Trump’s Jedi Mind Trick 07/26/17

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Mr garbut Schaw, tear down this wall. Either you're with
us or you were with the terrorists. If you've got
health care already, then you can keep your plan. If
you're satisfied with is not the President of the United States,
take it to the bank. Together, we will make America
great again. You'll never sharend It's what you've been waiting

(00:25):
for all day. Buck Sexton with America now joined the
conversation called Buck toll free at eight four four nine
hundred Buck. That's eight four four nine hundred two, eight
to five, sharp mind, strong voice, Buck Sexton, Team Buck,
Welcome to the Freedom Hut. Thank you so much for

(00:46):
being here. Honor, privilege and pleasure. Very much like the
chance to get to chat with you all as always
eight four four to five four hundred buck. I should
probably the Buck part of that first eight four four
nine hundred suck and then going to the number. But
lines are open. Love to hear from you. Please do
give a call. Much to discuss today. Oh my, you've

(01:09):
got the latest, or rather we've got because we're doing
this together here, we've got the latest on the Obamacare repeal.
Got Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General on the hot seat,
so to speak. What's gonna happen there. You've also got
Trump's trans ban, as they call it in the media
today based on the tweets from this morning. And uh

(01:32):
also Debbie Wasserman Schultz's I t U Information Technology aid
caught trying to flee the country, a story that you're
not going to see much coverage of it on cable news,
but we've got an in depth reporting from an investigative
reporter at the Daily Caller joining us to talk about that.
And then plus the the war within the State Department

(01:55):
over policy. It's the White House and Tillerson versus well,
I don't know if you call them deep date, but
they're resistant some people within this within state as we
call a state department. Uh, there's some problems there. We'll
talk about that. And then also because it is American
Heroes Week, which I should note is a White House
is a White House directive that this was supposed to

(02:15):
be American Heroes Week. Last week was made in USA week.
This week is American Heroes Week, and there's also a
theme for next week. I haven't seen a lot about
American Heroes Week, but we'll be doing in here on
the show, and we joined by UH an American hero today,
tomorrow and the next day telling us about well telling

(02:36):
us their stories. So stay tuned for that, UM. But
right now, here's what we've got. The the media is
completely focused on the transgender tweets from Trump and the
possibility of a transgender transgender ban in the military. UM.

(02:57):
And there are different different versions of events as to
how we got to those specific Trump tweets. UM. I
will tell you what what Trump said in them in
just a second. But the question that I really want
to address here first and foremost is what can we
say about whether there's a strategy behind all of this,

(03:17):
Because there are some things happening right now that in
isolation you could say it's just Trump dealing with the
media siege, it's Trump lashing out, it's Trump being erotic.
I don't know where you are, depends on the specific issue,
you know, and lots of opinions here are valid because
who really knows. But you have the UH Republicans in

(03:44):
the Senate struggling mightily with the reality that they have
now the power to do something about healthcare, but not
the will, and after years of telling us all that
they want to repeal and replace, so moomiccare. After all
those promises, and I've been detailing them for you because
we we need to remember, right we They would like

(04:06):
us to just move too. Well, it's a little bit better.
It's Obamacare light. Now they're talking about a skinny repeal. Uh,
that's what they're talking about, which is another way of
saying not repeal. Right, repeal is a thing you do
or do not repeal is a light switch up down right.
You either are or not, You either on or off.
Skinny repeal is a nice way of saying partial repeal,

(04:28):
which is another way of saying not repeal. You either
remove a law or you do not write. You either
get rid of the law and its entirety, or you
do not. They they're trying to create this middle ground,
which if that's the best they can do, they should
at least tell us that and not try to change
the language in some or welly inversion of not news
speak but political speak. Right, that's what they're That's what

(04:49):
I see them up to right now. But is Trump
creating space for them? Now? You can argue, I think
that this could be unintentional, but I'm really asking the question,
is there a method to the Trump now here is
there a strategy behind this, because the tweets he sent

(05:10):
out this morning have taken the focus off of the
fact that right now you don't have sixty votes for
the GOP Senate bill on healthcare. You don't even have
fifty votes. Based on what we've seen today for the
GOP healthcare bill. You can't even get to fifty. You
can't get Republicans all on board with you can't even

(05:31):
get you know, the majority needed, never mind all Republicans.
You've got a few that are definitely not on board.
And we've seen that from the beginning. So they've had
this motion to proceed that passed yesterday. But now here
we are looking at an actual bill and they're talking
about skinny repeal, and they're saying that there's gonna be
various iterations of this, and there will be a lot
of message massaging, if you will. There'll be a lot

(05:54):
of efforts to try and tell you that what's going
on here is not what you It's not what you see, right,
this is what do they what do they do that
the thing in Star warshere they wave the hand. You know,
this is not this is not the repeal you're looking for. Uh,
that's what's going on here. They're hoping to get their
act together or I think they are and Trump's antics

(06:17):
if you want to call it that, or important starting
of a discussion. It all depends on what you think
about the transgender troop ban. Uh. And it would be
based on his tweets. A band. Is this to take
the heat off the GOP senators for a moment they
can figure out what the what the heck is going on?
Or is this just Trump being Trump? Is it because

(06:40):
it creates some momentum for it or not momentum, some
credibility for him with the conservative base in preparation for
kicking out sessions. I mean, there are theories everywhere right now.
You've got theories come out all over the place. And
maybe that's just you know, there's there's something that I
would say that that's the Trump strategy in and of itself.
Just keep everybody guessing, keep everything moving, don't let them

(07:03):
form a cohesive anti GP, anti Trump narrative right now,
by just force them to chase around the soly the
shiny objects, so to speak. Right, Oh, it's the transgender
the transgender military band. Oh wait, no, are they gonna
fire Jeff Sessions? Oh wait no, it's actually a healthcare
billow all of this happening at the same time. This

(07:25):
is what Trump tweeted out. By the way, I should
establish that for us as we continue, uh this discussion
You've got Trump at earlier this morning, after consultation with
my generals and military experts, please be advised that the
United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals
to serve in any capacity in the US military. Our

(07:49):
military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and
cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption
that transgender in the military would entail. So that's what
Trump put out there, and and it it has led
to uh no surprise, I'm sure to any of you listening.

(08:13):
It has led to a media firestorm, a lot of
talk about Trump's bigotry, and people are throwing around the
word bigotry left and right now because of this. And
it is, by the way, if you want some of
the facts, I pulled them together for you. So just
to put this into context before we talk about the

(08:33):
trans band, which is I think that the shorthand a
lot of people are using right now for this um
and and I'm also not yet settled on what the
theory is or which theory I believe most. I've got
some inclinations right now about why the President would do
this this morning. But it certainly does. It certainly does

(08:54):
day facto distract from the Jeff Sessions might be fired talk,
and it distract from the the Senate and the GOP
Senate in disarray right now because if they can't pass
any bill, which seems like a distinct possibility, and you
know what exactly do we pay them for? Well, what
is this all about? Okay, but first on the on

(09:17):
the transgender band because Trump wrote this this morning, and
I should note that already people have started to say
this isn't policy, that the president is not, that there
will have to be an implementation period. Here General Maddie,
Secretary of Defense, guy running the Pentagon on the military,
he was already in the process of a review of
the transgender policy. Keep in mind, the current military policy

(09:41):
on transgender service members just went into or just was
announced by Secretary Defense Ash Carter in twenty sixteen. So
you're hearing a lot of talk today from a left
from the media about bigotry, and there's a there's a
tremendous amount of sanctimony and um and and berating of
the opposition of those who are supportive of Trump's tweets

(10:05):
on this. Meanwhile, for seven of his eight years, or
really until his eighth year in office, President Obama's commander
in chief was willing to let the pre the previous
policy of no transgender uh no transgender recognition and service
in the military stand right that there there could be
people who were transgender, but they wouldn't be recognized as transgender,

(10:27):
and there wouldn't be policies in place to accommodate that
within the military. Rans. That had been the policy until
the Obama administration, until the very end of the Obama administration.
But I want to do something before we just get
into and I've got some I've got a combat veteran
going to join us to talk about what this could
mean for military readin readiness. And I I'm saying right

(10:50):
up front that I wonder how much of this is
Trump just getting a what what is Largely I know
people talk about it as an issue of military readiness,
but for the left, it's a culture war issue. It's
really just about full recognition of transgender individuals as having
special rights. Right. No one's saying that transitor people don't

(11:11):
have rights, but these are special rights, additional rights, the
right to have your condition recognized and accommodated by the military.
If the military accommodates it, well, then that's a very
clear argument, both in law and socially speaking, for it
to be completely accommodated up and down society and across
the board. So that's what's at stake for the left here,

(11:33):
because when you when you look at it as a
matter of the numbers, and I actually pulled by the way,
this is what I do before I come on. Are
you know there's a lot of I know, a lot
of people are going to be squawking at you on
radio about this, and there are people on the on
the television is going rap rap up like they know
something about this. Uh. I actually read the read the
ash Carter policy Guidance the former Secretary of Defense. It's

(11:56):
seventy two pages for those who are wondering on how
uh this should be dealt with by UM by the
military specifically, I mean, how they should accommodate transgender is
and it's called Commander's Handbook for Transgender Service in the
US Military. I read that today because I wanted to
really know what the policies were and how this was
supposed to be handled. I also pulled up the stats

(12:19):
from a RAND study, RAN being one of the most
revered and well known think tanks in the world, on
exactly what we're talking about here. In terms of numbers, Uh,
military is very large, and many of you listening are
either current or former military. I know, but there's a
lot of folks in the military. You have about one

(12:41):
point three million active component service members according to this
RAND study, roughly speaking, and of that number, you have
about they estimate between two and three thousand transgender service members.
I mean they're they're at the very low end, it's hundred.

(13:01):
At the very high end of the estimates, it's about
sixties six hundred. But some of them are not seeking
gender related treatment or or so. Some of them are transgender,
identify as transgender, but are not actually looking to be
accommodated in any way by the military. So that's what
that's part of how you get this variation of numbers.
But so at a one point three million people, the millits.

