On today's show, we discuss the confirmation of 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Justice nominee Amy Coney, who was confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. We also hear from New York Governor Kathy Hochul and California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who have said they would consider redrawing House lines in order to counter Republican tactics and ensure that the Democrats have a shot at securing the House majority. Finally, we hear from Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Ohio Gov. John Kasich on how they plan to fight off a Republican effort to redraw congressional maps.
00:08:44.480Well, the National Endowment for Democracy is the premier CIA cutout in the entire armada of CIA-affiliated NGOs.
00:08:52.400It was set up during a very dicey period in CIA history in the early 1980s when the church committee hearings had unveiled all the scandals of the early Central Intelligence Agency.
00:09:06.700And Jimmy Carter had just devastated the CIA with giant layoffs and budget cuts and handcuffs and written approval.
00:09:15.400And so the Ronald Reagan foreign policy establishment created the National Endowment for Democracy as a way to try to get the CIA's old powers back by parking it at a private NGO fully funded by the U.S. government,
00:09:29.480accountable to the U.S. government, staffed on the board by folks from the U.S. government.
00:09:35.360But that would technically be non-governmental so that it would allow them the leeway to do things effectively off the books, out of sight, and with plausible deniability.
00:09:44.840It was the brainchild of CIA director William Casey.
00:09:49.740It was midwifed by his top deputy, Raymond Green.
00:09:53.060The founders of the National Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman, told the New York Times in 1986 that they were created to fund the organizations,
00:10:01.760that it was too scandalous for the CIA to be seen as directly doing.
00:10:06.060And they played a very large role in the 1980s in the U.S. winning the Cold War.
00:10:11.520The Washington Post, I believe, went so far as to say during Bob Gates' CIA confirmation hearings in the early 1990s for CIA director
00:10:22.800that we didn't even need a CIA anymore because we have this National Endowment for Democracy cute trick.
00:10:28.680And it did play a significant role in organizing revolutionary movements behind the Iron Curtain,
00:10:35.020in running money, logistical support, media support.
00:10:39.320And then when communism, you know, when the Cold War ended, the National Endowment for Democracy then took on an expanded global role
00:10:48.620in essentially assisting CIA or U.S. aid or State Department actions all around the world.
00:10:56.380The real problem here is when Trump won in 2016, this same foreign policy establishment
00:11:02.480that was set up in large part to wage the Cold War found a new global menace, which was the global
00:11:11.780rise of populist parties from Trump in the U.S. to Nigel Farage and the Brexit and Reform Party movements
00:11:19.380in the U.K. to Marine Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy and Bolsonaro in Brazil.
00:11:24.640And so they faced this kind of unofficial, undeclared Second Cold War in the form of populism.
00:11:31.000And the National Endowment for Democracy descended like a pack of vultures to try to essentially harvest,
00:11:41.060you know, kill and then eat the corpse of every little populist movement it could.
00:11:47.020And so the issue right now with its funding is that you have House Republicans who still feel beholden
00:11:55.140to the traditional Republican foreign policy base from the Cold War era.
00:12:01.960A lot of right wing, a lot of corporations, chamber of commerce companies,
00:12:06.340they depend on the battering ram of the Pentagon, of USAID funding,
00:12:10.940of CIA and clandestine NGO services in order to create their markets,
00:12:17.020in order to secure favorable legislation or regulations in countries,
00:12:22.600in order to lock in government contracts, in order to harvest natural resources.
00:12:28.720And so you have this kind of John McCain wing.
00:12:31.660John McCain actually ran the Republican side of the National Endowment for Democracy for 25 years.
00:12:35.860But you have this John McCain wing of the Republican Party who I think is not going to let go of this weapon
00:12:43.600while it serves so many of their own interests.
00:12:47.320But Mike, down that path, this kind of had to come from Rubio with,
00:12:53.380I think it was one of his closest relationships in Congress down in Florida that slipped this in there
00:13:00.640because this is still the Caribbean, the anti-Cuba, the anti-Castro mentality on the surface,
00:13:06.800but it's still got the rot of trying to stop populist nationalism through the world.
00:13:11.900I mean, when President Trump wants it out, the MAGA movement wants it out, it gets zeroed.
