Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) joins Stephen K. to discuss the debt ceiling crisis and why it's time for the country to get back on track with our debt ceiling negotiations. Stephen also talks about the growing influence of the far-right wing of the Republican Party, and why Joe Biden should either back down or get off the pot.
00:01:08.620They have a speaker who has his job because he yielded to the, quote, MAGA element of the party.
00:01:14.480They're doing, to the best of my knowledge, what no other political party has done in a nation's history.
00:01:20.680They're literally, naturally, holding the economy hostage by threatening to default on a nation's debt that we've already incurred.
00:01:29.700We've already incurred over the last couple hundred years, unless we give in to the threats and demands as to what they think we should be doing with regard to the budget.
00:01:37.380It's Wednesday, 10 May in the year of our Lord, 2023, major town hall tonight.
00:01:45.260We'll be covering it soup to nuts in the next two hours.
00:01:49.380Very honored to have Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio.
00:01:53.780Senator Vance, how big – you won by eight points, ten points.
00:02:00.240And I think people will refer to you generally as part of the MAGA movement, one of the leaders in the MAGA movement, certainly one of our intellectual, public intellectual, intellectual leader.
00:02:10.680The speech you gave a couple of years ago over in Pentagon City is still a benchmark in our movement.
00:02:17.920Speaker McCarthy, just Biden right there.
00:02:20.460Wall Street Journal reports almost half the nation does not believe we should raise no more debt, 75 percent of Republicans.
00:02:29.020You're part of a MAGA Republican Senate, or at least the MAGA Republicans in the Senate.
00:02:37.240McCarthy's put forward the only plan so far.
00:02:39.220I mean, what are your thoughts about this?
00:02:42.120McCarthy's the only person who's put forward a plan, and Joe Biden can't sit back and threaten to drive the American economy off a cliff when McCarthy's actually done his job.
00:02:51.780So the crazy thing about what Biden is doing is he's saying, if we don't pass the debt ceiling increase, it's going to tank the economy.
00:02:59.480Well, McCarthy has a bill that does exactly that.
00:03:01.920He just doesn't want to sign it because it doesn't fit perfectly with Democrat priorities.
00:03:06.300But, man, that's not how the system works.
00:03:08.240The people elected a Republican House.
00:03:11.160A Republican speaker has advanced a spending plan.
00:03:13.800Biden needs to either, you know, crap or get off the pot because that's the idea.
00:03:32.220What are the folks in Ohio, not just the Republicans or people that voted for you, but the independents, Democrats, your constituents, you represent the entire state, and all the folks in the Buckeye State?
00:03:40.840When you go back and talk to them, what do they think about the financial situation, economic situation in the country?
00:03:46.620Well, one, they know it's unsustainable.
00:03:49.800People are a lot smarter than the Beltway media gives them credit for.
00:03:52.400They know there's a direct connection between the interest rates that they're paying for their home mortgage and the complete disaster of a Biden economy that we have.
00:03:59.440So this is not a hard argument to make.
00:04:01.980And I think what's happened in the past is that Democrats always bet on the media and the big corporations to go in for their agenda, put pressure on Republicans so Republicans would bend the knee and fold.
00:04:13.980But I think on issue after issue, you've got a new type of Republican who looks at the government, looks at their cooperation with the media and the big corporations and says, we're not going to do what Wall Street and big tech want us to do this time.
00:04:26.340And I guess what's happening at the House, it's a good thing that it's happening.
00:04:29.980And look, if we see this through, we may have the first big win on a debt ceiling pretty much since I've been alive.
00:05:01.380It is legalized theft because when you allow illegal immigrants to flood your country by the millions, the tens of millions in this case, you make housing prices go up, you make food prices go up, and you drive down the wages of the American worker.
00:05:16.580We cannot hammer this message enough that every time they let another illegal immigrant into this country, they are stealing from the middle class in this country.
00:05:24.340The middle class has been stolen from enough.
00:05:40.920Interest rates are crazy, but the price of housing, if you want to try to buy a home as a 25-year-old American couple trying to get started off, start a family, build the American dream, you cannot do it.
