Before DOGE there was Open The Books. For Some 20 Years, OTB Has Been Bringing the Receipts

John Hart, Open The Book's CEO is reporting on Aid For Ayatollahs: Financial Benefits to Iran Facilitated by Uncle Sam, and Professors Pool Public Dollars to Root Out DOGE. How much longer will WeThe People tolerate this fraud and waste?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well glad you can joined us. Bill Martinez here, great
to have you for the ride. Got lots to talk about,
I'll tell you. Before a Doge and Elon Musk, there
was open the books for over twenty years. John Hart,
who's now the CEO of opened the books, Adam and
Jievski before that, as you may recall, and they brought
the receipts constantly to the American people. But thank god,

(01:00):
now with Elon Musk and Doze, the people are listening
and beginning to pay attention as to what's happening with
their government. That fraud and waste is in something of
a myth or just something that we suspected, but it's
clear fraud and waste exists in our government. Though many,
many years ago, there have been many politicians, particularly you know,

(01:20):
you might say the founding father for Open the Books,
Senator Tom Coburn, which we long respected for his efforts
to hold our government accountable and to point out annually
the government waste. But look, we got to stop talking
about it and do something about it, especially in light
of you know where we find ourselves today, thirty seven

(01:43):
trillion dollars in debt. The interest payment alone is now
exceeding the cost of our military budget. Seriously, I mean,
this is really a national security issue, ladies and gentlemen.
And no matter what people want to say about Doe
Elon Musk, whether it's destroy his property or destroy Tesla's

(02:05):
around the country, I mean, he is doing an incredible
service not to mention the fact that there's threats on
his life. Can you imagine. I mean, here we got
two people, in particular, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and
we'll use them in the same sentence with threats on
their lives, as if Donald Trump hasn't had a lot already.
But you know, there is a reason, as one of

(02:26):
our guests today, Bramowitz, we spoke with him earlier, called
the red Blues and Greens, and that's that's the sentiment.
We've got reds, blues and greens a part of our country.
Within that say they're American citizens, but they really don't
care about America. They don't care about the Constitution, care
about you and me. They only care about themselves. In fact,

(02:47):
this weekend, I happened to be in West Palm Beach.
I mean, most of you know, I'm in Florida, based
in Florida on the East coast, about thirty minutes forty
minutes away from West Palm and had to go in
for a trip and was there by the mall and
there or you know, on the streets there were protesters.
And of course these are all anti Trump, anti American protesters.

(03:07):
They think they're American. I find it quite curious that
they can tell you very easily what they hate, what
they don't like, but they don't tell you. Okay, So
all right, So you don't like the idea of elon Musk,
you know, looking into our government and demonstrating and bringing
the receipts of the government waste. Okay, so you don't
like that to get that. You've made that real clear.

(03:29):
But what do you like, you know, what, what is
your suggestion? What is your solution to the government fraud
and waste that is taking place? What's your solution to
elected officials making and earning out of whatever you want
to call it? Millions upon millions of dollars? I mean,

(03:49):
what they have in their bank accounts amazing. I mean
they start out where they make about one hundred and
seventy four thousand I'm talking about, you know, Congress, about
one hundred and twenty four thousand a year, and too
many of them end up with millions upon millions of dollars.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Infamous, of course is Nancy Pelosi, well over thirty some
have estimate as much as sixty million dollars, and like,
what insider trading didn't take place? I mean we know
that in some cases that there's a clear abuse there.
But you know, of course, the way she talks about
it is like, no, it didn't happen, so shut up,

(04:24):
leave me alone. Well, you know, unfortunately, I mean, you're
not going to get the truth out of somebody who
is lying and cheating, Okay, you have to catch them
you have to investigate. And because it's not like always saying, oh,
come on, as you know, let's let's be honest, tell
us the truth. Now, ity's gonna happen. The cons don't
give up the con They hang in there to the

(04:46):
bitter end, and they keep lying through their teeth. That's
what that's what they do. And this is what Pelosi
and the others are doing. I mean, it's amazing. I've
got something in you know, cross my desk here in
the last couple of weeks about you know, the kind
of money that some of these politicians are making. Okay,
this is this is reported. Okay, you can check this

(05:09):
out yourself. Elon Omar, for example, who entered Congress on
public assistance. Okay, she has now twenty twenty eight million
dollars in stock, her in her war chest. Huh, Amy
Klobescher one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in debt. She's
now worth nearly two hundred million dollars. This is on

(05:32):
a job one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars. How
does that happen? Yeah, I mean there must be something incredible.
I mean, the stock research and investors that Congress has
is real special because they can make this kind of money.
Rafael Warnack, for example, who went from a one bedroom

(05:52):
apartment in Atlanta to a six million dollar brownstone in
DC AOC. By the way, people are always curious about
what she's up to, and of course we know that
she was a broke bartender. Her net worth now twenty
nine million dollars in less than six years. Again on
the salary of one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars

(06:15):
a year. Whether it's right now, ladies and gentlemen, want
to bring on to the show the CEO of Open
the Books, John Hart. John, welcome, good to have you
with us.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
How you been, Thanks, Bill, It's great to be on again.
I've been very.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Well, well excellent. Well, I just got down this. I
was just going down this list of the money that
some of these congress people have in their bank accounts.
On one hundred and seventy four thousand dollars a year,
I think we need new brokers, new advice and how
to invest our money, John, because they can leverage one
hundred and seventy four thousand a year to multiple millions

(06:50):
of dollars.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
That's right. Yeah, Well, I got to tell you there's
been a lot of you know, chatter about with all
the tariffs and changes going through. There may have been
some started trading during all that as well, so you
think may have been Yeah, maybe we'll see.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, yeah right. It's but like I was telling the audience, Jehan,
you know, it's not like all of a sudden Nancy plugs.
Oh you got me, you know, I confess or the
rest of them.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Now.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
You know, it's kind of like I always remind everybody
what Denisiasuzas said in his experience when he went to
jail and having some time with the convicts there, he says, Bill,
my big takeaway is the cons never give up the.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Con Yeah, yes, that is sadly true.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, well, lots of talk about and as you mentioned,
you know, with DOGE causing a lot of brain damage
for people that don't want they just don't want the
American people to find out. It's okay if you suspect it,
but as long as you can't prove it, and you
can't really bring some receipts. But the fact the matter
is is Open the Books now, for over twenty years,
Open the Books has been bringing their receipts, and people

(07:55):
have just chosen, I guess, to ignore it and put
up with it until now they're looking at theirty seven
trillion dollars in debt interest payments surpassing that of our
military budget. This is a national security issue and we
just can't ignore it any longer.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
John Hart, Yeah, that's exactly right. Bill. Look, I had
the chance to testify earlier this month to the to
the Doge sub Committee, and the topic was the federal
real estate portfolio. So we have you know, the federal
government has has active this policy of letting people work
remote and other trump of ministers are trying to fix that.

(08:29):
But you can't both allow people to work remotely and
then have spend billions of dollars on buildings that no
one's using. Yeah. So one of the one of the
byproducts of this, one of the sort of symptoms, if
you will, of this of this disease of too much government,
is the federal real estate portfolio and the amount we've
spent on furniture. So we did we did a study. Bill.

(08:52):
We looked at just the expenditures of furniture, and we
found four point six billion dollars of decorating and redecorating
and demon trade of state. Now to put that in perspective,
So furniture is when I testified, I talked about the
cost of furniture is literally a kitchen table issue because
everybody can relate to the cost of furniture. So for

(09:12):
that amount of money you could buy for four point
six billion dollars, you could you could provide nine point
two million American families with the modest five hundred dollars
kitchen table. So that's that's it's a lot of money.
And you know, we found everything from you know, the
Stage Department spend one point four million on artwork for
various embassies, two hundred thousand dollars to produce a couple

(09:35):
of custom pieces of abstract art. We found that at
the embassy in Islamabad they spend one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars on Ethan Allen recliners. And during the COVID
is that the.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Recliner that you put the quoter in and it vibrates too.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
I think I don't think it's quiet. That would have
been a little bit more so you can instead we're
trying to be frugal bills, yeah, yeah, and it's assumption
that even during during the COVID, the height of the
COVID emergency, when they were encouraging people to work remotely
and from zoom, agencies still spent three point three billion
dollars on furniture and for what, for what purpose? It

(10:11):
doesn't it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, you're just furnishing an empty building.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
That's right, that's right, off and off. Yeah. And one
of the one of the best ones that that they
held up a poster for during the hearing is that
the CDC, the Center for Centers, I'm sorry, Centers for
Disease Control, they bought solar powered picnic tables.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Oh, I love that.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yes, that included charging ports. Yeah, and and these picnic
tables they actually violated the social distancing guidelines that Anthony
Fauci put put forth. So so there's just there's just
a lot of ridiculous spending that's going on within the
federal agencies. But but it really gets to the reason
this hearing was important, Bill, is because we One of

(10:54):
the things I talked about too, is that this is
one hundred year project where the progressive left has been
trying to banned the administrative state and in my opening
comments I talked to I talked about the administrative state,
and then the Democrats that are you, what is your agenda?
It's like, well, my agenda is pro freedom. You know,
I want I want to every dollar saved in Washington
is a dream realized somewhere in America. And then when

(11:15):
and when we instead of growing federal agencies, we ought
to be focused on growing your agency and your capacity
to pursue happiness on your terms, with your resources. And
and so we've spent you know, billions and billions of
dollars on federal agencies. And one of the byproducts of
that is this lavish, expensive, totally unnecessary, uh you know,

(11:38):
body of furniture, and it's the high cost of decorating
and redecorating the administrative state.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Well, it's totally irresponsible to its constituency. I mean, this
is disgusting. And as you said, you know the whole
purpose of our constitution was to ensure freedom. And with
every invents or expense that the government takes on, it
has to be focused on does it allow us to

(12:06):
enjoy more freedom or less freedom? And when you become
more indebted, well then that's real easy you don't have
to do. You don't need, you know, financial econ experts
to come in and do some sort of forensic study
on it. You know that it chokes off freedom, right, John.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's exactly right. And look it's important even you know,
let's step back and think about the Declaration of Independence. Right.
The text of that described this concept. If you remember
political science class, the social contract theory. Yes, the idea
is that as tax payers, and this is important to
think about it the wake of tax day, is that
we give up a little bit of our freedom and

