Amanda Carpenter: Need to Know

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Hello. I am Amanda Carpenter. Welcome to the Bulwark podcast, and you might have guessed from the intro music that today we’re buying something a little different. This is a concept for a new show that I’m toying with where I take you through what you need to know about what’s going on in the news today. And don’t worry, Will is doing just fine.

He’ll be back next week. He’s on a little vacation. But what I wanted to try while he is having a well deserved rest, is something that isn’t really an interview show or a buddy show because as much as I love talking with friends, sometimes I need time on my own just to drill down and focus on what’s really important and try to find my own way to understand it. And I thought, well, why don’t we just try to do this together? It’s just me, and you, and whoever else wants to eat, drop in.

So welcome to need to know with Amanda Carpenter. Where I take you through the headlines that are most important to us. I also want to talk to you about what is on the Bulwark website because we have so much great material that I know our podcast audience is a little bit different than our website audience. And I wanna tell you about all the great pieces we have on the bulwark dot com but I also want to take the time to dive into stories a little bit deeper because sometimes there are just those stories that you see bubbling up And I keep telling myself, you know what? I’m gonna take ten minutes later to really focus on what’s going on there and understand it.

And I think we have an opportunity to do that here together. So that is the kind of show I have planned for you today in Charlie’s absence. So what do you say? Are you ready to go? Let’s go to today’s headlines.

At the top of the news, as always, is the politics. Politics. And everyone is looking ahead to the midterms. And we’re getting really close to Labor Day. We’re two weeks out from Labor Day, which is that date ahead of the November contest where the general election landscapes are pretty well set up.

And if you look at the polling and, I’ll be honest, I don’t love looking at the polling and using that analyze what is going to happen because polls are always meant to change. And they don’t take into account things like partisanship, and, you know, the last minute things that can happen. But if you look at those polls, what you see in that many of the competitive senate races is that the democrats are slightly ahead or even. And so what you see now is senate minority leader Mitch McConnell lowering the expectations. You know, that big red wave that everyone was counting on.

And honestly, I think Republicans got pretty arrogant about thinking that the deck was so well stacked in their favor. They could just run whoever they wanted, and they would win. They would walk into a senate seat if they ran Hershel Walker. In Georgia. They can walk into a senate seat if they run doctor Oz in Pennsylvania.

And that doesn’t really look like to be like the case. Because Mitch McConnell was warning people that things might not be so rosy in an interview in Kentucky last week. Let’s hear what Mitch McConnell had to say. There’s

probably a great relationship in the house, but it’s not it’s not really just different there. Stay wide. Canada’s quality, that’s a lot to do with the outcome. Right now, we have fifty fifty I said it’d be fifty countries. But I think when all of a sudden done, it’s all because I was at an extremely close center.

Either our side of employment or their side of employment. So

what he’s saying is that at best is going to be close because of poor candidate quality. That’s how he termed it. And for this, Trump is attacking not just Mitch McConnell. But Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, the former transportation secretary, who resigned in protest after January sixth, on truth social in What Trump has to say is that why do Republican senators allow a broken down hack Mitch McConnell to openly disparage hardworking Republican candidates for the United States Senate. This is in an affront to honor and leadership.

He should spend more time and money helping them get elected and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China. So there’s a lot to unpack there. But when it gets down to it, Trump expects and wants as to a lot of people, Mitch McConnell and the traditional big raising money establishment in Washington to go ahead and save these candidates. Right? Because they’re on the team.

You have to do it. And what the NRRC, the National Republican senatorial Committee under Rick Scott, they’ve been also lowering expectations, saying the fundraising isn’t really there. They’re getting vastly outspent by the Democrats. They’re canceling ads, they’re pulling money, they’re trying to save their reserves for the final months of the election. And so that’s the landscape that’s being set up right now.

But

can we

just talk a little bit more about what is Mitch McConnell’s play here? You know, I’ve he gets billed as this mastermind and evil genius behind the curtain by all the Beltway reporters. And to me, it’s one of the biggest mess. The myth of Mitch McConnell lives on so strong because what is he doing? Let’s rewind the tape.

