THE ATTEMPT TO MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO CRITICIZE TRUMP - 3.6.25

Bronzer and al Green. Isn't the first sign of life in the Democratic resistance. There is a much more real and much more stark truth going on here. Trump has already made his first move in the process of trying to make not loving him illegal. The attempt is underway to make protesting the Trump dictatorship against the law. Trump gassed protesters near the Whitehousing twenty twenty. He spent the last campaign promising anti protesting laws, and he began to

roll out the new plot this week. This was Tuesday morning before his telethon before a crowd of supplicants otherwise known as the Republican members of the Congress and the Senate, and those Democrats not named al Green quote, all federal funding will stop for any college, school or university that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent

back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. No masks, thank you for your attention to this matter. A. He's really effing nuts, isn't he. B that's about Israel and Gaza, right, I mean, that's what he has to mean by college school or university that allows illegal protests, right, I mean the protests at universities last year in particular.

We're just about the Middle East. And frankly, the odds are whether you favor Israel or the Palestinians or neither, you thought at least one of those protests for somebody against somebody else, you thought one of them was inappropriate. Except where in that statement does Trump say funding will be cut off for any college that doesn't stop Middle East protests or pro Palestinian protests or pro Israel protests. Where does it say sending agitators back to the country

from which they came means the Middle East? Where does it say American students will be permanently expelled only if they've invaded Jewish or Muslim buildings on camp. It doesn't say that Trump is as always doing a bait and switch. You are putting constraints and limits on what he wrote. He is not. This is his only skill. Let me rewrite what he wrote to reflect reality. The reality inside

Trump's plans to imprison you. All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests. Protests like Black Lives Matter are now illegal. Protests to save Medicare are now illegal. Protests against your favorite president me are now illegal. Agitators will be imprisoned. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. No Masks, no Democrats, all musk Thank you for your

attention to this matter. Do you see it now? Trump also rolled out an element of the coming Trump Protection laws during that test Tuesday night in Washington, that test of the limit of human endurance for one man praising himself by making shit up. That was his speech to the Joint Session. I think that speech is over by now. He patted himself on the back for new anti deep

fake laws. Did you hear that part of it intended to protect women against explicit fabricated sexual videos, or more correctly, what women think is intended to protect them against such ai fabrications. But Trump could not resist all of the misogyny, the rape culture, violence, tech pros Tate Rose, and the Elon Musk philosophy that not even a b rusted penile

implant can stop him from propagating endlessly. All of that now married to the monstrous new elements of artificial intelligence, and the law that comes out is actually there to protect Donald Trump. Happily he had to go off script and reveal it.

his true greatness cheating people. The anti deep fake porn law is there, yes, to address the explicit purpose, but it's also there and can be used so he can prosecute you for that video that got hacked into the headquarters of Housing in Urban Development the other day, the deep fake on a loop of Trump sucking Elon Musk's toes. At least I think it's a deep fake. If you have not seen this video, don't, But what else could it cover? AI and deep fakes are a cataclysmic nightmare

for women and for human privacy. But yes, there actually is another worse level beyond that. It's when AI deep fakes become so prevalent that anybody can claim this or that real video is in fact a fake. I mean, that's the Trump playbook twenty election was real. He claimed

it's a fake. Will Trump now say and his slaves now repeat that the video of him looking at underage girls at Mari Lago with Jeffrey Epstein in nineteen ninety two is not real, that it's just a deep fake, that it's always been a deep fake, that we've always been at war with East Asia. NBC you say that's your video, it's a deep fake, and here's the District of Columbia US Attorney Ed. I'll believe anything, Martin to prosecute you for it, or for Trump to sue you

for it for twenty billion dollars. So you better make another donation to the Trump Library, the Trump Library of money. There is no limit to what the deep fake law could conceivably allow Trump to prosecute. Make a satirical video of Trump that's an illegal deep fake, portray him on Saturday Night Live. It's James Austin Johnson. Prosecute him. It's Darryl Hammond. Oh no, it's a deep fake. Prosecute him. Alec Baldwin, definitely prosecute him, says Trump. It's a network

anchor finally snapping. My money would be on Tom Lamas, who just got the NBC job yesterday and who was, if you can imagine this, a production assistant on the first show I did at MSNBC when I returned in two thousand and three, proving contrary to reports, I am survivable. My money is on Tom Lamas. If Tom Lamas snaps one night and runs every pro Nazi Hitler esque thing, Trump has ever said one night on NBC Nightly News.

