What impact are we left with in January 6th as we go into it? For the American public, what’s their reaction to all this? If we believe that there was a coup that was going to take place, how does this affect anything?
Transcript:
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Mike Papantonio: January 6th, here we are with it. The question is, what impact are we left with in January 6th as we go into it? You’ve done some wonderful stories on it. I’ve watched them. They’re very well thought out. They’re good stories. Give me your thought on what the big picture looks like going into January 6th. What’s the American public, what’s their reaction to all this? If we believe that there was a coup that was going to take place, how does this affect anything?
Farron Cousins: It didn’t. I mean, really we saw that not only in this year’s election, obviously, we saw it in the 2022 midterms when Republicans regained control of the House. The public and at that point was not even two years passed, the public said, we’re over it. We’re done. We don’t care. And it’s because like so many other things, the public has the attention span of a fruit fly, basically. They move on, they forget, other things happen. It’s the same thing and I always point this out that we saw with the 2004 election with George W. Bush. Just a year before that they’re at the UN with their little vials saying, this was from Iraq. Here’s pictures of aluminum tubes and everybody knew it was a lie. Everybody knew this was a war based on pure lies. People were dying. He was ignoring the real terrorists out there. And then in 2004, they went and said, no, we’re gonna stay with Bush because they forget about these important things that change the course of American history.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Just like the first story we did, I think there’s an issue that I think of, and that is, it’s a high ground issue. Do the Dems really have a high ground on the January 6th? Which they should. They should. But do they have the high ground anymore? And my suggestion is they don’t, and it’s because of the conduct of this president. First of all, it comes down to, the American public looks at events in fairness and in unfairness. It’s a simple gut kind of reaction that they have to certain things. So they say, okay, January 6th, we’re still not sure. Most people would say, no, this wasn’t a coup. It was just something that went awry. Okay. And he’s going to, I promise you, Trump is going to pardon these people. So when he does, what is the American public think about that? And my take on it is, ordinarily they might be outraged, but you have a president who has pardoned, my God, just the other day he pardons, I guess he pardons them, he takes 11 Al-Qaeda terrorists that were arguably tied up to Bin Laden and sends them out.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: He forgives the 9/11 terrorists that killed 3000 people. He allows 30 people that he pardoned who were fraudsters. All kinds of scams that they ran. They committed fraud. They were con men. They committed the most horrendous types of acts.
Farron Cousins: The kids for cash judge, that SOB.
Mike Papantonio: Kids for cash. That we’ve done a couple of times where a judge is making a decision to put money in his pocket by sending kids to prison. Now, he forgave those two judges. Okay. There was 30 of them just as bad. And then add to that, that he commutes the sentence of child rapists, murders, mass murders and he makes the argument that, I did that because I don’t believe in the death penalty. That was basically, but he still, if you either believe in the death penalty or you don’t, but here, he says, well, these people, I’m going to commute their sentence. But if you believe that the death penalty’s improper, why did you allow three cases to stand? You see what I’m saying? The whole argument was poorly thought out.
Farron Cousins: And, by the way, two of the people that were on death row that he commuted, they actually came out today and said, no, I want to die.
Mike Papantonio: I saw that. But getting back to the point, I just wonder, does it make any difference if he pardons these people? Because he’s going to, he’s going to.
Farron Cousins: Well, here’s the thing, and this kind of ties back to my previous point, regardless of what Biden did and the outrage from that, if there is outrage, and I’ve seen it in the media, there is outrage. That outrage is already gone. So it’ll be the same with January 6th. There will be stories for a week that he pardoned these people, and then everybody moves on, if even a week. I don’t even give it that long.
Mike Papantonio: You’re a true believer in that, aren’t you? You’re a believer that people are not tuned in to events like that to where they carry them forward for very long. I’ve heard you say it a dozen times.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And I think based on all the time we’ve been doing this, the evidence is just overwhelming that people, you can’t get them to care about something and hold onto that anger for a long enough period of time. And probably for the human psyche, it’s probably not good to sit there and be angry about something for two years until the next election. So we’ll hear about it when it happens. We’ll hear about it if one of these people breaks the law again. And then I do think right before the 2026 midterms, the Democrats will try to make it an issue and the public will say, we’re over it. Please don’t talk about this.
Mike Papantonio: I agree with you. I think it’s such.
Farron Cousins: We could map out exactly how this will play out.
Mike Papantonio: I think maybe that’s why Biden doesn’t mind saying, I’m going to forgive my son. Hey, you’re pardoned. I might forgive Liz Cheney. Your pardoned. Whatever. Maybe he’s a true believer in that. The man’s been in politics. All he’s ever done has been a politician for 45 years. Maybe he’s seen it firsthand. I think you may be talking about the same thing that he’s thinking. But anytime you have as many things as this senile, demented old man has done, just in the last, what, six months, the American public is not going to say, ah, Trump, you forgiving these January 6th folks is wrong. I think Dems have totally lost the high ground on that.
Farron Cousins: Unfortunately, I do think you’re right. And I think the public, they will care about it for a couple days at most and then they go right back to, I’m at the grocery store and I can’t afford groceries. So there’s always a new thing.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
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.