I don’t know if you guys remember, but I remember back in February twenty twenty one, right after, you know, we’re right in the middle of Trump’s second impeachment talking about a kind of January sixth Commission to investigate what happened when it came to the attack and the US capital And of course, you know, Mitch McConnell gave a little little speech in the senate floor just like Kevin McCarthy saying Donald Trump is responsible, but they weren’t gonna impeach him. They weren’t gonna investigate him for what he did to incite the riot. And what McConnell told reporters at that time is, quote, The only thing I care about is electability. That’s what he told the political, February twenty twenty one. And I’m gonna read to you what he said because he spoke to reporter by phone.

He doesn’t really speak in public that often if you’ve noticed. And his quote is, my goal is, in every way possible, to have nominees representing the Republican Party who can win in November. Some of them may be people the former president likes. Some of them may not be. The only thing I care about is electability.

Oh. Oh. Okay. So Mitch McConnell went along with Donald Trump’s picks. Because the only thing he cares about is electability.

And now, he tells us,

oh, I

don’t think they’re electable. They have poor candidate quality. If only miss McConnell could have done something to change the situation, What could he have done? When he was giving reporters interviews, talking about the only thing he cares about is electability, he was paving the way for all these nut job election deniers to follow in the wake of what Trump did on January sixth and everything that he did to build up to it. In terms of aligning about the election, And so it’s just amazing to me that McConnell gets away with these kind of games.

But here’s an idea. If Mitch McConnell, and I see this come up a lot, if the only thing they care about is electability. Maybe I should show you a poll. Here it. Mhmm.

Let’s see. Let me go find it. Oh, wait. Here it is the twenty twenty results. Trump lost.

Trump candidates lose in a general election. I saw Matt Gates going off on Twitter about how these pro democracy Republicans like Liz Cheney can’t win their elections. Donald Trump presided over the loss of the House, the Senate, the White House and is on pace to kill a red wave that was completely stacked in the Republicans’ favors. So you can have those polls. And what’s Mitch McConnell’s reaction to that?

Well, one, no one’s ever asked him. And two, it’d probably be mumbling, mumbling, mumbling, mumbling, mumbling, mumbling, mumbling, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? But there is someone who is actually doing something about this who isn’t just staying on the sidelines mumbling and trying to figure out how to cover their own butt and make themselves look good to the donors. And of course, you know who I’m talking about.

It’s Liz Cheney.

It

is Liz Cheney. Now, I wrote a piece last week because I was getting worried that in the wake of her loss, there was a lot of build up an immediate pivot to, oh, what are you gonna do about twenty twenty four, Liz Cheney? You’re gonna run for president Liz Cheney? How are you gonna win Liz Cheney? All of the big name reporters that were in Wyoming, they understand this.

They were not there to watch or lose. They were there to build up twenty twenty four storylines. And, you know, she she did kind of play into it. She gave a big speech about invoking Abraham Lincoln. She said that she was going to convert her remaining campaign funds into a pact called the Great Task.

And so I know a lot of us at The Bulwark were getting calls about it and Campbell News was asking me, and I turned on every request because I didn’t want to play into this feeding frenzy. Because I don’t think it’s healthy for every discussion to be turned to the presidential election. And how are you gonna win? And if you don’t have a case for winning, then you shouldn’t be speaking at all. That is not the purpose of what Liz Cheney is doing.

And Moreover, even if she does want to run for president, it’s just counterproductive to the great task at hand. And that is really finishing her work at the January sixth committee because, you know, I saw this working for Ted Cruz. Any casual observer can see it. The second oh, number one, the press will bully you into running for president. That sounds weird.

But when you are even like a mid tier sort

of

house member, let’s say, who might foster presidential ambitions? It is like extremely flattering when people say, oh, are you considering running for president? And when you have potential donors saying, hey, yeah, I might I might be interested in hearing your pitch for president. It’s really hard to tamp that down. But the second the second you give into that, everything gets reduced into sort of every action she takes is interpreted as some kind of bare knuckled political calculation.

