Speaker 1: Center. Nice to be with you today. Let's just start
Speaker 1: so we know if either of us are going to
Speaker 1: get sued. This is maybe the first I've ever wanted
Speaker 1: to be sued. I think it'd be hysterical to get
Speaker 1: sued by Hunter Biden. But unfortunately, I never took a
Speaker 1: piece of that laptop with me anywhere. No one gave
Speaker 1: it to me. Actually someone tried to, and I said
Speaker 1: I didn't want it. I've kind of regretting that. Now,
Speaker 1: do you do you have the copy of the hard drive?
Speaker 1: I do not. I do not have Hunter's laptop. I've
Speaker 1: never seen it. I have seen some of the images
Speaker 1: on it that have been put on on Twitter and
Speaker 1: on the internet, but but but always secondhand, not first.
Speaker 1: So I don't need to pass you a dollar to
Speaker 1: be my official lawyer for this one. I'm in the clear. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't say whether you. You just asked to be sued.
Speaker 1: I mean, don't blame anyone if they follow with your requests.
Speaker 1: That's very true. So Hunter comes out, the media goes nuts.
Speaker 1: They say they love the fact that he's playing offense.
Speaker 1: I just do want to go back to the Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden who said he wasn't sure it was his laptop
Speaker 1: back in the day when he did that big sit
Speaker 1: down interview. Take a look, was that your laptop for real?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I know, but you don't know, yes
Speaker 1: or no? If the laptop, I don't know, But now
Speaker 1: he does know, and he's gonna sue everybody, and he's
Speaker 1: going on offense. He sent a series of letters, yeah,
Speaker 1: including he sent a fourteen page letter to the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice addressed to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security,
Speaker 1: and he's asking the Department of Justice to prosecute um
Speaker 1: everyone who had access to the laptop. And so it says,
Speaker 1: for example, John Paul Maciaac, and it says, mister Maciaac
Speaker 1: is admitted to gaining access to our client's personal computer
Speaker 1: data without mister Biden's consent. Therefore, prosecute him. So he
Speaker 1: wants the laptop repairman prosecuted. And then he also wants
Speaker 1: he says he shared it with third party, So he
Speaker 1: wants Steve Bannon prosecuted. He wants Rudy Giuliani prosecuted. Now
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things that are interesting. It's
Speaker 1: a whole list of people that he wants, please begin
Speaker 1: criminal and this is from a very high priced lawyer.
Speaker 1: This is a lawyer who charges probably a couple of
Speaker 1: thousand dollars an hour to write this letter. Several points
Speaker 1: worth noting. Number one, this is the son of the
Speaker 1: president writing a letter to an individual appointed by the president,
Speaker 1: the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, who reports to
Speaker 1: the Deputy Attorney General appointed by President Biden, who reports
Speaker 1: to the Attorney General appointed by President Biden. So this
Speaker 1: is the president's son saying, hey, everyone who got their
Speaker 1: jobs from my dad, I'm asking you, through a high
Speaker 1: priced lawyer, please bring these criminal cases. Now. I got
Speaker 1: to say, if you're dealing with accusations of partisan bias
Speaker 1: at DJ and a political double standard between Democrats and Republicans,
Speaker 1: it may not be the best idea in the world
Speaker 1: to start publicly calling for a political prosecution of the
Speaker 1: people that are your partisan enemies. That's point number one.
Speaker 1: Point number two, as you noted, the letter explicitly admits
Speaker 1: finally that this is Hunter's laptop, except then they walked
Speaker 1: it back. So after they sent the letter and everyone said, well,
Speaker 1: wait a second, you just admitted it was his laptop,
Speaker 1: they put out a statement his lawyer that says these
Speaker 1: letters do not confirm mac Isaac's or other versions of
Speaker 1: a so called laptop. They address their conduct of seeking, manipulating,
Speaker 1: dissemmining what they allege to be mister Biden's personal data
Speaker 1: wherever they have claimed to god, I have gotten it.
Speaker 1: So they've gone back to Hunter's answer, Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's real, except for the fact
Speaker 1: that they wrote a whole series of letters all predicated
Speaker 1: on the claim you harmed my client by handing his
Speaker 1: laptop over well, and everybody in the media was covering
Speaker 1: this as okay, he's admitting it's his laptop. But then
Speaker 1: they also went back to this idea. They wanted you
Speaker 1: to feel sorry for him because he's a kid of
Speaker 1: the present. Leave malone, he's a drug addict, leave him alone.
Speaker 1: And look, I have the same mentality that kids of
Speaker 1: politicians should be off limits. But this is a fifty
Speaker 1: four year old man. This is someone who is trading
Speaker 1: off his father's name, who wouldn't have a business without
Speaker 1: his father's name. I don't think you can go there.
Speaker 1: And I want to play one of the clips the
Speaker 1: media again going back out there today and telling everybody
Speaker 1: feel sorry for Hunter Biden, be nice to Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: Leave Hunter Biden alone. Now, before I do that, I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about our good friends over at
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Speaker 1: slash verdict center. Let's let's play this for everybody that's watching.
Speaker 1: This is MSNBC again saying feel sorry for Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: He should be off limits because he's a kid of
Speaker 1: the president. I don't think if you're going to buy
Speaker 1: the bs, but take a look how they spend this.
