Donald Trump has now become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon. He's evident on everything from your NFL games on Sunday to the UFC. And now, all of a sudden, you're seeing a breakthrough into pop culture, the idea of not only being a Republican, but it's sort of rebellious and cool. And why does that matter? Well, because it used to be that it was just purely uncool to say you were a Republican or voted for a Republican. Now, it's cool to be a conservative. And that means that Donald Trump has become something of a rock star on an emotional level, on a cultural level. You don't get 76 million votes in the United States of America as a Republican without being something of "rock star." And there he is, approaching the announcers of UFC, including, of course, Joe Rogan. Big hug for Rogan, and a big hug for me. And it's leading to despair among some people on the left, because... well, they may find this annoying... and that's not so much a bad thing... it's a good thing. It's like Caesar in Rome, and everyone's cheering for him, and he's got his political gladiators with him. And he's sending a message to the Senate: "Here I have a guy who's got my people, and I'm willing to fight for you." And that's a message that needs to be heard in order to get his message across to the rest of the country, and to the other people who don t get their message across. And they don't have a chance to do it the way they want to get their voice heard in a way they can. . And that message needs to come from the people who are paying attention to it. It doesn't get any better than that. ... and it's not just about entertainment, it s not just entertainment. It s about politics. This is a message sent to the American people ... it s also about the country and it s a message in a world that s getting loud and loud and proud and proud it s loud and clear and loud, and that s also has a voice, and they have a voice and a presence that s loud enough to get it out there and they can be heard the message they need to get heard and get it across in a loud and clearly understood all of it.
00:00:09.000All the TV shows in the 1990s make reference to Donald Trump, of course.
00:00:12.000But for a long period of time, when it came to the politics of Donald Trump, If you were in the middle, if you maybe leaned left, it was just impossible for you to mention that you maybe supported Donald Trump.
00:00:26.000Donald Trump is a full-fledged cultural phenomenon.
00:00:29.000He's evident on everything from your NFL games on Sunday to the UFC. Of course, the UFC is very Donald Trump territory.
00:00:35.000He, of course, has shown up at many UFC fights over the course of the last year.
00:00:39.000Over the weekend, he entered the latest UFC championship.
00:00:43.000To a hero's welcome, he was joined by a wide variety of his friends, including a very out-of-place-looking speaker, Mike Johnson.
00:00:50.000I don't know whether he regularly attends UFC fights, but he's got the rest of his sort of normal crew there, which means Elon Musk and Don Trump Jr.
00:01:00.000and Joe Rogan and Dana White and Mike Johnson.
00:01:05.000Honestly, it is a very, very funny thing.
00:01:08.000So here is what it looked like at UFC the other night.
00:01:11.000Look, who is now making his way to the world-famous Octagon, flanked by UFC CEO Dana White, 45, soon to be 47, President-elect Donald Trump.
00:01:27.000At least the people at your home could hear the sound in this room.
00:01:37.000As Rogan announcing, as you will see, Donald Trump approaches him, they give him a big hug because, of course, Rogan endorsed him at the very end of the campaign.
00:02:25.000Well, it matters because it used to be that it was just purely uncool to say that you were a Republican or had voted for a Republican.
00:02:32.000And now, all of a sudden, you're seeing a breakthrough into the pop culture, the idea of not only being a Republican, but it's sort of rebellious and cool.
00:02:38.000I know, the left can't take it because they were brat and they were cool, but it turns out not so much.
00:02:43.000Over the weekend, for example, there were a bunch of NFL players who, after scoring touchdowns, proceeded to do the Trump dance, you know, the kind of The kind of strange shimmy that he does on stage.
00:02:54.000It was like five separate players on five separate NFL telecasts scoring touchdowns and then doing the Trump dance.
00:03:00.000Again, all that says is that the attempt to paint him as Adolf Hitler, the attempt to suggest that he is deeply abnormal or that he is so widely hated in the United States that he can't get his agenda must be ruled out of bounds, that obviously is untrue.
00:03:14.000Now this is leading to despair among some people on the left.
00:03:17.000So for example, one CNN guest was equating Donald Trump at UFC to Caesar in Rome.
00:03:26.000I mean, and it really looks like ancient Rome here.
00:03:29.000This is sort of the conquering Republican Caesar who's going into the Colosseum, and everyone's cheering, and he's got his political gladiators with him.
00:03:37.000That appearance isn't just about him enjoying the applause.
