11-24-25 - 10am - 'Trump Is Just Following Thomas Jefferson's Lead'

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My grant dispensation free talkbacks today to try to get
me to chase a squirrel or to comment on anything
I'm doing, because well, we're just we're just not getting
it done today. I try my best. Just bear with me.
Jason Crowe, slot Nick Mark Kelly. Who are the others?

(00:22):
I forget All the yahoos that made that video encouraging
or directing the military to not follow unlawful orders continue
to appear on all of the Sunday talk shows. I
watched Jason Crowe do his little tap dance about a
bazillion times over the weekend, and of course he was
on the Sunday shows. He was even on some local

(00:45):
some of the local news programs. But they continue and
continue and continue to try to rationalize because I think
just blew up in their face and they didn't expect
you to blow up the way it did. But when
you when you go out and you say the things
that they said, that you have an obligation not to
follow an order that is illegal, but you give no example.

(01:06):
You just say generically, hey, you shouldn't follow any order
that's illegal. You really set up a bad situation. And
by a bad situation, I mean exactly what General Jack
Keane said on Fox News this morning. Well, I guess
it would help. That's just the way the whole day's gone.

(01:33):
It's a Monday before holiday, and nobody, none of us
know what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
You about another issue we're tracking closely over the weekend.
Democratic Senator Alissa Slopkin said she essentially stands by the
pr video she put out with some of her Democratic colleagues,
telling service members that if they feel military orders from
the commander in chief are illegal for words, they don't

(02:00):
have to follow them.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Take a listen to what she said yesterday.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Do you believe President Trump has issued any illegal orders?
To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that
are illegal, but certainly there are some legal gymnastics that
are going on with these Caribbean strikes.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Quick.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Oh now, let's keep that in mind, the Caribbean strikes,
because I'm going to get to that in a minute.
But notice that, no, you know, no, we just made
the video just to remind you. H'd be like me,
who has been known to occasionally exceed the speed limit,
although I've been really good for the past three or
four years, to get out and lecture you about Hey,
it's illegal to speed. Okay, we all know that. And

(02:42):
if you're a member of the military, you know that
you have an obligation to follow the constitution and if
there is a I went this in depth last week
that if there is an egregious example, an egregious order,
like you've been ordered to shoot civilians, you have a
right to run that up your train of command. But

(03:03):
they didn't give any examples. And again when asked yesterday
on ABC, she couldn't give an example.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Didn't you have done a video saying just what you
just said if you are asked to do something for us?
It was just a statement widely, right, we say, very
quickly and very he was.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Just a statement made widely because we are infected with
Trumps arrangement syndrome, and we hadn't gotten enough attention. So
we thought we would do it, and we thought we
you know, everybody would applaud us for doing it, and
instead we got a bunch of poop in our faces.
And now we're trying to figure out way out of it.
So I'm back on again because again, all publicity is
good publicity, right, So now we're back on the Sunday

(03:44):
shows talking about it. Because we can keep talking about
it because now we don't care what the rest of
the country says or things about us. Now we're just
playing to our bass.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Right to all the folks who come to us. This
is the process. Go to your JAG officer, ask them
for explanation for time.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Now she's going to give the explanation of the procedure.
Why didn't you do that earlier? Oh didn't have time
or you didn't expect this blowback cover for their view
on things.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Sure, I don't have to tell you, but there is
great risk in telling service members that they are the
arbiters of what military commands are legal and which are
not legal, isn't there?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, I mean this is pretty outrageous. I don't have
a frame of reference for it whatsoever. He's an irresponsible,
reckless of political leaders. And I normally don't go after
the political leaders in our country, but they deserve it now.
They are absolutely underlining the military chain of command and
what do they think our soldiers are And they're insulting

(04:51):
the intelligence of our soldiers and their moral commitment to
serve the nation by making these outrageous statements.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
And then, when.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Pressed by a journalist name one illegal order that you
think has been issued. They can't find that there is none.
What is the purpose of doing this? What are they
trying to accomplish? The last time the United States declared war,
We've only declared war five times in the history of
the nation. The last time was World War Two, and

