The Great America Show - July 14, 2023


BIDEN STUMBLING INTO WAR


Episode Stats

Length

40 minutes

Words per Minute

160.01198

Word Count

6,412

Sentence Count

430

Hate Speech Sentences

21


Summary

A think tank official with dual U.S. and Israeli passports is accused of being an unregistered foreign agent, working for China, and brokering arms sales in Iranian crude oil. And there are new developments in the DOJ s eight-count indictment of the vanished, whereabouts-unknown fugitive whistleblower against the Biden family by the name of Gal Luft.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs, and welcome to The Great America Show. Great to have you
00:00:07.940 with us. Do you like mysteries? Well, I hope you do, because we begin today with what is
00:00:12.980 clearly a man of mystery, who's caught up in a web of shadows and intrigue, a think
00:00:18.500 tank official with dual U.S. and Israeli passports. He's accused of being an unregistered foreign
00:00:24.980 agent, working for China, brokering arms sales in Iranian crude oil. And there are new developments
00:00:31.660 in the Department of Justice's eight-count indictment of the vanished, whereabouts-unknown
00:00:37.660 fugitive whistleblower against the Biden family by the name of Gal Luft. There's no doubt Luft is
00:00:44.980 technically a fugitive, because the DOJ has indicted him. But he certainly looks like an innocent man
00:00:51.300 who's the victim of the Marxist Dems DOJ who mean to shut him up. Luft says in 2019 he met with four
00:00:59.560 FBI agents and two assistant U.S. attorneys in Brussels, there to inform them how the Biden family
00:01:06.220 was engaging in a scheme with a Chinese energy company, CEFC. Now, four years later, Biden's
00:01:14.880 Department of Justice has indicted Luft for failing to register as a foreign agent, for working like
00:01:21.160 Hunter Biden, for CEFC. All of this appears more likely to be a straight-out effort to silence Gal Luft
00:01:28.940 for talking with congressional investigators about Biden corruption. The two U.S. attorneys he met with
00:01:35.960 back in 2019 were Catherine Grosh and Daniel Rishenthal. They also now happen to be the two
00:01:43.500 lead prosecutors who've brought the DOJ indictment against him. According to campaign finance records,
00:01:50.960 both Grosh and Rishenthal have contributed heavily to Biden's 2020 campaign and the Democrat National
00:01:58.520 Committee. Grosh made 35 donations in the 2020 election cycle to Biden and the DNC, Rishenthal making
00:02:08.080 campaign contributions to the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign. Both of these assistant U.S. attorneys have
00:02:15.780 investigated CEFC Energy Company since 2017. They were responsible for the prosecution of CEFC executive
00:02:24.360 and Biden associate Patrick Ho. Ho was indicted in 2017 for trying to bribe two African officials
00:02:32.100 on behalf of CEFC and hired Hunter Biden for a $1 million fee to use his FBI connections for intel
00:02:41.280 on the case. According to court transcripts, U.S. attorney Rishenthal asked the judge presiding over
00:02:48.540 the case to redact Biden's name from emails used as evidence. This is what they said, quote,
00:02:55.220 Our view is that the name of that individual is not relevant and could introduce a political
00:03:00.900 dimension to this case that we don't think is worth dealing with. Letting people know that the case
00:03:07.000 involved, Joe Biden and his family certainly would have attracted news media coverage. But they were
00:03:13.620 being awfully cautious for seemingly at the time, not much reason at all. There are 93 U.S. attorneys
00:03:21.060 in the country. They represent the federal government. Yet the same assistant U.S. attorney who protected
00:03:26.980 the Bidens back in 2017 is now the same man presiding over the DOJ case against the Biden whistleblower.
00:03:34.560 Next week, we'll see a lot of big news from Capitol Hill on what the congressional investigating
00:03:40.320 committees have found out from their whistleblowers. Secret Service shuts down its investigation of the
00:03:46.840 Biden White House cocaine caper, saying they can't solve the case, shutting it down in less than two
00:03:52.440 weeks. No suspects. So they're shutting it down. Congressman Greg Stubbe, who's on the Ways and Means
00:03:58.480 Committee, says the Secret Service does know who it is. Here's the congressman's reaction.
