Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Democrats Were Getting Excited Until 'You Know What' Hit The Fan

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Democrats Were Getting Excited Until 'You Know What' Hit The Fan · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

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Speaker 1: Welcoming to his verdict was Senator Ted Cruz before we
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Speaker 1: even get started. Today's show is going to have a
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Speaker 1: lot of big information in it. Grab a piece of paper,
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Speaker 1: grab a pencil, and make sure you hit that subscribe
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Speaker 1: or auto download button because with all the special Prosecutor,
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Speaker 1: we may be doing breaking news shows. You don't want
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Speaker 1: to miss those. So if you hit subscribe auto download,
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Speaker 1: you'll know every time we do a podcast. With that
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Speaker 1: being said, Senator, it has been one hell of a
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Speaker 1: week for Democrats. They thought they were coming out of
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Speaker 1: this mid term election was some momentum. They were excited
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Speaker 1: about gas prices coming down a little bit, They were
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Speaker 1: excited about the approval rating numbers coming up a little
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Speaker 1: bit for Joe Biden. David Gergen put it this way,
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Speaker 1: saying he was very excited until all the you know
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Speaker 1: what hit the fan with these documents now about the
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Speaker 1: political fallout which could be considerable and unwelcome to the
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Speaker 1: administration certainly coming it's film matter only mentioned with inflation cooling,
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Speaker 1: gas prices dropping, and the President's approval numbers growing in
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Speaker 1: the polls. At least before this joining US has seen
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Speaker 1: a senior political anials David Gurgan, White House insider for
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Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans have liked dating back to the Knicks
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Speaker 1: and the years. Also seen in political commentator and former
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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Charlie Dent and seen un political analyst
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Speaker 1: Jackie Kucinich. She's watching a via chief for the Boston Globe,
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Speaker 1: David Gurgan. Let's start with you, how big a mess
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Speaker 1: is this for the Biden administration. It's very very big,
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Speaker 1: not legally but politically, it's a very very big deal.
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Speaker 1: You know, this is a president who was marching upward
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Speaker 1: for the first time in his presidents. He's got his
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Speaker 1: numbers up, people are feeling better about the economy for
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Speaker 1: all sorts of reasons to believe that he could he
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Speaker 1: could now present himself. The fears that people like me
1:42
Speaker 1: have about how old is he kind of governed, Well,
1:45
Speaker 1: those fears will be dissipated if he were able to
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Speaker 1: stay on that track. But now along comes this, this,
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Speaker 1: this gigantic story, which is totally unexpected, and it's not
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Speaker 1: that not for six the original plan now, but I
1:59
Speaker 1: do think that they um the button people. They may
2:04
Speaker 1: be making a big mistake unders now may be wrong
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Speaker 1: about this. I think they've done a wonderful job for
2:08
Speaker 1: being cooperative with the government, and they've done it quote
2:11
Speaker 1: by the books that they were saying. But I don't
2:13
Speaker 1: think sitting there hunkering down now, they're just acting like
2:17
Speaker 1: it's out out there is there is, there goes. They're
2:19
Speaker 1: just gonna have you're gonna get cream doing. There's also
2:21
Speaker 1: been the drip drip drip of information some I mean,
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Speaker 1: let's just stop there, Senator. They want an honorable mention.
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Speaker 1: It sounds like for being quote transparent. Yet this story
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Speaker 1: keeps drip drip dripping, and even those the media like
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Speaker 1: Gurgan are saying, well, I don't believe he's in trouble legally,
2:39
Speaker 1: He's just in trouble politically. Do you buy that? Well,
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Speaker 1: I'll say a number of things listening to that excerpt.
2:46
Speaker 1: Number one, CNN continues to self satirize as you look
2:50
Speaker 1: at their panel discussing President Biden's political fortunes, and you
2:54
Speaker 1: have four liberals discussing it. You've got Jake Tapper, who's
2:58
Speaker 1: gone dramatically to the left. You have David Gurgan, who
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Speaker 1: was of course a senior White House official to Bill Clinton,
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Speaker 1: always worked with Republicans as well, but he's always been
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Speaker 1: left of center. You've got Cassinich, who's far left of center,
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Speaker 1: and then you've got Charlie Dent, who's probably the most
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Speaker 1: liberal Republican to serve in the House in a long time.
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Speaker 1: So that's their panel. Normally, you and I were up
3:18
Speaker 1: said and by the way, you know, you've logged a
3:20
Speaker 1: lot of miles ban on CNN, so you're familiar with
3:23
Speaker 1: stack panels of the left hand and the far left
3:26
Speaker 1: hand sitting there. Seven years in hell, as we describe it,
3:29
Speaker 1: the seven years of an in hell is what I did.
3:31
Speaker 1: I did my tour of duty. So it's just amusing
3:35
Speaker 1: listening to Tapper go through the panel. But then you
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Speaker 1: have Gergan, even a panel of people on the left
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Speaker 1: are sitting there going holy crap. As as Gergan put it,
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Speaker 1: Biden's getting creamed. This last week was one of the
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Speaker 1: worst weeks, if not politically the worst week of the
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Speaker 1: Biden administration. You'd have to go back to the absolute
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Speaker 1: disaster in Afghanistan, thirteen American servicemen and women being murdered
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Speaker 1: to find a week that politically caused as much consternation
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Speaker 1: in the Oval Office as this week did and it was.
