America’s Lawyer E76: Members of Congress are heading for the exits in numbers we haven’t seen before, and most of them say that the dysfunction in the House is simply too much to deal with. Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, alleging that the group deceptively manipulated algorithms to make it look like advertisers were putting content next to anti-semitic content. 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: I’m Mike Papantonio, and this is America’s Lawyer. Members of Congress are heading for exits in huge numbers we haven’t seen before and most of them say that the dysfunction in the House and the dysfunction of politics in general is too much to deal with. Elon Musk, well, he’s filed a lawsuit against Media Matters alleging that the group deceptively manipulated algorithms to make it look like advertisers were putting content next to anti-semitic content. We’ll see how that ends up. All that and more, it’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.

The number of US representatives announcing their retirement is growing by the week, and most of them are saying the same thing and that is that Congress is too dysfunctional to get anything done. Most Americans would probably agree with that statement. I have Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about it. No surprise here. It’s an exodus by both Republicans and Democrats. So it’s hard, although I looked at this article, New York Times tries to say, well, it’s just the House. Hell no, it’s not just the House. You have Democrats leaving because they’re saying that they haven’t been able to get anything done for decades.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it is very interesting here with both the Republicans and the Democrats finally coming to the same conclusion of, what the hell are we doing? Why am I here? Three dozen members have already said, I am leaving. And that doesn’t even include George Santos, who is probably not.

Mike Papantonio: We should have left him a long time ago.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. So we have all of these people who say, I can’t take this anymore. But to me, what’s kind of funny about it is the fact that these folks don’t see the irony of every one of them saying, there’s too much dysfunction. Not realizing that you’re part of it. You are part of this dysfunction and this system. So don’t sit there and pretend like it’s everybody else but you.

Mike Papantonio: They’re concluding the same thing that you and I have concluded a lot of times. You’ve been asked to get in politics. I’ve been asked to get in politics so many times and my response is same as yours, is we get a hell of a lot more done doing what we do as a lawyer and as a TV analyst than you do in politics. It’s a frigging waste of time. I mean, really. But three dozen now. Okay. How does that play itself out? I don’t think it’s clear whether that changes anything in the next cycle because it’s so close. Right? What do you think?

Farron Cousins: No, I think you’re right. And a lot of these folks are from either safe red districts or safe blue districts, so they know the next man up, next woman up is gonna win.

Mike Papantonio:: It’s gonna win.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. But this kind of goes back to what you and I had talked about weeks ago and the fact that everything has become so tribal. There is no more reaching across the aisle. Let’s work together on this legislation. Actually, I think one of the last times we saw real bipartisanship was actually Matt Gaetz teaming up with AOC on legislation. I forget it right, it slips my mind what the legislation was, but they were working together on something kind of big. And other than that, though, the fact that we can point to one time it’s happened shows us that it’s not happening enough.

Mike Papantonio: Isn’t it the dumbing down of our culture in general? Name one statesman. Okay, give me a statesman where you would say, well, this is a statesman. I think Blumenthal, frankly. I think that’s a statesman. How many of those can you name that are up there? It used to be, you could name real statesmen. I mean, their goal was to make something happen. Their goal was to get along. Ted Kennedy, one of the greatest statesmen of all times that could reach across the aisle. He’d have all kinds of social interactions with them. Those days are gone. It’s like, it’s so dysfunctional because part of it is the dumbing down of America. That’s really, read between, it’s the dumbing down of America. Everything is like an MMA fight right now.

Farron Cousins: It really is because it’s all about, can I get a zinger across to this person during this hearing? Can I go viral for this statement I’m about to make? Are people gonna laugh and cheer when I say this one liner?

Mike Papantonio: Did social media do that or is that an impact, do you think?

Farron Cousins: I think it played a huge role in this because we really do, we see these lawmakers go up there and they’ll say their one sentence and they’ll wait proudly to see the reaction. They know what they’re doing now. This is no longer about let’s have real policy discussions. This is, I’m gonna get on CNN because I just made fun of this lawmaker.

Mike Papantonio: Right, right, right, right.

Farron Cousins: It’s ridiculous.