And that is exactly what the GeneA RASICS Committee does not meet. She said this is her life’s most important work. I believe her. I think at this moment, it absolutely is. But the second, anyone thinks she’s plotting a run for president.

They’re not The press is not going to ask her questions. About the investigation. They’re gonna ask her about fundraising and polls and strategy and staff and outrage of the day in minutia that really doesn’t matter. We’re gonna be talking about what the color of her suit wears. And how does she keep her hair so pretty?

I mean, that that is not a fault of her own that is just what it turns into. And I was pleasantly surprised. That that was my rant. Pleasantly surprised. She went on ABC News.

You got a national interview. We play in the twenty twenty four game. I don’t know. And she explained exactly what she’s going to be doing now with that political committee from her converted campaign funds. Let’s listen to her, say that.

Howard Bauchner:

This is

obviously not the end. This is a new beginning. For you. You’re starting this political organization. What can you tell us what are you gonna do?

I’m gonna be very focused on working to ensure that we do everything we can, not to elect election deniers, and I’m gonna work against those people, I’m gonna work to support their opponents. I think it matters that much. Will you

be getting involved in campaigns against those republican candidates that are challenging or denying the results of the election?

Yes.

Including your Republican colleagues here in Congress? Yes.

Yes. Gasless Jenny, that is she is not she is not waiting for twenty twenty four. She is not sitting on the sidelines, crafting what is going to be for her. She’s already been in this game of working for the January sixth investigation in keeping a laser focus on what truly matters when it comes to our democracy. And so I was absolutely delighted to see that she is not shirking from that.

And, you know, of course the discussion did turn a little bit to twenty twenty four. So before we continue this part of the conversation, let’s hear what she has to say about candidates that might get the nomination that aren’t Trump. So

you said you’re gonna work against election deniers. If it’s not Trump and if it’s if it’s somebody like Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Josh Holly, these are all people that have tied themselves very closely to Trump. Will you oppose them? And could you see yourself supporting any of

them? It would be very difficult when you look at somebody like Josh Holly or somebody like Ted Cruz, both of whom know better, both of whom know exactly what the role of Congress is in terms of our constitutional obligations with respect to presidential elections. And yet both of whom took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order and structure in the aftermath of the last collection. So in my view, they both have made themselves unfit for future office. Howard Bauchner: What about the census?

Desantis is somebody who is right now campaigning for election deniers. And I think that is something that that I think people have gotta have real pause about, you know, either you fundamentally believe in and will support our constitutional structure or you don’t. That’s

right. Of course. All the trumpers went on cue. Oh, we knew we knew Cheney was a secret democrat. We knew she’s about white indusider.

This only confirms all our prior beliefs that she’s somehow an evil democrat who posed as the daughter of a Republican vice president and campaign as a rock red constitutional conservative her whole life. It was all a lie. It is so refreshing to see because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of Republicans who know that our democracy is in trouble, but they refuse to do anything about it. But she has reached the logical conclusion. Some people go down this road, but they get off it.

They take a detour. They sit on the sidelines. They take a break on the shoulder. They can’t convince themselves to keep driving down the road where this natural conclusion is because if you believe January six must never happen again, which is the conclusion that Cheney has reached, you have to believe that election scenarios must be opposed. It’s inescapable.

That means you have to oppose Republican election deniers. And as long as there is a reasonable Democrat alternative, it’s it’s not the most insane thing to do. There was a time when this wasn’t considered an act of treason in betrayal to the big red elephant, she’s reached that conclusion. I really hope more people join her. I’ve been there for a long time.

And I have, hey, I think a lot of people that will work probably a lot of listeners have heard all the things that people are screaming at was Cheney because they’ve been screaming it at us for so long. You’re not a Republican, you’re not a conservative unless you support Donald Trump. And for a long time, I thought we could reason with these people. And I would generally say stuff like, you know, I am a Republican. I am a conservative.

