Speaker 1: This is the Buck Sexton Show, where the mission or
Speaker 1: mission is to decode what really matters with passionable intelligence.
Speaker 1: Magnorma stake American. Bring you're a great American Again the
Speaker 1: buck Sexton Show begins. Remember he's a great guy. No,
Speaker 1: welcome to the buck Sexton Show. This is Ben Weinegarten
Speaker 1: in four buck Sexton, appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker 1: join me on this beautiful Thursday evening here in New
Speaker 1: York and truly the last bashion of freedom because, as
Speaker 1: you may or may not know, the way that freedom
Speaker 1: is defined in New York today is you can commit
Speaker 1: a crime with impunity and you're let go the next day.
Speaker 1: You can commit another crime to let go the next day.
Speaker 1: We are now in a no cash bail city, so
Speaker 1: freedom to commit crimes. If you're a citizen, your freedoms
Speaker 1: are infringed upon. This is truly the last bastion into
Speaker 1: Blasio's New York. As I mentioned, this is Ben Winegarden
Speaker 1: in for Buck Sexton. I filled in several times in
Speaker 1: the past, but if it's your first time listening in
Speaker 1: watching on the first welcome, I'm a fellow at the
Speaker 1: Claremine Institute, a senior contributor at The Federalist. You can
Speaker 1: follow all my work at Benwegarten dot com, subscribe to
Speaker 1: my newsletter at bit dot lee slash BHW News. Tell
Speaker 1: you a little bit later about my first book, which
Speaker 1: comes out of the end of February. And this may
Speaker 1: be an exclusive first I'll be talking about this in
Speaker 1: any great depth. It's sure to be provocative, and I
Speaker 1: know you're going to appreciate this one. All right. So
Speaker 1: we're in the midst now of a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: different major debates over national security and foreign policy, this
Speaker 1: impeachment charade, which I don't even want to talk about,
Speaker 1: but I feel we do need to talk about it,
Speaker 1: not because of the specifics, but because of the broader significance.
Speaker 1: There's some goings on in immigration that you're really not
Speaker 1: hearing about anywhere else that we have to talk about.
Speaker 1: And then, oh, yeah, yesterday the President just signed the
Speaker 1: Phase one China trade deal, and so today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about these topics with what I think are
Speaker 1: some of the finest minds on these various issues. Coming
Speaker 1: up just a bit later in this hour, Michael Doran
Speaker 1: on Iran policy and the Trump Middle East policy more broadway,
Speaker 1: we'll talk with the great Professor John Eastman about all
Speaker 1: things immigration, insanity, and some sanity as well. And then
Speaker 1: last but not LEAs, we'll also talk with Peter Navarro,
Speaker 1: Doctor Peter Navarro of the Trump administration, one of the
Speaker 1: so called hawks on China, to talk about this deal,
Speaker 1: put it in its greater context, tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of the details. One of the things
Speaker 1: we should look for what's being missed in all the coverage, because,
Speaker 1: as I've talked about in this program before, China is
Speaker 1: the greatest threat to our liberty. It is a communist
Speaker 1: power by definition, and it is not a communist power
Speaker 1: that is content to just rule its own people with
Speaker 1: an iron fist. It's hegemonic. It's hegemonic in its ambitions,
Speaker 1: and not just regionally but globally. And if it'stalitarian power
Speaker 1: wants to be the dominant world power, necessarily that means
Speaker 1: it has to shrink our freedom and the freedom of
Speaker 1: the westmore broadway. So we will get to all that
Speaker 1: and much more today. I want to start with the
Speaker 1: Democrats standing with Russia and China and Iran and hear
Speaker 1: me out on this and North Korea too. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you remember when Trump was portrayed as the reckless cowboy,
Speaker 1: before he was portrayed as the naive isolationist, before he
Speaker 1: was again portrayed as the reckless cowboy when it comes
Speaker 1: to Iran, remember Kim Jong un was considered the rational
Speaker 1: actor at the table at one point. Why is it,
Speaker 1: Why is it that the Democrats stand with all of
Speaker 1: these adversaries and point the finger at us and say
Speaker 1: we are traders. That really sticks in my craw and
Speaker 1: it should stick in your craw too, because for the
Speaker 1: last hundred years, hundred years, Democrats have been the ones appeasing, bribing, coddling,
Speaker 1: trying to find moderates in the world's worst regimes, those
Speaker 1: regimes that are truly the most antisocial justice actually just
Speaker 1: anti justice, no modifier needed regimes in the world. And
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired
Speaker 1: of Nancy Pelosi tweeting out things about Moscow, Mitch mcado,
Speaker 1: and same thing with her friend. I believe one of
Speaker 1: the impeachment managers had Keem Jeffreys, Congressman from New York.
Speaker 1: Some congressmen have said that regardless of what happens with impeachment.
Speaker 1: They're going to continue pursuing Trump Russia ties and links.
Speaker 1: You know, the whole premise of the whole Trump Russia hoax,
Speaker 1: which was really about trying to take down his presidency
Speaker 1: through this wedge issue, which, by the way, Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: and his team and her team we're talking about within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours after she lost, As has been documented
Speaker 1: and reported at length, it is all about saying, this
Speaker 1: person's a traitor and therefore illegitimate, therefore dangerous, and therefore
Speaker 1: that justifies us taking the most brazen acts possible to
Speaker 1: undermine him, even if it means undermining everything else that
Speaker 1: the country is based on. I've said of this repeatedly
Speaker 1: an articles on air. Who is violating the norms, values,
Speaker 1: and principles and institutions that they tell us are so essential.
Speaker 1: It's them who is coddling our worst adversaries. It's them,
Speaker 1: And we have seen some of the most shameful examples
Speaker 1: of this in light of following the attack that took
Speaker 1: out Caseem Solomani, who I always refer to and I
Speaker 1: think you should refer to him too, as the world's
Speaker 1: leading terrorists, of the world's leading terror force, of the
Speaker 1: world's leading terrorist regime that funds, runs, orchestrates everything that
Speaker 1: is done by this world's leading sponsor of terror in
Speaker 1: Iran and its molocracy, and we should separate by the
Speaker 1: way that regime from the people, some percentage of which
Speaker 1: are actually out there literally risking their lives because they
Speaker 1: actually do first for real, genuine freedom, not the freedom
Speaker 1: that we heard about in Egypt, which was freedom for
Speaker 1: the Muslim brotherhood to run roughshod over Christians and all
Speaker 1: sorts of other ethic minorities and destroy a country. Not
Speaker 1: the kind of freedom we heard about in all the
Speaker 1: other Arab spring places where the Arab spring turns to
Speaker 1: the Arab winter very quickly. No, in Iran, there actually
Speaker 1: is some percentage of the populace who, like in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine pre Islamic revolutionary Iran, actually do yearn for
Speaker 1: something approximating freedom and actually could be an ally and
Speaker 1: a partner with America and the Westmore Broadway, I want
Speaker 1: to go to a couple of clips because some of
Speaker 1: the things that those on the left have been saying
Speaker 1: post Solomani are just absolutely insane, And just like with
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi calling Mitch McConnell Moscow Mitch. And by the way,
Speaker 1: his preferred name is Cocaine Mitch. He said this so
Speaker 1: show some respect to the Majority leader, Madam Speaker. And
Speaker 1: when they talk about the whole Russia collusion, hope you're
Speaker 1: a trader, even though it's been disproven, even though it's
Speaker 1: been proven that this was really spygate, not Russia Gate.
Speaker 1: Russia was the excuse to spy on an opposing campaign
Speaker 1: and to weaponize our national security and law enforcement apparatus
Speaker 1: as part of a long running campaign from before the
Speaker 1: man was inaugurated to try to take him down. And
Speaker 1: by the way, before I get to I Ran, let
Speaker 1: me just say it is the Democrats. It is those
Speaker 1: who have propagated this Russia Gate, Russia collusion narrative, Russia
Speaker 1: treasonous conspiracy narrative. They are doing far more damage to
Speaker 1: our country than Vladimir Putin or anyone in Russia could
Speaker 1: ever hope to do to America. And it's sort of
Speaker 1: the same thing with what we're seeing with what honestly
Speaker 1: sound like propagandist for the Iranian molocracy of moreaucracy that
Speaker 1: has been at war with America since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Let's go to quip One. Here's John Kerry talking about Iran.
Speaker 1: It's a sad day when the United States, so America,
Speaker 1: has to rely on the decision of the regime that
Speaker 1: we neither liked nor trust, to have them be the
Speaker 1: ones who behaved somehow in a way that saves Donald
Speaker 1: Trump from his own decision. They have the ones saving
Speaker 1: Donald Trump from his own decision. This is a man
Speaker 1: who literally admitted that Iran Deal the crown jewel of
Speaker 1: the Obama administration in their second term, non treaty imposed
Speaker 1: upon the American people, imposed upon the world, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about at great length, and we'll talk about why
Speaker 1: i Ran Deal isn't actually the proper name for the
Speaker 1: deal because that doesn't describe at all what it did.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an Iran nuclear deal. It was fake arms control,
Speaker 1: actually about propping up the world's leading state sponsor of jihad.
Speaker 1: John Kerry really has some nerve here because this is
Speaker 1: a man who himself has admitted back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: some of the more than one hundred billion dollars that
Speaker 1: we release to Iran, and that is comprised of sanctioned
Speaker 1: relief and all that increased trade active video that Iran got,
Speaker 1: and when we pulled off all of these sanctions from them,
Speaker 1: he himself admitted that some of that money obviously would
Speaker 1: end up going towards you guessed it, jihad. So John
Speaker 1: Kerry was totally fine with the US becoming the world's
Speaker 1: leading state sponsor of the world's leading state sponsor of jihad.
Speaker 1: So who the hell is he to make this kind
Speaker 1: of comment? I ran saving him. No, Trump is cleaning
Speaker 1: up the mess that preceded him in a resovute and
Speaker 1: a prudent way, in a way that I Ran never
Speaker 1: expected because we've been bribing them, appeasing them, not calling
Speaker 1: a spade a spade for decades, and that's under Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democrats. By the way, all right, I want to
Speaker 1: go to another clip. Let's go to EQUIP two. And
Speaker 1: this is a New York Times reporter. Her name is
Speaker 1: Rookmena Calamachi, applauding Iran. Let's go to EQUIP two. The
Speaker 1: perception of America right now, I would say in the
Speaker 1: Middle East is that we act outside the law. I
Speaker 1: hear this all the time from iraqis from Syrians who
Speaker 1: do not see a legal process behind what we are doing,
Speaker 1: specifically because of the failure of the Iraq War and
Speaker 1: the tainted intelligence that led to that point. One of
Speaker 1: the takeaways of the past week is that we actually saw,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Iran act with perhaps more restraint than
Speaker 1: our own government the rocket attacks, that the missiles that
Speaker 1: landed on the basis where there were American troops did
Speaker 1: not kill anyone. That seems like a wise decision that
Speaker 1: they made. Thankfully, our own government has now backed off
Speaker 1: as well. Restraint. The Iranian regime is the prudent, sound wise, beneficent.
Speaker 1: They didn't act out of restraint. They acted because they
Speaker 1: knew that if they threatened the life and limb of
Speaker 1: our soldiers or our assets threatened to destroy them, that
Speaker 1: a city in Iran would be leveled. Okay, that has
Speaker 1: not been clear to the Iranian regime. They never expected
Speaker 1: that from any administration, including this one. They thought they
Speaker 1: could tap the Trump administration along continue to poke and pride.
Speaker 1: All they've been doing is provocations towards the US, our
Speaker 1: partners and our allies, testing probing, seeing how far could
Speaker 1: they push before they got any sort of a reaction
Speaker 1: from America. And what they got was an overwhelming reaction.
Speaker 1: That destabilized and already wobbling regime. So why did the
Speaker 1: malocracy respond the way that they did with their tail
Speaker 1: between their legs. Because they knew that we pose an
Speaker 1: existential threat to their existence for the first time in
Speaker 1: a long time, certainly since the start of the Obama presidency,
Speaker 1: and frankly arguably since probably decades before that. And there's
Speaker 1: a case to be made that they are on weaker
Speaker 1: ground today than they've been in at least a decade,
Speaker 1: and potentially far more. We'll talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: that as we proceed in this first hour, but I
Speaker 1: want to point out why it is that the Left
Speaker 1: sides with whoever is an enemy Trump and in this case,
Speaker 1: all of our adversaries. It's not just that they hate Trump,
Speaker 1: and it's not just that they have this naive worldview
Speaker 1: that all of our worst enemies can be appeased, or
Speaker 1: at least that that's the better thing to do, that
Speaker 1: actually confront reality as it is and deal with a
Speaker 1: complicated world that's full of murderous thugs, that not everyone
Speaker 1: is by nature necessarily good, that there are people that
Speaker 1: actually do want to infringe upon our daily life and
Speaker 1: our freedoms as we've seen time and time again and
Speaker 1: that you don't try to appease a bully because that
Speaker 1: only emboldens that bully. What the Democrats have done is
Speaker 1: they have an effect aided, a better than enabled, all
Speaker 1: of our worst adversaries. They are the ones who have
Speaker 1: so discord in our politics to an unprecedented level. I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly relative to the Obama years. They have corrupted our
Speaker 1: system of checks and balances and separated powers and everything
Speaker 1: from impeachment to the way that leftist judges have gone
Speaker 1: about blocking entire administration policies. One random federal judge we'll
Speaker 1: talk about this a little bit later, can stop clearly
Speaker 1: lawful presidential policies across the entire country. Think about the
Speaker 1: tyranny of that, that judicial supremacy. They have violated the
Speaker 1: individual liberties of Americans in the way that they've gone
Speaker 1: about the entire Russia Gate perpetration and then the cover up,
Speaker 1: which has been in part impeachment in some ways, the
Speaker 1: so called Mullar Special Council investigation and everything associated with it,
Speaker 1: the millions of subpoenas that they've issued. They've weaponized our
Speaker 1: law enforcement mechanism. They've sought to cover up the abuses
Speaker 1: of the intelligence apparatus and law enforcement. And they've cheered
Speaker 1: on an administrative state that's tried to sabotage the president,
Speaker 1: who gives that administrative state its power. All of these
Speaker 1: rogue officials and all of these agencies that come out
Speaker 1: and snipe at the president, they only have power because
Speaker 1: the presidents delegated it to them. Democrats cheer this on.
