Trump Faces 20 Years in Prison!? - In The Tank #452
Download MP3Alright. Alright. Live. Hours after our show ended last week, the verdicts began rolling in on former president Donald Trump's hush money case, and it was pretty, across the board. 34 convictions on 34 charges.
Donald Kendal:We are truly an unprecedented territory here folks. So what does this mean for Trump? What does this mean for the election? And most importantly, what does this mean for America? Also, a new report was released that shines even more lights on the covid lab leak theory and the role the United States played in funding that research.
Donald Kendal:Join us as we talk about all these topics and more on episode 452 of the In the Tank podcast. Alright. Welcome to the end of tech podcast. As always, I'm your host, Donald Kendall. And joining me today, I've got Jim Lakeley, VP of the Heartland Institute.
Donald Kendal:How are you doing today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I am doing pretty well. I gotta say I am, in a bit of a frisky mood today. Frisky is a good way to put it. I was on, the Cut Jib newsletter podcast, which is, part of the Ace of Spades HQ blog, yesterday. It just published, I think, either yesterday afternoon or this morning, talking about some of the issues we're gonna talk about today.
Jim Lakely:So, I you know, after listening to this podcast, listen to the Cut Jim newsletter podcast and see which one is the angrier Jim.
Jim Lakely:I'll try to do my best to get him as even as possible, but
Jim Lakely:it's gonna be pretty, pretty pissy today.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. He either if there's 2 options, he either blew off all of his steam on yesterday's podcast. He's gonna come into this one a little bit, more even keel, or he just practiced last time. He's gonna come in even more full force this time. So put your money on 1 or the other.
Donald Kendal:I don't know. We'll see. Also joining us, we have Chris Talgo, editorial director here at Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, good sir?
Chris Talgo:Well, I'm doing good today because 80 years ago, on this very day, tens of thousands of brave young men stormed the beaches of Normandy and eventually freed Europe from Nazi occupation. And, you know, I just think that that's something that we need to really remember on this day. And, you know, we wouldn't be here. We would not have these freedoms without those people, without the sacrifices that they made. Tom Brokaw called them the greatest generation.
Chris Talgo:He was 1000% correct about that. The sacrifices that they made will live on in eternity, and we should all be extremely grateful for the sacrifices that they made so that we can live in freedom.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. 80 years ago. So I think that's when Joe Biden was, entering his 5th or 6th year in congress. So that is also a nice little factoid for you to to know on this day. But Yeah.
Chris Talgo:Just one other one other quick thing on this note. No. I'm serious because this is very important. I think we look back 80 years later and think, oh, well, it was there was no, question that the ally invasion of Normandy would be successful. And that is completely 1000% not true.
Chris Talgo:The Germans had, you know, built in pillboxes. They had something called the Atlantic Wall. You know, they had the, the the advantages across the board. This was the largest naval operation in history to this day. We're talking thousands and thousands of ships and planes, and it all had to be coordinated.
Chris Talgo:That could have gone awry so easily. And Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was in charge of that operation on D Day, he he wrote 2 letters. 1 was D Day being a success. 1, was it being a failure?
Chris Talgo:And I just think that all these years later, we just look back and think, of course, it was a success. That was not set in stone. So let's just always remember that, you know, freedom takes major sacrifice, and the men on that beach who went into that beach knowing that they were, you know, going to die as soon as they got off those duck boats, you know, we owe them just such a debt of gratitude, and there's only a couple 100 of them left. This is the last time that they will ever have this honor that they are so rightfully due, and I just really hope that, you know, more Americans, you know, thank them for that.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. No. It's it's a it's a good point because, you know, in hindsight, you you have this kind of illusion that everything was just kind of like, that's just the way that things were and all of that. But, yeah, I mean, who knows? Just one one degree of difference could have been the we could be sitting here talking in German right now.
Donald Kendal:So so I fully understand what you're saying. Go ahead, Joe.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. I mean, I'm sure a lot of listeners of this podcast who are American patriots, know a lot about, what happened on June 6, 1944. And, actually, it was supposed to be June 3, 1944, but the weather was was crap, and would have made an already never before seen, amphibious assault on a continent. As Chris pointed out, never attempted at that scale before and never attempted at that scale since. So, Dwight d Eisenhower had to organize and plan and be ready for success or failure, and he decided, nope.
Jim Lakely:Weather is too bad this day, and, in fact, the weather's gonna be, crappy on, June 7th. So this is the day we gotta go. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of people it's funny, if you believe in in God looking out over America or over freedom, You know, there's there's lots of examples of that when it comes to war, strange as that sounds. You know, George Washington believed that there are angels in the whirlwind looking over the United States. The founding fathers believed that the country they were founding was divinely blessed and, there is a lot of divine it seems that there seems to be some divine intervention on June 6, 1944 as well.
Jim Lakely:Edwin Rommel, the the best general that the evil Nazis had, was convinced that the landing was gonna be in Calais because that was the closest, by land to, the British isle. And, of course, they famously set up inflatable tanks to, pool the surveillance airplanes from the Germans coming over. They were convinced that George Patton, the most feared general on the Allied side, was going to lead the attack and he was going to come over in Calais, and so they had most of their reinforcements ready there and not on Normandy. And Rommel, he wanted his wife's 50th birthday was that day, so he went back to Berlin to celebrate it with her and missed the D Day landing, and that affected communications and the ability of the Germans to repel, to basically slaughter the allies and send them back into the rough seas from which they came. And then, Hitler himself had gone to bed and did not rise until 9 AM the next morning.
Jim Lakely:By 9 AM, most of the work, the hard deadly work on the Normandy beaches had been accomplished, and so it was too late. And the communications, they really couldn't take any without the Fuhrer's, okay. And so, you know, Hitler slept in that day. And, that was a bad day for the Nazis to have all of those factors happening to them. And so, if you believe in divine intervention, I believe God was on the side of the good guys, of the allies, on this day 80 years ago, and Chris is right.
Jim Lakely:There is there's hardly a generation of soldiers and sailors that deserve more admiration and respect than those who landed on d Day, and, I'm glad they're getting that today. And, by the way, president Biden traveled over to France today, and he, he was there for a ceremony today. So it was nice that the United States was, was representative. I don't think it was as memorable in a good way as Ronald Reagan when he went there on the 40th anniversary, but, still historic day for a president.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I think I think we have some footage of that. Maybe we could play that a little bit later. Don't wanna mar this, you know, very, very kind of flowery address of this this day with the clips that we have prepared of Biden, celebrating that too. So we'll we'll save that for a little bit later, but we do have a lot we do have a lot to talk about on this episode.
Donald Kendal:But before we get going, I have that, nope that I mentioned at the beginning of all of these podcasts and, partially goes out to those audio only listeners that are probably catching the show on a Friday or later. First off, why don't you leave a review for us on iTunes? That'd be greatly appreciated. You could also join us a day earlier where we are live streaming this on Thursdays at noon CST on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x. If you wanna join the conversation, you can throw your comments and questions in the chat.
Donald Kendal:They will show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. We also have that super chat functionality enabled if you wanna support the show that way. You don't wanna spend a dollar but just wanna spend a couple of seconds helping the show, hitting that like button, subscribing to this if you haven't already, sharing this content, or just leaving a comment out of the video, all help break through those big tech algorithms and prevent content like this from being shown to more people. But let's get right into it because, this like I said, this is a story that broke, like, literally maybe an hour, maybe a couple of hours after we ended last week's broadcast.
Donald Kendal:But, Donald Trump is now facing, well, he was facing 34 charges relating to the hush money case, to the infamous Stormy Daniels and the, way those funds were allocated. And I don't know. We can maybe we can get into, like, the specifics of that. But the charges were based on very shaky legal ground. So shaky, in fact, that at least one anti Trump person I know dismissed this entire thing as just a farce.
Donald Kendal:But despite the expired statute of limitations on this crime, that nobody seems to be able to articulate, Trump was convicted by 12 jurors in the Democratic stronghold of New York City on charges brought by a George Soros funded DA. In fact, Trump was convicted on all 34 charges. So, Jim, in the hours after the podcast last week when this news started rolling in, I can't imagine you were all that surprised, were you?
Jim Lakely:No. I wasn't surprised. This was the, result that we all expected, and it was, without a doubt, the most egregious, miss, you know, misjustice, misuse of our justice system in American history. I had tweeted somewhere that, Stalin and Beria from the Soviet Union would be proud and I got pushback saying, well, Stalin and Beria killed millions of people. We're not doing that in United States.
Jim Lakely:And, yes, point well taken, moron. The point of that was that the way this trial was conducted would have made Stalin and Beria proud for the show trials that they did in the, in the 19 thirties and sent people to gulags on trumped up BS charges of which all of this was. You know, one of the one of the most absurd and funny parts about this is that in the Soviet Union, they may have only charged Donald Trump with maybe 1 or 2, maybe at at most four crimes. Right? Because that's all you need.
Jim Lakely:And if you're guilty, off to the gulag you go. No. No. No. No.
