As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, a new national poll from the Cato Institute reveals a striking contradiction: Nearly half of those Americans polled cannot identify what milestone this day commemorates, yet overwhelming majorities remain proud to be Americans and continue to embrace the nation s founding ideals. Meanwhile, former CIA Director John Brennan is now asking a federal court to force the Trump administration to preserve records tied to ongoing Justice Department scrutiny of his role in the Russian collusion probe.
00:00:40.960Well, as the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, this 2026, a new national poll from the Cato Institute reveals a striking contradiction.
00:00:53.540Nearly half of those Americans polled cannot identify what milestone this day commemorates.
00:01:01.720Yet overwhelming majorities remain proud to be Americans and continue to embrace the nation's founding ideals.
00:01:08.280The poll conducted by the Libertarian Cato Institute in partnership with Morning Consult had a large sample of 202,253 adults nationwide, more than enough to be scientifically meaningful, found that a full 46% of Americans do not know what the nation's 250th anniversary commemorates, which of course is the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
00:01:36.500Just 53% correctly identified the historic event that we celebrate tomorrow.
00:01:42.940Yet, despite those gaps in civic knowledge, Americans continue to express deep affection for their country.
00:01:51.300The poll showed that 86% are grateful to be Americans, while 79% said they are proud to be Americans.
00:01:57.980More than three quarters, 76% had a favorable view of America's founding, while 70% believed the principles established by the founding fathers remain relevant even today.
00:02:10.380Finding also suggests that many Americans may struggle with the basic historic facts they continue to identify strongly with the nation's constitutional system and ideals of liberty.
00:02:20.440Support, for example, for the Constitution remains broad and strong.
00:02:25.080Near 86% said the Constitution is important for protecting America's rights and freedoms,
00:02:30.300while 82% believe it has been essential to America's prosperity.
00:02:37.600Now moving on to the news of the day, former CIA Director John Brennan,
00:02:42.400who is the arch-villain who orchestrated the Russian collusion hoax,
00:02:46.440is now asking a federal court to force the Trump administration to preserve records tied to ongoing Justice Department scrutiny of his role in the Russian collusion probe.
00:02:58.040Brennan, who is an admitted communist, has not been indicted, but his legal team says grand jury investigations have taken place in recent months.
00:03:08.740His lawsuit claims the administration is abusing criminal process to punish President Trump's political enemies and argues that the records must be preserved in case Brennan later challenges any prosecutions as selective or vindictive.
00:03:24.500In other words, any time someone who has broken the law and violated the Constitution in their manic effort to destroy Donald Trump is held responsible, they claim that they have been targeted and it is retaliation.
00:03:37.860This particular lawsuit names President Trump, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Cash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as well as other officials.
00:03:52.040The Justice Department declined to comment or deny any investigation, but a spokesman called Brennan's complaint rich.
00:03:59.460Great comment, given Brennan's own history of accusing others of misconduct during the Trump-Russia saga.
00:04:05.900At issue here are two matters. Brennan, who is, as the CIA director, the man who approved the visas for four of the eight hijackers who attacked America on 9-11 and later got caught spying on a Senate committee that was investigating his use of illegal torture in Afghanistan,
00:04:26.160says that he had, well, let me go back,
00:04:34.960as issues that matter, Brennan's involvement
00:04:36.800in probing the alleged Russian interference
00:04:38.380in the 2016 election, and the other matter
00:07:42.480Brennan was instrumental in the illegal FISA warrants that were used to spy on Donald Trump's campaign.
00:07:47.960Brennan was also involved in the electoral interference and censorship operation that helped defeat Donald Trump out of his rightful second term in 2020.
00:07:58.180He was also one of those who signed among the 51 national security officials who claimed falsely that Hillary Clinton's, pardon me, that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation.