00:13:16.720How do you slip $315 million back in there, sir?
00:13:21.080Well, I think this is coming from the fact that Congress has a natural conflict with the executive branch.
00:13:29.020We saw this play out in the budget fights.
00:13:31.320We saw this play out over a whole host of issues.
00:13:35.720But there is a potential salvation path for the National Endowment for Democracy
00:13:40.320if it commits to certain massive reforms.
00:13:45.120Darren Beattie, for example, just took over the U.S. Institute of Peace,
00:13:48.800which is adjacent to the National Endowment for Democracy.
00:13:51.540It's basically the National Endowment for Democracy for conflict zones like Syria and the like.
00:13:56.320But the fact is, is Damon Wilson is still the head of the National Endowment for Democracy.
00:14:03.020That makes no sense at all to give that senior leadership this kind of money.
00:14:08.180Damon Wilson was the architect of the censorship operations out of the Atlantic Council,
00:14:13.780which itself has seven CIA directors on its board and annual funding for the Pentagon State Department.
00:14:18.380He was the head of the DFR lab, which is the censorship lab at the Atlantic Council,
00:14:23.400and then he was handpicked to run the National Endowment for Democracy.
00:14:26.120The Atlanta Council's DFR lab called Trump the death star of disinformation for the 2020 election
00:14:32.220and then partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to mass censor thousands and thousands of narratives, posts.
00:14:40.760They targeted 22 million tweets as misinformation.
00:14:44.000They got to use DHS's proprietary cyber mission control to run this whole thing.
00:14:48.700They ran an entire full-scale campaign to destroy Donald Trump.
00:17:16.200That's why, you know, Reagan picked him.
00:17:18.840The deep state and the apparatus refuses to die.
00:17:22.080And now we have this major, you know, controversy around the intelligence and what Tulsi Gabbard's putting out, what the CIA director Ratcliffe's putting out.
00:17:31.660But I can tell you, people are getting antsy.
00:17:33.980I understand things can be done the next day.
00:17:35.900However, folks, you know, the president called Obama part of a treasonous conspiracy to basically remove him from office when he first won or to shut down President Trump's first term.
00:17:52.040And we know there's a lot more than that, given that, you know, this apparatus better than anyone's in D.C., are we really getting anywhere?
00:18:14.460Well, I'd say this is the fastest movement, fastest moving administration probably in American history.
00:18:22.620The amount of things that have been done in terms of institutional reforms in such a short span of time.
00:18:28.400I mean, we're talking six months here.
00:18:31.080Just last week, the State Department had the largest mass firing event in State Department history.
00:18:37.880We've had a State Department since 1789 and never before have 4,000 State Department employees all been mass fired at once.
00:18:47.560In USAID, 14,000 USAID blobsters were all fired at once.
00:18:55.120There are considerable reforms happening at a very fast pace.
00:18:59.180As I mentioned earlier, Darren Beattie is now the head of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which itself is another one of these dark, covert, CIA-adjacent, fully funded by the U.S. government, accountable to the Senate Foreign Relations, House Affairs committees that now have new stewardship and a new board and have been pretty brutally set back by these institutional reforms.
00:19:27.420The main thing that I would just say to folks is that these corrupt institutions are still our institutions.
00:19:37.380And there is a difficulty in – I know everyone sees the abuses and wants a kind of blood sport or some public – something greater than a walk of shame.
00:19:51.860And I think in the case of Russiagate, that is, we saw John Ratcliffe come out, I believe it was last night, and suggest that the Justice Department is looking at folks like John Brennan.
00:20:03.080There has been the criminal referral from ODNI, so I think that Tulsi is doing all that she can on that.
00:20:08.360Whether or not that ultimately ends up as a criminal indictment or in systemic reforms – we saw these mass firings at the Justice Department under Harmeet Dillon and the like – remains to be seen.
00:20:19.520But these institutions are still a big part of how the American motor and economy works.
00:20:30.860These places like Harvard, corrupt as they are, they get $9 billion in federal grants.
00:20:36.900But if you don't have world-class institutions, then you end up losing to other countries who do.
00:20:43.960That doesn't mean you keep the same institutions.
00:20:46.040But the things that preserve them – what I'm trying to get at here is something like the National Endowment for Democracy is – it is corrupt.
