April 24, 2026 • 46 mins
UPDATE: This podcast was recorded early Friday morning. The WH correspondence dinner was cancelled because of the security breech. Sean Duffy is 'doing the work'. Virginia's new map is an insult to the republic and holding 3 or 4 congressmen accountable is not a 'purge'.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
That Jay Webber Podcast is presented by Creative Planning, helping
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at a time. That Jay Weber Podcast is a production
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good Day, Come on in, take us dat, Welcome to
the JA Podcast. We have a lot to talk about today,
including for the first time in either term, President Trump
decigning to attend the annual White House Correspondence Dinner this weekend.
And I can only think of one reason why that
he'd be at all interested in doing this. Gregory John,
my producer, is here. Greg Are you thinking this is
going to be appointment television this weekend? Would you make
(00:36):
it a point to tune in to watch any fireworks
that might occur?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, you know, to be honest with you, the Fox
News is actually going to be doing like an Academy
Awards kind of introduction to the Correspondence dinner. They're gonna
have a red carpet and everything, and Jesse Waters is
going to be the host. So I guess they're going
to make it a musty TV event for all of us.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I guess so about everyone's in DC and New York
are wondering why Donald Trump would even just now choose
to waste time with this. He is never going to
get this group of people to like him or treat
him fairly these correspondences, Why go, Greg, give me a
prediction on what path Trump will take in his speech.
Is he going to poke fun at himself and try
to win the crowd over by being self deprecating or
(01:17):
do you think is just going to go full blast
at him and show up just to call them most
scumbags and liars.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Now the second one I would love.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I would love to see that just either way, it
should be an interesting night and I might tune in
just to see if that room of so called journalists
sitting in front of him can manage to act like adults.
That's in addition to Trump going into the lions Den,
we'll talk about Sean Duffy doing the work when it
comes to finally improving an air traffic control system that
every administration since Reagan promised to fix. Trump and Duffy
(01:44):
are getting it done. We'll talk about the various ways
that Virginia's new congressional map is an insult to the
Republic and how if the Virginia Supreme Court allows this
to stand, it's going to be remarkable and folks finally
holding three or four congressmen accountable for their criminal actions.
It's a positive thing, but it's not what a purge
of a Congress that's full of rats and grifters. To
call this a purge is interesting to me. All that
(02:05):
and more coming up after I tell you about my
superior sponsor, Creative Planning. They're one of the nation's largest
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registered investment advisor. The speaker's statements are not an endorsement
of the firm. So the White House Correspondents Dinner is
this weekend and for the first time as President Donald
Trump is attending. Oh boy, this should be a proper
(02:47):
shizz show, shouldn't it. For the life of me. I
don't know why Donald Trump's going. I could take a
few guesses. One is that even after everything that has
transpired over the last ten years, Donald Trump the man,
I think, still wants to be adored and loved by
these countries, rich and famous, an elite class. He's always
been one of those people. After all, This is something
that Donald Trump the man has always been into. Being
(03:09):
adored in elite circles on both coasts has always been
something that Donald Trump has craved and something that has
motivated him. You know, the number of famous people from entertainment,
from pro sports, etc. Who filed through Trump Tower when
Donald Trump was simply a billionaire businessman is legendary. Trump
wanted to meet everyone famous and personally shake their hand
and sit down and get to know more about them.
(03:31):
He's inherently a people person. But it's why before he
was politically controversial, you had everyone from you know, Mike
Tyson to Jay Z and Beyonce to Magic Johnson to
Justin bieber All saying, you know, Trump's a friend, Trump's cool.
So my guess in terms of what motivates Donald Trump
to even agree to go to this dinner tomorrow is
that even after everything that's transpired and all the hatred
(03:53):
that DC in New York and the LA crowds have
tossed at him, he still wants to be seen as
cool to them. Trump's still wants to be in that
in crowd when it comes to US and global elites.
That's my guess. My guess is he certainly wants to
rejoin those circles post presidency too, and so that's why
he's making what's likely a terrible decision to go to
(04:13):
this nerd prom banquet tomorrow night. The chance that Trump
is going to be simply savaged and lectured to by
a bunch of activist America haters who simply pose as
journalists is a high one, and any chance of Trump
emerging from this more liked or more likable in this
crowd is nearly zero. The President should continue to skip
this and anyone still associated with the White House Press
Corps should be pushing to end this annual dinner altogether
(04:36):
because it has always been a biased, ridiculous affair. It
has always been so called journalists making themselves the story
and injecting themselves into politics and the current events of
the day. When they're supposed to be impartial observers. They're
not supposed to do that. But in this era, this
dinner's really a joke, and it's simply a night for
left wing activists to get together and celebrate the power
(04:58):
that they derive from routinely life to the American people.
And by the way, the average member of the DC
or New York media elite really really doesn't like to
be challenged. This is a group of people that has
genuinely convinced themselves they are the truth seekers and the
truth tellers. They are the social conscience of this nation.
They're the intellectual elite of the nation. And so they
(05:20):
hate nothing more. I mean, they react very negatively when
someone challenges them or they're standing And so this crowd
in particular has a burning hatred for Donald Trump and
for anyone who would dare to work for him. Just
consider how many of Trump's appointees and cabinet secretaries are
under constant fire from the mainstream news media simply because
they dared to take the job. This is both in
(05:40):
their personal lives and in their professional lives. Pam Bondi, Cash, Betel,
Sean Duffy, Janine piro Brett, Kavanaugh, Name a Trump appointee,
and I'll show you someone who's under relentless assault from
these so called fair news outlets, whose members are trying
to destroy both their personal and their professional lives because
they dared to work for Trump, knowing Trump, working for Trump,
(06:02):
liking Trump. It's enough to sick these rabid DC in
New York media dogs on you. And why would Trump
himself even want to go to attend this dinner or
in any way legitimize that. Why legitimize anything that these
jackals do or say. I just don't understand it. Hopefully
Trump can get off a few good singers and get
a bunch of press attention on Sunday and Monday of
the sort that they think is working to trash Trump.
(06:24):
It's really the sort that backfires on the mainstream media
and is boosting Trump with the average American. Trump knows
that the real effect of these waves of negative coverage
is often a boost to him and his standing amongst
the average American people and away from the coasts. So
maybe that's what Trump is angling for here. Also, now
that he no longer has worries about being reelected, I
(06:44):
think there's a very good chance that Trump's speech is
one in which he simply calls them all liars to
their faces and just levels them. You've got to think
that he's going to include at least some of that
in any speech he gives. Then there's this wild card.
I mean, we aren't sure how the members of the
White House Press Association are actually going to react to
this call for them to quote forcefully demonstrate opposition to
President Trump during this event. This call came from a
(07:06):
group of journalists. You might have seen this. A group
of over two hundred and fifty so called journalists put
out a public letter urging the attendees to trash in
smear Trump in every way they can put up a
public stink and a public opposition to Trump accepting the
inviter or something. Well, first of all, it would really
reflect poorly on the so called unbiased White House Press
(07:27):
Association if they invited a guest to their party and
then just trashed and belittled and embarrassed that person for
two hours. That's not what the organizers of a reputable
association would do to their guests, any sort of group
or association, much less quote professional journalists. This is what
you really have to consider it this is allegedly a
news organization. They're allegedly journalists. You can't call yourself a
(07:48):
journalist and then engage in this sort of angry activism.
This letter, in its suggestion, should be absurd to anyone
who actually considered themselves a journalist. The sad thing is,
in this era and in this moment, virtually no one
who shows up to this dinner is going to be
a genuine journalist. After all. This is the crowd of
people who, on a daily basis, are refusing, simply refusing
to report on any news orround any sort of story
(08:10):
on the very real and consequential wins that Trump and
his team are racking up for this country. I keep
giving you new examples of these things because so many
very positive developments are being ignored by the news media.
These are all stories that news outlets would have routinely
covered and reported on in any other era because they
were simply good news. They were things that would get
would bring readership, would inform the public, not in this era.
(08:35):
Just a couple of examples this week, do you know
that homicides are down seventy five to eighty percent in Washington,
d C. Since Trump cracked down on crime in that district.
There are a couple of different measures of this, so
that's why it's somewhere between seventy five and eighty percent
if you believe the stats. There have only been twenty
murders total in Washington, d C. Since the first of
the year. I'll say that again because some of you
(08:56):
realize how remarkable this is. There've only been twenty murders
total in washing Hington, d C. Since the first of
the year, when that city was a famous killing field
until Trump took over, Including during the Biden era, Washington
d C is on pace to have about forty five
murders this year, and that would be down from two
hundred and seventy four in twenty twenty four, the final
year of the Biden era. Carjackings in DC are also
(09:17):
down by nearly fifty percent, Folks. Historians say this is
the lowest murder rate in Washington, d C. Since nineteen hundred,
Since the turn of the last century. That's roughly when
Jack the Ripper was terrorizing the streets of London and
street lamps were running on fossil fuels and whale oils.
I think that might be newsworthy. Is Trump getting any
(09:38):
credit for it. Now. Did any of you know about
this until I told you about it?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
No?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Probably not many. One pundit pointed out on social media
that the Washington Post, this is the newspaper of record
in Washington, d C, hasn't written a single story about
DC's murder rates since February first. The liberal activists at
the Post didn't want their Washington d C readers to
know that overall crime murder is down significantly since Trump
took action. Why. I think you can answer that one
(10:05):
for yourselves. Here's another great example of some positive changes
being made by the Trump team that are quite significant
and yet not being reported on because it might make
Trump and Republicans look good. Most people don't realize that
for probably three decades, we've been told by our FAA,
our pilots, our air traffic controllers, etc. We desperately need
(10:26):
to upgrade our air traffic control system. It's been at
least thirty years now that the insiders in Washington, d
C and the insiders of the Federal Aviation Administration have
been calling this a dangerous situation. It went from dangerous
situation in the eighties to crisis now. Something needs to
be done, and every administration since Reagan has insisted they'll
(10:46):
do something about it. Oh, yes, very important, will improve
our ancient and embarrassing air traffic control equipment, et cetera.
It's got to be done. It's got to be done.
It's never been done. Why because it would take hard,
thankless work. That's why it would take a lot of
taxpayer money and someone who actually do the hard work.
At the same time, that hard work isn't going to
(11:08):
bring any particular political glory or attention to the administration
that does it. Leading today is way too intertwined with
just political considerations and whether or not you get credit
for it. And as we've seen over and over and
over again, if something isn't politically popular or doesn't come
with some big political payoff at the end these days,
why do it? No one does it. This is perceived
(11:30):
as having no upside to your average elected official or politician.
