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The Global Gaming League is presented by Atlas Earth, the fun cashback app. Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. 2, 6, $7 million gaming in an epic Global Gaming League video game showdown. Plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com in partnership with Level Up Expo.
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I'm Josh Hammer and this is the Josh Hammer Show. The fallouts from the Joe Kent resignation letter continues. Tulsi Gabbard in highly related news, testifying earlier today on Capitol Hill. Meanwhile, sparks flying in Markway Mullen's own Capitol Hill confirmation hearing to be the next DHS secretary. We have an update for you when it comes to John Thune and the Save America act, this indispensable piece of voter ID legislation. There's much to get to when it comes to Capitol Hill, but for now, we're going to begin with first principles. Alexander Hamilton, one of my favorite founding fathers. A founding father who frankly, from my estimation, tends to be underweighted in the pantheon of American great intellects. A man who was at times overshadowed by men like James Madison, men like Thomas Jefferson, men, frankly, like his his fellow Federalist Party member himself from America's initial two party system. George Washington Hamilton oftentimes was under the shadows, at least until the recent Broadway play that bears his name came to light over the past decade. Your mileage may vary when it comes to that Broadway play, but in any event, his legacy tended to be obscured for a long time. He was full of brilliant insights, and one of his greatest insights, in my estimation comes in his opening sentence of federalist number 31. So recall, the Federalist Papers are these papers that were written on behalf of the ratification of the United States Constitution. They were all written under the pseudonym of Publius. We now know that the authors of the Federalist Papers were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay Hamilton actually wrote the majority of them. He was the most frequent author. So Alexander Hamilton, this is not necessarily one of his most well known Federalist Papers. You'd probably go to essays like Federalist 78 or 70 for that. But the opening line of Alexander Hamilton writing In Federalist number 31 is this. He writes, quote, in disquisitions of every kind, there are certain primary truths or first principles upon which all subsequent Reasonings must depend what he is saying. To translate that into contemporary, not necessarily 18th century English is what he is saying is that when you are engaged in logical reasoning, when you're having a conversation, he's used the word disquisition here. I mean it's essay. When you're having a conversation, you're writing an essay or having a colloquy, a conversation, any kind of back and forth dialogue, it is self evident, he says, that there are certain primary truths or first principles upon which all subsequent reasonings depend. In other words, you have to start somewhere if you're going to have a conversation about public policy, about morality, about ethics, about politics, about national security, anything. You can't just have it in a vacuum. You have to know where you start. That then raises the obvious question as to what are those primary truths or first principles. A lot of American natural rights theorists then go back to the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson, just a little over a decade prior to the Federalist Papers where they say that we hold these truths to be self evident, that every man is created equal in animal rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and so forth. There that is one possible answer. A closely related possible answer as to what these primary truths or anchoring principles are is revelation is the actual Bible itself. Frankly, in many ways that is my own answer, as I wrote about at great length in my book last year, Israel and Civilization. But the point is that you have to believe in something. You can't just be outraged for the sake of being outraged. This is all too common. Dare I say, it's actually even ubiquitous in our era. There are so many people, whether they are social media influencers, whether they are elected officials, whether they're politicians, whether they're artists, whether they're reporters, television hosts, you name it, who are just ticked off because they like how it feels, they think it gets clicks or for some other self serving reason. They are trying to make you angry because they think that maybe you want to feel angry, you want to feel an emotional rush. Or maybe they think that it's better for their audience retention to make you angry. Frankly, in many ways maybe actually they think it's better for you to be stupider. I've been referring to this for a while now as a brain rot op, a brain rot operation or a brain rot psyop a bit of psychological warfare. There is a concerted effort both inside and outside the government to denude us, to strip us away from having what Hamilton refers to as these anchoring truths or first principles to make us forget that what we as conservatives actually believe in the first place. And yes, we actually do believe in some very basic things. We believe in the rule of law, we believe in the intergenerational civilizational inheritance going back to biblical times. We believe in tradition, we believe in traditional values, we believe in morality, we believe in substantive justice, in rewarding good and punishing evil. And borders and nationalism, there's a lot of things we believe in, but this, this brain rot op is intended to get you to forget all that and to just be outraged and transgressive, to