January 18, 2025 • 39 mins
Joe Biden spends his last week as President of the United States trying to manufacture a 28th Amendment to the Constitution.
Trump's cabinet nominees have begun their confirmation process, and they're proving that Trump knows how to hire.
For the latest news, follow me on Instagram, and X:
@the.ethanbuchanan
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Trump's cabinet nominees have begun their confirmation process, and they're proving that Trump knows how to hire.
For the latest news, follow me on Instagram, and X:
@the.ethanbuchanan
@_ethanbuchanan
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Alrighty, let's rock and roll. I hope y'all had a
great week. I had a great week. I'm batting down
the hatches right now because here in Houston we are
expecting a major freeze. And I mean it's everywhere in
the country, but Houston is getting it too, which is
crazy because normally we don't. So if I don't do
(00:39):
a podcast next week, it's because I'm frozen in my room.
Please come find me and defrost me. It's desperate. So,
oh gosh, I really don't know where I want to start.
I think i'll start where the week started with Pete
Hegseth's first confirmation hearing. I don't know if there'll be
another one. I think from what I was seeing, they're
(01:01):
not planning on doing another one for Pete hagg Seth.
It looks like he probably has the votes just from
the Republican Caucus, so there's not really a need to.
But that's how we started off this week. We got
the confirmation hearings rolling, and it started with Pete hegg Seth.
His was the first. He is the nominee for Defense Secretary,
(01:22):
and I gotta tell you, just from sitting there and
watching that full confirmation hearing. I can't think of a
worst possible way to spend a day than sitting in
one of those rooms and dealing with, to be honest,
the Democrat senators because they're either dumb or obnoxious. It
(01:46):
was like truly difficult to sit there and watch this
questioning of Pete Haig Seth by these Democrats. I legitimately
developed an actual headache watching it. They had clearly gone
into this with their minds made up about Pete haig Seth.
They really did not want to give him the time
of day. We'll get into that, but first I actually
want to play you a clip of his opening statement
(02:08):
because it was really good, and Pete, to his credit,
did a fantastic job during this process. He really killed it.
So I'm going to open with his opening statement just
so you can hear it, because it was really good.
And then we'll dig into some of the points of
questioning from the different senators and I'll bash them up
and down because it was truly the worst experience I
(02:30):
can imagine. Take a listen first, though, to Pete haig
Seth's fantastic opening statement.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Now it is true and has been acknowledged that I
don't have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the
last thirty years. But, as President Trump also told me,
we've repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly the
right credentials, whether they are retire generals, academics, or defense
contractor executives. And where has it gotten us? He believes,
(02:58):
and I humbly agree that it's time to give someone
with dust on his boots the helm. A change agent,
someone with no vested interest in certain companies or specific
programs or approved narratives. My only special interest is the warfighter,
deterring wars and if called upon, winning wars. By ensuring
(03:21):
our warriors never enter a fair fight, we let them
win and we bring them home. Like many of my generation,
I've been there. I've led troops in combat. I've been
on patrol for days. I've pulled a trigger down range,
heard bullets whiz by, flexcuffed insurgents, called in close air support,
(03:42):
led metavacs, dodged IEDs, pulled out dead bodies, and knelt
before a battlefield cross. This is not academic for me.
This is my life. I led then and I will
lead now.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, what a great opening statement, right, because he makes
the point that Donald Trump basically made during his entire campaign,
which is the fact that we've been dealing with this
status quo for God only knows how long. Right, Who's
to really say where the beginning point of the systems
in the United States as they currently stand is. What
(04:26):
we do know for sure is the way that we've
been doing things, at least since nine to eleven really
isn't working anymore. The government has become very much run
by these special interests, like Pete Heggs Seth points out.
So people talk about the fact that like Pete Hegseth
does not have all the qualifications we want. He's not
a four star general, this or this. That's what the
(04:49):
American people voted for. There was no doubt in our
minds when we went to the voting booths and voted
for Donald Trump that we were going to get people
that were out of the box. That's what we We
want to flip the system on its head. We want
a complete factory reboot at places like the Pentagon, and
the Democrats in this hearing us all show in a
(05:09):
later clip they try to look at this like it's
a bad thing. You don't have this experience, you didn't
work for any of these companies. That's why you're unqualified. No,
that's specifically why he is qualified. Like he points out,
he's been on the ground in battlefields, so he knows
what soldiers need in order to fight their wars. And
(05:29):
he does not owe anybody any favors, which is exactly
what you want in a position of power. You want
someone like the Secretary of Defense to be loyal and
concerned only with the interests of the United States. If
you're concerned with the interests of any individual company, or,
like Hanseth points out a narrative, you're compromised. Like the
(05:50):
Bible says, a man cannot serve two masters. That's true
of positions of power. All right, let's get into some
of the questioning, because this honestly really laid bare the
fat that the people that are in the Senate are
completely unqualified. So Mazie Herono, one of the senators from Hawaii,
of course, we all know there's been jokes thrown about
about Canada and Greenland and Lottie Dottie DoD Who knows
(06:11):
if they're serious, who actually cares it's jokes. It's pretty
clearly jokes. I don't think anybody seriously thinks Canada will
become the fifty first state. But Mazie Herono is apparently
extremely concerned with whether or not Trump will try to
invade Canada or whatever. Take a listen to her line
of questioning at Pete heg sith.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
President Elk has attacked our allies in recent weeks, refusing
to roll out using military force to take over Greenland
and the Panama Canal, and the threatening to take to
make Canada the fifty first state. Would you carry out
an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory
of our NATO ally Denmark Life Force, or would you
(06:54):
comply with an order to take over the Panama Canal?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Senator emphasize that President Trump received seventy seven million votes
to be the lawful commander.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
We're not talking about the election.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
My question is would you use our military to take
over Greenland or an ally of Denmark?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Senator. One of the things that President Trump is so
good at is never strategically tipping his hand, and so
I would never in this public forum give one way
or another direct what orders the president mean in any context.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
That sounds to me that you would contemplate carrying out
such an order to basically invade Greenland.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That is a great answer by Hegseth to a really
stupid question, like there is no reality where that actually happens.
We are not going to invade Canada. They are not
going to become the fifty first state. And if we
acquire Greenland, it'll be through a legal purchase. So calm down.
But good job heggsth at least trying to take a station.
If you watch the video, you can see him do
(07:56):
like the eye roll and whatnot. He I feel so
bad for that guy. He endured hell that day, and
you can see the highlights on Twitter. That was just
the surface. It was sad to watch, just because I
know he must have been suffering. All Right, we got
a lot more coming up. We're gonna take a quick
ad break and we will be right back. Okay. So
(08:19):
Joe Biden has been busy this week, as you would expect.
This is his last week in office. After this, he
will no longer be the president as of Monday. Effective
Monday twelve o'clock, Donald Trump will be the President of
the United States, and Joe Biden will finally be allowed
to crawl back into his casket and sleep for eternity,
because as we know, he has in fact been dead
(08:41):
for quite some time. They've been keeping him alive with
a cocktail of I don't know, crack cocaine and monster energy,
and that's how he's been able to function. But he's
actually been legally dead. I assume I'm just kidding before
I get fact checked. These are jokes. Okay, this is comedy,
or at least it's my attempt to comedy. I don't
(09:01):
know all that's irrelevant. Joe Biden has been trying to
squeeze every last bit of productivity, if you can call
it that, out of his last week in office, and
one of the finishing touches he put on his term
as presidency is pull a constitutional amendment essentially out of
(09:21):
his butt and try to just declare it to be
an amendment to the United States Constitution. Now, I don't
know how much you know about government and law, but
the president of the United States cannot do that. So
for those of you who never took a Civics class
and don't know this, here's how this works. To amend
the Constitution, there first has to be a proposed amendment.
