← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Normally Podcast: Tariffs, Transitions, and Tinfoil Hats
00:33:28
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- [00:00]
Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:06]
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- [03:34]
Host
Hey guys, we are back on. Normally the show with normal ish takes, but when the news gets weird, my co host Carol Markowitz is out on vacation and we are letting her enjoy it. So joining me again is Matt Whitlock. My buddy, formerly of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, worked on various campaigns and in various Senate offices and now runs his own consulting company. And is it your. Oh, sorry. I should check the facts on that.
- [03:59]
Matt Whitlock
I work for very smart people in a consulting company. I don't want them to think that I'm telling people I run the show. But very smart people, yes.
- [04:07]
Host
And now is a consultant and runs his own podcast called the One Minute Drill. Welcome Matt Whitlock to the show. A lot going on in the news as usual. I could play 17 more Hunter Biden clips and arguably that would be the.
- [04:23]
Matt Whitlock
Thing to do and people wouldn't tune out because it's some entertaining content. Hunter gave us a lot. I mean, it was a three hour interview like, and then he's done more.
- [04:31]
Host
So yeah, no, it's, it's my, it's going to be my new gym soundtrack. I'm just gonna put the Hunter Biden interview on and go to the gym.
- [04:38]
Matt Whitlock
And be motivated guy f that guy. I can run up a hill to that.
- [04:41]
Host
There's one answer I heard today, and this is just an aside. We're gonna get into the real news. But there was one answer today I heard that I hadn't heard earlier that was like, to be sure, I don't want to instruct anybody on how to make crack cocaine. But if you get these ingredients and also when you're making crack cocaine, people act like it's dirty, but it's actually healthier for you.
- [05:00]
Matt Whitlock
Yeah, yeah. He goes through the health benefits of certain kinds of crack cocaine. And that segment on crack cocaine is like, probably five minutes. You know, the highlight was, I'm not going to tell people how to make crack cocaine, but he talks pretty specifically about how to make crack cocaine.
- [05:13]
Host
Well, let's get into it. Yeah, he's something else. As comfortably smug said, I think the left has found its Joe Rogan.
- [05:20]
Matt Whitlock
Yes, I didn't hear him say that. That's a good smug take.
- [05:24]
Host
That's a good one. All right, but let's get to more slightly more serious stuff. I'm sure Huntle will have tons to say on all the issues of the day. We can quote him in the future. The U.S. olympic team is stating that they are going to comply with Trump's keeping men out of women's sports executive order. They have changed some of their official language. This is the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee updating its policies with specific reference to the executive order. And I think this is like, obviously a win for women's sports and for sanity. This is a thing that honestly, I wish I had been louder about at times because it did kind of sneak up on you and then you're like, wait, what's happening? And here we are where I think the tide is finally turned. It was really hard to talk about for a long time. The female athletes who did talk about it deserve so much credit. I attended several rallies in the past, getting heckled all the while with some of these very brave women like Riley Gaines and others. And, and here we are seeing the, the, the payoff from that movement.
- [06:34]
Matt Whitlock
This has been a crazy, crazy sort of progression over, I want to say, probably like 10, 12 years. When you go back to like the initial bathroom build that dealt with trans issues in North Carolina, places like that, where I believe it was the NBA, moved a all star game or something out of the state because the state had done bathroom specific bills. But what happened over time, and if you watch the polling on this year over year, the more people saw this in action, the more people saw female athletes get crushed by male athletes in sports, the more it became very real. And that hit a fever pitch the last three or four years to where this jumped to the very clear 75, 25, 80, 20 issue that it is now. But it took people seeing this in action to play out. And I've talked to so many, you know, friends who have young daughters who have had to compete against biological boys in things like, you know, rec league soccer. And it is just unfair. But also, parents watch this and are just flabbergasted. But that's how this shifted. People saw it in real life. And what happened with this Olympic level decision is the fact that, you know, it seemed like Olympic Committee and some of the, you know, ncaa, those types of organizations were the last holdouts on this, trying to sort of continue to be the virtue signalers on letting men compete against women's sports because of freedom or whatever absurd justification they had for it.
- [07:55]
Host
Kindness.
