The Great America Show - JOHN SOLOMON： REPUBLICANS WANT REAL, SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP

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.

00:00:09.220 And now here he is, the Peabody award-winning voice of truth, the great Lou Dobbs.

00:00:14.560 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Great America show, truth, justice, and the American way,

00:00:20.940 always. And in Washington, D.C., the Biden administration is now contending

00:00:26.080 with what, President Biden says, is the decision of Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine,

00:00:32.000 and that the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, is the objective of Russian troops,

00:00:37.300 troops that now almost completely surround Ukraine.

00:00:41.040 President Biden's press conference at the end of the week was remarkable for a number of reasons.

00:00:47.020 President Biden was obviously resigned to the prospect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

00:00:52.100 And while trying to project strength, President Biden at the same time seemed unsettled as he

00:00:59.100 announced that Putin had made up his mind and had decided to invade. But his remarks were also

00:01:06.020 hesitant and left out any reference to any administration statement or action that would

00:01:13.280 in any way serve as a persuasive deterrent to Putin's threatened invasion.

00:01:19.240 And we are joined now by the inimitable John Solomon, the founder, the chief executive officer of

00:01:29.760 justthenews.com, extraordinary investigative reporter, journalist, and editor, and entrepreneur,

00:01:38.880 I might add. John, great to have you with us, and we appreciate you being here on the Great

00:01:43.960 America show.

00:01:44.800 It's an honor to join you. It really is.

00:01:46.620 I want to, if we may, start straight away with this being Wednesday.

00:01:54.880 We know that President Zelensky of Ukraine said he was being, I believe, sardonic or ironic

00:02:01.140 when he said the invasion is coming Wednesday. But here we are, it's Wednesday, and the White 0.86

00:02:06.960 House has been telling us for more than a week that the invasion is imminent, the Russians

00:02:13.240 masked on the border with Ukraine, and nothing yet. What do you make of both Biden and Putin?

00:02:23.620 Well, listen, I think it's true to say that Vladimir Putin has never changed. He's been the

00:02:30.200 same KGB agent, the same wily guy, head fakes and aggression. And what's changed is that America's 0.64

00:02:36.680 posture has moved from the peace through strength approach that Donald Trump had that was really

00:02:41.540 born in the Reagan era, the Cold War era, to we're now back to the Obama era, peace through

00:02:46.540 appeasement. If you take a look, the two times that Vladimir Putin decided to threaten Ukraine,

00:02:51.520 our ally in the region, was when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in charge back in 2014. And by the

00:02:57.120 way, Biden had the Ukraine portfolio. And now Joe Biden, he didn't do it the whole time. Donald Trump

00:03:02.180 was in office. And that's because there, there was a clear policy of how the Trump administration

00:03:07.240 reacted. What we have in the Biden administration is every piece of intelligence we might get on

00:03:14.360 Vladimir Putin, we're putting out there saying, well, if we tell him everything we know he might

00:03:17.460 be doing, he might not do it. That is weakness. It's foolishness. It allows Putin to figure out what

00:03:22.980 communication channels are and human intelligence channels we're using. And he figures out all of the

00:03:29.180 posture of the United States. And then he doesn't have to invade. He got everything he wanted out

00:03:33.440 of this because he now learned there's a fissure between Germany and the United States. He now

00:03:38.020 learned what places we're listening to. He played the game. He got the win. We got nothing.

00:03:42.760 And I think we have to say that the Biden administration was doing, as John said,

00:03:48.280 shoveling out everything that we knew, throwing it at the media as a disinformation,

00:03:54.760 misinformation, misinformation campaign, if you will. In other words, the Biden national security

00:04:02.560 structure using Infowar and PSYOPs tactics, but not strategy, had really simply made themselves look 0.92

00:04:15.260 like fools because the Russians could assess whatever they wanted, what was true, what was not true,

00:04:21.940 and how reliable was what the Biden administration was doing. And meanwhile, it had absolutely no 0.99

00:04:28.800 effect on either Putin's thinking, as you point out, or his actions. It is ludicrous what this

00:04:36.740 administration is doing. Yeah, listen, all the national security experts I have said are scratching