(09:43):
So Congress can propose an amendment. They can drop and
propose an amendment, and that then has to be passed
by two thirds of the House and two thirds of
the Senate, or an amendment could be proposed at a
constitutional convention. Two thirds of the state legislatures all have
to call for constitution convention, and then they can all
get together and propose an amendment that has actually never
(10:04):
happened to the United States. Okay. Once an amendment is proposed,
state legislatures then have to go in and ratify these
amendments as in like the Texas House, the Texas Senate
for example, would then have to go in and ratify
these The amendments must be ratified by three fourths thirty
eight out of fifty of the state legislatures. Usually there
is a time limit attached to that process, for example
(10:27):
seven years, So essentially you have seven years to get
thirty eight states to all approve of this amendment, otherwise
it fails. That all makes sense, right, If I lost
you go back listen to it again. Okay, so there's
the equal Rights Amendment. Now I really don't actually know
anything about this amendment. I didn't actually hear about it
until Joe Biden tried to declare it to be the
law of the land. It was proposed in the seventies,
(10:49):
as I understand it, and they were about to come
up short of the deadline to ratify it, and so
they extended it a little bit, and then it's still failed. Right, So,
they they had the initial deadline, they didn't get enough
votes in that initial deadline, they didn't get enough states
to ratify it, so they extended it. They still didn't
get enough. Right, the deadline was nineteen eighty two. They
(11:10):
were three states short in nineteen eighty two. Later I
think three more states went back and ratified it, but
that was post the deadline. It had already failed. That's
like if a congressman goes to a bill that has
already been voted down and says, by the way, I
support this, it has no meaning congratulations, I don't care.
(11:31):
It means nothing. Now again, I don't know anything about
this amendment. It may very well be a good amendment.
I have no idea. All I know is it has
not been constitutionally ratified, so it's not part of the constitution.
Joe Biden just doesn't care about that. Here he is
at some speech, just declaring this to be the law
of the land, which he can't do. Take a listen
(11:51):
to this today.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I have firm Nico Rights Amendment to have cleared all
the necessary hurdles to be added to the US Constitution.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Now the Ecal Rights Amendment is the law of the land. Now,
it's the twenty eighth amendments of the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Now he does that thing where he gets like super
animated and he starts yelling for no reason. Okay, slow down,
Grandpa Joe. The twenty eighth Amendment does not exist. There
is no twenty eighth Amendment. It has not passed all
of the hurdles. He just declares that. He's I say,
the twenty eighth Amendment has passed all of the legal hurdles.
Now it's the law of the land. Now, Okay, you
(12:35):
can say that as much as you want, Grandpa Joe.
It has not in facts passed the legal hurdles, and
it is not in fact the law of the land.
It's just not so. Vice President Kamala Harris again until
Monday goes and she just backs him up fully on this. Again.
I don't know anything about the Equal Rights Amendment and
what it says, everybody should have equal rights. Everybody does
(12:59):
have equal rights. We were done, We did that, congratulations.
Discrimination is illegal in the United States, So this is
completely unnecessary. First of all, we straight up don't need
a constitutional amendment for this because we don't have one now,
and nobody's allowed to just be discriminated against. But anyway,
forget all that. Kamala Harris backs up Joe Biden on
(13:20):
this and she puts out this statement. She says, equality
is a fundamental promise of our democracy. That is why
the Equal Rights Amendment belongs in our constitution. It makes
our nation stronger, and it is the law of the
land because the American people have spoken in states across
our nation. History teaches us that civil rights are fought
for and one with every generation. That continues to be
(13:41):
true today, which is why I have spent my career
fighting for freedoms and to expand opportunities for women and girls. Okay,
there's no opportunity that men have that women and girls don't.
It's a stupid lie. It doesn't exist. She goes on it, says,
it has always been clear that when we lift up women,
we lift up children, families, communities, and all of society. Now,
Americans must continue to fight for a more equal and
(14:03):
just nation where everyone has the opportunity to realize the
promise of America. Okay, all of that statement is useless jargon.
Nobody cares. What's important is the fact that she says
it is the law of the land, that people have
spoken as the community note that immediately got slapped on
her post points out that's actually not true. It's not
the law of the land. And you know who says that.
(14:26):
The Archivist of the United States, who's actually in charge
of all this. So the community note that's currently on
her post right now, you can go see it. The
Archivist of the United States, charged with officially publishing ratified amendments,
has confirmed that the er Equal Rights Amendment was not
ratified and based that analysis on binding legal precedent. There
(14:46):
is no twenty eighth Amendment. Now there's another post that
goes in a little bit deeper. This one I don't
think hasn't been actually displayed yet, but it's on there.
I voted to approve it, but it hasn't gone up yet.
The National Archivist has stated that the amendment cannot be
certified without action from Congress. Or the courts. Biden's January seventeenth,
twenty twenty five statement is purely symbolic and lacks legal authority.
(15:09):
The original ratification deadline of nineteen seventy nine, which was
then extended to nineteen eighty two, was missed. So again,
apparently this amendment got the thirty eight states. But it
got the thirty eight states after the deadline. Is everybody
following me here? There was a deadline. If you don't
get it by this deadline, it fails. It didn't get
(15:31):
it by the deadline, therefore failed, And then a bunch
of people went back after the fact and said, no,
we approve it. Okay, you already missed the deadline. It's
already failed. You can't go back and unfailure. I don't
know what the process looks. I assume it could be revived.
Surely there's some legal method or something. Maybe Congress could act,
(15:51):
maybe the courts. I don't know. Probably i'd imagine so.
But I know for sure that it's not Joe Biden.
He can't just declare it to be. So there is
no twenty eighth Amendment. It is not the law of
the land. Okay. Now I want to also get into
something that he actually said during his farewell speech. So
he uses his last official address to the American people
to go complain about what's going on at X and
(16:16):
Facebook now where they're kind of cutting back the censorship,
which is objectively a good thing. It is good that
this is happening. But Joe Biden wants to go and
complain about it.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
Here.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Take a listen.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I'm equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech
industrial complex. It could pose real dangers for our country
as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of
misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free
press is crumbling it there's a disappearance social media is
(16:51):
giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by
lies told for power and for profit. We must hold
the social platform and accountable to protect our children, our families,
and a very democracy from the abusive power.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Okay, So I want you to listen real closely to
what he's saying. He's essentially saying there's too much information
out there and it's not coming from sources that I
have signed off on and said are Okay, that's the
gist of what he's saying. I'm gonna pose this question
to you, and I'm going to let you think on
(17:30):
this and decide for yourself, which do you think is
a bigger problem. You can get as much information as
you want from wherever you want, and then you have
to go in and do the work yourself to figure
out what is reliable and what is not. Or alternatively,
you can get the information that the government wants you
to have from the sources that the government says are okay.
(17:54):
Which do you think is a bigger threat to our democracy?
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have
a bunch of information and then I can go back
and compare and contrast and see what lines up with reality.
That's actually a good thing in my opinion. That's not
a threat. That's an active good because that prevents the
government from lying to you. And that's exactly why authoritarian
(18:16):
leftists don't like it. All right, let's talk Trump for
a minute. So we've we've got some good news. Trump
is heading in to his presidency doing really well. Like
he's putting up some great numbers in terms of his
approval rating. So according to a recent Fox News poll,
(18:37):
he's sitting at about fifty two percent right now in
terms of his approval rating during the transition, So he
hasn't even taken office. He's not the president yet, but
he's got a fifty two percent approval rating of his
job just going from Joe Biden to Trump being the
president in that weird interim period, he's been busy and
(18:58):
people are liking what they've seen. Let's dig into the
data here. As inauguration day approaches, President Trump perceives his
highest favorable rating and half of registered voters approve of
his handling of the presidential transition. So if you look
at the data, the Pulse says, do you think Trump's
twenty twenty four victory was mostly an endorsement of his
policies and performances or mostly a rejection of Biden and
(19:20):
Harris's policies and performances. Most people said that they thought
it was a rejection of Biden and Harris. And then
the other question was do you approve or disapprove of
how Donald Trump is handling the presidential transition. His approval
rating is fifty two percent, forty six percent disapproved, so
pretty even distribution, right. It kind of matches what the
(19:43):
results of the actual election are, and that tells us
that people know what they were or knew what they
were voting for when they went to vote, and they
see that they're getting it and they're happy about it. Right,
Like fifty two percent of people, give or take voted
for Donald Trump, and those same fifty two percent of
people are saying, Okay, we're getting what we wanted. And
(20:03):
I think what's really worth pointing out here is the
fact that Donald Trump's approval ratings have never ever been
this high ever. I think during his first term. Yeah,
he maxed out at like forty five percent. That was
in April or May of twenty twenty, so I guess
that's when. Honestly, I really don't know why he would
(20:24):
cap out there. I think most people really didn't like
how he handled COVID, but hey whatever, that's where he
maxed out was April or May of twenty twenty. So
he's gone up a full three points from his previous
max just during the transition period. That's impressive. Fifty two
percent in politics is a huge number. If he can
maintain that and kind of stay at that popularity level,
(20:47):
Republicans are going to have a blowout year when it
comes to the midterms in twenty twenty six. But the
question is why, right, And like I kind of hinted
at earlier, people are getting what they voted for. We
wanted lower prices, we want the border to be closed.
