Matt Connarton Unleashed 7-18-23

0:00 M Hey, everybody, welcome, here we go. It is that time

0:48 again. Matt Connerton Unleashed. We are live on this Tuesday afternoon from the

0:53 studios of w m n H ninety five point three FM and Glorious Downtown Manchester,

0:59 New hand. Although it looks like it's it must be starting to rain.

1:03 Yeah, it got very dark out there. I think there's a story

1:07 moving in. I think I probably got here just in time. But it

1:10 is glorious nonetheless. Here from the studios of WMNH, also on Comcast ninety

1:15 seven. If you're in Manchester, and hello to all of our online listeners

1:19 across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my website Matt

1:21 Connerton dot com for all of your live streaming options, social media links,

1:26 contact info, show archives, etc. Etc. Today is Tuesday, July

1:30 eighteen, two thousand twenty three, so nice to have you all with me.

1:36 By the way, a couple of songs I played to open the show

1:38 today. I played a web developer by the band the Jertones, or actually

1:45 it's a duo. I guess technically it's not really a band, right if

1:48 it's only two guys. The Great duo The Jertones, who are here with

1:52 us live in studio a few weeks ago. But I've played that song because

1:55 it popped into my head today as I was doing some some web design stuff.

1:57 I added a new chat box, an AI chat box, to Matt

2:02 Connerton dot com. And I'm excited about it. I mean, it definitely

2:07 works. I installed it correctly. Now it's just a matter of getting it

2:10 to learn, you know, AI. You have to teach it. It

2:15 has to learn things. It's very very interesting. I feel a lot of

2:17 pressure to keep up with all this technology. So so anyways, I thought,

2:23 oh, you know what, I'll play that track web developer. I

2:25 think that's appropriate by the Jeritones, really really fun band. And then we

2:30 also played something from the Parody Project YouTube channel, which Hunt. It says

2:37 here which Hunt is a parody of the Frank Sinatra hit Witchcraft. There you

2:40 go, so and we'll get into that in a moment. There's some some

2:46 legal news regarding the former president, actually quite a bit of it. But

2:52 uh six O three two five O six Z seven is a studio line six

2:54 ZO three two five six Z seven if you would like to join me today

2:59 on the program. Also you can text me at six one seven nine one

3:01 seven four four seven six. I'm on social media at Matt Connerton. You

3:06 can email me Matt at matt Connerton dot com, or you can use the

3:09 new chat box at Matt Connerton dot com. I should see it. I

3:14 should see it during the show. If you choose that option. Of course,

3:17 you can interact endo Pine in the Facebook live chat and we'll sail at

3:22 everybody in there in a moment. But the best thing to do so that

3:23 we can hear and enjoy your dulcet tones is to give us a call at

3:29 six zo three two five zo six z seven six zo three two five zo

3:32 six zero seven. I should probably open the chat box on my browser in

3:37 case anyone does decide to send me a message during the program. I want

3:40 to make sure I can see it. But I won't respond to you in

3:44 the chat box itself. I'll respond to you on the show because I'm,

3:47 you know, in the middle of doing the show. So if you type

3:50 something to me in the chat box, I'll respond to you verbally via the

3:53 radio show. So that'll be uh. Ordinarily, that's not what would happen.

4:00 Ordinarily, you would get a response an automated response via AI in the

4:03 chat box. I'm pretty excited about this. I think it's gonna I hope

4:09 it works. Uh, notifications blocked by your browser. Oh, I need

4:18 to turn on I need to turn on my notifications if I want to actually

4:23 see the allow notifications in your browser. All right, Well, anyway,

4:28 I'll get a notification on my phone regardless. Anyway, if you send me

4:31 something, I'll try to notice six three two five six seven six zo three

4:39 two five six seven. Let's go ahead and say hello everybody in the Facebook

4:42 lap chat, and then we'll get in all this stuff. Kind of a

4:44 big news day. Melanie Liberty from the Great State of Vermont joins us in

4:48 the chat room. Hello Melanie. Also a j fed also from the Great

4:51 State of Vermont, of course, says good afternoon everyone. Jenny is in

4:56 the chat room and says shalom peeps. Eric Street joins us in the chat

5:00 Hello Erica. Eric says, I'm using my radio to listen, just like

5:03 retro spectrum. Nice sound quality, yes, of course, of course.

5:09 Tom Blanchard says, oh good, we're finally getting some rain. Yes,

5:13 I know, it's it's been so dry lately. Yeah, it's been.

5:18 I'll tell you what. Well, you know, we have had We have

5:21 had stretches this summer of no rain. We have had long stretches of just

5:27 hot, dry weather. But then when we do get the rain. We

5:30 had a whole lot of rain in a very short period of time, and

5:33 then we get the flash flooding and whatnot. And it seems like lately there's

5:38 been quite a few instances, although I don't know if I didn't see anything

5:43 about a flash flood warning this afternoon, but the wind is picking up out

5:46 there, and I do believe it's going to uh it might storm somewhat.

5:51 So I'm glad that I got here before the rain began. We should get

5:58 into some stuff, what do you think. Yes, today was a big

6:01 day in legal news for the former president Donald John Trump, both good and

6:10 bad news. The bad news, of course, being that he got a

6:15 received a target letter, and we'll talk about what that is regarding the January

6:19 sixth investigation, which is a little bit of a misnomer, but we'll talk

6:24 about that also. That's the bad news. The good news is he got

6:27 a target letter about the January six investigation. Now why do I say that?

6:30 How is that good news. Well, Trump is in a unique position

6:34 in that as these indictments sort of stack up and as the legal peril that

6:42 he finds himself in begins to grow. Obviously, that's pretty stressful, I

6:46 would imagine. I mean, I've never even been arrested, so I don't

6:49 know what it's like to be indicted for things and being charged with things.

6:55 I don't know how that all goes, But I do know this. Trump

7:01 is in a unique position where as these things happen, it is an incredible

7:05 fundraising opportunity for him. Granted that money ends up being, you know,

7:11 just paid to his legal team, assuming he remembers to pay them, which

7:15 has been a bit of an issue in the past. He doesn't always pay

7:18 people. Rudy Giuliani apparently never got paid, which is why he may very

7:23 well have flipped on his former boss. But we'll leave that aside for the

7:28 moment. But yeah, I mean, it's it's it's good news politically for

7:31 Trump. Of course, we always find out about these things from him.

7:38 For example, if you think back to when the search happened at mar Lago

7:43 for the secret documents, how did we learn about that? Initially? He

7:46 posted on truth social what was going on. You know, the FBI tried

7:50 to keep it relatively low key, so we might not have known about it.

7:54 I mean, we would have found out about it, but we wouldn't

7:56 have necessarily found out about it as quickly as we did had it not been

8:01 for Trump posting about it and bringing it to our attention. But of course

8:05 there is a business motive for doing that. The next day, he raised

8:07 a ton of money. Every time there's a new legal problem for Trump,

8:15 he raises a tremendous amount of money. It's really remarkable. And of course,

8:20 the you know, the fundraising emails go out in a timely fashion,

8:22 and so he's got quite an operation going there. So this is good news

8:26 for him in that sense. Every time something bad happens legally, like a

8:33 target letter, And if you get a target letter, it usually means you're

8:37 definitely, almost definitely about to be indicted. They don't send those just to

8:43 be nice and give you a heads up and say, hey, buddy,

8:46 just want you to know we're kind of looking into some stuff, No,

8:48 they they that's usually a precursor to an indictment almost always, from what I

8:54 understand. Again, I've never I've never been in that situation, or as

9:00 as tiny D might say, of course, Governor Ronda Santis, don't blame

9:05 me for calling him tiny D. That's one of Trump's nicknames for him,

9:09 and that's the one that's my favorite, as well as as tiny D once

9:13 said, I don't know what goes into paying off a porn star anyway.

9:18 So with each bad thing that happens, it has this effect of it.

9:24 I mean, I think he's going to be the Republican nominee anyway. I'd

9:28 say it's probably a ninety eight percent chance, right, But with each bad

9:31 thing that happens, it further cements that he will definitely be the nominee.

9:37 Because the modern Republican Party is become such a cult of personality revolving around Trump,

9:43 this only further solidifies him with the base. Every bad thing that happens,

9:48 he says, they're not after me, they're after us, They're after

9:50 all of us. And and his basse eats it up, and you know,

9:56 they give him more money. It's it's a nice work if you can

9:58 get it. So all of the legal problems they further cement the likelihood that

10:07 he will be the nominee. Yeah, absolutely, will be. I'm quite

10:11 certain of it. But while it makes him a stronger and stronger potential nominee

10:16 for the Republican nomination for the presidency, it also makes him a worse and

10:22 worse general election candidate. I don't think that in a general election when you're

10:28 trying to court independence or swing voters who maybe are not necessarily independence, but

10:35 they don't always vote with their party when you're trying to or maybe even when

10:39 you're trying to court moderate suburban Republicans who maybe aren't so into you. You

10:48 in this case being Donald Trump, having multiple criminal indictments might not be quite

10:56 so helpful. So again, while it does help him in terms of getting

11:01 the nomination and further assures that he will be the nominee, it will hurt

11:05 him in the general election. I mean, it is it's a fascinating time

11:11 to be alive, to say the least. I never in my life would

11:18 have imagined that we would be talking about someone who is on their way to

11:24 being a general election candidate. I mean this time next year, you know,

11:31 they'll they'll be having the Republican convention where he's accepting the nomination, and

11:37 they'll go crazy for him. And there will be a lot of enthusiasm as

11:41 he has multiple criminal indictments, so who knows if any of them will go

11:43 to trial before then. But I mean to say we are living through an

11:50 unprecedented time is an understatement. I mean, we've never seen anything like this.

