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