JOHN SOLOMON： REPUBLICANS WANT REAL, SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP
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Summary
In Washington, D.C., the Biden administration is now contending with what, President Biden says, is the decision of Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, and that the capital of Ukraine, Kiev is the objective of Russian troops that now almost completely surround Ukraine.
Transcript
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Great America podcast with Lou Dobbs,
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always in the fight for truth, justice, and yes, our American way of life.
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And now here he is, the Peabody award-winning voice of truth, the great Lou Dobbs.
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Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Great America show, truth, justice, and the American way,
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always. And in Washington, D.C., the Biden administration is now contending
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with what, President Biden says, is the decision of Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine,
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and that the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, is the objective of Russian troops,
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troops that now almost completely surround Ukraine.
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President Biden's press conference at the end of the week was remarkable for a number of reasons.
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President Biden was obviously resigned to the prospect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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And while trying to project strength, President Biden at the same time seemed unsettled as he
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announced that Putin had made up his mind and had decided to invade. But his remarks were also
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hesitant and left out any reference to any administration statement or action that would
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in any way serve as a persuasive deterrent to Putin's threatened invasion.
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And we are joined now by the inimitable John Solomon, the founder, the chief executive officer of
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justthenews.com, extraordinary investigative reporter, journalist, and editor, and entrepreneur,
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I might add. John, great to have you with us, and we appreciate you being here on the Great
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I want to, if we may, start straight away with this being Wednesday.
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We know that President Zelensky of Ukraine said he was being, I believe, sardonic or ironic
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when he said the invasion is coming Wednesday. But here we are, it's Wednesday, and the White
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House has been telling us for more than a week that the invasion is imminent, the Russians
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masked on the border with Ukraine, and nothing yet. What do you make of both Biden and Putin?
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Well, listen, I think it's true to say that Vladimir Putin has never changed. He's been the
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same KGB agent, the same wily guy, head fakes and aggression. And what's changed is that America's
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posture has moved from the peace through strength approach that Donald Trump had that was really
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born in the Reagan era, the Cold War era, to we're now back to the Obama era, peace through
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appeasement. If you take a look, the two times that Vladimir Putin decided to threaten Ukraine,
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our ally in the region, was when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in charge back in 2014. And by the
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way, Biden had the Ukraine portfolio. And now Joe Biden, he didn't do it the whole time. Donald Trump
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was in office. And that's because there, there was a clear policy of how the Trump administration
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reacted. What we have in the Biden administration is every piece of intelligence we might get on
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Vladimir Putin, we're putting out there saying, well, if we tell him everything we know he might
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be doing, he might not do it. That is weakness. It's foolishness. It allows Putin to figure out what
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communication channels are and human intelligence channels we're using. And he figures out all of the
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posture of the United States. And then he doesn't have to invade. He got everything he wanted out
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of this because he now learned there's a fissure between Germany and the United States. He now
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learned what places we're listening to. He played the game. He got the win. We got nothing.
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And I think we have to say that the Biden administration was doing, as John said,
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shoveling out everything that we knew, throwing it at the media as a disinformation,
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misinformation, misinformation campaign, if you will. In other words, the Biden national security
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structure using Infowar and PSYOPs tactics, but not strategy, had really simply made themselves look
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like fools because the Russians could assess whatever they wanted, what was true, what was not true,
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and how reliable was what the Biden administration was doing. And meanwhile, it had absolutely no
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effect on either Putin's thinking, as you point out, or his actions. It is ludicrous what this
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administration is doing. Yeah, listen, all the national security experts I have said are scratching
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their head of just how we handle this. And I have two thoughts in this. One is that it's not surprising
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to me that the American public would get a bad Russia story when your national security advisor
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is Jake Sullivan, the guy who was peddling the fake Russia story from 2016, right? So there's a
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credibility gap on Russia when that's your point, man, for national security. I think the second part
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is the most important thing that Putin has done in the last seven days, our government has not talked
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about at all. And that is the Duma in Russia decided to recognize two breakaway regions of Ukraine as
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separate republics, basically two spaces inside the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia now says
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they're recognizing as independent republics. They've basically created an annexation through
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fiat, through action. We're not talking about that, even though that may be the longer term threat to
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Ukraine. Their sovereign territory now has been declared by Russia to include two breakaway publics.
