The U.S. government is on track to spend $1.1 Trillion dollars on interest every 100 days, and it's going to kill us. Glenn explains why, and why we need to prepare for the inevitable.
00:47:44.740I've campaigned with him and continue to do so.
00:47:47.800But separate from that, let's just kind of walk through where I think we are.
00:47:51.080First, you should have more than a little skepticism about the FBI and the power of government more broadly.
00:47:56.860That's why I ran for Congress the first time.
00:47:58.580The awesome power of government was being misused, mostly against conservatives, people like you and me and the folks who are most of the folks who are listening to this.
00:48:06.200I also had first-hand experience trying to do the job to keep Islamist radicals from killing Americans.
00:48:16.260And so I was always trying to be respectful of that duty and deeply honoring of the Constitution to get there.
00:48:23.420And I think today what the House of Representatives is considering accomplishes that as best one can.
00:48:29.760Look, there's always going to be Jim Comey's of the world and Jim McCabe's until you get the right leadership.
00:48:33.540Those are the kind of people who may be in charge, and we ought to punish them when they violate the law.
00:48:38.300But we ought to do so with a set of rules that make sure that we don't have kids in Phoenix or Milwaukee or Wichita, Kansas, my hometown, at risk from terror.
00:48:47.860And I think the reforms that they're voting on today move us in the right direction there, and hopefully they put in harsher criminal penalties.
00:48:57.220They reduce the number of people who can have access to any Americans' information.
00:49:01.200I hope those rules will be enforced, and then I pray that we will continue to do the hard work to keep terrorism at bay as well.
00:49:08.320So with a lot of respect to you, and I hope you take this in the spirit in which it's intended and not to compare anybody or anything to these times.
00:49:19.740But we are looking at terrorism, and I believe it is coming, and I believe, God forbid, it's something more like Beslan than anything else we've seen.
00:49:31.560And, you know, when you're talking about saving the republic and saving people, it is a very thin line.
00:49:38.640The night of long knives, Hitler knew he had violated the Constitution.
00:49:44.860He had another reason for doing it, but he came out and said, look, the republic was at stake, and if I had to do it all over again and violate the Constitution, I'd do it again.
00:49:55.340And you may decide that I shouldn't be in office.
00:49:57.920I mean, he took a very, very, you know, wonderful stance on, you know, being the savior of the republic.
00:50:06.660Well, what happened is they just agreed with him and congratulated him and actually gave him, you know, a higher position.
00:50:15.040You can't violate the Constitution to save the republic.
00:50:20.580If you violate the Constitution, you are harming the public.
00:50:24.900The reason why I say this with a line of long knives is who went to jail?
00:50:32.100The people who were lying to the FISA courts, they were promoted.
00:53:39.620It preserves our constitutional rights so long as we have the right people there.
00:53:43.080And, Glenn, you know, we have to be honest.
00:53:45.300If you have the wrong people there, there's no law.
00:53:48.460Whether you pass it, there's no law that's going to protect those rights.
00:53:51.180And so that's the conundrum that we face as a republic.
00:53:54.620And I watched what happened from the IRS while I was in Congress where they came after conservatives.
00:54:00.080I watched what's happened to DHS where they're not preserving our border, our basic constitutional freedom and sovereignty.
00:54:06.320I think we ought to pass this legislation, and then we ought to get the right people there, and we ought to punish like hell anyone who violates not only these provisions, but any part of the United States statutory law or its constitution.
00:54:36.600This will transcribe those proceedings and give Congress the ability to read the transcripts of those proceedings.
00:54:41.700Second, there are far too many people with their hands with access to not only the foreign data, but any ancillary American data that gets picked up.
00:54:50.120This takes out about 90% of the human beings and puts additional executive branch oversight into that as well.
00:54:56.520And then it ups the criminal penalties, a handful of criminal penalties.
00:55:05.760Again, I hope we'll get the right attorney general who will not only go after someone who does it tomorrow, but will chase those folks who did this in the past to President Trump and to others in the administration.
00:55:17.920Mike, can you give me a reason why the bill to get the carve-outs out and to require any American that is caught up in this,
00:55:32.220that they have to go back to the court and get a warrant for those people?
00:55:37.640Can you tell me why so many Republicans and Democrats didn't want that in the bill at all?
00:55:47.880The carve-out provision, I can't, I have no articulable reason to set me up for not being able to understand that.
00:55:54.700Second, when it comes to the warrant provision, I have to be a little careful here.
00:56:00.520When it comes to the warrant provision, I hope the American people will appreciate that the law, whether it's enforced or not, is a separate question.
