Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) joins us to talk about the 7 things you can't talk about about China, and we also talk about Tulsi Gabbard, Cash Patel, and John Ratcliffe in the CIA.
00:05:57.040Back in Washington this week, President Trump is delivering on his promises while even attending the Super Bowl and NASCAR.
00:06:04.860He's done all kinds of things, including last week, a decisive 25% tariff on foreign steel and aluminum, aiming to protect American jobs and industries.
00:06:15.060Those jobs and industries here in America took a leap on the stock market.
00:06:20.800Critics are grumbling, but Main Street applauds as, finally, a leader puts America first.
00:06:26.860On Capitol Hill, Republicans are tackling a six-point agenda.
00:06:32.360This is all about the budget and a looming shutdown.
00:06:36.780Budget resolutions and reconciliation bills aim to bolster defense, secure our borders, all the while keeping a keen eye on the deficit.
00:06:48.820Democrats' support is absolutely needed to keep the government from running post-March 14th.
00:07:00.760Bipartisan cooperation is a necessity, it seems, because we're going to lose some stupid rhinos.
00:07:07.140Meanwhile, the Justice Department is undergoing transformation.
00:07:11.940Seven prosecutors have resigned after being directed to drop corruption charges against New York City's Mayor Eric Adams.
00:07:19.380Acting Deputy Attorney General Emile Bove cites governance concerns for the dismissal.
00:07:27.920Critics say it's a political maneuver, just, it's Nixon's Saturday night massacre.
00:07:33.580We'll see, as Kash Patel should be confirmed early this week.
00:07:39.500And as he is, if he is, on day one, expect the Epstein client list to follow within hours of him arriving at the Hoover Building.
00:07:50.080The Budget Committee, back to them, they have approved in the Senate, approving a fiscal year 2025 budget.
00:07:58.580The plan emphasizes bolstering border security, military strength, independence, and an annual allocation of $85.5 billion.
00:08:10.220An offset by corresponding spending cuts reflecting a commitment to fiscal responsibility.
00:08:16.420House Republicans are navigating their internal debates over their budget approach.
00:08:21.760And the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, advocates for a comprehensive bill that combines Trump's tax cut agenda with increased funding for border security, military priorities.
00:08:34.080Our friend and serious budget cutter, Chip Roy, is with the House package.
00:08:39.760We'll see if they can bring them both together.
00:08:42.220Both chambers are working on this because funding expires on March 14th.
00:11:54.420It's a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.
00:11:59.720We can see this crisis in confidence, in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives, and in the loss of unity and purpose for our nation.
00:12:09.800The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America.
00:12:20.740And isn't it amazing how Carter could see what all of these policies were doing?
00:12:27.600He could deliver impassioned speeches on the dangerous results, but then he would go back and double down on the policies that continued the spread of the virus.
00:12:37.780The great inflation of the 1970s, it's what they used to call it.
00:14:55.220Now like 1980, we've just spent four years under a political ideology, as Carter put it, that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.
00:15:08.540Our young people, they don't care about America anymore.
00:15:11.460They don't have pride or love for the country because we haven't raised them that way.
00:15:15.980In most cases, school is saying there's no reason to be proud of your country.
00:15:47.160And I don't want it to be the 51st state.
00:15:49.100I think it's actually pretty funny that our president is calling the prime minister the governor.
00:15:55.580But the Canadian government, led by their progressive prime minister, our governor, Justin Trudeau, is an annoying mascot for everything that is wrong in global politics.
00:16:06.660Well, he was at the hockey game on Saturday in Canada between the national Canadian team and the U.S. national team.
00:16:16.940Rumor was our boys were a little sick and tired of being booed every time the national anthem is sung.
00:24:59.380I was sanctioned five years ago for pointing out the origins of COVID and standing up for Hong Kongers freedom.
00:25:04.460But I know people have traveled there, to include people who have traveled there for U.S. government business or just as U.S. government employs.
00:25:14.540You know, they said that they would create a dummy account on Gmail or Hotmail or some other web-based email just so they could, you know, tell their family or friends that everything's going fine.
00:25:25.100And they'd open it up at night, and all the emails would already be clicked as read.
00:25:28.720And so, you know, the Chinese communist spies were reading their emails and not even bothering to mark them as unread.
00:25:37.820Yeah, they're so aggressive and so blunt force in the way they want to push you around.