00:03:41.000He's sending a message to the Senate, like, not only are you entertained, but these are my people, and are you willing to fight?
00:03:50.000Now, again, the attempt to liken him to Caesar in Rome, what's amazing about that is that you never heard that same sort of language apply to Barack Obama.
00:03:58.000Barack Obama was constantly part of the celebrity culture.
00:04:01.000He was constantly ushering people from Hollywood into the Oval Office and then having them perform before him.
00:04:07.000He did his 2008 Democratic Convention speech on stage with giant pillars and smoke rising from the ground behind him.
00:04:17.000So the sort of spectacle is not new in American politics.
00:04:19.000It's just it hasn't been applied to a Republican in our lifetime or probably ever.
00:04:24.000And that means something because it means that things are changing on a cultural level, on an emotional level in the United States of America.
00:04:31.000And that means that Donald Trump has an awful lot of steam.
00:04:33.000And you are seeing that, by the way, with regard to foreign policy.
00:04:37.000You're also seeing it with regard to business.
00:04:38.000So on the business level, businesses are already adjusting.
00:04:40.000According to Axios, President-elect Trump will be a private citizen for another two months, but his impending presidential arrival is already changing the world in ways big and small.
00:04:50.000So, on the one end, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yel is taking his golf clubs out of storage so he'll be ready if Trump wants to play.
00:04:56.000On the other, Taiwanese officials are considering massive arms deals to show Trump, who has said the self-governing island should pay us if he wants protection from China, that they're serious about their own defense.
00:05:06.000Taiwan increasing its own defense budget is a good thing because, of course, you want Taiwan bristling like a porcupine.
00:05:12.000Thus, to get rid of China's interest in conquering the place or incentive to conquer the place.
00:05:18.000In the private sector, companies are also changing how they do business.
00:05:21.000Apparently, the fashion company Steve Madden has revealed it plans to slash China-made products by 40% to 45%, shifting the production elsewhere.
00:05:31.000And they're doing that in expectation that Donald Trump is going to increase tariffs against China because China, of course, is a geopolitical enemy of the United States.
00:05:40.000European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has suggested one way to appease Donald Trump would be to buy more American natural gas.
00:06:20.000Meanwhile, European defense stocks have been shooting up after Trump's win because the Europeans are realizing, hey, maybe we ought to increase our defense spending, which of course is true.
00:06:29.000There's even a cautious shift underway in Kyiv, where officials are preparing to take part in potential peace talks, according to Axios' Barack Ravid.
00:06:40.000Everybody knows that in Ukraine, pressure is going to have to be sufficient to force Russia to the table, but also, Ukraine is going to have to actually come to the table at some point here.
00:06:51.000Meanwhile, Donald Trump's activity is actually spurring even President Biden to act in more solid ways with regards to Ukraine and Russia.
00:06:57.000So, there are a lot of people on the right who are seeing the news today with regard to President Biden in Ukraine.
00:07:02.000And they're saying, he's aiming for World War III. He's upping the game.
00:07:20.000Donald Trump is not going to so cut aid to Ukraine that Vladimir Putin strolls through Kyiv.
00:07:25.000If there's one thing that President Trump does not want, it is that image.
00:07:28.000He does not like losing, and that would be him losing.
00:07:31.000In the same way that Donald Trump did not pull out of Afghanistan ignominiously, even if he wanted to pull out of Afghanistan, he wasn't going to do so.
00:07:37.000It meant the Taliban taking over Bagram Air Base.
00:07:40.000So too, when it comes to Ukraine, Donald Trump really does not have an interest in Vladimir Putin dominating Ukraine, which is why what he has spelled out with regard to any plan with regard to Ukraine suggests that Ukraine remains a functioning state Sons, Donbass and Crimea with neutrality, but with enough military capacity to forestall any further Russian aggression.
00:08:04.000So what's actually happening here is that because Joe Biden sees Donald Trump coming and because Donald Trump has suggested that he's going to force the Ukrainians to the table, which does need to happen, by the way.
00:08:14.000The United States has so far done two things.
00:08:17.000Slow walk to aid to Ukraine, meaning they don't actually have the military capacity to pursue some sort of total victory against the Russian.
00:08:23.000And second, they've not made clear to Vladimir Zelensky what the endgame is.
00:08:27.000So it's like the worst of both worlds.
00:08:29.000You haven't made clear your goals and the means are not calibrated to reach those goals.
00:08:32.000Whenever you do a military action or even aid in support of a military action, there has to be a goal.
00:08:38.000And then what are the means to reach those goals?
