Biden delivers his first State of the Union address to a divided Congress. The vice president delivers a message of hope, unity, and uniting the country behind his vision for the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign. But it's also an opportunity for Biden to remind the American people that he's still got their backs.
00:01:19.000That message is not getting out there.
00:01:21.000And I'm not just putting that all in the White House.
00:01:24.000What do you do if you're Joe Biden to say, look at what we've done.
00:01:29.000And now look at what we're facing the next two years with these insurrectionists that I got to work with.
00:01:35.000Well, he's got an audience tonight and he's got to use it.
00:01:38.000And like he's been doing it for the last three or four weeks, he's been to the bridge across from Ohio to Kentucky, the Baltimore tunnel, the gateway tunnel, the new one across the Hudson.
00:01:50.000He's talking about places to put 20 to 30 thousand people to work.
00:01:54.000He's talking about people, working people who don't have college degrees.
00:03:10.000We understand from a White House official that President Joe Biden plans on making that phrase finish the job essential theme of his State of the Union address tonight.
00:03:19.000Specifically, he wants to finish the job he started when he launched his 2020 campaign.
00:03:24.000Big transformational things, stuff like elevating the middle class, restoring the soul of the nation, as he so often says, and trying to unite the country.
00:03:33.000The last item, though, very clearly is easier said than done.
00:03:37.000The president's address tonight will be his first delivered to a divided Congress, after all.
00:03:42.000And elected Republicans haven't exactly been discreet about their appetite for broad political vengeance.
00:03:49.000They're in charge of House oversight now.
00:03:51.000Guess how that committee is spending its time tomorrow.
00:03:54.000They're having a hearing having to do with the president's son, Hunter Biden.
00:03:58.000And that's just the beginning for that.
00:04:01.000We've got at least two more years of this.
00:04:03.000And in that way, tonight's State of the Union is an on ramp to a highway that leads directly, as Ben's been discussing, to the 2024 presidential contest.
00:04:14.000Tuesday, 7 February, in the year of our Lord, 2023.
00:04:17.000Welcome to the afternoon and early evening edition of The War Room.
00:04:22.000I want to thank everybody for joining us.
00:05:00.000I want to bring in Richard Stern from Heritage, the head of their kind of the analysis, analytics and the Heritage budget blueprint,
00:05:07.000which really is a kind of a master plan of how we get to a balanced budget.
00:05:11.000First off, Richard, you've heard that the the the left wing media is all kind of crestfallen in a fighting mood because these polls are coming out.
00:05:21.000The CBS polls and, you know, this is not Trafalgar.
00:05:55.000But to your point, you were leading into I love in the intro to your show here.
00:05:59.000What Biden has done, what his cronies have done is nothing but actually bully the American people, bully the people that work hard to produce real things in this country, to hire people, to give people incomes.
00:06:12.000When you hear about the size of the debt and deficit of the government, thirty one point four trillion dollars, that's two hundred and forty thousand dollars of national debt per household.
00:06:22.000It's America's second mortgage. You didn't know it, but you've got a second mortgage in the form of the federal debt.
00:06:29.000That's why as much as people are getting jobs right now, their wages are falling behind.
00:06:34.000It's why the price of eggs is something that American households are struggling with through and through the real thing that the left misses.
00:06:41.000They think that all they have to do is yell at the economy, yell at CEOs and magically it'll produce economic activity.
00:06:47.000It's not that easy. We all know that it takes a real hard work, innovation and the dreams of people that work hard to build businesses to grow the economy, to produce the goods and services that enrich our lives and allow us to spend our free time with our families.
00:07:01.000What the left does, they tax, they regulate, they crowd out private investment money so no one can build a new factory.
00:07:08.000No one can get a new job. That's their economic strategy.
00:07:11.000It's of the government moving the dirt around. It's of the government building mostly useful structures and bridges to nowhere.
00:07:18.000They don't understand that what they're doing is they're starving the American people of the capital they need to build an economy that works for everyone.
00:07:25.000I love that construct of the second mortgage, the two hundred forty thousand per household.
00:07:31.000If you think about that, too, it's an it's a mortgage with an exploding rate.
00:07:35.000I mean, isn't one of the issues here that it's the law law of large numbers where it's such a number with the with the thirty one and a half trillion plus the nine and a half trillion over the Fed that now you're now you've crowded out and you're having higher interest rates to try to stop inflation.
00:07:50.000And that that debt is going to explode.
00:07:53.000In fact, I think Kevin McCarthy said yesterday, roughly, and you would know this, that I think it's eight or nine trillion dollars over the 10 years alone just in interest payments.
00:08:03.000Did I hear that correctly from from McCarthy? Is that what you guys are projecting?
00:08:07.000Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, I'll tell you one thing about that. So this is, you know, not going to shock you on this.
00:08:12.000The way the federal government does its budgeting, it hides the ball of most of what's happening.
00:08:18.000And you might ask, what's the net doing there?
00:08:20.000That's the interest payments out on the federal debt minus interest revenue to the federal government, because the federal government pretends to be a banker across the economy.
00:08:29.000Student loans are one of those places where the federal government has taken your money, written it out as loans to people and then collects income off of it.
00:08:36.000The total interest payments that we pay out on debt are actually substantially higher than that.
00:08:42.000So that net interest payment hides the ball.
00:08:44.000And you want to hear a disturbing fact about that total interest payments are likely to exceed defense spending just next year.
00:08:52.000And that that should shock everybody about the real size and magnitude.
00:08:58.000By the way, Mercatus Mercatus, we had this analysis when you say net interest payment.
00:09:03.000The Treasury used to kick in, I don't know, 50 billion, 100 billion because at zero negative interest rates, there was an arbitrage there with because of the pandemic and other things.
00:09:13.000At the nine and a half trillion is because of the inverted yield curve.
00:09:17.000Are they sitting on a trillion dollars?
00:09:19.000Mercatus calculated, I think, a trillion dollar loss that's got to also start to be paid paid paid back in real time.
00:09:28.000Are you familiar with that one that it's not going to be the net is now going to be even worse because you don't have the you don't have the positive 50 billion a year kick in.
00:09:35.000You're going to actually have to start paying off some that the inverted yield curve problem over at the Fed.
00:09:54.000It is the main facilitating engine of the last 14 years of more than doubling the federal deficit and creating this kind of burden that the government has done that has slowed our economy during the time period.
00:10:05.000The Trump administration was a small, bright light that dealt with that kind of massive burden that the Fed has put us on as well as the left.
00:10:13.000So your specific point on this. So the way the federal budget works is that that 50 billion talking about, they actually have the gall to count that as revenues.
00:10:20.000They didn't even have that in the net interest.
00:10:22.000So so think of it this way. The federal government pays interest payments to the Fed, which is also part of the federal government.
00:10:29.000And then the Fed would hand that money back to the Fed and they would include it in their total of revenues taken in from the economy.
00:10:36.000It's a joke. But here's what's not a joke.
00:10:38.000And you brought this up. The Fed is, to your point, now losing money on its, quote unquote, assets.
00:10:43.000And you might ask, how did the Fed get assets?
00:10:45.000It printed money completely devaluing your paychecks and your savings.
00:10:49.000Use that printed money that they know there's no cap on how much they can print and how much they can devalue your savings.
00:10:55.000They use that to buy real assets that they're now losing money on.
00:10:59.000And so that federal interest payment to the Fed is now turning into federal subsidies to banking, real private banking institutions on those assets the Fed is losing money on.
00:11:09.000So, I mean, this is just one of those kind of cronyisms, a hundred plus billion dollars a year of federal subsidies to banks through the Fed through this scheme that they're running.
00:11:19.000I mean, it would be a joke if it wasn't so serious.
00:11:25.000You know, one of the things we do differently on the show is that we spend a lot of time on capital markets and the economy, international economy, and the audience loves it.