Trump could dismiss it as deep fakes and prosecute Lamas and NBC News and Comcast, and god knows they'll pay up or not defend their journalists. You sure you want this job, Tommy? Stretch this out to its extreme, and it would affect the great white whale of Trump history. What if there is a Trump pee tape, a real one, or never mind there's a real one, or that it's

a pee tape, never mind that. What if there's just something from which all of this originates, the Paul Manifort connection, the krasnof the spy story, which is probably crap, the compromant which is probably not crap, all of it. What is the possibility here that there is a smoking video of something just him taking a wheelbarrow full of rubles. Oh, and that's now a deep fake and the new law

will what Trump prosecute you for retweeting it? Because his allegation that it's a deep fake doesn't have to be true. None of it has ever had to be true. He just has to have the money to hire a lawyer to sue you over it, or to have control over the prosecutors to arrest you and force you to fight back and waste a year of your life, five, ten, twenty years of your life, one hundred thousand dollars, a

million dollars, twenty million dollars. Do you think ABC settled over Stephanopoulos and the wording of the rape liability question because that which Trump claimed was true? Or do you think that CBS was willing to bargain over the Kamala Harris interview because what Trump was saying was true. Do you think the Des Moines Register cartoon lawsuit is true? It isn't the jury verdict that matters. It's showing you a list of legal fees you'll have to pay and

your businesses that will be cut off. And let's circle back to the campus protests. Post All federal funding will stop for any organization that allows anything Trump doesn't like. Agitators will be imprisoned and or permanently sent back to the country from which they come. Americans will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. You now have been warned that is what is going to happen next,

or you won't be warned. There's no warning in Idaho, right Teresa Bourne poll protests at the public town hall held by the Kutenaie County Republican Central Committee in Kurtelin, and the next thing she knows, she's being manhandled carried out by three men dressed in black. They are wearing no badges, no uniforms, no IDs, they don't even have

security emblems on. They try to zip tie her, and then the sheriff of the town steps in and threatens to pepper spray her, and he records all this on video as she repeatedly asks what are literally black shirts to identify themselves and theyse The sheriff has posted that video along with a photo of himself and Governor Abbott of Texas grinning, and a photo of himself at the Trump inauguration alongside oh members of the New York Police Department.

The police chief has begun an investigation of the company that sent the rent at Gestapo and the Republicans who hired that company, and the charges against Ms Barnpole are being dropped. There is that the charges are being dropped this time and who will next be manhandled by unmarked security while elected law enforcement officials videotape it like RFK Junior would videotape a bear he killed in Central Park, or maybe my ex girlfriend who's next to be manhandled

that way. Congressman Al Green. Perhaps Congressman Al Green now my front runner and first choice, and it could change, but now my front runner for the Democratic nomination for president in twenty twenty eight, because he's the only Democrat I can verify is still breathing. Boycotting that address was, as I may have mentioned before, it happened a move from the year nineteen sixty eight, because of course, not

going somewhere is an invisible form of protest. Did you see me, I wasn't there holding up those paddle signs with the unreadable words on them. That was the absolute dumbest thing Democrats have ever done. I mean, at least since they stopped backing segregation in the sixties. They looked like they were rich idiots bidding at a charity auction to raise money to repaint the beachside cabanas in the Hamptons. Or they looked like ping pong players who had gotten lost.

I mean, it was invisible and impotent. You want to bring props to a congressional speech in the era of Bobert or Green or whoever it was suing for the right not to be scanned for guns. As you go into the congressional chamber, you want to bring a prop bring a goddamn bazooka, or at least bring smoke bombs. I mean, it's Capitol Hill. According to Trump, You're allowed to attack it and try to kill people inside of it.

