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That's sek you are secure dot com. 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.120 Make sure you use the coupon code buck that'll tell 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:20.760 them you heard about them here on the show and 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.360 also get you one week free and twenty five percent off. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.560 It's a great deal. Please use that coupon code buck. 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.520 Just go right now seku are dot com. That's the website, 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.800 secure dot com and regain your privacy. Use coupon code 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.679 buck when you go to secure seku are dot com. 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.319 Regain your privacy, protect yourself online. The following is a 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:51.120 prerecorded program. You are entering the Freedom Hunt, a place 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.760 liberty and patriotism call home, Shoulder to shoulder, need to 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.800 come together, shield time, you need to protect America. This 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.560 is the Sexton Show. Buck Sexton joins us now we analyst, 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:11.079 former NYPD intelligence officer, Now Buck Sexton. Welcome to the 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:15.760 Buck Sexton Show. This is Ben Winegarden in for Buck Sexton. 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.239 Here on an action packed Thursday from the not so 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.080 free New York City, but the Freedom Hut hidden high 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.160 a top Lower Manhattan. Again, this has Ben Winegarden in 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.000 for Buck Sexton. Been here all week, really had a 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.720 privilege and it's been an honor and a pleasure to 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:35.920 spend this week with you as there are so many 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:39.480 things going on in the world of such substance and 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.640 you know, before we jump in again. I'm a senior 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.440 contributor at The Federalist, a columnist at Newsweek and The 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.000 Epic Times, a fellow at the Claremont Institute. You can 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.040 find all my work at Winegarden dot substack dot com 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.040 or ben Winegarden dot com, and I encourage you to 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.880 follow me on Twitter, where I speak too frequently at 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.800 b H. Winegarden. And before we jump into today's episode, 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.120 just a programming note as well. The Clay Travis and 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.519 Buck Sexton Show starts at noon next Monday, the twenty first, 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.400 and then Jesse Kelly will be filling in Buck Sexton's 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.560 slot from six to nine pm the following Monday, June 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.440 twenty eighth. We're going to jump all around the world 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.280 today and we've got some exceptional guests. We'll be speaking 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.200 with Congressman Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana on the 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:27.920 chair of the Republican Study Committee, this sort of in 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.320 house think tank of the GOP in the House about 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.600 all sorts of issues, from the threat of communist China 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:42.520 to January sixth disparate treatment versus sixteen nineteen rioters. We'll 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.560 be speaking with Christian Witten about Joe Biden's excellent adventure 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.880 overseas and the misadventure that it really is for America 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.240 and our national interests. We'll speak with Professor Scott Jenner 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.840 about taking on critical race theory and what CRT and 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:01.520 the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion are really all about. 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:03.400 And last, but not least, will also speak with my 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.400 friend Rachel Bovard, who's done some exceptional work and reporting 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.560 on sort of the conservative case for antitrust and taking 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.040 on big tech and really concentrated power in all of 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.120 its forms, and in particular woke concentrated power in all 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:22.640 of its forms, public and private. To get into these issues, 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.680 I'm going to go an indirect route. But bear with 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.359 me here because you're listening to someone who listened to 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.360 sports talk radio since the time he was about five 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.040 years old. And I'm a huge sports fan, a huge 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.680 baseball fan, unfortunately, a huge New York Mets fan, and 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.480 last night I had the pleasure of going to see 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.760 Jacob deGrom pitch. And bear with me if you're not 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.159 a sports fan, but Jacob Degram right now is the 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.720 dominant pitcher in Major League Baseball, having arguably the best 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.479 season ever, not just in modern era, but in the 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:59.560 history of the game, absolutely dominating to an unprecedented extent. 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.960 Every single start that he makes health provided is just 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:10.040 a massive spectacle. The turnout has been tremendous at a 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.599 stadium in New York where it seems that people are 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.440 still a little bit fearful with the pandemic sadly, and 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.280 so turnout has not been exceptional all around. But it's 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.640 a winning ball club and it's the most dominant pitcher 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.560 in the game, maybe the most dominant player at any 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:25.560 position in the game, and having one of the most 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.200 dominant seasons, if not the most dominant season of all time. 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.640 Why do I talk about Jacob deGrom Besides the fact 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.120 that I love the Mets. Last night was a beautiful 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.599 night for a ball game. The return to normalcy of 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:41.040 going to a ballpark in America is something that we 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.880 take for granted. I mean, from my perspective, I'd go 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.720 to about a dozen games a year in a typical year, 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:48.479 and it's been over a year since going out to 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.920 the ballpark and just seeing a scenario of people just 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:56.400 generally happy, acting normal. None of this. You know, why 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.520 aren't you wearing your mask and people dodging you and 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.480 running to the other side of the stadium. No, it 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.080 was as if we were America again, a free and 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:08.680 independent people, not governed by bureaucrats and technocrats with their 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:14.440 asinine decrees on our necks. So hopefully that's a positive 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:16.320 little vignette, and I encourage everyone to get out to 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.960 the ballpark. It just felt liberating. And I know most 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.719 of you probably live in free America, but here behind 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:24.960 the iron curtain in the Northeast, this was a real 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.919 treat at the baseball game. What we saw on display, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.800 and unfortunately only for three innings because Jacob deGrom is 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.560 battling injuries this season, but what we saw in three 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.440 innings were told strikeouts of eight of nine batters one 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.799 person all of one batter put the ball in play 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.039 against Jacob Degram. We're seeing someone someone who's excellent at 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.640 what they do, at the absolute pinnacle of their game, 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.640 with chance of MVP Most Valuable Player raining down from 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:55.000 the crowd, and an electric atmosphere from before the first 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.279 pitch of the game. What does this have to do 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.640 with all of the issues we're facing as a country 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:09.800 right now. Wide contrast Jacob deGrom and athleticism broadly athletics 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.760 broadly with what we see in our ruling class. Let 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:22.800 me explain, in sports, we still celebrate excellence, achievement. The 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:24.920 only thing that matters at the end of the day 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:30.640 in sports are wins and losses. It's binary. You can't 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.760 sugarcoat it. You can say a team made a great effort, 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.440 a player made a great play, had an exceptional season. 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.320 But at the end of the day, wins and losses 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.640 are the only thing that matters. And it does not 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.360 matter who you are, where you're from, what your limitations are. 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:51.800 All the matters ultimately is performance. In other words, even 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.480 though wokeism is pervading all of our sports in ways 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.760 that are maddening, and yes, at the stadium, you know 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.400 there's a Coca Cola sign that's in rainbow colors for 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.000 Pride Month. So you can't escape the politicization even at 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.640 a sporting event, even if it's not Lebron James telling 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.920 you to bat down to communist China. Nevertheless, the game 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.960 is still the game. It's still about results at the 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.000 end of the day, and excellence and achievement is is 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.120 something that is loved and cherished and relished at the 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:26.400 end of the day. It's also worth noting that excellence 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:30.040 can be very fleeting. In the case of a pitcher, 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.319 pitcher can break down. Jacob Degraham throws one hundred and 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.160 one miles an hour consistently. No one pretty much in 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:38.760 the history of the game has ever done that. He's 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.880 had some injuries this year. It's incredibly disconcerting as a fan. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.840 No matter what team you're root for, greatness is fleeting. 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:55.400 It requires constant tending to nurturing, recognizing threats to greatness 0:08:55.440 --> 0:09:03.080 and competition, and proactively countering them. Cultivating excellence is what 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:10.800 sports are all about. There's no affirmative action in sports. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:20.320 There's no equity in sports. If you cultivate excellence, you 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:27.800 bring it excellent. If you cultivate mediocrity, you crystallize mediocrity. 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.920 And what we're seeing across pretty much every domain that 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.920 a ruling class has its hands on again, setting aside athletics, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:41.200 is the cultivation of anything but excellent and a celebration 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:49.199 really at the end of the day of failure. Traditional 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:58.160 values like hard work, prudence, humility, virtue, Judeo Christian morality, 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:06.280 that is morality traditionally understood civic duty, patriotism. If we 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:12.280 instill those values and principles in our people. Nothing can 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:18.800 stop America. American greatness will proceed for generations. But American 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.280 greatness can also be quite fleeting. And we are a 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:26.600 very young nation. If you look at world history and 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:32.520 our adversaries, be it Communist China or anyone else, they 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.960 preceded us in some cases by many hundreds of years. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:42.360 They're more patient than we are. In some cases, they've 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.760 dealt with more hardships than we have. They've experienced tyranny 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:48.760 in a way that we haven't, although many of our 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:54.080 ancestors may have fled it. The memory of a nation 0:10:54.240 --> 0:11:02.559 is short. Achieving and maintaining is not written into the stars. 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.079 We talked earlier in the week about New York and 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.800 New York is returning to the bad old days, all 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.920 after the tenure of a single mayor and a bad 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:18.680 governor at the same time, too, it took decades to 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.160 get New York out of its doldrums. And just like that, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:28.480 it can all turn quickly. Just like the career of 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.880 an excellent athlete, it can fade for any number of reasons, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.360 just like you can work a lifetime to build a reputation, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.680 and it can be tarnished and destroyed with a single 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:46.200 bad tweet or misstatement, But with respect to the country, 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:54.000 the surest way to ensure America loses its luster, squanders 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:59.720 it's greatness, becomes a decadent and decaying rump of a 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.640 four leader of Western civilization, of the free world, the 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.040 last bastion of freedom, the only place in the world 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.920 where anyone who desires to live in liberty and justice 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:18.400 will give anything to immigrate to. The shortest way to 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:23.120 mess it all up is to reject, to repudiate, all 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.600 of those values and principles I just discussed. And if 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.680 we're taught to hate our country from the commanding heights 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:36.360 of society, from our government itself, from our corporations, from 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.880 our tech companies, from our schools, from all of our 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:45.240 civil society institutions, how could we possibly defend that country? 