(05:22):
presidents have acted since that time. I've been given it
powers they have authorized to take action against those who
they believe are presenting a security risk to the United
States of America. These politicians should stand down and deal
with the events in front of them, as opposed to

(05:42):
undermining the chain of command. If they want to criticize
President Trump's policy decisions, certainly that's up for grabs. I
have done some of that here. But to do something
like this, it's disgraceful, and they insult the officers that
they're holding. To be quite frank about them, enjoy.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Asking them to take on that risk.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I think General Keane had it exactly right. Jason
Crow and the rest of them need to stand down. Frankly,
I think they need to apologize. But I'm not one
for normally asking people to apologize, because I'd rather them
just wallow around in their stupidity. So let them wallow
around in their stupidity. But I want you to think

(06:23):
about those five times that General Kane refers to that
we've declared war, the most recent being World War Two.
You know what this is really about, don't you. This
is about blowing up drug running boats, either in the
Gulf of America or the Caribbean. Gee. I wonder if
we've ever done anything like that before. So I broke open,

(06:47):
you know, I cracked open the old history books again,
and I found a guy named Tommy Jefferson. Have you
ever heard of him? Yeah, the second Commander in chief
of the States of America. He's got this really nice
memorial and in fact, they had his full name, Thomas Jefferson.

(07:08):
His decision to send the US military to combat the
Barbary pirates, represents one of America's earliest assertions, In fact,
the best thing I can say, it would be the
earliest assertion of our naval power against international threats. In
the early nineteenth century, piracy by the Barbary States, which

(07:31):
included Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, oh maybe Tripoli from
the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Oh yeah,
Triple Lee endangered American merchant shipping in the Mediterranean was
under attack. As both a diplomat and a president, Thomas

(07:52):
Jefferson rejected ongoing tribute payments bribes if you will, that
European nations paid for protection in Dad. Jefferson opted to
use military force when Tripoli demanded even greater bribes and
declared war on the United States. Now notice TRIPLEI declared

(08:13):
war on us, We did not declare war on them.
So under Jefferson's direction, the Navy was deployed to blockade
triplely and defend American interests. The force included frigates and schooners,
with orders both to protect ships and to engage openly
with the pirates if necessary. Now importantly, Jefferson recognized the
constitutional limitations on presidential war powers, so while he sent

(08:37):
naval squadrons for protective action, he saw congressional action for
offensive operations, emphasizing adherence to constitutional boundaries. Ultimately, military pressure
and diplomacy led to American victories and treaties that ended
up diminishing the pirates' threats, ending regular ransom payments, and
freeing US merchant vessels from all this extortion. So let's

(09:00):
compare the barbary pirates versus modern anti drug piracy. You'll
see that. Oh, it's all pretty similar. And in addition
to that, we have intervening between Thomas Jefferson and Donald
Trump the War Powers Act, which authorizes the President to

(09:20):
take those actions that are necessary to defend the national
security the United States short of declaring war against some
you know, nation state. So Jefferson versus the barbary pirates,
we faced non state actors. Pirates threats undermining our commerce.

(09:41):
Drug boats, drug gains are transnational criminal organizations. Oh, sounds
like the pirates. The piracy posed a national security risk
and hostage taking m The drug trafficking involves narco terrorism,

(10:01):
criminal funding, public health risks, and does also involve human trafficking.
See so far this that all the same all the way.
But Jason Crow and the others don't understand our history. Now,
Jefferson saw congressional approval for military escalation, keeping with the

(10:25):
legal boundaries at that time. Now, modern strikes, these strikes
operate under evolving and enduring and continuing Authorization for Use
of Military Forces off AUMFS and sometimes invite you know,
controversy because well it's considered by people like Mark Kelly

(10:47):
or Jason Crowe to be executive unilateralism. Yet hmm, isn't
that what the War Powers Act authorizes? Oh? By the way,
it does. Go back to the Pirates. The naval forces
were used of blockade, ports, pursue, subdue the pirates, to capture, destroy,

(11:11):
kill the pirates. What are we doing. We're deploying warships, aircraft,
special forces to locate and destroy the drug running boats.
Same thing we're doing to the pirates. What was the
goal of the Barrie Pirates crusade? To end ransom payments,
to secure trade, to protect citizens, and to demonstrate the

