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The paper of record, the New York Times covered up rape and the main Democratic Party is in utter shambles. There's a lot to unpack, so let's get right to the chase. I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer Show. On June 4, the great lady the New York Times wrote a long story titled Several Women who Dated Graham Platner Recall Unsettling Behavior. I remember this very well because it happened when I was over in Israel. I was there for a week and I remember this story breaking. There was a lot of speculation as to what this story would consist of. There were all sorts of allegations, all sorts of rumors that were swirling around that Graham Platner didn't just rhetorically abuse his various ex girlfriends, rather there were all sorts of rumors at the time that he actually potentially had committed sexual assault and or outright rape. But what the New York Times did in this story back on June 4 was they did what is known as a catch and kill. This is an old journalistic tactic the National Enquirer actually did for the Trump campaign back in the 2016 primary, much to the chagrin of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and the primaries. A catch and kill is a very old of questionably ethical, but it's obviously legal tactic whereby an outlet gets the rights to publish a story and then does not actually tell the whole story. Rather they deliberately bury the lead. They deliberately obfuscate and make it hard for you to understand what is actually happening. In simpler terms, they just cover it up in order to benefit a certain third party, in order to benefit a certain actor. And at the time what happened was the Times focused really, really heavily on a conservative Republican operative, Virginia based consultant, a woman by the name of Lindsey Fifield, who I have known a little bit over the years. I can't say that Lindsay and I are particularly close. What the Times did was they framed this whole story about how Lindsay Fifields is this butthurt Republican operative who has a bone to pick with Graham Plattener now that he is on the precipice of becoming the Senate Democrat nominee from the state of Maine. And they focused above all, they really hammered home this point that this was a conservative Republican political operative with an ax to grind and that therefore, this is the angle you should take. So the Times basically took that and they handed it to the Platner campaign on a silver platter. Now, Janet Mills, the governor, Maine, had already dropped out, so Platner was all but assured to be the candidates. So the Times was just doing the dirty work of the Graham Platner campaign. They were giving them the perfect story. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. You saw all the usual suspects, people like Rokahana out in California, Mehdi Hassan, Chen Uyghur, all the far left streamers, Hasan Piker, all the nutjobs, Elizabeth Warren. But Bernie Sanders back in the elected class, they all did the same thing. Oh, this is a hit story, a hit job from a Republican operative. But here is what we now know. We are only now, as of yesterday, learning the full depth and breadth of the utter depravity, of the utter collapse of journalistic ethics, of the utter just degenerate scumbaggery. Frankly, for lack of a better term, I don't care if it's not a word. I'm just making it up because that's what it is. Utter scumbaggery of the New York Times. Thirty paragraphs into this June 4, 2026 article, the Time. Thirty paragraphs, 3, 0. Thirty paragraphs. In they, they drop a paragraph that we can now place into proper context. The paragraph was this, talking about a woman by the name of Jenny Rasicote. More on her in just one. This paragraph from the article over a month ago, 30 paragraphs, end quote. Ms. Rasicote also said that in 2021, he arrived, he being Platner, arrived at her house drunk after she had asked him not to come over. She declined to elaborate, but said she cut off contact soon after that EP and found his behavior reckless and unsettling. And sure enough, unsettling actually makes it into the title of this article. That was it. That was the only paragraph in the entire piece about this woman, Jenny Rasko. So fast forward a little bit and now we're starting to get the full story. So Politico, because the Times didn't cover this, this woman, Jenny Rascoe goes to Politico, and sure enough, this is the story that dropped just yesterday on July 6th. This is the intro to the article. Quote, a woman who dated Maine U.S. senate candidate Graham Plattner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago, despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies. The woman, a 41 year old Maine resident named Jenny Rascoe, detailed the alleged incident to Politico in three interviews over the past two weeks. Those two weeks, funny timing were those two weeks symbolized. Oh, yeah, just after the New York Times catch and kill story whereby they talked to Rascoe and then gave her one paragraph not even talking about the fact that he raped her, that he apparently allegedly, we're being technically legally correct here, allegedly raped her. So Rascoe said that she dated and that this was confirmed by Politico through conversations with her therapist, various other acquaintances and other messages. This is what she says, Jenny Rasko, she said, quote, that I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me. I remember these specific moments where I thought to myself, like, this is no longer my choice. And in short, again, Graham Platner allegedly raped this woman. The New York Times knew all about it. The New York Times could have gotten the story out there and they could have given the main Democratic Party an opportunity, therefore, to not nominate Graham Platner, but to nominate someone who is a reasonably sane nominee. There's so much more here because Grand Platner, it's astounding that we even got to this point. It's astounding that