Speaker 1: Welcome to the Political Beatdown with Michael Cohen and Ben Mycellas.
The Beatdown Brigade is here and here's what we got
for you today. Let's talk updates on the Manhattan District
Attorney's criminal investigation into Donald Trump. Michael Cohen, of course,
is a key witness in that case. Michael Cohen has
some exclusive breaking news for us in just a bit.
In some other news, Donald Trump was caught with another
folder that had a classified marking on it, one that
he was apparently sleeping with, and that his new lawyer
claims was being used by Trump to shield the light
on the telephone next to his bed. You can't make
this stuff up, Cohen. Some other breaking news as we
were about to go live, Former Vice President Pence has
expressed his intention to object to the sip he received
from Special Counsel Jack Smith on the grounds of the
Speech and Debate clause, which usually protects members of the
House of Representatives and the Senate. But now Pens is saying,
I actually wasn't acting as a vice president. I was
acting as the President of the Senate, so please please
don't subpoena me. In other news, Steve Bannon apparently is
not paying his legal fees and the Fulton County Superior
Court Judge, Judge McBurney is set to release three portions
of the special grand Jury report on election interference this
week on February sixteenth. This and more on the political Beatdown, Cohen,
a lot of news to.
Speaker 2: The already, there's so much, Ben, it's you know, first
of all, again, it's always great to have our political
Beatdown Brigade with us as we sit and raw, unfiltered,
not your thirteen you know, your thirteen minute or your
twelve minute or eight minute news reporting on whatever the
topic is. We tried to get into depth because this
stuff is not simple. This is not easy stuff where
you just simply have a two second conversation, generally by
people who have no requisite knowledge other than the fact
that they are in the field. Okay, not every lawyer
should be talking about the district attorney. Not every lawyer
should be commenting on this guy. Oh it's his name,
Timothy Parlatory, the new attorney for Donald Trump that Joe
from Morning Joe Joe Scarborough called a schlub. I mean
that's what he looks like. He looks like a shlub.
And Joe wanted to know where does Donald find these people?
Where's this new crop of fools coming from? With the
most bizarre, outlandish response to the question of why Donald had,
for example, those empty folders in his office. Anyway, So
we'll get to that and more. Ben, always good to
see you. Good to of our brigade with us. Where
do we start?
Speaker 1: Well, before you give the brigade the breaking news story
regarding the Manhattan District Attorney's criminal investigation, We're going to
have to just tease that slightly. I want to play
that video though with Parlatry, and I want to get
your reaction to it. It's just so astonishingly stupid that
I know we need a Cohen reaction to it. So
this is Trump's lawyer trying to explain why there was
a folder with a classified marking in Donald Trump's bedroom
that the Department of Justice had to subpoena to get
back here. Let's play this clip.
Speaker 2: Now, you also turned over an empty folder marked classified
to investigators.
Speaker 3: Where was this folder and why was it turned over?
The folder is kind of one of the more humorous
aspects of this whole thing. This is not a classified folder.
This is a folder that when my team went through
and searched and they wrote up their report, which we
turned over to DOJ. They saw it's a folder, Manila
folder that says classified Evening Summary on it, and it
was in the president's bedroom. He has one of those
landline telephones next to his bed and has a blue
light on it, and he keeps him up at night,
so he took the Minila folder and put it over
it so it would keep the light down so he
could sleep at night. And it's just this folder. It
says classified Evening Brief Evening Summary on it. It is not
a classification marking. It's not anything that is controlled in
any way. There's nothing illegal about it. There's nothing in it.
And when DJ found that about it, they went crazy
and they said they actually gave me a sapenat to say,
give us over this empty folder that means nothing.
Speaker 2: How did they find out about a folder on his bedtable.
Speaker 3: We put it in our report. When we did all
of our searches, we wrote up reports on everywhere we searched,
everywhere we looked, anything we found where we found it,
and we gave that to them because everything that we've
done as part of that search has been in the
spirit of full cooperation and compliance. And when they read
that and they saw, oh, there's this folder here that
is so far outside of the scope of the paint
or anything else, they demanded it back. And so now
the president has to find a different way to keep
the blue light out of his life. I'm sure he
has other options.
Speaker 2: Clone your reaction SETI one of our brigadors turned around
and said the exact same thing that I was thinking.
The guy looks like Peter Griffin from Family Guy, And
all I want to say to that schmuck is Giggy
Giggy to Giggley. Oh yeah, okay, all right, bullshit? I
mean I called bullshit. Doesn't Donald own mar A Laga pressure.
Doesn't Donald Trump have like fifty sixty seventy people there
working for me working for him? Is it not possible?
If the blue light is bothering his extremely delicate and
sensitive eyes, don't you think that he could have easily
easily called in somebody and replaced it. One would think
the answer is that no, no, no, let's not replace it.
Let's cover it instead, because it just makes sense. Let's
cover it with a top secret folder. I mean, this
guy is almost as big a clown as Alena Habba,
who is just again, I don't know. I'd have to
side with Joe Scarborough who made the statement, this guy
looks like a schlub, he acts like a schlub. He's
absolutely stupid. He's made a complete fool of himself in
every way, shape and form, and now all of a sudden,
he's expecting because he's got that dumb ass smile smirk
on his face. It's like, yeah, you know, Donald likes
to sleep at night, and you know he would basically
use the folder in order to stop the blue lights
from This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's
almost as ridiculous as Alena Habba's stupidity. But who knows.
You know, at the end of the day, it's just
another lie to the American people, believing that the American
people are stupid that just because they say it means
that we're going to accept it. And I can assure
you that there's nobody, even the people who are the
Trump's supporters that are following us right now, even they
don't buy this bullshit. No.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I love the giggity giggity impression.
I think we gotta clip that. But when you listen
to what parlatory that lawyer was saying, also he goes,
it's not a classified folder. It's just a folder that
says classified on it. What It's just a folder that
has classified marking signer. That doesn't mean it's classified. And
then we also learn though that the contents, whether it
was that folder or another folder, were downloaded into a laptop.