Speaker 1: The political thing is is more opaque to me, and
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden is of singular obsessive, I mean than the
Speaker 1: big lie about losing in twenty twenty. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's anything more obsessive for Trump helped me understand.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that if people are being honest,
Speaker 1: not many people aren't touched by or not many people
Speaker 1: don't have some window into the disease of addiction, which
Speaker 1: has afflicted Hunter Biden at various points in his life.
Speaker 1: Most people understand the president's kids are not They're not
Speaker 1: a president. They haven't stepped into the arena. You know. Look,
Speaker 1: this is actually typical of the talking points that are
Speaker 1: being used to defend Joe Biden and Nicole Wallace, the
Speaker 1: host there. She used to be the communications director at
Speaker 1: a white House, in the George W. Bush White House. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now Nicole Wallace, whatever she used to believe is
Speaker 1: gone is no longer operative. She went to MSNBC, they
Speaker 1: pay her paycheck, and now she is a hard left
Speaker 1: flak every day. And what's interesting is what she's doing there.
Speaker 1: She's opera rating right there as Joe Biden's communications director.
Speaker 1: Those are their talking points. And we've talked about this
Speaker 1: on this podcast quite a bit that the issue is
Speaker 1: not Hunter Biden's addiction. I agree, addiction is a terrible disease.
Speaker 1: She's rice right. Most people, most families have loved ones
Speaker 1: who have wrestled with the demons of addiction. If that
Speaker 1: was all that was going on, this would not be
Speaker 1: a matter of publican concern. And I'll say also, I
Speaker 1: very strongly agree with the principle that kids are off limits.
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden is not a kid. He's a grown man.
Speaker 1: If he were a child, this would be very different.
Speaker 1: But he is not a child. But the key point,
Speaker 1: when you are making the defense feel sorry for Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden because of addiction, you are trying to shift the topic.
Speaker 1: The reason this matters is because of Joe's potential corruption.
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden for years made a living, made millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a small, little little thing. This was an
Speaker 1: ongoing operation selling access to Daddy made millions of dollars
Speaker 1: from very shady characters, from Ukrainian oligarchs and the Communist
Speaker 1: Chinese government, not to mention the Russians too. And the
Speaker 1: reason this is significant is it implicates Joe Biden in
Speaker 1: that corruption. It's the connections between the two. We've talked
Speaker 1: about the tell. What is the tell? If you're trying
Speaker 1: to be a political flack, you want to draw a
Speaker 1: line and separate Hunter and Joe. If you're following the facts,
Speaker 1: you want to look at the connections between Hunter and Joe.
Speaker 1: She's being a flack right there. She's saying, it's all
Speaker 1: about Hunter and his addiction. Leave him alone. She says,
Speaker 1: I don't even understand why anyone's concerned about this. She
Speaker 1: does understand, that's why she's doing the whole segment on it.
Speaker 1: And she even said earlier in that same conversation, she said, well,
Speaker 1: there's nothing on this laptop that is incriminating to the president.
Speaker 1: That may be one of the most absurd statements. We
Speaker 1: have him talking about the money. We have voicemails, we
Speaker 1: talk about the big guy. We have flights, we have
Speaker 1: conversations in Mexico, we have conversations in China. We have
Speaker 1: billions of dollars in loans, we have millions of dollars
Speaker 1: to defend the people who are being actually charged with
Speaker 1: crimes in America from China that was doing business with
Speaker 1: We have conversations between the Russian oligarch and the wife
Speaker 1: of the Moscow mayor, who's tight with Vladimir Putin. We
Speaker 1: have conversations, and we've seen this come out the straw.
Speaker 1: You don't have the laptop, Yeah, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: have the laptop. I just read a lot about it.
Speaker 1: But even you look at Barisma, we now know a
Speaker 1: lot more about that timeline and this document and this
Speaker 1: email that had these twenty two points in it of
Speaker 1: everything about what was going to happen in Ukraine. Many
Speaker 1: people believe it could be tied, as you and I
Speaker 1: talked about last podcast, to classified docu. By the way,
Speaker 1: did you see this The Washington Post, Glenn Kessler, their
Speaker 1: fact checker, fact checked us, and they gave us three pinocchios.
Speaker 1: Why because they said we could not prove that Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's email about Ukraine, the twenty two point email that
Speaker 1: we walked through in the earlier pod, we couldn't prove
Speaker 1: it came from a vice presidential briefing or classified materials. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, we didn't assert that it came from classified materials.
Speaker 1: We said, it has a level of scholarship and air
Speaker 1: udition that is markedly atypical from anything else. Hunter Biden wrote,
Speaker 1: It reads in the same style, with the same level
Speaker 1: of analysis one typically sees in these briefings. And I said,
Speaker 1: from having read a great many of these briefings that
Speaker 1: much of this could easily have been classified. All of
Speaker 1: those are true. Glenn Kessler said, well, where the Washington
Speaker 1: postamt And it is our job to be the Press
Speaker 1: secretary of the White House. So because you asked, and
Speaker 1: I actually laid out a way to test it, I said,
Speaker 1: how do you find this out? Well? Joe Biden's briefings
Speaker 1: from this week, the week that Hunter Biden was writing
Speaker 1: the email, the week before he was Joe Biden was
Speaker 1: going to Ukraine, two weeks before his son got the
Speaker 1: big job eighty thousand hours a month from Barisma. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a limited time. There are briefings. They are
Speaker 1: in the National Archives, at least they should be. They
Speaker 1: may be in the Corvette. I don't know. But what
Speaker 1: we called for on this podcast was for the Special
Speaker 1: Council to pull those briefings and compare them to Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's email. I can't do that. I don't have those briefings.
