This is a good moment for Biden to proudly raise the flag right-side up, and share his love of America—even as his Justice Department's prosecution of Hunter gets underway.
Tim, honey, I adore you, I really do; but seriously? You don't instantly and automatically recognize how insane it would be for anyone to pardon TFG for anything? That's EXACTLY why we're in the situation we're in! With the exception of a few civil cases, he's never been held accountable for anything in his entire life. Then there's the whole Nixon thing, on top of it.
The purge of Larry Hogan is a message to the team. The search for “Brown Shirts” continues. Perhaps the local police will become his army for local dirty work.
Fact—messing with the Soviet flag in the former USSR would have landed you in prison. At least in this country Alito can fly a flag upside down without punishment. But we are heading toward authoritarian times…
Tim has a good point about Trump never stepping down. He will claim he is owed another term because 2020 was stolen (and because he wants to avoid prosecution).
The media should be running stories about what Joe Biden could do, but isn’t, with regard to keeping his son out of court: fire special prosecutor, offer a pardon…Furthermore, in his case Hunter Biden is accused of lying on one application. Donal Trump has been found guilty of malfeasance in 34 documents! Anyone paying any attention? Additionally, Trump has been found guilty of massive business violations. The fact that Hunter Biden is dealing with a gun cuts both ways—guns are potentially lethal. On the other hand he has a Second Amendment right to have one.
I agree with Bill that Biden should be pointing out what a danger Trump is to the justice system in regard to the Supreme Court and so much else. But why is no one talking about just how awful Trump’s policies would be for the pocketbooks of average voters? Nothing he is proposing would help the middle or lower classes. Each policy will hit harder and harder. He doesn’t like Medicare or Social Security. But the cost of being old in the US is horrific. A reasonable senior facility can cost from $7k-15k/ month. Carers in the home, if you can find them, are not cheap either. And lots of folks are living well into their nineties. We need to think about this. Even if someone stays home to care for a family member they will be giving up their income, and will probably have to pay for some help as well. Trump will make this all so much worse.
Good podcast, but a question about Trump, deportation and Hispanic voters.
Why aren't the Democrats pointing out that Trump's mass deportations will undoubtedly target anyone Hispanic or Hispanic-looking? Will everyone in Arizona and Texas have to carry their passport to avoid being caught in the web?
In watching the hysterical banana Republican elites reaction to the verdict, it has truly surprised me how how much they apparently believe their own propaganda. I always thought the R members of Congress were in on the joke and went along with the BS spewed from Fox, etc because it’s what their voters wanted to hear and they were just using them. I’ve concluded from this week that they’ve been marinating in the insanity so long they ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT!
I stumbled on Tim's YouTube last night about Colin Cowherd's t**** takedown in which the point was to just keep branding t**** and all his associates as felons. I sent it to a friend of mine who didn't vote before Obama, but then voted for t**** in 2016 and has been waffling about this year. His response about trying to hang the felon label on t**** and all his associates was that it "doesn't hit with me. All of them are criminals. You can't go into office with 100k to your name and come out four years later a multi-millionaire. I believe if the past presidents and even <Biden> was scrutinized and the people around him scrutinized as much as t**** and his team they all would be felons." I mean.... how do you reason with that??
I mean since this case was the "weakest" and he most likely wont see jail time. Now that he is convicted wouldnt a pardon completely cuck Trump? (just noodling this out). Like Biden goes out and is all like "I worry about his health. The idea that Trump wont be able to shit on his golden toilet for a day just seems like it would be too much for him to bear. So for the good of the country and to stop his incessant whining I President Joseph R Biden will pardon cry baby Trump. No thanks is necessary, your ability to continue to play golf is thanks enough"
t**** would still spin it as "they had to pardon me because they knew this sham trial was a witch hunt". Plus, president can't pardon state crimes, right?
Tim, Make sure you see Jon Stewart's long interview with Ken Buck on Daily Show last night. Jon pulls apart maga's response to the trial piece by piece and seems to convince Buck.
*****They have to actually win the argument that this wasn't political. And to me, that means going out there and reminding people that, yeah, Donald Trump is a convicted felon in this case.
By the way, there are three other cases where he's been indicted, where grand juries came in. He was found liable in civil court for sexual assault and for fraudulent business records. Then there was the Trump University case from before he was even a politician where the business was found liable for fraud. And by the way, he's surrounded by a bunch of criminals. You know, there are a bunch of other criminals that are in his orbit.
