Episode 7 - Rubio Tapped for Intel Chairman, Trump Leading on COVID Testing, Camp David's Incredible History
Episode Stats
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Summary
Marco Rubio takes over the Senate Intelligence Committee in the wake of the scandal surrounding Senator Richard Burr's stock sell-off, and Congressman Matt Gorsch takes a shot at the Democratic whip in the House of Representatives.
Transcript
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you ever watch this guy on television you all were not telling the truth and you should not
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be trusted congressman matt gates thank you for what you did for your country today be offended
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with the democratic whip not house republicans like a machine matt gates
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welcome to hot takes this is congressman matt gates let's talk about the news
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big news coming out of the united states senate today marco rubio taking over the senate
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intelligence committee always good to see a florida man doing well and it's good to see richard burr
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ousted on his keister following the controversy surrounding his senate stock sell-off in this
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episode i'll be playing some old audio from rubio back during my time working with him in the florida
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legislature we come from the same legislative body and i i want to really illuminate his enduring
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values and love for our country and how i think that'll serve us in the intelligence community
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and also marco will unquestionably restore focus back on the western hemisphere in the intelligence
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space and that's something that i think will in order the benefit of our great country but good
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riddance to senator richard burr you'll remember i was the strongest and toughest republican critic
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of richard burr in the entire congress frankly i don't remember one other member of congress really
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coming out and calling for burr to be removed from the intelligence committee but that is precisely
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what's happened a lot of the country knows about burr's sell-off of stock something i called a very
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unpatriotic act while he lied to the country but if you just look at the substantive work that burr did
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as chair of the intelligence committee it was very low energy it was like he allowed the democrats
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and particularly mark warner of virginia to just run roughshod over him yeah i don't know if burr
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needs to be removed from the senate intelligence committee as as much as he might need some like
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low t supplements or something because he didn't really show a lot of leadership over there he allowed
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democrats with their nonsense russia investigation to malign the president to harass the first family
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to drive up legal bills for members of the administration and frankly i think history will view
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the richard burr chairmanship of the intelligence committee as one that lacked any remarkable success
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and that largely was either passive or low-key corrupt and i'm glad he's gone we have something very
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different in marco rubio i first went to work for marco rubio in 2005 and it was very clear in the state
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of florida then that he would be destined for greatness i think marco got elected to the city
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council when he was like 12 years old or something like that and it was in his 20s like me that he got
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elected to the state legislature marco and i during our time in the legislature that didn't overlap
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we both were in our 20s running for speaker of the house at different times he prevailed in that
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endeavor and became speaker i lost my speaker's race and ended up running for congress and talking to you
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on this podcast but during marco's time as speaker and in the house of representatives he always really
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demonstrated an understanding and an appreciation for what made our country so special take a moment
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and listen to this speech from marco rubio in the florida house of representatives all the way back in
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2008 and think about whether or not this is precisely the type of person you would want informing
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our key intelligence decisions i want you to understand how special a country you and i share
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i think we take that for granted i really do i really believe that sometimes those of us in this
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country believe that america is the greatest country on earth because god loves us more than he loves the
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rest of the world that is not true we are the greatest country in the history of the world because of the
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sacrifices and decisions that were made by those who were entrusted with leadership in it before
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and you have an obligation to ensure that it is not guaranteed and i give you that insight from
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someone who interacts with people on a daily basis i know people criticize america i know there are
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things wrong with this country i know there is i'll give you one brief example i remember growing up
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but people use this as an example of what's wrong with this country in 1980 growing up in las vegas i
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remember neighborhood kids kids taunting my parents during the mario refugee about europe a bunch of cubans
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why don't you go back home why don't you go why don't you go back to cuba i remember that but that's
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not reflective of america they may be americans but that is not america it never has been because for
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every one of those instances i can give you the example of my parents who drove from new york to
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florida and broke down in the deep south didn't know anyone didn't even know english and they couldn't
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they couldn't stop the number of people that came out and helped them in 1961 to take that broken
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down car and getting it fixed without any money in their pocket true story for every negative story
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that i could give you and there aren't that many there are so many about that reflect the greatness