00:11:32.000One, it helps, I think, them think through how they personally plan for their lives.
00:11:35.000But, you know, this thing, all of this is, it's made obscure for a reason.
00:11:41.000They don't want the basic citizen to understand, you know, the fiscal domination of the legislature in the executive branch that, you know, comes up with these appropriations.
00:11:50.000But it's funded by a central bank that just keeps hitting and, you know, the Japanese insurance companies, the Chinese will buy so much.
00:11:57.000And the Fed's there to take care of the rest.
00:12:01.000That money machine has also led to the concentration of wealth as far as assets go.
00:12:07.000We have a system that's completely out of whack and with no congressional oversight on the Federal Reserve.
00:12:13.000They printed a trillion dollars during the, they call it the triage during the pandemic, with no oversight whatsoever.
00:12:20.000What can we do, do you think, as a teaching moment here in this, when you have the appropriations process and the debt ceiling and everything about the Federal Reserve?
00:12:30.000What would you recommend for Heritage?
00:12:32.000What can we do together to make sure that the American citizens understand exactly what's going on?
00:12:37.000So the decisions are made, are made consciously.
00:12:56.000Most people don't like talking about it, but it really is where the money's at, literally.
00:13:00.000To your specific question, one thing that we've been looking at that I've really been doing a lot of work on is the idea of actually putting
00:13:06.000a statutory cap on the assets of the Fed.
00:13:09.000So you think of it like the debt limit, but it's a debt limit on what the Fed can buy.
00:13:13.000So you kind of recap it if you think about it.
00:13:15.000Right now, if the government wanted to take more of your hard-earned money through taxes, you have to have a bill,
00:13:21.000it has to pass the House, the Senate, get the President's signature, it has to go through the normal legislative process.
00:13:26.000Now, what if the Fed wants to steal your money by printing dollars that devalue your paycheck, devalue your savings, devalue everything you own that's denominated in dollars?
00:13:36.000Everything you own probably is denominated in dollars.
00:13:40.000They just have to, to what you just said, just hit the button and keep printing money and keep buying things.
00:13:45.000Now, if Congress puts a cap on how many assets they can own, you can do it in a way where it still allows the Fed to do what would have been 20 years ago, normal Fed activity to make sure we had a stable, sound currency.
00:13:58.000And what it would do is it would prevent them from buying up huge trillions of dollar increments to finance federal deficits with those new poorly printed dollars.
00:14:08.000So if you put that cap on there, what it means is the next time they want to put in one of these Christmas wishlist bills, trillions of dollars that they're ultimately stealing from you,
00:14:16.000they would have to have an overt vote on the floor of the House and Senate to raise that asset cap on the Fed, or they'd have to get it through more legitimate means.
00:14:25.000But it forces them either way, however they want to finance their projects, they would actually have to have a real vote in Congress.
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00:17:01.000Plus, we're doing a live stream tonight.
00:17:02.000I think we're trying to pick up President Trump's play-by-play commentary or his hot takes.
00:17:07.000That'll be worth the price of admission.
00:17:09.000And his hot takes tonight on Joe Biden's State of the Union, on Truth Social, and somehow we're going to try to get it up on Getter and have our own, have the War Room Posse also in there.
00:17:19.000So 9 o'clock tonight, around 9 o'clock, make sure you go to the War Room Getter page in mind.
00:17:25.000I love the idea on the balance sheet of the Fed.
00:17:28.000Going forward on the debt ceiling in this, you know, Kevin, Dr. Roberts was on here last week with this, really his brilliant thinking about cutting the defense budget.
00:17:37.000But overall, you heard Kevin McCarthy yesterday.
00:17:40.000Of course, Russ's vote went out right away, and Russ is kind of like, we're kind of dead-enders on this thing.
00:17:45.000Not one penny, no, not one cent increase to that signal.
00:17:52.000What's your construct here of how we get your budget blueprint to the balanced budget with this intense negotiation that we're going to have?
