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Swalwell Scandal Goes Nuclear — His Double Life Has Dems Scrambling | Episode 267
00:58:40
Eric Swalwell announces his resignation from Congress amid explosive sexual misconduct allegations, as his so-called “best friend" turns on him; tensions escalate with Iran as VP Vance and the Trump team ramp up pressure at the Strait of Hormuz; Peter Schweizer joins the show to explain how Trump is impacting China.
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Hey everybody. Welcome to Vince on a Tuesday. Good to have you with us as always, the best audience anywhere. Mighty show for you today. Eric Swalwell has resigned from Congress. Now we'll talk about what exactly went down and why. The fallout of his decision to sleep with the interns is, well, it's going to have farther reaching consequences for other Democrats. I've got the details on that coming up on the program. Also, the president's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz of just the Iranian ports, as I told you yesterday in that's Begun. We'll get into the details there. We get an update from the vice president of the United States on that subject, J.D. vance. And today joining us on the program, always happy to have with us, Peter Schweitzer will be here. He's going to talk to us about the impact on China. Boy, there is so much to get to. We'll get to it here in just a moment. Thanks for being here with us today. I want to thank Blackout Coffee. More of the blackout merch today. Got the blackout embrace Americanism. Blackout Coffee, it's a great company. It's also in my coffee cup right now. I love Blackout. If you want your coffee strong, smooth and roasted for maximum flavor, Blackout Coffee is for you. Blackout Coffee is an America first company. They roast their beans right in the United States and they ship them fresh to your door. Their blends are bold, full bodied and crafted for people who take their coffee seriously. Their medium dark roast delivers a strong flavor without any bitterness and it's smooth, powerful and it gives you that extra boost that you need to stay focused all day. And I love that they've got a great subscribe and save option because it makes it really easy for you to get your coffee and constantly drink it and not have to worry about ordering it. You never run out of coffee. You could swap flavors, pause or cancel at any time and get deep discounts plus free shipping, all while earning reward points on every purchase that you can redeem for future orders. It's convenient. It saves you money. They have whole bean ground flavored coffees, espresso single serve options. There is truly something for everybody. So today, you ready? You get 20% off your first order. Blackout Coffee.com use the code Vince at checkout. That's Blackout Coffee.com promo code Vince. 20% off your first order. Boom. Yeah. So we've got another announcement from Eric Swalwell. He's resigning from Congress. He's out entirely. The guy, the guy's calling it quits. He's Crying uncle. He's trying to get out of this thing, but I'm not certain that he's going to get out in. In a way that. That he can, first of all, salvage any kind of career, but beyond that without doing a lot of damage to other people, too. And I'll explain why in a moment. But here's Eric Swalwell's statement. Here's Mr. Fang Fang telling everybody that he's deeply sorry to his family, his staff, and his constituents for mistakes in judgment. It was mistakes in judgment that he's made in his past, by the way. This is all kind of like squirrely language to admit that he cheated on his wife on a bunch of occasions. Quote, I will fight the serious false allegations made against me. However, I must take responsibility and ownership for the mistakes I did make. Well, what are they, Swalwell? I'm aware of efforts to bring an immediate expulsion vote against me and other members and other members. Expelling anyone in Congress without due process within days of an allegation being made is wrong. But it's also wrong for my constituents to have me distracted from my duties. Therefore, I plan to resign my seat in Congress. I will work with my staff in the coming days to ensure that they are able, in my absence, to serve the needs of the good people of the 14th congressional district. End quote. Eric Swalwell with the statement. Now, for good measure, they should probably kick him out of Congress anyway. None of this, you know, lingering period where he gets to set the terms of his own departure. Just give him the boot, fellas. Give him the boot. But Swalwell says that he's now resigning his seat in Congress as well, which makes a lot of sense, because if he. If he lacked the requisite judgment to run for governor, he also lacks the requisite judgment to be in Congress. So. So he's ducking out. He didn't give us a timeline for when he will actually leave. His seat will be filled by greasy Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom gets to decide on whether to call a special election when a congressional office becomes vacant. So he'll. He'll set the terms of how that gets done. And then, you know, the interesting thing is Swalwell still on the ballot for June 2nd in California for the governor's race there, because it's. It's late in the process, his name's gonna still appear on the ballot. And, boy, the Democrats did him dirty. Didn't they? Do him dirty? I'm not saying he didn't do these things. In fact, I'm Pretty certain he did. But the Democrats did him dirty. I went over the details yesterday. They had this blackmail file on the Swalwell character, and they saved it for this moment. They just. They just kept it in a. In a filing cabinet up until the moment they needed to destroy him for their own political expediency. And then, boom, down in no time. Down goes Frazier. Down. The guy's gone. Thanks to the Democrats and their ruthlessness, man. Now, there are Democrats right now who are claiming they didn't know anything about this, people who are very close to Eric Swalwell who say they are completely stunned by these revelations. Now, of course they're lying to you, but it is worth taking a look at, at all of this. Let me. Let me start with the man who Eric Swalwell has called his best friend in the world. Here is. Here is Eric Swalwell. This was very recently, actually, Eric Swalwell calling Ruben Gallego. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, his best friend in the whole world. Watch. Tonight you get to meet my best
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friend in the world, Reuben Gallego.