That's what most Americans were the most concerned about was
the economy and the border. And so far they've gotten
(21:07):
what they wanted. Like we talked about last week, Trump
has got big investments coming in from other countries, and
we're already seeing people start to self deport. He's been
sending a very clear, very strong message throughout this entire
transition period. We are going to close the border. We're
going to get the illegal aliens out. And you know
who heard that, the illegal aliens, they've started getting out
(21:30):
ahead of Trump. They're just picking up and going home.
Take a listen to this report from News Nation. I
thought it was just great, frankly, because that saves us
money to porting these people. I'm all for it. If
you want to leave, go save us the trouble of
having to find you a rescue and deport you. Just
leave and then come back the right way. We'd love
(21:50):
to have you, but come in the right way. So
here's this report from News Nation, where they're talking about
the fact that these illegal aliens are just picking up.
Speaker 7 (21:59):
In Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation
operation in US history, and before those operations begin, some
migrants are already choosing to leave the country voluntarily. News
Nations Hore Ventura joins US Live from San Antonio, Texas
this morning with more on this story, or Hey, how
many migrants are we actually seeing doing this leaving voluntarily.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
Right now? Market? It's unclear, but we are starting to
see a trend. And this comes as cities across the
US and Mexico are now bracing for President and lux
deportation operation. But it is hardline messaging on those deportation
efforts have some migrants panicking and some even choosing now
to self deport back to the home countries. I spoke
with immigration attorney Rolando Vascuz who tells me that some
of the immigrants that he represents that entered under the
(22:46):
Biden administration are now choosing to return home fearing deportation
under the incoming administration.
Speaker 9 (22:52):
Just as recent as yesterday they notified me that they're
going to depart the country voluntarilynderstanding that, you know, the
Trump administration is going to carry through on their promises.
Speaker 8 (23:07):
And it's not just Trump's deportation plans that influenced these decisions,
Vasca says. It's also that Mexico is now open to
accepting non Mexican deportees. Mexico's move would impact Cuban and
Venezuela migrants the most, since those countries typically do not
accept deportation flights from the US, but may from Mexico.
Speaker 9 (23:26):
This is causing for many migrants to leave on their
own and knowing that they're either going to be deported
to their home country or be deported to Mexico. And they, obviously,
the overwhelming majority of them do not want to be
in Mexico.
Speaker 8 (23:41):
And my sources in Mexico tell me that it's likely
that cartails and smilers will exploit, kidnap and extore those
newly deported migrants. As of right now, it's unclear if
Mexico has a plan to protect those deported migrants.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Market.
Speaker 7 (23:53):
Yeah, borders about to change on Monday, at least that's
what voters were promised. Jorhea Ventura, thank you so much,
live from santi this morning.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, nobody should be surprised by this at all. Trump
has messaged very clearly, and he hasn't just messaged, He's
followed through with that messaging. People see the appointments of
people like Tom Homan. They see Tom Homan then go
out and say like, in no uncertain terms, listen, we
are going to deport illegal aliens. If you try to
(24:21):
get in the way of US deporting illegal aliens, we
will take you to court and we will fight you
on it. They see appointments like Pete Hegseth, and then
they see Pete Heggseth go up and kick butt in
his confirmation hearings, and they realize, Okay, this wasn't just talk.
Trump has gone in as a change agent, backed by
(24:44):
other change agents, and they're shaking up a system that
has not worked. And I think if he keeps this up,
this is going to continue to increase his support because
we will see the real results of this. As the
population in this country goes down because there are less
illegal aliens, We'll see the housing markets start to cool
(25:05):
off a little bit. Things might actually get a little
bit cheaper as we've got foreign investments coming in that'll
build up jobs. That's what people want, more people working
able to make more money. I mean, people voted for
mean tweets and world peace and you know, a better
economy and whatnot, and they're actually getting it. I mean,
(25:27):
we've had plenty of mean tweets, but now we're actually
getting the world peace as well. So we've all been
very focused since October seventh on what's going on in
Israel and Gaza, right, that's been a big concern for
pretty much everybody, and we had this week finally a
ceasefire agreement reached, which would see that the hostages are returned.
(25:51):
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, everybody wants
the hostages out, or at least they say they do.
Even the pro Hamas protesters in New York and basically
every major city, in college campuses and everything, they all
at least say, yeah, taking hostages is bad, and then
they follow that up with a but. But regardless, everybody
(26:12):
has at some point or another at least claimed that
they want the hostages back and they want the fighting
to stop. Everybody has agreed on that to some extent. Well,
we finally got the ceasefire. It's amazing how eager Hamas
was to come to the table and negotiate after Trump said, hey,
you guys have until January twentieth to get these hostages
out or I'm gonna start blowing some people up. According
(26:35):
to Andre Parard with ktr H shout out Andre, great guy,
Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a hostage release deal.
That comes after Israel spent Thursday accusing Hamas of orchestrating
a last minute crisis that was holding up the hostage
ceasefire agreement. Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahu released a statement
saying that both sides have now agreed to release over
thirty hostages still being held by Helmas. At least two
(26:57):
of them are said to be American. Some of the
hostage are also reportedly dead already. That is a tragedy.
That was always my kind of question. How many of
these people that they're still holding are still alive? Right?
That has to be a reason that they have held
off on releasing hostages because a bunch of them are
dead and they know that if we find out about that,
(27:17):
there's going to be more consequences, and they're trying to
stave that off. But regardless, at least we're getting people back, right,
that's a positive. We're getting people back. The fighting is
going to stop, at least temporarily. We'll see what happens.
The deal now heads to Israel's cabinet for full approval.
The statement also added, the families of the hostages have
been informed of the agreement. Now, Joe Biden tried to
(27:40):
walk out there and take credit for this. Okay, if
you did it, why didn't you do it earlier? Because
nothing has changed with regards to your administration. You have
been in the same spot, doing the same things this
entire time. Why have you waited until just now to
put all the pieces together. That just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't pass the sniff. I think everybody around the
(28:02):
world understands that this is a result of Donald Trump
being elected and winning and then saying, listen, you guys
had better start cooperating. We are not going to be
pushed around anymore. You're giving our people back. We're done
with this, and if you don't start behaving by the
time I get there, I'm gonna make you behave. And
you know who knows that that's why this happened. Prime
(28:23):
Minister Benjamin Netan Yaho of Israel. So the official ex
account for the Prime Minister of Israel tweeted out Prime
Minister Benjamin Nett and Yahoo spoke this evening with US
President elect Donald Trump and thanked him for his assistance
in advancing the release of the hostages and helping Israel
bring an end to the suffering of dozens of hostages
and their families. So that blows up the narrative that
(28:45):
Joe Biden did this. And that's another point for Trump
because regardless of where you stand, left, right or center
on whether or not Israel has been justified in this war,
everybody wants the war to stop. And Trump isn't even
in office yet and he's effectively stopped it. Hopefully, fingers crossed,
this deal actually holds up and goes through and there's
(29:08):
not you know, other problems, but hey, mean, tweets and
world peace. What else could you possibly want. We've got
it right here, all right, hold on, We're gonna be
right back after just a few more ads. Okay. I
want to close this out by talking about some of
the other confirmation hearings that we've been having. A bunch
of people had their hearings this week or their start
(29:29):
of their hearings. Pete Hegseth was just the first one.
