Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We now have someone joining us thatI am very happy to have. Chuck
de vor is sitting down with usright now and check. I don't know
what the vice President of National Initiativesdoes or who you actually work for.
So let's start there with what youdo and who you work for. Well,
I work for the Texas Public PolicyFoundation, which is America's largest right
(00:24):
of center think tank at the statelevel alone. So we've got about one
hundred and ten employees and full timeequivalent contractors, mostly in Texas, but
really all over the country. Andso what I do are the things that
are mostly focused outside of Texas.You know, Texas is just about a
nation state. We were in ourown country for almost ten years, and
(00:46):
so we think big about these things, and we have responsibility to the rest
of the nation. And so someof the things I work on as We
have an energy initiative led by MarkMills. We have an election protection project
led by Joshua Finley. We havea public interest law firm that sues the
federal government, which is pretty coolwhen you think about it, to force
(01:08):
force constitutional compliance. Right We havea criminal justice reform effort led by the
former Utah US Attorney Brett Tolman.You see him on Fox a lot recently
talking about some of these unfair prosecutionsof former President Trump, and that effort
is a design to improve public safetycost effectively. You know, what are
(01:30):
the things that we should be doingto reduce crime. Let's not do this
stupid stuff. That's it kind ofin a nutshell. So those are some
of the things I have the opportunityto help coordinate, including even a new
effort looking at the corruption in Mexicoand how tightly knit the Mexican government in
the criminal cartels are and what thatmeans for us from a policy standpoint,
(01:53):
and how really Mexico isn't at alla partner or a friend in the way
that we used to think of Mexico. Mexico is now a criminal enterprise for
all intents and purposes. I don'tdoubt that at all. And that's absolutely
insane. But you just mentioned thecase against Donald Trump. He was found
guilty thirty four convictions. At thesame time last night on the stage here
(02:17):
at the RNC, they had awoman whose son was murdered in New York
City and the same da Alvin Bragglet her murder murderers go free. So
obviously there are some significant issues withhis priorities, meaning Alvin Bragg, But
what do these convictions really mean?What are we really looking at here?
(02:37):
Well, what you're really looking atis the weaponization of the judicial system,
of the law enforcement system for partisanpurposes. So in the case of the
Break prosecution, the thing to methat was the tell was the number three
person in the Biden Justice Department lefttook a leave of absence from one of
(02:58):
the most powerful positions in law enforcementin America to go work for a local
DA who promised when he ran foroffice that if elected, he would go
after Trump. And if you lookat this, it's like, pardon me,
really well, you know, ifhe was saying I'm going after al
Capone, we would all be like, good, good job. You know,
(03:20):
that would be great. But herehe comes up with charges that were
passed on by multiple other prosecutors.And I saw a very funny tweet.
I thought it was funny where someonesaid Trump is living a gangs to life.
He's got thirty four felonies and nowhe's been shot, And I thought,
oh, well, that's ironic andkind of sad, but funny.
But what is the next step forthis. I know that they are going
to appeal these rulings. Do weget it to a court that is more
(03:45):
or less biased? I guess isthe word I'm looking for. Well,
to me, one of the mostinteresting questions is that Alvin Bragg and his
prosecution had to use a fair bitof evidence that in the recent Federal court
over the Classified Document's case cannot beused because that evidence is a privileged information.
(04:05):
That evidence, uh is something thathas executive privilege attached to it,
and so a lot of that evidencewas a key part of the prosecution's evidence
in this case, and that meansthat all of that evidence needs to be
thrown out. That the that theguilty, those guilty verdicts could not be
(04:25):
buttressed by that evidence. So itseems to me if the judicial system was
to do the right thing, theywould just throw out the case right now
rather than wait for any sort ofappeal. That this should be done by
Judge marshaw on at the at thelevel at which it was executed right.
So, Judge Marshawn did not exactlyshow a willingness to adhere closely to the
(04:48):
law. A lot of stuff inthat this should not have been But this
gives him an out because it's veryclearly a cut and dried legal issue that
you can't use that this this bodyof evidence that was used that was key
to the case is now invalid.It's it's it was illegal to present in
(05:10):
the first place. Now, ofcourse that goes we're not even talking about
the fact that the things that thePresident Trump was accused of weren't even state
crimes, right yeah, so uh, yeah, the whole thing was a
contrivance from from the start. Andand frankly, I think was the weakest
case out of the out of thedifferent cases. Uh. And so I
(05:30):
I think at this point, youknow, you're looking at the Trump juggernaut
that we'll be operating between now anelection day that I think is going to
be very hard to stop. Ithink the lawfair failed. I think that
this attempt by by New York Statewill be invalidated. Uh. And of
course this amazing miracle of the presidentescaping with a just a light wound from
(05:58):
a would be assassin. And Ithink that we're going to see pretty substantial
shifts in public opinion of polling herein the next couple of weeks. I
didn't even mean to take you downthat rabbit hole. I brought you here
to talk about something completely different.But since you run it up by that
radio, right there you go.You have a column that is fairly harsh
(06:19):
in its assessment of me. Aharsh column. Well, the headline is
Biden's mental decline jeopardizes national security.Democrats have one card left to play.
