Caller Mike says the Russian Collusion Hoax was not a hoax (08-02-2025--Hour2)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to Vpete calendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All Right, I said I was going to move on, but I got a call here from Mike who wanted to talk about the Russia collusion hoax. So let me bring Mike on real quick, and then I'll tell you about the White House ballroom. Mike, Welcome to the show. Sounds good, great, How are you, sah? I'm all right. Are you on a speakerphone in a bathroom? Uh no, it's very hollow, very echoe. Okay, let me see if I can change speakers. I'm so sorry. That's all right. How about this a little bit better? Yeah, that's a little bit cleaner yet. All right, when you're coming through kind of thing. But we'll see what we can do. I appreciate you taking the call, and this I think falls in the category, Pete of be careful what you wish for. Because if the president and the magna crowd and you know, talk radio hosts want to you know, bring back for public discussion the Russian collusion hopes quote unquote, then in many ways, that's a great discussion to have because it will remind people of three things, three big, big factors that have been proven and been discussed and found by various investigations. And you've put out lots of various facts, but I don't think any I'm really refused. The three overall overarching headlines from this whole situation. Number one is is that Russia actively engaged in activity to interfere with the twenty sixteen election. Nobody has never denied that. I've never denied that. Right, Okay, right, And that doesn't But that. Doesn't prove hang on that, that doesn't prove any of the accusations that were made. So just simply saying that they meddled in the election does not is not proof of any of the further accusations, right, Nor is. It proof that that Russia was able to meddle with machines and actually change votes. Correct, that was never that was never uh, that was never asserted. Even Obama's administration did not assert that correct. However, Wait, but however, the tagline that Democrats have been using for nine years was that Russia hacked the election. I've got the audio clips, I've got all the montage. It's it was a constant drumbeat. And so whether there was there while there was never any explicit allegation that Russia hacked into the voting machines and changed the votes, the tagline that y'all used of Russia hacked the election that it sent a message to many Democrat voters. And if you ask your fellow Democrats, you will encounter a great number of them that do, in fact believe that Russia hacked into the voting machines. That's what the polling shows, and it's shown that for the last nine years. Whether you want to use term hacked or, as I said at the beginning, interfered with, there's very there's just no question that Russia actually engaged in an American election. All right, but hang on, Mike, a couple of things. Hang on, I'm gonna let you go. But like the the first thing there is that that's not unusual. Well, they've been doing it for years. We've been doing it to them for years, decades, right, so that's not unusual. And then you got to ask how did they interfere? What were they doing? Right? What was the Russian government? And you've got the troll farms? Right, so we know about that, they had the Ira troll farm and that's what you know. Muller issued the indictments for these Russians whatever, But what were they actually able to do? What did they actually influence? And as Aaron Mante has reported on the Idea that that like one hundred thousand dollars spent on Facebook ads and some memes that that somehow flipped people's votes, there's no evidence, never has been any evidence to show that it had any impact. We can't nobody is going to be able to prove that X number of votes we were changed because of all the Russian interference? All right, but what do you think they did the Russian in fact interfere? What do you think they hang on? What do you think they did besides what I just said, what do you think Russia did to interfere? Well? What the what the Mulla investigator investigation showed What the Byparson Senate investigation showed is that there were a number of, as you said, troll forms, number of social social media misinformation that was put out there, so substantial interference. So that part is definitely not a hoax. The second that's that's not the hoax. No, that's not the hoax, though, Mike, you're conflating that with the Russia collusion hoax. That's why I call it the Russian collusion hoax. The allegation was that leads me to my second point. That leads me my second point. The second point is, in addition to the fact that Russian it's clear that Russian operatives actively interfered with the twenty sixteen campaign, the second fact is there's a bunch of evidence to show how the Donald Trump campaign welcomed that interference. You had numerous political operatives excuse me, campaign officials, uh, that have played guilty and or been convicted of crimes for that very instance. What you got, you got Michael flann. And hang on a second. Those guys, those guys we mentioned Pepadopolis came up the other yesterday. His name was brought up yesterday. So don't say I don't talk about that the the guys that you were mentioning, like Maniford, what was his what was his charge? You remember his crime? Well, at least we had to My third point. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, what was what. Was tied drom y'all tied in? I'm not going to let you make I'm not going to let you make the to get on the role that you want to get on. Where you just pepper a bunch of stuff out there, throw some names without telling us what were all of the charges for? What were all of those people charged for? Well, let's see here if I can remember all this stuff we've got Manaport was convicted let's say very financial crimes. I think there was an obstruction of justice. Uh and he uh, you know, tried to thwart the investigation. What was that camp? What what was the collusion? What did Rogers sound? What was the what was the collusion about with Manifact? What was the collusion about with Manaford? Uh? There was the interaction with a bunch of uh Russian operatives that he lied about. And again that's my third point is that in addition to welcoming the interference, when facts started coming out about this the campaign and these were these Trump operatives worked very very hard to instruct any of the investigation into this information. Okay, so hang on my point, my point, Bill, My gosh, Mike, you got to stop. Mike, you just got you got you got to break this down into uh smaller chunks here, because you're you're trying to build a theory of a case with me, but you're building it on misinformation or lack of information. So I asked you about Maniford. You said, financial crimes. What was the collusion? What was the Papadopolis charge? I don't have it right off the top of my head. That was the Roger Stone charge. I believe he was. I think it was an instruction of justice charge. Was because why. Uh he lied to investigators or he refused or. He refused to participate in the subpoena that was given to him by the j sixth Committee. Right right, right, So that's not collusion. So like that's that's not collusion either. See No, But Mike, what you're doing is you're throwing these things in there like, oh, they got this guy, they got this guy, they got this guy. Convictions that and that somehow stacks up as proof of collusion when it doesn't in fact, in fact, he let me make this one point. I'm gonna let you go again. In fact, if you are being investigated by the very intelligence agent sees that you believe is framing you, which we now know they were, they were involved in this very thing, and so why would you cooperate with them? You saw what happened to Mike Flynn when he took a meeting. He thought it was a friendly meeting, and they put him into a perjury trap. So why would you participate and then you get charged with the obstruction. This is the whole point. The term that you're that you try to use again is the collusion hoax? All right? Correct? And collusion is different. There is no there is no evidence. Muwal said there was no evidence of illegal collusion. But to say that it's a hoax is absolutely acting. It was a hoax. It's taking one little truth and trying to make everything else. It's not, I think, not want active experienced by Russia, an active cooperation by now campaign, who welcomed that. There was no there's no proof of that. There's no time of proof. No, there's no there is no there is no no proof campaign. There is no proof that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign because what did the what did the report say? The ICA said that, uh, that they they wanted, they aspired to have Trump win, that there was. An active engagement. Can we use another word without in terms of uh Trump campaign? If they didn't colude. That's what you guys accused him of. I'm not gonna know what Mike. See, here's the thing. I'm not letting you retcon this. I lived through this. I know what was said about Trump. I wasn't even a Trump supporter and I knew what was being said about Trump. I knew the argument you guys were trying to make. I'm not going to let you retcon me. I'm not gonna let it happen. I'm using that term because that's exactly what occurred. The media hoax occurred. The hoax occurred. It was completely fabricated. It was fabricated. That discussion about whether it was in fact that. You think the Steel DOSSI was real. The Steel dossier was not the only thing that I'm. Not asking you that I'm asking you if the Steele dossier was real. There was a lot more besides the dossier. Why can't you just say it wasn't Why can't you just say if it? Do I think it was real? Do you think it was real? A lot more there was real? Do you think do you think Mike? Mike, stop talking, Mike. I'm not asking you to make an argument. I'm asking you what you think? Do you think it was real? Real? Defined as how true? Do you think a lot of things? A lot of things in it that were later proven to be true. Some things were not, Oh my gosh. But the point is the point. It was completely discredited. More, there was a lot more of the investigation other than dossier, a lot more. Yeah, I've been covering. I've been covering a lot of it. You should go back and listen to the podcasts. I appreciate the call. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Here's a Pete tweet from Moral Compass, who says that call with Mike shows how when the left loses the argument, they redefine terms like collusion. Yeah. Like, I stand by Russia collusion hoax, because that's what we were told Donald Trump was doing, that Russia had dirt on him, they had compromat Russia, or that Trump really liked Vladimir Putin, he was Putin's puppet, he was doing the bidding of putin the whole Alpha Bank lie, right, that hoax, Like, here's the thing, and this is a It's difficult for people who are embedded in an institution or a community or a political party to see that people around them may behave badly. And I think that is why a lot of people in the media on the left, but I repeat myself, that's why they cannot break free of the Trump derangement syndrome, even when the evidence is now clear from all of these different intelligence agencies and the analysts that did the work and kept saying to their superiors like no, no, this isn't provable. There's no evidence to support this. This is low confidence and everything. And there's also this belief that our guys. Wouldn't do that. There's no way, like, like, I understand not liking Trump, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff that he actually has done and said that you cannot like him for you know, you don't have to go with these lies. And I don't understand this point. I mean, like you were lied to also, Democrats, It wasn't us. Now, there was a whole bunch of extra crap piled on top of us at the time by people like you that called me even though I didn't even support Trump. In twenty sixteen, I got called Putin's puppet. Oh, you're just helping the Russians, You're a spy. I got all of these names called to me, as did all Trump supporters. So no, I'm not going to let people now try to rewrite what I remember going through, because while you guys may have been dishing it out back then, like we remember what it felt like to take that. This is from Superstan the man on Twitter. He sounds super Democrats love and count on your last caller. They can be lied to and manipulated, knowing if the truth is ever presented to them, they'll never believe it and stay firmly in the Democrat camp. And he sounds intelligent. Mike is that's saying. Mike is a smart guy. But and that's why I think sometimes it's difficult for him to try to make these arguments. But let me jump over and get Nick on. Hello, Nick, how you doing. I'm good? What's up? I don't want to gas like your show, but I will tell you I am your twin. I am like you. I am not left, I'm not right I'm in the middle. We don't kiss Trump's but we don't care. But he is a good president. I am sixty years old. I moved to Waxhaw nineteen years ago. So all the Liberals are coming from the blue run states because they don't like it. But I will tell you this, people are brainwashed, so don't and this is true. I'm known a guy since I was twenty one. I'm sixty years old. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't hear it out of his mouth. He thought Trump when he was running for the second time, he was going to be a dictator. And you know what I told him, change the channel, get off the channel, because they literally brainwash you buy the phones and TV and if you change the channel and open your eyes. But here's the problem. The Lord made a lot of us, a lot of us. He didn't give a blank. He gave a train ticket. And I hate to say it, there's a lot of us in this world. We grew up in the sixties and seventies and we understand stuff. But that's what I like about you. You always get to the truth. Try people don't like to hear the truth, and that is the honest to God truth. Nick. I appreciate the call. I got to run. I appreciate the call. Thanks for the kind word. Thank you, and I keep listening. All right, thank you. Take care now. It's very difficult for people to admit that they've been lied to and duped, and actually smarter people refuse at greater rates to believe that they've been deceived because they think they're too smart to have been deceived. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connect. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. 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Brannan stuck the dossier in there. They tried to pressure a whistleblower over at the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the top senior analyst. They wouldn't show them the Steele DOSSI. So he's like, I'm not going to concur with this ICA. You need to concur this way, we'll get the Pentagon on board. He's like, I'm not going to do it unless you show me what you're telling me exists. They refuse to show him. He doesn't sign on. They say you're not going to get a promotion. That's the new information that came out yesterday. So this is in that same time period. December eighteenth, twenty sixteen, a top aide to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign said it was an open question whether President elect Donald Trump's advisors colluded with Russia to hack into Democratic Party emails to try to sway the November eighth election. John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, said there was evidence that Trump associates had contact with a Russian intelligence official and the website WikiLeaks before US intelligence agencies accused Russia of being behind computer attacks of Democratic emails, including Podesta, and what we found doubt what four days ago. What we found out was that the FBI never saw the compromised servers. They