October 16, 2025 • 50 mins
DON'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT EMERGENCY, PLUS, SAVE 15%: https://www.twc.health/elsa
#ifounditonamazon https://a.co/ekT4dNO
TRY AUDIBLE PLUS: https://amzn.to/3vb6Rw3
Elsa's Books: https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B01E1VFRFQ
Design Like A Pro: https://canva.7eqqol.net/xg6Nv...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
Hey folks, it is uh Clay here tonight by myself uh
on the Elsa Kurt Show with ClayNovak.
Elsa is down in Florida doingwhat she does, her favorite
thing in the world, visitingthose uh beautiful grandbabies
that she's got down there.
So you've got me uh flying solotonight.
Uh we've got some uh prettypretty interesting topics to
cover, and we'll just jump rightinto it right away.
Um government shutdown, weekthree.
(00:43):
Um, so obviously, you know, Elsaand I have been covering this
for the last couple of weeks,and um, you know, no progress so
far, which is uh which isshameful.
So um there's been nine votes uhacross Congress uh to try and at
least get the clean resolutionthrough.
And again, we've been throughthis a few times.
The clean resolution, which iswhat is trying to be passed
(01:05):
right now, merely keeps thegovernment open.
That's all we're hoping forright now.
Government stays open, people goto work, people get paid,
there's no change toexpenditures, there's no ads to
the budget, there's nodetractions from the budget,
none of that.
All it is, all Speaker Johnsonhas been asking for uh for the
last three weeks is a cleanresolution that allows Congress
(01:29):
to debate a new budget and passa new budget.
That's all they're asking for.
It's an extension.
That's it.
A six-week extension was how allof this started.
And now we're three weeks intoit, and they can't get it
passed.
They can't come to any kind ofagreement.
And you can go, there's plentyof graphics out there, folks.
Um, I, you know, Dan Crenshaw uhthrew one up today that I saw on
(01:50):
either Instagram or X, I thinkit was Instagram, where it laid
out the the members of theSenate who voted for and who
voted against.
And it is very, very clear uhwhen you look at the colors
behind each one of thephotographs uh on who's keeping
this government shutdownclosing.
And I can tell you folks, it'snot red.
(02:10):
Um, there was, you know, what uhtwo blue and one independent
that voted uh for the cleanresolution, all the rest red.
Um voted against the cleanresolution, all blue, one
independent, one red.
So it's very clear that thoseall the red, the two blue, the
(02:31):
one independent, they want aclean resolution, keep the
government open, keep peoplepaid.
Let's talk about this, let's geta better budget.
It's very, very clear with therest of them being blue, with
the one red, who I'm pretty surewas Lindsey Graham, but I'm not
positive, um, and and oneindependent, which we know is is
Bernie, um, are all voting tokeep the government closed.
Uh essentially, that's whatthey're voting for, because they
(02:54):
want um, you know, trillions ofdollars of money for Obamacare
for illegal aliens and and and abunch of other programs.
They want to add to uh, youknow, the the existing budget uh
before it's even passed, uhbefore the new budget's even
passed.
They want all of those thingsadded.
That's not what Speaker Johnsonand and the GOP are asking for.
(03:14):
They're asking for a six-weekextension, and they can't get it
done uh because why?
Uh because the blue, uh the Demswon't even agree to talk about
it.
Um so there's a hardline gameand a little bit of a stalemate.
We'll see how long that piece ofit lasts.
Um now, the interesting partabout this beyond the shutdown
is that President Trump is usingthis to essentially validate uh
(03:37):
the parts of the government thatare bloated, uh are way too
large, but or in some cases arecompletely unnecessary.
Um and and there's a lot ofconsternation, there's a lot of
backlash over this.
In fact, the courts are gettinginvolved about who can be uh
furloughed legally, who cannotbe, et cetera, et cetera.
Um and a lot of people are upsetbecause they think that this is
(03:58):
some sort of underhanded way to,you know, fire uh or get rid of
people or portions of thegovernment that are unnecessary.
Keep in mind, folks, PresidentClinton, I'm I'm fairly
confident that number was inexcess of a few hundred thousand
government employees that hefired during his administration.
President Obama fired peopleduring his administration too.
(04:20):
Um, President Biden, on the veryfirst day of his administration,
shut down the pipeline, firedall the pipeline workers.
And do you remember what hesaid?
I think most of us remember whathe said, which was learn to
code.
There was zero sympathy from himand from anybody in his
administration about all thosepipeline workers being out of
work.
They didn't care.
But now, because President Trumpis trying to right size the
government, which is exactly thephrase that President Clinton
(04:43):
used when he fired all thegovernment workers, uh, right
size and gain efficiency in thegovernment.
Now he's being criticized forit, and they're saying he's been
doing it in an underhandedfashion.
Um, some people are actuallysaying unconstitutional.
There's nothing in theconstitution that says you can't
fire people during a you know agovernment shutdown.
I don't know where people, youknow, everybody bends to the
constitution and says, oh,that's unconstitutional, and
(05:03):
there's there's nothing in thereabout that.
Regardless, um that's PresidentTrump is doing that.
And it and and I think it'sincredibly smart.
We can see, all of us, thevoters, the taxpayers, can see
how our life is being affectedor not in many cases, with or
without these government workersat work.
And if it's not affecting yourlife, if it's not affecting any
(05:24):
of our lives, then we don't needthem there.
And and listen, big gov hasgotten bigger in the last 20
years.
Um, you know, it between theClinton administration, the
bloat during the global war onterror, which I don't give
President Bush a pass, right?
He didn't reduce the governmentas much as he probably should
have, but then more bloat duringPresident Obama, more bloat
(05:45):
during President Biden.
Um, it's gotten crazy.
And President Trump, you know,he started this with the effort
with Doge.
We all remember that with ElonMusk, right?
Find some efficiencies, get ridof people who aren't adding
value.
And this is what he's doing.
It's another method um to get tothe same end state.
Uh so that's what he's doing.
Uh, and and I applaud it.
Uh I am not a fan of big gov.
(06:07):
I think, you know, the statesshould own much more
responsibility.
I know they don't want to.
Um, they want that governmentfunding that is associated with
all of this, and that's reallywhat this is about uh is money.
They want federal money.
But the reality is that most ofthe things that the federal
government is doing is not theirresponsibility.
If you want to talkconstitutional, which everybody
loves to go back to theconstitution, like I said, um
(06:29):
there's a lot of federal levelresponsibilities that you could
argue are in factunconstitutional, states'
rights.
We collectively uh should beaiming for less federal
government infringement and morestate uh level government
responsibility.
Um, and that way you've got theability, if you don't like the
way the state that you live inis being run, you can move to
(06:51):
another state.
If you don't like the way theUnited States is being run,
you've got to vote your way outof that, or it's a much more
significant decision to move toanother country.
But states, states' rights,states authority, states
responsibility, that's somethingthat this nation was built on.
And I think President Trumptrying to shrink FedGov uh is a
good thing.
And I think he's trying to getback to state level
(07:11):
responsibility.
Now, there are some folksinvolved in this, some
casualties uh in this entirething that we all need to
consider.
And I'm not necessarily a fanof.
The air traffic controllers aretaking a beating, folks.
Listen, they are expected toshow up to work every day.
Uh, we talked about it uh lastweek.
Oh, by the way, recording today,15 October.
(07:31):
Uh, it is about uh 5:30-ish onthe East Coast.
I'm about an hour behind today,rolling by myself.
Um, but today is yesterday wasthe first day, or today is the
first day that air trafficcontrollers were gonna get a
partial paycheck.
Um, and they're expected tocontinue to work.
And we've already seen impactsuh at some of the major
airports.
I think we're gonna start seeingimpacts at some of the smaller
(07:54):
airports as these air trafficcontrollers.
Um, you know, if if you're notgetting paid, uh it's really,
really hard to get up and go towork every day.
Um, and so you know, the airtraffic controllers are taking
being.
There's other folks within thefederal government that are
still working every day andthey're and they're working with
little or no paycheck.
Um, and I'm not I'm notnecessarily a fan of that.
(08:15):
I think, you know, we came upwith a solution in the
Department of Defense to payservice members.
I am sure that we can probablylook through FedGov and find
money to pay the key andessential personnel within our
government that were forcing towork during the shutdown and air
traffic controllers being prettyhigh on that list, my personal
opinion.
(08:36):
Um, we did, interestinglyenough, um find some money
within the Department of Defenseto pay our service members.
Um, I spent a long time in themilitary, as most of you know.
Um, I think this is a greateffort by President Trump and
SecWar exit uh to get ourservice members paid.
(08:57):
Now, there is some controversyinvolved with this, uh, in the
sense that for decades anddecades and decades, and even I,
as an army officer, was toldthis, there are different pots
of money uh and the way thatmoney is allocated within the
DOD budget.
Uh, and in many, many cases, youcan't move, or we were always
(09:18):
told that you can't move moneyfrom one pot to another.
Once allocated, one design oncedesignated, it was given
essentially a color coding, um,and you can't mix colors.
And that's what they did to payour service members.
They found research anddevelopment money that was not
being used, or projects thathadn't, you know, the money
hadn't been spent, and theyreallocated it.
And they took it from one potinto another pot um to pay our
(09:42):
service members.
I I applaud them for doing this.
It's a uh to me, it's a smart,smart um solution to the
problem.
Um, they, you know, the servicemembers, um, especially lower
enlisted service members, make alot less than most people
believe or understand inAmerica.
You should probably go, it'sit's completely it's out on the
internet.
(10:02):
You can find it, do uh militarypay scale, uh Google it and find
out what uh a young soldier inE1 through E3 with less than
four years in the Army makes.
Um, and uh you you'll probablybe shocked.
Um, and and many of you willturn around and say, Well, they
get a lot of benefits.
Um they they do, um, they get alot of benefits, especially if
(10:22):
they're living in the barracks.
But if they're married uh andthey have kids, think about
trying to live on the on themoney that they're being paid
and doing what they're asked todo.
Um, so I I do applaud theadministration and and Sector
Heggs uh for moving uh thatmoney around.
Now, the controversy associatedwith that is is it legal or not?
(10:43):
And again, people love to throwaround the Constitution.
This is not a constitutionalmatter, but there may be some
U.S.
code um and there may be somelegality to it on whether or not
they can or can't do it.
And you know, President Trump'snot asking for permission and
certainly is not asking forforgiveness.
But uh Speaker Johnson saidtoday um that there was threats
uh murmuring through Congressfrom uh the Democrats saying
(11:06):
that they may sue theadministration uh for paying
service members with DOD money,but suing because it's not the
right pot of money, it's not theright color money.
Um and his response was goahead.
Um, go ahead and sue us and tryand explain why it's bad that we
paid service members with DODmoney.
(11:27):
And and I applaud him for thatresponse as well, because the
absurdity of that statement, theabsurdity of a lawsuit um when
couched like that is uh isexactly that.
It's absurd.