So they have to go out and make that case so that people have the armor the rhetorical armor to push back against their friends you know when this comes up over a beer or on the sidelines a little league baseball game and they're like, "This seems politicized." It's like, "No, actually this is just a guy that has a long history of criminal activity."*****
.
At the essay at the link, click through for the receipts in the embedded links.
• In 1995 or 1996, the man who would decades later become the 45th president sexually assaulted a writer named E. Jean Carroll. We know this to be true because Ms. Carroll proved it in two civil trials, one of which came to a decision in May 2023 and the other in January 2024. The 45th president owes Ms. Carroll $88.3 million in damages.
• Over the course of many years, the man who would become the 45th president committed massive fraud in the conduct of his real estate business. As a result of a civil suit concluded in February 2024, he is obliged to pay $355 million plus interest to New York State.
• Over the course of many years, through his Donald J. Trump Foundation, the man who would become the 45th president cheated charities by diverting for his private and political purposes funds that were supposed to go to them. In December 2019, a court ordered that he pay the eight charities – Army Emergency Relief, the Children’s Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, the United Negro College Fund, the United Way of National Capital Area, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum – $250,000 each, or $2 million and that the remaining $1.8 million from the account of the dissolved Trump Foundation also be distributed among the charities.
• Over the course of many years, the man who would become the 45th president operated a fraudulent enterprise called “Trump University.” In April 2018 a federal court finalized a $25 million settlement to compensate the roughly 7,000 students he cheated.
• In July 2023, a federal grand jury handed up an indictment superseding that which it had handed up the previous month. It detailed the deceptive lengths to which the 45th president and his accomplices went to obstruct the federal government’s efforts to retrieve some of the country’s most sensitive documents.
• In August 2023, a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury indicted the 45th president for his participation in a multifaceted racketeering conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
• In August 2023, a federal grand jury indicted the 45th president for three criminal conspiracies in which he participated to subvert the 2020 election.
• In January 2023, the January 6 Committee made available a final tranche of materials it had collected in connection with its investigation of the efforts of the 45th president and his accomplices to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the violent attack on the Capitol that he personally incited and which he declined to address for hours as a mob injured police, endangered the lives of members of Congress, and threatened to lynch Vice President Mike Pence. The January 6 Committee extensively expanded upon the materials presented at the February 2021 impeachment trial of the 45th president. At the conclusion of that trial, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell excoriated the 45th president. He spoke accurately when he made the following statements:
••• Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.
••• There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The issue is not only the President’s intemperate language on January 6th. It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat.’ It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-President.
••• Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally. This was different. This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.
••• The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began. Whatever our ex-President claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world. A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration. But the President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!
••• Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the President sent a further tweet attacking his Vice President.
••• Later, even when the President did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later. And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.
••• In recent weeks, our ex-President’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism. Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters. That is an absurd deflection. 74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did. And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it. One person did.
No pardon for Trump until he is made to face every trial. But great discussion you two. We do like listening to you bill. And I hope you enjoyed Greece. Damn... It's a pretty place
I’m convinced that the reason we are where we are is because people have done what is politically expedient instead of what is right. If he’s guilty, he is punished and serves the full term, whatever it is.
It’s a GREAT counterfactual. Honestly I don’t know. The gop paid basically no price for what Nixon did. Would they have paid a worse price if convicted? Don’t know
The GOP as an institution paid no price for Nixon and then less than a decade later was embroiled in more controversy starting with the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign colluding with the Islamic Republic to prolong the Hostage Crisis which then dovetailed into the crimes committed during Iran/Contra.
I would love to see an FBI style org chart for the GOP starting with the people involved in Watergate, either directly or who were just in the room when these things were being discussed and planned, through to the 1980 Reagan campaign, Iran/Contra, to the Brooks Brothers riot and beyond. Roger Stone pops up more than once.
Tim, honey, I adore you, I really do; but seriously? You don't instantly and automatically recognize how insane it would be for anyone to pardon TFG for anything? That's EXACTLY why we're in the situation we're in! With the exception of a few civil cases, he's never been held accountable for anything in his entire life. Then there's the whole Nixon thing, on top of it.
No. Just no.
The purge of Larry Hogan is a message to the team. The search for “Brown Shirts” continues. Perhaps the local police will become his army for local dirty work.
