Cassidy, Chaos & Ketchup

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Hey, y’all.  Happy hot, hot summer. I hope this podcast finds you with a cold drink in your hand and some kind of body of water to dive into, to cool off. A little housekeeping… If you get a chance,  Please leave me some stars or a review on your podcast platform –  just helps other people find it,  and every time you copy and send this to a friend, it helps us balance out the crazy and spread the normal. 

So while we’ve all been on summer vacation and distracted with other things, the January 6 committee has just been plugging right along and it’s been intensifying with each round. And so what I want to do is break it down for you  – give you the SparkNotes version – so you can get up to speed and see where we are now. 

And WHY do I keep harping on the January 6 hearings?  Because y’all, these hearings are the most consequential of our lifetime. When this is all said and done and we look in the rearview mirror, we’re going to see that this stuff makes Watergate look like a fraternity prank. 

But are people tuning in? 

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark refers to the normal people out there as normies. I happen to think she’s really smart and you should totally follow her.  Anyway, I think I’m gonna steal that phrase for this episode. Are the normies paying attention, and do they care about this? 

I wondered. So I called my good friend this morning to ask her what she knew about the January 6 hearings. Today, I’m just going to refer to her as Baby Rattlesnake… if you know know her, you know. 

Anyway, she’s a Republican, she voted for Trump and ’16 and lives in a ruby red state. So we chatted for a while and then I asked her what she thought about the hearings and she said: 

What?  Oh, the insurrection? Okay, here’s here’s what I know…there are some hearings going on, and one of Trump’s aides told us what all was happening, and she was supposed to be, like, really courageous and everything because she is young, and she told the truth. And all these other older people who should know better are trying to hide shit.  Something something something… so what did I miss?

Actually, I think that is a perfect summation of what the normies out there know, which is that people have been subpoenaed and under oath, have said some things that make the former president look very, very bad. 

Now when I say very bad, I don’t mean that he had an embarrassing gaffe on a hot mic, or that he made an inappropriate comment.  No, no, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking bad like attempted coup bad. 

All right, time for a quick definition. Everybody’s heard of a coup d’etat, right. But that’s not exactly what this was. You know, a coup d’etat is when someone from the outside comes in and takes over a government kind of like Napoleon in France. What Trump tried to do is actually called a self coup, where someone already in power is defeated, but refuses to believe he proved he was willing to use any means to hold on to power. Why? Because he thinks it’s his country and his party. I can just imagine him prancing around Mar-a-Lago in a big red King’s cloak, can’t you? 

AUDIO:  song – “You’ll be back “

But before we dig into the January 6 hearings, I think it’s important to know what happened before that.  In other words, how did we get from Election day to Insurrection day? 

So since we’re a 50/50 nation, it shouldn’t surprise anyone when we have close elections when we have some recounts, or maybe even some court challenges. But this was kind of beyond the pale. There were many, many, many states that Biden won, were Trump challenged – as is his perogative.  But y’all… he had 60 court cases, and he lost every one of them. And some of these were judges they he had just appointed. Ouch.

There were several states that were challenged by the Trump campaign, but today we are going to focus on Georgia because they had a lot going on.  Trump did not expect to lose Georgia and when he did, he asked for a recount, which is fine – recounts happen all the time. When he lost the first recount, he asked for two more recounts – so GA held a total of three recounts and Trump lost them all. 

But rather than concede defeat like a normal person, Trump began to pressure state officials like Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger. Remember him? This guy’s a Republican. So Trump calls him up and says, Hey, I just need you to find me. 11,000 votes.  That’s all I need. Just just find them –  kind of like change in the couch. 

Fortunately, Raffensberger declined. So Trump turned to the Republican Governor of Georgia. Brian Kemp.  He asked the Governor  to just disregard the votes from the people and swap out the Trump electors for the Biden electors – essentially disregarding the votes (that had been counted a total of 4 times) of the people of Georgia. Brian Kemp was a ruby red governor from a ruby red state. He’s a hard right guy who was all in for Trump. But he refused Trumps demands and held the line. 

Now remember, this is happening in different states simultaneously.. so Trump is exercising every avenue to try to get the electoral votes that he needs – but  he’s coming up dry every time. 

Because of these hearings, we now know that Trump actually was visited by a couple of his renegade advisors (one who reminds me very much of Carole Baskin from Tiger King, due to her affinity for leopard prints and Dr. Pepper) to discuss the idea that the federal government could just use the military to go in and seize ballot machines in states where he lost  – like Florida and Michigan.  But he’d have to do it before January 6 When the election was certified. 