(11:31):
resolve of the United States and our military to defend
our own self interests. The goal in attacking the drug
running boats, oh to stop illegal drugs, to dismantle trafficking networks,
and to deter future maritime crime. Seems like a perfectly
good use of the United States military. Go back to

(11:54):
the Pirates. For a moment, they operated under international law
and was seen as legitimate maritime defenses. Now today this
does risk some escalation with Venezuela, but and there will
be unintended civilian casualties, although I haven't heard of any yet.
Unless you consider the unless you consider the the drug

(12:18):
dealers that are running the boats to be somehow innocent.
All right, we're doing the same thing here now. Interestingly,
and I'm sure, although I didn't really dig into it
that much, I'm sure that there was probably some although
it certainly wasn't Europe, but I'm sure there were some countries,

(12:41):
particularly the northern African countries, that looked of what Thomas
Jefferson was doing and probably lodge some diplomatic objection to it. Today, oh,
we get diplomatic objections to virtually everything that we do,
because we can do nothing right according to most of
the tyrannical despots that run too many of the countries

(13:03):
in this world. So both missions involved military engagement at
sea the counter actors who threatened our national security interests.
Jefferson's approach, yeah, you might say it was a measured
balance of forced diplomacy and accountability. He refused to pay
the extortion in the bribes. He did seek the time

(13:24):
legal authority for defensive and offensive actions, so that did
set a precedent for armed intervention against nonstate threats. Now,
the modern is also grounded in legalities, and that is
under the war Powers Act. The justification late rests on
claims of narco terrorism imminent threats. Now, of course the

(13:48):
critics are out there warning about due process. Wait a minute,
you're not on American soil. You're in international waters. You're
not entitled to due process. The first, second, fourth, fifth
amendments don't apply to you in international waters. And besides,
you're engaged in international, transactional, transnational terrorist terrorist activities. So

(14:12):
Jefferson's use of the military against pirates I believe established
the legitimacy, the precedent, and the constitutional adherence in protecting
our national interests against criminal threats at see, and contemporary
use of military force against these drug running vessels follows it.
Similar logic now, granted, is much more complex today. You

(14:35):
got a much more complex international and legal environment. And
you can if you wanted to, Oh, you could if
you if you wanted to question the proportionality or maybe
even the unintended consequences. Both cases, though, underscore the perennial
tension between our national security needs and the power of

(14:58):
the executive. But here both actually operated under the powers
given to the president under the Constitution. Interestingly, when Jefferson
underwent his attempts to stop the Barbary pirates. Domestic political
reactions to his campaign was also mixed, but eventually evolved

(15:23):
toward broad support as the events unfolded. At the outset.
Guess what, some members of Congress and the public question
both the necessity and the constitutionality of Jefferson's gunilateral decision
to send naval forces before seeking explicit congressional authorization. But
the piracy posed an acute threat to the United States commerce.

(15:45):
And if you look, if you read what most historians
talk about, the Barbary pirates threatened our national honor. That
is the phrase I found in historical reference is over
and over. Is that Jefferson felt that our national honor
was at stake and the pirates were just running roughshod

(16:09):
over the newly founded United States of America. Isn't that
exactly what the cartails are doing when they think they
can just willing, nearly operate and just bring all of
that poison into the country. Isn't that a disgrace to
our national honor? And so Trump has stood up just
like Jefferson did, and said, you know, I'm not going
to come up with this anymore. The pirates. He posed

(16:31):
an acute threat to the United States commerce, to our
national honor, such as the declaration of war by Tripoli
against US and the attacks on American ships. They've done
the same thing here. They have in essence, declared war
on the United States. So after this initial hesitancy and

(16:54):
Jefferson did, Jefferson really molded over. He was really worried
about taking such strong But once he did, here's the difference. Now.
I think that Trump's got pretty strong congressional backing today
for what he's doing. It's the whiners like Jason Crow
and Mark Kelly and the others who are bitching and

(17:16):
moaning about it. But Jefferson got congressional I wouldn't say approval,
he got, and I don't mean approval in the sense
that they had a vote. I mean Congress stood up
and said, yo, you go, man, you go. So, despite
the overall positive reaction, some federalistuppontment that was the party

(17:38):
at the time. The Federals use very specific disappointments like
you know, let's get a piece deal with Triple E,
and you know, let's look at these incidents involving American operatives,
and they all they used that just to question Jefferson's
decision making and the degree of the triumph that he achieved.