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Speaker 1: It's a mess that it keeps getting worse. All right,
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Speaker 1: I want to get your take on this center, but
4:15
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Speaker 1: That's nine seven to Patriot or patriotmobile dot com slash verdict. Well,
5:44
Speaker 1: you look at the White House Press Secretary I John Pierre.
5:47
Speaker 1: This is just my personal opinion, maybe one of the
5:52
Speaker 1: worst White House spreacot secretaries that I've ever seen when
5:55
Speaker 1: it comes to adapting and having to deal with things
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Speaker 1: that are quote as I would describe it, outside of
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Speaker 1: the talking point. She's great at walking up there sticking
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Speaker 1: to a script. Perfect example of that is on Thursday,
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Speaker 1: the White House said six different times that the search
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Speaker 1: for classified documents was quote complete, that's talking points. In reality,
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Speaker 1: we found out that more classified documents were discovered after
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Speaker 1: she said this, and here's the montage. The search is
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Speaker 1: clearly complete. They completed the search. The search is complete.
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Speaker 1: He is confident in this process. You should assume that
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Speaker 1: it's been completed. Yes, after the search concluded last night.
6:34
Speaker 1: That search was completed last night. I mean, either she's
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Speaker 1: an idiot or she's willfully lying to the American people,
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Speaker 1: and that I think goes back to what David Gergan
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Speaker 1: was saying. Well, to be fair, as a matter of logic,
6:47
Speaker 1: those two are not mutually exclusive. Yeah, she can be both.
6:52
Speaker 1: And I will say that that's she's an exceptionally poor liar.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it really is amazing the Biden White House
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Speaker 1: hires her to stand up and say things that are
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Speaker 1: demonstrably false, and she says them over and over and
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Speaker 1: over again. We've talked a lot on this spot about
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Speaker 1: how she claims nobody's crossing the border illegally, like, never
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Speaker 1: mind the five point three million, they don't exist. These
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Speaker 1: aren't the droid you're looking for. She just stands up
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Speaker 1: there and gaslight. She stands up and says, you know,
7:17
Speaker 1: it was the Republicans who wanted to shut school down,
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Speaker 1: schools down. She is willing to lie, which is not
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Speaker 1: a good characteristic for press secretary, but then she's bad
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Speaker 1: at it. You know, the best press secretary we may
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Speaker 1: have seen in modern times was Mike McCurry for Bill Clinton.
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Speaker 1: And when Bill Clinton had all the scandals, had Monica Lewinsky,
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Speaker 1: McCurry could stand up there and he just had an
7:41
Speaker 1: awe shuck's way of yeah, okay, my boss is an
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Speaker 1: inveterate liar, but he was charming about it. She's not.
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Speaker 1: And if you look at what she says, part of
7:53
Speaker 1: the problem with her lying is she lies in ways
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Speaker 1: that are easy to get caught. So she said over
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Speaker 1: and over again as you just played that the searcher
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Speaker 1: was complete. The searcher was complete. The searcher was complete.
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Speaker 1: There was just one problem. Those facts were inoperative. And
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Speaker 1: so you mentioned at the start of the pod to
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Speaker 1: write things down. Let's go through the timeline. So on
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Speaker 1: Monday of this past week, the Biden White House revealed
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Speaker 1: to the world what it claimed the facts were, and
8:19
Speaker 1: here's what it claimed. It claimed that on November second,
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Speaker 1: the president's personal lawyers just happened to be packing up
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Speaker 1: his old office at the Penn Biden Center, and they
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Speaker 1: discovered documents that were classified as they were going through. Now,
8:35
Speaker 1: as we've talked about earlier, it's a little bit odd.
8:38
Speaker 1: Those are high priced movers if you're hiring lawyers to
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Speaker 1: pack up and move. But that's that's the story they're claiming.
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Speaker 1: So that was November second. The White House claims they
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Speaker 1: immediately contacted the Archives, and on November fourth, the National
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Speaker 1: Archives informed DJ. Now you'll recall when the stormtroopers came
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Speaker 1: into Marrow Lago, how they leaked over and over and
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Speaker 1: over again. You know what didn't happen On November fourth,
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Speaker 1: when the Department of Justice was informed, they didn't link anything.
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Speaker 1: They didn't link anything. They didn't tell the American people anything.
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Speaker 1: By the way, there was an election coming up November eighth,
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Speaker 1: and boy, the secrecy was tight. Never mind that this happened,
9:17
Speaker 1: never mind that this happened. So that occurred. And then
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Speaker 1: in December, Biden's personal attorney and formed the prosecutor was
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Speaker 1: investigating this that a second set of documents had been found,
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Speaker 1: this time in the garage of Biden's house, right next
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Speaker 1: to that now infamous corvette, and also some more in
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Speaker 1: another adjoining room. I still don't think we know whether
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Speaker 1: it's a bathroom, whether it's the washing machine room. You know,
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Speaker 1: whether it's his massage room. I don't know if he
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Speaker 1: has a massage room. Whatever the room is next to
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Speaker 1: the garage that they don't want to tell us. Then
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Speaker 1: on Wednesday of last week, the Biden attorneys found another
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Speaker 1: classified document get another location at his Wilmington residence. And
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Speaker 1: that's when Karen John Pierre said, the searchers complete, the
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Speaker 1: searchers complete, the searchers complete, except that they found five
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Speaker 1: more on Thursday. And so you know, as we sit here,
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Speaker 1: the question is what's coming next? And the drip, drip, drip.
