Off The Cuff Declassified： Mark Meadows claims FBI lied, Immigration debate, and bio weapons
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Summary
More problems for the FBI as a Republican Congressman accuses them of evidence tampering and lying to the Inspector General, the immigration debate rages, and if we didn t have enough, are synthetic bioweapon's coming our way? Also, disability claims drop as the economy surges, but does that indicate prior fraud?
Transcript
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Today on Off the Cuff Declassified, more problems for the FBI as a Republican member of Congress
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accuses them of evidence tampering and lying to the inspector general.
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The immigration debate rages with the left now engaging in ridiculous stunts.
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And if we didn't have enough to worry about, are synthetic bioweapons coming our way?
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Also, disability claims drop as the economy surges.
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I always say it feels like every five minutes on what's going on with the FBI, DOJ, Obamagate, Spygate.
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But let's focus today on just the FBI and some of the problems.
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Now, one of the people that I have really admired for several, several years now in the United States Congress is Representative Mark Meadows.
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And he is probably one of the most common sense people right now in the United States Congress.
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Well, Representative Meadows is now accusing the FBI of doing what many of us feel they have been doing.
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He also feels that the FBI may have misled the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's office with what Representative Meadows called false information.
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This from a Fox News story, but it's being reported widely.
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So the story says the FBI may have edited and changed key witness reports in the Hillary Clinton and Russia investigation, the top House Republican charged in a hearing into FBI and Justice Department misconduct Tuesday yesterday.
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Now, of course, that hearing was the joint hearing of two very powerful committees in the House of Representatives, the Oversight and Judiciary Committee.
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Mark Meadows also raised the chair that the FBI, as I said, misled the Inspector General.
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Now, here's what Representative Mark Meadows said to Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General.
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He said, quote, the other thing that I would ask you to look into, there is growing evidence that 302s were edited and changed.
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Those 302s, it is suggested that they were changed to either prosecute or not prosecute individuals.
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Now, I suspect the 302s he was talking about, in particular, were those of General Michael Flynn and members of Hillary Clinton's team.
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Not sure if Hillary herself is included in his supposition because, from what we're told, she was not put under oath.
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There may not have been a 302 generated on Hillary.
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I believe that they got Hillary in that building and they probably chatted about movies.
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It was all just wink, wink, come sit in the room for a couple hours.
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Got to make it look like you're doing something here, Hillary.
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Now, just to re-explain, 302s are reports on witness interviews compiled by federal investigators.
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Horowitz, and this is a bombshell that the mainstream media is not reporting.
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Horowitz said later he has additional information in the Fox News story suggesting that the witness reports were changed after the fact in both the Clinton and Russia probe.
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Now, that is really, really troubling when you contrast that against Horowitz saying he found no bias in the FBI and DOJ's handling of these same investigations.
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Why would witness interviews be changed after the fact?
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There's another term for changing witness interviews or 302s, whatever you want to call it.
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Now, it was yesterday the day before here on the show, I said, Peter Stroke, we're going to get to Peter Stroke in just a second.
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Well, he did some things that I think he should be fired for.
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But I haven't seen any evidence of a crime committed by Peter Stroke.
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However, if Peter Stroke changed these 302s, my whole perception changes.
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I don't know who the agent was who changed him.
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Maybe it was McCabe, Comey, but it would have been Stroke.
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But if it were Peter Stroke, if we do find out Peter Stroke is the agent who changed the 302s, then to me, the whole game changes.
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The only time, only time that's done is if the witness calls you back and says, hey, you know what?
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My wife just reminded me that I had made a note.
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When I said I saw that car pulling away from the house where the guy was shot and I told you the car was red, I was wrong.
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Then you change it because you're getting updated, more accurate information.
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But if it's not in that context, then it's a crime.
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Then it's egregious, egregious investigative misconduct.
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Now, Meadows also, also hammered, hammered DOJ and FBI.
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You know that in this Inspector General report, in addition to named individuals, Peter Stroke, Lisa Page, there are unnamed individuals who were very, very critical of Donald Trump.
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We know that there were many, many unnamed individuals who were critical of Donald Trump.
