Nov 15, 2023
Donald Trump crosses the line as he officially starts publicly promoting creepy threats from Trump supporters against Judge Engoron and Attorney General Leticia James on Truth Social as he fraud civil suit continues. John Iadarola and Jayar Jackson break it down on The Damage Report.
- 8 minutes
>> Speaker 1: Donald Trump is once again
being accused of inciting political
violence.
So we're to evaluate whether
those accusations are fair.
On Truth Social he ReTrouthed this.
You can see a message from VonRitter.
It's an anonymous rando who knows who that
person is, or if it even is a person.
[00:00:17]
But we do know what this
person's fantasy is.
My fantasy all in caps.
I would like to see misspelled
Letitia James and Judge Engoron placed
under citizens arrest for blatant
election interference and harassment.
Now, the idea that this random
weirdo on true social wants someone
[00:00:34]
to just find Letitia James and
the judge, track them down,
place them under a citizen's arrest
based purely on their understanding
of that concept coming out of
movies from the 80s is an issue.
The fact that it got over 3,000
retruths is a slightly bigger issue.
[00:00:52]
But the idea that Donald Trump,
the guy who is being prosecuted by or
judged by those two people,
would spread it to his, and
he well knows this deluded group of
crazies, that seems like a big issue.
And so this is effectively Donald Trump
saying, yeah, it's an interesting fantasy,
[00:01:11]
some crazy person from truth social
just tracking these people down and
effectively kidnapping them.
And so people are saying that this
is inciting them to violence.
Jayar, what do you think?
>> Speaker 2: It's pretty obvious,
but that's one of the points,
this is the same.
He has the same playbook,
generally, over and over again.
[00:01:28]
But this is also sometimes
a result of what is he,
his fellow children, and
also Alina Habba have been doing.
Every time they get a chance, they run to
the cameras in front of the courtroom or
in the lobby of the courtroom area and
inside the courtroom, and then
right outside, then in the street outside,
and then in the car on the way home,
[00:01:46]
consistently talking about Letitia James
and then this judge, and then their clerk,
and over and over again about
how they're coming for them.
Look how unfair this was,
you know what happened today?
Do you guys know what
happened today in court?
And they run back out and do the same
thing over and over and over again so
they can get people to then
feel no matter what happens,
because we already know he's
lost this case already.
[00:02:03]
It's just a matter of how much he's losing
and how much they're gonna judge as far as
he's on the hook for, because of the way
that they've already adjudicated this
case, is that they want the rest of
the folks who then are supporting,
no matter what,
to feel this is an injustice.
[00:02:18]
Never once have they said,
we've already lost this case.
We just wanna try and
minimize the amount of damage and
punitive damages that we're gonna
have to then result in afterwards.
They won't say that, they just say,
this is a witch hunt.
They're coming for me and it's unfair.
They already came for you and
already got your ass.
Now is the point when you have to
then have to pay the penalties.
[00:02:36]
That's what we're dealing with right now.
But they don't wanna
tell other folks that.
They want folks to be incited
to the point where they'll say,
hey, let's go find these folks that they
continue to talk about every day that they
see are coming for the attention.
When, who's in front of the cameras
every day talking about attention?
Alina Habba, sometimes Donald Trump
when he's in town for it.
[00:02:53]
And then his kids,
who she keeps talking about her,
the children are being mistreated.
These 45 year old children
are being mistreated.
>> Speaker 1: [LAUGH] I cannot believe
he still calls children, anyway, yeah,
look, the accusations of this
being indictment of violence,
[00:03:11]
that's what it's designed to do.
I have no idea if it's gonna work.
Any one of these things,
any obvious attempt to stochastic
terrorism is unlikely to work.
That's why they do so many of them.
[00:03:27]
And I have to imagine
that Letitia James and
Arthur Engoron are probably well
protected, particularly during this case.
So I'm not as worried about that.
But these people are crazy, that he's
trying to communicate to the idea that
it's absurd and
illegal to try to attack these people or
[00:03:44]
that it would be incredibly unlikely to
work doesn't mean that they won't try.
As we'll be talking
about later in the show,
there have been people on the right
who have tried this before.
We'll be talking about
Paul Pelosi once again.
And bear in mind, this is not like
one random retruth, and that's it.