Speaker 1: Imagine you can't even imagine. You can't conceive of a
Speaker 1: scenario because there aren't enough conservatives in the administrative state
Speaker 1: and they would never act this inappropriately. Of course, in
Speaker 1: the first place, you can't conceive of a scenario where
Speaker 1: the Obama administration did something and he was sabotaged by
Speaker 1: rogue conservatives conspiring within the administrative states. It would never happen.
Speaker 1: It would be laughed out of the room, couldn't even
Speaker 1: be conceived of. They are the ones who are trying
Speaker 1: to purge all dissenting views from public life. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit later. Anything that dares
Speaker 1: challenge the progressive orthodoxy, unacceptable voices should be shut out.
Speaker 1: And why why do they side where their adversaries and
Speaker 1: why do they in affect Aida bet and enable them
Speaker 1: with their actions while claiming that we're the traitors and
Speaker 1: we're the ones undermining institutions. They think that the America
Speaker 1: that we understand, that we believe in, that we understand
Speaker 1: the founders to have crafted for us, built for us.
Speaker 1: They think that America is inherently evil. It's the scores
Speaker 1: of the earth. And so if you hate that which
Speaker 1: is evil, you believe yourself good, then the only way
Speaker 1: to fix it is to turn it on its head,
Speaker 1: repudiate all the principles, run rough shot over them, because
Speaker 1: the ends justify the means for them, and the ends
Speaker 1: ultimately are power. It's power for them if they sometimes
Speaker 1: they say this outright. And some of these comments from
Speaker 1: these reporters and Obama administration officials praising the Iranians, it
Speaker 1: reminded me of a New York Times op ed writer
Speaker 1: Thomas Friedman. Sure you're familiar with his work, he wrote
Speaker 1: back in September two thousand and nine. Something that sticks
Speaker 1: with me, it should stick with you two and it
Speaker 1: really represents where the left is, he said. One party
Speaker 1: autocracy certainly has its drawbacks, but when it is led
Speaker 1: by a reasonably enlightened group of people. As China is today,
Speaker 1: it can have great advantages. Beijing wants to make sure
Speaker 1: that it owns that in industries and is ordering policies
Speaker 1: to do it. Our one part, from the top down,
Speaker 1: our one party democracy, quote unquote, is worse. They want
Speaker 1: they want to rule everything because they don't want us
Speaker 1: to have a voice, because they disagree with this entire experiment,
Speaker 1: and they'll undermine it any and every which way they can,
Speaker 1: including siding with our worst adversaries. This has Ben Winegarden
Speaker 1: in for Buck Sexon on the Buck Sex and Show.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. You're in the Freedom Hunt.
Speaker 1: This is the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Buck Sex and Show. This is Ben Weinegarten in
Speaker 1: four Buck Sexton. We've been talking about the left, siding
Speaker 1: with our worst adversaries, and a little bit specifically about Iran.
Speaker 1: And in my next segment, I'm going to interview someone
Speaker 1: who is, in my view, one of the finest experts
Speaker 1: on national security and foreign policy generally in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: specifically in Iran. I think he's written some of the
Speaker 1: most prescient, deep probing, insightful pieces on not only what
Speaker 1: the strike on Solomany means for American national security and
Speaker 1: foreign policy, but also what it means in context of
Speaker 1: US Middle East policy more broadly, and where the Trump
Speaker 1: administration stands on it, because a lot of people, frankly,
Speaker 1: are hysterical when it comes to anything the Trump administration does,
Speaker 1: but in particular do not understand that there actually is
Speaker 1: a coherent method to all that we've been doing from
Speaker 1: the Middle East to China, to Western and Eastern Europe
Speaker 1: and beyond Russia as well. And so we're going to
Speaker 1: talk with Michael Durant of the Hudson Institute about a
Speaker 1: number of these topics. He actually altees this a little bit,
Speaker 1: has floated that the Obama administration, as I understand it,
Speaker 1: may have written love letters to Cosseem Solomany and I
Speaker 1: talk in jest here, but actually did communicy directly potentially
Speaker 1: with Solomony, and not to deliver the kind of message
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration did, which is knock it off
Speaker 1: or else. We'll talk about that right after this. Ben
Speaker 1: Wangarton in for Buck Sexton on The Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The bus Sexton Show podcasts. Remember
Speaker 1: to subscribe on Apple podcasts. The iHeartRadio app or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben Wangarton in for Buck Sexton, and we
Speaker 1: have on the line right now. As I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: what I think is one of the finest scholars when
Speaker 1: it comes to national security and foreign policy in the
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern general and Iran in particular, Mike Duran. He's
Speaker 1: a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He formerly held
Speaker 1: positions in both the Department of Defense and on the
Speaker 1: National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration. Mike, thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming on the program. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me Ben, and thanks for that very generous introduction. Well,
Speaker 1: it's well deserved and been a longtime fan of your work,
Speaker 1: and we've discussed many of these issues at length, and
Speaker 1: I thought bucks Audi deserves to hear from someone who
Speaker 1: was in a policy making position, who has grappled with
Speaker 1: the adversaries that we're dealing with today, and in particular,
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with something that you sort of
Speaker 1: teased out on Twitter and was later corroborated by Lee Smith,
Speaker 1: another great writer on national security and foreign policy. We've
Speaker 1: had on the program before, were you discussed the fact
Speaker 1: that a little birdie told you, essentially that the Obama
Speaker 1: administration had drafted some letters to the world's weading terrorists,
Speaker 1: of the world's reading terror force, the cuts force, of
Speaker 1: the world's weading terror regime, of the Iranian molocracy. What
Speaker 1: else can you tell us about that? Well, actually, I
Speaker 1: don't know much more than that. It was absolutely a
Speaker 1: little birdie. Somebody who I happen to know, and who
Speaker 1: happened to know is in a position to know this
Speaker 1: fact firsthand, said Hey, did you know that under the
Speaker 1: Obama administration we sent letters plural to cause some solo money?
Speaker 1: And I said, no, I didn't know that, and it's
Speaker 1: very interesting, and so I put I put that out
Speaker 1: on Twitter, you know, so I pretended to be I
Speaker 1: joked that I was an anonymous whistle blower, the joke
Speaker 1: being that everyone in Washington, DC knows that Eric Jarmella
Speaker 1: is the anonymous whistleblower on the Zelinsky conversation that Trump
Speaker 1: is being impeached over. And you know, he's been walking
Speaker 1: around town all since this thing began, and you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to supposedly, you know, you're not allowed to say
Speaker 1: his name if you write his name on Twitter, you
Speaker 1: get deep platformed and uh and so on. I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's really cool. I'd like to be an anonymous whistle
Speaker 1: blower too. Uh. You know, people need to walk into
Speaker 1: restaurants with people point at you and say, hey, there's
Speaker 1: the anonymous whistle blower. So I'm I'm anonymous here. I'm
Speaker 1: not when I talk to you about when I talk
Speaker 1: to you about the letters to Solo Money, I'm not
Speaker 1: Mike Duran at the Hudson Institute. I'm anonymous. Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: neither confirm nor denied that I'm Mike Duran. As long
Speaker 1: as we're talking about this, well, we'll make sure not
Speaker 1: to weak your name to the Washington Post and the Times.
Speaker 1: And I think it is significant though to the extent
Speaker 1: they did write letters to Solomony, and it's eminently believable
Speaker 1: because the administration took the Obama administration took sanctions off
Speaker 1: of Solomany as part of the so called I Ran
Speaker 1: Nuclear Deal in the first place. But it's quite an
Speaker 1: interesting contrast that they were probably writing letters hoping to
Speaker 1: come to some sort of agreement or accord with Solomany,
Speaker 1: whereas the Trump administration secretary Pompeo drafted a letter to
Speaker 1: Solomany which basically said, knock off the malign activities or else,
Speaker 1: and the RLS actually happened exactly exactly. I mean, the
Speaker 1: let's start with the last point first. The letter that
Speaker 1: Pompeo sent to Solomony, actually he did so on the
Speaker 1: instructions of Donald Trump. I noticed for a fact as well.
Speaker 1: Trump saw something in the intelligence early on in the
Speaker 1: administration that worried him, and he said, I see that
Speaker 1: this guy Solimani is organizing to kill Americans. I want
Speaker 1: to send him a letter, and I want to put
Speaker 1: him on notice that if he harms the hair on
Speaker 1: a single American that there will be immediate and drastic consequences.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how the decision was made. I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe his advisor said, actually, mister President, I
Speaker 1: don't think you should be the one talking to Solomoni.
Speaker 1: So it fell to Pompeo. And Pompeo's letter was very
Speaker 1: short and very sweet, and it basically said I don't
Speaker 1: know the exact wording, but it busically said just what
Speaker 1: I said, if you harm the hair on one American,
Speaker 1: that will be held a pain and that's the origin.
Speaker 1: That's the origin of the of the of the attack
Speaker 1: on Solimani. I mean, he was he was warned, and
Speaker 1: he was warned time and again, and he ignored it
Speaker 1: and he paid a price for it. And that's the
Speaker 1: way it should be. Solomoni is portrayed, and I think
Speaker 1: accurately so, as sort of the architect of really in
Speaker 1: some sense that the Shide Crescent and Iran's jihadest activities
Speaker 1: around the world, and also obviously has the blood of
Speaker 1: hundreds of Americans on his hands, and orchestrated the attack
Speaker 1: on our embassy, which is an act of war, and
Speaker 1: according to the Administration, was planning on orchestrating other ones
Speaker 1: as well. How significant is the fact that Solomoni no
Speaker 1: longer walks the face of the earth from the perspective
Speaker 1: of destabilizing the Iranian molocracy. Oh, it's enormously significant. This
Speaker 1: is the single most important thing the United States has
Speaker 1: done in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq,
Speaker 1: There no doubt about it. First of all, let's just
Speaker 1: start with him as an individual. You know, when the
Speaker 1: CIA looks at whether to whether to eliminate an individual,
Speaker 1: one of the things they ask is can he be
Speaker 1: easily replaced. So if we's going to be just whackamle
Speaker 1: we get rid of this guy, is another one going
Speaker 1: to pop up. And and in the case of Solomony,
Speaker 1: he was absolutely unique, absolutely indispensable, you know the the
Speaker 1: uh You can almost never say that about somebody, that
Speaker 1: they are indispensable. But he's been in that job for years.
Speaker 1: He is. He was responsible for Iran's policy toward the
Speaker 1: entire Arab world. He's the de facto head of Special Forces,
Speaker 1: head of the CIA. I mean if he were if
Speaker 1: we were to map him onto onto the American system,
Speaker 1: he would be the head of Special Forces, the head
Speaker 1: of CIA, the head of USAID, and the head of
Speaker 1: the State Department with regard to all of the Arab
Speaker 1: world and beyond Afghanistan as well. Um Java Zaief is
Speaker 1: not the real or minister. He's the errand boy of costumes,
Speaker 1: sure the money. You know, he's lieutenant general. He's the
Speaker 1: head of the Kods Force of the IRGC. So on
Speaker 1: the org chart, the head of the IRGC was his
Speaker 1: commanding officer, but that was not the case. He was
Speaker 1: an independent force. He had a direct line to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Leader. He had been He was the architect of
Speaker 1: this policy of creating militias across the Arab world and
Speaker 1: then distributing to those militias UH precision guided weaponry, completely
Speaker 1: with the goal of undermining the US order in the
Speaker 1: region by undermining America's allies. And he was also putting
Speaker 1: a noose around the neck of Israel. So getting rid
Speaker 1: of him was just in that respect, was fantastic. But
Speaker 1: if I got to if I can have a second,
Speaker 1: I'll add a couple of other reasons why this was important.
Speaker 1: Go ahead. So number two Trump has totally changed the
Speaker 1: game up until now. For the last three presidents, when
Speaker 1: we have dealt with Iran, we have always played the
Speaker 1: game on Iran's terms. That is that we know that
Speaker 1: Iran was building these militias, his Balah, the hoopies, the
Speaker 1: five or six major militias that got in Iraq and
Speaker 1: so on and that and that, and that those militias
Speaker 1: are taking orders from Tehran. But when those militias would
Speaker 1: behave and misbehave, we would always we would always respond
Speaker 1: weekly against the militias, as if we didn't know that
Speaker 1: Taihran was actually pulling the strings. Trump has said, I'm
Speaker 1: not playing that game anymore. I'm not going to play
Speaker 1: this game on your terms. I know you're in charge,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to hold you responsible for what you're doing.
