The Great America Show - March 31, 2023


AMERICA’S IN A BAD PLACE. WE CAN’T TRUST BANK REGULATORS, WE CAN’T TRUST THE BIDEN REGIME. THEY ARE CORRUPT THROUGH & THROUGH


Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

160.54477

Word count

5,953

Sentence count

208

Harmful content

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Marxist-Democrat Manhattan DA indicts former President Donald J. Trump. Ted Cruz calls for Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to resign over his handling of the border crisis. Lou Dobbs calls for an end to the war on drugs and prostitution along the southern border.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and this is The Great America Show. Welcome, and thank you for
00:00:05.700 being with us. We begin with a historic development. The Marxist-Dem Manhattan District Attorney, 0.69
00:00:12.680 Alvin Bragg, has indicted former President Donald Trump. This brazen political act marks the first
00:00:20.280 time in American history that a former president has been indicted. It was a raw, viciously
00:00:27.520 political act that means America will be more divided than at any time since the Civil War.
00:00:33.980 A local prosecutor choosing to carry out an attack against the Republican Party's presumptive
00:00:40.460 presidential candidate under color of law. I believe our nation is not only severely lessened,
00:00:47.280 but our further decline is all but assured. How can we honestly call ours a nation of laws when
00:00:54.620 Americans have watched one of its two political parties conspire to stop a candidate to overthrow
00:01:01.180 a president by using the corrupt legal system and government power to persecute a president
00:01:07.780 for seven long years? This indictment of Trump, without intervention or protest by our national
00:01:15.720 leaders, Democrat Party officials, perhaps Republican Party officials, business and religious leaders,
00:01:22.560 it's certain that our decline is clearly gaining speed. Extreme left-wing political partisans and
00:01:30.200 Marxist ideologues dominate what was once a fair and impartial judicial system. And don't think for
00:01:36.900 even a moment that President Trump is the only victim here. We are all victims of the totalitarian
00:01:43.680 left in this country, that is, if the Marxist Dems have their way. Wrongs, even as great as this offense against Trump,
00:01:52.560 justice and all that our republic stands for, can be righted. Just pray we have the strength and
00:01:59.520 wisdom to overcome the evil that's being done to President Trump, to each and every one of us,
00:02:06.080 who love this country. And be heartened by the knowledge that it seems of late, Republicans and
00:02:12.400 independents are at least wising up and wising up to what the so-called Democrats have become.
00:02:18.160 They've become communists who want vast government powers over every aspect of our lives. They're day
00:02:25.600 by day under the Biden regime and our puppet president, tearing up our constitution, stripping
00:02:31.840 citizens of our rights and moving ahead to destroy this great republic. These communist Dems are waging
00:02:39.360 an actual war on our country, on you and me. Look to the southern border wide open by the order of
00:02:46.800 President Joe Biden. Just where did he get the power to throw our nation's sovereignty into a trash can?
00:02:53.760 He simply assumed that power and no one stopped him. 2,000 miles of border. It's wide open to the
00:03:01.280 Mexican drug cartels who control that border, both sides of that border. In league with the communist 0.90
00:03:08.480 Democrats, the cartels are making fortunes off the smuggling of their deadly drugs into the United States,
00:03:15.440 fentanyl and heroin and others killing Americans every day. Wide open illegal immigration across that
00:03:22.880 border. Whole state populations being imported into the United States every month. Just how big is Joe's
00:03:30.720 payoff for all the death and pain and destruction he and the cartels have created? We don't know of
00:03:37.280 course, but we do know who Big Joe is assigned to keep the border wide open and the cartels drowning in
00:03:44.800 cash. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is in charge of demolishing the border,
00:03:51.920 permitting sex trafficking, bringing in millions of illegals and deadly drugs into the country.