00:25:43.960It's like what Chinese officials have said the country's on their periphery is that you're a small country and we're a large country, and therefore you have to dance dire-tuned.
00:25:52.220So, I want to come back because there's so much to talk about COVID and everything else that is really, truly evil.
00:25:59.120But before we leave into the next thing you can't say about China, why is it, do you suppose, I mean, we all think that we would be, you know, for the emancipation of slaves.
00:26:12.720You know, if I lived in 1850, I would have been all over it.
00:26:16.800Because what's happening in China is slavery, and we are all buying Apple products, we're all buying Google products, Google is in bed with China, Facebook is in bed with China.
00:26:30.580Why is it we can't seem to understand that China is an evil empire?
00:26:38.920We kind of got it with the Soviet Union.
00:26:41.300Well, Glenn, I think I would say that our people do understand that China is an evil empire.
00:26:48.660They may not understand the full extent of it, and that's what I want to explain in my first chapter in Seven Things You Can't Say About China, about how it is an evil empire.
00:26:57.080But however bad they think China is, however dangerous it is, it's actually much worse.
00:27:01.880But it's a lot of our elites that want to paper over it, that don't want to ring the alarm, which is what I'm trying to do with this little book, in part because our elites are often co-opted by China.
00:27:14.880Over the last 40 years, due to failed policies that, frankly, both parties supported in the 1990s and the 2000s and the early teens, we shipped not just jobs or this or that factory or even business overseas.
00:27:28.160We shipped entire industries overseas, and there are many, many Americans who are deeply invested in China and who won't say a critical word about China.
00:27:40.320Even raising the point that slave labor is being used in northwest China to oppress ethnic and religious minorities, so much so that companies came up to the Capitol years ago and were lobbying against legislation that would force them to inspect and audit their supply chains to make sure that Chinese slaves, literal, actual slaves, were not making products in their supply chains.
00:28:06.980They were lobbying against that legislation because, again, probably China was compelling them to.
00:28:13.800And you could just see when they testified that their bosses had said, you know, we know this is going to put you in a hard spot with Senator Cotton and other China hawks testifying.
00:28:22.920But if you say a single word that costs us any business in China, you're going to be fired immediately.
00:28:27.680So where is the president, do you think, on recognizing that China is an evil empire?
00:28:33.380Oh, I think there's no question that Donald Trump is the toughest president we've had on communist China since at least the end of the Cold War and probably the end of World War II since the Chinese took over in 1949.
00:28:48.200I mean, I guess Eisenhower could give him a run for his money, Glenn.
00:28:51.560But, I mean, remember, Eisenhower threatened to nuke communist China.
00:28:55.400I mean, that's what it takes to be tougher on China than Donald Trump.
00:28:58.860And for Eisenhower, in some ways, it was easier because Eisenhower was a Republican.
00:29:04.980The Republican Party was 100 percent behind Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist Chinese government that lost the Chinese Civil War and repaired across the Chinese or the Taiwan Straits, Taiwan.
00:29:17.620So Eisenhower had the wind in his sails on being tough on China.
00:29:21.080When Donald Trump came into office eight years ago, he had the wind in his face because you still had, by and large, bipartisan consensus that we shouldn't rock the boat with China.
00:29:34.600We're still going down this path of so-called economic liberalization, which is going to lead to political moderation, which had long since been disproven.
00:29:44.120And President Trump really changed the terms of the debate about China.
00:29:48.800There are still a lot of people who are not as strong as he is or as I am or some other Republicans.
00:29:56.560But you saw it with President Biden's administration.
00:29:58.880He was very hesitant to reverse President Trump's policies on China.
00:30:02.820He reversed almost everything else, but he was hesitant on China because he knew how unpopular China is and that the American people do recognize China as a threat,
00:30:11.880even if they don't understand the full extent of it, because so many of our elites refuse to speak these truths.
00:30:19.200You're streaming the best of the Glenn Beck podcast.
00:30:23.020To hear more of this interview, find the full episode wherever you get podcasts.
00:30:28.000So last hour, I played a little bit of J.D. Vance's speech at the German or Munich Security Conference,
00:30:37.640and he talked about how free speech is under attack in Europe.
00:30:43.380And he didn't just point out that it was Europe that was having this problem, but he said it had to end.
00:30:50.120But let's not stand here and point the finger at you.