00:56:07.720But the law itself provides adequate protection for Americans who come up against this.
00:56:13.220And I wish I could say more, but I'll stop there.
00:56:18.440No, well, the law, had it been enforced, actually would have provided that, Glenn.
00:56:25.280Had the attorney general enforced the provisions, again, you can't stop bad actors, but it would have punished those very bad actors.
00:56:33.520And all the things that happened in Crossfire Hurricane, which I think is what you're largely referring to here,
00:56:39.480all the things that happened in Crossfire Hurricane were unlawful.
00:56:43.080They violated both civil and criminal penalties.
00:56:45.180And the challenge was you had bad actors and an attorney general who refused to enforce that against a Republican conservative president.
00:56:52.720When you say that there are, you know, significant penalties, like what kind of jail time would people be looking at if they violated the Fourth Amendment right of a citizen of America?
00:57:11.080I don't know the exact number, but it is a decade plus for intentional violation and years for anybody who violated, but intent becomes difficult to prove.
00:57:20.940So real jail time for real bad actors.
00:57:23.440And then second, Glenn, the other thing it does is it holds responsible their bosses, the leadership inside these organizations as well.
00:57:31.280If there are failures that they should have reasonably known were taking place and they didn't put in internal policies to prevent that, it holds those people responsible, too.
00:57:41.800So not just the bad actor who goes in to look for their girlfriend's cell phone contact information, but it holds responsible the supervisors, the bosses, the senior leaders at the FBI and at the Justice Department who are responsible for not holding accountable the people that work for them as well.
00:58:54.100And we ought to be serious in making sure we respond to it.
00:58:56.700Are we do you have confidence that if something happens, we're not going to be, you know, going after MAGA people because they're also terrorists and, you know, and people who spoke out at the school board?
00:59:10.660I don't have confidence with Attorney General Garland there.
00:59:16.760I've watched them talk about extremists in the Catholic Church, watched them talk about extremists inside of our military in ways that are fundamentally disconnected from reality.
00:59:30.940I don't know what law one passes, Glenn, to stop that.
00:59:33.340I wish I thought there was a piece of legislation or some brilliant idea.
00:59:39.220But our founders knew how to get at this.
00:59:41.120Our founders knew that if with enough transparency and enough checks and balances and then a educated republic that was prepared to go out and do their duty and vote for good leaders, you increase the likelihood that our republic would survive another 250 years.
01:02:01.180I can't continue to give them the power.
01:02:03.900For instance, if, if I'm, if, if I were president of the United States and, and we had control of the Congress and I can make a good enough case, my gut would be, you shut the damn thing down.
01:04:27.580Now imagine your dog's food without any nutrition, because unfortunately, if you're feeding him or her kibble food, that's pretty much what they're getting every time you fill the bowl.
01:04:36.060Kibble food has to have a long shelf life, so it has to have everything alive, cooked out of it.
01:04:43.860That stuff is really important for your dog's nutrition.
01:04:47.420It needs the nutritional value of what they just cooked out.
01:04:51.420You can put it back by sprinkling a little bit of rough greens on your dog's food.
01:06:17.600He just tweeted last night, the firm, as he likes to call it, the collection of those who are running the show in Washington, D.C.,
01:06:26.000will say that if FISA-702 expires on April 19th, all 702 collection, including that directed at dangerous foreign adversaries, will immediately cease.
01:06:39.580In fact, they put in place language that would keep FISA-702 collection going for 365 days after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
01:06:52.980just recently in the last week or so, recertified the 702 collection program.
01:06:58.760There's statutory language put in place first at the end of 2018 and then in December, against my objection,
01:07:06.300making that clear that once they issue this certification, even if FISA-702 lapses, even if it expires,
01:07:14.160it can still continue for the duration of the one-year certification that's now just in the last week or so been issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
01:07:25.800So, look, on so many levels, the fear-mongering, the scare tactics of the intelligence community and those allied with them in Congress
01:07:35.940have proven to be just not accurate, and this is yet another one.
01:07:40.680My point is, why don't we take the time that we need to make sure that we adequately debate issues so important to the American people
01:07:48.380and so important to our civil liberties, like the need to get a warrant?
01:07:54.040The debate is over on that one, isn't it, Mike?
01:07:56.540I mean, I thought we had that debate, you know, during the Constitutional Convention.
01:10:27.780Our Fourth Amendment rights are not at odds with our security because our Fourth Amendment rights are part of our security.
01:10:36.380We're not truly secure unless we are protected by government abuse.
01:10:42.640It's really not too much to ask to suggest that they get a warrant.
01:10:47.940And, you know, look, I like Secretary Pompeo.