(13:24):
I mean, the media is going into you know, overdrive,
and the media is really upset about this change in
policy that at maximum realistically would affect about three or
four thousand people in the military. Now, it's not to
denigrate anybody's service who serves this country. I think there
are some very worthwhile questions to ask and debates to

(13:47):
be had over Okay, you know, if you're already serving,
should this affect your service? You know, how how do
we how do we deal with this issue? But the
response from the left is I think what is most
politically useful for the Trump administration because here we have
more evidence that for progressives and for the Democratic Party,

(14:09):
social experimentation in the military is uh is something that
they're willing to do, possibly at the expense of war
fighting capability and military readiness. We've got a lot more
on this, and I also want to go back the
healthcare issue. Gotta talk to you about the Jeb the sessions. Uh,
we're on sort of sessions. Watch here to see if

(14:29):
he's actually gonna get outted, get fired. By the way,
I think that's not gonna happen. Just like I said yesterday,
I still don't buy it. Even though Trump has put
out some more stuff on that. Today on Twitter, I
got an absolutely jam pact show. You stay with me here,
We'll hit all those topics I talked about and more.
We'll be right back. This is really a mean spirited, unpatriotic,
and dangerous attack on people who are bravely serving their

(14:50):
country right now, Having eighteen year old kids who perform
and behave better than the capacity of our actoring commander
in chief and somebody who is trend tender not serve
the country, is that really what we're looking at you now.
You can't just declare a class of people is going
to get disparate treatment. That is the very definition of discrimination.
It was clearly an ill advised announcement, something that was

(15:13):
done at the spur of the moment, maybe even uh,
and it's undermining I think our national defense. There. You
have a series of people today in the media talking
about the Trump transgender tweets. Remember it's not an official
it's not an official policy enactment, but it is indicative
of where the commander in chief may move policy when
it comes to the Pentagon. By the way, you'll notice

(15:35):
they talk about disparate treatment and discrimination. This really comes
down to whether someone believes that to be transgender is
to be in the midst of dealing with a form
of mental illness or an identity that should be uh
should be recognized, accommodated, and in fact even celebrated. And
that's the divide here. Um. If you look in military rigs,

(15:58):
and I did today, I looked up some stuff on
the d O D website, they have various conditions that
would bar one from military service, including UH depression and
I believe I even saw that d H D attention.
Uh what are a d D attention? Depth is disorder?
Um is something that in some instances could be considered

(16:19):
a disqualifier for military service. So if you believe that
transgenderism is a delusion and a form of mental illness,
which obviously many people do, then that's a legitimate reason
to prevent someone from serving. If you believe the transgenderism
is a person's identity and that gender is an identity
separate from sex and sexual organs, well then you obviously

(16:41):
think that Trump's tweets are our way out of line.
I've got a veteran on the line. H Gregg from
Oklahoma wants to talk about this Uh, Gregg, thank you
very much. Man, appreciate your calling and what are your
thoughts a book? Thanks for having me. And you're you're
a combat veteran. I mean you deployed to a rock
front lines. You're a guy he's been so I think
that's necessary for this conversation. Go ahead, I mean necessary

(17:03):
to state and in terms of where you're coming from,
go ahead, No, absolutely, Buck. I think the biggest issue
is is I'm really tired of progressive using the military
is as Petrie dish for the culture war. Um, you know,
having women in combat with different standards. Now we're wanting
to push transsentered people into the military. Um. Like you said,

(17:26):
I had a d h D as a kid and
took medication for it when I was like six and
seven years old, and I still had to get away
to get into the military. Even though I've been eleven years.
I didn't even know that. There you go. I mean
that that's how strict some of these procedures are. Yeah. Absolutely,
And what you're doing is setting up a separate set
of state standards for a particular community. You're essentially protecting

(17:47):
this community and you're other rising them within the combat arms. Um. Community.
This is obviously a massive problem. These are people When
you go to combat like I did twice, UM, you know,
sometimes it's really rough and it's going to break even
the most mentally and physically strong person. And to have
somebody there that's in the unit that doesn't have, um

(18:08):
the correct capacity to perform an optimal level, having some
sort of chink in the armor that they will break
at some point. Gender dysphoria is something that I think
that they should be treated for, whether it's um, you know,
just medication and going to see a psychiatrist or having
gender reassignment surgery, whatever it is. Obviously don't care what

(18:29):
these people do, but having them uh inside the military
when the military is just there to close with and
kill the enemy as efficiently as possible. Having this Petrie
dish where we decide what we're gonna do and how
people are going to live their lives, and how we're
gonna help trans people transition into being UM, transgendered, whatever
that process is. We're spending time on that instead of

(18:51):
spending time on training UM. And like I said, the
other rising of these people and protecting them in the
military is going to be a massive issue. If you
have some that's, you know, the class pet for the teacher.
Everybody starts resenting that person because they're getting additional privileges.
But you're not going to get if you think about it, somebody, Greg,
we gotta we gotta run into a break here, man.
But I do appreciate you calling in, of course, appreciate

(19:14):
your service. Thanks for sharing your perspective. Greg. It's good
to hear from somebody who's been downrange and can really
talk to this. And uh, thank you, Greg, and team
will be right back. He's back with you now, because
when it comes to the fight for truth, the fuck
never stops. By the way, Team, that thing I was
trying to think about before, Uh, there's a Jedi mind trick.

(19:36):
I'm obviously I was gonna say, I'm obviously not a
Trek E, but that would be Star Trek on Star Wars.
And I'm just making it worse now, I'm just making
it worse. But yeah, a Jedi Jedi mind trick. A
couple of things I also wanted to put out there
for you. Since the ban on transgender service was was
repealed by the Obama administration, service members have applied to

(19:57):
change their gender in the military's person elsis two hundred
and fifty in total. You remember one point three million
act at one point three million in the military. Uh
so it's a very very very small percentage. Nonetheless, Um,
there are issues at stake here of combat readiness and
just the direction of the military and of the war

(20:18):
fighter overall, um, and how politicians are getting involved in
all this. I want to bring on another combat vet
to talk to us about it. We are joined out
by our friend Jesse Kelly. He is a Marine Corps
combat veteran and former congressional candidate and all around great guy. Jesse,
great to have you. Don't start lying to him about
that great guy stuff. Buck, you don't have to tell

(20:38):
everybody your secrets just yet. My friend, we're on we're
on live radio. So let's just let's just keep it going.
Let's get but I gotta get Jesse's by the way,
it was a lot of fun guy to talk to you,
But I gotta ask him a couple of serious questions here. First, Jesse.
Uh Trump Trump put out the tweets this morning. You
see a lot of people, well, you know what, actually,
let me have you respond to this. Jake Tapper had
a Lieutenant Command on his show earlier today, And here's

(21:02):
what was said, what do you make of politicians who
have not volunteered to serve their country, who have tried
to avoid military service telling you that you can't. I
think personnel decisions should really be left up to the
Secretary and his staff. Uh, we're the ones out there

(21:24):
doing the jobs. And that's what it is. We're already there,
we're already serving. And it causes a bigger disruption to
suddenly change personnel policies uh than it does for anything else.
And just like with any big company. H they've all
run big companies at some point or in time in

(21:44):
their life. And you don't suddenly fire a third of
your work you know, a portion of your workforce. Okay, Jesse,
what what would be your response to either Jake Tapper
or Lieutenant Commander there or both. Well, he's partially right
and he's partially wrong. And it does cause a disruption
if you all of a sudden't start cutting people out.
But right now, there's no intention to cut any people

(22:06):
out or kick any people out. This was a ban
on new people joining and the only reason there's a
disruption is because Obama decided to play politics, but the
whole thing and it was a completely political game to
even wow, to have it in the first place. This
doesn't happen in the military. You can have all kinds
of universal acceptance and love and society, and you should,

(22:28):
but that is not what the military is about. The
military is about killing America's enemies, period, and whatever helps
you get there, that's what you do. Do you think
that having transgender soldiers, having transgender service members in frontline positions,
in small combat positions, any number of places around the world, Um,
do you do you think that that maybe that's a problem,

(22:50):
And do you think that would hurt hurt morale, hurt readiness.
Of course it would. It's a horrible idea. Having been there,
I'm telling you, I've watched combat break men. It breaks men.
The stress of it is unbearable. And these people, they're
not people we need to hate. They're not people that
deserve our scorn, but they are people who are going
through something and the smallest of your issues they come

(23:13):
out on the front line, the smallest things that are wrong.
The stress of getting shot at, of going hungry, of
being hot, miserable, away from your family. It eats at everybody,
the strongest, at the strong and if you're dealing with
that issue mentally at the time, it can ruin you
and a cohesion. It can get people killed easily. We

(23:33):
had guys attempt suicide when I was there. These were
guys who were You looked at them and thought they
were put together. We don't need to be importing these
things into our military. It's a horrible idea. We don't
have to apologize for having standards. We have standards, but wait,
fitness everything else, we should have mental stability standards. Right,
we're speaking of Jesse Kelly here is a Marine Corps
comet veteran, former congressional candidate, Jesse. That's one issue that

(23:56):
I think has already come up, which is that there
are mental mental health requirements, and your mental health history
before you join the service is part of the consideration
for whether you can join or not. We had a
combat veteran call in a caller just before, a frequent
listener to the show saying that look his his his
a d D even came up when when he was
getting ready to join and he had to get a

(24:16):
waiver for it. So when people start throwing on terms
like discrimination and bigot because of this policy. I think
that does a disservice to the discussion, no matter what
one thinks it does. And they discriminate and should discriminate
for a million different things, for asthma, for eyesight, for
an old football knee surgery, for and that, and they should.

(24:37):
The military is not some all inclusive club to make
you feel better about yourself or your little quirks or
anything else. The military is there to protect the United
States of America by killing our enemies. That is the
purpose of the military. It is not there to make
you feel better about yourself. Jesse Kelly, Marine Corps veteran
former congressional candidate, appreciate you for joining us on the show,

(24:58):
my friend, and also appreciate your SERVI send uh. Let's
get a drink uptime of your New York all right,
we'll do a buck. I appreciate you brother, absolutely, you too, Matt.
Thanks for calling in, oh since I wanted to get
various perspectives from those who have been on the front
lines of combat on the show. So we're just going
through it this hour with a number of veterans. Now
we have Um Carl Higbie on the line now he's

(25:21):
a former Navy seal, Trump supporter and political commentator. Carl,
thanks for joining, well, thanks for Trump you I mean,
pardon me, Carl, you were an early Trump. You're not Trump.
You're an early Trump supporter, and you're also a former
Navy seal. Um. First off, what was what's with the
president tweeting this out this morning? You think is this
just to get the media going with a misdirection or

(25:42):
is this to get the conversation started? What's he doing?
I think he's getting the conversation started, Buck, I mean,
this is something that you know, he takes the military
very very seriously. And uh, I think this is something
that you know, people who are advocates for this transgender
thing in the military are don't take this seriously as
him and it bothers him. I think he takes it
to heart. Now you served, you're in theater, your Navy seal.