00:03:58.240 The Biden regime is the best thing to have ever happened to the Mexican drug cartels, 0.50
00:04:03.680 and the Republican senators have tired of the Biden border policies, their accommodation to the Mexican
00:04:10.320 drug cartels, and they're tired as well of the runaway crime rates and the hundreds of thousands
00:04:16.880 of Americans who've been killed, all because of the Biden regime. In the Senate Homeland Security
00:04:24.000 Oversight Committee hearing, angry Republican senators served notice early that it wouldn't be a good day
00:04:30.400 for Secretary Mayorkas. Here now is Senator Ted Cruz. What are these wristbands? I don't know what
00:04:37.600 they are. You don't know what they are. Mr. Secretary, you have just testified to the American people you're
00:04:43.120 incompetent at your job because I've been to the southern border and if you go to the southern border
00:04:47.600 along the southern border, you see thousands of these wristbands because the illegal immigrants wear 1.00
00:04:53.520 them. The drug cartels, every color corresponds to how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels.
00:04:59.520 You have turned these cartels into multi-billion dollar criminal organizations and these are
00:05:04.960 modern day leg irons because these are children being sold into sex slavery and you don't even
00:05:11.760 know what they are. That is astonishing. Mr. Secretary, how many children have been sold into sex slavery
00:05:17.760 under your administration? Senator, we are taking it to the cartels. How many children have been sold into
00:05:21.680 sex slavery? Do you know how many children have been sold into sex slavery? To an unprecedented degree.
00:05:26.960 Mr. Secretary, I want to say to you right now, your behavior is disgraceful and the deaths,
00:05:32.640 the children assaulted, the children raped, they are at your feet and if you had integrity,
00:05:38.320 you would resign. And I will tell you the men and women of the border patrol, they've never had a
00:05:42.960 political leader undermine them. They despise you, Mr. Secretary, because you're willing to let children
00:05:48.720 be raped to follow political orders. This is a crisis, it's a disgrace and you won't even admit
00:05:55.840 this human tragedy is a crisis. Claiming one minute chairman time, Mr. Secretary,
00:06:00.720 would you like to respond to any of those questions? What the senator said was revolting,
00:06:03.920 I'm not going to address it. Your refusal to do your job is revolting. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas,
00:06:10.160 a great American. And now another great American. Our guest today is Russ Boat. Russ served as the
00:06:16.880 head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Trump. And now he's the president of the
00:06:22.960 Center for Renewing America. Great to have you back with us, Russ. A lot going on in the country,
00:06:29.120 as usual. Right now, a banking crisis, one that is indeterminate in terms of its direction,
00:06:35.600 how close we are to some solution. Now, it's a pretty scary time in terms of what we've realized,
00:06:42.000 the unhealthiness of the banking industry in the last two weeks, the lack of confidence,
00:06:46.880 the degree to which you have a number of these banks that have not kept their eye on the ball,
00:06:52.560 and the degree to which the administration has set some really terrible policies in the sense of now,
00:06:58.640 all banks know that they all of their depositors will be relieved if they get into any kind of
00:07:09.040 situation. And the signal that that sends across the entirety of the financial sector
00:07:14.560 is a really bad one. And then, you know, you have systemic reasons of why we're in this mess,
00:07:20.880 loose federal policy, spending on behalf of the Biden administration,
00:07:26.480 all of which has led to a place where we are right now. And I don't think we have a great crystal
00:07:32.320 ball about how it's going to unfold. And it's coming at the midst of a lot of division and
00:07:37.280 instability in other parts of this country. So a pretty scary couple of weeks. And we're going to
00:07:42.560 have to stay on top of trying to make sure that the cartel, the financial cartel is not able to
00:07:48.960 put the blame where it shouldn't be and vice versa. Right. And that cartel, as you put it,
00:07:55.520 I'll just take it as the banking establishment in this country, which right now it seems to be
00:08:02.480 serving the Marxist left that directs the Biden regime in every quarter, and apparently including
00:08:11.680 banking regulation. The regulators of the Biden administration seem not to have not only been
00:08:18.320 asleep in performing their duties to be just simply not cognizant of what should be done.
