Episode 148 – Nancy Pelosi's Knowledge of the Swalwell Spy. Is Andrew Yang Running for NYC Mayor？ Morocco Normalizes Relations With Israel. Nobel Peace Prize Snubs Peace Makers.
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Summary
Congressman Eric Swalwell s close relationship with a Chinese spy continues to dominate the news. Andrew Yang is floating the possibility of running for mayor of New York City, and Matt Gaetz responds to it. Also, a new report suggests that the Chinese government may have stolen classified information from the United States.
Transcript
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You all were not telling the truth, and you should not be trusted.
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Congressman Matt Gaetz, thank you for what you did for your country tonight.
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Be offended with the Democratic whip, not House of Republicans.
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Welcome to Hot Takes. I'm Congressman Matt Gaetz.
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I don't always record the podcast from an international airport,
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but when I do, the sound quality's a little different, so bear with us today.
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This is Andrew Yang, floating the possibility of a campaign for New York City mayor.
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The Yang gang, possibly heading to the Big Apple.
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Andrew Yang was the presidential candidate who really tried to apply a lot of the Silicon Valley thinking to politics and economics,
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and he actually attracted a pretty wide cross-section of ideological support.
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Famously, Tucker Carlson believed that some of Andrew Yang's ideas were worthy of discussion and merit.
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The principal Andrew Yang policy objective was to give the country a universal basic income.
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He argued that technology had automated so many jobs away and would continue to do so,
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concentrating wealth in the hands of people who were the purveyors of that technology
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and robbing it away from those who would see their jobs rendered functionally obsolete over the course of time.
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And so New York City may be the place where Andrew Yang gets the opportunity to try out some of his policies,
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to use it as a laboratory for that type of thinking.
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I'm sure glad he's not able to do that for the whole country.
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We'll see how the folks in New York City respond.
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Congressman Eric Swalwell's close relationship with a Chinese spy continues to dominate the news.
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Congressman Swalwell went on CNN's program with Jim Sciuto
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to fire back and demand investigations into those who are raising questions about his activities.
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The wrongdoing here, Jim, is that at the same time this story was being leaked out
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is the time that I was working on impeachment on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.
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And if this is a country where people who criticize the president
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are going to have law enforcement information weaponized against them,
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that's not a country that any of us want to live in.
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And I hope it is investigated as to who leaked this information.
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These operations are designed to build relationships,
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but also possibly to get sensitive information.
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Are you concerned that you shared any information with this person
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Again, I can't talk too much about the details of the case,
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even though others may have violated their oath.
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Except, Jim, the people who did share classified information
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And to do that against a critic of the president,
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they may think that they're going to silence me.
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I had the opportunity to respond because it's a little bizarre
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that Nancy Pelosi seems to be so strident in her defense of Swalwell.
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Well, maybe it's not so odd being that Eric Swalwell really is a machine candidate.
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He's a candidate that the Pelosi machine churned out of the political operation
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I believe Eric Swalwell should be removed from the Intelligence Committee.
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I'm really troubled that Speaker Pelosi would leave Eric Swalwell on the Intelligence Committee.
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Are we going to try to bring back the Anthony Weiner to serve on the Ethics Committee?
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Maybe put Jerry Nadler in charge of the Congressional Weight Loss Program?
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Eric Swalwell shouldn't be blamed because he was targeted by Chinese intelligence.
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He should be blamed because he should have known better.
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He should have come to the Congress and assisted us in focusing on China
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and their malign influence rather than just trying to smear the president,
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undermine the presidency, not for any type of virtuous policy advancement, but for power.
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You see, that's why the Democrats are willing to look the other way as to China,
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because if China is able to help Democrat politicians gain power,
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then they're less, I think, apt to go after China.
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This story is from the Washington Post about a week ago.
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It's instructive on the evolving Swalwell scandal.
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More than a thousand visiting researchers affiliated with the Chinese military
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fled the United States this summer, according to the Justice Department.
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So the FBI had been conducting an investigation into the nexus between research activity going on
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the United States and the advancing capabilities of the Chinese military.
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It appears the Chinese government got the message, recalled their researchers.