00:04:41.480 their head of just how we handle this. And I have two thoughts in this. One is that it's not surprising

00:04:46.340 to me that the American public would get a bad Russia story when your national security advisor

00:04:50.520 is Jake Sullivan, the guy who was peddling the fake Russia story from 2016, right? So there's a

00:04:56.300 credibility gap on Russia when that's your point, man, for national security. I think the second part

00:05:01.120 is the most important thing that Putin has done in the last seven days, our government has not talked

00:05:06.660 about at all. And that is the Duma in Russia decided to recognize two breakaway regions of Ukraine as

00:05:13.400 separate republics, basically two spaces inside the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Russia now says

00:05:19.420 they're recognizing as independent republics. They've basically created an annexation through

00:05:24.480 fiat, through action. We're not talking about that, even though that may be the longer term threat to

00:05:31.380 Ukraine. Their sovereign territory now has been declared by Russia to include two breakaway publics.

00:05:37.860 Those are the sort of things that Putin wins at, and they have consequences down the road,

00:05:42.180 and our people aren't even talking about it.

00:05:43.580 They're not talking about it. I am convinced, at least in part, the reason they're not talking

00:05:50.280 about it is because they have no idea in the world of what they're doing. Jake Sullivan,

00:05:54.900 let us be clear, because John said that very quickly, and I'm going to just kind of stress what

00:05:59.120 you said here, John. When you refer to Jake Sullivan, he is one of the authors of the fake dossier.

00:06:07.720 He is one of the authors of the Russia hoax. He is one of the authors of the effort to overthrow the 0.97

00:06:16.880 president of the United States, also to have stopped him as a candidate. This is the left-wing

00:06:22.360 Marxist radical dem sitting in the White House as the national security advisor who is right now

00:06:31.100 advising, if you will, of all people, the president of the United States on Ukraine.

00:06:35.840 It's utter madness.

00:06:38.780 He gives testimony in December of 2017 to the House Intelligence Committee when Devin Nunes was

00:06:44.020 running that important investigation. He says, it's ludicrous to suggest that we provided any

00:06:49.420 or procured any fake Russian information about Donald Trump. It was all true. Three years later, 0.74

00:06:54.160 there's nothing that Hillary Clinton's campaign produced that's true. Steele's dossier is out the

00:06:58.360 window. The whole Alfa Bank secret communication thing, not even remotely true, made up. The man gave

00:07:05.320 sworn testimony that everything the Clinton campaign was putting out there was true,

00:07:08.420 and none of it is. That's a credibility gap. And believe me, our allies see these things. They

00:07:14.680 know that this is the guy that was peddling it in 16. They know it's the guy that was the architect of

00:07:18.800 the failed Afghan withdrawal last summer. Joe Biden has a real credibility problem as long as Jake

00:07:25.220 Sullivan stays in charge of national security.

00:07:27.120 Well, and the fact that he would put him there creates, as you put it, a credibility problem for

00:07:32.960 the president of the United States. But it also has to go into the calculus of not only Vladimir Putin

00:07:39.240 and his ambitions to extend his Western borders into Europe rather than allowing Europe to extend theirs

00:07:48.620 and NATO's influence into his region of influence. He's winning this hands down. And let me say to you,

00:07:58.760 John, what I've been telling the audience of this podcast for over a week now. This is about Belarus.

00:08:05.720 This is about Moldova, in which Putin has placed brigades in Moldova. He's put 30,000 troops into

00:08:15.860 Belarus. And as you say, he's the breakaway provinces, but which has been at, they've been at war

00:08:23.800 with Ukraine since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea. This man is winning. And as you say,

00:08:33.440 there's not even a discussion from the White House about Belarus, Moldova, or the breakaway republics,

00:08:41.660 as you highlight there. This is a man who has just won big time. And NATO, the European Union,

00:08:49.700 the United Nations, and the United States are standing there moot and flat-footed. It's embarrassing

00:08:58.160 to watch. Yeah, you couldn't have said it any better. That really isn't. And so many people I'm

00:09:02.500 talking to are having a Democrat and Republican security strategist are just mortified at the

00:09:07.940 weakness that America is exuding right now at this moment. I had Chris Miller, former Defense

00:09:12.440 Secretary, and he said something really interesting in the interview. He said, if Reagan was around

00:09:16.300 today, you know what Reagan would have done the second Vladimir Putin did? He said, hey, dear Vlad,

00:09:20.760 here's a letter for you. I just activated three regimens of U.S. Army. They're going back into

00:09:25.160 Europe. They're going to be in these five countries. Once we get settled, give me a call,

00:09:29.540 and we could talk things out. And he said, Vladimir Putin would have panicked because

00:09:32.760 he can't sustain a long war with the United States. That would have been a show of strength.