Mike Papantonio: And it’s like Matt Gaetz’s effort to become a TV personality, I suppose. On the Republican side, I thought Mitt Romney, whether you agree with him or not, he was a bit of a statesman. He was elegant in the way that he presented an argument. That’s so behind us now. I mean, people commenting, please tell us who are the statesmen out there that you think are really, truly statesmen in the same blend as say John F. Kennedy or any of those folks? And they just don’t exist anymore. They just don’t exist. And because of that, people are leaving and you can’t blame ’em. And that’s why when they say to you, I know they’ve always said, run, would you run, would you run? They’ve said the same thing to me for decades. I said, hell no. We get so much more done in our, as a citizen than we would in Washington DC or Tallahassee.

The Pentagon just failed it’s sixth financial audit in a row, and they can’t account for billions that they’ve spent, they don’t even know where it is. This comes as President Biden is prepared to ask for nearly $900 billion for the Pentagon. You know what really chaps me about this is their attitude. Their attitude is so what? They call their last audit a success, even though they, it showed that it lost billions of dollars. That was a big success for us. I can’t even get my arms around it. Oh, here it is. I gotta read this. And I want you to take over. Sabrina Singh is with the Pentagon. She’s press secretary. She says, we keep getting better and better at it. Yeah. Better and better at losing money, at stealing money, at leaving money all over the world that we don’t even know. What about the taxpayer who has to pay for that? And they’re just unaccountable.

Farron Cousins: But they’re getting better and better at it.

Mike Papantonio: They’re getting better and better.

Farron Cousins: We lost less money this year, I guess, than we had the year before, but we don’t even know that because they didn’t exactly say. But this is becoming a yearly tradition at this point for this $900 billion organization, extension of the defense industry, that they just don’t know where their money’s going. Or it’s either they don’t know or they don’t want us to know. And that’s the part of it that we really need to be able to get answers to. And I’m afraid we’ll never get those answers. Is this, are we being run by these absolute buffoons?

Mike Papantonio: They’re total, they’re total.

Farron Cousins: Or is it intentional?

Mike Papantonio: No, it’s the weapons. There’s the weapons industry part of it. You know, they’re all making these lateral moves. I’m gonna leave the Pentagon and then I’m gonna go to work for Boeing. I’m gonna leave the Pentagon and go to work for Raytheon. That’s what this is all about. So they spread money out to the weapons folks because once you give them 900 billion frigging dollars, you lose control over it. As a taxpayer, we don’t have any say at that point. And they do whatever they want. Listen to this. The attitude is what absolutely kills me. Here’s a reporter asked the Pentagon spokesman, what the hell? And they say, Singh, her name is Singh, said that she can’t predict the future of when they’re gonna make a good audit or when there’s gonna be an audit that actually shows they haven’t lost billions of dollars. But she said, I’ll let you know when it happens. That’s their attitude. Now, can you imagine such disregard for American taxpayers and American voters to where you become such an institution that Eisenhower warned us about so long ago, and John F. Kennedy even warned us about it so long ago. And he says, it’s gotten so outta control that we just give them money for whatever they want, huh?

Farron Cousins: Yeah. I mean, if you had those kind of comments coming from the leader of the FDA, the leader of the Department of Education, or OSHA, any other government department, it’s gonna be all over the national news with this person treating reporters like crap. Acting like losing billions is no big deal.

Mike Papantonio: Like it’s a joke.

Farron Cousins: But because it’s the Pentagon, the only place you’re gonna find it, the Intercept, obviously, is where this came from. But you’re not seeing this all over MSNBC or CNN or Fox.

Mike Papantonio: Oh no. And tell ’em why. Tell tell ’em why.

Farron Cousins: Because the people taking this money are their advertisers.

Mike Papantonio: That’s right. And not only that, they’re not only the advertisers, but MSNBC understands that if we can give them access, if we can have all these Pentagon talking heads on our show and let them spout their propaganda, that access is gonna end up with advertising dollars. Clearly the Pentagon understands if we and the weapons industry understands if we spread that money out with MSNBC, CNN and Fox, then we’re gonna have every juggle head that wants to talk military propaganda is gonna be allowed on the show. And it’s just shameless, man. I mean, it’s absolutely shameless. But the attitude is like that because there is no consequence. What are the consequences? When’s the last time there’s been any consequence for saying, oh, by the way, we don’t know where almost a trillion dollars is, but we’ll let you know when we find out.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. Go ahead and write your check for $900 billion for us for next year too.