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of our people marco loves america and we love marco rubio during his time in the senate before
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leading the intelligence committee marco rubio was actually the chairman of the western hemisphere
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subcommittee in the foreign affairs space and what i can tell you is that marco understands what's
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going on in our hemisphere and i think that there's been too much focus in our national security
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posture in our intelligence infrastructure build out on the middle east and frankly not enough with
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what's been going on here we talk about iran a lot we talk about their malign influence in the middle
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east now i'm no cheerleader for war with iran but if there is a place to push back it is undoubtedly
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in the over 100 cultural centers that iran has set up right here in the western hemisphere in latin
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america that's right they go and spend money to build mosques and cultural centers they find these
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destitute people in countries in latin america and i mean heck you go give a bunch of like latin
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american eight-year-old boys some ipads you own them you own their ideology and they will pretty much
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do whatever you say and so then they'll they'll take these latin american operatives that they train up in
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their cultural centers they'll bring them to tehran they'll bring them to the middle east they'll give
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them even more intense training and then reinsert those folks lat back in latin america and so i think
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that we need a far stronger focus on this from an intelligence standpoint and i know with great
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certainty that marco rubio will do that and that he will give it the the detail that it uh and the focus
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that it deserves venezuela is one of the hot spots in latin america one of the really one of the global
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hot spots when it comes to our intelligence needs and i want to bring you to a scene almost a year
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ago to the day it was may 9 and i am on air force one with president trump senator rubio senator scott
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and congressman neil dunn and at the time we're on our way to panama city where we're going to try to
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bring some hope and energy and resources to the people of northwest florida specifically panama city
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who had suffered from hurricane michael so as typically can be the case we get on air force one
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with the lawmakers and the president and issues range in discussion from our budget to national
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disasters to even foreign policy and at this particular time there was a pretty strong and
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pretty public disagreement between myself and my good friend senator rick scott on this question of
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whether or not to invade venezuela the senator scott was very actively calling for the invasion of
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venezuela by u.s troops so maybe troops well i know the president has ever has everything on the table
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we're going to do everything everything we can including take care of our diplomats which we've got
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to keep them safe so everything's i think everything's on the table right now maduro's got to step aside
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and he's got to know that he has to step aside and rick scott was right in this sense the idea of
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invasion of venezuela was very popular in venezuela but it was very unpopular in every other latin american
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country so you could have seen a circumstance where the people of venezuela were not opposed but that
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you saw destabilization in ecuador in bolivia in colombia and the concern over american interventionism
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is kind of just below the surface with a lot of these folks in latin america they remember you know
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the united fruit company the standard fruit company all the banana wars and banana republics and so the
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u.s government going and carving out nations and governments in latin america isn't necessarily the
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most popular thing in the region but there rick scott was beating the drum for an invasion of venezuela and
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i had seen the public comments that senator rubio had made about the guido government about the need to
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stand with juan guido who the united states had recognized as the legitimate leader of venezuela
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he was very i think sensitive to and sympathetic to those needs in venezuela but here's what i observed
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while rick scott was all gusto for the invasion he lacked an appreciation for some of the details about how
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it would be carried out and senator rubio back then a year ago was able to cite chapter and verse
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every asset we had in place where our ships were where our aircraft were precisely the capabilities
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we would need whether or not that would require certain conditions and permissions from other
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countries and really rubio at the time urged action but he urged it with caution with care and
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and with a a true and candid appreciation for what we were able to do and what the downstream consequences would be
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and in observing that conversation though rubio and i didn't have maybe precisely the same advice to the
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president i was deeply comforted by his knowledge and understanding and just the way he had he'd clearly thought
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this through and it did pose a bit of a contrast to senator scott's view that we simply had to invade because
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we had a moral obligation and that was the end of the discussion those who have preached that type of
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intervention that type of a forward-leaning posture for our country have at times got us ahead of our skis
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i know with marco rubio as the intelligence chairman that all of our lawmakers and policy leaders will be
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getting the best advice the best analysis and i could not be prouder of my fellow florida man marco rubio