It's simply true that it has been almost exclusively Republican
presidents and governors who have done the hard work of
actually making the tough calls in this country, improving infrastructures,
tackling difficult tasks, etc. In this modern era, it's simply true,
that has mostly been to the Republicans to do because
(11:51):
Democrats aren't serious people and largely want to play games.
This has simply been the case for at least three
or four decades.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It is.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
If it's not cheap and easy with a political payoff,
the Democrats aren't going to do it. Dealing with that
toxic train derailment sounded hard and fraught with political risks,
so you know, Joe Biden and Pete booda judge, simply
decided they weren't going to do anything. Dealing with the
Gulf oil spill in the Obama era sounded hard and thankless,
it was difficult, so Barack Obama and his White House
(12:20):
simply didn't do anything about it. We'll just leave that
up to the Republican governors and then take some credit
after it's done. Today's Democrats simply refuse to do the
hard work, the actual work of running and maintaining this
country and its infrastructures. But they'll be sure that if
Republicans decide to do it, there will be a bike
lane or expensive public art somewhere in that project. It's
(12:40):
just pathetic, and there's no better example of this than
Pete Booha Judge's categorical malfeasans and disinterest in running the
Transportation Department. You know, this little dip wat is out
there again making speeches because as Cleary wants to run it.
In twenty twenty eight, he accepted a cabinet level position
from Joe Biden in order to drop out of that
race and clear the way for Byid's domination. And then
(13:01):
he decided this was just going to be a four
year vacation, put a Judge plotted in another run for
president in twenty twenty eight, and didn't do anything between
twenty twenty and twenty twenty four. This guy was as
absent as aoc on acid when it came to doing
anything related to that job. And it's one reason that
Sean Duffy's tenure as Transportation Secretary has been so impressive,
(13:22):
but only one reason. It is not inaccurate to say
that Sean Duffy is better than the last fifteen transportation
secretaries because he actually took the job to do the job.
It wasn't just some title handed to him for political patronage.
But I'm wandering, what's the story that the leftist media
won't tell you today that less than a year into
Duffy's overhaul of our air traffic control system, were already
(13:43):
nearly half done. The way it sounds, and again, you'd
think this would be newsworthy only the Washington Times, I've
only seen this in DC's conservative newspaper. I say. Thousands
of outdated telecommunications equipment like radio and phones are being
swapped out for brand new models. Hundreds of radars are
being upgraded. The vapor flight strips that were used by
air traffic controllers to guide flights are getting ditched for
(14:04):
new electronic ones, all accessible to on one computer screen now.
They say, as of this month, nearly fifty percent of
the old copper wires that powered the communications between air
traffic controllers and pilots has also been replaced with new
high speed fiber optic cables. This is great proof that
all it takes is some actual effort and focus to
get many of these long standing issues fixed. It takes
(14:26):
a priority from the important people and those controlling the
purse strings. Donald Trump is proving that all it takes
to combat high crime as an honest attempt to stop it.
Sean Duffy is proving that Pete Booha Judge in the
last ten transportation secretaries were clowns who just didn't want
to deal with this air traffic control issue. Duffy might
have it fixed by Christmas. The way this is going
(14:47):
I exaggerate, but quote the Transportation Secretary has pledged that
the changes will be completed by twenty twenty eight, thanks
to the twelve point five billion dollars approved for the
modernization in President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill. They say
the system has basically been held together with shoestring and
duct tape. This is according to Chris Sununu, who is
now serving as the CEO of the Trade Association for
(15:07):
Airlines for America. But Sean Duffy says it was the
DC aircrash that had President Trump saying, look enough of this,
fixed this problem. And for all the faults you want
to ascribe to Donald Trump, he is a fixer, he
is a doer, he is a builder. Duffy says, what
we realized was that we used an incredibly old, antiquated
system of technology from the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties.
(15:30):
This is a huge task now because it's been ignored
for thirty years. The scale of the work that's facing
Duffy and his people. The scale of the work that
needs to be done just to switch out equipment and
make the modern day upgrades is massive, and it's largely
thankless work. Of course, this is going to be a
wonderful gift that has been given to the American people
finally after twenty five or thirty years of delays. But
(15:53):
the twenty twenty eight Republican nominee isn't going to get
national credit for finally making the system safe after three decades.
And I mean not even if it's Jdvans or Marco
Rubio that's on the ticket. They'll lay claim to it
as a victory, but voters will largely shrug their shoulders.
Ey eh, we expect, say air travel. We didn't see
any of the hard work being done, so it's not
going to move voters. We should be heaping special praise
(16:16):
onto people, departments, presidents, lawmakers who are going out of
their way to actually do something, do the work fix
our problems instead of just bloviating about them. But first,
the average voter in the American people need to know
about those fixes, know who is working hard and doing
the work. The American people need to hear about the
hard work that's being done and the genuine win that
(16:38):
results from it. And there's no blasted way that today's
leftist news media is going to tell the American people
about any of Trump team's wins, right, not if they
can help it. That's the sort of so called fair
and balanced news media that we're dealing with today, my friends.
I'm not convinced that this big redistricting cheat by the
(16:59):
Democrats in Virgini is a done deal. A lower court
already halted it temporarily, of course, and the state Supreme
Court in Virginia is going to have to ultimately determine
if this very unfair and extremely gerrymannered map ever gets
put into play. We'll get into the unique setup of
Virginia Supreme Court and why it's hard to predict how
it's going to rule on this. But even realizing that
(17:20):
in this era, even court politics is a rumble, my
take is if the Virginia Supreme Court doesn't reject this map,
it's going to be a major embarrassment for the justices
on that court and a blatant a front to the
republic and any sort of rule of order when it
comes to parliamentary procedures. And I know everything is hardball
politics right now, and nowhere have the leftists been playing
(17:41):
harder ball than in states like Virginia. I get it.
But if most of the justices on the Virginia Supreme
Court have even a modicum of dignity or integrity, if
they even have a sense of fairness and justice, well
they can't approve this map. Everyone in the country, and
on both sides the Isle knows that this is a
blatant attempt to and no liberals listening. No, this is
(18:02):
not like what was going on in Texas or Florida.
Those adjustments to the political maps in those states that
were pushed by Republicans still left congressional representation that was
largely proportional for that state. The Democrat voters in Texas
and Florida are still represented in Congress in some way.
This map in Virginia wipes out virtually all voter representation
for anyone who didn't vote Democrat in that state. Now,
(18:24):
this is the situation, by the way, when it comes
to all of the New England states, those all seem
to have no Republican representation at all, even though those
New England states vote about forty percent Republican. This map
in Virginia that wipes out virtually all voter representation for
anyone who didn't vote Democrat in that state. And it's crazy.
(18:44):
This change takes a district map that had six Democrat
districts and five Republican districts and pretty accurately represented the
voting percentages in the state of Virginia and turns it
into a map in which there will be nine districts
controlled by Democrats and only one by Republicans. And I
don't care which side of the al you're on or
which parties kool aid you're drinking, no one can claim
(19:05):
this is a map that is anything close to fair
or representational. That's one reason that I believe the majority
of Virginia's Supreme Court justices might reject it, because if
they don't, they just look like scumbags and idiots. It's
a pretty good incentive for the average judge to do
the right thing and reject the extremes. Moreover, how can
the left wing lawyers who are trying to defend this
(19:26):
possibly argue this is fair or constitutional? And when I
say constitutional, I mean representative of the voters of Virginia.
I know the next step is the state Supreme Court
there in Virginia, but I'd also be surprised if conservative
and good government groups don't find arguments to challenge this
map in federal court and put it on the fast
track to the US Supreme Court. Some showdown over this
as long overdue. We have states like Oregon that have
(19:50):
conservatives in their states so frustrated they want to break
away and secede and join Utah. I think every effort
should be made by conservative activist groups to get some
sort of challenge based on this Virginia map to the
Supreme Court. In the federal court system, I know the U. S.
Supreme Court has been very, very reluctant to get involved
in these state maps, but we now have something like
(20:11):
seven to nine states that are Democrat controlled. They'd either
have zero Republican congressmen or only one being sent to Washington,
despite the fact that the voting patterns of their states
are far far more balanced, such as Massachusetts. Massachusetts votes
about forty percent Republican, they don't have one Republican representative
in Congress. The Federal Supreme Court has already heard at
(20:32):
least one argument related to fair maps recently, and we're
awaiting that decision. That case in front of them would
weaken some of the rigged rules in the so called
Voting Rights Act if they rule as expected, and it
could lead to another round of national redistricting. So we
certainly haven't seen the final round of this fight over
maps in the states and nationally. But I say, bring
on more litigation and get it in front of this
(20:53):
conservative US Supreme Court. I think conservative legal activists should
use this Virginia outrage as a springboard to challenge the
very notion that one party, either party, can just freeze
out the other one and pretend their state is sending
a quote representative government to Washington, d C. From that state.
I mean, the Democrats in Virginia went into this knowing
(21:14):
how much they're cheating and how blatant it looks. We
know this because as part of the language that they
used in the legislation and on the referendum, they added
a clause that says this map would only be in
effect until the next census, which is in twenty thirty. Well,
of course that would be the case. That's when every
state needs to redo and rejigger their federal congressional maps.
It's by law, but the Democrats in Virginia couldn't have
(21:36):
made it more clear. We're cheating now, but we'll turn
this process back over to our quote nonpartisan maps commission
in twenty thirty. YEP, Virginia's estate in which the Democrats
have convinced their voters to agree to a sham of
a maps commission, only to then violate and ignore that
system when it doesn't suit them. We're seeing Democrats do
this all over the country in various blue states, including
(21:58):
New York and California. And there's one reason why anyone
in Wisconsin is stupid if they support Governor Evers's push
for quote fair maps and a maps commission. Evers and
Wisconsin Democrats have already ignored a different version of a
nonpartisan map committee, and they cheated to redraw their own
maps when they felt they could. They exposed again what
a sham these maps commissions are. First of all, they
(22:20):
aren't really nonpartisan. But second, if the Democrats are just
going to ignore them anytime they see an opening to cheat,
why have them why pretend? Seriously, why do New York, California,
or Virginia even have quote nonpartisan maps commissions? If the
Democrats are just going to ignore them and cheat every
time they feel the need or see an opening. This
(22:40):
has been the case now in both California and Virginia
just over the last few months. Virginia is a split
state that leans blue. It has been for quite some time,
so the current map shows split representation in Congress. Quite fair. Actually,
six Democrats and five Republicans are sent to the House
of Representatives from that state currently, but through force Virginia
(23:01):
Democrats get to rig this falls elections to give them
a nine to one congressional delegation. Come on, there's in
a single Supreme court in the country that if they
had honest justices sitting on it, would find that fair, reasonable,
or representative. In fact, John Fund at the National Review
has at least four legitimate legal avenues on which Republicans
can challenge this move in Virginia. The first is he
(23:23):
says the legislature violated the state's constitution by keeping a
special session open for nearly two years, and that's a
move that a local judge who heard the case already
has labeled a blatant abuse of power. Second avenue of
challenge Virginia law requires that constitutional amendments be passed at
least ninety days before any election in which the people
ratify it. Lower courts had initially blocked this redistricting process
(23:45):
on those grounds, so that's a procedural argument. The third
argument would be the jerrymander improperly tossed out the work
of the twenty twenty voter approved Bipartisan Redistricting Commission. They
tossed it out right in the middle of the decade
song based on that, and then the fourth potential challenge,
the language on the ballot was blatantly biased in claiming
that the referendum's goal was to quote restore fairness in
(24:08):
upcoming elections that presupposed that the bipartisan commission map was unfair.