Food for thought:
Fact—messing with the Soviet flag in the former USSR would have landed you in prison. At least in this country Alito can fly a flag upside down without punishment. But we are heading toward authoritarian times…
Tim has a good point about Trump never stepping down. He will claim he is owed another term because 2020 was stolen (and because he wants to avoid prosecution).
The media should be running stories about what Joe Biden could do, but isn’t, with regard to keeping his son out of court: fire special prosecutor, offer a pardon…Furthermore, in his case Hunter Biden is accused of lying on one application. Donal Trump has been found guilty of malfeasance in 34 documents! Anyone paying any attention? Additionally, Trump has been found guilty of massive business violations. The fact that Hunter Biden is dealing with a gun cuts both ways—guns are potentially lethal. On the other hand he has a Second Amendment right to have one.
I agree with Bill that Biden should be pointing out what a danger Trump is to the justice system in regard to the Supreme Court and so much else. But why is no one talking about just how awful Trump’s policies would be for the pocketbooks of average voters? Nothing he is proposing would help the middle or lower classes. Each policy will hit harder and harder. He doesn’t like Medicare or Social Security. But the cost of being old in the US is horrific. A reasonable senior facility can cost from $7k-15k/ month. Carers in the home, if you can find them, are not cheap either. And lots of folks are living well into their nineties. We need to think about this. Even if someone stays home to care for a family member they will be giving up their income, and will probably have to pay for some help as well. Trump will make this all so much worse.
Good podcast, but a question about Trump, deportation and Hispanic voters.
Why aren't the Democrats pointing out that Trump's mass deportations will undoubtedly target anyone Hispanic or Hispanic-looking? Will everyone in Arizona and Texas have to carry their passport to avoid being caught in the web?
In watching the hysterical banana Republican elites reaction to the verdict, it has truly surprised me how how much they apparently believe their own propaganda. I always thought the R members of Congress were in on the joke and went along with the BS spewed from Fox, etc because it’s what their voters wanted to hear and they were just using them. I’ve concluded from this week that they’ve been marinating in the insanity so long they ACTUALLY BELIEVE IT!
One of the owners of the WSJ is Rupert Murdoch. I cannot understand why you are surprised at the nonsense they publish.
I stumbled on Tim's YouTube last night about Colin Cowherd's t**** takedown in which the point was to just keep branding t**** and all his associates as felons. I sent it to a friend of mine who didn't vote before Obama, but then voted for t**** in 2016 and has been waffling about this year. His response about trying to hang the felon label on t**** and all his associates was that it "doesn't hit with me. All of them are criminals. You can't go into office with 100k to your name and come out four years later a multi-millionaire. I believe if the past presidents and even <Biden> was scrutinized and the people around him scrutinized as much as t**** and his team they all would be felons." I mean.... how do you reason with that??
Great choice of Wilco for the exit music, Tim, but I’m still holding out for some Son Volt.
I mean since this case was the "weakest" and he most likely wont see jail time. Now that he is convicted wouldnt a pardon completely cuck Trump? (just noodling this out). Like Biden goes out and is all like "I worry about his health. The idea that Trump wont be able to shit on his golden toilet for a day just seems like it would be too much for him to bear. So for the good of the country and to stop his incessant whining I President Joseph R Biden will pardon cry baby Trump. No thanks is necessary, your ability to continue to play golf is thanks enough"
t**** would still spin it as "they had to pardon me because they knew this sham trial was a witch hunt". Plus, president can't pardon state crimes, right?
you're right. i meant this as more tongue in cheek. but yes i should have put NY Gov. not Biden
Tim, Make sure you see Jon Stewart's long interview with Ken Buck on Daily Show last night. Jon pulls apart maga's response to the trial piece by piece and seems to convince Buck.
Your link is to an old Conversations with Bill Kristol episode, not the recent one with Carville
Thanks, Stephen. I replaced the link with last week's episode.
Tim said (around the 7:56 mark):
*****They have to actually win the argument that this wasn't political. And to me, that means going out there and reminding people that, yeah, Donald Trump is a convicted felon in this case.
By the way, there are three other cases where he's been indicted, where grand juries came in. He was found liable in civil court for sexual assault and for fraudulent business records. Then there was the Trump University case from before he was even a politician where the business was found liable for fraud. And by the way, he's surrounded by a bunch of criminals. You know, there are a bunch of other criminals that are in his orbit.
