On today's show, President Trump makes his return to Capitol Hill, John Thune is sworn in as the new majority leader in the Senate, and Joe Biden meets with President Trump in D.C. President Trump also meets with Vice President Joe Biden to discuss his transition from Vice President to President-elect.
00:05:17.780You kind of you kind of scare me a little bit there, Lee.
00:05:20.460Well, I'm less sanguine than most people.
00:05:24.680Tell us what's going on with Barack Hussein.
00:05:27.300Well, I mean, the piece points out is, as many people have noted, I'm certainly not the first to note that Barack Obama has been there since 2016.
00:05:39.380The only other person who did it was Woodrow Wilson, and he stayed because he was incapacitated midway through his second term with a stroke.
00:05:46.680Look, the reason that Barack Obama stayed there is to under the reason that presidents leave Washington is to illustrate the fact that they are no longer involved in the political system.
00:05:57.340There's been the transfer of executive authority.
00:06:00.440Barack Obama stayed to illustrate precisely the opposite, that he is still heavily involved in politics.
00:06:09.960And in fact, you know, as I as I as I show in the article and as I write extensively in the book, it's Barack Obama who's led the anti Trump campaign since 2016.
00:06:23.960So I think it's imperative that he be driven out of Washington, one, symbolically.
00:06:31.540The most important thing is that his networks is private and public sector networks be dismantled because there's already evidence that there's another another part of this ongoing operation to destroy Donald Trump.
00:06:44.160And this time it's being run out of the Pentagon.
00:06:46.600So while I while I, too, celebrate, while I, too, I'm happy in all the different initiatives that Donald Trump has talked about, whether we're talking about going after the people who have pushed this disgusting trans agenda or whether we're talking about the educational system.
00:07:00.900I mean, it's all incredibly inspiring and optimistic and optimistic and it's great.
00:07:04.960And I feel it just like everyone else.
00:07:07.020But I also think it's important to remember that there are other things going on.
00:07:11.600The look, the same people who've done the things to Donald Trump, Trump aides and Trump supporters over the last eight years, they're not going to walk away now like, well, you know, OK, fair is fair.
00:07:24.400We lost this election. So I guess we got to walk away with our tail in between our legs and figure out how to win an honest election come 2028.
00:07:33.680That's not going to happen. So this piece is a reminder not only of what they've done, but also also it's a portrait of what is happening right now at the Department of Defense.
00:07:46.660You mentioned 2028. I don't want to go down the weeds too far because I want to stay on this topic.
00:07:51.040But what a lot of people don't realize is the census that's coming up just two years after that, Lee, in 2030.
00:07:55.780And that's going to account for all those people who left deep blue New York and went down to Florida.
00:08:00.440And we've heard a Florida sheriff, his name slips my mind every time, who said pretty much when you move down here from one of these deep blue states, keep your bullshit politics to yourself.
00:08:09.180Don't bring it down here. We saw President Trump's decisive victory in Florida show just that.
00:08:13.580So just looking ahead to 2030, states like California are going to lose electoral votes and members of Congress.
00:08:20.600States like New York are going to lose.
00:08:22.440This is this is this is why keep it. This is why opening the borders was important.
00:08:27.500Absolutely. Right. That's what they had to do.
00:08:29.800They had to backfill all these places. People have left New York.
00:08:33.700People have left Maryland. People have left Massachusetts.
00:08:37.840People have left California. And so all these places, they don't want to lose their their.
00:08:43.580You know, the electoral votes and they don't want to lose congressional seats.
00:08:47.360So they're going to being backfilled now. And, you know, and of course, the real dream is, as we've heard the Democrats say again and again, is to is to naturalize these people as soon as possible and get them on the voter rolls.
00:08:59.320So that's why the deportation operation is really is.
00:09:04.660And the president Trump says this is his number one priority.
00:09:07.160We're going to get to that, because that's I mean, one of the perhaps the most important things that President Trump ran on.
00:09:12.280I mean, you look at the most Hispanic district in all of the United States, a place in Texas, President Trump winning it for the first time since the eighteen hundreds of Republican holding it.
00:09:24.620People are in favor. And President Trump was not secretive about it.
00:09:28.380He says we're going to do the largest mass deportation that we've ever seen before.
00:09:32.660And he won the popular vote. So that's what people want.
00:09:36.440We now see people like Mayor Eric Adams saying they're more open to work with President Trump and so forth.
00:09:41.700We're going to get into that because I want to take a whole segment on that.
