Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Reflecting on Jimmy Carter's Passing, plus Washington Post Absurdly Tries to Re-Write History to Defend Biden

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Reflecting on Jimmy Carter's Passing, plus Washington Post Absurdly Tries to Re-Write History to Defend Biden · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
0:04
Speaker 1: with you and Senator this is the last podcast we
0:07
Speaker 1: are going to do in twenty twenty four. It has
0:10
Speaker 1: been a year that has been filled with in insane stories,
0:14
Speaker 1: an unbelievable election, and also today we found out about
0:18
Speaker 1: the passing of a former president of the United States
0:21
Speaker 1: of America, Jimmy Carter.
0:22
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, and so we're going to reflect today
0:25
Speaker 2: on the passing of Jimmy Carter. We're also going to
0:27
Speaker 2: talk about at just an extraordinary article in the Washington
0:31
Speaker 2: Post that was an attempt to whitewash all four years
0:34
Speaker 2: of Joe Biden's presidency. It may be the single most
0:38
Speaker 2: dishonest journalistic piece I've seen, and also the most screamingly
0:42
Speaker 2: funny pretense at journalism I've seen in years. We're gonna
0:47
Speaker 2: talk about that in depth. All that coming up.
0:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it truly is amazing to see what the media
0:53
Speaker 1: will cover now that there's no consequences to doing the
0:57
Speaker 1: stories on Joe Biden the way they should have long
1:00
Speaker 1: before now. But let's move back to what we mentioned
1:03
Speaker 1: a moment ago, and that is the life and legacy
1:06
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Carter. He was a thirty ninth president of
1:09
Speaker 1: the United States of America. He made it to the
1:12
Speaker 1: incredible age of one hundred. That is how old he
1:16
Speaker 1: is the day he passed. And I tell you, Jimmy Carter,
1:20
Speaker 1: it's an interesting legacy because he was one of the
1:23
Speaker 1: most unpopular presidents when he left office and certainly in
1:27
Speaker 1: modern political history. But his legacy that he left behind
1:32
Speaker 1: is actually incredible. It's extraordinary what he did after leaving
1:36
Speaker 1: the White House.
1:37
Speaker 3: Well.
1:38
Speaker 2: James Earl Carter Junior was born on October first, nineteen
1:41
Speaker 2: twenty four. He was born in Plains, Georgia, and he
1:44
Speaker 2: lived one hundred years. He died on December twenty ninth,
1:47
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. He was age one hundred. He was
1:51
Speaker 2: the oldest former president to have ever lived. No president
1:54
Speaker 2: lived to one hundred other than him. And he also
1:58
Speaker 2: has an interesting statistic and Rosalind Carter where the president
2:03
Speaker 2: and first lady who were married the longest. They got
2:06
Speaker 2: married in the year nineteen forty six and she died
2:10
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. She died last year, so they
2:12
Speaker 2: were married seventy seven years. That's the longest any president,
2:15
Speaker 2: first lady, I've ever been married. And you know, I
2:18
Speaker 2: got to say, in talking about Jimmy Carter, there's a
2:23
Speaker 2: lot that I certainly want to honor. I want to
2:26
Speaker 2: honor his military service. He is a graduate of the
2:30
Speaker 2: United States Naval Academy. He was in the Navy. He
2:33
Speaker 2: was active duty from nineteen forty six to nineteen fifty three.
2:37
Speaker 2: He was in the reserves from nineteen fifty three to
2:40
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one. He was a sub mariner. He was
2:43
Speaker 2: one of the very first sub mariners, and he had
2:46
Speaker 2: honorable service. And then he returned to Georgia and became
2:50
Speaker 2: a peanut farmer, joined the family's family farm, and ended
2:54
Speaker 2: up going into politics and running for state Senate, running
2:57
Speaker 2: for governor, and then running a a scrappy grassroots campaign
3:02
Speaker 2: and really shocking the world as an unknown Southern governor,
3:06
Speaker 2: getting the Democrat nomination for president in nineteen seventy six
3:11
Speaker 2: and being elected president. And you know, I will say,
3:16
Speaker 2: look at it, it is no secret that I have
3:19
Speaker 2: strong disagreements with Jimmy Carter's policy decisions and so but
3:24
Speaker 2: and I've detailed those at length before. I'm not going
3:27
Speaker 2: to choose the moment of his passing to go into that,
3:30
Speaker 2: I'm simply going to honor his life. He had honorable
3:34
Speaker 2: service defending our nation. He had honorable service in public office.
3:40
Speaker 2: And you know, I will say, look, I never met
3:42
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter. I did not know him personally, but he
3:46
Speaker 2: always struck me as an honest, honorable man. Was he
3:52
Speaker 2: was very open about his faith. He was a Southern Baptist.
3:55
Speaker 2: He in nineteen seventy six. It was a bit of
3:59
Speaker 2: a shocking thing nationally that he described himself as a
4:02
Speaker 2: born again Christian, and that was a a a new
4:05
Speaker 2: thing in politics.
4:07
Speaker 3: And and he was.
4:08
Speaker 2: He taught Sunday school right up almost to the moment
4:11
Speaker 2: of his death, until his health finally prevented him from
4:13
Speaker 2: doing so. You're right that that that his legacy after
4:18
Speaker 2: the White House was remarkable, and he did a lot
4:22
Speaker 2: of things, I think most notably with Habitat for Humanity.
4:25
Speaker 2: He put enormous for decades. He was very focused on
4:28
Speaker 2: building homes for those in need.
4:31
Speaker 3: Uh.