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Speaker 1: It is amazing as a competence matter that apparently they're
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Speaker 1: not able to figure out where else. I mean, I mean,
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Speaker 1: what was this guy doing just sticking classified documents everywhere?
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Speaker 1: I mean that that's just a little weird at this point,
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Speaker 1: and they can't even figure out, Like if you sit
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Speaker 1: down and you're like, oh crap, this is bad. What
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Speaker 1: can we do? What can we do? All right? Number
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Speaker 1: one step number one in the crisis. Let's get ahead
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Speaker 1: of it. Let's figure out what the facts are. Let's
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Speaker 1: actually do the damn search. Apparently they can't do that
10:53
Speaker 1: because I fully expect this week we're going to discover,
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Speaker 1: you know, in his gym bag packed under his speed
11:00
Speaker 1: or the nuclear codes. I mean it, it has gotten
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Speaker 1: so bad that it's a punchline and that is not
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Speaker 1: a good thing, and they're screwing it up by making
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Speaker 1: it even worse. You look at the special prosecutor who
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Speaker 1: was named for this case, and you want to talk
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Speaker 1: about you look at for example, I'll compare this for
11:19
Speaker 1: a moment to mar Lago. We knew and they knew
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Speaker 1: and where these documents were. At mar Lago, they even
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Speaker 1: had come in and looked at these documents and knew
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Speaker 1: they were a quote, you know, an area that they
11:30
Speaker 1: agreed upon that was more secure or a secure room.
11:34
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a lot of conversations. From what
11:36
Speaker 1: we understand. The difference with this one is these documents
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Speaker 1: we know had to have been moved multiple times, just
11:47
Speaker 1: based on the timeline, just based on when the pen
11:50
Speaker 1: center even open and he had access to it. We
11:53
Speaker 1: don't know if these documents were at one point altogether,
11:56
Speaker 1: and now they've they've shown up in three different locations.
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Speaker 1: We have no idea who had access to these documents
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Speaker 1: or who were around them. And I've noticed this other
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Speaker 1: theme center, which is well, this is a political problem
12:09
Speaker 1: David Gergin to that, but not a legal one for him.
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Speaker 1: How can they say that when we don't even know
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Speaker 1: what the documents are yet and we know they're classified.
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Speaker 1: We also there's a bunch of other documents around these
12:20
Speaker 1: documents that were that dealt with foreign countries that apparently
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Speaker 1: we're not classified. I mean, what if a lot of
12:26
Speaker 1: this information deals with their business and financial dealings and
12:29
Speaker 1: info that would give them a leg up on China
12:31
Speaker 1: and Ukraine with Barisma and other things like that. How
12:34
Speaker 1: can you just walk out there and say, well, we're
12:37
Speaker 1: not worried about this anything legally, where this is more
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Speaker 1: optics politically. Well, you're right that. Right now, we don't
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Speaker 1: know what's in the documents. What has been reported and
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Speaker 1: or leaked is that at least one of the documents
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Speaker 1: was SCI code word clearance, which is the highest level
12:53
Speaker 1: of clearance. So it's not the bottom level is secret
12:56
Speaker 1: and there's top secret, but SCI codeword is for very
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Speaker 1: sensitive materials, and at least one of the documents apparently
13:04
Speaker 1: was classified at that highest level. We have also heard
13:08
Speaker 1: reports and leaks that they concerned for and countries concerned
13:11
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom in China and Iran. We don't know
13:14
Speaker 1: in what respect in Ukraine. As we talked about on
13:18
Speaker 1: the last pot, if these documents involved Biden's personal financial
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Speaker 1: dealings with these countries, either Joe Biden's or Hunter Biden's
13:29
Speaker 1: or Joe Biden's brothers, that takes this to a qualitatively
13:34
Speaker 1: different place. At this point, we have no indication that
13:36
Speaker 1: that's the fact, but that would be a massive escalation.
13:41
Speaker 1: Why is that the Democrats are convinced there's no legal liability.
13:46
Speaker 1: I think the answer is they have confidence in Merrick Garland.
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Speaker 1: And you know, you and I recently did a pod
13:53
Speaker 1: right after Robert heard the Special Council was named, and
13:57
Speaker 1: we were one of the very first analyzes out there
14:00
Speaker 1: looking into HER's background. And at the time I pointed
14:04
Speaker 1: out that he had been principal Associate Deputy Attorney General
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Speaker 1: under Rod Rosenstein, and I said that did not give comfort.
