David DePape was found guilty of attempting to kidnap former speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, as well as assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi. The trial was brief. It only lasted four days, and the jury returned a guilty verdict after only a day of deliberation. [00:00:17] He's now facing potentially 50 years in prison based on this guilty verdict. Now, to jog the memories of anyone who may have forgotten, last year, David DePape broke into Nancy Pelosi San Francisco home with the intent [00:00:32] we now know of kidnaping her. However, Nancy Pelosi was in D.C., but her husband Paul was home. DePape hit Paul Pelosi with a hammer and hospitalized him. Now, we can't talk about this case without discussing the major role conspiracy theories played in it. [00:00:49] Let's start here from the Los Angeles Times. The jurors reached their decision even with the defense's claim that DePape, 43, was motivated not by violence but by a network of political conspiracy theories he harbored against Democrats and other public figures and elected officials. [00:01:08] David DePape believed Ms.. Mrs. Pelosi was part of a plot to manipulate the country and steal votes from Donald Trump. A court in San Francisco heard that was the contention of his defense attorneys. So their argument that he was was that he was motivated by his belief [00:01:25] in right wing conspiracy theories. We also learned during the trial that DePape was an avid consumer of far right media. NBC news reported that he said he watched YouTube videos and listened to hours of podcasts from far right figures like Glenn Beck and Tim Pool. [00:01:41] CBS news reported. He testified that he became interested in right wing conspiracy theories after learning about Gamergate, a misogynistic online harassment campaign from the mid 20 tens that some experts have linked to the rise of online alt right communities, and the rise of the right wing media ecosystem that thrived [00:02:00] during Donald Trump's presidency. But conspiracies were not just central to motivating Depapes actions. They were also central in the way conservatives addressed this attack when it was first being reported. Now, the primary conspiracy was, and it's so ridiculous, but it was based [00:02:18] on a false report by a Fox affiliate. The day of the attack that DePape was arrested in his underwear. It was not true that reporting was retracted, but that reporting led to the right wing conspiracy theory that David DePape was actually Paul [00:02:35] Pelosi's gay lover, a claim that was pushed by Donald Trump himself. We had no terror during my administration. The only terror we had was Nancy Pelosi, who was a crazed lunatic. This is a lunatic. She is a crazed lunatic. [00:02:55] What the hell was going on with her husband? Let's not ask. Let's not ask. I'll withdraw that statement. Obviously, Donald Trump is playing into the conspiracy theories I just mentioned. Other right wing media figures Jesse [00:03:10] Watters championed this Tucker Carlson, while he was still on Fox News, spread this conspiracy theory far and wide. Before I give it over to you guys, I want to add that these aren't the only charges that DePape was facing in. [00:03:26] The LA times reported that still pending state charges accused DePape of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and threats to a public official and their family. But the federal trial centered on whether DePape was motivated to assault Paul Pelosi and attempt to kidnap Speaker Pelosi because of her [00:03:43] official duties in Congress. As we just reported, he was found guilty in that case. And I mean, it was maybe Jake to me, one of the more absurd, far right conspiracy theories was that this extremely elderly, Paul Pelosi was having a gay love affair [00:04:00] with this far right wing conspiracy theorist, a homeless individual. I mean, the whole thing was absurd, but, you know, it is good to see someone who committed an act of political violence being held accountable for what they did. [00:04:18] Yeah. So there's two parts to this story. One is the conspiracy theories and the other is the absurdity of the defense. But first on the conspiracy theories. So Donald Trump made that statement just a couple of days ago. It's not like that was an old statement. And there is no amount of evidence that will convince any conspiracy [00:04:36] theorists of anything that is true. So, like DePape is driven to do this because he thought that Nancy Pelosi was part of a criminal conspiracy to molest children. Nancy Pelosi. By the way, he had a long laundry list of people he was going to attack, including [00:04:55] the actor Tom Hanks, because he thought he was also part of that conspiracy. And so now look at the vicious cycle of conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theories drive him to do this maniacal act, and then it is met with more conspiracy theories about that act. [00:05:11] And now it's completely and utterly disproven in court. He's convicted overwhelming evidence that anyone who believed that conspiracy theory, including Donald Trump, ever come back and go, oh, no. Yeah, we were we were, at a minimum, totally wrong. It turns out they were not lovers. That's insane. [00:05:27] No, this guy went and viciously hit this 82 year old man in the head with a hammer. No, none of them have ever retracted it. Have ever said sorry, have ever said anything. That is true. And so these these crazy individuals aren't getting these ideas from nowhere. [00:05:44] They're getting it from right wing political and media figures. And it's not like, hey, you know, they had an opinion about gun control they were for. They were against it. And that motivated someone. Well, maybe that's not fair to put it on someone, right? No. These are specific theories about why people should be attacked. [00:06:01] Hey, those people are killing children or molesting children. Go do