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.480 Who would want to defend that country? It would be 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:53.680 immoral to defend that country to promulgate the vision and 0:12:53.760 --> 0:13:00.760 the policies necessary necessary to maintain it. If we're taught 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.520 that measures of excellence, any kind of measure of excellence, 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:11.880 are racist and bigoted, we will reward people for everything 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:19.920 but excellence. Politics will trump merit. What that's a recipe 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:26.839 for are not just individuals failing upward. It's a recipe then, 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:33.920 for failure across the board. Our ruling class fails again 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:39.480 and again to adequately represent us. It doesn't represent us. 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:45.640 It makes us subservient to it. It exists, essentially like 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:53.680 all bureaucracies, exist to perpetuate its own power and privilege, 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.840 to squander the very values and principles that allowed the 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:04.960 individuals who can eyes our ruling class to have to rise, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:10.040 to ascend to such a position in society. Isn't it 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:17.920 remarkable that the very ruling class responsible for propagating the 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:23.560 America Last Agenda, for embracing critical race theory, for embracing 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:33.120 racial division, eskewing excellence, not fighting back when standardized tests 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:38.120 are called racist. They've been the greatest beneficiaries of this 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.920 system and cynically, and I think rightly, if you look 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.600 at all of their actions at the end of the day, 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:51.520 Yes there's cowardice, Yes there are some true believers. Yes 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.000 there are people, as we've talked about, who are trying 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:58.560 to feed the woke crocodile so it spares them at 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.280 the end of the day, which will be a recipe 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.080 of disaster for them, by the way, just so we 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:10.760 deserved Ultimately, what are these policies about dividing and conquering 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:16.400 so that they crystallize their positions in society? If you 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.000 want to keep competition at Bay Pit Americans against each other, 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.000 stop kids in public schools from being able to take 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.640 advanced classes that allow them to reach their full potential 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.400 while your own kids can go to private schools and 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:35.360 not have to worry about those issues. Put politics over 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.560 merit to protect your own position in society. Make politics 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:41.920 the number one thing because the incumbents and politics have 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:49.880 the advantage. So how do I take this back to sports. Well, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.440 when you have to defend values and principles that we 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.240 talked about, it makes you hungry. It keeps you hungry, 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.600 It keeps you committed to a cause, It keeps you 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.600 debticated to American greatness. When you become weak and fat 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.400 and decadent, like the leaders on display at the G seven, 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.280 you become a rump of a society. It's like a 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.440 bad athlete resting on his laurels or formerly great athlete 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.480 resting on its worlds. And oftentimes you see great athletes 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.280 in retirement completely out of shape, barely a shadow of 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:28.240 what they were. A country has to appreciate greatness, cultivate greatness. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.040 If it wants to be great, it has to celebrate achievement. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.880 It has to prioritize merit above all else. And in 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:39.160 particular when all of the adversaries facing that country care 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.840 at the end of the day about results, about performance, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.440 even if they're hobbled by their own corruption and misdeeds, 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.240 as we'll talk about with Congressman Jim Banks in just 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:59.440 a bit teaching the military Ebramex Kendy racist philosophy, an 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.920 America loathing worldview. How could you possibly defend a country 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:08.200 if you're told it's terrible. It's a recipe for mediocrity. 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:14.080 We have to cultivate excellent instead of crystallizing mediocrity. They's 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:20.880 been wandering in for Buck Sexton back after a short break. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:31.640 President is an experienced statesman. Our one on one conversation 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:39.080 took almost two hours. It's not every world leader that 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.680 I guess this amount of attention. I mean, his predecessor 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.560 was asked the same question. He evaded this. This President 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:54.199 decided to respond to the question directly, and in this 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.840 he is very different from President Trump. That's wadermer Putin 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.240 talking about Joe Biden, and I think it's important to 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:09.520 note experienced statesmen, experienced statesmen by today's standards, our mediocrities. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:14.360 Experienced statesmen have overseen policies for decades that have put 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:18.280 America last and allowed people like Vladimir Putin to run 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:24.760 circles around them. All of our adversaries love experienced statesmen. 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.119 Think about the position that America has squandered since the 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.480 end of the Cold War, the blood and treasure we've spilled, 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:38.080 while our adversaries have enriched and empowered themselves and threatened 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.400 us in ways that we haven't been threatened in decades. 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.359 If ever, so, when I go back to excellence or mediocrity, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.120 experienced statesmen or the definition of those who have been 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.919 cultivated in mediocrity on the basis of the results for 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.520 the country, Are we a richer, stronger, more powerful country 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:59.040 as a consequence of our political establishment embodied personified by 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:03.720 President Joe Biden. No, we are not. And then the 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.640 rest of the episode today where we speak with Congressman 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:10.000 Jim Banks and Christian Witten and Professor Scott Jenner and 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.760 Rachel Bovard We're going to touch on national security and 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:18.000 foreign policy, domestic policy, big tech, and what's going on 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.439 in education. And if you look, the running theme through 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:26.800 all of these areas is cultivating mediocrity, crystallizing mediocrity, not 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.920 pursuing excellence and pursuing American greatness and our national interests 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.480 first and only. This Ben Wangarten in for Buck sex 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:36.960 And on the Buck Sex and Show. And we'll be 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.199 back with Congressman Jim Banks right after this. You're in 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.119 the Freedom Hunt. 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On June twentieth that show Allegiance 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.040 dot Com enter promo code buck for ten percent off. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.320 So yes or no Racism in the United States Navy, Admiral, 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.480 you recommended every sailor in the United States Navy read 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.680 this book. So yes or no question. I'm not forcing 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.919 anybody to read the book. It's on a recommended reading list. Admiral, 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.399 did you read the book? I did, Admiral. Department of 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.880 Defense undertook the standown because they understand that extremism detracts 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.000 from military readiness. So if sailors accept Kennedy's argument that 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:55.680 America and the United States Navy are fundamentally racist, as 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.600 you've encouraged them to do, do you expect that to 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.760 increase or decrease rall and cohesion or even recruiting into 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.480 the United States Navy. Our strength is in our diversity, 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:10.880 and our sailors understand that race is a very Racism 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:14.280 in the United States is a very complex issue. That 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.200 was Congressman Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana and chairman 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:22.600 of the Republican Study Committee, having a somewhat heated exchange, 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:24.480 at least on one side of it, with the Chief 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:29.159 of Naval Operations Michael Gilday regarding the Navy's endorsement of 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.439 its leaders reading the likes of ibramex Kendy, and I 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.560 believe Michelle Alexander as well. And here to talk about 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.760 that and so much more from China to January sixth 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:42.040 and beyond is Congressman Jim Banks. Thanks so much for 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:44.000 coming on the program. Hey Ben, good to be with you. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:46.840 Thanks for having Me's my pleasure. And let's start right 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:50.480 there with that exchange. What was your takeaway? Are you 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.200 any more confident in the state of our navy and 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:57.880 as a particularly as a naval reservist as well. Are 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:02.119 you satisfied with that exchange? Far? Far from it? You 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.399 know it. It's not been a several weeks when I 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:10.120 first wrote Admiral guild A, drawing attention to him putting 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:15.240 this outrageous and Unamerican book on a reading list that 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:17.800 he pushes out to every sailor in the United States 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:20.640 Navy and encourages them to read. If you know anything 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:25.680 about Abrahm X Kendy, you know that it's not his 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:28.199 book How to Be an Anti Racist. It's it's his 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:32.359 entire body of work that is inherently just that it 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:36.680 is racist. It is Unamerican. And the thought that the 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.280 most powerful, the highest ranking admiral of the United States 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:42.879 Navy would push out a book to every sailor to 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:47.600 read that says that America is evil, inherently racist. The 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:51.320 United States Navy and other institutions in our country our 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:57.320 racist is exactly. It's not just counterproductive, it's completely Unamerican. 0:23:57.400 --> 0:23:59.520 And in that exchange you can hear that, I mean, 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:04.520 my my guess is that some junior officer I thought 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:06.440 this was a good idea. Now he's in a position 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:08.600 where he has to defend it. When I asked him 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:10.440 at the end of the exchange, I mean, did you 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:13.080 actually read it? He said, he did. To give me 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:15.840 one redeeming quality of this book that makes it something's 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:17.560 appropriate to put on the list. He couldn't answer it. 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:20.680 He got defensive instead. And you can hear more of 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:23.879 that exchange. I know you played it, but throughout the 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:25.880 exchange you get a sense that he knows he can't 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:28.439 defend it. And it's really remarkable. He goes to the 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:32.320 diversity is our strength response, and yeah, of course you 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.320 need a diversity of opinion when you're talking about dealing 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:37.920 with our worst adversaries. You need experts in other languages 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:41.240 and other cultures, but there can be no diversity when 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:44.080 it comes to love of country and patriotism. There have 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.520 to be certain unifying values and principles to have the biggest, 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:50.640 baddest fighting force in the history of mankind and deal 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:53.560 with all these adversaries that we face. Given that, I mean, 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.000 what are the consequences in terms of moral for future 0:24:57.040 --> 0:25:01.760 recruitment and for fielding the strongest fighting force given wokeism 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:05.320 seemingly pervading not just the military, but also the intelligence 0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:08.560 community and beyond. Yeah, I mean, you said it well, 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:12.240 But for the United States Military to adopt critical race theory, 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:14.760 and for the United States Navy, on top of all 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:18.679 of the other branches, to instill CRT into the ranks 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:23.480 is exactly the opposite of the stand down on extremism, 0:25:23.520 --> 0:25:25.760 of the mission of the Biden administration to root out 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.879 extremism in the ranks. It's doing exactly the opposite of 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:32.320 what the Democrats with the Biden administration, with Admiral Guilday, 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:35.680 what the secretary, what others the leaders at the Pentagons 0:25:35.720 --> 0:25:37.920 say that they're trying to do with the extremism stand 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:39.800 down and I would argue even further, Ben, I mean 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:43.720 to that point, how do you recruit the next generation 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:46.399 of young men and women of the future leaders in 0:25:46.440 --> 0:25:49.639 our country to raise their right hand, to defend the 0:25:49.720 --> 0:25:53.879 constitution and to potentially die for this country out of 0:25:53.920 --> 0:25:57.160 the next On the other side, on the other hand, 0:25:57.200 --> 0:25:58.480 or at the other side of your mouth, you're talking 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:03.159 about how America endorsing a book. We're talking about how 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:07.840 America is racist and evil and inherently um the up 0:26:07.880 --> 0:26:11.479 the upbringing of our great country is somehow just that 0:26:11.560 --> 0:26:13.120 evil and racist. I don't I don't think you can 0:26:13.160 --> 0:26:16.680 do it. I mean this, This affects morale, It affects retention, 0:26:16.720 --> 0:26:19.119 it affects recruitment. And I hear every day as a 0:26:19.119 --> 0:26:23.960 member of Congress and as a as a Navy reservist, 0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:27.960 having served with with hundreds of sailors along the way 0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:30.800 who are still in uniform and still serving, they feel 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:33.439 very uncomfortable with what the what the Navy and what 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:37.959 what overall the military is becoming as they take this uh, 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:41.119 this this crash course into crt It's unhealthy. It's an 0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:44.920 American It's got to stop. But with admirals like guil 0:26:44.960 --> 0:26:47.399 Day in charge of the Navy. I don't have high hopes. 