14:12
Speaker 1: What we've seen since then is not only was he
14:14
Speaker 1: a protege of Rod Rosenstein, he was also a protege
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Speaker 1: of Chris Ray, the Director of the FBI, who, sadly,
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Speaker 1: Chris I think has has has presided over an FBI
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Speaker 1: that has continued to be deeply partisan, that has continued
14:33
Speaker 1: to be political players. Now it is not as egregious
14:38
Speaker 1: as it was under his predecessor, under James Comey, where
14:41
Speaker 1: Comy was actively part of the problem. But Chris Ray
14:46
Speaker 1: has been unwilling to clean house, unwilling to get rid
14:49
Speaker 1: of the hard partisan career officials at the FBI, And
14:56
Speaker 1: so when it comes to if you're a Democratic partisan
15:00
Speaker 1: and you realize, we'll wait a second, every decision here
15:03
Speaker 1: is going to be made by number one, a guy
15:06
Speaker 1: that's Chris Ray and Rod Rosenstein's protege, but number two,
15:10
Speaker 1: ultimately by Merrick Garland, who has already proven to be
15:12
Speaker 1: the most political Attorney general ever. I think you have
15:16
Speaker 1: a level of comfort that this is a messaging problem
15:18
Speaker 1: and not a legal problem that they're going to justify, well,
15:22
Speaker 1: everything was done right here, no matter what was done,
15:25
Speaker 1: because in their view, there is such a qualitative difference
15:29
Speaker 1: between Biden and Trump that whatever the facts, it can
15:35
Speaker 1: be swept under the rug. What becomes hard. And the
15:38
Speaker 1: reason they view this as a political problem is they
15:42
Speaker 1: have one target, and that is Donald John Trump. That
15:46
Speaker 1: is their target. And politically this now makes it messy
15:51
Speaker 1: for Democrats to get up and say having classified documents
15:55
Speaker 1: in places other than secured lockdown skifts is disastrous. That's
16:01
Speaker 1: very difficult when Joe Biden seems to leave them everywhere
16:05
Speaker 1: he goes. That's what they're wrestling with politically. But I
16:09
Speaker 1: think they have confidence that the guy's investigating if there's
16:12
Speaker 1: not going to be legal peril for Biden or the
16:15
Speaker 1: people surrounding it. Representative James Comber. He said one of
16:20
Speaker 1: his big problems with us on Say the Union Sunday
16:23
Speaker 1: morning was that the special counsel has been called for Biden,
16:27
Speaker 1: yet his attorneys were still rummaging what he described as
16:31
Speaker 1: the crime scene individuals that do not, in fact have
16:34
Speaker 1: top secret clearance. To take a listen, he's Coomber of Kentucky.
16:38
Speaker 1: Mister chairman, thanks for joining us. Let's start on the
16:40
Speaker 1: news yesterday that five additional pages of classified documents were
16:44
Speaker 1: found at President Biden's residence in that Wilmington suburb, in
16:48
Speaker 1: a room adjacent to the garage. What's your reaction to
16:51
Speaker 1: this latest development. Well, my concern is that the special
16:57
Speaker 1: Council was called for, but yet hours after that, we
17:00
Speaker 1: still had the president's personal attorneys, who have no security clearance,
17:05
Speaker 1: still rummaging around the President's residents looking for things. I
17:09
Speaker 1: mean that would essentially be a crime scene, so to speak.
17:12
Speaker 1: After the appointment of a special counsel. So, you know,
17:15
Speaker 1: we have a lot of questions for the National Archives,
17:19
Speaker 1: we have a lot of questions for the Department of Justice,
17:21
Speaker 1: and hopefully we'll be getting some answers very soon. I
17:24
Speaker 1: mean it's an active crime scene, is the way he
17:26
Speaker 1: described it, and they're just rummaging through I guess they're
17:28
Speaker 1: just going through everything trying to find papers. What does
17:31
Speaker 1: the law say about this? I mean, if if they
17:33
Speaker 1: know that there's classified documents, can they just send staffers
17:37
Speaker 1: and random lawyers who do not have top secret clearance?
17:40
Speaker 1: So like, hey, scay, you know, go through everything in
17:43
Speaker 1: this room, in this room, in this room, and then
17:45
Speaker 1: let us know what you find. Well, look what this
17:49
Speaker 1: illustrates as the rampant double standard not now to be clear,
17:53
Speaker 1: and we talked about this early on when the issue
17:56
Speaker 1: of the Marlago rate occurred, that president of both parties
18:02
Speaker 1: for a long time have had disputes over documents, and
18:04
Speaker 1: presidents keep documents to prepare memoirs, and presidents complete keep
18:09
Speaker 1: documents to prepare for their presidential libraries. Now Biden's a
18:14
Speaker 1: little bit different in that it appears all of these
18:16
Speaker 1: documents were from his time as vice president or not president.
18:21
Speaker 1: I say all of them, I'm not actually the ones
18:23
Speaker 1: at the Penn Center were from the vice presidential time.
18:25
Speaker 1: I don't know that they publicly said whether the corvette
18:28
Speaker 1: documents or the latest documents in his Wilmington home were
18:31
Speaker 1: from his time as president or vice president. If they
18:34
Speaker 1: have said it, I haven't seen that reported, and Merritt
18:37
Speaker 1: Garland is not giving any details. But look, there is
18:41
Speaker 1: some element of presidents have some ability to work with
18:45
Speaker 1: investigations and to endeavor, to comply and to turn over materials.
18:50
Speaker 1: What is striking is that's not the leniency they gave
18:54
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. They they sent in FBI agents to raid.
18:58
Speaker 1: And so when I think the third or fourth tranche
19:01
Speaker 1: of documents were discovered with Biden, I jumped on Twitter
19:05
Speaker 1: and said, you know, so, when's the FBI raid happening?
19:08
Speaker 1: And that's just I think the FBI rate of mar
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Speaker 1: Lago was wrong. And so I'm not actually calling for
19:15
Speaker 1: an FBI raid of Biden's residence. But it's very difficult
19:19
Speaker 1: for a Democrat to explain, well, why do we only
19:23
Speaker 1: raid Trump and not our guy? Now they'll say they're talking.