00:08:40.000Joe Biden did not define a goal in Ukraine other than victory, but he did not specify what victory meant.
00:09:19.000Because the harder Ukraine goes right now, the better the deal will be that they will cut on the other end of this thing.
00:09:26.000So apparently, President Biden, according to the New York Times, has now authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.
00:09:35.000Those weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of Western Russia, according to officials.
00:09:47.000His shift comes two months before President-elect Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.
00:09:54.000President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine did not confirm the permission to strike, but suggested on Sunday more important than lifting the restrictions would be the number of missiles used to strike the Russians.
00:10:02.000He said, today many in the media are talking about the fact that we have received permission to take appropriate actions, but blows are not inflicted with words.
00:10:09.000The rockets will speak for themselves.
00:10:12.000Again, he began to ease restrictions on the use of U.S.-supplied weapons on Russian soil, Biden did, after Russia launched a cross-border assault in May in the direction of Kharkiv.
00:10:22.000Officials said that while Ukrainians were likely to use the missiles first against Russian and North Korean troops that threatened Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Biden could authorize them to use the weapons elsewhere.
00:10:30.000Some U.S. officials say they fear Ukraine's use of the missiles across the border could prompt Vladimir Putin to retaliate with force against the United States and his coalition partners.
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00:13:05.000Again, one of the things that you are not seeing thus far is strong language coming out of President Trump or J.D. Vance condemning Joe Biden for doing any of this.
00:13:13.000Presumably because a rush of aid to Ukraine in advance of a deal is not necessarily the worst thing in the world.
00:13:19.000And by the way, the Europeans are coming to grips with this.
00:13:22.000The Europeans have known for years that this is the way this conflict is going to end.
00:13:26.000Which is why, according to the Wall Street Journal, President-elect Trump's push for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine is finding growing acceptance in Europe as one of the biggest aerial bombardments of the war added to growing concern about Ukraine's ability to withstand mounting Russian attacks.
00:13:40.000Officials in many capitals recognize an off-ramp to the conflict appears increasingly necessary.
00:13:46.000Apparently, the increased alignment between Europe and the Trump administration over the openness for talks is a sharp turnaround from even six months ago.
00:13:52.000Back then, European officials looked in dread at the Trump team's pledge to end the war with swift negotiations amid fears the former president would cut a deal with the Kremlin at Ukraine's expense.
00:14:02.000Now again, I never believed that that was true.
00:14:04.000In fact, I'd spoken with European leaders who were much more sanguine about Donald Trump than the left-wing press in the United States.
00:14:09.000They were saying the world was more peaceful, people were more scared of Trump, and the deals that he was cutting looked more solid than anything like what Joe Biden has been doing.
00:14:16.000The world is already adjusting to the Donald Trump presidency and is getting stronger for that.
00:14:21.000By the way, it has now been confirmed by Khan 11, which is a channel, a news channel in Israel, that Hamas has been booted out of Qatar.
00:14:28.000Those top officials are now in Turkey, which should lead the United States as the leading funder of NATO to suggest that either Turkey needs to give up those Hamas officials and broker a release of the hostages being held in Gaza, including several Americans, or Turkey should be booted summarily out of NATO.
00:14:45.000Benefits, NATO benefits should not be attached to a country that openly sides with terrorist groups.
00:14:50.000Certainly not a country that has the power to invoke NATO Article 5.
00:14:56.000Meanwhile, President Trump's picks continue to raise hackles on the left, particularly.
00:15:02.000There's a lot of chaos regarding these picks, and so much of this is personal.
00:15:06.000Now, a lot of this is political, obviously, but a lot of it is personal as well.
00:15:10.000Apparently, President Trump has been shifting his take on who he's going to pick as Treasury Secretary.
00:15:16.000He'd been expected to pick either Howard Letnick, Chief Executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, or Scott Besson, founder of the investment firm Keyscore Capital Management and former money management for George Soros.
00:15:26.000But apparently, he's been having second thoughts about the top two candidates.
00:15:29.000He's now slowed the selection process.
00:15:32.000Apparently, according to Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, who's a frequent recipient of leaks from Trump World, Letnik, who has been running Mr.
00:15:39.000Trump's transition operation, has gotten on Trump's nerves lately.
00:15:44.000You do have to love the reality TV aspect to this administration.
00:15:47.000You know, always, it's like, behind closed doors, there's some catfights going on.