4:31
Speaker 2: And I will say he also did not as a
4:33
Speaker 2: former president. He didn't go out and and and seek
4:36
Speaker 2: the limelight excessively. He wasn't a vocal critic of his
4:41
Speaker 2: successors and and I think all of that, all of
4:45
Speaker 2: that is is to be commended, even if even if
4:48
Speaker 2: the policy decisions he made are different than than than
4:52
Speaker 2: those you and I might have chosen to make. I'll
4:55
Speaker 2: tell you two interesting things. Number One, do you know
4:59
Speaker 2: who else was worn on the very same day Jimmy
5:01
Speaker 2: Carter was born on October first, nineteen twenty four.
5:06
Speaker 1: Who I have no idea?
5:08
Speaker 2: Well, we've talked about this before. I you know, I
5:10
Speaker 2: give friends grief. Sometimes I'm like, don't you bother to
5:13
Speaker 2: listen to the podcast? And I'm gonna ask you, ben,
5:14
Speaker 2: don't you bother to listen or to our podcast?
5:16
Speaker 3: And we've talked about that.
5:20
Speaker 1: On the set up And this is the moment if
5:23
Speaker 1: anyone's listening right now, if you want to know what
5:25
Speaker 1: is set up from Center Cruz sounds like I get
5:28
Speaker 1: the experiences more than almost anyone else in the world.
5:32
Speaker 1: This is a setup and this is how it always
5:35
Speaker 1: plays out. So you've all been warned. This is that moment.
5:38
Speaker 1: If you're a dinner with him, you know it's coming,
5:41
Speaker 1: So go ahead. I cannot wait to hear this answer.
5:44
Speaker 2: So Jimmy Carter was born on the very same day
5:47
Speaker 2: that William Hubbs Renquist, the sixteenth Chief Justice of the
5:50
Speaker 2: United States, was born. And as you know, Chief Justice
5:54
Speaker 2: Renquist was was my former boss, and I knew him well.
5:57
Speaker 2: And he passed a long time ago, so I mean,
5:59
Speaker 2: he did not live to a hundred And I wrote
6:03
Speaker 2: a couple of different obituaries for Chief Justice Renquist when
6:06
Speaker 2: he passed, and noted in one of the obituaries that
6:09
Speaker 2: I wrote that he and Jimmy Carter were born on
6:12
Speaker 2: the exact same day. And so that gives a sense
6:15
Speaker 2: of the length of time and service that Jimmy Carter served.
6:20
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you secondly, so Jimmy Carter, interestingly is
6:26
Speaker 2: intimately connected to my very first political memory in life.
6:30
Speaker 2: Really how so, so my first political memory, and in
6:36
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six is my mother voted for Jimmy Carter.
6:41
Speaker 2: And my mother was a Republican, but she just thought
6:45
Speaker 2: Gerald Ford was an idiot. She did not like Ford.
6:48
Speaker 2: She just thought he was not all that bright, and
6:51
Speaker 2: she thought Carter seemed like a very nice man, and
6:53
Speaker 2: so she voted for Carter. And what I remember, so
6:56
Speaker 2: at the time, my dad, who you know, as you know,
6:59
Speaker 2: is from Cuba. He was a Canadian citizen at the time.
7:01
Speaker 2: They'd moved to Canada and started a business in Canada,
7:04
Speaker 2: and so he was not a US citizen at the time.
7:06
Speaker 2: And I remember my dad and my mom having an
7:10
Speaker 2: argument in the living room because my father was horrified
7:14
Speaker 2: that she had voted for Jimmy Carter, and and because
7:18
Speaker 2: she was an American citizen and he was not at
7:20
Speaker 2: the time. He is now, but he wasn't then. He
7:23
Speaker 2: felt like she had the family vote, and so he
7:26
Speaker 2: was really I just remember them fighting back and forth.
7:28
Speaker 2: My mother came to regret that particular vote, But my
7:31
Speaker 2: first awareness that politics existed was wondering why my father
7:37
Speaker 2: was so upset that that that my mother had voted
7:39
Speaker 2: for Jimmy Carter.
7:41
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. My first interaction with Jimmy Jimmy Carter
7:44
Speaker 1: was actually, of all things, you laugh because if you
7:47
Speaker 1: if you've ever met my sister, she's not exactly the
7:51
Speaker 1: most political person. She's interested the school teacher, and she
7:55
Speaker 1: kind of laughs at how different our lives are. But
7:58
Speaker 1: she met a president of the units It's America before
8:01
Speaker 1: I ever did, and it was Jimmy Carter at the
8:04
Speaker 1: Memphis College of Art, where I think one of his
8:07
Speaker 1: children or grandchildren, was at school. He had come down
8:11
Speaker 1: for an event. She happened to be there and got
8:13
Speaker 1: his autograph when she was like, I think seven or
8:15
Speaker 1: eight years old. And so.
8:18
Speaker 2: He was a nice man.
8:19
Speaker 1: Oh set, he was so nice. He talked to her
8:22
Speaker 1: for a minute and chatted and they talked about Memphis
8:25
Speaker 1: and asked what she was studying and was she doing art,
8:28
Speaker 1: And so to this day she's always like, you know,
8:31
Speaker 1: you may have met a lot of political people, but
8:33
Speaker 1: I just went to remind you I met a president
8:36
Speaker 1: long before you ever did, which is true because I
8:38
Speaker 1: didn't meet a president for another I don't know, fifteen years.
8:41
Speaker 2: Well, and look that that's consistent with it with everything
8:44
Speaker 2: I've ever heard, I've never heard of him being unpleasant
8:47
Speaker 2: to anyone.
8:48
Speaker 3: You know.
