Speaker 1: I want to focus in on what's going on with
Speaker 1: you at home now and at work. Whenever you're online.
Speaker 1: True online privacy is in the past. Your online data
Speaker 1: always seems to be under the magnifying glass by big tech.
Speaker 1: There's anxiety from not having control of your online data
Speaker 1: while it is being manipulated and sold to advertisers. But
Speaker 1: now there's a new way with the ultimate privacy and
Speaker 1: cybersecurity communications tool in your hands. Introducing Secure, an instant
Speaker 1: messaging and email platform hosted in Switzerland, protecting your data
Speaker 1: with the strictest privacy laws in the world. Secure is
Speaker 1: spelled sek you are and uses proprietary encryption technologies and
Speaker 1: independent platform and Swiss privacy laws to ensure complete privacy
Speaker 1: and security of your data on desktop and in transit.
Speaker 1: This is secure and private instant messaging and email. It
Speaker 1: assures your conversations, messages, and data are kept completely safe
Speaker 1: and private. Secure does not mine your data and is
Speaker 1: not subject to the Cloud Act. Take back your freedom,
Speaker 1: privacy and online security with Secure by going to seku
Speaker 1: are dot com. That's sek you are secure dot com.
Speaker 1: Make sure you use the coupon code buck that'll tell
Speaker 1: them you heard about them here on the show and
Speaker 1: also get you one week free and twenty five percent off.
Speaker 1: It's a great deal. Please use that coupon code buck.
Speaker 1: Just go right now seku are dot com. That's the website,
Speaker 1: secure dot com and regain your privacy. Use coupon code
Speaker 1: buck when you go to secure seku are dot com.
Speaker 1: Regain your privacy, protect yourself online. The following is a
Speaker 1: prerecorded program. You are entering the Freedom Hunt, a place
Speaker 1: liberty and patriotism call home, Shoulder to shoulder, need to
Speaker 1: come together, shield time, you need to protect America. This
Speaker 1: is the Sexton Show. Buck Sexton joins us now we analyst,
Speaker 1: former NYPD intelligence officer, Now Buck Sexton. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton Show. This is Ben Winegarden in for Buck Sexton.
Speaker 1: Here on an action packed Thursday from the not so
Speaker 1: free New York City, but the Freedom Hut hidden high
Speaker 1: a top Lower Manhattan. Again, this has Ben Winegarden in
Speaker 1: for Buck Sexton. Been here all week, really had a
Speaker 1: privilege and it's been an honor and a pleasure to
Speaker 1: spend this week with you as there are so many
Speaker 1: things going on in the world of such substance and
Speaker 1: you know, before we jump in again. I'm a senior
Speaker 1: contributor at The Federalist, a columnist at Newsweek and The
Speaker 1: Epic Times, a fellow at the Claremont Institute. You can
Speaker 1: find all my work at Winegarden dot substack dot com
Speaker 1: or ben Winegarden dot com, and I encourage you to
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter, where I speak too frequently at
Speaker 1: b H. Winegarden. And before we jump into today's episode,
Speaker 1: just a programming note as well. The Clay Travis and
Speaker 1: Buck Sexton Show starts at noon next Monday, the twenty first,
Speaker 1: and then Jesse Kelly will be filling in Buck Sexton's
Speaker 1: slot from six to nine pm the following Monday, June
Speaker 1: twenty eighth. We're going to jump all around the world
Speaker 1: today and we've got some exceptional guests. We'll be speaking
Speaker 1: with Congressman Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana on the
Speaker 1: chair of the Republican Study Committee, this sort of in
Speaker 1: house think tank of the GOP in the House about
Speaker 1: all sorts of issues, from the threat of communist China
Speaker 1: to January sixth disparate treatment versus sixteen nineteen rioters. We'll
Speaker 1: be speaking with Christian Witten about Joe Biden's excellent adventure
Speaker 1: overseas and the misadventure that it really is for America
Speaker 1: and our national interests. We'll speak with Professor Scott Jenner
Speaker 1: about taking on critical race theory and what CRT and
Speaker 1: the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion are really all about.
Speaker 1: And last, but not least, will also speak with my
Speaker 1: friend Rachel Bovard, who's done some exceptional work and reporting
Speaker 1: on sort of the conservative case for antitrust and taking
Speaker 1: on big tech and really concentrated power in all of
Speaker 1: its forms, and in particular woke concentrated power in all
Speaker 1: of its forms, public and private. To get into these issues,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go an indirect route. But bear with
Speaker 1: me here because you're listening to someone who listened to
Speaker 1: sports talk radio since the time he was about five
Speaker 1: years old. And I'm a huge sports fan, a huge
Speaker 1: baseball fan, unfortunately, a huge New York Mets fan, and
Speaker 1: last night I had the pleasure of going to see
Speaker 1: Jacob deGrom pitch. And bear with me if you're not
Speaker 1: a sports fan, but Jacob Degram right now is the
Speaker 1: dominant pitcher in Major League Baseball, having arguably the best
Speaker 1: season ever, not just in modern era, but in the
Speaker 1: history of the game, absolutely dominating to an unprecedented extent.
Speaker 1: Every single start that he makes health provided is just
Speaker 1: a massive spectacle. The turnout has been tremendous at a
Speaker 1: stadium in New York where it seems that people are
Speaker 1: still a little bit fearful with the pandemic sadly, and
Speaker 1: so turnout has not been exceptional all around. But it's
Speaker 1: a winning ball club and it's the most dominant pitcher
Speaker 1: in the game, maybe the most dominant player at any
Speaker 1: position in the game, and having one of the most
Speaker 1: dominant seasons, if not the most dominant season of all time.
Speaker 1: Why do I talk about Jacob deGrom Besides the fact
Speaker 1: that I love the Mets. Last night was a beautiful
Speaker 1: night for a ball game. The return to normalcy of
Speaker 1: going to a ballpark in America is something that we
Speaker 1: take for granted. I mean, from my perspective, I'd go
Speaker 1: to about a dozen games a year in a typical year,
Speaker 1: and it's been over a year since going out to
Speaker 1: the ballpark and just seeing a scenario of people just
Speaker 1: generally happy, acting normal. None of this. You know, why
Speaker 1: aren't you wearing your mask and people dodging you and
Speaker 1: running to the other side of the stadium. No, it
Speaker 1: was as if we were America again, a free and
Speaker 1: independent people, not governed by bureaucrats and technocrats with their
Speaker 1: asinine decrees on our necks. So hopefully that's a positive
Speaker 1: little vignette, and I encourage everyone to get out to
Speaker 1: the ballpark. It just felt liberating. And I know most
Speaker 1: of you probably live in free America, but here behind
Speaker 1: the iron curtain in the Northeast, this was a real
Speaker 1: treat at the baseball game. What we saw on display,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately only for three innings because Jacob deGrom is
Speaker 1: battling injuries this season, but what we saw in three
Speaker 1: innings were told strikeouts of eight of nine batters one
Speaker 1: person all of one batter put the ball in play
Speaker 1: against Jacob Degram. We're seeing someone someone who's excellent at
Speaker 1: what they do, at the absolute pinnacle of their game,
Speaker 1: with chance of MVP Most Valuable Player raining down from
Speaker 1: the crowd, and an electric atmosphere from before the first
Speaker 1: pitch of the game. What does this have to do
Speaker 1: with all of the issues we're facing as a country
Speaker 1: right now. Wide contrast Jacob deGrom and athleticism broadly athletics
Speaker 1: broadly with what we see in our ruling class. Let
Speaker 1: me explain, in sports, we still celebrate excellence, achievement. The
Speaker 1: only thing that matters at the end of the day
Speaker 1: in sports are wins and losses. It's binary. You can't
Speaker 1: sugarcoat it. You can say a team made a great effort,
Speaker 1: a player made a great play, had an exceptional season.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, wins and losses
Speaker 1: are the only thing that matters. And it does not
Speaker 1: matter who you are, where you're from, what your limitations are.
Speaker 1: All the matters ultimately is performance. In other words, even
Speaker 1: though wokeism is pervading all of our sports in ways
Speaker 1: that are maddening, and yes, at the stadium, you know
Speaker 1: there's a Coca Cola sign that's in rainbow colors for
Speaker 1: Pride Month. So you can't escape the politicization even at
Speaker 1: a sporting event, even if it's not Lebron James telling
Speaker 1: you to bat down to communist China. Nevertheless, the game
Speaker 1: is still the game. It's still about results at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, and excellence and achievement is is
Speaker 1: something that is loved and cherished and relished at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. It's also worth noting that excellence
Speaker 1: can be very fleeting. In the case of a pitcher,
Speaker 1: pitcher can break down. Jacob Degraham throws one hundred and
Speaker 1: one miles an hour consistently. No one pretty much in
Speaker 1: the history of the game has ever done that. He's
Speaker 1: had some injuries this year. It's incredibly disconcerting as a fan.
Speaker 1: No matter what team you're root for, greatness is fleeting.
Speaker 1: It requires constant tending to nurturing, recognizing threats to greatness
Speaker 1: and competition, and proactively countering them. Cultivating excellence is what
Speaker 1: sports are all about. There's no affirmative action in sports.
Speaker 1: There's no equity in sports. If you cultivate excellence, you
Speaker 1: bring it excellent. If you cultivate mediocrity, you crystallize mediocrity.
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing across pretty much every domain that
Speaker 1: a ruling class has its hands on again, setting aside athletics,
Speaker 1: is the cultivation of anything but excellent and a celebration
Speaker 1: really at the end of the day of failure. Traditional
Speaker 1: values like hard work, prudence, humility, virtue, Judeo Christian morality,
Speaker 1: that is morality traditionally understood civic duty, patriotism. If we
Speaker 1: instill those values and principles in our people. Nothing can
Speaker 1: stop America. American greatness will proceed for generations. But American
Speaker 1: greatness can also be quite fleeting. And we are a
Speaker 1: very young nation. If you look at world history and
Speaker 1: our adversaries, be it Communist China or anyone else, they
Speaker 1: preceded us in some cases by many hundreds of years.
Speaker 1: They're more patient than we are. In some cases, they've
Speaker 1: dealt with more hardships than we have. They've experienced tyranny
Speaker 1: in a way that we haven't, although many of our
Speaker 1: ancestors may have fled it. The memory of a nation
Speaker 1: is short. Achieving and maintaining is not written into the stars.
Speaker 1: We talked earlier in the week about New York and
Speaker 1: New York is returning to the bad old days, all
Speaker 1: after the tenure of a single mayor and a bad
Speaker 1: governor at the same time, too, it took decades to
Speaker 1: get New York out of its doldrums. And just like that,
Speaker 1: it can all turn quickly. Just like the career of
Speaker 1: an excellent athlete, it can fade for any number of reasons,
Speaker 1: just like you can work a lifetime to build a reputation,
Speaker 1: and it can be tarnished and destroyed with a single
Speaker 1: bad tweet or misstatement, But with respect to the country,
Speaker 1: the surest way to ensure America loses its luster, squanders
Speaker 1: it's greatness, becomes a decadent and decaying rump of a
Speaker 1: four leader of Western civilization, of the free world, the
Speaker 1: last bastion of freedom, the only place in the world
Speaker 1: where anyone who desires to live in liberty and justice
Speaker 1: will give anything to immigrate to. The shortest way to
Speaker 1: mess it all up is to reject, to repudiate, all
Speaker 1: of those values and principles I just discussed. And if
Speaker 1: we're taught to hate our country from the commanding heights
Speaker 1: of society, from our government itself, from our corporations, from
Speaker 1: our tech companies, from our schools, from all of our
Speaker 1: civil society institutions, how could we possibly defend that country?
Speaker 1: Who would want to defend that country? It would be
Speaker 1: immoral to defend that country to promulgate the vision and
Speaker 1: the policies necessary necessary to maintain it. If we're taught
Speaker 1: that measures of excellence, any kind of measure of excellence,
Speaker 1: are racist and bigoted, we will reward people for everything
Speaker 1: but excellence. Politics will trump merit. What that's a recipe
Speaker 1: for are not just individuals failing upward. It's a recipe then,
Speaker 1: for failure across the board. Our ruling class fails again
Speaker 1: and again to adequately represent us. It doesn't represent us.