00:09:44.600But I want to go back to these career people that you were talking about.
00:09:49.060One of President Trump's advisers in his transition, Mark Paoletta, said that these DOJ folks in particular.
00:09:56.500Now, we have them in the Pentagon. Those are probably perhaps some of the worst folks in the world.
00:10:01.180People are going to try to stifle and stop President Trump at every single turn that they possibly can.
00:10:08.140What can President Trump do on his first day?
00:10:10.720Now, some people are saying that Pete Hankseth wasn't the best pick for the Pentagon.
00:10:15.620OK, maybe his background is, you know, not the best pick for the job.
00:10:19.540But the fact, Lee, that he's never worked and lived in D.C. in his life is that means he's the perfect pick for the job.
00:10:28.220Well, both, you know, the Pentagon is is the biggest bureaucracy in the world.
00:10:32.680DHS is extremely large. And so there are two people who are coming in who've never run very big bureaucracies before.
00:10:39.760But I'm confident that they can surround themselves with people who've done that kind of work.
00:10:44.880And, you know, so that's what's really important.
00:10:47.420And it's tough managing those bureaucracies.
00:10:50.200But again, I'm sure that newly nominated Pete Hankseth and Chris Governor Noem can both surround themselves with very talented people who are able to who are capable of doing that.
00:11:04.060Look, the most important appointment that the president is going to make, however, is going to be attorney general.
00:11:08.200Yes, because it's very important that the attorney general go in there and clean up the DOJ.
00:11:12.460And it has to be someone it has to be someone, frankly, who does not love the institution.
00:11:18.300Right. A lot of people love that institution and some of them want to protect it.
00:11:21.960And some of them are sentimental. They say, well, you know, I want to return this great institution back to its former glory.
00:11:27.600No, we don't want anyone who loves the institution.
00:11:30.620We want someone who is going to wreak vengeance, in fact, on the institution for what it's done to the American people.
00:11:37.180So it has to be someone who's going to get in a small, dedicated cadre, 15 to 20 lawyers who are going to go in there and they're going to start getting rid of people, hundreds of people at the Department of Justice.
00:11:51.200It's also going to mean appointing U.S. attorneys around the country who are capable of doing the work, implementing it.
00:11:58.780That's not implementing Donald Trump's agenda. It's restoring rule of law to America.
00:12:05.480And if they don't get the right person as it and as attorney general, nothing is going to happen.
00:12:10.600He's not going to be able to clean up any part of the bureaucracy, not not the FBI, not the CIA, not the Pentagon, because they're going to be tied down by lawyers.
00:12:20.020And look, it's going to be it's going to be everything.
00:12:22.260It's going to be the trans thing that Trump wants to fight.
00:12:43.900And I know you're a great guy with a great deal of integrity.
00:12:47.860If you have President Trump's ear right now, give me a name.
00:12:50.160Who do you think now should be that job?
00:12:53.920Now, I argue there's another key position that's just as important with the CIA.
00:12:58.820And I was very disappointed to see that our friend Kash Patel didn't get that job because I think he's top of the list and and and cream of the crop.
00:13:07.240But John Ratcliffe in there, I'm a little nervous about.
00:14:13.740I mean, Senator Ted Cruz, I think, would be a terrific pick.
00:14:17.840The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
00:14:20.140So there's a lot of really good people out there whose names are being whose names are being tossed, tossed about.
00:14:27.300And so there's a lot of great people for the president to president elect Trump to pick from.
00:14:33.700And I'm confident that'll make a make the impressive choice, really, that it's so important to restore the rule of law and really aggressively clean out that place.
00:14:50.640And I think any of those people are a great choice, along with a few others that are also on the long list of names.
00:14:57.140We're going to take a quick break here.
00:14:58.260We're talking with Lee Smith, a brilliant author.
00:15:00.960Folks, as I told you all, we recommend Lee's book to you highly, Disappearing the President, Trump Truth Social and the Fight for the Republic.
00:15:08.200You can go ahead and get that book, EncounterBooks.com or wherever you guys buy your books.
00:15:26.820Folks, as a lot of you may know, Mike Lindell and MyPillow no longer have the support of their box stores or shopping channels the way they used to.
00:15:33.380They've been part of this cancel culture, so they want to pass savings directly on to you.
00:15:37.060So they're bringing back the $25 extravaganza.
00:15:40.220When Mike started MyPillow, it was just a one problem, one solution company.
00:15:44.200Well, since then, with the help of his dedicated employees, they now have hundreds of products some of you may not even know about.
