Showdown
Showdown Episode 61 5-14-24
(upbeat music) - Welcome to Showdown, I'm Mark Casein, and believe me, this has been an extraordinary day in every possible way, and especially at the trial of Donald J. Trump, which is now on pause, because as you know, this is Tuesday, Tuesday the 14th of May, and of course, Judge Mershan does not do his trials on Wednesday, because he takes care of personal things on Wednesday. In fact, he goes out and does a lot of community service things and connects to the community in lots of different ways. He's an interesting guy himself, and he won't be back until Thursday, and that's when we'll see the resumption of Michael Cohen's cross-examination, and that is truly something that if you're not watching, really, let's say that you don't like to watch MSNBC, because you don't wanna know the truth of what's going on in the world around you, but don't watch Fox, because that's not gonna help you. What you need to at least do is get a copy of the transcript of what actually took place today and just read the words, because the words will at least help you to get some idea of what's going on instead of being bombarded with lunacy, which for the most part is 99% untrue and maybe 100% for that matter, but if you actually take two minutes and flip over to MSNBC, just try it once, and listen to people like Andrew Weisman and some of the other prosecuting attorneys, Joyce Vance, I mean, there are some really excellent attorneys, prosecutors, famous prosecutors who have taken the time in real time to read the transcripts and then to get the information from both the people in the studio or in the courtroom rather, while they're in the studio, and then some of these people have at the same time flipped back and forth where they've gone to the courtroom so that they got a flavor for what's happening there and then come back and read the transcripts and then try to relay the information to the public. I mean, clearly, there's gonna be a result. I mean, this is gonna be over and there's going to be a result, but since we don't have one yet, we could at least try to understand some of the things that are going on. For example, I think this is really interesting. It appears now that this business of Donald Trump going to sleep, I mean, he may be going to sleep, but what he's actually doing is closing his eyes for 90% of the time that he's in the courtroom. When all of the discussions are going on, when all of the cross-examinations, the direct interrogation, everything's going on, he closes his eyes and it's come across to many of the people in the courtroom, the idea that he's really possibly doing this intentionally and that basically the intention is to sort of give an FU to the entire courtroom, including the jury, which honestly, that's not surprising. I mean, Donald Trump's crazy. He's a very sick human being. And so by going in there and disrespecting everybody, including the jury, this guy is asking for something that he's going to get which he was probably going to get anyway, and maybe that's exactly the point. Maybe his point is, is he knew that he's going to lose, he knew that he was up against it. So he figured he'd act crazy so that when it was all over, he could say, "Well, you know, I could've won. "In fact, I should've won, "but I closed my eyes and ignored everybody "and acted nuts "because I couldn't take the rigged courtroom. "And therefore, I would have won, "but for the fact that I wouldn't knuckle "under these people." I mean, maybe that's his methodology here. Honestly, nobody will ever know. I mean, there are a lot of things I always think that people will find out, but this one we're not going to find out because even if Donald came to us all and said, "Look, here's the truth. "It would be a lie." He doesn't tell the truth. And you have no way of guessing what he's saying that he means and what he's saying that he doesn't. So I think you can pretty much conclude that we're never going to know what Donald thinks he's doing in that courtroom. But we can know this much. There is a cross-examination that took place today. And that cross-examination, according to almost everybody who's watched it, has been so ineffective. First of all, it was a very heavy attack on Michael Cohen from the start, probably to try to roll him up, probably to try to get under his skin, probably to try to work him up and get him acting crazy. Well, none of that happened at all because instead what really happened is Michael just kept answering the questions. Now, there was some nuance that was discussed by all of these attorneys with regard to what he might have said a little better or how he could have acted more genuinely so that people would have seen that he was really remorseful. But all of these things that they're describing after I've listened and I've listened all day long, I can tell you that they seem to be sort of like splitting hairs. They're not getting anywhere. They're not creating any image that would make you think that somehow the defense was just conquering Michael Cohen, because they're clearly not. What's basically happening here is, is that Cohen is taking the shots. He's already been established