Transcript: The New Untouchables [TNU] Episode # 40: The flood the zone strategy is now naked authoritarianism swimming in lies

A call to unifying, whistleblowers, etc.

→ https://youtu.be/eSKBZy4aedU?si=tla25vekM26WE_2J ←

The New Untouchables [TNU] Episode # 40: The flood the zone strategy is now naked authoritarianism swimming in lies.


Rough transcription (being cleaned up in the next few days, share/restack/revisit):

Patrick: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening and welcome to the 40th episode of The New Untouchables. And we are recording this on Friday, September 26th, 2025 at 5pm Eastern time. And my friends, the information is coming at us fast and furious. And I cannot wait to see how we unpack this information, but I want to start off with kind of just a brief overview that I think is worthy of at least setting the table because it's nearly impossible to try to keep all of this stuff in your head. So I made some notes right before we started this. And I thought that the things that we might want to touchstone upon are of course, last night's announcements of the indictments of former FBI director James Comey. But just right when I hit record on this, The Daily Beast had revealed that there's apparently a Dem revelation of the Epstein files that have Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel in the files. Also we know that Sinclair just announced that they're going to reinstate Jimmy Kimmel throughout the country, which is interesting as well as the fact that Nexstar hasn't done it yet. But meanwhile, we're also seeing Larry Ellison pick up TikTok after Paramount and Max and more might be on the list to come. This in addition to, there's a lot of chatter recently guys that Elon and Jeff Bezos and Zuckerberg and now Ellison literally own all of media, not just social media, but all of media. And then we can go further from there. But I just wanted to kind of pick that up and see, you know, uh, where you guys might want to start. And I think I'm going to ask you, Mark, Dan, coming out of the gate, how are you reacting to some of these things?

Marc: Well, I, know, um, I just, I'm just, I almost want to hold a, I feel like when I hold a funeral for, uh, for, for the rule of law and democracy after, after the Comey indictment, I mean, I just, it could not be more, um, embarrassing. I don't know what the right word is to, I'm going to see my kids tonight and I'm trying to think about how to talk about it with, I mean, they're adults and they can handle it, but how to talk to them about this and the future of democracy. Having been a player in the name and wanting good people to enter into government, into politics. The idea that we would entertain a world where there was a cycle of uh reward and retribution.. I taught uh my wife, uh who's not a history major, the phrase, the spoils go to the victors.. uh to the victors go to the spoils uh this week? uh We're reverting to pre-revolutionary American history, ah where it's about the exercise of power. uh It's the power for the purpose of benefiting your friends, power for the purposes of enriching yourself, power for the purposes of exercising power. uh And uh it is uh barbaric and it is unworthy of this great country and the sacrifices that that millions of people have made for it over the past 250 years. And uh I don't know why this week was, it wasn't that much different, but the fact that it was so blatant. We got the FCC trying to shut down comedian's TV talk show. We have uh a uh guy who was trying to do his job earnestly to the probably to the aggravation of almost everybody in America. I don't know there was a single person that wasn't aggravated with Jim Comey at some point during his term as FBI director, but there's no question, I don't think in anybody's mind that the guy went at his job with sincerity and dedication to duty and honor. And the idea that he would be indicted as a punishment for that is just horrifying to me. And then when you see the looting of, uh of, of, of, Tik Tok, not to the, to protect the U S government or, or our trade secrets or our, or our national security secrets, but to uh enrich the, you know, the F F O T's the friends of Trump. uh You know, it is, it is, it is, it's like we're back in the 1700s trying to figure out what kind of country that we want to be. uh And, and, and I just don't, boy, I think we've sacrificed too much uh, to, to, to be, to be right back there. And, and, and way too serious people, um, are, taking this seriously and going along with it. Um, well, and, you know, and then the, and then this, you know, impudent threat, um, that if the Democrats assert themselves in the budgeting process, uh, over this potential government shutdown, that they'll just, they'll just take their jacks and balls home and fire everybody in the federal government and use it again as retribution. I mean, it's just so beneath us.. so my first reaction is sadness. I don't know what the response is. We need to formulate what our responses are gonna be, how we're gonna react to citizens, how all of us should react. But I think the first thing we have to do is process the fact that this is not usual. This is not normal. This is not uh how a civilized democracy with sophisticated people leading it should operate. we've got to stop pretending and hopefully more people will stop pretending that it is.

Patrick: Well, I appreciate that open. And Bill, I want to tee you up for this, but I've got to make a comment kind of in response to that from the standpoint that, like I said at the outset, this is the 40th gathering of the new Untouchables. And this is over the course of like nearly a year now. uh And it's remarkable.. unfortunately, June Carbone can't join us this afternoon, but she has brilliantly contextualized over and over the question and the magnitude of the moment. And she said this from the very beginning. We had to go through a great depression and two world wars before we ended up with a civilization that we had that you guys were able to steer us through with honor and the integrity, but with incredible insight and understanding how complex criminality works. And you've been able to challenge it, defeat it on behalf of the American people your whole careers. And I keep thinking to myself, and I know my colleague, Eric Vaughan must be thinking the same thing. Bill Black has been in the trenches for decades. You both have, but Bill Black, particularly as it relates to the savings and loan crisis and the incredible work that, you know, that era did with his colleagues against all odds, we're able to pull off 7,000 arrests.. convictions for high, you know, uh high level executives. We're in a situation now where I think, and this is the only thing I might contradict you slightly about, uh Mr. Dann, and I say that with the utmost respect because I'm not on your level, but the long and the short of it is, I feel like Trump just ripped off the shades, the blinders that you guys have been in the trenches of literally going back.. I start my clock at Eric Holder and uh Barack Obama from the ultimate knowledge. And I'll just say this to tee you up lastly, Bill. I sat through an hour and a half sort of lecture from Mark Elias about the future of what the Democratic Party has to do to be able to answer the bell and be able to maneuver in a place that's going to be able to fight this onslaught that has completely, as we can all see, has been in planning for decades. These technocrats, this Project 2025. The Eric Vaughts of the world, they learned every step of the way that you guys have been battling the whole time. And they knew exactly where the vulnerabilities are. And they expected the American people to lay down, which they have so far. That's just my statement, Bill. I can't wait to see where you go with this. What's top of mind for you.

