Hi, I’m Mike Papantonio, and this is America’s Lawyer, where every week we dig behind the headlines to give you the details and information that corporate media won’t give you because their advertisers won’t let them. They’ll lose advertising dollars if they talk about most of these stories.
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, where every week we dig behind the headlines to give you the details and information that corporate media won’t give you because their advertisers won’t let ’em, they’ll lose advertising dollars if they talk about most of these stories. Farron, I don’t know how it gets any crazier than to have the president of the United States pardon two judges that allowed children, they were getting kickbacks, getting paid money to take children as young as eight years old and to put ’em in criminal facilities. It just so happens, I just finished writing a book about that for Simon and Schuster Skyhorse be out next year, but those facilities create criminals. Okay. This is a judge who knowingly took bribes from the people that were running the facilities to take kids with minor, very minor kinds of problems. One typical thing is they found drug paraphernalia, maybe a pipe.
Farron Cousins: Or you were underage drinking at a high school party. Shoplifted a candy bar.
Mike Papantonio: Right. Exactly. They throw you in prison and this dirt bag, Biden okayed it. We’re gonna let this dirt bag out. One story about one boy committed suicide. Comes out of the facility. Great kid really, ends up committing suicide. And Biden, my position is he’s so freaking senile, I doubt he even knew what happened. He’s so senile. He, it is time for Biden to be institutionalized somewhere. Old folks home or something. Somebody put it in front of him and he signed it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. I hope that’s what this is because if he put conscious thought into this and still made this decision, then that changes everything I’ve ever thought about this guy, because this is one of the worst clemency, or commutation decisions, I think I’ve ever seen. This judge because it was Judge Conahan is the one he granted clemency to.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. We’ll have pictures of both of these judges so everybody can see who they are.
Farron Cousins: It was the infamous kids for cash scandal. And like you said, they took these kids that had minor offenses that really should have just been a teachable moment. And instead, they were getting kickbacks from the prison industry and said, okay, I’m sorry. You were called at a high school party drinking. You were called at a high school party with a pipe on you. You’re going to actual real prison and we’re gonna stick you there for a month or a year in some cases. And then if you get in trouble again, guess what? Instead of just a minor infraction, we’re sending you back for even longer. And that’s what happened with that young man who you mentioned committed suicide. His mother right now is rightfully outraged that President Biden would tell this corrupt as hell judge, you don’t have to spend the last two and a half years of your sentence behind bars. It was a month or so ago, he went in front of a court and said, hey, I’ve been behaving. Can I please get out early? Do I not have to serve the rest of my sentence? And that judge said, hell no. What you did was so egregious, I am not letting you out early for good behavior. You got two and a half years left. Bye-bye.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, living down at some posh resort area in Florida. That’s where the judge is now. You understand? They agreed to house arrest. He’s living in this posh area in Florida, Delray Beach, that’s his prison confinement. And even that’s, even with that, Biden says, well, I gotta do better than that. I gotta pardon him. 300 kids, this dirt bag and another dirt bag.
Farron Cousins: Ciavarella.
Mike Papantonio: Ciavarella. We’ll, these are the guys here. You’ll see a picture. These guys understood the whole history of what happens when you put a child in confinement like that. They run the risk of rape. They run the risk of becoming truly a criminal just to survive. These judges deal with criminals all the time. They know how ugly the system is. But they were taking thousand, $2000, $3,000 to take little Johnny who caught drinking, okay, throw him in prison and creating a new criminal. There’s just not enough bad. And the best I can hope for as I read this is that I honestly think Biden is so frigging senile right now. He is so demented and out of it that somebody came along, put that in front of him and he signed it. I hope, because that’s the best I can hope for here. This is a guy that thank God he’s at the end of his term because it scares the hell out of me that he’s making decisions. To make a decision like this tells you he’s making a lot of bad decisions. People are throwing papers in front of him. He’s so out of it. He’s completely bonkers at this point and people just throwing papers and, hey, sign this would you. Well, what the hell? It’s the whole republic is in danger and nobody seems to put all that together.
Van Jones, oh my God, saying mainstream media is the fringe now. ABC, CBS, NBC, they’re the fringe because media has really moved towards social media because they can’t get news. You cannot get real news off of cable news anymore. Pick it up.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. I love this story because Van Jones is correct about that, except he’s mad about it. He doesn’t want that to be the case. He wants people to go back to CNN, tune into us. He’s whining about how podcasters and YouTubers are getting more views every day than CNN. Well, don’t be mad about it. Look at the reasons why. Right. Why are people turning to podcasts? Why are they turning to YouTube and these independent outlets? And the answer is because they are independent. They’re not tuning in to get a watered down version of somebody’s opinion of the news of the day, which is what you get on CNN.
Mike Papantonio: The point, to me, that I think is important part of the story though, he’s saying that’s why we had a disconnect in the last election.
Farron Cousins: I agree.