Speaker 1: It makes us subservient to it. It exists, essentially like
Speaker 1: all bureaucracies, exist to perpetuate its own power and privilege,
Speaker 1: to squander the very values and principles that allowed the
Speaker 1: individuals who can eyes our ruling class to have to rise,
Speaker 1: to ascend to such a position in society. Isn't it
Speaker 1: remarkable that the very ruling class responsible for propagating the
Speaker 1: America Last Agenda, for embracing critical race theory, for embracing
Speaker 1: racial division, eskewing excellence, not fighting back when standardized tests
Speaker 1: are called racist. They've been the greatest beneficiaries of this
Speaker 1: system and cynically, and I think rightly, if you look
Speaker 1: at all of their actions at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: Yes there's cowardice, Yes there are some true believers. Yes
Speaker 1: there are people, as we've talked about, who are trying
Speaker 1: to feed the woke crocodile so it spares them at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, which will be a recipe
Speaker 1: of disaster for them, by the way, just so we
Speaker 1: deserved Ultimately, what are these policies about dividing and conquering
Speaker 1: so that they crystallize their positions in society? If you
Speaker 1: want to keep competition at Bay Pit Americans against each other,
Speaker 1: stop kids in public schools from being able to take
Speaker 1: advanced classes that allow them to reach their full potential
Speaker 1: while your own kids can go to private schools and
Speaker 1: not have to worry about those issues. Put politics over
Speaker 1: merit to protect your own position in society. Make politics
Speaker 1: the number one thing because the incumbents and politics have
Speaker 1: the advantage. So how do I take this back to sports. Well,
Speaker 1: when you have to defend values and principles that we
Speaker 1: talked about, it makes you hungry. It keeps you hungry,
Speaker 1: It keeps you committed to a cause, It keeps you
Speaker 1: debticated to American greatness. When you become weak and fat
Speaker 1: and decadent, like the leaders on display at the G seven,
Speaker 1: you become a rump of a society. It's like a
Speaker 1: bad athlete resting on his laurels or formerly great athlete
Speaker 1: resting on its worlds. And oftentimes you see great athletes
Speaker 1: in retirement completely out of shape, barely a shadow of
Speaker 1: what they were. A country has to appreciate greatness, cultivate greatness.
Speaker 1: If it wants to be great, it has to celebrate achievement.
Speaker 1: It has to prioritize merit above all else. And in
Speaker 1: particular when all of the adversaries facing that country care
Speaker 1: at the end of the day about results, about performance,
Speaker 1: even if they're hobbled by their own corruption and misdeeds,
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about with Congressman Jim Banks in just
Speaker 1: a bit teaching the military Ebramex Kendy racist philosophy, an
Speaker 1: America loathing worldview. How could you possibly defend a country
Speaker 1: if you're told it's terrible. It's a recipe for mediocrity.
Speaker 1: We have to cultivate excellent instead of crystallizing mediocrity. They's
Speaker 1: been wandering in for Buck Sexton back after a short break.
Speaker 1: President is an experienced statesman. Our one on one conversation
Speaker 1: took almost two hours. It's not every world leader that
Speaker 1: I guess this amount of attention. I mean, his predecessor
Speaker 1: was asked the same question. He evaded this. This President
Speaker 1: decided to respond to the question directly, and in this
Speaker 1: he is very different from President Trump. That's wadermer Putin
Speaker 1: talking about Joe Biden, and I think it's important to
Speaker 1: note experienced statesmen, experienced statesmen by today's standards, our mediocrities.
Speaker 1: Experienced statesmen have overseen policies for decades that have put
Speaker 1: America last and allowed people like Vladimir Putin to run
Speaker 1: circles around them. All of our adversaries love experienced statesmen.
Speaker 1: Think about the position that America has squandered since the
Speaker 1: end of the Cold War, the blood and treasure we've spilled,
Speaker 1: while our adversaries have enriched and empowered themselves and threatened
Speaker 1: us in ways that we haven't been threatened in decades.
Speaker 1: If ever, so, when I go back to excellence or mediocrity,
Speaker 1: experienced statesmen or the definition of those who have been
Speaker 1: cultivated in mediocrity on the basis of the results for
Speaker 1: the country, Are we a richer, stronger, more powerful country
Speaker 1: as a consequence of our political establishment embodied personified by
Speaker 1: President Joe Biden. No, we are not. And then the
Speaker 1: rest of the episode today where we speak with Congressman
Speaker 1: Jim Banks and Christian Witten and Professor Scott Jenner and
Speaker 1: Rachel Bovard We're going to touch on national security and
Speaker 1: foreign policy, domestic policy, big tech, and what's going on
Speaker 1: in education. And if you look, the running theme through
Speaker 1: all of these areas is cultivating mediocrity, crystallizing mediocrity, not
Speaker 1: pursuing excellence and pursuing American greatness and our national interests
Speaker 1: first and only. This Ben Wangarten in for Buck sex
Speaker 1: And on the Buck Sex and Show. And we'll be
Speaker 1: back with Congressman Jim Banks right after this. You're in
Speaker 1: the Freedom Hunt. Thanks for listening to the Buck Sexton
Speaker 1: Show podcast. Get the latest from Buck at buck sexton
Speaker 1: dot com. Father's Day is around the corner. And if
Speaker 1: your dad or grandfather served this great country of ours,
Speaker 1: how cool would it be to give him something meaningful
Speaker 1: this year, something that recognized what he gave to this country,
Speaker 1: something like the American flag. If you know your father
Speaker 1: grandfather would be moved by a gift like this, then
Speaker 1: let me recommend you to my friends at Allegiance Flag Supply.
Speaker 1: Everything this country means your dad is reflected in the
Speaker 1: quality of the craftsmanship Allegiance Flag Supply puts into all
Speaker 1: their flags. And these are flags that are made in America,
Speaker 1: which is actually really uncommon, believe it or not. They
Speaker 1: are hands sown by seamstresses in Charleston, South Carolina who
Speaker 1: had lost jobs previously, the company's outsourcing overseas, and they're
Speaker 1: made with materials that do not allow for cutting corners
Speaker 1: in the manufacturing process. All of this translates into a
Speaker 1: flag that waves proudly outside your father's home, his dock,
Speaker 1: or on his boat and won't get tangled, torn or shredded,
Speaker 1: which happens to so many other flags in the marketplace
Speaker 1: because they're cheaply made, they're made in China, and honestly,
Speaker 1: the people making them don't care. Allegiance Flag supply cares
Speaker 1: about this country, about patriotism, and about getting you the best,
Speaker 1: highest quality, made in America flags you'll ever see. This
Speaker 1: is the way to say thank you to Dad on
Speaker 1: multiple levels this Father's Day. Go to show Allegiance dot
Speaker 1: com and enter promo code buck to get ten percent
Speaker 1: off your order that also lets them know you heard
Speaker 1: about them here on the show. Go to show Allegiance
Speaker 1: dot com that's the website and enter promo code buck
Speaker 1: for ten percent off your order and get yours in
Speaker 1: time for Father's Day. On June twentieth that show Allegiance
Speaker 1: dot Com enter promo code buck for ten percent off.
Speaker 1: So yes or no Racism in the United States Navy, Admiral,
Speaker 1: you recommended every sailor in the United States Navy read
Speaker 1: this book. So yes or no question. I'm not forcing
Speaker 1: anybody to read the book. It's on a recommended reading list. Admiral,
Speaker 1: did you read the book? I did, Admiral. Department of
Speaker 1: Defense undertook the standown because they understand that extremism detracts
Speaker 1: from military readiness. So if sailors accept Kennedy's argument that
Speaker 1: America and the United States Navy are fundamentally racist, as
Speaker 1: you've encouraged them to do, do you expect that to
Speaker 1: increase or decrease rall and cohesion or even recruiting into
Speaker 1: the United States Navy. Our strength is in our diversity,
Speaker 1: and our sailors understand that race is a very Racism
Speaker 1: in the United States is a very complex issue. That
Speaker 1: was Congressman Jim Banks, a Republican from Indiana and chairman
Speaker 1: of the Republican Study Committee, having a somewhat heated exchange,
Speaker 1: at least on one side of it, with the Chief
Speaker 1: of Naval Operations Michael Gilday regarding the Navy's endorsement of
Speaker 1: its leaders reading the likes of ibramex Kendy, and I
Speaker 1: believe Michelle Alexander as well. And here to talk about
Speaker 1: that and so much more from China to January sixth
Speaker 1: and beyond is Congressman Jim Banks. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the program. Hey Ben, good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having Me's my pleasure. And let's start right
Speaker 1: there with that exchange. What was your takeaway? Are you
Speaker 1: any more confident in the state of our navy and
Speaker 1: as a particularly as a naval reservist as well. Are
Speaker 1: you satisfied with that exchange? Far? Far from it? You
Speaker 1: know it. It's not been a several weeks when I
Speaker 1: first wrote Admiral guild A, drawing attention to him putting
Speaker 1: this outrageous and Unamerican book on a reading list that
Speaker 1: he pushes out to every sailor in the United States
Speaker 1: Navy and encourages them to read. If you know anything
Speaker 1: about Abrahm X Kendy, you know that it's not his
Speaker 1: book How to Be an Anti Racist. It's it's his
Speaker 1: entire body of work that is inherently just that it
Speaker 1: is racist. It is Unamerican. And the thought that the
Speaker 1: most powerful, the highest ranking admiral of the United States
Speaker 1: Navy would push out a book to every sailor to
Speaker 1: read that says that America is evil, inherently racist. The
Speaker 1: United States Navy and other institutions in our country our
Speaker 1: racist is exactly. It's not just counterproductive, it's completely Unamerican.
Speaker 1: And in that exchange you can hear that, I mean,
Speaker 1: my my guess is that some junior officer I thought
Speaker 1: this was a good idea. Now he's in a position
Speaker 1: where he has to defend it. When I asked him
Speaker 1: at the end of the exchange, I mean, did you
Speaker 1: actually read it? He said, he did. To give me
Speaker 1: one redeeming quality of this book that makes it something's
Speaker 1: appropriate to put on the list. He couldn't answer it.
Speaker 1: He got defensive instead. And you can hear more of
Speaker 1: that exchange. I know you played it, but throughout the
Speaker 1: exchange you get a sense that he knows he can't
Speaker 1: defend it. And it's really remarkable. He goes to the
Speaker 1: diversity is our strength response, and yeah, of course you
Speaker 1: need a diversity of opinion when you're talking about dealing
Speaker 1: with our worst adversaries. You need experts in other languages
Speaker 1: and other cultures, but there can be no diversity when
Speaker 1: it comes to love of country and patriotism. There have
Speaker 1: to be certain unifying values and principles to have the biggest,
Speaker 1: baddest fighting force in the history of mankind and deal
Speaker 1: with all these adversaries that we face. Given that, I mean,
Speaker 1: what are the consequences in terms of moral for future
Speaker 1: recruitment and for fielding the strongest fighting force given wokeism
Speaker 1: seemingly pervading not just the military, but also the intelligence
Speaker 1: community and beyond. Yeah, I mean, you said it well,
Speaker 1: But for the United States Military to adopt critical race theory,
Speaker 1: and for the United States Navy, on top of all
Speaker 1: of the other branches, to instill CRT into the ranks
Speaker 1: is exactly the opposite of the stand down on extremism,
Speaker 1: of the mission of the Biden administration to root out
Speaker 1: extremism in the ranks. It's doing exactly the opposite of
Speaker 1: what the Democrats with the Biden administration, with Admiral Guilday,
Speaker 1: what the secretary, what others the leaders at the Pentagons
Speaker 1: say that they're trying to do with the extremism stand
Speaker 1: down and I would argue even further, Ben, I mean
Speaker 1: to that point, how do you recruit the next generation
Speaker 1: of young men and women of the future leaders in
Speaker 1: our country to raise their right hand, to defend the
Speaker 1: constitution and to potentially die for this country out of
Speaker 1: the next On the other side, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: or at the other side of your mouth, you're talking
Speaker 1: about how America endorsing a book. We're talking about how
Speaker 1: America is racist and evil and inherently um the up
Speaker 1: the upbringing of our great country is somehow just that
Speaker 1: evil and racist. I don't I don't think you can
Speaker 1: do it. I mean this, This affects morale, It affects retention,
Speaker 1: it affects recruitment. And I hear every day as a
Speaker 1: member of Congress and as a as a Navy reservist,
Speaker 1: having served with with hundreds of sailors along the way
Speaker 1: who are still in uniform and still serving, they feel
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable with what the what the Navy and what
Speaker 1: what overall the military is becoming as they take this uh,
Speaker 1: this this crash course into crt It's unhealthy. It's an
Speaker 1: American It's got to stop. But with admirals like guil
Speaker 1: Day in charge of the Navy. I don't have high hopes.
Speaker 1: And as we saw in the meeting between Secretary of
Speaker 1: State Anthony B. Lincoln and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
Speaker 1: and their counterparts at Anchor Jawaska, or in the most
Speaker 1: recent meetings between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden. Of course
Speaker 1: this is a propaganda coup for our worst adversaries who
Speaker 1: loved to guaman to this America loathing sort of narrative.