All of those are legitimate avenues of challenge, and I
think you notice that they don't really have anything to
do with gerrymandering or challenging what a jery mander is, etc.
There are ways to stop this without getting into big
constitutional arguments, but I think a path that challenges this
(24:30):
on federal and state constitutional grounds based on the definition
of a representative government is also a pretty interesting way
to approach this. And I'm not a legal mind, but
we have great legal minds that might be able to
find some way to argue this larger question. And in
a federal court, I think any federal lawsuit like that
could be a game changer. Given that we finally have
(24:51):
a conservative leaning Supreme Court with justices on it. This
seemed determined to correct the terrible constitutional drift that this
country has been on for decades. I think a court
that has shot down Roe v. Wade and killed off
the Chevron doctrine is a court that might just step
in and say, look, a state map has to at
least be somewhat fair when it comes to representing the
voting patterns of that state. If we on the right
(25:14):
got a ruling like that, nationally, Democrats might lose two
or three dozen House seats in the more honest redo
of these maps. So how does this play out at
Virginia's Supreme Court? Well, experts in DC and Virginia seem
to agree it's hard to predict. And it is because
Virginia's a state in which the legislature actually appoints the
Supreme Court justices, not the voters. And currently this Virginia
(25:36):
Supreme Court is said to be small sea conservative as
in the judicial Conservatives might have a slight advantage on
this court quote. Virginia is one of only two states
where the legislature elects the Supreme Court justices. Because the
state has had divided control from much of the past
quarter century, the balance of the Court's justices were appointed
by bipartisan compromise. The court's current seven members include one
(25:58):
justice who was elected when Democrats had sole control of
the General Assembly, three when Republicans controlled both chambers, and
three when control of the legislature was split. And so
if that's the case, this isn't a court full of
members who are going to want to rush to get
this new map into effect before the fall election, which
is what Democrats wanted to do. It also doesn't sound
like a court full of justices who are just going
(26:20):
to ignore the fact that Virginia's legislature and governor broke
all sorts of procedural rules in order to ram this
map into place. I don't see how any split court
or any group of justices that's even trying to be
fair or trying to get a ruling right agrees to
let this map be put into play. And despite the
result of the referendum, this week. There's no way to
(26:40):
honestly say that this is what the people of Virginia
want either. The National Democrats and activists spent a massive
amount of money tricking the voters of Virginia. They spent
eighty one million dollars in one amounted to a sprint
to trick Virginia's voters into thinking that this was about
fair maps those on the ground in Virginia. The misinformation
(27:00):
campaign that the leftist pulled off here was shameful, impressive,
but shameful. This was a very slanted, shameless, ugly affair.
And still the left only managed to win this referendum
question by three points. They spent two years trying to
trick and steamroll Virginia voters and they still only narrowly
pulled it off with a sprint of eighty one million
(27:21):
dollars worth of spending. And yeah, I understand that this
is a constitutional amendment that the voters of Virginia have
now passed and only the win matters, and the Supreme
Court can't and won't overturn the will of the people,
et cetera. But this process and the Left's dishonesty and
duplicity and engineering this result can be challenged in court
and will be. It's the reason to believe that whatever happens,
(27:44):
this outrageous map of the Virginia voters just approved will
not be in play this fall and may not ever
come into play. It's something I would caution listeners about
that most of the media outlets aren't going to tell you.
The chances of this map approved this week actually being
put into place for fall or even in twenty twenty
eight seems slim to me, So don't lose too much
sleep over it yet. And hey, you know, there's going
(28:06):
to be all sorts of court related drama over the
next few years that's going to be fun to watch,
and this is just one of them. Florida is going
to try to redo its maps apparently, and there too.
I don't think they even have the time. I don't
think Ron de Santis in Republicans in Florida even have
the time to redraw a map, get it approved, get
it through a court process. I don't know that late
(28:28):
entry maps like this one in Virginia or one that's
still coming in Florida are even going to be coming
into play and fall, just to the legal challenges, But
we do have all sorts of matters related to the
federal courts that are popping up that are pretty interesting.
You've probably seen that the insider jockeying is now underway
to get at least one of these two older Supreme
Court justices to retire and before January, so that the
(28:50):
President can replace them with someone younger and help cement
this conservative majority for a decade or two. Right now
we have a six to three conservative advantage. But Clarence Thomas,
Semilie and John Roberts are all in their seventies. Clarence
Thomas has been on the Court the longest, thirty four years. Now.
My god, a lot of us in this audience can
remember Clarence Thomas's Senate confirmation hearings in which Joe Biden
(29:13):
and Teddy Kennedy and that era's Democrats showed a blatant
racism and just a venom toward Clarence Thomas because he
dared to be a black Conservative. Doesn't seem like that
was almost thirty five years ago, but it was so.
Clarence Thomas is seventy seven, He's been on the court
thirty four years, and he has apparently told friends off
and on for a few years that you know, maybe
(29:34):
he should retire and travel the country in his RV.
And all that has added up to rumors and attempts
in Washington, d C. To push Clarence Thomas out while
a Republican president is in control, and while the Republicans
control the confirmation process in the Senate, too. Political strategist
would love to see Thomas agree to retire now to
ensure that that seat remains in conservative hands for another
(29:54):
two or three decades. But as of last year, Clarence
Thomas was talking as if he wants to remain in
the court. That has the same strategist pivoting over to
sam Alito. Over the last several months, you've probably seen
some of this. Will sam Alito retire, he's seventy six,
maybe we can push him out. Well, Alito just sent
clear signals that he intends to stick around. He's hired
(30:15):
new staffers for the next term, et cetera. And so
conservative legal groups are wondering if they should start a
public pressure campaign against Aledo to try to shove him out.
That seems unlikely to me. I just don't think sam
Alito would respond well to some attempt to shove him out.
And I hope you see the urgency here from the
insider's perspective, maybe I should have started with that. Most
(30:36):
of you get it. The Senate confirms a presidential nominee
to the Supreme Court, and so you want your party
in control of the White House when a Supreme Court
vacancy opens up, because then your president's going to pick
the successor. But then you also want your party to
control the Senate so they can control the nomination process
and shuttle the presidential pick through and so that they
(30:57):
and the president can put the most conservator or most
liberal non in place. Correct. If the Senate is in
the other party's control, well, then any president needs to
nominate a more moderate judge because they need someone who
was going to survive the confirmation process when the members
of the other party control the Senate need to approve
of the person. Most of you get this. But with
(31:18):
the potential for the Democrats to retake control of the
Senate this fall, you see that the window on a
super Supreme Court pick from Trump could be closing. This
is what the activists are worried about. He still has
three more years of his presidency. Sure, and Sam Alido
and Clarence Thomas still have a three year window in
which a Republican president would appoint their successor if they
do want to retire soon. But the Senate that needs
(31:41):
to approve the Trump pick might only be under Republican
control for another nine months. Hence this flory of attention
to sam Alito. Now you might have also seen that
Molly Hemingway of The Federalist told Megan Kelly this week
she's hearing rumors John Roberts might retire. He might be
the unexpected wild card here. She's saying. Roberts was a
pointed by George Bush. He's had a good long run
(32:02):
as Chief Justice, but he's only seventy one, and as
of last year, John Roberts was claiming he was never
retiring from the court. Just about ten months ago, John
Roberts joked that they'd have to carry him out feet first,
as in, they'll carry my corpse out of here. So
I doubt that John Roberts retires. There's always a chance
that some secret illness or changes in their personal lives
(32:25):
might have a federal judge with a lifetime appointment deciding
to retire early. But short of something like that I'd
be shocked if John Roberts retires. That's said, it'd be
great if he did. Listeners to my longtime radio show
know that I never liked Roberts or his approach to
his job as Chief Justice. Roberts has spent two decades
trying not to have this court decide the biggest constitutional
(32:46):
issues of our day and not make precedent setting rulings
that would actually clear up the question in front of them.
Drives me crazy. I found that irksome beyond belief. Roberts
is a judicial dud, and if Trump had a chance
to replace him, that'd be huge. That would be huge. Now,
the caveat over all of this is that the Republicans
should should keep control of the Senate after this fall elections.
(33:10):
They should. They have a fifty three seat majority, and
the Democrats would have to win at least a few
Senate races that they aren't expected to win in order
to see control of the Senate flip. But you never
know if it's a Democrat wave election because Trump started
a war in Iran and it as Americans upset that
gas and grocery prices are higher again, etc. Well, there's
at least a chance Republicans could lose control of this
(33:31):
nomination process. That's where this nervousness over any Supreme Court
opening comes in. I hope you understand it more fully now.
My prediction would be Thomas, Alito and Roberts all stick
with it for now, but either Thomas Alito or both
bail before Trump leaves office. There will be heavy outside
pressure from right wing political forces for them to do so.
(33:51):
Whether that moves them, we'll see. I'm certain that both
men want to see their legacy in their seat on
the Court continue to be in conservative hands, though, and
so I think one, maybe even both will leave before
Trump leaves office. So when President Trump and Pete Hegsith
were droning all of those drug boats off of the
South American coast, some of you were worried about all
(34:13):
the fish and marine life that was going to be
coming into contact with all that cocaine that our drone
strikes were dumping into the ocean. Oh, but what's going
to happen to the fishes? People were asking, Well, we
have our answer, Well, we at least have an answer.
Research conducted by two universities in some joint venture found
that salmon on cocaine swim twice as far as normal salmon.
(34:35):
I'm not sure how they got these fish to do
a line of blow, but we have our answer. The
story says, salmon exposed to cocaine in the water swim
longer distances than those that go without. According to a
study release this week, joint research by Australia's Griffith University
and the Swedish University of Egg Sciences studied how the
drug affected the movements of wild fish in their natural habitat.
