Speaker 1: This is the Political beat Down with Ben Macellis and
Michael Cohen. Welcome to the show. Here's what we're going
to discuss on today's live Political Beatdown. Mark Pomerantz, the
former senior prosecutor on the Manhattan District Attorney team that
was criminally investigating Donald Trump, has released a new book
saying that in his view and the view of all
the other prosecutors he was talking to there other than
Alvin Bragg, the evidence to criminally prosecute Donald Trump at
that time was very, very solid. And Michael Cohen, you
get a mention in that book, A prominent mentioned in
the book.
Speaker 2: And more than one, more than one mention there, my friend.
In fact, about percent of that book is probably written
about me.
Speaker 1: I want to get Cohen's reaction to the book, all
of the references to Cohen, and we also got to
talk about Cohen. I saw that Rachel Maddow tech takedown
recently of the former United States Attorney under the Trump administration,
Jeffrey Berman. I want to get your take on that
as well, and how all of this is connected. We're
also going to talk about on this episode how Donald
Trump and Alina Haba have posted a one million dollar
bond and filed a notice of appeal to the one
million dollar sanctions order that was issued against them by
a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida for
a frivolous lawsuit they filed back in March of twenty
twenty two.
Speaker 3: I also want to.
Speaker 1: Talk about how very quietly when it comes to at
least what was being reported by the large media networks,
not here on the Midas Touch network, but Donald Trump
lost another big defamation lawsuit. A federal judge in Washington,
DC dismissed Trump's twenty twenty defamation lawsuit against The Washington
Post related to two articles that talked about Trump's connections
with Russi. But what I really want to get from
Michael Cohen is an inside the look when he was
there with Trump. What was the strategy behind filing these
frivolous lawsuits, and what was the overall goal.
Speaker 3: In doing that. We'll talk about that with Michael Cohen.
Speaker 1: We've also now learned that during the Trump administration, on
at least three separate occasions, Chinese spy balloons entered the
continental United States and were either covered up or went undetected.
By Donald Trump and his administration. After all, Donald Trump
is the trader who said that the American troops are
suckers and losers, and Trump is the moron who said
he's like just so like smart that he doesn't need
to read security briefings. And then tonight President Biden will
deliver the State of the Union address. It will be
live here on the Midas Touch Network. Pre Coverage begins
at seven thirty eastern four thirty Pacific, and the State
of the Union will officially start at nine eastern six Pacific.
This is the political beatdown. Cohen, how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2: You know I'm hanging in there. Every day seems to
be filled with more excitement, more nonsense, more trump ism,
trump bullshit, and I do truly believe that that's going
to actually stop soon. I think that there's a lot
of things that are going on right now that are
going to put a it's going to put an end
to this guy's reign of terror over American democracy.
Speaker 1: Well, starting with hope and optimism on the political beat
down as something I think our audience appreciates. But when
you come with that hope and optimism, what specifically comes
to mind, right now that gives you that hope and optimism.
Speaker 2: Well, something I'm going to share with the mightys mighty,
with the political Beatdown Family. I am scheduled to come
in tomorrow for my fifteenth appearance with the District Attorney. Now,
I know this is going to make all sorts of news,
and I'm sure my phone's gonna start blowing up in
any second. Now. So many people have already heard about it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It's the funny thing, especially when it comes to whether
it's the District Attorney, the AG's office, the Southern District
of New York. They all have people inside that office
that leak in information now, and so I feel it's
fair that our political Beatdown family should know it as well.
Tomorrow I am going in to meet with the DA's
team again for the fifteenth time. And I really do
believe despite all the hoopla, and it's a very good book.
I've read part of it already, Mark Pomerantz's book, I
do believe that Alvin Bragg is serious. I believe that
whatever occurred in the past is the past, and I
think he legitimately believes that there is a case to
be made against Donald Trump. Now of course, we'll see.
I'll let everybody know on our next live event how
things went. Obviously I'm just speculating at this moment, but
once again, it's now the fifteenth time that I'm heading
in to discuss this and several matters with the DA's
team tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it. To be
very honest with you.
Speaker 1: And I know that you can't get into the specifics
of what's being discussed, but you had told us on
a prior occasion, though, that you were very impressed with
Alvin Bragg's team and you had a great deal of
skepticism after Pomerantz and Carrie Dunn had left the office.
I would say skepticism would probably be putting it very, very,
very lightly. But when you met with this new team,
they gave you a great degree of confidence. And I
think you even said the same amount of confidence as
the Pomerants done team in terms of holding Trump accountable.
Speaker 3: Is that true?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I said on many different not just here
on our first episode, which, by the way, thanks to
all of you, just blew it out of the water.
I believe we're at number eighteen on all news podcasts
out there. Thanks to each and every one of you,
and so I do give the political beatdown family a
serious thank you on that one. At the end of
the day, here's the deal. What we're going to see
is a really qualified team of prosecutors going through all
of the documents, not just the old documents that were
left over from the Pomerants and carry Dune days. But
I believe that there's new information that they've been able
to acquire. Remember that the DA's office is working in
tandem with the Attorney General's office. It is the first
time that I could ever say that two different offices
are working so closely together in tandem for a single purpose.
