Human Events Daily - Sep 29 2021 - Gen. Milley Calls Afghanistan Withdrawal a “Logistical Success”
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Summary
General Mark Milley's testimony before the Senate on Afghanistan and why he refused to resign. Chris Cuomo's executive producer has resigned over threats. An NBA star is coming out regarding the COVID vaccine. And Jen Psaki's comments on the $3.5 Trillion spending bill are interesting to mathematicians. All this and more on today's Human Events Daily.
Transcript
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's edition of Human Events Daily. This is your
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daily briefing. First story up today, we're going to break down General Milley's testimony. He
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refused to resign and he defended his actions in the well of the Senate yesterday. We're going to
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talk all about that. Second, huge story, Chris Cuomo's executive producer has resigned over
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threats. We'll get into it. Third, an NBA star is coming out regarding the COVID vaccine. You've
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got to hear his response. And finally, Jen Psaki's comments on the $3.5 trillion spending bill are
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very interesting to a lot of the mathematicians out there. All this and more ahead, Human Events Daily.
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All right, so like put together a montage of Milley's testimony yesterday, as well as questions
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he received from Tom Cotton and Senator Hawley. Take a listen and then we'll respond.
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Combatant evacuation. And I think one of the other senators said it very well. It was a logistical
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success, but a strategic failure. I've got one final question. General Milley, I can only conclude
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that your advice about staying in Afghanistan was rejected. I'm shocked to learn that your advice
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wasn't sought until August 25th on staying past the August 31 deadline. I understand that you're the
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principal military advisor, that you advise, you don't decide, the president decides.
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But if all this is true, General Milley, why haven't you resigned?
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Senator, as a senior military officer, resigning is a really serious thing. It's a political act if
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I'm resigning in protest. My job is to provide advice. My statutory responsibility is to provide
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legal advice or best military advice to the president. And that's my legal requirement. That's what the law is.
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The president doesn't have to agree with that advice. He doesn't have to make those decisions
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just because we're generals. And it would be an incredible act of political defiance for a
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commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken. This country doesn't want generals
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figuring out what orders we are going to accept and do or not. That's not our job. The principle of
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civilian control of the military is absolute. It's critical to this republic. In addition to that,
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just from a personal standpoint, you know, my dad didn't get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima.
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And those kids that are at Abbey Gate, they don't get a choice to resign. And I'm not going to turn my
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back on them. I'm not going to resign. They can't resign, so I'm not going to resign. There's no way.
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If the orders are illegal, we're in a different place. But if the orders are legal from civilian
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authority, I intend to carry them out. I just want to say this. It seems to me that you put a high
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priority on making sure that you were favorably portrayed by the D.C. press corps. You spent a lot
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of time doing that. Fair enough if that's your priority. But at the same time, we had a rapidly
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deteriorating, frankly, disastrous situation in Afghanistan, which resulted in the death of 13
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soldiers, including one from my home state, hundreds of civilians, and hundreds of Americans
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left behind. And in my view, that mission can't be called a success in any way, shape,
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or form, logistical or otherwise. General, I think you should resign. Secretary Austin,
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I think you should resign. I think this mission was a catastrophe. I think there's no other way
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to say it. And there has to be accountability. I respectfully submit it should begin with you.
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A logistical success, but a strategic failure, but a logistical success. Yes, that's right.
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General Milley, who had literally Afghan citizens falling from airplanes, child brides being brought
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to the United States with their abusers onto U.S. Army bases. People coming in that are now assaulting
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U.S. service members, female service members. But it was a logistical success.
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All right, here's how it works from here on out. When General Milley resigns, then his vice chairman,
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who is currently a four-star Army general, will become the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs
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of Staff. However, at that point, because Milley's term was supposed to go until 2023,
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a new presidential appointment will need to be made. At that time, when Joe Biden has to pick a general
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to become the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the new one, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I should say,
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the Senate has to confirm this. This is a Senate-confirmed position. We have 50-50 split in
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the Senate. Every single person is out there, especially, by the way, if you have a Democrat
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senator, you need to call them and you need to hold their feet to the fire and you need to hold
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them accountable to say, we cannot have another Milley. We absolutely cannot have another Milley
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as the highest-ranking officer in our U.S. military. So this needs to go through any person.
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Any potential nominee has to be willing to accept responsibility for the consequences of their
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actions. As a U.S. military officer, even if something isn't your fault, you are still the one
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who is responsible. None of the blame game, none of the rest. I'm done. I'm actually done with this.
