The Great America Show - March 03, 2022


BIDEN THE WRONG MAN AT THE WRONG TIME


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

162.89413

Word Count

9,082

Sentence Count

580

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

26


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Great America podcast with Lou Dobbs,
00:00:04.200 always in the fight for truth, justice, and yes, our American way of life.
00:00:09.240 And now here he is, the Peabody award-winning voice of truth, the great Lou Dobbs.
00:00:14.400 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Great America show. The UN has passed a resolution
00:00:19.460 condemning Vladimir Putin and Russia, even as the Russians have raised the level of the firepower
00:00:26.600 they're directing against Kiev and other major cities in Ukraine. One of those cities in southern
00:00:33.420 Ukraine, the strategic port city of Karsin, initially claimed by Russian media to have been
00:00:39.960 taken by the invaders, but that claim has now been disputed by the city's mayor. Another port city,
00:00:47.360 Maripol, has been under attack since the Russian invasion began. Heavy casualties are being reported
00:00:54.120 and the fight goes on. Russian warships appear to have been directed to attack another port city,
00:01:01.420 Odessa, just east of Moldova. All of Ukraine is a battleground and civilian casualties are now rising
00:01:09.400 dramatically as Putin unleashes more of his forces on the badly outnumbered Ukrainians.
00:01:16.860 President Biden, in his State of the Union speech, addressed the Russian invasion and announced further
00:01:22.340 sanctions would be leveled against both Putin and Russia, and Biden ordered a ban against Russian
00:01:28.960 aircraft in U.S. airspace. Today, we'll hear from two great Americans, and you'll find them, I believe,
00:01:36.420 very interesting guests. They are doctor and worldwide media star, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for the U.S.
00:01:44.360 Senate in Pennsylvania, and first-term congressman from the state of Florida, a member of the Freedom
00:01:50.520 Caucus, who attended the State of the Union, Congressman Byron Donalds. We began today with
00:01:57.520 Congressman Donalds. Congressman, it is great to have you with us. Congressman Byron Donalds,
00:02:03.560 how does that sound after your first term? You've still got a little ways to go to complete that
00:02:09.940 first term, but how does it feel right now? You know, honestly, it feels surreal. Sometimes
00:02:15.120 I'm walking in the chamber, I'm walking in a committee room, or even last night at the State
00:02:22.160 of the Union, actually being on the floor while the State of the Union is happening. It's still
00:02:27.620 kind of an out-of-body experience. It sounds good, but I'm just trying to do my job on behalf of the
00:02:34.080 people who sent me, and I try not to get, you know, too overwhelmed by it. Right. Well, I'm confident
00:02:40.240 that you won't ever be, and I have to, but I just was thinking about being there for the, you know,
00:02:48.140 the first, you know, the first term has got to be both impressive and absolutely inspiring,
00:02:57.740 uh, and, and to, at the same time, be trying to keep the swamp at arm's length as best you possibly
00:03:04.940 can. Uh, have you been able to, are you, let me ask you another way. Do you see a side of the
00:03:12.640 swamp? Does the swamp try to, uh, influence you? Um, I'm, I don't think so. To be honest, I haven't
00:03:21.200 really paid much attention to, to the swamp itself. I mean, you kind of know it's here, like everybody's
00:03:26.060 trying to get influence with you, and I think that's kind of what happens. I think what the
00:03:30.600 real issue up here is that if, as an elected official, if you don't come to Washington with
00:03:37.660 your political philosophy basically locked in and you understand who you are and what you're about,
00:03:44.800 then this place will influence you into making decisions that you probably wouldn't have made as
00:03:49.500 a regular citizen, and I think that's more what it, what it's about. I think anybody who runs for
00:03:54.200 a political office, you have to know who you are from a political perspective. You got to know,
00:03:59.460 uh, what, what are, what are the policies that you support? You got to know the ones you oppose.
00:04:06.140 I think you really have had to take the time to really understand public policy and understand what
00:04:12.440 you're supportive of. And then you come here and then it's easy to talk to lobbyists and other members
00:04:18.360 and staff and, and, and agencies, and they can tell you whatever they want, but you already
00:04:24.200 have your ideals kind of locked in. Not saying that you won't listen to new information, but you have a
00:04:30.200 baseline of where you're, where you're trying to go. And so for me, like my political ideals and
00:04:36.000 principles have largely been set for a decade. So coming here, I don't really feel pressure to join the
00:04:43.500 swamp or anything like that. Like I know who I am. So I'm not dissuaded by all the stuff that happens
00:04:48.760 up here. I think that's a wonderful insight and thank you for sharing it to the Congressman. Uh,
00:04:56.280 I, I happened to, I get this distinct impression. You're a man who knows who he is. And it's been my
00:05:03.860 experience, life experience, that people who know who they are, are the most reliable. Uh, they are
00:05:10.280 people you can count on, uh, and they are not trying to be something they're not because what,
00:05:15.540 what, and who they are, uh, is, uh, who they mean to be. If I, if I can put it that way, uh, and I'm
00:05:22.780 delighted for you. And I, and I think the times, uh, that this nation is in, uh, we need more, uh, more
00:05:29.500 folks just like you, uh, representing the people I'd like to turn to last night, as you were talking
00:05:35.440 about being on the floor there, uh, that the president's speech, uh, your reaction to it,
00:05:42.460 uh, in every sense that, uh, what made the greatest impression to you?
00:05:48.160 It was bizarre. It just, it was devoid of all reality. I think if you're looking at where the
00:05:53.820 country is without partisanship, and then you listen to what the president said, you have no idea
00:06:01.900 what he was talking about. You know, I think he tried to, in the speech, obviously they started
00:06:07.200 with Ukraine. I think they try to give him a platform to stand on because coming into the
00:06:13.500 chamber, this, this president has had the worst first year of any president in American history.
00:06:20.520 And he's on the fast track to keep quickly on the fast track to being the worst president the
00:06:26.020 country's ever had. I mean, I, I think most of the country is already there. And so,
00:06:31.900 the president came in and basically tried to ignore all of the problems he's created.
00:06:38.100 And he threw out populist slogans to try to make it seem that he was moderating.
00:06:44.000 But then when he got into specifics, the specifics were left-wing policy again.
00:06:49.700 Yeah.