Bill: Okay. So Marc said this isn't usual and normal. And I know the context in which he's speaking, but this is usual. And this is normal for the world through almost its entire history. And when people talk about the United States having something unique, it is precisely what Marc was talking about. That for substantial periods in the United States, you couldn't simply take over the rule of law by being powerful. But it's the absolute norm of control fraud, which again, when the people in oh charge of seemingly legitimate corporations and government entities, they use that power to predate with impunity. And that means they always go after the rule of law. And so for almost all of civilized, scare quotes, human history, the powerful have been able to predate with impunity. Now, we all know that things have gotten much worse well before the Trump administration in this regard. And we all know that both of the parties were solicitous of the robber barons, the control frauds. But we have dramatically destroyed the rule of law under the last seven months or so. And it's a deliberate strategy to destroy opponents, but not so much to destroy the opponents, to be able to become enormously wealthy with impunity through brazen corruption, in which they just basically scream the corruption. And why did they do that? Two things. One, they believe they reached the state where being where being brazenly corrupt has no negative consequences for them. They can get away with it. But second, as advertising. They want the powers of the world to know that they're for sale. And they want to set up a bidding process to bid up the price that they're able to get. And we're only, you know, roughly a half year plus into all of this. Imagine what this is going to be like when they continue it. And just a slight background. Comey was a lifelong Republican. He eventually registered as an independent. The FBI is and has always been an enormously Republican institution. All of us who have dealt with the FBI find that we're overwhelmingly talking with conservative Republicans. The idea that the conservative Republicans had some conspiracy to help the Democrats and the FBI is hilariously false. And that's why they couldn't get the grand jury to indict on one of the three charges. That's why the new U.S. attorney, newly appointed, because they fired the last guy who was an experienced prosecutor because he wouldn't indict Comey. So she's brought in even though she has no prosecutorial experience, for the sole purpose of indicting Comey and doing it quickly before the statute of limitations runs [out], no other assistant U.S. attorney's name is on anything connected with that. That does not happen. Right. Again, the brazenness, they've reached the stage where they believe they can get away with anything in the open. That's the scary thing.

Marc: And even if they don't even if they don't convict Comey, you know, just being indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia, uh you know, where lawyers bill a thousand dollars an hour, uh you know, they're going to bankrupt him. I mean, it's a guarantee. I mean, I can guarantee you this, he may be acquitted, but he will come out of this very poor, much, very much poorer than when he went in. And it's going to make his life much more challenging going forward.. and it's like the rule of law working backwards, the rule of law, saying that we're going to use the rule of law to make sure that if we break the law, you're not, nobody's going to say anything about it because the cost to them personally is going to be too high down the road, as opposed to, to, to, what we've always thought of the rule of law is as the rule of law exists to make the price of committing crimes too high for people who might commit crimes to deter them from doing it. It's now become equally a mechanism to deter the crime fighters as it is to deter the criminals. And that's just backwards.

Bill: ..and to smear them.

Marc: Right.

Bill: This has the ability to smear. And that actually probably with Comey and many of us would hurt far worse than being financially bankrupted.

Patrick: Eric, I'm going to ask you. I'm going ask you to chime in, but I just want to kind of just tee this up real quick off the heels of that. From our, okay, look, from the standpoint of Comey, given what we know and what obviously Bill and Marc have laid out, I mean, just this perversion of the law, right? I mean, about six months ago, I had a great opportunity to speak with David Enrich on the release of his book, Murder the Truth, right.. which is this incredible book, I think we both read it, about how billionaires weaponize the law. And now we're in this sort of culmination of going after Sullivan versus, or excuse me, New York Times versus Sullivan, right? But they've just demonstrated, or I should say Bill and Marc had just demonstrated what Enrich was referring to us. And by the way, David Enrich uh was the lead editor on the revelations of JPMorgan Chase's relationship with Epstein, especially their second in command, this guy Staley,, right? Which I have a lot of questions which we'll get to, but I'm curious, you know, how you respond to that given everything that we've seen, you know, from the beginning of what we had to do to cross our T's and dot our I's to get the con out there and then kind of how you're looking at this lens. I mean, is that not really one of the most potent weapons of all, particularly as it relates to media?

Eric: Well, I mean, this consolidation of power over the last several months has been breathtaking.. you know, to kind of go back, I think a lot of the elements that have been spoken of in this talk, it's not that we haven't been heading in this direction. I mean, I think that everything has kind of felt like it's just all of sudden falling off a cliff. I mean, media consolidation has been happening for decades. I mean, deregulation has been happening for decades. I mean, we've been kind of like on this relatively slow march, you know, relative to now to where we are for, I mean, the entire time that I've been alive. I mean, I know that for sure and probably well before then. And so I think that it's taken an awful lot, you know, post, you know, new deal to get us into the position that we're in today. And I think that the desire to kind of push the reformations of the New Deal aside began almost immediately after it was signed. And so I think that we're looking at a multiple decades long campaign to get us to this point. And, you know, and so, I mean, it's shocking, but not surprising if that makes any sense. I mean, because, I mean, the media landscape's been shifting like this, you forever. And, you know, I mean, it's just, it's like the most, I don't know how to put it, just like the most cliche playbook is playing out right in front of us. You know, get rid of the artists, get rid of the comedians, you know, it's like, I mean, it's just, It's just, it would be bad writing if it wasn't reality. And I think that furthermore, I don't even think that the idea of law, at least as it pertains to the people who hold power right now, has anything to do with protecting anybody except for perhaps themselves. But I think that the idea of law is more as a weapon to wield in order to hurt their enemies, in order to somehow justify and rationalize the damage that they're doing to the lives, livelihoods, and reputations of people who they consider enemies. And so, you know, just to kind of, guess, backing what both Bill and Marc are saying, I mean, the concept in the idea of a country that is ruled by law rather than people um has been reversed. I mean, you know, it goes all the way back to that original document that I wrote, you know, and showed to you and Adam, you know, bazillion years ago, it seems, about the...

