00:00:52.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
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00:01:22.000Joining us now is Senator Ron Johnson.
00:01:24.000Senator, thank you for making time for us.
00:01:26.000Senator, you've been on the case for quite a while now, getting the documents, putting them together, Marco Polo report, the whole deal when it comes to Hunter Biden and the Biden crime syndicate.
00:01:38.000And then we get some announcement of this kind of plea deal, backroom sweetheart thing.
00:01:43.000I'm just curious, what is your reaction?
00:01:45.000You've been trying to pursue justice through your own ability as a senator.
00:01:50.000Are you underwhelmed, disappointed, upset?
00:01:54.000I think this deal stinks to high heaven.
00:01:57.000It certainly confirms the fact that we have a multi-tier system of justice.
00:02:01.000We don't have equal application of justice under the law.
00:02:04.000There is so much that needs to be investigated here.
00:02:07.000Senator Grassy and I pretty well ran out of time.
00:02:09.000We were doing our investigation during COVID.
00:02:12.000The FBI was interfering in our investigation.
00:02:15.000Democrats in the Senate were interfering in our investigation.
00:02:20.000But again, there's so many unanswered questions here.
00:02:22.000This is what I've been concerned about: that they would come up with some plea agreement to lesser charges.
00:02:29.000My added concern right now is part of that plea agreement, sealing the records so that we never get to see what the truth is.
00:02:39.000I was interested that I found it was interesting that Attorney Weiss said that his investigation is ongoing.
00:02:45.000You know, what we had a real problem with during our investigation of the corrupt FBI investigation, Crossfire Hurricane, the Russian collusion hoax, is every time we would request, or I even had to subpoena Christopher Wray, we didn't get squat because the excuse they used is, well, this is under active investigation.
00:03:06.000We can't share that information with you.
00:03:07.000So if you've got a plea agreement that seals records, specific records, I mean, what a great way of sweeping the most recent allegations under the rug of the $10 million bribery screen that supposedly, or there's allegation that there are 17 recordings.
00:03:27.000You know, plea agreement, seal those records.
00:03:29.000And then anything that James Comer with subpoena power is going after, you just say, well, we'd love to give it to you, but it's under active investigation.
00:03:40.000It's, by the way, it's always the excuse federal law enforcement uses not to turn information over to Congress for its legitimate oversight responsibilities.
00:03:51.000So I think there's a couple of things that come to mind.
00:03:53.000Let's just start right there, Senator.
00:03:55.000The executive branch is supposed to be able to be checked by the legislative branch.
00:04:00.000This kind of technical excuse, yeah, they could have an ongoing investigation for the next 100 years into Biden to protect them from congressional oversight.
00:04:09.000Is this a larger constitutional question that the Supreme Court's going to need to eventually weigh in on?
00:04:13.000Because you can't do your job as a legislator, as someone who has a mandate for oversight, if they just time and time again say, well, it's an act of investigation.
00:04:27.000What has happened over the decades is Congress has, in many cases, willingly turned over its constitutional responsibilities and authority to the executive branch.
00:04:36.000I would argue, primarily to avoid accountability.
00:04:39.000You know, pass a law called the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act and let the administration fill in the blanks.
00:04:46.000But when it comes to congressional oversight, what the executive branch has noticed is that Congress has very weak enforcement powers.
00:04:53.000Now, we can hold individuals in contempt.
00:04:57.000We actually, if they remain in contempt, we can send our sergeant-at-arms over to arrest them.
00:05:04.000But that's probably what Congress is going to have to do to get the attention of the executive branch and exert our co-equal branch of government status.
00:05:13.000But until Congress does that, we have every right to investigate things, to investigate individuals.
00:05:20.000We have a constitutional authority to do that.
00:05:24.000But pretty well, we've just turned it over to federal law enforcement and then washed our hands of it.
00:05:31.000So, and it's interesting because the founders anticipated that Congress is going to be the most political branch.
00:05:38.000And so that, yes, you should have oversight, but they would never have, I think, one of the things that has just come to life the last hundred years, this administrative state that is basically running the entire government, right?