00:06:50.020 So I don't really know what he was trying to accomplish except, except trying to save his
00:06:53.880 poll numbers because you have a Democrat president who's polling at 35, 37%.
00:06:59.500 And considering the fact that big media has largely covered for him and not exposed his
00:07:06.140 disastrous policies to the American people is if they did that, he'd be polling at 12 to
00:07:12.420 15%. That's how bad he is at his job.
00:07:16.060 Yeah. Well, you and I saw the same event. We saw the same fella and we, we obviously saw the
00:07:23.160 same performance. I, if I think at any point, anyone had closed their eyes, they would have
00:07:30.160 thought that this man was a Trump Republican, not just a Republican, but a Trump Republican,
00:07:36.120 because when he started talking about the economy, when he started talking about manufacturing,
00:07:43.760 coming back to this country, hiring American, buying American, making American, I swear he sounded
00:07:51.560 like he was channeling Donald Trump or perhaps worse plagiarizing Donald Trump. His ideas weren't
00:08:00.160 original. That's one problem. But then to just simply take Donald Trump's agenda, which turned
00:08:07.880 this country around in the course of four years, despite opposition from every quarter, he didn't
00:08:14.060 even give Donald Trump one ounce of credit for the words that he was uttering the program that he was
00:08:20.400 copying. I mean, he never will, because right now the Democrats' entire agenda is bash Trump. And if you
00:08:28.420 just blame him enough, the American people will just forget their idiocy. The problem is, is that the
00:08:33.720 American people aren't dumb. Donald Trump's not president of the United States. Everybody knows this.
00:08:38.720 Donald Trump's not even tweeting because the social media companies blocked him. And so he's not in
00:08:45.420 the center of the political discussion right now. Joe Biden is. And what has been crystal clear through
00:08:52.020 15 months is that Joe Biden is the wrong man at the wrong time leading the country. And everybody
00:08:59.840 basically agrees with that. It was awful. And then to suggest he's going to beat the opiate epidemic in
00:09:08.200 this country by handing out crack pipes. He has no sense of his own absurdity and irony, does he?
00:09:15.360 He really does. And I mean, look, if you really want to really tackle the opioid epidemic,
00:09:19.380 I mean, that's bringing back political talking points from six to eight years ago. But the reality
00:09:25.780 is we have a fentanyl epidemic in the United States. And illegal fentanyl or illicit fentanyl is being
00:09:33.060 manufactured in Mexico by the drug cartels. And they are trafficking it into the United States
00:09:39.640 at record paces because the border is wide open. And so he threw out there, secured the border.
00:09:46.780 But then he talks about expanding the DREAM Act and bringing more DREAMers to the United States. So I'm
00:09:52.900 looking at my colleagues like, well, you just allowed two million people to come into the country
00:09:57.280 illegally, illegally last year, most of them children. So are this going to be the new crop
00:10:03.620 of DREAMers now that he's going to stick into this new DREAM Act? It's that kind of stuff that came
00:10:08.160 from him last night, where a lot of the times he would say something and the Republican members are
00:10:13.580 looking at each other like, wait, what did he just say? Like, is this guy serious? Like this guy,
00:10:19.140 he makes no sense at all. And the worst one to me, talking about oil, oil and energy policy,
00:10:25.260 where he was going to release 60 million barrels from strategic reserves, that's a drop in the
00:10:31.420 bucket and everybody knows it. It's completely unserious because he wants to look like he's
00:10:37.540 doing something, again, to save his poll numbers, but he can't go away from the radical policies of
00:10:43.580 the left. And I don't want to say go away. These are his policies now. They're not even Bernie Sanders
00:10:47.900 anymore. Now they're his. He can't walk away from his own crazy Bernie liberal policies.
00:10:54.160 It's really true. And when you talk about the drop in a bucket, 60 million barrels,
00:11:02.020 half of it coming from America, why should half of it come from America? But let's go ahead and
00:11:08.020 throw in 30 million barrels. That's a couple of days worth of oil for this country and not going to
00:11:15.540 have much of an impact at all. Let's turn to some of the other aspects of that speech and
00:11:22.600 the most difficult, really. And that was when he referenced Ukraine and his view of the
00:11:29.500 Russian invasion of Ukraine. His hatred, his rhetoric about Vladimir Putin was palpable,
00:11:38.000 but he stood there as if he was the strong man who was making the decisions about the fate of the free
00:11:46.340 world. But in point of fact, his administration has been, in point of fact, silent and absent
00:11:53.460 at the times when leadership was needed most in this crisis. Your reaction to his, both his tone,
00:12:04.580 his demeanor, and what he has actually done in the crisis.
00:12:09.560 Well, his tone and his demeanor was a tough guy. But the truth of the matter is he's been weak.
00:12:16.680 He's been weak on the world stage of his entire presidency. Listen, it's not a shock in my view
00:12:23.700 what's happened. Vladimir Putin has been stationing troops on the Ukrainian border for six months.
00:12:29.600 Joe Biden didn't do anything. He was too busy worrying about Build Back Better and to worry about
00:12:34.120 the threat of Russia when it comes not just to Ukraine, but its position in world's energy,
00:12:40.720 oil, and natural gas markets. But he's done nothing except help Vladimir Putin to have the
00:12:46.580 resources to bring war to Ukraine. And that's been through the Green New Deal, which he signed back up
00:12:53.080 for, which Donald Trump was right to get us out of. He put us back in it. He did it with canceling
00:12:59.100 oil leases on federal lands. He did it with canceling the Keystone pipeline, costing thousands
00:13:04.540 of jobs in the oil patch. He did it with green lighting Nord Stream 2, which demonstrated to
00:13:10.020 Vladimir Putin he was going to have a free hand when it comes to energy control over Europe. He did
00:13:15.060 it with a disastrous debacle in Afghanistan, where we lost 13 men and women of our military in that
00:13:21.520 withdrawal. And so you have a situation where a guy who's been weak on the world stage, who literally
00:13:28.000 four days ago was tepid in his remarks about what sanctions actually meant. He sent Kamala Harris
00:13:36.340 out there. She goes out saying these sanctions are supposed to help stop or they're designed to
00:13:41.220 stop Russian aggression. And he came out the next day and said, oh, no, no, these sanctions are going
00:13:45.440 to take time. Nobody thinks it's going to stop Russia. So you have a guy who literally, again,
00:13:51.380 failed on the world stage, failed to lead. Now he wanted to talk tough. And I think it's important
00:13:57.240 for people to understand. He wanted to talk tough because it was the people of Ukraine and their
00:14:02.680 resilience. It was the leadership of President Zelensky. It was the fact that you have Russian
00:14:08.620 people in Moscow protesting the Russian invasion, and they're getting arrested by Russian police and
00:14:15.660 beaten by Russian police. It's the fact that you now have Hollywood and liberal icons all coming out
00:14:22.720 against Russian actions in Ukraine. And because everybody else has taken a leadership role,
00:14:29.060 the president of the United States is now last to the party. And the only way he can get ahead of the
00:14:34.360 parade is to talk tough in the state of the union. But nobody takes it seriously. I mean, I appreciate
00:14:40.680 he's finally gotten to the party, but the man is not a leader. He's a follower. He's a politician.