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So again, from the Fox News piece, in a dramatic moment, Meadows then directly asked Horowitz whether two anonymous FBI employees identified as making anti-Trump statements in the IG's report were named Kevin Clinesmith and Sally Moyer.
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However, Horowitz refused to confirm the employee's identity, which the FBI has declined also to publicly review, citing the supposed sensitivity of counterintelligence matters that they're working on.
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However, however, however, however, however, however, Moab Meadows is saying that excuse is a sham.
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Representative Mark Meadows said, quote, they don't work in counterintelligence.
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And if that's the reason the FBI is giving, they're giving you false information because they work for the FBI's general counsel's office.
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You've got a sitting member of the United States Congress saying that he has reason to believe, and I suspect, I really suspect, let me leave it at that, that there are many whistleblowers right now inside the FBI talking to members of Congress, people like Mark Meadows.
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And I really don't want to go beyond saying, I strongly suspect that there are many whistleblowers in the FBI speaking to members of Congress, okay?
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You've got a ranking member of the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus basically telling, not basically, telling, flat out telling, the Department of Justice Inspector General and the director of the FBI
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Now, that's not a statement a congressman would make unless he had pretty solid evidence of that.
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Bolstering my suspicion that he has whistleblowers, excuse me, or solid evidence is that Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, said, yeah, I've got some evidence of that myself.
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So we can pretty much bank on the fact that it happened, 302s were changed.
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If the change is, the witness calls back and says, well, I remembered some information and I told you the car was blue and the car was red.
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I don't think that's the kind of change they were talking about.
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I think it was much more nefarious, much more improper, possibly illegal.
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Then we find out that a couple of those anonymous agent number one or FBI employee number one or attorney number one, number two, number three, et cetera,
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Well, one wrote on election day after Trump won other, a lawyer wrote viva la resistance, viva la resistance.
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They're members of the resistance working inside the FBI, resisting the new president-elect at that point and now president of the United States, Donald Trump.
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Because then you have the director of the FBI and the inspector general saying, well, we can't give you the names because they work in counterintelligence.
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And this is why I'm pretty sure he has sources inside the FBI.
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They have nothing to do with counterintelligence.
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The credibility of the FBI and DOJ is being crushed daily.
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I used to say it all comes back to Andrew McCabe, right?
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He's probably going to face criminal charges, hopefully.
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The new guy that it all comes back to, the new hub of corruption at the FBI, in my opinion, is Peter Stroke.
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Well, yesterday, Peter Stroke's lawyer confirmed that he was escorted from the building.
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Stroke's lawyer, Aiton Goldman, has argued that even though his client has, quote, as a joke, played by the rules, he has been targeted by, quote, unfounded personal attacks, political games, and inappropriate information leaks.
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The man, on 49, almost 50,000 text messages to his mistress, pretty much admitted he was trying to rig a presidential election, and this is great.
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His lawyer, Goldman, also says, quote, all of this seriously calls into question the impartiality of the disciplinary process, which now appears to be tainted by political influence.
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Oh, it's the disciplinary process, tainted by political influence, not your investigation, in which you said, we'll stop him.
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I mean, these people are just caricatures of themselves.
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His lawyer went on to say, quote, that Stroke has complied with every FBI procedure, including being escorted from the building as part of the ongoing internal proceedings.
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The attorney did not say exactly when Stroke's lawyer, reported out of court.
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Quote, instead of publicly calling for a long-serving FBI agent to be summarily fired.
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No, they're not calling for him to be summarily fired.
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They're calling for him to be fired after a months-long 1.2 million pages of evidence OIG report was released, indicating he did wrong.
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Politicians should allow the disciplinary process to play out free from political pressure.
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The House and Senate oversight committees oversee the FBI and other agencies.
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It's their job to make recommendations, to comment on who they think should be fired because of the things they see.
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Our leaders and the public should be very concerned with how readily such influence has been allowed to undermine due process
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and the legal protections owed to someone who has served his country for so long.
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He's now being administratively investigated by the FBI.
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And Peter Stroke is free to give his lawyer Aiton Goldman more money.
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And Mr. Goldman can go and file an appeal in federal court.
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Peter Stroke isn't being denied any due process.