we've even gotten this point there. I do want talk about the fallout. Who's calling for him to drop out? Who maybe is not calling for him to drop out? More on that in just a second. For now, I do want to share a quick word about our sponsor for today's show, which is Angel Studios. We spend a lot of time on the show talking about how corrupt and how degenerate and decadent modern culture, modern media is. And that's why I'm genuinely excited about this brand new film that is now out in a theater near you, Young Washington. I have seen this film. It is absolutely a plus. Two thumbs up. Fantastic. The story about a young George Washington out on the frontier fighting in the French and Indian war for at the time then the British military. It's a man who was shaped by hardship, failure and the unmistakable hand of Providence guiding him every step of the way. Let's be honest, folks, Hollywood virtually never makes stories, never makes films like this anymore. That is why the Angel Guild matters. And you can join the Angel Guild for just $15 a month. You'll get two free tickets to Young Washington, plus streaming access and tickets to future angel releases all year long. You can sign up now@angel.com Hammer you'll get those two free tickets. It's just $15 a month. Go ahead and check out Young Washington. It is the patriotic blockbuster summer film release in this America 250 year. I've seen it. It's fantastic. Angel.com/ Go ahead and check out Young Washington. So in the light now in the aftermath of Politico finally getting the story out there, the fact that Graham Platner allegedly raped this woman and by the way, the woman, Ginny Rascoe. Before we move on, it's important to note the reason that she says that she struggled as to whether or not to say her story publicly is because she agrees with Platner's politics. Again, this is the whole framing of the New York Times hatchet shop, their catch and kill. They framed Lindsey Fifield, this nefarious Virginia based Republican operative, as the face of the attempt to take down Platner, who was running ludicrously, as we will soon discuss, as this sort of pseudo working man calls himself an oysterman. The personification, according to his campaign, not according to reality, but according to his campaign, of the working class, blue collar Mainer, spirit of lobsters and oysters and all of that there in Maine. Now, now we know. The truth, though, is that Grand Platner is not just someone who was saying and doing terrible things to a Republican operatively, he was doing terrible things, well, to a very liberal, politically lefty woman, Ginny Rascoe. Apparently, that is where Democrats draw the line because now the main Democratic party, which formerly formally nominated Graham Platner, they're calling for him to drop out. He does not have a whole lot of time to do so. He has until this coming Monday, July 13th. That is the absolute final drop dead date by which he has to make a final decision to actually remove himself. He's already been nominated. That's the last time to actually remove himself. And then the actual state party has roughly two weeks in order to name a replacement. All sorts of other Democratic leaders, Democratic institutional actors, have gone ahead and have withdrawn their support as well. So Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are withholding their support. Ken Martin, who is the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said on Monday that it was, quote, time for Planner to end his campaign. Lots of the other left wing heavy hitters, people like Elizabeth Warren, people like Rokuhanna, called on him to exit the race. All sorts of other senators too. Mark Kelly, Alyssa Slotkin, John Ossoff, Cory Booker. The crazy thing is that apparently this is what it Took. This is what it took. Again, it's not just the elected officials, all the podcasters, they saw all the things that this dude did. And what exactly is it that Graham Platner did? Okay, well, you may recall that he had a literal, actual Nazi tattoo, a tattoo of the. From the ss, which were the thugs of all thugs, the people who actually operated the machinery, the. The industrialization of the Final Solution, of the Holocaust itself. They ran the death camps, and their symbol, among others, was the Totenkampf, this skull symbol. Now, Platner had it tattooed on his chest. He says he didn't know what it was until a reporter told him last year. But Lindsey Fifield apparently says that he referred to it jokingly as his Totenkampf. My Totenkampf. He joked openly, said Fifield, that it was a Nazi tattoo. And Platner explained that he chose a tattoo because he and his fellow Marines saw themselves as a, quote, death unit. He has since covered the tattoo up, so that was not enough for Democrats. That should have opened a lot of questions. It didn't, but wait, there was actually a lot more than that. Eric Erickson wrote at his morning blog post this morning, quote, the tattoo was never the only warning. Under a Reddit handle, Platner called himself a communist, said all cops are bastards, and declared that rural white Americans actually are racist and stupid. This from a man selling himself as the champion of rural working class Mainers. He asked why black people don't tip. He used slurs for gay people and the disabled. He made light of sexual assault in the military. He bragged about using his leave in the military for drug binges in Europe and hookers in Southeast Asia. He wrote about how the smell of Porta Potties arouses him after years of masturbating in them. According to Fifield, he referred to a woman with a vulgar anatomical epithet and once said that if anyone ever broke into his home, he would rape them to, quote, show that I'm dominant. As recently as this campaign, he kept an account on the hookup app Kick, and he's admitted to sexting multiple women after marrying his wife in 2023. So all of what I just said, all that, that was not enough. Now, now, apparently we've gone too far. What.