Speaker 1: That's a strategic shift by US policy. And it's amazing
Speaker 1: the effect that has had in a very short period
Speaker 1: of time, because now all of a sudden, Trump has
Speaker 1: cut i Ran down to size. It. Ran is not
Speaker 1: as powerful as United States, and yet we've been treating
Speaker 1: it like an equal you know, John Kerry sat, he
Speaker 1: sat in Vienna week after week after week, opposite of
Speaker 1: the Reef like they were like we were equal powers.
Speaker 1: And Trump has shown no, Actually, you're a small week
Speaker 1: power and we are a superpower. And if you bite
Speaker 1: our ankles too hard, we're going to kick you in
Speaker 1: the in the teeth, which is exactly what he did.
Speaker 1: And everyone in the region sees that, and they're all
Speaker 1: reacting to it. So we have reinvigoration of the of
Speaker 1: the of the protests in Iran, of the of the
Speaker 1: anti Iranian protests in Iraq, and of the protests in Lebanon,
Speaker 1: among other things. I mean, everyone, everyone in the region
Speaker 1: immediately felt that the balance of power shifted towards the
Speaker 1: United States. And if I could just make one last
Speaker 1: point I'm making very briefly. We also took out in
Speaker 1: that attack on Slomanni a number of other individuals, but
Speaker 1: one really particularly stands out, and that's Al Mohandas, who
Speaker 1: was Iran's number one guy in Iraq. Simply taking out
Speaker 1: Mohandas would have been a very big deal. We've of
Speaker 1: he's kind of been forgotten in the discussion of this
Speaker 1: because Sulimani was so huge, But the effect of this
Speaker 1: for the US relations with Iraq are huge. So, you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned one point that I want to kind of
Speaker 1: hone in on, which is the why you said the
Speaker 1: last three administrations have effectively looked the other way, been
Speaker 1: willfully blind refused to poke the bear when it comes
Speaker 1: to Iran. And I think arguably and you probably agree,
Speaker 1: really this dates back to both Carter and Reagan. Actually,
Speaker 1: how do you explain the fact that for all this
Speaker 1: time we've been so engaged in the Middle East, in
Speaker 1: all of these sectarian squabbles. How is it that Iran
Speaker 1: has gotten off scott free the entire time? What is
Speaker 1: the explanation within our national security and foreign policy establishment
Speaker 1: for why we've pursued the path that we have, you know,
Speaker 1: I M the simple answer is America has a fantasy
Speaker 1: of returning with with the Islamic Republic, of returning to
Speaker 1: the relationship it had under the shaw Um, And it
Speaker 1: has been telling itself since Reagan. I on hundred percent
Speaker 1: correct about that, since Reagan has been telling itself that
Speaker 1: Iran is going to moderate, it's going to become a
Speaker 1: normal country under the Islamic Republic is going to become
Speaker 1: a normal country just looking after its interests and we
Speaker 1: can come to an accommodation with it. That was the
Speaker 1: whole That was the whole thesis behind the Reagan's arms
Speaker 1: for hostages that we were we were looking the arms.
Speaker 1: You know. Reagan famously went on the on primetime television
Speaker 1: and told the American people, you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, I told you American people that I did
Speaker 1: not trade arms for hostages. He said, my my, uh,
Speaker 1: my intentions, um and my gut or I can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact words, but I I still tell them. I
Speaker 1: still feel like I didn't do that. But I've looked
Speaker 1: at the facts and this is what happened. And at
Speaker 1: the time, I was a student and I heard Reagan
Speaker 1: saying this, and I thought, how could you not know?
Speaker 1: But actually he was. It was true, he didn't He
Speaker 1: didn't know that he had done that because the goal
Speaker 1: of sending the arms to the Iranians was during the
Speaker 1: Iran Iraq War, and their military was supplied by it
Speaker 1: was all American equipment. They need spare parts. The goal
Speaker 1: was not to give them spare parts. The goal was
Speaker 1: to use the delivery of the spare parts to find
Speaker 1: the moderates in Tehran with whom we could talk so
Speaker 1: we can get back to the old relationship that we
Speaker 1: used to have. So this is a bipartisan American dream.
Speaker 1: It is. It is. It's stronger today on the left
Speaker 1: than it is on the right. But you can find
Speaker 1: it in the Republican sphere as well. And it is
Speaker 1: the source of these letters that I believe. We won't
Speaker 1: know until they're declassified, if they ever will be, but
Speaker 1: that's the source of the letters that I believe. I
Speaker 1: presume that Obama sent the Obama administration sent to Solomany.
Speaker 1: The Obama administration believed that Solo that the US and
Speaker 1: Iran shared a couple of key vital interests. One was
Speaker 1: the stability of Iraq, and two was fighting isis. I
Speaker 1: don't we don't need to go into details. I don't
Speaker 1: agree with either of those presumptions, but they're very um
Speaker 1: they're very deep in the foreign policy establishment. That we
Speaker 1: have overlapping interests with Iran, and if we just show
Speaker 1: the Iranians that we're not hostile to them, then we
Speaker 1: can unlinlock the potential for cooperation that the shared interests represent.
Speaker 1: This Ben Wangarnin for Buck Sexon. We're back with Mike Duran.
Speaker 1: Just after this, you're in the Freedom Line. This is
Speaker 1: the Buck Sexton Show podcast. This Ben Wangarnin for Buck
Speaker 1: Sexon on the Buck Sexon Show, and we're back with
Speaker 1: Mike Duran talking about Iran Middle East policy more broadway.
Speaker 1: We only have a couple of minutes here, Mike, and
Speaker 1: we've been talking about the sea change that has transpired,
Speaker 1: not just with Iran but with the Middle East. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it's definitely heard by the North Koreans. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: heard in Beijing as well. A couple sort of fundamental questions. One,
Speaker 1: how weak is the Iranian regime today and to the
Speaker 1: extent it was to fall tomorrow? Do you believe the
Speaker 1: Trump administration has devised contingency plans so that America's national
Speaker 1: interest is best served should that happen, I don't know
Speaker 1: how weak it is. The simple answer is, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm very reluctant to say that that a regime is
Speaker 1: going to fall. You know, I watched the Syrian regime
Speaker 1: very closely, and you know, everyone predicted it was going
Speaker 1: to fall weeks, months, whatever, and it never did. And
Speaker 1: of course the Russians stepped in to help it. You know,
Speaker 1: if it looked like Tehran was really about to collapse completely,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't surprise me. If we solve the Chinese and
Speaker 1: the Russians get involved, we may or we may not.
Speaker 1: Um uh so Uh, it's clearly. The one thing you
Speaker 1: can say for sure is that it has a legitimacy
Speaker 1: crisis of the likes of which it has never seen before.
Speaker 1: The vast majority of Iranians do not regard it, you know,
Speaker 1: do not really support it. But it has, you know,
Speaker 1: this coercive apparatus that people, you know, it's willing to
Speaker 1: shoot people who want to topple it. And uh and
Speaker 1: some significant percentage of the population feels that their livelihood,
Speaker 1: I thought their lives are bound up in the continuation
Speaker 1: of them of the regime. So you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how long can it limp along like this? I'm
Speaker 1: really not I'm really not sure. Does the US have
Speaker 1: contingency plans? I would uh, you know, you never know,
Speaker 1: but I would doubt it, just because I don't think
Speaker 1: the Trump administration was thinking. You know, it hasn't had
Speaker 1: the Its goal has not been to topple the regime.
Speaker 1: It's goal has been to weaken the regime in order
Speaker 1: to get a deal, particularly over the nuclear question. And
Speaker 1: but by just a little bit of strategic application of
Speaker 1: American force, Trump has shown the regime to be weaker
Speaker 1: than I think most people thought it was. And so
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden we have this question about, well,
Speaker 1: what if it goes I doubt anyone's thought that through
Speaker 1: to those who say, lastly, to those who say that
Speaker 1: China is the biggest threat of all, which I agree with,
Speaker 1: by the way, I ran as a threat China is
Speaker 1: the greatest nation state threat to American liberty. And they say, well,
Speaker 1: what is really our interest in the Middle East? When
Speaker 1: you have this massive power that's looming, What is your
Speaker 1: best argument to them that no, we actually do have
Speaker 1: an interest in the Middle East in general, in an
Speaker 1: i Ran situation, that is, in America's a national interest
Speaker 1: in particular, given the sort of greater challenges that loom
Speaker 1: over the short, medium and long term. I think it's
Speaker 1: all about China. Actually, what's gonna what's going to happen
Speaker 1: if we're not ter, is that China is going to
Speaker 1: come in and become the primary supporter, or maybe China
Speaker 1: and Russia together of the Iranian regime. The Iranian regime's
Speaker 1: immediate goal is to drive the United States out of
Speaker 1: the Persian Gulf and to take over control, not necessarily
Speaker 1: absolute ownership, but control of the vast oil resources of
Speaker 1: the Gulf. That's what it wants. The target of the
Speaker 1: Iranians is Saudi Arabia. They want to take over, They
Speaker 1: want to control the oil resources of the Gulf, and
Speaker 1: then the Iranians themselves see themselves as the leaders of
Speaker 1: the Islamic world. They want to take over the holy
Speaker 1: sites in Saudi Arabia. Now, if if China and its
Speaker 1: ally Iran, if they were to allie together or Russia,
Speaker 1: China and Iran as a block, then and control the
Speaker 1: oil resources of the Gulf then they control the oil
Speaker 1: resources of Europe and they'll start using that privileged position
Speaker 1: as the main provider of oil to Europe to start
Speaker 1: weakening the US European bond, and we would have one
Speaker 1: dominant power on the Eurasian landmasks China, and that's where
Speaker 1: we want to avoid. We want to avoid China just
Speaker 1: completely owning all of Eurasia. That's not good for democracy
Speaker 1: in America. We've been speaking with Mike Duran, a senior
Speaker 1: follow at the Hudson Institute, and I think one of
Speaker 1: the finest minds when it comes to US national security
Speaker 1: and foreign policy. Mike, thanks so much for coming on
Speaker 1: the program. Thank you. Ben was a pleasure Pleasures Online.
Speaker 1: And this is Ben Weingarten in buck Sexton on The
Speaker 1: buck Sexton Show. We're back right after this. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to The bus Sexton Show podcasts. Remember to subscribe
Speaker 1: on Apple podcast, the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Welcome back to the buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben Weinegarten in four Buck Sexton. And the
Speaker 1: big news yesterday beyond the impeachment tarade, which you've already
Speaker 1: talked about, is that the Trump administration signed a monumental
Speaker 1: Phase one trade deal with China, And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit later in the hour with one
Speaker 1: of those who was most influential in pushing this administration
Speaker 1: and representing this administration's tough line on the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party regime, a tougher line than has ever been pushed
Speaker 1: since we formally open relations with China, really beginning with
Speaker 1: Nixon back in seventy two, which has been, in my view,
Speaker 1: the most fundamental, most most important, long term, critical and
Speaker 1: monumental change in US national security and foreign policy. To
Speaker 1: recognize the nature of the China competition, the China threat,
Speaker 1: China's adversarial nature, and actually begin to turn the ship
Speaker 1: of state around because we haven't aided about it, enabled
Speaker 1: emboldened this malevolent Chinese Communist Party for decades. To put
Speaker 1: that deal in context, I think we need to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what is the nature of the
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist Party regime, because the nature of the regime,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, is what matters even
Speaker 1: more sometimes than what the words are on a piece
Speaker 1: of paper. And you could say the same thing, for example,
Speaker 1: with the quote unquote I ran nuclear deal which we
Speaker 1: discussed in part already. You can't have a deal with
Speaker 1: the Mulas that they will abide by in any sense
Speaker 1: unless they really feel that their livelihood is at stake
Speaker 1: and the alternative is utter destruction. And not saying it's
Speaker 1: analogous with China, but what I am saying is that
Speaker 1: the regime matters above all else, whatever contingencies are, whatever
Speaker 1: has been put in writing on paper, Honoring a deal
Speaker 1: requires two honorable parties to it. And so you have
Speaker 1: to understand this deal in context of that nature of
Speaker 1: an expansionist, imperialist, frankly often malign, deceptive regime that is
Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party regime. And so let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what their true core aims are. Their
Speaker 1: true core aim are expand their totalitarian rule so that
Speaker 1: first of all, the Chinese Communist Party can survive in perpetuity,
Speaker 1: and second that it can put forth its prerogatives and
Speaker 1: impose them upon their own people, those in their near
Speaker 1: abroad quote unquotes, and that includes Taiwan, that includes Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: that includes others as well, and ultimately expand their power
Speaker 1: so that they're not just the regional hegemon but the
Speaker 1: global hegemon and what would that mean. I mean that
Speaker 1: China is not only rich, strong, and powerful, but that
Speaker 1: every other nation effectively bends to China's rule. And the
Speaker 1: Trump administration has spoken quite openly and honestly about the
Speaker 1: nature of this regime. The human rights violations that this
Speaker 1: regime has engaged in are impactful. Not because human rights
Speaker 1: are necessarily the number one American interest when it comes
Speaker 1: to foreign powers and how we best deal with them.