as a liar, a purr, a person who has absolutely no concern for anybody but himself for the most part. So if that's the truth, if he's come across that way, if they intentionally gave that impression, then I think the next point is that under cross-examination, unless they could really break him down, which they have not been able to do. Unless they could do that, I think it's pretty clear that Donald's in serious trouble, because they really have all the corroboration of what Michael Cohen has said in the last day and a half. All the corroboration of that was done at the beginning of the trial. A lot of people say this was a very brilliant strategy for the prosecutors, and I guess we're gonna find out if that's true, if we get to the end, which could now be a week and a half away, and the jury comes back and says guilty, because that's the bottom line, and if they do, then everybody's gonna say that yes, the prosecution was just genius in the way they laid this out, because they laid out all the details first. They laid out one after another after another. All the corroborating evidence, and then they brought on Stormy Daniels, and then finally, they brought on Michael Cohen, and there were some other possible witnesses to follow him, but they explained today that they're not doing it. That's it. It ends here on the prosecution side. So the last part of this is what we're going through now, which is the cross-examination of Michael Cohen done by Todd Blanche, the lead attorney on Donald Trump's side, attempting to break down Cohen. But after basically a full day of cross-examination, they haven't even come close to breaking him down. He has just hung in there, answered the questions, and except for, like I say, a little bit of nuance that each attorney has picked up on and said, well, he could have done this, he might have done that, but except for that, these tiny little things, the bottom line seems to be that Michael Cohen is just holding in fine, and yes, he admitted he hates Trump, and of course he hates Trump. He hates him because in the first place, he forced Cohen to borrow $130,000 to make a payment which would then be repaid, and again, this is a key, repaid in a fraudulent way, in other words, it was a lie, so that it looked like it was income to Michael Cohen. Since it looks like it's income, they had to pay Cohen twice the money, twice the money in order to cover his taxes. And by the way, that's one of the biggest problems that Donald Trump has at this point, because the jury would have to ask if Michael did this on his own, and if Donald Trump were just paying Michael, why would he pay him twice, exactly twice the amount of the money that Michael borrowed to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000? Well, the answer is simple. It's because this was the plan. The plan was, borrow the money, pay the $130,000, and then we'll pay you $260,000 to cover your tax obligation. Well, if this isn't obvious, then what is? And that's the whole thing. The jury, they're just regular people. Now, I understand there are a couple of lawyers on the jury, but they're not these kind of lawyers. They're more like paper pushing corporate lawyers, but then again, they still know how the law works, and they still know law school. So they're still gonna be thinking about these things in legal terms, and again, some people say, well, how would you put attorneys on your jury? And other people say, well, maybe this is a brilliant strategy in order to have the attorneys in the room so that they can explain to the rest of the jurors what is actually being asked of them, although jurors normally get it pretty straight when they get these instructions from the judge, and then they go into the jury room and then they hash it out pretty well, most of the time. And that's the beauty of our system. That's one of the reasons that the United States is so great because we do have a legal system where people are all equal under the law or at least we hope. We're certainly going to find out if that's true, because we're gonna get to the end of this, and there's going to be an interesting conversation on all sides over what the final decision is in this case, and it's coming. It's coming fast. And what it does, let me say that I've told you all along that Donald Trump is going to lose, and there's not even gonna be a question here. I mean, he's gonna lose. It's gonna be a 12 to zero decision for guilty, and this guy's gonna be sentenced to four years in jail. Now, that's what's coming, I think. And we're gonna see, I've been saying it all along, and so far, everything that has taken place in this courtroom and in all of the discussions that we've heard outside the courtroom, I haven't heard one thing to lead me to think that this is going any other way, but down the tubes for Donald Trump, the man's in trouble, he's in serious trouble, and there isn't any explanation for all of these different things that have come up, except he's doing this. He ordered Michael Cohen to borrow $130,000 in order to pay Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet before the election, and that's illegal because he's trying to withhold information from the