Jim Lakely:Alvin Bragg has to charge Donald Trump with 34 felonies. 34 fake felonies. 1 for every check that he wrote and one for putting it in the ledger as if he's sitting at a desk like Ebenezer Scrooge in, in a Christmas, in a Christmas carol with George c Scott scribbling the the the checks all all by himself and putting them in the ledgers, like like he was actually doing these things. Which means that if he had written checks for $1 each to Stormy Daniels, he would have been charged with 130,000 felonies. And so that is just one level of the absurdity of this whole thing.
Jim Lakely:It is not a crime to to, to to have a nondisclosure agreement and to pay hush money to keep, an affair quiet even if it is to influence an election, which, of course, everything a candidate does is to influence an election. And to elevate these misdemeanors into into a case a federal case at all, or it was a state case, of course. But the federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York took a pass because they knew that this was BS. The Federal Election Commission, which, you know, has authority over the violation of election laws, They took a pass because they knew it was b s, and so it took, it took a vindictive, partisan, corrupt, justice system in the city of New York to get their 34 felony convictions, which weren't felonies, heart and heart not even crimes, and and they got their man. And now, when when all of this has now happened, people keep saying, well, they're not really going to put Trump in jail, are they?
Jim Lakely:They they they're not going to take it that far. You've come all the way to here. The idea that they're going to stop short of sentencing Donald Trump to prison after all of this is absurd. They they got their mugshot. They got their 34 felony convictions, and now they want their picture of Donald Trump in handcuffs and leg irons in an orange jumpsuit being being escorted away from everybody else and taken out of society.
Jim Lakely:That is what they want. That is what I think we should we will see, unless there's a small chance that the judge, sentenced him to, like, 70 years in prison or whatever whatever number they wanna throw out there that is absurd and then declare a suspended sentence. Alan Dershowitz brought that up on Megan Kelly, Megan Kelly's show the other day, and I think that's probably a a pretty good guess of what's going to happen. They want him sentenced to prison, and the idea that the the the best that could happen out of here right now is that he would only have a suspended sentence, meaning he doesn't go to prison, actually. He's let free, or he'll have an ankle bracelet on, which I think this is actually perfect.
Jim Lakely:Because if you thought that the Trump supporters got excited and made T shirts out of Donald Trump's mugshot and made it a rallying cry for him, the absurdity of imprisoning the leading candidate for president against the most unpopular president we have seen in a long time, who is a complete failure, if they think that is a winning electoral strategy, it's going to blow up in their face.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Chris, I'm curious of your takes on this, and we we can get a we can touch specifically on some of the things that, you brought up, Jim, but, it it just seems to me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but generally speaking, as long as Donald Trump has been on the political scene, he has split, like, even conservatives, right, or republicans, whatever you wanna call it. Or he'll do something. You'll get half of Republicans that are they'll say, like, oh, it's the right thing. Other half say that it's not.
Donald Kendal:On this issue, it almost seems like he's got himself a, like, a a consensus support that this is all BS. Even even the people that are, like, anti Trump just see through this as being, like, a show trial, and it's the trumped up charges, all of that. Maybe there's exception to that. I'm not sure I've seen it yet. What are your thoughts, Chris?
Chris Talgo:The verdict has definitely galvanized the Republican party. You've got Nikki Haley coming out and supporting Donald Trump now. You've got even Mitt Romney saying that this, trial was a farce. You know, I just I'm gonna go back and answer your original question. I was surprised.
Chris Talgo:I thought that at least one person would hold out on that journey on that jury and say, you know what? I can't I can't do this. I can't vote this man guilty on this ridiculous noncrime. 2 of the jurors also happen to be lawyers, so I thought maybe one of them would, you know, take it upon themselves to say, listen. This is wrong because they know the law.
Chris Talgo:They know that this was, you know, not a crime. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. But one of the reasons why is because the judge gave jury instructions that made it almost impossible for them to not come to that conclusion. And that's very important because the judge from the get go did not allow the Trump defense team to allow, to allow witnesses, to allow evidence that would have, supported his position. And he went out of his way to allow salacious details and salacious testimony by Stormy Daniels, by Michael Cohen, even though they had nothing to do the Stormy Daniels portion at least had literally nothing to do with what was at trial.
Chris Talgo:So this was a, rigged, you know, a rigged trial from the beginning. Even even the way that the, the judge was picked for this, the way that it's supposed to work, you're supposed to have a, a random lottery, and there's supposed to be, I think, 20 or so judges in that in that area, that region, that district, whatever, who are supposed to, you know, just, randomly be assigned to these trials. Guess what? Judge Marshon was not even in that pool, yet he was picked for this, and he also happened to serve as Steve Bannon's judge, and he was also in, one of the other, Trump Trump trials. I can't remember if it was the, E.
Chris Talgo:J. Carroll or whatever, but what are the odds of that? Almost almost 1 0. So none. So this was completely rigged from the beginning.
Chris Talgo:Let's also not forget that Alvin Bragg, when he was running for district attorney, said that he would do this, and then he went ahead and did it. But what's even more interesting is when he first won after his election to district attorney, He came out and said, you know what? Actually, the evidence is not there. We can't do this. Guess when he actually started to to, follow through with this case?
Chris Talgo:A couple of
Chris Talgo:days after Donald Trump announced that
Chris Talgo:he would run for re for reelection in 2024. So all of this I mean, this is not just what's going on in New York. Same thing going on in Atlanta. Same thing going on in almost all of these cases. There's a total double standard.
Chris Talgo:We live in a 2 tier justice system that is just, you know, evident on its face by now. And, I think the American people are going to, make their, you know, their sentiments known that they don't agree with this come November 5th. And I think we're also seeing in some of the early polling that's coming out after this, there's been no bump for Biden. Actually, according to some of the polls that I've seen, Trump has gained 2 points in several of the swing states. So this has not benefited the Biden, campaign.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. How much money did he end up bringing in in, like, that that next, like, 48 hours?
Chris Talgo:So in in the 24 hours, actually, 24 hours after it was 52,800,000. That is the biggest fundraising hall in a 24 hour period for presidential candidate ever. And even more importantly, 30% of those donations came from small dough small dollar donors. We're talking, like, $30 or less, who had not actually, ever donated to the Trump campaign before. So what you see what you've seen is that there are a whole bunch of Americans who are saying, wow.
Chris Talgo:I cannot believe that this is actually happening before my eyes, and I am going to put my money where my mouth is
Donald Kendal:and and
Chris Talgo:and support Donald Trump, you know, with with my my, you know, my my money. So I think when it comes time to go to the polls, if someone's already donated 20, 30, 40, $50 to the Trump campaign, it's almost assured that they're going to vote for Trump come November 5th. So I think that this is just this has just been a complete and utter backfire on the, Biden campaign.
Donald Kendal:Doug Troyer in the comments said it's over $200,000,000 now. So it's been a week. I mean, we had to double check that number, but I trust Doug. So 200,000,000 in the week since this, the convictions came down. Chris, Jim said in his kind of opening statements on this that, he thinks that it's likely that there that, that he'll be facing some jail time.
Donald Kendal:We have to wait for the sentencing. It's, like, in July or something like that.
Chris Talgo:Oh,
Donald Kendal:well, 4 days
Jim Lakely:before the Republican National Convention, by the way. We will
Donald Kendal:we will get we will get to that.
Jim Lakely:Just stick to his kids.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. We'll get to that. But, Chris, are you as confident, as as Jim is that that there'll be some prison sentencing for this?
Chris Talgo:Oh, jeez. I mean, I I just don't know the answer to that. I mean, if you were to ask me if he would be found guilty, I would have said no. So I don't think that he'll go to jail, but nothing should nothing should surprise us at this point. I mean, I I I don't know.
Chris Talgo:I mean, who knows if it could be home confinement, if it would be going and serving on weekends, like, whatever. Regardless of the punishment, even if it is home confinement or, you know, he's gonna have to, you know, get in a probation officer and everywhere he goes, he's gonna have to, you know, request permission. This is going to impact his ability to campaign. So I don't know if that's actually going to result in less campaign events or if he's going to, you know, just campaign in in places where he's, you know, allowed to go. But I I I think that this is once again, I I I don't think that this is going to have the effect that the, Biden and, team wants it to have.
Chris Talgo:Because right right afterwards, they came out and said convicted felon, convicted felon. That's not resonating with the American people. The American people know that this was a sham trial. So I don't I I don't I think even even if it did go to that level where they did say, okay. You're gonna spend couple months in jail or whatever, I think that that would actually just have been a more of a boomerang effect for, you know, Trump at this point.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. So, Jim, you mentioned that, the sentencing is 4 days before the GOP convention. So, you know, as anyone that follows any court cases should know that, you know, when the convictions come down, it's a later date usually that, like, the sentencing will be that that'll occur. Sometimes it's a week later. Sometimes it's a couple of weeks later.
Donald Kendal:In this case, it's, like, 6 weeks later. I'm not sure how normal that is. And, yeah, it just happens to line up 3 days before the GOP convention. And, Jim, you and I have been, we've been watching some Game of Thrones stuff recently. And, not not to suggest that our political system is anything like the, you know, the political, systems of of, you know, fake fictional Game of Thrones world or anything.
Donald Kendal:But I could just imagine in that universe, somebody is talking to Donald Trump and and saying, hey. You've got between now July 11th or whatever the sentencing is to, basically suspend your campaign or you're going to jail. I'm not suggesting that's what's happening, but it just seems so perfect considering the GOP convention is 3 days, 4 days later. What do you think, Jim?