00:20:55.600The question is, how do you fix that corruption?
00:20:58.180Do you do it by institutional reforms and a kind of corporate regime change, or do you get rid of the thing entirely?
00:21:07.280And when you get rid of the thing entirely, you're now getting rid of contacts in basically three-quarters of the world's countries.
00:21:13.540The National Endowment for Democracy has deep relationships with trade labor groups, media groups, universities, regulators, banking institutions, you name it, every facet of civil society.
00:21:30.100And do you simply get rid of that entire Rolodex, or do you condition the funds on a change in leadership and a restructuring of the grant agreements and the accountability mechanism?
00:21:44.460And I think that that is what is trying to be attempted with many of these institutions.
00:21:50.040And we'll see ultimately as the years go by how much of that sticks.
00:21:55.700But it is making a difference at the universities.
00:21:58.660We do see universities now playing ball for the first time they've ever had to because of the dramatic action the Trump administration has taken.
00:22:07.500And the big cliffhanger on all this is what will Pam Bondi do, just like with the Epstein story, just like with the Russiagate story.
00:22:15.900The Justice Department is the great unknown.
00:22:56.300As you're sitting here today, what do you think your best assessment is?
00:23:01.460Well, if it's going to happen, it will have to happen somewhat quickly.
00:23:05.460The statute of limitations is a kind of ticking time bomb here in several respects.
00:23:11.260Charges like perjury or obstruction of justice are typically a five-year statute of limitations.
00:23:16.020I understand that the way this has been pitched for criminal referral by Tulsi Gabbard to the Justice Department has been around conspiracy,
00:23:24.460in which case I think you're looking at something more like a 10-year statute of limitations.
00:23:28.680But even in that case, in 10 years, you're talking about operations that basically were 2016 to 2019, for the most part.
00:23:39.760So you're going to need to move quickly, even within that 10-year statute of limitations, in terms of starting that process.
00:23:46.820But naturally, these things are going to be very, very close hold by the Justice Department,
00:23:51.420for any number of reasons, ranging from the legal to the strategic.
00:23:57.260But the fact is, I do think that we'd be well, as a body electorate,
00:24:04.720to focus in on the specific actionable claims that could be made by the Justice Department,
00:24:10.720in particular around folks like John Brennan, who appeared to have foreknowledge in, according to his August 3rd handwritten notes,
00:24:19.220August 3rd, 2016, when he said that Hillary Clinton had approved a plan to frame Donald Trump for being a Russian asset,
00:24:32.560that essentially, I think it was to stir up a scandal, that alleging Russian interference to favor the Trump campaign,
00:24:41.740that was known ahead of time by John Brennan, the CIA director, which is also quite curious.
00:24:47.740That plan was approved by Hillary Clinton just five days earlier.
00:24:51.280She was then the former Secretary of State, the CIA chief.
00:24:56.460Was he spying on Hillary Clinton's campaign to know that, or did a little birdie tell him?
00:25:01.040How did he know that to even brief the president?
00:25:03.100And then he goes back and runs the intelligence assessment that effectively starts this whole ball rolling
00:25:10.040while he's running the spies in Trump's campaign.
00:25:13.460So I do think that there could be issues around the political sensitivities, I suppose, around certain figures in that cabal.
00:25:25.140But the John Brennan one just seems so clean.
00:25:27.420And this was the same person who publicly accused Trump of treason and said that Trump would die in prison.
00:25:35.120So, you know, life is long and things catch back up to you.
00:25:39.380And I think John Brennan is hard to think of a more deserving candidate for experiencing the things he wished on others.
00:25:48.920Benz, your social media is second to none about getting information out and making analysis.
00:25:56.080Can you give us your social media so people can keep up to speed?
00:28:10.840I'm going to hold you through the break.
00:28:11.920Also, Philip Patrick is going to join us about what went on in Stockholm, Sweden,
00:28:17.640with the Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besson, next in the war room.
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00:29:49.300Cleo, the blood and sacrifice of the fight in the Central Pacific in these islands had a purpose.
00:29:57.440Now, sometimes the tactics that we need to do the head-on amphibious landings, some people question that today, but it had an overall strategic purpose.
