← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
99 Chinese Balloons plus NYC Invades Canada, Hunter Risks Contempt & Cuba Libre Street Signs
00:50:59
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- [00:00]
A
Senator, apparently there's a lot of balloons just kind of flying all over the place in this country now in Canada. And as you and I sat down to film this, I'll read the headline. US Military shoots down another high altitude object over Lake Huron. This is happening after we shut another one down over Alaska. I think we're up to what, four or five now. Every American is going to be asking the same question. I'm going to ask you, is this something new or is this something that's happening all the time and we just didn't know about it?
- [00:32]
B
Well, let me say, I feel like I'm at the circus. I'm just looking up in the sky and seeing balloon after balloon after balloon. And I don't know about you. You and I are filming this Sunday afternoon. Tonight's the Super Bowl. I may, during the super bowl, just sit in my backyard with a rifle and see if I can spot any balloons in the air.
- [00:49]
A
Balloons coming over your house. Right?
- [00:51]
B
You know, holy cow, we're up to four now. So we had, starting two weeks ago, the Chinese spy balloon, number one that we know about. Well, the number one that we know about because people in Montana looked in the sky and said, what in the hell is that?
- [01:08]
A
Yeah.
- [01:09]
B
And then suddenly it got on Twitter and got on NBC News. And then the Biden administration is like, oh, yeah, that would be the Chinese spy balloon that we were ignoring. So that was number one. That one they shot down over the Atlantic off the coast of South Carolina after it traversed the entire continental United States conducting espionage most of the way. The second one was one that we shot down over Alaska a few days ago. The third one was one we just shot down over Canada a couple days ago. And the most recent one that you just cited broke within the last hour or so over Lake Huron. I don't know where precisely because they haven't given the details yet. But again, coming from the north and the Great Lakes, what's going on here? I would say several things are going on here. Number one, you asked, has this been happening for a while? Yes.
- [02:07]
A
Interesting.
- [02:08]
B
As I mentioned to you last week, I had a two hour classified briefing, went into great detail. Much of that detail I can't get into. What I can discuss is what is already publicly available, publicly known. And the Chinese spy balloon that we shot down a week ago was not the first. Why are we seeing so many of them now? I mean, that's the natural question. What the heck has happened? And I think it's a combination of several things. One of it Is frankly, we're looking for. So we didn't used to have our assets, our radar. We weren't looking for really high balloons coming from the north. That was not our focus. We were looking for things like ICBMs. We were looking for things like, you know, jet fighters. But we didn't necessarily have the radar arrays pointed in a direction to figure out what was happening. And so I think it is entirely possible that we missed a bunch of these.
- [03:14]
A
Wow. And these obviously are doing something for them. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending so much money and time and effort into putting them up in the air and steering.
- [03:25]
B
Them over the US So let's be clear. The one we shot down, we know was a Chinese balloon. It was a large balloon. It had a payload that was quite large. That was the size of several school buses. It was big.
- [03:40]
A
Explain payload. You've been. And a lot of people, I think, are confused on what that means. Some people hear payload and they immediately think that's weaponry. What does that include?
- [03:50]
B
Payload does not mean, in this case, bombs or missiles that you might think on a jet, the payload would be that this is a balloon. Think a hot air balloon, where you got the balloon up top and you got the basket down below. When I use the word payload, what I mean is the thing the balloon is dragging, and in this case, the thing the balloon was dragging was a big hunk of metal the size of several school buses. So it was large. This is the first Chinese balloon. And when it was discovered, our military engaged in, went up and looked at it. I mean, took a close look at it. They're saying, first of all, they wanted to make sure that it didn't pose an immediate danger. So they wanted to look at it to say, all right, are there bombs and missiles on it? You could have a balloon with bombs and missiles that are prepared to destroy homes, kill people. And the military says they looked at it and it didn't appear to be that. That's good. Yeah, that's a much more, you know, we've seen in prior wars, balloons used to drop off dangerous weapons. Actually, in the Middle east, in Israel, we see the Palestine major issue there.
- [04:58]
A
Right now with Hamas, Hezbollah.
- [05:00]
B
And they use balloons and they'll drop often gasoline and firebombs. And it's a. It's a. In sometimes a cheaper way than a missile of causing harm. Causing harm. So by payload, I mean a bunch of stuff to conduct espionage. Now, what the stuff is, we don't really know yet. We don't know exactly what was there we can make reasonable inferences. We can reasonably assume they're cameras, high powered cameras that are designed to look down on the ground. The first balloon was at about 60,000ft. That's a lot lower than satellites. Look, the Chinese have satellites, so they're taking pictures.
- [05:42]
A
And that was the argument the White House made very clear. And they were trying to say, hey, this is a balloon that is not, that is doing basically the same thing as their spy program, their satellite, their space program. They were trying to say, this is a redundant thing. I think clearly now that we're shooting these things over Alaska, shooting this next one that we just learned about, that was a lie or misleading the American people.
- [06:03]
B
It was complete nonsense. And I mentioned in the last pod we did that. When they said it at the briefing, I think I and several of us basically laughed at him. It was so obviously political spin of, well, not that big a deal. Look, satellites are much higher, so typically the resolution you can get presumably is not as strong. If you're at a 60,000 foot altitude or a 40,000 foot altitude, you're a lot closer. A satellite is also continuously moving, which means you have a window that you can examine and then you move elsewhere.