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We need to find the replacement for Milley and we need to find it now. The American people deserve
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better and you better believe that the American military deserves better. This is completely
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ridiculous and I don't even, I honestly, I don't even want to get into it. I don't even want to
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analyze the things this guy said. I don't even want to get into these calls with China. It's done.
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He's done. We cannot have, we absolutely cannot have two more years of this person sitting in that
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office as the highest-ranking officer of the United States military. He has lost the confidence of the
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American people. He has lost the confidence of the chain of command. And quite frankly, I believe he's
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even lost the confidence of his own party. General Milley, it is time to enjoy your retirement. Stay
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Today, we are going to have a discussion about CNN's erstwhile member of the Cuomo family. Some
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may say the last standing member of the Cuomo family, but for how much longer will that last?
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Chris Cuomo. New report out of page six with the New York Post. Chris Cuomo's female executive
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producer begged to leave and felt threatened by him. The female producer of Chris Cuomo's show Cuomo
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Primetime begged to leave his show after the pair clashed over significant differences with multiple
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TV sources saying that she found the hot-headed host's behavior threatening. Melanie Buck was the
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executive producer of Cuomo Primetime from April 2018, but was suddenly replaced in March 2020,
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shortly before Cuomo melodramatically returned to the world from his basement in the Hamptons
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following weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. This all, of course, comes on the heels of the new
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sexual harassment, potentially even sexual assault, because we know this is physical contact that
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came out from him from years ago at ABC when he essentially got a little bit handsy with someone's
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wife while at an event. He later apologized for it, but admitted what happened. All of this storm
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comes on the heels of Chris Cuomo's brother resigning in disgrace as the governor of New York. And when
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that happened, listen to what Chris Cuomo said. First, thank you. Thank you for reaching out. I
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appreciate the concern and the support. I really do. My brother, as you know, resigned as governor of New
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York and will be stepping down next week. There are a lot of people feeling a lot of hurt and a lot of
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pain right now. And my hope is that ultimately everyone involved can get to a better place,
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that some higher good will be served in all of this. As for me, I've told you it's never easy being in this
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business and coming from a political family, especially now. This situation is unlike anything
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I could have imagined. And yet I know what matters at work and at home. Everyone knows you support your
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family. I know and appreciate that you get that. But you should also know I never covered my brother's
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troubles because I obviously have a conflict and there are rules at CNN about that. I said last year
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that his appearances on this show would be short lived. And they were. The last was over a year
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ago, long before any kind of scandal. I also said back then that a day would come when he would have
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to be held to account. And I can't do that. I said, point blank, I can't be objective when it comes to my
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family. So I never reported on the scandal. And when it happened, I tried to be there for my brother.
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I'm not an advisor. I'm a brother. I wasn't in control of anything. I was there to listen
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and offer my take. And my advice to my brother was simple and consistent. Own what you did.
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Tell people what you'll do to be better. Be contrite. And finally, accept that it doesn't
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matter what you intended. What matters is how your actions and words were perceived.
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And yes, while it was something I never imagined ever having to do, I did urge my brother to resign
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when the time came. There are stories and critics saying all kinds of things about me,
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many unsupported. But know this, my position has never changed.
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Accept that it doesn't matter what you intended. What matters is how your actions and words were
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perceived. And when the time comes, urge to resign. CNN has been completely silent about this. And in
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fact, most of independent media isn't talking about it as well. You won't see this trending on Twitter.
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You won't see this across the blogosphere, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to talk about it here at
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Human Events Daily because this is serious. Now, by the way, I'm the type of person who believes in due
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process. I believe in actually investigating things and see what's going on. And if someone does make
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accusations, my response is always show me evidence that backs up the accusations, right? Show me the
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evidence. Show me the money. What do you got? But that's not what Chris Cuomo said. Chris Cuomo said it
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doesn't matter what you intended. It doesn't matter. What matters is how it's perceived. And then you need
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to resign. So let's look at this. You have one instance where there was evidence. There was an
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accusation and then you admitted it when it came to sexual harassment. We now have evidence that
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your own executive producer resigned because she felt threatened. So now we're starting to see a
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pattern. We're seeing a pattern around Chris Cuomo. And I'd say this to CNN. Cut your losses.
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Jeff Zucker, come on. You can do better. You don't need this guy. You don't need the Cuomo
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baggage. It's done. Fredo was always destined to leave this way. You know it's going to happen
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eventually. You know that his show isn't long for this world. It's time to stop the hemorrhaging.