Researchers took one hundred and five wild Atlantic salmon and
(34:57):
exposed them to coke and then track their movements. They
found the salmon exposed to the drugs traveled one point
nine times further per week than their clean living cousins.
As they put it, the researchers said, we're finding higher
and higher concentrations of not just illicit drugs, but all
types of pharmaceuticals in our waterways, and they've worn the
pollution of waters by common drugs is now posing a
major and escalating risk to our biodiversity.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Our study shows that drugs are not only a societal
issue but also a concrete environmental challenge. So there you go.
This comes after a study on sharks in the Bahamas
that found that they're being exposed to everything from cocaine,
to caffeine to painkillers. It opens up a whole new
avenue of research. I think, are we seeing more shark
attacks because that we've created cocaine sharks. I'm kidding, of course,
(35:41):
but I'm guessing we're just about a year or two
away from some ecozlic group insisting that that's what's happening.
And as long as we're talking about cocaine, let's talk
about Congress. That's a great transition. I'm getting a kick
out of the cleanup that we are told is going
on in Congress because three scummy House members have been
forced to quit over the last three weeks or so.
This of course, started with the Democrats engaging in a
(36:02):
campaign to explode Eric Swalwell's run for California governor, and
unfortunately for them, it meant that he had to be
shoved out of Congress too. They would have liked to
have kept his vote, but they really couldn't. He had
to go if they were going to pretend to be
upset about the decades long womanizing that he was famous
for in DC. He had to resign from Congress too,
so he resigned. Then it was a Republican, Tony Gonzalez
(36:22):
of Texas, who had his own sexual misconduct scandal going on.
He resigned. And then this week it was another Democrat,
a black woman from Florida named Sheila McCormick. And I
admit she's hyphenated, but I stumble over her maiden name,
sher phyllis surefulless, we'll just call her Bocephus. So then
there's the third resignation, Sheila Bosephus McCormick. So in a
(36:44):
chamber of four hundred and thirty five members, three people
actually are being called out for their scumbaggery. And apparently
this is a house cleaning. It only is to longtime
elitists who have set up a system over two hundred
and fifty years that ensures that they will never really
be held accountable for their own actions, of your own criminality.
Only by that measure. Is this any sort of ethical
house cleaning going on in Congress? Good grief, But bosiphas
(37:08):
here didn't resign due to a sex scandal. Hers was
a good old fashioned theft and ethical misconduct scandal. She
was charged with stealing nearly five million dollars in FEMA
funds and pled not guilty to that in criminal court.
But she was going to be expelled from the House
if she hadn't resigned first. McCormick said in a statement,
rather than play these political games, I choose to step
(37:29):
away so that I can devote my time to fighting
for my neighbors in Florida's twentieth District. I hereby resign
from the one hundred and nineteenth Congress, effective immediately. By
the way, Love, the resignation statement makes no sense whatsoever,
proves she's a moron. Sheila said she's going to resign
from Congress so that she can focus on better representing
her constituents in Congress. What it's like saying you're going
(37:50):
to go on an all cake diet in order to
lose weight. But McCormick resigned literally minutes before the head
of the Ethics Committee convened to hearing in order to
release the final results of their investigation into her activity,
and that investigation found McCormick was in fact guilty of
at least twenty five different ethical and criminal counts against
her quote. Investigators found substantial evidence of conduct consistent with
(38:12):
the allegations and the indictment, as well as more extensive misconduct. Yeah,
Sheila McCormick is a real peach. She's only been in
Congress for about three years, but the rap sheet of
offenses and crimes that she racked up here is incredible.
She's actually been criminally charged for dozens of real crimes
in addition to the House Ethical investigation and the findings
that pushed her out of Congress. This woman's going to
(38:34):
prison regardless of what Congress has done. She stole from FEMA,
She clearly stole from her own campaign and filed false
and inaccurate campaign statements. That's a crime, and this is
across numerous election cycles. The investigators say she's charged with
falsifying paperwork on loans, accepting bribes, lying about her campaign finances,
spending all sorts of tax payer money on quote luxury
(38:56):
goods like jewelry and designer clothing. HeLa McCormick is the
sort of person who never intended to do this job
honestly or properly. You have to put yourself in her
mindset when she ran for Congress. In one when you
look at the timeline and the charges against her. McCormick
was a slippery grifter right from the start, from the
moment she ran from Congress, and in the three short
(39:17):
years she's been in Congress, she's pulled off every dishonest
and illegal stunt she could think up. Apparently during that time.
Here's a fun twist. Sheila McCormick one office in a
special election in Florida to replace longtime scumbag Elsie Hastings.
Hastings was a decades long congressman from Florida who was
also among the most famous sexual predators in scumbags in Washington,
(39:39):
d C. Hastings was Eric Swallall before Swalwell was ever born.
So the people in that district in Florida traded one
scumbag criminal for another when they went from Hastings to McCormick.
I'll say one other thing about Sheila McCormick resigning, and
it comes from her criminal lawyer. I do think he's right.
I'm not cutting Sheila any slack here because she did
the crimes and you put herself in this situation. But
(40:02):
I acknowledge the correctness of her lawyer's statement. McCormick's criminal
lawyer says she had to resign from Congress because there
was no way she was going to get a fair
criminal trial after the United States House of Representatives officially
declared her a criminal scumbag. He said, how can she
possibly go into court and have a fair trial if
her jurors have already heard that she was found guilty
(40:22):
by the House of Representatives. It's an impossibility. So she
was left with no choice but to resign. That's true,
but it only means that she made a spark decision
to resign because when she ran for Congress, she had
to know that she would be living as a public
figure and beholden to her constituents and held to an
ethical standard. I mean, she had to know on day one.
There are actually little seminars that they go through with
(40:44):
new House members. So she had to know on day
one the House had a process for investigating ethical and
criminal violations. And so it isn't some great constitutional question
as to whether her rights are going to be violated here.
She set herself up for any such consequences when she
ran for office in one one. I don't feel sorry
for her in any way, but if you still do,
(41:04):
here's the Kapper. Please understand that Sheila Bosephus McCormick doesn't
appear to be a decent person in any way. She
committed all of these crimes and all this misconduct, and
she shows no remorse and only wants to portray herself
as some sort of victim. And at that point, once
you realize that, I think any normal person is going
to say, well f her. Then meanwhile, this little flurry
(41:26):
of scandals and resignations has Speaker Mike Johnson vowing to finally,
finally adds some tougher rules of conduct on US House members.
And it's long overdue, folks, This is two hundred and
fifty years overdue, because as great as this country is,
the people who both formed this Republic and those who
have come to DC in the two hundred and fifty
(41:46):
years since to represent Americans in Congress have spent all
of this time protecting themselves from consequences and exempting themselves
from accountability. The idea that we've had an ethical House
and Senate policing themselves over the last two hundred fifty
years is ridiculous. Heck, the idea that we've had an
ethical House and Senate policing themselves over the last two
decades is ridiculous. There is clearly so much corruption and
(42:10):
grifting and scumbaggery and skullduggery going on in Washington, DC
that you cannot possibly pretend our leaders in DC really
care about it or want to stop it. There's a
reason it's called the swamp. Consider that around this time
last year, DOGE was uncovering decades long schemes in which
lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but mostly the Democrats,
(42:31):
were kicking taxpayer money to all sorts of ridiculous and
even fake outside groups and mngos just so they could
set up their friends and relatives with dishonest, cushy incomes
and funnel a bunch of that money back into their
own campaigns. It's gone on for decades. These are the
people who are supposed to view as honest or ethical.
Come on, and whether it's sex scandals or taking bribes
(42:53):
or whatever, it's clear that Washington, d C. Really is
the swamp. It is clear that over two hundred and
fifty years now, the people whom we as Americans have
sent to Congress to represent us and rule us govern
us mostly abandon their ethics and sense of integrity once
they get there. And not all of them, not everyone,
but way way too many of our longtime DC dwelling
(43:14):
lawmakers have more interest in being exempted from the social mores,
the ethics, the laws of our society than they have
any interest in following them and are holding the members
of their own chamber accountable. And it's why I'm getting
such a kick out of this, this fake purge that's
going on. This is being called a purge three congressmen
who are obviously guilty of ethical and criminal violations. And yeah,
(43:38):
it really is on both sides. I've seen a lot
of claims on social media lately, as Eric Swollwell got
shoved out, what Republicans never punish their predators and pedophiles?
You know? Right now it's vogue on both sides of
the aisle, but really on the left to smear everyone
as a pedophile. This seems to be the twenty twenty
sixth smear. Yeah, well, why aren't you pollutioning your own
(43:59):
pedal files? That's what passes for a snappy retort. But
the truth is neither side has been good at policing
their own because if you think about it, if you
hold members of your own party accountable, You're losing their
vote in the Chamber. Right. The truth is neither side
is very good or interested in really holding their own
members accountable, and this list that Congress released earlier this
(44:21):
week proves it. They released a list of House members
investigated for sexual harassment over the last forty years, and
they claim it was twenty eight people. Twenty eight members,
fourteen Democrats and twelve Republicans. First of all, that number
seems low, but you can see that being a sexually
harassing creep is not exclusive to either party, and that
both sides have had their scandals in general. Though from
(44:43):
what I've seen in the forty years that I've been
watching this, in general, Republicans have been significantly better at
acknowledging the scumbags within their midst and actually doing something
to punish them or push them out. Republicans did shove
out George Santos and Matt Getz on their watch, by
the way, those are just recent examples. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi
and the Democrats protected Eric Swolwell and Elsie Hastings for decades.
(45:06):
They ignored Barney Frank scandal altogether, etc. The truth is
that sexual harassment claims on Capitol Hill are being filed
quite routinely and by the dozens, and the American people
never hear about them. We don't hear about the vast
majority of them. And by the way, the same goes
for scandals related to bribes and campaign finance abuse, etc.
The vast majority of Congressmen who are called out for
(45:27):
unethical behavior suffer no consequences, and the average voter never
hears about it. So color me skeptical as House Speaker
Mike Johnson now promises to tighten the sexual misconduct rules
in that lower chamber. And you know, if I trust
anyone on this, it would be Mike Johnson. Not only
is he a religious man and committed to clean government,
but he has two young daughters who are working as
(45:48):
staffers on Capitol Hill. So I don't doubt that Mike
Johnson will be serious about finally maybe making some decent changes. However,
I highly doubt that the majority of the over four
hundred members in his chamber are really going to vote
in favor of placing tougher sexual harassment rules onto themselves
and onto future congresses. These are bodies the House and
(46:10):
Senate that have protected their own members vigorously over the
last two hundred and fifty years. Mike Johnson said this
week that he's taking suggestions from other lawmakers and ways
to tighten these rules. Quote, I will lead that myself,
he said. All Right, we'll see where it goes, but
I won't be holding my breath.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good Day, Come on in, take us dat, Welcome to
the JA Podcast. We have a lot to talk about today,
including for the first time in either term, President Trump
decigning to attend the annual White House Correspondence Dinner this weekend.