Speaker 1: So of course there are national security implications that go beyond, again,
Speaker 1: just fielding the strongest fighting force. On the subject of China,
Speaker 1: you've been critical of the US Innovations and Competition Act,
Speaker 1: which has been framed as a sort of bipartisan anti China,
Speaker 1: tough on China sort of bill, a layout sort of
Speaker 1: your critique of it, Well, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: this is just a massive spending boondoggle that Democrats are
Speaker 1: really good at this. I hate to admit it, but
Speaker 1: they're good at at taking an issue like China and
Speaker 1: then writing a bill has nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: but saying it's about China, and then getting a couple
Speaker 1: of Republicans to come along and make it by partisan
Speaker 1: and that's what this bill has become. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a big boost and funding to universities around the country, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, don't protect their research from being infiltrated
Speaker 1: by Chinese espionage their campuses, which happens every day. I
Speaker 1: wrote a bill about this a few years ago to
Speaker 1: protect sensitive research that that our taxpayer dollars are funding
Speaker 1: for national security purposes at universities. We don't protect intellectual property,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna go We're gonna go pour billions of
Speaker 1: dollars into these institutions that the China, that the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party is already infiltrated, so that it doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense there Also, there are also some pretty strong
Speaker 1: pro life concerns about what type of research we are
Speaker 1: we are funding, you know, so there are more There
Speaker 1: are moral angles to this as well, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, has nothing to do with holding
Speaker 1: China accountable. As absolutely this bill does nothing to hold
Speaker 1: China accountable for what they've done to steal our jobs
Speaker 1: where they've done to at least the COVID nineteen and
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and not just on the United States of America,
Speaker 1: but on the rest of the world. It just pours
Speaker 1: a bunch of money into places um that that we
Speaker 1: already know where that that that that's not a wise
Speaker 1: investment of our taxpayer dollars, at least without the kind
Speaker 1: of safeguards that we've been advocating for us. There's there's
Speaker 1: nothing in the bill that does anything to be tough
Speaker 1: on China or to hold them accountable. And that's why,
Speaker 1: that's why it's been so easy for most conservative Republicans
Speaker 1: on Capital Hell to oppose it. Some of the policy
Speaker 1: documents put out by the Trump administration cover something approximating
Speaker 1: at least at least the makings of a grand strategy
Speaker 1: with respect to taking on the Chinese Communist Party, which
Speaker 1: I think you agree is the greatest foreign adversary that
Speaker 1: we face. What do you believe the legislative branch's role
Speaker 1: ought to be in executing such a strategy, and how
Speaker 1: do you what do you believe that strategy should consist of. Well,
Speaker 1: it's both economic and it's military. And I participated something
Speaker 1: called the China Task Force last year that Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: set up. It was supposed to be by Parson in
Speaker 1: the beginning, and then Pelosi pulled the Democrats off of
Speaker 1: it because it was before election day and they didn't
Speaker 1: want to appear like they were on the same side
Speaker 1: of a big issue with Trump because Trump was I
Speaker 1: continue to argue, I'll always maintain it's the first president
Speaker 1: that has stood up to China and identified China as
Speaker 1: a threat. In fact, the first thing that President Trump
Speaker 1: did when he came to office was rewrite the National
Speaker 1: Security the National Defense Strategy, the names China and Russia
Speaker 1: as as great great power competition that we need to
Speaker 1: divert away from the Middle East and focus more on
Speaker 1: great power competition with China and Russia. China being the
Speaker 1: greatestisential threat that we face economically and militarily. So, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot that goes into that. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we were serious about combating the China threat, we would
Speaker 1: unwind the massive amount of investments coming from Wall Street,
Speaker 1: from from pensions, pension dollars from almost every state in
Speaker 1: the country, and from the federal government that go to
Speaker 1: fund our greatest adversary, China's military build up of ships
Speaker 1: and fighter planes, of sophisticated weapons and technologies that are
Speaker 1: being funded by through through a funnel through through the
Speaker 1: Wall Street types I mean, that's one way that we
Speaker 1: hold China accountable. You won't find that anywhere in the
Speaker 1: so called Endless Frontier Act or the man subspending boondoggle
Speaker 1: of the Research Funding Bill. That's that's not designed to
Speaker 1: do anything to hold them accountable. So that that's one
Speaker 1: area that we've been focused on a Republican study Committee
Speaker 1: in my office for a couple of years, sort of
Speaker 1: turning off the spicket of money that goes from the
Speaker 1: United States, from taxpayer dollars from pigeons through Wall Street
Speaker 1: to Wall Street's biggest friend in China. If you want
Speaker 1: to if you want to hold if you want to
Speaker 1: block China's rise, that's that's the first place to go
Speaker 1: before we get to sort of the domestic policies that
Speaker 1: I want to touch on on the other side, I
Speaker 1: think it's worth stating that, in my view, at least,
Speaker 1: the living representation of the way that our political class
Speaker 1: has been compromised with respect to communist China, and it
Speaker 1: also impacts as you speak about the investment aspect of things.
Speaker 1: The living personification of the problem is Diane Feinstein, Senator
Speaker 1: from California, and I wrote at length several years back
Speaker 1: and have continued to write about her family's own personal
Speaker 1: interest with respect to communist China and the soft policies
Speaker 1: that she's promoted throughout her entire career in Washington There,
Speaker 1: and of course that it was the alleged spy in
Speaker 1: her office. And I believe you were the only member
Speaker 1: of the House that actually put out questions regarding who
Speaker 1: this individual in that office was and what the implications were.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get a substantial response, a response that
Speaker 1: was satisfactory on that question. Yeah, of course not. And
Speaker 1: I'm embarrassed that we didn't continue to fight for those
Speaker 1: types of answers. I mean we did, We kept reaching
Speaker 1: out and and I don't think that you or any
Speaker 1: of your listeners would be surprised to know that we
Speaker 1: never received any response. In Diane Feinstein's still United States
Speaker 1: Senator today. So what we do know is that for
Speaker 1: twenty years she had a high ranking member of her
Speaker 1: staff who was a Chinese. A spark to counse is
Speaker 1: this is, this is why the China threat is so
Speaker 1: realist right in front of us. I mean, I could
Speaker 1: go on and on with other examples of the Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist Party's tentacles that are spread all over places like
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, Silicon Valley, Wall Street through through their United
Speaker 1: Front efforts. But the fact that Diane Feinstein was never
Speaker 1: how held accountable or forced to answer for for keeping
Speaker 1: a spy on her staff, a Chinese Communist Party spy,
Speaker 1: should tell you should make everyone scratch their head at
Speaker 1: least well more with Congressman Jim Banks right after this
Speaker 1: quick break, welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. Ben
Speaker 1: Winegarden in for Buck Sexton, and we were talking with
Speaker 1: Congressman Jim Banks before the break about US China policy,
Speaker 1: and now I want to transition to domestic policy. You
Speaker 1: recently wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland raising
Speaker 1: what you believe to be or reach, the implication being
Speaker 1: that there's disparate treatment between the law enforcement's efforts to
Speaker 1: pursue those associated with the events at the Capitol on
Speaker 1: January sixth versus those who participated in the sixteen nineteen
Speaker 1: riots of last summer. What do you hope to achieve
Speaker 1: from that way? And do you believe there's disparate treatment there? Well,
Speaker 1: obviously there is. I mean, as I pointed out in
Speaker 1: the letter been to Merrick Garland, if you if you
Speaker 1: just compare the number of charges and the number of
Speaker 1: charges that were dropped between the Portland Riders and the
Speaker 1: January six riders. I mean, it sort of tells a
Speaker 1: pretty significant story. I mean, three hundred times more often
Speaker 1: that charges were dropped against the Portland Riders then against
Speaker 1: the Capitol Writers. So check this out. So Garland charged
Speaker 1: eighty six Portland Riders and he dropped fifty eight out
Speaker 1: of the eighty six cases. That's about sixty percent of
Speaker 1: the cases that he dropped against the Portland Rioters. But
Speaker 1: if you if you look at the four hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five cases that Garland charged against the Capitol Writers,
Speaker 1: He's only dropped in one case, So that's about point
Speaker 1: two percent. So you do the math and you and
Speaker 1: you realize that there is there really is a different
Speaker 1: set of rules, a different set of standards in both
Speaker 1: of these cases. That's not the itemize the rioters on
Speaker 1: January sixth. I'm not advocating the charges to be dropped
Speaker 1: for either one of them, but it's pretty clear that
Speaker 1: the department that Joe Biden's Department of Justice cares not
Speaker 1: at all about about the rioters from last summer. In
Speaker 1: the sixteen nineteen riots. But they've they're focusing all of
Speaker 1: their resources and attention somewhere else. I think if you
Speaker 1: if you draw that comparison, it's a pretty powerful statement
Speaker 1: that the American people deserve to know. January sixth is
Speaker 1: cited as one of the events that underpins the administration's
Speaker 1: new Countering Domestic Terror strategy, which I think the Department
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security has actually called for a whole of
Speaker 1: society efforts. I'm not sure they've called for a whole
Speaker 1: of society efforts to counter the Chinese Communist Party, but
Speaker 1: that's neither here nor there. There's a really troubling aspect.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are many troubling aspects of that document,
Speaker 1: but I want to read part of it and get
Speaker 1: your take on it. The document reads, in part, tackling
Speaker 1: the threat posed by domestic terrorism over the long term
Speaker 1: demand substantial efforts to confront the racism that feeds into
Speaker 1: aspects of that threat. We are therefore prioritizing efforts to
Speaker 1: ensure that every component of the government has a role
Speaker 1: to play in rooting out racism and advancing equity. So
Speaker 1: is this just a backdoor Let's impose effectively critical race
Speaker 1: theory on the country via government under the guise of
Speaker 1: national security, And why should we be confident that our
Speaker 1: rights are going to be protected with this administration executing
Speaker 1: this strategy. Well, you can't be confident of that. You
Speaker 1: can't be confident that Joe Biden's Department of Justice can
Speaker 1: be can be trusted at all to impartially define what
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism means, because to them, it means that you
Speaker 1: supported Donald Trump. It means that you that you have
Speaker 1: that views that are on the right and not on
Speaker 1: the left. And that's the that's the bottom line here.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is basically, if you think about it's
Speaker 1: basically what the Biden administration is rolling out of this
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism strategy. It's basically like the Patriot Act, except
Speaker 1: for instead of targeting foreign terrorists, it targets American citizens.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of ironic because if you remember, the
Speaker 1: left was always up in arms about how the Patriot
Speaker 1: Act would violate foreigners civil liberties, like as if that
Speaker 1: was a thing. But they have no issue with violating
Speaker 1: Americans constitutional rights or civil liberties as they as they've
Speaker 1: rolled out, which is why this is all targeting Trump supporters,
Speaker 1: and that That's why the letter that I wrote to
Speaker 1: Meeric Garland about the I mean clearly, clearly the dropping
Speaker 1: all those charges for against Portland rioters, for those on
Speaker 1: the left, but not but the disparity for what for
Speaker 1: those who were charged on January six. I mean, you
Speaker 1: see the difference in their approach. This is all about
Speaker 1: targeting Trump supporters, and that that's something that I know.
Speaker 1: I know it is concerning, but it should be concerning
Speaker 1: to any American on the center right, which is the
Speaker 1: majority of the country. Conisman Jim Banks, Republican from Indiana
Speaker 1: and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the program today. Really appreciate it. Great
Speaker 1: to be with you. This is the Fuck Sexton Show Podcast.
Speaker 1: Join the conversation and message buck on Facebook, Instagram, or
Speaker 1: email Team Bucket. iHeartMedia dot com. He may read it
Speaker 1: on the show. Why are you confidence whole? Change his behavior?
Speaker 1: Mister president, I'm not change what are you doing? So?
Speaker 1: I said it was confidence six. That's kind It's great,
Speaker 1: I said, we will change your behavior. Is the rest
Speaker 1: of the world reacts to their name adminishes experience of
Speaker 1: the world. I'm not confident of anything. I'm just stating
Speaker 1: the fact forgetting his past behavior has not changed, and
Speaker 1: is that prest conference After sitting down for several hours,
Speaker 1: he denied any involvement in cyberd He dail played human
Speaker 1: rights abuses, even produced to say a lesson of all
Speaker 1: his name. So how does that account to a constructive
Speaker 1: meeting as president? I don't understand that it's just someone
Speaker 1: with ve who are we come on? Pretty much? I'll
Speaker 1: take your questions, and as usual, folks, they gave me
Speaker 1: a list of the people I'm going to call on,
Speaker 1: so Jonathan associated Press, Well, those were some of the
Speaker 1: sounds of Joe Biden's excellent adventure over to Europe for
Speaker 1: the G seven and then as much bandied about meeting
Speaker 1: with a Russian president, Vladimir Putin. And someone has been
Speaker 1: keenly attuned to everything going on overseas and including on
Speaker 1: issues much bigger than this most recent trip is Christian Witten.
Speaker 1: He's senior Fellow for Strategy and Trade at the Center
Speaker 1: for the National Interest, and it served as a senior
Speaker 1: advisor as well in the George W. Bush and Donald
Speaker 1: Trump administrations. Christian joins us, now, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the program. Great to be here, Ben. Thanks.
Speaker 1: So let's start with this set aside all of the
Speaker 1: optics of and really, in my opinion, sort of the
Speaker 1: pathetic questions about who should speak first, and you know,
Speaker 1: all of the kind of back and forth interplay between
Speaker 1: Puddin and Biden, which, if America was in a strong position,
Speaker 1: would be asking about the optics, they'd be talking about
Speaker 1: the substance, substantive way. Did anything change with respect to
Speaker 1: US Russia relations as a consequence of the trip, and
Speaker 1: what were your takeaways from the G seven as well?
Speaker 1: I'd say probably not. You know, there are two things
Speaker 1: that came out of it was a working group on
Speaker 1: cyber attacks and the agreement to send ambassadors back to
Speaker 1: each country. John Sullivan, or ambassador, was back in the
Speaker 1: United States after Putin recalled his ambassador after Biden flippantly
Speaker 1: called Putin the killer. So they're sending him back, but
Speaker 1: it's up to each country to decide whether that's real
Speaker 1: or not. Will those ambassadors have access to a foreign
Speaker 1: minister in Russia, the Secretary of State here, or if
Speaker 1: need be, the head of government, or are they just
Speaker 1: going to go and preside over irrelevant bureaucracies as they
Speaker 1: did before? They put the working group on cyber attacks.