00:08:26.960 I have to say, I was stunned by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen basically saying, you know,
00:08:32.000 we're going to take care of everybody. No problem. Forget that FDIC,
00:08:36.240 $250,000 limit. You know, and if you're a China venture fund at SVB, you know, you're part of the
00:08:46.000 family. We'll take care of you. I mean, this is crazy stuff to me, Russ.
00:08:50.160 I agree. I mean, and the fact that they ended up doing this via the FDIC, you know,
00:08:56.400 the Fed makes bad decisions every single day. At least if they're going to set bad policy,
00:09:01.360 they should do it from the Fed and not send such as blatant of a blanket rule as it would mean for
00:09:11.120 depository insurance. So we're in a bad place. You can't trust the regulators. You can't trust
00:09:18.320 this administration. They're corrupt through and through. And so it really puts you in a situation
00:09:24.480 where you've got to really focus on what you can focus on fundamentals wise. And that is,
00:09:31.200 I believe, getting control of the underlying factors of too much spending, too much debt,
00:09:37.520 which are the root causes of inflation and has allowed the Fed to be empowered to make the kinds
00:09:42.960 of decisions that they have been in the process of making. So Russ, where we seem to be
00:09:50.000 is with an administration that has decided to just dispense with moral hazard and responsibility,
00:09:58.960 the impact that'll have in commercial banking in particular is not likely to be beneficial to the
00:10:06.000 economy, to the American people. We know one thing for sure, the taxpayer, despite all of the denials,
00:10:14.400 despite all of the couching and posturing and, if you will, wordplay, the taxpayer is going to be paying
00:10:23.120 for this, the resolution in whatever form it takes, the resolution to this banking crisis, right?
00:10:30.720 Yeah, I mean, the taxpayers is going to continue to absorb liabilities in the system. And, you know,
00:10:38.320 the consumer will, this cost will be borne by the American people, that we don't live in a world 0.50
00:10:48.560 where, you know, costs don't have to be absorbed by someone. And whether that's the taxpayer or whether
00:10:54.720 that's the consumer, that's going to occur. And I think that is, you know, much of the problem that
00:11:01.520 we've had over the last several decades of very, very loose monetary policies is that the Fed has
00:11:08.000 allowed this to occur. And that has had massive impact on the economies that we are having to
00:11:16.080 operate in. And it's a troubling situation. It's something where, you know, if you don't,
00:11:22.000 remember, this is the same, this is the same cartel community, Lou, that said we'd never see inflation
00:11:27.040 again. And they're the ones that are saying that they have a handle on this problem. And yet we know
00:11:31.520 from certain economic fundamentals that certain policies lead to assets and being overvalued. It
00:11:42.000 leads to inflation. And now you're, you have a situation where the Fed is having to take action
00:11:47.920 and it's leading to a host of other scenarios that they did not envision. A bank like Silicon Valley
00:11:55.760 that doesn't, is not properly accounting for the fact that their treasuries that are on their books
00:12:02.000 to be held for the long term are suddenly devalued when everyone's been pushing treasuries for the last
00:12:08.160 10 years. So that's the kind of situation that we're in. And we've got to figure out a way to get
00:12:13.920 back to the fundamentals and of sound economic policy and accounting for things like moral hazard,
00:12:21.200 like you mentioned in your question. And one of the barometers that we can follow pretty closely
00:12:27.040 is the treasury general account right now, because as we're discussing the FTC backing up everything
00:12:33.200 and everyone, we're looking at what 50, 60 billion drawn on that account, something around, I think
00:12:40.880 it's around 160 billion right now on hand for the treasury to deal with these issues. We have no idea
00:12:48.720 how quickly that's going to deplete it. And that will lead us to perhaps an acceleration in the so-called
00:12:55.760 you know, doomsday date, which is when the debt ceiling is reached and suddenly the United States
00:13:04.000 government, at least in theory defaults. We are dealing with some, some now very clear influences
00:13:13.600 in the government, in its accounts and running up against obligations in the, in the markets.