- [07:55]
Matt Whitlock
Yeah, kindness. Equity and welcoming and belonging and all of that. But this is a win for the culture shift that those athletes, Riley Gaines, so many others started that President Trump capitalized on. Like we talked about, you know, on Tuesday, seeing these 80, 20 issues and saying, hey, wait a sec, the people are actually, like, all aligned. They're not aligned on a lot of things. This is one where they're on the same page. And it is a win. And it's really important for the sanctity of sports, for the opportunities for women to compete. You know, it shouldn't have taken this, but I'm glad that it got there.
- [08:29]
Host
Yeah. I think another thing that it took, in addition to people seeing it in action, I think Lia Thomas was a turning point there where people could really see this. I think part of it also was people following the lead of people like Jennifer say, who Riley Gaines, who were really in trouble for speaking out. There's a wonderful young sprinter in, I believe, Connecticut who was one of the early folks who wrote a USA Today column very bravely, and they were just dogpiled in like, trans activists are some of the most vocal you're going to find. And it takes brave people to help other people be brave. J.K. rowling, another great example. You can't cancel her. You can't cancel Dave Chappelle. Right?
- [09:11]
Matt Whitlock
Yeah.
- [09:11]
Host
So when people saw people being brave on behalf of this very common sense thing, but unfortunately, we lost our minds so much between 2020 and 24 that you couldn't say common sense things that they then felt empowered to say. Yet, no, I'm. I'm on the side of the women as well. USA Fencing is another organization that immediately followed suit. As soon as the Olympics said, we got to change this, they said, okay, we're on board, too. And this is important because, as Fox reports, USA Fencing has been under a national microscope for its gender eligibility policy since April, when Footage of women Spencer Stephanie Turner kneeling to protest a trans opponent at a competition in Maryland went viral. Turner was disqualified and given a black card for her refusal to face the trans opponent, prompting mass backlash against USA Fencing. Again, this is a person who put her own reputation and career such that it can be on the line to say this is not right. And we're seeing results.
- [10:10]
Matt Whitlock
When you think about fencing similar to swimming, some of these very specialized sports that people dedicate their entire lives to. I like swimming as an example because the competitive swimmers that I've known their entire lives had to wake up at 5am for swim practice and go directly after school to three hours of swim practice. Swimming as a technical or, I mean, fencing similarly has such a technical, high level requirement for being competitive. They get this far and then have to compete against men.
- [10:39]
Host
I just think, you know what happens in fencing when your, your arm and your extremities are three times longer than your opponent. Oh my gosh, it's crazy. It's actually crazy. It is even have to have this discussion and that lefties are like, well, I don't know. There's not a lot of studies. We don't need studies, guys.
- [10:56]
Matt Whitlock
Nope. Just like we don't need studies.
- [10:58]
Host
We didn't need studies whether it was going to hurt toddlers to cover their faces for two years.
- [11:02]
Matt Whitlock
Like we, we know exactly. Well, and volleyball was another one like this where people could just say, wait a second, you watch a biological male spike a ball in the face of a. And there were legitimate injuries. The San Jose State volleyball team had a male athlete competing on their team who caused several injuries and led to a flood of other teams dropping out of playoff competition, even though they worked their entire lives to get there because they were afraid for their lives. And that's exactly what has sort of, you know, added kindling to this fire of eventually being able to say, okay, you know, we're being inclusive, we love everybody. But also, this is just unfair. And to your point about J.K. rowling and Dave Chappelle, you needed people like that, with that kind of platform who were essentially uncancelable to create the permission structure where we could say this is absurd, you know, and like Dave Chappelle did it in a very different way that I think, you know, was helpful in adding a comedy shine to how absurd it was. J.K. rowling is an example of the crazy bedfellows this brought together. Jennifer, say, is another one. I believe she was a Democrat most of her life, but had these issues thrown in her face in Such an absurd way that she's like, wait a second. My side's lost the plot completely. And so we have a lot a debt to these guys for breaking that glass and making it okay to raise questions that eventually led to this. Yeah.