Speaker 1: We have to deal with the world as it is,
Speaker 1: not as we wish it to be, but because it
Speaker 1: tells you something about the way China, the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party rules its own people, and how it will ultimately
Speaker 1: treat others as its power expands and its ability to
Speaker 1: project that power expands globally through things like One Belt,
Speaker 1: One Road and other initiatives that we've spoken about in
Speaker 1: prior episodes. There are stories of mass forced oregan harvesting
Speaker 1: for prisoners. There's a one child policy, which if you
Speaker 1: don't know about, I've written a review of an amazing,
Speaker 1: harrowing documentary on the China's one child policy that, to
Speaker 1: Amazon's credit, I believe is being distributed through Amazon, which
Speaker 1: talks about the forced abortions, effectively the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: ripping children away from their parents and leaving them to
Speaker 1: die on the roadsides unthinkable horrors. That's the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party turning the guns on the protesters in Hong Kong
Speaker 1: and trying to force extradition so that China can effectively
Speaker 1: take prisoner those who are supposed to be able to
Speaker 1: live in the relatively free, although increasingly shrinking, relatively free
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. The China is supposed to respect Taiwan. China's
Speaker 1: threatened invasion of Taiwan. That's why we supply Taiwan with
Speaker 1: sophisticated weaponry to deter China from seeking to quote unquote
Speaker 1: reunify a part of China that's not theirs. Threatening foreign
Speaker 1: ambassadors and other officials, threatening dissidents in the Chinese diaspora
Speaker 1: around the world that they will potentially injure in prison
Speaker 1: otherwise punish their families that are back on the mainland
Speaker 1: should you speak out against the Chinese Communist Party abroad.
Speaker 1: That's the nature of the regime that we're dealing with.
Speaker 1: Two other recent stories caught my eye that really get
Speaker 1: to the core of what the Chinese Communist Party is about.
Speaker 1: Here's one headline I believe from life site News. Chinese
Speaker 1: government demands Christians use religion to quote spread Communist Party principles.
Speaker 1: Everything serves the Party, including religion. And by the way, religion,
Speaker 1: of course, during the Cold War was considered by many
Speaker 1: to be the antidote to the Soviet Union and its
Speaker 1: expansionist ideology. So of course any competing worldview is going
Speaker 1: to be something that if you're the Chinese authorities, you
Speaker 1: have to clamp down on, because you cannot tower it,
Speaker 1: any sort of descent, any sort of cracks in the
Speaker 1: veneer that they've built. And by some measures, Christianity is
Speaker 1: the fastest growing religion in China, with millions tens of millions,
Speaker 1: if not hundreds of millions of members, and that's not
Speaker 1: even necessarily including those who practice underground. So this is significant.
Speaker 1: And the article says new draconian rules for religious groups
Speaker 1: are set to go into place in China, requiring that
Speaker 1: they spread Unist Party principles. China totalitarian government promulgated new
Speaker 1: rules on December thirty that will place virtually all aspects
Speaker 1: of religious life under the control of the Communist Party.
Speaker 1: The Administrative measures consist of six chapters and forty one
Speaker 1: articles governing the quote organization function, supervision and management of
Speaker 1: religious groups, which would include religious doctrine, annual and daily activities,
Speaker 1: and rallies. The new rules going to force on February
Speaker 1: one and come as part of a growing crackdown by
Speaker 1: Chinese Communists on religion, and many religious minorities have been persecuted.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about the biggest human rights violation of all,
Speaker 1: which is the actual gulag twenty first century gulags that
Speaker 1: have been constructed in the Shenjiang province where millions in
Speaker 1: total of weager Muslim ethnic minorities reside, of which at
Speaker 1: least a million and probably more I would guess, are
Speaker 1: held in effectively modern day gulags because of their faith
Speaker 1: under the guise of potentially posing a threat, a national
Speaker 1: security threat, but in reality because they pose a threat
Speaker 1: because they might believe something that conflicts with Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party principles. But religion has to be bent to support
Speaker 1: the party because the party resides above all else, and
Speaker 1: if not, it has to be crushed with an iron fist.
Speaker 1: And when you infringe upon someone's faith and their conscience,
Speaker 1: that tells you a heck of a lot about the
Speaker 1: nature of the authorities that you're dealing with now. In
Speaker 1: some ways, I would argue it shows vigoity. If you
Speaker 1: can't tolerate competing or dissenting views, then how strong can
Speaker 1: you really be. On the other hand, the fact that
Speaker 1: they can do this and then put on top of
Speaker 1: it a massive police state at apparatus in their social
Speaker 1: credit scores where they govern how good of a citizen
Speaker 1: you are based upon how closely you hue to Communist
Speaker 1: party principles. It's scary that any government could have that power,
Speaker 1: and that there boarding that technology to many of the
Speaker 1: other malevolent regimes that they do business way around the
Speaker 1: world should scare us. And then of course that they're
Speaker 1: the ones that are the leaders in five G technology,
Speaker 1: which is going to be the network that serves as
Speaker 1: the backbone of basically all information transfer and communications throughout
Speaker 1: the world, including among our allies. Can you trust a
Speaker 1: regime that is a social credit score for its citizens,
Speaker 1: watches their every move and grades them based upon how
Speaker 1: well they're checking the party boxes. You want to put
Speaker 1: them in charge of all global telecommunications and information transfer.
Speaker 1: This is the Chinese regime and then a much smaller example,
Speaker 1: but that I think gets also to the nature of
Speaker 1: not just this communist party, but the way that communist
Speaker 1: parties have been really forever. This is from Ryan save
Speaker 1: Dry and the Daily Wire headline Communist China Private ownership
Speaker 1: of guns in US serious problem must change, Savedra says
Speaker 1: communists China, which currently has millions of people walked away
Speaker 1: in concentration camps set in state controlled media this week,
Speaker 1: the second Amendment is a quote unquote serious problem that
Speaker 1: there needs to be quote unquote change and had the
Speaker 1: American public views private ownership of guns. The Global Times,
Speaker 1: which is Chinese state run media, published the op ed
Speaker 1: after a good guy with a gun in Texas stopped
Speaker 1: a shooting in a church, trying to mock the United States,
Speaker 1: saying that quote shootings are shocking in a US allegedly
Speaker 1: governed by law. And he quotes a little bit from
Speaker 1: the article, and it's worth quoting in part also just
Speaker 1: to look at the parallels between their propaganda media and
Speaker 1: our propaganda media. The article says private gun ownership is
Speaker 1: a tradition from the early days that the founding of
Speaker 1: the US in a modern society, the problems created by
Speaker 1: this tradition have already exceeded the benefits. It's problematic. American
Speaker 1: society has already seen serious problems caused by the private
Speaker 1: ownership of guns, but their massive number has contributed to
Speaker 1: an enormous and nerves Many interest groups have benefited from it,
Speaker 1: and some ordinary people have truly gained a sense of safety.
Speaker 1: To change this habit, which has lasted hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: tremendous political courage and a rearrangement of interest is required.
Speaker 1: Mike Bloomberg agrees facts have proved that the US system
Speaker 1: is unable to handle the intricacies of countless issues around guns,
Speaker 1: including politics, economics, law and order in public psychology. The
Speaker 1: country can either manage the safe storage and use of
Speaker 1: so many guns owned by ordinary people, nor can it
Speaker 1: establish a new national system that bans or strictly restricts guns.
Speaker 1: It cannot even for it cannot even form an overwhelming
Speaker 1: opinion regarding gun issues, and then Savedra to his credit.
Speaker 1: Rights here. China's attack on the Second amm And comes
Speaker 1: after Hong Kong protesters have requested to have their own
Speaker 1: Second Amendment rights. J I wonder why so they can
Speaker 1: defend themselves from the oppressive Communist Chinese government. And this
Speaker 1: is also after The Wall Street Journal reported that, following
Speaker 1: in the footsteps of Mao Zedong during a two day
Speaker 1: meeting that ended last month by mister she, the part
Speaker 1: is twenty five member poet Burrow Helas policies as visionary
Speaker 1: and described him as the Renman wing Shoe or People's Leader,
Speaker 1: a designation that directly echoes and accolade most closely associated
Speaker 1: with Communist China's founder Mao Zedong. And of course, like
Speaker 1: Mao Zedong, effectively she has absolute power. He is chairman
Speaker 1: of the party for life. First, there's the use of
Speaker 1: the propaganda, and the Chinese Communist Party always says, we
Speaker 1: want to treat every nation with mutual respect and admiration,
Speaker 1: respect for sovereignty. We don't meadow and others foreign affairs. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: who are you to be commenting on our Second Amendment
Speaker 1: in your propaganda rag that's in English so the entire
Speaker 1: world can read it, and it's a propaganda coup for you.
Speaker 1: More importantly is the fundamental issue of what are Second
Speaker 1: Amendment rights at core? Actually about at core the entire
Speaker 1: tradition in Western civilization and particular in the anglosphere, is
Speaker 1: about the right to self defense, self president servation an
Speaker 1: essential right, and that self preservation both in nature and
Speaker 1: its self preservation in your political sphere. China, of course,
Speaker 1: what they don't tell you, has some of the most
Speaker 1: restrictive gun laws in the entire world. It's almost impossible
Speaker 1: to own firearms there as an individual. Why is that
Speaker 1: the case because the regime can't tolerate it, just like
Speaker 1: they can't tolerate our First Amendment rights, freedom of speech,
Speaker 1: freedom of conscience, freedom to debate and argue in an
Speaker 1: actual open marketplace of ideas. They can't tolerate you being
Speaker 1: able to defend yourself against any tyranny, again, whether in
Speaker 1: nature or the tyranny of an oppressive government. China doesn't
Speaker 1: want its people to have the right to defend their
Speaker 1: lives and their liberties because they don't believe that life
Speaker 1: and liberty trump their tyrannical Iron Communist Party fist. This
Speaker 1: article is important. This propaganda is important because it gets
Speaker 1: to the core, which is that China doesn't believe in
Speaker 1: any rights as we understand them in the West, not
Speaker 1: for its people and not for those that it interacts with.
Speaker 1: Either and that's why in the past the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party has lied, cheated, and stolen. This Ben Winegarden for
Speaker 1: Buck sex And on the Buck Sex and Show. We'll
Speaker 1: be back right after this. You're in the Freedom Hunt.
Speaker 1: This is the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Buck Sex and Show. This is Ben Weinegarden in
Speaker 1: for Buck Sexton, and we've been talking about the nature
Speaker 1: of the Chinese Communist Party, which controls all of China,
Speaker 1: it's businesses, it's people, their right to bear arms or not,
Speaker 1: as the case may be, their lack of any sorts
Speaker 1: of the civil liberties that we enjoy in America. And
Speaker 1: what I've argued is that you have to keep this
Speaker 1: context in mind when it comes to all of the
Speaker 1: United States's official dealings with Chinese Communist Party officials and
Speaker 1: even with any of their private quote unquote private sector actors,
Speaker 1: because in reality, there is no there is no distinction
Speaker 1: between private and public there and so we need to
Speaker 1: be very clear eyed about the nature of it. And
Speaker 1: that is a central context in terms of having a
Speaker 1: healthy bit of caution and skepticism when it comes to
Speaker 1: anything with China. And I believe the administration completely gets
Speaker 1: this not only because of the way that the administration
Speaker 1: has described the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and
Speaker 1: its aims in the past, but by dint of its
Speaker 1: entire policy towards the Chinese Communist Party speaking openly and
Speaker 1: honestly about the way that they've abused and ripped off America.
Speaker 1: In fact, even President Trump during the signing ceremony yesterday
Speaker 1: alluded to some of those issues. He basically said, cover
Speaker 1: your ears, Chinese representatives, while I talk about the truth.
Speaker 1: Here also bears noting in this deal that we're about
Speaker 1: to talk with Peter Navarro about tariffs still remain on China.
Speaker 1: And it's important point, by the way, to note, you know,
Speaker 1: the entire world told us, and look, I'm a devotee
Speaker 1: of free enterprise economics, a long time defender of capitalism.
Speaker 1: Tariffs run in the face of capitalism to the extent
Speaker 1: that you have parties that are all really trading on
Speaker 1: an open and honest playing field. You know where there's
Speaker 1: comparative advantage, and you're good at this, producing this, you're
Speaker 1: good at producing this. We trade, everyone ends up better off.
Speaker 1: Let's not basically put a tax on products and then
Speaker 1: get into a war over it, and then you're taxing this,
Speaker 1: You're taxing televisions, and I'm taxing soybeans. The difference here,
Speaker 1: The difference is that we have not been operating on
Speaker 1: anything remotely close to a level playing field, and in fact,
Speaker 1: we have built the entire world trade financial architecture, global
Speaker 1: enterprise writ large is attributed to American institutions and largely
Speaker 1: American companies, American technologies, American led policies. We invited China
Speaker 1: to operate in that system under the naive view, that
Speaker 1: is asked view that economic liberalization would ultimately lead to
Speaker 1: political liberalization, or maybe for the more cynical people, because
Speaker 1: they felt that China's a really big marketplace and we
Speaker 1: better take advantage of it while the getting is good,
Speaker 1: or someone else will consequences, potentially a US national interests
Speaker 1: be damned. And maybe look, maybe they didn't even conceive
Speaker 1: of the idea that China could end up as strong
Speaker 1: and as powerful and bellicos increasingly as it has become.
Speaker 1: Tariffs though they told us you can't impose tariffs, We
Speaker 1: can't win a trade war, and the Trump administration said, well,
Speaker 1: actually we can win trade wars. It's going to be easy.