00:13:23.120 Well, you, you do bring up a good point in terms of the interaction with this and the debt limit.
00:13:27.280 And my view is that we're, we're not in danger of a default because that's the treasury secretary's
00:13:34.240 decision. And the revenues, unlike a situation where you are with a shutdown at the end of the
00:13:39.680 fiscal year with appropriations, that, that, that there is enough revenue to pay interest and
00:13:46.400 principal on treasuries. And, and, but here's the thing, right there, the ability to win a political
00:13:54.640 fight on the debt limit, which we must do to be able to get our fiscal house in order is part of,
00:14:00.480 there's an assumption that you've got to keep the financial markets calm down and you can't keep
00:14:05.920 them calm down when they're, when they are dealing with the shock of, of some of these other
00:14:11.360 situations that have arisen. And so this certainly complicates the matter. And it's, and it's,
00:14:16.560 it's going to require the, the Biden administration, and we will be calling on them to, to be counter to
00:14:24.000 how they have been for two years and to act responsibly to be able to calm the waters and
00:14:30.240 not use political arguments to make it more difficult to get to a debt limit deal later in
00:14:36.720 the summer or early fall. Yeah. Let me clarify what I said. When I talked about the doomsday date
00:14:44.880 and default, what I'm doing is I'm taking both parties at their word. Yeah. White House says they're not
00:14:52.160 going to concede on spending and the Republicans, the conservatives have made it clear that they're
00:15:00.720 not going to raise the debt ceiling. The result, if you take both at their word, will be a default
00:15:07.040 sometime around, well, the, you know, the range, June, July, whatever, because then the extraordinary
00:15:13.440 measures will have run out for Janet Yellen to meet obligations. So when I say that, I mean, that's just
00:15:19.920 taking them at their word. And I believe we should take both parties at their word,
00:15:25.440 because we have seen this happen, this run up against the debt ceiling. What is it? 70 some odd
00:15:31.840 times, almost 80 times over the course of the last 60 years, the Republicans have never won the debt
00:15:38.400 ceiling argument. How is it that we should think that they would this time? My view, and there is
00:15:45.680 examples of they, they have some very serious spending reforms have been attached to debt limit.
00:15:51.600 But I think the difference about this one is this. The framing of it is they typically go for
00:16:00.320 asks that are, the country doesn't support, you know, like Social Security entitlement cuts and things
00:16:06.320 like that. That is part of the thing that they need to avoid. And so far, they're avoiding that. And I
00:16:11.920 believe that they can win this fight. Who's they? House Republicans. And they're really driving this,
00:16:17.600 the negotiations for this. And I think they're being pushed by House conservatives who now have,
00:16:23.520 we've talked about it previously, now have real power in the House. If they make the fight about
00:16:29.360 cutting the woke and weaponized bureaucracy of the Department of Justice, the Department of Education,
00:16:34.960 the Department of Health and Human Services, they can win that fight because they have five
00:16:39.920 five months to say to the Biden administration, there's literally no reason we could have passed
00:16:44.720 the debt limit five months ago. But you have been unwilling to negotiate and come to the table with
00:16:50.080 your list of proposals. And you've sat back and now we are in a situation where we are in.
00:16:57.360 And then I would remind that the administration is trying to over define the word default. They're
00:17:02.560 trying to say that timely payment of Tony Fauci's gain of function research at the Department of the
00:17:10.080 National Institute for the Health is the same as paying for Social Security benefits and Medicare
00:17:15.680 benefits. And it's not. The Treasury Department has authority to be able to triage and and these
00:17:22.320 payments. And so there is ability to win this fight if the ask is right. And if they are playing,
00:17:28.720 they have a seriousness of purpose. And I believe that seriousness of purpose is beginning to
00:17:33.840 materialize as evidenced by the House conservatives that have said and put out what they are looking
00:17:39.280 for, which is newsworthy, Lou, because everyone in this town is assuming that they would never put
00:17:44.640 forward anything that that could get them to yes. Well, I think that that's that's terrific.
