More Biden Blanket Pardons? - In The Tank #475 - In The Tank

Episode Transcript
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Donald Kendal (00:13):
Alright. Welcome to the show. We are live, ladies
and gentlemen. After promisingnot to for years, Joe Biden
pardoned his son, Hunter, in thewaning weeks of his lame duck
presidency. But it wasn't just apardon.
It was a very broad blanketpardon spanning crimes and
potential crimes dating back 11years. But now we are hearing

(00:37):
that Biden may not be done withhis blanket pardons. Reports
suggest Biden might hand out anumber of pardons, perhaps most
controversially to AnthonyFauci. Also, we're gonna be
talking about Trump's latestcabinet picks and a new
heartland report analyzing howsocialist candidates fared in
the 2024 election. We aretalking about all this and more

(01:00):
on episode 475 of the in thetank podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in
honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.

Oh, I'm sorry. I can't get enough of that one.
Welcome to the In The Tankpodcast. As always, I am your
host, Donald Kendall. Joining metoday, I've got VP of the
Heartland Institute, JimLakeley.
How are you doing today, goodsir? Oh my gosh. We are off to a
good start.

Jim Lakely (02:05):
It off right in the beginning. I muted myself. Oh my
gosh. I'm so sorry. I'm sosorry.
But, you know, you know, I I sawtoday that they finally finished
counting all the ballots in, theCalifornia election. And
wouldn't you know it? Isn't thisweird? Every single time that
counting takes weeks weeks weekson end, it always ends up being
good for the Democrats. I justdon't understand.

(02:26):
You know, I don't really believein coincidences, but, boy,
that's weird, isn't it? It'sweird, isn't it? We need to fix
that.

Yeah. There's big coincidences, and there's little
coincidences. So, that one, youknow, that might be the one the
big column. Oh, I'm just tellingus. We have Chris Salgo,
editorial director.

Chris Talgo (02:43):
I'm gonna have to take umbrage I have to take
umbrage with your assessment ofthe spectrum of coincidences
because Seinfeld actuallydevoted an entire episode to
this, if you remember correctly

Oh, I remember.

When, it was the Eastern European woman writing
the, dissertation that Elainehad to edit when she was working
at Pendant Publishing. Mhmm.And, her boyfriend had had gone
to clean Jerry's apartment.

Oh, we don't we don't we don't need a whole
history of this.

Okay. But I'm just saying that that episode
actually had a very good backand forth about whether you can
have a big or small coincidenceor whether they're just
coincidences.

Right.

And if, if I remember correctly, Rana was her
name. Rana made the argumentthat you cannot have big or
little coincidences. There arejust coincidences. Yeah. Elaine
took Elaine took the other sideof that argument and said, no.
You can have big or small. Ithink I'm gonna have to go with
Ron on this. You cannot youcannot they're only they're only
coincidences. They're not big ornot small.

That's an absolute insane statement to
make. It's a coincidence if wejust happen to be wearing the
same color. It's also acoincidence if, you know, some
Mega Millions jackpot winnerhappens to also forget it.
Forget it. We're getting one offcourse here.

Jim Lakely (04:02):
It usually takes us a little longer to go off the
rails, but let's get it back tothe track.

You're not watching your bingo card. On
your bingo card, the middlecircle is Jim muting himself.
That's right. Going off therails is also on the bingo card.
Anyways, we've got a lot to talkabout.
Merry Christmas season,everybody. It is, post
Thanksgiving, so I've got mytree up right over here. We're

(04:27):
definitely in the in theChristmas season now. So if you
don't like that, deal with it.

So you you still you don't have a Festivus poll?
What's wrong with you?

Oh, I do have a Festivus celebration coming up,
but, let's not get sidetrackedin the Seinfeld stuff more. We
have a lot to talk about. Butbefore we get into it, I have to
put out that message I put upthe beginning of all of these
episodes that is a call toaction for you all. If you are
listening to this podcast,probably on a Friday or later,
first off, write a review for uson iTunes. That would be greatly

(04:56):
appreciated.
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(05:19):
things that make people mad, Iguess.
I don't know. But you cansupport the show by going to
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(05:39):
Anyways, let's get to it. We'vegot a bunch of topics, as you
can see on our sidebar there. Iwanna get to the first one right
away. So I originally onlyintended this first story to be
more or less our openingchitchat. Joe Biden pardoning
his son, Hunter Biden.
The news broke on this over thelong Thanksgiving holiday

(06:02):
weekend. So by 20 24 standards,the story is ancient. But I did
wanna talk about it at least alittle bit because I think that
there is some nuance that isintentionally being skated over
by most in the leftist media.So, many talking heads and
commentators are just trying togloss over this by saying, well,
Trump did pardons too. Everypresident does pardons.

(06:24):
I didn't hear you complainingwhen Trump pardoned general
Flynn, etcetera, etcetera,etcetera. And this intentionally
ignores some major things that Ijust wanted to kind of address
on this podcast. The the easyone off the top is Joe Biden's
constant promising that he wasnot gonna pardon Hunter Biden, a
line that was repeated by otherDemocrats and and probably most

(06:46):
by press secretary, KJP. Idon't, remember Trump promising
that he wasn't gonna pardonanybody, and then, you know,
went back on his word and thendid so. I don't remember that.
Maybe it did. I don't think itdid. But the craziest aspect of
this pardon was the range andblanket quality of the pardon.
So this pardon stretches back 11years and provides immunity to

(07:11):
Hunter Biden on any crimes andany potential crimes that Hunter
may have committed during thisperiod of time. Jim, do I have
those details correct?

Jim Lakely (07:22):
Unfortunately, you do have those details correct.

And, like, that's unprecedented. Right? I mean,
this this isn't something thatthat normally happens. Am I
correct?

Jim Lakely (07:30):
No. This is something that has never
happened before. You know, andand our our corrupt media, of
course, was carrying water forJoe Biden promising that, no.
I'll never, I'll never pardonHunter Biden. I will not even
commute his sentence.
And they just expressed shock,shock that he would go back on
his on his word as a Biden, Toactually go back to Seinfeld one

(07:52):
more time, it was GeorgeCostanza who said, it's not a
lie if you believe it. But thiswas actually a a legit lie
because, you know, it wasreported by NBC News, of all
places, that, you know, rightafter Hunter Biden was forced
to, forced to. But, you know,his deal, he he, plead guilty to

(08:12):
felony charges, with firearmsand with evading taxes. That was
back in June. And immediatelyback in June, Joe Biden and his
aids were discussing, whether ornot he was going to pardon
Hunter Biden.
And, of course, the answer tothat was, of course, he is
gonna, pardon his son. And theonly question was whether or not
he was gonna say so publicly orwhat he was gonna say publicly.

(08:33):
And they had come to theagreement that he will just deny
that he's gonna do that, all theway until he has to do it. And,
normally, these sorts of pardonshappen, you know, at the end of
a presidency, and they're verycontroversial, but it dies down
because everyone's focused onthe new guy taking over, the
presidency. But, Joe Biden wasforced to do this over
Thanksgiving weekend because, Ithink right now or maybe at this

(08:55):
time, but this week was thesentencing for Hunter Biden.
And for all those lefties outthere who call, Donald Trump a
convicted felon, you are nottechnically or actually at all a
convicted felon untilsentencing. So Hunter Biden now,
because he was pardoned beforehis sentencing for the felonies
that he admitted to committing,is will now never be a convicted

(09:17):
felon. So good, you know, thatgood good for him, I guess, now
he can own firearms again, andhe can also vote. He'll also be
voting when he's dead becausethat's the way it works with the
Democratic party. Sweet.

But And he can leave those firearms in garbage
cans near schools too.

