Apophasis – FT#148

30 Apr Apophasis – FT#148

Posted at 00:16h in Fallacies by
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Show Notes

Apophasis occurs when someone raises a subject by claiming they are not going to mention it.

Trump

We started out by discussing this clip of Trump insulting Rand Paul:

And then we looked at this clip of Trump insulting Carly Fiorina

Finally, we talked about this tweet in which Trump insulted Kim Jong Un:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about this clip of Jess Phillips diplomatically calling Boris Johnson a liar:

He followed that up by talking about this clip of Boris lying:

Then he talked about Sadiq Khan and Susan Hall combattively agreeing about school lunches:

He talked about this brilliant clip of Joe Lycett talking about Liz Truss:

And he finished with James O’Brien’s thoughts on Liz Truss:

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Friends:

Then we discussed this clip from Good Morning Vietnam:

And we finished with this clip from Monty Python’s Flying Circus

 

Fake News

Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game:

  1. Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit, right? And you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know sand is heavy, they figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy, and he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people.
  2. Today we have, I won’t say names, because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like – Michael Jackson once told me, “The most handsome man, Trump, in the world.” “Who?” “Cary Grant.” Well, we don’t have that any more, but Cary Grant at 81 or 82, going on 100. This guy, he’s 81, going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit, either. And he was – he was pretty good-looking, right?
  3. Cary Grant was man. You know what I mean? That’s what they used to say, but more than that he was a real movie star, and there are no movie stars any more. No real movie stars. People say George Clooney – they love George Clooney – let me tell you, he’s no Cary Grant. And you know he’s not exactly, like, a smart person. I mean, he liked Hillary, so what more do you need to… But he’s very stupid and frankly very overrated. And his wife is a horrible, horrible person.

Mark got it wrong again this week, and is on 51%!

 

The Trump Trial is not a logical fallacy

We talked about testimony in week one of Trump’s first criminal trial.

 

The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about

  • If there’s one thing the John Wick franchise has taught us it’s that you can kill 439 people in a variety of creative ways and still be the hero, but if you kill one motherfucking dog, everyone agrees you’re the bad guy. South Dakota Governor and Trump VP hopeful Kristi Noem either hasn’t seen John Wick or spent most of the first movie wondering why John was so pissed. It seems that Kristi had a puppy a few years ago called Cricket. She hoped Cricket would be a hunting dog, but the puppy was too excitable and bitey and Kristi couldn’t be bothered to put in the effort to train her, so she took her to a gravel pit and shot her. Then, since she already had her gun out, she dragged an aggressive male goat she couldn’t be bothered to castrate to the gravel pit and shot him too, although that one took a couple of goes because goats don’t just sit there wagging their tails, looking lovingly at you and wondering why you’re pointing a shotgun in their face. It’s pretty impressive that the Democrats found this horrific piece of oppo research on Kristi and released it at the exact time everyone’s speculating about who Trump will pick as a running mate, but what’s even more impressive is that they somehow convinced her to be the first one to break the story by writing about it in her own upcoming autobiography. When the Guardian reported on the book passages, Kristi doubled down, claiming that sometimes when you’re a farmer you have to kill a puppy, although she didn’t say it like that, but she did decide that part of her response should definitely be to tell us about three horses she recently killed and then plug her book. Even right wing pundits, from the regular hateful ones like Meghan McCain all the way out to whackjobs like Laura Loomer and Catturd came out against shooting puppies in the face, while Democrats fought cruelty with fluffy wholesomeness. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris posted pictures of themselves playing with their four legged friends, and Democrat Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz tweeted a pic of himself feeding his dog a treat with the caption “Post a picture with your dog that doesn’t involve shooting them and throwing them in a gravel pit,” and several blue state governors including Gretchen Whitmer and Phil Murphy obliged. 
  • You know that episode when Ross moves into the apartment across from Monica and Rachel having taken cookies to and got naked with Ugly Naked Guy, and then he fell foul of the residents association cos he was just, you know, too Ross for them. Well the residents of Trump Plaza are getting a bit miffed that ironically the value of their apartments is underperforming, don’t tell Letitia James for gawd’s sake, not cos Trump’s lying about the value for tax reasons – nope it’s cos his name’s on the building. The owners of Trump Plaza apartments – there are 194 units – are in the middle of a vote which would erase Trump’s name. Trump Plaza is located in the center of New Rochelle, a couple of blocks from restaurants and the local movie theater. Renaming the building would spare residents and workers in this racially diverse city of 80,000 people from encountering, at least visually, the Trump name. Trump Plaza was not built by Trump, but was instead constructed by Cappelli Enterprises, which then signed an agreement which saw the Trump Association manage the high-rise. That agreement was terminated by the Trump Plaza board in 2021, but the Trump name remains atop the entrance. In February the New York Times reported that after Trump became president the value of apartments in buildings bearing his name had underperformed market value. Buildings which had stripped the Trump name had seen their value shoot back up. Greg Root, the president of the condo board at Trump Plaza, told the New York Post that a “silent majority” of owners supported the name change. One neighbour Yvette remarked; “I don’t like him. He did too much ugliness. And it’s not like he tried to hide it, he did it in plain sight. Talking about people, shitholes. He’s just the devil himself. That’s how I look at it, I don’t care for it. And I hope he gets what he deserves.” I’m guessing she probably got turned down for that jury duty!
  • We’ve been dreaming about Trump spending time behind bars for a long time now, but back in those innocent early days when people were fantasizing that he might be held to account for all the crimes Mueller investigated, one of the hypotheticals we talked about was what about Secret Service protection? Former Presidents get Secret Service protection for life, and there’s no law that says that ends if they go to prison, but you can’t incarcerate innocent Secret Service agents. It’s essentially the same logic that supposedly kept conjoined twins Chang and Eng out of jail when Chang punched a guy in Philadelphia. Eng hadn’t done anything wrong, so couldn’t be locked up. All very well as a hypothetical back then, but now Trump is one really good gag order violation away from spending the night in lockup, and unless the Supreme Court decides ex-Presidents are immune from all crime, there’s at least a possibility the hypothetical could be tested if any of the bigger trials actually happen. Step forward former Jan 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson with one weird trick ex-Presidents don’t want you to know about which could solve all our problems. Bennie has introduced a bill that would strip Secret Service protection from individuals who would otherwise qualify for it if they are convicted of a felony. Or 87. Why has it taken all this time to come up with what now seems like an obvious solution? Well, I’m guessing Bennie and his team have been holed up in a room working on the perfect acronym-based name for the bill, and all the time was well spent. The bill is called the “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable Former Protectees Act” which, as the quick of thought among you will already figured out, can be shortened to the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act. Come on Bennie, get it passed quickly, I bet Trump has a particularly vicious attack on the judge’s daughter in his Truth Social draft folder, and he won’t be able to hold on to it for long. 
  • This one kind of feels like the emperor’s new clothes – you know someone who’s patently shall we say stupid and bombastic and pompous enough to have bought the idea that a suit made of the finest thread that only he could see it would also surround himself with people that would keep telling him the good news that he’s stylish and handsome and well-dressed and the source of much happiness, it turns out in a way that we’re not the only one’s looking for scraps of news to keep us amused. This week, as the Stormy Daniels hush money trial kicked off, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted the presence of a figure in court whose job responsibility sounded like a joke, writing that her job was to carry around a “wireless printer” to provide the former president with an “ongoing stream of good news from the internet.” Weaving together the thinnest of threads from tissues of slivers of happiness to adorn the stupid fat face of Trump – I hesitate to say stupid fat er-brain cos you know … brain?! But it turns out that the aide is very real. Her name is Natalie Harp, a former One America News anchor who joined Trump’s communications team in March 2022. According to reporting that year by the Washington Post, Harp would even accompanyTrump on golf trips in a cart “equipped with a laptop and sometimes a printer to show him uplifting news articles, online posts, or other materials.” Other aides were tasked with asking Trump’s allies to call him and “boost his spirits with positive affirmations.” How they are managing in amongst the acres and acres of internet space being taken up with the criming of one Donald J Trump it must be increasingly difficult to find those nuggets of uplift. You don’t think they’re making them up do you? At some point an unknowing aide will get Natalie to print out what they think is an hilarious picture that is sure to amuse DJT and it will be of a small boy pointing out Donnie’s own butt nakedness legally-speaking to the gawping onlookers. Oh how we’ll laugh at altogether the very least that Trump has ever been! 
  • Trump’s been indicted for a lot of crimes. Like, way more than average even for a member of the Trump administration, and that average is pretty high. But it pales in comparison to the number of crimes Trump pretty much definitely did, often in public before boasting about it on camera, for which he hasn’t yet been indicted. For example, in a pre-trial hearing in the Michigan fake electors trial where Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 fake Republican electors, a lead investigator revealed on Wednesday that the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case includes Trump, Giuliani, Mark Meadows and Jenna Ellis. Incidentally, that list of 16 fake electors is now down to 15 after one had their charges dropped after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. Not to be outdone, on the very same day an Arizona Grand Jury indicted 11 fake electors in an identical scheme, and this time we didn’t have to wait to find out that Trump is “unindicted co-conspirator #1” in that case. Meadows, Ellis and Giuliani can’t keep him company in the ‘to be indicted’ waiting room in Arizona though, because they’ve been indicted in the case, along with the 11 electors and 4 more Trump allies including John Eastman, Christina Bobb and Boris Epshteyn. There are a few other unindicted co-conspirators in the Arizona case though, most importantly, unindicted co-conspirator #4, our favorite one of Trump’s Georgia co-defendants, the caseically named Ken Chesebro. I say most important because he was basically the architect of the scheme and went to Arizona to talk to the now indicted fake electors before they submitted their fake certificate, so the only plausible reason that he remains unindicted is that he too is cooperating with the prosecutors. So I hope Trump likes cheese. And… and bros. 
  • In a move that is of course purely designed not to raise money for themselves but rather to dissuade “scammers” from using Trump’s brand without his permission and diluting his ability to raise cash the RNC is demanding that Down-ballot Republican candidates and committees using Trump’s name or image in fundraising appeals donate 5% of funds raised to Trump National Committee JFC. “Any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations.” There’s the carrot – the stick contained in the letter to all prospective candidates asks that candidates not speak “on behalf of President Trump,” “mention of the President’s family without their consent or the consent of the campaign,” or [impersonate] President Trump or his campaign.” “Any vendor whose clients ignore the guidelines mentioned above will be held responsible for their clients’ actions,” and that “Repeated violations will result in the suspension of business relationships between the vendor and Trump National Committee JFC.” It reminds me of the control Colonel Parker had over Elvis’ brand or the somewhat worse hold that the Kowalski’s have over the Bob Ross name, and in Trump’s case it might be slightly less evil than that one! I’m scratching my chin momentarily wondering why the main man would have to start charging those kinda riding on his ticket, something to do with a lack of funds perhaps – I wonder why!! Also don’t you think the candidates down the food chain might just start to think they might be better off simply unhooking the one-wheeled broken down Trump bandwagon they increasingly appear to be having to drag around? Just sell them sneakers, bibles and trading cards Donald they’re sure to snap those up – just like the rest of us did hardy-har-har!!
  • You don’t hang around with Trump for 25 years, desperately trying not to breathe in when he farts, without picking up a thing or two about grifting the rubes. So, having figured out that her share of the divorce settlement gets smaller with every day Trump spends fighting to stay awake in court, Melania has added a new tab to her website, where you could already spend $35 on a hideous red, white blue and gold Christmas ornament, or $150 on a very limited range of ‘digital collectibles’ that are somehow not as good as Trump’s NFTs. Her new ‘jewelry’ range includes a single item – a mother’s day themed necklace designed by Melania herself to look kind of like a flower a child might draw if they’d never seen a flower or drawn anything before, or like a designer might draw if, when you said ‘flower’, they heard ‘shamrock’. Maybe after the whole Easter Sunday/Trans Day of Visibility alignment, Melania thought that happens with all holidays and is hoping Mother’s Day is going to fall on St Patrick’s day soon and she’ll really clean up. Anyway, for the low, low price of $245, you can have three words engraved on the necklace in an awkward configuration where you can’t quite tell what order they’re supposed to be in because each word is on a different petal, or shamrock leaf or whatever, and your Mom can pretend not to hate it like she did when you were six and you brought home a shitty bowl you made at camp which mysteriously broke like a week later. 
  • In the week when four horses ran wild through London and nobody thought ‘hang on… apocalypse!’ you might have thought it was safe to go back in the water when the ghost of Cruella DeBraverman resurfaced like the creature from the black lagoon to haunt the Rwanda bill which got forced through last week despite many many many sensible amendment demands from the House of Lords. Including – yeah so how do you know it’s actually safe just cos you said so – has anyone done any actual looking – I’m sure there are arguments from philosophy for instance that doesn’t allow you just to do murder cos you say it’s okay? And now, as Suella dreamed of, the round-ups of unprocessed – deliberately left unprocessed under her reign in the home office – immigrants – and therefore illegals – again cos we said so – will begin. Determined to be seen to be doing fucking something about the 5 (clangingly empty) pledges that Sunak made before the country ousts him on his tiny ears under a landslide of local and mayoral elections on May 2nd, and thus heap mountains of earth and calumny on him whenever he sees fit to call a general election, he’s going to spend about £1.9 million per person flying someone, anyone, please let it be Gove, Braverman, Truss FFS to Rwanda. Meanwhile immigrants in Northern Ireland are crossing the border into the Republic to avoid being deported, and the Irish government is saying oh we’ll send them back to the UK it’s their problem. Not enamoured of the very rhetoric that they themselves have used to every other country in the world, the British government is saying “oh no you don’t they’re not our problem they’re yours”, and also in some twisted logic saying you see the Rwanda policy is working cos they’re all leaving the UK in order not to go there? We all know it isn’t working and Starmer will rescind it and spend the millions on helping to integrate, house, educate and enhance the lives of people welcomed to our shores fleeing from conflict that the UK government is desperate not to be seen selling arms into. Oh happy day, oh happy day. And I’ve got to come back to the sceptic isle from France next week – yep looking forward to that!

Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr

That’s almost all for this week, but here’s our AI-aided and minimally hand-edited transcript which is at least quite accurate, but not totally:

Apophasis – FT#148 Transcript

Jim: hello, and welcome to Fallacious Trump, the podcast where we use the insane ramblings of Don Snorley Oni to explain logical fallacies. I’m your host, Jim.

Mark: And I’m your other host, Mark. The logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that results in bad or invalid arguments. And the logical fallacy we’re looking at this week is apophysis. And we managed to sneak in Don Paulone via spoiled when that turned up. Yeah, when that popped up. Yeah. That is great. Somebody’s on a roll somewhere. Don Snorli only.

Jim: Excellent.

Mark: That’s excellent.

Jim: So apophysis is really kind of a rhetorical device, but rhetorical devices are, equally fallacious when you’re using them in arguments, really. And this one is where someone raises a topic of discussion, usually a controversial one, by pretending that they’re not raising it, denying the thing or denying that they’re going to talk about it. Right.

Mark: In order to protect themselves from accusations that they’re talking directly about it.

Jim: Kind of, yeah. It’s not very convincing.

Mark: Right. It’s a bit transparent, isn’t it?

Jim: Yeah. It seems to kind of give a very, very thin veneer of taking the moral high ground. You know, I’m not going to talk about the awful things that my opponent does.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And by doing that, you’re saying my opponent does awful things without saying it.

Mark: Barely. Without saying it.

Jim: Yeah, you are saying it and everyone knows that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. But then you could legitimately. Mmm. The world legit. Legitimately. Then you could say, well, I didn’t say it. Wasn’t saying.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So our first example this week is from the first republican primary debate back when Trump was running first time against, you know, actual politicians, albeit Republicans. Right, right. And Rand Paul had, ah, this to.

Mark: Say, his visceral response to attack people on their appearance. Short, tall, fat, ugly. My goodness, that happened in junior high. Are we not way above that? And would we not all be worried to have someone like that in charge.

Jim: Of the nuclear arsenal?

Mark: Mister Trump, I never attacked him on his look. And believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there. So that.

Jim: Yeah, so, no, we’re not above that, apparently.

Mark: Yeah, no, no, that’s what we’re just going, yeah, he is, as Biden said, a six year old. Ah, so he’s just kind of said all that stuff and then, he just goes over and he just out and out immediately. Yeah, well, I didn’t call him that. And, boy, I could. That’s right. Yeah, yeah. No, it’s a kind of a, it’s a comedic device as well, so. And that’s what distracts from it. it turns into it. Well, it’s just locker room, so banter, isn’t it?

Jim: It’s a way of getting away with it a bit.

Mark: Yeah. You can actually be exactly what the guy directly said he was. He didn’t say, I’m not one to say that. Yeah, Trump is behaving like somebody, but, you know, a kid in the playground at junior high. But this is what he does. He actually says, this is what he does. And then Trump comes back as, yeah, but what are you.

Jim: And sometimes it’s even more blatant than that, beyond any kind of realms of possible arguments of plausible deniability. such as when he said this about Carly Fiorina.

Mark: So I promised that I wouldn’t say, and I said it to myself, I promised I wouldn’t say that she ran Hewlett Packard into the ground. I said I will not say it. That her stock value tanked, that she laid off tens of thousands of people and she got viciously fired. I said, I will not say that. And that she then went out and ran against Barbara Boxer for the United States Senate in California. And it’s a race that should have been won and she lost in a landslide. And I said, I will not say that. Okay. All right. So I’m not going to say it.

Jim: So.

Mark: Whoa.

Jim: I think ours mostly for comedy value, really, rather than any actual kind of attempt at pretending he really was taking the moral high ground of not saying that stuff.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Because he went into some detail there.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: He added an extra few things that checked himself, and he does that thing. I, will not say that. And I said to myself, I will not say it.

Jim: Yeah. Promise my. I wouldn’t say.

Mark: I, promise myself won’t say it. So that somebody pointed that out. Chump comes into the room and he’ll say something, and then he will say that. He said that. I said to myself, what a great. What a great crowd on the way in. What a great crowd. I just said to myself, what a great crowd. Yeah, we heard you. We heard you say that. It doesn’t add any gravitas to what you’re saying. The main thing, you’ve said it to yourself.

Jim: I think he thinks it does, though. I think he thinks. Yeah, yeah. This is not. This is not me saying it. I heard this from. From Donald Trump. You know, he’s an authority, so.

Mark: Yeah, people are saying. People are saying this.

Jim: That’s where I get this information from.

Mark: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. It’s the only person. He’s the only person he listened to, let’s face it.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Wow, that’s. Jesus, that was kind of. He was so vehement that he wouldn’t say.

Jim: He’s definitely. Yeah. There’s no way you could drag it out of him. No, he wasn’t gonna say. No matter how.

Mark: Ever much you asked me to. I can’t, because I’ve. I’ve, you know, Pinky promised myself.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: it’s, you know, I’ve told myself that I wouldn’t, which is even stronger than just saying that I wouldn’t if that. I said I wouldn’t. And I told myself, I said I wouldn’t.

Jim: And some of that stuff was true of Carly Fiorina, and certainly at the time, after she was forced to resign from Hewlett Packard.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There were business analysts who were saying, oh, she was terrible. She was, you know, on some lists of the worst, CEO’s.

Mark: Right.

Jim: But there’s also business analysts since who said, actually, she was kind of really poorly treated and didn’t do a bad job with Hewlett Packard. You know, did. The merger with Compaq was. Was overall a, positive thing for both companies. And she laid the groundwork for some of the good stuff that HP has done since. And in fact, in terms of, like, firing lots of people. Yeah, she did do that after the merger. But prior to the merger, and then with the merger, the workforce doubled. So overall, there was a net gain in workforce, in employees for the two companies.

Mark: And the other thing that he tries to do in saying that he’s not going to say this stuff is align himself with the financial analysts who would have done the analysis and because analysts and said this stuff, and now he’s a aligning himself with those experts by saying, well, yeah, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: As if he had that in his head.

Jim: Oh, yeah, he worked it out because he’s a business genius, you know.

Mark: Oh, yes, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. You know, not ones to say that he isn’t a business and everything that he’s ever done has been ghost written and by his father.

Jim: We would never claim that.

Mark: We would never say no. We never claimed that. I promised myself that we wouldn’t. Yeah, no, of course we wouldn’t.

Jim: And of course, aside from being a business genius, he’s a foreign policy genius, as we all know. Oh, yeah. And one of the things that he said regarding foreign policy was when Kim Jong un called him a dotard. This was before they fell in love and had their summits and sent love letters to each other. Donald Trump tweeted, why would Kim Jong un insult me by calling me old when I would never call him short and fat?

Mark: So the fact you’ve written it down, that, and it’s not just putting. Never.

Jim: I wouldn’t call. I’m saying I wouldn’t call it. It’s a compliment. I say I wouldn’t call him short and fat.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: You can’t get angry about that.

Mark: Not only would I not say I wouldn’t publish it.

Jim: No.

Mark: On a public forum.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: To a million people.

Jim: Yeah, it’s a good thing.

Mark: No, I’d never do that. Yeah, it’s a good thing. Yeah, it’s a good thing.

Jim: I’ve, not done.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And now is the time, I think, for Marx, british politics corner.

Mark: So it’s not without precedent. It’s slightly more subtle in british politics, because despite all of the person that we’re going to be talking about efforts to derail politics, it’s a little more subtle. And there are rules in place where you can’t actually kind of say these things. So what happens is that, that this apophysis gets used because, like, in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords, you can’t say that somebody else is lying, when clearly they are. So you have to make up all these kind of rhetorical devices and you can’t directly insult somebody, even though you can effectively libel somebody, but you’re protected by, ah, parliamentary privilege. So you can libel people outside of the House of parliament. Houses of parliament, but within the House of parliament, you can’t be insulting directly to other members of parliament.

Jim: I think that’s the direct opposite of the us system. If I understand it right, I could be completely honest. But because they have the speech and debate clause, which essentially immunizes politicians from accusations of libel, provided they’re doing it in the chamber, they can say whatever the fuck they like about anyone, and the clause means that they can’t be sued for it. But in the houses of parliament, you can’t. You can’t say it.

Mark: Yeah, can’t do that. No. So it’s a. Whereas Trump is wielding a broadsword, it’s done more rapier, like, I think, in the houses of parliament. And, Jess Phillips, who’s the Labor MP and shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding since 2020, is here. A debate on the domestic violence bill in July 2019. I think it began its course through parliament in April that year. But July 2019 is around the time of the then toy leadership election, after Theresa May resigned, if you remember, after the failure of her Brexit withdrawal agreement to be voted through three times.

Jim: Vaguely remember that, yeah.

Mark: and Jess mentioned both of the candidates.

Jess Phillips: I know that she has said a. Number of times that both of the leadership candidates to be the prime minister in our country have agreed that they. Would take this forward. And, in fact, the foreign secretary’s team. Have confirm that they would be. But the member for Uxbridge’s team have yet to confirm that that is the case. and so I wonder if the minister could specifically share with us in this house. Far be it from me to suggest. That the member for Uxbridge is not always completely straightforward. If the member could share specifically what has been said, to her on. This matter by the member for Uxbridge.