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It sure looks like Peter Stroke denied other people, like General Flynn, due process.
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And if Peter Stroke was the guy who changed those 302s, well, damn, he did it illegally.
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His lawyer is free to file grievances with the federal government if he's fired.
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Now, news of Stroke removal came after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed during a congressional hearing earlier yesterday that his office was looking into whether Stroke's specific anti-Trump bias played a role in the launch of the Bureau's Russia probe.
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And you know what that all stems from, those texts.
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His mistress, Lisa Page, prior to Trump's win, said, quote, Trump's not ever going to become president, right?
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And Stroke, of course, replied in the now famous reply, no, no, he won't.
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Nearly 50,000, 50,000 text messages sent between Peter Stroke and Lisa Page.
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50,000 text messages sent between this guy and his mistress.
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Now, Representative Meadows, again, made a comment on that.
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He told Fox News, quote, it's way past time for Peter Stroke to hopefully start to find a different career and restore some credibility to the FBI that most of us love and admire.
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And certainly, Lady Justice has to be someone who wears a blindfold.
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And with Peter Stroke, it was obvious with his text messages that that was not the case.
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Other messages from Stroke showed an allegiance to Comey after his firing.
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Look, Stroke was far too biased to remain on the FBI's investigation into Donald Trump on Mueller's team.
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Remember, Stroke was only fired from Mueller's team when these text messages came to light.
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Had the OIG's office not started releasing them way back when?
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Now, Stroke, as I sit here right now, and it can change by the time you watch this later today on Wednesday, Stroke right now is, in fact, is, in fact, still employed by the FBI.
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And typically, because he's still an FBI agent with a gun and creds, he has his security clearance.
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The Department of Justice is rudderless and leaderless.
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Jeff Sessions is completely, has completely checked out.
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But I would argue that the most damning, damning call for Sessions firing have been many.
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I don't believe in all this conspiracy nonsense, 5D, 6D, 427D chess, you and on this shadowy figure in the government telling you trust Jeff Sessions and Mueller's away.
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Give me a break with all that conspiracy nonsense.
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This is the single most critical point in history for the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to have rigidly, rock-solid, iron-willed, strong leadership, clear direction, a sense of house clean, and restoration of integrity, honesty, the FBI's values, fidelity, bravery, integrity.
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We've got Jeff Sessions, who looks very weak, very frail, who has no desire to fight the swamp in these days.
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So the most damning call for his firing, in my opinion, most damning one recently, is from Brad Parscale.
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Brad Parscale, of course, was the data guru on Trump's 2016 campaign, elevated to campaign manager.
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And Brad Parscale put out a tweet yesterday, time to fire Sessions.
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You can't obstruct something that was phony against you.
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The IG report gives Donald Trump the truth to end it all.
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But for the campaign manager of Trump's 2020 campaign, to open a tweet in the middle of
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This wasn't some tired musing at 3 in the morning.
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To open his tweet with, fire, time to fire Sessions.
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That is a really, really loud and powerful statement.
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I mean, it doesn't get any louder and any more powerful than that.
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He's screaming from the rooftops with that one.
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And believe me, Brad Parscale did not do that without the knowledge and consent of President
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There's a rally in Duluth, Minnesota later today.
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I'm sure he'll be on Air Force One with the president.
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I don't know if campaign team can fly with him before official campaign season.
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But I can bet he'll be in the VIP area at the rally if he wasn't allowed to be on the
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Something I'm interested in, or you're interested in.
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But Brad Parscale would not have tweeted this without Donald Trump knowing.
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And when the campaign manager for Trump's 2020 reelect is saying time to fire Sessions,
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you know that all confidence inside the White House is lost in Jeff Sessions because the
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campaign manager is going to make a policy statement like that on opinion that he's
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And so we need much more effective leadership at DOJ.
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Christopher Wray doesn't seem like the guy to do the job.
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Again, it goes back to DOJ lawyers humming a law enforcement.
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We have only scratched the top of the scratch on the surface of just how corruptly the FBI
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and DOJ were weaponized against the Trump campaign.