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it's time. Make CNN just a little bit better. Do the right thing. Do the right thing, Jeff.
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Okay, so I know we talk about some stuff on here that can get pretty heady. It can get pretty
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negative. We just did two segments that were very strong, very negative. Today, right now,
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I want to give you something positive. This is awesome. This is probably the greatest response
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I've seen from anyone in public regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, the COVID-vax. Listen to this.
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This is Jonathan Isaac, and he's a member of the Orlando Magic. Take a listen to what he said.
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Jonathan, Josh Robbins with The Athletic. What is it about the vaccine that makes you
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hesitant to get? I would start with, I've had COVID in the past, and so our understanding of
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antibodies, of natural immunity has changed a great deal from the onset of the pandemic,
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and it's still evolving. I understand that the vaccine would help if you catch COVID,
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and you'll be able to have less symptoms from contracting it. But with me having COVID in the
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past and having antibodies with my current age group and physical fitness level, it's not
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necessarily a fear of mine. Taking the vaccine, like I said, it would decrease my chances of
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having a severe reaction, but it does open me up to the, albeit rare chance, but the possibility
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of having an adverse reaction to the vaccine itself. I don't believe that being unvaccinated means
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infected or being vaccinated means uninfected. You can still catch COVID with or with not having the
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vaccine. I would say, honestly, the craziness of it all in terms of not being able to say that it
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should be everybody's fair choice without being demeaned or talked crazy to doesn't make one
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comfortable to do what said person is telling them to do. Yeah, I would say that's a couple of the
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reasons that, you know, I would say I'm hesitant at this time. But at the end of the day, I don't feel
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that it is, you know, anyone's reason to come out and say, well, this is why or this is not why it
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should just be their decision. And, you know, loving your neighbors, not just loving those that agree
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with you or look like you or move in the same way that you do. It's, it's, you know, loving those
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who don't. Isn't that perfect? And by the way, I did look up, yes, he, in case you imagined, he's
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Christian. He's a believer, right? Loving your neighbor means even loving the people that disagree
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with you. When's the last time you actually heard someone in public say that? We all used to believe
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it. We all used to say it. He said, stop demonizing people. He understands that's the problem.
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By the way, most people are vaccinated, right? You know, I was thinking about this yesterday
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and most people actually are vaccinated, right? You have pretty much all the vaccines. You get
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them when you're younger, you get MMR, et cetera, et cetera. So unvaccinated isn't even a thing.
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And yet they want to turn people into this category of people. And yet that's, that's just not true.
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That's not how it works. We're looking about the mandates and we're talking about CoronaVax. We're not
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talking about all vaccines, right? Obviously. So second, so this is what I said. I came up with a little
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response. If someone says, oh, are you vaccinated? You can just respond, you know, oh yes, I have all
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the usual vaccinations. You, right? And then you say, wait, wait, the usual, what? Exactly. So you
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just put it like that. So I commend Jonathan Isaac. That's exactly what we need to hear. It is your
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choice. The polling on this is clear, by the way, people don't want others to be losing their jobs.
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People don't want to be going through and culling and purging the military and healthcare workers.
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Remember last year, the healthcare workers were heroes, the greatest, and now they're all getting fired.
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If you won't comply, if you don't comply with the mandate, which by the way, last time I checked,
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if you were a healthcare worker this year, that means you probably were last year. That means
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chances are you've got natural immunity already, right? But of course, natural immunity doesn't
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sell. Natural immunity doesn't make anyone money because you've already got natural immunity. So
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there's no, there's no huge, massive push for people to have that or people to check for that.
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Why can't we just check for antibodies? Like I have, like I think a lot of people have because
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they have the natural immunity. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, shouldn't
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your medical decisions be a decision, be a choice between you and your doctor? And this
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is great. I love it because he looks at that and he says, I've looked at the science. I've
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looked at the risk. I've looked at the data. I'm not in one of those categories that's at
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a high risk for this. And so I've decided that because I already have the antibodies from
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having had it, I'm not going to go through with it. The end, the end, period, full stop,
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end of story. Not only is that one of the most Christian things I've heard someone say,
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that is one of the most American things that I've heard someone say regarding COVID-19.
