America’s Lawyer E65: Billionaires from Silicon Valley are trying to build a new city for themselves in California – a place where they can escape the harsh realities of life in America and where they won’t have to deal with the mess they’ve helped create. The first lawsuits over the wildfire in Maui are being filed, targeting the energy company that refused to shut off the power as their power lines were sparking fires. And a new poll has some devastating news for President Biden, as most Americans believe he’s too old to be effective if he’s elected for a second term. All that, and more is coming up, so don’t go anywhere – America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Hi, I’m Mike Papantonio, and this is America’s Lawyer. Billionaires from Silicon Valley, well, they’re trying to build a new city for themselves, a utopia in California, a place where they can escape the harsh realities of life in America that they helped create, a gated community where they can hide. The first lawsuits over the wildfire in Maui are being filed, targeting the energy company that refused to shut off the power as their power lines were sparking fires. And a new poll, it has some devastating news for President Biden, as most of Americans believe he’s too old to be effective if elected for a second term, about 70%, somewhere in that range. All that, and more, it’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Billionaires from the tech industry have been buying up huge areas of land in Northern California for years. Their motives have been revealed now, these billionaires are trying to build their own utopian city where they won’t have to deal with riffraff and poor people. Well, we’ll see where that goes. Farron, I read this story, this story’s been kicking around a little while, but it’s really happening. It is all of these Silicon Valley types said, you know, we’re tired of living with regular Americans. We don’t want poor people. We don’t want riffraff. We don’t want what we’ve created in San Francisco and LA, homelessness, a crime problem, tax problem. All these things they helped create. And now they’re saying, we’re gonna leave that to everybody else and we’re gonna put up a gated community. What’s your take?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is absolutely almost farcical with the way it sounds, but again, a hundred percent real. They’ve been pouring money for many years now into this group, The Flannery Group, and so Flannery has been going out secretly buying all this land from the farmers, telling ’em, oh, this land is, you can’t really plant anything here. There’s only about a 5% yield. Let me pay you way over the value of your land. And of course, the farmers say, well, heck yeah. Take it, it’s yours. So now they’ve got all this land, and now they’re petitioning, they’re getting local residents to agree like, hey, what if we just turn this into its own city? You know, we’ll run it. We’ll build the mansions. We’ll build the houses. We’ll have grocery stores and all kinds of national parks for you to visit. We just, it’s gonna be our tech billionaire city.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It’s billionaire city. I mean, basically they’re gonna close the gates to poor people. They’re gonna close the gates to this riffraff that they say is lying all over the streets in San Francisco and in LA. We’re gonna leave all that behind, and we’re gonna build this utopia. The irony to me is they helped create so much of that in San Francisco. They helped create so much of that in LA and these awful parts of California that are having to really fight back on all of this. So they say, well, we can’t solve it, so we’re just gonna build a new, we’re gonna move on. We’re gonna put up big gates and you poor people, you know, don’t bring your unclean masses to us. They’ve spent about $800 million doing it so far. They’ve actually spent that so far, and they intend to go ahead full speed. Are they gonna get resistance here?
Farron Cousins: It doesn’t seem like it. They have the money. Like I said, they’ve already kind of paid off the community by paying them well over the value for their land. So these people have a little bit of a loyalty to ’em saying, well, my property was worth a hundred thousand, but they gave me $400,000. I kind of like these guys. What they’re doing seems interesting. And we talk about how, yeah, they’re trying to escape the horrible conditions in California. I think part of it too is also, okay, well we need to get out of these low lying areas. We got climate change bearing down on us.
Mike Papantonio: Good point.
Farron Cousins: So let’s just go up into the mountains and we can move our high end stores up here. Don’t worry.
Mike Papantonio: Let the poor people deal with all the.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. It’s the Mad Max city. We’re gonna be living in Mad Max and they’re up there on their hill.