00:08:12.180disinformation. Brennan and his deep state co-conspirators accurately called the spies
00:08:17.420who lied by the New York Post are finding it difficult to cope with the fact that the public
00:08:22.520refused to buy their nonsense and re-elected Trump to his historic second term, rejecting their warped
00:08:28.700elitist mindset completely. Even the most cursory review of Brennan's public interviews will show
00:08:35.260him constantly ranting that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president, that Tulsi Gabbard was
00:08:41.020not qualified to be the director of national intelligence, or that Kash Patel is not qualified
00:08:45.620to be the director of the FBI. One might simply ask, qualified John Brennan, given his jaded
00:08:51.860personal history, to be director of the CIA. Brennan and his fellow apparatchiks see themselves
00:08:58.020as sagacious gatekeepers who possess a holy mandate in determining who should be the leader
00:09:03.820of the free world. It is this cabal who are the arbiters of democracy, not the will of the people,
00:09:10.060not the voters, as was the terms are traditionally defined, according to this self-serving ideology.
00:09:17.380So I think the likes of Brennan have lorded over Washington, D.C. for far too long.
00:09:21.720As a result, we have limitless debt, endless war, the unconstitutional expansion of power,
00:09:27.140and the erosion of civil liberties, as well as the decimation of our fundamental rights.
00:09:33.660Because of this anti-American behavior, Brennan would certainly be the perfect, disgraced official
00:09:39.740to make it into a harsh example. Brennan confessed during a lie detector test that he was an
00:09:45.260operative for the Communist Party of America during four different election cycles. Due to
00:09:50.100institutional rot, this startling revelation somehow did not preclude John Brennan from
00:09:56.100serving as a CIA director. Former FBI special agent John Guandolo, who's appeared here in the
00:10:02.480Stone Zone, said that, who was a crucial leader in the Bureau's counterintelligence efforts following
00:10:08.900to September 11 attacks revealed that Brennan actually converted to radical Islam while working
00:10:14.980as a CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia. And as I mentioned earlier, it was John Brennan who,
00:10:21.160as the CIA station chief in Riyadh, approved the visas for four of the Saudis who were among the
00:10:29.82019 hijackers accusing of striking America on 9-11. John Brennan's connection make him the perfect CIA
00:10:36.540director as President Barack Obama corroded every American institution to soften the nation up for
00:10:42.380the collapse into socialism. Brennan was the perfect CIA director to funnel arms and money
00:10:47.840into the hands of ISIS militants as they wreaked havoc across the Middle East and Europe. He was
00:10:52.860the perfect CIA director to oversee the Russiagate frame job against President Donald Trump. And he
00:10:58.520will be the perfect CIA director, the first in history to face charges of seditious treasony.
00:11:04.900I think it is time that John Brennan be brought to justice.
00:11:09.480Meanwhile, a newly released Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report confirms what many Americans have feared.
00:11:16.380The Secret Service missed repeated chances to stop the July 13th, 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
00:11:25.020This red-hot 64-page report says the agency missed multiple opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt the attacks by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who they allege climbed upon the roof of the American Glass Research Complex roughly 155 yards from the stage.
00:11:43.800At 6.09 p.m., local law enforcement warned the Secret Service and the Pennsylvania State Police Communications Room that a suspicious person was on the roof, but instead of immediately getting the building's location from the officers on the ground, a Secret Service supervisor handed the task to a counter drone operator.
00:12:03.500According to the investigators, that operator searched online for location, was still searching when Crooks opened fire.
00:12:13.800Trump's ear, killing one rally goer and injuring others before he's shot to death by law enforcement.
00:12:19.980There's an open question as why the counter shooter waited the eight seconds after first locating Crooks in his viewfinder.
00:12:29.080I personally have serious questions whether Crooks is in fact the actual assassin.
00:12:34.760I find it hard to believe that he acted alone.
00:12:37.500I find it hard to believe that the state police, the local police, the Secret Service and the FBI all knew that there was a man inside the perimeter of Trump's rally for 90 minutes before they apprised Donald Trump's immediate security detail.