00:18:02.000What would be your recommendation now?
00:18:04.000So I think one of the key things, and you were talking about Dr. Roberts, of course, had said this as well, is that a lot of people have this misnotion.
00:18:11.000They think that when the government spends money, they're providing free stuff to you.
00:18:14.000What they miss is when the government's giving you free stuff, they took it from somebody else that actually produced it.
00:18:20.000So one thing I always say to people is there are only two people that can get money without producing real value, and it's criminals and the federal government.
00:18:27.000A part of that is the federal government prints money, but the other is they have the ability to tax you, to regulate, do those sorts of things.
00:18:35.000Every single dollar, not just a federal debt, but a federal spending, is a dollar that's stolen from the American people, stolen from the economy.
00:18:43.000Part of what Dr. Roberts was talking about and what our blueprint highlights is all of the ways to be efficient, to be constitutional with what the government uses.
00:18:52.000The idea should be that the government only takes actually what it needs to fulfill core constitutional responsibilities, to safeguard our natural God-given rights, and to allow us, the American people, to build a prosperous economy.
00:19:08.000It highlights the way to get back to that, and I really think at the end of the day, it's about championing that message.
00:19:13.000You know, a lot of times if you look at it, people that will say they're conservatives for decades will do everything the left does.
00:19:20.000They'll spend, they'll tax, they'll regulate, they're just kind of the lesser version of it.
00:19:24.000It doesn't provide a real option to the American public.
00:19:27.000What we want to re-highlight, re-assert, is what it means to be conservatives, what I just said, to respect that every dollar the government takes is taken from hardworking Americans, and to get back to a real constitutional vision of the government, where we can get back to the kind of prosperous economy that turned the U.S. into the greatest country on the planet long before we had big government.
00:19:45.000Richard, I want to get you back on, and maybe we do it in the 6 o'clock hour on the weekend.
00:19:51.000We can take a little more time, but I want to go through your budget plan, the whole thing.
00:19:54.000Heritage is at the tip of the spear, and Dr. Roberts, we had Michael Howell on this morning.
00:19:58.000He's really instilled the fighting spirit back into Heritage.
00:20:08.000So you can find me at Rich A. Stern on Twitter, and of course, if you go Google my bio on Heritage, you'll see all the things I've written,
00:20:14.000that I've put out there, and I want to thank you again for having me on the show and going through all this.
00:20:19.000It's very important stuff, and remember, you can be part of the conversation as well if you're watching this.
00:20:24.000We need as many people at the hands of the pump as we can.
00:20:28.000By the way, I'm stealing, and I'll use it as an homage to you, but I'm stealing your monetary policy as the quantum mechanics of public finance.
00:20:39.000That's a great – they used to always say even – and you read the book Confidence, Obama didn't know the difference, but Kennedy, as smart as he was as a history student at Harvard,
00:20:48.000they had to always tell him the difference between fiscal and monetary all the time when he was in meetings.
00:22:11.000We're going to go and bring up on as many people as possible on Joe Biden's really to highlight, you know, if he says stuff that is real and true and is upfront with the American people, we have no problem.
00:22:20.000But I think it's going to be another just session of lies and misrepresentations.
00:22:24.000Hey, we're pretty upfront in the war room. We think he's totally illegitimate. He stole the 2020 election. The elections, you know, stolen elections have catastrophic consequences. You can see it all over the world. Here's one of the things that we just checked and I've checked some people on the Hill. I don't know this 100 percent, but let's say we're pretty close. They have not briefed. And if if great, if anybody can double check for me right now, they have not. I don't think they've briefed the gang of eight.
00:22:49.040They certainly haven't briefed the broader intelligence committees and they haven't briefed the broader House and Senate on exactly the situation with the Chinese with the Chinese. The Chinese weapon systems, weapons platforms. Oops. You mean the airship? Yes, that one. So why are they slow walking this? Why? Why is this? Why is this something they refuse to come forward with?