Mike Papantonio: He said that’s why they didn’t understand what Democrats were talking about because Democrats didn’t appear on podcasts. They didn’t go to Joe. At the same time you got Trump and you got Vance all over podcasts, all over social media. And he says, we really dropped the ball. It was a total disconnect for the Democratic party because we didn’t participate in any of this. He said, this is the way everything is going. Mainstream media is now the fringe. I mean, that’s really where he has gone. They don’t deliver the news anymore. And if you think that you’re not part of it, test yourself. If you can turn on The View and you can watch The View for more than five minutes, probably you have fallen into that dinosaur way of thinking, believing that’s important. But the point is, after this last election, how can you ever stand back and say that corporate mainstream media has any influence on what Americans are thinking? Go try that. I call it the View test. Go watch that and if you’re watching that and you’re saying, oh my God, that’s making good sense to me, you’re a dinosaur. Something’s wrong with your ability to critically think. And that’s what Van is saying, isn’t he?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, I do agree that CNN is a dying animal. It has been dying this very slow, painful, horrific death almost for many years now, losing viewers month after month after month. And the problem is Van Jones can point out the problems. That’s wonderful. A lot of us can do that. But you guys aren’t looking at why this is happening. You’re just saying, a problem exists and I’m mad about it. Well, that’s great. That’s step one. Step two, figure out why the hell it’s happening. Realize who you’re working for, Van Jones, because you’re not working for CNN. You’re working for the pharmaceutical industry.
Mike Papantonio: That’s right.
Farron Cousins: You’re working for the defense industry.
Mike Papantonio: I was just gonna say.
Farron Cousins: Those are your bosses, not whoever it is that’s sitting at the top of CNN any given month. The bosses are the corporations out there screwing over everybody else.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I had, you remember this, when I was doing MSNBC a few times a week just as a commentator, the number of times where there would be an important story. One story I think of is I wanted to do a story on the fact that this particular kind of wood that was being manufactured was soaked with arsenic. Okay. And the people making the wood wanted to take the wood and make it into children’s playground equipment. So a lawsuit was brought in saying, get all this stuff off of the playgrounds. It’s dangerous. And I remember going on to the air and telling that story. And the next day I get a note where I have to go back and apologize. Well, you remember what I said? It began with a middle finger, and so, but that was coming from corporate. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: That’s coming from upstairs. That little dwarf, whatever his name is, Griffin, whatever his name. Griffin’s making these calls and telling his people what they must do. Report this, this is what you must report. This is what corporate wants you to report. And so the disconnect is social media, there’s nobody calling us saying, hey, you can’t tell that story. Just like I talk about every week. Nobody tells us what story to do. And that’s typical of most social media.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, they obviously, social media, podcasts, everybody, we’ve got our own political bent, but we are unfiltered. We don’t have to water anything down. And I think that’s what people are looking for now. They just want, give it to me straight. What is it? And you don’t get that from these corporate media outlets anymore, regardless if they’re left or right. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. It’s a watered down, not even news, opinion. And that’s even worse.
Mike Papantonio: That’s why we get more traffic than CNN. I mean, literally we get more, this social media, what we’re doing here right now gets more traffic than CNN. And it continues to get worse. I don’t know how long they can even survive. What do you think is really happening with MSNBC right now with all these machinations? You got Comcast saying, we’re gonna spin this off, and who are they gonna spin off? Who are they gonna fire? If you take a look at the news daily, if I were a broadcaster on both CNN and MSNBC right now, I’d be looking for a safe haven somewhere in social media, because that’s the only way they’re gonna survive.
You’ve got Nancy Pelosi, Klippenstein did a great job with talking about kind of the elderly in this business to begin with. But Nancy Pelosi falling, breaking her hip, and she’s back in the game. Mitch McConnell falling, I don’t know what he broke, but he’s had head problems for quite a while. He goes into these freezes. These are 80 plus, these are politicians that are 80 plus. We’ve talked about this so much. What does it take for us to say, these are dinosaurs? It’s time for us to move on from these folks. What do you do?
Farron Cousins: Well, I think we need to get serious. Both parties really need to get more serious about primaries. You have got to challenge these people. You have got to put up other options because I know we hear about tough primary races for some members of Congress every two years, but it’s not enough. Some of these really safe people that have been there forever, they’re not facing tough primary challengers. So that is step number one. But number two, people do need to demand, right. You need to be out there with your protest signs outside of Congress, get rid of the gerontocracy. Do something, be active. Draw more attention to this, because right now these, what are we octogenarians, are literally falling apart. Right. Their bodies are failing them. We have had two lawmakers die of old age in office in the last 18 months. As Klippenstein puts it, it’s brilliant, they’re dying to stay in office.
Mike Papantonio: Yes. Okay. Klippenstein, and I love this. He says, look, the ballpoint pen wasn’t even invented when these people were born. Okay. You’ve got Nancy Pelosi in her 20th term in Congress. Everybody says, oh, that’s fine. You got McConnell who’s this bizarre, freezing episode that takes place more than once. Some of it they’re trying to hide. You can’t hide that. And we’re saying, yeah, this guy, this is who we want running things. Bill Pascrell just died 87 years old. And the voters were thinking, well, God, he must really be smart because he’s so old. No, he’s frigging senile. These people are, they’re losing their edge to even analyze. And we’re saying, well, it’s just like Biden. I mean, look how long we pumped. Not we, but the media pumped up Biden. Just sign after sign. What is it that we have an impasse there? Why aren’t we willing to go ahead and pull the trigger and say, look guys, you know what? Goodbye. We need a 40 or 50 year older in there. We need somebody who can still deal with conflict.