11:56 I mean, it's it's a neat trick that he's pulled. You know,

12:01 hey, credit, where do I mean? If you're a long time

12:03 listener or perhaps even a newer listener, you've kind of got an idea of

12:07 how I feel about him. But I will say this, he in terms

12:11 of marketing and branding himself, bravo. I don't know who else could have

12:18 maneuvered himself into a position, but it happened very early on. Right,

12:22 he was able to establish this very early on. Remember when he said it's

12:26 it's it's become such a famous quote. Infamous, although I think at this

12:31 point you can say a famous quote back in during the twenty sixteen campaign when

12:33 he said I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose

12:37 a single supporter. That was at the time, you know, figuratively speaking,

12:46 that actually seemed pretty solid, right, you know, I mean,

12:50 my god, he could call he could say John McCain wasn't a war hero

12:54 because he got captured, and you know, people thought, oh my goodness,

13:00 this is going to be the end of him. And it turned out

13:01 no, all of a sudden, most of the Republican Party just said,

13:07 oh, okay, I guess we hate John McCain now. And instead of

13:11 turning against him over that comment, next thing I know, I see all

13:16 these Republicans on Fox News talking about how much they despised John McCain and what

13:20 a horrible person John McCain was, just because because of what Trump said about

13:24 him. So I knew very early on, and I think that was before

13:30 that was probably what led Trump to making that comment about I could shoot somebody

13:33 in the middle of Fifth Avenue if you could say that about the revered and

13:35 respected John McCain. And just by you saying something terrible about John McCain,

13:41 all of a sudden, a large swath of the Republican Party decides, oh,

13:46 yeah, actually we hate John McCain too. Overnight, I mean literally

13:50 overnight. It was incredible. I'd never seen anything like that. So I

13:54 knew very early on he had he had managed to establish just at psychological hold

14:03 over a very large part of the party. So so when he said he

14:09 could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any support,

14:11 he was right. But I think he was more right than people, probably

14:16 even he realized. You know, at the time, I said, yeah,

14:22 figuratively speaking, that's true. Hyperbolically now today, looking back at that

14:28 moment, I would say, that's literally true. He could shoot somebody in

14:33 the middle of Fifth Avenue, and you know, most MAGA people would say,

14:39 well, you know, whoever he shot him, I'm sure they deserved

14:41 it. So so he's in a very unique position. I never would have

14:48 imagined that in American politics we would see anything like this where someone keeps getting

14:54 indicted for things and it actually helps them. His support among Republicans goes up

15:00 in the polls, and he raises more and more money. It's it's really

15:03 astonishing. I just never would have imagined we would see a phenomenon like this

15:07 in American politics. Again, I think it makes him a worse general election

15:11 candidate. I would think people generally aren't excited necessarily about voting for someone with

15:20 multiple criminal indictments. But the way it helps him consolidate support among Republicans is

15:26 really really stunning to me. So well, we'll get into some of the

15:31 details about what happened today in a moment, but I do see some new

15:37 entrance into the Facebook live chat. Let's see. Isaac Banks joins us,

15:41 of course from Greensboro, North Carolina, says good morning, hashtag Matt Connerton.

15:46 Today is my birthday. Well, happy birthday to you. It is

15:50 afternoon and you are in North Carolina, so I believe you're in the same

15:52 time zone. But good afternoon you, Isaac Banks. Isaac Banks says,

15:56 I'm age forty three years old. Hashtag at well very nice, very nice.

16:02 I saw a coffee mug once I think it said on at age it

16:06 said life begins at forty three, which I thought was unusually specific. Jenny

16:11 says, Happy birthday, Cristel. Of course, our friend from the great

16:14 state of Illinois joins us. Melanie says, is that your all time record

16:21 for being alive? Nice job? Yes? Uh, let's see. Crystal

16:29 says happy birthday. Alex Whiteley, one of our friends from the UK,

16:33 joins us and says evening folks, Happy birthday, Isaac Banks. Let's see.

16:42 Isaac Banks says, I was born July eighteenth, nineteen eighty. All

16:47 right, very good, six three two five six seven. The studio line

16:52 is open if you'd like to join us six two five six seven. But

17:00 we'll get into um, we'll get into what's happening today with this target letter.

17:07 There's really two big bits of legal news for Trump. One is the

17:12 target letter and the other is Judge Eileen Cannon today is supposed to be ruling

17:19 on something regarding the schedule for his secret Documents case. It looks like our

17:26 friend, our friend Ron is on the line. Hi, Ron, Hey,

17:30 Matt, how are you doing, buddy good? How are you great?

17:33 Great? Great? Hey, Thanks thanks again for working with my sister

17:37 in law the other day. You know, we didn't get we didn't reach

17:41 what we the goal that we wanted to, but it doesn't mean that it

17:44 was unsuccessful. Ah, So just kudos on that. Thanks for delivering.

17:49 Oh of course, I'm very glad that. I'm very glad that you reached

17:52 out to me. Oh yeah, yeah, I would have yesterday, but

17:56 I don't know what if I fell asleep early or whatever. He's meant too.

18:00 Yeah, yeah, but no, no, no, I mean I

18:03 mean thank you for thank you for reaching out to me to do a session

18:07 with your sister in law. Yeah, definitely, I definitely definitely. You

18:11 know, you responded quickly, and I thought that was awesome. O.

18:14 Well, glad to do it, all right, my friend, Hey go,

18:18 I'm buying me megabuck ticket the top buck or a billion bucks? A

18:23 billion? Is that what you said? A billion with a B. Yeah,

18:26 it was to be. I just bought two of them. And if

18:30 I win, you guys are all get a new furniture in that studio.

18:34 Well, we are going to be moving to a different studio, so I'd

18:37 hold off on that. I'd see what we need at the new place.

18:40 But uh, but so I'll let you go in. I just wanted to

18:44 say, hide a melanie out you. Oh very good? Well all right,

18:48 Ron, okay, Bud, all right, my friend, bye bye

18:49 bye. All right. That was our friend Ron. Yes, I did

18:52 a hypnotherapy session over the weekend with his sister in law. So who is

18:57 who is lovely? By the way, I enjoyed meeting her virtually. We

19:00 did this online but six three two five six seven six three two five six

19:08 z seven if you'd like to join us today, so um CNN dot com

19:12 has this actually let me refresh it in case there's some new information. The

19:17 latest on the Special Council's probe into the into Trump in twenty twenty election aftermath.

19:22 Um oh, Melanie says, uh, why hello, Ron, keep

19:26 those thoughts clean? Oh my goodness. Um. Scott Robinson joins us in

19:33 the Facebook live chat and says Trump doesn't get target letters. He gets target

19:37 letters. I don't get it. Um, feel free to clarify that,

19:44 Scott. I think there's a joke in there, but it's lost on me.

19:49 We have a call. Let's see who's on the line. I think

19:52 I might know who this is. Hi, Welcome to Matt Connerton unleashed.

19:56 Who's this? Hello, Matt? So this is Ye Robinson. Oh,

20:00 the great Jerry Robinson. We love us some Jerry Robinson around here. How

20:06 are you, sir? I really appreciate that match. So listen, I

20:10 just wanted to say that I've been punting into your show, really really love

20:14 exactly what it is you've been doing. You've been bringing up very very very

20:18 good topics that make me think, and of course me as a seventy six

20:22 year old man, um, I do need to think more to keep my

20:26 brain shop. Yes, very important. And take Ginko Beloba I'm told works

20:32 well for brain health. What what was it called? Ginko beloba? Not

20:38 to be confused with what Shaggy says during that song. I can't remember the

20:42 name of it. Yes, Ginko bloba. Oh, excellent, that'd be

20:48 great. Um, So listen, you know things, I just wanted to

20:52 let you know personally things. I'm going very good with the album. I've

20:55 got all your files with setting up studio D now getting my mix to get

21:00 all the music ready. And then of course I know I've told you,

21:03 but I want to tell everyone that we're gonna have a live performance. It's

21:07 going to be a private, private, live performance, of course, and

21:12 we're going to record it and put out not only the album of albums,

21:17 but also a live album as well. Oh, I can't wait. That

21:22 will be amazing, right, it can be fantastic, Matt. So I'm

21:26 really excited. But you know, I just wanted to call in to see

21:30 how you're doing. I haven't I haven't heard anything from Billy. I hope

21:33 he's doing okay and a patronicorn. But I hope you have a great rest

21:38 of your day. All the best, Jerry nice Jerry bye bye. All

21:45 right. That's our friend Jerry Robinson of course from the band, uh,

21:48 Jerry Robinson and the Scumbags. And of course I am credited as the bass

21:52 player on that hit single I'm the Man, Yes, Matts, that's me.

21:57 H wow, I'm really it's it's wonderful to get to work with Jerry.

22:02 A true, a true talent, and uh, you know, I

22:06 mean he's an older guy, but I think he's uh, look, I'm

22:08 just gonna say this. I think his best days are ahead of him.

22:12 I think he's got enormous potential. I think that in terms of not only

22:18 not only do I think he's going to be very famous with the music,

22:22 but I think he's the next Howard Stern. I think he's the next rated

22:26 art comedy star. And he has the seal of approval from my father.

22:30 You know, my dad called in the other day and talked about how much

22:33 he loves Jerry Robinson. I think we all love Jerry Robinson. I know

22:37 one person who's not fond of him, but we don't care about him.

22:40 We don't even talk about that guy. But no, Jerry Robinson truly remarkable,

22:45 truly remarkable by the way, I opened my show yesterday with the song

22:49 suzi Q by Creed Hims, which was a little inside but hopefully Jerry heard

22:56 that. Oh, Scott Robinson clarified the joke. Tarja, he doesn't get

23:00 target letters. He gets targ letters. I guess because he's a fancy you

23:03 know, because he's a billionaire. M oj Fed says, Happy birthday,

23:12 Isaac Banks. It's been your birthday for a month. Is that true?

23:15 Wow? All right six three two five six seven six zo three two five

23:21 O six O seven. If you'd like to join us today, Isaac Banks

23:23 says, how is your dad? Hashtag Matt Connerton. He's good. He's

23:26 good far as far as I know. UM. So here's the latest on

23:33 this. By the way, So when we talk about the thing that I

23:36 wanted to clarify again, it often gets when we're talking about these various cases,

23:42 the various legal issues that the former president is dealing with, um sometimes

23:48 in shorthand we refer to the January sixth investigation, which is really more about

23:56 um uh, not about January sixth specifically, but seems to be from what

24:06 we know about obstruction is what's really being investigated there. Did the former president

24:11 try to obstruct Congress because you know, Congress of course has to certify the

24:15 election. Did they Did Trump obstruct Congress from from doing their job the legislative

24:26 branch. Did the executive branch obstruct the legislative branch would be another way of

24:30 thinking about it, from doing their job certifying the election. Oh, here's

24:34 the rain. I just heard thunder and it is ranting out. Um,

24:41 so here's the latest on this. Let's look at this. Oh, actually,

24:52 well, we've got a couple of things here, Okay. Former President

24:57 Donald Trump said today in a social media post that he's been informed by Special

25:03 Counsel Jack Smith that he is the target of the criminal investigation into efforts to

25:07 overturn the twenty twenty election leading up to the January six, twenty twenty one

25:12 attack on the Capitol. Smith has declined to comment on the letter. A

25:18 target letter from federal prosecutors to Trump makes clear they are focused on Trump's actions

25:22 in the probe, and not just of those around him who tried to stop

25:26 his election loss. The move is a sign Trump may be charged again,

25:30 and by the way, it is most likely these letters do not go out

25:34 unless they are planning to indict Also, I learned something today that I didn't

25:41 realize. I didn't know. I mean, I kind of had an idea

25:45 about this, but I didn't know the statistic is as high as it is,

25:48 more than ninety percent when the Department of Justice brings a case like this,

25:53 More than ninety percent of these federal cases that are brought our actual they

26:00 never go to trial. They result in plea deals where the defendant tries to

26:07 plead out, the reason being they you know, if they do go to

26:15 trial, the government almost always wins. So but what it also means is

26:22 they don't charge unless they think they can win. You know, there is

26:27 such a thing as prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutor just because someone is caught doing something

26:33 illegal and maybe they're maybe they're charged with it, even if it's something very

26:37 serious. If a prosecutor at any level, I don't just mean that the

26:41 DOJ at any level, could be the local prosecutor in your city, could

26:45 be anybody. If a prosecutor doesn't think they can win, they can say,

26:51 well, we're not going to go forward with this case because we don't

26:56 think we can win, or we're not sure that we can win. You

26:59 know, depends on whether or not the prosecutor wants to take the risk.