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There he is, waving his best friend in the whole world. They. Yeah, they're thick as thieves, these guys. They're thick as thieves. In fact, do you remember the. The images of these guys riding camels together shirtless in Qatar? Now, I know you're probably thinking to yourself, vince, I really don't want to see that image. Well, I don't really care. I have to show you this image. I have to show you what it looks like. It's so crazy. Look at this. This is. Guys. This is them riding shirtless in guitar, on camels. Ladies and gentlemen, these guys. Talk about. Talk about friendship is there. Does friendship ever look any better than that? That's crazy. Look at that. Holy cow. Riding their camels. And you get the. Get the. The glistening sea in the background. They're standing in the desert. They're there with their wives. Do you remember when they were there? They were there during COVID It was the COVID lockdowns. This was early 2021. There was. The rest of the country is, like, completely locked down under the Biden administration. And these jackasses are in Qatar. Qatar. Qatar. Gutter. They're overseas riding camels shirtless. They're best friends. They're best friends. The best friends in the whole world. So you would think that maybe Reuben Gallego would know something about what Eric Swalwell was up to, about the fact that he was sleeping with the interns, that he was doing things with the interns. Like getting them very drunk and then taking them back to hotel rooms and then having unwanted sex with them. Maybe he would know something about any of this or have some suspicions. So yesterday, reporter caught up with Ruben Gallego and asked him what did you know? And watch as he throws his best friend in the whole world directly under the bus wheels.
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Watch of people saying a lot of you spend a lot of time. I mean it again, the man double life. And for many, I mean, more than 20 congressmen, people that have served with them for a long time. We had no clue. We had no clue. And look, unlike whatever's happening with Jeffrey Epstein, your president, we since we knew, we all asked for accountability and we'll continue askancies of justice, but let a dull life in and, you know, tricked many of us into.
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What? All right, so look, Gallego goes. Gallego wants you to believe that Eric Swalwell is like a criminal mastermind. He's just. He's unbelievable. This guy is. Is. Is. Has a remarkable ability to pull off a con. He's a world class con artist. He tricked everybody around him. I was his best friend in the whole world. I had no idea. I didn't know that this guy was a pervert. He led a double life. He really pulled the wool over my eyes. I just thought, you know, we were riding camels shirtless. I had no idea that this guy was a creep. You believe that for a second. You believe that for a second? Of course not. Eric Swalwell is not some sort of criminal mastermind. He was taking pictures of his own junk and sending it over Snapchat to interns. Oh, yeah, that's. That's really, that's really good. That's. That's. That's brilliant stuff. What a cover up. What a. What a clown this dude is. So you know what's happening here? Gallego's trying to salvage his own political career. Now, there are plenty of people. I know. I've seen the speculation online. It's rampant. Have you. Is it in the chat? Guys, there's a. Oh, was that difficult to hear? Was that audio difficult to hear? I'm sorry if it was. I know there was a lot of wind in the audio whoever captured it captured on her phone. But Gallego says that he had no knowledge about any of this, that. That Swalwell was living a double life and that he was. He's completely stunned by it. Everybody he knows, every Democrat member of Congress, he knows everybody stunned by Swallow's behavior. Yeah, bullshit. It's a complete lie. It's a complete lie from Gallego and everybody else around him. They're just trying to run for cover. They're trying to get out of the fallout of this thing. But let me tell you what I instantly thought when I saw that clip. Swalwell is now a guy who basically has nothing left to lose. He just lost his chance at becoming governor of California. He just got his ass thrown outta congress. Now he's got his reputation to the extent that it existed outside. I mean, we already thought he was a joke, but the rest of the country now thinks he's ridiculous. This will dog him for the rest of his life. And that's a product of his own decisions, no question. But how is he gonna view this? How is he gonna view this? Well, presumably he's gonna feel completely betrayed by the left that assembled this file on him and then destroyed whatever existed of his political career. So Gallego, the guy who spends all this time with him through the years, the second that he needs to trash Swalwell for political expediency, he comes out and he's like, that guy's a liar. I knew nothing about it. I can't believe what a scumbag he is. Whoa. What comes next? It really comes down to what Swalwell going to do about this. Now, you may not see Swalwell do this in public, but if you start seeing stories pop up about Ruben Gallego, stuff that comes from unnamed sources, things that start appearing, rumors have it, there's allegations, any of that, I would not be shocked if it was Eric Swalwell or the people around him who were generating that, I would not be shocked at all. So in a way, it's kind of hilarious actually that Gallego would come out and do this because I would kind of prepare yourself for what comes next here. I don't think we're anywhere near done with this left wing civil war that we see breaking out over this race in California. Holy crap. They're scared to death that these two Republicans, you know, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, are gonna dominate this thing. And there aren't gonna be any Democrats on the ballot. And so now their guns are blazing at each other in order to figure this out. And there are Democrats who are being caught up in the fallout of all of this, I think, you know, on the California race specifically, who are the next candidates up? Well, there's crazy Katie Porter and then there's the billionaire left wing funder, huge donor, one of the biggest donors on the left, entire country, Tom Steyer. And you gotta wonder Will there be another round of this kind of viciousness served up to say Katie Porter? It seems kind of likely, actually. The file on Katie Porter is pretty immense. She's. She's disgusting. She jumped. She dropped boiling mashed potatoes on her husband's head. She treats her staff like utter crap. There's a massive file on her, much of which we already know in public. But my guess is there's a lot of stories we haven't heard. What are the chances we start hearing them imminently? What are the chances that they start appearing in vicious advertising direct at her by people of her own party? I'd say they're pretty high, actually, especially when you've got a huge billionaire left wing donor running against her. If the rest of the Democrat party wants to continue to have access to his money, they may join in, in the stabbing session. So keep your eyes on all of this. I think this is about to get. It's, get. It's about to get really crazy, even beyond what we've already seen. But the Gallego thing, man, that guy's a guy who's running scared. And to be clear, Gallego already has a history here. Gallego's got his own messed up past. That dude dumped his wife days before she gave birth to their child. He dumped her. He served her divorce papers within days of her giving birth to their child. That really happened. And then at the age of nearly 40, he marries a 25 year old chick the next year. This is like this. These guys are cut from the same cloth. Look at this. This is the Washington Free Beacon who reported on this. This was back in 2024. Eliana Johnson with the piece of Likely to give birth any day was the headline. Ruben Gallego served pregnant wife with divorce papers. She was blindsided on December 15th of 2016. 