8:48
Speaker 2: One of the things I saw on Twitter today was
8:51
Speaker 2: videos of him coming on to a commercial flight on
8:56
Speaker 2: Delta and just stopping and shaking hands with everyone in
8:59
Speaker 2: the seats going through, which seems very consistent with everything
9:04
Speaker 2: about his character that I knew about. You know, Donald
9:07
Speaker 2: Trump sent out a tweet that I thought was was
9:13
Speaker 2: very well done. Here's what Trump wrote, quote, I just
9:16
Speaker 2: heard of the news about the passing of President Jimmy Carter.
9:19
Speaker 2: Those of us who have been fortunate to have served
9:21
Speaker 2: as president understand that this is a very exclusive club,
9:24
Speaker 2: and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of
9:27
Speaker 2: leading the greatest nation in history. The challenges Jimmy faced
9:31
Speaker 2: as president came at a pivotal time for our country,
9:35
Speaker 2: and he did everything in his power to improve the
9:37
Speaker 2: lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him
9:41
Speaker 2: a debt of gratitude. Milanie and I are thinking warmly
9:44
Speaker 2: of the Carter family and their loved ones during this
9:46
Speaker 2: difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their
9:49
Speaker 2: hearts and prayers. And I got to say what I
9:51
Speaker 2: like about that statement, in particular, is the second paragraph.
9:57
Speaker 2: The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal
10:01
Speaker 2: time for our country, unquestionably true. And he did everything
10:05
Speaker 2: in his power to improve the lives of all Americans.
10:08
Speaker 2: And I think that's a very nice way to compliment him,
10:11
Speaker 2: because I think he did believe he was improving the
10:14
Speaker 2: lives of all Americans. Now, Trump did not say his
10:16
Speaker 2: policy succeeded in that, but he was earnest in his
10:20
Speaker 2: desire and effort, And I thought that was a nice
10:23
Speaker 2: way for Trump to compliment it.
10:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is, and I will say is divided
10:29
Speaker 1: as politics has been. It is cool to see a
10:31
Speaker 1: former president put politics aside in many ways later in
10:36
Speaker 1: his career and his legacy and work with building homes
10:40
Speaker 1: and bringing people together in that way. I know several
10:43
Speaker 1: people that had the opportunity to help build a home
10:45
Speaker 1: with him, Habitat for Humanity many different places around the country,
10:49
Speaker 1: and it really is cool to see that legacy. So
10:52
Speaker 1: our thoughts and our prayers are with the family, obviously
10:56
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Carter. And any time you have a president
10:58
Speaker 1: of the United States of America passed way, it's always important.
11:01
Speaker 1: I think we just take a moment pause and say,
11:04
Speaker 1: job well done. I mean, to live one hundred years
11:07
Speaker 1: is incredible. To be a president of the United States
11:09
Speaker 1: of America, the thirty ninth president, incredible, and to do
11:12
Speaker 1: what he did after he left the White House really remaking.
11:15
Speaker 1: I think how people would remember him, because they don't
11:17
Speaker 1: really remember the political stuff in the seventies and what
11:22
Speaker 1: brought us Ron Reagan. They remember I think that he
11:24
Speaker 1: built a lot of To be.
11:26
Speaker 2: Clear, Skippy, you weren't alive then so so you definitely
11:28
Speaker 2: don't remember it eighty one.
11:30
Speaker 1: I'm mean eighty one, but my, oh my, did I
11:32
Speaker 1: hear the stories? I heard the stories. All right, let's get.
11:36
Speaker 2: Well, well, the Reagan Revolution doesn't doesn't make sense without
11:40
Speaker 2: the car to predicate. But but that's that's another story
11:43
Speaker 2: for another day. So let's move to the Washington Post.
11:47
Speaker 2: And I'm going to do something unusual on this podcast.
11:49
Speaker 2: So I read this article and my head exploded, and
11:54
Speaker 2: I texted you and said, this is the most absurd
11:59
Speaker 2: self set arising article I've ever seen. So I just
12:02
Speaker 2: want to go through it literally, line by line. This
12:05
Speaker 2: is a major story in the Washington Post banner headline
12:09
Speaker 2: on Drudge and it is entitled We're just going to
12:12
Speaker 2: go through sentence by sentence. It's entitled how Biden leads
12:17
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's lonely battle to sell his vision of American democracy.
12:21
Speaker 2: In his presidency's final chapter, Biden has mused about whether
12:25
Speaker 2: he should have handled some decisions differently. And the guy
12:29
Speaker 2: who wrote this is a guy named Tyler Pager. We're
12:31
Speaker 2: going to come back to him later. So let's start earlier.
12:35
Speaker 2: This year, Representative James E. Clyburn met President Joe Biden
12:38
Speaker 2: at the White House to deliver a stern message Biden
12:41
Speaker 2: had to find a way to revitalize his flagging campaign.
12:44
Speaker 2: Clyburn who had been pivotal to Biden's twenty twenty victory,
12:47
Speaker 2: also made a confession about his own long standing belief
12:50
Speaker 2: that substance is more important than style and politics.
12:53
Speaker 3: Quote.
12:53
Speaker 2: I've come to the conclusion in recent days that I'm
12:55
Speaker 2: wrong about that, the South Carolina Democrat eighty four remembers,
12:59
Speaker 2: telling Biden the new environment that we currently live in,
13:02
Speaker 2: style seems to carry the day more than substance. Your style,
13:06
Speaker 2: he told the President, does not lend itself well to
13:09
Speaker 2: the environment we're currently in. Clyburne's conclusion, which was shared
13:13
Speaker 2: by anxious Democrats in the months before the president ended
13:16
Speaker 2: his reelection bid, undermined brought Biden's theory of presidential leadership.