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on coronavirus it is both comical and sickening to see the extent to which the media continues to move the
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goalposts on the trump administration at the outset of coronavirus i recall all these models and doomsday projections
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that we were going to need hundreds of thousands of ventilators all across the country that we would
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have people dying in our hospital beds there would be folks in the hallways unable to get connected to
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life-saving technologies and medicines and the reality of course has been far different president trump
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utilized our national resources to build a lot of ventilators to expand our ventilator capacity now we're
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even exporting ventilators but when the ventilator push didn't become like the big cataclysmic event
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then we ended up with testing testing testing testing and i do agree that that's one thing that
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can build consumer confidence but the trump administration is not getting the credit that
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it deserves for rapidly expanding testing capabilities i remember early in the coronavirus scare i had attended
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the conservative political action committee conference someone had also attended that conference
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who i interacted with who had coronavirus and so i got one of the very early tests and i could tell
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you now going to the white house almost every day interacting with the president i get tested almost
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daily and just in the period of time that we've been dealing with with this watching the advancement
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of the testing regime has really been quite something i mean the first test they had to take some like
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foot long wire and stick it up your nose and basically scratch the back of your throat with it
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now there's just a quick little q-tip swab at the front of the nose and the results are able to be returned
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far more quickly when i was in camp david with the president he was even sharing ideas from collaborations
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with the private sector where there would be tests in real time where someone could utilize a strip
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that would have a a color reaction that would indicate positive or negative and that i think
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will be even more helpful because if you have a test now and there's a positive result there is some
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lag time in getting it and you can infect people so the more we can reduce that lag time the better
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and i could tell you just based on the phone calls the president was constantly fielding this last
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weekend he is fully engaging the private sector to advance that testing but the washington post
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had an interesting uh headline recently steve thompson's on the byline and the headline from
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the washington post is as coronavirus testing expands a new problem arises not enough people to test
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there's also a piece in newsday indicating that if you really look across the country at what governors
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have done with mobile test sites pop-up test sites offensive test sites going in to do surveillance
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testing in areas where we have vulnerable people there really has been an effective deployment of
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these tests and the trump administration deserves tremendous credit for that i mean we had all these
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governors and all these media types saying oh there would never be enough testing america was done
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forever and now the problem is not that we don't have the tests it's that we've just got to get
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people into the flow through of that testing cycle so great news but it would be nice to see the
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trump administration get its due credit for all the fabulous work to expand testing
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one of the unique features at camp david is that in every room there is a manifest of everyone who has
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ever stayed in that room so in the sycamore cabin where i stayed i got to see that you know kissinger had
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stayed there a lot of halderman and ehrlichman had stayed there one i found particularly interesting
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is that george w bush had stayed in my cabin while he was the son of the vice president and then of
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course would later go on to be president they give you a great walking tour at camp david to tell you
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about the history i was i was interested to learn that ronald reagan actually holds the record for the
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most visits to camp david but he didn't really bring people or friends ronald reagan and nancy
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reagan would go to camp david but like even their own family members were rare to stay the night even
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reagan's bff on the national world leader stage margaret thatcher only made it out there twice and
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margaret thatcher wasn't even allowed to spend the night the presidential residence at camp david
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is currently under some construction i guess they're fixing some stuff inside so i took occasion
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to walk down there when uh when it was available for me to sit on the back porch and i poured a nice
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tea and soaked up the history you know when you look to your left you see the the actual grill where
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president eisenhower would put on his big chef's hat and go grill up steaks for his staff and you look
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straight ahead and the actual vista down the mountains in maryland was envisioned and crafted
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by truman himself he he hand selected the trees that he wanted to keep and those to be removed to
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create this gorgeous vista and then of course if you look to the right you get to see the the
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presidential hot tub and it probably won't take you too many guesses uh to figure out which of our
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presidents installed the hot tub yes that was in fact the clinton hot tub so you got the ike grill
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the clinton hot tub and the most beautiful vista if you're enjoying the podcast make sure to leave
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