00:04:04.560 That's a complete and utter lie. We know darn well. Any reasonable person would know where that came
00:04:11.100 from. Second, just so your listeners understand, I've been to the White House several times when
00:04:16.740 Trump was president. And as a member of Congress, the levels of security checks that you go through
00:04:22.420 to get into that building, especially the West Wing, is phenomenal. You go through multiple different
00:04:28.380 checks, ID, social security numbers, bomb sniffing dogs, different security checkpoints. There's cameras
00:04:35.820 everywhere. They know exactly where people are and when they're there. The only people that don't have
00:04:40.460 to go through that rigorous testing and security protocol is the first family. So there's no way
00:04:46.820 that somebody would have walked into an event at the White House with cocaine on them because they would
00:04:53.100 have seen it through the multiple different sectors of going through metal detectors, having your bag
00:04:58.140 searched, all of those different things. The only people that don't have to do that is the first
00:05:01.860 family. And so now you have the Secret Service, along with all the other agencies in the federal
00:05:05.820 government right now that have been completely weaponized and playing defense for the Biden family.
00:05:11.060 As they say, nothing to see here. Case closed. President Biden back from his almost weeklong trip to
00:05:17.780 London and Vilnius, Lithuania, for the NATO summit. On his way home, he stopped in Helsinki for a meeting
00:05:24.140 with the president of Finland, the newest member of the NATO alliance. There, Biden was asked by a
00:05:29.960 Finnish reporter about America's commitment to NATO. Here's the president's response.
00:05:35.000 In Washington, a bipartisan group of senators has repeatedly failed to pass through Senate a law that
00:05:43.120 would prevent future U.S. presidents from withdrawing from NATO without Senate's approval. What actions
00:05:50.140 will you take to assure Finland that the U.S. will remain a reliable NATO partner for decades to come?
00:05:57.220 I absolutely guarantee it. There is no question. There's overwhelming support from the American people.
00:06:03.440 There's overwhelming support from the members of the Congress, both House and Senate. In both
00:06:08.780 parties, notwithstanding the fact that there's some extreme elements of one party, we will stand
00:06:14.000 together. The American people known for the end of World War II and the formation of NATO, that our
00:06:20.720 security rests in the unanimity among European and transatlantic partner, us. And so this is, you know,
00:06:29.500 no one can guarantee the future. But this is the best bet anyone could make.
00:06:34.520 Hearing this answer that no one can guarantee a future, are you worried that the political
00:06:39.560 instability in U.S. will cause issues in the alliance in the future?
00:06:44.760 Let me be clear. I didn't say we didn't guarantee it. We couldn't guarantee the future.
00:06:49.060 You can't tell me whether you're going to be able to go home tonight. No one can be sure what
00:06:52.660 they're going to do. I'm saying as sure as anything can possibly be said about American
00:06:58.040 foreign policy, we will stay connected to NATO. Connected to NATO beginning, middle and end.
00:07:04.340 We're a transatlantic partnership. That's what I've said.
00:07:08.000 Former President Trump is concerned about Biden's performance and his limitations.
00:07:13.320 The former president says Biden is dragging us into World War III by sending Ukraine
00:07:17.920 cluster bombs. And it gets worse. Upon boarding Air Force One, Biden went even further to say he's
00:07:25.180 now open to sending Ukraine long-range missiles capable of striking Russia. No one can reasonably
00:07:31.800 say President Trump has it wrong, Biden putting world conflict in high probability. Let's bring in
00:07:38.440 our guest today to take all of this up. Joining us now is Army retired Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer
00:07:43.780 and author, radio host and China expert Gordon Chang. Gentlemen, great to have you with us to wrap up
00:07:50.020 the week, an extraordinary week with the president at the NATO summit and all that's ensued. Gordon,
00:07:55.580 your thoughts first on what did come out of the NATO discussions. It seemed like a lot of disappointment
00:08:00.960 for a lot of people. Well, Sweden looks like it's going to become a NATO member, although Turkey right
00:08:08.100 now is still dragging its feet on a number of issues. But we're moving towards resolution. And of course,
00:08:15.160 if we look at the broader perspective, President Erdogan had actually blocked Finland also. But
00:08:21.360 Finland now is a member. And that's because of some coercive diplomacy on the part of Washington and
00:08:29.280 Brussels. A couple of things about the meeting. One of them is that Ukraine, of course, is disappointed
00:08:35.780 that it has not become a NATO member. But of course, it couldn't become a member in the middle
00:08:41.680 of a war. But I think that President Zelensky is pleased that he did get some undefined security
00:08:49.780 guarantees. And those will be important going forward. In the Nordic meeting, which is now just
00:08:57.620 wrapping up, it looks like the NATO alliance really is solidifying, which is a good thing.
00:09:05.000 And again, in the broader context, Putin has got to be disturbed that his northern flank is now going
00:09:13.680 to be all NATO colored. So it is going to be a very difficult time for Russia going forward.