public, but he's not letting the public know that that's what he's doing, which he's required to do under election law, and the way you know is because he faked his books. And again, yes, Michael Cohen says, he's seen the books faked, that he was in on the conversations and so forth, but that's not even important. You can think that Michael Cohen is a horrible individual and maybe in a lot of ways he is, but the truth is there's corroboration of all of this. All of the documents that have been brought in on this case show that what the prosecution is saying happened is exactly the way this has progressed. Every piece of information, one after another, after another fits together in a narrative that tells you exactly what Donald Trump did, how he broke the law, which is a misdemeanor, and then how he turned that misdemeanor into a felony by acting fraudulently to withhold information required by election law. So he did two things, faked the books, and then put out information that was improper following the fake books to trick the public so that they would never know about stormy Daniels. That is the case. It's a very simple case. And for that case, he starts with a misdemeanor and he ends up with a felony. 34 felony counts with four years each. Of course, that's 136 years, but let's not get carried away here because they're not going to give them 136, they're probably going to give them four. They're probably going to give them the whole thing concurrently rather than consecutively, and that'll be the end of it. Donald goes to jail for four years. Now, I don't know if there's time off or whatever it is, and I don't know if the judge feels sorry for him, which I find hard to believe, but he does, and says, okay, we'll only give you two years because I got news for you. Two years, four years, it's the same problem for Trump. He will not be President of the United States if he has to go to jail for two to four years, he will not. And once you're convicted, a couple of things could happen. They could wait for the appeal before they put 'em in jail or they could put 'em in jail. Now, I know there are a lot of people who think they'll never put 'em in jail without the appeal going through. Maybe, on the other hand, I think there's a lot of good reason to think that they would. I think there are a lot of people in this country who want to know that no one is above the law, no one, and that means Donald Trump. And certainly, there are people who are convicted who go to jail. And then, if it's appealed and reversed, they come out. And if it's appealed and they stay in, then that's that. Now, I mean, there are a lot of ways to do this, but I can tell you that if he's convicted of this crime, a felony conviction, especially if it's 34 counts, I can tell you right now, it's gonna be very difficult to leave this guy out of jail and let him run for president of the United States. And not to mention the fact that he's not gonna be president anyway, he's gonna lose. And then, on top of losing, how many people are gonna vote for a guy knowing that there's a very good chance that he's on his way to four years in jail? So, or even two years in jail. I mean, there's just not any reasonable explanation for why anybody would vote for him. So, I mean, I think with all of that in mind, I think it stands to reason here. Number one, the Trump, according to me, is going to be convicted. And number two, there's a very sick man that he's in there antagonizing everybody in the courtroom. And I think, yeah, he's probably using this as a way to come back to us later and say, well, I could've won, but I just wanted to antagonize everybody because I knew how unfair it was. Something like that. In any case, that's Michael Cohen today, 20 minutes worth. And now let me tell you what was going on also in the courtroom and outside the courtroom, that is absolutely so horrific. And only, I mean, I know we use words sometimes and they get cliche, you know, so, yeah, horrific. Well, to me, this is horrific against democracy, because here's what's going on. Donald Trump is working under a gag order. That gag order is meant to protect witnesses and to protect jurors. That is, they shouldn't have to hear anything that would lead them to be fearful to tell the truth in the courtroom or to get together afterwards and deliberate and come up with a final decision. But instead of Donald Trump going one step further and speaking up and violating the gag order one more time, which, you know, if he does, he goes to jail. And I have to admit, I didn't think that he could control himself, but apparently he came up with a theory of how to do this so that he wouldn't even have to control himself. And I guess maybe that's part of why he goes into the courtroom with his eyes shut because he thinks that what I'm about to explain to you is taking the place of Donald Trump acting like a fool. And here's what they're doing. They are bringing Republicans from all over the country and that is Republican officials. And specifically, people who want to be the vice president of the United States and they're coming into Manhattan and they're all getting together outside the courtroom and they're screaming