13:21
Speaker 2: After Donald Trump's assent, Biden believed that he just needed
13:25
Speaker 2: to show Americans that traditional democracy still worked by listening,
13:31
Speaker 2: but two experts working with Republicans passing popular policies, and
13:36
Speaker 2: voters would rally around him. Right, let's stop there. Okay,
13:40
Speaker 2: so so far every word of this article, if this
13:44
Speaker 2: was written by the Biden Press office, it would not
13:46
Speaker 2: be any different. And this entire article is hagiography. This
13:50
Speaker 2: entire article is not journalism. It is not only trying
13:55
Speaker 2: to praise breathlessly as we're going to go through Joe
13:59
Speaker 2: Biden and cas tim as a mighty titan, but it
14:03
Speaker 2: is profoundly dishonest. So it starts with the frame that
14:08
Speaker 2: Biden's great success is on substance, not style. And the
14:12
Speaker 2: obvious implication of which we're going to get more is
14:14
Speaker 2: that all Trump has his style. There's no substance. That's
14:17
Speaker 2: the obvious implication. Let's take this last sentence after Donald
14:21
Speaker 2: Trump's assent, Biden believed he just needed to show Americans
14:25
Speaker 2: that traditional democracy still worked.
14:28
Speaker 3: We're going to get more into democracy a second.
14:30
Speaker 2: By listening to experts, working with Republicans and passing popular policies.
14:36
Speaker 2: All right, what experts did he listen to? He did
14:39
Speaker 2: not work with Republicans. Every damned thing he passed he
14:42
Speaker 2: rammed through on a vicious party line vote. He used
14:45
Speaker 2: budget reconciliation over and over again with no Republicans and
14:49
Speaker 2: passing popular policies. Nobody helped Donald Trump get elected more
14:54
Speaker 2: than Joseph Robinette Biden Junior, because his policies were so
14:58
Speaker 2: incredibly unpopular.
15:00
Speaker 3: All right, let's keep going back to the article.
15:04
Speaker 2: Quote he succeeded in phase one of his plan? Did
15:07
Speaker 2: he now enacting legislation, much of it bipartisan, to reshape
15:12
Speaker 2: the nation's infrastructure, revive the semiconductor industry, and fight climate change.
15:18
Speaker 2: Let's be clear the climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act
15:21
Speaker 2: was a straight party line vote rammed through in reconciliation.
15:25
Speaker 2: But phase two never happened. The truth of Biden's presidency
15:29
Speaker 2: is that he has failed in what, by his own count,
15:33
Speaker 2: his most important mission, making Trump's presidency seem like an aberration.
15:39
Speaker 2: Quote he governed through traditional processes and institutions, said Julians E. Zellezer,
15:45
Speaker 2: a moron presidential historian at Princeton University. It doesn't say moron,
15:49
Speaker 2: but you're going to see that everything this guy says.
15:52
Speaker 2: I know he's sadly a professor at my alma mater.
15:54
Speaker 2: He's a complete moron. Let's start with the traditional processes
15:57
Speaker 2: and institutions. There's nothing traditional about weaponizing the federal government
16:05
Speaker 2: to go after your opponents. There's nothing traditional about prosecuting
16:08
Speaker 2: and indicting the former president over and over and over again.
16:12
Speaker 2: There's nothing traditional and using the institutions about opening the
16:17
Speaker 2: border and having an invasion of our country. But here
16:21
Speaker 2: the good Princeton professor quote, it didn't change the picture
16:24
Speaker 2: where he started this anger in the electorate towards institution.
16:28
Speaker 2: This support for a pretty radical conservative vision that Trump embodied,
16:33
Speaker 2: it didn't do anything to end the very intense polarization
16:37
Speaker 2: that exists in this country.
16:39
Speaker 3: Now.
16:39
Speaker 2: The idea that Trump is a radical conservative is a
16:42
Speaker 2: bizarre idea. Trump ran on securing the border, bringing down inflation,
16:47
Speaker 2: standing with our friends, and defeating our enemies. That is
16:50
Speaker 2: that is very hard to characterize as a quote radical
16:53
Speaker 2: conservative vision. But hey, the Princeton professor says it, and
16:57
Speaker 2: the Washington Post breathlessly sports it. We're gonna go on,
17:01
Speaker 2: but give me your thoughts so far, then we'll go
17:03
Speaker 2: back to the article.
17:05
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that this is how they want to
17:08
Speaker 1: just rewrite history part of this and just be be
17:11
Speaker 1: so delusional. I am a little bit.
17:14
Speaker 3: It gets worse.
17:15
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit shocked though. If they like you
17:19
Speaker 1: know how you're supposed to like proofread before you print.
17:23
Speaker 1: If you're reading what you just wrote. That you just read.
17:27
Speaker 1: I would think there would be a moment where you
17:29
Speaker 1: might be like, I don't know if this needs to
17:31
Speaker 1: see the light of day. Yet here it is. They
17:33
Speaker 1: put it out there.
17:35
Speaker 2: All right, Let's keep going because it gets much much worse.
17:38
Speaker 2: Previous articles in this series examine the pillars. Oh, they're
17:42
Speaker 2: so strong. The pillars, the pillars of Biden's leadership, how
17:46
Speaker 2: he absorbs information, how he makes decisions, how he communicates
17:50
Speaker 2: with Americans.
17:51
Speaker 3: They showed that Biden.