Speaker 1: I have very low expectations for that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a very important issue, but it's one that Biden has
Speaker 1: already fumbled early in his administration, and he, his National
Speaker 1: Security advisor others said basically, we were going to retaliate
Speaker 1: in cyberspace, have a cyber counter attack for the solar
Speaker 1: winds hack in the United States that has been attributed
Speaker 1: to Russia. Well that never came. I mean the National
Speaker 1: Security Advisor Sullivan said there would be seen and unseen consequences.
Speaker 1: Well the consequences were so unseen that no discerned them anywhere.
Speaker 1: So not high expectations. They give some credit for at
Speaker 1: least trying to restore some relations with Russia after the
Speaker 1: Democrats spent the last five years trying to tank them successfully.
Speaker 1: And then on the G seven, I thought that was
Speaker 1: just a complete joke. The G seven itself is obsolete.
Speaker 1: It's the economic powers of the world as they appeared
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen seventies. I mean, Italy and Canada
Speaker 1: are really going to throw their economic weight around and
Speaker 1: make a difference in the world. And if you just
Speaker 1: juxtaposed people like Jijin King the strong man in China.
Speaker 1: Are Putent, who has been on the job for twenty years,
Speaker 1: is at the top of this game, knows what he's doing,
Speaker 1: compared to Boris Johnson fist bumping Trudeau, the sock model
Speaker 1: turned Prime Minister of Canada, and Bojo up there with
Speaker 1: President Biden saying that we're going to build back better
Speaker 1: and greener and more feminine and more gender neutral. It's
Speaker 1: just a joke that the idea that these people are
Speaker 1: in charge of our fate is just very depressing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a perfect representation of the sort of
Speaker 1: decadent and decaying West that are purported leaders are overseeing.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be that way, but of course
Speaker 1: ideas have consequences. My take, and I'm curious what you
Speaker 1: think about this, is that the G seven was in
Speaker 1: effect and really the whole trip when you look at
Speaker 1: the NATO communicate as well, that was put out which
Speaker 1: we talked about on this program on a previous day
Speaker 1: this week, which has a couple of lines regarding China. Basically,
Speaker 1: the G seven was a pep rally for communist China.
Speaker 1: If we're going to go down the Enviro radicalism agenda,
Speaker 1: hamstring areomy, of course, outsourced European energy to Russia and beyond.
Speaker 1: China stands to be one of the greatest beneficiaries of
Speaker 1: America being back so called that is back to what
Speaker 1: I would term an America last strategy policy. I wonder
Speaker 1: what your take is on that. You're right, you know,
Speaker 1: the G seven and NATO both padded themselves on the
Speaker 1: back for including statements about China. You know, when has
Speaker 1: a statement from a G seven ever made a difference
Speaker 1: in the real world. It's sort of sad. You have
Speaker 1: diplomats from all these countries, different ministries who travel around
Speaker 1: the world. It's a whole lot of diplo tourism, but
Speaker 1: they work on changing colons, the semi colons, and words
Speaker 1: going and words go out of these enormously long statements,
Speaker 1: and you're called. During the Trump administration, not having one
Speaker 1: of these statements was seen as some huge transgression, like,
Speaker 1: you know, will the sun come up tomorrow because we
Speaker 1: don't have a statement from the G seven. I think
Speaker 1: as soon as the ink dry on these things, as
Speaker 1: soon as the door was closed on Air Force seven,
Speaker 1: the G seven statement was gone, forgotten, irrelevant, And the
Speaker 1: same with NATO. NATO it seems basically to have become
Speaker 1: a mechanism. I mean, it's always a mechanism to keep
Speaker 1: the Americans in, as it was called, Americans in, the
Speaker 1: Russians out, the Germans down. That mission became obsolete in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: I mean, will this make any difference in the real world.
Speaker 1: Are we going to see France's aircraft carrier applying the
Speaker 1: waters of the Western Pacific to give us some relief
Speaker 1: for it to butcherous American power? It just seems extremely unlikely.
Speaker 1: In the meanwhile, NATO, what does it do. It seems
Speaker 1: to continually draw in our power. I mean, we have
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand, five hundred troops in Germany, Wish armies
Speaker 1: between Russia in Germany. It's just this tremendous waste of money,
Speaker 1: but I think distracts us from the real mission at
Speaker 1: hand with China. Yeah, and to segue a little bit
Speaker 1: further into China, I think it's always worth remembering that
Speaker 1: the Obama Biden ad Ministry had an agreement a sort
Speaker 1: of no cyber warfare pact with General Secretary she and
Speaker 1: that pack of course, was not worth the paper it
Speaker 1: was printed on. So why we would think that Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin would be any more respectful of whatever comes out
Speaker 1: of a strategic dialogue. I think we should be beyond
Speaker 1: skeptical of it. And you've been writing and speaking often
Speaker 1: about the Chinese Communist Party is Malian efforts worldwide, including
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong. I believe you had a substack post
Speaker 1: today on what's going on with respect to Apple Daily,
Speaker 1: a news periodical in Hong Kong, and efforts to persecute
Speaker 1: and prosecute its owner as well. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that and why it's relevant for everyday Americans. Well,
Speaker 1: it speaks to the point that you just can't trust
Speaker 1: China on an agreement, whether it's that twenty fifteen agreement
Speaker 1: not to attack us in cyberspace, for the agreement they
Speaker 1: had with the Brits that was enrolled at the United
Speaker 1: Nations to respect Hong Kong's autonomy and the freedoms that
Speaker 1: they had under the British, including freedom of the press.
Speaker 1: With Apple Daily, which is basically like the New York
Speaker 1: Post of Hong Kong, very pro democracy, boisterous tabloidy, but
Speaker 1: also serious news and very starting support from the people
Speaker 1: of Hong Kong and a very profitable business. Heretofore, that
Speaker 1: is something that the Chinese wanted to do away with,
Speaker 1: so they have under this sony national security law charged
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lay, the publisher. Jimmy has been through this before
Speaker 1: with the Chinese. He arrived in Hong Kong as a
Speaker 1: poor kid, basically was just a shirt on his back.
Speaker 1: He made it and got rich in men's apparel with Georgiano,
Speaker 1: sided with the students in Cenim and Square in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine and was pushed out of his business as
Speaker 1: a result of that. Then became a huge success and
Speaker 1: entirely different business media and is now you know, basically
Speaker 1: being being pushed out of that. And it's not just him.
Speaker 1: It's overnight this morning Hong Kong Time, the Chinese rounded
Speaker 1: up all of the top editorial staff of Apple Daily.
Speaker 1: So it really is a strong move against the free
Speaker 1: press there. And it was just laughing. City Bank upgraded
Speaker 1: HSBC recently saying they have great prospects for wealth management
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong, and I think this is City Bank
Speaker 1: just covering its own decision to go very deep in
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, hiring thousands of bankers there now, And that's
Speaker 1: a ludicrous decision because anyone who can move money out
Speaker 1: of Hong Kong's it's not a torrent, but it's a
Speaker 1: steady drip. And as far as wealth management on the mainland,
Speaker 1: no one on the mainland who's using City Bank or HSBC.
Speaker 1: But I think there's a naive to tay about how
Speaker 1: this movement against freedom is somehow going to be just
Speaker 1: limited to the elected pandemocrats in Hong Kong or the
Speaker 1: pro democracy media. It's going to be bigger than that.
Speaker 1: If you're an equity analyst and you write something bad
Speaker 1: about the state owned enterprise on the mainland, how do
Speaker 1: you know these guys aren't going to come a knocket.
Speaker 1: I think the chances are they probably will. That economic
Speaker 1: freedom is also deteriorating rapidly in Hong Kong. Got just
Speaker 1: about a minute and a half before we have to
Speaker 1: seek a quick break and before we get there. If
Speaker 1: you could summarize it, what do you make of President
Speaker 1: Biden's China policy to date and the personnel he's selected
Speaker 1: to implement and executing. It's a mixed bag so far.
Speaker 1: I don't think we really know that China policy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of described that you have super doves like
Speaker 1: John Kerry the climates are who eventually is going to
Speaker 1: want some deal of the century on climate out of China.
Speaker 1: And will you know, they say ludicrous things like climate
Speaker 1: change is a national security issue. No, no, no, it isn't.
Speaker 1: It just isn't. But the idea there is that you
Speaker 1: will basically subsume all other issues beneath below climate change.
Speaker 1: You know, on the flip side, you have Kurt Campbell,
Speaker 1: who is a long time Democrat but from the Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton wing of the party, considered more of a hawk.
Speaker 1: I think the jury's out on that. Over at USTR,
Speaker 1: Katherine Tie at Taiwan, he's American who is I think
Speaker 1: the eyes wide open. And it's very interesting so far,
Speaker 1: almost all across the Biden administration they want to pretend
Speaker 1: like twenty sixteen that never happened, the Trump administration didn't occur.
Speaker 1: With China policy, they're not quite willing to do that yet.
Speaker 1: But we haven't really seen sort of the coherent policy
Speaker 1: on trade in defense, and we certainly haven't seen any
Speaker 1: defense increase in naval aviation histill nuclear presence in the Pacific.
Speaker 1: To follow some of the rhetoric from both parties of Arshington,
Speaker 1: and I do think it's worth noting on that point
Speaker 1: about maintaining many of the Trump administration's policies that when
Speaker 1: I interviewed President Trump last week, he noted that Biden
Speaker 1: can't take the tariffs off from China. They're too politically
Speaker 1: popular and they're too effective. So it's interesting how he
Speaker 1: was boxed in certain of these areas. We're speaking with
Speaker 1: Christian Witten, Senior Fellow for Strategy and Trade at the
Speaker 1: Center for the National Interest and wove more with him
Speaker 1: right after a quick break. You're listening to the Buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Shoe podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: on the iHeart Brade Eat or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Back with Christian Widden here on the Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: Van weine Garden in for Buck Sexton, and before the break,
Speaker 1: we're talking about US China policy, and obviously something that
Speaker 1: ought to loom hugely bigly over US China policy are
Speaker 1: the origins of the coronavirus and ultimately what the response
Speaker 1: is and really what the response should be, regardless of
Speaker 1: whether or not it came from a wet market, which
Speaker 1: I think is pretty clear is becoming less and less
Speaker 1: legitimate and less and less viable, or it was a
Speaker 1: lab leak, and whether or not that lab leak, whether
Speaker 1: or not it was intentional or unintentional with respect to
Speaker 1: the leak of the pandemic out of that U Hunt
Speaker 1: Institute of Virology, one question that I have is how
Speaker 1: could we possibly find any smoking guns now? And should
Speaker 1: it really matter either way whether we find those smoking
Speaker 1: guns given China's acts subsequent to the spread of the virus,
Speaker 1: then I think it'll be very difficult. Now we have
Speaker 1: an intelligence bureau for steed, that costs US eighty billion
Speaker 1: dollars a year, who you know, really ought to be
Speaker 1: able to get to the bottom of this, you'd think
Speaker 1: with their mass combination of signals intelligence and human intelligence,
Speaker 1: which I'm dubious of as far as the quality of
Speaker 1: what they may have um So hopefully we can get
Speaker 1: more information that's available, but you're right, the Chinese aren't
Speaker 1: going to make it easy likely, as you also I
Speaker 1: think implied that is a very strong symbol and signal
Speaker 1: of guilt. After all, if this really was something that
Speaker 1: happened naturally, or even if it was just negligence, as
Speaker 1: opposed to crimes of commission that had leaked, the Chinese
Speaker 1: would have an interest in making that known, because if
Speaker 1: it's the alternative, then I mean they're they're they're on
Speaker 1: the hook potentially for damages that result from this. But
Speaker 1: if they were innocent, they would be making the staff available,
Speaker 1: they would be making the medical records of the people
Speaker 1: who became sick in late twenty twenty excuse me, in
Speaker 1: late twenty nineteen available, And they haven't done any of that.
Speaker 1: They've done quite the opposite. In fact, one person who
Speaker 1: filed a patent for a coronavirus vaccine who worked at
Speaker 1: this lab died under very mysterious circumstances didn't die from
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen incidentally, so you know the implication he was
Speaker 1: bumped off by the Chinese. You know. Basically, I think
Speaker 1: the onus of proof is on China to show where
Speaker 1: this came from, and the assumption is that it came
Speaker 1: from them otherwise. But I think many in the West
Speaker 1: are just just hesitant because they're frankly afraid to understand
Speaker 1: and to pursue where that conclusion would go, which is
Speaker 1: that China owes the world and owes us trillions and
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars of compensation, and given the ambiguity that
Speaker 1: the intelligence community typically gives when asked for an assessment
Speaker 1: on something as major as this, I mean, should we
Speaker 1: have any confidence that punting to the ICA wasn't anything
Speaker 1: but a political decision to take it sort of out
Speaker 1: of the hands of Joe Biden essentially? Right, Well, it was,
Speaker 1: and partly it was a political decision by Biden. You're right,
Speaker 1: because Pompeo, terms Secretary of State, had an investigation. I'm
Speaker 1: just going you know, State issued a grant from the
Speaker 1: NIH too, this Wuhan Institute. State had a diplomat go
Speaker 1: and take a look around. He was not impressed by
Speaker 1: the security procedures and sent a cable back to main
Speaker 1: State in twenty eighteen to that effect. But Biden put
Speaker 1: the kibosh on that investigation, and the political blowback from
Speaker 1: that is why he turned it over to the intelligence bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: You're right, you know, I think Biden even already telegraphed
Speaker 1: when he announced this that some agencies think one thing.