Speaker 1: By the way, the Washington Post can't do that. They
Speaker 1: don't have those, So they're three pinocchios. I'll tell you this, Ben,
Speaker 1: if it ends up being proven that they did come
Speaker 1: from those briefings, I look forward to the Washington Post
Speaker 1: formal retraction, which they won't do. Yes, because these people
Speaker 1: kept the pullets or for reporting on the bogus Russian
Speaker 1: corruption story, and they happily display their pullets, are saying, look,
Speaker 1: we spread misinformation as well as the Yes. You look
Speaker 1: at this White House now, and it does seem that
Speaker 1: they are at least starting to lose some of the
Speaker 1: media because either they's self preservation for them because they
Speaker 1: don't want to keep looking like total morons, or they're
Speaker 1: mad at the White House for just misleading them and
Speaker 1: lying to them. As they scream they're being transparent when
Speaker 1: there's a new raid or new documents found every other
Speaker 1: day CBS News and you gotta listen carefully here they're
Speaker 1: covering this, They're going to the beach house, and Gail
Speaker 1: King kind of just knocks them off the bus a
Speaker 1: little bit here, is like, hey, let's not let them
Speaker 1: keep getting away with claiming they're transparent. Here it is,
Speaker 1: they were very public. When the FBI searched the Wilmington home,
Speaker 1: his private residence in Delaware. That happened on January twentieth.
Speaker 1: The search we're talking about that we learned about from
Speaker 1: two sources. That happened back in November, and now we're
Speaker 1: just learning about it right now. And in terms of
Speaker 1: the timeline, early on November second was when this all started,
Speaker 1: this entire ordeal. Roughly ten documents were found in the
Speaker 1: Penn Biden Center. When President Biden's lawyers were packing things up,
Speaker 1: they alerted the National Archives. National Archives alerted the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. And we now know that the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice took this seriously enough to have the FBI go
Speaker 1: in search. We keep hearing about transparency, but then you
Speaker 1: hear stories like this, so it does raise even more questions.
Speaker 1: Did the FBI find anything else? And what does it mean?
Speaker 1: That's what we don't know. We don't know if they
Speaker 1: found anything else. They may have found items that were
Speaker 1: classified or not classified. Because remember, any records from a
Speaker 1: vice president or president should all be at the National Archives.
Speaker 1: I mean they should all be at the National Archives.
Speaker 1: Gail King says what she said, You've called for them
Speaker 1: to go look at the documents in Delaware at the
Speaker 1: University of Delaware. You've also said you should be looking
Speaker 1: at Hunter Biden's office. I don't think there's any way
Speaker 1: now the White House can separate these two stories well,
Speaker 1: and you can see the instincts to try to defend
Speaker 1: the White House saying things like, you know, they've been
Speaker 1: through this ordeal, and you know the raid on January twentieth,
Speaker 1: they were they were very clear about and let us know.
Speaker 1: But even while they're trying to spend forth, the Justice
Speaker 1: Department took it very seriously. You see the CBS reporters saying, well,
Speaker 1: we just heard from two sources there was another raid
Speaker 1: back in November that they didn't tell us about on
Speaker 1: the Penn Biden Center and that the FBI went in search.
Speaker 1: And you saw when the reporter repeats, well, this all
Speaker 1: started when the lawyers were packing up the boxes. Ben
Speaker 1: some lousy lawyers in my day, but I've never seen
Speaker 1: lawyers whose billing rates are cheap enough that you use
Speaker 1: them to pack boxes. You only send in the lawyers
Speaker 1: when you realize, oh, crap, we got a problem. So
Speaker 1: she's of course not skeptical of any of that, but
Speaker 1: you're right. Gail King comes in and says, wait a
Speaker 1: second here, they ain't being transparent. Yeah, And you can see,
Speaker 1: even as shameless as the corporate media is in defending
Speaker 1: this White House, they are getting irritated at the constantly
Speaker 1: changing story every single day where they keep hiding the
Speaker 1: truth and then new facts come out, and they hide
Speaker 1: the truth and new facts come out. But at the
Speaker 1: same time they're telling everyone how transparent they're being. Take
Speaker 1: a listen. Yeah, look at the White House. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we've been pretty transparent from the very beginning with
Speaker 1: providing information as it occurs throughout this process. You know,
Speaker 1: we have released probably thousands of words of statements from
Speaker 1: the President's personal attorney in the White House Council's Office
Speaker 1: about the process that has been undertaken here, that process
Speaker 1: that has been fully coordinated with the Justice Department as
Speaker 1: they conduct an ongoing investigation, and we want to be
Speaker 1: very careful to be respectful of the integrity of that
Speaker 1: ongoing investigation, and so and so, I think that it's
Speaker 1: important to understand that as these things develop and as
Speaker 1: information developed throughout an investigation. We're trying to get you
Speaker 1: guys access to as much information as we can. I
Speaker 1: don't buy it. I don't believe it. I don't think
Speaker 1: you do either. And I think the majority of the
Speaker 1: American people are starting to lose trust this administration. We
Speaker 1: saw that in the poe from you Gov last week. Look,
Speaker 1: his claim is that they've been quote fairly transparent. Now
Speaker 1: that's they've shifted back from very transparent, which is what
Speaker 1: Karen Jean Pierre kept saying, but even fairly transparent. They
Speaker 1: claim that the first batch of documents was discovered November second,
Speaker 1: a week before election day. You know what they didn't do,
Speaker 1: tell it of the American people, tell any reporters, let
Speaker 1: it be published before the election. So that certainly they
Speaker 1: weren't fairly transparent. They weren't a little transparent. They were
Speaker 1: zero transparent. They hid it from the American people before
Speaker 1: the election. We're just learning now about about the FBI
Speaker 1: searching the Penn Biden Center back in November. Again, they
Speaker 1: hid that November, December, January, and it just now is
Speaker 1: becoming public. You know, they're spokesperson there says, well, we're
Speaker 1: coordinating closely with the Justice Department that I actually believe
Speaker 1: that's part of the problem, because the Justice Department didn't
Speaker 1: leak a word of this during any of that period either.