00:09:19.880 His northern flank, the eastern flank, as you say, solidified. We have troops, well over 100,000 of
00:09:28.140 U.S. troops deployed along that eastern flank. The NATO conference takes place, the summit in
00:09:34.940 Vilnius, in Lithuania, bordering Russia. I mean, this could be construed as very provocative stuff.
00:09:44.080 What do you think? Well, the problem is that for Putin is that NATO would not have come together
00:09:51.140 were it not for Putin's threatening moves when you go back to Georgia in 2008, Crimea 2014,
00:09:57.760 and of course, the invasion last year. These are sovereign countries, Lou, and they wanted to become
00:10:04.900 members of NATO. And we couldn't force them to. But they see that because of Russian aggression,
00:10:12.360 they really have no choice. So this, I think, is the result of bad policy in Moscow.
00:10:19.020 Tony?
00:10:19.560 So I appreciate Gordon's perspective, but my concern is, and I'm not pro-Russian,
00:10:26.500 that very things we're talking about being very good news for NATO, I think, is going to be seen
00:10:33.620 to inflame Putin and not only Putin, Russian basic fears of being potentially surrounded by those
00:10:44.260 countries which do not share their interests. I'm not pro-Putin. I'm just simply stating that the
00:10:50.380 Russians have a paranoia that goes back to Tsar Alexander, I believe, based on some of the things
00:10:56.960 that happened two centuries ago, back in the 19th century, even before that. So when you see
00:11:07.960 NATO closing in based on the agreement of 1995, I think it was one of the agreements made
00:11:13.540 to basically create conditions for Ukraine to be independent. When you look at that, the agreement
00:11:19.940 was NATO wouldn't move east, it has. Things like that play well to the Russian public. And that's
00:11:29.420 why Putin is so popular right now. A lot of the Russian public believes that Putin is doing things
00:11:34.300 to protect them. And if you can actually point to aggressive things by NATO, by those nations who
00:11:39.880 violated agreements with Russia, Putin is going to win this domestically every time. And again,
00:11:44.520 I'm not pro-Putin. I'm simply trying to call balls and strikes here. And as much as I think
00:11:51.000 this is something that's positive, some of the other things that Gordon said I think do not
00:11:56.520 necessarily bode well for Ukraine. And let me go through this real quick. There was no clear path
00:12:02.360 given to Ukraine. The membership action plan, which is often the path forward for folks, was basically
00:12:09.220 said, oh, you don't need that. The only positive thing that they did to reframe the Ukrainian issue
00:12:14.180 as far as I'm concerned is, and Lou, I think this is laughable, as you and I would agree. I think
00:12:19.280 this is a bureaucratic move to upgrade the NATO-Ukraine study committee from a committee to a
00:12:26.420 council. Oh, you know, now it's a council, not just a committee. And while Gordon correctly said there
00:12:32.460 was conditions and guarantees mentioned, nobody actually defined what the conditions are for
00:12:37.240 membership, nor what the guarantees are going to be. Very dangerous thing. So leaving these dangling
00:12:43.240 participles out there, I don't think serves anybody well. And I think simply, there's too
00:12:48.660 many, to quote my old friend Don Rumsfeld, too many unknown unknowns to make me feel comfortable
00:12:54.560 with what came out of that. But Tony, if we look at the broader context, if NATO didn't come together
00:13:02.000 now, what would have been the message received in Beijing? And I think one of the important things
00:13:07.140 here is that as NATO does solidify, and I agree with you, it should have, you know, it should have
00:13:13.920 done been more specific on stuff. But the point is that as Europe and the United States draw closer
00:13:20.800 together, as we see a solidification of the alliance, as we see the alliance become more effective,
00:13:27.280 the point is always going to be in Beijing. They don't want that happening to them. And so
00:13:32.380 there is, I think, some beneficial effect there. Now, having said that, it's not good that France
00:13:38.080 blocked the establishment of a NATO office in Japan. But, you know, we're at a point right now where
00:13:44.660 I can understand where we talk about, well, maybe Russia is going to be upset about this. But we're
00:13:51.320 well beyond that right now, because we're on the doorstep of war, and we need to be making preparations
00:13:56.500 to protect ourselves and our friends and allies. And we're not moving with the requisite speed.
00:14:02.960 This is one of the most dangerous periods in history. And there's a lack of appreciation of
00:14:07.680 that in the United States, not only in the Biden administration, but across the American political
00:14:12.420 spectrum. Well, Gordon, don't don't take my comments as being anti NATO. I'm not. I mean,
00:14:16.700 I know. I'm just saying, you know, I'm just trying I'm trying to get perspective from the Russian side
00:14:21.340 that people need to understand that the Russians don't see things like we do at this point.