Speaker 1: Some agencies searched together with you know, so called moderate confidence,
Speaker 1: which means they're guessing it's sad that our intelligence gacacy
Speaker 1: is is this ineffective on something so important? But it
Speaker 1: goes back to this deep state, this intelligence garacacy. It's
Speaker 1: chief virtue, it's chief capability is covering its own But
Speaker 1: rather than helping the president do his job, and rather
Speaker 1: than getting the truth out to the American people in
Speaker 1: thirty seconds. And this is a tough one to do
Speaker 1: in that short period of time. But is there any
Speaker 1: alternative ultimately to decoupling from China, at least in every
Speaker 1: strategically significant area, if we are to ultimately not become
Speaker 1: a vassal of communist China or at least continue to
Speaker 1: be compromised to devastating effect. I think not. I think
Speaker 1: we need to choke off technology, know how, in capital.
Speaker 1: This is the chief threats in the world today. You know,
Speaker 1: Russia dous things we don't like, and certainly Iran is
Speaker 1: a very serious throat in the broader Middle East. But
Speaker 1: China is the big tahuna. It's the chief competitor economic
Speaker 1: model to ours and in political model, and it's great
Speaker 1: at political warfare, economic warfare. We don't know about military warfare,
Speaker 1: but they're sertainly good at buying everything that money can buy,
Speaker 1: so I think you're right. The implication is that we
Speaker 1: have to get much more serious about the Christian Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the program. Really appreciate it,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Thank you, and well Moore right after this,
Speaker 1: we're happy to have abandoned in Florida. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be allowed in Florida classrooms. Spending tax dollars to
Speaker 1: teach kids that America is a rotten place is absolutely unacceptable.
Speaker 1: If you'll look at how some of this stuff manifests
Speaker 1: itself in classrooms that we have seen examples of. It's
Speaker 1: not a conspiracy theory, dividing kids based on race, trying
Speaker 1: to say some are oppressors and some are oppress based
Speaker 1: on race, attacking law enforcement and saying law enforcement attack
Speaker 1: people based on race, those things are poison. That is
Speaker 1: not what we should be doing. What we should be
Speaker 1: doing is solid curriculum based on the actual facts of
Speaker 1: American history and teaching kids what it means to be
Speaker 1: an American and part of what it means to be
Speaker 1: an American as we judge people not on the color
Speaker 1: of their skin, but on the content of their character.
Speaker 1: That was Governor Ronda Santis, Republican from Florida speaking about
Speaker 1: critical race theory and its infiltration of classrooms around the country.
Speaker 1: And you can't really put it much better than that
Speaker 1: taxpayer funded anti americanism is intolerable. Should be roundly rejected
Speaker 1: by everyone, as should the idea that content of character
Speaker 1: should not trump anything else, including color of skin. And
Speaker 1: this goes back to my running theme of excellence versus mediocrity.
Speaker 1: If you want mediocrity, place anything but content of character first.
Speaker 1: But really, the racialists, the racial Marxists, the imbibers of
Speaker 1: critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion, I mean
Speaker 1: the true believers, the ideoogs here, they fundamentally reject the
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King ethos of content of character over color
Speaker 1: of skin. And we could talk about this in the abstract,
Speaker 1: and with our next guest, we will talk at length
Speaker 1: about what is going on in our school is what
Speaker 1: these ideologies are actually all about. How conservatives, patriots, traditional Americans,
Speaker 1: anyone who's a gas at what they're witnessing in our
Speaker 1: schools can go about combatting them practically. There's a story
Speaker 1: that caught my eye this week on a micro level
Speaker 1: that just speaks to the effects of the brainwashing that
Speaker 1: we've seen, and it comes from teachers, and of course
Speaker 1: the teachers are far more radical than the parents on
Speaker 1: the average. So you've got that inbuilt disadvantage in academia
Speaker 1: of academics being disproportionately leftist, or at least and not
Speaker 1: only disproportionately leftist, but then having a percentage a minority
Speaker 1: of those disproportionate leftists who are really radically leftists. There's
Speaker 1: an article at the Post millennial white Spanish teacher cancels
Speaker 1: herself because quote unquote white isn't right. Subtitle dismantling white
Speaker 1: supremacy in society looks like dismantling in my heart. First
Speaker 1: it means I'm not going to teach Spanish. Accountability is
Speaker 1: ongoing because there is not end to the process. So
Speaker 1: this teacher, during what can only be described as a
Speaker 1: struggle session there's actually a women in Gender Studies conference
Speaker 1: for professors. Her name is Jessica Bridges, shared that she
Speaker 1: stopped teaching Spanish to K through twelve students because it
Speaker 1: wasn't right for a white woman to teach Spanish. I
Speaker 1: guess that's cultural appropriation. But stop right there for a second.
Speaker 1: What the hell it does it matter? Your skin color,
Speaker 1: your background, or anything else. If you are a competent teacher,
Speaker 1: shouldn't our schools be about getting the best education, which
Speaker 1: means not only learning a non Marxian version of history,
Speaker 1: but learning how to think. Clearly, the leftist don't believe
Speaker 1: that they want you to think what they want you
Speaker 1: to think, and they don't want you to have their
Speaker 1: critical reasoning skills to see right through it. This article
Speaker 1: goes on to say that this teacher had this revelation
Speaker 1: after taking a course she found on Instagram about how
Speaker 1: to become a better white ally and anti racist co conspirator.
Speaker 1: And this is the language that the left speaks. They
Speaker 1: talk about toxic word and you're allowed to fight toxic
Speaker 1: if not harmful, actually harmful words with actual violence justifiable.
Speaker 1: They talk about being an ally. The way to be
Speaker 1: an ally to a person is to treat them as
Speaker 1: a human being, regardless of identity. Explicitly, the left needs
Speaker 1: to bake identity in everything because they need to pit
Speaker 1: us against each other because that's part of their political strategy.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, that's what this
Speaker 1: is really all about. What is CRT. It's not just
Speaker 1: about brandwashing kids, demoralizing generation, turning kids against their parents
Speaker 1: and their country, and basically, in effect a revolution of
Speaker 1: the mind that will lead to a revolution in the country. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it's about tearing us apart at the seams. It's about
Speaker 1: indoctrination and creating an army of social justice warriors in
Speaker 1: perpetuity that gets worse every single generation. And it has
Speaker 1: gotten works every single generation because what was considered incredibly
Speaker 1: radical forty years ago then becomes, you know, thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: the norm, and it continues on and on. It's only
Speaker 1: accelerating with social media. So our next guest will take
Speaker 1: this micro example and move to the macro of what
Speaker 1: is CRT and diversity, equity inclusion all about how do
Speaker 1: you combat it? And then after that we'll talk about
Speaker 1: another area of concentrated woke power in big tech with
Speaker 1: Rachel Bovard. We're back right after this. When we look
Speaker 1: at what these laws are doing, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people kind of scoffed at them when you read
Speaker 1: the language of them, they appear very silly, But when
Speaker 1: you think about what this is actually trying to do,
Speaker 1: we know that it is narrative that allows us to
Speaker 1: enact really dangerous policies. It is narrative that allows citizens
Speaker 1: to kind of accept these erosions of civil rights. So
Speaker 1: it's not incidental that the same states that are introducing
Speaker 1: these anti critical race theory, anti sixteen nineteen project laws
Speaker 1: are also introducing voter suppression laws. These things are going
Speaker 1: hand in hand. Well, you just heard the dulcet tones
Speaker 1: of Nicole Hannah Jones, creator of the Insidious sixteen nineteen Project,
Speaker 1: talking with Joy Read and trying to equate the efforts
Speaker 1: to root outtical race theory in schools across this country
Speaker 1: and anti American critical race theory with the broader efforts
Speaker 1: to quote unquote suppress the vote, or as we talked
Speaker 1: about yesterday, Stacy Abrams saying, voter integrity efforts are part
Speaker 1: of the rolling insurrection. So this is the state of
Speaker 1: rhetoric on the left today, and I'm pleased to be
Speaker 1: joined by someone who's countering that rhetoric and the policies
Speaker 1: as well. Professor Scott Jenner. He is the professor of
Speaker 1: political science at Boise State and a Washington Fellow at
Speaker 1: the Claremont Institute, where phot disclosure, I too, am a
Speaker 1: fellow and do some work as well. He's also the
Speaker 1: author of the book The Recovery of Family Life, Exposing
Speaker 1: the limits of modern ideologies. Scott, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: coming on the program today. Thanks for having me. It's
Speaker 1: a pleasure to be here. Well, pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1: And let's start right there with the left's recent freak
Speaker 1: out about and this is in the media and beyond
Speaker 1: as well academics as well. This freak out over conservatives
Speaker 1: having the goal to seek to educate, legislate critical race
Speaker 1: theory out of our public school is. What do you
Speaker 1: make of that freak out? Well, I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: like they're really trying to just make it the official
Speaker 1: ideology of the country, and any effort to fight against
Speaker 1: social justice ideology, critical race theory, any kind of critical
Speaker 1: theory is trying to be labeled as an Americans as
Speaker 1: a basis for hate speech and canceling those people. So
Speaker 1: it's all the more important to really fight back against
Speaker 1: it because they're trying to rule it out as a
Speaker 1: legitimate position in politics. And it is a legitimate position
Speaker 1: in politics, darn't it. I Mean, the idea that all
Speaker 1: disparities between all groups are traceable to some sort of
Speaker 1: systematic discrimination is just bunk. And if we can't say
Speaker 1: that it's bunk and a disgusting line meant to silence us,
Speaker 1: then we're really in position where we, you know, we
Speaker 1: can't govern ourselves and we have to submit. So it
Speaker 1: looks to me like part of a long term strategy
Speaker 1: to at a new ideology governing the country and everyone
Speaker 1: to submit to it. I think the simplest summary of
Speaker 1: what critical race theory is essentially racial Marxism, not even racialists,
Speaker 1: or you could call it racist Marxism, racial Marxism, or
Speaker 1: racialist Marxism. But you come at this from the perspective
Speaker 1: of an academic. What's your best explanation as to what
Speaker 1: CRT consists of and what does it am ultimately to achieve.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think CRT is part of a larger
Speaker 1: movement that's been going on for about fifty years. It's
Speaker 1: a late child of multiculturalism, and it's an attempt to
Speaker 1: try to explain differences between groups in terms of discrimination,
Speaker 1: not in terms of group difference. So it began in
Speaker 1: the late sixties with multicultural education and the attempt to
Speaker 1: stop assimilation, to stop holding all groups to the same
Speaker 1: standards of behavior, and to start respecting what it's called
Speaker 1: cultural difference. Some groups don't achieve as well in school,
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to try to raise them to the
Speaker 1: level of achievement, but rather to respect their difference. And
Speaker 1: you know that ends up having this kind of paternalistic
Speaker 1: aspect to it, but it also ends up taking the
Speaker 1: standard that we have used as a country and undermining
Speaker 1: it or making it not a standard. And so I
Speaker 1: just look at critical race theory as totally in line
Speaker 1: with this long line of ideological positions that include multiculturalism,
Speaker 1: affirmative action, set asides as policies, but just the latest
Speaker 1: flower of it. The difference in critical race theory seems
Speaker 1: to be that they really don't believe that progress can
Speaker 1: be made on any of these avenues. It's just a
Speaker 1: permanent struggle between groups, and it's not necessary to stigmatize
Speaker 1: one group in order to so that it will lose
Speaker 1: its confidence so that a different group can rule and
Speaker 1: set set the tone. And so critical race here, I
Speaker 1: think adds to the idea that all discrimination is traced,
Speaker 1: all disparities are traceable to discrimination. With this idea that
Speaker 1: no progress can be made on it, and that different
Speaker 1: different groups in the case in our case, I think
Speaker 1: it means blacks and women need the rule, and whites
Speaker 1: and men need to submit to that rule. And so
Speaker 1: so I think it's not didn't just come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: It's been growing for a long time, but it's just
Speaker 1: added certain accesses over the course of the last few years.
Speaker 1: And it's tactically brilliant to try to cover the agenda
Speaker 1: that you always wanted with the patna of sort of
Speaker 1: racial justice and defending those who are perceived to be
Speaker 1: the underdog or treated as the underdog, but in case
Speaker 1: a perpetual underdog that can only be helped through the
Speaker 1: implementation of these sorts of policies. I mean, it's technically
Speaker 1: very smart. And you've sort of, in your own wife
Speaker 1: fought fire with fire. What have you been aiming to
Speaker 1: do to combat CRT in your home state of Idaho. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not acting as a professor at Boise State, but
Speaker 1: rather just as a citizen. We've tried to write some
Speaker 1: reports on how far the ideology of critical theory, or
Speaker 1: social justice as we call it, has penetrated our universities
Speaker 1: and here with another group called the Ido Freedom Foundation,
Speaker 1: I have helped to write a couple of reports, one
Speaker 1: on Boise State University and another on Idaho University, Idaho,
Speaker 1: about how the structure of diversity, inclusion and equity is
Speaker 1: beginning to be built and to infiltrate all of the
Speaker 1: policies at the school. We're not as far built out
Speaker 1: as other schools like Berkeley or Ohio State, but we're
Speaker 1: still in the earth early stages of the building what
Speaker 1: we call the adolescence of the of the attempt to
Speaker 1: build a structure on the university. And this is happening,
Speaker 1: you know, under the nose of the legislature. No one
Speaker 1: knows that it's happening. It's it's not really under the
Speaker 1: purview of the legislature normally to pay attention to these things.