Speaker 1: They leaked like crazy against Donald Trump, but when it
Speaker 1: comes to protecting this White House, suddenly that they are perfect.
Speaker 1: They view their job tragically as political and that's not
Speaker 1: what DJ should be. Last question on this, there was
Speaker 1: a very interesting timeline that we now know a lot
Speaker 1: more about that when they were looking at his house
Speaker 1: in Delaware, he happened to be at the beach House
Speaker 1: for three days. Then all of a sudden they go
Speaker 1: to the beach House. They say it was planned and
Speaker 1: coordinated with the DOJ. They keep saying there was no
Speaker 1: you know, warrant needed, We've planned this and courted. And
Speaker 1: then they can't say, well, they didn't find me classified
Speaker 1: documents of the beach House. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people ask the question, well, no, crap, they didn't find
Speaker 1: any there. They just went there for three days knowing
Speaker 1: apparently they were going to come and search the dead
Speaker 1: gun place. Anyway, I saw a lot of people talking
Speaker 1: that way. Do you think they'd be dumb enough to
Speaker 1: do that? No, I don't think Joe Biden went and
Speaker 1: like hid or destroyed classified documents. That would be spectacularly foolish.
Speaker 1: That would be to use the old Watergate addage, it's
Speaker 1: it's not the crime, it's the cover up, right, you know?
Speaker 1: That would be like, you know, a racing what was
Speaker 1: it eighteen minutes of audio tape from the Oval office
Speaker 1: that ultimately played the pivotal role in bringing Nixon down.
Speaker 1: I don't think the Bidens did that. I think they're sloppy.
Speaker 1: I think they're messy, and I think they got caught
Speaker 1: and then then I think there's an awful lot of
Speaker 1: incompetence that they just keep getting caught again and again
Speaker 1: and again and again. There's two other major issues that
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, and they deal with China.
Speaker 1: One deals in strategical reserves, and I certainly want to
Speaker 1: deal with that. Another one deals in an issue that
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask all of our listeners and viewers
Speaker 1: to get involved in because it is something that's not
Speaker 1: been covered by the media. You have been really pushing
Speaker 1: this issue over the last several days because there's an
Speaker 1: important meeting coming up in China with an American hostage
Speaker 1: from Texas. Let's lead off with that because people, and
Speaker 1: I'll say this because I think it's important, people need
Speaker 1: to be calling their congressmen and their senators and the
Speaker 1: White House, begging and getting the same out there telling
Speaker 1: this story, posting articles on social media. He needs our help. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a Texan an American named Mark Swidan who has
Speaker 1: been unjustly imprisoned in China for more than ten years now,
Speaker 1: and it is a horrific story. It began in twenty
Speaker 1: twelve where Mark traveled to China on a business trip
Speaker 1: and on November thirteenth of twenty twelve, he was abducted
Speaker 1: by China's Public Security Bureau, and a witness to the
Speaker 1: abduction said that he was abducted because the Chinese government
Speaker 1: wanted to view the contents of his cell phone. He
Speaker 1: was accused of being part of a criminal conspiracy to
Speaker 1: manufacture and sell drugs. They tried to coerce him into confessing,
Speaker 1: He refused to confess. He pleaded not guilty. They had
Speaker 1: a trial in twenty thirteen. He was found guilty. The
Speaker 1: prosecution at the trial produced no forensic evidence to back
Speaker 1: up their allegations. They never found drugs on Mark. They
Speaker 1: never found drugs in his hotel room. The records in
Speaker 1: his passport show that he wasn't even in China during
Speaker 1: the time of the Edge Defenses, and the eleven other
Speaker 1: people they indicted, none of them could identify Mark. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: he spent ten years in jail, and in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: a Chinese court formally sentenced him to death. His time
Speaker 1: in jail has been horrific. Horrific. They confiscated his Bible,
Speaker 1: they confiscated his rosary because they want to do everything
Speaker 1: they can to damp in and undermine faith. His cell
Speaker 1: is exposed to extreme heat and extreme cold. He's been
Speaker 1: deprived of sleep, He's been subjected to really serious physical abuse.
Speaker 1: He's lost more than a hundred pounds in jail and
Speaker 1: throughout all of this, by the way, he also has
Speaker 1: been denied access to American diplomats and so they haven't
Speaker 1: been able to go go see him his mother. I've
Speaker 1: spoken with his mother a couple of times. She is
Speaker 1: a wonderful woman. Katherine Sweden is her name. She lives
Speaker 1: in Luling, Texas, which is where Mark was born, and
Speaker 1: Catherine has been fighting for her son for a decade,
Speaker 1: trying to get him free. The Communist government won't let
Speaker 1: her speak to him. It's been years since she's been
Speaker 1: able to speak to him, but she's been praying for him,
Speaker 1: she's been speaking out, she's been trying to draw attention
Speaker 1: to get him out. And so this week I introduced
Speaker 1: in the Senate a resolution formally calling on the Chinese
Speaker 1: government to release Mark Swedan and also calling on the
Speaker 1: Biden administration to use every tool at its disposal to
Speaker 1: secure his release. And the Secretary of State Tony Blincoln
Speaker 1: is going to Beijing, is going to China in the
Speaker 1: next couple of days and is going to be meeting
Speaker 1: with senior Chinese officials, and my resolution formally calls on
Speaker 1: the administration to use those meetings to try to get
Speaker 1: Mark released. My resolution was co sponsored with John Cornyn,
Speaker 1: the other senator from Texas. There was an identical resolution
Speaker 1: introduced in the House by Congressman Cloud who introduced it there.
Speaker 1: And I spoke this week on the Senate floor telling
Speaker 1: Mark's story. And you know, one of the points that
Speaker 1: I made, China tells people they aspire to be a
Speaker 1: great nation. Great nations don't behave this way. Yeah, great
Speaker 1: nations don't hold hostages. Third world dictators take hostages and
Speaker 1: their treatment of Mark Sweden has been shameful. And so
Speaker 1: it is my hope that when Tony Blincoln is there
Speaker 1: that he makes it a priority to press for Mark's release.
Speaker 1: People need to call their congressmen, they need to call
Speaker 1: their centers, they need to call the White House. That
Speaker 1: you need to get the articles online about him and
Speaker 1: start posting these on social media, because this goes back
Speaker 1: to what I refer to as what we saw with
Speaker 1: Russia recently and the w NBA player. And when the
Speaker 1: name is out there and people start to talk about it,
Speaker 1: it gets more pressure and it can grow. That's why
Speaker 1: I tell people take our podcasts, share it, promote it,
Speaker 1: tell everybody you know. But there's also a question that
Speaker 1: people are gonna ask, and I'm going to ask you this.
Speaker 1: In certain situations like this, sometimes media attention can be
Speaker 1: a bad thing early on, and there's a strategic nature
Speaker 1: to this, and depending on which country you're dealing with,
Speaker 1: there's different protocol that usually are followed. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: people they're gonna say, why have we not heard about
Speaker 1: this over the last decade, Why did it take so
Speaker 1: long for us to get to this point that we're
Speaker 1: at now, walk us through how this kind of works,
Speaker 1: because it's got to be confusing. So the approach you
Speaker 1: take in a hostage case actually varies quite a bit
Speaker 1: based on the circumstances. And I've been very active in
Speaker 1: fighting for the release of a significant number of American
Speaker 1: hostages held abroad. It's it's a deep passion of mind,
Speaker 1: and so I've spent ten years fighting for the release
Speaker 1: of hostages. In some cases, you make the decision that
Speaker 1: to do so publicly. In other cases, and I'd say
Speaker 1: probably even the majority of cases, you make the decision
Speaker 1: to do so privately, And it depends upon an assessment
Speaker 1: of Okay, would the public attention help or hurt in
Speaker 1: some instances. So there have been instances where, you know,
Speaker 1: I've talked with the US ambassador in the in the country,
Speaker 1: or senior State Department officials, and their judgment is, you know,
Speaker 1: we're negotiating this, we're making progress, and putting public heat
Speaker 1: and attention on it right now would be counter productive.
Speaker 1: There are other times where you just make the individual judgment, okay,
Speaker 1: public attention would move the ball forward here and and so,
Speaker 1: and many times I'll make those determinations or my staff
Speaker 1: will talking with the families of the hostages, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, you certainly hope what you say doesn't make
Speaker 1: things worse. I mean, that would be a terrible outcome.
Speaker 1: There's a reason why. And my floor speech on the
Speaker 1: Senate floor, what I said was carefully calibrated what I
Speaker 1: said on this podcast. There's a reason why I pulled
Speaker 1: out and use the same language, because when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with an active negotiation, you don't want to say anything
Speaker 1: up that screws it up, and so that balance can change.