00:14:24.720 Well, the Russians at this point are also making a lot of noise from from Belarus. Belarus is now
00:14:32.500 suddenly a very difficult to puppet state to to contemplate. It is certainly has nuclear tactical
00:14:42.880 nuclear weapons have been shipped by Russia to Belarus. They're on the doorstep, if you will, of NATO.
00:14:48.660 They are also right next door to the Baltic states. And the Kremlin is saying straight out,
00:14:58.880 this is a very dangerous move that has taken place and in Vilnius as a result of the summit. And it to me
00:15:08.580 augurs very poorly for constructive pathways to try to resolve both the war against Ukraine and a way
00:15:17.980 forward for the for NATO and a strong, productive alliance with Moscow.
00:15:25.200 Well, well, let me I'll jump in first on this. The nuclear issue to me should be our focus.
00:15:32.020 One of the things that Russia has said, they're not going to lose the war. And to me, that's a kind
00:15:37.640 of a dog whistle for saying we'll use nukes if we have to defend ourselves and quote unquote defending
00:15:43.720 themselves is a pretty broad comment of policy that I don't know if they define that. And I don't think
00:15:50.540 they will. But this is the problem with the current situation. The guy who has to be leading this
00:15:56.580 is Joe Biden. Joe Biden. And let me read you an article that came out last week, Luke, because this
00:16:03.720 is regarding Belarus and I think the overall situation. The Daily Telegraph in the UK did
00:16:09.940 an article. I think it was on Thursday last week before. I mean, I'm sorry, I don't mean to for the
00:16:14.100 time of taping right before the right before the summit. The Daily Telegraph article, the world's
00:16:20.940 worst diplomat, Joe Biden. Joe Biden has a well-earned reputation of being a crude, narcissistic
00:16:26.900 politician who exudes incredible arrogance with limited understanding of many foreign policy
00:16:31.080 issues. This is a good news part of the article. He's taken a wreck and ball to America's most
00:16:36.180 important international relationship. So my reason for staying at this point in our discussion
00:16:40.840 is the very guy who has to be the adult in the room to actually help us negotiate and get
00:16:46.200 back to being influential to prevent the potential miscalculations which may lead to a nuclear
00:16:52.560 exchange is a guy that nobody, that even our allies don't depend upon. And this is where
00:16:58.160 I agree with Gordon that it was important for us to show resolve with NATO. But the guy who actually
00:17:03.300 has to show up and do things thinks that Russia invaded Iraq and things like that is just not a good
00:17:08.920 thing. Yeah, let's be direct. I mean, this would be akin, sending Joe Biden to the summit in Vilnius
00:17:18.260 would be just as if the UK had decided suddenly to send Queen Elizabeth to the G20. It makes no sense
00:17:27.440 because we know better than to even remotely contemplate the idea that he's actually in charge.
00:17:33.140 He is not. And his policies are not his. There's someone behind the curtain pulling all of these
00:17:41.940 strings. We're going to continue with Tony Schaefer and Gordon Chang. What is China up to? And just how
00:17:48.560 embarrassed must President Xi be about his strategic partner in Moscow? We'll be right back.
00:17:55.420 We're back with Tony Schaefer and Gordon Chang. And I want to just turn very quickly
00:18:05.800 to the issue for China. Now in economic doldrums, pressures are mounting across sectors and markets
00:18:14.720 in China, as well as a huge embarrassment with President Xi's strategic partner,
00:18:22.740 mired in now a more than 500-day war with a much smaller nation that is, of course, Ukraine.
00:18:32.020 What do you think, Gordon? Is it getting worse for Xi or is this transitory?
00:18:38.580 I think it is actually getting worse for Xi. One of the things, though, it should be much worse than it
00:18:45.360 is because going back to what Tony was saying about Joe Biden's leadership, the United States is not
00:18:51.900 imposing costs on China for supplying lethal aid to Russia. From the very beginning of this war,
00:18:58.960 Biden drew a red line of China supplying such assistance. And from the very beginning of this
00:19:05.080 war, China has supplied such assistance and is supplying even more now. The Chinese know they're
00:19:11.900 doing that. The Chinese know that we know they're doing that. And so what Beijing is taking away from
00:19:17.820 this is that American warnings on Ukraine are hollow. And we know that when democracies issue hollow
00:19:24.580 warnings, bad things always happen. This is how World War II in Europe started, with Britain and France
00:19:31.600 issuing hollow warnings on all sorts of things, beginning with the remilitarization of the Rhineland
00:19:36.940 in 1936. And we know that from the archives that Germany did not believe the warnings from London and Paris
00:19:44.200 about invading Poland. So I'm not saying that we're going to start World War III in Europe because of Biden's
00:19:51.040 failure to enforce his warnings. But I am saying this is extremely dangerous and anything can happen.