something about it. And this guy said, well, I mean, Nancy Pelosi was pure evil. So I had to get her, kidnap her and break her kneecaps. Because he was motivated by people telling him that she was [00:06:18] the ringleader of that conspiracy. So it's this madness has been unleashed in the world, and Donald Trump is still laughing about it and reveling in it and still spreading it, even after the guy got hit in the head with a hammer. Donald Trump has zero decency. [00:06:35] Zero. None. None whatsoever. He's a terrible, monstrous human being. If you're a fan of Donald Trump, even after seeing this, and after the thousands of other grotesque things he's done, it tells you something a little bit about you. [00:06:50] I'm sorry, but it does. Okay. It's one thing to be against Biden. It's one thing to be against Pelosi. Those are perfectly reasonable positions. Okay, but to say that you're a fan of Donald Trump after he does all of this, it's beyond absurd. Okay. But I got to tell you the absurdities of the case as well. [00:07:07] So do you know what? Let me save that. Ramesh. You jump in and then I'll get to. How ludicrous is defense? Sure, I'll be fast and handed right back over to you. So it's so. It's what we call what what we think of as conspiracies are actually often mainstreamed in political discourse now because in a sense, what used to be fringe [00:07:28] has given the right wing and some of the left left, you know, a lot of energy. And I think it's just important to know where where that all comes from, right? I mean, first of all, I think it's based upon a sense of alienation. A lot of people have the fact that our mainstream media is corrupted [00:07:44] as in a different kind of way. Right? Because it often serves the agendas by and for elites. That's a point that someone like Noam Chomsky made decades ago in manufacturing consent. And the algorithms that drive content and engagement tend to be inflammatory. [00:08:00] You know, it tends to drive more inflammatory and outrageous content because it's predicted through correlation to maximize what we call engagement or attention. It's attention hoarding content. So all of that, you put that all together, the fragmentation of media, it lends itself. It normalizes this kind of content, and it legitimates politicians [00:08:19] who can exploit all of this. So I guess that's kind of a big part of this for me, 100%. It used to be like fringe guys like Alex Jones, but then Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson mainstreamed them. And so what they realized was, oh, we can get a lot of people to believe this. And once it's the same trick that they use on abortion, once you get [00:08:37] people to believe that kids lives are on the line, they'll do anything. So they're like, they're not going to worry about another tax cut for the rich that we're going to pass because we're telling them we're protecting babies. And so that works like a charm. They use it with abortion now. [00:08:52] They switched it to, oh, there's a child sex ring. And Tom Hanks and Nancy Pelosi and Fauci are running it. I mean, guys, come on, how do you not see that? That's a lunatic thing to think. But unfortunately, a giant percentage of the country, which is tens of millions of people believe that. [00:09:08] They genuinely believe that. And that was the defense's argument. So let me go through it as quickly as I can. Number one, they said, well, look, you have to prove intent in this federal case because since it's not a state case, state case is just about assault, right, and attempted murder, etcetera. And the federal case, you have to prove that they had intent to target Nancy [00:09:26] Pelosi because of her official duties. So that is a much harder standard. But they it was easy to meet that standard in this particular case because the guy is on tape hitting him, Paul Pelosi with a hammer. But on top of that he confessed and said, yeah, I was doing it because of what Nancy Pelosi is doing in Congress. [00:09:42] Oh, open and shut case. So they had to go to absurdities and they said, well, not all of Nancy Pelosi's things are official duties. I mean, she gets haircuts. The defense literally said that. So did he attack her because of the haircuts [00:09:57] or because of her official duties? Of course, because of the official duties, not because of the haircut. Then they say, well, no, he had more people on his list like Gavin Newsom. And if he had had Gavin Newsom in the head with a hammer, well, that would have counted because he was he he planned to attack her for Gavin's official duties, [00:10:16] but for Nancy Pelosi, it was the haircuts. Plus, by the way, by the way, that is not a good defense. When you say that your guy was planning to also kill the governor of California based on his official duties. Okay, so then the last part of the defense is, well, okay. [00:10:33] Now this he was really upset because of what Nancy Pelosi was saying about Donald Trump, and he thought he had to protect Donald Trump. And she was saying that stuff in her official duties as part of the Democratic Party, not as speaker of the House. So technically, it's not because of her. [00:10:50] No, that's not true at all. She said it as speaker of the House. She said it as a member of Congress and as a member of the Democratic Party. But look at what they're saying. They're like, yes, he was trying to murder her because he thought she offended [00:11:06] Donald Trump's feelings. And then Trump turns around and goes, oh, atta boy. I'm going to keep spreading the conspiracy theory that you that he was. As a gay lover of Paul Pelosi because he has no remorse, he has no conscience, he has no humanity. That's the kind of sick person Donald Trump is. [00:11:23] That then unleashes these other sicknesses into the world. Thanks for watching. If you become a member, you get to watch all this ad free. Except for, of course, this ad still. Hit the join button below.