Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Let's go over to Trump trial. I want to give everybody an update. Yes, I know that the details are maddening, but yesterday genuinely was an important moment at the Trump tile. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was chaos at the trial. Judge clears the courtroom over irritation with the Trump defense witness.
So everybody stick with me here because it basically comes back to a lawyer. His name is Robert Costello, was actually called by the Trump defense team to discuss a previous meeting that he had with Michael Cohen. That meeting allegedly took place in April of twenty eighteen, after the FBI had raided Cohen's hotel, room, home, and office.
Now, according to Costello.
He says, quote he was putting on quite a show referring to Michael Cohen, and that he was actually introduced basically to call into question Michael Cohen's both state of mind and to say that he was suicidal, that he
was quote a drama queen, and several others. The judge ended up actually clearing the courtroom because they were very upset with Costello apparently like audibly jeering the judge and his own rulings, saying before clearing the courtroom, merchants said, the jurors out scolded Costello for saying geez in response to objections from prosecutors and forgiving the judge quote side eye.
So there was some shenanigans that were happening there. So all of this was actually called Ryan in the defense, you have anything you want to say before we get to what Michael Cohen admitted to say.
At one point the judge said to the witness, are you staring me down yet?
Now? So they were square enough. The witness of the.
Judge almost almost fought, yeah, these are Trump. Trump really does bring out the words to us, doesn't he. But let's get you know, the actual major part here. The media was all focused in on this part, right on this,
on this Costello thing. I couldn't coult noticing that Michael Cohen, on the stand under oath, straight up admitted to stealing fifty thousand dollars from Trump in this alleged transfer of fund So again, if we'll all remember, Cohen takes out like a mortgage on his house, he pays off Stormy Daniels. Trump then has a portion of his Trump organization funds, which are then reimbursed to Michael Cohen. The allegation is that reimbursement, which Trump reported as a payment, was not
actually for compensation. It was done for election purposes. To make it even more convoluted, in New York state law, what I just described there is just a misdemeanor and not a felony. So to make it a felony, it had to have been done in order to cover up a second crime. Even that second crime is a federal, unprosecuted crime. Are you guys sticking with me here, Well, what Cohen admitted to does not require any convoluted logic.
Don't even have to ask me.
Here is a CNN analyst who is like, honestly, this is a worse crime than what Trump is being charged with.
Let's take a lesson.
Michael Cohen explained this whole thing.
Quote that's what was owed, and I didn't feel mister Trump deserved the difference. That's a lot different than I stole sixty thousand dollars from my boss on the transaction at the heart of this case.
And by the way, the fact that he was never charged with larsening is important because stealing sixty thousand dollars through fraud, which would be larceny in New York State, is more serious of a crime than falsifying business.
More serious of a crime and falsifying business records. Also, just so everybody is one hundred percent clear, I'm going to read you a direct transcript from the trial. So you stole from the Trump organization, right, Trump's lawyer asked Cohen, Yes, sir, that's very sad, just like you can't even.
Make this up.
He also later testified that he stole as a form of self help. In response to Trump slashing his bonus from the hunt fifty thousand dollars bonus that he received to the one hundred and fifty thousand they had previously received. He says I was angered because of the reduction. So I just felt like it was a form of almost like self help. Self help. And he admits, so you stall, he said, yes, I stall. He said that under oath, but he's given immunity by the prosecutors.
Right.
I looked at up Statute of Limitations on grand larcenity in the New York five years.
Oh okay, so I guess his past.
But you know, you can always you can always fiddle with a statute of limitations, which Alvin Bragg did in this case too, because the statute passed. But like you said, he figured out ways to like, you know, extend the clock on that.
Right.
But yeah, like stealing fifty or sixty thousand dollars is a serious crime, right, I mean, I mean that's a lot of money. That's the average American salary. He goes, have you paid back the Trump organization?
No?
I mean this is odd. This is part of the transcript.