And I can only think of one reason why that
he'd be at all interested in doing this. Gregory John,
my producer, is here. Greg Are you thinking this is
going to be appointment television this weekend? Would you make
(00:36):
it a point to tune in to watch any fireworks
that might occur?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, you know, to be honest with you, the Fox
News is actually going to be doing like an Academy
Awards kind of introduction to the Correspondence dinner. They're gonna
have a red carpet and everything, and Jesse Waters is
going to be the host. So I guess they're going
to make it a musty TV event for all of us.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I guess so about everyone's in DC and New York
are wondering why Donald Trump would even just now choose
to waste time with this. He is never going to
get this group of people to like him or treat
him fairly these correspondences, Why go, Greg, give me a
prediction on what path Trump will take in his speech.
Is he going to poke fun at himself and try
to win the crowd over by being self deprecating or
(01:17):
do you think is just going to go full blast
at him and show up just to call them most
scumbags and liars.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Now the second one I would love.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I would love to see that just either way, it
should be an interesting night and I might tune in
just to see if that room of so called journalists
sitting in front of him can manage to act like adults.
That's in addition to Trump going into the lions Den,
we'll talk about Sean Duffy doing the work when it
comes to finally improving an air traffic control system that
every administration since Reagan promised to fix. Trump and Duffy
(01:44):
are getting it done. We'll talk about the various ways
that Virginia's new congressional map is an insult to the
Republic and how if the Virginia Supreme Court allows this
to stand, it's going to be remarkable and folks finally
holding three or four congressmen accountable for their criminal actions.
It's a positive thing, but it's not what a purge
of a Congress that's full of rats and grifters. To
call this a purge is interesting to me. All that
(02:05):
and more coming up after I tell you about my
superior sponsor, Creative Planning. They're one of the nation's largest
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(02:25):
every piece of your financial life. Visit Creative Planning dot
com to schedule your introductory meeting. That's Creative Planning dot com.
Your team awaits paid for by Creative Planning and sec
registered investment advisor. The speaker's statements are not an endorsement
of the firm. So the White House Correspondents Dinner is
this weekend and for the first time as President Donald
Trump is attending. Oh boy, this should be a proper
(02:47):
shizz show, shouldn't it. For the life of me. I
don't know why Donald Trump's going. I could take a
few guesses. One is that even after everything that has
transpired over the last ten years, Donald Trump the man,
I think, still wants to be adored and loved by
these countries, rich and famous, an elite class. He's always
been one of those people. After all, This is something
that Donald Trump the man has always been into. Being
(03:09):
adored in elite circles on both coasts has always been
something that Donald Trump has craved and something that has
motivated him. You know, the number of famous people from entertainment,
from pro sports, etc. Who filed through Trump Tower when
Donald Trump was simply a billionaire businessman is legendary. Trump
wanted to meet everyone famous and personally shake their hand
and sit down and get to know more about them.
(03:31):
He's inherently a people person. But it's why before he
was politically controversial, you had everyone from you know, Mike
Tyson to Jay Z and Beyonce to Magic Johnson to
Justin bieber All saying, you know, Trump's a friend, Trump's cool.
So my guess in terms of what motivates Donald Trump
to even agree to go to this dinner tomorrow is
that even after everything that's transpired and all the hatred
(03:53):
that DC in New York and the LA crowds have
tossed at him, he still wants to be seen as
cool to them. Trump's still wants to be in that
in crowd when it comes to US and global elites.
That's my guess. My guess is he certainly wants to
rejoin those circles post presidency too, and so that's why
he's making what's likely a terrible decision to go to
(04:13):
this nerd prom banquet tomorrow night. The chance that Trump
is going to be simply savaged and lectured to by
a bunch of activist America haters who simply pose as
journalists is a high one, and any chance of Trump
emerging from this more liked or more likable in this
crowd is nearly zero. The President should continue to skip
this and anyone still associated with the White House Press
Corps should be pushing to end this annual dinner altogether
(04:36):
because it has always been a biased, ridiculous affair. It
has always been so called journalists making themselves the story
and injecting themselves into politics and the current events of
the day. When they're supposed to be impartial observers. They're
not supposed to do that. But in this era, this
dinner's really a joke, and it's simply a night for
left wing activists to get together and celebrate the power
(04:58):
that they derive from routinely life to the American people.
And by the way, the average member of the DC
or New York media elite really really doesn't like to
be challenged. This is a group of people that has
genuinely convinced themselves they are the truth seekers and the
truth tellers. They are the social conscience of this nation.
They're the intellectual elite of the nation. And so they
(05:20):
hate nothing more. I mean, they react very negatively when
someone challenges them or they're standing And so this crowd
in particular has a burning hatred for Donald Trump and
for anyone who would dare to work for him. Just
consider how many of Trump's appointees and cabinet secretaries are
under constant fire from the mainstream news media simply because
they dared to take the job. This is both in
(05:40):
their personal lives and in their professional lives. Pam Bondi, Cash, Betel,
Sean Duffy, Janine piro Brett, Kavanaugh, Name a Trump appointee,
and I'll show you someone who's under relentless assault from
these so called fair news outlets, whose members are trying
to destroy both their personal and their professional lives because
they dared to work for Trump, knowing Trump, working for Trump,
(06:02):
liking Trump. It's enough to sick these rabid DC in
New York media dogs on you. And why would Trump
himself even want to go to attend this dinner or
in any way legitimize that. Why legitimize anything that these
jackals do or say. I just don't understand it. Hopefully
Trump can get off a few good singers and get
a bunch of press attention on Sunday and Monday of
the sort that they think is working to trash Trump.
(06:24):
It's really the sort that backfires on the mainstream media
and is boosting Trump with the average American. Trump knows
that the real effect of these waves of negative coverage
is often a boost to him and his standing amongst
the average American people and away from the coasts. So
maybe that's what Trump is angling for here. Also, now
that he no longer has worries about being reelected, I
(06:44):
think there's a very good chance that Trump's speech is
one in which he simply calls them all liars to
their faces and just levels them. You've got to think
that he's going to include at least some of that
in any speech he gives. Then there's this wild card.
I mean, we aren't sure how the members of the
White House Press Association are actually going to react to
this call for them to quote forcefully demonstrate opposition to
President Trump during this event. This call came from a
(07:06):
group of journalists. You might have seen this. A group
of over two hundred and fifty so called journalists put
out a public letter urging the attendees to trash in
smear Trump in every way they can put up a
public stink and a public opposition to Trump accepting the
inviter or something. Well, first of all, it would really
reflect poorly on the so called unbiased White House Press
(07:27):
Association if they invited a guest to their party and
then just trashed and belittled and embarrassed that person for
two hours. That's not what the organizers of a reputable
association would do to their guests, any sort of group
or association, much less quote professional journalists. This is what
you really have to consider it this is allegedly a
news organization. They're allegedly journalists. You can't call yourself a
(07:48):
journalist and then engage in this sort of angry activism.
This letter, in its suggestion, should be absurd to anyone
who actually considered themselves a journalist. The sad thing is,
in this era and in this moment, virtually no one
who shows up to this dinner is going to be
a genuine journalist. After all. This is the crowd of
people who, on a daily basis, are refusing, simply refusing
to report on any news orround any sort of story
(08:10):
on the very real and consequential wins that Trump and
his team are racking up for this country. I keep
giving you new examples of these things because so many
very positive developments are being ignored by the news media.
These are all stories that news outlets would have routinely
covered and reported on in any other era because they
were simply good news. They were things that would get
would bring readership, would inform the public, not in this era.
(08:35):
Just a couple of examples this week, do you know
that homicides are down seventy five to eighty percent in Washington,
d C. Since Trump cracked down on crime in that district.
There are a couple of different measures of this, so
that's why it's somewhere between seventy five and eighty percent
if you believe the stats. There have only been twenty
murders total in Washington, d C. Since the first of
the year. I'll say that again because some of you
(08:56):
realize how remarkable this is. There've only been twenty murders
total in washing Hington, d C. Since the first of
the year, when that city was a famous killing field
until Trump took over, Including during the Biden era, Washington
d C is on pace to have about forty five
murders this year, and that would be down from two
hundred and seventy four in twenty twenty four, the final
year of the Biden era. Carjackings in DC are also
(09:17):
down by nearly fifty percent, Folks. Historians say this is
the lowest murder rate in Washington, d C. Since nineteen hundred,
Since the turn of the last century. That's roughly when
Jack the Ripper was terrorizing the streets of London and
street lamps were running on fossil fuels and whale oils.
I think that might be newsworthy. Is Trump getting any
(09:38):
credit for it. Now. Did any of you know about
this until I told you about it?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
No?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Probably not many. One pundit pointed out on social media
that the Washington Post, this is the newspaper of record
in Washington, d C, hasn't written a single story about
DC's murder rates since February first. The liberal activists at
the Post didn't want their Washington d C readers to
know that overall crime murder is down significantly since Trump
took action. Why. I think you can answer that one
(10:05):
for yourselves. Here's another great example of some positive changes
being made by the Trump team that are quite significant
and yet not being reported on because it might make
Trump and Republicans look good. Most people don't realize that
for probably three decades, we've been told by our FAA,
our pilots, our air traffic controllers, etc. We desperately need
(10:26):
to upgrade our air traffic control system. It's been at
least thirty years now that the insiders in Washington, d
C and the insiders of the Federal Aviation Administration have
been calling this a dangerous situation. It went from dangerous
situation in the eighties to crisis now. Something needs to
be done, and every administration since Reagan has insisted they'll
(10:46):
do something about it. Oh, yes, very important, will improve
our ancient and embarrassing air traffic control equipment, et cetera.
It's got to be done. It's got to be done.
It's never been done. Why because it would take hard,
thankless work. That's why it would take a lot of
taxpayer money and someone who actually do the hard work.
At the same time, that hard work isn't going to
(11:08):
bring any particular political glory or attention to the administration
that does it. Leading today is way too intertwined with
just political considerations and whether or not you get credit
for it. And as we've seen over and over and
over again, if something isn't politically popular or doesn't come
with some big political payoff at the end these days,
why do it? No one does it. This is perceived
(11:30):
as having no upside to your average elected official or politician.
It's simply true that it has been almost exclusively Republican
presidents and governors who have done the hard work of
actually making the tough calls in this country, improving infrastructures,
tackling difficult tasks, etc. In this modern era, it's simply true,
that has mostly been to the Republicans to do because
(11:51):
Democrats aren't serious people and largely want to play games.