00:14:46.640 He's no leader. And he is Barack Obama's partner. Barack Obama. He's Obama 2.0. Obama did the same
00:14:57.520 thing with respect to the Russians and his presidency. Same thing happened. The Ukrainians
00:15:03.400 wanted weapons. Obama gave them blankets. The Russians see this. They take Crimea. This ain't hard stuff.
00:15:11.120 No, you're exactly right. And this president was just, again, dishonest throughout because he didn't
00:15:21.520 acknowledge any of the critical judgments that were being applied as he spoke. The American people are
00:15:28.880 not the fools that he must think we are to not understand that the American people know what Russia
00:15:37.500 is. We know what Ukraine is. We know what the European Union is. We actually know where Ukraine
00:15:42.540 is because many people in this country have got Ukrainians for neighbors, for one thing. But the
00:15:49.940 other is it's not our first time around. As you say, 2014, Crimea is annexed by Vladimir Putin. Now, 2022,
00:15:59.140 we're watching the same thing play out. I have mixed feelings because on the one hand, I would like
00:16:05.500 America to lead here as we have since World War II. But I don't know that this man is capable of
00:16:13.120 leading anything, let alone the free world. Your thoughts?
00:16:17.800 I mean, honestly, my thoughts are that I'm just not sure that Joe Biden has it in them to lead the
00:16:24.340 world or lead America, for that matter. I think that what we're seeing in NATO with the NATO nations
00:16:29.960 is that they realize that if they don't pick it up, nobody's going to be coming to bail them out.
00:16:33.840 Not in this administration. It's just not clear. And so I think what's really going to happen now
00:16:39.640 is, I mean, Germany already made an announcement. They're going to go back and explore for oil so
00:16:44.240 they can become more energy independent as opposed to depending on Russia, things of that nature. I
00:16:49.160 think all that's a good thing. But look, the reality is, I go back to it, Lou. I shake my head. I'm
00:16:56.100 trying to find another way to describe this. There just isn't. Joe Biden is the worst president we've
00:17:01.500 ever had. And at a time where Russia is on the move, China is on the move, the Iranians are moving
00:17:07.840 at warp speed to get a nuclear bomb. The North Koreans are firing hypersonic missiles. The North
00:17:13.880 Koreans are firing hypersonic missiles. We're just going to have to do the best we can in the United
00:17:19.720 States to tread water until we get a new president and a new commander in chief.
00:17:23.340 And I'm not sure, Congressman, we have time to tread water. I agree with you. I just don't
00:17:31.420 know how much time we've got. When I hear people say, well, things will be better in the November
00:17:35.060 elections, I think we've got to get to November for things to get better. People say that we've
00:17:42.160 got to get to 2024 so Trump can take over. I'm all for that. I just wonder, can we get to 2024?
00:17:49.620 Your thoughts? I think we can. And I think the reason why we can't get there is because
00:17:57.000 the American people are just so either A, mad, B, bewildered, C, frustrated with what's happened in
00:18:06.380 the White House that Joe Biden has no leg to stand on. And I think that's indicative of what happened
00:18:11.540 last night in the speech. He couldn't point to one thing that he did that you can celebrate,
00:18:17.460 not one. And so because of that, the Democrats are really backed into a corner. We think we're
00:18:23.300 going to get pretty large majorities in the House. I think we'll probably win three Senate seats
00:18:27.260 in November. It could be four, depending on what happens in some of these states.
00:18:32.180 But the reality is that the American president, unfortunately, has no political credibility
00:18:39.340 and no credibility whatsoever to actually lead. And that actually puts him into a box
00:18:44.560 where I believe he might be forced to at least make some of the basic decisions
00:18:48.560 necessary for America to tread water. But a lot of this stuff, you know, we talk so much about the
00:18:53.900 consent of the governed. And it actually does hold very true in the United States. You have a president
00:19:00.160 who literally has almost no support, except for the locked in Democrats in his party. But other than
00:19:07.920 that, nobody's supporting him. And even a president of the United States feels that pressure. And I think
00:19:13.180 it's a good thing that they do feel that pressure in our country.
00:19:16.400 I do, too. And I think that he's beginning to understand he can't act as if he won some sort
00:19:23.260 of mandate. And his references to wanting to pass the easier vote law. You know, I laughed last night
00:19:33.060 because here's a man who ostensibly at least won 81 million votes, and he wants people to be able to
00:19:42.380 vote more. It's really if 81 million doesn't represent his support that I don't know what the
00:19:50.040 world's going on, because I can't see how he got even, you know, three fourths of that. It's just
00:19:57.680 ridiculous to me. But again, ironic. Your sense of electoral integrity as we head toward November
00:20:05.960 in these midterms, you said three senators. We've got, at this point, 435 seats up for election.
00:20:15.700 The Republicans have an advantage historically. Typically, the party out of power wins 26 seats
00:20:23.780 in these midterms and four to five seats in the Senate. Your judgment about what the likely outcome
00:20:34.760 will be? I mean, honestly, I think we probably win 25 to 30 seats in the House. I think people would
00:20:41.540 say, well, why wouldn't you win more? And that's because we're only down five, maybe six seats in a
00:20:46.560 House now. Right. Typically, when you have a big swing, like there's a deficit between the majority
00:20:52.680 and minority parties of about 20 to 30 seats. But we're really, really close. That's why I think my
00:20:58.100 number is 25 to 30. I think in the Senate, I think Mark Kelly loses in Arizona. I think Warnock
00:21:04.500 loses in Georgia. I think those are the two definite. The third, I'm just throwing out a third
00:21:10.280 senator just because of how bad things are for Joe Biden and the Democrats. Something's going to happen.