(12:47):
we give it to the government. And the quote social
contract is in exchange for us surrendering some of our
resources and freedom, we get back a net gain of
freedom because we fund the government that provides for a
national defense, that provides minimal regulation of interstate commerce. And
that's really about the only two things the federal government

(13:09):
was supposed to do in the enumerated powers is provide
for the national defense. There's an argument to make for
a Treasury department, Justice department, defense, as I mentioned, state department,
and maybe some interstate commerce, but very very limited, and
we've grown way beyond that. So most of the dollars
we spend we lose freedom. We're handing our freedom to

(13:33):
Washington and they're squandering it on objects of their benevolence
and this counterfeit compassion agenda where they're quite trying to
help us by providing programs and services, but they're really
making it more difficult for us to live the lives
and pursue our happiness and our dreams on our terms.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, the key word that you use was minimal. That's
what our founding fathers had envisioned, a minimal amount of government.
But being what it is, it's it's like I remember
when I was a kid growing up, the scariest movie
I ever saw was The Blob. Remember the Blob. You
might be a little bit young for it, but anyway,
but anyway, the Blob and it just came in and

(14:11):
shoot up everything. And this is the administrative state. It's
of its own desire, it's its own level of growth,
and it just keeps growing massively and has convinced it's constituent.
Of course, they've really bought and sold a level of constituents.
Probably maybe you could say thirty forty percent of the

(14:34):
country is in that. They're locked into it. They depend
on the teet of the administrative state, and so anytime
that has threatened the course, they played that card and
it's been very successful for them for over one hundred years.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
John. Yeah, And there's a kind of an alliance between
the group that wants the dependency state to continue. But
then there's the class of elites that preferred of virtue
signal as opposed to pursuing actual virtue. And there's a
quote that I used during this hearing. A guy named
Herbert Croley, who was one of the kind of the

(15:09):
godfathers of the modern progressive movement. He wrote and dreamed
of actually creating and managing this complex new world of
the early twentieth century, of the nineteen tens. He wanted
to manage it with a managerial class. The belief was
that we could create the sort of legion of experts
they would enable they would enable us to solve problems

(15:31):
or previous generations couldn't solve. Now. The founder saw this coming,
which is why they created a limited government with checks
and balances. Because they studied not just one hundred years,
they looked back at the past twenty four hundred years
of political history. So they had a very deep and
broad breadth of history that they drew from. But crally believed,
in quote and direct quote from him, is increasing control

(15:55):
over property in the public interest. And so he would
have been thrilled to see how the administrative state has grown.
And and that's what that's what that's really the kind
of the fight that we're involved in. I think you're
you know, your listeners are obviously in tune with that.
But we need to get members of Congress more engaged

(16:15):
and to really make some of these changes permanent. Uh
So it's fantastic to have Doze to have executive orders,
but we really need members of Congress to step up
and enact laws that enact durable changes that that reimagine uh,
the federal government in accordance with what the founders designed.
And it's not it's not just a demolition project. There

(16:38):
when you have a bad upgrade to a house or
a property, sometimes with the knockout walls, you've got to
get the sledghammer out. So there's definitely a role for
the sledghammer. But fundamentally this is this is not a
demolition project. This is a restoration bok about restoring the
founder's vision or freedom and limited government. Well, if you're
in government, back within its within its boundaries.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
But you're exactly right. I mean, the tools that have
to be used are the right tools for the right job,
and we need to understand what is the job at hand.
I think a growing number of Americans understand that. But
they have to understand also that they need to come
and participate in this remodeling proposition that is before us.
That we cannot sit there and rely on the elected

(17:20):
officials to do this because you have to remember, and
this is critical, that the elected officials are the ones
that got us in this mess. That's right, And so
we just can't just say, hey, you guys, go ahead,
We're going to trust you to fix it up. I mean,
we need to be grateful first of all that you've
got the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk there,

(17:40):
you know, on our side, on the side of the Constitution.
And you have to be focused on the mission in
such a way that this small loud percentage of people.
And it's a small percentage of people, but they say,
you know, they're loud, and they seem like anything that
is loud seems like it's bigger than it is. Uh,

(18:04):
but it really at the end of the day, is
not as substantive in every beneficial aspect of the meaning
of it. They're not as substantive as as you think
they may be.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, And one of the things that one of the
things that Elon has said that it's really really valuable
is he said, look, we're going to we're going to
be really aggressive, but we're going to make mistakes and
we want to know what we what we need to
do better. And that's what a great model of leadership
is that most people just want to get pats on
the back constantly, but secure enough in his success as
he well should be that he's really trying to do

(18:39):
the best thing and so uh so that's what that's
why we continue to provide oversight, provide information because we
believe that they really want to do the right thing,
they want to do the best thing for taxpayers. Yes,
And one of the things that we've done concurrently as
DOGE is doing its work is we did a study
on all of the federal agencies. So there there's something

(19:00):
called the Federal Register that lists four hundred and forty
one federal agencies and the first thing we found is
seventy five of those didn't actually exist, but they were
listed because of poor record keep. Now the ones that.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
We are they getting Are they getting money?