00:09:37.040 Instead, we stand there saying, we don't know what we're going to do. We're not going to use a

00:09:40.340 military option. So President Biden took the military option off. Once that military option's

00:09:45.500 off, Vladimir Putin has all of the luxury to go do what he just did. Peace through weakness doesn't

00:09:51.700 ever work. Peace through strength does. And I think a lot of the security experts are beginning

00:09:54.900 to more harshly criticize Joe Biden. Yeah. Joe Biden is, in my opinion now, without even a remote

00:10:03.120 doubt, the worst president in the history of the United States. He has set this country back in one

00:10:11.700 year in office. We are no longer, I mean, I can go through the list. We're no longer energy

00:10:17.840 independent. We no longer have even the facade of being adventurous and ingenious and innovative

00:10:26.660 in weaponry development. And DARPA is a thing of the past in terms of what it's bringing forward

00:10:34.660 in the way of hypersonic missile technology. We are way behind not only China, but Russia.

00:10:41.660 And let me just remind everybody in the audience, the United States was the inventor of hypersonic

00:10:50.360 missile technology. In 1990, we had hypersonic missile technology on the drafting board ready to be

00:11:00.820 manufactured. And we walked away from it. And you know why? Because suddenly there was no longer a

00:11:06.720 cold war. We didn't decide it. We just were just too, too above that sort of thing to have a missile

00:11:12.680 that went Mach 20 and could be delivered against our enemies, whom we no longer respected sufficiently

00:11:19.860 to continue to be innovative and to be advanced in our weaponry and in our missile technology.

00:11:28.540 Yeah. You said it great. I mean, that history lesson is so important. We got fat, lazy,

00:11:33.160 and complacent. And our enemies kept digging away. And again, we're still have the potential to be 0.64

00:11:38.240 superior. And I think our greatest asset of all time is that we still have the greatest fighting

00:11:42.940 men and women in uniform that any country has ever assembled. But the leadership, the technologies,

00:11:48.720 the military weapon systems, we're not ready to fight the sort of wars that our enemies are going to

00:11:54.660 fight in the future. And at some point, someone has to step into that board and say, we're going to

00:11:58.820 remake this. We're going to reclaim peace through strength. Joe Biden doesn't feel like that guy.

00:12:03.260 Maybe he'll have an epiphany in the next year, but he doesn't feel like that guy. And that's why the

00:12:07.160 next two elections become so important to the future of America. Yeah, they are important. And I have to

00:12:12.920 tell you, I'm conflicted. Because one part of me wants to say, I'm a patriot. I'd never and ever want to

00:12:21.760 have to disparage our uniform military. I never want to be pessimistic about what we can or cannot achieve in

00:12:32.580 this country. But right now, I don't know which is the greater patriotic service to hold back on my

00:12:40.420 criticisms of what is happening with the US military, what is happening with the Defense Department and our

00:12:47.340 general, our command staff, or to say point blank, that I think they have failed the United States

00:12:55.500 for the past 20 plus years, that they haven't won a war in the past 20 plus years, excluding Iraq,

00:13:05.340 which then they turned into effectively defeat, or Afghanistan, which they won that conflict in a

00:13:13.640 year, primarily through paramilitary, special forces, special operations. They had control of

00:13:20.300 Afghanistan, and yet squandered it all in the ensuing two decades, which is how does one resolve 0.91

00:13:28.560 that conflict, John? Listen, I think you have to rewire the system, you have to have someone with

00:13:34.060 such bold leadership to say, staying on the same course is failure. And failure isn't an option for us.