00:23:15.160They should have been prepared to call the gang of eight. Remember, the gang of eight is the leadership of the House and the Senate plus the leadership on the intelligence on the select committees on intelligence, both the House and the Senate, eight individuals, four and four.
00:23:30.380The why have they not done that? Why? Why have they why have they failed to do this?
00:23:39.360This is everything right now. We have to ascertain exactly what the Biden administration knew and when they knew it.
00:23:47.860This thing is exploding all over the Chinese. Some of the Chinese trying to sit there and go, well, the PLA, this rogue element, that's nonsense.
00:23:52.960It's she makes every that he signs off and or makes every critical decision when you're talking about the United States of America. Right.
00:24:03.120There is in inconceivable, inconceivable that some rogue colonel or somebody in there in their surveillance group was able to let this off without his approval.
00:24:16.680No, this came at the highest levels and anybody spinning that is just lying to you because that's not how it rolls over in the CCP.
00:24:24.020And I consider myself an expert in the CCP. I was the one that brought in for the yes, Abby Lowell for the laptop from hell, which shows the treason and traitorous nature of your client selling out the United States for cash money from the Chinese Communist Party.
00:24:41.820And in this you have to get to the bottom to remember, the first kickoff investigation is tomorrow on the laptop from how they're going to start with the FBI officials that are associated with Twitter that were on the payroll over there.
00:24:54.020And they've got, I think, a former FBI agent. Maybe that's the weaponization of government.
00:24:59.620Anyway, tomorrow is going to be quite explosive. We're going to do kind of wall to wall coverage on this. We're going to be dipping out of all of them. Do I have Boris up yet?
00:25:07.880Boris, I see I had such a great tear for you, Boris, and I go to you and you're not there.
00:25:11.620Tell me about tell me about President Trump. Tell me about President Trump doing this play by play tonight on Biden's State of the Union, sir.
00:25:18.800I'm always here for the TF. I'm always here for the posse. It was the deep space trying to prevent me from talking to you.
00:25:26.680The play by play is going to be, as they say, fire.
00:25:30.180President Trump, as you saw in his announcement, is already in top form and ready and ready for the quote unquote State of the Union from Joe Biden tonight.
00:25:43.280I'm not expecting a robust performance by a hopeless Biden, but as President Trump said, hey, maybe he does pull off something akin to Lincoln or Sir Winston Churchill.
00:25:57.360No, tell me when you see this spin. Here's the thing they're melting down on today is that all the polls came out, not from Trafalgar, right?
00:26:08.480They came out for the people's pundit. They came out from ABC, CBS.
00:26:12.740And these numbers are nothing short of horrific, right?
00:26:15.080It has has Biden made your life better. Has Biden's economy made your life better?
00:26:19.560You know, 18, 20 percent. Yes. You've got, you know, almost 50 percent. No.
00:26:24.500The spreads are historic. And they're sitting here all day beating, you know, beating the toxins about how well the American people aren't paying attention.
00:26:32.160This is a messaging problem. What say you, Boris Epstein?
00:26:36.040It's not a messaging problem and it's not a politics problem. It's not a policy problem.
00:26:40.700This administration has been a disaster on everything. National security. Cue the Chinese balloon just in the last five days on the economy, on the border, on energy, on our military.
00:26:57.500Look at the look at the disaster in Afghanistan. Look at the festering, festering fire literally around nuclear reactors in Ukraine.
00:27:07.560This administration has been the worst in American history by far.
00:27:12.560And anything else, anyone who tries to tell you different is lying to you, to your face.
00:27:20.380Boris, can you can you hang on for a second since we didn't get you at first?
00:27:24.060I want you to hang on just for a minute or two.
00:27:26.040You have some other questions, financial questions and a quick Ukraine question.
00:27:31.080We're going to take a short commercial break. Boris is going to stick with us.
00:27:34.320We're going to talk to him about the Ukraine big developments over there.
00:27:36.660The Italian press is reporting that the defense minister has been fired.
00:27:41.560Of course, that's being in Ukraine itself. They're saying that did not happen.