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What.
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What does that say about this party? What. What does that say about the paper record? Oh, God, there's so much egg to go around. You can make an omelette the size of the entire East Coast United States. There's a lot more to unpack, folks. On this story and lots else to get to as well. Trump is over in Turkey for NATO. All that and much more later in the show. But for take a break. We'll be right back with more on the other side.
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Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-granger click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
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Welcome back. So it's actually even worse than that. I, I neglected thus far to really get into the biographical details of Graham Platner's life. So Graham Platner is, is the son of a local prominent attorney. He, he grew up quite privileged, to use one of the less favorite terms, and wealthy. He went to a private boarding school in New England by the name of Hotchkiss. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's, it's pretty well known board the elite, oftentimes white upper class New England crusty Puritan establishment, if you will. So Platner goes there and according to his telling of the tale, then he goes to the military. He becomes hardened by the way, Democrats all trying to do this because they've convinced themselves that their problem with young men and it's a real problem when it comes to Democrats. They convince themselves that the problem is an aesthetic one. It's not their garbage policies. It's not their support for transgenderism, for open borders, for outsourcing jobs and all these other policies. No, they convince themselves that the problem is an aesthetic one. And a band aid like nominating the right dude can actually heal that wound. That's where they've gone to nominate this guy who calls himself someone who comes from the elite but is now a working man because he went to the military, but ignore the fact that he actually absconded during the military. And he bragged about the fact that he was going on drug binges in Europe and he was, he was engaging successful hookers in Southeast Asia while he was on leave from the military. He trashed the military. He said horrible things actually about very heroes who were awarded the Purple Heart. We've discussed that on previous episodes here of the show as well. So Democrats find this guy who calls himself an oysterman. He said that he was known for catching oysters. It's like a big main thing, but it's actually not even true. If you look at his last income statement, Graham Plattner's income from oystering activities in the most recent year, for which we have disclosure, $5,001. Not a whole lot of money. But it's actually even worse than that. He only has one listed location where he actually gets the oysters. It's a private island owned by his wealthy business partner's family. And guess what? He only has one location that the oysters go to. His mommy's restaurant. His mother's restaurant. The dude is not just a loathsome human being. He is a fraud. And all these people bought this hook, line and sinker. Liz Warren. The would be Populous, Bernie Sanders would be populous, Hasan Piker, all the streamers, they all bought it. When all these stories came out. The Nazi tattoo, this, that. Well, Hasan Piker probably loved the Nazi tattoos. Ditto Chenk Uyghur. But they all said, you know what? Get to know him. He's actually a really, really nice guy. The Pod Saves America podcast, bro said the exact same thing. Oh, he's changed. He's matured. He's a really nice guy. And Lindsay Fife feels she's just a Republican operative. It's a hit job from the rnc. Don't worry about this. Except the New York Times, it turns out, did these people a major disservice because they knew all along that Graham Platner was not just someone who was abusing Lindsey Fifield. He was also abusing, well, in this case, a very liberal woman by the name of Jenny Rascoe. They could have gotten that story out there a month ago. They chose not to. Now, notably, they're not all calling for Graham Plattner to drop out. Many. Most are. And my prediction is that he will do so, because if nothing else, he's facing something of a credit crunch. His supply, when it comes to his finances, are already starting to run dry. That's what happens when you are a total degenerate scumbag and you hide all sorts of terrible things from your handlers, and the whole way it's gone down is just outrageous. But in any event, not everyone is sharing that dropout sentiment. Molly Jong Fast. If. If you've been on X, you might know her. She is a piece of work, to put it mildly. She was on Ms. Now, refusing to openly call for Platinum to drop out. Let's go ahead and watch this clip. So, look, this is A Maine, this is a Maine election that takes place in Maine that the people of Maine vote in. And so the big question I think is we saw already from that Times piece that the people of Maine, his numbers were going down, right? We saw the polling that his Maine numbers were down. And so now the question is, and the Times piece didn't happen necessarily. It seemed as if it was, was sort of nipping around the edges. But