00:12:53.820I think there's a high probability that the killer is a man named Matthew Yerick.
00:14:59.840The American people deserve accountability because protecting a president, especially
00:15:03.420one facing unprecedented political hostility, cannot be treated like an afterthought.
00:15:07.300And as I said, minutes after the shooting, a source in the Pennsylvania State Police
00:15:12.600called to tell me that they believe that the shooter was one Maxwell Yerick. I looked up Yerick
00:15:18.480online and he had a criminal record of violence at various Trump events. Since that time, he has
00:15:23.920dropped from sight. I think there should be further investigation of Mr. Yerick.
00:15:28.860Meanwhile, a new economic YouGov poll shows just how far left the Democratic Party really has moved.
00:15:35.100The poll asked Americans whether they would ever vote for a candidate who identifies
00:15:38.540as a Democratic Socialist. Overall, 45% said no, 29% said yes, and 26%, well, they weren't sure.
00:15:47.680But among Democrats, the numbers tell a real story. 62% of Democrats said they would vote
00:15:52.860for a Democratic Socialist, while only 11% said they would not. Among self-described liberals,
00:15:59.080support climbed to 73%. Even 64% of 2024 Kamala Harris voters said they would back a Socialist
00:16:07.120candidate. By contrast, 85% of Republicans and 95% of Trump voters rejected the idea of voting
00:16:14.080for a socialist candidate. The survey also found that Democrats are more likely to choose socialism
00:16:19.120over capitalism, with 34% actually picking socialism as superior to capitalism. This is
00:16:26.500obviously not your daddy's Democratic Party. The old Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy,
00:16:31.500Robert F. Kennedy, and Harry Truman is dead. 58% of Democrats say they view socialism
00:16:37.540favorably. The results come as a socialist gain ground inside the Democratic Party,
00:16:42.220included, of course, in New York, where Zoran Mamdami's rise has energized the radical left
00:16:47.300and helped socialist-backed candidates challenge established Democrats. But it's not just there.
00:16:52.680We've seen it in Colorado, where a veteran Democrat congresswoman was defeated last week.
00:16:57.440We've seen it in the District of Columbia, where the Democratic primary produced a socialist candidate for mayor.
00:17:04.220It's very clear why many young people hear fairness and mistake it for socialism without understanding the real world record of places like Venezuela, Cuba, communist China, and demagogues do everything they can to muddle the issue for the public.
00:17:19.540For common sense people, this poll confirms what has been obvious for several years.
00:17:24.080Socialism is no longer a fringe idea on the left.
00:17:26.900It's becoming a governed philosophy inside the Democrat Party.
00:17:30.620Voters now face a clear choice between free enterprise and a movement increasingly comfortable with government control of every aspect of your private life.
00:17:39.560They want to determine how you can set your thermostat and where you can set it.
00:24:03.700A source familiar with the matter told Semaphore that there are several ongoing investigations relating to Newsom,
00:24:11.660reportedly focusing on his wife's taxes and his chief of staff, as well as involving whistleblowers from Sacramento.
00:24:18.820Newsom, predictably, of course, is blaming President Donald Trump and calling himself a political target.
00:24:24.860But California voters deserve facts, not deflection.
00:24:28.040When federal investigators, whistleblowers, guilty pleas, and secret recordings all point towards Sacramento's Democratic power structure, the public has every right to demand transparency, accountability, and equal justice under the law.
00:24:42.900And, of course, this all begins at the top.
00:24:45.060It's very clear to me that Newsom is dirty and he must be held accountable for his nefarious behavior.
00:24:51.400Meanwhile, the Trump Justice Department is taking California to court
00:24:55.480over what it calls unconstitutional attacks on the Second Amendment.
00:24:59.680On July 1st, the Department of Justice sued the state
00:25:03.100over its ban on so-called machine gun convertible pistols
00:28:04.040it sold just 3,221 print copies that week, with total U.S. print sales under 30,000.