00:05:50.000They just kind of laugh at Congress, like, yeah, you guys have elections.
00:06:04.000Senator, what is the story of this 17 recordings?
00:06:06.000Senator Grassley said this from the Senate floor.
00:06:09.000There's been a lot of reporting on it, but also a fair amount of rumor that has been kind of inserted.
00:06:16.000What are the facts regarding these recordings and President Joe Biden and a foreign national?
00:06:21.000Well, even though we're falsely accused of soliciting and disseminating Russian disinformation, Senator Grassley's, in my report, was scrupulous at verifying everything and making sure that everything was solid.
00:06:35.000And we checked and double-checked everything.
00:06:39.000In this case, Senator Grassley, again, is being equally careful.
00:06:42.000We have a whistleblower that talked about these 1023 reports based on a known confidential human source, a credible confidential human source.
00:06:53.000But this individual is talking to, we believe it might be the head of Burisma, a corrupt oligarch.
00:07:01.000And you need to take anything that corrupt oligarch says with a grain of salt.
00:07:05.000So it's been reported that that oligarch told this confidential human source that he recorded 15 times Hunter Biden and twice Joe Biden as he was being bribed by them, or as he was bribing them, let's put it that way.
00:07:19.000But again, it's an allegation by probably a corrupt oligarch.
00:08:07.000I understand the concern about maybe putting the confidential human source at risk.
00:08:11.000I mean, that is the concern about making these things known to the public.
00:08:16.000But there's no added risk as long as you're revealing the 1023, talking about the recordings, other than it makes the Bidens look worse, or it certainly wests the public's appetite of learning more.
00:08:32.000So, again, the FBI has not been forthright here.
00:09:15.000They have not given somebody like me any reason to trust them.
00:09:18.000Christopher Wray, I think, has done a miserable job.
00:09:20.000His number one goal coming in for James Comey, who destroyed the credibility of the FBI, should have been to restore the integrity and credibility of the FBI.
00:09:47.000At the same time, we see the FBI that just has this pattern time and time again of no accountability.
00:09:52.000I was just wondering, Senator, the attitude, so a little bit more just like subjective than objective.
00:09:57.000Do you just feel an attitude of delay and superiority and smugness from the FBI instead of cooperation?
00:10:04.000And has that changed at all in recent years in your dealings with them?
00:10:08.000Well, again, I've only been in this position 12 years and really doing investigations probably over the last seven or eight years.
00:10:14.000But again, the smugness and the arrogance is at the top level.
00:10:17.000I mean, you have to say, I think the vast majority of people working in these departments have integrity, which is why we're seeing whistleblowers.
00:10:25.000The problem is the whistleblowers, they only have one piece of the puzzle.
00:10:29.000So we need a lot of whistleblowers to show us different pieces of the puzzle so we can kind of put it all together to really understand what is happening.
00:10:36.000But there's no doubt there are partisan actors in the FBI and the Department of Justice, and they are arrogant.
00:10:58.000And yeah, when it's this two shall pass, it was not in reference to the administrative state staying in power for Senator, is it then fair to say, and I don't want to be overly cynical, that this is the shadow government, the Leviathan's attempt to just close the Hunter Biden stuff, that they can kind of say, oh, okay, this is over with.
00:11:18.000Or is there going to be any hope that the actual, like the bigger picture crimes, for example, tens of millions of dollars coming from abroad, possibly selling favors and bribery, or do you think that this is getting sunsetted?
00:11:43.000So that's part of our problem here, Charlie, is we have the complicit, the compliant, and corrupt media that they're not journalists anymore.
00:12:32.000And you're doing a wonderful job in a very, very difficult scenario and circumstance.
00:12:37.000And as you say it best, the administrative state, their advantage is their permanency, is that they'll just delay or they'll redact or they'll have an excuse or they'll punt because they're not going anywhere.
00:13:23.000And when you're dealing with federal law enforcement, trying to enforce the law against federal law enforcement, it's pretty darn difficult to do.
00:14:28.000He has won three difficult elections in that state, despite having hundreds of millions of dollars spent against him.