00:13:40.080 I think Donald Trump was getting there. I think Donald Trump's problem was he wasn't surrounded

00:13:44.260 with the right people who could execute for the first two or three years of his presidency. And

00:13:48.400 when he finally got people who were aligned with him, not trying to undercut him or work with the

00:13:52.760 bureaucracy, the intelligence bureaucracy to undercut him, the clock was running out. And I think,

00:13:57.560 but there are people on the horizon that get this future world. I think people like Mike Pompeo,

00:14:02.680 and you listen to Tom Cotton, there are very smart conservatives, that if they have the chance to move into a

00:14:08.520 step of power, they can make real change, they can realign the world, because America still has all

00:14:14.000 the advantages it's had for the last 30 years, we just haven't executed them and embraced them

00:14:18.760 in a way that Ronald Reagan would have done it, you know, 40 years ago. But I have great hope. I think

00:14:25.080 the American public bought into this big government socialism program that Joe Biden had, and one year's

00:14:31.060 in, they have the worst buyer's remorse I've seen in polling in a very long time. And that can set in

00:14:36.340 motion a series of events that put the right people into power. And again, like I said, the people in

00:14:41.420 the mainstream, you know, in the down in the heart of our great military, they're ready, they know how

00:14:47.300 to fight, they're good, they need better leaders, we need less Secretary Austins and more creative

00:14:52.280 thinkers at that level. But the people down on the front lines, they're ready to defend us day and

00:14:56.520 night. And that gives me a lot, a lot of encouragement.

00:14:59.520 Well, I make a clear distinction, I hope I make a clear distinction between our war fighters.

00:15:05.500 And our command structure, and the general staff, that is, those people wearing a star or more,

00:15:15.060 flying around in a G5, and spend more time at altitude than they do on the ground with the

00:15:22.700 troops they command. By the way, they command fewer and fewer troops. And the ratio of generals to troops

00:15:29.540 is obscene. We have 300 times, 300% more generals than we had in World War Two. Does that sound right

00:15:41.240 to you, John? It doesn't to me. And we have a, an indolent, I think, absolutely indolent command

00:15:49.820 structure, that has no idea what they're doing. We have to watch the, the, the farce of Lloyd Austin,

00:15:58.480 the Secretary of Defense, and of course, good old Mark Milley, advisor to the President,

00:16:03.780 calling in the defense contractors to tell them we really need to catch up with the Chinese and the 1.00

00:16:10.160 Russians on hypersonic missile technology. That is pathetic to me, that they are doing it both in 1.00

00:16:17.780 public, that it was necessary to do it all, and that they would convene a meeting as the way in which 0.97

00:16:22.940 to do it. These are silly, silly little people. And they are really in the wrong jobs for the wrong 1.00

00:16:29.500 country. And no one is talking about it, not the Republicans, not the Democrats. And by the way,

00:16:35.440 where are all the people in the military who wanted to rat Donald Trump out at every instance? 0.98

00:16:41.240 They wanted to criticize him about this or that, some sort of picayune, petty, silly nonsense.

00:16:46.100 And we've got major issues right now. And I haven't heard of one person in the United States 0.73

00:16:51.180 military step forward to criticize Joe Biden. They're too busy getting thrown out for vaccine

00:16:57.340 mandates or not attending their political correctness class. And they should be focused

00:17:01.040 on the security of this country. And our reckoning is coming. And I think the American voters are ready

00:17:06.240 to make a large correction. And if they do, I think we'll start to see some common sense come back.

00:17:11.780 But right now, there's no common sense in Washington. It is elitist silliness. And

00:17:16.740 the American public have figured it out pretty quickly. It doesn't usually it takes longer than

00:17:21.300 a year to get frustrated with the president. They figured this out in the first 12 months.

00:17:25.360 Yeah. And I think I think that started last August, to be honest.

00:17:28.860 You're right. 0.99

00:17:29.240 And when we watch this, this gaggle of fools in the White House screw up a surrender to the Taliban 0.99

00:17:40.660 and Kabul, that just about was every signal anyone needed. Let's turn to that issue, though. 0.99

00:17:48.060 The Democrats themselves are now turning against Biden. And I'm talking about the rank and file,

00:17:55.640 not necessarily the so-called leaders in Washington. We'll call them the big the big puffs in Washington.