(17:58):
Oh so they they started questioning Jefferson for doing the
things that he was doing. Yet somehow it's made it
ends of the Marine Corps hymn about one of the
great things that the country's done, and it was another
example of how we established American primacy on the seas

(18:18):
and said that in terms of the Navy, we are
going to use the Navy to protect our national security interests.
But today Democrats like Jason Crow and Mark Kelly are
so hyperpartisan that they can't see that what Trump's doing is, oh,
actually trying to protect our national security and our national interests.

(18:39):
So Jefferson faced the same kind of bull crap that
Jason Crow. Obvious, Jason Crow should be proud of himself,
and he's just like the old federalists that opposed everything
that Thomas Jefferson was doing. Those days are long gone.
To Shay Trump, go get him. I don't have anything

(19:02):
extra to give today. I just don't have anything at
all to do. I'm out of extra abstincut today. It's
just it's just one of those days. I've tried to
explain how difficult it is to reduce government spending. And

(19:27):
I've always given personal examples of where I tried to
accomplish that. The most glaring example was in this shows
how nai even stupid I was, or maybe still am, well,
when I first went to work for the for the President.
You know, I'm going through stuff and things are coming

(19:49):
across my desk like a fire hose, and they're just
you know, all these programmed people are coming in explaining
to me what their program is and what it does.
Blah blah blah blah blah. It's just it's incessant, just
truly drinking from a fire hose, trying to understand what
one of the smaller agencies in DC does. And at

(20:12):
one point I'm at a I'm with Jeb Bush on
one of my first disaster trips, and we're down in
Florida and we go buy a distribution center. And the
purpose of the distribution center was to provide people a

(20:33):
place to come and get registered for FEMA AID. In
addition to that, they could also go through and we
had Boy Scouts and some you know, unfortunately the American
Red Cross and other NGOs that would help distribute some
things like bottled water and bags of ice, and so, yeah,

(21:00):
and I are talking and we're watching all of this
take place, and I asked Jib a simple question, like
why do we give out to every car that drives
through this. I mean, you can eat a park if
you're going inside. Where if all you were doing was
just picking up some bottled water and ice, you could
just drive through, you know, flip your trunk open, or

(21:21):
they just opened the back door and they'd slide a
couple of cases of bottled water and then they put
two bags of ice in. And I turned to Jim
and I just said, why what's the ice for? I mean,
because I get the water, because we've told people not
to drink the water. You know, some of the water

(21:42):
treatment plants were down, and so I understood that we
were distributing on behalf of American taxpayers all of this water.
But why are we doing the ice. I don't get
the ice because whatever these people have in their refrigerator
is spoiled and the ice is not going to keep it.
Blah blah blah blah blah. And Jib and Kevin I
had a very good relationship and we were pretty much,

(22:04):
you know, I'm a smart ass. He's a smart ass,
and so we were pretty much just be smart asses
to each other. And he goes, well, so Bubba can
keep his burgers and broughts cool. And I thought he
was joking, and I said, what do you mean keep
their burgers and brocks cool? And he goes, well, they'll
take them back and they'll have an ice shift, and
I'll have some burgers and brots in there and they'll

(22:24):
dump the ice in there. And I said, why are
we paying for that? He goes, I don't know. You
always have, always have. So I started digging into and
found out that we spend tens of millions of dollars
to provide ice. And of course then I want to
know what's the origin of this program. The origin of
the program started back in nineteen seventy nine. He got

(22:46):
that freaking old when it was determined that we would
provide ice to hospitals so that women who were lactating breastfeeding,
or that people who had diabet and they were taking insulin,
and for the hospitals themselves in order to keep medications,