- [06:34]
A
Sure.
- [06:34]
B
One of the things about a balloon, you can hover over a military base, you can hover over where we have stealth jets, you can hover over nuclear missile silos, and you can hover for some real time and take extended pictures, extended video.
- [06:50]
A
And that's what people didn't understand. And I think everybody's trying to get caught up to speed here is a lot of people thought they launch a balloon and it just flies to the wind. Right. You launch it, you know where the jet stream is, you know which way. It's generic. This was a balloon that had steering where you could basically hit the pause button over an area you wanted it to be. And then you, once you got whatever it is you wanted, you could then redirect it to the next place you wanted to stop and take pictures or do whatever it was doing.
- [07:19]
B
And its path demonstrated it was clearly maneuverable. It wasn't just wandering over some.
- [07:23]
A
It wasn't like send it and you hope it gets you close to where you wanted it to go.
- [07:27]
B
Yeah. It wasn't just sitting over a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield. It was just miraculously going from one military base to the next military base to the next military base. And there were obvious national security concerns all along the way. The path it traveled was not accidental. So you have the capacity to be A lot closer than you are with a satellite. You have the capacity to to be stationary and stationary for an extended period of time. So you can take pictures, presumably, possibly you can take video. I'm speculating. They didn't tell us in the briefing. This is me speculating. You also presumably have the capacity to try to engage in interception, to intercept phone calls, to intercept WI fi, to intercept countless things, radio, whatever communications are happening beneath you. You got to assume in the big spy package they got there, they've got gadgets that are designed to try to intercept whatever's going on.
- [08:24]
A
Trudeau got involved with this with norad, and before I put up his tweet, I want to remind people about one of our sponsors. If you've got a cell phone, and you've got a cell phone with big tech, there's a company that you should take a look at and switch to. It's Patriot Mobile. The reason why is because every time you pay your bill, you're actually supporting conservative causes that you believe in. They're the only conservative cell phone company in the US and you get the same exact coverage you have right now. They use the same towers. You get to keep your same cell phone number, and you can keep your Same cell phone 99% of the time or upgrade to a new one. Now, the main reason why you want to switch is this. They give money back every time you pay your bill to first and Second Amendment causes. They give money back to protect lives of the unborn, and they also, even now, help with adoption. Since what just happened with Roe v. Wade, this is a company where when you make a phone call and you pay your bill, you're actually making a difference. So if you're proud to stand up for the lives of the unborn, if you're proud to stand up for the first and Second Amendment rights, and you're proud to be a Christian and a conservative, make the switch to Patriot Mobile, many times, you'll actually save money while doing great things. So go online to patriotmobile.com verdict. That's patriotmobile.com verdict. And you'll get the best deals of the day. Patriot mobile.com verdict. Senator, there's also something that was interesting in Trudeau, and I want to, I want you to look at this tweet that he put out. And it says there, I ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that violated Canadian airspace. NORAD command shot down the object over the Yukon. The Canadian and US aircraft were scrambled, and a US F22 successfully fired at the objects. He said they didn't. Spoke with President Biden in the afternoon. He said Canadian forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of this object. Thank you to NORAD for keeping watch over North America. All right, let's do a dive real quick into norad. How does this agreement work? It's weird to see Canada order the shooting down of an object, and then America do it on their behalf. Do they pay that bill? Do we pay that bill? And he says now NORAD is going to be looking over all this. Are they basically now our brothers in this fight against these unidentified objects?
- [10:38]
B
So the way the military is structured, you've got northcom, which is the Northern Command, that is protecting North America, and then you've got NORAD that is engaged in watching what's happened in the skies, whether from planes or missiles or other aerial attacks that could be coming in to North America. In both instances, northcom and norad, we work very closely. We work seamlessly with the Canadians. We are blessed to have a very strong ally to our North. We don't always agree on economic or cultural matters, but on defending North America, we are. We're lockstep, lockstep. That is a great blessing to the United States. Why, if, God forbid, we ever come to World War Three, if, God forbid, we come to a nuclear weapon, the most likely paths for missiles to travel that are going to hit the United States are going up over the North Pole and down over Canada. And so Canada has a huge chunk of the airspace right above us, which, in the event of a serious war, that's where the path gets. And it's. Because the Earth is curved, it's actually shorter to go from China or Russia over the North Pole and down to us than it would be to go around that. If you're looking at a flat map, that doesn't make any sense. But when you think of the curvature of a ball, it's a shorter path. And so it is very much in the United States interest to be closely intertwined with Canada. And it's also in Canada's interest, Obviously, we're the much bigger country with a much stronger military. And so they are quite glad to have the US Military protecting them. Now, why did Justin Trudeau give the order? Because it was over Canadian airspace. And so we don't.
- [12:22]
A
He's almost giving a blessing, hey, whoever gets there first, if America, you can get there first, knock this thing out of the sky.