it didn't have an allegation like this, which is this full, substantial, you know. Well, it did have him putting her in a room and holding her captive, which I don't know, and grabbing her a lot again. Yeah, I know. I mean, it's not, it seems to me the media debate over this, over what constitutes enough. I, it is not up to me to constitute what is enough. I think it's up to the voters of Maine. And we saw these polls after that Time story came out that said they were starting to really is fundraising started to fade. Right? This is what they are doing. These are the lengths to which they're going to cover for someone who has been highly credibly accused in this case of full on rape. Really. This is the political party. This is the movement that once upon a time sprung MeToo onto the broader populace. They were doing it. They were doing it a month ago too, by the way. It's making more rounds now because of the horrific details of this story that again Politico has broken because the New York Times refused to do so. They did a catch and kill slop job operation for the Planner campaign instead. But about a month ago there was, there was this other clip on CNN as well where Jody Kanter, who is the New York Times reporter who was one of the tips, the spear of the whole Me Too Crusade back in 2017, 2018, around then, JOD Cantor was actually defending Graham Platner and dismissing the Lindsey Fifield allegation. Why? Oh yeah, because she's a Republican operative now. Okay, now you don't have that nugget to the story. So now that makes it a little harder. Albeit Molly Jungfast is a very, very special case, not in a good way. And that is why she's refusing to this day to call on Graham Platner to drop out. How much hypocrisy is there to go around? How much egg on the face is there of people in the establishment of this political party and people who lined up like d in a row to support this guy for folks like me who were following the Platner scandals which were Increasing on a seemingly daily basis with. With each and every day ending in the letter Y. I will remember months from now, maybe even years from now, perhaps, that the Democratic Party refused to call on Platner to step aside when it turned out that he actually had a tattoo from the ss. Like the Nazis who ran the gas chambers, the death camps. That was not enough. Him openly spitting and reviling and defecating on the memory on the service of our American war heroes, calling them horrific people who deserve to die, people who actually got the Purple Heart. That was not enough for you guys. Sexting all sorts of women while he was married. A bit of oppo research that came courtesy of his own wife, that was not enough? Okay, fair fine. For the party, Bill Clinton. Maybe that's actually not enough. Infidelity to one's own spouse. How about the fact that the whole Oysterman thing, it turns out, is a total fraud. An absolute, absolute loathsome fraud. It's very difficult to take these people seriously. On the one hand, they claim that they are champions of women's rights. On the other hand, they openly support people like Graham Platner, at least unless until it's not politically convenient to do so. And let's not bury the lead any further. Really. The ultimate reason that Ken Martin, the chair of the dnc, Schumer and Gillibrand, the reason that they are all lining up now to call on Platinum Dropout. They use the political story about Jenny Rascico as a bit of a fig leaf. The real story as to why they're calling for him to drop out now. The polls. He's starting to go down the polls. Why? Very simple. Susan Collins, to her credit, not my favorite politician by interest of the imagination. Susan Collins has a pretty big war chest. Her campaign and the nrc, which is supporting her from the RNC Republican Party side, they're outspending Platinum and their message is getting across to Maine. If the election were to say it looks like Susan Collins would win, that above all is why Democrats are starting to panic. They already have an uphill slog to try to retake the US Senate this November. They will have to flip numerous seats. And if they can't flip Maine, they're gonna have to flip some seats in some pretty red states. States like Ohio or Iowa, Alaska, states like that. While holding on to John Assa's seat, for instance, in Georgia as well. It's already an uphill slogan. They were starting to get excited about Maine, but now Maine might actually not happen. The lessons here are multifold. One, if you are a journalistic outlet and certainly if you are the so called presumptive paper of record, maybe, just maybe don't cover up for rape. Probably a good rule of thumb for journalistic ethics moving forward. Furthermore, if you are in a political party or you are in a supporting outside pact, maybe, just maybe, next time. Dude's got a Nazi tattoo, say this is a red flag. Maybe there are some questions here, but Democrats didn't do that. They didn't ask those questions. And that's why they're stuck for now with Graham Platner. He will probably get out and they'll probably still lose a seat to Susan Collins. But this story, something that we will remember for a very, very long time, shame on the New York Times, shame on Graham Platner, shame on the Democratic Party folks. When we go to a short break. We'll be right back with more on the other side.