stick it to the man, to stick two middle fingers to the quote, unquote establishment over the issue of the day. I think back sometimes to this sign that maybe you've seen way back 15 plus years ago. It was a sign that a certain protester held, I believe was on the national mall in Washington D.C. at the height of the Tea Party movement, so circa 2009, 2010. And it was a protester who was clearly inspired by the anti establishment, anti Washington rhetoric of the Tea Party era. The Gadsden flag, the coiled snake, don't tread on me and all that. A lot of good stuff in there for sure. But this protester sign that I'm thinking of here somewhat infamously said, get your big government hands off my Medicare. And the reason this sign has stuck with me is because that is an oxymoron. Medicare, a Lyndon B. Johnson Great Society welfare program, is the definition of big government. I'm not saying gut Medicare. I do think it's financially unsustainable and we're gonna address that sooner rather than later. But this is an example of someone who is outraged not necessarily because he's fully thought it through. He's not outraged because of what Hamilton referred to as anchoring truths or first principles. He is outraged for the sake of being outraged. We see this today in a slightly different context. We are now many, many years past the Tea Party era. We are in the era, at least on the American right when it comes to the Republican Party conservative movement. When it comes to the era of maga, the era of Donald Trump, we are in an not defined by Tea Party era notions of limited government and a libertarian inspired conservatism. Quite the opposite. Say we are now in an era of national populism, national conservatism, of using government a bit more robustly for the sake of the common good, within the constraints of the rule of law and inalienable rights and so forth. There I've developed much of this in my own capacity over the past 10 years or so, I have been a contributor to a lot of this theory, spoken at the National Conservative Conferences, written countless essays. It's in my book, it's on this show over and over and over again. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but when it comes to this MAGA national populist context, what you are seeing now is a different form of outrage and performative outrage at that and the people who are trying to be transgressive and stick it to the establishment simply for the sake of being transgressive and not actually having thought things through. Just like that Tea Party era sign of get your big government hands off my Medicare. So too today do we see plenty of people and we're gonna get to Joe Kent here in just a moment. Plenty of people who are outraged not because they have thought things through, but because they are just trying to get clicks and to drive you mad. Because they have themselves contributed to and indeed been a part of this sprawling brain rot psyop. So more on that in just a moment. For now, just a quick word from our sponsor for today's show which is Balance of Nature. 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Again folks, that is balanceofnature.com sponsor for today's program. So you're seeing this play out today, this notion of being outraged performatively or trying to transgress the man, trans the establishment, transgress perceived orthodoxy, perceived norms. But now it's not necessarily taking this intellectually muddled way of trying to get in the mode of Limited government sentiment. It's not this Tea Party era counter establishment sensation. Now, today, really, the issue above all, believe it or not, tends to be the Jews and Israel, which is consuming so much of the attention from this sprawling brain rot operation. There are people with massive megaphones. We talk about them right here on the show all the time. People like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, who are now engaged in a sprawling psyop to try to make you stupider and to try to make you outraged and angry without realizing why you are angry. They are not talking, as Hamilton did, about first principles. They're not talking about anchoring your primary truths. They're just trying to get you angry by going to the most timeless source of all time of people to blame to try to explain to you why you are suffering allegedly the way that you are. And that, of course, is the Jews. We saw this in the resignation letter from the now former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, just earlier this week on Tuesday. So Joe Kent's writing in this truly disgraceful letter, which he had the chutzpah to actually put on official government letterhead, which is really quite something. He says that the only reason the United States is in this war with Iran is due to, quote, pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. He essentially says that, quote, high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign. Actually, Joe, you're the one who's part of this misinformation campaign. But I digress. So according to Joe Kent, this campaign, quote, wholly undermined Mr. President, your America first platform and sowed pro war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, which is just hilarious because Donald Trump has been consistent on this issue for 46 to 47 years. There's literally a clip of him in New York City in 1980 saying how Jimmy Carter was being too weak in trying to rescue her hostages from the embassy in Tehran. So it's extraordinary stuff from Joe Kent. But the broader point here is, is that this is not an isolated incident. It's part of a broader, more concerted brain rot psyop that is trying to strip you away of any connection to your anchoring truths or first principles. Don't fall for it.
