America’s Lawyer E84: Johnson & Johnson is trying to get out of having to pay billions of dollars in judgements against them by filing for bankruptcy, and they have a new plan to escape liability by moving to Texas. Vince McMahon has resigned from his position as the head of the entertainment group that oversees most of professional wresting after a former staffer accused him of sexual assault and sex trafficking. And Democrats aren’t happy about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gaining enough signatures to appear on state ballots this fall. 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. Johnson & Johnson’s trying to get out of having to pay billions of dollars in judgements against them for filing for bankruptcy and having a new plan to escape liability for injuring, seriously, sometimes resulting in death for thousands of Americans. It’s called the Texas Two Step. It’s nauseating. Vince McMahon has resigned from his position as the head of the entertainment group that oversees most of the professional wrestling after a former staffer accused him of sexual assault and actually trafficking. Ugly, ugly story. And Democrats, well, they aren’t happy about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gaining enough signatures to appear on a state ballot this Fall. It’s called democracy, but Democratic leadership really hates that. All that and more, it’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Johnson & Johnson has already been hit with judgements from juries totaling into the billions after it was determined that their talcum powder products were causing cancer, death. The companies failed twice by trying to file for bankruptcy and then being denied. But they think, well, let’s try it again. They’re gonna file in Texas now. We got a better shot in Texas. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about what’s happening. You know, we’ve done this story so many times, but I can’t even, I wish I could get people to understand how ugly this is. A $500 billion company that has resulted, their product has killed thousands of people all over this country and will continue to kill thousands of people, women, with cervical cancer, all types of female cancer from baby powder that they knew was gonna kill. They knew way ahead of time how dangerous this was. But you know what? They can’t give up. This is the third time they’ve tried. File bankruptcy. Let all of them continue dying. And we’re a $500 billion company that’s gonna get away with it, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. A company that pulls in billions of dollars a year in profit, not just revenue, but profit. Twice in New Jersey they go to the judge and say, hey judge, we’re getting our butts kicked in court. Look at all this liability we have. Uh, we’re bankrupt. And both times the courts eventually said, no, you’re not. You’re not gonna do this. We’re not playing this game. You’re gonna pay out these claimants. So Johnson & Johnson, I’m actually surprised it took them this many tries to do this, but they’re gonna do what so many other corporations have done. And they said, you know what? Let’s go to Texas. And it’s so common that it does have a name. It is called the Texas Two Step. Because Texas Law allows you to go down there, spin off a new company that doesn’t even exist other than on paper. And then you transfer all of your liabilities, which means all those lawsuits to this new company, but you don’t transfer any money. So then you say, oh my God, look, this new company over here, they’ve got so much liability and no income. Judge, clearly we’re bankrupt. And it works. It works for them.
Mike Papantonio: Well, we faced it with DuPont, the cases I’ve tried, we dealt with it. But they understand, try to slow ’em down. Now, this is what we call the ghoul defense in this business, which I’ve been doing for 40 plus years. The ghoul defense is when you know women are gonna die. Okay. So you delay, you delay, and you delay because oddly enough, the value of a case at death is less than the value of the living patient. And so the ghoul defense is what they’re doing here. They’ve delayed 15 years now, just everything they can do. We know we killed these people. We knew, we had every reason to know it. The documents were overwhelming, showing us that these people were gonna die from our product, but we didn’t wanna interfere with brand loyalty. You understand that’s what it was about?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: They didn’t wanna interfere with brand loyalty rather and replace the product that had asbestos in it with corn starch. That’s all they had to do. But they said, oh, we can’t take a chance on changing the formula here. It’ll affect brand loyalty. That’s the way these people think. People are gonna pass up on this article. They’re gonna see, Johnson, oh, just another bankruptcy. This is a company that they just turn democracy up on its head. Let’s make as much money as we can and then let’s, it’s okay if we kill people. It’s fine if we kill people. It’s fine if we injure people because we know at the end of the day, we’re not gonna have to pay anything because we’re going bankruptcy court. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah, absolutely. And as far as I know, maybe I’m wrong, you can correct me on this if I am, but hasn’t Johnson & Johnson lost all of these lawsuits so far?
Mike Papantonio: Yes. Yes.
Farron Cousins: All of these talcum powder lawsuits.