00:17:51.120 Biden has gotten what he wanted. He wanted the Republicans to go first in the House,
00:17:55.520 and they have done so. He has already launched a daily program of rebuttal and refutation. And,
00:18:04.880 you know, it's just it's really quite a remarkable scene at this point. And the Republicans,
00:18:11.200 I think, have made a couple of mistakes already, frankly, and that is attaching this to discretionary
00:18:18.240 spending. Nothing is. Well, the only thing larger than than the defense spending are entitlements.
00:18:27.120 And they are already accusing the House Republicans of wanting to go after Medicare.
00:18:33.520 The denials, of course, were instantly forthcoming. But it's still, I think, a winning position on the
00:18:40.640 part of the White House and more to me, more worrisome because it's more realistically a possibility.
00:18:49.520 And that is any cut in defense spending right now. It is hard for me, frankly, to see anywhere that a
00:18:56.720 budget right now can be cut. Spending can be cut by three trillion dollars without a major,
00:19:04.480 major impact on the economy and the markets. Well, it's a fair point, Lou. But let's just talk
00:19:12.160 about the kinds of things that would be put on the table to go back to pre-COVID levels on non-defense
00:19:18.320 discretionary spending. And there you can be at the levels that they are trying to be at and increase
00:19:23.840 defense spending and yet allow for a 20 percent cut. And so let's look at Centers for Disease Control.
00:19:29.520 3.2 million dollar grant for the LGBT network for tobacco related cancer disparity research
00:19:37.040 within the LGBTQ population. 1.4 million grant for the CDC prevention at Los Angeles LGBT centers.
00:19:45.760 There are just these networks of woke nonprofits that are getting research. You look in the Department
00:19:51.760 of Education, you see culturally responsive learning is everywhere. Culturally responsive learning is
00:19:57.760 CRT in the education context. It's questioning the notion of grades, of promoting kids from one grade
00:20:06.480 to the next based on how well they do. It's taking issue with things like back to school nights and
00:20:12.480 metal detectors. So there is so much woke and weaponized bureaucracy that could be cut. And all that
00:20:19.600 would require is to get us back to pre-COVID levels, $150 billion in one year and cuts over 10 years.
00:20:26.960 Now you're talking to $3 trillion. So I think that's absolutely a debate that you can win
00:20:31.200 with the American because they see that. They see that this bureaucracy is weaponized against them.
00:20:35.680 You see that in the last 10 days or so with the conversation around President Trump and the way
00:20:43.200 that he continues to be at the eye of the storm. And I think that debate resonates with people who have
00:20:51.440 dealt with the Department of Labor, the Department of the EPA, because they see the way this bureaucracy
00:20:56.880 is aimed at them. And I don't think that will hurt the economy.
00:21:00.160 Yeah, I take your point and you're a man of reason and you are a man of empirical based reason.
00:21:09.760 What I would suggest here is that whatever the number is that you can come up with on the
00:21:16.080 the cultural issues, the woke issues within the budget. And by the way, I think that's just a
00:21:24.800 down payment on what's in there because we are also talking about funding for blue state budgets and
00:21:33.200 blue state budget deficits in perpetuity, it seems. So I don't doubt that the numbers are there.
00:21:40.560 What I do worry about is that right now there you see this as a numerical issue, a fiscal issue,
00:21:48.880 which it certainly is. I see it as something that it also is, and that is a political
00:21:56.160 danger zone because what the Democrats have successfully done for the past 20, 30 years is to
00:22:04.480 make this all about politics. And by the way, no one's better because they own the political media.
00:22:10.480 They own it outside. I mean, it's just lock, stock and barrel. It's never been a more powerful
00:22:18.640 fourth estate in support of the Marxist Dems in this country ever. I don't think the Republicans
00:22:25.200 can win it because of the political pitfalls that await because of the media power behind even the
00:22:31.760 the just completely obvious impaired president. I mean, think about this, Russ. These people got 0.96
00:22:40.800 two of the most incompetent and apt, inarticulate people in the country
00:22:46.880 elected as president and vice president of the United States. We have never seen this like we've
00:22:53.760 seen weak vice presidents. We've seen weak presidents. We've never seen both who really are
00:23:00.480 just simply inexplicable. Your thoughts?
