Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Balloons, 80s Rock, Big Tech, Radicals On The FCC & James Clapper Running Scared

Transcript

Balloons, 80s Rock, Big Tech, Radicals On The FCC & James Clapper Running Scared · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcoming as verdicts was Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
0:03
Speaker 1: your Centator. You're in Washington, DC right now, and I
0:06
Speaker 1: am going to let people know in advance where we're
0:09
Speaker 1: going on the pod today because we have so much news.
0:12
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about the balloon and the classified
0:14
Speaker 1: briefing that you just got out of. We're also going
0:16
Speaker 1: to talk about some significant big tech legislation that you
0:19
Speaker 1: were authoring. And then there was an amazing hearing today
0:23
Speaker 1: that deals with the FCC and gig saw and an
0:27
Speaker 1: amazing back and forth. And then we're also if we
0:30
Speaker 1: have time, we're gonna get to this shocking about face
0:33
Speaker 1: from James Clapper dealing with those the Hunter Biden laptop.
0:37
Speaker 1: But before we get to the rest of that, I
0:40
Speaker 1: want to talk about this classified briefing that you got
0:43
Speaker 1: out of today. What can you tell us about what
0:47
Speaker 1: we've learned about the balloon. We've seen a lot of
0:49
Speaker 1: the headlines we now are shooting down things left and right.
0:53
Speaker 1: There's even been some people out there Centator saying, are
0:55
Speaker 1: we maybe overreacting politically because the White House got the
0:59
Speaker 1: first one so wrong that they're shooting everything down? There's
1:01
Speaker 1: even been people speculating that some of the things we
1:04
Speaker 1: may have shut down may have actually been literal space junk.
1:08
Speaker 1: And this is just to try to show, you know,
1:10
Speaker 1: we're tough on balloons and outer space or you know,
1:13
Speaker 1: at sixty thousand feet let's you know, that's kind of
1:16
Speaker 1: where America is right now. It's very weird. So what
1:19
Speaker 1: can I tell you about it? Not a damn thing.
1:22
Speaker 1: So last week on the pod, we talked about the
1:26
Speaker 1: classified briefing that I went to last week that focused
1:29
Speaker 1: on the first Chinese by balloon, the one that spent
1:32
Speaker 1: over a week in American airspace conducting espionage, that ultimately
1:36
Speaker 1: Biden shot down over the Atlantic after it traversed the
1:39
Speaker 1: continental United States after it had completed its espionage mission.
1:44
Speaker 1: Since then, we've had three other objects shot down in space.
1:49
Speaker 1: This morning, I went to a second classified briefing on
1:52
Speaker 1: the new objects shutdown in space. I have to admit
1:54
Speaker 1: I was really curious to find out what they were.
1:59
Speaker 1: Now I can't disclose anything said in the classified briefing,
2:06
Speaker 1: but to be honest, I don't know that there's anything
2:09
Speaker 1: to disclose. It was one of the least satisfying classified
2:14
Speaker 1: briefings I've ever had. Their lips were moving. I'm not
2:19
Speaker 1: sure what they said. I gotta say, I think the
2:24
Speaker 1: American people are quite reasonably asking a whole series of questions.
2:30
Speaker 1: What the hell were the things we just shot down?
2:33
Speaker 1: Where did they come from? Did they come from China?
2:36
Speaker 1: Were they spy satellites or spy balloons or spy drones
2:40
Speaker 1: or I don't know, spy kites. What were they doing?
2:46
Speaker 1: Why did we shoot them down? What was the danger
2:48
Speaker 1: they posed? Those are all really reasonable questions. Those are
2:51
Speaker 1: questions I'm hearing from Texans right now. The Biden administration
2:56
Speaker 1: is answering zero of them. It's not telling the American people. Actually,
3:01
Speaker 1: the moment that I thought was most telling was during
3:04
Speaker 1: the classified briefing when a couple of senators shoot out
3:08
Speaker 1: the administration and said, look, you owe it to the
3:11
Speaker 1: American people to be candid on this, to stand up
3:14
Speaker 1: and say here's what we know. And, by the way,
3:17
Speaker 1: if the answer is we don't know, we shot some
3:20
Speaker 1: damn thing down in the sky and we don't know
3:22
Speaker 1: what it is, we don't know where it came from.
3:24
Speaker 1: It may have been, you know, Jim Bob jettisoned pickup
3:27
Speaker 1: truck into the sky. We don't know if that's the
3:30
Speaker 1: answer say it. But right now, this administration believes it
3:35
Speaker 1: doesn't owe the American people an explanation. And I all right,
3:39
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you something. All right, So, Ben, you're
3:42
Speaker 1: forty three, is that right? You don't have to aige
3:45
Speaker 1: me that much. Forty one? Give me a little bit, right,
3:48
Speaker 1: all right? So I want to test you on something.
3:51
Speaker 1: Did you get the reference from the title of our
3:56
Speaker 1: last podcast? So our last podcast usually I come up
3:59
Speaker 1: with the titles because Ben, he's very talented, but he
4:02
Speaker 1: writes long paragraph titles, and I said they're too long.
4:05
Speaker 1: I want him punch here, and so I come up
4:06
Speaker 1: with more smart assid titles. This is true, this is
4:10
Speaker 1: this is totally accurate. A characterizing that too loosely, that
4:14
Speaker 1: that is one hundred percent accurate. Um. So the last
4:19
Speaker 1: title started out with ninety nine Chinese balloons. And my
4:23
Speaker 1: question to you, which I asked several people on my
4:25
Speaker 1: staff today, do you get the reference? And none of
4:28
Speaker 1: the twenty something year olds on my staff got the reference?
4:30
Speaker 1: So do you get the reference? So when I got it,
4:33
Speaker 1: the first thing that came to my mind was nine
4:35
Speaker 1: nine bottles of beer on the wall. I thought that
4:40
Speaker 1: was pretty good. I'm not gonna lie. That's immediately I
4:43
Speaker 1: was like nine nine bottles of beer on the wall.
4:45
Speaker 1: That's what I thought. Well, then it is the difference.
4:49
Speaker 1: So I'm fifty two, you're forty one. That decade matters.
4:53
Speaker 1: So what is it in reference to some I'm like
4:55
Speaker 1: eighties air band song, I don't know of Yes, all right, well,
4:58
Speaker 1: at least I see I can get there quickly that
5:00
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it was. It was a song that
5:03
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen eighty three by an artist, Nanna,
5:06
Speaker 1: a German artist, and it was ninety nine Luft balloons
5:11
Speaker 1: and it was ninety nine Luft balloons, Bada Da Da,
5:17
Speaker 1: and it was interesting, so I actually pulled it up.