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And because of this weak leadership in Jeff Sessions, because of this weak leadership in
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Christopher Wray, I'm going to again say, I don't like, I don't like special counsels,
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but the White House needs to appoint the president himself needs to appoint a second special counsel,
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someone loyal to him, someone tough as nails, someone from the outside and someone who not
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only is willing to take on the swamp, but is dying for that fight.
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The whole immigration debate is getting very complex and sometimes strange.
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Now, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, not the actor from Psycho, is telling
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people that apparently Attorney General Jeff Sessions related to him, to Perkins, that
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Sessions wants to use DNA tests to confirm parentage of illegal immigrant adults.
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In other words, if you're coming over with a kid and you say, it's my child, they want
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to take a DNA swab, compare it and make sure you're a parent.
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Now, I like that idea, but I don't know how accurate this is.
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He interviewed Sessions on his radio show, The Daily Caller Report.
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Sessions, he said Sessions is talking to members of Congress.
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Sessions is talking to congressional members and hoping for a legislative fix.
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The AG wants an immigration policy that is just fair and enforceable.
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They talked about making sure that these really are the parents of these kids.
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They are looking at how to use DNA tests in the field to verify they are parents and
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The reality is if American parents put their kids through what these immigrant parents have
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done to their kids, they would be charged with child abuse.
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About 80% as probes by the cartels and the human smuggling rings.
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So these are not good people pushing these kids.
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And here's what Sessions told Perkins on the radio show.
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Well, we know for a fact that a lot of adults are taking children that who are not really
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We know for a fact that a lot of adults taking children along are not related to them.
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I mean, I think Jeff Sessions needs to go as attorney general.
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And that's what Sessions told Tony Perkins on the radio show.
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The Daily Caller sent an inquiry over to DOJ asking if the DNA test thing is accurate.
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The left is absolutely hysterical because we're enforcing the law.
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Can't hand them a bottle of water and say, see you later.
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Every day in this country, kids are removed from adults for a host of reasons.
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And remove a kid if they're in a car and they're a baby without a car seat.
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And in every one of those instances, it's to protect the child.
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Now, I could do 150 shows on the problems with Departments of Children and Family Services
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and how the kids might not even be better off with them and in private foster care.
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But it just shows the unhinged nature of the left.
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Brandon Darby over at Breitbart did a great thread on Twitter.
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I think I brought you there yesterday or the day before.
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And the hypocrisy is that nobody said a word on the left.
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You didn't have people like Representative Gerald Nadler and Hakeem Jeffries from New York
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and Nadler from New York going in and basically barging in on an ICE detention facility in New Jersey
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They don't care about the kids any more than the anti-gun activists cared about the kids in Parkland
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I'm sure somewhere in their heart they see this and know it's a tragedy.
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Their real political agenda is stepping over those kids,
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stepping over the bodies in a school shooting to push their far-left political agendas,
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Now, that all said, the left is going a step further.
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But the bias, the bias keeps on proving just how real deep state is.
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And I always tell you, deep state is not guys in a darkly lit room, high-backed chairs,
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and you only see the cigarette smoke in the back of their head.
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No, it's nothing that's sinister and nefarious or conspiratorial.
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It's just people who want government to stay the way it's always been.
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Streamlining means a loss of power, a loss of money, and a loss of jobs.
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And the big government advocates on both the right and the left can't have that.
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I mean, I wish I could make it as sexy as the guys in the high-backed chairs
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in a dimly lit room and CIA and NSA and shadow government.
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It's like, you know, the person who works mid-management at the State Department
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or the person who's working upper-mid-management at the Office of Management and Budget.
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Sure, you've got the CIA players and the FBI players, and that's the sexier part of the story.
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But it's starting to trickle down to even lower levels.
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The President of the United States is in the Capitol.
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The President of the United States of America is in the United States Capitol building.
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Last night, going to meet with House Republicans, he's on his way to the office,
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the Speaker of the House, and a congressional, now, a congressional intern yells across the Capitol
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to the Capitol, Mr. President F., whole word, you, a congressional intern to the President of the United States.
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Now, if you don't think this congressional intern was emboldened by the behavior of Peter Stroke and Lisa Page and James Comey
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and all of the other Viva La Résistance players, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to tell you.