The fact that anybody, anybodyat all, would consider using DoD
money to pay soldiers, sailors,airmen, marines, etc., um, and
(11:49):
taking it away from RD uh assomething illegal, immoral, or
unethical is absurd.
Um so I applaud them for doingthat.
Now, um, listen, folks, I I takea lot of heat and I have, and
I've never been shy about this.
I I am not a Heggsit fan.
I'm not a fan of SecWar.
Um, the news as as they'retitling it now, Secretary of War
(12:13):
Hexitz.
Um, I do have a lot of I do haveissues with some of the things
that he is doing.
I do applaud a lot of the thingsthat he's doing.
Um, I do applaud his focus onthe fitness of our force.
I do applaud um, you know, hisfocus on war fighting at the war
fighter level.
Um I don't think he needs to bethe guy doing it.
(12:34):
Um, but in this case, a coupleof outboys for him.
First of all, is getting our ourservice members paid.
Good for him.
Uh, you know, guidance from thepresident, uh, followed up and
executed by SecWar.
Good on him.
Uh, and that is the right focus,and that and that's where it
should be.
Um, he's got a couple of otherthings that I think he's been
doing really, really well.
(12:54):
By the way, he had to do anemergency landing.
He was out over the Atlantictoday, returning from uh Europe,
and his C-32, which is about,you know, it's a small airliner
that's allocated for the SecDef,um, but it's a C-32, uh,
evidently got a crack in thewindshield, uh, had to descend
to 10,000 feet and then turnaround and land in the UK.
Um, so hopefully everybody, itsounds like that was uh safety
(13:18):
precaution and uh andeverybody's okay.
Uh, but uh but that did happento uh Secretary Heggs today,
along with everybody that'straveling with them, and that is
no small crew.
I've I've hosted uh in theaterin Afghanistan um former
Secretary of Defenses uh acouple of times, uh Gates uh
being being three of thosevisits.
And I know what kind of anentourage travels with the
(13:39):
Secretary of Defense when theygo when they go places.
So I'm glad everybody's safe.
Uh regardless, uh SecretaryHegseth, um they landed today,
but he has done a couple ofthings lately, which I'm a big
fan of.
Um one, like I said, is gettingour service members paid.
Uh two is he is looking attechnology and the acquisition
process within the military.
(14:00):
For those of you that don'tknow, um acquisition being the
development and purchase of ummilitary equipment, uh military
systems, is a can be a very,very long process.
It can be also a very, veryexpensive process that the
secret that the DefenseDepartment, War Department, um,
(14:21):
you know, bears the financialburden of most of the time.
Um and and during uh the wars inIraq and Afghanistan, the global
war on terror, we did some um,we we shortened some timelines
on some things, mostly smallsystems, small things.
Uh we used to call commercialoff the shelf.
We would find a good piece ofkit uh that was good for uh our
(14:42):
service members and we wouldjust buy it.
We didn't care you know who whomade it for the most part.
If it was a good piece of gearum and we could buy it in bulk,
we would do that.
Things like camelbacks were someof the earliest um, you know, uh
commercial off the shelf, um,Gerber multi-tools, you know,
there were some other biggerthings, some parachute system
and some other things that camecommercial off the shelf.
(15:03):
Regardless, um, we were tryingto field equipment, good
equipment very quickly.
Um in the meantime, while it wasgoing on, we've still had the
legacy system of developingpieces of equipment and then
testing pieces of equipment, andthen field testing certain
pieces of equipment, et cetera.
And it was a long, drawn-outprocess and it got very
(15:24):
expensive.
Um, Secretary Hegseth has haslooked at this and said, we we
need to rethink this.
We need to rebuild it.
We need to think of it in adifferent way and come up with
something else.
And and really what they'retalking about is we have what
you could refer to as a defenseindustrial base.
Uh in other words, our defensethe defense industry exists
(15:44):
solely as the defense industry,many of those companies.
They have no other purpose inlife, they make no other pieces
of equipment.
Uh, they exist solely to serveuh the war department, formerly
Department of Defense.
Um, and that's all they're therefor.
And every time that the militaryneeds or wants something new,
um, we end up paying uh crazyprices for research and
(16:06):
development, thus the money thatwe had available to pay our
service members.
But um, he has looked at thisand said, we need to go back to
having an industrial base thatcan be modified uh to serve the
defense of the nation whenrequired.
In other words, um, you know,some of these companies, and I'm
just gonna name some defensecompanies.
(16:26):
He didn't name these, but I'mgonna use some in some examples.
General Dynamics being one ofthem, Harris Communications
being another one, right?
There are companies like thatthat exist predominantly um, you
know, for the in the defenserealm.
Um, he doesn't want them toexist solely for defense.
Figure out something else to do,and when we need you, um, you
know, we'll we'll come get you.
And which is what we've we didin World War II, especially.
(16:49):
Um, now that I like.
And if you think back to theearly days of COVID when we went
mistakenly decided that weneeded thousands and thousands
and thousands of ventilatorsbefore we realized that once you
put a COVID patient on a vent,they were you pretty much killed
them.
Um, we went to the auto industryuh to Ford and Chev, you know,
GM and and all of them and said,hey, we need you guys to make
(17:10):
ventilators and we need you tomake them quickly.
And they did.
Um, they responded, theyresponded very quickly, and they
converted some of theirmanufacturing to support and
supply uh ventilators.
Um again, a mistake uh in thetreatment of COVID, but it was
an example of us changing theindustrial base to suit the
needs of the nation, which iswhat Secretary Heggs is talking
(17:31):
about.
So it will also essentiallyreduce costs.
Um, if you've got generaldynamics out there building
things for, you know,competitive capitalistic
reasons, in other words, youknow, things that are more
focused on commercial airliners,on, you know, et cetera, et
cetera, they can turn aroundwhen the military has a need and
(17:52):
develop something or or usetheir existing technology, and
and the military's not payingfor them to exist in the
meantime.
They are a functionalcapitalistic business.
So that's what he's talkingabout.
I would offer to him and I wouldask him uh to think about you
know what you do that.
Um, there's also training thathas to happen.
(18:12):
We've gone, you know, warfare ishighly technical now.
Um he is talking about thingslike, you know, the best drone
makers in the world should bemaking drones for the Department
of Defense, Department of War.
But it's not us, it's not, it'snot DOD or D, you know, War
Department paying them to existto build drones.
They're a business that buildsdrones and the Department of
(18:34):
Defense buys from them.
Um that's the example or one ofthe many examples that he's
talking about.
But there's training that has togo with this in terms of things
like high-tech uh equipment,helicopters, airplanes, tanks.
Um we've talked about, you know,the industrial base.
Uh it takes longer to trainpeople to use equipment than it
(18:58):
takes to build the equipment,uh, which is a crux that we're
at right now.
If we got into a big shootingwar with China and we started
losing F-22 and F-35 fifth genfighters, um, we can build them.
Uh they're expensive, but we canbuild them fairly quickly.
What we can't do is train apilot to fly them.
Um, and and so that is somethingthat I would ask Secretary Heggs
(19:22):
as he's considering a relook ofthe industrial base and how we
do acquisitions, uh, is relookhow we do the training
associated with the equipmentthat we're buying, um, because
it's gonna matter.
Uh timelines have to line upfairly quickly.
So I I would ask him to considerthose two uh as a you know as
they interlock.
(19:42):
Um I would also ask him, uh, youknow, he he has uh put together
a task force uh to look at uhsoldiers living in the barracks.
And for those of you thathaven't looked around, um,
there's plenty out there onsocial media, YouTube, and some
other places.
Barracks life uh is is not uhglorious.
And in a lot of cases, it's it'sdownright shameful, the
(20:05):
conditions that our our servicemembers live under.
And I would tell you that'sbecause in many cases, and I
know this will come to shock asa shock to many older veterans,
is that so many things havebecome privatized in the
military as the military shrunk,um, and we try and cut out as
much overhead as we can so thatthe War Department or Department
of Defense can just sign a checkand hand responsibility off to
(20:27):
somebody else.
We've privatized enough thingsand they have ultimately, in
almost every case I can thinkof, been an absolute disaster.
Um and and I will go through acouple of those.
One of them is the barracks uhor the billets, uh, in depending
on which service you live in uhor a part of.
So those barracks are not ownedby units anymore.
(20:47):
Uh, they're owned by a company,a civilian company who maintains
them, who fixes them, who doesall the repair work for them, et
cetera.
Um, we have plenty of cases ofbad plumbing, black mold, um,
bad electrical, um, you know,freezing air conditioning in the
wintertime, scorching uh, youknow, thermostats in the
summertime.
There's plenty of that out thereum that, you know, generally was
(21:12):
if it was a problem, it didn'tlast very long when the military
controlled those environments.
Family housing is the same way.
Again, privatized.
Um, I could give you 50 examplesof um on post housing for
families that is substandard.
And when I say substandard, um,you know, when something breaks
in your house and you're notallowed to fix it, um, and you
(21:33):
put in a request to have itfixed and it takes a month to
have something fixed, um, that'sa problem.
Um, when you, you know, when youdon't have the ability to paint
uh something in your house, oryou're not allowed to, um, and
it and it takes, you know, andand it's and it hasn't been
painted, the interior of yourhouse hasn't been painted in,
(21:54):
you know, six, seven, eightyears, and there's been three
other families that have livedthere before you, that's a
problem.
Um, there's there's lots ofproblems with that.
Um, travel is another thing.
US Transcom, which is operatedout of Scott Air Force Base, put
together this entire thing aseverybody knows you move when
you're in the military everythree-ish to five-ish years, um,
you pick up yourself or you andyour family and you move to a
(22:17):
different uh station.
Sometimes it's only a year, youknow, sometimes it's every year,
sometimes it's five years.
Regardless, so the military hasalways had a system that the
military governed, and the onlything we contracted out often
enough was the actual packingand physical moving, loading it
on a trailer, moving it yourpersonal items, your furniture,
and whatnot to your new dutystation.
(22:38):
Everything else was handled bythe military.
Um that is no longer true.
It was privatized, it wascontracted out, and it's been a
complete and utter failure.
Um, so the latest on the listfor being considered to be
privatized is the commissary.
And the commissary, for thosethat don't know, is the um
grocery store on the base on theinstallation.
(23:01):
Um, and so the benefit of havingthat, obviously, um, you know,
single soldiers live in thebarracks can usually walk or or
get a ride to the commissary.
Families use it for groceryshopping.
Um, you pay no taxes.
That is one of the nicebenefits, is you're on a federal
installation.
You pay no taxes on thegroceries that you buy.
And in in a lot of cases, theprices are competitive or better
(23:23):
than what you would find outsidethe gate on the local economy.
Um, that commissary system isbeing considered to be
privatized.
And so, you know, we're kind ofin the same, you know, those of
us that know and haveexperienced it, um, you know,
we're in this anticipatory, thisis going to be a disaster kind
(23:44):
of mindset.