Now, why are we even focusing on this because from my estimates, so again, if you go watch CNN Primetime and I try and check up on what these people are all doing ahead of their shows, they are all leading with the Costello thing. But they're not even mentioning the Michael Cohen thing. Well, the Michael Cohen admission of stealing, of previously lying on behalf of Trump, and also of straight up shenanigans has really wrecked a lot of the
prosecution's case. All the prosecution or all the defense has to prove is that Michael Cohen is a politically motivated liar, admitted criminal, and that they have enough reasonable doubt that he's not telling the truth that it was purely done for election purposes. As long as there is a single juror who is there in the box who believes that Trump did this just so he didn't want his wife.
To find out he's Scott free.
I mean, and I don't think that there is anything yet in this trial where you could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was one hundred percent for election purposes, because I wouldn't believe that for anybody, including Donald Trump.
Right, It's basically a.
State of mind, Yeah, trial prosecution, and Trump has one of the most inscrutable states of mind and also one of the most readable.
Yeah.
Sure, it's a funny case because it turns on the question of whether or not he would feel personal or private shame before his wife or before his friends or the public.
If news of this affair broke out.
And with almost every human being on the planet, you would say, well, of course there'd be some shame associated with that. Then the question for the jurors is, is Trump one of the unique figures on the planet who actually wouldn't care at all if this was out and is only concerned about is only concerned about the election? And how this appears in the wake of the access Hollywood, Yes, tay it all, And so they have Michael Cohen test fying, No, No, it was one about the It was one percent about
the election. And I know that because he told me this and because I've known him for a very long time. So then it does hinge on Cohen's credibility. Prosecutors asked him, you really want you hate Trump? Yeah, He's like, yeah, yes, you want him to go down, right, don't you. And he's like, yeah, I want him to go down, and then he does, so he's motivated.
He's a liar, right.
On the other hand, Trump did the thing he did. But yeah, that that's that's the wild question that this turns on. Was it purely for the campaign? Or was there some shred left of decency in him that didn't want that exposed.
That's the funny question for the jury.
Does Donald Trump have a single human shred of decency?
And that's literally all you need. You just need a single question of there.
So you could find twelve New Yorkers who are like, actually, no, he's yeah.
But then you know, then we have questions about appeal and all that. It's not like things just end a single in one way. So just so everybody understands Trump's lawyers are actually expected to rest their case in the criminal trial that actually happened on Monday, and then as the testimony right now has gone forward, we would understand,
at least procedurally, we will not get anything. I think by the end of the week, just because I think the prosecutors get another term, they might call somebody.
We have closing arguments, etc. That we'll all play out.
So the rule of the actual judgment from the jurors will come soon, but it's not going to come this week.
That's another reason we wanted to check in with every.
And the content guys appear to have cursed us in that Donald Trump will not be testifying. Yes, we all do our some type of content dance for those gods.
The irony is that he always wants to testify in his own difference. I remember covering all of the Mueller stuff and he was desperate, you know, to he was desperate to do an interview with Muller and to prove that he didn't do anything wrong, which you know, he can read the report and tell me what you want. But his lawyers were like, absolutely not, we can't allow
that to happen. So in this case, it does appear that he has been convinced not to testify in his own defense, and he'll be very happy, I think, to get out of this regardless of what happens.
He can at least campaign again. It doesn't have to be stuck.
In court until until those are going to be after the election. Yeah, because of the in confidence of all the prosecutors. So there is not a lot I think that Trump needs to worry about. I think in the immediate future. Although listen, what do I know. Maybe he gets convicted, and that's a whole other story.
Even if he's convicted, you can still appeal to conviction exactly, and you could be free on bond doing that.
Appeal. We'll see. Let's go to the debate section here.
We want to give everybody an update on the presidential debates actually going to happen next month, which is kind of incredible, you know, not a very long turnaround the earliest debates in modern American history. Trump agreeing to do two to actually three debates. Biden only agreed to do two debates. There's been lots of questions around the format, what that's all going to look like. The very first debate is going to take place on CNN. But this
time around, Trump has an interesting stipulation. And remember this, the rules are not up to anybody except the two campaigns and the network. It's a trilateral negotiation. There is literally anything could happen. It's the only campaigns. There's no preset rules like with the Commission on Presidential Debates. Trump is saying that he is going to demand a drug test for Joe Biden.
Let's take a listen.
No, I have fake tappers. They said, I just want to debate this guy. But you know, and I'm going to demand a drug test too, by the way, I am, no, I really am. I don't want him coming in like the State of the Union.