Yeah, I don't think you're wrong, by the way, talk about that
column for just a minute. Yeah, So my in laws, my wife
(06:43):
and I took in her parents,who were both suffering from dementia in November
twenty ten, which was the yearI turned out of office in California,
and my father in law lived untiljust last October. So we had thirteen
years with him as he was declining. And there is so much about the
president's mannerisms and the way he actsthat is intimately familiar to me as someone
(07:10):
who helped care for two older people, both of whom were suffering from dementia.
And so when you see this andyou think, my goodness, if
Joe Biden was just a regular Americanstrying to live on his own, first
of all, they would have gottenhim into assisted living or taking him into
the house, or done something toget him some help, right, because
(07:32):
he can't take his pills on time, He's not going to be able to
drive anywhere, he can't take careof himself. And then you think,
my goodness, this guy has thebutton to our nuclear arsenal. This guy
is the leader of the free world, and very clearly he is increasingly incapacitated
(07:54):
from a mental standpoint, and yethe has a very tight knit group of
people around him, led by Ithink the first lady who very much wants
to cling to power. You know, she's a doctor. Oh, I've
heard that. Yeah, I've heardthat. Yeah. I think though if
there was a mid flight emergency andsomeone said, is there a doctor president,
I don't think she's going to beraising her hand, though I think
(08:16):
she would and then go, oh, not that kind of a doctor.
I can't help me. I canhelp you. I don't know what I
can help you with, but Ican't help So that's where that's coming from.
And so when I looked at that, and and this is all,
of course, prior to the failedassassination attempt. You know, every day
that goes by where there is nota movement to either invoke the twenty fifth
(08:37):
Amendment or to have a serious effortat the Democratic Convention to find someone other
than Joe Biden to put on theticket. Every day that goes by is
going to make it more and moredifficult AI to remove Joe Biden short of
debilitating, you know, radical catastrophe, which obviously we don't wish on the
president for his family, but itmakes it more difficult to remove, and
(09:01):
it makes it more and more likelythat there's going to be a Trump victory,
because every day that goes by isone more day of chaos and one
more day of difficulty in hitting thereset buttons. But several months ago,
I was thinking that any clear headedDemocrat would see that this was an inevitability
and that they needed to find somebodywho was more electable, more charming,
(09:24):
more capable of making an argument,more with it, And so I had
been predicting Gavin Newsom, who Iknew a little bit about from having been
in the state legislature in California forsix years. But it's looking like that
window is starting to close. We'vebeen lots of people have been talking about
that on media row and throughout theconvention and Apparently the Democrats are actually considering
(09:46):
doing the role count role call viazoom, so they can end all doubt.
I honestly think Chuck that they've sortof realized that this is a fool's
errand so they're going to let theold man right out through November and then
they're going to figure out how tomitigate a Trump second Trump presidency. That
is what I think is happening behindthe scenes, right, So you're going
(10:07):
to see a lot of money beingshifted to vulnerable Senate House races and do
everything they can. The problem is, if there's a wave election like I
think we may be seen, notonly is the Senate likely to be my
calculation is fifty six to forty fourRepublican a Democrat, which would be not
quite but nearly you know, filibusterproof, but in the House, where
(10:28):
the Democrats have a certain advantage withGary mandering. You know the problem with
that is when you squeeze out asmany districts as you can in a wave
election, you lose a lot morethan if you were more conservative and you
have more incumbent protection seats, right, and so you may see the Republicans
picking up twenty five you know,fifteen to twenty five seats in the House
(10:52):
if in fact you have a waveelection because of the Democrats going down with
the ship with Joe Biden. Checkde vor is my guest from the Texas
Public Policy Institute. Is that right? Foundation Foundation Day. I really appreciate
your time today. We had tobreak is very interesting conversation and thanks for
making time for it. My pleasures. All right, we'll be back right after this
We now have someone joining us thatI am very happy to have. Chuck
de vor is sitting down with usright now and check. I don't know
what the vice President of National Initiativesdoes or who you actually work for.
