July 3, 2024 • 30 mins
Peter Schweizer & Eric Eggers fill in for the vacationing Sean and they sit down with author Patrick K O'Donnell to talk about his new book, "The Unvanquished," and what independence should mean for Americans.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, It's Peter Schweizer. I'm here with Eric Eggers. We
are filling in for Sean. We run the Government Accountability Institute.
You can find out more about what we do at
GAI dot News. You can also join the conversation one
eight hundred nine four one seven three two six. That's
one eight hundred nine four one Sean. At the bottom
of the hour, we're going to be joined by an
esteemed historian, Patrick O'Donnell, who is going to be talking
(00:23):
about what we're going to be celebrating tomorrow, which is
America's independence and the military history. He's really America's best
combat historian. But before that, we have more breaking news
as we watch events unfold in Washington and in the
White House, the great soap opera which has become Will
Joe Biden be or not be the presidential nominee for
(00:46):
the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah. By the way, this was not what we expected
to be doing today, right.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We knew we'd be guest hosting for Sean Henny, but
we thought, man, it's going to be July third, It's
the Wednesday. You know, you guys listening to us across
the country, you're headed to wherever you're going to be
celebrating the long holiday weekend. We thought we'd you know,
celebrated this country and what we can be and what
we have been before. And that's what Patrick O'Donnell will
talk to us about. And then the debate happened like
that was less than a week ago. And then even
(01:11):
we're crazier than that was. Okay, Joe Biden had a
really bad night. We recognized that the media has lied
to us for the last several months, and nothing's a
cheap fake. It's actually just really who he is, and
you know, they've concealed it and covered it up.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And then immediately the media.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Just like ran and they totally flipped right all four
calling this and the New York Times the next day
said he's got to go.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, and then the op ed board came out and said, no, no,
we agree, this is bad.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
They shived him quick.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
They shived him quick.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And now you're starting to see actual elected officials follow suits.
So the breaking news just seconds ago a second member
of the House Democrat parties calling for Joe Biden to
drop out of the race. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas,
called for Joe Biden to drop out. A little while ago,
a second House Democrat from Arizona, Raoul Grivalia, has joined
(01:59):
other House Democrats, I mean joined just the one Lloyd
Doggett and calling for Joe Biden to withdraw. In an
interview with The New York Times, he said, quote, if
he's the candidate, I'm going to support him, but I
think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere. What
he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for
keeping that seat, I meaning the White House, and part
of that responsibility is to get out of this race.
So again, let's not act this is a normal thing,
(02:20):
that it's normal for other people to be calling for
the president to stop running for reelection. Right, although it
should be point out, as you pointed out, when Joe
Biden ran for election the first time, he said he's
only going to serve one term.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, that's right. Here's the other thing we have to
keep in mind. Everybody's saying Joe Biden is drawing a
line in the sand. He's staying he's drawn lines in
the sand before. He drew one to Vladimir Putin, who
stepped over it. I mean, the point is, Joe can
give a great line, and he can give a defiant statement,
but he doesn't seem to have the oomph to kind
(02:51):
of back it up. And I think that's what we
have to understand, is is all the atmospherics. You can
issue a great statement and a defiant statement. You can
get it on a phone call as he did with
Democrats today and say I'm staying. Nobody's going to push
me out, But it doesn't really matter if everybody sees
the Emperor has no clothes.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
He has said that he recognizes, and the New York
Times has reported this also in a conversation with an
Aid that he recognizes he has only days, I think
to convince the American people that he's capable of staying.
But as you've said to me and elsewhere, if he
really wants to convince the American people that he is
capable of staying and fighting and winning back their trust
and support, then he should be having a conversation with
(03:31):
the American people. Instead, he's doing the opposite, right, He's hiding.
He's showing up as he did yesterday, reading for a
few minutes off of a teleprompter, did it the day
before that too. But where is he I guess he's
going to give an interview with George Stephanopolis this weekend,
but that's still not talking to the American people.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I mean, think of it in these terms. If
an athlete tells you my knee is fine, and he
keeps issuing statements that his knee is fine, and his
agent says, no, his knee is great, and the team says, okay,
can you go out and run out on the field. No,
I'm not going to run on the field. My knees fine.
Nobody's gonna believe him. And that's what I think is
happening with the Democrats. Clearly, the momentum is moving against him,
(04:08):
and I don't think it's gonna change. I think that
he will be out of office, perhaps by the end
of this weekend. No, yes, yes, I think it's possible.
I think if they're gonna do this, they have to
do it quickly. The longer it lingers, the longer there
is this uncertainty, I should say that he's not going
to be the candidate by the end of the week.
I don't know that he's going to be out of office,
(04:28):
but I think if they're gonna cut bait, they're gonna
have to do it soon. The longer this linger, it
shows indecisiveness on his part. Is also shows that his
heir apparent, Kamala Harris, he doesn't have a lot of
confidence in her right, He's nervous about handing the keys
over to her as the Democratic Party nominee. So I
think if you're gonna do this, Democrats, you gotta do
(04:49):
it quickly.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
You don't think you can kind of hunker down with
the fourth of July just gets the more time to
lapse between the debate and then I hopefully, you know,
Donald Trump has to announce his vice presidential candidate or
other news breaks that sort of like people sort of
all right, well he's our guy, kind of, you know.
But I think this interview that is going to give
a Georgefanopolis seems like it carries a lot of weight.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Then it does, But again, I don't think it demonstrates
anything other than he's prepared to sit down in a
taped interview. And we have a history with George Stephanopolis.
You know, when when we exposed what the Clinton Foundation
was doing, he came aggressively after us never disclosed the
fact which we discovered later and reported that he was
(05:27):
actually a major Clinton Foundation donor. So I don't trust
George Stephanopolis to actually play fair with this. It's going
to be a taped, edited interview. The very fact that
that's what he's doing, it's not live, and it's with
probably the safest of the people he could interview with
in the mainstream media is a further indication. To use
the analogy, his knees not so good. He doesn't want
(05:50):
to go out there and really show everybody what he's
capable or not capable of doing.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Well.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
If George Sephanopolis is friendly, then the number of allies
Joe Biden have has in the media as rapidly diminishing,
because I mean it's not just the editors of the
New York Times and the columnists there. You said, the
Boston Globes now call it for him to drop out
of the race. And I think actually something that Nicole
Wallace said on MSNBC yesterday maybe helps reveal why. And
(06:15):
there's a lot of different aspects of this. There is
the fact that we've been you know, the president is
in this enfeebled state and the media has lied and
covered it up. We talked earlier in the show about
remember when the Special prosecutor her report came out, and
he says, listen, you know, I don't want to charge
this guy with a crime because he would just be
a very sympathetic defendant. And then everyone's like, oh, that's ridiculous,
(06:36):
you know, and they apologize. The New York Times rand
a thing about I think we're thinking about memory the
wrong way. I'm a neuroscience It's fine. We all forget,
like that's a real thing that happened. Yeah, and so,
but Nicole Wallace said that this, which I thought was
just stunning on a number of things. But listen to
what the conversations allegedly per Nicole Wallace, who by the way,
(06:57):
was a former Republican and a former remember like the
Bush White House, this is.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
What they're actually worried about.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Look at it just doesn't know Yeah, exactly, Mark Elias.