01:10:52.160He's a friend, and I've appreciated his support and his insights in the past.
01:10:56.420I do very, very respectfully but also very forcefully disagree with some of the arguments that he made just moments ago.
01:11:03.880Among other things, he acknowledged that 99% of this stuff, of this collection under Section 702, is against foreign operators outside the United States, foreign adversaries not on U.S. soil.
01:11:22.160Look, look, FISA 702 has a reason to exist, and it's for that reason, to go after foreign adversaries on foreign soil, not Americans here on U.S. soil.
01:11:34.620And so if 99% of it is that, why don't we bank the win and preserve the Constitution?
01:11:39.740Why on earth are we ready to flush the Fourth Amendment out just for the sake of that 1%?
01:11:48.040Moreover, if I understood him correctly, he seemed to be suggesting that those of us arguing for a warrant requirement and those of us raising concerns with FISA 702
01:11:57.720somehow are demanding that they go through and purge all the incidentally collected information from Americans, you know, somebody talks to somebody overseas unbeknownst to them, it's an agent of a foreign power, they get collected.
01:12:13.660We're just saying before you query a U.S. person, before you search within the database for the communications of an American citizen that were inadvertently or collected incidentally under FISA 702, that you have to get a warrant for that.
01:12:30.860Now, that's just not too much to ask, and they act as if that's an incredible lift, a Herculean effort, one that we couldn't possibly undertake, and one that's going to usher in Armageddon if they have to comply.
01:12:43.060Well, but let me play devil's advocate, but Mike, we can't really ask for a warrant because all we have is a name.
01:12:51.440We don't know the connection other than he's talking to him.
01:12:54.120So how do I go in front of a judge and say, well, this American was calling this guy, so, you know, we need to look at everything about this person.
01:13:15.760If you can put together a combination of factors that put together, create probable cause of something occurring, of criminal activity, then you can get a warrant.
01:13:27.000But you've got to describe with particularity what it is that you're going after, the places, papers, things, effects that are going to be searched, their locations, and then you go after it.
01:13:40.620It's not an insurmountable standard, but it is a standard, and we opt to follow it.
01:13:44.640Mike, why is the – why did Congress put a carve-out for them if there's nothing to worry about here?
01:13:54.900They put a carve-out for them because we know of at least one member of the House and of at least one member of the Senate who have been subjected to warrantless backdoor searches under the FISA-702 database, so that's why they did it.
01:14:08.920There are a couple things wrong with that.
01:14:10.140Number one, as I think you're alluding to, if it's concerning enough that we are being targeted, why shouldn't we have at least as much concern with regard to American citizens generally?
01:14:26.100In the second place, when you look really closely at that language, creating a reporting requirement for FISA-702 searches carried out against members of Congress,
01:14:37.260if I'm reading it correctly, and I think I am, really what they're saying is that they have to report in most instances, unless all they're doing is doing that search to conduct a defensive briefing
01:14:53.840to let somebody know that their name is coming up in some of these conversations, that in most circumstances, all they're going to have to do is report to the law firm of Schumer, McConnell, Johnson, and Jeffries,
01:15:07.760and then the Republican and Democratic heads of the Intelligence Oversight Committees in both houses,
01:15:14.080which, by the way, tend to be pretty darn aligned with the intelligence community agencies.
01:15:19.600I don't know what good that's going to do.
01:15:22.040In some ways, that just blesses the possibility that they could conduct these searches against most members of Congress most of the time.
01:15:29.880I don't think even members of Congress should take any solace in that, but they certainly shouldn't take any solace in knowing that they themselves might get notice in some cases,
01:15:41.620but their constituents are left hung out to dry.
01:15:45.640As for the suggestion that we've created these criminal penalties for misuse of FISA, okay, let's think that through, Glenn.
01:15:52.040If, in fact, you have that crime committed, somebody from the FBI misuses the FISA 702 database and they're subject to criminal penalties, who enforces that?
01:16:04.600If only there were a federal agency that investigated and suggested prosecution of federal crimes, who would that be?
01:22:03.700There's lots of them on audible, but the newest one is really good.
01:22:07.660Um, and I just want you to listen, you know, listen to the whole thing.
01:22:10.860Cause it's amazing, but just listen to part one and part two.
01:22:14.260If you listen to part one and part two, it'll take you 30 minutes and you listen with an open mind on, I don't care who you voted for on, are any of these things happening in our society today?
01:22:27.520You, it, it, it is, you'll be blown away.
01:22:31.740You will be blown away at how it is exact parallel to today.
01:22:38.120And that should concern every single American.