So let's start there with what youdo and who you work for. Well,
I work for the Texas Public PolicyFoundation, which is America's largest right
(00:24):
of center think tank at the statelevel alone. So we've got about one
hundred and ten employees and full timeequivalent contractors, mostly in Texas, but
really all over the country. Andso what I do are the things that
are mostly focused outside of Texas.You know, Texas is just about a
nation state. We were in ourown country for almost ten years, and
(00:46):
so we think big about these things, and we have responsibility to the rest
of the nation. And so someof the things I work on as We
have an energy initiative led by MarkMills. We have an election protection project
led by Joshua Finley. We havea public interest law firm that sues the
federal government, which is pretty coolwhen you think about it, to force
(01:08):
force constitutional compliance. Right We havea criminal justice reform effort led by the
former Utah US Attorney Brett Tolman.You see him on Fox a lot recently
talking about some of these unfair prosecutionsof former President Trump, and that effort
is a design to improve public safetycost effectively. You know, what are
(01:30):
the things that we should be doingto reduce crime. Let's not do this
stupid stuff. That's it kind ofin a nutshell. So those are some
of the things I have the opportunityto help coordinate, including even a new
effort looking at the corruption in Mexicoand how tightly knit the Mexican government in
the criminal cartels are and what thatmeans for us from a policy standpoint,
(01:53):
and how really Mexico isn't at alla partner or a friend in the way
that we used to think of Mexico. Mexico is now a criminal enterprise for
all intents and purposes. I don'tdoubt that at all. And that's absolutely
insane. But you just mentioned thecase against Donald Trump. He was found
guilty thirty four convictions. At thesame time last night on the stage here
(02:17):
at the RNC, they had awoman whose son was murdered in New York
City and the same da Alvin Bragglet her murder murderers go free. So
obviously there are some significant issues withhis priorities, meaning Alvin Bragg, But
what do these convictions really mean?What are we really looking at here?
(02:37):
Well, what you're really looking atis the weaponization of the judicial system,
of the law enforcement system for partisanpurposes. So in the case of the
Break prosecution, the thing to methat was the tell was the number three
person in the Biden Justice Department lefttook a leave of absence from one of
(02:58):
the most powerful positions in law enforcementin America to go work for a local
DA who promised when he ran foroffice that if elected, he would go
after Trump. And if you lookat this, it's like, pardon me,
really well, you know, ifhe was saying I'm going after al
Capone, we would all be like, good, good job. You know,
(03:20):
that would be great. But herehe comes up with charges that were
passed on by multiple other prosecutors.And I saw a very funny tweet.
I thought it was funny where someonesaid Trump is living a gangs to life.
He's got thirty four felonies and nowhe's been shot, And I thought,
oh, well, that's ironic andkind of sad, but funny.
But what is the next step forthis. I know that they are going
to appeal these rulings. Do weget it to a court that is more
(03:45):
or less biased? I guess isthe word I'm looking for. Well,
to me, one of the mostinteresting questions is that Alvin Bragg and his
prosecution had to use a fair bitof evidence that in the recent Federal court
over the Classified Document's case cannot beused because that evidence is a privileged information.
(04:05):
That evidence, uh is something thathas executive privilege attached to it,
and so a lot of that evidencewas a key part of the prosecution's evidence
in this case, and that meansthat all of that evidence needs to be
thrown out. That the that theguilty, those guilty verdicts could not be
(04:25):
buttressed by that evidence. So itseems to me if the judicial system was
to do the right thing, theywould just throw out the case right now
rather than wait for any sort ofappeal. That this should be done by
Judge marshaw on at the at thelevel at which it was executed right.
So, Judge Marshawn did not exactlyshow a willingness to adhere closely to the
(04:48):
law. A lot of stuff inthat this should not have been But this
gives him an out because it's veryclearly a cut and dried legal issue that
you can't use that this this bodyof evidence that was used that was key
to the case is now invalid.It's it's it was illegal to present in
(05:10):
the first place. Now, ofcourse that goes we're not even talking about
the fact that the things that thePresident Trump was accused of weren't even state
crimes, right yeah, so uh, yeah, the whole thing was a
contrivance from from the start. Andand frankly, I think was the weakest
case out of the out of thedifferent cases. Uh. And so I
(05:30):
I think at this point, youknow, you're looking at the Trump juggernaut
that we'll be operating between now anelection day that I think is going to
be very hard to stop. Ithink the lawfair failed. I think that
this attempt by by New York Statewill be invalidated. Uh. And of
course this amazing miracle of the presidentescaping with a just a light wound from
(05:58):
a would be assassin. And Ithink that we're going to see pretty substantial
shifts in public opinion of polling herein the next couple of weeks. I
didn't even mean to take you downthat rabbit hole. I brought you here
to talk about something completely different.But since you run it up by that
radio, right there you go.You have a column that is fairly harsh
(06:19):
in its assessment of me. Aharsh column. Well, the headline is
Biden's mental decline jeopardizes national security.Democrats have one card left to play.
