Air Date 7/26/2024
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.
It's clear where the vast majority of violent rhetoric is coming from in this country. And it's clear which party is a cult of personality and which puts country before personal power. This is the state of play in our politics.
Sources providing our Top Takes in under an hour today include Democracy Now!, The Thom Hartmann Program, The Atlantic, The Weekly Show with John Stewart, and Today, Explained. Then in the additional Deeper Dive half of the show, there will be more on Biden stepping down, violence and violent rhetoric, the RNC in all its glory, and conspiracy for good measure.
Jeff Sharlet on Trump Assassination Attempt, Authoritarian Violence & Project 2025 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-15-24
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You posted on social media, “Calling Trump a 'threat to democracy' is in no way 'violent rhetoric.'” Can you take it from there? I mean, you have this situation where Trump was injured, [00:01:00] his right ear grazed. He’ll be speaking at the Republican convention tonight. One man was killed. Another two are critically injured. The shooter was shot. It is unclear how the Secret Service, clearing the site, which was a large field, where only this building overlooked it, overlooked this building, even as spectators were pointing to him climbing up the side of the building and then on the roof, and saying, “There’s a shooter there.” This is before he opened fire.
JEFF SHARLET: Yes. And I think to connect that to the idea of calling Trump a threat to democracy is the depth of cynicism. And I’ll go and take up Senator Vance’s challenge, too. Trump is fascist authoritarian. That’s a threat he poses. Naming that doesn’t call for violence. It calls for a vibrant democratic response.
And I think, in some [00:02:00] ways, what’s dismaying is this kind of tit-for-tat. Was the gunman a Republican, or was he motivated by some delusional version of what he imagined were left ideas? The clear division line here for that gunman, for that kind of action, is between violence and democracy. An assassin is anti-democracy. He is pro-violence.
And Trump is speaking as a candidate for a pro-violent movement that speaks explicitly and frequently and openly — and I didn’t go to Butler, but I’ve been to plenty of Trump rallies, and the invocation of violence is a constant drumbeat there. So, the depth of the cynicism of the idea that defending democracy is somehow calling for violence is kind of a new low for the Trump campaign, and that’s saying something.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to play for you, Jeff, a recent comment by North Carolina’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who’s running to be [00:03:00] governor and is planning to speak this week here at the Republican National Convention. This is Robinson speaking at a church in North Carolina last month.
LT. GOV. MARK ROBINSON: There was a time when we used to meet evil on the battlefield. And guess what we did to it. We killed it! We didn’t quibble about it. We didn’t argue about it. We didn’t fight about it. We killed it! … Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad! … Get mad at me if you want to. Some folks need killing. It’s time for somebody to say it.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: “Some folks need killing,” Jeff Sharlet. Robinson is expected to be speaking here at the Republican National Convention.
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah, I was thinking about him this weekend. I was thinking about Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana, recently elevated by Mike Johnson to the Armed Services Committee despite the fact that last year [00:04:00] he called for, basically, full-on militia resistance to the Biden administration. I was thinking about the megachurches that I encountered traveling in the country for The Undertow, that are forming militias, that actually are forming militias, that are armed. I was thinking about a church in Omaha, Nebraska, led by a prominent religious backer of Trump, where I was escorted out at gunpoint for asking questions.
So, I don’t like to do the thing like, “You did it first.” Instead, I think what we need to look at and sort of say is that the Trump campaign and this kind of authoritarianism is driven by not just the use of violence, not just the invocation of violence, but a kind of reverence for violence, a redemption through violence. You look at Project 2025, which we’ve all heard about now, and I think one of the things that hasn’t been talked about enough is it begins with four pillars, the principles that they’re moving [00:05:00] forward. Number one is protect the children, language that they’re taking directly almost from QAnon. The idea, it’s an invocation of innocence. And again and again at Trump rallies, in Trump’s rhetoric, you hear the idea of their innocence, which therefore justifies any violence in response. Calling that dangerous is not an incitement to violence. It’s an incitement to build a vibrant democratic culture that can push back against that nightmare dream.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, you raised the Project 2025. And not everyone may know what it is, this 922-page blueprint, written by the Heritage Foundation, for radically reshaping the federal government along what critics describe as authoritarian and Christian nationalist lines, the document proposing attacking unions, climate action, [00:06:00] universal healthcare, abortion access and more. Now, in recent weeks, Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, even though many of his advisers helped write it. He wrote on social media, quote, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” However, in 2022, Trump openly praised the Heritage Foundation’s work.
DONALD TRUMP: Our country is going to hell. The critical job of institutions such as Heritage to lay the groundwork, and Heritage does such an incredible job at that. … This is a great group. And they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for what exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save [00:07:00] America. And that’s coming. That’s coming.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, that was in 2022. It came. The Project 2025 is out. And even as we broadcast today in Milwaukee, one of the events that’s being held is by the Heritage Foundation. So, if you could talk further about that and compare that 922-page document to the much shorter, less than 20-page Republican platform that has just been put out?
JEFF SHARLET: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that Trump’s denials in saying, “I don’t have nothing to do with this document,” that several dozen of his senior former aides have put together, is absurd and silly. But on the other hand, we also don’t have to doubt that Trump is telling the truth in only one regard: He did not read a 900-page document. The document for Trump and the strongman authoritarianism, the document serves Trump; [00:08:00] he doesn’t serve the document. And I think that’s what he’s saying. That’s the message his people are getting.
And he’s even able to say some of it he finds ridiculous. One of the things that’s been called attention to is the document calls for banning pornography. Trump’s not going to ban pornography. He has Amber Rose, the founder of OnlyFans, as a speaker at the rally. He’s going to be introduced by Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting organization. Blood and sex is a part of the rally, right?
But if you look closer at Project 2025 and the way that document works and the way it creates a blueprint not for just his action but for what we think of, the thousands of little Trumps that trickle down from the top all through the administration, starting with the replacement of the civil service, which is one of the things that it outlines — you look at the banning of pornography. They’re defining pornography as transgender ideology. [00:09:00] So, oh, this is an attack on trans people. They’re defining it as librarians who distribute pornography, librarians who distribute regular books, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home or Gender Queer. Suddenly those people are subject to criminal prosecution. Now we see the project, and we see how the project aligns with the Trumpist movement.
Who Really is Stoking Violence in America? - The Hartmann Report - Air Date 7-15-24
THOM HARTMANN: I just want to share my take on this, 'cause I'm not hearing this from anybody else, and I think we should, frankly.
This kid, he's a school shooter. He was the bullied loner in school who everybody hated, nobody got along with, and he was obsessed with guns. When he shot at Trump, he was wearing a t-shirt for a YouTube channel about guns and explosives that has 11 million followers.
And I'm convinced that this kid was probably preparing to shoot up his local school, and Trump comes to town. I mean, Trump literally came to his backyard. And it's like, oh, well, if I'm gonna go out and blaze a glory shooting up my school, [00:10:00] what better than to go out and blaze a glory shooting the president? Then they'll really remember my name.
Because, keep in mind, most school shooters are suicidal. They're essentially depressed, bullied, outcast, loner young men. And that's him.
So all this stuff about, oh, it's politics, no, it's Democrats. Well, first of all, you've got a concerted Republican effort going on right now, right across the board -- and this is what my op ed today at Hartmann Report is all about -- saying, "Democrats, quit talking about Donald Trump and violence." Quit saying -- there's a tweet by Joe Biden that says, Donald Trump is truly dangerous to America. And Republicans are retweeting that, saying, How come he hasn't taken this down yet? In other words, Democrats, damn well better shut up.
It's not Democrats who've been calling for violence. It wasn't Democrats who in 2016 said, Maybe my Second Amendment people will take care of Hillary Clinton. It wasn't Democrats who made fun of Paul Pelosi being beat with a hammer. It wasn't Democrats who retweeted on Truth Social a [00:11:00] picture of Joe Biden with a bullet in his forehead tied up in the back of a pickup truck. No, that was all Donald Trump.
And that's just the beginning. There's a list of -- there was one on Daily Kos over the weekend. Forty five times Trump has called for violence. Yeah, hit him, knock him hard, I'll pay for your legal expenses, everything.
You haven't heard Democrats do any of that stuff.
At the last CPAC, they had a plastic dummy of Joe Biden that you could kick. And people were in line to kick him.
This "both sides" BS that we're hearing in the media. "Oh, both sides need to tone down the rhetoric." I'm sorry, the Democrats have not done been promoting violence. They have not been. They have not been at any point. This has solely been the province of, not so much the Republican Party, because you're not hearing violent rhetoric from people like Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell, but it's coming out of the MAGA movement, Trump's neo-fascist movement. Pure and simple.
And, that's what they're trying to do. By the way: [00:12:00] crazy bit of history. This is just nuts. 80 years ago this week, exactly to this week, 80 years ago this week, there was an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. And the only injury he sustained was to his ear. He was, for the rest of his life, he was deaf in one ear as a result of the explosion where they tried to kill him. They set off a bomb in his conference room. And, fortunately for him, the table that it was underneath was made of three-inch-thick oak or something like that, and it just absorbed the blast. But it blew out one of his eardrums.
So, is history trying to tell us something? I don't know. It's just that kind of falls into the category of crazy alert, of wacky stuff.
But, anyhow, in the Hartman Report today, the headline is, "How Trump and the GOP will use this opportunity to demonize and shut up Democrats." And it's already started.
This is very different, by the way, from how Reagan dealt with being shot. And I [00:13:00] think that's worth pointing out. Because, Republicans love to lionize Ronald Reagan. Well, let's look at what happened when John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan. It was quite some time before they figured out that it had anything to do with Jody Foster. For all they knew, John Hinckley was a Muslim terrorist, or a Democrat, or, fill in the blank of somebody who Republicans love to demonize. And yet, Reagan and his people didn't come right out and say, Oh, the Democrats caused this. In fact, what Reagan did is he said, and I'm quoting, He said, "Perhaps coming so close to death made me feel that I should do whatever I could in the years God has given me to reduce the threat of nuclear war." He woke up in the hospital, and there was a friend of his with him. There was a number of people there. And he said to this one guy, he said, "I'm going to dedicate my life to peace." And he did! Three days after he left the hospital, he wrote a note to Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, saying, again, a quote, "We would like to work together for a meaningful and constructive [00:14:00] dialogue which will assist us in fulfilling our joint obligation to find lasting peace." That's how Reagan reacted to being shot.
Now, I'm no fan of Ronald Reagan, right? I didn't like his policies. But he wasn't trying to start a civil war. He wasn't encouraging Proud Boys to stand by and stand back. He didn't ask a couple thousand people to attack the Capitol building, hang the Vice President, and murder the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Donald Trump did all that. Okay, he didn't explicitly call for Mike Pence to be hanged or Nancy Pelosi to be murdered. He simply mobilized the crowd. But he watched TV as he could hear the crowd saying "Hang Mike Pence." He could see the video of the crowd going after Nancy Pelosi. He didn't do a thing for three hours. That's an endorsement of that kind of violence.
And they want Democrats to shut up?
J. D. Vance yesterday tweeted out, "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian [00:15:00] fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination." B. S., I'm telling ya. This kid who did this, who tried to assassinate Trump, this guy who tried to kill Trump, was a school shooter. He was the bullied loner who wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, and he was probably planning, with his dad's AR-15, he was probably planning on shooting up the local school, and then Donald Trump showed up and he thought, Hey, if I want to go out in a blaze of glory, this is a better opportunity.
And by the way, why aren't Democrats right now introducing legislation called the Save President Trump Act to ban assault weapons? The kid was able to get off multiple shots very rapidly because he had an AR-15.
The Long Simmer of Political Violence in America - The Atlantic - Air Date 7-15-24
Harris: So what does this most recent instance say about the undercurrent of political violence in America?
LaFrance: I think Anne is exactly right that the signs of a society becoming more [00:16:00] comfortable with political violence have been all around us for a while now, concerningly. It’s terrible. You mentioned the UC Davis study. They found a small but substantial percentage of Americans believe that lethal violence is justified to get to their preferred political ends.
You see more Americans bringing weapons to political protests in recent years, political aggression often expressed in the rhetoric of war, the building of political identities around hatred for the other or hatred of one’s political foes rather than articulation of whatever value someone might have.
So this has been in the air, in addition to the concrete examples that Anne provided of actual violence. Anyone who tracks this has been warning for years that we’re in it and that it’s getting worse.
Harris: And you mentioned something that, thinking about weapons and how guns factor into all of this—what is the sort of ramping [00:17:00] up of access to firearms meant for the forms that political violence can take in American society?
LaFrance: One expert who I talked to in recent years—you know, I had been asking about where we should anticipate there to be violence, because the nature of political discourse is so dispersed. Often you hear people invoke the possibility of another civil war. And for Americans, I think you think of the Civil War of the 19th century understandably. But the kind of fight we’re having politically is different today. It’s just the way society is organized is different. And this person that I asked—I had asked, “Where should we look for the threats of violence?”—and I remember more than one expert telling me that it’s likely to be in places where there are already militia groups emerging, where people who do disagree strongly with one another bump up against one another, where there’s heightened partisanship, and in particular swing states.
So the states that came up again and again in those conversations were Michigan, Georgia, [00:18:00] Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona. And so you know, I think guns are broadly available in America, generally, but with an incident like this, you have to ask about access to the weapon that was used.
Harris: And so as Adrienne mentioned, we often bring up this idea of a civil war, kind of around when we’re thinking about political violence, because that’s our sort of touchstone example. But is that the right way to be thinking about political violence in America?