So classified information downloaded into a laptop of at least
one current aid to Donald Trump, a laptop from hell
if you will, and that laptop had to be turned
over to the Department of Justice as well. I mean, look,
you compare the way Biden has handled everything, saying to
the FBI, look, just you want to search it, search it.
There's a gigantic difference. Even Pens, who we're going to
talk about in a bit, he's so scared of his
own shadow or the shadow of Donald Trump or Donald
Trump posting frightens pen so much. But you know, look,
Pence handled the documents the right way, and that's the
difference between cooperation and criminal obstruction, and Trump is on
the side of criminal obstruction here. And speaking of which,
you got special counsel Jack Smith as well that we
learned subpoena and actually called before the criminal grand jury
in Washington, d C. We learned Evan Corcoran, one of
Trump's lawyers, as well as Christina Bob. And we learned
that the Department of just as you mentioned Alina Abba,
they had quite but we don't quite know yet if
she's spoken before the grand jury yet. But Trump's two lawyers,
the key ones who were working on the working on
obstructing justice in the stolen document case, Corkoran and Bob
were both dealing with the Department of Justice and before that,
the National Archives. Throughout twenty twenty two, they basically tapped
Christina Bob to try to throw her under the bus
with the DOJ, remember that Cohen. Back in June of
twenty twenty two, they were like, Hey, Christina, come here,
come here. You really love Donald Trump, don't you? Yes?
Would you do anything for him?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Can you just sign this attestation to the top counter
intelligence official of the Department of Justice and just just
let him know that you've done a diligent search and
that all the documents have been returned. Well, I'm not
sure if I should do that. Donald Trump would love it, Okay,
I'll do it. Boom. And now she's in, you know,
being investigated for crimes, as is Evan Corcoran, right. I
mean they both stepped right into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, I think it was Boris Epstein,
who truthfully was not somebody that Donald even cared for
during the campaign somehow or another. You know, he's remained
in Donald's orbit simply because he was smart enough to
stay to the left of Donald's wrath long enough to
be one of the few people that have remained altogether.
It's almost, you know, like he's remained there not because
of the quality of what he's providing, but simply because
everybody else has been killed around him. I mean, it's
really amazing. And then you got now Jason Miller coming
back to the alleged campaign. One because Jason is probably
working cheap, and two again because he's one of the
few people that are willing to come back into that
orbit of shit and reap whatever repercussions that he will,
so considering you may remember, I mean, he was charged
at one point or he was accused of improper sexual
relations with campaign staffers, and so he's another just a
total ass clown. But putting all this aside. When I
saw this, I mean, the first thing I thought is
we need to put on our merch store. We need
to put some classified folders up there. Maybe it'll be
like a I don't know, a memo pad or something
like that. This has got to be the dumbest thing
I have ever ever heard any lawyer forgetting about the
fact that it's Donald's lawyer. This has to be the
dumbest thing I've ever heard anybody say ever. And the
fact that he's willing to do it on television and
to the public. I mean that to me is just amazing.
Why I have no idea complete embarrassment. He could kiss
his career goodbye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in the nick of an eye, right there,
in the blink of an eye, just boom, there goes
his career. Cohen, I want to get some updates as
much as you can tell us. I mean, look, you
are the key witness in the Manhattan District Attorney's criminal
investigation into Donald Trump, so being that is both an
incredible opportunity for our listeners and viewers to have you
co host this show, but also it does come with
limitations obviously, and having to respect the process, which you've
done every step of the way. But what can you
tell us in terms of any updates there that you
may be aware of that has not been reported anywhere else.
Speaker 2: See, everybody's heard. There's obviously a lot of back and
forth that's going on between the District Attorney's office and
Mark Palmerans who recently put out this book to people
versus Donald Trump. It's fascinating that there are really two
schools of thought here. The first school of thought is
why would Palmerians do such a thing? There's an ongoing investigation,
he shouldn't have put out a book. And then, of
course there's the second school, which is it's all about transparency.
He believed and rightfully or wrongly, that the investigation was over,
in the fact that both he and Carrie Dunn resigned
because Alvin Bragg took the position that you know, there's
nothing going on here refused to take their position, which
is that we need to immediately indict. Well, whatever camp
that you're in, truth be told. I think it's irrelevant.
Most of what Mark writes about in his book, Anyway,
is information that has been made public over the course
of the past two two and a half years really
since this investigation started, or even longer than that, over
three years. Remember that the very first time that I
met with the District Attorney's office, I was still in Otisville.
The first three times they came to visit me while
I was there, so this investigation has been ongoing for
quite some time. I do believe in here comes the
big announcement. I am going back. I'm going back to
meet with the prosecutors. And it's already been put out
there by whom why I don't know why it becomes
such a big deal, But I will be going back
for the sixteenth time to meet with the new team
at the Alvin Bragg District Attorney's Office on Thursday, and
I'm looking forward to seeing the team again and to
answering the questions that I can now. Will I be
the key witness? I don't know if I would go
so far call myself the key witness. I'll allow that
to be determined by the DA's office. But one thing
I can tell you for certain is that I certainly
am a witness. And the information that they continue to
ask and continue to delve into now into the minutia
to me is a very positive indication that Alvin Bragg
is seeing something now that both Mark Pomerance and Carrie
dunsaw over a year ago. Now. I've also been on
Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace and half a dozen other
shows where I talked about this, and my belief is
that this is Alvin Bragg's office at the moment. He
was the one who was elected district Attorney, and I
think it's only fair that we give him at least
enough leeway that he decides when the case should be brought.
It's not my office. I certainly don't make that despite
the fact that I believe that the case was ripe
a while ago. But it wasn't my call. It's not
your call, it's not anybody else's call other than the
man who was elected to the And at this point
in time, I think he is getting there. You know,
everybody's been using, as I said the last time on
the show, that everyone's using all of these metaphors dealing
with transportation, especially aviation, in that it just wasn't ready
for takeoff. Well, like I said before, and I'm going
to stand by that statement, I think that we are
on the tarmac. We are taking out to the runway,
and at the end of the day, I know what
I care about, I know Ben, what you care about.
