What A Day - Ketchup On The Latest January 6th News

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

The latest House January 6th hearing was perhaps the most explosive to date with testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, the top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. We walk through some of our biggest takeaways from the surprise hearing.The fight to preserve abortion access continues in several states. Kelley Robinson, the executive director of Planned Parenthood’s Action Fund, joins us to discuss what advocacy organizations like hers are doing on the ground to protect access. And we hear more from you, our listeners, about how you’re feeling right now.And in headlines: dozens of dead migrants were found dead in an abandoned truck in Texas, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Turkey said it no longer opposes Finland and Sweden joining NATO.Show Notes:Support a local Planned Parenthood –  p.ppfa.org/supportVote Save America: Fuck Bans Action Plan – https://votesaveamerica.com/roe/Donate to Crooked Media’s Pride Fund – https://crooked.com/pride/Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Wednesday, June 29th. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Priyanka Arabindi. And this is What A Day, where we have started brainstorming different things aside from America to celebrate for 4th of July. Yes, let's just make it about dogs. You know, they do cool stuff.

We like them. We all love dogs. Dogs have never once disappointed me. They've been good. On today's show, the head of Planned Parenthood's Action Fund tells us what they are doing right now to protect abortion access. Plus, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison. But first, the latest January 6th testimony was perhaps the most explosive to date. Yesterday, 26-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson, the top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House Select Committee. We're going to go over the biggest

things to take away and buckle up, everybody, because it was a wild ride. Yeah, I mean, the next hearing from this committee wasn't expected until July. This one came early because apparently the committee could not wait to share this testimony and new evidence. So what did we learn here? Yeah, honestly, it was tough to decide where even to start here. Everything was batshit crazy, really, really bad. But Hutchinson started by making it pretty clear that Trump and everybody he was associated with knew that January 6th could get violent. Trump was told the morning of that his supporters had shown up for his rally with weapons and that they were being confiscated. They weren't being let in. He later told his staffers to take the metal detectors away because the crowd wasn't there to hurt him.

And he said, quote, I don't fucking care that they have weapons. Wow. Here is Hutchinson in her own words during a recorded deposition for the committee. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Very nonchalant. Very. There is a lot more here. What came next?

Yeah, that was really just the beginning. So prior to yesterday, we knew that Trump wanted to join his supporters at the Capitol. That wasn't a secret. He was pushing to go out until the last minute. But Hutchinson's testimony also made it clear that people in the White House also knew about this plan in advance.

This wasn't something that spontaneously happened on January 6th that they had no knowledge of. Everyone was aware of this for quite some time. Right. She also provided a secondhand account of how Trump was so mad at his Secret Service for preventing him from going to the Capitol that he lunged at a Secret Service officer, Bobby Engel, tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential limo, and screamed, I'm the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now when they told him that he couldn't go. Whoa. Yeah. Here is a long excerpt of Hutchinson describing Trump's encounter with Bobby Engel that she was told about. So once the president had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby,

he thought that they were going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him, we're not, we don't have the assets to do it. It's not secure. We're going back to the West Wing. The president had a very strong, very angry response to that. Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now, to which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel.

We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Renato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles. Crazy. Yeah, crazy. She might not be winning the Oscar for best dramatic performance here.

You're sharing some hot goss, girl. Go crazy with it. But it's fine. You have me for that to kind of ham it up for the audience. But as we went to record this, we do want to let you know there is some reporting from anonymous Secret Service officials who deny this account. So we will keep you updated as we learn more. Yeah, let's see how all that shakes out. So what about Cassie Hutchinson's boss, Mark Meadows? Did she have anything to say about his response to all of this? Yeah, so her testimony didn't paint a very flattering portrait of Meadows, though. I mean, that might be hard to do any testimony, but he

didn't seem to want to do anything to stop the violence. When rioters were storming the Capitol, chanting, hang Mike Pence, Trump was still supporting them. And Meadows' response was basically like, you heard the guy and sort of like shrug a little bit. She did add that both Meadows and Rudy Giuliani expressed interest in pardons after what happened at the Capitol, though. It seems like everybody that was in earshot of Trump did that. So it makes sense. And some who were it, like just kind of clamoring for relevance and were like, hey, like, you want to just throw me on that list? Right, right, right.