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But when you have a thousand people almost in a mass exodus because they're concerned about their
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connection to an effort to undermine America, it shows you how deep, how dangerous,
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how determined the Chinese are to replace the United States as the global hegemon.
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A Chicago area teachers union put out a tweet that is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've
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At CTU Local 1, this is Chicago teachers union, they tweet,
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The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.
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It's rooted in our desire to have kids go to school and learn and develop.
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Frankly, the teachers union desire to keep schools shut is pretty in line with what I've seen
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They're oftentimes arguing for less time with children.
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So here you have this overlay of race and misogyny and sexism to a decision-making process that
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really just requires logic and reason and nurturing and care for our students.
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And frankly, teachers unions are starting to be exposed as the anti-student, anti-parent,
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anti-learning organizations that they truly are.
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Now, they ultimately deleted this tweet amid the backlash, but it shows what's truly in
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the wicked hearts of the leaders of this teachers union.
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Russian bombshell booted from Vladimir Putin's National Guard, allegedly due to envy.
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We get the story from the New York Post, and it's one of a 32-year-old bikini model who won
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32-year-old Anna Kramstova was one of more than a thousand entrants in the pageant.
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She actually serves in the Russian National Guard, an elite unit that answers directly
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And it's quite something that the photos of this Russian military officer appear to be
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Now, she also paired those photos with some video of a disinfecting project at a Russian
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That is the purported reason for her termination.
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But she's saying it's envy because she's beautiful.
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The Associated Press has a piece we picked up from floridapolitics.com.
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The live music and concert industry has lost $30 billion during the pandemic.
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Big tours like Elton John and Post Malone and U2 and Andrea Buscelli,
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We are concerned that, gosh, a lot of the jobs that are associated with live music aren't
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It's the people who specialize in lighting and sound.
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And so folks typically don't have a great deal of economic security for the long term.
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They're always betting on their next opportunity to get a job and work.
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They can provide for themselves and for their families.
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In the state of Florida, we've begun opening up, allowing more and more of the types of
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activities that would be celebrated with music and dance.
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Obviously, the confidence that people have in our health system and the vaccines will inform
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greatly on the ability of this industry to rebound.
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But the many ancillary jobs associated are critical to the families and livelihoods of
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Let's hope we're all singing and dancing together again very soon.
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The Nobel Peace Prize has been issued to the UN World Food Program.
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I mean, look, I'm sure that there's a lot of work that goes to feed people in any food
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But the UN is widely known as a corrupt organization run by member organizations that are more represented
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And you add, I think, another pretty compelling candidate.
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Donald Trump should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize.
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He created peace with a number of predominantly Muslim countries and Israel, resetting relationships
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You know, the Nobel Prize, it doesn't really carry the same gravitas that it used to.
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And naming the UN World Food Program as the winner just sort of makes it look like one
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globalist organization scratching the back of another.
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Big things are happening in the African nation of Morocco.
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Morocco entering into a peace deal with Israel, the latest nation to do so, following the
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Sudan, following Bahrain, following the United Arab Emirates.
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And there is just a total realignment happening now in the Middle East, recognizing Israel's
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And Morocco, as they become a stronger, more trusted ally of the United States, also can be
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And the United States has recognized Morocco's jurisdiction over the Western Sahara, something
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that they have been working toward for a long time.
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Behind the scenes, the man that made this happen was the Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador
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He's a great friend of mine, a great patriot, a great diplomat, a great day, certainly, for
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We always love sharing news of new discoveries.
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This story comes to us from Business Insider India.
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As rare as a unicorn, a new horse-sized species of beaked whale has been spotted off the coast
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Researchers may have spotted a new species of this beaked whale in the Pacific Ocean off
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the coast of Mexico, whales do not match any of the previously known 23 species of beaked
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whales, either visually or as a consequence of the sounds that they make.
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And what makes the sighting even rarer is that the whales came right up to swim next to the
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boat, even though beaked whales are known for staying deep underwater to avoid their primary
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Now, these were researchers from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
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Paul Watson, famously of Whale Wars, is kind of the masthead of that organization.
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They go out and harass some of the whaling folks, and it did make for good documentary
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And they have made this discovery, reported it, and it'll be interesting to see what we learn
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about this potentially new species of whale in the Pacific.
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