Bondi Rocks, Newsom Doubles Down on Policies Hurting Californians & Dems Demagogue Entrepreneurs
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Summary
Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons discuss the latest in the confirmation hearings for the Trump cabinet nominees. They also discuss California Gov. Gavin Newsom's new plan to fight the fires, and Bernie Sanders' confirmation of Scott Besson to be Treasury Secretary.
Transcript
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Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as always.
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Senator, this will be our last show before there is a inauguration that's going to be taking place next week,
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which is really fun, but it's already started on Capitol Hill with confirmation hearings.
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And I think it's pretty fair to say if Democrats were hoping for fireworks
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and they were hoping to derail some of the nominees this week, they failed miserably.
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So, Ben, I love you, but I got to say somebody needs to buy you a calendar.
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So inauguration is on Monday, which means we will have a Monday morning podcast,
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which means you and I will record it on Sunday.
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So this is our second to last podcast before inauguration.
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Okay, fine. So we're going to have one more show technically on the day of the inauguration.
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I understand when Monday occurs is a difficult thing to figure out.
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And so we're going to talk about what happened this week.
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We had confirmation hearings for half of the Trump cabinet.
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I mean, that's what the New York Times says Republicans do all the time.
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They pounced and they pounced and they pounced.
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If you're a Democrat trying to think you're going to defeat the Trump cabinet,
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you are despondent right now because they shot at everybody and they failed everywhere.
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I believe every single Trump cabinet nominee will be confirmed.
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We're going to talk about, so I participated in a number of them.
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We're going to talk about in particular Pam Bondi because Pam Bondi is attorney general.
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But we're going to break down the issues that we talked about because it really went to the core
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of restoring integrity to the Department of Justice.
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So that's number one we're going to talk about.
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Number two, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.
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He's facing horrific wildfires that sadly his own misguided policies played a significant part
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in increasing the likelihood of in limiting the ability of California to fight against.
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He's not focused on we need more fire mitigation.
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He's not focusing on we need more sensible water management.
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And he's also not saying, all right, enough with woke firefighter policies.
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We need to actually hire firefighters devoted to fighting fires.
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Gavin Newsom, instead, he rolled out a proposal and he said, if anyone offers to buy somebody's
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home, somebody's property that's been burned to the ground, that is devastated, and I, Gavin
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Newsom, think the offer is too low, I'll criminally prosecute you.
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It is, again, if Saturday Night Live made fun of leftists, they couldn't come up with a
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And finally, Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders in the confirmation of Scott Besson to be Treasury
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Well, except for leftist communist billionaires who fund the Democrat Party.
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That, at the end of the day, I got to say, Scott Besson popped it back and showed the utter
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And this was just, I think, an exciting time for many Trump supporters.
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There was worry early on that there could be some derailing of some nominees here.
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They work together and they try to, you know, derail in any way they can.
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That just does not seem to be what's going to happen here.
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As you said, you believe everyone's going to get confirmed.
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So, so look, we talked about in the last pod, Pete Hegseth.
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Pete Hegseth is clearly the one they're targeting the most.
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But I got to say, Pete did a fantastic job at his confirmation hearing.
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If you look at Pam Bondi as the nominee for attorney general, she did a spectacular job
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And I want you to listen to right now my questioning of Pam Bondi.
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So I went right after Maisie Hirono, Democrat from Hawaii, who gave this long screed about
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how Pam Bondi and Trump was going to politicize the Department of Justice.
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She said, well, because Trump is going to ask you to prosecute his opponents and you're
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going to do it because you're a political hack.
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Give a listen to my questioning of Pam Bondi in the hearing this week.
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Thank you for your long career in public service.
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And thank you for your willingness to take on this incredibly important office.
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You know, I have to say, I don't know that there is a more important position in this
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new administration than the position to which you have been nominated, Attorney General of
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I thought the exchange just a moment ago with Senator Hirono was illustrative.
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She asked you how you would respond if the president asked you to target his political enemies.
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It's rather striking because it's not a hypothetical.
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And I think perhaps the most tragic legacy of the Biden-Harris administration has been the
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politicization and the weaponization of the United States Department of Justice.