00:14:34.000He was the leader against the mRNA shot that they called the vaccine, regardless, despite, I should say, not regardless, despite all of the garbage thrown at him.
00:15:11.000I want to hear from you, freedom at charliekirk.com.
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00:15:48.000Look, I'm going to take this pledge, and I hope you will too.
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00:18:19.000He's talked about vaccines in a heretical way compared to what the DNC would like.
00:18:26.000So if we start from the premise that the DNC is going to change the rules, if not cheat in every possible way to stop him, that's the logical way to look at it in the right way.
00:18:40.000It appears that Biden really isn't going to be on the ballot in Iowa and New Hampshire because Iowa and New Hampshire have the temerity to want to do the primary the way they want to do it versus what the DNC wants.
00:19:09.000Lastly, real quick, will Biden actually go through with all of this?
00:19:15.000That's still an open question in my mind.
00:19:17.000For the last year, I've talked about the fact that Gavin Newson, you know him out here in California, is doing all the right things to run for president.
00:19:28.000If Biden has to drop out, it's my belief the DNC would change the rules, Drop him in like an Army Ranger at the last minute to somehow win the nomination because they know that Kennedy, A, probably can't win nationally, and B, it wouldn't be a happy choice.
00:19:50.000So, with those three things, is what we need to discuss about whether Kennedy could actually prevail.
00:19:57.000So, primaries are tricky things, and it's a lot of emotion, it's a lot of base politics, and Joe Biden is not campaigning at all.
00:20:04.000And this kind of ignoring RFK Jr. thing is not working because RFK Jr. is not running a traditional, I'm going to win over the Bernie Sanders wing of the party.
00:20:16.000RFK Jr. is trying to win over just populists across the board, increase name ID and chatter, and almost create a new coalition.
00:20:24.000I have no idea if this is going to be successful or not.
00:20:27.000And, you know, MSNBC had a long segment with Chris Hayes and Brandy Zedrozny.
00:20:33.000And we've dealt with Brandy Zedrozny before in some stories.
00:20:35.000She's very smart, a relatively fair person, but she still has that, you know, pepper in her insults.
00:20:40.000But I think she did a really good job on this interview where she said, look, there's a new coalition being built.
00:20:45.000It's not right versus left, but it's top versus down, and you're not trusting the institutions.
00:20:51.000And Chris Hayes says, well, you know, the liberal coalition in America is a high trust society of institutions, and the right wing is a low trust.
00:22:21.000And it's the first one under their rules will give those delegates.
00:22:26.000But New Hampshire and Iowa may still go ahead of them.
00:22:30.000And under DC rules, the DNC rules, they'll disqualify those delegates from counting.
00:22:37.000And then all across the nation, this party that says, in the name of democracy, we need to cut dissent, stop people from saying inaccurate or disinformation as we view it.
00:22:51.000So the party of saving democracy will actually disenfranchise two long-term states from their natural role.
00:22:59.000That's what I mean by the DNC will change the rules at any time to get their preferred candidate.
00:23:06.000So after, let's say he wins RFK, Biden's not on the ballot in Iowa and not on the ballot in New Hampshire.
00:23:19.000I know it will be from your point of view, which is, can you actually believe that they're doing no debates and disenfranchising votes, which is what any rational person will think.
00:23:31.000But then Biden goes to South Carolina and they whip the vote and RFA finishes.
00:23:45.000Does he have any money to compete in Super Tuesday?
00:23:48.000Money is a big deal, as you well know, in politics.
00:23:53.000And how can he compete all across the country in March?
00:23:56.000These are the headwinds that he faces, assuming no one else gets in the race, assuming Biden goes forward.
00:24:04.000So the kind of manipulation of changing this calendar is super corrupt.
00:24:11.000And by the way, I want to mention your book to our audience here, The Divided Era, How We Got Here and Keys to America's Reconciliation.
00:24:18.000What I also just find interesting, though, is the DNC used to have superdelegates.
00:24:24.000They, I think they've got rid of them, but it's just for quote unquote, the party of democracy, oh, they still do have super delegates.