Mike Papantonio: And Biden says, yeah, that’s what I wanna do.

Farron Cousins: Well, and every member of Congress says.

Mike Papantonio: Says yeah.

Farron Cousins: Except Bernie. He’ll speak out about it. But listen, it’s not just about, by the way, getting the Pentagon officials onto the air. We’ve got active war zones around the world right now, and they get to send their reporters with that Pentagon protection. So they don’t wanna lose access to having that reporter on the ground in Ukraine.

Mike Papantonio: The embedded reporter as if they give.

Farron Cousins: Exactly.

Mike Papantonio: And right now, it’s the only thing keeping CNN alive.

Farron Cousins: It is.

Mike Papantonio: Zucker destroyed CNN to the point to where after a war’s over, they’re gonna go the way of CNN, which is a dismal future. But it’s a sad thing when the attitude is, well, you know, yeah, we lost $900 billion and we won’t pass an audit, but hey, we’ll let you know when we can pass one. What kind of freaking attitude is that, man?

Elon Musk’s formerly known as Twitter, has filed a lawsuit against Media Matters over a report that the group put out, claimed that advertisers were having their ads show up next to anti-semitic content. Musk claims that Media Matters manipulated the algorithms. We’ve seen ’em do it before. We see everybody do that. This is an interesting lawsuit. Let me just tell you something. If what he’s saying here, if the allegations are correct, he could put Media Matters outta business. Now, the only saving grace in this is what you found and what I found. If Media Matters wants to win this lawsuit, this kills it. Doesn’t it? Go ahead.

Farron Cousins: Well, you’ve got Elon Musk that has also said, yeah, basically, eh, it happens. You know, that’s not exactly the kind of thing you want to do to bolster your point here. But to me, I think one of the biggest things is that they’re making this claim that Media Matters has manipulated this or that it’s showing up because they only follow the bad people. So obviously the ads will show up there. But that doesn’t change the fact that the ads showed up there. What Media Matters showed, as far as I can tell, was not false. Right. They have not doctored these images, but if these ads from these individuals do in fact show up next to these neo-Nazis account, because they’re all over social media on every account. You’re gonna find your neo-Nazis, your racists, whatever. But the way the ads now work on Twitter, it does put them there if that’s what you follow. So.

Mike Papantonio: Okay. Let me just speak as a lawyer. Okay. If I have this fact situation, and I find that there’s 30 accounts, and they’ve taken those 30 accounts and bundled them up to make it look like this is a broad, expansive effort on Musk, on his part to promote anti-semitism, and they find out they can show, well, there were decisions. They’re called depositions when you start asking these questions. And you start asking those questions, well, were you told to take this and move it over here? Were you told to take these 30 and bunch ’em up and put ’em all collectively together? That’s a problem. Here’s the issue though. Even with that, if Elon Musk, there was a tweet that went out, it says that Jews promoted hatred against whites. That was one of the tweets apparently. And the response was from him, you’ve said the actual truth. That’s kind of a deal killer where it comes to his aggressive attack on Media Matters. But if that, I can see this case being won, that’s all I’m trying to tell you. If the depositions go right, and it’s found that this organization set out to discredit Elon Musk and to discredit Twitter by gaming the system, it’s a tough go. But that statement by Elon Musk, I think it’s a killer.

Farron Cousins: Well, see, I think it’s a little, you know, obviously a million bajillion times more about law than I do, clearly. I think it’s a little flimsy, but I agree with you that they have a good chance of winning and that’s due to venue.

Mike Papantonio: Texas.

Farron Cousins: Yeah, that’s.

Mike Papantonio: Good point. Good point.

Farron Cousins: That is a huge thing working against Media Matters on this. And you have the Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has now said, we’re gonna launch an investigation. So you’re already creating this public perception in Texas that this group has done something wrong. And you get your jury, you get your Republican judge.