00:21:14.360 I just got to I just see that as the inertia. But let me boil it down to you this way.
00:21:18.000 My cousin texted me last night after the State of the Union. Now, my cousin is a Democrat. We never
00:21:26.720 talk politics. He's been a Democrat as long as I known him. He texted me last night. Let's go. Let's
00:21:32.840 go, Brandon. Trump 2024. Well, my cousin is a Democrat. Text me something like that. It's going to be a bad
00:21:40.460 November for Democrats. People have made up their minds already on this president and on the Democrat
00:21:45.820 party. Something that typically doesn't happen. But people have made up their mind.
00:21:51.160 Yeah, it's it's that's a wonderful story. And I have to say that my cousins, I don't want to know
00:22:00.600 their politics for fear that they might be a Democrat. They for sure know mine. I've got to ask
00:22:06.660 you one question as we wrap up here, Congressman. Will we get a speaker from the Freedom Caucus this time?
00:22:13.700 That's not going to happen. I just to be blunt with you, I don't think that's going to happen.
00:22:20.640 I think, look, the one thing I will tell you is that, you know, obviously, you know, Kevin McCarthy,
00:22:25.580 he's the leader in the clubhouse as, you know, so to speak right now. You know, I think Kevin's going
00:22:30.540 to get the nod. But this is a very different Republican conference than from the Tea Party
00:22:36.740 wave a decade ago. Like when the Tea Party wave came in, you know, the guys who were, you know,
00:22:42.000 committed constitutionalists, there might have been 40, 50 of them, maybe. But you came into
00:22:48.240 a conference of 220 Republicans. So at that time, there was never a band of quote unquote
00:22:55.280 conservatives who were going to be tied to the Constitution no matter what. And they were in
00:23:00.740 a conference where, you know, most of the GOP was still inside the beltway, you know, go along
00:23:07.820 to get along, cut deals, kind of conference. Country club Republicans. Oh, yeah. I'm telling
00:23:15.140 you now, half the Republican conference are conservatives. Half of them. And it's a very
00:23:21.440 different environment than when Speaker Boehner or Speaker Ryan were in charge. I think that
00:23:26.780 Leader McCarthy, I think he understands, you know, what the conference looks like. And looking at some
00:23:33.240 of the people who are running primaries, obviously, Texas had their primaries last night, looking at
00:23:37.620 some of the candidates who are winning primaries, they are looking much more like America first
00:23:43.180 conservatives than they are just country club Republicans looking to come to D.C. and have
00:23:48.720 steak dinners. Hallelujah. Different breed. Different breed is coming to D.C.
00:23:53.200 That is, you know, that's that's music to my ears. I and I have a very good feeling about the
00:24:02.560 prospects. I hope that your your outlook, your forecast is the one that's delivered in November.
00:24:10.580 I think the American people do now, too, because there's without question, as you alluded to in
00:24:16.700 talking about the president's approval ratings down now to 37 percent, 38 percent. These are historic
00:24:23.140 lows and and reflect a country that knows we're in serious trouble in our leadership in our
00:24:31.620 direction. So this Democratic Party is is dangerous. It is. I am I'm not quite happy. I'm not quite
00:24:43.920 there yet in terms of feeling that the electoral our electoral system is secure. I want no more
00:24:52.500 cheating and I want no more Republicans being fools when it comes to that election night. It's election
00:25:00.980 day and we count them at night. And I want the Republicans to be in every polling booth. I want them in
00:25:08.180 every polling station and I want them to know what's going on. And that means we're going to need a new
00:25:13.480 Republican National Committee dedicated to making that happen. In my opinion, we always give our guests the last
00:25:20.560 word on on the Great America show. Congressman, have at it. Honestly, we talked about so much. I'm just happy to be
00:25:29.040 on big fan. Been watching you for years and, you know, just glad to be on your show and I'll come back
00:25:35.800 anytime. I've enjoyed our talk and I will assure you we will impose on you regularly to come back and keep
00:25:44.960 us keep us alert to what is happening on Capitol Hill and, of course, the surrounding swamp. I have
00:25:51.600 to say I've truly enjoyed our talk and I wish you all the very best. Congressman Byron Donalds, thanks so
00:25:58.720 much. And our next guest now is Dr. Oz, host of the Emmy Award winning worldwide The Dr. Oz Show. Heart
00:26:06.640 surgeon. He's performed thousands of heart operations. He's married, father of four, and a
00:26:12.320 conservative Republican. And now he's a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. Welcome to
00:26:19.200 The Great America Show, Dr. Oz. Now I know this is on the minds of everyone. What made you decide to go
00:26:26.780 into politics and run for office? You know, I've always run towards problems. I think it's common for
00:26:32.600 physicians. We've certainly done topics together where you witnessed that. The reality is I would
00:26:38.900 wake up at the middle of the night and look at the ceiling and wonder what happened. Why are we in
00:26:42.980 such a crisis in the country? It became particularly acute during COVID, where because I understood very
00:26:48.640 specifically what was happening, I also appreciated the gargantuan limitations to our instinctual response,
00:26:55.980 in part because the idea of an authoritarian federal overreach had gotten acceptable to so many
00:27:03.400 Americans. Now, Republicans, of course, bristled at this idea, but the mainstream media, certainly the
00:27:09.120 Democratic Party, the far left members of it in particular, embraced, endorsed the idea that we
00:27:15.180 would remove individualism and the idea of customized care for an illness like COVID, and instead expect the
00:27:20.620 government to boss us around and dictate what needed to happen. Part of the reason I've asked for
00:27:25.160 Dr. Fauci to resign, or at least debate me, is because I saw so many errors that came out of this
00:27:30.380 arrogant belief that that was the best way to manage a crisis. Now, it's not just true for COVID. The same
00:27:36.320 reality is readily apparent in our approach to energy policy in America, to our budget, to paying people
00:27:42.320 not to work, to our approach to schools and values, all the things that get so many Americans worked up these
00:27:48.060 days. Well, and worked up they should be, because this is a government that, frankly, is not working for the
00:27:54.600 people, let alone requiring our consent before handing down fiats, edicts, and executive orders,
00:28:02.420 instead of moving through our representative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
00:28:09.040 You're exactly right. This authoritarianism has been building and building within our, certainly,
00:28:18.320 our federal government for decades now. But it has come to a point where there is no constraint. There
00:28:25.540 is no, even so much as a hesitation on the part of the central federal government to say, this is the
00:28:33.180 way it is, and tell us whether it's a mask mandate, whether it is a vaccine demand, irrespective of what
00:28:41.260 the science is, or in the case of the CDC, withholding nearly all of the data about the vaccines and how
00:28:53.640 they are working on our population, on our citizenry. Can we change that really very quickly?