Mike Papantonio: No, they haven’t. They’ve won some talcum powder. They have won some cases.
Farron Cousins: Okay.
Mike Papantonio: But they’ve been hit with more than almost $7 billion in claims from juries that have looked at this and said, my God, this is awful. This conduct is awful. These people who did this, you know, when you listen to the comments about when the jury comes back and says, I can’t even believe this goes on in this country, then you start understanding how bad this is. But the ghoul defense, for a $500 billion company, they’re thinking, what the hell? Let’s see if it works. Let’s delay until these women die. We’ve killed them. Let’s see how long we can get away with it.
Vince McMahon has resigned from his position as the head of the entertainment group that oversees most of the professional wrestling after a former staffer accused him of sexual assault and sexual trafficking. This goes beyond, this is worse than anything we’ve heard from the Weinstein case. It’s kind of in line with the Epstein case. This woman was trafficked. I mean, this guy McMahon, who a billionaire thought he could own this woman to where he was actually sending her out to have sex with people that, it’s no different than prostitution. Only this is an unwilling woman when you hear what she did to try to get outta this. Go ahead.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is a truly disturbing story that’s really, we’re only scratching the surface of it at this point. It’s only been out for less than a week at this point. But what we know about so far from this woman’s lawsuit is that she went, she wanted to get a job with the WWE that McMahon was running at the time. Not even becoming a professional wrestler. Just, this is a good organization. I wanna work here. Put me in the office. And he had different ideas with this woman. Brought her up to his penthouse, routinely made her perform sexual acts, take photographs that he then had hung up in his home.
Mike Papantonio: Sent to his friends.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. And so then when the other people would see those photographs, whether through text messages or in his home, he would force her, according to this lawsuit, to go to these people’s homes and perform sexual acts for them. He went as far as to tell her he owned her.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Physically owned her.
Farron Cousins: And when she would get a little, you know, reluctant maybe trying to escape, what did he do? Showered her with gifts and cash.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you wonder, people are gonna hear this story and they say, well, hell, she could have left anytime. No, it doesn’t work like that. Human trafficking, matter of fact, I’m taking one of the biggest depositions in the country tomorrow on human trafficking with just one of the most awful companies up in Canada called MindGeek. But when you understand what happens, the psychology of the whole trafficking thing, he was selling her to other people. He actually, they reached an agreement when he knew that hey, she had all the letters. I will allow you to have sex with her, pay us some money, work with our company. And so he would just, he’d hire her out like that. So, overwhelming material she had. So he settles with her. He’s supposed to pay her $3 million. Well, he makes one payment for $1 million. He didn’t make that payment because this is made up. He made that payment because this conduct was just so reprehensible. And then he failed to make any more payments.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And he got her, and this is also typical what we see with trafficking cases, he got her at a time in her life when she was very vulnerable. Both of her parents had recently died. She was out on her own, had no support network whatsoever. I’ve talked to people that have been trafficked, people that have handled the cases. And that is, we’re talking about almost textbook what this man did to her and how he manipulated her, going to her at that vulnerable time and forcing her to do these things.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. His emails to her as well, I effing own you. I effing on you. And oh, by the way, I have to sell you basically, because that’s part of the effing deal I made with this contractor or this, whoever it may be. And the story just, sometimes you read, you know, there’s so many of these stories that come out. I mean, it’s like every week there’s some character like this billionaire who believes that they’re just beyond the law. That there is no law. That they are king. They’re gonna do whatever the hell they wanna do. This particular story, people ought to go take a look at it and see just how badly this woman was abused. It’s ugly, ugly, ugly.
Farron Cousins: Right. Well, and she also alleges that some of the professional wrestlers with the WWE were part of this as well. They were not named in the lawsuit. But that’s why I say we’re barely scratching the surface.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah.
Farron Cousins: By the time this is over, there’s gonna be a lot more names on that list. And you’re right, I think we’re looking at Epstein territory here.
Mike Papantonio: Well, he’s going to prison. If the prosecutor will do their job, if they’ll take this and do their job and not make this into a civil case. This goes way beyond a civil case. This is trafficking, this is human trafficking. And they ought to go after him for that. You know, if we had a Department of Justice that had some guts, this is what that case would be.
