academic situation. Guys, when they find something this minor, that means, oh my God, she was squeaky clean. Or she led an immaculate life. I challenge any of you to go through this kind of process and have them come up with only for inadequate citations. That means you're pretty much an angel. So this is nothing but a hatchet job. It has zero validity.

So, Jenk, the reason why I get frustrated with you is because you're itching to engage in your rant so desperately that you don't even give me an opportunity to lay out all the facts before you engage in your rant in which you undermine and minimize the evidence that I'm going to show that shows that it's more than just the lack of citations for separate times. Yeah, I'm not going to engage in their hatchet jobs. No, that has no validity. Okay, all right, fine, it has no validity. If your take is, I don't care if she engaged in any plagiarism because this is politically motivated, then just say it. But my point is, even though I believe it is politically motivated that they're going after her,

if there are substantial examples of her engaging in plagiarism at a university where students get expelled when they engage in plagiarism, it's a problem. But they already did the analysis, Anna. So now we're going to do a double analysis on some jackass substacker who's obviously doing it for political reasons. And guess what? By the time that they reevaluate their second set of nonsense charges, she'll already be fired. And Belakman will go, yes, ha ha ha ha, I would again. Sending the bull BS reporters to find the real problems in her career. They did an analysis of the first round of plagiarism allegations that came out in October.

But a new round of allegations came out. Oh, a new round. Oh, look at that. What a surprising twist. A new round of allegations. Let's see if we can find more inadequate citations. I don't care. Just finish up, okay, then you don't care.

I don't care, I don't care. Then be honest about that. Be honest about the fact that you don't care. I don't care, I don't care. If you found out, no, I don't care, let me explain, let me explain. Okay, go ahead. If you found out that she committed a robbery in 1997, went into somebody's house, broke the door down and stole their radio,

I still wouldn't care because you're trying to eliminate her because she said something you don't Don't go back into the past, find the tiniest, tiniest little transgressions. And then we're gonna have a debate over this poor woman's life and over her career. No, I'm not gonna engage with bad faith actors who have shown a thousand times over, that they're full of crap and they're looking to destroy people's lives. So no, let me be very clear. I have no interest in a debate about plagiarism from 20, 30 years ago. So called, so called.

called when the first round of plagiarism came up with no plagiarism none they were lying and they're always lying oh should we look into whether she jaywalked i bet she did let's have a debate whether she jay walked or not i bet she crossed several streets without getting proper permission she might even once had a party past 10 p.m might have violated a noise ordinance let's engage in is she guilty of the noise ordinance i might be guilty of a noise ordinance now no hatchet job No interest. A, you're right, Anna, even if they found it, they're like, this one doesn't have any citation at all. All right, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done.

We're wrapping this story up, we're taking a break, we'll come back and hopefully we'll calm down a little bit. So we can actually do our jobs appropriately. The job appropriately is this story has zero validity. And do not fire that poor woman because some donor who's rich says, no, I'm gonna run Harvard. Harvard. No one's allowed to disagree with my political opinions. Okay, if that's what Harvard is, which apparently that's what Penn is, I'm humiliated that I went to Penn. They fired her over that. They fired her over that because the donors didn't want her to be honest and tell what the actual policy of the school was on a hypothetical chant that didn't even happen. And those same

donors, by the way, very, very likely donating to the politicians who voted for genocide of the Palestinian people, because their lives don't matter. But we're discussing citations as 18,000 people have been butchered in Gaza. That's a weapon of mass distraction. All right, it's more than citations. I'm sorry that I couldn't give you guys the information, but please read the entirety. But go to substack. I'm sure they have a lot of it.

No, no, read the Harvard Crimson, please, so you'll understand where the real allegations lie. We're going to take a burden. There are no real allegations. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size? Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era.

It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, back on T.Y.T. Jank, Anna, Tandiel Erson, Kevin Hamlin, they just joined in. Jacob Londona gifted five Youngtress memberships. I'm going to apologize one more time. I cut Anna off there. I shouldn't have done it. I got emotional about it. I don't regret anything I've said, but I regret that I didn't let her finish so that you guys can get the full story. All right, more news. All right, let's move on to Trump's legal problems. Special counsel, Jack Smith, is dialing up his prosecution of former President Donald Trump in the federal election interference case specifically. Now, there are two major updates worth talking about. First, he is getting the United States Supreme Court involved, and he plans to use Trump's own cell phone data as evidence against him in the election interference case.