If they if they hand this off,if they privatize it and send it
to uh, you know, a large grocerycorporation, as an example of
Kroger, and I'm not sayingKroger would screw this up, but
a company like that, um, theanticipation is that like
everything else that's beenprivatized, it'll be a mess.
Um, I would, I would say thebiggest difference in all of
(24:07):
these things, and something forthe second war to consider, is
um when military takes care ofmilitary, um, things work
better.
When you've got a privatizedbusiness trying to take care of
military, it doesn't work sowell because they're worried
about a dollar.
They're not worried aboutpeople.
When military takes care ofmilitary, they worry about the
people.
(24:28):
They don't worry about thedollar.
Um, and again, with these folks,everybody who's in the service,
what they're asked to sacrifice,I think that the best we can do
for them is to give them thebest support we can, which is
the best housing possible, thebest, you know, grocery store
availability possible to maketheir move of their and to pick
up their entire family and movethem across the country or
(24:49):
around the world as easy andseamless as possible.
We owe them that.
Um, and I would ask SecWar uhHegzith that as he is gaining
momentum and he is fixing thingson the strategic level, which is
where I would prefer that hekeeps his focus.
Um these are things that I thinkhe needs to put some some effort
into and some focus on.
And I think they are fixable.
(25:10):
Uh, but please don't privatizethe commissary.
Please return.
And I know that that if wereturn some of these systems
back to military control, thatis going to cause more overhead
in people, uh governmentemployees or uniformed service
members.
I'm okay with that.
Um I don't like the idea ofprivatized anything uh that
(25:30):
regards soldier life support uhwithin the military.
So, SecWar, a couple of attaboysfor you.
Um you're on the up.
I appreciate what you're doing,um, but I would ask you to kind
of take a look at those thingsuh and uh and and put something
else into consideration.
Okay.
Um now, hey folks, this is thebiggest news going.
(25:52):
Uh I probably should have ledwith this.
We'd done so much on the on theuh uh government shutdown over
the last three weeks that I justhad to I had to kind of open up
with that.
Peace in the Middle East, folks.
Uh we talked about this lastweek, and frankly, I was a
little skeptical that Hamas wasgoing to cooperate.
Um, and they and they did.
Uh the Middle East peace dealhas been uh signed and in phase
(26:14):
one right now.
Um the prisoners, all livingprisoners, have been returned uh
to Israel.
Um, I don't know this for afact.
This has not been fact-checked,but I've seen it in a couple of
places that no female prisonersthat were assumed to be held or
were still missing uh werereturned alive.
Every single prisoner that wasreturned uh the earlier this
(26:37):
week were all males.
If that is true, that is astatement uh that is from Hamas
that is something that needs tobe investigated, that's
something that needs to belooked at and considered.
We can't turn a blind eye to thefact, if that is in fact true,
that they killed every femaleand let the men live.
That's a significant issue.
Regardless, um, it is good news.
(26:57):
Uh, there is a ceasefire inplace.
Um the prisoners have beenreturned home, the living
prisoners.
There are some caskets uh withthe remains of some um deceased
prisoners that have been alsobeen returned.
Um I was skeptical that Hamaswas going to sign off on this.
Uh, I'm still skeptical thatthey will abide by it.
Uh, and for those of you thathaven't seen or don't know, that
(27:18):
in the hours immediatelyfollowing um the peace deal
being signed, and even as theprisoner exchanges were going,
were going on, or the prisonerreturns were going on, Hamas
started uh equalizing thingswithin Gaza and within their
population.
Um, there are there is filmfootage out there of blatant
(27:42):
daytime public executionshappening at the hands of Hamas.
Uh there is there are reports ofHamas raiding and killing a
number of members of a localmilitia, anti-Hamas militia.
Um so for everybody who is aPalestine, free Palestine, and
(28:02):
they run that bandwagon, this iswhat you you fought for.
This is what you asked for.
You asked to protect uh aheinous uh government that is
assassinating people.
Literal executions in the middleof the daytime.
This is these are the peoplethat you've been defending.
These are the people that youknow think should be allowed to
run their own country uh and andbe given no oversight.
(28:26):
It's atrocious that anybody witha in their right mind would
support these people.
But that's what's going on.
And we've all seen it.
However, we are in phase one.
Uh U.S.
service members have beendispatched to kind of assist
with this.
Um and uh, you know, the bigboss, the big boss is not
getting the praise that hedeserves at all in very small
(28:50):
numbers.
Um there are some significantnames who have given him some
kudos.
Um, Hillary Clinton, SecretaryClinton, has said um that she
applauds what he did.
Uh there are there are others,uh, you know, former uh Democrat
big wigs.
Um there are uh people withinthe current administration that
(29:12):
have um very quietly uh givenPresident Trump some credit for
this.
Um, but there are others whostill refuse to acknowledge what
he has done.
President Biden and SecretaryBlinken unbelievably uh tried to
assume credit for this.
(29:32):
I'm sure some of you have seenit.
If you haven't, check it out.
Um, President Biden, you know,in a speech, a public speech,
you know, talked for a goodthree or four minutes about all
of the effort that hisadministration put into this
peace deal and and their 20point plan and all of these
other things, and then at theend basically said, and and
President Trump carried itacross the goal line.
(29:54):
So really gave uh theadministration, current
administration zero credit forany of it.
Secretary Blinken saidessentially the same thing.
You've got a number of folks whorefuse to give uh this
administration or this presidentany any credit for this.
Um, as much as they've beenbegging and screaming and
pleading for a peace deal fortwo years, uh, zero credit for
(30:14):
President Trump.
Uh and and interestingly enough,the timing of it all, right
before the Nobel Peace Prize wasgiven, uh, which he did not get.
Uh, but the Nobel Peace Prizewinner, uh, a young lady who
won, and I don't have her namewritten down, but she uh in in
gracious fashion uh contactedPresident Trump and let him know
(30:36):
that she was accepting the awardon his behalf because he should
have won it.
Uh and that tells you somethingright there.
Uh and and so we we've got we'vegot a continued TDS problem um,
you know, in this country.
There have been a number ofpeople who have gone completely
silent uh in their zerocriticism of Hamas.
(30:58):
Uh you've got them uh zero uhaccolades for President Trump or
the administration, uh nothingfor Secretary Rubio, who I know
had a hand in this, uh, etc.
Um, President Trump is, youknow, he likes to throw his digs
in there.
Uh he's not gonna let it gounnoticed or unmentioned, but he
is still focused on the task athand.
Uh, he has demanded, mandated aforced disarmament from Hamas
(31:22):
because he knows that if theydon't disarm, two things are
gonna happen.
One, the things that happened inthe hours following uh the
ceasefire will continue tohappen.
The executions, the raids andkillings of anti-Hamas, you
know, people within Gaza andsome of the other territories.
That will continue uh if they'renot disarmed.
(31:42):
But also he knows that they'rejust gonna refit and re-arm and
rest and recruit and rebuild inpreparation for another October
7th.
They have to be disarmed.
They cannot be trusted uh tooperate freely as an armed uh,
you know, have any kind of armedcapability at all.
And that's where President Trumpis at.
(32:03):
And he said it, they will disarmor we will disarm them.
Um so I don't know how long thisvery frail uh piece will last.
I'm I'm crossing my fingers,folks.
Uh I really hope that this hasgot some staying power.
Uh, but that disarming mandatefrom President Trump,
appropriately so, um, willprobably uh cost him
consternation and could actuallyunravel this entire thing.
(32:26):
So we'll we'll keep an eye onthis as it goes.
We can't not um you know, wehave to keep an eye on this.
Uh it is the Middle East and anda brokered peace deal is is
unbelievable.
I uh it really is unbelievable.
You know, he had it right thereat the end of the first uh term,
his first presidency, and nowwithin you know, nine months of
(32:46):
this presidency, he's he's putit back in place, and uh it's
amazing.
So kudos to President Trump,Secretary Rubio, everybody else
involved.
Uh, this is good news for theglobe.
Uh and and unfortunately, we'llcontinue to see anti-Semitism
rise within the United States,um, anti-Jew bigotry, all of
those things.
But at least for right now, thekilling is stopped, which is all
(33:07):
President Trump ever wanted.
Uh, the killing is stopped inthe occupied territories, in
Gaza, uh, et cetera.
Uh, and hopefully we'll startdismantling Hamas and give these
people a chance to live apeaceful life, both in Israel
and in what is known as commonlyas Palestine, uh, not
acknowledged as a as an actualplace.
Okay.
Um, let's turn to some.
(33:28):
Geez, this one just irritates,irritates me.
Bradley Whitford, uh, who is anactor, uh, and truthfully, I
don't even know if the guy'sdone anything.
He was on West Wing.
So he's in one of those, youknow, he he thinks he was part
of the government at one pointin time.
I know Martin Sheen still thinkshe was the president.
Uh, he was criticizing PresidentTrump the other day in some
absurd fashion.
Actors Bradley Whitlock is uh, Ithink that's his name.
(33:51):
Yeah, Whitford.
Bradley Whitford, also an actor.
Um, you know, he he was on theview, everybody uh compared his
dad, who would have been 110,who was uh on a on a minesweeper
uh ship in World War II.
(34:12):
Uh he said his dad.
And the world the the the themen and women who fought in
World War II, they were Antifa.
They were real anti-fascists.
Antifa and and the heroes ofWorld War II essentially are the
same.
That's the new tactic, folks.
It's the same as it's the sametype of tactic as calling George
(34:34):
Floyd a hero.
It's the same type of tactic ascalling illegal aliens, illegal
aliens asylum seekers.
Because when you lessen it, youknow, when you soften the
verbiage, you or or you comparethem or put them in the same
class with people who areactually v of value, um then it
(34:56):
becomes more difficult.
It's the first step in making itmore difficult to criticize,
right?
If you put Antifa in the sameclass as those that fought World
War II, then it's really, reallyhard to criticize Antifa because
then you are summarily, youknow, uh criticizing those that
fought in World War II at thesame time.
So this is the new tactic.
And we collectively have got tomake sure that this gains zero
(35:19):
traction.
This is shameful, it'sembarrassing, it's disgusting.
Um you know, our soldiers,sailors, airmen, marines uh uh
that fought in World War II werethere to defeat the Axis, right?
Axis being Italy, Germany,Japan.
Was there some fascism dog?
(35:41):
Sure there was.
Okay, you also had an emperor,you know, in in Japan.
Um they were defending uhEurope, right?
They were defeating uh Japanthat attacked the United States
and defending the United States.
That's what they were doing.
Okay.
They were not dressed up inblack with garbage can shields
(36:05):
and and face masks afraid toshow who they were, uh, you
know, on the streets of Seattletrying to beat up police
officers and failing miserably,because Antifa is the biggest
bunch of wimps.
Um I could use some other verycolorful language.
Um, but it putting them in thesame that that's not it's
there's no equivalency, folks.
(36:25):
Zero.
There's no equivalency to my twograndfathers who fought in World
War II.