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Welcome back. So the key point is this is that the resignation letter of the now former director of the National Counterterrorism center. And good freaking riddance to this utter goon. This resignation letter which is dripping with hyper conspiratorial code pink slash neo Nazi style conspiracies about how Tel Aviv controls the State Department and the Jews. The Jews, the Jews, the Jews. It's all demonstrably lies. We can address that perhaps at another time, but suffice to say that some of these very specific allegations that Israel talked the US into going into war, duped George W. Bush to go into Iraq in 2003. The historical record is just utterly replete with examples to prove this wrong. The anti Semites love talking about how Bibi Netanyahu, when he wasn't even an elected official, he's a private citizen, was asked to testify by some committee back in Congress 2002 and did express interest intervening to topple Saddam Hussein. But it's notable that he was actually not even in politics. He was literally a private citizen. And the actual elected official at the time, the leader of the country, was a man of the name of Ariel Shar, pretty well known in Israeli right wing circles. He actually explicitly told George W. Bush, do not do this is a bad idea. You're going to destabilize the region and frankly, Iraq's actually not your problem. The problem is Iran. So Jokin's letter just dripping with these utter lies. But the broader point is that this is part of this brain rot. Psyop Jokin's resignation letter is part of this broader attempt to make you go stupid. It is a shadow war ultimately, as we explained earlier this week on the show, to try to undermine and destroy MAGA and the American rights from within. It is a shadow war that is being waged increasingly, frankly, not in the shadows, but out in the open, both inside the administration that's centered around the office of the dni. That's Tulsi Gabbard's office. That's where Joe Kent was serving. And Tulsi Gabbard actually just hired Dan Caldwell, who was fired last year from Pete Hegset's Pentagon, allegedly for leaking. So Caldwell's not been rehired by Tulsi Gabbard at DNI holds very similar views on this stuff to Joe Cantilies when it comes to Iran. So there's a huge problem there being waged within the office of the dni, apparently in synchronization, it would seem, based on Joe Ken's very quick appearance on the Tucker Carlson show. In synchronization with Tucker Carlson with Candace Owens, the two shows that Joe Kent has gone on or is going on this week, which really says all you need to know is that these people are joining these vehemently anti Trump podcasters. Candace Owens, an absolute raving lunatic. I don't really need to rehash details as to why she is, but she has referred to Trump over the past couple weeks, since the Iran war started, as someone who was a failed president and has totally lost his presidency there really Is this who you want the National Counterterrorism center director to run to after he turns in his resignation letter? It's absolutely insane stuff. And zooming out a little bit and taking us back to our Tea Party analogy. Just as back then a lot of folks were not necessarily in on the Tea Party movement because they were true philosophical believers in Don't Tread on Me and libertarianism and small government and this, so too there are a lot of folks today who are on the peripheries of this maga national populist, national conservative movement, a movement that I robustly support, that I have devoted countless essays to, explicates, that I've devoted countless shows to articulating, elaborating on behalf of. We support that here on the show for sure. But there are a lot of folks on the periphery that are not in it because they actually believe it. They're in it because they like the thrill of being transgressive, the thrill of sticking it to the man, to the establishment, to the Jews, to the neocons, this and that. That's what Joe Kent's doing there. Fortunately, there actually are some adults in the room who actually are able to debunk a lot of these theories. Among them is Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who had this to say when he was asked about Joe Kent's resignation letter. Let's go ahead and watch this from Mike Johnson. I don't know where Joe Kent is getting his information, but he wasn't in those briefings, clearly, because the Secretary of State, the secretary of and everyone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kaine, they had exquisite intelligence and we understood that this was a serious moment for us. Had the President waited, I am personally convinced that we would have mass casualties of Americans, service members and others and our installations would have been dramatically damaged. And so we had to. The President felt that he had to strike first to prevent those mass casualties. And Donald Trump's been saying this consistently. The intelligence apparently said that Iran was prepared to take an offensive strike against American assets, one of our bases, our ships, et cetera, in the region there. So Mike Johnson not saying anything that Donald Trump hasn't already said there. Joe Kent, by the way, was actually removed, was actually removed from these meetings, from these pre war briefings, among other things, because he was highly suspected of leaking for which he should be investigated. Now these are private citizens again and potentially even prosecuted. Carolyn Levitt, the White House press Secretary, talked about this among other things yesterday morning on Fox News. I think that anyone who has been suspected of leaking or is proven to be a leaker will not be welcome in this administration. I know that for a fact because I've heard the President say it myself. There are investigations underway into leakers in this administration and people will be held accountable for that. It's unacceptable and it cannot be tolerated. As usual, Dan Bongino, who's now back behind the microphone from his perch as the deputy decanter Patel at the FBI has been blistering on this as well. It's great to have Dan back here as a colleague in the, in the broader broadcaster and podcaster space. His voice is much needed at this moment of brain rot. Psyop, frankly, above all there, Dan Bongino had this to say last evening on Fox News about the Joe Kent resonation letter. Let's play this quote from Dan Bongino.