00:18:04.200 Democrat internal polling revealing Republicans winning big and the culture wars. The culture

00:18:10.020 wars defined as is what you were just saying, the politically correct wars, the wars over critical

00:18:16.360 race theory, the wars over EID, all sorts of nonsense. And yes, it is nonsense, ladies and

00:18:25.500 gentlemen. The the prattle push by BLM and Antifa is Marxist nonsense. And that's right. I'm the one 0.83

00:18:34.560 who said it. Put it put me down as a target for that for the left on that. Because it the truth is

00:18:42.280 what really hurts. And it's killing America. And we've got to get to it. Your thoughts?

00:18:48.280 I couldn't agree more. And, you know, I just I every time I travel the country, I just people come up

00:18:53.280 and they say these things like, where's common sense in Washington? When did the elitists take

00:18:57.600 over everything? Where's all the brains that we used to have in America? And I think the answer is

00:19:01.980 it's going to it's about to reemerge. I think that there is just an utter rejection of socialism,

00:19:07.680 an utter rejection of open borders, an utter rejection of defunding police. And those polling

00:19:12.140 that you show, there's some really remarkable data. And you have several signs of just how desperate

00:19:17.380 the rank and file the Democratic Party is. First, a record 30 Democrats have decided to give up

00:19:22.340 their seats and not run in 2022. They don't want to be part of the slaughter. That is a real sign

00:19:27.160 that the Biden presidency has created downstream problems for the Democratic Party. You look at

00:19:31.720 some of the polls, half of Democrats don't want Joe Biden to run again. He's only been in office a

00:19:37.100 year. They're already done with him. Three quarters of Americans don't want him to run in general. But

00:19:41.380 when half of your own party doesn't want you, you're in really significant thing. And all of the main

00:19:45.980 policies that are at the prescription of the big Biden government plan are all incredibly

00:19:51.720 an increasing impact. People don't want an open border. They don't want to defund police.

00:19:55.800 They don't want inflation driven by insane amounts of spending. And the second half of this

00:20:03.320 presidency is going to be just consumed by the impact of what he did in the first 12 months.

00:20:08.940 We're going to have a long stagflation period and crime and borders because the first year of the 0.68

00:20:15.720 Biden presidency is going to overrun the next three years of it.

00:20:18.720 Yeah, no question about it. And you're reporting in just the news, your story on senators calling for

00:20:28.500 the release of crossfire hurricane records, the investigation, of course, of Donald Trump

00:20:34.520 by the FBI and intelligence agencies as well. We subsequently learned Senator Grassley and Senator

00:20:43.000 Johnson are the two senators who sent a letter to Merrick Garland, the attorney general.

00:20:47.600 Yes. And, you know, I'm cheering. But on the other hand, I'm asking why in the world isn't this coming

00:20:54.200 from the Senate minority leader? Why is it not coming from the Senate leadership instead of Johnson,

00:21:01.200 who's been courageous not only on this, but also on mandates? He has been a stand up, I think,

00:21:09.500 impressive, exemplary senator for what he engages in. But where is the leadership and why is there such a

00:21:18.040 nagging suspicion that the most of the Senate are senators, Republican senators are rhinos? Your thoughts? 0.54

00:21:26.900 Listen, Mitch McConnell had an opportunity at the start of the Trump presidency to run the table, right?

00:21:32.700 To push back in the fake Hillary Clinton story and to take the Trump agenda, which is popular,

00:21:38.180 whether Donald Trump's popular or not in any given moment, his policies were enormously popular,

00:21:42.620 and run the table. And they could barely pass anything. It took a miracle just to get the tax

00:21:47.220 cuts through because Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell couldn't get their own troops there. And as a result,

00:21:54.180 they lost the House in 2018, the Senate in 2020. There is a need, when you talk to the rank and file,

00:22:00.460 and I just had a couple of senators on my show saying this, we're defined as the party of no,

00:22:06.720 and no one can tell what the Mitch McConnell Senate stands for. That is a brand problem. And I think

