Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to discuss the most recent indictment of Donald Trump and consider whether what we're seeing here is almost exactly what our founding fathers set up the country to be able to resist.
And later on, we're gonna take a look at a recent piece from the Atlantic that raises the alarm on whether we in our society, too readily associate negative feelings, like being anxious or being sad, with mental illness. And I mean, obviously there's extremes, but just, just the presence of these feelings, and they're not just the normal and natural ebbs and flow of life.
Joining me today is a man, and once you hear him on this show today, you will know he is on one. Tunde Ogon. Lana Tunde, are you ready to show to people how you haven't gone this hard since you were 44?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Man, you know, everyone's gonna have a certain view about me that listens to this show that may not be true based on your intro. So I just warning everybody, I'm not as exciting as James makes it out to appear.
I'm a pretty boring guy.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah, you're not 48. Back when you were 44. 43 you were.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a little more excited. 45. As you can hear, my slow, monotone voice has clearly slowed down a lot in the last twelve months.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Now, we're recording this on August 7, 2023. And last week, Donald Trump was indicted again.
But this time, it feels more meaningful, at least to many people, because the charges relate directly to Trump's efforts to maintain power after he lost in the 2020 election, which a lot of people saw as really the most serious crime that was that we happened during all this.
Now, there have been countless pieces already breaking down the actual indictment and what to expect and all this other stuff. So we're not going to rehash all of that specifically here, but we saw an interesting case being made in the Wall Street Journal recently that what we're seeing here was anticipated by the founding fathers with, you know, complete with quotes from founding fathers from, you know, 17 hundreds that sound like they were made last week, and how the founding fathers really designed our system to be able to resist when these types of efforts would come. And so we wanted to explore that a bit along with taking a look at how our society seems to be doing and handling this.
So to get us started, tunde, what do you make of this idea that what Trump has been trying to do is exactly what, or is something that the founding fathers anticipated and built our system to try to resist.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: I think it's fascinating.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: All right.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: All right.
No, and look, there's a lot of people that would disagree with that. I think people that are emotionally connected to President Trump.
But I do think if we look at this for what it is, it's exactly what the founders set out to do, which was to create a, I would say a messy, and not messy as in anything negative, but then just a messier form of government than had been tried before. Let's put it that way, because remember, in the late 17 hundreds, most of the stuff that had been tried before were not democracies, were, you know, monarchies, primarily. And then, you know, you started having a little bit of parliamentary type of system in England, but all that stuff was still in the experimental stage. So I think that it's just interesting to be reminded by an article like this that this, the United States system, was specifically set up to avoid authoritarian rule and to ensure that the system had enough levers and moving parts. Now, you've discussed things like the federalist system, the sharing of power between the states and the federal government, as well as something like the three co equal branches of government, the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive branches all being separate.
I think it is.
It's just an interesting concept that, I guess, what did the country start in 1790, kind of roughly, as a real country after the revolution that it took.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah, when you had the constitution, the constitutional system is when you had to kick.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: So I'm just saying 230 years or so it took for someone to show up that really test this system. And I guess that's part of our conversation today. You know, it's just. Just what does that look like? And the future will determine whether the system holds or whether a man, pun intended, trumps the system.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, no, that's interesting then. I mean, the system in that sense, like, I mean, let me start with this, because, really, some of these quotes that were pulled in this, and we'll have a link to the Wall Street Journal article in our show notes. But then, I hate, you know, reading on a podcast, but I just found it to be like, the wording that was used seems so very intentional in terms of what's happening now. But the only path to, and I'm quoting, the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the country is by flattering the prejudice of the prejudices of the people, exciting their jealousies and apprehensions to throw affairs into confusion and bring on civil commotion and then, you know, that's, that's Alexander Hamilton back in 1790. And he's also saying when a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity, he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind. So really, what you're talking about here is someone taking on the approach of, like, a demagogue, basically, and trying to speak to the people in a way that is, it's going to stir their emotions. It's going to get them say, look, things are too dire. Things are too, you know, it's too crazy, basically, for us to stick to the constraints of this system that we're in. We got to throw our faith behind this guy. And talking about doing that, you know, like, it talks about doing that, basically, and inciting the prejudices and the jealousies and all that kind of stuff. And what we're seeing basically, in this sense, is Trump positioning himself as the, the person who can defend his supporters from, from all of these threats that they face, you know, like, and then asking them now or expecting them now to say, okay, well, now that the rule of law is attempted to, being applied to you is something that, hey, we can't have that, that it has to be illegitimate automatically. But the thing that actually stands out to me the most about this really is none of the stuff in the indictment really was new information, like, oh, I can't believe that happened. Or, like, it was all stuff that we saw, all stuff that we took in at the time. And to me, it's really, we, it was almost like, everybody's not a prosecutor, you know, and then trying to figure federal, you know, counts of conspiracy and all that stuff. So it's not that everybody walked away. I was like, oh, well, that's a crime. That's a crime. Or what crime that was. But it didn't seem right at the time that someone could do all that stuff. But to see an indictment lay out. Oh, yeah, yeah, this is all stuff that is illegal. These civil conspiracies was very interesting to me because, again, it was all out in the open.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and that's, that's something that I noticed, too, even in preparing for today. But understanding, if we look back just, you know, the two and a half years or so, or, you know, almost three years now, since the election of 2020, basically, Trump has done a slow walking confession publicly as to his actions.
I mean, even one of the things in the recent, you know, legal indictment in the documents is that he said that Vice President Pence was too honest. And that's one reason why the whole plans for January 6 didn't work. And in a sense, I'm reading it realizing, well, that's. That's a form of admission, because. What do you mean, he's too honest? Basically, what that means is he's too honest.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: He's honest enough.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Correct. He's too honest to do your bidding. He's too honest to break the rules. He's too honest to lie to the american people. And so.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Which implies that that's what was being asked of him to do, correct.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And so that's. That's where I'm saying is that I.