Mark: So, the foreign secretary she mentions is holidaying whilst carpool fell, Jeremy Huntley. And the minister for Uxbridge she’s referring to is, of course, Boris Johnson, who I’m not saying, can’t give a straight answer, but, and I really like, far be it from me to say that he’s not very precise in his responses, ever yeah, which is like, excellent. Which made me think of the clip that I used in, episode 126, the accident fallacy. And here is Boris himself. I think he’s committing apophasis, where he’s literally not saying that the select committee investigating his misconduct in misleading parliament about partygate debacle in 2020 is a kangaroo court.

Charles Walker: Your supporters not saying you. I’m saying your supporters seem to want it both ways. They’re hoping that the evidence you’ve given. In 52 pages will exonerate you. But just in case that doesn’t happen, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize the committee to call us a kangaroo court.

Boris Johnson: I think that the. I don’t. I deprecate the term that you’ve just used. I don’t want to repeat, it, but I think the people will judge for themselves. On the basis of the evidence that you have produced on the fairness of this committee, I have every confidence that. You will, show that you can be fair.

Mark: So he’s not even saying. I’m not saying. Because he’s in a kind of. Some sort of self protecting super injunction. He’s not even saying, I’m not calling you a kangaroo court, but he’s saying. I’m not going to repeat the word you just said, but I’m sure that the people will say.

Jim: Do you think, I don’t know. I think maybe. I think I. Far better from me to suggest that you would ever be unfair about Boris Johnson. I’m not saying. There’s another thing I’m not saying. I’m not saying that Boris genuinely wasn’t calling it a kangaroo court or doesn’t agree with the people that called it, but I think in that exchange, I don’t think he was implying it was a kangaroo court by specifically saying he wouldn’t call it that and he’s sure they’ll be fair.

Mark: I guess it’s with the benefit of hindsight, because we know that at this point, he was at great pains not to be aligned with people that called it a kangaroo court until he was found guilty of.

Jim: Yeah, then he said outright, and then.

Mark: He said it outright, and he just went, yeah, yeah, they are kangaroo court. So I think he’s. I think this is his self protecting super injunction going on.

Jim: Maybe it is that he just needed to be more circumspect about it because. Because he was still in the throes of it all.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And if.

Mark: Yes, I’m not calling you a kangaroo court, but, yeah, you’re behaving in every single. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Maybe he had a heavy sense of irony when he was saying, I’m sure you’ll be fair.

Mark: Oh, yeah. Well, I think you can see in his, you know, when he says, I’m convinced that you can. He does that angry. You know, the anger is rising and he’s point pointing with his son. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he’s like, thumping the desk and go, I’m sure. And you just know that he’s trying to use the same words as people who are innocent but failing just to sound innocent. He’s, he’s. That’s what he has to laden with.

Jim: That’s the problem.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. It’s laden with guilt and it’s. Yeah. And I think that. That he’s not saying. I’m not saying is a ah. Is a ah. Wow. It’s a meta hypothesis. That’s what it is. It’s an apophysis of an apophysis. Yeah. Okay. So the third example. So if you think that was a bit squeaky, maybe this one might be so in the. But it just strikes me that something’s going on and I think it might be, might be this. So in the recent London mayoral debates. So there’s a mayor elections going on on May 2 and one of them is for the mayor of London. And the candidates, Labour’s incumbent mayor Sadiq Khan and the Tories candidate Susan hall, talked about free school meals. Last week they appeared on LBC radio and the week before on a tv debate. Susan hall has said free school meals should be means tested. And on last week’s LBC program, Sadiq set out his position for universal free meals. And I think that LBC’s Tom Swarbrick, who’s the presenter, utilizes the apophysis card to not say that Susan hall has changed her mind and therefore sets the trap that she falls into.

Sadiq Khan: I promise to extend free school meals. Permanently in primary schools if I’m elected. Universal free school meals.

Tom Swarbrick: So what was it about what Sadiq Khan said last week that you now agree with Susan hall on this question of free school meals?

Susan Hall: I’ve said all along, I would continue the policy. I’ve said that

Tom Swarbrick: last week you were. Telling another broadcaster that you disagreed with the principal.

Susan Hall: I think the term, free. I actually said there’s no such thing as a free meal and that that’s accurate. But I’ve said all along I would continue the policy. I agreed to it before Sadiq Khan.

Mark: Did and that’s just fun to listen to because it was Sadiq’s policy made whilst he’s currently in office. So how could she agree to the policy before he did? But yeah, so I think there’s something in there where he says, what is it that you now agree with? It’s a bit like. And we’ll play it later and see whether it’s a bit like misses Merton’s question to Debbie McGee. And I think what he’s saying is, or he’s trying not to say, you’re now disagreeing because he wants her, to walk into the trap and. And say, well, I said that all along, so that he can just say, well no you didn’t. And I think if he’d have been, less circumspect, then he would have been the one to make the claim. Whereas what she does is walk into it and then he could just point out that she’s a. He closes the trap. Let’s move on to Liz Truss. So this is where the crossover between politics and comedy actually happens. In the. In the hands of actual proper, professional comedians, this rhetorical device is just brilliantly done. So on, Lauren Kunzberg’s inaugural Sunday politics show, launched on the BBC on the 5 September 2022, which was the day that Liz Truss won the then leadership election, had so many of them, because post Boris and comedian Joe Lycett deftly wheeled the apophysis rapier to steer clear of being accused of being too left wing on the lefty BBC.

Joe Lycett: I think, you know, the haters will say that you’ve had twelve years of the Tories and that we’re sort of. At the dregs of what they’ve got available and that Liz Truss is sort. Of like the backwash of the available MP’s. I wouldn’t say that because I’m incredibly right wing, but some people might say that

Mark: it’s working on several levels because he’s avoiding people saying, oh, you would just say that because you’re left wing. So he’s saying, oh no, I’m incredibly right wing. The haters would say, you know, these very left wing observations, but I wouldn’t say that because I’m incredibly right wing.

Jim: He kept it going days on Twitter as well. When people were complaining about him appearing and attacking him for it, he was like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really love Liz Truss.

Mark: And you kind of. It’s. There’s a hidden apophasis, which is some people might think I’m taking the piss. And then the people that don’t understand what he’s doing just get really upset and it’s just perfectly done. And, of course, 50 days later, the lettuce outlasted truss. And now in April 2024, she’s got a book out where she rails in an unhinged, some might say Trump like fashion against the deep state woke ism and unelected leaders, holding them responsible for the demise of her disastrous premiership, which has got nothing to do with her ignorance of anything and everything fiscal. James O’Brien deploys the apophysis fallacy on LBC to end his observation of her ranting, about unelected leaders.

James O’Brien: The power exercised in Britain by unelected. People is a scandal, says a woman appointed by a hereditary monarch without recourse to a general election. Anyway, 1053 is the time I’m tempted. To ask what they’ve been smoking, but.that would be inappropriate.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the one that set me down this path. So there you go. Yeah, that’s. That kind of. You can say something completely inappropriate and outrageous and then say, yeah, well, I’m not going to say that. Say some might say, hm, you should stay in power so you can give more tax breaks to your friends. Some might say you fix it all.

Jim: M.

Mark: Oasis, of course, with some might say.

Jim: And in the fallacy in the wild, we like to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example this week comes from friends.

Mark: Yay.

Jim: This is an episode where, Monica has been accused of being a little bit uptight and is trying to prove how very actually relaxed she is about everything and is not concerned about cleanliness and all of that stuff.

Monica Geller: Chandler, you know, the old Monica would remind you to scrub that Teflon pan with a plastic brush. I’m not gonna do that.

Jim: No matter how much she’s trying to be chill and, and just kind of pretend that nothing bothers her. she can’t let her go.

Mark: She still comes out as really Monica. My favorite bit is when she was hoovering the hoover. She’s like, she’s cleaning the vacuum cleaner with a small vacuum cleaner, and then they all kind of come in, and then she says almost to herself, before she realizes they’re there, if only I had a smaller one to clean this one, it’d be like. Like the cat in the hat, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Things would get smaller and smaller. Yeah.

Jim: So I realized when we were talking about british politics earlier that I can’t understand why I didn’t think of this example, but I haven’t got it. I haven’t included it. But in the british version of House of Cards, some listeners may not realize that it was a british show. First, I never watched the US one, so I don’t know if they also did that in the one with Kevin Spacey. But in the british one, there was an MP who would quite frequently say, when someone said something, he said, he would say, you may say that. I couldn’t possibly comment. Right.

Mark: Ah, yes.

Jim: Which I kind of. It is like this, basically. He’s. He’s kind of saying, oh, I completely agree with you, but it would be inappropriate for me to say so.

Mark: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. It’s got. It smacks of yes, minister and thick of it. It releases you, and it’s no surprise then, to hear the likes of Boris. It kind of releases you from being held to account for saying something outrageous.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: By simply saying, oh, yeah. Well, I. But I couldn’t possibly say that. I could be seen to be saying such a thing. But I absolutely agree with you. We haven’t 100%. They’re the worst scum of the earth. humanity. Somebody said, there’s Tory scum, I think probably Diane Abbott. But if she just said, some might say, yeah, they are Tory scum, but I can’t possibly comment.

Jim: Yeah, yeah. It’s weird that that occurred. I spent time. I spent quite a lot of time coming up with the fellow, seeing the wild ones and thinking about all of the possibilities. And it only occurred to me, like, ten minutes ago now. Wow. So our next actually example I did think of is from good morning, Vietnam. And this is one of the kind of serious bits of the film. It’s a very excellent film with the late, great Robin Williams. His character, Adrian Cronauer is a, radio dj in Vietnam, and he is frustrated that he’s not allowed to tell people the truth about what’s really going on in Vietnam. And every. Every news story that he has has to be vetted by the station censors, and he ends up then not usually being able to actually tell people in.

Adrian Cronauer: Saigon today, according to official sources, nothing actually happened. One thing that didn’t officially happen was a bomb didn’t officially explode at 14 30 hours, unofficially destroying Jimmy Waugh’s cafe. Get him out of there. Three men were unofficially wounded and two men whose identities are still not known this time were unofficially. Ambulance and fire department responded, we believe to be unofficial at this present moment. It’ll sell. Turn it off now. I just wanted to think that you should.

Jim: So he gets in trouble for that, obviously.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: But, yeah, he’s just. He’s just saying, well, this. These things officially never didn’t happen. These are. These are some things that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: That you’re not allowed to know about, essentially.

Mark: Yeah. So here’s the official line, but unofficially, it’s like. It’s like being out outrageous and then saying allegedly.

Jim: Well, I think that might be a separate fallacy that I think we’re going to discuss at a later date. That kind of. I call it caveating with some kind of magic word that gets you off the hook for the things you’ve just said or about to say.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So, yeah.

Mark: Yes, exactly that. It’s kind of. It belongs to this sort of family, but, Yes.

Jim: M so our third example is Monty Python’s flying circus. And, this is not a sketch so much as just a voiceover with text scrolling across the screen, but it’s excellent. And it’s called apology.

Eric Idle: We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this program. It was never our intention to imply that politicians are, ah, weak kneed political time servers who are concerned more with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government. Nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well being of the people they supposedly represent. Nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today. Nor indeed, do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby, ulstrous little self seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addition to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive. We are sorry if this impression has come across.

Mark: And, what’s amazing, that was probably like, 1971 somewhere around there, or three. Yeah. And it’s just. You okay? Yeah. Applies to absolutely every now. Uh-huh.

Jim: Yes. So, yeah. Explicitly saying, these are not views that we think you should. You should come away from this program with. These are not things we intended to imply. we apologize if that’s the impression we’ve given. Very good. Very good.

Mark: Yeah. Well here’s the example that I alluded to earlier. Carolina Hearn’s character misses Merton who was a kind of suburban housewife in a house coat and permed hair, rollers, hairdouse curler’s hair would ask cheeky questions of leading sports and celebrities and movies and tv. And one of them was Debbie, was Debbie McGee, who was. She was basically. Was the sidekick like you have.