A new report has found that the cost of rent has become so outta control that nearly half of the renters in this country can no longer afford to make their payments and to make things worse, virtually nothing is being done to solve the problem. We’re talking about rents that have gone up two and three times just in the last 24 months. And so somebody who’s day one, they’re paying $700, all of a sudden is paying 16, $1,700, along with having to make, they’ve got utility issues, they got inflation issues. They’ve got wrenching decisions that they have to make. Do I pay my rent? Do I pay my bills? Do I run the risk of being evicted? Can I pay just half rent? You don’t realize this until you’re in the middle of it. But you hear these stories, and right now I don’t see any way it’s turning around. I don’t see anything in the horizon that’s gonna turn this around.
Farron Cousins: No. There is not a single piece of legislation being proposed. Not a single piece of legislation pending. There’s not even really discussion of this from our leaders in Washington DC on either side of the aisle. This has been a problem that we have talked about before. It’s been a problem that even the most corporate of news outlets have talked about. And nobody is doing a thing about this. These people are telling, in this new report, saying, listen, after I pay my rent for this apartment or this rental house I’ve been in for five years, I pay my rent, I have less than $300 for the rest of the month to buy food for my children, to buy gas for my car. I cannot sustain this for more than a few more months before I’m out in the street. And here’s what gets me too. This report says the housing market’s telling us, well, it’s because there’s a shortage. There is not a home shortage in the United States. We have more.
Mike Papantonio: That’s coming from the White House. They’re trying to defend themselves. It’s not our fault. It’s not our fault there’s a housing shortage. That’s complete BS.
Farron Cousins: We have more vacant homes than we have unhoused people in this country. We could give every one of them a free house and we wouldn’t even notice.
Mike Papantonio: So you’ve got a homeless rate that hits a historical high. I saw an article coming outta San Francisco where a family of four, think about this, a family of four needs more than $200,000 a year just to live, have a place to live and pay their bills. $200,000. So it’s not just, first of all, it’s not a housing shortage. What is happening though, that’s part of this story, is Wall Street’s coming in and buying up big swaths of entire neighborhoods. And those used to be single family type homes that a young couple could buy. Now the prices are just so outrageous because corporate America’s involved and there’s no controls over it. There are executive, there are things from the executive level that can be done to stop this. But nothing’s being done. Now, when Wall Street gets involved, the media has already dropped the ball. You can’t even find these articles in the media. When Wall Street’s involved and they own everything, these stories are going to disappear because Wall Street’s gonna be paying advertising on MSNBC and CNN and ABC. They’re gonna control the networks just like they do with everything else, buy advertising dollars.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And not to mention, a lot of these Wall Street executives also sit on the boards of directors for the media companies.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: So they literally get to control what’s happening at these places. And again, the part that drives me crazy is that there’s nothing, nothing at all being done about this. And this, we see these stories about, oh, look at the economy. It’s doing great. We added more jobs than ever. The stock market’s doing better than ever. Listen, get down to the nitty gritty of it and you’re gonna see how bad people are doing in this country.
Mike Papantonio: There’s something called rent control. Okay. People know that term. And right now you have a White House who’s not trying to get at least Democratic governors to say, you have the right to do this, but nothing’s being done. Because you know what? It’s just because the media, it’s a sleeper story. It’s a sleeper story. They won’t do their job as usual.
Lawmakers in Florida are advancing legislation that would ban children under the age of 16 from using social media. Studies have found that social media, well, it causes a chemical reaction. It’s a dopamine reaction in the brain just like any other addictive process. Just like Oxycontin. Just like any of those. They know that. This isn’t guesswork anymore. You know, it used to be kind of a joke. Well, I wonder whether this is affecting their brain. Is this why they’re in front of their phone 12 hours a day? Well, no, it’s a little more complicated. It’s the same analysis that you would use for any addiction. And it’s, I love the term. It’s not my term. It was given to somebody, digital fentanyl. Digital fentanyl is what it’s called. One of the Florida legislators came out and said that we gotta do something about it.
Farron Cousins: It’s really interesting to me, because when I first saw this story, I thought, okay, this is kind of ridiculous. This is overstepping. There’s no way they’re gonna ban social media for people under 16. But when you actually read it, and you actually look at the science behind it, and you look at the studies that have been done, this might be the first time we’ve ever talked about legislation in Florida where we’re like, you know what? This is actually a smart idea. This is a good important thing here, because the studies are overwhelming. Even the US Surgeon General has come out and said, listen, these social media apps for these young people in this country are as addictive as drugs. It’s doing the same thing to the brains.