This has simply been the case for at least three
or four decades.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It is.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
If it's not cheap and easy with a political payoff,
the Democrats aren't going to do it. Dealing with that
toxic train derailment sounded hard and fraught with political risks,
so you know, Joe Biden and Pete booda judge, simply
decided they weren't going to do anything. Dealing with the
Gulf oil spill in the Obama era sounded hard and thankless,
it was difficult, so Barack Obama and his White House
(12:20):
simply didn't do anything about it. We'll just leave that
up to the Republican governors and then take some credit
after it's done. Today's Democrats simply refuse to do the
hard work, the actual work of running and maintaining this
country and its infrastructures. But they'll be sure that if
Republicans decide to do it, there will be a bike
lane or expensive public art somewhere in that project. It's
(12:40):
just pathetic, and there's no better example of this than
Pete Booha Judge's categorical malfeasans and disinterest in running the
Transportation Department. You know, this little dip wat is out
there again making speeches because as Cleary wants to run it.
In twenty twenty eight, he accepted a cabinet level position
from Joe Biden in order to drop out of that
race and clear the way for Byid's domination. And then
(13:01):
he decided this was just going to be a four
year vacation, put a Judge plotted in another run for
president in twenty twenty eight, and didn't do anything between
twenty twenty and twenty twenty four. This guy was as
absent as aoc on acid when it came to doing
anything related to that job. And it's one reason that
Sean Duffy's tenure as Transportation Secretary has been so impressive,
(13:22):
but only one reason. It is not inaccurate to say
that Sean Duffy is better than the last fifteen transportation
secretaries because he actually took the job to do the job.
It wasn't just some title handed to him for political patronage.
But I'm wandering, what's the story that the leftist media
won't tell you today that less than a year into
Duffy's overhaul of our air traffic control system, were already
(13:43):
nearly half done. The way it sounds, and again, you'd
think this would be newsworthy only the Washington Times, I've
only seen this in DC's conservative newspaper. I say. Thousands
of outdated telecommunications equipment like radio and phones are being
swapped out for brand new models. Hundreds of radars are
being upgraded. The vapor flight strips that were used by
air traffic controllers to guide flights are getting ditched for
(14:04):
new electronic ones, all accessible to on one computer screen now.
They say, as of this month, nearly fifty percent of
the old copper wires that powered the communications between air
traffic controllers and pilots has also been replaced with new
high speed fiber optic cables. This is great proof that
all it takes is some actual effort and focus to
get many of these long standing issues fixed. It takes
(14:26):
a priority from the important people and those controlling the
purse strings. Donald Trump is proving that all it takes
to combat high crime as an honest attempt to stop it.
Sean Duffy is proving that Pete Booha Judge in the
last ten transportation secretaries were clowns who just didn't want
to deal with this air traffic control issue. Duffy might
have it fixed by Christmas. The way this is going
(14:47):
I exaggerate, but quote the Transportation Secretary has pledged that
the changes will be completed by twenty twenty eight, thanks
to the twelve point five billion dollars approved for the
modernization in President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill. They say
the system has basically been held together with shoestring and
duct tape. This is according to Chris Sununu, who is
now serving as the CEO of the Trade Association for
(15:07):
Airlines for America. But Sean Duffy says it was the
DC aircrash that had President Trump saying, look enough of this,
fixed this problem. And for all the faults you want
to ascribe to Donald Trump, he is a fixer, he
is a doer, he is a builder. Duffy says, what
we realized was that we used an incredibly old, antiquated
system of technology from the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties.
(15:30):
This is a huge task now because it's been ignored
for thirty years. The scale of the work that's facing
Duffy and his people. The scale of the work that
needs to be done just to switch out equipment and
make the modern day upgrades is massive, and it's largely
thankless work. Of course, this is going to be a
wonderful gift that has been given to the American people
finally after twenty five or thirty years of delays. But
(15:53):
the twenty twenty eight Republican nominee isn't going to get
national credit for finally making the system safe after three decades.
And I mean not even if it's Jdvans or Marco
Rubio that's on the ticket. They'll lay claim to it
as a victory, but voters will largely shrug their shoulders.
Ey eh, we expect, say air travel. We didn't see
any of the hard work being done, so it's not
going to move voters. We should be heaping special praise
(16:16):
onto people, departments, presidents, lawmakers who are going out of
their way to actually do something, do the work fix
our problems instead of just bloviating about them. But first,
the average voter in the American people need to know
about those fixes, know who is working hard and doing
the work. The American people need to hear about the
hard work that's being done and the genuine win that
(16:38):
results from it. And there's no blasted way that today's
leftist news media is going to tell the American people
about any of Trump team's wins, right, not if they
can help it. That's the sort of so called fair
and balanced news media that we're dealing with today, my friends.
I'm not convinced that this big redistricting cheat by the
(16:59):
Democrats in Virgini is a done deal. A lower court
already halted it temporarily, of course, and the state Supreme
Court in Virginia is going to have to ultimately determine
if this very unfair and extremely gerrymannered map ever gets
put into play. We'll get into the unique setup of
Virginia Supreme Court and why it's hard to predict how
it's going to rule on this. But even realizing that
(17:20):
in this era, even court politics is a rumble, my
take is if the Virginia Supreme Court doesn't reject this map,
it's going to be a major embarrassment for the justices
on that court and a blatant a front to the
republic and any sort of rule of order when it
comes to parliamentary procedures. And I know everything is hardball
politics right now, and nowhere have the leftists been playing
(17:41):
harder ball than in states like Virginia. I get it.
But if most of the justices on the Virginia Supreme
Court have even a modicum of dignity or integrity, if
they even have a sense of fairness and justice, well
they can't approve this map. Everyone in the country, and
on both sides the Isle knows that this is a
blatant attempt to and no liberals listening. No, this is
(18:02):
not like what was going on in Texas or Florida.
Those adjustments to the political maps in those states that
were pushed by Republicans still left congressional representation that was
largely proportional for that state. The Democrat voters in Texas
and Florida are still represented in Congress in some way.
This map in Virginia wipes out virtually all voter representation
for anyone who didn't vote Democrat in that state. Now,
(18:24):
this is the situation, by the way, when it comes
to all of the New England states, those all seem
to have no Republican representation at all, even though those
New England states vote about forty percent Republican. This map
in Virginia that wipes out virtually all voter representation for
anyone who didn't vote Democrat in that state. And it's crazy.
(18:44):
This change takes a district map that had six Democrat
districts and five Republican districts and pretty accurately represented the
voting percentages in the state of Virginia and turns it
into a map in which there will be nine districts
controlled by Democrats and only one by Republicans. And I
don't care which side of the al you're on or
which parties kool aid you're drinking, no one can claim
(19:05):
this is a map that is anything close to fair
or representational. That's one reason that I believe the majority
of Virginia's Supreme Court justices might reject it, because if
they don't, they just look like scumbags and idiots. It's
a pretty good incentive for the average judge to do
the right thing and reject the extremes. Moreover, how can
the left wing lawyers who are trying to defend this
(19:26):
possibly argue this is fair or constitutional? And when I
say constitutional, I mean representative of the voters of Virginia.
I know the next step is the state Supreme Court
there in Virginia, but I'd also be surprised if conservative
and good government groups don't find arguments to challenge this
map in federal court and put it on the fast
track to the US Supreme Court. Some showdown over this
as long overdue. We have states like Oregon that have
(19:50):
conservatives in their states so frustrated they want to break
away and secede and join Utah. I think every effort
should be made by conservative activist groups to get some
sort of challenge based on this Virginia map to the
Supreme Court. In the federal court system, I know the U. S.
Supreme Court has been very, very reluctant to get involved
in these state maps, but we now have something like
(20:11):
seven to nine states that are Democrat controlled. They'd either
have zero Republican congressmen or only one being sent to Washington,
despite the fact that the voting patterns of their states
are far far more balanced, such as Massachusetts. Massachusetts votes
about forty percent Republican, they don't have one Republican representative
in Congress. The Federal Supreme Court has already heard at
(20:32):
least one argument related to fair maps recently, and we're
awaiting that decision. That case in front of them would
weaken some of the rigged rules in the so called
Voting Rights Act if they rule as expected, and it
could lead to another round of national redistricting. So we
certainly haven't seen the final round of this fight over
maps in the states and nationally. But I say, bring
on more litigation and get it in front of this
(20:53):
conservative US Supreme Court. I think conservative legal activists should
use this Virginia outrage as a springboard to challenge the
very notion that one party, either party, can just freeze
out the other one and pretend their state is sending
a quote representative government to Washington, d C. From that state.
I mean, the Democrats in Virginia went into this knowing
(21:14):
how much they're cheating and how blatant it looks. We
know this because as part of the language that they
used in the legislation and on the referendum, they added
a clause that says this map would only be in
effect until the next census, which is in twenty thirty. Well,
of course that would be the case. That's when every
state needs to redo and rejigger their federal congressional maps.
It's by law, but the Democrats in Virginia couldn't have
(21:36):
made it more clear. We're cheating now, but we'll turn
this process back over to our quote nonpartisan maps commission
in twenty thirty. YEP, Virginia's estate in which the Democrats
have convinced their voters to agree to a sham of
a maps commission, only to then violate and ignore that
system when it doesn't suit them. We're seeing Democrats do
this all over the country in various blue states, including
(21:58):
New York and California. And there's one reason why anyone
in Wisconsin is stupid if they support Governor Evers's push
for quote fair maps and a maps commission. Evers and
Wisconsin Democrats have already ignored a different version of a
nonpartisan map committee, and they cheated to redraw their own
maps when they felt they could. They exposed again what
a sham these maps commissions are. First of all, they
(22:20):
aren't really nonpartisan. But second, if the Democrats are just
going to ignore them anytime they see an opening to cheat,
why have them why pretend? Seriously, why do New York, California,
or Virginia even have quote nonpartisan maps commissions? If the
Democrats are just going to ignore them and cheat every
time they feel the need or see an opening. This
(22:40):
has been the case now in both California and Virginia
just over the last few months. Virginia is a split
state that leans blue. It has been for quite some time,
so the current map shows split representation in Congress. Quite fair. Actually,
six Democrats and five Republicans are sent to the House
of Representatives from that state currently, but through force Virginia
(23:01):
Democrats get to rig this falls elections to give them
a nine to one congressional delegation. Come on, there's in
a single Supreme court in the country that if they
had honest justices sitting on it, would find that fair, reasonable,
or representative. In fact, John Fund at the National Review
has at least four legitimate legal avenues on which Republicans
can challenge this move in Virginia. The first is he
(23:23):
says the legislature violated the state's constitution by keeping a
special session open for nearly two years, and that's a
move that a local judge who heard the case already
has labeled a blatant abuse of power. Second avenue of
challenge Virginia law requires that constitutional amendments be passed at
least ninety days before any election in which the people
ratify it. Lower courts had initially blocked this redistricting process
(23:45):
on those grounds, so that's a procedural argument. The third
argument would be the jerrymander improperly tossed out the work
of the twenty twenty voter approved Bipartisan Redistricting Commission. They
tossed it out right in the middle of the decade
song based on that, and then the fourth potential challenge,
the language on the ballot was blatantly biased in claiming
that the referendum's goal was to quote restore fairness in
(24:08):
upcoming elections that presupposed that the bipartisan commission map was unfair.