And I do believe that that purpose will I believe
it will occur. I really do.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things to mention as well,
get right into it where you are referenced in the
Mark Pomerantz book. And you know, one of the questions
that Bill Whittaker of CBS asked Pomerantz in an interview related.
Speaker 3: To the book was about you.
Speaker 1: And they said, well, Cohen, you know, was guilty of
this and that, and so can you trust Cohen as
a witness? And I think Pomerantz basically said yes again
because he showed us what the documents were. I mean,
you know, also you were maliciously prosecuted and sh you
never have been prosecuted in the first place. The Pomerance
doesn't go there yet, which I think everyone needs to
recognize and realize that that is the fact in a
highly and actually weaponized dj by Trump to go after you.
But let's play this clip from the CBS interview of
Bill Whittaker to Mark Pomerantz about his new book, where
you are referenced here. Let's play this clip and get
your reaction to it.
Speaker 4: But you've told us, I mean, and he admitted Cohen's
a convicted perjurer.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: So how far can his testimony go?
Speaker 2: And that's why it was so important for us to
go to the accounting documents. How do you know he's
telling the truth? You know it because you see it
in the documents.
Speaker 4: He's talking about Donald Trump's accounting documents used to calculate
the value of the former president's real estate, some of
which Mark Pomerantz shared with us. He released them after
they were made public in Letitia James's lawsuit. Attorney Pomerantz
said he did not share grand jury material with us.
He said, it went on for years.
Speaker 2: What was the pattern, and the tactics varied from property
to property to property. What they had in common was
that they were dishonest. Cohen, Your reaction, Yeah, My reaction is,
I truly don't believe that Whittaker read Pomerance's book. I
think he probably gave it's truly it's not the sixty
minutes of before. I'm not a big fan of his
I think he's a buffoon. I think he probably should
have done a much better job in terms of reading
the book, basically annotating it the way that Rachel Maddow does,
whereby she knows everything as well as the writer does.
He's throwing out all sorts of things. Let me be
very clear about something and how I believe that he's
completely inaccurate. First of all, I was not convicted of perjury.
Let me be very clear. He doesn't even have the
right charge. I pled guilty. Wasn't convicted. I pled guilty
to what's called a one thousand and one violation, and specifically,
the one thousand and one violation states making any materially false, fictitious,
or fraudulent statement or representation to law enforcement or to
a Congressional body, and that's what I did. Now. One
of the other things that I have talked about at
nauseum is the fact that that statement that I had
made to Congress my very first time appearing before them
was done with the assistance of Ivanka and Jared and
Jay Seculo and Abby Lowell and Tykob and a handful
of other people. And the goal was to stay on message,
stay on Donald Trump's message, which is make anything that
has to do with Moscow with Trump, make it deminimous
and so instead. And I hope you all remember because
it's written in my book Revenge, and I do implore
everyone to read it so that you understand as things
move forward, where I'm coming from onto it. But one
of the things I talk about in Revenge is the
fact that what happened with this specific case is I'm
the only one that got charged while all of these
other people were in there assisting me in making this
materially false statement. It is not perjury, and in fact
it was It's really not even a relevant charge if
you think about it. What was the lie. The lie
was the number of times that I spoke to Donald
about the failed Trump Tower Moscow real estate project. In
my statement to Congress, I stated three times. The legitimate
and the true answer is I spoke to him ten times. Now,
let's talk about things that are materially false. Let's take
a look at the last three or four of the
Supreme Court judges who made materially false statements, especially I'm
talking out on the report public inside where they stated
that they would respect starry decisives. Let's talk about George Santos,
who lies like Donald about everything. Let's talk about Bill Barr,
Let's talk about Jeffrey Berman. Let's talk about all of them.
And those are material, Those are material statements that have real,
serious implication and consequences. The fact that I stated three
versus ten. You know, when you are up against the
government and they are pressuring you, and they pressure you
by going after your family. And again, as I stated
the last time, I love my wife and there was
no chance in the world that I was going to
allow these animals to do to her what I knew
that they were going to do, and that was going
to indict her, march her out of the apartment with
me with handcuffs. That was never going to happen. And
so as Judge Jed Raycoff of the Southern District of
New York, the same building that prosecuted me. Of course,
different judge. I wish I had Judge Rakoff take a
look at his book, Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and
the Guilty Go Free. All right, let's even talk for
a split second about Alvin Bragg. Where Alvin Bragg made
a statement to the voters here in New York that
he is going to hold those who are rich and
powerful accountable, no different than anyone else. Well, yes, now
he's doing it. But the entire Pomerant's book is predicated
around the fact that he did not, that he elected
to step away from the case for whatever the reason
may be. Maybe it was because they were afraid that
I would do exactly what I do on this show,
exactly what I do on my other podcast, Mayacopo, what
I do on television or with the press, where I
turn around and I speak raw, unfiltered truth to power
because I don't give a shit, and I will say
things on a stand that will shock, that will shock people,
but I don't care because you know why, it's truth.