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Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
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Welcome back. So shifting a little bit here. We are now in day two. We're now in day two of evidentiary pretrial hearings. When it comes to the assassination trial where Tyler Robinson, who has been credibly accused, if you want to use the actual legal nomenclature, it certainly seems to us here on the show that he killed Charlie Kirk. Tyler Robinson is out in court in Provo, Utah, for these preliminary hearings this week. So these are preliminary evidentiary hearings. Essentially, what's happening here is you have to convince the judge as a preliminary threshold matter that you have enough admissible evidence, evidence that can actually be admitted into the record, into court can be admitted and presented to a jury of one's peers. You have to convince as a threshold matter that you have the goods in order to bring it to trial in the first place. And you start to see a little bit of a preview as to where some of the lines of argumentation at trial might go. So on day one, you had numerous prosecution witnesses who took the stand. You had Chad Grunender, who was the chief deputy from the Utah County Attorney's Office. You had David Sturgill, who was from the Special Victims Unit, from the Utah County Attorney's Office. These are veteran prosecutors. The defense tried to. Tried to argue that essentially every part of evidence that the prosecution might want to enter in the record was inadmissible. Like literally every single one. They said, objection. Inadmissible. The judge overruled pretty much all of that, with one small exception, because there was actually one bit of footage that was altered. The judge ultimately ruled. But interestingly, the judge here, and the judge is a local Utah judge by the name of Tony Graff. He also divided the admissibility of the evidence into three separate levels. So the first level is evidence that is admitted as evidence to the record. The second level is published for the view of the whole courtroom. Then the third level, this is a very public trial. There were now cameras inside the courtroom. The third level is the evidence published in a way that can be captured by the media and therefore to the broader public. So the very, very graphic videos, the horrific videos, horrific images of Charlie getting shot. First of all, it's very hard to speak about this, frankly, in just an objective, sober manner. I can't believe I'm even here discussing this story. It's been less than a year, and it's just unfathomable, frankly. It really still is just unfathomable to me that this actually happened. But some of the most graphic video are not able to make it into the record in anything more than just admitted to the judge. There actually was one moment on Monday, on day one of these preliminary hearings, where the judge, Tony Graff, visibly was shocked and invisibly made a face and flinched when he saw one of the videos of Charlie getting shot. So those one Graff videos are not gonna get out in public there. There are all sorts of strict rules about what kind of phones and what kind of other surveillance equipment can get there into the courtroom itself. There actually were a lot of big names in the courtroom on Monday. Donald Trump Jr. Was there with his new wife, Bettina. You had Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk. Erica apparently had to. Had to leave the room. Who can blame her? Of course, when there was video playing of Charlie actually getting shot. Charlie's parents were in the courtroom. His sister was in the courtroom as well. Now, Bagley, who was one of the prosecution witnesses, testified about his experience on the Utah Valley University security team. He talked about how he saw Charlie fall to his left after hearing shots fired. Now, the defense was trying to get this evidence not admitted, and they generally failed in that respect. They also tried to cross examine Bagley from the Utah Valley University's police force. He's actually now left there, but he was at the time on the campus police force. The defense was cross examining him. Trying to establish an interesting point. They're trying to make my, the trying to make the point that the campus police force is actually really small relative to the size the student population of the university. Essentially what they're trying to say is you were stretched too thin, you were negligent. Why were you not there? You're, you're not reliable as a witness because you're probably, you're paying attention to a lot of things. I, I obviously don't find any of this persuasive at all. And it seems to me that there is simply overwhelming evidence that Tyler Robinson did the unconscionable, heinous deed that he did. Tyler Robinson by all accounts was generally just sitting there. We got a few camera shots of him. You couldn't necessarily see him all the time there, but pretty stone faced. He's aware of what he did and he's aware that the prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. This is a case where I think the jury