Patrick: New aristocracy.

Eric: And sure enough, here we are.

Patrick: Sure enough. It's the same story that we started with, which is amazing. We just went a million miles to the ends of the universe and back to get all of the material that these gentlemen have brought to us in the trenches that reveals and it provides the evidence of everything that I guess our intuition kind of led us on. But, you know, I just threw up the clean new deal behind me because what you were saying. I mean, it's like it's all this stuff makes me feel dirty. Hence why it's time to purge, surge, right? Get rid of the pollution of corruption and the lies that this whole system relies on. And I want to bring this back to you, Marc, because what about the lies? I mean, seriously, it like we've talked about for the past couple of now months, we continue to say the entire Trump administration depends on lies. And I just saw yesterday, in addition to going after Comey, of course, they're going after nonprofit foundations at the top of the list in the crosshairs is George Soros. And there's discussion and I've heard this from now several actors in the administration of nailing him for RICO for the developments of what's happening in, uh you know, for whatever, you know, the foundation implements on behalf of liberal liberalism and those sorts of things. Do you care to comment uh particularly from that vantage?

Marc: Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that this week. uh My new client is the Ashland County, Ohio Democratic Party. uh And the Ashland County Party was at the county fair over the weekend, which is a big deal if anybody's ever been to Ashland County. It's a very rural county with a thriving agricultural community and a beautiful, wonderful county fair. And they were uh at their booth uh selling buttons that had various slogans on hats, red MAGA looking hats, that the county sheriff decided were physical threats to the life and safety of the president of the United States, and came in and confiscated those.. that's not far from you, Eric, they confiscated those buttons and threatened to arrest the officials of the Ashland County Democratic Party. uh And the question to me, and as I met with these clients the other night, uh I can't tell who the good guys are and the bad guys are anymore. I don't know if it started with the Sopranos and Breaking Bad, uh but it's infected into real life now. don't know that a sheriff especially a conservative sheriff, the last thing he would want to do is impair free speech. And certainly the most important and the most protected of speech, political speech. And there's nothing more protected than a county Democratic party expressing themselves about an incumbent president of the United States in a way that was clearly not threatening. And even if it was threatening, the bar should be very high to be able to establish that there was something that was not protected about that element of speech. And a Republican sheriff who I know personally who should know better, chose to act in contrary to, and he wants to be the guy that is going to break the law and not enforce the law. And it's it's distressing. it's, and so what, troubles me, I mean, obviously it's very troubling. This is happening at the, at the high level and in, Washington and in every institution from Congress to the, to the White House, to the justice department, to the, uh to all the regulatory agencies. uh It is really getting, but it's also starting to infect local governments and small town and the police forces and smaller communities. And the idea that we would have law enforcement running around with impunity, breaking the law, and making it impossible for an ordinary citizen who's just trying to go to the fair to distinguish between who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. That is a really troubling thought to me. And that's where we've landed. And I just can't seem to move off of that this week in processing what's been going on in the world and trying to think about what are the ways, how do we resist this? I do believe that the federal judiciary will continue to hold. I believe that the judge.. I've appeared in the front of the very serious, Bill, I'm sure you've been in the Eastern District of Virginia, the very serious judges, take themselves very, they take themselves very seriously in that particular judicial district. They pride themselves on having the fastest docket in the country.. in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is where they chose to indict Comey for whatever reason. uh And uh those judges, think, know, the ones I've dealt with, they're not going to be afraid. They're not, they're going to hold. They're going to give him his trial. They're going to give it to him quickly. uh And they're going to give him a fair trial. And I got to believe that if 12 jurors are selected fairly, that he'll be acquitted at what cost to him, his reputation and his family. Uh, uh, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a totally separate question. Um, and what costs to, uh, the next person, uh, that is trying to do their government official at not necessarily at a high level, like FBI director, but maybe at a low level, um, like, uh, like USDA inspector, just trying to do their job.. what effect it's going to have on them to, make the, when they're making the calculus, was it worth upsetting the president and his friends just to save somebody from getting, you know, from maybe getting food poisoning one night. uh That's not the decision making. That's not the decision matrix that we want our government officials, those who are set to protect us from everything from, you know, from the safety of our food to the safety of our, you know, of our bodies. uh.. That's not how we want them making those decisions. But this is, it is quite the intention of the people in charge of the federal government at this time to create the environment where that is the decision making matrix. That people are not just, and look, nobody, know, mean, and Bill, know, Bill was one of them in all the best possible ways. He didn't give a shit who he was going after. uh You know, I've read enough now about Bill having met him and now piqued my curiosity. mean, there's a guy that was both both both, you know, that would rather be feared than loved uh among among the people he was regulating. And uh but isn't that what we want? Do we want the next Bill Black who has the power to prevent millions of people from losing their homes, which is what he did in his job. And that's not overstating it to be thinking about, well, is this going to please the guy who happens to be in the White House for the next three years and eight months? uh And if it doesn't, maybe I should just back down because in those jobs and Bill can tell you more, he had them a lot longer, a lot more important ones and longer than I did. know, get to every day's a choice about what you do and don't do. And the easiest thing to do every day is nothing. so even if they just tamp down everybody's desire to do the right thing, uh to just doing the minimum to keep their job and self-preserve, think of what they've accomplished to protect themselves uh from accountability for what they're doing, what the government officials and the people that have supported them are doing to get there. you know, it's two things. It's the direct effect. It's the direct things that are happening. But I think the bigger problem is there's this whole change in mindset that they're starting to get some traction with to say to government officials, keep your head down and your mouth shut, and we'll let you keep your job.