Speaker 1: But if we think that this ideology is something that
Speaker 1: really undermines the ability for us to have a common
Speaker 1: good and for us to have representative government and for
Speaker 1: all groups to thrive in the United States, it needs
Speaker 1: to be you know, it needs to be rooted out
Speaker 1: or prevented from taking over our public institutions. So here
Speaker 1: in Idaho, you know, with the help somewhat of our reports,
Speaker 1: there have been laws that are passed that prevent indoctrination
Speaker 1: on the basis of the social justice ideology. And also
Speaker 1: there's been some defunding of the universities that has absolute
Speaker 1: cuts in their budgets from the state and all and
Speaker 1: in the name of this, because this is being built,
Speaker 1: the legislature has cut the budget. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the only ways that only tools
Speaker 1: that a legislature has to do something about this, and
Speaker 1: here in Idaho at least some of the legislators have
Speaker 1: found it necessary to start using that tool. And I
Speaker 1: take it the rationale for developing those reports was to
Speaker 1: just first get the basic facts of how widespread these
Speaker 1: efforts are, how deep they go, to sort of quantify
Speaker 1: and qualify the problem before using whatever remedies necessary to
Speaker 1: overcome that problem. Yes, I mean that's exactly the rationale.
Speaker 1: And the places we looked in the university are, for instance,
Speaker 1: what are the strategic plans in the university say about
Speaker 1: their efforts to build diversity, equity and inclusion infrastructure. Who
Speaker 1: have they hired to build it, What kinds of policies
Speaker 1: have they adopted as they've attempted to build out the infrastructure,
Speaker 1: What kinds of policies when it comes to hiring or
Speaker 1: contracts at the university, grant or free speech policies, for instance,
Speaker 1: bias response teams and things on campus. How far has
Speaker 1: it infiltrated the curriculum, the general ed which departments are
Speaker 1: really taken over by this social justice ideology? How is
Speaker 1: it infiltrated into student life and residence halls? Is it
Speaker 1: the basis for hiring residence hall directors? How does it
Speaker 1: affect university programming? I mean, who has a chance to
Speaker 1: overlook all of those things? So our reports just encapsulated
Speaker 1: all of those aspects into one tight, little twenty four
Speaker 1: page document and well sourced here in Idaho, and it's
Speaker 1: being you know, it's being reproduced in other states as
Speaker 1: people have seen the importance of having a good factual
Speaker 1: basis for understanding what is going on in universities. Other
Speaker 1: states have approached us to write such report. And I
Speaker 1: think it's a good basis, a factual basis from which
Speaker 1: good criticisms of universities can be made. What are the
Speaker 1: lessons from your experiences thus far for the rest of
Speaker 1: the country, if you're going to encapsulate them, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's difficult, I think to root out something,
Speaker 1: it's easier to stop it from growing. That legislators can
Speaker 1: affect the behavior of universities if they use the tools
Speaker 1: that they have at their disposal, the most important of
Speaker 1: which are the levers of budget. Not so much, I
Speaker 1: think the regulation of universities, which universities can get around
Speaker 1: by just naming things differently or such. You have to
Speaker 1: make it so that universities don't want to do this
Speaker 1: or pay a price if they do it, and so
Speaker 1: I think those are important lessons. Also, I think it's
Speaker 1: crucial informed legislators do not have tons of time to
Speaker 1: do this themselves. Just a concentrated effort to provide a
Speaker 1: systematic account, well sourced account of what's going on on
Speaker 1: universities can have an effect on how legislation there's view
Speaker 1: the public institutions. And I guess the fourth thing I
Speaker 1: would say is that it's also true that state boards
Speaker 1: are pretty useless when it comes to overseeing universities because
Speaker 1: state boards themselves are pretty much captured by the education establishment.
Speaker 1: In any particular place, they come from the education establishment
Speaker 1: and they're there to protect it. So really only political
Speaker 1: institutions can have an effect, and those political institutions are
Speaker 1: the executive and the legislature. It's probably best to have
Speaker 1: executive leadership. This would be a fifth point instead of
Speaker 1: legislative leadership. But in the absence of executive leadership, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we have effective executive leadership here in Idaho,
Speaker 1: the legislature can you can step in and at least
Speaker 1: prevent budgets from passing, and that only requires half of
Speaker 1: a bicameral legislature. They're prevented from going forward. So if
Speaker 1: there's a conservative House, the Conservative House can stop things
Speaker 1: from happening. And that's what happened here. Well more with
Speaker 1: Professor Scott Yenner. Right after a quick break, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Buck Sexton Show. Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton,
Speaker 1: and we're talking with Professor Scott Yenner. He teaches political
Speaker 1: science at Boise State and he's a Washington Fellow at
Speaker 1: the Claremont Institute, where I too am a fellow and
Speaker 1: the author recently of the book The Recovery of Family Life,
Speaker 1: Exposing the limits of modern ideologies. And before that break,
Speaker 1: we were talking about critical race theory and they're sort
Speaker 1: of an related area in the sort of cult of
Speaker 1: wokedom taking over, of course, like every bad idea starts
Speaker 1: in the schools, but then takes over every other aspect
Speaker 1: of our culture and society, obviously our corporate boardrooms and beyond.
Speaker 1: And that's the notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And
Speaker 1: you've written at some length about what these words actually
Speaker 1: mean translated into woke speak, what our diversity, equity and
Speaker 1: inclusion really about. Yeah, I mean, I try to provide
Speaker 1: just very simple translation of these words. Equity is the
Speaker 1: idea that each group should be represented in its population
Speaker 1: population proportion in each institution. So since blacks make up
Speaker 1: thirteen percent of the population, they should be thirteen percent
Speaker 1: of engineering students. Whites are fifty five percent of the population,
Speaker 1: they should make up fifty five percent of the engineering students.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that number is right, but I
Speaker 1: know thirteen percent is right. So equity is proportionality, Diversity
Speaker 1: is equity is a step forward. Diversity. Diversity is the
Speaker 1: values of the university. We are made so that underrepresented
Speaker 1: minorities can succeed and set the tone. And you can
Speaker 1: never have quite an set the tone and the forms
Speaker 1: of rule on the university. And then include the pleas
Speaker 1: that are necessary in order for diversity to happen. So
Speaker 1: things like going after what is called unconscious bias, offering training,
Speaker 1: trying to solicit more community partnerships with left wing groups
Speaker 1: will help diversify the university. That as make the forms
Speaker 1: and rule of those underrepresented minorities more and ever more
Speaker 1: the ruling doctrine of whatever institution you're talking about. So,
Speaker 1: equity is proportionality, inclusion. Our policies to be friendly to diversity.
Speaker 1: Diversity is underrepresented groups set a tone and rules in
Speaker 1: the institution. So what is your best explanation If a
Speaker 1: friend or colleague comes to you and says, what's your
Speaker 1: beef with diversity, equity and inclusion? Are you some kind
Speaker 1: of racist and bigot? How do you respond to them?
Speaker 1: Give us some news you can use here? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that I would respond with things like this.
Speaker 1: That is, if we're going to rule ourselves as a people,
Speaker 1: we can't have administrative agencies setting the rules. The people
Speaker 1: need to speak that there is no way that all
Speaker 1: of the differences between groups are traceable to discrimination. The
Speaker 1: groups are different. Men and women have different values, Blacks
Speaker 1: and whites have different values and customs. So we should
Speaker 1: expect there to be differences between the groups. So the
Speaker 1: whole project of trying to equalize according to group outcomes
Speaker 1: is a preposterous one given what we know about the
Speaker 1: differences in groups. That it's impossible to get from critical
Speaker 1: race theory or social justice ideology to the point where
Speaker 1: all citizens are welcomed equally in a political community and
Speaker 1: can be friends with one another. The ideology itself is
Speaker 1: corrosive to civic friendship. It creates suspicion, it creates anger
Speaker 1: and resentment in all of the groups. And when you
Speaker 1: have a country that is defined by those things, that
Speaker 1: country will not be able to act. It will not
Speaker 1: be able to act on the world stage, it will
Speaker 1: not be able to act internally, and will end up
Speaker 1: being governed by unaccountable bureaucrats who who are imposing some
Speaker 1: sort of foreign vision on our society. So I think
Speaker 1: it's bad for republican government. I think it's bad for
Speaker 1: common citizenship and bad for national action. And it's based
Speaker 1: on a lie about the nature of group outcomes, and
Speaker 1: of course to execute it, and that's all, you know,
Speaker 1: not that big a deal, And of course to execute it,
Speaker 1: and it's implicit in your answer, but you have to
Speaker 1: impose totalitarianism essentially on the country, leaving aside that the
Speaker 1: country would collapse by tearing itself apart in the interim,
Speaker 1: as the totalitarianism is being imposed upon the country a
Speaker 1: real quick in thirty seconds or so, can you burn
Speaker 1: down the strawman argument being raised about how taking on
Speaker 1: CRT in schools as an attack on academic freedom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the purpose of academic freedom is to serve
Speaker 1: the common good. If there is an ideology that undermines
Speaker 1: the common good, like CRT, it's crucial to show that
Speaker 1: there is a limit to academic freedom. Academic freedom is
Speaker 1: only valued because it serves the common good, and if
Speaker 1: we have certain kinds of ideologies that undermine it, academic
Speaker 1: freedom must at some point give way to a concern
Speaker 1: that the public has to make sure that its institutions
Speaker 1: actually serve the common good. We've been speaking with Professor
Speaker 1: Scott Jenner of Boise State, where he teaches political science.
Speaker 1: He's also Washington Fellow at the Cremin Institute. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the program. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Have you ever wanted to
Speaker 1: invest in real estate? But you don't have the time
Speaker 1: to do it on your own. I thought exactly the
Speaker 1: same way as you until about a year ago. I've
Speaker 1: always loved the idea of real estate investments, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to invest in real estate. While staying
Speaker 1: committed to my professional I do five hours of original
Speaker 1: programming and content every day. How could I possibly take
Speaker 1: the time to invest in real estate on my own?
Speaker 1: Then I met my friends at Done for You real Estate.
Speaker 1: They took all of the guests work out of it
Speaker 1: for me. They found me an awesome property, they rented
Speaker 1: it out for me right away, They managed the tenant
Speaker 1: for me, and now I get a check every month
Speaker 1: like clockwork. Don't wait another second to see if my
Speaker 1: buddies It Done for You real Estate can do for
Speaker 1: you what they did for Mets. It done for you
Speaker 1: Buck dot com to see how it works. Is it
Speaker 1: done for you Buck dot com? Today? You will not
Speaker 1: be sorry. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This
Speaker 1: is Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton. And while we've
Speaker 1: covered a lot this week in the way of the
Speaker 1: woke takeover of pretty much every aspect of our society,
Speaker 1: I guess we've gone a little bit soft so far
Speaker 1: on big tech. We haven't given it its due yet.
Speaker 1: And someone who's been keenly focused on the ways in
Speaker 1: which concentrated private power in the way of big tech,
Speaker 1: which I've called sort of an auxiliary of the administrative
Speaker 1: state being used hand in hand with the federal government
Speaker 1: at times, and also of course federal officials cajoling big
Speaker 1: tech to do its bidding with respect to speech. It
Speaker 1: does not like someone who's been keenly focused on these issues,
Speaker 1: in particular again that concentration of power in the public
Speaker 1: and private spheres, is Rachel Bovard. She's senior director of
Speaker 1: Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, formerly served in roles
Speaker 1: under the likes of Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee.
Speaker 1: She's a senior tech columnist at the Federalists, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about one of her recent articles there in just
Speaker 1: a second. And also, I should say a co panelist
Speaker 1: of mine on the weekly show the nat Con Squad,
Speaker 1: which is a project of the Edmund Burke Foundation, and
Speaker 1: I urge everyone to check that out for all the
Speaker 1: latest and greatest and policy politics and ideas in this
Speaker 1: sort of new national conservatism movement. Rachel, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the program today. My pleasure. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Sure. So first let's do some level setting here.
Speaker 1: You've been writing at length about antitrust. You had a
Speaker 1: great peace in the American Conservative which sort of goes
Speaker 1: into in part practically how antitrust ought to be wielded
Speaker 1: given the concentrated power in big tech and elsewhere, but
Speaker 1: also that it really is a conservative policy at core.
Speaker 1: So what are the conservative underpinnings of antitrust rightly used?
Speaker 1: So our antitrust statutes in America are over a century old,
Speaker 1: and they grew out of this you know, shared concern
Speaker 1: for concentrated power in the market, you know, born out
Speaker 1: of this idea that it's you know, to have a
Speaker 1: free market that works, you know, it has to be
Speaker 1: vigilantly protected. And that was really a conservative impulse. You know.