00:15:51.000Trump has privately expressed frustration that Lutnik has been hanging around him too much, and that he's been manipulating the transition process for his own ends.
00:15:58.000A person familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the battle between Lutnik and Besant as a knife fight, with Lutnik as the primary aggressor.
00:16:05.000Besant is still under consideration, but apparently, Elon Musk is backing Lutnik.
00:16:12.000So totally unclear which direction he's going to go with regard to Treasury Secretary.
00:16:16.000There are some other candidates whose names are in the mix.
00:16:18.000Suffice it to say that the chaos in Trump world is not over.
00:16:23.000And again, what I've said to people with regard to chaos in Trump world for a very long time is watch the policy that emerges, not the chaos that surrounds the policy.
00:16:31.000The chaos matters a lot less than the actual hard-nosed policy that emerges from any Trump cabinet or the picks that emerge from Donald Trump himself.
00:16:40.000And what is the one common denominator among these picks?
00:16:43.000Well, Speaker Mike Johnson, who again, looked like me at a UFC fight with a bunch of football players.
00:16:50.000Here he was explaining to Jake Tapper that while a lot of people may not like these picks, the point of these picks is to shake up the status quo, which obviously is true.
00:17:00.000With some of these nominees, Gates, Hegseth, RFK Jr., I wonder, does it matter anymore?
00:17:08.000For Republicans to think of leaders as people who are moral in their personal lives, is that still important to the Republican Party?
00:17:20.000It's an important issue for anyone in leadership.
00:17:22.000This is what I'll say about the nominees that the president has put forward, is that they are persons who will shake up the status quo.
00:17:29.000And I think what the American people have believed and what they've delivered with the mandate in this election is the demand that we shake up the status quo.
00:17:37.000It's not working for the American people.
00:17:38.000So, use the term in the opening about how these are disruptors.
00:17:59.000And I think the vast majority of the American people understand that.
00:18:02.000You can't have status quo appointments in a moment like this.
00:18:06.000Now, again, he's not wrong about this.
00:18:08.000And we can argue over the various merits and demerits of these candidates.
00:18:11.000And I think that each one should be given a full Senate appointment process.
00:18:15.000I think it is very important, actually, that the American people be introduced to these candidates, know everything about these candidates.
00:18:20.000After all, these are going to be cabinet secretaries.
00:18:22.000And with a Republican majority in the Senate, certainly they're owed a fair hearing and they will get a fair hearing in the Senate of the United States.
00:18:29.000With that said, the thing that is very obvious about all of these picks is that they are meant to shake up the status quo, and that is what is really driving the left nuts.
00:18:36.000They can say that it's all about Matt Gaetz's various accusations or Pete Hegseth's tattoos.
00:18:51.000The one thing that is perfectly obvious, however, is that the big objection is Donald Trump moving fast, not on nominees per se, but moving fast on the policies to be pursued by the nominees.
00:19:01.000That is the actual goal here, is to obstruct all of that.
00:20:36.000Not to reverse the so-called green energy revolution, but to actually rely on fossil fuels that are going to actually power the American economy.
00:20:43.000By the way, after that, my understanding is that they released Joe Biden back into the wild.
00:20:49.000So I'm finally glad that they decided to untag the president and let him stagger off into the woods where he prefers to be at the end of his life.
00:20:57.000In any case, President Trump, for example, is now pushing the shale boom.
00:21:02.000He selected on Saturday Chris Wright as the nominee for energy secretary.
00:21:05.000Wright was front and center for the fracking revolution, according to the Wall Street Journal, that reshaped the country as a band of scrappy wildcatters that reinvigorated U.S. oil and gas production to record heights.
00:21:14.000His $2.8 billion company, Liberty Energy, pumps water and sand underground to frack customers' wells.
00:21:19.000Selection elevates a pugnacious branch of the oil and gas industry that is skeptical of climate change science and mostly hasn't pledged to build out low-carbon energy businesses, unlike giants ExxonMobil and Chevron.
00:21:31.000The idea that we are going to up the ante on the fracking revolution is great.
00:21:35.000It has completely reshifted, not just the global balance of power economically, but geopolitically.
00:21:41.000In terms of military power, in terms of leverage, the energy revolution in the United States has totally shifted the balance of power, and that is a wonderful thing.
00:21:49.000And Donald Trump is reinvigorating that.
00:21:50.000The amount of energy production in the United States is going to skyrocket.
00:21:54.000In an interview with the Wall Street Journal before the election, Wright denounced what he called the hyper-politicization of energy and singled out Democrats saying, quote, they called a war on climate change, making it hard to produce oil and gas.