00:19:56.480 And to carry on with Gordon's point, I couldn't agree more with his framing of the issue.
00:20:03.440 One of the other things that I think this administration, the Biden administration has been
00:20:07.480 fabulous in is making excuses for their own failures. Like Gordon said, they will not enforce
00:20:12.500 the very policies that they are important to them. And if you examine the Afghanistan format, how they
00:20:20.640 failed. I don't believe that failure was was accidental. That wasn't a failure. It was a planned demolition of
00:20:29.880 the Afghanistan policy, as well as leading that war in a way that that created chaos. And I fear the same for the
00:20:39.700 Pacific. And let me give you something to think about. First off, they publicly acknowledged there's been 41, 41
00:20:47.800 draws from our strategic national stock. That is to say, if we go to war, we have a very big military,
00:20:54.700 as we all know. That military requires beans, bullets and high tech weapons. We have raided the
00:21:02.300 pantry, Lou, to the point of where we have nothing left. Jake Sullivan's admitted this. Joe Biden's
00:21:07.820 admitted this. We have nothing left for our own forces should we be faced with a contingency operation
00:21:12.900 to go into the Pacific, into Taiwan. This concerns me. I'm sure Gordon shares my concern. But I don't
00:21:19.820 think this is accidental. I think they have raided the pantry for purposes of creating a crisis within
00:21:26.440 our own ranks for to use the excuse if they have to. Oh, see, we can't really defend Taiwan because
00:21:32.860 we've already we've already given all of our stuff away. We don't want to jeopardize American lives by not
00:21:38.960 being prepared. They have purposely made the policy of not being prepared a centerpiece of their of what
00:21:44.580 they're doing. And this is where I think we need to be very concerned. And again, this didn't happen
00:21:48.720 overnight. If people go back and look at the tapes, we've been talking about this for at least a year
00:21:53.560 about the fact that there was the appearance that the Biden administration was using our muscle,
00:21:58.500 our military muscle to support a non-NATO ally. And I think now it's come to the point of where,
00:22:04.380 Lou, if China after after Tony Blinken said we don't care about the democracy in Taiwan and now we're faced
00:22:12.800 with military lack within our own system that's been acknowledged. I am not a neocon, as I always say,
00:22:21.260 but I don't believe in weakness that would would encourage an adversary to be aggressive.
00:22:25.900 And I think that's what we see here with this this really wackadoodle foreign policy that the Biden
00:22:30.340 administration has in place. And we are, of course, fully cognizant of just how impaired
00:22:36.960 and what a puppet this president is. But we're left with, as you say, Tony, staring all of us in
00:22:43.740 the face, a purposeful drawdown of the strategic petroleum reserves and some of that oil going to
00:22:50.100 the people's republic as well, on top of everything else. The Biden administration has not made a
00:22:56.280 rational or even a weak attempt at explaining to the American public why they've been drawing those
00:23:03.460 reserves down. There is no need to do so. There is adequate oil. Prices are low enough. It's a very
00:23:10.980 strange position. But at the same time, the ammunition and the munitions that have been drawn
00:23:17.740 down by the U.S. military, this is irresponsible. And President Biden this past week, making a clumsy,
00:23:26.600 stupid remark about the fact we would we wouldn't be sending cluster bombs if we had more of the
00:23:32.900 ammunition we really need. But we don't. Exactly. I mean, I mean, it's incredible that he made that
00:23:37.940 that statement. And even the military acknowledged it was revealing intelligence that should never have
00:23:44.100 been released to the public. Your thoughts, Gordon?
00:23:47.740 Oh, absolutely, Lou. And to go back to one of your earlier points about the Chinese economy,
00:23:55.100 I believe that war is becoming more and more likely. And it's the time frame for China is moving up.
00:24:04.140 And the reason is we are seeing some dire numbers come out of China. So, for instance, on Thursday of
00:24:10.580 this week, you know, the wrap up for the week, China's trade numbers were released and they were much
00:24:17.120 worse than anybody thought. Exports fell something like 12.4 percent year on year off of a very low
00:24:25.280 base in 2022. But even more significant, imports fell 6.8 percent year on year, again, off of a low
00:24:33.800 base. And imports which show domestic demand have now been down for nine straight months and 10 of the
00:24:41.020 last 11. And that shows the Chinese economy is contracting. This confirms very weak price data
00:24:48.120 that has come out of China also this week. And so basically, Xi Jinping has a choice now. He can
00:24:54.740 let the economy erode and let the Communist Party fail or he can go to war. And while he's facing this
00:25:03.700 choice, he's actually trying to pick a fight in the Philippines, in Reed Bank, in the South China Sea,
00:25:09.880 trying to seize those features from Manila. So this is one of those extraordinarily dangerous times where
00:25:17.620 we can find ourselves in a fight immediately. Because remember, the Philippines is a treaty ally.