Patrick Let me pick up

Marc: That's what he wants people thinking every morning when they come to work.

Patrick: Let me pick up on that, Bill, and tee up, Bill, because to Mark's point that you don't know who the good and the bad guys are right now. One of the most terrifying fictional depictions to pick up on, a reference that you made, Mark, but one film that really got me a long time ago was Denzel Washington in Training Day, which is a depiction of the corruption at the LAPD and what happens when the guns get into a situation where they plant things and they become their own crime bosses and all those sorts of things. And we've seen it throughout Hollywood, but now we're what? A week after Stephen Miller, during a state-run funeral for an agitator on the right, Charlie Kirk was assassinated and all of the things that happened as a result of that. But Stephen Miller stood in front of, don't know how many tens of thousands of people in the Phoenix Cardinal Stadium down there in Mesa, Arizona and basically channeled Joseph Goebbels, almost verbatim, literally said, we're going to come after you. This after we've seen all of the masked people and I wanted to comment just briefly that of course, Governor Newsom said, and I don't know how this is going to play out, but because I haven't read about in the last couple of days that the ICE agents can no longer be masked, for example. Great on you, Governor Newsom, but we've seen ICE, we've seen all of these new camps erected. We've seen this incredible authoritarianism. We've seen the Venezuelan boats blown out of the water without any declaration of Congress, acts of war, yada, yada, yada. It goes on from there and it gets worse every single week with more audacity.. Bill and more to Marc's point that they've got the message to everyone. And yes, you were a guy, similarly, that stood up to power in your own party and you went the distance on behalf of integrity. Now you've shown that time and time again on these discussions, but people now are going to have to look to The New Untouchables for leadership because they're not getting it anywhere else. Can you guide us through the storm bill?

Bill: Well, this is why we've been emphasizing no Kings is not sufficient. It's got to be no Kings and no robber barons because the robber barons are the ones that actually ruled the place. Right. And they, for every billion dollars that Trump makes, they make 50 billion dollars is the kind of ratio. The fundamental problem that the Democrats have bought into is the idea they get from economists of all folks. This is Ezra Klein and the abundance literature type of thing. And that is if there's a problem in the world, power never explains it. Power is irrelevant. And that, course, is nonsense. These people get power. then as Marc pointed out, they act strategically. They use that power. So for example, when we went against the Reagan administration.. during the height of the Reagan administration, after one of the top 100 donors to President Reagan, who was Charles Keating, the most notorious fraud in the savings and loan debacle, they came after us in not one way, but a hundred different ways. And when our Washington bosses eventually, for the first time in US regulatory history, withdrew our jurisdiction over an institution on the grounds that that institution didn't want us to regulate them and have them obey the law, the insiders, in other words, our bosses at the Federal Regulatory Agency said they were doing us a favor. And I will now quote them because these guys are so powerful, quote, they can get you in ways you'll never know you've been gotten, unquote. So our federal bosses were petrified of that power, removed our jurisdiction. They removed the nation's top financial regulator, Joe Selby, because he wouldn't be intimidated. They tried to bankrupt us. They sued us for, you know, I got sued for $400 million in my individual capacity in a Bivens action. They attempted to get us prosecuted, including the head, the former head of our agency that was actually enforcing the rules. OMB tried to get him criminally prosecuted for closing too many insolvent savings and loans. So this power is not random and the people aren't stupid. Trump is an idiot, but the robber barons have some very bright people that know the pressure points and they have no dis.. you know, what do they care? Particularly if they're looting their place, what do they care? Money is literally no object in those circumstances. And in any event, it's chump change for a literal 800 billionish type guys to hire.., have their corporations hire, they don't pay it.. you know, do it themselves out of their pocket and have them hire all of these top folks. We, this is called predatory networks, how you put together predatory networks. And the whole idea is to be able to steal more, steal it with impunity and be rich and famous. Uh, and typically for the guys have sexual access as well. So Bloomberg just has a piece out on Epstein, that when it became clear to Epstein that people were finally starting to come after him. Dozens of his associates came forward to volunteer how they could help him, including a former federal prosecutor who specialized in child sex exploitation cases. But also the top PR firms in the world and the top lawyers, somebody that was on his way and did receive a Nobel Prize, you know. When you're a blue collar folk.. felon or alleged to committed felony, the community runs away from you. Everyone runs away from you. You're denounced in the press. In these circumstances, they circle the wagons and they turn these people into heroes and they try to destroy anyone who goes after them. And they found most effectively corrupt the federal prosecutor system. So that first prosecution of Epstein and that sweetheart.. That is scandal after scandal after scandal. They even gave him early release and let him work. It's just every slimy thing you can imagine they did for this man time after time after time. So you can't appeal to ethics. You can't appeal to fairness. This is why they need to be exposed because the American people don't like corruption of this kind. So we've been urging, begging, screaming, coming every week and say, you've got whistleblowers, a thousand plus whistleblowers who have the inside story and want to explain it. But it's going to implicate not just Trump and his people, it's going to implicate a lot of senior Democrats. And how many hearings? So what is our best fight back, or at least our most famous fight back on the democratic side? It's Newsome trolling Trump, uh which is great. I enjoy it. But it's not the same as having 500 whistleblowers brought in through subpoenas originally from the state legislatures and the state AGs of which we have them in abundance, who can get them out of any nondisclosure agreements effectively so that they can tell the truth to the American people and hammer it.. and hammer it. and hammer it home this corruption message. Because otherwise it's going to be all about using these predatory networks to smear the honest folks, drive the best people from office. And we, again, we are in the early months as Marc I think it was explained. They want to use this as an excuse to fire a half million folks. They want the government to fail to protect you. They want the government to be perceived as a predator. And they are the white knights, you know, that are going to come in to save folks. That's the message to the low information folks while simultaneously all the basically control frauds, the robber barons are actually funding and directing these efforts and they are making unbelievable amounts of money off of it with total impunity and not even any serious, consistent opposition from the Democratic Party leadership, much less an effective opposition exposing their corruption by using the whistleblowers. So let's stop doing stupid. Stupid doesn't work. It actually helps Trump. Let's actually go after him using the whistleblowers and driving home the message, he's corrupt and he's going to get you poorer and he's going to get your children killed.