- [12:16]
Host
And as I say, as a former and current mediocre female athlete myself, I do feel like we are the demographic that is most at risk here because often. And the Olympics are showing this, but often. And I want everyone to be protected, but often, elite female athletes don't have to face the same issues because they're like, oh, we'll just be kind and accepting at lower levels. We don't do any testing for high school. We don't do any testing for middle school volleyball. Right. If you're in that space, you don't have protections until this executive order comes along. If your community is like, oh, anything goes, there's no testing, there's no questions asked. There's no anything. And so I do think one of the losses over the past couple of years that we are hopefully going to reverse is probably women thinking about getting into sports and going, that seems like I should do something else. Yeah, yeah. It's not like it's a lot of glory to begin with.
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Matt Whitlock
No, no. The sacrifice is so real. And if you're going to sacrifice. So hopefully this course corrects and does make, you know, competing in women's sports again, the great thing that it was, you know, for such a long time.
- [13:24]
Host
Oh, I wish everybody the best. I do. It was so valuable to me growing up that I don't want erosion, and I want women to really be able to enjoy these moments. And competing against a dude makes it real hard for you to do that. I want to also note, this is a big one. This is a New York Times reporting on this. On the gender subject. Hospitals are limiting gender treatment for trans minors even in blue states. Two prominent medical centers in California recently announced they would stop treatments, citing pressure from the Trump administration. I do think, look, the Trump administration obviously deserves credit, and part of that is causal. I also think some of these organizations are like, should we take this chance to stop doing this crazy stuff?
- [14:09]
Matt Whitlock
That's the thing. Like, the vulnerability they have of the permanent damage they do to people with these surgeries with such little medical evidence. And I know in another part of this show, we're gonna talk about people selling out their expertise for political expediency, but I think this is one where it's incredibly prominent when you look at the medical groups who have said, this is, you know, critically important to mental health for young people. But there's nothing to back it up. It's all purely anecdotal. And you also have to give a lot of credit. There are groups who have been hyper engaged in highlighting this, creating resources for the Trump admin others to look at. For example, do no Harm is a group that has mapped this out and found exactly how much different hospitals in different states have put into creating these facilities that are performing these dangerous treatments on youth under the age of 18. And it's radical and horrific. But when you look at the volume and how much money these medical facilities have made off of these procedures, it's egregious. And it makes a lot of sense that they're, you know, cutting their risks by stopping this. But it is crazy that it took so much to get to this point again, because this is another issue where if you look at the polling, like Washington Post is a very progressive pollster, their polling showed that about 75, 80% of all people think that these should be banned for anyone under the age of 18. And that is all of the different sex change interventions. It is the surgeries, but it's also the hormone treatments. It's also the different irreversible medical, you know, interventions that can start that process, that affect youth, and it shouldn't be done before someone is 18 where they can make that permanent decision.
- [15:42]
Host
And by the way, one of the reasons that the medical information, or lack thereof on this is more mainstream now is because the ACLU's lawyer should not have but brought this to the Supreme Court and argued in front of the Supreme Court, at which point, in a lot of these documents put before the Supreme Court and in a lot of the questioning before the Supreme Court, it was revealed that the data is not there. So I think people now feel comfortable going with their gut on this. Again, another thing where everyone kind of knew this was wrong from the beginning, but it felt it's been a strange five years, and everyone was like, should I be saying that this is wrong or am I mean to say this is wrong? And in fact, it's really mean to deny the truth and to tell children that they can change their sex. That is, that's actually the wrong thing. And we're coming to that conclusion. By the way, this New York Times story mostly focuses on, like, that people are worried about whether youth can consent to this type of decision. They don't get into the actual harms that like bone density and brain development and sexual function are all affected by these permanently, permanently by These interventions and that that matters too. And I would note that the New York Times comment section, which has a.
- [17:01]
Matt Whitlock
Lot of up by lit.
- [17:03]
Host
Yeah, it's lit. And also a lot of the upvoting has happened for people saying, look, I'm no fan of Trump, but he's right about this.