Jim Lakely:Well, I mean, I think if if we lived in a in a real world Game of Thrones, world that, Donald Trump would have been immolated by a dragon by now. So they would have taken out that's how they take out their opponents in Game of Thrones. But, look, I I'm the resident grumpy old man and pessimist on this podcast, and, no one is coming for my title. And every time I am the most pessimistic about something and sometimes the most grumpy and angry about something, I end up being proven correct. It would be it's inconceivable to me that his sentencing was set for the look at look at the calendar.
Jim Lakely:Let's see. Yeah. The 11th, so so 11th. Yeah. So that's the the the Republican National Convention starts, the following weekend.
Jim Lakely:That's on a Thursday. And so it is inconceivable to me that his sentencing date was set for the judge can set it anytime he wants. I know it's normal to maybe wait a couple weeks or something for sentencing, but, you know, the judge is in charge of his courtroom and all of the proceedings they're in. And so he could have sentenced him right there, and so putting it off until July 11th is not a coincidence. Nothing in any of the legal cases against Donald Trump are coincidences.
Jim Lakely:These are this is all done to stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House. And frankly, it's not it's even worse than that because it's not intended to stop him because the people can stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House by choosing, you know, old Joe Biden instead. But our ruling class, our legal system, the hard left that seems to run every important institution in this country, private and government, is determined to do whatever it takes, even illegal activities, to to stop him from getting to the White House again. And so that's why the sentencing is July 11th, because it gives him some time to figure out how's the best what's the best way to to issue a sentence that would stop him. It's not about justice.
Jim Lakely:It's not about whether he deserves jail or doesn't deserve jail. It gives them time to figure out and read the tea leaves and see what is the most effective strategy to keep him out of the White House. Is it a suspended sentence? Is it actually putting him in Rikers Island for holding before he goes to, maybe a state prison in upstate New York somewhere. Do we want that orange jumpsuit and the leg irons photograph to go viral?
Jim Lakely:Maybe we don't want that. I think that might galvanize the Trump supporters even more. So maybe we should just, not sentence him to any jail time at all. Maybe we'll do it as, community service or something else like that. And so this entire farce from from the Georgia case to, the E.
Jim Lakely:Jean Carroll case in which they, you know, supposedly, he's guilty of some sexual assault or something, that, they they the the state of New York passed a law to extend the statute of limitations just so they could, prosecute this against Trump and against nobody else. Just like the case Leticia James, the attorney general of the state of New York went after the Trump corporation, and then Kathy Hochul, the governor, assures everybody, don't worry about it. We're not coming after your businesses. We're only coming after this one. So the entire justice system, the the the left, the Democratic party, the powers in control of everything in our society have decided that they will sacrifice almost 250 years of proper, judicial procedure in this country to get one man and to stop that one man.
Jim Lakely:Even John Adams, one of our founding fathers, when, in the Boston Massacre, he defended the British troops because he saw that that was the only way, and especially if he did it. That was the only way to assure the country that our justice system will, no matter what, even for defending properly, the enemy of the United States in a in a time of extreme strife and tension and violence. John Adams thought it was so important to uphold our sense of justice in this country and to separate America from corrupt regimes that he personally defended them. And look where we are now. Now we have, people who are temporarily entrusted to offices like attorney general or, United States attorney in in a federal court or a judge.
Jim Lakely:And, by the way, judge Marchand was an is an is an acting judge. He's not even a permanent judge, and he gets 3 of the Trump cases. If there is any sense of justice, if God is looking down on this country as he did in the founding times and looked down upon Normandy Beach, If there's any if if God is smiling upon this country, I would I would hope and I pray that this destruction of what it is to be America, of what it is to have a just legal system will not prevail and that this has to be reversed. We cannot You cannot just make an exception for for the orange the evil orange man and have a justice system that works for the rest of us because we already have a 2 tiered justice system. And one of the things that people are are realizing is that there are hundreds of political prisoners from, let's just say there was a there was an incident on the in the capital in January a while back, and those people have have have been subject to the same injust, corrupt legal system just like Donald Trump.
Jim Lakely:So Donald Trump's not alone in this. There are 100 of others, and this has to change. And if, you know, if the elections don't turn out in a way that, I I think everybody listening to this podcast would like them to, I really do fear for what this country will become because if you reward this sort of behavior, if you reward this lawlessness, this destruction of our American system, all you're going to do is get more of it. It must be pushed back on, and frankly, it must be punished.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. The, the idea of community service, I think, is is a is a good idea. In fact, we should he shouldn't be wasted just like picking up garbage on the side of the road. Maybe he should, like, serve the public in, like, a really high office or something like that. Like, may maybe even president.
Donald Kendal:That'll that'll that'll show it. That'll show everybody. We'll make him be president. That'll that'll be the community service that he has to do.
Chris Talgo:You know, the juxtaposition between how Alvin Bragg handles ordinary crime in New York City, which is being overrun with crime, versus how he, treats a white collar, you know, noncrime from 2,006 is just so striking to me. Because, you know, the the last, especially after the 2020 George Floyd riots and all this stuff was all about, we don't wanna put people in jail, and the criminal justice system is, you know, too harsh. However, they are using every single tool of the criminal justice system to go after someone for nothing. This is not a this is not a violent, you know, person by any means. However, we see in in New York City almost every day.
Chris Talgo:On the subways, we see people being assaulted, people being attacked, people being raped, you know, illegal immigrants assaulting police officers, and, Alfred Bragg does not care about that. He gives them a free pass. So I think the American people see through this, and they see that this is not a, you know, a fair and balanced, you know, approach to justice. This is going after someone and trying to put anything they can to get that someone. You know, Ted Bundy was a mass murderer.
Chris Talgo:He didn't face as many, criminal cases as Donald Trump has. Mhmm. Just think about that for a second. Sure. Donald Trump is facing you know, he's still he's still facing, criminal charges in Florida for the documents.
Chris Talgo:He's still facing criminal charges in January 6th. He's still facing criminal charges in Georgia, and he's already been prosecuted on on this, you know, bogus, crime, noncrime in New York. He's a sitting I mean, he's not a sitting. He's a former president who is the leading candidate, you know, running for the Republican nomination, and he's beating Joe Biden right now. This really reeks to me of desperation on their side because they know we can't beat him at the polls.
Chris Talgo:So the only way we can beat him is by ruining his reputation or by preventing him from campaigning by, you know, keeping him, you know, stuck in courts and then all the legal fees he's having to pay and just all that kind of stuff. Sure. Because they know that if if Donald Trump were to be running against Joe Biden 1 on 1 mano a mano without all this stuff, that it would just I mean, it it it's going to be a landslide. I still think it's gonna be a landslide.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I mean, we were talking yesterday, Chris, and how, like, you know, when the the democrats kind of talking point for the election is basically hinges almost 100% on this one thing. You know, Donald Trump's, you know, court trials, the convicted felon, all of that
Chris Talgo:stuff. But it's also funny that the the the Biden campaign, issued a brand new campaign commercial yesterday. They did not mention this at all in once. You know what they did mention? They mentioned that the Biden administration is lowering prices.
Chris Talgo:So they're trying to just gaslight us once again that Sure. Inflation, the cost of living is not a problem because Joe Biden's actually making it great. And if you don't know that, then you're just stupid, and you're not getting our message because they're they're out of options. So all they're trying to do is just browbeat us into thinking that, you know, that everything's hunky dory, but everyone knows everything
Donald Kendal:is not hunky dory. Remember, the economy is better than what you think it is. Remember, everybody, you you we look up you look up at the grocery store and you see prices going up. That's just an illusion. That's that's the main, marketing tactic.
Chris Talgo:Shows me it shows me that they are very desperate.
Donald Kendal:I I'm very curious about this, Jim. I I want your opinion on this because, the reaction I don't like, you know, tempers are running a little hot. Okay? Especially in Jim's office right now. But, the reaction of this news, from those right of center, like I said, is almost unanimously been critical of this whole situation.
Donald Kendal:But the tone of that disagreement is the thing that, varies wildly. So on one hand, you have those Republicans that are just content with publishing a tweet and calling the case a travesty. And then when they hit post on that tweet, they just move along with their day. But on the other side of things, you have people that are essentially calling for, like, political war. So, there was one article that I had here, in the show notes where it's talking about some of these some of these people that are basically saying we gotta fight fire with fire.
Donald Kendal:And so it outlines a handful of these. Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Trump, took to the air on Fox News calling for, quote, every facet of Republican party politics and power, has to be used right now to go toe to toe with Marx and beat these communists. Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to Trump wrote, there are dozens of ambitious backbencher state attorneys, general and district attorneys who need to seize the day, and own this moment in history by prosecuting Democrats. And even Marco Rubio, posted that Biden is a demented man propped up by wicked and deranged people and that, it's now time to fight fire with fire. So I'm curious, Jim, what you think, about this.
Donald Kendal:Because on one hand, it's easy to complain that Republicans often, you know, tie an arm behind their back when it comes to fights like this. And instead, they should take the gloves off and and play by the same rules as the opposition. But on the other hand, like, are we really gonna, like, give in and embrace this era of unbridled political warfare? Like, can a country really stand when these sort of tactics are broadly embraced? What are your thoughts?