00:28:12.100Publishing experts note that bunk sales can be legitimate, especially around book tours and
00:28:17.000events, but plenty of offers tour without getting flagged by the times. The bigger issue here is
00:28:22.380credibility. Best-seller lists are supposed to reflect genuine public interest, not the ability
00:28:27.820of political networks, campaigns, donors, or wealthy institutions to buy stacks of books
00:28:33.900and manufacture momentum that is not there.
00:28:36.920For the Biden brand, a weak showing would be embarrassing.
00:28:39.880So, when Joe Biden's memoirs rockets to number one with a warning label attached, then quickly
00:28:44.860fades, I think Americans are right to ask whether there was popularity or whether this
00:28:49.420was some kind of political stagecraft.
00:28:53.000Meanwhile, disgraced former special counsel Jack Smith is back in front of the friendly
00:28:57.280cameras, this time complaining that the Trump Justice Department can no longer be trusted to
00:29:02.160represent the American people in court. This is almost laughable. Speaking with MSNOW's Nicole
00:29:08.780Wallace, Smith claimed the department had lost credibility with judges and accused the
00:29:13.360administration of pursuing retribution prosecutions. He argued that prosecutors no longer
00:29:19.080effective, that expertise has been pushed out, and that the national security is being weakened.
00:29:24.080But a lot of Americans see this very differently. Jack Smith, the man who ran an unprecedented extra constitutional prosecution against President Donald Trump, now whining because the Justice Department is no longer operating as a political weapon for the left.
00:29:39.120Smith pointed to fired FBI Director Brian Driscoll and calling him a folk hero, praising him for refusing to turn over information related to agents who worked on the January 6th cases.
00:29:50.780Yes, Driscoll refused to turn over the list of plain-coast FBI agents who were planted in the audience as provocateurs.
00:29:59.460So, for millions of Americans, the real issue is not whether insiders protect one another.
00:30:03.900It's whether the federal government is finally being forced to answer for years of politicized investigations, selective enforcement, and abuses of power.
00:30:12.640Smith's sudden concern that trust rings hollow is a joke.
00:30:17.040This is the same Washington legal class that asked Americans to accept endless investigations of Trump while dismissing many concerns of Americans as conspiracy theories.
00:30:47.980Smith talks as if a federal judge did not determine that he had been unlawfully appointed by a special counsel or that that same judge busted his team for misrepresenting the conditions and materials they seized on the illegal raid and Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago.
00:31:03.200Or how Judge Eileen Cannon kicked one of his henchmen out of court one day over his disrespect for temper tantrum.
00:31:09.640or how she constantly pressed his team as to why they conducted their entire investigation in front of a D.C. grand jury
00:31:16.000and then allowed a Florida grand jury to read those transcripts in order to seek their indictments of Trump and his associates
00:31:23.740or why Jack Smith and D.C. Judge Jeb Bosberg refused to produce grand jury transcripts from that investigation to her, a federal judge.
00:31:34.600As far as Brian Disco is concerned, the so-called folk hero, that's really hilarious.
00:31:39.640Driscoll was fired for refusing direct orders to produce a list of FBI employees who were involved undercover in the investigations of January 6th.
00:31:49.700The whining by those on the radical left is really laughable.
00:31:53.860What you have here is a clear case of people who broke the law and the Constitution in their manic effort to destroy Donald Trump being held responsible.
00:32:04.240And when they're held responsible, they claim they're being victimized.
00:33:04.520Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt fortune, is now actually promoting socialism as the future of the Democratic Party.
00:33:13.420In a CNN interview, Pritzker defended the rise of progressive and socialist candidates, calling their success, quote, the recipe for winning in 2026 and beyond.
00:33:23.360Looks like the free enterprise system has made a lot of money for Pritzker and his family, but he doesn't seem to care about that.