It really, this is why I think this one feels a bit different, is because the way that all of this is laid out, it really hits to the core that I think a lot of us who have been observing all of this, obviously, we've all been observing this together, but we all have our own opinions and perspectives. And, look, this is nothing positive or negative about Donald Trump. It is what it is. His personality, since 2015, when he announced that he was running for president, was, you know, a very authoritarian kind of posturing. Right? Remember the fur in 2016 when it was, I alone can fix it. Healthcare was going to be easy. Putting up a wall was going to be easy. It was all going to be about him, him, him. And at least in the United States, I've never seen somebody run and then win the presidency based on it just being about themselves and not about, I'm going to use the greatness of this country or the other people in the government with me that I'm going to bring along to do this with me. And, you know, it was all about him. And so it's understandable that since he has been in power for so many years and allowed to flourish in power, and we'll get into some of that, of who, you know, the other leaders that have allowed him to operate in this way without really much pushback. It's understandable to me that at this point, there's enough Americans, maybe 20% to 40% of our entire population, that now see everything that is not endorsed by him as somehow illegitimate. So now the law is going to be tested, and is the law gonna be the ultimate authority in our country, or is it gonna be a man? We're at a very important point in this country. That's why. Yeah.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: I mean, it's an honest to goodness attempt. You know, like, and we talked about that a few weeks ago, and at the risk actually, of being a bit redundant from our show last week, because where we point out how Israel didn't have a lot of these things in place and what they're dealing with. But there were two things I mentioned that I want to touch on now that also were mentioned in this Wall Street Journal piece, and that was, and you already touched on, actually, the federalist system, which is where you have dual sovereignties. The states have their own setup, their own governments and so forth. And then the federal government also has its own thing, and they exist together. One isn't subservient to the other, so to speak. Like, you know, where you have district courts, federal district courts are under federal appeals courts, which are under state or, excuse me, the federal supreme Court. And so that's a hierarchy, whereas the states and the federal government operate kind of separately. And the other piece is the separation of powers, which you talked about. So there's the wide separate, like, powers is dispersed vote both from the federal government to the states and also in the federal government. And so what's interesting to me about that is when you look at the nature of the conspiracies that he's beyond charged with, basically, the issue that he had was that in order to pull all of the levers that he needed to pull, in order to actually pull off the plan to stay in power, he needed cooperation amongst these different bodies. He needed cooperation from the state houses, you know, state, state houses and those state governments to do certain parts of the plan. He needed certain cooperation from the legislative branch of the federal government to do certain parts of the plan. And even in his own executive branch, which was pence, but it wasn't him. And so the conspiracy, so to speak, was necessary because he couldn't snap his finger and have everything with people who directly report to him, have them all execute this stuff. And so to me, that's where you look at it and say, okay, yeah, that is a design by the founding fathers that's meant to resist one man trying to snap his fingers and say, okay, everything is gonna. Everything's gonna go like this. And so. Or, you know, like, again, if it was just, if all he had to do was, was win over the state houses, he might have been able to pull it off. If all he had to do was get Pence on his side, he might have been able to pull it off. But he had to put all these things together. And that's the stuff he's being charged with. He's not being charged with, you know, saying that the election was stolen. He's being charged because he's trying to organize all these different separate groups of power. Several, several, several separate levers of power to produce this ends that he was trying to do, which is to stay in power.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I mean, look, that's part of, and this is what I'm saying about a slow rolling public confession just by him opening his mouth or us, you know, things being disclosed that had his voice on them. Because as you, as you wrap that up, I couldn't help but thinking of the famous phone call we've all heard to the Georgia secretary of state in 2020 asking him to find a certain amount of votes. And we know that he did the same thing to, I don't know if it was the governor or secretary of state, but someone in an important position in the state of Arizona as well as trying to cited in the indictment.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: How the guy in Arizona, you know, Washington, you know, one of the heroes, so to speak, of that.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And Wisconsin, Michigan. And the thing is, is that, you know, this is why this, this is an interesting conversation we're having because that's, that's in our explanation of the founder setting up a system to resist this type of energy, someone that would try and claim this country for themselves, literally. And these are all things that I think it's just interesting watching this all being tested right now. And I think it's, it's, what we're seeing, though, is two different tests. One is going to be the legal test. The other, which I know we'll talk about too, is the test of public opinion, which is going to be a.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Different test of the people. Yeah, they're the system, the structure of the system is being tested. And that's where we're seeing all these indictments coming, because there were laws broken in the attempts to break free of the system. And then the second test is going to be how the public reacts to someone who has gotten a lot of affection in certain circles of society if they're being held to account. Do you still stay faithful to the rule of law if the rule of law doesn't serve the person who you support?