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Now, this is disgraceful, disgraceful, but this far-left staffer is eventually going to be, an intern,
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is eventually going to become a far-left staffer, maybe a senior staffer,
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maybe an agency head one day, or a deputy secretary, an undersecretary, maybe run for office.
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That's deep state. That's how it starts. Institutionally left, hysterical, over-border security,
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and thinking it's okay to scrap all decorum, all protocol, all professionalism, all appropriateness,
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and say, Mr. President, F.U., in the Capitol rotunda.
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Now, no report on whether that intern was discharged, no report on whether that intern was
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reprimanded, shamed, should be blacklisted, because you know Democratic members of Congress
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are going to salute this intern. And that, to me, is so disgusting. Members of the Congressional
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Hispanic Caucus are predictably screaming and yelling, and Representative Michelle Lujan Grisham,
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a Democrat from New Mexico, is calling the separation from families at the border,
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the worst thing she has ever seen in her career, didn't care about it when Obama did it.
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Couldn't have cared less when Obama did it. And we've got, you know, Congress people arguing
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with each other. They're calling the situation humane, inhumane. But the reality is, this is,
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here's where everybody's missing the boat. And I'm going to do something, I rarely do, I don't think
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I've ever done it. I'm going to say Barack Obama did the right thing here, too. I didn't care when
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Obama had to remove kids. I don't care when Trump has to remove kids. It's one of the few things I
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think Obama did right. Because the Department of Homeland Security, via the Immigration and Customs
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Adforcement people, via Customs and Border Protection, are giving recommendations to their bosses. And
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their bosses are kicking those recommendations up to the Secretary of Homeland Security, who's kicking
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those recommendations up to the White House Chief of Staff, who, alongside the Secretary of Homeland
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Security, sit in the Oval Office and say to the President, Mr. President, these are the recommendations
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from the people in the field. And Barack Obama took and enacted those regulations, acted on them.
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And so is Donald Trump. And that's what you're supposed to do when you're the president. You
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talk to your experts in the field, or you listen to your experts in the field. You talk to their
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bosses who come into your office. They make the recommendations. You discuss it with your
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advisors. And then you make a call. Obama did it. Trump did it. Bush did it. Clinton did it.
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Bush 41 did it. Reagan did it. Carter did it. Every president does it. Every president does it.
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Because that's what you're supposed to do. But these morons think that by screaming,
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Mr. President, F.U. and basically causing a protest, members of Congress in the Capitol Rotunda,
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they're going to change law enforcement policy. Want to change law enforcement policy? Change the law.
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Right now, Donald Trump is doing what he's supposed to be doing as the nation's chief law enforcement
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officer. He's enforcing the law. Now, other morons outside of government think they're going to make
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a dent. Liberals are gloating. Oh, my God, they're gloating. I think it's the greatest thing they've ever
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seen. That Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was basically forced to leave a Washington,
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D.C. Mexican restaurant. How ironic. When a group from the Democratic Socialists of America
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started protesting her and calling her names. He said, if kids don't eat in peace, you don't eat in
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peace. Kirstjen Nielsen, you're a villain. Lock her up. Quote, how can you enjoy a Mexican dinner
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as you're deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people that come here seeking asylum
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in the United States? Apparently, you're not allowed to eat now if you're a law enforcement
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party. You can't have dinner in a Mexican restaurant of all places. The effing gall of stupid.
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So incredibly stupid. That you can't even go out and have dinner. If you're a government official
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who's a law enforcement official enforcing the law. So Tyler Q. Holton, who's the Homeland Security
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spokesperson, tweeted, quote, while having a work dinner tonight, the secretary and her staff heard
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from a small group of protesters who share her concern with our current immigration laws that have
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created a crisis on our southern border. Secretary Nielsen encourages all, including this group,
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who want to see an immigration system that works, contribute to our economy, protects our security
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and reflects our values, reach out to members, meaning members of Congress, and seek their support
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to close immigration loopholes that made our system a mess. And I thought it was a classy response
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from the Homeland Security Secretary. I think Kirstjen Nielsen's doing a good job.