Speaker 3 (19:14):
No, No, they're not. Some some some are, but most
or not. They're just they're like zombie agencies. Okay, but
there's actually this what's so crazy about the federal government
is there's there's an office that employs people to update
this site, but they didn't update it, which is another
which is another problem. It's just that's indicative of how
the federal government operates. So you really have to look

(19:36):
and dig to find out what's happening. And but what
we did find is a really clear pattern that really
the number of personnel has been relatively stagnant, which is surprising.
We thought there would be more of an increase, but
it was relatively stable since two thousand. But we found
that the spending on federal agencies went up almost four

(19:58):
hundred percent, So in other words, the line line of
employees was relatively flat, but spending went up. Like that,
you know, in a good example.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Why the money, Why the increase?

Speaker 3 (20:09):
That's a great question, is well, to do more good things,
to do more things for it's to finance the administrative state.
And this idea of counterfeit, compassion and this virtue signaling
of For example, a Department of Education head counts, the
staff count increased by about fourteen percent, but the spending
increased seven and forty nine percent, which is astonishing. At FEMA,

(20:32):
there was a significant growth in the headcount of two
hundred and ninety percent, but the spending swelled by over
two thousand percent.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
So these all overhead expenses. I mean, where you get
these administrators because they're so wonderful an elite that we
need to say that more money is that? Is that
where that money's going.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
That's that's some of it. Yeah, some of it is
going to increase staff salary, and there has been some
there's some subcontracting where the head count growth means an
asterisk because some of that has been outsourced to other
other subcontracts. But not all, but most of it literally
is just that blob that you talked about earlier. It's
that it's just the ever expanding growth of agency programs

(21:11):
to do more quote good things for people. But but
that's that's what we've got to reverse. And uh, when
we were going after earmarks during the when I worked
for Coburn, is members of Congress would always argue, well,
I need I have the right to send this money
back to my state, you know, I don't want the
federal bureaucrats to manage it. And our response was always well,

(21:33):
the effective member is not the member who sends money
back to the district. The effective member is the one
who keeps money from leading the district. Because we should
trust individual families and taxpayers and small businesses to allocate
those scarce resources better than members of Congress. And that's
that's the common sense answer that that resonates profoundly with taxpayers.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
And because the goal, the goal John is in conflict
because in Congress, their number one job is to get reelected.
That has nothing to do with managing, as you say,
the resources that are necessary to keep the state going
and to take care of the people in the state,
because they don't care about getting reelected, and so there

(22:20):
is there's a conflict in mission just to begin.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
With, right, right, And I think yeah, And I think
when tax payers go to the ballot box, the one
question they should ask themselves is is the person who's
running are they going to get a promotion from this
job or a demotion? And you should always elect. Try
to elect the people that are going to get a demotion. Yes,
Vdeln Musk took a demotion to do what he's doing

(22:45):
with Dad. And Tom Coburn took a demotion. He was
a very successful doctor, businessman. He made a lot less
working in Congress than what he was doing. The governor
of Oklaholma is a good friend. He's a very successful businessman.
Took a demotion to work. To run is to run
for governor, you governor of Oklahoma. So they're really good
people all over the country who are doing it for

(23:06):
the right reason. And so one of the wonderful things
about our system is there's a lot to be frustrated
about and a lot that we need to fix, but
there is an openness to our political process that hasn't
existed before in our history, where because of social media,
because of your ability your show and other shows where
you can have guests who talk about real issues, you

(23:28):
can elevate these ideas and give people the information they
need to be good citizens. And the barriers of entry
have gotten lower and lower, which again it puts the
responsibility back on citizens, where it's our job to be informed,
to be involved, to ask the right questions and then
to elect the right people and then to hold them accountable.

(23:48):
And so we're trying to create the virtuous cycle of
truth and transparency.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Exactly. Well, this is where people need to understand the
era of the low information voter has got to end,
you know, and especially where we are right now, We've
got a precious opportunity, thank God for the last election,
Donald Trump surviving an assassin's bullet and God only knows
how many other assassin attempts on his life, you know,

(24:16):
And here it is. We've got to make the most
of this opportunity if we're going to get this country
back on track, because meanwhile, the Democrats are lost. I mean,
you would think, especially with so many of these eighty
twenty issues, John, you know, whether it has to do
with the border, immigration, national security, spending, this sort of thing,
that the Democrats, yes, you know, they got their butts

(24:40):
kicked in twenty twenty four, but their loss and all
they can talk about is how much they hate Elon
Musk and Donald Trump and threaten, you know, threatening the
constitution even further. Because could you imagine number one, if
they were successful, if that kid was successful in taking
out the president where we'd be right now or even still. Uh,

(25:01):
the attempts haven't stopped. They're still you know, uh, the
FBI and CIA are discovering. You know, it's it's almost
on a monthly basis, new attempts to assassinate this president
and Donald Trump. And then you read some information here
about uh, you know, people's attitude about it. I mean,
it's unconscionable that citizens of the United States have no problem.