- [12:27]
B
So we don't make it a practice of shooting down anything over someone else's airspace, that every country has a right to their own airspace. You think of the first Chinese balloon that we had when Biden should have shot it down was when it entered U.S. airspace. We don't have to ask anyone's permission. If it enters US Airspace, we can shoot the damn thing down over Canada. And remember that first Chinese spy balloon entered Alaska in airspace, was there a couple of days, and then it went into Canada, and it was there a couple of days, and then it came down into the United States over Idaho, Montana, and it kept working south and east across the United States. So for the first balloon, we asked the administration multiple times, why didn't you shoot it down over Alaska? They gave lots of spins about, well, this and that and this and the other. One of the things they finally admitted is, yeah, Joe Biden didn't even know about it. Like, the whole time it was in Alaska, we didn't bother to tell the commander in chief. He had no idea that we were just sitting there with a Chinese balloon surveilling us. So Biden finds out after it's left Alaska airspace. That's what they.
- [13:30]
A
And that's taking politics out of it. That's good to know because it's important. The fact they didn't even tell the president, is that normal? Was that normal how this would work under Trump when he was in office.
- [13:41]
B
Have this happen under Trump? So one of the things, and we talked about this in a prior podcast, let me be clear, what we didn't have happen is a Chinese surveillance balloon that we knew about and that the senior officials were informed about. So you'll recall we talked about this in the last pod. When the first Chinese balloon incident happened a couple of weeks ago, the Biden administration went out and tried to spin reporters and said, well, this happened three times under Trump while deliberately not telling the reporters. Yeah, but senior officials knew about it. Trump didn't know about it. Secretary of Defense didn't know about it. Secretary of State didn't know about it.
- [14:16]
A
Like, it was almost after the fact. They went back and look at data and said, oh, wait, that's what that was.
- [14:21]
B
So it's very different. In this instance, the Biden administration knew the incident happened. In fact, they knew before it was happening. They were tracking it even before it crossed into US Airspace. They just didn't bother to inform the commander in chief. They informed the commander in chief. And this is all based on what they publicly disclosed. After it had left Alaskan airspace, we asked, why didn't you shoot it down over Canada? And they said, well, gosh, you know, shoot it down over Canada. You know, it might hit population, very dangerous, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Finally, they let it complete all of its espionage all over the United States until it exited to the Atlantic. They shot it down over the Atlantic. What's changed? Well, we've seen now three shot down in a row. The biggest thing that's changed is I think they had so much egg on their face for sitting there for over a week and doing nothing that they finally grew a pair and said, we.
- [15:13]
A
Have to do this, and said, we're.
- [15:14]
B
Going to shoot them down. And let me say this.
- [15:15]
A
Well, even look at the President. The President of the United States of America is now rewriting history, flexing his muscles. He was asked at the White House about shooting this last one. And it's like, oh, this is. This is just what I do. Look at this.
- [15:29]
B
Anything to say about the object shot down over Alaska, Mr. President?
- [15:35]
A
Success.
- [15:36]
B
Well, let me do something I don't do very often on this podcast, which is Praise Joe Biden. The reaction to the first balloon was incredibly weak and ineffective. But the second, third and fourth one, thank God, like, this is exactly what you should be doing. If you're flying over our airspace, we're going to shoot you down. I'm glad of that. It took a while. They had to get embarrassed and shamed into it, but they got to the right outcome, and so that's good. I am glad of that. This is a deterrent now, as we're sitting here today, it's Sunday afternoon. We don't know if the three subsequent ones, we don't know if they were Chinese. We don't know if they were spy satellites. If they were spy. They weren't satellites. They were too low to be satellites. We don't know if they were balloons. I assume next week we will have another classified briefing. If we're not, I'm going to press very hard for one. So the last classified briefing I had, we only had the first one. There have been three more since then. So I have not received a classified briefing.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah. At this point, surely they'd say, we need to give you an update.
- [16:39]
B
I certainly. I expect that they will. I mean, we. A week ago when we were doing the podcast, I said, listen, I think it's very likely we'll have a classified briefing. Everyone's going to want to know. I think it's likely next week we'll have another one obvious question on these three that have been shot down in the past few days. Were they Chinese? Were they balloons? Were they. Did they have a similar payload of spy equipment. I don't know the answer to any of that, because what I know on those three is what you could read in the newspapers. What they are saying is the three that were shot down were at 40,000ft instead of 60,000ft. And here's why that's relevant. The Biden administration had a couple of spins on why it didn't shoot down balloon number one. One of the spins was, well, it was up at 60,000ft, which means it's not a risk to commercial air traffic. And in fact, as a sort of throwaway line, they said if it were 40,000ft, where there's commercial air traffic, we would have shot it down. That gives them a fig leaf to say these were down at 40,000ft. And so they shot them down.
- [17:40]
A
We had no choice because it was where commercial airliners fly. Even the White House tried to act like. And you can see they're still trying to figure out how to backpedal on the embarrassment of the last one. They had this White House briefing. The media's clearly not buying their BS on this. And they said, well, these balloons are different. One's the size of a car, one's the size of a bus. Take a look at this.
- [17:59]
B
I'm not going to speak for the Pentagon. I can tell you that the President doesn't regret the way that we handled the first balloon that time. First of all, apples and oranges here in terms of size. As I said, this was size of a small car, and it was over a very sparsely populated area, but also more critically over. It was over water. Water, space. When we ordered this down, as we did, as we did the last one, but completely different size. And the debris field for this, we expect to be much, much smaller than the would have been for the other one. That's difference one. Difference two, we knew for a fact that the PRC balloon that we shot down last week was in fact a surveillance asset.
