← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
FBI Turns Tail on Biden Corruption & NYT Blames Kids' Mutilation on Conservatives
00:58:16
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- [00:02]
A
Senator, good to be back with you in studio. It's been a while. It's been crazy, certainly politically. And I want to talk about this piece of paper that everyone's talking about. Christopher Ray, the FBI director, has been hell bent on not giving a document that reportedly ties Joe Biden to some sort of bribery scheme to Congress. This is shocking on its face, but now we're being told that on Monday he's going to bring this document to Congress. Finally, what do we know about it outside of that?
- [00:34]
B
Well, the facts are simple, which is an informant let the FBI know that he or she had evidence that Joe Biden was involved in a bribery scheme. And it was a bribery scheme of $5 million from a foreign country. We don't know what country. We're told it's not China, so it's some country, not China. When Joe Biden was vice president, allegedly it was a $5 million bribery scheme in exchange for changes in U.S. policy. We don't know what kind of changes in U.S. policy. We also know that this informant called the FBI, gave information. This was an informant the FBI had used before in multiple cases. They'd relied on this informant on matters that had nothing to do with Joe Biden. So this is someone, presumably the FBI had reason to trust, reason to give weight to what they had to say. And so the FBI recorded the results of that phone call on a document called an FD 1023. That is a document that the FBI uses. When you have an informant reporting information, they write down the contents of the call. Now, what we don't know is what happened next. What we also don't know is what did the call say? What exactly? We have details that have basically been leaked out, but we don't know the specifics. And so the House of Representatives said, quite reasonably, we want to see the damn piece of paper. We want to see the document. We want to see what this informant told you about. Was Joe Biden corrupt and on the take from a foreign nation? Obviously, the next step is going to be we want to know what you did about it. Did you go interview the guy? Did you, did you go investigate with their documentary evidence? What did you do next? Or did you just bury it? Did you just slow walk it? We have a different whistleblower in the IRS who says the Biden administration is slow walking the investigations into Hunter Biden deliberately putting roadblocks in the way, deliberately avoiding investigating it. We know that the FBI did that with Hunter Biden's laptop, that they had the laptop and, and they Sat on it and did nothing because presumably they wanted to protect Joe Biden. And so this was all headed to an epic battle where Chris Wray, the Director of the FBI was saying, no, you can't have this document. And James Comer in the House said, fine, we're gonna hold you in contempt. And I gotta say, thankfully, at the last minute, Chris Wray blinked. The Director of the FBI was about to be held in contempt of Congress when suddenly he blinked and said, okay, you can see the document, but we're gonna carry it over to you. And Comer and the ranking Democrat, the two of you can sit down and review the document in person. And Comer said, okay, so that is going to happen today. Today the FBI is going to carry the document over. I don't know what it contains, but that is happening today. And on the face of it, it is an informant the FBI had trusted in the past, who had been reliable in the past, who alleged that Joe Biden was directly involved in a multimillion dollar bribery scheme.
- [03:43]
A
This piece of paper, is this a power play by the FBI and Christopher Wray just to say you can't have the piece of paper, we'll let you look at it. Or is this a. We don't want this piece of paper to get out to the public because it's so damning to the President, who was then the Vice President, when apparently this bribery scheme allegedly happened. Why are they so hell bent on protecting this piece of paper? Could it be both at the same time? Or is it probably the fact that this is a much bigger deal than they want anybody to know about?
- [04:11]
B
Yeah, look, they're a combination of factors and to be fair, we don't know for sure right now. On one level, the FBI is naturally protective of information involving confidential informants. The FBI gets confidential informants all the time. They don't want to out their confidential informants. So that is a reasonable law enforcement instinct. Let's protect our informants on the other side. And look, we've talked about this before. I've known Chris Wray for 25 plus years. Chris Wray is not a hardcore lefty. He's not even a Democrat. Chris Wray is a company man. Chris Wray is non political, non ideological, but he views his role as I've got to protect the institution of the FBI. I had been on the phone yelling at Chris Wray, explaining to him, you're not in fact protecting the FBI. When you protect the hardcore partisans who've corrupted the FBI, you are hurting the institution. If you actually cared about the institution. You wouldn't protect those partisans who are perverting law enforcement. You would instead hold them to account and you would terminate them. You would clean a house. That's what needs to happen. And when it comes to Congress, I think Chris Wray has a very limited view of accountability. He has a view that the FBI is above reproach and how dare anyone ask what the hell they're doing. So when Congress asks for something, he has an imperious response of we don't report to you. And he's right. They don't report to Congress. He reports to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice, on the other hand, is directly accountable to Congress and Congress is accountable to the American people. And when Chris Wray says we don't report to you, what he's really saying to the American people is we don't report to the American people. We have no standards that govern us. We are the FBI. We can do whatever the hell we want. And that is profoundly harmful for the rule of law and for fair and impartial administration of justice.
- [06:32]
A
There's a time also aspect of this piece of paper, Senator. It's a piece of paper apparently that the FBI has had for quite some time. James Comer mentioned that. And I want to play it for people because I think that also brings a, a different dynamic into this. How long have they had this and what have they not done since they've had it? Before we play that though, I want to tell you about Patriot Mobile. If you are sick and tired of giving your money to woke companies and organizations that are obviously fighting against your values and we've seen a lot of this lately with Bud Light and Target. The list goes on and on. With cell phone, you really didn't have an option for many years. You just had to go along with it because there was big companies.
- [07:11]
B
Big.