2016. This is right after Trump won. I wonder if that animated any of this. Representative Ruben Gallego of Arizona filed for divorce from his wife, Kate Gallego, then a Phenix city councilwoman. He filed a motion to seal the case on the same day. That seal was lifted on Thursday after the Free Beacon prevailed in court to get it opened. And what they found is that it was Ruben Gallego who moved to seal the record back in 2016. In his memo making the case to the court, he noted that Kate Gallego had not yet been served with divorce papers, nor, quote, had her attorney entered an appearance in the case, but that she was, quote, likely to give birth any day. Any day. You couldn't wait for the baby to be born. You Couldn't, you know, let things settle out a little bit? No. Gallego's petition for divorce stipulated that the party's marriage is, quote, irretrievably broken and that there is, quote, no reasonable prospect of reconciliation. That came as a shock to his wife because Kate Gallego appears to have been blindsided by her husband's decision. When she responded to the filing In February of 2017, she said she was, quote, without knowledge of information sufficient to form a belief, end quote, about her husband's claim that the marriage was broken beyond repair, and she denied the allegation. The newly unsealed file also shows that Gallego wanted his wife to foot the bill for the divorce proceedings, stipulating he was entitled to an award of attorneys fees. Yeah, so that's, that's Ruben Gallego. Ruben Gallego cuts his wife loose moments before she gives birth to the kid. That's, that's really something else. And then he marries the 25 year old Sydney Barron at the. Who he met at a congressional baseball game. Just over a year later, he marries this girl. Mm. Mm. And. And yeah, that's it. That's it. So that's Ruben Gallego. So we'll see what happens with that dude. I, I know, I maybe, I don't know if I started this thought and didn't finish it. Forgive me for that, but I know there's rampant speculation right now that Ruben Gallego is the second man pictured hooker video. You know, there's a video of Eric Swalwell getting handsy with a hooker in what looks like kind of like a hotel bedroom or something. And there's another man lying on the bed. And by the way, if you're keeping track of the number of the people in the room, there's three people on the bed, there's another woman in the background, and then there's a cameraman. So that's five people in a room while Eric Swalwell is fondling the prostitute, which is insane. Everything about that is insane. And including the fact that I had to stare at Eric Swalwell's like, drunken horn dog face as I'm watching this video. I'm like, I don't want to see this. It's the last thing I want to see. But in the bed is another dude with kind of like a, like a thin beard and the same build as Ruben Gallego. And the guy's wearing black Nikes. And so the Internet has been absolutely going wild with speculation that it's Gallego and looking for any evidence whatsoever that the black Nikes are a match for him. And. And I jumped in on the. On the Internet sleuthing on that, too. I couldn't find any pictures of Gallego in the black Nikes. If you find them, you'll hit the jackpot. But I didn't find any pictures. I found. I saw him with those. He was out hiking somewhere. Oh, boy. Look at that. Creepy. Creepy. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Josh, for showing that. This. You could see this guy lean into the camera. You're like, is that guy. Is that the guy? And not clear. Not clear. But you do see the black Nikes as clear as anything. And so I started looking for it. I found, like, pictures of Gallego hiking. He did some photo shoot for some news outlet a couple of years back where he's hiking, and he was wearing those. I think they're called On Clouds. Is that right, Chad? You guys, Any runners or anybody have the On Clouds? I think that's what they're called. I don't own a pair, but those are kind of fancy running shoes. And is it. Is it wrong to think that if you're in the On Cloud purchase category, you're not in the Nike purchase category? That maybe that's an. Maybe that's an expo. Maybe it's not him. I don't know, but I don't. At this point, we can't fully conclude that it's him. That would not be responsible to conclude that just yet. What I can conclude is these guys are the best friends in the whole world, and Ruben Gallego is very obviously lying right now about the extent of his knowledge of Eric Swalwell's duplicitous activity. That's obvious to me. And we'll keep. We'll keep an eye on it. The chat loves. Oh, it's called. They're called On Clouds. Okay. Yeah, the chat loves them. Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah, I don't know. I don't. I don't know. Maybe he owns Nikes, too. It's possible to wear. To own two pairs of sneakers. That is possible. All right. More in a moment. This guy. The. This guy resigned. And then suddenly, within an hour of Eric Swalwell resigning. We got a Republican who resigned. Look at those Nikes. And then I got to stare at Eric Swalwell. I don't want to see Eric Swalwell anymore. I don't want. I was hoping his resignation would resolve this problem. I don't want to see him. I don't want to see him. All right. More ahead here on this edition. Events Want to thank One of our great sponsors today, Rumble Wallet is dynamite. Rumble Wallet is so good. So good. You know, if you've ever been curious about buying and investing in crypto and bitcoin or stable Coins or usat, but felt like it was too complicated, Rumble Wallet's a very easy way to get started. You can buy, sell, and manage your cryptocurrencies all in one place. 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Rumble wallet wallet.rumble.com okay, so right after Eric Swalwell resigns, minutes later, we find out that a Republican is also resigning. Congressman Tony Gonzalez announced yesterday that he too plans to resign from the House. Now, just to be clear, what was going to happen this week, while Congress was not passing the Save America act for us, while Congress is not yet funded, dhs, while Congress is dragging ass to do all sorts of other priorities for us, they were ramping up to kick out a bunch of members of Congress. And these two might not be the only ones. But what we got yesterday is Eric Swalwell and then Republican Tony Gonzalez is also bailing. Tony Gonzalez says he will resign from the House. He's a Texas Republican. He admitted a couple of weeks ago that he had an affair with a staff member who went on to commit suicide. Oh, that's. Oh, my God, that's heavy. And he's been in the midst of facing an Ethics Committee investigation. And so, by the way, has Swalwell. There was this announcement that they were gonna start investigating him. When they resign, the Ethics Committee investigation goes away because those are only for current members of Congress. It's not for past members or anything like that. So as they resign, they're also collapsing the ethics investigations into them. But you're Watching as these guys are ducking out, but there's still more to go. I mean, there's like, you know, there's