Jim Lakely:As you're wrapping that up, I was thinking of a line from Lord of the Kings, Return of the King, where, King Theoden is reluctant to go to war and Aragorn tells him war is upon you whether you like it or not, not quite the same quote but very close to that, that war is upon you. That was certainly clear, in in the return of the king, and it is clear now. I I I I am I'm frankly kind of sick and tired of the Republican party laying back and taking it. You know, I think they told Elizabeth the first, lay back and think of England, when she wasn't really that much into guys. The Republican party seems to be laid back and think of the constitution while the constitution is being, assaulted and torn to shreds right in front of their eyes.
Jim Lakely:These are the new rules now. It is admirable that conservatives and the Republican party would never never dream of doing, this kind of abuse of the justice system in this country just to get a single political opponent. That's admirable. But and that that was nice, and and you should be able to look back on that, in the past while you're, you know, in the future when you're old and you're on your rocking chair, if there is still an America where you're allowed to do that, and have your freedom. But that that time has passed.
Jim Lakely:There should already be, if you were a a state prosecutor in a very red city, in a very red state, let's say the Panhandle let's say you're in Lubbock, Texas in the Panhandle of Texas. There has got to be a way, and you better be investigating this right now, to bring up any democrat anywhere, maybe a democrat school board member, anybody, and bring them up on charges. Call them felonies. Have them arrested. Have their mugshot and fingerprints taken, and rinse and repeat this in jurisdictions red jurisdictions all across the country, until you have a huge pile of cases against Democrats for, you know, crimes.
Jim Lakely:And you wouldn't have to make up crimes the way Alvin Bragg did in in New York or the way that their Fannie Willis is inventing crimes in Atlanta, Georgia. There are Democrats who are who have committed crimes, all over the place. Just like, you know, you could say that we have so many laws on the books that everybody listening to this podcast probably commits about 3 or 4 crimes a day, without knowing it because there are so many statutes on the books.
Donald Kendal:So exploit
Jim Lakely:that. Just exploit that and and and find these people. Ilhan Omar, violated she she was she, immigrated to this country under fraud. Bring her up on charges right now, and and have her arrested. Put her have her mugshot taken, have her fingerprints taken, and have her have to deal with that for the next several years.
Jim Lakely:What was it? Just last week, it was announced that I think 17 members of congress had paid hush money to mistresses. Our tax money was used to pay off this this hush money for illicit affairs. Who are these people? We need to know their names, and they need to be brought up on the same charges Donald Trump was just brought up on, and they need to be felony charges.
Jim Lakely:But I have little faith that anybody on the right, any conservative, any Republican, is actually going to follow through on this. I I just don't because that's the pattern always that the Democrats, the Democratic party and Democrats in control of things like the legal system, abuse it, use it illegally to punish their political enemies, whether they are politicians or just ordinary citizens who get out of line. This will continue unless and until the people perpetrating these injustices upon innocent Americans feel it themselves. It will not stop until they feel that pain themselves. That's the only way it's ever gonna stop.
Jim Lakely:Saying, oh, my gosh. No. Don't do this. That's un American. That has no effect or influence on these these people abusing their power to punish their political enemies.
Jim Lakely:And, the Republican party is either gonna get serious about this or there's going to be another way to punish these people, whether it be a new political party or something else. And so I hope it's not that. I hope it's using the same system that has now been corrupted and weaponized against enemies of the of the government, of the regime. And until unless and until that happens, this will not stop. That's the only way this will stop.
Donald Kendal:Chris, I want your take on the same question because I I think that this is kind of, kind of a bigger a bigger question that's that kind of underlies a lot of the conversations that are going on about this this whole case. What are your thoughts?
Chris Talgo:Oh, jeez. This is something I've been struggling with for many, many years. You know? I completely understand where Jim is coming from, and it is time to fight fire with fire. However, there's still a piece of me that says don't do it because, you know, 2 wrongs don't make a right, and then you you're gonna be a race to the bottom.
Chris Talgo:And it you know, I mean, so I I I can see both sides of the story here. I absolutely can. I completely understand the frustration on behalf of, people who feel that the Democrat party, by and large, gets away with bloody murder and the Republican party just could puts his tail between its legs every single time and just lets it happen. Completely understand that. But do you wanna live in a country in which then it is a race at the bottom, which both parties have become totally politicized, and all they try to do is, you know, one up the other.
Chris Talgo:You know, a couple of years ago, this notion of, quote, owning the libs, you know, started becoming, popular. I hate that. I hate that phrase. It's not about owning the libs. It's about fighting for what's best, fighting for the truth.
Chris Talgo:Who cares if it's, you know, being espoused by liberals, republicans, independents, whomever? You know? It's like that's what we should always be, you know, fighting for. Now I I'm sure that some people will call that extremely naive, and, yeah, you know, maybe a 100 years ago, that would have worked. But nowadays, uh-uh.
Chris Talgo:You live in a dog eat dog world. Yeah. I mean, I get all that. But, you know, also, the the pendulum can swing back the other way. And, you know, if if the Republicans choose not to engage in this lawfare and all this kind of stuff, you know, maybe, just maybe, it would, incentivize, the people on the other side of the aisle to say, you know what?
Chris Talgo:What we did was wrong, and, you know, we won't do it again. I don't know. I mean, that is some people will look at it and laugh at that and say that is just completely unbelievable and never gonna happen. You know? You're you're you're out of your mind, but I don't know.
Chris Talgo:There's a just as a part of me that, you know, thinks, and I've always thought this. And, this is not to say that all Democrat voters think this way, but that by and large, Democrat party, in my opinion, and justify the means. Republican party, on the other hand, were principle based. And I've tried to always live my life according to principles, not to say, what's the outcome I want? And I'll just do whatever I can to get to that outcome because then you compromise your principles.
Chris Talgo:But if you say these are the principles and you just say I'm gonna live by them, you know, like it or not, you know, good or bad, at least then you can sleep well at night. At least then you know that you're doing the right thing. I try to live my life like that. So I would hope that the Republican party would also try to, you know, do that in terms of running and governing the country.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. It's it's a tough one, I will say. I mean, like, the knee jerk my knee jerk reaction is is kind of go Jim's route. It's like, nope. We'll take the gloves off.
Donald Kendal:You know, that that sort of thing. But I'm also sympathetic to the idea. It's like they punch, you know, they punch us in the face, so we punch them in the face. It's probably gonna lead to more punches, not them learning, you know, not them learning.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. And, you know, one of one of the thing instead of instead of instead of getting into the the fray with them, I would much rather see and I think that Donald Trump is doing this, and this is great. He's saying, I'm not gonna do that. Success success is gonna be my revenge. And that really resonates with the American people because the American people, by and large, they are not into these little, you know, these little, arguments that, like like, that we are.
Chris Talgo:Most people do not pay attention nearly to the degree that we do.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. So as you brought up yesterday when we were talking about, when Donald Trump, you know, the whole lock her up thing in 2016, obviously, reference to Hillary Clinton and all the crimes that she committed and all of that. And then once Donald Trump got elected and got into a position where he could theoretically, you know, unleash the Department of Justice against, Hillary Clinton, he said, no. I'm not gonna do that. It's just like now in this day and age, I wonder if he would change his mind on that.
Donald Kendal:I'm very curious.
Chris Talgo:But I think that the American
Jim Lakely:people didn't wanna do that because that would be crossing a Rubicon that should never be crossed in the United States of America.
Donald Kendal:Right. Right.
Jim Lakely:But it's already it's been crossed now. And so I hope Hillary Clinton is brought up
Chris Talgo:on charges. There isn't a statute
Jim Lakely:of limitations in effect, I don't believe, for the, the obvious federal crime she committed with, with classified materials and having her own private server and avoiding FOIA laws and all of that. Bring her up on all those charges and have her arrested day 1. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.
Chris Talgo:But But but but I'm
Jim Lakely:I'm tired of getting my head I'm tired of getting my head kicked in, by the left, by doing illegal and improper and unconstitutional things, and then saying, well, you know, I would hate to do that because I respect the constitution. I respect the you know, eventually, you're gonna get kicked in the head so much, you're gonna die. I mean, the constitution right now is almost a dead letter, and the way to protect it is to stop the other side from ever going down this road again. I'm willing to call a ceasefire after they have felt the pain of this. Then you then they will come to the table and start to agree to terms, terms like the constitution, terms like not weaponizing government agencies against your political enemies.
Jim Lakely:You cannot bring them to the table by saying, you know, with words. It has to be with action.
Donald Kendal:Jim has been watching too much Game of Thrones. Last word on this, Chris, and I wanna move on to another topic. Go ahead.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. You know, another thing
Chris Talgo:is that there's only so much time in the day, and there's only so
Chris Talgo:much that that that, you know, congress can do and president can do. So if you want them to spend precious time, you know, going over, you know, things of the past and trying to, you know, get their their political enemies, that's gonna take a lot of time away from what they were supposed to be doing, and that is making our lives better. And Donald Trump has a lot that he can do to make our lives better. He can, you know, get get the border, you know, closed. He can, you know, deal with our, you know, our terrible economy.