Applebaum: It’s funny, I saw the movie Civil War, the one that came out recently, and although it was better than I thought it was going to be, it struck me as wrong. Because for those of you who haven’t seen it, there are sort of two sides fighting, and they have big weapons—they have tanks and helicopters, and there’s a literal war inside the United States with teams of people shooting other teams of people. And that doesn’t feel to me like what could happen here.
I think the better idea of what could happen here is something that looks more like civic breakdown, [00:19:00] and a really good example might be Northern Ireland. So Northern Ireland was a very, very bitterly divided community in which people literally had different identities. Some people felt themselves to be Irish; some felt themselves to be British. And that wasn’t reconcilable. You couldn’t find a halfway point in between where you were half and half. And what you had in Northern Ireland was a low-level, constant violence. So bombs, murders, assassinations, explosions. So the province was roughly ungovernable.
And over the years there were different phases—I don’t want to overgeneralize it. There was a British police force that tried to bring calm to the situation. There were many years of negotiations. But that seems to me the kind of world that we could wind up living in, or maybe parts of the country could wind up living in. As you say, maybe Pennsylvania. Arizona seems like a good possibility given how many death threats have been made to Arizona [00:20:00] election officials and other nonconformist Republicans in Arizona, some of whom I’ve talked to.
And that’s a model of a society that feels ungovernable, and people are frightened to go out of their house at night—not because of crime but because they might be assassinated by the other side, or even assassinated by their own side if they’ve been insufficiently partisan. Northern Ireland also felt a little bit like a gang war.
People who tried to reach out to the other side or who tried to become peacemakers could also become victims of violence. Anybody who was in the center, or anybody who wasn’t a participant, became a target. And that’s actually where I see the United States going, and in some senses, we’re already there.
If you hear stories, as I say, from elected officials and others in states where they haven’t conformed to whatever the partisan rules are, you hear them afraid of violence. I was actually in Tennessee a few months ago, and I [00:21:00] met Republicans there who didn’t go along with the MAGA version of Republicanism that’s prevalent in Tennessee, and some of them were afraid.
I mean, you can’t say it in public. You have to be careful how you talk in front of your neighbors. It’s even worse, of course, if you’re a Democrat. And people are afraid to participate in politics. They’re afraid to work for political campaigns. It’s very hard to get Democrats even to be candidates for the state Senate and legislature in parts of Tennessee because it’s so dangerous to be a Democrat.
And I think we’re already there in a lot of parts of the country.
Harris: What would that sort of chilling effect on people’s ability or willingness to want to go into politics—what does that mean for our broader democracy?
Applebaum: It means that, you know, politics become, instead of a forum for civic participation and a place where we can iron out our difficulties and our differences through dialogue, it becomes something that’s fraught with danger.
People want to stay away from it. Maybe people become [00:22:00] cynical and nihilistic. This is what happens in authoritarian countries—people don’t want to participate in politics because it just feels like everybody is corrupt, everybody is violent. The extreme language puts a lot of people off—not just from being a candidate but from participating in any way, even from voting or even listening to the political news.
And by the way, I’ve heard that a lot in the last few days, from people who are not journalists, or not in politics. You know, I just don’t want to hear what’s going on. I don’t want to listen to the news.
Harris: It’s almost like I just want to tune it out.
Applebaum: I just want to turn it off.
Harris: Adrienne, you’ve reported recently on the sort of rise of political violence in America.
One thing that you said you learned in your reporting was how other cultures managed to endure sustained political violence and how they ultimately emerged with democracy still intact. And I think that’s the thing that’s kind of on all of our minds, like, how do we keep this democracy intact? So what are the necessary next steps to ensure that democracy sort of lives on?
LaFrance: I think Anne hit on [00:23:00] it exactly. I mean you need people who are willing to participate in the project of self-governance, and that requires capable people to lead at all levels of society.
It requires, in my view, voters who are willing to say, Enough, we are not going to tolerate violence, and we are going to elect people who unconditionally reject violence as a way of governing or as a way of life. I mean, the tricky part is, the history is not tremendously hopeful, and there isn’t one blueprint. You know, when I set out to report the story you referenced, Anne and I actually talked about this a lot in the early stages of my reporting, in part because I wanted to hear from her about sort of what are the other countries that got it right, and what can we learn from conflict resolution in Ireland or elsewhere?
And the truth is, once you’re in endemic political violence, it can take generations to get out of it. I mean, I certainly hope that’s not the case for us here, but it’s the sort of messy, almost boring, day-to-day work of democracy that needs to be done, and that’s exactly what’s declining.
In “Unity” Speech, Trump Demonizes Migrants, Spreads Lies & Embraces Authoritarianism - Democracy Now! - Air Date 7-19-24
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Donald [00:24:00] Trump accepted the Republican nomination on Thursday night, just five days after surviving an assassination attempt. Trump gave the longest acceptance speech in convention history, clocking in at over 90 minutes. He began by recounting what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday after a bullet grazed his right ear as he was giving a speech.
DONALD TRUMP: I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God. In watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.
When I rose, surrounded by Secret Service, the crowd was confused because they thought I was dead. And there was great, great sorrow. I could see that on their faces as I looked out. [00:25:00] They didn’t know I was looking out. They thought it was over. But I could see it, and I wanted to do something to let them know I was OK. I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people that were breathlessly waiting, and started shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
CROWD: Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
NERMEEN SHAIKH: During his acceptance speech, Trump repeatedly demonized migrants seeking refuge in the United States. Trump vowed to carry out the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history.
DONALD TRUMP: The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country. They are coming in from every corner of the Earth, not just from South America, but from Africa, Asia, the Middle East. They’re coming from everywhere. They’re coming at levels that we’ve never seen before. It is an invasion indeed. And this administration does absolutely nothing [00:26:00] to stop them.
They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums. I — you know, the press is always on me because I say this. Has anyone seen Silence of the Lambs? The late great Hannibal Lecter, he’d love to have you for dinner. That’s insane asylums. They’re emptying out their insane asylums. And terrorists are coming in at numbers that we’ve never seen before. Bad things are going to happen. …
That’s why, to keep our families safe, the Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Donald Trump was introduced by Dana White, chief executive of UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship. The evening also featured musician Kid Rock and the wrestling [00:27:00] legend Hulk Hogan.
HULK HOGAN: But what happened last week, when they took a shot at my hero and they tried to kill the next president of the United States, enough was enough! And I said, “Let Trumpamania run wild, brother! Let Trumpamania rule again! Let Trumpamania make America great again!”
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Hulk Hogan’s appearance at the RNC may surprise many, but he actually has something in common with Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance. Both have ties to the right-wing billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. Thiel reportedly spent as much as $10 million to help Hulk Hogan sue the website Gawker.com. The successful [00:28:00] lawsuit brought down the website. Thiel also spent $10 million to help J.D. Vance get elected to the Senate in 2022.
We’re going to begin with Maria. What is stunning, and it’s not just last night, Thursday night, when President Trump, the former president, hoping he’ll be not only 45 but 47 — which was on everyone’s baseball caps — it was not only his longest speech in convention history, but in almost all of the references of speakers throughout the week, if there was a theme, it was attacking immigrants every which way — as murderers, as drug dealers, the assault, the invasion from the border. Can you talk, overall — you were just in Milwaukee — about the significance of what has just taken place here?
MARIA HINOJOSA: [00:29:00] My god, Amy. You know, if I let it actually get into my heart, I would want to start crying, which I’m not going to do because I’m a seasoned journalist. But when you kind of lay it out that way, Amy, that’s the reason why I wasn’t tuning in every night, because it is all — and I’m sorry to say — but it is lies. Right? That’s ultimately what we’re talking about here.
What we do know is that the Republican platform under Donald Trump is very clear. It is, over and over and over, about attacking immigrants, refugees, migrants and travelers. What we don’t have on the other side, in terms of the Democratic Party, is a response to that, right? There isn’t a response to “build the wall,” which is precisely what we need.
In the case of the Republican National Convention, you know, having been in Milwaukee — which, by the way, is a hugely immigrant city. Milwaukee — I don’t know you, you probably haven’t had the [00:30:00] opportunity — has an extraordinary street food culture of tacos, very particularly tacos. They love their tacos in Milwaukee. And so, this notion that you have a Republican convention in a city that has a huge immigration population, undocumented and documented, but somehow everybody’s safe in Milwaukee, it does not jibe with the narrative, the constant narrative of what Donald Trump says about who we are.
And again, Amy, what we know — it’s not me. Of course, I travel across the country. I’m at the border. I talk to immigrants and refugees every single day of my life. But we know what the Justice Department has said. We know what the FBI has said, that crime over the past three decades has decreased by 49% in the United States. And meanwhile, what the Congressional Budget Office has said is that immigration and immigrants are [00:31:00] going to grow the American economy by $7 trillion over the next decade. You cannot have it both ways.
The role of the journalist is to not repeat the lies of an authoritarian. That’s why what’s happened at this Republican National Convention is so problematic for me as a journalist, because we cannot be the ones who are repeating these claims and then not doing the work of constantly doing the fact-checking. It’s impossible to do, with a convention that we have now seen is, essentially, specifically on the question of immigration, lying over and over and over again.
It’s — again, I’m sorry I got emotional. I hate when that happens. But when you kind of hear it one by one by one — and I’m just like, “Where do I live? What country do I live in?” Because if everything that he said is true, then our American economy would be tanking, right? And, actually, there would be rampant crime across the streets. That is not the truth. And even [00:32:00] Trump supporters can say that, because if they just open their eyes, they know that’s not the truth.
Jon Stewart on Biden 2024: It Is What It Is? - The Weekly Show With Jon Stewart - Air Date 7-11-24
TOMMY VIETOR, POD SAVE AMERICA: That was an ass kicking in the sense that Obama wasn't sharp, he didn't have his message down. He didn't seem like he came ready to fight and make a case against Romney. This was bad in that Biden struggled to speak coherently and get sentences out and make an argument. And that to me was chilling.
JON FAVREAU, POD SAVE AMERICA: It would have been like, if in that first debate with Romney, Barack Obama went out and said, Look, I wasn't born here, but let me tell you something -- I'm not from here. I'm not from this country, everyone who's been wondering.
JON STEWART: Bakari, I imagine you didn't watch the debate and think to yourself, he's killing it! But you had a very different response to what you were seeing. Do you want to talk about that?
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: Yeah, no, I think he got his ass kicked up, down, left, right, and sideways. I also don't think elections are won in June. I think that there is a great deal of just over excitement by a lot of my friends on the left or over concern. I mean, it is what it is. People are talking about, people are engaging in this fantasy [00:33:00] fiction of this off ramp, this proverbial off ramp where there's not one. People are talking about this open convention where there's not going to be one. If in fact there is an opportunity for someone else to replace Joe Biden, the only person who has the infrastructure, the cash in order to do that or at least give us a chance to last four months would be Kamala Harris.
But I'm just very soberly saying we got our ass kicked in the debate. First and foremost, we can have all of these conversations about Joe Biden needs to do this and Joe Biden needs to do that. But after July 22nd, if I'm not mistaken, or 25th, whenever we have the roll call, he is our nominee. So then what are you going to do?
I'm resolved to the fact that we have three choices. We have Donald Trump, we have Joe Biden and the couch. And whether or not I was at Essence Fest or whether or not I was fishing with my good friend, Jared Lodehold off a dock in Orangeburg County last week, the people I talked to are all saying the same thing: let's just get on with it. We know what we're going to do. We know who we're going to choose and it is what it is. we have bigger things that we're fighting for other than going back and rehashing the fact that our candidate is 81 years old, probably eats [00:34:00] at Denny's, goes to bed at four o'clock and changes tennis balls on his walker.
JON STEWART: You just described my perfect weekend. Thank you, Bakari!
So I want to talk about -- because I think, Bakari, you bring up a really interesting mindset and I want to talk about that because I am of the opinion that democracy is not just under threat by authoritarians or by a Supreme Court that has decided maybe we shouldn't have left England in the first place and a monarchy is actually slightly preferable. But I want to talk about the phrase, "it is what it is." Because I think that that is a complacency that I've seen in the Democratic party for a very long time. That includes Ruth Bader Ginsburg not retiring on time. That includes Merrick Garland not going after Donald Trump for January 6th on time. That includes not being able to get Merrick Garland onto the Supreme Court. That includes allowing Amy Coney Barrett to get onto the Supreme Court. That includes not [00:35:00] being responsive to urgency and to new information and just saying, "It is what it is, guys" and shrugging.
And I think my point is, there is opportunity here. It may not be open convention. It may not be a new person to take on to the ticket. But there is a vibrant and I think ultimately positive at least conversation and acknowledgement to be had, that is not being had because "it is what it is", and "what are you going to do?" So I want you to respond to that.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: Yeah, I don't actually mind the conversation. I'm not somebody who wants to put you and Axe and Tommy and John and the guys and Tim, put you guys on an island and just ship you guys off.
JON STEWART: White guys' summer, white guys' summer!
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: White boys' summer! You and Chet Hanks. I know.
So I'm not somebody like, I appreciate the thoroughness in which you're having this [00:36:00] debate. I'm kind of looking beyond that. And to your "it is what it is," you're kind of a monologue there. Look, the fact that you can go back to Rahm Emanuel, not putting the impact on, or the emphasis on the judiciary as he should have and Barack Obama not doing what he should have done at the judiciary or codifying, uh, Roe v. Wade or whatever he could have done when we actually had the House and the Senate in 2008. Those type of things, we can go back and re-litigate those things under that mantra of "it is what it is."
What I'm talking about right now is very practically the choices we have before us. And so I am geared up trying to prevent project 25. I'm geared up trying to make sure that the things that we're talking about, the Chevron ruling, which I know that people are caught up on presidential immunity. Sure. The Chevron ruling, in my opinion, was more devastating to the fabric of democracy than anything we've seen in recent history.