Speaker 1: And the fact of the matter is they have been
Speaker 1: right pretty much every single time in terms of using
Speaker 1: tariffs as a tool for leverage, not for tariffs in
Speaker 1: and of themselves, not because the administration loves the idea
Speaker 1: of the protectionism, but because the administration understands it is
Speaker 1: a blunt tool that we, with the biggest economy in
Speaker 1: the world by a large measure of magnitude, can withstand
Speaker 1: and which will bring parties to the table so that
Speaker 1: they will no longer rip us off and have unfair
Speaker 1: trade and unfree trade and take advantage of us, because
Speaker 1: we let the world take advantage of us in every
Speaker 1: single possible realm. And China, of course, is the biggest
Speaker 1: actor of all in the way of those who have
Speaker 1: taken advantage of us, as I said before, lying, cheating,
Speaker 1: stealing their way after being given entree into this amazing
Speaker 1: global economy that America is the backbone of. They steal
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property from us.
Speaker 1: They counterfeit goods. They've flooded our soil with fentanyl in
Speaker 1: places that have been hollowed out and destroyed in no
Speaker 1: small part because of the offshoring of jobs to China
Speaker 1: because China is able to compete by paying people nothing.
Speaker 1: Not only that, it's forced technology transfer. You can't do
Speaker 1: business in China unless China basically gets the rights to
Speaker 1: all of the crown jewels of your company. It's unfair
Speaker 1: go on on for so long, and it has enabled China
Speaker 1: to become a serious competitor to America, and again one
Speaker 1: that based on its nature, threatens our liberty. There's Ben
Speaker 1: Winegarden in for Buck Sexton back right after this. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the bus Sexton Show podcasts. Remember to
Speaker 1: subscribe on Apple Podcast, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 1: This is Ben Weingarten in for Buck Sexton, and we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about the Democratic parties ends justify
Speaker 1: the means sort of perspective, and that has a way
Speaker 1: of permeating not just our political system, but also our culture,
Speaker 1: our society, our economic institutions, really every facet of our lives,
Speaker 1: because leftism demands control over every part of our lives,
Speaker 1: sort of like with the Chinese and the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 1: It's a similar sort of all encompassing totalitarian in the
Speaker 1: sense of controlling everything ethos. And the scary thing is
Speaker 1: when you see it seep into your culture such that
Speaker 1: ultimately we have a society that's completely divided in almost
Speaker 1: every single facet. And when you really think about it
Speaker 1: in America today, I mean, what does unite people who
Speaker 1: live on the coasts and people who live everywhere else?
Speaker 1: When I walk around the streets in New York, ideologically,
Speaker 1: I'm completely different from everyone around me. Nine pcent of
Speaker 1: the time. We disagree on a whole host of subjects. Really,
Speaker 1: I've thought about this, Maybe the only uniting institution in
Speaker 1: America today, beyond the fact that the military is still
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly loved and revered and respected, the only institution certainly
Speaker 1: related to the government that's respected at this point is sports.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you think of something else that unites
Speaker 1: people from all walks of life, from every corner of
Speaker 1: the country, Whether it's the smallest a grarian town or
Speaker 1: the biggest urban center. That's pretty much it's sports. Can
Speaker 1: a country really survive long term when it is so torn?
Speaker 1: And I don't want to, I don't want to sort
Speaker 1: of exaggerate the divide in America, because look, we fought
Speaker 1: a civil war. In the sixties, tensions were as high
Speaker 1: as they've been at probably at any time since the
Speaker 1: Civil War. There have been all sorts of periods of strife,
Speaker 1: of partisanship, of animus, and tension within our culture, within
Speaker 1: our society, and we've been divided and at each other's
Speaker 1: throats from the beginning. I mean when people talk about
Speaker 1: the viciousness of the press today, and the press is vicious,
Speaker 1: and the press does vie and cheat and effectively, as
Speaker 1: I usually argue, serves as the communications arm of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party in many respects. But the press, it used
Speaker 1: to be that you had party newspapers. The newspapers were
Speaker 1: known as party associated publications. I mean, in some ways
Speaker 1: it was better then because it was more transparent, but
Speaker 1: they would allege all sorts of asinine things within those publications,
Speaker 1: and we were remarkably torn as a country. But again
Speaker 1: the difference is that at core, there were certain things
Speaker 1: that did unite us, whether it was our understanding of
Speaker 1: the founding, our understanding of our history, our understanding of
Speaker 1: our heritage, our understanding of the fundamental rights and responsibilities
Speaker 1: that we were built on, even just simple common virtue
Speaker 1: views on morality, the importance of tradition to having a
Speaker 1: functional society where we could disagree vigorously on any number
Speaker 1: of political issues, but separate the political issues from the
Speaker 1: things that at core united US. The left can't tolerate
Speaker 1: that we, as conservatives, we debate them on any number
Speaker 1: of issues, and I would argue that the average conservative
Speaker 1: knows a lot more about the left positions than the
Speaker 1: left knows about our positions, because they believe that their
Speaker 1: positions have to predominate by hook or by crook. Again, though,
Speaker 1: what gets more insidious is when you have every element
Speaker 1: of your society in aided by politics. And for the
Speaker 1: latest example of this, there was a story out this
Speaker 1: week that was big in kind of the financial world,
Speaker 1: dominated in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Black Rock,
Speaker 1: which is the largest investment management company in the world
Speaker 1: in terms of the amount of money that it manages,
Speaker 1: about seven trillion dollars in assets that it helps invest
Speaker 1: on people's behalfs or that people invest through black Rock,
Speaker 1: they weighed out a whole slew of initiatives under what's
Speaker 1: called e SG. Now what is ESG Environmental, social and
Speaker 1: governance focused initiatives that's become a huge thing in the
Speaker 1: financial world. If you want to invest in basically green
Speaker 1: friendway companies, if you want to invest in companies that
Speaker 1: value quote unquote diversity, not you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the way of thought, but in terms of skin pigmentation.
Speaker 1: If you want to support companies that are truly progressive
Speaker 1: social justice warriors ESG are usually the kinds of vehicles
Speaker 1: you can invest in. Some sort of fund that has
Speaker 1: portfolio of companies that are all social justice warrior companies
Speaker 1: and that has become a massive industry in financial services.
Speaker 1: Black Rock, the biggest asset manager in the world, is
Speaker 1: one of the leaders in ESG, and this week they
Speaker 1: lay it out a slove of initiatives on stated environmentalist grounds,
Speaker 1: So under sustainability and environmentalism in ESG slove initiatives where
Speaker 1: not only will they be following these initiatives and basically
Speaker 1: imposing their progressive views on all of their employees, but
Speaker 1: also on all of the companies and other assets that
Speaker 1: they invest in invest in. So in other words, they
Speaker 1: will push if through black Rock their investors own expert
Speaker 1: scent of a company. Let's say that company is an
Speaker 1: energy company, and that a company isn't a clean energy company,
Speaker 1: they'll push the board to get more clean and they
Speaker 1: can do that because they effectively control the money, I mean,
Speaker 1: follow the money in that company. So let's look at
Speaker 1: what some of these initiatives are. Their CEO wrote to
Speaker 1: other CEOs. We don't yet know which predictions about the
Speaker 1: climate will be most accurate, nor what effects we have
Speaker 1: failed to consider, but there's no denying the direction we
Speaker 1: are heading. Every government, company and shareholder must confront climate
Speaker 1: change unquote. So the controller of more assets under management
Speaker 1: than any investment manager in the world is saying climate change.
Speaker 1: It's fact, world's gonna end in I guess eleven years.
Speaker 1: Probably they used to say twelve, but we're a year
Speaker 1: in the future now. Investing decision should be made on
Speaker 1: that basis. Basically, our entire society should be organized around that.
Speaker 1: And that's not a government talking. This is the private
Speaker 1: sector to a private sector company that effectively through all
Speaker 1: of the different assets that you can invest in, the stocks, bonds,
Speaker 1: and everything else that one either an individual or a
Speaker 1: big pension fund or an endowment, college endowment or your
Speaker 1: company can invest in through black Rock. You can invest
Speaker 1: in everything through black Rock. Basically, the entire global market
Speaker 1: you can invest in through them. So when black Rock
Speaker 1: says basically tow the party line and we're going to
Speaker 1: nudge the companies that do any business with us, which
Speaker 1: is basically every company towards telling their environmentalist line, that's
Speaker 1: sort of a scary state of play. He goes on
Speaker 1: another letter to Black Rock clients to say, we believe
Speaker 1: that sustainabilities should be our new standard for investing. Okay, well, look,
Speaker 1: as a private sector company, they are more than welcome
Speaker 1: to do whatever they want. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: proposals is they're going to get out of investing in
Speaker 1: any businesses that generate meaningful amounts of revenue from thermal
Speaker 1: coal production. They're going to kick it out of their
Speaker 1: portfolios that they offer to people. They're going to push
Speaker 1: clients to adhere to the company's priorities such as un
Speaker 1: sustainable development goals such as gender equality and affordable and
Speaker 1: clean energy. They're going to substantially increase the number of
Speaker 1: social justice friendwa investment offerings. Look, they're welcome to do
Speaker 1: this stuff. And they've also, by the way, joined the
Speaker 1: Climate Action one hundred plus, which engages with companies to
Speaker 1: improve climate disclosure and align business strategy with the goals
Speaker 1: of the Paris Agreement, is that what you think private
Speaker 1: sector companies should be in the business of. Look again,
Speaker 1: I don't begrudge them. They can put forth whatever view
Speaker 1: they want, and in a free marketplace, thank god, you
Speaker 1: can move elsewhere. If you don't like what the CEOs
Speaker 1: stand for, if you don't like their company policies, take
Speaker 1: your money out where, protest them, boycott them if you want,
Speaker 1: that's fine, but recognize how much of the marketplace this
Speaker 1: actually impacts. Because if we're talking about seven trillion dollars
Speaker 1: worth of wealth invested across a whole swough of different companies,
Speaker 1: you can damn well be sure this is going to
Speaker 1: impact any number of companies, and if you don't tow
Speaker 1: the party line, your stock is going to creator. That's meaningful.
Speaker 1: So we see this on a micro level, this sort
Speaker 1: of control with a cancel culture, where if you don't
Speaker 1: tow the progressive line, you're throwing out your ability to
Speaker 1: live work function in society is basically over. We've seen,
Speaker 1: for example, that payment processing companies like PayPal and the
Speaker 1: like will kick people off of their services who are
Speaker 1: funded by people like you and me to be able
Speaker 1: to produce content that a major corporation won't allow them
Speaker 1: to produce again because it flats PC norms kicked off,
Speaker 1: can't make a living, can't use the payment processing company.
Speaker 1: This is far bigger. I mean, this is again seven
Speaker 1: trillion dollars almost in assets under management to the party line.
Speaker 1: This should really scare us, in my opinion, And it's
Speaker 1: not just about this particular move, and it's not just
Speaker 1: about the fact that, look, you know live and we live.
Speaker 1: If they want to be woke capital, they can be
Speaker 1: woke capital. Okay, they can deal with the consequences of that.
Speaker 1: But there are a couple broader points to be made.
Speaker 1: One is the fact that this is representative of where
Speaker 1: corporate America is, where they have basically entire sections that
Speaker 1: are dedicated to making sure that you don't run a
Speaker 1: foul of political correctness, and you don't run a foul
Speaker 1: of the progressive sort of ethos that dominates in all
Speaker 1: of our lead institutions, in our colleges, in our media,
Speaker 1: in every facet of society that is responsible for imparting
Speaker 1: views to people and telling people how they should think.
Speaker 1: So it should scare us from the perspective of this
Speaker 1: is but one massive granted company. But what do you
Speaker 1: think the management teams look like a pretty much all
Speaker 1: of the major corporations, And do you think they care
Speaker 1: more about the people that they have their cocktail parties with,
Speaker 1: who run the schools that they send their kids to,
Speaker 1: their attorneys, all the senior management at these companies. Do
Speaker 1: you think that they care more about you the deplorable
Speaker 1: or do you think they care more about the people
Speaker 1: that they're friends with? And they think everyone else thinks
Speaker 1: like because they think that their views, which are held
Speaker 1: by really like ten or twenty percent of the country,
Speaker 1: are actually the mainstream views, and that the real mainstream
Speaker 1: views in the country that the forgotten man in this
Speaker 1: country holds traditions they hold, dear, are fringe. I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about woe capital, and
Speaker 1: we'll do so right after this short break is Ben
Speaker 1: Wangarten and for Buck Sexton. Back right after this. You're
Speaker 1: in the Freedom Hud. This is the Buck Sexton Show podcast.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This is Ben
Speaker 1: weine Garden in for Buck Sexton. And before the break
Speaker 1: we were talking a little bit about woke capital, and
Speaker 1: this is truly woke capital, because investment managers are a
Speaker 1: key part of sort of the capital markets and the
Speaker 1: financial industry and basically where funds get directed in our economy.