00:27:45.400There's a lot of controversy about the inner circle over there.
00:27:47.600But they're saying that, in fact, did not happen.
00:27:51.460There's also an exploding story about and we're going to have Todd Benzman on in the six o'clock around the border.
00:27:57.700Remember, a rancher down south of Tucson took out, shot an illegal alien who'd been crossing across this property.
00:28:08.040But I think it's been thrown out of the country seven or eight times.
00:28:10.780And now he's been arrested for for what murder, for killing him, a million dollar bail.
00:28:15.740We'll get to all of that in the six o'clock hour.
00:28:18.020Boris Epstein is going to join us right here on the other side.
00:28:20.780It's the run up to the State of the Union.
00:28:24.600Fair warning. Listen to this convicted home title thief explaining what happens when he forges your home's title and takes over as the new owner.
00:28:35.360Nobody thinks that I can take their house and borrow against the house.
00:28:38.160Oh, no, I have title insurance. It's in my name.
00:28:40.820Or he would have to get some special document.
00:28:47.480After I've stolen the title, borrowed against it, or sold the property, it's 60 to 90 days for that person to even figure out that they're the victim of this crime.
00:29:42.620And just remember, whatever intel the Chinese gleaned during its seven-day joyride before we did decide to shoot it down was worth it getting shot down.
00:29:54.180Because the $400,000 we spent on the Sidewinder missile, the $200 million we spent on the F-22, well, maybe that price is comparable to what the Chinese spent on their surveillance and that payload.
00:30:06.160And whatever it was, it was worth it because they knew that we would shoot it down, even though the defense and intelligence communities apparently ignored the president for a good three to four days before acknowledging his order.
00:30:17.100I have to point out as well, Corrine Jean-Pierre's response when she said it's up to China to figure out what kind of relationship they want.
00:30:22.880And, Ainsley, you mentioned a few minutes ago, you said that how a general predicted we would be at war with China in 2025.
00:30:30.600We have been, as they've infiltrated every component of our society, of our sovereignty, for so long.
00:30:37.080In contrast, Corrine Jean-Pierre's statement with Secretary Pompeo's statement, when he said we have stopped pretending that Huawei, for example, is an innocent company.
00:30:44.880We have called it what it is, a national security threat.
00:30:50.260He said we've opened our arms to Chinese citizens and they've bit us in the hands.
00:30:54.380Christopher Wray got in on the action.
00:30:56.520He said, as well, slammed, you know, whatever, I have his quote in here.
00:31:02.320Oh, that the American people are more attuned than ever to the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses not only to our way of life, but to our very lives and livelihoods.
00:31:10.340Then instead, we have a lackluster commander in chief and an apologist secretary who says it's up to the Chinese.
00:31:26.980OK, right there, the Murdoch News Network finally saying the magic words.
00:31:32.660Yes, the CCP has been at war for us since at least probably 10 or longer years.
00:31:38.720But you can't argue it had to be from May of 2019 when she declared a people's war against this irregular warfare, unrestricted warfare, whatever you want to call it.
00:32:01.540Boris, is it odd to you, sir, that as far as we know, and we're not totally dialed in, but we're pretty close, we can't find out if the gang of eight has been briefed yet in a classified briefing.
00:32:16.580We know there hasn't been a broader briefing on the situation right there.
00:32:21.160It's not from when the president, you know, had this meeting with Millie, this telephonic thing with Millie in Austin in the middle of the night in Manila, and then they waited.
00:32:30.400This is about January 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, and the 1st.
00:32:34.840What happened when it first came in contact with their defense over the Lusian Islands, those four or five days when they hid it from everybody?
00:33:44.340And it is unacceptable and has to be resolved.
00:33:46.440Real quickly, there's going to be a big kickoff tomorrow with all these committees really standing up and getting into it.
00:33:54.520But the big one could be at least oversight.
00:33:57.320They're going to be the weaponization.