00:29:01.960 It can be changed rapidly if we have the right leadership. We don't have that right now, as you
00:29:07.960 saw from the State of the Union address. But if you just look at the CDC and how it's become
00:29:13.420 politicized, and this is something that, you know, in the very beginning of COVID, we didn't know what
00:29:17.960 we were dealing with. We knew that we weren't prepared, that we didn't have testing kits. We didn't
00:29:23.720 really know how fast the virus was spreading. The Chinese had lied to us about whether it was able to
00:29:29.520 be passed in an air-sized fashion, which means it can be passed from breath to breath. But all that
00:29:35.860 aside, we pretty quickly began to figure it out. We're smart, right? And we began to, and my show
00:29:40.820 is in 100 countries, so I would ask around to the other countries and say, what are you guys doing
00:29:45.100 for COVID? And frequently, I'd hear responses like, well, you know, hydroxychloroquine, that seems to
00:29:50.520 work. We don't know for sure, but we're testing it, and you're marching to war with the tools you have,
00:29:55.520 with the weapons you have. You don't get to choose all the time. So as I began to speaking
00:29:59.400 about it, I saw President Trump brought it up, and boom, all of a sudden, the entire medical
00:30:04.200 community, folks in the mainstream media, began to heavily lobby against a 70-year-old medication
00:30:11.000 that beforehand had been thought to be safe and very valuable. Then I began to realize, my goodness,
00:30:15.780 when you mix medicine and politics, you get politics. They stuffed out the actual medicine,
00:30:21.700 and people like Dr. Fauci built on that. It's the same approach to schools, where I would look to
00:30:27.640 European communities and say, well, they're keeping their schools open. Those parents love their kids.
00:30:32.380 How come we're not keeping our schools open here two years later? We learned that there were huge
00:30:36.980 errors in the management of kids in particular, where we not only closed schools, which particularly
00:30:42.340 hurt the underprivileged members of our community who had to, therefore, stay home and take care of
00:30:46.740 their kids. But also, it hurt their learning. We put masks on kids, really, without any evidence that
00:30:52.980 made a meaningful difference. The data that was shared was so flawed. It was unusable, according to
00:30:58.040 colleagues of mine and myself. Medical experts got isolated. We were marginalized, canceled,
00:31:03.680 even for putting our hands up into the air and raising a concern.
00:31:06.680 It was interesting to see the speech last night by the president at the State of the Union. I, at times,
00:31:14.920 Dr. Oz, thought, who is this man, and what is he trying to do? What were your reactions
00:31:22.640 to him and his speech last night?
00:31:27.460 I mean, he sees the world in a vastly different way than the way the rest of us, at least the people
00:31:33.940 that I have spending time with now that I'm campaigning in the primary for the Republican
00:31:37.920 Senate seat in Pennsylvania. I mean, people that I'm with see what's happened as a disaster over
00:31:43.400 the past year. And these destructive policies, they've led to record inflation and gas prices.
00:31:49.400 You know, I made a TikTok about gas prices and asked, you know, asked, just as a doctor would,
00:31:55.680 very honestly, Joe Biden, why is it high? And what can we do to reduce these gas prices?
00:32:01.480 It got 2 million views immediately. TikTok took it down. I don't know why, because I just was
00:32:08.480 asking a challenging question, but it was just a basic question. I reposted it, got 7.5 million
00:32:14.140 more views by asking, why doesn't TikTok want you to see this question? It speaks to the reality
00:32:19.560 that you mentioned earlier, which is we have stifled discussion, and it is a bit Orwellian,
00:32:24.300 that we can't push the buttons that might bother people. But what I expected President Biden to say
00:32:30.900 was, we've got a problem with inflation. We're going to get our spending under control to address
00:32:35.020 that. And we have a brand new program that I want to announce for energy, that we're going to make
00:32:39.620 sure that from now on, we're not going to allow, you know, ideologues to block the ability of America
00:32:46.000 to pull out energy from under the grounds that we stand on. Like here in Pennsylvania, we have
00:32:50.820 enough natural gas to power the whole country and supply our allies in Europe. We're not going to
00:32:55.100 make the mistakes that were made that allowed Putin to take or invade the Ukraine. He said none of
00:33:00.940 that. And that's what I, that's like the simple low-lying fruit that I would anticipate that he
00:33:05.360 would have addressed. The language of his speech, I thought was sophomoric, pedestrian, mediocrity would
00:33:13.360 be high praise. What I think of what his speechwriters produce there. I just, I cannot believe
00:33:22.100 that the Democrats do not understand what they've done to this country and the world. I was talking
00:33:29.500 with Dr. Ronnie Jackson, former physician to three presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald
00:33:41.260 Trump. He is deeply concerned about the mental health of the man, his cognitive ability, and has urged that
00:33:48.900 he take a test. Now, if you recall, back, I believe it was 2018, the Democrats started the drumbeat to
00:33:57.060 have the President Trump take a cognitive test. He did so immediately. And according to Dr. Jackson,
00:34:04.280 scored, you know, brilliantly on it. Or I think as President Trump would say, wonderfully on it.
00:34:11.120 But, but why is there just quiet, deaf, deafening silence, if you will?
00:34:20.680 I don't know. There's been arguments that maybe all members of our leadership should take cognitive
00:34:26.440 tests, just routinely as a screen, just, you know. But, you know, I'll sign on for that.
00:34:33.460 I think there's more.