27:02 You know, they might again, it all depends on the situation and who's

27:07 who the prosecutor is, perhaps who the defendant is. You know, they

27:08 might say, they might say, we think we can win, so this

27:14 is worth prosecuting. They might say it's a long shot, but no one

27:19 is above the law. So even though we think we might very well lose,

27:23 we're going to go through with this. Or they might say, we're

27:27 sure that this defendant is guilty and this is a serious crime, but we

27:33 are not confident that we have enough evidence to convict, so we're going to

27:37 pass. They have the discretion to do that, prosecutorial discretion. But apparently,

27:44 from what I understand from what I've been learning, when the Department of

27:47 Justice charges you, they don't do it unless they really are convinced that they

27:55 can win. And that is why more than nine of these cases, these

28:02 federal cases end in a plea deal, more than nine. Now, I'm

28:07 not suggesting that I think Trump will try to do that. He may not

28:15 want to do that because it might conflict with his brand, so to speak,

28:22 because he's always talking about well, I'm a fighter, and I'm fighting

28:26 for you and we're all in this together, and whatnot. When you take

28:30 a plea deal, that's an admission of guilt in a sense. Now,

28:36 if he does take that option, which I don't think that he will,

28:38 but he could. If he does take that option, takes a plea deal,

28:44 his attorneys might try to convince him that it would be the smart thing

28:47 to do. He will just spin it as well. Look, I had

28:51 to. They're trying to put me in prison, and I need to be

28:55 president again, and I need to do it for all of you again.

28:56 You know, he's very good about doing the inclusion that you know, we're

29:00 all in this together. They're not just after me, They're after all of

29:03 us. And I can't fight for you if I'm in prison. So I

29:06 had to take that plea deal. I remember when Trump was pleading, when

29:10 he started pleading the fifth in a deposition that what was on I can't even

29:18 it's so much to keep track of. I don't even remember which case it

29:22 was now, but there was a deposition for a civil case I think it

29:27 had to be. That was on YouTube, and you know, he pled

29:32 the fifth a lot. Now, Trump famously had previously said anyone who pleads

29:36 the fifth, obviously they're guilty. That was, you know, Trump's own

29:38 words, if you plead the fifth, it means you have something to hide,

29:41 is what he had said. Once he was in a position where he

29:45 felt he had to plead the fifth and did so over and over again during

29:49 that specific deposition. He just spun it as Look, now I understand.

29:56 Now I understand what lengths the government will go to to get me. Now

30:02 I understand why, because the government is so unfair. Now I understand why

30:06 people do it. I didn't realize it before until I was the one in

30:08 the crosshairs. Now I get it. See it's easy for him to do

30:12 that. And you know, and the base that supports him will support him

30:18 no matter what. So you know, he can tell them whatever he wants

30:22 to tell them. Crystal says in the chat, fancy letters? Are they

30:26 engraved on gold bars with diamonds embedded in for extra sparkle? So he pays

30:32 attention to it? I doubt it, I mean I don't I does Trump

30:36 even read these target letters? I mean his lures too, obviously, But

30:41 so a little bit more here again, this is from CNN. A target

30:45 letter from federal prosecutors to Trump made it clear that they are focused on his

30:48 actions in this probe and not just of those around him. The move.

30:55 The move is a sign that he may soon be charged again. Trump slammed

30:59 being a target in the probe today, and the former president said it quote

31:03 almost always means unquote an indictment and arrest is coming next. If that sounds

31:11 familiar. By the way, remember when he was arrested before, when he

31:18 was arrested, was it for the Georgia case. See, I'm having a

31:23 hard time keeping track of it all. Anyway, before, when he thought

31:26 he was being arrested, he announced it ahead of time. He said,

31:30 I'm going to be arrested. Now he announced it about a week before it

31:33 actually happened. I remember he said, I'm going to be arrested on Tuesday,

31:37 And then Tuesday came and went and he didn't get arrested. But then

31:40 I think the following week he was arrested. I mean he went and surrendered.

31:42 You know, they didn't. It's not like the Feds showed up at

31:47 Marlago and put him in cuffs. It says here Trump has already been indicted

31:52 twice this year, in a New York cush money case and in Jack Smith's

31:56 probe and the Trump's smithshandling of classified comments. In a hearing today, the

32:01 judge overseeing the documents case told prosecutors at a mid December trial date would be

32:07 too soon. So that is the other big piece of legal news for Trump

32:15 today. Judge Eileen Cannon, who's you know, been under a bit of

32:21 a microscope because she got slapped down pretty hard for previously kind of putting the

32:27 thumb on the scale for Trump. She has a Trump appointee and the other

32:34 judges on her on the circuit there they they reprimanded her for I don't remember

32:43 the specific details of what the ruling was now, but we might come back

32:46 to that or it might reference at here. But this just happened. This

32:49 was updated nineteen minutes ago, So this just happened because today was the first

32:55 actual hearing in that case. Judge signals she is likely to push back trial

33:00 in Trump classified documents case past mid December. Judge Eileen Cannon signal she is

33:07 likely to push back the start of the trial beyond the mid December date proposed

33:12 by federal prosecutors, but appeared deeply skeptical skeptical of arguments from former President Donald

33:17 Trump's lawyers that he can't get a fair trial while running for president. During

33:22 a hearing in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida, Cannon said a proposal

33:28 from federal prosecutors that the trial of Trump and his aid that's Walt Nada,

33:34 his codefendant, beheld in mid December, was a bit rushed. She told

33:37 prosecutors that their timeline was compressed and said that cases like this take more time.

33:44 Cannon did not decide on a trial date, but said she plans to

33:46 promptly issue an order on the matter. The judge also pressed the Trump legal

33:53 team to commit to a timeline for at least some of the steps in the

33:58 pre trial process that it's attorney's told Cannon they believed they would be able to

34:01 review enough discovery by November to be able to suggest a potential trial date.

34:07 Oh hello to I'm Mike from Queen City Cabinetry, who joins us in the

34:12 Facebook live chat. Queen City Cabinetry one of our great sponsors here at WMH,

34:15 and of course Mike one of our co hosts Friday nights on Retrospectrum Radio

34:21 Now just to remind everyone. Of course, Trump's team they're gonna want to

34:29 drag this out as long as they can because the theory is well, Listen,

34:32 in a perfect world for Trump, all of this, all of these

34:38 various trials get pushed off and delayed, and if they get delayed long enough,

34:47 the best case scenario for Trump, and this is probably a long shot,

34:52 but it's not impossible, and it's not even implausible, if things get

35:00 delayed and delayed and delayed long enough, and he can win election or re

35:07 election because he's not the incumbent, but he has already served one term.

35:12 If he can get back into the White House, a lot of this goes

35:15 away. He can pardon himself. He can tell the Department of Justice dropped

35:21 these cases against me. Now, that won't work for everything, that won't

35:25 work for the Georgia case, and that won't work for Alvin Bragg's case in

35:31 New York, but it will work for the federal cases. He can pardon

35:36 himself in theory never been tested. There is some legal legal disagreement over that

35:42 whether a president has a power, the executive power to parton himself or not.

35:46 But he can make these cases go away, These federal cases and probably

35:54 delay everything else until after his presidency. So that's his best case scenario.

36:02 You know, keep delaying and delaying and delaying until he gets there. Now

36:08 again, you know, he will be the nominee. I'm certain of that

36:13 no matter what. But I do think it'll be very difficult for him to

36:17 you know, unless Biden just really face plants, which could happen, which

36:22 is not outside the realm of possibility, and we might talk about there's also

36:27 another pathway for Trump, which will probably talk about in the second hour,

36:30 because we have not discussed and we don't have a musical guest today. Tomorrow

36:34 we have Wired for Sound on the show, which I'm really looking forward to.

36:37 I've been hearing a lot about that band. But in the second half

36:39 of the show today, I do want to look at this organization No Labels,

36:43 which we've been hearing a lot about. Independent but funded by people with

36:47 a lot of money. This is not a grassroots organization by any stretch.

36:51 But they could play a spoiler and they could siphon enough votes from Biden to

36:55 throw the election to Trump. Trump could very well and it'll it'll be a

37:00 close election no matter what. We don't have landslides anymore. We only have

37:06 close elections when it comes to the presidency. If you think about it,

37:08 Republicans vote for the Republican, Democrats vote for the Democrat. Elections are won

37:15 based on independence and swing voters, so you know it'll be close. It

37:21 is not outside the realm of possibility that that Trump could be could be elected

37:28 in twenty twenty four, and you know a lot of this goes away if

37:35 that happens. So they're going to be trying to delay and delay and delay.

37:39 And then there's also the arguments and the agonizing over can you try a

37:49 presidential candidate? Not? Can you? Legally there's legal questions about and apparently

37:53 it is Department of Justice policy. You do not indict and try a sitting

38:00 president, but can you try a candidate for the presidency, because there's a

38:06 lot of discussion and hand ringing about well, how close to an election is

38:12 too close to have a trial? Now my position personally, and I'm not

38:15 just regardless of what anyone wants to think or accuse me of. I'm not

38:19 just saying this because it's Trump. I would say this about anybody. I

38:22 do not believe that the criminal justice system at any level, in any instance,

38:29 should be making decisions about whether or not to try somebody or when to

38:31 try somebody based on their candidacy for elected office. I do not think that

38:37 should factor into it, just as I say, in a broad sense.

38:45 And to me, it's not a platitude, as I know someone likes to

38:50 tell me, I mean it when I say it that no one is above

38:52 the law. If you start saying start making arguments about, well, you

38:59 know, if someone's running for elected office and it's too close to the too

39:02 close to the election, that it's not really fair to put them on trial

39:06 for something. Well if that's what If that's your argument, Oh, well,

39:10 you know it's only four months to the election, so this person can't

39:14 be tried, then you're you're putting them above the law. We live in

39:20 a country where people argue all the time, or people complain all the time,

39:23 correctly in most cases, about politicians and how they're not honest and how

39:30 very often they're corrupt and they get away with all manner of things. And

39:34 yet people will say that and then in the next breath say, well,

39:37 I don't know if it's appropriate to try a particular candidate. If they're running

39:42 for a particular office, you should at least have the election first, because

39:46 you know, what if what if the trial somehow influences the election? I

39:52 say, well, what if it does? So what So what if you

40:00 are going to argue that you can't try someone who is a candidate for office

40:07 because that might somehow influence the election, Then you're putting your thumb on the

40:12 scale in favor. The criminal justice system is putting its thumb on the scale

40:16 in favor of that candidate and saying they are above the law. They're running

40:21 for office. I mean, to me, it's it's absurd that you would

40:23 do that. So I get I mean, I get very frustrated when I

40:29 hear this stuff again. Not I'm not just talking about this, by the

40:32 way, I'm not just talking about Trump. These these arguments and these considerations

40:37 go on at other levels of government, you know, UH candidates running for

40:44 you know, I'm trying to think of a specific example. I think it's

40:46 probably happened at least once in Illinois, because Illinois they have history of corrupt

40:51 governors. Or Oh, here's here's an example. Ken Paxton, the U

40:57 I think now he's the former UH state attorney general in the state of Texas.