All of those are legitimate avenues of challenge, and I
think you notice that they don't really have anything to
do with gerrymandering or challenging what a jery mander is, etc.
There are ways to stop this without getting into big
constitutional arguments, but I think a path that challenges this
(24:30):
on federal and state constitutional grounds based on the definition
of a representative government is also a pretty interesting way
to approach this. And I'm not a legal mind, but
we have great legal minds that might be able to
find some way to argue this larger question. And in
a federal court, I think any federal lawsuit like that
could be a game changer. Given that we finally have
(24:51):
a conservative leaning Supreme Court with justices on it. This
seemed determined to correct the terrible constitutional drift that this
country has been on for decades. I think a court
that has shot down Roe v. Wade and killed off
the Chevron doctrine is a court that might just step
in and say, look, a state map has to at
least be somewhat fair when it comes to representing the
voting patterns of that state. If we on the right
(25:14):
got a ruling like that, nationally, Democrats might lose two
or three dozen House seats in the more honest redo
of these maps. So how does this play out at
Virginia's Supreme Court? Well, experts in DC and Virginia seem
to agree it's hard to predict. And it is because
Virginia's a state in which the legislature actually appoints the
Supreme Court justices, not the voters. And currently this Virginia
(25:36):
Supreme Court is said to be small sea conservative as
in the judicial Conservatives might have a slight advantage on
this court quote. Virginia is one of only two states
where the legislature elects the Supreme Court justices. Because the
state has had divided control from much of the past
quarter century, the balance of the Court's justices were appointed
by bipartisan compromise. The court's current seven members include one
(25:58):
justice who was elected when Democrats had sole control of
the General Assembly, three when Republicans controlled both chambers, and
three when control of the legislature was split. And so
if that's the case, this isn't a court full of
members who are going to want to rush to get
this new map into effect before the fall election, which
is what Democrats wanted to do. It also doesn't sound
like a court full of justices who are just going
(26:20):
to ignore the fact that Virginia's legislature and governor broke
all sorts of procedural rules in order to ram this
map into place. I don't see how any split court
or any group of justices that's even trying to be
fair or trying to get a ruling right agrees to
let this map be put into play. And despite the
result of the referendum, this week. There's no way to
(26:40):
honestly say that this is what the people of Virginia
want either. The National Democrats and activists spent a massive
amount of money tricking the voters of Virginia. They spent
eighty one million dollars in one amounted to a sprint
to trick Virginia's voters into thinking that this was about
fair maps those on the ground in Virginia. The misinformation
(27:00):
campaign that the leftist pulled off here was shameful, impressive,
but shameful. This was a very slanted, shameless, ugly affair.
And still the left only managed to win this referendum
question by three points. They spent two years trying to
trick and steamroll Virginia voters and they still only narrowly
pulled it off with a sprint of eighty one million
(27:21):
dollars worth of spending. And yeah, I understand that this
is a constitutional amendment that the voters of Virginia have
now passed and only the win matters, and the Supreme
Court can't and won't overturn the will of the people,
et cetera. But this process and the Left's dishonesty and
duplicity and engineering this result can be challenged in court
and will be. It's the reason to believe that whatever happens,
(27:44):
this outrageous map of the Virginia voters just approved will
not be in play this fall and may not ever
come into play. It's something I would caution listeners about
that most of the media outlets aren't going to tell you.
The chances of this map approved this week actually being
put into place for fall or even in twenty twenty
eight seems slim to me, So don't lose too much
sleep over it yet. And hey, you know, there's going
(28:06):
to be all sorts of court related drama over the
next few years that's going to be fun to watch,
and this is just one of them. Florida is going
to try to redo its maps apparently, and there too.
I don't think they even have the time. I don't
think Ron de Santis in Republicans in Florida even have
the time to redraw a map, get it approved, get
it through a court process. I don't know that late
(28:28):
entry maps like this one in Virginia or one that's
still coming in Florida are even going to be coming
into play and fall, just to the legal challenges, But
we do have all sorts of matters related to the
federal courts that are popping up that are pretty interesting.
You've probably seen that the insider jockeying is now underway
to get at least one of these two older Supreme
Court justices to retire and before January, so that the
(28:50):
President can replace them with someone younger and help cement
this conservative majority for a decade or two. Right now
we have a six to three conservative advantage. But Clarence Thomas,
Semilie and John Roberts are all in their seventies. Clarence
Thomas has been on the Court the longest, thirty four years. Now.
My god, a lot of us in this audience can
remember Clarence Thomas's Senate confirmation hearings in which Joe Biden
(29:13):
and Teddy Kennedy and that era's Democrats showed a blatant
racism and just a venom toward Clarence Thomas because he
dared to be a black Conservative. Doesn't seem like that
was almost thirty five years ago, but it was so.
Clarence Thomas is seventy seven, He's been on the court
thirty four years, and he has apparently told friends off
and on for a few years that you know, maybe
(29:34):
he should retire and travel the country in his RV.
And all that has added up to rumors and attempts
in Washington, d C. To push Clarence Thomas out while
a Republican president is in control, and while the Republicans
control the confirmation process in the Senate, too. Political strategist
would love to see Thomas agree to retire now to
ensure that that seat remains in conservative hands for another
(29:54):
two or three decades. But as of last year, Clarence
Thomas was talking as if he wants to remain in
the court. That has the same strategist pivoting over to
sam Alito. Over the last several months, you've probably seen
some of this. Will sam Alito retire, he's seventy six,
maybe we can push him out. Well, Alito just sent
clear signals that he intends to stick around. He's hired
(30:15):
new staffers for the next term, et cetera. And so
conservative legal groups are wondering if they should start a
public pressure campaign against Aledo to try to shove him out.
That seems unlikely to me. I just don't think sam
Alito would respond well to some attempt to shove him out.
And I hope you see the urgency here from the
insider's perspective, maybe I should have started with that. Most
(30:36):
of you get it. The Senate confirms a presidential nominee
to the Supreme Court, and so you want your party
in control of the White House when a Supreme Court
vacancy opens up, because then your president's going to pick
the successor. But then you also want your party to
control the Senate so they can control the nomination process
and shuttle the presidential pick through and so that they
(30:57):
and the president can put the most conservator or most
liberal non in place. Correct. If the Senate is in
the other party's control, well, then any president needs to
nominate a more moderate judge because they need someone who
was going to survive the confirmation process when the members
of the other party control the Senate need to approve
of the person. Most of you get this. But with
(31:18):
the potential for the Democrats to retake control of the
Senate this fall, you see that the window on a
super Supreme Court pick from Trump could be closing. This
is what the activists are worried about. He still has
three more years of his presidency. Sure, and Sam Alido
and Clarence Thomas still have a three year window in
which a Republican president would appoint their successor if they
do want to retire soon. But the Senate that needs
(31:41):
to approve the Trump pick might only be under Republican
control for another nine months. Hence this flory of attention
to sam Alito. Now you might have also seen that
Molly Hemingway of The Federalist told Megan Kelly this week
she's hearing rumors John Roberts might retire. He might be
the unexpected wild card here. She's saying. Roberts was a
pointed by George Bush. He's had a good long run
(32:02):
as Chief Justice, but he's only seventy one, and as
of last year, John Roberts was claiming he was never
retiring from the court. Just about ten months ago, John
Roberts joked that they'd have to carry him out feet first,
as in, they'll carry my corpse out of here. So
I doubt that John Roberts retires. There's always a chance
that some secret illness or changes in their personal lives
(32:25):
might have a federal judge with a lifetime appointment deciding
to retire early. But short of something like that I'd
be shocked if John Roberts retires. That's said, it'd be
great if he did. Listeners to my longtime radio show
know that I never liked Roberts or his approach to
his job as Chief Justice. Roberts has spent two decades
trying not to have this court decide the biggest constitutional
(32:46):
issues of our day and not make precedent setting rulings
that would actually clear up the question in front of them.
Drives me crazy. I found that irksome beyond belief. Roberts
is a judicial dud, and if Trump had a chance
to replace him, that'd be huge. That would be huge. Now,
the caveat over all of this is that the Republicans
should should keep control of the Senate after this fall elections.
(33:10):
They should. They have a fifty three seat majority, and
the Democrats would have to win at least a few
Senate races that they aren't expected to win in order
to see control of the Senate flip. But you never
know if it's a Democrat wave election because Trump started
a war in Iran and it as Americans upset that
gas and grocery prices are higher again, etc. Well, there's
at least a chance Republicans could lose control of this
(33:31):
nomination process. That's where this nervousness over any Supreme Court
opening comes in. I hope you understand it more fully now.
My prediction would be Thomas, Alito and Roberts all stick
with it for now, but either Thomas Alito or both
bail before Trump leaves office. There will be heavy outside
pressure from right wing political forces for them to do so.
(33:51):
Whether that moves them, we'll see. I'm certain that both
men want to see their legacy in their seat on
the Court continue to be in conservative hands, though, and
so I think one, maybe even both will leave before
Trump leaves office. So when President Trump and Pete Hegsith
were droning all of those drug boats off of the
South American coast, some of you were worried about all
(34:13):
the fish and marine life that was going to be
coming into contact with all that cocaine that our drone
strikes were dumping into the ocean. Oh, but what's going
to happen to the fishes? People were asking, Well, we
have our answer, Well, we at least have an answer.
Research conducted by two universities in some joint venture found
that salmon on cocaine swim twice as far as normal salmon.
(34:35):
I'm not sure how they got these fish to do
a line of blow, but we have our answer. The
story says, salmon exposed to cocaine in the water swim
longer distances than those that go without. According to a
study release this week, joint research by Australia's Griffith University
and the Swedish University of Egg Sciences studied how the
drug affected the movements of wild fish in their natural habitat.
Researchers took one hundred and five wild Atlantic salmon and
(34:57):
exposed them to coke and then track their movements. They
found the salmon exposed to the drugs traveled one point
nine times further per week than their clean living cousins.