- [18:46]
A
So size matters. The White House is telling you now, that's what they're saying. If it's small, well, we might shoot it down. If it's big, it may be different. And if it's over a water area. This is a very weird way of putting this.
- [18:57]
B
Look, I'm going to leave that alone. But. But. But what I will say. So Kirby starts off there with a statement that is demonstrably false and laughable, which is, oh, Biden doesn't regret not shooting the first one down as he sat there over a week looking weak and impotent while it Engaged in espionage all over the United States. Obviously they regret it. They realize now he didn't know about it cuz no one told him about it. Sure, but it was a screw up. It was.
- [19:22]
A
And even when he did find out, he had an opportunity to shoot down earlier and he didn't.
- [19:26]
B
But to their credit, they learned the lesson. And remember, one of their defenses as to why they didn't shoot it down before is, well, it was over land, very sparsely populated land, but over land. Well, these were two. And there were periods where it was over water where they could have shot it down as well. Look, they learned the lesson, I'll give them credit for that. I don't know. Listen, a payload the size of several school buses is pretty different from the payload of the size of a small car. I don't know what these were. I assume they were spies, like spy equipment, but I don't know that, presumably. So with all of these, we've got salvage teams that are going to go try to find, okay, what was this thing we just shot down? And we'll figure out what it is. A question I don't know sitting here right now. I mean, we've seen four in just a few days. Were there always this many of them?
- [20:17]
A
That's. Yes, that's what I want to know.
- [20:19]
B
Or number two, did the Biden weakness on balloon number one cause China or someone else to say, say let's go with a bunch, let's put a bunch up there and see what happens. I don't know. I have to admit, hypotheses number two I'm a little bit skeptical of just because I'd be surprised if they could execute it that quickly. If we saw a bunch come in.
- [20:44]
A
A month, that'd be one thing.
- [20:46]
B
I would see it as a more likely hypothesis that the weakness was provocative and caused this. But I don't know. I don't have the technical knowledge to know whether these could be put in the airspace in 24 hours. It's a very short time frame. So if and when we have the classified briefing, I expect to ask these questions because I think they're good questions. And sitting here right now, I don't know the answers to them.
- [21:11]
A
We've heard China last question on this, but it's one I think people want to know. And we hear this and it's China, China, China. Is there a real possibility that there are other bad actors in the world that have the same capabilities that could have been pulling this off? And I go back to what we learned after 911 we had a lot of vulnerabilities that we didn't even see. Is this one of those kind of new vulnerabilities that maybe we didn't even know we had until recently when a guy in Montana saw it in the sky? Is it possible that this big a vulnerability could happen with all the money we spend on surveillance and everything else where now it's just like, oh, we're waking up to this.
- [21:51]
B
So I think that's possible. You know, our military, part of the reason they say people spotted it over Montana is that we knew it was there and we were engaging with it. And so they did, among other things, they halted airspace over Montana. And that got a lot of attention. And so that's part of their argument. Now, as we pointed out in this podcast before, look, I don't think Biden would have acted if it hadn't gone public, if it hadn't gotten on Twitter, if it hadn't gotten on NBC News. I think they would have let this balloon go all over the United States and never said a word, never told anybody about it and kept it a secret. So it is only because people noticed it that they got guilted and shamed into acting. In terms of could it be other actors? My guess is it's likely China. If you look at the combination of military technology, economic resources and hostile intent, all three of those are most heavily concentrated in China. Look, could it conceivably be Russia? Possibly. Are there other bad actors, a North Korea, an Iran that would want to do this? Yes. I'm less confident they have the capability. North Korea might. North Korea's put satellites and they put satell that have crossed the United States multiple times. So I don't know if it's impossible that North Korea is trying this also.
- [23:22]
A
It does seem like such a simplistic.
- [23:23]
B
Point, but I'm purely speculating here. So I want to put that marker down that I know nothing on that question other than what I've read in the paper. And then just speculating.
- [23:32]
A
Canada had a very interesting week. They're heavily involved in this story. Then another story pops up. It's going to be, I think now clearly a rift between Canada and the U.S. you have illegal immigrants that are now getting one way tickets to wherever they want to go. That's how they're spinning it in New York City for all the illegals have been, many of them bussed there and others have just shown up and a lot of them have been going to Canada. Now Canada doesn't like it. They don't like this idea that all these illegal immigrants are coming into their country. The mayor of New York City is like, we're tired of dealing with them. Right. They're. They're sanctuary city. Look at what he had to say on tv. Those who are seeking to go somewhere else, not we're pushing or forcing, if they're seeking to go somewhere else, we are helping in the reticketing process of what we found that people had other destinations, but they were being compelled only to come to New York City. And we are assisting in interviewing those who seek to go somewhere else. So some want to go to Canada, some wants to go to warmer states. And we are there for them as they continue to move on with their pursuit of this dream. I wish re ticketing center was this easy when I'm doing it with the airlines, when I get a flight that's canceled. I love how he's like. It's like they're a travel agency in New York now.
- [24:47]
B
So I want you to be clear. That is a liberal Democrat.
- [24:49]
A
Yeah.
- [24:50]
B
Who proudly proclaims New York City a sanctuary city.
- [24:54]
A
A loving, welcoming sanctuary city.
- [24:56]
B
Who says that all the Republicans concerned about illegal immigration are mean, evil, racist as bigots. That it's terrible, it's heartless. And then when Texas began sending illegal aliens to New York City, suddenly he lost his lunch. He has been freaking out, demanding federal dollars, demanding federal dollars, declaring, it's a crisis. We've had 5.5 million people cross illegally since Joe Biden became president, most of them in the state of Texas. A few thousand go to New York City, and he's practically reduced to a puddle of tears.
- [25:31]
A
Martha's Vineyard, never. Don't forget that they brought in and they actually called up more National Guardsmen to come deal with 50 than the number of illegal immigrants that were shipped there.
- [25:41]
B
So now the liberal Democrat mayor of New York City is buying bus tickets and plane tickets to send illegal immigrants in New York to Canada and send them by the hundreds. And by the way, he's paying New York City tax dollars to transport them out to say, get them the heck out of our city.
- [26:05]
A
Cheaper than the hotels they've been putting them in.
- [26:08]
B
And it is fairly amazing. You know, Mayor Adams, I think, has presidential aspirations. He's not in the top tier of Democrats, but he's.
- [26:16]
A
But he's looking at it.
- [26:17]
B
He's looking at it. He's ambitious. So you can see as he's talking there to the reporters, he's trying to walk the sort of fine line of, oh, we want Them all here. But here's ticket. Please leave. Please leave. And what's funny is like he's, he's, you know, some of the people they're sending are people like from Venezuela, I got to say, sending someone from Venezuela to Canada. The first winner they hit. Holy cow.
- [26:39]
A
That's a. Wake up.
- [26:40]
B
And I will. You know, as you know, I was born in Canada in Calgary and my parents were in the oil and gas business and I came down to Texas when I was 4. My mom was American, my dad was Cuban. I was an American citizen by birth. But I came to America when I was 4. And there are a lot of liberals who are still pissed at Canada and our poorest border for letting me in. And so maybe this is the revenge is the mayor of New York City. You know, you didn't keep Cruz in Canada. So we want to send all of our illegal aliens to Canada. And what is interesting is listen Justin Trudeau and the Canadians have all of this rhetoric about how we love illegal immigrants too. And their view is changing as New York.
- [27:25]
A
They're signaling that they're going to change the way they do immigration with the United States of America and how they're going to secure their border if they do that. Is that not the height of hypocrisy?
- [27:34]
B
There's an old line that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged. And what is fascinating is all of these lefties love illegal immigration until it shows up on the door of their country club and then they lose their minds.
- [27:51]
A
Governor Abbott, I know you've known him for years. You guys have worked together.
- [27:54]
B
He's a close friend.
- [27:55]
A
He took a lot of heat when he started busing illegal immigrants to Washington D.C. when they went to New York City to Martha's Vineyard and they said it was a stunt and it was mean spirited. And I said it's not a stunt. It's brilliant to let the left understand what we're dealing with on a very, very small scale. Like you said, 5 million plus crossings in Texas, you look at the numbers under this administration, they've hit every record. Basically you can hit on the number of legals coming across, the number of legals caught, the number of legals that are apprehended, the number of illegals that have criminal records that are caught, they've blown every record out of the water. Is there a tide, do you think turning in this country in general on this issue for finally.
- [28:40]
B
Oh, look, I think it's an issue the American people are overwhelmingly unhappy with the chaos at the Southern Border, South Texas. They're incredibly unhappy. It's an issue that if you look to the substance, the Democrats can't defend. Their only defense is hoping the media ignores it. And I do think there are some Democrats who realize that it's dangerous for them politically. But I think the reality is they've handed their agenda over to the extremes. And the extremes on this issue want open borders. They look at every one of those people coming in as a Democrat voter and they want them all in. And so I wish I were optimistic that things are going to get better in the next two years, and I'm not. I think this administration is going to continue to do everything they can, not just to fail to secure the border, but to speed up illegal immigration, to facilitate it, to act as the last mile. Look, Joe Biden is the biggest human trafficker in the world. And I said that a couple of weeks ago on a TV show and made a bunch of press statements. But listen, that's not political rhetoric. That is an objective fact. There is no human being on planet earth who has trafficked more people, more children, more women, more people who are vulnerable than Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. And the cartels who are making billions. They bring people across the Rio Grande, they drop them off to the Biden administration, and the Biden administration is the last mile of their trafficking. And now apparently they get to New York City and the last, last mile is the Democrat mayor sending them to Canada. So it really has gone the full loop of absurdity.