00:05:52.180Partially because foreign investors are coming and buying this stuff up, but also because you've got millions of people who shouldn't be here who are competing with Americans for the American dream of homeownership.
00:06:19.160I think we got a clip from Senator Vance, and I want to talk about East Palestine.
00:06:24.160The people of East Palestine are going to deal with the costs of what Norfolk Southern did for the next generation.
00:06:31.280The mental health costs, the physical health costs, the economic damage, the loss of home and property values.
00:06:38.240They will be dealing with this for 20 years hence.
00:06:42.580The least that we can do is make it less likely that the next East Palestine happens in our communities.
00:06:48.300We cannot, on the one hand, acknowledge that Ohio taxpayers and Ohio citizens are bearing the cost of this accident, and on the other hand, say it's ridiculous to require the rail industry to do a little bit more on safety.
00:07:01.800They should be incurring some additional costs so that another East Palestine doesn't happen again.
00:07:06.600We also have, by the way, the support of the Heritage Foundation.
00:07:09.600We have the support of Russ Vogt, one of the most important leaders in the conservative movement.
00:07:13.860We have the support of Donald Trump, the former president, who had a deep emotional connection to the people of East Palestine and is asking this committee not for vague promises from industry, but that we get something done.
00:07:26.960That we do the job of legislators and actually legislate.
00:07:30.260What happened in East Palestine cannot be undone.
00:07:35.040We cannot undo the psychological, economic, and physical toll of the derailment in East Palestine.
00:07:41.240But I guarantee you, whether it's tomorrow or next week or next year, there will be another East Palestine in this country if we do not pass the Railway Safety Act.
00:08:49.840If these railroads are going to destroy our communities and force the taxpayers and the people on the ground to bear these costs, the railroads have got to do more.
00:09:00.520It's an important populist issue, Steve, because the question presented here is do we serve our own voters or do we serve industry?
00:09:08.720Do we listen to the corporate lobbyists or do we listen to the people who sent us here in the first place?
00:09:13.080And this is another example of, yeah, a lot of new generation of Republicans and certainly our voters are looking at the railways and saying you better pay up.
00:09:20.980But there are a lot of establishment Republicans.
00:09:36.480If the railroad industry has gone woke and it has, if it's setting off chemical bombs in our communities and it has, isn't it the job of the servants of the people to make them pay up a little?
00:09:55.160Tell them about when you see something that's so logical has to happen.
00:09:59.380Walk through how the cartel – how does the swamp really work?
00:10:02.920Well, let me tell you one thing, Steve.
00:10:04.400It's been crazy in this process, and I don't want to reveal confidences here because a friend told me this in good faith.
00:10:10.760But you know that there are Republican senators on the Commerce Committee who are telling industry we will protect your cheap offshore labor if you support us on this Railway Safety Act.
00:10:24.520That is an actual trade that's been made between members of the Commerce Committee and a lot of industry.
00:10:36.320Because big industry and Wall Street wants cheap labor, the American dream be damned.
00:10:40.500And we have at the very same time congressional Republicans saying we'll promise you cheap labor so long as you help us fight against railway safety.
00:10:54.140I maybe didn't get it until I saw it up close and personal.
00:10:56.800The way that industry cooperates with big government to keep wages down, to keep our border wide open, to keep the fentanyl in our community, and to keep basic rail safety from happening, it's all connected, man.
00:11:09.300How do we – we've got a couple of minutes here.
00:11:15.440You would think this would be pretty plain.
00:11:16.860But to take on the cartel, to take on the lobbyists, to take on the corporate power and the oligarchs on Wall Street in Silicon Valley and the uniparty that protects them, how do you do it?
00:11:27.040Well, first of all, we need leadership.
00:11:28.180So Donald Trump came out and supported our bill.
00:11:31.640Obviously, look, we've got a debt ceiling.
00:11:33.340We've got a lot going on with immigration.
00:11:35.200For Trump to come out and support the bill was big, gave us a lot of momentum, is one of the reasons why I think we're going to get it passed.
00:11:58.040Thank God for the American Constitution, Steve, because the people still have power if they're willing to exercise it.
