Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 11, 2023


Oops： Biden Classified Docs Fiasco


Episode Stats


Length

44 minutes

Words per minute

178.77773

Word count

7,913

Sentence count

738

Harmful content

Misogyny

11

sentences flagged

Toxicity

39

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergus argue over whether or not to convene a grand jury in response to Joe Biden's revelation that he and his lawyer turned over classified documents to the Department of Justice. They argue that this is a perfect example of Democratic hypocrisy.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.980 Welcome, it's Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.240 And if you are excited that Joe Biden might be going to prison
00:00:12.760 for classified documents found in an office,
00:00:17.440 well, you've got to be disappointed.
00:00:20.400 I just, Senator, this whole story, I'll give you my theory.
00:00:25.060 I think that they have set this up to say,
00:00:29.040 look at how you should handle this. 0.98
00:00:31.360 This will be used as precedent to then say Donald Trump is a horrible person, 0.82
00:00:35.080 deserves to be indicted, and even go to jail for this.
00:00:38.220 This has been done too perfectly.
00:00:40.420 And I'll ask you as a former, I say former lawyer, practicing lawyer,
00:00:44.340 when was the last time you hired a lawyer to move your office,
00:00:50.740 like as a mover, and he's like, oh, my lawyers were packing up an office, 0.55
00:00:54.540 an old office.
00:00:55.600 I don't buy that for a second.
00:00:57.220 Well, to be fair, my wife Heidi has used me to move her office more than once, 0.86
00:01:02.220 but that's more a matrimonial thing than a professional thing. 1.00
00:01:05.260 Yeah.
00:01:06.440 Look, let me start out by saying when this news broke,
00:01:10.000 I immediately jumped on Twitter and tweeted a very simple tweet,
00:01:15.820 convene a grand jury.
00:01:17.800 Like it.
00:01:18.280 Now, I don't actually mean convene a grand jury.
00:01:23.440 But the reason I tweeted it is because if you're a leftist,
00:01:27.720 if you're a journalist, if you're a Democrat, if you're an operative,
00:01:30.460 if you're one of the gazillion Twitter trolls that are out there,
00:01:33.460 and you see that, convene a grand jury makes your head explode.
00:01:37.180 So you've got to say, no effing way, do not convene a grand jury,
00:01:41.320 because, and I really wanted to hear the becauses.
00:01:47.480 I really wanted to hear why.
00:01:50.220 Lefties explaining why we should not convene a grand jury. 0.94
00:01:54.800 And listen, this episode, I think, demonstrates absolute and complete hypocrisy.
00:02:01.100 Secondly, this episode demonstrates one of the things that you and I said on this podcast
00:02:06.060 when the Mar-a-Lago raid happened,
00:02:08.820 when the media was hyperventilating over,
00:02:11.780 oh my goodness, there were documents in Trump's archives.
00:02:18.380 Every president of modern time has had documents.
00:02:24.100 And there's been an ongoing back and forth.
00:02:27.300 When presidents leave, they take documents.
00:02:28.900 They write autobiographies.
00:02:31.160 They write memoirs.
00:02:32.080 They write books.
00:02:34.100 This has been true with George W. Bush.
00:02:36.560 This has been true with Bill Clinton.
00:02:37.960 This has been true with Barack Obama.
00:02:39.640 And you know what?
00:02:40.460 This is true with Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
00:02:45.800 The problem here, so you suggested they're doing this as like a...
00:02:50.960 It's just too perfect.
00:02:52.100 This story is too perfect.
00:02:53.340 My lawyers are packing up my office.
00:02:55.620 We then contacted the authorities immediately.
00:02:58.000 We then went to the DOJ.
00:02:59.620 We followed the protocol.
00:03:01.300 We let them have them within 24 hours.
00:03:03.660 It's too perfect.
00:03:05.040 Okay, so I don't agree with you on that.
00:03:06.500 All right, then please explain to me what I'm missing.
00:03:09.500 Look, I don't think it's perfect. 0.99
00:03:10.780 I think the Biden guys are crying and like, oh crap. 0.99
00:03:15.140 I think they were packing it up and they discovered and they said, oh crap. 0.98
00:03:18.380 And they did decide to turn it in.
00:03:20.120 So look, that's the right thing to do.
00:03:22.620 And sure, but I don't think this was orchestrated at all.
00:03:26.780 I think this hurts them profoundly.
00:03:28.900 Okay, so where were these documents?
00:03:31.420 They were at an organization that is entitled the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement
00:03:37.980 at the University of Pennsylvania.
00:03:40.140 Now, what is the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement?
00:03:43.180 Among other things, it's an institution that has received $54.6 million in donations from Communist China.
00:03:53.980 So I want you to think about this.
00:03:57.060 Hunter Biden is out doing business with China, making millions of dollars.
00:04:02.200 He's earning 10%-
00:04:04.360 And getting billions of dollars in loans on top of that.
00:04:05.900 10% for the big guy.
00:04:07.280 That big guy would be Joe Biden, the president right now.
00:04:11.120 And at the same time, China is giving $54.6 million to the Joseph Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
00:04:19.420 And it just so happens this center that is being funded in very significant part by Communist China
00:04:24.780 has classified documents there illegally.
00:04:30.060 I got to say, if you're a Democrat, I don't care how Machiavellian you are.
00:04:33.560 I don't care how much you're like, okay, I'm trying to think not four-dimensional chess, but nine-dimensional chess.
00:04:40.560 This is zero-dimensional chess. 0.87
00:04:42.600 This is just a friggin' mess. 0.92
00:04:45.160 So the Democrats are not happy about this. 0.99
00:04:47.740 But the beauty of it is, it illustrates the utter and complete hypocrisy of the press and all the Democrats.
00:04:55.560 Because if they explain, if they try to dismiss it away, well, look, he was vice president, he had lots of documents, he had things in there.
00:05:03.180 You know, it is part of the natural process.
00:05:06.420 Oh, wait, wait, this kind of undermines our narrative that Donald Trump is a master spy committing espionage.
00:05:14.160 By the way, you want to know someone who actually committed serious crimes with classified documents?
00:05:20.820 You ever heard of Sandy Berger?
00:05:22.020 Yeah.
00:05:22.760 Sandy Berger was Bill Clinton's national security advisor.
00:05:25.700 He went into a classified...