00:30:07.400The blood and sacrifice of that generation on those islands, every bit as brutal as Normandy, right?
00:30:13.680And island after island after island had a mission and an objective, and we're now in a position of kind of just giving it up.
00:30:21.600But more importantly, it's a gateway to the United States, and people have kind of lost sight of that.
00:30:27.220The Chinese Communist Party is an existential threat to the Chinese people, to the American people, to our country.
00:30:36.900And as we've shown day after day after day, it's infiltrations everywhere.
00:30:43.080It's an open pathway that Chinese nationalists can just come into the country.
00:30:47.600And as you said, certain institutions out there are rife with corruption.
00:30:51.900That's where this courageous governor took a stand and mysteriously, unexpectedly died, ma'am.
00:30:58.660Yes, and he is the governor of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, which is where Saipan and Tinian are.
00:31:07.640And almost exactly 80 years ago, the Enola Gay took off from Tinian and began the process that ended World War II in the Pacific.
00:31:15.900This is a highly strategic location that Saipan, Tinian, and the rest of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana's belonged to Japan from 1914 until so many Marines and other U.S. service members died in 1944, liberating it.
00:31:31.800And then after the war, it came under U.S. administration, under the Navy, and then it was given the choice of what it wanted for its future.
00:31:39.620The people did, and they voted to join the United States.
00:31:42.080So since 1970, it joined the United States as a territory, and it's one of the newest parts of the United States.
00:31:49.360And since then, because of how important it is strategically, it's been a real target for the Chinese.
00:31:56.420They've studied very closely World War II in the Pacific.
00:31:59.300Toshio Ishihara has written extremely well about how they studied both the Japanese side and the American side for emplacement.
00:32:05.060But they're emplacing through political warfare to put themselves in a position to perhaps not checkmate the U.S. before it can move kinetically, and if the U.S. does move kinetically, to have a very bad surprise when it does move.
00:32:19.320I'd also just like to point out that this is part of the United States of America, and the Chinese engagement is moving through there into the U.S. Congress.
00:32:29.660So the representative from the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, who sits in Congress as a delegate, consistently pushes for things like a lifting of caps on direct flights from mainland China into the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.
00:32:44.880She consistently pushes for programs that currently the Chinese do not need a visa to go into the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, and she'd like to see that continue.
00:32:53.480But not only is she pushing it, she's very, very persuasive, and she uses numbers, Chinese tourism numbers, from pre-pandemic eras to convince others in Congress to back her position.
00:33:07.100So you have even people like Representative Nails from Texas 22nd, who is very strong on the border.
00:33:14.140She somehow managed to convince him to write a letter supporting what's called EVS TAP, which is enhanced looking at Chinese coming in, but it's enhanced from zero.
00:33:25.980There's no reason that Chinese shouldn't require a visa to come into the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands like they do to everywhere else in the U.S., but she's so persuasive.
00:33:34.100She's saying that, you know, if this doesn't happen, the CNMI economy will collapse, even though currently there are about eight to ten times more Korean tourists than there are Chinese tourists, and she already has everything she wants.
00:33:47.420Chinese can already arrive in CNMI without a visa, and they haven't even reached the limit of flights that they can get from China into mainland.
00:33:55.200So this is infecting U.S. Congress, and it's infecting the administration.
00:33:59.380Her former legislative director, Angel Demapan, who is also chief of staff of the former governor, was involved in facilitating the setting up of the Chinese casino that was running billions of dollars, potentially laundering, the investigation needs to happen, into the U.S. economy from China.
00:34:17.480He is now the DAS, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs at the Department of Interior.
00:34:26.440I have no idea how he passed the vetting.
00:34:28.740He was very supportive of the Chinese casino, and he worked for this member of Congress who is pushing for easier Chinese access into the United States via CNMI.
00:34:40.480Do we know any details of the funeral?
00:34:42.120The funeral will be on August 2nd, and I know that there are people coming from across the U.S., including members of Congress like Representative Radwagon from American Samoa and others, but we don't know the full guest list yet.
00:34:59.100We will figure it out, and hopefully maybe you'll be able to stream it.
00:35:02.420Cleo, what is your social media so people can keep up to date on this very important story?
00:36:50.260We just need to de-risk with certain strategic industries, whether it's the rare earth, semiconductors, medicines.