00:34:04.480
She's carrying out the orders of the president. She's enforcing the law.
00:34:08.420
How do you make you feel? Do you hear the baby's crying? Look, I told you yesterday,
00:34:15.100
tell you this all the time, law enforcement never looks nice. OK, as an individual, as a human,
00:34:20.360
as an American, as an uncle, you know, it breaks my heart to hear little kids crying.
00:34:25.640
It does. Crying for mommy and daddy. They're innocent. They didn't do anything. They're victims.
00:34:30.120
But it's their parents' fault. I'm not saying that to be cruel. We can't just say to the parent,
00:34:38.000
OK, you can come in the country illegally despite your criminal warrants because you have your baby
00:34:41.920
with you. No. We need to de-incentivize this type of behavior. And it's the only way to do it.
00:34:49.560
This is the only way to do it. It's sad. It's hurtful. It's tough to watch. It's tough to listen
00:34:59.660
to. But it's really, really necessary because they're right. The president's right. The Homeland
00:35:05.660
Security Secretary is right. Our immigration system is a mess, a terrible, terrible, terrible mess.
00:35:10.700
Yes. Every other nation pretty much in this world has much stricter laws than we do Mexico, Canada,
00:35:17.580
Russia, the UK, Ireland, England. I mean, name them. UK and England are the same. But name them.
00:35:24.000
Impossible to get in there and work. I was talking to a friend of mine who was born in Montreal,
00:35:28.960
is a dual citizen of the US and Canada because she's lived in America her entire life.
00:35:32.960
She left Montreal at four months old. Her ability to work in Canada is about the same as any other
00:35:39.340
American. Her dual citizenship doesn't even matter. Canada's immigration laws are draconian
00:35:45.760
to non-Canadians. Mexico's are draconian to non-Mexicans. But we're supposed to just open
00:35:52.940
our borders and scrap our sovereignty. It's ludicrous. It's ludicrous. And the hypocrisy
00:36:00.320
coming from the countries telling us to do it is deafening.
00:36:04.660
Look, I think the president, I think the Homeland Security Secretary are doing exactly what they're
00:36:11.360
supposed to do. They have to ignore, they have to ignore opinions, follow the law. And if the
00:36:17.380
Democrats don't like it, and if some neocon Republicans don't like it, we'll get together
00:36:21.360
with a legislative solution and change the laws that they're required to enforce.
00:36:26.600
Well, you had to know this was coming if you read any science news, right? So a report out of the
00:36:42.400
Guardian is entitled, and it's pretty terrifying, synthetic biology raises risk of new bioweapons.
00:36:49.940
U.S. report warns. Wow. A report, a review on the field report published just yesterday by the U.S.
00:36:58.080
National Academy of Sciences, but at the request of our Department of Defense, is saying that these
00:37:04.140
weapons might very well be on the way. And really what it is, is an intelligence, it's a scientific
00:37:09.420
and an intelligence estimate of how new biotech research, biological research, would be weaponized.
00:37:17.620
And it's really sad that we live in a world where we have to look at all these angles, but we really
00:37:21.580
do, right? I mean, things that, you know, a few decades ago would have been easily obtainable by
00:37:27.160
a high school chemistry teacher, as they should have been, because people shouldn't act like murderous
00:37:32.000
terrorist savages. Well, now those things are highly, highly regulated. Well, Michael Imperiali,
00:37:38.920
chair of the report committee, said, quote, we can't say how likely any of these scenarios are,
00:37:43.620
but we can talk about how feasible they are. The scary thing when it comes to terror
00:37:48.200
and weaponization of things is that if they're feasible, we, well, I used to work, need to
00:37:57.280
take these threats as actionable intelligence to get in front of them. So let me read you the first
00:38:03.900
two paragraphs, because it's kind of scary. The rapid rise of synthetic biology, a futuristic field
00:38:08.540
of science that seeks to master the machinery of life has raised the risk of a new generation
00:38:14.100
of bioweapons. According to a major U.S. report into the state-of-the-art technology advances in the
00:38:20.500
area mean that scientists now have the capability to recreate dangerous viruses from scratch, make
00:38:28.860
harmful bacteria more deadly and modify common microbes so that they churn out lethal toxin once
00:38:38.160
they enter the body. These three scenarios are picked out as threats of highest concern,
00:38:44.400
the threats of highest concern in that report published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
00:38:50.140
at the request of the DOD. This is going back, though, 20 years. And it says also more than 20
00:38:59.120
years ago, a guy named Eckhart Wimmer, just sounds like a smart guy, a geneticist at Stony Brook
00:39:04.080
University in New York highlighted the potential dangers of synthetic biology and dramatic style
00:39:09.260
when he recreated poliovirus in a test tube. Wow. Earlier this year, the University of the
00:39:17.780
team of Alberta in Canada built an infectious horsepox virus. And the virus is a close relative
00:39:24.840
of smallpox, which may have claimed half a billion lives in the 20th century. Today, the genetic code,
00:39:34.180
it says, of almost any mammalian virus, virus in mammals, can be found online and synthesized.