We should pull the curtain back on what's actually happening,
shouldn't we. People are exploring options to live in other
countries if they think they could be targeted for prosecution
by Donald Trump, because targeting you, or targeting me, or
targeting Andrew would be an official act based on today's decision.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I tell you what if it was a store, Nicole
Wallace would be the national spokesman for narcissists r us
as if she thinks that that people are going to
be targeting her because she's this major force in America
that people there are only certain people that are being
prosecuted in the country, I would argue for their political views,
(07:46):
and it's not Liberal Democrats under Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I mean that was in relation to the Supreme Court
announcement that there is going to be some level of
immunity for Donald Trump as official acts as president. But
the fact that those I think that she annuinely believes that,
and I think that members of the media probably genuinely
do fear retribution from a Trump presidency because of I guess,
whatever they've done towards him. But number one, that seems
(08:13):
actually incredibly that narcissistic, and I think you have a
very inflated since of yourself if you think that they're
going to go after MSNBC reporters. Secondly, by the way,
Donald Trump is the one that has not chosen to
go after political opponents.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Remember that the crowds were chanting lock her up when
Hillary Clinton was potentially guilty of some of the things
that they never charged her for. But then what happened
four years later, they actually did come after Donald Trump,
and he's been indicted on a number of charges now.
And oh, by the way, one of the prosecutors, Fanny
Willison Atlanta, who's brought charges against him, was at the
White House correspondence dinner on the red carpet, like she's
(08:48):
a celebrity for doing what exactly, prosecuting the political opponent.
So it just speaks to the hypocrisy of what these
people are capable of. But I think it's to the
media's point. Number one, they have actual Trump derangement syndrome.
They think Donald Trump is this exsidential threat to democracy.
But I think that clip reveals they actually think that
(09:08):
he's a threat of their own personal freedoms.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yes, no, he does, and they do. And you're exactly right.
And you know, this point that they are making, and
that the Democrats keep pounding out that what the Supreme
Court has said is now a president can do anything
and they can't be prosecuted, is totally ridiculous. I mean,
it's total scare mongering, and they know it. I mean,
it's not an official act to kill a NBC News anchor,
(09:32):
it's not that's criminal. The president has certain official acts
and if they engage in those acts and things go awry,
they can't be prosecuted. For example, President Barack Obama droned
and killed American citizens in the Middle East. The point
is he did that as an official act protecting the
United States as commander in chief. The point is, you
(09:56):
can't have a prosecutor in Texas or Alabama say I'm
going to charge Barack Obama with murder because he killed
this American and a drone strike. Similar situation with Joe Biden.
Joe Biden engaged in a drone strike not too long ago,
thought he was killing a terrorist leader. They ended up
killing a family, including several young children. Tragic. Again, Joe
(10:18):
Biden should not be criminally prosecuted for doing that. He
was engaged in his official duties as president. Nobody believes,
nobody recognizes the official duties of the president is to
send a seal team and kill his political opponents. It's
to me evidence of how so many people you can
have a principled opposition to Donald Trump and absolutely but
(10:40):
they've lost their minds. This is not a principled opposition.
This is panic spreading panic, and this is mongering in
fear that has no basis in reality.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I'll tell you what it is. It's delicious. It is terrific.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I mean seriously, right, I mean, because you're told all
these things about how bad consider how bad Donald Trump is,
and how it's so ridiculous to assume that Joe Biden
is any of these cognitivity declined aspects that we've heard
these drips and drabs.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's a cheap fake.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And then for it to have the rug pulled out
from underneath them and then to see them absolutely lose
their mind. Is it's enjoyable on a level that's probably
not appropriate to talk about on national radio.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah. No, I think you're right about that. And look,
I would love to if I encountered any of these
people at a cocktail party. And I don't really go
to cocktail parties. It's not my thing. I'm happy where
I am down in Florida. But if I did, I
would love to extend a hand and say, I will
bet you ten thousand dollars if Donald Trump is president,
that you're not in a prison camp after year four?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
How many of them at least not because of Donald
Trump exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
But how many of them do you think would actually
take that that. None of them would because they know
it's garbage. They know it's not true, and that's what's
so sad and disingenuous about it. The same way we
played the clip earlier that Joe Scarborough went on his
ramp that this is the best version of Joe Biden
ever is totally disingenuous. They're doing the same thing here.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
No, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
You know that Norm MacDonald, the comedian, used to have
a joke that he would say when they talk about
Bill Cosby when he was facing all of his charges,
some people say, I'll tell you what the worst part
about Bill Cosby is, it's the hypocrisy, and Norm McDonalds like,
I actually think it's the drugging and the assault. You know,
it's not the hypocrisy. And I would say, yeah, the
hypocrisy is bad and the media, But what's actually bad
(12:28):
is the threat to national security in the fact that
the president of the United States, that the commander in
chief is this person, and we've been lied to at
every stage about it. Yeah, it just speaks to a
total lack of respect for the American people.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, and I'll give you another example of something that
Joe Biden lied about, and this is something that we've
looked into it. During the debate, Joe Biden touted the
fact that he had passed an act, the Packed Act,
that was going to let veterans be reimbursed, be reimbursed
from the government because the government lied to them when
(13:00):
they were at Camp La June said the water was
fine to drink, it was actually poisonous. And a lot
of people that served our country and their family suffered immensely.
They got cancer, they got all kinds of illnesses. And
this Pack Act allowed for the first time Americans to
file claims against the federal government. And Joe Biden has
touted this repeatedly is a great victory for veterans. Well,
(13:22):
we looked into this at the Government Accountability in so
you can find the report at GAI dot News. And
guess what the big winners in this are not the
veterans who suffered. They actually got victimized. The second time.
This Act actually stripped from the legislation any caps on
legal fees for trial attorneys. Originally, the bill was going
(13:44):
to say you could only get twenty five percent. That's
all you could charge for legal fees. That was stripped
out by Nancy Pelosi in the House. Some Republicans in
the Senate got in on it as well, their buddies
with the trial attorneys. And now you have Joe Biden
signing the bill. And guess what. Our Department of Justice,
with Merrick Garland, has done nothing to deal with this issue.