As they put it, the researchers said, we're finding higher
and higher concentrations of not just illicit drugs, but all
types of pharmaceuticals in our waterways, and they've worn the
pollution of waters by common drugs is now posing a
major and escalating risk to our biodiversity.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Our study shows that drugs are not only a societal
issue but also a concrete environmental challenge. So there you go.
This comes after a study on sharks in the Bahamas
that found that they're being exposed to everything from cocaine,
to caffeine to painkillers. It opens up a whole new
avenue of research. I think, are we seeing more shark
attacks because that we've created cocaine sharks. I'm kidding, of course,
(35:41):
but I'm guessing we're just about a year or two
away from some ecozlic group insisting that that's what's happening.
And as long as we're talking about cocaine, let's talk
about Congress. That's a great transition. I'm getting a kick
out of the cleanup that we are told is going
on in Congress because three scummy House members have been
forced to quit over the last three weeks or so.
This of course, started with the Democrats engaging in a
(36:02):
campaign to explode Eric Swalwell's run for California governor, and
unfortunately for them, it meant that he had to be
shoved out of Congress too. They would have liked to
have kept his vote, but they really couldn't. He had
to go if they were going to pretend to be
upset about the decades long womanizing that he was famous
for in DC. He had to resign from Congress too,
so he resigned. Then it was a Republican, Tony Gonzalez
(36:22):
of Texas, who had his own sexual misconduct scandal going on.
He resigned. And then this week it was another Democrat,
a black woman from Florida named Sheila McCormick. And I
admit she's hyphenated, but I stumble over her maiden name,
sher phyllis surefulless, we'll just call her Bocephus. So then
there's the third resignation, Sheila Bosephus McCormick. So in a
(36:44):
chamber of four hundred and thirty five members, three people
actually are being called out for their scumbaggery. And apparently
this is a house cleaning. It only is to longtime
elitists who have set up a system over two hundred
and fifty years that ensures that they will never really
be held accountable for their own actions, of your own criminality.
Only by that measure. Is this any sort of ethical
house cleaning going on in Congress? Good grief, But bosiphas
(37:08):
here didn't resign due to a sex scandal. Hers was
a good old fashioned theft and ethical misconduct scandal. She
was charged with stealing nearly five million dollars in FEMA
funds and pled not guilty to that in criminal court.
But she was going to be expelled from the House
if she hadn't resigned first. McCormick said in a statement,
rather than play these political games, I choose to step
(37:29):
away so that I can devote my time to fighting
for my neighbors in Florida's twentieth District. I hereby resign
from the one hundred and nineteenth Congress, effective immediately. By
the way, Love, the resignation statement makes no sense whatsoever,
proves she's a moron. Sheila said she's going to resign
from Congress so that she can focus on better representing
her constituents in Congress. What it's like saying you're going
(37:50):
to go on an all cake diet in order to
lose weight. But McCormick resigned literally minutes before the head
of the Ethics Committee convened to hearing in order to
release the final results of their investigation into her activity,
and that investigation found McCormick was in fact guilty of
at least twenty five different ethical and criminal counts against
her quote. Investigators found substantial evidence of conduct consistent with
(38:12):
the allegations and the indictment, as well as more extensive misconduct. Yeah,
Sheila McCormick is a real peach. She's only been in
Congress for about three years, but the rap sheet of
offenses and crimes that she racked up here is incredible.
She's actually been criminally charged for dozens of real crimes
in addition to the House Ethical investigation and the findings
that pushed her out of Congress. This woman's going to
(38:34):
prison regardless of what Congress has done. She stole from FEMA,
She clearly stole from her own campaign and filed false
and inaccurate campaign statements. That's a crime, and this is
across numerous election cycles. The investigators say she's charged with
falsifying paperwork on loans, accepting bribes, lying about her campaign finances,
spending all sorts of tax payer money on quote luxury
(38:56):
goods like jewelry and designer clothing. HeLa McCormick is the
sort of person who never intended to do this job
honestly or properly. You have to put yourself in her
mindset when she ran for Congress. In one when you
look at the timeline and the charges against her. McCormick
was a slippery grifter right from the start, from the
moment she ran from Congress, and in the three short
(39:17):
years she's been in Congress, she's pulled off every dishonest
and illegal stunt she could think up. Apparently during that time.
Here's a fun twist. Sheila McCormick one office in a
special election in Florida to replace longtime scumbag Elsie Hastings.
Hastings was a decades long congressman from Florida who was
also among the most famous sexual predators in scumbags in Washington,
(39:39):
d C. Hastings was Eric Swallall before Swalwell was ever born.
So the people in that district in Florida traded one
scumbag criminal for another when they went from Hastings to McCormick.
I'll say one other thing about Sheila McCormick resigning, and
it comes from her criminal lawyer. I do think he's right.
I'm not cutting Sheila any slack here because she did
the crimes and you put herself in this situation. But
(40:02):
I acknowledge the correctness of her lawyer's statement. McCormick's criminal
lawyer says she had to resign from Congress because there
was no way she was going to get a fair
criminal trial after the United States House of Representatives officially
declared her a criminal scumbag. He said, how can she
possibly go into court and have a fair trial if
her jurors have already heard that she was found guilty
(40:22):
by the House of Representatives. It's an impossibility. So she
was left with no choice but to resign. That's true,
but it only means that she made a spark decision
to resign because when she ran for Congress, she had
to know that she would be living as a public
figure and beholden to her constituents and held to an
ethical standard. I mean, she had to know on day one.
There are actually little seminars that they go through with
(40:44):
new House members. So she had to know on day
one the House had a process for investigating ethical and
criminal violations. And so it isn't some great constitutional question
as to whether her rights are going to be violated here.
She set herself up for any such consequences when she
ran for office in one one. I don't feel sorry
for her in any way, but if you still do,
(41:04):
here's the Kapper. Please understand that Sheila Bosephus McCormick doesn't
appear to be a decent person in any way. She
committed all of these crimes and all this misconduct, and
she shows no remorse and only wants to portray herself
as some sort of victim. And at that point, once
you realize that, I think any normal person is going
to say, well f her. Then meanwhile, this little flurry
(41:26):
of scandals and resignations has Speaker Mike Johnson vowing to finally,
finally adds some tougher rules of conduct on US House members.
And it's long overdue, folks, This is two hundred and
fifty years overdue, because as great as this country is,
the people who both formed this Republic and those who
have come to DC in the two hundred and fifty
(41:46):
years since to represent Americans in Congress have spent all
of this time protecting themselves from consequences and exempting themselves
from accountability. The idea that we've had an ethical House
and Senate policing themselves over the last two hundred fifty
years is ridiculous. Heck, the idea that we've had an
ethical House and Senate policing themselves over the last two
decades is ridiculous. There is clearly so much corruption and
(42:10):
grifting and scumbaggery and skullduggery going on in Washington, DC
that you cannot possibly pretend our leaders in DC really
care about it or want to stop it. There's a
reason it's called the swamp. Consider that around this time
last year, DOGE was uncovering decades long schemes in which
lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, but mostly the Democrats,
(42:31):
were kicking taxpayer money to all sorts of ridiculous and
even fake outside groups and mngos just so they could
set up their friends and relatives with dishonest, cushy incomes
and funnel a bunch of that money back into their
own campaigns. It's gone on for decades. These are the
people who are supposed to view as honest or ethical.
Come on, and whether it's sex scandals or taking bribes
(42:53):
or whatever, it's clear that Washington, d C. Really is
the swamp. It is clear that over two hundred and
fifty years now, the people whom we as Americans have
sent to Congress to represent us and rule us govern
us mostly abandon their ethics and sense of integrity once
they get there. And not all of them, not everyone,
but way way too many of our longtime DC dwelling
(43:14):
lawmakers have more interest in being exempted from the social mores,
the ethics, the laws of our society than they have
any interest in following them and are holding the members
of their own chamber accountable. And it's why I'm getting
such a kick out of this, this fake purge that's
going on. This is being called a purge three congressmen
who are obviously guilty of ethical and criminal violations. And yeah,
(43:38):
it really is on both sides. I've seen a lot
of claims on social media lately, as Eric Swollwell got
shoved out, what Republicans never punish their predators and pedophiles?
You know? Right now it's vogue on both sides of
the aisle, but really on the left to smear everyone
as a pedophile. This seems to be the twenty twenty
sixth smear. Yeah, well, why aren't you pollutioning your own
(43:59):
pedal files? That's what passes for a snappy retort. But
the truth is neither side has been good at policing
their own because if you think about it, if you
hold members of your own party accountable, You're losing their
vote in the Chamber. Right. The truth is neither side
is very good or interested in really holding their own
members accountable, and this list that Congress released earlier this
(44:21):
week proves it. They released a list of House members
investigated for sexual harassment over the last forty years, and
they claim it was twenty eight people. Twenty eight members,
fourteen Democrats and twelve Republicans. First of all, that number
seems low, but you can see that being a sexually
harassing creep is not exclusive to either party, and that
both sides have had their scandals in general. Though from
(44:43):
what I've seen in the forty years that I've been
watching this, in general, Republicans have been significantly better at
acknowledging the scumbags within their midst and actually doing something
to punish them or push them out. Republicans did shove
out George Santos and Matt Getz on their watch, by
the way, those are just recent examples. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi
and the Democrats protected Eric Swolwell and Elsie Hastings for decades.
(45:06):
They ignored Barney Frank scandal altogether, etc. The truth is
that sexual harassment claims on Capitol Hill are being filed
quite routinely and by the dozens, and the American people
never hear about them. We don't hear about the vast
majority of them. And by the way, the same goes
for scandals related to bribes and campaign finance abuse, etc.
The vast majority of Congressmen who are called out for
(45:27):
unethical behavior suffer no consequences, and the average voter never
hears about it. So color me skeptical as House Speaker
Mike Johnson now promises to tighten the sexual misconduct rules
in that lower chamber. And you know, if I trust
anyone on this, it would be Mike Johnson. Not only
is he a religious man and committed to clean government,
but he has two young daughters who are working as
(45:48):
staffers on Capitol Hill. So I don't doubt that Mike
Johnson will be serious about finally maybe making some decent changes. However,
I highly doubt that the majority of the over four
hundred members in his chamber are really going to vote
in favor of placing tougher sexual harassment rules onto themselves
and onto future congresses. These are bodies the House and
(46:10):
Senate that have protected their own members vigorously over the
last two hundred and fifty years. Mike Johnson said this
week that he's taking suggestions from other lawmakers and ways
to tighten these rules. Quote, I will lead that myself,
he said. All Right, we'll see where it goes, but
I won't be holding my breath.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
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