(25:25):
In fact, it's almost like they're cheering on the assassination
of the president of the United States. This is sick.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, it's very very dark. Yeah, and and and it
isn't hard to imagine a time just five years ago.
We just did a report to on on how much
Anthony Fauci and his wife were I was going to.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Bring yeah, and I want to get into into that
because it was, you know, the big the big report
this morning was how uh how the White House had
adjusted uh you know, the the website to finally declare
what we all knew is that you know, it was
the wuhan virus right.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Right right, Yeah, and and and there was again five
years ago, Uh, Anthony Fauci just decided to declare what
the quote the science was and whenever whenever politicians talk
about you know, when they talk about these science as
opposed to science, they're talking about ideology masquerading a science. Right,

(26:24):
So we now know that there were claims that that
Anthony Fauci made, that that good people on all sides questioned, said, well,
this doesn't make sense. This seems like it was came
from a lab. And there were questions about the social distancing,
about the transmit whether the virus can be transmitted if
you have the vaccine. A lot of legitimate debate was

(26:44):
censored and silenced because it violated what Anthony Fauci and
the government expert.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Said exactly, and so many platforms as well. John, It
was all one big, huge cabal.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
It should never happen in a free society. We should
never tolerate authoritarianism, regardless of who's who side it is.
That is contrary to what the founders, it's country, to
what people died for to protect exactly, and it's unconscionable.
And and so we're we're going to expose that and
hold hold them accountable.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Well, you went deep into it, and you you demonstrated
I mean we're talking earlier about these elected officials and
the money that they made. You you know, you brought
the receipts on the income that you know, suddenly you
start looking at this and go, this doesn't look good.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah. Yeah, So his his household got three three point
five million dollars wealthier in the first year after they
left office. Now, in the documents that we were able
to obtain through different FOY requests and other ethics ethics documents,
they don't provide direct receipts. In other words, they don't say, well,
he got it from this speaking event. But there are

(27:51):
a lot of awards listed in public speaking events that
he did participate in, so you can you can kind
of put two and two together. But you know, Fauci
is not this bleakered doctor who's who's unfairly criticized. When
he was he's very wealthy, uh successful, and he leveraged
his celebrity, uh for for personal gain and all all

(28:15):
while denigrating people that had legitimate questions about that that
we now know he was he was wrong about.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Right and millions of people died because of it. John,
And with impunity, I mean, there's no accountability whatsoever. And
you have Joe Biden giving him a preemptive part, which
is unheard of. Who gets a preemptive pardon?

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, yeah, you don't. You don't pardon someone who didn't
do anything wrong and.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Or was convicted, wasn't even convicted, was even didn't go
through a trial. You know, it was just like a
just in case, we're going to give you a get
out of jail card.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah, yeah, just just kind of holding him, holding him
above the law. Yeah. So so, you know, we we
need kind of a truth and Reconciliation commission on just
the COVID she to and we're within that process right
now where these findings are finally coming out and we
just have to learn from it and never ever go
back to where we were. It was a very very

(29:12):
dark chapter.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
And going back to what you said earlier, John, if
you don't arrive to the truth, if you don't have
the truth, and you know, generations are going to look
back in this period of time and they're gonna it's
going to be hard for them to make heads or
tails out of what happened here.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, that's why we've got that's why we're so committed
to making sure transparency flows. You know, I have to
talk about. You know, transparency is a first principle in
a free society. Yes, founders wrote transparency into the Constitution,
and it precedes the Bill of Rights, so it proceeds
free speech itself. So in the public square, transparency is

(29:47):
like oxygen, and we can't speak if we can't breathe exactly,
we have to have this basic information so that and
we're not telling people what to think. We're just believing
that people should think, they should be allowed to think it,
should be allowed to see the receipts and then make
their own determination as to what kind of government there.
And the founders had faith in we the people. They
believed that if you let truth and falsity grapple, whoever

(30:10):
knew truth to be pinned in a free and ocle
exchange except Milton who wrote that one hundred years before
the First Amendment. That's the tradition that they were in.
And so the progressive tradition is very, very shallow. It's
like a shallow weed. Is very recent. And so the
founders of our country there drew from again over two

(30:32):
thousand years of political history and successes and failures throughout
history of representative government.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
What we're talking with John Hart, the chief executive officer
for Open the Books. John, you know, we were talking
about the low information voter. It's like we're hamstrung a
bit and we're crippled caring. I don't know thirty forty
percent of the constituents here who have not exercised their
critical thinking skills. They have been accepting of what they're

(31:02):
told instead of what they know. Because even you know,
a big part of our show is saying, look at
whatever whoever we're talking to you today, we're talking at
John Hart. Hey, don't take our word for it. Okay,
research it for yourself, own your own knowledge. Do not
listen to some talking head and some new show or
some politicians. Verify, you know, And I don't even say

(31:26):
trust and verify. I just say verify.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, yeah, and exactly. Yeah. We You know a lot
of our work is based on this website called USA Spending.
And as I've shared before in your show, is when
I worked for Coburn, we teamed up with a Democrat,
a senator who is really ambitious and bright over twenty
years ago named Barack Obama. So Tom Cober, and very
conservative senator from Oklahoma became friends with Barack Obama, progressive

(31:53):
liberal senator from Illinois, but they agreed that that transparency
as a foundational principle. Democrats would maybe argue, well, gosh,
if people could only see how little we spend on
things like foreign aid, maybe they'd support it more. And
they believe that if you give people the information, they'll
come to conclusions that will be more favorable to their side.