17:52
Speaker 2: Even at the peak of his glorious magnificent power, doesn't
17:55
Speaker 2: say glorious magnificent, but it's just implied, struggled mightily to
17:59
Speaker 2: communicated his decisions and vision. This article, based on interviews
18:03
Speaker 2: with more than two thousand people close to Biden, reveals
18:06
Speaker 2: the ways in which his theory of how to succeed
18:08
Speaker 2: in an era of American politics dominated by Trump fell
18:11
Speaker 2: apart in the final phase of his presidency, and how
18:15
Speaker 2: he's been publicly and privately rethinking whether he should have
18:17
Speaker 2: handled some decisions differently even some of his closest advisers
18:22
Speaker 2: without faulting. Biden conceded recently that his style of governing
18:25
Speaker 2: did not always mesh with today's politics. Quote, the president
18:31
Speaker 2: has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades,
18:35
Speaker 2: while the political cycle is measured in four years. Jake Sullivan,
18:40
Speaker 2: Biden's national security advisor, said, with his lips planted firmly
18:44
Speaker 2: on Biden's rear end. That last piece was my com Like,
18:49
Speaker 2: I want to go back in and listen to that
18:50
Speaker 2: sentence again. The president has been operating on a time
18:55
Speaker 2: horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is made
19:00
Speaker 2: in four years.
19:01
Speaker 3: Now.
19:02
Speaker 2: Look, kudos to the Biden White House for just having
19:06
Speaker 2: the hutzpah to say, oh, Biden's presidency would be hysteric,
19:11
Speaker 2: and you know, you really have to measure decades. Twelve
19:13
Speaker 2: million people invading this country. Four years is too short
19:16
Speaker 2: to measure it. We're going to screw up this country
19:18
Speaker 2: for decades, you know, undermining our allies, causing two wars,
19:24
Speaker 2: a war in Ukraine and a war in Gaza. Like,
19:26
Speaker 2: you're right, the the harm from Biden will last decades.
19:31
Speaker 2: But that's their entire spin. Well, yes, everything Biden did
19:37
Speaker 2: was profoundly unpopular because all of his policies failed, but
19:41
Speaker 2: he's really playing the long game. You foolish people don't
19:45
Speaker 2: understand this. This this misery.
19:48
Speaker 3: Is good for you. All right, Let's let's keep going.
19:51
Speaker 2: Sullivan added that Biden's accomplishments, by their nature, will take
19:56
Speaker 2: a long time to bear fruit. Quote how to govern
19:59
Speaker 2: it this moment to set the US up for long
20:02
Speaker 2: term success has one answer, and how to deal with
20:05
Speaker 2: midterm and presidential elections in the very short term might
20:08
Speaker 2: have a different answer. He said, the president went with
20:11
Speaker 2: doing things that really put America in a strong position. Ben,
20:17
Speaker 2: what the hell have they done to put America in
20:19
Speaker 2: a strong position in every.
20:21
Speaker 3: Part of the world.
20:23
Speaker 2: America is weaker today than when Joe Biden entered the
20:26
Speaker 2: White House. Like, this is absurd. And I got to say,
20:31
Speaker 2: the absurd thing We're gonna go back to this in
20:33
Speaker 2: a minute, is the Washington Post just publishes this drivel
20:38
Speaker 2: like its news. That there's not a moment of reflection,
20:42
Speaker 2: there's not a moment of facts, that there's not a
20:47
Speaker 2: moment of reality, And it's I mean, how do you
20:53
Speaker 2: react to that that, oh, he's playing the long game.
20:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's two things here. One, there's a
21:02
Speaker 1: part of me that's like I can't believe it, And
21:04
Speaker 1: then there's another part of me it's like good, because
21:07
Speaker 1: if you don't learn from your losses, then you're going
21:11
Speaker 1: to repeat the same mistakes that you just made. And
21:13
Speaker 1: I think the Democratic Party learned nothing from November. Nothing
21:17
Speaker 1: from losing the popular vote, nothing from the resurrection of
21:20
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, from from two thy to twenty twenty four,
21:24
Speaker 1: nothing from weaponizing the government, nothing from overspinning and no accountability,
21:28
Speaker 1: and honestly nothing, They've learned nothing from having a president
21:31
Speaker 1: that quickly was incapacitated. So part of me is like good, Yeah,
21:35
Speaker 1: keep writing these types of articles because it's gonna help
21:38
Speaker 1: conservatives like you and I be able to be way
21:41
Speaker 1: more successful in getting this country back on track.
21:45
Speaker 2: Well, the Ben the Post just reported that he absorbed
21:48
Speaker 2: information like you know, some some sort of nobel you know, scientists,
21:53
Speaker 2: Like just all right, let's let's go back. As his
21:57
Speaker 2: presidency and his fifty year political career down far faster
22:01
Speaker 2: than he wanted, Biden's taken to acknowledging some strategic mistakes,
22:04
Speaker 2: both big and small. Many of those missteps resulted from
22:07
Speaker 2: his determination to restore the age old rules of the
22:11
Speaker 2: American presidency after Trump's term, a determination that many of
22:15
Speaker 2: his supporters in retrospect consider a politically fatal error. All right,
22:20
Speaker 2: so what are the age old rules of the American
22:22
Speaker 2: presidency that he returned to earlier this month in a
22:26
Speaker 2: speech on his economic legacy, Biden admitted he was stupid
22:31
Speaker 2: for not putting his own name on the pandemic relief
22:33
Speaker 2: checks his administration sent out in twenty twenty one. Yeah,
22:37
Speaker 2: that really was the problem. He just didn't sign the checks. Clearly,
22:40
Speaker 2: Kamala would have won if Biden had just signed those checks.
22:43
Speaker 2: That that was the pivotal issue.
22:46
Speaker 3: Damn it.
22:47
Speaker 2: I didn't see Joe Biden's name on those checks, so
22:49
Speaker 2: forget it. But hey, Trump, by contrast, made a point
22:53
Speaker 2: of signing his own relief checks in twenty twenty, and
22:55
Speaker 2: Biden suggested that Trump got more credit for the economic
22:58
Speaker 2: recovery because of it.