Mike Papantonio: Well, they’re gonna have their private police system where there’s no rampant crime like they’re experiencing in San Francisco and LA. They’re gonna have their own transportation system to where poor people won’t be interfering with their ability to travel around. It’ll just be rich folks in exotic transportation systems. So, as I look at this, it’s just such, oh, by the way, the bad soil thing, I bet what you’re gonna find on that once you start digging, is they hired the best experts they could hire to say, we can’t really grow anything on this soil. Because that could be an obstacle. Okay. If you say you’re taking off 55,000 acres that was ranching land, farm land, but we’re gonna make this into a new city, they’d have problems with that. So they bring in an expert, say, no, this is bad soil. We can’t really grow anything. It’s nonsense.
The families of the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks have written a letter to President Biden, urging him to make good on his promise to release information to the public about Saudi Arabia’s role in the attacks. We all know they were involved, but they’re hiding it. These people just want closure. Isn’t that what they want? Tell us. You have it, you have the report. It says, yes, Saudi Arabia was involved. We can actually pinpoint the people that were involved, and they’re hiding this. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And Biden, I had completely forgotten about the fact that he came out through an executive order a couple years ago and demanded, okay, government, you have to release these files. And then he did nothing to enforce it because the government said, well, uh, we’re going through ’em. And these families now 22 years on are wondering, why can’t we just get this closure? You know, we’ve laid our loved ones to rest. We’ve still got the lawsuits, but we need to be able to just know so we know what happened.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So he comes out and makes it look like he’s gonna do the right thing. But then there’s no follow up.
Farron Cousins: No follow up.
Mike Papantonio: As a matter of fact, all he has to do is call Garland and say, look, you know what? Do something, release this to the public. We have it. There’s no reason you can’t release it other than the fact that our military, other than the fact that our weapons industry is making a killing through selling weapons to the Saudis, and that there’s the oil problem, and that there’s this problem and that problem, and these are our friends. These are absolute dictorial murderers who actually planned and participated in the murder of 3000 Americans on American soil. He could do something tomorrow. Garland could do something tomorrow. What they did on this was they shifted. They said, well, no, you know, we’ve given this to the office of the Chief prosecutor for military commissions, and it’s kind of in their hands, ridiculous argument. FBI could do something. Everybody in the Department of Justice could do something about this. They could release this tomorrow if they wanted. Instead, they’ve been hiding it for decades. And it’s making it very difficult for the families who were victims to this to recover anything for their losses.
Farron Cousins: It really is. And I think just the coverup itself is really the strongest proof that people need that, yes, we are protecting Saudi Arabia. Their involvement was clearly deeper than we know, because we already know that they had the money, they had the training, they did all of this, but it’s clearly so much deeper that they don’t want us to know, because then the public will demand we cut off everything to Saudi Arabia.
Mike Papantonio: What are the things you remember that you did a story, we both did stories right after the event, 3000 Americans killed. What happened the next day in that week? What are the things that you look at and you say, wow, this is way too weird?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. We had no airplanes flying in the United States except the planes that the administration, the Bush administration said, go pick up all the Saudis. Make sure they’re safe.
Mike Papantonio: The royal family.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Get ’em outta here quietly. Those were the only planes flying in United States airspace.
Mike Papantonio: And this, while they’re saying quietly go get the royal family out of the United States, go get anybody having to do with Saudi Arabia outta the United States that could be arguably involved here. And at the same time, they’re talking about, well, Iraq, you know, the Iraqis did this. We have to attack Iraq. Just the ugliest story. And these families have been fighting for decades just to get the right to look at these documents. And you know the royal family, Saudi royal family is gonna be all over it.
A county in Maui has filed a lawsuit against the power company that’s believed to be at least partially responsible for the blaze that devastated the island several weeks ago. This lawsuit alleges that the company was aware of the risk. Clearly they were. And they were part of the reason that this all took place. It was the poles. You had wooden poles that were rotten. They were eaten out by termites. They were ready to fall. You had a place where years, decades ago, they should have done underground wiring. They had the ability to do it. They had the money to do it, but instead they wanted to keep profits. They had, now, as of, I guess a few days ago, Hawaiian Electric says, no, we turned off the electricity. Did you see that?