I know what our political Beatdown brigaders all care about.
Is that we all end up at the destination that
we're expecting. And I believe that that destination is indictment, prosecution,
and conviction.
Speaker 1: So that's big news that you're hearing first here exclusively
on the political Beatdown Michael Cohen telling the Beatdown Brigade
exclusively here that he will be meeting again with the
Manhattan District Attorney's Office for the sixteenth time this Thursday,
which you also believe in, and from my perspective as
a lawyer as well, when these meetings start getting nearer
and nearer to each other and more frequent, that is
usually a good sign. You use the transportation metaphor right there,
and then for those new to the Beatdown Brigade, you
couldn't delve into much information, but you did say, Michael
that you were very impressed with the team of lawyers
and the team that you've been meeting with, and you
even went so far as to say as much as
you were impressed with Carrie Dunn and Pomerantz, this team
right now, so far, and again I think you qualified
it with you met with the other group far more
times before, but at least your initial impressions of this
group is that they are very impressive. They're very serious people,
and to use your transportation metaphor, this is team that
wants to fly the plane in the right direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know one of the things I tried
to explain. So this will be again the sixteenth time,
the three times when I was in Otisville ten times
under the cy Vance administration with Mark Pomerans and carry
Dunn's as well as their team. This will now be
the third time with this team, and they are as
I stated before, they are equally impressive to the earlier team.
They are very much in the know. They have a
tremendous grasp of all of the information over a multitude
of different areas impressive group because remember they're only at
it since January, whereas the other team, you know, had
the information and grew the information over a period of
two years plus. So they are certainly the new team,
certainly up to speed. They are impressive, and yes, I
believe that the plane will be heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1: That's good news. To hear. There was one person in
the comments just who also asked, unrelatedly, but I wanted
to answer it, Stephen Miller. Has he been subpoenaed by
Special Counsel Jack Smith. The answer is absolutely yes, And
in fact, Miller appeared before the criminal grand jury already
in Washington, d C. And of course, Miller's significant for
a variety of reasons, including the fact that he wrote
the speech on January sixth, then purportedly removed language that
reference threatening the life of Pence, and then Trump ad
lib that back into the speech. So that was one
of numerous important things. And of course Miller, Stephen Miller,
was involved in a lot of other activities, the corrupt
activities with Donald Trump. Right before we were set to
go live, there was some breaking news being reported by
politico Kyle Cheney, who does a great job breaking these stories.
So I want to give a shout out to Kyle
that former Vice President Pence will intends to object to
the subpoena that he received from Special Counsel Jack Smith.
In other words, Pence does not want to show up
before the grand jury, he does not want to testify.
And the grounds that Pence is asserting is the speech
and debate clause privilege. Let's just pull up in the
Constitution where their speech and debate clause privilege is found.
It's Article one, Section six, clause one, and it says
the following. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation
for their services, to be ascertained by law and paid
out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall,
in all cases except trees and felony and breach of
the piece, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at
the session of their respective houses, and in going to
and returning from the same end, for any speech or
debate in either house. They shall not be questioned in
any other place. And what that has been interpreted to
mean is any legitimate legislative activity, not just speeches that
take place in the House of Representatives. So you may recall,
for example, Lindsey Graham asserted the speech and debate clause
privilege to try to avoid testifying before the Fulton County
grand Jury. He ultimately lost that where his activities outside
of the House, outside of the Senate and that were
not viewed as legitimate legislative activities, threatening, exhorting people to
change the vote count in favor of Trump. In other words,
encouraging people to commit crimes is not covered here. Many
people thought that Pence was going to assert an executive privilege,
which he would likely have no chance of prevailing on
the executive privilege one, because the executive privilege is held
by the current administration, not the former administration. Also, if
there's a compelling need by the Department of Justice, which
is the executive branch, that can override the executive privilege,
and the Department of Justice has been successful in compelling
the testimony over Trump's assertion of the executive privilege for
people like Mark Short and Greg Jacob. Those were former
top Pence aides, former chief of staff, former General counsel,
and people like Pat Sippoloni and Patrick Fillman, Trump's former
top White House lawyers who Trump asserted the executive privilege for.
So he really had no shot there. He's going for
the speech or debate clause. Because if you turn to
Article one, Section three, clause four of the Constitution, it
also says the Vice President of the United States shall
be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote
unless they be equally divided. So Pence is basically saying
I was actually serving in the capacity a dual capacity,
So I want to be treated like I was a
senator as the President of the Senate, and my legitimate
legislative activity, my work in connection with my job as
being the former president of the Senate, that is constitutionally
protected and I shouldn't have to testify. It's never been
tested before, and I'll find its way to the Supreme Court.
The courts over time have had a relatively expansive view
of the speech and debate claw the speech and Debate
clause privilege, both in terms of in applying to former members,
you know, as long as when the conduct occurred, not
who the current administration is. And also it's also applied
to staffers of members of Congress, not the Congress members themselves,
And so would this be a further extension of that.
But then it's just the non legal analysis and the
broader point too that we should discuss Cohen as well.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 1: Is that just shows you that if Cohen wants a
if Pence wants a political career here, he's got to
do every single thing to try to appear Donald Trump.
And this is not someone in Mike Pence, you know,
I know, a lot of people are very laudatory of
him during the January sixth though he did the right thing.
He did the right thing, but he's really a spineless
trader when you really break it down.
Speaker 2: You know, Ben, you said something which is very interesting
that this has never been tested before. How many times
have we now heard this coming out of either the
Trump administration or the former Trump administration. We've never seen
anything like this before. And the reason that this is
all happening, the reason why we've never seen it before
is because no other president, no one other than Donald
Trump before him and God willing after him, would ever
look at and ignore the Constitution, would ignore the rights
of the people simply to benefit themselves. And Mike Pence's
fear is not necessarily of Donald J. Trump, but rather
trump Ism that there He's more concerned about Trump's base,
that twenty eight percent that are die hair, die hard
Trump fanatics, that they are willing to, you know, to
go to bad for him. They're willing to attack the capital.