Eric: But the problem that I feel that we have though is that, because, I mean, I think that the audacity and the impunity that we see is because they know that they're not gonna get any meaningful pushback, that there is no meaningful opposition or very little. And I think that, I mean.

Bill: But that was true in the savings and loan crisis as well.

Eric: True.

Bill: There had been no prosecutions. There was no criminal referral process. The people in charge at the federal agency were creating policies that were extraordinarily criminogenic. They were welcoming in the robber barons and such. It took, as Marc said, 10 years of work, thousands of hours by me, with media.. where only maybe one in 20 reporters would actually be willing to do the work and bring this stuff out. But, you know, over the course of 10 years, that grew into, hey, this is corrupt. This is wrong. Right. And as I said, even the one of the most corrupt guys from Illinois, County, a democratic moderate level of leadership started wearing a button literally six inches in diameter. Jail the SNL crooks. That's when we knew we had won. It was completely insincere, but it was a signal that we had won.

Patrick: Eric, did you want to keep going?

Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that that's true in you know, and maybe that that gives us like some sort of a model for like how things can go. But I think that the that the the hill seems much steeper now than it may have been back then, especially like like we were talking about earlier. The media is even more consolidated and it's being consolidated under the power of the same people that we'd be hoping to go after to some degree. But I think the other thing is and I think this is something that you were actually touching upon just a moment ago is that is that MAGA, if there is any place where they are excellent, it's in being able to push and drive a narrative. They understand the power of story and how to create a mythology and all this other stuff in order to get to the emotions of their base and get them to back them. And I think that one of the biggest issues that we have when we're talking about like, especially like electoral politics is that there is no counter narrative that I'm seeing coming from the Democrats. I feel as though-

Patrick: Eric, let me offer some of that because that's where you and I come in. Okay. And we always have been that guy. Why do we have the new untouchables first and foremost and now Corruption Incorporated? Why did we do Forward 13? I know that we're tiny, but just hear me out on this real quick, okay? And the con and all things that have come with it. And here we are at this stage of the game. First of all, when Bill was going through his answer, the first thing I thought about when everybody's a sellout, I keep coming back to this thing where I always say at this moment, the only people that are thriving are literally the pimps, whores, junkies and parasites of the Magazombie apocalypse feeding on the dead bloated dead.. well carcass of the dead American dream. does that sound hyperbole? Does that sound for this group of guys that nobody would ever talk like this on this? Of course not. I would. And the reason I would is because I've seen what all of these folks, these professionals have brought to the table over and over. And so our first poster, think about it, Eric, we had, uh it said America for sale, right? That's exactly what Bill just told us. And then we go through, everything that we've done with the con and what did we learn the entire time that we've been on the road just from this perspective, it's a rhetorical question that I'll answer and I apologize because we're going to run out of time and I to get this back to Bill real quick for something I got to get to him. But we asked these questions for 14 years. We saw Rachel Maddow never tell the story of the con. For example, we knew that the hierarchy of the billionaire corporate class was not going to tell the truth. Now, suddenly, everybody can see it. I almost thank Trump from the standpoint that everything we've been trying to warn, warn the country about for the past, however many years we've been in this game, Trump is forcing this into our face, right? In a way that we couldn't accomplish over the course of eight years. Now, final question, and I can't get everything out of my mouth as fast as my thoughts are keeping up with it because this is such a crucial time, but we have absolute hegemony of media corruption and propaganda that is going to force feed us lies. And what we just got from Bill is that we need the whistleblowers and we are a conduit because of the professionalism here and other things we've got brewing to start to give people the truth where they can't get it anywhere else first and foremost.

Eric: OK

And I want to wait, wait, let me just ask this last question before I forget it. And then I want to get it. Bill, how were you able to have the courage given the $400 million suit given everybody that came out for you, given your party that were non-negotiable, that were in on the crime, and you still stood your ground. That's what I'm trying to get for the American people to hear, because we do not, at your level of expertise, and Marc's level of expertise, and Paul's level of expertise, have that in the mainstream of America right now, and that's what people are desperately looking for. How were you able to maintain your integrity?

Bill: So it was never me, it was always us, right? uh And in my case, like all males, I like to think of myself as complex, but as time went on, I realized I was a Midwestern kid who had been taught by parents that you really are supposed to do the right thing. And the fact that your job is uncomfortable or it's going to be painful, to do it is no excuse for not doing your job.. so it's actually, we're not that complicated as Midwesterners, I think, in all this. But I've told you the two slogans that I followed during the crisis. And slogans are just slogans but I think they have importance to this moment as well. One.. right? It is not necessary to hope in order to persevere. That comes back to the Midwestern thing. That's how I was raised. Yeah. Right? And the second, and the one that the democratic leadership always gets wrong, is never chase mice while lions roam the campsite.