(26:07):
What do you think about I'm seeing all this stuff now,
you know CNN is people going on. They're saying that
there are a lot of people who are already serving
who are transgendered, that we should encourage more people who
are transgendered to serve. But I also see various war
fighters who have a media profile or people who speak
out on issues affecting the military, saying that, no, there

(26:27):
are real concerns here about unit cohesion and about combat effectiveness.
What do you think about all that is somebody who's
actually been on the front lines in combat. Yeah, So
the military is not a social experiment and the left
needs to stop using it as such. This is the
problem here is if you want to be I'm not
saying don't be transgender, like not for me, But if

(26:48):
you want to go do it, fine, go do whatever
you want. But here's the fundamentals. When I came back
to my rack in two thousand nine, I have skin
cancer in my family history, so I wanted to get
examined by a dermatologist by the military. They refused to
keep me to a dermatologist. But yet they're gonna give
somebody fake boobs. I mean, this is this doesn't They're
going to give a man fake boobs. I mean that
that doesn't make sense. But additionally, the problem here is

(27:09):
I'm not willing to sacrifice the comfort of nine percent
of the military for the sake of the point O
one because it makes the military lose effectiveness. I read
the guidance that former Secretary Defense Ash Carter put out there,
and there are even these these scenarios that they discussed,
And one of the scenarios is you have a a

(27:33):
male transitions to female who is you know, serving in
the military, in theater somewhere, and there's a problem with
shower usage. And the guidance is basically, try to keep
people from getting upset about it and see if you
can make some accommodation. But maybe you might have somebody
with male body parts showering in theater with females in
the military, that that might in fact have to happen

(27:54):
according to the old Pentagon guidance from here's my litmus
test for what should and should not be allowed in
the military. How does this affect the military's ability to
put bullets in bad guys? And the fact is it
does not make it any better. And if that's the answer,
don't do it. Look here's the thing I was not.
I was. I was for the donast don't tell when
they repealed it, I was. I was not pleased. But

(28:17):
then again, if I was king of the world tomorrow,
I would not undo it because it would add further
instability to reinstitute something like that. So I do things
on the best interests of the force. And that's how
I believe. This is not in the best interest in
the fourth this force. This is in the best interest
of some social experiment to gain social social ground in

(28:37):
the in the election. Now, Carl, what you'll commonly see
for for anybody who's out there trying to make the
case in favor of Trump going back to what had
been Pentagon policy for it as long as there had
been a Pentagon until a year ago, a little over
a year ago. Uh, they'll say, well, well you didn't serve,
and they'll they'll run somebody out, not you, but you
know one did not serve. And then they'll run somebody

(28:58):
else up on TV or wherever, and they'll say, well,
if you didn't serve, you to shut your mouth about this.
You were a seal. You're telling me this your seal brothers, um,
if you had to tell me what you think they
think on this? Is there near unanimity or are there
some who believe, no, no, we should have transgender seals.
There's something there. I'll be honest, there's something, No, I
won't you be honest. Yeah, there's some that are really

(29:19):
just not concerned about it. But the vast majority of
the vast majority of people that I've spoken with in
the military, I think this is a terrible idea. So
it's not just me being a pundant trying to raise
hell over it. It is a real problem. We're speaking
of Carl Hagee. He's a Trump supporter, political commentator, former
Navy seal. Uh Carl, if I could switch gears here
for a second, Um, what is your assessment of how

(29:42):
the White House is doing right now and what is
what is going on? I mean, you're hearing a lot
about Sessions. You've got the health care bill. People are
trying to say that this is a mess. But is
there a method to the madness or what's what's happening?
I do believe there is, and I'm not proving to
any inside info I'll say that, but here's what I believe.
The Democrats attacked Jeff's Sessions so harshly when he when

(30:05):
he was trying to get Um confirmed by the Senate.
Now you look at Trump is going Trump released a
couple of tweets about him, and now Jeff's Sessions is
held in the highest honors and like an angel to
the left because you know, bad boy Trump is trying
to demonize him. This. It looked very carefully at this
because I anticipate that he that Trump has done this

(30:26):
on purpose in order to get the left to say, wow,
you knows such a great guy and Trump so bad.
Watch Sessions might come out and try to indict Hillary.
He might come out with some other stuff. You never know,
but I I would anticipate that this is a very
calculated move, and it it does. It has forced a
lot of people out there in media land because in

(30:48):
the short term it's useful to use as a as
a cudgels as a means of attacking Trump in his
White House. They're now on record saying that Sessions is
a great guy, as you say, And while that didn't
stop them from flip flopping someone like Comey, for example,
it may be interesting to see what the media rap
is on Sessions in a month or two, especially as
I know he's ramping up the League investigations. Trump's just

(31:09):
working on discrediting these people one by one. It's unbelievable.
And you know they get him to first they hate Sessions,
now they love him this country though, and Eric Trump
said this best the other day on Fox He said
that the left would rather see this country implode than
Trump succeeds. I think that's true. I think that's uh.
That's we're seeing that with the media. We're seeing that

(31:29):
with people on the left who have decided that it
is in the best it is in the best interests
of the survival of this republic to completely undermine, smear, tarnish,
and destroy the president. It's pretty scary stuff. Carl hig everybody,
former Navy seal, Trump supporter, political commentator. You can go
to Carl Higbee dot com for more of his Carl,
thanks for making the time and thank you for your service.

(31:50):
Thanks you guys. Uh team, We are going to be
running into a break here in just a moment, but
I want to know what you think about all of this,
both on the in general, the trans band has been
called the media as well as Trump's strategy behind this,
the Sessions criticism, everything else that's happening right now with
this White House and with the new cycle eight four four.

(32:10):
Buck will be right back. I want to shift our
focus from the wisdom or not of the transgender ben
whether that's what should happen for the Pentagon. I've just
had it. We've had now three veterans joined this hour.
We've talked to them about and they're all people who
served on the front line in combat. What they think
about it. Um. There I should note there, of course,

(32:33):
other veterans who have spoken out about this, including UH
Senator Tammy Duckworth, who said today when my black Hawk
helicopter was shot down in Iraq, I didn't care if
the American troops risking their lives to help save me.
We're gay, straight, transgender, anything else. Um, all that mattered
was that they didn't leave me behind. And you've had
You've had others speaking out about this and saying that

(32:54):
it's UH discriminatory, un American with Trump treaty this morning,
other veterans, So I don't be I had veterans joined
that I know who are friends of mine who have
combat experience. And I do think that's also, by the way,
where the that's where the focus of the debate quickly goes.
It's it's one thing to be serving a state side

(33:15):
on a base. I mean, the accommodations for transgender service
members would be easier to deal with in a lot
of ways, and just as a logistics issue. But once
you're talking about you're talking about being out there on
a military base in theater, things change. And once it's
just you and your fire team, and once you get
down to small unit tactics and day to day living

(33:37):
and that. And that's what I wanted to reflect here
in in the show over the course of this last hour. Um.
But lawmakers are on the Democrats are are obviously freaking
out about this. But that's where I want to transition
now into Okay, well, what's the strategy, what are the
politics of this? Why did Trump do this? Because it
he set the news cycle today with these tweets this morning,

(33:58):
it became the primary I mean, I she was just
walking over to to see a friend, see some friends
over in the in the vicinity of CNN today And
because I was over there, happened to bump into some
CNN people I know, And did you did you see this?
These Trump tweets? You know, they're all a little flustered
about it. I'm like, well, yeah, I'm gonna go now,

(34:18):
I gotta go prepare for my radio show. Good to
see you see ann friends. Um. But there they weren't
the only ones who were kind of flustered at least
taken by surprise, it seemed, on this and you had
a reporter, I forget who for these Is he still
a Fox? I don't know. Major Garrett was asking this
question about it seems like the Pentagon was surprised by
all this. I was the Pentagon so surprised this morning

(34:42):
by the President's tweets on them. As I said before,
that the president's national security team was part of this consultation.
You mentioned yourself that there have been ongoing conversations when
when the President made the right When the President made
the decision yesterday, the Secretary of Defense was immediately in warned,
as were the rest of the national security team that

(35:02):
had been part of this ongoing conversation. So people are saying, look,
you had Maddess doing this review. The review is not
up until I think December um and you had a
whole bunch of you, of course, people weighing in to say,
well that this looks like it must be this must
be tied to something else. One of the theories and like,

(35:24):
I don't know if this is true or not, or
I should say, one of the reports. It's not really
just a theory it's reported, and they attached their name
to it, so I'll give them credit forward Politico. Politico
was saying that the the Republican House was working on
a bill, and the bill had border funding in it,
but there were some defense hawks in the House who

(35:48):
wanted the UH wanted there to be no money for
transgender UH surgery reassignment in the defense budget, and those
you're wondering how much money we're talking about here. According
to the Ranch study that everyone's been looking at today,
about you're looking at about six to eight million they

(36:08):
think a year would be spent on transgender issues. Now
that's per capita or per service member. It's obviously a
lot more expensive. I think the figure I saw was
twelve or fourteen times more expensive for the healthcare costs
of estimated healthcare costs of a transgender service member than
just a non transgender service member. But because there's so
few of them, it's not a lot of money. But

(36:30):
some in the House, according to this political reporting, wanted
no money at all for that because I don't think
the service should be doing that, And that then became
an issue that got raised to the President's attention by
some House members, and he was concerned that it might
affect the bill, the the budget bill, and we're talking

(36:51):
about a budgetary bill here that would have had funding
for a wall at the southern border. And so Trump
just decided to go out there and say, you know what,
a none of this transgender service stuff in the military,
full stop. And he decided to do that on his own.
Is that what happened? I'm not the one, that's not
my sources, but this is political reporting. That's certainly out

(37:12):
there is a theory. But what about the h the
Trump Jedi mind trick approach, as in Trump has a
bunch of other things going on and he is using
this as a distraction with the media or well, we'll see,
we'll talk about it. And I want to hear what
you think to eight four Buck? What what? What is?

(37:33):
What is Trump's strategy right now? What is the game?
This White House is is into these days? That and
more coming up next hour. The Freedom Hunt rocks online too.
You can hang out with Team Buck any time. Plus
get bucks the latest news and analysis go to Buck
Sexton dot com. That's buck Sexton dot com. The Buck

(37:53):
is back. Alright, So Donald Trump gave a well, we
had a rally last night. I gave a speech at
the rally. I wanted to talk to you a bit
about what he said there and how he's trying to
refocus on the agenda. We even have a little bit
of evidence of that agenda at work. To talk about
some news breaking today on that. I will return it

(38:16):
to the discussion though about healthcare, all this back and
forth over Jeff Sessions, cleaning up the swamp, which Trump
now says is a is a cesspool I think is
a or a sewer. Maybe even we'll talk about how
that will work or how it could work, and cracking
down on leaks. Also the I t aid to Debbie
Wasserman Schultz who was fleeing the country, caught at the

(38:38):
cart of the airport, I believe, caught with his passport
trying to get to Pakistan. And what could be going
on there. A lot of shadiness but not a lot
of clarity. But we have somebody joining who's been following
it very closely, investigative reporters. So much much to discuss,
but first let's get into all the things going on

(38:59):
with President Trump yesterday at this uh at this rally
that he held. First of all, he said that. He
said that he could be the most the most presidential
president I think ever something along those lines he which
of course enrages all of his critics. That's that's kind
of fun. That's kind of fun stuff when he does that. Um.

(39:20):
But he was at this rally and people started chanting, well, CNN,
I'll say stinks, but that's not what they said. I'm
here this evening to cut through the fake news filter
and to speak straight to the American people. Fake news,

(39:46):
fake fake fake news, channing CNN. I can, I can, Yeah,
I can, CNN. CNN sucks is what they're Pardon me,
but that's where they're that's where they're all chanting there.

(40:06):
So yeah, Trump was holding was holding a rally and
it was oh, here we go more president I thought
we had this out, but he said he could be
more presidential than any Well here's what he said. Political
correctness for me is easy. Sometimes they say he doesn't
act presidential, and I say, hey, look, great schools, smart guy.

(40:40):
It's so easy to act presidential. But that's not going
to get it done. In fact, I said, it's much easier,
by the way, to act presidential than what we're doing here. Tonight,
believe me. And I said, with the exception of the
late great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than

(41:05):
any president that's ever held this office. That I can
tell you now. Of course, the crowd there loves it.
I think what he's saying or what he's getting at
there is that if the if he succeeds, if the
Trump agenda works, then all this stuff about quote being
presidential doesn't matter, um and that, and that if he's

(41:26):
a great president, nobody will care if he was a
president who was speaking in a in a manner that
we tend to think of as presidential or acting with
the uh, the the courteousness and uh, I don't know.
I don't even know how you describe the the the
versions of presidential that the media would like to see

(41:47):
from the or the version of presidential medi would like
to see from this particular president. But on the issue
of agenda, and I told you I have a news
item for you that I think we should dive into
a bit um with regarded jobs. But he talked been
a few things. First of all, and I'm not forgetting healthcare,
but I don't have a lot. So here's part of
the problem. I want to talk to you about health

(42:07):
care and get into all the latest on with but
the Senate, it's kind of like we don't know uh there,
it's not clear what's going to happen there, So I
can't critique or or go into the specifics too much
of a bill when we're not even really sure what
the bill will look like. And they'll be all this
this series of votes that you can expect the Senate
to hold that gets people on the record one way

(42:29):
or another. This is largely about seeing where the senators
are right. This is almost like pulling the Senate. It's
not so much about lawmaking yet or at least until
they pass something. Uh And I'm not even sure what
it is. No one sure what it is. So while
healthcare is important, I've spent a lot of time on that,
I don't want to just be looking into the healthcare

(42:49):
debate at the expense of the other areas of policy
that this president should be focusing and refocusing on for
the benefit of the American people. So to that end,
at the rally last night, he discussed, for example, something
it gets me very excited, not that I make, not
that I make enough money to get excited about this
in the sense of like I'm gonna be swimming around

(43:11):
like Scrooge McDuck in a giant vault full of gold coins.
Scrooge McDuck, it's a great ducktails a great cartoon. I
miss it. I'm sure it's on one of those channels
that runs all the older cartoons. But I just think that,
in principle, the tax code needs a massive overhaul. I
think that the tax code is overly redistributive, unfair. I
think that the whole notion of it being a progressive

(43:33):
or that progressive taxation is what we have, is false.
What we have is high taxes on high earners, which
is not the same as high wealth individuals. If we
really were going to be progressive, we would have a
wealth tax. Of course, that would terrify all the coastal
elites who don't mind that there in many cases unearned
earnings in the sense that it's just money they get

(43:55):
from what they already have. Capital gains tax, of course
is a couple there, but they don't mind paying taxes
on that because they're already so wealthy that their overall
expenses are covered. Right. So tax reform needs to happen.
It's a question of dare I say fairness, And it's
also question of jump starting the US economy getting more

(44:17):
hiring at better wages because better jobs. And Trump mentioned
this last night. My administration is working every single day
to heat and honor the will of the voters. That
includes working on one of the biggest tax cuts in
American history. And actually, if I get what I want,

(44:40):
it will be the single biggest tax cut in American history.
I love this rhetoric. I like where he's going with this.
I want big tax cuts. The government spends too much
money because the government takes too much money. But I
also have to put out this early warning. There are
a lot of republic games who talk a tough game

(45:01):
about tax cuts, but it's really just tax cuts for
special interest that they want to have supporting them at
re election time. And the American people somehow get left
out of this because the real the real money, and
this is you go you look at people who have
crunched the numbers on this. The tax base is not

(45:23):
super high earners. That's you could take every dollar made
my people in the one percent. It wouldn't even it
wouldn't even put it put a dent in the federal debt, right,
it wouldn't even begin to really chip away at it.
You can take every dollar made by the especially when
you're talking about the truly high earners. It's the point
zero one percent who have seen stratospheric increases in wealth

(45:47):
in the last few decades in this country. But as
much as class warfare plays well for the Democrats, it's
a distraction. The reality is that the middle class, which
we could also just say, is people who are earning
a living and trying to support themselves and their families
or just themselves. But those who work, and we used
to refer to the working class, and I think that's

(46:08):
an unfair or that that's an inaccurate way to describe it. Right,
It's just it's not a working class. They're just people
who work, working Americans who could not lose their job
tomorrow and not have it be a problem. I mean,
that's really who we're talking about here, right, people who
could lose their job tomorrow and never have to work again.
I'm not worried about them, because they're not worried about themselves.
People who are working for a paycheck that they need

(46:29):
to support themselves to support their families. That's who we
should be concerned about. That's who the president hopefully is
concerned about, and I believe that he is. I believe
that that's central to why he was even willing to
take this job as president in the first place. But
will they benefit from a tax cup Well, the only
certain ways that that can be the case. Simplification certainly helps.

(46:49):
Lower rates would help, although the rates won't get that
much lower because I think that there are a lot
of Republicans that you know, they play this game off. Yeah,
we we need lower taxes, but oh, what are we
gonna do about the debt? Well, maybe the government should
start spending less money. You know, they want to tell you.
This is like the healthcare debate. They want to tell
you that everyone's gonna get coverage, but that you don't

(47:11):
have to have an individual mandate. Well, that doesn't work,
you know. I'm talking about Republicans. Now, forget about Democrats.
They're often you know, socialist, stand they're crazy. But the
Republicans have problems here, honesty problems because they want to
tell us all, oh, I'm talking about the Congress now, yeah, yeah,
we want a tax cut for you guys. But I mean,
we can't increase We can't increase the deficit. You know

(47:32):
that that's gonna be problem. We can't put too much
strain on the deficit. Oh so, well, why don't we
cut spending? I don't know, we can't cut spending. Well,
which is it going to be? If you can't put
more strain on the deficit and you're not willing to
cut spending, you're not going to give us tax cuts. Right.
We see this just goes in a circle and by
the time we figure out what the truth is, they're

(47:53):
hoping that it doesn't affect their re election concerns. This
is white people have such a low view overall of
the Congress because they're all making promises all the time,
including I think the repeal of Obamacare that many of
them have no intention of keeping. But Trump is out
there pushing, he's out there selling, he's out there cajoling, encouraging,

(48:14):
uh doing everything he can two I think create the
political momentum to get some of these agenda items through.
And we see something happening today that I think the
Trump administration should certainly take a little victory. Lap Is
isn't huge, but it's it's an indicator, I think, and
even on CNN they're reporting this. Look at that Apple supplier.

(48:36):
Fox Con says it's gonna build a Wisconsin factory, and
in fact it's it's substantial. Now, fox Con is best
known for making iPhones, but from what we see here,
it looks like fox Con has agreed two agreed to
not make these things in the U to a ten

(48:58):
billion dollar investment. It's gonna set up factories in Wisconsin,
and it's a display display panel plant. They make l
C d S liquid crystal displays the stuff on your
on your computer, stuff on your TV, and your iPhone. UM,
and that could create up to thirteen thousand jobs. So

(49:20):
here we have remember that that was always one of
the UH one of the discussions that would come up
over whether US manufacturing could return. They'd say, well, what
would cost to make an iPhone in the United States? Well,
under current regulations, it would be much more expensive than
what you're used to paying if you have an iPhone.
But if we change some regulations, create some incentives, maybe

(49:40):
we could bring back some of that men or could
bring some of that manufacturing here. UM. And in this case,
it looks like according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin.
If it gets these factories and fox Con Technology Group
does invest the ten billion dollars, there may be a
three billion dollar subsidy from the states taxpayers here. But
this could have a big impact on state elections. And

(50:02):
it could also start to show that maybe Trump's enthusiasm, encouragement,
deal making, and just change in tone towards the private
sector towards US manufacturing might have real measurable impact, might
have effects positive ones on the economy and on jobs.
So don't expect the immedia to put this in the

(50:24):
context of Wow, this could just be the first of
many they're gonna say. It hasn't happened yet, it might
never happen. Fox Con says this stuff in the past. Okay,
well are we are we going to see this at
least as encouraging and are we going to give credit
where it's due. So here we have Trump saying tax
cuts are coming. I hope he's right. Congress obviously has

(50:45):
to act there, so he's telling us there's gonna be
tax cuts. Well, the Congress come through. He's also, of
course always talking about jobs, and with this fox Con announcement,
it looks like some of that's happening. So we also
I'm hoping to get to uh sanctuary cities. By the way,
let me talk to sanctuary cities. And then we'll get
into the Jeff Sessions situation, and though later will maybe

(51:10):
return to healthcare. And like I said, Debbie Washerman's assaults,
the I T guy fleeing to Pakistan, trying and flee
to Pakistan. We'll hit all these things. We got a
lot of topics still lined up. Your team eight four
buck eight four four to five on the lines. If
you would like to call in weigh in on any
of these topics or anything else on your mind, we'll

(51:30):
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eight sixteen sixteen. And then they, one by one. We're

(54:56):
finding the illegal gang members. Drug deal is the Eaves robbers,
criminals and killers, and we're sending them the hell back
home where they came from. And once they are gone,
we will never let them back in. Believe me. The
predators and criminal aliens who poison our communities with drugs

(55:16):
and prey on innocent young people these beautiful, beautiful, innocent
young people, we'll find no safe haven anywhere in our country.
And you've seen the stories about some of these animals.
They don't want to because it's too fast and it's
not painful enough. So they'll take a young, beautiful girl sixteen,

(55:44):
fifteen and others and they slice them and dice them
with a knife because they want them to go through
excruciating pain before they die. And these are the animals
that we've been protecting for so long. Well, they're not
being protected any longer, folks. And that is why my

(56:05):
administration is launching a nationwide crackdown on sanctuary cities. American
cities should be sanctuaries for law abiding Americans, for people
that look up to the law, for people that respect
the law, not for criminals and gang members that we

(56:27):
want the hell out of our country. President Trump there
last night, I don't know how it is rarely talking
about sanctuary cities and the criminals specifically. Usually he cites
the incredibly violent UH gang ms THR ten Mara Salvatruccia.
They have been involved in horrific incidents across the country.

(56:49):
I know, even some in the DC area. I mean
they're they're a gang with with a long reach into
this country, and they President trumpas saying he's going to
send them, He's gonna send them back, He's gonna send
them from whichever country of origin they come from. And
this sanctuary cities fight is going to be a big

(57:09):
one in the courts. I think, um, I think that
you're going to see this be a place where once
again the Democrat Party is exposed for what it is
because they're gonna have to have in places like New
York and California, you're going to have law enforcement officers
in the sense not like cops, but law enforcement the
sense of state attorneys general and and UH and local

(57:33):
prosecutors offices and and probably even yes, some local UH
local police department chiefs and and senior brass are going
to come out and say that they will not comply
with the federal government's requests for help in dealing with
UH sanctuary city orld in dealing with the legal aliens
because of sanctuary city policies. You know, there's been some

(57:55):
coverage of it, I will say, because of just what
a horrific story it is. But earlier this week right
outside well it was in a in a parking lot
in Texas. They found ten well I think they were
close to a hundred people in there. There. There were
at least dozens of people in the truck in this
tractor trailer, but ten of them died. And it was

(58:18):
a human smuggling operation and people were jammed into the
back of a cargo truck tractor trailer with no real
light and no no water, nothing. You read the stories
about it, it's heartbreaking. I mean you have kids in there,
women and children, people who are dying from uh dying

(58:40):
from heat exposure, um, dying from dehydration, and it went
to over a hundred degrees in this tractor trailer. Ten
people dead. The driver of the truck is facing at
least life in prison. I think actually under statute he
could face the death penalty here for this human trafficking

(59:01):
than that ended with many people dead. And you know,
you have to also look at the broader policies in
this country of what's going on. Why would individuals take
that such a such a terrible risk, um, why would
they take that risk again into this country. Well, they
have a belief that if they can make it into

(59:21):
a sanctuary jurisdiction, the United States. They're they're home free.
That's it. There's very very little chance that they will
be deported. And part of a dare I say, comprehensive
immigration policy has to be not just border enforcement per se,
meaning that catching people at the border and returning them

(59:43):
to their country of origin as they try to cross
in illegally, but also interior enforcement, the work of Immigrations
and Customs enforcement. This means that people who come across
law enforcements radar have been arrested, even for non immigration
related crimes, should be reported to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
That's that's currently what the Congress passed the statute saying

(01:00:06):
just that. And some sanctuary jurisdictions are refusing, others are
refusing to hold illegal aliens who are there on detainers
or who are asked to be kept under detain a request.
And I should also know that the whole notion of
referring to undocumented immigrants, I mean, immigration is a process.
It is a legal process. So the moment you start

(01:00:29):
to say immigrant, even illegal immigrant, uh, you are conferring
a problem. You're you're conferring a legitimacy on the act
of coming into this country. That that does not deserve
as a matter of law. So while illegal alien has
fallen out of favor as a term, particularly on the left,
for obvious reasons, the moment you start undocumented immigrant is

(01:00:50):
just it's just farcical as a term. But even illegal
immigrants suggests well, but if you're an immigrant, then you're
going through the process. Um. Illegal alien is one who
is in the country in violation of law. And if
you have a sanctuary city that refuses to help the
federal government in this regard, it is aiding and abetting lawlessness.
That's just what's happening. And when that is allowed to continue,

(01:01:14):
you're going to have people that are trying to get
to the country illegally, including through very danger of very
dangerous means to themselves, and there will be loss of life.
Hundreds of people every year die coming into this country illegally.
So we need to look at this comprehensively. We'll be
back in just a few Stay with me our lives.
Let in here, uh David and Florida on w f
l F. Hey David, Hey, how are you doing today?

(01:01:36):
I'm good, sir, Thank you for calling in My theory
on why we can't get anything done on healthcare is
it doesn't affect Congress. You know, they had the best
healthcare plan on the planet, and you know if it
affected them, they would work probably day and night to
get the best plan out there for everybody. I do
think it was very telling David that back in the

(01:01:56):
early days when Obamacare was getting past calm, even the
Democrats are like, well, I mean, we don't want to
have to have Obamacare, so we're exempt from this, and
and and the other thing. My theory is, you know
a lot of these guys in Congress, even if you
vote them out, they still they go out of office,
and they still retain their salaries and their benefits. So

(01:02:17):
where's the incentive to do a good job and to
give a damn uh? I mean that if somebody told you,
you know, you come to work and I'm gonna give
you a hundred fifty grand a year and then you
lead or you're gonna be replaced, but I'm still going
to give you a hundred fifty grand a year and
your insurance. I mean, most people are not going to
do a good job, but not really going to care.

(01:02:38):
I think that Congress doesn't someone needs to uh metaphorically
speaking light of fire and get things going here. I mean,
it's uh, it's not enough to just hope that Congress
will act. I think they need to to hear from
the American people. I think they need to we need
to light up the switchboard over there. And because I'm
about to get into what's going on, it is not good, David,
what's happening with the Senate Republicans on health or it's

(01:03:00):
not good Man Shields high though, thank you for calling in.
Look PoTA potas pardon me, well, that's what we can
call them. But the President, President Trump last night said
the following about Democrats. It's time for Democrats to stop resisting.
That's that term. Reasons, reasons they have to do, finally

(01:03:22):
what's right for the American people. But probably we'll do
it ourselves. Okay, I'm with them on that. And they're
doing everything they can to obstruct. Now, Republicans tried to
slow down an obstructor Obama's agenda. I I don't think
that they were using the equivalent of like congressional bathroom
breaks in order to do it, but you know, which

(01:03:43):
is what the Democrats are looking for. Every procedural trick
in the book and refusing to staff put through Trump
nominees for political appointee positions. I'll be talking to you
later on the show about what's going on with the
State Department and Rex Tillerson and the internal policy revolt
against Tillerson in the White House at at State at

(01:04:04):
Foggy Bottom. No surprise, by the way, no surprise at
all that's happening. Uh. My My experience with the folks
at Foggy Bottom is always they think very highly of themselves.
Hello Foggy Bottom. Uh. And also I said we talked
to Debbie, Debbie wasser Schultz. I t that's coming up
to it. I just want to keep that out there,
so make sure that we do hit that story. We will.

(01:04:28):
But so Trump is saying Democrats need to stop resisting. Okay, fine,
here's my problem. Uh, it's not Democrats that are in
the way right now on healthcare. It is Republicans they
had today. I mentioned this the very start of the show,
and I wanted to return to it. I know we're
we're bouncing around a lot today. I'm trying to make
sure we keep a structure here for our topics. But
I'm I'm fired up and I'm moving all over the place. Uh,

(01:04:51):
they had a straight line repeal, a straight repeal vote,
and it was fifty five to forty five against the
against the amendment. Seven in Republicans opposed it. The forty
six Democrats and two independent senators all voted against the measure.
Seven Republicans in the Senate would not go along with

(01:05:12):
a straight repeal um. So the straight repeal amendment was
offered up by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. So, now now
we know, I mean, there's no you don't have full repeal. Um.
Here's here's who voted in opposition. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine,

(01:05:34):
Shelley Capital of West Virginia, John McCain of Arizona, Rob
Portman of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,
and Dean Heller of Nevada. Seven Republicans, I mean, almost
almost a fifth. I mean, maybe I'm pushing that a

(01:05:57):
little bit, but a good chunk of the Senate GOP
membership not willing to go forward on an Obamacare repeal.
What to do about this? I suppose they figure that
in their home states they will be rewarded for this,
or maybe they just think this was the principal thing

(01:06:18):
to do. I have a feeling if we go back,
certainly and look at some of these senators and their
records and their public pronouncements on Obamacare, I have a
feeling that they were all about repeal in the place
when that was, when that was politically profitable for them,
when that was the way to go. And now here

(01:06:41):
they are saying they won't go along with the repeal vote. Okay. Meanwhile,
you've got this going on, and the Democrats are just
openly talking about single payer. This is the last gasp
but we're going through now is the last gas for
private health insurance in America. As far as I'm concerned.

(01:07:01):
If we can't make this work with the private health
insurance industry, we start moving closer to a Medicare model.
From my point of view, Medicare has a lot of
positive things to offer the American people. How many folks
say darn it. Now I qualify for Medicare, most of
them say, hooray, I don't have to worry about pre
existing conditions. I've paid into it. I can get the
best hospitals and doctors, and I have peace of mind.

(01:07:24):
That's what people are looking for in health insurance, and
if the private health insurance industry can't make the current
approach work, we're moving closer and closer to the single
payer option. Should note that that was democratic whip whip
dick Durban this we were we were told that that
was not what Democrats wanted at the time, right, and

(01:07:47):
that Obama at the when they were trying to push
through Obamacare, was aware of the political reality of the time,
and it was such that it would not have been
feasible to sell to the American people a single payer
system be us. It sounds too much like socialized medicine
or moves too much in the direction of socialized medicine.
As listeners of this show, no, single payer is not

(01:08:10):
in fact, socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is what they have
in the UK, and it's where you have the government
and control of the hospitals to doctors. The actual care
providers are government employees. The v A in this country
is what socialized medicine in the Western European developed world

(01:08:30):
context would be like. And those of you who have
had extensive experience with the v A, I'm sure when
of all kinds of stories to share with us about
what that means. But that's just even talking about the
efficacy of delivering care, the effect of the ability to
deliver care through a socialized medicine system, never mind the expense,

(01:08:51):
and the expense is vast, it is ruinous lee expensive.
People say, oh, well, the UK is not is not
completely underwater, and you know, look at what's going on
over there. Well, first of all, what would it be
like if they didn't have a What would the UK's
economy be like if they did not have the healthcare

(01:09:11):
system that they do and they also do by the way,
and this is true in Canada as well. The private
healthcare markets uh pop up and do exist alongside because
people who have money don't want to be stuck in
that system. So and I think that would probably happen
here as well. But we're not even going to a
socialized medicine uh debate just yet. Where we are now

(01:09:33):
is if Republicans can't do anything about Obamacare, how can
they make the argument against single payer? You see, you'll
notice Democrats are all in agreement right now that there
are problems with Obamacare. They want to fix it. How
do they want to fix it? More money? More money,
in a sense, would fix it. More money is just
another way of getting us closer to well, if we're

(01:09:55):
going to be spending all this money on if the
government's gonna be spending all this money on healthcare, why
not just have the government spending the money on healthcare
is in writing the checks for all of us to
healthcare providers, as they do with Medicare. Single pair problems
with that of court, Well, I mean the expense of
this would just be would be completely on We would

(01:10:18):
be impossible to bear that burden financially for the country,
which I guess Democrats just figure no one will crunch
the numbers, or nobody will care, or or maybe that
it's so popular to have someone else paying your healthcare
bills that it won't matter what the cost is. We
saw California look at this recently and it was over.
It was over three billion dollars. It was bigger than

(01:10:39):
the entire budget to get to single pair in one
state was bigger than the entire state budget, all of
it combined, schools, schools, police, fire everything, transportation, administrations, all
that stuff everything. So yeah, it would be really really pricey.
But Democrats are speaking about it openly. UM. And you'll
notice that, unfortunately, it's pretty good tactics on their part.

(01:11:02):
I think it's because they don't really have an effective
they don't have particularly effective spokespersons right now intellected Office
for Healthcare. That's one part of it. But also I
think they just want to allow Republicans to stumble and
stumble and trip and make a mess of things in
front of the American people in this healthcare bill. This

(01:11:22):
is the The reality here is that Republicans are doing
all the work for the Democrats right now. They didn't
pass repeal. It doesn't look like they're going to. Maybe
they try a skinny repeal, which is another way of
saying pair down Obamacare or you know, slim down. They
call it skinny bill, slim down Obamacare bill. UM. And

(01:11:45):
they promise in the future, next next time they'll be strong,
next time they'll be principal, it will really happen. I
just I don't see it happening. Um. And the effects
of this in the midterms have to be profound. You'd
have to think ink that if Republicans don't pass anything, well,
what's what's the They've got to unified, they've got across

(01:12:05):
the board GOP majority, House and Senate, and they've got
a Republican in the White House who will sign whatever
the Congress puts in front of them on healthcare if
they can't get anything done. I don't even I don't
even know how they spin that other than we are,
we are incompetent, and we lie to you and you know,
vote for us. Anyway, maybe that's the bumper stick, or

(01:12:26):
some of them will go with it. I wouldn't be
surprised at this point before I am going to get
into this whole Sessions situation. Actually, you know what, I'll
do that now, Okay, So and maybe I'll talk a
little bit more in the next segment. And I gotta
drop some things on the on the cutter room floor
here as we go through. Too much to talk about today.
So Jeff Sessions is in the midst of a it's

(01:12:49):
a it's a rough week for the Attorney general. Although
I should note that this is the most criticism of
the most criticism of Donald Trump that I've seen from
really true Trump supporters has been over this Jeff Sessions
issue so far. Um, here's here's what uh he wrote

(01:13:12):
earlier this morning. Donald Trump wrote on Twitter, which is
now how we're seeing presidential pronouncements, right. We see this
come up on Twitter, and that's what we've got. Why
didn't A. G. Sessions replace acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe,
a Combie friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation

(01:13:33):
but got big dollars seven hundred thousand for his wife's
political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the
swamp exclamation point. So you have more here from the
president that is a critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
And you know, I'm not sure what reports to believe

(01:13:54):
on this, because we've already had We've already had some
who are saying that Sessions and Trump reporters writing that
Sessions and Trump are really at odds over this, that
they're not speaking. You see these other reports that I
don't know how much credibility to give them that there
are talks going on about who would replace Sessions. Um.

(01:14:15):
And you know, Rudy Giuliani has come up in that
conversation as well as other names. But I thought it
was interesting, you know, Trey Gaudy, who is a member
of the House that I really um, I mean, I
I don't like politicians in the sense that I don't
know them and they're not my friends. But you know,
and admire might be too strong. We have a lot
of respect for I have a lot of respect for

(01:14:36):
That's the That's the best way I can think of
to say it. A lot of respect for Tray Gaudy. UM.
And he was on I don't know which shows, on
one of the TV shows this morning, and I saw
him and he talked about this issue with Jeff Sessions.
And here here's what he said, Well, you should immediately
leave any country where I was the attorney general. UM.
I would not say um if my employer had lost

(01:14:59):
confidence and may But on the other hand, Attorney General
Sessions may believe that he is doing the job the
way he is supposed to. He doesn't work for the president.
He works for a windfolded woman holding a set of scale.
So he's got to make that call. Um. It's a
very difficult circumstance. And again I view that job differently
than I do Secretary Commerce, Secretary of Agriculture. It is

(01:15:20):
heartbreaking to me, as a former d J employee, to
see public squabbling between the commander in chief and the
nation's top law enforcement officer. I would agree, especially because
I think that Sessions has shown himself to be highly
ethical and a a gentleman and loyalty administration and also

(01:15:42):
the American people the whole time he's held this job.
You know, he left a very safe seat in Alabama
and a sentence seat to take the job. I know
Trump gave that an interview the Wall Street Journal. I
just have to think that this is part of this
is part of a Trump strata of Jim and I
can't pretend to know the president's mind. I think there

(01:16:04):
are very few people who would publicly think that they
publicly say that they could know the president's mind. I
think that he's an enigma to a lot of folks,
even those who are immediately around him and working with him. UM.
But getting rid of Sessions, to me, would be a
bad idea. I know a lot of other conservatives in
the media ecosystem have been saying the same thing. I

(01:16:25):
just don't see how that would serve his would serve
his purpose, and I don't think he's gonna do it.
I know I said that to you yesterday. I do
understand the frustration with the UH, with the with the
recusal decision, UM and I've seen a lot of legal
minds that I respect saying that it was it was

(01:16:46):
the right move under the circumstances because Sessions was involved
with the campaign. But you know, I mean, recusal is
a judgment call, recusal is not is not a black
and white issue. It's not obvious necessarily. And I think
that president's very frustrated because all this Russia stuff just
continues to go on and on. I think there shouldn't
be a special counsel. I've said that to you all along,

(01:17:08):
and so you get to this place where, Okay, the
president's venting, his venting his irritation publicly about what's going
on with the Attorney general and the Russia investigations. But
I don't see him firing Sessions. I think that would
I think it would be a mistake. And I don't
know what to make of all these reports saying that
it's really close to happening, And you know, you're he's
every day is just one more day when a Session's

(01:17:30):
firing could could occur. I just I gotta think who
would take that job. By the way, after that, it
would be I don't know, not not a lot of
top of the line folks I think would be excited
to be the next one, especially given what they're walking
into with a special counsel and everything else. So we'll see.
But the Sessions Trump feud, I'm hoping it ends soon

(01:17:52):
because Sessions is a good man and we need to
focus on some other things here. We will coming up.
Stay with me. He's back with you now because us
when it comes to the fight for truth, the fuck
never stops. Tam. I've got some late breaking news today
for you. Very interesting uh d o J update. We're
just talking about Sessions, the attorney general a minute ago.

(01:18:14):
Here here's I gotta give you some background. I I
just was reading into this one myself, so let's let
me set the stage. But here's the bottom line is
that the federal government, in the Trump administration, the Department
of Justice, is taking the position now that when you
refer to discrimination on the basis of sex, that has

(01:18:34):
to do with male female, not sexual orientation. It also
does not have to do with gender identity. So that
Title seven of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination
on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin,

(01:18:56):
does not include as a matter of law, does not
include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. So it
is does not include what we considered gay rights issues
and does not include gender identity. I people that believe
that they are another gender transgender is Um, here's the

(01:19:19):
the case. Um. The case is, well, it's already been
looked at once and now this is going to an
on on bank review. Somebody was fired back in twenty ten.
I believe the cases Zarda, the Altitude Express. The plaintiff
is the estate of deceased New York skydiver Donald Zarda,

(01:19:43):
and this is according the Washington Blade, and he was
fired from his job in two for being gay. A
three panel judge on the Second Circuit in April determined
Title seven doesn't prohibit anti gay discrimination and therefore doesn't
apply to Zarta's case. So now the court is looking

(01:20:04):
at the Second Circuit is looking on Bank, meaning all
the judges get together before the full Court, and the
Justice Department meaning our d o J currently under the
Trump administration, led by Jeff Sessions, has already weighed in
on this issue and they have said the following. Although
the Equal Opportunity Commission enforces Title seven against private employers,

(01:20:28):
and it has filed an amicus brief and support of
the employee. Here, the E E O C is not
speaking for the United States and its position about the
scope of Title seven, and is entitled to no defference
beyond its power to persuade. The United States submits that number.
This is so. This is the d o J. Speaking

(01:20:49):
or writing that the on Bank Court should affirm reaffirm
it's settled precedent holding consistent with the longstanding position of
the Department of Justice that Title seven does not reach
discrimination based on sexual orientation until recently. This court's well
established position correctly reflects the plain meaning of the statute,

(01:21:12):
the overwhelming weight and reasoning of the case law, and
the clear Congressional ratification of that interpretation. The question presented
is not whether, as a matter of policy, sexual orientation
discrimination should be prohibited by statute, regulations or employer action.
In fact, Congress and the executive branch have prohibited such

(01:21:34):
discrimination in various contexts. The sole question here is whether,
as a matter of law, Title seven reaches sexual orientation discrimination.
It does not, as has been selled for decades. Any
efforts to amend Title seven scope should be directed to
Congress rather than the courts. Let me give you the

(01:21:55):
the plain language summary here of what's going on. So,
the Obama administration and Eric Holder had determined that Title
seven covered gender identity discrimination as well as sexual orientation
discrimination against. So essentially, discrimination against the LGBT community in

(01:22:18):
any context is covered under Title seven of keep in
mind the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act, which discriminates
based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. What
they were saying is, well, sex there means whatever we
wanted to mean. Sex there means sexual orientation, it means

(01:22:39):
gender identity. And quite plainly, based on what they were
trying to achieve, what Congress trying to achieve in nineteen four,
and based on what the word indicates, uh, that does
not cover sexual orientation and it does not cover gender identity.
So how can the Department of Justice, and as was

(01:23:01):
the case in the obamaministration with Eric Holder as the
Attorney General in this instance, just decide that it does
well because that was their preferred policy outcome. So what
you have now is the d o J coming out
and saying no words have meaning. This is what the
word in the statute says. A court has already agreed,
by the way, that that's what the word or that's

(01:23:23):
what the word means in the context of the sentence,
and that just because we may like something or not
like something, it doesn't mean that the judicial branch or
doesn't mean that the executive branch in this case, um
should just change the plain meaning of war of a
word because it suits it. This is really a case

(01:23:43):
about whether words in the law have meaning or not.
Do they mean what we want them to mean, what
we want them mean, or do they or and by
the way, whether we want them to mean that or not,
as a separate issue. But I what I'm saying is,
do you get to just say, well, I want this
word to mean something, and I'm in charge, so that's
what it means. Because that was what the Obama administration
did it. The DJ is even saying, look, we're not
we're not claiming that you shouldn't be able to bar

(01:24:06):
sexual orientation discrimination. We're not saying shouldn't be able to
or you shouldn't bar discrimination against sexual orientation or gender identity.
We're just saying that's not what Title seven of the
Civil Rights access. And so if you're gonna bring a
lawsuit and say that this is Title seven discrimination and
you're gonna bring in federal court, You've got a problem
because that's not what the law says. This is one

(01:24:28):
of the fundamental disconnects between left and right. This is
an issue of progressives with their living constitution and their
judicial fiat and their decisions from the bench that are
usurping the prerogative of the legislature. They think that words
mean what they want them to mean. And here's a
case square. This Department of Justice, under this president of

(01:24:48):
President Trump is saying not. Actually, words means something, and
it is objective, and we can define it and we
should and that's what the basis of law is. This
is a very important decision, but people are gonna be
very out about it on the left. Let's talk about
Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her I t Aid coming up
here in a second. Stay with me, you know, team.
With all of the stuff happening this week, this seems

(01:25:11):
to have gotten lost and the major TV networks aren't
touching it at all. You had somebody try to flee
the country recently, an individual who is under indictment for
multiple federal felonies, who was working for Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
She who was formerly the head of the d n

(01:25:31):
C and a congresswoman from Florida. Her I T guy
was caught trying to flee the country. And there's all
kinds of very interesting and unsettling details in this case
that you're not going to hear about for many places
at all. We've brought somebody on who can tell you
just what's going on here, Luke Rosiac. He's an investigative

(01:25:52):
reporter at the Daily Caller. He's got an exclusive on
Daily Caller dot com. FBI cs smashed hard drives from
Wasserman olds I T Aids home and also Wasserman Schultz
is I T eight arrested at airport after transferring three
k to Pakistan from house office. Luke, great to have you,
and what the heck is going on here? It really

(01:26:15):
is like a story out of a Tom Clancy novel. Uh.
Is this guy named Imaran A Juan who was Debbie
Wasserman Schultz is top I T guy for many years.
I was arrested at Dullest Airport outside of d C
on Monday night trying to board a plane into Pakistan.
The FBI arrested him. Uh. He had previously done a

(01:26:37):
wire transfer for three hundred thousand dollars from the bank
that's in a house office building to Pakistan. UH now
his wife, who was also a congressional employee, both were
making a hundred and sixty five thousand dollars in taxpayer money.
His wife previously left the country and went to Pakistan. Authorities.