And the funny thing is, if you go back to
when I first came out and stated to the House
Oversight Committee all of the things that are now currently
pending against Donald Trump, whether it's the inflation and deflation
of his assets, whether it's the hush money payment, whether
it's the racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, islamophobia, anti semitism,
whatever was that I said, I asked each and every
one of you to think for a split second and
start googling it. Tell me where I made in a statement,
Tell me where there is a lie. In fact, Moller
stated that everything I told them, and that was one
hundred hours. Everything I told them was truthful, accurate, and
assistive with their investigation. You know who else said the
same thing, seven or eight different congressional committees. I've never
been charged with any issue about a misrepresentation, unlike, for example,
Eric don Ivanka jared this one Donald, All of them,
they all lied under oath. I did not. Then we
could turn around and say we saw it last week
when you guys played that clip. Letitia James credited me
for the New York Attorney General case currently pending against Trump,
and so did Pomerance and doun. Believe that everything that
I told them was truthful because not only were they
taking my word for it, like I did during the
House Oversight Committee hearing, I backed every single thing up
with documentary evidence, end of story.
Speaker 3: And that's what we do here are the Midas Touch Network,
you know.
Speaker 1: And that's what the difference between a Rachel Maddow interview
and mostly every other host on a large media networks
and what we do here on the Midas Touch Network
versus the host. Here, I want to show you this
clip from the Maddow Show as well where she talks
about Jeffrey Berman, and I want to get your reaction
to it as well. Here, let's play this clip from
Matdow referencing Jeffrey Berman's book and how Berman admits that
his prosecutorial ethics were compromised by the fact that main Justice,
meaning Bill Barr, told him who he should go after.
In terms of actually weaponizing the Department of Justice. Remember
everything Donald Trump says is projection. Currently right now with
Merrick Garland. You could criticize Garland for a lot of
things for being slow, but is not weaponized. Okay, it
was weaponized under Trump. Here play this clip.
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Berman was the US Attorney in SDNY the Federal
Prosecutor's office in Manhattan while all this was happening, and
Jeffrey Berman technically was recused from directly overseeing this case,
the hush money case, because he had been part of
the Trump campaign before he was appointed US attorney, and
he thought that might have seemed like a conflict of
interest given that the case involved fraud allegations about camp
pain expenditures. So he was technically recused from overseeing the case,
but he was in charge of the US Attorney's office
when this case went to court. And in his book,
in this book Holding the Line that Jeffrey Berman published
about his time as US Attorney in SDNI, he explains
in detail that Main Justice under Trump reached into SDNY
and intervened with the Prosecutor's office in Manhattan to protect
Trump in this case.
Speaker 3: He says it explicitly.
Speaker 5: This is from page twenty four of jeff Berman's book, quote,
the first time Main Justice interviewed sorry, even though I
was not overseeing the Cohen case, I still had to
deal with other issues involving it, all of them deriving
from the same source Main Justice and its attempts at
interference The first time Main Justice interfered was when the
information was being finalized. Information is a term of art
in this context. After Michael Cohen agreed to plead guilty,
the charging instrument against him became anation rather than indictment.
So that was the title of the document that Berman
is referencing here. It was an information. It was about
forty pages long, he says, and it quote reference to
person identified as Individual one as having acted in concert
with Michael Cohen.
Speaker 3: He says, quote.
Speaker 5: There was zero doubt as to the identity of Individual one.
It was Donald J.
Speaker 3: Trump.
Speaker 5: Berman says, quote, consistent with DOJ guidelines. We first submitted
the information to the Public Integrity section at Main Justice.
They signed off. We then sent a copy to the
Deputy Attorney General at the time, Rod Rosenstein, informing him
that Cohen's guilty play was imminent. The next day, the
prosecutor in my office, who was overseeing the case, received
a call from Rosenstein's principal deputy. He was aggressive, why
the length he wanted to know? He argued that now
that Cohen is pleading guilty, we don't need all this
description of the crime. The prosecutor responded, what exactly are
you concerned about Rosen's deputy. Rosenstein's deputy proceeded to identify
specific allegations that he wanted removed from the information. Almost
all of them were items referencing individual one Donald J.
Speaker 3: Trump Cohen.
Speaker 2: Your reaction, Yeah, So my reaction is when I read
those portions of Jeffrey Berman's book, which I would suggest
you don't buy because it's bullshit like he is, I
decided that I think a little payback is probably it's
probably justified, and so I filed a New York grievance
a bar grievance complaint against Jeffrey Berman, because my belief
is that what he did it's not only unethical, it's
possibly illegal as well. And so I filed this complaint.
And in the complaint, I did, of course, like everybody,
an attachment as to why I was filing the complaint,
and I want to share this with with with the
group here. By his own admission, Jeffrey Berman, who served
as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of
New York from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty, was contacted
by partisan Justice Department officials who made overtly political demands
and that the pressure was clearly inspired by the president's
openly professed wants. This included my criminal case. Now in
his book, Berman writes, and I quote Trump's Justice Department
kept demanding that I used my office to aid them politically,
and I kept declining dot dot dot in ways just
tactful enough to keep me from being fired. Now, mister Berman,
despite his self aggrandizing refusal to capitulate to the pressure campaign,
failed and failed miserably to uphold his ethical and legal
obligation to report the occurrences. By failing to do so,
mister Berman deprived me of valuable information that could have
been used in my defense. So the question of why
he kept this information to himself and a few insiders
is obvious and again answered by mister Berman's own words
and I quote, to keep me from being fired now, That,
of course, is until the new administration was elected, his
position terminated, and affording him the opportunity in September of
twenty twenty two, four years later, to reveal the information
in a for profit book that is unethical by any
stretch of the imagination, and so interestingly enough, I am
using Rachel Maddow's clip and the transcript from it in
order to explain to the New York Bar Association the
exact reason why Jeffrey Berman should be reprimanded, disbarred, or
whatever else that they choose to do. But his actions
should have consequences. And again it's one of the things
we constantly talk about on this show and we talk
about on our other various shows. Everybody needs to be
held accountable for their own actions, for their dirty deeds.