- [07:11]
A
They were given a ton of money to leftist organizations. You don't have to do that anymore. Patriot Mobile is the only conservative Christian cell phone company in the US and when you pay your bill, they're actually fighting for what you believe in. Now you get the same great coverage you're used to right now, except you're giving your money to an organization that's fighting for the first and the second Amendment, fighting for veterans, fighting for police, and fighting for the rights of unborn children in this country. Check out Patriot Mobile. If you're sick and tired of giving your money to woke organizations, go to patriotmobile.com verdict. That's patriot mobile.com verdict. Use the promo code verdict and you'll also get free activation. Plus you can keep your same cell phone number you have now, your same cell phone you have in your hand or you can upgrade column 878-patriot that's 878-patriot or patriot mobile.com verdict Senator James Comer was talking about the years this letter has just been sitting there and if it wasn't for whistleblower we wouldn't know they ever had it. Here's what he had to say on Fox.
- [08:15]
C
They've had the document for four years. We don't know if they've even investigated it. That's my fear that they never did anything. What you look at what's happened with the irs, what the IRS was a blowers claim is they were told to stand down. There's a pattern within our federal government of when looking at any type of wrongdoing by the Biden family that people in the government bureaucracy have told rank and file government employees to stand down or to give them the file and don't worry about it. That's basically what Director Wray has told me. I have demonstrated a pattern of Joe Biden traveling all over the world and weeks after he leaves the country his family starts mysteriously getting wires from that foreign country into shell companies that then are wired back to the individual family bank. Let me ask you, not normal behavior.
- [09:10]
A
If this letter is as damning as it seems it could be, Senator, what happens next? Can if Comber looks at the FBI director and says hey did you guys investigate this? And he says I'm not going to tell you. If he claims it's an ongoing investigation, how do we find out more? What are the options on the table and could this go to even bigger standoffs?
- [09:30]
B
Yeah, look, it certainly could. You know I will say what James was saying right there is really significant this pattern. Joe Biden gets on a plane, he flies to a foreign country. This is mostly when he was vice president. He lands in the foreign countries there for a day or two, he leaves and then a few weeks later millions of dollars start coming from that foreign country in wires to shell companies that distribute that money to Biden family members. He said that's not normal. I actually think that's not normal is an insane understatement. That's frigging bizarre. Look, I've been in the Senate 11 years. My family doesn't get wires from foreign countries. Like why would we? I don't know of anyone in the Senate whose family gets wires from foreign countries. That would be bizarre. I don't know of anyone in the federal government. I don't know of any cabinet official. I don't know of anyone whose family miraculously gets paid off by shady Ukrainians or shady Chinese Communists. I mean, these facts. This is. These are criminal allegations. These are allegations of serious criminal corruption. And it's not like, oh, oh, come now. Who hasn't had a few million dollars sent to your Uncle Benny when you happen to come back from Beijing? Well, no, no, normal people don't do that. And by the way, the Chinese Communists don't send a few million dollars in exchange for nothing. Yeah, it's not Publishers Clearinghouse. They don't show up with Ed McMahon at your door and say, guess what? Here's a check for you. It's not because they like Joe Biden's aviators. They're getting something for it. They're not in the business of giving away money. And so the fact that the FBI. And by the way, they've had it four years, four years ago, who was President Donald Trump. So this is during the Trump administration. The FBI gets this information, but the FBI, the deep state is so corrupted. Listen, the FBI was waging war against. Against Donald Trump. The FBI was functionally on the Biden presidential campaign. And we also know that from the Twitter files. I get that sounds like it should be hyperbole. Come on, that can't be right.
- [11:53]
A
And yet it's reality.
- [11:55]
B
Until we look at the Twitter files where the FBI was asking big tech, hey, don't run any stories on the Hunter Biden laptop. Hey, suppress anyone else from even talking about it. Hey, you use your monopoly power to silence discussion of topics that would hurt Joe Biden in the election. Why? Well, they don't actually state it, but it's not complicated to figure out. Because they wanted Biden to win and Trump to lose and that level of corruption. So this report comes in. And by the way, it is unusual. Look, I worked at doj. I worked five years at the Texas Attorney General's office to get a report of a senior government official getting millions of dollars of bribes from a foreign nation, I've never seen that happen before. That's bizarre. Just that report. Now, the report may not be true, although the fact that the informant was someone else who had proven reliable and they relied on before, that gives it greater indicia of reliability.
- [12:56]
A
The media is really, by the way, looked over that point. I think we should just make it very clear. This was a person who the FBI trusted, who they've used before as an informant before on other Issues not related to the $5 million bribery accusation with the former Vice president Joe Biden. That is significant. It should be leading on the front page of newspapers. No one's talking about this first off, but they're certainly not telling you that piece of information.
- [13:23]
B
Look, our newspapers, our major networks, they are corrupt. I don't use the phrase mainstream media cuz there's nothing mainstream about the Marxists who are running these institutions. The phrase as you know that I use is corrupt corporate media. They are corporations. Their political decision is decided from the corner office and they are right now the left wing of the Democrat Party. They're not talking about these facts. But you asked what are the next steps? Look, Comer's gonna look at this document number one, see, okay, what was reported. The obvious next question is going to be what'd you do? Did you interview with him? Okay, I want to see the notes from that interview. I assume they interviewed the guy. If they didn't interview the guy, holy crap. Yeah, so I'm assuming they interviewed him. The level of malfeasance if they didn't even bother to follow up on it, somebody should be fired and maybe go to jail. If they didn't follow up on it, I'm going to assume they did. The next thing Comer's going to ask, let me see the meeting notes. Now, it's worth noting, this document, the FD 1023, it's not classified.
- [14:30]
A
Why is that, by the way? For people to understand. Because we hear it's not classified, so we assume that's not as important. That's not always the case.
- [14:38]
B
Classified typically involves national security matters. So if you have a schematic of the electronics of the F35 that's classified.
- [14:47]
A
Sure.