00:15:50.820To get the word out, they're having a $25 extravaganza.
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00:17:00.100Disgusting that the Republicans slipped through the secret ballot.
00:17:03.540How big of a challenge is this to President Trump and his agenda?
00:17:06.680Well, I mean, you know, I mean, Donald Trump now has, you know, the Republicans now have, they have the White House, they have the Senate, they have Congress.
00:17:15.920I mean, look, I understand why people are concerned about Thune, and maybe he will turn out to be a real problem.
00:17:22.360But also, I think that these guys have to keep in mind that they're being, they're under very close scrutiny right now.
00:17:28.700And so I think that people in the Senate on the Republican side who are going to try to obstruct Trump's agenda are going to find themselves in trouble, right?
00:17:36.900I mean, these guys have to run for, they have to run for office too.
00:17:40.680And if it becomes notorious that they're fighting Donald Trump, there's lots of people who are willing to fund primaries against opponents of Donald Trump from the right.
00:17:51.160So I'm a little less concerned about that than other people are, though.
00:17:54.940I mean, I certainly appreciate what Senator Rick Scott has done.
00:18:10.660So it's really up to him and to keep people in line.
00:18:15.660And again, I'm confident he can do that.
00:18:17.700So the issue I see with that, and I take what you're saying, the issue I see with that is you've probably got, like I said in my monologue, maybe 20 max MAGA, true MAGA senators, right, who you'll have your back.
00:18:31.740So you've got 100 senators, you've got 20 of them are MAGA, 50 or so are Democrats, you know, at least you would have very slim margin to get through.
00:18:40.420Whereas in the House, which I want to turn to now, Mike Johnson's House is probably going to the Republicans, 99% chance it goes to the Republicans.
00:18:49.540It's just a matter of if it's one seat, two seats or five seats, looking like it's probably going to be four or five seats.
00:18:55.240But nonetheless, Mike Johnson, we've seen nothing from him, Lee, in the last, since he took office in January, February, whatever it was, we've seen nothing from him that indicates that he's going to do a good job.
00:19:08.620Well, I would keep in mind that he had a very, I mean, I'm not advocating for Mike Johnson, just like I didn't advocate for Kevin McCarthy.
00:19:16.900But, you know, I mean, right now, Speaker Johnson has an awfully small margin and that doesn't help.
00:19:25.900It's not like they can just, you know, rubber stamp stuff and just shove it down the throat of Democrats.
00:19:32.300So that's not easy. But again, the important thing, I think, to keep in mind is that, you know, is that the Republicans now have the White House, the Senate and the House.
00:19:40.880That's that's a very big deal. So there should be very little standing in the way of of the most central parts of Donald Trump's agenda.
00:19:51.540And again, that's not to it's to really restore America. Right. After all the craziness we've seen, you see Donald Trump on video talking about like, look, we're going to fight this trans agenda.
00:20:02.560We're going to totally undo this. It's like, yeah, that's good because we're a normal country.
00:20:06.620And this and this has been a terrible thing. It's not just a freak show. Right.
00:20:11.420With with with Rachel Levine, you know, with Rachel Levine over at HHS.
00:20:16.480But I mean, it's also the harm that have been done to to children, the harm that have been done to families with both the trans agenda and the and the DEI agenda, the CRT agenda.
00:20:27.960It's really destructive. So are Republicans going to get in the way of Trump fighting the trans agenda?
00:20:34.240Yeah, I don't think so. Are they going to get in the way of him fighting CRT and DEI?
00:20:39.040I doubt it because that'll that'll go on their record. So what are they going to what are they going to be fighting?
00:20:43.620Well, tax cuts, tax cuts. So you've got the New York Rhino delegation, as I call them.
00:20:48.400And you've got two that lost D. Esposito, who hired his fiance's kid and then his girlfriend, side piece, whatever he's got out of there.
00:20:57.280Mark Molinaro, another Rhino Trump hater out of there. They're Rhino. They're Republicans.
00:21:02.500They lost their rhinos. In my opinion, it's the same thing as having a Democrat there in the first place.
00:21:06.460We shouldn't be propping these people up now. It's two seats lost. But at the end of the day, they're rhinos.
00:21:11.520Two of those folks gone. When it comes to tax cuts, the New York Rhino squad have a problem with the salt tax deduction, which hurts big blue cities like New York City with certain write offs and stuff like that.
00:21:22.120So I think he's going to maybe run into a little issue because his tax cuts expire now in 2025.
