Several members of President Biden’s White House Advance Team have resigned following an investigation into complaints of verbal harassment and abuse of the staff. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Several members of Biden’s White House advance team have resigned following an investigation and complaints of verbal harassment and abuse of the staff. This story’s been kicking around a long time. And the first time I read it, I go, yeah, people are just so sensitive. But then, it’s these blast of GD and Fs, you know, the whole F slinging around. And you go, well, maybe there’s something to this. You know, he’s old, he’s tired. He doesn’t want to have any kinda resistance. I think the first time I saw it was when they said to him you’re getting your kicked. The polls are killing you. He went crazy. Right? What do you think of this story?
Farron Cousins: Well, in this particular case, we’re finding out like, yeah, okay, well we know Biden, he’s got a temper behind the scenes. And we’ve seen that throughout his career. But this one is actually, goes even deeper into the staff, into this weird, what’s called the advanced team, which is made up of both White House staffers and campaign staffers. It’s where they strategize on what he’s gonna do in the office versus what he’s gonna do on the campaign. So what we found out, through an investigation, which office was it here, the White House Council’s Office, had to investigate because they were.
Mike Papantonio: Required to investigate.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Because they got so many complaints from these staffers saying that their supervisors, led by a man by the name of Ian Mellul. He was not physically abusing them, but abusing his position, screaming at them, telling them, if you don’t do what I say, I’m going to ruin your life. Making them go pick up his dry cleaning and running his personal errands according to this report. So he resigned before the investigation could go too deep. But this is what bothers me so much about Washington DC because it’s not just about the dysfunction. It is these people.
Mike Papantonio: In a bubble, they’re in a bubble.
Farron Cousins: You got two separate kinds of people that get into work as staffers for members of Congress or for the President. You’ve got the people that for some reason, think they’re gonna make a difference. And those are the hopeful, optimistic, they will be crushed soon enough. But then you have these power hungry little freaks, like this guy who go in there, they get on this power trip and they say, well, I’m in charge of five people. So obviously I am the king of this castle. Go get my dry cleaning. You go get me coffee. I am the king of the Biden White House.
Mike Papantonio: Isn’t the Biden White House the kinder, gentler White House? I mean, isn’t that kinda, wasn’t that supposed to be the deal?
Farron Cousins: See, that’s the thing is it never actually works out that way because you have too many of these power hungry weirdos that latch themselves onto the Democrats. They latch onto the Republicans and they help destroy things from the inside out.
Mike Papantonio: Republicans just as bad. It is, you hit it on the head. It is this power trip. Right. They really think, they really think that what they do really matters. They really think that what they’re set out to do is gonna have a big impact. It most of time has zero impact. But the criticism where you see with Biden, I mean, the first time I saw it, I think was the Anita Hill hearings.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I saw a side of him, I’m going, what the hell? Him attacking this woman who has been, Clarence Thomas had clearly victimized this woman. There wasn’t a story here that she’s making up. And Biden jumps on the train. Anita Hill this, Anita Hill that. Basically stands up and starts making these speeches about what a, how awful she is. She was just there trying to protect herself and try and tell the story that Clarence Thomas had tried to, was making all kinds of advances to her. I’ve never seen anything like it. But then you start, and then I think he disappeared at that point. But now you’re hearing these stories again. And it’s not just him, it’s his entire staff that you’re hearing stuff like that.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. You see the dysfunction decaying the administration from the inside out. And that is one thing, look, we get it. These people, especially, he’s old, he’s crotchety, he’s mad sometimes, and sometimes he’s eating ice cream and he is happy. But if you can’t get good enough people in your, as your staffers, then you’re going to have this dysfunction. And we saw it a lot and I talked about it a lot during the Trump administration. That’s when things boil over and it becomes a massive story. And it’s because you picked bad people, you did this, you are ultimately responsible.
Mike Papantonio: It all flows from the top. It all flows from the top.
Farron Cousins: And we just don’t have people in DC, again, left or right that are picking good enough staffers to keep things running. And they do think they’re too important too.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. They don’t pay ’em anything. They have a sense of importance. They’re in a bubble that is so weird, where they really do believe that what they do really does matter and they’re just passing through. And there’s, you know, this was awful during the Trump administration too. We did a story on this on the Trump administration. It was the same kind of thing. All the way from Trump down to his staff just absolutely abusing people as if this is the new norm. Feed him more ice cream, maybe that’s gonna help. Thank you for joining me.
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’re subscribed. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer where we tell you stories that the corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers won’t let ’em tell the stories. Advertisers are gonna say, I’m gonna pull our money if you tell this story. Or their political connections are so Democrat or so Republican that they can’t color outside the lines at all. As you can tell, we don’t have that problem around here. We’ll always color outside the lines and call balls and strikes. Hopefully we’ll see you next time.