00:02:35.280And so tonight, Ben, you and I are joined by someone who has become a very good friend of mine, Brandon Judd.
00:02:40.800Brandon is the president of the National Border Patrol Council.
00:02:44.140That is the union, the national union for the men and women of the Border Patrol all across this country.
00:02:49.700And I have spent hundreds of hours with Brandon and with the heroes of the Border Patrol.
00:02:56.260I've been blessed to go out with them repeatedly on midnight patrol down on the border.
00:03:01.920I've been been with them at midnight muster.
00:03:05.400I've been with them as they're processing this deluge of illegal immigrants.
00:03:10.280I've been with them to encourage those heroes while they have political superiors who undermine them,
00:03:18.480who belittle them, who insult them and who deliberately prevent them from doing their jobs.
00:03:23.000And I have to say it is a miracle that they continue to show up to work every day to protect this country,
00:03:29.740even while facing a president and an administration that is doing everything it can to make it impossible for them to succeed at their task.
00:03:39.160Brandon, I got to ask you about the warning and the advice that you gave to the Biden administration.
00:03:49.280You told the Biden transition team before even Biden took office what they need to do to keep a secure border.
00:03:56.960You represent, obviously, is the president of the National Border Patrol Council Border Patrol agents who right now.
00:04:04.260God bless all of you for what you do, because I can't imagine going to work every day,
00:04:08.100knowing that the administration is working against you the way that they are right now.
00:04:12.900But what did you tell them? And you knew this day would come and this hour would come and this moment would come
00:04:20.340if they did and put in place the policies that they have now put on all of us.
00:04:25.100Not just once. I sat down with the transition team three separate times to discuss the issues that we face on the border,
00:04:31.780to discuss what could be done to to keep the American people safe.
00:04:36.880And that's what border security is all about. We've got to keep the American people safe.
00:04:39.720Here, Brandon, this was not just the Trump transition team, although you sat down with them as well.
00:04:44.220I did. I was on the Trump transition. You were on the Trump transition team.
00:04:47.400But when Joe Biden came in, you sat down with them. I did.
00:04:50.360And you tried to help them not have this disaster.
00:04:54.180I did the best that I could. I didn't vote for Joe Biden.
00:04:57.920I don't like Joe Biden. I didn't like him as a senator. I didn't like him as the vice president.
00:05:01.640But I did want him to succeed as the president of the United States, because if he succeeds, the American people succeed.
00:05:06.180Yep. That's all I cared about. And so I sat down with the transition team.
00:05:09.120I sat down with them three separate times and we went over in depth what needs to be done on the border, secure to secure the border.
00:05:16.380And we even stayed within the parameters that Biden gave on the campaign trail.
00:05:22.260It's not like we we offered them up radical ideas.
00:05:25.180It's not like we were telling them stick with the Trump policies, although I would have loved to have stuck with those policies.
00:05:30.840We work within their parameters and they still rejected it, which clearly showed to me that they didn't care about securing the border.
00:05:37.000They didn't care about the American people who they're supposed to be protecting.
00:05:41.080And so it was it was really disgusting to me.
00:05:43.760And then not only did I sit down with the transition team, I actually spoke with Secretary Mayorkas prior to his his confirmation and discussed the issues with him as well.
00:05:53.280And so when you look at this, it's it's not like they can claim that they didn't know.
00:05:59.220It's not like they can say we didn't know what we needed to do.
00:06:02.140They knew they they they know exactly what they need to do.
00:06:28.620So now you have activists that are running legitimate law enforcement agencies.
00:06:33.420Well, Brandon, you were with me when I brought down 19 senators to the border and we went in to to to the Biden cages, to the tent city at Donna.
00:06:43.880And and there the Biden administration refused to let TV cameras and they refused to let Fox News in.
00:06:50.040They refused to let ABC News in because they said that the that the cameraman might have covid.
00:06:55.720Now, mind you, these these these Biden cages were packed wall to wall.
00:07:01.360And as you'll recall and, Brandon, you'll recall, well, because you were standing there, I pulled out my cell phone and I began taking pictures and recording it.
00:07:08.480And the Biden DHS had sent they'd sent this little political operative who jumped in front of the camera and tried to block me.
00:07:16.700And she was she was the right hand to to to to to the head of CBP.
00:07:23.800And her job was prevent the American people from seeing the disaster they were creating.
00:07:29.680And so, you know, I kind of laughed and said, well, you're about to make yourself famous.
00:07:34.680And I think that that video that I took on my cell phone because they wouldn't let news cameras in.
00:07:39.560It ran on just about every news station.
00:07:57.640You saw children shoulder to shoulder lying on the floor on mats with with with silver reflective blankets.