Speaker 1: That tells us what companies grow and succeed in which
Speaker 1: companies fail. And I was talking about the significance of
Speaker 1: this particular company, black Rock, as the biggest asset manager
Speaker 1: in the world, and they're also one of one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty one maybe plus employers who signed on to
Speaker 1: an agreement which basically said that companies no longer their
Speaker 1: primary focus is no longer creating value for their owners
Speaker 1: their shareholders, but to serving all stakeholders. They signed onto
Speaker 1: this agreement changing what the principles of business are. The
Speaker 1: business should be about protecting the environment by embracing sustainable
Speaker 1: practices across our businesses. That is black Rock and basically
Speaker 1: all of the biggest company is in a bunch of
Speaker 1: different sectors agreed. It's not about making money for your
Speaker 1: owners anymore and serving your owners, it's in part about
Speaker 1: serving environmental causes. But there's a hypocrisy in this, and
Speaker 1: it actually winks back to what we've been discussing and
Speaker 1: will continue to be discussing over the next couple of days.
Speaker 1: Actually China and US China policy. Here's the hook. Okay,
Speaker 1: to the extent that Blackrock and these other companies are
Speaker 1: sustainability driven and their true believers and their principles, how
Speaker 1: do they square that with the exposure that they and
Speaker 1: many of these other companies have to the world's biggest
Speaker 1: polluter in China. Let me explain this a little more.
Speaker 1: Black Rock, for example, has expanded its offerings of China
Speaker 1: specific investment vehicles. So you are, again, a big pension
Speaker 1: fund or an endowment can invest more and more money
Speaker 1: in big Chinese companies, probably companies that are polluters, or
Speaker 1: if not, at least their companies that prop up a
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist Party regime that allows companies to and destroy
Speaker 1: the environment there. But you haven't really heard of any
Speaker 1: any of these big companies saying we will no longer
Speaker 1: do business with the China and the Chinese market due
Speaker 1: to their lack of sustainable practices in their businesses. As
Speaker 1: I said, investors basically not only underwrite some percentage of
Speaker 1: the companies the pollute, they effectively prop up this regime
Speaker 1: that enables that pollution. So can you really call yourself
Speaker 1: a proponent of environmental justice and claiming you care about
Speaker 1: sustainability if with one hand you say we're going to
Speaker 1: punish basically non Chinese companies that don't hute our environmental principles,
Speaker 1: but we're going to actually increase our investment holdings and
Speaker 1: offerings in Chinese companies. And it's not just the environmental
Speaker 1: hypocrisy here, it's also investing in other non social justice
Speaker 1: warrior friendly firms like, for example, Hick Vision. Hick Vision
Speaker 1: is a China base and Hangsu business that produces the
Speaker 1: cameras that surveil the minority weager Muslim population that is
Speaker 1: being held in modern day gulags in China Shinjiang Province.
Speaker 1: Where's woe capital on that? You know? We saw this
Speaker 1: with Nike where God Forbid. A senior executive for the
Speaker 1: Houston Rockets basketball team comes out and says something of
Speaker 1: pro Hong Kong, and the backlash is swift. Because Nike
Speaker 1: has all their profits tied to doing business with China,
Speaker 1: they get awfully quiet when it might impact their bottom
Speaker 1: line with their social justice warriordom. I want to see
Speaker 1: all the financial services companies come out and say we're
Speaker 1: not going to do business with China because they flout
Speaker 1: progressive norms, values and principles. But you won't see it.
Speaker 1: And why won't you see it? Because at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, it is profits the matter. It's profit
Speaker 1: that's matter. It's profits the matter. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: it goes beyond that. Because these EESG products, the sustainability
Speaker 1: products that they offer, and this push for green company,
Speaker 1: I'll bet you find in a lot of ways it's
Speaker 1: a racket. Because of those companies that fit this EESG environmentalism,
Speaker 1: sustainable social governance and the like. What percentage of those
Speaker 1: companies receive chrony capitalists benefits It's not even woke capital
Speaker 1: it's more like woke chrony capital How many of them
Speaker 1: receive huge subsidies from the government to basically keep afloat
Speaker 1: companies that otherwise wouldn't be able to exist on the
Speaker 1: free marketplace because they can't compete with the traditional industries
Speaker 1: that we've had in this country. What percentage of them
Speaker 1: get tax breaks and write offs? What percentage of them
Speaker 1: have their business almost completely tied to government support in
Speaker 1: one way or another? And then, oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: factor in that some of these pensions and other government
Speaker 1: associated investors including governments themselves and sovereign wealth funds invest
Speaker 1: through places like Black Rock. There's sort of playing both
Speaker 1: sides because on the one hand, the government supports all
Speaker 1: these policies, and then on the other hand, the government
Speaker 1: is investing those pension funds in the very companies that
Speaker 1: benefit from those government policies. So we should call a
Speaker 1: spade a spade when it comes to woke capital, whether
Speaker 1: it's a big st manager or Nike or anyone else. Really,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's about profits. Let's
Speaker 1: not call it woke capital. Let's call it woke crony capital.
Speaker 1: This Ben Wangaran in for Buck Saxon on The Buck
Speaker 1: Sex and Show. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to The Bus Sex and Show podcasts. Remember to subscribe
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Senator Sands, I do want to be
Speaker 1: clear here. You're saying that you never told Senator Warren
Speaker 1: that a woman could not win the election. The Senator Warren,
Speaker 1: what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a
Speaker 1: woman could not win the election? I disagreed. Bernie is
Speaker 1: my friend, and I'm not here to try to fight
Speaker 1: with Bernie. But look, this question about whether or not
Speaker 1: a woman can be president has been raised, and it's
Speaker 1: time for us to attack it head on um. And
Speaker 1: I think the best way to talk about who can
Speaker 1: win is by looking at people's winning record. So can
Speaker 1: a woman beat Donald Trump? Look at the men on
Speaker 1: this stage collectively, they have lost ten elections. The only
Speaker 1: people on this stage who have won every single election
Speaker 1: that they've been in are the women. Told me a
Speaker 1: liar on National TV. He's a little I think you
Speaker 1: told me a liar on National MOVING. Let's not do
Speaker 1: it right now. You want to have that discussion, we'll
Speaker 1: have that discussion. You call meal and you told me.
Speaker 1: I just want to say hydriden good. If you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, you've got to see that last clip with
Speaker 1: the Curb your Enthusiasm music dubbed over. It's and not
Speaker 1: only because the Larry David Bernie Sanders likeness, but it's
Speaker 1: just too perfect for that whole episode. So you probably
Speaker 1: been following this. It's almost getting annoying at this point.
Speaker 1: The mini confrontation what I would call sort of an
Speaker 1: Iran Iraq war, which you really don't want to get
Speaker 1: in the way of between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren CNN.
Speaker 1: Of course, it seems probably leaked from the Warren camp
Speaker 1: or those close to the Warren camp, comments from Bernie
Speaker 1: saying that a woman couldn't be president with respect to
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren, I believe, back in twenty eighteen. Then Bernie
Speaker 1: during the debate the other night, gets asked, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially a do you beat your wife's sort of question effectively,
Speaker 1: especially for the Democratic fields. He denies it, but then
Speaker 1: of course they act in asking Warren about it as
Speaker 1: if he didn't just deny it, and then after when
Speaker 1: it shouldn't have been recorded, there's a hot mic with
Speaker 1: this whole exchange between Bernie and Warren, and I think
Speaker 1: we have to stop and ask ourselves for a minute.
Speaker 1: Why is it that the long knives, at least at
Speaker 1: CNN seemed to be out for Bernie Sanders. You know,
Speaker 1: he claimed that the twenty sixteen primary with Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: was rigged in her favor, and I think that's absolutely
Speaker 1: the case, and there's plenty of empirical evidence to show it.
Speaker 1: Why now, you know, their ideas Bernie versus Warren's ideas
Speaker 1: are not all that different. She just polishes it with
Speaker 1: a more sort of academic and serious kind of face
Speaker 1: to it, more rigorous and substantive garbage. But why are
Speaker 1: the long knives out for him? I would suggest the
Speaker 1: long knives are out for Bernie because they recognize that
Speaker 1: he is a serious threat to win this thing. You know, Bernie.
Speaker 1: It looks like Biden is going to sort of cruise
Speaker 1: to the finish, even though he really has been incoherent,
Speaker 1: largely for almost the entire set of debates. He's wrong.
Speaker 1: He's been wrong on every single issue in public life
Speaker 1: that matters. He represented a terrible administration that preceded this one.
Speaker 1: You know, and look at look at what is the
Speaker 1: substance of the democratic message. It's, you know, let's keep
Speaker 1: terrorists alive, solomni let's bribe and appease adversary regimes. I ran.
Speaker 1: China isn't a problem, says Joe Biden, and then he
Speaker 1: has the gaul to go out there and attack this
Speaker 1: Phase one China trade deal that we'll be talking about
Speaker 1: a little bit later this evening. Socialized medicine, open borders, infanticide.
Speaker 1: Take an economy that's rip roaring from the perspective of
Speaker 1: job growth and wage growth and expansion in industries that
Speaker 1: had been hollowed out and destroyed in the past, repatriation
Speaker 1: of something like a trillion dollars. I believe in wealth
Speaker 1: back to America, confronting our enemies, which is in our
Speaker 1: economic and national security interest. That's their message. All. No
Speaker 1: matter who their nominee is, he's going to be pulled
Speaker 1: in that direction at the very least to win the primary.
Speaker 1: You know, Biden doesn't really have any beliefs as far
Speaker 1: as I can tell, So he's going to be a
Speaker 1: kind of weak representative of the leftist mating factors that
Speaker 1: are really what's driving this entire Democratic Party, which is
Speaker 1: why we're having impeachment right now in the first place,
Speaker 1: which is why Nancy Pelosi has completely caved to the
Speaker 1: squad and almost every single issue imaginable. Why are the
Speaker 1: long knives out for Bernie because he actually believes in
Speaker 1: this stuff. It represents where the energy in the party is,
Speaker 1: and he has a real chance to win it. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. He has a real chance to win it.
Speaker 1: So this party that talks about their concern for democracy, well,
Speaker 1: if he is the candidate that prevails in their democratic
Speaker 1: Democrat process, shouldn't they let him go? I think they
Speaker 1: recognize the powers that be, their political establishment recognizes that
Speaker 1: Bernie could likely be suicide for them. But you know
Speaker 1: what separates Bernie from the other candidates is that he
Speaker 1: actually believes the communist sort of rhetoric. He's got communists
Speaker 1: working for his team. You've probably seen the Gulag video
Speaker 1: that came out of one of his staffers recently. He's
Speaker 1: got a swam mess on his team, like Linda Sarsour
Speaker 1: not to mention on Omar and the like the long
Speaker 1: knives around because they think he's serious. And then you notice,
Speaker 1: and I believe Buck might have talked about this yesterday.
Speaker 1: Well let's go to clip six. Let's go to clip six.
Speaker 1: And I want to say, that's a night for me
Speaker 1: was dispiriting. Democrats got to do better what we saw
Speaker 1: at night. There was nothing I saw at Knight that
Speaker 1: would be able to take Donald Trump out. And I
Speaker 1: want to see a Democrat in the White House as
Speaker 1: soon as possible. There was nothing to night that if
Speaker 1: you're looking at this thing, you say, any of these
Speaker 1: people are prepared for what Donal Trump is gonna do
Speaker 1: to us? That was Van Jones and I agree with
Speaker 1: Van Jones on his political assessment here, and he's not alone,
Speaker 1: by the way. Al Sharpton also came out on MSNBC
Speaker 1: Famous Race. Bader visited the Obama's White House, however many
Speaker 1: dozens of times as treated as a legitimate figure in
Speaker 1: spite of the fact that he incited literal pigrums in
Speaker 1: New York. Becoming relevant again now sad way, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years later, Sharpton two afraid none of these
Speaker 1: people can go toe to toe with Trump again. You know, frankly,
Speaker 1: I agree with their assessment. You have to ask why, though,
Speaker 1: why why is it that they don't believe any of
Speaker 1: them can compete with Trump? And why would they come
Speaker 1: out and say this. Could it be that they're trying
Speaker 1: to create sort of a ground swell on the left
Speaker 1: for a different candidate to emerge. Could it be maybe
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama? And we've heard this rumor before, but the
Speaker 1: Obama team has been awfully quiet, and there are reports
Speaker 1: out there saying that if Bernie were a seriously challenge
Speaker 1: and potentially be in a position to become the nominee,
Speaker 1: that Obama would speak out. Could it be that this
Speaker 1: is all sort of an elaborate employ given out week
Speaker 1: Biden as ban and remember Barack Obama would not endorse
Speaker 1: the odds on favorite in their field. Could it be
Speaker 1: that this is all about a draft Michelle movement? She
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it, but then the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: forced her and it was her patriotic duty to do
Speaker 1: so so that she could once again be proud of
Speaker 1: America again. And one of my colleagues at the Federalists
Speaker 1: today as an article, Tristan Justice, has an article about
Speaker 1: how could it be that the delay in the impeachment
Speaker 1: is about rigging Iowa against Bernie Sanders? Again, rigging it
Speaker 1: against Bernie? Why would that be? Well, if Bernie and
Speaker 1: his fellow senaitors who are running are forced to be
Speaker 1: sitting for the impeachment trial, and it looks like it's
Speaker 1: going to run right up against the start. Certainly at
Speaker 1: a minimum of the Democratic primary process, including I believe
Speaker 1: the February third Iowa caucuses, he'll be off the campaign trail,
Speaker 1: taking him off the field. Now that that obviously supports Biden.