5:20
Speaker 1: It was a protest song about ninety nine red balloons
5:25
Speaker 1: floating in the summer sky. Panic bells, it's red alert.
5:27
Speaker 1: There's something you hear from somewhere else. The war machine
5:31
Speaker 1: springs to life, opens up one eager eye, focusing it
5:35
Speaker 1: on the sky. The ninety nine red balloons go by,
5:38
Speaker 1: and it goes on to say, this is it, boys,
5:41
Speaker 1: this is war. The president is on the line as
5:43
Speaker 1: ninety nine red balloons go by, and it was a
5:46
Speaker 1: German protest song, Everyone's a Captain Kirk with orders to identify,
5:50
Speaker 1: to clarify and classify, Scrambling the summer Sky, ninety nine
5:54
Speaker 1: red balloons go by, and it was this eighties German
5:58
Speaker 1: protests song again against War, about this guy and girl
6:02
Speaker 1: that released ninety nine red balloons into the sky and
6:06
Speaker 1: it feels like they're ninety nine damn Chinese balloons floating.
6:12
Speaker 1: All right, I am going to say something. Okay, if
6:15
Speaker 1: I get prosecuted, Bet, I want you to provide my
6:20
Speaker 1: defense counsel. I'm gonna say something that was said in
6:23
Speaker 1: the classified briefing, but I feel very confident this statement
6:27
Speaker 1: is not classified. One of the generals who was briefing
6:30
Speaker 1: us said that he's been so busy that he woke
6:34
Speaker 1: up this morning and he had forgotten it was Valentine's Day,
6:38
Speaker 1: and he didn't understand why his wife had given him
6:40
Speaker 1: a present. And he said he hadn't gotten anything for
6:43
Speaker 1: his wife on Valentine's Day, and he was worried. A
6:45
Speaker 1: bunch of us called out, said there's a gift shop
6:47
Speaker 1: in the capitol, and one of the Democrats senators leaned
6:52
Speaker 1: forward in the mic and said, my only advice is
6:54
Speaker 1: don't get her a balloon. So that was said this
7:00
Speaker 1: if but I feel confident there's no classification that attaches
7:03
Speaker 1: to it. That's awesome. I have literally three questions that
7:07
Speaker 1: I know everybody else is asking, so I want to
7:09
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8:24
Speaker 1: for you first is we've been focusing so much on
8:27
Speaker 1: the nine nine balloons, right to go back to the
8:29
Speaker 1: to the song here being from China actually, but before
8:33
Speaker 1: we get to your substance question, I want to do
8:36
Speaker 1: something for the cultural enlightenment of Benjamin Ferguson. I know
8:51
Speaker 1: this one. Here's the part everybody's gonna know. Ah, there
9:14
Speaker 1: we go, all right center. See, you actually impressed me
9:18
Speaker 1: because you actually went to something in the eighties pop
9:21
Speaker 1: culture that has twenty three million views on this video
9:26
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and then that that came out for that
9:29
Speaker 1: when you were a year old. Yes, and I will
9:32
Speaker 1: tell you it was depressing. I asked my staff, and
9:35
Speaker 1: most of my staffers are in their twenties, and they
9:37
Speaker 1: all looked at me or like, we have no idea
9:39
Speaker 1: what that is. Yeah, we have no idea. If they
9:41
Speaker 1: I would hope if they heard the song they would
9:43
Speaker 1: know it. You ever see the movie? Gross? Point blank? Nope,
9:45
Speaker 1: never saw it. Oh it's great. It's a movie John
9:48
Speaker 1: Cusas Is it in black and white? No? John Cusack
9:52
Speaker 1: is a hit man who goes back to his eighties
9:54
Speaker 1: high school reunion. He's a hit man there. But they
9:57
Speaker 1: played ninety nine Leff balloons. It was sort of a anyway,
10:00
Speaker 1: if you are fifty two years old, that pulls the
10:05
Speaker 1: nostalgius strings. All right, you had a serious question, why
10:07
Speaker 1: are you distracting? Man? Get back to substance. Last question
10:10
Speaker 1: on this, just real quick. When you and your family
10:12
Speaker 1: were traveling when you were a young boy, did y'all
10:14
Speaker 1: stop at hotels? It said color TV? And ac is that?
10:17
Speaker 1: What is that? What it was like when you were
10:19
Speaker 1: growing up? It wasn't quite like horse and buggy? Okay,
10:24
Speaker 1: all right, I just wanted to know. I have a
10:26
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that that that that the dad
10:29
Speaker 1: your dad pulled over at a hotel with you and
10:31
Speaker 1: it said colored television. All right, Um, what do you
10:39
Speaker 1: think I got that? I still remember as the coolest
10:42
Speaker 1: Christmas present ever when I was six years old. So
10:46
Speaker 1: I was six years old, nineteen seventy six. What do
10:48
Speaker 1: you think I got anything with batteries? Yes, okay, I have.
10:55
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea because I didn't. I didn't
10:58
Speaker 1: even know they had battery operated to when you were
11:00
Speaker 1: around back then. Actually, technic is a blast for me.
11:05
Speaker 1: And look in the Senate they call me skippy. They
11:08
Speaker 1: think I wear short shorts and a propeller hat because
11:10
Speaker 1: the average age there is one hundred and three. So
11:13
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's all relative. But nineteen seventy six,
11:17
Speaker 1: when I was six years old, for Christmas, I got Pong.