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:50.520 And as we saw in the meeting between Secretary of 0:26:50.520 --> 0:26:54.520 State Anthony B. Lincoln and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan 0:26:54.640 --> 0:26:57.200 and their counterparts at Anchor Jawaska, or in the most 0:26:57.240 --> 0:27:00.280 recent meetings between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden. Of course 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:03.160 this is a propaganda coup for our worst adversaries who 0:27:03.200 --> 0:27:07.200 loved to guaman to this America loathing sort of narrative. 0:27:07.280 --> 0:27:10.639 So of course there are national security implications that go beyond, again, 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:15.160 just fielding the strongest fighting force. On the subject of China, 0:27:15.680 --> 0:27:19.080 you've been critical of the US Innovations and Competition Act, 0:27:19.160 --> 0:27:22.800 which has been framed as a sort of bipartisan anti China, 0:27:22.880 --> 0:27:25.639 tough on China sort of bill, a layout sort of 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:27.640 your critique of it, Well, at the end of the day, 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:32.040 this is just a massive spending boondoggle that Democrats are 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:33.800 really good at this. I hate to admit it, but 0:27:33.840 --> 0:27:37.719 they're good at at taking an issue like China and 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:39.560 then writing a bill has nothing to do with it, 0:27:39.680 --> 0:27:42.840 but saying it's about China, and then getting a couple 0:27:42.880 --> 0:27:45.080 of Republicans to come along and make it by partisan 0:27:45.440 --> 0:27:47.280 and that's what this bill has become. I mean, this 0:27:47.359 --> 0:27:53.600 is a big boost and funding to universities around the country, who, 0:27:53.640 --> 0:27:57.680 by the way, don't protect their research from being infiltrated 0:27:58.240 --> 0:28:01.879 by Chinese espionage their campuses, which happens every day. I 0:28:02.200 --> 0:28:04.560 wrote a bill about this a few years ago to 0:28:04.640 --> 0:28:08.679 protect sensitive research that that our taxpayer dollars are funding 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:14.320 for national security purposes at universities. We don't protect intellectual property, 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:16.399 but we're gonna go We're gonna go pour billions of 0:28:16.440 --> 0:28:19.159 dollars into these institutions that the China, that the Chinese 0:28:19.160 --> 0:28:21.960 Communist Party is already infiltrated, so that it doesn't make 0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:24.160 any sense there Also, there are also some pretty strong 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:27.440 pro life concerns about what type of research we are 0:28:27.520 --> 0:28:30.000 we are funding, you know, so there are more There 0:28:30.000 --> 0:28:32.399 are moral angles to this as well, but at the 0:28:32.480 --> 0:28:34.040 end of the day, has nothing to do with holding 0:28:34.080 --> 0:28:37.159 China accountable. As absolutely this bill does nothing to hold 0:28:37.720 --> 0:28:40.320 China accountable for what they've done to steal our jobs 0:28:40.320 --> 0:28:42.880 where they've done to at least the COVID nineteen and 0:28:42.960 --> 0:28:45.640 the pandemic, and not just on the United States of America, 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:47.440 but on the rest of the world. It just pours 0:28:47.800 --> 0:28:51.719 a bunch of money into places um that that we 0:28:51.760 --> 0:28:54.560 already know where that that that that's not a wise 0:28:54.600 --> 0:28:56.920 investment of our taxpayer dollars, at least without the kind 0:28:56.920 --> 0:28:59.720 of safeguards that we've been advocating for us. There's there's 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:02.200 nothing in the bill that does anything to be tough 0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:05.000 on China or to hold them accountable. And that's why, 0:29:05.080 --> 0:29:07.880 that's why it's been so easy for most conservative Republicans 0:29:07.880 --> 0:29:10.480 on Capital Hell to oppose it. Some of the policy 0:29:10.560 --> 0:29:15.840 documents put out by the Trump administration cover something approximating 0:29:15.840 --> 0:29:18.560 at least at least the makings of a grand strategy 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:21.040 with respect to taking on the Chinese Communist Party, which 0:29:21.040 --> 0:29:24.560 I think you agree is the greatest foreign adversary that 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:28.160 we face. What do you believe the legislative branch's role 0:29:28.360 --> 0:29:31.080 ought to be in executing such a strategy, and how 0:29:31.080 --> 0:29:34.480 do you what do you believe that strategy should consist of. Well, 0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:38.480 it's both economic and it's military. And I participated something 0:29:38.520 --> 0:29:41.800 called the China Task Force last year that Kevin McCarthy 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:43.680 set up. It was supposed to be by Parson in 0:29:43.720 --> 0:29:46.920 the beginning, and then Pelosi pulled the Democrats off of 0:29:46.960 --> 0:29:49.600 it because it was before election day and they didn't 0:29:49.600 --> 0:29:51.160 want to appear like they were on the same side 0:29:51.160 --> 0:29:54.920 of a big issue with Trump because Trump was I 0:29:55.040 --> 0:29:57.600 continue to argue, I'll always maintain it's the first president 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:01.120 that has stood up to China and identified China as 0:30:01.120 --> 0:30:03.520 a threat. In fact, the first thing that President Trump 0:30:03.600 --> 0:30:05.520 did when he came to office was rewrite the National 0:30:05.520 --> 0:30:09.880 Security the National Defense Strategy, the names China and Russia 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:14.040 as as great great power competition that we need to 0:30:14.080 --> 0:30:16.400 divert away from the Middle East and focus more on 0:30:16.440 --> 0:30:19.600 great power competition with China and Russia. China being the 0:30:19.600 --> 0:30:23.000 greatestisential threat that we face economically and militarily. So, but 0:30:23.040 --> 0:30:24.400 there's a lot that goes into that. I mean, if 0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:27.280 we were serious about combating the China threat, we would 0:30:27.360 --> 0:30:31.720 unwind the massive amount of investments coming from Wall Street, 0:30:32.440 --> 0:30:36.040 from from pensions, pension dollars from almost every state in 0:30:36.040 --> 0:30:38.480 the country, and from the federal government that go to 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:44.560 fund our greatest adversary, China's military build up of ships 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:48.479 and fighter planes, of sophisticated weapons and technologies that are 0:30:48.480 --> 0:30:52.520 being funded by through through a funnel through through the 0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:54.400 Wall Street types I mean, that's one way that we 0:30:54.400 --> 0:30:56.840 hold China accountable. You won't find that anywhere in the 0:30:57.320 --> 0:31:01.120 so called Endless Frontier Act or the man subspending boondoggle 0:31:01.200 --> 0:31:05.680 of the Research Funding Bill. That's that's not designed to 0:31:05.720 --> 0:31:07.880 do anything to hold them accountable. So that that's one 0:31:07.920 --> 0:31:10.120 area that we've been focused on a Republican study Committee 0:31:10.160 --> 0:31:11.840 in my office for a couple of years, sort of 0:31:12.240 --> 0:31:16.440 turning off the spicket of money that goes from the 0:31:16.520 --> 0:31:20.760 United States, from taxpayer dollars from pigeons through Wall Street 0:31:21.080 --> 0:31:24.640 to Wall Street's biggest friend in China. If you want 0:31:24.640 --> 0:31:25.800 to if you want to hold if you want to 0:31:25.800 --> 0:31:29.239 block China's rise, that's that's the first place to go 0:31:29.400 --> 0:31:31.560 before we get to sort of the domestic policies that 0:31:31.600 --> 0:31:33.280 I want to touch on on the other side, I 0:31:33.280 --> 0:31:35.960 think it's worth stating that, in my view, at least, 0:31:36.000 --> 0:31:39.000 the living representation of the way that our political class 0:31:39.000 --> 0:31:41.520 has been compromised with respect to communist China, and it 0:31:41.560 --> 0:31:45.160 also impacts as you speak about the investment aspect of things. 0:31:45.400 --> 0:31:48.840 The living personification of the problem is Diane Feinstein, Senator 0:31:48.880 --> 0:31:51.920 from California, and I wrote at length several years back 0:31:51.920 --> 0:31:54.440 and have continued to write about her family's own personal 0:31:54.480 --> 0:31:57.600 interest with respect to communist China and the soft policies 0:31:57.640 --> 0:32:01.080 that she's promoted throughout her entire career in Washington There, 0:32:01.080 --> 0:32:02.760 and of course that it was the alleged spy in 0:32:02.800 --> 0:32:04.840 her office. And I believe you were the only member 0:32:04.880 --> 0:32:08.480 of the House that actually put out questions regarding who 0:32:08.480 --> 0:32:11.080 this individual in that office was and what the implications were. 0:32:11.440 --> 0:32:14.480 Did you ever get a substantial response, a response that 0:32:14.560 --> 0:32:18.000 was satisfactory on that question. Yeah, of course not. And 0:32:18.160 --> 0:32:21.240 I'm embarrassed that we didn't continue to fight for those 0:32:21.280 --> 0:32:23.080 types of answers. I mean we did, We kept reaching 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:26.560 out and and I don't think that you or any 0:32:26.560 --> 0:32:28.760 of your listeners would be surprised to know that we 0:32:28.840 --> 0:32:31.800 never received any response. In Diane Feinstein's still United States 0:32:31.800 --> 0:32:34.480 Senator today. So what we do know is that for 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:37.000 twenty years she had a high ranking member of her 0:32:37.040 --> 0:32:41.680 staff who was a Chinese. A spark to counse is 0:32:41.760 --> 0:32:44.920 this is, this is why the China threat is so 0:32:44.960 --> 0:32:46.320 realist right in front of us. I mean, I could 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:48.880 go on and on with other examples of the Chinese 0:32:48.880 --> 0:32:51.640 Communist Party's tentacles that are spread all over places like 0:32:51.720 --> 0:32:56.920 Capitol Hill, Silicon Valley, Wall Street through through their United 0:32:56.960 --> 0:32:59.760 Front efforts. But the fact that Diane Feinstein was never 0:32:59.760 --> 0:33:03.800 how held accountable or forced to answer for for keeping 0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:07.720 a spy on her staff, a Chinese Communist Party spy, 0:33:07.800 --> 0:33:10.920 should tell you should make everyone scratch their head at 0:33:11.000 --> 0:33:13.960 least well more with Congressman Jim Banks right after this 0:33:14.040 --> 0:33:26.680 quick break, welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. Ben 0:33:26.720 --> 0:33:29.800 Winegarden in for Buck Sexton, and we were talking with 0:33:29.840 --> 0:33:33.840 Congressman Jim Banks before the break about US China policy, 0:33:33.880 --> 0:33:37.040 and now I want to transition to domestic policy. You 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:41.160 recently wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland raising 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:43.720 what you believe to be or reach, the implication being 0:33:43.720 --> 0:33:48.280 that there's disparate treatment between the law enforcement's efforts to 0:33:48.520 --> 0:33:51.920 pursue those associated with the events at the Capitol on 0:33:52.040 --> 0:33:56.000 January sixth versus those who participated in the sixteen nineteen 0:33:56.200 --> 0:33:59.120 riots of last summer. What do you hope to achieve 0:33:59.440 --> 0:34:02.640 from that way? And do you believe there's disparate treatment there? Well, 0:34:03.000 --> 0:34:05.040 obviously there is. I mean, as I pointed out in 0:34:05.080 --> 0:34:08.480 the letter been to Merrick Garland, if you if you 0:34:08.520 --> 0:34:11.799 just compare the number of charges and the number of 0:34:11.840 --> 0:34:16.400 charges that were dropped between the Portland Riders and the 0:34:16.719 --> 0:34:19.160 January six riders. I mean, it sort of tells a 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:23.080 pretty significant story. I mean, three hundred times more often 0:34:23.800 --> 0:34:28.160 that charges were dropped against the Portland Riders then against 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:31.120 the Capitol Writers. So check this out. So Garland charged 0:34:31.960 --> 0:34:35.520 eighty six Portland Riders and he dropped fifty eight out 0:34:35.520 --> 0:34:37.560 of the eighty six cases. That's about sixty percent of 0:34:37.600 --> 0:34:40.680 the cases that he dropped against the Portland Rioters. But 0:34:40.719 --> 0:34:42.279 if you if you look at the four hundred and 0:34:42.280 --> 0:34:46.720 sixty five cases that Garland charged against the Capitol Writers, 0:34:46.880 --> 0:34:48.920 He's only dropped in one case, So that's about point 0:34:49.000 --> 0:34:51.440 two percent. So you do the math and you and 0:34:51.480 --> 0:34:54.640 you realize that there is there really is a different 0:34:54.719 --> 0:34:58.719 set of rules, a different set of standards in both 0:34:58.760 --> 0:35:02.000 of these cases. That's not the itemize the rioters on 0:35:02.080 --> 0:35:04.960 January sixth. I'm not advocating the charges to be dropped 0:35:05.280 --> 0:35:08.200 for either one of them, but it's pretty clear that 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:12.799 the department that Joe Biden's Department of Justice cares not 0:35:12.920 --> 0:35:17.279 at all about about the rioters from last summer. In 0:35:17.320 --> 0:35:21.200 the sixteen nineteen riots. But they've they're focusing all of 0:35:21.200 --> 0:35:24.239 their resources and attention somewhere else. I think if you 0:35:24.320 --> 0:35:27.600 if you draw that comparison, it's a pretty powerful statement 0:35:27.680 --> 0:35:30.759 that the American people deserve to know. January sixth is 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:34.920 cited as one of the events that underpins the administration's 0:35:35.000 --> 0:35:38.960 new Countering Domestic Terror strategy, which I think the Department 0:35:39.000 --> 0:35:41.279 of Homeland Security has actually called for a whole of 0:35:41.280 --> 0:35:43.440 society efforts. I'm not sure they've called for a whole 0:35:43.480 --> 0:35:46.600 of society efforts to counter the Chinese Communist Party, but 0:35:46.680 --> 0:35:49.800 that's neither here nor there. There's a really troubling aspect. 0:35:49.800 --> 0:35:52.200 I mean, there are many troubling aspects of that document, 0:35:52.280 --> 0:35:53.759 but I want to read part of it and get 0:35:53.800 --> 0:35:57.480 your take on it. The document reads, in part, tackling 0:35:57.480 --> 0:35:59.920 the threat posed by domestic terrorism over the long term 0:36:00.120 --> 0:36:03.359 demand substantial efforts to confront the racism that feeds into 0:36:03.400 --> 0:36:06.480 aspects of that threat. We are therefore prioritizing efforts to 0:36:06.560 --> 0:36:08.879 ensure that every component of the government has a role 0:36:08.960 --> 0:36:12.799 to play in rooting out racism and advancing equity. So 0:36:13.040 --> 0:36:17.160 is this just a backdoor Let's impose effectively critical race 0:36:17.239 --> 0:36:19.920 theory on the country via government under the guise of 0:36:20.000 --> 0:36:22.880 national security, And why should we be confident that our 0:36:22.960 --> 0:36:26.120 rights are going to be protected with this administration executing 0:36:26.120 --> 0:36:29.239 this strategy. Well, you can't be confident of that. You 0:36:29.520 --> 0:36:32.160 can't be confident that Joe Biden's Department of Justice can 0:36:32.239 --> 0:36:35.440 be can be trusted at all to impartially define what 0:36:35.480 --> 0:36:38.920 domestic terrorism means, because to them, it means that you 0:36:39.000 --> 0:36:41.479 supported Donald Trump. It means that you that you have 0:36:42.280 --> 0:36:45.080 that views that are on the right and not on 0:36:45.120 --> 0:36:47.920 the left. And that's the that's the bottom line here. 0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:50.399 I mean, this is basically, if you think about it's 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:53.080 basically what the Biden administration is rolling out of this 0:36:53.160 --> 0:36:56.400 domestic terrorism strategy. It's basically like the Patriot Act, except 0:36:56.440 --> 0:37:01.000 for instead of targeting foreign terrorists, it targets American citizens. 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:03.400 And it's sort of ironic because if you remember, the 0:37:03.760 --> 0:37:05.560 left was always up in arms about how the Patriot 0:37:05.600 --> 0:37:09.040 Act would violate foreigners civil liberties, like as if that 0:37:09.120 --> 0:37:12.600 was a thing. But they have no issue with violating 0:37:12.680 --> 0:37:16.080 Americans constitutional rights or civil liberties as they as they've 0:37:16.160 --> 0:37:19.839 rolled out, which is why this is all targeting Trump supporters, 0:37:19.960 --> 0:37:22.160 and that That's why the letter that I wrote to 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:26.720 Meeric Garland about the I mean clearly, clearly the dropping 0:37:26.760 --> 0:37:30.800 all those charges for against Portland rioters, for those on 0:37:30.920 --> 0:37:35.040 the left, but not but the disparity for what for 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:37.400 those who were charged on January six. I mean, you 0:37:37.440 --> 0:37:40.959 see the difference in their approach. This is all about 0:37:41.040 --> 0:37:44.960 targeting Trump supporters, and that that's something that I know. 0:37:45.239 --> 0:37:47.160 I know it is concerning, but it should be concerning 0:37:47.200 --> 0:37:49.640 to any American on the center right, which is the 0:37:49.640 --> 0:37:53.080 majority of the country. Conisman Jim Banks, Republican from Indiana 0:37:53.080 --> 0:37:55.719 and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Thanks so much 0:37:55.719 --> 0:37:58.279 for coming on the program today. Really appreciate it. Great 0:37:58.280 --> 0:38:01.400 to be with you. This is the Fuck Sexton Show Podcast. 0:38:01.680 --> 0:38:05.680 Join the conversation and message buck on Facebook, Instagram, or 0:38:05.840 --> 0:38:09.440 email Team Bucket. iHeartMedia dot com. He may read it 0:38:09.480 --> 0:38:12.760 on the show. Why are you confidence whole? Change his behavior? 