Now, Trump was indicted back in August for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and he is facing several charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt of to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Now with that said, special counsel Jack Smith plans to call an expert witness who has extracted and process data from the phones of the former president and another unnamed person. So we don't know what the evidence is exactly, but obviously having access to Donald Trump's cell phone data could prove to be a bombshell, could be damning. But again, we don't know.

And I think it would be a mistake to think that this is the smoking gun, considering we don't know exactly what that evidence is. But with that said, what would the data seek to prove? According to Axios, the witness would determine the usages of the phones during the post-2020 election period, including on and around January 6th. So what was he doing with his phone, who was he messaging, who was he talking to? I think that's definitely relevant on January 6th in particular. That also includes the periods of time when the Twitter app was open on Trump's phone On the day the capital riot took place, so obviously on January 6th.

So in other news, by the way, related to this, he is appealing to, Jack Smith is, the United States Supreme Court to get a final word, a final say on whether Donald Trump is in fact protected by executive privilege. Does he have immunity that would protect him from some elements of this prosecution? So this case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy, whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office, Smith wrote in the Monday filing. Now, part of the reason why he's doing long bendy Twizzler's candy keeps the fun going. Keep the fun. going. Twizzlers, keep the fun going. This is because the Trump defense team is essentially trying to stall these proceedings by,

you know, working through the court system to argue that Donald Trump is protected by presidential privilege, executive privilege. Smith added in his filing that it is of imperative public importance that respondents' claims of immunity be solved by this court, and that respondent's trial proceed as promptly as possible if his claim of immunity is rejected. So what he's trying to do is fast track this process. Okay, let's not work through the courts. Let's have the Supreme Court weigh in and give a final say on this matter. And I think that's a good move, especially considering some confirmation in regard to what Trump's legal team is doing here. Trump's legal team last week requested a stay on all court proceedings in the 2020 election

case, which is currently scheduled to go on trial on March 4th. The former president's request for a stay came after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkin, who is overseeing the case, rejected Trump's arguments that he has immunity from the indictment. So again, he wants to fast track this and ensure that, you know, it doesn't wait until after the 2024 presidential election takes place. Yeah. So let's tackle the issues one by one. The cell phone. It could potentially have important information on there, but I'm gonna tell you ahead of time I doubt it. So here's why.

If he was talking to the oathkeepers or the proud boys leaders and directing what they do on January 6th, that could be very, very damaging. So that would be very real. But they've already gone to court, they've already lost, they're already in prison. I'd be surprised if there were some secret information they were holding onto on a call between them and Donald Trump. And that they didn't use it in their defense, et cetera, when they were facing long prison sentences. So, okay, if he's got that, that's very interesting. If they got, they're like, did you know that instead of calling the National Guard and making sure they got Mike Pence to safety, he was on Twitter? Yeah, we did know that.

Yeah, of course he was. And we, I mean, and he was watching TV all day. Did you know that he called Kevin McCarthy and other Republican leaders? Yeah, we already know that. So right now, I don't know what the, information he has is. But I do know that mainstream media loves to hyperventilate about this stuff. Every single development is breaking news. Shocking development. Bombshell. Well, how come he's walking free as a daisy? You guys claim that you had him 128 times. So far, that part to me is a

nothing burger. I hope he's got something real in there, but we don't know. Okay, now the second part about going to the Supreme Court to make sure that they litigate the immunity issue is super important. I'm glad that they expedited it to the Supreme Court. They do have to decide that. Otherwise, there's no point here, okay? But Republicans will be careful what you wish for. If they say he does have immunity, that means Joe Biden also has immunity. I know, you don't care, you're going to put him in jail anyway, you don't think laws matter, everything is deep state, you don't need evidence. Okay, anyway, no time, no, you're and wasting breath on MAGA people who don't care about facts.