00:05:27.440 Something that was pants, right?
00:05:29.060 Classified skiff, which is...
00:05:30.760 So, have you ever been in a skiff?
00:05:32.100 I've not.
00:05:32.480 Okay, I've been in a skiff many times.
00:05:34.880 A skiff is a big, secured room with, like, big, heavy metal doors.
00:05:40.840 And a skiff is designed so, like, you can take no electronics in there.
00:05:46.120 So when you go into a skiff, you've got to give your cell phone, you've got to give...
00:05:48.660 I wear a Fitbit on my wrist.
00:05:50.000 You've got to give your Fitbit, you've got to give, like, everything.
00:05:51.880 You have no electronics.
00:05:52.760 You go in there.
00:05:53.400 And it's designed so the Chinese, so the Russians, so no one can penetrate and do surveillance. 0.99
00:05:59.820 It's basically a steel and concrete box.
00:06:03.480 It's a big room.
00:06:04.720 Sandy Berger went into a skiff of the National Security Council, and he found some classified documents that apparently he found problematic.
00:06:12.320 And what he did, you referenced it. 1.00
00:06:14.220 He took the documents and stuffed them down his damn pants. 1.00
00:06:18.500 Literally. 1.00
00:06:19.040 Stuck them down his damn pants. 1.00
00:06:21.200 And he walked out of the room. 1.00
00:06:23.580 And he walked out of the room, and he got caught.
00:06:26.500 Now, listen.
00:06:28.660 If Joe Biden were caught with classified documents in his underwear, that would be a bigger problem.
00:06:38.440 To be clear, we don't...
00:06:39.660 I'm not sure, but okay.
00:06:40.920 Only because I know the system's rigged.
00:06:42.680 To be clear, we don't necessarily know whether Joe Biden has classified documents in his underwear now or not.
00:06:47.380 I don't think he would know either.
00:06:48.740 But this is a different scenario.
00:06:53.720 And when the Mar-a-Lago raid happened, we did a podcast where you and I talked about it.
00:06:59.200 And all of the media was clutching their pearls and saying, oh, my goodness, this is the most horrible thing ever.
00:07:05.520 And I made the point, I said, listen, presidents, when they leave the White House, they go to wherever their next location is, they move a lot of documents out, they are preparing for their presidential library.
00:07:18.420 So if you want a library, the Ben Ferguson Presidential Library, the monument to Ole Miss tennis.
00:07:24.340 I love it.
00:07:25.540 See, now you're making me think of running one day.
00:07:27.660 I'm just for that right there.
00:07:28.840 I'm kissing up to you big time.
00:07:31.080 But look, you take your papers with you.
00:07:34.120 Now, do you take the nuclear codes with you? 0.99
00:07:36.860 No, because you're not a moron. 0.99
00:07:38.360 Right. 1.00
00:07:38.800 But you take a lot of stuff with you.
00:07:40.720 Because it's your presence.
00:07:41.580 It's your legacy.
00:07:42.320 It is your legacy.
00:07:43.940 You're looking at writing stuff.
00:07:45.400 You're looking at history.
00:07:46.560 You're looking at creating a library.
00:07:47.880 That's what all presidents do.
00:07:51.180 Now, much of the overheated concern, I think, about Trump was taking what all presidents do and exploding it. 0.99
00:08:01.220 Why I think this news development is so problematic for the mainstream media narrative is, well, if Joe Biden did it, either it's a big deal and throw his ass in jail, which they're not willing to do.
00:08:15.520 Or everyone does it, and it's not a big deal, which would mean Donald Trump's documents are not actually a big deal.
00:08:22.060 So that's their problem.
00:08:23.620 And so it's why I'm not given to this was a plan to show, look how moral we are. 1.00
00:08:30.120 I think they were like, oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap. 0.99
00:08:33.640 I think that was their reaction when they found it. 0.99
00:08:37.180 Did the lawyers pack it up?
00:08:38.680 No, of course not.
00:08:39.680 That was my question about the big lie.
00:08:41.160 It's not the big lie.
00:08:42.220 It's usually the little lies that get you in trouble.
00:08:43.680 No, I don't believe this.
00:08:45.520 I had a former boss who was a very senior lawyer in the government.
00:08:49.100 And when I was a baby lawyer fresh out of law school, he said, OK, when you're a senior lawyer in the government, often people will come to you and they'll say, OK, so I've got a dead body.
00:09:04.480 Is that a problem?
00:09:06.280 And you're sitting there as the lawyer.
00:09:08.180 Yeah.
00:09:08.440 What?
00:09:09.000 Yeah.
00:09:09.400 Is that a problem? 1.00
00:09:10.540 Are you out of your frigging mind? 1.00
00:09:12.460 Yes. 1.00
00:09:13.180 That is a problem.
00:09:15.380 I think what happened here was the same, that they had people packing up, they're packing up, they're open a box and they're like, oh, oh, wait, this says classified at the top.
00:09:25.020 That's kind of a problem.
00:09:26.980 Let's call somebody.
00:09:28.060 They probably first person they call is not a lawyer and they say, OK, we've got a bunch of documents that say classified or top secret or say SCI code code.
00:09:36.020 We don't know what they said.
00:09:37.560 We don't know what they were.
00:09:38.780 I do actually believe them when he says I have no idea what they were.
00:09:41.600 OK, but I believe it.
00:09:43.580 But I also believe Joe Biden has no idea what the classified documents are.
00:09:46.680 They showed him yesterday in the Oval Office.
00:09:48.380 So I absolutely believe he has no idea what was at Penn.
00:09:50.940 But somebody found them.
00:09:53.700 Somebody called someone higher up.
00:09:55.220 And at some point, someone higher up in the Biden organization said, we had to call a lawyer.
00:10:01.400 And they call a lawyer and the lawyer says, you've got a dead body.
00:10:06.540 What do you mean?
00:10:07.160 Is this a problem?
00:10:07.980 Yes, it's a problem.
00:10:09.420 You got a bunch of classified documents.
00:10:11.000 And so the lawyer said, OK, we're going to come over.
00:10:14.200 We're going to look and we're going to unpack it.
00:10:16.120 And oh, we got classified documents.
00:10:18.040 And by the way, this is what lawyers do to fix things is when they discover it, they go call and try to turn it in.
00:10:23.860 And so, look, I get the sort of media narrative of we want to show the right way to do it.
00:10:31.880 I mean, it's clear it's too perfect.
00:10:34.040 But nobody in their right mind would do this.
00:10:36.440 This so complicates if the Biden Department of Justice tries to indict Donald Trump,
00:10:43.740 they will deal with a thousand questions of why are you indicting Trump for doing what Joe Biden did?