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Those are the sort of things that Putin wins at, and they have consequences down the road,
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They're not talking about it. I am convinced, at least in part, the reason they're not talking
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about it is because they have no idea in the world of what they're doing. Jake Sullivan,
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let us be clear, because John said that very quickly, and I'm going to just kind of stress what
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you said here, John. When you refer to Jake Sullivan, he is one of the authors of the fake dossier.
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He is one of the authors of the Russia hoax. He is one of the authors of the effort to overthrow the
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president of the United States, also to have stopped him as a candidate. This is the left-wing
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Marxist radical dem sitting in the White House as the national security advisor who is right now
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advising, if you will, of all people, the president of the United States on Ukraine.
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He gives testimony in December of 2017 to the House Intelligence Committee when Devin Nunes was
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running that important investigation. He says, it's ludicrous to suggest that we provided any
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or procured any fake Russian information about Donald Trump. It was all true. Three years later,
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there's nothing that Hillary Clinton's campaign produced that's true. Steele's dossier is out the
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window. The whole Alfa Bank secret communication thing, not even remotely true, made up. The man gave
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sworn testimony that everything the Clinton campaign was putting out there was true,
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and none of it is. That's a credibility gap. And believe me, our allies see these things. They
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know that this is the guy that was peddling it in 16. They know it's the guy that was the architect of
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the failed Afghan withdrawal last summer. Joe Biden has a real credibility problem as long as Jake
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Well, and the fact that he would put him there creates, as you put it, a credibility problem for
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the president of the United States. But it also has to go into the calculus of not only Vladimir Putin
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and his ambitions to extend his Western borders into Europe rather than allowing Europe to extend theirs
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and NATO's influence into his region of influence. He's winning this hands down. And let me say to you,
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John, what I've been telling the audience of this podcast for over a week now. This is about Belarus.
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This is about Moldova, in which Putin has placed brigades in Moldova. He's put 30,000 troops into
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Belarus. And as you say, he's the breakaway provinces, but which has been at, they've been at war
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with Ukraine since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea. This man is winning. And as you say,
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there's not even a discussion from the White House about Belarus, Moldova, or the breakaway republics,
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as you highlight there. This is a man who has just won big time. And NATO, the European Union,
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the United Nations, and the United States are standing there moot and flat-footed. It's embarrassing
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to watch. Yeah, you couldn't have said it any better. That really isn't. And so many people I'm
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talking to are having a Democrat and Republican security strategist are just mortified at the
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weakness that America is exuding right now at this moment. I had Chris Miller, former Defense
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Secretary, and he said something really interesting in the interview. He said, if Reagan was around
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today, you know what Reagan would have done the second Vladimir Putin did? He said, hey, dear Vlad,
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here's a letter for you. I just activated three regimens of U.S. Army. They're going back into
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Europe. They're going to be in these five countries. Once we get settled, give me a call,
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and we could talk things out. And he said, Vladimir Putin would have panicked because
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he can't sustain a long war with the United States. That would have been a show of strength.
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Instead, we stand there saying, we don't know what we're going to do. We're not going to use a
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military option. So President Biden took the military option off. Once that military option's
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off, Vladimir Putin has all of the luxury to go do what he just did. Peace through weakness doesn't
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ever work. Peace through strength does. And I think a lot of the security experts are beginning
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to more harshly criticize Joe Biden. Yeah. Joe Biden is, in my opinion now, without even a remote
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doubt, the worst president in the history of the United States. He has set this country back in one
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year in office. We are no longer, I mean, I can go through the list. We're no longer energy
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independent. We no longer have even the facade of being adventurous and ingenious and innovative
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in weaponry development. And DARPA is a thing of the past in terms of what it's bringing forward
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in the way of hypersonic missile technology. We are way behind not only China, but Russia.