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And we don't need to ask hypothetically because Joe Biden publicly mused and allowed the New York
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Times to report it, calling on Merrick Garland, why will he not prosecute Trump more quickly?
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And Merrick Garland, sadly, he sat in that chair and promised to be apolitical, and he broke that
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promise almost the instant he walked into the Department of Justice.
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If you look on the west pediment of the Supreme Court of the United States, just above the entrance,
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there's a simple yet profound forward phrase, equal justice under law.
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We have seen over the last four years a Department of Justice that systematically targeted the
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political opponents of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and that systematically protected his
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And it is tragic to see the loss of confidence in the American people, in the Department of
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I would note I don't think there's an institution in America who has lost more respect from the
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American people than the FBI has in the last four years.
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That is a grotesque violation of the obligation of the Department of Justice and the FBI.
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So I want to start with just a very simple question.
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If you are confirmed as Attorney General, will you pledge to fairly and faithfully uphold the
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I don't want a Republican Department of Justice.
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I want a Department of Justice that follows the damn law.
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Now, I'm grateful to President Trump for nominating you.
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I think on any objective level, you're clearly qualified for this position.
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You have been the elected Attorney General of the state of Florida, the third largest state
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Let me ask you, in terms of your practice, how many criminal cases over the course of
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I tried four when I was an intern, jury trials.
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I think you had to try at least 20 in misdemeanor before you went to felony.
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And I was also lead trial attorney for many years, trying many cases.
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And how many of those cases would have been before a judge?
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And as Attorney General of Florida, how many lawyers did you supervise, roughly?
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During the course of this hearing, several Democrat senators have referred to you as President
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Now, I don't believe that is an accurate characterization.
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As I understand it, you represented President Trump as a White House special advisor during
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Within Office of White House Counsel, yes, Senator.
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And is working within the White House Counsel's office different than representing Donald J.
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You're working for the Office of White House Counsel.
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You're not representing him in his personal capacity.
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And so you have not represented him in his business affairs, in his personal life, or
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And, you know, when it comes to weaponization, it's worth noting that in more than two centuries
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of our nation's history, no president had previously been indicted.
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No president had previously been prosecuted until the Biden-Harris White House came along.
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And in the last four years, we've seen Donald Trump indicted and prosecuted, not once, not
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twice, not three times, but four separate times.
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I have to say, Javert from Les Mis would be chagrined at the efforts of Democrats to do
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And I believe the real target in this was not President Trump, but it was the American
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people, that these prosecutions were brought because partisan prosecutors were terrified
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that the American people would do exactly what they did in November of 2024 and vote to reelect
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By 77.3 percent, million Americans, 77.3 million Americans.
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Will you commit every day as Attorney General to follow the law, to follow the Constitution,
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to uphold the rule of law without favor and without regard to the partisan position of any criminal defendant?
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Senator, that's what we should all expect from an Attorney General.
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Senator, I love the way that you laid that out to explain just so many of the attacks and fallacies,
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but also what our job is and the fact, and you've said this before, and I think it's a great point
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to make, again, you don't want a Republican Department of DOJ or a Democrat.
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You want it to be nonpartisan because that's what got us into this mess with legal warfare
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against every conservative, anyone around Trump, and the list is long of people that have been
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Well, and the Democrats have been screaming at her.
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What will you do if Trump demands go prosecute Democrats?
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And the point I try to make is, listen, that's not a hypothetical.
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And by the way, Merrick Garland saluted and said, sir, yes, sir, and went and indicted Donald Trump
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By the way, I don't believe Donald Trump will demand that.
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Now, I will say we had a second round of questioning with Pam Bondi.
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And in the second round, I focused on a different aspect of politicization.
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One aspect of it is using the machinery of justice to go after your enemies,
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using the machinery of justice to protect the political friends of the president.
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But there's a different aspect of politicization, and that is refusing to follow the law for an
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So listen to this short round of questioning that I had with Pam Bondi later in the day.
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And I want to go back to the topic you and I discussed before, which is the politicization
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We talked about the Department of Justice under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris being used
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We talked about it being used to protect the political friends and allies of the White House.
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But there's another aspect of politicization and lawlessness, and that is refusing to follow
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the law, utterly defying federal statutory law.
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And I think there's no area where this has been more egregious than as it concerns our immigration
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We have had four years of a wide open southern border.