19:26
Speaker 1: Point in response, is well, our guys complying. Well, he's
19:30
Speaker 1: not complying very well, and he keeps finding more and
19:33
Speaker 1: more and more, And you're right that who knows who
19:36
Speaker 1: the heck they're sending in there looking around and what
19:38
Speaker 1: documents they are. What has been demonstrated is they don't
19:42
Speaker 1: know what's there. So it's very hard for them to
19:44
Speaker 1: com claim that they are complying with a classified documents
19:49
Speaker 1: security protocol given that from all appearances, they have no
19:53
Speaker 1: idea what documents exist where, and yet they're sending in
19:58
Speaker 1: who knows whom to go look for. I said this
20:01
Speaker 1: the other day when this first broke and you and
20:03
Speaker 1: I were chatting about it, I said, I wonder if
20:05
Speaker 1: this is not a great opportunity for Democrats to say,
20:09
Speaker 1: all right, we get rid of our problem and that's
20:12
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. We got through the midterms. Now maybe this
20:15
Speaker 1: is our off ramp we can bring in our new person.
20:18
Speaker 1: Adam Schiff was on ABC this week, and I mean
20:23
Speaker 1: shocked the hell out of me when he had this
20:25
Speaker 1: to say, the outgoing chair of the House Intelligence Committee Conversationship.
20:29
Speaker 1: You were on this show just after Attorney General Garland
20:32
Speaker 1: appointed a special counsel in the case of the Trump documents.
20:36
Speaker 1: He said it was the right move. Do you feel
20:37
Speaker 1: the same way about this special counsel? I do think
20:42
Speaker 1: it's the right move. The Attorney General has to make
20:44
Speaker 1: sure that not only is justice evenly applied, but the
20:48
Speaker 1: appearances of justice are also satisfactory to the public. And
20:53
Speaker 1: here I don't think he had any choice but to
20:55
Speaker 1: appoint a special counsel, and I think that special counsel
20:59
Speaker 1: will do the proper assessment. I still would like to
21:03
Speaker 1: see Congress do its own assessment and receiving assessment from
21:07
Speaker 1: the intelligence community of whether there was an exposure to
21:11
Speaker 1: others of these documents, whether it was harm to national
21:14
Speaker 1: security in the case of either set of documents with
21:17
Speaker 1: either president. But yes, I think the Special Council was
21:20
Speaker 1: appropriately appointed. Jonathan, If I could, I mean you hear
21:25
Speaker 1: him say that there, Senator, and that's not what I
21:28
Speaker 1: was expecting from Adam Shift at all. Well, it is surprising,
21:34
Speaker 1: and I do think Democrats are reeling and trying to
21:37
Speaker 1: figure out how to respond to this. It's premature to
21:41
Speaker 1: say that the analysis of it is what you suggested,
21:44
Speaker 1: that this is Democrats trying to throw Joe Biden to
21:46
Speaker 1: the curb. What I would say is that today's congressional
21:50
Speaker 1: Democrats hate Donald Trump much more than they love Joe Biden.
21:57
Speaker 1: So they're frustrated because they recognize this mess is a
22:03
Speaker 1: real political problem for their effort to go after Trump,
22:07
Speaker 1: and so they're reacting with that frustration of wait a second,
22:12
Speaker 1: we must go after Beelzebub, and you are making it
22:16
Speaker 1: difficult for us to go after Beelzebub. Actually, I say
22:19
Speaker 1: that the odds that they would know who Beelzebub is
22:22
Speaker 1: are actually quite low, because that would suggest some familiarity
22:25
Speaker 1: with well, I'm gonna I'm gonna be nice, I'm gonna
22:29
Speaker 1: go to the high road, and not not finish that thought.
22:36
Speaker 1: With respect to Joe Biden, I think Democrats are divided
22:40
Speaker 1: right now on Joe Biden. Just about everyone recognizes that
22:44
Speaker 1: he's too damn old and that his age is a
22:46
Speaker 1: real issue and that competence has been a real issue.
22:50
Speaker 1: At the same time, Democrats are pretty good at message discipline,
22:53
Speaker 1: and so they have uniformly circled the wagons around him
22:58
Speaker 1: and said he's our guy. We're going to defend him
23:00
Speaker 1: no matter what. Now, there are a ton of ambitious
23:04
Speaker 1: Democrats circling the carcass of the White House who want
23:11
Speaker 1: to run. And we've talked about all the Democrats, whether
23:13
Speaker 1: it's Kamala Harris or Pete Buddha Jedge or Gavin Newsom
23:17
Speaker 1: or Elizabeth Warren. I think there are a lot of
23:19
Speaker 1: them that are eager to run. And I've said multiple
23:22
Speaker 1: times I do not believe Joe Biden will be the
23:25
Speaker 1: Democrat nominee in twenty four. I don't think he'll run.
23:28
Speaker 1: He's of course saying he's going to run. So I
23:30
Speaker 1: think within the Democratic circles there's a divide. Are there
23:34
Speaker 1: people that would like to push Biden out, Yes, but
23:38
Speaker 1: they're not sure who they want to replace him. And
23:40
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing now is more frustration that
23:45
Speaker 1: this makes it harder to go after Trump than necessarily
23:50
Speaker 1: on effort to jettison Biden. Although it could develop in
23:53
Speaker 1: time into the latter. Yeah, it's gonna be very different.