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I read probably a lot more intelligence than he did because they don't have a law enforcement function. The National Counterterrorism center, they're an analytical clearinghouse. They're valuable. However, I had access to just about everything. And how you could come to the conclusion that the Israelis did it and there was no imminent threat here really? What about the anti ship ballistic missiles, the drone program? 440 kilograms of 60% enriched nuclear material. Their constant death to America Chance, I mean, you know, that's called evidence. In some limited circles we call that, you know, a clue. I mean, I don't know at what point you thought this wasn't an imminent threat. After you've read a lot of the stuff I read and by the way, that's just the open source stuff we can talk about on the air, I promise you. The president, I promise you, has a bevy of material that if he could do the Men in Black thing and erase your mind tomorrow, if he told you right now, you would come to the imminent direct conclusion in a snap.
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Thanks to Fox News for some of these clips here. So Bongino is obviously correct again. Iran is a clear threat, has been a threat, has killed well over Americans. That's according to not just Dan Bonjino, but according to US Central Command as well. Anyone who knows anything about the history of this regime militating, operating against the United States and our interests. So what actually happened to Jocat? Well, what happened was that his, his current wife, his first wife, tragically was killed in an ISIS terror attack overseas. And that's a horrible, horrible thing. We have our immense condolences for that. But Joe Kent's current wife, Heather Kent, formerly known as Heather Kaiser, writes for a publication called Gray Zone. Gray Zone is the publication for Max Blumenthal, one of the biggest dopes in the entire dope Internet sphere. A website that is essentially Russian Kremlin agitprop. It is pro Russia, it's pro Iran, pro Bashar Al Assad. It's very, very, very Russian line. They essentially take whatever the Russian line is. And among the Russian line is the Russians for a very, very long time have been behind the sowing of the seeds of a lot of anti Semitism. So Heather Kent, Joe Kent's wife, who called Kurt Mills, the execrable editor of the American Conservative, this utter dweeb, a total nincompoop. Heather Kent called Kermills a national treasure. She's writing for this pro Russian agitprov, Max Blumenthal publication there. By the way, strange new respect happening to Jo Kent earlier this morning as well. Guess who Jo Kent got some plaudits for. Actually, it looks like I'm looking at the time stamp. This actually happened on Tuesday morning, but I didn't see until this morning. Cair, the Council on American Islamic Relations, otherwise known as A, was founded in the 1990s as a literal Hamas Muslim Brotherhood offshoot in the United States. We have the documents to show that and have for a very long time care of all. Of all groups, a place that the state of Florida and the state of Texas are now referring to as a domestic terrorist organization. Care writing, quote, we welcome National Counterterrorism center director Joe Kent's historic and unprecedented decision to not only resign in protest of the war, but also to publicly admit that Iran posed no imminent threat and that the Israelis manipulated, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, talk about knowing that you've lost the plot when you have CAIR endorsing you. So why do we have cair Muslim Brotherhood style actors operating within the broader right in the first place? Well, I mean, again, they're trying to take over the movement and they're doing this to take us back to how we opened the show today by trying to convince you that you don't actually have first principles or that your first principles stink. They are garbage. That you should forget them and ignore them is up to you, the informed, patriotic citizen, to say no, to say that I know what I believe in. I believe in American constitutionalism. I believe in biblical revelation. I believe in what Hamilton referred to as primary truths. And I can reject this brain rot. Psyop Looking for excitement?
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So what are you waiting for? Don't delay. Chumba Casino is free to play. Experience social gameplay like never before. Go to Chumba Casino right now to play hundreds of games, including online slots, Slingo and more. Live the chumba life@chumbacasino.com no purchase necessary VGW Group void for prohibited by law 21 terms and conditions apply. The good news, the silver lining of this shadow war that's increasingly not a shadow war, but an open, aggressive, hostile war against President Trump and maga. The good news is that President Trump is actually increasingly aware of this. That is why he essentially cast Tucker Carlson out of MAGA earlier this month, referring to him as quote, unquote, not maga. That is why he dumped on Megyn Kelly in a lengthy post on Truth Social Evening for coming after not just Mark of Lynn, but by proxy, but coming after the entire highly just and frankly overdue Operation Epic Fury campaign against the Zonk Republic of Iran. That is why Donald Trump said yesterday when he was asked about Joe Kent's letter, he said, look, if you don't view Iran as a threat, then you shouldn't be working here. And frankly, Mr. President, I think that you and your chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who has just been diagnosed or it's announced that she has breast cancer, excuse me. And horrible, horrible news. Susie is a, is a huge fighter and we wish her nothing on the best and we're praying for her very much here on the Josh Hammer Show. But it is up to President Trump and it's up to Susie Wiles. It is up to other true believers, arch loyalists to Donald Trump, to root out, to strip out this shadow war rot from within. There are a lot of people that have been let into this administration who do not agree with Donald Trump when it comes to foreign policy and national security. Above all, I know this because among other things, I know a lot of people in government and I know people actually who even work at ppo, which is the personnel office within the White House there. PPO in the first half year, give or take of the administration was run by a man by the name of Sergio Gore. Sergio Gore has since been dispatched to India. They essentially sent him as far away as possible because he was really quite bad and terrible at his job. Sergio Gore is a former staffer for Rand Paul who is 1000% on the Joe Kent, Tulsi Gabbard side of all these issues. I know from firsthand people telling me, I've heard people's mouth that they were personally rejected by Sergio Gore at PPO who were trying to serve at the State Department, at the Defense Department in some national security, defense part role in nsc, National Security Council. They were trying to serve the country in a nat set capacity who were vetoed by Sergio Gore because they were written off as being too interventionist y or too neo. Connie oftentimes they just had some indication that they were actually just Jewish or some it was actually just straight up anti Semitism. Not all of it was that was part of it. This is very much there and I can't tell you from exactly how much it is a problem at PPO today. It was a much bigger problem in the first call, let's call it three, six months of the administration. But it's absolutely been a problem and it's time for President Trump now. This is all really kind of boiling to a surface in the context of this utterly disgraceful, dripping with conspiracy resignation letter from Joe Kent. It is incumbent upon Donald Trump because the buck always stops with the commander in chief to really take the ball and to run with it and to say that he is going to take personal responsibility, working hand to glove with Susie Wiles, whoever else at rooting out all of this subversive fifth column, shadow war, brain rot, science filth and yes, a lot of his filth from within the actual broader part of the administration. Exactly who was part of this brain rot slap and who is not? Well, that's a question that'll just depend on the specific person there. Frankly, I think that Tulsi Gabbard has a lot of answering to do. She put out a statement that came out on Tuesday where she basically said the President's commander in chief, he was elected to make decisions like war and peace. There he made the assessment that Iran was going to commit a terrorist attack. There is what he decided to attack first. Notably missing in Tulsi Gabbard's statement was any actual substantive assessment of the threat. She completely shirked the question. She totally avoided answering the actual question as to whether Iran is a threat probably because she doesn't agree with it because there's a long track record on social media, actually a longer track record than even Joe Kent himself. Tulsi Gowar has a long track record of saying no war with Iran, no worth Ron, no war, no this Iran's not a big threat. There she was buddy buddy with Bashar Al Assad, the former Iran backed strongman in Damascus. There Tulsi