Fortunately for him,  White House Counsel Pat Cipollone got hold of it and ran down the hall to physically escort those folks out of the building, but not before they had sold Trump on their wheels-off strategy.  

This is how desperate Trump was getting… he was so mad that his staff wouldn’t go along with the election machine idea that he stayed up late that night and sent a tweet out to all of his supporters asking them to come to a rally to Stop the Steal. “Be there… It will be wild,” he said. 

I think the key takeaway here is that this was NOT some impromptu rally with where the unwashed masses just decided on their own to attack our Capitol. This was planned and executed-  in advance – by the President of the United States and some of his people. In fact, testimony from some Oath Keepers and Proud Boys tells us that he absolutely knew he was lighting this fire. He knew that people were coming and he knew they were going to be armed. 

Do you remember that one debate with Biden where Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand by and stand down?” 

Well, they were standing by all right, waiting for the call. And to them, this was it. They tweeted back photos of the weapons they intended to bring to the Capitol. Others referred to it as D-Day. These people actually felt patriotic because they believed that their president was calling them to defend their country. 

We’ve talked a lot about belief and the power of belief. And here’s the weird thing…bad guys don’t always know they’re the bad guys. Sometimes the bad guys think they’re the good guys. They think they’re the Patriots. They think they’re the heroes when in reality, they’re the terrorists. They’re the people doing the bad things. Whether you’re a patriot or a terrorist kind of depends on your mission. And if your mission is based on a lie, you’re not a hero, you’re just kind of a chump.

Alright, let’s go to January 6, let’s hear from some people who are actually in a position to know what happened. People who were in the room. Let’s talk about Cassidy Hutchinson.

So who is Cassidy Hutchinson?  She’s a fairly young White House staffer, but she had a ton of access to the people that mattered. Her testimony was billed as “bombshell” “shocking.”

 It didn’t disappoint. 

Using a summertime reference, you could literally toss a bocce ball from Cassidy’s desk into the Oval. 

Under oath and penalty of perjury,  Hutchinson gave riveting, calm, clear testimony of firsthand conversations she had with White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, and Trump Chief of Staff (her boss and friend of many years) Mark Meadows, Hutchinson was in the position to hear and see practically everything that went on in the West Wing. And unlike what it looked like in the TV show with Martin Sheen, the area is not all that big. 

So what did Cassidy have to say? Well, quite a lot… so much that this pod could last for hours, but I’m going to give you the five bombshells that seemed to matter the most .

January 6 was never about a rally on the Elipse. It was about assembling a huge mob of people to descend on the Capitol to stop election certification. Hutchinson learned about this from Rudy Giuliani as she w as walking him out to his car on January 2.  He told her to go up and ask Mark Meadows about it.  He said  “The boss knows everything. Ask him.”  So she did.

Republican members like to condemn January 6 as a sad tragedy. A tornado or a flood is a tragedy. This was not a tragedy – this did not just happen. This was planned and executed by their president with an attempt to self coup. Which brings me to 

The term mag is short for magnetometer – you go through them at the airport and lots of places, they’re always present in a presidential event. 

So we all know that Trump’s a TV guy, right, so at this point he’s looking out he’s worried about the camera shot and why the crowd looks small. What is actually happening is that people are hanging back and they’re not coming up close, because some of them don’t want to go through the mags because security is seizing their weapons. Now at this point the people that are attempting to enter just have low grade weapons like bear spray, knives, spears, brass knuckles, things like that…. just normal items that anyone would take to a rally or a concert or a picnic. I mean, 

Would you go to a political rally without your bear spray? I hardly think so. 

Nothing to see here. Just listen to Hutchison’s description…

“I overheard the President say something to the effect of, ‘I don’t care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.  Take the effing mags away. Let my people in and they can march the Capitol from here, let my people in and take the effing mags away.”

Cassidy Hutchinson

We later learned that those that didn’t even approach the mags in the Capitol area didn’t try to enter because  they were stationed in the trees with AR 15s  and handguns.

I’ll put the recordings from DC police on my website so you can hear them for yourself. 