It's an absolute tragedy and another lie by Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's among the things that we continue to try to
focus on at the Government Accountability Institute and the Drill
One Podcast. He's Peter Schweizer, I'm Marik Eggers. We're happy
to talk to you. Take your calls. Next eight hundred
nine for one seven three two six. We're filling in
for Sean Handy show back after this.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
This is Peter Schweitzer. I'm here with Eric Eggers. We
are from the Government Accountability Institute. We are filling in
for Sean. Let's go to Christy in Many Minneapolis. Christie,
are you there, Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I am. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Go ahead, I'm going to talk fast. Thank you for
taking my call. I'm going to talk fast. Hang up
and listen. Okay, if Biden's sharp, strong, and resolute, then
he must be prosecuted for the mishandling of classified documents.
We need to keep calling out the double standard and
tell them they can't have it both ways. And in
regards to the second debate, Trump needs to not let
(14:59):
Joe Biden weasel out of it, and when he gets
on stage with him, stay on points, not repeat himself,
call out the hypocrisy, and ask Biden questions we all
know the answer to, so Biden's lies will be clear.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
That's an excellent point, Christy, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
It's ironic that Joe Biden's get out of jail free
card might actually be his political end of the career card.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
This is kind of what happened to Hunter Biden. Remember
on the whole drug thing. He used the drugs as
an excuse for a lot of his misbehavior and ended
up hurting him on this gun application case.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It's just another example of the Biden hypocrisy. It's one
of the stains on this country. But when we come back,
we're going to be reminded as we approach this fourth
of July weekend of the things that have continued to
make this country great he's Peter Schweiser, Americ Eggers, thank
you for spending the last day before the fourth of
July with us on the Sean Handy Show.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Actually it's not Sean Hannity. It's Peter Schweitzer. And I'm
here with Eric Eggers, and we are filling in for
Sean and we are grateful for the opportunity to do so.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And Alec Baldwin loves you. I think you're his favorite
conservative author.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Do you think so well?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Just because you haven't? You know, you know he's got
bigger problems to wear about right now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I think he absolutely does. We have a great guest
on the line right now. He's actually a dear friend
of mine. He's really America's premier combat historian, Patrick K. O'Donnell.
He's written a bunch of books, and I have to say, honestly,
I don't read a lot of history, not because I
don't love it. I love to read it. The problem
is I don't have the time because it's been so
much time researching, doing the work on my books. But
(16:26):
I read Pat because his writing is terrific. He's got
a new book out called The Unvanquished, The Untold Story
of Lincoln Special Forces, the manhunt for Mosby's Rangers, and
the Shadow War that forged America's Special operations. And by
the way, he's not just a writer like me. This
is a guy who actually, during the Iraq War was
embedded with the military and actually fought with a Marine
(16:48):
rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah. So this is
a guy who has seen combat. And I wanted to
have Pat on today because we know there's all this
news going on. It's kind of unsettling and disconc but
we are celebrating America's independence tomorrow and I thought Pat
would be a great guy that could help us bridge
and understand what independence means. We declared our independence in
(17:12):
seventeen seventy six, but we're kind of fighting for our
independence every single day, and there's a lot of brave
men and women who have done so over the centuries.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
So and the fact that you and I can sit
here and host the national radio show and be openly
critical of the President of the United States and the
media establishment around it, you can't do that in other countries.
So we continue to enjoy freedoms that the rest of
the world envies dramatically, And I think it's good to
be reminded of how those freedoms war won.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And Patrick o'donod think is an excellent person to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, so, Pat, it's great to be on with you.
Tell us about the fourth of July through the prism
of what you study, which is combat American history and
the heroes that have done so much to preserve and
protect this country.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Absolutely, freedom isn't free. And you know, let me just
take you back in time, the listeners back in time
to the fourth of July of eighteen sixty four, where
this is our second founding the Civil War. It's the
Great Civil War, and it's at this time that America,
the North, the Union is really of its greatest peril
(18:18):
in the war. And it's an unknown, relatively unknown special
operations rate that involves the guy by name of Jebel
Early Leaves, bad old man, and he has an army
of fourteen thousand men that are barreling down on the
nation's capital. And I have a great article right now
at the front page of Breibart on that raid and
(18:39):
also his interactions with the guy by the name of
John Singleton Mosby, who is the greatest partisan leader of
all time. In American history, and these two they don't
really work together very well, but they're about to probably
take down the capitol, and the North is in desperate shape.
Most of the men that are in the war are
down south in Petersburg encircling that that siege with General
(19:04):
Grant in the the North's capitol is completely picked clean.
And it's it's at that moment that Lincoln is panicking
and the army is is slowed down by a guy
by the name of Lou Wallace. General Lou Wallace, who
is the future author of Ben hur you know, has
(19:24):
a delaying action at the Battle of Monocacy right outside
of Frederick, Maryland, which is one of the most important
small units actions of in history. That that flows this
juggernaut down just hours. And then he's literally, you know,
watching his watch as the hours tick by, because he
(19:44):
knows that every hour that he, you know, delays, early
reinforcements can hopefully arrive in the nation's capital. And you know,
it's it's a desperate thing. And then there's this It's
really fascinating because there's a massive prisoner of war camp
in Point Lookout, Maryland, and part of this mission is
to free these guys as well, and that doesn't go
(20:07):
off quite as well because an element of this book
is also a part of what's known as the Confederate
Secret Service. And this is a shadowy organization that is,
you know, doing the stuff that we hear today peter
election interference, ballot fraud, influencing the press operations. The stuff
is one hundred years ahead of its time, and you know,
(20:30):
it's remarkable, and you know they slow them down just enough,
but not enough. I mean, my great great great uncle
is part of the one hundred and fifty of Ohio
and he's thrown out in front of Early's army to
slow it down. And it's here that the President of
the United States are a sitting president the first time
(20:53):
is under fire. He's at then a parapet on in
Fort Stevens, which is located on now present day Georgia Avenue,
and Army, the jubil Early's Army is barreling down and
you know, literally as the minutes tick by, the sixth
Corps is jumping off gameboats at the Washington Navy Yard
(21:15):
in marching to the rescue. And this book is about
these men, but also an untold story called the Jesse Scouts,
which is really an epic tale of Union Scouts that
dresses Confederates that literally change the course of a civil
war through their actions. The book about agency and you
know people that are just regular Americans that are brought
(21:40):
into the fold and do extraordinary things. Fifty or one
hundred of these Jesse Scouts literally change the course of
the war through their actions, and most of them never
come home. Seven Medals of Honor, and most of these
men die in Mexico in our first proxy war against
the European power.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
It's a good reminder of who we can be as
a country when you think about who we have been.
And I think, especially in this hyper instantaneous media environment,
we're all kind of prisoners of the moment or the
temptation can be for usd to be that. And I
love talking to a historian who reminds us actually, you know,
we've been here before. We're now looking at the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago. There's been other contested Democratic conventions
(22:23):
in nineteen sixty eight, but ironically, and you talk about
this in your book too, there's another Democratic convention in
eighteen sixty four that maybe can even help inform part
of what we might be experiencing now.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
The summer of eighteen sixty four in the summer of
two thousand and four is eerily similar on a number
of tracks. In that election of eighteen sixty four is
arguably the most important election in American history, as is
the forthcoming the upcoming election that we're now facing. And
it's then that the Democrat Party is. It's fascinating because
(22:59):
it's in influence, the rising influence in the party. The
most powerful element is a peace movement known as Copperheads.