Farron Cousins: And I do think, not that I agree with him on policy, but Trump picking JD Vance.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, that was smart.
Farron Cousins: He’s actually younger than me, I think, by a year or so. So you’ve got this younger blood on the ticket with you. And I think that played a big role in that as well. Possibly one that hasn’t been analyzed to the degree that it should have been. Again, I’m not trying to give JD Vance any credit, but that was a smart move in terms of I’m the oldest guy to ever run for president now.
Mike Papantonio: I got the youngest VP.
Farron Cousins: I need to have this guy here with me versus Nancy Pelosi who says, okay, well I can’t even trust my own body anymore, but I’m gonna stick around. Mitch McConnell, who doesn’t know what his body’s gonna do at any minute. Biden who doesn’t know where his brain is. These are the people running the country right now. We’re talking about the three basically most powerful people in this country. It’s horrifying.
Mike Papantonio: I think last time we did a show a couple weeks ago, and I think we got it right. It is mommy and daddy complex. Right. The Democrats, mommy Pelosi, we gotta have her. The Republican’s, daddy McConnell. It doesn’t make any difference that mommy and daddy are frigging demented and falling apart. We want mommy and daddy rather than just saying, look, it’s time for something new. Almost scares both parties. Voters for both parties. Hell no, you can’t continue down this road where you’ve got 89, almost 90 year olds, making decisions that affect our lives. They’re so disconnected from the rest of the country. And it’s very apparent with both of these two people, Pelosi and McConnell. It’s like they are, may as well be on Mars where it comes to understanding what the American public is thinking.
Farron Cousins: They’ve been in office since I was in diapers. Put it that way.
Mike Papantonio: At the same time, Nancy Pelosi, what do you think about her trying to edge out AOC? Now, I would too, because AOC is too fringe. The Democrats are trying to get away from that fringe. They think it affected their last election. I do too. I think they just got so fringey that everybody was saying, hell no, scares us.
Farron Cousins: Look, I don’t think you can say that the Democratic party ran too far to the left in this last election, when they’re out there campaigning with Liz Cheney and their list of 300 Republicans who’ve endorsed them. They moved too far to the right. And that is what happened in this last election.
Mike Papantonio: Going into the election, did you think that, though? I mean, going into the election, would you have ever characterized it, now, we did a lot of stories on what the hell are you out here with a war criminal for? She would’ve killed a million people, just like daddy killed a million people in Iraq. She was the daughter of a man who should be in prison right now. And she supported him. Nancy Pelosi, I mean, excuse me.
Farron Cousins: Harris.
Mike Papantonio: Harris. So you have this thing that’s working that in my mind, I look at it and I just say she has to do something because she’s concerned about are we moving too far left? And that’s what AOC brings to the table.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, AOC is obviously further left, but to the point of we need universal healthcare here in this country. We need the Green New Deal, which Nancy Pelosi trashed as that green new thing that they’re pushing a couple years ago. That’s how she described that.
Mike Papantonio: Did she say that?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. She called it that green new thing.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. I missed that.
Farron Cousins: So, if that’s considered far left, then I am proud to be a part of that too. But AOC eventually, because they did hold this vote Monday evening, she lost to Connolly, who was the person Pelosi was pushing. Connolly, a nice young 74-year-old. So it goes back to that gerontocracy we’ve got here. You’ve got AOC who maybe you like her, maybe you don’t like her, whatever it is, doesn’t matter. Replaced with a 74, not replaced, but edged out by a 74-year-old who shouldn’t be in office anymore. He is a centrist. He is a down the middle, like, oh, I don’t want to make this side mad or this side mad. So he is a very mealy mouthed blue dog Democrat, basically. Give me all your corporate money. AOC rejects the corporate money. And so I think this was a huge mistake.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, but look at the squad. The squad is in tatters right now. Okay. This thing, the squad that she was kind of the head of that whole thing. They have no influence. They’re not getting on committees. They’re falling apart. There’s a reason for that. Okay. I think the leadership structure within the party is saying, whatever happened last time, now I get it. You say, well, they tried to show that they were these right wing war fanatics by bringing in Cheney, Liz Cheney, and what was it, 132 folks that signed?
Farron Cousins: It ended up being over 300.
Mike Papantonio: 300 warhawks that signed this document that was supporting Harris. Now that doesn’t mean that that’s what the imagery was going into the election. Going into the election I think the imagery was, the American public thought these people have become wackos. That’s what I think was going on. And so they dressed it up by, let’s bring in Liz Cheney, whose daddy’s a war criminal, and she would bomb the hell out of everywhere, every place in the world if she could. She’s a nutcase. And let’s have these generals and right wingers sign this document to try to give us the appearance that we’re this moving to the right. And it didn’t work. That’s what I think happened. And now Pelosi’s looking at AOC saying, hell no, hell no. We don’t wanna go back to that imagery. That’s the way I see it.