- [14:47]
B
We don't want our enemies to know how our advanced fighter jets operate. If you have a spy, we've got a spy in Moscow that tells us something Putin's saying. Whether it's an American spy or it's a Russian asset for US asset who's doing something that's classified because you don't want to expose our intelligence. There's lots of things, but generally things that are classified deal with either the military or foreign policy. This has not been classified. It is something that is referred to as law enforcement confidential, which is, I go back to the FBI is not unreasonable. That as a general matter, what confidential informants put forward should be protected. Because you know, going back to the drug mule, if the drug mule knew that he or she would be outed, you wouldn't come forward and provide information and law enforcement depends upon the idea that we're going to protect enforcements. In this instance, however, there is a massive public interest in knowing was the vice President of the United States, who now happens to be the president of the United States, corrupt and being paid off by a foreign nation. That is an issue of public importance. I would say at the very highest level, if the president is on the take from one of our enemies, every American deserves to know about it. And Congress has a right, not just a right, an obligation to get to the bottom of that. You know, you look at impeachment, a lot of discussion about high crimes and misdemeanors.
- [16:22]
A
Yeah.
- [16:24]
B
But treason and bribery are explicitly named.
- [16:28]
A
For a good reason.
- [16:29]
B
Impeachment lies for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Treason and bribery are right at the top of the list. They're at the top of the pyramid. They're the worst things a president can do. And if a president is being bribed by a foreign nation who is an enemy of America to make decisions against America's interest, that could well be not just bribery, but treason as well. Now, we don't know. I'm engaging in speculation upon speculation there. Why don't. We don't know?
- [16:59]
A
Because.
- [16:59]
B
Because the FBI won't release the information. So Comer's gonna sit down and look at it. Depending on what it says, Comer's next question is going to be, did you interview the person? And I assume there's going to be an escalation from there to say, this information needs to go public. We need to have a hearing, depending on the credibility of the source. If I were Comer, I'd say I want this informant to testify. Now, at some level, the concerns about why you want an informant, their identity to be protected, presumably those concerns are less here. If it's a drug mule, you want to protect the identity because the drug dealers will murder him. That's a pretty good reason.
- [17:43]
A
Sure.
- [17:45]
B
One would hope Joe Biden is not going to murder this informant. So the reasons of protecting a witness from violence, from the target of whatever it is the informant is passing on should presumably be less now, depending on the foreign nation. If it's Russia, if it's North Korea, if it's Iran, I mean, there are enemies of America.
- [18:11]
A
Who knows that? China.
- [18:12]
B
We know it's not China. Okay. We actually don't know anything. What is being said in the leaky world suggests that it's not China. But, you know, there are friends it could be. I'm Just picking a country out of the hat. It could be France. France, presumably is not gonna whack the guy for making it public. Yeah, Iran might.
- [18:34]
A
Yeah. Or Russia.
- [18:35]
B
Yeah. So who the country is matters in terms of the risk to the individual. Could easily be Ukraine. We obviously know of Hunter Biden's long history of being paid for, paid and paid for by Burisma and making millions of dollars. So Ukraine is certainly a real contender given the other history. Or it's another country, we don't know about it altogether. And that could open a whole new chapter in this. But I think the House will believe, assuming there's. There, there now look, it's possible. You look at this document, the guy's a crank and he says, you know, little green men who were Martians arrived and gave cash to Joe Biden.
- [19:15]
A
Okay, but if that's true, would they really do this to protect this document the way they would?
- [19:18]
B
It wouldn't make any sense.
- [19:19]
A
Yeah, you would just say here, see it. Right. Why would you fight so hard to the point where you're almost held in contempt of Congress?
- [19:26]
B
Yeah. The next stage will be to fight to make this information public. And so Comer took as an intermediate ground. Let's look. I'm glad Wray gave in. And by the way, look, at some level, Wray had a stronger hand in that. If Wray is held in contempt of Congress, the next step, a contempt holding does not is not self executing. In order for Ray to go to jail for that, DOJ has to prosecute him. And the chances that the Biden DOJ would prosecute Chris Wray for contempt of Congress are zero. Zero, no chance. But at the same time, look, the FBI relies on subpoenas all the time. Like in a gazillion different cases, they're sending subpoenas out. The FBI doesn't really want the director of the FBI held in contempt for refusal to comply with a subpoena. That's a problem for the FBI and Chris Wray. Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress when he was Attorney General and the Eric Holder DOJ refused to prosecute him. So there's a history with Obama of ignoring contempt findings. You know, Wray is not the partisan that Holder is. Chris Wray, I think really wants to avoid being held in contempt of Congress. He wouldn't wear it as a badge of honor in a way that Holder was such a partisan he was glad to do so. That's why Wray blinked. He's at least providing this information. What I don't know is how bad the information is, the House is going to try to make it public and you may see an escalation of this battle.
- [20:57]
A
I want to ask you one other question about whistleblowers and how important they're becoming because we're finding all this out from whistleblowers. And before I get your response to that, I want to tell you about our friends at Augusta Precious Metals. You know what's been going on in the economy. You know what's been happening with interest rates, you know what's been happening with bank failures. If you are in retirement, you're close to retirement and you are just tired of being stressed out, you know that there's not a lot of time to make up losses. That's why you should call a guest of Precious Metals. Now. I use them and the reason why is I want a diversified portfolio. I want to protect some of my hard earned assets in gold. And you can protect your retirement in, in this crazy economy with a gold ira. Now when you call Augusta Precious Metals, they're going to actually do a one on one web conference with you. They're going to send you your free investors guide on gold and you can even get free gold when you open an account. So call the company that I use and I trust, 877, the number four gold IRA. Use the the promo code verdict. You'll get the free guide on gold. You'll get to sit down with them as well. 8, 7, 7, the number four Gold IRA. Or visit them online at Augusta Precious Metals.com that's Augusta Precious Metals.com. get that Gold IRA info and get that peace of mind that you want. Augusta precious metals.com lastly on this senator, whistleblowers are becoming a really big deal and a big problem for this White House. They are risking their careers when they come out as whistleblowers. Yet we're seeing this start to get, I think some momentum where people are becoming brave because they're seeing other people be brave. This is all from a whistleblower here. How, how big of an issue is this going to be for the Biden administration moving forward and for the deep state? Because we've never seen this, at least in my lifetime, never seen this many whistleblowers come forward with such big info.