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And let me just remind everybody in the audience, the United States was the inventor of hypersonic
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missile technology. In 1990, we had hypersonic missile technology on the drafting board ready to be
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manufactured. And we walked away from it. And you know why? Because suddenly there was no longer a
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cold war. We didn't decide it. We just were just too, too above that sort of thing to have a missile
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that went Mach 20 and could be delivered against our enemies, whom we no longer respected sufficiently
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to continue to be innovative and to be advanced in our weaponry and in our missile technology.
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Yeah. You said it great. I mean, that history lesson is so important. We got fat, lazy,
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and complacent. And our enemies kept digging away. And again, we're still have the potential to be
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superior. And I think our greatest asset of all time is that we still have the greatest fighting
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men and women in uniform that any country has ever assembled. But the leadership, the technologies,
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the military weapon systems, we're not ready to fight the sort of wars that our enemies are going to
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fight in the future. And at some point, someone has to step into that board and say, we're going to
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remake this. We're going to reclaim peace through strength. Joe Biden doesn't feel like that guy.
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Maybe he'll have an epiphany in the next year, but he doesn't feel like that guy. And that's why the
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next two elections become so important to the future of America. Yeah, they are important. And I have to
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tell you, I'm conflicted. Because one part of me wants to say, I'm a patriot. I'd never and ever want to
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have to disparage our uniform military. I never want to be pessimistic about what we can or cannot achieve in
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this country. But right now, I don't know which is the greater patriotic service to hold back on my
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criticisms of what is happening with the US military, what is happening with the Defense Department and our
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general, our command staff, or to say point blank, that I think they have failed the United States
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for the past 20 plus years, that they haven't won a war in the past 20 plus years, excluding Iraq,
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which then they turned into effectively defeat, or Afghanistan, which they won that conflict in a
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year, primarily through paramilitary, special forces, special operations. They had control of
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Afghanistan, and yet squandered it all in the ensuing two decades, which is how does one resolve
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that conflict, John? Listen, I think you have to rewire the system, you have to have someone with
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such bold leadership to say, staying on the same course is failure. And failure isn't an option for us.
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I think Donald Trump was getting there. I think Donald Trump's problem was he wasn't surrounded
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with the right people who could execute for the first two or three years of his presidency. And
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when he finally got people who were aligned with him, not trying to undercut him or work with the
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bureaucracy, the intelligence bureaucracy to undercut him, the clock was running out. And I think,
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but there are people on the horizon that get this future world. I think people like Mike Pompeo,
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and you listen to Tom Cotton, there are very smart conservatives, that if they have the chance to move into a
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step of power, they can make real change, they can realign the world, because America still has all
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the advantages it's had for the last 30 years, we just haven't executed them and embraced them
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in a way that Ronald Reagan would have done it, you know, 40 years ago. But I have great hope. I think
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the American public bought into this big government socialism program that Joe Biden had, and one year's
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in, they have the worst buyer's remorse I've seen in polling in a very long time. And that can set in
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motion a series of events that put the right people into power. And again, like I said, the people in
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the mainstream, you know, in the down in the heart of our great military, they're ready, they know how
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to fight, they're good, they need better leaders, we need less Secretary Austins and more creative
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thinkers at that level. But the people down on the front lines, they're ready to defend us day and
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night. And that gives me a lot, a lot of encouragement.
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Well, I make a clear distinction, I hope I make a clear distinction between our war fighters.
