Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome Morning ruminators. Welcome to the Third Hour. If you
are just joining us, remember you can listen to the
rest of the show on the podcast. Just look for
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You know, search for your favorite artists. Maybe it's maybe
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(00:24):
Taylor Swift followed by my podcast. Just search for Taylor
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be in the podcast setting whereas hers would be in
the music setting, but you get the idea, and we
thank you as always for joining us. Show fifty five
to fifty nine and we are joined by He's the
(00:46):
vice president policy at the Heartland Institute. He's an author,
but more important than all of that, topping his resume
is that he's a regular guest on this show. Justin Haskins,
how are.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You doing great? I'm all fired up. I've been up
for hours listening to Taylor Swift. Switched over to the
show here.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah. Yeah, every morning, I get up every morning three am,
and that's what I do that's a great way to start.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
The morning, or a horrible one. Okay, I wanna, I'm
gonna I'm gonna take I'm gonna take a lead for
what you just said, I'm all fired up. What fires
you up?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Oh man? There's so much going on in the world
right now. I think it's not hard to get fired up. Uh.
You know, we haven't talked about about what's been going
on in Iran at all, and that's sort of that's
not usually I don't usually talk about foreign policy, but
I think in this particular case, I'm a little I'm
pretty fired up about it. I'm pretty fired up about it.
(01:52):
I'm not so much opposed to what's going on with
the president and Iran and the bombing and basically going
to war with Iran. And I'm glad that the Iatola
is dead, you know, horrible regime, mass murderer. They deserve
to be wiped off the face of the earth. The government,
(02:13):
there no question about it. But I am deeply concerned
that Congress has never declared war for this war, or
seemingly for any other war for decades and decades and decades,
and this pattern just continues to go on and on
and on, and it does bother me. It does bother
(02:35):
me because I think the Constitution is really clear about it,
and I think historically even the War Powers Resolution and
other things are very clear about it. And it just
seems like every president, no matter who we have in office,
ignores it and just goes into war whenever they feel
like it. And I think part of the political conflict
we had surrounding this wark comes from Congress never has
(02:59):
to go on the record for it officially. They refuse
to vote about it one way or the other, and
so they hold no responsibility for what goes on. And
I think that's you know, that's the people's representatives. They
should have to vote. And because they're not voting, it's
all on Donald Trump's shoulders here, it's up to him
to make the decision. And the same thing has been true.
(03:21):
It happened with Joe Biden, it happened with Barack Obama,
It's happened with every president we've had for my whole life,
and I'm just I'm sick of it. I think that's
where I'm at.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Does Trump have thirty days though?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You know? So, I think what you're referring to is
part of a provision related to the War Powers Resolution.
So this was a law that was passed in the
nineteen seventies by Congress, and the purpose of the law
was actually to try to rein in presidents from going
to war too often. That was the point of it.
(03:56):
And if you read it, it's really interesting. Most people
have never read it. I didn't read it until about
a year or two ago for the first time. But
when you read it, it's very very clear. In the
law it doesn't give the power to the president to
go to war for any period of time other than
a specific list of situations, and those situations basically say
(04:19):
Congress has to declare war, Congress has to authorize the
war in some other way without officially declaring it, or
the United States has to be actively like under attack,
and that those are the only conditions. And so it
doesn't actually say presidents can choose to go to war
for any length of time without Congressional approval unless we're
being directly attacked. And the current president, as well as
(04:44):
numerous other presidents, I think every president, does not recognize
the War Powers Resolution. They say it's not legal, it's
not constitutional, that's what they say. So it's there's no
reason for anyone to take that position, actually, but it's
widely believed.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Vice president of Policy Hartland Institute. It's an author, researcher, writer, commentator,
and friend of The Morning Show with Preston Scott. He's
Justin Haskins, Justin I. I understand though, that if the
President calls together Congress to talk about this particular action,
(05:25):
they're going to tip off of Ron. They're not. We
got members of Congress that hate this country.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yes, oh no, there's no question about it. When the
when the when the provision was written, when they wrote
the Constitution, they weren't concerned by that obviously because the
world was just a totally different place. So you didn't
have media and you couldn't you couldn't even really tip
off enemies in these days, and so they weren't concerned
by it. But that's just an argument for changing the
(05:53):
constitution so that so that there's a different process for
declaring war. But it isn't an argument for saying, well,
we're just going to ignore that part of a constitution
because it isn't, you know, the best way of doing
things in the modern world. That's why we have amendments
and we probably do need an amendment for this, but
that's not that's not the current law, and that, to
(06:17):
me is the is the problem is, it's just not
the current process. And Congress has been able to escape
liability for all of these foreign conflicts for years and
years and years because they never actually have to vote
on anything, and I think that's a huge part of
the problem.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Let me pose this to you. What if I were
to suggest, because I hear what you're saying, and there's
a part of me I don't disagree, but I also
have four pages of not an exhaustive list, but of
one line list of things that Iran has done that
has directly attacked American military Americans, whether it's themselves through proxies.
(06:58):
What if I were to advance to you, Well, the
fact of the matter is we've been under attacked by
iron since nineteen seventy nine, and Donald Trump's just the
first one willing to do something about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I think that those are all valid justifications for having
a war, but there's no there are no exception clauses
in the Constitution that say, well, once you're attacked, then
you can A president can go to war for an
indefinite period of time often to the future. You know,
(07:33):
there's nothing like that in there, because I think what
they envisioned, and it's very clear from the Federalist papers,
for example, it's very clear from the debates that they
were having at the Constitutional Convention. They envisioned was if
the country's going to go to war, the president doesn't
get to decide. Once they decide, Congress decides. Once Congress
decides we're going to war, the president runs it. That
(07:56):
was so clearly the system that they That was the
check and balance about checks and balances, right and right now,
we have no checks and balances when it comes to wars.
Essentially very few. I mean they do technically exist, but
they're not utilized at all. The president just decides when
to go to war whenever he feels like it, and
then it's up to Congress to do some special action
to try to stop it. And a lot of those
(08:18):
actions can actually be prevented by the president himself through vetos.
And so the whole thing is just a gigantic, gigantic
mess because both parties have failed to follow the process.
Now that's not to say, I mean it's kind of
unfair to hold him to a standard that no one,
which is why I'm holding all the presidents to the
(08:39):
same standard, right right, this is how they've all done it.
I'm not saying, well, Donald Trump's some monster who's doing
it and no one else has. They've all done it
for you know, for basically since World War Two. But
it has to stop. I think that's the main thing
that I'm concerned with is there's just we need to
have a constitutional process for deciding when we go to
(09:02):
war and when we don't go to war, and if
we need to reform it, then we should do it
by amending the Constitution, not by just ignoring it. That's
you know again, and this is a weird position because
most people don't take this position. They're either just totally
against it or they're totally for it. But that's to me,
that's the most important thing, the foundational first Principles issue here.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Justin and I were chatting it up in the break.
I said, you know, the next piece you need to
write is your amendment of the Constitution to address this issue.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yes, and I think I'm going to do it. You're
putting me on the spot here on Oh you're making
me commit to my next up. But I think I'm
going to do it. It's a great idea, it really is,
and I think it is something that we've lost in
the United States on both sides. But it's more of
a Democrat problem this, We're being honest, more of a
liberal problem. But when we when we don't like some
(09:55):
aspect of the Constitution, we just ignore that part of it. Well,
I mean it's like, no, I think we need need
to all amend it. If you don't, if we think
there's a problem, let's amend it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I wanted, I want you to address what we were
talking about, and I we were just kind of kicking around.
How ironic it is that the left just conveniently ignores
the actions of Obama and to a certain extent, Biden,
although that was just total incompetence there, and that they
really were supporting us going to war in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, no, it's unbelievable. The left was eager, i mean,
foaming at the mouth for us to be involved in
Ukraine against another nuclear power, Russia. They wanted it so badly.
You still drive around and see people with Ukrainian flags
hanging from their doors and everything. I mean, they really
(10:49):
really wanted it. And I feel bad for the Ukrainian people, obviously,
but that is not a conflict with the United States
by any means. This conflict with Iran. As you pointed
out in one of the previous segments, Iran has actually
directly killed American soldiers and funded terrorists who have killed
(11:10):
Americans numerous times over the past half century, unlike say
Russia in recent history, who really hasn't killed any Americans.
And yet the Democrats wanted it to be more involved
in Ukraine and they don't want us to do anything
in Iran. There's no consistency on the left at all
other than to say, if Donald Trump wants to do something,
(11:33):
we are going to be one hundred percent behind it
every single time, no matter how inconsistent we are. That's
the only consistency that they have, and they're doing very
well at it in this particular case. I guarantee that
if Joe Biden decided he was going to go to
war with Iran, or whoever was actually running the White
House while he was there, I believe they would have
(11:53):
been one hundred percent behind it. Joe. I don't think
there's any question about it.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Joe Biden would have called on the Persians.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Oh, oh wow, if he's if he's lucky, he would
have called him the first. That's probably too accurate even
for him.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Hey, I want to take a couple of minutes. How's
the new book rollout going? Tell everybody about the book.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, no, it's been it's been awesome. It's been great,
gotten lots of attention. The book is called The Next
Big Crash. It's about this incredible conspiracy that these major
institutions took away, working with government, took away your investment
rights so that you are not the actual direct registered
owner of your investments, your stocks, your bonds, and other investments.
(12:39):
And they've rigged the rules so that two big defail
institutions in the event of the huge crash, could be
bailed out. They don't necessarily have to be, but could
be bailed out using your investments. It's an incredible story
that most people have never heard of. Again, the book
is called The Next Big Crash. If anyone is interested,
please check it out. All the profits from the book
go to nonprofit organizations trying to fix this problem. By
(13:01):
the way, so I don't make any money personally on
the book, So please check out the book. The next
bit crash. I promise you will be entertained and informed
and love it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
And by entertained, it's not a novel. This is all
stuff that's happened out there.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yes, yes, no, it's all based in reality. The story
of how it came about is wildly entertaining. I mean,
it reads like some crazy conspiracy theory, but it's all
based in fact. I've got hundreds of sources in the
books for people to do their own homework. But I
mean there's a possibility the CIA was involved, for example.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Maybe it doesn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Really bad. There's a lot of really interesting things in
the book, and it's an incredible story. If people read it,
I guarantee they won't be disappointed.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
We're going to talk again in roughly thirty days. Thirty
days from now, you think we're still going to be
at war in Iran and believe we'll ever put boots
on the ground.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I don't know how we win the war in Iran
without putting boots on the ground and still being in
war in thirty days. So if we if we're not there,
it's because we've decided to leave prematurely. And so I
think if you're going to fight the war. You fight
the war to win. You don't fight the war. It's
a sort of kind of win. So I hope that
isn't the case at this point in time.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
We'll find out about thirty days when we talk again. Justin,
thanks for the time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Thanks presding Ticket.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
All right, Justin Haskins with us this morning again, The
Next Big Crash. You can get it on Amazon. You
can get it all the booksellers that are out there.
Conspiracy Collapse and the men behind history's biggest heist. It's
all true. Everything in that book is sourced. It's all true.
It'll make you look at your far O one K
(14:51):
a little differently. I'll tell you that