Christin noom I think did a really good job in hers.
She's the nominee for Department of Homeland Security secretary. As
I'm sure you can guess, Department of Homeland Security. That's
you know, the border, that's anti terrorism, that's things like that.
So Tom Holman will be working under her to secure
(29:50):
the border, and she'll be of course working under Trump.
She's the governor right now, or at least was of
one of the Dakota's. I'm not sure what exactly she
does now. And I really wasn't sure about her as
a pick for this position because I just kind of thought, well,
I mean, why, what really was the reasoning for picking her?
And after watching some clips of her confirmation hearings, I
(30:11):
see know she was she was a good pick. There's
a good reason for it. So I want to play
this clip of her talking to Joni Ernst. Joni is
a senator from Iowa if you don't know, and it
basically she does a great job of clarifying the role
of the Department of Homeland Security secretary, which is I
think at this point, let Tom Holman do what he
(30:33):
feels like he needs to do and then be able
to go and communicate that to the American people, like,
this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it.
Because Tom Holman is the guy who's probably going to be,
you know, organizing a lot of the policy and whatnot.
He'll be making a lot of the decisions. The question
is who's going to be behind him, backing him up
and facilitating that and then explaining it to people. And
(30:56):
I think Christino and will do a great job of that.
Take a list and to her giving this answer to
Joni Ernst. Joni Ernst was asking her about a girl
named Sarah Root, who I believe was murdered by an
illegal alien in Iowa. And the question is like, how
are you going to prevent this? And the answer is,
we already have laws that prevent this, they just aren't
(31:16):
being enforced. So we just follow the law. It's really simple.
So take a listen to Christy Nome just explaining that, Listen,
this is our number one priority. We're going to do
our jobs and follow the law. That's all we have
to do. And then I'm going to turn around and
I'm going to make it clear, Look, this is what
we're doing and why So here it is it's Joni
Ernst and it's Christy Nome. Listen to this.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
So, Governor, how do you plan to prioritize the detention
and deportation of illegal immigrants like Sarah's killer.
Speaker 10 (31:47):
Yes, Senator, thank you for telling Sarah's story. I remember
when this happened because it was so close to home
and so devastating for her and her family and the
entire state of Iowa. In our country, I had President
Trump focused on making sure that these types of situations
don't happen again, that we don't continue to lose our
children and our family members to illegal immigrants that come
(32:08):
in and perpetuate crime and with no accountability, and then
our release with no consequences. So the number one priority
of the President is to secure the border and to
deport these criminal actors immediately and as soon as possible.
They will be the number one priority to make our
communities safer and so that we don't have this kind
of situation going forward. In fact, people I think when
(32:29):
they first heard my name being mentioned and nominated for
the Department of Homeland Security maybe thought it was a
little bit of a surprise, Like, oh, I didn't think
about Christy doing that job. But I tell people the
reason that I asked for it is because I knew
it was the President's number one priority. I knew that
it would needed to have someone in the position that
would do what the President promised the American people would
(32:52):
be strong enough to do it and follow through to
make sure that we're protecting our communities and America. But
that also came at it from a perspective of how
these families feel that was a wife and a mom
and a grandmother and would be able to stand up
and communicate to the American people what we were doing
and why we were because it's what they asked us
(33:12):
to do. I have three grandchildren and one more on
the way, and when I look at little miss Addie
every day, I just think, what kind of a country
is she going to grow up in? What kind of
a country will we leave her and her brother and
a sister. And I don't want them to think that
their grandma sat on the sidelines and didn't do all
that she could. So I will enforce the constitution and
(33:34):
the law, and I will make sure that when people
enact horrific things like this. They happened to say in
her family that there will be consequences for it.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Yeah, absolutely all right.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
So here's why that's so important. That's such an important
good answer because it shows that she can sort of
humanize this, right, and that's what's going to be critical
because over the next couple of years, as we start
to do these big deportation operations and you know, finding
and arresting illegal aliens and you know, getting them out
of the country, shutting down the border, we're gonna get
(34:06):
that sort of outrage that AOC and kind of the
wild left loves to just make their entire personality. You'll
remember during Trump's first term, AOC put on like this
white outfit and went to one of these deportation holding
centers or what have you, and she stood outside in
(34:27):
the parking lot in front of the fence and she
just she took that picture of her crying and whatnot.
And oh, look how sad and terrible Trump is. It's
the kids in cages, Ladi da dyda. We're going to
get that again. It will come back and they will
run against it. Look how terrible it is. Donald Trump
has just deported this family. How could he do that?
(34:49):
You need to be able to put a soft humanizing
face on that. If Tom Holman is the face of
that operation, everybody's gonna be like, oh, look, how mean
Tom Homan is. And that's great for the Republican base,
but how is that going to play to moderates and
the left. I'll tell you right now, it's not going
to play super well. And that's going to cost us
(35:09):
in the midterms. There's a big picture here that we
need to look at. If the midterms roll around and
the Democrats take control of the House and or the Senate,
god forbid, that's going to be a big problem. Trump's
not going to be able to get anything done. But
if you have a humanizing face like Christy Nome, who
can say, look, this is going to be a difficult
(35:30):
thing to do. This isn't going to be all just
sunshine and butterflies. But it's necessary, and here's why it's necessary.
That's going to be critically important. That's how Trump keeps
that fifty two percent approval rating that we talked about earlier.
That's how he kind of carries that forth and say, look,
we're actually doing a good job, and you convince people
(35:52):
to get on board with it. You need a rough
and tumble guy like Tom Homan actually setting the policies
and carrying them out, but in the role of secretary,
which is essentially to just communicate what the policy is.
That's her job. You need a softer face on that,
and she is a very clear and concise communicator, as
she then showed again when she was being questioned by
(36:14):
Democrat Senator Andy Kim. I don't know much about him either.
I'm not sure what state he's from. Let me check
it real quick. He is from New Jersey, all right.
Andy Kim, Democrat from New Jersey, is sort of asking him, Okay,
what's the chain of command here? What's the order of operations?
Are you running the border? Is Tom Holman running the border?
(36:37):
Who's in charge? And she just makes it clear like
Trump's in charge. We're all here to play specific roles
in backing up Trump's agenda. Take a listen to this.
It'll kind of make you chuckle.
Speaker 6 (36:49):
I guess I'm uncertain about roles and responsibilities regarding your
position and Tom Holman's I guess I just want to
ask you just point blank, like who's going to be
in charge of the border.
Speaker 10 (37:00):
Well, the president will be in charge of the border.
It's a national security issue, and the president is in
charge of this country and has made a promise to
the American people, and we will fulfill his agenda.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
Well, that's my That was a good answer to the
answer I would have given as well.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Come on, that's got to make you chuckle a little bit.
He's like, shoot, that's what I would have said. Good,
good answer. That's that's funny. That is funny. But yeah,
she makes it a very important point. You don't need
somebody necessarily in this position. That's got all the answers
right now, because you've got people like Tom Homan backing
her up, and you've got Trump ahead of her up top.
(37:39):
Her job is primarily to be a communicator, and what
she proved in her confirmation hearing is that she is
a good communicator. She's good at humanizing, she's good at
talking to people. And it's not like she's stupid. It's
not like she has no idea how to do this.
She's been a governor, she's been a congresswoman, so she
knows how to run a government entity because this is
(38:00):
an administrative position, and she's a good communicator. Those are
the two biggest priorities for her. Can you check those
boxes and she definitely can. She definitely can. And like
I said earlier, that is going to be important in
the primaries. Can you put a soft face on something
that is gonna be difficult. You're gonna have pictures of
(38:23):
people crying because they're being taken to a country they
don't want to go to. It's their home country, it's
where they're supposed to be, but they don't want to
be there. The Democrats are gonna run on that. They're
going to so how do you combat that? Will you
combat that with somebody who's confident, who's a good communicator,
and can take that weapon away from the Democrats. Okay,
so Monday is Trump's inauguration, and that is when we
(38:46):
will start seeing all of these policies finally be implemented.
We've waited for a long time to see them. And
I'm gonna close this out with a clip I found
of Rush Limball talking about how effective this is going
to be. I think we can only use this right now.