Despite the fact that Donald of course was at the
White House under you know, the full protection of Secret Service,
watching as this thing unfolded on his televisions, enjoying it,
So it's a there's a big difference between his allegiance
to Donald Trump and his allegiance to trump Ism. And
that's the big problem that we're seeing with the Lindsey Grahams.
We're seeing them with even for example, Nikki Haley, who
today announced that she herself is going to run for
the presidency as against Donald in twenty twenty four. They
are all concerned about the group of individuals that are
so loyal for whatever they're reason might be, that are
so loyal to Donald that that could end up creating
political nightmares for them. And again, most of these politicians
only care about themselves and their next election, So who knows,
And we'll see what happens with Pence. My hope is
that he does not get to invoke any privilege. He,
like everyone else that was involved, needs to come forward.
They need to testify to the truth. Now, there's a
couple of folks that are part of our brigadors that
clearly not they're just Trump supporting the part of that
twenty eight percent. And one guy asked whether or not
my goal is to hurt Donald and I've made a
crystal clear, So maybe you weren't on before with us,
or maybe you just don't pay attention, or maybe you
just don't have the mental capability within which to listen
and to understand what I'm trying to say. I do
not want to see and some of you may have
heard this before, so please bear with me. I do
not want to see Donald Trump indicted. I do not
want to see Donald Trump prosecuted. And I do not
want to see Donald Trump incarcerated or some form of
incarceration because I dislike him, because I fundamentally disagree with
almost every single thing that comes out of his mouth.
I want him to be indicted, prosecuted, and convicted simply
based upon what he has done, the illegal and improper
and unethical actions taken by a man who does not
want to be and never wanted to be, president of
the United States, but rather a ruler, rather an autocrat, monarch, dictator,
supreme leader. All right, that's what I want to see.
I want him to be held accountable, just like you would,
just like I was, just like anybody else in the
country would be, if in fact that they committed the
same thing, and rest assured if you had one single
if you had one single top secret document in your possession,
and that may even include a file folder, depending upon
how relevant you were to the prosecutors putting you away.
You like someone like Reality Winner, would have gotten a
minimum of a five year sentence. Make no mistake about that,
and anyone that thinks anything different again, you are knee
deep into the cult of Donald J. Trump and you
need to be extricated immediately.
Speaker 1: Couldn't agree more with you there, you know, when you
know already wealthy people sometimes have an unfair most times
have an unfair advantage anyway, in terms of when you
have the top lawyers, one of the things you can
do is you can fight with every type of doctrine
and delay and try to paper the thing to death.
So there's already that. But when you're a former president,
you're given a whole toolkit of different types of objections
that you can make though that no other citizen can make.
That the Constitution, for how great it is, never really
was able, you know. And look, the stress test, fortunately
is that the separation of powers that we have has
worked just barely. And frankly, it's the federal courts that
likely saved us, you know, at the time, and the
fact that Democrats controlled you know at the time the
House of Representatives as well. That also saved us at
that time. But as you kind of dig deeper into it,
I mean, you know, Trump's able to bring executive privilege
objection and and all of these things, and they're frivolous
objections speech and debate clause objection by Pence, and it
just delayed, delayed, delay, And it's very frustrating, you know,
to watch that process, you know, play out and delay.
But it's also important that we channel that frustration and
at least recognize where it's actually coming from versus who
are the people who are trying to hold them accountable.
And that's why we do shows like this because transparency,
facts matter rather than just the sound bite. It's, by
the way, we talked on the last political Beatdown about
these committee hearings where Democrats have just been doing an
incredible job confronting the MAGA Republican with their lives because
it's not a sound bite forum. It's actually a forum
that allows discussion and allows you to call out and
expose the hypocrisy that's taking place.
Speaker 2: Ben Let's not forget that Donald has been doing the
same dog and pony show for his entire life. Donald
has figured out how to use the system to his
own advantage. And I'm referring to the legal system. Lay delayed, delay,
throw money at it, file frivolous motions. We all saw
that he and Alna Hababa Baba Daba ended up getting
fined like a million dollars for their delay tactics and
the court had had enough. Now, interestingly enough, wouldn't that
be something special if the same thing happened to Mike Pence?
You want to play this game, little Mike. You want
to be a motherfucker and go ahead and stop the
entire investigation into what could have amounted to the end
of democracy. And then you want to start exerting some
sort of privilege that you're probably not even entitled to,
simply to delay it so that you can get closer
to an election. And then maybe if Donald ends up
becoming the nominee, this whole thing goes away because the
committees won't allow it or what have you. Maybe we
end up, maybe the court ends up finding him for
a frivolous lawsuit. Who knows, but that would be because
I promise you this Donald would not reach into the
coffers of the money that was given to him by
this twenty eight percent of sick of fans. He would
not reach into his pocket. He would not help Mike
Pence or anyone out with that money except for himself
or something that benefits him. And I don't think that
he would do a damn thing for Pence whatsoever. The
fact that Pence is doing this just goes to show
you that he is not the right man for the job.
In twenty twenty four, and interestingly enough, you will see,
in my opinion, he will be either the last of
all the candidates. He'll have the lowest percentage. I'd be
shocked if he got one to two percent of the
vote's He is, I mean, systemically disliked by the entire party.
He really has no following on his own. He accomplished
little to nothing. The fact that he stood up to
Donald and did the right thing, and you know, acknowledge
that Joe Biden had won the election. Could you imagine
that we now give somebody credit. We slapped them on
the ass and pat them on the back and say
good for you. Mike, Yeah, did the right thing. You
acknowledge that it's a free and fair election and that
Donald lost and Joe Biden won by nine million votes.
Yeah yeah, good job, then, Mike, Yeah, real good job.
I mean, give me a fucking break already. The fact
that we even acknowledged that he did this in order
to give him some sort of a prop makes no
sense to me at all, and we have to stop.