Farron Cousins: No. I hadn’t seen that.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, yeah. They said, we turned off the electricity and it caused the Hawaiian Electric stocks to rise. But that’s right flying in the face of videos where you see the pole falling. You see the sparks, you see the fire taking place. It’s gonna be an interesting fight. Again, my feeling is the best place to handle this one is gonna be in bankruptcy court because this company’s only worth $3.6 billion. It’s probably a $6 billion problem. There’s no way they can go the distance. I do tell people to get ready for that. It’s not gonna be an easy solution here, is it?
Farron Cousins: Right. No. And we’ve seen it, obviously, we saw that happen in California with PG&E. They were facing all of the lawsuits from the wildfires. So they said, okay, bankrupt. We’ve got no money. Let’s take this to court. Let’s drag out the suffering of these individuals. And PG&E, by the way, they had the money. They absolutely could have paid it out. And this one, it is a little more complicated because we’re talking about a company that’s worth about half as much as the estimated damages at this point.
Mike Papantonio: Correct.
Farron Cousins: So it’s not going to be a pretty fight, and it’s not going to be a quick fight either, unfortunately, for these people. And that’s of course why, as you and I have talked about, you’ve got the Wall Street vultures circling, telling these people, listen, it’s gonna be, you know, could be five, could be 10 years.
Mike Papantonio: You got parachute lawyers jumping in and saying, hey, you know.
Farron Cousins: That’s becoming a huge issue.
Mike Papantonio: We’re living in New York, but we can hire, you know. Local lawyers, go to local lawyers, ask your local lawyers what to do, get ’em ready for bankruptcy court because that’s where this is gonna go ultimately. And that’s maybe not so bad. Maybe people are gonna be better paid. Most of the time, anytime you see a company move to bankruptcy court, it’s bad for the consumer. It’s bad for the victim. In this particular case, there’s such limited money there that that might be the only resolution. But I think that’s where it’s going. But we saw the same thing happen in California. The days after, PG&E were saying, well, we turned off the electricity. All the same things happening. And they said, well, there were areas where we simply, yeah, we were late putting any underground cable because we couldn’t afford it. It would pass on too much cost to the consumer. All of these same arguments are now being made. But as you watch how derelict this company, Hawaiian Electric was in taking care of these people, it’s kind of an easy decision on what happened there, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It really is. And now that this company is under that microscope, you’ve got the entire country looking at this, it’s not gonna take long. And you brought up the fact that you’ve got the residents that have on video. They took the videos themselves, the power lines sparking and literally starting fires in those moments. So the evidence against the company is overwhelming at this point. It’s just the money issue that is gonna put up that big hurdle.
Mike Papantonio: Well don’t, my advice to folks is, don’t let that money issue interfere with your willingness to go ahead and get involved. And look down the road. Hopefully there’ll be a reckoning, at least to the extent of the value of this company.
Drug companies are now threatening to delay the release of lifesaving medications because they’re just mad that they may not be able to gouge the American consumers, steal from the American consumers like they used to. The government’s now able to negotiate drug prices for only 10 drugs. Only 10 drugs. Medicare patients, drug companies are so upset that, gee whizz the government is actually gonna be able to negotiate. This company, I have been toe to toe with. This is the most disgusting leadership I’ve ever seen, and I’ve handled virtually every major pharmaceutical case in the country. I mean, there’s very few that I haven’t handled that were the big cases. This is a Swiss company. It’s Genentech, but it’s Roche. Okay. And if you look at the Roche, the history, they are hyenas. That’s the way I describe these people. Top to bottom hyenas. But they’re saying here, we’re going to allow women that have cervical cancer to die. And we’re not gonna push research because we’re mad, they’ve upset us. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. That is exactly what this is saying. Again, another awesome report from The Lever news service here. And, so you’ve got Roche, Genentech, telling us that, oh, well we’ve developed this amazing cancer drug for women. We could save tons of lives, but, oh, this Biden administration’s making us negotiate the price of one drug.
Mike Papantonio: For 10 drugs.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Across all the pharmaceutical companies. And we don’t even know, by the way, if any of them are Roche drugs.
Mike Papantonio: No idea.