- [30:25]
A
Senator, before we get to some other big news, I want to talk to guys out there listening about something that's really important and that's about being a real American man. Look, in the midst of the relentless war on masculinity in America today, I want you to know that there is something that can help you with strength and vitality over weakness and complacency. If you have felt like you're losing that edge a little bit, then you need to check out chalk Choq. They're here to help real American men take back their right to proudly maximize their masculinity by boosting testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. Now, I've been taking chalk. It's spelled C, H O Q. And for two weeks now, this is what I've been doing. And what I can tell you is it's working. I'm taking the male vitality stack, manufactured right here in the usa. Chalk is a natural herbal supplement that are clinically proven to have game changing effects on your energy. Your focus Your mood and your libido. So maximize your masculinity today@chalkchoq.com that's chalk choq.com use the promo code verdict for 35% off. Any chalk subscriptions for life chalk.com code verdict for 35% off. You look at this president, and I want to go back to another big story, and that's Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden has gone on offense. We talked about that in one of our earlier podcasts. He's sending out these letters saying, I might be suing you and you might might want to keep all your records. To all these Republicans acting like he's going on offense here, the media obviously lap that up. Then you have people asking the question now about this administration, how compromised are they by China because the family's business deals. There's new polling out that says 64% of Americans believe that Joe Biden's involved with his son's business dealings. And it could put them in a negative, basically placed when it comes to doing his job as the president. Now, you look at all that, and we still haven't had a president walkout telling or demanding or calling out China directly. You better stop saying these damn balloons.
- [32:36]
B
Yes.
- [32:37]
A
So you now have the House looking into all this. When you see all these different areas coming together, how big of a deal do you think this story can become?
- [32:47]
B
Well, look, if 64% of Americans believe Joe Biden was involved in his son's business dealing, then 36% of Americans either aren't paying attention or are such partisans that they refuse to acknowledge facts because it is screamingly obvious that Joe Biden was involved and quite possibly deeply involved in Hunter's business dealings. Hunter's business, I believe, was selling access to his dad, and it was a very lucrative business. Now, I will say the whole investigation into Hunter Biden has taken an interesting turn because we talked about the last podcast, how Hunter's lawyers getting very aggressive is going after Republicans, going after everyone he perceives as opponents. They also took an odd stance. So the House Oversight Committee, James Comer is the chairman of it, sent a request to documents to Hunter Biden for a whole series of documents that they're examining. And Hunter's lawyer wrote back and essentially said, go jump in a lake. Screw you.
- [33:49]
A
We're not doing it.
- [33:50]
B
You don't get no frigging documents from me. And it's across the board. It's just, hell, no. I think that was a really stupid move for Hunter Biden's legal team. It's stupid politically and it's stupid, legally. Why? What's going to happen next? What's going to happen next, and I think this will be in a matter of days, if not weeks, is you're going to see the House Oversight Committee subpoena those documents. And if and when Hunter Biden defies the subpoena, which is what he said he's going to do, I think you will see the House of Representatives hold Hunter Biden in contempt. And the reason that is is I think such a massive strategic mistake on their part is during the prior administration when the House subpoenaed Steve Bannon.
- [34:36]
A
Yeah.
- [34:36]
B
And Steve Bannon refused to comply, and the House held him in contempt. What happened? The Department of Justice prosecuted Steve Bannon for that contempt, arrested him, arrested him, prosecuted and brought criminal charges. What Hunter Biden's legal team is setting up for is the same thing to happen to Hunter Biden. And if you're Merrick Garland, how the hell do you explain. Well, when Steve Bannon defies a congressional subpoena, it's a criminal offense that I'm trying to put him in jail for. But when Hunter Biden does it, never mind. Nothing to see here. Even as political, even as double standard as the Biden DOJ has been, that's an impossible position. And so I think Hunter's team would have been better to say, we're happy to cooperate and with reasonable requests, we'll comply. And we may have some disagreements over scope, and we may go back and forth like that's usually.
- [35:30]
A
Use 15 documents, you may not get 1,500.
- [35:32]
B
Right.
- [35:33]
A
But at least look like you're trying to comply to spend.
- [35:35]
B
Yeah. If your opening bid is screw you.
- [35:40]
A
Yeah.
- [35:41]
B
That tends to escalate pretty quickly. So I think they made a stupid decision, both legally and politically, because it is going to continue to put not only the Biden family, but the Biden DOJ in an impossible double standard conundrum.
- [35:57]
A
We're going to tell that story in a moment, but first, let me tell you about Augusta's Precious Metals. If you have been saving for retirement, then you understand how important it is to protect your money. One way you can do that is with a gold ira. Now, I'm excited to tell you about a company that I not only trust, but I actually use them. Augusta Precious Metals, they're different because they even tell you if a gold IRA isn't your answer, they just give you the facts. At Augusta Precious Metal now, they do things differently because they want you to have information. And that's one of the reasons why not only do they have a free guide, but they also do a web conference at Augusta Precious Metals. It is about protecting your IRA and your 401k in this crazy economy. So if you're close to retirement, you understand there's no time to make up losses. Call Augusta Precious Metals, 8774-Gold IRA or visit them AugustaPrecious Metals.com that's 8774-Gold IRA. You'll get their free report. Plus you can also do their web conference, which is amazing. Tell them I sent you and they'll pay your fees up to 10 years. That's Augusta Precious Metals, 8774, Gold IRA or Augusto precious metals.com lastly, there's a story that a lot of people may not know about. We should bring light to it. It's one that I think is really interesting. It goes back over years. It deals with a country you have ties to, your father leaving Cuba and a individual out of Cuba and the possible renaming of a street after his name in Washington D.C. this is pretty interesting. No one's talking about the media. So let's talk about why this matters and why you're working on this.
- [37:39]
B
Sure. So Oswaldo Paya was a democracy activist in Cuba. He is a hero. He was someone who stood up against the Castro regime. He had incredible courage. He spoke up for human rights. He spoke up for free speech. He spoke up for democracy. And he was murdered. He was murdered by the Castro Communist government. July 22, 2012. There was a very suspicious car crash where outside observers, it seems clear the Cuban police basically drove his car off the road and killed him.
- [38:13]
A
Wow.
- [38:14]
B
I've met multiple times with his daughter Rosa Maria. And one of the things that I've done is I filed legislation to rename the street in Washington D.C. in front of the Cuban Embassy, Oswaldo Paya Way. Now, a couple of things are interesting on this one. Oddly enough, in the last 10 years, I've actually had a strange body of work, legislative work and legislative success on street namings. Now, how is that? Let me go back to the first one. The first one that happened was when.
- [38:56]
A
You, by the way, when you ran for Senate, I'm sure you never thought that was going to be something one, you would work on and two, be very successful on.
- [39:03]
B
Well, so the first one that happened, you're right, I would not have thought that was back about eight years ago. I think it was 2014 and I was dealing with China and I introduced legislation to rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy, Liu Xiaobo Plaza Liu Xiabo was a Nobel Peace laureate, was a democracy activist in China. He was wrongfully imprisoned in China. And my legislation was to rename the street in front of it. I actually got the idea. This was notmaybe it was a harebrained idea. But if it was harebrained, it was not my harebrained idea. It was actually Ronald Reagan's hairbrained idea. So during the Cold War, Reagan renamed the street in front of the Soviet embassy Sakharov Plaza, after the famed human rights and dissident Sakharov in the Soviet Union. And it was part of a broader strategy of winning the Cold War, of calling out the evil empire. My strategy was the same on China. And look, on some level, you might think, all right, a street name, it's not that big a deal. But. But then pause and think about it. If you change the street name, it means anyone who wants to write to the Chinese embassy has to write to that address, has to write Liu Xiabo Plaza. So you have to acknowledge that Lu Xiabo exists, that this dissident, this Nobel laureate who's been wrongfully imprisoned, that he is real. You know, you've got someone who wants to go find the embassy, you got to go on Google or MapQuest and look for it. You get the address, or if you have a meeting there, you know the website, the Chinese website, if they want to put their damn address, they have to acknowledge the name of the dissidents. It's why Reagan did it. It's powerful. So what happened with Lu Xiaoba Plaza is I introduced legislation. I went to the Senate floor and sought to pass it by unanimous consent. Dianne Feinstein stood up and objected. And we had a debate on the Senate floor. And Daify, and by the way, everyone calls her Difi. That's the nickname she has. Difi stood up. She said, you don't understand. This will make the Chinese government angry. And I laughed. I said, no, no, actually, I do understand. That's a feature, not a bug. That is the objective is to force them to confront their horrific evil. Well, she objected. I tried it again, tried to pass it by unanimous consent. She objected again. And so what I did, and this is now 2015, is I put a hold on every State Department nominee, stopped them all. The Obama administration was freaking out because they wanted their State Department nominees to move forward. I had holds on all of them. They came to me, they said, how can we get you to lift the holds? I said, very easy. Get di fight a lift or hold pass my bill. They Said, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to do that. I said, okay. They said, how about we just pass a resolution that's nonbinding? I said, no, pass my bill. Finally, they blinked. The Obama White House went to Dianne Feinstein, leaned on her, got her to withdraw her objection. So my legislation passes the Senate, 100 to nothing, unanimously passes.
- [42:16]
A
I say, I didn't think anyone would be on the wrong side of that.
- [42:20]
B
So, two epilogues to that story. Epilogue number one, did it pass into law? No. Why? Maddeningly. Because the Republican House of Representatives wouldn't take it up and pass it.
- [42:35]
A
Wow.
- [42:36]
B
We passed it through a Democrat Senate, but the Republican House wouldn't take it up. It was infuriating. So it didn't pass. And I will say I had some harsh words for the Republicans involved in not taking it up at the House at the time that I expressed very directly to them. But the second epilogue, and this is very interesting, beginning of the Trump administration, 2017. I'm having breakfast with Rex Tillerson, the new Secretary of State. I'm at Foggy Bottom in the State Department, and we're talking about a whole host of issues, and we're talking about China. And he said that he had just had a meeting with his counterpart, the Foreign Minister in China. And he said they came and they said they had three top priorities at the time, foreign policy priorities. And he said, ted, it is the damnedest thing. One of their top three priorities is to stop you from passing your legislation to rename the street in front of their embassy. He's like, I think it's idiotic, but that's what they list. And I laughed. I thought it actually speaks volumes about the weakness of a tyrannical regime, just how vulnerable they are to Sunshine, to being called out. But what I told Rex at the time, I said, I'll tell you what. So at the time Lu Xiabo had passed away, he was no longer alive, but his widow, Lu Xia, was still in China. They wouldn't let her go. And actually, Liu Xiaobo was entitled to. I think it was like $1.4 million for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a cash prize that comes with it. They'd never gotten it because they wouldn't let him out of China.
- [44:15]
A
Wow.