0:38:12.800 --> 0:38:17.400 Mister president, I'm not change what are you doing? So? 0:38:17.840 --> 0:38:23.320 I said it was confidence six. That's kind It's great, 0:38:24.040 --> 0:38:27.520 I said, we will change your behavior. Is the rest 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:30.840 of the world reacts to their name adminishes experience of 0:38:30.920 --> 0:38:34.280 the world. I'm not confident of anything. I'm just stating 0:38:34.360 --> 0:38:37.200 the fact forgetting his past behavior has not changed, and 0:38:37.400 --> 0:38:40.600 is that prest conference After sitting down for several hours, 0:38:40.760 --> 0:38:44.480 he denied any involvement in cyberd He dail played human 0:38:44.600 --> 0:38:47.520 rights abuses, even produced to say a lesson of all 0:38:47.560 --> 0:38:51.279 his name. So how does that account to a constructive 0:38:51.320 --> 0:38:56.280 meeting as president? I don't understand that it's just someone 0:38:56.320 --> 0:39:01.080 with ve who are we come on? Pretty much? I'll 0:39:01.080 --> 0:39:03.480 take your questions, and as usual, folks, they gave me 0:39:03.520 --> 0:39:05.920 a list of the people I'm going to call on, 0:39:06.360 --> 0:39:10.080 so Jonathan associated Press, Well, those were some of the 0:39:10.160 --> 0:39:14.040 sounds of Joe Biden's excellent adventure over to Europe for 0:39:14.200 --> 0:39:17.080 the G seven and then as much bandied about meeting 0:39:17.320 --> 0:39:20.920 with a Russian president, Vladimir Putin. And someone has been 0:39:21.000 --> 0:39:25.000 keenly attuned to everything going on overseas and including on 0:39:25.080 --> 0:39:28.800 issues much bigger than this most recent trip is Christian Witten. 0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:31.160 He's senior Fellow for Strategy and Trade at the Center 0:39:31.160 --> 0:39:33.760 for the National Interest, and it served as a senior 0:39:33.800 --> 0:39:36.560 advisor as well in the George W. Bush and Donald 0:39:36.600 --> 0:39:40.000 Trump administrations. Christian joins us, now, thanks so much for 0:39:40.000 --> 0:39:42.440 coming on the program. Great to be here, Ben. Thanks. 0:39:43.160 --> 0:39:46.239 So let's start with this set aside all of the 0:39:46.280 --> 0:39:49.200 optics of and really, in my opinion, sort of the 0:39:49.239 --> 0:39:53.040 pathetic questions about who should speak first, and you know, 0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:56.680 all of the kind of back and forth interplay between 0:39:57.000 --> 0:39:59.640 Puddin and Biden, which, if America was in a strong position, 0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:02.120 would be asking about the optics, they'd be talking about 0:40:02.120 --> 0:40:05.719 the substance, substantive way. Did anything change with respect to 0:40:05.880 --> 0:40:09.160 US Russia relations as a consequence of the trip, and 0:40:09.200 --> 0:40:11.400 what were your takeaways from the G seven as well? 0:40:11.520 --> 0:40:15.600 I'd say probably not. You know, there are two things 0:40:15.600 --> 0:40:17.719 that came out of it was a working group on 0:40:17.840 --> 0:40:22.160 cyber attacks and the agreement to send ambassadors back to 0:40:22.320 --> 0:40:25.880 each country. John Sullivan, or ambassador, was back in the 0:40:25.960 --> 0:40:31.440 United States after Putin recalled his ambassador after Biden flippantly 0:40:31.480 --> 0:40:34.160 called Putin the killer. So they're sending him back, but 0:40:34.560 --> 0:40:37.520 it's up to each country to decide whether that's real 0:40:37.840 --> 0:40:42.399 or not. Will those ambassadors have access to a foreign 0:40:42.480 --> 0:40:44.920 minister in Russia, the Secretary of State here, or if 0:40:45.040 --> 0:40:46.880 need be, the head of government, or are they just 0:40:46.920 --> 0:40:50.520 going to go and preside over irrelevant bureaucracies as they 0:40:50.560 --> 0:40:53.560 did before? They put the working group on cyber attacks. 0:40:53.600 --> 0:40:56.239 I have very low expectations for that. You know, it's 0:40:56.280 --> 0:40:58.680 a very important issue, but it's one that Biden has 0:40:58.760 --> 0:41:02.680 already fumbled early in his administration, and he, his National 0:41:02.719 --> 0:41:06.040 Security advisor others said basically, we were going to retaliate 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:09.840 in cyberspace, have a cyber counter attack for the solar 0:41:09.880 --> 0:41:12.680 winds hack in the United States that has been attributed 0:41:12.719 --> 0:41:15.920 to Russia. Well that never came. I mean the National 0:41:15.960 --> 0:41:20.520 Security Advisor Sullivan said there would be seen and unseen consequences. 0:41:20.560 --> 0:41:23.800 Well the consequences were so unseen that no discerned them anywhere. 0:41:23.960 --> 0:41:27.200 So not high expectations. They give some credit for at 0:41:27.239 --> 0:41:31.640 least trying to restore some relations with Russia after the 0:41:31.680 --> 0:41:35.280 Democrats spent the last five years trying to tank them successfully. 0:41:35.920 --> 0:41:38.319 And then on the G seven, I thought that was 0:41:38.640 --> 0:41:41.560 just a complete joke. The G seven itself is obsolete. 0:41:41.680 --> 0:41:44.680 It's the economic powers of the world as they appeared 0:41:44.680 --> 0:41:47.800 in the mid nineteen seventies. I mean, Italy and Canada 0:41:47.840 --> 0:41:51.239 are really going to throw their economic weight around and 0:41:51.320 --> 0:41:53.200 make a difference in the world. And if you just 0:41:53.320 --> 0:41:56.600 juxtaposed people like Jijin King the strong man in China. 0:41:56.640 --> 0:41:59.240 Are Putent, who has been on the job for twenty years, 0:41:59.360 --> 0:42:01.399 is at the top of this game, knows what he's doing, 0:42:01.600 --> 0:42:06.080 compared to Boris Johnson fist bumping Trudeau, the sock model 0:42:06.200 --> 0:42:10.600 turned Prime Minister of Canada, and Bojo up there with 0:42:11.000 --> 0:42:14.000 President Biden saying that we're going to build back better 0:42:14.200 --> 0:42:18.120 and greener and more feminine and more gender neutral. It's 0:42:18.160 --> 0:42:20.719 just a joke that the idea that these people are 0:42:20.719 --> 0:42:24.919 in charge of our fate is just very depressing. Yeah, 0:42:24.920 --> 0:42:27.799 I think it's a perfect representation of the sort of 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:32.960 decadent and decaying West that are purported leaders are overseeing. 0:42:32.960 --> 0:42:35.000 It doesn't have to be that way, but of course 0:42:35.400 --> 0:42:39.239 ideas have consequences. My take, and I'm curious what you 0:42:39.280 --> 0:42:41.440 think about this, is that the G seven was in 0:42:41.480 --> 0:42:43.799 effect and really the whole trip when you look at 0:42:43.800 --> 0:42:46.520 the NATO communicate as well, that was put out which 0:42:46.520 --> 0:42:49.319 we talked about on this program on a previous day 0:42:49.440 --> 0:42:53.719 this week, which has a couple of lines regarding China. Basically, 0:42:53.760 --> 0:42:56.040 the G seven was a pep rally for communist China. 0:42:56.040 --> 0:42:58.960 If we're going to go down the Enviro radicalism agenda, 0:42:59.160 --> 0:43:05.440 hamstring areomy, of course, outsourced European energy to Russia and beyond. 0:43:05.840 --> 0:43:08.279 China stands to be one of the greatest beneficiaries of 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:11.560 America being back so called that is back to what 0:43:11.640 --> 0:43:15.160 I would term an America last strategy policy. I wonder 0:43:15.239 --> 0:43:18.000 what your take is on that. You're right, you know, 0:43:18.040 --> 0:43:20.680 the G seven and NATO both padded themselves on the 0:43:20.719 --> 0:43:25.759 back for including statements about China. You know, when has 0:43:25.880 --> 0:43:28.720 a statement from a G seven ever made a difference 0:43:28.840 --> 0:43:31.160 in the real world. It's sort of sad. You have 0:43:31.280 --> 0:43:36.920 diplomats from all these countries, different ministries who travel around 0:43:36.960 --> 0:43:39.239 the world. It's a whole lot of diplo tourism, but 0:43:39.520 --> 0:43:43.720 they work on changing colons, the semi colons, and words 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:47.040 going and words go out of these enormously long statements, 0:43:47.040 --> 0:43:50.520 and you're called. During the Trump administration, not having one 0:43:50.560 --> 0:43:53.840 of these statements was seen as some huge transgression, like, 0:43:53.920 --> 0:43:55.759 you know, will the sun come up tomorrow because we 0:43:55.760 --> 0:43:59.000 don't have a statement from the G seven. I think 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:01.040 as soon as the ink dry on these things, as 0:44:01.040 --> 0:44:03.200 soon as the door was closed on Air Force seven, 0:44:03.239 --> 0:44:07.840 the G seven statement was gone, forgotten, irrelevant, And the 0:44:07.880 --> 0:44:10.840 same with NATO. NATO it seems basically to have become 0:44:10.880 --> 0:44:13.040 a mechanism. I mean, it's always a mechanism to keep 0:44:13.080 --> 0:44:16.319 the Americans in, as it was called, Americans in, the 0:44:16.360 --> 0:44:20.000 Russians out, the Germans down. That mission became obsolete in 0:44:20.080 --> 0:44:22.240 nineteen ninety one with the collapse of the Soviet Union. 0:44:22.680 --> 0:44:25.759 I mean, will this make any difference in the real world. 0:44:25.800 --> 0:44:28.440 Are we going to see France's aircraft carrier applying the 0:44:28.480 --> 0:44:32.000 waters of the Western Pacific to give us some relief 0:44:32.000 --> 0:44:36.560 for it to butcherous American power? It just seems extremely unlikely. 0:44:36.880 --> 0:44:39.360 In the meanwhile, NATO, what does it do. It seems 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:42.600 to continually draw in our power. I mean, we have 0:44:42.800 --> 0:44:47.160 thirty five thousand, five hundred troops in Germany, Wish armies 0:44:47.200 --> 0:44:50.799 between Russia in Germany. It's just this tremendous waste of money, 0:44:50.840 --> 0:44:52.400 but I think distracts us from the real mission at 0:44:52.400 --> 0:44:54.880 hand with China. Yeah, and to segue a little bit 0:44:54.960 --> 0:44:58.360 further into China, I think it's always worth remembering that 0:44:58.480 --> 0:45:01.960 the Obama Biden ad Ministry had an agreement a sort 0:45:02.000 --> 0:45:06.080 of no cyber warfare pact with General Secretary she and 0:45:06.160 --> 0:45:08.719 that pack of course, was not worth the paper it 0:45:08.760 --> 0:45:11.200 was printed on. So why we would think that Vladimir 0:45:11.239 --> 0:45:13.960 Putin would be any more respectful of whatever comes out 0:45:14.000 --> 0:45:17.240 of a strategic dialogue. I think we should be beyond 0:45:17.280 --> 0:45:21.160 skeptical of it. And you've been writing and speaking often 0:45:21.719 --> 0:45:26.000 about the Chinese Communist Party is Malian efforts worldwide, including 0:45:26.040 --> 0:45:28.000 in Hong Kong. I believe you had a substack post 0:45:28.080 --> 0:45:31.240 today on what's going on with respect to Apple Daily, 0:45:31.760 --> 0:45:36.239 a news periodical in Hong Kong, and efforts to persecute 0:45:36.280 --> 0:45:39.560 and prosecute its owner as well. Tell us a little 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:44.319 bit about that and why it's relevant for everyday Americans. Well, 0:45:44.320 --> 0:45:47.239 it speaks to the point that you just can't trust 0:45:47.320 --> 0:45:50.160 China on an agreement, whether it's that twenty fifteen agreement 0:45:50.200 --> 0:45:52.560 not to attack us in cyberspace, for the agreement they 0:45:52.600 --> 0:45:54.920 had with the Brits that was enrolled at the United 0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:59.400 Nations to respect Hong Kong's autonomy and the freedoms that 0:45:59.480 --> 0:46:02.160 they had under the British, including freedom of the press. 0:46:02.360 --> 0:46:04.640 With Apple Daily, which is basically like the New York 0:46:04.640 --> 0:46:09.600 Post of Hong Kong, very pro democracy, boisterous tabloidy, but 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:14.280 also serious news and very starting support from the people 0:46:14.440 --> 0:46:19.279 of Hong Kong and a very profitable business. Heretofore, that 0:46:19.400 --> 0:46:21.400 is something that the Chinese wanted to do away with, 0:46:21.560 --> 0:46:25.520 so they have under this sony national security law charged 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:28.680 Jimmy Lay, the publisher. Jimmy has been through this before 0:46:28.840 --> 0:46:31.920 with the Chinese. He arrived in Hong Kong as a 0:46:31.960 --> 0:46:34.799 poor kid, basically was just a shirt on his back. 0:46:34.840 --> 0:46:37.880 He made it and got rich in men's apparel with Georgiano, 0:46:38.400 --> 0:46:41.160 sided with the students in Cenim and Square in nineteen 0:46:41.160 --> 0:46:43.160 eighty nine and was pushed out of his business as 0:46:43.160 --> 0:46:45.800 a result of that. Then became a huge success and 0:46:46.280 --> 0:46:51.120 entirely different business media and is now you know, basically 0:46:51.160 --> 0:46:53.399 being being pushed out of that. And it's not just him. 0:46:53.520 --> 0:46:58.240 It's overnight this morning Hong Kong Time, the Chinese rounded 0:46:58.400 --> 0:47:01.560 up all of the top editorial staff of Apple Daily. 0:47:02.640 --> 0:47:05.799 So it really is a strong move against the free 0:47:05.840 --> 0:47:10.360 press there. And it was just laughing. City Bank upgraded 0:47:10.680 --> 0:47:14.440 HSBC recently saying they have great prospects for wealth management 0:47:14.480 --> 0:47:16.319 in Hong Kong, and I think this is City Bank 0:47:16.680 --> 0:47:19.000 just covering its own decision to go very deep in 0:47:19.040 --> 0:47:21.920 Hong Kong, hiring thousands of bankers there now, And that's 0:47:21.960 --> 0:47:24.359 a ludicrous decision because anyone who can move money out 0:47:24.360 --> 0:47:26.880 of Hong Kong's it's not a torrent, but it's a 0:47:26.920 --> 0:47:30.400 steady drip. And as far as wealth management on the mainland, 0:47:30.440 --> 0:47:33.200 no one on the mainland who's using City Bank or HSBC. 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:36.560 But I think there's a naive to tay about how 0:47:36.640 --> 0:47:39.279 this movement against freedom is somehow going to be just 0:47:39.360 --> 0:47:42.959 limited to the elected pandemocrats in Hong Kong or the 0:47:43.000 --> 0:47:45.560 pro democracy media. It's going to be bigger than that. 0:47:45.600 --> 0:47:47.680 If you're an equity analyst and you write something bad 0:47:47.719 --> 0:47:50.480 about the state owned enterprise on the mainland, how do 0:47:50.520 --> 0:47:52.120 you know these guys aren't going to come a knocket. 0:47:52.360 --> 0:47:55.680 I think the chances are they probably will. That economic 0:47:55.760 --> 0:47:59.719 freedom is also deteriorating rapidly in Hong Kong. Got just 0:47:59.760 --> 0:48:01.279 about a minute and a half before we have to 0:48:01.280 --> 0:48:03.719 seek a quick break and before we get there. If 0:48:03.760 --> 0:48:06.840 you could summarize it, what do you make of President 0:48:06.920 --> 0:48:10.680 Biden's China policy to date and the personnel he's selected 0:48:11.120 --> 0:48:15.080 to implement and executing. It's a mixed bag so far. 0:48:15.200 --> 0:48:17.920 I don't think we really know that China policy. You know, 0:48:18.000 --> 0:48:22.000 it's sort of described that you have super doves like 0:48:22.120 --> 0:48:24.880 John Kerry the climates are who eventually is going to 0:48:24.960 --> 0:48:27.920 want some deal of the century on climate out of China. 0:48:27.960 --> 0:48:31.160 And will you know, they say ludicrous things like climate 0:48:31.239 --> 0:48:34.640 change is a national security issue. No, no, no, it isn't. 0:48:34.280 --> 0:48:38.799 It just isn't. But the idea there is that you 0:48:38.840 --> 0:48:44.440 will basically subsume all other issues beneath below climate change. 0:48:45.040 --> 0:48:46.720 You know, on the flip side, you have Kurt Campbell, 0:48:46.800 --> 0:48:49.600 who is a long time Democrat but from the Hillary 0:48:49.640 --> 0:48:51.799 Clinton wing of the party, considered more of a hawk. 0:48:52.239 --> 0:48:56.560 I think the jury's out on that. Over at USTR, 0:48:56.920 --> 0:49:01.919 Katherine Tie at Taiwan, he's American who is I think 0:49:01.920 --> 0:49:05.239 the eyes wide open. And it's very interesting so far, 0:49:05.560 --> 0:49:08.840 almost all across the Biden administration they want to pretend 0:49:08.880 --> 0:49:12.160 like twenty sixteen that never happened, the Trump administration didn't occur. 0:49:12.400 --> 0:49:15.160 With China policy, they're not quite willing to do that yet. 0:49:15.200 --> 0:49:18.440 But we haven't really seen sort of the coherent policy 0:49:18.440 --> 0:49:21.120 on trade in defense, and we certainly haven't seen any 0:49:21.200 --> 0:49:26.800 defense increase in naval aviation histill nuclear presence in the Pacific. 0:49:26.840 --> 0:49:29.960 To follow some of the rhetoric from both parties of Arshington, 0:49:30.200 --> 0:49:31.919 and I do think it's worth noting on that point 0:49:31.960 --> 0:49:35.560 about maintaining many of the Trump administration's policies that when 0:49:35.560 --> 0:49:39.160 I interviewed President Trump last week, he noted that Biden 0:49:39.280 --> 0:49:41.760 can't take the tariffs off from China. They're too politically 0:49:41.760 --> 0:49:44.719 popular and they're too effective. So it's interesting how he 0:49:44.760 --> 0:49:47.480 was boxed in certain of these areas. We're speaking with 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:50.080 Christian Witten, Senior Fellow for Strategy and Trade at the 0:49:50.120 --> 0:49:51.960 Center for the National Interest and wove more with him 0:49:52.120 --> 0:49:55.759 right after a quick break. You're listening to the Buck 0:49:55.800 --> 0:49:59.160 Sexton Shoe podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast 0:49:59.200 --> 0:50:02.560 on the iHeart Brade Eat or wherever you get your podcasts. 