00:12:03.760If they go to bat and they let people know we need to start choosing people over the big government, big corporation, unholy alliance, we're going to be in good shape.
00:12:11.520We understand we've got a couple of minutes left.
00:12:12.880I know you've got to bounce, but people think very highly of you of understanding geopolitics.
00:12:31.940I know we only have a couple minutes left, but you go down the line of the weapons systems the Taiwanese would need to fight back against the Chinese invasion.
00:12:43.480We are depleting our stockpile of that stuff to send to Ukraine.
00:12:47.060The Chinese love what we're doing because the weapons that we could use to fight back against them, God forbid, whether it's us or the Taiwanese in a future conflict, we're depleting the stockpile.
00:12:57.660So people say we need to stand up for Ukraine to be tough on China.
00:13:01.140China doesn't give a damn about how much American politicians chest-thump.
00:13:04.620They care about whether we have enough bullets to fight the next war, and right now we don't.
00:17:11.120As you know, on Thursday, tomorrow, May 11th at 1159 p.m. Eastern time, the Title 42 public health order will terminate.
00:17:21.860At that point, we will once again process people at our southern border using our immigration enforcement authorities under Title VIII of the United States Code.
00:17:32.120Our overall approach is to build lawful pathways for people to come to the United States and to impose tougher consequences on those who choose not to use those pathways.
00:17:43.720We are taking this approach within the constraints of a broken immigration system that Congress has not fixed for more than two decades.
00:17:53.080And without the resources we need, personnel, facilities, transportation, and others that we have requested of Congress and that we were not given.
00:18:02.900Mr. Pedro, are you prepared to start releasing migrants into the U.S. without court dates and without a way to track them to reduce overcrowding?
00:18:11.860So when, like other administrations, when we release individuals, we release them on conditions.
00:18:22.020And their compliance with those conditions is absolutely necessary.
00:18:26.120And if they fail to comply, we will seek to apprehend them and remove them.
00:18:31.500They are ultimately in immigration enforcement proceedings.
00:18:35.980But what we are speaking of, what you are inquiring of, is a minor, is a fraction of the people that we encounter.
00:18:44.800In fact, the vast majority will be addressed in our border patrol facilities and our ICE detention facilities.
00:18:52.760We are making it very clear that our border is not open, that crossing irregularly is against the law,
00:19:00.860and that those who are not eligible for relief will be quickly returned.
00:19:07.780Okay, Congressman Wesley Hunt from Texas 38, that is the Houston area, joins us.
00:19:13.440A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a former Army Apache helicopter pilot.
00:19:19.720Sir, you've been in some pretty dangerous areas of the world in defense of your country.
00:19:25.020Talk to me about the Houston area and what is happening right now in this invasion of the southern border,
00:19:30.360allowed and exacerbated by the Biden regime.
00:19:33.560So what Mayorka just said is a bold-faced lie to the American public.
00:19:38.720And again, I guess he thinks that we're stupid and we have no idea what we're saying.
00:19:42.260I'm telling you, sir, and the American public, believe your eyes.
00:19:45.780For the past few years, this has been an invasion and it has been a horrible assault on our Constitution and on our country.
00:19:55.200We've had the most people to enter our country illegally in decades.
00:19:59.460We've had enough fentanyl pouring through our country to kill every single American six times.
00:20:04.660And what's going to happen tomorrow is just going to be an added incentive for people to enter our country illegally.
00:20:10.500We are talking about over six million people.
00:20:13.120That's the equivalent that eight congressional districts have entered our country illegally.
00:20:18.220And down in Houston, we are feeling it.
00:20:20.580I think we were talking earlier, sir, you know, Houston is known as the energy capital of the world,
00:20:24.740but it's also known as the human trafficking capital of the world because we are having people pour across our southern border.
00:21:03.300And what I want the American public to know is that for the next couple of years, we have got to get this right by 2024 because they are dedicated to destroying our country.
00:21:15.400Congressman, tomorrow, you actually, the irony here is they're going to rip the Band-Aid off with Title 42, although they're pouring over and they have been pouring over.
