Speaker 1: Sadly, we start today with a tale of stochastic terrorism perpetrated by the
twice indicted, twice impeached, failed former president. You know the guy I'm talking about
the guy who's orange. Trump posted Barack Obama's address or what he believed to be Barack Obama's
addressed or what was supposedly Barack Obama's address. And even though it wasn't, an armed man
showed up and prosecutors now know all about it. The Associated Press reports Trump posted what he
said was Obama's address. An armed man was soon arrested there. And the question I have for you,
as we read through this is did Trump know exactly what he was doing? Former President Donald Trump
posted on his social media platform what he claimed was the home address of former President
Barack Obama. On the same day a man with guns in his van was arrested near the property. Federal
prosecutors said Wednesday, revealing new details about the case. The individual is a 37 year old
tailor, Taranto, who prosecutors say participated in the January six riots on January six,
2021. He kept two firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside a van he drove across country
and had been living in, according to the Justice Department motion that seeks to
keep him behind bars. On the day of his June 29 arrest, prosecutors said Taranto reposted a
truth social post from Trump containing what Trump claimed was Barack Obama's home address. In a post
on Telegram, Taranto wrote, quote, We got these losers surrounded. See you in hell. Podesta's and
Obama's. That's a reference to John Podesta, who chaired Hillary's 2016 campaign. Taranto also told
followers on his YouTube livestream he was looking to get a, quote, good angle on a shot. Good angle
on a shot. Federal defender representing Taranto did not immediately return a phone
message seeking comment, but a motion seeking to have him released pending trial. The lawyer
wrote that in emotion. The lawyer wrote Taranto is not a flight risk and he served in Iraq. Okay.
All right. So does Trump know exactly what he's doing when he does this sort of thing? I believe
that the term stochastic terrorism applies here. Stochastic terrorism is a technical term that is
the epitome of what we are seeing here. When we say stochastic terrorism, what we mean is
when public figures or media outlets, sometimes it will be Fox News or others. They can inspire
seemingly random acts of violence by spreading hateful or extremist messages to a large enough
audience that is likely to be receptive to it. And it is historically outside of any legal liability.
So I'll give you an example. In fact, we have real life examples. This guy, Glenn Beck,
right wing nut, I think he has a show now on The Blaze or one of these right wing online things.
He used to be a Fox News host, used to be a CNN host. For a while, he would rant and rave about
an organization called the Tides Foundation and he would say, it's just a horrible organization.
I don't even remember at this point. It's been so long what it was that was so bad about the Tides
Foundation. But he would rant and ran and ran. He never directed any particular person to go and do
anything to the Tides Foundation. But given that the audience of Glenn Beck, Beck was a right wing,
conspiratorially minded audience, receptive to having their attention focused on whatever the
scapegoat of the day or of the week was, you could sort of predict in some general sense that Glenn
Beck's relentless focus on the Tides Foundation might inspire an act of violence against the
Tides Foundation. You couldn't predict that. You know, Joe Schmo, the third from Florida,
would be the guy to do the act of violence. But you could say we know that some percentage
of the population is suggestible in this way. And we know that Glenn Beck's audience is big
enough where if it's even only 0.1% of his audience that would hear him talk about the
Tides Foundation and go and do something, that means there's at least a handful of people who
would go and do it. And eventually this story ended less tragically than it could have ended,
which was California Highway Patrol. I again, the details elude me, but pulled over a guy with guns
in his car going to the Tides Foundation because Glenn Beck had talked about it. That's the cast
stick terrorism. It's not that Glenn Beck directed in the way that you might say, okay, you're my
accomplice for this crime. Go and do this thing. I'm legally liable. Okay. I tell you to do it,
give you the means, give you the reasoning or the inspiration. It's not legal liability. So
we use the term stochastic terrorism. That's what we're dealing here with. Trump putting out
what he claimed was Barack Obama's home address. You know, I used to think that
Trump winning the 2016 election was one of the biggest disasters in American history. I
don't know that I've given it enough credit. It's probably more like in modern world history, the
election of Trump and the cult status of Trump as a leader to at least tens of millions of people.
Quite frankly, probably one of the worst events, one of the biggest disasters in modern world
history. And interestingly enough, Trump wants more people out protesting for him. Fortunately,
it doesn't seem that many people are willing. And that's what I want to talk about next.