Speaker 1: You know, I can tell you if you go back
Speaker 1: to the Obama administration, there was a woman in Sudan,
Speaker 1: Miriam Ibrahem, who had been who was imprisoned and sentenced
Speaker 1: to death for the crime of being a Christian. And
Speaker 1: Miriam had had two children, a little boy and then
Speaker 1: actually a little girl that she gave birth to in
Speaker 1: jail in leg irons Wow. And she was sentenced to
Speaker 1: receive a hundred lashes and then hang by the neck
Speaker 1: until dead. And she could avoid that sentence if she
Speaker 1: renounced Jesus. And it was horrific, it was evil, it
Speaker 1: was indefensible. I spoke out on her behalf repeatedly. I
Speaker 1: spoke about her on the Senate floor, as I just
Speaker 1: did about Mark Swaddan. I also tried desperately to get
Speaker 1: President Obama to engage, and I couldn't do it. He
Speaker 1: would not say her name. Samantha Power, who was in
Speaker 1: his administration, she would say his name. And I tried
Speaker 1: to get her help to get Obama to say his name,
Speaker 1: and Obama would not do it. But ultimately there was
Speaker 1: enough heat and light and attention put on the case
Speaker 1: that the government of Sudan caved and they released her.
Speaker 1: They released her, and she came came to New Hampshire
Speaker 1: and is living in America, and I had a chance
Speaker 1: to meet her. And Miriam Abraham is this small woman.
Speaker 1: She was in her twenty's, She's quite young, and she's slight.
Speaker 1: And I remember asking her, I said, when you were
Speaker 1: in that jail, when you were with your children, when
Speaker 1: you we're facing death, torture and death, how did you
Speaker 1: not give up? How did you not lose hope? And
Speaker 1: she looked at me with this profound sense of peace,
Speaker 1: and she just said to me, Jesus was with me.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I got to say, it was a wow. Moment.
Speaker 1: So there are times when public attention can be very helpful.
Speaker 1: There are other times where I've been advised, based on
Speaker 1: the circumstances here, you're engaging in public would be counterproductive,
Speaker 1: and so I don't do it. If the judgment is
Speaker 1: made that in that circumstance it would be it would
Speaker 1: be harmful talk about you. And very quickly, they're also
Speaker 1: speaking loud about this right now, speaking up, and that
Speaker 1: I think tells you that obviously the calculus and the
Speaker 1: timing has changed here, and there seems to be kind
Speaker 1: of a unity right now that we're seeing on this
Speaker 1: for this opportunity to say to China head, we're all
Speaker 1: acknowledging what you've done here is wrong, and we're all
Speaker 1: saying it's time to release this individual. Now. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: The United Nations has what's called a Working Group on
Speaker 1: Arbitrary Detention, which is a UN group of human rights
Speaker 1: experts who investigate cases of arbitrary detention all around the world.
Speaker 1: And they found that Mark was being held in violation
Speaker 1: of customary international law and international norms and in violation
Speaker 1: of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So you've got
Speaker 1: the United Nations that has come out for this and
Speaker 1: said it is unjust and unlawful. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: I have raised Mark Swedan's case directly with very senior
Speaker 1: Chinese government officials and have leaned in very hard, one
Speaker 1: on one pressing the case. I hope that Tony B. Lincoln,
Speaker 1: when he's there, does the same thing, and I have
Speaker 1: some reason to be optimistic that he will. But I
Speaker 1: think the more public encouragement, the more forceful it may be.
Speaker 1: It's amazing when you think about ten years, your entire
Speaker 1: time in the Senate yea and for end to be
Speaker 1: in jail in these conditions with the heat and the cold,
Speaker 1: and having a jail so that's in that climate at
Speaker 1: those times is just so shocking and sad. So I'm
Speaker 1: glad that we're getting this out there. People call your senators,
Speaker 1: call your congressman, grab articles about him. Let's make his
Speaker 1: name well known, and that's going to be what can
Speaker 1: make a difference here. Let's talk about this other issue,
Speaker 1: and this is something that a lot of people may
Speaker 1: not realize happening right now, that deals with strategical reserves. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of news earlier in the last
Speaker 1: year where strategical reserves are released right before the election
Speaker 1: to artificially over the price of gas. We also saw
Speaker 1: that some of that oil went directly on a ship
Speaker 1: to Chinese communist individuals that had direct ties to Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden his business dealings and the big guy we would
Speaker 1: assume that would be Joe Biden. Now there's some movement
Speaker 1: on the Senate on this type of issue. Well, this
Speaker 1: week I authored and introduced legislation on the Strategic Petroleum
Speaker 1: Reserve and it's bipartisan legislation. So I teamed up with
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion, Democrat from West Virginia. The bill is the
Speaker 1: Cruise Mansion Bill. Awesome. And what the bill will do
Speaker 1: if it's passed is make it illegal for the federal
Speaker 1: government to sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to
Speaker 1: communist China. So it just takes China off the table.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting, so there are a bunch of Republicans
Speaker 1: who co sponsored it with me, but there were also
Speaker 1: a total of five Democrats who are on board. Why
Speaker 1: is that? I mean, that's kind of shocking. We haven't
Speaker 1: seen this type of, you know, kind of cohesion here
Speaker 1: between Republicans and Democrats on this type of ission a
Speaker 1: long time. Well, we haven't the Democrats who joined me.