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So I commend him. I just, I just have to commend him. I say it's a great job. We like to give a
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little hope here every once in a while here on HE Daily. And so I thank you, Jonathan Isaac,
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for providing that. So I know there's a lot of people out there that aren't huge fans of Jen
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Saki, but I actually am. Let me explain why. She is a never ending content factory for us here at
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HE Daily. And I got to tell you some of the stuff that she says, it's, it's, it's, I don't even,
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I'm not even mad. It's, it's amazing. It's astounding. So listen to this. They asked her about
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the spending package, 3.5 trillion. They asked her about the spending package. Listen to what
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she said. You guys have made a lot of the administration officials have made a lot about
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the idea that the, the cost of the program is zero. And by that, I expect you mean net zero
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when to the, to the treasury, once you sort of take into account the money that's raised versus
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the money that's spent, correct? Yes, it doesn't. I know none of us are mathematicians,
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otherwise we wouldn't be here, but yes, of the investments that were proposed,
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including tax cuts and the pay-fors, including making the tax system more fair, zero.
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So it's incredible, right? 3.5 trillion, but it costs zero. This is the new math. I guess that's
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common core, right? Now this is all modern monetary theory, right? This is what Jenny Ellen believes.
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This is what so many of them believe, right? And I almost want to go in there and say,
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you know, Jen, uh, quick question. If it costs zero, why exactly do we need to raise the debt
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ceiling again? Cause cost zero, right? So it doesn't cost anything. So why are we going
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into more and more debt? Look, she does say a line after that where she says, look,
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we're not mathematicians. And she said it before. It's like this, I don't know, this is trying to
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make, she keeps trying to make all these little jokes up there. It's very clear that there isn't anyone
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in this government that understands basic economics that understands basic precepts of this stuff.
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I just wrote a kid's book. It's called the Island of free ice cream. There's no such thing
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as free ice cream. We were, it's up at brave books. So I want to say, Jen, I'd love to get you a copy of
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this book. I'd love for you to learn the basic economic theory that there's no such thing as free
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ice cream. It's, it's, it's kind of like this. I think Thomas Sowell said this once. It's, it's like
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if you want to fill up a swimming pool with water, right? You cannot take the water from the deep end
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and pour it into the shallow end. It's all the same water in the same pool, Jen. It's not zero. It has
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to come from somewhere, right? You're either, you're either taxing it. Okay. You're taxing it.
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You're printing it or you're borrowing it. And then you're borrowing it. So you have to pay it back.
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You're borrowing it from foreign countries, usually, particularly China. So it's, it's one
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or the other. It's, it's really, it's really simple. It's, it's basic economics, but you know,
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they have this new belief that it's like monopoly money. And remember monopoly, you can actually
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pull up the game. And I posted this, this thing from the rules that says the bank never runs out
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of money. Well, the bank never runs out of money because if the bank runs out of cash, then you just
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start printing IOUs. But if you don't want to print IOUs, the bank can also issue new money on blank
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pieces of paper. And it's like Parker brothers was trying to warn us all those years ago. And we
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didn't listen because that's what they're doing with the U S dollar. They keep playing these games
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and they are weakening ever more and more the solvency and the power of the U S dollar as the
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world reserve currency. And if that goes, if that goes, which I know a lot of people, a lot of my
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crypto friends out there are saying they want this guys, do you understand the devastation
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that that would wreak on the majority of the American people on this country, the massive
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inflationary spending or the massive inflationary effect that would have on our country? You do not
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want that. Trust me. You do not want that. Jen, read the book. Well, that's all the time we have
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here on human events daily, the bottom line up front before we go, make sure you share this out,
00:20:54.900
share it with your normie friends, get it everywhere. It's 25 minutes a day. It is your
00:20:59.120
daily dose of human events, your daily briefing to get in, get out the information you need. Be good,
00:21:04.900
be brief, be gone. That's our motto here. And we're going to make sure to be here every single day for
00:21:10.800
you. But before I go, I'd like to give you today's moment in history because we need to learn from our
00:21:16.400
history or be doomed to repeat it. Today is the 80th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre. Babi Yar
00:21:23.540
was a ravine outside of Kiev, the city of Kiev. And in 1941, today, September 29th, was the start of
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a massacre. Over 34,000 Jews, Roma, Ukrainian nationalists, dissidents. It led to over 100,000
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in this ravine, which later became a mass grave. Understand the horrors of World War II and the
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Eastern Front and what happened there so that we never repeat it again. Thank you. And ladies and
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gentlemen, you have my permission to lay ashore.