We have to hold him accountable for the fact that
Donald even got to that position, because this was not
something that popped up literally on that day on January sixth.
This had been in discussion long before January sixth, and
rest assured Mike Pence heard about it, knew about it,
was involved in it some way, shape or form, and
he needs to come clean. No different for example than
Bill a fucking moron, Bill Barr. I mean, Bill Barr
needs to be put in front of the committee, especially,
let's even put him in front of Jim Jordan's committee,
the Weaponization of the Department of Justice Committee. Why is
Bill Barr not in front stating exactly what he did,
not just during that period of time, but from the
day that he accepted the job and was sworn in
as Attorney general. Everything that Donald had him do, every
illegal action, every single every single thing that we have
all been talking about looking at again and again and again.
Bill Barr needs to provide answers, not the fact that, oh,
I told Donald that you know you lost the election.
Stop at Donald. All of a sudden, this guy thinks
he's invited back into polite society. How about I think not.
Speaker 1: You know, Pence does this shtick that I like to
do on the Midas Touch podcast, and I'll bring it
to the Brigade where he's always asked these questions. So,
you know, they tried to kill you, so even though
they tried to kill you, you'd still support the people
who tried to kill you. They ask variations of that question,
and he does this thing because he's just such a phony,
bloviating you know what, right, and.
Speaker 5: So he always goes, well, let me tell you this. First,
I'm a Christian, Second, I'm a Conservative, and third I'm
a Republican. So yeah, even if they tried to kill me,
I would find it in my heart. I'd have to
find it in my heart, and I would support him.
It's like, what planet are you from? I think those
aliens that are you know, that have been spotted they're
dropping Mike Pensis here watch this alien.
Speaker 1: Let's play this clip. I'll show it to you, Salty,
play the video.
Speaker 6: I'm about the twenty twenty two election, and I think
that you're analysis is one that is generally accurate that
the candidates who were hung up on the election lies
of of twenty twenty did not fare as well in
twenty twenty two as the ones who stepped forward and
talked about the future. I was, and I know you
know better than anyone in a bad way what those
election lies can mean in terms of disgusts being excited.
I was surprised to see you campaigning for Don Baldock
in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona, who were
two people who lied about the election who defeated. One
could say one could argue better candidates in the Republican
primaries who were future leaning candidates. Did you why did
you endorse them, Why did you support them?
Speaker 2: Why did you.
Speaker 6: Campaign for them?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I've often said I'm a Christian, a Conservative,
and a Republican in that order, but I'm a Republican,
and once Republican primary voters chosen their nominees, I went
out and traveled to thirty five states over the last
year and a half, to see if we could elect
a Republican majority in the House and Senate, elect Republican
governors all across the country. And didn't mean, as it
hasn't meant in the past, that I agree with every
statement or every position candidates that I'm supporting in the
Republican Party have taken.
Speaker 2: But uh, but I was pleased to do it.
Speaker 5: I was pleased to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those police, they wanted to kill me. You want
to know where he's from. He's from the planet bullshit,
from the galaxy of Go fuck yourself, you insane lunatic.
I mean, yeah, they only showed up. They built a
fucking gallo in front of the People's House. Could you
imagine this in front of the Capitol. They built the
gallo screaming, hang my tens. But don't worry. I'm a Christian,
all right, and that's okay. I'm gonna learn to forgive them. Yeah,
unlike Jesus, my friend, you ain't gonna rise all right,
So let me be very clear about that. You and
that fucking fly that was one sitting on that on
that head of his This guy is really stupid. I mean,
I don't care what anybody says. I just it makes
no sense to me at all that you have a
bunch of people who want to kill you, and they
want to kill you because you didn't do the right
thing by Donald right the autocratic wanna be and instead
you did what you're obligated to do. But that's okay.
I travel to thirty two states and so I mean,
if this guy doesn't sound like the biggest moron in
the world, I don't know. He sounds to me like
he needs a very serious enema.
Speaker 1: I think he may well, I won't even go there,
all right. So, also Bannon apparently is not paying his
legal fees at all. His you know, a story leaked
also to The Politico and to the Daily Beast as well,
basically saying that he's not paying his fees. He owes
this guy Robert Costelle. Do you know Costello at all? Coena,
this lawyer from New York City.
Speaker 2: Sadly I did so Costello is at This is in
my book Revenge. I mean, I hope that people I
hope that people read the book. It is so important
to understanding what's really going on here. It's sort of
like the predicate for all the other books. So Bob
Costello when I was right after I was rated and
I was looking for an attorney. Bob Costello shows up
with another lawyer who I happen to know, and he
gives me the old song and Shoe dance. He's very
close to Rudy, which he is, and that Rudy's on
the inside, and it's important that you know, we have
somebody on the inside and you on the outside, because
you know, we want to be able to get the
big guy, you know who that is, Wink wink, so
we can end up then having all the messages run
up the chain and so on and so forth. He
is the most disingenuous lawyer. He's not even considered a
respectable lawyer. He's just a Rudy Giuliani, whereas we like
to call Mameya Koppa. He's the Recalludi, drunken Giuliani lawyer
that ended up literally and he did the same thing.
He made phone calls. He was sending text messages saying
things like, you have friends in high places, you know
what you need to say, blah blah blah. You know,
Rudy spoke to I just got off the phone with Rudy.
He spoke to the big guy et cetera. I mean,
the things that were going on here, you would think
that this is more dealing with the Gambino crime family
than you would talking about, you know, the president of
the United States of America. And I guess that's why
Mark Palmeran is referred to Trump as you know, similar
to John Gotti.
Speaker 1: By the way, there's so many reasons I love doing
this show with you when you're one of my closest
friends now. But two, you know all of these people,
so you can give some of the color here, like yeah, Costello,
he's a tool, like you just don't get that anywhere
else other than people who know these characters.