Farron Cousins: Well, look, you may not be wrong about the imagery and obviously why Pelosi is doing that, but what she’s doing is stifling all new leadership. She is stifling younger blood. She is saying, let’s keep it in the old folks’ home instead of moving on as you should and letting new people take over the party. When the Democrats themselves are treating AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar as these weird people, when your own party is doing that, then yeah, the public is gonna think that. But that was your decision to do that. You as the Democratic Party made the decision to try to cast them as, we don’t agree with them, even though on the issues they support, overwhelming support from the public. When it’s not tied to a political party, universal healthcare, climate change action, debt-free college, they poll through the roof when not tied to a political party.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, okay. That’s interesting.
Farron Cousins: They support winning issues. Pelosi does not.
Mike Papantonio: Well, but whatever is projecting, that’s not being projected to the American public. They’re regarded as a bunch of wackos.
Farron Cousins: Right. And I think Pelosi started that. That wasn’t even coming from the right at first. That was coming from people like Pelosi.
Mike Papantonio: Really?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I think I showed you this right before we started here, where you’ve got these Democratic leaders, donors, everybody saying, who was it? Lindy Li says, we have become, we have a stench of being a loser. And I don’t know if we can ever reverse that. I thought it was an interesting statement. She said, we have such a loser stench that I don’t think we’ll recover by four or eight years. Four to eight years. Now, this is a woman who’s given gazillions of dollars to Democrats, okay. And she’s out there on all the talk shows, mad as hell, that Harris blew $1.5 billion. Okay. Blew $1.5 billion that I’m not gonna give her any more money. And she’s still raising money to pay off the $20 million debt apparently. So, these people are so angry that if you watch, they’re all over the talk shows. And this woman, her talking point, we have the stench of hopeless losers right now. What’s your take?
Farron Cousins: I think she’s right. I think they do have the stench of losers on ’em right now. And the problem is not that you have the stench, okay. You can wash the stench off and go about your day. Problem is they’re not washing it off. They have learned nothing. You know, there was an instance, I think it was about two weeks ago, report came out saying that Black Friday holiday shopping was breaking records. People booking flights was breaking records. You know what the Democratic response was on social media?
Mike Papantonio: I saw that. It’s unbelievable.
Farron Cousins: From the Democrats on the House. I think it was oversight committee and they tweeted out that report and said, oh, we thought y’all couldn’t afford eggs. They’re mocking people for, oh, you’re concerned about the economy, but you’re still traveling for the holidays.
Mike Papantonio: You know, when I saw that story, I do what you do, you do this more completely than I do. But when I saw that story, I said, this can’t be true. You can’t have Democratic leadership making fun of people who can’t buy eggs by saying, hey, travel’s up, vacation’s up. You must be having a wonderful time. I really had to look in another source to say, this has got to be a planted story. This can’t be true. But you found the same story I did.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. It was real. They did that. They ended up deleting the tweet after, of course, huge backlash. But that just shows you how out of touch they are. So that’s stench of being losers does extend to, they don’t get why they lost. You had, look, Harris had good policies. She had policies that would’ve sparked and given these loans, debt-free loans to small businesses.
Mike Papantonio: Did you hear about ’em?
Farron Cousins: I had to go find them.
Mike Papantonio: Did you? I never heard about it because they were afraid to put her in front of a camera.
Farron Cousins: Right. And so there were good policies there, but she didn’t really run on them. Instead it was, hey, this guy over here is so dangerous, but I’m not dangerous. I’m fun. I just went to a record store. Look at the records I bought. And those, by the way, those are real things that happened.
Mike Papantonio: I worked at McDonald’s and no you didn’t. No, you didn’t.
Farron Cousins: Well, there’s no evidence that she didn’t work there. It was 1983.
Mike Papantonio: I know. But you get the point.
Farron Cousins: Well, yeah. But that becomes a stupid thing instead of.
Mike Papantonio: She becomes, she’s always trying to become whoever she was. If she was talking to Latinos, we heard the Latino accent. She’s talking to African Americans we heard that pushed in there. She’s a nutcase. And the American public saw she was a nutcase.
Farron Cousins: And what she should have been out there doing this entire campaign, the only thing she should have talked about was economic issues. That is it.
Mike Papantonio: Is she over, I mean, are we done with her?
Farron Cousins: I think she has to be.
Mike Papantonio: Other than California. She’ll prosper in California, obviously, but I mean, the rest of the country. Aren’t we done with her?
Farron Cousins: I’m always of the opinion that once you get your butt kicked in a presidential election, go away. I don’t want to see you again. And maybe that’s just me. But even with, I’m kind of that way with Bernie Sanders. I think you’ve given it a good shot, but I don’t want to see you run again. I love your policies. I would’ve loved it if you’d become president, but you’ve tried, you’ve failed. It’s not gonna work for you. It’s the same thing with Hillary. It’s the same thing with Kamala. It was the same thing with John Kerry. Hey, you gave it your best shot, kind of, go the hell away.
Mike Papantonio: But you just can’t connect. And you could dress her up any way you wanna dress her up, just like they tried with Hillary. Let’s dress her up in this weird little, I don’t even know how to describe the outfit. Fix her hair. Have her talk a different way. People see it. They say, no, she’s an awful character.