Chris Talgo:I don't know if that you can do both at once. And, really, what the Republican party when they took over the house a couple years ago, they've shown that when they spend a lot of their time doing this kind of stuff that and some of this is because the media portrays them as, you know, do nothings who are just hell bent on, you know, you know, picking old scabs. I don't think that's even necessarily true, but I think that their time would be much better spent saying all we're gonna do is pass bills that are in, that are broadly supported by the American people, and they're gonna make your lives better. That's why I I I truly believe That's a good point. Yeah.
Chris Talgo:Contract with America 2024 would be a great way to run and say, listen. The other side, they wanna distract you with these stupid shiny objects and make you, you know, worry about Donald Trump paying a $130,000 to Stormy Daniels. That is no bearing on your life. Who cares about that? You know what has a bearing on your life?
Chris Talgo:The fact that gasoline is doubled. Right. The fact that you can't you can't afford your bills. The fact that 78% of this country is living paycheck to paycheck.
Donald Kendal:Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like vote vote for us, and, you know, we're gonna try to fix all your problems. Vote for them, and they'll chase down ancient, things to try to get people that are politically disfavored in jail.
Donald Kendal:Those are your 2 options, it seems like. But, alright. We have to move on. This is already gonna be a long episode.
Jim Lakely:Really, it'll be a little long. That's fine. Just real quick before we move on to our our second topic today. Thank you, Peter Williams, for, £4.99, in the super chat. He says, I wish we could put Keir Starmer in jail for something in the UK.
Jim Lakely:Keir Starmer is the leader on the opposition of the Labour Party in the UK right now. So, I don't know much about that, but, thank you very much for your contribution. And the rest of you all can do some super chats to help keep this show, going as it goes. Thank you.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. And by the way, this is a trend that, I've noticed on the climate realism show, which takes place at the same time, noon CST, on Fridays, that, we got a lot of donations coming in in pounds, you know, from the UK and all of that. So where's all of our American donors, people? Come on. Don't let the those those, Brits beat us on this one.
Donald Kendal:Alright. So, Donald Trump convicted. We're waiting for sentencing. He could still run. There's, you know, obviously, the even if he was thrown in jail, he could still run from jail.
Donald Kendal:The only x factor there is, whether or not, like, the the GOP party wants to just pull the rug out from under him. I think that's pretty I don't think that's expected. Who knows? The idea that this is the sentencing is happening, like, 3, 4 days before the convention is interesting, but I still don't expect them to just like, nope. We're gonna throw in somebody else to be I I don't think that's gonna happen.
Donald Kendal:So he's gonna be the candidate who he's running against as of now is Joe Biden. And this is also pretty interesting. So there's a Wall Street Journal article that came out recently, and it's I'm just gonna start off by reading from it. Says this article is based on interviews from more than 45 people over several months. The interviews were with Republicans and Democrats who either participated in meetings with Biden or briefed on them contemporariously, including administration officials and other Democrats who found no fault in the president's handling of the meetings.
Donald Kendal:Most of them said Biden performed poorly or Republicans, but some Democrats said, that he showed his age in several of the exchanges. So this basically outlines a whole bunch of recent stories of his declining mental state, his inability to have basic policy conversations without referencing his notes. In some cases, people wondered if he had fallen asleep during some of these meetings. Now granted, we've talked about this stuff, you know, throughout his whole presidency, even when he was running for election the first time around. So but I still think it's undeniable that it's getting worse.
Donald Kendal:Biden is currently the oldest person to ever be president, and there has been tons of talk over the last, I don't know, year plus of, whether or not he was gonna be replaced on the ballot. The rumors swirled big time when Gavin Newsom was kind of making some campaign moves, but all of this has seemingly faded away as the election approaches. Now there's a couple of interesting things, this article being one of them. The first debate that we talked about, I think last week, maybe the week prior to that, is gonna be June 26th, I think. June 29th.
Chris Talgo:27th.
Donald Kendal:27th. June 27th, which is the earliest that one of these presidential debates has happened, and it's also taking place, like, a month and a half before the Democratic convention. So that's pretty interesting. And, you know, when we were talking about the topics yesterday, Chris and I, Chris brought up the idea that, that there is some theories out there that people think that maybe one of the reasons why the debate is happening this early is because of Joe Biden has a terrible performance. They still theoretically have time before the convention to replace him on the ballot.
Donald Kendal:How feasible that is, I don't know. But, man, is he looking is he looking terrible? So, Chris, I'm gonna start off with you on this one. Where are we at with this? Any chance he's not the guy on the Democratic ballot come November?
Jim Lakely:What do you think?
Chris Talgo:Gosh. Very difficult to say at this point. I can just I can tell you what the polls say. The polls say the vast majority of Americans think he's too old. I was watching a segment yesterday, and they would did a, thing on this on NPR.
Chris Talgo:And they asked a bunch of NPR listeners, what is the first word that comes to your mind when you think of Joe Biden? 2 said senile, one said old, one said concerned, and there were a couple other similar, you know, words used. So even among his base, NPR listeners, they're terrified that he is just too old. And, you know, we've we've seen this the past 3 plus years. He struggles.
Chris Talgo:He's struggling to put sentences together. He definitely is struggling to, you know, maintain a a vibrant, you know, schedule. Yesterday, when he went to France, he called a a lid on the day, I think, at 11 o'clock AM as soon as he got off of the Air Force 1, which is strange because, like I told you, Donnie, there were a bunch of, 100 plus year old veterans who had a, you know, more activities in their day than Joe Biden, the president of the United States did. Yeah, it's just it's obvious. Everyone knows it.
Chris Talgo:They are worried about it. It is a very valid concern. You know, like like McCarthy said, when he meets with him or when, Kevin McCarthy did meet with him at the White House, he said that Joe Biden would bring stuff up from months ago, and he was like, no. We've already agreed on this. Like, this is this is not even what we're talking about.
Chris Talgo:He said that he was constantly confused. He constantly had to refer to notes. He couldn't just talk off the cuff about subjects. He would see he would read verbatim the note cards that his staff had, you know, written for him. Not only that, but when he goes to press conferences, they have pictures of the people he calls on.
Chris Talgo:They have the word the, questions prescripted. So everything about this shows that the American people know in their hearts that he's too old, that he's too old to be the president of the United States. And, you know, I like I like I told you yesterday, there's been speculation in the mainstream media that the reason why they chose such an early date, the earliest date by far of any, presidential debate, is because this would, ostensibly be his last chance. And if he were to just do do a horrible job that they would say, okay. You know what?
Chris Talgo:We gotta change it. We still have time. We shall see. You know? I I Donnie, I was telling you in terms of the mechanics of that, I don't know if that's even possible Right.
Chris Talgo:That late in the game because it takes lots of time to get your name on the ballot. So I don't know how they would do with that. And then also one other thing that is, you know, the, like, the elephant in the room here, If they do get rid of Joe Biden, who? Do they do they say Kamala Harris?
Donald Kendal:Do
Chris Talgo:they say Gavin Newsom? If they do not say Kamala Harris, you are now going to be our our nominee. Can you imagine the the outcry that will come from all the DUI, DEI, and all the, you know, people on the the left who are just all they care about is identity politics? So it's like, man, they are in a between a rock and a hard place here.
Donald Kendal:I think I think Klaus Schwab's got some free time coming up, but, Jim, I'm I'm curious of your thoughts on this. I mean, I know it's it would be unprecedented if this late in the game, a sitting president that's going up for reelection is just replaced on the ballot. But we're very squarely in unprecedented times here, so I'm not completely ruling it out. What are your thoughts on on Joe Biden and his declining mental state? Well,
Jim Lakely:Christine Laurel in the comments had said that it's not about age. It's about, being too old. It's about having the mental capacity for the job, and I think that's right on the money because Donald Trump is only for the job, and I think that's right on the money because Donald Trump is only, I think, 2 years younger or 3 years maybe than, Joe Biden, and he obviously still has his mental faculties very much in hand. I I came across this morning, reading reading some Twitter posts, I came across a video because the, the Hunter Biden trial is happening now, and the prosecution put into evidence the Hunter Biden laptop, which was called Russian disinformation by, the regime. And in the debate that Donald Trump and Joe Biden had back in 2020, Joe Biden repeated that lie that it was Russian disinformation and not real, but, obviously, it's real.
Jim Lakely:The prosecution just put it into evidence in the gun trial against, Hunter Biden. And just watching that clip on on Twitter, the the amount of mental decline just from then, from 2020 to 2024 is enormous. And even the mental decline from comparing 2020 to when he had left, you know, the vice presidency under Obama 4 years earlier was quite, marked, you know, marketed at that point. And now it's it's much, much worse. I do not think Donald Trump will be replaced on the ballot, as you said.
Jim Lakely:You know, there's a lot of impracticalities about that. It's actually just strange that, you know, election laws in certain countries I understand that, Joe Biden, by some technicality, was not going to be on the ballot in Ohio and that might still be something that they're working on to put him on the ballot because he missed some deadline. So the idea that you could replace Joe Biden at an open convention, just doesn't seem very practical in the way we run our elections today. It should be that you could put anybody on the ballot after the convention. That's when you should be printing your ballots and that's when the deadline should be, but, you know, so be it.