The party hasn’t I haven’t changed. The party has changed. And honestly, it just ends up being a stupid debate. Like, who am I even trying to convince? Because while I have a generally conservative viewpoint,

and I

generally would prefer to support Republicans. The Republican Party has made it absolutely clear that they don’t want voters like

me. They don’t

want voters like me who think that January six was in a terrible attack on our democracy. Right? They purge Liz Cheney. They purge every Republican who voted for impeachment. So why should we try to be a part of it?

I still have my views. I still am who I am. But, no, I am not trying to come to your party anymore. Like, it is a mutual mutual decision.

And

every time these maggots start screaming at me on Twitter, I I just I think of that Laurie Morgansong. We have it here. So just sing it, Laurie.

Right

what part of no don’t you understand? I don’t want MAGA. MAGA doesn’t want me. It’s over. Quit asking.

So I think for the time being, I’m still playing around with this. Maybe the best way for people like me to describe ourselves is a conservative leaning independent. And that’s not the most pithy thing. Maybe I’ll workshop it, but that that’s where I am. I’ll do what I can in a primary to support good Republicans, but in a general, that probably means my vote is up for grabs.

And

I

don’t know if that’s where Cheney is going, but that’s what she’s essentially saying in this interview. She is going to oppose election deniers. That means the time has come, whereas not just crazy number trumpeters like me, and Republican voters against Trump opposing Republicans who pose a threat to our democracy and constitutional order. It’s people like Liz Cheney who is third in line for Republican leadership who is saying she’s willing to go there. She’s doing it.

And I think that is really, really something we, of course, we have the bulwark we’ll continue to pay attention to. But, you know, since Liz also brought it up, I think we should also be looking at what, you know, the rising stars and the party are doing. Ronda Santos. I mean, she was directly asked about Ronda Santos for a reason. It’s because he is viewed as the natural air to Trump.

This is what all the smart Republicans will tell you. But she sees something obviously different and that is what I see. Because last week, he decided that he was gonna go to places like Pennsylvania and Arizona to campaign for two of the worst candidates of let’s see. How did Mitch McConnell put it? Poor quality, candidates of poor quality, and that is where he decided to campaign with Doug Mass Reno and Cherry Lake.

And I think this is actually a very big tell about how weak Rhonda Santos actually is he has no intention of really challenging Trump in a Republican primary. Because by going and campaigning, for Kerri Lake and Doug Mastriano. What is he doing? Rhonda Santos is endorsing them. Let me say that again.

Rhonda Santos is endorsing them, Kerry Lake and Doug Mastriano are not endorsing Rhonda Santos for president because you really think if it came down to it, If they had to make a choice between Donald Trump and Rhonda Santos in a primary, they would pick Rhonda Santos. No way. They’re on the Trump train all the way. And so this shows you that DeSantis just wants the Mag vote, and he will do whatever it takes to get the Mag vote because he has no intention of creating any kind of alternative coalition. He just wants to copy that playbook, staple it to his head and say, this is how I’m gonna run because I can just be the backup guy.

When you look at Rhonda Santos, you should see someone who is positioning himself as an under study to Donald Trump, not a challenger. He is watching Trump unfold. Everybody likes to go to the big Trump show in desantis says, you know what? Maybe there’s a twenty five, fifty percent chance. Trump, comes on with an unexpected case of prasanitis, has a heart attack, anything could happen.

I’m gonna be the guy who has the script in hand, who knows exactly what the audience wants to hear and can go be greeted by a crowd of Carrie Lake, Doug Mastriano, Stack Insurrectionist, if the need be. And maybe the other people will come along because, right, we’re on the same big red elephant team. Liz Cheney sees through that. A lot of other people should see through that too. Now, one more headline from over the weekend via the New York Times, had bylines from Maggie Haberman, Glenthrush, Katie Brenner, titled The Final Days of the Trump White House, Chaos, and Scattered Papers.