Now many of us were watching this live – in real time –  so we saw the gallows that had been constructed on the Capitol mall.  What we didn’t know at the time was that President Trump was adding fuel to the fire by sending tweets blaming all of this on Pence as the angry mob was approaching the Capitol. When Trump’s lawyer found out what was happening, he goes running into the Chief of Staff’s office, Mark Meadows. Hutchison was there – AUDIO

  “I remember him saying something to the effect of ‘Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung.’ And Mark had responded something to the effect of ‘You heard him Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it…

He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.“

Cassidy Hutchinson

I’m gonna let that sink in a minute. He thinks Mike deserves it. His vice president who stood by him –  never mind that it’s the Vice President of the United States. It HIS vice president.  Trumps’s been sticking “kick me” signs on Pence’s  back for four years and now that hes headed for the exit, he’s going to get him hung?

The worst part is that it’s not even hard to believe,  is it? 

Not so much of a bombshell because it’s not really that surprising. But further testament to Trump’s mental instability. Bill Barr, who used to be his Attorney General gave a statement to the AP that he did not believe there was any election fraud and Trump lost his damn mind. Hutchison describes what she saw. 

AUDIO:  

HUTCHINSON: “He motioned for me to come in and then pointed towards the front of the room near the fireplace mantel on the TV where I first noticed there was ketchup dripping down the wall. And there’s a shattered porcelain plate on the floor.”

CHENEY: “And Miss Hutchinson. Was this the only instance that you are aware of where the president through dishes?”

HUTCHINSON: “ It was not.  There were several times throughout my tenure with the Chief of Staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth. Where all the contents of the table would go onto the floor and likely break or whatever.”

Ok Honestly, Who is this guy? Really.   I mean, it’s not that surprising, yet it IS surprising because he’s a 76 year old man, not a toddler.

This is a story that Hutchinson got from Tony Coronado,  who’s a Secret Service /White House guy, and Bobby Engel, who’s a Secret Service guy.  Hutchinson sits across the hall from Oronado’s office.  

So according to Oronado, when Trump gets into the Beast (which is what they call his armored car)  to leave the rally, he expected to be taken up to the Capitol but was told that it wasn’t secure so they were returning to the West Wing. Trump was furious and repeatedly demanded to be taken to the Capitol – dropping the F bomb “I’m the effing president, take me to the Capitol now” etc.  

When they refused,  Trump reportedly tried to fling his gelatinous mass up between the front seats to grab the wheel of the car. That’s when Bobby Engel reportedly put his hand on Trump’s arm and asked him to please let go of the wheel.  At this point, an enraged Trump  lunged at Engels throat with his free hand. 

Now fortunately, his hand is tiny (as has previously been established) and probably very greasy from tanning lotion and french fry grease so Bobby escaped unharmed. 

But y’all.  Y’ALL.  This guy had the nuclear codes. He throws his meal on the wall like that wretched little boy King Joffrey from Game of Thrones and tries to strangle his own secret service detail?

Oh, and to make this crazier, the Secret Service decided to delete all the texts from January 5 and 6th the day after they were subpoenaed to corroborate the story. Just “routine maintenance.” I believe that’s also known as destruction of evidence. 

And another thing… the Secret Service is usually kept very separate from political operations-  historically, in normal administrations and in normal times. It’s not ethical for someone to go back and forth between Secret Service and White House staff because Secret Service is not supposed to be personally involved with their protectees, or remotely political.  So it’s super sketchy, and just another tidbit of proof that Trump really planned to go and participate in the insurrection. 

In other words, he dried the wood, he stacked the kindling, and he lit the match, but he really wanted to be there to watch it all burn down. 

Trump believed he was going to march into the Capitol with his ragtag militia and stop the certification of the election. He believed that Mike Pence would be pressured by the armed mob to do the ‘right thing’ and deny certification. Then , they could submit some of the alternate election ballots gathered from participating Republican state parties who had (at the request of the administration) supplied fraudulent elector ballots.  Piece of cake. 

Take a step back from this for a second…. It all tracks, doesn’t it? You’re not even really that surprised, are you? 

And guess what… in eight hours of recorded testimony, Pat Cipollone (remember, he’s the White House Counsel –  the same guy who stood on the floor of the Capitol passionately defending Trump during his impeachment trials)  He refused to dispute any of Hutchinson’s testimony. You know why? Because he was under oath,  and it’s all absolutely true. 

And all Trump had to say in his own defense was that he didn’t know her and that she must have ‘mental problems.’ 