That's the Trump doctrine. Now, little paddles with the word no on it didn't quite cut it, but Al Green cut it. Al Green got it exactly right. And shame on every Democrat passed whom he was walked out who did not stand up and walk out with him in protest, which would be one hundred goddamn percent of them. If you think walking out on Trump will somehow cost you the non existent middle and damage your reelection chances and get you written up in the wrong newsletters, you're wrong,

but I get it. You're a terrified, textbook fungible, useless politician. But to not see as it unfolds in front of you as a win win. Rising to the defense of a colleague whose outburst was half the Bobert Green, Karen Honking and a quarter of Joe Wilson's racist you lie scream against Obama in two thousand and nine. If you don't see that as it happens in front of you, Hey, I'm going to stand up with him. I'll get my name in the papers next him. Oh my god, Martyrdom points.

If you don't see that, that means you're just a moron Democrat. The optics of unidentified goons ordering a seventy seven year old congressman and his cane out while JD. Free Speech Vance smirks and applauds with his mincing, little trained seal flippers is the essence of an organic viral video that would win awards. The optics of ten were twenty or thirty Democrats, then spontaneously rising with him would

have won the night. And I hate with every fiber of my being the idea that we have now that we have to win the night. But Trump is getting to build his cask of a Monteata wall around you, brick by goddamned brick, because he won the night night after night for much of twenty twenty four. We have to play this game or he will kill us with it. So get in the game, or get up from those seats in the House and from the Senate and start walking and don't stop until you are neck high in

the Potomac. Matter of fact, don't stop. When you are neck high in a Potomac. We can replace you and no one will know you were ever there. And by the way, of course, the Republicans who did not face any of this when it was Republicans doing this to Joe Biden or Barack Obama, because the Democrats would never consider doing this. The Republicans are talking about censuring Representative Green. There is a vote on this this morning unless they think better of it and make it all go away.

And I guarantee you any Democrat who goes along with this is finished. In fact, I promise you I will do everything I can to finish them. More importantly, I don't think the censure motion is going anywhere because it was floated by Speaker Mike Johnson, and his chief of staff was so affected by Trump's speech he was literally

arrested on a dui right after that. Well, it was either the Trump speech or the chief got a look at the porn consumption report that Johnson shares with his own son on their app So Johnson has other things to worry about. So mighty ugly, Johnson, you have their Republicans. Incidentally, Johnson's chief of Staff's dui. That was three hours after Johnson at the speech trotted out the widow of a

man killed by an undocumented immigrant in a dui. Back to the point, we need people who understand politics and protest and optics, and who are not afraid to get walked out by the authorities, and are not afraid to get arrested if need be. As al Green said as they brought this up yesterday, I'll do it again. He didn't have to say he's not afraid to get arrested. If I could do one thing that transcends time and space, I would clone John Lewis and put about three hundred

of him into democratic politics right now. Oh, you think this is bad? Did you see when they beat me over the head on the bridge? Chuck Schumer having trouble with traffic is not a great crisis in the months to come, In the years to come, if there are years to come, we are going to need democratic leaders who are not afraid to get arrested, and not arrested for getting drunk after a Trump speech and drive into

an official capital vehicle either. And so far the list of Democrats who I'm confident in uh is uh are is well, there's al Green, I think AOC. But she stayed home. She thought that was the right move. And there are others who, probably looking at it again, would go I should have been there and walked out with him. But really, you could have seen this coming, and you could have been there and walked out with Al Green. And guess what, you are back to square one because

you didn't. And so Trump largely won the night. In football parlance, he threw two hundred and seventy six interceptions and fumbled one hundred and fourteen times. And because the already moronic Washington press corps has now been dumbed down even further because of market conditions and naked pucellanimous fear, the toadies at the right wing site Politico rushed to