He was high?
Is the kite? I said? Is that Joe up there?
A beautiful row And by the end of the evening he's like, well it was exhausted. Right now, we're going to demand a drug test. But fake Chapper and these people are they going to be fine.
They're going to be fair. I think they've got to be fair.
And if they're not, you know, you have.
To deal with it, right, you have to deal with it. They're going to be fair, but they're fake. But they're not fake. I'm going to demand a drug Is that really Joe up there? As I said, it's not a terrible idea. We should drug rest them all and anybody who's up there on the stage, why not.
They're now betting odds on what he would test positive for right now? To your point, yes, both candidates should take a drug test, and if RK Junior we should, we should. We should test him too. I want to see his test. I would actually really like to know his testosterone levels. Yeah, what what it looks like, and yeah, who knows what holistic stuff he's I'd be interested working on interesting. But yes, Trump a lot of pseudo fed you know, probably coursing through those vans.
We've seen that before you.
The irony, of course, is that in the previous debate there was a COVID test requirement.
That's right.
Trump flew in late circumvented it skip the COVID test had appears too likely likely had COVID at the time, tried to assassinate all right, all right, think about it if by.
I mean he is very old.
But that that's actually a point against Biden, is that this is so old that he's that vulnerable to COVID.
Yeah, it breathes all over him.
Yeah, Joe Biden somehow dodged that both dodge that one.
It was the only interaction he had paid practically for like six months, right, he.
Just literally is the only time that they brought him out there. They're like, you will win as long as we just leave you in this house. Your only risk is you will be with twelve feet away from Trump and we're golden as long as he doesn't have.
Any And it works. Yeah, it actually worked out.
For him, and he made so Biden could agree to the drug test and then just show up.
Lad Well, here's the question about Biden and the drug test, whether what is actually needed in terms of the cocktail just the latest thing. You know. Somebody was pointing out the debate is only a month away and we're still in the middle of Biden quite literally forgetting episodes of modern history. Here he is thinking, he was the vice president during the pandemic. Let's take a listen.
And when I was vice president you're kind about during the pandemic. And what happened was Rock said to me, go to Detroit, he'll fix it. Well, poor Mary spend more time with me than he ever thought. He's going to have.
To say that again, he was the vice president during the pandemic. It's like, what are we talking about? Like, you know what, even was tasked with the bola but that was so bad Africa one case. It was a long time ago, you know. And also I checked this is the most dystopian part. And you'll appreciate this too. So when I'll explain it for everybody. When you're in the White House correspondent and you're transcribing things live, it can be a little bit tricky. So sometimes you're like, hmm, okay,
did he say that? How did he say it? So for the official government record, there's something known as the Official White House transcript. Now, officially, the White House Transcript is run by nonpartisan actors. They're like bureaucrats. They're not hired necessarily by the president or not. But recently under Biden, and this is something that not even Trump administration ever did. They have been going in and his remarks to mean
what he actually meant. So again, nonpartisan official government record does not include that remark. It meant to say the recession. So they literally in the official transcript strike out the word pandemic and put in he meant recession. So historians, let's say, you know, forty years fifty years from now, who want to come back and to study this episode. Let's say there's a what nuclear holocaust or something this
video and everything is all gone. But for some reason the White House Transcript as this is a very confluent scenario, they would look back and they would actually have no idea what happened. I mean, that is kind of terrible. Does the transcript have both he actually said it first has a strikeout, but the official published record is not going to have that in there. Yeah, So they had an initial version, and they usually have an edited version that comes second.
That becomes the official draft of history. Which is going to.
Distort historian's understanding of this period in the sense that, let's say Trump does win, when historians go back, they'll be like, why didn't the American public reelect this guy exactly?
Unemployment was really low hat. Trump seemed crazy, it's all right here, right, I mean, and his speeches seemed quite coherent. Yeah.
Again, this may sound dumb, but this is actually very important for thirty forty one hundred years or something like that.
It is sobey. It's like that photo where Stalin had that guy like a.