that woman, Terfilis McCormick, you know her, Sheila Cherfoulis McCormick up in New Jersey. She's the one who was, like, assaulting ICE officers up in Jersey. And she's also accused of stealing Covid funds. And there's a criminal investigation into her. She deserves the boot. If you're going to start booting people, just, let's just start booting a bunch of Democrats. Let's just kick them out. You find that they've committed crimes, you find that they've been abusing the interns, just give them the boot. Let's just get this going. Like, get some fighting here. Republicans. It doesn't have to be a congressman for a congressman. It's like, okay, we got rid of a Democrat, so we'll get rid of a Republican. No, just boot Democrats. What would Democrats do here? Yeah, so Churchill's McCormick could be next up. We'll see if any expulsion votes happen this week. And then before we get to our guest, I want to, I want to move to some Iran news with you because that'll set us up very nicely. President Trump's blockade has begun of the Strait of Hormuz, which is important. It's an important thing. Again, he's blockading not the entire strait, but instead the Iranian ports. So as you're reading news items on this, it's important to remember he's blocking shipping traffic going into and out of the Iranian ports. The rest of the strait is open to ship traffic, and it's guarded now by the United States Navy. That's what's happening. And the President is doing this to establish more leverage over Iran. And we just got an update from J.D. vance about how all of this is going. Here's J.D. vance again, who just came back from Islamabad describing President Trump's terms with the Iranians. Here he is, cut 3. Watch this must have.
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We must have the enriched material out of Iran. We must have their conclusive commitment to not develop a nuclear weapon. And, and I think that if the Iranians are willing to meet us there, then this can be a very, very good deal for both countries. If they're not willing to meet us there, that's up to them. That's their decision. And really, the ball is very much in their court. So you ask what happens next? I think the Iranians are going to determine what happens next. As the President of the United States says, we have the cards. We have the military advantage. We now have additional economic pressure that we're applying on them through the blockade that we've imposed, imposed on their oil coming out of the Straits of Hormuz.
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Yeah, we've got a lot of pressure on these guys. They have to come up with a deal. Now, we found out from the vice president in that interview on FOX that the delegation that they met with wasn't actually fully authorized to even strike a deal. So, yes, they negotiated for 21 hours. But he said one of the problems was these guys weren't even authorized to say yes, which created more problems in terms of coming to a deal this past weekend. Here is JD Vance, Cut four Watch this
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out of the country of Iran. Now, what's interesting, Brett, about this is that in the process of doing this negotiation, I do think that we acquired some knowledge about how the Iranians are negotiating. And this is ultimately why we left Pakistan, because what we figured out is that they were unable, I think the team that was there, one that was unable to cut a deal and they had to go back to Tehran, either from the supreme leader or somebody else and actually get approval to the terms that we had set. So again, whether we have further conversations, whether we ultimately get to a deal, I really think the ball is in the Iranian court because we put a lot on the table. We actually made very clear what our red lines were. We also made clear, Brett, that we actually would, would be very happy. The president, United States has said he would be very happy if Iran was treated like a normal country.
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Yeah. There are lots of reports right now indicating that Iran is very actively attempting to keep these negotiations alive to come up with a resolution. In other words, the leverage is working. And it may be that part of the reason that the leverage is working is because Iran is feeling pressure from its own allies, countries like China, which takes 90% of Iran's oil exports and very much wants this blockade to end, wants this entire conflict to end. In a moment, we'll talk to Peter Schweitzer about China's reaction to all of this and how the president has just kicked out China's power cords all over the earth and what impact that's having on the Chinese Communist Party. More ahead on this edition. Events. You know, today's show is brought to you by one of my absolute favorite sponsors, Beam's Dream Powder. Beam is just a locked in part of my nightly routine. And honestly, it's one of the great reasons I'm able to show up fresh and ready to talk to you each and every day. It helps me be a little bit more clear thinking. I used to have some trouble sleeping, tossing, turning, staring at the ceiling and then pounding the coffee just to try and stay awake. After I found dream, I'm in the perfect perfect mode. Now I start sleeping straight through the night. Wake up energized. Dream is made with a powerful blend of all natural ingredients, Reishi, Magnesium, L theanine, Apigenin and Melatonin. So if you've been waiting for the right time to try dream, well, this is it. Go to shop beam.com Vince show use the code Vin show get my exclusive offer for up to 40% off beams dream Powder with my discount Code Vince show you can get their best selling dream powder for just $39. Pretending like you're still so young. You can. You can just not sleep at all and you'll be fine the next day. No, that's not how it works. Take care of yourself. Place your order for Beam and see the difference. Beam's Dream pattern. They're so good. Shopbeam.comvinShow and thank you to Fatty 15 as well. It's part of my morning routine. If you ever feel the effects of aging, we all do. You want to stop them. You want to get your energy back. And I'm excited to share something with you called C15 from Fatty 15. It's the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. Fatty 15 co founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson discovered the benefits of C15 while working with the Navy and based on studies we actually do know that when our cells don't have enough C15 they can age faster. Fatty 15 can help you repair and protect age related damage to your cells and help activate pathways in the body that repair mechanisms that support your overall wellness. Fatty 15 is great. It's science backed, award winning Vegan. It's a 100% pure C15 supplement and refills are shipped right to your door. Now I know I feel a lot better since I started taking fatty 15. It's great and I think you should do it too. Fatty 15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help support your long term health and wellness, especially as you age. You can get an additional 15% off of their 90 day subscription starter kit. Just go to fatty15.com Vince use the code Vince at checkout. These statements have not been evaluated by the fda. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or or prevent any disease. All right. Thank you to fatty 15. Want to welcome back to the Program. The great Peter Schweitzer. He's the president of the Government Accountability Institute. And the five Times New York Times bestselling author, including of the book the Invisible Coup. Peter, great to have you back with us, sir.