Uh one torpedo bombers in thePacific uh off the USS Watts,
uh, the other B-17s over Europe.
Uh that's not Antifa.
They were not Antifa.
You know, I I had great unclesuh Pat who fought with Patton,
(36:47):
Battle of the Bulge.
I, you know, I I had like it'scrazy to put people like that in
the same class with these skinnybun man bun, skinny jean,
blue-haired Antifa uh SOBs thatare running around right now.
(37:10):
They're they're not the samepeople.
It's shameful to put them in thesame class, really.
It's embarrassing, it'sdisgusting.
Bradley Woodford should be atthe top of the cancellation list
by everybody, everybody.
If you I don't care who you are,I don't care if you're uh wear
blue or red, I don't care.
That is that's gross.
Uh what a horrible thing to sayabout our veteran population is
(37:34):
to put them in the same classwith these pieces of trash,
Antifa.
Uh if he wants to put his owndad in that, that's up to him.
But don't don't lump the rest ofour veterans in with that, our
World War II veterans.
That's disgusting.
Um it's a leap, but it's atactic, and we can't allow that
tactic to continue.
Um, so keep your eye out forthat, fight against it, speak up
(37:54):
when you hear it, um, because hewon't be the last person.
I can promise you that.
In fact, there's probably othersout there already saying it, and
I just haven't seen it yet.
So pay attention for that one.
Um, another person that isfighting on behalf of some good
American values, Barry Weiss,Barry Weiss.
So she has taken over at CBSNews, uh, for those of you that
(38:17):
haven't uh seen or heard.
Um, and her number one focus isequal scrutiny of both parties.
We call that journalism.
That's real journalism, right?
Scrutinize both parties.
I don't care.
That's what she wants out of herteam at CBS News.
And good at her thing.
(38:37):
Her starting block is in a verydoge kind of move.
She sent out an email and said,tell me what you do at work
every day.
I want to know.
Um, and then tell she said acouple of other things.
Tell me what you are doing orhave done that you are most
proud of, and then tell me whatis working or not working here
(38:58):
at CBS News.
Okay.
Now we we have all been heldaccountable for what do you do
all day at work?
Um, and a good boss, goodleadership team will always ask
you, what's not working?
And they want to make the theorganization better, which is
what she's doing.
(39:19):
So, of course, in typical, very,very typical Hollywood fashion,
a lot of the a lot of the peoplewho work at CBS News um are part
of the Writers Guild, which is aunion.
Uh, and the and the writersguild has already stepped in as
a union and said um they sent anote to CBS News and to Barry
Weiss and said, we want to know,we want answers.
(39:42):
We want to know why she needs toknow these things.
We want to know if these aregoing to be held over people, if
they're gonna determine layoffsor discipline, who's gonna have
access to the answers.
They want to know.
And they have told theirmembers, the members of the
writer's guild that work at CBSNews, don't answer that email.
They also want a list, they wanta full list of who was sent the
email.
Um, but they they've told theirmembers don't answer that
(40:03):
question until we get answersfrom CBS.
So you've got a boss who isasking for accountability of her
employees in not only whatthey're doing at work, but what
kind of quality work they'redoing and how to improve the
organization.
And she's already being derailedby a very liberal protectorate
(40:28):
union um who is deeply embeddedin in all of Hollywood.
So um I I applaud her for hereffort.
Uh I applaud her for what she'strying to do.
She understands intimately thatjournalism, real journalism is
dying.
Uh I think she also understandsfrom a business perspective uh
(40:50):
that if she can turn CBS newsinto real back into real
journalism, from a businessperspective, I think she's got a
winner.
And I think she knows it.
So um I I truth I don't um envyher position.
I give a lot of credit for whatshe's trying to do, and and I
(41:11):
support that.
Uh, I've never been a huge CBSnews fan, but but that, if she
can return that, I would watchthat.
And I think most of us would,because that's all we've been
asking for.
Um, in fact, that's what Elsaand I have been talking about is
the return of real journalism,uh, so that you can get what is
truthfully fair and balanced.
And again, as long as they go bywhat she said, which is equal
scrutiny of both parties, whenyou do reporting, political
(41:33):
reporting, that's the way itshould be.
So good for her.
Um one more kind of heavy topic.
Um, and uh, and this one hit mepersonally today.
I I got a phone call uh fromsomebody who used to work for me
when I was still in uniform uhto tell me that somebody else
who we both worked with hadcommitted suicide earlier this
(41:54):
week, uh, a veteran, uh combatveteran, a lot of combat time,
uh still a fairly young man whowho carried some demons uh and
and you know succumbed to themuh just early this week.
And so I do this a lot.
Uh, you know, I I speak publiclyas often as I can about veteran
(42:16):
suicide.
We've heard the the words or thethe number 22 a day.
Um, and this you know, 22 a dayhas been around way too long.
It's probably not even accurateanymore.
I don't know if it's more orless, but if if it's not
consistently going down, if thatnumber is not decreasing, we we
(42:38):
as a country, uh, andtruthfully, the VA and the war
department are failing.
Uh we spend a lot of money onequipment, we spend a lot of
money on training, we spend alot of money on uh some
benefits.
(42:58):
Um I think we need tore-evaluate where our money's
going uh because 22 a day is uhis obviously too many.
One a day is too many.
We'll never get to zero.
I understand that.
But um this one just hit alittle close to home with me
today, and uh and and I would benegligent if I didn't take the
(43:22):
opportunity to say something.
So um for those that are outthere, uh, you know, 988 988
style 9888, um call somebody.
Um call a friend, call arelative, call me, uh, call call
anybody.
Uh call the hotlines.
(43:42):
There's plenty of hotlines outthere.
988.
Um please, before I beforeanything else, make a phone
call.
I I talk often about gettingleft of the boom.
In other words, addressingveteran suicide before it
becomes a crisis event.
Uh, and I think that's where weneed to be.
So for all of you veterans outthere, uh, find your thing.
(44:03):
I encourage veterans to findyour thing.
Uh I I found a couple oforganizations that I'm a part
of, a couple of charityorganizations, veteran-centric
organizations uh that I'm a partof, but there's plenty of things
out there.
The VFW, the American Legion,there's uh uh unit, you know,
former unit reunion typeorganizations.
(44:24):
Um, I don't care if it's church,I don't care if it's a Sunday
softball league, I don't care ifit's Tuesday night bowling.
Um I it can be a book club.
Um find something to belong to.
Veterans are genuinely socialpeople.
We we live and operate in asocial environment.
(44:45):
We are surrounded by people allof the time.
We are part of groups andorganizations and teams in
everything that we do.
And a lot of veterans, when theyleave the military, they lose
that sense of belonging and theywander.
And and and that's where I thinkwe can make a huge dent in that
22 a day number, is if we canhelp our veterans find their
their thing, find their group,find your tribe, whoever that
(45:09):
is.
It doesn't even have to bemilitary related.
I don't care, but find somethingto belong to, and I think that
more than anything else willhelp.
Um and again, folks, it it youknow, I I've gotten too many of
these phone calls in my life,and I know that's probably not
the last one.
Um, and I dread them when I getthem.
Uh, but we've got to dosomething different, we've got
(45:30):
to do something better.
Um, so um if you are uh have anytouches in that world, uh if you
have any large organizations, ifyou have uh connections with
veterans uh and and uh you knowthis has touched you and and you
feel like you need to dosomething, um, please contact me
uh through my website,claynovac.com, send me an email.
(45:52):
I'll be happy to come talk toyou.
I'll be happy to get on thephone with you, talk to you, um,
and uh and and see if we can fixthis or at least fix part of
this.
We got to do something better,folks.
Uh, and I just couldn't pass upthe opportunity to say this.
Now, you know, Elsa and I havemade a conscious effort to try
and end the show with somethinga little lighter over the last
(46:12):
few months, and I think we'vedone a pretty good job.
So I got two for you tonight.
Uh one, if you're a Ted Lassofan, I I just, and I'm a soccer
guy, but I just watched all ofTed Lasso within the last few
months.
And then when it was over with,I was aching for something new.
Um, I have one for you.
Uh, if you like good comedy, uh,you know, sports is the vehicle,
(46:35):
but it's not really aboutsports.
There's a great show out therecalled Chad Powers.
Uh that I, you know, it's thisfirst season's only going to be,
I think, six episodes.
There's been four episodesreleased.
It's hilarious.
Um, it uh stars Glenn Powell.
Uh and uh it is based on theManning uh the Manning brothers
are the producers, Eli and BigManning.
(46:56):
A few years ago, Eli Manningdressed up in some prosthetics
and a wig, and he went to a walkon triad at Penn State as
somebody named Chad Powers anduh and and just had a great day.
And and people didn't, you know,the head coach who just got
fired uh from Penn State, butpeople didn't know that it was
him.
Uh and it was a a great little,great little thing.
Well, it's turned itself into aTV show and it's great
(47:17):
entertainment.
So that uh, you know, if you'relooking for something, it's on
Hulu, it's called Chad Powers,that's that's a good one.
Um, take a look at that one.
And then uh this one is just soabsurd that I couldn't pass it.
Um but um Katy Perry, uh, who Ican't stand her music, whatever.
(47:39):
She was married to OrlandoBloom, uh, who most people know
from the Pirates of theCaribbean movies.
Uh, he was also in BlackhawkDown very briefly, among many,
many other things.
Uh, but she was married toOrlando Bloom.
They have split up.
And evidently Katy Perry hasleft Orlando Bloom for a
French-Canadian chick namedJustin Trudeau.
Yeah, you heard me right.
As scary as that is, uh, sheleft Orlando Bloom for Justin
(48:04):
Trudeau.
Katie Perry, ladies andgentlemen.
If you didn't dislike herbefore, you probably dislike her
now, uh, or you dislike her morethan you did.
Um, and I'm not here to bringhate on anybody, but oh my lord.
Really?
Justin Trudeau?
Come on, folks.
Okay, folks, that's all I'vegot.
I'm a little bit under an hour,but no banter with uh Elsa to
keep the show going, so I'm notgonna prolong it.
(48:26):
But uh thanks for uh hanging inwith me for the hour.
Um you can uh you can find my mybooks, the uh initial novel,
Keep Moving, Keep Shooting, andthe sequel, uh Cross the Bear,
this one right here, uh, bothavailable on Amazon.
The third book, Rebellous, willbe released on Veterans Day.
Uh so buy, keep moving, keepshooting, buy cross the bear,
(48:47):
get caught up before the thirdbook comes out uh on Veterans
Day.
And that third book isRebellous.
You can find them on Amazon, youcan order them through Barnes
and Noble, uh, ebook, hardcover,softcover.
Yes, I'm working on an audiobook.
It's not done yet uh for allthree of those, but that's where
I'm at.
So uh, folks, again, thanks.
Uh we will have Elsa back nextweek.
Thank, thank the Lord.
(49:08):
Um, doing this by myself is nota lot of fun, but uh I do
appreciate y'all hanging in.
And uh, as always from me, keepmoving, keep shooting.