00:21:51.120This is what we want to do in the House of Representatives to protect the American people.
00:21:55.140And I can guarantee you Joe Biden is going to look at this, he's going to tear it up, and he's going to say no.
00:22:00.500And I want the American people to know that we are working every single day to get this done.
00:22:05.540We have an opportunity here in 2024 to elect President Trump, to make sure we take back the Senate, and then to make sure we keep the majority in the House.
00:22:12.560If we do those things, then what we just talked about in bills like this will be passed in the future to protect the American people.
00:22:19.640Congressman, you served your country once.
00:22:23.280You came back and running for Congress, served it again.
00:22:25.740Talk to me about the people in Houston, their thoughts about this invasion of the southern border.
00:22:37.680And also people are terrified because we're seeing a spike in crime.
00:22:40.980And so when you compare what's happening at the border and then you tack on the defund the police movement and everything else that the Democrats are proposing that's flat-out anti-American, and I wonder why people are just terrified.
00:22:51.880You know, I speak to mothers that are concerned about putting gas in their cars.
00:22:55.420They are concerned about taking their children to school.
00:22:57.980And it's all because of the idea that we don't have a sovereign border, something that I and your daughter fought to protect.
00:23:05.120And by the way, been all over the world, sir, I've seen it all, spent two years in Saudi Arabia, been to Iraq.
00:23:11.160I'm here to tell you that other countries don't behave this way.
00:23:14.840Other countries have sovereign borders.
00:23:17.340Other countries have people that protect their sovereignty for their future posterity.
00:23:21.880And the idea of going to any country in Europe or any other developed country and telling them we're going to allow you to have six million people into your country illegally, what would they say about that?
00:23:32.380When I was stationed in Saudi Arabia, I'd have a diplomatic passport just to enter the airspace of that country.
00:23:39.180And we are having people literally walking across the border from all walks of life, from all over the world every single day.
00:23:46.420And the people in Houston, Texas, and throughout Texas are fed up with it.
00:23:50.540We opened this segment with a cold open with Mayorkas saying that there's no invasion, the border's not open, it's all the fault of the MAGA Republicans who won't give him the resources, Congress won't give him this, this is why it's broken.
00:24:12.040So I'm on the House Judiciary Committee, and on this committee, a couple of weeks ago, we had the mayor from El Paso come testifying before us.
00:24:22.500And you want to know what he said, sir?
00:24:24.300He said that if you're calling what's happening at our border an invasion, that means you're racist.
00:24:29.920And I promptly rose my hand and I said, you know, that's really interesting.
00:24:33.680I think what's happening at the border is an invasion, and I can assure you that I'm not racist.
00:24:38.680To answer your question about Mayorkas, if this is the kind of mentality that Democrats have, and this is the kind of behavior that Mayorkas is allowing,
00:24:46.780I think Senator Cruz did a spot-on job in laying out the case as to why he should be impeached moving forward.
00:24:52.920And I think that case is going to continue to be built after what happens tomorrow.
00:24:57.400At some point in time, the dams are going to break hell.
00:25:02.080But now when you see this level of a derelict of duty, when you start talking about seeing six, seven, and eight million people entering this country illegally under the Biden administration and under the leadership of Mayorkas,
00:25:13.900I can't think of another description worse than being called a derelict of duty.
00:25:18.460And that's why he should be impeached.
00:25:19.740Congressman, we said on the show yesterday, and as you know, we're harder to the right on the budget than the speaker,
00:25:27.840but we think he's done a fantastic job of pulling together his votes.
00:25:31.140But he came out yesterday, and it was a master class of explanation at the White House of what he did.
00:25:40.380He says that, Congressman Hunt, it's people like you, MAGA extremists, MAGA Republicans that are bringing the nation to its knees in the capital markets and the economy.
00:25:50.560What say you about this debt ceiling fight, sir?
00:25:53.540We have banks closing all over this country.
00:25:57.380This is the worst inflation that I have seen in my lifetime.
00:26:00.820The response to the Biden administration is to do what?
00:26:22.140We're going to have a very tough two years.
00:26:24.080And don't blame MAGA Republicans, because we all know exactly where the economy was, especially before COVID.