- [22:49]
B
Yeah, look, I think it's going to become bigger and bigger in part. Listen, you look at what's happened right now. The FBI has never been held in such low regard as it is right now. The Department of Justice has never been held in such low regard as it is right now, that's actually not good for America. DOJ is incredibly important to this country. The FBI is incredibly important to this country. We want a strong, vibrant, effective FBI and DOJ that is nonpartisan. That's not a political weapon. That's not targeting the enemies of the White House. That is targeting bad guys. That is enforcing the law. And I think part of the reason why we're seeing whistleblowers come forward is there are thousands and thousands of good, honorable people, of patriots who sign up to be in the FBI or the doj. You know, Ben, your dad's a cop. Why'd your dad sign up to be a cop? Why did he sign?
- [23:53]
A
He wanted to keep people safe and serve his country, plain and simple.
- [23:56]
B
There are thousands of patriots just like that who say, I want to be an FBI agent. What a great. Go. Go after drug traffickers, go after terrorists, go after kidnappers, go after bank robbers. I mean, that's fun stuff. That's important stuff. Look, my favorite show on TV is Criminal Minds. I love, you know, the BAU going after serial killers. That stuff's awesome. Heidi hates it, by the way. Absolutely hates it. I turn it on TV and it's. Look, you're dealing with crazy psychopaths who are eating someone's liver like it's with fava beans. I mean, it's. She's like, why is that evil and darkness coming into our house? I'm like, no, no, no. I'm rooting for the good guys. They're catching the. But the FBI does incredible work in lots of different areas as the politicization has gotten more brazen. There are thousands of people within those agencies who are horrified. I talked to AUSAs, assistant U.S. attorneys who are really concerned. They don't like the DOJ. Acts like it's part of the DNC. They don't like that the FBI has such an obvious double standard that it's laughable. And so I think you're gonna see more whistleblowers of people who believe in the mission of the agency, and they're offended that these cynical partisans are willing to destroy it to achieve a political end.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah, great point there. It's gonna be interesting to see how this unfolds. We're obviously gonna cover it on verdict and let everybody know how this moves forward after this document comes out. I do wanna get something else.
- [25:34]
B
And by the way, for the record, this podcast today has already covered the topic more than CNN will in a year. Yeah, one podcast.
- [25:42]
A
Throw an MSNBC in there as well. That might Be in a decade.
- [25:45]
B
You know, if they had viewers, you might know about it.
- [25:48]
A
You and I. I wish sometimes people could see our text threads. I try not to send you something unless it's to me, shocking. Over the weekend, I was looking at different podcasts. I was scrolling through, and there's a New York Times podcast. It's very popular, called the Daily, usually ranks at the top of the podcast charts. But there was a title that I saw that shocked me, and I sent it to you, and I was like, you gotta see this.
- [26:13]
B
By the way, as you know, verdict has beaten the Daily more than once.
- [26:16]
A
Yes. Which. Which makes me very, very happy. This one, though, the title of this, and I want to throw it up there with the first audio clip because I want people to understand the context of what they were doing, which was basically saying the Republican Party chose a war on transgenderism, which is not the case at all. And their title they had was how the GOP Picked Trans Kids as a Rallying Cry. Now, before we play the audio, I want people to understand one thing, Senator, and that is, we didn't pick it as a rallying cry. We saw the abuse of children at the hands of these activists and surgeons at places like Vanderbilt that are mutilating children at very young ages, doing things that you can never, never reverse, and talking about, they're making millions. Like, we should be getting into this because we're making so much money. Acting almost like they're drug dealers at that point. Like, hey, once we grab them, they need us for life. They got to have hormones. They got to have this. They got to have this. This is a seven figure deal for us. Grab as many of these kids as you can bring in here. We didn't. We didn't pick this. We started defending children. And yet the New York Times and their big podcast actually says there was some scheme behind closed doors for conservatives to use this as a rallying cry to get votes.
- [27:35]
B
Yeah, it's interesting. So you texted this podcast to me. I'd actually seen the title. Now, I don't listen to the Daily. I have no interest in listening to what the New York Times dissembles in line.
- [27:45]
A
This is the first time I ever listened, by the way.
- [27:47]
B
But I do look at the podcast charts, and this was the number one podcast episode in the country. So I saw the title before you sent it to me. I had seen it earlier in the day, and it was the number one episode earlier this past week. And I will tell you, I cursed out loud. I literally saw the title and it made me curse out loud, like, wait, how the GOP picked trans kids at a rallying cry. We didn't pick them. Yeah, you lunatics started cutting their genitals off like they're calling it healthcare. This is Marxism, perfectly captured. They start this new phenomenon. Let's take little kids, 8, 9, 10 year olds, let's cut their genitals off, let's sterilize them, make them never able to have babies. And then we'll say, how did you guys pick this issue? We'll stop doing this and we won't make it an issue. It is the most perverse Freudian projection jujitsu you could imagine where they engage in conduct that is shocking. Go back through any period of human history. Three years ago, 10 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 500 years ago, a thousand years ago, 2,000 years ago. All right, 2,000 years ago, when Jesus walked the earth, if you walked up to people, you walked up to the Romans in Jerusalem said, hey, what do you think of the idea of cutting the genitals off 8 year old kids? They'd say, you're insane.