00:10:51.300 Literally the exact same thing.
00:10:52.680 Yeah, no, it's so so they might say, oh, it's different.
00:10:55.980 It's more.
00:10:56.540 And maybe it's true.
00:10:58.680 But at the end of the day, the broader point that they're trying to criminalize, they hate Donald Trump.
00:11:04.580 They don't want him to be elected president.
00:11:06.800 They want him permanently ineligible.
00:11:08.920 They are willing to say I'll say that again, because I think people may forget this.
00:11:12.820 The whole reason why the FBI, in my opinion, went into Mar-a-Lago and the Democrats won this in the DOJ.
00:11:19.900 One of this is because they want to charge him with a crime so that, therefore, if he's charged that crime and convicted that crime, he would be ineligible to run for office.
00:11:27.960 So, look, let me be clear.
00:11:29.560 Joe Biden and the elected Democrats in Congress and the Democrats in the White House hate Donald Trump.
00:11:38.600 They loathe him. 0.98
00:11:39.440 They think he's the embodiment of evil.
00:11:41.060 The deep state that is burrowed into the Department of Justice, the FBI, to the CIA, to the entire alphabet soup of the federal government hates Donald Trump.
00:11:50.880 As we've talked about on this podcast a bunch of times, my most recent book, Justice Corrupted, talks about how the left has weaponized our legal system, how they burrowed into it.
00:12:02.520 By the way, for the folks listening to this podcast, if you haven't bought the book, go buy the book, Justice Corrupted.
00:12:07.860 It'll walk you through.
00:12:09.820 Look, I revere the Department of Justice.
00:12:12.240 I revere our legal systems.
00:12:13.960 And I am angry that these partisans, starting with Barack Obama and even worse under Joe Biden, have turned them into political weapons to go after their enemies.
00:12:23.320 But the problem is they hate them so much that the ends justify their means.
00:12:29.620 So, for example, one of the things we know about the ridiculous Russia prosecution is there was a senior lawyer at the FBI who fraudulently created a fake document and submitted it to a federal court.
00:12:42.480 He was prosecuted for this.
00:12:43.620 So, this federal lawyer, he was going after Carter Page, who was a kind of ancillary foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign.
00:12:52.600 And the FBI was investigating Carter Page because he had talked to suspicious Russians.
00:12:59.260 Now, you talk to suspicious Russians, that's not unreasonable for the government to say, why are you talking to suspicious Russians? 0.59
00:13:05.320 The FBI sent an email to the CIA and said, hey, is this guy Carter Page one of your guys a source?
00:13:14.040 Yeah, literally, is this guy one of your guys?
00:13:16.100 Is he working for you?
00:13:17.400 And even to ask that question, they had to have been tipped off by somebody.
00:13:21.260 You might want to check with the CIA because Carter Page may be their guy.
00:13:26.460 And he sends the email.
00:13:28.120 And what does the CIA say?
00:13:30.320 Yes.
00:13:30.960 He's our guy.
00:13:31.580 He's our guy.
00:13:32.300 He's doing this for the United States of America.
00:13:35.320 He is helping us by talking to sketchy Russians. 1.00
00:13:40.440 So, what does this lawyer for the FBI do?
00:13:42.920 He takes the email from the CIA and he alters it.
00:13:47.060 He creates a fraudulent counterfeit document and he takes the sentence, he was a source, and he adds the word not to say he was not a source.
00:13:59.160 Now, let me tell you this.
00:14:01.160 Ben, if you did this in civil litigation, if you took a document, a piece of evidence, you altered it to make it 180 degrees the opposite of what it was, and you submitted it to a federal court, you'd be doing hard time and someone would be saying, Benjamin, don't bend over for the soap.
00:14:19.680 That's just the simple reality.
00:14:22.920 If I did that, you don't get to create fraudulent documents and submit them to a federal court.
00:14:28.280 And get busted and not be held accountable for it.
00:14:30.640 And that's what the deep state was doing.
00:14:34.760 And so, when you look at this, their degree of loathing for Donald Trump when they went after him, the reason for the Mar-a-Lago raid is they hate him so much they wanted to go, they wanted to prove him guilty of a crime.
00:14:49.020 But in particular, they want to prove him guilty of a crime that renders him ineligible to run for or be elected president.
00:14:55.680 Now, listen, if you're a Democrat, you don't want Donald Trump to be elected.
00:14:58.880 Okay, fine.
00:14:59.360 There's a democratic process.
00:15:00.460 You can go and try to win at the ballot box.
00:15:03.000 But what they're trying to do here is corrupt the justice system. 0.99
00:15:08.600 And the day of the Mar-a-Lago raid, you and I did a podcast where I said, it ain't going to work.
00:15:14.860 If they think some federal court is going to say Donald Trump can never be president again, the chances of that success, I believe, are 0.0%.
00:15:24.120 Maybe Trump.
00:15:25.420 You have a lot of faith in the system.
00:15:26.960 When you say that, there's going to be people that listen and go, how can you say that when they just raided Mar-a-Lago?
00:15:32.960 How can you say that when they made fraudulent documents against Carter Page?
00:15:37.000 How can you say that when the FBI director knew that the Steele dossier was a source document from the Democrat National Committee and Hillary Clinton, and the lawyer was lying to the FBI?
00:15:47.700 You've got to understand why people are going to listen to you going, how can you have such confidence that this is never going to happen when we just witness all the things I just mentioned?
00:15:55.160 Because at the end of the day, the federal courts have not been thoroughly corrupted.
00:15:59.280 Okay.
00:15:59.340 So there have been hard partisans that have burrowed into the FBI, that have burrowed into the DOJ, that have corrupted justice.
00:16:05.260 That's why I wrote the last book.
00:16:07.420 Look, I was, in 2001, I was what's called an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice.
00:16:13.560 And the Department of Justice is an institution I respect deeply.
00:16:19.600 It has an incredibly long history of being apolitical.
00:16:24.600 I've said before, I don't want a Republican Department of Justice.
00:16:28.640 I don't want a Democrat Department of Justice.
00:16:30.580 You don't want a right-leaning or a left-leaning.
00:16:32.200 You want a nonpartisan. 0.99
00:16:33.440 I want a DOJ that follows the damn law. 1.00
00:16:35.360 I want an FBI that follows the damn law. 1.00