00:25:23.280 We have an Article V obligation to defend the Philippines. And China right now is trying to break
00:25:28.820 apart that archipelago. So this is a this week type of thing, not something that, you know,
00:25:35.080 we can talk about in 2025 or later. So, yeah, while the president is drawing down strategic reserves,
00:25:43.560 as Tony said, we're getting closer and closer to actual combat. Well, that your statement about
00:25:50.700 timeframes, we don't have a week, we don't have a month. Going back to those hysterical
00:25:56.380 comparisons that both of you made concerning European wars in, you know, more than a half
00:26:05.200 century ago, going back centuries, this the important distinction is not simply the technology,
00:26:11.200 not simply the power structure of a global order. But the fact is, there won't be a year and a half
00:26:20.060 for the United States to ramp up from civilian production to military production, munitions,
00:26:26.880 all sorts of advanced weaponry, that either we have it, and we're ready to use it because this
00:26:33.640 will be a flash war. I believe it will be a flash war because of hypersonic missiles, because of all
00:26:40.240 of the forward positioning of tactical weapons, as well as strategic ballistic missiles. And I'm talking
00:26:46.660 about nuclear missiles, of course, as well, because the United States doesn't have a conventional
00:26:52.920 option. If we go to war with China, it will be without any doubt whatsoever, in my mind, Tony,
00:27:00.440 a nuclear war. So that's one of the reasons we pull out of the INF Treaty, wisely, I believe,
00:27:07.740 the INF Treaty being that which we signed in the late 1980s under Reagan, reducing the intermediate
00:27:14.040 range missiles. And we lived up to that. Unfortunately, the Russians and Chinese did not.
00:27:18.760 So I think the tactical, that intermediate nuclear weapon that we did not have, they do. So we've
00:27:24.220 reintroduced that. And at that point, Lou, yeah, I think we have a real danger of having to deal with
00:27:29.560 something we are not prepared to deal with. And within the context of history, the United States
00:27:36.520 spent a great deal of time thinking through a war with Japan during the 1920 to 1940 timeframe.
00:27:43.600 We do not have similar strategic thinking going on right now that I know of in any military college
00:27:50.740 or within any office of the Pentagon, which I am literally talking to former general officers
00:27:57.560 about trying this to change. And I'm not convinced that the Pentagon wants to be prepared this time
00:28:02.820 based on what I'm seeing.
00:28:04.320 Whatever their motivation or whatever their capacities, it is two things are clear about this
00:28:09.780 very dangerous, this perilous moment in which we live. We have the weakest civilian leadership of
00:28:15.660 our military in this country's history. We have the weakest military leadership in this country's
00:28:21.560 history. That is not anything less than an awful thing to contemplate. We'll be back with Tony
00:28:29.680 Schaefer with Gordon Chang. Stay with us.
00:28:37.660 We're back now with Tony Schaefer and Gordon Chang. Gordon, let's turn to what seems to be a mixed
00:28:44.860 signal emanating from Beijing. The bellicose rhetoric, all of the chest pounding that they've been doing.
00:28:53.500 And suddenly she is talking about how important trade is, trying to convince and persuade trading
00:29:00.400 partners that trade is critically important to China. Of course, he's right. But he's acknowledging
00:29:05.600 it publicly, emphasizing it. And this now sounds like an entirely different path he's on over just
00:29:11.460 the last three, four weeks.
00:29:13.320 Yeah, well, it's interesting. There's two Xi Jinping's right now. There's the one who is saying,
00:29:17.800 I need foreign money. And, you know, in China right now, they're talking about this being the year of
00:29:22.860 foreign investment because their situation now is dire. And there is, you know, they've got structural
00:29:30.340 problems that they can't deal with. Essentially, what's happening is in 2008, they decided not to
00:29:35.480 have a downturn. So they embarked on what I think is the biggest stimulus program in history. And now
00:29:41.180 they're having their 2008 and they don't know what to do. But at the same time, Lou, we hear another
00:29:46.720 Xi Jinping. And for instance, last week, when on the day that Janet Yellen arrived in the
00:29:52.840 in Beijing, which was the Thursday, Xi Jinping himself put on military green, he went to the
00:29:58.980 Eastern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army. That's the command that would lead the
00:30:03.780 invasion of Japan, Taiwan, or the Philippines. And he gave another one of his, let's go to war
00:30:09.960 speeches. So right now, I think that we have a China which could probably start some sort of
00:30:18.040 conflict because the Chinese leader realizes how bad the situation inside the country is.