SPEAKER_00 (49:16):
Combat veteran Terry Davis thought he left the fight
behind.
In Tampa, he uncovered a deadlyconspiracy.
Now he's back home.
Hey folks, it is uh Clay here tonight by myself uh
on the Elsa Kurt Show with ClayNovak.
Elsa is down in Florida doingwhat she does, her favorite
thing in the world, visitingthose uh beautiful grandbabies
that she's got down there.
So you've got me uh flying solotonight.
Uh we've got some uh prettypretty interesting topics to
cover, and we'll just jump rightinto it right away.
Um government shutdown, weekthree.
(00:43):
Um, so obviously, you know, Elsaand I have been covering this
for the last couple of weeks,and um, you know, no progress so
far, which is uh which isshameful.
So um there's been nine votes uhacross Congress uh to try and at
least get the clean resolutionthrough.
And again, we've been throughthis a few times.
The clean resolution, which iswhat is trying to be passed
(01:05):
right now, merely keeps thegovernment open.
That's all we're hoping forright now.
Government stays open, people goto work, people get paid,
there's no change toexpenditures, there's no ads to
the budget, there's nodetractions from the budget,
none of that.
All it is, all Speaker Johnsonhas been asking for uh for the
last three weeks is a cleanresolution that allows Congress
(01:29):
to debate a new budget and passa new budget.
That's all they're asking for.
It's an extension.
That's it.
A six-week extension was how allof this started.
And now we're three weeks intoit, and they can't get it
passed.
They can't come to any kind ofagreement.
And you can go, there's plentyof graphics out there, folks.
Um, I, you know, Dan Crenshaw uhthrew one up today that I saw on
(01:50):
either Instagram or X, I thinkit was Instagram, where it laid
out the the members of theSenate who voted for and who
voted against.
And it is very, very clear uhwhen you look at the colors
behind each one of thephotographs uh on who's keeping
this government shutdownclosing.
And I can tell you folks, it'snot red.
(02:10):
Um, there was, you know, what uhtwo blue and one independent
that voted uh for the cleanresolution, all the rest red.
Um voted against the cleanresolution, all blue, one
independent, one red.
So it's very clear that thoseall the red, the two blue, the
(02:31):
one independent, they want aclean resolution, keep the
government open, keep peoplepaid.
Let's talk about this, let's geta better budget.
It's very, very clear with therest of them being blue, with
the one red, who I'm pretty surewas Lindsey Graham, but I'm not
positive, um, and and oneindependent, which we know is is
Bernie, um, are all voting tokeep the government closed.
Uh essentially, that's whatthey're voting for, because they
(02:54):
want um, you know, trillions ofdollars of money for Obamacare
for illegal aliens and and and abunch of other programs.
They want to add to uh, youknow, the the existing budget uh
before it's even passed, uhbefore the new budget's even
passed.
They want all of those thingsadded.
That's not what Speaker Johnsonand and the GOP are asking for.
(03:14):
They're asking for a six-weekextension, and they can't get it
done uh because why?
Uh because the blue, uh the Demswon't even agree to talk about
it.
Um so there's a hardline gameand a little bit of a stalemate.
We'll see how long that piece ofit lasts.
Um now, the interesting partabout this beyond the shutdown
is that President Trump is usingthis to essentially validate uh
(03:37):
the parts of the government thatare bloated, uh are way too
large, but or in some cases arecompletely unnecessary.
Um and and there's a lot ofconsternation, there's a lot of
backlash over this.
In fact, the courts are gettinginvolved about who can be uh
furloughed legally, who cannotbe, et cetera, et cetera.
Um and a lot of people are upsetbecause they think that this is
(03:58):
some sort of underhanded way to,you know, fire uh or get rid of
people or portions of thegovernment that are unnecessary.
Keep in mind, folks, PresidentClinton, I'm I'm fairly
confident that number was inexcess of a few hundred thousand
government employees that hefired during his administration.
President Obama fired peopleduring his administration too.
(04:20):
Um, President Biden, on the veryfirst day of his administration,
shut down the pipeline, firedall the pipeline workers.
And do you remember what hesaid?
I think most of us remember whathe said, which was learn to
code.
There was zero sympathy from himand from anybody in his
administration about all thosepipeline workers being out of
work.
They didn't care.
But now, because President Trumpis trying to right size the
government, which is exactly thephrase that President Clinton
(04:43):
used when he fired all thegovernment workers, uh, right
size and gain efficiency in thegovernment.
Now he's being criticized forit, and they're saying he's been
doing it in an underhandedfashion.
Um, some people are actuallysaying unconstitutional.
There's nothing in theconstitution that says you can't
fire people during a you know agovernment shutdown.
I don't know where people, youknow, everybody bends to the
constitution and says, oh,that's unconstitutional, and
(05:03):
there's there's nothing in thereabout that.
Regardless, um that's PresidentTrump is doing that.
And it and and I think it'sincredibly smart.
We can see, all of us, thevoters, the taxpayers, can see
how our life is being affectedor not in many cases, with or
without these government workersat work.
And if it's not affecting yourlife, if it's not affecting any
(05:24):
of our lives, then we don't needthem there.
And and listen, big gov hasgotten bigger in the last 20
years.
Um, you know, it between theClinton administration, the
bloat during the global war onterror, which I don't give
President Bush a pass, right?
He didn't reduce the governmentas much as he probably should
have, but then more bloat duringPresident Obama, more bloat
(05:45):
during President Biden.
Um, it's gotten crazy.
And President Trump, you know,he started this with the effort
with Doge.
We all remember that with ElonMusk, right?
Find some efficiencies, get ridof people who aren't adding
value.
And this is what he's doing.
It's another method um to get tothe same end state.
Uh so that's what he's doing.
Uh, and and I applaud it.
Uh I am not a fan of big gov.
(06:07):
I think, you know, the statesshould own much more
responsibility.
I know they don't want to.
Um, they want that governmentfunding that is associated with
all of this, and that's reallywhat this is about uh is money.
They want federal money.
But the reality is that most ofthe things that the federal
government is doing is not theirresponsibility.
If you want to talkconstitutional, which everybody
loves to go back to theconstitution, like I said, um
(06:29):
there's a lot of federal levelresponsibilities that you could
argue are in factunconstitutional, states'
rights.
We collectively uh should beaiming for less federal
government infringement and morestate uh level government
responsibility.
Um, and that way you've got theability, if you don't like the
way the state that you live inis being run, you can move to
(06:51):
another state.
If you don't like the way theUnited States is being run,
you've got to vote your way outof that, or it's a much more
significant decision to move toanother country.
But states, states' rights,states authority, states
responsibility, that's somethingthat this nation was built on.
And I think President Trumptrying to shrink FedGov uh is a
good thing.
And I think he's trying to getback to state level
(07:11):
responsibility.
Now, there are some folksinvolved in this, some
casualties uh in this entirething that we all need to
consider.
And I'm not necessarily a fanof.
The air traffic controllers aretaking a beating, folks.
Listen, they are expected toshow up to work every day.
Uh, we talked about it uh lastweek.
Oh, by the way, recording today,15 October.
(07:31):
Uh, it is about uh 5:30-ish onthe East Coast.
I'm about an hour behind today,rolling by myself.
Um, but today is yesterday wasthe first day, or today is the
first day that air trafficcontrollers were gonna get a
partial paycheck.
Um, and they're expected tocontinue to work.
And we've already seen impactsuh at some of the major
airports.
I think we're gonna start seeingimpacts at some of the smaller
(07:54):
airports as these air trafficcontrollers.
Um, you know, if if you're notgetting paid, uh it's really,
really hard to get up and go towork every day.
Um, and so you know, the airtraffic controllers are taking
being.
There's other folks within thefederal government that are
still working every day andthey're and they're working with
little or no paycheck.
Um, and I'm not I'm notnecessarily a fan of that.
(08:15):
I think, you know, we came upwith a solution in the
Department of Defense to payservice members.
I am sure that we can probablylook through FedGov and find
money to pay the key andessential personnel within our
government that were forcing towork during the shutdown and air
traffic controllers being prettyhigh on that list, my personal
opinion.
(08:36):
Um, we did, interestinglyenough, um find some money
within the Department of Defenseto pay our service members.
Um, I spent a long time in themilitary, as most of you know.
Um, I think this is a greateffort by President Trump and
SecWar exit uh to get ourservice members paid.
(08:57):
Now, there is some controversyinvolved with this, uh, in the
sense that for decades anddecades and decades, and even I,
as an army officer, was toldthis, there are different pots
of money uh and the way thatmoney is allocated within the
DOD budget.
Uh, and in many, many cases, youcan't move, or we were always
(09:18):
told that you can't move moneyfrom one pot to another.
Once allocated, one design oncedesignated, it was given
essentially a color coding, um,and you can't mix colors.
And that's what they did to payour service members.
They found research anddevelopment money that was not
being used, or projects thathadn't, you know, the money
hadn't been spent, and theyreallocated it.
And they took it from one potinto another pot um to pay our
(09:42):
service members.
I I applaud them for doing this.
It's a uh to me, it's a smart,smart um solution to the
problem.
Um, they, you know, the servicemembers, um, especially lower
enlisted service members, make alot less than most people
believe or understand inAmerica.
You should probably go, it'sit's completely it's out on the
internet.
(10:02):
You can find it, do uh militarypay scale, uh Google it and find
out what uh a young soldier inE1 through E3 with less than
four years in the Army makes.
Um, and uh you you'll probablybe shocked.
Um, and and many of you willturn around and say, Well, they
get a lot of benefits.
Um they they do, um, they get alot of benefits, especially if
(10:22):
they're living in the barracks.
But if they're married uh andthey have kids, think about
trying to live on the on themoney that they're being paid
and doing what they're asked todo.
Um, so I I do applaud theadministration and and Sector
Heggs uh for moving uh thatmoney around.
Now, the controversy associatedwith that is is it legal or not?
(10:43):
And again, people love to throwaround the Constitution.
This is not a constitutionalmatter, but there may be some
U.S.
code um and there may be somelegality to it on whether or not
they can or can't do it.
And you know, President Trump'snot asking for permission and
certainly is not asking forforgiveness.
But uh Speaker Johnson saidtoday um that there was threats
uh murmuring through Congressfrom uh the Democrats saying
(11:06):
that they may sue theadministration uh for paying
service members with DOD money,but suing because it's not the
right pot of money, it's not theright color money.
Um and his response was goahead.
Um, go ahead and sue us and tryand explain why it's bad that we
paid service members with DODmoney.
(11:27):
And and I applaud him for thatresponse as well, because the
absurdity of that statement, theabsurdity of a lawsuit um when
couched like that is uh isexactly that.
It's absurd.
The fact that anybody, anybodyat all, would consider using DoD
money to pay soldiers, sailors,airmen, marines, etc., um, and
(11:49):
taking it away from RD uh assomething illegal, immoral, or
unethical is absurd.