22:59
Speaker 3: Balderdawn.
23:00
Speaker 2: Biden acknowledged that he had quote screwed up. It is
23:04
Speaker 2: June twenty seventh debate against Trump. You think as he
23:07
Speaker 2: struggled to put together sentences and defend his policies as
23:10
Speaker 2: his rivals held forth with a series of falsehoods. Evil
23:14
Speaker 2: liar who I hate named Donald Trump. That is not
23:17
Speaker 2: there it's just implied and called him a criminal. He
23:20
Speaker 2: does not regret participating in the debate Justice performance that night.
23:24
Speaker 2: Now at this point, there's a breakout quote, and you
23:28
Speaker 2: know what the breakout quote is. It's Jake Sullivan saying
23:31
Speaker 2: the president is operating on a time horizon measured in decades,
23:34
Speaker 2: while the political cycle is measured in four years. So
23:37
Speaker 2: if you missed the central political spin from the White House,
23:41
Speaker 2: then well that's your problem.
23:44
Speaker 3: Let's keep going.
23:45
Speaker 2: He is also mused on changes in the media, arguing
23:48
Speaker 2: that he did not get enough credit for his accomplishments,
23:50
Speaker 2: especially on the economy, but inciting examples like Richard M.
23:54
Speaker 2: Nixon's nineteen sixty debate against John F. Kennedy, Biden has
23:57
Speaker 2: suggested that, like Nixon, he has struggled to a to
24:00
Speaker 2: a new media landscape. We pick what news we want
24:03
Speaker 2: to hear. It's a totally different deal, Biden said in
24:05
Speaker 2: a podcast interview this month.
24:07
Speaker 3: We've got to figure out how we deal with.
24:08
Speaker 2: This significant technological change. If Nixon was more accustomed to television,
24:12
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have perspired so much, and he would be president.
24:16
Speaker 3: When he beat Kennedy.
24:17
Speaker 2: I know that sounds silly, but think of the changes
24:19
Speaker 2: taking place. Where do you go what is true? We
24:21
Speaker 2: have no evidence anymore. I'm not sure how that gets resolved.
24:24
Speaker 2: The President and his aides have acknowledged that they struggled
24:27
Speaker 2: to communicate. See, that's the whole problem. The record was phenomenal.
24:31
Speaker 2: They just failed to communicate it. Struggle to communicate about
24:34
Speaker 2: the administration's efforts to lift the country out of the pandemic.
24:38
Speaker 2: Frustrated that even as the United States fared better than
24:41
Speaker 2: other countries, Americans did not feel the impact psychologically. You idiots,
24:45
Speaker 2: you're doing great. Why are you so dumb that you
24:48
Speaker 2: don't realize it?
24:49
Speaker 3: And now here's all right? Now?
24:52
Speaker 2: Remember so so far, there's two main themes that the
24:55
Speaker 2: Post has laid out. Number one, genius Biden is playing
25:00
Speaker 2: for the history books for the decades rather than the
25:02
Speaker 2: short term political cycles, so don't blame him for the
25:06
Speaker 2: disasters of his policies. But number two, that he wanted
25:09
Speaker 2: to restore the norms of the presidency and the norms
25:13
Speaker 2: of democracy.
25:15
Speaker 3: So this next paragraph is going to blow your mind.
25:19
Speaker 2: In private, Biden has also said he should have picked
25:23
Speaker 2: someone other than Merrick Garland as Attorney General. Well, no,
25:29
Speaker 2: kidding he was the most partisan and political attorney general
25:31
Speaker 2: in history, and to disgrace the Department of Justice. But no, no, no, no, no,
25:35
Speaker 2: that's not Biden's complaint. Biden quote complaining about the Justice
25:40
Speaker 2: Department's slowness under Garland in prosecuting Trump and its aggressiveness
25:48
Speaker 2: in prosecuting Biden's son Hunter, according to people familiar with
25:53
Speaker 2: his comments, so understand this great titan restoring the norms
25:58
Speaker 2: of the White House. His DOJ is the first Department
26:02
Speaker 2: of Justice to indict and prosecute a former president and
26:06
Speaker 2: a leading candidate for president who later got elected president
26:09
Speaker 2: in the history of our country. It's never been done.
26:12
Speaker 2: Under Biden, they did it twice. They absolutely weaponized the
26:16
Speaker 2: DOJ to go after his opponents over and over and
26:19
Speaker 2: over again. They weaponized the FBI. And his complaint is,
26:22
Speaker 2: damn it, they didn't do enough. They should have been
26:24
Speaker 2: more vigorous. They should have indicted him more. They should
26:27
Speaker 2: have indicted him faster. We should have we should have
26:30
Speaker 2: attacked him from day one. I mean it is. And
26:34
Speaker 2: by the way, everything I'm saying, there's not a word
26:37
Speaker 2: of that in this article that they don't acknowledge. No
26:40
Speaker 2: other d DOJ has indicted a president. They just report
26:46
Speaker 2: like a blinking doe eyed four year old. Well, his
26:51
Speaker 2: complaint was Biden didn't move fast enough. On the other thing,
26:54
Speaker 2: he was too aggressive in prosecuting Biden's son. Now, mind you,
26:59
Speaker 2: the Biden doo jay went to a court and tried
27:03
Speaker 2: to enter a sweetheart deal that Biden got a slap
27:05
Speaker 2: on the wrist in no jail time, and it was
27:08
Speaker 2: so egregious that the judge threw it out only after
27:11
Speaker 2: public scrutiny, including this podcast, which shined a great deal
27:15
Speaker 2: of light on it. But he still says that's too
27:18
Speaker 2: much to hold Hunter accountable. And by the way, the
27:21
Speaker 2: DOJ also bent over backwards to protect Joe Biden. It
27:27
Speaker 2: that paragraph may be the most astonishing paragraph of this
27:31
Speaker 2: entire article.