Photoshops photoshopt out of the photo, and that's currently the state of the US government right now. And then, finally, though, we can't forget about RFK Junior, who, as we've all said that we do believe he should be up there on the debate stage, he actually believes and has been saying now for quite some time, that he will be on the stage.
Here. He laid out his logic in a Fox News interview. Let's take a listen.
So your reaction to you not being offered this position. Have you heard from the campaigns or from CNN or ABC to ask you your plausibility of being on that debate stage?
We are in discussions with CNN. CNN published a list of crime year of four criteria for four candidates getting in the paid and we have shown CNN that we meet all of those criteria and that President trumpet President Biden cannot meet those criteria. The key is that every candidate has to have be on the ballots in enough states to get two hundred and seventy electoral votes by June twentieth, and we will be we will qualify for that.
President trumpet President Biden cannot qualify for that because they don't have any electoral votes at this time. They are presumptive nominees for their party, but they themselves are not on the ballot.
I will be the only one on the ballot.
The other criterion is four polls that have me at fifteen percent national polls, and they listed the polling firms that they would take those polls from, and we've given them five national polls that show me, including the CNA, the most recent CNN poll that has me at fifteen percent, the Harvard Harris poll, the Monmouth poll, the Quinnipiac poll, that all have me at fifteen percent or more. So I qualify for the debates. They have now made they
made a public offer. We consider that a contract, and we're in discussion with CNN now.
So this is actually fascinating because I noted this.
I remember immediately when Crystal and I were talking about it, and I was like, you know, Crystal, technically, you know they say you have to be on the ballot for two seventy states. Well, neither of these candidates has actually been nominated by their parties. They're not on the ballot. So he's right because he named it in Cole Shanahan. And this is part of the reason, by the way that they named her is in several states you are not allowed to be on the ballot unless you have your running.
Mate and others.
So the real question is is that is CNN going to allow him on the stage, because according to the published rules that they have put out, he should be on the stage. Now, technically, according to them, you know, neither of those should be either. What excuse are they going to come up with to keep him off? He should be there? Sociald jill Stein.
This is like the Palestinians thinking that the rules apply equally to everything, rather than made up by people in power to benefit them. What's unique about this situation is that Biden and Trump both.
Yeah, neither want them up there. They're not quite clear who he benefits.
If it was clear, then whichever one of them was going to win would be like standing up for the rights of democracy and free expression and let everybody on stageous because you know, process is always subsumed by your agenda. Yes, but yeah, in this case, they don't know. So your point earlier where he said that this is a tripartite agreement, like the negotiating between CNN and Biden and Trump is
the key one. It's a negotiation between those those three. Yes, and they don't care what the rules are.
Yeah, I'm fascinated to see what the official rationale is because you can't ignore him at this point.
He's just too big.
And even CNN analyst Harry Enton, you know, their own polling guys like, look, you know, according to have to include Commission on Presidential Debates criteria, they would have he probably would have qualified for this. So then they put
out this QTc two seventy thing. But I mean, California and Texas is half the battle, and you've already he's already on the ballot or allegedly on the ballot in both not not officially yet, but you throw Michigan, Ohio, maybe you get Florida, New York, and then you're good to go. That's it, you know, That's that's all you need for two seventy just because of the way that the electoral College works. So in that regard, it's pretty clear according to their rules, he should be up there.
There's no question about it.
And I think ultimately it probably won't. It will not be up to CNN, as much as I love to, They'll just say we're not going to do this. Yeah right, CNN would probably love it, Like what do they care?
I'm not so sure, though I think they would. I think they would care, and their their bias is probably toward that just keep it in the two party system. They do love ratings, they love they love a spectacle. And if if if the candidates were like, yes, we want RFK Junior on stage, then CNN's like, yeah, sure, absolutely put him on stage. They would not fight against it, right, because that's not their first, second, or third agenda, even if that is where their bias lies.
Well, here's the question.
Then, would Biden and Trump pull out if RFK were included.
I actually think the answer is yes.
It's an interesting game of chicken for CNN to play, to be like, look, we're putting now.
They don't care. So that's where the bias comes in.
But let's say they played chicken and they're like, he is a serious candidate. Some of our viewers want to hear from him. We think he deserves to be on stage. He is accepted, he's going to be on stage. Then yeah, do one or both of them back out. Let's see, it's gonna be fun. All right, Let's get to the Congo. So we've got some coup drama going on over in Congo.