And finally, perhaps the least consequential for the purposes of the January 6th testimony, but Hutchinson did provide us with some vintage Trump tantrum content that happened in the Oval Office dining room. There was ketchup dripping down the wall, and there was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor. The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general's AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall. The Venn diagram of ketchup on the wall for a toddler's room. And apparently the White House is a circle. It's just one to one. It is. It's all one.

So separately, these are all pretty outlandish stories. But let's put this into the larger context of these hearings. Yeah. So this testimony has played right into the narrative that this committee has been establishing over the past few hearings. Trump incited and backed the insurrection, despite knowing that the election wasn't stolen and that it could get violent, all because he wanted to hold on to the presidency. And the people around him all seem to know that this was very illegal. This is all happening as the Department of Justice ramps up their investigation as well. Earlier this week, federal agents seized the phone of John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Trump on how to overturn the

2020 election results. We want all of you to try to keep this in mind because the House will be on recess over July 4th. So these hearings aren't scheduled to start back up again for a little while. But as always, we'll be right here with you recapping what you need to know on WOD. So stay tuned. And now we're gonna turn to the latest

on abortion rights in this country, starting with some news on the state-by-state fight to preserve them. These fights are going on in even more states than we had discussed yesterday, like Iowa and Wisconsin, but we're going to focus on a noteworthy one in Texas. So on Tuesday, a judge in Harris County temporarily blocked the reinforcement of an almost century-old unenforced abortion ban in the state. So a little bit of backstory here, after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last week,

Texas's Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton said a 1925 state law banning procedures was back in effect. So the judge's order sounds like good news, but the victory isn't long lasting, is it? No, it's not. There are some clinics that can resume services for now, but according to the Texas Tribune, only those that were named in the lawsuit. Others will reportedly resume operations as well, but state law still only permits abortions up to six weeks of pregnancy. And realistically speaking, the judge's order will at most extend abortion access in the state for just one or two months. And another hearing is scheduled for July 12th, where we very much expect Ken Paxton to challenge the restraining order.

Another news item we're watching involves emergency contraception and people's ability to access it, which, you know, is really frightening. So tell us a little more about what's happening there. Yeah, so emergency contraceptives like Plan B, which are used to prevent pregnancy within 72 hours of having sex, are not affected by the Supreme Court ruling. But as of this week, large drugstore chains are now limiting the amount of emergency contraception pills a customer can buy. Amazon and Walgreens, for instance, said that they were only allowing people to get three packs each week. CVS planned on rationing Plan B as well. But last night, the company said it is now removing that purchasing limit. Several companies say that they have enough supply in stock, but add that this policy change is because of the spike in demand. Yeah, there is a lot to unpack there. We'll have

much more throughout the weeks and months to come. But for now, let's find out what advocacy organizations are doing right now to try and protect people's access to abortion. Yeah, so on Monday, I spoke with Kelly Robinson. She is the executive director of Planned Parenthood's Action Fund. And I started by asking her how the organization plans to do just that. So we have been putting plans into motion. That includes making sure that we've got increased ability for people to access and get information about care online. We've got a great tool called abortionfinder.org where people can go to get answers about what services are available locally or get routed to different providers in different states if needed. We've also been working in a really integrated way

with independent clinics and with abortion funds to get people to the care that they need. But the reality is that at the end of the day, we are looking at 26 states that will ban abortion. There's not a world where 24 states can absorb that number of people and that amount of need for care. So this is going to look like a healthcare crisis, a nationwide healthcare crisis. We are doing all that we can. How worried are you that pregnant people in these states are going to seek unsafe abortions, that there are going to be health outcomes here that are really unsafe for people? We're going to be looking at a world of even increasing challenges to health care. At the end of the day, abortion is health care, and many of these states aren't

doing well in so many measures of health care access. Whether you look towards maternal mortality rates or anything else, there are challenges that these communities already face to getting people access to the care that they need. This presents yet another barrier to folks. So I'm saying that because it is truly important that we are clear about needing to reform so much in our health care system from, yes, getting back the right to abortion access, but also increasing people's access to things like sex education, to things like maternal health, to measures to support things like paid family leave. All of this is wrapped up into the same crisis that we're experiencing right now. And when I say crisis, I really do mean it. I've got a 10-month-old baby and it is a stretch. It is hard to find formula for him.