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And our command structure, and the general staff, that is, those people wearing a star or more,
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flying around in a G5, and spend more time at altitude than they do on the ground with the
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troops they command. By the way, they command fewer and fewer troops. And the ratio of generals to troops
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is obscene. We have 300 times, 300% more generals than we had in World War Two. Does that sound right
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to you, John? It doesn't to me. And we have a, an indolent, I think, absolutely indolent command
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structure, that has no idea what they're doing. We have to watch the, the, the farce of Lloyd Austin,
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the Secretary of Defense, and of course, good old Mark Milley, advisor to the President,
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calling in the defense contractors to tell them we really need to catch up with the Chinese and the
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Russians on hypersonic missile technology. That is pathetic to me, that they are doing it both in
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public, that it was necessary to do it all, and that they would convene a meeting as the way in which
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to do it. These are silly, silly little people. And they are really in the wrong jobs for the wrong
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country. And no one is talking about it, not the Republicans, not the Democrats. And by the way,
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where are all the people in the military who wanted to rat Donald Trump out at every instance?
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They wanted to criticize him about this or that, some sort of picayune, petty, silly nonsense.
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And we've got major issues right now. And I haven't heard of one person in the United States
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military step forward to criticize Joe Biden. They're too busy getting thrown out for vaccine
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mandates or not attending their political correctness class. And they should be focused
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on the security of this country. And our reckoning is coming. And I think the American voters are ready
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to make a large correction. And if they do, I think we'll start to see some common sense come back.
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But right now, there's no common sense in Washington. It is elitist silliness. And
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the American public have figured it out pretty quickly. It doesn't usually it takes longer than
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a year to get frustrated with the president. They figured this out in the first 12 months.
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Yeah. And I think I think that started last August, to be honest.
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And when we watch this, this gaggle of fools in the White House screw up a surrender to the Taliban
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and Kabul, that just about was every signal anyone needed. Let's turn to that issue, though.
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The Democrats themselves are now turning against Biden. And I'm talking about the rank and file,
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not necessarily the so-called leaders in Washington. We'll call them the big the big puffs in Washington.
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Democrat internal polling revealing Republicans winning big and the culture wars. The culture
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wars defined as is what you were just saying, the politically correct wars, the wars over critical
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race theory, the wars over EID, all sorts of nonsense. And yes, it is nonsense, ladies and
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gentlemen. The the prattle push by BLM and Antifa is Marxist nonsense. And that's right. I'm the one
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who said it. Put it put me down as a target for that for the left on that. Because it the truth is
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what really hurts. And it's killing America. And we've got to get to it. Your thoughts?
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I couldn't agree more. And, you know, I just I every time I travel the country, I just people come up
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and they say these things like, where's common sense in Washington? When did the elitists take
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over everything? Where's all the brains that we used to have in America? And I think the answer is
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it's going to it's about to reemerge. I think that there is just an utter rejection of socialism,
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an utter rejection of open borders, an utter rejection of defunding police. And those polling
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that you show, there's some really remarkable data. And you have several signs of just how desperate
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the rank and file the Democratic Party is. First, a record 30 Democrats have decided to give up
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their seats and not run in 2022. They don't want to be part of the slaughter. That is a real sign
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that the Biden presidency has created downstream problems for the Democratic Party. You look at
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some of the polls, half of Democrats don't want Joe Biden to run again. He's only been in office a
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year. They're already done with him. Three quarters of Americans don't want him to run in general. But
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when half of your own party doesn't want you, you're in really significant thing. And all of the main
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policies that are at the prescription of the big Biden government plan are all incredibly
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an increasing impact. People don't want an open border. They don't want to defund police.
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They don't want inflation driven by insane amounts of spending. And the second half of this
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presidency is going to be just consumed by the impact of what he did in the first 12 months.
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We're going to have a long stagflation period and crime and borders because the first year of the
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Biden presidency is going to overrun the next three years of it.