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Great to be with you, Vince. Thanks for having me. Good morning.
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Good morning to you. And how is China reacting right now? I'm seeing some headlines that they seem to be reeling over the fact that the President has locked down these Iranian ports. For the moment.
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Yeah, look, they're not great choices for China right now. They have essentially lost Venezuela, which of course was a close ally, their closest ally other than Cuba. And now they are in the process of having a frayed relationship with Iran. They get about 20% of their oil from Iran. They certainly want the Strait of Hormuz open for that reason, Iran wants it closed. So that's creating a lot of tension between them. I would also say that Iran is quite upset with China because China sold them a lot of military equipment, including what were described as very advanced anti air defense systems, which were just decimated by the US And Israeli air forces. So the bottom line is, is that China has not stepped up to help Iran. Iran is upset and frustrated and China is vulnerable to this energy shut off.
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Wait, so what have we learned about China's military industry from all of this? Because it kind of seems like this has exposed China's weakness. Because if. If what? If what I'm hearing from you is correct, they basically have like Temu military equipment versus the real stuff the United States is using.
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Yeah, look, they have some systems that are good, but look at the two test cases in Venezuela. The intelligence system that was supposed to protect Maduro was Chinese designed and in some cases Chinese operated. And you had U.S. special Forces literally fly into the country, snatch the leader of that country and leave. And Chinese intelligence didn't capture any of it. In the case of Iran, you have air defense systems, you have other infrastructure programs on the military side that they are responsible for not performing. Well, the added challenge that China has right now, Vince, is that President Xi has been purging senior military officials that he sees as a threat to his rule. So they're not in great shape militarily right now.
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Okay, can I tap into your other knowledge about the cartels for a moment, which is, you know, I'm reminded of something I learned from you that the cartels were using, have been using Chinese encrypted messaging apps in order to conduct their business. The Chinese, of course, were selling all sorts of not. Not selling, basically Giving the drug materials at cost to the cartels in order to poison Americans. Are you seeing similar patterns in places like Iran and Venezuela? Do the Chinese provide say encrypted communications technology to those governments as well?
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Oh, absolutely. And they provide also through Chinese organized crime syndicates. They're the kind of the go betweens between the CCP and the drug cartels in Latin America. They're also the go betweens in some cases to these terrorist organizations because groups like Hezbollah, for example, are also involved in narcotics trafficking. And what do they do? They get assistance from Chinese organized crime. And on the technology side, yes, China is providing these communication systems. The problem that China has militarily, Vince, is it's kind of like the Soviet Union. They don't encourage a lot of innovation. They don't encourage, you know, mid level commanders to show initiative on the battlefield. It's all top down and centralized. That's what they treat their clients and their partners like Iran, to operate militarily. That doesn't work great in a world where it's AI and the battlefield is shifting quickly. So this is a technological military revolution that is showing, exposing the weaknesses in the Chinese military. The same thing happened in the 1980s to the Soviet Union.
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So what are the risks of an actual armed conflict with the Chinese over all of the this. Because if the United States, as we are right now, is blockading Iranian ports and 20% of their oil comes from Iran, is there, is there any risk that China decides to escalate and engage us in any sort of military conflict directly?
- [33:51]
D
No, I don't think there'll be any direct conflict. First of all, their ability to project power in the Middle east is fairly limited. Second of all, I think they know militarily they can't match our capabilities. What's probably happening is two things. They're going to the Iranians and telling them stop this, strike a deal with the Americans because we want that oil open. At the same time, of course, the Chinese are going to be looking for opportunities to make life miserable for the United States. So it'll be interesting the posture that Xi assumes when he meets with President Trump in Beijing weeks from now.
- [34:27]
A
Yeah, I mean, one of the things we saw in the reporting about why there was even a face to face meeting in Islamabad to begin with was two pressure points. One of them was apparently JD Vance was very successful in convincing the Iranians to come to the table. But the other was that they felt a lot of pressure from the Chinese that the Chinese Communist Party, that which again I always refer to the CCP because they control the country, pressured Iran to go to the table with the United States. Clearly, China wants this to go away. And they think getting Iran to make a deal is the way to do that.