00:23:04.080 No, I mean, any winning any debate with the cultural heights that they have is is is a difficult
00:23:10.800 road to go. What I would say is this and this is my firm conviction is that the way to win spending
00:23:17.280 fights is to to do their playbook on them and just to make them cultural issues so that a dollar of
00:23:24.560 spent is not just waste and inaffordability and inefficiency. It's actually sewage that's being
00:23:31.600 pumped into the community so that you have moral high ground to enter into these debates. You're having
00:23:36.880 debate about the way that HUD is actually screwing up my neighborhood and not just whether we can afford
00:23:42.880 Section 8 housing. That's that's the that's the new aspect of what I'm suggesting. They they have
00:23:49.600 they gain the moral high ground by making spending arguments from a cultural perspective and and we
00:23:56.640 have seen in the last two years the ability to win these debates on critical race theory and in the
00:24:02.000 debate about groomers in schools. Republicans are learning how to make these. There is risk involved
00:24:07.760 because they they have to be up to speed on what they're fighting about and there's no question about
00:24:11.520 that but in terms of where the the political capital is in this country they have the moral high ground
00:24:17.680 and they are siding with their people if they take this if they take this fight but if they hang back
00:24:22.800 and do what you've said you know is accurate with the last 20-30 years where they just put their
00:24:27.920 propeller hats on and treat this as accountants they will lose and and I'm suggesting there is a path
00:24:34.720 forward that both saves the country from a woke and weaponized bureaucrat bureaucracy which I think is
00:24:40.160 fundamentally the biggest threat facing us and deals with our fiscal house and getting it in order and
00:24:45.840 fuses those fights indelibly because one you can starve and the other one you can save money by not
00:24:52.240 spending on the agencies. And I would submit to you that to me at least the great the great challenge
00:25:00.400 and the great threat here is for the Republicans to blow the election of 2024. We have sufficient
00:25:08.080 empirical evidence over the course we have history and all of the evidence that has been gathered
00:25:14.400 in these contests debates and conflicts between Republicans and Democrats irrespective of who is in
00:25:20.160 the in the White House that Republicans lose they just simply lose. And I admire even the connection that
00:25:30.880 you would like to to create between the cultural issue and the budget item but I think that is a tough
00:25:39.600 tough path forward and I would and I think that there is a moral high ground for the Dems that we have to
00:25:46.880 acknowledge. These are already obligations of the United States government that we're fighting over.
00:25:53.920 These have all been approved by the by the institutions the senate the the house and indeed the president of course
00:26:02.640 and they are obligations of the United States. We can't do much that is on the moral high ground
00:26:11.680 if we decide to retreat from those. Your thoughts? Well I'm not making the case that those bills shouldn't be paid.