11:20
Speaker 1: It actually didn't use batteries. Oh yeah, that was a
11:22
Speaker 1: great game. It was the first video game ever, so
11:25
Speaker 1: it was before Atari and I you know, I went
11:27
Speaker 1: through the whole birth. I mean, I'm a gamer. But
11:30
Speaker 1: I got Pong for Christmas and seventy six and it
11:33
Speaker 1: was the coolest thing ever. You hooked it up to
11:36
Speaker 1: your TV, you turned the dial and it was table
11:39
Speaker 1: tennis on. It was the first video game that people
11:41
Speaker 1: had at home. Just when I thought we totally lost,
11:44
Speaker 1: you've just redeemed yourself all right. Back to this question,
11:47
Speaker 1: I have to ask you, everybody that I've talked to
11:50
Speaker 1: has been asking me the same thing. Are all these
11:53
Speaker 1: objects just from China? Are there other people that may
11:57
Speaker 1: have been in on the game that we are just
12:00
Speaker 1: now learning about, since his administration really didn't seem to
12:03
Speaker 1: be focused on this at all, and we know for
12:05
Speaker 1: a fact now that the Trump administration was basically left
12:08
Speaker 1: in the dark with balloons that were coming over when
12:10
Speaker 1: he was in office. Yeah, the short answer is, I
12:13
Speaker 1: have no frigging idea. I don't know. I would like
12:17
Speaker 1: to know. I'd like to know what the hell it
12:19
Speaker 1: is we shot down, and I think the administration should
12:24
Speaker 1: stand up and be candid with the American People's That's
12:27
Speaker 1: what a lot of us were urging was, Look, tell
12:29
Speaker 1: the American people. I think it's a little weird that
12:33
Speaker 1: we've shot four objects down in the last ten days
12:37
Speaker 1: and Joe Biden hasn't addressed the American people. Look. Look
12:40
Speaker 1: like that's an odd dynamic to say, Okay, here's what's
12:43
Speaker 1: going on. We're shooting things out of the sky. I
12:48
Speaker 1: did see on Twitter a picture of a guy and
12:51
Speaker 1: full body cast who said all I was doing was
12:55
Speaker 1: floating along on my balloon at forty thousand feet and
12:58
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. Bam bam. Yeah, it is. It is
13:02
Speaker 1: surreal to see them not deal with this publicly. Like
13:05
Speaker 1: you mentioned, it has disrupted US air travel. A lot
13:09
Speaker 1: of people have not talked about that either in the media.
13:12
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a significant event that's happened over
13:14
Speaker 1: several different states now with shutting down airspace and and
13:19
Speaker 1: planes being grounded for several hours. That disrupts people's lives,
13:22
Speaker 1: and still not a word from the President. I have
13:25
Speaker 1: to ask you, and again it's going to be your opinion, obviously,
13:28
Speaker 1: but is this go back to the issue that this
13:30
Speaker 1: president time and time again refuses to stand up to China.
13:35
Speaker 1: At what point does that concern you from a national
13:37
Speaker 1: security standpoint? Well, Ben, I think it's it's a combination
13:41
Speaker 1: of things. Number one, when it comes to foreign policy,
13:44
Speaker 1: and in particular standing up to the bad guys, standing
13:46
Speaker 1: up to our enemies, whether that means China, whether that
13:49
Speaker 1: means Russia, whether that means a rand, whether that means
13:51
Speaker 1: North Korea, whether that means Venezuela, whether that means Cuba.
13:55
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and this foreign policy team is consistently weak
13:59
Speaker 1: if you're an of an America, if you're an enemy
14:01
Speaker 1: of America, you can count on weakness and appeasement from
14:04
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. We saw that with balloon number one. Balloon
14:07
Speaker 1: number one, for over a week it was allowed to
14:10
Speaker 1: be over US airspace to conduct espionage, and they did nothing.
14:15
Speaker 1: That was weakness. But here's the second component. It actually
14:18
Speaker 1: explains this whole thing, which is after weakness, they view
14:23
Speaker 1: all of foreign policy through the lens of public relations.
14:28
Speaker 1: It's a communications battle. It's politics. It's not actually about
14:32
Speaker 1: protecting the country. It's about pr So what did the
14:38
Speaker 1: administration lean in vigorously on giving you all of these
14:41
Speaker 1: reasons why it was fantastic that we let the Chinese
14:45
Speaker 1: spy balloon conduct espionage over America for over a week.
14:49
Speaker 1: They said, Oh, it's really great because we got to
14:51
Speaker 1: spy on them while they were spying on us. Well,
14:53
Speaker 1: hawk diggity damn. Wouldn't that be great then if Russia
14:56
Speaker 1: and Iran and everyone else sent balloons over us? No,
15:00
Speaker 1: that's idiotic. But it's a spin. It's the It's the
15:03
Speaker 1: kind of thing a twenty six year old political staffer
15:06
Speaker 1: types out as a talking point and they lean in vigorously.
15:09
Speaker 1: That also explains the stage they're at now where where
15:13
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, Yosemite, Sam just firing at every
15:17
Speaker 1: damn target in the sky. And you know, I said
15:21
Speaker 1: in the last pot pod that I was glad that
15:23
Speaker 1: that Biden finally grew a pair and shot these things down,
15:26
Speaker 1: which is what he should have done with the first one.
15:28
Speaker 1: I'll say I got a little bit of blowback from
15:30
Speaker 1: from some I guys going well, yeah, but we don't
15:32
Speaker 1: know what it is he shot down. That's a fair point,
15:35
Speaker 1: to be honest. I think there's there's a there's a
15:38
Speaker 1: lot of speculation today that's been happening on national news
15:41
Speaker 1: that we may have actually been shooting down some stuff
15:43
Speaker 1: that they referred to as a literal, literal uh space junk.
15:48
Speaker 1: It's I will say I got a text from from
15:52
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine who I was making a joke
15:55
Speaker 1: about this, and he said, well, I'm at least comforted
15:58
Speaker 1: that that means it was little green men in UFOs
16:02
Speaker 1: preparing to land. And I can't tell you it wasn't
16:05
Speaker 1: little green men in UFOs preparing to land, but I
16:07
Speaker 1: can tell you if it was, I don't know it.