- [34:58]
D
Yeah, 100%, Vince. Look, I mean, China is a military threat, there's no question about it. But they are confident that through subversion, by buying people off in other countries, they can achieve their objectives without actually fighting the United States. So they actually don't want military confrontation. They want things to operate below the surface. And when you have armed conflict like you have in the Middle east, that detracts from their strategy.
- [35:25]
A
How devastating is it for them to have these power cores being kicked out around the planet right now? So, as you point out, Venezuela, you know, which sent a massive amount of its oil, again, on the black market under false flags to China. And then you've got Iran, which was sending 90% of its oil to China. I mean, how devastating is this to the Chinese economy? What impact does that have?
- [35:48]
D
Oh, it's massive. I mean, think about it. And Cuba is tottering Cuba. Venezuela and Iran are the three closest allies that China has in the developing world. There's not a lot of other countries. I don't think there would be any other than maybe North Korea that you would list as closer in your relationship. And you've effectively seen two of them neutralized or at least severely damaged, and Cuba is in the third. So this affects their intelligence capabilities, it affects their ability to project military and economic power, and it exposes the brittleness of the Chinese system. It does not work well to have this command and control economy that mirrors certain elements of capitalism that doesn't work well in an age of AI. So it's exposing them in lots of ways. This is not good for China. It's been a terrible six months for China.
- [36:39]
A
So I think one of the things I've thought early as this Iran conflict began in earnest was that people were underappreciating the extent to which President Trump was actually battling with the Chinese here. You know, the President speaks pretty kindly about Xi Jinping. This is his style. He's always talking about his great relationship with. With Xi. But the impact here, like, it's almost like we're all talking about Iran as merely a nuclear threat, which of course it is. But the President trying to stop that from. From. From being a problem. But really, in a lot of ways, this is a proxy fight for a much bigger concern, which is our biggest adversary, China.
- [37:18]
D
Well, I think you're right, Vince. Look, a Lot of people look at Trump's impulsiveness. You know, he gets on truth, social and says things. The bottom line is when you look at his actions, there is a grand strategy there, and a lot of it has to deal with China. And Trump's approach oftentimes is to praise somebody right before he lowers the hammer. You know, he said things about the Iranians. He said, look, they're very smart people. They'll strike a deal right before the bombing began. So I'm obviously not suggesting bombing with China, but the point is that clearly there's a grand strategy here. It started with tariffs. It started with fentanyl. It started with the Panama Canal. All these things are part of a whole. And I think that if people simply look at what he is saying on the moment, they are missing what's really going on below the surface of the water. Water.
- [38:10]
A
So President Trump, as you mentioned, is scheduled to go to Beijing a month from today. It's going to be May 14th through the 15th. They'll be in Beijing. It's a state visit. These are the kinds of visits that have tremendous honors conferred upon the visiting leader, especially the head of the United States. So China is going to, you know, give, give him the movie star treatment when he arrives. How I'm curious about how embarrassing that might be for China. Like, they're in a situation right now where the president has basically really put a damper on their economy by his actions and on their energy, and yet here they are honoring him. Is this going to be an embarrassment for Xi to have to do it this way?
- [38:56]
D
I think probably not. I mean, look, Trump is gracious enough. So, you know, when he's met with Xi during the first term, for example, they had their disagreements on a variety of issues. Trump is always gracious, personal, face to face. He might crack a few jokes, but generally he's not going to do anything to embarrass them or to upstage them. And I think the Chinese need him. They need him because when you look at the export dependent economy that they have, they need to have exports, open markets in the United States and with tariffs. On the issues related to fentanyl, a belt and road, some of the other issues that we talked about earlier, they need to strike some kind of bargain with, with Trump. And I'm not opposed to a bargain if it's the right bargain. And I think that this president has pretty good instincts on China. So I think that China will be looking for some kind of a grand bargain with Trump. And it'll be, it'll be interesting what they're willing to give up to get that.
- [39:54]
A
But the path out of this chaos is, is to be way less dependent on China. I mean, because right now, as you. As you well know, probably better than almost anyone, anybody, we're very dependent on them for, say, generic drugs. Like all of our pharmaceuticals come from China and India. Too much from China. We're very dependent on. On that region for chips, obviously, we're dependent on Taiwan for computer chips. We need to get as much of that here onshore, in America as possible so that we don't have to worry about conflicts with China or Taiwan. That's just. I'm just being realistic about this. And. And of course, we need to stop them from killing our people. I mean, you've written more about this than anybody of all this fentanyl that's pouring. And they keep paying lip service to the idea that they're helping us with it, when in fact, they've been busy killing Americans. Like, we have to, like, really disentangle with them.
- [40:40]
D
Yeah, look, any quote, unquote, grand bargain with China actually has to mean real results. And the evidence here is terrible on the issue of fentanyl. You know, in 2017, G said we'll stop providing precursor chemicals, we'll stop providing the other assistance to the cartels, and never did that. Fentanyl deaths went up, and they, of course, went up even higher during the Biden administration. So the proof is in the pudding in terms of China doing this. And you're exactly right. I mean, probably the biggest threat to China in terms of limiting their leverage on us is Trump's efforts to reshore manufacturing back into the United States. He's talked about pharmaceuticals, he's talked about rare earths. These are the limited pressure points that China has on our economy. So when I talk about a grand strategy for what Trump is doing relating to China, it's evident in pretty much everything from trade policy to military policy to our policy in the Middle east and Latin America. And, you know, Trump is always willing to strike a deal. China, though, has to actually be willing to follow through. And the evidence is pretty terrible for them to actually do that Now.
- [41:48]
A
Now, is there a way that we can get China to buy more American energy? Do you see this as being a part of the deal? Like, in other words, the President meets with Xi Jinping and says, start buying American. This will make your life a lot better?