Speaker 2: But think about this too, and how stupid is he
to allow the bill to keep knowing that Steve Bannon
is going to do to him what Donald has historically
done to almost every single law firm that he's ever
dealt with. What makes you think that he wasn't going
to get paid. There was one lawyer who was smarter
than the rest. I forget who it was, but he
ended up getting the money in advance from Donald in
order to represent him. So in the event that Donald
did what Donald always does, which is to interfere in
whatever litigation to decide that he's going to be the
guy to direct it. This guy could walk away and
he's keeping like four million dollars when then again Rudy Kaludi,
drunken Giuliani believed that he was entitled what was it
like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a day that
he was expected, you know, to get paid, and Donald
of course stiffed him on all of that money. So
the fact that Steve Bannon stiffed Bob Costello, I mean,
is anybody here you know, are they shocked at what
this revelation shows.
Speaker 1: Here, I'm gonna make my own little graphic here. That's
the lawyer, Christopher Kaise, who was the one who he's
also a foreign agent of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
But he was smart, he is he filled out a
foreign far in whatever form and he advises them so
for all of the Maga, oh Chinese dis and Venezuela.
And that the lawyer who you mentioned is a foreign
agent for Venezuela. That's who's representing Trump. But he got
the three million upfront from the Save America grifting organization
that Trump runs. And then Bannon for not paying the
legal fees of people like Costello. Bannon's bank rolled by
a Chinese billionaire. You know, Bannon gives the speeches reading
Tom Fitton's plan about how we're going to declare victory
even if we lose in the twenty twenty election. There's
that audio recording of Bannon at a meeting by the
Chinese businessman billionaire who bankrolls Bannon, where Bannon says, here's
how we're going to overthrow democracy. And of course Donald
Trump pays more money in taxes to the Chinese government
by far than he's ever paid to the United States government,
has secret Chinese bank accounts. Of course, Ivanka has all
of the patents or the trademarks over there that she's
gotten the favorable treatment. So like every single accusation is
an admission of actually what they're doing. But you know,
Bannon has these, you know, three separate cases, one of
them is ongoing. One he was convicted of, and one
he was pardoned of, right that we build the wall
federal case. He was ultimately pardon of right before Trump
left office, and the federal judge had to dismiss the case,
but made it clear that the pardon was an admission
of his guilt contempt of Congress. He was found guilty
of abandon was found guilty of and he's appealing that
right now. And then he was charged with a state
prosecution out of New York for the we Build the
Wall scam. These Maga Republicans one of their go to
scams you look at like the George Santos go fund
me scam. They use go fundme to just like scam
and steal from people. Right, So, George Santos, the Maga Republican,
he would set up the go fund me account so
that he could steal money from disabled, homeless veterans by
saying that he was going to provide life saving surgery
for their dying pets. Of course, you don't get much
more sympathetic than that, So people would give money and
Santos then just stole the money. Like this is known
to the Magau's Republicans and they're like, let's put this
guy on the Small Business Committee. And then Bannon's go
fund me scam, as though we build the Wall scam.
I thought Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall,
but apparently not. They created a go fund me scam
where they took all this money from donors, and then
Bannon was actually arrested by the FEDS on the Chinese
billionaire's yacht. He was pardoned for that by Trump, and
then he's being charged for the same.
Speaker 2: Well where else, Ben, would you want to get picked up? Right?
I mean, if you're gonna get picked up somewhere, you know,
why not on a Chinese billionaire's yacht. You know. The
funny thing though, is that it's It's amazing. Steve Bannon
is actually quite wealthy in his own right. He didn't
need this Chinese billionaire in order to bankroll his life.
Steve Bannon is actually quite successful. He's like an executive
producer on it was a major television show. I forget
which one it was. I don't want to. I don't
want to say the wrong one. But if you look
it up you'll see. I mean he made a ton
of money.
Speaker 1: Uh, and also ruin the show for you. It's a
good show. I know the show. I don't want to.
I don't want to ruin it for you.
Speaker 2: Could say it, I just don't remember if I always
get confused between one and the other. But my it
is I felt, yeah, that's what I thought. I mean,
you know, he made a couple hundred million dollars as
an executive producer, so he's no poor boy that he
needed this Chinese billionaire. But I guess like Donald, it's
almost like, you know, I'll take money from anyone so
long as that they're going, you know, to support me
in my quest for you know, world domination under whatever
sort of sick way that he wants to see the
United States and the rest of the world operate. I mean,
you know, the rest of us are sitting there and
we want to see women's rights, whether it's from you know,
Iran all the way here to the United States. You know,
that's not Steve Bannon. He wants to see you know,
the country you know, revert into what it was fifty
sixty plus years ago, you know, where women didn't have
the rights that they have today. And there's just something
seriously wrong with him and that whole crew of people
that just surround themselves. But then again, that's what Donald
Trump brings out. And I want to be very clear
because a couple of folks, you know again, you know,
they're the haters on the group as we do this
political beat down and trying to inform our you know,
brigade in terms of things that we're going to need
to do to ensure twenty twenty four, things that they
don't want to understand. Yeah, you could attack me all
you want. I'm no hero. I never said that I
was a hero that I have no sympathy for this guy.
He was part of the issue. I want to be
very clear about something. First and foremost, if you read
my book, you would understand I pled guilty to seven
out of eight charges that I had no thing to
do with that were absolute lies. And you say, well,
why did you do it? And again, because when you
have forty eight hours to make a decision, and the
decision in the negative will implicate or it will have
a deleterious effect upon your wife, who you care about,
who you love with all your heart, and it'll have
an effect upon your children, And so you do what
you need to do. There's a book that was written
by Judge Jed Raycoff, Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and
the Guilty Go Free. You got to learn to read
before you make stupid statements like this, because what it
does is, again, it's just a distraction from the reality.
We are fighting. All of us here today are fighting
for what we're fighting for American democracy. We're fighting for
the rights to go forward in the future, not backwards.