00:26:30.440And this is also the reason why President Trump is doing so well in primary polling and amongst Republicans today, with his approval rating being above 65 percent.
00:26:39.560And that's because the economy is what's most important to all of us.
00:30:28.520Since taking the gavel in January, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability has accelerated its investigation of the Biden family's domestic and international business practices that we began last Congress.
00:30:42.820This committee is investigating President Biden and his family's shady business deals that capitalized on Joe Biden's public office and risked our country's national security.
00:30:54.380This committee has a duty to ask questions and pursue the facts no matter where they take us.
00:31:02.200Through the committee's investigation, we intend to provide transparency to the American people and reach legislative solutions.
00:31:09.600In only four months since obtaining subpoena authority, we have made astonishing progress.
00:31:16.520Today, we'll talk about that progress.
00:31:19.420First, we want to discuss information the committee has learned since our last press conference in November.
00:31:25.900New information investigators have uncovered regarding the transfer of money from foreign entities to the Biden family.
00:31:34.020Many of the wire payments occurred while Joe Biden was vice president and leading the United States efforts in these countries.
00:31:46.080First instance, while Vice President Biden was lecturing Romania on anti-corruption policies, in reality, he was a walking billboard for his son and family to collect money.
00:31:57.620First, Hunter Biden and his associates capitalized on a lucrative financial relationship with the Romanian national who was under investigation for and later convicted of corruption in Romania.
00:32:13.260The Bidens received over $1 million for the deal.
00:32:17.620And 16 of the 17 payments to their associates' account that funneled the Bidens' money occurred while Joe Biden was vice president.
00:32:28.560In fact, the money stops flowing from the Romanian national soon after Joe Biden leaves the vice presidency.
00:32:36.620This is a pattern of influence peddling.
00:32:39.960This appears separate from any payment Hunter received from his work connecting this individual to a U.S. law firm.
00:32:47.620We'll also provide further information regarding the Bidens' relationship with China.
00:32:52.840This includes two individuals the committee is particularly concerned about.
00:32:57.340One of them, Yuzhenming, had close ties to the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party and operated a multibillion-dollar energy company with access to large sums of money.
00:33:09.900Today, we'll discuss how the Bidens received millions of dollars from this individual through the use of shell companies and wire transfers.
00:33:20.420In March, the committee released its first bank records memorandum that showed a Biden associate, Rob Walker, used his company to funnel money from the Chinese to various Biden family members.
00:33:33.440Democrats dismissed the evidence, even though it was based on bank records directly from the bank.
00:33:38.800The Democrats on the oversight committee received the same records as the Republicans, and they were able to verify the information.
00:33:47.620Democrats said all the bank records showed were Papa John's and Starbucks receipts.
00:33:52.360They deliberately chose to misconstrue and deny what was clearly in front of them.
00:33:57.600Hunter Biden's representatives claimed the money was, quote, good-faith seed funds, but could not explain why those funds had to go through an intermediary in what appears to be an attempt to hide the transfers from the Chinese.
00:34:12.040They also couldn't explain why the Bidens received over $1 million in 16 different wire transfers over a period of three months to at least five different banks.
00:34:24.660The president, when confronted with this information, said it wasn't true.
00:34:31.420Instead of being honest with the American people, President Biden has claimed since the 2020 election that his family has not received money from China.
00:34:40.440That was a lie in 2020, and he continues to lie to the American people now.
00:34:47.700The Bidens have received millions of dollars from China.
00:34:51.020It is inconceivable that the president did not know it.
00:34:57.040The White House refuses to correct the president's statements, showing the president is now using the federal government to run interference for his families and his own role in these schemes.
00:35:07.500Now I want to say a few remarks about the developments last week.
00:35:11.240A week ago, I sent a subpoena to the FBI for a form that a whistleblower has alleged is in the FBI's possession.
00:35:18.360We hope the FBI will be transparent and forthcoming and provide the Oversight Committee with the 1023 form we have subpoenaed.
00:35:28.200If they do, the committee will assess the form it has subpoenaed from the FBI and has been my practice.