Jim Lakely:But, you know, Donna, you and I are are looking forward to the beginning of the second season of house of the dragon on, on Max. And, King Viserys in the end of season 1 was on his deathbed. He was barely coherent. He was taking lots of milk of the poppy just to make the pain go away and was it was incoherent. And, yet even on his deathbed, he was still king.
Jim Lakely:So I believe that as long even on his deathbed, Joe Biden would still be, the president for the Democratic Party, because from the drop of his administration, from the beginning of it in 2021, he has not been making the policy and running his own administration. This is Obama's 3rd term. All of the people in place, either cabinet secretaries or especially the people in the office west wing are the ones doing policy, running policy as, that Wall Street Journal article. So now it's okay to say that, you know, we have to have a talk with grandpa. You know?
Jim Lakely:That that's that's that's the story that was in the Wall Street Journal, this or is it New York Times? Whatever, this week. Now it's okay to talk about his cognitive decline. I I you know, you might think that that's because they they're trying to lay the groundwork to replace him on the on the ballot, but you still have the problem of Kamala Harris. She would have to be the next one up, and, I think they'd rather have in a completely deteriorating and we have video clips of that, by the way, of of a man who who can who who cannot be in public.
Jim Lakely:After what I saw today at the ceremony for the 80th anniversary of d Day in Normandy, I can't imagine that there are there's gonna be the proper mixture of stimulants and other drugs that they can give to Joe Biden to keep him coherent in a debate with Donald Trump on, June 27th or whenever it is. I just don't see it.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Walk us through these clips. You you prepared a couple of clips here. We keep teasing this, this, Joe Biden at this d day ceremony. So Yeah.
Donald Kendal:Jim, take us through this.
Jim Lakely:Alright. Well, you know, so he was there for the D Day ceremony. And, just as he gets on stage, he it looks like he might have done something in his pants. So I'm gonna put a play that video. Here we go.
Jim Lakely:Shakes, Macron's hand. And
Donald Kendal:oh, he's
Announcer:Distinguished guests, please welcome the honorable Lloyd j Austin.
Jim Lakely:Oh, oh, so he's looking like he was either trying to sit down in a chair that that isn't there or, you know, we've all a lot of us have had elderly parents and grandparents, and we kinda know what that motion is. So and and the reason why I think it might be something as sad as that is because immediately afterwards so the ceremony is still going on, and, you know, his nursemaid I'm sorry. His wife, doctor Jill Biden, while the ceremony is going on, just takes him off of the stage. So hear me play that. Then off they go.
Jim Lakely:I guess we used to go or I already went. And, and so here's Macron. He's like, wait. What's going on? It it well, there's still nowhere to go.
Jim Lakely:And then it's up to him to jump up there and to congratulate these brave heroes, these boys of Point Du Hot, because our president had to go. The ceremony was not near over. So despite this, and that's sad, that is frankly just sad. And despite
Donald Kendal:this It is.
Jim Lakely:It is sad. I'm I'm sad, not angry about it. But, you know, despite all of that, and that's about it. And like I said, can you imagine that man standing up on stage for 90 minutes or 2 hours and having a debate with, with with Donald Trump? I can't.
Jim Lakely:So I think it's more likely that debates will be canceled than it would be that the, you know, that that he would be taken off the ticket.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. It, it kind of explains a little bit why there's not gonna be a live audience too, I think. Yeah. But, alright. We're already at an hour, and it's in the in the thumbnail of the video that we are gonna talk about this lab leak thing.
Donald Kendal:So we have to talk about it. So we're gonna go along. Bear with us, folks. But, let's move on to this, secondary topic here. This is a new report that, has come out, about the lab leak theory.
Donald Kendal:I don't even know if we have to put theory there anymore because this is like the 5th or 6th report that I think we've talked about on this podcast about the idea that COVID came from a lab in China, a Wuhan. So, I'm reading from a New York Post article here. It says a damning new report found that COVID 19 virus most likely leaked from a Chinese lab and and that the US bears responsibility for pumping tens of 1,000,000 of dollars into high risk research on extremely infectious viruses at a facility, with weak safety protocols. The analysis by Alina Chan, a Harvard and MIT molecular biologist, was published as a guest essay on The New York Times, a publication which has for a long time been skeptical and dismissive of the lab leak theory. Her findings paint an alarming picture of how the virus was sourced in China, supercharged for maximum infectiousness with the US government support, and ultimately allowed to escape under inadequate containment conditions.
Donald Kendal:So this, this just kinda seems like the consensus for the origins of COVID. Right? I mean, we've had we've covered on the show previous reports that have essentially came to the same conclusion, several government reports. I think one of the more recent ones was some government agency that you wouldn't expect to put out a report on the origins of COVID. It was like the Department of Energy or something like that.
Donald Kendal:So it says here, Wuhan researchers collected samples from both infected humans and animals in an effort to learn more about the highly infectious nature of viruses like SARS CoV 2. Much of this work was done in partnership with EcoHealth Alliance, a US based scientific organization researching infectious diseases, which the federal government has funded with more than $80,000,000 since 2,002, Chan wrote. The Wuhan lab's risky research involve, quote, genetically reconstructed and recombined virus samples collected across several different types of animals resulting in never before seen infect infections that were repeatedly forced to mutate in order to survive in each of the new host species. The researchers published an extensive database about all of this in 2019 containing more than 22,000 collected samples. However, Chan notes access to this data was shut off in the fall of that year and was not shared with American research partners even after the pandemic began.
Donald Kendal:Chan's report also talked about the biosafety level of the lab and how it should have been at least a level 3 when dealing with pathogens like this, but the Wuhan lab only operated at a biosafety level 2, which focuses merely on protecting researchers against skin contact with the virus. So, I mean I mean, come on. Is it I'll go to you, Chris. Like, is this is this just the consensus at this point? And and if it is, like, the academic consensus at this point is that it most likely, came from a lab.
Donald Kendal:That doesn't necessarily mean that that's what the consensus is in the minds of just, like, your general public out there. Like, so do you think, a, that this is the academic consensus at this point, and, b, that that has filtered down into the general knowledge base of, like, the the population at large?
Chris Talgo:Couple of things. First of all, I I've read a few books, watched a couple of documentaries, read many, many articles, all the evidence points that it came from the lab. Just a couple of things first before I get into your question. Peter, Drazek, the EcoHealth Alliance, director, was tied with Anthony Fauci, and, he was the one who was receiving the funds to do these crazy experiments at the Wuhan lab. We also now know that the CIA was using him as a, as a plant to see whether or not the Chinese government was using this lab to produce bioweapons.
Chris Talgo:That has now come out. That is now a fact. So, really, I think what happened was in the immediate aftermath of this, the Chinese government, because they're a bunch of liars, then the American government, because they're also a bunch of liars, got together and said, man, we just made a huge mistake. Let's just cover it up. And that worked for a couple of years, but there were a whole bunch of people, including Tom Cotton, who right from the bat and president Trump who was president at the time saying, no.
Chris Talgo:No. No. No. No. It came from the lab.
Chris Talgo:And when you just think about this, just think about this. They're trying to tell us that it came from a wet market located a couple of blocks from the only lab in China that's, like, super bio lab that just happens to work on coronavirus and use, you know, what what, doctor Fauci said that they were not doing, which is genetic engineering of this virus to try to make it so that it would be more harmful so that they could come up with a a vaccine to prevent it in the first place. There are so many conflicts of interest here. Doctor Fauci also just so happens to get, paid by drug companies for the vaccine. Gee, I wonder if that's not a conflict of interest.
Chris Talgo:But I think any American with a brain who is not completely, like, you know, just just, under the thumb of the mainstream media looks at this and says, of course, it probably came from the lab. Polling is also showing that more Americans are are are of that, you know, mindset now than before. So I think this is one of those things where it's just like a slow leak, and it's starting to get into the, the the public, you know, opinion. And I think that the American people knew this from the beginning, but then they were like, well, you know, but the the mainstream media and the government is coming and saying no. No.
Chris Talgo:No. No. No. This did not happen. But now they're like, you know what?
Chris Talgo:It just makes sense. And, you know, Donald Trump said this from the beginning. Mike Pompeo said this from the beginning. Many people in, the administration said that they were under the assumption that this came from the lab. And the fact that the Chinese have covered it up, that they have not played ball on this at all, The, World Health Organization did a, an investigation of this, and their investigation initially said it would came from the lab, but then they did a total about face and then changed their tune on that.
Chris Talgo:Just so happens that the Chinese government also, supports the, WHO with a lot of funding. So follow the money, you know, and and just and and follow common sense. It is so obvious that this came from the lab. I don't know if it was leaked intentionally or not intentionally, probably by accident, but, you know, we've seen communist regimes, throughout the history of their, you know, existence, try to cover things up. You know, when, Chernobyl, disaster hit, What did the Soviet Union do?
Chris Talgo:They tried to cover it up and say, no. There's nothing happening here. They're just they're just like no. And then it was, western countries in Europe. I think it was in Sweden and Switzerland saying, what are you talking about?
Chris Talgo:We're getting all this data that's saying that there's, like, huge amounts of radiation, like, coming our way. Like, something happened. It took them weeks. Took them weeks to Soviet Union to finally admit to it.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. But what's so crazy is that, like, even in that scenario and maybe the maybe the I wasn't alive for that, but maybe in in that, in that case it was similar to when, like like was the media in the United States been like, yep, We believe him. That's what the Soviet Union's saying, so don't look here.