00:16:37.480 If you're a child predator, the FBI ought to catch you and the DOJ ought to prosecute you. 0.99
00:16:41.580 If you're a mobster, if you're a money launderer, if you're a crack dealer, the DOJ ought to go after you, the FBI ought to go after you.
00:16:49.680 But if you are of the wrong political persuasion, and I don't care if whether that is right-leaning or left-leaning, it's not the DOJ and FBI's job to go after people on either side, they ought to stay the heck out of it.
00:17:03.300 And I will tell you, with an enormous frequency, I talk to people who are either currently at the FBI or the DOJ or who are alums of the FBI or DOJ.
00:17:14.200 They come to me, and particularly the current folks, they're really upset because they've spent – imagine, Ben, you've spent 10 years, 20 years, 30 years devoting your life.
00:17:24.300 You believe in the rule of law.
00:17:26.780 You believe in protecting people.
00:17:28.100 You believe in protecting kids.
00:17:29.280 I mean, there are so many heroes that work as these institutions, and they've seen these rabid partisans take over the senior career positions and just corrupt them from within.
00:17:45.340 It's fundamentally wrong.
00:17:47.880 And so, listen, were there some documents that should not have been at Mar-a-Lago?
00:17:54.400 Perhaps.
00:17:55.400 And the judicial process will play out on that.
00:17:57.720 But my point is that's something that every prior president has done, that when it comes to the documentary history and the chain of custody of documents from the White House to the former president, to the former president's library, and often their negotiations, the archives.
00:18:16.160 When you think of the chief criminal law enforcement organizations of the United States, the archivists of the United States of America is not high on your list.
00:18:27.960 Yeah.
00:18:28.420 And historically, there have been negotiations and discussions back and forth between the archives and former president's office.
00:18:34.980 And the libraries, right?
00:18:36.060 Yes.
00:18:36.160 Even the libraries, because they want to see this stuff.
00:18:37.760 They want to have this stuff.
00:18:38.680 And there's these debates that happen.
00:18:40.680 I remember when I was going to the Bush Library opening 43, there was debates.
00:18:45.760 You and I were both there.
00:18:46.660 We saw each other.
00:18:47.540 Yeah.
00:18:47.880 We didn't actually even know each other very well.
00:18:49.660 That was such a cool thing.
00:18:51.680 Yeah.
00:18:51.820 Because I got to be a part of that campaign, a part of that administration.
00:18:56.880 And there's history there that happened.
00:18:58.120 But I remember the debates even then, there were a lot of things that happened, specifically with the war on terror post 9-11, that were fought over of could the public have it?
00:19:08.900 Could the library have it?
00:19:09.680 Could they see it?
00:19:10.260 Could it be in display?
00:19:11.880 Could it be in the library?
00:19:13.880 You know, so you could look it up, basically.
00:19:15.800 You could go in and see parts of the history.
00:19:18.020 And I remember some of those grand debates.
00:19:19.400 Because some people thought the archives were being a little bit overzealous and, like, saying no too often.
00:19:24.220 And when he's like, look, this is part of the history of my administration.
00:19:27.940 This needs to be on display for the American people.
00:19:29.720 And every former president wants to tell that narrative.
00:19:32.060 And they hold on to documents.
00:19:34.100 And I will say, listen, in my time in the Senate, I've read a lot of classified documents.
00:19:40.340 And one of the virtues of being in the Senate, I haven't had this issue because I don't take classified documents out of a skiff.
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00:20:12.580 Listen to the Honest Talk Podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:20:18.080 So, there are no classified documents in my office.
00:20:20.360 All right.
00:20:20.380 I got to pull back the curtain so people understand how this works.
00:20:22.880 Because everybody's going to want to ask the question I'm about to ask you.
00:20:25.380 When you become a senator, do they teach you the protocol of classified documents like right away?
00:20:31.020 Do they explain to you they got to stay in the skiff?
00:20:34.040 Is there a skiff in the Senate side?
00:20:35.940 Can you talk about that?
00:20:37.040 And then what is the protocol for that ever?
00:20:39.760 You can't make – like this is pretty simple.
00:20:42.360 Okay.
00:20:42.540 So, in the Senate, at least, there's a skiff down in the basement of the Capitol.
00:20:47.620 So, if you're going down there, we go down there fairly regularly for briefings.
00:20:51.280 And there are hearing rooms.
00:20:53.140 So, for example, I spent six years on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
00:20:56.440 I'm currently on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
00:20:59.100 So, we regularly have classified hearings in the skiff.
00:21:02.640 And there's a hearing room.
00:21:04.240 And you go in and they have lots of – it's actually very funny.
00:21:07.060 They have lots of posters that are sort of scary World War II eras of somebody talked and people died.
00:21:13.500 And they're sort of posters about protect classified information.
00:21:16.660 And you go in and I inevitably – I take my iPhone.
00:21:21.220 I hand it to Gray, who is with me at all times.
00:21:23.620 I hand him my iPhone.
00:21:24.920 I hand him my AirPods.
00:21:26.220 I don't know if AirPods are questionable or not, but I just give them to him anyway.
00:21:28.720 Yeah, why not?
00:21:29.460 And I give him my Fitbit.
00:21:30.560 So, you just want no electronics because I don't want the Chinese hearing me. 1.00
00:21:34.360 Sure.
00:21:35.040 And you go in and you sit.
00:21:36.340 So, if it's hearing, you sit in a room and the room is, I don't know, 30 feet by 50 feet.
00:21:42.580 So, it's sort of like in a hearing room.
00:21:44.340 It's not that big.
00:21:45.200 It's not huge.
00:21:45.980 Yeah, on purpose, though.
00:21:47.120 Designed that way.
00:21:47.720 Right.
00:21:47.940 It's down in the basement of the Capitol.
00:21:50.180 And it's designed so that no listening –
00:21:52.960 No penetration of anything.
00:21:54.600 And you'll have testimony.
00:21:55.920 I've been in that room with testimony from the Secretary of State, the head of the CIA, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Defense.
00:22:01.960 Or a lot of times you'll have testimony from the Assistant Secretary of State, the Assistant Secretary of Defense.