00:08:05.640There was a rate of covid positivity among the kids that was through the roof.
00:08:11.040And the Biden policies kept having thousands upon thousands and ultimately millions of people coming.
00:08:17.420Yeah, as a federal employee, as a Border Patrol agent, that was one of the funniest things I had ever seen in my career.
00:08:23.820It was it was absolutely great to see this little political appointee, this little activist just absolutely lose her mind.
00:08:30.980And that goes back to the problem that we're dealing with this with this administration.
00:08:35.580We all want to have an honest conversation.
00:08:37.720When I say we all want to, the honest people want to have a conversation so the American people understand what's going on.
00:08:44.340I don't care if the American people agree with me.
00:08:46.560I don't care if they if they come back and say that, you know, I'm wrong.
00:08:50.220All I want is I want them to have all of the information.
00:08:54.760I want them to be able to make an informed opinion upon all of the evidence, not just the rhetoric that comes out of the White House.
00:09:01.780And if we have that honest conversation, I am absolutely convinced that the American people will agree that the border needs to be secured.
00:09:08.680And I am absolutely convinced that they will blame what is currently going on on the border on this administration and that they will know that this administration is actually killing American citizens.
00:09:48.980I believe that every hardworking person in this country, they want to feel like their job means something.
00:09:56.000They want to feel like they have accomplished something.
00:09:58.740They want to go home every day thinking that I did a good job.
00:10:02.560Border Patrol agents cannot do that right now.
00:10:05.100We know that every single time we put on a uniform that we're not doing anything.
00:10:10.000All we're doing is actually aiding and abetting these criminal cartels with facilitating the transport of illegal aliens throughout the entire United States.
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00:12:09.140And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:12:18.920So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:12:22.140Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:12:26.200There is so much of this Trump indictment that needs to be broken down.
00:12:32.260That's going to be the goal today for people to understand this indictment.
00:12:36.760Let's walk through exactly what they have charged Donald Trump with and also your overview.
00:13:21.140We talked quite a bit before the indictment about how I believed it was extremely likely that the Department of Justice was going to indict Donald Trump.
00:13:30.260That Merrick Garland, I believe, wants to indict Donald Trump.
00:13:33.800I think he came into office wanting to indict and to prosecute Donald Trump.
00:13:38.120But we also talked about the problem that he couldn't just base it on the classified documents because it so happened just about everyone else did the same damn thing.
00:13:47.700And so we discussed on this podcast how I believe they would really build their case as an obstruction case.
00:13:55.860What's interesting is they did that, but the bulk of the indictment focuses on the classified documents.
00:14:02.480So if you look at the indictment, there are 37 counts in the indictment.
00:14:07.960It starts with criminal offenses concerning the willful retention of national defense information, withholding a document of record, corruptly concealing a document of record.
00:14:21.380Concealing a document in a federal investigation, a scheme to conceal.
00:14:25.960And if you look at it, all right, so counts 1 through 31, so the bulk of the indictment, are multiple counts of willful retention of national defense information.
00:14:36.660And by the text of it, the terms of that crime are serious.
00:14:42.360Whoever, having unauthorized possession of, access to or control over any document, writing, code books, signal books, sketch, photograph, photographic, negative blueprint plan, map, model, instrument, appliance or note relating to the national defense.
00:14:58.480Or information relating to the national defense, which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of any foreign nation.
00:15:11.220Willfully communicates, delivers, transmits, or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, or transmitted, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted.
00:15:23.220The same to any person not entitled to receive it.
00:15:27.240Or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer, employee of the United States entitled to receive it.
00:15:33.600Whoever, being entrusted with, or having lawful possession of, or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic, negative blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information relating to the national defense.
00:15:50.540Through gross negligence, permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody, or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust.
00:15:58.900Or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed.
00:16:01.960Or, having knowledge that the same has been illegally moved from its proper place of custody, or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust.
00:16:09.400Or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed.
00:16:11.920And fails to make prompt report of such lost, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer.
00:16:19.280The consequence of all of that is that you face a maximum fine of $250,000.
00:16:24.940An imprisonment of not more than 10 years, or both.
00:16:48.100Except for the problem that this is the President of the United States.
00:16:50.840This is a President of the United States, and every President of the United States has taken papers from his time as President.
00:16:58.700That goes back, I suspect, back to George Washington.
00:17:02.800This is a general statute that if you or I are working in government, we have a classified document, and we shove them down our underwear,
00:17:10.580like Sandy Berger, who was the national security advisor to Bill Clinton, did.
00:17:16.840That's the kind of statute that can be used to go after you.
00:17:20.440In this instance, the press has been breathless about the allegation that Trump stored classified documents in his bathroom, in his shower.