never could confirm because CrowdStrike that was hired by the Democrat Party to track down who hacked them. CrowdStrike said it was the Russians and then refused to offer any proof to the FBI, which is why the FBI said, yeah, we don't think this was them. Low confidence was their assessment at the time. Low confidence, and then it got changed for no reason. Nobody understands why, except this Steele dossier comes along. I guess. But they said low confidence and then it got changed to high confidence in order to promote this idea that Russia hacked the election. It was purposefully conflated. I said, here's the I have the audio. Here you go, Russia hacking the election to elect Trump. What is the end of our boxras Every votes were definitely affected, But you're Russia hacked the election to tilted to mister Trump. The Russians definitively hacked the election. Russia did hack the election, no doubt. The Russians hacked the election. Yes, Russia hacked the election. Packed Russia hacked the election. President elect Donald Trump still not sounding convinced that Russia hacked the election. If you can get them to accept that Russia hacked the election, see if you can get him to accept who won the Civil War. The Director of National Intelligence, the head of the National Security Agency, the head of the FBI, all of these intelligence experts saying Russia hacked the intelligence at Russia hacked the election. The FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. I mean, they've all said this. So to believe that that's wrong. You have to believe they're all involved in an elaborate conspiracy to get Donald Trump. Yes, yes, I do. And the evidence bears that out because he was promising to come in and blow up all of these institutions that they cared more about than the democracy. And that's what really should concern people, is that this small group of people were able to weaponize and manipulate in order to try to. Well rig an. Election to quote Donald Trump, right, that was the that's the point. It was to put their thumb on the scale and try to stop Trump from winning. And then when, horror of horrors, Hillary Clinton does not win, which most of them thought she would. When she doesn't, now you got to kneecap the guy. And that's why in December, they're still talking about Russia collusion. Their word. So no, I don't drop the word collusion, and I'm not dropping the word hoax, because that's what this was. It was a hoax. The DNC email hack was pinned on Russia. No evidence presented to the FBI to this day. And then that's when the Clinton campaign starts saying that they did it to help Trump. I think it was a nick who called in before the news. It says, friend, truly believe that Donald Trump is a dictator or would be a dictator or something. And I remembered a very similar conversation I had with an old neighbor and sweet old lady, but she was from California. She was a liberal and so and when she found. Out what I did, she would come over and want to talk politics with me. And she was very concerned. This was five years ago whatever. She was very concerned that Donald Trump would become a dictator. And I said, well, what is your evidence to support that? And she said, I just I think he's not going to leave office if he gets elected again. And I said, but he did leave office, well but January sixth, Well, yes, but he did leave office, right, Like, wouldn't that have been the perfect time when you've got an army of your supporters out front, admittedly unarmed, but still like, you got all these people out there. If you were going to be the dictator, then wouldn't that be the perfect. Time to do it? But he didn't, That's what I mean, Like, so what other evidence do you have to support this idea that he's going to be this thing that you fear, so therefore saying, look, this is part of the problem when when you suffer from the TDS, when you think Donald Trump is a Nazi, all of his supporters are Nazis. Right, you're saving democracy. The lane in which you get to ride in to prevent literally the next Hitler, the orange hitler. Right, that lane gets very wide, and you can start justifying all sorts of stuff, like accusing him of being a Russian asset based on concocted intelligence assessments. Right, you are totally justified in doing that because you're saving democracy, you're saving America. It's a very dangerous path, it's a very dangerous way of thinking. I'm glad the information has all been declassified, or I don't know, there could be more stuff coming out. I don't even know. I'd love to find out if there's more stuff, but this sincerity and certainty that democrats in the media. But I repeat myself that they had about this Kakammy theory and they hammered it. I remember it. That's just a small sam It was a constant drum beat. I covered it, We talked about it on the show all the time, and I kept waiting for where's this evidence, Like. Oh, what do you think this means? What do you think this means? Oh, the hack and like okay, but there's never anything. Julian Assange has said that no state actor gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails. They didn't get it from Russia. No, But I know it's very difficult to convince people that they've been deceived, that they have been deceived. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and mint Hill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. Let's go back to that December twenty sixteen Reuter's story. As they're interviewing John Podesta, former chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign. He had his emails hacked along with the DNC, and he accuses the Russians of doing it in order to help Trump win. Remember Ryan's previous incoming White House chief of staff. At the time, he rejected the notion that Trump Bore his associates were aware of and in touch with the Russians during the hack attack. He said, even the question is insane. Of course, we don't interface with the Russians. Russia denied the US accusations also, but on Friday, US President Barack Obama suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally authorized the Democratic Party email hacks. How would he know that? This is right after that Intelligence community assessment got revised, But there wasn't anything in there that said Putin personally authorized the hacking of the DNC emails. There was never any evidence of that. So why would Obama say it? This is the smear, This is the hoax. Right, You take these things and wait till you hear more like knowing what we know now going back and reading this, see people want to forget what the climate was like and what was being said and what was being reported on right. Leaked email Where was I? Trump and his team have rejected claims that Russian hacking helped him win the election and blame Democrats for trying to delegitimize the election results. Leaked emails revealed details of paid speeches Clinton gave to Wall Street Party in fighting, and comments from top aids to Clinton who were shocked about the extent of her use of a private server to send emails while US Secretary of State. Podesta pointed specifically to Trump associates Roger Stone and Carter Page. Remember him, I do, Carter Page. Podesta accused Stone of having advanced warning of the Russian hacks, accused him of meeting with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Podesta accused Page of having met with the person in the Russian hierarchy who was responsible for collecting intelligence and what we found out right, they took the wire tab warned that, they went to the fis A court. They lied in their fires A court application so they could eavesdrop on Carter Page. And the lie that was in that warrant application was when the FBI asked the CIA, Hey, we're going for a warrant on this guy Carter Page. Is he one of yours? Basically do you have any association with this guy? And the CIA said yes, yeah, he's one of ours. He's not an agent or anything, but he's a businessman and he when he goes to Russia and does whatever business dealings he does over there, he comes back and briefs us, He tells his stuff that's going on. And the FBI with knowing that, when they filled out their warrant application. They said he has no contacts with any Intel agencies. So they lied. Klin Smith was the lawyer who did that, and he got a slap on the wrist by the DC bar. He's still practicing law. I think they suspended his law license for like a year or something. So they lied to get the wiretap on Carter Page. Like they're just throwing around all of these accusations at these people in Trump World. They're just lying. They were lying then, and they had no information that proved Russia did this. You know, Russia probably had all of the emails off of Hillary Clinton server, you know that right like that when Komi was asked, you know, is it possible that her server was hacked by foreign governments? And he said it's it is quite likely, yes, because there was unprotected and they knew about her emails and her server and they probably had real time access to it. That's not Trump's fault. And we also know, based on the now declassified intel that the that the leadership buried was that Vladimir Putin actually thought Hillary was going to win. People inside the intelligence that was coming out of Russia from people that were around Vladimir put Like, he thought Hillary was going to win and actually had no preference, did not care one way or the other because he didn't think the policy towards Russia would change either way. He didn't care. Now, what they do care about is sewing chaos. Hence the memes and the Facebook trolling and all of that, like that that's to sew chaos. Russia wants us to fight internally, and so that's why they were on both sides of the BLM thing. They were running Facebook message or groups. They did a rally here in town for a was it Black Matter Lives or something like that. It was like a play on the words. There was a story. Charlotte Observer did a story about it and how the guy that was that was organizing it and he got he met the person who was like the money person. It was some Russian woman with a bodyguard that you know, was like seven feet tall and six hundred pounds, like a massive mountain of a guy. Didn't say anything, so like, yeah, they they interfered. Yeah, absolutely, did it change votes? There's no evidence of that, and studies were attempted, but there's no evidence of that. Yeah, So again, like that's why I'm saying, like this is gaslighting to tell me that what I lived through and what I saw that I didn't and I know I did. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and uh, don't break anything while I'm gone.