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Yeah, no question about it. And you're reporting in just the news, your story on senators calling for
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the release of crossfire hurricane records, the investigation, of course, of Donald Trump
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by the FBI and intelligence agencies as well. We subsequently learned Senator Grassley and Senator
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Johnson are the two senators who sent a letter to Merrick Garland, the attorney general.
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Yes. And, you know, I'm cheering. But on the other hand, I'm asking why in the world isn't this coming
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from the Senate minority leader? Why is it not coming from the Senate leadership instead of Johnson,
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who's been courageous not only on this, but also on mandates? He has been a stand up, I think,
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impressive, exemplary senator for what he engages in. But where is the leadership and why is there such a
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nagging suspicion that the most of the Senate are senators, Republican senators are rhinos? Your thoughts?
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Listen, Mitch McConnell had an opportunity at the start of the Trump presidency to run the table, right?
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To push back in the fake Hillary Clinton story and to take the Trump agenda, which is popular,
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whether Donald Trump's popular or not in any given moment, his policies were enormously popular,
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and run the table. And they could barely pass anything. It took a miracle just to get the tax
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cuts through because Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell couldn't get their own troops there. And as a result,
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they lost the House in 2018, the Senate in 2020. There is a need, when you talk to the rank and file,
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and I just had a couple of senators on my show saying this, we're defined as the party of no,
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and no one can tell what the Mitch McConnell Senate stands for. That is a brand problem. And I think
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this next election, if Republicans are lucky to ride this wave and get back in power,
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they have to decide, do they have the right leaders, the right brand and the right message
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to hold power for more than a couple of years? Are we just going to keep seesawing back and forth
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because both parties have weak, weak leaders? McConnell's time has passed. A lot of people
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tell me privately, some say publicly now, will there be a changing of the guard? If they don't
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make a changing of the guard, Republicans will get two or three, four years, and then it's going to
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flip right back again. And we're going to keep doing the seesaw. There's a generational moment for
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conservatives to have a long run, 10, 12, 14 years of power, and make fundamental change. But it starts
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with leadership. And that's something I think the rank and file are beginning to talk about
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privately, which is we may not have the right leaders.
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I happen to think that there is, you know, I've said for some time that no Republican candidate
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should be taken seriously or win anyone's vote if they do not say straight up and straightforwardly
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they are a Trump supporter and a Trump America first candidate, that they are all
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about making America great. I think there is also another qualification I would add in
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there. Unless Mitch McConnell resigns his leadership and new leadership is put in place, that is an
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America first Trump candidate who wins election is put in that place. Not one of these hack empty
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suits that they call their leadership team. I don't think the Republicans deserve a damn vote.
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I really don't. And I don't want to hear anything more from McCarthy. I really don't. They're both
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rhinos. They are both empty suits. And they have stood in the way of everything that Donald Trump
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represented when he showed this party how to move forward. What do you think?
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There are a lot of people thinking exactly like you, Lou. And I think that the party has to do two
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things at once, right? They've got to keep on message to win the election, keep the Democrats
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pinned down and show them what the alternative is, what we just had two years ago before these guys
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took over. And at the same time, affect leadership change inside the plane you're flying every day.
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I think there are more and more members of the House. And you look at the growth of the Freedom
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Caucus, which is the most conservative part of the House. It's growing in size and in volume and
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impact every day. People that used to be fringe marginalize are now the face of the party. And I
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think that that is a sign that there is a energy in the party to make significant change, not
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incremental change, not electoral change, but significant change. And that energy that we saw
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at the school board level when CRT just scared the living dickens out of parents and you saw
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every day. People start running for office, throwing out people. There were just some school
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board members kicked out of San Francisco last night. That energy is so strong right now. And at
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some point it's going to pivot from CRT and some of these other issues, and it's going to go at the
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leadership of the Republican Party. And I think that's the moment you're going to see a lot of
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changes in leadership. That is a hope that a lot of people have. And you can see the dynamics of it
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setting up. The question is, will Republicans fall back to their, it's next up, it's still Mitch's turn.