Gabbard Lombin viewed as sympathetic to one of Iran's closest allies and their satrap in this satrapy relationship that would be the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin's Russia. So Tulsi Gabbard frankly has a lot of questions to do and she was on Capitol Hill actually just earlier today to to answer some of those questions among plenty of other questions. I haven't seen necessarily a whole lot of direct grilling on this topic yet. There a lot of rumors starting to fly around that Tulsi Gabbard could be next. I'm not necessarily going to call for her firing anything there, but for now I'm just saying that she really has a lot of questions to answer because Tulsi Gabbard was brought in to try to symbolize to the broader public that there are now former Democrats who are part of the MAGA movement. It's her and it's RFK Jr over at HHS. The difference is that Bobby Kennedy HHS is indeed taking MAGA and running with it in a MAHA direction. Okay? Maha really is just an extension of maga. The difference with Tulsi Gabbard at odni, the Office of Director of National Intelligence, is that Tulsi Gabbard's conception of what it means to have national intelligence encounter terror and national security. There is a very, very different conception than what Donald Trump means by maga. Tulsi Gabbard's answer as to what it means to have a robust counterterror or pro national security strategy looks a lot closer to Joe Kent's or Tucker Carlson's. So this really, really ought to be investigated again. Dan Caldwell, the disgraced former leaker, fired by his longtime close friend Pete Hegseth, fired like a dog, as Donald Trump might say. Caldwell now working for Tulsi Gabbard back in the government, working at odni. Also, you have Will Ruger, a highly problematic individual, part of this whole Koch brothers orbit there that, that Dan Caldwell was a part of there. Joe Kent, a lot of these folks have been in around the Koch brothers world there. So it's time as president to really take control of what is happening inside your administration. And I look forward to that. Speaking of things that are happening inside the Trump administration, a somewhat shocking hearing on Capitol Hill earlier today as well wasn't just Tulsi Gabbard who was, who was testifying. It was also confirmation day for Mark Wayne Mullen. Mark Wayne Mullen, who is the new nominee to be the Secretary of Homeland Security, a Department of Homeland Security that remains not entirely funded. Democrats continue to shut down large swaths of Department of Homeland Security, very much, including tsa, which is why you have TSA agents that are now critical employees. They are still having to work at airports for the most part, but they are not getting paid to do so. And that's why we played a clip for you earlier this week of the deputy administrator of the TSA saying that we could actually get to a point where whole airports might be shut down, which is just insane, like literally insane that a first world country, the greatest country world like the United States would ever countenance getting to a situation where airports are shutting down. It's total, total, total lunacy. Anyway, Chrissy Noem, the former DJ secretary being transitioned out to this new SHIELD position, some pro Western hemisphere, pro Latin America junket is basically just their way of getting Krissy Noem aside there. Mark Wayne Mullen, the senator from Oklahoma, was on Capitol Hill earlier today to testify to try to become the next secretary of Homeland Security. And things got off to a rather bumpy start, I think would be a very polite way of saying it. The Republican chairman of the committee, that's Rand Paul of Kentucky, not a big fan of Mark Wayne Mullen. Things got really, really personal. Go ahead and watch this.
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You told the media that I was a freaking snake and that you completely understood why I had been assaulted. You might argue you were mad and upset about being confronted by your constituents. But Senator Mullen, your constituents are justifiably upset with you. By now, most of America knows that the Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota stole over $9 billion. But instead of defending your vote, you took to continue the vote to continue these refugee welfare programs. You chose to lash out at me. You went on to brag that you'd already told me to my face that you completely understood and approved of the assault. Well, that's a lie. You got a chance today. You can either continue to lie or you can correct the record. You have never had the courage to look me in the eye and tell me that the assault was justified. So today you'll have your chance. Today, I'll give you that chance to clear the record. Tell it to my face. If that's what you believe, tell it to me today. Tell the world why you believe I deserve to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung. Tell me to my face why you think I deserved it.