Farron Cousins: She was just mean and mad and entitled.
Mike Papantonio: And that’s what I, and what everybody saw.
Farron Cousins: And Harris was not mean or mad. I think they kind of saw her as a little bit, maybe she’s a little too silly. Maybe she’s not serious about this.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I think it was, she’s not bright. I really think the word salad thing got it. But that’s old news. The only question I have is, is she done with? I think she is. She could succeed in California. She could succeed in New York. Nowhere else in the country. She’s not even a legitimate player anymore.
Farron Cousins: She can go on the speaking circuit and make way more money there doing whatever.
Mike Papantonio: You know, she could probably, the way she communicates, she’d be really good on The View. I could see her as the new person on The View. That would work.
Disneyland, they agreed to pay $233 million after lying to all of their employees. This is the most heavy handed company. They just, they ignore the law. I mean, they’re almost like the Mormons, they just ignore the law. We’re gonna do whatever the hell we wanna do. They came to Florida, they did that. They raised tax bases. We gave them subsidies. We gave them all of these things. And really when we look at it and balance it all out, they were not beneficial, economically beneficial, when you really start weighing what we gave them. When you weigh the impact that they tried to have on politics, on wages, on taxes, it was almost like inviting somebody into your home and they start moving around all the furniture in your living room. That’s what this feels like to me. Go ahead.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. What happened with Disneyland out in California is back in 2019, the state raised wages for companies that fell within a certain category, and its very technical, but anyway, Disneyland fell into that category. State says you have to raise your wages. And instead, Disneyland said, no, no, we’re not.
Mike Papantonio: Literally defied the law.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And so then all the workers said, okay, as they continue working, because they have to have jobs, they’re not getting the raises. So they file a lawsuit and say, okay, Disneyland, you’re literally ordered by the state to do this. We have to sue you. Five years later, we finally get this settlement where Disney says, okay, fine. We’ll give you your $233 million split among thousands and thousands of employees that we screwed for five years. So now we’re all caught up and good. But here’s the thing. By not paying those wages to these people over those years, what does Disney do with that money? Well, they get to invest it. So what is that money that they didn’t pay their employees do?
Mike Papantonio: Oh, it makes interest.
Farron Cousins: it makes money and makes money. So this $233 million.
Mike Papantonio: They’ve already made a billion dollars.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: They’ve made a billion dollars. And when they pay it, you know what, they’ll take a tax write off. Did you know that?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: They’re gonna pay the money, and then they’re gonna take a tax write off. That’s after they put it as a reserve. Okay. This is money that we’re holding as a reserve and as a reserve, we’re able to collect interest on it. We don’t pay any taxes on the interest. You know? They are a bully. This is a company that’s a bully. They’re a terrible corporate citizen, if you wanna know the truth. And we’ve experienced right down here in Florida, and you know, you can dress ’em up in Goofy and Mini Mouse and however you want to dress ’em up, they are bad corporate neighbors. And if they’re coming to your state, don’t buy all that BS. Well give us all of this land. Give us subsidies on all of this land on our taxes. Don’t make us pay for anything and we’re really gonna increase the wealth. You’re gonna really increase your wealth. It’s just nonsense. It’s absolute utter nonsense.
Farron Cousins: And if you go to any of these parks, because it is a number one destination for families, the kids love it. But listen, you go to these parks, you see these workers there, treat them with extra kindness because it takes about four of ’em to afford an apartment.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah.
Farron Cousins: They’re all getting screwed on wages, basically.
Mike Papantonio: Well, for example, Disney World, they have to drive hours just to have a place to live because there’s no place to buy that they can even live around there.
Crystal Mangum accused the Duke lacrosse team of raping her. Okay. The wonderful documentary, I don’t know if you saw the documentary, but it’ll make you so angry to see what happened to these kids. Their lives were absolutely ruined. Two of ’em close to suicide. It was so bad. Their future was ruined. They were humiliated. They were lied about. They had to drop out of school. And this lying POS says now.
Farron Cousins: Whose in prison for murder.
Mike Papantonio: Whose in prison for murder. That’s right. Murdering her boyfriend. Stabbed him to death, her boyfriend. Yeah. And now she says, I almost can’t read this. It’s like, oh, I made up a story that I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. Really? You changed these people’s lives in such a negative way that, I’m sorry, ain’t good enough. I don’t care if you’ve come to Jesus or what, I’m sorry is not good enough. And unfortunately in the process, think of the harm she’s done to other claimants.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Just like, I thought to me, as soon as I read this story, you found this story, I thought it was a good story, I thought of Jussie Smollett. Okay. This big scam, this big fraud. Somebody tried to kill me. They wanted to kill me because I was gay. They wanted to kill me because I was African American. What does that do to people? Doesn’t it just invalidate claims?