JON STEWART: He's talking about the ruling from the Supreme Court, which made it much more difficult for federal agencies to regulate, whether it's the EPA or SEC or any of those agencies to regulate the people that they're charged with regulating, that they undercut those decisions, from the Supreme Court.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: And they did [00:37:00] what they did similarly in Dobbs, they overthrew decades worth of precedent, which the Supreme Court is not necessarily known to do, unless you're like Clarence Thomas and you're getting flowed out by your billionaire donors all over the country.
And so, yeah, I think there are a lot of people who sit in my seat and they have a very sober look at where we are practically and say, I cannot afford in November to go back any further. We felt like 2020, we were on the precipice of a third reconstruction and we missed that mark. And since that time, we've actually been going backwards. And I know that people just don't want to backslide anymore. And I feel like having --
JON STEWART: Biden is the President. If we're backsliding under Biden, you're saying we're --
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: No, but I can go through his list of achievements. But what we're talking about are the attacks on DEI. We're talking about the attacks on Affirmative Action. We're talking about how in Arizona, they passed an abortion bill from the 1800s, how they passed Dobbs, how we just went through presidential immunity. I mean, there are cultural and policy initiatives that firmly make me believe that we've gone backwards. I mean, look at Black home ownership.
JON STEWART: No, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying the administration is the administration right now. But Jon and [00:38:00] Tommy, I want you to address this because what Bakari is suggesting is that he's being strategic, that this isn't about noticing that the President may no longer be up to the job. This is about staying with the status quo because strategically, I guess -- and Bakari tell me if I'm misrepresenting this -- that gives us our best opportunity to win. And I think my point is, I don't know that that's the case. I think I would disagree that that's the best strategy, but, but what's your thought?
JON FAVREAU, POD SAVE AMERICA: I mean, you would disagree and literally all of the polling and data available would also agree with this position as well. But it's not fiction at all that Joe Biden could step down tomorrow. He could announce that you know what? I have a important job to finish. I'm doing two jobs right now. I'm President of the United States and I'm running for President, and President of the United States is too important and I want to focus on that. And I can pass it off to Kamala Harris, or we can have an open convention, whatever he wants to do. He could easily do that tomorrow, and the [00:39:00] idea that we cannot influence --
JON STEWART: Bakari, Bakari just got very sad.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: Well, no, that's not a real thing.
JON FAVREAU, POD SAVE AMERICA: It is a real thing. Bakari, why is that not a real thing?
TOMMY VIETOR, POD SAVE AMERICA: Yeah, why is it not real?
JON STEWART: Is it not a real thing technically, or is it not a real thing, you think, emotionally or technically it's not a real thing?
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: I think technically, emotionally -- first of all, the way this works is, and I love the kind of land that we're living in where one can assume that Joe Biden can say that I don't have the ability to run for reelection, after I've already announced that I am, after I've done all of these things, raised all of these monies, have the infrastructure around the country, but yet I don't have it in me to finish this campaign.
JON FAVREAU, POD SAVE AMERICA: No, he can say I can't win. I can't win because all the polling says he can't win.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN: Yet I can still be president of the United States. So those things are not, those things don't fly.
TOMMY VIETOR, POD SAVE AMERICA: He can't win. One's a multi month job and one is auditioning for a four year job.
JON STEWART: I'm gonna also jump in and say look, nobody actually knows. Now things are looking dire for the President, but four months, I think any of us would agree in a modern media timeline [00:40:00] is for fucking ever. It really is. I think we confuse this idea. You know, we just saw France lose terribly in the parliamentary elections. Macron jumps out with a snap election. Weeks later, they've stemmed the tide of Le Pen. I mean, it can be done. And that's my point, Bakari. We are complacent. And that complacency sets in a cynicism with the American public. And I think you're giving us a binary choice that's not real. I don't necessarily agree, oh, Biden can't win or Kamala can't win. We just don't know. And the world changes so quickly and we don't know about those things.
But here's what I do know: it's not a binary choice. President Biden's defiance, I don't think is the right strategy. I think the idea of not acknowledging the progressive and degenerative nature of what he's [00:41:00] dealing with is gaslighting anybody who supports him. And this idea of have him going out there with bromides about "Joey, my dad said to me, Joey, it's not about how you get knocked down, it's about how you get up." And you're like, I don't know that you can get up, sir. I think that's really not the metaphor you want to go with. And there's no shame in that. We all get there. So I don't understand.
There is an opportunity here to have a more honest, adult, sophisticated, fuck the media, fuck whatever they're going to say. You are in control of how this goes down. And I think they're bungling even the response.
You did it, Joe - Today, Explained - Air Date 7-22-24
SEAN: Has anything like this ever happened before, Andrew?
ANDREW: You know, in one sense, this is unprecedented. Um, In the modern era, certainly no presidential party has changed its apparent nominee so late in the process. People point to Lyndon [00:42:00] Johnson choosing to step aside in March, 1968 as one precedent.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
ANDREW: But I also think of the way this played out as quite similar to something that actually happens pretty frequently, which is a scandal plagued politician begins hurting the party and then faces a tragedy. Pressure campaign that could be quick. That could take longer, but designed to force them to step aside. And you know, that's something we just saw it in New York with Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2021. It also happened with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Governor Elliott Spitzer. New York Democrats do this a lot. But The idea is that, you know, the primary voters had [00:43:00] their say, such as it was with the limited options they were presented with, in part because of the party elites falling behind Joe Biden. But there is a conceptual problem of what happens when the primary voters make their choice, but new information emerges after the primary. I think everyone knows that if a time traveler sent back a recording of how Donald Trump and Joe Biden's first debate of 2024 went, uh, back into 2023. I don't think he would have, uh, waltzed to the nomination with only token opposition. Uh, it was simply not well understood or accepted, uh, that he would perform so badly and he tried to, um, prevent that from being known by limiting his availability for high profile, high stakes interviews; for avoiding any debates in the primaries. And, uh, because of that, the primary voters lacked [00:44:00] some information that now the general electorate has. It's also worth mentioning that back during the primaries, many polls showed that a large majority of Democratic voters did not think Biden should run for a second term and they would prefer someone else. But nobody else who was significant and credible ended up running.
SEAN: Biden submits a resignation letter to the American people yesterday. In it, he does not lay out a path for his successor. Although he does then issue, I believe, a tweet in which he endorses his vice president, Kamala Harris. Why didn't he endorse her in the resignation letter? Do we know why there's two statements, essentially?
ANDREW: I have no idea. It's, uh, It's an interesting question.There was some uncertainty before this about whether there would be this rapid consolidation of Democratic support around Harris. Uh, this could have [00:45:00] been, you know, Biden's endorsement was a big part of this, but, you know, it wasn't. The deciding factor necessarily, uh, it's more indicative, all the endorsements we've seen rolling in, are more indicative of the mood in the party that they're kind of desperate for unity.
After the past few weeks of chaos, they don't want a big open process, uh, and the potentially other credible contenders who would, one might think, get involved in this process have mostly already endorsed Harris and said they're not interested in going for it this time. Now, this does pose the risk that Democrats are kind of repeating the same mistakes they made with Joe Biden's run in the first place in clearing the field and consolidating around someone whose strengths and weaknesses really have not been tested yet.
SEAN: If the candidate ends [00:46:00] up being Kamala Harris, do we have any idea who her, her Veep will be? Can she pick Joe?
ANDREW: Theoretically, she could. I don't see why she would, but, um, I think probably the platonic ideal is like white men in a swing state. This is what Democrats are thinking, not myself, but like they, they view this as, like, a good balance to Harris at the top of the ticket, and like they want someone who swing voters will perceive as, as non threatening and normal. Like, this is kind of said in a joking way, but also not necessarily so joking. But people point to Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Both of those are important swing states. Uh, also in the mix, Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky.
SEAN: What's Vice President Harris saying to potentially allay concerns in her party?
ANDREW: She said she's running. She says she's running to win and that she would like to earn the nomination. And, [00:47:00] you know, it's, it's a little vague about how these next steps will actually play out. We all know that the nominee will be put forward and confirmed at the Democratic Convention the week of August 19th and be, uh, technically chosen by the, uh, A couple thousand delegates who are attending that convention, but whether they will have a actual choice between multiple competing options, uh, who are are realistic, who have an actual shot, the reality is that it is entirely possible Harris will lock up the vast majority of party support well in advance so that there is effectively no real alternative and no realistic alternative wants to even, uh, try.
SEAN: Do we have any idea how those potential tickets stack up against the former president and Republican candidate, Donald Trump?
ANDREW: I don't think the polling right [00:48:00] now is worth very much, uh, particularly I don't think the Veep typically doesn't make much of a difference.
But we do have a fair amount of Harris vs. Trump polling, and that polling is not fantastic for Harris. It generally shows her losing. Just like Biden.
FOX 5 WASHINGTON: Now the Trump Harris poll is interesting. They have Trump at 51% and Harris at at 48%.
ANDREW: So again, Democrats are tremendously excited right now. They're jubilant uniting around Harris. The Democratic fundraising platform Act Blue had a record day raising an enormous amount of money yesterday. Clearly, the base is very excited about this historic pick and, and about Harris as a candidate. But if we look at the polling right now. She starts as the underdog. Their argument, she can turn it around, and, uh, sure, she can turn it around, it's certainly possible [00:49:00] she could win, but I would caution, you know, people not to get too carried away in, you know, assuming that she is a surefire winner when, when that is very far from the case based on the polling we've seen.
Final comments on why it's OK to have a bit of hope even if it's uncomfortable
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with Democracy Now! differentiating between those actually calling for violence and those warning of fascism. The Thom Hartmann Program pointed out the connection between the assassination attempt and school shooters. The Atlantic took the long view on political violence in the US. Democracy Now! discussed the anti-immigrant vitriol endemic at the RNC. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart discussed the choice of Biden stepping out of the race before the decision was made. And Today, Explained looked at the situation in the wake of Biden's announcement to not seek re-election. And those were just the Top Takes. There's a lot more in the Deeper Dive section.
But before we continue on, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the discomfort you might be feeling right now. That [00:50:00] feeling, if you are experiencing it, may be related to the concept of hope.
If you're not familiar, you're not the only one, as we tend to focus on the negative things happening in the present and worrying about things that may happen in the future. Even during the 2020 election, I don't know that hope would have been the right word to describe anyone's feelings. Probably more like white knuckling followed by intense relief. But hope? There are probably people listening who are actually too young to have ever experienced the sensation. So if this is new to you or it's just been a while and you're not sure how to handle it, I have suggestions, thanks to a Daily Beast article I saw recently: "I feel hope right now. It's so embarrassing."
Near the top, it talks about how liberals tend to over emphasize our awareness that literally all politicians are egocentric weirdos who don't actually deserve our praise, even when we want to say something nice about them.
It's a signal that we're not naive, and, in this day and [00:51:00] age, we're definitely not cultishly devoted to anyone, least of all a weirdo politician.
And normally, we'd be talking about the problems Kamala Harris has too, not to tear her down, but to be part of the effort of pushing her to change her positions or, improve in this way or that or whatever. And the best case scenario right now is that we'll have the next four to eight years to do just that.
But for now, there actually is cause for some hope, and from the very limited amount we've seen of her on the campaign trail at the top of the ticket so far, she's sounding good. Her first speech didn't focus entirely on Trump, though she did go on a solid attack. She also laid out a positive vision beyond "stop the bad orange man" that people need to hear, and not just to get people out to the polls, but for people like us, who are political nerds to an unhealthy degree, and need to kindle some actual hope from time to time with a positive vision.
[00:52:00] And those are just the specifics of the tone she's setting for the campaign, but the general matchup of a prosecutor versus a felon and a crook, and the reproductive rights advocate versus the overturner of Roe vs. Wade, it all just sort of writes itself in a way that feels good.
And then here's the line from that article that stuck in my head. It says, quote, "If you're still reading, it's about to get worse, because I'm going to write a sentence that would look great on a decorative pillow. Yeah, I'm gonna live, love, laugh the hell out of this article. Here I go: 'Hope is a choice.' I'm going to make the executive decision to hope. Because why not? It's not like guacamole. It doesn't cost extra. And, contrary to popular belief, it won't hurt less if Harris loses because I get to say I knew it afterward."
So, we here at the show have also been giving ourselves permission to feel hopeful, at least for a little while. I mean, [00:53:00] after the past few weeks, not to mention the last decade, we deserve it.
Now, before we get back to the show, a quick reminder that July is our Membership and Awareness Drive month. If you get value out of this show, and I hope you do, let this be the time that you decide to chip in and help sustain its production and tell some friends about it to grow our base of support. Unfortunately, the decade that I just described of political horrors and, frankly, the lack of hope, I think has left a lot of people running from politics, and that has taken a real toll on our listenership, our membership, and the income that we're able to generate to keep everyone paid for the work they do keeping the show going.
So, it is up to you, the real hardcore political nerds, who are white knuckling it, slash maybe finding hope for the first time in a while, who we really need to step up. Because when I say that we need your support, it's not in the abstract. We don't have big funders or any kind of institution or media outlet backing us [00:54:00] up. It's really just you, the listener, deciding to chip in and make the show possible.
As thanks, members get ad free versions of every regular episode and bonus shows featuring the production crew in conversation.
For this month, memberships are 20 percent off, so if you sign up now, you'll keep that discounted price for as long as you keep your membership. Just head to BestOfTheLeft.com/support to grab that membership, and then tell someone about us.
SECTION A: BIDEN STEPS DOWN
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And now we'll continue with deeper dives on four topics. Next up, section A: Biden steps down. Followed by section B: Violence and violent rhetoric. Section C: the RNC. And section D: Conspiracy.
“Beating Donald Trump Is Vital”: Mehdi Hasan on Joe Biden Dropping Out, Kamala Harris, Gaza & More - Deomcracry Now! - Air Date 7-22-24
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You kind of predicted what would happen, Mehdi. Earlier this month, you wrote a piece for The Guardian headlined “Kamala Harris may be our only hope. Biden should step aside and endorse her.” Interestingly, the piece begins, “I have never been a fan of Kamala [00:55:00] Harris.” Can you talk about how you came to your position?
MEHDI HASAN: So, very briefly, I criticized Harris a lot in 2019, 2020, when she was trying to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, specifically around her record in California as an attorney general and as a DA. She did some things — and I’ve outlined them in the past for The Intercept, when I was there at the time — to do with convictions and to do with criminal justice reform which I thought were pretty right-wing and pretty unfair, and I think there’s a lot of issues there with that record from a progressive point of view, although she also did some progressive things, too, and I applauded it at the time. But I wasn’t a fan of her campaign. And, you know, to be honest, I was right at the time. Her campaign melted down. She withdrew before a single vote was cast in the primaries. But then she got lucky, I think it’s fair to say, when Joe Biden decided to forgive her for attacking him on the debate stage and made her his running mate.
This time around, you know, we’re in a very different world — right? — four years later. For me, Biden stepping [00:56:00] aside was very important, because he clearly wasn’t up to the job of defeating Trump. And I know people talk about open conventions, contested conventions. I just think that’s not going to happen. I don’t think it’s helpful right now. I think there are lots of legal, financial issues with that. And for me, in early July, it was: Get Biden out of the way; there’s a perfectly good candidate who can beat Donald Trump. By the way, her polling — and that was at the beginning of July — it’s gotten better since. Her polling was showing that she was matching Trump. She was doing better than Biden with Trump. She was actually leading with independents, according to a CNN poll.
So, for me, it was a no-brainer. You’ve got a younger, more energetic candidate ready to go in the wings, already on the ticket, already won with you in 2020, might be better on Gaza — we can talk about that — than Joe Biden, although it’s not hard to be better than Biden on Gaza given how bad he’s been, and actually has a good record as a senator, as an attorney general. So, why wouldn’t you go with Kamala Harris, who is also, by the way, a history-making candidate, will bring enthusiasm from the base? And I was right about that. Look at the last few hours, Amy. There’s record-breaking [00:57:00] donations to the Democratic Party since she was endorsed by Biden yesterday. She would be the first Black woman president, the first South Asian president, the first woman president.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I think ActBlue reported something like raising, in a number of hours, $50 million. Now, you just mentioned that perhaps Kamala Harris is better on Gaza. Why don’t you go into her record and what you can discern, as she is the vice president there working with the president?
MEHDI HASAN: So, look, when I say — I just want to be very clear to Democracy Now! viewers and listeners. When I say “better than Biden,” I don’t mean that she’s going to become president and say, “Time for an arms embargo on Israel.” No, she’s not going to make major changes in policy, and that’s a tragedy. People are dying, Amy, even as we speak. The people in Gaza have not stopped being killed just because the media’s attention has moved on. And I think that’s important to say at the outset.
However — right? — with all these things, there are important [00:58:00] differences. One of my big criticisms of Biden has not just been his unconditional support for Netanyahu and the sale of 2,000-pound bombs, 500-pound bombs, etc. It’s the rhetoric, right? It’s the idea that he doesn’t even show empathy — the guy who’s known for his empathy — for the Palestinian people, since the beginning. There’s been an erasure of Palestinians. Remember, he put out a statement on the 100 days after October 7th, didn’t mention any Palestinian deaths. Remember, he questioned the Palestinian death toll. And I think that’s a problem.
And Kamala Harris, actually, if you look at the reporting since October the 7th, she was a voice in the administration trying to take a stance which humanized Palestinians a little bit more, tried to criticize Israel a little bit more, was dragged back by the White House. There was a lot of reporting about how the White House was trying to change some of her speeches to make them less critical of Israel. She was calling for a temporary ceasefire, at least, earlier than Joe Biden was. And I spoke to an official in the administration who’s been in the room for some of these conversations. They said, “Look, there’s no doubt Kamala Harris is better on this issue than Joe Biden is.” And I wrote that in The Guardian earlier this month.
And interestingly, Amy, Politico put out a piece last night quoting [00:59:00] some of the people who have quit the Biden administration, some of the officials and appointees who have quit in recent months in protest of Biden, and even they’re saying, “We’re cautiously optimistic that she might be better than Biden on this.” And as I say, it’s not hard to be better than Biden on this. But, look, I hope she comes out and says, “Reset, course correction, ceasefire now,” in a way that Biden never really has with his heart.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to turn to a voter in California named Faraz Rizvi, responding to President Biden’s decision.
FARAZ RIZVI: I am glad that Biden stepped down. You know, we’ve been really concerned about his policy towards Palestine and his, you know, full-throated support for Israel and the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians. So, you know, we’re really — I mean, I’m relieved to see another candidate that might not have the same policies and that has, you know, not backed the brutality against the Palestinians. You know, I think there are still a lot of questions on Kamala and what her policy is going to be, but I think, [01:00:00] for a lot of voters, you know, a lot of people in my community — I’m Muslim and Pakistani — this has been like the biggest issue, the singular issue that we’ve been paying attention to.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: So, Mehdi Hasan, if you can respond to that California voter?
MEHDI HASAN: I think he makes very good points. Look, we need to keep the pressure up on Kamala Harris, those of us who care about what’s happening in Gaza. As I say, she’s not going to come in and transform American foreign policy. Let’s not be naive or ridiculous. But at the same time, we can, I think, pressure her in a way that we failed to pressure Joe Biden to change his policies on this. I mean, Netanyahu is in town this week, Amy. He’s going to be speaking in Congress. He’s going to be meeting Biden at the White House.
AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: He’s going to be meeting with Kamala Harris. And it’s not clear: Will he be meeting with Biden at the White House, given that Biden is in isolation in Rehoboth?
MEHDI HASAN: Good question. It’s a good question. That was always planned for Monday. I don’t know what the latest is on Biden’s COVID. By the way, hilariously, Donald Trump has been posting over the weekend that Biden faked his COVID to get out of the race. You’ve got to love Trump’s posts.
Look, [01:01:00] to respond to the voter, it’s not just California. California at least is a safe blue state. Go to Michigan. I talked to a lot of people in Dearborn and Detroit, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, young Michigan voters, who are furious about Gaza — the uncommitted movement that came out of Michigan. And the question is: Does putting Kamala Harris at the top of this ticket instead of Joe Biden help the Democrats hold on to Michigan, for example? Do people say, “You know what? Our hate” — you know, the Abandon Biden — there’s a lot of hatred for Joe Biden personally from a lot of these constituencies over Gaza. It was called Abandon Biden. He’s called “Genocide Joe.” Whether you like it or not, the antipathy is very much focused on Biden. And I think just getting him out of the way allows Democrats to say, “All right, look, there’s a possibility of a fresh start.” But that won’t happen unless we keep up the pressure on Kamala Harris, make it clear what she has to do to win back some of those constituencies in order to take a state like Michigan, which is going to be so close and so crucial in November.
Fox News MELTS DOWN Over Kamala Harris - The Rational National - Air Date 7-22-24
Republican talking heads are losing their damn minds over the fact that Joe Biden has withdrawn [01:02:00] and endorsed Kamala Harris. So I have a few fun clips to share with you, and I'll get to my favorite near the end of this video with Sean Hannity.
Wait for that. He's got nothing. It's fun to watch. But first, Stephen Miller, who was on with Laura Ingraham, and is really, as I said, just losing his mind. They held a primary! People, they had ballots! They filled out circles! They went to the voting booths! They spent money on advertisements! And, as President Trump said, the Republican Party spent tens of millions of dollars running against Joe Biden!
Now they just woke up one morning and said never mind, we're cancelling the entire primary. We're getting rid of our candidate and we're pretending the election has never even happened, and we're going to let donors handpick a new nominee. They're publicly admitting that they are an oligarchy. They are not running a democracy.
They are not running a representative republic. This is an oligarchy controlled by business interests [01:03:00] and the democratic convention is the private corporation that represents those business interests. This is as full frontal and attack on American democracy as we've ever seen in the history of America's major political parties.
I really hope they go with that line. I really do because it will just continue the conversation That they were the ones that try to steal an election. Trump still to this day is denying that he lost an election. And you're going to try and claim that this is an attack on democracy. There wasn't even a proper primary.
They canceled some of the primary states. This was an incumbent president. Insane to try and argue this, but please continue making this argument as it'll just remind everybody that your candidate tried to steal an election. And on the point about, uh, Oh, this is the party of oligarchs. Are you out of your mind?
JD Vance, the VP pick for Trump was picked because of his connection to big money. Tech, this is from the Guardian, Tech Broligarcs are lining [01:04:00] up to court Trump and Vance is one more link in the chain. Peter Thiel has been close buddies with Vance forever. This what, this is exactly why Vance is in the position that he is in, despite the fact that he was talking shit about Trump in 2016 because he thought at the time that was the way for him to make it big.
But J. D. Vance chasing power realized after Trump won, hey, I could just go with this party. And lie my way to the top. And that's exactly what he did this. Look at this. Peter Thiel and Trump right here. Are you kidding me? Not to mention just last week, Elon Musk said he is committing around 45 million a month.
One guy committing 45 million a month to a pro Trump super PAC. The party of oligarchs? Right here. Unbelievable. Insanity. Let me get now to Kellyanne Conway, who is, this argument is rich. She had disastrous staff turnover as vice president. I check it on the [01:05:00] daily. Her public schedule, gentlemen, is Rarely has anything on it or one or two things on it.
She does not speak well. She does not work hard. All right Let me ask you and she should not be the standard bearer for the party. Yes, sir. The projection here is absolutely incredible Doesn't work hard donald trump spent almost an entire year Playing golf during his presidency 307 days of his presidency was spent playing golf What?
You're gonna complain about somebody else's work ethic? Not to mention here, this is Kellyanne Conway's ex husband, George Conway. Not everyone can express themselves as eloquently and with such exquisite turns of phrase as Donald Trump. That's, of course, to her argument that she, uh, doesn't speak well.
Like, why are you making arguments that are just reminding people about how terrible Donald Trump [01:06:00] is? Unbelievable. And in terms of the staff turnover, are you kidding me? Again, it's projection after projection after projection. Trump overall between Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush again, Obama, Trump. The highest year over year turnover.
And then, of course, when it comes to the cabinet, not even close. Clearly, the most turnover. You're gonna complain about somebody else's staff turnover? What? Insane. Let me get to the Sean Hannity clip now, cause this one is just, you gotta laugh at how ridiculous this is, because it is about laughing.
Here's just one reason that voters seem to detest Kamala Harris. You decide. And[01:07:00]
is that a socialist or progressive perspective? No. I thought we were supposed to conserve things. I couldn't reconcile it. Now I can.
Yes, you're giggling, Vice President. This is primetime Fox News. Sean Hannity is supposed to be making some strong arguments against Kamala Harris because that is his job as the Fox News guy in prime time. Her laughing? This is your central point? But Kamala Harris likes to laugh. is a person shows human emotion.
Un freaking believable how insane this is. And to bolster this point, [01:08:00] uh, you likely already saw this, but this is Donald Trump's nickname for Kamala Harris. From the moment we take back the White House from Crooked Joe Biden and Kamala. I call her laughing Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She's crazy. You know, you can tell a lot by a laugh.
No, she's crazy. She's nuts. She's not as crazy as Nancy Pelosi. Crazy Nancy. I call her laughing Kamala. She, she laughs too much folks. She is too happy as a person. You're fucking minds. Oh my God. This is going to be a fun campaign. This is going to be hilarious. Uh, here's another one. This incredibly popular policy.
Single payer health care. She once supported it. As a senator, she co sponsored a bill with Bernie Sanders that would force Americans into socialized single payer health care, that kind of system. So Kamala Harris co sponsored a bill with the most [01:09:00] popular politician in the country, Bernie Sanders. This is 2017.
Still the most popular sitting politician in the country. She co sponsored a bill with this incredibly popular guy for an incredibly popular policy. This is your big argument against her. Please continue, continue making these arguments. It'll work out well.
SECTION B: VIOLENCE AND VIOLENT RHETORIC
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering section B: Violence and violent rhetoric.
What Does "Turning Down The Temperature" Mean? - Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast - Air Date 7-15-24
When Biden and Mike Johnson call for people to turn down the temperature in our politics, what does that actually mean?
Is Biden doing that himself in a way you can describe? Are congressional Republicans doing that to heed Mike Johnson's call in a way you can describe? So what I will say is that in the immediate hours, Twitter was a dumpster fire of anger and blame. And. And it was not good. Um, and that then after that, Mike Johnson came out and [01:10:00] said, Calm the temperature.
President Biden spoke on the phone with former President Trump. We're told it was a respectful call. The DNC chairman called the chairman of the RNC to express condolences and also to talk about the fact that political violence is not acceptable in any forms and the need to turn down the temperature.
So I think that after this immediate call, Uh, burst of really bad social media. There has been an effort to calm things. Uh, former president Trump, uh, in an interview with the, um, the New York Post, um, is saying that he is throwing out his speech, which was going to be very tough and because of, uh, the experience that he had, this near death experience, he intends to, to deliver a speech that is more about unity.
What I will say is that former president Trump has through his career, often talked about unity, um, But his vision of unity is, is generally people agreeing with him. Um, and his vision of unity is that unity comes through success. [01:11:00] And once there's success, people will just fall in line. That has not proven the case throughout his political career.
And the country is more divided than it has ever been. Um, but, uh, if he is, Uh, you know, not if he if he is at least nodding to the idea of unity, then we don't know. We don't know what this convention is going to look like and what tone it is going to take. But I do think that there has been at least some shift in the rhetoric in these 48 hours in terms of President Biden, who I cover more closely.
He is, um, he canceled one event today that was supposed to be in Austin, Texas, but, um, he is still going to do his interview with Lester Holt on NBC News tonight. And then he is going to Las Vegas where he's going to speak to the NAACP convention and the UnidosUS convention. He also has, um, other campaign events that he's doing.
We'll see what the tone is like. Um, he is not, Um, shying away. The campaign has told me that he is not going to stop to stop talking about what he [01:12:00] sees and what what many Democrats and beyond Democrats see as a is a dire threat to democracy as we know it, uh, that is on the line in this election. Um, so that is still going to be part of what he is saying, but exactly how he says it and whether that is different.
I'm not sure because Friday night, um, he really He really changed his stump speech, and he was going directly at former President Trump in, um, pretty stark language, uh, in stronger language than he's used before, and I don't know what happens to that stump speech. Yeah. We may learn, uh, Trump's vice presidential pick today, and you're covering the convention in Milwaukee.
The three names mostly mentioned are Senators Marco Rubio or J. D. Vance or South Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Some people say Senator Tim Scott is also still on the list, and maybe none of those. But Vance's, Vance's post shooting statement was typical. He wrote the central premise of the Biden campaign is that president Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be [01:13:00] stopped at all costs.
That rhetoric led directly to president Trump's attempted assassination. Now. I don't think that's a direct quote of Biden. I don't think Biden ever said at all costs or by any means necessary or anything like that. Uh, or fascist for that matter. Oh, but a lot of people do say fascist, but I don't know. I don't think president Biden does.
Got it. Um, and I don't know if that counts what JD Vance wrote as turning down the temperature. We have You know, he wrote that before the calls to turn down the temperature. He hasn't taken it down, but uh, President trump's uh, former president trump's campaign, uh, Manager, uh, or i'm not sure his exact title chris la civita his lead Um advisor had also written a pretty inflammatory twitter post and then he took it down.
Why political violence and violent threats are on the rise in the United States - PBS NewsHour - Air Date 7-14-24
ALI ROGIN: This was a shocking event in a horrible tragedy for many Americans the first time that they've witnessed the attempted assassination of somebody who served as president. But of course, there have been many other acts of political violence in recent [01:14:00] memory, including the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, in 2022. There was the congressional baseball practice shooting that injured Congressman Steve Scalise and 2017 plus many other attacks against local officials. Why are we experiencing this uptick in political violence?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Director, Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab: Well, first, I have to say it should be condemned. Of course, we have to condemn the attack on former President Trump. You know, one of my earliest political memories was the assassination attempt on President Reagan. I think we are back in an era in which political assassinations are becoming a tactic again of in which people seek a solution to what they think are their political problems.
And that's part of the rising violence that we're seeing across the board politically, and also part of the rhetoric that has been increasing on polarized lines that positions us versus them and existential terms, so that the [01:15:00] other starts to seem like a threat that has to be eradicated. So it's a problem at the elite level, and it's a problem among ordinary conversations as well.
And you mentioned the rhetoric, members of both parties have been coming out saying that both sides need to tone this down. How much of that is at issue here?
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS: The issue of political rhetoric that's divisive and even violent among elites is a huge problem. And it has been a huge problem for many years on both sides. However, I'm actually just as concerned about what I'm hearing from people I know and love even seeing on social media, things like you reap what you sow in response to this event. That's just as problematic.
You have a lone actor who is not only motivated by elites who mess up, but also by ordinary citizens who give up and who lean into the idea that violence is a solution to any kind of political ideas or problems.
ALI ROGIN: One of NewsHour polls found earlier this year that one in five respondents believe Americans [01:16:00] may have to resort to violence to get their own country back on track. That seems like a high number. What's your take?
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS: It seems high, but it's accurate. I mean, that's exactly the kind of data that we've been seeing. We're seeing increasing support for political violence and also increasing willingness to engage in it among ordinary Americans. And that's what I mean about everybody seeing this as a moment of reckoning for themselves and their own behavior, not just to wag fingers at the elites, and politicians who are behaving badly.
But to think about what you do across the dining room table, what you're doing in your classrooms, what you're doing with your colleagues and your neighbors. Because anytime you're justifying that kind of violence, you never know who's going to overhear that, or how that contributes to the overall climate in which violence is seen as a solution.
ALI ROGIN: And to that end, do you think that everybody has a role here in lowering the overall temperature that's got us to this very tense point?
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS: Absolutely. I think everyone has not just a role, but an obligation to lower the temperature to see our [01:17:00] basic humanity to see that no one deserves to be shot, no matter how much you disagree with what they say politically. And to also take steps to kind of curb things like misinformation, stop retweeting it, I mean to be critical consumers, and good citizens about what you share. I think that's one of the big takeaways here is that people have a role to play and an obligation to do it.
ALI ROGIN: And in terms of response to this, this particular event, what are you concerned about happening in terms of people perpetrating potential violent responses?
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS: Another thing that ordinary people can do is to be a little bit vigilant in the coming weeks and months, because unfortunately, an event like this does create the risk that you have both kind of militant groups who see now that they may have to step up, they think and protect this candidate, as we've seen in the past, and you also see the risk of reprisal attacks.
And so, this is a real moment for people [01:18:00] to pay attention to be vigilant, if you hear someone you know, saying something, tone it down, you know, try to correct their statements and their behaviors and steer them away from the idea that violence is a solution to anything.
SECTION C: THE RNC
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Next up, section C: the RNC.
After Trump assassination attempt, what's in store for the RNC? | The Take - Al Jazeera English - Air Date 7-14-24
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: On Saturday, July 13th, former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped an apparent attempt on his life while speaking at a rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
News Archival: Take a look at what happened. Down, get down, get down, get down.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: A witness at the rally spoke to Al Jazeera.
UNNAMED INTERVIEWEE: On his right cheek was a teardrop of blood right here. Then when he turned, you could see the right ear, from the top of the ear to the bottom, blood. Wasn't pouring blood, but it was blood.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: The suspected shooter is Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20 year old from Pennsylvania. Secret Service agents shot and killed him at the site. A [01:19:00] 50 year old man attending the rally was also killed, and two others were injured. Before being rushed from the stage, Trump raised a fist and addressed the crowd with three words: fight, fight, fight.
This week, Trump says, he still plans on joining thousands of Republicans in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the start of the Republican National Convention. He's set to be nominated as their candidate for President of the United States.
Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane is reporting from Milwaukee.
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: Block after block after block, barricades and fences assembled in a large ring around the arena where the Republican National Convention will be held. The Trump campaign insisting the event will go ahead.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: And some protesters, like Omar Flores, are there already.
OMAR FLORES: We're doing this because we don't want the Republicans here. We're fighting for immigrant rights, for reproductive rights, for Palestine. And ultimately, [01:20:00] they're just the opposite of everything that we want to see in this country.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: Isaiah Holmes is there too. He calls Milwaukee home.
ISIAH HOLMES: I was born and raised here. My family has lived here going back, I don't even know how many generations on both sides.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: He works there reporting on his hometown.
ISIAH HOLMES: I'm a reporter at the Wisconsin Examiner. I became interested in police interactions with the community and journalism and documentary film.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: Much like the rest of the country, he was taken aback by what unfolded Saturday evening. We first talked to Isaiah last week and checked back in with him on Sunday.
ISIAH HOLMES: So, in terms of the vibe in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin, it's not a good one. I mean, it really wasn't before this incident. It isn't now.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: Since we first heard from him, he's been preparing for Trump and tens of thousands of Republicans to arrive in his hometown.
ISIAH HOLMES: The U. S. Marshals just did a big warrant, fugitive roundup of folks, arrested [01:21:00] a bunch of people.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: And driving outside the city, Isaiah saw reinforcements on their way in.
ISIAH HOLMES: Your anxiety kind of goes up when you're driving on the highway and all of a sudden you see three Humvees drive past and you know where they're going. There's a lot of concerns about how police may interact with protesters or how Republican convention goers or people supporting those folks may interact with people within the city who don't agree with the convention being here.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: Isaiah knows the city, and its people, pretty well.
ISIAH HOLMES: Close to 70 percent of all Black people who live in Wisconsin live within the city of Milwaukee. Milwaukee also has the highest concentration of Native American people who live in Wisconsin. It's a democratic city, and it's also regarded as one of the nation's most segregated. There's definitely a very strange vibe in the city right now. And you can sense that buildup for sure. It feels like kind of the quiet before the storm. Hopefully there is no storm. [01:22:00]
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: Well, I will tell your listeners that for the very first time in my life, I am bringing a flak jacket and a bulletproof helmet to the Republican National Convention, because you will see people walking around with AR-15s.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: On Friday, before the shooting in Pennsylvania, and before Al Jazeera's Patti Culhane left for Milwaukee, she was making preparations as well.
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: I was like, Oh my God, I haven't had one of these on since Iraq.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: But there is business to attend to at the convention and an election ahead. So we wanted to talk to Patty about that, too.
So, Patty, this convention, or RNC, happens every four years and is a chance for the Republican Party to nominate their candidate for president, in this case, Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: As the world can see, we are under the leadership. The Republican Party is bigger, stronger, more vibrant, and more united than ever, [01:23:00] ever, ever before.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: The Democrats will have their convention in a few weeks, and I know that you've been to a political convention before, but for those who haven't, walk us through the pomp and circumstance that comes with these four days. What's the atmosphere like, and what actually happens?
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: Well, it's really joyous. It's a coronation, it's a celebration. Unlike the Democrats, there's no question about who's going to be the candidate at the end of the convention. I mean, the people who go there are the true believers, the huge supporters. There's a lot of drinking, at least in the skyboxes, and where the media tends to go. And it's a chance for everyone within the party to network. It's also a chance for the rising stars, they get speaking time before the candidate actually comes up. And so there's speeches throughout the day. Then there's competition to see who gets the prime time, the nighttime speeches, and they're going to vote on the platform and [01:24:00] that's going to be their official document. This is what we stand for.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: We know that this RNC is a little bit different from most already. And that starts with who is putting it on. Several committee staff members were replaced, including the RNC chair with Trump loyalists. And one of the replacements--
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: The daughter in law.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: Laura Trump. Exactly. Now the co-chair, Trump's daughter-in-law. And according to a Washington Post report, staff at one point had a special screening test before they were hired. What do we know about the movings and shakings inside of the RNC?
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: This has been widely reported. The RNC denied it in couched language, but basically they fired a bunch of people. And then they made people apparently reapply for their jobs and they were asked if they believed the 2020 election was stolen. And some of the staffers told the media they felt like they had to say it was stolen, even if they didn't believe it because they wanted the job. So I think for your audience, you might be asking, Wait, how is this [01:25:00] possible? So you have a candidate who's been charged with 90 plus felonies. He's been found guilty by a jury of sexual assault and then defaming the woman who he sexually assaulted according to the jury. And he's charged with stealing classified documents, leading an insurrection on the Capitol to try and subvert the peaceful transfer of power. And he's their candidate. And he has 100 percent made the RNC in his image. They are a hundred percent Trump loyalists. I think John McCain wouldn't recognize the Republican party as it is right now. And it just, it is what it is.
MALIKA BILAL, THE TAKE: I wonder if people listening might think, isn't that what a party does? How unusual is that to try to stack this Republican National Committee, which puts on this convention with people who are loyal to the nominee?
PATTY CULHANE, AL JAZEERA: It's, well, look at the Democrats right now, right? Normally, there's back and forth. There's [01:26:00] people are saying Joe Biden can't be president. Joe Biden's camp is saying he can be president. There's usually some dissent and some -- it's not like a loyalty test to a person. It's a loyalty test to principles. And what we've seen in the past, I think Republicans would say this is normal.
Trump’s VP Pick Supported the Idea of Project 2025 BEFORE it Was Even Thing - The Humanist Report - Air Date 7-16-24
When it came to Mike Pence, you know, he was the establishment choice, the evangelical choice that kind of made up for the areas where Trump lacked or was vulnerable, whereas with J. D. Vance You know, Trump isn't accounting for any weaknesses. He's kind of just picking somebody who is the light version of him.
So it's arguably a risky choice. Although if Trump were to win, then that would benefit him greatly because, you know, he'll have a vice president now with the same brand of politics as he does, but who's much more loyal. Now, deep down, JD Vance doesn't actually care about Donald Trump or Donald Trump's MAGA agenda.
He's just playing a character for purposes of political [01:27:00] expediency. And I say this because his past comments about Trump, both public and private, they reveal what he actually thinks about him. And spoiler alert, he fucking hates the guy.
For example, in a leaked text, he said, I'm not surprised by Trump's rise. And I think the entire party has only itself to blame. We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower income, lower education, white people. And I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people something and hell maybe even.
to working class black people in the process, or a demagogue would. We are now at that point. Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect. I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad, and might even prove useful, or that he's America's Hitler.
Now those comments were obviously made before Trump became president, but it turns out the guy who said that would one day become the successor to America's Hitler. Now, he's not running to just be Trump's VP. Trump is essentially crowning him as the heir to the MAGA throne. [01:28:00] So, you know, when the Trump era is over, JD Vance is going to prolong the Trump era, or at least try to.
Now, the negative comments that he's made against Trump in the past, They've been long documented. You've said I've never, I'm a never Trump guy. Never liked him. Terrible candidate. Idiot if you voted for him. Might be America's Hitler. Might be a cynical a hole. Cultural heroine. Noxious and reprehensible.
So there's a lot there and Democrats tried to use those comments against him when he was running for the Senate to kind of prove that he's not actually loyal to Donald Trump, but all of those attacks fell flat because what they misunderstood is that when it comes to the MAGA cult, it doesn't really matter where you came from, what matters is where you're at right now, and so long as you're swearing fealty to Trump right now, You're in, right?
Now, regardless if J. D. Vance believes any of the shit he's saying, which he doesn't, Trump knows that he's gonna be a loyal soldier for him and he's gonna say and do whatever he needs to to [01:29:00] appease Trump and the MAGA cult. That's the one thing that Trump cares about. Loyalty. So if that's your only criteria in finding a VP, Trump made a pretty solid choice.
Also, in terms of galvanizing his own base, It's a great pick, but they were already on lock. There's not going to be a single Trump supporter in the country who says, um, I'm not going to support Trump because I disagree with the VP pick, right? So one would think Trump would really try to lock down the lead that he has right now over Biden by trying to pick somebody with more appeal to swing state voters and more suburban white voters, uh, like women who came out to vote for Donald Trump.
But He's not doing that, which kind of tells you a little bit about Trump's mentality right now. He's feeling good. He feels like he doesn't really need to pick somebody to account for his weaknesses and vulnerabilities, because he has a pretty comfortable lead against Biden. So he doesn't really feel the need to do that.
And he may be right. [01:30:00] With that being said, though, Vance does kind of compound some of the biggest issues that's already a political liability for Donald Trump, namely abortion. J. D. Vance is an anti abortion extremist for all intents and purposes. He compared abortion to slavery, and on top of that, he doesn't support exceptions, even in the cases of rape and incest.
Now, on top of that, he signaled support for a national abortion ban on his website, calling for an end to all abortions. And to make matters worse, he even signaled opposition to no fault divorce. And this is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is this idea that, like, well, okay, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy.
And so, you know, Getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they changed their underwear. That's gonna make people happier in the long term. And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I'm skeptical, but it really didn't work out for the kids of those [01:31:00] marriages.
So, I mean, what's the conclusion? Are women supposed to stay violent marriages for the sake of the kids? I don't think that that's a really healthy environment for the children either, but you know, he's not. policy prescriptions, but a rhetoric like that doesn't necessarily instill the most confidence in people, and you kind of get to see where he's at mentally.
Oh, he, he's very regressive, he doesn't actually care about choice for women in any regard, seemingly, and he's just kind of a piece of shit, right? So, you know, that's gonna hurt him among some people if they take stock of, you know, the vice president. See, Americans, they don't want abortion to be banned and Republicans have paid for Roe v.
Wade being overturned at the ballot box or battle box if you're Joe Biden. But putting that aside, you know, you know, it's a, it's a liability. But, JD Vance isn't gonna be the president, Donald Trump is. Having said that though, this is a bad choice from a campaign standpoint. But, if Trump wins, and this proves to not really be that [01:32:00] big of a deal, well, As I said, he has a loyal servant willing to implement his entire agenda, including Project 2025 on day one.
So it's a bit of a risk reward situation for Donald Trump, uh, but for everyone else, it's terrible news. Um, now, on the subject of Project 2025, J. D. Vance essentially endorsed the core tenant of project 2025 back in 2021. So, you know, what project 2025 aims to do is dismantle the administrative state, consolidate power in the executive, so that way the president can kind of implement his entire agenda unilaterally speaking.
Now, this is something that's been floated in right wing circles. But here's what JD Vance was saying back in 2021. I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left and turn them against the left, right? We need, we need like a debathification program, uh, but like a de wokification program in the United States, right?
So like, let me give you a couple examples. So one of the things I've always been very sympathetic to is [01:33:00] this idea that we don't have a real constitutional republic anymore. What we have is an administrative state, right? The administrative state controls everything, right? So to the point that, like, when Donald Trump wins, he can't even sometimes get his people in core positions of authority in the administrative state.
It's like, well, do we have a constitutional republic? The Founding Fathers actually created a very powerful chief executive, a very powerful president, but if he can't even fire the people in his own administration, he can't even get his people in his administration. Like, is this really a successful republic?
Um, so, so, a lot of conservatives have said we should deconstruct the administrative state. We should basically eliminate the administrative state. Uh, and I'm sympathetic to that project, but another option is that we should just seize the administrative state for our own purposes. We should fire all of the people.
I mean, I, you know, like I think Trump is going to run again in 2024. I think he'll probably win again in 2024, uh, and, and, and, and he'll win by a margin such that he will be the president of the United States, uh, in, in January of 2025, I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, [01:34:00] Fire every single mid level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people, and when the courts, because you will get taken to court, and when the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.
Because this is, I think, a constitutional level crisis. So Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but now he has a running mate who explicitly endorsed the hallmark of this entire agenda. So, yeah, there's that. Also, for marginalized people, J. D. Vance is horrible news, so let's talk it through.
As Aaron Reid reports, J. D. Vance is the primary sponsor of a national ban on trans healthcare done through a ban on teaching about gender affirming care in higher education, including medical schools. Now, to be clear, we're talking about a ban on all trans healthcare. Children, adults, doesn't matter. All trans people will no longer get the care that they need, meaning [01:35:00] they will forcibly detransition or they would be forced to forcibly detransition if that bill passed.
But if Project 2025 actually comes to fruition, Trump can do that via executive order. Trump also supports banning healthcare for all trans people. So, we're in a situation where you have two people, who are very, very hell bent on forcing all of us to live in their own dystopian reality. They don't actually care about the other half of the country.
All they care about is winning, and conquering, and crushing the opposition. Right? Now again, I don't know if JD Vance actually believes the bullshit that he's espousing, but it's really a distinction without a difference, because it doesn't matter whether he believes it or not. He's dangerous, and Trump choosing him as his running mate is a pretty big red flag.
"Normal Trump is batsh*t crazy" - Mehdi debates on the RNC speech - Zeteo - Air Date 7-19-24
In the wake of the attempted assassination attempt against Donald Trump, you published an [01:36:00] article suggesting that maybe Trump would have a change of heart, writing, A brush with death has at least temporarily ushered in a more reflective Trump. Um, he has been quick to praise God, saying that it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.
Um, you published that article, and then last night, Thursday night, uh, Trump, uh, Basically was back to usual Trump crazy Nancy Pelosi invasion at the border China virus. They cheated with kovat He didn't sound very reflective to me. Yeah. Well, I'll just note in that column I did say that this was a fantasy.
Okay, it's good for us to fantasize for a moment No, no, I believed it was possible, but I also just qualified and said I'm skeptical It's probably not going to happen. But anything is possible and You know, historically, we have seen how near death experiences can actually lead to mini conversions or even just people mellowing out a little bit.
I mean, he had a [01:37:00] near death experience before. COVID almost killed him. I will say that there was some change of tone, especially in the first part of Trump's RNC speech. We did see a more somber, reflective Trump, and over the course of the past week, he has talked about God. And again, I don't want to say that this is going to change his governing style if he wins and becomes president, but it is striking to me that he's talking about God with what seems to be real feeling in a way that we haven't seen before.
And again, I don't want to, I don't want to make this into more than it actually is. So just to be clear, where we stand today, Friday, you accept that Trump's RN speech, RNC speech on Thursday night, he didn't sound like a unifying or moderate or change man. He was the Trump of old for most of that 90 epic minutes that he kind of bored us with.
Yeah, but, but it is worth noting that when he was reading off the teleprompter, and that [01:38:00] shows that at least the Republican Party itself is trying to choreograph and like humanize Trump. But do you know, Charlie, surely you hear how you sound, at least when he was reading off the teleprompter for like 10 minutes of the 90.
Okay, but look, I mean in, in my column, I'm not, I'm not here to necessarily like, Advocate and say I'm not I want I'm someone who wants to explore questions around religion and politics It's a big part of what I focus on in my work. Trump is not a religious man. He never has exactly Yeah, but I mean that's what makes it interesting to sort of like spec, you know What how will this have an effect on him and what I did in the column I looked at past assassination attempts Erdogan, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt in 1954, Reagan in our own country.
And assassination attempts can radicalize people and make them more oppressive and that's what we saw with Nasser and Erdogan. So there is still a chance that Trump will really go back to full Trumpism if he actually wins and governs and be more vindictive against [01:39:00] his enemies if he follows on those footsteps.
Reagan, though, did mellow out and did actually talk about dedicating the rest of his life to God. Maybe Trump will be somewhere in this nebulous in between. Who knows? But what I want to do, because I've been so despairing of our politics, I'm trying to kind of think more positively. And I don't think there's any harm in doing that.
And of course, Trump I mean, there is a little harm in that you're imagining things that aren't there. I mean, that's harm, right? You're saying, ah, Trump's maybe better than we thought he was, even as he continues to give speeches that are batshit crazy. Yeah, well, look, I don't think the speech, the speech in the RNC that he gave was batshit crazy.
It was just nor a lot of it was just normal Trump. But that normal Trump is batshit crazy. This is the mistake you're making. You're basically You're basically saying oh because he's denied the election before and said they cheated using covid. That's normal trump That's not a normal thing to say in any democracy that your opponent's cheated using covid to yeah You don't believe the 2020 election was cheated.
No, this is this is [01:40:00] true I mean, I guess what i'm trying to say is that trump is trump and it's a low bar And that's what we got to work. Well, some of us some of us are trying to raise the bar so After Trump's almost assassination, the editorial board at the Washington Post, which you're part of, put out a piece in which you all wrote, Every participant in our civic life needs to conduct some soul searching.
When I read a sentence like that, it feels to me, correct me if I'm wrong, if there's a bit of what we call both sides ing going on. As if, you know, Everyone in our political spectrum is equally responsible for kind of violent rhetoric, incendiary conduct, you know, ratcheting up the temperature, that the Democrats, the left are as responsible for incitement as the right, but they're not.
Like, factually, all of the extremist related murders in America in 2023 were carried out by the right. All of the extremist related murders in 2022 were carried out by the right. 75 percent of extremist related murders in the U. S. over the past decade or so, carried out by the right. 4 percent by the left.
I mean, the problem of violence and [01:41:00] incitement and incendiary rhetoric is a almost exclusively right wing problem in this country. Well, I would just, well, first of all, we, we didn't both sides in, in that editorial, but also in others. I mean, we didn't draw moral equivalency and we, we do always try to acknowledge.
that Trump and the Republicans are worse. Yeah, okay. When it comes to this kind of rhetoric and talking in vindictive ways about punishing their enemies and all of that. But I do think it's also important to look inwardly on our, on our own side, if you will. And to the extent that we are on the center, or those of us who are writing about the center, center left, we're not going to have a lot of impact with MAGA folks, but we can have impact.
With Democrats and left leaning people and I think there, there is necessity for reflection because I think when we E. G.? When we For example, what would you reflect on? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, we as Democrats, we do talk, unfortunately, a lot about how Trump is going to destroy America and make America into [01:42:00] an authoritarian, fascist state that democracy is about to die.
And as you know from some of our past debates, I have been and still am critical of that kind of approach. I don't think that Trump presents an existential threat. I think if he wins, it'll be a pretty bad four years, and I'm dreading that. And that's one reason I've been so I went back to listen to our last discussion before this one, and I couldn't quite work out listening to you then, and I want to clarify now.
Is it your position, because you just said a moment ago, I don't think that's a, I think it's a helpful approach or right approach. Is it I don't, I don't know if I'm talking to a journalist or a politician activist, because are you saying that we shouldn't say these things because they're untrue, or we shouldn't say these things because they're received in a way that's not good for America?
Those are two different things. Both. I, on the level of truth, I don't actually believe that Trump is an existential threat in the sense that I believe America and our institutions that we're strong enough to and resilient enough to withstand the pressures that Trump will throw on us. And I, I think it's also [01:43:00] odd to say, well, American democracy is so weak, we have so little faith in our own country that we think Trump can topple our democracy in just a matter of four years.
Let's also be clear, Trump cannot run for a third term unless he changes the U. S. Constitution, which is basically impossible, because he would need bipartisan support for that. So we will So I'll come back to that in a minute. Where I meet you halfway is clearly It's not good for America if we're always talking about the end of democracy authoritarianism fascism My counter to that would be what am I supposed to do, as someone like you who explores these subjects writes about this stuff speaks about this stuff when that is what the available evidence is seems to be telling us, right? That's where I differ from you in that I agree that it would be great if in this country we all stopped talking about the end of the world.
It's not great for our mental health. It's certainly not good for my mental health. I wish I could talk about tax rates and minimum wage and not these existential questions. But I look at the evidence and I do see U. S. democracy under threat. And since the last time you and I argued [01:44:00] Oh yes, it might be under threat.
I just don't think it's existential. When we use that word existential, we're talking about It's a subjective word, existential, because again, what would you describe as a threat to democracy that was tolerable, right? So, when you and I discussed last time, that was 2022. Since then, we've And I just went through the list as I was thinking of this discussion with you.
Since we last spoke, Trump has called for the termination of the Constitution that you mentioned a moment ago. He said he wants to be a dictator. His words. For a day, of course. Only a day. Picked a running mate, J. D. Vance, who says he would have overturned the 2020 election had he been in Mike Pence's place.
He didn't need Ford. Yes. They could have done it on that day. And, of course, we have a Supreme Court that's literally given Donald Trump immunity for all crimes committed in office that are official acts. And, of course, he has a hand picked judge in Florida who just threw out his classified documents case.
And, of course, Project 2025, they're now saying, look, it's not just about Trump. We have a ready to go authoritarian roadmap.