into the microphones all the things that Donald Trump wants to say but isn't allowed to say under the gag order. So essentially, they are intimidating witnesses. Of course, they're not left now, so okay. And that's not gonna intimidate Michael Cohen. But the point is it's not allowed. And the second thing is, is it certainly can be intimidating to the jurors and here's what you've got. Today, Michael Johnson, but you've got all of these other guys, you've got Marco Rubio, what the heck's he doing up there? And I mean, you've got all of these different people who think that maybe they've got a chance to be the vice president and they go to Manhattan outside the courtroom and they say into the microphones what Trump once said in front of those microphones. What he would like to say, but he can't. So these people are lining up to intimidate jurors at least and certainly to attempt maybe some intimidation against Michael Cohen as well, it wouldn't work. I mean, if Blanche couldn't shut down Cohen in that courtroom with his cross-examination, you can be sure that all these vice presidential aspirants, they are not going to have any effect, but they could affect the jurors. And when I say affect the jurors, I have to be clear here. There's good reason for people to fear for their lives. And I guarantee you that people are on the jury, they already knew that. And so, possibly it's not having any real additional effect because they already know that their lives are on the line and they're being protected by keeping everything anonymous, but at the same time, they have to know that there are definitely people trying to discern who is on this jury, they want to know. There's no question about that. And one of the reasons that Trump wants to know these things as reported by Michael Cohen today is because when he finds somebody that he doesn't like, he comes after them with everything he's got, including people that ultimately bring death threats to the table. I know it's easy when the death threats start to fly for Trump to say, well, it's not me, I didn't do it. I mean, I'm talking, this is my free speech. And if people do something, if they act in a certain way, when I say something, then that's not on me, it's on them. Of course, Trump tells them, don't worry, I'll get you an attorney, I'll make sure that you're okay, I'll pardon you when I'm president, all these different things. But the reality is, if he goes to jail, he's not gonna be pardoning anybody. And some people who get into trouble up here may find that there's no way to get out of this trouble. And I would say the same thing about these political people as I would about anybody else. Now, the political people have more latitude to speak because they've got the First Amendment protecting their political speech. But I have to say that if anything bad happens to somebody along the way, all the people who are speaking out are going to come under tremendous criticism for jumping in front of the camera at the courtroom at the exact time of the trial when they know they're not supposed to be doing it, when they know that they're doing it only for Donald Trump, only to satisfy him so that maybe they would consider that person, whoever it is, to be the vice president. Now, here's something else that's very interesting to me. Why, why would you want to be vice president under Donald Trump when you know how this ended for Mike Pence? Mike Pence ended up in the Capitol hidden away somewhere because thousands of demonstrators were screaming hang Mike Pence. Thousands of people wanted to kill the vice president in the United States. And the only thing Trump could say about it was, I guess he should have done what I told him to do. The point being, if you're the vice president under Donald Trump, he could do anything to you. He obviously was prepared to do anything to Mike Pence. Mike Pence could have been killed. Trump would have said, I didn't do it. But the fact is, he incited it. He dragged these people up to Washington to do this. And then he held Mike Pence out as somebody who was refusing to do the right thing. And in fact, who was betraying Donald Trump? He was a traitor. And that's what was happening. And here we've got people that want to see if they can get that job. I mean, really, why would Marco Rubio want to be in a job where Donald Trump could turn around at any moment and give everybody the high sign. And the next thing you know, you're listening to hang Marco Rubio. Why, what's the point of that? And if you don't think that's possible, again, you want to look into the transcripts today because Michael Cohen did a great job of talking about what happens when you're on Donald Trump's good side. And then a moment later, you switch to Donald Trump's bad side because this is exactly what happened with Cohen. I mean, Trump was going on and on about what a good person Cohen was and how he was reliable and he was loyal and he was just an excellent lawyer and he had worked very hard for Donald Trump for a long time. And then suddenly as Cohen switched and all of a sudden took the other side quickly. Trump was denying that he knew him. He hardly worked with him. He was involved with