Farron Cousins: Because he said it was Trump supporters that did it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. They were Trump supporters. So it invalidates the people that really do go through this. And these people that do this kind of thing, oh, I’m just so sorry. I’m just so sorry. Of course with Smollett, they bought into it because he was a celebrity. You had corporate media eating it up because you had rich white kids at Duke University versus, I mean, with her, with her.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, the corporate media every night had these kids’ faces each in their own little blocks up on the screen. I remember that clear as day. And yeah, because at the time this seemed very credible. It seemed real. But then obviously the University did their own investigation after the fact, after all of this information had come out. And they said, no, these kids are innocent. But at the time, Duke lacrosse, they had to forfeit their entire season. The lacrosse program suffered just a reputational blow that’ll never recover. And of course, just the personal damage these individuals themselves have gone through and will continue to go through because this story of her coming out and saying, hey, by the way, I lied.
Mike Papantonio: I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.
Farron Cousins: This is not getting the coverage that those people got.
Mike Papantonio: No, exactly.
Farron Cousins: And that’s the problem.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. They won’t talk about this story. Just like they’re really not, I come back to Jussie Smollett. That story really bothered me because this is a guy that was willing, he wanted to start a little mini race war right there in his backyard. You know, they did it to me because I was gay. They did it to me because I was African American. They were Trump supporters. They were MAGA. And all of a sudden, just like the Duke story, corporate media jumps all behind it. Now they did it with him because he had a TV show. They did it with her because she was African American versus rich white kids that had special treatment. Until we can stop this, until we can get media to be media again, report news. Give us the positives. Give us the negatives. This is gonna happen again and again. Don’t you think?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, to me, one of the biggest issues with this as well that you kind of touched on there, is the fact that most women who are victims of sexual assault are terrified to come forward and they’re terrified to come forward because nobody’s gonna believe them. They’re gonna blame the victim. This is your fault. They’re gonna shame them through eternity. And stories like this make it less likely that real victims will come forward in the future.
Mike Papantonio: No question.
Farron Cousins: So this woman has ruined not just these young men’s lives, she’s ruined the lives of women that actually have gone through things like this, who now will not come forward because this story makes it seem like women are lying about these things. This needs to be bigger news than it is and it me off that it’s not.
Mike Papantonio: Well, your point is such a great point. We heard it every day.
Farron Cousins: All day.
Mike Papantonio: All day when they’re making these accusations. This is the background of this little white kid.
Farron Cousins: From this community. I mean, life stories of these people.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. And now she comes out, I was lying. I’m such a POS that I was lying about it and nobody does anything about it.
Farron Cousins: Is it too late for these men to file defamation lawsuits? We’re almost 20 years past.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you know what, the defamation, best defamation cases were against the media. As a matter of fact, the media was, if you take a look at that documentary, a couple reporters that were right up there in North Carolina that had the inside that were just blowing everything. Female, I can’t think of her name right now. Female reporter, just taking it and turning it on its head, making it look like these were just evil little that set out to rape this poor African American woman. Every single day. Now that was the best case. I don’t know where it went. That was what I thought was the best case to sue her and sue that media organization. I hope they did. I don’t know the answer to that right now.
FBI informant charged with lying about Biden’s role in Ukraine. Well, he got caught. You and I, I know, have such different feelings about Ukraine, and that’s why we do these segments because I respect your opinion and you respect mine. And so it doesn’t make any difference to me really, that this one guy was caught making stuff up about what actually happened. If you just look at the elements of it, and I know there’s been investigations and nothing happened, but I can’t help but look at the elements of the Burisma connection to Hunter Biden and President Biden and Joe Biden.
Farron Cousins: But it’s all based on this guy who admitted in court yesterday now, yeah, I made it all up. None of it’s real.
Mike Papantonio: Was it all based on that though, Farron? That’s where I think you and I very different.
Farron Cousins: That is what the FBI used to launch the investigation. And you had the FBI that said, no, we’re not gonna release whatever the form number is that he had filled out, 1039 maybe, I think something to that effect. And then finally the Republicans said, no, by God, we’re gonna release it because the public needs to know what this man Alexander Smirnov says, and they release it. And oh my God, it’s shocking. This corruption, the bribery taking place, the money changing hands. And this guy says, well actually hold up, uh, no money actually.
Mike Papantonio: I didn’t do it.
Farron Cousins: No money changed hands. He made that up. And if that’s not like the heart of the thing because there’s no issue with a private US citizen working for a foreign company.
Mike Papantonio: Eh, you know.
Farron Cousins: That’s perfectly legal. It may not be ethical, but it’s not illegal
Mike Papantonio: I know it’s legal, Farron. But how do you, the emails, okay, let’s take everything that guy did and throw it out. Now I look at this, I used to be a prosecutor, I look at it like a prosecutor. A very, a typical kind of defense to a criminal case is to create that hearing. Okay, this is what’s important ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Ignore all this other stuff and all this other stuff is, I think it’s important.
Farron Cousins: Well, what is it?
Mike Papantonio: Well, I think you’ve got the emails that took place between Hunter Biden and the Chinese, for example, not Ukraine, but it was the same process. They were energy companies. Okay. How does the president of the United States, and I know your position on this, he goes over, there’s an investigation taking place of Burisma. He goes over in strong arms, and your position is, well, more people did it than just the president.
Farron Cousins: That’s not my position. It’s a fact.
Mike Papantonio: Well, it is a fact. But that’s something you like to say. And I get that.
Farron Cousins: Yes, because it is the global community.