We don't want like what this guy does is just
to go backwards. We want to go forward. We want
to expand people's rights. I mean, the fact that we
now see the loss v of the Road decision in
and of itself should be alarming to everyone. And it
should be alarming because we have now an incredibly young
group of individuals on the Supreme Court who will stay
there for as long as they want, and that basically
means till the day they die. So we really need
to be very careful about who gets elected, about who's
you know, ideas and their ideology end up becoming bills
and then bills, you know, being made into law. So
we have to stay vigilant. You could only imagine what
would happen if you have all three chambers now controlled
by Republicans. You will see the fastest loss of constitutional
rights and protections that this country has ever seen. So
guide yourselves accordingly, and you're hearing it right now. On
the political Beatdown with Bagel Ben and Michael Cohen, you're
hearing my warning to you exactly what's going to happen
if in fact we allow these individuals to take control
over our government. And that's why I keep imploring everybody.
Make sure that you tell your friends about the political beatdown.
Make sure you tell them about midas, touch about maya culpa.
Make sure that they read the important books, not the
salacious shit that everybody wants to hear. Oh, like what
the Southern District of New York. Did you know one
of the things that happened not too many days ago.
You may have seen it, Ben, and I hope that
our brigaders saw it as well. Jamie Raskin appeared before
the Committee on the Weaponization of the DOJ, and he
gave a impassioned speech about how bad right now things
are and if in fact that this group, this committee
is going to be bipartisan and actually effectuate some positive
change in terms of how we the people see the
Department of Justice and the improper behavior that was taken.
The very first case that we have to look at
is the case of Michael Cohen when the United States
of America, when the government the DOJ, Bill Barr, Donald Trump, etc.
When they had me unconstitutionally remanded because I refuse to
waive my first Amendment constitutional right now. If there are
other issues that need to be explored investigated, so be it.
I don't care if they're Republicans, if they're Democrats, independents,
it's irrelevant to me. We all need to have faith
in our Department of Justice. Otherwise, once again, what do
you think is going to happen to our democracy? And
that's why again, folks, please listen, Listen to when Ben
and I speak, Listen to the from the various different
podcasts and appearances that we make. It is so important
that we all band together like a brigade and we
ensure that American democracy is not messed with.
Speaker 1: Let's play that clip that Cohen referenced from Jamie Ruskin
the other day. Play the clip.
Speaker 4: In the case of Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer
and confidante for many years, in August twenty eighteen, he
pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations over large hush money
payments he arranged before the twenty sixteen election to keep
porn stars Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougall from talking about
sexual affairs They had with Donald Trump. You guys remember
this one well. After Barr became Attorney General in February
twenty nineteen, he worked to kill further investigations related to
those payoffs and suggested that mister Cohen's conviction on campaign
finance charges itself be reversed, even though six months had
already passed since Cohen had entered a guilty fleet. Amazingly,
after Cohen was imprisoned for a year, then being transferred
out of prison to home confinement during COVID nineteen, Barr
and the DJ intervened to block his transfer because Cohen
would not immediately accept, as a condition of his ankle
bracelet home confinement, not to engage in First Amendment activities,
specifically writing and publishing a book about Donald Trump or
saying anything in public on TV and the social media
about Donald Trump. Cohen had already been home for two
weeks when this unconstitutional demand from DOJ appeared, and when
he and his attorney dared to ask questions about it,
three federal marshals showed up with handcuffs and shackles, and
he was returned to the Otisville Correctional Institute. There he
spent sixteen days in solitary confinement before they were able
to get his case before a federal district judge, who
immediately found that Barr's purpose quote in transferring Cohen for
release on furlough and home confinement back to custody was
retaliatory in response to Cohen desiring to exercise his First
Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the president,
and to discuss the book on social media. Can you
think of a more egregious example of weaponizing the Department
of Justice for nakedly political purposes than imprisoning and putting
in solitary confinement the president's own former lawyer, simply because
he wanted to exercise his First Amendment rights.
Speaker 1: It's a really really strong clip, and you had you
had described it before. Anything else you want to say
about the clip now that you've seen it again.
Speaker 2: No, just that at some point today, just everybody please
say a prayer for Jamie. As I'm sure you all
saw that's the bandana. Just say a prayer for him.
He's a very good man and I could not thank
him enough for making that statement. On my behalf. It
is something I had been yelling from the rooftops for
God knows how long. It is something that I sued
the United States government that is now on appeal for
the exact same cause. It is something that I had
sued my former accountant for, you know, his screwing up
of my taxes which gave you know, it's not even
a screw up. It was a misstatement. It was an
error just like one hundred million other Americans have had
over the course I am a first time with Look again,
it's all in the book Revenge. I implore people to
read it so that you understand exactly what happens when
an autocratic wanna be ends up in the White House. Now,
the thing that I always say is that when Donald
Trump was first deciding to run, it's not the same
Donald Trump. What happened is that the power it didn't
just go to his head, It went to his soul
where he really truly believes that he is bigger, better,
more important, and more significant than everybody else in the
entire country. That includes his wife, children, everybody. All right,
Donald Trump, when he became president of the United States,
became the absolute worst version of himself imaginable and saw
himself as an autocrat or an autocratic want to be
wants to be Putin, wants to be a Kim Jong Un,
wants to be Mohammed Ben Salman, anyone who has that
autocratic hour. That's who Donald Trump wanted to emulate. And
that's the danger that we all need to ensure never ever,
ever happens again.