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah, but I want to, but let me just say this. As you say that, I just want to stop because as you make a profound point, we have a former president for the first time in the history of this country, who's facing 78 felonies separate so far. So far, right.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: So far, the Georgia thing still hasn't even come.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: And like you're saying, that's where I was going next. Different, different jurisdictions so we've got a case in Washington, DC. We've got the New York case. Like you said, Georgia is coming, a state case. You know, you've got the state of New York case about his business. We have, his CFO's already been put in jail and all that stuff. My point is, is that this is again, going to be a very ugly battle in american culture for going forward because it is going to be the rule of law, which has all the, like we just said, it's a messy system on purpose. So the state of Georgia is not necessarily being influenced by the federal legal side and vice versa. The federal legal side is necessarily being influenced by states. But we're going to have a president who out of his own desperation to stay out of trouble and stay out of jail, is going to make sure that he makes a political case for his innocence. And that's going to be very, and we'll get, that's going to be painful.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, because there's not going to be, well, and we'll get into this. I don't want to touch it yet, but there's not going to be much of a defense from the legal stuff.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Just wait. I'll be ready when you're ready.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah, but I wanted, you touched on free speech there. And that's one of the things I wanted to touch on before we got to just kind of the, what we're seeing as far as the reaction, you know, and then the american public in different circles. But the free speech piece, it was an interesting thing that was floated out there. And I mean, these are like test balloons to see how is the public going to react if we say this? Because one of the things I saw initially was, oh, well, you know, he has President Trump, you know, he has free speech rights. This is an attack on his ability, on his freedom of speech, which was so bizarre to me because the, while lies were the basis of the conspiracies that he's being charged in, he's not being charged necessarily for the lies. He's being charged with conspiracy. So it's the actions that he took, and he used the lies as justification for those actions, but it's the actions that he took that really are the issue. It's the working, is trying to get Pence to do this or working with members of Congress to do that or trying to get Georgia officials to do this. There are many actions that he took. There are many things that he did and people that he was conspiring with to make his outcome happen. And that's what they're going after for. Notably, he's not being charged for his speech. He's been saying, he keeps saying the election was stolen. He's not being charged for that, for the stuff he's saying now. You know, it's just the stuff that he was doing when he was still controlling those levers of power to try to enact or try to get around the fact that he lost the election and to maintain power apps outside of that, which, if you think about that, you would imagine that that would be, I mean, again, it feels like it would be wrong, but that would be very illegal. Like a yemenite democratic republic or a democratic system. You know, we're a democratic republic, you know, meaning we have representatives and the democratic party means they're, they're elected by, you know, majority and stuff, by majority of people. But it would never work if it was just cool to lose an election and then just try to, try to pull all these levers to stay in power. Like, that would never work. Like, so it's obvious if you think about it, like, well, of course this stuff would be illegal. The question all along was, is that was there going in our, in our country. It's not just about do you do something illegal. It's about whether they can prove it. And so what's really happening here now is apparently there has been enough gathered. This Jack Smith guy seems to be pretty, pretty, pretty on point. There's been enough information and evidence gathered that they think they can prove it. And so that's what we're going to see as it unfolds more.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: And the only one thing, because I know you want to jump to, to the next part of our discussion that I wanted to say that what makes this different than other conversations we've had is what I appreciate about the indictment is that it really spells out for someone like me that I feel somewhat educated about this stuff in general, even though I'm not an attorney like you, of how he defrauded the United States, like, what was the crime? And I think the big one that I knew about kind of just on the periphery and just because it had been talked about, but I didn't realize that is like defrauding to this level is the fake elector scheme. Yeah, like the idea, like, that's what I mean, really.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: And that's part, like, that's part of the way he had to get into, he had to influence and work with people in the state level.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: And that's what creates a conspiracy. And that's what creates the conspiracy is that you now have multiple people involved with trying to defraud the United States of America. And here's a term, too, that is not often used in this broad sense, is disenfranchising many Americans out of their civil rights, because culturally, we tend to think of civil rights and then picture Martin Luther King in our head and think about segregation in the 1960s. But civil rights is really your rights as a civilian, and one of them is voting. So it has nothing to do with race. This was about. Because I'll read, well, I got to.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Say, it has something to do with race in this country because many basis. Well, let me. Race has been a basis to deny civil rights. Civil rights itself is a concept, is much broader than race.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean. Specifically on this one, it was, there was no racial determination or desire for whatever they were. It was wide. Yeah. It was just whoever voted for this one, we want to not count those. And who voted for this one would count them. So, and I'll quote real quick from the indictment. It says the defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote, disenfranchised millions of voters, dismissed legitimate electors, and ultimately caused the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the defendant. And so it names the seven Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And it even says some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating. So they were deceiving people that were on their side, like lying to them and saying, oh, but if you do this, it'll be cool and all that. And most people find themselves in the, in a court of law.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Some of those people we found have been like, I know Michigan's out there prosecuting people for this stuff. You know, like, it's, it's serious stuff. And so, yeah, I mean, that, that's the, the, that's, that was my point earlier, though, that the conspiracy actually was required because he couldn't do this stuff on his own because of the way our system is set up.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Back to the founding fathers.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: That's why. Go ahead, sir.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Well, that's how you find. That's how you tie that back and say, okay, yeah, they made this system. And again, we, we complain about the inefficiency. We complain about, you know, how everything isn't streamlined and, you know, like, it's hard to get stuff done. And, I mean, a lot of times those, those complaints are justified. But the reason for that is because of stuff like this. Because if it was efficient, this would have been successful, you know, if power could be wielded efficiently and not convoluted and needing to get during this. We got to bring these people on board. We got to bring these people on board. And eventually it becomes too unwieldy and the plan fails and then there's all these witnesses for all this stuff, you know?
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Or you could have just had a vice president who wasn't too honest.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: That was the size of sunk him all.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: That's why I wanted to stop, because there's so much misinformation about all this. And I could see a lot of people honestly out there saying, like, well, what did he do that was a crime? Was a crime. And that's really it is that after losing an election and being told by a million credible sources, including his attorney general and everyone else, that basically in his orbitz that he lost, he then conspired with others to defraud the election, basically to lie and say that I won when I didn't and have, like.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: And then also take these steps to actually push the levers of power. In a way, you bring his outcome. Like sending illegal things.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Having fake electors file electoral votes with the National Archives. Like, that goes back to your point about the amount of leverage. So that means he would have had to have the whole national Archives bought off and into this scheme, you know, and that's where it's just, that's why this is really, is the system going to win or is the man going to win when we look 510 years from now? Yes, both can't win at this point, right?