00:33:58.260We now realize Matt Gaetz, a frequent guest here, is now on the weaponization committee and the left is freaking out.
00:34:06.860But on oversight, they're going to start on the laptop from hell.
00:34:09.420What guidance would you give our audience in watching these first couple of days of these investigations, sir?
00:34:17.020Watch for collusion and cooperation between the highest levels of law enforcement and big tech into suppressing and working against President Trump and rigging and stealing the election, the 2020 presidential election, against President Trump.
00:34:31.900I bet it's going to be a major part of this hearing tomorrow with oversight.
00:34:36.000James Comer is the chair of the oversight committee.
00:34:38.260He's hauling in Yoel Roth, James Baker, and other Twitter executives and is going to be grilling them on why President Trump and other MAGA patriots were censored
00:34:48.420and why there was this cooperation between law enforcement, Twitter, and other big tech to do all they can to rig and steal the election from President Donald J.
00:35:42.840Okay, very honored to have Chris Miller, a career Green Beret Army officer, Colonel Miller, who was President Trump's last Secretary of Defense, acting Secretary of Defense.
00:35:54.060The toughest job of all this, Chris, might have been you were Kash Patel's boss, right?
00:38:53.700I'm not going to do that on your show, although it would be funny.
00:38:57.080And then but the secretary of defense is what we're talking about.
00:39:01.580And, you know, I got to tell you, Steve, I went out and I thought my role was to support the generals and the admirals and whatnot.
00:39:09.240And I realized on a really late night Thanksgiving night in Djibouti in Africa, we were going into Somalia the next day to check things out because the president wanted us to leave, which I agreed with.
00:39:21.620And I realized that night that I'm calling was not to serve the generals, but it was to serve the members of our armed forces, our veterans and their families.
00:39:30.040And thank you for your service, by the way.
00:39:32.180And it's good to be on with this fellow veteran.
00:39:34.440So that's the purpose of the book, soldier secretary.
00:40:31.060The president decided it was time for the change.
00:40:33.600That's he has this thing in there about the four no's that they were that they that he and Milley decided that that the Trump that Trump himself was going to take the potentially could take the country to dark and dangerous places.
00:40:47.660And they had the four no's, no, no, no strategic retreats, no new conflicts, you know, steady Eddie, no, no, no misuse of the military, no politicization of the military.
00:41:00.100Although if you read your book of your career on foreign battlefields, it looks like the military had been pretty political, at least at the upper levels have been politicized as it was to almost a no victory thing.
00:41:59.980You know this and you serve the guy and or woman if it ever comes to that.
00:42:05.140And, you know, the fact that they thought they knew more, it appears that way when you read this and then you hear some of the leaks that are attributed to Millie.
00:42:13.040I'll tell you, I want to let him have his chance to say his piece.
00:42:17.360He really hasn't commented on a lot of these things.
00:42:19.780So I don't want to jump to, you know, foregone conclusion.
00:42:23.140But it's really troubling because that's the thing, man.
00:42:25.620If you can't work for the boss, you don't have to in this business.
00:45:36.540The China, it looks like the head of the Chinese military defense department refused a call from the secretary of state on the day that the airship or the spy balloon was down.
00:45:49.660That's breaking news now that they refused a call.
00:45:52.760Chris Miller, you were President Trump's last secretary of defense.
00:45:55.840You were the acting secretary of defense.
00:45:57.880There's a story in Bob Woodward's peril that has Milley in October.
00:46:06.340I think you took over, I think the 10th of November.
00:46:08.620That had Milley talking to the Chinese, the head of the PLA about stability and there's not going to be nuclear strikes.
00:46:19.260We don't really know the details of what Woodward talked about.
00:46:23.020And then he had another call in January.
00:46:24.720Did he ever sit down when you took over and brief you or walk you through concerns that he had?
00:46:34.400And did he ever tell you face-to-face, man-to-man that he had actually been in contact with his counterpart in the PLA and actually had these types of discussions about the use of nuclear weapons by the United States?