Something I've been saying, especially about Donald since day number one.
The second that you let this power elite to the
rich off the hook, Lady justice no longer has blindfolds
on and that is a big problem for the rest
of us. And that's why one of the things that
I constantly say, you got to share this podcast and
others on Midas, Touch, Maya, Kopa, etc. You have to
share it with your friends. What we need to do
is to continue every single day to grow this community
so that our voice cannot be ignored. That come twenty
twenty four, that we will be a major force to
reckon with, not just against the Republicans, but for the Democrats.
It is so vital because if we don't do this,
things like the end of Roe versus way the things
like Jeffrey Berman using his office for his own self interest,
the same thing with Bill Barr, the same thing with
John Eastman, the same thing with Rudy Kaludi, Drunken Giuliani,
the same thing with all of them. They all need
to be held accountable. Otherwise our democracy is not just
in peril, our democracy will be lost.
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen Donald Trump recently, though, be held
accountable by certain federal judges at least who are saying, look, finally,
finally going, They're saying enough. And you have, for example,
the federal judge Donald Middlebrooks in the Southern District of
Florida back on January nineteenth, who sanctioned Donald Trump approximately
one million dollars as well as Alina Haba for filing
this frivolous lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and basically half of Washington,
DC based on these like completely deranged conspiracy theories. The
judge explained that this was less of a lawsuit and
more of just like a lunatic airing his political grievances
that a copy and paste of his social media posts,
versus any legitimate, credible lawsuit Donald Trump. It was just
announced along with Alena Haba collectively posted a one million
dollar bond to stay or temporarily delay the enforcement of
having to pay the sanctions. They are filing a notice
of appeal with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees the Southern District
of Florida, has not been making very favorable rulings to
Donald Trump. Recently. They famously ordered the return of the
immediately return of the classified records to the Department of
Justice after Judge Eileen Cannon, the corrupt judge Eileen Cannon
did all of Donald Trump's dirty dealings in that district
court proceeding after a lawful search warrant was executed, and
then the Eleventh Circuit overruled Judge Eileen Cannon's corrupt injunction
order and the appointment of the Special Master. But you
were there from the inside. I'll talk about this defamation
lawsuit in a moment that Donald Trump lost, and it's
not really being reported. And I assume that's part of
the strategy, because I think what Trump realized that I
never asked you this before, So this is the first
time I'm asking you. This is what we talk about
a lot though on the network. What he realizes, though,
is that the large media networks, by the way, including
the ones that he ultimately sues, the sexy headline is
that he filed this lawsuit, which he then uses to fundraise.
But then the large media networks don't really report on
the loss, so it's barely a footnote. So walk us
through the strategy, because you were there when that strategy
was being deployed. Is that what was going on?
Speaker 2: So Donald is very myopic. He's a myopic thinker, and
what he believes is that if a case is scheduled
as the case with the Attorney General for October, I
think it's October, second third of this year. For Donald,
that's in eternity a way. He doesn't see things the
way the rest of us do, where you're like, oh
my gosh, in another eight months, I'm going to be
on trial that the Attorney General is going to slam
me to the ground, right, and the base amount she's
going to accept. The base amount, and I believe it'll
be much more, is two hundred and fifty million. I
think the amount is going to come out to somewhere
in the ballpark of about seven hundred million dollars. So
Donald's theory, oh, Donald's belief system is that he will delay, delay,
delay anything that he can, because what does delay do,
especially when you are as sociopathic as Donald is. What
it does is it takes out of your mind the
fact that this cases even there, that's okay, you know,
I'll deal with that when it comes when I have
to deal with it, which is what he does all
the time. So the goal for him again is to delay, delay, delay,
and hope that he gets a positive outcome. Now, many
of the cases that Donald has filed has been have
been frivolous, and so at the end of the day,
it's not it's not unusual that the judge would then
sanction both him and Hababa Baba on this who is
one of the worst lawyers you could ever ever imagine.
She's actually comical in terms of watching in a room.
You know, she she thinks she's fantastic when really she's
just a she's a horrible, horrible lawyer. But putting all
that aside, and Colin.
Speaker 1: I just want to I want to interrupt you there.
It's what makes her more dangerous, I think than the
one that got farted on by Juliani Jenna Ellis, because
Jenna Ellis doesn't really pretend to even be all that smart, right,
Like Jenna Ellis just every haba has this way of
projecting that she knows what she's talking about, but says
the wrong thing all the time and does the exact
opposite we are supposed to do everything.