Speaker 1: John Sherman, the Senator who gave his name actually to
Speaker 1: the founding anti trust lawsuit or grounding Antstrius Statute, was
Speaker 1: a Republican signed by Benjamin Harrison, also a Republican president,
Speaker 1: and it really grew out of this classical liberal traditional
Speaker 1: conservative tradition which says, look concentrated power wherever it exists,
Speaker 1: can be a threat to liberty. I went into a
Speaker 1: recent essay I wrote into sort of the thinking of
Speaker 1: Friedrich Hyak around this concept. And you know, we usually
Speaker 1: think of Hyaks as the great champion of the unfettered marketplace,
Speaker 1: but even Hyak was very aware that, you know, a
Speaker 1: concentrated corporate power, particularly when it fused with government power,
Speaker 1: could be a tremendous threat. And you know, that was
Speaker 1: the fascism that he fled from, you know, in Europe
Speaker 1: at the dawn of World War two. So there really
Speaker 1: is a conservative impulse, I think, to be wary of
Speaker 1: concentrated power wherever it resides. And that was initially how
Speaker 1: conservative's approach to anti trust. You know, that changed over
Speaker 1: time as progressives began to use antitrust to sort of
Speaker 1: impose their own values on the market. The jurisprudence around
Speaker 1: how anti trust was interpreted began to sort of swing
Speaker 1: in all kind of ideological directions, and so you had
Speaker 1: conservatives that said, look, antitrust needs an anchoror it needs
Speaker 1: something that makes a coherent and so that was the
Speaker 1: birth of the consumer Welfare Standard, which fuses sort of
Speaker 1: economic metrics around how anti trust should be enforced. So
Speaker 1: it says, you know, enforcers should look at things like
Speaker 1: our prices changing, how is innovation doing, Is it being harmed,
Speaker 1: Is you know, quality of goods being harmed? Consumers have
Speaker 1: adequate choice in the market. So it's a framework that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But I think over time, you know, has
Speaker 1: become so narrowed as to be interpreted as just this
Speaker 1: exclusive focus on price, and that's really diminished the role
Speaker 1: of antitrust because it becomes so difficult to even enforce
Speaker 1: anti trust in the marketplace as it exists. So I
Speaker 1: think some conservatives are now waking up to the fact
Speaker 1: that hey, maybe we should broaden the mandate back to
Speaker 1: that original aperture that the consumer Welfare Standard had when
Speaker 1: it was implemented in the eighties and late seventies and
Speaker 1: go back to that interpretation. But as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty big establishment consensus built up around the
Speaker 1: way things that are currently being done. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of debate and dissent around this idea. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: with respect to that establishment consensus versus growing on the
Speaker 1: left and right and really generally on the more ideological
Speaker 1: members of Congress on either side, and beyond Congress, as well,
Speaker 1: one of the cynic might say, well, are politicians leveraging
Speaker 1: the big tech issue essentially to extort these companies into
Speaker 1: giving them paying them more money for their campaigns, increasing
Speaker 1: contributions to pay for the protection of the federal government,
Speaker 1: or do you think that there's been a genuine shift
Speaker 1: among our legislators. So, of course, you know, there's always
Speaker 1: a level of cynicism, I think in politics, but I
Speaker 1: do think, you know, there is a genuine effort among
Speaker 1: some Republican lawmakers to actually look at this problem as
Speaker 1: it exists, not even just in the big tech space,
Speaker 1: but across the economy at large. It was really fascinating
Speaker 1: to watch last week when Senator Mike Lee, former boss
Speaker 1: of mine but also very well known, you know, with
Speaker 1: the libertarian in the sort of more libertarian leaning legal
Speaker 1: movement itself, he even acknowledged, you know that across the economy,
Speaker 1: it's possible that's you know, our anti trust enforcement enforcement
Speaker 1: isn't working. And again this goes back to this idea.
Speaker 1: You know, I think oftentimes people on the right unfairly
Speaker 1: and perhaps you know, with an agenda, conflate anti trust
Speaker 1: enforcement with regulation, but the two are very very distinct.
Speaker 1: And I think Senator Lee makes this distinction well anti
Speaker 1: trust enforcement his law enforcement right, It's not illegal to
Speaker 1: be a monopoly, but it's illegal to be predatory. You know,
Speaker 1: it's illegal to undercut competition in the marketplace. And if
Speaker 1: that's not being adequately policed, that's a problem because again,
Speaker 1: then you don't actually have the free market working as intended.
Speaker 1: So you know, even he I think, is acknowledging that
Speaker 1: there's the status quo is not working here, and that's
Speaker 1: really the debate to be had. You know. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's there's people motivated by cynicism, but I
Speaker 1: would say, more than any other issue I've seen recently,
Speaker 1: there is really a genuine effort to adjust this here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course, and we've dowed into this on that
Speaker 1: con squad at length, there's ample legal and historical precedent
Speaker 1: for this. Justice Thomas has probably written the most succinctly
Speaker 1: and clearly sort of the reasons leading up towards maybe
Speaker 1: a potential rolling down the road that would justify treating,
Speaker 1: for example, big tech like under a common carrier a
Speaker 1: sort of regime. And of course there's been a number
Speaker 1: of bills put up in Congress lately, and you've written
Speaker 1: about them at length. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the substance of the legislative proposals on the table and
Speaker 1: how it's relevant to the everyday lives of Americans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is a really interesting development out of House
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee run by Democrats, who have over the last
Speaker 1: year and a half embarked on this legislative investigation into Apple, Amazon, Google,
Speaker 1: and Facebook. And they this resulted in like a six
Speaker 1: hundred page report on all of the areas in which Democrats,
Speaker 1: you know, found these companies to be acting in non
Speaker 1: competitive way. Days now, no Republican joined that report, although
Speaker 1: you did see the Republican ranking member of the Antitrust Subcommittee,
Speaker 1: Kent Buck, put out his own report saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really agree with my Democratic callings on what
Speaker 1: they want to do, but I do think that there
Speaker 1: are some issues here. There's definitely some flashing red lights.
Speaker 1: And as a result of that investigation, the Subcommittee's put
Speaker 1: out five legislative proposals. And this is a big deal
Speaker 1: because you know, for a long time, you know, all
Speaker 1: we saw from people concerned about big tech was sort
Speaker 1: of these hearings where members would go and yell about
Speaker 1: things or you know, letters, but no real substantive legislative effort.
Speaker 1: And so I want to highlight it in that regard
Speaker 1: that this is this is a pretty big next step.
Speaker 1: And so these five different bills deal with different parts
Speaker 1: of the market that lawmakers feel big tech has been
Speaker 1: unfairly entrenched, and they really go into how big tech competes.
Speaker 1: So probably the two biggest proposals would that would really
Speaker 1: change how things work are One is a straight up
Speaker 1: merger band, so specific to these big tech companies. You know,
Speaker 1: instead of the government having to prove that when they
Speaker 1: buy up their competitors, the government having to say, no,
Speaker 1: that's anti competitive, the presumption has flipped. The big tech
Speaker 1: companies would have to prove to the government that what
Speaker 1: they're doing is not anti competitive. And then the second
Speaker 1: big bill that I think would have really long ranging
Speaker 1: effects is a structural separation about self preferencing. And this
Speaker 1: really gets at the idea that you know, Google can
Speaker 1: promote its own products and in its massive platform and
Speaker 1: downgrade its competitors. And you know that really is a
Speaker 1: problem when Google is the only game in town, right
Speaker 1: when Google filters information for ninety percent of the world.
Speaker 1: When they downgrade a competitor, it really sort of has
Speaker 1: a large impact on their business. So those are the
Speaker 1: two really big bills that I think, of the five
Speaker 1: would have the longest ranging effects. You've written at Lance
Speaker 1: as well. We've got about a couple of minutes and
Speaker 1: then we'll be up against the commercial break. But you've
Speaker 1: written as well and certainly spoken about Facebook's oversight board.
Speaker 1: And you look at the composition of this I guess
Speaker 1: Supreme Court on Speech or sort of the anti Supreme
Speaker 1: Court on speech in some respects. And you look at
Speaker 1: the composition and a disproportionate percentage of the members of Facebook,
Speaker 1: supposedly impartial and neutral objective a technocratic board, are not Americans.
Speaker 1: And of course the rest of the world has a
Speaker 1: very different standard in terms of free speech and conceptions
Speaker 1: of what is beyond the pale and what is acceptable
Speaker 1: in terms of the content of speech. Do you believe
Speaker 1: that essentially we are being subjected to, and are supposedly
Speaker 1: free digital public square foreign conceptions of speech. I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly what the Facebook Oversight board is. You know,
Speaker 1: it's made up of largely foreign members, right, people who
Speaker 1: aren't raised in our speech traditions making decisions about what, how,
Speaker 1: you know, how speech should be carried out in America.
Speaker 1: I think it's entirely inappropriate, particularly when you know Facebook
Speaker 1: oversight board has placed itself over and above the speech
Speaker 1: of democratically elected government officials, you know, President Trump being
Speaker 1: probably the most famous example of this. I think it's
Speaker 1: highly inappropriate and really kind of has a chilling effect
Speaker 1: in our public square when you consider that Facebook, with
Speaker 1: its two point seven billion global users, really does not
Speaker 1: only represent a public square for voter engagement for many
Speaker 1: elected officials, but it's also a market access point for
Speaker 1: millions of small businesses in America. So it's much much
Speaker 1: more than just a speech platform, and I think when
Speaker 1: it wields its power ideologically, it has a long ranging
Speaker 1: effect not only on the speech, but on the marketplace
Speaker 1: the marketplace as well. So we're going to take a
Speaker 1: a quick commercial break in just a second, but I
Speaker 1: think it's worth emphasizing a couple of things before you
Speaker 1: were talking Rachel about the corporate wealth. The essentially lowest
Speaker 1: price is all that matters when it comes to anti trust,
Speaker 1: how it's been interpreted over time. But of course we've
Speaker 1: paid a substantial price for these falling costs, which is
Speaker 1: our privacy, our most personal information, and of course we've
Speaker 1: essentially sacrificed our right to free speech to save the
Speaker 1: public square of free speech. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: something that's worth emphasizing every time that rationale comes up
Speaker 1: for not using anti trust in a prudent and measured
Speaker 1: and proper way given what we're facing today. This has
Speaker 1: been wagering in for Buck sexon well More with Rachel Bovard.
Speaker 1: Right after this, we're back with Rachel Bovard, senior director
Speaker 1: of Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, senior tech columnists
Speaker 1: at the Federalist or I should know it. I'm a
Speaker 1: senior contributor as well, and someone who's worked under the
Speaker 1: likes of Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee, which have
Speaker 1: sort of become at least at the high level you
Speaker 1: would think kind of strange bedfellows at least Senator Lee
Speaker 1: with respect to the conversation today, which is using government
Speaker 1: power against concentrated corporate power, and I think it's worth noting,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of high level context of that conversation,
Speaker 1: of course, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, whether
Speaker 1: it's in the public or private spheres. It's just human nature.
Speaker 1: And it's also worth noting that there's a difference between
Speaker 1: free enterprise and business and free enterprise and corporatism. And
Speaker 1: businesses start out small and grow as a consequence of
Speaker 1: an open and free marketplace. But as businesses grow bigger,
Speaker 1: of course, they always want to halt their competition, buy
Speaker 1: up their competition if they need to cement their place
Speaker 1: as dominant powers. And so I think we always have
Speaker 1: to keep that in the back of our mind when
Speaker 1: we talk about how we think about protecting and preserving
Speaker 1: a true free marketplace versus protecting and preserving corporatist positions.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you had any thoughts on that sort
Speaker 1: of deeper, more philosophical point. Yeah. I think this gets
Speaker 1: to the you know, intellectual sort of ideological positioning of
Speaker 1: the right over the last you know, thirty years years,
Speaker 1: because you know, as I referenced earlier, the conservative tradition
Speaker 1: and classical liberalism has always acknowledged that threats to liberty
Speaker 1: can reside in concentrated power wherever it is, right in
Speaker 1: the corporate space or in the government. But over time,
Speaker 1: I think conservatives have come to believe that the only
Speaker 1: threat to liberty is in the government itself, and they've
Speaker 1: ignored this the free market, you know, and then they've
Speaker 1: just assumed everything is fine and then there's nothing to
Speaker 1: see here. But I think what we're seeing now is
Speaker 1: that vigilance is required there as well, because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when government policies are prioritizing certain things
Speaker 1: about business, because that's the real reality of the marketplace,
Speaker 1: right it reflects the policies that we are selves set
Speaker 1: for it. So when we talk about the tech companies,
Speaker 1: for instance, they often get, you know, well, why would
Speaker 1: you interfere with a private business? These businesses benefit from
Speaker 1: tremendous government policy across the board, you know, the likes
Speaker 1: of which of Section two thirty for instance, which is
Speaker 1: its big carve out a big immunity from liability, which
Speaker 1: it's tantamount to a huge financial substitute to these companies,
Speaker 1: you know, their First Amendment actors, but their activity is
Speaker 1: privileged over and above other First Amendment actors like newspapers
Speaker 1: and movies and things that would be subject to lawsuits.