Jim: She was magicians assistant.

Mark: Yeah, there you go. The equivalent of the girl that holds up the round number in the boxing matches. That was kind of like that. She was a.

Jim: It’s a highly skilled profession. Yeah.

Mark: You’ve got a count and everything. Yeah, yeah. That’s. Yeah. So this was the quote. And actually it’s been used in the houses of House of Commons a couple of times. there are variations of it, but this is the original one. But what first ever attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels? So I think it’s some sort of variant of Apophysis. It accuses of. Without declaring an accusation. What she’s saying is. I’m not saying that the only thing that attracted you, an attractive young woman to a not very attractive looking older man was his money. But that was obviously, you know. And the same could be accused that could be leveled at Rupert Murdoch and Jerry hall or Eleanor Zukova or Melania and Trump. You know. Is that kind of what first attracted you to the non generation multi billionaire? Rupert Murdoch first attracted you to the idea of marrying him in an inheritable fashion? You know. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. I think maybe on this one. I think that it’s possibly closer to a complex question in as much as the kind of the answer is implied by the question.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Kind of. When did you stop beating?

Mark: I think we probably have had it before.

Jim: I mean we’ve definitely played the clip. I don’t remember. It’s well worth playing. I’m sure, you know, regular.

Mark: I think it’s a maybe. Maybe a complex question that it’s a folded over, apophysis. Because it’s could be is.

Jim: I wonder if there’s some element of apophosis which requires a denial of some kind of either denying the thing or denying you’re going to talk about or have talked about the thing.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Which. Which that doesn’t quite have. The denial is implied.

Mark: Yes, yes. Exactly. Yes. If you unfold it, it would. It would be. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. That’s the. And I guess that’s the Why it’s an absolutely brilliant piece of writing.

Jim: It’s so good in that it short.

Mark: Cuts all of that. You know, she’s fundamentally saying. I’m not saying that the only was was his billion.

Jim: Everyone knows what she’s saying. And it’s. Yeah, great writing. It’s so tight and it’s like there’s not an extraneous word or anything there at all.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. George Best, who was alcoholic in the seventies and so much so that he got given a replacement liver, had a liver transplant and then he, then that one gave out as well because he drank. And she said, were you thirsty from all that running around?

Jim: What she said was, and this is my favorite misses Murray moment of all time, is do you think if you hadn’t done so much running around you would have been quite so thirsty?

Mark: That’s excellent, isn’t it? It’s just. And it’s. Yeah, it takes the comedian’s eye. It’s that, you know, the, the fact that Joe Lysig was doing it off the cuff.

Jim: yeah.

Mark: Is. It’s kind of. It’s that comedian thing.

Jim: Right.

Mark: This is what I want to say. I want to say. I’m not saying, you know, you just went with an ugly man because he was a millionaire, but you just went with an ugly man because he was a millionaire. So. But I’ve got to make that funny more palatable and funnier and, and it’s still as insulting as I would never call him short and fat.

Jim: Yeah. And in a way the brilliance of misses M. Merton was that because she was. Although Caroline Hearn was like in her thirties when she was doing it, misses Merton was this little old lady character.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Who you couldn’t get angry with. She was. She could be as insane.

Mark: She was just asking innocent questions. Yeah.

Jim: And everyone knew that it was really Caroline. But still, the way that she presented everything meant that it was all just really innocent. So. Yeah, it’s brilliant. Brilliant.

Mark: Well it’s like, it’s like Edna Everidge, Barry Humphrey, you get away with anything. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: I guess the apothec bit would be I’m. I’m not this person, I’m not saying these things, but here I am saying them. And I think that’s part of the folded over apophysis with misses Merton saying I’m not a little old lady, so I’m not saying these things. She gets away with it and yet I’m saying them. Yeah.

Jim: So before we move on to fake news this week.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Some of you may know, certainly patrons will have heard that I am, in hopefully the closing stages of writing a book about the 2000 mules documentary and book from Dinesh D’Souza, debunking it in. Actually, as it turns out, far greater detail and length than we spent. We spent a while talking about it for our patience. Yeah, I am continually working on the book. Fuck knows why I decided to do that at a point when Trump’s going into courtrooms for the next six months. But, yeah, I hate myself and want to just work constantly. M anyway, I need your help to come up with a good title for the book. The working title. Since I started, it has been the mule delusion, which I’m. Is. Okay, I don’t mind.

Mark: It doesn’t rhyme sufficiently with God.

Jim: Yeah. But essentially, ideally, it has to be something to do with the mules, obviously, because to let people know that it is about 2000 mules, if they are aware of the 2000 mules thing, but also not be so obscure that people who aren’t aware of 2000 miles will not have a clue what the fuck is it’s about. Yeah. So I’m not against using some kind of subtitle of, like, the truth about election fraud or something, you know, something like that. I am open to suggestions of possible titles. So some of the things that I come up with just to kind of get. Get the ball rolling, get you started. 2001 a mule odyssey a lot.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: I. Fake mules.

Mark: Fake mules.

Jim: Yeah, that’s another one.

Mark: Yeah, there’s.

Jim: Are the mules in the room with us now, Dinesh? Which again, I think maybe too.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But I quite like it.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So, yeah. essentially, if you’ve got any ideas, let us know through. You can, Or through the website. There’s the Facebook group or Twitter or patron. I’m happy.

Mark: Can you go off as far as assortment and donkey?

Jim: I mean, go for it.

Mark: If you.

Jim: If you feel like you can come up with something that. Yeah. Evokes all of that stuff that’s sufficiently.

Mark: Asinine, you could help name the book.

Jim: And,

Mark: There you go. So, yeah, excellent. Yeah. And we know that you. You’re wickedly witty out there, that you post and, just the responses to the fake news game. We know that you’ve got it in you. So show us your titles. Yeah, so we’re gonna, we’re gonna play fake news, folks. I love the game. It’s a great game. I understand the game as well as anybody. As well as anybody.

Jim: Yes. It’s time for fake news. The game where I read out three Trump quotes, two of which are real and one I made up, and Mark has to figure out which one is fake news.

Mark: And of course, if there’s one thing you can’t accuse me of thinking, it’s that the whole thing is a fix, a fiddle, and a fraud and a fake perpetrated to fox perfectly innocent critical thinkers for personal gain. Even though thinking that would perfectly be within my rights, I would never suggest otherwise. So far be it from me. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: our theme this week, right. Well, it’s kind of all one, rant, really.

Jim: Trump has this thing about the fact that Biden went on a beach in a bathing suit, and obviously Trump would never expose his body. Thankfully. Yeah. like that.

Mark: But the sun would go in for one thing, you know, for whole swathes of. Down downstream of him. Yeah, that’d be awful.

Jim: But he reckons at some point somebody said that Biden looked good in a bathing suit or something like that. He looked, he looked okay. I don’t know if they did, but whatever, that, that pisses him off. and somehow he got on this rant about Cary Grant through that. Okay, I present that for your approval statement number one.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit. Right. And, you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand because, you know, sand is heavy. They figured three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy. And he’s sitting in the bathing suit. Look at 81. Do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant? Right? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people.

Mark: How did it get worse at three solid ounces per foot? Where is that? What it’s just there, is, you know, his name is legion free. There’s many, there’s a whole bunch of people going on in his head.

Jim: It’s called spot checking. That’s smart. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Mark: That’s a sign of intelligence and, and brain. Yeah. Wow. So does he just, did Cary Grant ever get to live to 81?

Jim: That’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.

Mark: Yeah. So how did he get. He leap to that bit? He was just. Yeah.

Jim: Statement number two.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Today we have. I won’t say names because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I’ve got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like Michael Jackson once told me, the most handsome man Trump in the world. Who? Cary Grant. Well, we don’t have that anymore. But Cary Grant at 81 or 82 going on 100. This guy, he’s 81 going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit either. And he was. He was pretty good looking, right?

Mark: Oh, right. I thought the point he was making was that Cary Garnt did look good in a bathing suit. Okay, and there’s your guess is I won’t say names. But I don’t because I don’t need enroids. But here’s some names. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And number three, right. Cary Grant was man. You know what I mean? That’s what they used to say. But more than that, he was a real movie star. And there are no movie stars anymore. No real movie stars. People say George Clooney. They love George Clooney. Let me tell you. He’s no Cary Grant. And, you know, he’s not exactly like a smart person. I mean, he liked Hillary, so what more do you need to. But he’s very stupid and frankly, very overrated. And his wife is a horrible, horrible person.

Mark: Oh, dear. Yeah. Did somebody make a gag about Clooney’s wife that, she done. She was the, un ambassador for somewhere. And we’re here to celebrate Clooney’s voiceover for a frog or something. Yeah. Yeah. Vlad Seal. Yeah. I was gonna say. Yeah. Carry Grant. Yep. George Clooney, the modern day Carrie grant. But no, he’s no Carrigan. And then he goes off on a rant about Clooney. What? Okay, lift. I do like lifting his freak through sand because that fact, about three solid ounces per foot. Okay. And I quite like Carrie Garnt. Was Mandev. Yeah. Ah. Now is that an astute gym ism to just shove something in like that? Okay. And then I’m not.

Jim: Mmm.

Mark: Not. Did Jackson ever talk to trump at two going on hundred, which I think might be a. No, they’re all too convincing. All right. Okay, so I’m gonna go for two, I think is the one you made up.

Jim: Okay, so of the other two, which you more convinced by?

Mark: I think. I think I’m more convinced by the George Clooney one. Number three.

Jim: Okay. Number three.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is. Yeah. Fake news. Oh, man.

Mark: You did do the carry garments, man. Damn it.

Jim: M. I did do Cary Grant was man. But here’s an insight into my process.

Mark: Right.

Jim: That wasn’t intentional. I did. I wrote it. And then I take the screenshot of the thing to post.

Mark: Really trump.

Jim: Yeah, I’m just leaving it. I’m not going to edit that.

Mark: Oh, no, it’s so trump. That’s what. Yeah, you see, that was the bit that made it utterly convincing. And. Oh, yeah. And that little runoff when it goes, he like Hillary. So what more do you need to do? Brilliant and horrible, horrible person. Oh, man.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: You’ve upped your game since, since.

Jim: Months without. So I put in some serious time in the trump quote. Jim. And working out which words to leave.

Mark: Exercise those muscles to add some more, similitude.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So.

Jim: Oh, God.

Mark: So that means. No, that means both of those.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: No. Michael Jackson won.

Jim: That started by talking about M. Biden at the beach.

Mark: Somebody said he looks great in a bathing suit. Right. And, you know, when he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand because, you know, sand is heavy. They figure three solid ounces per foot, but sand is a little heavy. And he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look at 81. Do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant? Right. I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. We used to have Kerry Grint and Clark Gabor and all these people. Well, they, they died. That’s.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: That’s what happened. How good was Carrie Garrett? I don’t think Cary Grant, he was good. I don’t think Carrie, what the fuck is he saying there? I don’t think Cary Grant is good. I don’t know what happened. I think he’s going with.

Jim: I don’t think even Cary Grant would look good in a bathing suit at 81. I think maybe that’s what he’s going. But I’m doing a lot of work there.

Mark: Yeah, that was too long a thread because what? I don’t know what happened to movie stars today. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today.

Jim: Yeah. So to answer your, your, ah, initial question, Cary Grant just about made it to 81. Yeah. He was in his early eighties.

Mark: no. So that, see, that was the bit where I was convinced by 81 or 82 going 100. That’s.

Jim: No, he definitely didn’t make it.

Mark: But it’s no, because he’s not.

Jim: I’m not sure what that means. 81.

Mark: No, well, it’s a Trump bump, isn’t it? Anything, any number, he will just add, you know, 20.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He did report Michael Jackson telling him that Cary Grant was the most handsome man in the world.