And what it does at pieces together, some of what happened with the classified documents that were smuggled down to Mar a Lago. But what I think is interesting this piece is that it mentions Trump’s former chief of staff, none other than Mark Meadows, twenty one times. Mark Meadows who is at the center of every scandal in the final days of Trump’s White House was mentioned twenty one times and a piece that tries to track how those documents those classified documents were stolen from the government and taken down to Mar a Lago. What that means is that a lot of people who these reporters talked to pointed the finger right at Mark Meadows as being the guy for whatever reason, what they had to do with chaos or Malintent as being responsible for this. And if you might remember, this Sky’s track record is not exactly impeccable when it comes to handling government documents.

His top aide has to be judge and testified that she saw him burning documents after he met with representative Scott Perry, who’s another person deeply implicated in January six investigation. Saw it apart in, etcetera,

etcetera. So

keep an eye on that one because it is not good. To steal classified documents from the US government, ask Kelly Clinton and all she did was copy some emails on her server. But one more thing, speaking of Trump scandals, I noticed that Trump has three new TV lawyers representing him, at least in the media. Rudy Giuliani is out for reasons that we’re gonna get into in the last segment because I we’re gonna dive into what is happening in Georgia. But just for situational awareness, there’s a new woman named Lindsay Halligan on the air making the case for releasing the affidavit and the Mar a Lago search which would, of course, reveal a lot of the information being built against Trump in the case that maybe the government is building.

So let’s just listen real quickly little bit of candy for her brilliant legal argumentation. And their lack of transparency is very telling We wanna review the affidavit for ourselves. They are very selective in terms of what they want out there, and we we definitely wanna know what they’re claiming they have as evidence. So the withholding of information is essentially controlling the flow of information. And that is the first step to tierney.

It’s the first step to tierney, guys. Gotta release the documents or tierney. What’s funny about this? You can hear it in her voice. She sounds like half asleep.

She’s on some show. I don’t even know what. Just just going through the motions. It’s like even these new these new TV lawyers are so tired out from the Trump fatigue that can barely make it through their segment. And so just for those keeping track, Trump’s old legal team is out There’s no more Giuliani, Kraken Lady, or Jenna Ellis.

Apparently, it’s miss Halligan, an ex OEM anchor. Knee deep in the cyber ninja stuff in Arizona named Christina Bob and another woman named Alina Haba. And between the three of them, let me let’s add this up. You take the zero and you add the zero. And you carry the zero, they have zero years of legal defense experience between them all.

And so is those three going potentially against the Department of Justice, so best of luck ladies. Okay. That is what you need to know from the

headlines.

Now I wanna tell you about some really great pieces we have up on the Bulwark because the podcast audience is a little bit different from the website audience. And to be honest, our team I’m so proud of them. We pump up so so much great material between the podcast, the written material, the live streams, and everything else. It honestly, it’s a little hard to keep up. And so there’s just a few things I’m gonna flag from our website today.

The first is a piece from Richard Stau and Matt Staff who they ran a twelve person focus group in Florida of Trump to Biden voters. Which means these are persuadable people. I hope you’re listening to all the focus group episodes that Sarah Longwell runs, but this one was a little different. It emphasizes some themes that she’s also found with these Trump divide and persuadable voters. But this is one thing I found interesting.

They write, while there was no love for Donald Trump in this group, there was also very little love for Joe Biden. The majority of respondents said that when they see Biden on TV or their device, they feel a negative emotion. Five of the twelve said they regretted voting for Biden and yet in a hypothetical rematch between Trump and Biden none would take Trump back. Now Biden of course is not on the ballot when it comes to the midterms. But when voters have a negative reaction, to the president who if you’ve listened to JBL argues, it’s probably doing the best you can in spite of all the circumstances, if there’s a negative reaction to him, democrats gonna have to work extra hard to find a way to juice their base and get people animated to vote.

Everyone points to Kansas that referendum on abortion that happened there. It was a massive turnout booster in that race where abortion was a stand alone issue. But in the general election, you’re going to have candidates. Not stand alone issues. And so that is something that Democrats need to watch out for.