Speaker 2: And fights with the judges and fights with counsel, and
she makes up her own sort of rules and rags.
In one of the cases that I'm involved, where I'm
suing Trump, she actually filed emotion. This is great. She
filed emotion and she signed it as if she was
the judge. It's one of the funniest things that that
you could imagine. It is so basic. It was I
think it was maybe even a subpoena, but she signed
it as if she was the judge as also counsel
for the plane. I mean, the whole thing was absolutely
breathtaking to watch and to laugh about. But going back,
you know, I just want to touch on one more
thing in terms of the complaint, because one of the
things that I intend to do, I intend to hold
all of these people accountable because by doing that, I
believe that we can restore the the the sanctity of
the Department of Justice. You know, there are many prosecutors
who are good people. There are many judges who are
good people. But you know, if you have episode that
movie I think it was called like Stand and Standing Bummy,
where you had crazy Joe the the principle from the
school in the Bronx, and he turned around and he says,
you know what if you have one bead apple, but
instead you have five bad apples, fucking rotten to the core.
This is what happens. You have people like Barr and Trump.
You had people like the judge in my case, William H.
Pauli the third, you had Jeffrey Berman, Kazami. You had
all of these prosecutors that use my name in the
very first paragraph of their bios. Now they're over it,
like you know, Davis, Paul, Lowenstein, Sandler mcderbott, will and Emery.
They're at Gougenheim Partners. They're all making seven figure salaries
right using this bullshit case that was against me. The
only reason I pled guilty. Remember, folks, I got the
I got the notification on a Friday for the very
first time, the very first time, and again I talked
about this at length and revenge, which is why I'm
hoping that you buy the book so that you understand
where I'm coming from on this. What happened was they called,
they spoke with my lawyer on a Thursday and told
him that they that he has until tomorrow, Friday, in
order to meet with them. But I wasn't allowed to
be at that meeting, which is unusual in and of itself. Okay,
my lawyer says to me, we at least we're getting
a chance to finally speak to them after four and
a half months. Friday, at five point thirty pm, we
get the phone call, turns around and says, if you
don't come in on Monday and plead guilty to charges
that they're going to tell you about tomorrow when you
see me at eight am in the morning at my office.
They're going to file an eighty page indictment that's going
to include that's going to include your wife. And again,
you know that's that that's my achilles heel. There was
no way that I was going to do knowing that
I am guilty. I am guilty of the campaign finance
violation for Stormy Daniels. Not only did they charge me
with the Stormy Daniels, which was accurate, but they charged
me with Karen McDougall as well, which if you google
it you will see that David Pecker AMI and the
National Inquirer that they're the ones that paid one hundred
and fifty thousand. I just looked at the contract in
order to ensure that Donald was protected in the event
that David Pecker ever left the National Inquirer and went
to Time Inc. Where he was supposed to or they
were looking at him for the next editor in chief.
These are the problems. This is what happens when you
have a corrupt president with a willing and complicit attorney general.
They can take your rights and they can destroy it.
And so again I want Jeffrey Berman, and I want
others including it, whether it's any of these other lawyers, Kazamio,
whoever it might be. I want them to be held
accountable for their actions, which they should. And so I
just want to just read this one additional paragraph to you,
because I think you'll fully understand the anger and why
I am as angry about this as I am. Mister
Berman's refusal to notify anyone was intentional despite knowing and
acknowledging the improper pressure being applied by Main Justice. In fact,
mister Burman states so in the book, and he writes,
and I quote, I wanted people to understand the full
scope of the outrageous and improper political interference by Trump's
Justice Department in the cases of the Southern District of
New York. That demonstrates what Trump is capable of and
what he's likely to do right. Mister Berman further states,
and I quote again, and it also provides a frontline
view of just how vulnerable our justice system is. Now,
that's finally a statement by mister Berman that I agree with.
Our justice system is vulnerable because the people like mister Berman,
people who are in power and use that for their
own benefit and their own advancement. That's the problem here.
And folks, you know, I'm fighting this fight for all
of us because when they violate my first Amendment, constitutional right,
my fourth Amendment, my eighth Amendment, I'm just the first
in the long line of people that they intend to
do it to. And so I will continue to fight
every single day. I will continue to cooperate with law enforcement,
with Congress, with whoever asks me. I'm asking them right
to ensure that our democracy continues based upon a system
whereby justice is blind to us. All that's what I'm
asking for. And look, I even asked this new subcommittee
that Jim Jordan put together, the Weaponization Subcommittee, one of
the things that we said, and I did it through
my lawyer. I have plenty of lawyers going on now
with all these various cases, but this is Jeff Levine.
He's a friend of mine since we're in great school.
So he puts in a letter on my behalf and
with me stating that we would like my case, the
United States versus Michael Cohen, to be considered as one
of the cases that this subcommittee is going to look at. Now.
I am hoping, I'm not confident, but I am hopeful
that Jim Jordan's goal is to restore the integrity of
the DOJ and to uncover the weaponization regardless of who
it is, thereby ensuring that this committee is actually a
bipartisan committee and not designed for the sole purpose of
going after Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, doctor Fauci, or whoever
else that they have an acts to grind. And why
do I bring this up because this specific instance, is
identical to what I'm doing now with Berman. It's the
same thing. If this is going to be partisan, then
it is. It becomes the kangaroo court, and every single
one of us, every single one of us, can be
on the wrong side of this, just as I was.