So in this case, I don't know which the Supreme Court's going to go because it's 6-3 conservatives, but it would be kind of nuts to say that he has blanket immunity. That would mean that the president is above the law. Biden, Obama, Bush, Trump, it doesn't matter. And more importantly, future presidents, go ahead and break the law all you like, because the Supreme Court has given you immunity. That would be an outrageous decision, but you never know. But you never know, so that's the most relevant part of the story to me.

mishandling of classified documents. So let's get to it. One of the things it was so unusual here is as this former employee left his job a couple months after that FBI search before he becomes a crucial witness to investigators, Donald Trump gets his cell phone number, hadn't called him in quite some time, rarely called an employee like this, and calls him and asks him, why are you leaving? Why are you leaving working for me? very possibly at that time knowing that this man could be a witness against him in this investigation.

CNN is now reporting that Trump and his allies repeatedly contacted a former Mar-a-Lago employee who just happened to be present for many of the suspicious goings-on while Donald Trump was mishandling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. And he also happens to be an employee that special Council Jack Smith is talking to as part of his investigation and probe into this matter. Now, it's possible that Trump and his allies, you know, just wanted to maintain their friendly relationship with this former Mar-a-Lago employee. It's a possibility. But the timing of the communication and the messages being sent would suggest otherwise. So three months after the FBI had seized the classified records from Mar-a-Lago last August, the longtime employee of Donald Trump,

Trump's decided to quit their job, okay, quit his job. So two sources say that just within days, Donald Trump personally called this former employee on his cell phone to ask why he decided to leave. Why did you quit? At that point, the former employee said that he had gotten a different job and he decided to leave as a result of that. The employee told the former president that he had another business opportunity he wanted to pursue.

The message later got back to the former employee that Trump. Trump thought he was a good man. So apparently that conversation pleased Trump to the point where he didn't really see this former employee as a threat in his prosecution in the mishandling of classified documents. So a little more information about this former employee who is unnamed for the moment. Now he was allegedly a witness to several episodes, special counsel Jack Smith has included in his federal criminal indictment of Donald Trump. He was also later subpoenaed by Jack Smith and his team.

Now, he had moved several boxes, the former employee had moved several boxes for Trump, and was also privy to conversations referenced in the indictment between Trump and his two co-defendants, Marlago property manager Carlos de Oliveira and Trump's body man, Walt Nata, putting the former employee in a unique group of Mar-a-Lago staffers who could could be in a position to provide valuable information to investigators. This is why the story and the communications, the repeated communications and contacts that the former employee had with Donald Trump matters, because there is some question as to whether Trump was trying to witness tamper here, right, trying to dissuade this former employee from

cooperating in this investigation. Now here's CNN reporter Caitlin Polance explaining what their communication, to the former employee entailed. Former employee at Mara Lago, he was friends with Carlos Di Olivera, who later became charged in this case. And Carlos had said things to him about, hey, you should come to a golf tournament after he leaves working at the club. Trump would like to see you.

I think Trump would really like to see you. He also talks to Carlos Di Olivera and Carlos says something about perhaps you want to come back to your job. But you could come back to your job at Mar-a-Lago if you wanted to. There's also some discussions between the two about the attorneys. Do they want to use attorneys that are within the Trump circles? As Carlos D. O'Levara did, this former employee chose to use an attorney outside of the Trump circles. There's also an instance where he interacts with Walt Nata, who later is charged,

someone he has a less close relationship to. And Walt Nata did tell him, you could come back to work at Mar-a-Lago if you wanted, that Wadonado was also showing up at a gym with this man, as well as Carlos Dio Levera, which was unusual. So that comment about the lawyers is particularly interesting. The ex-employee is using outside counsel, unaffiliated with Trump's team. That's very relevant here, which Del Levera noted to him would be expensive. Like, hey, you might want to use one of Trump's lawyers if you go with your own counsel, independent of Trump's team. That could be costly. Meanwhile, public records show that Trump

is paying for Di Olivera's lawyer, so that's also relevant here. He took on the lawyer after NADA and others discussed his loyalty and whether he was good according to the indictment. And there's more, one more graphic I want to read to you all, and then Jank, please jump in. In another instance, John Rowley, who at the time was a top lawyer on Trump's defense team, left a voicemail for the former employee saying he knew he had received a grand jury subpoena to testify in the documents case. Rowley asked the employee to call him, but the employee never called back. Okay, so there are three issues here. Number one, are they in the real world witness tampering? Trying to get that guy who has important information about how they wanted to tamper with the

evidence in the boxes, etc. To play ball with their team, give him a lawyer so he doesn't have those expenses, give him his job back, offer some degree of money, and Trump calling him is extraordinary, them showing up at the gym out of the blue is extraordinary, were they witness hampering? Of course they were, every person who reads those facts knows that they were, right? Now, the second issue is, can you prove it under court a law? Well, that was much more difficult because they can say whether, like, there's a difference between did O.J. Simpson actually to kill those two people, and can you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom, where the lawyers come in and go, yeah, but what about this and what about that?