0:50:03.600 --> 0:50:06.160 Back with Christian Widden here on the Buck Sexton Show. 0:50:06.280 --> 0:50:09.680 Van weine Garden in for Buck Sexton, and before the break, 0:50:09.680 --> 0:50:14.040 we're talking about US China policy, and obviously something that 0:50:14.080 --> 0:50:18.719 ought to loom hugely bigly over US China policy are 0:50:18.840 --> 0:50:22.520 the origins of the coronavirus and ultimately what the response 0:50:22.760 --> 0:50:25.279 is and really what the response should be, regardless of 0:50:25.320 --> 0:50:27.279 whether or not it came from a wet market, which 0:50:27.320 --> 0:50:30.120 I think is pretty clear is becoming less and less 0:50:30.200 --> 0:50:32.719 legitimate and less and less viable, or it was a 0:50:32.800 --> 0:50:35.319 lab leak, and whether or not that lab leak, whether 0:50:35.400 --> 0:50:38.520 or not it was intentional or unintentional with respect to 0:50:38.560 --> 0:50:41.560 the leak of the pandemic out of that U Hunt 0:50:41.640 --> 0:50:46.359 Institute of Virology, one question that I have is how 0:50:46.400 --> 0:50:49.640 could we possibly find any smoking guns now? And should 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:52.000 it really matter either way whether we find those smoking 0:50:52.080 --> 0:50:55.360 guns given China's acts subsequent to the spread of the virus, 0:50:56.160 --> 0:50:58.640 then I think it'll be very difficult. Now we have 0:50:58.719 --> 0:51:01.760 an intelligence bureau for steed, that costs US eighty billion 0:51:01.840 --> 0:51:05.600 dollars a year, who you know, really ought to be 0:51:05.680 --> 0:51:08.160 able to get to the bottom of this, you'd think 0:51:08.160 --> 0:51:13.160 with their mass combination of signals intelligence and human intelligence, 0:51:13.160 --> 0:51:16.480 which I'm dubious of as far as the quality of 0:51:16.520 --> 0:51:19.799 what they may have um So hopefully we can get 0:51:19.840 --> 0:51:22.799 more information that's available, but you're right, the Chinese aren't 0:51:22.800 --> 0:51:25.440 going to make it easy likely, as you also I 0:51:25.440 --> 0:51:31.560 think implied that is a very strong symbol and signal 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:35.160 of guilt. After all, if this really was something that 0:51:35.239 --> 0:51:38.759 happened naturally, or even if it was just negligence, as 0:51:38.760 --> 0:51:43.080 opposed to crimes of commission that had leaked, the Chinese 0:51:43.080 --> 0:51:47.520 would have an interest in making that known, because if 0:51:47.560 --> 0:51:51.319 it's the alternative, then I mean they're they're they're on 0:51:51.360 --> 0:51:53.960 the hook potentially for damages that result from this. But 0:51:54.000 --> 0:51:56.880 if they were innocent, they would be making the staff available, 0:51:56.880 --> 0:51:59.640 they would be making the medical records of the people 0:51:59.680 --> 0:52:03.600 who became sick in late twenty twenty excuse me, in 0:52:03.680 --> 0:52:06.480 late twenty nineteen available, And they haven't done any of that. 0:52:06.520 --> 0:52:08.799 They've done quite the opposite. In fact, one person who 0:52:08.840 --> 0:52:13.919 filed a patent for a coronavirus vaccine who worked at 0:52:13.960 --> 0:52:18.160 this lab died under very mysterious circumstances didn't die from 0:52:18.200 --> 0:52:21.719 COVID nineteen incidentally, so you know the implication he was 0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:26.960 bumped off by the Chinese. You know. Basically, I think 0:52:26.960 --> 0:52:29.680 the onus of proof is on China to show where 0:52:29.680 --> 0:52:31.839 this came from, and the assumption is that it came 0:52:31.880 --> 0:52:34.839 from them otherwise. But I think many in the West 0:52:34.880 --> 0:52:39.080 are just just hesitant because they're frankly afraid to understand 0:52:39.120 --> 0:52:42.520 and to pursue where that conclusion would go, which is 0:52:42.560 --> 0:52:45.279 that China owes the world and owes us trillions and 0:52:45.320 --> 0:52:49.120 trillions of dollars of compensation, and given the ambiguity that 0:52:49.160 --> 0:52:52.600 the intelligence community typically gives when asked for an assessment 0:52:52.640 --> 0:52:55.640 on something as major as this, I mean, should we 0:52:55.680 --> 0:52:59.040 have any confidence that punting to the ICA wasn't anything 0:52:59.080 --> 0:53:01.640 but a political decision to take it sort of out 0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:05.120 of the hands of Joe Biden essentially? Right, Well, it was, 0:53:05.200 --> 0:53:08.399 and partly it was a political decision by Biden. You're right, 0:53:09.280 --> 0:53:13.239 because Pompeo, terms Secretary of State, had an investigation. I'm 0:53:13.280 --> 0:53:16.319 just going you know, State issued a grant from the 0:53:16.440 --> 0:53:20.759 NIH too, this Wuhan Institute. State had a diplomat go 0:53:20.840 --> 0:53:22.960 and take a look around. He was not impressed by 0:53:22.960 --> 0:53:25.520 the security procedures and sent a cable back to main 0:53:25.560 --> 0:53:28.279 State in twenty eighteen to that effect. But Biden put 0:53:28.360 --> 0:53:32.200 the kibosh on that investigation, and the political blowback from 0:53:32.239 --> 0:53:34.799 that is why he turned it over to the intelligence bureaucracy. 0:53:35.160 --> 0:53:37.719 You're right, you know, I think Biden even already telegraphed 0:53:37.719 --> 0:53:40.200 when he announced this that some agencies think one thing. 0:53:40.320 --> 0:53:44.880 Some agencies searched together with you know, so called moderate confidence, 0:53:44.920 --> 0:53:48.640 which means they're guessing it's sad that our intelligence gacacy 0:53:48.800 --> 0:53:53.000 is is this ineffective on something so important? But it 0:53:53.040 --> 0:53:56.399 goes back to this deep state, this intelligence garacacy. It's 0:53:56.600 --> 0:54:01.719 chief virtue, it's chief capability is covering its own But 0:54:02.480 --> 0:54:05.640 rather than helping the president do his job, and rather 0:54:05.719 --> 0:54:08.840 than getting the truth out to the American people in 0:54:09.000 --> 0:54:10.840 thirty seconds. And this is a tough one to do 0:54:10.880 --> 0:54:13.120 in that short period of time. But is there any 0:54:13.160 --> 0:54:17.360 alternative ultimately to decoupling from China, at least in every 0:54:17.360 --> 0:54:21.240 strategically significant area, if we are to ultimately not become 0:54:21.600 --> 0:54:24.200 a vassal of communist China or at least continue to 0:54:24.200 --> 0:54:28.960 be compromised to devastating effect. I think not. I think 0:54:29.000 --> 0:54:33.440 we need to choke off technology, know how, in capital. 0:54:33.760 --> 0:54:36.080 This is the chief threats in the world today. You know, 0:54:36.160 --> 0:54:38.560 Russia dous things we don't like, and certainly Iran is 0:54:38.560 --> 0:54:41.040 a very serious throat in the broader Middle East. But 0:54:41.160 --> 0:54:44.880 China is the big tahuna. It's the chief competitor economic 0:54:45.000 --> 0:54:48.000 model to ours and in political model, and it's great 0:54:48.040 --> 0:54:52.120 at political warfare, economic warfare. We don't know about military warfare, 0:54:52.160 --> 0:54:55.480 but they're sertainly good at buying everything that money can buy, 0:54:55.680 --> 0:54:58.160 so I think you're right. The implication is that we 0:54:58.280 --> 0:55:01.399 have to get much more serious about the Christian Thanks 0:55:01.400 --> 0:55:03.200 so much for coming on the program. Really appreciate it, 0:55:04.640 --> 0:55:07.279 my pleasure. Thank you, and well Moore right after this, 0:55:07.880 --> 0:55:11.239 we're happy to have abandoned in Florida. It's not going 0:55:11.280 --> 0:55:15.040 to be allowed in Florida classrooms. Spending tax dollars to 0:55:15.080 --> 0:55:20.440 teach kids that America is a rotten place is absolutely unacceptable. 0:55:20.920 --> 0:55:23.759 If you'll look at how some of this stuff manifests 0:55:23.800 --> 0:55:27.000 itself in classrooms that we have seen examples of. It's 0:55:27.040 --> 0:55:31.080 not a conspiracy theory, dividing kids based on race, trying 0:55:31.120 --> 0:55:34.040 to say some are oppressors and some are oppress based 0:55:34.080 --> 0:55:38.560 on race, attacking law enforcement and saying law enforcement attack 0:55:38.719 --> 0:55:42.520 people based on race, those things are poison. That is 0:55:42.600 --> 0:55:44.360 not what we should be doing. What we should be 0:55:44.400 --> 0:55:48.400 doing is solid curriculum based on the actual facts of 0:55:48.440 --> 0:55:51.360 American history and teaching kids what it means to be 0:55:51.400 --> 0:55:53.520 an American and part of what it means to be 0:55:53.520 --> 0:55:56.680 an American as we judge people not on the color 0:55:56.719 --> 0:55:59.160 of their skin, but on the content of their character. 0:55:59.440 --> 0:56:03.600 That was Governor Ronda Santis, Republican from Florida speaking about 0:56:03.680 --> 0:56:08.920 critical race theory and its infiltration of classrooms around the country. 0:56:08.960 --> 0:56:10.799 And you can't really put it much better than that 0:56:11.000 --> 0:56:16.360 taxpayer funded anti americanism is intolerable. Should be roundly rejected 0:56:16.360 --> 0:56:20.560 by everyone, as should the idea that content of character 0:56:20.600 --> 0:56:23.520 should not trump anything else, including color of skin. And 0:56:23.560 --> 0:56:27.200 this goes back to my running theme of excellence versus mediocrity. 0:56:27.320 --> 0:56:31.480 If you want mediocrity, place anything but content of character first. 0:56:32.360 --> 0:56:36.600 But really, the racialists, the racial Marxists, the imbibers of 0:56:36.640 --> 0:56:39.600 critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion, I mean 0:56:39.640 --> 0:56:44.640 the true believers, the ideoogs here, they fundamentally reject the 0:56:44.680 --> 0:56:49.000 Martin Luther King ethos of content of character over color 0:56:49.040 --> 0:56:51.680 of skin. And we could talk about this in the abstract, 0:56:51.800 --> 0:56:55.320 and with our next guest, we will talk at length 0:56:55.640 --> 0:56:57.319 about what is going on in our school is what 0:56:57.400 --> 0:57:03.400 these ideologies are actually all about. How conservatives, patriots, traditional Americans, 0:57:03.880 --> 0:57:06.480 anyone who's a gas at what they're witnessing in our 0:57:06.520 --> 0:57:10.920 schools can go about combatting them practically. There's a story 0:57:10.960 --> 0:57:12.960 that caught my eye this week on a micro level 0:57:13.040 --> 0:57:17.920 that just speaks to the effects of the brainwashing that 0:57:17.920 --> 0:57:21.400 we've seen, and it comes from teachers, and of course 0:57:21.400 --> 0:57:23.480 the teachers are far more radical than the parents on 0:57:23.520 --> 0:57:28.560 the average. So you've got that inbuilt disadvantage in academia 0:57:28.600 --> 0:57:32.680 of academics being disproportionately leftist, or at least and not 0:57:32.720 --> 0:57:36.120 only disproportionately leftist, but then having a percentage a minority 0:57:36.160 --> 0:57:39.800 of those disproportionate leftists who are really radically leftists. There's 0:57:39.800 --> 0:57:43.280 an article at the Post millennial white Spanish teacher cancels 0:57:43.320 --> 0:57:48.680 herself because quote unquote white isn't right. Subtitle dismantling white 0:57:48.680 --> 0:57:52.040 supremacy in society looks like dismantling in my heart. First 0:57:52.160 --> 0:57:55.120 it means I'm not going to teach Spanish. Accountability is 0:57:55.120 --> 0:57:59.120 ongoing because there is not end to the process. So 0:57:59.160 --> 0:58:01.840 this teacher, during what can only be described as a 0:58:01.920 --> 0:58:05.400 struggle session there's actually a women in Gender Studies conference 0:58:06.280 --> 0:58:10.200 for professors. Her name is Jessica Bridges, shared that she 0:58:10.280 --> 0:58:12.840 stopped teaching Spanish to K through twelve students because it 0:58:12.880 --> 0:58:15.040 wasn't right for a white woman to teach Spanish. I 0:58:15.080 --> 0:58:18.400 guess that's cultural appropriation. But stop right there for a second. 0:58:19.000 --> 0:58:22.000 What the hell it does it matter? Your skin color, 0:58:22.000 --> 0:58:25.320 your background, or anything else. If you are a competent teacher, 0:58:26.280 --> 0:58:29.800 shouldn't our schools be about getting the best education, which 0:58:29.880 --> 0:58:34.040 means not only learning a non Marxian version of history, 0:58:34.480 --> 0:58:38.120 but learning how to think. Clearly, the leftist don't believe 0:58:38.160 --> 0:58:39.880 that they want you to think what they want you 0:58:39.920 --> 0:58:41.480 to think, and they don't want you to have their 0:58:41.480 --> 0:58:45.400 critical reasoning skills to see right through it. This article 0:58:45.480 --> 0:58:48.360 goes on to say that this teacher had this revelation 0:58:48.520 --> 0:58:50.760 after taking a course she found on Instagram about how 0:58:50.760 --> 0:58:54.880 to become a better white ally and anti racist co conspirator. 0:58:54.960 --> 0:58:58.000 And this is the language that the left speaks. They 0:58:58.040 --> 0:59:02.000 talk about toxic word and you're allowed to fight toxic 0:59:02.040 --> 0:59:06.560 if not harmful, actually harmful words with actual violence justifiable. 0:59:06.960 --> 0:59:09.640 They talk about being an ally. The way to be 0:59:09.720 --> 0:59:11.440 an ally to a person is to treat them as 0:59:11.480 --> 0:59:16.800 a human being, regardless of identity. Explicitly, the left needs 0:59:16.800 --> 0:59:19.040 to bake identity in everything because they need to pit 0:59:19.120 --> 0:59:21.840 us against each other because that's part of their political strategy. 0:59:22.000 --> 0:59:23.320 And at the end of the day, that's what this 0:59:23.400 --> 0:59:26.600 is really all about. What is CRT. It's not just 0:59:26.640 --> 0:59:31.040 about brandwashing kids, demoralizing generation, turning kids against their parents 0:59:31.040 --> 0:59:34.000 and their country, and basically, in effect a revolution of 0:59:34.000 --> 0:59:38.040 the mind that will lead to a revolution in the country. Ultimately, 0:59:38.600 --> 0:59:42.120 it's about tearing us apart at the seams. It's about 0:59:42.120 --> 0:59:45.400 indoctrination and creating an army of social justice warriors in 0:59:45.440 --> 0:59:48.200 perpetuity that gets worse every single generation. And it has 0:59:48.280 --> 0:59:51.440 gotten works every single generation because what was considered incredibly 0:59:51.520 --> 0:59:54.880 radical forty years ago then becomes, you know, thirty years ago, 0:59:54.920 --> 0:59:57.040 the norm, and it continues on and on. It's only 0:59:57.040 --> 0:59:59.960 accelerating with social media. So our next guest will take 1:00:00.080 --> 1:00:03.360 this micro example and move to the macro of what 1:00:03.480 --> 1:00:06.800 is CRT and diversity, equity inclusion all about how do 1:00:06.800 --> 1:00:08.640 you combat it? And then after that we'll talk about 1:00:08.680 --> 1:00:12.000 another area of concentrated woke power in big tech with 1:00:12.080 --> 1:00:15.560 Rachel Bovard. We're back right after this. When we look 1:00:15.600 --> 1:00:17.600 at what these laws are doing, you know a lot 1:00:17.640 --> 1:00:20.320 of people kind of scoffed at them when you read 1:00:20.320 --> 1:00:23.400 the language of them, they appear very silly, But when 1:00:23.400 --> 1:00:25.720 you think about what this is actually trying to do, 1:00:26.000 --> 1:00:29.240 we know that it is narrative that allows us to 1:00:29.360 --> 1:00:33.200 enact really dangerous policies. It is narrative that allows citizens 1:00:33.240 --> 1:00:36.000 to kind of accept these erosions of civil rights. So 1:00:36.040 --> 1:00:39.880 it's not incidental that the same states that are introducing 1:00:39.920 --> 1:00:43.760 these anti critical race theory, anti sixteen nineteen project laws 1:00:43.880 --> 1:00:46.960 are also introducing voter suppression laws. These things are going 1:00:47.040 --> 1:00:49.520 hand in hand. Well, you just heard the dulcet tones 1:00:49.720 --> 1:00:55.800 of Nicole Hannah Jones, creator of the Insidious sixteen nineteen Project, 1:00:55.840 --> 1:00:58.880 talking with Joy Read and trying to equate the efforts 1:00:58.880 --> 1:01:02.280 to root outtical race theory in schools across this country 1:01:02.320 --> 1:01:05.240 and anti American critical race theory with the broader efforts 1:01:05.240 --> 1:01:07.880 to quote unquote suppress the vote, or as we talked 1:01:07.880 --> 1:01:11.520 about yesterday, Stacy Abrams saying, voter integrity efforts are part 1:01:11.520 --> 1:01:14.800 of the rolling insurrection. So this is the state of 1:01:14.920 --> 1:01:17.200 rhetoric on the left today, and I'm pleased to be 1:01:17.280 --> 1:01:20.920 joined by someone who's countering that rhetoric and the policies 1:01:21.320 --> 1:01:24.160 as well. Professor Scott Jenner. He is the professor of 1:01:24.200 --> 1:01:27.200 political science at Boise State and a Washington Fellow at 1:01:27.200 --> 1:01:30.240 the Claremont Institute, where phot disclosure, I too, am a 1:01:30.280 --> 1:01:32.440 fellow and do some work as well. He's also the 1:01:32.480 --> 1:01:36.160 author of the book The Recovery of Family Life, Exposing 1:01:36.320 --> 1:01:39.320 the limits of modern ideologies. Scott, thanks so much for 1:01:39.360 --> 1:01:41.520 coming on the program today. Thanks for having me. It's 1:01:41.520 --> 1:01:43.520 a pleasure to be here. Well, pleasure to have you. 1:01:43.600 --> 1:01:48.000 And let's start right there with the left's recent freak 1:01:48.000 --> 1:01:50.800 out about and this is in the media and beyond 1:01:50.880 --> 1:01:54.520 as well academics as well. This freak out over conservatives 1:01:54.520 --> 1:01:58.640 having the goal to seek to educate, legislate critical race 1:01:58.720 --> 1:02:00.720 theory out of our public school is. What do you 1:02:00.720 --> 1:02:03.160 make of that freak out? Well, I mean, it seems 1:02:03.160 --> 1:02:05.080 like they're really trying to just make it the official 1:02:05.120 --> 1:02:10.360 ideology of the country, and any effort to fight against 1:02:10.600 --> 1:02:14.000 social justice ideology, critical race theory, any kind of critical 1:02:14.040 --> 1:02:19.560 theory is trying to be labeled as an Americans as 1:02:19.680 --> 1:02:25.000 a basis for hate speech and canceling those people. So 1:02:25.080 --> 1:02:27.760 it's all the more important to really fight back against 1:02:27.760 --> 1:02:29.720 it because they're trying to rule it out as a 1:02:29.840 --> 1:02:33.640 legitimate position in politics. And it is a legitimate position 1:02:33.680 --> 1:02:37.040 in politics, darn't it. I Mean, the idea that all 1:02:37.160 --> 1:02:40.160 disparities between all groups are traceable to some sort of 1:02:40.200 --> 1:02:45.360 systematic discrimination is just bunk. And if we can't say 1:02:45.400 --> 1:02:49.520 that it's bunk and a disgusting line meant to silence us, 1:02:49.880 --> 1:02:52.440 then we're really in position where we, you know, we 1:02:52.480 --> 1:02:56.160 can't govern ourselves and we have to submit. So it 1:02:56.160 --> 1:02:59.200 looks to me like part of a long term strategy 1:02:59.720 --> 1:03:03.560 to at a new ideology governing the country and everyone 1:03:03.600 --> 1:03:06.960 to submit to it. I think the simplest summary of 1:03:07.080 --> 1:03:12.600 what critical race theory is essentially racial Marxism, not even racialists, 1:03:12.680 --> 1:03:15.720 or you could call it racist Marxism, racial Marxism, or 1:03:15.840 --> 1:03:18.960 racialist Marxism. But you come at this from the perspective 1:03:19.080 --> 1:03:22.480 of an academic. What's your best explanation as to what 1:03:22.600 --> 1:03:26.120 CRT consists of and what does it am ultimately to achieve. 1:03:26.560 --> 1:03:29.640 I mean, I think CRT is part of a larger 1:03:29.680 --> 1:03:32.760 movement that's been going on for about fifty years. It's 1:03:33.000 --> 1:03:37.520 a late child of multiculturalism, and it's an attempt to 1:03:37.560 --> 1:03:42.640 try to explain differences between groups in terms of discrimination, 1:03:43.000 --> 1:03:47.240 not in terms of group difference. So it began in 1:03:47.280 --> 1:03:54.600 the late sixties with multicultural education and the attempt to 1:03:54.880 --> 1:04:00.200 stop assimilation, to stop holding all groups to the same 1:04:00.280 --> 1:04:04.520 standards of behavior, and to start respecting what it's called 1:04:04.560 --> 1:04:10.200 cultural difference. Some groups don't achieve as well in school, 1:04:10.920 --> 1:04:13.080 we're not supposed to try to raise them to the 1:04:13.200 --> 1:04:17.920 level of achievement, but rather to respect their difference. And 1:04:19.200 --> 1:04:21.800 you know that ends up having this kind of paternalistic 1:04:21.960 --> 1:04:24.760 aspect to it, but it also ends up taking the 1:04:24.840 --> 1:04:28.040 standard that we have used as a country and undermining 1:04:28.080 --> 1:04:31.200 it or making it not a standard. And so I 1:04:31.280 --> 1:04:34.440 just look at critical race theory as totally in line 1:04:34.520 --> 1:04:40.800 with this long line of ideological positions that include multiculturalism, 1:04:40.840 --> 1:04:45.960 affirmative action, set asides as policies, but just the latest 1:04:46.040 --> 1:04:50.040 flower of it. The difference in critical race theory seems 1:04:50.080 --> 1:04:52.960 to be that they really don't believe that progress can 1:04:53.000 --> 1:04:56.480 be made on any of these avenues. It's just a 1:04:56.520 --> 1:05:01.640 permanent struggle between groups, and it's not necessary to stigmatize 1:05:01.680 --> 1:05:03.800 one group in order to so that it will lose 1:05:03.840 --> 1:05:07.080 its confidence so that a different group can rule and 1:05:07.160 --> 1:05:11.600 set set the tone. And so critical race here, I 1:05:11.640 --> 1:05:15.360 think adds to the idea that all discrimination is traced, 1:05:15.560 --> 1:05:19.439 all disparities are traceable to discrimination. With this idea that 1:05:19.480 --> 1:05:23.680 no progress can be made on it, and that different 1:05:23.920 --> 1:05:27.360 different groups in the case in our case, I think 1:05:27.880 --> 1:05:31.640 it means blacks and women need the rule, and whites 1:05:31.680 --> 1:05:35.600 and men need to submit to that rule. And so 1:05:36.240 --> 1:05:38.680 so I think it's not didn't just come out of nowhere. 