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Yeah. And, and by the way, we, we may lose the nation. I think it's an existential issue
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because the Democrats have proved themselves to be so cynical, so rancidly corrupt that they
00:25:51.260
would put a man like Joe Biden in the white house simply to hold power and to carry out a left wing
00:25:57.520
ideological, let me be straightforward, a Marxist agenda against this country and against Americans
00:26:05.300
that they don't deserve support by anyone for, as far as the eye can see, as far as I'm concerned.
00:26:13.640
But we have to have a guarantee that we're not going to have to put up with a Mitch McConnell
00:26:17.680
or a Paul Ryan or a Kevin McCarthy or a John Boehner ever again, because those are people who simply
00:26:24.880
exist in a world apart from what is America and apart from the Republican Party itself.
00:26:33.360
They are nothing more than the, the legions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable
00:26:41.260
and Wall Street. And, you know, God have mercy on their souls because they have offended greatly.
00:26:49.200
Let's turn to a sign of great hope. And that is John Durham. I've talked often and you defended him.
00:26:57.700
I want to put this on the record. You defended him when I was lashing him for not being faster,
00:27:05.700
getting more done. And here he is delivering two years later, almost two years later on his charge,
00:27:13.760
which was to get to the bottom of the origins of Russiagate. And by golly, last Friday, he did just
00:27:20.700
that in his facts, his facts that he appended to his charges, his filings in federal court.
00:27:30.120
He said Hillary Clinton's campaign led a conspiracy to spy on the president of the United States
00:27:36.940
and on Donald Trump as a candidate for the presidency of the United States.
00:27:42.600
Hallelujah, John Durham and John Solomon. You were right. And I was wrong.
00:27:49.040
Well, there's a lot of reporting that went into it, right? More than defending, I've just been
00:27:52.360
watching the facts. I think what happened with John Durham is he's going up against some very
00:27:56.100
powerful forces. When you're taking on Perkins Coie and Mark Elias, these are some of the best
00:28:00.560
lawyers that the left have and tying people up. And there were these long battles that we couldn't
00:28:05.380
see, right, that were going on in the grand jury. When he pierced, and it's clear that he has,
00:28:09.900
he's pierced at least some of the privilege at Perkins Coie. That's how he made the case against
00:28:14.080
Sussman. He cracked open the evidence that would make his storyline, the one he was telling Bill
00:28:18.880
Barr two years ago, he made it believable. He made it tangible. Even now a jury can look at it and
00:28:25.460
say, and even in DC, like, ah, that's not good. We don't want that going on. And I think last week,
00:28:30.020
what the story he tells in this very perfunctory filing about potential conflicts of interest by law
00:28:35.880
firms is that Hillary Clinton spied on President Trump first as a campaign candidate, and it seems
00:28:43.060
to have continued to the beginning of his presidency. And their whole goal was to take a fake story and
00:28:48.420
weaponize it and get the FBI and the CIA and the intelligence community engaged in it. Because if they
00:28:53.600
got engaged in it, the media would take it seriously. That is a conspiracy of epic proportions. It's now more
00:28:59.620
than a really bad political dirty trick. They tried to give bad information to the United States
00:29:04.660
government to make government start to investigate Donald Trump and tie up his presidency. That's what he
00:29:10.440
laid out. And I have a funny feeling, that's not the biggest revelation to come. I think we're going to see
00:29:14.760
some more big revelations this spring and summer. I think the investigation's accelerating now that some of
00:29:20.680
these grand jury fights are over and evidence is now sprung to freedom where it can be quoted.
00:29:25.160
Yeah. And again, you were right about John Durham and his capacity to get to the bottom of it.
00:29:37.480
I said he's pretty stubborn. He stuck with it. But it does feel awful late, right? It's stubborn,
00:29:42.280
but it's a late process. And I think the Democrats did a good job tying him up.