00:22:06.000Meanwhile, Wright is going to join the newly formed National Energy Council alongside North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, another staunch Trump supporter hailing from a shale state.
00:22:16.000This is a revolution in how we are doing energy in this country, which is why the Wall Street Journal editorial board is calling it a U.S. energy renaissance.
00:22:25.000They say both nominees understand how energy markets work, unlike Joe Biden officials, whose primary goal was to lock up America's fossil fuel resources.
00:22:32.000Bergam's first charge at Interior will be to roll back the Biden regulations that have hampered resource development.
00:22:39.000Again, all of this means a booming American economy.
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00:25:19.000Brendan Carr is, of course, a senior Republican among the FCC's five commissioners.
00:25:24.000And just last week, as we talked about on the show, he announced that he was taking on what he called the censorship cartel, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
00:25:32.000He pointed out that these people have been coordinating via groups like Garm, for example, and NewsGuard in order to stifle advertising dollars going to alternative sources of information that are not legacy media.
00:25:45.000President Trump put out a statement on Sunday evening saying, quote, Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech and has fought against the regulatory law affair that has stifled Americans freedom and held back our economy.
00:25:54.000He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America's job creators and innovators and ensure the FCC delivers for rural America.
00:26:06.000As we say, right before his appointment, he sent that letter off to Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, warning that he believed that they were improperly censoring certain opinions.
00:26:18.000So, Carr at the head of the FCC is a sea change from the censorial attempts by the Biden administration.
00:26:26.000So, energy, Trump's going to blow things up.
00:26:29.000Communications, Trump's going to blow things up.
00:26:31.000And then, of course, he's going to blow things up over at defense.
00:26:34.000So as the Wall Street Journal points out, the federal workforce contains 2.3 million jobs.
00:26:45.000Well, apparently, those 2.3 million jobs are largely in the Department of Veteran Affairs, Homeland Security, Army, Navy, Air Force, Defense.
00:26:54.000They're about 116,000 in Justice, 108,000 in Treasury, another 92,000 in Agriculture, 91,000 in HHS. Those are the civilian employees only.
00:27:05.000That excludes active military personnel or reservists of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
00:27:10.000President Trump is coming in, pledging to cut an enormous amount of this stuff.
00:27:17.000Elon Musk and Donald Trump, they have pledged that they want to cut federal spending by at least $2 trillion.
00:27:24.000And of course, Elon Musk is famous for having come into X and immediately slashing 80% of the workforce.
00:27:32.000There are rumors that one of the first moves that Trump is going to make upon entering office is to cut literally 100,000 jobs from the federal workforce.
00:27:40.000I promise you that there are 100,000 jobs that certainly can be cut from the federal workforce without very many people noticing.
00:27:46.000Out of 2.3 million, there's a lot of dead weight inside the federal employee base.
00:27:51.000This is precisely the reason that they are very upset about Pete Hexth in defense.
00:27:56.000They're afraid that he's going to come in and he's going to clean house.
00:28:00.000So, for example, Senator Alyssa Slotkin, the Senate-elect from the state of Michigan, she suggests that she is very, very upset about the possibility that Pete Hegseth will come in along with an executive order from Donald Trump and set up a board that will overview all of the various political generals that have been in place for a generation.
00:28:17.000She says, oh no, they might just fire people.
00:28:20.000Yeah, that's the feature, not the bug.
00:28:24.000I think they've been very clear that they're putting together some sort of panel that's going to look at generals, people who have served their nation their entire lives over multiple administrations, Democrat and Republican, in combat.
00:28:36.000They are now openly talking about dismissing them like some sort of kangaroo court.
00:28:41.000You can imagine the stress in the Pentagon about that, but also on the future of who we are as a military.
00:28:48.000Our military and the role of the military is in the Constitution for a reason, and I think we're really at risk of politicizing the military in a way that we can't put the genie back in the bottle.
00:29:00.000So, we can't put the genie back in the bottle?
00:29:04.000You on the left had General Mark Milley out there explaining that white rage was the biggest problem in the military.
00:29:09.000You and the left decided that the American military had to be turned into some sort of experimental laboratory for left-wing social policy.
00:29:16.000And we needed to fly the Pride Progress flag at military bases.
00:29:20.000And the best way to recruit soldiers to serve on the front lines is to tell them they might get a sex change operation.
00:29:29.000That wokeness was going to be the centerpiece.
