16th October 2023
At the beginning of a new Legal term Donal Kavanagh presented the show am, opening with the suggestion that our contributor Seamus Gunn must be on a bus man’s holiday with the different suits being played out in the USA between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The former was referenced in relation to the latest allegation in the press of sharing classified information on the US nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman following a week when he was very much to the fore in relation to his ongoing Civil Fraud Trial in which it is claimed that he exaggerated his own riches by more than 2 billion. Seamus Gunn said against this backdrop you had Republicans striking out against the Democrats with the allegations against Hunter Biden, the President’s son, to charges that he lied about his drug use while buying a handgun, charges which our contributor thought were not to the fore some weeks back when he was under investigation for tax irregularities. He said that coincidentally this was 2 days after his father Joe Biden was impeached by the House of Representatives, being the last act of Kevin McCarthy before he was removed midweek as speaker of the house.
Seamus Gunn was of the view that politically the government cases against Donald Trump had not harmed him and in fact he thought that it strengthened his position among his own Republican supporters by making him appear to be a martyr for the Democrats, using the court cases to prevent him from retaking the White House. He said against this you had Joe Biden coming out in Arizona with a very heavy, hard-hitting speech in which he was pitting Democracy on one side against Donald Trump on the other, referencing a quote that “Democracy does not have to die at the end of a rifle, it can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up or condemn threats to Democracy”. Seamus Gunn said that he thought that this argument could hold sway with the middle ground and when those that are undecided come to vote in November 2024, but that at present the poll would indicate that it is a 50/50 race for the White House.
Many issues were referenced in the Q&A that followed and can be listed to online.