01:22:41.640Also, there's a great article by Michael Schellenberger that you should read this weekend.
01:22:47.460It's part of the Glenn Beck, um, show prep today.
01:22:51.380You can get it at Glenn Beck dot com, but just search for socialist strategy behind Brazilian
01:22:56.840president Lula's war on free speech by Michael Schellenberger.
01:23:30.860Welcome to the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.
01:23:59.140You know, I, uh, I have sat in this chair for many, many years, at least two decades with a, uh, a monitor, a big monitor in front of me that has all of the news networks on it.
01:24:19.760And I have CNN in one corner, Fox News, CNBC, and MSNBC.
01:24:25.440And, uh, I look at them and almost, I mean, with an exception of maybe one being out of step with the others, they're almost always the same lead headlines.
01:24:37.560Okay. Um, just looked up a minute ago.
01:25:11.820Probably the most pressing, uh, for this weekend is a possible Iranian strike, terrorist attacks.
01:25:19.620Uh, and your budget, your money, your future of making money, the future for your children, what's happening to our society.
01:25:34.620Uh, and I mean the entire West when it comes to capital, when it comes to doing business and having money, they are slowly bleeding people dry.
01:25:46.860Carol Roth joins me in 60 seconds to give you the update on this.
01:26:38.900And I was sick and tired of, I don't know who a good real estate, how do you find them?
01:26:43.900Well, I, I like to get my, uh, recommendations from, uh, bus boards.
01:26:48.300I think when it's got that smiling face on there and they're like, Hey, call us, you're selling your house.
01:26:53.100I think that's the best way to go for it.
01:26:54.600So realestateagentsitrust.com doesn't do it that way.
01:26:59.240Uh, we actually vet all of these people, monitor all of these people, see and get customer responses to make sure they are using the best practices.
01:27:07.840They're actually listening to people and they're some of the best in your area.
01:27:12.340Uh, realestateagentsitrust.com just tell us where you're, you're buying or selling, whether it's across the street or across the country, and we'll help you find the right real estate agent, usually in just a few minutes.
01:27:32.660So just quickly, uh, I woke up this morning, uh, looking at gold prices and, uh, was kind of, uh, kind of impressed on how they're skyrocketing.
01:27:43.900And I remember a conversation with a gold guy who said, don't ever, ever look at gold and say, gee, I hope it goes up because of my portfolio.
01:27:54.020And we were talking about $3,000 an ounce.
01:27:57.000And he said, do you realize how crazy the world has to be for gold to be at $3,000 an ounce?
01:28:07.500I remember a discussion that you and I had with a group of people, I believe, uh, in November of last year, when people were saying a similar thing, when is gold going to break out?
01:28:17.800And you and I were both communicating the idea that gold is really a hedge against all kinds of insanity, things like inflation, things like the, you know, crumbling stand, standing of the dollar, um, things like war.
01:28:31.620And so when you see that gold is continues to rise, even in the face of things like, um, rising yields on bonds, I mean, normally there's a little bit of pushback there.
01:28:42.840We saw that as bond yields had gone up, uh, people were, were moving away from gold because you weren't getting that same, uh, interest rate.
01:28:50.600You know, gold doesn't, it doesn't produce an interest rate.
01:28:52.620So there's a different reason why we are looking at gold.
01:28:56.880And some of the things that we're talking about are a bit more structural, perhaps gold playing a bigger role in things like settling international commodities, uh, trades and trading between countries, uh, particularly the BRICS nations.
01:29:11.260But again, all of the things that are, are these signals, none of them are good for us here in the United States.
01:29:19.000You have the signal is, Oh, well, it's just because of, you know, trade.
01:29:22.300Well, that's not good for the U S dollars reserve currency.
01:29:25.020And that's not good for, you know, inflation over the longterm and our purchasing power.
01:29:30.100So all of these things do have a mechanism.
01:29:32.460And when you see, you know, so much, um, interest in gold over the past few months, when it has been very steady for, uh, for a while, that breakout is giving you additional information.
01:29:45.740And like you said, in this particular case, I think that information is coming from lots of different places and not one of them is good.
01:29:53.640Yeah. Uh, one of them that is, you know, we're, we're, we're hitting the point where, um, our, our debt, the interest on our debt is going to be $1.6 trillion a year.
01:30:06.200That's more than social security. It's the biggest lie. It will be the top line on our budget.
01:30:12.240Now is just the interest because we have an adjustable mortgage in America. Uh, and there's the, the, the, the fed I think is out of bullets.
01:30:21.960Yeah. I've been making this argument now for a couple of years that the feds monetary policy, um, isn't effective because they're, they're trying to control demands.