Mike Papantonio: Well, you’ve got a Republican appeals court that a consumer doesn’t have a chance there. They would love to get a case like this, you see. That is a really good point, because if you look at it, the headquarters, the headquarters is one is California, and I’m trying to think of where else, Nevada. Yeah, San Francisco and Nevada are two of their headquarters. But they did some forum shopping and they said, where could we make the best case? A jury in Texas could really put these folks outta business. But I don’t know how you get around Elon Musk saying, yeah, I kind of agree with the idea. It’s his agreement that Jews hate white people.

Farron Cousins: I mean, it got so bad to the point he actually just had to travel over there.

Mike Papantonio: To Israel.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. To try to act, hey, look at me. I’m such a friendly guy. But the venue to me, it’s a lot. Honestly, when you look at venues, I talk about it a lot, the Trump documents case. That’s a slam dunk case. But because of where you are, you’re not gonna win.

Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well, and then the other side of it is he can’t, the state and prosecutors can’t lose in New York. They can’t lose in Washington, DC. The venue shopping is a big part of this. I’m glad you pointed that out.

White collar criminal prosecutions from President Biden’s Justice Department are close to being at an all time low. The worst, the worst in 50 years since attorney general Merrick Garland refuses to prosecute corporate criminals. Well, there’s a reason for it. He used to defend them. He was part of the process. He made his living defending corporate criminals dressed up in suits with Armani watches and driving up in Bentleys. So there’s no such thing as throwing a corporate criminal in prison anymore. I mean, look at the opioid case, man. They killed 150 people a day. I handled the civil side of that case. I took the depositions. We gave all that material to the Justice Department. They have it. They’ve made movies about it. They’ve done all kinds of specials about it. But the Justice Department sits there and won’t do a thing. They’re dysfunctional. They’re useless, and all they’re looking for is low hanging fruit.

Farron Cousins: Right. And we’re talking about fewer than 100 white collar criminal prosecutions from the DOJ every year that Biden has now been in office, which is almost identical to Donald Trump. So, we’ve seen no difference whether it’s a Democrat in the White House, a Republican in the White House. We’ve been going down steadily since the year 2000. And there was a time when it didn’t matter if it was a Republican or Democrat, they did prosecute white collar criminals.

Mike Papantonio: Absolutely. How about Ronald Reagan on the S&L crisis, 800 bankers were prosecuted, 800. That hasn’t been done by Democrat or Republican since. And these people are, I mean, we’re talking about mass murder. We’re talking about manslaughter. Look, I could go on whether it’s with PFAS, how about the PFAS case? I tried that case. I know what it’s about. I handled the opioid case. I saw the documents. I saw exactly what they did. PFAS, they knew about it decades ago. They knew it was causing cancer. The people who were responsible for those decisions were never prosecuted. And the people that continue to make it happen are not being prosecuted. 12 pharma cases, I promise you, I’ve handled 12 pharmaceutical cases out of, I’ve handled many more, 40 or 50. But out of 12, the documents were so strong, we would send them on, hey, you need to look at this, because clinical data has been phonied up. They lied to the FDA. They made all this stuff up. This is fraud, and it’s criminal fraud. And people lost their lives because of it. You know what the Department of Justice has done? Zero.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. Every now and then, they’ll throw a fine at a company if it’s something that’s so horrific, you just can’t get around it. But the fine will always be much less than what they made off of the crime.

Mike Papantonio: Some cat in a bow tie shows up, today we stopped whatever. How about fen-phen? Fen-phen killed thousands of people. Nobody prosecuted. How about the blood virus case that I handled, you know, Factor VIII? Factor VIII was a drug. You were with me. We handled, you were working with me then, right?

Farron Cousins: A little after that.

Mike Papantonio: A little after that. Okay.

Farron Cousins: But not long.

Mike Papantonio: Factor VIII was for hemophiliacs. And it was supposed to help a hemophiliac when they were having a bleed problem, it was supposed to clot the blood. Well, the companies knew that it was infected with HIV. They knew there was an HIV infection, and we got it off the market in the US. And you know what they did with it? They sent it all over the world. People died from AIDS all over the world because of these pharmaceutical companies that said, hey, we can get away with it. You know how many people were prosecuted in the US? Zero. Okay. So now this administration says, hey, we’re going to allow you to self-report. I want you to talk about this. Talk about the declination. Talk about declination.