- [17:10]
Matt Whitlock
Yep. That's the thing. It's these bedfellows. But to your point before about the ACLU lawyer, I thought that was really interesting. After the Scarmetti decision, just what, a month ago from the Supreme Court, how many liberal groups were like, wait a sec, this was strategically a disaster, Opening the door to all these other issues, arguing it poorly, taking this particular case, and I mean, the Scrametti team in Tennessee that push this and argued it, Jonathan Scrametti, the Attorney General there, is a rock star to watch for a very, very long time to come. He's got a number of different very important sort of conservative movement cases that are actually the common sense cases for parental rights, for things like this that I think will be really interesting to track. But again, this has brought together such a unique coalition. I call it the coalition of the normies. It's people who are just like, hey, like, what if we don't trans kids before they have a, you know, opportunity to make decisions about their lives, things like that. Like, what if, you know, we let girls just compete against other girls? What if we did have 35 year old dudes in locker rooms and bathrooms with little girls? What if we didn't do that?
- [18:10]
Host
Yep. And that's who we hope is listening to this podcast called Normally that's the Dream. That's Our Constituency. Okay, from this culture shift to another. A little bit more wonky policy issue. Announcements today that Trump is coming to a massive trade deal with Japan, setting tariffs at 15% there. There's also reports that you are getting some sort of income from the tariffs that have been set thus far. I don't know where you are on this. I have been. Look, Trump advertised he was going to do this. I kind of hoped he wouldn't do it too aggressively. I think trying to do 165 ish trade deals at one time, even though you have the energy of Donald Trump, is not the best strategic plan. And yet the economy has not responded as negatively as I would have thought it might. And I'm very glad about that, very glad. I also think there are unfair practices, but I don't know how much we're gaining in this. What is your take on whether this has economic or political advantages or disadvantages?
- [19:18]
Matt Whitlock
For him, I think I'm generally in the same place as you. Liberation Day, when they announced the new tariff rates on every country and the markets went into absolute shock, was terrifying. But since that time things have generally evened out. And I think to your point, we've seen a lot of the doomsday predictions were not, they didn't quite come to fruition. There are still some warning signs about inflation, rising costs, prices going up for goods. Certain companies are dealing with the tariff issue in different ways, but I think that it is generally coming closer to an equilibrium. I think to your point about unfair practices, we're talking about the EU right now. The eu, because they have not had any innovation, they have very few successful companies, they are trying to find new ways to generate income from American companies. So they have things like their digital services tax, which I think is one of the most absurd things in the world. But I have a lot of like little beef with the EU on different things. Now that I've like gotten to understand a little bit more about our policy relationship with them.
- [20:18]
Host
I'm very open to beef with the eu. That's.
- [20:20]
Matt Whitlock
Yeah, yeah. I mean the Europeans, I just like, I like Europe, I like to visit different places. But, but so many things they're doing, whether it's trying to force ESG on American companies while they're buying Russian gas that's used to fund the war and Ukraine, all that. We could go on for a long time about beef with the eu, but hopefully with the tariff deal and everything, now the tariff deal with EU seems like more of a stepping stone towards a larger suite of issues they want to resolve with the eu. But if they can get into a conversation about things like these non trade barriers in addition to the tariffs, that would be super valuable. And I also think Japan is a big deal because a lot of the trade conversations up to this point, the places that we've seen progress with have been some of the smaller Asian countries who have important import conversations, import export conversations with the United States. But Japan is a very different scale, you know, and it's funny, we talked a lot about. Part of my beef with tariffs is the way that, you know, Peter Navarro and some of the Trump trade, you know, experts talk about this. You know, why aren't your, why isn't Japan buying more American cars? I lived in Japan for a few years as a missionary and I drove on those roads that feel like you're in a video game and if you drove an F150 on the road and not going to work In a small town in Japan, it's not going to work. You're going to be knocking buildings out of the way into rice paddies and it's going to be a problem. So I think that there was a disconnect there. But I know autos were a big part of this Japanese deal and they'll find a way to sort of make it work that's profitable for both sides. To your point before, I think trying to do this many deals at once is a little bit scary. And I think there are pressures that come with that. There's a lot of, of coverage about how our posture on this has maybe pushed more countries towards openness to China. And despite how terrible they are, I don't love that. But I think that they're trying to navigate around that. And I think that Scott Besant is somebody who has been valuable to watch because he's been very even handed while still being very pro the trade agenda, pro what President Trump's trying to do, but contextualizing it in a way for people who might go in with more concerns to feel like, okay, we're in good hands. The North Star here is how do we lower costs for Americans and how do we get to that point? And I think, you know, that's what they're working really hard to do. So we'll see where else lands.