00:24:32.000I thought there was a movement to get rid of them, but then they diminished their power.
00:24:37.000Yeah, and I just want to make sure people remember that Bernie Sanders had the nomination stole from him basically twice, especially in 2016.
00:24:46.000Bernie Sanders was going to be the nominee in 2016.
00:24:50.000And if you want a super thought crime, Donald Trump would have struggled to beat Bernie Sanders in 2016.
00:24:57.000I think that the matchup of Clinton Trump was a lot better than Clinton Sanders, I mean Trump Sanders.
00:25:02.000I know that might surprise people, but I think Sanders would have done a lot better in the Rust Belt than Hillary Clinton, especially because he used to actually be good on trade and immigration.
00:25:14.000Is it possible for Republicans to cross over into some of these Democrat primaries to help out RFK?
00:25:21.000Certainly that could happen in California under California rule.
00:25:27.000Before we get to that, though, the one thing RFK is missing, and you alluded to it, is an organization that is sort of non-aligned that could make the difference from him.
00:25:40.000Remember, Trump wins the presidency because he uses Twitter and goes around the major media.
00:25:46.000So what is RFK's plan to go around the major media?
00:25:51.000Because MSNBC and CNN and the liberal hosts, they more often report on the things that he says that they disagree with than what they agree with, right?
00:26:06.000I applaud him for his videos and things like that that in the modern age work, but he really needs some sort of organization to pick him up and do what?
00:26:45.000So if RFK, if I was advising RFK, I'd say, look, you've got to get an org to help you create that list so you can get that direct message and tell Democrats what's at stake.
00:26:58.000There's also the story today about Joe Manchin, whether he gets in as a third-party candidate, which would surely undermine the Democrats' ability to win in the fall.
00:27:08.000But in the meantime, RFK's got to catch fire somewhere.
00:27:13.000He's got to catch fire, but you could do that in one of these early states.
00:27:17.000And when you are a sitting duck candidate like Biden, things can catch fire.
00:27:22.000I'm telling you, in one of these states, it could get close.
00:27:25.000And Kennedy has something going for him.
00:29:27.000We like him because he's saying things that are true.
00:29:28.000For example, RFK Jr. is better than almost every Republican running for office on the threat the administrative state poses against ordinary Americans.
00:29:36.000Thomas, sorry we lost you for a second.
00:29:40.000The premise of the book, The Divided Era, is that every decision government makes picks a winner and a loser and someone to pay for it.
00:29:48.000And the more decisions they make, the more divided we become because every American, everything you do, Charlie, the gas you buy, the mattress you sleep on, the closure, everything is regulated.
00:30:00.000So government has become the center of America instead of where our founders wanted it, which was on the margin.
00:30:07.000Government today is 44% of the U.S. economy.
00:30:10.000If you throw in the cost of regulations, it's at 50% or more.
00:30:14.000So that's what drives this political division.
00:30:18.000Americans, if they could turn away from government for a short period of time, mean not be annoyed by it or have it taxed or whatever, agree enormously that we should be the land of opportunity and that government and big corporations now like Pfizer shouldn't be creating public policy, right?
00:30:39.000So yes, there are many people who Government not to fight and fixing.
00:30:46.000The problem with government today is that it's just constantly in people's faces and causing this division.
00:30:52.000And when someone like RFK comes out and says, Well, shouldn't we slow down on vaccines before we force everyone to do it?
00:31:01.000Well, that's total common sense, right?
00:31:03.000But it doesn't fit the big government, big corporation narrative that we're stuck in currently.
00:31:09.000Well, and I think that this is where the great political movement that might never manifest because the people in charge might not let it because they want us to talk about trans stuff and race stuff all day long.
00:31:21.000Is that you can build a coalition of people on the left that want to criticize corporations, people on the right that are more likely to criticize government, but they both are criticizing, they're criticizing an unholy marriage and a corrosive regime that are working together.
00:31:38.000Whether you're naturally more critical of Pfizer or naturally more critical of the FDA, they're one in the same right now.