Episodes #167 and #168 of the Countdown podcast is up at iHeart Radio. (The timings are shown below.)
OnMy.FM links: #167, #168 (which also links to his previous podcasts)
ivoox also carries his podcast.
Episode 167: One Trump Charge Is A Felony: Is It Tax Fraud?
A-Block
- (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: Associated Press reports that at least one of the reported 34 charges against Trump for falsifying business records is a FELONY offense. That not only lines up with previous reporting but when added to the CBS reporting that Alvin Bragg had obtained communications and documents not previously known to the public, it supports the theory that the Felony charge could involve TAX CHEATING. David Frum guesses, “this case will turn out to be about Trump cheating on his taxes (again): allegedly creating false invoices so as to convert the payoff to Stormy Daniels into a LEGAL BILL to his lawyer — and then DEDUCTING the fake legal bill from his TAXABLE INCOME.”
- There were way too many updates to NOT do a special weekend edition. On Social Media, Trump is in full-fledged panic: by dinner-time last night he had already exceeded 100 posts full of rage and Mark Levin clips and in one verging on the same kind of terroristic threats as a week ago: “HOW MUCH MORE ARE AMERICAN PATRIOTS EXPECTED TO TAKE?” The Secret Service has toured the courthouse at 60 Centre Street so Trump is scheduled to appear at 2:15 PM EDT next Tuesday. After saying “Democrats want Civil War” (six weeks after demanding a “national divorce”) maybe Marjorie “Barney Rubble” Taylor Greene will lead protests when she comes to New York Tuesday, but so far there’s been nothing — for or against — in NYC. There was one guy in front of Trump Tower yesterday (and he was whispering).
- Trump and his various attorneys will move to throw out the judge, and the charges, but they will not approach a plea deal. And District Attorney Bragg will not approach giving Trump’s House chairman the documents and testimony they want: In fact he may have just warned them that they could be charged with interfering with his prosecution.
- There were developments in two Trump-adjacent cases Friday. The election fraudster Douglass Mackey (who conned a couple thousand Clinton voters to try to vote by TEXT in 2016) has been convicted. And Dominion’s defamation suit against Fox will proceed and the judge will tell the jury NONE of what Fox said about Dominion was true.
- And two belly laughs. One, I’ll save for the podcast itself. In the other: Eric-Fredo Trump on Thursday told Fox that Bragg is obsessed by his father even though shoplifting is so bad in New York that he went to CVS to get some Tylenol and found it behind plastic protection. On Friday he told Newsmax that he went to Duane Reade to get Advil and found it behind plastic protection. Time to get Eric some Motrin.
B-Block:
- (23:53) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST, Part 1: An updated version of the 2016 Vanity Fair piece and video that forever linked me to the Oompa Loompa.
C-Block
- (48:42) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST, Part 2: The conclusion and the final score and guess what … he COULDN’T.
Yes, the B- and C-blocks are a rerun, something he acknowledges.
Also, Keith makes a reference to the SCTV skit that I posted a link to earlier tonight.
Well, onward:
Episode 168: His Lawyers Expect A Gag Order Against Trump
A-Block
- (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: The source is a dubious British tabloid, but the idea has been deemed completely possible and entirely appropriate: Trump’s lawyers are reportedly expecting that Judge Juan Marchan will issue a GAG ORDER against Trump today or tomorrow, precluding him from speaking about the case to reporters, or posting on social media about it, or giving a speech about it (as he plans to do, Tuesday night from Mar-a-Lago). The reported punishment: a fine of up to $1,000 and up to 30 days in jail. Trump meanwhile is reported to be ready to go back on the offensive and “eff up” Alvin Bragg, the judge, and the politicians his paranoia tell him are behind this.
- At the same time, maybe tomorrow they should take a second set of mugshots. Jack Smith reportedly edges closer to charges of Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice as The Washington Post reports he now has a paper trail because of the texts and emails of an obscure assistant named Molly Michael. During the January 6 Committee hearings we learned that at the White House, Trump used to dictate his emails and have HER send them out on HER account.
Emails??? Servers??? Lock her up! Lock her up!
- And that may be devastating evidence against him in the nearing charge that not only did he steal Classified Documents but instructed others to lie about whether or not he'd returned them — a classic obstruction conspiracy. Plus he had some strange obsession with documents about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.
- Plus: all those cliches the Trump apologists are using to deflect from the absolute appropriateness of the indictment? Let me help you refute them. Ex-Manhattan DA Cy Vance actually updated us on the first (“Bragg’s predecessor wouldn’t pursue the case”) and hints at interference to stop his investigation by none other than William Barr. We’ll track the exact nature of George Soros’s donations — not to Bragg but to a group that donated to Bragg.
So that’s where my Soros check ended up! Thanks, Keith, I’ve been wondering about this for years now!
- And we’ll remind you that the next time somebody says “you can’t prosecute a presidential candidate” that Trump himself promised to prosecute FOUR of them [John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden] and actually tried to get a U.S. Attorney investigating the least likely of the bunch.
B-Block
- (25:45) IN SPORTS: NCAA Women’s Hoops title game overshadowed by second classless gesture in last three rounds; Last November’s Phillies Phold extends to 2023; MSG’s Jim Dolan sued and a warning to him: You could end up taking tickets at the arena you now own.
- (29:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sure, Biden’s insulting King Charles even though no American President has EVER attended a British coronation; Jim Jordan calls for defunding Law Enforcement, and the great Lesley Stahl and CBS News and 60 Minutes get the chance to end Marjorie Taylor Greene’s career with ONE follow-up question, and completely fail.
- (33:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My old NBC Election boss Mark Lukasiewicz with the reminder that (if there’s no gag order) Trump will give a speech full of lies after tomorrow’s indictment and the networks DO NOT have to carry it live.
Say, isn’t that jury tampering? Which is, you know, illegal?
- And this reminded me that all of today’s money-only logic in TV news was prophesied by the greatest media movie ever made: Network (1976).
C-Block
- (49:21) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, PART TWO: We are now in the 47th year of prophecy after prophecy in Network coming true. I’ll review the 30 or so things predicted in the Paddy Chayefsky classic that were literally unbelievable the day the movie premiered, but are now merely … unremarkable.
(Yeah, like I’m gonna list all thirty, folks.)
That’s all the damage for now. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY
Arrest Donald Trump and gag him.