Chris Talgo:Don't look But but but but you hit on such an important note, and I I'm so glad you did because I think that you have to go back to that, early 2020. Anything that Donald Trump said, the mainstream media, Democrats, and, you know, academia and the experts and how it automatically took the opposite stance. So whether it was the lab leak theory, whether it was ivermectin on, like, on anything, masking, social distancing, closing down businesses, closing down schools.
Donald Kendal:Sure.
Chris Talgo:We now know that on all of those, measures, those of us who were talking in terms of common sense, like, hey. No. We shouldn't shut down schools. Hey. No.
Chris Talgo:You know, masking doesn't work. Hey. You know, social distancing does work. We've been proven right in all that.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Chris Talgo:So why why why, would you think that we've been proven right in all that, but then the most important aspect of it all, how it, came into being, we were wrong on. I mean, that just literally come on. Just like common sense.
Donald Kendal:I know, but it's just so weird. So there's another story. I I think I have the link in the show notes. You don't have to show it, though. I'm just gonna read some of the stuff from it.
Donald Kendal:But, there's a there's another story that I wanna talk about that was a former White House coronavirus response coordinator, doctor Deborah Birx. It was recently on CNN where she had said that that there was an effort to squash the lab leak theory. She said, I think early on, people did take a very definitive sides, and it did divide along party lines. And we're still suffering from that 4 years later, she told the host. So, obviously, we know in this case, you know, we we we covered this a lot.
Donald Kendal:Anyone that suggested the this theory was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or a racist. I remember even covering, John Stewart when he went on Colbert late night show, whatever the name of that is. Yep. And he joked about how obvious it is that this came from a lab in Wuhan, and then he was shut down and ridiculed by Colbert during that same segment. And then in a podcast afterwards, like weeks later, Jon Stewart discussed how he was criticized after that segment for being racist against Chinese people and for aligning himself with conservative types that were suggesting this, you know, the same theory.
Donald Kendal:And it's just weird to me. Like, some of the other ones that you mentioned, the the shutting down businesses, the social distancing, the mask stuff, like like, that's still weird to me how, like, immediately partisan all of those things got. But, like, this one in particular is really surprising to me that, like, it just immediately got so partisan. Like, it's because it's not immediately clear to me that the lab leak from China is some, like, conservative talking point, whereas, like, a wet market origins of the of the virus is some democrat perspective. And, yes, it does kinda make sense to me a little bit that it's just like whatever Donald Trump says.
Donald Kendal:He's our he's our north star. We align all of our political ideologies with the opposite of whatever he says. Like, that does make sense to me a little bit, but it does but what when you started off this talking about, like, kind of the cover up aspect of some of this stuff, I feel like that's a little bit more probably explains this a little bit more in terms of, like, just the the ferocity that they, like, defended this wet market theory.
Chris Talgo:And and and before Jim chimes in, just one more quick thing. You cannot understate the, the doctor Fauci's, you know, implicitly in this and the fact that he, you know, was trying to cover up what he did. And he lied. And Ryan Paul caught him in a whole bunch of lies saying that he was never engaged in, you know, gene manipulation in the, the Wuhan lab. That is completely false.
Chris Talgo:We know for a fact that they were doing this this Frankenstein virus stuff. So I think that doctor Fauci had a lot to lose. Right. And, you know, we know for a fact now because he's under oath again this this week in in congress. And he admitted, oh, yeah, that, my my number one, assistant, he was not using, government emails to communicate this kind of stuff.
Chris Talgo:He was using Gmail, and then he deleted all those. Why did you delete those? So there is so much evidence pointing that doctor Fauci got caught red handed because president Obama said no more no more of this genetic engineering of viruses. This is way too dangerous. Donald Trump also said no more of this.
Chris Talgo:So what did Fauci do? He went around them, and he went to a to a 2 bit, you know, lab in in in communist China and said, well, you're still, like, letting letting, this happen here, so I'm gonna give you money to do it. And then when doctor Fauci even went before congress and said, no. The money that we were given to the Wuhan lab, they never used it for that. Well, money's fungible, doctor Fauci, and you can't prove that, first of all.
Chris Talgo:But second of all, then why did you go out of your way to tell lie through your teeth to us time and time and time again? Because you are responsible for this. So if anyone should be held responsible, it is doctor Anthony Fauci.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I think that there has been just you mentioned watching documentaries and reading books on this. I I feel like there needs to be, like, a a worldwide investigation into into this whole thing that brought upon all of this. Because during the years of the pandemic, there was just, like, severe journalistic malpractice. And I feel like that that term, like, understates it because that almost makes it feel like they did it accidentally, you know, and it wasn't like some sort of orchestrated preplanned thing or something along those lines.
Chris Talgo:And they never apologize for it. They never apologize for all the bad things to stop.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I got a perfect clip that highlights that too. There was recently a debate between Chris Cuomo, formerly of CNN. He took part in the debate about COVID and I think some related topics recently against, comedian and political commentator Dave Smith. And we have a we have a segment that I think really highlights it.
Donald Kendal:Again, I think this understates it, but this journalistic malpractice that took that was rampant, during the the years of of COVID. So if we have that clip ready, let's go ahead and play that Cuomo clip, please.
Announcer:There was so much talk that they don't want you to take ivermectin. Ivermectin is the way to go take it. Joe Rogan got better from Ivermectin. And by the way, I don't like what people did to Joe Rogan about Ivermectin. I don't like it.
Chris Talgo:You did it. No. No. No. Okay.
Chris Talgo:Yes. You did. Find the clips. Dude, find the clips. You shamed Joe Rogan.
Chris Talgo:Find the clips. You said he's taking horse the armor. You and Don Lemon were chuckling at each other about it. I'll go find
Jim Lakely:the clips. You just saw the clips.
Announcer:Watch this. I'm not chuckling. I'm listening to Don. But No. No.
Announcer:No.
Chris Talgo:The clip I'm talking about wasn't on there. He's absolutely there. We were oh, oh, here. Do we have it? Hold on.
Chris Talgo:Let's play the clip.
Announcer:Getting injecting drugs for animals and horse And people telling them to. Oh my god. What person? You know, you talk about,
Jim Lakely:like, you know, cancel culture and who
Announcer:to shame. Ivermectin, a dewormer. Really? They are shaming themselves.
Jim Lakely:That's what
Announcer:it is. They're shaming themselves.
Chris Talgo:And they need to So you're taking a dewormer right now for the shame. Chris, you can't apologize for that? You were being clear that it was this, and you know that, dude. You're being so dishonest right now. I'm I'm not being told.
Chris Talgo:Talking about Ivermectin, the drug. You were not talking about this version of Ivermectin. Come on. I was
Chris Talgo:Hey, Donnie. Just just one one more one more super quick thing before, you know, we move on. We we also need to remember that, the, surveillance state, whether it's CIA, the NSA, and, like, all those government entities went to social media platforms saying you cannot say these things.
Donald Kendal:So
Chris Talgo:the media the the media was, I think, doing that to play along so they didn't get in trouble with, you know, the the the social media companies and such. So there there's a bit of that. I I do think I don't think that that was, like, the the the driving force behind it. But I think early on, when we saw what happened to people like Tom Cotton and others who's who dared to say, hey. Wait a second.
Chris Talgo:Maybe this, you know, is, from a lab, and maybe masks don't work, and maybe shutting down businesses is stupid. What happened to them? They got just railed. They got canceled. So I think that a lot of the other mainstream media outlets and, you know, people like Chris Cuomo said, well well, I gotta go along to get along.
Chris Talgo:And shame on them for doing that, but but I do think that there was, an aspect of that.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. And trying to rewrite history as to not apologize for that. When they had the receipts, they played it in front of them. Jim, we're already an hour and 20 minutes. I'm gonna give you final word on on all of this, the whether it's the journalistic malpractice of the, of the media during the years of COVID or the specific report in regards to the lab leak.
Donald Kendal:Wherever you wanna go with it, go for it.
Jim Lakely:Well, you know, I was so triggered by so much of what Chris said it'd be some of my points. But, well, I mean, first of all, the thing I remember that was triggered by was the idea when you asked Donnie, you know, how did this become partisan? We didn't make it partisan. They made it partisan. The, the regime, the the, the Biden administration, especially.
Jim Lakely:And even when Trump was in was in office, and he was working on the vaccine, which, he hasn't done a lot lately, and I recommend that Donald Trump, if he wants to continue to have the support of conservatives, to stop mentioning that he was the one responsible for the the accelerated vaccine. His base does not is not impressed by that to say the least. But it was not, you know, people questioning, you know, the efficacy of an experimental vaccine done to everybody with no testing. Just bringing that up was made partisan by the vaccine pushers and those on the other side, including Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. You know, Trump was able to get some people like Scott Atlas, on the board that he had assembled, the special committee he had assembled about the vaccine and about, you know, COVID prevention policies, like school shutdowns, like lockdowns of businesses, the masking, the social distancing, and all of that.