Yeah, I don't think you're wrong, by the way, talk about that
column for just a minute. Yeah, So my in laws, my wife
(06:43):
and I took in her parents,who were both suffering from dementia in November
twenty ten, which was the yearI turned out of office in California,
and my father in law lived untiljust last October. So we had thirteen
years with him as he was declining. And there is so much about the
president's mannerisms and the way he actsthat is intimately familiar to me as someone
(07:10):
who helped care for two older people, both of whom were suffering from dementia.
And so when you see this andyou think, my goodness, if
Joe Biden was just a regular Americanstrying to live on his own, first
of all, they would have gottenhim into assisted living or taking him into
the house, or done something toget him some help, right, because
(07:32):
he can't take his pills on time, He's not going to be able to
drive anywhere, he can't take careof himself. And then you think,
my goodness, this guy has thebutton to our nuclear arsenal. This guy
is the leader of the free world, and very clearly he is increasingly incapacitated
(07:54):
from a mental standpoint, and yethe has a very tight knit group of
people around him, led by Ithink the first lady who very much wants
to cling to power. You know, she's a doctor. Oh, I've
heard that. Yeah, I've heardthat. Yeah. I think though if
there was a mid flight emergency andsomeone said, is there a doctor president,
I don't think she's going to beraising her hand, though I think
(08:16):
she would and then go, oh, not that kind of a doctor.
I can't help me. I canhelp you. I don't know what I
can help you with, but Ican't help So that's where that's coming from.
And so when I looked at that, and and this is all,
of course, prior to the failedassassination attempt. You know, every day
that goes by where there is nota movement to either invoke the twenty fifth
(08:37):
Amendment or to have a serious effortat the Democratic Convention to find someone other
than Joe Biden to put on theticket. Every day that goes by is
going to make it more and moredifficult AI to remove Joe Biden short of
debilitating, you know, radical catastrophe, which obviously we don't wish on the
president for his family, but itmakes it more difficult to remove, and
(09:01):
it makes it more and more likelythat there's going to be a Trump victory,
because every day that goes by isone more day of chaos and one
more day of difficulty in hitting thereset buttons. But several months ago,
I was thinking that any clear headedDemocrat would see that this was an inevitability
and that they needed to find somebodywho was more electable, more charming,
(09:24):
more capable of making an argument,more with it, And so I had
been predicting Gavin Newsom, who Iknew a little bit about from having been
in the state legislature in California forsix years. But it's looking like that
window is starting to close. We'vebeen lots of people have been talking about
that on media row and throughout theconvention and Apparently the Democrats are actually considering
(09:46):
doing the role count role call viazoom, so they can end all doubt.
I honestly think Chuck that they've sortof realized that this is a fool's
errand so they're going to let theold man right out through November and then
they're going to figure out how tomitigate a Trump second Trump presidency. That
is what I think is happening behindthe scenes, right, So you're going
(10:07):
to see a lot of money beingshifted to vulnerable Senate House races and do
everything they can. The problem is, if there's a wave election like I
think we may be seen, notonly is the Senate likely to be my
calculation is fifty six to forty fourRepublican a Democrat, which would be not
quite but nearly you know, filibusterproof, but in the House, where
(10:28):
the Democrats have a certain advantage withGary mandering. You know the problem with
that is when you squeeze out asmany districts as you can in a wave
election, you lose a lot morethan if you were more conservative and you
have more incumbent protection seats, right, and so you may see the Republicans
picking up twenty five you know,fifteen to twenty five seats in the House
(10:52):
if in fact you have a waveelection because of the Democrats going down with
the ship with Joe Biden. Checkde vor is my guest from the Texas
Public Policy Institute. Is that right? Foundation Foundation Day. I really appreciate
your time today. We had tobreak is very interesting conversation and thanks for
making time for it. My pleasures. All right, we'll be back right after this
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