I mean, think about it, this three hundred and sixty
million Americans. Somehow all of this bullshit ended up coming together,
and I was dead center. I was right at the
epicenter of this which is unjust, unconstitutional, and for the
most part illegal, and we all together need to ensure
that this bullshit stops, and it stops today.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about the weaponization of the Department
of Justice under Donald Trump and talk about actually the
transparency of the DOJ today. This is also where when
it comes to the Maga Republicans, you know, be careful
what you ask for. I don't know if you saw
this Cohen, but of course the MAGA Republicans said, we
want information in ongoing criminal investigations, and the Department of
Justice said, we'll show you what we're allowed to show you.
But we're the executive branch. We're not going to let
you compromise our investigations. But the DOJ in the Office
for the Director of National Intelligence just went to the
Gang of Eight, which is made up of House leaders
and Senate leaders, Democrats and Republicans, and said, we'll brief
you on the classified records and the documents that we
found during the search warrant executed at mar A Lago,
as well as all of the other documents we obtained
in connection with that investigation. And so you know, the
next thing once the DOJ shows. By the way, I'll
say one other thing though, in the past, when the
DOJ has done that and shared information, it was imminently
preceding charging decisions.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that's what's going.
Speaker 1: On here, but they've usually shared it so they depoliticize
any actual criminal case being filed. But you know, then
the MAGA republics when they when they see this, they
may basically say, oh, it's all manipulated, it's all it's
all fake news, it's all whatever. But the DOJ was like,
all right, you want you want to see this stuff.
You want to see this stuff, and we'll talk about
the spy balloon in a little bit. But it's kind
of like, Okay, you know, you're just going to engage
in your performative Maga Republican.
Speaker 3: BS, let's tell you the facts.
Speaker 1: You know, with that spy balloon thing where you were
saying Biden was weak, actually immediately Biden put in protocols
in place to address the threat, and then found that
there was at least three separate occasions during the Trump
administration where Chinese spy balloons crossed into the continental US.
Whether it was incompetence or intentional cover up. The Trump
administration did nothing about it, whereas the Biden administration took
immediate steps. And then the Maga Republicans immediately go into, oh,
it's the deep state, it's the woke Department of Defense,
you know, and then they go, Democrats are trying to
take away your chocolate milk.
Speaker 3: I don't not lying about that.
Speaker 1: They said that was their new one, that Democrats are
trying to take away your chocolate milk. But it is
be careful what you ask for. DJ said that they
will and the O D and I said, we'll do
a brief with these eight kind of you know, top
people in the House and the Senate.
Speaker 3: And so I'm curious, which you think what's going to
happen there?
Speaker 1: But he clearly what we know is that you know this.
Speaker 3: From his past.
Speaker 1: It's all with intent, it's all with malice, like he's
taking these documents not as momento some maybe, but by
and large for the transactional purpose of empowering him and
blackmailing people. I mean, isn't that what you expect to
find when when we actually learn for sure what these
documents were.
Speaker 2: Well, I was actually I think the first one who
came out and said, and I think was on MSNBC
with Nicole Wallace when I turned around and said, he
took those for the sole purpose of using is and
get out of jail free card. It's one of two things.
He'll either turn around and say if you indict me,
if you come after my family, if you try to
hurt me. I have, you know, these documents in multiple
places with people who are ready to drop them into
the mail, And we're going to drop them in the
mail to Kim Jung Un. We're going to send them
to Mohammad Ben Salman, We're going to send them to Irdawan,
We're going to send them to you know whoever our
you know adversaries are, and so good luck to you
in national security. That's that's the way I see Donald
Trump behaving with some of these documents. Now, you're right,
some of these documents are momentos. For example, his love
letters with Kim Jung un. I mean, in and of itself,
it's just like a freaking weird thing for somebody to
say you love letters from, you know, Kim Jong un
to me. I just found the whole thing to be strange.
But at the end of the day, I think he
uses it as a get out of jail free card.
And also I wouldn't be shocked if he's financially benefiting
from it. You're right, we will ultimately, I hope one day,
ultimately we find out what those documents are. I'll be
honest with you, I don't have high hopes for that,
only because they're top secret, and so I don't even
believe that they will tell you what the overall general
document was even about. Which again, one of the things
that we all look for here, not just on this
you know, political beatdown or any of the minus or
my meacopo or anywhere. One of the things we're looking
for from our from our people, from our government, from
our we'll call them, our media, is transparency. We want
to know the truth, because what happens is when you're
not given the facts, When you're not given the truth,
then the hypotheticals come out, the innuendos come out, the
speculation comes out, and all of that just starts to
run them up, and most of it isn't worth shit.
They're just people making stuff up. Why did they make
it up so that they can say something salacious that'll
get them their their bait clicks or clickbaits or whatever
you call that, or get them more attention so that
they'll have their five minutes on cable news or whatnot.
This is not what we need. We need facts, No
more alternative facts, but legitimate facts of what's going on now.