(01:26:57):
UH did search her bag when she was leaving and
they found twelve thousand dollars in cash, but they permitted
her to board for whatever reason. I was back in March.
So she's been waiting in Pakistan with the three hundred
thousand dollars for months now, but her husband was napped
by the FBI as he tried to join her just
on Monday night. Can you give us some of the

(01:27:18):
additional background here in terms of this individual, Um, well,
it's really a few individuals, but there's one in particular,
this I T aid, and it's some family members of
his as well, right, And they've been doing work on
Capitol Hill for some very senior Democrats, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz,
stretching back over years. I think I saw that they've
in total been paid four million dollars in order to

(01:27:41):
provide i T services on Capitol Hill, which also, by
the way, would have given them access to all the emails.
So the I T people that are going back and
forth with the congressmen, right, I mean, so there's there's
some real history here to this, that's right. Amron's job
was to be the email administrator. He was the one
who set up the email accounts for. Uh. There's several

(01:28:03):
members of Congress for whom he worked, as well as
all their staff, and of course that means he could
access and read any of the emails sent and received,
as well as all files stored on the computers of
those members and those staffers. Uh W Washman Schultz was
one of the first members he's worked for, way back
in two thousand five. He joined his staff, her staff,

(01:28:25):
and he's been with her ever since. Um. But shortly
after he joined her staff, all of his relatives started
appearing on the payroll of other House Democrats at salaries
that were much much higher than an I T guy
would typically make. We're talking a hundred and sixty five
thousand dollars a year, which only chiefs of staff make
in the Capitol Hill world. Um, and these guys, we're

(01:28:48):
not by all accounts, everyone I've talked to they weren't
seen working. Um. One of the guys, his last job experience,
according to housemate of his, was working at McDonald's. And
yet House Democrats were paying this guy to be there,
are I T guy and they were signing off on
the paychecks month after month. So part of what's going

(01:29:13):
on here appears to be although the investigation is still
going on, it seems like it was a ghost employee scheme.
You could say where Im ram Mwuan who you could
say was he's the eldest brother, and he could say
he's the ring leader. He puts all these relatives on
the payroll to bring in literally four million dollars since
two thousand nine. Uh. But of course members of Congress

(01:29:35):
were having to consent to this now. At the same time,
Im Rom is doing a variety of other weird uh
financial schemes in his personal life, and some of them
overlap with the house. For example, while they're all making
a hundred and sixty five thousand dollars working on the hill,
they're running this car dealership or an LLC that says

(01:29:56):
it's a car dealership in Virginia. And this deal a
ship takes a hundred thousand dollar loan from an Iranian fugitive.
So these are not your ordinary uh I T guys,
and they are Pakistani warren, but they're not your average
Most Pakistani's who are in America are just normal guys
as well, and these are not that there was any

(01:30:17):
number of red flags. I mean, they had bankruptcy, they
had criminal records, so they're working with all the emails
that can access all this sensitive information, and they've got debts,
uh all these kind of things that normally, when you're
going to provide someone with access to sensitive information as
part of your job, you would check for that. Um
So a lot of really strange things, and yet year

(01:30:39):
after year, these guys remained on the staff in these
very sensitive positions until it all sort of started to
unravel this year. We're speaking of Luke Rosyack. He's an
investigative reporter at the Daily Caller. He has an exclusive
up on the Daily Caller dot com right now, and
let's talk about this FBI c smashed hard drives from
washerman Schultz I t Aid's home. Wasn't there also like

(01:31:02):
a hidden laptop but they found somewhere too. I Mean,
there's some very shady. I don't have answers as to
why it shady or what's going on, but Luke will
tell us about this shadiness as I'm calling it. There's
some weird stuff happening here. Not bleach bit per se,
but you know baseball bats to hard drives that seems unusual. Yeah,
you know. The Capitol Police announced the criminal investigation back

(01:31:24):
in February, and they told members of Congress that Imaranowan
and his relatives were the suspects in this criminal probe
and that they were banned from touching house computers. Uh.
And I thought that would be a big story at
the time, particularly when I did some basic investigative research
on these guys and I saw their court filings. They
have been involved in so many different lawsuits and a
lot of people have accused in the fraud. In the past,

(01:31:46):
they had the bankruptcies, they've had, you know, different run
ins with the law and minor different things, um, things
that were typically red flags. And then in conjunction with
the latest allegations, which uh, you know were said to
involve breaches of cybersecurity. Basically, um, the investigation is involving
um suspicion that they were funneling UM files off site.

(01:32:10):
And then I see I did tell me that. Um,
you know, basically they were sending members files to a
secret server that was outside of the House of Representatives.
So when all these things were going on, I thought
certainly this would be Sorry Luke Ho, can you can
you just repeat that part? They were moving files off
site and that was a big that's a big issue,
right what happened? Yeah, so these guys could read all

(01:32:34):
emails sent and received, and they had such a suspicious background.
And then, uh, what we're hearing, what I've heard from sources, uh,
is that basically they were sending UM congressional data off
site onto a secret server. We like, what, so why
would is there any is there any harmless justification that

(01:32:56):
that anyone has raised as to why they would do that? Um,
I haven't seen anyone. People just have not really been
engaging with this story much. One relatively innocuous explanation I
could think of was that these were no show jobs
and they wanted to basically have the computers be based
out of their house so that if one broke, they

(01:33:17):
could fix up enough. You know, that's speculating, and even
so it would be in massive violation of the rules
surrounding how security. I mean, they have a way of
doing things there. You can't just say you're going to
host Yeah, I mean this is like the server, This
is like the Hillary server in the bathroom all over
again exactly. And you know, Politico has reported a little

(01:33:39):
bit about this. They said that the Capitol Police are
doing a criminal investigation into serious and potentially illegal cyber breaches. Um.
But overall, people haven't been talking about this, and I
think you know what we're hearing about Russia and other
cyber attacks, and they're having others as well. For example,
O p M was attacked. I think it was China
that attacked that government agency. And this is part of

(01:33:59):
the pattern. And if you care about one, you should
care about the others. I mean, ultimately, this is about
national security rather than partisanship. But um, the members did
play a role here and that's something that's going to
be determined because again, I mean, they kept these guys
on the payroll for years. After a year. Uh. And
to get back to a question you asked a little
bit ago. Um, at one point the Capitol Police did

(01:34:22):
seize the laptop from they would found this laptop stashed
in an abandoned house office building and it was had
been used by im ROB. So the Capitol Police seized
it and they wanted to look at it, and Wasserman
Schultz claimed it was hers and that she was blocking
the police from looking at it by saying, that's my
property and I'm not going to allow you to search

(01:34:42):
this evidence. And there's this bizarre video exchange and the
televised hearing and you can see it on Daily Caller
dot com where she tells the chief of the Capitol Police,
if you don't give me back this laptop, there's going
to be consequences. Uh. And so it is kind of
similar to what we did see with the d n
C where they never did turn and that server over
to the FBI said that they could um investigate and

(01:35:04):
hold responsible to hackers. Why why would a very senior,
well known congresswoman in former d n C chair threatened
the chief of Capital Police over looking at a laptop
that was tied to the shady individuals that she had.
I mean, again, I can't think of an innocuous reason
for it. It seems very odd. Yeah. And again, when

(01:35:25):
I when this story first came to my attention, I
thought it was interesting no matter what. But I thought
what was had occurred is that these Democrats had hired
some guys that turned out to be no good and
they basically were stealing more information. And I thought, certainly
the Democrats would fiercely condemn them and seek prosecution to

(01:35:46):
the fullest extent of the law. But what we've seen
instead is basically members have very much tried to ignore
this story. They say it's no big deal, maybe it's
a misunderstanding. Some people have even said some members of
Congress US for example, this guy Gregory Meeks of New
York and said it's probably because of Islamophobia, because these
guys happen to be Muslims. Right. Of course, I've seen

(01:36:08):
the evidence, and a lot of it is um the
court documents that are online, and now we have an
FBI affid David, and it's pretty hard to argue with
the facts. I mean, just objectively, there were some very
real security concerns here in The reaction that we saw
from the members who were employing these guys was not
really diligent and security conscious to say the least. Yeah, absolutely, well, look,

(01:36:30):
look keep us updated on this all right, as you
get more. We'd love to have you back. As as
follow up to the story, Luke ros each Everybody investigative
report at the Daily Caller. Go to Daily Caller dot
com for his exclusive on the FBI looking at this
former senior I t aid to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Luke,
thanks again for joining. Great to have you any time,

(01:36:51):
uh team, we are going to hit a break here
in just a few eight four four nine hundred to
eight to five. Also, don't forget buck Sex and Dot
come slash store for all of your team. Buck Gear
needs hats, t shirts and more coming. We'll be right back.

(01:37:12):
He spreads freedom because freedom is not gonna spread itself
bug sext in his bag. Very interesting report out of
the Washington Free Beacon and our friend Adam Crado down
there says that the State Department is in a state
of open war with the White House. Goes into some

(01:37:34):
details here about how sources are saying the State Department
or the State Department bureaucracy is ignoring directives from the
White House, and that there are people who are working
for the State Department, so they are collecting a federal
government paycheck. They are employees of the Executive branch, and

(01:37:56):
they're taking it upon themselves to ignore the orders and
directives and guidance of the White House and Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson, as you may have already read in
recent months, because occasionally the media will just decide that
it's time once again to run one of these stories
about supposed Trump administration dysfunction. There have been a series

(01:38:20):
or there are a number of State Department positions, senior
ones that are on filled, and this is now of
course leading to people to say that the State Department
is not being treated properly by the Trump administration and
that there are all these problems with the fancy elitist

(01:38:42):
diplomats of Foggy Bottom not getting along with the Trump
administration because Trump is dismissive of them, or is unwilling
to see it from their perspective, or whatever it may be.
This is, by the way, completely unsurprising as somebody who
has known and has has known plenty of State Department
people and is quite familiar with how a lot of

(01:39:06):
State Department stuff goes down. Um, it's a very left
wing place. I mean, the predominant ethos in the State
Department politically speaking, is pro Hillary Clinton, pro Democrat party,
and and there's even a fair amount of internationalist sander
Nista Bernie Sanders sentiment among State employees that I have

(01:39:31):
known and and certainly heard speaking and seen out there
on the cable news and everywhere else that they make
the rounds. So that Foggy Bottom, which is of course
DC shorthand for uh, the State Department, that Foggy Bottom
is in something of a quiet revolt against the Trump

(01:39:52):
administration is completely unsurprising, as I said, and this is
to be expected, but the way that it's reported, I
think is really interesting and noteworthy. First of all, you
will see, of course, that there have been stories in
the past that you may not consider to be fake news,

(01:40:13):
but as I like to say, it is false news,
stories about mass resignations from different different government bureaucracies. And
there were, to be sure, some stories that were just breathless.
This this was back in January. Uh the State Department
is a quote Washington Post, the State Department's entire senior

(01:40:33):
administrative team just resigned. Oh well. The problem with this
story was that it just ignored what is standard practice
for the State Department, and that there were uh, that
there were even stories about a coordinated mass, coordinated mass resignation. No,

(01:40:55):
that's in fact not true. There were just some people
who were asked for their letters of recommend letters recommendation,
letters of resignation by the president. So these were political appointments.
They are not career appointees, or rather they're not career
is they're not civil servants. These were political appointments that ended.

(01:41:19):
A new administration came in. And I mean, you had
CNN reporting on this, you had the Washington Post, the
entire state departments resigning. It's just terrible. Well, it wasn't true.
And of course you'd have to ask the question, why
would they get this story so wrong? One of the
most important questions you can ask about any Trump related

(01:41:40):
fake news story is why did they get this wrong?
Is it because it was a difficult story where the
facts were hard to ascertain, or is it because, sure enough,
the anti Trump animus is so strong, it is such
a powerful force in the media that they will either
actively lie or they will make very obvious and very

(01:42:06):
rookie mistakes because they're just so excited at the prospect
of negative news about the Trump administration. With the State Department,
I think it's a take your pick. With the stories
we've seen about State and the dysfunction that the that
the Trump administration has caused. Did I just say the
abadministration of Minutigo, I might have, but the Trump administrations
what I've been talking about, uh, and the mass resignation

(01:42:29):
story was fake. And now sure enough we have people
writing about the internal policy civil war within the State Department.
And I have to say, this is one of those
places where we we will see and you'll see more
of this as well as time goes on. Although I've
also noticed there are some reports that Rex Tillerson may

(01:42:50):
not be staying around State partiment all along, which I'd
find completely uh that that would not in any way
shock me. State Department is a huge bureaucracy best own
for the for the much repeated by other government employees
phrase of the State Department, that quote, the State Department
was here before the president, and the State Department will

(01:43:11):
be here after the president or State Department. Presidents come
and go, but the State Department is forever. That tends
to be the sentiment there. And you have to wonder
in an era of instantaneous communications and faster global travel
and of course all that comes with it than in
previous decades. Do we really need quite the same uh,

(01:43:35):
permanent diplomatic representation all over the world that we've had
in the past. It's it's a fair question, I think
if you're just looking at staffing levels. I know that
every person who's an analyst for the government is led
to believe that they're a critical part of the government's
you know, information and and ability to think that they're
informing policy decisions. There are a lot of people working

(01:43:59):
in stay in other places too, for the federal government
who are not what you would call in a reasonable sense,
critical to the mission. But anyway, that's so you got
this this policy fight that's going on inside of State.
And I know, I just saw there was a senior
another senior state person resigned. But my understanding that just
happened the last twenty four hours. My understanding is that's

(01:44:20):
because that individual wasn't going to get the job. That
that that he or she I forget I think is
that he um wanted and so moving on, you know,
and that's not really not really a surprise. I mean,
there's nothing about this that's particularly newsworthy other than anything
that shows people leaving the state Department is supposed to

(01:44:41):
tie into this narrative, and the narrative is that Trump
is such a a monster when it comes to international
affairs and foreign policy that whatever he whatever he does,
or everything that he does causes more consternation, more angst
inside a foggy bottom, and all these brilliant, multi lingual

(01:45:03):
career civil servants at the state departments just don't know
what they're going to do with themselves. First of all,
you've got to assume there are some people in the
state and state who are very quiet about it, but
who are probably Trump supporters right voted for Trump, and
I don't I have no idea what the percentage or
number would be, but I know they're there. But I
can also tell you that the overwhelming sense you'd have
from spending time in meetings and walk around the hallways

(01:45:25):
of the State Department is that they are just because
of the way international relations is taught in schools, and
that the kind of people that it often it often attracts,
especially from the academic world. You're gonna get a lot
of left of center and even far left people, and
they're going to disapprove of not just Trump but the

(01:45:46):
whole notion of America first. I mean at the State Department,
there can be a creeping sense of over overwhelming multilateralism
or a a really a relativism among all nations because
you start to view people that specialize in one area
start to think that area is much more important than

(01:46:06):
it is, and they are favorably disposed towards the international
institutions of say, the United Nations and and other other
giant global bureaucracies like that, just because of as I
was saying, how international affairs are taught in schools and
the kind of people that tend to go into those

(01:46:27):
areas of study. So anyway, you'll be seeing more about this.
I'm sure. Uh Tillerson, I wonder. I wonder how he's
really doing in this role. I mean I thought he
was a good pick. I like that there's a businessman
who's running the State Department. I like that he's obviously
run huge institutions in the past. But there's a part

(01:46:48):
of me that feels like, at some point Rex Tillerson
is gonna come out and be like, look, I ran
x On, the biggest company in the world, but the
problems we had there are nothing compared to the entry
insigence and sloth and just bureaucratic inefficiencies of the State Department.

(01:47:08):
That that would be my guest. And I wonder if
he'll just come out and say that at some point um,
it would be certainly interesting for me to hear that
if if, if in fact, we could hear from the
Secretary of State, alright, seem we've got got more. I'll
be back with you in just a few state would do?
All right? Welcome back team. I know that there's so

(01:47:28):
much going on right now, all the Jeff Sessions stuff
with Trump, the transgender band this morning via Twitter? Is
it really a policy? Plus healthcare? Congress, the GOP that
can't get direct together? But you know, this week was
supposed to be American Heroes Week, as determined by the
White House, and we certainly haven't forgotten that here in
the Freedom once. So to that end, I want to

(01:47:49):
introduce you to an American hero. We've got Seawan Gobin
on the line. He's a United States Marine Corps veteran
who served twelve years as an infantry rifleman and armor officer.
After three combat deployments, twice to a rock and once
to Afghanistan, he decided to hike the Appellachian Trail as
a way to transition to civilian life. The healing effects

(01:48:09):
of the six month journey inspired him to found a
nonprofit Warrior Expeditions, which sends vets on long distance wilderness
trips across the country. To quote, walk off the war,
fantastic stuff he's doing here, Sean, Thank you so much
and thank you for your service. Thanks for joining us. Well,
thank you very much to my honor to be here. First,
just just tell me a bit about your time time
in the Core and how you got to this place

(01:48:31):
now where you're helping other veterans. Sure. So, my time
in the Marine Corps, my first tour, I was enlisted
UH Infantry rifleman, but that was before nine eleven. UM
picked up a commissioning program UM right after I received
my commissions when nine eleven happened. After finishing the basic school,

(01:48:52):
I was designated as an Armor officer. UM checked into
my first unit, second Tanks UM, and within ten days
of checking in we were in Kuwait and my first
field up on the tank was the the initial crossing
of Kuwait until Irack during the initial invasion. That was
my two thousand three deployment. My two thousand five deployment,
I took over Cobaltoon, which is a humby mounted infantry

(01:49:16):
blal tun within a tank Italian And in two thousand
five I spent seven months um fighting the counter insurgency
fight in Fallujah. And then fast forward to two thousand eleven,
I got tasked to go to Afghanistan and train the
Afghan national security forces. So I was basically bouncing around
r C Southwest training the Afghan military and police forces

(01:49:38):
for about a year. And so then after all that
time in theater, in various theaters and and combat experience
and close contact with the enemy, you came back States,
you transitioned and tell us about that. Sure, so I
decided to get out in two thousand twelve, the spring
of two thousand twelve, and grad school wasn't gonna start

(01:49:59):
until that fall, so I basically had a four and
a half month window. And it had always been a
dream of mine to hike the Appalachian Trail, and so
that was my opportunity. So I drove off the back
gate of Campbells VI, North Carolina on March fourteenth, two
thousand and twelve, drove straight to Springer Mountain in Georgia
and then spent the next four and a half months
hike in the Appalachian Trail and what started off as

(01:50:21):
just a personal goal ended up being, honestly, you know,
a life saving experience for me. We're speaking to Sean Gobin,
the United States Marine Corps veteran and founder of the
nonprofit uh A founder of a nonprofit What Warrior Expeditions. Sean, UH,
By the way, how does that how does that go
with the Appalachian Trail? I mean, where do you get food?
And I mean what's the what are the logistics of this? Like? So? Uh, Well,

(01:50:46):
for my personal experience, which I had none at the time, UM,
I grabbed a bunch of gear I had hanging out
of my garage and um, you know, and did the
typical military veteran thing and carried way too much gear
and tried to like, way too fast, too far. In
the beginning, uh incurred a bunch of overuse injuries and
then was excruciating pain for the first thirty days of
my hike. Um. But then as far as we supply,

(01:51:08):
that's pretty easy. The town the trail crosses a number
of towns every few days or so, and so you
basically just hop off the trail, go to the nearest
gas station, fill up your pack with your favorite candy
bars and granola bars and dehydrated meals, and then just
hop back on the trail. What are some of the
most amazing things that either you saw or just some

(01:51:28):
of the experiences you had during this twenty mile hike
on the Appalachian Trail. Whereas as you put it, you
walked off the war in a sense. Yeah, and it
was really happenstance, which was the most impactful part of
the experience. Um. Again, I started as a personal challenge,
but then as I was making my way up the trail,
I started to notice I was having a lot of
these therapeutic effects from the hike itself. The first was

(01:51:53):
just having the time in space in my own head
to process and decompress from everything I had experienced. Uh,
because as we all know, you know, current day veterans,
I mean, you can be on the battlefield one day
and then you're home the next um, and then you
multiply that by a bunch of deployments, and then you know,
you transition out of the service and a blink of
an eye and you're scrambling trying to start your new life,

(01:52:14):
and you know, we never really had the chance to
really just stop and process and decompress everything we had
gone through. And so that was the first thing that
was really impactful. The second was I did the hike
with a buddy of mine who I was deployed with,
and so having another combat vet with me just to
talk to h during the journey was really good. UM,
as you're going through this process and this experience, UM,

(01:52:34):
just to be able to talk to somebody who gets
it was was really important. And then the third thing
that was really incredible about the experience was meeting all
these wonderful people along the way. Um. After three combat
tours and dealing with the absolute worst of humanity, a
lot of veterans come home and you start to get
really cynical towards people in society at large, which causes
a lot of veterans to isolate. But during my journey,

(01:52:56):
I met all these wonderful people along the trail who
didn't know me from Adam, but who are opening up
their homes to me, supporting my journey, and it really
re established that basic faith in humanity that I lost
along the way. Sean for veterans who are listening were
those who are family members of veterans, and there's certainly
a lot of them right now who are listening. UH,
if they would like to see what you're up to

(01:53:17):
and learn more about Warrior Expeditions, where do they go
and what can they expect? Sure, so they can get
all the information about the organization from Warrior Exhibitions. Dot
org um is also an application process on the website
UM where people can submit applications and then they can
follow the journeys of our veterans that have participated in
our program on to include the forties that are participating

(01:53:39):
this year across our ten different trails that cross thirty
five states. UM. So it's a great place to learn
about what we do and how we do it, and
then really interesting to watch the veterans as they make
their way up the trails each year on our social
media sites and how where are I mean, you've got
a whole bunch of these trails. Have you done more
than one of them? Have you done a few of
these shown? The plan was to do all of them,

(01:54:01):
but after I did the first trail, which is the
Appalachian Trail, and started my organization. UM, this has now
become a fifteen hour day, seven day a week commitment.
And so until I can find my replacement my ability
to do some more trails, you're just gonna have to wait,
what's the next if you have to tell me right now,
what's the next trail you're gonna take if you had
the time. I really like our biking program we just

(01:54:25):
started last year, our Warrior Bike program, which goes from Virginia,
Oregon's and it's a really cool bike trip on really
cool bikes that we use. And so if I had
the option, I think I would do that one next.
Sean Gobin, United States Marine Corps veteran and founder of
Warrior Expeditions, go check it out. Everybody listening, and Sean,

(01:54:46):
thank you so much for joining everyone. This is one
of our American Heroes of the week. Sean, we really
appreciate it. Man, thank you for your service, and thank
you for joining us today on the show. Thanks Buck,
I really appreciate it. And team with that. We are
going to be closing out here. Please do download the
show on iTunes even if you're listening live wherever you
are and whatever radio market your and across the country.

(01:55:06):
It's kind of a way of voting in favor of
the show. Also, Buck Sexton dot com slash store go
check that out. You can buy gear. Please do it
supports us here in the Freedom Hut. Excited to join
you tomorrow night with much more of the kind of
stuff we talked about today, and more and until then,
my friends, As always, shields high

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