You're some timeless wisdom from Rush to close out the show.
The Trump Maga agenda can succeed. It will succeed again
(39:07):
the next time it's implemented because it resonates with millions
and millions of people. They loved it,
Alrighty, let's rock and roll. I hope y'all had a
great week. I had a great week. I'm batting down
the hatches right now because here in Houston we are
expecting a major freeze. And I mean it's everywhere in
the country, but Houston is getting it too, which is
crazy because normally we don't. So if I don't do
(00:39):
a podcast next week, it's because I'm frozen in my room.
Please come find me and defrost me. It's desperate. So,
oh gosh, I really don't know where I want to start.
I think i'll start where the week started with Pete
Hegseth's first confirmation hearing. I don't know if there'll be
another one. I think from what I was seeing, they're
(01:01):
not planning on doing another one for Pete hagg Seth.
It looks like he probably has the votes just from
the Republican Caucus, so there's not really a need to.
But that's how we started off this week. We got
the confirmation hearings rolling, and it started with Pete hegg Seth.
His was the first. He is the nominee for Defense Secretary,
(01:22):
and I gotta tell you, just from sitting there and
watching that full confirmation hearing. I can't think of a
worst possible way to spend a day than sitting in
one of those rooms and dealing with, to be honest,
the Democrat senators because they're either dumb or obnoxious. It
(01:46):
was like truly difficult to sit there and watch this
questioning of Pete Haig Seth by these Democrats. I legitimately
developed an actual headache watching it. They had clearly gone
into this with their minds made up about Pete haig Seth.
They really did not want to give him the time
of day. We'll get into that, but first I actually
want to play you a clip of his opening statement
(02:08):
because it was really good, and Pete, to his credit,
did a fantastic job during this process. He really killed it.
So I'm going to open with his opening statement just
so you can hear it, because it was really good.
And then we'll dig into some of the points of
questioning from the different senators and I'll bash them up
and down because it was truly the worst experience I
(02:30):
can imagine. Take a listen first, though, to Pete haig
Seth's fantastic opening statement.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Now it is true and has been acknowledged that I
don't have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the
last thirty years. But, as President Trump also told me,
we've repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly the
right credentials, whether they are retire generals, academics, or defense
contractor executives. And where has it gotten us? He believes,
(02:58):
and I humbly agree that it's time to give someone
with dust on his boots the helm. A change agent,
someone with no vested interest in certain companies or specific
programs or approved narratives. My only special interest is the warfighter,
deterring wars and if called upon, winning wars. By ensuring
(03:21):
our warriors never enter a fair fight, we let them
win and we bring them home. Like many of my generation,
I've been there. I've led troops in combat. I've been
on patrol for days. I've pulled a trigger down range,
heard bullets whiz by, flexcuffed insurgents, called in close air support,
(03:42):
led metavacs, dodged IEDs, pulled out dead bodies, and knelt
before a battlefield cross. This is not academic for me.
This is my life. I led then and I will
lead now.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, what a great opening statement, right, because he makes
the point that Donald Trump basically made during his entire campaign,
which is the fact that we've been dealing with this
status quo for God only knows how long. Right, Who's
to really say where the beginning point of the systems
in the United States as they currently stand is. What
(04:26):
we do know for sure is the way that we've
been doing things, at least since nine to eleven really
isn't working anymore. The government has become very much run
by these special interests, like Pete Heggs Seth points out.
So people talk about the fact that like Pete Hegseth
does not have all the qualifications we want. He's not
a four star general, this or this. That's what the
(04:49):
American people voted for. There was no doubt in our
minds when we went to the voting booths and voted
for Donald Trump that we were going to get people
that were out of the box. That's what we We
want to flip the system on its head. We want
a complete factory reboot at places like the Pentagon, and
the Democrats in this hearing us all show in a
(05:09):
later clip they try to look at this like it's
a bad thing. You don't have this experience, you didn't
work for any of these companies. That's why you're unqualified. No,
that's specifically why he is qualified. Like he points out,
he's been on the ground in battlefields, so he knows
what soldiers need in order to fight their wars. And
(05:29):
he does not owe anybody any favors, which is exactly
what you want in a position of power. You want
someone like the Secretary of Defense to be loyal and
concerned only with the interests of the United States. If
you're concerned with the interests of any individual company, or,
like Hanseth points out a narrative, you're compromised. Like the
(05:50):
Bible says, a man cannot serve two masters. That's true
of positions of power. All right, let's get into some
of the questioning, because this honestly really laid bare the
fat that the people that are in the Senate are
completely unqualified. So Mazie Herono, one of the senators from Hawaii,
of course, we all know there's been jokes thrown about
about Canada and Greenland and Lottie Dottie DoD Who knows
(06:11):
if they're serious, who actually cares it's jokes. It's pretty
clearly jokes. I don't think anybody seriously thinks Canada will
become the fifty first state. But Mazie Herono is apparently
extremely concerned with whether or not Trump will try to
invade Canada or whatever. Take a listen to her line
of questioning at Pete heg sith.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
President Elk has attacked our allies in recent weeks, refusing
to roll out using military force to take over Greenland
and the Panama Canal, and the threatening to take to
make Canada the fifty first state. Would you carry out
an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory
of our NATO ally Denmark Life Force, or would you
(06:54):
comply with an order to take over the Panama Canal?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Senator emphasize that President Trump received seventy seven million votes
to be the lawful commander.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
We're not talking about the election.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
My question is would you use our military to take
over Greenland or an ally of Denmark?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Senator. One of the things that President Trump is so
good at is never strategically tipping his hand, and so
I would never in this public forum give one way
or another direct what orders the president mean in any context.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
That sounds to me that you would contemplate carrying out
such an order to basically invade Greenland.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
That is a great answer by Hegseth to a really
stupid question, like there is no reality where that actually happens.
We are not going to invade Canada. They are not
going to become the fifty first state. And if we
acquire Greenland, it'll be through a legal purchase. So calm down.
But good job heggsth at least trying to take a station.
If you watch the video, you can see him do
(07:56):
like the eye roll and whatnot. He I feel so
bad for that guy. He endured hell that day, and
you can see the highlights on Twitter. That was just
the surface. It was sad to watch, just because I
know he must have been suffering. All Right, we got
a lot more coming up. We're gonna take a quick
ad break and we will be right back. Okay. So
(08:19):
Joe Biden has been busy this week, as you would expect.
This is his last week in office. After this, he
will no longer be the president as of Monday. Effective
Monday twelve o'clock, Donald Trump will be the President of
the United States, and Joe Biden will finally be allowed
to crawl back into his casket and sleep for eternity,
because as we know, he has in fact been dead
(08:41):
for quite some time. They've been keeping him alive with
a cocktail of I don't know, crack cocaine and monster energy,
and that's how he's been able to function. But he's
actually been legally dead. I assume I'm just kidding before
I get fact checked. These are jokes. Okay, this is comedy,
or at least it's my attempt to comedy. I don't
(09:01):
know all that's irrelevant. Joe Biden has been trying to
squeeze every last bit of productivity, if you can call
it that, out of his last week in office, and
one of the finishing touches he put on his term
as presidency is pull a constitutional amendment essentially out of
(09:21):
his butt and try to just declare it to be
an amendment to the United States Constitution. Now, I don't
know how much you know about government and law, but
the president of the United States cannot do that. So
for those of you who never took a Civics class
and don't know this, here's how this works. To amend
the Constitution, there first has to be a proposed amendment.