23:58
Speaker 1: Interesting to see how this plays out. It seems like
24:01
Speaker 1: this story we haven't even gotten the end of the
24:03
Speaker 1: storyline here, because they keep screwing this up and the
24:07
Speaker 1: White House keeps lying and saying this is it. I
24:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if they find more documents today, tomorrow,
24:12
Speaker 1: the next day at this point, because it seems like
24:15
Speaker 1: they're all over the place and that there was no
24:17
Speaker 1: one who was actually looking out for these classified documents.
24:21
Speaker 1: If that is the case, is there possibility of a
24:25
Speaker 1: of a real criminal asque probe into this special Council. Well,
24:30
Speaker 1: and in fact, I'm gonna go one further. So this
24:33
Speaker 1: podcast is coming out Monday morning. I'm gonna wager you
24:37
Speaker 1: a beer that by a week from today, by next Monday,
24:41
Speaker 1: they will have found more classified documents. So if I win,
24:45
Speaker 1: you're buying me a beer, and if you win, you're
24:47
Speaker 1: buying me a beer. Either way, we get beer. So
24:49
Speaker 1: that's actually I was gonna say we both win this one.
24:52
Speaker 1: I like it, but I think they're gonna find more.
24:55
Speaker 1: I think they're you know, I had an old boss,
25:00
Speaker 1: one of my first bosses when I came out of
25:02
Speaker 1: law school, used to say to me, Ted, never blame
25:06
Speaker 1: on malice. What can be explained with incompetence. There's a
25:11
Speaker 1: lot of truth to that. At this point, I think
25:14
Speaker 1: the White House guys desperately wish they knew about what
25:17
Speaker 1: class documents were where, and I don't think they do yet.
25:20
Speaker 1: I think they're still going through a sock drawer. I
25:23
Speaker 1: think they're still trying to figure out, okay, what else,
25:26
Speaker 1: what else is where? And it's amazing to me just
25:30
Speaker 1: how poorly they've executed it. I think there's more to come.
25:35
Speaker 1: The next if there's not, the next big shoe to
25:38
Speaker 1: drop is going to be what are these documents? You know?
25:42
Speaker 1: It's one thing I've read a lot of classified documents
25:45
Speaker 1: in the last decade. There's some classified documents that frankly
25:50
Speaker 1: damned if I know why they're classified. They you know,
25:52
Speaker 1: say things like, you know, Russia is big and cold. Okay,
25:57
Speaker 1: that's classified. I'm you know, because some person put a
26:00
Speaker 1: classified label, like they say things that everyone knows and
26:03
Speaker 1: don't really say anything. And I actually think there's a
26:06
Speaker 1: problem in government of overclassification. We've seen this administration. We
26:11
Speaker 1: saw the Obama administration classify things that were just politically
26:16
Speaker 1: embarrassing that that's another category where it doesn't impact national security,
26:20
Speaker 1: it just is embarrassing to the party in power. I
26:23
Speaker 1: think a lot of the stuff about Afghanistan and the
26:26
Speaker 1: disaster of Biden's horrible withdrawal there falls into that category
26:30
Speaker 1: of well, we certainly don't want anyone to know what happened,
26:33
Speaker 1: so it's all classified depending on what it is. If
26:38
Speaker 1: the materials are classified, but on a reasonable assessment, did
26:44
Speaker 1: not pose an acute dangered and national security. That's one thing.
26:49
Speaker 1: If the materials, on the other hand, are and as
26:52
Speaker 1: I said, we know of at least one document that
26:54
Speaker 1: as sci code were classified. If they are materials that
26:58
Speaker 1: could endanger sources and methods that at the most extreme,
27:03
Speaker 1: could uncover an undercover operative and risk his or her life,
27:07
Speaker 1: that takes it to a very different level. We don't
27:10
Speaker 1: know yet. I think there is. You've mentioned it twice
27:13
Speaker 1: now sci co word one of these documents. Can you
27:16
Speaker 1: explain who is even able to see that level of
27:20
Speaker 1: classification how that works? Because you mentioned it now twice
27:24
Speaker 1: and for a lot of people listening, they're gonna say, Okay,
27:26
Speaker 1: why is that one so much more of a big deal,
27:30
Speaker 1: and what type of things would be under that type
27:33
Speaker 1: of clearance compared to other things that's a top secret.
27:36
Speaker 1: So there's a hierarchy from secret to top secret to
27:41
Speaker 1: sci code word and even sci code word. You're not
27:44
Speaker 1: read into everything there that they're kept in separate silos,
27:48
Speaker 1: and on some level it's fair fairly intuitive. The higher
27:52
Speaker 1: level of classification is information that is more risky to
27:57
Speaker 1: national security, more important, so it could reveal things. I mean,
28:02
Speaker 1: the catch word that is most typically used as sources
28:05
Speaker 1: and methods Now what does that mean. That could mean
28:08
Speaker 1: that we have a wire tap, we have some bad
28:10
Speaker 1: guy's phone tap, we have some satellite interception going on,
28:14
Speaker 1: and so we don't want the bad guy to know
28:16
Speaker 1: his phone is tapped. And so that's one reason why
28:19
Speaker 1: you know, if it's uh, you know, we heard Ben
28:23
Speaker 1: Ferguson calling and you know, doing something nefarious on his phone, Well,
28:28
Speaker 1: we don't want Ben to know we got him tapped.