00:34:38.120 So if the, if the President isn't to take a cognitive test, did you discern any, any eloquence
00:34:45.220 whatsoever in what he said? Any rational, original thinking? Or did you see, as I saw, more plagiarism
00:34:54.200 and that plagiarizing Donald Trump, whether it's just a dozen issues, whether it be energy, whether
00:35:04.700 he just international relations, even he's aping President Trump's agenda. And without credit.
00:35:15.040 Well, my biggest concerns were that we weren't echoing what some of the Europeans now are finally
00:35:21.600 saying. They're waking up. The German Chancellor, for example, acknowledged, basically, that their
00:35:26.480 policy of unilaterally disarming by not allowing energy to be produced in their country. They've
00:35:31.940 closed their nuclear plants. They've not really wisely managed their relationship with Russia.
00:35:37.640 You know, Russians have threatened to hold Europe hostage, right? They've threatened to shut down
00:35:41.600 pipelines going through the Ukraine. The solution was to build a pipeline around the Ukraine. Well,
00:35:45.440 that doesn't solve the problem because, you know, the Russians can shut that down, too. The fact that
00:35:49.700 you're completely dependent on another country for energy is a unwise place to be if you're the leader
00:35:54.520 of a free and sovereign country. Now, our nation, thankfully, has plenty of energy. But we are,
00:35:59.660 and I've been talking to energy producers here in Pennsylvania, Lou, they all have the same
00:36:03.640 complaint. There are these ideological arguments against energy, period. So folks, lawyers, activists,
00:36:12.800 not elected bureaucrats, will make rules almost purposely designed to stifle the process of free
00:36:20.080 enterprise allowing energy to be produced. Well, what that does is it weakens the ability of Americans
00:36:25.840 to be autonomous, to be able to control our destiny. All of a sudden, we fall prey. We cannot ship
00:36:32.620 natural gas from Pennsylvania to any of New England and to New Jersey because of individual rules that
00:36:39.540 were created that are not part of a broad national agenda of keeping us strong. And for that reason,
00:36:46.000 where does New England get its energy from? Well, they import their natural gas from Columbia.
00:36:51.040 Is that better for the planet? No, because you've got to ship the gas up, right? Liquefy it and ship it.
00:36:56.060 And we're actually importing oil from Russia, which funds Putin. Now, even the people serving me food in the
00:37:02.800 diners in Pennsylvania know this so well, they'll sit down and lecture me on it. It's widely appreciated.
00:37:07.860 And yet we continue to stifle industry, which is why I'm optimistic, Lou, because what I learned when
00:37:12.980 I campaigned is that most people here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but I'm sure it's
00:37:16.820 echoed in other parts of the country, are so confident that they could fix their lives and
00:37:21.160 make their lives better if the government just got out of their way. Imagine that. We have a country
00:37:25.820 which believes the federal government is an impediment to their well-being. The government
00:37:30.320 doesn't even use the basic logic of what it's supposed to do. We have a deal, right? We as citizens
00:37:36.220 follow the law, pay our taxes. The government protects us, enforces the border. They don't do
00:37:40.320 that. With false narratives, they pretend it's not important. In reality, we have got a cartel-run
00:37:44.700 human trafficking operation that's running drugs. Many of those drugs have resulted in 100,000
00:37:50.620 Americans dying this year from opioid addiction. By the way, there have been 25,000 deaths from COVID
00:37:55.820 under the age of 50. So deaths of despair, as has been feared, are already greater than the deaths
00:38:01.380 from COVID in this age group. And those deaths, many of them are from fentanyl, 100,000, all
00:38:11.380 approaching 100,000 deaths in this country last year. And we know that the source of that is China.
00:38:19.380 We also know the source of the Wuhan virus. It is China. There are arguments that are being made,
00:38:25.940 but there are disinformation campaigns about now. It's interesting. And I want to get your opinion on
00:38:31.580 this separately. The source of the virus, now we're trying to get back to the market as the source of
00:38:41.360 this disease. And it's being laid out in very careful, orderly programs of disinformation. And the
00:38:50.280 American public is watching this. And doctors are releasing their so-called studies before there's
00:38:57.400 peer review. What do you make of it all? What are your thoughts about America 2022 not having certain
00:39:07.360 knowledge as to the origin of the virus? It's shameful that we do not know where the virus came from.
00:39:15.280 It's a deliberate effort by the Communist Party leadership in China to inhibit the world from
00:39:21.460 knowing what really happened. There are going to be narratives about it coming from a lab or from
00:39:26.580 a market. But we shouldn't be guessing. We could have known this if we could have gotten access to
00:39:32.440 individuals, to records, to just about anything early on. In fact, we didn't even get straight advice
00:39:38.740 about how the virus was spread from person to person. They knew in Wuhan they had a problem weeks
00:39:44.100 before the rest of the world finally figured it out. And it is horrible that in the modern era,
00:39:51.320 a nation like China would compromise the entire planet by hiding this information. So we can't
00:39:59.040 believe what we hear anymore. We're probably never going to know, Lou, exactly what really happened,
00:40:03.620 which hurts us as scientists and our ability to treat the virus and prevent future ones. But I do know
00:40:09.680 gain-of-function research was funded by Fauci and others in the U.S. government despite beliefs that
00:40:16.060 it was not wise to do. And that might have been involved, who knows, in the creation of a virus
00:40:22.020 which has caused this horrible pandemic. You know, I agree with you all the way across. I do think that
00:40:31.780 I know what the source of that virus was based on my own personal individual extrapolation. I don't know
00:40:40.840 if you recall this on my show two years ago. I'm the one who declared the pandemic two weeks before the
00:40:51.160 World Health Organization. And the CDC refused to call it a pandemic when it was obviously so. This is
00:40:58.560 not a complicated definition. Multiple countries, one virus spreading. It was a pandemic to anyone.
00:41:07.740 But I was so furious with the WHO that I just couldn't tolerate it anymore. And guess what? It
00:41:14.640 had doubled in terms of a pandemic within the two weeks that it took then for the WHO to say so.
00:41:22.960 What are we to do with this seeming lapdog attitude on the part of the U.S. federal government
00:41:31.920 to international organizations, particularly public health institutions?
00:41:37.160 Well, I think there's a lot of naivete on the part of our public health leadership. They're not as
00:41:43.480 strong as they should be. Much of that is because we have ignored the importance of these groups. But
00:41:49.300 this is a bigger symptom, I think, Lou, of the weak infrastructure that we've tolerated in America.