41:04 You know, he was under indictment while running for office, but they

41:09 wouldn't go ahead and try him for anything because they said, well, in

41:14 Texas, they said, we can't actually go forward with a trial while he's

41:19 running for attorney general. Whi's his ironic in and of itself, that's the

41:24 office he's running for, the top law enforcement official in the state of Texas.

41:28 We can't try him for that. He's a candidate. What if it

41:31 influences the election? Well again, what if it does. So what we're

41:38 supposed to show him, which is what happened or they And I'm not in

41:43 Texas. They in Texas, they felt they had to show him extra deference

41:47 because he was a candidate. So we can indict him, but we can't

41:52 actually try him. By the way, though, Ken Paxson is an example

41:58 of how, yes, you can be under indictment and still win and uh

42:05 office. You know, there's there's no there's no laws against that. It's

42:08 it's fascinating. We have laws that say if you're a convicted felon, you

42:15 can't vote. Um, there's no law that says if you're a convicted felon

42:22 you can't hold public office. And Mike Doyle's on the line. Hello,

42:27 hey man, hey, um hey um. I was just waiting for some

42:32 Chinese food here for my wife's birthday, and I was listening to you.

42:38 I was saying to myself, humanitarian wise, what do you think it is

42:42 that makes people want to put a guy like Donald Trump in jail for a

42:46 hundred years. You know, a guy who has a family, a guy

42:51 who did a very narcissistic, very There's a lot of bad to him,

42:54 a lot of negative. Um uh, the traits I guess you would call

43:00 him. But but but three years ago as a president, had this country

43:05 humming before the pandemic, right, I mean just humming, low gyas,

43:10 low inflation, low unemployment, middle East peace troops, raises on and on

43:19 and on, the largest tax cut in history. You just keep going on

43:22 and on. This country was humming, and he tried to do the best

43:25 he could for the country. It doesn't matter that and people hate him so

43:30 much that they think about it they want to put him in jail for one

43:32 hundred years over a box of documents. Now, now I know you're gonna

43:37 say this is not what about is m But you've got you've got strewn boxes

43:43 of tox sepid documents all over the Biden House, by an office, Biden

43:46 library, and he has no legal basis to have those. He's never as

43:52 president. He was vice president and a senator. Ok. Ahead, did

43:57 you want to say something? Yeah? So, um, something right wing

44:00 media has taken and twisted is um. And I think this is what you're

44:04 referring to. I mean, yeah, so obviously a classified document in his

44:07 garage is inappropriate and whatnot. But um, as a senator, he donated

44:13 quite a few boxes. Trump brings it up all the time, something like

44:16 thousands of documents that he donated to a library as a senator, which was

44:22 perfectly legal and appropriate to do and nothing top secret about it. But what

44:28 right wing media consistently does is they take that and they pretend it's something completely

44:34 different, and then it just gets repeated and repeated and repeated. Well,

44:37 no, but people do that. People Obama did it. Clinton did they

44:43 all? They all, when they have a library named after him, they

44:46 all give them documents of things that aren't type secret. They didn't, they

44:52 didn't donate top secret documents to a library in University of Delaware, Right they

44:59 could send documents of him meeting certain PEP stuff that isn't top secret, right,

45:04 I'm just I'm just documents in his garge sitting on a garage floor.

45:09 Well, I don't I don't think it was a box. I thought it

45:10 was a document. But regardless, that's in a country it was. But

45:15 the reason the picture and they home in on it. But I wanted to

45:20 clarify. But I wanted to clarify what you were saying, Mike, because

45:22 and for sorry if I misunderstood, but it sounded like you were going into

45:28 that talking point that I keep hearing in right wing media that is not correct.

45:31 So I wanted to clarify that for the listeners. And if that's not

45:35 what you were doing, it sounded like that's what you were trying to do.

45:38 So I wanted to just clarify that. But if that's not what you're

45:42 trying to do, I apologize. Do you want to see? Do you

45:45 want to see after Joe Biden's done in office? The same theory happened that

45:49 all of a sudden, they say, well he did have top secret domes,

45:52 let's put him away for a hundred years. Mike, I would be

45:53 all Mike, Mike. If after Joe Biden leaves office, if he's caught

45:59 with top secret documents that he's refusing to give back after being asked multiple times

46:04 by the government, and he's caught with nuclear secrets, dude, I will

46:07 be the first one to say, throw his ass in prison. Are you

46:10 kidding me? I will be the first one to say it. Absolutely,

46:16 absolutely, one hundred percent. I don't The Left has gone too far.

46:24 They just keep they want nothing to do with this man. They're gonna ruin

46:28 his life. They're gonna put him in jail. He tried to do the

46:30 best he could for this country. He did get caught up and things he

46:35 shouldn't have said. January sixth was stupid. He thought he really thought the

46:39 election was stolen from him. Probably shouldn't done things he did, all right,

46:46 you know what I mean. But then you're gonna have Donald Trump and

46:49 jail for one hundred years, which is basically his lifetime. You're gonna have

46:52 Joe Biden possibly in jail. It's going to start a whole new precedent that

46:57 we good of fact, good account of ability. Oh, it's gonna start

47:00 a whole new precedent, good that's good. I don't care who it is.

47:06 I don't care what they do for the country. If they engage in

47:08 criminal activity and they get caught after they've been president and they're old, and

47:14 then they're gonna be in prison. Good. I don't care who it is.

47:16 I don't care if it's Trump. I don't care if it's Biden.

47:19 Well, I don't care who it is. But that's not that's not true

47:22 because go back to the list. Clinton had tapes in his suck draw that

47:27 he didn't give over. When when Hillary Clinton had her had her subpoena her

47:32 laptop, she destroyed it. There was a subpoena from Congress. That's illegal.

47:37 You can't do that. Oh enough to see here what she did was

47:42 no big deal. Well, I wonder what, so why, Mike,

47:45 Mike, why is it that? So? What happened then during the Trump

47:49 administration, because one of Trump's campaign promises was I'm gonna put her in prison,

47:53 and he said it so often that he had people at all of his

47:57 rallies chanting, lock her up, lock her up. And he said he

48:00 even said it to her on the debate stage. When I'm president, You're

48:04 going to be in prison. What happened? He had four years to get

48:07 that done. What happened? And why? And what? And what about

48:09 her husband? Why isn't he in prison too? If if you think he

48:12 should be in prison, what happened? These are all documented things. These

48:16 are all I don't know why you're arguing against it. No, No,

48:20 are all documented things. Well, call came out and said, well,

48:25 you know, what she did was wrong, but we don't think it rises

48:30 to the level of you're missing my point. You're missing my point, Mike.

48:36 One of Trump's campaign promises is I'm going to put Hillary Clinton in jail.

48:40 Then he had campaign rallies where everyone believed it. Hell, you might

48:45 have been one of them. You might have. For all I know,

48:45 you might have been in a campaign rally chanting with everybody, lock her up,

48:49 lock her. I don't know. You tell me what happened. I

48:53 don't know. I don't know. I don't know why you're asking. If

48:55 you're not on the inner circle of Donald Trump, Well you're you're you're so

49:00 it's just odd to me that you're so sure that she should be in prison,

49:04 and yet your guy had four years to get it done, which he

49:07 promised he would do. And as soon as he was in office, I

49:10 didn't hear another word from him about locking her up. Did you what happened?

49:15 He was too busy. He was too busy running the country, running

49:19 on a lowest unemployment across the ball. Mike, Mike, you know what,

49:23 when he gets up the Veterans Association, I mean, he did a

49:27 lot for this country, well, Mike, and maybe he'll do more.

49:30 You know what, maybe when he gets back in, if he gets back

49:32 in, maybe he'll go back and get an attorney general who will charge Hillary

49:38 with something and put her in prison. You know, maybe it's just odd

49:43 to me that, you know, it's just weird. Now, she destroyed

49:46 the evidence, so they had evidence, but she destroyed it. So it

49:51 kind of hard to go back and say, hey, we're gonna put you,

49:52 but we have no evidence because you destroyed it. Okay. Well,

49:57 I don't know. I just he'll he'll find he'll find find a way.

50:00 In this country, we're going down a rat hole of trying to crush everybody

50:05 who's supposed to be the leaders of this country and help this country and help

50:07 people. And there's this, there's this attack to just take him down,

50:13 take them down. Two years of Russian collusion, right, you guys said

50:17 into it. You couldn't stop, you couldn't get enough. You always do

50:21 that. No, Nope, that was wrong. You always do that,

50:24 you guys. I don't know why you do that. After all this time,

50:28 you still do that. You guys sped into it. I said,

50:31 I said, you didn't talk about Russian collusion at all on your show.

50:35 Of course I did, and I said right from the beginning, And I

50:37 said right from the beginning that I didn't think Trump himself was personally colluding.

50:43 I said that right from the beginning. We've had this conversation at least somewhere

50:46 between fifteen to twenty times where I've reminded you that I said that from Yoh,

50:52 yes we have, Mike, believe it's been a long time since we've

50:53 had that conversation. But I've I've reminded you, maybe more like ten or

50:59 twelve times, but I've I've reminded you many times that I said that right

51:00 from the beginning. But then you do the you guys thing, which is

51:05 fine, all right, I'm going to officially apologize for that. I mean,

51:08 of course I talked about it. It was in the news. Yeah,

51:12 except right, and it was wrong. It was It was two years

51:15 of Adams Shift standing in front of the camera saying I have physical evidence that

51:21 will take this guy down, and went went to impeachment and didn't bring up

51:27 any evidence, had nothing, but he totally American people. Is that right?

51:30 Is that? Oh? I know that he's a fact. Yeah.

51:31 I think the Democrats really misplayed that. I do. Yeah, and I've

51:37 said that. Come on, I've said that there went over over a phone

51:42 call with sifty people listening in on the call. Yeah, I didn't like

51:45 that call. We're gonna we're gonna impeach him over that? Well, I

51:49 did. Again, they weren't. It's not like they were ever going to

51:52 get a conviction, not with a Republican control. They weren't going to get

51:54 it by the Senate. But I didn't like the don't want to make it

51:58 look bad. I didn't like I didn't like the call. I'm just saying

52:00 that. I wish people would step back and look at the overall and say,

52:05 all of these things they keep throwing at him and nothing sticks, and

52:10 can one person do this much wrong? That was the president of the country

52:15 and tried to do the best for this country, And don't take away he's

52:19 not a narcissist. He's not a he's not I'm the best thing that ever

52:22 lives in slice bread. He's cocky, he's narcissistic. I know all that.