Mike Papantonio: What it does is it opens a whole new avenue. Okay. You have something called constitutional police power. That is where government has the right to say where health, safety and welfare is concerned, if we have enough evidence that something’s affected, it overcomes a lot of the obstacles, such as First Amendment obstacles. It can actually overcome that. And so here you’ve got, it’s an entire body of science. They’ve done PET scans, they’ve done all types of studies, and they see there’s a difference taking place in the brain that’s exactly like you see with dopamine, with Oxycontin. It’s a dopamine change. And so this isn’t guesswork. And so with this right, I think the police power, they’re gonna be able to make some inroads. New York is way ahead on it. Right now they’re pulling out all their guns. Utah ahead on it. And they’re trying to say, listen, why are we ignoring this? We don’t ignore it with drugs. Do we? We don’t ignore it with alcohol. We say, yeah, these are items that affect the addiction problem for children. So we’re not going to allow you to drink until you’re 18 years old. So that’s the same analysis here. I think this, I’m like you. You know, most of the stuff that comes outta Florida these days, the legislator, I mean, just a bunch of boneheads, man.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But you see something like this and you go, wow, maybe there’s hope.
Farron Cousins: It’s got bipartisan support, which is rare. And again, it’s addressing an issue that has kind of festered for far too long to where, as usual with these social media companies, we’re once again playing from behind. But we have a chance to make a real difference with this.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. New York is really jumping into this with both feet. And I think we’re behind Utah, but this could happen here. It absolutely could happen.
Democratic insiders are starting to panic about Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s third party presidential run and they fear that he could act as a spoiler for President Biden that leads Donald Trump to being reelected. First of all, I don’t buy that. This is, to me, if I look at the entire Bobby Kennedy story, it is the worst abuse of democracy I’ve ever seen in my life. The way that this guy’s been handled. Now, full disclosure, he’s a friend of mine. We’ve known each other a lot of years. We’ve tried cases together. I think he’s a good candidate. But what’s happening is you have all of these Democrat insiders who rather than facing the facts and are saying the American public is tired of Biden, they’re tired of Donald Trump. Kamala Harris scares the hell out of ’em. They can’t see her as stepping into the role of president. They see all of this happening. The polls are overwhelming. The narratives are overwhelming. But nevertheless, they’re doing these little, I call them the Democratic flying monkeys, this Michael Starr Hopkins. He’s a Democratic operative and a political commentator. They have these flying monkeys all over the place. And MSNBC puts ’em on, CNN puts ’em on. And you would think by the time it’s over with, as you’re listening to his story, you’d think the guy’s insane. He’s anything but insane. He’s a challenge right now. He’s a serious challenge.
Farron Cousins: Well, see what bugs me about stories like this is when you have all these Democratic strategists, because this article from The Hill talks to multiple, and they all say the same thing. Like, oh, we’re so worried he’s gonna help Trump get elected. But okay, listen, that’s a possibility. Sure. But your anger to me is directed in the wrong spot. If you’re mad that somebody could cost your guy the election, shouldn’t you be mad at your guy? Shouldn’t you be more concerned as to, hey, why is our guy losing support to this person? What can we do differently? I mean, you’re a so-called strategist, so come up with a strategy to win the voters back. And nobody ever wants to look at that side of it with the strategists.
Mike Papantonio: Let’s blame, let’s call names. It is a childlike mentality that you’re seeing coming out of the Democratic party right now. We’ll see it soon with the Republicans too. But it’s this, the American public, the number is 70, this is 70% of Americans are not satisfied with either Trump or Biden. When have we ever seen that? And nevertheless, you have, again, these flying monkeys that have just, all they know is Democratic politics. They started right outta college. They were a staffer, and then they moved to, all they can think of is what I call headline news, headline thinking. And they pick up the headline thinking and they ignore the realities taking place around ’em. You know? I see the family coming out after, his own family. Well, what’s that about? Well, it’s about that they want access. They’re the old Kennedy family, they’ve been around forever. They’ve been Democrat forever. And so it’s this pass me down. Okay. It’s access to celebrity, to political celebrity, access to the big Democratic political parties. They feel like they’re gonna be on the outside rather than doing, showing a little bit of character and standing up for their family, standing up for their own blood. Rather than doing that, their own brothers, their own cousins, you know, rather than doing that, they fall into the same headline thinking. And that is, yes, Biden is our guy, and yes, Kamala Harris is just fine. She’s gonna make a great president when Biden kicks off. That’s exactly the thinking.