[00:04:01]
That's the only time
he's weighed in on this.
He has recently said that James should
be prosecuted for committing fraud.
So that is the former president of
the United States telling his millions of
followers she is a criminal who has gotten
away with her crimes on top of all of
the other stuff of her supposedly being
racist purely because she's a black woman.
[00:04:20]
A million different things, and
there are a million different randos.
And he is hoping something will happen.
And if it does happen, by the way, Jayar,
if some crazy person tries to break
into James's house screaming,
citizens arrest, it doesn't matter.
[00:04:37]
From the point of view Trump, it's not,
he crossed the line, he said,
we should get these people,
then they went after them.
Even if they're screaming the exact thing,
citizens arrest, it doesn't matter.
There is always gonna be a wall
between the actions they take and
any sort of culpability.
[00:04:53]
And that's just so frustrating going,
[CROSSTALK] yeah, this was proven out and
they showed that they're willing
to do this on January 6.
So, yeah, and what was the result of that?
You're talking about you wonder what their
responsibility, if someone would actually
run up in one of these folks houses,
or at least attempt to, with violence.
[00:05:09]
We saw it happen in the Capitol.
They ran up in that house and
decided to try to commit violence.
They did.
Or try to kill people.
They didn't get that far, but
they've already shown that
they're willing to do it.
And what was the response then?
Freedom fighters, political prisoners,
Americans, true patriots in jail for
[00:05:27]
breaking into the Capitol and trying to
kill people, that would be the response.
They'd say, look, these are just good
heart of patriots trying to come after
the bad people in America.
That's what they'd say.
>> Yeah, they'll say that
hospital's transing your kids and
it gets immediately bomb threats.
[00:05:42]
And the people said it doesn't matter,
it doesn't matter how specific your claims
are, how immediate the action is,
you'll always be protected.
That's why this is
the tactic that they use.
By the way, commenting on this,
a lot of people are pointing out how
utterly absurd and dangerous this is.
[00:05:58]
But I did wanna give credit to state
senator from New York Mike Gianaris,
who says citizens'arrest is bonkers to
begin with and it shouldn't be used by
aspirational despots to go
after their perceived enemies.
We must get rid of it once and for all.
Glad our Senate passed
my bill to do just that.
This is something that prior to this, he
had already been working on, which, look,
[00:06:17]
in the wake of these comments,
seems timely, but
it didn't seem like a topic that
even needed anyone to deal with it,
because who is thinking
about citizens arrest?
But yeah, now that I think about it,
I guess I no doubt that there's probably
QAnoners and sovereign citizens and
[00:06:33]
all these weirdos that probably had that
in their bag of conspiracy theories.
One additional thing, this I guess
is less immediately threatening, but
Trump also recently said that,
worried to become presidents again,
special counsel Jack Smith and
others would end up in a mental hospital.
He used the term mental hospital because
he also, earlier this year, called for
[00:06:51]
mental hospitals to return.
He's an old timey guy.
No word on if they would be forcibly
admitted to one of these hospitals or
if, I guess they would just choose to go.
But whether it's jail or someone's
basement into a pit that they dug down
there or a mental hospital,
Trump has a lot of different plans for
[00:07:08]
what should happen to all
of his political opponents.
[CROSSTALK] final thoughts, chair,
by the way, John, citizens arrest.
California Penal Code 837 PC,
or the Citizens Arrest Law,
was enacted in 1872 [LAUGH] that's
how current it is right now,
[00:07:25]
the Citizens Arrest Law.
I've looked at a couple of the states,
and basically what it is is if
a citizen see something going down and
they see a crime in progress,
they can go, there's a cop there.
Hey, cop, look what's happening.
That's [CROSSTALK] what they can do, from
my really quick five second read of it.
So maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I saw.
[00:07:41]
>> By the way, I don't know what it is,
but I made a reference to this.
There was a movie where someone
is screaming citizens arrest.
I feel like it was Jim Carrey.
I don't know for sure, but that is
definitely what most people's thoughts.
Yeah, citizens are res, they're coming
[CROSSTALK] 100% a movie thing.
[00:07:57]
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Episode
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The Damage Report: November 15, 2023
Hosts: John Iadarola Guests: Jayar Jackson
- 8 minutes