And this movement is, as I bring out in the book,
is influenced directly by the Confederate Secret Service. The story
of the Secret Service is fascinating. Jefferson Davis in the
(23:23):
spring of eighteen sixty four sends his peace emissaries as
they're called, but these are actually Confederate Secret Service agents
up to Montreal with two million dollars in gold to
buy influence. And it's everything from foreign powers overseas that
it's also the Democratic Party, and it's his men that
(23:43):
help that are literally pulling the strings of the leader
of the peace movement or the Copperhead movement, a guy
named mc clement laired Balandium who's an Ohio congressman that
betrayed the cause and literally was exiled to Canada by
and he's an active The Secret Service pulls off its
(24:04):
greatest cue by helping him write the campaign platform for
eighteen sixty four, which is an armistice to basically end
the war. And these men know that if you have
an armistice, it's almost impossible to restart the war. Within
that was also the continuation of slavery, and it would
have meant the continuation of the independence of the South.
(24:27):
And there's all of these things that the Secret Service
is doing in these influence operations to influence the election.
They're applying governors that are friendly to Illinois to the
Democratic Party to buy them off to basically influence them.
They're also have these incredible influence operations with the press
(24:48):
to spend tens of thousands of dollars for the Democracy
that's what they called themselves at the time, the Democratic Party,
which then at that time had comple leap control of
the Northern or most of the Northern press, and they
started to basically pump out articles that were very negative
(25:10):
about President Lincoln and also the war, the Forever War
that could never be one was always the sort of mantra,
and it was working because at this time, in eighteen
sixty four, there were hundreds of thousands of Union desertions,
the armies were going nowhere, and it looked like the
war would not be won. And it's important to remember
(25:31):
if you look at modern counterinsurgencies to this day, it's
almost impossible to beat them if they have the support
of the population. The South had complete, almost complete support
from its population, and they didn't have to win the war.
They had to merely survive, and that was the That
was the position that they were in in the summer
(25:52):
of eighteen sixty four. Lincoln sees it and he says
to his cabinet, you think I'm going to be beating
I'm going to be beat badly. And he does something
that's really extraordinary. He still has the election and signed
something called the Blind Memorandum, where he takes a letter
that says that he will support whoever the candidate is,
even if he loses, puts it in an envelope, doesn't
(26:14):
tell his his cabinet what he's got in the envelope,
but makes them all sign it, which is an extraordinary
act of democracy.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's an amazing story. I've read that in the book.
It's a fantastic book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Again,
as I said, I don't read a lot of history
just because I don't have the time. But I read
Patrick O'Donnell his new book The Unvanquished, the untold story
of Lincoln's Special Forces that manhunt for Mosby's Rangers and
the shadow war that forged America's special operations. It will
(26:45):
give you hope because it shows the kind of battles
that we fought before and that we won, and it
gives an indication of the struggles that America is going
to have perhaps going forward, but that we need to
be prepared and that they're honorable people up prepared to
do it. Pat, I appreciate all the great work that
you do. Thank you for doing it, for chronicling these
(27:06):
historic battles, and I wish you the best Independence Day tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Thank you Peter for having me on People can find
me at Combat Historian on Twitter or Rex Forgetter.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
It's a great story and it's a great time to
be reminded as we do approach this Fourth of July holiday,
of the best things this Country stands for.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Thank you for all of you that are joining us.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
We know that true patriots out there still care and
they're still fighting just like we are. And we will
wrap up our last segment on this program filling for
Sean Handy with you taking your call the next eight
hundred and nine to four one Shawn, Peter Swizer, Eric
Eggers saying goodbye.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Next on the Sean Handy Show.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
It's Peter Schweitzer. I'm here with my good friend Eric Egers.
We're filling in for Sean. Are having a blast doing
so let's go to Lawrence in Kentucky. Lawrence go ahead.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Hey guys, great great show today, no drop off at all.
And Sean better not stay away too long because you
guys they're awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Well, you're very sweet, thank you.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
I just wanted to make the point that Joe's not
going to go. He should go, he should already be gone,
but he's not going to go. And here's why I
believe he won't go. The only thing that he was
able to communicate and demonstrate during that debate is his
personal hatred and dislike for Donald Trump and the moment
that he leaves office. Him and Jill will no longer
(28:24):
be able to control that narrative that they have tried
to control for four years now. And I don't think
that he can conceive of losing to Donald Trump and
going out of office early, and that personal hatred will
be his undoing, his administration's undoing. That's underthing. But he
will not go. He can't go because once he goes,
(28:47):
he can't control anything. So that that's my point. I'll
let you guys talk.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Thank you, Lawrence.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
I think you're exactly right, by the way, and not
just about us being awesome, although you know clearly everyone
has heard it today. But what I would say is
I think the other and why he's not going to
go is because this is what the Bidens do for money. Yes, right,
It's not like Frank Biden's beating back legitimate business interest,
and neither is James and Hunter hasn't sold a piece
of art in a while, so this is what they do, right,
(29:14):
And the business model has always relied on Joe, And
so it's when you relinquish, you're not just relinquishing the presidency,
you're relinquishing your career and your family's wealth moving forward.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You are I mean, it's like you know, the Biden Inc.
In business since nineteen seventy two. Yeah, this is what
they've done, and they don't have anything else to sell.
So we're on the eve of the fourth of July.
I want to turn to something more positive, and that
is fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays.
Christmas and fourth of July. I love it that way
(29:46):
I am, but I just love it and I'm so
grateful to live in this country. What are you guys doing.
You've got young kids. I know you guys are traveling
a little bit. What are you guys doing to celebrate
the Fourth of July and anything particular with the kids.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
We're going to do something that I thought. I will
say this. You know you like to make predictions. I
will make a prediction. I don't think we're going to
always be able to celebrate the Fourth of Jly with fireworks.
One of the stories we didn't have a chance to
get to is there are some cities, because of environmental concerns,
you can't even do fireworks anymore. So we're going somewhere
we do live in the Freestate of Florida. We're gonna
watch fireworks good and you know, and celebrate the freedoms,
(30:20):
and again I don't take lightly that you and I
can sit here and raise I think legitimate questions about
what the President United States has done and the way
that they've lied the American people, But that is still
a freedom we enjoy in this country, and I think
that is among the things that make this country the
greatest one.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Absolutely, God bless America. I mean that sincerely, and thank
you everybody for taking the time to listen to us,
and thank you for Sean and for Linda to turn
over the microphone to us. We appreciate it. Had a
lot of fun, little anxious at the beginning, but have
really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
And thank you to Eric and Jason who have helped
produce this program, and thank you for helping us make
helping allowing us to be part of your for there's
alli getting God blessed America, and thank you guys very much.
