Last Week Today Episode 182 Show Notes for Monday, January 20th, 2025
The Outgoing 46th President of the United States, the Incoming 47th President of the United States & Meanwhile, Back in Canada + TikTok is Back.
The Outgoing 46th President of the United States
Outgoing president Joe Biden’s final days in office were marked by speeches, pardons and swipes at “oligarchs.”
As outlined in the January 29th,2025 American Greatness post, “Biden’s so called “Oligarchs” the outgoing president’s farewell speech, a swipe at “oligarchs” was a hollow echo of Eisenhower original, intended mostly to deflect from a personal presidency defined by chaos, corruption, and hypocrisy.
The subtext of the speech seemed more about how democratic oligarchs like George Soros were better than republican oligarchs like Elon Musk.
Then there were the pardons.
As outlined in the January 20th, 2025 CTV News post, “Biden pardons Fauci, Milley and the Jan. 6 committee in effort to guard against ‘revenge’ by Trump,”
According to the post:
President Joe Biden on Monday pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol, in an extraordinary use of the powers of the presidency in his final hours to guard against potential “revenge” by the incoming Trump administration.
The decision by Biden comes after Donald Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. Trump has selected Cabinet nominees who backed his election lies and who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”
None of these people are presently accused of a crime. We will have to stand by to see whether a “preemptive” pardon is a legitimate legal instrument. Later in the day, Biden preemptively pardoned the rest of his family, brothers Jim and Frank, a sister, various wives and their husbands.
Again, none of these people are presently accused of a crime. Biden seems to have preemptively pardoned almost everyone in his family and inner circle, just in case something is uncovered after he leaves.
The legal effect of “preemptive pardons,” covering crimes not yet acknowledged or uncovered is problematic.
In the case of Fauci, some of the crimes may have been uncovered through US Senate testimony relating to illegal “gain of function” research. In the case of Milley, the problem may lie with government documents now available to Trump.
Expect more malfeasance in this area to be uncovered over the next little while.
That’s the problem with preemptive pardons. There’s less chance of bringing the bad guys to justice, but now that everyone knows that something is fishy, there’s more chance that people will look into the situation.
Biden’s final day as president, as outlined in the January 20th, 2025 ABC News on YouTube post, “Former President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden depart the White House,” finished up with one last helicopter ride on Marine One.
The Incoming 47th President of the United States
We then move to the Incoming 47th President of the United States, Donald John Trump, who was having a busy day.
The January 20th, 2025 Sky News post, “Trump’s inauguration in pictures” provides as good an overview as any of the actual ceremony.
But the January 20th, 2025 Alex Jones on “X” post, “Clintons and Obama Receive Boos as They Arrive for The Inauguration,” is a much more animated description of ex-presidents and vice-presidents entering the building and the receptions they received from the others attending.
In one of his first acts after becoming president, Trump established a new “external revenue service” for tariff collection.
Trump’s plan, Instead of taxing US citizens to enrich other countries, is to tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich US citizens and encourage companies to relocate to US facilities.
The expected 25% tariffs, planned for most manufacturing and finished goods not “made in America,” aren’t in place yet, but observers expect the US government to begin rolling them out as early as February 1st.
In his inauguration speech, Trump promised to declare a national emergency at the southern border, as he did in 2019, invoking special presidential powers that would allow him to unilaterally unlock federal funding for border wall construction and deploy military and National Guard units to the border.
After his inauguration, Trump went on to sign close to 200 executive orders by the end of the day, including withdrawing the country from the Paris climate agreement (again), creating the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and reversing multiple Biden era executive orders.
As outlined in the January 21st, 2025 BBC post, “Trump pardons give Jan 6 defendants nearly everything they wanted,” Trump also issued a handful of commutations and a blanket pardon that effectively freed all incarcerated because of their J6 activities.
As noted in the January 20th, 2025 CTV News on YouTube post, "Something disturbing" about competing pardons from Biden, Trump | Historian,” both Trump and Biden are issuing contrasting pardons with Biden preemptively pardoned the House committee that investigated the January 6th “attack” on the Capitol and Trump pardoning the people the January 6th committee investigated and helped to convict.
Meanwhile, Back in Canada
Back in Canada, the Trudeau regime is coming to an end. There’s almost a blind panic in Ottawa over the incoming Trump administration and its potential to overwhelm the Canadian government with its planned tariffs.
As outlined in the January 12th, 2025 BBC post, “Canada the 51st US state? Trudeau says 'not going to happen,'” the Trudeau Liberals started the week strong, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-iterating that Canada has no intention to become the 51st state of the US and doing so on US television.
But that didn’t last. Alberta premier Danielle Smith refused to toe Ottawa’s line on negotiations. The January 20th. 3035 The Narwhal post, “Here’s what Danielle Smith has said (and done) ahead of Trump’s inauguration,” notes “plenty of talk about (Smith’s) betrayal at the moment.”
Even a White House promise not to implement tariffs immediately hasn’t assuaged ego’s in the Liberal party and Smith is still considered the only major player on the Canadian side because of the trip to Mar-A-Lago last week to visit Trump.
Other Liberals are busy taking sides in the upcoming leadership race to replace Justin Trudeau.
Former deputy prime minister [2Capture8] Chrystia Freeland has officially thrown her hat in the ring to replace Trudeau as the next Liberal leader.
So has former Bank of Canada Chair Mark Carney, although in Carney’s case, his run for office comes with plenty of pictures showing him with Claus Schwabb, other World Economic Forum (WEF) members and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
TikTok is Back
And finally tonight, Tic-Tok says its restoring service for American customers.
Here’s the January 20th, 2025 CP24 on Youtube post, “TikTok says it’s restoring service to users in the U.S. after app goes dark,” with more.
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