But the gloves don't fit, and how about the shoes, et cetera, right? So when the lawyers get into this one, they're going to say, well, I mean, he could have been calling because he was such a star employee and he wanted him back. And the lawyer could have been calling him because he was really concerned about him and wanted to see if he wanted free legal help, you know, so they could do all of that and then being able to prove it is a 50-50 proposition. So I'm being honest with you guys. Everybody, you know, usually says no, either this or that, which leads me to the third point that's involved here. Look, very roughly, the 40% of the country

that's Democrats are going to look at that and go, guilty. And they're not even going to do the analysis that I just did. They're just going to say, oh, he called a witness, witness tampering. I hate him. It's over. 40% of the country that's MAGA or right wing or Republican, these are very rough numbers, are going to look at that and go, even if Donald Trump came to him with an envelope stuff with a hundred thousand or a suitcase with a hundred thousand dollars and said here do take this and not and don't testify against me and they have it on videotape they'd go no I don't believe it so they're useless they're never going to convince them right no amount of evidence will ever be enough but like I said

it's not like the Democrats are like combing through the evidence they've already decided he's guilty on these things right so then the biggest question on this and everything else is The middle 20% are they paying attention enough to see this kind of whether you've proven in a court of law or not, but common sense, court of public opinion, hey, is this guy trying to hide evidence or isn't he? Is he guilty or isn't he? Did he actually take these documents to do something terrible with them? Did he actually, in the other cases, come up with fake electors to do a coup plot or didn't he? And I don't know the answer to that. I don't know how much. much that middle 20% are paying attention. Because if they were paying attention and they were open minded, Donald Trump would be toast. In the cases overall, the evidence against him is overwhelming. So this is a tiny part of that, an important part of it if he's obviously trying to cover his tracks because he knows he did something wrong, but we don't know that.

And I would, I would love it if polling tried to find that 20%, and ask them, do you care? Because it might not be 20, it might be 3% or 5% who care whether he did it or not. There's already polling that shows a giant chunk of the country says, I don't care if he's convicted on all counts, I don't care, I'm voting for him. So that's the question at hand and that one we're not going to know until election day. Going back to the possibility that he's engaging in witness tampering here, it's not the first time that Trump has been accused of basically intimidating those who might make allegations against him. I remember when the hush money payment scandal was really heating up. Stormy Daniels,

who was one of the women that he paid hush money payments to, came out and said that one of his allies had reached out to her to intimidate her. She said, quote, I was in a parking lot going to a fitness class with my infant daughter, taking, you know, the seats facing backwards and the backseat diaper bag, you know, getting all of the stuff out. And a guy walked up, excuse me, walked up on me and said to me, leave Trump alone, forget the story. And then he learned, or I'm sorry, he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, that's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom. So look, I remember that allegation. And when this recent story came out about the ex-Marilago employee, I couldn't help but think about

the claims that Stormy Daniels had made at the time. So that history, I think, is relevant. If he is witness tampering, there should be efforts made to protect the potential witnesses in this case. Because any act of intimidation, obviously not only jeopardizes the case and the investigation, I would hate for people to feel afraid to cooperate with this investigation. Look, we've covered this different stories about Trump now, hundreds of times where he acts like a mob boss. And he's so ashamed of something that should happen to your mom is a very standard Donald Trump. you know, thug line that he either himself or his associates deliver. He does witness intimidation, witness tampering, of structure of justice. He does it on a regular basis.

He never cooperates with law enforcement. The FBI says give the documents back. He makes the olivera not a hide them. He's a lifelong criminal. We've now discussed hundreds of, now, to be fair, on the crimes that he's violated, including hiring undocumented immigrants for his properties, violating codes, tax fraud, you name it, dozens of laws that he has broken throughout his career and never had any consequences because the elites never have any consequences.