00:29:31.000And not only that, you were going to be weak on defense.
00:29:33.000And what was America's defense apparatus for?
00:29:36.000It was really only for social engineering.
00:29:38.000Because, you know, America's mean and bad in the world.
00:29:41.000Well, Pete Hegseth is not going to do any of that.
00:29:43.000That's the real reason people are angry at Pete Hegseth.
00:29:46.000They're finding bad excuses to come after him.
00:29:49.000So apparently they're very upset at one of his tattoos, at least one of his tattoos.
00:29:53.000He has two tattoos that are apparently very, very controversial.
00:29:56.000So one of them is a tattoo on his bicep that shows the Latin words Deus Volt.
00:30:02.000According to Travis Akers, a naval intelligence officer, he told the Washington Post that when he saw that, he found it was a Christian battle cry from the first crusade in the Middle Ages, meaning God wills it.
00:30:13.000Though the phrase remains in use among some ordinary Christians, especially Catholics, Akers says his research showed that it had become popular with the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other extremist groups that participated in the siege at the Capitol.
00:30:25.000So apparently, this led this particular naval intelligence officer to actually question whether Pete Hegseth should be included in the military at all.
00:30:39.000Akers posted the photos to the app known as Twitter, calling the tattoos white supremacist symbols.
00:30:44.000The tweet was then forwarded to the D.C. National Guard's head of physical security, who soon warned commanding general William Walker the Latin phrase suggested that Hegseth could be, quote, an insider threat.
00:30:53.000As he was about to be deployed, this is for the last inauguration, Hegseth received a call from his superior officer ordering him to stand down rather than report for duty for the inaugural events, according to an officer later briefed on the events, as well as Hegseth's own accounts in writings and interviews.
00:31:09.000Hexeth's removal from the mission became a seminal moment in his life.
00:31:12.000He has cited the episode in asserting that the military in which he'd served in two wars abroad and during riots at home following the death of George Floyd had become dangerously woke.
00:31:20.000In his telling, guard officials were focused on a cross tattoo on his chest, not the Latin phrase that records and interviews show most concerned military officials.
00:31:28.000But of course, they're angry at the cross tattoo on his chest as well, which is, of course, a very common symbol, particularly in Catholic circles.
00:31:36.000This bizarre notion that Hegseth had to be drummed out of the National Guard because of his tattoos based on somebody doing a quick Wikipedia search is kind of insane.
00:31:47.000Now again, it is really funny that they are acknowledging openly that this is in fact the rallying cry of many Catholics.
00:31:55.000But then because some extremists use it, that's the thing that's scary.
00:32:00.000Also apparently, they're upset about his Jerusalem cross.
00:32:06.000Okay, but the reason that apparently Hegseth got that cross is Christians very often apparently get that cross in order to mark their voyage to Jerusalem.
00:32:17.000It was made into a prominent Christian symbol by Crusaders in the 11th century.
00:32:22.000So, I mean, I'm sorry, this is your best shot?
00:32:25.000Okay, so they have one other shot they're trying against Pete Hegseth.
00:32:28.000So the Washington Post is reporting that Pete Hegseth paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault as part of a non-disclosure agreement.
00:32:34.000They maintained their encounter was consensual, according to a statement from his lawyer Saturday and other documents obtained by the Washington Post.
00:32:40.000Hegseth's attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said that Hegseth was, quote, So, they are now trying to bring up...
00:33:04.000This particular complaint, there is a complaint filed with the police alleging a sexual assault days after this October 7, 2017 encounter in Monterey, California.
00:33:14.000But the local DA did not bring charges.
00:33:16.000Apparently, police investigated the incident.
00:33:18.000And then she threatened litigation in 2020, so he paid her off.
00:33:49.000So, if the idea here is that the accusation alone is tantamount to the crime, well, that's a problem.
00:33:56.000The same thing, presumably, holds true with regard to Matt Gaetz.
00:33:59.000But the reason that Trump picked Gaetz, and this is the really underlying thing, the reason he picked Gaetz is obviously to blow things up.
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00:34:53.000The real reason that he selected Matt Gaetz, of course, is because he wants someone who's going to blow things up.
00:34:58.000That's particularly true at the DOJ, which did indeed target President Trump the first time around.
00:35:04.000If you want to know how you get Matt Gaetz, the answer is you keep elevating people like Adam Schiff, the representative, I wonder if you are feeling at all,
00:35:51.000The Trump campaign manager was meeting with Russian intelligence and giving them internal polling data, just to give you one example.