system itself is a very interesting twist on the story. Now, your mileage may vary as to whether or not you are a supporter of the jury system. I have, I am generally a supporter. A lot of folks, a lot of my law school classmates, a lot of friends, family. I hear espoused very often the notion that the jury itself is an outdated, outmoded system and it really should just be a thumbs up, thumbs down verdict. These days when it comes to the judge in a situation like this, I happen to think that the jury is probably going to work out more in favor than perhaps the alternative. Recall that a judge. Yeah, it's a cleaner crystal process. It's also just one individual and all the various same follies that one individual can have, logical follies, analytical follies, ideological bias, et cetera. All the various things, frankly that led the American founders to distrust human nature, lean to their separation of powers, federalism, et cetera, all of that can and oftentimes is true in the case of a one judge. They're in black ropes. So yes, there's a benefit, there's also a cost to that. That's the whole idea, frankly behind getting a jury of one's peers. But here in Utah, this Utah is a very conservative state. It is a very Mormon state. It's a very church going state, very religious state with big families A state, in other words, that has a population that is disproportionately well attuned and is disproportionately in line with the very values that Charlie Kirk would preach on a day to day basis from his show on his campus talks and every other medium that was available and at his disposal. So the jury here could actually, I think if I'm making a prediction here, I think could work out more in favor of the prosecution than if he just had a bench trial, as it's known in legalese. And not even getting to a jury, that's no guarantee. Obviously, we don't really know at this present time the makeup of who all the jurors would be because we're not there yet. We're not at the trial stage yet. We're just currently in preliminary pretrial hearings. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. If there is any case for a death penalty, you have to think that this would be the canonical quintessential case for the death penalty. Even if you think the death penalty should be severely limited to the worst. The worst. A crime like this surely happens to be the worst of the worst. Premeditated, clearly, for God knows how long planned. Everything about this to me reeks and screams death penalty. It's a red state like Utah. It's a state that very much still has the death penalty. I can't because I'm not sure how often they've used it. It's not as often, for instance, as states like Oklahoma, Florida, Texas. But surely they've used it in the not so distant past. I suspect that Robinson's defense lawyers know this and that they know that the best that they can probably get for their clients, very similar to Luigi Mangione, the murderer of Brian Thompson, the Night Healthcare CEO. These depraved ideological assassins, defense lawyers, they, first of all, they do an absurdly hard job. I in a million years could never, ever, ever, ever, ever do the job that these defense lawyers do. And frankly, I am judging them a little bit, especially in an open shot case like this. I'm not saying that you don't deserve your day in court. You do. Due process is a thing. And frankly, Charlie would have been the very first person to say that. Charlie was an ardent, ardent defender of due process, the Constitution. So of course you deserve your right to counsel to a speedy trial in the sixth Amendment, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But, but personally, I could never in millionaires do it ever, ever. And I do cast at least a small bit of moral judgment on those who defend the absolute worst of the worst. But when you are a defense lawyer in a situation like this, you know, despite all of the, all the bluffing and the puffery and the attempts to mislead the media and to mislead above all the other side, you know, when you walk into the courtroom that your client is guilty and the best that you can do in a situation like this, the Luigi Mangioni thing is a little different. It's in New York. It's a very blue state. But in a red state like Utah, if you're Robinson's defense attorneys, the best you can do is to get him life in prison, I guess. Life in prison without parole. This dude is guilty. And I hate the fact that the death penalty takes long in this country to apply. I hate it. I hate it. All these frivolous habeas corpus appeals. It's outrageous. I want this thing to get the trial. I think it will. I want this scene to end quickly. And like many, I want Tyler Robinson to get the death penalty. I want it. I'm gonna go on a limb here. I actually do think we're gonna get it. It's pretty rare. It's pretty rare. But with this kind of jury, with this kind of state, this kind of judge, I actually think we're probably going to get it there. I might be wrong. That's just my prediction. For the record. For now, folks, we're going to go to one final break. We'll be right back with more after this.