27:33
Speaker 1: You look at this article and I think there's three
27:36
Speaker 1: different points that I want to dive into with you. One,
27:40
Speaker 1: what was the real purpose of writing it? I'm still trying.
27:43
Speaker 1: I mean, I get the whole rewriting of history, but
27:45
Speaker 1: it's so extreme that I don't even think that many
27:49
Speaker 1: on the left could take this seriously or am I wrong?
27:51
Speaker 1: So let's start with that.
27:54
Speaker 2: Well, I think they have the audacity to believe that
27:59
Speaker 2: they can, that they are, that the newspaper, the Washington Post,
28:03
Speaker 2: is the first draft of history. And as said that
28:07
Speaker 2: this is not journalism, that this is hagiography. The article continues,
28:12
Speaker 2: We've only done about the first third of it. I'm
28:14
Speaker 2: not going to continue reading the.
28:15
Speaker 3: Rest of it.
28:16
Speaker 2: It goes on to say how Biden modeled himself after
28:19
Speaker 2: FDR and I am just going to skip skip to
28:22
Speaker 2: the end because the end is every bit as absurd
28:25
Speaker 2: as the earlier parts we read. So here's the end
28:27
Speaker 2: of the article. To show that he respects the peaceful
28:31
Speaker 2: transfer of power. Biden is welcoming Trump, who openly challenged
28:36
Speaker 2: that transition. Biden has repeatedly directed his aides to do
28:40
Speaker 2: all they can to help Trump assume the presidency after
28:44
Speaker 2: years of calling Trump unfit for high office. Now, mind you,
28:50
Speaker 2: every day in the White House, Biden is doing everything
28:53
Speaker 2: he can to frustrate Trump coming in.
28:55
Speaker 3: So what is he doing? Number one? He pardoned Hunter.
28:58
Speaker 2: Biden, which we predicted on this Post podcast, because he
29:00
Speaker 2: does not want any accountability for the rampant lawlessness of
29:04
Speaker 2: his son and the corruption of selling access to himself
29:08
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. Number two he pardoned every single federal death
29:14
Speaker 2: row inmate except for the three most notorious. So of
29:18
Speaker 2: the forty, he parted thirty seven of them. Again, we
29:20
Speaker 2: predicted that it was absolutely brazen. Why because he knew
29:25
Speaker 2: Trump was going to actually carry out the law, and
29:27
Speaker 2: so he's trying.
29:28
Speaker 3: To frustrate that.
29:28
Speaker 2: Number three, he's selling off the border wall for five
29:32
Speaker 2: dollars a parcel because he doesn't want Trump to build
29:35
Speaker 2: the wall. Number four, he's grant considering granting wholesale pardons.
29:41
Speaker 2: He is actively trying to do by the way. Number five,
29:44
Speaker 2: Trump is that he wants federal workers to go back
29:46
Speaker 2: to work. So Biden is signing contracts collective bargaining contracts
29:52
Speaker 2: to make sure the federal workers can stay home because
29:54
Speaker 2: he wants to tie up the next administration on litigation.
29:58
Speaker 2: So but here, here's what the Post said. Biden has
30:02
Speaker 2: repeatedly directed his aides to do all they can to
30:05
Speaker 2: help Trump assume the presidency. Like what utter and complete garbage.
30:10
Speaker 2: And let me say something, Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
30:14
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos should be ashamed of this garbage. If Jeff
30:18
Speaker 2: Bezos cared at all about the integrity of the Washington Post.
30:24
Speaker 2: This guy, Tyler Patron, I have no idea who this
30:26
Speaker 2: numbskull is. He should be fired. He is not a
30:29
Speaker 2: journalist anyone who writes this garbage that contains no facts,
30:34
Speaker 2: It contains no counterbalancing, countervailing side. It is simply if
30:42
Speaker 2: Madison Avenue were hired to come in and let's rewrite
30:47
Speaker 2: the Biden presidency to be exactly what we wanted it,
30:50
Speaker 2: they couldn't write it more ridiculous than this. And by
30:53
Speaker 2: the way, the editor who signed off on this should
30:56
Speaker 2: be fired as well. This is you want to know
30:59
Speaker 2: why nobody trust the media, It's because they publish garbage
31:02
Speaker 2: like this without even a tiny nod to facts or
31:13
Speaker 2: the simple reality that we just saw a overwhelming election
31:18
Speaker 2: where Trump won the popular vote of the seven battleground states,
31:21
Speaker 2: who won all seven, Like someone at the Post should say, gosh,
31:27
Speaker 2: maybe these incredibly popular policies that were so good for America,
31:33
Speaker 2: Maybe people really didn't like it. Maybe waging a war
31:35
Speaker 2: on oil and gas and driving up energy prices was
31:38
Speaker 2: a really bad idea and hurt a lot of Americans.