Trump & The RNC Just Turned 'Idiocracy' Into Reality - News Dump - Internet Today - Air Date 7-19-22
The Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, a convention that Earlier this week, vowed to adjust their [01:45:00] messaging and promote peace and unity among all Americans.
And um, how's that going? He will arrest the criminal illegal immigrants and put them behind bars, send them back.
And then last weekend they tried to kill him and there he is over there alive and well. After four years of Joe Biden's disastrous America last agenda. Our country is more dangerous, vulnerable, and impoverished than anyone had thought possible. Under Biden Harris, America has fallen sicker, lonelier, and poorer.
That's some hope there, that not all college students have gone woe. And a whole army of illiterate, illegal aliens stealing the jobs of black, brown, and blue collar Americans. They put them right on your front doorstep. Wow. [01:46:00] I'm convinced. Everything has changed. They are the party of unity. No, it actually seems like the rhetoric coming out of the Republican Party is just as angry and divisive as it's ever been.
And they might not actually truly believe in the things that they are promoting publicly. We need to come together as a nation, except for the people we hate. Yeah. Also, the last guy that you saw in that clip compilation was Peter Navarro, who was part of the Trump administration, tried to turn over the 2020 election, was arrested and charged with contempt of Congress and was released from prison just in time to receive that wonderful round of applause from the so called Law and Order Party.
I mean, he literally left prison and came to the Republican National Convention. Yeah. To a round of applause. Also included in that clip, uh, that the RNC played during a promotional video Was a clip of an edited version of a longer video where a frat bro from the University of Mississippi mocks a black woman by jumping around and making ape noises.
The RNC played that clip [01:47:00] as a shining example of Not all college students going have gone woke. Yeah, some of them are racist just like us. Yeah So, you know, the kids are alright, I guess. Oh, but yeah, it wasn't all fire and brimstone Republicans still had plenty of time to publicly Embarrassed themselves with awkward appearances, false statements, so many lies, cringey humor, and a generally loose grip on reality as a whole.
And we showed a few clips in our most recent episode including, uh, Jim Justice. Governor of West Virginia and his bulldog Just perfect timing by the C SPAN producers And then we had Rudy Giuliani getting into a drunk driving accident while walking. Impressive But here's a few more clips taken from the past few days starting with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who attempts to persuade Gen Z into thinking that, um, actually it's pretty freaking punk rock to be a conservative these days.
Yeah, don't we [01:48:00] all agree? And our message to Gen Z is this. You're going to be the generation that actually saves this country. You want to be a rebel? You want to be a hippie? You want to stick it to the man? Show up on your college campus and try calling yourself a conservative. And I assume that the camera obviously missed him trying to do metal horns and instead doing this.
That means I love you. Hey, we all love rock, don't we folks? Well, there's nothing more punk rock than joining the Republican Party. It's like the scene in Inglourious Basterds where he does the three instead of the three. He's an ARC! Anyway, here's Don Jr. 's girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, claiming that the heroes that stormed the beaches of Normandy We're fighting communists.
It is no wonder that the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy
say country anymore. Hmm. [01:49:00] I'm gonna have to go back and fact check my, my World War II history. Um, didn't know that the Soviets had already captured France. Yeah. Pretty cool. Mm hmm. And yeah, if you're wondering what was weird about that clip, uh, yeah, the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy, they were fighting The Nazis.
Fascists. Yeah. Not communists, but you could understand why I guess she might intentionally switch the two based on the people she was addressing. Yeah. Who, I don't know, might have, uh, some sympathies towards the people who were on those beaches. They might not come out and say it, but they, uh, Demonstrably have aligned with a lot of those viewpoints.
Yeah. It's JD Vance, 2016. Trump is Hitler. JD Vance, 2024. Trump is Hitler. Yeah. As people have pointed out online, another Simpsons predicting the future where he's running against another kid and, and yeah, a vote for Bart is vote for anarchy. Yeah. Uh, of course we got, uh, we do have an update on Matt Gates looking very, very strange.
Clearly [01:50:00] having received some last minute cheek fillers and Botox. I mean, you know what, let's play at least one clip again because he just looks so bizarre and you definitely need, uh, to have your mind refreshed on this. Democrats have been hiding the real Biden for years. We saw people in the witness protection program more often than we saw unscripted Biden.
Under Biden, Harris, America has fallen sicker, lonelier, and poorer. Okay. Incredible eyebrows. Yeah. Now, after Matt Gaetz's speech where he looked like the plastic surgeon from Escape from LA, Kevin McCarthy joined CNN to comment on that whole speech, and he certainly did not hold back. You know, he looks very unhinged.
I mean, a lot of people have concerns about him. And I'm not sure if he was on something, but I do hope he gets the help that he needs. But more importantly, I hope the young women get the justice they deserve when it comes to him. Anyway, the final day of the convention. Brought out all the stars. [01:51:00] All the stars are here!
So obviously, obviously, you had Kid Rock performing. And lip syncing? Um, we can't play the audio obviously because it is copyrighted music. It's the worst song I've ever heard. But we'll show some a little bit later. It's the one about going platinum selling rhymes. Devil without a cause. And it just goes on for what feels like hours, but I think it's like two and a half minutes normal song length Yeah, so you had Kid Rock up there then you had UFC president Dana White and of course You gotta have Hulk Hogan when they took a shot at my hero
And they tried to kill the next President of the United States! Enough was enough! And I said, Let Trumpamania run wild, brother! Let Trumpamania rule again! [01:52:00] Let Trumpamania make America great again! He is a real American. And he will let you know that he picked up Andre the Giant Yeah, the first like, minute or so of his speech was a bunch of references that you would only get if you were a, uh, a WWF fan in a very specific period of the 1980s, otherwise it would just sound incomprehensible.
I would assume a lot of the people in the Republican Party, especially the ones who are attending the RNC, would find the entire concept of pro wrestling beneath them. And Kid Rock, like It was funny, Kid Rock singing that terrible song and just all these like, 70 year old, like, white people just like Arhythmically clapping and shaking their fists and it was just a strange scene and and obviously For the past 10 years at least everyone has been comparing the United States government and presidential elections and everything to idiocracy But I think we we did [01:53:00] it.
I think this might actually have beat the Idiocracy. Between Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan, I think we got more than even that movie could come up with.
SECTION D: CONSPIRACY
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally section D: Conspiracy.
Trump’s Rhetoric Has Accelerated Violence And Conspiracy In The US - The Majority Report - Air Date 7-17-24
It has been, 72 hours since one person died, two people critically injured and a, uh, the Republican nominee was nearly assassinated by a difference of maybe an inch and a half. And it seems like it's become a sort of a backseat story. Um, I mean, we talk about how the news moves fast these days. Is there not a better example of this?
We're like, we're already kind of shrugging off. It seems like the assassination attempt on Trump, in part because the Republicans have no narrative against it. Because they're, they don't want to limit guns. They don't want to go down that road. And As we're going to get into here, the guy that [01:54:00] attempted the assassination was a white guy with, it seems like, many Republican and conservative leanings based on classmate accounts and based on reporting.
That's beginning to trickle out at this point. I can't, I can't find the number of the, what number it is, uh, this video. Um, this is a, uh, report. What number is it? Uh, this is a report from, uh, local news. In, uh, Pennsylvania, WPXI. Uh, news reporter, uh, who don't have her name, but they are at the Trump's, uh, Shooters Street in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
And this is what she reports. Investigators dressed in plainclothes as well as FBI agents approach this house. That's where the family of Thomas Crooks lives, which is right here on Milford drive. Then we started to see those agents going door to door, canvassing the neighborhood and speaking with people who live here.[01:55:00]
They're trying to get answers to the many questions that still remain. Crooks is motive is still unclear. Records show he is a registered Republican and neighbors today told us that they've actually seen it. Trump signs outside of the home over the course of the last few years. Investigators. All right.
And there's, you know, Uh, I don't think you need to be, you don't need to rely on conspiracies here to start to, uh, you know, ask questions as to like, why hasn't there been a little bit more diligent reporting on this? For instance, like. Where is the official medical report on Donald Trump going to the doctor?
I mean, I imagine that he went to the doctor, but like there were reports initially that it was the teleprompter that shattered and then it was that he was shot in the year. I imagine that's all relatively straightforward again. It appears like he was nearly assassinated in an inch or two. [01:56:00] Um, that's not something that you would in, in a million years.
If you're Donald Trump, say like, yeah, no, I trust you. Uh, just shoot two inches away from me. I'd be like, Hey, we're up by Joe. Maybe we don't do the thing where you shoot a bullet right next to my brain. But it is, and you know, they have been unable to find, uh, uh, social media accounts, uh, for this guy. It's also possible that he wasn't just, uh, doing too much social media.
I mean, he was clearly part of this, uh, YouTube gun, uh, community. And I think the head of that community, you know, was shocked and came out and I'm horrified by it, et cetera, et cetera. But um, there should be questions asked when the theme coming out of this assassination attempt is that people need to tamp down rhetoric.
There should be some legitimate questions asked. Like what was this guy's agenda? Because what has grown in this country since the rise of Trump [01:57:00] and concurrent with the rise of Trump, but in some parts because of Trump, but in some parts simply Trump was delivered because of a rise of this on the right.
Is this notion of a civil war that needs to happen in this country? And I think it's important to note that in the wake of having the first African American president, there was a lot of people who, uh, became angry at what was happening to the white majority in this country. And that anger takes a bunch of, uh, forms.
Some of it is, uh, racialized, much of it, but a lot of it is also becomes like conspiratorial and the idea of a one world order and, you know, Alex Jones, uh, type of territory, which a bunch of these right wingers are drifting into. Or accelerationism, which you hinted at yesterday. You get [01:58:00] organizations like, uh, the, uh, Boogaloo boys.
I think it's really important that we have a lot of people who are out there. Um, and hold sort of a myriad of positions. But all of them end up pointing towards what's going to create sort of a, um, a, a, a civil war and a reckoning that will ultimately bring us some type of, you know, quasi fascist libertarian, uh, paradise.
And so the, these things are all sort of like, you know, loosely connected. Do I think that, uh, that, that, that, that this guy was anything but, um, uh, a lone shooter? No. Um, but do I think it's possible that he was immersed in this sort of like ideology that says, uh, we need to, uh, create some moment where, you know, uh, the, the, uh, the civil war happens?
Yeah. It's possible. I mean, I think the most likely [01:59:00] explanation remains, uh, he was a guy who had suicidal ideation and thought this is going to be the most sort of like consequential thing I can do with my life ever and decided to dedicate the, the, the shorting, you know, the short remainder of his life to that point.
But, uh, These are important things to know because when the narrative is both sides need to calm down their rhetoric what we're doing is covering over a certain reality of what's going on in this country about a right wing Movement in this country That takes multiple forms but one of it is in the form of Peter Thiel and one of its in the form of you know, the Boogaloo boys and the it in in We're going to talk about this in terms of the RNC, but half the people who were involved in the, you know, the [02:00:00] accoutrements of the RNC last night, whether it was like, you know, saying the pledge of allegiance or doing other things, uh, were arraigned for trying to storm the Capitol and convicted for trying to storm the Capitol.
It's a problem. And, and we'll talk about the. The other half of that problem, which is, you know, we've got a guy who's holding on to, uh, who's driving this bus and white knuckled hanging onto the steering wheel and nobody can seem to get them out of the driver's seat. Even though he's careening down the highway.
So we can articulate these, these very real concerns and dangers, obviously. All right, we'll say, uh, just a quick, I ran Paul tweet from 2016. Uh, why do we have a second amendment? It's not to shoot deer. It's to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical. Yeah. I wonder where, where this comes from in the right.
The Conspiracy Theory Election - What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Air Date 7-21-24
Speaker A: In past elections, even very recent ones, social media companies invested deeply in content moderation.
But now, through ownership changes and a series of deliberate [02:01:00] choices, the Internet is a posters paradise.
Speaker B: There was a span of time that was maybe six to eight years, I guess, certainly around 2016 and the years after when the platforms were, they would at least try.
Sometimes they were aggressive, but they would at least try to really moderate content like this.
They would see a bunch of people spamming a certain hashtag or spamming a piece of content or photo, and they would try and moderate it.
They would employ people to watch the trending topics list.
We’ve had a big change in that on the platform level.
There’s been a couple different explanations.
One, you look at Twitter, which is now called X, its owner, Elon Musk.
So he specifically has said, I don’t want to moderate because moderating is against free speech, which is his argument, from my view, from spending hours on this stuff.
X was by far the main platform for people trying to lie to other people.
It was just [02:02:00] loaded with bogus B’s garbage.
There’s even been some research that found 5% of the content about this stuff that was actually wrong, had a note appended to it saying, actually, this was false.
Stuff was just going rampant there totally unchecked.
In the past, Twitter at least feigned to have some moderating capability.
But then you look at somebody like Facebook and Instagram, where they don’t have an Elon musk at the wheel, but they have their own reasons for sort of taking a step back.
The executives feel like, we tried this, it was expensive to moderate.
We were getting yelled at for moderating too much.
We were spending time and resources elevating news content and current events, and nobody liked us for it.
And so now we’re just basically going to sort of wave our, you know, just kind of shrug our shoulders and let it go.
Speaker A: Has that increased post January 6?
Speaker B: It has, [02:03:00] actually.
I mean, so January 6 was a really terrible event.
We saw how much of it was egged on by social media.
We had this Jan.
Six committee in Washington that basically laid out how central social media was to the problems there.
And after that, there were definitely some moves, like taking down QAnon posts and that kind of thing.