Farron Cousins: Well, look, the family’s been coming out long before Bobby was running for president, they did their op-eds, they did their open letters saying, we do not stand with him on this vaccine issue. And look, I don’t either.
Mike Papantonio: No. So what? It’s one issue, Farron. It’s one issue.
Farron Cousins: Right. I get that. And look, I’m saying right now, if I have to vote between Biden and Bobby, I’m going Biden right now. Bobby has not won me over. But here’s the thing, there’s a lot of people both actually on the left and right who say he’s won me over. So if you are a strategist, you have to come up with a strategy to say, alright, where is my candidate failing? And that’s what drives me crazy about both the strategists on the left and the right. None of them ever actually want to come up with a plan or come up with an idea.
Mike Papantonio: Just criticize
Farron Cousins: The stories we talk about every week with pharmaceutical prices outta control, housing prices outta control, homelessness.
Mike Papantonio: Inflation.
Farron Cousins: Those are things, inflation, that Biden and his strategists should be meeting about and say, okay, what’s the plan? How do I address this? How can we move forward legislatively or executively to do these things and show the people that we mean business? You do that and suddenly that 70% number isn’t gonna be 70% anymore, but they won’t come up with solutions.
Mike Papantonio: Well, and the worst thing about it is they interfere with the democratic process. Okay. So what’s he having to do? He’s having to go state, the latest thing is We The People party that he has to come on as an independent. He has to do that state by state. Well, New Hampshire he only needs 3000 signatures. So you can do that state by state. Some of the states require a lot more signatures. But their fear about a three-way race is real. Okay. It’s not real with Cornel West. Although, I’ve had Cornel at my programs I do in Vegas. He’s a great guy. He’s a great thinker. You know, a good candidate actually, but maybe not this time. I don’t know. There’s plenty of places he fits in. But Bobby is a contender. I mean, whether you want admit it, you’re gonna have these, again, we have flying monkeys that are commenting on our site. I don’t really care. I mean, it doesn’t make a difference to me. We say what has to be said. And until the Democrats can say what has to be said, until the Republicans can say what has to be said, that we’ve got a lunatic, we are trying to get a lunatic Trump to run for president. Till they can do that and the Democrats can say, we’ve got a bumbling old guy who runs into things and can barely finish a sentence or with a vice president that has perfected word salad, until they can get there, they can’t analyze anything. It’s just all headline thinking. It’s, this is the only way I know how to think. This is my tribal-ness on steroids.
Farron Cousins: And it’s always blame everybody else for our shortcomings. Like, oh, our candidates not gonna win because this guy jumps in. He has every right to run for president. Anybody that fits the criteria has a right to run for president if they want to.
Mike Papantonio: That’s right.
Farron Cousins: And you do not get to be angry if that happens. That’s America.
Mike Papantonio: And what you wanna say is, why can’t people carry on a conversation like you and I do? We’ve known each other for 25 years. I’m delighted you’re saying, look, I’m all for Biden. Fine. That’s your right to do it. And you talk and say, Pap here’s why I’m for Biden. It’s not a screaming match. I’m not calling you names, you’re not calling me names. It’s a discussion. But the Democrats and Republicans have become so tribal they can’t even have a discussion with friends where they’re not yelling. I mean, we will get comments on this segment, I promise you. Why didn’t you beat Papantonio down and Pap, why didn’t you beat Farron? Because it’s called intelligent conversation. And that has become a thing of the past. And the Bobby Kennedy discussion pretty well proves it.
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week, but all these segments are gonna be posted right here on this channel in the coming week. So make sure you subscribe. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you inside stories that corporate American media, they won’t tell you because they’re advertisers, they won’t let ’em tell the story because the company that they might be talking about is paying for advertising or their political connection is too Democrat or too Republican. And they don’t wanna make the folks, the insiders of those parties mad at ’em. So we don’t have, as you can tell from this show, we don’t have that problem. Nor will we ever have that problem. It’s our brand. Hope we see you next time.