Mark: I hope he does the voice today. We have. I won’t say names because I don’t need enemies. I don’t need enemies. I got enough enemies. But Cary Grant was, like Michael Jackson once told me, the most handsome man, Trump in the world. Who? Cary Grant. Well, we don’t have that anymore. But Cary Grant at 81 or 82 going on 100. This guy, he’s 81 going on 100. Cary Grant wouldn’t look too good in a bathing suit either. And he was. He was pretty good looking, right?

Jim: He goes full on like, ah, Cary Grant, you know, I would.

Mark: Yeah, he was pretty good looking. He’s a good looking guy. He was, man. Yeah. and he does the Michael Jackson voice.

Jim: Yeah, he does.

Mark: No, it’s.

Jim: What the.

Mark: You know, why drop one name when you can drop two? Michael Jackson doesn’t call him sir.

Jim: No, no, no. He calls him Trump. Yeah, yeah. You take it from. From Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson could do what he like, because when you’re a star, they let you,

Mark: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Allegedly do what he did.

Jim: Yeah, I mean, that’s fine. He’s dead now, so. Yeah, allegedly. So.

Mark: Just went home.

Jim: So, we’ve had some. Some social contestants. on Facebook, we have Andrew, who says, I’m going back to a roll of the die this week. And number one is the number it tells me. Fennec says, I think three is definitely real because I totally believe that he would call Amal Clooney, attorney and tireless advocate for human rights, a horrible person.

Mark: Exactly. yes.

Jim: I think one is unhinged and rambling enough to be real. So I vote for two. Right? And, yeah, Simon says, one looks real because you can pick the moment where he realizes he’s not talking about himself and trails off.

Mark: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Two looks real because he does talk about himself. Three must be fake, but it’s a near perfect representation of how a spoiled eight year old would insult someone.

Mark: Yes. So nice. Yeah. Ah, yeah, yeah. Well observed. Yes, yes.

Jim: On Patreon, Kaz Tui says, tough one this week. I’m still thinking Jim might need an intervention. Move away from the orange glowing stench. Jim. So Clooney didn’t have great things to say about him, so three is possible, and I want to hear him say two. But Jim is quite the spin master, so I’m going with two all the same.

Mark: Oh, okay. right, yeah, yeah, yes. But that was. Yeah, that was exactly my thing. It was the 88, 82 100 thing that did it to me. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And Renee Z. Says she’s. She’s willing to hop on a plane to help with the intervention. And, this is very difficult. Good luck, Mark. These are all cringe worthy and therefore trumpian. I’m going with three as fake news because I don’t recall hearing him talk about George Clooney. Only Cary Grant and Clark Gable and Biden, of course, when he had the temerity to wear a bathing suit at the beach.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Turns out Cary Grant got to 82.

Jim: Yeah. Just.

Mark: Yeah. And still look good. 82.

Jim: He did. He looked fine.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: I think he would have looked all right.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, because he was actually at that sort of fifties. He would wear 60 spades.

Jim: It would have been a, absolutely brilliantly tailored bathing suit. Like all of his clothes. Yeah, he would have. Would have worn it as best any person could possibly wear clothes.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So, yeah. Invisible unicorn on patreon says, damn, I can hear him in my mind saying all those things. I’ll go with number one being fake. Sadly, even that blubber seems too coherent. One eyed Nick says, God, can you imagine Cary Grant and Donald Trump sat together, a misogyny sandwich filled with about 14 wives who hated everything about them. I’m going with number three. I can see the fat orange jellyfish thinking he would look like bond in a bathing suit and thinking he and Grant are alike. So I think one is true. And I don’t think Jim would make up Michael Jackson calling him Trump. He’d have called him sir. So by process of flimsy.

Mark: There you go. Yes.

Jim: I’m saying three is fake.

Mark: Oh, yes. Yeah, I missed that. Yes. Yes.

Jim: Scott says, I’m thinking number one is fake. While it does ramble in true trumpy fashion and sand is heavy, the math skills required to calculate 3oz/ft would just be too much for his diaper to bear.

Mark: Number two, it was a thing that I thought. Yeah. That got me there. He would be so proud to know that fact, wouldn’t he?

Jim: Number two sounds legit. Number three as well. We all know how much Donald Trump hates, well, everyone, but especially George and, Right, will m finally, he says, got a real homoerotic vibe from all three, with at least two actually coming from the man who professes to be such a manly man. Dangerously insane excuse for a human being. Number three is fake, in my humble opinion.

Mark: Wow, look at that. So I think, yeah, I kind of. I think a lot of people saw through, your. Your subterfuge, whereas I was convinced by the missing word. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, he’s.

Jim: I’ll take it where I can get often time.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: That’s what I always say. And, Yeah. And I would say that, I think when he was talking about sand is 3oz/ft I don’t think he was, like, showing off his knowledge of sand weight, I think.

Mark: Right.

Jim: He was suggesting that Biden is.

Mark: It was having a hard time decrepit.

Jim: That he can’t, like, lift his feet through sand. And sand isn’t heavy. right.

Mark: Oh, okay. So it’s like, per foot, but, yeah, not square footage.

Jim: There’s no more on each of his feet.

Mark: Yeah. Okay.

Jim: Is what he was going. But, yeah, yeah. Donald Trump was trying to make a joke about how someone else is feeble.

Mark: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The man who is hoiking around 30 stone around his middle and can, you know, can’t drink water properly. Yes. That guy.

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Jim: And it’s time for the part of the show that this week, at least, is called the Trump trial is not a logical fallacy, because finally, finally, Trump.

Mark: One of them is underway in a.

Jim: Criminal trial where he has to sit there and not talk and not yell out and hear bad things that people are saying about him and just cope or go to sleep, you know?

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: You have a quick.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, it’s.

Jim: Yeah, it shouldn’t be. I feel like.

Mark: Well, actually falling asleep is allowed.

Jim: Well, I mean, he hasn’t been sanctioned for it in any way.

Mark: Oh.

Jim: Supposedly, he’s falling asleep multiple times on, like, basically every day. Because. Because he’s not. Because one thing you. He’s not having is. And I would never suggest, obviously, that. That Trump is in any way addicted to Adderall or anything like that. Irresponsible to speculate.

Mark: And, you know, frankly, I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t find me saying those.

Jim: No, no, I wouldn’t. Yeah, I wouldn’t suggest it. But Diet Coke, I think we can all agree he’s definitely a Diet Coke addict.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: And he’s not.

Mark: He thinks if you drink. If you drink Diet Coke, doesn’t matter how many you drink of them, you’re gonna lose weight.

Jim: You can eat whatever the fuck you like. So long as you also drink Diet Coke. When I am in my early, the early days of my career when I worked at Burger King, I would, enormous families would come and order huge, huge meals and a small Diet Coke. And I would always think, I don’t think that’s gonna do it. Yeah.

Mark: No. You want five or six diet Cokes? Yeah. Yeah. I hope you added that to them. You go, you see, I don’t need one. You have ordered enough here to feed a small army for a year. I think you should probably have five or six diet coats in order to crack it.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And your commission would have gone way.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Ah, that’s not, that’s not how burger King works anyway. If only I would have ended up selling like crazy.

Mark: Exactly.

Jim: Yeah. No, but, but Trump isn’t drinking twelve diet Cokes a day, so he isn’t getting that caffeine hit and any other subsidiary things that he might otherwise do to keep himself awake. He isn’t doing that stuff. So consequently he’s nodding off during the most, well, so far the most important trial of his career.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s not keeping his first of many.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And yeah, so far the judge has neither sanctioned him nor fashioned a giant poking device out of chopsticks and, poked at him to keep him awake, which I think is the obvious second alternative.

Mark: Oh, I think so.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: I could kind of be a big one of those kind of foam hands that you have at, sporting events that would just come across the screen m with a kind of squeak. Yeah. Is he, is he not farting himself away?

Jim: Well, occasionally, apparently, yes, he does do that. I mean, I’m not sure if he’s farting himself awake, but sometimes when he nods off, he farts, like in sleep supposedly, which is making it very difficult for people to be around him. I like probably more than usual, I would say.

Mark: Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, you think at least he’s quiet, he’s shining his one end. At least he’s quiet. but no.

Jim: Yeah. The farting thing is, I think, not fully substantiated, but the sleeping thing has been reported by multiple people on multiple days.

Mark: Right. Wow.

Jim: and apparently his, his legal team have nudged him awake a few times when he’s needed to be aware of what’s going on at all.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’ll be nice. Yeah. But it doesn’t stop him ranting and raving once he gets outside of them.

Jim: Yeah. Oh, absolutely not. No, no, no. He’s immediately on that. One thing I should say by the way is that, although this is absolutely, unprecedented, historic trial, it isn’t the only important Trump thing that’s been going on in court this week, because the supreme Court have also heard oral arguments on Trump’s claim of absolute immunity, which, they narrowed to kind of immunity for official acts. And initially I thought, well, we’ll. We’ll fit them both in.

Mark: Both in.

Jim: How much can there be to talk about? Yeah, but it turns out, that was, that was batshit as well. So we’re definitely can’t. I mean, you guys have other stuff to do, so. Yeah, you know, no one has time to fit all that in. So what we’re going to do is where we would normally do a patron bonus episode, on our kind of off weeks. So next week we’re going to do that. But our patron bonus episode is going to be about the oral arguments in the supreme Court, about Trump’s immunity, and we’re going to release that on the main feed. So it’ll be a patron bonus. Maybe that’ll be slightly longer, but everyone’s going to get to hear it because we think it’s important stuff to hear about and talk about and be somewhat frightened by. Yeah, but there was no way it was going to fit into this episode, so watch out for that next time. It’s kind of a bonus, kind of a birthday present, really, because it’s coming up for May, and that’s our 6th birthday as a podcast will be in May.

Mark: So we’re nearly as old as Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a. We can behave like Trump now that we’re a six year old.

Jim: But meanwhile, back in the courtroom in New York. Yeah, we started off with the whole voir dire process of picking a jury. And, yeah, it’s a bit different. The british version, you don’t really get much choice in your jury. Essentially, the picking of people, of citizens is done in much the same way. And there’s a pool and you get chosen and take, you know, you go to a courtroom and then you’re assigned to a case. Yeah. But then there’s very little option for the lawyers to ask questions and choose which jurors they want on their jury and strike people for bias or anything like that. Did you just assume that it’s random and you’re going to get probably a fair decision or as fair as twelve random people are going to give you? Yeah. The system in the US is dramatically different. Each side gets a number of preemptory challenges, which mean that they don’t have to be for cause. You. They can be.

Mark: Oh, okay.

Jim: They just don’t like the look of it. Yeah. They think they’re probably not the kind of person who’s going to vote in their favor. They. They can also challenge for cause. So if the person. If a person is obviously biased in one way or another, then they. Then they can challenge. That doesn’t use up one of their strikes.

Mark: Right.

Jim: There is also some checks and balances on if there’s an argument that, one side is using their strikes in a way that is against a, ah, protected class of people, for example, if they’re just getting rid of all the black jurors.

Mark: Right.

Jim: This is not something that has happened, as far as I know, in this trial, but it’s a motion that can be made to say, yeah, we think that they’re actually using their. Their strikes to discriminate, and that’s not. You’re allowed to do again.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Wasn’t brought up. It’s just an interesting quirk of the system. So they went through that process of. They started off with, I think, 196 jurors in the pool of people who were, available to be on this trial. They kind of split that up. they started with almost 100 on day one. And those jurors then answered a kind of jury questionnaire, but not a written one. They answered questions, but, one of the first things which Judge merchand did, which isn’t commonly done, was that he asked, do any of you feel strongly enough about Donald Trump that you don’t think you could be fair in this case?

Mark: Oh, wow.

Jim: Either way.

Mark: So got the jurors to say, oh, well.

Jim: And that’s the thing that they often try and get out through questioning. Right. And they did then do that with the people who said, no, I think I can be fair. But in this case, he said, let’s just speed this up, because there’s a lot of jurors. This is going to be tricky. Let’s kind of start off with, if you tell me, you know, in good faith, I really love the guy, and I think he’s definitely great, and I. I’m not going to treat this fairly, or, yeah, I really hate him and he’s definitely going to prison, then you can, you can go home. And they basically. So, like, half of the, like, 50 people were dismissed on day one because. Because they said, yeah, I am not going to be able to be unbiased in this case.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: Right. And then they continued with the other questions, which included things like where you get your news, who your employers are, what podcasts you listen to. So I think Felicia’s Trump listeners would not have been probably allowed on the jury. And if you are a member of any kind of pro or anti Trump groups on social media, things like that. And they whittled the number down. And by the end of day one, I think they had seated seven jurors. Okay, which, which then went down to five the next day.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Because one of them who had initially, said that she would be unbiased and was, was fine, the media started reporting on who was being seated as jurors, and they weren’t allowed to use names, but they gave enough detail what she did and where she worked, that she was getting questions, she was getting calls from relatives and friends saying, oh, are you, is that you?

Mark: Right.

Jim: You know, you’re sitting on the Trump jury. So the next day, she basically went to the judge. Look, I’m actually worried about what might happen. I’m, you know, if I’ve been outed, I’ve been doxxed, essentially, so I don’t feel safe. And so she was dismissed, and one of the other jurors was dismissed because it turned out, although he had said he hadn’t been ever arrested for anything, that years before, he was arrested for tearing down political posters, in the nineties. and they were like, yeah, that’s arguably you then you feel too strongly about politics to be involved in this case. And so ultimately it took a few days and they seized the jury and it was twelve and then six alternates.

Mark: In case, I was going to say, you haven’t. They got to have kind of standards in case of some of the twelve.

Jim: One of the issues that could come up in a case like this is juror intimidation by, for example, a defendant.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: The gag order.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Or friendly journalists giving more information than they should give about jurors and putting them in potential danger.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: yeah. So, yeah, there are six alternates and hopefully that’ll be enough. I don’t know what the procedure is. If they run through, all of them run out. Yeah. we don’t know quite as much about the jurors as we learned on day one, because the judge asked, the media to stop giving out as much information.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. So you couldn’t identify them and then they could be harassed or. Yes, that’s kind of the point of having a jury, isn’t it? That they are free of harassment and hassle and free to just judge the thing on its facts.

Jim: Yes. So with the jury in place and some pretrial motions answered, because that actually happened before the jury selection process was. There are some more pre trial motions, more, motions for dismissal and things like that. That merchandise pretty quickly, motions in lemonade, which we briefly talked about last time, of different types of evidence that were going to be allowed in or not allowed in. For example, they’re allowed to talk about the access Hollywood tape about Trump saying he grabs women by the pussy, but not, they won’t, they wouldn’t be allowed to play it. So they can talk about it, they can use the transcript, because it comes into the idea of why they would be keen to quell sexual stories about Trump in the weeks before the election.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: which is ultimately what this case is about. It’s about the falsification of business records to cover up the fact that they had a conspiracy to, stop stories coming out about Trump, with the national Enquirer. And the payments that they made to Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougall and a doorman at Trump Tower were put in the financial filings, essentially because Trump had to pay back Michael Cohen for making the Stormy Daniels payments.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And theoretically had to pay the National Enquirer for the M. Karen McDougall ones. But I don’t know, I think he stiff the national Enquirer. So, but then they pretended that those were legal fees and, part of a legal retainer that actually Michael Cohen didn’t have with Trump. Right.

Mark: And that’s the basis of that. So it seems to me that he’s.

Jim: Kind of broadened business records is really the key.

Mark: But the broader context of that is that they were doing it in order to pervert the 2016 election insofar as they were suppressing.

Jim: That’s what makes it a felony. Yeah. Because falsifying business records on its own in. I think falsifying business records in the second degree in New York would be a misdirect. Falsifying business records in the first degree involves doing that for the purpose of committing or covering up another crime. Right. They don’t have to prove that the other crime was committed.

Mark: Right.

Jim: They just have to show that the. The intent or the purpose of doing it. Yeah. And there’s a few crimes that they have talked about in, in that context, one of which is interfering with the 2016 election. So on Monday, day one of testimony. Yeah, we’re on. This is the beginning of week two of testimony. So, yeah, yeah. yeah. On Monday, they talked to David Pecker in fact, David Pecker’s testimony lasts a few days. And also, we’re saved a little bit from this being an extremely long segment by the fact that the court doesn’t sit on Wednesdays and they broke early several days for various reasons, including passover and, juror a dental appointment. So.

Mark: Right.

Jim: It wasn’t like a full five days of long trial days. So David Pecker of National Enquirer laid out the scheme of how he colluded with Michael Cohen and ultimately Donald Trump to both look out for negative stories about Trump and then do what they called catch and kill, which was offer the people who had those stories an exclusive deal. Right. Give them money for that deal and then never publish the story, which meant that then no one else could publish.

Mark: So they’re basically. Okay. They basically. Silence. Yeah.

Jim: It’s kind of like an NDA selling it.

Mark: Somebody. Ah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Yeah. And so they did that with Karen McDougal and with the doorman at Trump Tower who alleged that Trump had a love child out of wedlock. although I think that’s been largely debunked, but that doesn’t matter. The fact that the story was there and they caught and killed it is the issue. So he laid out that scheme that wasn’t only to do that, but was also to plant negative stories about some of Trump’s rivals at Trump’s request, or where directed by Trump, including things like Ted Cruz, where they put that story. In one of our very first episodes, we talked about Trump kind of passing the buck on his accusation that Raphael Cruz assassinated Kennedy or was involved in the assassination Kennedy, by saying, yeah, it’s not me saying it. You know, this was in a major magazine.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The major magazine being National Enquirer. And it was in the major M magazine because Trump got David Peck it in there. Yes.

Mark: Yeah, well, that’s. Yes, that’s very in character for him, isn’t it? When he said, I’ve heard people say, yeah, people have said, well, yeah, it was you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So that’s the kind of thing that they didn’t. And that was the scheme that they laid out and they explored the corners of that, essentially, and how that worked. And Pekka is not a great guy.

Mark: Right. Yeah.

Jim: But quite kind of charismatic and seemed like, people, although they didn’t necessarily like him, they believed what he was saying.

Mark: Okay. Yeah. That’s kind of what you want, really, isn’t it?

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark: You want people to be sufficiently truthful, but also a bit nasty in that you kind of go, oh, yeah, these are, these are the people, he’s, the.

Jim: People that Trump hang around with. They’re his friends. He’s been friends with David Becker for years. Yeah.

Mark: And the thing is, yet they’re saying things that, which can truthfully hurt Trump.

Jim: Yeah. And in the context of a criminal conspiracy of some kind where co conspirators are, ah, testifying, they’re not gonna be good people, are they?

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: That’s how that works. So, yeah, you know, the, Trump’s defense against people like Michael Cohen saying, oh, Michael Kane, he’s a, he’s a convicted felon who was convicted for lying. It’s like. Yeah, for you, for. He was lying on your behalf in a case where you were not inducted. Co conspirator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t think it’s a great defense.

Mark: Just not. No. And it kind of. It’s a bit like the, that was the comment that James O’Brien was making about Liz Truss, that she lives in a world, in her own little world, where she does either doesn’t believe or doesn’t remember or has no idea of the things that Liz Truss did. So she’s kind of, railing against this world where Liz Truss did these things, unaware that she was the one that did it. And Trump kind of does that. He, his defense team seems to live in a world where, yes, these people are to blame for stuff and Trump isn’t. And they think that you can’t verify that independently of them just saying stuff. It’s like. Yeah, it’s like Trump exists in a world where Trump doesn’t exist.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So that everybody else knows that he does, you know, and Letitia James kind of go and, yeah, we know all this stuff. And of the, the trial where he was found guilty and just had, well, that’s Letitia Jameson. He is guilty of this. We’ve just got to work out how much he’s got to pay.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And all of the other thing and it’s. And the going into this one and saying things are, I think we should call him Mister president. But he wasn’t president at the time, so. No, I, know, but he’s earned the title. Yeah, well, I don’t about earned. He said it, you know, thrust upon him. It’s. Yeah. Not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So that was in the opening arguments, actually, we kind of skipped over the open. Well, opening statements, I should say. Opening, arguments is an excellent legal podcast that you’re allowed to listen to again now, because the person who did bad things is no longer on it, and it’s great.

Mark: Okay, cool.

Jim: And, the opening statements happened the end of week prior to the testimony.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So the end of the jury selection week, essentially. And, yeah, I mean, we kind of skipped over them because the prosecutors did an excellent job of laying out the case and saying what they were going to show. The defense team started out by saying, he’s innocent, Trump’s innocent. He didn’t do anything. He has a cloak of innocence. yeah, which he was wearing at all times. And his, opening statement was objected to at least twice, I think, which is quite rare, because you’re not allowed to. The reason it’s not called opening arguments is you’re not allowed to make arguments. You’re, you can’t do that. It has to be just telling people, you know, these are the piece of evidence we’re going to present and this is what we think they show. And he’s not, you’re not allowed to make claims that you haven’t put into evidence. So that was, it was, yeah, they were like, oh, you’re not allowed to say that those things, in an opening statement. And, and the judge was like, yeah, of course you’re not.

Mark: So, yeah, just think you’re doing. That’s the other thing about Trump’s defense in all of the trials or all of the court cases that were going on, is that their defense team seem to know very little about what you suppose you’re allowed to do legally.

Jim: They are mostly very poor. Yeah. Working, with, I mean, they’ve got, yeah, they’ve not got a lot. you know, they’re making shit purses out of shit. They’re not, they’re not making anything to make purses out of. It’s not gonna go well, so.

Mark: No, and you can’t polish it. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: I mean, case in point, on day two, they did, they started before Pekka took the stand again. They had a hearing on the gag order violations that were alleged by the prosecutors.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because obviously when Trump was put under a gag order, that didn’t really stop him from, from talking about blabbing things he’s not allowed to talk about attacking people, attacking, Michael Cohen, attacking Stormy Daniels, retweeting things. but not just retweeting, like one of the things he retweeted, I think Jesse Waters, this wasn’t even a retweet, but they kind of classed it in with the retweets. Jesse Waters said that they were activist progressives or liberals or whatever, trying leftists, I think, trying to get on to the jury so that they could convict Trump. I can’t, I forget the exact phrase that he used, but he said essentially they were lying to the prosecutors, they’re lying to the judge and, yeah, that’s Fox News for you. But Trump didn’t retweet it because it wasn’t a tweet. It was something Jesse Watts said out of his mouth. Trump typed it in and then added another thing that Watts didn’t say but included it in the quote, mark in the quotes. And, Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, tried to claim that that was, that was just him. He wasn’t say he wasn’t violating the gag order, he was reporting on something that someone else said. And when the judge went, yeah, but the guy didn’t say this bit, he added that bit. And then Todd blood was like, yeah, he did add that bit. Yeah, yeah, did do that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So, and they did that. They approached that because I think there were ten different counts, maybe more, where the prosecutors said, look, here are times when he said bad things that he’s not supposed to say. And they went through them in turn. And each time Todd Blanche was like, well, here’s. That was political speech. You know, someone, someone attacked him. He’s got, he’s allowed to say things back. And, he wasn’t. When he said that, you know, Stormy Daniels was untrustworthy and couldn’t, you know, couldn’t listen to what she says, he wasn’t talking about this case. It was just in general, ah, just such bollocks. And to the point that at the end he claimed, look, Judge Donald Trump is really trying to abide by the gag order. He’s really trying really hard. And the judge said, you are losing all credibility. That’s not a great thing for you. Like on day two of a trial for the judge, tell your lawyer, I’m sorry, you’re losing credibility.

Mark: You’re losing all credibility. Yeah, but just go, he’s really trying. Just give him a break. He’s only six. Yeah, yeah, give him, give him a chance. No, he just, well, that’s it. Are they not sanctioning him at all? They’re not just going.

Jim: He’S got, he, he can still rule on that. And in fact, he’s having another because there’s been more incidents. So this week there’s going to be another hearing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: On, on more gag order violations. But he hasn’t ruled on what you can do about it yet. I, the, I think what they’re asking for is, is fines of, like a time or something, which is obviously pennies to trump. And it’s. Yeah, yeah. Well, not going to stop him. But yeah, there was a case. Was it engrains case or another? I got one. I know they will blend together after a while where I think they made it an increasing amount every time. So every time he did it, it would go up by, like, a factor of ten or something like that.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So, yeah, that’s maybe the way arguably, he could. He would be justified in. In putting him in jail for violating the gag order. That is an option. He’s not just. It would.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He would be open to being seen that that was biased against Trump if he did that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Plus it would. And actually, it would kind of martyr him beyond.

Jim: I mean, he’s getting away with a lot more than any other defendant would.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: But, yeah, he hasn’t ruled on the gag order violations yet. So at the end of day two, we heard about the doorman, Dino Sagidin.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: From David Pecker. And on day three, we heard about Karen McDougal, the, the Playboy model who Trump had a ten month affair with while he was married to Melania, and who was paid off by the National Enquirer, who made her all kinds of promises, like she would be on the COVID and have. They wanted to talk to her about being on Dancing with the Stars and things like, wow.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: To get her story and get her exclusive signed and obviously then didn’t publish anything. And at one point, I think it was actually on the third because this. Yeah, day three was confused, because they. The court doesn’t say on Wednesday. By this point, Todd Blanche having lost all credibility, he’s taken since then a little bit of a backseat in questioning the witnesses. So Emil Bove, who is one of Trump’s other attorneys, was questioning David Pecker. And when David Pecker either didn’t remember something or didn’t remember it in the way that they had asked the question, he kind of handed him a piece of paper and said, you know, perhaps this will refresh your memory, kind of suggesting that maybe he is his memory. His testimony isn’t necessarily reliable because he’s not, you know, able to remember all the stuff he’s talking about, and he needs to be prompted with documents and things. As it turned out, that document that he handed him was not anything to do with the question he’d asked. Oh. And it was essentially just a prop that was kind of getting his point across that’s not a thing you’re allowed to do. And. And when the judge, after the jury had left, when the judge realized that that is what he’d done, he said, if there wasn’t anything in that document, it’s misleading. I’m going to ask you to be very careful with that. Right. And made him apologize to the jury the next day, the next morning, the first thing he did was. Was have to say, yeah, that I’m sorry. Yeah, I made that up. Misleading. Yeah, he. Well, he apologized for the confusion. Right.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: Yeah, it was about.

Mark: Yeah. Not for doing the bad thing.

Jim: It was about the fact that Hope Hicks was at a meeting regarding one of the catch and kill schemes. And Pekka hadn’t specifically mentioned that Hope Hicks was there before, but she would, apparently later be testifying that she was there. And so I think, yeah, bove was trying to imply that maybe Pekka wasn’t so sure about this meeting after all, by doing slightly.

Mark: Yeah, that’s not gonna do much for the credibility either.

Jim: So. Yeah. So then, they talked a bit about the Stormy Daniels part of the catch and kill scheme m and how Pekka had basically agreed to kind of let Cohen know if any negative stories were coming up. Right. Then the. The following day, day four, which was the Friday of last week. Yeah, that was when they. They argued about whether to call him president or not, essentially. And they talked, more about stormy Daniels with the next witness after Pekka stopped, which was Rona Graff, who apprentice fans will know as Trump’s assistant, who sits outside his office in Trump Tower. And she has been called Trump’s human paper trailhead because he doesn’t use a computer, he doesn’t send emails. The stuff that he does on his phone is mostly tweeting. So there’s very little digital footprint of what Trump does and what his decisions are. But Rona Graff knows everything.

Mark: Right?

Jim: Right. And one of the things that she testified to was about Stormy Daniels visiting Trump in Trump Tower. There was some talk about her possibly appearing on celebrity apprentice at some point.

Mark: Oh, what?

Jim: I don’t think they had any porn stars on celebrity apprentice, but I could be wrong. I’m not sure. But, yeah, that was. That at least was the story.

Mark: She would think, why would they need to. Yeah. They would come up with a business model immediately, wouldn’t they? Yeah. Just go, yeah, I’ve got. I’ve got a profession we could do. Okay. Yeah, no, no, you can’t do that on the apprentice. Yeah, yeah. and yet didn’t she say she only had a vague recollection?

Jim: She had a. Yeah, she had a vague recollection of seeing Stormy Daniels and then. Right. And some recollection of how Trump referred to Stormy Daniels. Right. Talking, about her potentially being on the show, things like that.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And then finally, just kind of, towards the end of Friday, there was another witness, Gary Farrow, who is a banker who helped Michael Cohen set up a shell company that he used to pay Stormy Daniels the hush money in 2016. So, yeah. his, his testimony hasn’t finished yet. He’s starting when the core is back tomorrow, as we record on Monday evening.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: So.

Mark: Well, I. So exciting is even though it’s kind of, it’s, it’s depressing watching the. It all has to play out for any, for anybody to take it seriously.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: It’s got to play out. And in the process, the defense doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously. It’s like, it’s like watching, I don’t know, Danny DeVito being a, defense lawyer, isn’t it? It’s like that. It’s kind of, they think they’re in the show somehow. They’re just sort of playing the part and kind of. Yeah, it’s nothing telly. It’s just. Yeah, I think.

Jim: I think it’s bad that, I mean, first of all, Todd Blanche, who didn’t have that much credibility, start with lost his pretty much immediately. And then Emil Brave, who was doing an okay job, messed up by trying something that he thought m he could get past the judge. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It’s not great.

Mark: No, it’s not great. And the best thing about it is those chalk drawings.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Somebody on late night show said, picture Trump looks like the, the grinches are the love child with the, with the Lorax.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: It’s just that there’s some weird rules about, drawing the pictures in courtroom cases because they can’t make any, they can’t do any drawings live in the room.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Well, certainly this is true in british, british courtrooms, but they can make notes, so the artists can make notes. And there’s also something about the materials they use, which is why they’re always done with chalk, because they’re not allowed to use the other kind of materials. So oil based things or something. I don’t know. I, can’t remember why.

Jim: I think you should be allowed to set up an easel and kind of do a full on painting. Exactly.

Mark: yeah. Kind of measuring out the size of.

Jim: People either that or get those, one of those caricature people from Coney island.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then cut it out in a silhouette. They do it really black paper. Yeah, yeah, that was. But they are just. They’re horrible character. Yeah. Oh, man. So it’s an ongoing saga, huh?

Jim: Yeah, there’ll be more. And obviously, we don’t have. There’s no audio, there’s no video in the courtroom. But they are releasing transcripts. pretty quickly. They’re kind of the following business end of the following business day. They’re releasing full transcripts. Those actually cover more in some cases than the reporters who are in the courtroom can cover because they also have, for the record, they have to take, like sidebar conversations between the lawyers and the judge and, things that happen in the judges chambers, things like that. So there’s more detail in those than you would get by.

Mark: And the bits reading that you can’t hear when they’ve approached the bench.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: I have seen on YouTube or somewhere, people are doing kind of AI versions of it with recreation. There’s a brilliant one. It’s hilarious with bobblehead characters, 3d bobbleheads, saying the words in a kind of terribly, stilted, artificial, Microsoft voice kind of way.

Jim: There was a few years ago, there was a fantastic Rick, and morty animation of a court case. Of a court transcript.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Where the guy did the voices. That would be amazing. If they got Todd Blanche and, the prosecuting team as Rick and Morty characters. That would be amazing.

Mark: Yeah. Or Aardman animation. M.

Jim: I mean, this is now in the public domain, essentially. So, yeah, there’s going to be a cottage industry of, versions of the Trump trial done by various characters and various, ah, animation styles, I’m sure.

Mark: And finally, some things we really don’t have time to talk about.

Jim: If there’s one thing the John Wick franchise has taught us, it’s that you can kill 439 people in a variety of creative ways and still be the hero. But if you kill one motherfucking dog, everyone agrees you’re the bad guy. South Dakota governor and Trump VP hopeful Christy Noam has either not seen John Wick or spent most of the first movie wondering why John was so pissed. It seems that Christie had a puppy a few years ago called cricket. She hoped cricket would be a hunting dog, but the puppy was too excitable and bitey, and Christy couldn’t be bothered to put in the effort to train her. So she took her to a gravel pit and, ah, shot her. Then, since she already had a gun out, she dragged an aggressive male goat she couldn’t be bothered to cast straight to the gravel pit and shot him too, although that one took a couple of goes because goats don’t just sit there wagging their tails, looking lovingly at you and wondering why you’re pointing a shotgun in their face. It’s pretty impressive that the Democrats found this horrific piece of oppo research on Christie and released it at the exact time. Everyone’s speculating about who Trump will pick as a running mate, but what’s even more impressive is that they somehow convinced her to be the one to first break the story by writing about it in her own upcoming autobiography. When the Guardian reported on the book passages, Christie doubled down, claiming that sometimes when you’re a farmer, you have to kill a puppy. Although she didn’t say it like that. But she did decide that part of her response should definitely be to tell us about three horses she recently killed and then plug her book. Even right wing pundits, from the regular hateful ones like Meghan McCain all the way out to whack jobs like Laura Loomer and Cat Turd, came out against shooting puppies in the face. While Democrats fought cruelty with fluffy wholesomeness. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris posted pictures of themselves playing with their four legged friends, and Democrat governor of Minnesota Tim Waltz tweeted a pic of himself feeding his dog a treat with the caption post a picture with your dog that doesnt involve shooting them and throwing them in a gravel pit. And several blue state governors, including Gretchen Whitmer and Phil Murphy, obliged.

Mark: You know that episode when Ross moves into the apartment across from Monica and Rachel, having taken cookies too, and got naked with ugly naked guy, and then he fell foul of the residents association because he was just, you know, too Ross for them. Well, the residents of Trump Plaza are getting a bit miffed that, ironically, the value of their apartments is underperforming. Don’t tell Leticia Janes, for God’s sake. Not because Trump’s lying about the value for tax reasons. No, it’s because his name’s on the building. The owners of Trump Plaza Apartments, there are 194 units, are in the middle of a vote which would erase Trump’s name. Trump Plaza is located in the center of New Rochelle, a couple of blocks from restaurants to the local movie theater. and renaming the building would spare residents of workers in this racially diverse city of 80,000 people from encountering, at least visually, the Trump name. The Trump Plaza wasn’t built by Trump, but instead constructed by Capelli Enterprises, which then signed an agreement which saw the Trump association manage the high rise. The agreement was terminated by the Trump Plaza board in 2021, but the Trump name remains atop the entrance. In February, New York Times reported after Trump became president, the value of apartments in the buildings bearing his name had underperformed market value. Buildings which had stripped the Trump name had seen their value shoot back up. Greg Root, the president of the condo board at Trump Plaza, told the New York Post that a silent majority of owners supported the name change. One neighbor, Yvette, remarks, I don’t like him. He did too much ugliness, and it’s not like he tried to hide it. He did it in plain sight, talking about people, shitholes. He’s just the devil himself. That’s how I look at it all. I don’t care for it. And I hope he gets what he deserves. I’m guessing she probably got turned down for that jury duty.

Jim: Yeah, she was probably one of the ones who was like, on, day one. I can’t. I’m not, I’m not an alert.

Mark: Talking about people from shit dolls. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: We’ve been dreaming about trump spending time behind bars for a long time now. But back in those innocent early days when people were fantasizing that he might be held to account for all the crimes Mueller investigated, one of the hypotheticals we talked about was, what about Secret Service protection? Former presidents get secret service protection for life, and there’s no law that says that ends if they go to prison. But you can’t incarcerate innocent secret service agents. It’s essentially the same logic that supposedly kept conjoined twins Chang and Eng out of jail when Chang punched a guy in Philadelphia. Eng hadn’t done anything wrong, so couldn’t be locked up. All very well as a hypothetical back then, but now Trump is one really good gag order violation away from spending the night in lock up. And unless the Supreme Court decides ex presidents are immune from all crime, there’s at least a possibility the hypothetical could be tested if any of the bigger trials actually happen. Step forward, former January 6 committee chairman Benny Thompson, with one weird trick ex presidents don’t want you to know, that could solve all of our problems. Benny has introduced a bill that would strip Secret Service protection from individuals who would otherwise qualify for it if theyre convicted of a felony or 87. Why has it taken all this time to come up with what now seems like an obvious solution? Well, im guessing Benny and his team have been holed up in a room working on the perfect acronym based name for the bill, and all the time was well spent. The bill is called the denying infinite security and government resources allocated toward convicted and extremely dishonourable former Protectees act, which, as the quick of thought among you will have already figured out, can be shortened to the disgraced former Protectees act. Come on, Benny, get it passed quickly. I bet Trump has a particularly vicious attack on the judge’s daughter in his truth social draft folder, and he won’t be able to hold onto it for long.

Mark: That’s great, isn’t it? That’s almost as good as the Karen act, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s excellent. Well, this one kind of feels like the emperor’s new clothes, you know, someone who’s patently, shall we say, stupid and bombastic and pompous enough to have bought the idea that a suit made of the finest thread and only he could see would also surround himself with people that would keep telling him the good news, that he’s stylish and handsome and well dressed and the source of much happiness, turns out in a way that we’re not the only ones looking for scraps of news to keep us amused. This week, as the stormy Daniels hush money trial kicked off, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted the presence of a figure in court whose job responsibilities sounded like a joke, writing that her job was to carry around a wireless printer to provide the former president with an ongoing stream of good news from the Internet, weaving together the thinnest of threads from tissues of slivers of happiness to adorn the stupid, fat face of Trump. I hesitate to say stupid fat, brain, because, you know, brain. But it turns out that the aide is very real. Her name is Natalie Hartley, a former one America news anchor who joined Trump’s communication team in March 2022, according to reporting that year by the Washington Post. Harp would even accompany Trump on golf trips in a cart equipped with a laptop and sometimes a printer to show him uplifting news articles, online posts or other materials. Other aides were tasked with asking Trump allies to call him and boost his spirits with positive affirmations. How they’re managing in amongst the acres and acres of Internet space being taken up with the criming of one Donald J. Trump, it must be increasingly difficult to find those nuggets of uplift. You don’t think they make him up, dear? At some point, an unknowing aide will get Natalie to print out what they think is an hilarious picture that is sure to amuse DJT and it will be of a small boy pointing out Donnies own butt nakedness, legally speaking to the gawping. Oh, how we’ll laugh at altogether the very least Trump has ever been.

Jim: There’s definitely room for some shenanigans here. It depends how much Natalie harp kind of goes beyond the headline. If she just like looks for positive headlines and prints them out and puts them in front of Trump or like reads the first paragraph or stuff, there’s definitely a way we could get some articles in front of Trump by just kind of making the beginning seem really positive and then kind of progressively more helpful to us.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. And yet he’s done with a kind of, there was a, there was a python fairy tale that started off with, you know, the, I don’t know, we had the bouncer, Chancey bouncy house, and then he just gets, Eric Idol has to turn over. No, I can’t read that. Carry on. It would just get really rude or really violent. So on the face of it, it would look really happy and then you’d have to kind of flip over a few pages. Oh yeah, that was great. Yeah.

Jim: Trump’s been indicted for a lot of crimes, like way more than average, even for a member of the Trump administration, and that average is pretty high. But it pales in comparison to the number of crimes Trump pretty much definitely did often in public before boasting about it on camera, for which he hasnt yet been indicted. For example, in a pre trial hearing in the Michigan fake electors trial, where Michigan Attorney general Dana Nestle charged 16 fake republican electors, a lead investigator revealed on Wednesday that the list of unindicted co conspirators in the case includes Trump, Giuliani, Mark Meadows and generalis. Incidentally, that list of 16 fake electors is now down to 15 after one had their charges dropped after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. Not to be outdone, on the very same day an Arizona grand jury indicted eleven fake electors in an identical scheme. And this time we didnt have to wait to find out that Trump is unindicted co conspirator number one. In that case, Meadows, Ellis and Giuliani cant keep him company in the to be indicted waiting room in Arizona, though, because theyve been indicted in the case along with the eleven electors and four more Trump allies, including John Eastman, Christina Bob and Boris Epstein. There are a few other unindicted co conspirators in the Arizona case, though. Most importantly, unindicted co conspirator number four, our favourite one of Trump’s Georgia co defendants, the kissaicly named Ken Cheese bro. I say most important because he was basically the architect of the scheme and went to Arizona to talk to the now indicted fake electors before they submitted their fake certificate. So the only plausible reason that he remains unindicted is that he too is cooperating with the prosecutors. So I hope Trump likes cheese and and bros.

Mark: In a move that is of course purely designed not to raise money for themselves, but rather to dissuade scammers from using Trump’s brand without his permission and diluting his ability to raise cash. The RNC is demanding that down ballot republican candidates and committees using Trump name or image in fundraising appeals donate 5% of funds raised to Trump national committee. JFC any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and president’s Trump M campaign, and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations. There’s the carrot. The stick contained in the letter to all prospective candidates asks that candidates not speak on behalf of President Trump, mention of the president’s family without their consent or the consent of the campaign, or impersonate President Trump or his campaign. Any vendor whose clients ignore the guidelines mentioned above will be held responsible for their class actions and that repeated violations will result in the suspension of business relationships between the vendor and Trump national Committee. JFC it reminds me of the control Colonel parker had over the Elvis brand, or the somewhat worse hold that the Kowalskis have overdose the Bob Ross name. And in Trump’s case, it might be slightly less evil than that one? I’m scratching my chin momentarily wondering why the main man would have to start charging those kind of riding on his ticket. Something to do with lack of funds, perhaps? I wonder why. Also, don’t you think the candidates down the food chain might just start to think they might be better off simply unhooking the one wheeled, broken down Trump bandwagon they increasingly appear to have to be dragging around. Just sell them sneakers, bibles and trading cards, Donald. They’re sure to snap those up just like the rest of us did. Hardy ha ha.

Jim: You don’t hang around with Trump for 25 years, desperately trying not to breathe in when he farts without picking up a thing or two about grifting the rubes. So having figured out that her share of the divorce settlement gets smaller with every day Trump spends fighting to stay awake in court, Melania has added a new tab to her website where you could already spend $35 on a hideous red, white, blue and gold Christmas ornament or $150 on a very limited range of digital collectibles that are somehow not as good as trumps NFTs. Her new jewellery range includes a single item, a Mothers Day themed necklace designed by Melania herself to look kind of like a flower a child might draw if theyd never seen a flower or drawn anything before. Like a designer might draw if when you said flower they heard shamrock. Maybe after the whole Easter Sunday trans Day of visibility alignment, Melania thought that happens with all holidays and is hoping Mother’s Day is going to fall on St Patrick’s Day soon and she’ll really clean up. Anyway, for the low, low price of $245, you can have three words engraved on the necklace in an awkward configuration where you can’t quite tell what order they’re supposed to be in because each word is on a different petal or shamrock leaf or whatever. And your mum can pretend not to hate it, like she did when you were six and you brought home a shitty bowl you made at camp, which mysteriously broke like a week later.

Mark: I’ve got a feeling that’s what happened. Every time Trump comes home, he goes, look what I made. She just chucks them in the cupboard. In the week when four horses ran wild through London and nobody thought, thought, hang on, apocalypse, you might have thought it was safe to go back in the water when the ghosts of Cruella de Bravaman resurfaced like the creature for the black lagoon to haunt the Rwanda bill, which got forced through last week despite many, many, many sensible amendment demands from the House of Lords, including, yeah, so how do you know it’s actually safe? Just because you said so? Has anyone done any actual looking? I’m sure there are arguments from philosophy, for instance, that doesn’t allow you to just do murder because you say it’s okay. And now, as Suella dreamed of the roundups of unprocessed, deliberately left unprocessed, under her reign in the Home office, immigrants and therefore illegals again, because we said so, will begin determined to be seen doing fucking. Something about the five clangingly empty pledges that Sunak made before the country ousts him on his tiny ears under a landslide of local and mayoral elections on May 2, and thus heap mountains of earth and calumny on him whenever he sees fit to call a general election. He’s going to spend about 1.9 million pounds per person flying someone, anyone. Please let it be gove Bravaman. Trust, for fuck’s sake, to Rwanda. Meanwhile, immigrants in Northern Ireland are crossing the border into the Republic to avoid being deported. And the irish government is saying, well, we’ll send them back to the UK because it’s their problem. Not enamored of the very rhetoric that they themselves have used to every other country in the world, the british government is saying, oh, no, you don’t. They’re not our problem, they’re yours now. And also, in some twisted logic, saying, you see, the Rwanda policy is working because they’re all leaving the UK in order not to go there, we all know isn’t working. And Starmer will rescind it and spend the millions on helping to integrate, house, educate and enhance the lives of people. Welcome to our shores, fleeing from conflict that the UK government is desperate not to be seen selling arms into. Oh, happy, happy day. And I’ve got to come back to the septic isle from France next week. Yep, looking forward to that.

Jim: Yeah, one of those definitely not the apocalypse horses was covered in blood as well. Yeah, like, it looked like Christy Noam had got to it.

Mark: Yes, exactly. That’s what they were running from. I think they got gunshot. Go. They were running into things. not one person went. Four horses.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: Well, has nobody said anything?

Jim: Yeah, yeah, one of them was a pale horse.

Mark: Exactly.

Jim: Didn’t have a pale rider.

Mark: No, because he lost it round back of St. Paul’s somewhere. Yeah.

Jim: So that’s all the bad arguments and faulty reasoning we have time for this week. You’ll find the show notes@felacioustrump.com and if you hear Trump say something stupid and want to ask if it’s a fallacy, our contact details are on the contact page.

Mark: If you think we’ve used a fallacy ourselves, let us know. And if you’ve had a good time, please give us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or simply tell one other person in person about how much they’d like our podcast and you can support the show@pager.com. ftrump just like our newest patron, Amanda Wittich, our, straw man level patrons, Colleen Lyler, Richard Thunder Hopkins, Will M. Scott, Ozzy on bank, Laura Thompson Schmootz, Mark Reiche, and Abba R. Buchanan, who told us when we met her at QED. We can just call her Amber, though, another listener recogniser at QEd last year because we keep using her full name all the time. And our true Scotsman level patrons, Renee Zed, Melissa Saitek, Stephen Janet Iwata, Andrew Halk, and our top patron, kaz tui. Welcome new patrons and upgraded patrons. And thank you so much for everyone for your continued support. It’s very much appreciated.

Jim: You can connect with those awesome people as well as us and other listeners in the Facebook group at, facebook.com groups. Feliciastrump.

Mark: All music is by the outbursts and was used with permission. So until next time on, felacious Trump, we’ll leave the last word to the defendant. That’s right. Go home to mommy. Bye.

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Jim Cliff
jim@fallacioustrump.com


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