00:26:19.360 What I'm saying is that you pay the credit card off but you also rip up the credit cards and make sure
00:26:25.520 that you have some feet on some firm foundation under your feet to be able to tackle the spending
00:26:32.080 that is no longer that that has not come down the pipeline. And so what we're now talking about in
00:26:37.760 terms of these 20 percent cuts to get back to pre-COVID level are the spending that Congress this year is going
00:26:43.840 to pass and if we don't focus on it we're going to allow them to keep funding the bureaucracy that's
00:26:49.120 aimed against the country and that is what I think ultimately will never put them in a situation either
00:26:54.960 to win elections or to be able to be successful when they do win elections because they will have
00:27:01.440 constantly focused on things that were not the main event problem. So I take the caution and I agree with
00:27:07.760 the messaging like you've got to be able to to articulate what you're for what would get you to
00:27:13.120 yes and I think you've got to do it in a way that resonates with the American people and also realize
00:27:18.640 that in this new environment of distrusting the Biden administration and and the media and the
00:27:23.840 institutions that have been fundamentally corrupted and hollowed out that you have an opportunity like
00:27:29.120 Newt Gingrich used to say to win a national narrative once that conflict is there and I think they've got
00:27:34.880 to use the debt limit to be able to do so and I think they can win it. They there have been significant
00:27:40.960 spending reforms attached to debt limits and the question is whether those will be linked to the
00:27:47.920 types of concerns that the American people have. Right and again in acknowledging that these are obligations
00:27:58.160 you have to concede as well that you're the threats of not raising the debt ceiling is frankly
00:28:04.720 and I'm going to be very direct here it's an empty one because otherwise you would be risking a default
00:28:11.120 would you not? No again I would say that this is gets to the the how the administration wants to define the
00:28:18.640 word default but I I think Republicans should be fully prepared to have a debate about the timely payment of an
00:28:26.560 NIH grant or some funding at EPA or Department of Education so I I do think that you know we right
00:28:35.680 now here to zoom out for a second we have a balanced budget requirement in the in in the form of a debt
00:28:41.120 limit everyone wants to talk about well we need a balanced budget man we have one it's called the debt
00:28:46.240 limit it's just that Republicans are don't think of it that way and it's not framed that way and I agree with
00:28:53.600 you that these these all need to be paid at some point the question is how timely with with interest
00:28:59.440 and principle it's got to be immediate same with Social Security and Medicare benefits I'm not convinced
00:29:04.960 of the same with regard to the discretionary agency and then look here's here's the bottom line of what
00:29:09.760 I'm what I'm urging of the Congress freedom is is in jeopardy freedom in this country is facing default I
00:29:18.640 want to expand the conversation not just to be about what we count to be default with regard to
00:29:23.840 treasuries and principle on that on those bonds but to talk about the extent to which the American dream
00:29:30.160 and freedoms that that we have all counted on is facing default we can have that debate I think
00:29:35.680 there's going to be a lot of chances for victory and moving this in the right direction I think there is
00:29:41.120 a great chance for debate but when you talk about it depends on the Biden administration and how it defines
00:29:47.760 default here's here's the reality Russ they've already defined it they have defined it because
00:29:55.760 the House Republicans have said they would prioritize the meeting of obligations should they reach the
00:30:04.720 doomsday date and as Janet Yellen the Treasury Secretary said it I thought succinctly and and right on point
00:30:13.120 prioritization is by any other term default am I not is can you find an argument to that yeah I just
00:30:23.680 disagree with it Lou in the sense of default is a is is a definition that is linked to the payment of
00:30:33.040 treasuries principle and interest it is not it is it is their argument I disagree with it but it is it is their
00:30:42.240 argument they want to say default by another name as it pertains to the other obligations that the
00:30:48.960 federal government has made that comes at the same time the federal government has said we're not going
00:30:54.560 to allow a debt to exceed a certain limit so you have federal laws that's in conflict with each other and
00:31:02.800 I think it's a very healthy debate to figure out okay we we are going to have a conversation about what we can
00:31:10.640 afford and what we can't and we're not going to be allowing the administration to scare us into a
00:31:17.760 premature passing of a debt limit increase when we need to have this debate over the next six months
00:31:23.760 seven seven months and the Biden administration quite frankly needs this to be able to govern
00:31:28.400 they're the ones that have to be able to get this thing done because they're in control and republicans