Hi, It's Peter Schweizer. I'm here with Eric Eggers. We
are filling in for Sean. We run the Government Accountability Institute.
You can find out more about what we do at
GAI dot News. You can also join the conversation one
eight hundred nine four one seven three two six. That's
one eight hundred nine four one Sean. At the bottom
of the hour, we're going to be joined by an
esteemed historian, Patrick O'Donnell, who is going to be talking
(00:23):
about what we're going to be celebrating tomorrow, which is
America's independence and the military history. He's really America's best
combat historian. But before that, we have more breaking news
as we watch events unfold in Washington and in the
White House, the great soap opera which has become Will
Joe Biden be or not be the presidential nominee for
(00:46):
the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah. By the way, this was not what we expected
to be doing today, right.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
We knew we'd be guest hosting for Sean Henny, but
we thought, man, it's going to be July third, It's
the Wednesday. You know, you guys listening to us across
the country, you're headed to wherever you're going to be
celebrating the long holiday weekend. We thought we'd you know,
celebrated this country and what we can be and what
we have been before. And that's what Patrick O'Donnell will
talk to us about. And then the debate happened like
that was less than a week ago. And then even
(01:11):
we're crazier than that was. Okay, Joe Biden had a
really bad night. We recognized that the media has lied
to us for the last several months, and nothing's a
cheap fake. It's actually just really who he is, and
you know, they've concealed it and covered it up.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
And then immediately the media.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Just like ran and they totally flipped right all four
calling this and the New York Times the next day
said he's got to go.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, and then the op ed board came out and said, no, no,
we agree, this is bad.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
They shived him quick.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
They shived him quick.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And now you're starting to see actual elected officials follow suits.
So the breaking news just seconds ago a second member
of the House Democrat parties calling for Joe Biden to
drop out of the race. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas,
called for Joe Biden to drop out. A little while ago,
a second House Democrat from Arizona, Raoul Grivalia, has joined
(01:59):
other House Democrats, I mean joined just the one Lloyd
Doggett and calling for Joe Biden to withdraw. In an
interview with The New York Times, he said, quote, if
he's the candidate, I'm going to support him, but I
think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere. What
he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for
keeping that seat, I meaning the White House, and part
of that responsibility is to get out of this race.
So again, let's not act this is a normal thing,
(02:20):
that it's normal for other people to be calling for
the president to stop running for reelection. Right, although it
should be point out, as you pointed out, when Joe
Biden ran for election the first time, he said he's
only going to serve one term.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, that's right. Here's the other thing we have to
keep in mind. Everybody's saying Joe Biden is drawing a
line in the sand. He's staying he's drawn lines in
the sand before. He drew one to Vladimir Putin, who
stepped over it. I mean, the point is, Joe can
give a great line, and he can give a defiant statement,
but he doesn't seem to have the oomph to kind
(02:51):
of back it up. And I think that's what we
have to understand, is is all the atmospherics. You can
issue a great statement and a defiant statement. You can
get it on a phone call as he did with
Democrats today and say I'm staying. Nobody's going to push
me out, But it doesn't really matter if everybody sees
the Emperor has no clothes.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
He has said that he recognizes, and the New York
Times has reported this also in a conversation with an
Aid that he recognizes he has only days, I think
to convince the American people that he's capable of staying.
But as you've said to me and elsewhere, if he
really wants to convince the American people that he is
capable of staying and fighting and winning back their trust
and support, then he should be having a conversation with
(03:31):
the American people. Instead, he's doing the opposite, right, He's hiding.
He's showing up as he did yesterday, reading for a
few minutes off of a teleprompter, did it the day
before that too. But where is he I guess he's
going to give an interview with George Stephanopolis this weekend,
but that's still not talking to the American people.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I mean, think of it in these terms. If
an athlete tells you my knee is fine, and he
keeps issuing statements that his knee is fine, and his
agent says, no, his knee is great, and the team says, okay,
can you go out and run out on the field. No,
I'm not going to run on the field. My knees fine.
Nobody's gonna believe him. And that's what I think is
happening with the Democrats. Clearly, the momentum is moving against him,
(04:08):
and I don't think it's gonna change. I think that
he will be out of office, perhaps by the end
of this weekend. No, yes, yes, I think it's possible.
I think if they're gonna do this, they have to
do it quickly. The longer it lingers, the longer there
is this uncertainty, I should say that he's not going
to be the candidate by the end of the week.
I don't know that he's going to be out of office,
(04:28):
but I think if they're gonna cut bait, they're gonna
have to do it soon. The longer this linger, it
shows indecisiveness on his part. Is also shows that his
heir apparent, Kamala Harris, he doesn't have a lot of
confidence in her right, He's nervous about handing the keys
over to her as the Democratic Party nominee. So I
think if you're gonna do this, Democrats, you gotta do
(04:49):
it quickly.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
You don't think you can kind of hunker down with
the fourth of July just gets the more time to
lapse between the debate and then I hopefully, you know,
Donald Trump has to announce his vice presidential candidate or
other news breaks that sort of like people sort of
all right, well he's our guy, kind of, you know.
But I think this interview that is going to give
a Georgefanopolis seems like it carries a lot of weight.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Then it does, But again, I don't think it demonstrates
anything other than he's prepared to sit down in a
taped interview. And we have a history with George Stephanopolis.
You know, when when we exposed what the Clinton Foundation
was doing, he came aggressively after us never disclosed the
fact which we discovered later and reported that he was
(05:27):
actually a major Clinton Foundation donor. So I don't trust
George Stephanopolis to actually play fair with this. It's going
to be a taped, edited interview. The very fact that
that's what he's doing, it's not live, and it's with
probably the safest of the people he could interview with
in the mainstream media is a further indication. To use
the analogy, his knees not so good. He doesn't want
(05:50):
to go out there and really show everybody what he's
capable or not capable of doing.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Well.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
If George Sephanopolis is friendly, then the number of allies
Joe Biden have has in the media as rapidly diminishing,
because I mean it's not just the editors of the
New York Times and the columnists there. You said, the
Boston Globes now call it for him to drop out
of the race. And I think actually something that Nicole
Wallace said on MSNBC yesterday maybe helps reveal why. And
(06:15):
there's a lot of different aspects of this. There is
the fact that we've been you know, the president is
in this enfeebled state and the media has lied and
covered it up. We talked earlier in the show about
remember when the Special prosecutor her report came out, and
he says, listen, you know, I don't want to charge
this guy with a crime because he would just be
a very sympathetic defendant. And then everyone's like, oh, that's ridiculous,
(06:36):
you know, and they apologize. The New York Times rand
a thing about I think we're thinking about memory the
wrong way. I'm a neuroscience It's fine. We all forget,
like that's a real thing that happened. Yeah, and so,
but Nicole Wallace said that this, which I thought was
just stunning on a number of things. But listen to
what the conversations allegedly per Nicole Wallace, who by the way,
(06:57):
was a former Republican and a former remember like the
Bush White House, this is.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
What they're actually worried about.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Look at it just doesn't know Yeah, exactly, Mark Elias.