(23:06):
vials of medication like insulin or anything else that needed
to be cooled. And if the power was out that
ice was provided in huge quantities so that lac tady
mothers could bring their breast milk and keep it cooled,
and people who were taking insulin could bring that put
it in a pack with their name on it, and
we would keep you know, the hospitals would maintain that

(23:26):
those pharmaceuticals that needed to be chilled. And oh, that's
that's that's a legitimate reason. But then it grew and
it grew and it grew and it grew to the
point where in that first disaster back in two thousand
and one, down in Florida two thousand and two, I
learned that, oh no, now we just give everybody two
bags of ice, whether they need it or not, and
so maybe they can just you know, put it in

(23:46):
their ice chests and keep their beer cool or keep
their bots cool or whatever. And I thought, what, it's
gotta stops, gotta stop. So then I started digging in
trying to find out how much money it costs, and
it was literally tens of millions of dollars. We would
track with trucking companies that had reefer trucks, refrigerator you know,
refrigerator trucks, and they would pack those with ice and

(24:10):
then drive those into a disaster zone, and we would
distribute the ice. So you can imagine it's the cost
of a bag of ice that you might go to
the convenience store and pay what I don't want it
is a dollar a bag or something. Now, it was
probably costing the taxpayers two or three dollars a bag
by the time you put in all of the costs
associated with the you know, the contracting, the purchase, the distribution, everything,
it was costing for these three, four or five dollars

(24:32):
a bag. So I said stop it. And I went
to Congress and I found a couple of people and
you know that were on my oversight committees, and I
sat down with their staffers in some of the members themselves,
and said I want to quit providing ice. And to
a tee, I didn't make any difference whether they were
Republican or Democrat, because I went to both sides of
the aisle trying to stop this program and they would

(24:54):
not stop it. I can't, well, we can't I get away.
Now people depend on that ice. I would, and I
would engage in real debate with him, like do you
know what they use it for? Can you really tell
me what your constituents they're using the ice for. No,
but they need it because the power's out. Okay, what
to make an ice pack to keep themselves cool? It's

(25:15):
not a taxpayer responsibility. Well I don't care, Michael, I'm
not going to do it. So I thought, okay, well
I'll go to the White House. I'll try to get
the director. You know, Mitch Daniels, who with the director
at the time, with the director of OMB. I'll get
him because he was known as the Knife. He loved
to cut programs that couldn't get him to do it.
Now you may think, well, Michael, at some point, don't
you realize that if you are, if you're the only

(25:38):
one that wants to cut it and everybody else wants
to keep it, maybe you're wrong. Oh don't think. I
didn't think that a thousand times. I tried to figure
out every way in my mind I could justify it,
and there was no justification other than it's what we've
always done and now people come to expect it. Wow.
So I never got it cut, and to this day

(26:01):
we still spend that money. What's the point in all
of that? Huh? Member Doge, Member Doge, This one of
all on cuts overall. Over the weekend, President Trump said
that Elon Musk was a training rack. Are there, given
this current viewpoint, are there concerns.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Within the White House or from the President himself over
the cuts that happened under a Musk while he was
advising DOGE, including the National Leather Service.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
I think I've already addressed that, Kristen, And what I
can tell you is that these offices were fully staffed.
The San Angelo office was fully staffed with twelve forecast meteorologists.
There were no vacancies.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
They were talking about the Texas floods and whether or
not DOGE staff cuts affected the forecasting, which it obviously
did not. But the point is, here's CNN's asking Caroline Levitt, oh,
is the President concerned because Elon Musk must be a
train wreck? Well, guess what, everybody, the train is now dead.

(27:07):
The Department of Government Efficiency has been dissolved eight months
ahead of its planned eighteen month agenda. Yesterday, Scott Kapoor,
who's the director of the Office of Personnel Management OPM,
is quoted as saying that those quote does not exist
close quote anymore and will no longer operate as a

(27:27):
centralized entity now copor. Subsequently, he clarified his remarks. All
he probably got some blowback from Trump or somebody in
the White House because he clarified his remarks by trying
to emphasize that the agency's mission is being taken up
by the Office of Personnel Management and its efforts decentralized
across the federal government. What the hell does that mean

(27:52):
being decentralized across the federal government. I'll explain next. You
said GJ was the second Commander in Chief of the
United States of America. That is not true. Is the
second commander in chief? Giants was the third? Yeah, you're right.