You know, that is also part of this crisis as facing women, pregnant folks, and families. And we've got to really look at it holistically when we think about the solution. And I want to talk also about some of the legal action that's starting to happen here. So Planned Parenthood in Utah sued in the state over its trigger law, which went into effect last Friday. Before we jumped onto this call, there was a little bit of news about Louisiana. It seems as if there might be like a temporary injunction there in terms of the enforcement of that law.

Are there other places where that kind of legal action is expected to happen here? Yeah, we're going to be filing lawsuits in every state that we can to try to delay the impact of these bad bills or stop them where possible. A lot of those pieces of legislation are going after things like these archaic trigger laws have been on the books for hundreds of years or doing everything they can do to kind of fight back against bills that have passed more recently. But it's going to be critically important that we use every lever in our toolbox. And I think we have heard some promising things from this administration and from some leaders locally, like Biden in his address to the nation. President Biden said, we're going to ensure that people can travel to any state that they need to to access the care that they deserve. We are one country in that way. You've seen a lot of attorneys general stand out and say that they're not going to prosecute people for this. We're going to need every level of

government, every elected leader to do all that they can to make sure that we're not criminalizing people in this way. And then as our role is, and many folks in our sphere, making sure that we're continuing to challenging these bills in the courts as far as we can. It has never been more urgent than it is at this moment. And I want to end by talking about people who might be listening to this. For some, they have been fighting this for years and years and years. You often see at, you know, events from the past weekend, people holding signs referencing that they had already gone through this in some way, shape or form decades ago. There are others who may just be joining. What is the best way for people to get involved and to kind of stay involved

in this? I appreciate you asking that. I mean, when I woke up on Saturday, it just struck me that I'm living in a world where my son has less rights than I did just a couple of days ago, right? That is a hard reality. And I think it's also clear that the reason that we've ended up here is because our opposition has rigged the system, right? From packing the courts to gerrymandering states to suppressing our rights to vote. So it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we are fighting and fighting ahead and fighting forward because there is an opportunity here.

And I'll also say on the other side of it, our opposition has already said what their intention is. They want to pass a nationwide abortion ban. We have got to make sure that folks are voting in November at the state level, right? Making sure we secure power in the House, making sure that we get even more power in the Senate so that we can stop that from happening. In order to get that done, we got to do a few things.

Number one, I think folks need to get themselves and everyone in their community information about how and where to get care. You can find out that information and share things like abortionfinder.org. Two, we got to make sure we are getting loud in the states because right now governors and state legislatures are the backstop to access. With some states, we're expecting eight to nine states to go into special sessions purely with the intent of restricting abortion access. We need people to stand up and make their voices heard so that that does not happen. And then number three,

we got to go out and vote. We have to register ourselves, our families, and our friends to vote, your cousins too, and make sure that we show up. Because if we are able to win in November, we can not only stop them from passing a nationwide abortion ban, but we can get to a hopeful reality. We can create a world where we truly have access and control over our bodies the way our ancestors dreamed it and envisioned it for us. There is a bright side to this, but we're going to have to fight ahead to get there. And Priyanka, that was my conversation with Kelly Robinson from Planned Parenthood. We will link to the websites that she mentioned in our show notes, along with a link to Vote Save America's resources to support reproductive rights. We also have been getting incredibly powerful responses from our listeners about how they are feeling right now

with everything that has happened. Here is one of them. Hi, my name is Kinsey and I'm from Texas. When I was 17, I was raped. I ended up pregnant, but due to rare medical issues, I found out too late in the pregnancy to be able to receive an abortion. I chose to place my son for adoption.