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Well, no, I mean, well, that, but that's because, you know, and there is, isn't the first time there's been disputes over elections, you know, like, that's, but that was basically, we don't, we need to keep in mind the reason we're in this position is because Donald Trump walked us to this position. Like, Al Gore could have done this, too, you know, and tied it up for year and come up with all these schemes. And, I mean, he could have kept pursuing his legal cases legitimately and, or you could have came up with all these other schemes or whatever, but he didn't. And so in the past, people have had to move on even though they weren't happy with it, but, but Trump wouldn't move on. And so he came up with all these schemes, worked with all the different bridges that he has to, had to cross in order to try to do this. He did all that stuff. That stuff's supposed to deter you from trying, like, oh, it's too much. If I could just have my attorney general do it. It'd be all good.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: But the joke I ever heard was, you can't break up with, it's impossible to break up with a narcissist. I think our country's learning.
He's not going to go away, guys.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: Never going to stop. So, but I do want to know, you know, specifically, I know we, we talked, you know, like we were going to go ahead this direction, but just in terms of the pushback that we've seen because there has been a predictably so, a substantial and significant pushback from the, you know, the, from, from the indictments, you know, whether it be from Trump himself or, or just the people who have decided to stake their claim with him or the people who are hopelessly, you know, just, they can't get him out of their head, you know, like, but what's this kind of pushback? And we touched on one, which is the whole free speech thing. But there's been a lot, you know, there's been a lot of stuff thrown out there. But so what stands out to you, you know, and things that we've seen in that context.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: No, I think, look, what stands out to me with all of them, right. I mean, this one really had to do with, like, we've been talking about the actual period after the 2020 election and really between, I would say that November election through the January 6 period.
So we can clearly, you know, see.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: What the defense, when the election was served, we think January 6, like all the insurrection, but it's also when the election was certified.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, and so clearly, though, those defenses are things like freedom of speech and all that, which, which I know that we'll, we'll discuss in a second. But then I think of other things like, you know, the handling of the classified documents and other cases that he's been involved with and even the thing with the stormy Daniels that the paying off of the porn star. You know, the thing I love about Trump is he doesn't deny this stuff. He's never said he did not paid Stormy Daniels. He's just kicked a lot of other dust up. He's never denied that he took the classified documents. He just gave us a different version of reality. He said, they're mine. And he said he had mementos and he had a love letter from Kim Jong un. He had all this other stuff. And he was, remember, he said he was too busy for 18 months because of his schedule and all that to really sift through him to see what was the real important classified nuclear stuff versus what was the love letters from Kim Jong un and all this other stuff. So the point is, is that that's kind of what I find interesting, is that there's not really a defense for any of this stuff. And, and the defense begin becomes, let me control the narrative, especially in the ecosystems of media on the right. And let's just make this all about us versus them. And let's start, let's attack the, the.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Integrity of the system. Yeah.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, because you have to only trust me. That means even the system now is untrustworthy if it doesn't agree with what I'm saying. And I think that that's really, and that's why this is a lack of profiles and courage.
I appreciate what, how Donald Trump is behaving because he's behaving like a corner tiger. He is in desperation. He's, he's in real legal trouble.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: And so I, he's been the same person the whole time.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, you know, he's gonna start bashing Jack Smith and bashing everybody involved with the investigation and trying to get, and that's what I'm saying.
He, I understand him. I don't, I understand. I guess everybody in power wants to stay in power. But, you know, the people, like the speaker at a house on the republican side, you know, the leaders in the Senate, other political leaders.
Again, the only one that I've seen say anything even close to the right thing was when Mitt Romney, during the Senate trial for the second impeachment, just looked at his colleagues on the republican side of the Senate and said, we need to start being honest with the american people. Like, none of this changes until the messengers that people on the right trust begin to also speak in a way that will protect this system, period.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And the thing about that, honestly, is that all of them individually are scared to do it because it wouldn't work. If any one of them or any five of them came out and started doing this, they would just become the out group like Mitt Romney has or Liz Cheney has or Liz Cheney. They all would need to, have to do it at the same time, which creates this dilemma for them, you know, where everybody's just kind of stuck staying in lockstep.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Well, the moment to do it was after gen six and the fact they didn't or they, yeah, they said stuff that day, but within two or three weeks later, all backtracked and we're down kissing the ring in Mar a Lago. That's why I think this train has left the station.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: This is now going to be, does the system win or does Donald Trump win? Dude, we're past.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: But the concern there as an american who thinks that the two party system is what we're stuck with because of the nature of our elections and we need two functioning parties. Trump, the Republican Party, has hitched their wagon to Trump to such an extent that it's like they're, they're tying their fate to his. And it's like, guys didn't have to do that. Like, it's not supposed to be one guy goes down and the whole party's in flames. Because that's why.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: This is fascinating, man.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like, what are you guys doing? We need a real republican party. And so we'll, we'll see. I mean, there's a two party system, but the parties, you know, aren't necessarily locked in stone. But it's really crazy. But not, the biggest thing that stood out to me also was what you, was what you said, that out of all the things we're hearing, it's never that he didn't do this stuff. It's always like, oh, he was justified in doing it. He was right to do it. Or, oh, this is just political. He's being persecuted and stuff like that.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Or what about ism? What about.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Or other p, which is, that's the weakest one of all because it's like, dude, that doesn't get you out of murder. Like, yeah, if somebody else shot somebody, too. Like, no, I mean, I did. You commit the crime. You commit the crime.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: The best is now. It's, it's, there's a word for it.
Shoot. What's it called?