00:41:56.380 And if you think about it, what we've done more than anything else is remove the middle layers of
00:42:00.600 connection between local communities and the federal government. Everything that could be done to
00:42:05.080 weaken schools, churches, YMCA's, anything that would, the Boy Scout groups, right, that would allow
00:42:13.440 people to be in community with each other without having to rely on what the federal government told
00:42:17.960 them was gone. So all the governors, the systems that would have slowed down reactions or responses
00:42:25.540 or strengthened and steeled our responses are weakened. And so now we've got basically our federal
00:42:31.280 government talking to the equivalent of a federal government with the WHO, which is clearly influenced
00:42:36.460 in an unfavorable way by China and others. And you have information passing and pinging at that level.
00:42:42.320 But what is the average citizen to do? We don't have wise individuals in our local community to say,
00:42:46.800 hold on, guys, we're not going to shut everything down. We're not going to put masks on kids,
00:42:50.500 on two-year-olds, right, where we know they won't wear it correctly. They don't have the right mask.
00:42:54.880 It probably wouldn't work anyway. And if it did get sick, it probably wouldn't matter most of the time
00:42:58.020 if they're healthy. Because, you know, that's the kind of advice that finally the red states
00:43:02.200 started giving to their people. And it allowed people in red states to succeed despite the
00:43:08.380 pandemic, because they realized it was going to be around for a while. Only now are the blue states
00:43:13.160 beginning to change. And this is really something that should be remembered going forward. Because,
00:43:18.460 you know, when you are unwilling to follow the science, even though you claim you are,
00:43:23.140 that's the hypocrisy. They're not following the science. They're following the political science.
00:43:26.120 Right. But when you're unwilling to actually declare what's your North Star, which is having
00:43:32.820 the integrity to make brave decisions in the face of the knowledge that's coming to you,
00:43:36.640 we end up with what we got, which is people knowing they were lied to. They don't guess they know they
00:43:41.180 were lied to. And that undermines democracy. Because now people start saying, well, how do I know if
00:43:46.260 it's really a law? How do we know if it's a true advice that's based on science? I'm just going to make up
00:43:50.780 my own ideas, which in the pandemic proved to be very harmful, but it could be expanded to many
00:43:56.300 other factors of how we make our decisions today. You know, nothing to me was more harmful than the
00:44:02.660 official guidance that Americans receive during the pandemic. The mask, as you pointed out, the idea
00:44:10.840 that these vaccines could be produced under authorization rather than approval by the FDA,
00:44:19.420 and that now we find out in this latest round that they are terribly ineffective against the current
00:44:28.840 pervasive variant. We have a lot to reconsider and to rethink and to change about our government.
00:44:38.700 But it isn't the country that needs to change, I think, Dr. Oz. I think it is certainly, as you
00:44:43.920 suggest, it is change in our government and the way in which these two parties are governing.
00:44:51.480 I think the most important thing the U.S. government can do at the federal level is to pull back,
00:44:57.900 to try to rein in the avalanche of regulations, again, by unelected middle-level bureaucrats within
00:45:05.940 the government that are not governed by science, often ideologically oriented. They hurt industry.
00:45:11.160 They make life unpredictable. Listen, when the government's coming to visit you, it's never good
00:45:15.820 news anymore. Ideally, the government would once in a while come to you with good news,
00:45:20.240 the plan that makes sense. Point out one idea that the Department of Education has put out there
00:45:25.040 that's actually helped our children in a meaningful way. You hear this, you think, well, maybe what I'm going
00:45:29.380 to do is shrink that group, make it just exchange best practices or something, and send the money
00:45:35.420 out through block grants to all the states so they can decide. But this was the founding father's
00:45:40.100 original vision, the idea of subsidiarity, right? It's a Catholic concept. Push the ideas down to the
00:45:46.000 lowest capable person. That person will make the best decision. The local principal knows more about
00:45:51.380 what to do with their kids than the Department of Education. That's the local gas producer in
00:45:56.340 Western Pennsylvania, knows more about what it takes to motivate him and investors and workers there
00:46:01.800 to pull gas out and provide national security and drive down gas prices. That's not a decision
00:46:08.440 that should be trusted to someone who's making thousand-page rule books that can't be followed
00:46:15.400 except by the biggest of the big companies, and usually only manipulated at that.
00:46:19.900 And it is the essence of this country and our federal system of government in which
00:46:26.040 we do have a hierarchy of governments, and we insist and demand through our Constitution
00:46:32.960 that we recognize the powers and the primacy of local government, of county government and state
00:46:41.500 government, and build a strong and institutionalized respect for those, that federalist system,
00:46:50.320 except for if you happen to be a left-wing Democrat who's really enjoying reading your latest edition
00:46:57.080 of Marxist Ideology. It's really what we're contending with. China was hardly mentioned, and when it was
00:47:05.580 mentioned by the president and his State of the Union, I don't think many people understood what the,
00:47:11.620 put it in very straightforward language, what the hell he was trying to say, but we do know this,
00:47:16.340 that China is our preeminent geopolitical enemy, that the Chinese have killed more Americans
00:47:24.200 than, through the Wuhan virus, than any one of our wars over the course of this country's existence,
00:47:36.140 and there has been no response whatsoever. We know that more people die of fentanyl, which is shipped in
00:47:43.620 here, through Mexico, and killing more Americans every year that have died in Ukraine, that have died
00:47:51.940 in Afghanistan, and what kind of madness is it that permits us to pretend that the boogeyman is Vladimir
00:48:03.780 Putin and not Xi Jinping, even as our entire system right now is predicated and dependent upon
00:48:11.300 the Chinese economy and the Chinese system of government, which is communist.