00:37:00.820And we talked about what we could do together to get into balance within the relationship.
00:37:09.760So 60 percent of the world's GDP we now have either in heads of terms, terms agreed, or getting under contract with Liberation Day tariffs and are bringing jobs back and bringing a lot of cash back.
00:37:25.600And, of course, Scott Besson, our theory of the case, and Scott knows this well, it's decouple and decouple hard.
00:37:32.140President Trump and Scott understand they're running a global economy and they're trying to work it out, figure it out with the Chinese Communist Party.
00:37:42.900Philip, I want to tie this to the CCP leading the effort.
00:37:47.440And let's be blunt, they're leading the effort to de-dollarize, right?
00:37:52.980Every aspect behind BRICS, the central bank buying gold, they are not an ally of us.
00:38:00.380I understand we are trying to work at a trade deal, right?
00:38:03.320We're pretty adamantly opposed to the chips deal.
00:38:07.660But Scott and the president are trying to balance an economy that's growing, and right now they're kind of hitting on all cylinders.
00:38:13.860What are your thoughts about all this, particularly in the de-dollarization front, which the CCP is still leading, sir?
00:38:22.820Yeah, look, I mean, Besson's doing the job that he has to do.
00:38:26.160Like you said, they're trying to make the global economy start working, start running a little bit better, and China are an important part of that.
00:38:33.660So Besson said he was not looking to decouple, but rather to de-risk.
00:39:35.000No shortcuts when it comes to enforcement.
00:39:38.260There also, as Besson mentioned in the open, buying oil from sanctioned countries, whether it's Russia or Iran.
00:39:44.260Trump warns, sorry, there could be secondary tariffs of up to 100%.
00:39:48.400So they haven't sealed the deal yet, but they've left the playing field intact.
00:39:53.820And I think Besson's taking the right approach when it comes to America first.
00:39:58.940Talking about wanting to de-risk I think is very important, particularly when it comes to rare earths, semiconductors and medicines, right?
00:40:07.180It is a national security risk to be reliant on foreign nations to do this.
00:40:13.220So I think Besson's walking the line that he has to do for now.
00:40:17.780Longer term, though, China are a big problem.
00:40:48.280They told him 90% of the output of the Persians in oil is purchased by the Chinese.
00:40:54.240This is why I always argued, if you want to overthrow, if you want regime change in Persia, just step in the middle of that transaction.
00:41:02.200Why then, why, given that they're trying to make a trade deal that the Americans have clearly said at the leadership level, we don't want to decouple, we want to de-risk, we want to try to figure this out.
00:41:13.320Why is the Chinese Communist Party's central bank?
00:41:16.620Why do they continue to buy gold at record rates?
00:41:19.320Listen, China have a long-term plan, and that is to de-dollarize, right?
00:41:26.500But just like we can't, you know, knock China off overnight, they can't replace us overnight.
00:41:32.700Even China, our biggest geopolitical rival, who have slowly been de-dollarizing for a decade, they have deep exposure to the U.S. system.
00:41:42.180$750 billion of U.S. government debt, $1.5 trillion in mortgages, cash deposits and everything else.
00:41:48.720So this is, the global economy is very interlinked.
00:41:52.940And, you know, I think we're playing it cautiously on both sides of the fence.
00:41:58.000But, like I said, China won't come out and overtly say their plan is to de-dollarize, but look at what's happening behind the scenes.
00:42:06.740And, like I said, that's why I think putting the squeeze on the CCP, whether it's through trade deals with our partners, the U.K. or European partners, that needs to be the goal long-term.
00:42:18.180We have to try and reduce China's influence globally.
00:42:21.920Otherwise, we're going to end up in trouble.
00:42:44.720So we'll find out tomorrow before the Fed breaks to go to Jackson Hole for their annual retreat exactly what they're going to do on interest rates.
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00:51:52.400A lot of people didn't get a chance to see it.
00:51:55.120So what I've done in the next hour, I've broken it down and I give context to what we're saying.
00:52:01.300In particular, I spent some time on that tremendous lead-in we had from the movie, from the miniseries, John Adams with Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton going at it.
00:52:13.980So you'll get that all in the next hour.