Speaker 1: Could it go beyond Biden? Could it go to a
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama. Incidentally, there's also a caucus change that happened
Speaker 1: in the rules for Iowa that you might not have
Speaker 1: heard about. This was in the Transom which Ben Dominic's
Speaker 1: great news letter Ben Dominech, publisher of The Federalist. He
Speaker 1: quotes an article which talks about how, for the first time,
Speaker 1: i quote in the history of Iowa's Democratic caucuses, the
Speaker 1: party will report the raw vote count for each candidate,
Speaker 1: and because of idiosyncrasies in the caucus process, the person
Speaker 1: with the most votes at the beginning won't necessarily be
Speaker 1: the one with the biggest delegate hall at the end.
Speaker 1: Think of it as Iowa's version of the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: electoral college issue. In Iowa, traditionally it's the delegates the matter,
Speaker 1: and party leaders here are emphasized that shouldn't change. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the presidential primary contest comes down to who gets the
Speaker 1: most delegates. But the disclosure of two vote tallies and
Speaker 1: one delegate counts on the night of the February third
Speaker 1: caucuses and move made to inject more transparency into the
Speaker 1: caucus process is threatening to muddle the narrative coming out
Speaker 1: of Iowa. And here's the real takeaway. Depending on how
Speaker 1: the numbers are interpreted, there's a scenario in which more
Speaker 1: than one candidate could claim a win quote unquote, do
Speaker 1: you see they're starting to rig the process and all
Speaker 1: sorts of ways. The question is is it for Bernie
Speaker 1: or is it for someone else? And before we go
Speaker 1: to break, I want to talk just briefly a little
Speaker 1: bit about impeachment. You know, it's sort of infringes upon
Speaker 1: in some ways, their entire primary process. It puts a
Speaker 1: cloud over it. It's obviously intended to put a cloud
Speaker 1: over the entire Trump presidency. I hate talking about impeachment
Speaker 1: because I think it's an illegitimate process, both in terms
Speaker 1: of the procedural way that it's been pushed onto us,
Speaker 1: imposed on Congress, and imposed upon the American people. When
Speaker 1: all of these Democrats, including Jerry Nader and others, you know,
Speaker 1: during the Clinton impeachment trial, we're saying one thing now
Speaker 1: and during these proceedings are saying another. It's not only
Speaker 1: rigged on the process, but I think it's totally illegitimate
Speaker 1: on the merits as well. So I really don't like
Speaker 1: talking about it, and I don't like focusing on it
Speaker 1: because I don't think it is worthy of our focus
Speaker 1: and attention, because it's not worthy of our American political system,
Speaker 1: our constitutional republic. But you know, yesterday the House Democratic
Speaker 1: Managers prayerfully and somberly signed the impeachment article as using
Speaker 1: approximately one seven hundred and seventy six pens, with Nancy
Speaker 1: Plosa screaming out, you get a pen, and you get
Speaker 1: a pen, and you get a pen. But they were
Speaker 1: very serious and somber, prayerful, thoughtful, and then they had
Speaker 1: their procession, their little awake as they're in mourning, as
Speaker 1: they went over to the Senate. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: of these impeachment managers, six of them publicly supported impeaching
Speaker 1: the president before the quote unquote whistle blower complaints regarding
Speaker 1: the phone call with the president of Ukraine Zelinski. You
Speaker 1: know that this is a ruse. Well, what is impeachment
Speaker 1: actually about? What should we be how should we be
Speaker 1: thinking about this given that it's a total charade. Obviously
Speaker 1: they're the sort of immediate term considerations, the political attack
Speaker 1: considerations for the left. You know, this is about paralyzing
Speaker 1: the Trump agenda in an election year. It's about fundraising,
Speaker 1: it's about appeasing the extremist progressive base which is currently
Speaker 1: ascendant in the Democratic party, and I believe is taking
Speaker 1: it over. If not, it may have already taken it
Speaker 1: over in some ways, potentially forcing the administration or Republicans
Speaker 1: and both the House and the Senate into making tactical errors,
Speaker 1: forcing the administration to produce all sorts of documents that
Speaker 1: they can that the Democrats can then portray in the
Speaker 1: worst possible way and attempt to smear the administration again
Speaker 1: going into an election year, maybe most important way from
Speaker 1: a political perspective, forcing Republican senators into making tough votes,
Speaker 1: potentially delegitimizing President Trump for a second term. What I
Speaker 1: think the importance of impeachment is is it's the same
Speaker 1: significance as Kavanaugh. You know, the Kavanaugh hearings were much
Speaker 1: bigger than Kavanaugh. It was about the nature of our
Speaker 1: political adversary and the way that they play the game
Speaker 1: and the rules that they adhere to or don't adhere to.
Speaker 1: And if it wasn't clear to you, then, frankly, if
Speaker 1: it wasn't clear to you back in the days of
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, the Left play is to
Speaker 1: win at all costs. They'll invoke the Constitution on the
Speaker 1: one end, and they'll shred up the Constitution on the
Speaker 1: other when it suits them, they claim that impeachment is
Speaker 1: a purely political process when their party controls it in
Speaker 1: the House, and a purely strictly legal process when it
Speaker 1: ultimately hits the Senate. We're up against the political adversary
Speaker 1: that wants to destroy us to retain its own power
Speaker 1: and privilege and grow it. There's no level to which
Speaker 1: they won't sink, There's no amount of shame to which
Speaker 1: they won't reach, There's no level hypocrisy doesn't matter for them. Remember,
Speaker 1: since before the start of the Trump presidency, it was resist, resist, resist,
Speaker 1: and our side doesn't fight the same way. With few exceptions,
Speaker 1: you know, it's movement conservatives and a fraction of a
Speaker 1: fraction of those in Congress and elsewhere. Trump has shown
Speaker 1: the way tactically and strategically how to fight the left,
Speaker 1: to fight fire with fire. Yes, sort of like Solomoni.
Speaker 1: Solomoni was a game changer because the other side never
Speaker 1: expected it. Our side needs to act like that on
Speaker 1: more issues, core issues that are about defending and protecting
Speaker 1: this constitutional republic that we love. The left will never, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: ever stop fighting till the day Donald Trump is out
Speaker 1: of office, and then probably after he's out of office,
Speaker 1: they'll pursue him, and then they'll go after the next
Speaker 1: Republican and the next one and the next one. Because
Speaker 1: for them politics it's not even religion. It goes beyond religion.
Speaker 1: For them, it's their entire being. They're wholly consumed by it.
Speaker 1: For them, in their view, it's about good versus evil,
Speaker 1: and they need to destroy us because we're either evil
Speaker 1: or stupid. We're seeing this view manifest itself even in
Speaker 1: the private sector, which is controlled by progressives. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit later, but for now,
Speaker 1: I want to leave you with a message that impeachment,
Speaker 1: what it should represent for us is this, this is
Speaker 1: the nature of the left. We need to fight with
Speaker 1: the same intensity, with the same rigor, with the same
Speaker 1: seriousness that they bring to the table, because they fight
Speaker 1: us every single day of every single year. And it's
Speaker 1: about time we woke up to it. This president has
Speaker 1: the entire Republican Party must This has been war in
Speaker 1: for Buck Sexon on The Buck Sexton Show. We'll be
Speaker 1: back reddet you're in. This is the Buck Sexton Show Podcast.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Buck Sexton Show. This is Ben
Speaker 1: Weingarten in for Buck Sexton. We only have a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes before my next guest, who I'm very pleased
Speaker 1: to have on, Johnny Eastman, comes on and joins the program,
Speaker 1: and before we get to that conversation, I need to
Speaker 1: provide a little bit of framing for it. Eastman is
Speaker 1: one of the premier scholars in my view when it
Speaker 1: comes to constitutional matters, in particular dealing with immigration and
Speaker 1: national sovereignty. And in our prior segment we were talking
Speaker 1: about impeachment and the nature of the Democrats march and
Speaker 1: that they'll fight dirty, they'll fight any which way to
Speaker 1: win on any grounds they possibly can. And one of
Speaker 1: the most nefarious ways that they do it is through
Speaker 1: not even amnesty, but the very fact that non citizens
Speaker 1: and in in particular disproportionately illegal aliens are able to come here,
Speaker 1: and Democrats promote it because it actually impacts the political
Speaker 1: process even before they potentially all get amnestied at some
Speaker 1: future point. And I've talked about this before and it's
Speaker 1: relatively arcane, but bear with me because it's really significant.
Speaker 1: We talked about the census and what the census means
Speaker 1: for political power for your vote and the votes of
Speaker 1: every American. The census tells us how many people and
Speaker 1: that includes citizens and non citizens, including millions of illegal aliens,
Speaker 1: reside in the US. And those total population numbers, not
Speaker 1: just the number of citizens, not just the number of
Speaker 1: eligible voters and the like. Those numbers are what is
Speaker 1: used actually to determine entire legislative districts, so apportionment of
Speaker 1: congressional seats. We today count again millions of millions of
Speaker 1: non citizens in these numbers, and what does that do well.
Speaker 1: Report came out from the Center for Immigration Studies, which
Speaker 1: believes in restricting immigration numbers, and it showed this. The
Speaker 1: twenty twenty census will show that the presence of all
Speaker 1: illegal of all immigrants, which is naturalized citizens, legal residents,
Speaker 1: and illegal aliens and their US born minor children, is
Speaker 1: responsible for a shift of twenty six House seats. Twenty
Speaker 1: six house seats of the twenty six seats that will
Speaker 1: be lost due to redistricting due to these total population
Speaker 1: numbers that come from the insis that includes millions of
Speaker 1: non citizens including illegal aliens. Twenty four are from states
Speaker 1: that voted for Donald Trump in twenty sixteen. Of states
Speaker 1: that will gain House seats because of immigration. Nineteen will
Speaker 1: go to the Soldiway Democrat states of California and New York,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Massachusetts in Illinois, Texas is the only solid
Speaker 1: or solidy Republican state that will gain, while Florida is
Speaker 1: a swing state. So what I want to talk about
Speaker 1: with John Eastman is how did we get to such
Speaker 1: a place where non citizens could so gravely impact the
Speaker 1: power of your vote, the weight of your vote, and
Speaker 1: disenfranchise you without even a mass amnesty. This is Ben
Speaker 1: Wegarden in for Buck Sexton. We'll be up with Professor
Speaker 1: John Eastman right after this. Thanks for listening to The
Speaker 1: bus S Show podcasts. Remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Buck Sexton Show. This is Ben
Speaker 1: Weingarten in for Buck Sexton, and before the break I
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about the impact of non citizens
Speaker 1: in our census count and how that drastically has swung
Speaker 1: political power. Based upon some one study that has come
Speaker 1: out regarding what non citizens will do to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: population numbers in the census count, and those population numbers
Speaker 1: translate that into how the electoral map is drawn and
Speaker 1: basically give Democrats substantial power because mass illegal alien populations,
Speaker 1: even if they're never amnesty, it'll ultimately swing power to
Speaker 1: you guessed it generally democratic districts. And I have on
Speaker 1: the line with me an expert in not only constitutional
Speaker 1: law generally, but in particular immigration and has written and
Speaker 1: spoken at length about these and other relevant issues. And
Speaker 1: that's doctor John Eastman, who's the founding director of the
Speaker 1: Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and a senior Fellow
Speaker 1: of the Claremont Institute. And he also serves as the
Speaker 1: Henry Salvatory Professor of Law and Community Service at Chapman
Speaker 1: University's Daily four School of Law. Doctor Eastman, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Well, thanks very much. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that the introduction is such a mouthful. Not a problem
Speaker 1: at all, and it's a testament to your scholarship and
Speaker 1: your great work. And I want to start in a
Speaker 1: sort of a fundamental question that I think most Americans
Speaker 1: would find curious if they were aware of it, and
Speaker 1: that is, why are non citizens, including millions of legal aliens,
Speaker 1: counted in our census? And why does that number dictate.
Speaker 1: Then how the districts are drawn for house seats across
Speaker 1: the country. Well, it's it's kind of grown up over
Speaker 1: time with a kind of false understanding of the constitution.
Speaker 1: The Constitution says, for our senses, every ten years, we
Speaker 1: have to count all persons. And then you know, treated
Speaker 1: slaves as three fifths of a person. That was largely
Speaker 1: designed to minimize the electoral weight of the Southern states.
Speaker 1: And then and then excluding Indians not taxed. And the
Speaker 1: point of that last clause is a recognition that there
Speaker 1: are some people here on our shores, within our borders,
Speaker 1: who are not part of our political community, and we're
Speaker 1: not going to count them in the census, because, as
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence sets out, government is based on
Speaker 1: the consent of the government. That means the people who
Speaker 1: form part of the political community are the only ones
Speaker 1: that are entitled to representation in that political community. Excluding
Speaker 1: Indians not taxed was the example of people within our
Speaker 1: borders at the time who were not part of our
Speaker 1: political community. And therefore we're not going to be counted
Speaker 1: because that would skew the representation of those who were
Speaker 1: entitled to be represented in our halls of governments. That
Speaker 1: whether it's the excluding Indians not tax clause or a
Speaker 1: more limited understanding of person, that meant persons who are
Speaker 1: here and part of our political community, not anybody who
Speaker 1: happens to be here temporarily visiting, would be counted. And
Speaker 1: that's the only theory that's consistent with the doctrine of
Speaker 1: consent outlined in the Declaration of Independence. So do we not,
Speaker 1: in effect today have foreign interference in our elections? Writ
Speaker 1: large by dinner of the fact that millions of illegal
Speaker 1: aliens dictate how much the relative vote of one person
Speaker 1: living in California is versus another person living in Alabama.