Let's put up this New York Times headline. So the military there saying that it foiled a coup, which appears to be true based on the fact that a bunch of dudes were kind of shooting up the presidential palace and lives live streaming it. What actually happened behind that is really anybody's guests. But Sager, let's unpack what we know about it because it's absolutely just incredible the details.
So the main character here at Christian Malanga, who fled the Congo when he was a child for Utah and became a made a lot of money in Utah.
He's only forty one years old. He has his eight children.
He went back about ten years ago to try to basically launch a political career in Congo. Failed, did a couple of weeks in prison after that failure, and then managed to get back to Utah, which is where the story could have ended instead.
But he didn't there. Didn't end there.
He came back over used his wealth to do a decent amount of business over in the Congo, some of it with an American pot entrepreneur, which.
Is to be already is going to be part of this soon.
Yeah, this white guy who's into pot who goes over to Congo to make a fortune. Okay, let's sketchy already. So recently he went over there also with his son. Marcel Maloga is one of his sons.
Social media influence, Yeah, twenty one year old social media influencer, very pro Trump. People have loved to point out that he's just maga to the core and like all these photos of him like just flashing money and like just class,
just absolutely classic Trump style. Influencer is going to stop being funny in a moment, but not really so this, so there was a very contested presidential election at the end of twenty twenty three, which didn't resolve until early twenty twenty four, essentially because of all the allegations of irregularity. There have been very few presidential elections in Congo period since you know Congo was you know, became Zaire and then Underbuto and then and then becomes Congo again, and
so it's a very very fragile hold on democracy. And so out of nowhere you've got this Christian Malana guy who with a handful of other armed men.
First they go to basically.
The home of the incoming speaker of the Assembly and they shoot that up. One of their one of the one of the assailants is killed. They're live streaming all this on the basically on Facebook.
A couple of guards are killed, and then Malanga says to the cameray, says, Felix were coming for you next. And Felix is the head Felix, she's the ketty as the president of Congo. So that they this is early morning hours, and so they march their drive down to the presidential palace and they start to shoot that up too. He's never there. The President of Congo is never there. He lives far away, very very rarely in there. He wasn't there at the time. None of these are the
power centers like this. It's not an army base, it's not a radio station, it's it's not anywhere where you would need to actually take control in order to gain power.
They're very quickly arrested.
It's a pitiful coup attempt, and Malanga is killed they say resisting arrest. So we don't know exactly what happened at that point. We don't know if he was actually resisting arrest, if he was just summarily executed after getting captured. His son it was successfully captured Marcel, as were two
of these Americans. So these the Congolese military puts out video the next morning US citizens saying yeah with US passports, yeah, saying look look at these guys like the entrepreneur Matt Miller was asked about this at the State Department and he said, because of privacy laws, we can't say anything about these citizens period. He said, as with any American citizens in custody, we are requesting consular access. So we're going to be We're going to go visit these these
folks who were captured in their failed coup attempt. Now let's get into the different theories on what is going on here, because clearly the idea that a handful of people with assault weapons we're going to take over Congo by attacking these residential areas that had Even if they take them over, then they're just hold up in a house and they would be finished off by the morning.
So there's a couple theories.
One theory is that Malonga had a bunch of allies within the opposition who betrayed him at the last moment and said, there's like this guy, We're not doing this. I'm not so sure about that theory. Another theory is that he was goaded into this by allies of the president because the president is on his heels. The president is facing serious opposition right now. Anytime you have a coup attempt that is foiled, we've seen what every country does.
After that coup attempt. Yes, they suspend every law, right, take a Claire martial law. He consolidate the center. So they may think it was a false flag operation.
He was killing though, right and yeah, in a false flag in the sense that the perpetrator would.
Not know so he didn't know he was being writed into that. That would be the theory that he doesn't know. He's not part of a team here.
He's just a crazy person who was very able to be even manipulated by more powerful.
What about the CIA.
Yeah, so that here I'm looking at a multi millionaire African businessman with ties to Utah, an American citizen, cannabis entrepreneur. By the way, all cash business. Last time I check, which are good?