Aspirational speech. That's the latest.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: No, no, serious. I saw one of his attorneys interviewed on a news channel, and they said that his speech to Mike Pence was aspirational. It wasn't like he was just talking about what could be done. I'm like, hold on. I'm like, no, I was going to laugh and tell you this, and I'll tell you on there, because I'm like, man, I'm not an attorney, but I watched enough of those undercover, like, 48 hours and these, you know, unsolved mysteries type of stuff when, when guys are trying to get, like, their wife killed, you know, and they're talking to some undercover cop and they're like, yeah, man, I'll pay you five grand. Just kill her. I'm like, yeah, I don't think the aspirational discussion is a defense in the courtroom.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: Well, see, that's, but see, here's what you're, what you're talking about is what we're seeing, brace. Like, what I'm, if you don't have, like the stuff that they're doing that we're seeing in the pushback, none of that stuff would fly in court. Like, that stuff wouldn't be a defense, actually. And so they do, I mean, the lawyers are there. They're working. They do have to try to come up with something that would get him off the hook, conceivably, because the whole idea that the stuff, again, we saw all the stuff happen, what we don't have is the behind the scenes stuff of the extent to which they knew they were lying, the extent to which they knew they were defrauding and stuff like that. Like that's the stuff that presumably that Jack Smith has the goods on. And so that to me is what, when you see the way this stuff is laid out, the federal government doesn't just take wild swings as far as the DOJ. And so when they bring a prosecution, they 90 something percent conviction rate like these guys brought to have the goods. And so to me, I would say this, though, you know, like, again, because I agreed with you as far as that the defense didn't do it. But what stood out to me, honestly, is that there's an expectation now that the people who, the audience of all of these excuses and the whataboutism and stuff, it's a, the people that are talking to them, it's a given to them now that they will side against the american system. They just need to give them a reason to, like, they're not trying to persuade them to side against the american system and decide with the Trump against the rule of law. They're just saying we need to give them a pretext. We just have to tell them something so that they can, they can, you know, rest assured, like, okay, yeah, then I'm good with you guys. So, yeah, they're not that to me, it's not like a persuasive case. It's just, hey, we got to give people something to say. And so we did. So we give them that.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: No. And it's very effective. You know, and this is where, I think this is why I think it's only going to get worse for those of us who watch all this and just look at it as a big train wreck, you know, in terms of just the way that our system is being attacked, also the way that, you know, someone like a former president is behaving in terms of just the type of language he's, you guys watched, you know, parts of the speech from Saturday night where he's attacking the prosecutor. And, you know, it's funny how his supporters always talk about this two tiered system of justice. And I'm watching him speak about the judge and speak about the prosecutor, and I'm like, yeah, there's two tiers. This guy gets away with a lot of things that most of us wouldn't, you know, like, I'm pretty sure if I got indicted on some serious charge like this, and I just go on my, my social media and start saying, anybody who comes after me is gonna get it, you know, and I start literally threatening people and calling them delusional and deranged. And I'm pretty sure I'd get my bail revoked or something like that. Right. I mean, I'm just, you know, most people aren't allowed to behave like this, period, especially, even in the government. People that take classified stuff don't get to have 18 months to just negotiate when they give it back. And, you know, and then the government.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: High up people, man, even like, when they talk about Penn. So when you talk about Biden, those guys were like, all right, yeah, here you go. Take it back. Like it's over in like a week.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's what I mean. So, so the bottom line is where I'm, where I'm going at, that it's, it's gonna get worse because this stuff works when people, when they know that a certain percentage of this country only watch certain media outlets. And by, by keeping those people 100% locked in on your side, if they add up to 30, 35% of the population this country, they're going to make it much more difficult for the system to move on. And they are also going to do what we discussed earlier. They're going to keep their hooks into those politicians to make sure those politicians don't move, because they're going to, they're the ones that, the voters are the ones that the politicians are scared of. So I'm going to read a quote from.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Oh, go ahead.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: No, no. Did you read the quote?
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Because it was, it's about the effectiveness of some of this internal, and I would say inter United States propaganda, which, you know, is not a word I like to use talking about my own country, but it's true. So, quote, when broken down by which media sources respondents most gather their news from? 91% of respondents who identified Fox News viewers who I, who identified as Fox News viewers said Trump has not committed crimes. So he's not committed crimes. 91% of people who only want to watch Fox News said that for those GOP voters who watch mainstream media, only 52% said Trump has not committed any crimes.
So that's interesting because it shows you that it's not saying non Republicans or non GOP supporters. You're saying people that support the same party, but at one group that only watches one channel, 91% think there's nothing to see here. But then the other group surveyed that watch multiple sources of information, half of them think there's something to see here. Yeah, that's a big deal. That showed me that this. This is why it's not.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: It's only. It only speaks to. Because it doesn't say they, oh, they didn't watch the one source of it, just saying that they watch that plus others. So it only speaks to the extent to which if you're only watching the one, they have their hooks in you and how, like, you can just be complete on a completely different planet from everybody else, you know, like, no, and.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: That'S why it's a great example why authoritarians hate the press.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Free the press, or they control the press.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Like, yeah, that's freedom of information. Yeah. Just causes people to think on their own.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: And to me, you know, like, the thing is, and you had mentioned to me, this is a conversation we've had over the years, you know, like, just this was, so to speak, the dream after what happened to Nixon happened to Nixon, you know, where you had a truly independent mediaev. And there wasn't a huge media platform that was convincing people that Nixon did nothing wrong or trying to convince people that Nixon did no wrong, or at minimum, not even trying to convince them, but they already wanted to believe that, so they just gave them some pretextual reason to believe Nixon did something wrong. And it's been documented. This was a lesson that Roger Ailes learned in terms of, oh, we just can't have. We have to have the ability to produce our own narrative, you know, if something goes south. And so to me, it just speaks to that. You know, it speaks to that in terms of, okay, well, then a separate narrative is able to be maintained now. And we can't agree as far as we can't agree in this country whether or not the sun comes up every morning, you know, like, there are people, like, that's. That's just something that we have to agree to disagree. We can't agree that when the sun is on the other side of the earth, it's it's nighttime, you know, like, we can't agree on these things because there's always, I mean, the term was used, although I remember Trump's inauguration when they were talking about the, the size of the crown, and it was like, we have alternate facts. And it's like, that's not really how facts are supposed to work, but we see the effect, effectiveness of it. But again, that brings it back to the quote from Alexander Hamilton from 1790 when he's talking about, yeah, that writing popular stuff, writing these popular appeals, and I using that to then attack the system because that, again, that's what we're seeing now is an attack on the system. You, you cannot right now, if you think about it like this, I mean, this is now, I know we want to keep it moving, but right now, you cannot both support the operation of the american system, separation of powers, rule of law and so forth. And Donald Trump, who's running for president in this country, like, he's asking you to side with me over the operation of normal legal enforcement of stuff. You know, and that's, that's unfortunate.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: That's a great point that a lot of people, I think there's a lot of people in this country, if they heard you make that statement, would think you're way exaggerating. And I think that, and I don't think that. I'm just saying that I could see a lot of people responding that way.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Of course. Of course. If you.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: But, but that, that's why his, the continued political attacks to try and muddy the waters and the personal attacks against the people in the legal system that are legitimized. Yeah. That's why this is going to get worse and worse because it seems that the system, the american system is protecting itself through the legal system and has made case after case as to how it is being infringed upon.