00:17:31.280And the Biden Department of Justice media production office helpfully took a picture, which they conveniently released to the world because this is a media production.
00:18:08.700Number one, every president has taken records.
00:18:12.380So just saying, oh, if you have a national security record, you're obviously a felon.
00:18:15.500And, well, if we're going to lock up all our former presidents, you know, I'm not sure Jimmy Carter is going to last long in doing hard time.
00:18:24.860Bill Clinton, on the other hand, could do quite well behind bars.
00:18:28.960But secondly, OK, fine, you've got an embarrassing place for documents to be, which is a bathroom and shower.
00:18:34.580Is that any more embarrassing than in a cardboard box in a garage next to an antique Corvette?
00:18:42.740That would be where Joe Biden kept his documents.
00:18:45.500Or classified documents on a server in Hillary Clinton's basement in her bathroom.
00:18:49.760At the end of the day, the biggest problem the Department of Justice has is the screaming hypocrisy.
00:18:59.960This breathlessly says, my God, he had a classified document off with his head.
00:19:05.540And it doesn't say a word about why they have no concerns at all about Joe Biden, about all of the documents he had, not in one place, not in two places, in multiple places, left with no security, left stacked in the garage, unlocked garage.
00:19:23.040This is so obviously a double standard.
00:19:27.000This is a double standard driven by a department of justice that's blinded by hatred.
00:19:34.640I think they've convinced themselves that Trump actually is Adolf Hitler.
00:22:24.160With zero explanation, they say when the guy we don't like, who used to be President of the United States, who is a leading candidate to be the next President of the United States,
00:22:34.940when he does it, we will come after him and try to put him in jail.
00:25:03.440And that was Thursday, the last week of July, which is the last day the Senate was in session.
00:25:09.480We've been on recess for the past several weeks.
00:25:12.700And so I've been traveling across the state of Texas and doing events all over Texas.
00:25:17.020But the last day we were in session was the Thursday, the last week of July.
00:25:20.920And on that one day, I passed eight separate pieces of legislation.
00:25:27.820It was a big deal to pass eight pieces of legislation that there are a lot of members of the Senate that don't pass eight pieces of legislation after years of serving in the Senate.
00:26:03.360And we've talked about that bill here on this podcast before, which is that eight automakers announced they were pulling AM radios off of brand new cars and trucks.
00:26:14.880It's terrible for a lot of reasons, including that it denies people disaster information in the in the case of a hurricane or a fire or tornado or some other natural disaster.
00:26:24.780It hurts rural Americans who rely on AM radio and it hurts conservative speech in particular.
00:26:31.060It's it's it's an example of corporate America silencing one of the most important platforms for conservative speech.
00:26:38.300Well, I teamed up with Ed Markey, the single most liberal member of the Senate in in legislation called the AM radio for every vehicle act, which mandates that new cars and trucks include AM radio.
00:26:54.540And that legislation passed the Commerce Committee passed it with overwhelming bipartisan support.
00:27:16.940And it's also, as you mentioned as well, a safety issue.
00:27:20.020You look at the hurricane that is that we're dealing with right now in Florida that's going to be going up the East Coast.
00:27:26.400And I've already heard it and talked to friends down there.
00:27:29.720They're already reminding people, grab your crank AM radios to keep up when the power goes out so that you know what's going on.
00:27:36.560And I think there were many that thought of this as a way to silence conservative talk radio.
00:27:40.940Yes, there's no doubt there was a political side of this as well.
00:27:44.100But but this other part was a safety issue.
00:27:46.560When hurricanes hit, when there's natural disasters that happen and they're talking about it.
00:27:51.460I was watching the Weather Channel today as a storm was was developing this hurricane and strengthening.
00:27:55.840They were saying, make sure you have your crank AM radio.
00:27:58.420That is that is something that saves lives in situations like this.
00:28:02.600And that's also why it was so important to make sure these AM radios, because there are people after storms hit and even before they got to their car, turn it on for a second.
00:28:10.620Listen to the latest updates of what's happening.
00:28:12.680And that's something that happens or those crank radios or battery powered radios with AM.
00:28:17.100It's so vitally important for safety as well.
00:28:19.660Yeah. And other media often go down in the case of a disaster.
00:28:23.540So it's so it's it's critical for getting people out of harm's way.
00:28:26.620A second piece of legislation that I authored that also passed the Congress Committee that day is legislation called the Ticket Act.
00:28:33.460And it concerns if you go online and you buy sports tickets, you go buy baseball tickets or football or basketball tickets or you buy concert tickets.
00:28:42.440You want to go see your favorite artists pay.
00:28:44.860And and all of us have had the experience where you go online to buy tickets, you pick out your seats and you're really excited.