00:29:46.200
Yep. And they continue it. And by the way, it's very clear right now, there's been some
00:29:51.760
public... that the law firms, some of them name, that serve the Democrats as their in-house counsel
00:29:59.980
and their outhouse operatives, you know, are really doing everything they can do to squelch
00:30:08.440
and quash this reporting, because they know it's about to break into a brush fire
00:30:17.180
that is incredible. Durham had an opportunity, though, to get some of this out before the
00:30:25.960
election. I wish, and I think history will wish with me, that indeed he had done so. Your thoughts
00:30:34.000
on that element? Yeah, listen, I think everyone did. And I think there was a movement to go in
00:30:38.660
that direction. And I think the courts probably got involved. And at the end of the day, Durham made a
00:30:43.200
decision. My long-term goal was to hold people accountable. If I blow it now for letting people
00:30:48.600
know what goes on in the election, I may lose the ability to indict someone like a Sussman. And I
00:30:52.900
think he decided to play by the law, unlike Democrats who leak and do things. He decided to play by the
00:30:58.300
law. And it did cost people the visibility of what went on. But I'll throw some blame somewhere else.
00:31:04.660
Donald Trump's White House and his lawyers had access to all of this evidence. And while there was
00:31:09.720
some great efforts by John Ratcliffe, heroic efforts by Ratcliffe, the lawyers around President
00:31:15.540
Trump let him down. They could have declassified and put all this information out. This has all been
00:31:20.620
known for over two years. President Trump ordered it over and over again, and his lawyers didn't release
00:31:26.680
it. And I remember two fellows in the media who were trying pretty hard to get that out there.
00:31:35.820
Well, we did what we could, as they say. And, you know, doggone it. You know, I wish that history
00:31:45.080
would have been written otherwise. But there it is. Let me do as I always do here, give our guests,
00:31:53.400
well, I try to do it always. Sometimes we get a little tight on time. But I always like to give our
00:32:00.600
guests in the last word and their perspectives and including thoughts. And it can either be war
00:32:09.860
Oh, that's very kind. Listen, first, it's just an honor to be able to talk to you and have these
00:32:13.920
conversations because so many of the people in my profession today are trying to suppress this
00:32:18.720
information. They don't want the truth to be out there through embarrassment, ideology. I don't know
00:32:22.920
what it is. I can't assume the thing. But to have a platform like you have and to have the wisdom that
00:32:27.920
you have and be able to have a half hour conversation where we can tell American people what's really
00:32:32.180
going on. We're not trying to color sugarcoat it. We're not spinning you. This is really what's
00:32:36.240
going on is the greatest opportunity as a journalist I get. And so I've always been grateful for that
00:32:41.300
chance. And this new platform that you have now, Lou, is fantastic. The one thing I wish I could say,
00:32:47.080
I want to see my profession turn. I want to see people go back and realize, all right, we blew the
00:32:51.800
Russia story, but it's not too late to get in on this. And this week was the most frustrating thing of
00:32:56.380
all because I watched colleagues who know, because I'm talking to them behind the scenes,
00:33:00.580
that this was a big deal with Durham, unable to report it. They can't swallow their failure
00:33:05.400
and do it. And I think they're just serving the American public. And I just hope if any of them
00:33:10.220
are listening and if they're out there, get back on the horse and do journalism the way it used to
00:33:14.640
be done. Tell the truth, regardless of consequence, put it out there and stop playing favorites because
00:33:19.260
what John Durham is about to unfold, what the Afghan report just at the Pentagon unleashed,
00:33:25.100
is some amazing failures of American government, massive failures, generational failures. And we
00:33:31.820
have an obligation as journalists to chronicle it honestly, fairly, accurately. And a lot of the
00:33:36.800
reporters in my profession are too afraid to go there. We got to get them there. We got to shame
00:33:40.440
them, push them, tug them, pull them. The American people need to get these truths before the next
00:33:46.180
You know, in that spirit, let me say something to those journalists who are
00:33:50.700
are disgracing themselves as well as the is the craft they practice in this country.