Okay, back it up. First of all – he didn’t know her? This shouldn’t matter, but it does and you know it does – She’s young and she’s very pretty and she is stationed mere steps from his ‘throne’. Give me a break… This is a guy who talked publicly about how he wished he could date his own daughter. 

AUDIO:  “Ewwww”

Sorry, I know it’s gross, but it’s true. Secondly, of course she has mental problems because women who tell the truth are always emotional, hysterical or deranged….Puh-leeeze.

The fact is that she was cool, calm and collected.  She stood up there and did what grown ass men who are twice her age were too cowardly to do, and she broke the logjam for scores of more firsthand accounts and sworn testimonies. 

I’m going to put a link to this testimony footage on my website, if you’d like to watch it for yourself.

 Let me tell you why this all matters…

Whether you sell Bibles or weed, whether you’re a skinhead or a hippie, or you’re urban or you’re rural, or you’re blue, or red, or purple, or rainbow striped, the peaceful transfer of power is our miracle. It’s an American miracle.

And it’s the key to the whole dang kingdom. It’s the most essential piece of our American democratic process. And if we lose that, we lose it all, y’all. 

And why should you believe these witnesses?  I’ll tell you why. These aren’t a bunch of Democrats out to get Trump no matter what Fox News or OAN is going to tell you… these witnesses have been Trump loyalists  – from his Chief of Staff’s assistant to his own chief White House counsel to Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Every one of these people worked for Trump. They voted for him, they wanted him to win and to succeed. These are not BLM or Antifa. These are Republicans. These are Trumpers –  who have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose from lying about this.  Telling the truth about this President takes courage because it has gotten people fired, cast out of their social circles and has made them the target of death threats. 

To my friends on the left…Yes –  Like pretty much everybody in Trumpworld looking for a book deal or whatever  they could have come forward a long time ago. And it would have been nice to get them to cooperate without a subpoena. But they’re telling the truth now, and we need to give them some credit because it’s going to cost them dearly. 

And you know what?  telling the truth can be costly. Lord knows I have lost friendships over Donald Trump. People are so beside themselves outraged – they are furious that I would call out somebody from our own team. I’m supposed to be a good Republican… I’m supposed to stay in line, be a team player… I’m supposed to be loyal at all cost, right? Because no matter what I mean, Democrats are worse. 

But that’s just blind loyalty. That’s just like rooting for a team because you always have because you like the red jersey better than the blue jersey, Seinfeld did a bit on that.

AUDIO: “Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify. Because the players are always changing, the team can move to another city, you’re actually rooting for the clothes.  When you get right down to it.  you are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player but if he goes to another team, they boo.  This is the same human being in a different shirt, but you hate him now.  Booooo!  New shirt!  Boooooo!”

Okay, so I promised you some good news, I’m gonna give it to you. Number one, gas prices have dropped for 30 days straight. Love it. Number two, both Kemp and Raffensburger in Georgia won their primaries against people that Trump put up to run against them because they chose country over party. Maybe this means that Georgia is starting to think for themselves and break away from Trumpworld. Let’s hope that continues. 

Other good news is that this Trump experiment has taught us that our system has some holes in it, and that they are holes that can be fixed. There’s a group called the Problem Solvers  – they are half Republican, half Democrat.  There are 56 of them and they are working on plugging those holes so that we don’t have to worry about our government being overthrown in the future by extremists on the left OR on the right.  Every one of you has a congressman, (because every district has one) and guess what!?  ALL house members are up for re-election this November. Maybe it’s time to call your congressman and ask them if they’re a problem solver or a problem causer.  If they’re a problem causer,  let them know that the good news for them is that there are a LOT of available jobs out there – so when you vote them out of office in November, they’ll have options. 

Lastly, my hero Liz Cheney, Mother of Dragons, Savior of the Republic…. she’s got a primary next month and because she’s been busy saving our nation, she’s taking a beating back home. If you get a chance, hop on Cheney for Wyoming, and give her a campaign contribution. I know she’d appreciate it. 

The next hearing is going to be a primetime special on Thursday, the 21st of July. Give it a watch. It’s going to be about the 187 minutes between when Trump sent the angry mob to the Capitol and when he finally called them off via tweet by telling them that he “loved them.” 187 minutes later. 

All right. That’s all I got for today,  my friends. Thank you so much for listening, as always. I hope the sun is shining wherever you are – and thanks for being a Normie!

Talk to you next time.