One of the things that we tried to do is
not to insert our personal opinions into it. What I'm
trying to do is give you facts that occurred in
the past and to apply them to where we are
and what's happening now. That doesn't mean necessarily that I'm
going to be one hundred percent accurate, but I do
want to remind everybody that I was the first person
who turned around and said that if Donald Trump loses
the presidency, my biggest fear is that he will that
there will never be another peaceful transfer of power. Again,
I also turned around and I said about fifteen or
twenty other things ranging from his inflation, deflation of the assets, etc.
Which all again turned out to be true. Why because
I know Frankenstein. I know him because unfortunately and stupidly,
I was partially responsible for building Frankenstein. And I do
believe that it is my obligation, it is my obligation
to ensure that we put Frankenstein back into the box,
because if not, I guarantee you that America that we know,
the America that we grew up to, that we grew
up with, will not be the America that our children, grandchildren,
great grandchildren will see. They are already at it in
order to destroy democracy, to destroy our constitutional rights. And
you know, one of the things that got Ben and
I to start this podcast is that we turned around
and we said, there are things that we can offer
to the public to our political beat down family. There
are things that we can offer to you that you
will not hear on cable news, that you will not
read in the newspaper. And it's said because again, it's
all about transparency and that's the one thing that I
promise you that you're going to get from Ben and
I here is full transparency.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons too.
Speaker 1: You talked about the flaws of large media networks, and
also the way they buy into these labels, the way
they buy into this idea that there's this is what
a liberal is, this is what a conservative is. You
know when they call people like Marjorie Taylor Green and
Matt Gates conservative, and I say, there's nothing conservative about
these people. I mean, these are fascists, these are traders.
Stop calling them conservative. If you lined up my views
buy and large, I will pretty much check the box
of someone who is liberal and progressive in a traditional sense.
But I don't like to identify as that because I
think I'm more fiscally conservative than any of the MAGA Republicans,
and I think that I'm in general more conservative in
the sense that I believe in our democracy. I believe
the Constitution shouldn't be terminated. I am against election denihilism.
I believe in free and fair elections. I believe insurrections
are bad. I believe global pandemics are bad. I believe
in fighting for the American worker. I believe when it
comes to the debt ceiling, that American needs to pay
its bills, especially you know, and frustratingly the bills that were.
Speaker 3: Created by Maga Republicans.
Speaker 1: I mean, Trump added twenty five percent to our national debt.
You want to go back to George W. Bush, you
want to go back to Ronald Reagan. I mean, they
were absolute disasters for our national debt and our deficit.
And it's just facts. It's in the data. So they
go around and say America first, America first, fiscal conservatives, conservatives,
fiscal hawks. It's like, all right, less, total bullshit. You're
just saying words, and if you don't scrutinize the words
and you accept the narratives, you create false dichotomies, which
result in, for by and large, most people in the
country who are not so critically focused on the politics
the way we are and we're trying to make sure
more people get educated, people believe that that's actually what
the choice is. When in fact, you want to talk
about jobs. You want to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs,
I mean, you're talking about the January jobs report that
just came out. We're talking about five hundred and seventeen
thousand new jobs that were created in January alone. We're
talking about twelve million jobs that were created since Biden
took office. We're talking about the lowest unemployment rate essentially
in American history or definitely since nineteen sixty nine. I mean,
we're talking about seven thousand infrastructure projects right now that
are underway, literally building bridges and paving roads and improving
and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Right
You're talking about things like the Chips Act bringing the
semiconductor industry here. There'll be twenty thousand infrastructure projects in
the next few months taking place, which is jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: In the MAGA, Republicans they want to talk about all
this dumb shit, right they want to talk about the
green eminem this and the purple eminem that the Democrats
are coming for your gas stoves. And then you got
you know, DeSantis, even though people don't use gas stoves
in Florida, I'm I'm going to put a tax exemptions
on gas stoves. They're trying to take away your stoves,
you know, just appealing to utter stupidity and perpetuating it.
The exact opposite of what leadership should be about you
got Democrats focused on.
Speaker 3: This is the thing, Like.
Speaker 1: If even with all, even with all of those accomplishments
that I mentioned, if Biden were to post one QAnon
tweet and it turned out that he really sent it,
you know, or any Democratic leader you know sent one
q and on tweet. Even with all of those accomplishments
that I just listed, I could go on and on
and on talk about lowering prescription drug prices, talking about
making education more accessible and affordable, lowering the cost of insulin.
I mean, I could go on and on for days here,
But one tweet that praised q Andon or that did
a QAnon mean I'm out.
Speaker 3: I'm out.
Speaker 1: I'm saying I don't support that crazy stuff. And on
the MAGA Republican side, every single day Trump.
Speaker 3: Posts q and on post.
Speaker 1: This is actually a death cult. I mean, the whole
MAGA movement is a death cult. But the large media
networks present that as a legitimate political party. That's why
I'm happy we're changing that dynamic here. And you know,
when we're going to talk about the state of the
Union tonight, we're going to broadcast that live here on
the Minus Touch network. We have to push back against
that insanity, those lies the dangerous fascism meets idiocracy. It's
like a unique strand Cohen, because you know, I think
the one positive thing, frankly, is that Trump was too
big of an idiot to ultimately implement his fascist designs.