00:46:48.300No, first I found out about it was when I saw that excerpt from Woodward's book.
00:46:53.800I did authorize him to call the Chinese, his Chinese counterpart, after January 6th.
00:47:01.120But that call in October where he talks about, you know, the characteristics were like, I'll give you a call if things go south.
00:47:09.860And basically it sounds, if that's true, that's kind of treasonous, you know, that's why I'm trying to be the bigger man on this, Steve, and go, we really need to hear from him.
00:47:20.060Whether he's going to do that on his own or whether he needs to be called up to the oversight committees, that's for them to decide.
00:47:26.800But if that really happened, that's just kind of beyond the pale.
00:47:30.460That's kind of the point of my book, you know.
00:47:31.860I talk about accountability in there, and holy cow, we can lose wars, but nobody's held accountable for their actions.
00:47:54.720This book, and I recommend the audience get it.
00:47:57.120Number one, your career as an Army officer, the valor, the heroism of the guys around you, the nitty-gritty of these wars we fight.
00:48:06.180But if you want to see America in decline, it's really looking at our beloved, not the military per se, but how it's used in kind of this flippant glib way that the Pentagon and the civilian leadership and the oligarchs in this town use it.
00:48:25.460We only get limited time, but I do want to have you back.
00:48:28.140But the – I agree with you, and I think this is the first time you said – by the way, the book's got all kind of great stuff about President Trump and these raids.
00:48:36.200That's already been covered, and people – read it for that.
00:48:39.300It's kind of – you're sitting on the edge of your seat as you read the book.
00:48:43.020But it's got much deeper themes than that.
00:48:49.280There has to be an inquiry into this, and I am shocked it hasn't been to date.
00:48:52.940It shouldn't be Chris Miller and Steve Bannon in the war room calling for this.
00:48:57.160Even President Trump, what has been said that Esper and these guys said, particularly after the situation at Lafayette Square in front of St. John's Church and what they said, the agreement, the pact that they had, that all has to be investigated.
00:49:11.360We need to do this just for the civilian control of the military and the military's understanding of its accountability.
00:49:18.940Chris, you alluded to it in the last segment.
00:49:21.600If people have a different viewpoint on their personal honor, they should resign and should make a fact of that resignation of why they're actually resigning and not going for it if they don't believe in things.
00:49:32.960But to believe in things and do it in kind of behind the scenes, behind people's back is not the way – the system can't function like that.
00:49:43.440I've said that since the first parallel book came out.
00:49:45.320But last thing, we only got a couple minutes on – correct me if I'm wrong because this is from the book, and I'm doing this from memory because I read the PDF and not a hard copy.
00:49:54.900You had to call a meeting together telephonically, it looks like, with DOJ, I guess FBI, different aspects.
00:50:05.200You initiated this meeting to kind of a day or two before January 6th to make sure everybody was organized because it didn't seem like it was organized.
00:50:20.140And, you know, if you were a CYA person, you would have never done that because that's not the role of the Department of Defense in domestic affairs.
00:50:28.680But it had to be done, and I did that.
00:50:31.500And thanks for highlighting the point that, you know, wow, we were not organized.
00:50:38.360And at the end of the day, you know, civilian law enforcement, I just – you know this.
00:50:42.860The military should never be used domestically for domestic law enforcement unless as an absolute civil disorder is broken out all over.
00:50:52.020And anything less than that is really troubling to me, and that's the purpose that I try to, you know, talk about in the book.
00:50:58.680So thanks for highlighting that because it's kind of one of those nuanced things that, you know, they try to tell some good war stories and stuff like that.
00:51:04.680But that's really the point of the book, too, is civilian control and the proper use of our armed forces.
00:51:32.500The analysis – when you called this meeting together, the number – the only number that came out, at least in the book, from that meeting of the number of participations – people that were going to be in the capital or in the nation's capital for the rallies was 35,000.
00:51:49.900Is that number – that number's in the book.
00:51:51.860Is that the only number you remember being bandied about?
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