Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The entire DNC has been gaslighting the American public. That’s the bottom line here. They want us to believe something that our eyes are telling us this isn’t believable. It’s almost as if they expect that there’s some fairy dust, maybe we’re gonna sprinkle some fairy dust on voters and all of a sudden, they’re not gonna believe what their eyes are seeing. They’re not gonna believe what their ears are hearing. They’re stupid. We’re counting on the American public being so stupid that we can’t understand what happened on that stage and what’s happened so many times throughout the year that you and I have done stories on. And where we were trying to say early, this is a problem. And now, 72% of the American public are justifiably freaked out. They’re saying, we gotta do something. 25%, well, they don’t care. They’re mentally, they don’t care that they have a mentally impaired president with this thing that you call the sun downer syndrome that’s making life and death decisions for our families, for our children, for our families. And it’s almost as if the indifference comes to me in this way, is that the American public is so stupid and that we don’t really care. We don’t really care. All that we care is that we win our team sport. Do they have a plan? What’s their plan going forward?
Farron Cousins: Oh, my God. Yeah. Axios spoke to people in the Biden campaign and said, we got a plan. Don’t worry, an eight point plan here. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Dismiss the bedwetting, whatever that means.
Mike Papantonio: Wait, wait. Okay. We’re called bedwetters. How about bleeders? I’m not bedwetting. I’m bleeding through the eyes and ears worried about this country because of he. But they call me, call us a bedwetter. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Squeeze polls for juice.
Mike Papantonio: What does that mean? Squeeze the polls.
Farron Cousins: I don’t even know. I can’t even make sense of that.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I think what it means is find any little hope, find some county in Minnesota where they love the guy. Squeeze it and say, look, this county in Minnesota, they really love this guy. Poll the Hollywood stars, oh, they all love him. So everything must be okay because celebrities, you know, they’re so freaking smart. That’s what I think squeezing the polls means.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Warn of chaos. Which of course that is obviously like, hey, our guy might have one foot in the grave, but the other guy is very dangerous. And yes, he is very dangerous. I totally understand that. I say it every day.
Mike Papantonio: I do too. It’s not, this is not my guy. But do you think protect democracy is winning? Is protect democracy going to overcome the fundamental problems we’re seeing with Biden right now?
Farron Cousins: No, because based on that poll you just mentioned, the 72%, they think protecting the democracy means keeping him out of office. Keeping Biden out of office.
Mike Papantonio: That’s their talking point. Tell all of our little social media trolls, we have to save democracy. I mean, it’s like those same words. It’s speak these words and it’s really gonna take hold. What are their other plans here?
Farron Cousins: Limit dissent. So, people like us, don’t listen to us, you know, listen to the campaign. They’ll tell you what’s real, not us.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Campaign people are so much smarter.
Farron Cousins: Keep elected leaders close, which means insulate Biden with his little cheerleaders and use them as the surrogates. Right. We don’t need to send him out there, oh, we’ve got this good politician. Maybe Gavin Newsom, you go out and do a speech for Biden instead of Biden doing it himself.
Mike Papantonio: So that’s about number what, number five in seven, in they’re eight point. This, you’re reading they’re eight point plan.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And these words are actually their words. Get elected leaders close. I kinda have to think about that. I think you hit it on the head though, isn’t it? It’s like you show up in Georgia and you have the elected leader up next to Biden, and all of a sudden Biden doesn’t look so demented, I suppose. That’s the only thing, go ahead.
Farron Cousins: Get the donor class to chill. That’s, get the donor class to chill, is there.
Mike Papantonio: Do they look chilled right now? Do they look, they look completely bonkers because they’ve invested so much into access to this president. Like I say, the weapons industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the Chamber of Commerce, corporate defense firms. You see all these appointments coming up to the bench right now, all these new appointments to the federal bench, three quarters of them come from silk stocking corporate defense firms.
Farron Cousins: Well, what’s funny about that too, get the donor class to chill. They are obviously referring to the corporations and the wealthy.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah.
Farron Cousins: Because they raised $27 million right after the debate, which is actually pretty good considering his performance. But that’s from average mom and pop, $10 a pop donors. So they’re not worried about the small time donors. They’re only worried about the big donors, which shows you, that’s a problem in and of itself.
Mike Papantonio: The donor class.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: The donor class.
Farron Cousins: That is a horrible phrase. You don’t ever wanna be considered part of that.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, who would even use the word, the donor class? Like they have some position that’s so ethereal and it’s so much superior to the average American.
Farron Cousins: Well, we usually use it as an insult.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, it is to me. Here, they’re using it as a positive. Okay. What else do the Democrats say that they’re gonna do to overcome what just happened?
Farron Cousins: Prove vitality. So I guess you’re gonna have more pictures of him on his bike, showing that, hey, he’s got energy. And then.