Mike Papantonio: And I like to say this is the President of the United States who’s working for Burisma. He’s on the board of directors, has zero experience, knows nothing about the business, and all of a sudden he’s on the board of directors. Daddy is showing up saying, this mean man who’s going after you needs to be kicked. We need to put him in prison. I don’t care.
Farron Cousins: But Shokin was not going after Burisma. He had not launched an investigation. That didn’t happen. And so Shokin was supposed to be investigating Burisma, but was not and that was part of the corruption because of his alleged ties to the company and he did not want to go after them when he was supposed to. Now, I’ll give you this. Should Hunter Biden have been on the board of literally any business in the world? No.
Mike Papantonio: And brother, by the way. Brother Jim’s also involved in this.
Farron Cousins: What was Jim?
Mike Papantonio: Jim was tied into this.
Farron Cousins: Because I’ve seen his name and I’ve never seen anything beyond Jim Biden. So I would love an explanation as to what did Jim Biden allegedly do?
Mike Papantonio: Jim Biden is tied clearly into the Chinese issue. I mean, clearly.
Farron Cousins: But how?
Mike Papantonio: Emails saying that $10 million is being negotiated for Hunter, $10 million, yeah, $10 million per year. Jim was the go-between on that. There’s so many little parts.
Farron Cousins: That sounds like a business deal.
Mike Papantonio: Eh, come on, brother. Come on.
Farron Cousins: It’s again, not ethical, but not illegal.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, I know.
Farron Cousins: And we’ve talked about this Hunter Biden thing a thousand times. I don’t think we’ve ever once mentioned Jared Kushner getting $2 billion from Saudi Arabia after this.
Mike Papantonio: Surprise. It’s my next story.
Farron Cousins: I know, because I put it there.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So, the point being, this isn’t right and this isn’t right. And why can’t we have enough courage to say, hell no, you should not have this worthless dirt bag on the board of a company that you have anything to do with Mr. President. Why would we allow that? Not just Ukraine, but China too. And any way you look at it, it doesn’t pass the smell test. And I’ll give you that. The Kushner thing is no better. It’s no better.
Farron Cousins: Well, listen, just so I can be clear about the Hunter Biden thing, anytime I’ve talked about this guy and mentioned Burisma and all that, I’ve always said he has no, like, this is a job this guy was totally not qualified for. It’s obvious why he was there. The issue is.
Mike Papantonio: Which is why?
Farron Cousins: Because Biden was vice president at the time. We wanted in. Obviously that much is crystal clear. So, I believe that firmly, and I will give you that a hundred percent. But have we been able to tie anything to anything illegal? There’s a lot of grotesque things, but this is not the only informant that has said, I lied.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. Here’s my point to the story that we just talked about. It is that this guy comes forward and we find out he lied. You can’t ignore all the other parts. That’s all I’m trying to say. If I’m prosecuting a case, I expect the defense to do exactly what’s happening here, create a distraction. Okay. This guy lied. All this other stuff, there’s still no answer in my mind, maybe in yours, but there’s no answer in my mind.
But let’s make the transition to Saudi Arabia, $2 billion. Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Look, we’ve got Eric Trump, who proudly announces last week. Guess what? We are gonna have Trump Tower Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. And this is a deal that, by the way, they have been working on for several years. They were also working on Trump Tower in Israel. They want to open several hotels there, but that got thrown off with the conflict. But the hotels, by the way, in Israel, because this is such a juicy story too, they have strategically bought these places. One right next to the defense ministry. So that way you get all of the visiting officials, everybody there. The other is right next to the military base. So you get all these people. But this one in Saudi Arabia.
Mike Papantonio: But that has not gone through is that?
Farron Cousins: Right. That’s on hold, he says.
Mike Papantonio: That’s on hold. Okay.
Farron Cousins: But Saudi Arabia, by God, that’s happening. And what a wonderful thing it is, because God knows if you want to go somewhere luxury on vacation, you go to Saudi Arabia.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. The difference here, I’m not gonna try to defend it. Okay. That’s the difference. And I’m just saying, why can’t we process all of this and say that Biden story is just as ugly as this story? There’s no way for me to defend. He’s taken up with Mohammed bin Salman, who is what, we know the guy’s a thug. I mean, we know what he’s done. What 90 people beheaded last year?
Farron Cousins: Oh, it was hundreds. They did the big event where they, 2023, where they had, I think it was 200 plus that they brought in and just, right across.
Mike Papantonio: Khashoggi. We know that he was watching the murder of this man, or at least pretty good evidence he was.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. From the close circuit tv.
Mike Papantonio: Close circuit television. Let’s cut off his head. I wanna see that. The guy is a dangerous, dangerous dictator.
Farron Cousins: He really is.
Mike Papantonio: And so he knows that the Saudis were behind 9/11. We can’t hide from that. We know that. It’s not speculation anymore. The royal family directly connected to all of that. But he’s gonna take $2 billion and make more money for his fund.
Farron Cousins: And after he spent four years as the Middle East envoy. So obviously sitting there, talking to these people, builds good relationships, gets $2 billion for a company that doesn’t yet exist other than on paper. It is sickening to see this, especially because we as a country, through Democrats and Republicans, have had this horrid relationship with Saudi Arabia, where we give them everything they want.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, they want bombs, we give ’em bombs.