1:05:38.920 --> 1:05:41.160 It's been growing for a long time, but it's just 1:05:41.280 --> 1:05:45.080 added certain accesses over the course of the last few years. 1:05:45.520 --> 1:05:48.920 And it's tactically brilliant to try to cover the agenda 1:05:48.960 --> 1:05:52.880 that you always wanted with the patna of sort of 1:05:53.200 --> 1:05:57.800 racial justice and defending those who are perceived to be 1:05:57.960 --> 1:06:00.280 the underdog or treated as the underdog, but in case 1:06:00.280 --> 1:06:02.600 a perpetual underdog that can only be helped through the 1:06:02.640 --> 1:06:05.800 implementation of these sorts of policies. I mean, it's technically 1:06:06.480 --> 1:06:09.000 very smart. And you've sort of, in your own wife 1:06:09.040 --> 1:06:11.760 fought fire with fire. What have you been aiming to 1:06:11.800 --> 1:06:16.200 do to combat CRT in your home state of Idaho. Well, 1:06:16.240 --> 1:06:19.080 I'm not acting as a professor at Boise State, but 1:06:19.160 --> 1:06:22.720 rather just as a citizen. We've tried to write some 1:06:22.800 --> 1:06:28.800 reports on how far the ideology of critical theory, or 1:06:28.840 --> 1:06:32.760 social justice as we call it, has penetrated our universities 1:06:33.400 --> 1:06:37.480 and here with another group called the Ido Freedom Foundation, 1:06:37.760 --> 1:06:41.000 I have helped to write a couple of reports, one 1:06:41.080 --> 1:06:45.120 on Boise State University and another on Idaho University, Idaho, 1:06:45.760 --> 1:06:49.880 about how the structure of diversity, inclusion and equity is 1:06:49.920 --> 1:06:52.680 beginning to be built and to infiltrate all of the 1:06:52.760 --> 1:06:56.240 policies at the school. We're not as far built out 1:06:56.280 --> 1:06:59.320 as other schools like Berkeley or Ohio State, but we're 1:06:59.360 --> 1:07:01.600 still in the earth early stages of the building what 1:07:01.640 --> 1:07:06.160 we call the adolescence of the of the attempt to 1:07:06.200 --> 1:07:09.360 build a structure on the university. And this is happening, 1:07:09.400 --> 1:07:11.640 you know, under the nose of the legislature. No one 1:07:11.720 --> 1:07:15.640 knows that it's happening. It's it's not really under the 1:07:15.680 --> 1:07:19.040 purview of the legislature normally to pay attention to these things. 1:07:19.480 --> 1:07:22.600 But if we think that this ideology is something that 1:07:22.640 --> 1:07:25.160 really undermines the ability for us to have a common 1:07:25.200 --> 1:07:27.560 good and for us to have representative government and for 1:07:28.040 --> 1:07:32.040 all groups to thrive in the United States, it needs 1:07:32.080 --> 1:07:33.800 to be you know, it needs to be rooted out 1:07:33.880 --> 1:07:37.600 or prevented from taking over our public institutions. So here 1:07:37.600 --> 1:07:41.240 in Idaho, you know, with the help somewhat of our reports, 1:07:42.000 --> 1:07:46.680 there have been laws that are passed that prevent indoctrination 1:07:47.760 --> 1:07:51.000 on the basis of the social justice ideology. And also 1:07:51.160 --> 1:07:54.600 there's been some defunding of the universities that has absolute 1:07:54.640 --> 1:08:00.160 cuts in their budgets from the state and all and 1:08:00.280 --> 1:08:03.160 in the name of this, because this is being built, 1:08:03.560 --> 1:08:07.760 the legislature has cut the budget. And you know, I 1:08:07.760 --> 1:08:10.080 think that's one of the only ways that only tools 1:08:10.120 --> 1:08:13.320 that a legislature has to do something about this, and 1:08:13.600 --> 1:08:15.960 here in Idaho at least some of the legislators have 1:08:16.400 --> 1:08:19.360 found it necessary to start using that tool. And I 1:08:19.439 --> 1:08:22.240 take it the rationale for developing those reports was to 1:08:22.320 --> 1:08:25.960 just first get the basic facts of how widespread these 1:08:26.000 --> 1:08:29.000 efforts are, how deep they go, to sort of quantify 1:08:29.080 --> 1:08:33.519 and qualify the problem before using whatever remedies necessary to 1:08:34.439 --> 1:08:37.839 overcome that problem. Yes, I mean that's exactly the rationale. 1:08:37.840 --> 1:08:41.799 And the places we looked in the university are, for instance, 1:08:41.960 --> 1:08:44.320 what are the strategic plans in the university say about 1:08:44.320 --> 1:08:48.240 their efforts to build diversity, equity and inclusion infrastructure. Who 1:08:48.280 --> 1:08:51.440 have they hired to build it, What kinds of policies 1:08:51.479 --> 1:08:54.920 have they adopted as they've attempted to build out the infrastructure, 1:08:55.680 --> 1:08:58.360 What kinds of policies when it comes to hiring or 1:08:58.520 --> 1:09:03.200 contracts at the university, grant or free speech policies, for instance, 1:09:03.240 --> 1:09:06.519 bias response teams and things on campus. How far has 1:09:06.560 --> 1:09:10.559 it infiltrated the curriculum, the general ed which departments are 1:09:10.600 --> 1:09:15.120 really taken over by this social justice ideology? How is 1:09:15.120 --> 1:09:18.479 it infiltrated into student life and residence halls? Is it 1:09:18.520 --> 1:09:21.240 the basis for hiring residence hall directors? How does it 1:09:21.280 --> 1:09:24.720 affect university programming? I mean, who has a chance to 1:09:24.800 --> 1:09:30.120 overlook all of those things? So our reports just encapsulated 1:09:30.160 --> 1:09:34.320 all of those aspects into one tight, little twenty four 1:09:34.360 --> 1:09:40.040 page document and well sourced here in Idaho, and it's 1:09:40.080 --> 1:09:44.519 being you know, it's being reproduced in other states as 1:09:44.560 --> 1:09:47.719 people have seen the importance of having a good factual 1:09:47.800 --> 1:09:50.720 basis for understanding what is going on in universities. Other 1:09:50.760 --> 1:09:54.160 states have approached us to write such report. And I 1:09:54.200 --> 1:09:57.599 think it's a good basis, a factual basis from which 1:09:57.880 --> 1:10:00.720 good criticisms of universities can be made. What are the 1:10:00.840 --> 1:10:04.600 lessons from your experiences thus far for the rest of 1:10:04.640 --> 1:10:07.439 the country, if you're going to encapsulate them, well, I mean, 1:10:07.479 --> 1:10:11.040 first of all, it's difficult, I think to root out something, 1:10:11.520 --> 1:10:15.439 it's easier to stop it from growing. That legislators can 1:10:15.680 --> 1:10:20.559 affect the behavior of universities if they use the tools 1:10:20.600 --> 1:10:23.800 that they have at their disposal, the most important of 1:10:23.800 --> 1:10:26.720 which are the levers of budget. Not so much, I 1:10:26.760 --> 1:10:30.960 think the regulation of universities, which universities can get around 1:10:31.400 --> 1:10:35.040 by just naming things differently or such. You have to 1:10:35.080 --> 1:10:37.679 make it so that universities don't want to do this 1:10:37.960 --> 1:10:40.960 or pay a price if they do it, and so 1:10:41.000 --> 1:10:44.200 I think those are important lessons. Also, I think it's 1:10:44.240 --> 1:10:48.120 crucial informed legislators do not have tons of time to 1:10:48.160 --> 1:10:53.840 do this themselves. Just a concentrated effort to provide a 1:10:53.960 --> 1:10:56.960 systematic account, well sourced account of what's going on on 1:10:57.080 --> 1:11:00.559 universities can have an effect on how legislation there's view 1:11:00.640 --> 1:11:04.840 the public institutions. And I guess the fourth thing I 1:11:04.840 --> 1:11:08.160 would say is that it's also true that state boards 1:11:08.200 --> 1:11:12.799 are pretty useless when it comes to overseeing universities because 1:11:12.840 --> 1:11:18.080 state boards themselves are pretty much captured by the education establishment. 1:11:18.120 --> 1:11:21.920 In any particular place, they come from the education establishment 1:11:21.960 --> 1:11:24.960 and they're there to protect it. So really only political 1:11:25.000 --> 1:11:29.280 institutions can have an effect, and those political institutions are 1:11:29.280 --> 1:11:32.439 the executive and the legislature. It's probably best to have 1:11:32.479 --> 1:11:35.120 executive leadership. This would be a fifth point instead of 1:11:35.200 --> 1:11:38.840 legislative leadership. But in the absence of executive leadership, and 1:11:38.880 --> 1:11:41.920 I don't think we have effective executive leadership here in Idaho, 1:11:42.520 --> 1:11:46.439 the legislature can you can step in and at least 1:11:46.439 --> 1:11:51.000 prevent budgets from passing, and that only requires half of 1:11:51.040 --> 1:11:55.280 a bicameral legislature. They're prevented from going forward. So if 1:11:55.280 --> 1:11:58.599 there's a conservative House, the Conservative House can stop things 1:11:58.680 --> 1:12:02.000 from happening. And that's what happened here. Well more with 1:12:02.080 --> 1:12:05.680 Professor Scott Yenner. Right after a quick break, Welcome back 1:12:05.680 --> 1:12:09.799 to the Buck Sexton Show. Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton, 1:12:09.920 --> 1:12:14.240 and we're talking with Professor Scott Yenner. He teaches political 1:12:14.280 --> 1:12:16.880 science at Boise State and he's a Washington Fellow at 1:12:16.920 --> 1:12:19.920 the Claremont Institute, where I too am a fellow and 1:12:20.000 --> 1:12:23.120 the author recently of the book The Recovery of Family Life, 1:12:23.400 --> 1:12:27.200 Exposing the limits of modern ideologies. And before that break, 1:12:27.240 --> 1:12:31.240 we were talking about critical race theory and they're sort 1:12:31.280 --> 1:12:35.040 of an related area in the sort of cult of 1:12:35.080 --> 1:12:38.559 wokedom taking over, of course, like every bad idea starts 1:12:38.560 --> 1:12:40.960 in the schools, but then takes over every other aspect 1:12:40.960 --> 1:12:44.839 of our culture and society, obviously our corporate boardrooms and beyond. 1:12:45.200 --> 1:12:48.840 And that's the notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And 1:12:48.840 --> 1:12:52.440 you've written at some length about what these words actually 1:12:52.840 --> 1:12:57.280 mean translated into woke speak, what our diversity, equity and 1:12:57.360 --> 1:13:01.280 inclusion really about. Yeah, I mean, I try to provide 1:13:01.280 --> 1:13:07.080 just very simple translation of these words. Equity is the 1:13:07.120 --> 1:13:11.520 idea that each group should be represented in its population 1:13:12.600 --> 1:13:17.559 population proportion in each institution. So since blacks make up 1:13:17.600 --> 1:13:20.759 thirteen percent of the population, they should be thirteen percent 1:13:20.800 --> 1:13:24.719 of engineering students. Whites are fifty five percent of the population, 1:13:24.760 --> 1:13:27.799 they should make up fifty five percent of the engineering students. 1:13:27.800 --> 1:13:29.320 I don't know if that number is right, but I 1:13:29.360 --> 1:13:34.880 know thirteen percent is right. So equity is proportionality, Diversity 1:13:35.120 --> 1:13:42.280 is equity is a step forward. Diversity. Diversity is the 1:13:42.400 --> 1:13:47.439 values of the university. We are made so that underrepresented 1:13:47.479 --> 1:13:52.960 minorities can succeed and set the tone. And you can 1:13:53.040 --> 1:13:56.599 never have quite an set the tone and the forms 1:13:56.680 --> 1:14:01.639 of rule on the university. And then include the pleas 1:14:01.920 --> 1:14:07.320 that are necessary in order for diversity to happen. So 1:14:07.560 --> 1:14:13.640 things like going after what is called unconscious bias, offering training, 1:14:14.439 --> 1:14:19.879 trying to solicit more community partnerships with left wing groups 1:14:20.360 --> 1:14:24.320 will help diversify the university. That as make the forms 1:14:24.479 --> 1:14:31.160 and rule of those underrepresented minorities more and ever more 1:14:31.320 --> 1:14:35.439 the ruling doctrine of whatever institution you're talking about. So, 1:14:35.520 --> 1:14:40.960 equity is proportionality, inclusion. Our policies to be friendly to diversity. 1:14:41.520 --> 1:14:47.240 Diversity is underrepresented groups set a tone and rules in 1:14:47.320 --> 1:14:51.800 the institution. So what is your best explanation If a 1:14:51.920 --> 1:14:54.400 friend or colleague comes to you and says, what's your 1:14:54.439 --> 1:14:57.479 beef with diversity, equity and inclusion? Are you some kind 1:14:57.479 --> 1:14:59.920 of racist and bigot? How do you respond to them? 1:15:00.040 --> 1:15:02.560 Give us some news you can use here? Yeah, I 1:15:02.600 --> 1:15:06.479 mean I think that I would respond with things like this. 1:15:07.120 --> 1:15:09.759 That is, if we're going to rule ourselves as a people, 1:15:11.120 --> 1:15:14.960 we can't have administrative agencies setting the rules. The people 1:15:15.040 --> 1:15:18.880 need to speak that there is no way that all 1:15:18.960 --> 1:15:22.920 of the differences between groups are traceable to discrimination. The 1:15:23.040 --> 1:15:26.960 groups are different. Men and women have different values, Blacks 1:15:26.960 --> 1:15:30.800 and whites have different values and customs. So we should 1:15:30.880 --> 1:15:33.920 expect there to be differences between the groups. So the 1:15:33.920 --> 1:15:38.720 whole project of trying to equalize according to group outcomes 1:15:39.200 --> 1:15:42.200 is a preposterous one given what we know about the 1:15:42.200 --> 1:15:47.960 differences in groups. That it's impossible to get from critical 1:15:48.040 --> 1:15:51.759 race theory or social justice ideology to the point where 1:15:51.800 --> 1:15:56.800 all citizens are welcomed equally in a political community and 1:15:57.080 --> 1:16:01.960 can be friends with one another. The ideology itself is 1:16:02.040 --> 1:16:06.519 corrosive to civic friendship. It creates suspicion, it creates anger 1:16:06.640 --> 1:16:10.000 and resentment in all of the groups. And when you 1:16:10.040 --> 1:16:12.439 have a country that is defined by those things, that 1:16:12.479 --> 1:16:14.880 country will not be able to act. It will not 1:16:14.880 --> 1:16:16.639 be able to act on the world stage, it will 1:16:16.680 --> 1:16:19.400 not be able to act internally, and will end up 1:16:19.400 --> 1:16:26.200 being governed by unaccountable bureaucrats who who are imposing some 1:16:26.200 --> 1:16:30.240 sort of foreign vision on our society. So I think 1:16:30.240 --> 1:16:33.160 it's bad for republican government. I think it's bad for 1:16:33.200 --> 1:16:37.559 common citizenship and bad for national action. And it's based 1:16:37.600 --> 1:16:41.559 on a lie about the nature of group outcomes, and 1:16:41.600 --> 1:16:44.800 of course to execute it, and that's all, you know, 1:16:44.880 --> 1:16:47.600 not that big a deal, And of course to execute it, 1:16:47.640 --> 1:16:49.840 and it's implicit in your answer, but you have to 1:16:49.880 --> 1:16:53.559 impose totalitarianism essentially on the country, leaving aside that the 1:16:53.560 --> 1:16:56.559 country would collapse by tearing itself apart in the interim, 1:16:56.720 --> 1:16:59.760 as the totalitarianism is being imposed upon the country a 1:17:00.040 --> 1:17:02.400 real quick in thirty seconds or so, can you burn 1:17:02.479 --> 1:17:05.640 down the strawman argument being raised about how taking on 1:17:05.720 --> 1:17:08.840 CRT in schools as an attack on academic freedom. Yeah, 1:17:08.840 --> 1:17:11.519 I mean the purpose of academic freedom is to serve 1:17:11.560 --> 1:17:15.560 the common good. If there is an ideology that undermines 1:17:15.640 --> 1:17:20.640 the common good, like CRT, it's crucial to show that 1:17:20.720 --> 1:17:24.920 there is a limit to academic freedom. Academic freedom is 1:17:25.000 --> 1:17:28.200 only valued because it serves the common good, and if 1:17:28.240 --> 1:17:32.360 we have certain kinds of ideologies that undermine it, academic 1:17:32.400 --> 1:17:35.479 freedom must at some point give way to a concern 1:17:35.760 --> 1:17:39.000 that the public has to make sure that its institutions 1:17:39.040 --> 1:17:41.880 actually serve the common good. We've been speaking with Professor 1:17:42.000 --> 1:17:45.040 Scott Jenner of Boise State, where he teaches political science. 1:17:45.040 --> 1:17:47.680 He's also Washington Fellow at the Cremin Institute. Thank you 1:17:47.680 --> 1:17:49.559 so much for coming on the program. Really appreciate it. 1:17:49.720 --> 1:17:53.200 Thank you for having me. 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They found me an awesome property, they rented 1:18:18.640 --> 1:18:20.719 it out for me right away, They managed the tenant 1:18:20.720 --> 1:18:22.639 for me, and now I get a check every month 1:18:22.720 --> 1:18:25.559 like clockwork. Don't wait another second to see if my 1:18:25.600 --> 1:18:27.760 buddies It Done for You real Estate can do for 1:18:27.800 --> 1:18:30.360 you what they did for Mets. It done for you 1:18:30.439 --> 1:18:33.040 Buck dot com to see how it works. Is it 1:18:33.080 --> 1:18:35.720 done for you Buck dot com? Today? You will not 1:18:35.800 --> 1:18:48.920 be sorry. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This 1:18:49.080 --> 1:18:53.960 is Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton. And while we've 1:18:54.000 --> 1:18:57.080 covered a lot this week in the way of the 1:18:57.080 --> 1:19:00.280 woke takeover of pretty much every aspect of our society, 1:19:00.439 --> 1:19:02.280 I guess we've gone a little bit soft so far 1:19:02.360 --> 1:19:04.880 on big tech. We haven't given it its due yet. 1:19:04.920 --> 1:19:08.120 And someone who's been keenly focused on the ways in 1:19:08.160 --> 1:19:11.320 which concentrated private power in the way of big tech, 1:19:11.360 --> 1:19:14.640 which I've called sort of an auxiliary of the administrative 1:19:14.640 --> 1:19:18.080 state being used hand in hand with the federal government 1:19:18.280 --> 1:19:22.080 at times, and also of course federal officials cajoling big 1:19:22.120 --> 1:19:24.479 tech to do its bidding with respect to speech. It 1:19:24.560 --> 1:19:27.920 does not like someone who's been keenly focused on these issues, 1:19:27.920 --> 1:19:32.080 in particular again that concentration of power in the public 1:19:32.120 --> 1:19:35.920 and private spheres, is Rachel Bovard. She's senior director of 1:19:35.960 --> 1:19:40.479 Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, formerly served in roles 1:19:40.560 --> 1:19:43.320 under the likes of Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee. 1:19:43.439 --> 1:19:45.599 She's a senior tech columnist at the Federalists, and we'll 1:19:45.600 --> 1:19:47.880 talk about one of her recent articles there in just 1:19:47.920 --> 1:19:50.639 a second. And also, I should say a co panelist 1:19:50.640 --> 1:19:53.679 of mine on the weekly show the nat Con Squad, 1:19:53.720 --> 1:19:56.680 which is a project of the Edmund Burke Foundation, and 1:19:56.720 --> 1:19:58.800 I urge everyone to check that out for all the 1:19:58.880 --> 1:20:03.160 latest and greatest and policy politics and ideas in this 1:20:03.240 --> 1:20:06.960 sort of new national conservatism movement. Rachel, thanks so much 1:20:06.960 --> 1:20:10.360 for coming on the program today. My pleasure. Thanks for 1:20:10.400 --> 1:20:14.960 having me. Sure. So first let's do some level setting here. 1:20:15.400 --> 1:20:19.160 You've been writing at length about antitrust. You had a 1:20:19.200 --> 1:20:22.679 great peace in the American Conservative which sort of goes 1:20:22.720 --> 1:20:27.200 into in part practically how antitrust ought to be wielded 1:20:27.680 --> 1:20:31.080 given the concentrated power in big tech and elsewhere, but 1:20:31.120 --> 1:20:34.920 also that it really is a conservative policy at core. 1:20:35.040 --> 1:20:39.639 So what are the conservative underpinnings of antitrust rightly used? 1:20:42.120 --> 1:20:46.400 So our antitrust statutes in America are over a century old, 1:20:46.479 --> 1:20:49.360 and they grew out of this you know, shared concern 1:20:49.880 --> 1:20:52.599 for concentrated power in the market, you know, born out 1:20:52.600 --> 1:20:55.040 of this idea that it's you know, to have a 1:20:55.080 --> 1:20:57.479 free market that works, you know, it has to be 1:20:57.960 --> 1:21:02.320 vigilantly protected. And that was really a conservative impulse. You know. 1:21:02.400 --> 1:21:05.280 John Sherman, the Senator who gave his name actually to 1:21:05.320 --> 1:21:08.320 the founding anti trust lawsuit or grounding Antstrius Statute, was 1:21:08.360 --> 1:21:12.040 a Republican signed by Benjamin Harrison, also a Republican president, 1:21:12.640 --> 1:21:15.160 and it really grew out of this classical liberal traditional 1:21:15.160 --> 1:21:20.120 conservative tradition which says, look concentrated power wherever it exists, 1:21:20.240 --> 1:21:23.800 can be a threat to liberty. I went into a 1:21:24.040 --> 1:21:26.559 recent essay I wrote into sort of the thinking of 1:21:26.600 --> 1:21:30.200 Friedrich Hyak around this concept. And you know, we usually 1:21:30.200 --> 1:21:33.680 think of Hyaks as the great champion of the unfettered marketplace, 1:21:33.800 --> 1:21:37.120 but even Hyak was very aware that, you know, a 1:21:37.160 --> 1:21:41.880 concentrated corporate power, particularly when it fused with government power, 1:21:42.120 --> 1:21:44.160 could be a tremendous threat. And you know, that was 1:21:44.200 --> 1:21:47.839 the fascism that he fled from, you know, in Europe 1:21:48.680 --> 1:21:50.880 at the dawn of World War two. So there really 1:21:50.960 --> 1:21:53.320 is a conservative impulse, I think, to be wary of 1:21:53.360 --> 1:21:57.840 concentrated power wherever it resides. And that was initially how 1:21:57.960 --> 1:22:01.360 conservative's approach to anti trust. You know, that changed over 1:22:01.479 --> 1:22:05.560 time as progressives began to use antitrust to sort of 1:22:05.600 --> 1:22:08.759 impose their own values on the market. The jurisprudence around 1:22:09.160 --> 1:22:11.639 how anti trust was interpreted began to sort of swing 1:22:11.720 --> 1:22:14.439 in all kind of ideological directions, and so you had 1:22:14.479 --> 1:22:18.360 conservatives that said, look, antitrust needs an anchoror it needs 1:22:18.360 --> 1:22:20.439 something that makes a coherent and so that was the 1:22:20.479 --> 1:22:23.720 birth of the consumer Welfare Standard, which fuses sort of 1:22:23.760 --> 1:22:27.160 economic metrics around how anti trust should be enforced. So 1:22:27.200 --> 1:22:29.960 it says, you know, enforcers should look at things like 1:22:30.080 --> 1:22:34.120 our prices changing, how is innovation doing, Is it being harmed, 1:22:34.520 --> 1:22:37.840 Is you know, quality of goods being harmed? Consumers have 1:22:37.880 --> 1:22:40.400 adequate choice in the market. So it's a framework that 1:22:40.479 --> 1:22:43.559 makes sense. But I think over time, you know, has 1:22:43.600 --> 1:22:47.240 become so narrowed as to be interpreted as just this 1:22:47.479 --> 1:22:51.439 exclusive focus on price, and that's really diminished the role 1:22:51.479 --> 1:22:54.839 of antitrust because it becomes so difficult to even enforce 1:22:55.360 --> 1:22:57.519 anti trust in the marketplace as it exists. So I 1:22:57.520 --> 1:22:59.880 think some conservatives are now waking up to the fact 1:23:00.120 --> 1:23:02.920 that hey, maybe we should broaden the mandate back to 1:23:02.960 --> 1:23:06.519 that original aperture that the consumer Welfare Standard had when 1:23:06.520 --> 1:23:09.600 it was implemented in the eighties and late seventies and 1:23:10.320 --> 1:23:13.920 go back to that interpretation. But as you might imagine, 1:23:13.960 --> 1:23:16.439 there's a pretty big establishment consensus built up around the 1:23:16.439 --> 1:23:19.160 way things that are currently being done. So there's a 1:23:19.160 --> 1:23:21.599 lot of debate and dissent around this idea. Yeah, So 1:23:21.640 --> 1:23:25.760 with respect to that establishment consensus versus growing on the 1:23:25.840 --> 1:23:29.400 left and right and really generally on the more ideological 1:23:29.479 --> 1:23:33.599 members of Congress on either side, and beyond Congress, as well, 1:23:34.360 --> 1:23:38.759 one of the cynic might say, well, are politicians leveraging 1:23:38.800 --> 1:23:42.439 the big tech issue essentially to extort these companies into 1:23:42.479 --> 1:23:45.879 giving them paying them more money for their campaigns, increasing 1:23:45.880 --> 1:23:49.040 contributions to pay for the protection of the federal government, 1:23:49.080 --> 1:23:51.879 or do you think that there's been a genuine shift 1:23:52.200 --> 1:23:57.360 among our legislators. So, of course, you know, there's always 1:23:57.360 --> 1:24:00.960 a level of cynicism, I think in politics, but I 1:24:01.000 --> 1:24:04.400 do think, you know, there is a genuine effort among 1:24:04.840 --> 1:24:08.080 some Republican lawmakers to actually look at this problem as 1:24:08.080 --> 1:24:10.240 it exists, not even just in the big tech space, 1:24:10.360 --> 1:24:13.560 but across the economy at large. It was really fascinating 1:24:13.560 --> 1:24:16.960 to watch last week when Senator Mike Lee, former boss 1:24:16.960 --> 1:24:19.040 of mine but also very well known, you know, with 1:24:19.200 --> 1:24:23.040 the libertarian in the sort of more libertarian leaning legal 1:24:23.080 --> 1:24:27.400 movement itself, he even acknowledged, you know that across the economy, 1:24:27.920 --> 1:24:31.320 it's possible that's you know, our anti trust enforcement enforcement 1:24:31.439 --> 1:24:34.400 isn't working. And again this goes back to this idea. 1:24:34.560 --> 1:24:37.920 You know, I think oftentimes people on the right unfairly 1:24:38.080 --> 1:24:41.120 and perhaps you know, with an agenda, conflate anti trust 1:24:41.240 --> 1:24:45.000 enforcement with regulation, but the two are very very distinct. 1:24:45.200 --> 1:24:47.679 And I think Senator Lee makes this distinction well anti 1:24:47.720 --> 1:24:51.040 trust enforcement his law enforcement right, It's not illegal to 1:24:51.080 --> 1:24:53.920 be a monopoly, but it's illegal to be predatory. You know, 1:24:53.920 --> 1:24:56.760 it's illegal to undercut competition in the marketplace. And if 1:24:56.760 --> 1:24:59.760 that's not being adequately policed, that's a problem because again, 1:24:59.800 --> 1:25:02.720 then you don't actually have the free market working as intended. 1:25:03.200 --> 1:25:06.080 So you know, even he I think, is acknowledging that 1:25:06.120 --> 1:25:09.200 there's the status quo is not working here, and that's 1:25:09.200 --> 1:25:12.360 really the debate to be had. You know. Of course, 1:25:12.400 --> 1:25:14.800 I'm sure there's there's people motivated by cynicism, but I 1:25:14.800 --> 1:25:17.120 would say, more than any other issue I've seen recently, 1:25:17.400 --> 1:25:20.639 there is really a genuine effort to adjust this here. Yeah. 1:25:20.640 --> 1:25:22.640 And of course, and we've dowed into this on that 1:25:22.760 --> 1:25:27.360 con squad at length, there's ample legal and historical precedent 1:25:27.400 --> 1:25:30.240 for this. Justice Thomas has probably written the most succinctly 1:25:30.640 --> 1:25:33.719 and clearly sort of the reasons leading up towards maybe 1:25:33.720 --> 1:25:37.439 a potential rolling down the road that would justify treating, 1:25:37.520 --> 1:25:40.680 for example, big tech like under a common carrier a 1:25:40.800 --> 1:25:43.559 sort of regime. And of course there's been a number 1:25:43.600 --> 1:25:46.479 of bills put up in Congress lately, and you've written 1:25:46.520 --> 1:25:48.920 about them at length. Tell us a little bit about 1:25:48.920 --> 1:25:52.320 the substance of the legislative proposals on the table and 1:25:52.360 --> 1:25:57.120 how it's relevant to the everyday lives of Americans. Yeah, 1:25:57.160 --> 1:26:00.400 so this is a really interesting development out of House 1:26:00.479 --> 1:26:04.559 Judiciary Committee run by Democrats, who have over the last 1:26:04.880 --> 1:26:10.920 year and a half embarked on this legislative investigation into Apple, Amazon, Google, 1:26:10.920 --> 1:26:13.200 and Facebook. And they this resulted in like a six 1:26:13.320 --> 1:26:16.920 hundred page report on all of the areas in which Democrats, 1:26:17.000 --> 1:26:19.280 you know, found these companies to be acting in non 1:26:19.320 --> 1:26:23.439 competitive way. Days now, no Republican joined that report, although 1:26:23.520 --> 1:26:26.880 you did see the Republican ranking member of the Antitrust Subcommittee, 1:26:26.960 --> 1:26:29.360 Kent Buck, put out his own report saying, you know, 1:26:29.400 --> 1:26:32.120 I don't really agree with my Democratic callings on what 1:26:32.120 --> 1:26:34.120 they want to do, but I do think that there 1:26:34.120 --> 1:26:37.920 are some issues here. There's definitely some flashing red lights. 1:26:37.960 --> 1:26:41.040 And as a result of that investigation, the Subcommittee's put 1:26:41.040 --> 1:26:44.599 out five legislative proposals. And this is a big deal 1:26:44.680 --> 1:26:47.439 because you know, for a long time, you know, all 1:26:47.479 --> 1:26:50.040 we saw from people concerned about big tech was sort 1:26:50.040 --> 1:26:53.080 of these hearings where members would go and yell about 1:26:53.080 --> 1:26:57.080 things or you know, letters, but no real substantive legislative effort. 1:26:57.760 --> 1:26:59.439 And so I want to highlight it in that regard 1:26:59.520 --> 1:27:01.400 that this is this is a pretty big next step. 1:27:02.080 --> 1:27:05.519 And so these five different bills deal with different parts 1:27:05.560 --> 1:27:09.040 of the market that lawmakers feel big tech has been 1:27:09.160 --> 1:27:13.920 unfairly entrenched, and they really go into how big tech competes. 1:27:13.960 --> 1:27:17.160 So probably the two biggest proposals would that would really 1:27:17.240 --> 1:27:20.200 change how things work are One is a straight up 1:27:20.240 --> 1:27:24.000 merger band, so specific to these big tech companies. You know, 1:27:24.200 --> 1:27:27.200 instead of the government having to prove that when they 1:27:27.200 --> 1:27:29.320 buy up their competitors, the government having to say, no, 1:27:29.439 --> 1:27:32.679 that's anti competitive, the presumption has flipped. The big tech 1:27:32.720 --> 1:27:34.559 companies would have to prove to the government that what 1:27:34.600 --> 1:27:37.679 they're doing is not anti competitive. And then the second 1:27:37.720 --> 1:27:39.960 big bill that I think would have really long ranging 1:27:39.960 --> 1:27:44.400 effects is a structural separation about self preferencing. And this 1:27:44.600 --> 1:27:47.919 really gets at the idea that you know, Google can 1:27:48.040 --> 1:27:51.760 promote its own products and in its massive platform and 1:27:51.880 --> 1:27:55.200 downgrade its competitors. And you know that really is a 1:27:55.240 --> 1:27:57.720 problem when Google is the only game in town, right 1:27:57.760 --> 1:28:00.479 when Google filters information for ninety percent of the world. 1:28:01.880 --> 1:28:04.479 When they downgrade a competitor, it really sort of has 1:28:04.880 --> 1:28:07.680 a large impact on their business. So those are the 1:28:07.720 --> 1:28:10.320 two really big bills that I think, of the five 1:28:10.360 --> 1:28:13.639 would have the longest ranging effects. You've written at Lance 1:28:13.760 --> 1:28:15.240 as well. We've got about a couple of minutes and 1:28:15.240 --> 1:28:17.760 then we'll be up against the commercial break. But you've 1:28:17.760 --> 1:28:22.120 written as well and certainly spoken about Facebook's oversight board. 1:28:22.240 --> 1:28:24.880 And you look at the composition of this I guess 1:28:24.880 --> 1:28:27.599 Supreme Court on Speech or sort of the anti Supreme 1:28:27.640 --> 1:28:29.880 Court on speech in some respects. And you look at 1:28:29.920 --> 1:28:34.200 the composition and a disproportionate percentage of the members of Facebook, 1:28:34.280 --> 1:28:40.400 supposedly impartial and neutral objective a technocratic board, are not Americans. 1:28:40.680 --> 1:28:42.720 And of course the rest of the world has a 1:28:42.840 --> 1:28:47.240 very different standard in terms of free speech and conceptions 1:28:47.280 --> 1:28:49.760 of what is beyond the pale and what is acceptable 1:28:50.360 --> 1:28:53.599 in terms of the content of speech. Do you believe 1:28:53.680 --> 1:28:57.080 that essentially we are being subjected to, and are supposedly 1:28:57.479 --> 1:29:03.880 free digital public square foreign conceptions of speech. I think 1:29:03.920 --> 1:29:06.760 that's exactly what the Facebook Oversight board is. You know, 1:29:06.800 --> 1:29:11.800 it's made up of largely foreign members, right, people who 1:29:11.840 --> 1:29:15.920 aren't raised in our speech traditions making decisions about what, how, 1:29:16.000 --> 1:29:17.960 you know, how speech should be carried out in America. 1:29:18.000 --> 1:29:21.760 I think it's entirely inappropriate, particularly when you know Facebook 1:29:22.120 --> 1:29:25.320 oversight board has placed itself over and above the speech 1:29:25.360 --> 1:29:28.720 of democratically elected government officials, you know, President Trump being 1:29:28.720 --> 1:29:31.160 probably the most famous example of this. I think it's 1:29:31.280 --> 1:29:34.400 highly inappropriate and really kind of has a chilling effect 1:29:34.880 --> 1:29:37.439 in our public square when you consider that Facebook, with 1:29:37.560 --> 1:29:40.960 its two point seven billion global users, really does not 1:29:41.040 --> 1:29:44.240 only represent a public square for voter engagement for many 1:29:44.240 --> 1:29:47.080 elected officials, but it's also a market access point for 1:29:47.200 --> 1:29:49.720 millions of small businesses in America. So it's much much 1:29:49.720 --> 1:29:51.920 more than just a speech platform, and I think when 1:29:51.960 --> 1:29:54.880 it wields its power ideologically, it has a long ranging 1:29:54.880 --> 1:29:57.120 effect not only on the speech, but on the marketplace 1:29:57.520 --> 1:29:59.960 the marketplace as well. So we're going to take a 1:30:00.000 --> 1:30:02.280 a quick commercial break in just a second, but I 1:30:02.320 --> 1:30:04.800 think it's worth emphasizing a couple of things before you 1:30:04.840 --> 1:30:09.679 were talking Rachel about the corporate wealth. The essentially lowest 1:30:09.720 --> 1:30:12.240 price is all that matters when it comes to anti trust, 1:30:12.320 --> 1:30:14.639 how it's been interpreted over time. But of course we've 1:30:14.640 --> 1:30:17.840 paid a substantial price for these falling costs, which is 1:30:18.040 --> 1:30:22.439 our privacy, our most personal information, and of course we've 1:30:22.520 --> 1:30:24.880 essentially sacrificed our right to free speech to save the 1:30:24.880 --> 1:30:27.040 public square of free speech. And I think that that's 1:30:27.080 --> 1:30:30.800 something that's worth emphasizing every time that rationale comes up 1:30:31.000 --> 1:30:34.240 for not using anti trust in a prudent and measured 1:30:34.280 --> 1:30:36.920 and proper way given what we're facing today. This has 1:30:36.920 --> 1:30:39.320 been wagering in for Buck sexon well More with Rachel Bovard. 1:30:39.479 --> 1:30:42.960 Right after this, we're back with Rachel Bovard, senior director 1:30:42.960 --> 1:30:46.720 of Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, senior tech columnists 1:30:46.840 --> 1:30:48.600 at the Federalist or I should know it. I'm a 1:30:48.640 --> 1:30:51.320 senior contributor as well, and someone who's worked under the 1:30:51.320 --> 1:30:54.040 likes of Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee, which have 1:30:54.160 --> 1:30:57.120 sort of become at least at the high level you 1:30:57.160 --> 1:30:59.880 would think kind of strange bedfellows at least Senator Lee 1:31:00.160 --> 1:31:04.200 with respect to the conversation today, which is using government 1:31:04.240 --> 1:31:08.719 power against concentrated corporate power, and I think it's worth noting, 1:31:08.920 --> 1:31:12.840 you know, sort of high level context of that conversation, 1:31:13.320 --> 1:31:16.760 of course, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether 1:31:16.760 --> 1:31:20.040 it's in the public or private spheres. It's just human nature. 1:31:20.400 --> 1:31:22.679 And it's also worth noting that there's a difference between 1:31:23.160 --> 1:31:28.479 free enterprise and business and free enterprise and corporatism. And 1:31:28.920 --> 1:31:32.400 businesses start out small and grow as a consequence of 1:31:32.439 --> 1:31:35.639 an open and free marketplace. But as businesses grow bigger, 1:31:35.640 --> 1:31:39.240 of course, they always want to halt their competition, buy 1:31:39.320 --> 1:31:41.760 up their competition if they need to cement their place 1:31:41.840 --> 1:31:44.240 as dominant powers. And so I think we always have 1:31:44.280 --> 1:31:45.840 to keep that in the back of our mind when 1:31:45.880 --> 1:31:48.879 we talk about how we think about protecting and preserving 1:31:48.960 --> 1:31:53.879 a true free marketplace versus protecting and preserving corporatist positions. 1:31:53.880 --> 1:31:55.400 I wonder if you had any thoughts on that sort 1:31:55.439 --> 1:32:00.000 of deeper, more philosophical point. Yeah. I think this gets 1:31:59.880 --> 1:32:05.519 to the you know, intellectual sort of ideological positioning of 1:32:05.600 --> 1:32:08.240 the right over the last you know, thirty years years, 1:32:08.320 --> 1:32:12.080 because you know, as I referenced earlier, the conservative tradition 1:32:12.080 --> 1:32:14.960 and classical liberalism has always acknowledged that threats to liberty 1:32:14.960 --> 1:32:17.760 can reside in concentrated power wherever it is, right in 1:32:17.800 --> 1:32:21.479 the corporate space or in the government. But over time, 1:32:21.520 --> 1:32:24.679 I think conservatives have come to believe that the only 1:32:24.720 --> 1:32:26.760 threat to liberty is in the government itself, and they've 1:32:26.760 --> 1:32:30.080 ignored this the free market, you know, and then they've 1:32:30.080 --> 1:32:32.240 just assumed everything is fine and then there's nothing to 1:32:32.240 --> 1:32:34.760 see here. But I think what we're seeing now is 1:32:34.800 --> 1:32:37.360 that vigilance is required there as well, because I think, 1:32:37.560 --> 1:32:40.880 you know, especially when government policies are prioritizing certain things 1:32:40.880 --> 1:32:43.400 about business, because that's the real reality of the marketplace, 1:32:43.479 --> 1:32:46.280 right it reflects the policies that we are selves set 1:32:46.360 --> 1:32:48.519 for it. So when we talk about the tech companies, 1:32:48.560 --> 1:32:51.000 for instance, they often get, you know, well, why would 1:32:51.040 --> 1:32:54.200 you interfere with a private business? These businesses benefit from 1:32:54.439 --> 1:32:58.280 tremendous government policy across the board, you know, the likes 1:32:58.280 --> 1:33:00.720 of which of Section two thirty for instance, which is 1:33:00.720 --> 1:33:05.200 its big carve out a big immunity from liability, which 1:33:05.200 --> 1:33:08.519 it's tantamount to a huge financial substitute to these companies, 1:33:08.680 --> 1:33:11.040 you know, their First Amendment actors, but their activity is 1:33:11.040 --> 1:33:15.400 privileged over and above other First Amendment actors like newspapers 1:33:15.439 --> 1:33:18.400 and movies and things that would be subject to lawsuits. 