Jim Lakely (09:29):
That's right. Well, big deal. Big deal. You know?
And and, you know, it's it'swhen I saw this, I actually
heard about it on Sunday.
I was, I was busy, and,actually, my mother texted me
and said, I saw it on the textas you know, when I was done
doing what I was doing on Sundayevening, she says, Joe Joe just
pardoned Hunter. I'm like, holymoly. Okay. And it wasn't till I
got home and started readingthis stuff that I realized how

(09:52):
outrageous this was and, becausewe all expected it. Right?
But then when you see that it'sa blanket pardon for any and all
federal crimes that couldpossibly be imagined starting in
January of 2014, the very monththat he started working for
Burisma, the energy company forwhich he had, no qualifications
to be on the board of directors,for which he was paid $1,000,000

(10:12):
a year, and which is was themost corrupt company in the most
corrupt country in all ofEurope, in Ukraine. Now why
would you pardon somebody forany crimes they may or may not
have committed if you are notpretty certain that he had
committed federal crimes, andthey just but your
administration has done a greatjob of making sure that he's not

(10:33):
held accountable for that, andthere isn't a real investigation
of it. But then a newadministration led by Donald
Trump and then Kash Patel, whichwe're gonna get to here in a
minute, as the head of the FBI,is going to pursue criminal
charges, is going to get down tothe bottom of the influence
peddling that is the, the Bidenfamily business. I would like
somebody somewhere to explain tome what it is that the Bidens do

(10:56):
for money.
None of them have any anymarketable skills. They seem to
travel all around the world,have meetings, and then money
comes flowing into their intotheir, what, 21 different shell
companies to to hide where it'scoming from and then where where
where it goes. And then it goesto, you know, all sorts of
different Biden family members,and then, of course, at least
10% for the big guy. You know,all of this stuff has been has

(11:19):
been covered up. Biden'ssupposedly independent
Department of Justice has notpursued any of these obvious,
like, smoking smoking gun crimesthat have been going on on
influence peddling.
There is nothing else thatHunter Biden is qualified to do
but to, be the bag man for ashakedown operation for the

(11:40):
influence that Joe Biden canhave on on foreign policy as
vice president of United States.He pardoned his son for before
he was president. 2014, he wasvice president of United States
and in charge of the Ukrainian,desk at the White House. And,
you know, what happened andeverybody knows this because he
brag because because Joe Bidenis so stupid. He bragged about

(12:02):
it on camera that he told the,he told Ukraine, you fire that
prosecutor who's coming afterBurisma, which my son sits on
and which we use for as a, youknow, perhaps a money laundering
operation.
You stop that investigation, oryou're not getting any aid. And
he says and then the famousquote, son of a bitch. They
fired a guy. You know? So that'swhat the the Joe Biden has been

(12:24):
in the business of for hisentire life.
He was first elected to thesenate at the age of 29 and has
been a senator or vice presidentfor all but 4 years for his
entire adult life. He doesn'thave any skills either, except
being a bullshit artist andfiguring out schemes in which he
can enrich himself on a publicservant salary. He still has
multiple homes and 1,000,000 ofdollars in his in his accounts.

(12:47):
How does that happen forsomebody who's just a center, a
senator, or a vice president whois operating in the public
interest and everything is onthe up and up? I want Chris to
get in here.
I got a lot more to say aboutthis that makes me angry. But
when you when you, because Iwanna get into some of the stuff
on that Hunter laptop, But oneof the things about pardoning
you from 2014 to, you know, Iguess, Monday or or Sunday, one

(13:10):
of the things that that coversis everything that was on that
Hunter Biden laptop. There are alot of crimes that were seen in
plain view on that Hunter Bidenlaptop, which, again, the the
corrupt deep state falselycalled, Russian disinformation.
So, yeah, that we'll get intosome of those crimes, I guess.
But this is outrageous.
This has never happened beforein American history, and the

(13:31):
only good shot the only upshotof this is that it gives Donald
Trump complete carte blanche todo whatever kind of pardon stuff
he wants, basically, about 30seconds after he takes the oath
of office.

Yeah. I, I you know, based on something that
you were saying there, I I I'mI'm starting to develop a little
bit of a tinfoil hat conspiracytheory, in my head, but give me
a minute to to kinda sort it allout. And during that minute, I
want Chris's reactions on onthis particular story.

Well, I think one of the things, that Jim didn't
mention, and I agree witheverything that that he did
mention, is that well, I mean,where do I even begin? There
there there are there are somany problems with what Biden
has done here. The breadth ofthe pardon, Fleischman said the

(14:22):
fact that it goes back, youknow, more than a decade and
covers, basically, any federalcrime that that he could be tied
to, is, you know, just justbreathtaking when you think
about it. But I am I'm also justa little bit, you know,
disappointed in the fact that,you know, Biden did this
obviously on a holiday weekend.And then what does he do the
next day?

(14:43):
He flies to Angola and doesn'ttalk to the press for 3 straight
days. Basically makes a fool ofhimself. I don't know if we have
any videos of that, but he fellasleep, you know, during the
press conference. I mean, justjust total, you know, like,
amateur hour. So, yeah, I mean,that's that's, you know, pretty
bad stuff.
Everyone knows the Bidens arecorrupt. Everyone knows that

(15:06):
Hunter Biden was, the bag manfor the big guy, like, you know,
Jim explained, and that he was,flying around on air force 2,
while Biden, was vice presidentand, making money hand over
fist, whether it's from China,whether it's from Ukraine,
whether it's from Russia orother, you know, countries
around the world. We'll neverget to the bottom of that.
That's just the way that it'sgonna be. But one of the things

(15:28):
that does stand out is that JoeBiden during or in his
statement, regarding the pardonclaim that the justice
department, is corrupt.
And he said that this was allpolitical. So that means that
Joe Barr Joe Biden's justicedepartment, under his watch, has
been corrupt. And then thatleads you to say, well, if it's

(15:48):
corrupt, then they went after,Donald Trump for political
reasons. They went after Trumpfor political reasons, then Joe
Biden should pardon DonaldTrump. Of course, he won't do
this.
But, really, I think what whathappened here is that Joe Biden
has opened up a can of wormsbecause now Donald Trump can
come in and say president Bidenhimself said that the FBI and
the DOJ is, you know, totallyout of control, and we need to

(16:09):
reform it. So thank you, JoeBiden, for doing that. I don't
think he intended to do that,but that's, you know, one of the
good things that happened here.Another one that I've been
reading about is the 5thamendment. So now that Hunter
Biden has been, pardoned of anycrimes he committed from 2014 to
2025, he can no longer use the5th Amendment because it can't
because he he he's not in dangerof prosecution.

(16:31):
So some people have, speculatedthat, actually, now this could
backfire on the Bidens, and theycould, haul in Hunter Biden into
questioning, whether it's, youknow, before the, house or
senate or whomever and say,okay. Now you have to answer
these questions. When you wereon the barista board, did you,
you know, receive basically, youknow, bribes? He can't hide

(16:54):
behind 5th amendment anymore. Sosome people are saying that this
actually could blow the wholething wide open.
I don't know if that's gonnahappen. I don't know if Donald
Trump's even gonna wanna go downthis road when he becomes
president or whether. He's wannajust gonna, you know, move, you
know, move forward, turn thepage, and, get into his, agenda.
But, yeah, this is justunprecedented. And, you know, we

(17:18):
all know Hunter Biden's guilty.
We all know that the the laptopwas real. It was not Russian
disinformation. And, you know,in the court of public opinion,
which, you know, does matter,he's guilty.

Alright. So here here's my here's my tinfoil hat
conspiracy theory. Jim, you youtell me if I'm too off base. If
you tell me I'm off base, thenI'll know that I'm way off base.
But Alright.
So we've on this podcast,especially in the waning weeks,
of the election season and evenin the immediate weeks after the

(17:49):
election season, we were kind ofquestioning the left strategy of
painting Donald Trump as this,like, dictator and this fascist
coming in. He's gonna use themilitary to round up his
political enemies, all of thissort of stuff. And we thought it
was kinda strange because it'slike they almost painted
themselves into a corner, andit's like, why are you having
lunch with the guy that youthink is gonna be the next

(18:11):
Hitler? Like, all of that sortof stuff. Maybe the entire
strategy of painting him as,like, the next Hitler, you know,
authoritarian or whatever, wasto give justification for these
sorts of pardons.
The cover up the cover up of allthe Biden crime family stuff,
and as we're gonna get into someof the Fauci stuff and all of
these other people. And it'sjust like, well, we we have to

(18:34):
make it seem to to justify theseblanket things. We have to make
it seem like this guy has, like,you know, bloodthirst. You know,
like, that's maybe that was theentire reason that they they
really overextended themselveswith painting him as the next
Hitler was just to givejustification for these blanket
pardons that we're gonna talkabout.

Jim Lakely (18:51):
I'll What do

you think?

Jim Lakely (18:52):
I'll I'll accept that theory in part, because I
think, yeah, you're that you'rehearing them go unhinged that
that we're gonna talk about evenmore blanket pardons. But
because they're so afraid ofKash Patel, who is, very
qualified to be the new head ofthe FBI, earlier this week, the
scuttle was that there's no waythat the Senate, that
Republicans who are gonna goturncoat on Trump on his

(19:15):
appointments. Mark my words. Andthey're going to hopefully, they
would pay a political price forthat. They gotta get their they
gotta get their asses, togetherhere and get the American
people, the cabinet that theyvoted for.
And part of that is Kash Patelas head of the FBI. Well,

we'll definitely get to that.

Jim Lakely (19:30):
We will think we will get to that. But they are
scared, they are scared out oftheir minds, and they so their
their their messaging now isthat these blanket pardons, and
we're gonna get into the blanketpardons just not for Hunter
Biden, but for others that isbeing floated out there. Because
elsewise, Donald Trump is goingto, persecute and falsely
falsely charge and persecute andtry to jail his political

(19:52):
enemies. The chutzpah it takesto to make that kind of argument
right now when the the when thedeep state and our department of
injustice has done nothing buttrump up BS charges against
Trump and anyone close to himAnd and not to mention the
January 6th, people, what is it,1200 people, have been charged,

(20:14):
and, most of them pursued way,way, way over what it warranted.
People that were, you know,there were rioters or people who
committed violence, but thereare people who just walked into
the building with open doors,doors opened by the police and
basically waved in that have nownow are convicted felons by an
out of control department ofinjustice.
And for all of that to havehappened over the last 8 years

(20:36):
and for them to now be cryingthat, you know, Trump is going
to weaponize the Department ofJustice and go after his
political enemies, no. It's notyeah. They they say it's gonna
be retribution for what he hasgone through. It's not
retribution. It'saccountability.
These people who have broken thelaw to use the, Department of
Justice to go after theirpolitical enemies and to destroy

(20:58):
Donald Trump. Look. We we tendto forget the Democrats'
reelection strategy was to haveDonald Trump in jail. He was
never supposed to be presidentagain because he was going to be
in prison, and they figured noteven, you know, not even every
MAGA person would vote for aconvicted felon who was sitting
in Leavenworth, you know, to bepresident of the United States.
They figured if we could justget him in jail, then he won't

(21:20):
be president, and then we willbe able to continue the way we
have continued, not just for thelast, you know, 20 years or so,
but for many, many decades ofthe administrative state
controlling this country insteadof the American people choosing
leaders to lead this country.
And so, you know, it it this hasbeen happening for a long time.
And the reason that Hunter Bidenspecifically needed a blanket

(21:41):
pardon going back, 10 year 11years is because, as Chris
pointed out and we've mentionedearlier, is that that that
Hunter Biden laptop was real. Ithad tons of information on it.
You know, only Hunter Biden, youknow, Joe Biden's, you know,
crackhead son is so stupid that,he he drops he drops a computer
off because it's broken at arepair shop, and it is just

(22:04):
chock full of evidence ofcriminal activity, and then he
just forgets all about it andwalks off. You know, and just
just forgets that I have all ofthis incriminating, evidence
against me and my family forcrimes sitting somewhere in a
computer shop.
Whatever. I'll just grab all mystuff from I'll just buy a new,
MacBook and grab all my stufffrom the cloud and move on with
my life. You know, stuff likethere was stuff on that laptop.

(22:27):
You might remember there weretext, text messages between him
and a family member where hecomplained. Poor Hunter.
Poor Hunter Biden. He wascomplaining that he has to go
and collect the money and do allthe work while dad just sits on
his ass, and then, you know, Ihave he gets most of the money.
You know, try giving up half ofyour income to dad when he
doesn't do anything. I'm doingall the work. Oh, boohoo.
Boohoo. You know, Hunter Bidenis like the Fredo Corleone of

(22:51):
the, from the godfather of theBiden crime family. He's like,
you know, I'm not dumb. I'msmart. You know?
You know, he's and I deserverespect. That's the kind of way
he talked and thought in thesetext messages. He's freaking
Fredo for crying out loud. Andthere was evidence of him using
drugs, of giving drugs toothers, of hiring, you know,
getting prostitutes into hotelrooms. That is very, very awful.

(23:12):
That's human you know, sexworkers are not voluntarily
doing these sorts of things.That is almost in every case, a
a, a very awful crime of humantrafficking. Those sorts of
things now will be investigated.Well, they were gonna be until,
Joe Biden just gave a blanket,pardon for any of these
activities. It's just absolutelyoutrageous that this this this

(23:36):
poor guy, you know, the there'sa a smidgen of sympathy for him
because he's 54 years old, andhe's never been able to get his
life in order.
And he has to keep having daddybail him out with the biggest
bailout of personalresponsibility we've ever seen
in the United States.

Right. Yeah. There there's some, you know, we
don't get to every article thatI put in the show notes, but
there's a good one from NationalReview, where it's like the
judge that presided over HunterBiden's tax case just kind of
ripping into Joe Biden'sstatements

Speaker 2 (24:04):
suggesting that this was selective persecution and
all of that. The judge just lays

waste to this. So if you're persecution and all of
that. The judge just lays wasteto this. So if you're interested
in kind of the details of that,go check out the show notes.
There's other there's otherarticles in there too that we
just won't have time to getinto, but, I do wanna move on to
this, this this idea ofpotentially more blanket
pardons.
So what we talked about just nowis where I thought the story

(24:29):
ended. But, I I I figured we'dtalk about it for a little bit
before we launch into some ofthe other stories that we're
gonna get into on the show. Butlate last night, I saw an
article that Jim sent me thatwas related to the story that
caused me to restructure theentire podcast. I made a new
thumbnail. I went through andchanged all of the streams
because this article I justthought was fascinating.

(24:52):
So this one was from Politico,and it was titled Biden White
House is discussing preemptivepardons for those in Trump's
crosshairs. According to thisarticle, there is reportedly
internal, discussions going oninside the White House as to
whether or not Joe Biden shoulduse what is left of his mental
faculties in the waning days ofhis presidency to grant

(25:14):
preemptive pardons to thosepeople that are or theoretically
may be on Trump's radar.According to the article, quote,
those who could face exposureinclude such members of
congress' January 6th committeeas senator elect Adam Schiff and
former GOP representative LizCheney of Wyoming. Trump has

(25:36):
previously said Cheney, quote,should go to jail along with the
rest of the unselect committee.Also mentioned by Biden's aids,
for a pardon is Anthony Fauci,the former head of the National
Institute of allergy andinfectious diseases who became a
lightning rod for criticism fromthe right during the COVID 19

(25:57):
pandemic.
All of this is being discussedin the context of Trump's
retribution tour, where he isgoing to lay waste to his
political opponents. The ideaputs succinctly by democratic
representative Brendan Boyle,who was quoted in this article
saying, quote, this is nohypothetical threat. The time
for cautious restraint is over.We must act with urgency to push

(26:21):
back against these threats andprevent Trump from abusing his
power. So, Chris, one blanketpardon dating back 11 years to,
you know, Hunter Biden is crazyenough.
But to theoretically just startgranting these out, like like
Christmas Day gift cards orsomething, as president Biden is
leaving the office to anyone andeveryone that might be on, you

(26:45):
know, Trump's naughty list? Thatseems kinda crazy. What are your
thoughts on this newdevelopment?

I've been around long enough to see that whenever
what scandal like what happenedin, the COVID, pandemic with
doctor Fauci or whether it we'retalking about Lois Lerner back
at the IRS during the Obamayears, and they were going
after, Tea Party groups. I'vebeen around long enough to
realize that these people neverget in trouble. So this really
is just kinda, you know, notthat big a deal to me. You know,

(27:15):
doctor Fauci, I do think, youknow, was, lied through his
teeth and, you know, was doingall sorts of, things that might
have been against the law. Butto be to be honest, I mean, this
is not that big of a deal to me.
I mean, these people, you know,this is years ago. They're out
of government. I mean, I don't II don't think it would be

(27:37):
politically feasible for DonaldTrump to even go on some sort of
retribution tour to say we'regonna go after this, you know,
this guy for what he did 4, 5, 6years ago or for Lynne Cheney or
Liz Cheney, excuse me, or evenAdam Schiff. I mean, I disagree
vehemently with, what they did,but I'm just not sure I want to

(27:58):
prosecute, you know, them. Butthen on the other hand, I can
also see that these blanketpardons for, you know,
preemptive pardons, whatever youwanna call them, are an
admission of guilt in some way.
Because, basically, why wouldJoe Biden, even fathom,
pardoning someone like AnthonyFauci if he didn't have
something, at least something,to be concerned about? So Right.

(28:21):
You know, to me to me, I I'm Imean, I understand that these
that these pardons are a bigdeal. I understand the the
hypocrisy. You know, Joe Bidenlied to the nation for months
while he was, you know, stilltrying to get reelected saying
he wouldn't pardon his son, butreally deep down, I thought he
would pardon his son.
It wouldn't surprise me if hedoes some blanket pardons, you
know, in the waning days of hispresidency. But once again, I

(28:45):
mean, I'm just I mean, I'm justI am not I don't think that it's
something that should be, youknow, just, like, causing people
to go into a panic. I thinkwe've got much bigger things to
worry about. And, also, at thesame time, I think we've got
some things to be very excitedabout.

Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, you know, some of them
like, even that list that Iread, like, the Adam Schiff and
Liz Cheney, and granted, Idon't, you know, know all the
details of why they wouldtheoretically be targeted with
prosecution. Maybe there's somegreat examples. The Liz Cheney
one, I've heard some rhetoric.
We're like, oh, he's alreadythreatened to put her in front
of a firing squad, which we'vealready talked about. It's just
an absurd an absurd why, by themedia. But, like, some of some

(29:25):
of them, like, Fauci, Jim, Imean, he feels like he's got,
some questions to answer andsome consequences to pay. What
do you what are your thoughts onon this story?

Jim Lakely (29:36):
Well, at the very least, perjury. I don't know how
many times you have to see theexchanges between the great Rand
Paul, senator from Kentucky, andand Anthony Fauci to realize
that he perjured himself, whichis a which is a federal crime,
on multiple, multiple occasions.And that's not even getting into
the legality of the illegality,I should say, of what he did,

(29:57):
basically, setting it up sothat, around the law so that,
gain of function research isdone in a Chinese lab outside of
any regulation. And, and then,you know, putting aside it's not
a crime to call the entirecountry, and and of people who
actually can see with their owneyes and understand what they're
looking at, calling us allconspiracy theories and liars.

(30:18):
That's not against the law, butto me, it would be, it'd be an
enhancement on his sentencing.
So, yeah. So just just just onthe base of perjury, Anthony
Fauci should be in in big, bigtrouble. You know, maybe there
and then, oh, yeah. That'sright. He also used his personal
email account, to evade theprying eyes of us, the public.

(30:42):
He is a public servant. He was,at the time, the highest paid
federal government employee, ofall, and, he works for us. See?
And so we are supposed to holdour public officials
accountable. If they're going tobe in public service, they
actually have to serve thepublic, not their own interests,
not their own, narrow agendas,but to carry out, the the proper

(31:04):
direction of the executivebranch.
In this case, it would have beenor in that case, back in the
day, it would have been DonaldTrump. So, this whole idea
people here in the chat arewondering if, basically a
preemptive pardon has any legalprecedent and they and they
pointing to, Gerald Ford, hispardon of, Richard Nixon to put
the whole Watergate scandalbehind us so that we you know,

(31:27):
it's funny. Back in the 19seventies, we didn't want to be
seen. We thought it wasimportant that the, that the
American system not be seen assome sort of, Banana Republic,
that we do things differentlyhere. And while and he paid his
political price, he, Donald,Richard Nixon pays the price in
the eyes of history for what hehad done or and didn't do in
the, in the Watergate scandal,and that's gonna be it.

(31:48):
We're gonna move forward. Wedon't weaponize our, justice
system against our politicalenemies in this country. That's
the way we used to run things.And then, Donald Trump came down
an escalator in 2015 andeverything changed. Everything,
so we had to stop thisexistential threat to our
democracy and all of this othernonsense.
So, you know, the the idea nowof, like see, this is this is

(32:11):
why precedents like this are sobad. This the the unprecedented
blanket pardon for 11 years ofyour own son, now has people
openly like this political storythat we brought up, people just
openly just saying, well, okay.Well, if he's gonna do it for
Hunter, for Fredo, why doesn'the do it for, Fauci? And why
doesn't he do it for AdamSchiff? Adam Schiff is the

(32:33):
biggest liar, and that takes himsome doing.
He's the biggest liar inWashington and has been for the
last decade. He would he wouldhe abused his position as the
ranking member of the senate ofthe House Intelligence Committee
to come out day after day, nightafter night, week after week,
and year after year lying aboutwhat the intelligence said about
so called, Russian collusionbetween, Vladimir Putin and

(32:57):
Donald Trump. Lied openly,repeatedly. And so and and it
was leaking information, falseinformation to the press, maybe
sprinkled with a little bit oftruth. But all of that is also
illegal.
So, Adam Schiff, this is thistells you how corrupt and stupid
California is. He's now gonnabe, the next, he's gonna be a
senator for the state ofCalifornia for the next 6 years.

(33:20):
I guess, unless he getsimpeached or, or charged with
crimes and arrested and put injail, wouldn't that be
something? But, you know, thiswhole idea of this is so
destructive, you know, from fromthe people that have spent the
last several years wailing aboutthreats to our democracy. I
can't think of, of of anythingmore dangerous to our democracy

(33:41):
in the United States than givingblanket pardons to a whole host
of people who have, haveevidence all around them of
committing federal crimes.
That is how you destroy ademocracy. That's how you
destroy trust in the system. Andit's just being floated like
it's no big deal because Joe didit for his son. Why not?

Donnie, can I just chime in real quick?

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, Jim brings up some very,
very valid points, and I dounderstand that there's a
temptation to want to prosecuteFauci and, Adam Adam Schiff and
some others, because, you know,they lied through their teeth
about, you know, the the Russiadisinformation stuff and then
COVID. And, you know, Fauci liedabout masks and about the origin

(34:27):
and, like, Jim was talking aboutthe gain of function research.
So I'm I'm divided on this.There's a part of me that that
wants to see them actually, beprosecuted because that might be
a deterrent effect to preventthis from happening in future
administrations.
But then there's the other sideof me that says, wait a second.
When Donald Trump comes inoffice on January 20, 2025, he's
gonna have a ton on his plate.And Kash Patel, who we're gonna

(34:50):
talk about in a second, who'shopefully gonna be the FBI
director, is also gonna have aton on his plate. And there's
only so much political capitalthat there is to go around. So
if Donald Trump or I mean,technically, the FBI should not
ask him, hey.
Do you want us to go prosecutethis? But if Kash Patel did go
and prosecute these people, Ifeel like that would, really,

(35:11):
hinder the, Republican, youknow, agenda, for the next
couple of years. And, I mean, Iam making sort of a utilitarian
calculation here and justsaying, hey. Maybe it's just
better to let to let that restand just, you know, turn the
page and just, move forward. ButI but I absolutely understand
the argument against that to sayno because these people, you

(35:33):
know, people like him, with LoisLerner being a prime example,
have gotten away with this stufffor decade after decade after
decade.
And the only way to stop it isto make an example of people who
abuse their power, and doctorFauci absolutely abuses power.
So I I can under I can see it,but I just do think that you
need to weigh the political,ramifications of doing that

(35:56):
because they're gonna be, Ithink, immense.

Yep. It's, it's good points being made. Oh, look
at that. Your number one fanjust said interesting point,
Chris. But, yep.
Let's let's move on, becausethis guy actually kind of ties
into our next topic, which is acontinuation of last episodes
topic that we dedicated most ofthe show to, and that was Trump

(36:20):
making his picks to fill out hiscabinet. So, you know, we talked
about in the previous, not lastweek, but the week prior to that
that, you know, we covered a lotof ground on that. Some picks
were better than others. Somepicks were more controversial
than others. You know, like Isaid, we we talked a lot about
all the various picks.

(36:40):
And I think just prior to theepisode going up, we had found
out that Matt Gaetz was pullinghis name out of consideration
for attorney general. Then wefound out shortly after the
episode ended that Florida AG orformer Florida AG, Pam Bondi,
was nominated in, Gates'absence. We've also, in the past

(37:00):
couple of weeks, seen doctor Ozwas picked to head, Medicare and
Medicaid. Scott Basant wasnominated as treasury secretary,
and Heartland friend, doctor JayBhattacharya, was named, NIH
director. So like with the picksthat we discussed in previous
weeks, you know, some of thesewere met with various levels of

(37:23):
outrage.
But the one that I think hasdrawn the most ire from the left
was Trump's pick to lead theFBI, and that is Cash Patel.
It's already been brought up acouple of times in this
conversation already. But first,I mean, Jim, is that is that
fair to say that, he's probablydrawn the most controversy from
the left as soon as his name waswas, thrown out there for FBI

(37:47):
director?

Jim Lakely (37:48):
Well, him and, him and Pete, Hegseth for, for
Department of Defense. Yeah.They're taking all the, taking
all the fires. Actually, DonaldTrump is actually pretty smart
about this stuff, I think,because, you know, if if all the
fire is gonna be at at PeteHegseth and and Kash Patel, that
means that, Tulsi Gabbard andRFK junior probably have a much
easier time getting through. Notto mention the other

(38:10):
uncontroversial picks, to getthrough.
So but, yeah. I mean, I think Isaid as I said earlier, you
know, the the scuttle was that,Kash Patel, there was no way
that the senate was going to,confirm him to be director of
the FBI, but the last 48 hoursor so, I see a lot of scuttle
that, he is 100% going to getthrough, that this is the most
important pick Trump is goingto. He that's another thing is

(38:32):
Trump hasn't even really startedovertly leaning on any of these
people, to make sure that hegets his desired picks for all
of these key positions. And oncehe starts doing that, a lot of
this is going to change. And, Ijust wanna say one more thing.
Trump isn't even president yet.He's already having his first
100 days. Look how much he'salready doing, and he's not even
president yet. There's still 40,what, 40 some days to go until

(38:54):
he's inaugurated, and, look atall the stuff that's already
happening. It's pretty amazing.

Small small small just real quick. Small detail
here. I don't I'm almostpositive the FBI director has
done a cabinet level position,so just throwing that out there.

Jim Lakely (39:06):
It's not cabinet level, but it is they have to
get senate approval. Of course.

Of course. But but but why I bring that up is
because the current director,Chris Wray, is in the midst of a
10 year term. So, I mean, Iunderstand that Donald Trump is
going to fire him.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah.

But I've been watching, you know, some reports
that says it's not as easy asthat may be. That's why Donald
Trump is hoping he'll resignbecause that would just make the
entire, endeavor far easier todo. Donald Trump did fire James
Comey, if you remember, veryearly on when he became
president in 2017. So we couldsee a repeat of that, but just

(39:43):
just wanted to throw that outthere.

Yeah. Well, I I also have to make clear that
Jim's this was a metaphoricalthis. Okay? I was just gonna
make that very clear. But, yeah,I don't know.
I just feel like I've seen moreofficial statements condemning
this particular pick. I've seena couple notable strong and
immediately, immediaterejections of cash. But one of

(40:04):
those was from John Bolton, so Itake that as a good sign.

But

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Go ahead.

Go ahead, Chris.

No. I was just gonna say, all that matters is
the republican senators here.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Keep

that in mind. And, you know, there's gonna be 53
Republican senators, come 2025,January 3, 2025. And, as as the
reporting goes as of now, theseRepublican senators, all 53 of
them are are okay with, KashPatel. There is talk that maybe
6 to 10 of them are not okaywith Pete Hegseth, but Pete

(40:35):
Hegseth is on a he's on amission to make sure that he can
change their minds. Andaccording to him and I watched a
really good interview with himon Megyn Kelly a day or so ago
where he said, this is all beingso blown out of proportion.
This is just not true, and thisis a classic case of just the
media trying to, you know, slamhim with as much innuendo and as

(40:55):
many really lies as can be. So Idon't think that that Kash Patel
is gonna have any trouble.Obviously, the blowhards in the
media like John Bolton, but JohnBolton doesn't matter anymore.
Are you kidding me? Who careswhat he thinks?
Yeah. I mean, too seriously,it's a joke. Nobody cares what
he thinks. No.

I agree.

I also think it's interesting that the well, not
the original person who hasfloated, but Mike Rogers, who
was running for senate inMichigan, tried to almost
nominate himself to be the FBIdirector. Andrew McCabe, who is
a piece of garbage, you know,who was throwing out of the FBI

(41:31):
for so many, you know, reasons,was on CNN and immediately said,
Michael Rogers would be a reallygood guy. Guess what? Trump, I
guess, apparently, saw thatinterview and said, okay. He's
out and Kesha Patel's in.
And as soon as Kesha Patel'sname was started to be floated,
Andrew McCabe, because he is afrequent contributor on CNN.
And, hey, you know, my job is towatch this this this stuff, you

(41:51):
know, on a daily basis. He washe was apoplectic about about
Kesha Patel. So that to me issuch a good sign. When Andrew
McCabe is scared out of his mindthat Kesha Patel is gonna come
in here and really make somechanges that need to be banged
at the FBI, that is a reallygood sign.
So I'm excited that Kash Patellooks like he's going to have no

(42:13):
problem being confirmed as thenext director of the FBI.

Jim, I feel like a little bit of a a putting the
cart before the horse thingbecause I'm like, like, other
than these contextual thingsthat I'm kinda picking up in
this conversation and, you know,articles like The Federalist one
that I have in the show noteswhere it says media meltdown
over Trump's FBI picks provesthat, Kash Patel is the perfect
man for the job. Like, thatthat's, like, basically my read

(42:39):
on the guy. I really don't knowthe details or anything. So can
you fill me in a little bit moreon just, like, who he is and why
he's, like, good for thisposition?

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Well, why don't why don't we play a clip that we
grab for this podcast and letKash Patel

Jim Lakely (42:53):
make the case for himself why he is needed to be
the head of the FBI?

Alright. Is that what's you got you got that one,
Andy? Is that the go be cops 1,Jim?

Jim Lakely (43:03):
Go be cops.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah. Go ahead. Footprint has gotten so freaking
big, and the biggest problem theFBI has had has come out of its
intel shops. I'd break thatcomponent out of it. I'd shut
down the FBI Hoover building onday 1 and reopening the next day
as a museum of the deep state.
And I take the 7,000 employeesthat work in that building and
send them across America tochase down criminals. Go be
cops. Your cops. Go be cops. Gochase down murders and and drug

(43:27):
dealers and violent offenders.
What do you need 7,000 peoplethere for? Same thing with DOJ.
What are all these people doinghere? Looking for the next
government promotion, lookingfor their next fancy government
title, looking for theirparachute out of government. So
while you're bringing in theright people, you also have to
shrink government.

Jim Lakely (43:42):
100% correct. And that's the thing that these and
I and I think the Americanpeople are going to let these,
incoming Republican senators andthe incumbents who won know that
this is a different time we'reliving in right now. We have had
to endure, you know, we've hadto suffer through some very,
very deep corruption in theDepartment of Justice and in the

(44:02):
FBI. It's been it's beenweaponized and sicked and sicked
upon innocent Americans, to ruintheir lives. The abuse of power
is almost, it's almost too muchto even comprehend how bad it
is.
These senators need tounderstand that it is vital to
protect the liberty of everyAmerican to send Kash Patel to

(44:24):
the FBI to clean it out. Wecannot have, not just in that
position, but in so manypositions. This the the time of
having somebody with experience,an old Washington hand who just
has happens to have an r next tohis name to take, the lead of
these, these organizations,those times are over. The

(44:44):
basically, the, the the deepstate has declared war upon the
American people, in in all butfirearms. It has been weaponized
to the point of, you know, likelike I said, people's lives have
been ruined.
And now we have a president whois who is thinking about blanket
pardons with yet yet even moreabuse of of the American people

(45:05):
and the trust that we shouldhave in our government. And
there is no other way to restorethe necessary trust that
Americans should have in theirinstitutions, especially those
like the FBI, which is anextremely powerful organization,
like the entire Department ofJustice, which is an extremely
powerful organization, like HHS,like the Department of Homeland
Security. These agencies haveenormous power over the American

(45:27):
people, and the American peoplehave no reason to trust that
they are working for ourinterests and not their own or
some other that we can't evencomprehend. These these agencies
need to be completely upended,and it's gonna be messy and
there there will be mistakes,and everything is not gonna be
perfect, but the status quocannot continue anymore. And if
that if Kash Patel can be, youknow, basically at the vanguard

(45:51):
of reforming the FBI, I'm sureit's he was only being,
facetious when he says he'sgonna turn the J.
Edgar Hoover building into amuseum of the deep state on day
2. And on day 1, he's gonna tellall 7,000 people in the building
to get the hell out of there andgo chase cops, but it's that
mentality. That's what the FBIsupposed to do. They were the
untouchables. You know, watchthe untouchables movie.
You know, they're supposed to beout there protecting American

(46:13):
people and the and Americansociety by rooting out
corruption and criminalactivity, on a federal level.
And instead, we have an FBI thatis itself a, a corrupt
organization. And so it takessomebody from the outside, and
Kash Patel has a long history ofworking in the intelligence
community to go into the FBI,reform it, clean it out. And, if

(46:36):
that doesn't happen, thennothing is really going to
change, and the American peoplevoted very strongly for change.

Donnie? Go ahead, Chris. No. No. I wanna I wanna
go to the next topic prettyquickly, so make it quick.

Yeah. I I I just wanna add in just one quick
point here. I think most of therank and file workers at the FBI
are probably good people whowant to go and do their job, but
the leadership in recent years,Andrew McCabe being a great
example or James Comey being agreat example, have politicized
the FBI and that we need tostop. We need to make the FBI
back into what was supposed tobe, which is supposed to be

(47:11):
completely nonpartisan andsupposed to actually go after,
you know, you know, commoncriminals who are in here in the
United States, you know,committing crimes that, you
know, we need to make sure thatthis this ends. Having the FBI
go after, you know, school boardparents and stuff like that,
this is just ridiculous.
I mean, come on. It really is.

I I got I got real real quick question before
we go to the next topic, foryou, Chris. It the the so, like,
the senate confirmations of allof these different picks, that
starts, like, after January20th?

I'm not sure on that. Congress does congress
does convene January 3rd, sothere is a 2 week period. I'm
not a 1000% sure, but theymight, if if memory serves
correct, they can start theprocess. This it takes, you
know, days, if not weeks. Sure.
And, also, let's I mean, I knowthis is probably a topic for a

(48:06):
whole different show, but recessappointments might happen. And
Mark Levin Mark Levin has made avery, very good argument in
favor of Donald Trump using therecess appointment clause, which
is which has been used bypresidents going all the way
back to FDR.

Alright. Alright. Well, let's let's, I'm sure this
is gonna be a topic that we'regonna continue on and all of
that, especially as we get intothe next year and all the
cabinet positions and all thatactually get confirmed and blah
blah blah blah blah. But we gottime, to move on to our next
topic here. So let's talk abouta new report, Socialism Watch
2024.

(48:44):
So Socialism Watch is a postelection analysis that we
started back in 2018, whichseeks to show just how well
socialist candidates have faredin each election cycle. So we've
done this report now in 2018,2020, 2022, and now we have our
2024 edition. What we do is lookat all the candidates in

(49:05):
federal, state, and even somelocal elections that have been
explicitly endorsed by 1 of the,1 or more of the 3 largest
socialist organizations in theUnited States, the Democratic
Socialists of America, OurRevolution, and the Progressive
Democrats of America. So in thisyear's report, we found that

(49:27):
there that, these 3organizations only endorsed 51
candidates across 22 states andWashington DC. And of these 51
candidates, all but 3 won theirrespective races.
Among the candidates endorsed bythese 3 socialist groups, 27 ran
for the house ofrepresentatives, 2 ran for the

(49:48):
US senate, 12 ran for state,statewide offices, and 10 ran
for local offices. These racesoccurred in 22 states in the
District of Columbia. Californiawas leading state for socialist
candidates in the 2024 electionwith 10 in total. The last thing
I wanna mention before I turnthe conversation over to Chris
is that, the number ofcandidates endorsed by one of

(50:11):
these 3 socialist outfits hasdeclined significantly since
2020. So back in 2020, theseorganizations combined endorsed
266 candidates.
This dropped, substantially inin 2022 when they only endorsed
a 132 candidates. And as Imentioned, only 51 were endorsed

(50:34):
this year. We can speculate asto why soon, but, Chris,
anything I missed in myintroduction to this report and
your initial thoughts on saidreport?

Yeah. Well, I mean, that was a great summary of the
report, but I I I think that itneeds a little bit of context
here. So 2020, yes, was a highwatermark, but first of all,
that was a general election.2022 was a midterm election, so
you probably aren't gonna see asmany candidates. But the biggest
thing that, you know, I realizedin when I was, you know, doing
the research on this was theDemocratic Socialists of
America, who are by far theleading socialist organization

(51:07):
in this country, decided thisyear for reasons that we can't
speculate on.
And I've got my my guess is tonot, endorse candidates at the
national level. But they farmedit out to their statewide and
their local chapters. Now I wentto many of these websites. Some
are statewide. Some are local.
Some are just like, you know,the democratic socialist of

(51:27):
Chicago, some democraticsocialist of Detroit, whatever.
California, I think, had a had aa statewide website. They've
made endorsements. But for us tokeep this consistent because
we've only done the big threethat you said, our revolution,
PDA, and DSA, the endorsementsthat they made at the national
level. So for whatever reason,and once again, I've got some

(51:50):
some, you know, guesses here,they decided not to shine a
national bright spotlight ontheir endorsements for the 2024
election, but that does not meanthat the total number of
socialists running in the 2024election was less than it was in
years past.

Yeah. My my initial thought of it, because,
you know, when you see thepercentage, right, it's like,
out of the 51 candidates, 48made it through that that got
elected. It's like

Speaker 2 (52:19):
a

94% success rate. Right? Yeah. And it's just like,
wow. Like, socialist did greatthis year.
I thought there was a red wave.I thought this was like a, you
know, like a massive Trumpvictory and all of that. And to
see that they have, like, a 94%success rate almost seems like
socialist had a great a greatyear this way. But when you put
it into the context of thesepast election cycles, it it it

(52:44):
kind of makes it seem like maybemaybe they didn't do as good as
we thought. What what do youthink?

I I I tend I I I disagree with that assessment
because first of all, in 2024,and this has been happening for
several election cycles, seatsthat are safe, you know,
Democrat or safe Republican areare are are very, are are the
vast majority of them, in oneway of putting it. So the days

(53:10):
of, you know, seats swingingback and forth in congress or
even at the local or statewidelevel, whether it's a governor,
whether it's a lieutenantgovernor, whatever, because we
have all sorts of, positionsthat are elected offices here.
The the the days of those justconstantly swapping back and
forth are long gone. So to me,it's, I think, a much better

(53:30):
exercise to say, well, withinthose deep blues those deep
blue, seats or whatever youwanna go political offices for
lack of a better word, who'sgaining ground? Are the
establishment Democrats gainingground, or are these socialist
Democrats gaining ground?
And I think I can make a prettygood argument, a pretty
compelling argument that thesocialist wing of the Democrat

(53:51):
party is, on the up and up, andthe establishment is on the
decline. And that's why I'vewritten some articles about
this. I think it's sort of akinto what happened in 2015 when
Donald Trump entered thepolitical arena and, really
rattled the GOP. Because fordecades, and I've been following
politics for a very long timenow, the GOP was seen they're

(54:12):
the country club guys. They'rethe big, you know, big
corporation guys.
Donald Trump flipped that on hishead and said, no. Actually,
we're for the working class. No.Actually, we're for the
forgotten Americans who wannahave a job and wanna go to a
factory and work and not be onthe dull. The Democrats now have
actually taken up the mantlethat the GOP used to have, which
is we're for the bigcorporations.

(54:32):
We don't really care abouthardworking Americans. Yeah.
We'll all always give, you know,free handouts to the, you know,
to the poorest of, Americans whoare gonna vote for us no matter
what. But that that change, thatpolitical realignment, I think,
is very striking, and I thinkthat, it took 8 years. It took
from 2016 to 2024 for the GOP toreally finally embrace.

(54:55):
And, I mean, I'm sure that manyGOP senators and congressmen are
not full throated for this, youknow, populist MAGA agenda, but
they are on board finally. Ithink the Democrats now are
gonna have to go through theirown version of this, and we saw
this with 2016. Bernie Berniecould have been the candidate.
2020 Bernie could have been thecandidate, but the Democrat

(55:16):
party used levers that they hadat their disposal to prevent
that from happening. And we seeAOC being very popular.
We saw split tickets all acrossNew York City in AOC's district
where they said, yeah. We wantTrump, and we want AOC. So I I
think that the Democrat party isin the midst of what the GOP
went through of you know, for 8long years. And if we're up to

(55:37):
you know, if you said, Chris,you gotta guess who's gonna,
like, emerge as victorious inthis, I think the socials are
gonna emerge, victorious inthis.

I know. Alright. Well, the this this this ties in
well to kind of the last sectionthat I wanna get into, which is
this potential resurgence ofdemocratic socialism. So, in in
the office, you know, amongstourselves, we have this
conversation of just kind ofspeculating kind of where where
the democrats are gonna go fromhere. And, there was a case that
was made, I think, originally byJustin that, he thinks that

(56:09):
we're going to be seeing aresurgence of so called
democratic socialism.
So the argument goes and, Chris,if I'm missing misrepresenting
Justin, feel free to feel freeto chime in. But, it basically
goes that they'll the left isgoing to have to make an appeal
to the middle, to middleAmerica. Trump and MAGA were
able to tap into some corepopulace and anti establishment

(56:30):
sentiments during this electionin particular, but just
generally speaking over thelast, you know, 8, 12 years,
whatever, 8 years, the Dems aregoing to need to tap into the
same sort of rhetoric if they'regonna hope to regain any of the
democratic, demographicadvantages that they have
recently lost. And the easiestway to do this, kick start the
Bernie Sanders model, callingout the rich, promising more

(56:53):
government, generally an antiestablishment thing, promise
more programs and and handouts,etcetera, etcetera. So, I think
this is a personally, I thinkthis is a perfectly logical
response.
And, Chris, it seems based onyour comments in the last
section, you agree with this.