We should pull the curtain back on what's actually happening,
shouldn't we. People are exploring options to live in other
countries if they think they could be targeted for prosecution
by Donald Trump, because targeting you, or targeting me, or
targeting Andrew would be an official act based on today's decision.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I tell you what if it was a store, Nicole
Wallace would be the national spokesman for narcissists r us
as if she thinks that that people are going to
be targeting her because she's this major force in America
that people there are only certain people that are being
prosecuted in the country, I would argue for their political views,
(07:46):
and it's not Liberal Democrats under Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
I mean that was in relation to the Supreme Court
announcement that there is going to be some level of
immunity for Donald Trump as official acts as president. But
the fact that those I think that she annuinely believes that,
and I think that members of the media probably genuinely
do fear retribution from a Trump presidency because of I guess,
whatever they've done towards him. But number one, that seems
(08:13):
actually incredibly that narcissistic, and I think you have a
very inflated since of yourself if you think that they're
going to go after MSNBC reporters. Secondly, by the way,
Donald Trump is the one that has not chosen to
go after political opponents.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Remember that the crowds were chanting lock her up when
Hillary Clinton was potentially guilty of some of the things
that they never charged her for. But then what happened
four years later, they actually did come after Donald Trump,
and he's been indicted on a number of charges now.
And oh, by the way, one of the prosecutors, Fanny
Willison Atlanta, who's brought charges against him, was at the
White House correspondence dinner on the red carpet, like she's
(08:48):
a celebrity for doing what exactly, prosecuting the political opponent.
So it just speaks to the hypocrisy of what these
people are capable of. But I think it's to the
media's point. Number one, they have actual Trump derangement syndrome.
They think Donald Trump is this exsidential threat to democracy.
But I think that clip reveals they actually think that
(09:08):
he's a threat of their own personal freedoms.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yes, no, he does, and they do. And you're exactly right.
And you know, this point that they are making, and
that the Democrats keep pounding out that what the Supreme
Court has said is now a president can do anything
and they can't be prosecuted, is totally ridiculous. I mean,
it's total scare mongering, and they know it. I mean,
it's not an official act to kill a NBC News anchor,
(09:32):
it's not that's criminal. The president has certain official acts
and if they engage in those acts and things go awry,
they can't be prosecuted. For example, President Barack Obama droned
and killed American citizens in the Middle East. The point
is he did that as an official act protecting the
United States as commander in chief. The point is, you
(09:56):
can't have a prosecutor in Texas or Alabama say I'm
going to charge Barack Obama with murder because he killed
this American and a drone strike. Similar situation with Joe Biden.
Joe Biden engaged in a drone strike not too long ago,
thought he was killing a terrorist leader. They ended up
killing a family, including several young children. Tragic. Again, Joe
(10:18):
Biden should not be criminally prosecuted for doing that. He
was engaged in his official duties as president. Nobody believes,
nobody recognizes the official duties of the president is to
send a seal team and kill his political opponents. It's
to me evidence of how so many people you can
have a principled opposition to Donald Trump and absolutely but
(10:40):
they've lost their minds. This is not a principled opposition.
This is panic spreading panic, and this is mongering in
fear that has no basis in reality.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I'll tell you what it is. It's delicious. It is terrific.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I mean seriously, right, I mean, because you're told all
these things about how bad consider how bad Donald Trump is,
and how it's so ridiculous to assume that Joe Biden
is any of these cognitivity declined aspects that we've heard
these drips and drabs.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's a cheap fake.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And then for it to have the rug pulled out
from underneath them and then to see them absolutely lose
their mind. Is it's enjoyable on a level that's probably
not appropriate to talk about on national radio.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah. No, I think you're right about that. And look,
I would love to if I encountered any of these
people at a cocktail party. And I don't really go
to cocktail parties. It's not my thing. I'm happy where
I am down in Florida. But if I did, I
would love to extend a hand and say, I will
bet you ten thousand dollars if Donald Trump is president,
that you're not in a prison camp after year four?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
How many of them at least not because of Donald
Trump exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
But how many of them do you think would actually
take that that. None of them would because they know
it's garbage. They know it's not true, and that's what's
so sad and disingenuous about it. The same way we
played the clip earlier that Joe Scarborough went on his
ramp that this is the best version of Joe Biden
ever is totally disingenuous. They're doing the same thing here.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
No, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
You know that Norm MacDonald, the comedian, used to have
a joke that he would say when they talk about
Bill Cosby when he was facing all of his charges,
some people say, I'll tell you what the worst part
about Bill Cosby is, it's the hypocrisy, and Norm McDonalds like,
I actually think it's the drugging and the assault. You know,
it's not the hypocrisy. And I would say, yeah, the
hypocrisy is bad and the media, But what's actually bad
(12:28):
is the threat to national security in the fact that
the president of the United States, that the commander in
chief is this person, and we've been lied to at
every stage about it. Yeah, it just speaks to a
total lack of respect for the American people.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, and I'll give you another example of something that
Joe Biden lied about, and this is something that we've
looked into it. During the debate, Joe Biden touted the
fact that he had passed an act, the Packed Act,
that was going to let veterans be reimbursed, be reimbursed
from the government because the government lied to them when
(13:00):
they were at Camp La June said the water was
fine to drink, it was actually poisonous. And a lot
of people that served our country and their family suffered immensely.
They got cancer, they got all kinds of illnesses. And
this Pack Act allowed for the first time Americans to
file claims against the federal government. And Joe Biden has
touted this repeatedly is a great victory for veterans. Well,
(13:22):
we looked into this at the Government Accountability in so
you can find the report at GAI dot News. And
guess what the big winners in this are not the
veterans who suffered. They actually got victimized. The second time.
This Act actually stripped from the legislation any caps on
legal fees for trial attorneys. Originally, the bill was going
(13:44):
to say you could only get twenty five percent. That's
all you could charge for legal fees. That was stripped
out by Nancy Pelosi in the House. Some Republicans in
the Senate got in on it as well, their buddies
with the trial attorneys. And now you have Joe Biden
signing the bill. And guess what. Our Department of Justice,
with Merrick Garland, has done nothing to deal with this issue.
It's an absolute tragedy and another lie by Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's among the things that we continue to try to
focus on at the Government Accountability Institute and the Drill
One Podcast. He's Peter Schweizer, I'm Marik Eggers. We're happy
to talk to you. Take your calls. Next eight hundred
nine for one seven three two six. We're filling in
for Sean Handy show back after this.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
This is Peter Schweitzer. I'm here with Eric Eggers. We
are from the Government Accountability Institute. We are filling in
for Sean. Let's go to Christy in Many Minneapolis. Christie,
are you there, Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I am. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Go ahead, I'm going to talk fast. Thank you for
taking my call. I'm going to talk fast. Hang up
and listen. Okay, if Biden's sharp, strong, and resolute, then
he must be prosecuted for the mishandling of classified documents.