Now he's crying his eyes out because he's the first, he's like, well, I'm an elite. I shouldn't be held the account for the law. That's for the average, man. I can't believe I'm not above the law. But look guys, just look at that one case of threatening Stormy Daniels and doing that with a kid, right? Oh, shame what you have a new mom. If you told me that about a random Democrat, let's say there was an open primary and J.B. Pritzker's

running and I, you know, there was some good things and bad things about him. And I found out that he had somebody do that. I'd say, I'm done with him, okay? I'm not going to vote for a thug who goes around threatening people and their kids, right? But MAGA doesn't view it that way. Maga likes that he's a thug. And so, and so they're an immovable. They're an immovable object.

The question is, are independents going to see all of this and are they going to care? That's the, that's the, you know, that's the question that's going to determine whether we have a democracy or not after 2024. All right, when we come back from the break, we have an unbelievably cruel story out of Texas where a woman with a non-viable fetus was denied an abortion, even, even though her own health and life was in jeopardy. That more coming up, don't miss it. you and Gabby Mathis, thank you for gifting a membership. Anna. All right, let's get to the next story. In a first of its kind case, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocking 31-year-old Kate Cox from obtaining an emergency abortion. Cox, a mother of two, filed the legal challenge at 20 weeks pregnant. Her doctors saying her fetus has virtually no chance of survival. They

warn continuing to carry the pregnancy could jeopardize her health and future fertility. There's no outcome here, you know, that results in us taking home a healthy baby girl. After the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a lower court's ruling that would have allowed for Kate Cox to receive the emergency abortion of the non-viable fetus, they later decided, you know what, no, we're just going to block her from doing it permanently. Luckily, Kate Cox decided to travel outside of the state of Texas in order to get the emergency abortion she needed. And it is an incredibly tragic and cruel story and a perfect example of what we've been arguing about in regard to these restrictive abortion laws in various red states. The exceptions for the life of the mother really mean nothing because what it leads to is a situation in which the mother has to beg the courts to make her case to allow her to get the

the health care she needs if she is pregnant with a fetus that is putting her life in jeopardy. And that was certainly the case here. Not only was it putting her life in jeopardy, the fetus was not viable, meaning it was not going to survive. Very unlikely, she was going to give birth to a live baby. And even if she did, the baby would be unlikely to live past a year and would have all sorts of very serious issues that would put her family in a torturous situation just watching a newborn baby slowly but surely die. Okay, there was a 5% chance of survival for that fetus and the way that this all went down is unbelievable. So the case again involves the 31 year old woman from

the Dallas area. She asked the center for reproductive rights for legal help in obtaining the emergency abortion. She really wanted the baby. She's 20 weeks pregnant. She has two other children happily married. and was devastated to find that the fetus had these issues. So the genetic condition is one that cannot sustain life, as Cox wrote in an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News. Almost all such pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth. According to the Cleveland Clinic,

babies who do survive often die prematurely within the first year. Cox's doctor also warned that carrying the pregnancy to term could jeopardize her health and future fertility, which really scared her because she wants to have more kids, including uterine, rupture and hysterectomy according to the lawsuit filed on her behalf. And what's particularly gross about all of this is that when the lower courts had issued their ruling allowing for her to get this emergency abortion, Ken Paxton got involved. Ken Paxton reached out to the hospitals that have admitting privilege in the state of Texas

and threatened to prosecute them, should they go through with the abortion? And then the state's Supreme Court got involved and eventually blocked it. But luckily, she made a decision before the Supreme Court handed down their final ruling to travel outside of the state and get the abortion she needed. Okay, so at one point in the proceedings, Texas said, the physicians should just decide on their own what procedure they're going to do and then we'll adjudicate it later. Well, the doctors are reluctant to do that

because do you know what the potential sentence is for violating this law in Texas? A life sentence. Okay? So, and as it turned out, they brought it to the courts and the Texas Supreme Court said, no, brutalize that woman. You are not allowed to help her or save her life.

Okay? So if the doctor had performed the abortion in Texas, she might now be serving a life sentence or in jeopardy of serving a life sentence because that's who these monsters are. Now, I want you to be clear, that is not the voters of Texas. The voters of Texas have made the mistake of putting Republican politicians in, but they never had a ballot measure on this, the state of Texas never voted, and then probably never will vote because the Republicans know that whenever it's gone to a ballot measure in any state, including the most red states there are, Kentucky, Montana, et cetera, they always lose.