00:22:07.380 And you'll have classified briefings about Iran, about Ukraine, about Russia, about China.
00:22:11.860 So, when people – to paint that picture of I remember after 9-11.
00:22:15.980 There was a lot of people that testified on public hearings.
00:22:18.540 And they would say to the Senator, Senator, I can give you a classified briefing on that.
00:22:23.040 I can't say that publicly.
00:22:24.840 I can certainly give you that answer, Senator, offline.
00:22:27.980 Basically, in the SCIF.
00:22:28.920 That's where this room would come into play.
00:22:30.980 So, I've been to dozens, if not probably hundreds, of hearings in a SCIF where you hear classified information.
00:22:39.740 And with some frequency at those hearings, you're given classified documents.
00:22:43.480 And they'll have all sorts of markings about the level of classification.
00:22:46.580 There are lower levels and higher levels of classification.
00:22:48.760 And you can read those documents.
00:22:50.920 And my general practice is I'll read them in the SCIF and I leave them there.
00:22:54.080 There's no issue for me with classified documents because I don't take them out.
00:22:56.940 I come in with nothing and I walk out with nothing.
00:22:58.800 So, there's no issue.
00:23:00.480 Now, there are other times where there is, for example, classified reports that for some reason or other,
00:23:06.200 someone will say you should read a classified report.
00:23:09.320 So, when I was leading the fight against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, skipping Ukraine,
00:23:16.720 and I passed twice major sanctions legislation to stop the pipeline and successfully defeated Russia, defeated Putin,
00:23:23.740 there were multiple classified reports about the efforts to build that pipeline.
00:23:27.660 I went to the SCIF over and over again and I would read reports from the CIA, from the DEI,
00:23:32.480 the Director of National Intelligence, from different intelligence agencies.
00:23:35.280 And I'd read the reports and I would learn things.
00:23:38.420 But you can't go and repeat the reports.
00:23:42.260 There was another instance where the...
00:23:44.240 So, no staff member, like, that's literally you and other senators and the heads of the CIA, that you can have those discussions.
00:23:51.420 So, I usually have a staff member who's a senior staff member who has security clearance,
00:23:56.320 who he or she can come in and read some classified documents.
00:23:59.460 I've got a higher security clearance than any one of my staff.
00:24:02.000 So, there's some documents.
00:24:03.540 So, sometimes a staff member will be able to read some documents,
00:24:06.200 but the really classified documents, I'm the only one that can read.
00:24:10.320 And so, it'll vary.
00:24:11.060 It depends on who's on my staff.
00:24:12.360 In the 10 years, it's varied who's been on my staff.
00:24:14.720 I like to have at least one person with a security clearance,
00:24:17.860 because it's nice to have a staff member who could read through a bunch of documents and brief you on it,
00:24:21.320 because the volume of it is significant.
00:24:22.720 You know, I remember at one point, there was a classified document on UFO sightings.
00:24:29.960 And I went in wanting to see, okay, what does the government know on UFO sightings?
00:24:35.420 I'm really curious.
00:24:36.620 I've got to say, I've never been to Area 51.
00:24:38.280 I'm really bummed.
00:24:39.060 I've been 10 years in the Senate.
00:24:40.460 How do you get that tour?
00:24:41.880 Like, you should sign up for that.
00:24:43.460 So, I went in and read it.
00:24:44.700 I'm not going to repeat anything that was in the briefing on UFO sightings.
00:24:48.700 I will just say this.
00:24:49.800 I was incredibly underwhelmed.
00:24:52.520 I was, like, all excited.
00:24:54.220 Give me little green men. 0.88
00:24:55.620 Tell me stuff.
00:24:56.640 And I just left.
00:24:57.480 And I was like, oh.
00:24:59.680 So, there's a whole, and in the White House, down in the National Security Council, there's a whole skiff.
00:25:08.440 The security room is a giant skiff.
00:25:11.020 Many of the confidential briefings are down there.
00:25:13.680 There's a difference between the nuclear codes.
00:25:19.780 XB302.
00:25:20.320 By the way, I'm making up numbers.
00:25:21.600 So, if the prosecutors are coming to lock me up, I think XB302, maybe.
00:25:26.400 Isn't that the new COVID variant?
00:25:29.160 Did you see Jimmy Fallon singing about the new COVID variant?
00:25:33.600 No, I missed that one.
00:25:34.820 Okay, it was the most absurd thing I've ever seen.
00:25:36.560 Diaz, play a clip from Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show just singing about this variant.
00:25:42.120 There was Alpha, then Delta, then Omicron X, but this latest variant might be the best.
00:25:50.520 It's XBV.1.5.
00:25:54.180 Another brand of COVID-19 has arrived.
00:25:57.560 It's a new strain, but it isn't the same.
00:26:01.300 Sounds more like Elon Musk's name.
00:26:04.720 Look, I gotta say, Ben, I know Jimmy Fallon, which is a little bit bizarre.
00:26:10.220 I don't feel...
00:26:12.220 You and Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, I had no idea that you guys had this connection to each other like this.
00:26:17.380 So, it's an interesting dynamic.
00:26:18.820 So, I've been in the Senate 10 years.
00:26:20.760 When I first got there, every late-night host would have senators and national figures on both Democrats and Republicans.
00:26:30.440 It's one of the ways the world has changed.
00:26:31.940 So, when I was a brand-new senator, I was on Jay Leno, I was on Jimmy Fallon, I was on Jimmy Kimmel, I was on Stephen Colbert.
00:26:44.440 It was part of the job.
00:26:46.820 In the last five years, I don't know of a single one of the late-night comics that has had a single Republican on there.
00:26:52.940 They've become left-wing shills.
00:26:55.400 I will say, of all of them, Fallon was by far the best.
00:27:01.480 Now, some of that is because Fallon does the Tonight Show.
00:27:05.980 Fallon inherited Jay Leno's audience.
00:27:08.740 And, by the way, Jay Leno was the first one I went on, like, when I went on his show.
00:27:12.200 Do you think that's awesome, in my opinion?
00:27:13.720 It was, like, 2013, 2014.
00:27:15.540 I was brand-new in the Senate.
00:27:16.660 And I'm, like, walking out going, like, holy crap, what am I doing on Jay Leno?
00:27:20.740 Like, it was weird.
00:27:21.500 That's a big deal.
00:27:22.180 Yeah, it was bizarre.
00:27:24.560 So, Fallon inherits Jay Leno's audience.
00:27:28.640 And Jay Leno's audience, the Tonight Show audience, is still, much of it is the American Midwest.
00:27:35.240 It's red America. 0.80
00:27:36.680 Sure.
00:27:38.080 And so, of them, I mean, Colbert is viciously left-wing.
00:27:43.360 Yes.
00:27:45.200 Kimmel has become viciously left-wing.
00:27:49.180 Total disdain for flyover country.
00:27:51.120 Fallon, look, the guy probably leans left.
00:27:55.540 But he's pretty, he's pretty, if you had to watch one, that's the one I'd watch.
00:27:58.780 So, I will tell you an interesting thing.
00:28:00.320 When Jay Leno got cut from late-night TV, I was a newbie senator.
00:28:06.300 I made a phone call.
00:28:07.180 Do you know who I called?
00:28:08.040 Who?
00:28:09.100 Rupert Murdoch.
00:28:10.100 No way.
00:28:10.540 And I called Rupert Murdoch and I said, Rupert, let me encourage you.
00:28:15.540 Fox should put Jay Leno on late-night TV.
00:28:18.920 I actually think it is important for America that comedy matters, that culture matters, that entertainment matters.
00:28:25.500 And Jay Leno, I don't know Jay well.
00:28:27.700 I don't think he's a conservative.
00:28:29.200 I assume he's left of center.
00:28:30.980 But he spent years speaking to the middle of America.
00:28:35.860 And so, what Jay Leno would do is he would make fun of both sides of the aisle.
00:28:40.640 And not in a vicious, evil, or mean way.
00:28:42.780 Right.
00:28:42.840 He wouldn't be...
00:28:43.540 He wasn't trying to destroy your life.
00:28:45.060 By the way, making fun of Republicans is fine.
00:28:47.160 I mean, you and I make fun of Republicans.
00:28:48.440 Like, if you can't laugh, but...
00:28:51.560 It wasn't mean-spirited.
00:28:52.960 And I gotta say, when I pitched it to Rupert, he kind of laughed at me.
00:28:56.680 He did not think it was serious.
00:28:58.680 I still think the country would be better off to have...
00:29:02.540 I think comedy is powerful.
00:29:04.240 Yes.
00:29:04.900 And I think...
00:29:05.660 And one of the problems...
00:29:06.580 Look, I love to laugh.
00:29:09.420 Did I tell you about game four of the ALCS, Astros against the Yankees?
00:29:18.440 No.
00:29:19.520 All right.
00:29:20.620 So, game four of the ALCS was the Yankees stadiums.
00:29:24.560 The Astros had won three games in a row.
00:29:27.240 I went to Yankees stadium.
00:29:29.400 Okay.
00:29:30.400 This I do remember, yes.
00:29:32.040 But I don't know which story you're going with.
00:29:33.640 But yes, it was really fun to watch on TV.
00:29:35.640 Because you were behind the plate and everybody was freaking out on Twitter, which made me laugh.
00:29:39.500 All right.
00:29:39.880 I sat directly behind home plate in the second row. 1.00
00:29:45.480 So, you're right on the damn TV shot. 0.99
00:29:48.300 Behind home plate. 1.00
00:29:49.220 You were close enough.
00:29:50.640 You could call the balls and strikes.
00:29:52.500 You could practically smell the umpire's cologne.
00:29:56.260 And let's be clear.
00:29:58.000 I'm behind home plate in Yankee Stadium.
00:30:00.240 In a bright orange Houston Astros jersey.
00:30:05.800 There were more than a few Yankees fans who suggested that I do something anatomically impossible.
00:30:13.740 Yes.
00:30:15.420 Most fun I've ever had in my life.
00:30:17.140 Because look, you're an Astros fan. 0.99
00:30:18.820 You're sweeping the damn Yankees in their home. 1.00
00:30:22.660 Yeah. 1.00
00:30:23.000 It's better than almost winning at home that game four.
00:30:25.280 Okay.
00:30:25.980 So, sitting in front of me was Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live.
00:30:32.020 He was directly, he was the front row, directly behind home plate.
00:30:36.700 And so, kind of midway through the game, I introduced myself to Lorne Michaels.
00:30:40.120 And I said, you know, Lorne, I've been watching Saturday Night Live my entire life.
00:30:48.820 And he responded, well, so have I.
00:30:51.220 I said, yeah, but I started at four.
00:30:53.020 Yeah.
00:30:54.180 He's an older guy.
00:30:55.100 I'm a lot younger than he is.
00:30:56.320 I literally, as a little kid, grew up.
00:30:58.760 And I did say to him, I don't want to repeat what he said, because I think that's probably not fair.
00:31:02.740 But I'll say what I said.
00:31:04.860 I said, you know, Saturday Night Live was a lot funnier before they became so damn political.
00:31:12.240 I like comedy.
00:31:13.500 By the way, I like comedy that makes fun of Republicans or Democrats.
00:31:16.940 There used to be a time when we could laugh.
00:31:18.620 Late night television has been destroyed.
00:31:21.900 But of all of them, it used to be Jay Leno was the best.
00:31:26.840 Sadly, when he was pulled off air, my futile attempt to convince Rupert Murdoch to put him on air didn't succeed.
00:31:35.520 So he was done.
00:31:38.280 And Fallon got on, and he was actually, he was a nice guy.
00:31:41.960 I went on, I did Fallon's show, actually, on my daughter Caroline's birthday, her eighth birthday.
00:31:49.520 Wow.
00:31:49.880 It was April 14th.
00:31:50.780 And it was really cool, and we did a fun, he had a whole skit set up where he played Donald Trump.
00:31:55.360 And it was the middle of the presidential primary, and he was calling me, and it was funny.
00:32:01.900 It was a comedy skit.
00:32:03.220 It was a comedy skit. 0.98
00:32:04.920 And he wasn't a jerk.
00:32:06.980 So if you watch this skit that we just played the segment from, where Fallon is, like, singing about the latest variant of COVID-19, my God, late night comedy is dead. 0.88
00:32:25.340 It's been destroyed.
00:32:26.760 Like, if you are a propagandist for Dr. Fauci, and for, at one point he says, you know, make sure to wear a mask in indoor facilities.
00:32:36.900 And mind you, Jimmy Fallon's not wearing a mask.
00:32:39.380 None of his staff's wearing a mask.
00:32:40.760 None of the band is wearing a mask.
00:32:42.340 But you know what?
00:32:43.040 When I did The View the day after the Yankees game?
00:32:45.300 Oh, yeah.
00:32:45.860 You know who was wearing a mask?
00:32:47.320 Who?
00:32:47.600 Every single member of the audience.
00:32:51.020 They were trying to protect you, sir.
00:32:52.560 Okay.
00:32:52.980 None of the crew of The View, none of the hosts, Whoopi Goldberg, wasn't wearing a mask.
00:32:58.460 But they made every single audience member wear it.
00:33:02.040 And look, I wish we could laugh.
00:33:08.720 I wish culture wasn't so political.
00:33:13.180 I wish late night comedy.
00:33:14.480 And by the way, let me give you an example of what I think is fabulous comedy.
00:33:20.120 And this may get me in trouble with some people.
00:33:22.500 One of my favorite movies.
00:33:23.460 You ever see the movie Team America?
00:33:24.880 Oh, yes.
00:33:25.940 Team America World Police.
00:33:27.220 Now, listen, it is raunchy as all get out.
00:33:29.720 I'm going to admit an embarrassing thing.
00:33:31.340 So I love Team America.
00:33:32.320 I took Heidi.
00:33:33.260 Heidi doesn't like movies much. 0.74
00:33:34.480 She almost fell out of the chair laughing so hard.
00:33:36.900 We did a family vacation with Heidi's parents.
00:33:39.860 And we brought a DVD.
00:33:41.260 This was a while ago, so it was back when DVDs existed.
00:33:43.740 We brought a DVD of Team Americans.
00:33:45.220 It was so funny.
00:33:46.460 And we're playing it to Heidi's parents.
00:33:48.860 And I guess I forgot just how profane the movie is.
00:33:54.160 I'm remembering it now vaguely.
00:33:56.340 And I do remember it was like a lot of curse words and a lot of politically incorrect lines.
00:34:04.660 But hilarious.
00:34:05.560 Every third word is an F-bomb.
00:34:08.620 Yeah.
00:34:08.960 And so we're sitting there watching it with her parents.
00:34:11.500 And Heidi and I are newlyweds.
00:34:12.860 And her parents literally were on a houseboat on Lake Powell out in the middle of the wilderness.
00:34:17.820 And Heidi's parents literally got up and left because it was so – it's funny.
00:34:21.900 But I was like, okay, I'm sorry.
00:34:23.300 I feel really bad.
00:34:24.200 I didn't mean to inflict this on my mother-in-law.
00:34:27.760 But, look, Team America is a movie that – it ridicules Republicans.
00:34:35.560 Yes.
00:34:36.040 But it ridicules Democrats.
00:34:37.580 That's actually good comedy.
00:34:39.060 I'm good with that.
00:34:40.520 At least it's equal opportunity offender. 0.91
00:34:44.400 Today, late-night comedy.
00:34:45.980 Today, SNL.
00:34:48.140 Is all about being a political mouthpiece.
00:34:50.500 And it's not about actually telling jokes.
00:34:53.740 Jerry Seinfeld said he doesn't do stand-up anymore because it's impossible.
00:34:58.520 Bill Burr.
00:34:59.560 I don't know if you know who Bill Burr is.
00:35:00.600 I know who he is.
00:35:01.600 I don't know him.
00:35:02.400 But he's very funny.
00:35:04.420 Hysterical.
00:35:04.980 And if you listen to him, he goes after both sides.
00:35:07.340 He was in Houston.
00:35:08.940 And we went.
00:35:10.320 And I laughed because we went with friends.
00:35:12.540 And my wife is the – I call it the more judgy one, if that makes sense. 1.00
00:35:19.080 I was like, look, I'm going to laugh my tail off.
00:35:21.120 But if you're next to me, I'm not going to have as much fun.
00:35:23.020 So you're going to sit two seats down.
00:35:24.840 I'm going to sit next to my buddy.
00:35:26.200 And the girls can sit together and the guys can sit together.
00:35:28.520 And so she's three seats away just so I knew I could have a good time.
00:35:31.840 And finally, about 25 minutes in, I looked down and she's dying laughing. 0.54
00:35:36.000 And I looked at her and said, see, I was like, you can't judge me now.
00:35:38.560 You can't judge me now.
00:35:39.640 But my point is, he was an equal opportunity offender.
00:35:42.960 If you listen to his comedy, he'll attack the people.
00:35:45.600 And that's great.
00:35:46.100 And that's what we – I wish I had more of that.
00:35:48.500 I love George Carlin.
00:35:49.820 Now, listen, George Carlin probably would agree with almost nothing of my politics or your politics.
00:35:55.640 Although I say this.
00:35:57.260 George Carlin was an old-school liberal, so he believed in a free speech.
00:36:00.320 Yes.
00:36:00.580 Because today's Democrat party that wants to censor everyone, they would hate George Carlin.
00:36:05.600 So I kind of hope, and maybe I'm deluding myself, that Carlin would appreciate the free speech ethos.
00:36:14.680 And I've got a pretty strong libertarian sentiment.
00:36:17.780 But Carlin is funny as all get out.
00:36:21.040 You go back to Bush, and I love where this podcast has gone tonight.
00:36:24.240 This is really fun.
00:36:25.440 You go back to Bush, and they were just relentless on beating up on Bush 43 in late night.
00:36:31.300 Yeah.
00:36:31.740 But some of it was funny.
00:36:33.040 Like, it was even talked about at the White House the next day.
00:36:36.200 Well, Obama, they broke it.
00:36:37.960 Yes.
00:36:38.440 Obama, they broke it because they couldn't make fun of who they thought was the chosen one.
00:36:44.780 Right.
00:36:45.020 And say, well, they were so terrified.
00:36:47.520 It's where late night comedy.
00:36:49.380 Look, SNL has some of the great Chevy Chase.
00:36:54.100 Brilliant.
00:36:54.720 Playing Gerald Ford, falling down.
00:36:56.640 And by the way, Gerald Ford is probably the best athlete to ever be president of the United States.
00:37:01.180 He was all-American, University of Michigan football player.
00:37:04.460 I didn't know that.
00:37:05.540 I really, I didn't.
00:37:07.140 No, no.
00:37:07.460 He was a serious, like, I don't believe there's ever been another all-American athlete.
00:37:12.280 He was a legit athlete, college, like the real deal.
00:37:16.060 And Chevy Chase fell off of ladders, fell down, and the entire country thought of Gerald Ford as a klutz and an oaf because of Saturday Night Live.
00:37:26.860 You look at-
00:37:28.040 If you go back in the day to Saturday Night Live, and you look at the gaffes from Biden now, we'll play a gaffe from today.
00:37:35.000 Great example.
00:37:35.800 Let's go back to what we're talking about, the classified documents.
00:37:38.720 Let's play this.
00:37:39.600 And I thought he was really on point because I think his staff prepped him and said, hey, your response to these classified documents is incredibly important.
00:37:48.300 You nail this.
00:37:49.320 But even at the end, he couldn't hold it together very yet.
00:37:52.900 Diaz hit play.
00:37:53.960 First, well, let me get rid of the easy one first.
00:37:57.460 People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously.
00:38:02.300 When my lawyers were clearing out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me, secure office in the Capitol.
00:38:10.260 When I, the four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn.
00:38:13.940 And they found some documents in a box in a locked cabinet, or at least a closet.
00:38:20.900 And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box.
00:38:26.960 And they did what they should have done.
00:38:29.380 They immediately called the archives, immediately called the archives, turned them over to the archives.
00:38:35.140 And I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.
00:38:44.280 But I don't know what's in the documents.
00:38:46.900 My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were.