We need to keep calling out the double standard and
tell them they can't have it both ways. And in
regards to the second debate, Trump needs to not let
(14:59):
Joe Biden weasel out of it, and when he gets
on stage with him, stay on points, not repeat himself,
call out the hypocrisy, and ask Biden questions we all
know the answer to, so Biden's lies will be clear.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
That's an excellent point, Christy, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
It's ironic that Joe Biden's get out of jail free
card might actually be his political end of the career card.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
This is kind of what happened to Hunter Biden. Remember
on the whole drug thing. He used the drugs as
an excuse for a lot of his misbehavior and ended
up hurting him on this gun application case.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It's just another example of the Biden hypocrisy. It's one
of the stains on this country. But when we come back,
we're going to be reminded as we approach this fourth
of July weekend of the things that have continued to
make this country great he's Peter Schweiser, Americ Eggers, thank
you for spending the last day before the fourth of
July with us on the Sean Handy Show.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Actually it's not Sean Hannity. It's Peter Schweitzer. And I'm
here with Eric Eggers, and we are filling in for
Sean and we are grateful for the opportunity to do so.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And Alec Baldwin loves you. I think you're his favorite
conservative author.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Do you think so well?
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Just because you haven't? You know, you know he's got
bigger problems to wear about right now.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
I think he absolutely does. We have a great guest
on the line right now. He's actually a dear friend
of mine. He's really America's premier combat historian, Patrick K. O'Donnell.
He's written a bunch of books, and I have to say, honestly,
I don't read a lot of history, not because I
don't love it. I love to read it. The problem
is I don't have the time because it's been so
much time researching, doing the work on my books. But
(16:26):
I read Pat because his writing is terrific. He's got
a new book out called The Unvanquished, The Untold Story
of Lincoln Special Forces, the manhunt for Mosby's Rangers, and
the Shadow War that forged America's Special operations. And by
the way, he's not just a writer like me. This
is a guy who actually, during the Iraq War was
embedded with the military and actually fought with a Marine
(16:48):
rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah. So this is
a guy who has seen combat. And I wanted to
have Pat on today because we know there's all this
news going on. It's kind of unsettling and disconc but
we are celebrating America's independence tomorrow and I thought Pat
would be a great guy that could help us bridge
and understand what independence means. We declared our independence in
(17:12):
seventeen seventy six, but we're kind of fighting for our
independence every single day, and there's a lot of brave
men and women who have done so over the centuries.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
So and the fact that you and I can sit
here and host the national radio show and be openly
critical of the President of the United States and the
media establishment around it, you can't do that in other countries.
So we continue to enjoy freedoms that the rest of
the world envies dramatically, And I think it's good to
be reminded of how those freedoms war won.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And Patrick o'donod think is an excellent person to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, so, Pat, it's great to be on with you.
Tell us about the fourth of July through the prism
of what you study, which is combat American history and
the heroes that have done so much to preserve and
protect this country.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
Absolutely, freedom isn't free. And you know, let me just
take you back in time, the listeners back in time
to the fourth of July of eighteen sixty four, where
this is our second founding the Civil War. It's the
Great Civil War, and it's at this time that America,
the North, the Union is really of its greatest peril
(18:18):
in the war. And it's an unknown, relatively unknown special
operations rate that involves the guy by name of Jebel
Early Leaves, bad old man, and he has an army
of fourteen thousand men that are barreling down on the
nation's capital. And I have a great article right now
at the front page of Breibart on that raid and
(18:39):
also his interactions with the guy by the name of
John Singleton Mosby, who is the greatest partisan leader of
all time. In American history, and these two they don't
really work together very well, but they're about to probably
take down the capitol, and the North is in desperate shape.
Most of the men that are in the war are
down south in Petersburg encircling that that siege with General
(19:04):
Grant in the the North's capitol is completely picked clean.
And it's it's at that moment that Lincoln is panicking
and the army is is slowed down by a guy
by the name of Lou Wallace. General Lou Wallace, who
is the future author of Ben hur you know, has
(19:24):
a delaying action at the Battle of Monocacy right outside
of Frederick, Maryland, which is one of the most important
small units actions of in history. That that flows this
juggernaut down just hours. And then he's literally, you know,
watching his watch as the hours tick by, because he
(19:44):
knows that every hour that he, you know, delays, early
reinforcements can hopefully arrive in the nation's capital. And you know,
it's it's a desperate thing. And then there's this It's
really fascinating because there's a massive prisoner of war camp
in Point Lookout, Maryland, and part of this mission is
to free these guys as well, and that doesn't go
(20:07):
off quite as well because an element of this book
is also a part of what's known as the Confederate
Secret Service. And this is a shadowy organization that is,
you know, doing the stuff that we hear today peter
election interference, ballot fraud, influencing the press operations. The stuff
is one hundred years ahead of its time, and you know,
(20:30):
it's remarkable, and you know they slow them down just enough,
but not enough. I mean, my great great great uncle
is part of the one hundred and fifty of Ohio
and he's thrown out in front of Early's army to
slow it down. And it's here that the President of
the United States are a sitting president the first time
(20:53):
is under fire. He's at then a parapet on in
Fort Stevens, which is located on now present day Georgia Avenue,
and Army, the jubil Early's Army is barreling down and
you know, literally as the minutes tick by, the sixth
Corps is jumping off gameboats at the Washington Navy Yard
(21:15):
in marching to the rescue. And this book is about
these men, but also an untold story called the Jesse Scouts,
which is really an epic tale of Union Scouts that
dresses Confederates that literally change the course of a civil
war through their actions. The book about agency and you
know people that are just regular Americans that are brought
(21:40):
into the fold and do extraordinary things. Fifty or one
hundred of these Jesse Scouts literally change the course of
the war through their actions, and most of them never
come home. Seven Medals of Honor, and most of these
men die in Mexico in our first proxy war against
the European power.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
It's a good reminder of who we can be as
a country when you think about who we have been.
And I think, especially in this hyper instantaneous media environment,
we're all kind of prisoners of the moment or the
temptation can be for usd to be that. And I
love talking to a historian who reminds us actually, you know,
we've been here before. We're now looking at the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago. There's been other contested Democratic conventions
(22:23):
in nineteen sixty eight, but ironically, and you talk about
this in your book too, there's another Democratic convention in
eighteen sixty four that maybe can even help inform part
of what we might be experiencing now.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
The summer of eighteen sixty four in the summer of
two thousand and four is eerily similar on a number
of tracks. In that election of eighteen sixty four is
arguably the most important election in American history, as is
the forthcoming the upcoming election that we're now facing. And
it's then that the Democrat Party is. It's fascinating because
(22:59):
it's in influence, the rising influence in the party. The
most powerful element is a peace movement known as Copperheads.