Farron Cousins: And they turn around and beat the crap out of us in return.
Mike Papantonio: Well, now how about this. Biden, day one says, we’re going to send you, was it $50 billion worth of weapons? Some God awful number.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, Something like that.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. And all we want you to do is keep the price of oil down. So Saudi, sure we will do that. Well, hell, the next week, the price of oil goes up after we deliver the $50 billion worth. These people are thugs.
Farron Cousins: And Biden went back. He says, well, why are you not doing that? And they say, well, we’re not gonna do it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Not.
Farron Cousins: And so then Biden, because the story’s even worse than just, Biden says, okay, well we’re not gonna give you any more weapons. And then I think it was six months later, he says, okay, we’ll send you more weapons.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: Can you lower oil prices for us? They say, well, we’re still not gonna do it, but thanks for all the weapons.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. He’s a putz. I mean, we got putz for a President.
Farron Cousins: But he was. Trump was. Obama was. Bush, obviously was.
Mike Papantonio: Okay, look, here’s the only point I’m trying to make with you, Farron. I see the whole Biden, China, Ukraine story the same way, and we just have a difference of opinion. But I’m still willing to embrace both sides. Kushner shouldn’t do this kind of thing. It’s wrong. And I just think we have to call it out all the time.
Farron Cousins: Well, the difference is, I’m also not saying that Jared Kushner broke the law. I’m just saying this is shady. Just as I’ve admitted Hunter Biden is shady. But I’m not saying that he has broken any laws, just like I said Hunter, from what I’ve seen, has not broken any laws.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Either way, I think we have to be vigilant in calling out independent, Democrat, Republican. We just have to do that. I feel like that’s the success of social media, really, if you want to know the truth.
You don’t like this story, I thought it was interesting. It’s RFK being criticized by Whoopi Goldberg for his position that we have to change the way we eat. We have to change how we take care of ourselves because 41% of the American public is considered severely obese. Now, why she would come out and say that’s shaming is beyond me, but she comes out and says, RFK is shaming an entire element of the public by saying that that 40, he’s shaming that 41%, I guess, that statistically are regarded as severely obese. There’s only a few countries in the world that are even ahead of the United States where it comes to obesity.
Farron Cousins: Well, there’s two things I want to say about this. First and foremost, when Michelle Obama came out and said, hey, let’s do our healthy eating initiative, Fox News ran segments on it every day. How horrible this is. How dare you say that we need to change our diets? And then now that it’s flipped, and you’ve got this guy that’s gonna be with the Trump administration saying, hey, let’s change our diets here. And it is so hilarious to see now it is Whoopi Goldberg on the left say, how dare you? Oh my God, it’s history repeating itself just flipped in a different direction. Second of all, Whoopi, my God, if you want to talk about crazy things Bobby says.
Mike Papantonio: There’s a lot more.
Farron Cousins: This ain’t it. Like you’ve got a treasure trove of just ridiculously, I don’t know, I would call them crazy, but things that Bobby has said that you could go after. You could talk about the bear Central Park if you wanted to, saying, hey, maybe double up the vegetables isn’t one of them. There’s like a whole list. I could send it to you if you want it, but this is not the thing.
Mike Papantonio: Well, Bobby, as you know, Bobby’s a good friend of mine. And I’ve watched.
Farron Cousins: He’s nice as can be in person. I’ve never had a bad interaction with him.
Mike Papantonio: Very decent guy.
Farron Cousins: I just disagree with him on apparently everything these days.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Well, he used to be my law partner, as you probably know. But I’ve had stranger law partners than that, Joe Scarborough. So anyway, Whoopi comes back and says, look, I was 300 pounds and I couldn’t do anything about it. I tried. It wasn’t my eating. She said I was just 300 pounds. It’s kinda hard to buy that. But then you don’t come out and say, Bobby, stop shaming 41% of the American public that are statistically, we’re the second in the world, second in the world for child obesity. I mean, come on. You just let that flow? Don’t say anything about it? Is that shaming? First of all, is that shaming? Is it shaming to just talk about it.
Farron Cousins: No, I don’t think at all that that is shaming. And listen, again, with regards to the diet portion, and that’s the only part I will focus on there. It’s no different than what Michelle Obama had said. Like, hey, let’s teach kids how to eat healthy. Let’s get a little more active. Let’s be healthier as a people. And in that one area, what Bobby is saying really is the same. So again, it’s so funny to me to see the two sides flip now and Fox News now saying like, of course we should eat healthy. It’s ridiculous to say we shouldn’t.
Mike Papantonio: If Whoopi Goldberg wants to find something to be ashamed of, she should watch The View while she’s on it. If that doesn’t shame her enough, I’m beyond the idea of what’s shameful. Farron, thank you for joining me. Okay.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all the time we have this week, but these segments are gonna be posted right here on this channel in the coming week. Make sure you subscribe. I’m Mike Papantonio, this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you stories every week that corporate media won’t tell you because their advertisers don’t let ’em, or their tribal politics don’t allow for it. We don’t have that problem here. We’re not beholden to corporations, and we sure aren’t beholden to 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.