I've heard a lot of people saying, if you don't want to be a parent, just choose adoption instead. While I can understand where that thought comes from, the people saying this have never had to place a child for adoption. I have. I've gone through nine months of a pregnancy that I did not want. I have fallen madly in love with my child, only to hand him over to someone else to raise. I've grieved the loss of a child who is still alive. I've grieved the loss of what I thought my life would be like. Until you have experienced placing a child for adoption, you will never understand what you are asking of a woman when you say that adoption is an alternative to receiving an abortion when faced with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy.

I am angry. I am devastated. I am terrified. But I will continue to fight like hell because that's all I can do. Listening to these stories, it never gets easier. It's always hard. I'm always speechless. These are not choices that people make lightly. And this is a choice that everyone should have. Yeah. I mean, every time you hear these, it just eliminates any sort of argument anybody has about any part of these decisions being simple. These are not simple decisions. Thank you so much to everybody who has shared their thoughts and stories with us. If you want to tell us how you're feeling right now, we would love to hear from you. You can write to us or record yourself using your phone's voice memo app and then email

us the file at wad at crooked.com. We'll continue following more on all this, but that is the latest for now. Let's get to some headlines. Headlines. On Monday, authorities in San Antonio, Texas, discovered dozens of dead migrants in the trailer of an abandoned truck, all of whom are believed to have illegally crossed at the southern border from Central America. 51 are confirmed dead and at least a dozen people have been hospitalized. Officials have yet to identify an official cause of death, but San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said that those who were hospitalized suffered from heat stroke and

exhaustion, so much so that their bodies were, quote, hot to the touch. Mexico's foreign minister said that among the dead, 22 were from Mexico, seven were from Guatemala, and two were from Honduras. The rest have yet to be identified. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg had this to say at a news conference on Monday night. So the plight of migrants seeking refuge is always a humanitarian crisis, but tonight we are dealing with a horrific human tragedy. Truly horrific. According to the agent in charge of Homeland

Security investigations in San Antonio, this is the highest death count ever recorded from a smuggling attempt in the U.S. A federal judge sentenced Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, to 20 years in prison yesterday. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking last year for grooming underage girls for Epstein to abuse, some of whom were as young as 14 years old. The judge also imposed a $750,000 fine on Maxwell. In other news of high-profile sex abuse cases, former R&B singer R. Kelly will face sentencing today after being found guilty of recruiting women and underage girls for sex.

Federal prosecutors have asked the judge in that case to sentence Kelly to at least 25 years in prison for his crimes. Yeah, which feels just about as long as we've all known that he's been doing these crimes. It's been quite a while. Yes. Turkey said on Tuesday that it would stop gatekeeping NATO and that it no longer opposes Finland and Sweden joining the alliance. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the three countries came to an agreement yesterday that would clear the path for the two Nordic countries to become members. NATO leaders are set to formally invite the two countries to the club today. And if they say yes, they could become members within months. The labor movement is

having a huge impact across the sea of time itself with a medieval times location in lyndhurst new jersey set to hold a union election on july 15th a collective bargaining unit is the only thing stronger than a gallant knight's armor so it is no surprise that medieval times corporate opposes the effort they have been paying a union avoidance consultant over three thousand dollars a day to influence workers presumably using mind control tricks that are stronger than Merlin's spells. Still, the staff of 40 performers at the Linters Medieval Times is convinced they are going to win their election, partly considering how dangerous their jobs are and how many roles they are expected to fill. I would like to eat a turkey leg there. My first

at Medieval Times. How about that? Yeah. I mean, you're going to tell a bunch of people who joust for a living that like they can't make a union. Like I wouldn't tell them that they can't do anything. Right. Have whatever you want. Just don't poke that thing at me. Exactly right. Some updates on the soft pat on the back that by his telling nearly cost Rudy Giuliani his life. New York City Mayor Eric Adams floated the idea yesterday that Rudy should be charged with falsely reporting a crime for his actions following the quote-unquote assault. To back up a bit, Giuliani was supporting his son Andrew's gubernatorial run in Staten Island this Sunday when he was approached by a voter who disagreed with him. Security cam footage clearly shows the man touching Rudy's back and then saying something, But this is how Rudy describes the incident. I got hit on the back as if a boulder hit me.