00:39:39.500
It says, quote, the technology to do this is available now. It requires, this is the same guy,
00:39:44.620
Imperiali, the chair of the committee. It requires some expertise, but it's something that's relatively
00:39:50.340
easy to do and why it tops the list. And if you don't think groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra,
00:39:59.060
Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab are a little more primitive, but the big guys,
00:40:03.160
Hamas, Hezbollah, you don't think they have scientists capable of doing this. And governments
00:40:10.940
like Syria, Russia, North Korea, all of these nations that have no problem using weapons of mass
00:40:19.960
destruction, chemical, biological weapons on their people, if you don't think they've already
00:40:24.160
developed these, you're mistaken. You are mistaken. And when you read through this,
00:40:31.700
it really, what jumps off the page at me, and I'm not a particularly scientifically proficient guy,
00:40:39.000
but I'm interested in the weaponization of things as threats. This, I can understand this very easily.
00:40:45.140
It's very easy to understand. It also says, other fairly simple procedures can be used to tweak
00:40:50.360
genes of dangerous bacteria to make them resistant to antibiotics so that people infected with them
00:40:55.780
would be untreatable. A more exotic bioweapon might come in the form of a genetically altered
00:41:00.860
microbe that colonizes the gut and churns out poisons. While this is technically more difficult,
00:41:08.200
it's a concern because it may not look like anything you normally watch out for in public health,
00:41:13.940
the chair of the committee says. Now, here's what's really troubling about that for
00:41:17.180
those who have to interdict terror. The body is a very complex thing, right?
00:41:25.440
Thousands of nearly impossible for law enforcement. They're partners at places like the Center for
00:41:34.680
Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Sciences, NASA, PIA. They have
00:41:41.300
doctors there and things like the army, army units that work on infectious diseases. There aren't that
00:41:47.060
many people to get in front of all these threats. And the bad guys get smarter, right? This is
00:41:54.100
something we can't even be reactive to because there's so many ways to alter the microbe, things like
00:42:00.460
that. So now you're going to even build an antidote because that could take years and you're focusing on
00:42:04.560
one of thousands of scenarios. And so this is, when you look at a threat matrix, when a guy like me who
00:42:11.060
analyzes this, very interested in this, looks at a threat matrix that we as a nation, as a world face,
00:42:16.900
this becomes really, really scary stuff. Really scary stuff. And I'm very encouraged that
00:42:22.580
some very smart people are working on this. But man, man, it is terrifying to think of the world we live in
00:42:33.100
now. And the advances in technology essentially give the bad guys weapons. They can smuggle, look,
00:42:39.140
a vial with a virus in your pocket or went through airport metal detector. That's not going to set
00:42:44.540
anything. It's not going to set off the wand. If it looks like a cosmetics case, you put it in your
00:42:52.200
bag through the x-ray machine. Who's going to know? Who's going to know? This is really, really scary
00:43:00.220
stuff. You release this on a plane, a large plane. You infect people. And that plane is going to say
00:43:08.520
Atlanta, Hartsfield, Jackson airport. And the hundreds of people on your plane, 150 people to
00:43:14.600
several hundred people, depending on the size of the plane, then get on other planes and infect people
00:43:18.220
on those planes. And they go to the next hub and get another plane. And you see how this starts to
00:43:21.920
spread very, very quickly. Scary, scary stuff. And I'm glad we're researching it. But man, we live in
00:43:29.080
a very, very different world than we did even 20 years ago. A lot more dangerous. And really, we have
00:43:36.320
to be so hypervigilant about these threats. I'm glad that our government is up on this at least. I'm
00:43:41.680
critical of a lot of things they do with regards to privacy. But this is a threat you never see coming.