Jim Lakely:Scott Atlas was was saying that there's no evidence that all of these policies that we're implementing are ruinous to people's they they steal people's freedom and they're ruinous to the economy, and we shouldn't do them. And he was, basically just railroaded out of there, and they didn't listen to him because Deborah Birx and, frankly, Mike Pence were in charge of this and Anthony Fauci and not Scott Atlas. He, of course, was right. So this wasn't a made up partisan issue. It was a or a partisan divide.
Jim Lakely:It was a divide against people who ended up being right, who were right at the time, actually, and people who have since been proven even more right, and those who had the wrong answers and that had the wrong policies that were put in place specifically to stop Donald Trump from winning reelection in 2020. It was because of all of these COVID policies and the shutdowns and the 6 feet of distancing, and that you can't, be close to even your loved ones if you don't live in the same house, that you can't have Thanksgiving with more than maybe 3 people. All of these things were put in place to make sure that we had massive mail in and unmonitored voting to, in in the 2020 election. The rules of the entire society were thrown into a woodchipper, based on a on a virus in which 90 9 or 98% of people survived. Even now as we see, the data coming through, the vast, vast majority of people who unfortunately died because they contracted COVID were either elderly, obese, or had some other comorbidity or all three of those things.
Jim Lakely:That it was perfectly fine and no worse than the flu for most people under the age of 50, and if you were a child, there was no reason at all for you to to have gotten a vaccine. And so this divide, this partisan divide was not done by people who had genuine, logical, science based questions and common sense about the COVID vaccines and all the policies that were put in place. And we we we were able to experience, and I didn't watch too much of it because it is very triggering to me, doctor Anthony Fauci, testifying in front of the house, oversight committee this week. He he refused to take responsibility for encouraging gain of function research through back channels in China by by by on some technicality that he thinks is is legitimate saying that, you know, what I asked them to do does not meet the definition of what, gain of function research is. Even though it did the exact same thing, it's it's but, you know, I'm the science, he says.
Jim Lakely:So you so it doesn't matter that I was caught red handed illegally funding gain of function research, as you said, Donnie, in a 2 bit lab somewhere in in communist China. He's not gonna take any responsibility for that. He denied that he recommended that schools be shut down and that lockdowns be done. He said there was no science behind 6 feet of separation, which we had mentioned on this podcast, several times because in Europe, this is back in the time, Europe's degree of separation was 3 feet, but we had to have 6 feet. Why?
Jim Lakely:Because Anthony Fauci is the science, and he admits in a, in testimony this week that there were no studies and no science behind that. But it was that 6 feet of separation that made it so that you couldn't run a restaurant in this country. It was 6 feet of separation that had, kids playing their instruments in band in in band in school in little tents. It was it was these mask policies. There were no studies that show masks worked.
Jim Lakely:In fact, most studies show that they didn't work, especially for a virus of this kind. Didn't matter. We were we were we were kicking mothers off of planes with their screaming children because they can't get a mask on a 2 year old in an airplane. We had we had families set against each other because of the partisan divide that the regime put in place during the pandemic. And nobody is held accountable for any of this.
Jim Lakely:You can bring Anthony Fauci to as many hearings as you want. He is not going to be held he is not held accountable for that. He's living in his in his fantasy world, and every time you question him on these things, he says, it wasn't me that was making those policies. I didn't recommend, schools be shut down. Then you show the clip of him saying, we we it's not safe enough to open up schools.
Jim Lakely:So then what does Anthony Fauci say? He's like, well, you know, I'm just at, NAID. It it's it's the CDC that makes those recommendations, and they're only recommendations. These are not mandates. Right?
Jim Lakely:This this he Anthony Fauciu willingly participated in the beatification of him and because he's the science. But when it's time for the accountability for how much damage his policies and the the the globe the public health, professionals in our government had when it's when it's time to to face the music and have take some responsibility for that, they don't want any of that. They just want all of the praise. They want they want the statues to Fauci being made. They want the little dolls that you can find of Fauci standing proudly.
Jim Lakely:I remember the one time I got the vaccine, I had to because I had to travel. Vaccine mandates, you can't you have no choice. If you need if you need to travel, you need to do you need to get the shot. If you are in the army, you need to get the shot or you're or you're you're you're set out with a dishonorable discharge. If you were 1 on one of the people on the front lines, saving people who had COVID before we even knew how to treat it medically, if you don't wanna get the shot, screw it.
Jim Lakely:You're fired. You're out. I mean, these it's still mind blowing to me that most people kinda just forget about this. I understand that you wanna forget. You wanna leave behind mental trauma.
Jim Lakely:I do too. But it is instruct this is why it triggers me when when Anthony Fauci is there, because it brings back all of this nonsense that wasn't just inconvenient. It wasn't just annoying. It destroyed people's lives. It ruined people's lives.
Jim Lakely:People committed suicide. And now we see a study that comes out what they call about excess deaths. And and and researchers are shocked to learn that there has been a mysterious increase in excess deaths in the last several years. Gee, I wonder what happened to everybody on earth that would explain these excess deaths, and you're not allowed to talk about it. Probably can't talk about it even on this podcast.
Jim Lakely:Maybe you can't even talk about it on Twitter even though Elon Musk owns it. But, you know, Anthony Fauci testifying and getting off scot free, and then as Chris pointed out, they his underlings bragged in emails that the the person in charge of FOIA in their department wasn't there to ensure that the, Freedom of Information Act was complied with. Her job was to teach all of the staffers how to, evade the Freedom of Information Act by things like using personal emails, like their Gmail account, and then deleting them, Things like purposely misspelling ecohealth alliance in an email so that it doesn't show up, when you do a word search for for a routine FOIA request that the people are entitled to. And all of this happens and there is no accountability, there is no punishment. So I I I mean, I think this isn't exactly analogous to the first part of this podcast when we talked about, you know, the the there should be laws, should be enforced and sicced upon, you know, your political opponents or the or the other side.
Jim Lakely:Maybe I could put that aside. I will settle for the law being applied to Anthony Fauci and all of his underlings who committed federal crimes by avoiding, FOIA on purpose. These are so easily provable. It's one thing to make a mistake when you're in charge of public policy, especially in a in a pandemic emergency, But it is the unwillingness for any of these people to not only apologize, you know, or take any responsibility for their bad decisions at all. And there is a reason why they don't do that because if if people are are encouraged to question the the wisdom and the decision making of our real ruling class, which are the bureaucrats of the United States of America, not our elected officials.
Jim Lakely:It's the bureaucrats who really run this country and enforce the laws. If they are seen to be anything but infallible, that's problematic because that threatens their power. Even the pope will admit mistakes, but Anthony Fauci will not ever. And it's it's extremely triggering and and and and personal to me, and I think it is to a lot of other people. So, you know, there you go.
Jim Lakely:There's my rant. We're done.
Chris Talgo:Hey, Donnie. Just one more thing I'm
Donald Kendal:Oh, how are you gonna how are you gonna follow
Chris Talgo:that up first? Because because because I had to say this. This is very important. You talked about the the political politicalization of this. During the vice presidential debates, Kamala Harris, when she was debating, then vice president Mike Pence said, I would never take the vaccine if it's made by under the Trump administration.
Chris Talgo:However, 3 months later, when she was in office, she did a complete about face and said, you have to take this. That you have to. So just think about that. That that is how political it was. She wanted to win the election.
Chris Talgo:So she was saying, don't take it if Trump does it. But then when we're in the office, same thing. Now do you now you have to take it. You have no choice. Wow.
Donald Kendal:Right. Right. During that rant that, Jim, was doing there, we did get a super chat that was from I'm gonna I'm gonna destroy your name again. Was it Anika? We went over this a few months back.
Donald Kendal:Is that how you pronounce it? Jim shaking his head? Okay. We're gonna go for that. This is for Jim.
Donald Kendal:Thank you for the rants. I needed that today. And you also as a buzzer beater because you won it for America, folks, that is in cash, not pounds. So, go USA. But that that's gonna do it.
Donald Kendal:That is gonna do it for us today. We're already we're about an hour and a half long, so you got a little bonus material here on this episode of In The Things podcast. Join us every week for a new episode. For those audio only listeners that are probably catching the show on a Friday or later, leave a review for us on Itunes. That'd be greatly appreciated.
Donald Kendal:And join us live when we are streaming this on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x and all of that on Thursdays at noon CST. You can throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. Super chat functionality is enabled, as you have seen through this episode.
Donald Kendal:And if you could also support the show just by hitting that like button, sharing this content, subscribing if you haven't already, or just leaving a comment out of the video, all those things help break through those big tech algorithms that prevent content like this from being shown to more people. If you'd like, you could follow us on x at in the tank pod, and you could send us your comments, questions, and suggestions to the show by emailing us at in the tank podcast atgmail.com. Jim Lakeley, where can the fine people find you?
Jim Lakely:Atjlakeleyon twitter/x@heartlandinston twitter//xandalwaysvisitheartland.org.
Donald Kendal:Fantastic. And, Chris Telgo, what do you have to pitch today?
Chris Talgo:As always, heartland.org. We got a lot of great opinion articles up there. I've been posting a bunch every, day at this week, so please go check them out. It's really learn a lot about a variety of subjects.
Donald Kendal:Perfect. And we also have the climate realism show that'll be taking place tomorrow at noon CST on this variant channel. So make sure to check that out, but thank you all for tuning in. We will talk to you next week.
Announcer:He's a lying dog faced pony soldier.
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