(09:43):
So Congress can propose an amendment. They can drop and
propose an amendment, and that then has to be passed
by two thirds of the House and two thirds of
the Senate, or an amendment could be proposed at a
constitutional convention. Two thirds of the state legislatures all have
to call for constitution convention, and then they can all
get together and propose an amendment that has actually never
(10:04):
happened to the United States. Okay. Once an amendment is proposed,
state legislatures then have to go in and ratify these
amendments as in like the Texas House, the Texas Senate
for example, would then have to go in and ratify
these The amendments must be ratified by three fourths thirty
eight out of fifty of the state legislatures. Usually there
is a time limit attached to that process, for example
(10:27):
seven years, So essentially you have seven years to get
thirty eight states to all approve of this amendment, otherwise
it fails. That all makes sense, right, If I lost
you go back listen to it again. Okay, so there's
the equal Rights Amendment. Now I really don't actually know
anything about this amendment. I didn't actually hear about it
until Joe Biden tried to declare it to be the
law of the land. It was proposed in the seventies,
(10:49):
as I understand it, and they were about to come
up short of the deadline to ratify it, and so
they extended it a little bit, and then it's still failed. Right, So,
they they had the initial deadline, they didn't get enough
votes in that initial deadline, they didn't get enough states
to ratify it, so they extended it. They still didn't
get enough. Right, the deadline was nineteen eighty two. They
(11:10):
were three states short in nineteen eighty two. Later I
think three more states went back and ratified it, but
that was post the deadline. It had already failed. That's
like if a congressman goes to a bill that has
already been voted down and says, by the way, I
support this, it has no meaning congratulations, I don't care.
(11:31):
It means nothing. Now again, I don't know anything about
this amendment. It may very well be a good amendment.
I have no idea. All I know is it has
not been constitutionally ratified, so it's not part of the constitution.
Joe Biden just doesn't care about that. Here he is
at some speech, just declaring this to be the law
of the land, which he can't do. Take a listen
(11:51):
to this today.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
I have firm Nico Rights Amendment to have cleared all
the necessary hurdles to be added to the US Constitution.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Now the Ecal Rights Amendment is the law of the land. Now,
it's the twenty eighth amendments of the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Now he does that thing where he gets like super
animated and he starts yelling for no reason. Okay, slow down,
Grandpa Joe. The twenty eighth Amendment does not exist. There
is no twenty eighth Amendment. It has not passed all
of the hurdles. He just declares that. He's I say,
the twenty eighth Amendment has passed all of the legal hurdles.
Now it's the law of the land. Now, Okay, you
(12:35):
can say that as much as you want, Grandpa Joe.
It has not in facts passed the legal hurdles, and
it is not in fact the law of the land.
It's just not so. Vice President Kamala Harris again until
Monday goes and she just backs him up fully on this. Again.
I don't know anything about the Equal Rights Amendment and
what it says, everybody should have equal rights. Everybody does
(12:59):
have equal rights. We were done, We did that, congratulations.
Discrimination is illegal in the United States, So this is
completely unnecessary. First of all, we straight up don't need
a constitutional amendment for this because we don't have one now,
and nobody's allowed to just be discriminated against. But anyway,
forget all that. Kamala Harris backs up Joe Biden on
(13:20):
this and she puts out this statement. She says, equality
is a fundamental promise of our democracy. That is why
the Equal Rights Amendment belongs in our constitution. It makes
our nation stronger, and it is the law of the
land because the American people have spoken in states across
our nation. History teaches us that civil rights are fought
for and one with every generation. That continues to be
(13:41):
true today, which is why I have spent my career
fighting for freedoms and to expand opportunities for women and girls. Okay,
there's no opportunity that men have that women and girls don't.
It's a stupid lie. It doesn't exist. She goes on it, says,
it has always been clear that when we lift up women,
we lift up children, families, communities, and all of society. Now,
Americans must continue to fight for a more equal and
(14:03):
just nation where everyone has the opportunity to realize the
promise of America. Okay, all of that statement is useless jargon.
Nobody cares. What's important is the fact that she says
it is the law of the land, that people have
spoken as the community note that immediately got slapped on
her post points out that's actually not true. It's not
the law of the land. And you know who says that.
(14:26):
The Archivist of the United States, who's actually in charge
of all this. So the community note that's currently on
her post right now, you can go see it. The
Archivist of the United States, charged with officially publishing ratified amendments,
has confirmed that the er Equal Rights Amendment was not
ratified and based that analysis on binding legal precedent. There
(14:46):
is no twenty eighth Amendment. Now there's another post that
goes in a little bit deeper. This one I don't
think hasn't been actually displayed yet, but it's on there.
I voted to approve it, but it hasn't gone up yet.
The National Archivist has stated that the amendment cannot be
certified without action from Congress. Or the courts. Biden's January seventeenth,
twenty twenty five statement is purely symbolic and lacks legal authority.
(15:09):
The original ratification deadline of nineteen seventy nine, which was
then extended to nineteen eighty two, was missed. So again,
apparently this amendment got the thirty eight states. But it
got the thirty eight states after the deadline. Is everybody
following me here? There was a deadline. If you don't
get it by this deadline, it fails. It didn't get
(15:31):
it by the deadline, therefore failed, And then a bunch
of people went back after the fact and said, no,
we approve it. Okay, you already missed the deadline. It's
already failed. You can't go back and unfailure. I don't
know what the process looks. I assume it could be revived.
Surely there's some legal method or something. Maybe Congress could act,
(15:51):
maybe the courts. I don't know. Probably i'd imagine so.
But I know for sure that it's not Joe Biden.
He can't just declare it to be. So there is
no twenty eighth Amendment. It is not the law of
the land. Okay. Now I want to also get into
something that he actually said during his farewell speech. So
he uses his last official address to the American people
to go complain about what's going on at X and
(16:16):
Facebook now where they're kind of cutting back the censorship,
which is objectively a good thing. It is good that
this is happening. But Joe Biden wants to go and
complain about it.
Speaker 6 (16:25):
Here.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Take a listen.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I'm equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech
industrial complex. It could pose real dangers for our country
as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of
misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free
press is crumbling it there's a disappearance social media is
(16:51):
giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by
lies told for power and for profit. We must hold
the social platform and accountable to protect our children, our families,
and a very democracy from the abusive power.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Okay, So I want you to listen real closely to
what he's saying. He's essentially saying there's too much information
out there and it's not coming from sources that I
have signed off on and said are Okay, that's the
gist of what he's saying. I'm gonna pose this question
to you, and I'm going to let you think on
(17:30):
this and decide for yourself, which do you think is
a bigger problem. You can get as much information as
you want from wherever you want, and then you have
to go in and do the work yourself to figure
out what is reliable and what is not. Or alternatively,
you can get the information that the government wants you
to have from the sources that the government says are okay.
(17:54):
Which do you think is a bigger threat to our democracy?
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have
a bunch of information and then I can go back
and compare and contrast and see what lines up with reality.
That's actually a good thing in my opinion. That's not
a threat. That's an active good because that prevents the
government from lying to you. And that's exactly why authoritarian
(18:16):
leftists don't like it. All right, let's talk Trump for
a minute. So we've we've got some good news. Trump
is heading in to his presidency doing really well. Like
he's putting up some great numbers in terms of his
approval rating. So according to a recent Fox News poll,
(18:37):
he's sitting at about fifty two percent right now in
terms of his approval rating during the transition, So he
hasn't even taken office. He's not the president yet, but
he's got a fifty two percent approval rating of his
job just going from Joe Biden to Trump being the
president in that weird interim period, he's been busy and
(18:58):
people are liking what they've seen. Let's dig into the
data here. As inauguration day approaches, President Trump perceives his
highest favorable rating and half of registered voters approve of
his handling of the presidential transition. So if you look
at the data, the Pulse says, do you think Trump's
twenty twenty four victory was mostly an endorsement of his
policies and performances or mostly a rejection of Biden and
(19:20):
Harris's policies and performances. Most people said that they thought
it was a rejection of Biden and Harris. And then
the other question was do you approve or disapprove of
how Donald Trump is handling the presidential transition. His approval
rating is fifty two percent, forty six percent disapproved, so
pretty even distribution, right. It kind of matches what the
(19:43):
results of the actual election are, and that tells us
that people know what they were or knew what they
were voting for when they went to vote, and they
see that they're getting it and they're happy about it. Right,
Like fifty two percent of people, give or take voted
for Donald Trump, and those same fifty two percent of
people are saying, Okay, we're getting what we wanted. And
(20:03):
I think what's really worth pointing out here is the
fact that Donald Trump's approval ratings have never ever been
this high ever. I think during his first term. Yeah,
he maxed out at like forty five percent. That was
in April or May of twenty twenty, so I guess
that's when. Honestly, I really don't know why he would
(20:24):
cap out there. I think most people really didn't like
how he handled COVID, but hey whatever, that's where he
maxed out was April or May of twenty twenty. So
he's gone up a full three points from his previous
max just during the transition period. That's impressive. Fifty two
percent in politics is a huge number. If he can
maintain that and kind of stay at that popularity level,
(20:47):
Republicans are going to have a blowout year when it
comes to the midterms in twenty twenty six. But the
question is why, right, And like I kind of hinted
at earlier, people are getting what they voted for. We
wanted lower prices, we want the border to be closed.