00:31:33.600 don't have to give that to them until they have uh the types of commitments that have historically
00:31:40.080 been given to be able to get something through and divide a government every issue of course every
00:31:46.480 complex issue has uh sometimes nuanced subtext amongst those that would be under that heading I would rate
00:31:57.520 uh this it is the republicans who have talked about prioritizing and indeed putting forward
00:32:04.000 the idea that China would be amongst the first to receive payment uh if not the first under the
00:32:10.320 extraordinary measures uh undertaken by the treasury department uh upon approaching uh x day whatever you
00:32:18.080 want to call it uh that seems to me to be a difficult sale in one that's already been put forward
00:32:25.200 uh your thoughts about that yeah that has not been put forward by house republicans it's an
00:32:30.880 interesting line of attack from the administration but it's based on arguing against their own interest
00:32:37.760 that they actually want to pay uh interest um and the principal on on on treasuries now unfortunately
00:32:45.680 China uh it's declining but China has about a trillion dollars of our debt um one of one of the reasons why
00:32:53.360 so many of us are concerned about the fiscal health of this country is that we think from
00:32:58.240 a national security standpoint it's a really really bad uh tenuous situation to have uh an adversary owning
00:33:06.320 our our our debt in a way that they can they can wreak havoc with if they wanted to so the administration
00:33:14.000 has said that that was their line of attack and Yellen said that in the hearing but the bill doesn't do
00:33:19.120 that the bill just says look you want the you want to be concerned about default you're concerned
00:33:23.600 about paying this we're going to make sure we're going to force you we're going to take the politics
00:33:27.040 and the decision out of your hands as to what how you could prioritize it and we're going to just
00:33:31.760 say you've got to you've got to pay the treasuries and then you've got to pay social security and medicare
00:33:37.280 and the military and begins to have an a statutory line of of triage to be able to give guidance
00:33:45.200 to the secretary of treasury and then the second category i would put it be i'd put it under the
00:33:51.840 name mitch mcconnell uh because he signed off on the omnibus uh 1.7 trillion dollars he took away
00:33:59.760 effectively one year of budget control uh and design from the successful republicans who now lead
00:34:08.800 the 118th congress that was a craven act uh it is an act of one of the leaders of the republican party
00:34:17.520 and it is important subtext to what we're discussing because all that we're discussing right now could
00:34:23.360 well have been uh resolved had mitch mcconnell been responsible uh and instead of reckless
00:34:31.600 well i think that's certainly one of the reasons i mean the the fact that that occurred and the
00:34:38.800 ongoing nature of these omnibus bills is one of the reasons why there is new this new focus on
00:34:45.120 the appropriations process and preventing that from ever happening again and we i don't want to be in a
00:34:50.960 situation where house republicans are passing crs or omnibus bills and the only way to do that is to
00:34:57.920 start now and linking it so that we have this fight when there's actual leverage uh but you're
00:35:03.520 right like the senate is a can can help or hurt and that's why so far i'm glad that the negotiations
00:35:10.400 between kevin mccarthy who you know now is being um he has a a new uh power sharing arrangement around
00:35:19.840 him to make it so that when he's negotiating with the white house it's on the basis of what the house
00:35:24.800 conservatives think is appropriate which i think is the right way to think about it i do too i give
00:35:29.920 i give him great credit for that i also want to just give him great credit for what i think has been
00:35:34.320 uh and i'll be straightforward i was a skeptic uh but i think he's uh his leadership to this point has been
00:35:42.400 exemplary uh and i hope that he continues on this path uh i always give our guests the last word and
00:35:51.040 for me to interject at this point with some of my reservations about our discussions the topics
00:35:57.120 we've been discussing here today russ uh you know i i will defer to uh to the last word uh here today
00:36:05.440 on this podcast you're a great american we appreciate everything you're doing for the country uh your
00:36:11.600 concluding thoughts if you would no this is a great debate by two people who want america to be first and
00:36:17.520 in concern greatly with the the cultural uh situation that are the american people are dealing
00:36:24.160 with and so how we get to that uh solution is is the types of uh discussions that i always want to
00:36:31.040 be a part of i'm happy to do it on your show and look forward to being back thanks russ vote and thanks
00:36:36.240 everybody for being with us today here next monday will be a congressman who fights for his constituents
00:36:42.800 and who stood up against the marxist dems january 6 committee and he won our guest will be congressman
00:36:50.240 barry laudermilk here monday have a great weekend please join us monday till then thanks god bless you
00:36:58.800 and god bless america