- [29:22]
A
Yes.
- [29:24]
B
And they might well crucify you. Like, this has been a lunatic idea for the entire existence of the human race until about the last 36 months when a bunch of reality denying zealots decided it was a good idea. And what does the old gray lady, the New York Times, the paper of record, say? Oh, conservatives invented this issue. No, it wasn't an issue until you started doing something truly horrifying. All right, play this first clip.
- [30:01]
D
I think for some on the right, this was a matter of genuine concern. But there were some where this was also a political decision or a calculated decision. They saw this as a potent issue and they began to realize that this could replace gay marriage as something that could help them organize, raise money, get attention, become relevant.
- [30:21]
B
Okay, become relevant. So you gotta understand, look, the New York Times, they're in Manhattan. They're all little Marxists. They're all woke. They all think this is a wonderful thing. And they think anyone who disagrees with them is truly a nut bag. By the way, they look at 49 states and they think probably 46 of them are insane. They might acknowledge California, New Jersey, and may well. For New Yorkers to even admit New Jersey exists is hard.
- [30:52]
A
Valid point.
- [30:53]
B
Connecticut, they might be able to do. They might say Greenwich is okay, but most of the country they think were a bunch of Neanderthals and rubes. And apparently the only way to become relevant is to be upset at the insanity of what they're doing. But listen to the second clip.
- [31:10]
D
You know, I don't think we should assume that some of these gay rights groups would automatically move to trans issues at the same time, once that court made a decision, they were without an issue that they had used to organize and to raise money and to rally support for years. So they needed to kind of figure out what to do next. And you could see this sort of trend toward embracing trans issues. And it began around then.
- [31:37]
B
So this is an interesting moment when the New York Times accidentally has a brief instance of honesty, because what they acknowledged is, and I talked about before the jujitsu, this is true of the left, what they are doing, they accuse the other side of doing. It's straight out of Saul Alinsky. But for just a moment, that lefty reporter acknowledged, gosh, these gay rights organizations had a business model. They had a business model that raised money. They raised money, and it was a fight over gay marriage. Fight to give to gay marriage, give us money, pay our bills. By the way, we want to live really nice lifestyles off the money you give. We're going to fight for gay marriage. Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah. Well, goes to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court decides Obergefell, and suddenly gay marriage is the law of the land in all 50 states. And they're sitting there, and that's what the New York Times just acknowledged going.
- [32:33]
A
Oh, crap, what's next?
- [32:34]
B
Our whole issue that exists for us, we just want on. So if that's actually what we're about, we ought to pack up our stuff and go home and tell all of our donors, go give to something else, because you got what you wanted. But that's not. If you're a grifter, you got a grift. And so what the New York Times is acknowledging is they said, okay, well, we got what we wanted on gay marriage, so let's move to trans stuff. Because trans stuff, that's the next issue we can energize and create. And then it became a political movement. And then, in significant part, because the left controls entertainment and journalism, it became evidence of virtue. It became evidence of how enlightened you are. Like, if you think there's a problem with severing the healthy genitals of a child, clearly you're the problem. Because we've decided this is the essence of being sensitive and woke. And as the New York Times said, this was all a business model.
- [33:48]
A
I think one of the other shocking things that they said here, or they implied is that there was a bunch of conservatives in a room. You've run for office, you've worked on campaigns as well. The idea that Republicans were sitting in a room somewhere and saying, all right, let's figure out a way to fundraise over trans kids, trans bathrooms, trans ideology in public schools and indoctrination. It's impossible to have that conversation because the other side would have to do all those things to even have that conversation. You couldn't control that. The way that they're trying to imply here, which is that the GOP did this out of thin air. No, you actually had activists doing this. Look at even Gay Pride Month. It's no longer a month, it's two months. We know that from what just happened at Target. They started putting everything in the stores before it was Gay Pride Month.
- [34:43]
B
Well, here, play this next clip. Cuz this is where they engage in their sort of fantasy about what's going on on the other side.
- [34:50]
D
I guess the issue of bathrooms just wasn't resonating with the public, at least at the time. So some conservative strategists began looking around for other ways to frame transgender rights as an issue that could be winning for the Republican Party.
- [35:06]
B
So what's funny about this? And let's go back to the projection. So a minute ago he just admitted the gay rights groups needed a reason to exist and needed a business model. And so they decided to embrace the trans issues in order to keep raising money. They're envisioning some nefarious Republican strategist in a smoke filled room saying, who they don't name. This is the issue. The Campaign against Transgender Rights has mobilized conservatives now. They don't name them. They don't know who it is either. Yeah, and they're making it up. Here's the dirty little secret. Most Republican office holders are terrified to talk about this. I serve in the United States Senate. I serve with 48 other Republicans. Forty of them wouldn't bring this topic up. If you put a gun to their head. They want to talk about slightly reducing capital gains taxes and not really ticking off the Chamber of Commerce. That's actually the bulk of our Republican Party is it is still people who are afraid of their own shadows. So the idea that it was some political strategist that came up with this is insane, frankly. The people talking about this are a handful of journalists and activists, people like Matt Walsh. Matt Walsh has done heroic efforts exposing what's going on. Libs of TikTok has done heroic efforts exposing what's going on. And then folks like you and me who are talking about it. But to be honest, not only is there not this mysterious Republican strategist, almost all the Republican strategists are like, no, no, no, please don't talk about these issues. Please don't talk about them. We're scared of them. So they are. The New York Times just acknowledged that on the left, it is a business model decision. The irony is, on the right, everyone engaged in the business model is saying, don't get anywhere near this. And I gotta say, look, my view is very simple, which is we should protect children. And no child, no 8 year old, no 9 year old, no 10 year old has the emotional maturity to make a decision that is life altering. And actually, I want to elaborate on that, but let's play the last clip, because the last clip will set up the elaboration.