00:33:28.380That comment comes as Democrats face growing pressure from their own left flank, with socialist candidates gaining ground, and polls showing a significant share of Democratic voters open to support him, as we said earlier.
00:33:40.020But the real irony is hard to miss. Pritzker is one of America's wealthiest politicians, yet he's cheering on an ideology that claims to oppose concentrated wealth.
00:33:50.340What I found even more offensive is the fact that he suggested that President Donald Trump had signs of dementia, despite having insisted that Joe Biden was mentally sharp as a tack before the 2024 election.
00:34:04.440This is the old left wing bait and switch.
00:34:06.960President Donald Trump, who has taken and released all of his medical tests, includes cognitive tests, is in perfect health.
00:34:16.440But those who refuse to question the stability, the mental and physical condition of Joe Biden,
00:34:22.340now claiming without any basis whatsoever that Donald Trump has dementia.
00:34:27.800Socialist movements always promise equity for the working class.
00:34:31.640But history shows the elites usually keep the power, the money and the protection.
00:34:36.200J.B. Pritzker doesn't look to me like he's missed many meals.
00:34:40.020From communist regimes abroad to today's political class at home,
00:34:43.420the people pushing equity are often the least likely to live under those very rules that they impose.
00:34:49.220The same pattern is visible across the modern left.
00:34:52.340Affluent activists, celebrity influencers, powerful politicians branding themselves as champions of the working class
00:34:59.340while enjoying wealth and connections among most Americans will never see.
00:35:04.700Pritzker's comments reveal where the Democrat Party is headed.
00:35:07.840The social wing is no longer on the fringe.
00:35:12.160And voters should understand exactly the benefits when billionaires start selling socialism.
00:35:17.860Meanwhile, as I said earlier, Florida Congresswoman Anna Polina Luna says the CIA is now working to declassify newly discovered documents tied to a program called MKUltra.
00:35:28.480This is the agency's famous Cold War era mind control program.
00:35:32.840Luna, who chairs the Hout Oversight Task Committee on Declassification of Federal Secrets, made the announcement during a hearing focused on exposing the truth behind this secret program.
00:35:43.760She said the newly found records relate to what she called a forgery program housed under MKUltra, although she didn't provide further details.
00:35:55.180When it was discovered and leaked to the Washington Post, the CIA director, Richard Helms, had all records of the mind control program destroyed, or at least we thought so.
00:36:06.960But this program included drug and psychological experiments, often with minimal oversight.
00:36:12.980The program included LSD testing, experimenting on unwitting subjects, including prisoners, mental patients, prostitutes, and their clients in an effort to study mind control and coercion.
00:36:24.980coercion. Luna's update follows the whistleblower testimony of a CIA officer, James Erdman III,
00:36:32.000who alleges that about 40 boxes of material related to both the JFK assassination and MK
00:36:37.760Ultra had been removed from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence during a
00:36:42.460declassification review. After initial reports of a raid were disputed, Luna clarified the CIA
00:36:48.580took the documents under ODNI jurisdiction but said the removal did not happen, that the removal
00:36:55.120did happen. She and Congressman Eric Burleson, another friend of mine, later visited CIA,
00:37:00.380of course, discussed the records. But for many Americans, this is why transparency matters.
00:37:05.560Americans have been lied to again and again by these powerful agencies operating in the shadows.
00:37:11.460Luna's push for declassification is a reminder that the intelligence community works for the
00:37:15.720people, not the other way around. There is no better day than Independence Day to recognize
00:37:21.940our right to transparency and accountability from the federal government. And frankly,
00:37:26.780there is no member of Congress better than Anna Paulina Luna in Florida in fighting for that. She0.98
00:37:32.340fought for the declassification of the Kennedy assassination records, the Robert F. Kennedy
00:37:37.080declassification records, and the records regarding the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.
00:37:41.920So on this 4th of July, I celebrate Congressman Anna Paulina Luna of Florida as a true patriot.
00:37:49.480Thanks for joining us today in the Stone Zone.