00:33:58.620
Sacred in this country is the public's right to know. Because without that knowledge that we work
00:34:05.260
so hard to provide, many people simply will not know what is happening with this great
00:34:10.380
constitutional republic and its politics and its governance. But let me just say to all of those
00:34:17.260
journalists who might happen to be listening to you and me, and then I want to get your thoughts on it.
00:34:23.660
I've never, I have never even hesitated to put my career on the line for what I believe.
00:34:30.620
And, and I, and I hope that we have more people who will be willing to do that. By the way, I haven't
00:34:38.700
always been right. And I have nearly every time I've been in that position, I was wishing like the
00:34:44.860
Dickens, that I was wrong. But, but I went forward anyway. We all care about this country. And that
00:34:54.380
requires more than a wish and a hope and an attitude. It requires sometimes sacrifice, whether
00:35:00.380
it's your, your career, your, you know, your financial future, whatever it might be. By the
00:35:07.180
way, that sacrifice will always be worth it. And I truly believe it. Your thoughts, John?
00:35:14.220
Listen, I can't say it any better than that. We just need courage. We need to go out and
00:35:19.020
remember that we're Americans first, and we're Republicans and journalists and others second and
00:35:23.820
Democrats. I think we've put our country second for a lot of petty reasons for the last 10 or 15 years,
00:35:29.500
and it's set us back. But it's not too late to have the sort of back to the basics of America.
00:35:35.180
We're all Americans first. We can disagree, but we don't have to lie and create illusions of,
00:35:40.380
of false illusions like we did with the Russia collusion case. I think we're getting to that
00:35:45.340
point. There was a poll that struck me. I'll just leave people with this thought the other day.
00:35:50.300
Despite the mainstream media's chronic refusal to reveal the unraveling of Russia, you know,
00:35:56.380
there's a little bit here and there, but almost none of the big stories get out in the
00:35:58.940
mainstream media. It's, it's the alternative media that are doing it. Two thirds of Democrats
00:36:04.220
now believe Hillary Clinton should be investigated for what she did to Donald Trump. Somehow they got
00:36:09.100
that inference and that message, despite the fact that there was a blockade. And maybe that's the
00:36:13.420
biggest warning sign to the media that kept quiet all this time. They've made themselves irrelevant
00:36:19.500
by refusing to cover the truth. And I hope they learn from that. If, if Democrats can pick this up,
00:36:24.060
despite the fact that their media outlets aren't covering it, that's a good sign for the future of the country.
00:36:29.580
And with that, we conclude. John, thanks so much for being with us.
00:36:34.220
We appreciate you and all of your insights and bringing us up to speed on where the politics of the thing
00:36:43.580
rest. They're not really resting. I guess at this point, they're jetting up. It looks like for full on,
00:36:50.380
full on conflict. We appreciate it, John. Good to have you with us. Thank you, John Solomon. Just the news. And there appears the likelihood we'll have a
00:37:00.860
lot more in the way of news for their developments in Eastern Europe or Washington, D.C. To further
00:37:07.260
assess what is happening over this weekend, we'll be bringing you the latest news and events and analysis
00:37:13.340
out of Ukraine, Europe and Washington, D.C. tomorrow on the Great America Show weekend edition. That's Sunday,
00:37:21.980
the Great America Show. We want to invite you to sign up for our Great America Show advisory and
00:37:28.860
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00:37:37.260
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00:37:43.500
I don't want to overstate anything, but I'm pretty sure you will absolutely sense at least a small
00:37:50.140
positive change in your world outlook. We invite you to join us and stay in touch. Thank you. That's
00:37:57.420
Lou Dobbs dot com. Thanks. God bless you and God bless America. Join us again tomorrow for the Great
00:38:04.060
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