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Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail. Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
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So Donald Trump is currently in Ankara, Turkey. Ankara is the capital of Turkey. It's the less famous of the big cities there. Istanbul is the most famous. But Ankara is the capital and it is the host of the NATO summit that is now going on. Donald Trump has a very interesting relationship with NATO. Mark Ruti, who is a Dutchman and a former politician there in the Netherlands. He is the general secretary of NATO. He is actually a big fan. Donald Trump telling the media over the past day or two that he just really, really likes the guy. And he is clearly trying to mend fences and patch things up between NATO and this current White House. Trump has at times been a vociferous critic of NATO. So has JD Vance. So has Marco Rubio, as we discussed many times on the show. They have many, many reasons to be critical of NATO. The basic response that we hear from the General Secretary, Mark Ruti, is he praises Trump, including in a brand new op ed for the Washington Post. So clearly he's going all in on the Trump sycophancy. Good luck, dude. You're gonna need it. He is trying to play this relationship and he's trying to credit Trump for applying pressure on the Europeans for increasing their military defense. On the other hand, Rudy's been defensive of the Europeans. So Trump and the whole administration has been very critical of the Europeans for not helping us by not lifting a finger, essentially during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. And for very good reason, frankly. Iran's ballistic missiles put much of Central and Eastern Europe squarely, squarely within the crosshairs of Tehran. Not true, at least. Yet, praise be to God for the United States. So you'd think that the Europeans would have a greater reason for caring. Also for energy reasons. The three or four moves and all the above. They didn't lift a finger. Now, Mark, Rudy says RA Romania actually opens up some of their airports for American military planes and convoys to land. Okay, bro. If that's really the most you can show, then that frankly just speaks for itself. But the basic response from the administration and from the Commander in chief, above all, looking at this situation should be this. I still don't get what the purpose of NATO is. Trump should say. All this talk about praising the Europeans for increasing their share of spending on military matters as a percent of gdp, fine, that's great. They should. They absolutely should. NATO calls for 5%, 2% minimum, ideally 5% spending of GDP on military. But none of this matters unless the organization actually needs to exist. No one talks about this. I don't hear any of this conversation. What is the purpose of this entity? The Soviet Union is dead, much to Bernie Sanders chagrin. Probably Graham Platners, too. It's deader than the dodo bird. It died a long time ago. Berlin Wall fell literally in the year I was born. So what are we doing here? What is NATO at this point? He's just a blob. It is an amorphous, vague entity where you can fill in the blanks and they kind of sort of stand against Authoritarian or fashion. They kind of stand for these, these vague Western liberal nostrums. That's not good enough. That is absolutely not good enough. But the real headline is that this is happening in Turkey. Turkey is in NATO. Turkey is actually one of the biggest militaries, if not the biggest military in NATO after the United States. But Turkey is a real problem because Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is the president, the strongman, ruler of Turkey, is a nutjob. Unfortunately, I don't think our president agrees with this. I have to say that I disagree quite mightily with President Trump when it comes to the issue of Receptayer Erdogan and Turkey. The modern country of Turkey, which emerged after World War I, after the end of the Ottoman Empire, the modern country of Turkey, under the vision of its founding leader, Ataturk, was a secular Muslim country. And that's what Turkey was for. Well, most of the 20th century. It wasn't until Erdogan got into power around the turn of the millennium, into the first decade, and now two and a half decades of this century. It wasn't until that Erdogan started to make Turkey do something radically different. Turkey under Erdogan is not so secular anymore. It's getting quite Islamist. Erdogan brags about the fact that there are many of the top Hamas leaders who, when they don't live in Doha, allegedly Qatars, get them out, allegedly where they go to Turkey. They actually live in Turkey. Turkey funds Hamas to a huge extent. Erdogan, on a seemingly daily basis, accuses Israel of genocide and says