31:40
Speaker 2: Maybe undermining our allies, maybe giving Vladimir Putin a gift
31:47
Speaker 2: of waiving sanctions on Nordstring two and causing the biggest
31:50
Speaker 2: war in Europe since World War Two. Maybe that wasn't
31:52
Speaker 2: a great idea. Maybe sending one hundred million dollars to
31:55
Speaker 2: I Ran, who sends it to Hamas and Hansibala, who
31:57
Speaker 2: uses it to fund a war on Israel, the worst
31:59
Speaker 2: war on Middle East in fifty years. Maybe that wasn't
32:02
Speaker 2: a good idea. Maybe turning a blind eye and refusing
32:05
Speaker 2: to prosecute anti Semitic terrorists all across their protesters terrorists
32:09
Speaker 2: is too strong. But antisemitic protesters who threatened violence, Maybe
32:14
Speaker 2: that is a profoundly bad idea. Maybe watching the integrity
32:19
Speaker 2: half of America believes the FBI and the Department of
32:22
Speaker 2: Justice are completely unprincipled, because well they've been completely unprincipled.
32:28
Speaker 2: None of that that there isn't even the tiniest acknowledgment
32:33
Speaker 2: of facts. This is the Washington Post behaving in a
32:38
Speaker 2: way that I think everyone connected with this article ought
32:42
Speaker 2: to be thoroughly, thoroughly embarrassed. When your principle points are
32:48
Speaker 2: we're aiming for fifty years, not four. So as bad
32:51
Speaker 2: as our policies are in fifty years, will claim they
32:54
Speaker 2: were great, and Merrick Garland's problem was he wasn't political
32:59
Speaker 2: enough and he should have indicted Trump even more, and
33:02
Speaker 2: he should have covered up Biden's wrongdoings even more. And
33:07
Speaker 2: you don't acknowledge any like this is a load of
33:11
Speaker 2: crap that ain't journalism.
33:15
Speaker 1: Final question on this, because there's two articles now in
33:19
Speaker 1: about what an eight day span. One of them was
33:23
Speaker 1: an article that was written a couple of days ago
33:26
Speaker 1: encouraging Congress to stop Donald Trump and we mentioned on
33:29
Speaker 1: the show from becoming president, and then now you have
33:34
Speaker 1: this one. Is there a chance that the media has
33:39
Speaker 1: just gotten so radical and is so far gone now
33:42
Speaker 1: that they're actually just going to lose their influence over
33:45
Speaker 1: the American people because this is no longer even looking
33:49
Speaker 1: like journalism, and this is just two examples of just
33:52
Speaker 1: how insanely biased they are. Is that the blessing in
33:56
Speaker 1: disguise here?
33:58
Speaker 3: Yeah?
33:58
Speaker 2: I think there's no doubt that the reputation of journalism
34:02
Speaker 2: has gone down incredibly. You know, you see these these
34:05
Speaker 2: corporate journalists screaming about, you know, the American people are
34:10
Speaker 2: not journalists now. The fact Twitter or x has completely
34:13
Speaker 2: transformed it, where when they lie the facts come out immediately,
34:17
Speaker 2: and and and it drives these these liars crazy. Look,
34:21
Speaker 2: we've talked before about how Trump broke the media. This
34:26
Speaker 2: is this is an incredible example. And and by the way,
34:29
Speaker 2: look today in most corporate media outlets, there's going to
34:34
Speaker 2: be some ha giography of Jimmy Carter. You know what,
34:38
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that he lived till one hundred. It's
34:41
Speaker 2: the time of his pathing. I think you can be
34:44
Speaker 2: respectful to people when they pass Now, mind you, the
34:47
Speaker 2: media never is to Republicans, but set that aside. It's
34:53
Speaker 2: one thing to do it when someone passes away. It's
34:57
Speaker 2: another thing to do it when you they're just ignoring
35:03
Speaker 2: reality that the American people rejected the obvious and incredible
35:08
Speaker 2: failures of the Biden policies. And it's not even that
35:12
Speaker 2: they don't include it. Much of what they say in
35:14
Speaker 2: the article is exactly the opposite of reality. So when
35:19
Speaker 2: you hold Joe Biden up as a paragon of returning
35:23
Speaker 2: to norms, look look on our open borders. No president
35:28
Speaker 2: in the history of this nation, none has had a
35:33
Speaker 2: lawless policy of simply defying federal immigration law and releasing
35:37
Speaker 2: the people they apprehend That was a massive issue in
35:41
Speaker 2: this election. They don't acknowledge it at all. Instead, they
35:44
Speaker 2: say he's a champion for democracy. This is at the
35:47
Speaker 2: same time they're arguing to hell with democracy, block Trump
35:52
Speaker 2: from becoming president. They went to court repeatedly, they tried
35:55
Speaker 2: to throw them in jail. They you know, we saw
35:59
Speaker 2: multiple Democrat officials across the country try to throw Trump
36:02
Speaker 2: off the ballot. Thankfully, the Supreme Court unanimously reverse that
36:06
Speaker 2: because you know, nothing says defending democracy like trying to
36:10
Speaker 2: stop damn pesky voters voting for your opponents.
36:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really You're right, It's incredible and I do
36:16
Speaker 1: think Trump, as you said, breaking the media is going
36:19
Speaker 1: to have an incredible impact on future elections. Not having
36:24
Speaker 1: to basically go up against a machine that has been
36:27
Speaker 1: as effective as the media has been. They have been
36:30
Speaker 1: basically being able to give billions of dollars in kind
36:32
Speaker 1: donations Democratic candidates, and they seem to be losing that influence.
36:36
Speaker 1: Let's hope it keeps going that way. Don't forget We
36:38
Speaker 1: do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday's. Hit that subscriber
36:41
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36:45
Speaker 1: five story review if you would. Wherever you listen to
36:47
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36:50
Speaker 1: the Ben Ferguson Podcasts. I'll keep you up to data
36:52
Speaker 1: to date on the latest breaking news as well and
36:55
Speaker 1: the Senate and I will see you in twenty twenty five.
36:59
Speaker 1: Be safe out there on New Year's Eve and we'll
37:01
Speaker 1: see then