But each and every day they're still working.
Speaker 3: To achieve that. And that's why.
Speaker 1: That's why what we're doing here, the community here, Why
we need people to subscribe here, why we need people
to subscribe to the podcast. Wherever you get your audio
podcast search Political Beatdown, subcritcribed to Cohen's other podcast, Maya Kulpa,
Subscribe to all of the Midas Touch network podcasts. We
have to build this community. It is existential.
Speaker 2: But you know something, Ben, one of the bigger problems
that we have here is yes, I will acknowledge and
you are correct that Trump is an idiot. He's as
dumb as they come. However, what happens when the next
Donald Trump surfaces Let's just call them Ron death Santis, right,
and I say death Santis because of his the way
that he wanted to handle COVID in the state of Florida.
But putting all of that aside, Ron de Santis is
not stupid. Ron de Santis is actually an incredibly bright
man who is a Donald Trump two point zero. That's
the big problem that we all have to contend with
what trump Ism exists, and it is not going away
anytime soon. So we have to be concerned with the
next Donald Trump two point zero, the guy who's smarter, slicker,
and better funded then Donald will be because right now,
my understanding is all of the big GOP donors have
all walked away from him in search for somebody else.
And that's that's one of the things again that we
talk about. It's why facts matter. No more innuendo facts,
no more opinions, no more alternative facts, only pure facts
in terms of what's wrong, what needs to be fixed,
and what we collectively can do to fix it.
Speaker 1: Cohen, I couldn't agree more with you.
Speaker 3: What are you looking to hear on tonight's State of
the Union.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously Joe Biden needs the whole Democratic Party
and you know, I don't want to be, you know,
critical of the DNC here, but one of the biggest
problems that Democrats have had for many many years now,
I mean many many years is the fact that the
messaging is really bad, especially in comparison to the Republicans,
regardless of what whether it's predicated on lies or not,
the Democrats have to get the better messaging out if
you ask people, look at what's happening right now. Statistically,
Joe Biden has had the greatest job creation since nineteen
sixty nine. On top of that, you saw the extrication
of the United States from Afghanistan. On top of that,
you've seen the price of gasoline drop and drop drastically.
You've seen the economy start to make a rebound. You've
seen the passage of the infrastructure bill. The man has
accomplished quite a bit. Now, if you compare his accomplishments
to the most recent poll that just came out, his
unfavorables are incredibly high. They're higher than clearly what they
should be. And why is that Because again, the Republican
narrative is so strong, and they use the media oh
well in terms of promoting this misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, where
even Democrats are now saying that Joe Biden hasn't accomplished
enough in his first two years. And so I believe
tonight we're going to see Joe Biden spend an inordinate
amount of time talking about his accomplishments and talking about
unity and what needs to be done so that we're
not in the way we were, for example, in the
Civil War, except now it's not black versus white, it's
now Republican versus Democrat, or Democrat versus Republican. And I
think he really needs to hammer home the accomplishments. And
I hate to say something that you don't see ever happen.
I believe you have to use visuals. And the reason
I say that is because most Americans, they don't pay
attention enough to just what's being said. They need they
need these aids, these tools in order to show them,
and I think some very simple tools in order to
demonstrate how well the economy is doing right now, how
gas prices have gone down, how you know job numbers
have gone up. Now you can also get a bunch
of analysts that have come in afterwards and say that,
you know, having this low unemployment is not good for
the economy because what it does is it's going to
cause a need for additional interest rate heights, and it's
not going to put an end to inslation. Blah blah blah.
Because these guys know what they're talking about. These are
the same fucking assholes that if you go ahead, you
look at your four oh one K, they're down forty percent.
So before we listen to them and their stupidity, they're
basically only in it for themselves. And this is another
problem that America is now facing. We need to be
about America, we need to be about each other. And
it's why again I believe unity is so important. In
Joe Biden's speech talking about how he's trying to meet
with you know, Mitch McConnell, how he's trying to meet
with the Jim Jordans and the Gang of Aid and
so on, how he's trying to meet with everybody so
that they can do their job. And one of the
things we all need to again do is we need
to hammer into the minds of our representatives that we
don't work for them, they work for us, and until
they start to do that, that we're not going to
support them any longer. And just wait till the next
election cycle when we're going to vote you out. And
I don't care who's running against you, because you're not
acting for the benefit of your constituents. Now again, I
don't say that to all of them. I'm talking to
about the ones that we all know that legitimately need
to go.
Speaker 1: State of the Union starts this evening at nine eastern
six Pacific. The pre coverage begins here on the Midas
Touch Network at seven thirty eastern four thirty Pacific. We
will see you then, Cohen, what a great episode of
the political Beatdown. Everybody, make sure you don't just subscribe
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words before we go.
Speaker 2: Final words, Stay tuned. We will be back Thursday for
the next one, where I will be able to give
you some more inside information on the District Attorney's case,
how it's proceeding. Won't be able to share with you
the exact details, but believe me, you will know before
everybody else. So I wish everybody a wonderful day. Watch
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Speaker 1: This is the political beatdown. Ben Mice Ellis, Michael Cohen.
Until next time, Shout out to the Midas Mighty