00:48:20.560 Well, I've had major problems with China, and if you're campaigning here in Pennsylvania,
00:48:26.100 everyone else does too. They know that their jobs were outsourced and taken to China. The Chinese
00:48:32.960 lied and cheated their way to victory on numerous trade initiatives that we've lost the ability to
00:48:39.300 provide basic supply chain integrity because of what China's done. One of my, in fact, my biggest
00:48:45.480 opponents probably in this campaign built the largest hedge fund by a U.S. company ever in China,
00:48:52.280 $1.3 billion, just finished raising the money for it before he announces his candidacy, and I'm pushing
00:48:58.960 him on it because I'm saying, well, that's building up their infrastructure. You invested in that
00:49:03.080 country's success as opposed to ours, and people in Pennsylvania are not going to tolerate that
00:49:08.620 anymore. It is a devastating impact. If I was at a steel mill up in eastern Pennsylvania, and they
00:49:14.420 were saying they have all this high technology stuff, but they can't get nuts and bolts other
00:49:18.880 than from China. Literally, no one else is making them. And so you've got the most fundamental elements
00:49:24.780 of industry no longer made here. The raw materials for our pharmaceuticals. We couldn't get protective
00:49:30.840 gear for our American frontline workers early in the pandemic because they're all made in China.
00:49:37.340 And I have firsthand information that the Chinese told our government that unless you cooled it on
00:49:42.320 blaming us with regard to the origins of the virus, we're going to slow down those shipments,
00:49:47.160 which translated to an intimidation tactic that may have worked, just got everyone off their back for a
00:49:54.520 while. So why? Because they controlled, you know, supplies that we have to have, just like Russia
00:50:00.460 controls energy supplies that we have to have. It is no longer convenient for political leaders and
00:50:07.740 business leaders and legacy media to just embrace the newest woke ideology because, you know, no harm
00:50:13.540 done. There is harm done. You put us in a desperately weakened position by not allowing us to make the
00:50:19.680 difficult decisions to ensure we are strategically able to defend ourselves. There can be
00:50:24.500 no strength. And without strength, you will not have peace. Absolutely. And in that dependency,
00:50:31.480 one dependency that is so critical, and it's a life and death dependency, and that is our outright
00:50:41.140 dependency on China and a handful of other countries, but primarily China for pharmaceutical products,
00:50:49.940 drugs, and pharmaceutical ingredients totally dependent upon them. And there has been no change in that
00:50:58.460 despite the arrival of the China Wuhan virus. Dr. Ross, one last quick question, if I may. I think you had
00:51:08.920 to be impressed that President Biden announced that he was putting together a moonshot to cure cancer and that
00:51:17.060 cancer will no longer, he said, a cancer diagnosis will be a death sentence. I thought I was listening
00:51:26.560 to more of his prattle about civil rights, talking about a history that doesn't exist. Did he miss the last
00:51:36.620 30, 40 years of medical advancements? And brilliant surgeons, brilliant doctors, research scientists who have
00:51:45.140 created more advances against cancer? I mean, it's stunning to me to see the man not give any respect
00:51:54.940 whatsoever to the medical community, which has done incredible things to save lives and to make a cancer
00:52:01.960 diagnosis. Not necessarily a death sentence, as he put it. Well, we have made unbelievable advances.
00:52:12.180 Cancer diagnoses today are much, much more successfully managed than they were when I started my practice.
00:52:17.560 One of the reasons I became a heart surgeon was because generally we were giving people good news.
00:52:21.600 We were fixing the problem. And cancer, unfortunately, when I was training, often did not result in a good
00:52:27.440 outcome. It was sort of palliative, but it's different now. And I got to say the advances that we've made
00:52:33.040 with understanding the genetics of cancer have taken us a whole different level. And I think,
00:52:39.840 and I am optimistic that building on the remarkable success of the last three decades will continue to
00:52:45.140 make a dent in cancer. It's not just one disease, as you know, many elements to it. But that's one of
00:52:51.120 the shining spots of what happens when we allow industry to progress without huge limitations.
00:52:57.360 But I can tell you, just in the treatments themselves, we may make the process so challenging
00:53:02.360 that many companies aren't able to bring their products to market life-saving solutions.
00:53:06.660 They have to go overseas, prove the devices or medications work there, and then come back once
00:53:11.120 they've figured it out. And that's slowed us down during COVID, by the way. The treatments that now we
00:53:15.120 are finally beginning to give patients for outpatient COVID treatment existed. The Mildapiravir,
00:53:20.480 the Merck one, existed before COVID started. We had it before the virus hit our shores. It took this
00:53:26.560 long for the government, which didn't help at all, to get the product approved. In fact,
00:53:31.540 Merck went around the government to make this happen. We don't want the same thing happening in cancer,
00:53:35.580 heart disease, autoimmune ailments, or anything else. Let's get the government on the side of
00:53:39.960 accelerating these treatments, not creating barriers. And it was clear, President Biden,
00:53:45.340 as he does in all things, thinks government is a solution, but in fact, it has stopped
00:53:50.480 more solutions than we will ever know. And your counsel, I think, is exact. So you sound like
00:53:58.980 a real conservative, Dr. Oz. Would you describe yourself as a conservative Republican?
00:54:05.500 Exactly as I describe myself in our ads, in my talks, and everything else I do. My father
00:54:10.220 was an immigrant to this country. He was recruited because, as a doctor, we needed more. And
00:54:15.120 he saw the bright light that this country represented. The unbelievable opportunity my
00:54:19.600 family was given has always been a blessing for my family. But my dad told me when I was eight
00:54:24.280 years of age that we were going to be Republicans. And I asked him why. And he said, because they have
00:54:28.200 better ideas. And I think, as Margaret Thatcher said, paraphrasing her, the realities of life are
00:54:33.140 conservative. So I am a conservative. Well, you're also a great American, and we appreciate it.
00:54:39.320 And we'll continue, I hope, the conversation through your campaign. Always good to talk with
00:54:46.480 you, whether we're talking medicine, whether we're talking science, or America. My favorite
00:54:52.000 subject, and I know yours. Thanks so much, Dr. Oz, for being with us. We appreciate it.
00:54:58.060 God bless.
00:54:58.400 Check out DrOz.com, by the way. It's got all the information on these big rallies you're doing
00:55:02.840 around the state. DrOz.com. That's Dr, spelled out, DrOz.com. DrOz.com. Thanks for being with us,
00:55:12.920 and best of luck. That's DrOz, Dr, spelled out, OZ.com. DrOz.com. And thanks for being with us,
00:55:23.380 and best of luck. And thanks again to Congressman Byron Donalds for being with us today. Thank you
00:55:29.780 all for joining us here. God bless you, and God bless America.
00:55:35.720 Join us again tomorrow for the Great America Podcast. Stay in the fight. Truth, justice,
00:55:40.680 and the American way will prevail against all enemies, against all odds.