- [37:32]
D
Yeah. So they realized that there was a power to the issue of fairness in sports and to the medical issue, like, should trans teenagers, minors, have access to what's known as gender affirming care? And what I mean by that is a range of treatments that can include mental health support, hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and in rare cases, surgery.
- [37:54]
A
Rare cases, not what they're trying to do.
- [37:58]
B
Play the next clip because let's see how rare the cases are. They say rare cases, so keep playing.
- [38:02]
D
I think the reason the numbers are growing is because in some parts of the country, it's more acceptable to come out as transgender, and care is more accessible. And medical professionals will tell you that kids do need this kind of treatment at this point in their life when there are a lot of changes going on in their bodies. And it makes sense from that perspective to delay some of these changes until these minors can come to terms with what exactly they want to do in terms of transition. And we're not talking about many kids getting medical treatment. The best numbers we have show that maybe 4,000 kids began hormone therapy in 2021. But it was going on, and it's caught the eye of conservatives, and they're uncomfortable with the idea of trans people in general, and they're uncomfortable with the idea of kids transitioning. So it made sense, you know, both for a policy perspective and from a political perspective that Republicans seized on trans youth as an issue.
- [38:59]
B
So I'll tell you what I'm uncomfortable with. I'm uncomfortable with a bunch of sadistic Marxists sterilizing and mutilating children. And there's so much in what the New York Times said there that just, frankly, infuriates me. So one of the things they said is, well, there's a range of treatment that is gender affirming care. And boy, the left is good at euphemisms. Affirming is good. And wouldn't you want something that affirms your gender? You're a man. Let's affirm your gender. Like, that seems wonderfully positive. And it is language that would make George Orwell blush, because it is the opposite of gender affirming. It is trying to medically alter the gender that you are. And then he gave a list of options, and the first he said was counseling. Okay, fine, everyone's for counseling. Like, if a kid's troubled, they ought to have counselors. They ought to have a therapist that's a fairly mild. So he starts off with, oh, yeah, yeah, that's real. Then he says hormone treatments and puberty blockers. Now, hormone treatments and puberty blockers are really powerful drugs that permanently alter the physiology of a child. And what that can mean is, for a little girl, it can permanently remove the ability of that girl to ever have children. For a little boy, it can permanently remove the ability of that boy to father children. And then they said, in rare cases, just 4,000. I mean, you know, what's the big deal? 4,000 kids were sterilizing. Why are you upset about that? In rare cases, surgery. Now, number one, those cases are not that rare. We're finding hospitals after hospitals after hospitals who have these crazy euphemism. They call them top surgery and bottom surgery.
- [40:39]
A
Yeah.
- [40:40]
B
So top surgery, they cut the healthy breasts off young girls. Now, by the way, you cut them off, they don't grow back. And we're seeing hundreds of cases of kids who had this happen to them, or in some cases, adults who had this happen to them, who a few years later say, my God, that was a terrible decision, and it's not coming back.
- [41:00]
A
Yeah. What's done is done.
- [41:01]
B
And to be clear, look, a top surgery is if you have a woman who has breast cancer and she has to have a mastectomy or double mastectomy, that can be part of saving her life. But to do that to a child means that child will never breastfeed her daughter. As bad as top surgery is bottom surgery. And we don't need to get overly graphic, but it is surgically removing healthy genitals from kids. Now, listen, if an adult wants to do that, if you're 20 years old and you decide you want to get it chopped off, do it. Look, I grieve for you. I think that's actually a terrible decision. But I think as an adult, if you want to do it, you can. No 8 year old has the maturity to know that. Look, when I was eight I wanted to be a dinosaur. Who in their right mind would implant velociraptor claws on me because I wanted to be a dinosaur? And inevitably when this is happening, the culprit is not the child. The child is the victim. The culprit is the adult. If you sterilize a child, you are engaged in child abuse. You don't have a right to say I've decided that my child will never be able to have children of his or her own. That's not your right. An adult can make that decision. Look, if an adult wants to go make the decision to give up his or her ability to have children, you can do that. A child doesn't have the maturity and an adult doesn't have the right. And by the way, look, the issue of protecting children. I've spent a lifetime fighting to protect children. When I was Solicitor General of Texas, I litigated case after case after case of people that engaged in the rape of children. Medellin versus Texas. One of the biggest cases I argued and won at the Supreme Court involved two teenage girls who were gang raped and murdered in the city of Houston. Kennedy vs. Louisiana. Another case I argued at the Supreme Court involved a man who viciously raped a 7 year old girl in Texas. Texas has a law, the Texas Sexually Violent Civil Commitment law that provides that if you're a sexually violent predator and you're adjudicated to be that, that you can be civilly committed to prevent you from either raping women or raping or raping children. A court of appeals in Texas struck that law down. I personally argue the appeal in the Texas Supreme Court and won a unanimous victory, 90 reinstating that law. So when it comes to protecting children from sexual violence, I have spent decades doing this.
- [43:42]
A
If there's anything I can say, and I think you would agree with me on this one, is we didn't ask for this war, but we are going to protect and defend children at all costs. And that's something that more conservatives need to be about. They need to be fighting harder. We need to be talking about this more. We need to be exposing it more. And if you remember they mentioned the New York Times and it just reminded me he said, he mentioned bathrooms. You know, they start in the schools where little Timmy, if he said he was Susie, could go in the girls bathroom. It was fathers that came out and said, I don't want my, I don't want a boy coming into girls bathroom.