01:30:35.020And so many of the issues that we've had are on the supply side. Additionally, we had been headed, and I kind of think we're, we're in today, this period of fiscal dominance.
01:30:45.380And as we've talked about before, that just means that fiscal policy, uh, plays a bigger role in what is determining, determining economic outcomes and monetary policy on its, its face.
01:30:57.200That is sort of neutral fiscal dominance, but in our particular situation, it's, it's very bad. It's because of the debt. It's because of the deficits.
01:31:05.820And it's because of the fact that we have these massive interest payments and continuing deficits that need to be financed and are creating this vicious loop.
01:31:14.280And as we know, there are, there's not a lot of ways, um, to finance the debt. There certainly are not a lot of buyers. And we saw that this week.
01:31:23.740There was a treasury auction for 10 year treasury notes that did horribly. It was rated a D by Brooke Santelli at CNBC, who's very, very smart. Um, D, by the way, I don't know if you know, this is right next to F. So that, that is a very bad position to be in.
01:31:40.200And we've always been triple A, haven't we?
01:31:43.560We always, I mean, 10 years ago, the debt. So there's a debt rating and that's done by the rating agencies. These are the bond auctions.
01:31:52.480This is when the treasury goes out to the market and says, you know, how is it that, you know, how did, how did we do? How many buyers were there who were standing on by who want to buy our debts?
01:32:04.680And so this happens on a regular basis. And, you know, people who watch this, they give those auctions a grade to say, how did we do? Were there a lot of buyers? Were there not a lot of buyers?
01:32:13.760So this particular time, there were not a lot of buyers and the banks and securities dealers had to sop up a lot of that debt, which just is, you know, it's pushing us to this path of monetization again that we've been talking about.
01:32:28.460And that means that we're buying our own debt and that is inflationary. So even if we're not getting things like rate cuts that potentially could stoke inflation, you're going to get this monetization of debt, which is inflationary, which is why I've been arguing that inflation is sticky and it doesn't matter if the Fed goes high or low.
01:32:48.220So it's getting us on either side until the government gets its act together. They are driving the show. It is that fiscal dominance.
01:32:57.280Tell me about the consumer price index and the wholesale index. The numbers don't make sense. For instance, fuel is not an inflation. It isn't an inflation right now.
01:33:13.580Look at the price of fuel. What do they mean?
01:33:17.480So, you know who loves the data coming out of the government right now, Glenn?
01:33:24.000Oscar the Grouch. You know why? Because the data is trash. It is absolutely trash data. Not only have we seen adjustments on a regular basis, the scope of which we have not seen in a long time.
01:33:37.760The numbers always get adjusted, but we have not seen these massive adjustments that we've been seeing.
01:33:45.160We also have a phenomenon where people and entities who respond to the surveys, where they collect the data, don't want to do that anymore.
01:33:54.580Either they don't want to be bothered, they don't trust the government with their data, whatever it is.
01:33:58.760They don't want to give up their competitive advantages.
01:34:00.560So they're having fewer people respond to these surveys, which means that there is more of this projection and biases in the survey.
01:34:11.060So that's why we saw the CPI, which is the Consumer Price Index.
01:34:15.180That's where they go out and they survey households. That came in higher than expected.
01:34:21.560We all expected that it would be an uptick because, as you said, we know the price of oil and other commodities have been going up.
01:34:29.620So this was not a surprise to any of us who live in the real world.
01:34:33.260And so that was somewhat reflected in that data.
01:34:37.960And certainly the market had reacted to that and said, oh, well, if that's the case, the Fed can't cut.
01:34:43.660Then we have another measure of inflation because they measure it in different ways.
01:34:48.040And this is the Producer Price Index, PPI, which is the wholesale measure of inflation.
01:34:53.420And this is supposed to tell you what's coming because the inputs that go into your goods and services give you a sense of what's coming down the pike.
01:35:02.440And this was the one that was the head scratcher because it was not higher.
01:35:07.380There's a huge disconnect between these two measures always, but even a bigger disconnect.
01:35:12.820But the one, as you said, that everybody was going, what's going on here related to energy.
01:35:19.040So there was a floating around social media yesterday, there was a chart about the seasonal adjustments.
01:35:24.860Again, this manipulation of the data that they do.
01:35:28.020And if you looked at that, it showed you that gasoline for the month was down 3.6%, I think it was.
01:36:09.580But that's what they tend to make their policy decisions on.
01:36:12.820But the media and everybody is focused on the CPI, so it makes it very difficult for them, or at least adds another layer of difficulty because they're going to do whatever it is that they want to do when that is going up for them to say, well, inflation's under control.