Speaker 1: So we do really need, I think, to change this
Speaker 1: binary way of looking at things where it's only the
Speaker 1: government's the problem, and you know, massive corporate power is
Speaker 1: never a problem. That's just not true. And I think
Speaker 1: we're seeing that very very well demonstrated in this moment.
Speaker 1: If you were drafting up the next contract with America
Speaker 1: or whatever, that document may or may not end up
Speaker 1: being called to the extent the party is even thinking
Speaker 1: this way, which is of course always questionable. What would
Speaker 1: your principles look like and your sort of campaign look
Speaker 1: like for taking on big tech to ensure that the
Speaker 1: pre am vota section two thirty is actually served by
Speaker 1: our laws, which is promoting free and open discourse and
Speaker 1: intellectual inquiry. You know, I think a guiding heuristic here
Speaker 1: is actually something very Goldwater set a long time ago,
Speaker 1: which is that, you know, the champions of freedom will
Speaker 1: you fight against concentrated power wherever it resides. They will
Speaker 1: take on monopolies, corporate and union. And so I think
Speaker 1: that has to be the guiding heuristic for how we
Speaker 1: do things in both the government and in the private sector,
Speaker 1: because one of both of these transact on each other
Speaker 1: in very powerful ways, and I think it's a mistake
Speaker 1: to put them into separate spheres when they aren't anymore when,
Speaker 1: especially with these big tech tech companies, we now see
Speaker 1: them working hand in glove with, you know, a democratic
Speaker 1: ideology to use the levers of power to shut down dissent,
Speaker 1: to shut down criticism, and to shut down speech in
Speaker 1: the public square. We are in a situation now where
Speaker 1: the government does have a role, and it is, like
Speaker 1: you said, to preserve this open space for ideas, for
Speaker 1: small business, for all these things that we as republic
Speaker 1: aikins cherish, but we're so hesitant to say the government
Speaker 1: has any role here. But that limited role for the
Speaker 1: government is now, and so I think that has to
Speaker 1: be a guiding principle for Republicans going forward in a
Speaker 1: way that it hasn't really been for the last thirty years.
Speaker 1: And I think it's worth knowing again that there, of
Speaker 1: course national security implications to this as well. We spoke
Speaker 1: at length on yesterday's episode about the Biden administration countering
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism strategy, and of course the administration talks about
Speaker 1: partnering with private sector actors, including and they've intimated this before,
Speaker 1: big tech, to police their platforms for whatever the thought
Speaker 1: police of the Biden administration deemed to be legitimate to
Speaker 1: be policing, and that strategy also talks about combating disinformation
Speaker 1: and misinformation, which you can only believe in practice will
Speaker 1: mean more filtering and bands and censorship of any opinion
Speaker 1: that is just not above board according to the party line.
Speaker 1: So it's something that we'll have to be quite vigilant about.
Speaker 1: We'll have to demand that our lawmakers are vigilant about
Speaker 1: it as well. And I know that you, Joe Bovard,
Speaker 1: will be on top of this and urge everyone to
Speaker 1: check out all of your writings wherever they're found in
Speaker 1: federal as USA Today, American Conservative, American conservative and beyond.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the program today
Speaker 1: and for all your exceptional work. Really appreciate it. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, Ben, Thanks and Wolf more on the buxx
Speaker 1: and show right after this on Sunday, June twentieth, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden will have been president for exactly five months. And
Speaker 1: in these five months, we've seen crisis after crisis after crisis.
Speaker 1: We've experienced a gas crisis where we had gas lines
Speaker 1: and skyrocketing energy prices. We're on the verge of an
Speaker 1: inflation crisis. We're everywhere we look, prices are rising on food,
Speaker 1: on housing, on lumber. We've already had a war in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and we've got a border crisis that
Speaker 1: has been raging so intensely that we're on pace to
Speaker 1: see two million illegal immigrants come through our unsecured border
Speaker 1: this year. Just last month, one hundred and eighty thousand
Speaker 1: and thirty four illegal immigrants crossed the border. To put
Speaker 1: that in perspective, that number is a six hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy four percent increase over the number of illegal immigrants
Speaker 1: that crossed the border last May, a six hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy four percent increase, and that number is a twenty
Speaker 1: one year high. The reason for this is simple. The
Speaker 1: crisis that has unfolded is the direct result of political
Speaker 1: decisions made by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. That was
Speaker 1: Senator Ted Cruz lambasting the Biden administration. And it goes
Speaker 1: back to the running theme that we open this episode
Speaker 1: with has run through the substance of the various interviews
Speaker 1: we've had on big tech, on the schools, on US
Speaker 1: China policy, dealing with Russia, energy, and on and on
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz talking about massive money printing and spending in
Speaker 1: effect in terms of the massive inflation and prices that
Speaker 1: we've seen, and if you look at a chart of
Speaker 1: the money supply, it's absurd. What's happened over the last year,
Speaker 1: the explosion in the Middle East with respect to I
Speaker 1: ran back, to proxies attacking Israel, the border crisis. What
Speaker 1: unifies these policies or these outcomes? Rather, these outcomes are
Speaker 1: a direct consequence of rejecting basic, fundamental, core American values
Speaker 1: and principles. If you reject those values and principles, you
Speaker 1: get these kind of results. You cultivate mediocrity. Massive money
Speaker 1: printing and spending. What is that a reflection of, beyond
Speaker 1: the self imposed economic suicide that we committed over the
Speaker 1: last year, arguably needlessly not wanting to deal with reality.
Speaker 1: Money printing is done to paper over problems and to
Speaker 1: kick the can down the road on dealing with those problems.
Speaker 1: The massive spending is about a government that can't live
Speaker 1: within its means, and it's a reflection of a percentage
Speaker 1: of the public that believes we shouldn't live within it
Speaker 1: within our means as a nation that does not, I
Speaker 1: guess care about the consequences ultimately of massive debt and
Speaker 1: the interest on that debt and the money printing that's
Speaker 1: going to be used to try to inflate it away,
Speaker 1: so that of course prudent people and then of course
Speaker 1: those who are unfixed income are left with the bill.
Speaker 1: It's irresponsibility that's inherent to the massive money renting and
Speaker 1: spending on a government that can't even do, can't even
Speaker 1: execute its most basic functions, but it sure as heck
Speaker 1: weaponizes itself against anyone who dares call the government on
Speaker 1: those issues. What about the explosion in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: I've done a big monologue on this, which you can google.
Speaker 1: It's on YouTube and elsewhere, I believe as well. On
Speaker 1: the method to the Biden Administration's Middle East madness, the
Speaker 1: Biden administration basically reversed the Trump administration policy with respect
Speaker 1: to the world's greatest state sponsor of jihad, Iran. Biden
Speaker 1: reverts America's back. Biden reverts the Obama Biden agenda of
Speaker 1: seeking to make the world's leading state sponsor of jihad,
Speaker 1: the strong course in the Middle East, the dominant power.
Speaker 1: What does Joe Biden do? It basically says, without preconditions,
Speaker 1: we're going to go back to the so called negotiating
Speaker 1: table and we want to get back into the Iran
Speaker 1: nuclear deal, which made that regime flush with well over
Speaker 1: one hundred billion dollars in cash to fund its malign
Speaker 1: while it's people suffered. What is it rooted in? What
Speaker 1: is the policy rooted in of the Biden administration of appeasement,
Speaker 1: cowardice or self loathing, both traits that, of course result
Speaker 1: in mediocrity, in failure the border crisis. What is the
Speaker 1: border crisis all about? It's not just an unwillingness to
Speaker 1: defend sovereignty. Again, one of the most basic duties that
Speaker 1: are purported. Representatives are charged with ensuring, protecting, defending. You know, obviously,
Speaker 1: as the Vice president Trump said any number of times,
Speaker 1: if you don't have borders, you don't have a country.
Speaker 1: So basic, so core should transcend ideology and politics. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Why Well, of course, the Biden administration advertised
Speaker 1: open borders well before its election. What is that open
Speaker 1: borders policy rooted in? Well, the true believers, of course,
Speaker 1: will say, I guess that sovereignty is racist and bigod
Speaker 1: and that everyone should be able to come in, and
Speaker 1: that our laws are essentially optional. And some of them
Speaker 1: call ice a tyrannical terrorist like entity and want to
Speaker 1: abolish it. Think about that those tests with ensuring our
Speaker 1: sovereignty are the bad guys, not the people whose first
Speaker 1: act if they step foot in the country is breaking
Speaker 1: our laws and violating our sovereignty and spitting in the
Speaker 1: face of our people. The cynical aspect, of course of
Speaker 1: the border crisis is never let a crisis go to waste.
Speaker 1: In fact, create a crisis which you can ultimately use
Speaker 1: to leverage for political power. And as I've talked about
Speaker 1: before guest hosting this show, even just having illegal aliens
Speaker 1: in the country, even if they're not mass amnestied, and
Speaker 1: thus a major voting voc for the people supporting the amnesty,
Speaker 1: namely Democrats. Population numbers matter. Population numbers are counted in
Speaker 1: the census, even illegal aliens, and that leads to direct
Speaker 1: increased representation for those areas with large illegal alien populations
Speaker 1: and billions of dollars being allocated to those areas as well.
Speaker 1: So how does this tie into again, cultivating mediocrity or failure? Well,
Speaker 1: when you reject an American value and principle, when you
Speaker 1: reject a principle of any nation that wants to survive
Speaker 1: on this earth of sovereignty and respect for the rule
Speaker 1: of law, you get failure and disaster. Once again, if
Speaker 1: you reject, you repudiate American values and principles, you are
Speaker 1: actively cultivating not just mediocrity, but failure. Excellent countries, serious countries,
Speaker 1: are frugal, they're responsible, they treat the laws with respect,
Speaker 1: and they make the laws respectable. Their leaders don't lord
Speaker 1: over the people, and they don't hold themselves to a
Speaker 1: separate standard from everyone else. We're not supposed to have
Speaker 1: a class system in this country, but the ruling quass
Speaker 1: shore has created one and seeks to do everything it
Speaker 1: can to insulate itself cement its position. And of course,
Speaker 1: when you cement essentially a monopoly power, of course it
Speaker 1: becomes deconent and decayed and mediocre and fails. Ultimately, our
Speaker 1: ruling class is a failure. And again, seventy four million
Speaker 1: plus people voted against that failed ruling class last time.
Speaker 1: And that is why the effort is being pursued right now,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in this episode and past episodes
Speaker 1: as well, to target smere chill, censor, and potentially use
Speaker 1: the full force not just of the government but all
Speaker 1: of society to try to scare into submission. The population
Speaker 1: that sees through it, all sees through the gas, understands
Speaker 1: when they're being propagandized too, and lord it over and
Speaker 1: cause the failure out for what it is. And that's
Speaker 1: why they have to go so hard at anyone who
Speaker 1: dares break from the narrative. Akin to the Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 1: cannot allow dissenting viewpoints, cannot allow alternative narratives, cannot account
Speaker 1: for facts that would dare threaten the hollow facade of
Speaker 1: legitimacy that a rolling class has. And earlier in the week,
Speaker 1: by the way, we talked about just a brief side note,
Speaker 1: we talked about what was going on in Georgia with
Speaker 1: this audit on topic you are forbidden to talk about.
Speaker 1: And you'll probably find many people being censored on social
Speaker 1: media as they continue to follow what's going on in Georgia.
Speaker 1: And wait on Arizona, and we'll actually talk to a
Speaker 1: legislator from Arizona who's been instrumental in pushing forth the
Speaker 1: audit that's going on there. We'll talk to him about
Speaker 1: what's going on there. Just the news reported today Georgia
Speaker 1: audit document expose significant election failures in state's largest County.
Speaker 1: Of course, Fulton County records suggest more than one hundred
Speaker 1: batches of absentee ballots in Fulton County could be missing.
Speaker 1: One hundred batches. In each of those batches, I believe
Speaker 1: may have at least one hundred ballots. Some experts see
Speaker 1: quote unquote election tabulation malpractice as state officials seek to
Speaker 1: remove county's top election supervisors, and I'd urge you to
Speaker 1: check out this article to see what's going on there. Basically,
Speaker 1: some of the administrators there argue that you really can't
Speaker 1: have confidence in the results because what they're auditing itself
Speaker 1: is an incomplete data set. As this official says, an
Speaker 1: audit is only good as good as the data that's input.
Speaker 1: And in this case, Fulton Counties records are so problematic,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure a reasonable person can trust them. When
Speaker 1: you add in the reports of ballots magically appearing under
Speaker 1: tables or being moved out of the counting center, they're legitimate,
Speaker 1: outstanding questions. You want to ensure that a country is
Speaker 1: not only mediocre, but fails erode the consent of the governed,
Speaker 1: destroy the integrity of elections, make it so that no
Speaker 1: one can trust that they're adequately represented by their purported leaders.
Speaker 1: The running theme ought to be overturning this ruling class
Speaker 1: or making it live up to the standards that we
Speaker 1: all love and believe in, and that's how we cultivate
Speaker 1: excellence instead of mediocrity and failure. There has been Ben
Speaker 1: Weingarten in for Buck Sexon on The Buck Sexton Show,
Speaker 1: and we'll close out the week tomorrow. Have a great evident.
Speaker 1: This is the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Follow Buck on Facebook,
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter.