Passing the Buck – FT#157

17 Sep Passing the Buck – FT#157

Show Notes

The Passing the Buck Fallacy occurs when someone attempts to avoid responsibility by claiming someone else is to blame for their actions.

Trump

We started out by discussing this clip of Trump explaining where the buck stops:

And then we looked at this clip of Trump not taking responsibility:

Finally, we talked about this clip of Trump minimising retweets:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about the shifting blame for Liz Truss’s budget, using these clips:

He followed that up by talking about Boris blaming Sue Gray for partygate:

Fallacy in the Wild

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

Then we discussed this clip from The Last King of Scotland:

And we finished up with this clip from Star Trek Deep Space Nine:

 

Fake News

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

1. Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down, you know I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so… impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that, because, look, child care is child care is. Couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it – in this country you have to have it.
2. But this is, we have to, there isn’t. The numbers are so much bigger when we talk about the things that we need to talk about that we need to do to make our country great again, because they don’t want to do that, and they want you to talk about things like child care, which, yes, but it’s really not very expensive, but it is very expensive, and everyone knows that, you know it probably better than anyone. But what we need is growth, and we need a plan.
3. We’re gonna have… I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just… that I just told you about.

Mark got it right this week, and is on 52%!

 

The Harris Trump debate was not a logical fallacy

We talked about the only debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

 

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

• The debate certainly had an impact on one viewer – an up and coming young pop singer called Taylor Swift. While pundits were still heaping praise on Kamala’s performance and Trump was trying to convince reporters in the spin room that he won, actually, Taylor took to Instagram and officially endorsed the Harris/Walz ticket. She specifically referenced AI images which Trump amplified suggesting she supported him, as a reason that she felt she had to be transparent about her voting preference. She included a link to federal voter registration site Vote.gov, and signed off with “Childless Cat Lady”. But before we get too excited, apparently, it’s no big deal and she won’t have any effect. Normal human JD Vance told Fox that he doesn’t think most Americans “are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans” and he’s probably right. Trump fans in particular are famously uninterested in what billionaire celebrities have to say. Back in the real world, though, Taylor’s post brought over 400,000 Americans to Vote.gov within 24 hours. That’s around a 1,250 per cent increase on their average daily visitors. Meanwhile Trump has been typically calm and erudite, posting in all caps on Truth Social on Sunday “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” but I’m pretty sure she’ll just shake it off.
• “LobbyMatic is a superb AI software with unmatched capabilities, and is quickly winning one bluechip customer after another.” It helps clients “massively increase your efficiency and effectiveness by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence.” so runs the advert for the newest lobbying firm running out of McLean Virginia and if you thought that the owners looked familiar you wouldn’t be the only ones – several ex-employees who’d only worked there for a month or so discovered that founders and CEO Jay Klein and Bill Sanders are none other than our favourite convicted fraudsters Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman. Thinking that they could perhaps harness the power of AI in real life they forgot that they’d have to keep using their new artificial names in the office and several employees kept noticing Burkman calling Jay Jacob, and having sneaked a quick photo of his employer one did a Google search and it came back Jacob Wohl cos you know Ohio judgement fining them $5 million dollars and all, and Burkman having appeared in an episode of the Netflix docuseries “Web of Make Believe” about the Seth Rich murder. Whilst Toyota and Lantheus did nothing with their 3 months free trial of LobbyMatic and let it elapse, Jeff Navin, a co-founder of Boundary Stone Partners, said “We were intrigued by the advertised potential of LobbyMatic and had a limited number of employees test out the service to track legislation and summarize Congressional hearings,” “We quickly determined the tool did not work and terminated our contract two months ago”. Perhaps the only use of artificial reality that Burkman and Wohl actually made was a high-ranking LobbyMatic employee out of thin air: “Pat Smith,” who is its “VP of Growth.” The blonde-haired woman has hundreds of LinkedIn connections, including top lobbyists at PepsiCo, Merck, GM and UnitedHealth Group. But Wohl told three of the former employees that the person doesn’t exist and that he created her because the best way to get introductions was to use an attractive blonde. As one ex-employee puts it perfectly “If I had to sum up my work experience with them, I would describe them as living with their heads in the clouds and in a false reality.” and one final laugh out loud detail – while LobbyMatic is based in McLean, it is not registered with the Virginia State Corporation Commission as a Virginia company as required, according to a record search. It was incorporated in Delaware in April 2023 with the registered agent’s name being “A Registered Agent, Inc.”
• On the day our last episode came out, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment in Trump’s election interference case following the Supreme Court’s crazy immunity ruling. The indictment was presented to a new Grand Jury, who had not previously heard the evidence against Trump, in order to head off any claims that the first Grand Jury was tainted by hearing evidence that would now fall under the immunity rules. The new indictment still charges Trump with the same four felonies, but Smith and his team have removed any reliance on events that could be classed as official acts, such as Trump’s interactions with DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. They’ve also added language emphasising the privateness of all the private acts, specifically referring to various private attorneys, calling Trump a candidate rather than the President, and emphasizing that Trump’s interactions with Mike Pence concerned his roles as Trump’s running mate and as President of the Senate, rather than as Vice President.  On September 5th Trump formally pleaded not guilty to the new version of the indictment and Judge Tanya Chutkan heard arguments from both sides about how the proceedings should, well, proceed. While Smith and his team are ready to go, Trump’s team suggested taking things slow, no need to rush, let’s just chill, let’s get this election over then maybe we can work on having this whole thing dismissed, but if you insist on a trial or whatever, how’s 2026? We’re free in the spring. Judge Chutkan made it very clear she will continue to not give a fuck about the fact that Trump is having a busy month and released a trial schedule that sees the prosecution identify what evidence they plan to introduce by September 19, and get all the bullshit motions to dismiss over and done with in October. I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for Trump getting Smith dismissed as Special Counsel, as Judge Chutkan diplomatically described Judge Cannon’s Florida opinion on the matter as not “particularly persuasive”. So, we won’t get a mini trial with witnesses and everything before the election, but depending on how much is redacted, we might see some new and fun evidence against Trump when the Special Counsel’s brief is filed this week.
• In the North Carolina governor’s race, things are getting ugly fast. In just 24 hours, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, an extremist who has been heartily endorsed by Donald Trump of course, is facing allegations that he was a regular at video porn shops in the 1990s and 2000s, and that his wife tried to stiff the Girl Scouts out of $3,000 worth of cookies. Robinson has crusaded to remove what he considers pornography — references to the LGBTQ community — from school and public libraries because, he says, it grooms and indoctrinates youngsters. He’s also said that “some folks need killing,” particularly liberals. Despite these “popular” stances Robinson is trailing in the polls against his Democrat rival and this puts the GOP on edge cos the state may be lost to Kamala Harris. Worse news however is to come for Robinson when Louis Money (yes his real name (apparently) though sounding like something straight out of a Tarantino movie) a former employee of a 24-hour video-pornography store in Greensboro, who insisted he had no political agenda, said Robinson would often purchase two or more “previews,” which consisted of a viewing in a private booth, over the course of a night. He also purchased “hundreds” of bootleg porn videos that Money sold, he said. Most were “just straight American porn,” he said. “And I don’t trust anybody that doesn’t like good old American porn,” Money said. “He should be judged on everything else, but he should not be judged for this.” When asked about Robinson’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues Money added “I know he might have problems with gay people, but I don’t think he has problems with lesbians,” Also In September of 2003, the Girl Scouts filed suit against, Robinson’s wife, due to a $2,956.03 bad check. The matter was heard the following month, and court documents indicate nobody attended on behalf of the defendant. The magistrate found in favour of the Girl Scouts and tacked on fees and damages as permitted by state law on returned checks for a grand total of $3,486.03. You know you can watch the exploits and exploitation of porn stars all you like but go ripping off the Girl Scouts Association and sheesh that’s one too far even for Trump’s Great Maga Hope surely!!

• We’ve talked before about candidate’s siblings advising everyone to vote against them, from body language expert Paul Gosar, whose six brothers and sisters all endorsed his Democratic opponent in his House race, to roadkill enthusiast RFK Jr, whose antics caused six of his siblings to join more than half a dozen of his other family members in endorsing Joe Biden over old BrainWorm McAntiVax. Well, now there’s another one to add to the list, because Pamela Carter is running for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives. Pamela’s little sister is Lynda Carter, the original and still the best Wonder Woman, who has warned Arizonans that her big sis is not interested in fighting for their rights, although she didn’t mention whether or not satin tights would be involved. Pamela is, in technical terms, a religious nutjob, who claims to have been “blessed with end-time revelation” which has apparently led her to do all she can to ban abortions with no exceptions, although she doesn’t appear to have read the bits of the Bible that are anti lying, as her masters degree keeps changing subject each time she mentions it, and despite implying that she got it at Arizona State University, she actually got it from Primus University of Theology, which as you might be able to guess from the clearly made up name, is not accredited. Meanwhile, desperate to find any dent in Tim Walz’s armor of avuncularity, Republicans are stealing our playbook and have spent the past couple of weeks amplifying a photo of several of his Nebraskan family members who support Trump, as well as a facebook post from his big brother Jeff saying “The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.” MAGA world got super excited about this and had no further questions, preferring to assume that if Jeff wasn’t even going to tell the stories they must be really bad. Actual journalists were curious though, and when they reached out, Jeff spilled the tea: “My little brother, when we were younger, we would go on family trips and in a station wagon. And the thing was, nobody wanted to sit with him, because he had car sickness and would always throw up on us,” he said. “That sort of thing. There’s really nothing else hidden behind there. People are assuming something else.” OK, so that was nothing, but what about those other eight family members in that photo? The ones in matching t-shirts saying Walz’s for Trump, but with an apostrophe instead of the ability to pluralize their own name? They probably have some good dirt on him. Again, real journalists looked into it and found that yes, they are technically members of his family, but only because they are also descended from Tim’s Great Grandfather. Tim’s actual sister said she didn’t recognise any of them, and even one of the women in the photo says she has other cousins in the area who think Tim is wonderful. Oh well, keep trying, Republicans!
• Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy delivered a long speech on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in which he said that the U.S. isn’t worth defending anymore because he has a friend whose kid’s music teacher is transgender. Kinda says all you need to hear really! In the middle of his speech, Roy started ranting about what he deemed wasteful government spending, attacking spending on defense as wasteful because, he argued, the U.S. isn’t worth defending anymore. “What the hell are we trying to defend? What is left of the United States to defend? A school where I can’t send my child to pray to God, without spending $20,000 a year on top of the taxes I pay?” he said, referring to the private school he sends his kid even though students are allowed to pray in public schools, according to the Department of Education. “A school that my friend sends her sixth grader to with a trans music teacher asking her kid to do some dance in class? Yes, true story,” he stressed, as if there was something unbelievable about sixth graders dancing in music class. “Is that what we’re defending with carriers and missiles and endless wars?” Well yeah, frankly, I guess defending a  society where everyone can be treated equally no matter what their race creed colour gender identity, that’s worth defending no? But I don’t think Chip sees it that way, last year, he cited a Pride event being held at a U.S. Air Force Base in Georgia as a reason to vote against funding for the military. Chip assumed office on January 3, 2019. His current term ends on January 3, 2025. Let’s just make sure he never comes back hey – Don’t forget to vote people!!
• Having never heard of the Streisand Effect, Trump decided to make the appeal of his civil sexual assault case as newsworthy as possible by showing up to court, which he didn’t need to do – in fact he didn’t even show up to the trial, and holding a press conference after oral arguments. During the press conference, which contained enough batshittery to guarantee its inclusion in a future fake news game, he once again defamed E. Jean Carroll, saying many of the same things she’s already sued him for twice and won each time, but he also made sure to defame one of the many other women he’s accused of sexually assaulting in the 70’s, Jessica Leeds. Leeds was in fact the focus of the oral arguments from Trump’s lawyer, since she was allowed to testify in the case, because, Carroll’s lawyers argued, her experience showed a pattern of behavior by Trump. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, claimed that Leeds’s testimony should have been ruled inadmissible, but whatever reason you think he gave, it’s not that. His reason was that the alleged event in her case occurred on a plane, and therefore they were under “territorial or maritime jurisdiction”, and different rules of evidence applied. Yes, he basically made a sovereign citizen argument. E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, somehow kept a straight face while explaining that there is no special aircraft jurisdiction, and pointing out “It was a crime to grope someone on a plane. It is a crime to grope someone on a plane”. According to Business Insider, the three Judges on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals seemed largely skeptical of Trump’s arguments and unlikely to order a new trial.
• In Britpol this week the increasingly unimportant leadership of the Tory party contest has whittled the prospective candidates down to 4 – the only thing of note is that Priti Patel was ousted in the very first round, the remaining candidates are just as hateful and extremist of course, they’re just not Priri Patel, so that’s something, oh no one of them is still Kemi BadENOCH. Aaagh! Labour meanwhile have persisted with their on-the-face-of-it foot-shooting money-saving exercise by making the additional winter fuel allowance payments made to pensioners means-tested. I.e. if you are a rich pensioner then you ought really not get the fuel allowance instead of poor pensioners, it seems to make sense but of course is being spun by the right wing press as not. Not that the right would’ve cared about pensioners over their reputation and being seen to care about elderly Daily Mail subscribers. However Labour’s large majority and a somewhat whipped free vote meant that the legislation got through with the promise that the increase in pensions would more than cover the cut of the fuel allowance, then why do it hmmm? Hopefully the October budget will simply tax the rich, the banks, the fuel companies themselves and generate enough money and goodwill to restore the fortunes of both the country and the Labour party somewhat! Wee-eeell…!

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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:

Passing the Buck – FT#157 Transcript

Jim: Hello, and welcome to Fallacious Trump, the podcast where we use the insane ramblings of Dollar store Jim Jones to explain logical fallacies. I’m your host, Jim.

Mark: And I’m the host, Mark. A 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 passing the buck.

Jim: So, yeah, passing the buck is kind. I mean, it can be a logical fallacy depending on how it’s used, but it’s kind of a rhetorical escape hatch. It’s a way of getting away with something. And how it’s usually used is to just kind of pass the blame for something you’re being accused of, which you almost certainly did, onto somebody else. Just suggest that it’s actually all your actions are someone else’s fault.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And, some people do this kind of almost reflexively. And it’s a thing that, from what I have discovered through finding examples in media and things like that, seems to be largely associated with narcissists because they just can’t accept the blame for anything. They can’t accept that they were wrong about anything. And so when they are legitimately challenged on a thing they did or said, they have to either just deny it or blame someone else for that.

Mark: Yep.

Jim: In Trump’s case, strangely, he does it. He does it. Yeah, pretty much all the time. Yeah. So it was an embarrassment of riches in terms of examples.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But I’ve picked a few. So our first example is from when the government shutdown was looming and he was trying to get the Democrats to fund his border bill.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And saying that basically the only way that you could fund the government through the next session was if you included border wall funding. And the Democrats were going, no, well, this is ridiculous. We’re not going to do this. And so he said, initially, I’ll take the blame for this. I’m proud to shut down the government in the interest. Hm of border security. But as it got closer to the kind of deadline that they had to actually do something about it, and, well, as they did, it actually shut. Shut down. And people Started getting pissed off about it. He started to notice, take as much responsibility as he promised he would. Shockingly m. And possibly inspired by Harry Truman’s plaque that he had on his desk saying, the buck stops here.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: a reporter asked him if the buck stops with him when it comes to the government shutdown. And you can just about. I’ve kind of. I’ve tried to improve the quality of this because it’s one of those ones he did as Marine One was getting ready to take off.

Mark: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: So you just about hear the reporter’s question here as well.

Donald Trump: The buck stops with everybody. They could solve this problem in literally 15 minutes. We could be back. We could have border security. They could stop this problem in 15 minutes if they wanted to. I really believe now that they don’t want to. I really believe that.

Jim: Yep. So it’s there. It’s them. They could do it if they wanted to. Yeah, they don’t want to. but yeah, the buck stops with everybody. Is.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Not technically possible.

Mark: No. Well, it’s that. It’s that if everybody’s responsible, then nobody is. Nobody’s going to take responsibility. Nobody’s going to stand up, say, right, yeah, it’s me. Because they’ll just immediately go, well, yeah, but no, it was him as well. And that guy there. Buck stops with everyone. No, that’s completely not what.

Jim: That’s not how.

Mark: Was trying to prevent from.

Jim: Absolutely. Yeah. And in fact, prior to his election, Trump said a few times, the buck stops with the president. If you’re in charge, then that’s. That’s how it works. Like referring to Obama at the time. And in fact, even in the art of the deal, he says, leadership is. You’re in charge, and if things go wrong, it’s your fault. Yeah, that’s just how it is. But apparently by this point, he’d abandoned that principle and decided that, if things go wrong, it’s everyone else’s fault.

Mark: Yeah. And if it all goes well.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: It would be all down to him.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: But. Yeah, but because people were starting to make noises like they didn’t like him then and blaming him for it, then. Yes, it’s nothing to do with me. That guy there. Yeah.

Jim: The origin of the phrase, incidentally, passing the buck, it’s a bit disputed, but the best etymology that I’ve seen of it, seemingly likely, is that it comes from poker, where you pass buttons around the table to show who’s the next to deal, or essentially the nominal dealer for that hand and who’s Next to. To take an action, and at some point that might have been made of butt skin or made of a piece of buck horn or be called the buck at some point. And so when it’s someone else’s turn to take responsibility essentially, for that hand, you pass the buck to them.

Mark: Right. Oh, so it’s not actually a dollar. No, it’s not, a buck.

Jim: So our second Trump example comes from when he was asked a question while doing a press conference about COVID in the Rose Garden. And this was pretty early on in the pandemic, and he was being asked about the testing.

Reporter: Dr. Fauci said earlier this week that the lag in testing was, in fact, a failing. Do you take responsibility for that? And when can you guarantee that every single American who needs a test will be able to have a test? What’s the date of that?

Donald Trump: Yeah, no, I don’t take responsibility at all because we were given a, set of circumstances, and we were given rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time. Wasn’t, meant for this kind of, an event, with the kind of numbers that we’re talking about.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He doesn’t take responsibility at all as the president.

Mark: No.

Jim: During a national emergency.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Because we were prepared for a different kind of emergency, I. E. None at all. Yeah. Or ones of our own making, rather than. Yeah. Lots of people dying from a global disease. Yeah. Nobody saw that coming, so we were just not prepared. So, And you can. In that we were given it. There’s the inherent blame for Jaina just. Just saying, no, I don’t take responsibility. What.

Jim: What? They were literally given all of the things he’s talking about, the rules and regulations and systems and stuff in place by the Obama administration, who had war gamed this exact situation because they had seen it coming. Because the CDC were like, you know, we are kind of overdue a bit for a global pandemic. There’s probably one coming. We had swine flu. We had Ebola, kind of the SARS thing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Stuff coming up. So they. They had a whole department that he defunded once he became president.

Mark: Yeah. That was looking at.

Jim: Aimed at doing those kind of things happening.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, I’m not responsible because I got rid of the people responsible. Absolutely.

Jim: So the systems they still had in place. No, they were not designed for this kind of thing. The systems they inherited. Absolutely. Were designed for that kind of thing. He was just like this. We don’t need these people.

Mark: Yeah. Scott Obama written all over it. Yeah. It’s a bit like the system of, you know, affordable health care. No, we don’t need that. We’ll have our own.

Jim: Yeah, that went well.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: And so our third Trump example comes from a town hall that he did on NBC with Savannah Guthrie, and he was asked about a tweet that he did when he still had Twitter. well, it was. It was a retweet of something a bit controversial.

Savannah Guthrie: Just this week, you retweeted to your. 87 million followers a conspiracy theory that. Joe Biden orchestrated to have SEAL Team. 6, the Navy SEAL to the six. Killed to cover up the fake death of Bin Laden. Now, why would you send a lot of your followers? You retweeted.

Donald Trump: That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody, and that was a retweet. I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves. I don’t take a position.

Savannah Guthrie: You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever.

Donald Trump: That was a retweet. And I do a lot of retweets. And frankly, because the media is so fake and so corrupt, if I didn’t have social media, I don’t call it Twitter, I call it social media, I wouldn’t be able to get the word out. And the word is false. And you know what the word is? The word is very simple. We’re building our country stronger and better than it’s ever been before.

Mark: Yeah. You’re not some crazy uncle. Well, no, actually, he is literally exactly what he is.

Jim: Someone’s crazy uncle. Yeah. In fact, when that clip was tweeted out, Mary, Trump did respond to it going, well.

Mark: 87 million followers. And he’s. And he’s going, no, no, nothing. Do me.

Jim: Yeah. So I mentioned that this is kind of used as a logical fallacy sometimes, depending on how it’s used. And the way Trump is using it in these examples is in the same way as you would if you’re. If trying to construct an argument to disprove a thing someone has said or to combat something someone said in. But instead of attempting to craft logic or. Or evidence or something like that against the thing they’ve claimed, he is pushing that off onto someone else. And in this case, he’s doing it in a couple of ways because he is denying responsibility for it because it was a retweet. Therefore, it was just, you know, he. Yeah, sure, he amplified it to, a third of the entire country. But he didn’t. It wasn’t his thoughts. Someone else had the thought initially that was, you know, someone else’s crazy conspiracy theory based on nothing. He just, just amplified it. He just sent it out to millions and millions of people who hang on his every word and believe everything he said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s not his responsibility, obviously, but also the reason he does that, the reason he, he retweets insane conspiracy theories is because the media is so corrupt that, that that’s the only way he can get the message out. The message being not the crazy conspiracy theories, but that they’re going to be doing great things for America.

Mark: Yeah. Which wouldn’t be so bad if you retweeted that. Yeah, that would be.

Jim: Yeah, that would be responsible use of.

Mark: Your social media and, and acceptable and, you know, politically motivated. Where in the original tweet did it say, we’re going to be building a greater America?

Jim: It’s not a necessary part of the message to, to include the conspiracy theory. That, that isn’t important.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: If, what you’re trying to do is use social media where, in your opinion, mainstream media fails you in your attempt to talk to the American people, that doesn’t require you to amplify insane conspiracy theories.

Mark: No. And use passing the buck off to A, the insane conspiracy theorist in the first place and B, mainstream media.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Isn’t a logical argument.

Jim: No.

Mark: Not that we’ve ever. Have we ever spotted him using a logical argument? I’m just thinking that we’ve done it all this time. Have we? I don’t found one where he’s not using a fallacious argument.

Jim: I can’t, I’m not thinking of anything off the top of my head. No, but, no, he’s, he talks a lot. He must stumble backwards into one at some point, surely.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. Well, you think, you think, but, you know, we’re quite, quite au fait with the amount of things that he says and the things that he says when he’s talking a lot.

Jim: Yeah, I can’t think of one.

Boris Johnson: and now is the time, I think, for Mark’s British politics corner.

Mark: Well, speaking of narcissists, I think, yes, you have hit upon the through line for all these people. That kind of doing, doing the buck passing. Our latest narcissist is. Well, it’s not the latest, let’s face it. One of them, is Liz Truss. And in, 2022, she was the then Prime Minister, Liz Truss, and her then chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng proposed a tax cut for the top 1% of earners. Here’s Kwasi Saying so

Kwasi Kwarteng: but I’m not. Going to cut the additional rate of tax today Mr. Speaker, I’m going to abolish it altogether. From April 23rd we will have a single higher rate of income tax of 40%.

Mark: Yeah, so he’s going to he also said he would retain corporation tax at Ah, 19% scrapping a planned rise to 25% and reverse a recent rise in national insurance payments, saying that the near 50 billion pound cost would just get added to the UK’s debt. The Office of Budget Responsibility had not been approached for advice vis a vis the unfunded funded nature of these cuts. And Kwarteng and Truss had purported theories from that right wing think tank, the iea, the Institute of Economic Affairs. Their theory was that the resultant growth as business took off would pay for it because higher taxes deter investment and reduce incentives to work. Which is what Kwarteng said. Trust said that a lot too. But the actual markets in the actual real world reacted otherwise. Economists balked at the idea that 45 billions of unfunded tax cuts for the rich could ever catalyze economic growth and pay for itself in the way that government argued. And it was not just the anti growth coalition that Truss purported, but people like Goldman Sachs, the Bank of America, and the pound which fell to its lowest ever value against the dollar. And the International Monetary Fund issued a strong stinging rebuke and of course Truss passed the buck.

Liz Truss: I met the former Chancellor earlier today. I was incredibly sorry to lose him. He is a great friend and he shares my vision to set this country on the path to growth.

Mark: Basically when it all went tits up, she just sacked him. Well yeah, he can’t. I think he was asked to resign. The revolver got slid across the desk basically. And then she. But note how he shared the video Vision for Growth with her. She eventually resigned after just 44 days in office. And the bank of England bought government bonds to save pension funds from collapse and consequently raised interest rates for borrowing. Here’s Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the bank of England talking about the impacts of this mini budget.

Andrew Bailey: I was in Washington, as is well known because I was in the news at the IMF annual meetings which is the biggest events of the year internationally as the G7, the G20 and so on. And we have damage now. I mean people saying you know, we didn’t think the UK would do this.

Rushanara Ali: You’re talking about the mini budget.

Andrew Bailey: Yes, and it will take longer to rebuild that reputation than it will be to correct the gilt curve so that’s.

Mark: The context against which in recent months Truss has reinvented herself as a victim of the collective left rather than a puppet of the fiscally Wild west right, and passes the buck to a whole slew of people, none of whom are, Liz Truss. So here she is at an institute for government speech and an LBC radio interview, flinging bucks willy nilly in the direction of anyone passing and let’s count them afterwards.

Liz Truss: Unfortunately, most of the policies weren’t implemented. And they weren’t implemented because there was a reaction from the political and economic establishment which fed into the market markets that were already destabilized by the bank of England’s slowness to hike interest rates and the failure to regulate LDIs. The anti growth coalition is now, a powerful force comprising the economic and political elite, corporatists, part of the media, and even a section of the Conservative parliamentary party. The point I made earlier, Kitty, is that those rates were going up anyway. I think the political failure was to tell people that the rates have been artificially too low too long. And in fact the rates have gone higher since the mini budget than they were during the time of the mini budget. And this has not been a point that’s been reflected by the media at all. I mean, I admit that the communication wasn’t as good as I would want it to be. I mean we were in a, a fairly unusual situation of a leadership election, a period of a hiatus. Very sadly the late queen died. So there were difficult circumstances. The left have. In the same way as they sort of say, you know, government was trying to abolish the forests or they’re trying to do this, they’re trying to smear me with economic results that are clearly not, I’m clearly not responsible for.

Iain Dale: Do you believe Andrew Bailey should still be governor of the bank of England?

Liz Truss: No, I don’t. I certainly think there should be a proper investigation into what happened in September 22nd and the actions the bank of England took.

Mark: Well, we know what they did. They Basically, they stopped LDIs. She mentioned LDIs, which are, liability driven investments, but basically pension funds. So she’s saying the bank of England had artificially suppressed interest rates. Well, it was, yeah, and then they went up, but then they were going up anyway and they went up a bit more afterwards. And this was because the bank had done things to protect guilt and pensions and a bundle load of money to stop the market panicking and thinking, well, where’s this 50 billion coming from? Okay, we’re gonna have to stop that, otherwise it will all happen. And then the mortgage companies are withdrawing products so that to put up the interest rate. And she’s blaming that, she blames the media, the Metropolitan. Basically the left, the Queen dying. And you know, it’s. Yeah, she didn’t go as far as to say the war in Ukraine, but we’ve got the other buck pass them to talk about that shortly. So it’s just unbelievable that she said I’m. They did all of these things that I’m not responsible for. And we, I think we touched on this before that actually it’s, it’s not what I did, it’s what people did as a result of it. That was the problem. Yeah, that’s. But the, though the problem was what you did. And, and the real world, in the real world markets went what the have you done? We’re going to have to do all of this stuff. And Andrew Bailey earlier said our rep is going to take longer to rebuild our reputation than it is to recoup the money we put into buying government bonds to prevent the run on the banks and basically another meltdown like 2008. So yeah, it’s just unbelievable. And the fact that I think she’s a little bit miffed that she only lasted 44 days and Andrew Bailey’s still there. You know, she’s. So she’s turning to the narcissistic conspiracy theory, which is kind of retweeting other people’s conspiracy theories in a way saying it’s about the left who are just anti growth. Well no, that. It’s just that they weren’t mad right wing cowboy, Institute of Economic affairs type people. At no point did have they said a bit like the Conservatives aren’t very good at saying, oh yeah, what we did was actually we shouldn’t have done that. They blame everybody else. And at no point has her government said, oh yeah, we were being puppeteered by these people. And what this has done is showed that that kind of extreme capitalism doesn’t work. That’s what, that’s what they should be saying.

Jim: Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to though.

Mark: They’re not going to. No, no, no. which brings us nicely to in 2019, he actually said outside the step of 10 Downing street when he got elected to prime minister, he actually said the buck stops with me. And of course I’m talking about the buck. Pastor in chief Boris Johnson and Partygate. And throughout the beginning of the year 2022, Sue Gray was Charged with investigating all the breaches of the rules during COVID lockdown in 2020 and 2021. That took place during and by the Johnson government at number 10 Downing Street. Conveniently, this enabled Boris Johnson and his ministers. To avoid answering any questions about their, perceived and documented behavior. Or any actions they should take as a result of those for many months whilst the Sue Gray report was being prepared. And here’s a montage that the Guardian newspaper did of the. Of, Johnson and all of his cabinet at the time. Passing the buck.

Boris Johnson: And though I cannot anticipate the conclusions of the current inquiry, I have learned enough to know that there were things we simply did not get right. I think it’s very important that we see what Sue Gray See what the inquiry has to say. Of course, of course, Mr. Speaker, we must wait for the, We must wait for the outcome of the inquiries that we have.

Dominic Raab: This investigation by Sue Gray. To look at all of these potential claims. and I’m not going to get into commenting on them when that investigation, is, Is proceeding and will report very shortly.

Boris Johnson: I know that you know perfectly answer. People want to ask questions about that. I think you’ve got to wait for that to come out.

Nadhim Zahawi: I reassure my constituents that, you know, Sue Gray is a very senior civil servant. Very well, able to conduct this investigation.

Boris Johnson: But, Mr. Speaker, he must wait, for the inquiry, which will report as soon as possible.

Grant Shapps: Again, Sue Gray will establish all the facts. We all wait to see what Sue. Gray has heard and the conclusions that she makes.

Boris Johnson: I’ve just got to ask people to wait for Sue Gray to report. but she must contain her, impatience, Mr. Speaker, and wait for the inquiry next week. Before she draws any of the conclusions that she’s just assertive.

Mark: Of course, when the report came out, it was terribly damning. All of those, assumed things that were. Well, they were all. They’d all happened and we’d all seen them happening. And they just passed the buck and said, we’re not going to do anything about it until the report arrives. Then the report arrived, Said, yeah, you’ve done all those things that we said you’ve done that we’ve seen you do. And all the people that were asking these questions are vindicated in asking those questions. And of course, he did everything he could to try and impede the publication of the finished report. but then he was. And it was eventually published. And he was found guilty of having breached the rules. but he didn’t think he should do anything about that and kind of passed the buck.

Mark: Then I was in particular appalled to learn that there have been multiple examples, in Sue Gray’s phrase, of disrespectful and poor treatment, cleaning and security personnel. The police did not find my attendance at these occasions to be a breach of the rules, but, they found otherwise in respect of some of those gatherings after I had left or when I was not in the building. And then I’ve tried to explain the context of, why I was at, other events where I was saying farewell to valued colleagues. And I just. I know that people, will think, it was. Some people will think it was wrong, even to do that. I have to say I respectfully disagree. I think it was right. Of course, I understand, why people are, indignant and why people have been angry at what took place. all I can say is that I really think, given everything that is going on right now, it’s my job to get on and serve the people of this country. Not, just to get, us through the biggest war in Europe for, 70 years, but a huge spike in, the cost of, living and to deliver our manifesto commitments on which I was, elected, with a large majority. So I, I hear you. I understand you. but I really feel it’s my job to get on.

Mark: So he does mention the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis and the fact that he was elected with a large majority and that, cleaners were being abused by other people and the other people in the building were clearly, in breach of stuff after he had left the building.

Jim: Yeah, I wasn’t even in the building at the time.

Mark: I wasn’t. Yeah. But these things happened and added. So it’s nothing to do with me. And it’s just. You can hear his. The. The. The spin doctor in his head running around trying to find phrases and put them together. It’s, It’s. It’s very revealing when he knows that he’s been caught in a lie, that he stumbles and stutters and he didn’t. Yeah, he didn’t revert to, Latin, but it’s only a matter of time. and it’s just patently obvious that he should resign. And that was. Everyone was saying, well, you just got to go. All of this stuff’s been found. And he didn’t go. And, eventually he went because half his cabinet resigned in order to force him to go. Even then he didn’t want to go. And they just kind of went just off, will you? We can’t have this anymore. Anymore. You’ve got to go. And then he went on to deny all and any responsibility. Responsibility, for misleading parliament about Partygate passing the buck to his supporters, calling the select committee biased and prejudice and a kangaroo court which he then adopted as the description after he had been found to have misled parliament. And then he passed the ultimate buck by resigning as an MP prior to being suspended for 60 days. So he’s just dodged everything in whilst scatter gunning. So the bullet is dodged. He’s actually done that kind of Marvel superhero thing. He’s stopped it and then he split it into a thousand others and then fired it back at anybody who’s in the way. So it’s kind of passing the buck is also about throwing people under the bus and avoiding it and saying, well, I’m not going to be subject to the 60 day suspension. Which is, you know, unheard of for a former Prime Minister, acting mp because it would lead to a recall, and your constituents will vote you out. So he just resigned and had all his privileges taken away anyway. So, man. So yeah, yeah. Narcissists.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Steve Waters jazz brunch there with a track called Pass the Bark which I, then because he’s, he’s improvising against the background and I just improvise.

Jim: Fair enough.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So in the fallacy in the world, we like to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example this week comes from the 1994 film Disclosure, which was part of the weird rash of late 80s early 90s films where Michael Douglas played a poor persecuted man at the mercy of a sexually aggressive woman.

Mark: Right, right.

Jim: It was like, it was almost like a kind of a season of films based on that premise for a weird period.

Mark: I think he enjoyed making them.

Jim: Yeah, possibly.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And so in this one, this is based on a Michael Crichton novel and Demi Moore plays a, woman who. They work for a company that makes CD ROMs and it gets into an enormous amount of detail in the CD ROM building, like CD Rom, readers and writers and machines, not the discs themselves gets into a weird level of detail in the technology and all of that. Because it was 1994, they were pretty new at the time and this was like very exciting. There’s, there’s some early kind of virtual reality stuff going on in there, kind of lawnmower man level stuff, but it’s not, it’s not good. But this is almost the end of the film. So apologies for spoilers, but you’ve had 30 years. If you haven’t watched it yet, then you know you’ve had your chance. and Michael Douglas is in charge of the production line for the CD ROM machines, the CD ROM readers. And she has deliberately made changes to the specifications on the production line in Malaysia to make them go badly and cost more so that he gets into trouble because he’s in charge of the line, so that he will get fired. That’s the, that’s kind of a big section of the plot of this film. And, and so at the shareholders meeting he presents they green light. This, I don’t know. At the shareholders meeting at the end of film, he presents the evidence against her. And even then, where her whole plot has been attempting to pass the buck on to him, she then does that again when confronted with the evidence.

Tom Sanders: The first memo in the file is being handed out to you, is signed by Meredith Johnson and it states that manual labor will be used to install the chips. Now that made the Malaysian government very happy. It also meant voltage irregularities and memory allocation.

Meredith Johnson: That was a complex negotiation. The Malay government insisted.

Tom Sanders: Malaysian government does not own shares of digicom. All of these people here do. The second memo reduces the air handling capacity in order to cut the costs. And that’s why we’re getting dirt in the split optics in the drive arms, the chip joints. The resulting delays will actually increase the. Costs by more than 70%. The third memo regarding the Singapore supplies,

Meredith Johnson: not mine. These problems were created because of your incompetence, not mine. This is exactly the problem with this division. Passing the buck and political backstabbing

Bob Garvin: Meredith

Meredith Johnson: I’m not through Bob. This so called evidence of yours, Mr. Sanders, is fooling no one. Now you can come down here and showboat and protect your little turf and think it, but the fact is you were not informed of these decisions because they were over your head.

Jim: I mean you can see, you can hear how riveting the technical ins and outs of CD ROM drive production are. but basically she’s arguing that the drives were his responsibility. But all of these changes were above his pay grade. And that’s why he wasn’t even told about them. That’s her defense. It’s his incompetence that has led to these changes being made, which made them worse. Without him knowing about it.

Mark: Without him knowing about it. And he’s taking. He’s taking the blame. And he’s now trying to pass the buck back to her. And she’s.

Jim: Well, he’s doing it legitimately because it is actually her. I mean, it’s literally.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: She did it deliberately to make him look bad.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So our, second example is from the last king of Scotland, which, if you’re not aware, is about Idi Amin. And in 1972, Idi Amin expelled, just kind of on a whim, all South Asians from Uganda, which created an enormous labor shortage because there were a lot of South Asians in Uganda. In fact, they owned about 90% of the businesses in Uganda at the time. and. Yeah, and so his theory was that that would mean that those businesses could then be run by Ugandans. And that would be good for them and the country. And, in fact, that is not how it worked. And it all went very badly.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So when things start to go badly wrong, he, of course, blames his advisor, Dr. Garrigan.

Idi Amin: I want you to tell me what to do.

Nicholas Garrigan: You want me to tell you what to do? Yes.

Idi Amin: You are my advisor. You are the only one I can trust in here. You should have told me not to. Throw the agents out in the first place.

Nicholas Garrigan: I did!

Idi Amin: But you did not persuade me, Nicholas. You did not persuade me.

Jim: So, yeah, he got the right advice, he ignored it. And now he’s blaming Nicholas for not being strong enough in his advice. In order to persuade M, the murderous dictator, that his decision was wrong.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Narcissistic. Uh-huh.

Jim: Murderous dictator.

Mark: Yeah. So, yeah, we should send that film to Nigel Farage and say, you see? You see what happens? Yeah. All your advocating this kind of terrible race racism based policies. Fundamentally not good.

Jim: Not good.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: No.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And our final example of a narcissist is Quark from Deep Space nine.

Mark: Right. Yeah.

Jim: And, in this instance, his brother and nephew are working on a replicator that has gone wrong.

Nog: The replicator’s entire power supply grid has been shorted out.

Rom: I told you, brother, if you don’t. Shut down your replicators at least once a week for routine maintenance, your risk system overloads. Like this one.

Quark: You said it might m. Overload? The system might.

Nog: He tried to warn you, Uncle Quark. You should have Listened to him.

Rom: No, it’s my fault. I should have explained it better.

Quark: Of course it’s your fault. Everything that goes wrong here is your fault. It says so in your contract.

Mark: Yeah, it’s not like he couldn’t listen really, is it?

Jim: Yeah, no, he’s got more ears. Yeah, yeah. But no, it’s, it’s, it’s a shortcut that. He’s got it actually written into Rom’s contract that anything that goes wrong is his fault. So it doesn’t, it. He doesn’t even really need technically to do it to do the passing of the buck each time because it’s already not his fault by default.

Mark: That’s. Yes, that’s the, the position that you go up from.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can see that Rom has been so kind of engendered into this position. He’s, he’s so used to it that he just goes, ah, it’s my fault. I should have explained it better. I’ll take the blame.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of missed Quark. I was reminded of him when Rishi Sunak came into office because he too, you know, he’s all about business and has big ears. Yeah, maybe that. Maybe the two run well. It gives the impression of being able to listen, but maybe not.

Jim: You know, Deep Space Nine, it’s in the future, so maybe there’s, an ancestor there.

Mark: Yeah, could well be.

Jim: So before we move on to fake news this week, I have a couple of announcements. The first one is that my book 2000 Meals Drumroll is now available. I’m gonna tell you not to go out and get it yet.

Mark: Right? Yeah.

Jim: If you want a, paperback or a hardback version, then absolutely, go out and get it now because it’s out and it’s available. And get it. Just go to Amazon and type in 2000 mules and then choose the one that isn’t Dinesh’s book. But, if you want a Kindle version, then from the 24th to the 28th of September, it’s going to be free on Amazon.

Mark: Right?

Jim: So wait, wait a week and then download it. And also I’m going to make a request. Even if you could not give a shit about this and you’re not interested in at all, I would really appreciate it if you could download it during that period when it’s free.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: Because the more people who download it, the more Amazon will think, oh, people are interested in this.

Mark: And, the further up the charts it goes, basically, we’re rigging the charts is what you’re saying.

Jim: We are encouraging people to show that this is a good thing that people might want.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The other thing I would say is.

Jim: If you download it and read it, I would really appreciate a review.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: Because while I mean we ask for reviews or we mention reviews at least on ah, about the podcast that reviews, I’ll be honest with you, don’t make a great deal of difference on the Apple algorithm.

Mark: Right.

Jim: it’s nice to have and it’s nice when people look up your podcast and they see, oh, this might be.

Mark: People saying this is great, you should listen to it.

Jim: And it’s just for our egos and.

Mark: God knows we’ve got you know, they’re small enough as they are.

Jim: Desperately in need of love.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So the, the difference on Amazon though with reviews is that it actually does make a difference to the Amazon algorithm. But more than anything else it makes a difference to whether people might consider buying a book on Amazon. So a lot, it’s social proof essentially. A lot of people will pay attention to what the reviews say. Not even necessarily what they say, just kind of ratings and the number of reviews a book has or something lends it an air of legitimacy that I can only hope for. So.

Mark: Right. Not wishing to skew the reviews, but it’s a good book, so.

Jim: Oh yeah, well, I think you will.

Mark: Be moved to leave a good review.

Jim: So yeah, if you could download it between the 24th and 28th of September.

Mark: For nothing, won’t cost you anything for free.

Jim: And if you, if you read it and like it, please do rate it and leave a review, that would be great.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Also the other thing that I wanted to talk about is qed, which is coming up in October.

Mark: It is racing towards us.

Jim: We’d like to know if any listeners are going because we know a few, we know a few listeners who will definitely be going. But if you are making it, over to Manchester, there are still a few tickets available. So if you haven’t decided to do it yet, there’s still a chance that third weekend, I think it is in October 19th. It’s going to be great. Do come along, we’ll be there. And on the Friday night there’s a quiz. And currently our quiz team is one person short. So if you’re coming along and you fancy a bit of a quiz, let us know and you can join our quiz team.

Mark: Let us know. Yeah, so we’re going to, we’re going.

Donald Trump: To 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: I’ve realized that the reason this game is so disequal is that the people that were supposed to act on my wishes when it came to ensuring certain things were in place before I arrived didn’t do their job properly in anticipating what I was going to say before I said it. So it’s. It’s not my responsibility, you understand?

Jim: Yeah. It’s never your fault, is it? It’s always somebody else.

Mark: It’s not. It’s other people just haven’t done their jobs properly. Yeah, yeah. frankly, I’m getting fed up with it, and if, if I, you know, somebody ought to take responsibility to tell these people.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: To do. To do their jobs. Right. Yeah.

Jim: So our, theme this week is that, I fear you may have already seen this quote and therefore.

Mark: Right.

Jim: it is one.

Mark: That’s the theme.

Jim: That’s the theme. The theme is, I feel you may.

Mark: Already have seen it. Yeah.

Jim: Ah.

Mark: So, I mean, it’s not much that you think you’ve seen.

Jim: It’s not much of a theme in that it’s all like bits of one long quote. But.

Mark: Right.

Jim: but it has been around a lot. But it’s one of those ones that’s so delicious, I couldn’t not use it.

Mark: Right.

Jim: I had to use it.

Mark: Right.

Jim: But I’m. I’m not holding out a lot of hope for victory this week against either, so. Ah, we’ll see.

Mark: I see what you’re doing. I see what you’re doing. You’re lulling me into a full sense of security. Yeah.

Jim: So this was an answer that Trump gave to the question, what specific legislation will you commit to. To make child care affordable?

Mark: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Section number one, he said, right, well, I would do that. And we’re sitting down. You know, I was somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about that. Because, look, childcare is. Childcare is. Couldn’t, you know, there’s something. You have to have it in this country. You have to have it.

Mark: What? Yeah, we’re sitting there, you know, I was somebody. We had what. yeah. So basically, what he’s saying is, I don’t have an answer. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m just going to open my mouth and let words fall out.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Until the people controlling my brain, the rat in my chef’s hats, is going to find the something to echo. So he’s just, Then he just goes, look, child care is. Child care is in his brain.

Jim: It’s just ch. What’s child care? Surely your immigrant wife takes care of that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Child care. Is it worse than Brexit Is Brexit Is it. Child care is. Child care is.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So couldn’t you know something? Can’t we shine the light in there like a bright light, kind of bleach?

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: What the.

Jim: but his. Hell, that wasn’t the end of his answer.

Mark: Okay, okay.

Jim: He continued. Yeah, but this is. We have to. There isn’t. The numbers are so much bigger when we talk about the things that we need to talk about that we need to do to make our country great again. Because they don’t want to do that. And they want you to talk about things like child care, which. Yes, but it’s really not very expensive. But it is very expensive, and everyone knows that. You know it probably better than anyone. But what we need is growth, and we need a plan.

Mark: Oh. So, he must have clocked somebody’s face falling when he said it’s, not very expensive. Oh, no, but it’s very expensive, and everybody knows that. And because they don’t. What we need to do. We need to talk about that. Because they don’t want to do that, and they want you to talk about childcare, which is what they were talking about. So he’s blaming them for talking about childcare, for falling for the people, telling them that they don’t want to talk about making the country great again.

Jim: Oh, God. And yeah, in conclusion.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Number three.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: We’re gonna have. I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country. Because I have to stay with childcare. I want to stay with childcare. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just. That I just told you about.

Mark: But he didn’t. That’s. There. Wait a minute. He didn’t talk about a plan at all. He just said there’s the numbers are bigger. When, we talk about the things and the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, and he actually hasn’t talked about them. He’s then said, oh, yeah, these numbers that I’m making up are much bigger than the ones that. That you’re talking about, which I’ve already told you about. So don’t bug me about. Don’t pressure me to give you the answer, because I’ve just told you that. Ah. What the. Okay, okay. A plan. We need a plan. And here’s the plan I’ve just told you about. Child care is. Child care is. I really like that one. That’s. Even you, with your brain the size of a planet, I’m, not sure that you would pay. Child care is. Child care is. That’s so good. okay. Including growth. The plan I just told you about. I quite like that he’s convincing them that he’s just told them something when he hasn’t. Oh, God. Right. Okay, so based purely on. I want him to say child care is. Childcare is. That’s real. Okay, so what. All right, then, so I’m going to. With no confidence whatsoever, I’m gonna go with number two. Number two is the one that you made up. Okay, so very expensive, but not very expensive.

Jim: Of the other two, which are you more convinced by?

Mark: Oh, yeah, Child care is. Child care is. Okay, yeah, we’re not about convinced. But I just. I don’t know that, you know, we. We could get as far as Brexit is Brexit, but that childcare is. Childcare is.

Jim: Yeah, well, number one, just.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Israel.

Donald Trump: Well, I would do that. And we’re sitting down. You know, I was, somebody. We had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so, impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that. Because, look, childcare is childcare.

Mark: It’s.

Donald Trump: Couldn’t, you know, there’s something. You have to have it in this country, you have to have it.

Jim: What?

Mark: When you talk about the kind of numbers I’m talking about, okay, so tell us the numbers that you’re talking about. Because, look, child care is. Childcare is. Couldn’t, you know, there’s something. You have to have it. Couldn’t, you know, there’s something. And we’re sitting down. You know, I was somebody we had. And he’s just ranging around, who the fuck. So who do I know?

Jim: Trying to start a thought and yeah. And is hoping that something will just fill in the space where words are supposed to be.

Mark: Something will jump in. That’s convincing. That was just like. Well, yeah, you see, when I’m talking about the kind of numbers I’m talking about, you’re gonna be so knocked out by these mythical numbers that I haven’t even named yet. I haven’t even used numbers. I’m just using words to talk about the numbers. What? Yeah. I wanted it to be real, but it is horrifying. It’s real. No.

Jim: Oh, so you also think number three is real.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yes. Yes, number three is real.

Mark: Ah.

Donald Trump: We’re gonna have. I, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with, the reductions that I took told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country. Because I have to stay with childcare. I want to stay with childcare. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, that I just told you about.

Jim: I didn’t edit out a plan that he told us about.

Mark: No, no. Did he. He, I suspect he didn’t tell us what the plan.

Jim: I mean, he was at, best has, has concepts of a plan.

Mark: He knows that there. A plan is needed.

Jim: Yeah, yes.

Mark: Yeah. What, what we should have is a.

Jim: Plan basically at the most generous interpretation of the sane washed version of the things he said.

Mark: Right. Yeah.

Jim: What he’s essentially saying is that the deficit is enormous, you know, trillions of dollars.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Which is partly due to his administration. So relatively speaking, childcare isn’t a big deal.

Mark: Right. In terms of costs.

Jim: He’s obviously ignoring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s ignoring. The fact is that first of all, the question is about, how are you going to make it affordable to the people who are actually paying for it rather than. Yes, yeah. Because they’re not going. Oh, this, this childcare would be easy to afford if it wasn’t for all the money that deficit costs me.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: That’s not an issue for them. So he’s ignoring that. He’s also implying, again being really generous, that if you get rid of the deficit, which he has no plan for whatsoever.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Then you could afford to pay for childcare for people. But.

Mark: Right.

Jim: At no point ever has suggested that the government should or would pay for childcare for people or provide childcare. In fact, the Republicans typically vote against any efforts by Democrats to make, you know, free pre K care or anything like that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Despite the fact that Republicans want people to have children rather than not have children and, but they don’t give a. About paying for them.

Jim: So. He didn’t, he didn’t answer the question. He didn’t. Former sentence.

Mark: No, no, yeah, he did. A formal sentence. No. And it’s, and it’s just. And we’re all looking forward to having no deficits. So basically he’s saying we can’t afford it. I’m not going to say on camera that I’m not going to spend any money on childcare and even if I suggest anything, the Republicans will vote it down. Yeah, and I don’t want to have that kind of stuff because in a weird way that would be perceived as a Democrat win because that’s far too left wing and progressive for the Republicans.

Jim: I think to the extent that you can call what he experienced a thought process, I think you’re being overly generous about the extent that. To which he thought about his answer at all. I, I don’t think it was that he thought, oh, you know, I can’t tell the truth about that because the truth is horrific. That.

Mark: Right.

Jim: We, yeah, Republicans just don’t give a. About people’s ability to, to get childcare for their kids. In fact, if anything, we’d prefer it if childcare was more expensive because then more mums would have to stay home to look after their kids and they’d be out of the workforce. That’s the truth. But I don’t think at any point he thought, well, I can’t say that I thought he was just, he just doesn’t have an answer. He does. He’s never considered this question before. It’s just the first few words that spring out of his mouth.

Mark: Thing out of his face. Yeah, yeah, but. And it is a very specific question because they actually said what specific thing? What would you do? So it’s a bit like, you know, when did you stop beating your wife? Kind of thing.

Jim: It’s not really, I don’t think. What specific legislation would you do is a trick question.

Mark: Well, insofar as they know full well that they aren’t going to put any legislation in at all. So to actually ask what specific piece of legislation you are, but is a bit of a, let’s poke the tiger.

Jim: But an actual politician could answer it without giving because there isn’t any specific legislation that they’re planning on doing. But they could answer it in terms of, you Know, making sure that parents are uppermost in our minds when making these decisions about these things. And we’re going to do everything we can to reduce the outgoings and cut taxes for the middle classes and all that kind of stuff that will ultimately mean that those people can afford the childcare, even though it is unfortunately a, fact of life that it’s expensive and all of that kind of stuff. Without actually saying, yeah, we don’t care if it was anyone else, it would have been shocking that that was a, question that they weren’t prepared for. But with Trump.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: You know, he doesn’t prepare, for anything at the best of times when he knows that he’s going to be standing in front of people for 90 minutes answering questions, and that’s all he’s required to do. He still doesn’t prepare for that. So.

Mark: Yeah. And for that specific audience, it’s a fairly straightforward question and a very appetite one with that audience.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: And yet he’s ranging around as though they are using a language he’s never heard.

Jim: Well, he’s responding in kind by using a language that no one could possibly understand.

Mark: That makes no sense at all. Yeah.

Jim: So, that means you did get that. Right.

Mark: Oh, yay.

Jim: So you are. You’re hovering around 52% at the moment. You’re kind of. Keep going back.

Mark: Oh, well, There you go.

Jim: 52%.

Mark: Blimey. M. You could leave the European Union on a percentage like that.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: No. With no qualms whatsoever. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And, we do have a few social contestants on Patreon.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Scott said, I know, I’ve heard number one. Number two is probably real because I can hear the deranged mental shuffle in my head. I think three is the one you made up because I cannot fathom Dog Donald using the word coupled in a sentence that actually makes sense. I mean, I think you’re being very generous to suggest any of those sentences made sense, but. Okay.

Mark: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Couple. Yeah, I hadn’t spotted that. Yes, yes, yes. Now, you said that I might have chosen. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: The. The Pizza Dude Chronicles on Tick Tock says, I know number one is real, and of the other two, I’m going with three is pure Jimmy. Unless it isn’t, but totally is.

Mark: Ah. you see? Nice, Nice. You see, they are. They’ve. They’ve not got the measure of you yet. Yeah.

Jim: Hugh says, very clever as always. I’m confident of number one. Everyone’s confident number one. Yeah. And. And I think the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about is something that he said. Which leaves number two as the one you made up. My God, he’s a.

Mark: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we all agree on that one. Yes. Even if we don’t agree on the answers. But ye. Yeah, nice. Yeah.

Jim: Richard said these were all tough to read, but I think number two is fake news. You just let autocorrect do its thing and it came up with total batshitness. And then he adds, actually, was Trump m made by Skynet and just blurts out autocorrect all the time. Interesting.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Jim: And finally, Schmootz says, jim, seek help soon. Your fake news is becoming indistinguishable from the crazy Trump. I’m pretty sure number one is real. I’m going with two as fake news because I can’t imagine him saying we need a plan. Surely he’d already have a plan. It would be the perfect plan. Everybody would say so.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. People would say, sir, that’s a perfect plan. That’s. It’s funny, isn’t it, how people kind of latch onto various words of praises things. What was the bit that didn’t was. It’s not very expensive, but it’s very expensive. That for me was a tell and everybody knows that that might have been the tell. I don’t know.

Jim: Wow.

Mark: There we go.

Jim: Sure.

Mark: Fantastic. Well, before we head off to the next bit, which for this episode at least is called the Harris Trump debate was not logical fallacy.

Jim: Stealing my bits now.

Mark: I know. Yeah, well, that’s because I’ve got where I can. I’ve got a duck out now.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: so I’m gonna leave Jim to talk about that, but I’m going to possibly we might upload a member of the outbursts musical version of one of the highlights of that.

Jim: So Mark will be back for the. For the headlines later. But yeah, unfortunately I’ll be doing the debate stuff on my own. So see you in a moment for that. And as Mark just said, it’s time for the part of the show that this week at least is called the Trump Harris debate is not a logical fallacy because there was a debate the first. Well, actually now the only one between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris because he has chickened out of any more because spoiler, he fucking lost. The difference between the Trump Biden debate and the Trump Harris debate could not have been more stark. Kamala took control basically from the very, very beginning. She marched across the stage and held out her hand to shake his and kind of introduced Herself weirdly said, I’m Kamala Harris. He was immediately on the back foot from that, because he probably wouldn’t have made any attempt to shake her hand otherwise. But he felt he had to, he kind of said, have, fun. And she did. And it was clear that the preparation that each had gone through had been very effective for Kamala and not very effective for Trump, which is unsurprising because apparently she took the preparation pretty seriously. She had a person standing in for Trump who others have said is kind of good at being like Trump. He had previously stood in as Trump for Hillary Clinton’s debate prep. So he’s got some experience with this. She kind of shut herself away for a few days to actually get the kind of preparation that you need to do for these things, of figuring out what questions you might get asked, what, attacks you might be able to use against your opponent, and the quick and good sound bites that you’re going to put out. Because the reality is, with debates, some people are going to watch them. This was watched by over 60 million people, which is a huge number. But the vast majority of those people who are watching the whole thing have already made up their mind. Those aren’t undecideds. Undecideds to the extent that it’s even possible to understand them at this stage. One of the things that I think we have to accept about them is they couldn’t really give a shit about politics. So they are probably not watching the whole debate. So the people who are watching the whole debate are, people who’ve already made up their mind and want to see what happens with their candidate. So one of the big things that happens with debates and where it has any possibility of really making a difference in people’s minds is with the sound bites that come out. So one of the parts of the preparation is to make sure that you have those things that you’re going to say that you think might get picked up and, put out. Sometimes those things, the things that go viral, the things that get picked up, aren’t necessarily something you prepared, as we’ll discuss in a minute, but that’s what the goal is really. And it may be that part of Kamala’s preparation was to try and trigger those less positive moments from Trump, which she certainly did. I mean, the one I think that came out from, from Kamala particularly, again, probably wasn’t a prepared one in that when she was talking about him, she started by gesturing at him and saying this, and ultimately said, this former president. But the Pause in between when it looked like she was trying to find just the perfect word to describe him and it felt like her brain was going through some choice options and she decided to be professional and call him this form of president. But you could absolutely insert mentally while she was pausing, this motherfucker, or whatever your preferred epithet is. She has said, apparently that’s one of her favorite swear words. So maybe that was what she was thinking and she was like, it’s national tv, I can’t say it, this former president. So that was beautiful. And that’s gone around a bit. But the main moments that have been picked up by the news are things that Trump said because they were typically insane. His preparation involved essentially his staff tricking him into doing debate prep, like putting a pill in cheese to feed it to a dog or something. They apparently would call it policy time. They wouldn’t call it debate prep, presumably, because if they called it debate prep, he would not do it. So they, they fooled him by calling it policy time and talking to him presumably about policies that they didn’t take at all because he didn’t mention any policies that he has. You would think from watching the debate that the only thing he’s running on is immigration. That was pretty much what he turned every question into, was something about immigration. So maybe, maybe that was the one thing that got through of the things that have eked out into the general consciousness from people, for people who didn’t in fact watch the debates. The main one is when he talked about what’s going on in Springfield, Ohio. What’s actually going on in Springfield, Ohio is that around 12 to 15,000 Haitian refugees have settled there at a working largely manual labour or in factories there. What the right wants you to believe is that 20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants have taken over the town and ruined it. And what Trump wants you to believe, according to what he said during the debate, is that those Haitian immigrants, are eating the dogs and cats, the pets generally of the people of Springfield. Pretty fucking racist and completely unsubstantiated based on it seems something that JD Vance picked up from a third hand Facebook post that someone said that a friend of their daughter’s had lost their cat and then someone else later saw it strung up from a tree, maybe being prepared for meat. But even then that was a third hand account and that person has since recanted that and said actually it was a story that they were told by someone. It wasn’t even that the person who put it on Facebook didn’t even get the relationship between the people right. There’s. There’s no reliable stories about this thing actually happening at all. The moderators in the debate didn’t do a lot of fact checking, but they did a significant improvement on the previous debate, the Trump Biden debate, because there was actually a bit of fact checking. And this was one of the things that got fact checked. The fact that there was any fact checking at all, which resulted in, I think, four or five things that Trump said being fact checked was pointed to, as absolute proof of ABC rigging the debate. because they. The only things they fact checked were Trump things. I mean, that’s because he was lying almost constantly, as is his want. And while a couple of things that Kamala said were either slight exaggerations or, or questionably phrased, there wasn’t anything that they were like, holy, we have to tell people that wasn’t true because she didn’t say anything like that. So what resulted from that is she didn’t get fact checked. He did. And all the people who are the right wing people who are looking at it are thinking, well, that’s clear evidence of bias as opposed to. That’s clear evidence of Trump talking bullshit constantly. One of the things that people have pointed to afterwards is a case elsewhere in Ohio of an American citizen who, isn’t Haitian, isn’t an immigrant, was arrested for animal cruelty and accused of killing a cat. And in the interaction with the police, there was some question about if she’d said she was eating it or something like that. It’s not in Springfield. It’s not a Haitian immigrant, and it’s nothing to do with this. But that video has been pointed to as evidence that actually everything Trump said was, was true. obviously it’s not. And what led to Trump yelling, they’re eating the dogs, was basically Kamala getting under his skin, which is very, very easy to do because his skin is incredibly thin. But what she did was, she took the piss out of his rallies. She said that if you go to one of Donald Trump’s rallies, what you’ll do is you’ll hear him talking about Hannibal Lecter and windmills causing cancer, but also you’ll see that people get bored and leave. And despite the fact that he was then asked a question, he could not continue without arguing about his rallies and claiming that his rallies are the best, the most wonderful political rallies of all time. And no one leaves, everyone’s excited, and people don’t even go to her rallies. And, she has to bust them in and pay them to be there and all of that stuff. And basically by that point, which was pretty early on in the debate, he was fucking cooked because that was all he could focus on, was his ego. which is unsurprising. I mean, in a way, it’s surprising he lasted a few minutes. But he went then into the crazy stuff. And any hope that his team had of him being restrained in any way, were out of the window. So I think the next thing that he was fact checked on was his typical claim that Democrats are, in favor of. Of aborting babies in the ninth month and, even after birth. And so the moderators obviously said, well, that. That doesn’t happen. He was asked about healthcare because he brought up Obamacare and was talking about how he was going to do stuff about it, because Kamala actually started out by talking about some. Some policies, some real policies about helping people to buy homes and. And giving people money when they have a new baby and that kind of thing that would, you know, improve people’s lives, that kind of stuff. And, and Trump said that she actually didn’t have a plan, but he. He had plans. He had policies. And, he was asked about the health care plan that he said, what, eight, no more than eight years ago now, he would replace Obamacare with. Essentially, he said that what they would do is they would. They would only replace it. You know, he wouldn’t mess with it. He would only replace it if they had something better, which implies very strongly that they don’t. They cut. They literally can’t think of anything better than Obamacare. And when he was kind of tried to be pinned down by the moderator on, if he has any kind of plan for health care, he said he has concepts of a plan which is not a plan. It’s. It’s. It’s nothing. Yeah. So that’s the strongest policy he came out with, was that, he has concepts of a plan about healthcare, but, not an actual plan, obviously. He accused Kamala, of being divisive of. Not Kamala specifically necessarily, but the. The Biden administration and Camela by proxy essentially have. Of dividing the country, which is rich, obviously. but to be fair, I think, she accused him of being divisive, which there’s more evidence for. But in each case, I think actually they’re both a little unfair because between them, between Trump’s utter craziness and, the enthusiasm in the Kamala campaign, they have actually brought together both sides because Dick Cheney and Bernie Sanders are going to be voting for the same candidate this election. And I mean, I really thought that America’s politics were as divided as they could get, but that if you can get those two people to be going for the same candidate, then really, division maybe is breaking down in the US So that’s a good thing. They have a spin room at these debates, which is essentially where the journalists go. And there are surrogates from each campaign to claim that their candidate won. And some of the surrogates were a bit surprising because there were some Republicans or former Republicans who were in there talking on Kamala Harris behalf, including people like Anthony Scaramucci. And there were former Democrats or people who have at one point claimed to be Democrats speaking on behalf, of Trump, including people like RFK Jr. He was a really, really bad choice to be a surrogate in the spin room for Trump because apart from him being RFK Jr. And all of the things that come with that, he didn’t think Trump did a good job. So over the kind of week after the debate, he has repeatedly said that he thinks that Kamala won the debate and that Trump didn’t do very well and that independence will have moved away from Trump and towards Kamala. So terrible choice on Trump’s part. And Trump, of course, has claimed that he won, naturally, because that’s what he does. That’s the whole pigeon playing chess thing. The pigeon struts around like they’ve won after they’ve knocked over all the pieces and shat on the board. That’s the end game for the pigeon, is to strut around as if they’ve won the game. And that is exactly what Trump did. He went into the spin room, which typically winning candidates don’t do because it’s, it’s where you try and get people to make allowances for your performance. So he went in there and tried to talk to journalists, and actually surprising number of the journalists weren’t even interested in talking to him. But he went in and immediately claimed that, you know, they were already polling and the polls all showed that he won, you know, in a landslide. every reputable poll that’s been done since the debate has shown that Kamala was by far the winner. Whether that will translate into actual votes for Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz remains to be seen. There’s still just under now 50 days until election Day. early voting is starting very soon in some states. Check your voter registration because they are trying to purge voter rolls in some places. Go to flaccus trump.com vote and that will take you to where you can check your registration. You can do, you can register to vote if you’re not registered yet. You can find out information about voting by mail. You can get election reminders set up. So do all those, those the things that you need to do make your plan to vote. Because while everything that happens seems to make it make me more optimistic about the outcome, there’s still almost two months to go. A lot could happen and the m only thing we can do is make sure you vote and you try to help other people to know that that is important too. One more thing before we move on to the headlines is as I’m actually recording, there’s a breaking news story about what they the FBI calling a, another potential assassination attempt on Trump at his west, Palm Beach Golf club in Florida. There isn’t a lot of information at the moment. They have a suspect in custody who has been identified and they are still looking for a motive. The, ah, earliest reports said that there were gunshots in the vicinity of Trump when he was playing golf, at his golf club. It seems like those gunshots were from the Secret Service agents. it doesn’t seem like them. The person who apparently had an AK47 style rifle, in bushes surrounding or around the golf course fired any shots. So, yeah, it’s extremely early in this story. We’ll obviously be talking more about that in our next episode, I’m sure. But for now it’s too early to speculate on anything about this story really. But, it seems like the law enforcement are treating it as an assassination attempt or a potential assassination attempt. But no one is injured, so that’s positive.

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

Jim: The debate certainly had an impact on one viewer, an up and coming young pop singer called Taylor Swift. While pundits were still heaping praise on Kamala’s performance and Trump was trying to convince reporters in the spin room that he won. Actually Taylor took to Instagram, and officially endorsed the Harris Waltz ticket. She specifically referenced AI images which Trump amplified, suggesting she supported him as a reason that she felt she had to be transparent about her voting preference. She included a link to federal voter registration site Vote.gov and signed off with childless cat lady. But before we get too excited, apparently it’s no big deal and she won’t have any effect. Normal human JD Vance told Fox News that he doesn’t think that most Americans are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans. And he’s probably right. Trump fans in particular are famously uninterested in what billionaire celebrities have to say. Back in the real world, though, Taylor’s Post brought over 400,000Americans to Vote.gov within 24 hours. That’s around a 1,250% increase on their average daily visitors. Meanwhile, Trump has been typically calm and erudite, posting in all Caps on Truth Social on Sunday. I hate Taylor Swift, but I’m pretty sure she’ll just shake it off.

Mark: Lobbymatic is a superb AI software with unmatched capabilities and is quickly winning one blue chip customer after another. It helps clients massively increase your efficiency and effectiveness by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. So runs the advert for the newest lobbying firm running out of McLean, Virginia. And if you thought that the owners looked familiar, you wouldn’t be the only ones. Several ex employees who’d only worked there for a month or so discovered that the founders and CEO Jay Klein and Bill Sanders are none other than our favourite convicted fraudsters Jacob Wall and Jack Berkman. Thinking that they could perhaps harness the power of AI in real life, they forgot that they had to keep using their new artificial names in the office. And several employees kept noticing Berkman calling Jay Jacob and having sneaked a quick photo of his employer. One did a Google search and it came back Jacob Wall because you know Ohio judgment fining them $5 million and all and Berkman having appeared in an episode of the Netflix docu series Web of make believe about the Seth Rich murder whilst Toyota and Lantheus did nothing with their three months free trial of Lobbymatic and let it elapse. Jeff Navin, a co founder of Boundary Stone Partners, said, we were intrigued by the advertising potential of Lobbymatic and had a limited number of employees test out the service, track legislation and summarise congressional hearings. We quickly determined the tool did not work and terminated our contract two months ago. Perhaps the only use of artificial reality that Berkman and Wall actually made was a high ranking Lobbymatic employee out of thin air, Pat Smith, who is VP of growth. The blonde haired woman has hundreds of LinkedIn connections including top lobbyists at PepsiCo, Merck, GM M and United Health Group. But Wal told three of the former employees that the person doesn’t exist and they created her. because the best way to get introductions was to use an attractive blonde. As one ex employee puts it perfectly, if I had to sum up my work experience with them, I would describe them as living with their heads in the clouds and in a false reality. And one final laugh out loud detail. Whilst Lobbymatic is based in McLean, it’s not registered with the Virginia State Corporation Commission as a Virginia company as required. According to a record search, it was incorporated in Delaware in April 2023, with the registered agent’s name being a, Registered Agent Inc. On the day our.

Jim: Last episode came out, special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment in Trump’s election interference case. Following the Supreme Court’s crazy immunity ruling, the indictment was presented to a new grand jury who had not previously heard the evidence against Trump in order to head off any claims that the first grand jury was tainted by hearing evidence that would now fall under the immunity rules. The new indictment still charges Trump with the same four felonies, but Smith and his team have removed any reliance on events that could be classed as official acts, such as Trump’s interactions with DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. They’ve also added language emphasising the privateness of all the private acts, specifically referring to various private attorneys calling Trump a candidate rather than the president, and emphasising that Trump’s interactions with Mike Pence concerned his roles as Trump’s running mate and as president of the Senate rather than as vice president. On September 5, Trump formally pleaded not guilty to the new version of the indictment, and Judge Tanya Chutkan heard arguments from both sides about how the proceedings should well proceed. While Smith and his team were ready to go, Trump’s team suggested taking things slow. No need to rush, let’s just chill, let’s get this election over with and maybe we can work on having this whole thing dismissed. But if you insist on a trial or whatever, how’s 2026? We’re free in the spring. Judge Chutkan made it very clear that she will continue to not give a fuck about the fact that Trump is having a busy month, and released a trial schedule that sees the prosecution identify what evidence they plan to introduce by September 19th and get all the bullshit motions to dismiss over and done with in October. I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for Trump getting Smith dismissed as special counsel, as Judge Chutkan diplomatically described Judge Cannon’s Florida opinion on the matter as not particularly persuasive. So we won’t get a mini trial with witnesses and everything before the election, but depending on how much is redacted, we might see some new and fun evidence against Trump when the special counsel’s brief is filed this week in the.

Mark: North Carolina Governor’s race. Things are getting ugly fast. In just 24 hours, Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, an extremist who has been heartily endorsed by Donald Trump, of course, is facing allegations that he was at regular at video pawn shops in the 1990s and 2000s and that his wife tried to stiff the Girl scouts out of $3,000 worth of cookies. Robinson has crusaded to remove what he considers pornography references to the LGBTQ community from school and public libraries because he says it grooms and indoctrinates youngsters. He’s also said some folks need killing, particularly liberals. Despite these popular stances, Robinson is trailing in the polls against his Democrat rival. And, this puts the GOP on edge because m the state may be lost to Kamala Harris. Worst news, however, is to come for Robinson when Louie Money. Yes, his real name, apparently, though he sounds like something straight out of a Tarantino movie. A former employee of a 24 hour video pornography store in Greensboro who insisted he had no political agenda, said Robinson would often purchase two or more previews, which consisted of a viewing in a private booth over the course of a night. He also purchased hundreds of bootleg porn videos that Money sold. He said most were just straight American porn and I don’t trust anybody that doesn’t like good old American porn. Money said he should be judged on everything else, but he should not be judged for this. When asked about Robinson’s stance on LGBTQ issues, Money added, well, I know he might have problems with gay people, but I don’t think he has problems with lesbians. Also In September of 2003, the Girl Scouts filed a suit against Robinson’s wife due to a $2,956 and $0.03 dollars bad check. The matter was heard the following month and court documents indicate nobody attended. On behalf of the defendant, the magistrate found in favour of the Girl Scouts and tacked on fees and damages as permitted by state law, and returned checks for a grand total of $3,486.03. You know, you can watch the exploits and exploitation of porn stars all you like, but go ripping off the Girl Scouts association and sheesh, that’s one too far, even for Trump’s great maga Hope.

Jim: Surely we’ve talked before about candidate siblings advising everyone to vote against them. From body language expert Paul Gosar, whose six brothers and sisters all endorsed his Democratic opponent in his house race, to roadkill enthusiast RFK Jr. Whose antics caused six of his siblings to join more than half a dozen of his other family members in endorsing Joe Biden over old brainworm McCantivax. Well, now there’s another one to add to the list, because Pamela Carter is running for a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives. Pamela’s little sister is Lynda Carter, the original and still the best wonder woman who has warned Arizonans that her big sis is not interested in fighting for their rights, although she didn’t mention whether or not satin tights would be involved. Pamela is, in technical terms, a religious nut job who claims to have been blessed with end time revelation, which has apparently led her to do all she can to ban abortions with no exceptions. Although she doesn’t appear to have read the bits of the Bible that are anti lying, as her master’s degree keeps changing subject each time she mentions it. And despite implying that she got it at, Arizona State University, she actually got it from Primus University of Theology, which, as you might be able to tell from the clearly made up name, is not accredited. Meanwhile, desperate to find any dent in Tim Waltz’s armour of avuncularity, Republicans are stealing our playbook and have spent the last couple of weeks amplifying a photo of several of his Nebraskan family members who support Trump, as well as a Facebook post from his big brother, Jeff, saying, the stories I could tell, not the type of character you want making decisions about your future. Magaworld got super excited about this and had no further questions, preferring to assume that if Jeff wasn’t even going to tell the stories, they must be really bad. Actual journalists were curious though, and when they reached out, Jeff spilled the tea. My little brother, when we were younger, we would go on family trips and in a station wagon. And the thing was, nobody wanted to sit with him because he had car sickness and would always throw up on us. He said that sort of thing. There’s really nothing else hidden behind there. People are assuming something else. Ok, so that was nothing. But what about those other eight family members in that photo? The ones in matching T shirts saying Walt is for Trump but with an apostrophe instead of the ability to pluralise their own name? They probably have some good dirt, on him. Again, real journalists looked into it and found that. But yes, they are technically members of his family, but only because they’re also descended from Tim’s great grandfather. Tim’s actual sister said she didn’t recognise any of them, and even one of the women in the photo says she has other cousins in the area who think Tim is wonderful. Oh, well, keep trying. Republicans.

Mark: Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy delivered a long speech on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, in which he said the US isn’t worth defending anymore because he has a friend whose kids. Music teacher is transgender. Kind of says all you need to hear, really. In the middle of his speech, Roy started ranting about what he deemed wasteful government spending. Attacking spending on defense is wasteful because he, argued the US Isn’t worth defending anymore. What the hell are we trying to defend? What is left of the United States to defend a school where I can’t send my child to pray to God without spending $20,000 a year on top of the taxes I pay? He said, referring to the private school he sends his kids, even though students are allowed to pray in public schools, according to the Department of Education. A school my friend sends her sixth grader to with a trans music teacher asking her kid to do some dancing class. Yeah, true story. He’s stressed as if there’s something unbelievable about sixth graders dancing in music class. Is that what we’re defending? With carriers and missiles and endless wars? Well, yeah, frankly, I guess defending a society where everyone can be treated equally, no matter what their race, creed, color, gender identity, that’s worth defending? No, but I don’t think Chip sees it that way. Last year, he cited a Pride event being held at a US Air Force base in Georgia as a reason to vote against funding for the military. Chip assumed office on January 3, 2019. His current term ends on January 3, 2025. Let’s make sure he never comes back, eh? Don’t forget to vote, people.

Jim: Having never heard of the Streisand effect, Trump decided to make the appeal of his civil sexual assault case as newsworthy as possible by showing up to court, which he determined didn’t need to. In fact, he didn’t even show up to the trial. And holding a press conference after oral arguments. During the press conference, which contained enough batshittery to guarantee its inclusion in a future fake news game, he once again defamed E. Jean Carroll, saying many of the same things she’s already sued him for twice and won each time. But he also made sure to defame one of the many other women he’s accused of sexually Assaulting in the 70s, Jessica Leeds. Leeds was in fact the focus of the oral arguments from Trump’s lawyer, since she was allowed to testify in the case because Carroll’s lawyers argued her experience showed a pattern of behaviour by Trump. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, claimed that Leeds testimony should have been ruled inadmissible. But whatever reason you think he gave, it’s not that his reason was that the alleged event in her case occurred on a plane and therefore they were under territorial or maritime jurisdiction and different rules of evidence applied. Yes, he basically made a sovereign citizen argument. E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan somehow kept a straight face while explaining that there is no special aircraft jurisdiction and pointing out it was a crime to grope someone on a plane. It is a crime to grope someone on a plane. According to Business Insider, the three judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals seemed largely sceptical of Trump’s arguments and unlikely to order a new trial.

Mark: In Brit poll this week, the increasingly unimportant leadership of the Tory party contest has whittled the prospective candidates down to four. The only thing of note is that Pretty Patel was ousted in the very first round. The remaining candidates are just as hateful and extremists, of course, they’re just not Priti Patel, so that’s something. Oh no, one of them is still Kemibad Enoch Labour, meanwhile, have persisted with their, on the face of it, foot shooting money saving exercise by making the additional winter fuel allowance payments made to pensioners means test. That is if you are a rich pensioner then you ought really not get the fuel allowance instead of poor pensioners. Seems to make sense, but of course is being spun by the right wing press as not not that the right would have cared about pensioners over their reputation and being seen to care about elderly Daily Mail subscribers. However, Labour’s large majority and a somewhat whipped free vote meant that the legislation got through with the promise that the increase in pensions would more than cover the cost of the fuel allowance. Then why do it? Hopefully the October budget will simply tax the rich, the banks, the fuel companies themselves, and generate enough money and goodwill to restore the fortunes of both country and the Labour Party somewhat. Weeee.

Jim: So that’s all about arguments and faulty reasoning. We have time for this week. You’ll find the show notes@fallacioustrump.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 podcast. Or simply tell one other person in person about how much they’d like our podcast and you can support the show at patreon.com f TRUMP just like our straw man level patrons Richard Thunder Hopkins Will M. Scott Ozzie on Bank. Laura Thompson, Schmootz. Mark Reichian, Abba R. Buchanan, who told us when we met her at QED we could just call her Amber, though another listener recognized her at QED last year because we keep using her full name all the time. And our true Scotsman level patrons, Renee Z, Melissa Citek, Stephen Bickle, Janet Jueta, Andrew Hauck, and our top patron, Kaz Tuohy. Thank you so much for your continued patronage. It’s really very much appreciated indeed.

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Mark: Felix all music is by the outbursts and was used with permission. So until next time on Felicia Trump, we’ll leave the last word to the Donald. That’s right.

Donald Trump: Go home to mommy. Bye bye.