And so with all those facts and evidence, including like we talked about earlier, this is the amazing thing, why I marvel at Donald Trump's ability to command this position for so long in terms of having the country polarized like this. Because like I said at the beginning of the show, we heard him talk to the secretary of state of Georgia on the phone.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Asking him to vote on more votes. And think about it. That's what I thought when I was watching him on Saturday night in a speech in South Carolina or Alabama. I can't remember which state, but because he's saying only in third world countries did this happen. This happened. And I thought, man, the level of projection, because I heard you on the phone like a third world banana Republic dude saying, hey, man, just fix those votes over that. You know? And so what I'm saying is we've all. So people who don't want to believe any of this is true or credible have already had to go through the mental jumping jacks of hearing things like that.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: And somehow telling themselves that it doesn't matter.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Something, as James Comey said, eating your soul.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: That's why the cultures are going to get worse, because it must be that transgender and CRT and wokeness and all this stuff is so scary that having a person in power who's gonna deconstruct our system is less scary than that stuff.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: That's a great point that.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Because what I actually. What I just made sure to circle here in my notes, it. That's that stuff you have to be made so afraid of that stuff that the people that were. That the ends justify the means. That's where. That's what it takes you to. Is that okay? Well, I'm not crazy about the way this person does this or that they did that, but I need them to protect my kids from transgender something or the other.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: Exactly. Or other side is.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: The other side is so bad that no matter what my side does or no matter what we have to do to keep power, it's justified. And that gets you to in justify the means, which gets you out of rule of law. Like, that's. That's essentially, like, you can't have both of those and justify the means. And rule law don't work together. And so the other thing, though, I will say before we get out, is just like, it's not that I find any claim that the us government is over its skis or is being deceptive or treating people unfairly to be inherently problematic or something. That's unbelievable. I very much believe that the us government can act in certain ways. Now, I don't think that it acts in those ways. Typically, to the attack, people like Donald Trump, you know, rich, wealthy, white men, like, they don't seem to be the guy. The people who get the brunt of the unfairness from the us government. But, I mean, there are many, many, many. There's much document as far as the civil rights movement and the things that the FBI was doing, you know, to some of the civil rights groups and things and the leaders and stuff like that. There's the Vietnam stuff, you know, Vietnam protesters and what the federal government was doing there again, now, again. But it wasn't that they were going and infiltrating wealthy white guys and saying, hey, yeah, let's, let's, we're going to set these guys up or we're going to record all these guys phone calls to that extent now. But again, it's not that the claims.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: That if they were gay back then so they could hold some over their head.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was blackmail more than anything. But again, it's not that this stuff is impossible. It's just that if this like, come up with some, some kind of proof of something, you know, like Trump and this is part of his power. And again, yeah, you and I both are like, man, it's amazing that he's able to do what he's able to do. Like it's, it's absent the, just the kind of craziness of it. It's impressive to be like, wow, you can get ahold of that many people that strongly, but it never is able to like justify anything. Like, it's never like, okay, yeah, yeah, this is what I claim and here are the goods that back that up. It's always, this is what I claim. And you got to make a decision, are you going to ride with me or not? And that's, I don't operate like that. And people who don't operate like that are looking at this like, this is crazy. But the people who are willing to ride with them because his, his ends there with, and there's, therefore the means is whatever it takes, then that's what we see. And that's where we see the breakdown of whether some people are still on board with rule of law and some people aren't, you know, and we're just going to see how that plays out. But second topic that we want to discuss just to get, it's a hard transition, but you got to make it. So we saw something, and it was in the Atlantic recently and it, it talked about the, like we have increasing, increasing diagnoses of mental illness and a lot of them deal with depression and anxiety and so forth. And it's not to say that that stuff doesn't exist at all like that. That case isn't made at all. But the question really, I think the question really that was being asked is, are we over diagnosing these things? Because people associate not having a problem with feeling good. And then the question becomes, well, if you don't feel good all the time, does that mean do you have a actual clinical problem or is that just kind of just life? You know, and the case is being made in this piece that, hey, sadness, anxiety, those are parts stress. Those are the part of the ups and downs of life. And there are ways to know if you have. If it's bleeding into something more serious than you should get, you know, see a professional about. But the automatic presence of these types of feelings doesn't mean that there's a problem with you. All of a sudden, you're for sure. And so what was your reaction to this? Or what stood out to you in it?
[00:43:28] Speaker B: I mean, my reaction is finally, you know, somebody's putting a kind of brace on this constant, I would say, kind of hyper sensitivity about everything, like, in terms of just how people feel. Like. Like, I guess, let me say this a little bit more artfully.