And this movement is, as I bring out in the book,
is influenced directly by the Confederate Secret Service. The story
of the Secret Service is fascinating. Jefferson Davis in the
(23:23):
spring of eighteen sixty four sends his peace emissaries as
they're called, but these are actually Confederate Secret Service agents
up to Montreal with two million dollars in gold to
buy influence. And it's everything from foreign powers overseas that
it's also the Democratic Party, and it's his men that
(23:43):
help that are literally pulling the strings of the leader
of the peace movement or the Copperhead movement, a guy
named mc clement laired Balandium who's an Ohio congressman that
betrayed the cause and literally was exiled to Canada by
and he's an active The Secret Service pulls off its
(24:04):
greatest cue by helping him write the campaign platform for
eighteen sixty four, which is an armistice to basically end
the war. And these men know that if you have
an armistice, it's almost impossible to restart the war. Within
that was also the continuation of slavery, and it would
have meant the continuation of the independence of the South.
(24:27):
And there's all of these things that the Secret Service
is doing in these influence operations to influence the election.
They're applying governors that are friendly to Illinois to the
Democratic Party to buy them off to basically influence them.
They're also have these incredible influence operations with the press
(24:48):
to spend tens of thousands of dollars for the Democracy
that's what they called themselves at the time, the Democratic Party,
which then at that time had comple leap control of
the Northern or most of the Northern press, and they
started to basically pump out articles that were very negative
(25:10):
about President Lincoln and also the war, the Forever War
that could never be one was always the sort of mantra,
and it was working because at this time, in eighteen
sixty four, there were hundreds of thousands of Union desertions,
the armies were going nowhere, and it looked like the
war would not be won. And it's important to remember
(25:31):
if you look at modern counterinsurgencies to this day, it's
almost impossible to beat them if they have the support
of the population. The South had complete, almost complete support
from its population, and they didn't have to win the war.
They had to merely survive, and that was the That
was the position that they were in in the summer
(25:52):
of eighteen sixty four. Lincoln sees it and he says
to his cabinet, you think I'm going to be beating
I'm going to be beat badly. And he does something
that's really extraordinary. He still has the election and signed
something called the Blind Memorandum, where he takes a letter
that says that he will support whoever the candidate is,
even if he loses, puts it in an envelope, doesn't
(26:14):
tell his his cabinet what he's got in the envelope,
but makes them all sign it, which is an extraordinary
act of democracy.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's an amazing story. I've read that in the book.
It's a fantastic book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Again,
as I said, I don't read a lot of history
just because I don't have the time. But I read
Patrick O'Donnell his new book The Unvanquished, the untold story
of Lincoln's Special Forces that manhunt for Mosby's Rangers and
the shadow war that forged America's special operations. It will
(26:45):
give you hope because it shows the kind of battles
that we fought before and that we won, and it
gives an indication of the struggles that America is going
to have perhaps going forward, but that we need to
be prepared and that they're honorable people up prepared to
do it. Pat, I appreciate all the great work that
you do. Thank you for doing it, for chronicling these
(27:06):
historic battles, and I wish you the best Independence Day tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Thank you Peter for having me on People can find
me at Combat Historian on Twitter or Rex Forgetter.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
It's a great story and it's a great time to
be reminded as we do approach this Fourth of July holiday,
of the best things this Country stands for.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Thank you for all of you that are joining us.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
We know that true patriots out there still care and
they're still fighting just like we are. And we will
wrap up our last segment on this program filling for
Sean Handy with you taking your call the next eight
hundred and nine to four one Shawn, Peter Swizer, Eric
Eggers saying goodbye.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Next on the Sean Handy Show.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
It's Peter Schweitzer. I'm here with my good friend Eric Egers.
We're filling in for Sean. Are having a blast doing
so let's go to Lawrence in Kentucky. Lawrence go ahead.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Hey guys, great great show today, no drop off at all.
And Sean better not stay away too long because you
guys they're awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Well, you're very sweet, thank you.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
I just wanted to make the point that Joe's not
going to go. He should go, he should already be gone,
but he's not going to go. And here's why I
believe he won't go. The only thing that he was
able to communicate and demonstrate during that debate is his
personal hatred and dislike for Donald Trump and the moment
that he leaves office. Him and Jill will no longer
(28:24):
be able to control that narrative that they have tried
to control for four years now. And I don't think
that he can conceive of losing to Donald Trump and
going out of office early, and that personal hatred will
be his undoing, his administration's undoing. That's underthing. But he
will not go. He can't go because once he goes,
(28:47):
he can't control anything. So that that's my point. I'll
let you guys talk.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Thank you, Lawrence.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
I think you're exactly right, by the way, and not
just about us being awesome, although you know clearly everyone
has heard it today. But what I would say is
I think the other and why he's not going to
go is because this is what the Bidens do for money. Yes, right,
It's not like Frank Biden's beating back legitimate business interest,
and neither is James and Hunter hasn't sold a piece
of art in a while, so this is what they do, right,
(29:14):
And the business model has always relied on Joe, And
so it's when you relinquish, you're not just relinquishing the presidency,
you're relinquishing your career and your family's wealth moving forward.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You are I mean, it's like you know, the Biden Inc.
In business since nineteen seventy two. Yeah, this is what
they've done, and they don't have anything else to sell.
So we're on the eve of the fourth of July.
I want to turn to something more positive, and that
is fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays.
Christmas and fourth of July. I love it that way
(29:46):
I am, but I just love it and I'm so
grateful to live in this country. What are you guys doing.
You've got young kids. I know you guys are traveling
a little bit. What are you guys doing to celebrate
the Fourth of July and anything particular with the kids.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
We're going to do something that I thought. I will
say this. You know you like to make predictions. I
will make a prediction. I don't think we're going to
always be able to celebrate the Fourth of Jly with fireworks.
One of the stories we didn't have a chance to
get to is there are some cities, because of environmental concerns,
you can't even do fireworks anymore. So we're going somewhere
we do live in the Freestate of Florida. We're gonna
watch fireworks good and you know, and celebrate the freedoms,
(30:20):
and again I don't take lightly that you and I
can sit here and raise I think legitimate questions about
what the President United States has done and the way
that they've lied the American people, But that is still
a freedom we enjoy in this country, and I think
that is among the things that make this country the
greatest one.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Absolutely, God bless America. I mean that sincerely, and thank
you everybody for taking the time to listen to us,
and thank you for Sean and for Linda to turn
over the microphone to us. We appreciate it. Had a
lot of fun, little anxious at the beginning, but have
really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
And thank you to Eric and Jason who have helped
produce this program, and thank you for helping us make
helping allowing us to be part of your for there's
alli getting God blessed America, and thank you guys very much.
The Sean Hannity Show News
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Sean Hannity
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