16:09
Speaker 1: So you know, if that's happening, the Biden administration is
16:15
Speaker 1: keeping that really close to the vest. But it does
16:19
Speaker 1: make you think that this is being driven not by
16:25
Speaker 1: a level headed view of the national security needs of
16:28
Speaker 1: the United States, but rather by the desire to tell
16:33
Speaker 1: a political pr communications narrative. And so right now they're like, Oh,
16:39
Speaker 1: we looked weak. Let's shoot a bunch of crab down
16:42
Speaker 1: to show how tough we are. I want to move
16:44
Speaker 1: to something else. It's a pretty big deal, and that
16:46
Speaker 1: is the fact that you have launched sweeping big tech
16:49
Speaker 1: oversight investigation. You are the ranking member of the Senate
16:54
Speaker 1: Committee on Commerce, and you've put together this new oversight investigation,
17:00
Speaker 1: a big tech talk a little bit about what you
17:03
Speaker 1: hope that this will accomplish and how it will hold
17:06
Speaker 1: big tech accountable. So in this new Congress, I am
17:11
Speaker 1: now the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee. What
17:13
Speaker 1: does that mean. I'm the senior Republican on the Committee
17:17
Speaker 1: of Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The Commerce Committee has jurisdiction
17:23
Speaker 1: over about half of the US economy, So it has
17:27
Speaker 1: jurisdiction over all of telecom, it has jurisdiction over the Internet,
17:31
Speaker 1: it has jurisdiction over Aviation. It has jurisdiction over transportation,
17:34
Speaker 1: and as jurisdiction over the Federal Trade Commission, and as
17:37
Speaker 1: jurisdiction over the Commerce Department, and as jurisdiction over the
17:40
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation, the FAA, the FCC, it has jurisdiction
17:46
Speaker 1: over the alphabet soup of a whole bunch of different agencies,
17:51
Speaker 1: pipelines and trucking. And so my role as the ranking
17:57
Speaker 1: member is I'm the senior Republican. It means that I'm
18:00
Speaker 1: in the process right now of hiring staff on the
18:03
Speaker 1: committee and basically doubling the size of my Washington staff.
18:08
Speaker 1: When you're the ranking member of a full committee, you
18:10
Speaker 1: have resources to bring in staff. And so that's really
18:13
Speaker 1: potent because I'm bringing in very serious lawyers, economists, policy
18:18
Speaker 1: experts to drive an agenda. And with more resources, we're
18:23
Speaker 1: able to engage in a lot more issues. And so
18:27
Speaker 1: the first big thing that I've done is the ranking
18:30
Speaker 1: member of the Commerce Committee is launched an investigation of
18:34
Speaker 1: big tech censorship. And so I sent letters this week
18:40
Speaker 1: to the CEOs of Google and Meta, the parent of
18:44
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. Google's the parent of YouTube
18:50
Speaker 1: and and also TikTok and asking a whole series of
18:55
Speaker 1: specific and detailed questions focused on recommendation algor rhythms, the
19:00
Speaker 1: algorithms where they say you're on YouTube and they say, hey,
19:03
Speaker 1: you might like this next, and it drives an enormous
19:05
Speaker 1: amount of traffic where they suggest the content you might want.
19:11
Speaker 1: And right now, the question of recommendation algorithms and whether
19:16
Speaker 1: it falls within the protections of Section two thirty of
19:19
Speaker 1: the Communications Decency Act, which is the immunity big tech
19:23
Speaker 1: companies get from liability. That's a question before the US
19:27
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and so I filed an amicus brief urging
19:30
Speaker 1: the court to interpret the immunity narrowly so as to
19:35
Speaker 1: not give a safe harbor for censorship and instead to
19:38
Speaker 1: encourage free speech. So this oversight letter is going in
19:42
Speaker 1: and asking very specific questions about how they determine what
19:46
Speaker 1: to recommend, what communications they're having with the federal government
19:50
Speaker 1: with Democrats in Congress, what they elevate, what they suppress,
19:54
Speaker 1: and over the next two years, I'm going to engage
19:59
Speaker 1: in a system at a careful investigation of the wholesale
20:04
Speaker 1: censorship of conservative speech we see on big tech. Last
20:08
Speaker 1: week I spent a half hour on the phone with
20:10
Speaker 1: Elon Musk doing a deep dive into what he's found
20:13
Speaker 1: at Twitter, and I think what he has made public
20:16
Speaker 1: and what he's revealing for me is serving as a
20:19
Speaker 1: roadmap for the investigation for the Commerce Committee, because all
20:23
Speaker 1: of the other big tech companies are going, holy crap,
20:27
Speaker 1: how can Elon reveal this? They at all assume that
20:29
Speaker 1: they would remain all members of the small billionaires club
20:34
Speaker 1: that are masters of the universe that get to decide
20:36
Speaker 1: who to censor and who to silence and who not
20:38
Speaker 1: to And Elon is spoiling the party by making it
20:43
Speaker 1: all public. And so my hope is that the results
20:46
Speaker 1: of this investigation that we see real and meaningful transparency
20:51
Speaker 1: that will make public to the American people what's going on,
20:55
Speaker 1: and that we see real and meaningful accountability. And we're
20:58
Speaker 1: going to devote a lot of time and energy to
21:01
Speaker 1: fighting for free speech online because I think big tech
21:05
Speaker 1: censorship is the greatest threat in America to free speech
21:08
Speaker 1: and the greatest threat to free and fair elections. Are
21:10
Speaker 1: there any Democrats in the Senate that you're working with
21:14
Speaker 1: right now on this that say they agree or is
21:18
Speaker 1: this a totally partisan issue? Where Democrats say, we got
21:22
Speaker 1: what we want. We own big tech, they work with us.
21:26
Speaker 1: We get these communication channels behind the scenes. We can
21:29
Speaker 1: tell me to silence, to the censor, who to throttle
21:32
Speaker 1: what to you know, we can push out, like you said,
21:34
Speaker 1: in these algorithms, things that we want you to see
21:36
Speaker 1: and make sure that we bury the things of the right.
21:39
Speaker 1: Or there's some Democrats that actually understand how Unamerican this
21:43
Speaker 1: really is and what a threat this is. I would
21:46
Speaker 1: argue to our freedoms in this country. Yeah, maybe is
21:50
Speaker 1: the answer to that. I don't know. I would just
21:53
Speaker 1: say that didn't sound promising. Listen, I'm trying to convince
21:56
Speaker 1: Democrats that they should care about this. Today's Democrat party
22:01
Speaker 1: is much more comfortable with censorship than the Democrats of yesteryear.
22:05
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to convince Democrats. So some of the
22:08
Speaker 1: arguments I'm giving. There a number of Democrats that care
22:11
Speaker 1: about the media and they want free and independent journalists.
22:14
Speaker 1: And I've been pointing out to them. Listen, big tech
22:18
Speaker 1: bullies the media. You look, for example at the Hunter
22:21
Speaker 1: Biden fiasco where they forced they block the New York Post,
22:24
Speaker 1: they d platform the New York Post because it shared
22:28
Speaker 1: a story, it wrote a story they didn't like. They
22:30
Speaker 1: bullied political reporters who dared talk about the New York
22:33
Speaker 1: Post story. The degree to which the traditional media is
22:38
Speaker 1: becoming just captive to an obedient to big tech ought
22:43
Speaker 1: to scare you if you want a free and independent media.