hile Trump, I want to read you two examples. I mean, this is John Harris, very serious journalist, reminding us that they all approach covering events like this, the raw boned truth of which is an insane man who just sold this country out to Russia talks longer than anybody else in history, all of it about himself, says he's done better than George Washington, and lies literally dozens of times while making a threat to prosecute dissenters, which you, by

the way, completely missed. They all approach covering this with one thought and one thought only, not have I captured the headline here, or the essence or the hidden news story, But rather, what if I write something different than what everybody else writes, I'll be mocked, John Harris, Trump, he writes, again, showed why the presidency is such a powerful platform from which to wage national arguments, even as predecessor Joe Biden

was never able to use it to good effect. By contrast, Trump in his showmanship, the boasts and bluster, the indignation and insults, the ability to channel popular frustrations demonstrated anew why he has vexed opponents of both parties for the past decade. Unquote, somebody wrote something like that about Hitler's first speech as chancellor. We don't know who that somebody was, because I would expect he wound up any concentration camp. Oh, the boasts and the bluster, nothing about all the dead

from COVID. Because Trump didn't want his numbers to look bad. Nothing about calling Liz Warren Pocahontas in the equivalent of the State of the Union address. Nothing oh demonstrated anew why he is vexed moments of both parties for the past decade. Then there's this from the right wing site, Politico's Rachel Bade. That's bad only with an E at the end. Congratulations. Attention, hungry House Democrats. You stole the

spotlight from Donald Trump on Tuesday Night. Your reward undercutting your own message in the fight against Trump, making your party look small on deathbit and making Trump look at the commanding figure he desperately wants to be. She's an idiot. In its same massive vowel movement, Politico praised the celebration

of disruption, praised the defying of backlash. Disruption you mean al Green, I know by Trump incompetent democracy destroying front running bastards at Politico and not just at Political because they all move around. Somebody just left NBC for Politico, and I think somebody from Politico just went to NBC. And I will spare you more of this with one exception, because this is one of the all time greatest, worst takes ever this is and the author is not a surprise.

But the quality of how bad this is is is his mona Lisa, his mona Lisa of stupidity. I'll read it first and then tell you who said this. This speech will play very well for Trump. Yes, he has repeated a whole lot of lies he tells all the time, but he's also poignantly highlighted trans issues, Wokeness, Lake and Riley, et cetera. And those are eighty twenty issues for the public in his favor. The speech is a master work of shareable content and moments. Trump is reality TV show

producer and star, and he is showing it tonight. Almost got into Rich Lowry Little starbursts in Sarah Palin's eyes territory at the end. There you could almost see the guy who wrote this doing a Joni Ernst. But the author there can only be one, Chris Solisa. At the heart of all this is this truth. If Trump agreed to let Putin attack Washington, DC with tactical nukes and the Democrats held a last second news conference calling Trump a trader and a murderer, half the Washington press corps

would rise to Trump's defense. Because he cannot shake the idea that there are still rules, there are rules. There are no rules here. There have not been rules in Washington for a decade. But they still want, they still need, They still cannot function without cubby holes for everything. There are to them only eleven different stories in Washington, and whatever this is, it has to be one of them. It can't be deliberately manipulating the stock market by turning

tariffs on and off. That's not one of these eleven stories. Well, how would we cover that, Well, we can't. Don't cover it at all. Okay, So al Green's audacity and forward thinking and pro democracy courage is reduced to disrespecting the presidency. I have bad news for you, Washington d C. Press Corps. There is no presidency. There is no president. The office of President of the United States, for all practical purposes,

no longer exists. There is just a madman, a senile bully no one has had the courage to stand up to, rapidly using his remaining shreds of self control. There is no president to disrespect. There is only a dictator building that wall around us and around you, the media, and around the courts, and you, the media and the courts, and most of the Democrats, you guys are busy handing him the effing bricks. Also of interest here I teased at the beginning some startling but happy polling news for you,

and I will deliver. How about six weeks into the dictatorship and Trump has already seen his support among men under thirty. Dive deeply underwater. Trump, bro, you've been doged. It's next. This is Countdown.