(28:15):
I don't know why I said that. Excuse me. Yeah,
it's a good catch. That was a very good catch.
So back to this whole lot Doze in Ice story.
It's a great example of how we can talk and
talk and talk and talk about getting things downsized in Washington,

(28:37):
d C. And it's never going to happen when they
say that they're going to decentralize those the Department of
Government Efficiency across the federal government. No, I mean, that
may be what they're doing, but those will no longer
continue to act as a centralized clearing house to really

(28:58):
have somebody, one person in charge. If I were to
ask you who's in charge of reducing the size of
the federal government, Well, it can be five hundred and
thirty five members of Congress because they can't they yeah,
I can't use that phrase, but they can't do squad.
The President of the United States, well, he's got a

(29:19):
few other things on this plate, so he can tell
them to go do stuff. So then it falls on
the cabinet secretaries. Well, they have a you know, they've
got a boatload of stuff to do too. Now when
the Director of Office of Personnel Management clarifies his remarks,
you know that m maybe he stepped in it. Here's

(29:39):
what he said or wrote on x formerly Twitter quote.
The truth is DOGE may not have centralized leadership under
US DOGE Service, but the principles of DOGE remain alive
and well. Deregulation, eliminating fraud, wasting abuse, reshaping the federal workforce,

(30:00):
making efficiency a first class citizen, et cetera, and any
ads quote those catalyze these changes. The agencies, along with
the US Office of Personnel Management and the Office of
Management and Budget, will institutionalize them with an exclamation point
means Oh, he's really serious and he's really excited, which

(30:21):
means to me, I think you're lying through your teeth. Now.
Those was originally established trying to maximize productivity, reduce wasteful spending,
and eliminate fraud in federal outlays in federal spending. Over
its ten month existence, the department reported terminating thirteen thousand,

(30:43):
four hundred and forty contracts, fifteen thousand, eight hundred eighty
seven grants, two hundred and sixty four leases. But I
would note those figures themselves were often inflated. For example,
there was one misrep presentation of an eight million dollar
contract as an eight billion dollar contract. Eh, you know

(31:06):
million billion? Who really cares? Now, let's go to Musk
for a moment. Who served as the frontman for those.
He initially predicted the department could save two trillion dollars.
He then later downsize. He revised his estimate downward to
one trillion dollars. By November of this year, those claimed

(31:28):
two hundred and fourteen billion dollars in savings. You know
what that is. That's the equivalent of one thousand, three
hundred and twenty nine dollars and nineteen cents per taxpayer. Yeah,
so they saved you thirteen hundred dollars, which you're not

(31:49):
going to see because they may have saved two. Let's
just save for a moment that they actually saved two
hundred fourteen billion dollars in savings while they're over here saving,
Congress and the other bureaucrats are over here increasing they're spending.
But then there was an independent analysis done. It found

(32:11):
that DOGE had overstated its savings by as much as
ninety seven percent in some cases, and analysis Publicis passed
August could only verify thirty two point seven billion of
the fifty two point eight billion in federal contracts that
the Musk led effort claims to have cut. It found

(32:32):
that the actual government savings were closer to a comparatively
paltry one point four billion dollars. I haven't done the calculations,
but that's probably we'll be spending about I don't know,
ten minutes or less. It was reported back in July
that DOJ's supposed drastic cuts the federal workforce amounted to

(32:52):
about one percent of the government. Now, that's a far
cry from what Musk had promised, because left those at
the end of May, citing the rule that did actually
limit his special government employee status to one hundred and
thirty days. He admitted that those did not live up
to his ambitions, stating quote, I think we've been effective,

(33:13):
but not as effective as i'd like. It's never going
to be as effective as you like, because you've always
got all these interests working against you. It's only going
to take probably, yeah, some sort of financial collapse to
actually reduce the size of the federal government. Yeah, in
that wonderful