Farron Cousins: They released the list this week. But anyway, so Roche is saying, well, we just, we can no longer afford to put it into testing. We’re gonna start delaying our drugs if you’re gonna make us not gouge consumers because that’s what this is. They can still, in other countries, charge a thousand percent markup and still make tons of money. But here in the US we are talking about 20000% markups. 40000% markups. There are some drugs, and you and I have sat here and talked about ’em, the markups are over 250000% on the markups.
Mike Papantonio: Well, not only that, we gave this company, not we, the government gave this company a tax break, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And they ended up making billions, 10, was it $10 billion somewhere in that range?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: $10 billion just in what taxpayers gave them as a break. Right. On top of that, taxpayers have been involved in paying for most of the research that goes into their drugs. They pay for it at universities where all this research is done, then the company comes in and scoops that up. Now, in this situation, this is really what they’re saying. They’re saying, you know what? We’re going to delay the release of an effective drug for ovarian cancer. Okay. We’re gonna let women die of ovarian cancer. We think we have one. We think we’re onto it, but we’re gonna delay it. And so if you take a look at this company, there’s no surprises here. They’ve got a history. It’s a terrible history. They were sued about lying and hiding serious adverse health problems. They hid ’em for dozens of drugs over a decade. They were sued for bilking the government for $1.5 billion on the Tamiflu case. This is who you’re dealing with. By the way, we gotta get a picture of this guy. His name, he’s Roche CEO. His name is Thomas Schinecker. Well, Mr. Schinecker here says that this is good for our investors. Hell with the women who are dying of cervical cancer. That’s literally what he is saying, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, it is. And over the last 10 years, this company, Roche, has spent more on stock buybacks than they have on research and development. Most research and development by drug companies is actually funded by the US government, by taxpayers. It’s done at the university level. It’s done at the private level. But most of that money, 75% of it comes from taxpayers.
Mike Papantonio: You wanna hear another part of the taxpayer story. When this company gets caught for making, and they have been making a bad product or having to pay out money wherever it is, because they’ve screwed up intentionally, just been derelict in their duty to make a drug safe. When they do that, and they pay out these claims, those claims are tax write-offs. It comes out of taxpayer’s pocket. And we allow them to do this. But this is a mobster quality organization. I mean, there’s thugs and this Schinecker, whether he’s, I don’t know where he is, Swiss or whatever, they know exactly what they’re doing is they’re toying with women’s lives because, gee whizz, we don’t have enough money. Most of their money is not spent in research. It’s spent on advertising. The overwhelming amount of money that a company like this spends, Roche, especially, it’s on advertising.
According to a new complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board, online retail giant, Amazon, has been engaging in illegal activity again, by attacking union organizers again, and prohibiting talk of unionizing at their plants again. This is just who they are, isn’t it? They hate unions. They hate taking care of workers. This story just tells it all, doesn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It really does because we’re looking at a company that has called police on union organizers. Like, hey, you’re in the factory talking about the union. We’re gonna have the police come and harass you, is what this complaint from the NLRB says. They’ve said that they’re forcing employees to sit through anti-union training where they play these idiotic videos that talk about, oh gee, we’re a family here and if you join a union, you’re hurting your family. You don’t want to do that to your brothers and sisters, do you? It’s the most idiotic corporate propaganda out there. And every horrible thing you could do to these union organizers from spying on ’em, to calling the cops, to outright firing them for mentioning the word union, Amazon has done it.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. They can’t be on grounds after their time is up. You if check out, you gotta leave. You can’t talk about unionizing while you’re on the clock. But here’s what, I mean, much worse than that. This is the tip of the iceberg. You know, we see where these corporations are actually following people, taking pictures, hiring private investigators to follow ’em and catch ’em doing something improper. But I love this one. There at New York, Staten Island, 8,000 workers, they were able to unionize. That’s a shot across the bow, isn’t it? And that scares the hell out of Amazon. That really scares ’em, because they know that it’s possible. Right?
Farron Cousins: They do. And that’s across the board, not just at Amazon, we’ve been witnessing this bit of a kind of union renaissance taking place. You know, we’ve seen it at Starbucks. We’ve seen it within the media. We’ve got the big strike right now in Hollywood. Every worker is demanding more. And it’s been that way since the pandemic really hit hard. People realized, listen, I’m slaving my life away and it could end like that. When we had that virus that was so horrendous going around, and people suddenly started looking at their own mortality, I think that kind of psychologically got people in the mood to, you know what, if I drop dead tomorrow and I’ve been working for $8 an hour at an Amazon, this isn’t worth it. This isn’t a life. And they want better. And I think that plays a big role in it.
Mike Papantonio: Hey, do you think Bezos is gonna have to sell his 350 foot yacht, or is he gonna have to get rid of a spaceship or two to pay for all this? This is a disgusting character. I mean, he really is. And he could, look, sell the yacht. Pay these people, pay these people a living wage. This is not tough to deal with. Make yourself look like a hero. Instead of buying the Washington Post and having the Post be your mouthpiece on everything you want. People don’t realize that he even owns the Washington Post. That all the stories that come out of there are driven by Bezos. So if you think the Washington Post is gonna be great on this story, forget it. Matter of fact, if you think that any corporate media is gonna be great on, corporate media worries about the same thing, as you know.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And this story actually was written by Josh Eidelson, who way back in the day, we used to have him on Ring of Fire all the time. I think he was with Think Progress. But anyway, good labor reporter. He may have been Salon, I can’t quite remember. But he’s still, he’s true to his roots. He’s doing a great job covering all of this.
Mike Papantonio: Well, but it is amazing. You know, people say, well, why do I only hear these stories on this channel? Why do I only hear the stories here? It’s a simple explanation. We don’t need advertisers. We don’t, if we didn’t get another dollar from anybody, this place is so financed that we’re gonna go on and say what the hell we wanna say, as long as we wanna say it. And nobody’s gonna, you know, subscribers aren’t gonna mess with that. Advertisers aren’t gonna mess with that because of the way this is set up. And so I just feel like I wish corporate media could say the same thing. But they won’t do a story on this because they’re worried about their own people unionizing, right?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: The company behind the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this year, has already spent over $1 million this year lobbying politicians to kill a piece of legislation that would bring more oversight and more protection to prevent another derailment. And the legislation, when you look at it, looks meaningless. Doesn’t it? I mean, it looks like nothing. But that’s not good enough for these folks. They’re spending money like a drunk sailor, making sure that nothing happens. They’re buying politicians, literally buying politicians. They’re spending, what was it, almost $2 million just on a whole new round of lobbyists that they’ve spent within a period of several weeks.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And that’s just the second quarter of this year, I believe.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I mean, that’s, it’s nothing. They’re gonna spend whatever it takes. They’re putting in, and by the way, for y’all that say, well, this is not a Democrat. It’s a Democrat problem. Just like it’s a Republican problem. They’re buying Democrat politicians left and right. They’re buying Republican politicians left and right. They’re spending $5,000, tons of money on PACs, both Republican PACs and Democrat PACs. So, I don’t know, take it from there, because there’s this belief that, oh my God, we don’t play, Democrats don’t play like Republicans, do we?
Farron Cousins: No. And this report, again, this from The Intercept, which is another great, obviously, outlet there. But they point out that Norfolk Southern has given $5,000 for Marsha Blackburn, Ted Budd, Shelly Capito, John Cornyn, John Hoeven, Cynthia Lummis, Joe Manchin, Chris Van Hollen, Roger Wicker. So yeah, they’re going across the board to the Democrats and Republicans sitting on the committees that are looking at these bills. And just so everybody knows, the bills have gone nowhere.
Mike Papantonio: The bill is meaningless to begin with. The biggest thing on the bill is that you have to have a two person crew on the train. Like, that’s gonna solve something. How about making them rebuild their infrastructure, breaks that work, breaks that work all over the world that we won’t put in place. We could require ’em to put in place. We know they work in Asia. We know these breaks work in Europe, but we don’t require it.
Farron Cousins: We’re still using the Civil War breaking system. That’s when this was invented. And when was the last time you saw construction of a new railroad? I mean, the railroads themselves are on average, I think built in the fifties across the country. I think it is. So we’re talking about just rail lines that are 70 years old, rotted out in portions. And yeah, that was the big recommendation of the legislation is, okay, how about instead of one guy, what if you have two guys? How about that? Put a second person.
Mike Papantonio: But how are you even, I mean, the most significant thing in this bill, I’m not making it up, the most significant thing, is there has to be two people that are, a two person crew, a bare minimum running the train. Like, that’s a problem? But they’re fighting tooth and nail. Oh, but they’re saying this, I love this quote. This is management. We look forward to continuing our engagement, our important engagement with members of Congress. That’s where this is all gonna die. All these people that are getting $5,000 here, these politicians sell themselves for nothing. Can you imagine? Yeah. I’m gonna kill this for $5,000. They do that though. I mean, $5,000 to these cats, man, that’s a lot of money sometimes.
Farron Cousins: And it’s really disappointing, by the way, for everybody watching this to understand that your life is worth probably $10 to these people.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. nothing.
Farron Cousins: So, you know.
Mike Papantonio: If Democrats think that Donald Trump’s legal problems mean that President Biden is gonna cruise to an easy victory, you need to think again. A new poll shows that the majority of Americans, including a large majority, a very large majority of Democrats think that Biden’s age is an issue, that they believe it makes him ineffective as a president. Now, we’ve seen these from time to time. This is a very credible poll. And they’re saying, look, if he’s elected again, what do you think? Well, they’re thinking he’s suffering from dementia. Well, the list is interesting. The list that they came up with about why they think he might be a problem includes words like dementia, incapable of making a decision, blah, blah. I mean, strong stuff.
Farron Cousins: And senile was the top one on that list. Senile, was the number one word used that respondents, across the board, I mean, left, right, and center senile is the word they used more than anything else. So, look, we’re talking about 70%, you know, forget the Republican numbers. Of course, they don’t like him. But 70% of Democrats of his own party say he is not just too old, but too old to be effective. So 70% of Democrats are saying, this man can’t do the job. I don’t think he can do the job, is what they’re telling us.
Mike Papantonio: Well, Ron Klain, Ron Klain, his chief of staff, is running the US government right now along with Susan Rice. Most people don’t realize that. All the decisions are coming from those people. They’re not coming from him. They’re not, they can pump him up with whatever makes him work for the day. I don’t know what they shoot him up with, which looks like pretty good stuff. But you can tell when it runs out, it’s almost like, okay, we’re gonna jack him up with this chemical, whatever we’re gonna shoot in his butt. And you can almost tell it’s like a robot, that at the end of the effectiveness of that chemical, he just goes into oblivia, and watch it on a camera.
Farron Cousins: He actually had energy, a little bit of it in the 2020 campaign. And then here we are three years later, you watch him speak, you watch him walk around as he’s talking, he has nothing in the tank anymore. This is a man that, I even think he wants to retire.
Mike Papantonio: I think he does. I mean, truth be told, he doesn’t want to do this again. This is almost elderly abuse. This is Democrats, it’s elderly abuse. But I’m glad to see the Democrats at least acknowledge, you have some Democrats that they, no matter what happens, no matter what, Biden’s my man, Biden’s my, and you go, what the hell? What are you thinking? And and all of a sudden, the only thing that brings me any peace of mind at all is that he’s not running government. It’s Ron Klain, I promise you, is making the big decisions. And I think it’s, they’re seeing more of it. They saw the clown show in Maui. They see him tipping over constantly. They see him run out of whatever that, whatever they jack him up with every day when he has to get in front of a camera. You can literally see it, it’s running out as his speech and his ability to communicate a thought.
Farron Cousins: And that’s when he starts the whispering.
Mike Papantonio: He starts talking weird.
Farron Cousins: And it’s weird and it’s, it’s not good. Look, Ron DeSantis takes a lot of crap for being the weird, creepy guy on the campaign trail.
Mike Papantonio: He is. Ron DeSantis is weird and creepy.
Farron Cousins: And he is. But when Biden has to get out there, because look, he cannot hide like he did in 2020, obviously with COVID, that gave them a good excuse to say, listen, okay, you don’t have to do big events. You can stay, you don’t have to come out. They don’t have that this time. And when this guy starts going out there and the crowds are saying, wow, I go to his show to put my kids to sleep. That’s gonna be a problem.
Mike Papantonio: Right. You know, Farron, I have huge respect for your opinion. And I don’t mean to say this in any disrespect for your opinion. You don’t believe there’s anything meaningful to the impeachment possibilities that are coming up. I don’t know if there’s anything meaningful, but I do know that it’s just another brick in the wall. It’s these things that are taking him out. The Hunter story. The Hunter, you know, these people that write, well, Hunter’s not running, no, he’s not running for government.
Farron Cousins: But polls are already showing that the Hunter Biden story is.
Mike Papantonio: It’s having an effect.
Farron Cousins: It is taking a toll on him.
Mike Papantonio: But I love your precise thinking. Your precise thinking about the potential for any impeachment is very good. And I agree with most of your points. I just find that in my, as I’ve watched things like this develop in the past, this is gonna be something to where Democrats that are already saying, the guy’s too old, get him the hell outta here. You know, this is elderly abuse. You add this other stuff to it. The stuff that’s going to develop in the impeachment hearings, they’re gonna go forward with it. There’s, I have very, very little doubt.
Farron Cousins: Oh yeah, definitely.
Mike Papantonio: And, you know, there’s these things that develop day by day. It’s just like a drip that keeps taking this guy out. And I don’t know where it’s gonna land. I don’t know who they’re gonna replace him with. What do you think, Gavin Newsom?
Farron Cousins: He seems to be the, certainly the loudest, I think the most obvious choice at this point. Just because he is, you know, younger guy, not a bad looking guy, voters like that. So.
Mike Papantonio: It’s California. Okay. And when they do, literally, when they do the polling about Gavin Newsom, that’s California, that’s one of the biggest hits on him, which is so weird. I mean, it’s like everybody in California, you know, there’s something wrong with everybody. So the polling on that issue seems very weird to me.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Well, we’re lucky that Cuomo had to resign, otherwise he would’ve already been a part of this.
Mike Papantonio: Absolutely.
Farron Cousins: And that would’ve been terrible.
Mike Papantonio: And of course, in Florida, we have DeSantis and when you look at the polling there, well, it’s Florida. You know, it’s a weird thing. And so I’m interested to see how the dynamics of that work out.
Farron Cousins: There’s no, I’m just putting it out there, there’s no normal person that just stands out as like, hey, that person can do it. I actually, I watched Bernie Sanders doing an interview the other day, and he’s still sharper than anyone else in Congress.
Mike Papantonio: It’s amazing, man.
Farron Cousins: But he looks like he’s aged. And he can’t, and that’s unfortunate he missed the opportunity. I mean, he went for it, but they took it from him, so.
Mike Papantonio: You know, Farron, you and I talk about this, the Biden campaign has been really good hiring these, they’re trolls. I mean, they’ll come to sites and if they see a bad story on Biden, they’ll come in with the same, you can read the same, it’s the same thing. I mean, they’ll change a few words, but they’re, it’s smart because he’s hired thousands of them all over the country to do that. When we do a story on Biden, we almost, we can tell exactly what’s going on. You know, here are the Biden trolls coming in. But the interesting thing is, you get to a point to where no matter what you try to do to pick him up, it just doesn’t have the kind of effect. And this last poll at, was it 70% or 60?
Farron Cousins: 70% of just the Democrats.
Mike Papantonio: The Democrats.
Farron Cousins: It’s 77% across the board, including three quarters of independent voters. The ones who are gonna decide the election.
Mike Papantonio: Oh boy, needs to go home. He’s just out of it.
Farron Cousins: That’s the thing.
Mike Papantonio: And that’s what the American public is thinking.
Farron Cousins: You avoid all of the potential issues, including any impeachment issues. You avoid it all by him saying, hey, guess what?
Mike Papantonio: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: I’m done. And then it’s over.
Mike Papantonio: Exactly. It doesn’t get any uglier than it’s going to get. Thank you, Farron, for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all of these segments are gonna be available throughout next week. And make sure you follow us at Twitter @AmericasLawyer. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you the stories every week that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t allow them to tell the story, or their political connections are so Democrat or so Republican that they’re not allowed to tell the story. We tell those stories and we’ll see you next time.