That's what most Americans were the most concerned about was
the economy and the border. And so far they've gotten
(21:07):
what they wanted. Like we talked about last week, Trump
has got big investments coming in from other countries, and
we're already seeing people start to self deport. He's been
sending a very clear, very strong message throughout this entire
transition period. We are going to close the border. We're
going to get the illegal aliens out. And you know
who heard that, the illegal aliens, they've started getting out
(21:30):
ahead of Trump. They're just picking up and going home.
Take a listen to this report from News Nation. I
thought it was just great, frankly, because that saves us
money to porting these people. I'm all for it. If
you want to leave, go save us the trouble of
having to find you a rescue and deport you. Just
leave and then come back the right way. We'd love
(21:50):
to have you, but come in the right way. So
here's this report from News Nation, where they're talking about
the fact that these illegal aliens are just picking up.
Speaker 7 (21:59):
In Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation
operation in US history, and before those operations begin, some
migrants are already choosing to leave the country voluntarily. News
Nations Hore Ventura joins US Live from San Antonio, Texas
this morning with more on this story, or Hey, how
many migrants are we actually seeing doing this leaving voluntarily.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
Right now? Market? It's unclear, but we are starting to
see a trend. And this comes as cities across the
US and Mexico are now bracing for President and lux
deportation operation. But it is hardline messaging on those deportation
efforts have some migrants panicking and some even choosing now
to self deport back to the home countries. I spoke
with immigration attorney Rolando Vascuz who tells me that some
of the immigrants that he represents that entered under the
(22:46):
Biden administration are now choosing to return home fearing deportation
under the incoming administration.
Speaker 9 (22:52):
Just as recent as yesterday they notified me that they're
going to depart the country voluntarilynderstanding that, you know, the
Trump administration is going to carry through on their promises.
Speaker 8 (23:07):
And it's not just Trump's deportation plans that influenced these decisions,
Vasca says. It's also that Mexico is now open to
accepting non Mexican deportees. Mexico's move would impact Cuban and
Venezuela migrants the most, since those countries typically do not
accept deportation flights from the US, but may from Mexico.
Speaker 9 (23:26):
This is causing for many migrants to leave on their
own and knowing that they're either going to be deported
to their home country or be deported to Mexico. And they, obviously,
the overwhelming majority of them do not want to be
in Mexico.
Speaker 8 (23:41):
And my sources in Mexico tell me that it's likely
that cartails and smilers will exploit, kidnap and extore those
newly deported migrants. As of right now, it's unclear if
Mexico has a plan to protect those deported migrants.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Market.
Speaker 7 (23:53):
Yeah, borders about to change on Monday, at least that's
what voters were promised. Jorhea Ventura, thank you so much,
live from santi this morning.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, nobody should be surprised by this at all. Trump
has messaged very clearly, and he hasn't just messaged, He's
followed through with that messaging. People see the appointments of
people like Tom Homan. They see Tom Homan then go
out and say like, in no uncertain terms, listen, we
are going to deport illegal aliens. If you try to
(24:21):
get in the way of US deporting illegal aliens, we
will take you to court and we will fight you
on it. They see appointments like Pete Hegseth, and then
they see Pete Heggseth go up and kick butt in
his confirmation hearings, and they realize, Okay, this wasn't just talk.
Trump has gone in as a change agent, backed by
(24:44):
other change agents, and they're shaking up a system that
has not worked. And I think if he keeps this up,
this is going to continue to increase his support because
we will see the real results of this. As the
population in this country goes down because there are less
illegal aliens, We'll see the housing markets start to cool
(25:05):
off a little bit. Things might actually get a little
bit cheaper as we've got foreign investments coming in that'll
build up jobs. That's what people want, more people working
able to make more money. I mean, people voted for
mean tweets and world peace and you know, a better
economy and whatnot, and they're actually getting it. I mean,
(25:27):
we've had plenty of mean tweets, but now we're actually
getting the world peace as well. So we've all been
very focused since October seventh on what's going on in
Israel and Gaza, right, that's been a big concern for
pretty much everybody, and we had this week finally a
ceasefire agreement reached, which would see that the hostages are returned.
(25:51):
Regardless of where you stand on the issue, everybody wants
the hostages out, or at least they say they do.
Even the pro Hamas protesters in New York and basically
every major city, in college campuses and everything, they all
at least say, yeah, taking hostages is bad, and then
they follow that up with a but. But regardless, everybody
(26:12):
has at some point or another at least claimed that
they want the hostages back and they want the fighting
to stop. Everybody has agreed on that to some extent. Well,
we finally got the ceasefire. It's amazing how eager Hamas
was to come to the table and negotiate after Trump said, hey,
you guys have until January twentieth to get these hostages
out or I'm gonna start blowing some people up. According
(26:35):
to Andre Parard with ktr H shout out Andre, great guy,
Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed to a hostage release deal.
That comes after Israel spent Thursday accusing Hamas of orchestrating
a last minute crisis that was holding up the hostage
ceasefire agreement. Prime Minister Benjamin and Yahu released a statement
saying that both sides have now agreed to release over
thirty hostages still being held by Helmas. At least two
(26:57):
of them are said to be American. Some of the
hostage are also reportedly dead already. That is a tragedy.
That was always my kind of question. How many of
these people that they're still holding are still alive? Right?
That has to be a reason that they have held
off on releasing hostages because a bunch of them are
dead and they know that if we find out about that,
(27:17):
there's going to be more consequences, and they're trying to
stave that off. But regardless, at least we're getting people back, right,
that's a positive. We're getting people back. The fighting is
going to stop, at least temporarily. We'll see what happens.
The deal now heads to Israel's cabinet for full approval.
The statement also added, the families of the hostages have
been informed of the agreement. Now, Joe Biden tried to
(27:40):
walk out there and take credit for this. Okay, if
you did it, why didn't you do it earlier? Because
nothing has changed with regards to your administration. You have
been in the same spot, doing the same things this
entire time. Why have you waited until just now to
put all the pieces together. That just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't pass the sniff. I think everybody around the
(28:02):
world understands that this is a result of Donald Trump
being elected and winning and then saying, listen, you guys
had better start cooperating. We are not going to be
pushed around anymore. You're giving our people back. We're done
with this, and if you don't start behaving by the
time I get there, I'm gonna make you behave. And
you know who knows that that's why this happened. Prime
(28:23):
Minister Benjamin Netan Yaho of Israel. So the official ex
account for the Prime Minister of Israel tweeted out Prime
Minister Benjamin Nett and Yahoo spoke this evening with US
President elect Donald Trump and thanked him for his assistance
in advancing the release of the hostages and helping Israel
bring an end to the suffering of dozens of hostages
and their families. So that blows up the narrative that
(28:45):
Joe Biden did this. And that's another point for Trump
because regardless of where you stand, left, right or center
on whether or not Israel has been justified in this war,
everybody wants the war to stop. And Trump isn't even
in office yet and he's effectively stopped it. Hopefully, fingers crossed,
this deal actually holds up and goes through and there's
(29:08):
not you know, other problems, but hey, mean, tweets and
world peace. What else could you possibly want. We've got
it right here, all right, hold on, We're gonna be
right back after just a few more ads. Okay. I
want to close this out by talking about some of
the other confirmation hearings that we've been having. A bunch
of people had their hearings this week or their start
(29:29):
of their hearings. Pete Hegseth was just the first one.
Christin noom I think did a really good job in hers.
She's the nominee for Department of Homeland Security secretary. As
I'm sure you can guess, Department of Homeland Security. That's
you know, the border, that's anti terrorism, that's things like that.