01:36:27.740You know, we can go ahead and start to cut interest rates, which is why I think everybody needs to be paying attention to their other tools, which relate to the balance sheet and debt and what they're going to do there, because that's just a different way of them to be accommodative.
01:36:50.240He's now, you know, again, forgiving more debt, trying to get people into houses.
01:36:56.520I mean, he is – we are just giving away the store at this point.
01:37:01.960They are – we've been saying this since day one.
01:37:05.380They have been working in the opposite direction.
01:37:08.320If you wanted to help the Fed get inflation under control as the government, you should have been working with them.
01:37:15.880You should not have been running up deficits.
01:37:18.420You've been putting into place policies that help supply issues instead of hurting supply issues.
01:37:24.440Every single thing this administration has done has been a barrier not only to you keeping your wealth and your purchasing power, but what it is the Fed has been doing.
01:37:36.200And that's the fight that the Fed's been having.
01:37:39.140And I just think at some point they're going to need to be real explicit and say we can't do anything until our partners get on the same page.
01:37:48.020But, you know, everything's political, so that's not going to happen.
01:37:52.460When we come back, she's actually been invited to be somebody who testifies in front of Congress.
01:38:01.540Carol Roth in front of Congress testifying as an expert by the end of the month on small businesses.
01:38:07.880And she's going to be talking about the FinCEN, you know, thing that's going on with LLCs and small businesses where you have to register all this information or you're a criminal.
01:38:33.540She wants to use information that maybe you have to back up her testimony.
01:38:40.500And we'll talk about that in 60 seconds.
01:38:42.820First, ever since 9-11, the Tunnel Towers Foundation has been helping America's greatest heroes in their families.
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01:39:11.720They're providing mortgage-free homes to these people, some of them specially adapted for the needs of catastrophically injured veterans.
01:39:18.800And they're working tirelessly every day to eliminate homelessness among veterans.
01:39:22.900This is an organization respected by and donated to by many of their own people in and out of uniform.
01:39:30.120David Marshall, he served in the Army during World War II.
01:39:34.780He's never forgotten the sacrifice of his comrades in arms, nor the efforts of the first responders on 9-11 or the days and the months that followed.
01:39:41.560He is a loyal and proud foundation donor.
01:39:44.760More than 95 cents of every dollar you donate goes to Tunnel to Towers to its programs.
01:39:50.240So, they're not spending it on limousines and everything else.
01:41:06.560And basically what it said, and this was passed by Congress, was vetoed by President Trump.
01:41:12.040And then they went back and Congress overturned the veto and gave this arm of the Treasury, which is charged with preventing financial crimes, sort of free reign.
01:41:21.820And they said, okay, we're going to create a database.
01:41:23.980And if you have any sort of entity, if you have an LLC, even a single member LLC, an S Corp, a C Corp, any sort of entity, and you're a business, you need to register with us, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, because we want to prevent money laundering and cartels.
01:41:42.960And, of course, you know, I'm sure all of those people are going to self-report, but they exempted all the big businesses.
01:41:50.680They're like, well, you know, we're going to do these things, but we're going to make sure that FinCEN gets our information.
01:41:55.360But they exempted all the big businesses.
01:41:57.500So this is unfairly targeting small businesses.
01:42:00.780So the updates, a few things are what are happening, and we can certainly go more into this, is that I have been invited by the House Small Business Committee to be an expert to testify and, you know, obviously testify against this and how bad this is for small businesses and how unconstitutional at the end of the month.
01:42:19.800What I am doing is I am bringing statements from small business owners, because it's great to hear my statement, but if I can show up there and say I have 100 or 200 small businesses, and here's what they have to say about this, and they're all outraged, that holds a lot more weight.
01:42:36.860So anyone who owns a small business, if you support small business, go to carolroth.com slash C-T-A.
01:42:45.500That's carolroth.com slash charlietangoalpha, and I've made it really easy.
01:42:50.800I've given a form letter that if you want, you can borrow some of it, you can borrow all of it, you can borrow none of it.
01:42:56.400But I'm going to show up at Congress with this stack from small business owners to say, you've heard what I have to say.
01:43:03.960Now listen to what small business owners from across the nation have to say to try to get them to overturn this.
01:43:10.400Now, can I – could I – because I – I mean, today's not the day for me to write something.
01:43:15.500Because I'm in a very bad mood, but I could – could I just write to you and say, yeah, here's what I'd like to say to Congress.
01:43:22.140I'm working my ass off so I can keep my family afloat and the families of all of my employees, and you guys are just making my life more and more difficult with more and more restrictions and guidelines that nobody in Congress passed and are not good for the American people.
