S2E52 of the Countdown podcast is up at iHeart Radio.
S2E52 on Omny.FM (and links to all of his podcasts)
ivoox also carries his podcast.
YouTube:
Preview:
A-Block
Maybe Jack Smith ought to skip what Trump new and what his intentions were. If there’s an adequate rebuttal to Smith’s answers, the jury might throw out the whole case. (Disclaimer: IANAL)
- It’s a stunning guarantee, buried deep in Smith’s filing, answering why Trump should to get his wish to delay the trial until after the election. And he tantalizes us: Because nothing else in the motion even REFERS to it, let alone explains it.
- But it does dovetail with the latest grim details from Israel — and the awful echoes from Washington. Senator Josh Hawley [R-MO] has now demanded that American aide to Ukraine be CUT OFF and sent instead to Israel, as if there were a reason for such a false either/or choice, and apparently unaware that people can see that his own performance and that of the rest of the Republican anti-Ukraine caucus is not in support of Israel but actually in support of Hamas and Iran. Twice in the last year the Kremlin invited Hamas to send delegations to Moscow and the terrorist group’s leadership met with Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in September 2022 and this past March. There is considerable analysis being done in Europe that the Russians encouraged — even bribed — Hamas, to undertake the full-scale attack that began from the Gaza Strip on Saturday and continues even at this hour. The Russians, this analysis reasons, wanted this because they are Iran’s leading ally and because a Middle East conflict of almost any size would amount to a second front, in which Western resources being dedicated to fighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, might be re-directed TO Israel. In other words, Josh Hawley is doing exactly what the Russians want: degrading Western support for Ukraine on the false excuse that the money must go instead to defend Israel. THAT would just give Russia a freer hand in Ukraine, and more money and materiel, to send to Hamas, to DEFEAT Israel, as Iran wants.
- It MUST not be forgotten, especially not at this hour, that on May 10th, 2017, in the Oval Office, Trump disclosed classified intelligence — classified intelligence obtained by the Israelis — about an ISIS plot the Israelis unraveled in a town in Syria. Trump gave the information, directly, to Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The same man who twice met with the Hamas delegations in Moscow.
- PLUS: not only confirmation that Egypt warned Israel about an attack from Gaza, but a reason to suspect that somebody in the Netanyahu government has thrown the defense services under the bus to protect the troubled Prime Minister.
B-Block
- IN SPORTS: Steve Garvey? Running for Senator? The baseball hero whose political career died in 1988 when he became “The Father Of Our Country”? His old team underscores baseball’s playoff crisis. Hockey dives further into homophobia. And one of that game’s best ambassadors has to quit to attend to his own health.
- THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Has-been Aaron Rodgers says nasty things about Taylor Swift’s boyfriend who they still pay to make commercials; A. J. Fischer, a 1/6 defendant, worried about “chest-feeding”; and the Murdoch empire inadvertently reveals that if the Democrats were to switch candidates, there’s one alternate choice with all the name recognition in the world: Hunter Biden.
C-Block
- THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The words were spoken by the best Communications professor I ever had, 44 or 45 years ago. And every week since — and literally yesterday — it’s been ignored. “Whatever you do: DON’T SAY THIS.”
That’s all the damage for now. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck!