00:04:50.020Now, let me tell you how a CODEL begins.
00:04:53.820So I started the day early this morning in Houston in my home.
00:04:58.200I got up, went to the airport, and I flew down to El Salvador.
00:05:01.400I got off the plane, and I have a team from my office who's with me of my national security and foreign policy team.
00:05:08.200We started by going to a military base that the United States Navy has right by the airport.
00:05:15.340And I met with a number of American sailors who are there.
00:05:18.660They're engaged significantly in drug interdiction and counterterrorism efforts.
00:05:25.460And it's an air base where they can support planes, they can support drones, and they can support all sorts of air missions fighting terrorism and fighting cartels.
00:05:42.140And so I met with the leadership there of the base, and I met with, there were a number of sailors from Texas.
00:05:48.680And so I started by having lunch with them, asking them about how it was living in El Salvador, what their backgrounds were.
00:05:58.480And they were from multiple places throughout Texas.
00:06:04.100What is interesting, Ben, I asked each of those sailors.
00:06:08.120I said, okay, you guys have lived, it varied anywhere from a few weeks to two years down in El Salvador.
00:06:15.600I said, okay, how have things changed?
00:06:18.480And what kind of job is President Bukele doing?
00:06:21.920Every single American sailor I spoke with said it's extraordinary.
00:08:09.940After meeting with the Marines, after meeting with our country team at the embassy, I went and sat down with the justice minister.
00:08:16.540And I got to say, the justice minister, that presentation, Ben, there are very few presentations I've been in in my entire time in the Senate that have been more impressive.
00:09:19.280He went after MS-13, and he locked them up.
00:09:22.220He built a gigantic prison, the Seacott Prison, that houses up to 40,000 people.
00:09:27.860It was designed to house gang members.
00:09:30.760One of the things the justice minister said, he said, look, in the United States, MS-13, to become a member of MS-13, do you know what you have to do?
00:09:38.140If I remember correctly, you've actually got to, like, kill somebody.
00:12:39.280And that's why President Bukali got reelected with over 80% of the vote, because when you take people from a Mad Max in Thunderdome dystopian hellscape, where you're terrified to be out at night, you do not leave your house because you and your family are risking death, to a place where this evening I was in the capital city and people were walking on the streets and they're safe and they're not afraid.
00:13:04.260It turns out locking up the criminals, getting them off the street, that works.
00:13:09.260All of you know that I am a pro Second Amendment guy.
00:13:12.700I've shared on numerous occasions how carrying my firearm saved my life from a gang-related attack.
00:13:18.460But for those of you out there with family members who may not be comfortable having a gun, by their side, you still want them to be able to protect themselves and others in times of danger.
00:13:27.920And that's where the Berna launcher comes in.
00:13:30.780Berna is a handheld pistol that fires both kinetic rounds and chemical irritants to separate you from an attacker.
00:13:36.920And I'm here with Josh Sherrard from Berna to share the true story of how an avid hiker used his Berna to stop an attacking mountain lion.
00:13:56.080Armed with his Berna, you know, this is one of those things where he didn't expect to see anything.
00:13:59.920And all of a sudden on this hike, this mountain lion appears out of nowhere.
00:14:03.580Of course, he sends his family on down the trail, watches the lion for a few minutes, realizes it's not going away.
00:14:10.100So uses his Berna, fires a few rounds to scare it off, continues down the trail.
00:14:14.400But unfortunately, this mountain lion appears again, at which point he realized he was going to have to up his aggression with that Berna.
00:14:22.200Fires four rounds, was able to strike the mountain lion all four times, the chest and torso, at which point that mountain lion tears off, never to be seen again.
00:14:30.460These guys make it down the trail, but back to their car and back to home safely.
00:14:35.380Fortunately, this is all it took to make sure and get this family back home safe off a hike that could have taken an obvious turn for the worst.
00:14:43.760And I'm going to guess that Berna has been used to stop other types of animal attacks as well.
00:14:48.700We get stories all the time of users, whether it be dogs or other wildlife.
00:14:55.040We even have an ecological park whose security carries Berna for bears out in the Smoky Mountains out there that's been effective there as well.
00:15:04.380So, once again, not just a tool for people, but very effective against animals as well.
00:15:24.720You know, this also reminds me so much of the conversation that I think we're trying to have right now in this country in so many of these dangerous cities.
00:15:33.720It just takes the willpower and the leadership, whether it's New York, whether it's Memphis or Detroit or St. Louis or New Orleans, Baltimore.
00:19:37.280That's like a 50-50 split right away when you wake up every morning.
00:19:40.760It would be nice, by the way, if while President Trump is doing what he's doing in D.C., if people in D.C. would look at this as a safety issue, not as a political issue.
00:19:50.980Maybe they could take that away from what you're witnessing down there right now.
00:19:55.200Well, and listen, President Bukele expressed real frustration because the Biden administration did everything they could to undermine him, to attack the government of El Salvador.
00:20:03.660And I was laughing with President Bukele saying, you know, it is bizarre.
00:20:08.980I think the policy of America ought to be that we treat our friends well.
00:20:14.340We are good friends to our friends and we stand up to our enemies.
00:20:18.580And under Biden, the policy seemed to be that we treat our friends like crap and we give in and show weakness and appeasement to our enemies.
00:20:27.140And I got to say, I think President Bukele, he agreed with that.
00:20:31.760The Biden administration put sanctions on government officials in El Salvador.
00:21:46.660And this is what you and I talked about just two days ago on the podcast.
00:21:49.420Gavin Newsom, when he was able to clean up San Francisco, he told every resident of San Francisco, you don't matter to me.
00:22:01.140Let's assume, Ben, this is a little bit of a stretch, but let's assume you're a lefty, granola-crunching Marxist in San Francisco.
00:22:10.020And you've been told over and over again, there's nothing we can do about homelessness or there were nothing we can do about heroin addicts shooting up on the street.
00:22:19.880There's nothing we can do about people defecating on the streets.
00:22:23.340And then suddenly the leader of communist China shows up and Gavin Newsom cleans everything in its sparkling spick and span.
00:22:31.360And how, even if you were the most left-wing Democrat on earth, how do you not stop and say, wait a second?
00:22:36.800You told me you couldn't fix this, and then in 24 hours you fixed it.
00:22:43.200What that means is you could have fixed it a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, and you didn't.
00:22:48.360Because my kids don't matter to you as much as the leader of China.
00:22:53.840And that's what Bukele brought up, and he and I were both agreeing.
00:22:57.840You can fix this problem if you choose to fix this problem.
00:23:02.500And I've got to say, Bukele's results, and we talked about it, I did a press conference this evening where, of course, the reporters were attacking Bukele because they don't like his results.
00:23:11.760And I said, listen, when you have a 98% reduction in the murder rates, the results speak for themselves.
00:23:19.400And I said, there's an analogy to President Trump in the United States where, when he got sworn in, we have a 99% reduction in the rate of illegal border crossings that happened immediately.
00:23:31.940And I did point out to Bukele when I said that.
00:24:05.680And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:24:15.460So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:24:18.680Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:24:22.760And this, by the way, brings me to subject number two.
00:24:27.760And you talk about how the left is just hell-bent on crime and making sure that crime stays high.
00:24:34.740They're fighting law and order everywhere they can.
00:24:37.700They still haven't even learned of how bad it makes them look to support an illegal alien criminal who has become the poster child of the Democratic Party.
00:24:47.760And let's talk about the update to this Camaro Abrego-Garcia story.
00:24:53.380Well, this is the Maryland man who the Democrats have decided is who they stand for.
00:25:07.540He's been charged with human trafficking.
00:25:09.240He's also been alleged to have physically assaulted and beaten his wife.
00:25:18.000You and I on this podcast read through the indictment and the human trafficking, the crimes that he'd been involved with MS-13 for a decade.
00:25:27.580And yet Democrat senators, including Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat from Maryland, who's my colleague, flew down to El Salvador and did something very different than what I did.
00:25:38.360I sat down with McKellie and wanted to talk about his incredible success making the country safer and protecting innocent families.
00:25:45.700Chris Van Hollen wanted to go to the prison where Abrego-Garcia was and sit down and have margaritas with him and be like, oh, it's terrible that they're locking up gang members.
00:25:55.740And you know what Americans want, apparently what Van Hollen thinks Marylanders want, is more illegal immigrants and more gang members.
00:26:04.140And so what happened is ICE arrested Brego-Garcia, and they're in the process of deporting him yet again.
00:26:12.720And the Democrats are once again circling around him because apparently they believe that's what Americans want.
00:26:21.500And I want you to listen to this clip of what happened concerning his arrest.
00:27:29.020He doesn't need to be on the streets like all these liberals want him to be.
00:27:33.160And as part of this operation here in D.C., we've also taken off MS-13 members.
00:27:39.220We've taken, I think just last night, we got a TDA guy off our streets right here, right around from where we all work.
00:27:46.140Another TDA member gone because of this project.
00:27:49.540So we're going to keep America safe from all of these foreign terrorist organizations, including Abrego Garcia.
00:27:56.240You know, one of the funniest things, Pam Bondi, when she's talking about it, she said, you know, in D.C., we got an MS, and she starts to say MSNBC, and then she's like an MSN-13.
00:28:09.800And like an MSNBC reporter, an MSNBC commentator off the street, who, to be honest, there may not be a massive difference because on MSNBC, what are they doing?
00:28:26.040It's one of those that makes me laugh.
00:28:27.560You look at this story, and I've got to say, I really like our chances right now going into a midterm.
00:28:35.260If Democrats cannot get it together, even their national, I don't know, convention, whatever the hell you call it, they're obsessed over words and language.
00:28:45.120They're obsessed with defending criminals and illegal alien criminals.
00:28:48.740Like, they're learning nothing, and they're certainly not listening to the American people and what they're saying either.
00:28:58.960We saw an illustration of this with Cracker Barrel.
00:29:01.240Cracker Barrel is a terrific institution, particularly in the South.
00:29:04.780And their woke leadership decided that everything the company was built on, they didn't like.
00:29:10.000And in particular, they didn't like their customers.
00:29:12.740You know, their customers, they thought, were not nearly as enlightened as they should be.
00:29:17.600They were not nearly as woke as they should be.
00:29:19.460And the whole thing was very reminiscent of Bud Light.
00:29:22.660You know, Bud Light, you had a marketing executive who said, you know, the people who buy Bud Light, we don't like them.
00:29:28.220We need to have, you know, a bunch of woke transgender activists drinking our beer instead.
00:29:34.460It was reminiscent of what happened with Target, where they decided to market, you know, to market to transgender toddlers and do it prominently, pushing bathing suits for two-year-old boys to tuck their genitals to hide them away to pretend they're not boys.
00:29:56.980That was Target thinking, this is really what America wants, because, you know, if you're the parent of a two-year-old, clearly you want your son to believe he's a daughter when he's two.
00:30:06.600This is a phenomenon of business leaders who buy into an ideology that is wildly unpopular and ultimately directly antithetical to their customers.
00:30:20.100And so Cracker Barrel had a logo, had a logo of, you know, an old guy sitting on a chair next to a giant barrel, and they decided, okay, let's get rid of the cracker, let's get rid of the barrel, let's get rid of it all.
00:30:31.160And we'll just have anodyne words because we're really embarrassed that we're for anything nostalgic, anything that is Americana.
00:30:44.680Their stock price has tanked, just like Bud Light, just like Target.
00:30:48.740And just today they announced, never mind, okay, yeah, this has not worked well, the beatings are really hurting, so we're going to stop.
00:30:58.800But it is striking that it took the reaction of the market for them to figure it out.
00:31:06.940I want to say, though, it is a great, great victory for common sense that Cracker Barrel finally gave in and said, you know what, we're going to stop being woke because we'd like to actually have one or two customers when this is all said and done.
00:31:21.200Yeah, I think the frustration of conservatives now voting with our dollars, and that is what ultimately this came down to with Cracker Barrel.
00:31:29.520This was a bunch of Americans that said, okay, you despise us, you despise, you know, who we are as a customer base.
00:31:39.120You're basically telling us you don't want us anymore.
00:31:43.540And that is exactly how they got to this point very quickly.
00:31:47.260And look, I also think when you have people like you and the president who are willing to speak out on this and say, you guys are being stupid,
00:31:53.520they realize how quickly others are like, yeah, us too, like we're going to, you know, we're going to say that we think this is ridiculous.
00:32:01.900And we're starting to finally, I think, see the pendulum swing back the other way, which is really, really cool.
00:32:08.120I was gratified because yesterday President Trump publicly called out Cracker Barrel and said, look, you need to just go back to your old logo, like give this up, end the rebranding, and accept that you were wrong.
00:32:19.400And I'll tell you, I jumped in on Twitter, I retweeted him, I said, this is absolutely right.
00:32:24.080And the two of us were very vocal saying, go back to where you were.
00:32:36.640And it's worth noting, it isn't just in the last week that people noticed that what Cracker Barrel was doing was nuts.
00:32:46.140Almost a year ago, November of last year, a big investor in Cracker Barrel, a guy named Sardar Big Laurie, he owns approximately 5% of the restaurant chain stock.
00:33:01.200He wrote to his fellow shareholders that the Cracker Barrel transformation was a, quote, mistake of misguided executives falling into a textbook trap of overspending on cosmetic remodeling.
00:33:14.360And he continued, the day Cracker Barrel opened, it was already old.
00:33:43.200The company's $700 million remodel plan will not work.
00:33:50.680And he called in a letter to the shareholders in October of 2024, the board's transformation plan, quote, obvious folly.
00:33:59.840And yet the corporate leadership ignored the shareholder owned 5% of the company.
00:34:05.320And they charged down that road anyway, and they vaporized roughly 15% of the market cap of the company because they were more interested in listening to woke marketing executives.
00:34:18.540And by the way, the entire marketing world, much of that is a scam of left-wing woke people who despise their customers.
00:34:27.480And let me say, if you're in corporate America, don't listen to marketing executives that don't understand and don't like your customers.
00:34:33.480But in this instance, Cracker Barrel should have listened to its investor and not these marketing execs.
00:36:28.540There are roughly 6 million Salvadorans in El Salvador.
00:36:31.460There are about 3 million Salvadorans in the United States.
00:36:34.400President Bucalli told me roughly half of those Salvadorans in America, about 1.5 million, have said they want to come back to El Salvador.
00:36:44.040They're seeing reverse migration because suddenly people are saying, wait, I fled my country because I was terrified for my safety and my family.
00:36:54.280I love the beach and the mountains and the people and the culture.
00:36:57.440That is changing this country, and it ought to be an encouragement to any other leader, to any mayor, to anyone facing crime and challenges.
00:37:08.340When you fix these problems, it doesn't just keep people safe, which it does, but it has economic benefits.
00:37:15.080It literally transforms your community.
00:37:18.280That's inspirational, and as I said, this is the beginning of a multi-day trip throughout Latin America, so in two days we'll report on the rest of the trip.
00:37:27.060Don't forget we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so hit that subscribe or auto-download button, and the center and I will see you back here in a couple of days.