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Yeah, rough stuff there from Mark Wayne Mullen. Very, very rough stuff. Kind of hard to see how he escapes this one. By the way, some black marks in Mark Wayne Mullen's voting record coming out as well. Ann Coulter, recent guest here on the Josh Hammer show. Ann Coulter tweeting out earlier today that Markway Mullen actually voted against cutting welfare for non citizens, AKA for those who are in the country illegally or even if you're a legal alien, you probably should not be getting welfare. And that was his vote literally this month, according to Ann Coulter. So that is really dicey stuff. We'll see where this goes with Marquis Mullen, but frankly, if I were Donald Trump, I would be expecting to try to name a new DHS secretary probably sooner rather than later. We'll see where this goes there, but. But not exactly the way that Mark Wayne Mullen wanted this hearing to get up to get off and running there. I recommend picking someone who has literally worked in border security. Tom Holman. Tom Holman, are you listening, Tom? Answer the call, dude. Save your country yet again. You are a patron. Perhaps you will do so this time. So, looks like, as we said before the break, Mark Wayne Mullen is likely going to be out. I think it's possible he is saved, but boy, you don't want the chairman of the committee of your own party coming out swinging against you. So in hindsight, this looks like it might have been a less than stellar pick. Someone apparently does not really do the research when it comes to the personal animosity that is clearly dripping and fierce and vehement between Rand Paul and Mark Wayne Mullen. Again, I think Tom Holland would be an amazing pick to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security. My theory is that they probably asked him the first time after Krissi Noem was announced that she was going to get canned or at least shoved off into this whole shield endeavor there. My guess is that Tom Homan probably said no because he doesn't want to deal with bureaucracy, that this, that there. But it's probably time to ask Tom Holman again, and if not, at least someone who has some real meaningful media experience when it comes to actual immigration policy, when it comes to actually enforcing Donald Trump's deportation agenda. Frankly, Stephen Miller, who we think very highly of here in the show, Steve Miller, is the deputy chief of staff at the White House there. Maybe Stephen Wooden actually wants to be a Cabinet official. Maybe he prefers to be less in charge of bureaucracy and more just directly helping the president in the executive position there day to day. I totally get that. I understand that. But frankly, this country could do a lot worse than Stephen Miller as the Secretary of Homeland Security, assuming that Tom Holman is not available. Boy, that should, that would be a wonderful, wonderful way actually to recharge Republican base going into election year and indeed going into this November. Speaking of ways to not recharge the Republican base going into the midterm elections this November, John Thune has crossed a procedural hurdle, I guess to his tiny credits. So the Save America act crossed a 51 to 48 vote procedural hurdle. This is just a way of trying to get a beer majority to advance the bill to actually be debated on the floor. So you actually have Lisa Murkowski, the rhino from Alaska who voted against this. Mitch McConnell said he doesn't support the bill, which is crazy, but he said that he will at least vote to begin debate as a courtesy to Senate Republican leadership. So to his longtime deputies, people like John Thune and John Cornyn, okay, dude, Mitch McConnell, we wish you the best of health, but frankly, the U.S. senate is really not going to miss you very much. Hopefully Kentucky can do a lot better when it comes to Donald Trump MAGA allies than Mitch McConnell. But the problem right now is not Mitch McConnell. The problem right now is John Thune, because John Thune, leader of the U.S. senate. And John Thune as of this moment is still declining to actually put Democrats on the defensive there, to actually force them to engage in this talking filibuster. As we've explained numerous times on the show, there are two ways to get a bill passed. On the one hand, you can invoke cloture by getting to 60 votes, which is a way of bypassing a silent filibuster and then teeing up a 51 vote majority, or at least a 50 plus one with the vice President breaking the tie breaking board vote. The other way of doing it is to force Democrats, or in this just minority, but to force the minority, which in the case is Democrats, to wage a constant talking filibuster to make them essentially talk until they cannot talk anymore. And John Thune just refuses to do this. So the most recent quote that he said was, he said, quote, the talking filibuster has different sets of rules that apply. There are no rules of Germanness on amendments. Well, whatever those different sets of rules that apply are, surely they can apply to this. I've not seen a compelling argument as to why whatever alternative rules, whatever alternative paradigm there, there exists. I'm not a Senate parliamentarian expert. That's why. That's why we bring on experts like our friend Rachel Bovart, who unpacks some of that for us as we did recently. But whatever process exists, surely it is, or at least can be suitable as a vehicle for the Save America Act. So I'm simply just not buying it at all when it comes to John Thune. President Trump definitely not buying it. He is still passing, he's still doubling down here when it comes to saying that the Save America act is indispensable. This is the bill that will save Republicans in the midterms there. He will not consider any other legislation until this actually happens there. So John Thune, dude, find a way to get this done. I'm sick of the excuses. Really, I am sick of the excuses. And I hate to say that I was wrong, right? But as soon as Republicans retook over the Senate and they named John Thune as the new majority leader, my very first thought was, this is ominous. This is not good. And