Speaker 1: Let's say, well, that's absolutely true, and let me know,
Speaker 1: kind of push the example here, the hypothetical. Let's suppose
Speaker 1: you've got a district that has one legal voter and
Speaker 1: half a million illegal immigrants or even temporary visitors who
Speaker 1: are on student visas who are not eligible to vote.
Speaker 1: That one voter gets to choose a member of Congress,
Speaker 1: whereas in the next distric over that have a half
Speaker 1: million citizens, each one of them gets one one five
Speaker 1: hundred thousandth of the weight of that vote for that
Speaker 1: member of Congress. That vote dilution that occurs by counting
Speaker 1: illegal immigrants, legal immigrants who are not citizens, people who
Speaker 1: are on temporary visitors, what have you, that really skews
Speaker 1: and dilutes the vote of those citizens in other districts.
Speaker 1: One other example on this, and I think it's important,
Speaker 1: let's suppose the nineteen eighty four Olympics in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: was actually held four years earlier in nineteen eighty when
Speaker 1: the census was going on. That brought several million people
Speaker 1: from around the world to Los Angeles, and if we
Speaker 1: had counted them just because they were persons who were
Speaker 1: physically present at the time the census was being conducted,
Speaker 1: we would have handed Los Angeles County and therefore California
Speaker 1: half a dozen new congressional seats as a result of
Speaker 1: people who were just temporary visitors here. The absurdity of
Speaker 1: that should explain what's wrong with the way we're doing
Speaker 1: the census now. And of course, amazingly, during the Trump term,
Speaker 1: we've seen this huge debate and I sort of noticed
Speaker 1: that it was going to become an emerging issue when
Speaker 1: former Attorney General Eric Holder started to write and speak
Speaker 1: publicly about it. In terms of the census citizenship question,
Speaker 1: which as our listeners might recall, the Trump administration wanted
Speaker 1: to simply ask are you a citizen or not? To
Speaker 1: the head of households responding to the census, something where
Speaker 1: there's a long history of asking different derivations of this question,
Speaker 1: and even on the non main census, the Obama administration
Speaker 1: asked a similar question, not asking someone to incriminate themselves,
Speaker 1: and we can debate whether they should or not be
Speaker 1: asked really the more important question, which is are you
Speaker 1: here legally or not? But rather are you a citizen
Speaker 1: or not? And the Democrats fought this tooth and nail,
Speaker 1: and ultimately one in the courts on what I would
Speaker 1: argue your ass and on grounds and I'm sure you
Speaker 1: probably have a similar view on that that the question
Speaker 1: should be kicked out, basically because the courts didn't approve
Speaker 1: of the way that the Trump administration went about incorporating
Speaker 1: the question. But recently a study came out and part
Speaker 1: of the reason the Democrats argued against the inclusion of
Speaker 1: this question was that they said, well, look, non citizens
Speaker 1: and presumably illegal aliens will be afraid to contribute to
Speaker 1: the census if this question is asked, because they'll be
Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form, incriminating themselves. But the
Speaker 1: Census did a test on this, and it recently came
Speaker 1: out that actually there would not be a statistically significant
Speaker 1: or meaningful drop off in responses to this question about
Speaker 1: census citizenship. So I just want to get your general
Speaker 1: take on what do you make of that study and
Speaker 1: the census citizenship debate more broadly. Well, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: asked about citizenship, not surprisingly on every census that had
Speaker 1: been done up until nineteen fifty, safer one or two
Speaker 1: back in the early eighteen hundreds, and then since nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty it was asked on every census on the long form,
Speaker 1: which went to a statistically significant but not entirely every
Speaker 1: household on the long form census. It was only in
Speaker 1: the twenty ten Census that it was drawn from either
Speaker 1: the regular census or the long form census form during
Speaker 1: the Obama administration. Now, to be fair, that dropping of
Speaker 1: it occurred earlier during the Bush administration, but they had
Speaker 1: moved it to the annual Community Survey. But the fact
Speaker 1: that we're not asking that on the decenial census that
Speaker 1: the Constitution mandates every ten years means that people have
Speaker 1: gotten this completely crazy notion that our representation ought to
Speaker 1: be based on non citizens as well as citizen and
Speaker 1: it completely destroys the notion of consent as the basis
Speaker 1: of our government. Anybody who happens to be here gets
Speaker 1: a share in the weight of representation, even if they
Speaker 1: can't vote for that representative. That's absurd, and no other
Speaker 1: country in the world does that. And in fact, the
Speaker 1: United Nations some years ago recommended to all member or
Speaker 1: nations that they ask about citizenship on their senses. And
Speaker 1: I thought that the left believed in the UN as
Speaker 1: the highest body in the globe. So it's quite a
Speaker 1: rod I don't right. And and in the next segment
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about a similar policy to that,
Speaker 1: which is the remain in Mexico policy, which we'll get
Speaker 1: to in a minute, and what international law would say
Speaker 1: about that. But I do think it also is worth
Speaker 1: noting that it is not only your voting power in effect,
Speaker 1: they can get deluded or artificially bumped as a result
Speaker 1: of counting non citizens, but it's also how hundreds of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars in federal funds are allocated. In a
Speaker 1: lot of respects. It is really about you getting less
Speaker 1: representation in some ways than non citizens getting representation. Well,
Speaker 1: that's right. And look, I've been a leading proponent of
Speaker 1: the view that all of these grants and aid programs
Speaker 1: to the states that serve particular constituencies or particular regions
Speaker 1: rather than furthering the general or national welfare, are unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: The Article one, section eight clause that allows for spending
Speaker 1: says spending for the common defense, not the local police
Speaker 1: force and the general welfare. That doesn't mean I get
Speaker 1: to widen, you know, the road in my community. Maybe
Speaker 1: I can participate an interstate highway system, but I don't
Speaker 1: get to put palm trees on the center median of
Speaker 1: my main street because that's not the general welfare, that's
Speaker 1: the local welfare. And so, you know, we have for
Speaker 1: about eighty years now ignored that fundamental limitation on the
Speaker 1: power of Congress and completely distorted funding mechanisms where we
Speaker 1: now have complete disconnect between the taxes raised and the
Speaker 1: benefits being provided. Used to be if I was going
Speaker 1: to provide a benefit, I would tax the people that
Speaker 1: were going to benefit from it, and they could make
Speaker 1: them a judgment or whether it was worth the taxes
Speaker 1: to pay for the benefit or not. Now we've got
Speaker 1: this crazy situation where people are in Rhode Island are
Speaker 1: paying to widen my road in Long Beach and vice versa,
Speaker 1: and there's complete disconnect and it's an unconstitutional one and
Speaker 1: it's exacerbated when they're sending money to provide welfare programs
Speaker 1: that inevitably end up in the hands of people who
Speaker 1: are not even here legally. And somebody will tell me, well,
Speaker 1: the statutes all prohibit illegal immigrants from having access to
Speaker 1: these programs. And then you do a follow up question
Speaker 1: and you ask any single welfare office do you check
Speaker 1: on whether somebody applying for the benefits is here legally
Speaker 1: or not? And they say, no, we're not allowed to
Speaker 1: do so. Of course, there's a massive amount of fraud
Speaker 1: on those welfare programs and that because of money is
Speaker 1: flown and they're creating a constituency for one political party
Speaker 1: in this country rather than another, which is another dangerous
Speaker 1: aspect of all of this. This has Ben Wangarton in
Speaker 1: for Buck Sexton more with doctor John Eastman. Just after
Speaker 1: this quick break, you're in the Freedom Hud. This is
Speaker 1: the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Welcome back to the Buck
Speaker 1: Sexton Show. This is Ben Wangarton in four buck Sexton,
Speaker 1: and we've been talking with doctor John Eastman about all
Speaker 1: things immigration, in particular on the sense of citizenship question
Speaker 1: and what that means for the power of your vote
Speaker 1: and really the broad disproportionate foreign interference that we see
Speaker 1: that the Left doesn't seem to care about because of course,
Speaker 1: in this case it works for them. I mentioned before
Speaker 1: the break the remain in Mexico policy, and apparently Democrats
Speaker 1: are planning in the House, are planning on probing this policy. Doctors,
Speaker 1: can you tell us a little bit about what that
Speaker 1: policy entails regarding asylum claims and then speak to the
Speaker 1: legitimacy of it. Well, there's international treaties on this that
Speaker 1: deal with refugees, and the rule is you're supposed to
Speaker 1: claim refugee status or seek asylum as a refugee or
Speaker 1: somebody who would be politically prosecuted or persecuted in your
Speaker 1: home country in the first safe country that you arrive in.
Speaker 1: That's not what's happening with a massive amount of immigration
Speaker 1: from Central America and South America through Mexico into the
Speaker 1: United States. They are just bypassing Mexico or the other
Speaker 1: countries on their route in order to get to the
Speaker 1: United States, which is a pretty good indication this is
Speaker 1: not true asylum effort. They're just trying to get to
Speaker 1: a better economy, and I don't blame them from trying.
Speaker 1: The question is whether we were legally obligated to the
Speaker 1: President Trump saying no, you're gonna have to ask for
Speaker 1: asylum in the first country of origin or we're not
Speaker 1: going to accept you. Now, that means people that we're
Speaker 1: pleaing religious or political persecution in Mexico would have a
Speaker 1: claim for seeking asylum in the United States. But people
Speaker 1: coming up from Guatemala and Venezuela or Honduras or Nicaragua
Speaker 1: through Mexico, where they could seek asylum there, and then
Speaker 1: bypassing that and seeking it in the United States are
Speaker 1: leap frogging this rule. Now. I've not done a deep
Speaker 1: dive on the application of the rule. There's some indication
Speaker 1: that maybe you have to have a bilateral agreement in
Speaker 1: place with the particular country, like we would have to
Speaker 1: have one with Mexico before that can be triggered. I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to that, but it's certainly something
Speaker 1: that the United States ought to be pursuing vigorously is
Speaker 1: to enforce this international norm that asylum seekers need to
Speaker 1: ask for asylum when they get to the first safe
Speaker 1: place to do it. Lastly, in about a minute and
Speaker 1: a half or so, there was a ruling from I believe,
Speaker 1: a federal judge in Manhattan putting a temporary halt sorry
Speaker 1: in Maryland rather putting Freudian slip there, putting a temporary
Speaker 1: halt on the ability for states, and I believe even
Speaker 1: smaller jurisdictions than just states, to reject refugees being resettled
Speaker 1: within their borders by a result of the Trump administration
Speaker 1: executive action on the matter, which makes intuitive sense. If
Speaker 1: you don't believe that refugees should be resettled in your state,
Speaker 1: why should you be forced to accept them? But now
Speaker 1: a judge just said no, an individual governor, for example,
Speaker 1: what Governor Abbott in Texas cannot reject refugees being resettled
Speaker 1: in their states? What do you make of the ruling
Speaker 1: in general? And then the problem of nationwide injunctions more broadly, well,
Speaker 1: so the ruling in general, the judge starts off, he's
Speaker 1: wringing his hand as melogrammatic. He says, this violates every
Speaker 1: norm and it violates this clear text of the statue
Speaker 1: and whatever. Well, you know, he doesn't ever actually cite
Speaker 1: this text of the statue, And the text of the
Speaker 1: statue specifically says that in our resettlement programs, we're supposed
Speaker 1: to consult with the state and local government officials, and
Speaker 1: if they don't want the refugees, we need not place
Speaker 1: them there. The Trump order doesn't doesn't give the state
Speaker 1: and local government officials an absolute veto, as the judge claimed.
Speaker 1: It just says, if we don't want them, the United
Speaker 1: States is not going to force the refugees on them
Speaker 1: unless the United States determines that it's absolutely necessary. So
Speaker 1: on both counts, that the statute doesn't involve the state
Speaker 1: and local governments, the judge is wrong. And that it
Speaker 1: gives the state and local governments an absolute veto, the
Speaker 1: judge is wrong. So I have no doubt that that
Speaker 1: decision will ultimately be overturned. Whether in the Fourth Circuit
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals that supervises the Maryland courts or ultimately
Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court, remains to be seen, but it
Speaker 1: will eventually be overturned. So flatley contrary to the statute. Now,
Speaker 1: the other issue about nationwide at junctions. As you ask,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is already strongly indicated that there is
Speaker 1: a huge problem with a single federal trial judge sitting
Speaker 1: in Baltimore, Maryland, or in Hawaii or in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: basically altering the political policy judgments of the elected branch
Speaker 1: of government, the elected president by issuing a nationwide injunction.
Speaker 1: The leftists on the courts who are smart, understand the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court is about to shoot that whole thing down,
Speaker 1: and so they are modifying their own district court nationwide
Speaker 1: injunctions to apply only to the particular parties in the case.
Speaker 1: But you still get these outlier judges who just think
Speaker 1: they can buy a stroke of a pen, become president
Speaker 1: of the United States and set our immigration policy. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely outrageous, and I look forward to the Trump administration
Speaker 1: hopefully fighting this vigorously at the Supreme Court and prevailing.
Speaker 1: All right, doctor Usman, We're going to leave it right there.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time to come on today.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Ben, Take care and this has been
Speaker 1: Ben Wangarten in four Bucks exton. I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for the time and sharing this time with me today.
Speaker 1: I hope you have a great evening, and we'll be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow.