July 7, 2024 • 33 mins
The June 27 U.S. presidential debate highlighted serious concerns about President Joe Biden’s ability to lead, with his performance marred by signs of his age and a lack of coherent responses.
With so much at stake, is Joe Biden capable of leading U.S. foreign policy for another term?
In this special episode, I am joined by investigative reporter Ben Swann to discuss Biden's dismal debate performance and the impact of it and the November 2024 presidential elections on the United States' foreign policy and grand strategy.
Ben Swann is a Texas-born news anchor, investigative reporter, and political commentator. He is the founder of Truth In Media, a news outlet that seeks to cover stories establishment news outlets do not cover. He is the producer of “Zelenskyy Unmasked,” a documentary series that looks at the current situation in Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s crackdown on opposition media outlets that the Zelensky government deems to be pro-Russian.
This is Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose. I’m Andrew Jose, a Washington, DC-based security policy analyst, and news reporter, bringing you timely analyses and commentary on issues in international relations, war, and security policy.
The views expressed by the podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily represent the official positions of Andrew Jose, Strategic Wisdom, and Andrew Jose Media.
Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose is an initiative of Andrew Jose Media.
With so much at stake, is Joe Biden capable of leading U.S. foreign policy for another term?
In this special episode, I am joined by investigative reporter Ben Swann to discuss Biden's dismal debate performance and the impact of it and the November 2024 presidential elections on the United States' foreign policy and grand strategy.
Ben Swann is a Texas-born news anchor, investigative reporter, and political commentator. He is the founder of Truth In Media, a news outlet that seeks to cover stories establishment news outlets do not cover. He is the producer of “Zelenskyy Unmasked,” a documentary series that looks at the current situation in Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s crackdown on opposition media outlets that the Zelensky government deems to be pro-Russian.
This is Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose. I’m Andrew Jose, a Washington, DC-based security policy analyst, and news reporter, bringing you timely analyses and commentary on issues in international relations, war, and security policy.
The views expressed by the podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily represent the official positions of Andrew Jose, Strategic Wisdom, and Andrew Jose Media.
Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose is an initiative of Andrew Jose Media.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to this special presidential debate episodeof Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose. Strategic
Wisdom is an international relations and newspodcast brought to you by Andrew Jose,
a Washington, d c. Basedsecurity policy analyst and news reporter. On
June twenty seventh, this year,the presumptive nominees of the Democratic and Republican
parties, incumbent President Joe Biden andformer President Donald Trump, had their first
(00:22):
presidential debate, moderated by CNN withrules restricting interruptions and cross talk. Establishment
journalists thought Trump would be hurt whileBiden would thrive under the new code of
conduct. Instead, as Politico's JackSchaeffer noted, Trump appeared more dignified and
professional in contrast to Biden, whowas left to speak incoherently in uninterrupted stretches
of time, where his halting speechand cognitive decline lay bare for all to
(00:45):
see. Biden's nothing short of disastrousperformance in the presidential debate has raised serious
concerns about his ability to lead thecountry in this pivotal decade for the next
four years. It has also raiseddoubts about whether Biden will remain competent enough
to handle critical questions national security andforeign policy. Joining Andrew Jose today is
investigative journalist and political analyst Ben Swann. In this special broadcast of Strategic Wisdom
(01:08):
with Andrew Jose, Andrew and Benwill be discussing Biden's dismal performance in the
presidential debate and the implications that andthe results of the upcoming presidential elections in
November hold for United States foreign policy. Without further ado, I'm going to
hand the floor over to Andrew Jose. This one is a Texas born news
(02:00):
anchor, investigative reporter, and politicalcommentator. He's the founder of Truth in
Media, a news outlet that seeksto cover stories that establishment news outlets do
not cover. He's the producer ofZelensky Unmasked, a documentary series that looks
at the current situation in Ukraine andVolodimer Zelenski's crackdown on opposition media outlets that
(02:23):
the Zelensky government deems to be proRussian. Ben Swan, Welcome to the
show. Thanks so much for havingme on. Before we discuss the presidential
debate, Ben, I want toexamine with you Biden's record on foreign policy.
It's going to be four years sinceBiden took office in January twenty twenty
one. Has Biden through the lastcouple of years been a negative or positive
(02:46):
force for US foreign policy and thecountry standing on the world stage. He's
been an extremely negative force in termsof foreign policy. But I wouldn't put
it all at the feet of PresidentBiden himself. I would say President Biden
is the continuation more than twenty yearsof terrible policy that goes all the way
(03:07):
back to George W. Bush andis eight years in office which did not
change at all when Barack Obama becamepresident. Even though he was elected as
a pro piece in the wars candidate, he was not he expanded wars around
the world. Trump was a bitof an anomaly and really did not expand
wars. He actually decreased them andhad wanted to leave Afghanistan. And then
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Biden takes over. He does leaveAfghanistan in a very sloppy way, but
ultimately has ratcheted up not only what'sgoing on with this proxy war with Russia
in Ukraine, but what gets verylittle notice by mainstream media is the explosion
of wars continuing across the Middle East, and the US drove striking once again
(03:53):
in countries like Yemen, in Somalia. We're seeing this the continuation again of
twenty years of very very bad foreignpolicy. So I think Biden has been
a very poor president in terms ofthat, and I think that the only
way to break away from what he'sbeen doing and what Obama did before him
and Bush did before him, isto have a president who does not believe
(04:15):
that foreign policy should be handled byessentially bombing countries around the world. How
do you think Biden's performance in thedebate will impact the Democrat's performance in the
November elections. Is it too earlyto make a call or do you think
sufficient damage has been caused that wecan make a rough estimate of how things
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will play out this November. Firstof all, what happened in the debate
was a total setup set up inthat look a history of this country.
There's never been a presidential debate heldin June for general election. That has
never happened before, and there's acouple of reasons for that. One of
the reasons for that is because neithermajor party Republicans were Demcrats have held a
(05:00):
convention yet to actually choose their nominee. So we've never had a presidential debate
take place before the nominees of themajor parties are chosen. And yet that
happened. Why, that's a hugequestion. Why debate so early? And
I believe after, you know,while watching that debate live and then afterwards,
seeing what immediately happened in the aftermap, the whole thing was a setup.
(05:21):
It was a setup in that forweeks, months, even even years
into Biden's administration, so many peoplethat watched this president and said he has
serious cognitive decline, There's no questionabout it. In the last few months
before the debate, we were hearingfrom the White House and from reporters that
what was actually happening were cheap fakevideos. That's the term they were using,
(05:45):
trying to play off the term deepfake, and it's going them cheap
fake, meaning they weren't AI generatedfakes, but they were misrepresented and taken
out of context. And then thepresident was fine, there's no problem here.
Then he gets up and he hasthis debate, which was obviously awful.
His the debate performance was awful,But let's be honest, did anyone
expect it to be good? Ifyou've watched this president he can't get through
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a sentence without becoming lost. Heclearly has cognitive decline. These weren't cheap
fake videos. This is a presidentwho is suffering from serious cognitive decline and
it's a very sad thing. Butthe media pretends as if no one knew
this, and then the Democratic Partyleadership pretended as if no one knew this.
(06:27):
And suddenly, at the end ofthat debate, if you're watching and
I was watching, all the differentchannels, you know, CNN, Fox,
MSNBC putbinging back between them to seewhat their coverage would be, and
it was unanimous across the board thatsuddenly all these Democratic operatives who were governors
and senators and congressmen from across thecountry and party leaders were all contacting the
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TV pundits who were commenting on thedebate saying, oh, this is terrible.
Biden's got to go, He's gotto step out. Really, why
because he had such a bad debateor because yes, everyone already knew this
was a problem. But think aboutwhat the Democrats actually did here. What
the Democrats managed to do was theyran Biden as the incumbent and did not
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allow him to be primary, whichmeans that no one running against him,
including Bobby Kennedy by the way,r of Kennedy Junior, who he dropped
out of the Democratic side to runas an independent, was allowed to actually
have a debate with this president ina primary, and there was no chance
for primary voters to choose who hisreplacement would be. And instead they let
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him go through the primary, becomethe presumptive nominee, put him in a
debate before the actual convention so thatpeople could see his cognitive decline. And
now the party's scrambling around saying we'vegot to replace him, we have no
choice. Well, they will replacehim, that's what they're going to do.
The question is with whom will theyreplace him? And I have theories
on that, but there's no questionto me that this was a very coordinated
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way of removing this president and allso not having to put their nominee through
a primary where the voters would choosewho that nominee would be. It's now
going to be up to the partyto jeote. Do you think that the
people who are trying to make Bidenappear bad in public so that they could
replace him are radical Democrats who havea more radical progressive agenda. No,
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I actually think it's it's not moreradical. I think that they are the
established with Democrats, the same oneswho in twenty sixteen cheated Bernie Sanders out
of the nomination because he would havebeen their nominee had the party not gotten
involved and put their thumb on thescale to push it towards Hillary Clinton.
The same insiders, by the way, an establishment Democrats who made Biden the
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nominee in twenty twenty when he wouldnot have been and it would have again
been Bernie Sanders had the party notput it some on the scale and shifted
everything toward Biden. So it's theparty establishment, and honestly, it's the
party established with line behind Barack Obama, who controls most of that establishment,
that is ultimately making this decision.One thing you've been very critical of regarding
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Biden is his competence in managing issuesof national security and foreign policy should he
win in the next elections. Inthe event that Biden wins and is not
replaced, what foreign policy issues doyou think Biden will prioritize in his next
term and how would this country bebetter off or worse off during a Biden
(09:31):
two point oh presidency. What messups can we expect from Biden? Well,
one thing I think any thinking personcan recognize as at this point,
and again this was led about foryears in terms of his cognents of decline.
Now I think most people would recognizeit is that Biden's not running the
country. He's not running anything.So the question is what can we expect
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if Biden is re elected in termsof is foreign policy? Well, he
doesn't have So the question becomes whois actually pushing forward the foreign policy?
Is it Jake Sullivan the National SecurityAdvisor? Is it Victorian Newlan, the
architect of the original overthrow of theUkrainian government in twenty fourteen and one of
the architects of the Iraq War?Is she the one who's actually running US
(10:16):
foreign policy? There are a lotof questions about this. Is it Lloyd
Austin who is actually in charge?And the problem is is that while we
don't know who's actually making policy,we know that we're seeing the same policies
that have been in place for along time. As I mentioned before in
a continuation of them, which iswhy I believe Jake Sullivan, Victorian Newlan,
and people like that are the oneswho are in control of it.
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But simultaneously, if you have it, no matter who it is who's in
control, what we know is whois not in control. And we know
most certainly that Joe Biden President Biden, if he is re elected, will
not be the one making decisions interms of foreign policy because he has no
idea what's going on. The Bidenadministration's handling of politics is characteristic of different
(11:05):
interest groups vying for influence. Wouldyou say that's the case here? And
do we say that this interplay betweendifferent interest groups and bureaucracies within the federal
government that manifests itself as the sortof incoherent foreign policy we see from the
Biden administration, where it has beenvery flip flopping on different issues and sometimes
(11:28):
trying to recklessly escalate and then pullingback. Do you think that maybe there
is a competition between different interest groupsand it is these interest groups that influence
Biden's policy and makes things appear likethere's chaos. Well, I think that
that is true of every administration,that there are many, many different special
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interest groups that are demanding attention andwant their own way, which is why
you sometimes find a perfect storm offoreign policy. That's what I would say
that you. Ukraine War is betweenUkraine and Russia for US foreign policy,
hawks for warhawks, for the militaryindustrial complex and military contractors, for NGOs,
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for multinational corporations that want to nowrun the country and control the money
flowing in there. There are somany different special interest groups who have an
ability to take a piece what's happeningin Ukraine and get a piece of that
war, and to profit very handsomelyfrom it. And so I think it's
true of most foreign policy that thereare many different special interest groups that are
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vying for that attention, and sometime, on rare occasions, they'll find one
behemoth that they've got all feast on. And I think that's what the Ukraine
War is. I mean, it'sendless money. It's hundreds of billions of
dollars, as you well know,being poured into this country with absolutely no
end in sight, no plan tocome out of it. And the reality
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is that there are so many groupsthat are becoming massively wealthy, much more
wealthy than they already were, asa results of being engaged in that war.
So, yes, I agree withyou. There's no question that there's
so many special interest groups that benefitfrom these kinds of foreign policy decisions,
that benefit from foreign policy opportunities ifyou will, and I think that will
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continue into the future, no matterof who was present. One region you
have specialized in during the course ofyour journalism, Curier Ben has been Ukraine.
How do you think Biden will runthe US his policy on Ukraine during
the next term of his presidency ifhe wins. What are the main moves
do you think he's going to make? And how will Russia respond to a
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Biden two point zero presidency. Ifthere's a Biden two point zero presidency,
I don't know how we don't endup in a full on war with Russia.
And I don't say that, Imean the idea of a hot war
with Russia is a nuclear war.A nuclear war is a you know,
(14:07):
cataclysmic event for the planet. Thatis where we're headed. If Biden is
reelected and continues with this core policywith God, I'll see why he wouldn't
because he hasn't steered away from itin the slightest and there has been increased
provocation. Just last week, thefiring of US made missiles in crime media
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that were fired not just US made, but fired by Americans because the reports
are these missiles can't be fired withoutAmericans, American technology, and Americans running
them to be fired into Crimea andkilling civilians in Crimea. That's a war
crime. What are we doing?And we're dragging ourselves where we as American
people, are being dragged into ahot war with a nuclear power, which,
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by the way, if it doeshappen, will not remain between just
two countries in the United States andRussia. We all know that Western Europe
will line up with the United States, and then countries like China, India,
South Africa, Brazil will probably lineup as bricks nations with Russia.
It is an unbelievable scenario that weare being marched toward. And there is
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an incredible recklessness that is taking placein terms of foreign policy right now.
It is an incredible recklessness by thisadministration to allow US made weapons fired by
Americans into Crimea, chilling civilians,to allow that to happen, To allow
quietly because publicly the Biden administration saidit was not allowed, and then privately
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it was leaked that the Biden administrationpresent divided himself told Zelensky that they were
fined with Ukraine firing American made missilesinside of Russia. Why are we allowing
this again? At some point Russiawill respond to the US trying to have
this proxy war and this claim.You know, this idea that we've got
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to fight the Russians over there,so we don't fight them here. We
shouldn't be fighting the Russians at all. That's this is not the same kind
of war we've been in for twentyyears. This is a very different kind
of war than US going to warin Iraq and rolling over that country's military
in two weeks. This is verydifferent than going into a place like Syria
and bombing their airfield, or someplacelike Yemen and blowing up all of their
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water supply. This is an entirelydifferent war, and it is not one
where there's going to be a winner. We will lose this war. Russia
will lose this war. There's nowinners in a nuclear war. Moving away
from foreign policy, in particular toBiden's plans for his next term in general,
both in domestic policy and also internationalrelations were at large, what costs
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do you think await the American taxpayerand how bleak is the picture for American
when Biden becomes president. For Americans, the pictures is not it is not
a pretty one. But we alsohave to be able to look back at
the last four years and look atwhy. I'm not sure if you've seen
there is a now viral clip ofa young man who found his Walmart order
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from three years ago and he wasable to access his I think it was
even longer in that, I thinkit was four years ago. It was
his Walmart order, and so hesaw in the cart his receipt was one
hundred and nineteen dollars, and hedecided to because Walmart offers the option in
their app to order again. Youcould order the exact same things again,
and so he pushed the button tosee what did we cost right now?
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And it came up over four hundredand forty dollars. The idea that because
we're being told, you know,when you watch the news, if you
still watching the news, you're beingtold over and over it's not that bad.
The economy is doing fine. Youknow, inflation is not that bad.
People can't afford basic necessities, theycan't afford their rent. It's very
(18:07):
difficult for people to find housing.At this point, everything is so expensive,
and then as things become more expensive, we have more and more rules
being created about what kind of vehicleyou can drive, and he just the
nation is suffering in so many ways, and so what does it mean for
the American tax payer? Well,what it ultimately means is a lesser quality
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of life, because there's not onething that the Biden administration has done in
the last four years to show theAmerican people how life will be better in
the future. In fact, evenin their campaign now, Biden's not talking
about any single plan he had toimprove the lives of the American people.
He just keeps telling us you canvote for Trump because Trump's dangerous, and
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Trump's a radical, and Trump's angry, and Trump's scary. And yet he's
not telling us what he's going todo for anyone's life, what policy is
going to be instituted, and whatare you going to do? That's different
than the last three years in whichAmericans have watched their quality of life absolutely
crumble before their eyes. It's whyTrump right now seems to be leading among
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young voters over by Why because youngvoters are young, but they still can
remember back three four years and sayingthings were not like they are right now.
Can't afford anything right now. Sothere's a desire to say whatever Biden's
doing, he's doing it wrong,and we want to go back to the
way things were before. Pricing wasthe way that it was and things have
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become so unmanageable. I have definitelyagree with you on that, Ben.
As someone who lives in Washington,d C. I've noticed how insane prices
have changed, even within a matterof months. And these are like basic
groceries like chicking. And it's reallysurprising that many Democrat supporters of Biden gaslight
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themselves and other into thinking that wedon't have a problem. The economy is
fine. But moving away from theassumptions of a Democrat victory, what are
the chances you'd think we have ofa Republican victory in November twenty twenty four,
And how will a Trump victory affectAmerica's foreign policy and domestic policy prospects?
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Because one thing Trump supporters and theTrump campaign have been hinting at is
that the next Trump term, ifTrump wins, would be a revolution.
But how revolutionary will this revolution be? You know, Trump had a pretty
amazing opportunity his first term in office, and when he was first elected,
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he had said he would drain theswamp. Trump did a lot of things,
especially in terms of the economy,that were very good. There's no
question about that. I think mostmost Americans will say, my life financially
was much better. This is Remember, this is a man that when he
was elected president, we were toldgasoline will never be three dollars a gallon
again, and he headed it downto around a dollar eighty and so we
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saw a huge change economically in alot of ways, much more energy coming
out of this country. And thenno new wars. He did not allow
the Now that doesn't mean that Trumpwas not involved in wars. He bombed
airfields in Syria. There were somethings that he absolutely did, but he
did not expand any wars. He'sthe first president of Jimmy Carter who was
not expanded a war. And sothat I think is significant in terms of
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foreign policy. What does it looklike, Well, I think in terms
of foreign policy, it would bea very good thing because, first of
all, Trump was willing to meetwith lots of people around the world,
including Kim Jong Lund. The factthat he was willing to go to North
Korea and meet with him. Ithought was a very good side. Trump
had no problem meeting with Putin.Trump has said that if he is elected,
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the war in Ukraine will be overin six hours. I believe them,
And the reason I believe them isbecause there is no money coming into
Ukraine anymore. At the moment thepresident says we're done, there's no more
money coming your way. The war'sover. What will happen is is the
Lenski will sit down and come toa piece of gravy with Putin, and
that will be the end of it, because he'll know that the gravy train
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has come to an end. Hecan't keep milking this cash cow anymore.
And so as soon as he knowsthat he's done, he's going to keep
doing it until the spigott has turnedoff. I use a lot of analogies
there till the spigot has turned off, But once it is, it'll be
over. So that's absolutely true.Trump will be able to do that,
and by the way, in doingthat, he does a lot more than
just in the war in Ukraine.He is literally saving the lives of hundreds
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of thousands of men in Ukraine.Right now, on the streets of Ukraine,
the Ukrainian military conscription officers are goingaround and literally grabbing men off the
streets, forcing them into vans andtaking them away to go fight. Men
between the ages of twenty five andsixty years old are required to be drafted,
and they're grabbing them off the streetsat this point and forcing them into
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a war that people in Ukraine calla meat grinder. But these are not
soldiers. These are a lot ofmen who know how to fight, and
they're being carted off to go beforced into military service. If that were
happening in this country, we wouldhave full scale riot. To think that
the idea that you're going to forcepeople to go and find in a war
they cannot win. Having said that, in terms of the domestic policy with
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Trump, I think that that wouldalso be very, very interesting, because
Trump in his first term could havedone a lot more. And one of
the mistakes he made in his firstterm, I would argue, is that
he tried to make the establishment likehim. He thought, well, they're
all scared of me, but ifI get into office and I show them
that I'm a reasonable guy, thenwe'll all get along, and he didn't
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realize that they had no interest inthat, and so his first term in
office was heavily sabotaged with impeachment trialsand hearings. He had people within his
own cabinet who were working against him, people like John Bolton, who he
brought in as his National security advisor. It's untenable what I would say that
Trump has an opportunity to do talkingabout some very radical things right now,
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and I hope that he would dothem if he who were elected. You
know, he could do some thingsthat would be radically different. Eliminating entire
departments than the federal government would beone. He's talking about eliminating the federal
income tax and replacing it with tariffs. That would be one of the most
powerful things any president has ever donein the history of this country. To
(24:23):
do away with the federal income docks. He wants to eliminate all taxes on
tips for servers. We think aboutthe immediate impact that would have on everybody
who has a service industry job whoreceives tips. You get one hundred percent
of that tip going for you.He's talking about eliminating payroll tax and saying
Social Security is going to be bankrupt, and so we're not going to keep
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taking Social Security out of people's paychecksto pay for something they're never going to
receive. How powerful would that be. So those kinds of moves, if
Trump were brave enough to actually doit when he's in office, would have
an immediate impact, and it wouldhave an impact beyond most people even recognize
because these are not small changes.These are drastic changes to a fundamentally broken
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system. Out of My only fearis is that Trump is saying things in
order to get elected, and whenhe gets it, he won't do them.
If he'll actually do them, Trump'ssecond term could be truly historical.
Coming to our last second question inthis interview and following up on your comments
about how this country would look likeif Trump would win, one thing people
(25:30):
have pointed out, even as you'vediscussed the last Trump term, Trump was
in many ways constrained by establishment Republicans. Well, what constraints do you think
establishment Republicans and bureaucrats would impose onTrump in the next term. For example,
in April, Trump, in whatmany have said was a change of
(25:53):
tone, expressed support for a dollarsixty one billion eight package to your before
it was voted on by the Houseof Representatives. Trump went on to say
Ukraine's survival was important to the UnitedStates. Even in his last term,
Trump approved a sale of dollar thirdnine million in lethal weapons, and this
(26:17):
includes javelins. So in many ways, while Trump has in the last term
been being revolutionary, there was someform of continuity. Do you think continuity
would remain or do you think thatthe people Trump will put into his cabinet
would be a different breed from Trump. I'm hopeful that what Trump would do
(26:40):
is he would go outside of Washingtonto fill his cabinet this time, and
that he would he would, youknow, picking people who have genuine understanding
of these issues and don't view itfrom not only a Washington perspective, which
is clearly flawed, but also fromthis swamp perspective of people who are in
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you know, look at who's inBiden's cabinet right now, as his secretary
of State Lloyd Austin, Oh sorry, Anthony blinkoln excuse me, and his
Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin.These are two men who before they were
serving as the Secretary of State andthe Secretary of Defense both ran a consulting
firm for defense contractors, and bothsat on the boards of defense contractors.
(27:29):
If you are serving on the boardof a defense contractor, you should never
be allowed to be the Secretary ofDefense. Ever. It should immediately disqualify
you. It is. It's thatkind of revolving door of cronyism that has
created the mess we have in Washington. So my hope would be that Trump,
in Trump two point zero, wouldgo outside of Washington and find people
(27:52):
who want to provide real answers anddeal with these problems in a serious way
that doesn't just enrich themselves. Andthat's what he's got to look for.
He's got to find people who arewilling to do that. Now, listen,
there's a lot of them out there, and there's a group out there
that's put together something that's been gettinga lot of flak lately called Project twenty
twenty five. It's basically a guideto say, if Trump is reelected,
(28:15):
this is what the MAGA part ofthe Republican Party wants Trump to do,
and here's how you get it done. We'll see if they're able to pull
it off. But it would beinteresting. I'm not saying everything that they
advocate for is even positive, Butthere has to be a plan, and
I think when Trump went into officethe first time, he had no plan,
nor did he even have an ideaof who he wanted in his cabinet,
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and so he allowed people in Washingtonto help choose that cabinet, and
it was a mistake. So Iwould hope that this time around he has
better advisors and wiser people around himwho can install into his cabinet people who
actually will make fundamental changes, notjust changes to policy, but changes to
the actual bureaucracy itself, which isso fundamentally flawed. Lastly, from your
(29:00):
experience in journalism, what would yourmessage be to the American people as they
get ready to vote in November?What are the main points do you think
they should be considering when they makea decision on which candidate they pick.
Well, first of all, Ithink that I think it's a shame that
(29:22):
in this country we only have tworeal choices. I mentioned that Robert F.
Kennedy Junior is running as an independent. There's obviously, you know,
the Green Party, which doesn't geta lot of attention, to the Libertarian
Party, which does not get alot of attention. I think that if
we wanted to have an interesting debate, instead of having a debate between Trump
and Biden, we would have hada debate with five or six different people
up there, so that voters wouldhave the opportunity to choose for a real
(29:44):
slate of candidates with real ideas beyondjust the kind of permanent Uni party ideas
in Washington. What I would sayto the American people is, you know,
how do you decide? I thinkyou have to look at the bigger
scheme of what's going on in theworld, and that is that we're living
in the country right now that iscompletely overtaken by special interest groups, by
(30:07):
bureaucracies running Look, and who youvote for as president many times doesn't really
matter because they don't have much power, or that they say, don't use
that power because there's a shadow governmentrunning everything. That sounds very conspiratorial.
But at the same time, ifyou look at someone like a President Biden,
who himself right now is so cognitivelycognitively impaired, who is running the
(30:27):
country. And then earlier you askedme that question, I can't tell you.
You know what else no one cantell you, which means someone is
running the country, but none ofus know who it is. And here's
the other thing. None of usvoted for those people. We did not
choose those people. So I thinkthat there is a very important step that
(30:48):
has to be taken for the Americanpeople and looking at you know, who
do I want to run the country? What ideas am I looking for?
And who's actually going to do somethingfor me. You know, we've been
for a long time that you gotto be part of this greater good.
Not greater good anymore. It's gotto be about are you making real change
that affects real people's real lives.That has not happened in Washington for many,
(31:11):
many decades. You know, specialinterest groups get rich, and multinational
corporations get rich, politicians get rich. They all go into office broke and
they come out with hundreds of millionsof dollars and it's a completely corrupt system.
So we got to find a way, as the American people to be
able to have real choices in ourelections. So I would hope in the
(31:33):
future it won't make any time withthis election, but I would hope in
the future that you know, wecreate a system so that debates are not
controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by the Republicans and
Democrats, and the systems allow formore voices because more voices make for a
more honest conversation, and that's sorelylacking in Washington, DC. Ladies and
(31:55):
gentlemen, you just listen to investigativereporter and founder of Truth in Me you,
Ben Swan. Ben Swan, thankyou for your time. Strategic Wisdom
with Andrew Jose is an initiative ofAndrew Jose Media. The views expressed by
guests on this show do not necessarilyrepresent the official positions and opinions of Andrew
(32:15):
Jose, Andrew Jose Media, andStrategic Wisdom. Thank you for listening to
Strategic Wisdom. Be sure to followand subscribe on whatever podcast platform you are
using to listen to this show inorder to not miss out any future interviews
and conversations that Andrew Jose will bringto you on this podcast. We are
(32:37):
streaming on Rumble, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, pocket Cast,
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Make sure to follow Strategic Wisdom onTwitter and Instagram at Stratwisdom. Thank
(32:58):
you so much, Gabby, andthank you so much much. Ian ladies
and gentlemen. This is your host, Andrew jose signing off.
Welcome to this special presidential debate episodeof Strategic Wisdom with Andrew Jose. Strategic
Wisdom is an international relations and newspodcast brought to you by Andrew Jose,
a Washington, d c. Basedsecurity policy analyst and news reporter. On
June twenty seventh, this year,the presumptive nominees of the Democratic and Republican
parties, incumbent President Joe Biden andformer President Donald Trump, had their first
(00:22):
presidential debate, moderated by CNN withrules restricting interruptions and cross talk. Establishment
journalists thought Trump would be hurt whileBiden would thrive under the new code of
conduct. Instead, as Politico's JackSchaeffer noted, Trump appeared more dignified and
professional in contrast to Biden, whowas left to speak incoherently in uninterrupted stretches
of time, where his halting speechand cognitive decline lay bare for all to
(00:45):
see. Biden's nothing short of disastrousperformance in the presidential debate has raised serious
concerns about his ability to lead thecountry in this pivotal decade for the next
four years. It has also raiseddoubts about whether Biden will remain competent enough
to handle critical questions national security andforeign policy. Joining Andrew Jose today is
investigative journalist and political analyst Ben Swann. In this special broadcast of Strategic Wisdom
(01:08):
with Andrew Jose, Andrew and Benwill be discussing Biden's dismal performance in the
presidential debate and the implications that andthe results of the upcoming presidential elections in
November hold for United States foreign policy. Without further ado, I'm going to
hand the floor over to Andrew Jose. This one is a Texas born news
(02:00):
anchor, investigative reporter, and politicalcommentator. He's the founder of Truth in
Media, a news outlet that seeksto cover stories that establishment news outlets do
not cover. He's the producer ofZelensky Unmasked, a documentary series that looks
at the current situation in Ukraine andVolodimer Zelenski's crackdown on opposition media outlets that
(02:23):
the Zelensky government deems to be proRussian. Ben Swan, Welcome to the
show. Thanks so much for havingme on. Before we discuss the presidential
debate, Ben, I want toexamine with you Biden's record on foreign policy.
It's going to be four years sinceBiden took office in January twenty twenty
one. Has Biden through the lastcouple of years been a negative or positive
(02:46):
force for US foreign policy and thecountry standing on the world stage. He's
been an extremely negative force in termsof foreign policy. But I wouldn't put
it all at the feet of PresidentBiden himself. I would say President Biden
is the continuation more than twenty yearsof terrible policy that goes all the way
(03:07):
back to George W. Bush andis eight years in office which did not
change at all when Barack Obama becamepresident. Even though he was elected as
a pro piece in the wars candidate, he was not he expanded wars around
the world. Trump was a bitof an anomaly and really did not expand
wars. He actually decreased them andhad wanted to leave Afghanistan. And then
(03:30):
Biden takes over. He does leaveAfghanistan in a very sloppy way, but
ultimately has ratcheted up not only what'sgoing on with this proxy war with Russia
in Ukraine, but what gets verylittle notice by mainstream media is the explosion
of wars continuing across the Middle East, and the US drove striking once again
(03:53):
in countries like Yemen, in Somalia. We're seeing this the continuation again of
twenty years of very very bad foreignpolicy. So I think Biden has been
a very poor president in terms ofthat, and I think that the only
way to break away from what he'sbeen doing and what Obama did before him
and Bush did before him, isto have a president who does not believe
(04:15):
that foreign policy should be handled byessentially bombing countries around the world. How
do you think Biden's performance in thedebate will impact the Democrat's performance in the
November elections. Is it too earlyto make a call or do you think
sufficient damage has been caused that wecan make a rough estimate of how things
(04:39):
will play out this November. Firstof all, what happened in the debate
was a total setup set up inthat look a history of this country.
There's never been a presidential debate heldin June for general election. That has
never happened before, and there's acouple of reasons for that. One of
the reasons for that is because neithermajor party Republicans were Demcrats have held a
(05:00):
convention yet to actually choose their nominee. So we've never had a presidential debate
take place before the nominees of themajor parties are chosen. And yet that
happened. Why, that's a hugequestion. Why debate so early? And
I believe after, you know,while watching that debate live and then afterwards,
seeing what immediately happened in the aftermap, the whole thing was a setup.
(05:21):
It was a setup in that forweeks, months, even even years
into Biden's administration, so many peoplethat watched this president and said he has
serious cognitive decline, There's no questionabout it. In the last few months
before the debate, we were hearingfrom the White House and from reporters that
what was actually happening were cheap fakevideos. That's the term they were using,
(05:45):
trying to play off the term deepfake, and it's going them cheap
fake, meaning they weren't AI generatedfakes, but they were misrepresented and taken
out of context. And then thepresident was fine, there's no problem here.
Then he gets up and he hasthis debate, which was obviously awful.
His the debate performance was awful,But let's be honest, did anyone
expect it to be good? Ifyou've watched this president he can't get through
(06:06):
a sentence without becoming lost. Heclearly has cognitive decline. These weren't cheap
fake videos. This is a presidentwho is suffering from serious cognitive decline and
it's a very sad thing. Butthe media pretends as if no one knew
this, and then the Democratic Partyleadership pretended as if no one knew this.
(06:27):
And suddenly, at the end ofthat debate, if you're watching and
I was watching, all the differentchannels, you know, CNN, Fox,
MSNBC putbinging back between them to seewhat their coverage would be, and
it was unanimous across the board thatsuddenly all these Democratic operatives who were governors
and senators and congressmen from across thecountry and party leaders were all contacting the
(06:48):
TV pundits who were commenting on thedebate saying, oh, this is terrible.
Biden's got to go, He's gotto step out. Really, why
because he had such a bad debateor because yes, everyone already knew this
was a problem. But think aboutwhat the Democrats actually did here. What
the Democrats managed to do was theyran Biden as the incumbent and did not
(07:10):
allow him to be primary, whichmeans that no one running against him,
including Bobby Kennedy by the way,r of Kennedy Junior, who he dropped
out of the Democratic side to runas an independent, was allowed to actually
have a debate with this president ina primary, and there was no chance
for primary voters to choose who hisreplacement would be. And instead they let
(07:33):
him go through the primary, becomethe presumptive nominee, put him in a
debate before the actual convention so thatpeople could see his cognitive decline. And
now the party's scrambling around saying we'vegot to replace him, we have no
choice. Well, they will replacehim, that's what they're going to do.
The question is with whom will theyreplace him? And I have theories
on that, but there's no questionto me that this was a very coordinated
(07:57):
way of removing this president and allso not having to put their nominee through
a primary where the voters would choosewho that nominee would be. It's now
going to be up to the partyto jeote. Do you think that the
people who are trying to make Bidenappear bad in public so that they could
replace him are radical Democrats who havea more radical progressive agenda. No,
(08:24):
I actually think it's it's not moreradical. I think that they are the
established with Democrats, the same oneswho in twenty sixteen cheated Bernie Sanders out
of the nomination because he would havebeen their nominee had the party not gotten
involved and put their thumb on thescale to push it towards Hillary Clinton.
The same insiders, by the way, an establishment Democrats who made Biden the
(08:46):
nominee in twenty twenty when he wouldnot have been and it would have again
been Bernie Sanders had the party notput it some on the scale and shifted
everything toward Biden. So it's theparty establishment, and honestly, it's the
party established with line behind Barack Obama, who controls most of that establishment,
that is ultimately making this decision.One thing you've been very critical of regarding
(09:09):
Biden is his competence in managing issuesof national security and foreign policy should he
win in the next elections. Inthe event that Biden wins and is not
replaced, what foreign policy issues doyou think Biden will prioritize in his next
term and how would this country bebetter off or worse off during a Biden
(09:31):
two point oh presidency. What messups can we expect from Biden? Well,
one thing I think any thinking personcan recognize as at this point,
and again this was led about foryears in terms of his cognents of decline.
Now I think most people would recognizeit is that Biden's not running the
country. He's not running anything.So the question is what can we expect
(09:54):
if Biden is re elected in termsof is foreign policy? Well, he
doesn't have So the question becomes whois actually pushing forward the foreign policy?
Is it Jake Sullivan the National SecurityAdvisor? Is it Victorian Newlan, the
architect of the original overthrow of theUkrainian government in twenty fourteen and one of
the architects of the Iraq War?Is she the one who's actually running US
(10:16):
foreign policy? There are a lotof questions about this. Is it Lloyd
Austin who is actually in charge?And the problem is is that while we
don't know who's actually making policy,we know that we're seeing the same policies
that have been in place for along time. As I mentioned before in
a continuation of them, which iswhy I believe Jake Sullivan, Victorian Newlan,
and people like that are the oneswho are in control of it.
(10:37):
But simultaneously, if you have it, no matter who it is who's in
control, what we know is whois not in control. And we know
most certainly that Joe Biden President Biden, if he is re elected, will
not be the one making decisions interms of foreign policy because he has no
idea what's going on. The Bidenadministration's handling of politics is characteristic of different
(11:05):
interest groups vying for influence. Wouldyou say that's the case here? And
do we say that this interplay betweendifferent interest groups and bureaucracies within the federal
government that manifests itself as the sortof incoherent foreign policy we see from the
Biden administration, where it has beenvery flip flopping on different issues and sometimes
(11:28):
trying to recklessly escalate and then pullingback. Do you think that maybe there
is a competition between different interest groupsand it is these interest groups that influence
Biden's policy and makes things appear likethere's chaos. Well, I think that
that is true of every administration,that there are many, many different special
(11:50):
interest groups that are demanding attention andwant their own way, which is why
you sometimes find a perfect storm offoreign policy. That's what I would say
that you. Ukraine War is betweenUkraine and Russia for US foreign policy,
hawks for warhawks, for the militaryindustrial complex and military contractors, for NGOs,
(12:13):
for multinational corporations that want to nowrun the country and control the money
flowing in there. There are somany different special interest groups who have an
ability to take a piece what's happeningin Ukraine and get a piece of that
war, and to profit very handsomelyfrom it. And so I think it's
true of most foreign policy that thereare many different special interest groups that are
(12:37):
vying for that attention, and sometime, on rare occasions, they'll find one
behemoth that they've got all feast on. And I think that's what the Ukraine
War is. I mean, it'sendless money. It's hundreds of billions of
dollars, as you well know,being poured into this country with absolutely no
end in sight, no plan tocome out of it. And the reality
(13:01):
is that there are so many groupsthat are becoming massively wealthy, much more
wealthy than they already were, asa results of being engaged in that war.
So, yes, I agree withyou. There's no question that there's
so many special interest groups that benefitfrom these kinds of foreign policy decisions,
that benefit from foreign policy opportunities ifyou will, and I think that will
(13:24):
continue into the future, no matterof who was present. One region you
have specialized in during the course ofyour journalism, Curier Ben has been Ukraine.
How do you think Biden will runthe US his policy on Ukraine during
the next term of his presidency ifhe wins. What are the main moves
do you think he's going to make? And how will Russia respond to a
(13:46):
Biden two point zero presidency. Ifthere's a Biden two point zero presidency,
I don't know how we don't endup in a full on war with Russia.
And I don't say that, Imean the idea of a hot war
with Russia is a nuclear war.A nuclear war is a you know,
(14:07):
cataclysmic event for the planet. Thatis where we're headed. If Biden is
reelected and continues with this core policywith God, I'll see why he wouldn't
because he hasn't steered away from itin the slightest and there has been increased
provocation. Just last week, thefiring of US made missiles in crime media
(14:33):
that were fired not just US made, but fired by Americans because the reports
are these missiles can't be fired withoutAmericans, American technology, and Americans running
them to be fired into Crimea andkilling civilians in Crimea. That's a war
crime. What are we doing?And we're dragging ourselves where we as American
people, are being dragged into ahot war with a nuclear power, which,
(14:56):
by the way, if it doeshappen, will not remain between just
two countries in the United States andRussia. We all know that Western Europe
will line up with the United States, and then countries like China, India,
South Africa, Brazil will probably lineup as bricks nations with Russia.
It is an unbelievable scenario that weare being marched toward. And there is
(15:18):
an incredible recklessness that is taking placein terms of foreign policy right now.
It is an incredible recklessness by thisadministration to allow US made weapons fired by
Americans into Crimea, chilling civilians,to allow that to happen, To allow
quietly because publicly the Biden administration saidit was not allowed, and then privately
(15:43):
it was leaked that the Biden administrationpresent divided himself told Zelensky that they were
fined with Ukraine firing American made missilesinside of Russia. Why are we allowing
this again? At some point Russiawill respond to the US trying to have
this proxy war and this claim.You know, this idea that we've got
(16:06):
to fight the Russians over there,so we don't fight them here. We
shouldn't be fighting the Russians at all. That's this is not the same kind
of war we've been in for twentyyears. This is a very different kind
of war than US going to warin Iraq and rolling over that country's military
in two weeks. This is verydifferent than going into a place like Syria
and bombing their airfield, or someplacelike Yemen and blowing up all of their
(16:32):
water supply. This is an entirelydifferent war, and it is not one
where there's going to be a winner. We will lose this war. Russia
will lose this war. There's nowinners in a nuclear war. Moving away
from foreign policy, in particular toBiden's plans for his next term in general,
both in domestic policy and also internationalrelations were at large, what costs
(16:56):
do you think await the American taxpayerand how bleak is the picture for American
when Biden becomes president. For Americans, the pictures is not it is not
a pretty one. But we alsohave to be able to look back at
the last four years and look atwhy. I'm not sure if you've seen
there is a now viral clip ofa young man who found his Walmart order
(17:22):
from three years ago and he wasable to access his I think it was
even longer in that, I thinkit was four years ago. It was
his Walmart order, and so hesaw in the cart his receipt was one
hundred and nineteen dollars, and hedecided to because Walmart offers the option in
their app to order again. Youcould order the exact same things again,
and so he pushed the button tosee what did we cost right now?
(17:45):
And it came up over four hundredand forty dollars. The idea that because
we're being told, you know,when you watch the news, if you
still watching the news, you're beingtold over and over it's not that bad.
The economy is doing fine. Youknow, inflation is not that bad.
People can't afford basic necessities, theycan't afford their rent. It's very
(18:07):
difficult for people to find housing.At this point, everything is so expensive,
and then as things become more expensive, we have more and more rules
being created about what kind of vehicleyou can drive, and he just the
nation is suffering in so many ways, and so what does it mean for
the American tax payer? Well,what it ultimately means is a lesser quality
(18:29):
of life, because there's not onething that the Biden administration has done in
the last four years to show theAmerican people how life will be better in
the future. In fact, evenin their campaign now, Biden's not talking
about any single plan he had toimprove the lives of the American people.
He just keeps telling us you canvote for Trump because Trump's dangerous, and
(18:52):
Trump's a radical, and Trump's angry, and Trump's scary. And yet he's
not telling us what he's going todo for anyone's life, what policy is
going to be instituted, and whatare you going to do? That's different
than the last three years in whichAmericans have watched their quality of life absolutely
crumble before their eyes. It's whyTrump right now seems to be leading among
(19:14):
young voters over by Why because youngvoters are young, but they still can
remember back three four years and sayingthings were not like they are right now.
Can't afford anything right now. Sothere's a desire to say whatever Biden's
doing, he's doing it wrong,and we want to go back to the
way things were before. Pricing wasthe way that it was and things have
(19:37):
become so unmanageable. I have definitelyagree with you on that, Ben.
As someone who lives in Washington,d C. I've noticed how insane prices
have changed, even within a matterof months. And these are like basic
groceries like chicking. And it's reallysurprising that many Democrat supporters of Biden gaslight
(19:57):
themselves and other into thinking that wedon't have a problem. The economy is
fine. But moving away from theassumptions of a Democrat victory, what are
the chances you'd think we have ofa Republican victory in November twenty twenty four,
And how will a Trump victory affectAmerica's foreign policy and domestic policy prospects?
(20:22):
Because one thing Trump supporters and theTrump campaign have been hinting at is
that the next Trump term, ifTrump wins, would be a revolution.
But how revolutionary will this revolution be? You know, Trump had a pretty
amazing opportunity his first term in office, and when he was first elected,
(20:44):
he had said he would drain theswamp. Trump did a lot of things,
especially in terms of the economy,that were very good. There's no
question about that. I think mostmost Americans will say, my life financially
was much better. This is Remember, this is a man that when he
was elected president, we were toldgasoline will never be three dollars a gallon
again, and he headed it downto around a dollar eighty and so we
(21:04):
saw a huge change economically in alot of ways, much more energy coming
out of this country. And thenno new wars. He did not allow
the Now that doesn't mean that Trumpwas not involved in wars. He bombed
airfields in Syria. There were somethings that he absolutely did, but he
did not expand any wars. He'sthe first president of Jimmy Carter who was
not expanded a war. And sothat I think is significant in terms of
(21:27):
foreign policy. What does it looklike, Well, I think in terms
of foreign policy, it would bea very good thing because, first of
all, Trump was willing to meetwith lots of people around the world,
including Kim Jong Lund. The factthat he was willing to go to North
Korea and meet with him. Ithought was a very good side. Trump
had no problem meeting with Putin.Trump has said that if he is elected,
(21:48):
the war in Ukraine will be overin six hours. I believe them,
And the reason I believe them isbecause there is no money coming into
Ukraine anymore. At the moment thepresident says we're done, there's no more
money coming your way. The war'sover. What will happen is is the
Lenski will sit down and come toa piece of gravy with Putin, and
that will be the end of it, because he'll know that the gravy train
(22:10):
has come to an end. Hecan't keep milking this cash cow anymore.
And so as soon as he knowsthat he's done, he's going to keep
doing it until the spigott has turnedoff. I use a lot of analogies
there till the spigot has turned off, But once it is, it'll be
over. So that's absolutely true.Trump will be able to do that,
and by the way, in doingthat, he does a lot more than
just in the war in Ukraine.He is literally saving the lives of hundreds
(22:33):
of thousands of men in Ukraine.Right now, on the streets of Ukraine,
the Ukrainian military conscription officers are goingaround and literally grabbing men off the
streets, forcing them into vans andtaking them away to go fight. Men
between the ages of twenty five andsixty years old are required to be drafted,
and they're grabbing them off the streetsat this point and forcing them into
(22:53):
a war that people in Ukraine calla meat grinder. But these are not
soldiers. These are a lot ofmen who know how to fight, and
they're being carted off to go beforced into military service. If that were
happening in this country, we wouldhave full scale riot. To think that
the idea that you're going to forcepeople to go and find in a war
they cannot win. Having said that, in terms of the domestic policy with
(23:17):
Trump, I think that that wouldalso be very, very interesting, because
Trump in his first term could havedone a lot more. And one of
the mistakes he made in his firstterm, I would argue, is that
he tried to make the establishment likehim. He thought, well, they're
all scared of me, but ifI get into office and I show them
that I'm a reasonable guy, thenwe'll all get along, and he didn't
(23:37):
realize that they had no interest inthat, and so his first term in
office was heavily sabotaged with impeachment trialsand hearings. He had people within his
own cabinet who were working against him, people like John Bolton, who he
brought in as his National security advisor. It's untenable what I would say that
Trump has an opportunity to do talkingabout some very radical things right now,
(24:02):
and I hope that he would dothem if he who were elected. You
know, he could do some thingsthat would be radically different. Eliminating entire
departments than the federal government would beone. He's talking about eliminating the federal
income tax and replacing it with tariffs. That would be one of the most
powerful things any president has ever donein the history of this country. To
(24:23):
do away with the federal income docks. He wants to eliminate all taxes on
tips for servers. We think aboutthe immediate impact that would have on everybody
who has a service industry job whoreceives tips. You get one hundred percent
of that tip going for you.He's talking about eliminating payroll tax and saying
Social Security is going to be bankrupt, and so we're not going to keep
(24:44):
taking Social Security out of people's paychecksto pay for something they're never going to
receive. How powerful would that be. So those kinds of moves, if
Trump were brave enough to actually doit when he's in office, would have
an immediate impact, and it wouldhave an impact beyond most people even recognize
because these are not small changes.These are drastic changes to a fundamentally broken
(25:07):
system. Out of My only fearis is that Trump is saying things in
order to get elected, and whenhe gets it, he won't do them.
If he'll actually do them, Trump'ssecond term could be truly historical.
Coming to our last second question inthis interview and following up on your comments
about how this country would look likeif Trump would win, one thing people
(25:30):
have pointed out, even as you'vediscussed the last Trump term, Trump was
in many ways constrained by establishment Republicans. Well, what constraints do you think
establishment Republicans and bureaucrats would impose onTrump in the next term. For example,
in April, Trump, in whatmany have said was a change of
(25:53):
tone, expressed support for a dollarsixty one billion eight package to your before
it was voted on by the Houseof Representatives. Trump went on to say
Ukraine's survival was important to the UnitedStates. Even in his last term,
Trump approved a sale of dollar thirdnine million in lethal weapons, and this
(26:17):
includes javelins. So in many ways, while Trump has in the last term
been being revolutionary, there was someform of continuity. Do you think continuity
would remain or do you think thatthe people Trump will put into his cabinet
would be a different breed from Trump. I'm hopeful that what Trump would do
(26:40):
is he would go outside of Washingtonto fill his cabinet this time, and
that he would he would, youknow, picking people who have genuine understanding
of these issues and don't view itfrom not only a Washington perspective, which
is clearly flawed, but also fromthis swamp perspective of people who are in
(27:04):
you know, look at who's inBiden's cabinet right now, as his secretary
of State Lloyd Austin, Oh sorry, Anthony blinkoln excuse me, and his
Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin.These are two men who before they were
serving as the Secretary of State andthe Secretary of Defense both ran a consulting
firm for defense contractors, and bothsat on the boards of defense contractors.
(27:29):
If you are serving on the boardof a defense contractor, you should never
be allowed to be the Secretary ofDefense. Ever. It should immediately disqualify
you. It is. It's thatkind of revolving door of cronyism that has
created the mess we have in Washington. So my hope would be that Trump,
in Trump two point zero, wouldgo outside of Washington and find people
(27:52):
who want to provide real answers anddeal with these problems in a serious way
that doesn't just enrich themselves. Andthat's what he's got to look for.
He's got to find people who arewilling to do that. Now, listen,
there's a lot of them out there, and there's a group out there
that's put together something that's been gettinga lot of flak lately called Project twenty
twenty five. It's basically a guideto say, if Trump is reelected,
(28:15):
this is what the MAGA part ofthe Republican Party wants Trump to do,
and here's how you get it done. We'll see if they're able to pull
it off. But it would beinteresting. I'm not saying everything that they
advocate for is even positive, Butthere has to be a plan, and
I think when Trump went into officethe first time, he had no plan,
nor did he even have an ideaof who he wanted in his cabinet,
(28:36):
and so he allowed people in Washingtonto help choose that cabinet, and
it was a mistake. So Iwould hope that this time around he has
better advisors and wiser people around himwho can install into his cabinet people who
actually will make fundamental changes, notjust changes to policy, but changes to
the actual bureaucracy itself, which isso fundamentally flawed. Lastly, from your
(29:00):
experience in journalism, what would yourmessage be to the American people as they
get ready to vote in November?What are the main points do you think
they should be considering when they makea decision on which candidate they pick.
Well, first of all, Ithink that I think it's a shame that
(29:22):
in this country we only have tworeal choices. I mentioned that Robert F.
Kennedy Junior is running as an independent. There's obviously, you know,
the Green Party, which doesn't geta lot of attention, to the Libertarian
Party, which does not get alot of attention. I think that if
we wanted to have an interesting debate, instead of having a debate between Trump
and Biden, we would have hada debate with five or six different people
up there, so that voters wouldhave the opportunity to choose for a real
(29:44):
slate of candidates with real ideas beyondjust the kind of permanent Uni party ideas
in Washington. What I would sayto the American people is, you know,
how do you decide? I thinkyou have to look at the bigger
scheme of what's going on in theworld, and that is that we're living
in the country right now that iscompletely overtaken by special interest groups, by
(30:07):
bureaucracies running Look, and who youvote for as president many times doesn't really
matter because they don't have much power, or that they say, don't use
that power because there's a shadow governmentrunning everything. That sounds very conspiratorial.
But at the same time, ifyou look at someone like a President Biden,
who himself right now is so cognitivelycognitively impaired, who is running the
(30:27):
country. And then earlier you askedme that question, I can't tell you.
You know what else no one cantell you, which means someone is
running the country, but none ofus know who it is. And here's
the other thing. None of usvoted for those people. We did not
choose those people. So I thinkthat there is a very important step that
(30:48):
has to be taken for the Americanpeople and looking at you know, who
do I want to run the country? What ideas am I looking for?
And who's actually going to do somethingfor me. You know, we've been
for a long time that you gotto be part of this greater good.
Not greater good anymore. It's gotto be about are you making real change
that affects real people's real lives.That has not happened in Washington for many,
(31:11):
many decades. You know, specialinterest groups get rich, and multinational
corporations get rich, politicians get rich. They all go into office broke and
they come out with hundreds of millionsof dollars and it's a completely corrupt system.
So we got to find a way, as the American people to be
able to have real choices in ourelections. So I would hope in the
(31:33):
future it won't make any time withthis election, but I would hope in
the future that you know, wecreate a system so that debates are not
controlled by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is run by the Republicans and
Democrats, and the systems allow formore voices because more voices make for a
more honest conversation, and that's sorelylacking in Washington, DC. Ladies and
(31:55):
gentlemen, you just listen to investigativereporter and founder of Truth in Me you,
Ben Swan. Ben Swan, thankyou for your time. Strategic Wisdom
with Andrew Jose is an initiative ofAndrew Jose Media. The views expressed by
guests on this show do not necessarilyrepresent the official positions and opinions of Andrew
(32:15):
Jose, Andrew Jose Media, andStrategic Wisdom. Thank you for listening to
Strategic Wisdom. Be sure to followand subscribe on whatever podcast platform you are
using to listen to this show inorder to not miss out any future interviews
and conversations that Andrew Jose will bringto you on this podcast. We are
(32:37):
streaming on Rumble, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, pocket Cast,
and Hamie, and more, withnew platforms being added often. Also
be sure to subscribe to Strategic Wisdomon Substack at Strategicwisdom dot substack dot com.
Make sure to follow Strategic Wisdom onTwitter and Instagram at Stratwisdom. Thank
(32:58):
you so much, Gabby, andthank you so much much. Ian ladies
and gentlemen. This is your host, Andrew jose signing off.
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