I’m sure the Biden team is trying to work on, you know, his approval ratings, which have been in in the tank for a long time. But that is that is something we’re hearing from the persuadable voters. Who supported Biden in twenty twenty likely would support him again against a Trump, but certainly don’t feel good about it. Another piece, a totally different wheelhouse. Doctor Howard Forman, who is a professor of the public health policy at Yale, he wrote a piece for us, and god, this is just horrible about how polio is now back.

There’s a man in Rockland County, New York who has been paralyzed by the virus. And what the doctor reminds us is that it wasn’t that long ago. It was only the 1940s. When this horrific disease, disabled thirty five thousand Americans a year. And he says, there’s no way to cure the paralysis once someone has been infected.

And if you were infected in severe cases, it can cause death in your muscles and that controlled breathing that become paralyzed. And listen, I have to admit I know a polio. I didn’t know that. Because I have had the blessing of it being eradicated. I don’t have to worry about it.

Right? We all got the shots, my kid gets the shots, but now it’s coming back. And so he walks through how this happened, the man who was infected, he was not vaccinated, he had traveled to foreign countries, that have vaccinations that contain the live organism, which is different. It’s an oral vaccination. It’s different than the vaccinations we have here by shot, which contain the dead strains of the virus.

And so he is worried because you you know you can already see how this is gonna be interpreted in right wing media, it was the virus that caused it. No, that’s not exactly the case. And so what the doctor is calling for here is for the public health community to continue, not just with COVID, but with all vaccines, continue to main robust defenders of, you know, the blessings that these vaccines have provided us. He writes, the public health community in this country must take action against possibility with a unified truthful and straightforward explanation about how this infection came about and how we can prevent its spread. The fields of science, public health, and medicine must act in unison and not allow malicious skepticism.

I love that phrase, malicious skepticism. About vaccines to proliferate in the mainstream discourse if we wish to keep this preventable infectious disease at bay.

And I

think that piece pairs well with another piece we had at the Bulwark then. This one’s from last week, but it has to do with Alex Jones. So you all know that name. Is probably the most well known, most influential peddler of not only medical misinformation in America, but all all misinformation. And I think we all got kind of excited that consequences were finally coming for this guy.

Finally coming because one of the Sandy Hook families had sued him. For damages, a judge said he had to pay a forty five point two million dollar fine, which felt nice to see a bad actor have to pay for his lives. But tamp that back what Greg Doucette warned us is that after this order came down, he Alex Jones probably is not going to have to pay it. Probably not anywhere near that kind of figure because the Texas law protects him. The state has tort reform caps, which limits those kind of payments to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which, you know,

Alex Jones was

making that kind of money. I kid you not in a single day during CPAC. He was so successful selling his Gorilla Strength something supplements to the CPAC audience. He was breaking in eight hundred thousand dollars a day. And so we’ve got to find a better way to inflict consequences that actually matter on these bad actors because that’s not anything more than a traffic fine.

It’s a speeding ticket for

him.

Okay.

Now here is what I’m really excited to talk to you about, and that is a deep dive into a story of choice. Something that I’ve been watching for a couple months, but just needed to sit down and spend a couple hours reading the stories, tracking what happens, and try to get it down into it easy to understand way. And

so I

wanna take you on a deep dive into exact what is going on with that criminal investigation into election and interference in Georgia by Donald Trump. And as allies. Now, this investigation has been going on for eighteen months. It began in

February twenty

twenty one, so you’ve heard about it for a long time. And people have, oh, if you’ve been watching the cable news and the legal experts, they say, you know, keep an eye on this one. This is the one to really watch. But understandably, our focus has shifted, I don’t know, a million times since then because there’s no way we can be sustained on a single story. So let’s just have a quick refresh.

The potential universe of charges that people generally talk about when it comes to this investigation are one conspiracy to commit election fraud and two racketeering related charges. But the big question is, will Trump be charged? That is anybody’s guess. But if you paid attention to the January sixth hearings, you heard a lot of what happened around this, and you probably have the basic contours of it in your mind. And it goes something like, okay, Trump called Georgia governor Brian Kemp and Brad Ravensburger and asked them to find the votes to flip the election in his favor.