52:28 I just know. I try to separate that from what what he did

52:31 for this country. This is all I'm saying. We were, we were

52:35 rolling, pre pre pandemic. I don't people forget that gas was under two

52:38 bucks a gallon. You know, milk was a dollar ninety nine a gallon

52:43 and things like that. The uh, the inflation rate was one point five

52:46 percent. This country was rolling. You even said it, you said,

52:51 if not for the pandemic, he was probably going to get reelected. Oh

52:53 yeah, I thought so, yeah, yeah yeah. And so now we've

52:58 come this far, they want to he's got a chance to go up again

53:01 for president, try to do it again. And now we're gonna we're gonna

53:05 cut his knees off whatever way we can. And it just it's just ugly

53:08 politics, is all. That's just what I feel. It's ugly politics.

53:13 Yeah, well I completely disagree on that part, as you know. But

53:17 yeah, all right, Well I just wanted to skill my two cents in

53:21 all right, Mike, I appreciate it. Yeah, talk to you later,

53:23 all right, and please tell your wife I said happy birthday. Oh

53:28 thanks, all right, Mike, take care. All right. That was

53:31 Mike Doyle And uh, we're gonna take a break in a minute. I

53:36 think, um, I do want to just finish up on this um because

53:40 I don't think we finished up on the part about Actually I should refresh that

53:45 now, you know what. Actually, let's take a break now because it

53:47 is the top of the hour. We're gonna show some love to our amazing

53:51 sponsors, and then we'll we'll play a little song and then we'll come back

53:57 with the second half of the show because there might be Usually I like to

54:02 move on to a different subject in the second hour, but there might be

54:07 more breaking news coming as we learn more about I don't know, we'll see,

54:14 we'll see, there might be something else about this we need to talk

54:17 about. So let's do this. We're gonna take a break, and then

54:21 our number two is coming up. Welcome back everybody, as we enter our

55:08 number two and numerow dose of Matt Connerton Unleashed, and we are live from

55:14 the studios of wm n H ninety five point three FM and Glorious Downtown Manchester,

55:19 New Hampshire also on Comcast ninety seven. If you're in Manchester and hello

55:22 to all of our online listeners across the nation and around the globe. You

55:25 can go to my website Matt Connerton dot com for all your live streaming options,

55:30 social media links, contact info, show archives, etc. Etc.

55:35 It is Tuesday, July eighteen, twenty twenty three. By the way,

55:38 the song we just heard was mixtape from the band Satellite Union. My friend

55:44 Dave Wally joined us via Skype on Friday from the Great City of Chicago talking

55:50 all about his band, and we kind of caught up a little bit too,

55:52 because Dave and I went to high school together, so it's really been

55:54 cool to reconnect with him and to hear what he's doing. Such great.

55:58 Uh. That might be my favorite song of Satellite Union. I love that

56:01 track. It's so catchy and it's got a I think it's got a certain

56:05 time, it's funny, it's it's like the song itself, I think has

56:08 got a certain timelessness to it and that it could work in any any era.

56:14 I think I said this to him too during our interview, that any

56:17 era that that came out and it would kind of fit. And yet the

56:22 mixtape itself is specific to a certain time, you know, because there's no

56:28 such thing as a mixtape. I guess in theory there could be they still

56:30 make us sets, they still make as set players. You could make a

56:34 mixtape in twenty twenty three, but why would you so? But the mixtape

56:37 itself is something that's of a specific time period. But but the song,

56:43 I think it is timeless, as is their their sound, the sound of

56:46 that band. And so that was really cool getting to talk to Dave on

56:50 Friday. But that's um, Like I said, that's probably my favorite song

56:53 of theirs H. So I figured i'd give that a spin today. You'll

56:57 you'll be hearing that and some of the others from Satellite Union now and then

57:00 on the show. Speaking of musical guests, tomorrow on the show, we

57:04 have the band Wired for Sound, and I think they're joining us in studio

57:07 if I remember correctly, So that will be tomorrow in the second half of

57:12 the program today on the show. If you'd like to join us, see

57:15 studio line is open six Zoo three two five zero six zero seven six Zoo

57:19 three two five zero six zoo seven. You can also text me at six

57:22 one seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm on social media at

57:27 Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt at matt Connerton dot com, and

57:30 of course you can interact end opine in the Facebook live chat. But the

57:35 best thing to do so though you can hear and enjoy our dulcet tones,

57:37 is to give us a call at six zo three two five zero six zo

57:42 seven six three two five six seven. Um, sure enough, Yes,

57:46 there is additional news regarding the subject that we were discussing in the first hour,

57:52 the ever growing list of legal challenges and woes for former President Donald John

57:59 Trump, the president of the United States. He revealed today if you're just

58:05 joining us, or if you haven't caught any of the news, he did

58:07 reveal today that he received a target letter, apparently on Sunday. That a

58:14 target letter meaning yes, we are in fact investigating you regarding the what we

58:21 in shorthand refer to as the January sixth investigation. But it's really more about

58:27 the effort to overturn the twenty twenty election. And there's other aspects of that

58:31 that we haven't even gotten into yet that We're going to touch on in a

58:35 moment regarding the fake electors plot. You know, having these different states present

58:40 electors who would go for Trump instead of Biden, even though Biden carried their

58:45 states, and it's all very insidious and it there's also a growing suspicion that

58:52 Rudy Giuliani has flipped on Trump. He did that proper session with the DJ

58:58 where basically you get to go in and be sort of immune to whatever you

59:02 regarding, whatever you reveal for usually on that one day. You know,

59:07 whatever you tell them, if it's pertinentto the case, you know, you're

59:13 not going to be held accountable yourself, sort of a temporary immunity. Again,

59:19 a lot of this I'm learning about for the first time myself, so

59:22 I'm not a legal expert of any kind. Oh, Abigail Jim joins us

59:28 in the Facebook lave chat. I haven't seen her in there in a while.

59:30 Hello, she says. When I hear the phrase target letter, I

59:32 picture a letter with the Target logo at the top of it, Yes,

59:38 or a flyer perhaps in your Sunday paper advertising the sales at Target. Let's

59:49 see. Well, obviously, you know we did hear from Mike Doyle right

59:52 before the break, and that a lot of comments in the Facebook live chat

59:57 will take a look at those two and get input from everybody. The point

1:00:01 I just want to clarify something though. The point that I was trying to

1:00:04 make to Mike was if if and I would say this, but it's not

1:00:07 directed at him. It's directed at anybody who insists on and it is what

1:00:14 about is in my opinion, you know, when when you're talking about holding

1:00:17 Trump accountable and the response is, now, to Mike's credit, he didn't

1:00:22 bring up Hunter Biden. That's usually what people will do in that case.

1:00:25 But you know when he started talking about Hillary and talking about Bill Clinton and

1:00:30 all this, and you know, again, I would just say, if

1:00:35 you're so sure that they should be in jail, well, why didn't Trump

1:00:39 get that done during his four years? Why did Bill Barr and before him,

1:00:45 Jeff Sessions tell him, well, you know, there's really nothing we

1:00:49 can charge these people with if you're so sure that they could be in prison,

1:00:52 because that is something Trump promised, is it not? And I guess

1:00:55 you can say, oh, well, he was too busy running the country.

1:00:58 Well then why did he promise that? Why did he promise that he

1:01:00 was going to lock her up. That literally was the chant. You could

1:01:02 go to any Trump rally and everybody would chant there were two things, build

1:01:07 that wall and lock her up, and everyone would chant that. Okay,

1:01:09 So what happened? He's just too busy. I mean, that was one

1:01:14 of his key campaign promises, right, But anyway, that was the point

1:01:19 that I was trying to make about that, Alex Whiteley said in the chat

1:01:23 room, we'll I want to look at the comments and then we'll get to

1:01:27 some more news regarding all the legal news of it's it's been a big legal

1:01:32 in the world of MAGA. It's been a big day in terms of legal

1:01:37 stuff legal news today. So we'll pivot back to that in a moment.

1:01:42 But Alex Whiteley said in the chat room, have you ever met a politician

1:01:45 that is actually out there to do good? I have, and it's so

1:01:47 disarming. They are rare, but they do exist. I actually think,

1:01:52 Alex, I think most people who get into politics, I think they do

1:01:55 want to do good. Because when you first get into politics, you start

1:02:04 out locally, usually right, unless for some reason, you have a lot

1:02:08 of money behind you and you can shoot for higher office. But most people

1:02:12 start out locally in their city or town, and I think they do want

1:02:15 to do good because it's kind of a thankless job at that level, right,

1:02:22 and once you have to go through to run and win. But I

1:02:27 think that what happens is, you know, we have a system where so

1:02:32 for example, if you want to talk about and this is true anywhere,

1:02:36 of course this is true where you are alex but just to use an example

1:02:40 here in America, if say it's federal office, say you are elected to

1:02:47 become a senator, it becomes at a certain point, it becomes much more

1:02:52 about not just once you're in power, how do you keep that power?

1:02:59 And it's no secret that, for example, United States senators, I've heard

1:03:07 many of them even acknowledge this over the years that sometimes half or more than

1:03:13 half of their time is spent fundraising. In other words, you get elected

1:03:19 and then all of your time in office ultimately is about getting reelected doing things

1:03:25 that are going to get you. If you're a senator that are going to

1:03:28 get you another term at the end of that six years, you spend that

1:03:32 six years trying to make sure that you get another six years. Or if

1:03:36 you're a congressman, you spend that two years trying to make sure you get

1:03:38 another two years. Or if you're a governor, you spend that four years

1:03:42 trying to make sure you get another four years. Or here in New Hampshire

1:03:45 it's only two years. I think New Hampshire and Vermont I think we're the

1:03:47 only states in the country that still have to your gubernatorial terms. But everywhere

1:03:52 else it's four you know. Or if you're a president and you're in your

1:03:55 first term, you spend that four years trying to make sure you get another

1:03:58 four I think that's what happens. I think, and I don't even know

1:04:03 quite what to do about it. People say, while get the money out

1:04:06 of politics, but I think the real problem is human nature. You know.

1:04:12 I almost hate to say it because it's such a tired and somewhat worn

1:04:15 out cliche, but I think it holds up only because it happens to be

1:04:19 so horribly true that absolute power corrupts absolutely and people get power and then it

1:04:29 becomes about keeping that power. So I do think. I do think when

1:04:33 people start out as politicians, they do want to do good. I think,

1:04:38 probably in other words, as somebody running for say, you know,

1:04:42 city council in Berwick, Maine or something. You know. I don't think

1:04:47 they're doing it because they're thinking, Oh, that's going to be I really

1:04:51 want that power, you know. I don't think at that level that's why

1:04:55 you do it. But I think it becomes that as you ascend the political

1:04:59 ladder, it becomes more learn more about that and I think that's what happens.

1:05:03 And and by the way, I think that there are people who do

1:05:06 ascend the ladder who continue to want to do good on some level to some

1:05:13 degree, but that will ultimately have to become second priority to the first priority,

1:05:17 which is to remain in power. And I would imagine too, the

1:05:23 psychology of it is interesting to me. I would imagine that there comes a

1:05:28 point where professional politicians, as they're trying to remain in power, they probably

1:05:35 convinced themselves that the ends justify the means in some points where, you know,

1:05:43 especially if they're doing things that maybe aren't quite on the up and up

1:05:45 in terms of fundraising and campaign finance. I mean, we have campaign finance

1:05:49 laws, but a lot of them aren't really worth a dam because it's easy

1:05:53 to work around them. I would imagine that there's a point that a lot

1:05:56 of politicians get to where the ends justify the means, and they'll do things

1:06:00 that maybe are outside the bounds of what might be considered ethical or that most

1:06:03 people would approve of, or it might even be within the law but not

1:06:08 necessarily within ethical bounds by the average person's standards. But they get to a

1:06:15 point where they say, well, I have to do this to remain in

1:06:16 power, because if I don't remain in power, somebody else is going to

1:06:20 be in this seat and they're going to do bad things. I want to

1:06:25 remain in power to do good things. And it becomes a cycle. It's

1:06:29 like, well, I have to remain in power so I can continue to

1:06:31 do good, but remaining in power has to be the first priority, because

1:06:38 if I only worry about doing good but I don't worry about remaining in power,

1:06:42 then the good that I get to do will end at the end of

1:06:45 this term because I'm going to lose the election if I don't focus on first

1:06:49 on remaining in power. And again, I don't know what to do about

1:06:54 that. Like I said, people say, get money out of politics.

1:06:56 I don't think. I don't think the money itself is the problem. I

1:07:00 think human nature is the problem. I almost hate saying that because it sounds

1:07:03 so horribly cynical, but I do think that is I do think that is

1:07:08 the truth. And Mike is calling us back. Hey Mike, hey,

1:07:14 hey, sorry, just on the subject you were just talking about real quick.

1:07:16 Yeah. You know how you prove what you were saying is correct is

1:07:20 look at the votes in Congress and in the Senate where a vote comes up

1:07:25 for something to do with the common the common man, and you've got every

1:07:29 Senator voting one way and every senttor on the other side voting the other way,

1:07:32 or every Congressman voting one side and every just about every Congressman voting the

1:07:38 other. That tells you that the system is broken, do you know what

1:07:42 I mean? There's not one There's not one Democrats senator who thinks, you

1:07:47 know, maybe that's what they're doing is best for my state. I'm gonna

1:07:51 go, I'm gonna vote. But that's just not how it works in politics.

1:07:55 It's pretty much party line voting most of most of the time. I

1:07:59 think that's the day in line and stay stay with the with the good people

1:08:03 on that side so they can get reelected. Yeah, well, I do

1:08:06 loathe our two party system absolutely that. Yeah, And I always said there

1:08:14 should be three presidents, not one. An expert in foreign policy, an

1:08:17 expert in the United States policy, and an expert in health or something.

1:08:24 And for every decision they want to sign an executive order, two out of

1:08:28 three have to okay it. Yeah, it's an interesting job for one man

1:08:31 is just too much. It's just, you know, as we're seeing now,

1:08:35 especially somebody elderly, it's a tough it's a tough sled for for a

1:08:40 guy like Biden's old showing just showed signs of age. I'm not going to

1:08:44 say cognitive or anything, but just he's definitely showing signs of age. And

1:08:48 we all know. You know, you go to the picnic and you speak

1:08:50 to you you see your uncle Joe, who's who's eighty and he's sitting in

1:08:55 a chair and you go over and talk to him. You know, he's

1:08:58 in and out a little bit. This some you know what I mean?

1:09:00 Did you what did you say? Hey? Wait? You know, so

1:09:03 to have a guy president at eighty or eighty four is is is another thing.

1:09:10 But anyways, I was just our system is so broken. It it

1:09:13 sucks and you know who gets hurt the common person. Oh yeah, oh

1:09:16 absolutely, you know we're the ones that don't get you know what I mean.

1:09:19 I'm not, I'm not. I'm not saying this personal. But somebody

1:09:25 like our our guy, our representatives, the guy from the back room.

1:09:30 I can't think of his name right now, and I apologize, Chris Chris

1:09:34 Pappish. You know, he's there to represent New Hampshire and his vote was

1:09:41 people are saying somewhere in the high nineties of voting whatever Nancy Pelosi put up

1:09:45 and said, I want you to vote for. Does Nancy Pelosi have New

1:09:49 Hampshire's best interest in mine? Probably not, be can't even her only district

1:09:54 of San Francisco, that's her one district. Do you think about that?

1:09:58 And she's the third most powerful person at the we're in the world two years

1:10:00 ago and she can't even get San Francisco straightened out. So wow, just

1:10:05 it just we just need we need a new system somehow. I don't know

1:10:09 what it is, no party, three party something, but let's let's figure

1:10:14 it out and do it's best for everybody right right now anyways, sounds wishful

1:10:18 thinking, I know. Yeah, it's hard to change the system, that's

1:10:23 for sure. Yeah, I'll calculate, all right. Thanks, thanks for

1:10:27 the call, Mike. All right, very good. That was our friend

1:10:30 Mike Doyle. And that does open up the line for you. Six zo

1:10:32 three two five six zero seven six three two five six seven. Abigail Jem

1:10:36 says in the chat room, I was thinking the same thing, She says,

1:10:40 one person, not one man. No, I agree, Abigail.

1:10:44 Um. I suspect though, And I don't think Mike meant just in Mike's

1:10:49 defense, so, I don't think he meant anything sexist. I think I

1:10:53 think it's just that. Um. I think it's probably habit because we've only

1:10:57 had male presidents so far, So I don't I don't think he meant I

1:11:01 don't think he meant anything by that. I had the same thought. But

1:11:04 I you know, I'm probably guilty of doing that myself at one point or

1:11:08 another, just because we've only had men so far, so it becomes sort

1:11:12 of subconsciously ingrained. But we have a call. Hi, welcome to Matt

1:11:15 Connerton unleashed. Is this Hey? Was that Mike calling? Oh it's Louis.

1:11:23 Yes, that was Mike Doyle on the line that Mike from the J

1:11:26 six committee. Anyway, he made a very good point. Is his expertise

1:11:30 slides in horses, But he made a good point. It is a job

1:11:33 that's too much for one man. What we need is one woman. There

1:11:39 you go, a woman to run this country. Well we almost had one,

1:11:44 but that didn't quite pan out. Um no, no. But when

1:11:48 we have a woman in charge, when men can step back a little bit,

1:11:55 that's when we'll have real leadership, real empathy, real understanding, universal

1:12:02 healthcare. We got to realize life is so short, yes, and we

1:12:08 just can't have this life of the people with a high gun in Bradstreet rating,

1:12:13 everyone counts. Everyone agreed, agreed very well, said Louis. Yes,

1:12:19 I'm all instead of the halves and the have nots. Right now we

1:12:25 have the halves and haven't got a shot. We got to level the playing

1:12:30 field. And the only gender capable of doing that is a woman. Now,

1:12:36 why do you why do you say that? Do you think do you

1:12:39 think women are more Do you think women are more pragmatic? Do you think

1:12:42 women are just generally pragmatic has nothing to do it. I like the word,

1:12:46 but pragmatic has to do a lot with logic. Women are not born

1:12:51 with the chemical and balance of testosterone. You know, I like the word

1:12:57 pragmatic, but women can think outside the box. A woman does twelve things.

1:13:02 A man is trying out how to figure out two. They're very good

1:13:06 for taking out the trash. They're very good for fixing a plat tire.

1:13:11 But men are the inferior gender. It is time for a female, just

1:13:15 like it's time for a female to run the state of New Hampshire. Joyce

1:13:20 Craig is the perfect person to be governor of New Hampshire. Well, we

1:13:27 have had, we have had a female governor before Maggie Howson was governor.

1:13:31 Ye shaheen. I don't need, but we need now in these times,

1:13:36 someone that can see the whole picture. We don't need people saying they're gonna

1:13:44 sign legislation for cannabis and then when it comes across his desk, we need

1:13:48 to open you know, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New

1:13:55 York, Alaska, California. Is everyone wrong in New hamps right, No

1:14:00 pun intended. I've always thought it's strange that our motto has lived free or

1:14:06 die, and yet we can't seem to legalize cannabis here they don't want to

1:14:12 legalize cannabis because they're they're afraid they're cash cow selling booze on the highway and

1:14:17 then saying don't drink and drive. What they don't realize when you're having a

1:14:23 little Hennessy, you can take a puff, right, Jenny points out in

1:14:30 the chat room too. They advertise here, you know, like like Massachusetts,

1:14:34 they'll actually advertise, you know, dispensaries and so forth. Here,

1:14:38 although we have dispensaries you can get where you can get medical cannabis. But

1:14:42 Massachusetts actually advertise, you know, because there it's fully illegal cannabis products.

1:14:47 Here, we've been legal in California since nineteen ninety six for medical reasons.

1:14:54 That's twenty seven years for an old guy like me that can even add what

1:14:58 is New Hampshire? Wait that New Hampshire should change the name of the state

1:15:03 to New Hampshire and they should have a strain called New Hampshire's Finest. It's

1:15:10 time to legalize week. No one died smoke in a bone. All these

1:15:15 people die in a fetnel, that is true. No one's ever died from

1:15:19 cannabis, that is that is true. Louis, I agree that was a

1:15:25 guy named Dylan that sang a song everyone must get Stone. It isn't the

1:15:30 end of the world. Yeah, I mean yeah, I've always well,

1:15:34 I oppose the drug war in a broad sense anyway, but it is it's

1:15:40 pretty remarkable. You know, we live in a country where we've got I

1:15:44 don't know how many millions of people are in prison for low level drug offenses.

1:15:48 Meanwhile, we have all these states that have fully legalized it. I

1:15:54 don't know why we're not letting people out of prison. Cannabis is not a

1:15:58 drug. It's a plane, it it's a flower. It's a medicine.

1:16:03 Yeah, that's uh, that's how I see it. I mean I don't.

1:16:06 I don't use it personally. It doesn't doesn't go well for me when

1:16:10 I have tried it. So but but absolutely, many many people do use

1:16:15 it for medicine, and it's certainly not something you know, even if I

1:16:18 think if you pull people, even if you pull people who don't necessarily agree

1:16:23 with using it or approve of it, if you ask them, well,

1:16:26 do you think we should be throwing people in prison for it, They'll tell

1:16:29 you no, no, we should not. Anyone that hasn't used it hasn't

1:16:33 tried it well. I think that's probably literally true. Yes, Sativa in

1:16:43 all the different strains gummies to help people with medical problems to go to sleep,

1:16:48 have anxiety depression PTSD. What is New Hampshire waiting for? We should

1:16:56 clarify though it is. It is legal here for medical use, and it

1:17:00 is decriminalized. We just can't seem to get to full legalization here, even

1:17:03 though we're surrounded by states and Canada where it is in fact fully legal.

1:17:11 God bless America. Joyce Craig for governor the State of New Hampshire. And

1:17:16 the only way that this country can have some semblance of order is to elect

1:17:23 a woman president of the United States of America. I like it. I

1:17:29 like it. Louis, all right, have a nice afternoon, and the

1:17:33 show as great as always, and Mike his input is always fantastic. But

1:17:38 once again tomorrow they'll be racing at Saratoga and that's where his expertise were.