00:30:23.620 And just to mention, you know, Tony's friend, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, you know,
00:30:30.280 Rumsfeld is famous for saying many things. And one of them is you go to war with the military that you
00:30:36.760 have at the moment. And as Tony has just said, the military we have at the moment is not the military
00:30:43.740 that we really want right now. Because as you said, at the end of last segment, this is not a time
00:30:50.440 where you can actually do what we did in the 1930s. And during the first years of World War Two,
00:30:57.100 which is to build up the military to fight that same war. As you point out, this is going to be a
00:31:03.000 flash war. And it's go back to 1991, that the last time the United States won, clearly won a military
00:31:13.840 conflict against smaller adversaries, the Iraq-Persian Gulf War. And to imagine that we would
00:31:24.940 have time to position a half a million service members halfway around the world, I think is pure
00:31:34.760 nonsense. This country either has the sense to understand, our leadership has the sense to
00:31:40.340 understand what these limitations are and what the responsibilities are. We're in very big trouble.
00:31:47.320 I vote very big trouble is what we're in because of the quality of the leadership in the military and
00:31:52.140 the civilian leadership. And to think that Russia is going to just continue to put up with what is
00:32:01.180 now, by the way, I should just point out, we've just got a wire in that Biden is now considering
00:32:09.020 long-range missiles being sent by the United States directly to the Ukraine. I mean, this is
00:32:14.700 approaching outright madness, Tony.
00:32:16.980 So, I've said before on this program, I say it again, because I think it's appropriate. Tactics
00:32:22.720 without strategy is the noise before defeat. That's what Sun Tzu said. That's what we see
00:32:26.760 being executed. We're just throwing stuff into Ukraine. Well, let's try a tricycle. Let's see
00:32:32.980 if tricycles will threaten the Russians. It's insane. It's without purpose. And I, again, go back to my
00:32:39.560 original premise in the first segment of the show. They're doing this purposely to weaken us.
00:32:42.960 They're just throwing stuff out there and hoping for the best. And I don't think they want to win.
00:32:46.980 If you, you know, and I've said this, I'm, I am neutral. I don't believe we should be supporting
00:32:51.620 either side. But if you're trying, if you are one of those that believes we ought to be helping Ukraine
00:32:55.760 win, they ain't doing it. They ain't, they purposely are not helping, trying to help Ukraine win. And I
00:33:01.740 would argue that going the other way, when you examine the lack of focus on what we know we should be
00:33:08.740 focused on, it's a, it should be concerning all Americans. And as Gordon said, as you said,
00:33:14.480 Lou, we, during the, the, the, the between war years of 1920 to 1940, there was at least exercises
00:33:24.480 done to examine what would happen. And as much as I disagree with much of FDR's policies, at least he
00:33:30.680 had allowed the military to move forward with being prepared to go to war. And I know that he's
00:33:36.460 supposedly wanted to keep us out of the war. I'm not convinced he actually did, but they at least
00:33:41.620 had put together contingency plans. Something called Plan Orange was the, the, the agreed upon
00:33:47.740 response that we United States would take should Japan do something. We, it was effective. We
00:33:54.080 actually had our military industrial might kind of ramped up and ready to go. By the way, that's one
00:33:58.840 of the reasons we're so far behind is because Russia never fully abandoned a wartime contingency for their
00:34:05.700 economy. They're, they're back on war footing and they're producing all sorts of stuff. We couldn't
00:34:09.560 do that to, to your point and Gordon's point. We have no ability to generate the, an adequate amount
00:34:15.640 of strategic materials or weapons or ammunition to actually meet the needs of the Ukrainians. Think
00:34:21.640 about this. This is, this is not even a full war and we can't meet the requirements, let alone the
00:34:26.400 idea that we would actually take on a near peer or peer as regarding China. So we are not prepared.
00:34:33.220 And I don't think it's by accident. I don't think we're weak by, by inattention, Lou. I think
00:34:39.340 we're weak by policy. It's a policy to be weak at this point in time.
00:34:43.780 Yeah. When, when an administration regime, if you will, the Biden regime annihilates the Southern
00:34:50.900 border invites in whoever would like to cross without, without any kind of inspection. We don't
00:34:58.940 want to slow anyone down as they go to work, you know, God knows where as the Biden administration
00:35:04.220 is, is distributing, uh, all of these millions of people have come in and just two and a half
00:35:11.040 years and millions more expected. Uh, we also have a military that is facing 25% gaps in their recruiting.