00:21:27.340He's going to have to get that through. Most of the rhinos who went against him in the first terms, the Liz Cheney's, the the Bacons, the all those folks are most of them are gone, lost their seat.
00:21:38.960So I think it's going to be a little bit of a more smooth sailing. But at the end of the day, Lee, it's up to Mike Johnson.
00:21:44.600He's the one who calls the agenda. He and him and President Trump speak on their first day.
00:21:48.680And Trump goes to Mike Johnson. What are we doing first? Because Mike Johnson knows the house.
00:21:53.620President Trump doesn't know, you know, all the intricacies of that.
00:21:56.860And no president does unless you were serving there.
00:21:59.480I think that I think that Donald Trump, even, you know, on the sidelines, was doing a very good job.
00:22:05.500And Donald Trump understands that Speaker Johnson is at a very narrow margin.
00:22:09.980He understood the same about Kevin McCarthy as well.
00:22:12.860I mean, it wasn't Donald Trump who wanted to, you know, who sought to undermine all these guys and torpedo them.
00:22:18.120Yeah. Yeah. He understands. He understands what it's like.
00:22:21.860And I'm I'm sure that he'll work very well with Speaker Johnson and empower him in different ways that he can.
00:22:28.180Yeah. And I pray to God that he holds his feet to the fire because what we saw with the past administration.
00:22:33.760I mean, I don't know if it's really about holding his feet to the fire.
00:22:37.100I just think it's saying, look, here's the way it's going down.
00:22:39.300I'm the president. You're the speaker of the house.
00:22:41.480I respect your position, but here's the way it's going to go.
00:22:43.740And here's how I can help you. I mean, it's politics, right?
00:22:46.360You know, the president should be speaking with the speaker of the house and figuring out a way forward for Republicans.
00:22:51.740They shouldn't be fighting. Will they have disagreements on stuff?
00:23:07.540I want to take a quick break here and I want to take that up on the other side of this break on where we go from here and how we deport these folks.
00:23:13.780That's what President Trump told us about. Folks, the book is Disappearing the President, Trump, Truth Social and the Fight for the Republic.
00:23:19.920Amazon.com, EncounterBooks.com. Go ahead and get your copy.
00:23:22.580Get a copy for a friend, family member. Christmas is around the corner.
00:23:26.040Stay with us. We're coming right back with Lee Smith.
00:23:29.560Folks, as a lot of you may know, Mike Lindell and MyPillow no longer have the support of their box stores or shopping channels the way they used to.
00:23:36.120They've been part of this cancel culture, so they want to pass savings directly on to you.
00:23:39.680So they're bringing back the $25 extravaganza.
00:23:43.100When Mike started MyPillow, it was just a one problem, one solution company.
00:23:46.880Well, since then, with the help of his dedicated employees, they now have hundreds of products some of you may not even know about.
00:23:53.480To get the word out, they're having a $25 extravaganza.
00:23:57.080Two-pack multi-use MyPillows, just $25.
00:25:11.340But remember, this is something that the Democrats have to fight, right?
00:25:15.760This is what's happening at the Pentagon, right?
00:25:19.120Insofar as Trump said that he may use the military to implement part of his deportation program, this is one of the pretexts that the Pentagon is going to use to fight Trump, right?
00:25:32.540And really, perhaps destabilize the country in different ways.
00:25:35.940But remember, the tens of millions of illegals that the Biden administration ushered in over the last three and a half years, right, this is the future of the Democratic Party.
00:25:48.940Without them, they're not going to come close in any national election, right?
00:25:54.280What we're going to look at is Trump's landslide this year will be a foretaste of future disasters for the Democrats, right?
00:26:04.000They won't even be able to marshal as many electoral votes as Kamala Harris got.
00:26:08.140It's just going to get worse and worse.
00:26:09.800And again, they're going to lose power in the Northeast and in coastal cities in the West.
00:26:52.540Yeah, I had spoken to Sheriff Mark Lamb yesterday and the issue that I see happening is somehow the Supreme Court is going to come in and get their feet in this.
00:27:01.300It's something they have nothing to do with, like DACA, which they did have something to do with and couldn't make a damn decision.
00:29:09.220So, yes, I think that someone like Mayor Bowser definitely is eager to work with Donald Trump.
00:29:14.700And Mayor Bowser is not the problem, as far as I can tell, in Washington, D.C., where I lived for many years.