Um so I applaud them for doingthat.
Now, um, listen, folks, I I takea lot of heat and I have, and
I've never been shy about this.
I I am not a Heggsit fan.
I'm not a fan of SecWar.
Um, the news as as they'retitling it now, Secretary of War
(12:13):
Hexitz.
Um, I do have a lot of I do haveissues with some of the things
that he is doing.
I do applaud a lot of the thingsthat he's doing.
Um, I do applaud his focus onthe fitness of our force.
I do applaud um, you know, hisfocus on war fighting at the war
fighter level.
Um I don't think he needs to bethe guy doing it.
(12:34):
Um, but in this case, a coupleof outboys for him.
First of all, is getting our ourservice members paid.
Good for him.
Uh, you know, guidance from thepresident, uh, followed up and
executed by SecWar.
Good on him.
Uh, and that is the right focus,and that and that's where it
should be.
Um, he's got a couple of otherthings that I think he's been
doing really, really well.
(12:54):
By the way, he had to do anemergency landing.
He was out over the Atlantictoday, returning from uh Europe,
and his C-32, which is about,you know, it's a small airliner
that's allocated for the SecDef,um, but it's a C-32, uh,
evidently got a crack in thewindshield, uh, had to descend
to 10,000 feet and then turnaround and land in the UK.
Um, so hopefully everybody, itsounds like that was uh safety
(13:18):
precaution and uh andeverybody's okay.
Uh, but uh but that did happento uh Secretary Heggs today,
along with everybody that'straveling with them, and that is
no small crew.
I've I've hosted uh in theaterin Afghanistan um former
Secretary of Defenses uh acouple of times, uh Gates uh
being being three of thosevisits.
And I know what kind of anentourage travels with the
(13:39):
Secretary of Defense when theygo when they go places.
So I'm glad everybody's safe.
Uh regardless, uh SecretaryHegseth, um they landed today,
but he has done a couple ofthings lately, which I'm a big
fan of.
Um one, like I said, is gettingour service members paid.
Uh two is he is looking attechnology and the acquisition
process within the military.
(14:00):
For those of you that don'tknow, um acquisition being the
development and purchase of ummilitary equipment, uh military
systems, is a can be a very,very long process.
It can be also a very, veryexpensive process that the
secret that the DefenseDepartment, War Department, um,
(14:21):
you know, bears the financialburden of most of the time.
Um and and during uh the wars inIraq and Afghanistan, the global
war on terror, we did some um,we we shortened some timelines
on some things, mostly smallsystems, small things.
Uh we used to call commercialoff the shelf.
We would find a good piece ofkit uh that was good for uh our
(14:42):
service members and we wouldjust buy it.
We didn't care you know who whomade it for the most part.
If it was a good piece of gearum and we could buy it in bulk,
we would do that.
Things like camelbacks were someof the earliest um, you know, uh
commercial off the shelf, um,Gerber multi-tools, you know,
there were some other biggerthings, some parachute system
and some other things that camecommercial off the shelf.
(15:03):
Regardless, um, we were tryingto field equipment, good
equipment very quickly.
Um in the meantime, while it wasgoing on, we've still had the
legacy system of developingpieces of equipment and then
testing pieces of equipment, andthen field testing certain
pieces of equipment, et cetera.
And it was a long, drawn-outprocess and it got very
(15:24):
expensive.
Um, Secretary Hegseth has haslooked at this and said, we we
need to rethink this.
We need to rebuild it.
We need to think of it in adifferent way and come up with
something else.
And and really what they'retalking about is we have what
you could refer to as a defenseindustrial base.
Uh in other words, our defensethe defense industry exists
(15:44):
solely as the defense industry,many of those companies.
They have no other purpose inlife, they make no other pieces
of equipment.
Uh, they exist solely to serveuh the war department, formerly
Department of Defense.
Um, and that's all they're therefor.
And every time that the militaryneeds or wants something new,
um, we end up paying uh crazyprices for research and
(16:06):
development, thus the money thatwe had available to pay our
service members.
But um, he has looked at thisand said, we need to go back to
having an industrial base thatcan be modified uh to serve the
defense of the nation whenrequired.
In other words, um, you know,some of these companies, and I'm
just gonna name some defensecompanies.
(16:26):
He didn't name these, but I'mgonna use some in some examples.
General Dynamics being one ofthem, Harris Communications
being another one, right?
There are companies like thatthat exist predominantly um, you
know, for the in the defenserealm.
Um, he doesn't want them toexist solely for defense.
Figure out something else to do,and when we need you, um, you
know, we'll we'll come get you.
And which is what we've we didin World War II, especially.
(16:49):
Um, now that I like.
And if you think back to theearly days of COVID when we went
mistakenly decided that weneeded thousands and thousands
and thousands of ventilatorsbefore we realized that once you
put a COVID patient on a vent,they were you pretty much killed
them.
Um, we went to the auto industryuh to Ford and Chev, you know,
GM and and all of them and said,hey, we need you guys to make
(17:10):
ventilators and we need you tomake them quickly.
And they did.
Um, they responded, theyresponded very quickly, and they
converted some of theirmanufacturing to support and
supply uh ventilators.
Um again, a mistake uh in thetreatment of COVID, but it was
an example of us changing theindustrial base to suit the
needs of the nation, which iswhat Secretary Heggs is talking
(17:31):
about.
So it will also essentiallyreduce costs.
Um, if you've got generaldynamics out there building
things for, you know,competitive capitalistic
reasons, in other words, youknow, things that are more
focused on commercial airliners,on, you know, et cetera, et
cetera, they can turn aroundwhen the military has a need and
(17:52):
develop something or or usetheir existing technology, and
and the military's not payingfor them to exist in the
meantime.
They are a functionalcapitalistic business.
So that's what he's talkingabout.
I would offer to him and I wouldask him uh to think about you
know what you do that.
Um, there's also training thathas to happen.
(18:12):
We've gone, you know, warfare ishighly technical now.
Um he is talking about thingslike, you know, the best drone
makers in the world should bemaking drones for the Department
of Defense, Department of War.
But it's not us, it's not, it'snot DOD or D, you know, War
Department paying them to existto build drones.
They're a business that buildsdrones and the Department of
(18:34):
Defense buys from them.
Um that's the example or one ofthe many examples that he's
talking about.
But there's training that has togo with this in terms of things
like high-tech uh equipment,helicopters, airplanes, tanks.
Um we've talked about, you know,the industrial base.
Uh it takes longer to trainpeople to use equipment than it
(18:58):
takes to build the equipment,uh, which is a crux that we're
at right now.
If we got into a big shootingwar with China and we started
losing F-22 and F-35 fifth genfighters, um, we can build them.
Uh they're expensive, but we canbuild them fairly quickly.
What we can't do is train apilot to fly them.
Um, and and so that is somethingthat I would ask Secretary Heggs
(19:22):
as he's considering a relook ofthe industrial base and how we
do acquisitions, uh, is relookhow we do the training
associated with the equipmentthat we're buying, um, because
it's gonna matter.
Uh timelines have to line upfairly quickly.
So I I would ask him to considerthose two uh as a you know as
they interlock.
(19:42):
Um I would also ask him, uh, youknow, he he has uh put together
a task force uh to look at uhsoldiers living in the barracks.
And for those of you thathaven't looked around, um,
there's plenty out there onsocial media, YouTube, and some
other places.
Barracks life uh is is not uhglorious.
And in a lot of cases, it's it'sdownright shameful, the
(20:05):
conditions that our our servicemembers live under.
And I would tell you that'sbecause in many cases, and I
know this will come to shock asa shock to many older veterans,
is that so many things havebecome privatized in the
military as the military shrunk,um, and we try and cut out as
much overhead as we can so thatthe War Department or Department
of Defense can just sign a checkand hand responsibility off to
(20:27):
somebody else.
We've privatized enough thingsand they have ultimately, in
almost every case I can thinkof, been an absolute disaster.
Um and and I will go through acouple of those.
One of them is the barracks uhor the billets, uh, in depending
on which service you live in uhor a part of.
So those barracks are not ownedby units anymore.
(20:47):
Uh, they're owned by a company,a civilian company who maintains
them, who fixes them, who doesall the repair work for them, et
cetera.
Um, we have plenty of cases ofbad plumbing, black mold, um,
bad electrical, um, you know,freezing air conditioning in the
wintertime, scorching uh, youknow, thermostats in the
summertime.
There's plenty of that out thereum that, you know, generally was
(21:12):
if it was a problem, it didn'tlast very long when the military
controlled those environments.
Family housing is the same way.
Again, privatized.
Um, I could give you 50 examplesof um on post housing for
families that is substandard.
And when I say substandard, um,you know, when something breaks
in your house and you're notallowed to fix it, um, and you
(21:33):
put in a request to have itfixed and it takes a month to
have something fixed, um, that'sa problem.
Um, when you, you know, when youdon't have the ability to paint
uh something in your house, oryou're not allowed to, um, and
it and it takes, you know, andand it's and it hasn't been
painted, the interior of yourhouse hasn't been painted in,
(21:54):
you know, six, seven, eightyears, and there's been three
other families that have livedthere before you, that's a
problem.
Um, there's there's lots ofproblems with that.
Um, travel is another thing.
US Transcom, which is operatedout of Scott Air Force Base, put
together this entire thing aseverybody knows you move when
you're in the military everythree-ish to five-ish years, um,
you pick up yourself or you andyour family and you move to a
(22:17):
different uh station.
Sometimes it's only a year, youknow, sometimes it's every year,
sometimes it's five years.
Regardless, so the military hasalways had a system that the
military governed, and the onlything we contracted out often
enough was the actual packingand physical moving, loading it
on a trailer, moving it yourpersonal items, your furniture,
and whatnot to your new dutystation.
(22:38):
Everything else was handled bythe military.
Um that is no longer true.
It was privatized, it wascontracted out, and it's been a
complete and utter failure.
Um, so the latest on the listfor being considered to be
privatized is the commissary.
And the commissary, for thosethat don't know, is the um
grocery store on the base on theinstallation.
(23:01):
Um, and so the benefit of havingthat, obviously, um, you know,
single soldiers live in thebarracks can usually walk or or
get a ride to the commissary.
Families use it for groceryshopping.
Um, you pay no taxes.
That is one of the nicebenefits, is you're on a federal
installation.
You pay no taxes on thegroceries that you buy.
And in in a lot of cases, theprices are competitive or better
(23:23):
than what you would find outsidethe gate on the local economy.
Um, that commissary system isbeing considered to be
privatized.
And so, you know, we're kind ofin the same, you know, those of
us that know and haveexperienced it, um, you know,
we're in this anticipatory, thisis going to be a disaster kind
(23:44):
of mindset.
If they if they hand this off,if they privatize it and send it
to uh, you know, a large grocerycorporation, as an example of
Kroger, and I'm not sayingKroger would screw this up, but
a company like that, um, theanticipation is that like
everything else that's beenprivatized, it'll be a mess.