1:17:44 All right, very good, all right, Louis, thank you for the

1:17:46 call. All right, we haven't heard from Louis Angelius. I think is

1:17:50 hey, you say his name now. We haven't heard from him in a

1:17:53 long time, so that that was a cool surprise, six two five or

1:17:57 six O seven is a number if you'd like to join us. Six three

1:18:00 two five six seven. I and, uh, that was quite quite a

1:18:02 dose of feminism there, I do think. Um. By the way,

1:18:06 his point though about uh testosterone, Um, I I have wondered about that

1:18:14 myself. If if um, you know, because well just as an example,

1:18:19 so, um, you don't hear about nearly as much nearly as many

1:18:26 road rage incidents with women as you do with men. Why is it so

1:18:30 much more prevalent with men? Because we have testosterone, We you know,

1:18:34 we lose our tempers. I mean, not me, I'm not a road

1:18:38 rage guy, but I'm just saying broadly. You know. Um, A

1:18:41 lot of people say there'd be less war if women ran the world instead of

1:18:45 men, because as men were driven by testosterone and ego, I think generally

1:18:49 much more than women. So um, Melanie says, I disagree that was

1:18:57 feminism. Well, I don't want to get into a whole I mean,

1:18:59 we yeah, I thought it was. I thought, I don't know,

1:19:05 there's different, like anything, there's different ideologically, there's different kinds of different

1:19:14 kinds of feminism. They I mean, you can go on YouTube and find

1:19:16 podcasts of people arguing over what feminism is or isn't. But but you know

1:19:24 more about feminism than I do because you're an actual female, So I defer

1:19:28 to you. But I did think it was I did think what Louis said

1:19:31 was quite enlightened. I'll put it that way. Let's see some more.

1:19:39 Like I said, there were a lot of comments in the chat room while

1:19:42 Mike Doyle was on the line the first time. Melanie says, but Matt,

1:19:45 Democrats read documents in the bathroom all the time. That's all Trump was

1:19:48 doing with those pathroom files. Our Dell five joins us in the chatroom and

1:19:54 says, we say that we are a pop singing group quartet and we are

1:19:58 from Greensboro, North Carolina. Helenie says, in all caps, butter emails,

1:20:05 Matt our Dell five says, Trump Trump to Trump, we what's he

1:20:13 up to? Of the ex President Trump? I'm not sure I quite understand

1:20:16 the question, our Dell five, but I appreciate the input. Jenny says,

1:20:19 even if everything he is saying is true regarding Mike's defense of Trump,

1:20:24 what does that have to do with Trump having military movement maps and nuclear information?

1:20:29 All of it. He even said so on tape. Yeah, Well

1:20:34 that's the thing. I mean, even if the guy, even if the

1:20:36 guy walked on water, that doesn't excuse trying to illegally overturn an election,

1:20:45 taking secret documents, refusing to give them back, which is an obstruction of

1:20:50 justice, and so forth. You know, you can you can do.

1:20:57 You can do a lot of good things and still be a criminal. To

1:21:00 be very blunt about it, and I don't think that just because you did

1:21:03 some things that some people like, that that excuses the or criminality, or

1:21:09 that we should just ignore it or just say, well, what about this

1:21:13 other person who did something bad? See. The problem with what about ism

1:21:16 is that if you if you take what about ism and you follow it through

1:21:19 by the way, I don't. I can't think of another example of where

1:21:24 someone has taken documents of nuclear secrets and then refuse to give them back and

1:21:30 actually had an attorney sign an ALFI David saying oh we gave everything back when

1:21:33 we actually didn't know all that. I can't think of anything on the scale

1:21:36 of what Trump is accused of. Allegedly, he is entitled to the presumption

1:21:42 of innocence until proven guilty. But I can't think of anything on that scale

1:21:45 ever. First of all, but the problem with what about ism is if

1:21:51 you follow it through to its natural logical conclusion, the conclusion that you must

1:21:58 arrive at if you do follow it all the way through, is that actually,

1:22:01 no one can ever be held accountable for anything if if you're really going

1:22:05 to follow it all the way through logically, because apparently you can't hold anybody

1:22:11 you don't like accountable. You have no right to hold someone you don't like

1:22:14 accountable for something because someone you do like they might have also done something bad.

1:22:19 And the example that I like to use is imagine you're you're sitting on

1:22:23 a jury in a murder trial, and it looks pretty bad for the defendant,

1:22:30 but you're one of the jurors. At during the closing arguments, the

1:22:33 defense attorney gets up and says, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I

1:22:39 realize it looks really bad for my client, and you're probably convinced that my

1:22:45 client committed this murder. But let me ask you this, what about all

1:22:49 the other people who committed murder? I don't see you sitting in judgment of

1:22:54 them. Hey, and one of those people that might be someone you like.

1:23:00 Oh, but you're sitting here in judgment of my client, you know,

1:23:02 I mean, come on, you can't just it doesn't work that way.

1:23:06 Accountability doesn't work that way. So you know, we either hold people

1:23:11 accountable and I'm sorry if some slip through and you're not happy about it.

1:23:15 But even if that argument is true and that someone is being selectively targeted or

1:23:21 prosecuted, even if it's true, or even if it's true that there's more

1:23:29 than one standard of justice and you feel that an unfair standard of justice is

1:23:33 being applied to a particular individual, I can't imagine why anyone would believe that

1:23:42 that means that you should just have no standard, just just have no standard.

1:23:47 Then just let it be a free for all and anybody can do whatever

1:23:50 they want to and engage in whatever criminal activity they want to, and as

1:23:56 long as somebody thinks they did a good job, then you just have to

1:23:59 give them a pass on everything. I mean, it's you know, and

1:24:02 of course it's purely partisan. And I meant what I said. You know,

1:24:06 if if that were Joe Biden or anybody else, you know, yeah,

1:24:11 you hold them to the same standard. Absolutely. I don't want anyone

1:24:15 stealing nuclear secrets. I don't want anyone's scheming to overturn an election trying to

1:24:21 take my vote away. I don't want anyone sitting in a dining room off

1:24:30 of the Oval Office, watching on television while our capital is being overrun and

1:24:36 just sitting there watching it on television for a couple of hours. Because the

1:24:41 people overrunning the Capitol are people who like the person sitting there in the dining

1:24:45 room next to the Oval Office having a sandwich or whatever. You know,

1:24:50 I don't I don't want anybody doing that, regardless of how I feel about

1:24:57 them, and anyone who does do that, they should be all accountable my

1:25:00 opinion. Scott Robinson says, Oh, maybe he'll finally get Mexico to write

1:25:06 that check regarding if Trump is If Trump does get back in, Jenny says

1:25:15 Mike has a chronic case of what about is him? Melanie says, I

1:25:18 bet he would have had time to follow up if he shut Fox News off?

1:25:25 Well, Mike says he. Mike says he watches CNN as well.

1:25:30 Melanie says, it's just so fascinating that he allows no space for what if

1:25:34 the charges are appropriate? What if he actually did these things. Well,

1:25:39 I think he was making the argument that it doesn't matter because he thinks Trump

1:25:44 Trump did a good job for the country. I think that, at least

1:25:45 that's what it sounded like was his argument. I don't want to speak for

1:25:48 him, but that was my perception of his argument. It doesn't matter what

1:25:51 Trump, if Trump did anything wrong, because he feels that he did a

1:25:55 good job for the country, so therefore it's not fair to hold him accountable

1:26:00 for any of these things, whether he did them or not. That's what

1:26:03 I got from that. At least, Crystal says our friend from Illinois,

1:26:10 this is a regarding James Comy because Mike did bring up James Comy. Crystal

1:26:15 says Comy should be in jail for theft of government property that he gave to

1:26:18 his college pal. The information in Comy's belonged to the government. Doesn't matter

1:26:25 if it was Comy's notebook. Confidential information is still confidential, regardless of what

1:26:30 is it is written on. I'd forgot about that. Actually, Yeah,

1:26:33 when Comy leaked I don't remember all the details of that exactly, but Comy

1:26:38 leaked something that to his h yeah, somebody from college, and it was

1:26:45 very strange. I don't remember exactly what it what all the details of that

1:26:49 were, but I remember being troubled by it, like, no, that

1:26:51 doesn't sound that doesn't sound right to me. Ardell five says we are going

1:27:00 to be an opening act for fun is Porsche Eplay a pop singing girl group.

1:27:05 Oh, we're going to have people support us hashtag Matt Connerton. Well,

1:27:11 very good, very good. All right, So we do have a

1:27:13 little bit more on today's events. If you're just joining us, We've been

1:27:19 talking about Trump's the illegal developments in Trump world today. Oh hello to uh

1:27:28 Chris from the band Edgewise, who joins us in the Facebook life chat.

1:27:30 Hello, sir. Probably there's something else I wanted to get to, but

1:27:42 we'll probably have to save that for tomorrow. Um. They they left the

1:27:55 The hearing concluded that Judge Eileen Cannon was presiding over, so I wanted to

1:28:02 look at that. But there was also something about the fake Electors plot scheme,

1:28:09 which is part of the Jan six probe, which is again really about

1:28:13 trying to overturn the election. Yes, let's see there's a okay. Trump's

1:28:25 lawyers decline to answer questions after hearing and classified documents case. So this we

1:28:31 were talking about earlier too. This is the other bit of news today,

1:28:34 Judge Eileen Cannon. They had a hearing about potentially when the trial will actually

1:28:42 begin. Says here Donald Trump's lawyers decline to answer questions about the target letter

1:28:45 from Special counsel Jack Smith and about today's hearing in the Marlago classified documents case

1:28:51 while leaving a courtroom in Florida. The hearing in federal court in Fort Pierce

1:28:55 lasted less than two hours. Neither Trump nor special counsel Jack Smith attended the

1:29:00 hearing, but the former president's aid and codefendant, Walt Nada, was there.

1:29:05 Nada appeared attentive and spoke only once in open court, saying quote,

1:29:10 good afternoon, your honor, at the start of the hearing. Not as

1:29:13 attorneys also declined to comment as they were leaving the courthouse. Now, the

1:29:19 other thing though, okay, this is this just happened while we were on

1:29:25 the air. Michigan Attorney General charges sixteen participants in the twenty twenty fake elector

1:29:33 plot. Now this was going on in multiple states, by the way,

1:29:36 where they had fake electors who were going to present themselves, who were trying

1:29:41 to present themselves and even signed actual documents claiming to be the official legal electors,

1:29:48 and they were supposed to when the Electoral College would meet, they were

1:29:54 going to say our state, we as electors representing our state, we go

1:29:58 for Trump, even though that state had gone for Biden, Michigan being one

1:30:02 of the states where this was going on. So this is a very important

1:30:08 part of this whole attempt to overturn the twenty twenty election. Sixteen fake collectors

1:30:15 who signed certificates falsely claiming President Donald Trump won Michigan in twenty twenty election have

1:30:23 been charged with crimes. State Attorney General Dana Nessel announced today. So again

1:30:28 this happened while we were on the air of this announcement. The charged individuals

1:30:31 are Kathy Burden, a Republican National Committee woman from Michigan, William Chote,

1:30:38 Amy that Chanello, Clifford Frost, Stanley Grott, those a whole bunch of

1:30:45 names here. It doesn't matter. I don't know who any of these people

1:30:46 are. All sixteen individuals were charged with multiple felonies quote for their role in

1:30:54 the alleged false electors scheme following the twenty twenty US presidential election, Nessel's office

1:31:00 announced. The counts include one count of conspiracy to commit forgery, two counts

1:31:06 of forgery, one count of conspiracy to commit uttering and publishing, and one

1:31:13 count of uttering and publishing, all of which carry a maximum of fourteen years

1:31:17 in prison, as well as one count of conspiracy to commit election law forgery

1:31:23 and two counts of election law forgery, which carry a maximum of five years

1:31:28 in prison. Okay. The statement from Nessel said this quote. The false

1:31:32 elector's actions undermined the public's faith in the integrity of our elections, and we

1:31:38 believe also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan.

1:31:45 My department has prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and

1:31:49 it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here

1:31:55 in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast

1:32:00 outs of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election. That was from her

1:32:05 statement. Michigan was one of the seven battleground states where the Trump campaign put

1:32:13 forward slates of fake electors as part of their plan to undermine the Electoral College

1:32:18 process and potentially disrupt Congress's certification of the twenty twenty election results on January six,

1:32:26 twenty twenty one. Yeah, because part of how I think this would

1:32:29 work too, is if if they could have gotten Vice President Mike Pence to

1:32:36 say, I reject I reject these electors from this state, and we're going

1:32:49 to send I'm not going to I'm not going to accept this certificate from this

1:32:58 state because I reject these electors. Then that gets sent back to the state,

1:33:03 and then the state puts up presents these new electors who are representing Trump,

1:33:13 and then that's you know, that was one of the ideas, apparently

1:33:15 one of the schemes that they were going to try to use. And then

1:33:23 if they could do that in enough states, that would tip the election to

1:33:26 Trump. There's a little more to this. The sixteen fake GOP electors from

1:33:33 Michigan met in Lansing on December fourteen, twenty twenty, and signed certificates falsely

1:33:40 proclaiming that Trump won the state and they were the rightful electors. They were

1:33:45 rebuffed by police when they tried to enter the state House to deliver the papers.

1:33:49 According to videos of the interaction, which took place while the real group

1:33:54 of Democratic electors were meeting inside the building. President Joe Biden defeated Trump by

1:33:59 a little more than one hundred and fifty four thousand votes in the twenty twenty

1:34:03 election in Michigan. In the view of the Trump campaign, these were quote

1:34:09 alternate electors who could have somehow replaced Boden's electors when Congress counted the electoral votes

1:34:15 on January six, twenty twenty one, handing Trump a second term again.

1:34:19 You know, I've been very critical of Mike Pence, but thank god he

1:34:23 didn't. I mean, can you imagine if he had gone for this,

1:34:27 because he could have, right, he could have said, oh no,

1:34:29 I'm rejecting these electors and we're gonna go with these other electors instead. I

1:34:33 mean, it would have been disastrous. You know, the Supreme Court would

1:34:40 have had to get involved, and I mean, God only knows how this

1:34:43 would have ended up. It says here. However, a wide array of

1:34:46 legal experts, including many inside the Trump White House and Trump campaign, thought

1:34:50 this plan was unconstitutional and possibly illegal. You think, why what would be

1:34:57 illegal about it? Just because there's all this for you know signing fraudulent documents

1:35:02 and making claims that are well fraudulent. Crystal says in the chat room,

1:35:11 all those involved in deliberately putting false electors in place to overturn an election should

1:35:15 be charged with insurrection, treason, etc. Oh I agree, I want

1:35:19 these people in prison. Nessel, a Democrat, initially referred to the matter.

1:35:27 Referred the matter to federal prosecutors at the Justice Department, but she reopened

1:35:31 the state probe in January. Justice Department Special counsel Jack Smith is also actively

1:35:36 investigating the fake elector's plot, and some fake electors have testified to his grand

1:35:42 jury. Nessel said, quote, there will be those who claim these charges

1:35:48 are political in nature, but when there is overwhelming evidence of guilt and respect

1:35:53 to multiple crimes, the most political act I could engage in as a prosecutor

1:35:58 would be to take no action at all. Unquote. The House January sixth

1:36:01 committee uncovered evidence that Trump knew about the plan and that he spoke directly about

1:36:06 it with RNC chairwoman Rona McDaniel. By the way, Rona McDaniel, who

1:36:11 apparently still does not acknowledge that that Joe Biden rightfully won the twenty twenty election.

1:36:17 I don't know if she hangs out with the my pillow guy who told

1:36:21 her something. I don't know, but and Rona McDaniel is from Michigan.

1:36:30 She testified that Trump and his allies told her the elector's plan was important,

1:36:34 and that the RNC later helped the Trump campaign assemble the state the slates rather

1:36:41 of GOP electors. In the video released alongside the charges, Nessel once again

1:36:45 shot back against allegations that the twenty twenty presidential election was fraudulent, saying that

1:36:51 the election in her state quote was procedurally the same as in every previous modern

1:36:58 presidential election. This Despite this, the groundwork was laid for a plan to

1:37:01 send alternative slates of Trump electors to Congress in an attempt to outmaneuver and circumvent

1:37:08 the longstanding electoral process. Nessels said. The sixteen electors, all from Michigan,

1:37:15 gathered with the quote hope and belief that the electoral votes of Michigan's twenty

1:37:19 twenty election would be awarded to the candidate of their choosing instead of the candidate

1:37:26 that Michigan voters actually chose. These defendants may have believed the now long debunked

1:37:32 myth of vote tampering or ballot dumps. They may have felt compelled to follow

1:37:38 the call to action from a president they held fealty too. They may have

1:37:44 even genuinely believed that this was their patriotic duty. But none of those reasons

1:37:48 or feelings provide legal justification to violate the law and append our constitution and our

1:37:55 nation's traditions of representative government, self determination, and a government by the unquote.

1:38:01 Nessel also said that her office will continue to investigate efforts to overturn the

1:38:05 twenty twenty election and quote has not ruled out potential charges against additional defendants unquote.

1:38:14 So again, but you know, we should be very clear about this.

1:38:16 This was not only in Michigan. This was going on in multiple states.

1:38:23 This was a widespread plan. And um, there is a question about,

1:38:32 you know, did Trump know. Apparently it's believed that he knew about

1:38:38 this, um and I assume that that weighs heavily in them the investigation and

1:38:50 why he received that target letter. Um, Melanie says in the chat room,

1:39:01 so disappointing that people convinced themselves they were acting on the side of righteousness

1:39:09 by doing illegal acts, and Crystal says, wouldn't double the number of electors

1:39:15 showing up to validate vote trigger red flags from the get go for officials to

1:39:20 investigate further. What a stupid plan. Yeah, I mean the plan itself

1:39:28 is pretty far out there, right, But if they had convinced Pence,

1:39:33 if they had convinced Pence to go along with it, because it is interesting

1:39:41 to kind of think it through, what could have happened, right, So,

1:39:44 if they had convinced Pence to start rejecting the valid electors and saying that

1:39:48 he would, it probably wouldn't be as simple as just him saying, Okay,

1:39:53 I'm rejecting this slate of electors from this state. I don't I have

1:39:58 reason to believe that that's states election wasn't valid or however he would have to

1:40:02 do that. I don't think he could then say, but I will accept

1:40:09 this other slate of electors. That probably wouldn't work. And I think you're

1:40:13 right, Crystal, that would that would probably derail pretty quickly. But a

1:40:18 theory about how this could have worked had Mike Pence not done the right thing.

1:40:21 And I yeah, I've been critical about of him, but I do

1:40:25 give him credit for doing the right thing that day, thank goodness. There's

1:40:30 different weird theories about how this could have proceeded. I mean, one of

1:40:32 the one of the dumb conspiracy theories is that the vice president is handed to

1:40:39 envelopes and he gets to pick which envelope he wants and effectively appoint the next

1:40:44 president. But that's crazy. But that's like a Q and on thing with

1:40:46 the envelopes. But one theory goes that what Pence could have done is he

1:40:53 could have rejected electors from all however many states it would have taken, and

1:41:00 it would have been, of course the same states that had the facal electors,

1:41:02 right, because those are the swing states that Trump lost, and then

1:41:08 thus creating a constitutional crisis because Pence would be refusing to certify the election,

1:41:15 and then the Supreme Court would have to get involved, or it would go

1:41:20 to the House of Representatives because I know that if if neither candidate in the

1:41:30 election gets to two hundred and seventy electoral votes, then it goes to the

1:41:34 House and they get to vote. So if you have a Republican controlled House,

1:41:40 they would have just voted for Trump and then Trump would have won a

1:41:45 second term because Pence could have rejected electors from enough states so that neither Biden

1:41:55 nor Trump would be at two seventy if I have this right, and that

1:42:00 would send it to the House, and then the House would have to vote.

1:42:03 I believe that's how that works, if neither candidate gets to do seventy.

1:42:06 I mean, we've never seen this happen, but so that's another possibility.

1:42:12 That would be another way that Trump could have could have held onto the

1:42:15 White House. Crystal says, what happened to the original electors? These facal

1:42:23 electors are replaced, wouldn't they be making a loud scene? Yes? Oh

1:42:26 obviously, yes, yeah. It would have been quite a mess. It

1:42:31 would have been. It would have been a very It would have been very

1:42:34 messy. But the scary thing is as messy as it would have been,

1:42:41 doesn't mean it wouldn't have worked. That's scary. All Right, We gotta

1:42:45 go. We are just about out of time. Thank you all for joining

1:42:47 us today and everybody who called, everybody in the chat room, and Melanie

1:42:58 said in the chat room, I truly wish that when you read some of

1:43:00 my comments, someone on their car, in their car is yelling at their

1:43:04 radio for me to go blank myself. That would make me giggle. Maybe

1:43:10 someday, well, you know, we keep the windows closed for the air

1:43:13 conditioning, but maybe someday we'll hear someone driving by the station and yelling at

1:43:18 That would be funny. All right, we gotta go. Don't forget tomorrow

1:43:23 on the show. We have a great musical we asked for us in the

1:43:25 second hour, Wired for Sound. We'll be here and if you miss any

1:43:29 part of today's show, it'll be up in just a little bit at WMNH

1:43:32 radio dot org and at my website, Matt Connerton dot com. And uh

1:43:40 yeah, we'll close with a little bit of eons encoded. I haven't played

1:43:44 this song in a in a while, let's see. Oh, and it

1:43:46 is Tuesday, which means if you are listening live on Tuesday. Coming up

1:43:50 next is Through the Stage Door hosted by the Great Rob Dion, followed by

1:43:56 a replay of Friday Nights Retro Spectrum Radio with Paul ec and I. Of

1:44:00 course, I'm one of Paul's co hosts on that show, along with DJ

1:44:03 Steve and Mike from Queen City Cabinetry. So there is plenty coming up if

1:44:09 you are listening live on Tuesday and otherwise I will talk at you all a

1:44:13 little bit later. By everybody,