But there is a lot more to it than just that phone call. And I think the best way to understand what is going on in this case is by looking at Trump’s top election lawyer, top personal lawyer, and that is none other than Rudy Giuliani. I told you, I told you we’re gonna get to him and look at what is going on with him right now So what happened recently is that Rudy Giuliani was identified as the target of this criminal investigation. Now, I know we’re busy with the Mar a Lago raid, but that’s a really big deal. Donald Trump’s top lawyer, was identified as a target of a criminal investigation.

So why? What is it that he did? You probably remember also that he was going around the country after the twenty twenty election, holding these crazy field hearings trying to convince state officials that there was widespread voter fraud and the election. You know, he who have the image of him sitting next to Jenna Ellis. But what also has happened is that for all the lives that he told in that postelection time, meeting with these state legislatures, doing those field hearings, the state of New York actually suspended his law license.

In the order suspending his law license, It stated that he had made demonstrably false and misleading statements to the courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as Trump’s personal and campaign lawyer. And what the court also said in that order is that Giuliani’s, quote, miss conduct directly inflamed tensions that bubbled over into the events of January six. There was a whole eight thirty three page order about it. And it is just wild when you go through and remember everything that Rudy Giuliani did post election. That order says that he made false statements about fabricated mail and ballots.

That order talked about how Giuliani with no proof He went around and stated that as many as thirty thousand dead people voted in Pennsylvania, he said that maybe a don’t know, a few hundred thousand. Literally, he said a few hundred thousand illegal aliens voted in Arizona. He said, Dominion Voting Machines incorrectly tabulated boats in Georgia. That’s a whole other lawsuit that’s happening on the sidelines. Maybe we’ll get to that another day.

He said, up to a hundred and sixty five thousand underage people voted in Georgia. He said more than twenty five hundred Georgia Felons voted illegally. And he also said that he had video surveillance that showed illegal ballots were smuggled inside suitcases and then tabulated for Biden. You know, that showed up in the crazy two thousand mules scam movie that Dinesh DeSousa put out. And he didn’t just say this to his buddies.

In the media, although he did say it in lots of media appearances. He said it to Republican legislatures and policymakers. He said it in public press conferences that were widely covered all over the media. I mean, you remember the one in front of four series of landscaping. You may not you know, it was hard to pay attention to the lies he was telling because of the hair dye dripping down his face, but those are the things that he he was saying.

They were specific and they were false. And that is what got his law license suspended. But now he’s under criminal investigation. That’s a whole different ballgame. And so, what did he do in Georgia exactly?

He met with state legislatures three times to do things like I mentioned before. Tell them that they had evidence without ever showing the evidence about dead people voting, underage people voting, illegal ballots, And it was investigated because he told those lies, I don’t I don’t even know how much taxpayer money was wasted investigating these false claims, but they’re all found to be untrue. Nothing materialized. And it

doesn’t end there.

We know it doesn’t end there. So after all that went bust, Rudy Giuliani did not quit.

He and

others worked with an alternative plan. That’s when they came up with the false electors plot. You know the name Jenny Smith, you know is all put in the memo, and what that memo basically relied on. The only way the the way that they were going to pressure Mike Pence to overturn the election was by presenting Mike Pence with false slates of electors. They want a Mike Pence to disregard the true electoral votes that real electors submitted to Congress for Biden and accept fake documents.

Submitting fake electoral votes from fake Republican electors. That is how they wanted tends to overturn the election. And to do that, they needed Republicans in those swing states like Georgia to hold fake meetings, to sign those fake documents. And send them to Congress, which they did. That all happened.

And it was all coordinated by the Trump campaign in the Republican National Committee and people like Rudy Giuliani. Now, I know a lot of crimes don’t get prosecuted. I know rich and powerful people get away with a lot of things. But this is really cut and dry. You’ve literally signed your name to Fox documents and submitted it to Congress.