00:22:11.940 this next election, if Republicans are lucky to ride this wave and get back in power,

00:22:16.420 they have to decide, do they have the right leaders, the right brand and the right message

00:22:20.920 to hold power for more than a couple of years? Are we just going to keep seesawing back and forth

00:22:25.220 because both parties have weak, weak leaders? McConnell's time has passed. A lot of people

00:22:30.740 tell me privately, some say publicly now, will there be a changing of the guard? If they don't

00:22:35.340 make a changing of the guard, Republicans will get two or three, four years, and then it's going to

00:22:38.880 flip right back again. And we're going to keep doing the seesaw. There's a generational moment for

00:22:43.260 conservatives to have a long run, 10, 12, 14 years of power, and make fundamental change. But it starts

00:22:49.940 with leadership. And that's something I think the rank and file are beginning to talk about

00:22:53.820 privately, which is we may not have the right leaders.

00:22:58.140 I happen to think that there is, you know, I've said for some time that no Republican candidate

00:23:05.740 should be taken seriously or win anyone's vote if they do not say straight up and straightforwardly

00:23:12.640 they are a Trump supporter and a Trump America first candidate, that they are all

00:23:23.800 about making America great. I think there is also another qualification I would add in

00:23:30.100 there. Unless Mitch McConnell resigns his leadership and new leadership is put in place, that is an

00:23:41.960 America first Trump candidate who wins election is put in that place. Not one of these hack empty

00:23:52.920 suits that they call their leadership team. I don't think the Republicans deserve a damn vote. 0.99

00:24:00.520 I really don't. And I don't want to hear anything more from McCarthy. I really don't. They're both 0.98

00:24:06.520 rhinos. They are both empty suits. And they have stood in the way of everything that Donald Trump

00:24:12.120 represented when he showed this party how to move forward. What do you think?

00:24:16.120 There are a lot of people thinking exactly like you, Lou. And I think that the party has to do two

00:24:22.780 things at once, right? They've got to keep on message to win the election, keep the Democrats

00:24:26.780 pinned down and show them what the alternative is, what we just had two years ago before these guys

00:24:31.620 took over. And at the same time, affect leadership change inside the plane you're flying every day.

00:24:37.300 I think there are more and more members of the House. And you look at the growth of the Freedom

00:24:41.920 Caucus, which is the most conservative part of the House. It's growing in size and in volume and

00:24:47.320 impact every day. People that used to be fringe marginalize are now the face of the party. And I

00:24:52.700 think that that is a sign that there is a energy in the party to make significant change, not

00:24:58.960 incremental change, not electoral change, but significant change. And that energy that we saw

00:25:04.140 at the school board level when CRT just scared the living dickens out of parents and you saw

00:25:08.400 every day. People start running for office, throwing out people. There were just some school

00:25:12.820 board members kicked out of San Francisco last night. That energy is so strong right now. And at

00:25:18.360 some point it's going to pivot from CRT and some of these other issues, and it's going to go at the

00:25:22.940 leadership of the Republican Party. And I think that's the moment you're going to see a lot of

00:25:27.860 changes in leadership. That is a hope that a lot of people have. And you can see the dynamics of it

00:25:32.540 setting up. The question is, will Republicans fall back to their, it's next up, it's still Mitch's turn.

00:25:37.700 If they do, they squander a great opportunity.

00:25:40.760 Yeah. And, and by the way, we, we may lose the nation. I think it's an existential issue

00:25:45.880 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.

00:29:33.900 I do still wish... I'm sorry?

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 1.00

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.

00:31:33.720 I think you and I did a lot of work on that.

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

00:32:06.080 and peace or a succinct briefing. Your choice.

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

00:33:44.820 election.

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 newsletter. Simply go to Lou Dobbs dot com. That's Lou Dobbs dot com and click on the email newsletter button.

00:37:37.260 It's as simple as that. And we'll send you our advisories and alerts as well as our weekly newsletter.

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 America podcast. Stay in the fight. Truth, justice and the American way will prevail against all enemies,

00:38:10.380 against all odds.

The Great America Show - February 19, 2022

JOHN SOLOMON： REPUBLICANS WANT REAL, SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP

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