22:47
Speaker 1: And what I've said, secondly to a number of Democrats,
22:49
Speaker 1: I've said, look, I get that right now. Maybe you
22:53
Speaker 1: agree with the political views a big tech. You agree
22:57
Speaker 1: with what they're promoting, and you agree you disagree with
23:01
Speaker 1: what they're censoring, so you might be happy substantively. But
23:05
Speaker 1: the question I asked him, I said, look, are you
23:07
Speaker 1: sure you want to embrace a system where a handful
23:13
Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley billionaires have complete and unfettered power over
23:18
Speaker 1: what anyone is allowed to discuss politically in the public
23:21
Speaker 1: square in America? I mean, today you agree with them,
23:24
Speaker 1: but maybe tomorrow you won't. And by the way, Elon
23:27
Speaker 1: Musk is there, now you've already decided you don't agree
23:30
Speaker 1: with him. How would you feel if suddenly they start
23:32
Speaker 1: censoring your views. I don't want any billionaires or anybody
23:37
Speaker 1: else to have the power to censor other Americans. I
23:41
Speaker 1: want free speech I want everybody to be able to
23:44
Speaker 1: speak in the marketplace of ideas to decide. And I
23:47
Speaker 1: will say, look, are Democrats persuaded. Not necessarily, but I'll
23:51
Speaker 1: point to last year. You and I talked about this before.
23:54
Speaker 1: In the Senate Judiciary Committee. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat, had legislator
24:00
Speaker 1: and focused on local media, small newspapers, small local stations
24:04
Speaker 1: to enable them to collectively bargain with big tech, to
24:08
Speaker 1: force big tech to pay for their content. And it
24:11
Speaker 1: was in the Judiciary Committee and I introduced an amendment
24:14
Speaker 1: that was targeted at censorship. My laser focus on all
24:18
Speaker 1: of this a censorship and it served to restrict big
24:21
Speaker 1: tech from engaging in political censorship. And initially in the
24:25
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee, my amendment was adopted and Klobuchart, the Democrats
24:30
Speaker 1: pulled down their bill. They're like, oh crap, we can't
24:32
Speaker 1: take it with this amendment. It was one of the
24:35
Speaker 1: more surreal moments I've ever seen in a committee where
24:38
Speaker 1: literally I get an amendment in and so the author
24:40
Speaker 1: of the bill pulls it down. Well afterwards, I went
24:43
Speaker 1: to Amy's office and we sat there with a notepad
24:46
Speaker 1: and wrote an amendment together, and she accepted a substantially
24:51
Speaker 1: similar amendment from me that was targeted at big tech censorship,
24:54
Speaker 1: trying to rein it in, and the Judiciary Committee passed
24:58
Speaker 1: her bill with my amendment. Now, the bill ultimately didn't
25:02
Speaker 1: pass on the Senate floor, so it's not law, but
25:05
Speaker 1: we did get bipartisan agreement to take a step against censorship,
25:08
Speaker 1: and I think that's the beginning, and I'm going to
25:11
Speaker 1: keep working at it incrementally and with ferocious determination because
25:17
Speaker 1: I think the danger to free speech is existential. Yeah,
25:21
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. I want to I want to
25:22
Speaker 1: talk about what's happening also in Washington as you're there
25:26
Speaker 1: with a very interesting a lot of fireworks today with
25:29
Speaker 1: an SEC nominee at gig Song. We're going to deal
25:32
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26:44
Speaker 1: com center. Gg Soong was a nominee for the FEC.
26:50
Speaker 1: I am afraid of the FEC because if you do
26:52
Speaker 1: what I do every day on radio, you know the
26:55
Speaker 1: power the SEC. You understand that they could. They have
26:58
Speaker 1: a lot of influence over the airwaves and there's supposed
27:02
Speaker 1: to be a nonpartisan, non biased group of individuals. That
27:07
Speaker 1: is something that has been fought for years. With the FEC.
27:12
Speaker 1: They have a lot of power. A lot of people
27:13
Speaker 1: don't know who's on the FEC, but this is a
27:16
Speaker 1: new woman who has been nominated, and you've called her
27:20
Speaker 1: out for extreme political bias, which is exactly why it
27:24
Speaker 1: should just qualify her, whether she's a Republican or Democrat.
27:27
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to have partisan hacks sitting there on
27:31
Speaker 1: the FEC regulating so many different things that deal with content. Well,
27:36
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. Gigisone is Joe Biden's nominee to be
27:40
Speaker 1: on the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC has five commissioners,
27:44
Speaker 1: three from the majority party who's ever in power, ever
27:46
Speaker 1: has the White House, and two from the minority party.
27:49
Speaker 1: Gigisone is Biden's nominee. She is from the far left.
27:53
Speaker 1: She has been a left wing liberal activist and radical
27:57
Speaker 1: her whole life. She's a true believer. I'll credit her.
28:00
Speaker 1: She believes in what she's doing. She is a woman
28:04
Speaker 1: of the left. She is passionate, but her record is extreme.
28:09
Speaker 1: You know you talked about you're afraid of the FCC.
28:12
Speaker 1: You should be because gig soone has attacked conservative media.
28:17
Speaker 1: She says Fox News is destroying democracy. She describes Fox
28:21
Speaker 1: News as state sponsored propaganda. She argued to the FCC
28:25
Speaker 1: they should revoke Sinclair's licenses. Sinclair's a major conservative TV outlet.
28:32
Speaker 1: She has been vocal in using government power against conservative voices.
28:38
Speaker 1: In addition to that, she's got enormous conflicts of interest.
28:43
Speaker 1: So we had today her third confirmation hearing. Now that's amazing.
28:47
Speaker 1: Usually people have one confirmation hearing. In her instance, she
28:52
Speaker 1: had one two years ago. At that first confirmation hearing,
28:57
Speaker 1: she hid that she had been on the board of
29:01
Speaker 1: directors of a company that was engaged in litigation against
29:06
Speaker 1: the major broadcasters for piracy, for stealing their content, and
29:10
Speaker 1: the company she was on the board of lost that litigation,
29:13
Speaker 1: settled that litigation, and she actively misled the Commerce Committee
29:18
Speaker 1: into thinking that the settlement was for thirty two million dollars.
29:22
Speaker 1: In fact, the settlement was for seven hundred thousand dollars,
29:25
Speaker 1: so it was two percent of what was public. She
29:29
Speaker 1: misled the committee about it, she misled the White House
29:33
Speaker 1: about it. So we had a second hearing last year
29:35
Speaker 1: where that became public how she'd misled the committee. And
29:38
Speaker 1: now today with the new Congress, we had a third hearing.
29:42
Speaker 1: She did not get confirmed in the previous congress. It
29:45
Speaker 1: was a fifty fifty Senate and there were number of
29:48
Speaker 1: Democrats who had express concerns. A lot of folks thought
29:52
Speaker 1: Biden would withdraw this nominee because it's really doubtful she'll
29:56
Speaker 1: get confirmed. She may or may not, but I think
29:59
Speaker 1: the far our left wants her so much. They believe
30:03
Speaker 1: she will be so aggressive in attacking conservative speech that
30:07
Speaker 1: they're willing to fight this fight. So as the ranking
30:10
Speaker 1: member on Commerce, my responsibility was to lead the fight
30:13
Speaker 1: against her and to lay out her record why she's
30:17
Speaker 1: not suitable for the FCC. Yeah. One of the one
30:20
Speaker 1: of the I think shocking moments today, it was you
30:24
Speaker 1: just calling out not only that she was helping organizations
30:30
Speaker 1: and individuals that were attacking conservatives, but also those on
30:34
Speaker 1: the left, including Joe Manchin, Gary Peters, John Tester, and
30:39
Speaker 1: Christen Cinema. And this was part of this exchange with
30:42
Speaker 1: you back and forth. I want everybody to hear it
30:44
Speaker 1: because it was just incredible to hear. And then, by
30:47
Speaker 1: the way, all of those senators you mentioned are Democrats.
30:49
Speaker 1: Every one of the ones you listed are all Democrats. Senators. Yeah,
30:53
Speaker 1: and she's attacking them as well through these radical groups
30:57
Speaker 1: on the left. And as a podcaster, this is my
31:02
Speaker 1: worst nightmare. If she gets confirmed and the Biden administration
31:07
Speaker 1: seems to help been on doing it. Take a lishim
31:08
Speaker 1: though this back and forth for me today, I thought
31:10
Speaker 1: it was brilliant, Misson. I think you have a long
31:14
Speaker 1: and consistent career as a zealous partisan advocate. There is
31:19
Speaker 1: a role for partisan advocates, it just doesn't happen to
31:21
Speaker 1: be on an independent agency charged with overseeing communications in
31:26
Speaker 1: the United States. You also have a consistent pattern of
31:29
Speaker 1: being unable to perceive conflicts of interest, whether it is
31:34
Speaker 1: deceiving this committee in the White House about the Sweetheart
31:37
Speaker 1: Settlement that you signed the day after your nomination was announced,
31:43
Speaker 1: or whether it is being the only nominee I've seen
31:45
Speaker 1: in a decade to make contributions to senators who are
31:49
Speaker 1: voting on your nomination while your nomination is pending, or
31:54
Speaker 1: whether it is bizarrely supporting an extreme group that blasts
32:00
Speaker 1: multiple senators from both parties. Now, I asked you about
32:03
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion and the group Fight for Our Future, where
32:05
Speaker 1: they ran billboards saying Joe Mansion is corrupt. You said
32:09
Speaker 1: you didn't agree with that. I asked you whether you
32:11
Speaker 1: agreed with them that John Tester is corrupt. You said
32:14
Speaker 1: you didn't agree with that. I asked you whether you
32:16
Speaker 1: agreed with them that Gary Peters is corrupt. You said
32:19
Speaker 1: you didn't agree with that. Well, I didn't get to finish. Wait,
32:22
Speaker 1: are you gonna go to me? Oh I am okay,
32:25
Speaker 1: because she's attacked you too. But that was Maria can't
32:28
Speaker 1: well the chair. I think an organization the group, but
32:32
Speaker 1: not just belong to be queer. When you said that
32:36
Speaker 1: is Maria can't rad the chair, that's Democrat? Am I right? Yes,
32:39
Speaker 1: that's a Democrat from Washington State who's the chairman of
32:42
Speaker 1: the Commerce Committee. So she jumps in and asks are
32:46
Speaker 1: you going to call her out for attacking me? And
32:48
Speaker 1: I said, oh yes, I am, so keep playing. So
32:53
Speaker 1: so this group also ran the following billboard. It is
32:56
Speaker 1: a picture of Senator Senator Cinema, also a member of
32:59
Speaker 1: the committee, and it's not subtle. In case you want
33:03
Speaker 1: to miss the message they're trying to convey, it's in
33:06
Speaker 1: bright red right at the top. It says Cinema is corrupt.
33:10
Speaker 1: Do you agree with their sentiment that Senator Cinema is corrupt?
33:14
Speaker 1: Of course not, of course not okay, you say, of
33:17
Speaker 1: course not. So that billboard went up in twenty nineteen.
33:21
Speaker 1: At the end of twenty nineteen, what did you do?
33:24
Speaker 1: You sent out a fundraising email for this organization at
33:27
Speaker 1: the end of twenty nineteen. So after they had put
33:29
Speaker 1: this billboard up, did you know about the billboards they
33:33
Speaker 1: put up attacking mansion and peters and testers and Cinema.
33:37
Speaker 1: I only actually knew the one about Centator Cinema. I
33:39
Speaker 1: didn't know about the other ones here, okay, So you
33:41
Speaker 1: knew they'd called Senator Cinema corrupt, and after they called
33:45
Speaker 1: Senator Cinema corrupt, you asked people to contribute to them.
33:48
Speaker 1: Is that correct? I asked people, could you bean not
33:50
Speaker 1: because of all that? Yes? Or no? Que time? Yes?
33:53
Speaker 1: I did? Okay, So you knew they were calling Senator
33:56
Speaker 1: Cinema corrupt and you asked them to contribute afterwards, and
33:58
Speaker 1: by the way, the next year, so this is twenty nineteen.
34:01
Speaker 1: You know these tactics, You don't mind you were aware
34:06
Speaker 1: of them. You've testified you knew about them, at least
34:08
Speaker 1: with regard to Senator, sent them on, and you wanted
34:10
Speaker 1: people to support them. You also did it again in
34:13
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and Chairman can't well asked if I was
34:15
Speaker 1: going to ask about her. I'd like to point out
34:18
Speaker 1: this same group sent a letter to Chuck Schumer demanding
34:24
Speaker 1: that Chuck Schumer removes Senator Cantwell as the chairman of
34:27
Speaker 1: the Commerce Committee. Why because this committee hadn't confirmed you yet. Now,
34:32
Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty extreme proposition. I gotta say,
34:35
Speaker 1: I've never seen a nominee or a group that the
34:40
Speaker 1: nominee fundraises for, demand her own party's chairwoman be fired
34:45
Speaker 1: because you haven't been confirmed yet. Do you understand why
34:52
Speaker 1: this seems one heck of a conflict of interest. I
34:55
Speaker 1: don't see how it's a conflict of interest, Sir. Does
34:58
Speaker 1: it seem impartial or does it seem an extreme partisan
35:01
Speaker 1: willing to burn burn everything down if either party doesn't
35:06
Speaker 1: do what you want? Senator I don't agree with all
35:11
Speaker 1: the Fight for the Future's tactics, however, except you raise
35:14
Speaker 1: money for them. You know about the raise money for them.
35:17
Speaker 1: You send tweets every year asking people to contribute. When
35:20
Speaker 1: you ask people to contribute, that's called raising money. Let
35:23
Speaker 1: me ask, I mean, Senator, this woman, how in the
35:28
Speaker 1: hell did they even think she had a shot? And
35:30
Speaker 1: then the second question is does she actually have a
35:33
Speaker 1: shot even after you lit her up this with the
35:36
Speaker 1: facts the way that you just did. Look, of course
35:41
Speaker 1: she has a shot. She has a shot if Democrats
35:44
Speaker 1: decide to support her. I think there's I think it's
35:49
Speaker 1: quite likely this domination is going to be defeated. I
35:52
Speaker 1: think it should be defeated and it's gonna come down.
35:57
Speaker 1: I have a high level of confidence that Republicans will
36:00
Speaker 1: stand together, that we will have forty nine no votes.
36:03
Speaker 1: The question is where a handful of Democrats going to be?
36:07
Speaker 1: Where is Joe Mansion going to be? Where is Cinema
36:11
Speaker 1: going to be? Where is John Tester going to be?
36:15
Speaker 1: Where is Rosen going to be? Where's courts Masto going
36:17
Speaker 1: to be? By the way, many of these are the
36:19
Speaker 1: same senators that the group she's supported and raised money
36:23
Speaker 1: for has blasted by name and called corrupt. So the
36:26
Speaker 1: interesting question is are these Democrats senators going to vote
36:30
Speaker 1: for her anyway because she's a darling of the left
36:33
Speaker 1: wing of the Democrat Party. I hope not. I will
36:36
Speaker 1: say it was I thought fairly remarkable testimony that she
36:42
Speaker 1: admitted admitted on the stand that she knew about their
36:49
Speaker 1: attacks on Cinema and still raise money for anywhere And
36:54
Speaker 1: look I actually on some level respect gig soone. She's
36:58
Speaker 1: a left wing activists, like, I love her questions or
37:01
Speaker 1: did you know about it? Oh yeah? And did you
37:03
Speaker 1: raise money afterwards for it? Oh? Yeah? Like she's not
37:05
Speaker 1: apologetic about it, She's like, yeah, I'm a left winger.
37:09
Speaker 1: I like, I want to beat the heck out anyone
37:13
Speaker 1: Democrat or Republican that doesn't embrace left wing policies. Listen,
37:18
Speaker 1: that's fine if you're an activist, it just doesn't give
37:21
Speaker 1: you comfort as someone who's going to be a regulator
37:24
Speaker 1: of communications in this country. I will tell you also,
37:28
Speaker 1: while I was while I was laying that out, in
37:34
Speaker 1: particular about how the group that she raised money for
37:38
Speaker 1: called for Maria kent Well to be fired, Maria sitting
37:41
Speaker 1: next to me, and what you didn't get in the audio,
37:44
Speaker 1: but if you were listening to it you got is
37:47
Speaker 1: Maria's cracking up laughing as I'm laying it out. I mean,
37:50
Speaker 1: it really is weird. I've never seen a nominee who
37:55
Speaker 1: has this kind of record, So I think we have
37:57
Speaker 1: a good shot at defeating this. And actually, what I've
38:00
Speaker 1: said is I'm not sure why the Biden administration is
38:03
Speaker 1: wasting everyone's time with this nomination, because I think in
38:07
Speaker 1: all likelihood she's not going to get fifty votes. But
38:11
Speaker 1: the reason they're wasting people's time with it is because
38:15
Speaker 1: they are captive to and care what the radical left
38:18
Speaker 1: wing of the party says. And the radical left wing
38:22
Speaker 1: wants gigs. Yeah, that's what they want, and that's and
38:26
Speaker 1: that is obviously concerning. But the fact that they would
38:28
Speaker 1: even nominate her just tells you how far gone we
38:32
Speaker 1: are from what in their certain positions. As you mentioned earlier,
38:36
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be nonpartisan positions. We need those desperately
38:41
Speaker 1: to stay nonpartisan. And that doesn't mean you find the
38:43
Speaker 1: most extreme partisan person you can get your hands on.
38:46
Speaker 1: All right, Santa. Before we get into that, I do
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Speaker 1: want to get your reaction to James Clapper. He's making
40:36
Speaker 1: a lot of headlines. James Clapper is now angry. The
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Speaker 1: Accenttel Chiefs has basically come out and said that the
40:45
Speaker 1: reporting on his letter that he signed with fifty plus
40:49
Speaker 1: other top intelligence officials right before the elections the presidential election,
40:54
Speaker 1: claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was story from the
40:59
Speaker 1: New York Post was actually Russian disinformation. He's now saying
41:03
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41:08
Speaker 1: his words, he said that Politico, who was the one
41:13
Speaker 1: that first got the league letter that they all signed,
41:15
Speaker 1: clearly leaked on purpose. Otherwise why would you sign the letter?
41:19
Speaker 1: He says that Politico deliberately distorted the letter that he signed.
41:22
Speaker 1: He characterized the Post reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop is
41:26
Speaker 1: part of a Russian disinformation operation. Now Clapper is in trouble. Now.