Farron Cousins: What this is, is the administration basically cut a deal with all of corporate America.

Mike Papantonio: Criminals.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. And they said, listen, we will not prosecute you as long as you are gonna engage in this self-reporting. So when you do something bad, when you break the law, come tell us you broke the law and everything will be forgiven.

Mike Papantonio: So they say, here it is. They say, there’s something called a declination we’re gonna give you. Only problem is the declination is hidden from the public. In other words, they declared we did this awful thing. How about HSBC? They were involved, I’ve got a new book coming out about it. It comes out in February. I think it’s a strong book. It tells this story. But the bank knew they were washing money for drug cartels and terrorists. Okay. They took the money, made a hundred billion dollars, and they knew people, American contractors were being killed, soldiers were being killed. It was being used for terrorism all over the world, that money that was being washed, they signed a document saying, yes, we did these things. Eric Holder under Obama put nobody in prison. Nobody went to prison. And so, at what point do you say, you can’t change that. It’s a culture. It’s a criminal culture that goes from Wall Street to the pharma industry, the weapons industry, you name it. And nobody goes to prison anymore. And so of course, if they have to pay a fine, I think in the HSBC case, they paid a $1.6 billion fine. Well, hell, they made a hundred billion dollars. It’s just the cost of doing business. When does the American public become so outraged that they do something about it? I thought after the opioid crisis, after they saw that these companies had killed 150 people a day, there would be public outrage about it. After movie, after movie is coming out. There’d be public outrage. Hell no, there’s not. It’s like one hand clapping, you know.

Farron Cousins: I think the public lost all faith in it after the financial crisis of 2007, 2008. Obama comes in like,

Mike Papantonio: I’m gonna do something by God.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. And everybody thought, okay, good. All these criminal bankers, you guys are going down for it. And then they said, well.

Mike Papantonio: We can’t look back. Wasn’t that Obama’s? Oh, we can’t look back.

Farron Cousins: We need to look forward.

Mike Papantonio: Look forward. It sounded so positive. This statesman, politician, we need to look forward for the future of this country. Really? What did they steal? $3 trillion from mom and pop, basically.

Farron Cousins: And everybody in the country just had this collective realization, I think, that this is the way it is.

Mike Papantonio: And how many people went to prison? Zero. Zero. I don’t know how you change it, man. I mean, we’re out there. We’re out there swinging day in, day out, going after these companies. We can take their money away. Hell, we’ve taken a lot of money away from ’em. But until you throw uncle Joe in prison and he’s asked to wear stripes, and the next cat in MBA school says, you know, uncle Joe went to prison for 10 years for killing all those people with a dangerous drug. It’s gonna continue. It’s simply cost of doing business. And this Justice Department has been the worst of all of ’em. All the in the last what was it, 40 or 50 years that’s in that article? It’s something like 50 years.

Farron Cousins: It’s decades. Decades.

Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Decades.

Democrat Senator Joe Manchin might not be running for Senate again, but that doesn’t mean he’s done with politics. According to a new report, the senator from West Virginia’s created a new centrist organization that’s looking to remake politics, which really just means looking out for corporate interest. Now, it’s interesting, you and I have done stories on this organization for how many years? 10 years.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. Almost 20.

Mike Papantonio: They’ve been out there almost kind of kicking around 10 or 20 years. No Labels. Talk about it.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. No Labels, which basically just means we’re a corporate front group pretending to be a political party. And Joe Manchin has always flirted with No Labels. And right now he’s flirting with them to the point where there is huge speculation he’s gonna run for president under their banner.

Mike Papantonio: What’s he doing with American Together.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. Americans Together. That is the dark money group. It’s registered to where they don’t have to reveal their corporate donors and it’s funneling a ton of money into No Labels. Mm-Hmm. But, technically, Joe Manchin, his name is not on the organization. What it is, is his daughter, the former pharma CEO, Heather Bresch. And Bresch is the one who when she took over Mylan, jacked up the prices on all the EpiPens. I was.

Mike Papantonio: Was it it 2000%? I mean, some Godly.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. I was paying $1,200 twice a year for a single EpiPen for my children. And so to me, whenever I talk about Heather Bresch, it is very personal because I lost thousands of dollars every year because of Heather Bresch.