this is not good because John Thune is Mr. Establishment John Thune, along along with John Cornyn, who is now conveniently changing his tune on the filibuster because of his primary challenge down Texas from Ken Paxton. But Jon Thune has been very much a part of the Republican establishment for way, way, way too long. He has this crammed in way of thinking. He is totally willing to think outside the box. Ironically, thinking outside the box here actually just means to go back and follow Senate parliamentarian rules as they've been established for a very, very long time, because the talking filibuster has been part of those rules literally since the beginning. So hopefully, hopefully, John Thune gets his head out of his behinds and gets his bill passed asap. The big foreign policy issue that we're really starting to track a little more closely here in addition to the situation over in Iran. And yesterday we talked to Sebastian Lai, the son of the wrongfully detained Jimmy Lai over in Hong Kong. China is always much on our minds here on the show, but the China related issue, you might say that we're really starting to track more aggressively here is the issue of Cuba. Things are really starting to heat up in Cuba. So this is a country of roughly 11 million people. It has been ruled by this horrific communist dictatorship now for six and a half, almost seven decades. Hard to believe it'll be seven decades in just a few years. The regime came to power in 1958, 959 right around then. And there have now been a series of rolling blackouts over the past year and a half. The most recent sprawling blackout commenced this past Sunday. Much of the islands woke up Monday morning to no power and has been without power for much of this week. Is a country that is profoundly, deeply impoverished. I really couldn't believe when I saw it, folks, when I actually went to, when I went to Havana. You're in this city that could be paradise. The water is beautiful. I mean, this is where Ernest Hemingway wrote Old man in the Sea. The water is beautiful and the seagulls are chirping. And this is like salsa and music and great food and these classic cars. There's so much potential and yet it looks like a bomb went off. There's dilapidated buildings, there's rubble everywhere. There's stray dogs and all sorts of other stray animals rolling the streets. There's a mess, immense poverty. You see people looking skeletal, as if they've been malfed and malnourished. It's really just profoundly depressing. And the most interesting development that's starting to happen in Cuba, especially since this latest bout of these now recurring rolling blackouts, is that the people are starting to take to the local Communist Party offices. They're starting to run up to and to try to siege or to try to lay siege to the local Communist Party offices, mostly happening outside Havana, but perhaps it's only a matter of time until it actually goes to Havana. And this is all happening in the broader context that the president of Cuba, a man by the name of Miguel Diaz Canel, who American intelligence estimates to be a Communist hardliner, very much a true Marxist Leninist in the Castro vein. So Miguel Diaz Canel has confirmed that he and Raul Castro, the brother of the leading revolutionary from the 50s, Fidel Castro, they are in talks with the United States, which likely Means Marco Rubio's team and his deputies. Because Rubio is of Cuban descent, he was from Miami, Florida. He has very strong ties to Cuba. And the Cuban diaspora really wants nothing more than for Castro to be overthrown there. So Miguel Diaz Canel and Raul Castro have confirmed they are in talks with the United States. What those talks exactly are, we don't really know exactly yet. My understanding from what I can glean is that the United States envisions something along the lines of the Venezuela model, where you don't necessarily have regime overthrow, you don't necessarily have a wholesale replacement of the socialist leadership. Rather, you essentially have, let's call it Sinos, Socialists in name only or kainos or chinos, Communists in name only, C I, N O, pronounced whatever you would like, I suppose. And they essentially mean here someone who is of a titular fashion, was technically, technically allegedly ostensibly part of the Communist Party of Cuba. Cuba, but in reality is open to some sort of more free market reforms, is trying to attract private capital. By the way, there's actually been some news on this very front, actually recently. Cuba has apparently told members of the Cuban diaspora here in Florida and throughout the United States that they are actually welcome, indeed they are encouraged to move back to Florida and actually start to invest some of the capital there. So I think that's what they're envisioning. They, in this case being the United States, they're envisioning something along those lines. Think about the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party after Mao Zedongs during, during the leadership of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s into the 1980s, it was still the Communist Party, but they were open to state capitalism and some broader forms of free market resembling measures. That's probably kind of sort of what Marco Rubio has in mind here, if I had to guess. It's all speculation. It's all speculation. Look, I know a lot of Cubans who will not be happy until the regime is actually torn down and fully burned to the ground, given the light level anger that exists in the Cuban diaspora about that country. So too that's the same thing probably for the Iranian diaspora in Los Angeles and elsewhere. When it comes to Iran, you also have to live in reality. And the ideal solution is not always what's actually going to happen. The way to connect the dots there and to have the best possible scenario in geopolitics, given the constraints of the situation, is what statesmen are called for. We are very fortunate to have a great statesman this time. His name is Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump. Folks. Have a great rest of your evening. Josh Hammer signing off. We'll be right back. Tomorrow.