that Israel should be eradicated. He calls for a new Holocaust, for a new eradication of the Jews in Israel. He does on a seemingly daily basis. This is highly problematic because again, Turkey is actually in NATO and apparently we are on the precipice of waiving sanctions on Turkey and giving them now some F35 jets anew. Trump was actually speaking about this exact topic about NATO spending and Turkey. He was talking about all this just this morning. Let's go ahead and play that clip as well. We didn't need any help at all. And in a way, I was testing people, I was testing to see whether or not they'd be there, because I've long said that we help them, but I'm not sure that they'd be there for us. And Italy turned us down and Germany turned us down and France turned us down, and it's okay. But, you know, why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they're not there for us? We've always been there for them. Trump also saying separately that the US will indeed lift sanctions on Turkey. These sanctions were issued, by the way, after Turkey purchased Russian missile defense, known as the S400 platform. So again, Turkey in NATO, what was NATO found to do, oppose the Soviet Unions, aka the Russians. Nonetheless, around four to five years ago, six years ago, maybe around 2020, 2021, Turkey purchased S400 missile defense systems from Moscow. This is the Russian equivalent of the Patriot system, which is the United States militaries our missile interceptor system, which apparently we are actually running quite low on because Zelensky is banging for them and allegedly there's not a whole lot of supply left. So Turkey goes to Russia to buy them. Then the Congress actually acts to cut off turkey from the F35 program. But this morning, Trump confirming that the United States is going to lift sanctions and it looks like Turkey is now going to be allowed to purchase F35 fighter jets. What could possibly go wrong? You're looking at a country that is, along with Qatar, one of the largest funders of Hamas, one of the largest funders of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the coziest allies to Iran and the radical regime that tragically is still in power there. I do not understand this. I have a tremendous amount of respect for President Trump, but this is unfortunately one of his psychological shortcomings is that he sees people who are not just rhetorically strong or lead with conviction. No, he sees people sometimes, sometimes. No, some people that are actually autocrats that actually lock up journalists, which is what Erdogan does. Turkey is the world's number one by per capita, the number one jailer of journalists in the world. And actually just this week in Ankara, while they're hosting the NATO summit, there's been all these video clips and stories going viral of the Turkish police arresting journalists for covering the events in Ham Handed, or at times deeply critical fashion. That's not exactly screaming Western NATO values, is it? So again, what is NATO? But the US should not be going all in for Turkey at this time. Turkey is expanding right now, Syria, under the jihadist leader there. Al Shara is basically a Turkey province, a satriby, a province of Turkey, if you will. Erdogan has, you might call it, neo Ottoman visions. He wants to be a modern day sultan. And meanwhile, across the Middle east, by the way, things are continuing to not go so great. So. So over the past day, there have been at least two, possibly three commercial oil tankers struck by, you guessed it, the IRGC in the Strait of Hormuz including a Qatari flagged tanker. So the whole region is a bit of a mess yet again. Surprise, surprise, surprise is what happens when America does not finish the job that we started. Turkey is on the wrong side of all these issues. The first Trump administration, from 2017 to 2021, understood all this very, very well. They understood that Turkey, Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, that is the axis of Islamism. And the remedy for that is the axis of moderation. That's how we got the Abraham Accords with the uae, Bahrain, and so forth. Now in the second term, it's gotten a bit more complicated. We're going really all in for countries like Qatar and Turkey. That's a reversal, unfortunately, of Trump's first term, and not a particularly good one, in my estimation. It's not too late, Mr. President, to reverse course when it comes to doubling down on this relationship with Erdogan. Erdogan is a man who needs to hear some very hard truths, needs to hear truth to power. The United States and NATO have the tools to force him to make that change. It's not too late to reverse course. And President Trump, you should do so asap, folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Emmer signing off. We'll be right back, as always, with much more tomorrow.