People are allowed to be upset and depressed and sad for periods of time without being told that they have a mental illness or to be put on meds or something like that. And I think I remember reading some stat when I was a lot younger, like 20 years ago, that the average person will go through some depressive states, like, seven or eight times if they live a full life expectancy just because of just things that happen in life. You know, it could have emotional downtimes. When you break up with someone, God forbid you lose a loved one. You know, your parent dies or a.
[00:44:22] Speaker A: Child dies if you live long enough. I actually, I tell, you know, my loved ones is it. It's kind of the curse of surviving. Like, the longer you live, the more people you'll lose.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Exactly. And so that's what I'm saying is that understanding that life isn't always happy, right? Like, there's nothing that, like, we talk about, like from the book, sapiens, nature doesn't guarantee rights, and it also doesn't necessarily guarantee happiness or good feelings. So the idea is that we probably appreciate. I mean, I think that's why people that go through adversity have probably a different outlook on life a lot of times, because you can appreciate the good times when you've been through some real bad times. And I think that's another reason why people that have everything handed to them from a young age aren't generally happy, you know, if they haven't been challenged and have. Because when you don't know how to.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: Say, though, if you don't have the downs, you don't know what to make of the ups, and you can't really tell the difference. If you're just plateauing, then that becomes unpleasant. No matter whether if you're plateauing at the bottom, the middle or the top is kind of like the good feels good because you're not always feeling it, you know, a lot of times. And so, I mean, to me, it was. It was very interesting because there was one concept that I really grabbed onto, and that was just kind of our bodies signaling to us, you know, like, our body uses hormones, uses pain, you know, things like that to signal around, like, our organs don't speak English to one another or use, you know, binary code to our knowledge, you know, to send signals back and forth. But they use hormones. They use, you know, like, just different things. Like, there are ways of communicating within our body and our body communicating with kind of our consciousness as well. And so pain. Pain is a signal, you know, typically you have acute pain, like, all my back hurts, I better not go lift that heavy thing. Or, you know, different things like that. You eat something that's bad, your stomach hurts, and that tells you not to eat that again or, you know, to learn to avoid that kind of stuff. But what I think is, one, the more options you have, the more kind of you, the more problems you want to solve, you know? So. But the other thing is that I feel like discomfort. Not being in the best place is kind of replacing the thing of actual or becoming like pain to us. If we experience any discomfort, then it's like, oh, well, I need to do something to get rid of this discomfort, or I need, you know, this is a signal from my body that's telling me that something's wrong. And discomfort isn't the same as pain, though. You know, discomfort comes if you're exercising. There is a time of discomfort. If I'm a. If I go out and run sprints right now, at the end of my, you know, the last 20, 20 meters or so, I'm going to be having discomfort. But that's not discomfort telling me that something's wrong. That's discomfort that my body grows from. And so I think being able to distinguish between the two, you know, like, if that's easier on a physical level than it would be on a mental level, but some level of stress, as talked about in the article, is important for us on our development. Sadness is a part of life. And then, you know, like that, again, that makes the good time sweeter. But that's not to say that again, it's important to say that. That's not to say that these anxiety disorder or depressive disorders don't exist. It's just, I think pointing out the difficulty which we seem to take for granted, that it's just, it's either you have something or you don't. But there's a difficulty in actually, when it comes to the mental stuff particular and identifying whether or not there's actually an issue versus just a kind of, like, again, the normal ebb and flow of life.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, you make a good point, and then the article they refer to, what you just said, is kind of having a. Looking at the mental stuff more like a dial than like an on off switch.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is. That was the question.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: And they did a good job of comparing something like when, when you're being told by a doctor you're pre diabetic, that really all that means. It's a set of numbers they put in that just look and say, okay, your. Your blood sugar looks like you might be going down the road for this, but technically, maybe you just have a body type that that's your natural blood sugar and you're gonna be fine. You might not get diabetes. Right. And so, and so I think it's a lot harder when you're dealing with mental stuff, because what is the marker of a really healthy mind versus unhealthy mind? I mean, we can see what healthy lungs. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, you can see what healthy lungs versus unhealthy lungs are. Like you said, you know, if you break your arm, you do an x ray, you know, that's unhealthy versus an arm that's not broken.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: Let me add something real quick. It's objective except on the extremes. That's what I say, that a little more completely. Like, on the extremes. On the really, really downside, then, yeah. Like, that's there. That's objective quality for that. But, yeah, the prediabetes thing is a good example because that's like, hey, if you don't, if you don't make certain changes to your lifestyle, then you're going to end up with this diagnosis and you're going to end up with this clinical problem. But with the mental stuff, it's harder to conceive that because it's like, okay, well, what things in my lifestyle can I, if I'm on. If the dial is turning a little bit more towards anxiety disorder or depression, then what can I do in my lifestyle to turn that dial back? And I don't think mental health is as fully developed in that to the same degree that some of the physical ailments are.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: And even going back to the not to go rehash the first topic, but when we discussed the idea of media ecosystems, you got social media, you got a lot of negativity in our media ecosystem in general. We know, a lot of us know about the social media, but think about the way the news is reported. It's very stressful to a lot of people on kind of both sides.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: That's what keeps your attention.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And so the article did a good job too, of citing things like that. That when you're kind of immersed in this constant political negativity and all this other stuff, a lot of people do just feel down. And I think that's reflected in a lot of the polls and information. Let's just say that you and I discuss privately. Sometimes we just see when we're, when we're, when we're just being exposed to things and it's like how everybody, if you ask the average american right now, the economy is horrible, but yet for somehow we've been at 3.5% unemployment. Like I keep seeing, it's the lowest unemployment since like 1960, has been like this for three years.
And the stock market's up 20, 30% again now this year so far. And like, technically the economy is booming in general. I'm not saying that everybody's experiencing it, but the economy is fairly healthy right now. But because of the negativity within kind of the media ecosystems. And this is not a pick on a political side. No, because, yeah, the right is negative. Negative because, you know, Biden is president and they want to be negative on anything with Biden and, but a lot.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Of stream is negative. To remember mainstream media all year was all, the recession is coming all time and, but that's the attention game. That's a different game. Yeah.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: And then, and then there's kind of the more left leaning media, which is negative because they feel that, you know, the labor is not getting enough and, and, you know, they have their, so no matter what spectrum you're in, if you go look at stuff about the economy, just in this example, someone out there is going to be negative, even though I could sit there and point to a bunch of stuff of why you should be feel positive about this economy. So I think that when we're immersed in all this stuff, it naturally will have an effect and permeate our brain a bit and make us feel like there's this cloud that something's always wrong. Yeah, because we're constantly told something's wrong all the time.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: No, that's a good, so it's kind of like in your environment basically that like, okay, we're going to feel more down because we're immersed in negativity. If we're depending on how much we engage in with certain type of types of media, you know, and. Yeah, but the other thing I'll mention with that in terms of societal influences on this is, I think the kind of the alliance or the merging together of the capitalist system along with kind of the medical, pharmaceutical, you know, that diagnosis type of thing also plays a role as well. Like, I remember when the law was changed to allow pharmaceutical companies to market directly to people in general, not just through doctors and stuff. And everybody knew, well, not everybody. A lot of people knew. Pharmaceuticals companies knew it because that's why they lobbied for this. But once you can start telling people, hey, do you have restless leg syndrome? Or you start putting this stuff in people's minds. The more you put it in their minds, the more they start thinking, we know how powerful our minds are. So we could sell more drugs to people. If we just kind of seeded in their minds, they might have this problem. They might have that problem. And so there is a financial stake in selling more antidepressants or anti, like, more medication that I don't think our society has a good way of dealing with, because with the amount of medication we take in this country, you would wonder how any other country ever gets out of bed. You know, like, how do they get out of bed without all of this stuff that we have to do all the time just to function and, you know, so, and I'm not saying it's to rail against it. I mean, I could do that another time. I'm just pointing it out like, you know, it's. If it's known that psychologically that you market to people, a certain. If you market to a large enough group saying, hey, do you have this problem? Hey, do you have that problem? Hey, do you have this problem that you start putting it in people's minds and they'll start thinking they have those problems. Like, the thing that blows my mind and I can, I can, you know, I'm done after this. But it always blows my mind, is whenever they test drugs, like pharmaceutical drugs, and, you know, part of the testing is always, they'll have a control group as well, which is getting like a sugar pill or something like that. And so they'll test, okay, well, how many people they got the real drug? You know, how many out of the hundred people, how many got, you know, got better? And then how many people out of the control group got better? There's always people in the control group that get better, too. It's like, well, hold on. They didn't even get any medicine. Like, how now it's a smaller amount.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: That's the placebo effect. Exactly.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: There's a name for it. It's called the placebo effect. And it's like. So, yeah, our minds are very like, you start, hey, so do you have this problem? Hey, do you have that problem? Like, I think it would clearly bring more of these problems out. But the question is, again, whether or not these problems are clinical. Like, you have a real issue and you need to really seek medical attention or, you know, maybe we as a society have lost some of our mechanisms that humans had developed over eons to deal with these kind of ups and ups and downs.
[00:54:34] Speaker B: I think it's a little bit of everything. And I think, you know, to not beat up our fellow Americans and humans in the world today.
I do think that being alive today is much more complex, but in different ways than it has been in any other time in society. Because, like, we've talked about all these influences, like the social media and tv and Internet and all this stuff, you know, the human brain never had to deal with so much, trying to field so much information at once and to try and sift through what's real and what's nothing. And then we've talked about other things, too, just over the years in our discussions on the show about the environment. I mean, the amount of caffeine, sugar salts that are in our food, that stimulate us a certain way that humanity didn't deal with before, when you're just hunter gathering or living on a farm. And then we talk about the pollutants from the microplastics to the hormones in our food to all this other stuff, there's a lot going on that can affect our state of mind, which I don't even think we're aware of, all these other factors that can mean, who knows about Wi Fi and radio waves, you know, like, how that could affect us.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: I'll say this, though. I disagree. And here I think it actually, I would say I agree with Tunde at 44 on this one, not tunde at 45, because I think, and you've made this point many times on our shows, I think it's Maslow's hierarchy thing, because, again, we can't look at it just as Americans. Like, I don't think that people who are worried about where their next meal is coming from or whether they're going to get, you know, like. Like their house is going to get blown away or something like that, no matter how many distractions and social media and all this other stuff they have a, they have a much more grounded sense of reality because they just, they have real problems, like existential problems. And so I think part of the problem that we'll see, and this is, you know, specific to more, like, the cultures that are more affluent, is the life and death stuff. We just don't worry about that much. And so we have time for our minds to ruminate on all this stuff that is not great, but it's not necessarily life or death. Like, hey, if our crops fail, then we don't have food all winter. That type of stuff. But no, I think we can wrap.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: So you're basically telling me I just got to keep buying big tech stocks because basically they're going to keep making all this money with all this conflict. Cause we got all this time to stiff and moan.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: I didn't know I was saying that. But if I'm saying that, I guess I'm saying keep buying big pharma too.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:57:05] Speaker A: But I think we can wrap from there.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: Wait till the next pandemic and there's a vaccine. That's when you gotta.
Gotta time it right, dude.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. But we appreciate everybody, for joining us on this episode of call it like I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:57:22] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Ogun. Lana.
[00:57:23] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next.