Eric: Right. So if I could just quickly finish my thought, because I think this rolls uh into this really well, think it's clear that the democratic leadership does not have a narrative. Right? I mean, you look at the people that actually gain some sort of some sort of popular success, and they're the exact people that the democratic leadership moves heaven and earth to shut down.

Bill: I would say the democratic leadership doesn't have a leadership, yeah.

Eric: Right. Well, all right. mean, but, but, but I mean, but they do have an organization that controls the leverage. And the other thing is, is that all you have to do is look at public opinion polls. The democratic party somehow through all of this madness is managing to be even less popular than the Republican party. And why is that? It's not because they like Republicans or Republican parties are polling quite low as well. It's because the people are much further ahead than the democratic leadership. And I'm not sure what it's going to take to make the party, you know, get to that breaking point to where they let new voices come to the surface. But I think that we're doing it. And I think that the efforts that we're doing here collectively, you know, and as our, you know, as our jobs, you know, to a large degree, Patrick, you and I is to continue to create the space in order for people to have that pressure and to continue to tell the Democrats that no, you can't just sit back and wait for this to implode. You actually have to stand for something. And I think that we continue to support, we need to continue to support opposition politicians with an actual vision. That's a good vision. That's actually going to help us, right? And we need to continue to not support the politicians that are in the opposition party, the Democrats that are not helping. And I think that as long as we continue to do that, that there's a chance that we can push this democratic leadership into actually doing something or into moving to the side so that new leadership can come in who is willing to do something.

Patrick: Okay. I appreciate that. And I'm going to tee you up, Mark, for the close, but I got to do it because obviously on this episode, can't stop talking. Okay. I apologize for me, I know the information and I know who we are in this whole thing. It's us. You know how they keep saying, okay, don't depend on somebody else to come to the floor. You got to do it. Nobody's going to come to save us. You got to save yourself. We the collectively, we have been doing it for now 14 years. And the bottom line is that we found you guys because we've been on this pursuit, right? And we're not going to stop now. We never have stopped. And the fact of the matter is we need allies. That's what we need. We don't need the democratic leadership top down, who as Bill has identified over and over, that are still tied to the robber barons. We've got to have the restore package. We've got to clip the wings or the, you know, whatever the feeder is, right? The mechanism where, and Marc, you come from politics, you know how important money is, but at the same time, we're at a point where we need the people to A, hear us. They need to discover what we're laying out there in a monumental way. So that means if you're watching this, please like, subscribe and share, discover. I'm always available for questions. can always root questions to any of these people on this panel and so on and so forth. But we have answers. Nobody else does. Plus we have the powerful people that have been doing it for decades that we have to rely on now. Their leadership, their understanding, they know more than everybody who is obfuscating this information, including the highest levels of the Democratic Party, whether it's Chuck Schumer, whether it's Elizabeth Warren, whether it's Bernie Sanders not saying anything, but hyperbole, and then quite frankly, the likes of Mark Elias saying, we got to recreate the Democratic Party, but from what? You got to admit that we've had nothing but corruption for at least since the great financial crisis. The fact that we're in this mess is because Obama and Holder did not hold Wall Street accountable. We know that, we have the information. We need everybody else to understand that. That's what's led to this robber barron. I think it's the worst time in the history of the world, quite frankly, in terms of, well, sorry, that might be a leap, but at the same time, we're on a slippery slope to that. So Marc, I apologize for taking up your time, but you inspire me. I want you to take us home. Tell us how you're gonna lead us forward.