Um, I would, I would say thebiggest difference in all of
(24:07):
these things, and something forthe second war to consider, is
um when military takes care ofmilitary, um, things work
better.
When you've got a privatizedbusiness trying to take care of
military, it doesn't work sowell because they're worried
about a dollar.
They're not worried aboutpeople.
When military takes care ofmilitary, they worry about the
people.
(24:28):
They don't worry about thedollar.
Um, and again, with these folks,everybody who's in the service,
what they're asked to sacrifice,I think that the best we can do
for them is to give them thebest support we can, which is
the best housing possible, thebest, you know, grocery store
availability possible to maketheir move of their and to pick
up their entire family and movethem across the country or
(24:49):
around the world as easy andseamless as possible.
We owe them that.
Um, and I would ask SecWar uhHegzith that as he is gaining
momentum and he is fixing thingson the strategic level, which is
where I would prefer that hekeeps his focus.
Um these are things that I thinkhe needs to put some some effort
into and some focus on.
And I think they are fixable.
(25:10):
Uh, but please don't privatizethe commissary.
Please return.
And I know that that if wereturn some of these systems
back to military control, thatis going to cause more overhead
in people, uh governmentemployees or uniformed service
members.
I'm okay with that.
Um I don't like the idea ofprivatized anything uh that
(25:30):
regards soldier life support uhwithin the military.
So, SecWar, a couple of attaboysfor you.
Um you're on the up.
I appreciate what you're doing,um, but I would ask you to kind
of take a look at those thingsuh and uh and and put something
else into consideration.
Okay.
Um now, hey folks, this is thebiggest news going.
(25:52):
Uh I probably should have ledwith this.
We'd done so much on the on theuh uh government shutdown over
the last three weeks that I justhad to I had to kind of open up
with that.
Peace in the Middle East, folks.
Uh we talked about this lastweek, and frankly, I was a
little skeptical that Hamas wasgoing to cooperate.
Um, and they and they did.
Uh the Middle East peace dealhas been uh signed and in phase
(26:14):
one right now.
Um the prisoners, all livingprisoners, have been returned uh
to Israel.
Um, I don't know this for afact.
This has not been fact-checked,but I've seen it in a couple of
places that no female prisonersthat were assumed to be held or
were still missing uh werereturned alive.
Every single prisoner that wasreturned uh the earlier this
(26:37):
week were all males.
If that is true, that is astatement uh that is from Hamas
that is something that needs tobe investigated, that's
something that needs to belooked at and considered.
We can't turn a blind eye to thefact, if that is in fact true,
that they killed every femaleand let the men live.
That's a significant issue.
Regardless, um, it is good news.
(26:57):
Uh, there is a ceasefire inplace.
Um the prisoners have beenreturned home, the living
prisoners.
There are some caskets uh withthe remains of some um deceased
prisoners that have been alsobeen returned.
Um I was skeptical that Hamaswas going to sign off on this.
Uh, I'm still skeptical thatthey will abide by it.
Uh, and for those of you thathaven't seen or don't know, that
(27:18):
in the hours immediatelyfollowing um the peace deal
being signed, and even as theprisoner exchanges were going,
were going on, or the prisonerreturns were going on, Hamas
started uh equalizing thingswithin Gaza and within their
population.
Um, there are there is filmfootage out there of blatant
(27:42):
daytime public executionshappening at the hands of Hamas.
Uh there is there are reports ofHamas raiding and killing a
number of members of a localmilitia, anti-Hamas militia.
Um so for everybody who is aPalestine, free Palestine, and
(28:02):
they run that bandwagon, this iswhat you you fought for.
This is what you asked for.
You asked to protect uh aheinous uh government that is
assassinating people.
Literal executions in the middleof the daytime.
This is these are the peoplethat you've been defending.
These are the people that youknow think should be allowed to
run their own country uh and andbe given no oversight.
(28:26):
It's atrocious that anybody witha in their right mind would
support these people.
But that's what's going on.
And we've all seen it.
However, we are in phase one.
Uh U.S.
service members have beendispatched to kind of assist
with this.
Um and uh, you know, the bigboss, the big boss is not
getting the praise that hedeserves at all in very small
(28:50):
numbers.
Um there are some significantnames who have given him some
kudos.
Um, Hillary Clinton, SecretaryClinton, has said um that she
applauds what he did.
Uh there are there are others,uh, you know, former uh Democrat
big wigs.
Um there are uh people withinthe current administration that
(29:12):
have um very quietly uh givenPresident Trump some credit for
this.
Um, but there are others whostill refuse to acknowledge what
he has done.
President Biden and SecretaryBlinken unbelievably uh tried to
assume credit for this.
(29:32):
I'm sure some of you have seenit.
If you haven't, check it out.
Um, President Biden, you know,in a speech, a public speech,
you know, talked for a goodthree or four minutes about all
of the effort that hisadministration put into this
peace deal and and their 20point plan and all of these
other things, and then at theend basically said, and and
President Trump carried itacross the goal line.
(29:54):
So really gave uh theadministration, current
administration zero credit forany of it.
Secretary Blinken saidessentially the same thing.
You've got a number of folks whorefuse to give uh this
administration or this presidentany any credit for this.
Um, as much as they've beenbegging and screaming and
pleading for a peace deal fortwo years, uh, zero credit for
(30:14):
President Trump.
Uh and and interestingly enough,the timing of it all, right
before the Nobel Peace Prize wasgiven, uh, which he did not get.
Uh, but the Nobel Peace Prizewinner, uh, a young lady who
won, and I don't have her namewritten down, but she uh in in
gracious fashion uh contactedPresident Trump and let him know
(30:36):
that she was accepting the awardon his behalf because he should
have won it.
Uh and that tells you somethingright there.
Uh and and so we we've got we'vegot a continued TDS problem um,
you know, in this country.
There have been a number ofpeople who have gone completely
silent uh in their zerocriticism of Hamas.
(30:58):
Uh you've got them uh zero uhaccolades for President Trump or
the administration, uh nothingfor Secretary Rubio, who I know
had a hand in this, uh, etc.
Um, President Trump is, youknow, he likes to throw his digs
in there.
Uh he's not gonna let it gounnoticed or unmentioned, but he
is still focused on the task athand.
Uh, he has demanded, mandated aforced disarmament from Hamas
(31:22):
because he knows that if theydon't disarm, two things are
gonna happen.
One, the things that happened inthe hours following uh the
ceasefire will continue tohappen.
The executions, the raids andkillings of anti-Hamas, you
know, people within Gaza andsome of the other territories.
That will continue uh if they'renot disarmed.
(31:42):
But also he knows that they'rejust gonna refit and re-arm and
rest and recruit and rebuild inpreparation for another October
7th.
They have to be disarmed.
They cannot be trusted uh tooperate freely as an armed uh,
you know, have any kind of armedcapability at all.
And that's where President Trumpis at.
(32:03):
And he said it, they will disarmor we will disarm them.
Um so I don't know how long thisvery frail uh piece will last.
I'm I'm crossing my fingers,folks.
Uh I really hope that this hasgot some staying power.
Uh, but that disarming mandatefrom President Trump,
appropriately so, um, willprobably uh cost him
consternation and could actuallyunravel this entire thing.
(32:26):
So we'll we'll keep an eye onthis as it goes.
We can't not um you know, wehave to keep an eye on this.
Uh it is the Middle East and anda brokered peace deal is is
unbelievable.
I uh it really is unbelievable.
You know, he had it right thereat the end of the first uh term,
his first presidency, and nowwithin you know, nine months of
(32:46):
this presidency, he's he's putit back in place, and uh it's
amazing.
So kudos to President Trump,Secretary Rubio, everybody else
involved.
Uh, this is good news for theglobe.
Uh and and unfortunately, we'llcontinue to see anti-Semitism
rise within the United States,um, anti-Jew bigotry, all of
those things.
But at least for right now, thekilling is stopped, which is all
(33:07):
President Trump ever wanted.
Uh, the killing is stopped inthe occupied territories, in
Gaza, uh, et cetera.
Uh, and hopefully we'll startdismantling Hamas and give these
people a chance to live apeaceful life, both in Israel
and in what is known as commonlyas Palestine, uh, not
acknowledged as a as an actualplace.
Okay.
Um, let's turn to some.
(33:28):
Geez, this one just irritates,irritates me.
Bradley Whitford, uh, who is anactor, uh, and truthfully, I
don't even know if the guy'sdone anything.
He was on West Wing.
So he's in one of those, youknow, he he thinks he was part
of the government at one pointin time.
I know Martin Sheen still thinkshe was the president.
Uh, he was criticizing PresidentTrump the other day in some
absurd fashion.
Actors Bradley Whitlock is uh, Ithink that's his name.
(33:51):
Yeah, Whitford.
Bradley Whitford, also an actor.
Um, you know, he he was on theview, everybody uh compared his
dad, who would have been 110,who was uh on a on a minesweeper
uh ship in World War II.
(34:12):
Uh he said his dad.
And the world the the the themen and women who fought in
World War II, they were Antifa.
They were real anti-fascists.
Antifa and and the heroes ofWorld War II essentially are the
same.
That's the new tactic, folks.
It's the same as it's the sametype of tactic as calling George
(34:34):
Floyd a hero.
It's the same type of tactic ascalling illegal aliens, illegal
aliens asylum seekers.
Because when you lessen it, youknow, when you soften the
verbiage, you or or you comparethem or put them in the same
class with people who areactually v of value, um then it
(34:56):
becomes more difficult.
It's the first step in making itmore difficult to criticize,
right?
If you put Antifa in the sameclass as those that fought World
War II, then it's really, reallyhard to criticize Antifa because
then you are summarily, youknow, uh criticizing those that
fought in World War II at thesame time.
So this is the new tactic.
And we collectively have got tomake sure that this gains zero
(35:19):
traction.
This is shameful, it'sembarrassing, it's disgusting.
Um you know, our soldiers,sailors, airmen, marines uh uh
that fought in World War II werethere to defeat the Axis, right?
Axis being Italy, Germany,Japan.
Was there some fascism dog?
(35:41):
Sure there was.
Okay, you also had an emperor,you know, in in Japan.
Um they were defending uhEurope, right?
They were defeating uh Japanthat attacked the United States
and defending the United States.
That's what they were doing.
Okay.
They were not dressed up inblack with garbage can shields
(36:05):
and and face masks afraid toshow who they were, uh, you
know, on the streets of Seattletrying to beat up police
officers and failing miserably,because Antifa is the biggest
bunch of wimps.
Um I could use some other verycolorful language.
Um, but it putting them in thesame that that's not it's
there's no equivalency, folks.
(36:25):
Zero.
There's no equivalency to my twograndfathers who fought in World
War II.
Uh one torpedo bombers in thePacific uh off the USS Watts,
uh, the other B-17s over Europe.
Uh that's not Antifa.
They were not Antifa.
You know, I I had great unclesuh Pat who fought with Patton,
(36:47):
Battle of the Bulge.