(32:14):
And that's what our free society is about, is that
when we let the information out and then I'm not
shy about my biases. You're not shad about your bio.
We're not trying to manipulate or deceive anybody. We're trying
to give people information, and we're direct about what our
belief system is. But fundamentally we trust the system our
founders created of one of transparency and one where you

(32:37):
give people the information they need, the whole elected officials accountable,
and then you trust that you trust that result.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Right, Well, we know by experience, John, that we're better together.
I mean, I don't need the same opinion in the
same room. One of us is redundant, right, we need
somebody of despairing viewpoints that can advance the cause. As
long as we unders and it's been a number of
years since both parties have been in step in terms

(33:06):
of the mission of what we're trying to accomplish. I
can get it that. Hey, you may come from it
from a lefty point of view. I may come from
it on a right right side of the uh point
of view spectrum. But together we're ending up in somewhere
close in the same zip code right now. We're like
Venus and mars here.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah. Yeah, And that's and that's really it's really troubling
because I think you know, and there's and there's a
scriptural principle. I'm sure you've read this as iron sharpens irons,
So one man sharpens another exactly. And and what there's
a lot to unpack there, because when you have iron
and iron together, you have sparks, you have heat, you
have conflict. But the practice of engaging is it sharpens

(33:49):
both both sides, right. And another way to think of
it is, what if you have a pair of scissors,
what what blade on that on that pair of scissors
is the most important? They're both important, and so as
in a free society, when we're debating, when we're having
this conflict of ideas, when we're saying no, if you
give people more more information, they're going to want a
whole lot less government. And then you have the other

(34:11):
point of view that says, well, if you give people
all the information they need, they're going to decide that
a little bit of government is really the right thing.
And the fact that you do more in these areas
and then we have a fight and argument about that
that makes the country stronger. That's what That's what the
founders believe. They believe that give people the information they need,
trust them and make sure that the powers invested in

(34:33):
get and we the people that it isn't imbalanced and
you don't have these unaccountable agencies. That's why That's part
of why I'm so critical of the administrative state is
it's so hard to hold it accountable because neither the
executive branch or the legislative branch wants to own it.
And to Trump's credit, he's trying to downsize it, and
he's getting a lot of flack for it, obviously, But Congress,

(34:56):
wherever they're falling short, it's I see it as more
Congress's job. They need to be jealous of their power exactly,
power back And why would.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
You send it out to regulators and let them do
your job. I mean, your job is to codify the
law to make sure it's specific. But no, let's just
go ahead and make it nebulous. Let the regulators run
and these agencies run with it and interpret their own
laws and then create laws, you know, amongst themselves. And
they weren't even elected.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. And again back in the
when we were fighting ear marks in the Curbenteir and
the tea partner, is the argument again they would say,
We would say, well, the effective member is the one
who sends money back to the district. And then to
your point about the power of the bureaucrats is, bureaucrats
have no power other than the power that Congress gives them.

(35:46):
So you can't blame the bureaucrats if they're doing something
you don't like, Member of Congress, it is your fault, right,
isn't that power? You need to take it back, hit
it back and then pass the law. And if then
the is it veto's that law, then you hold the
president accountable. Then you take your case to the to
the to the voters so they elect a different president.

(36:07):
But right now we have a president if Congress were
to step up and enact some of these laws, do
you I don't think Donald Trump at veto an agency
reorganization bill thrill to see it happen, right, But it's
not right to expect him to do that. He's not
a member of Congress. Mosca is in a member of Congress.
Congress need to step up and do their part right

(36:29):
and not just let Elon take all the heat.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Well, they need to understand, I guess, and on both sides.
I think the right understands more than the left, certainly
because the left is so emotional that they really cannot
open their minds enough to see this. I mean, maybe
at some point they may wake up John in the
middle of the nine three o'clock in the morning and go,
my god, what was I thinking? You know, because this
is so absurd and it's so obvious that here we are,

(36:56):
under Joe Biden, we let in millions of people who
come in and you know, they absorb all our resources,
They put states in jeopardy and on the verge of bankruptcy,
all for as you said, compassion. This, this word of
compassion is so overused and abused that the left, I
believe they've lost the context of what true compassion really is.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
John, that's what that's what I call it. Counterfeit. Yes, compassion,
it's not real.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
No, it's not. And meanwhile, guess who's paying for it?
You know, we the taxpayer. But it goes back to
what you were saying earlier. And yes, it's Congress's job,
but it's our job. It's we, the people's job to
hold Congress accountable. You cannot keep electing these knuckleheads in
and see, and the thing is part of what you know,
the fix is in in a sense because you know,

(37:45):
of all the districts that are out there, John, how
many are given they're given to the you know, they
got the blue, blue seats and you got the red seats,
and they've all been gerrymandered to, you know, to give
you a specific result. And so then we're you know,
we're haggling over what, uh you know, how many how