- [44:12]
B
Stephen Smith in Loudoun County. Yeah, the father of the 14 year old girl who was sexually assaulted in the bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt. That's the result of this bathroom issue. And they said, New York Times said, oh, the bathroom issue didn't work. Really? Ever heard of Glenn Youngkin? Yeah, because to be honest, he would not be governor were it not for their out of control ideology, endangering that little girl and then the school superintendent lying about it, insisting it never happened and transferring that boy to another school where that boy sexually assaulted another little girl and arresting the father. And interestingly enough, a bunch of suburban moms in Northern Virginia who had voted for Joe, Joe Biden a year earlier were so horrified by the extremes of the left that they voted Republican and elected Glenn Youngkin. I will say I did get in trouble on a related issue on this on Twitter. So Trevor Noah, you know, the really lousy left wing comic who was on air for a while and then he wasn't funny enough and got canceled. You can tell I'm grieving over that. There was, if you remember in California, there was like a gender reveal party where they had set off, I guess it was like fireworks and it was gonna be blue or pink to tell everyone the sex of their soon to be born baby. And they set it off and it started a fire and it was kind of a big scandal cause it was a fire. Like you shouldn't start a fire, obviously. But Trevor Noah went on air and said, well, why are they doing this? After all, how do they know? How do they know what the gender is? They won't know for years until the child decides what gender he or she is. How do they know? And you know what? Since the dawn of time when babies have been born, every doctor, I suspect, who's ever walked the planet, when they've handed mom their baby, the first sentence out of the mouth has been it's a boy or it's a girl. So somehow they figured it out for.
- [46:10]
A
Millennia, had that experience three times and they got it right on all three.
- [46:14]
B
Both my girls, you know what they didn't say? Here's a homo sapien and in five years you'll figure out its gender.
- [46:20]
A
It's whatever you want it to be. Yeah, never said by a doctor.
- [46:23]
B
So I will say I took Trevor Noah's little comment and I did retweet it and I said, look, at some level Trevor has a point because you know, many liberal boys never do Grow testicles. Yeah. That kind of got me in trouble.
- [46:43]
A
Yeah.
- [46:44]
B
Yeah. I sort of had a little bit of a lefty backlash on that one.
- [46:48]
A
And I can tell you lost a lot of sleep over that.
- [46:50]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah. At least 10, 12 seconds.
- [46:52]
A
At least. At least. I want to end with some good news, and that is another radical Biden nominee. And tell everybody about this because Republicans are starting to get their act together and realize that you can stop these radical nominees from Joe Biden. Talk a little bit about the latest one to bite the dust.
- [47:10]
B
Well, in 2023, first six months of 2023, three and exactly three non judicial Biden nominees have been defeated in the Senate. All three have been defeated in the Senate Commerce Committee, where I'm the ranking member. I'm the senior Republican on commerce. So I've led the opposition to all three and we've defeated all three. No other committee has taken down a non judicial nominee. The first, as you know, was Gigi Sohn. We've talked about her. The radical left wing activist nominated to the Federal Communications Commission. We built opposition to her. She would have used the power of that very powerful regulatory agency to silence conservatives, to target her enemies. She was defeated. The White House withdrew her. The second was Phil Washington. Phil Washington, very nice man, veteran of the military, nominated to be administrator of the faa, the Federal Aviation Administration. The only problem is he didn't know a damn thing about airplanes. Had no background in aviation. No background in aviation safety. Again, I led the opposition to him. We unified Republicans on the committee, and then we picked off Democrats who said we actually ought to have a guy in charge of the FAA who knows something about planes, who can keep us safe. This wasn't ideological. This is. Look, you and I both get on airplanes all the time.
- [48:26]
A
All the time.
- [48:26]
B
We'd like our kids, when they get on a plane, to be safe and not to crash, going from point A to point B. We'd like an FAA that knows how to do that. So the third example was a woman named Ann Carlson. Ann Carlson was nominated to be the administrator of the Federal Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Nhtsa. Now, NHTSA has a very important job. It's charged with focusing on safety in automobiles, on highways, looking at how do we make cars more safe, how do we protect our families?
- [49:01]
A
Important job.
- [49:02]
B
Yes. And once again, just like with the faa, the FAA is a safety job. Biden administration didn't care about the safety component. Let's nominate someone who doesn't know anything about safety because it doesn't Matter. They treated it instead as a political patronage job. Let's take care of someone who's a Democrat, who will make Democrat politicians happy and who cares if they know anything about how to do the job. Nhtsa, likewise, they nominated someone that has no real background in safety. But what is she? She's an environmental activist and extremist. She's a law professor at UCLA that runs their environmental litigation clinic and that spends her time suing energy companies trying to force the Green New Deal. And, and in fact she has a very lucrative business with a for profit law firm where she brings these lawsuits over and over and over again. And so she was quite out in the open and saying, this is great. I'm gonna use NITSA to push the Green New Deal, to push to fight climate change. In other words, I'm gonna use NHTSA to say, let's prohibit every internal combustion engine in America, let's force every car to be electric. Never mind. If you want to drive a Suburban, we're not going to let you. Why? We're going to claim its safety, which is absurd. But it was all about politics and ideology and they were quite open and brazen about it. If you look at, if you look at some of the things that Ann Carlson said, and I've got to find it. Okay, here it is. Here's one quote from Ann Carlson, quote. I think our salvation relies not on the goodwill of individuals. Instead, governments and markets need to take steps to make us pay for the full cost of the behaviors in which we engage. A carbon price on energy usage is a good start. In other words, we need to be saved from ourselves. So she wanted to use non political.
- [50:58]
A
Seems pretty political.