I, you know, I I had like it'scrazy to put people like that in
the same class with these skinnybun man bun, skinny jean,
blue-haired Antifa uh SOBs thatare running around right now.
(37:10):
They're they're not the samepeople.
It's shameful to put them in thesame class, really.
It's embarrassing, it'sdisgusting.
Bradley Woodford should be atthe top of the cancellation list
by everybody, everybody.
If you I don't care who you are,I don't care if you're uh wear
blue or red, I don't care.
That is that's gross.
Uh what a horrible thing to sayabout our veteran population is
(37:34):
to put them in the same classwith these pieces of trash,
Antifa.
Uh if he wants to put his owndad in that, that's up to him.
But don't don't lump the rest ofour veterans in with that, our
World War II veterans.
That's disgusting.
Um it's a leap, but it's atactic, and we can't allow that
tactic to continue.
Um, so keep your eye out forthat, fight against it, speak up
(37:54):
when you hear it, um, because hewon't be the last person.
I can promise you that.
In fact, there's probably othersout there already saying it, and
I just haven't seen it yet.
So pay attention for that one.
Um, another person that isfighting on behalf of some good
American values, Barry Weiss,Barry Weiss.
So she has taken over at CBSNews, uh, for those of you that
(38:17):
haven't uh seen or heard.
Um, and her number one focus isequal scrutiny of both parties.
We call that journalism.
That's real journalism, right?
Scrutinize both parties.
I don't care.
That's what she wants out of herteam at CBS News.
And good at her thing.
(38:37):
Her starting block is in a verydoge kind of move.
She sent out an email and said,tell me what you do at work
every day.
I want to know.
Um, and then tell she said acouple of other things.
Tell me what you are doing orhave done that you are most
proud of, and then tell me whatis working or not working here
(38:58):
at CBS News.
Okay.
Now we we have all been heldaccountable for what do you do
all day at work?
Um, and a good boss, goodleadership team will always ask
you, what's not working?
And they want to make the theorganization better, which is
what she's doing.
(39:19):
So, of course, in typical, very,very typical Hollywood fashion,
a lot of the a lot of the peoplewho work at CBS News um are part
of the Writers Guild, which is aunion.
Uh, and the and the writersguild has already stepped in as
a union and said um they sent anote to CBS News and to Barry
Weiss and said, we want to know,we want answers.
(39:42):
We want to know why she needs toknow these things.
We want to know if these aregoing to be held over people, if
they're gonna determine layoffsor discipline, who's gonna have
access to the answers.
They want to know.
And they have told theirmembers, the members of the
writer's guild that work at CBSNews, don't answer that email.
They also want a list, they wanta full list of who was sent the
email.
Um, but they they've told theirmembers don't answer that
(40:03):
question until we get answersfrom CBS.
So you've got a boss who isasking for accountability of her
employees in not only whatthey're doing at work, but what
kind of quality work they'redoing and how to improve the
organization.
And she's already being derailedby a very liberal protectorate
(40:28):
union um who is deeply embeddedin in all of Hollywood.
So um I I applaud her for hereffort.
Uh I applaud her for what she'strying to do.
She understands intimately thatjournalism, real journalism is
dying.
Uh I think she also understandsfrom a business perspective uh
(40:50):
that if she can turn CBS newsinto real back into real
journalism, from a businessperspective, I think she's got a
winner.
And I think she knows it.
So um I I truth I don't um envyher position.
I give a lot of credit for whatshe's trying to do, and and I
(41:11):
support that.
Uh, I've never been a huge CBSnews fan, but but that, if she
can return that, I would watchthat.
And I think most of us would,because that's all we've been
asking for.
Um, in fact, that's what Elsaand I have been talking about is
the return of real journalism,uh, so that you can get what is
truthfully fair and balanced.
And again, as long as they go bywhat she said, which is equal
scrutiny of both parties, whenyou do reporting, political
(41:33):
reporting, that's the way itshould be.
So good for her.
Um one more kind of heavy topic.
Um, and uh, and this one hit mepersonally today.
I I got a phone call uh fromsomebody who used to work for me
when I was still in uniform uhto tell me that somebody else
who we both worked with hadcommitted suicide earlier this
(41:54):
week, uh, a veteran, uh combatveteran, a lot of combat time,
uh still a fairly young man whowho carried some demons uh and
and you know succumbed to themuh just early this week.
And so I do this a lot.
Uh, you know, I I speak publiclyas often as I can about veteran
(42:16):
suicide.
We've heard the the words or thethe number 22 a day.
Um, and this you know, 22 a dayhas been around way too long.
It's probably not even accurateanymore.
I don't know if it's more orless, but if if it's not
consistently going down, if thatnumber is not decreasing, we we
(42:38):
as a country, uh, andtruthfully, the VA and the war
department are failing.
Uh we spend a lot of money onequipment, we spend a lot of
money on training, we spend alot of money on uh some
benefits.
(42:58):
Um I think we need tore-evaluate where our money's
going uh because 22 a day is uhis obviously too many.
One a day is too many.
We'll never get to zero.
I understand that.
But um this one just hit alittle close to home with me
today, and uh and and I would benegligent if I didn't take the
(43:22):
opportunity to say something.
So um for those that are outthere, uh, you know, 988 988
style 9888, um call somebody.
Um call a friend, call arelative, call me, uh, call call
anybody.
Uh call the hotlines.
(43:42):
There's plenty of hotlines outthere.
988.
Um please, before I beforeanything else, make a phone
call.
I I talk often about gettingleft of the boom.
In other words, addressingveteran suicide before it
becomes a crisis event.
Uh, and I think that's where weneed to be.
So for all of you veterans outthere, uh, find your thing.
(44:03):
I encourage veterans to findyour thing.
Uh I I found a couple oforganizations that I'm a part
of, a couple of charityorganizations, veteran-centric
organizations uh that I'm a partof, but there's plenty of things
out there.
The VFW, the American Legion,there's uh uh unit, you know,
former unit reunion typeorganizations.
(44:24):
Um, I don't care if it's church,I don't care if it's a Sunday
softball league, I don't care ifit's Tuesday night bowling.
Um I it can be a book club.
Um find something to belong to.
Veterans are genuinely socialpeople.
We we live and operate in asocial environment.
(44:45):
We are surrounded by people allof the time.
We are part of groups andorganizations and teams in
everything that we do.
And a lot of veterans, when theyleave the military, they lose
that sense of belonging and theywander.
And and and that's where I thinkwe can make a huge dent in that
22 a day number, is if we canhelp our veterans find their
their thing, find their group,find your tribe, whoever that
(45:09):
is.
It doesn't even have to bemilitary related.
I don't care, but find somethingto belong to, and I think that
more than anything else willhelp.
Um and again, folks, it it youknow, I I've gotten too many of
these phone calls in my life,and I know that's probably not
the last one.
Um, and I dread them when I getthem.
Uh, but we've got to dosomething different, we've got
(45:30):
to do something better.
Um, so um if you are uh have anytouches in that world, uh if you
have any large organizations, ifyou have uh connections with
veterans uh and and uh you knowthis has touched you and and you
feel like you need to dosomething, um, please contact me
uh through my website,claynovac.com, send me an email.
(45:52):
I'll be happy to come talk toyou.
I'll be happy to get on thephone with you, talk to you, um,
and uh and and see if we can fixthis or at least fix part of
this.
We got to do something better,folks.
Uh, and I just couldn't pass upthe opportunity to say this.
Now, you know, Elsa and I havemade a conscious effort to try
and end the show with somethinga little lighter over the last
(46:12):
few months, and I think we'vedone a pretty good job.
So I got two for you tonight.
Uh one, if you're a Ted Lassofan, I I just, and I'm a soccer
guy, but I just watched all ofTed Lasso within the last few
months.
And then when it was over with,I was aching for something new.
Um, I have one for you.
Uh, if you like good comedy, uh,you know, sports is the vehicle,
(46:35):
but it's not really aboutsports.
There's a great show out therecalled Chad Powers.
Uh that I, you know, it's thisfirst season's only going to be,
I think, six episodes.
There's been four episodesreleased.
It's hilarious.
Um, it uh stars Glenn Powell.
Uh and uh it is based on theManning uh the Manning brothers
are the producers, Eli and BigManning.
(46:56):
A few years ago, Eli Manningdressed up in some prosthetics
and a wig, and he went to a walkon triad at Penn State as
somebody named Chad Powers anduh and and just had a great day.
And and people didn't, you know,the head coach who just got
fired uh from Penn State, butpeople didn't know that it was
him.
Uh and it was a a great little,great little thing.
Well, it's turned itself into aTV show and it's great
(47:17):
entertainment.
So that uh, you know, if you'relooking for something, it's on
Hulu, it's called Chad Powers,that's that's a good one.
Um, take a look at that one.
And then uh this one is just soabsurd that I couldn't pass it.
Um but um Katy Perry, uh, who Ican't stand her music, whatever.
(47:39):
She was married to OrlandoBloom, uh, who most people know
from the Pirates of theCaribbean movies.
Uh, he was also in BlackhawkDown very briefly, among many,
many other things.
Uh, but she was married toOrlando Bloom.
They have split up.
And evidently Katy Perry hasleft Orlando Bloom for a
French-Canadian chick namedJustin Trudeau.
Yeah, you heard me right.
As scary as that is, uh, sheleft Orlando Bloom for Justin
(48:04):
Trudeau.
Katie Perry, ladies andgentlemen.
If you didn't dislike herbefore, you probably dislike her
now, uh, or you dislike her morethan you did.
Um, and I'm not here to bringhate on anybody, but oh my lord.
Really?
Justin Trudeau?
Come on, folks.
Okay, folks, that's all I'vegot.
I'm a little bit under an hour,but no banter with uh Elsa to
keep the show going, so I'm notgonna prolong it.
(48:26):
But uh thanks for uh hanging inwith me for the hour.
Um you can uh you can find my mybooks, the uh initial novel,
Keep Moving, Keep Shooting, andthe sequel, uh Cross the Bear,
this one right here, uh, bothavailable on Amazon.
The third book, Rebellous, willbe released on Veterans Day.
Uh so buy, keep moving, keepshooting, buy cross the bear,
(48:47):
get caught up before the thirdbook comes out uh on Veterans
Day.
And that third book isRebellous.
You can find them on Amazon, youcan order them through Barnes
and Noble, uh, ebook, hardcover,softcover.
Yes, I'm working on an audiobook.
It's not done yet uh for allthree of those, but that's where
I'm at.
So uh, folks, again, thanks.
Uh we will have Elsa back nextweek.
Thank, thank the Lord.
(49:08):
Um, doing this by myself is nota lot of fun, but uh I do
appreciate y'all hanging in.
And uh, as always from me, keepmoving, keep shooting.
SPEAKER_00 (49:16):
Combat veteran Terry Davis thought he left the fight
behind.
In Tampa, he uncovered a deadlyconspiracy.
Now he's back home.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.