(38:05):
many less than one hundred seats that you know on
both sides.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
That competitive, Yes, exactly, that's maybe maybe ten ten. Right,
we don't want to live in a system where the
politicians choose the voters, right, The voters need to choose
politicians right.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Well, you know it's like uh, you know, it's like
what's happening with lawfare. You know, they're choosing the judges
to give them the end result. Everything is that way.
You know, nobody wants to be able to you know,
nobody wants to debate this, especially the left, because they
want they just soon you know, cancel you invalidate your
opinion so they can move on. Nobody wants to get

(38:43):
into this process as you as you mentioned rightfully, so
our founding fathers designed this government to operate very deliberately
and very slowly. We're not you know, this isn't a
microwave type of government process, right.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Yeah, or just water Yeah, yeah, exactly, So actually just
stand transparency then yeah, we have that. Eventually, it's going
to word. It's going to take time, though, it's going
to take time, but the right.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
So to wrap up, you know, the situation with Fauci, Uh,
he's got to get out of jail card he had
a preemptive pardon along with several other uh characters in
the Biden administration. Uh. And meanwhile, it's been a disaster.
The people have suffered for this, and we the people

(39:30):
need to understand. I think people on the right understand
more and more every day because it's hard because most
people on the right, John, we want to think fairly
towards one another. We don't think that people are liars.
You know, that's not our knee jerk response, you know.
We we want to believe that people are honorable until
they until they demonstrate different. Uh, And we need to

(39:52):
call it out for what it is, and that is
that we've had, uh, you know, four evil years under Biden,
where people lied to us, people died this you know
that you had the left talking about the jeopardy of
the Constitution. It was them that put the Constitution in jeopardy,
not Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yeah, and I think Fauci, Look, Fauci left is the
highest paid bureaucrat of all time at four hundred and
eighty thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Well yeah, more than more than the president of the
United States. Go figure, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, how does
that happen?

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Well, because he was he was he was the high
he's been the high, the high priest, the chief doctor.
He really represented just a way of thinking that that
we're trying to move away from. And the sort of
class of elite experts that that are empowered to micromanage
and control American lives. Is that we need to again
to shift that balance back to the people and get

(40:49):
people the information they need.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Well in this idea of these elite experts that you
talk about, I mean, look at the track record, John
I mean you might even say, I mean you like,
you say, go back one hundred years and you saw
this movement that happened. You know, Crowley's you know, in
a sense, puts this on paper, puts these ideas down
the paper Woodrow Wilson picks up on it and says,
oh yeah, and then next thing, you know, uh, and

(41:12):
then uh, you know, then after that we get FDR
coming in and uh then after that Johnson and each
in each increment, the administrative state just kept gobbling up
power and control and here we are, uh, you know,
like the proverbial uh you know, what do you call
the proverbial frog and boiling water frog in the pot

(41:35):
right right?

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Yeah? I think you know the one thing that gives
that gives me hope is that the really history also
includes it includes these kind of ears of backsliding where
we forget, we have collective amnesia. But then there are
periods of renewal where if you think about like the
Clapham Group and William Wilberforce who led yes rebelition movement

(41:57):
in the UK. So one of the great stories of
history is how the small group of highly committed people
were the ones that really led the abolition movement and
then of course the US. But that wasn't automatically going
to happen. There was no force at work. All the
forces were working against them. But they decided, we're all
created equal in God's eyes, We're going to lead this

(42:18):
abolition movement. And and so I think there can be
there are movements, and can be movements today where we
really do restore. I don't think this is a pipe
tream at all. I think the founders built into our
system the capacity to self correct and put things back
on this on this course. And and that's that's why
the doge kind of this moment is so important. And again,

(42:40):
not everything has to happen immediately. That's the other thing.
People were so impatient. We want, oh, this all needs
to be fixed in whatever short periods of musk is
at don't.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, And I want to get skinny overnight too, John.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yeah, right, yeah, Look you're looking for you to pretty
get but we want, we want to be in this
and for the long term and never ever, ever, ever
give up.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
And that's not a superficial hope. It's not a pie
in the sky hope. It's a condo, just a word
of determination and just persistent believing that the forces of
freedom can prevail.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Well, when you talk about Wilberforce and the Reformation movement,
it started with an opportunity for people to look to
God because that's where truth resides, as we talked about before.
And I think we have this small window of opportunity
in which to be renewed. I mean it's interesting. I mean,

(43:36):
here we are the day after Easter, time of renewal
and rebirth. Maybe this is it.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
John.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
My prayer is for this country because well, can you
imagine what this would do to really release the full potential,
the God given potential of three hundred and fifty million
citizens in our country. I mean, yeah, Donald Trump his
vision for a Golden Age for America, I'm with him

(44:03):
on it, but it starts with a re embracement of
the truth and godly principles which were embedded in our constitution.
We've only got about four minutes left, and I did
want to address something else that you added open the
books and that was aid for the iatola. Is tell
our audience about that.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yeah, yeah, Bill. So, one of the things that we've
that we've done is we've looked at all of the
money that's gone to the Iranian regime kind of indirectly
that we facilitated over the years. And what we found
is that we've we've kind of directed about one hundred
and sixty billion dollars through Iran. It's primarily facilitated during