00:38:51.600 I've turned over the boxes.
00:38:53.000 They've turned over the boxes to the archives.
00:38:55.220 And we're cooperating fully, cooperating fully with the review, and which I hope will be finished soon.
00:39:01.980 And there will be more detail at that time.
00:39:06.180 The first question now, I forgot.
00:39:09.260 He's like, he nailed it.
00:39:11.600 And then, but my point is Saturday Night Live.
00:39:12.960 The first question I forgot.
00:39:14.100 And he says, first of all, at the beginning, if you're listening, it's first of all, first thing.
00:39:18.000 And then he doesn't even remember what the first thing was, which is what he just did.
00:39:21.120 Saturday Night Live would have had the time of their lives with this moment.
00:39:23.800 They will not criticize him this week.
00:39:25.340 No one in late night is going to criticize him for that.
00:39:27.280 Not criticize.
00:39:28.280 I don't even think they'll do a skit. 0.76
00:39:29.700 They'll gently pop Biden for being old and senile.
00:39:32.920 So they started doing that.
00:39:34.320 Well, yeah, okay.
00:39:35.160 Oh, barely.
00:39:35.720 But not this one.
00:39:36.460 They won't.
00:39:37.060 But, okay, Obama, he did nothing wrong.
00:39:39.840 When you look back from Chevy Chase to Ronald Reagan, who they viciously destroyed, to Bush
00:39:47.000 41, Dana Carvey, you remember he used to go, nagada, nagada.
00:39:51.500 In fact, it was one of the funniest things.
00:39:52.880 After Bush was defeated, he went on Saturday, I think it was Saturday Night Live, or maybe
00:39:57.340 it was Letterman.
00:39:57.960 I don't remember what it was.
00:39:58.520 Not going to do it.
00:39:59.120 Yeah.
00:39:59.220 He was talking.
00:39:59.940 And Bush 41 said to Dana Carvey, nagada.
00:40:03.440 What is that?
00:40:03.900 I don't say nagada.
00:40:04.720 It was funny.
00:40:06.600 And by the way, remember Dana Carvey not only played Bush 41, he also played Ross Perot.
00:40:10.440 Yeah.
00:40:10.720 There's a giant second sound from the South.
00:40:12.980 A giant second sound.
00:40:14.360 It was ridiculously funny.
00:40:16.960 You look at Will Ferrell as George W. Bush.
00:40:19.220 Amazing.
00:40:20.560 Side-splittingly funny.
00:40:22.420 The entire history of SNL mocking politicians.
00:40:28.400 All right.
00:40:28.940 Sarah Palin.
00:40:30.220 I can see Russia from my porch. 0.76
00:40:32.320 Do you know that she never said that?
00:40:34.240 Never said it, but everybody thought she did.
00:40:36.180 So I'm willing to bet of our listeners, and listen, our listeners on this podcast are smart,
00:40:41.660 they're engaged, they're politically involved.
00:40:44.040 I'd be willing to bet 90% of our listeners believe Sarah Palin said, I can see Russia from 0.98
00:40:51.000 our house, because almost everybody does.
00:40:53.340 She never said those words.
00:40:55.880 Where did those words come from?
00:40:57.380 They were Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.
00:41:01.260 And it was brilliant.
00:41:02.320 I can see Russia from my house.
00:41:04.020 And I've got to admit, look, I consider Sarah a friend.
00:41:07.040 I laughed.
00:41:08.420 Because it was amazing.
00:41:09.380 It was ridiculously funny.
00:41:12.640 Comedy has been destroyed because, A, they won't make fun of the left.
00:41:19.740 B, they are relentless partisans attacking anyone on the right.
00:41:26.800 And C, they're now willing to be shills for the authoritarian state.
00:41:32.340 And so when I hear Jimmy Fallon singing about the latest COVID variant, it makes me sad.
00:41:38.580 It makes me sad for the death of comedy.
00:41:40.640 Yeah, because now it's propaganda.
00:41:43.240 So on your comedy.
00:41:44.560 And it's like the 13th strike of a clock.
00:41:48.740 It destroys any credibility.
00:41:52.320 A comedian ought to have the integrity to say, I'm going to speak truth to power and not speak
00:42:02.200 power to truth.
00:42:04.520 Yeah, I agree with you there.
00:42:06.040 Last question.
00:42:07.000 Back to the documents for a moment.
00:42:09.000 This comes out.
00:42:10.180 You hear Biden.
00:42:11.400 We just played that clip.
00:42:12.240 Him trying to clean it up.
00:42:14.240 Is there anything that really happens with this?
00:42:17.540 Number one.
00:42:18.420 DOJ will ignore it.
00:42:19.500 Okay.
00:42:19.680 And Anne, how big of a saving, you believe this is significant though for Donald Trump?
00:42:25.920 Not in the legal sense, but in the public opinion debate sense.
00:42:30.660 It becomes, it's why I sent the forward tweet, convene a grand jury.
00:42:36.420 I actually don't think we should convene a grand jury.
00:42:39.080 So that tweet was not a-
00:42:41.500 That was to make them defend it.
00:42:43.100 It was to- 0.96
00:42:44.340 Hypocrisy.
00:42:45.020 Prompt them to give the reasons why that shouldn't happen.
00:42:50.080 And-
00:42:50.580 Precedent is everything.
00:42:51.740 I do think the public narrative has become infinitely complicated by the fact that Joe
00:42:59.840 Biden not only did the same thing, but did the same thing at a center that received over
00:43:06.580 $50 million from communist China, that is literally being paid for by the Chinese communists.
00:43:14.240 If you think of places to store secure classified documents, places being funded by the Chinese 1.00
00:43:22.140 communists perhaps wouldn't be on the top of your list.
00:43:24.780 Yeah.
00:43:24.880 Just promise me, if there's ever a hearing about this, you will ask, what's the hourly
00:43:28.740 rate for lawyers to move people? 0.88
00:43:31.200 I just have to know that.
00:43:32.940 I-
00:43:33.500 I gotta know what moving company, like, did you hire that happens to be lawyers?
00:43:38.860 I gotta know that question.
00:43:40.620 Well, if you need to move your house, I'm gonna tell you right now I ain't gonna do it.
00:43:44.440 And I'm not for hire.
00:43:45.860 And there it is.
00:43:46.940 We'll leave it at that.
00:43:47.820 Senator, it's a pleasure.
00:43:48.900 We're here in D.C. together.
00:43:50.380 It's always fun to be in the nation's capital with you.
00:43:52.680 We will see all of you guys back here in two days.
00:43:56.020 So make sure you grab our podcast then.
00:43:58.840 And don't forget, hit the subscribe button, the auto download button.
00:44:01.640 You'll get the podcast automatically for free every time we publish.
00:44:05.440 And you never know when those extra episodes are gonna pop up.
00:44:07.760 So you don't want to miss those.
00:44:08.880 We'll see you back here.
00:44:10.060 Have a great week, my friends.
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