00:35:35.120We will report to you only facts when they are verified and indisputable.
00:35:39.460This committee will not pursue witch hunts or string the American people along for years with false promises of evidence that is beyond circumstantial evidence, as Representative Adam Schiff and the Democrats did for years.
00:37:39.280But the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC did not tweet out anything.
00:37:46.600First of all, didn't cover it live, didn't tweet out one tweet from those massive operations, not one tweet during this historic press conference this morning.
00:38:45.640We should defund the FBI immediately, all of it, not one penny until they serve up the whistleblower, who I understand from informed sources is afraid for his life.
00:38:58.520He's afraid he's going to be murdered.
00:39:39.420You've been in the firestorm of this, of yesterday in New York, this ridiculous thing in New York.
00:39:45.900They're coming at, look, they're protecting, it's a protection racket for the Bidens, and it's a persecution of Trump because they understand Trump's winning.
00:39:58.520They understand he's up on CNN tonight.
00:40:29.400Boris, you saw the kangaroo court yesterday of New York justice against President Trump.
00:40:33.400You've seen today with the Biden crime family, and then Santos, he's got some administrative stuff, or this thing on a campaign finance, or he took unemployment.
00:40:52.560I want to get the pregame tonight, but I want to talk about these investigations, particularly the FBI telling Comer and Oversight, suck on this.
00:42:31.260And it's been done by a cabal of the highest levels of intelligence and law enforcement, including those 51 fake intel officials who signed that shameful, illegal letter regarding a laptop, lying and claiming it was Russian misinformation when they knew it was real.
00:42:48.480And now they've admitted that they knew it.
00:42:51.280It's a cabal of the highest level of law enforcement, Democrat political operatives, and mainstream media.
00:43:02.800Why is the FBI not turning over this information?
00:43:05.120Because they're hiding and protecting the Biden crime family while doing all they can to attack their strongest political adversary, President Donald J. Trump, who's only getting stronger and stronger and stronger.
00:43:19.400You're seeing that in the polling everywhere, and you'll see it again tonight.
00:43:24.500Boris, if you hang on, we're going to hold you through the break.
00:44:20.600It takes a lot to shock me these days.
00:44:22.500But to see our judicial system resemble a third world banana republic, to see trusted American companies embrace insane and destructive woke ideologies is frankly depressing.
00:44:35.580And that starts with changing the way we spend our money.
00:44:38.660For years, big mobile companies have been dumping millions into leftist causes, and we had to take it because there was not another option.
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00:45:25.160Just go to PatriotMobile.com slash Bannon.
00:47:38.260And if there are any logical Democrats out there, well, they ought to be coming on board and joining with the MAGA movement, joining the war room posse.
00:47:45.320President Trump is going to be talking about the border, which is obviously a disaster, literally, as we speak, hot fire at the border.
00:47:53.460He's going to be talking about the economy, celebrating a 4.95% CPI increase year over year.
00:48:04.300He's going to be talking about the absolute devastation that's going on in Ukraine, which is a dumpster fire surrounded by nuclear reactors.
00:48:12.440And continuing to draw the contrast between the strength, the dominance, including on energy that we had during the Trump presidency, and the absolute mess, which is an understatement, the disaster that we are in now under a pathetic, hopeless, crooked Joe Biden.
00:48:29.280It is going to be a tool to force tonight by President Trump.
00:50:38.680It immerses you in exactly what this fight is about the debt ceiling is.
00:50:43.380And this is not to make you the smartest person, the most interesting person at the cocktail party or with your golf foursome or at a dinner party or backyard barbecue or sitting in the stands in Little League.
00:50:54.980It's to make you part of the creditors committee.
00:50:57.920We need everybody's shoulder to the wheel.
00:50:59.540You heard Senator Vance as we started the show.
00:51:02.100Also, you can go and talk to Philip Patrick and his team.
00:51:05.760And I think Philip is going to join us this Saturday with Dave Walsh.
00:51:18.660You go to birchgold.com and you can find out everything about precious metal, why central banks are buying more in 2022 than they've ever bought, why they're buying more in 2023, and what it means to you.