Speaker 1: As President Obama says, it's not that the presidency changes
you so much as it brings out the qualities that
you've already possessed into a far clearer focus, and it
accentuates and exaggerates those qualities. So if those qualities are
really good, deessentuates that if those qualities are really bad,
it shows that as well. And finally, I want to
talk about the Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert mcbernie,
who made an order yesterday on Monday saying that he
would release three portions of the Special grand Jury report,
the special grand jury that's been impaneled since twenty twenty
two to investigate criminal election interference in Georgia. The Special
grand Jury voted that they wanted their report released. The
language in the applicable Georgia Statute says that the judge
shall not may shall if the recommendation is made, but
there were some counterbalancing factors though that also needed to
be weighed, which is that Fawnie Willis, the Fulton County
District Attorney, said that indictments are imminent and that there's
a due process concern for individuals who are mentioned in
the report if their names are publicized before indictments. So
in other words, it's actually the district attorney who requested
this so that people who are ultimately prosecuted will not
be able to argue later that their conviction should be
overturned because they were prejudiced by the pre indictment publicity
and that prejudice the jury pool and the community and
all of that. And so it's not that their remaining
portions are never going to come out. They will come
out after indictment, after the criminal discovery process. Then the
public will get the full report, and obviously in the indictment,
we will know what the charges are, because indictments will
ultimately be made public. Those are public court records. So
the three portions that are going to be released include
the introduction and conclusion, as well as section eight of
the report, where the Special Grand Jury disc gusses its
concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath during
their testimony to the grand jury, because specific names aren't
mentioned in that section. One of the parts of the
order that I found particularly relevant as well, when Judge
McBurnie is talking about the due process concerns of certain individuals,
he also mentions this is particularly true as well if
the grand jury's final report includes recommendations involving individuals who
never appeared before the grand jury and so had no
opportunity limited or not to be heard. And if you
think about it, who could that possibly be referring to,
Because Fawny willis called a lot of people before that
grand jury. But when I think of an individual who
could be the subject of a recommendation for indictments who
never appeared before the grand injury and so didn't have
the opportunity limited or not to be heard, I mean,
I think that's speaking of Donald Trump right there. I
could be wrong, but it seems obvious that that's who.
That's where my mind immediately went. And then one thing
that Judge McBurney said at the end of his order, though,
was basically a District Attorney's office, please provide updates because
I'm basically doing this because you say you said indictments
are imminent, so like let's let's judge McBurnie didn't say this,
but the message is like, let's get the show on
the road here because I've already delayed this thing for
two weeks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, at the end of the day, all of
these investigations seemed to be moving slower than molasses to
a strainer. And I have nothing but the utmost of
respect for Fanny Willis and the investigation. These things are
not easy simply because and it's not supposed to be
this way. It's not supposed to be if you are
I'm a president, if you are rich, if you are
of the privilege you know class that you're supposed to
get special treatment. You are not. And it is it's
said because these prosecutions need to move more expeditiously, they
need to move with transparency. In that way, you're not
going to see all of the fake information coming out,
the misinformation, the disinformation, the malinformation. It's when the transparency
is not it's not put forth. Is when people start
coming up with their own beliefs and then it gets
you know, promoted by whatever news organization ascribes to that
specific belief, and that's where we have to be better.
You know, there has to be transparency. You know, one
of the things I talk about again in Revenge, and
I talk about it regularly on this show and my
Maya Kulpa podcast. I have half a dozen Foyer requests
out there. I have yet to receive a single document
from Foyer, despite the fact that they are obligated pursuing
to a judge's determination to have started providing or processing documents.
Since August twenty second of twenty twenty two, not a
single document. And yet next week we have another follow
up with the judge, and I hope the judge really
gives it to them. But even if he does, so what,
no one gives the shit. There's no accountability. We as Americans,
we as the taxpayers in this country, we own those documents.
The fact that you have to fight tooth and nail
higher lawyers and so on in order to get information
so that I could bring it to you and that
we could be transparent as a nation, to me is
fucking insane and it drives me batshit crazy. The fact
that you have to fight with your own government to
get a document in order to prove that there was
an entire conspiracy within which to violate your First Amendment
constitutional rights, which in essence means let's shred the constitution
that to me is fucking insane. And I will not stop,
I will not rest, And I ask you to stand
behind me, stand beside me, stand with me as we
continue this fight in order to demand transparency by our government.
I mean, I've now asked Damian Williams Southern District of
New York. I have asked the federal government. I have
asked even Jim Jordan's Committee on the Weaponization of DJ
I have asked everybody everyone to please. I mean, look
at some of the people who have now already stood
behind me or beside me. Take Hakim Jeffreys, Ted Lu,
Congressman Stevie Cohen, you have Senator Dick Durbin, a Congresswoman
Carolyn Maloney who unfortunately is no longer there. You know,
there's a whole slew of people that want to see
these documents because that's the only way we're going to
find out who was involved in an unconstitutional remand of
a US citizen, and that's to benefit and protect all
of us. So stay with us. Our political beatdown Brigade.
We are going to continue to bring you all the information, raw, unfiltered,
completely transparent and one hundred percent truthful and accurate.
Speaker 1: Love that the Brigade is strong. Indeed, Michael Cohen really
appreciate spending this time with you. And the big breaking
news for those who just joined in at the end,
Michael Cohen will be speaking again for the sixteenth time
with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office this Thursday. That will
be happening this week. Go back to the beginning where
Michael announced it exclusively here on the Political Beatdown, but everybody,
that was the big news if you are just joining
right now. Cohen, we covered a lot of topics for
the next political Beatdown because these all these air Tuesdays
and Thursdays live nine am twelve Eastern. But for this
Thursday is because you are going in to speak with
the Manhattan District Attorney's Office around the same time of
when the Beatdown would take place, and I think in
general our audience would like it more to kind of
hear as much as you can provide, and we know
you're definitely limited and what you can talk about, but
we will do our show after you return and we
will go live immediately, so if there's any break news
you can share great and we certainly respect though the
limitations on everything there. It's a very very serious investigation
by a top team of lawyers there, and everyone wants
accountability and everybody wants it to be handled the correct way. Cohen,
as always, it's a pleasure. Make sure you check out
Cohen's book Revenge. If you haven't bought it yet, make
sure you buy it right now. Revenge by Michael Cohen.
If you really want to see how Trump weaponized the
Department of Justice, you know these bullshit commits. He's on
weaponization though there's the real weaponization right here that Cohen
talks about in this book, Revenge, and the title of
it was so prescient. Also check out store dot midas
touch dot com for the best pro democracy gear, including
the official Maya Culpa podcast shirt. There's the Mari Lardo
Correctional Facility shirt right there store dotmitas touch dot com.
Go get that. Check out Cohen's other podcast, Maya Culpa.
It's great. If you're not subscribed to Maya Culpa, make
sure you check that out right now. Go to Maya
Culpa wherever you get your audio podcast. It's co produced
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