- [22:32]
Host
Yeah, I know. And it's like I always say about Trump that first of all, he does have endless energy, so he doesn't mind putting 165deals on his plate. And he also likes tariffs and likes deal making. So either of these, and he has for 60 years, he's like, these are the things he likes to do. He's given himself the opportunity to do plenty of them. I, I do fear that sometimes we end up in a slightly less advantageous or the same place we were before, before we had this big back and forth with these economies that we were doing business with that we did have access to, although there are places we need more access to. I totally think that's true. Totally Besant. I love having my guy around on the case, whether it's talking to Trump about Jerome Powell or the terrorists. I feel like he's a steady hand. He's trying to make the best of this and keeps between. So a calming voice. A calming voice. Great hair, Treasury Secretary. So that's where I am on that. And we will keep our eye on it. But yeah, I think Trump can take a half a victory lap at least on the fact that the doom saying was not what came to pass. I do think there's smaller harms that you don't hear about as much. Probably for smaller businesses that get things from some of these smaller Asian economies that can be an issue and I don't want to dismiss that. But the large picture has not been terrible.
- [23:53]
Matt Whitlock
So agreed, Very much agreed.
- [23:55]
Host
Alrighty. Moving on.
- [23:57]
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- [28:57]
Host
We have a segment on this show called Still Mad Bro. We're still Mad bro. And one of the things I'm still mad about and I think you share this with me, we're going to do actually two quick conspiracy theories that have come true. The first is you remember that DOJ letter about parents talking at school board meetings and objecting to coronavirus mandates, critical race theory, transgender policies, mandated vaccinations, that kind of thing? The DOJ under Biden sent out this letter basically saying we should find ways to creatively go after these people as domestic terrorists. They're very dangerous. They're threatening people. It turns out that that was very much done in concert with the National School Board association, plus the Biden doj, plus the White House, all brainstorming ways over a weekend, by the way, which shows how important it was to them. Brainstorming ways to get parents in trouble, to get them under federal law, to get them under investigation for objecting about these things. This is from newly obtained documents from the America first, from America First Legal, who has gone through all the emails related to this memo.
- [30:18]
Matt Whitlock
It's so egregious when you read they're looking for a hook to use to go after these parents. And one thing that I think you have to start out with huge credit to our mutual friend Nikki Neely, defending education. She single handedly kept this in the news and kept digging and digging and digging and sending those FOIAs, which eventually led to the National School Board association being completely dissolved because of this scandal. But way before that, to your point, just for everyone's background, this began with the parents speaking out. Miguel Cardona, former Secretary of Education, soliciting a letter from somebody to say, which was a part of this hook. How do we create the need for, you know, FBI law enforcement to use these counterterrorism tools against parents and say they're a threat to us? Honestly, to me, this, I am a little bit disappointed that there aren't people in jail over this because they ruined lives. Some of the parents that they pinpointed that they targeted and treated like terrorists, like changed their lives forever. And so it's horrific to keep hearing about, but like, I am so grateful that there were people digging into this at the time to make sure that we were able to expose and find out these forces that were trying to silence parents because this was a part of the parental rights movement has had a moment in These last three or four years, Covid was a huge part of it. Parents tuning in to what their kids were hearing on zoom classes. Then there was, you know, the, the mask mandates, the vax mandates, all the different things that parents had decision making power taken away from them on. This played a huge role in lighting the fire that got parents engaged. That became a really strong political movement. Had a lot to do with Governor Youngkin getting elected in Virginia.