They tell Puck News that it is faint at this point, but the writing is on the wall for Trump's support with men under thirty, possibly the pivotal point of the twenty twenty four election. Quoting Puck, six weeks into the new presidency, John Delvolfi of Social Space said that Trump' support among young voters is already taking an unambiguous hit. Overall, favorability with the younger voters has dropped seven points since

his January poll. The weekend before the inauguration. He came into office with a fifty percent favorable among gen z. He's now at forty three. Since mid January, Trump's favorable rating has dropped most significantly among young rural voters, down seventeen points, independence down thirteen points, white women down ten points,

and women overall down ten points. At the same time, Trump's standing among young white men has remained about the same, But in January, sixty two percent of men under thirty had approved of Trump's handling of the economy. Now just forty eight percent approve. That's a drop of fourteen points in one month. On handling inflation, Trump has taken a fifth teen point hit, dropping from fifty five percent approval

before the inauguration to forty percent today. And as Puck additionally notes, those bad numbers and they are actually horrible. They are themselves three weeks worse and three weeks old. Now. These numbers were conducted in the middle of February. So who knows what the impact of all of this nonsense about tariffs and everything else has factored in. Here Trump is in trouble with the people who put him over the top dateline Kiev. Speaking of which headline, Putin pauses

US military aid to Ukraine. In case that got right past you, I'll just say it again, Putin pauses US military aid to Ukraine. Let me explain something, as I understand it, about what may not be fully evident at first glance, to the situation in Ukraine. On the one subject peacekeepers that is so desperately important to both sides. Why is Putin desperate to make sure peacekeepers and other truce enforcers if there is one, if there is a deal.

Why there are no Americans? Why is Zelensky just as insistent that there be at least some American troops there doing something to keep the peace. Well, there must be Americans, because otherwise all of the peacekeepers would be European. When Putin violates any ceasefire, Well, he can't shoot Americans. Not yet. He wants to fight Europeans. He would fight Europeans, he would shoot European peacekeepers. He wants, in fact, an excuse

to fight Europeans. That's the whole point of Ukraine. It is a warm up for going into Poland and other parts of Europe. That's the whole reason we have been defending Ukraine for three years. The whole point that Trump not understand, the whole reenactment of nineteen thirty eight and nineteen thirty nine. That Trump could never understand in a million years, because there's no cash in it for him.

The peacekeepers, if they are not American, guarantee war in Europe, which is why Zelenski and smart people want Americans as part of any peacekeeping force. Dateline, Washington, shocking. I know, I hope you're sitting down for this part, but did you know Trump's cabinet and staff are full of absolute flaming morons. I mean, if there were such a thing, who would you pick first in the moron fantasy draft

of the Trump administration? Would you go with? Alina haba White House advisor on parking lots who has just slimed veterans.

But perhaps they're not fit to have a job at this moment or not willing to come to work, and we can't. You know, I wouldn't take money from you and pay somebody and say sorry, you know they're not going to come to work. It's just not acceptable.

King of England. He may or may not have meant British troops and British wars and British dead, but they sure think he did when he said this.

in wherever the hell it was. She had just said that she thought God had given her a special skill the ability to communicate. And here she is right after that communicating that Trump's addressed to Congress would be attended by a dead guy.

it came out at its efing funny. In fact, it's effing hilarious. In twenty fourteen, Jony Ernst ran for the Senate in Iowa and put up a controversial campaign ad in which she boasted that she had experienced castrating hogs castrating hogs, and thus she would be an expert in Washington in finding and getting rid of pork now. Pro

Publica reports this. Earlier this year, the Air Force revealed that the general who oversaw its lobbying before Congress had inappropriate romantic relationships with five women, including three who worked on Capitol Hill. Major General Christopher Finnity's colleagues told investigators the relationships were highly inappropriate, as they could give the Air Force undue influence in Congress. I honestly felt sick to my stomach, one said, according to a report about

the investigation, because it just felt so sleazy. Well, no doubt that's why it was so much fun. But one of the women whose relationship with Finity was scrutinized by the Inspector General was Senator Jony Ernst, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation, Pro Publica continues, the Iowa Republican and combat veteran you Bet is one of the most influential voices on the Hill. About the military. I see, and she sits on Oh there's more to that.