01:43:50.140And I actually think being in a bad mood is a good time to write it because that's when you're going to be honest and that's when you're not going to pull any punches.
01:43:57.600Yeah, so – and speaking of helping, so one of the things that you did that was very generous, Glenn, is you offered to put forth a lawsuit, and I agreed.
01:44:07.580We cannot do that because we have been outspoken.
01:44:11.440What the good news is is that there are two new lawsuits against this that have also popped up, so we have a lot of really good momentum here.
01:44:41.720When my pillow started out, they were really only after one thing, making an amazing, comfortable pillow that would bring people a great night's sleep.
01:44:50.360But they also pissed off a lot of people along the way, and those people have decided to make this what was a small business at one point to put them out of business.
01:44:59.780So they made it so nobody can carry their commercials, and I just quite honestly don't give a flying crap.
01:45:07.320So we still take their commercials, but their commercials can't air on television, et cetera, et cetera.
01:45:13.400The big box stores, oh, geez, we're too afraid of controversy.
01:48:11.960Return to e pluribus unum the Bill of Rights and Constitution.
01:48:16.320So I wanted to get Christopher on because I heard from so many people that we were warring.
01:48:22.660And, Christopher, I'm sorry if I let anybody of your friend circle to think that I would stand against you because I have such admiration for you.
01:48:48.940What kind of intellectual leadership will we need?
01:48:51.380And then what political leadership will need?
01:48:53.340And what I've noticed on the right, especially after the horrific 10-7 attacks against Jews in Israel, is that there has been a fragmentation.
01:49:03.240And there are some people who are chasing conspiracy theories.
01:49:06.960There's a rise, a kind of resurgence on the outer fringes of some anti-Semitism on the right.
01:49:12.340And then there are people who are elevating their profiles in media on conspiracy theories that lead nowhere, on kind of tabloid-style gossip that doesn't offer any concrete possibility.
01:49:26.720And so I think we have a media problem, and we have, in addition, a leadership problem.
01:49:31.560And when you say a media problem, you mean the right media.
01:49:37.600I just, I think that if you look at kind of serious conservative media figures, and of course I would include you in this, you're always doing the reporting, the conversations, trying to guide people towards something that they can do, some legislation that politicians can pass, some policy that we can adopt, some kind of counterculture that we can build.
01:49:59.360But I think given the dynamics of online media, advertising, audience building, and then just the dynamics of kind of general tech and media trends, some people are being kind of generously rewarded with clicks and attention who don't actually offer anything substantive.
01:50:18.600And I think it gets some of our audience, some of our listeners, in this outrage cycle, where they're outraged for outrage's sake, but they have no, they're not being directed towards guiding that outrage towards something constructive.
01:50:32.000And I've seen it, it can really be damaging to people, and it's certainly damaging to a political movement.
01:50:37.340And I don't think it's a failure of the audience, I think it's actually a failure of us in the media, in positions of authority, in positions of leadership.
01:50:44.220You always have to guide people towards something that can make their lives better.
01:50:49.340And if we're not doing that, we're taking advantage, and we have to stop.
01:50:55.120So what is, I mean, because we agree on the solution, and this is my point back to you, was I am very afraid of, you know, serious options,
01:51:05.640because there is another split in the right that is willing to look at extraconstitutional solutions.
01:51:22.400And starting to say, well, this constitution, maybe it's old and dusty, like the left has been saying, no, no, no, no.
01:51:28.660So all of our problems are solved by two things.
01:51:33.100One, the people living a better life, and I don't mean like you're making more money.
01:51:38.760I mean, you're a more decent, humble, and just better person, plus the rule of law being restored as written.
01:51:50.520So where do you see anybody coming up and really promoting that, Chris?
01:51:56.300Well, I think that's exactly what we need to do, and I've been very vocal.
01:52:02.100There's a lot of frustration on the right.
01:52:04.060There's a lot of anxiety, but all of our problems can be solved through kind of normal, peaceful, democratic means.
01:52:12.160We still have a great system, but our system is atrophying because we aren't using that system.
01:52:17.640And so I would point to the leadership of someone whom I admire very much, Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida.
01:52:22.780He had the same legislature that Jeb Bush did.
01:52:25.420He had the same state constitution, and yet he's using power effectively within the law to make Florida a better state for people to live, work, and raise families.
01:52:35.140And so I think we have to really discipline our own coalition.
01:52:38.960We have to stop engaging in these kind of fantasies of extrajudicial or extraparliamentary politics, and we have to say, if we are going to be the conservative political party, the conservative political movement, we have to respect the documents and just be smarter, be more persistent, be more diligent in actually practicing politics.