- [31:57]
Host
Timing is important because it was October 2021 and things were sort of hitting a fever pitch. They were playing into Governor Youngkin's pitch to parents in Virginia. Loudoun County, Virginia, of course, showing itself to be among the most egregious in the country. And everyone here, particularly in Northern Virginia, was so contemptuous of parents during COVID Here's some of the language from these emails. As you noted, the hook, we're aware, says the deputy associate Deputy Attorney General, we're aware the challenge here is finding a federal hook. But White House has been in touch about whether we can assist in some form or fashion. So they're trying to gin up ways to go after these parents. And then some actual, like, career folks are like, I don't know if we can do this, guys. It says, it seems we are ramping up an awful lot of federal manpower for what is currently non federal conduct. It appears to me that the vast, vast majority of the behavior cited cannot be reached by federal law. I only saw three stories that involved what sounded like a possible true threat. And one of those did not appear to be related to masks, et cetera. Almost all of the language being used is protected by the First Amendment. The main issue seems to be disruption and obstruction of school board meetings. So the idea that they were over a weekend, all getting together to brainstorm ways to arrest and investigate parents at school board meetings. And this is what we all said at the time. We said, they're colluding to do this. And we also said none of these threats are what they're talking about. They are raising speech into threats, and that's what they were doing.
- [33:32]
Matt Whitlock
Well. And they wanted to make an example of people to send a message to parents around the country that they needed to get in line, they needed to do what they're told and have their children go through this. But one of the mistakes they made through this process was one of the fathers they identified as a threat to make an example of wasn't there because of masks. He was there because his daughter had been sexually assaulted in a bathroom. And the school board covered it up. And while they were covering that up, the same person who carried out that sexual assault did it a second time at a new school. And so when people started finding this out again, Loudoun county, as you're talking about, this was a major national story that went all the way to near the top of the Biden administration. And they had wanted to do it to silence people, but they picked every wrong element of this. And honestly, Miguel Cardona's entire service as Education Secretary was like, error after. Like, it was a comedy of errors. But, like, this was so egregious. And again, again, I. Maybe this sounds crazy. I wish someone was in jail for this.
- [34:28]
Host
Yeah, no, I'm. I'm with you on this. The. There was a. Just a special kind of psychosis during COVID And I think Covid gave people who are inclined to do this kind of thing license to say, like, well, they're complaining about masks. That's a public threat. And it's like, it's not a public threat, dude. One of the stories about Loudoun county, as you note, this father who was speaking at meetings because his daughter was sexually assaulted, and they had hidden it. That's all proven. We've seen all the emails back and forth about that. The person arrested at that meeting was the father protesting about his daughter. I mean, and the entire national media framed it as, this guy's just a big jerk who was threatening school board members. I mean, it's crazy, just egregious conduct.
- [35:16]
Matt Whitlock
His daughter was assaulted, and they tried to make him into this, like, lunatic guy who's like, a masked conspiracy theorist and his daughter been assaulted. Like, when you think about what recourse do parents have when the government just does insane things? That story made people feel more radicalized about what government was keeping from them. Everything that the COVID era sort of microwaved. And yeah, that was an explosive story that was just crazy and definitely shifted the Virginia governor's race.
- [35:41]
Host
I fact checked that about him being arrested. Every time I mention it, because it sounds so insane, I'm like, is that true?
- [35:48]
Matt Whitlock
It sounds like a conservative fever dream type of thing, but that really happened.
- [35:51]
Host
Okay, one last conservative fever dream before we're done, because this conspiracy theory is true as well, and we've had it confirmed before by the Durham Report and other things, but DNI Tulsi Gabbard is releasing a bunch of declassified stuff this week rolling on the Russiagate story. Now, I'm actually still a little up in the air on how much new information there is here, but it does at least solidify the Durham Report conclusions. And the fact that this wasn't real, I mean, it just Russiagate was not real. And the thing that I always said at CNN when I was there and this came to be was, I feel like you are all deciding on a conclusion before we have the investigation, whether you're a reporter or the intelligence community. And what Gabbard has released this week about a December 9, 2016 meeting suggests that, in fact, the intelligence community and Obama's officials and Obama himself were like, at his behest, he was like, we need a different conclusion than the one you have given me, which is more benign about Russia's involvement in this election, which basically says, I don't think they actually wanted to help Donald Trump. But they were definitely interfering. They weren't interfering by hacking actual machines or votes. But there was an element here. It's just not the thing that it became. And Obama and crew were like, let's do a reassessment, because they didn't like that assessment.