Are good? Front?
The CIA has always been in bed with drug runners. Now would be funny if they're like.
This classic one, the one guy doing business in Africa that isn't involved, It would almost be negligent to not have involved.
It kind of you're right, because the.
Geopolitics here is that they have a ton of cobalt, yes, and other rare earth mineral right if Joe Rogan talks about this all the time, right, like the amount of cobalt and you're in my cell phone, if you drive in Tesla, probably eighty percent of the cobalts in your batteries from you know, from the Democratic Republic of the Congos.
One of the most mineral wretch places in the entire world. Yeah, and guests. Who owns almost all of that is China. Yes.
And so while the US has spent its last seventy years kind of overthrowing governments and you know, doing our aggressive elbow throwing foreign policy, China just kind of comes in and just cleans up the mess and then just buys the rights.
To zero interest.
Long.
Yeah, like here, we'll build you.
Some roads and we'll take the mining routes for all of this. And so you've had a whole bunch of coups in Africa over the last several years, many of them involving US trained kind of military figures, and most of those involved internal you know, African politics.
Well, we should say too, This also comes I'm sure you can expand this as well. This comes on the heels of what just happened in Niger or Nize. In Niger, there was just another coup where the US had what was it four thousand troops or something like that, which have basically summarily been kicked out.
Of the country. They've already kicked the French out, they kicked out the French.
US troops are basically have no idea what's going on, and they've invited Russian troops actually onto their soil. So US position in Africa right now is actually quite shaky.
Yeah, and the irony is that the new jerkup was carried out by a lot of officers who would US training. Yeah, literally, so you a conspiracy theorist might look at that and be like, well, clearly the US was involved in that.
Yeah, it didn't work out to our benefits.
In fact, yeah, like it appears that it was much more organized, you know, Wagner Group Russia because all of a sudden, Yeah, now French are being thrown out because they're French with a real colonial power in the ger But yes, now they're saying the US troops need to
go too, right. And so not only did we produce, you know, just absolutely indescribable amounts of pain and suffering and suppression of people's democratic will and nationalism over the last fifty years, we're not even coming out on the winning side. Yeah, we're not doing well, folks.
But times with Congo was I was like, I bet you this is in response to you know, the US is And again most people have no idea about this. This is totally flying under the radar. But this was a very important military basis. I understand it for monitoring. You know ISIS in Africa and all that a big part of the counter terrorism footprint for NATO, for France and the US.
But I think most importantly from what I understand, there was a big as drone based down in Niger.
It's Djibouti and Niger were the two that we really relied on. So the loss of this, people in AFRICAM are freaking out about it. Just the command, It's like trying to explain like scent Com is like the Central Command AFRICAM is for US Command of all Forces in Africa. As I understand, this was like a code read event for them. Then you look at the Congo, the wealthiest
nation by mineral rights in the entire African continent. Oh, in a US citizen cash business entrepreneur, just with a multi millionaire UTAP businessman happens to get caught up in a coup on the government.
And if people want the background, Emily and I interviewed the author of the new biography of Patrice Lamumba. Oh, yes, the Lamomba plot. I know you love these kinds of books. I haven't read that one yet. I would like that put that on your audible.
It's so good.
But Patrice Lamumba was a very American leaning national I remember, and you know, he wanted a close relationship with the United States. He even like like sold a bunch of mineral rights in Congo to this like fraudster American businessman. Like he had to revoke it when it became clearly the guy with the frauds, but he wanted to be like an American ally.
Uh.
He flew to New York to try to make that case. We in the United States looked at him and saw a communist like we like because uh he wore glasses basically, uh, and helped with the Belgians to assassinate him and replace him with eventually Mobuto, who led absolutely brutal dictatorship, changed the name of the country for He led that for decades and results in this civil war that kills like five six million people. Uh, creates all this instability.
Uh.
And and it's not long from there to where we are here. And so yeah, this there's major power politics going on here and it's it's something to watch because the the surface level story of this Utah guy thinking he's going to take take the country over.
We remember those guys.
It's like, all of a sudden, we hear oh, they're x DA And I was like, well, you know, they're all from Miami.
You're like what, and they're like, oh, they all speak English. Too interesting