So they have to go out and make that case so that people have the armor the rhetorical armor to push back against their friends you know when this comes up over a beer or on the sidelines a little league baseball game and they're like, "This seems politicized." It's like, "No, actually this is just a guy that has a long history of criminal activity."*****
.
At the essay at the link, click through for the receipts in the embedded links.
.
https://decencyandsense.substack.com/p/decency-sense-and-the-maximum-felon
Consider some recent developments.
• In 1995 or 1996, the man who would decades later become the 45th president sexually assaulted a writer named E. Jean Carroll. We know this to be true because Ms. Carroll proved it in two civil trials, one of which came to a decision in May 2023 and the other in January 2024. The 45th president owes Ms. Carroll $88.3 million in damages.
• Over the course of many years, the man who would become the 45th president committed massive fraud in the conduct of his real estate business. As a result of a civil suit concluded in February 2024, he is obliged to pay $355 million plus interest to New York State.
• Over the course of many years, through his Donald J. Trump Foundation, the man who would become the 45th president cheated charities by diverting for his private and political purposes funds that were supposed to go to them. In December 2019, a court ordered that he pay the eight charities – Army Emergency Relief, the Children’s Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, the United Negro College Fund, the United Way of National Capital Area, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum – $250,000 each, or $2 million and that the remaining $1.8 million from the account of the dissolved Trump Foundation also be distributed among the charities.
• Over the course of many years, the man who would become the 45th president operated a fraudulent enterprise called “Trump University.” In April 2018 a federal court finalized a $25 million settlement to compensate the roughly 7,000 students he cheated.
• In July 2023, a federal grand jury handed up an indictment superseding that which it had handed up the previous month. It detailed the deceptive lengths to which the 45th president and his accomplices went to obstruct the federal government’s efforts to retrieve some of the country’s most sensitive documents.
• In August 2023, a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury indicted the 45th president for his participation in a multifaceted racketeering conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
• In August 2023, a federal grand jury indicted the 45th president for three criminal conspiracies in which he participated to subvert the 2020 election.
• In January 2023, the January 6 Committee made available a final tranche of materials it had collected in connection with its investigation of the efforts of the 45th president and his accomplices to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in the violent attack on the Capitol that he personally incited and which he declined to address for hours as a mob injured police, endangered the lives of members of Congress, and threatened to lynch Vice President Mike Pence. The January 6 Committee extensively expanded upon the materials presented at the February 2021 impeachment trial of the 45th president. At the conclusion of that trial, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell excoriated the 45th president. He spoke accurately when he made the following statements:
••• Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty.
••• There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The issue is not only the President’s intemperate language on January 6th. It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat.’ It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-President.
••• Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally. This was different. This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.
••• The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began. Whatever our ex-President claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world. A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration. But the President did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!
••• Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the President sent a further tweet attacking his Vice President.
••• Later, even when the President did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later. And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.
••• In recent weeks, our ex-President’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism. Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters. That is an absurd deflection. 74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did. And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it. One person did.
No pardon for Trump until he is made to face every trial. But great discussion you two. We do like listening to you bill. And I hope you enjoyed Greece. Damn... It's a pretty place
I’m convinced that the reason we are where we are is because people have done what is politically expedient instead of what is right. If he’s guilty, he is punished and serves the full term, whatever it is.
Tim, lying about drug use on the paperwork to buy a gun is merely "a paperwork error"?
Both Tim and Bill are great Americans and I really appreciate all you are doing for our country
If Nixon was prosecuted I wonder if we would have convicted felon Trump as the GOP presidential nominee 50yrs later? 🤔
It’s a GREAT counterfactual. Honestly I don’t know. The gop paid basically no price for what Nixon did. Would they have paid a worse price if convicted? Don’t know
The GOP as an institution paid no price for Nixon and then less than a decade later was embroiled in more controversy starting with the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign colluding with the Islamic Republic to prolong the Hostage Crisis which then dovetailed into the crimes committed during Iran/Contra.
I would love to see an FBI style org chart for the GOP starting with the people involved in Watergate, either directly or who were just in the room when these things were being discussed and planned, through to the 1980 Reagan campaign, Iran/Contra, to the Brooks Brothers riot and beyond. Roger Stone pops up more than once.