28:30
Speaker 1: So that's going to be at a higher level classification.
28:33
Speaker 1: There's another component of it. Maybe the guy mowing Ben's
28:37
Speaker 1: lawn is a ciage and undercover and and he's wearing
28:40
Speaker 1: a wire trying to catch Ben doing nefarious things. By
28:43
Speaker 1: the end of this, Ben, you're gonna be really nervous.
28:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be in sperience troubled by the end of this.
28:49
Speaker 1: But if we have an undercover operative that's placed either
28:53
Speaker 1: a CIA agent or more often an asset, somebody who's
28:57
Speaker 1: working for an enemy of America or even some times
29:00
Speaker 1: just another country and other player who's been turned who
29:04
Speaker 1: who are intelligence officers have convinced cooperate and provide information
29:09
Speaker 1: to us, you don't want that falling an enemy hands
29:12
Speaker 1: in worse circumstances, and we've seen particularly at the height
29:16
Speaker 1: of the Cold War, but we've also seen it with
29:18
Speaker 1: China where they find spies and they kill them like it.
29:21
Speaker 1: It can in danger, It can result in our agents
29:26
Speaker 1: being murdered if information that reveals their identity is made public.
29:33
Speaker 1: That's a spectrum. But then there's an entire other matrix
29:36
Speaker 1: here that you've referenced a couple of times, but it
29:39
Speaker 1: both legally and politically as qualitatively different. If this involves
29:44
Speaker 1: the Biden's families pecuniary gain, If this involves documents where
29:52
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and his family were making a buck, we
29:54
Speaker 1: know that they made a buck with a bunch of
29:57
Speaker 1: shady characters in Ukraine and community China. We know that
30:01
Speaker 1: they've done that. I actually don't think these documents are
30:05
Speaker 1: about that, because that just would be so monumentally stupid
30:10
Speaker 1: that it boggles the mind. I suspect they're not about that.
30:15
Speaker 1: But if suddenly it were something intertwined with the significant
30:21
Speaker 1: evidence of personal corruption, that's when you start to take
30:26
Speaker 1: it to very serious legal jeopardy. We have no evidence
30:29
Speaker 1: to suggest that's the case, but if it were the case,
30:32
Speaker 1: it would be a massive escalation two more things I
30:36
Speaker 1: want to ask you, and one, I love looking at
30:39
Speaker 1: what the headlines are trying to sell you from the media.
30:43
Speaker 1: When there's a big story. One of the headlines washed him.
30:47
Speaker 1: Posts big headline right while all this is going on
30:50
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about for the last twenty something minutes.
30:53
Speaker 1: Their headline read House Republicans prepare emergency plan for breaching
30:59
Speaker 1: the debt limit. They said they're preparing for a plan
31:04
Speaker 1: telling the Treasury Department what could do if Congress and
31:07
Speaker 1: the White House don't agree to lift the nation's debt
31:09
Speaker 1: limit later this year, underscoring the brinksmanship newly empowered Conservatives
31:13
Speaker 1: will bring to the high stakes negotiations over averting a
31:16
Speaker 1: US default. According to six people aware of the internal discussions,
31:20
Speaker 1: this is months away, and they happen to write this
31:24
Speaker 1: story on the first big Saturday of a Special Counsel
31:28
Speaker 1: of the President United States of America, acting like the
31:30
Speaker 1: Republicans are about to default on debt. Is this a
31:34
Speaker 1: big distraction or just something that should be on people's
31:36
Speaker 1: radar screens. Well, this is going to be a big fight,
31:40
Speaker 1: and we've talked about on this podcast how this was
31:44
Speaker 1: what the leadership battle was all about. It was whether
31:47
Speaker 1: the Republican majority in the House, and for that matter,
31:50
Speaker 1: the Republicans in the Senate, are going to use the
31:53
Speaker 1: legal power we have, use the levers of power that
31:56
Speaker 1: we have to force meaningful forms in fiscal and spending policy.
32:02
Speaker 1: And right at the heart of the battle over the
32:04
Speaker 1: Speaker was trying to force the new leadership in the
32:08
Speaker 1: House to be willing to use those levers. I believe
32:11
Speaker 1: we're going to see a huge fight in Washington over
32:14
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling, and we're also going to see a
32:16
Speaker 1: huge fight in Washington overfunding of the government. Why is
32:20
Speaker 1: that because those historically have been the two most effective
32:24
Speaker 1: and in many times the only effective levers to force
32:28
Speaker 1: an opposing party to give in and pass meaningful spending
32:32
Speaker 1: or fiscal reform. Now the media plays their role as
32:35
Speaker 1: democratic mouthpieces and immediately demonizes any effort to use those levers.
32:41
Speaker 1: And let me be clear, when it comes to the
32:42
Speaker 1: debt ceiling, my view is not that we should default
32:46
Speaker 1: on the debt. We should never ever ever default on
32:48
Speaker 1: the debt. It is that we should use it as
32:51
Speaker 1: a lever to force significant spending and fiscal concession from
32:56
Speaker 1: the administration. And it has proven to be a very
32:59
Speaker 1: effective lever going back decades. This is the press trying
33:04
Speaker 1: to set the stage for that battle, and spoiler alert.
33:09
Speaker 1: The press is going to say the Republicans are crazy
33:11
Speaker 1: lunatics and the answer is just to give trillions of
33:13
Speaker 1: dollars to Joe Biden, to the Democrats to keep bankrupting America.