- [44:16]
B
So I told Rex, I said, I'll tell you what. You tell China, if they release Lu Xia, if they let her leave, I'll stop pushing this. And I said, make me the bad guy. But you tell them if they don't, I'm Going to keep pushing it. I'm going to pass it and get it done. And I said, listen, I've already passed the Senate 100 and nothing once, and so you can let them know I'll get it done this time. And they're going to see this law passed into law and the sign changed. A couple of weeks later, they released Luxia. So the street sign literally resulted in freeing a prominent democracy pro democracy.
- [44:59]
A
Yeah.
- [44:59]
B
So that's street sign, Legislative portfolio number one. Here's legislative portfolio number two. Did you ever see the movie Hidden Figures?
- [45:10]
A
Oh, yeah. Awesome.
- [45:12]
B
Fabulous movie. Yeah. Hidden Figures is about the African American women who worked at NASA.
- [45:19]
A
If you've never seen the movie, everybody should go watch it. It's unbelievable.
- [45:23]
B
True story. It's a true story. They're mathematicians who help NASA go to the moon. And so I took. I took Heidi to see it. I took both our daughters to see it, and I took my mother to see it. So all of them, we went in Houston together to the theater to see it. And afterwards, I was talking with my girls, and it was an interesting time. Number one, it was the first time they'd seen a movie that showed segregation. Like, there's a great scene where, you know, they had tragically segregated bathrooms. And Kevin Costner gets a sledgehammer and slams down and knocks down the sign that says colored restrooms. Knocks it down. And it's. It's. And I remember my girls were, like, so puzzled. Why would. Why would we do that? We had a very good, long conversation about the tragic history of segregation. But they'd never seen it depicted in a movie. But we were also talking about. So my mother, she came out of rice in 1956, and she went to work at Shell as a computer programmer. She was a mathematician, a computer programmer. But then she went to work at the Smithsonian. And the opening scene of the movie Hidden Figures, they're computing the trajectory of Sputnik, the Russian satellite launched that started the whole space race. When my mother was at the Smithsonian, one of her job responsibilities was writing the computer program or helping write the computer program to track the orbit of Sputnik.
- [46:55]
A
Wow.
- [46:56]
B
And so I told our girls, I said, mimi. They call my mom Mimi. I said, mimi was one of those pioneering mathematicians and computer programmers. And she was actually doing it 10 years earlier. She was doing it in the 50s, whereas the movie set in the 60s. So it's 10 years later. And I asked my mom, I said, okay, how realistic was the movie? And she thought it was very realistic. Just sort of the challenges women faced in that era in science and computers and math. And I told her, I said, you know, mom, one of the things that I thought sounded weird just to the modern ear was they referred to these women as computers.
- [47:34]
A
Yeah.
- [47:34]
B
And we think of a computer as a hunk of metal.
- [47:37]
A
They were actually the women. It was a job profession, a computing of the numbers.
- [47:41]
B
And my mother laughed. Her very first job title at Shell was computer. And she had a business card that said, Eleanor Darrah, Computer. And so it's. For years, I was the chairman of the Space Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. And so I'm very active in space. I passed a lot of space legislation. So I introduced legislation to rename the street in front of NASA headquarters Hidden Figures Way.
- [48:14]
A
That's awesome.
- [48:15]
B
Now it gets even more interesting. I introduced the legislation, and oddly enough, a Democrat member of the D.C. city Council sees my legislation and thinks, this is a really good idea. So he introduces it in the D.C. city Council, the D.C. city Council passes it. And so if you go today to the NASA headquarters, it is on one Hidden Figure's Way. And I have in my office the street sign, the actual street sign, another replica copy of it. But I went to the dedication and I spoke at the dedication, the dedication, the D.C. city Council members, the Democrats spoke and I spoke. I talked about my mom. And I said, look, on one level, you might think, okay, a street sign, not that big a deal. But on another level, 50 years from now, 100 years from now, some little girl, some little boy is going to come to D.C. is going to want to see the NASA headquarters, and they're going to look up and see the sign, and they'll say, what is that? What is Hidden Figures? What is that? And they're going to hear the story of these heroes, these African American women who never got recognized in history, who did something historic. So that is done and accomplished. Which leads us back to where we started this whole thing, which is Oswaldo Payaway. So I introduced that legislation last Congress, and much like Liu Xiabao, it passed the Senate 100 to nothing. So it's bipartisan legislation. Bob Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, Cuban American, he's joined with me. So it's the Cruz Menendez legislation. It passed the Senate 100 to nothing. In the last Congress, it was a Democrat Congress. We couldn't get the House to pass it. I've got real optimism. Number one, Bob and I are going to pass it again in the Senate. I believe we did it last Congress. So I think it's quite likely. And I think there's a very good chance the house will pass at this time too. I hope. I hope to just like I was at NASA. For the dedication I hope to be at the Cuban Embassy, which I've never been to in dc. I'm not a fan of the Cuban government, but I will happily attend the dedication of the street sign so that every day those communist bastards going to work can look at Oswaldo Paya and have to confront the courage standing up for freedom.
- [50:33]
A
It's such a cool story. Keep us updated on it. I love the history aspect of that. Don't forget we do the show three days a week. We do one that is video only. You can see that on YouTube if you're not watching this or on Facebook. And also we do the other two that are audio only, so make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button. Write us a five star review so we can reach more people with this incredible podcast that we get to do every week and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.