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My state, Texas, has borne a disproportionate burden as a consequence of that, as 12 million
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And what the Biden administration has done, no other president in the history of America
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The Biden administration has simply ignored the law.
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And when illegal aliens are apprehended, they release them.
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Federal law says they shall be detained, says they shall be deported.
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And frankly, our constitutional system is not meant to deal with a president who defies the
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Article 2 says the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
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I have said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Joe Biden did something I previously thought was
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Because Barack Obama, for all my disagreements with him, when it came to illegal immigration,
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The left got mad at him and called him the deporter-in-chief.
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No administration has ever done what this administration has done, which has said, we are going to facilitate
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And we are going to see Americans murdered, women raped, children abused and murdered.
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We're going to see drugs flood into this country, fentanyl flood into this country.
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And so I want to ask you several things on this.
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First of all, in your experience, what are the consequences of open borders?
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And who pays the price when illegal immigrants, and in particular, violent criminal illegal immigrants
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And I think they're paying, I know, they're paying the price every single day.
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We've talked about Lake and Riley, of course, multiple times.
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But there are multiple victims, violent crime in all of our states.
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And as we say now, every state is a border state.
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I was at the border, not in your state, but in Yuma, Arizona, several months ago.
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And I saw firsthand, I saw the Border Patrol agents and customs showed us IDs and driver's
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Venezuela, from all of these countries, IDs just thrown on the ground.
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And people were allowed to walk freely into our country.
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Senator, I never knew the definition of a disposable child.
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I never heard that term in my entire career until I was there.
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A disposable child, the agents kept recognizing a little boy coming over and over.
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And let me ask, because my time has expired, and the issue you're raising is so incredibly
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One statistic that every American should know is the number 300,000.
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There are over 300,000 children that this administration has lost.
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Little girls and little boys who came here unaccompanied were in this administration's
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They handed them over to adults, many of them not blood relatives, and they don't know where
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I've never seen a single Democrat in this committee ask one question about the 300,000 children.
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Will you, as Attorney General, investigate and make every effort to find those children?
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And if they are subject to abuse, get them out of those abusive situations that the federal
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Senator, this goes back to, I think, one of the things we talked about and highlighted on
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this show, and that was just the abuse of power by Mayorkas and not even knowing about,
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for example, the wristbands, which you've described on this show, that were found at the border.
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And so many people that are trafficked had to wear those, including kids.
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You look at how we've lost all these kids and hearing her commit to actually using the
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DOJ for this reason, which should be a nonpolitical reason, saving kids from sex slavery, for goodness
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Look, you and I, in our last podcast two days ago, we talked about the horrific scandal in
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the United Kingdom of thousands of girls subject to repeated child rape for decades, and how the
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government turned its back on them, refused to prosecute, refused to investigate, all in the name of
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By the way, if you did not listen to Wednesday's podcast, you ought to listen to it, because it
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really is, there are among the stories that really bother me, that horrify me, that's really
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But you and I talked about on Wednesday how it's easy to say as Americans, well, gosh,
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it's a shame the Brits did that, but we're somehow better than that.
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300,000 kids in America have been lost, and the Biden administration doesn't care.
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I am very, very glad this week that Pam Bondi committed to me on the record that as attorney
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general, she's going to investigate, I hope she's going to create a task force in the
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Department of Justice to go and find those 300,000 kids, to go figure out, are these children
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being abused, are they being physically abused, are they being sexually abused, what happened,
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that it's not okay for the federal government to lose 300,000 little boys and little girls.
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This week I sat down with Bobby Kennedy, and when I sat down with him, I asked him the same
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question. He's going to be the next secretary of HHS. Will HHS investigate and fought those
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children and make sure they're not being abused? And I'll tell you, he committed to be in my office
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the same thing. That's a big deal, and it's one of the many things that makes me very excited about
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Let's talk about timing, because there's a lot of people worried that there's going to be, you know,
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delays with cabinet members. You mentioned half of the cabinet you guys have had
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up in front of you this week. There are 20 attorney generals that are calling for what
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they described as swift Senate confirmations of Chrissy Noem, Pam Bondi, Cash Patel. Are there
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going to be shenanigans that try to delay this? Are you concerned about that? Because there have
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been a lot of articles written about that the last couple days. You know, I'm not really concerned,
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so we have had hearings already for about half of the cabinet nominees. Now, I'm going to point out,
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January 20th has not happened yet, so it's before Donald Trump has become president again.
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None of these nominees have been nominated, so nobody can be nominated to a cabinet position
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until the president is in office. He will not be in office until noon on January 20th.
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So the Senate is holding confirmation hearings on a whole bunch of nominees who haven't been
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nominated yet, and that's a good thing. I think on January 20th, Trump will take the oath of office
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at noon. That day will confirm, I think, probably a couple of Trump cabinet nominees. My guess is
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Marco Rubio will be confirmed as Secretary of State. I think it will be an overwhelming vote.
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I think he'll get north of 90 votes. He might even get north of 95 votes. It will be
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all the Republicans and most of the Democrats. I think there's a good chance John Ratcliffe,
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who's been nominated to be director of CIA, I think he'll be confirmed on January 20th.
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And I think the rest of the cabinet will be confirmed in the next 30 days.
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So will it be instantaneous? Will it be in 10 minutes? No. But I think within 30 days,
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we'll move the cabinet through and we'll move expeditiously. And this week's been a very good
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week for that because the cabinet nominees have performed exceptionally, and I think they're all
00:21:07.800
So let's talk about and go back to something you said a moment ago, and that's, you know,
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what are you focusing on? It's very clear that the Republicans are focused on moving forward,
00:21:17.340
getting things done for the people. And you look at what Democrats are doing, whether and we're
00:21:22.540
going to get to this part in a minute, but whether it's them saying, oh, we don't like people that
00:21:26.140
aren't our fans right now. So we're going to call them oligarchs. We're going to attack people
00:21:30.400
that are rich. And then you look out in California where the wildfires, unfortunately,
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are still burning. And it seems to be pure politics right now for the governor out there
00:21:40.320
who had enough time to, while these wildfires are going on, to get in a back and forth with you.
00:21:46.560
Yeah. So Gavin Newsom, you and I did a podcast last week, and it was another podcast, which if
00:21:52.720
y'all didn't listen to, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to. It laid out the specific policies
00:21:58.720
policies that California had put in place that increased the chances of disastrous and
00:22:06.020
catastrophic wildfires and that reduced the ability of California to fight those wildfires.
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Now, look, what is happening in California is horrific. And as you know, Heidi's a native
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Californian. A lot of her family is out in California. My heart is breaking for these
00:22:22.900
Americans who are seeing their homes burned to the ground, the people being killed. It is an
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absolute tragedy. And I am grateful for the firefighters, for the police officers, for the
00:22:33.520
first responders who are risking their lives to save people. Even at the time we are rallying
00:22:41.460
around protecting people in harm's way, I think it is valuable to ask, are there policies that
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California enacted that made this worse? And the answer is yes. And then I got to say,
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this week, Gavin Newsom jumped out. We're going to play the audio in a second. And here's what he
00:23:01.200
tweeted. He said, quote, today, I signed an executive order prohibiting greedy land developers from
00:23:07.960
ripping off L.A. wildfire victims with unsolicited, undervalued offers to buy their destroyed property.
00:23:14.840
Make no mistake. This is a prosecutable crime. So play Gavin Newsom saying this.
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Altadena, I just signed an executive order with community leaders to deal with the issue that is
00:23:27.760
becoming a bigger and bigger issue every day. And that's land developers that are engaging in
00:23:33.660
predatory efforts to make unsolicited offers for properties at significantly below market value.
00:23:41.340
This predatory behavior is disgusting in the best of times. And of course, here in the midst of this
00:23:47.520
tragedy at scale, it's disgraceful. So we're going to hold those folks accountable. I'm very grateful
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for the leadership here in the community that promoted this approach and this executive order's
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reflection of their direction and their commitment to preserving the unique character of this community
00:24:05.180
Make no mistake. This is a prosecutable crime is what he put out there in his tweet saying, I'm signing this
00:24:11.480
executive order prohibiting the greedy land developers from ripping off L.A. wildfire victims with unsolicited
00:24:20.040
So I responded. I responded on Twitter and I sent back the following tweet.
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Misguided California policies. Number one, limited fire mitigation efforts.
00:24:31.180
Number two, produced water shortages. And number three, underfunded firefighters. And by the way,
00:24:37.640
that's what we discussed at depth in our podcast last week. The tweet continued. Now, Democrat politicians
00:24:47.420
are making it harder for those devastated by the wildfires to sell their destroyed properties.
00:24:54.760
This will only hurt the victims. So that was my response. And then I got to say, it's interesting, you know,
00:25:05.220
Newsom is in the middle of a crisis. And yet somehow he found time to tweet back against me. He was mad at what
00:25:12.500
I had to say. So here's what Gavin Newsom tweeted back. He said, quote,
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Openly shilling for scammers and bottom feeder land speculators is a weird play. Even for you, Ted,
00:25:29.240
our executive order doesn't prevent anyone from selling their property. It prohibits scammers
00:25:35.460
from making unsolicited offers to buy property for pennies on the dollar. And then I got to say,
00:25:43.120
I responded to that. And I said, leftists, ignorant of basic economics, have played a major role in the
00:25:54.160
exodus of millions from California. Now, Newsom brags that he will criminally prosecute anyone making a
00:26:03.260
quote, unquote, low offer to purchase a fire devastated property. The result? Many Californians
00:26:14.500
won't get offers. And I got to say, this back and forth, I think it actually reveals a lot.
00:26:23.780
The left today, they don't understand basic economics. They don't understand economics 101.
00:26:29.660
Let's say you're a person in L.A. and let's say your home has been tragically destroyed. Let's say
00:26:35.360
you're in tragedy. You're in crisis. You don't know what to do. It's burned to a crisp. You can't
00:26:40.780
afford to rebuild. You don't know what to do. And you know what? Maybe someone comes in and makes an
00:26:48.080
offer and says, hey, Ben, your property that has been burned down, whether it's your home or commercial
00:26:52.920
property where you have, I'll pay you X dollars for that. Now, before the fire, you probably wouldn't
00:27:00.000
have taken X dollars because your property wasn't burned to the ground. It was worth more.
00:27:04.720
But after the fire, you might well say, holy cow, I'm in panic. I need help. That is a lifesaver to me.
00:27:16.160
So thank you. I will take X dollars because I can't afford it if I don't don't get some help right
00:27:21.540
now. What is Gavin Newsom saying? Nope. If you make an offer, damn it. I'm going to prosecute you
00:27:28.800
and throw you in jail. What that means is let's say, Ben, your home's burned to a crisp. You know
00:27:33.520
what? People aren't going to make you offers because if they're worried, wait, if I offer to buy Ben
00:27:38.480
Ferguson's home, the lunatics in California are going to come prosecute me and put me in jail.
00:27:44.520
You know what? I ain't making an offer. So you know what you're going to get for your property?
00:27:48.140
Zero. Because numbskull politicians are focused on demagoguing someone who would offer to buy
00:27:58.780
a fire destroyed property rather than focusing on stopping these wired fires, preventing them
00:28:05.320
and supporting the firefighters to stop them if and when they occur. There's also a family aspect of
00:28:11.940
this that is concerning. And you and I saw this with the massive flooding that happened in Houston.
00:28:19.020
My in-law's house got flooded out. They had no intent of moving. But after they got flooded, it was the
00:28:25.100
right time for them to leave that house and sell that house, that lot basically, and move closer to
00:28:32.440
where the rest of the family was. That was a family decision. And if someone knocked on the door
00:28:38.000
and was like, hey, I don't know if you want to rebuild this, maybe you should, you know, this is
00:28:43.980
a lot value that is worth a lot. And here's the economics of this. There were many people that
00:28:49.680
made that decision as well. You just took that away from them. Yeah, look, it's not complicated. In a free
00:28:56.100
society, I have a right to offer you if I see something, if I see your house, if I see your car,
00:29:03.560
if I see anything, and I say, hey, I'll give you $100,000 for that. I'll give you a million dollars
00:29:10.800
for that. I'll give you $1,000 for that. Whatever. Like, like, we have a free society where I can tell
00:29:16.580
you, Ben, you have something. Do you want to sell it? I'll offer you this price. By the way, no one's
00:29:21.320
forcing you to say yes. Like, if someone makes an offer, you could say, go pound sand. No, I don't want
00:29:27.680
to sell it. And that's perfectly fine. If you remember the movie Bugsy, great movie about the beginning of LA
00:29:33.300
and Warren Beatty is playing Bugsy Siegel, and he's in Beverly Hills, and he sees this gorgeous
00:29:38.120
mansion, and he walks up to the door, knocks on the door, and he says, I want to buy your house.
00:29:42.860
The guy says, it's not for sale. And he says, nonsense, everything's for sale. How much do you
00:29:46.560
want? And he says, it's not for sale. And then he offers some massive amount. And 30 seconds later,
00:29:52.660
the guy leaves his house, and Bugsy Siegel moves into his house. Like, at some level, the right to offer,
00:29:57.660
I will pay you X for what you have. That's the basic conduct of free people. And so,
00:30:05.400
but the point on this, and this is Economics 101, when Gavin Newsom says, I'm going to come and lock
00:30:14.120
you up and put you in jail if you make an offer to people in crisis. Well, you know what? People are
00:30:20.460
not going to make offers. So people are sitting there who are trapped and hopeless, and their
00:30:25.500
insurance was canceled. They can't get insurance. They can't pay their property taxes. They can't,
00:30:30.000
they don't know what to do. They're all going to be worse off because, listen, if someone makes an
00:30:37.000
offer to buy it, maybe you say, no, I don't want that offer. It's not enough. I don't want it. Okay,
00:30:40.700
you're not any worse off. Have you been hurt because someone called and said, I'll give you
00:30:45.220
this amount for your property? You're not hurt. But for people who are in crisis,
00:30:50.700
that offer may be the, the, the, the, the life preserver they need. And Gavin Newsom said,
00:30:57.840
nope, nope, nope. You ain't getting offers. Guess what? You're just going under because we,
00:31:04.820
the, the, the, the California socialists, we're not going to focus on, on, on protecting you.
00:31:09.980
We're going to focus on demagoguing the big, bad, rich person who would offer to buy your property
00:31:15.760
instead. It is also goes back to this other narrative and we heard it from the president
00:31:20.180
of the United States of America the other night. He was obsessed with this idea of oligarchs. I
00:31:24.640
actually think this was a little bit different. Uh, and Bernie Sanders started naming names when he
00:31:30.840
was, uh, doing the confirmation hearing for the man who's up for, for treasury secretary. And I want
00:31:37.400
to get your take and we're going to play Bernie. But one of the things I, I felt was really kind of
00:31:42.900
icky about this was the fact that it's like, Hey, we're warning some of you that have stepped out
00:31:49.540
of line from the democratic party that we're coming after you. When we get our power back,
00:31:56.020
if you do, if you step out too far into the conservative side of things, and that's why we're
00:32:02.440
warning you that if we name you as a, an oligarch, then if we get our, when we get our power back,
00:32:09.140
there's going to be some sort of hell to pay. And you better be careful how much you work with
00:32:14.480
Donald Trump and you support freedom of speech and you support freedom of expression online and the
00:32:20.080
able, the ability to post things. And that's what it was boiling down to. And it was, I think even
00:32:25.900
more weird, it was in a back and forth of the guy for treasury secretary. It's like, wait, are you
00:32:31.160
trying to weaponize treasury to say, Hey, your job is to now make sure there's no billionaires in
00:32:36.420
America? Well, look, it's, it's worth giving a listen. So, so listen to this back and forth.
00:32:41.620
And in terms of the demagogic, uh, language of, of the Democrat party, this is a great example.
00:32:48.460
Give a listen. When you have a small number of multi billionaires who have enormous economic
00:32:56.360
media and political power, would you agree, uh, with president Biden who last night stated,
00:33:05.420
and I quote, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence
00:33:12.620
that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms. End of quote. That's what
00:33:18.820
president Biden said last night. I agree with him. Do you? I enjoyed our visit and I hope you got my,
00:33:26.180
my followup materials that we've on the discussions, my previous writings on the, uh, terrorists and
00:33:32.660
China. Uh, and look, the, the three, uh, billionaires who you listed that all made the money themselves.
00:33:44.340
The Mr. Musk came to the country as an immigrant. I understand that. But what I'm asking you
00:33:50.820
is when you have a handful of people like Musk, who will soon be part of the Trump administration
00:33:59.140
and others, when you have three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society,
00:34:04.980
when these people have enormous influence over the media, when they spend huge amounts of money
00:34:10.420
in both political parties to elect candidates, what Biden said last night is we're moving toward
00:34:15.940
an oligarchy. I'm asking you that question. Do you think, forget how they made their money. Do you
00:34:21.460
think that when so few people have so much wealth and so much economic and political power that that
00:34:27.220
is an oligarchic form society? Well, I, I, I wouldn't note that the president Biden gave the presidential
00:34:34.980
medal of freedom to two people who I think would qualify for his oligarchs. So this is not a condemnation
00:34:42.820
of any one individual. I'm just asking you, when so few people have so much wealth and power,
00:34:50.500
but do you think that that is an oligarchic form of society? Uh, Senator, I, I think it depends on
00:34:58.020
the, the, the, the ability to move up and down the, and no, that's not really the answer. I mean,
00:35:04.100
even if you had that mobility, no matter who those individuals might be. All right,
00:35:08.100
but let me ask you another question. I love there how he's like, all right,
00:35:10.980
I'm going to move on. Cause this isn't landing. You just threw it back in my face that we just
00:35:14.340
gave medals, uh, of, of the, the highest level of metal you can give to a, a civilian to two of
00:35:21.460
the people that would be categorized oligarchs. One of them, by the way, is a hard core radical by
00:35:27.780
the name of George Soros. Yeah. George, George Soros just got the medal of freedom from Joe Biden.
00:35:33.700
He celebrated. He also gave it to Hillary Clinton. And, and by the way, before that,
00:35:38.100
Barack, uh, Barack Obama gave the medal of freedom to Bill Gates. And, and listen,
00:35:43.300
the position of Bernie Sanders is we hate billionaires, unless you're billionaires who
00:35:47.740
support socialists and the Democrat party, then, then you're okay. But to be clear,
00:35:52.420
you're only okay. If you're buying absolution, the instant you stop buying absolution,
00:35:57.540
we will demonize you and we, we, we will burn you an effigy in the streets. And, and, and I gotta
00:36:03.020
say, I like Scott Besson's point. He's like, wait, you're attacking these people.
00:36:06.740
None of these three people you're attacking, none of them inherited wealth. You know, Elon Musk came
00:36:13.200
as an immigrant from Africa, like, like he built amazing companies and, and to a socialist, they
00:36:19.940
don't care what you did to build wealth. They're going to demonize you. They're going to attack you.
00:36:26.220
And, and, and it's an example of, and, and by the way, it's, it's why you get so many incredibly
00:36:33.100
rich, so many billionaires who backed the Democrat party because they're basically paying for protection
00:36:39.300
from Robespierre, from, from, from the guillotine in the French revolution. And, and I gotta say that
00:36:48.300
that is where the Democrat party is, but I'll, I'll give Scott Besson a shout out. He responded
00:36:53.620
with fantastic answers, which is why Bernie ran, ran to the hills and ran away because he realized
00:37:01.440
it wasn't going the way he wanted. Scott Besson's going to get confirmed. Every Trump cabinet member
00:37:06.300
is going to get confirmed. That might be the best thing we've heard all day. Every member is going
00:37:11.800
to get confirmed in Trump's cabinet. And that's incredible. Don't forget, we do the show Monday,
00:37:15.780
Wednesday, Friday, and we've got one more show. I just saw the center wants to remind everybody,
00:37:19.760
one more show Monday morning. No, no, I thought, I thought you told me this was the last one before
00:37:23.360
inauguration. I was listening to you at the beginning of the show. You said that.
00:37:28.260
Right. I, you know, I'm changing here. I'm just moving with the calendar. I'm moving with the times
00:37:33.160
here, Senator. Uh, so we'll have that final one for you before inauguration that will air on Monday
00:37:39.040
on inauguration day. Don't forget our weekend review will be on Saturday as well. Hit that subscribe or auto
00:37:44.520
download button. Uh, and, uh, we'll see you back here on Saturday and then for one more show on
00:37:50.120
Monday as well. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.