It knocked me forward a step or two. It didn't knock me down, but it hurt tremendously. Does Rudy Giuliani know what a boulder is? I know. I was going to say, I'm impressed by the fortitude that he showed to only be moved a foot or two after being hit by a boulder. Yeah. Wow. Rudy has also reported soreness and swelling, which presumably he gets whenever a bug or butterfly lands on him too fast.

Rudy's assailant was arrested and initially charged with second degree assault, though his charges have been downgraded since then. When informed that Mayor Adams was challenging the veracity of his claims, Giuliani told the New York Post, quote, tell Adams to go fuck himself. Rare to Rudy mention in a show. Yeah. There's one comment I have and another is a former New York City mayor and a current New York City mayor arguing about a stupid thing in the New York Post. You got to love it. I love that he's like tells the Post to tell him to go fuck himself. It's like, no, no, no.

Like this is your platform. This is a paper. You want to tell him, you tell him. They're not going to tell him for you. Right. It would definitely be odder if the reporter was like, yeah, sure. I'll relay that. We'll call him up.

Yeah. I hope that is the end of this story but it probably won't be and those are the headlines we'll be back after some ads with some content that satisfies your need for speed it's wednesday wad squad and for today's temp check we are talking about a milestone that some of us at the WOD team are noting with solemn reverence. The movie Top Gun Maverick crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office this week, making it the first Tom Cruise film to unlock 10-figure status. That is mock 10-figure status, if people are familiar. All right. The movie is a true joy ride, but it also challenges viewers to ask difficult questions like, one, do I love war? And two, do I love Tom Cruise? The answers here, of course, are one, no, and two, yes, but I am deeply sorry. Now, over the past few months,

this movie has come up a ton in WOD meetings, mostly from me and mostly to a chorus of deafening silence from everyone else on the Zoom. Going to note before going further that I did not write this segment or suggest it, but Priyanka, without me being the most intolerable man alive, what can I say to convince you to watch Top Gun Maverick? Okay, so I don't feel like I need a ton of convincing, honestly. Good, good start. It's more of a convenience thing because like, you know, my schedule has to align with a theater. You know, in COVID when it was like, we are releasing this on demand, I was sort of like, great, because I am lazy as hell. I don't want to go anywhere. I want to have my little takeout, watch this right in my house.

So if you can find a way to bring it to my home, that would be really appealing. If you could find a way to put it on my iPad so I could watch it during a flight. That would be very appealing to me. If you could explain maybe like a rom-com element of the movie, that might make it like something I would pick. Gideon, what do you think? Can you sell me on this? Well, I think you don't want to see this movie on an iPad. Really? For one thing.

Okay. You don't want to do that. You want to see this in a loud theater, hopefully with people who are very excited to see large planes go loud flying in the sky. Okay. Okay. I understand. I understand. And the rom-com element is the gentlemen who play a relatively oiled up game of football. Is this Miles Teller? Like, I see the TikToks. I know there's hype. I just haven't seen the actual movie. Okay. So you're basically all the way in on watching this movie.

I'm up. But yeah, there's an extended sequence of that. There's Tom Cruise trying to be romantic. But I find him totally unappealing. Well, then you're going to love the way that it plays out in one of the scenes where they go for it. Okay, fine. You're selling me.

Just like that, we have checked our temps. They are hot because we're in the danger zone. And we have been every time we talk about Top Gun Maverick. One more thing before we go. This week on Offline, John is joined by Natasha Tikku, tech culture reporter for the Washington Post, who broke the story of a Google engineer who claimed the company's artificial intelligence

chatbot was sentient. It is a fascinating story you don't want to miss. Listen to new episodes of Offline each Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, the Need for Speed and Tell Your Friends to Listen. And if you're into reading and not just the operative report from Rudy's emergency back pad surgery like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. I'm Gideon Resnick.

And you have my sword, Medieval Times Union. Sounds like you don't need it, but you could have it. I mean, I don't really have a sword to give, but like I am giving you like cheers and I can wave a flag in the audience like I did the last time I was at Medieval Times in the fourth grade for a field trip. It was lit.

Close enough. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Bill Lance, Jazzy Marine, and Raven Yamamoto are our associate producers. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Leo Duran and me, Gideon Resnick. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.