I don’t know how that isn’t fraud. Right? You knew you weren’t the real electors. The real ones were actually meeting in the state legislature not camping out overnight and hiding out and holding secret meetings. Right?

That that is a sign that you might be doing something wrong. Even the people that thought they were just being on the team, like, there’s your sign. There’s your sign that maybe Maybe you’re engaging in illicit activity. But, I mean, that was the plan. That was how they wanted to literally cancel votes in all the swing states.

And so was that okay? And that is what this Georgia investigation is about. Is that okay? Are you allowed to do that? And it seems like Rajuliani maybe maybe didn’t think it was okay because there’s a new book coming out next month.

Title Giuliani, The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s mayor timely. Good title. But the book says that one of Giuliani’s aides sought a general pardon in the final day after the January sixth attack from president Trump along with a presidential medal of freedom because, you know, we gotta make this look good. Right? All four Americans mirror.

And

so keep an

eye on this one. Geneery Six

Committee brought

a lot of this to light, but might hear more in the coming days is a issue there report about the false electors plot. We will see, but you also need to know that Rudy Giuliani is not the only criminal target of this investigation, which tells me and should tell you how seriously Georgia is looking at this false electors plot because the head of the Georgia Republican Party is also a target. The state party treasurer is also a target. As well as all the other Georgia Republicans who signed up as paid electors.

There’s your

sign that something something might be coming here. Something is developing. And you might say, we’ve seen this before, or nothing’s going to happen. But the district attorney is getting compliance. Rudy Giuliani fought this thing.

He did not. He got a subpoena. He did not want to go. He had his lawyer tell a judge, well, I have heart surgery. I understand.

I can’t I can’t fly. And basically, the judge said, well, find a way to find a train or a bus. And you may have seen the photos of Rudy Giuliani being wheeled in a wheelchair, you know, kinda like Paul Manafort. Before he got fitted with his orange jumpsuit, pushed by wheelchair into testify before the grand jury, which he did for six hours.

The district

attorney has also subpoenaed John Eastman, the person who wrote the memo, who also had his phone recently seized by the feds, different investigation, different problem. Don’t know how these things will add up or come together, but stuff is definitely happening. And this is just an excuse to play one of my favorite clips from the January sixth herrings, where Liz Cheney showed how one of John Eastman’s colleagues gave him some friendly, lorally advice. Here

is a clip of one of president Trump’s own White House lawyers, Eric Hirschman, who talks to mister Eastman the day after January sixth.

It

was the day after. He’s

been I don’t remember

why he called me. He’s and or he texted me or called me,

want to

talk with me, and he said he couldn’t reach others.

And

he started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for

appeal.

And I said

to him, are you out of

your effing mind? Right. Should I should I only want to hear two words coming out

of your mouth for now on?

Orderly

transition.

As we have a said,

I don’t want to hear any other effing words coming out of your mouth no matter what? Other than orderly transition, repeat those words to me. And I figured

that he said, eventually he

said, orderly transition. He said, could, John? Now I’m gonna give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life. Get a great

effing criminal

offense lawyer. You’re gonna need it. And

might I remind you, as Hirschman said, that was a conversation about following up on activities in Georgia. And I’ll just leave you with this. The DAA also was trying to talk to Lindsey Graham. Trying to talk to Jenna Ellis, trying to talk to Krita Mitchell, and I hope they take Hirschman’s advice. They might need it.

And that’s everything you need to know right now about what is happening with that Georgia investigation.

Okay. That’s

it

for me. Thank you so much for listening. I’d love to try this again with you. Let me know what you think. Maybe you want more of my opinion, maybe you want less of it.

Maybe more explainers or more bulwark goodness. The possibilities are really endless here, but this is a mix I wanted to offer you today. So please Talk to me. Follow me. I’m at Amanda Carpenter on Twitter.

And if you are not following our Bulwark online account, it’s at Bulwark online, please do that. Please, if you haven’t already signed up for our newsletters, listen to all our podcasts. And thank you again for listening Charlie Sykes will be back

tomorrow.

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