Speaker 1: We've got Joe Mansion, we have Kirsten Cinema. We have
Speaker 1: Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire. We have Angus King from Maine,
Speaker 1: and then we have Michael Bennett from Colorado. So those
Speaker 1: are the five that have joined it. And so look,
Speaker 1: Mansion and Cinema are they're too most likely to break
Speaker 1: and do bipartisan legislation. But to get Hassan and King
Speaker 1: and Bennett is encouraging. And I don't know, but you'll
Speaker 1: take it. This is awesome well and end listen. Mansion
Speaker 1: was helpful in that, and so I rounded up a
Speaker 1: bunch of Republicans coordinated closely with Mansion, who helped round
Speaker 1: up a bunch of Democrats. My hope is that we'll
Speaker 1: get a vote on this and pass it. And I
Speaker 1: don't think it's impossible that this bill gets passed. That
Speaker 1: it may well be the fact that you have five
Speaker 1: Democrats signing onto this right now is an encouraging sign.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly going to press for it, and if we
Speaker 1: could actually get it past that that would be a
Speaker 1: very good outcome. If this does happen, Is this a
Speaker 1: blow to the White House at all? Is that how
Speaker 1: they're going to spend this is that this takes away
Speaker 1: their power to manipulate prices when they need it, right
Speaker 1: for elections. Well no, not really, because they'd still have
Speaker 1: the ability to deplete the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And I
Speaker 1: am supportive of additional legislation that would limit the president's
Speaker 1: ability to engage in political manipulations like Biden did so shamelessly.
Speaker 1: But I think the piece of selling to China was
Speaker 1: particularly indefensible. There's other other legislation, Republican legislation that's broader,
Speaker 1: and in fact I've co sponsored that broader legislation. But
Speaker 1: if we can get China taken off the table, that's
Speaker 1: worth passing into law. And if it's a bipartisan vote,
Speaker 1: it will be a result of Democrats saying, Okay, what
Speaker 1: the White House did here we can't defend and we
Speaker 1: want to get some distance from Lastly, there was a
Speaker 1: letter sent and oa N was kicked off direct TV
Speaker 1: now Newsmax they say, oh we had a fight over fees.
Speaker 1: They're now gone. There's been a letter that you've been
Speaker 1: a part of now that is saying, hey, this looks
Speaker 1: like you're just trying to cancel conservative media. And of
Speaker 1: course they claim, well, we're going to fight back and
Speaker 1: show you guys transparently that it's this is Newsmax's fault
Speaker 1: that you can't watch them anymore, not our fault. Give
Speaker 1: everybody a recap of that letter. Yep. So this is
Speaker 1: a letter I wrote, and I am as of this week,
Speaker 1: the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. Congratulations. By
Speaker 1: the way, well thank you. That's a really big deal
Speaker 1: and that's great for conservative values to have this position.
Speaker 1: It is the top Republican spot on the Senate Commerce Committee.
Speaker 1: The Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over roughly half of the
Speaker 1: US economy and so, and we also have a very
Speaker 1: significant staff that I'm in the process of hiring upright now,
Speaker 1: who prepared this letter, who wrote this letter. The Commerce
Speaker 1: Committee has jurisdiction over agencies like the Federal Communications Commission
Speaker 1: the FTC. When it comes to media and censorship, the
Speaker 1: Commerce Committee has that falls directly under our authority. The
Speaker 1: other committee that has major authority on that is the
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee. I serve on that committee as well. The
Speaker 1: ranking member on the Judiciary Committee is Lindsay Graham. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I went to Lindsay, and Lindsay and I co
Speaker 1: authored this letter together. So it's from the ranking Member
Speaker 1: of Commerce and the ranking Member of Judiciary, and that's significant.
Speaker 1: Any company that gets this letter, they're going to take
Speaker 1: it seriously. Yes. And then also Mike Lee and Tom
Speaker 1: Cotton both signed the letter as well. They were both
Speaker 1: very interested in the issue and what happened so direct TV.
Speaker 1: All right, let's let's back up a year ago. The
Speaker 1: three biggest cable news networks that were right of center
Speaker 1: were Fox News, Newsmax, and One American News, and in
Speaker 1: that order in terms of ratings. A year ago, Democrat
Speaker 1: members of Congress wrote to AT and T, which owns
Speaker 1: Direct TV owned seventy percent of Direct TV Texas specific
Speaker 1: owns the other thirty percent. Democrat members of Congress wrote
Speaker 1: to the CEO of AT and T and said, please
Speaker 1: throw off air Fox News, Newsmax and One American News.
Speaker 1: We don't like what they're saying. We call it misinformation,
Speaker 1: which is the Democrat code word for seeking censorship. So
Speaker 1: they asked the CEO of AT and T to throw
Speaker 1: them off. And this wasn't a hidden letter. People need
Speaker 1: to understand This was very out in the open, transparently
Speaker 1: put out press releases. Yeah they were, they were warning
Speaker 1: this fight. Yes, in the year that followed, Direct TV
Speaker 1: has now thrown off the air two of the three.