Oh, I absolutely agree with this. I think that
the heart and soul of the, theAmerican people is up for grabs.
But see, I'm a little moreoptimistic than some of the
people on the far left whothink, well, if because I think
it's so cynical to think, well,if we just offer them more free
stuff, then they'll they'll keepvoting for us. I think that most
Americans are hardworking peoplewith dignity who want to be able

(57:36):
to provide for their family, andthey wanna achieve the American
dream. Socialism is not themeans by which they can achieve
the American dream.
We've we've seen socialism neverworks. It never has and never
will. It's, it's immoral. It itit it it it's founded on, you
know, immoral, grounds. And, thethe the populist wave, this mega

(57:57):
wave, I mean, it's I I I'm just,you know, in awe as to how, much
it is resonating with differentswaths of the American people,
whether it's, you know, blackpeople in Detroit or whether
it's, you know, Hispanic peopledown near the border who say,
wait a second.
That makes sense. It makes sensethat we should have a small
government that doesn't reallydo all these these things that

(58:19):
it doesn't need to be doing.They should actually have a a a
border. We shouldn't be startingnew wars. We should probably
limit our spending and make ourgovernment a little more
efficient, and we should keepour taxes low.
I think that that is aprofoundly powerful message that
if if properly articulated andbacked up backed up, this is
key, backed up by by laws passedby the, you know, GOP and rules

(58:44):
and regulations that are gottenrid of by, you know, Trump's,
executive branch, that we couldsee a re a rejuvenation of
America that's gonna make, youknow, the 19 eighties look like
nothing. I I I I stronglybelieve that. So I think that I
was gonna say, I I think that itI think that the Democrats are
in a very perilous positionbecause if they stick with the

(59:05):
status quo, they know thatthat's a losing proposition.
They know that they that that,coalition that they cobbled
together, you know, since FDR,it is they they they don't have
that anymore. That is gone.
That is, you know, yesterday'snews. So are they going to try
to cobble together a newcoalition based on well, if you
vote for us, we'll give you morefree stuff. I don't think that's

(59:25):
gonna work, but I could bewrong.

So you think that they will pursue the strategy of
kind of going the more BernieSanders

Oh, absolutely. Socialist reach,

but you don't think it'll be successful.
Correct. Okay.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Yes.

Jim Lakely (59:35):
I I I agree with that actually a 100%. Because if

you look

Jim Lakely (59:38):
at the if you look at you know, everybody knows
that Kamala Harris was actuallyif she she wasn't on our our
chart and on our thing, butshe's a socialist. She's a hard
leftist, but they tried to run acampaign in which they hid all
that information, and tried toput her, you know, push her over
as a as a centrist. They did thesame thing with Joe Biden,
actually, and then, you know,let the hard leftist all over

(59:59):
the administration justimplement all of this radical
policy that ended up costing,you know, ultimately, Kamala
Harris the presidentialelection. And so if you're a
Democrat right now, you'rethinking, well, we tried to fool
the the country and and by thatwe're moderates, and that didn't
work. And that's actually noteven what we stand for.
So let's go out there and runas, as socialist. Let's all be

(01:00:23):
Bernie Sanders now. It's reallyfunny. After all these years,
after all the ways theDemocratic Party screwed Bernie
Sanders over by rigging theprimaries so that he couldn't
win in 2016 and then doing itagain, when he tried to get it
in 2020. Now it's it's BernieSandy's, Bernie Sanders party
now.

Donald Kendal (01:00:40):
It's

Jim Lakely (01:00:40):
just a matter of messaging at this point. See. So
it's pretty funny.

You know, I I, I like I said, I get it. I think
it's perfectly logical. In fact,I'm curious. Everyone listening
in, type in a comment. Let meknow if you think that the the
the left is gonna swing moretoward the populist route, or or
if you think otherwise.
Because I think personally thatit's makes total sense. I think
that if it was just like logicthat was that was, making the

(01:01:08):
decisions, you know, at the topechelons of the Democratic
party, then it's certainly whatthey would do, but I'm not
convinced that they're gonna dowhat's smart. I think that their
rejection of Bernie Sanders in 2straight elections is proof of
that. And I think, and I don'tthink I've mentioned this on
camera before, but I know thatI've mentioned it to some of
you, off camera, but there wasa, I make a habit out of

(01:01:31):
watching every every electioncycle, basically. The meltdown
of the Young Turks in 2016 whenDonald Trump won the presidency,
and they started off so smug.
And then by the end of it, youknow, the writing was on the
wall. And the host of the show,Cenk Uygur or Uygur, whatever
you wanna pronounce his name, hestarts tearing into the
Democratic party and basicallysaying that the reason why they

(01:01:53):
rejected Bernie Sanders in thepopulism route is because
they're just trying to, like,protect their little they're
they're, like, all of theirfriends and in all their
positions of power. And if it ifthe party did swing to the left,
like, they would all be tradedout for people that actually
believe this sort of stuff. Sohe was basically saying that,
like, the decision to prop upHillary Clinton and and Joe

(01:02:15):
Biden, if you wanna go 4 yearslater, wasn't because it was for
the good of the party or for anyreasons of better electability
or anything like that. It wasbasically just to kind of keep
those people in their currentpositions of power.
And I wonder if that's too hardof a hurdle to get across even
if it's the right strategicapproach. So that's where I'm

(01:02:35):
coming at. Maybe we will see a afight over the party, but I
wonder, well, you know what,Chris?

Chris Talgo (01:02:43):
Yeah.

Your response to my my thoughts on this. Yeah. I
mean, I follow-up question afterthat.

So I think that the biggest reason that Bernie was
prevent prevented from becomingthe nominee in 2016 and 2020 was
because the Democrats aretotally in bed with, big banks
and big corporations, and bigbanks and big corporations do
not like the socialist agendawhatsoever. They love this this
hybrid Democrat party that's,you know, that that that's all

(01:03:12):
about granting favors and allthese subsidies to the
corporations. Bernie doesn'twanna do that. So, you know,
that to them is, like, you know,just like anathema. They cannot
let that happen.
So that that to me is one of thebig things that are you know,
what made Donald Trump so uniquein in in many ways is that he
didn't have to he didn't hedidn't have any political favors

(01:03:34):
or he didn't have to worry aboutdonors or any any of that stuff.
He was just like a politicalforce in and of itself. So Yeah.
I don't, you know, I I don't Idon't know if the Democrat party
because, I mean, look at look atwhat happened in the 2024
election. They were they raised2,500,000,000 to Donald Trump's,
like, 500,000,000.
So, I mean, you know, maybemaybe they're starting to

(01:03:54):
realize that all that money andand all the, you know, the big
banks and big corporations andthese celebrity endorsements
don't mean anything anymore. So,I mean, I don't know. It's like
there's so many things happeningin Donnie also, you know, not to
go on a whole tangent here. Butwith the, new technology that's
that that's that's coming onboard, whether it's AI, quantum
computing, and all this stuff, Imean, that's gonna have huge

(01:04:14):
ripple effects in the USeconomy. So it could also be in
10, 20 years right now thatwe're gonna say, well, you know,
the UBI that the, Democrat Partyis, you know, universal basic
income is, you know, is isnirvana for the people because
they don't even have jobsanymore.
So, I mean Sure. You know, Imean, like, that could happen.
Like, I don't know. But Yeah.There's no doubt.
But I think right now Right. Ofcourse. Yeah. So, you know, long

(01:04:37):
term speculation's, you know,kind of pointless. But I think
as of right now with, you know,what I've seen from the reaction
from, you know, the politicalpundits and from ordinary
Americans, they're not you know,they still want America to be
the way it was, you know, and asit was intended to be.
And that's really, I think, youknow, at the core of all this is

(01:04:58):
what Donald Trump is trying toto do. He's trying to return us
back to some of these norms.He's not a fascist. He's not a
dictator. He's not trying toincrease government.
He's trying to, decreasegovernment. He's trying to give
more individual liberty andfreedom to people to make their
own choices, which to me is, youknow, what it's all about.

One one thing before Jim jumps in. Catherine
Burke says, why is populism adirty word? It is not a dirty
word. We've done a podcast notthat long ago that was centered
around a debate about populismversus elitism, which I think
for the most part, we defendedthe populism side. But it's also
not necessarily a positive word.