nothing that Trump did that any work that Cohen did was probably an accident. I mean, it's just insanity. And first, the Trump would say it, shows how out of touch he is with both reality and with himself because he just reversed exactly what he had been saying moments early. And I mean, moments earlier. And it wasn't like 20 days went by. It just, it happened, it switched. And immediately, Trump switched with it. So that's the first thing. I mean, this is just what he does. He would do it to anybody. If he would do it to Cohen and Cohen was, if there's such a thing, Cohen was a friend of Trump's. If there is such a thing, probably not. And I say probably not because here's one for you too. And hopefully you've heard all this is the testimony that's come out here in the last couple of days where Trump said if something goes wrong with Melania, don't worry about it. How long do you think I would be on the market anyway? You gotta be kidding. He's ready to dump his wife like that in 10 seconds. And then he would be on the market. Give me a break. Where does this man think he is? So that's the first thing. The second thing is, who would wanna deal with a person like this? You would never know where you stand. You always know that you're about 10 seconds away from getting your teeth kicked in. It's just, it's a horrible existence. I don't know what you could get. If you're the vice president, what do you get? First of all, it's a horrible job at best. And everybody in American history has known that one all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt and a famous line from his vice president Garner and I'm not gonna repeat it, but it's not that big of a deal. And he said it and it's true. The job is awful. It's a terrible position. Ask Kamala Harris. I mean, Kamala Harris is terrific, but you get into that position of a vice president even when you're treated respectfully by the president which she has been, people just view you as somebody who's ineffective, having no real mind, not being able to accomplish anything. Listen, Hubert Humphrey, one of the greatest liberals and one of the greatest senators and one of the greatest legislators of all time went to work for Lyndon Johnson and came out just completely destroyed. I mean, as a human being, people hated him. They blamed him for everything Johnson did. They blamed him for not stepping up against Johnson. I mean, this has happened all the way through history. And this doesn't even include having the president encourage his followers to hang you. So you see what I'm saying? I mean, it's a lousy job first. And then second, you could put yourself in harm's way. It just doesn't make sense. But here we are and these people, certainly Michael Johnson was the leader of all of this today. And he was up there, I listened to him. I couldn't listen more than a few minutes because it was just pathetic. I just felt so bad for him having to sit there and the only word that comes to mind is obsequious. And if you don't know what it means and it does mean cowardly sucking up to somebody. But if you don't know what it means, don't listen to me. Just go look up obsequious because that's what it means. It's not good. And that's exactly what Johnson and others have been doing now for the last several days. And clearly, this isn't something that was done on their own. You know that Donald told these people, get up here and start talking for me because I can't say anything. And if you do it, then I'm not going to be in trouble. So that's what's going on. And it's really, it's pathetic for the people who are doing it. It's disgusting for Trump, certainly a good example of his mental illness. And with that having been said, it is probably a tremendous time for you to think about having a great dinner at Wenties. Now Wenties is at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road and it is a terrific restaurant. It's great. They have food, they have drinks. They have great food. They have, first of all, the wings and everybody loves wings. I mean, I'm probably the only one on the planet that doesn't eat wings, but people love wings and you can get them at Wenties. And I know that everybody talks about the wings at Wenties. So then on top of that, they've got smoked meats, they've got hamburgers, they've got patty melts, they've got delicious pizza, really good pizza. Wenties pizza is outstanding. See, go get the pizza, you go get the wings and the meat, but also for me, it's the baby back ribs. I mean, I'm just gonna always tell you the way it is. I'm not Michael Cohen, I do tell the truth mostly. And I can say that the baby back ribs, that's the place to go. So that's one thing. And then after that, I gotta tell you the onion rings, that's the next place to go. If you don't like the baby back ribs and the onion rings, then you probably just don't like to eat. So just stop eating. But if you're eating, Wenties is a great place for you to go. 