01:53:02.360And so there are models out there that are successful, and I think we have another model of the kind of more, say, radical, kind of extra-constitutional model that is a dismal failure.
01:53:16.300When the left did it in the late 1960s and early 1970s with those radical movements, the American people rejected them.
01:53:23.380If the right does it at any time now or in the future, the people, the citizens will reject them.
01:53:28.920It's a dead end, and we need media figures that are kind of telling people to straighten out, to have self-discipline, to remind people of the constitutional principles that we're fighting for,
01:53:40.140and then to lay out a plausible plan, because people get desperate when they think they have no other options, and so it's our responsibility to show them the concrete options, not just spin out into conspiracy land.
01:53:55.200So, Chris, I don't listen to anybody else.
01:54:48.260You seem to be, I don't know if your concern is greater than mine, and I'm pretty concerned about things.
01:54:55.080I want to, I want to judge why, what is it that you're feeling or is bringing this out in such a passionate way?
01:55:04.080I want to make sure I'm not missing it.
01:55:06.140Yeah, well, I think we are approaching a critical period in our country's history, and, you know, I think the genesis of my comments was this, you know, blow up between Candace Owens and the Daily Wire, you know, Ben Shapiro's publication.
01:55:22.500And, you know, I think that I try to be disciplined in my criticisms of people within our coalition, within our movement.
01:55:30.740But, you know, Candace had been arguing that there are secret gangs of Jews murdering people in Hollywood.
01:55:37.760She had rationalized Kanye West's, you know, kind of deranged anti-Semitic outbursts.
01:55:44.820She had been, you know, pushing stories about how the president of France's wife is actually a man.
01:55:49.740And these are stories that drive cliques, they drive controversy, but they actually don't create anything substantive.
01:55:58.700And unfortunately, there is a kind of rising group of commentators and media figures that have figured out that the way to get cheap attention is to put forward stories like these.
01:56:11.760And I just think that we have to be, of course, kind of tolerant of a range of opinion, but there also is an outer bound or a limit that any political movement needs to maintain its own coherence and its own discipline.
01:56:27.660And you're not talking about censorship.
01:56:29.920You're just talking about self-control.
01:56:31.760That's right. It's first self-discipline, and then it's also giving people a better option.
01:56:37.760So, of course, I mean, I don't think any of these opinions should be censored.
01:56:41.840They shouldn't be, you know, stricken from the record.
01:56:44.480The government should not have any sway whatsoever.
01:56:47.400But I think that it's up to us to have that discerning judgment and then to also show people why this is such a limitation, why it actually is not helpful.
01:56:59.300And to get people out of this outrage cycle that depletes them and into a cycle of participation in politics in the real sense.
01:57:08.760You know, politics is not, you know, tweeting conspiracy theories.
01:57:13.560Politics is actually winning elections, changing the law and managing institutions.
01:57:18.520And so we need a movement that is capable of doing that.
01:57:21.860And if we're not a movement that is capable of doing that, we don't deserve power.
01:57:26.240We don't deserve to win and we don't deserve to have our ideas shaping the law.
01:57:31.420I am we're talking to Christopher Ruffo.
01:57:34.200I am gravely concerned that any time between now and really probably January 20th of next year is the most dangerous place our republic may have ever been.
01:57:46.840And that's including in the Civil War.
01:57:48.380We are we are we are at the edge of losing everything.
01:58:05.200I mean, look what's happening in Brazil.
01:58:07.160This is this is happening all over the West right now.
01:58:11.160And I know I have self edited more than I've ever edited because I want to be very careful with my words because I am so concerned about the cries of diss and miss and malinformation that will be wrongly pointed in people's direction by the state.
01:58:30.820But it's important now that we are speaking clearly and as and as accurately as we possibly can.
01:58:42.880I feel the same way and I'm very concerned about it.
01:58:45.620And I think this really dovetails nicely with my overall argument.
01:58:49.360You know, if we don't have the self discipline and if we engage in these kind of wild lines of media narratives, it's going to provide a you know, it's fake, but it will provide a kind of rationalization or justification for continued censorship.
01:59:05.180If they if the government and the organized left can point to verifiably false conspiracy theories, they can then use it as justification for censorship.
01:59:57.280We have to have higher standards and we have to fight much smarter than our opponents.
02:00:01.600That said, the good news is that when we fight smart, like DeSantis has done in Florida, there is a wide open vista of possibility for us.
02:00:10.940And we can and we can truly create, you know, what I think of as a counter hegemony that will create a bulwark or a defense against all of the awful things that the organized left is doing.