- [37:28]
Matt Whitlock
Yep. And you have to track the moving goalposts of what Democrats have claimed from the beginning of this, because you'll remember after President Trump was elected, and even around that time, Democrats, media, talking heads, Rachel Maddow, everybody was super comfortable coming right out and saying, Russia got Donald Trump elected. Russia did this. And they wanted people to believe that they had manipulated votes, they had hacked into machines, they had made this happen. When you look at what President Obama said this week to try and push back on the DNI report and what Tulsi Gabbard put out, he said Russia worked to influence the 2016 election, but did not successfully manipulate any votes. That vague language of working to influence has been so amorphous. What that could mean, to work to influence could be as simple as, like some Russian bot, you know, posted I hate Hillary or a meme or things like that.
- [38:16]
Host
Right.
- [38:16]
Matt Whitlock
But they want you to believe that it's so much more than it was because in 2016, that was politically helpful. And when you look at the intelligence community over the years, everything from Hunter's laptop, when you had all the, you know, intelligence experts signed letters, this was Russian disinformation, everything. They sold out their expertise. And unfortunately, with that, the credibility of the industry, the credibility of that entire institution to get, you know, in 2016, try and get Hillary elected, in 2020, try to get Joe Biden elected. And it's so crazy to think back at just how quickly the holes were poked in those things where people said, okay, I mean, like, if they're willing to make this up? What else are they willing to make up? And now the conspiracy theories are everywhere. We're finding out more and more of them are real. But skepticism in the institutions that we need to TR trust is sky high. And I don't know how they ever get that trust back.
- [39:07]
Host
I know well, and that's one of the reasons that I think it is important that a Brennan or a Clapper who were involved in misusing all this stuff, both on the Hunter Biden laptop and on Russiagate, should face some sort of punishment. They've also lied to Congress in the past under oath, both.
- [39:24]
Matt Whitlock
And there's no penalty for it, which.
- [39:25]
Host
I think is important. I noted that when I was on CNN and they didn't enjoy it at all that those guys had lied under oath. But I do want to note Eli Lake, who I trust very much on this subject and has been an early skeptic as I was on Russiagate, although I wish I had gone further back in the day because I didn't imagine just how conspiratorial it was.
- [39:44]
Matt Whitlock
Totally.
- [39:45]
Host
He says one area where Gabbard does bring new information to light is the revelation of a whistleblower inside the intelligence community who did not believe that the intelligence supported the Conclusion in the January 2017 ICA Intelligence Community assessment that the Russian government developed a clear preference for President Elect Trump. The release from Friday includes this tantalizing quote from the whistleblower. As for the 2017 ICA's judgment of a decisive Russian preference for then candidate Donald Trump, I could not concur in good conscience based on information available and my professional analytic judgment. There were a lot of people who make this argument that Russia was interfering, but not for the reason that became Russia Gate, and that so much nonsense was predicated on their preference for Trump, when in fact, if you think through it logically, everyone thought Hillary was gonna win. Yep, they were. The things they were doing were meant to handicap her to the extent that they could and to shape a playing field when Hillary was present that would make her more helpful to them.
- [40:49]
Matt Whitlock
That was it 100%. And I think that this highlight on the motive part is important because it undoes everything we've been told for those years with everyone saying they want wanted Trump to win. They wanted Trump to win. I think that matters, and I think that's a really important part of this. And that whistleblower who got ignored. I mean, how often are we hearing in these stories that there was a voice in the darkness who was trying to push them in the right direction that they conveniently ignored. Just like in the emails we were talking about before about law enforcement in the Biden administration saying, hey, I don't know if these parents that we're trying to pin all this on are guilty of what we're charging them and yet it disappears. The problem is if you use a government email and try and do a conspiracy, someday someone's gonna find going to come out.
- [41:30]
Host
Well, we are all still a little mad bro here on Normally Always Mad. Matt Whitlock thank you so much for being with me. You can listen to his podcast 10 Minute Drill, and you should. It'll give you a briefing on politics for the week when you're feeling a little overwhelmed. And keep it short. Thanks for joining us on Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. Get in touch with us@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening and when things get weird, act normally.
- [42:00]
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