(01:05:36):
It just depends on, you know,what person's in charge and what
populist agenda points thatthey're that they're pursuing.
But, Jim, let's say

I have a quick question for Katharine Burke.
Why does she take such umbragewith my holding a pen and kinda
using it sometimes? Stop it.

It's near and dear.

Excuse me. Yeah. Well

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. So if the left does go
like the populist Bernie Sandersroute and the right stays kind
of the MAGA, you know, hub orwhatever, where all the
establishment people go, Jim?
Where does Cheney go?

They go to the they go to the Republican party. We
talked about this in thekitchen, at the office. I think
it was Monday or Tuesday,Donnie. You, me, and Jack
McFerran, who also was in ouremerging issues center. And, you
know, I'm 54 years old.
I'm old enough, to remember verywell the 1992 election where,
you know, a a little tiny littlegnome sized Texan named Ross

(01:06:30):
Perot, you know, out theretalking about NAFTA and the
deficit and all that stuff, youknow. He he he caught fire, and
his his he was he was a bitnutty and his poles went up and
down, but there was this idea,you know, he started the reform
party, and there was this idea,well, why don't we have a third
party? How come a third partycandidate, can, you know, how
come a third party candidate cannever get any, any traction in

(01:06:53):
American, presidentialelections? And I think you can I
think you can make the argumentthat we've already had a
successful third partycandidate, and he's won election
to the to the presidency twice,and that's Donald Trump? It's
the MAGA party now.
So your Liz Cheney's, are goingto go with, the democrats, the

(01:07:14):
the establishment democrats. Thedemocrat party is gonna be
split, basically into thesocialist, and then you're gonna
have the, old neocon Republicansand some of those, you know,
hangers on of the old way theDemocratic party used to be.
That's gonna be over there. Andwhat used to be called the
Republican party, well, I guesswill still be called the
Republican party, is actuallynow the MAGA party. Everything

(01:07:35):
on the Republican Party's agendais all MAGA.
It's all, and, basically, thisis the ultimate of the ground up
agenda. The MAGA agenda isendorsed by the American people.
A lot of it came from theAmerican people. Yes. Donald
Trump was the vessel of that.
He takes credit for MAGA. Hemade terrific hats. He invented
the phrase, but all of thosepolicies are things that the
American people have wantedacross the political spectrum.

(01:07:58):
People that were Democrats theirwhole life are now voting MAGA.
They may have an r next to theirname, or they may just be
independents, but to them, it'sthe MAGA party.
And so that we we've had our 3rdparty victory twice with Donald
Trump. And, well, Donald Trump'sparty, but that's it. Yeah. 3
yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. This this channel'salready demonetized. What what

(01:08:19):
the hell? Yeah. Three times.
So so yeah. And so I think it'sI think it's wonderful because,
you know, the it it has been athird party resurgence. The the
Republican party, you know, ifyou don't wanna take that
analogy, but the RepublicanParty itself and its agenda has
been completely transformed.This is not Ronald Reagan's
party anymore. It is notanywhere near George w Bush's

(01:08:40):
party anymore.
It's Donald Trump's party. And,really, it's America's party,
which I think, the majority ofAmerica's party, which I think
is a good thing. And as yousaid, we're we wanna restore
those norms. We wanna, you know,one of the slogans of of Kamala
Harris was, we're not goingback. Well, yes, we are.
And the American people wanna goback to normalcy, to economic
growth, to not having, the, youknow, agency of the government

(01:09:04):
weaponized against innocentAmericans, again against not
being scolded and locked downand all the other stuff that
we've had to endure for the lastdecade. We are going back to to
when it was normal, and peoplewere happy again.

I just wonder if there's gonna be, like, like,
the line separating the 2 majorparties, whatever you wanna
label them, will just becomeestablishment verse populism.
And that's how we'll do. Wewon't have 2 parties that are
trying to be more populous thanthe other. What if it was just
like we've already seen, like, aweird coalition surrounding, you

(01:09:37):
know, Trump and MAGA. Right?
You got RFK Junior, who, like,10 years ago, wanted Jim in jail
for saying stuff about climatechange. Now he's gonna be, like,
theoretically in charge ofhealth and human services.
You've got Tulsi Gabbard who ranas a democrat, like, what, 4
years ago, and she's gonna be incharge of something defense or

(01:09:58):
something.

Homeland Security Homeland Security. And none of
them are welcome in their partyanymore. None of them would be
would be welcomed by theDemocrats today. Right. Actually
probably forever.

Of course not. But then and then that Cenk
Uyghur guy, who's, you know, theYoung Turks, he's, like, the
biggest, like, socialist guy outthere. Like, even he has, like,
been getting red pilled a littlebit and being like, oh, like,
Elon Musk responded to my tweetstalking about potential cuts we
can make to, like, the Pentagonand all of that. Like, I've
never heard I've never hadanyone of, you know, the

(01:10:27):
Democratic party reach out to mefor, like, my ideas or anything
like that. They got the articleright here, The Hill.
Cenk Chang, signals optimismafter Trump win. MAGA is not my
mortal enemy. And I just wonderif, like, there could be this
massive coalition, where he iseven on board. Maybe maybe he's
haunting some wing of thedepartment of government

(01:10:49):
efficiency or something likethat. And then maybe bring bring
Bernie Sanders on and and lethim kind of level some charges
against some big establishmentbanks and try to, reignite some
of that, occupy Wall Streetmomentum when it comes to all of
that stuff.
Come on, people. We need peaceon earth.

No. It's it's funny that you bring that up because
Bernie has said that he's onboard with Doge in terms of the
depart defense department cuts,and there have been John
Fetterman said that he'sinterested in joining the Doge
caucus. And there are a coupleother Democrats in the house who
said that they they've alreadyon board with the Doge caucus.
So this this this, I think,crosses party lines. Everyone
knows that the federalgovernment has grown way, way

(01:11:31):
too big, bloated, andinefficient, you know, in the in
the past century or so.
Right. It's time to downsize it.It's time to add technology.
It's time to make sure that thefederal government is not, you
know, wasting taxpayer dollars.You know, this year, the federal
government spent$7,000,000,000,000 and still has
a deficit of nearly$2,000,000,000,000.

(01:11:51):
Our national debt is$36,000,000,000,000, and we need
to do something about this. So Ithink that this is, you know,
this is just another thing thatI mean, I can't tell you how
many times I've been told,whether it's Obama or George W
Bush, whomever saying, we'regonna go in there. We're gonna
cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Itnever happens. I'm I'm very
excited.
I I think this is a this isdifferent. This is unlike

(01:12:12):
anything I've ever seen before,and I think that they're gonna
make substantial cuts and reallyreorient, the direction of the
federal government for, youknow, our lifetime at least.

Yeah. You know, it's easy to be pessimistic.
It's a little bit more difficultto be optimistic. I choose
optimism. So I especially if,you know, holiday season
approaching and all of that, Ichoose optimism, everybody.

And I'm the biggest I'm the biggest pessimist on
this podcast, and even I amgetting optimistic about this.
And what is, I think, hilariousis that of all the people in the
world who took Donald Trump

Right.

To to

put forth an agenda that has consensus and and
actually establishes politicalpeace that I didn't think we'd
see for a long, long time whenyou got you got leftists and and
people on the right comingtogether for a common sense,
America first agenda, andthey're all kind of getting
behind it. I never would havethought that was possible. And
for Donald Trump to be the theperson who make puts it together
is just almost mind blowing.

It's it's wonderful. It is wonderful.
Alright. That's gonna do it forthis episode. I wanna thank
everyone for tuning in to thislatest episode.
Join us every week for a newepisode of the In the Tank
podcast. If you like our show,please subscribe. Write a review
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(01:13:31):
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Join in the conversation. Throwyour comments and questions in
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(01:13:52):
That way YouTube doesn't take a30% cut. Also, you can follow us
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at in the tank podcastatgmail.com. Jim Lakeley, where
can the find people find you?

At jlakeley on x@, heartlandinst on x, and always
visit heartland.org.

Fantastic. Chris Telgo, what do you have to pitch
today?

I have to pitch a Heartland Institute pen, excuse
me, that I just love the feel ofit. It is so great, and I just
love just doing this. Becauseyou know why? You know you know
why I'd actually like doingthis? Because when I was a kid,
I played drums.
And I used to love having thedrumstick and doing the twirling
thing. Whether it's a golf clubor a pen, I just like to do
that.

So It's a small coincidence. Alright. Thank you
all for tuning in to thisepisode, and we will talk to you
next week.

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