33:16
Speaker 1: That's going to be their position. This article is trying
33:19
Speaker 1: to say that that fight is coming, but it's not
33:23
Speaker 1: a fight playing out today. It'll play out sometime in
33:27
Speaker 1: the future. Glastly, this is a story that for everybody
33:30
Speaker 1: that listens, it just made me laugh. I didn't think
33:34
Speaker 1: it was real, and then I found out it was real.
33:37
Speaker 1: There is a new government funded senator and that means
33:41
Speaker 1: our tax dollars food pyramid that was unvalid at the
33:46
Speaker 1: White House. Now this happens a couple of months ago.
33:50
Speaker 1: Back in September, the White House hosted a conference apparently
33:54
Speaker 1: that focused on nutrition, health and hunger in America, and
33:58
Speaker 1: one of the main organized the event and currently the
34:01
Speaker 1: Dean of the Tough School of Nutrition presented a newly
34:04
Speaker 1: designed food pyramid that only costs three years of time
34:08
Speaker 1: and millions of taxpayers dollars. Now, this wisdom in the
34:12
Speaker 1: new pyramid has on there when it comes to nutritional
34:16
Speaker 1: value that in fact, Lucky Charms the cereal is almost
34:23
Speaker 1: two x more, two x healthier than steak. Now at
34:28
Speaker 1: the top of the lists or stuff that you and
34:29
Speaker 1: I would probably say, okay, makes sense. Watermelon was a
34:32
Speaker 1: hundred kale was a hundred. Frosted miniwheats were in eighty
34:38
Speaker 1: seven unsweetened almond milk in eighty six non fat frozen
34:43
Speaker 1: yogurt and eighty chocolate covered almonds a seventy eight honey
34:46
Speaker 1: nut serials is seventy six. Dates were tied with that.
34:50
Speaker 1: But then you go down and you start looking at
34:54
Speaker 1: this and they actually say that for example, almon M
34:58
Speaker 1: and m's better double the nutritional value they claim of
35:02
Speaker 1: ground beef cheddar is second from the bottom, egg fried
35:06
Speaker 1: and butter is at the bottom. It's like it's a
35:08
Speaker 1: war on traditional palets and they're saying that Lucky Charms
35:12
Speaker 1: have a sixty on their scale, beef is a twenty six.
35:16
Speaker 1: Your reaction our taxpayer dollars saying to a pyramid scheme,
35:20
Speaker 1: I would say it's perfect to say it that way,
35:22
Speaker 1: that Lucky Charms are better for you than stink. Well,
35:26
Speaker 1: it's it's stunning, it's propaganda. Reminds me of an old line.
35:31
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't drink, you don't smoke, and
35:34
Speaker 1: you don't eat red meat, you may not live to
35:37
Speaker 1: a hundred, but it will feel like it. Look this,
35:41
Speaker 1: this is a bunch of lefties who hate meat, who
35:45
Speaker 1: want us all to be you know, vegans feeding on
35:49
Speaker 1: grass and sprouts and you know, kales one hundred. I
35:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't know. It can be a thousand for all I care.
35:56
Speaker 1: I'm not in the kale business, I will say, though,
35:59
Speaker 1: I am envious. Apparently these guys hired some government employee
36:03
Speaker 1: whose job it was to eat lucky charms and steak. Yeah,
36:08
Speaker 1: that'd be a good job. I like lucky charms. By
36:10
Speaker 1: the way, very soon the nihilists and the Democratic Party
36:15
Speaker 1: are gonna say you can't say lucky charms. You know,
36:17
Speaker 1: the fighting Irish. We've already gotten rid of the Redskins.
36:20
Speaker 1: The fighting Irish are coming next. And it's not you know,
36:22
Speaker 1: elepre con is uh, you know, insensitive to the wee people.
36:28
Speaker 1: I just can't wait for someone to start giving me
36:30
Speaker 1: health advice. I'm just gonna that I was unsolicited, and
36:32
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give him a box to Lucky Charms. McKay.
36:35
Speaker 1: That's what the government said you should be eating. So
36:37
Speaker 1: there you go. And I do hope that you know
36:41
Speaker 1: every Democrat who wishes you and me ill, and there
36:43
Speaker 1: are a lot of them. Maybe they could just buy
36:46
Speaker 1: us a steak. That'd be okay, you know, yeah, faster right,
36:51
Speaker 1: kill me by play. I'm fine with that. I'll take
36:54
Speaker 1: that every day. You can't make it up. That's your
36:56
Speaker 1: tax dollars at work. Center always a pleasure. As I said,
37:01
Speaker 1: don't forgit forget to hit that subscriber auto download button.
37:04
Speaker 1: If there is big breaking news that happens with this investigation,
37:09
Speaker 1: we will more than likely put out a quick podcast.
37:14
Speaker 1: So if you hit that subscriber auto download button, you'll
37:17
Speaker 1: have that automatically on your phone or wherever you listen,
37:20
Speaker 1: and you'll know when we go with those quick ones
37:23
Speaker 1: that are obviously outside of the Monday Wednesday fridays that
37:25
Speaker 1: we normally put out these podcasts. So make sure you
37:28
Speaker 1: do that. Center, have a great rest of your day.
37:31
Speaker 1: We'll see all you guys back here on Wednesday.