00:35:57.000And the Mueller report sets all this out.
00:36:00.000It does say, quote, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities, which doesn't mean that he didn't, you know, that there weren't meetings, but they didn't find evidence.
00:37:15.000So he spent that, he feels like he's gone to hell and back ten times.
00:37:19.000So this is also a big middle finger to the DOJ and the FBI. Now, again, you may not like the nominees, but that is where this is coming from without any sort of doubt at all.
00:37:31.000And when you have people like Jen Psaki, the former press secretary for Joe Biden and now MSNBC host, criticizing the picks, you know that she's not criticizing the picks because of their supposed personal immorality or personal foibles.
00:37:43.000You know that's not what this is about.
00:37:47.000These are the people who will be advising the president on every crisis that crosses his desk and representing the United States, for some of them, overseas.
00:37:54.000And they're the people who have an impact also on your daily lives.
00:37:58.000See, these choices are, on the one hand, cartoonishly outrageous, but when that dust settles, it's not really just about the scandals and the personal lives of these nominees, and there are many.
00:38:09.000It's about what their positions and their lack of experience could do to our health system, our national security, and the rights we have in this country.
00:38:18.000That is the thing she's worried about.
00:38:39.000Because the same Jen Psaki, who's criticizing all of Donald Trump's picks, is still maintaining that Democrats should pretend that boys are girls, girls are boys, and they should compete with one another.
00:38:48.000Here is Jen Psaki doubling down on the trans issues.
00:38:52.000Another one of the lines that ran over and over again in those ads and throughout right-wing media is this idea that America is faced with a crisis of boys playing and girls sports.
00:39:02.000Now these ads created this perception that the issues of trans kids playing sports was dominating schools across the country, which is completely false.
00:39:11.000But if that were actually an issue at thousands of schools across the country, it would be worthy of a debate.
00:39:17.000But there are just incredibly few examples of transgender girls playing in youth sports.
00:39:23.000And when we see those examples, there isn't evidence that these kids are a threat to safety or fairness.
00:39:52.000He tweeted out just this weekend, quote, This Transgender Awareness Week, I want you to know that I see you and have your back as governor.
00:39:58.000Illinois has enshrined protections for gender-affirming care to meet this moment.
00:40:01.000And because of that, you will have a home here.
00:40:11.000My goodness, I keep being informed that there are very few of you and that you have nothing to do with modern American life in any major way.
00:40:16.000And yet every week is Transgender Awareness Week or Lesbian Awareness Week or Transgender Lesbian Awareness Week.
00:40:23.000But this is the party that you guys have built.
00:40:25.000And this is the state that you wish to create.
00:40:27.000And then you wonder why the pushback is so strong.
00:40:31.000I think most people are rooting for a vast change to the size and scope of government, particularly after COVID. Now, one of the things that people haven't talked about is the idea that the 2024 election was really not just a referendum on Joe Biden, it was a referendum on COVID itself.
00:40:44.000On the way that the entire West treated COVID, locking down entire societies, completely destroying economies, using COVID as an excuse to leverage up, spend oodles of dollars, completely restructure the relationship between individuals and their governments.
00:41:10.000Which is why I think a lot of people are rooting for Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk when they say that they are going to dismantle entire government agencies.
00:41:17.000Here's Vivek vowing just that over the weekend.
00:41:20.000Are you expecting to close down entire agencies, like President Trump has talked about the Department of Education, for example?
00:41:27.000Are you going to be closing down departments?
00:41:44.000I think people will be surprised by, I think, how quickly we're able to move with some of those changes, given the legal backdrop the Supreme Court has given us.
00:41:51.000I think a lot of people are rooting for that.
00:41:54.000Well, last week, as you'll recall, speaking of government overreach and agency corruption, you'll recall the Daily Wire had a blockbuster report about FEMA, that there are managers in FEMA who are telling people to literally avoid houses with Trump signs and flags on them.
00:42:10.000Well, now the House is launching an oversight committee investigation.
00:42:14.000Last week, we had the opportunity to sit down with James Comer, representative from Kentucky and head of the House Oversight Committee, overseeing that investigation.
00:42:26.000So, obviously, we here at The Daily Wire recently exposed this insane story about a FEMA employee telling hurricane relief workers in Florida to avoid homes displaying campaign signs or flags for President Trump.
00:42:37.000You've now announced at the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that there will be a hearing taking place Tuesday titled Oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to get to the bottom of this.