Mike Papantonio: Well, can I ask you something now? Because this thing about they’re pump, they’re jacking him up with drugs. What is your take on that? Is that just hype or is it just, is it ridiculous talk? And if it is, can they do it 24 hours a day? Can they keep him jacked up 24 hours a day?
Farron Cousins: A week ago, I was sitting here saying, that is absolutely ridiculous. But now, I can’t say it’s ridiculous. You look at what he did at the State of the Union, there could be something to it. I mean.
Mike Papantonio: You know, while we’re on that topic, you know why I love doing the show with you? because you’re so brutally honest. I really like that. I hate, you know, for so many years I did, I was in a box and I had to do the show with everybody who agrees. Yeah. This is exactly what. But what I love about what you do, your brand, is you’re able to look at both sides and you’re able to say, this is what’s really happening, guys. Even though you go after Trump every day, beat the hell outta him every day, you’re still able to step back and we’re able to have this discussion. What’s the other thing in their list, the DNC’s list of this is what we gotta do?
Farron Cousins: This is the dumbest and biggest one to me, ignore/engage the media. So if it’s negative media, ignore ’em. Screw ’em. Get the hell outta here. But otherwise, let’s use them. Let’s manipulate them, engage with them, which is where the social media folks come in. Let’s get our TikTok influencers to go out there and talk about why the debate wasn’t that bad. Let’s go out there and have them bash Trump all the time. And look, again, as somebody who bashes Trump every day, it’s easy to do because he gives you new material every day. But we’ve gotta be honest about what’s happening here too. I’m not gonna put a happy face on it because there’s no happy face on this story. None.
Mike Papantonio: So, okay. So you’ve got the journalist side of it. I’m gonna have the big story. I’m gonna have access to Biden if I kiss his butt. I’m gonna maybe even be, who knows, press secretary one day, or on the press secretary staff. The social media guys, it’s just weird to me. It’s like you described that time that you saw ’em in Washington and they were all in front of the White House with Biden out there embracing them, not really thinking, not critically thinking about what it is they’re asking them to do, you see, go out and say positive under any circumstance. That’s what they’re told to do. Go out with your blue flags across the screen and do it every day. But think about how shallow that is and think about that, if that is what we have to rely on to get the President of the United States elected, that’s pretty scary stuff.
Farron Cousins: Well, you know what, and just on that note, over the 20 years we’ve been doing this now, you’ve never been invited to go chill at the White House. But you’ve been invited to speak in front of workers organizations. In front of unions, in front of populist groups. Like all the real average working class people, those are the people that are inviting us to come and be a part of that.
Mike Papantonio: Because we don’t give a.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: I could not possibly care less about having my picture taken at the White House dinner. I mean, really? Everything we do day to day is the other side of that. Everything we do at this law firm is anti-corporate, when corporations mess up or when they kill people or when they do things they weren’t supposed to do. That’s the side we’re on. So yeah, we do line up with labor. We do line up with the populist movement.
Farron Cousins: And environmental groups, and all that.
Mike Papantonio: Environmental groups.
Farron Cousins: And so, I couldn’t imagine being one of those people where your goal is, I get to go to the White House.
Mike Papantonio: It’s nauseating.
Farron Cousins: Sure, it’d be awesome to do that, but you’re not actually helping people. And that’s the big difference. I think after 20 years of doing this, we have helped people.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, I hope, you definitely have.
Farron Cousins: And sometimes we help ’em by telling them the unfortunate truths here. But this is the truth. You may not accept it, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, keep beating the hell outta Trump and just be willing to tell the truth like you have today. And like I said, that’s why we’ve been doing business for 20 years. Okay. Thanks for joining me.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all the time we have for this week. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers won’t let ’em, or their tribal politics won’t allow for it. We don’t have that problem here, as you can tell, we aren’t beholden to corporations or political parties. We’ll see you next time.
Suspicious Activity: That it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least 800. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants provided money and medical goods to terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Jaysh al-Adl. This is a well organized business for these individuals that carry out these attacks. Terrorism is a business and they run it like a business. They knew about what was going on for a decade. They absolutely, absolutely no question about it knew that HSBC was washing money. They had every reason to understand it was for terrorism and it was for drug cartels. Took no action whatsoever.
These banks are involved, their accounts are connected, and they’re using them to mask the transactions. The more complicated they can make the transactions, the more distance they could put between the bad guys and a seemingly legitimate purpose of these funds. They pay $1.9 billion, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what they’ve made. And nobody goes to prison. These CEOs, these bankers that made this decision, they’re safe at home. They know what they’ve done. They know it’s resulted in the death of Americans, contractors and soldiers, not just hundreds but thousands. And we look the other way because they don’t look like criminals. The die cast, the people that are responsible for it, are on Wall Street. And they don’t look like criminals. It’s almost a suspension of disbelief. Sometimes I’ll have people call me and say, is this, is this real? Do they really get away with this? Yeah, they do.