Marc: Well, I think one of the things we need to understand and that... uh Trump has figured something out about politics and the MAGA Republicans. And that is that, you know, unlike Richard Nixon, who would hide his corruption, who was embarrassed of it, who was worried about being called a hypocrite or ashamed of it, they are not. And part of the magic, and I mean the black magic of what we witnessed the last several weeks is that, uh, is it Trump? mean, last weekend he was like, okay, Pam Bondi indict this guy. He's my enemy for no other reason, indict him because, but he's my enemy and he should be indicted. It didn't lay out a single criminal act. I don't, I don't know that Trump knows what criminal acts that Comey's even charged with. Um, he just knew, knew that he wasn't, he was, he needed to be charged because he was the person that, that, that, that, Trump perceived harmed him and a message needed to be sent so that the next person doesn't do the same thing to him. For years, the successful politicians, including myself, were focused on exposing the hypocrisy of the other side, exposing uh the misrepresentations, the misdirection of the other side. What, what, what we need to come up with this, and I wish I had the strategy cause I don't, um, but, I'm going to, but, but we need to focus on how we get there. And it may just be as simple as being just as direct as they are. Uh, but the fact is that when, when Trump gets up and trumpets the fact that this is a, this is a prosecution of retribution. Uh, Jim Comey is being prosecuted for no other reason is that he then that he fucked with the wrong guy. And anybody else who thinks about fucking with this guy in the future, expect to be prosecuted and expect to have your life ruined. We're going to make that happen. The directness of it all, I think it's caught the Democrats completely flat footed because that's not how politics has been successfully conducted in this country.. really since the Federalist Papers where people were going directly at each other in a very open and direct way. It's all been about everybody saying that they aspire to the same ideals and then one side or the other exposing how the other side isn't doing that. they have undermined that their chess strategy here is better than ours. And it's a terrible strategy but, to their credit at least, it's honest. I mean, he's telling people what he's doing and why, and it's not leaving it to the Democrats to explain why Comey's being indicted. He told us why Comey's being indicted there. And he's not defending the fact that Comey may not have committed a crime. He's made that not relevant to the conversation. So how do you come back that? What do you do? How do you create a world. And I think that what you do, and I think that by talking about the whistleblowers the way that we have and focusing on the people uh inside of government, we need a new set of victims here. We need a new set of people that need protected. And the people that need protected are the people inside government who are trying to do their job. And the Democrats need to stop shying away from that and to protect the people that are keeping us from being poisoned every day by spoiled milk, who are keeping us from being uh scammed by stock fraud. The people that are keeping us uh every day from, we're dealing with a case where, you know Dollar General's overcharging people. They charge more at the uh cash register than they put on the signs in the store. And there are county auditors in Ohio that go out every day and they double check the pricing in dollar stores to make sure that the poorest people in the state aren't getting ripped off by 10 or 20 cents apiece. oh We need to embrace and make the, and those, by the way, those guys are every bit as heroic as Bill Black in taking on the billion dollar savings and loan industry. And they're everywhere in government. And what Trump wants to do and what Vogel wants to do and the Project 2025 people want to do is to completely discredit those people and to replace them with people who go back to the old.. to the victors go to the spoils mentality where it doesn't matter what's right, or protecting people at times in their lives when they need protection. I mean, that's when you know who framed this for me the first time, guy named ran for governor in Ohio in 1982, by the name of Jerry Springer. I was Jerry's driver in 1982, when he ran for governor. best candidate still to this day that I think I ever worked with. And Jerry's stump speech started out like this. Look, I'm a liberal. I'm a liberal because government exists to protect people at times in their lives when they need protection. That's why we can't form an army without collective activity like a government. You cannot form a fire department. You cannot keep people from being poisoned uh by sour milk. uh without creating those protections. That's what this is for. And nobody's talking about why we have government and why it's doing what it's doing and why it matters and why it does matter if the government shuts down and why it would matter if they laid off half a million people who knew how to do their job and how much less safe that we would be. And you know, those 500,000 people who might get laid off, have, hopefully they all have a couple of friends and family members who, who appreciate what, what, what conscientious civil servants those people are. And, you know, are there, are there, are there some government employees who aren't great? Sure. But there's a hell of a lot more people I've met in my life who work in government every day, who just want to do their job and do it well and are honored to be able to do it. They make less money in most cases and in the private sector. like the idea that they have more job security, so there's a different mentality. But they are devoted to doing the right thing and to protecting us at times in their lives when we need protection. I don't think it may be as simple as going back to that message. And these people are wanting to rip away that protection. I see it in my field. There was an article today talking about ending every single Consumer Finance Protection Bureau investigation just to shut them all down. American Banker magazine has an article this week saying that that's what the plan is. We're shutting all those down, including ones that have already been concluded and settled and paid. And we're going to just disband those investigations. There's a reason that a majority of Congress voted to create the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. It's because people were being screwed by financial predators, including some of the financial predators that were exposed in the work that you guys were doing in your documentary work and the work that Bill did years before with the savings and loan. uh And I've watched it work over the last 10 years in a way that that was really made me very proud to see see to see that happen. uh Yes, it made it harder to be a debt collector. Yes, it made it harder to be a predatory debt buyer. Yes, it made it harder to to uh to become a payday lender uh by pretending that you're just advancing people's paychecks. uh But I think that's a small price to pay for the protections that were created and the confidence that people had that when they went to the marketplace to purchase goods and services and financial products. Why aren't we talking about that? That's the goal here. That's what these robber barons want. They want to be able to commit their financial and other kinds of crimes with impunity uh and to have no accountability for what they do. uh And they want to drive the ethical business people in this country out of business so that they can further consolidate their own wealth. uh And these folks on the other side are dedicated to helping them. And that's what this is all about. And the more they intimidate people by indicting guys like Jim Comey, the more likely it is that on the next round uh of payday lenders won't face any consequences when they bankrupt people or take a lien on their car and sell their car so they can no longer get to work in rural North Carolina. That's and that's going to be too late. So let's start talking about that. Let's start talking about what are the real life consequences of this lawless state that these guys are trying to create. And and what does the rule of law mean for you and me? Not not and not and and and I don't mean you and me and send in the sense of us, but you and me and sense of the of the folks. What does it mean to my neighbor in my backyard? My neighbor on this side and who works in a retail store and my neighbor on this side, who's a firefighter. What does it mean to them that that I know what his job as as a public servant means to me means I'm safer in my house. Who's defending them? Where are they? Why, why aren't we doing it? Why are we embarrassed to do that? We, got it. We got to lose that embarrassment and step up and start to defend the people that are trying to protect us in this country. And, and maybe, maybe that's a strategy because you know, we're not going to, we're not going to, it's no longer, we're going to expose their big secret because they haven't, they're not keeping it a secret anymore. They're coming right at us and saying, here's what we're doing. And we were doing it in order to intimidate you from stopping us from doing whatever the fuck we want to do. And that is not okay


Bill: 15 seconds.

Patrick: Yes, I was going to say, you guys, please

Bill: Patrick and Eric, the consistent thing in the group you brought together is Mark, Paul, you know, Louis, June, me. We haven't simply fought these folks. We beat these folks.

Patrick: Eric, anything else?

Eric: Yeah, just to, uh, just, uh, mean, hard to follow both of that, both of those things, but just to say that last time I looked at the constitution, I thought it was pretty clear that we are the government. The government is us. And if we try to minimize the government, we try to shit on the government. It's ourselves that we're doing that to when we allow corruption to take hold in government. That's us allowing that right but at the same time we have to understand that Government is our will.. That's exactly what the Constitution says and so when you have all these people who are trying to gut the government we're trying to make the government smaller who are trying to destroy all these instruments within government.. they are destroying us. They are destroying our ability to self govern, which is the entire concept of this country to replace it with them and their hegemony. And that's the thing that we cannot let happen.