00:29:21.020The problem among the top of the list of problems is the city council, you know, a progressive fringe city council.
00:29:28.720So, you know, Mayor Bowser is responsible for running the city, and she's a relatively, relatively responsible mayor.
00:29:41.020Responsible. We saw that on January 6th. All right.
00:29:43.760Before we wrap up here, I want to get to two things, Jack Smith and Elon Musk.
00:29:48.120We'll start with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:29:50.580Probably not wanting cabinet positions because they don't want to give up their private lives of making money, which is completely understandable.
00:29:56.580But they do want to make an impact on the Trump agenda and on America, both being selected to run the the Doge program, the Department of Government Efficiency.
00:30:11.640What do you think those two folks are going to be able to get done in the government?
00:30:16.880I mean, you know, I think it's good to look at the to look at the bureaucracy and the problems with the bureaucracy and budgets like that.
00:30:24.160But it's an awful lot of work and you have to have the people who are, you know, I mean, again, when we talk about Pete Hegseth heading the Pentagon or Kristi Noem heading heading DHS.
00:30:34.720I mean, those are two enormous budgets right there.
00:30:39.980You know, Elon Musk talks to, you know, Peter Hegseth and say, here, hey, here's the kind of overrun, you know, the cost overrun problems you have at the Pentagon.
00:30:48.220And here's where I think you can solve them.
00:30:49.540So I don't know exactly how they work that out, but that's that's actually an enormous problem.
00:30:53.820As far as cutting the federal bureaucracy itself, I think it's important for everyone to remember going in that the the two point two million federal workers.
00:31:05.300Right. Most of these are not the people not like Andrew McCabe, Duke University Law School grads.
00:31:12.060Right. They're they're they're single moms from Prince George's County.
00:31:16.280And so there's going to be a lot of noise if you just start if you just start cutting them loose.
00:31:22.040Right. And I'm sure that, you know, in time they'll find out the dangers and what are the positive, positive contributions they can make to the country.
00:31:29.720Yeah. The Elon thing is actually brilliant to me.
00:31:32.800Every picture I see, it's like Elon's part of the family.
00:31:35.220Now I saw him at MSG with Trump with his little kid and his mom.
00:31:38.520And it's just the meshing they have between the Trump family.
00:31:41.380It seems very genuine. And that's what President Trump needs.
00:31:43.800He needs a warrior by his heart. It just so happens, Lee, it's the smartest man in the world and it's the richest man in the world.
00:31:50.100So it's beneficial on that. I want to conclude with Jack Smith, as Lou called him, the junkyard jackal, special counsel, obviously being fired.
00:32:00.240President Trump, tell him you get your ass out of here.
00:32:02.560But he's wrapping up now before the end of the year, probably ending all the cases against President Trump.
00:32:08.880There were no cases lawfare, as we all know. But he's going to file a report, Lee.
00:32:17.000I mean, I don't know. I mean, frankly, if I were him, I would just go, you know, I would type up some notes and say, yeah, so here's what we did.
00:32:28.300And here's what, you know, here's what we did. I'd keep it short and sweet and get out of town.
00:32:33.480And I don't think that Donald Trump is going to be hunting is going to be hunting Jack Smith.
00:32:38.180Jack Smith is not a great guy, but it's not Jack Smith who is responsible.
00:32:41.740It's not Jack Smith who pulled the trigger. Right.
00:32:44.560This was Joe Biden and Merrick Garland.
00:32:46.500I'm very happy that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are exchanging laughs and pleasantries with each other.
00:32:52.780But it's it's not Jack Smith who decided to pull the trigger.
00:32:56.460Lee, at the end of the day, though, it costs 50 million dollars.
00:32:59.420That's 50 million dollars that could have went to somebody.
00:33:01.840What are they going to do? Bill Jack Smith for it?
00:33:04.180I mean, you know, yeah, it's terrible.
00:33:13.360I'm not saying it from this from the standpoint of billing somebody.
00:33:16.540I'm saying it from the standpoint of the American people opening their eyes and seeing the Mueller report cost 30 million dollars.
00:33:22.020Yeah, this is my opinion, my opinion, my opinion going in.
00:33:27.100And, you know, I'm not saying it's a controversial opinion.
00:33:29.560I think that all the talk about going after bureaucrats in the deep state and this and that, it's a waste of time.
00:33:35.640And that's why I wrote that article about Barack Obama, because I said, look, if Donald Trump is going to spend four years targeting bureaucrats in the deep state, this four years is going to go by very, very quickly.