41:33
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say he's trying to cover
41:35
Speaker 1: his tracks. Republicans are looking into him and the other
41:39
Speaker 1: top people that were on this letter, and they are
41:42
Speaker 1: all going to apparently be suppeining to come before Congress
41:45
Speaker 1: with these hearings on the House side, and he said, quote,
41:49
Speaker 1: all we were trying to do was raise a yellow
41:52
Speaker 1: flag that this quote could be Russian disinformation. And then
41:57
Speaker 1: he said, Politico deliberately distorted what we said. It was clear,
42:01
Speaker 1: he said quote in paragraph five of his letter. Now,
42:05
Speaker 1: almost everybody, even moderates to liberals in the media basically
42:10
Speaker 1: turned on him in the last twenty four hours, saying,
42:12
Speaker 1: you don't get to rewrite this, I want to get
42:14
Speaker 1: your reaction to it. Well, first of all, it's worth
42:18
Speaker 1: noting that everyone understood that the letter that Clapper and
42:28
Speaker 1: the other so called Intelligence Committee the Intelligence Community members
42:34
Speaker 1: signed was arguing that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.
42:41
Speaker 1: What Clapper's saying now is obviously spin, and it's spin
42:48
Speaker 1: to try to cover his own rear end because he
42:51
Speaker 1: is now subject to subject to scrutiny from the House majority.
43:00
Speaker 1: And Okay, so the headline, here's the headline Politico ran
43:05
Speaker 1: about Clapper's letter, quote Hunter Biden's story is Russian disinfo.
43:14
Speaker 1: Dozens of former Intel officials say so that was the
43:18
Speaker 1: story Politico wrote because they leaked the letter to Politico,
43:22
Speaker 1: and then lots of other media outlets, CNN and others
43:26
Speaker 1: covered the Politico story. Now Clapper at the time, did
43:30
Speaker 1: he issue a clarification this story is false. No. Did
43:34
Speaker 1: he go on TV and say this is not true.
43:36
Speaker 1: I didn't say it was Russian disinformation. No. The reason
43:40
Speaker 1: they wrote the letter, the reason they leaked the letter
43:44
Speaker 1: is they intended Politico to write exactly what they wrote.
43:47
Speaker 1: They intended the useful idiots and the press, the corrupt
43:50
Speaker 1: corporate media, to go forth with their lie. And we
43:54
Speaker 1: now know it was a lie. That it wasn't Russian disinformation.
43:58
Speaker 1: The laptop was true and real. But James Clapper wanted
44:03
Speaker 1: that story written two weeks before the election because he
44:06
Speaker 1: didn't want anyone to focus on what was in in
44:10
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden laptop. Well, and he even claimed Senator
44:14
Speaker 1: in the last twenty four hours that he was quote
44:17
Speaker 1: unaware that Biden brought up the letter in his final
44:20
Speaker 1: debate with former President Donald Trump and called the Post
44:25
Speaker 1: story a bunch of garbage. He said, also, you know
44:29
Speaker 1: he said that I didn't know about him, that I
44:31
Speaker 1: don't believe him. I think he is lying to us. Well,
44:34
Speaker 1: and let maybe clear. So Clapper was the head of
44:39
Speaker 1: the Department of National Intelligence under Barack Obama. Clapper has
44:43
Speaker 1: been a partisan his entire life. He's an extreme partisan,
44:47
Speaker 1: and he has a record of dishonesty. In March of
44:51
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, Clapper was testifying under oath and Senator Ron Widen,
44:55
Speaker 1: a Democrat, asked Clapper whether the United States government was
45:00
Speaker 1: acting quote any type of data at all on millions
45:04
Speaker 1: or hundreds of millions of Americans. Clapper paused and said, no, sir,
45:12
Speaker 1: not wittingly. Three months later, Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing
45:18
Speaker 1: that the National Security Agency was in fact collecting bulk
45:22
Speaker 1: domestic call records on millions of Americans. So Clapper, under
45:27
Speaker 1: oath to Congress, flat out lied. That lie became public.
45:33
Speaker 1: It prompted legislation that I co sponsored and helped write
45:37
Speaker 1: along with Senator Mike Lee, called the USA Freedom Act
45:41
Speaker 1: that significantly restricted the ability of the federal government to
45:45
Speaker 1: intercept the communications of law abiding American citizens. But Clapper
45:49
Speaker 1: was never held accountable. He lied to Congress under oath,
45:53
Speaker 1: and he's had a pattern of lying when it advances
45:56
Speaker 1: partisan interest. I would point out that clapper partner in crime,
46:01
Speaker 1: the director of the CIA under Barack Obama was a
46:04
Speaker 1: guy named John Brennan. John Brennan is such a partisan
46:08
Speaker 1: he makes James Clapper look moderate. John Brennan has famously
46:14
Speaker 1: told the story of when he was interviewing with the CIA,
46:20
Speaker 1: they asked him a question during his polygraphy, you ever
46:22
Speaker 1: associated with anyone who's called for the violent overthrow of
46:25
Speaker 1: the government of the United States? And he described how
46:29
Speaker 1: he panicked because he realized that the truthful answer to
46:32
Speaker 1: that was yes. So in nineteen seventy six, John Brennan
46:36
Speaker 1: was a young college student fresh out of college, and
46:40
Speaker 1: there was a presidential election, a presidential election between Jimmy
46:45
Speaker 1: Carter and Gerald Ford, and young John Brennan looked at
46:49
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and decided, Jimmy Carter is
46:54
Speaker 1: not liberal enough for me. I need someone more liberal
46:59
Speaker 1: than Jimmy Carter. So what did John Brennan do in
47:02
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six He cast a vote for Gus Hall,
47:06
Speaker 1: who was the candidate for President of the United States
47:09
Speaker 1: of the Communist Party of the United States of America.
47:12
Speaker 1: So he went in and voted for the communist to
47:16
Speaker 1: be president of the United States because he thought Jimmy
47:19
Speaker 1: Carter was too conservative. That's who Barack Obama named as
47:24
Speaker 1: his head of CIA. That was James Clapper's compatriot. Clapper
47:28
Speaker 1: had lied previously under oath to Congress, so it should
47:32
Speaker 1: be no surprise that in the twenty twenty election these
47:36
Speaker 1: same partisan players are comfortable lying and they continue doing
47:40
Speaker 1: so well. I hope that they are terrified, and I
47:44
Speaker 1: hope that the House Republicans hold them accountable for this.
47:48
Speaker 1: They're obviously, especially James Clapper, trying to cover his ass
47:52
Speaker 1: now before he asked to come in and testify, because
47:54
Speaker 1: they said they're going to get these Sapians, these top
47:56
Speaker 1: people in this letter, and they deserve the American people
47:59
Speaker 1: is to get these answers, and now him trying to
48:02
Speaker 1: rewrite history before he gets there. I think it's a
48:04
Speaker 1: good sign the Republicans are making headway there. Centator always
48:08
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Want to remind people we do this podcast
48:10
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48:13
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