She sits on the Senate's Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Pentagon and plays a crucial role in setting its annual budget. And yes, I'd make exactly the same kind of thirteen year old's jokes if this was about a man. Three other sources told Pro Publica that around twenty nineteen, Earnst that a previous romantic relationship with a legislative affairs official for a different branch of the military, the Navy. There's a joke there about swimming to troop ships. We'll

just let that go. But I'm not letting this one go. You're telling me that Jony Ernst went to DC to get all the pork she could find. Wait, wait, it's worse that twenty fourteen castrating pigs ad. Jony Earnst punchline, which she delivered herself, was about her goal when she got to Washington, which was, in fact, quote, let's make them squeal. You bet.

the boss right now. Legally, my former friend, who's defensive, his deception was once you should have known I was lying is, according to Oliver Darcy, as Status already pressuring CBS News to settle Trump's bullying lawsuit so that Trump doesn't corruptly hold up that merger I just mentioned between the Paramount Company and sky Dance. A couple problems here.

First of all, the lawsuit is bullshit. This is that Kamala Harris editing thing, and now the dictator wants ten billion dollars in damages for something that didn't have a goddamn thing to do with him. But secondly, Jeff Shell isn't the head of CBS because Paramount and Skydance haven't merged, and the sky Dance people are legally not supposed to be involved in CBS decisions, let alone running things until

the merger is complete. As Oliver Darcy puts it, quote, by attempting to influence decisions at CBS News, Shell may have aired and potentially opened Paramount and Skydance up to regulatory scrutiny. Well you should have known I was lying. Now. This sounds awfully familiar to some of us, because fifteen years ago, Jeffshell was one of the top executives at Comcast. In the same situation, Comcast was about to merge with

NBC takeover NBC. That was a huge slow merger, and once again Comcast people were not supposed to have any say on day to day stuff at NBC until merger day, which was January first, twenty eleven. And yet what do I find in my files a series of emails to me from jeffs Shell at his Comcast address, encouraging me not to leave MSNBC and to hang in there and not worry about Jeff Sooker, and telling me how much fun he and I would have together if I stayed at NBC when he would come in and run it.

The dates on these emails else El Sir. A couple of them are July twenty ninth, twenty ten, five months before JEFFS. Shell was actually allowed to try to influence stuff at NBC or the people there. Huh So maybe his previous experience doing this is why he got the CBS gig runner up appeaser Governor Jared Poulis of Colorado, I keep telling you, playing nice with the fascists is not only going to get your thrown out of the party, it's also going to get you run over first by

the fascists. Polis praised Robert F. Kennedy Junior, Then he went on vs. Joe on MSNBC. On there, he praised the Trump and Musk efforts to gut FEMA, and how have they repaid his quote bipartisanship unquote. Republicans are angry that Colorado prosecuted Trump vote denier Tina Peters. They have demanded Governor Polus hardened Tina Peters or Trump will try to cut off federal funds to Colorado. Do you see what happens, Jared? Do you see what happens Jared when

you fill it in yourself. By the way, trump ists go ahead try to cut off federal funds to a blue state. All the other blue states will then cut off their funds to the federal government, and your president will be overthrown before the end of the month by MAGA because people in the red states will start starving without the blue state money. But our winner, on top

of a field day of great candidates Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace, congress Woman of North Carolina, although probably not of this earth, how many dumb things has she done in office so far?

by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two that was written by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend John Dean. Everything else was, as ever, my fault. So that's countdown for today. Just seventeen days until the scheduled end of his lane. Duck lame brained term unless Musk

removes Trump sooner where the actuarial tables do. The next schedule Countdown is Monday. As always, bolletins as the news warrants. Remember peach Trump. It won't work now. It will, however, win.