1:33:18.400 --> 1:33:21.120 So we do really need, I think, to change this 1:33:21.280 --> 1:33:23.880 binary way of looking at things where it's only the 1:33:23.880 --> 1:33:27.160 government's the problem, and you know, massive corporate power is 1:33:27.240 --> 1:33:29.559 never a problem. That's just not true. And I think 1:33:29.560 --> 1:33:32.519 we're seeing that very very well demonstrated in this moment. 1:33:33.240 --> 1:33:37.360 If you were drafting up the next contract with America 1:33:37.479 --> 1:33:39.720 or whatever, that document may or may not end up 1:33:39.760 --> 1:33:41.759 being called to the extent the party is even thinking 1:33:41.760 --> 1:33:44.719 this way, which is of course always questionable. What would 1:33:44.760 --> 1:33:48.320 your principles look like and your sort of campaign look 1:33:48.400 --> 1:33:51.920 like for taking on big tech to ensure that the 1:33:51.960 --> 1:33:55.000 pre am vota section two thirty is actually served by 1:33:55.000 --> 1:33:58.280 our laws, which is promoting free and open discourse and 1:33:58.320 --> 1:34:03.639 intellectual inquiry. You know, I think a guiding heuristic here 1:34:03.840 --> 1:34:06.760 is actually something very Goldwater set a long time ago, 1:34:06.800 --> 1:34:10.639 which is that, you know, the champions of freedom will 1:34:10.960 --> 1:34:14.559 you fight against concentrated power wherever it resides. They will 1:34:14.600 --> 1:34:18.639 take on monopolies, corporate and union. And so I think 1:34:18.680 --> 1:34:20.920 that has to be the guiding heuristic for how we 1:34:21.000 --> 1:34:23.599 do things in both the government and in the private sector, 1:34:23.680 --> 1:34:27.320 because one of both of these transact on each other 1:34:27.360 --> 1:34:30.080 in very powerful ways, and I think it's a mistake 1:34:30.160 --> 1:34:32.880 to put them into separate spheres when they aren't anymore when, 1:34:33.000 --> 1:34:35.439 especially with these big tech tech companies, we now see 1:34:35.479 --> 1:34:39.480 them working hand in glove with, you know, a democratic 1:34:39.520 --> 1:34:42.799 ideology to use the levers of power to shut down dissent, 1:34:43.000 --> 1:34:45.800 to shut down criticism, and to shut down speech in 1:34:45.840 --> 1:34:48.920 the public square. We are in a situation now where 1:34:49.320 --> 1:34:51.840 the government does have a role, and it is, like 1:34:51.920 --> 1:34:56.960 you said, to preserve this open space for ideas, for 1:34:57.160 --> 1:35:00.000 small business, for all these things that we as republic 1:35:00.000 --> 1:35:03.599 aikins cherish, but we're so hesitant to say the government 1:35:03.640 --> 1:35:06.880 has any role here. But that limited role for the 1:35:06.920 --> 1:35:09.400 government is now, and so I think that has to 1:35:09.439 --> 1:35:12.320 be a guiding principle for Republicans going forward in a 1:35:12.360 --> 1:35:14.599 way that it hasn't really been for the last thirty years. 1:35:15.040 --> 1:35:17.040 And I think it's worth knowing again that there, of 1:35:17.080 --> 1:35:20.080 course national security implications to this as well. We spoke 1:35:20.120 --> 1:35:23.879 at length on yesterday's episode about the Biden administration countering 1:35:23.920 --> 1:35:28.040 domestic terrorism strategy, and of course the administration talks about 1:35:28.080 --> 1:35:31.679 partnering with private sector actors, including and they've intimated this before, 1:35:32.120 --> 1:35:35.040 big tech, to police their platforms for whatever the thought 1:35:35.080 --> 1:35:37.720 police of the Biden administration deemed to be legitimate to 1:35:37.760 --> 1:35:41.440 be policing, and that strategy also talks about combating disinformation 1:35:41.439 --> 1:35:44.720 and misinformation, which you can only believe in practice will 1:35:44.760 --> 1:35:50.759 mean more filtering and bands and censorship of any opinion 1:35:50.840 --> 1:35:53.639 that is just not above board according to the party line. 1:35:53.720 --> 1:35:56.080 So it's something that we'll have to be quite vigilant about. 1:35:56.120 --> 1:35:58.639 We'll have to demand that our lawmakers are vigilant about 1:35:58.640 --> 1:36:00.599 it as well. And I know that you, Joe Bovard, 1:36:00.760 --> 1:36:02.600 will be on top of this and urge everyone to 1:36:02.680 --> 1:36:04.519 check out all of your writings wherever they're found in 1:36:04.560 --> 1:36:08.599 federal as USA Today, American Conservative, American conservative and beyond. 1:36:08.920 --> 1:36:10.519 Thank you so much for coming on the program today 1:36:10.520 --> 1:36:12.920 and for all your exceptional work. Really appreciate it. Thanks 1:36:12.920 --> 1:36:15.639 so much, Ben, Thanks and Wolf more on the buxx 1:36:15.720 --> 1:36:29.519 and show right after this on Sunday, June twentieth, Joe 1:36:29.520 --> 1:36:33.000 Biden will have been president for exactly five months. And 1:36:33.120 --> 1:36:38.160 in these five months, we've seen crisis after crisis after crisis. 1:36:39.080 --> 1:36:42.559 We've experienced a gas crisis where we had gas lines 1:36:42.840 --> 1:36:46.559 and skyrocketing energy prices. We're on the verge of an 1:36:46.600 --> 1:36:52.080 inflation crisis. We're everywhere we look, prices are rising on food, 1:36:52.200 --> 1:36:56.120 on housing, on lumber. We've already had a war in 1:36:56.160 --> 1:37:00.160 the Middle East, and we've got a border crisis that 1:37:00.200 --> 1:37:03.760 has been raging so intensely that we're on pace to 1:37:03.920 --> 1:37:08.360 see two million illegal immigrants come through our unsecured border 1:37:08.439 --> 1:37:12.280 this year. Just last month, one hundred and eighty thousand 1:37:12.760 --> 1:37:17.479 and thirty four illegal immigrants crossed the border. To put 1:37:17.479 --> 1:37:20.880 that in perspective, that number is a six hundred and 1:37:21.080 --> 1:37:26.480 seventy four percent increase over the number of illegal immigrants 1:37:26.479 --> 1:37:30.880 that crossed the border last May, a six hundred and 1:37:31.040 --> 1:37:35.839 seventy four percent increase, and that number is a twenty 1:37:35.880 --> 1:37:39.920 one year high. The reason for this is simple. The 1:37:39.960 --> 1:37:45.240 crisis that has unfolded is the direct result of political 1:37:45.280 --> 1:37:50.519 decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. That was 1:37:50.840 --> 1:37:55.960 Senator Ted Cruz lambasting the Biden administration. And it goes 1:37:56.000 --> 1:37:59.480 back to the running theme that we open this episode 1:37:59.479 --> 1:38:04.439 with has run through the substance of the various interviews 1:38:04.439 --> 1:38:09.000 we've had on big tech, on the schools, on US 1:38:09.120 --> 1:38:14.400 China policy, dealing with Russia, energy, and on and on 1:38:15.200 --> 1:38:19.920 Ted Cruz talking about massive money printing and spending in 1:38:19.960 --> 1:38:22.800 effect in terms of the massive inflation and prices that 1:38:22.800 --> 1:38:24.280 we've seen, and if you look at a chart of 1:38:24.320 --> 1:38:27.439 the money supply, it's absurd. What's happened over the last year, 1:38:28.400 --> 1:38:31.720 the explosion in the Middle East with respect to I 1:38:31.840 --> 1:38:38.320 ran back, to proxies attacking Israel, the border crisis. What 1:38:38.640 --> 1:38:44.559 unifies these policies or these outcomes? Rather, these outcomes are 1:38:44.600 --> 1:38:52.559 a direct consequence of rejecting basic, fundamental, core American values 1:38:52.560 --> 1:38:59.360 and principles. If you reject those values and principles, you 1:38:59.400 --> 1:39:05.160 get these kind of results. You cultivate mediocrity. Massive money 1:39:05.160 --> 1:39:09.360 printing and spending. What is that a reflection of, beyond 1:39:09.800 --> 1:39:14.120 the self imposed economic suicide that we committed over the 1:39:14.200 --> 1:39:20.920 last year, arguably needlessly not wanting to deal with reality. 1:39:21.560 --> 1:39:24.400 Money printing is done to paper over problems and to 1:39:24.479 --> 1:39:27.240 kick the can down the road on dealing with those problems. 1:39:27.280 --> 1:39:29.720 The massive spending is about a government that can't live 1:39:29.800 --> 1:39:34.440 within its means, and it's a reflection of a percentage 1:39:34.439 --> 1:39:36.439 of the public that believes we shouldn't live within it 1:39:36.600 --> 1:39:39.360 within our means as a nation that does not, I 1:39:39.400 --> 1:39:42.760 guess care about the consequences ultimately of massive debt and 1:39:42.800 --> 1:39:44.880 the interest on that debt and the money printing that's 1:39:44.880 --> 1:39:47.200 going to be used to try to inflate it away, 1:39:47.280 --> 1:39:50.720 so that of course prudent people and then of course 1:39:50.720 --> 1:39:53.400 those who are unfixed income are left with the bill. 1:39:55.120 --> 1:40:01.000 It's irresponsibility that's inherent to the massive money renting and 1:40:01.120 --> 1:40:04.160 spending on a government that can't even do, can't even 1:40:04.160 --> 1:40:06.800 execute its most basic functions, but it sure as heck 1:40:06.880 --> 1:40:10.080 weaponizes itself against anyone who dares call the government on 1:40:10.120 --> 1:40:14.120 those issues. What about the explosion in the Middle East. 1:40:15.360 --> 1:40:18.240 I've done a big monologue on this, which you can google. 1:40:18.280 --> 1:40:21.240 It's on YouTube and elsewhere, I believe as well. On 1:40:21.520 --> 1:40:25.200 the method to the Biden Administration's Middle East madness, the 1:40:25.240 --> 1:40:29.719 Biden administration basically reversed the Trump administration policy with respect 1:40:29.720 --> 1:40:34.040 to the world's greatest state sponsor of jihad, Iran. Biden 1:40:34.160 --> 1:40:38.680 reverts America's back. Biden reverts the Obama Biden agenda of 1:40:38.840 --> 1:40:41.479 seeking to make the world's leading state sponsor of jihad, 1:40:41.640 --> 1:40:43.800 the strong course in the Middle East, the dominant power. 1:40:45.240 --> 1:40:48.040 What does Joe Biden do? It basically says, without preconditions, 1:40:48.040 --> 1:40:50.240 we're going to go back to the so called negotiating 1:40:50.280 --> 1:40:52.360 table and we want to get back into the Iran 1:40:52.439 --> 1:40:56.680 nuclear deal, which made that regime flush with well over 1:40:56.720 --> 1:40:59.800 one hundred billion dollars in cash to fund its malign 1:41:00.400 --> 1:41:04.720 while it's people suffered. What is it rooted in? What 1:41:04.840 --> 1:41:07.800 is the policy rooted in of the Biden administration of appeasement, 1:41:09.360 --> 1:41:15.719 cowardice or self loathing, both traits that, of course result 1:41:16.560 --> 1:41:20.880 in mediocrity, in failure the border crisis. What is the 1:41:20.920 --> 1:41:26.400 border crisis all about? It's not just an unwillingness to 1:41:26.560 --> 1:41:31.280 defend sovereignty. Again, one of the most basic duties that 1:41:31.360 --> 1:41:36.400 are purported. Representatives are charged with ensuring, protecting, defending. You know, obviously, 1:41:36.880 --> 1:41:39.599 as the Vice president Trump said any number of times, 1:41:39.720 --> 1:41:41.400 if you don't have borders, you don't have a country. 1:41:41.680 --> 1:41:49.800 So basic, so core should transcend ideology and politics. But 1:41:49.920 --> 1:41:55.960 it doesn't. Why Well, of course, the Biden administration advertised 1:41:55.960 --> 1:42:02.519 open borders well before its election. What is that open 1:42:02.560 --> 1:42:05.240 borders policy rooted in? Well, the true believers, of course, 1:42:05.280 --> 1:42:08.639 will say, I guess that sovereignty is racist and bigod 1:42:08.720 --> 1:42:10.960 and that everyone should be able to come in, and 1:42:11.240 --> 1:42:16.160 that our laws are essentially optional. And some of them 1:42:16.400 --> 1:42:20.760 call ice a tyrannical terrorist like entity and want to 1:42:20.760 --> 1:42:26.840 abolish it. Think about that those tests with ensuring our 1:42:26.920 --> 1:42:30.439 sovereignty are the bad guys, not the people whose first 1:42:30.479 --> 1:42:33.040 act if they step foot in the country is breaking 1:42:33.040 --> 1:42:37.200 our laws and violating our sovereignty and spitting in the 1:42:37.200 --> 1:42:42.560 face of our people. The cynical aspect, of course of 1:42:42.640 --> 1:42:45.719 the border crisis is never let a crisis go to waste. 1:42:45.760 --> 1:42:49.120 In fact, create a crisis which you can ultimately use 1:42:49.240 --> 1:42:52.040 to leverage for political power. And as I've talked about 1:42:52.040 --> 1:42:56.240 before guest hosting this show, even just having illegal aliens 1:42:56.240 --> 1:42:58.920 in the country, even if they're not mass amnestied, and 1:42:59.479 --> 1:43:03.000 thus a major voting voc for the people supporting the amnesty, 1:43:03.240 --> 1:43:08.640 namely Democrats. Population numbers matter. Population numbers are counted in 1:43:08.680 --> 1:43:12.160 the census, even illegal aliens, and that leads to direct 1:43:12.439 --> 1:43:16.200 increased representation for those areas with large illegal alien populations 1:43:16.200 --> 1:43:20.000 and billions of dollars being allocated to those areas as well. 1:43:21.400 --> 1:43:25.320 So how does this tie into again, cultivating mediocrity or failure? Well, 1:43:25.320 --> 1:43:27.600 when you reject an American value and principle, when you 1:43:27.640 --> 1:43:30.519 reject a principle of any nation that wants to survive 1:43:30.640 --> 1:43:33.679 on this earth of sovereignty and respect for the rule 1:43:33.760 --> 1:43:41.000 of law, you get failure and disaster. Once again, if 1:43:41.000 --> 1:43:44.439 you reject, you repudiate American values and principles, you are 1:43:44.479 --> 1:43:52.480 actively cultivating not just mediocrity, but failure. Excellent countries, serious countries, 1:43:53.479 --> 1:43:59.679 are frugal, they're responsible, they treat the laws with respect, 1:43:59.760 --> 1:44:05.880 and they make the laws respectable. Their leaders don't lord 1:44:06.000 --> 1:44:08.519 over the people, and they don't hold themselves to a 1:44:08.560 --> 1:44:10.680 separate standard from everyone else. We're not supposed to have 1:44:10.720 --> 1:44:12.679 a class system in this country, but the ruling quass 1:44:12.720 --> 1:44:16.360 shore has created one and seeks to do everything it 1:44:16.439 --> 1:44:21.120 can to insulate itself cement its position. And of course, 1:44:21.120 --> 1:44:24.840 when you cement essentially a monopoly power, of course it 1:44:24.880 --> 1:44:31.120 becomes deconent and decayed and mediocre and fails. Ultimately, our 1:44:31.200 --> 1:44:35.679 ruling class is a failure. And again, seventy four million 1:44:35.720 --> 1:44:39.760 plus people voted against that failed ruling class last time. 1:44:39.800 --> 1:44:43.479 And that is why the effort is being pursued right now, 1:44:43.520 --> 1:44:45.919 as we talked about in this episode and past episodes 1:44:45.960 --> 1:44:50.320 as well, to target smere chill, censor, and potentially use 1:44:50.400 --> 1:44:52.479 the full force not just of the government but all 1:44:52.520 --> 1:44:57.600 of society to try to scare into submission. The population 1:44:57.920 --> 1:45:01.720 that sees through it, all sees through the gas, understands 1:45:01.720 --> 1:45:05.559 when they're being propagandized too, and lord it over and 1:45:05.720 --> 1:45:08.439 cause the failure out for what it is. And that's 1:45:08.479 --> 1:45:10.639 why they have to go so hard at anyone who 1:45:10.760 --> 1:45:14.080 dares break from the narrative. Akin to the Chinese Communist Party, 1:45:14.400 --> 1:45:21.919 cannot allow dissenting viewpoints, cannot allow alternative narratives, cannot account 1:45:21.920 --> 1:45:26.640 for facts that would dare threaten the hollow facade of 1:45:26.760 --> 1:45:31.439 legitimacy that a rolling class has. And earlier in the week, 1:45:31.479 --> 1:45:34.240 by the way, we talked about just a brief side note, 1:45:34.280 --> 1:45:36.320 we talked about what was going on in Georgia with 1:45:36.400 --> 1:45:39.759 this audit on topic you are forbidden to talk about. 1:45:39.800 --> 1:45:42.759 And you'll probably find many people being censored on social 1:45:42.760 --> 1:45:44.960 media as they continue to follow what's going on in Georgia. 1:45:45.040 --> 1:45:47.439 And wait on Arizona, and we'll actually talk to a 1:45:47.520 --> 1:45:52.320 legislator from Arizona who's been instrumental in pushing forth the 1:45:52.360 --> 1:45:54.320 audit that's going on there. We'll talk to him about 1:45:54.360 --> 1:45:59.160 what's going on there. Just the news reported today Georgia 1:45:59.200 --> 1:46:03.479 audit document expose significant election failures in state's largest County. 1:46:03.520 --> 1:46:06.679 Of course, Fulton County records suggest more than one hundred 1:46:06.680 --> 1:46:09.880 batches of absentee ballots in Fulton County could be missing. 1:46:10.760 --> 1:46:12.639 One hundred batches. In each of those batches, I believe 1:46:12.720 --> 1:46:15.160 may have at least one hundred ballots. Some experts see 1:46:15.200 --> 1:46:18.720 quote unquote election tabulation malpractice as state officials seek to 1:46:18.760 --> 1:46:23.600 remove county's top election supervisors, and I'd urge you to 1:46:23.680 --> 1:46:27.320 check out this article to see what's going on there. Basically, 1:46:27.360 --> 1:46:30.719 some of the administrators there argue that you really can't 1:46:30.800 --> 1:46:35.879 have confidence in the results because what they're auditing itself 1:46:36.000 --> 1:46:40.000 is an incomplete data set. As this official says, an 1:46:40.000 --> 1:46:42.439 audit is only good as good as the data that's input. 1:46:42.479 --> 1:46:45.120 And in this case, Fulton Counties records are so problematic, 1:46:45.200 --> 1:46:47.720 I'm not sure a reasonable person can trust them. When 1:46:47.760 --> 1:46:50.200 you add in the reports of ballots magically appearing under 1:46:50.200 --> 1:46:53.400 tables or being moved out of the counting center, they're legitimate, 1:46:53.439 --> 1:46:58.200 outstanding questions. You want to ensure that a country is 1:46:58.240 --> 1:47:02.719 not only mediocre, but fails erode the consent of the governed, 1:47:03.960 --> 1:47:07.000 destroy the integrity of elections, make it so that no 1:47:07.000 --> 1:47:12.040 one can trust that they're adequately represented by their purported leaders. 1:47:12.960 --> 1:47:16.719 The running theme ought to be overturning this ruling class 1:47:16.880 --> 1:47:19.160 or making it live up to the standards that we 1:47:19.280 --> 1:47:22.439 all love and believe in, and that's how we cultivate 1:47:22.479 --> 1:47:27.479 excellence instead of mediocrity and failure. There has been Ben 1:47:27.479 --> 1:47:30.160 Weingarten in for Buck Sexon on The Buck Sexton Show, 1:47:30.280 --> 1:47:33.000 and we'll close out the week tomorrow. Have a great evident. 1:47:34.320 --> 1:47:39.000 This is the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Follow Buck on Facebook, 1:47:39.120 --> 1:47:40.599 Instagram and Twitter.