Patrick: Right. And with this flood the zone thing, with all of the insanity that happens every day, all day in every direction, sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. And I'm going to finish with this note. So as all of this insanity is taking place this week, we've got Donald Trump that gets on an escalator at the UN before a ridiculous speech in which he declared war on renewables. That was the purpose of his UN speech, not to mention talk about immigration and other elements that are hugely important geopolitically, right? But the news hyperfixated on Escalategate, the ridiculousness of the relationship. And that seems to be the sort of, shall we say, national lampoon of it all, the Mad Magazine part of it all. We can kind of laugh at this whole thing. There's nothing funny about waging a literal war on the progressive science and technology that's spanned thirty years that he's just right around pool any got rid of six hundred eighty seven billion last week for wind energy and it can go on from there so he's three uh... film television references to cut up with this further into perspective that i think summarizes what everybody talked about I love this new uh... drama that's on Apple TV called chief of war star jason mamoa and in this pinnacle episode six last week to Marc's point and I think to Bill's point as well. There's a scene where there's this battle between these tribes. I think it's Maui versus Hawaii. And there's a moment where all the pretenses fall and they just levy the worst of the worst insults at each other before this brutal war. It was telling because everybody just, you know, basically got rid of the tapestry of facade and just said the truth. There seems to be kind of a moment that has to happen like that here. And then also those of us who love the film, and I know there's a lot of you who do, but uh what was it called with Burt Reynolds back in the 70s? The Longest Yard. The criminals would not go past selling out America or America's game. There's a point here where everybody has to realize you don't sell out what we've established at the beginning. There's too many sacrifices throughout the course of 248 years to even pretend like this is even possible. And ultimately the last reference that I'll make is in Game of Thrones, of course, the greatest line I think ever in any sort of media was when, um was when, oh uh gosh, help me out here.

Eric: John Snow.

Patrick: John Snow says.. you want to help me with the quote? When all people do is lie, you get better and better lives and words mean nothing. And ultimately the whole point is when words mean nothing, then nothing means anything. mean, it was just such a simple sort of, that's where we are. This whole system depends on lies. What we have collectively with the new untouchables and the efforts that we're going to bring forward with, with, with more whistleblowers and so forth is the truth.. the truth of how this administration is destroying this country right in front of our eyes. And I know we can turn the tables and push back if only millions of you join us in elevating this information and helping us turn the tables on this corruption that these incredible heroes have been fighting for decades. They're not going out without a fight, neither are we. So please check out the newuntouchables.com. Please check out thecleannew deal.org. Please check out thecon.tv and as always check out Corruption Incorporated the American Way. On behalf of the new Untouchables, my name is Patrick Lovell. Onwards and upwards until next time. Take care, guys. Thanks, guys.

Marc Dann: Thanks guys.

~

Patrick Lovell Truth Bombs The Con
Sep 26, 2025

www.thecon.tv
www.thenewuntouchables.com
www.thecleannewdeal.org
Corruption, Inc: The American Way (YT, Instagram, TikTok)

Democracy’s Challenges and Historical Context
The group discussed recent political developments, with Marc Dann expressing deep concern about the James Comey indictment and the erosion of democratic norms, while Patrick Lovell and Bill Black explored the historical context of such events. They noted the significance of the 40th episode of their series and the ongoing challenges facing democracy, with Bill emphasizing that what is happening now is actually quite normal in the broader historical context. The conversation touched on media ownership, the TikTok deal, and the need for a strategic response to current events, with Bill and Marc agreeing on the importance of addressing these issues head-on.

Corruption and Legal Manipulation Trends
The discussion focused on the erosion of the rule of law and the increasing brazenness of corruption, particularly in the context of recent legal actions against James Comey. Bill and Marc explained how powerful individuals and entities exploit their positions to enrich themselves with impunity, using legal proceedings as a tool for intimidation and financial ruin rather than justice. They highlighted the unusual circumstances surrounding James Comey’s indictment, including the appointment of a inexperienced prosecutor and the absence of other attorneys on the case, as examples of this trend. Patrick connected this discussion to broader themes of legal manipulation and the weaponization of the law by the wealthy, referencing David Enrich’s book “Murder the Truth” and the ongoing New York Times versus Sullivan case.

Media Consolidation and Regulatory Reversal
The group discussed the rapid consolidation of media power and deregulation, which Eric Vaughan described as a decades-long campaign that has reached a critical point. They agreed that the current administration’s approach to law and governance has reversed the concept of a country ruled by law, with laws now being used as a weapon against enemies rather than for protection. Patrick expressed a desire to “purge” the system of corruption and lies, leading to a discussion about the Trump administration’s reliance on lies as a fundamental strategy.

Political Intimidation and Civil Liberties
The discussion focused on concerns about political intimidation and the erosion of civil liberties, particularly regarding the Ashland County, Ohio Democratic Party’s experience where their MAGA-themed buttons were confiscated by a sheriff who threatened to arrest party officials. Marc expressed worry about the increasing difficulty in distinguishing between “good guys” and “bad guys” in both national and local government, while Patrick and Marc discussed how the current administration’s actions are creating a chilling effect where government officials are being encouraged to keep their heads down and avoid speaking out. The conversation concluded with reflections on the broader impact of these developments on the rule of law and government accountability, a call for millions to band together under The Clean New Deal/New Untouchables banner and of course to the whistleblowers to come forward.

Marc Dann: https://dannlaw.com/attorney-profile/

William K. Black: https://law.umn.edu/profiles/william-k-black

Eric Vaughan: https://www.redpointdigital.com

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Epstein name-dropped Trump Putin as client.. Elon Musk, Peter Tiel, Steve Bannon,.. The Alpha and Omega of the Epstein Cover-up ~ Clean New Deal megapost

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