00:35:21.620 They haven't, they're not getting the people they need. They're losing the people they desperately
00:35:27.380 need talented, experienced service members, officers, non-coms, as well as enlisted who should
00:35:34.640 be staying. And they're leaving because of the ignorance of this administration. And this is,
00:35:40.420 this is a national news media that is complicit. This is a Republican party that has been acquiescent.
00:35:47.520 And all of this blame cannot simply be put at the feet of Joe Biden, although he is the principal
00:35:53.320 actor. It is also the, the Marxist Dem led democratic party. And as I said, the quiescent, uh, retiring,
00:36:02.380 uh, rhino Republicans, uh, who have just basically knelt down, uh, before these idiotic policies and lack
00:36:10.760 of strategies. Your thought, Gordon. Yeah. I'd like to just pick up on what you said about the border
00:36:16.940 Lou, because, you know, we're seeing an unprecedented surge of Chinese migrants. You know, most of them
00:36:23.520 are who they say they are. They just, they've given up on China and they want to move someplace else.
00:36:29.620 And, you know, these are not poor Chinese. These are people who can afford to pay $35,000 ahead to
00:36:35.280 the cartels in addition to other costs of getting here. But among that group, Lou, are packs of males of
00:36:42.880 military age. They're groups traveling in groups between five and 15. Um, some are known to have
00:36:49.460 Chinese military affiliations. They're pretending not to speak English. And some of them are engaging
00:36:55.780 in Chinese military rituals. Um, and these folks are just being led into the United States. Um,
00:37:03.800 I don't think there's any efforts to track them once they're, um, let's say, get through the border
00:37:08.840 processing. And by the way, we are starting to see Chinese migrants trying to sneak into Guam
00:37:14.560 where they're, um, critical American military installations that would, uh, be, uh, involved
00:37:21.480 in a war in Asia. So, um, the Biden administration is just allowing these individuals to come in the
00:37:27.540 United States. And these are saboteurs. I believe these are the people who are going to be assassinating
00:37:33.400 our officials and blowing up our grid, poisoning our water, detonating bombs in shopping centers,
00:37:40.760 releasing pathogens, and God knows what else. Well, Tony, uh, your concluding thoughts, uh,
00:37:47.120 is, is we, you both wrap up, uh, uh, this episode of the great America show. We appreciate you both
00:37:54.200 being with us, Tony, take it away. So I agree with everything Gordon just said. We have to recognize
00:37:59.300 the Chinese decided as a policy, PRC has decided as a policy, they're at war with us. It doesn't
00:38:04.240 matter what we think, it's what they think. And we are not responding adequately to understand
00:38:08.160 there's a existential threat that we are ignoring. Um, and not only is Gordon correct regarding the
00:38:13.660 immigration, migration, uh, into the country illegal or otherwise by the Chinese. The one thing
00:38:20.000 that we continue to ignore that every community in the United States is being affected by is what I
00:38:25.260 call the mass weapon of weapon of mass destruction called fentanyl. Not a single community is, is,
00:38:31.460 has been immune from it. People are dying, uh, in numbers that are unimaginable. And, and to me,
00:38:37.740 that's an act of war, but it seems to me we're only a handful of us are talking about the realities
00:38:44.100 which we face rather than, uh, the fiction that the Biden administration seems to be, uh, pushing on
00:38:49.920 the American people. So I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you and with you, Lou and Gordon.
00:38:55.120 I, I, God bless you, Gordon. I always appreciate our time together talking about this, but I wish,
00:39:00.620 I hope we can continue to try to wake people up to the real issues and threats we actually do face
00:39:05.960 as a nation. Well, we're certainly going to keep trying. Tony Schaefer. Thanks so much. Gordon
00:39:10.120 Chang. Thank you very much. And we appreciate it. God bless you both. Thanks, Lou. Tony Schaefer,
00:39:16.740 Gordon Chang. Thank you both for taking the time to close out the week with us here on the Great
00:39:20.760 America show. Our guests next week include Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, former DC police
00:39:26.680 chief Stephen Sund, who witnessed January 6th up close. Businessman Chris Tagani, who went to prison
00:39:34.180 because he donated to the Bidens, prosecuted by the same U.S. attorney who gave Hunter Biden a pass.
00:39:41.880 Please join us. It's a big week next week. Follow me on Twitter and Truth Social at Lou Dobbs.
00:39:46.780 That's at Lou Dobbs. And on Facebook and Instagram at Lou Dobbs tonight. That's at Lou Dobbs tonight. And be
00:39:54.540 sure to check out our all new website, loudobs.com for all your latest news and headlines. Thanks,
00:40:01.100 everybody. God bless you. May God bless America.