But just in the years since, you’ve seen some kind of superficial moves from the platforms, and you kind of do have to distinguish between an ex, where it’s like basically malicious dismissal of a desire for wanting correct content just because of Elon Musk’s personality, and something like meta, where they just feel like logistically, they would rather focus their attention on building audience, getting creators, making something like threads that’s really popular for fashion and celebrity news, but just totally backing off of current events.
And so in the [02:04:00] middle are just kind of normal people who are going onto these platforms and really not getting that moderated environment anymore.
Speaker A: Okay, let’s talk about the powerful people, not all of them named Elon, who were amplifying and in some cases, like, stirring the pot here.
What is going on with your power users who were running with not entirely accurate narratives?
Speaker B: I guess we’ll start with Elon.
I mean, Elon, very quickly after the shooting, said he endorsed Trump.
He was replying and sharing some stuff that was totally not supported.
And in one piece that I can remember, he basically called out the secret service, which, again, was not perfect.
We are still trying to figure out how they messed this up so badly.
But he said either this was just a giant mess up, or it was deliberate and he was starting to give [02:05:00] energy to this growing conspiracy theory that the Secret Service had stood down because they wanted Trump to get hurt.
Basically, he is somebody who has, I don’t know, 180 million followers or something like that.
His posts are basically algorithmically implanted onto everybody’s fees just by the virtue of him owning the joint.
And so everybody was seeing that.
And again, that coupled with the trending topics and with people trying to reply to him, sort of supporting them, it helped really juice that idea.
But beyond Elon.
I mean, on the right, you had, you know, people like Roger Stone, longtime Trump confidant, a big following all of his own.
Like, Trump is big on social media who was not just sort of buying into some of these, you know, conspiracy theories, but actually, like, sharing names.
Like, he gave a specific name and photo of this guy who he said, like, yeah, this is the guy.
This was the shooter.
And he shared a news story that [02:06:00] had the names and photos of these guys who had been, like, they were anti Trump protesters who had been arrested at a rally, like, years ago.
And I don’t know where he got these names from, but of course, they were totally wrong.
I mean, they were totally different from the prison law enforcement has identified.
And yet he was basically summoning a mob to attack these people by name based off nothing.
And for a while, even the name of that misidentified man was trending on Twitter.
But then on the left, I also have to say there’s been a rise of what my colleague Taylor Lorenz called Blue Anon.
These are people who are on left who evoke this conspiratorial view on the news in some of the same ways as QAnon was on the right, where they feel like Trump is also this secret mastermind.
And we’re [02:07:00] buying into a lot of these conspiracy theories and that the media is in on it to take down Biden and that Trump is just really getting one over on us.
And so kind of on that blue and on side, you had a lot of these, I would say, left wing kind of liberal influencers who were sharing a lot of stuff about, again, that this event was staged, that in some ways the media was in on it, that this was all to take attention away or really lock in Trump as not just the nominee, but as, like, the, the president and win the election for him.
And so you just saw a bunch of, like, muck.
It just kind of showed that conspiracy theories are not a single partisan phenomenon.
Anybody can buy into them because, you know, they make us feel good.
Speaker A: Well, there’s also this crossover effect, right?
It is not just fringe people posting wild theories or memes.
Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, [02:08:00] now MSNBC talking head, basically went on tv and questioned the ear wound, where it feels like there’s a, I don’t know, some portal has opened between conspiracy world and real life, and we don’t know how to close it.
Speaker B: Part of this is, you know, there’s a lack of trust in the media.
There’s kind of a questioning among a lot of people in the public that, are we getting the full story?
Is the media paying attention to the things we want them to pay attention to?
Are they asking all the right questions?
They’re being too tough on our side, and both sides, quote unquote, will say that.
And so there’s a finite amount of information about an event like this, and our demand for it in a social media age oftentimes feels infinite.
And so you have people who have these giant platforms who are sometimes influencers or sometimes politicians or celebrities or whatnot, who are seeing all the same [02:09:00] information as us.
They have access to all the same information as us, but they’re perceiving it in different ways, they’re sharing it in different ways, and they’re using their platforms to share just bogus stuff.
And it’s really hard to fact check claims like this, because these conspiracy theories, as we know, I mean, they morph, they evolve over time.
They take on lives of their own to where any new piece of information or news can be either applied to that theory, to kind of, like, give it an extra wrinkle that, again, validates it, or it can just be totally dismissed.
Why people think the Trump shooting was a conspiracy - If You're Listening | ABC News In-depth - Air Date 7-19-24
The little brother of President Kennedy was following developments from his home in Virginia with the CIA director, John McCone. Parkland Hospital has been advised to stand by for a severe gunshot wound.
Bobby Kennedy picked up the phone, listened briefly, and then put it back down. He's dead, said Bobby. The two men sat for a moment, and then went for a walk in the garden. [02:10:00] Bobby's son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was 10 years old. He told Fox News that he saw the two men talking, and heard what they were saying. My father was walking in the yard with John McComb, and my father was posing the same question to him.
Was it our people who did this to my brother? So it was my father's first instinct. That agency had killed his brother. This isn't just a story that RFK Jr. tells, by the way. There are multiple sources indicating that Bobby Kennedy asked the CIA director directly, Did you do this? Now, why would he ask that?
Bobby Kennedy wasn't just like getting the jump on the conspiracy theorists here. He was acutely aware of what the CIA was capable. He had, in fact, personally approved many of their operations and been briefed on many others in his role as attorney general. And once you've heard the details. of some of these operations.
You might also find yourself crafting a fedora out of [02:11:00] tinfoil. The CIA's primary obsession at the time was Cuba. Castro marks the second anniversary of his revolution with the biggest military parade ever staged in Cuba, featuring tanks and other heavy weapons from Russia and Red Czechoslovakia. The US government really didn't like having a heavily armed communist country 90 miles off their coast, and were hellbent on overthrowing the leader, Fidel Castro.
And yet Castro proved very difficult to get rid of. According to the Cubans, he survived more than 600 assassination attempts, including an exploding cigar and other bizarre plots. The Americans sent poisonous pills and cigars to anti communists or to the mafia or to Castro's lovers, with instructions to figure out what to do.
A way to get them into Castro's mouth. They developed a poisoned wetsuit and an explosive seashell. Apparently Castro liked diving. On the day JFK was shot, an American agent was handing a [02:12:00] poisoned pen to a high ranking Cuban official, hoping that it would be used to kill Castro. These things aren't conspiracy theories.
They are real plans that the CIA cooked up. All of the documents have now been declassified. None of these plans worked. Unable to take out the leader, the CIA cooked up a plan to create a pretext for an American invasion of Cuba. Fake a Cuban attack and claim that they were provoked into toppling Castro for America's own safety.
The plan was called Operation Northwoods and it's bonkers. They could blow up a US Navy ship or shoot down a US fighter jet. They could create a fake terrorist campaign in Miami or dress up in Cuban military uniforms and fake an invasion of some other nearby country. They could rig a dummy passenger plane to blow up over Cuba and claim that [02:13:00] Castro had killed American civilians.
It was a plan for a false flag operation to create the pretext for war. We have a bulletin coming in. We now switch you directly to Parkland Hospital. Then The President of the United States is dead. I asked the father, is Mr Kennedy dead, and he's quote, he's dead alright. Denied his agency had anything to do with it.
He was as shocked and confused as anyone else. So who did do it? The Dallas police arrested a suspect and they were pretty confident that he was the right guy. A reclusive, abusive, depressed, narcissistic, ex marine Marxist named Lee Harvey Oswald. He was quite suspicious. He had tried and failed to defect to the Soviet Union.[02:14:00]
He had handed out pamphlets and talked on the radio about his sympathy for Cuba and Castro and had recently applied for a Cuban visa. The CIA has made monumental mistakes. And its relations with Cuba. The F-B-I-C-I-A and KGB all had files on him, but all thought that he was too odd to be either useful or a threat.
Oswald denied any involvement in the assassination of JFK. I don't know what this is all about. I killed a black guy. What time? I'm just a party president. But before anyone could really figure out whether that was true, Oswald was shot. Dead on live TV by a local nightclub owner. The basement floor of the Dallas City Hall, that's a scuffle on the basement floor.
The whole thing stank. Something must be up. You're trying to tell me that a lone crazy guy with connections to the Soviet Union and Cuba [02:15:00] shot the leader of the free world and then was killed in police custody? New President Lyndon Johnson knew that he had to get out ahead of the theories springing up about what happened.
And commissioned the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, to get to the bottom of it. The Chief Justice asked that the work progress as rapidly as possible in the interests of informing the people and uh, anyone throughout the world as to what really happened. While the CIA promised to cooperate fully, they didn't.
At all. See, they had filing cabinets full of pretty questionable stuff. Those plans to assassinate Castro, with Wetsuits and seashells. Operation Northwoods. They really didn't want these to come out. So they gently steered the Warren Commission away from Cuba. Who cares, right? In their eyes, it wasn't relevant.
They couldn't find [02:16:00] any evidence that indicated that Oswald was innocent or part of a conspiracy and the commission was going to find him guilty anyway, so why air all their dirty laundry? They weren't alone though. The FBI and the Secret Service also weren't entirely forthcoming, hoping to cover up mistakes that both agencies had made which led to the assassination.
In the long term though, Oswald's It was a catastrophic mistake. The Warren Commission report was handed down a year after the shooting. The report found that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, had in fact slain President Kennedy. The report became an instant bestseller the world over. The full report, all 26 volumes of it, was 16, 000 pages long.
After its publication, a poll found that between 45 and 50 percent of Americans did still think that it was a conspiracy. The But that was down from 62 percent beforehand. Of course, there were folks out there doing their own research into the [02:17:00] assassination, but not that many. It was hard work without the internet.
Well, I've been at this now for more than three years. I've made many trips to Dallas, nine trips now. But cover ups, particularly ones that involve large groups of people, never hold together for long. While the US government almost certainly didn't cover up evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, they did cover up evidence of all sorts of other things.
With every year that went by, more and more information that was kept from the Warren Commission became public. And with each revelation, belief that the JFK assassination was part of a conspiracy, potentially a CIA conspiracy The CIA's actions a decade ago are a stain on our value and on our history.
Since then, the CIA has covered up all sorts of things. Drone programs, illegal arms sales, mass surveillance On American citizens. Torture. Detainees [02:18:00] being waterboarded. Detainees being hung by their arms for more than two weeks. One detainee was kept awake for more than a week. When you actually are doing illegal or immoral things and lying about it, who is going to believe you when you say that you didn't fake the moon landing, or a terror attack, or a mass shooting at an elementary school, or whatever this is?
I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin frogs gay! And when you've got a reasonably large proportion of your population with that level of distrust in the government, you've got a problem. In the last 20 years, Polls asking people about conspiracy theories have shown an interesting shift.
In a poll done in 40th anniversary of JFK's death, 73 percent of Democrats believed that the assassination was a conspiracy, compared with 58 percent of Republicans. Sort of makes sense. Kennedy was a Democratic president after. But by 2023, on the 60th [02:19:00] anniversary, after all of the classified files on the JFK assassination had been finally released to the public, it had flipped almost exactly.
Now, way more Republicans thought that the government was somehow responsible for JFK's death. That's thanks in large part to one of the most successful conspiracy theorists of all time, Donald Trump. It's really very curious as to what's going on with our president. It started with allegations that Barack Obama wasn't born in America.
Why doesn't he show the birth certificate? Then he said that his 2016 Republican primary opponent Ted Cruz's father was connected to the JFK assassination. His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald being.
But it's gone so much further than that. He's promoted or invented conspiracy theories about his rivals for president, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. He says that climate change is a hoax. It's a hoax. [02:20:00] I mean, it's a money making industry, okay? It's a hoax. He's endorsed conspiracies about Muslims. Latin Americans and Jews.
He said that vaccines cause autism and wind turbines cause cancer. And of course, there's this. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. The biggest conspiracy theory of all, that the 2020 election was stolen from him. This is a major fraud in our nation. We will win this.
And as far as I'm concerned, we already have won it. That conspiracy has had Real world consequences. It's believers stormed the US Capitol, trying to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. The master of calling everything fake news has spread more fake news than possibly any other American. Is it any wonder that when Trump himself was shot last weekend, both Republicans and Democrats immediately reached for conspiracy theories to explain what had happened.
In many [02:21:00] ways, The US government did this to itself. After decades of trying to cover up evidence of unethical government programs, they've created a movement of millions of Americans who only trust Trump, a man who lies. We still don't know what motivated Thomas Matthew Crooks to shoot at Donald Trump, but I'm sure you have a theory.
Credits
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. As always keep the comments coming in. I would love to hear your thoughts or questions about today's topic or anything else. You can leave a voicemail or send us a text at 202-999-3991, or simply email me to [email protected]. The additional sections of the show included clips from Democracy Now!, The New Abnormal, The Rational National, The Brian Lehrer Show, The PBS NewsHour, Al Jazeera English, The Humanist Report, Zeteo, Internet Today, The Majority Report, What Next: TBD, and If You're [02:22:00] Listening. Further details are in the show notes.
Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Clayton for their research work for the show and participation in our bonus episodes. Thanks to our Transcriptionist Quartet—Ken, Brian, Ben, and Andrew—for their volunteer work helping put our transcripts together. Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for all of her work behind the scenes and her bonus show co-hosting. And thanks to those who already support the show by becoming a member or purchasing gift memberships. You can join them by signing up today and get 20% off your membership at bestoftheleft.com/support or through our Patreon page. Membership is how you get instant access to our incredibly good and often funny weekly bonus episodes, in addition to there being no ads and chapter markers in all of our regular episodes, all through your regular podcast player. You'll find that link in the show notes, along with a link to join our Discord community, where you can also continue the discussion.
So, coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington DC, my name is Jay, and this has been the Best of the Left podcast [02:23:00] coming to twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.