00:28:50.080And then you get to the final step of the transaction and you see fees that are just massive.
00:28:54.560The fees can be as upwards of 40, 50, 60 percent of the total amount you're paying.
00:28:59.940And you don't learn until the very last step when you're entering your credit card.
00:29:03.860And so I joined with Maria Cantwell, the Democrat from Washington State, is the chairman of the committee and authored legislation that requires online ticket brokers to disclose the total amount of the ticket price with the fees up front.
00:29:18.660So that when you're searching, you can know, OK, if this ticket's going to cost me one hundred dollars, I'm not going to think it's 50 bucks and get surprised on the back end.
00:29:27.200As a consumer, I'm going to get to know up front and have the information to be able to comparison shop and make informed choices.
00:29:33.600Senator, you mentioned that there was not just these two pieces of legislation, but more than that that happened on this single day.
00:29:40.960Walk us down that again, that path of what else happened.
00:29:43.280Well, sure. The first two passed the Commerce Committee, the remaining six pieces of legislation that I passed that day, all passed the entire Senate, the full Senate.
00:29:53.280And all of them on that day, the last Thursday in July, we passed the National Defense Authorization Act,
00:29:59.920which is the big bill that passes every year that authorizes the Department of Defense and our military.
00:30:05.440And it's critical for ensuring that we can defend our nation.
00:30:09.220And it is considered must pass legislation so that if you can author amendments that get attached to it, those amendments get passed into law and signed into law.
00:30:18.320I had six different amendments that passed on this year's NDAA.
00:30:22.300So one of the amendments I had was very focused on defense in the state of Texas, and it was ensuring that B-1 bomber wings remain in service for at least three more years,
00:30:34.360at least until 2026, until they're actually replaced by newer B-21 bombers.
00:30:40.620And this is critically important, number one, to preserve the U.S.'s long-range strike capabilities.
00:30:47.320But number two, many of those B-1 bomber wings are right now housed at Dias Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas.
00:30:55.360And we're in the process of replacing B-1 bombers with B-21s.
00:30:59.660B-21s are much more advanced bombers, but it takes time to produce the B-21s.
00:31:04.340And there's great concern, number one, in West Texas, that the B-1s will be taken down before they're replaced by the B-21s.
00:31:13.060And so there's been a battle year after year to make sure that we don't decommission the B-1s until we have B-21s in place to replace them.
00:31:22.020That battle's happened every year for a number of years, and I've managed to win temporary delays in it.
00:31:27.540This year we got a three-year freeze, which is critically important for ensuring our defense capability,
00:31:33.960but also for protecting West Texas and Dias Air Force Base.
00:31:40.340So a second amendment that also passed that day is legislation that I introduced that focused on what are called spy fridges,
00:31:48.620which is there are all sorts of appliances that you buy, whether they're refrigerators, whether they're microwaves,
00:31:54.920whether they're stoves or ovens, that are smart devices, and they have built-in cameras and or recorders.
00:32:05.260And often people don't know when you're buying a fridge, you don't think to ask, gosh, is my refrigerator recording me in my kitchen?
00:34:07.600Senator, did you ever think you were ever going to have to pass legislation that would tell consumers if their products would possibly be able to spy on them?
00:35:04.520We've talked a lot about Nord Stream 2, which is the pipeline that Putin was building from Russia to Germany.
00:35:10.320And I had an amendment that holds accountable the corrupt responsible,
00:35:15.160the corrupt officials who are responsible for building and or maintaining Nord Stream 2.
00:35:20.720And so that passed on that Thursday as well.
00:35:23.340The second one focused on U.S. oil and in particular our strategic petroleum reserve.
00:35:29.680And as you know, Joe Biden has sold down our strategic petroleum reserve to the lowest level it's been at in four decades.
00:35:38.560And the strategic petroleum reserve is there to protect our economy, to protect our national security,
00:35:43.980to ensure that we have energy in a time of crisis.
00:35:46.720And Joe Biden's used it to try to temporarily lower gas prices right before the last election to get a political benefit from it.
00:35:53.960And so I teamed up with Joe Manchin and authored legislation to prohibit the federal government from selling oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to China,
00:36:06.460Russia, Iran or North Korea, not to sell it to our enemies.
00:36:10.900And that is not a hypothetical threat because Joe Biden, in fact, sold over a million barrels of oil from the U.S.'s strategic petroleum reserve to communist China.
00:36:21.860And given that, I thought that was absurd.
00:36:25.400Joe Manchin and I teamed up together to pass this legislation,
00:36:28.340and that was the fourth piece of legislation on the Senate floor that passed on that Thursday.
00:36:33.680Absolutely. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.
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