So Tom Holman will be working under her to secure
(29:50):
the border, and she'll be of course working under Trump.
She's the governor right now, or at least was of
one of the Dakota's. I'm not sure what exactly she
does now. And I really wasn't sure about her as
a pick for this position because I just kind of thought, well,
I mean, why, what really was the reasoning for picking her?
And after watching some clips of her confirmation hearings, I
(30:11):
see know she was she was a good pick. There's
a good reason for it. So I want to play
this clip of her talking to Joni Ernst. Joni is
a senator from Iowa if you don't know, and it
basically she does a great job of clarifying the role
of the Department of Homeland Security secretary, which is I
think at this point, let Tom Holman do what he
(30:33):
feels like he needs to do and then be able
to go and communicate that to the American people, like,
this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it.
Because Tom Holman is the guy who's probably going to be,
you know, organizing a lot of the policy and whatnot.
He'll be making a lot of the decisions. The question
is who's going to be behind him, backing him up
and facilitating that and then explaining it to people. And
(30:56):
I think Christino and will do a great job of that.
Take a list and to her giving this answer to
Joni Ernst. Joni Ernst was asking her about a girl
named Sarah Root, who I believe was murdered by an
illegal alien in Iowa. And the question is like, how
are you going to prevent this? And the answer is,
we already have laws that prevent this, they just aren't
(31:16):
being enforced. So we just follow the law. It's really simple.
So take a listen to Christy Nome just explaining that, Listen,
this is our number one priority. We're going to do
our jobs and follow the law. That's all we have
to do. And then I'm going to turn around and
I'm going to make it clear, Look, this is what
we're doing and why So here it is it's Joni
Ernst and it's Christy Nome. Listen to this.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
So, Governor, how do you plan to prioritize the detention
and deportation of illegal immigrants like Sarah's killer.
Speaker 10 (31:47):
Yes, Senator, thank you for telling Sarah's story. I remember
when this happened because it was so close to home
and so devastating for her and her family and the
entire state of Iowa. In our country, I had President
Trump focused on making sure that these types of situations
don't happen again, that we don't continue to lose our
children and our family members to illegal immigrants that come
(32:08):
in and perpetuate crime and with no accountability, and then
our release with no consequences. So the number one priority
of the President is to secure the border and to
deport these criminal actors immediately and as soon as possible.
They will be the number one priority to make our
communities safer and so that we don't have this kind
of situation going forward. In fact, people I think when
(32:29):
they first heard my name being mentioned and nominated for
the Department of Homeland Security maybe thought it was a
little bit of a surprise, Like, oh, I didn't think
about Christy doing that job. But I tell people the
reason that I asked for it is because I knew
it was the President's number one priority. I knew that
it would needed to have someone in the position that
would do what the President promised the American people would
(32:52):
be strong enough to do it and follow through to
make sure that we're protecting our communities and America. But
that also came at it from a perspective of how
these families feel that was a wife and a mom
and a grandmother and would be able to stand up
and communicate to the American people what we were doing
and why we were because it's what they asked us
(33:12):
to do. I have three grandchildren and one more on
the way, and when I look at little miss Addie
every day, I just think, what kind of a country
is she going to grow up in? What kind of
a country will we leave her and her brother and
a sister. And I don't want them to think that
their grandma sat on the sidelines and didn't do all
that she could. So I will enforce the constitution and
(33:34):
the law, and I will make sure that when people
enact horrific things like this. They happened to say in
her family that there will be consequences for it.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Yeah, absolutely all right.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
So here's why that's so important. That's such an important
good answer because it shows that she can sort of
humanize this, right, and that's what's going to be critical
because over the next couple of years, as we start
to do these big deportation operations and you know, finding
and arresting illegal aliens and you know, getting them out
of the country, shutting down the border, we're gonna get
(34:06):
that sort of outrage that AOC and kind of the
wild left loves to just make their entire personality. You'll
remember during Trump's first term, AOC put on like this
white outfit and went to one of these deportation holding
centers or what have you, and she stood outside in
(34:27):
the parking lot in front of the fence and she
just she took that picture of her crying and whatnot.
And oh, look how sad and terrible Trump is. It's
the kids in cages, Ladi da dyda. We're going to
get that again. It will come back and they will
run against it. Look how terrible it is. Donald Trump
has just deported this family. How could he do that?
(34:49):
You need to be able to put a soft humanizing
face on that. If Tom Holman is the face of
that operation, everybody's gonna be like, oh, look, how mean
Tom Homan is. And that's great for the Republican base,
but how is that going to play to moderates and
the left. I'll tell you right now, it's not going
to play super well. And that's going to cost us
(35:09):
in the midterms. There's a big picture here that we
need to look at. If the midterms roll around and
the Democrats take control of the House and or the Senate,
god forbid, that's going to be a big problem. Trump's
not going to be able to get anything done. But
if you have a humanizing face like Christy Nome, who
can say, look, this is going to be a difficult
(35:30):
thing to do. This isn't going to be all just
sunshine and butterflies. But it's necessary, and here's why it's necessary.
That's going to be critically important. That's how Trump keeps
that fifty two percent approval rating that we talked about earlier.
That's how he kind of carries that forth and say, look,
we're actually doing a good job, and you convince people
(35:52):
to get on board with it. You need a rough
and tumble guy like Tom Homan actually setting the policies
and carrying them out, but in the role of secretary,
which is essentially to just communicate what the policy is.
That's her job. You need a softer face on that,
and she is a very clear and concise communicator, as
she then showed again when she was being questioned by
(36:14):
Democrat Senator Andy Kim. I don't know much about him either.
I'm not sure what state he's from. Let me check
it real quick. He is from New Jersey, all right.
Andy Kim, Democrat from New Jersey, is sort of asking him, Okay,
what's the chain of command here? What's the order of operations?
Are you running the border? Is Tom Holman running the border?
(36:37):
Who's in charge? And she just makes it clear like
Trump's in charge. We're all here to play specific roles
in backing up Trump's agenda. Take a listen to this.
It'll kind of make you chuckle.
Speaker 6 (36:49):
I guess I'm uncertain about roles and responsibilities regarding your
position and Tom Holman's I guess I just want to
ask you just point blank, like who's going to be
in charge of the border.
Speaker 10 (37:00):
Well, the president will be in charge of the border.
It's a national security issue, and the president is in
charge of this country and has made a promise to
the American people, and we will fulfill his agenda.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
Well, that's my That was a good answer to the
answer I would have given as well.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Come on, that's got to make you chuckle a little bit.
He's like, shoot, that's what I would have said. Good,
good answer. That's that's funny. That is funny. But yeah,
she makes it a very important point. You don't need
somebody necessarily in this position. That's got all the answers
right now, because you've got people like Tom Homan backing
her up, and you've got Trump ahead of her up top.
(37:39):
Her job is primarily to be a communicator, and what
she proved in her confirmation hearing is that she is
a good communicator. She's good at humanizing, she's good at
talking to people. And it's not like she's stupid. It's
not like she has no idea how to do this.
She's been a governor, she's been a congresswoman, so she
knows how to run a government entity because this is
(38:00):
an administrative position, and she's a good communicator. Those are
the two biggest priorities for her. Can you check those
boxes and she definitely can. She definitely can. And like
I said earlier, that is going to be important in
the primaries. Can you put a soft face on something
that is gonna be difficult. You're gonna have pictures of
(38:23):
people crying because they're being taken to a country they
don't want to go to. It's their home country, it's
where they're supposed to be, but they don't want to
be there. The Democrats are gonna run on that. They're
going to so how do you combat that? Will you
combat that with somebody who's confident, who's a good communicator,
and can take that weapon away from the Democrats. Okay,
so Monday is Trump's inauguration, and that is when we
(38:46):
will start seeing all of these policies finally be implemented.
We've waited for a long time to see them. And
I'm gonna close this out with a clip I found
of Rush Limball talking about how effective this is going
to be. I think we can only use this right now.
You're some timeless wisdom from Rush to close out the show.
The Trump Maga agenda can succeed. It will succeed again
(39:07):
the next time it's implemented because it resonates with millions
and millions of people. They loved it,
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