Mike Papantonio: A lot of people did. And the point is just again, all right, well he’s an important politician. Corporate media barely covered the story. You had to hunt the story, really, you had to hunt for the story. But the point is, No Labels, just so you understand and viewers understand, No Labels is just centrist blue dog Democrats that care nothing more than about how does Wall Street do. That’s what it is. And it could be a real deal. People like, they might not like him all over the country, but the South likes Manchin.

Farron Cousins: Yeah, they do.

Mike Papantonio: And conservative areas in this country like Manchin. He’s very good on his feet. He’s a threat.

Farron Cousins: He really is. And up to about a year ago, he was actually the fifth most popular senator in their home state.

Mike Papantonio: Really? Wow.

Farron Cousins: So, even West Virginia loved him. And it’s not because, oh, he did all this stuff for us. It’s because he did nothing. Because that’s what No Labels is all about.

Mike Papantonio: Doing nothing.

Farron Cousins: Yeah. It’s not about, we’ve gotta make the lives of these people better. It’s no, we maintain the status quo because the status quo works wonderfully for these corporations.

Mike Papantonio: It’s like the last story we just did. Don’t prosecute these criminals when they kill people because they’re dressed up in suits and they have MBAs from Harvard and Yale. Let’s not. That’s what, that is No Labels, you see. That is the same thing that this Justice Department is doing. They will love Joe Manchin. And I gotta tell you something, if he gets out there, this 501c4, people, they don’t understand how dangerous that is. There’s no way to even know where the money comes from. I mean, it’s just dark, dark money. And it was made possible by Citizens United, of course. And so he, what is it, they raised 20, No Labels raised $20 million in the last year. It’s just a lot of money. They’re becoming a real entity. And now this might be the first face of a presidential run.

Farron Cousins: And right now there is a lot of hunger in this country for a third party candidate.

Mike Papantonio: Oh, definitely.

Farron Cousins: We see that in the polls. And so if people don’t know what No Labels is, obviously the name sounds attractive. Like, hey, I’m sick of Democrats, I’m sick of Republicans. No Labels, well, that just sounds wonderful. But no, it’s a, the best way I could describe it in my opinion would be this is essentially.

Mike Papantonio: Republican and.

Farron Cousins: Well, it’s a corporate front group in my opinion. I mean, that’s what they do. They act in the interest of corporations. It’s not about bringing together the left and the right.

Mike Papantonio: Well, as a matter of fact, corporate America put it together. You understand, the Goldman Sachs folks, those people put all of this together and it’s just emerging. It’s gonna emerge this time. And truthfully, Joe Biden is an easy take down.

Farron Cousins: Well, and especially, you throw suddenly Joe Manchin into the mix. You got Bobby Kennedy, whose polls are really well since he switched to independent. Cornell West. Next year could be just chaos in the presidential race. And maybe we need a little chaos. I don’t know.

Mike Papantonio: I think we do. I think we need that kind of thing. I love that we have other parties. I wish we had something besides the No Labels party. But if somebody’s looking down a voting, I mean, they’re at the polls. They’re looking down a list. Biden, Trump will be in there, I predict. Then you go below that. Who shows up next? Does Manchin? Oh, I kinda like Manchin. Don’t know much about him, but he’s got this new party. Bobby Kennedy. I don’t know a lot about him, but I do know he’s good on the environment. People have that tendency because they don’t have, I mean, we take it for granted that everybody has as much information as we have. We do this every day. The average American is very difficult for them to keep up with this. They gotta worry about, they gotta go to work. They gotta make house payments. They can’t keep up with this kind of thing. So it’s almost a temporal kind of reaction there. This is a third party. Maybe it’s time for a shakeup. And Joe Biden is easy pickens in that regard. Which bring me to the next story.

A new report says that Democrats are panicking about the wrong polls right now, while Biden’s poll numbers do look horrible, the truth is that Democrats aren’t focusing on what these polls are actually telling them. It’s like they’re ignoring it again. They forgot what James Carville said during the Clinton years, the economy stupid. Okay. Now why don’t you lead this off with Biden’s Turkey speech. Okay. Did the American public buy Biden’s Thanksgiving Turkey speech?

Farron Cousins: Unfortunately, no, they did not. Because obviously they saw what prices are when they went to the store to buy their turkeys. And look, that’s what the problem with these polls is. And it’s one thing I learned going through political science school is you don’t just look at the number. Right. The number is almost the least consequential part of the poll.

Mike Papantonio: That’s correct. That’s correct.

Farron Cousins: You have to look at the attitudes and the opinions and what is being asked and how it is being asked. And that’s kind of what this whole story is trying to tell people is Democrats look okay, he’s unpopular. Yeah. But why? He’s unpopular because people have not gotten a tangible benefit from him being president of the United States. A tangible financial benefit. And then, like.

Mike Papantonio: We’re gonna have, you’re gonna have people that are gonna comment on.

Farron Cousins: They’re already doing it.

Mike Papantonio: Oh, they’re going crazy. Ah, I can’t believe you just said that. Well, no, they know, they’re tuned in. They know, okay, he did some good stuff here. Whether it’s infrastructure, whatever it is. He did some good stuff. Great. But the average voter is going to, if you Google the price increases of just food at the grocery store, it’s an average of 18 to 20%. So mom and pop, well, they’re going to the grocery store, they’re seeing cereal increased 80%, grapes, oatmeal, bacon, potatoes, apples, canned soup. That’s where the story is. And the Democrats keep trying to act like that’s not a problem. And they have this president get up here and make this ridiculous, I mean, absolutely outrageous Thanksgiving doesn’t cost as much speech. And you’re going, what the, what in the hell are you doing? Who told you that was a good idea? So, I don’t know, man. It’s like, Carville as weird as he is. He got it right with Bill Clinton. He said, you know, it comes down to what mom and pop are seeing with housing. How much is it costing them to rent a home? How much is it costing ’em to buy food?

Farron Cousins: And when you look at it too, like, okay, we got the infrastructure bill. And that’s great. So people are sitting at their dining room table saying, hey, we’re gonna have a new road. That’s great. Unfortunately, we can’t afford to buy a car to drive on the new road. That’s the second part of the story that the Democrats are ignoring here. Yes, the economy looks better on paper than it did two or three years ago. Absolutely no question. The problem is, it’s looking better for Wall Street. It’s looking better for the people who were already not struggling. But for the average person out there, they look at their paycheck every two weeks and they say, this hasn’t changed in three years.

Mike Papantonio: You know, this story came from Politico. Politico is about as left as you can get. And they’re trying to say, look man, you need to pay attention to this. It’s housing and it’s everyday expenses. It’s mom and pop going to the grocery store and changing their vote food item by food item. I didn’t pay as much for apples last year. Now I’m paying 20% more. And you’re seeing these stories where people are working two jobs and they’re saying, hell, we still can’t make it. That doesn’t bode well for our dear president here.

Farron Cousins: And listen, and before everybody, you probably already made your comments, but let me go and clarify. We are not saying Biden did that. Okay. He did not increase your prices. The problem is, the average voter out there doesn’t understand that because they’re not tuned into politics.

Mike Papantonio: It doesn’t make any difference. It’s Jimmy Carter, right?

Farron Cousins: Yeah.

Mike Papantonio: Jimmy Carter walked into the same thing. There was no way to turn it around. Okay. Go back historically, if you connect these kinds of prices at the grocery store with a presidential run, it always, always bodes very poorly. Not just for the president, but for the controlling political party. And the Democrats, as much as they hate Carville these days, they might wanna bring the guy back and give them some advice. It’s the economy, stupid. Thanks for joining me, Farron.

Farron Cousins: Thank you.

Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all of these segments are gonna be posted right here on this channel in coming weeks. So make sure you’re subscribed to this channel. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where every week we tell you stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t let ’em or their political connections are just so bad or so Democrat or so Republican that they simply can’t be critical of that party. We don’t have that problem here. Hopefully, we’ll see you next time.

Farron Cousins: Over the years, a lot of people have asked us, what Mike Papantonio does when he’s not practicing law. Well, he stays pretty busy, and here is just a snapshot of everything that Pap is involved in when he’s not in the courtroom.