- [51:00]
B
She wanted to use NHTSA to save you from yourself. You think you want a Suburban, but really what you want is a Prius. And I'm going to say a Suburban isn't safe and a Prius is safer. Now, mind you, you might be a lot more likely to die in a traffic accident, which is the entire purpose of nhtsa to try to minimize that outcome. But I think the planet will be safer. So this was their nominee. As with Gigi Sohn, as with Phil Washington, I and my team led the fight to defeat her nomination. We made the case to all of the Republicans on the Commerce Committee and then we began systematically reaching out to Democrats. And we did something we did in all three of these prior nominations, which is we reached out to stakeholders, we reached out to people who were likely to care about this nomination and to pay the price for the consequences. And so we got energy producers engaged in speaking out and saying, this woman is a radical. Don't put her in this very important agency. We got four farmers and ranchers in the ag community to speak out. Because, look, if you are going after internal combustion engines, last I checked, a tractor uses one of those. Last I checked, a truck uses one of those. Last I checked, a combine uses one of those. And driving up the cost for farmers and ranchers is really harmful to ag. So the ag community got engaged and they began reaching out. And what's amazing, Biden White House this last week pulled her nomination. So we still haven't had a hearing on it, but I think they're shell shocked after losing not one, but two nominees. They were publicly. Publicly, yeah. And both of them, they said, we're gonna win. We've got the votes. And it turned out, no, they didn't. And we defeated them. To be clear, all three of these nominees were defeated not by going into the gutter, not by getting personal, not by engaging, not by politics. They were defeated on substance, that their records were incompatible with the jobs to which they'd been nominated. And so at a time when there's reason to be dismayed from lots of things, yet another victory for the good guys, that's a reason to celebrate.
- [53:03]
A
It certainly is. And you every once in a while will send out a tweet that makes me laugh. Usually you're very bland on Twitter. You don't take a lot of shots, you don't get snarky with people. But there was one this week that I think everyone should see in case they missed it. Before we put it up there, I want to tell you about our friends at Chalk. If you're a guy and you're getting a little bit older and you feel like you're losing a little bit of your strength and vitality, you feel fatigue and weakness setting in. You're not alone. There's a ton of guys that are dealing with a loss of testosterone. That's where chalk c h o q.com comes in. I've been taking the male vitality stack, and I can tell you it works. You can boost your testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. Yes, 20% over 90 days. So if you're not ready to give in to just saying, all right, I'm getting older and I'm just not like I used to be. If you want to get back your focus, your strength, you want to get those testosterone levels back to where they should be, check out chalk choq.com now, when you use the promo code, Ben, you're going to get 35% off any subscription for life. Just use the promo code, Ben. 35% off. Go to Chalk Chom and make sure you use the promo code, Ben. Maximize your masculinity by boosting your testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. Lastly, this one made me laugh, Senator, because it dealt with Representative Jamaal Bowman from New York. Let's throw it up there on the screen because it's pretty darn funny and put it into context for people what this had to deal with.
- [54:33]
B
So Jamaal Bowman is a hardcore left wing Democrat from New York. I don't know the guy at all, but he's on the aoc, Progressive, loony, socialist left. And he came out with a statement and he said, we must stop drilling for oil completely. And in fact, his quote was, the United States must, quote, stop drilling for fossil fuels completely or Americans will continue to suffer from severe weather events. These people are not serious. These people are not real. They're not actually focused on reality. They're not focused on details. So I sent a tweet, I said, lunacy. When he rows a rowboat from New York City to D.C. and then rides a horse to the Capitol, he might have some credibility. I won't hold my breath. Yeah, look, and by the way, the jacket he's wearing in that picture is made from petroleum products. The buttons on the jacket are made from petroleum products. His belt is made from petroleum products. The glasses, his glasses are made from petroleum products. His shoes are made for petroleum products. He's literally wearing oil and gas. When he's done pointing to the socialist future he wants us to go, he will get in the big Suburban and drive to his office. Every week he either flies from New York to D.C. or he takes the train from New York to D.C. neither one of which will work without oil and gas.
- [56:03]
A
Yeah.
- [56:05]
B
The utter hypocrisy. And the thing about the crazy left, they don't have an answer to that. Look, one of the, actually two of the proponents of the Green New Deal, which, which advocates abolishing oil and gas, it advocates abolishing jet fuel, are the two senators from Hawaii. They're both two of the original sponsors of the Green New Deal. I pointed out. I don't know about you, but have you looked at a map? Yeah, like Hawaii. You're not driving an electric car there. Like how exactly? Okay, no airplanes. So apparently you're just going to stay on Hawaii. Okay, you want to be a hunter gatherer, you know, you could go fishing and, and. But you're not going to dc. You don't get to go from one to the other. If you would like to go From Hawaii to D.C. you need jet fuel. If you don't got jet fuel, you ain't getting there. You ain't getting there. And these radicals, they don't care. This is all about virtue signaling. He might as well be pointing, saying, go sterilize that child. This is showing his theology, and it's not related to reality or anything. People are actually living.
- [57:17]
A
Yeah, this is why I say the Democratic Party is dying or dead. It's now socialist, communist, Marxists. That's what it looks like. And he's a leader, by the way.
- [57:26]
B
He wants to take away your gas stove. He wants to take away your Suburban, like Ann Carlson.
- [57:30]
A
Oh, wait, hold on. Didn't the media say that was a myth? No one ever really wanted to take away yours.
- [57:33]
B
Except New York State has now done it.
- [57:35]
A
Yeah, there you go.
- [57:35]
B
New York State has now done it. Unless you're really rich. Yeah, the really rich people are grandfathered out because they are the party of really rich people. You gotta understand, the rules they want to impose are rules for thee and not for me. They are rules they want to put on the rest of America, but not on themselves.
- [57:53]
A
Yeah, great point. Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. We do special pods in between when there's big breaking news. So make sure you hit that subscribe auto download button. Or if you're listening on Apple, make sure you hit the follow button at the top on Apple and then you'll get every single episode that comes out. We do it Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.