Speaker 1: So about a year ago they threw one what America
Speaker 1: News off I thought that was a terrible decision. I
Speaker 1: spoke out against it. Then. I think in many ways
Speaker 1: that may have been a trial balloon for what they
Speaker 1: just did last week, which was to throw Newsmax off
Speaker 1: the air. And so now two of the three have
Speaker 1: been d platform And so what my letter does is
Speaker 1: it lays out those facts that, in particular, there was
Speaker 1: a negotiation between Newsmax and Direct TV where Newsmax was
Speaker 1: trying to get paid for its content. And not a
Speaker 1: crazy idea, by the way. Well, although I will say
Speaker 1: in the cable and satellite world, some channels get paid
Speaker 1: and some don't, and it depends on how big your
Speaker 1: market is. In fact, there are some channels that pay
Speaker 1: the carrier to carry those that channels. So it's not crazy,
Speaker 1: but it's not necessarily damning. Newsmax was making the case
Speaker 1: they wanted to be paid because their ratings were high
Speaker 1: enough that it merited it. Direct TV said no. Newsmax
Speaker 1: has made the allegation that Direct TV pays a number
Speaker 1: of other channels that are left of center and have
Speaker 1: much lower ratings than Newsmax. So what this letter does
Speaker 1: is it asks a whole series of questions. It asked
Speaker 1: them number one, to preserve all their documents, and then
Speaker 1: it walks through very specific questions about why they terminated Newsmax.
Speaker 1: Is it true they said they were not going to
Speaker 1: pay them a penny? Is it true that they pay
Speaker 1: liberal stations that have lower ratings money but they won't
Speaker 1: pay them, And so it walks them through systematically. I
Speaker 1: will say I have subsequently had had a long phone
Speaker 1: conversation with the CEO of Direct TV. He disputed the facts.
Speaker 1: He said, the facts that Newsmax had conveyed, we're not accurate.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what I told him. I said, look,
Speaker 1: I understand and appreciate that I've been before I was
Speaker 1: in the Senate. I was a practicing litigator for a
Speaker 1: long time. I've handled a lot of cases, and I
Speaker 1: understand that any dispute there's always at least two sides
Speaker 1: to it. So I told him, listen, there's a reason
Speaker 1: we ask these questions. I'm interested in what the facts are,
Speaker 1: and if the facts as they've been conveyed or not accurate,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in seeing that. And I will say Direct
Speaker 1: TV committed to giving full and candid and real answers
Speaker 1: to the questions, and so we'll see what those answers are.
Speaker 1: But the goal is transparency at this point. Know how
Speaker 1: they got from point A to point B. And this
Speaker 1: is about silencing conservatives or it was this just really
Speaker 1: about business, and listen, the goal is also a couple
Speaker 1: of other things. The goal is also one of the
Speaker 1: things I ask for is any communication they've had or
Speaker 1: their corporate owners have had with Democrat members of Congress,
Speaker 1: or with the White House or with the administration. We
Speaker 1: know from the Twitter files this White House is quite
Speaker 1: eager to silence people. I want to see any communications
Speaker 1: that have happened with Democrats. But I also told them
Speaker 1: straight out, I said, look the outcome I'd like to see.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see Newsmax back on the air. And
Speaker 1: they are on other carriers, but Direct TV is a
Speaker 1: pretty big carrier, and they lost a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: households when they got pulled down from Direct TV, and
Speaker 1: I said, listen, there are millions of Texans and millions
Speaker 1: of Americans who would like the choice, who would like
Speaker 1: the option to be able to watch Newsmax. There are
Speaker 1: a ton of choices left of center. They're only a
Speaker 1: handful right of center. But one of the things I
Speaker 1: made very clear also, I said, listen, if you disagree
Speaker 1: with what Newsmax says, or o An says, or Fox
Speaker 1: News says, there's a remedy for that. You can say
Speaker 1: you disagree with it. You can The best cure for
Speaker 1: bad speech is more speech. Look, we played MSNBC. I
Speaker 1: think most of what MSNBC he says is utter nonsense.
Speaker 1: But I don't want them censored. I don't want them
Speaker 1: pulled down. They have a right to spew their nonsense.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, they help support podcasts like this because
Speaker 1: they give us easy pinions material. Yeah. So the answer
Speaker 1: if you disagree is engage on the substance and actually
Speaker 1: present the argument. It's not use corporate power and money
Speaker 1: to silence the voices you disagree with. And so, what
Speaker 1: I hope comes from this is that we learn more
Speaker 1: what happened. We learn the extent to which Democrat politicians
Speaker 1: were involved. We know of the opening letter that at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this we don't know if there were
Speaker 1: subsequent communications. But I also hope that this scrutiny, and
Speaker 1: it's our intention to drill down and investigate what happens here.
Speaker 1: We hope that this scrutiny causes them to revisit the
Speaker 1: decision and say, you know what, our viewers are better
Speaker 1: off having the choice to watch Newsmax if they want
Speaker 1: than they are are not having that choice. That's the outcome,
Speaker 1: that's the goal. It's fun to get to hear what's
Speaker 1: going on in DC. This is exactly why we do
Speaker 1: this podcast For all of you that are watching, Thank
Speaker 1: you don't forget. We have two audio versions of the
Speaker 1: show that come out each week. We published Monday, Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday. So make sure you download our podcasts and
Speaker 1: that subscribe button. Tell your family and friends don't forget
Speaker 1: to make those phone calls this week, especially on behalf
Speaker 1: of this American hostage in China, and let's make sure
Speaker 1: that everybody knows that story. So share our podcasts as
Speaker 1: well to let other people know that. Right it's a
Speaker 1: five storry view and we'll see you back here in
Speaker 1: a couple of days.