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road. Don't forget Ben. And again, that's Wenties. Now, if you're interested in jewelry, 4506 Hampton will get you to Jules on Hampton. And I promise you, in the first place, Al and his son AJ are so nice to everybody. That's the first part. They just really are. So if you're in there looking for jewelry or in there to sell jewelry or coins, doesn't matter, you're gonna go in there and you wanna talk to somebody that you like. And you will like Al and AJ, they're just nice people. So that's the first part. And also they design jewelry. They're very creative. In addition to that, they're very able to do anything you ask them to do. So if you say, look, this is the design I would like. They'll take care of that for you too. Anything that you want having to do with jewelry at Jules on Hampton, it's gonna work great. And on top of that, like I say, they buy and sell coins in jewelry at great prices. So go to 4506 Hampton, look up Al and AJ and take care of your jewelry needs. And don't forget, you can get your watches fixed as well. That is Jules on Hampton. Now, it always ends up this way. Here I am in a suit and tie. It always ends up that way. You know, one time in a million, I'll show up without a tie on. But honestly, when you get $5 ties at the St. Louis suit company, you can really hardly go wrong. And especially, I mean, they're silk ties, they're beautiful patterns. They're very nice looking. They're expensive looking. But they cost $5. That's it. $5. So that's the ties. The suits are inexpensive, but they look great. The shirts are terrific. I like them very much. They've got both the button down and the ones without the buttons. They got everything. And dress shoes at great prices. But so far, no chucks, but that's all right. I have my chucks, so I'm taking care of. Hey, you go to St. Louis suit company and you'll be taken care of. They've been there for 29 years. I'm sure there'll be there another 29. They are a great place to buy men's clothing. And if you're going to a wedding or if it's your wedding, St. Louis suit company, they're the best for weddings. They're known for it. So go check them out. Forsython Central, in Clayton, that is the St. Louis suit company. Okay, so here's a good one. Here we are in 2024 and people say, I say people. People on the left say that this upcoming election is one in which democracy is on the line. Now other people say, isn't that foolish? You mean to tell me that the United States of America is at risk for the end of democracy simply because Donald Trump is a madman? Can't be true. 240 years, we've had madmen in Washington before. Maybe not president, but we've had madmen and we've survived it. And so, you know, there's good reason to think that we could survive four more years of Trump. But let me give you some arguments against that. And here's the number one argument. And again, you can go around and listen to what all these Republicans are saying, everybody running for office, everybody who is trying to impress Donald Trump for one reason or another, people who want to be vice president, they all say the same thing. And this is beyond amazing. But here's what they say. They're asked, if you lose this election, will you accept it? Wouldn't you think that everybody in the United States of America could say, if we lose the election, we'll accept it? You would think they could say that, but no one will say it. And you probably either heard about or watched an amazingly painful performance by Tim Scott on Meet the Press where Scott sat there and responding to Kristen Welker. And I mean, she asked, some people say six, some say seven, whatever it was, six or seven, times she said, will you accept if you lose the results of the election? He absolutely would not answer. Kept saying over and over, Donald Trump's gonna win, Donald Trump's gonna win, Donald Trump's gonna win. And when she asked maybe the fifth, sixth or seventh time, he said, look, I'm not going to say anything else. This is my answer. I am not going to answer your hypothetical. Hypothetical, honestly. You're telling me that it's hypothetical as to whether somebody's gonna lose the election? Is that it? Because I can tell you right now, someone's going to lose the election. And I can also tell you this, that if Joe Biden loses the election and he won't, but if he did, he would accept the loss to the end of the discussion. And by the way, Hillary who won the popular vote by 3 million gave a beautiful speech, respectful to Trump and said, look, we all worked hard, but I lost. Well, there was no question she lost. So she said, I lost. Al Gore thought he might have won because there were votes being counted and a lot of us thought that there were probably 5,000 more votes and there was a 500 vote difference and the 5,000 were coming in on the side of Al Gore and the Supreme Court stopped the counting. Okay, Al Gore went to the microphones and he said, okay, we did what we could. We pursued our legal challenges in order to keep the counting underway, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the counting is over. So I lost. And the story, all the way down the line I've talked about this so much lately. The best example being Richard Nixon in Cook County, he could have easily said, we're gonna fight against this. Wouldn't do it. He said, sorry, in the United States of America, when you lose, you lose and you walk away and then you go to the next. And that's what Richard Nixon did. That's what everybody has done for over 240 years, but now the Republican party without failure, almost across the board, even Governor Kemp in Georgia, who really came out against Trump, all of these people are taking the position that if Trump loses, they might not accept the loss. They just might not do it. They don't know. And they won't even say, we might accept it. They say, we might not accept it. We might not. And that's all they'll say. Unless they say it can't happen, which is what Tim Scott did, but the bottom line to that is that you gotta be crazy. Everybody knew what he was doing, performing for Trump. And again, these performances are just embarrassing. I mean, first, why would you do it? Secondly, if you do say that we are subject to elections where people who lose can try to take power, I mean, that's called the end of democracy. That's why we're talking about the end of democracy. Because clearly, when you say that you don't have to leave when you lose, well, that's a problem. Now, admittedly, in this case, Donald Trump is not in office, so he would have to, at least, he couldn't get into the White House. I mean, you have to bust in. But then again, what they do at the Capitol, they bust it in. So I don't know how far these people are willing to go. I don't know what they think they can do. I don't know how much chaos they think they can sow across this country. But the truth is that they're looking for chaos. They want to cause it because you cannot say, if I lose, I might not accept the loss. And then the next question becomes, if you win, what about the next time? What about four years down the line? I understand Donald Trump's 77, the four years down the line, he's 81. What if he says then, I'm not leaving? What if he doesn't even want an election? Don't sit here and look at me and act like I'm crazy. Right now, he's saying that he might not accept a loss. So I mean, if he's willing to say that, who knows what else he's willing to say? This is a problem for the country in a way that just, it's beyond anything that anybody could have imagined, except I have to tell you that in 2016, when this originally occurred, I said from the very first that this is where we were headed and that Donald Trump was a liar from the beginning, from day one, he was nothing but a liar. He had always done this and in fact, one of the biggest things that everybody knew about and we're very upset about was the Central Park Five because he lied about everything having to do with them, five young people, black, who were accused of killing a white woman and when it was eventually proven that they didn't do it, it was proven that they didn't do it. It was certain that they didn't do it. Trump comes out with an ad in the newspaper in New York arguing that they shouldn't be let free, that they should be subject to all the penalties that would be required, assuming that they're guilty. Even though it was clear to everybody, it was proven that they were not guilty. Of course, they were black. That was something for them as far as Trump was concerned. And again, I haven't repeated this in a long time, but you can find this on YouTube so easily where Trump says that the blood of America is being poisoned by immigrants coming from Africa. That's the same anymore, really. I mean, this is a guy who's out here telling Jewish people that they should be ashamed of their positions within their religion. They should be not trusted as Jews. They should be seen as traitors. I mean, all kinds of things if they vote against Donald Trump. Can you think of anything crazier than that and the talk about the immigrants coming from Africa poisoning the blood of America, knowing that that's Hitler's language, knowing it is. And look, he says he didn't know, but then after he was told, he came back and said it more, and now he did know. So the point is, he knew in the first place. And naturally, here we are looking at a trial situation that we're not gonna deal with tomorrow because tomorrow is Wednesday and Judge Mershan won't be there on Wednesday, so nothing tomorrow. But what's Trump really said here in his defense? He said, first of all, I didn't do it. He said, I had nothing to do with it. I had no sex with Stormy Daniels. I wasn't involved in anything. However, if I did do it, then I certainly didn't do anything illegal because I had nothing to do with any fake books or phony payments. And by the way, whatever I did, it's all Michael Cohen's fault. That's the explanation that we're getting. And that's why I know that this jury is gonna listen to all the evidence and I don't even think that they're gonna hesitate. I don't think that it's gonna be a difficult call. I mean, the only thing that would save Donald Trump is if he has personally placed on that jury, somebody who will push this to a hung jury, period. Now, if that's what he's done and I don't even believe it's possible, so don't even get into any conspiracy theories here, but that's the only way I think he could get away with this because I do believe that these jurors are gonna look at each other and if they have any slight hesitation, I think they're gonna be bombarded with arguments from the rest of the group that would finally and successfully convince everybody in the room that look, there's really no question here. We know this guy did it and the proof is on the table and it meets the legal requirements that the judge is going to give them in the judge. Remember this, and this is again, our system is so good. The judge is going to give some very specific instructions to the jury and the jury is told to follow the instructions. They're going to do it because juries do that and after they do it, they're going to quickly come to the conclusion that Donald Trump is guilty of everything that's been suggested here. It's not as bad as stealing nuclear secrets, hiding it from the government, lying to the government, and trying to flood the room where the documents are so nobody can find them. It's not that bad. It's not as bad as trying to block an election in Washington, DC and to install himself as president when he's lost, it's not that bad. It's not as bad as calling Georgia and asking Georgia for 12,000 votes so he can win in Georgia when he's actually lost and then just tell everybody that we've just miscalculated and when we recalculated, then we found out that Trump actually won. Yeah, Manhattan is not as bad as any of those, but it's bad enough and it's a felony and he's going to be found guilty and he's going to go to jail for two to four years anyway. I'll say four, but maybe it'll be two, but I don't know. You know, when I tell you that these vice presidential candidates are down there screaming for Trump, I want you to remember, they're screaming about the judge, they're screaming about the judge's family, they're screaming about people in the courtroom who the judge wanted protected. This judge is not happy, I assure you. If Donald Trump loses, this judge isn't going to be thinking about what kind of a deal can I make for Donald Trump to keep him safe and out of jail. That's not going to happen. So, you know, there's so many things here that are so apparent and really, you just got to just got to keep a look on it all and you'll figure it out, you'll figure it out very quickly. I would add to all of this something about China and really I'm not going to go into a long explanation about tariffs, but here's a Joe Biden story and it's really unfortunate. Joe Biden has slapped heavy tariffs on the Chinese. Goods that China sells to the United States which have taxes attached to them, which are going to make it very difficult for China and the United States to do business and believe me. Donald Trump did this, which is sadly, I guess the reason that Biden has done it, I guess he thinks he's going to get a vote from somebody that sees that, you know, he's potentially able to act like Trump on something, but boy, that's just a giant mistake and it's really sad. It's sad for all of us and the reason I say that is because, you know, keep in mind, in our history, one of the worst things that we ever did was something we call the "smoot holly tariffs" during the depression. And there isn't a historian around who doesn't say that those tariffs made that depression substantially worse than it would have ever been otherwise. And the fact is we've done it, it's done now. It's done now. The tariffs have been established by Biden and he can now go out and say, I'm tough on China, but I hate to tell you. Not only does it do some really bad things for United States corporations trying to sell abroad, but it really adds on to the pressure that was already there because of the dollar. The dollar is strong. And, you know, for years people have said, oh, the dollar is going to crash. Well, the dollar isn't crashing. And by the way, you know, when you have inflation, your currency does collapse. But here we are with some inflation, to be sure, but our currency is actually continuing to go up in value. I didn't say it was skyrocketing, but it is going up. And higher currency valuations reduce your ability to sell goods to other countries. And when you throw tariffs onto these things on top of it, it depresses world trade and it does just really bad things to a country that's dealing with problems anyway. I say our country is problems. Yes, nothing compared to other countries. Other countries are much worse. And of course, profits are up. People are making more money. People are living a good life. Stock markets at an all time high, at least part of it is anyway. I might deal with that tomorrow a little bit. Not a lot. I don't want to waste everybody's time, make everybody fall asleep like Donald Trump in the courtroom. But there are some things economically that are worth taking a look at. So we might do that tomorrow as well. But I am sorry to see these tariffs. They're the last thing we need. And if we get into trouble, those tariffs will definitely be a part of exacerbating our economic problems, which right now are nothing. They could get to be something when you add tariffs into the mix. It's just not good. Anyway, what is good is that it's time to go to Wendy's. Then you can go get some jewelry. Then you can go get a suit at the St. Louis suit company. I'm Mark Kasen. This is Showdown.