00:43:47.920
And let's hope that there are armies, literally, of very smart people figuring out ways to mitigate
00:44:05.920
So some good news as our economy gets better. A story from the New York Times, disability applications
00:44:10.820
plunge as economy strengthens. The number of Americans seeking social security disability benefits is
00:44:17.100
plunging, startling reversal of a decades-old trend that threatened the program's solvency and the latest
00:44:22.220
evidence of a stronger economy, pulling people back into the job market, or preventing workers from being
00:44:27.940
sidelined in the first place. But when I see this, when I read this, and the spot here will analyze a little
00:44:33.180
bit, it tells me that there was rampant disability fraud going on when the economy wasn't so good. Thanks, Obama.
00:44:41.860
Because you didn't all of a sudden not become disabled if the economy did better. Granted,
00:44:47.480
more jobs mean companies can hire disabled people. If you don't have a limb, there are more technology
00:44:52.240
jobs for you where that doesn't matter. It's really all about intellect and proficiency with coding,
00:44:56.860
things like that. But it also, it also tells us there was rampant fraud. Now, in addition to stronger
00:45:06.540
economic growth, in addition to stronger economic growth, the story says, the drop reflects newly
00:45:11.340
tightened standards for eligibility and increasing the number of baby boomers who are leaving the
00:45:15.820
program because they become eligible for social security retirement benefits and Medicare. Good
00:45:20.660
news. Fewer than 1.5 million Americans applied to the Social Security Administration for disability
00:45:25.580
coverage last year, the lowest since 2002. Applications are running at an even lower rate
00:45:31.380
this year. Again, all good news, as long as it stays that way. And the numbers are this. All told,
00:45:39.500
8.63 million workers received disability benefits in May, down from a peak of 8.96 million in September
00:45:46.060
2014. About three, a little less than 300,000 left. Now, a drop of several hundred thousand at times
00:45:52.920
may not sound like much, but it's a sharp turnaround from what seemed to be an inexorable rise in which the
00:45:57.760
disability rolls more than double over the past 25 years. Thanks, Clinton, Bush, Obama. That increase
00:46:04.360
led some conservative lawmakers to describe the program as wasteful and riddled with fraud.
00:46:12.200
But again, it was riddled with fraud. It was. Now, I know people that are on it legitimately.
00:46:18.160
They're on it legitimately. They went through some horrible things in their lives. They want to work,
00:46:22.060
but they can't. And a friend of mine, uh, who in a very bad, bad place, terrible, terrible workplace
00:46:30.140
at, I drove him not long ago to a Social Security disability office in South Florida. And this is
00:46:37.340
a guy who worked his entire life, worked his entire life. He didn't even want the benefits,
00:46:41.960
embarrassed to have them, but he needs them, uh, for the, for the, uh, a little bit of income,
00:46:46.400
not so much, but the, uh, medical and the designation and other stuff.
00:46:52.060
And we looked around the room and there were perfectly able-bodied guys walking in and out
00:46:55.300
of there. And we were just shaking our heads at the rampant fraud. So I'm glad to see something
00:47:01.020
is being done about this because the people that need it are waiting four or five, six hours,
00:47:06.000
getting denied, having to go through the appeals process. And it seems that the people that don't,
00:47:10.920
especially when they're not white men, they're getting it very, very easily, very, very easily.
00:47:16.480
They're just getting these benefits. Nobody's really asking them any questions. It's terrible.
00:47:20.880
There's rampant fraud and abuse, but I'm encouraged by this story. Normally not my beat,
00:47:25.340
normally not what I bring you, but it shows you how, how the Trump administration is really
00:47:29.340
cream lining the process in every, in every agency and helping to cut fraud and abuse wherever they can.