00:42:47.000So, where do things stand in your investigation right now, Congressman?
00:42:50.000Well, we want to hear from the director.
00:42:52.000We fear that this isn't an isolated incident.
00:42:57.000We've spoken with other employees who haven't yet come forward but have provided some information that this is the way FEMA operates, that they do discriminate against Republicans, against conservatives, against people in more prominent neighborhoods.
00:43:16.000And, you know, it's a situation where this isn't the only agency that we've heard stories about this.
00:43:26.000You know, throughout the entire Biden-Harris administration, there's been an effort to censor conservatives.
00:43:31.000There's been a discrimination against Republicans.
00:43:34.000We've seen a weaponized judiciary, a weaponized media that's coordinating Very closely with the Biden-Harris administration to try to attack conservatives.
00:43:45.000So we want to know from the FEMA director's own mouth what happened here, and then we'll go from there.
00:43:52.000But we certainly plan on bringing in that employee.
00:43:55.000I know she's given several interviews where she seems very credible in that she didn't think she was doing anything wrong because this is the way they were supposed to operate.
00:44:05.000Congressman Comer, it really is an amazing expose on sort of the state of the quote-unquote deep state.
00:44:11.000We were told for years there was no such thing as the deep state.
00:44:13.000There aren't career employees in these various positions who are doing anything political.
00:44:20.000How deeply do you think the rot goes throughout the administrative state?
00:44:24.000I think it's throughout the entire government.
00:44:27.000I think every government agency, whether it's FEMA, whether it's the EPA, whether it's the FBI, whether it's the Securities and Exchange Commission, I think every agency in the federal government is populated with left-wing activists that have risen to the top.
00:44:47.000Now, not every federal employee is bad.
00:44:50.000There are good federal employees that are liberal.
00:44:52.000But I think that what you've seen happen, dating back to the beginning of the Obama administration, through today in the Biden-Harris administration, is that the left-wing activists have risen to the top, they're the career employees, and they have a vendetta.
00:45:08.000They have an agenda to punish conservatives, to censor conservatives, to do everything they can to enact their left-wing ideologies, whether it's through the Green New Deal or whether it's through censoring conservative speech.
00:45:22.000So this is just the tip of the iceberg, and it's coming at a perfect time because we're about to see a significant change in Washington, and I believe this So far, Donald Trump's announcing names that are serious about going in and rooting out the deep state actors that have created so much havoc against conservatives.
00:45:43.000So, Congressman, obviously, big week for Republicans, obviously at the White House level, certainly at the senatorial and congressional level as well.
00:45:50.000It's been assured that Speaker Johnson will continue to maintain his speakership.
00:45:53.000He will indeed be leading a Republican majority.
00:45:55.000It's going to be a very slim Republican majority because there are a couple of seats that are now going to have to be filled by special election because there are several Congress members who have been nominated to fill President Trump's cabinet as well.
00:46:06.000What do you think are sort of the big priorities for the House, or what should they be going into the new term?
00:46:12.000Well, first of all, we need to secure the border.
00:46:14.000I think the American people spoke loud and clear.
00:46:18.000This can be done through executive order, but we're going to need resources.
00:46:21.000We're going to need a lot of legislation that will make sure that it's codified what he does.
00:46:31.000We want it not just We want to deport the criminals that are here illegally, but we also want to create a situation where there's a legal pathway and where people that want to come to the United States, that should come to the United States, can get expedited citizenship.
00:46:48.000So we can solve all the problems with a willing administration.
00:46:53.000Remember, the Biden-Harris Southern border policy was an open border policy.
00:46:58.000Trump wants to secure the border, but he wants a legal pathway to citizenship.
00:47:02.000We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of America.
00:47:06.000We're going to start with all the criminals who were supposed to have been deported already, but weren't because of the pitiful Biden administration.
00:47:15.000But then we're going to do what's called budget reconciliation.
00:47:18.000And the reason budget reconciliation is important is this bill only takes 51 votes to pass the Senate.
00:47:26.000Remember, to get to 60 votes in the Senate, the way the Democrats stick together is very difficult.
00:47:32.000But you have a tool called budget reconciliation that you can use one time.
00:47:37.000And I think that we can enact a lot of good policies within this budget reconciliation bill that'll address energy policy, that'll address lowering inflation, that will...
00:48:11.000And of course, everybody should stay tuned for that big hearing on Tuesday in which Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator, is going to be answering some tough questions.
00:48:18.000Congressman, really appreciate the time.