Kansas, they lost overwhelmingly because the overwhelming majority of the country is pro-choice. And they do not want the government thugs putting doctors and moms into prisons because they disagreed with their interpretation of a religious text. So the American people and the people of Texas are actually very, very clear. And we've seen the polling. But the Republicans stand in your way and go, no, my religion is more important than your rights. I believe the government should be gigantic. It should prevent doctors from exercising good judgment.

And by the way, in another case coming out of Texas, there were five women who sued, and one of them couldn't leave the state to get an abortion. So they made her keep the baby and it caused her permanent physical damage. In fact, I want to go to her testimony in that case because she talked about what she personally. went through as a result of these abortion restrictions in the state of Texas. So it's difficult to hear, I want to give you that warning. Let's watch. I'm going to give birth to an identical version of my daughter without a skull and without a brain. And I would have had to hold her until she died.

So that is now gonna be a commonality among women. who need emergency abortions in the state of Texas, because even when there is a medical necessity for that abortion, even when the woman's life is in jeopardy, even when we're dealing with a non-viable fetus, it is very likely that every branch of government in that state is going to intervene and prevent that woman from getting the reproductive health care she needs. Ken Paxton gets involved, the attorney general of Texas, the right-wing Supreme Court in the state of Texas gets involved. They block the ability of this woman, Kate Cox, from being able to get the abortion she needs.

It's sick, and it shows you that the exceptions that they make in these restrictive abortion laws really aren't exceptions at all. Because, again, you have to prove that you've been raped, and the pregnancy was the result of rape. You have to plead your case in front of the courts that your life is in jeopardy due to this non-viable pregnancy. It's really sick. Okay, here more details on this particular case. So if, so the Texas is saying you have to keep the baby inside of you until it dies. Now it's gonna die inside you in the overwhelming majority of the cases.

And the doctors know that and the judges know that. They're like, we don't care. And that greatly endangers the woman's life because then infections happen, et cetera. Not only does it endanger their life, but it endangers their ability to have more kids. And this woman is saying, I already have two kids. I want more kids. Why do you think I got pregnant? I'm married.

I'm trying to have my third baby. And if you do this to me, I might never be able to have a baby again. So this is the pro-life position? No. Now, this doesn't have anything to do with life. And we've now shown you hundreds of stories, including Gaza, where babies are being killed, left and right, pulled off of incubators because there's no oxygen. There's no power, there's no electricity. And the pro-life movement doesn't care at all.

All those dead babies, they couldn't care 1%. They've never done anything about it, they've never protested. And that's not the only story. We've shown you all incredible number of stories where babies' lives are on the line. The pro-life movement never cares, never talks about it. This isn't about babies. This is about how to control women. And they don't like the women's movement, freedom movement.

They liked it when women were subjugated. And this is, look here, I'm going to give you one last example here. Unfortunately, the 13th Amendment has a clause that says there's no more slavery unless, of course, or involuntary servitude, unless, of course, someone's in prison because then you're involuntarily locking them up. And southern legislators saw that as a loophole. And so what they started doing was imprisoning black men at enormous rates. So they could just go back to enslaving them. So the women's suffragette movement, etc. happened. Women got rights.

And the right wing men hated that. And they have been trying to battle that this entire time. You know, women have had a right to vote in this country for only 100 years. That's it. It's relatively recent. We had to have a get an amendment to do that. And so they've been trying to clawed back, clawed back so that they could go back to being subjugated. So now, oh, you got a baby that's going to very likely die inside you and cause you permanent damage. We want you to keep that and cause all that damage because we're pro life. Because we care about babies. Yeah, do you? Because it certainly doesn't look like it. All right. We got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk about. some of the latest economic analysis that's come out. How much does it cost? How much do you need to make throughout your working lifetime in order to afford the so-called American dream? We'll get into that. We'll also talk a little bit about Joe Biden's press conference with

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky today. He is applying quite a bit of pressure to Congress to approve the supplemental military funding that would greatly benefit Ukraine. So we've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it. I don't know. But, uh, bork. I'm

Buhl. B. B. B.