(44:43):
the Biden years, and that was by relaxing sanctions and
also payouts to pay for the release of Americans who
have been in prison. And this is really shocking that
we've done this, and you have with Iran, Russia, China
and Hamas, you have this new axis of authoritarianism, an

(45:06):
access of evil in the world where they will really
behind October seventh and uh So the chirp administration is
now I think, finally putting pressure on Iran and saying
you will not have a nuclear weapon. Now. I hope
that they don't have to use military force to get
their way, But I don't think he's bluffy. I think
when he says, I Ran will not have a nuclear weapon,

(45:29):
I Ran has a choice of doing that either peacefully
or it will or they will have that opportunity removed
through the use of force, whether that's Israel or the
United States.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Is anything in their character tell you that they will
surrender that, John.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
I don't. Well, I think I think this the the
survival instinct in human beings is quite is quite intense,
So that may that may be enough, but I'm not
particularly hopeful. Yeah, that's my honest view.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
That's way I feel. I feel that this is what
they know. They know strength, they know power. They're not going,
you know, no matter what. And Donald Trump, I mean
wants to do everything he can to avoid uh, you know,
death more death, uh and wars and and I respect that,
but the Bible also says that there's a time for

(46:19):
war and a time for peace. And the way it
says that is that you better know the difference. And
I think we're at that point, even though and I
respect this president to try to do everything he can
to avoid it, but sometimes it's inevitable.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah. Yeah, well, well we'll see and and look and
a lot of the money too, which I ran was
just through through lacks, it was non enforcement of oil sanctions.
We're talking to it. This is a it's a huge amount.
We just talked earlier about, you know, the four point
six billion dollars in furniture. Well, this is a lot
more than that, right that we allowed to flow to
a regime that's barbaric and murderous and was behind the

(46:57):
massacre of on October seventh, and we just can't allow
that to continue.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
And the thing is is that you saw this happening, John,
and they did nothing to preempt it. They could have said, Okay, boom,
we're going to cut back, we're re instituting the sanctions
and that sort of thing, and for four years it
continued to run without any kind of resistance whatsoever.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah. Yeah, And you know, appeasement is a very very
dangerous thing. Is that is that we you know, Reagan
modeled a peace through strength and I think a lot
of folks who President Trump and a lot of people
in his administration believe in that as well. And so
hopefully we'll get to we'll get to a good result.
But I'm you know, I wish I could be optimistic
about the avoiding military force, but I'm not particularly I.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Think sometimes, yeah, we can be optimistic till the point
that reality enters in, and that's okay. I mean we
pray that that would not be the case. But I
mean we've had enough death you think about it already
in Ukraine and Russia and other parts of the world
right now. We don't need another war, although their military

(48:03):
industrial complex is licking their chops. John Hart, the CEO
of Open the Books. John, again, I cannot thank you
enough for all the great work you and the team
are doing on behalf of we. The people I want
to encourage our audience are those that are watching us
and listening to us that they support Open the Books, because,
I mean, you guys are It's not like you're getting

(48:26):
hundreds of billions of dollars. You know that somehow are
coming to you to support this effort. Slice of all
the numbers that's thrown out today, I can atturee right exactly.
So tell people how they can subscribe and partner with
Open the Books.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Yeah, the best thing you do is go to our
website and sign up open to Open the Books dot com.
You can also go to our sub stack and sign up.
Sign up at both places to go and get all
of our newsletters and material and would be grateful to
have your have your support and if you follow.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Us well, John again, we're grateful to Open the Books
and it's an honor always to have this time together
to get an update on you know, what's going on
as we continue to push forward for the truth and
to get this country back on track and do something
to make it truly efficient. But it requires all hands
on deck. We need everybody to be of the same

(49:18):
line and the same purpose to discover the truth and
to do away with this inefficiency in our government. After all,
a look at ladies, yelm, it's your money, right.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
That's exactly so your money, it's your future, it's your
kid's future.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Amen. And the way the government has been spending it's
not just the kids, our grandkids. Is our great grank
I mean we're going into generations here, right, this is crazy. Well,
John Hart again, thank you so much for being with us.
Take care, blessed you got it, lady Jellmen, thank you
for being with us and sharing a part of your day.
We're grateful for John Hart, the CEO of Open the

(49:52):
Books and as I suggested, go to open the books
dot com, and do what you can think about supporting
the cause. I mean, they've been doing this for a
couple of decades and working on our behalf, and they
need our support, and especially right now, we have got
to keep the pressure on the inefficiency and the administrative
state if we're truly going to get this country back

(50:14):
on drug If you're interested in this constitutional government and
these first principles that you and I we took for
granted for many years, and we saw what happened in
the last couple of decades. It's been a slow and
deliberate erosion. And it's been going on. As John Benjamin,
you actually go back over one hundred years and you
saw this slow progressive growth and expansion indsto the institutions

(50:38):
of our government, taking over every institution, from our educational system,
the governmental process, all these agencies and everything. And here
we are, all these years later, trying to do something
about it. But it requires all hands on deck. Again,
thank you so much for being with us. I will
say to you on this Easter week as it continues,

(50:59):
happy Eastern to you. May God bless you, May He
keep you, May He make his face shine upon you,
and may he give you his peace, take care, God
bless