- [42:01]
D
Well, he has certainly proposed that and offered that to the Chinese. China, though, has been very aggressive in threatening to use or using our dependence on them. So I think they would want to avoid dependence on us. And let's remember, they've gotten a free ride essentially from Venezuela and from Iran. Both of those countries. Oil was sanctioned, could not be sold on international open markets. So the Chinese were, was getting their oil for about 20 to 25% discount off of international prices. That's no longer going to apply. So this is going to be a jolt to the Chinese economy. I don't think they are going to want to be dependent upon us for anything. So I think it's doubtful that they would want to strike some kind of energy deal with the Trump administration.
- [42:47]
A
Well, this leaves one Russia, doesn't it, in terms of, like, where they can get their energy from? Because they don't really have domestic oil. They don't have. They don't. That's not available to them. So they get it all from outside of the country. This leaves Russia, which means that they're now paying a higher price, which is also making it so that Russia's war machine can punish Ukraine even more. I mean, it's like it's just a lot more chaos, isn't it?
- [43:09]
D
Yeah, it is. You know, Russia is very interesting in this as well as well. I mean, obviously Vladimir Putin, in my mind, is a threat threat, and he should be punished for what he's doing in Ukraine. But I do think part of Trump's hopes in striking a bargain with Putin, which of course hasn't happened thus far, part of that is to pull Russia away from China. Russia and China are pretty cooperative right now. That has not been the historical relationship between these countries. They generally don't like each other. They have territorial disputes. They have other disputes that go back a long time in terms of the rivalry between these two powers. And there is a school of thought that by isolating Russia, we essentially push them into the hands of China. That benefits China because of course, China has a massive industry, has a lot of people, but they lack natural resources. What does Russia have? They have a lot of natural resources. So Russia's role in this is interesting. They have lost a client in Iran as well, or at least had that client severely bloodied. But I think there may potentially be opportunities there to drive a further wedge between Russia and China, which would further isolate Beijing.
- [44:25]
A
Finally, I'm just thinking about, like, all the countries, these adversarial countries we've had to deal with, many of which I see headlines from time to time. They're doing military trainings together, like the things like Russia or China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and as I mentioned these countries, I'm realizing one by one, President Trump has been trying to strike deals with each of them. So whether it's Venezuela, which he took out, the illegitimate President Maduro, he's obviously got this relationship that the media and America hate with Kim Jong Un. He's been trying to strike a deal with China, trying to strike a deal with Putin, now working face to face with the Iranians. He's clearly trying to break up this adversarial group and create good relationships that benefit the United States.
- [45:05]
D
Oh yeah, there's no question about it, Vince. And just think in terms of military cooperation, a lot of times that is based on arms sales. You know, you sell weapons systems that need to be serviced. Back in 1982, Israel and Syria had an air war over Lebanon. The Israelis shot down 82 Russian MiGs that were flown by Syrian pilots. The Israelis lost zero aircraft. What happened after that? Everybody that was buying MiGs said, We don't want MiGs, we want what the Israelis are flying, which of course was American planes. I imagine you're going to see a similar assessment by militaries in the developing world, looking what has happened to Iranian technology and Iranian Chinese systems, how poorly they have performed in. And they're going to be asking themselves, do we really want to be buying these Chinese products that did not do well in Venezuela are not doing well in Iran. Why don't we try to strike a deal with the Americans to make sure we have the best military equipment and by doing so, Vince, that creates longer term military ties with some of these countries.
- [46:11]
A
Yeah, our stuff is so good. This is why when it's rendered inoperable, we blow it up on the battlefield. So they can't even get the tech. No, it's a big deal. Peter Schweitzer, you're the best. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your wisdom on all time topics. Good to talk to you, sir.
- [46:25]
D
Great show, Vince. Always good to be with you.
- [46:27]
A
Thank you very much. The great Peter Schweitzer with a crash course in global politics. What the hell is going on everywhere and especially with China. I've been fascinated by this China component. What the heck is happening with China? China's reeling today and they've called the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by the Trump administration a quote, dangerous and irresponsible act. But meanwhile they're, they're pressuring the Iranians to actually get to the table quickly with the United States of America and to strike a deal, which is wonderful. Wonderful stuff. Let's see if we can't get one. I'd like to. I'd like to actually get one and settle up there. Back home in the United States, we just got some brand new information from the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard yesterday about the first Trump impeachment in 2019. Remember that, oh, so many years ago, the first Trump impeachment in 2019 released by Tulsi Gabbard. This is wild stuff and not that, not shocking, but definitely appalling. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard exposes conspiracy used by Congress to impeach President Trump. And in this, what she exposes was what she refers to as a coordinated effort by elements within the intelligence community at the time, including a former Inspector general, to manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump in 2019. So as we keep talking about, you know, grand conspiracies and abuses of power and who can we charge here and can we bring them to justice? Here's Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, adding a massive piece of information to the file. She says that during a preliminary investigation into President Trump's July 2019 phone call with Vladimir Zelensky, Ukrainian president. Of course, the former Intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson didn't follow any of the standard protocols and relied upon politicized, manufactured narratives and only conducted interviews with four people, none of whom were even firsthand witnesses to the phone call, who had no firsthand knowledge of the phone call. Four people, this so called whistleblower, the whistleblower's friend who was actually a co Author of the January 2017 Russia Hoax Intelligence community assessment ordered by Obama to try and freeze up the Trump administration was a close colleague of disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok as well. And then two character references who both had zero firsthand knowledge of the July 2019 phone call. So nobody knew what the hell they were talking about. They just made this up. They just made this up. Now, I saw some people online already say that, you know, they had kind of operated under the assumption that this was just, you know, a phone call which was taken the wrong way, and then it was blown up out of proportion. It wasn't that this was a hit job, this was a manufactured hit job. According to DNI Tulsi Gabbard's revelations, despite a lack of any firsthand evidence, Atkinson, the IG proceeded to take actions to weaponize the whistleblower process and exceed his statutory jurisdiction by ignoring Department of Justice guidance and relied on only secondhand testimony. And then he released it to Congress and then it was referred to the FBI and was leaked to the propaganda media. Then House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, that scumbag and then Speaker Nancy Pelosi used the false secondhand narrative to create media intrigue and ultimately sparked the basis to impeach President Trump in December of 2000 and 2019. So we learned quite a bit here. They had no firsthand evidence whatsoever. And this was all, this was all a rigged operation. These are these the there were hoax authors, people who are part of the intelligence community assessment total hoax that relied on the Steele dossier to lie about President Trump that were involved in this. And then as far as Adam Schiff goes, let me go to the the shift component to this. Adam Schiff was involved and you and like I said, and used the false secondhand narrative to try and hype this impeachment. Now, Schiff, by now it's well established, is one of the most truly sinister liars in all of Congress. And Schiff even at the time, was lying about his role in manufacturing all of this. Do you remember this in 2019? Let me bring you back to this flashback. Adam Schiff on television on a network now known as Ms. Now being asked about whether or not he wants to speak to the whistleblower. Has he talked to the whistleblower? Will he talk to the whistleblower? And here's Adam Schiff lying about this. He had already talked. His staff had already talked to the whistleblower. So the answer is yes. We've been coordinating with this guy. It's ridiculous to call this person a whistleblower, this con artist, this hoaxer. We've already been talking to him. Here's Adam Schiff lying about that back in 2019. Watch.
- [51:56]
E
Couple questions here on this whistleblower front. First off, have you heard from the whistleblower? Are you, do you want to hear from the whistleblower? What protections could you provide to the whistleblower? And then you also said that the DNI is refusing to turn over this stuff, citing request from a higher authority. The insinuation left, at least for me and others, was that the president himself had intervened. Is that the insinuation you sought to provide? And if so, what basis do you have for making that insinuation?
- [52:25]
D
We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to, but I'm sure whistleblower has concerns that he has not been advised, as the law requires by the inspector general or the Director of National Intelligence, just as to how he is to communicate with Congress.
- [52:42]
A
Yeah. Huh. So he just lies. He just completely lies about that. Of course, he was talking with the, quote, whistleblower. It was all an inside job. It was all a hatchet operation. The, the whistleblower. This, this, this person was connected with President Biden. The, the, the whistleblower in the, in the DNI documents. Let me, let me pull this back up for you. They say the, the whistleblower revealed the following things and then none of this was disclosed to Congress at the time. Whistleblower interviews revealed that the political biases of the whistleblower and his or her own words included. The whistleblower states he or she is a registered Democrat. The whistleblower claims to have worked closely with Vice President Biden, traveled with Biden to Ukraine and was a part of conversations where Lutsenko's corruption was discussed. That was the prosecutor in Ukraine. The whistleblower also claims to have become the target of right wing bloggers and conspiracy theorists. Meaning. Meaning conservatives had successfully identified who the whistleblower is. Yet I see IG Atkinson ignored this and insisted during his testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, quote, I also want to make it clear I never considered the whistleblower to be politically biased. What? And then, despite public reports that the whistleblower worked with Biden on Ukraine matters, inquiries into the whistleblower's bias and motive were blocked during the 2020 impeachment trial. This was a rigged operation from the very beginning. Now, you might be saying to yourself, well, can we prosecute Adam Schiff? I mean, Adam Schiff lies about this. They're abusing their power. It's all an inside job he's in on. Can we prosecute that guy? Well, Joe Biden pardoned him. California's Adam Schiff gets a last minute pardon from President Joe Biden. Remember that. Why did Biden pardon Adam Schiff? He gave him a blanket pardon. He gave him a blanket pardon. President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to Senator Adam Schiff and other members of Congress and their staff who had investigated the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots. Schiff was an outspoken House member at the time, part of the committee that probed the insurrection. Among those also pardoned were former Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Joe Biden was president. Auto pen. Yeah, that's true. The auto pen did that. Yeah. No, that's actually a great point. Thank you for raising that chat. I still think this idea that we can just accept the auto PEN as being the President of the United States is absurd. It's totally absurd. It's even more absurd than accepting the fact that Joe Biden had his brain while he was nominally the President of the United States. It's crazy to me. Yeah. Do the auto pen pardons really count if the pen signs the pardons? Come on now, let's get some fight. Let's get rid of these stupid parts. Let's prosecute these guys. At any rate, thank you to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for maximum transparency releasing all of this. Why did it take so long? Why did it take so long for us to finally get this. Tulsi Gabbard gets this information out to us and. And if there's any justice in the world, it'll form the basis of more evidence in the grand conspiracy case that's happening down in South Florida right now. The President of the United States did share a message about this yesterday on Truth Social. He just took a screen grab of Lee Zelben's post. Lee Zeldin, who is over at EPA these days, doing good work there. Lee Zeldin reacted. He said, just like the Russia, Russia, Russia collusion, hoax, the clown show sham impeachment of President Trump in 2019 was a bullshit show trial of epic proportion to try and take out the duly elected President of the United States. It sure was. Which is why we so badly want real justice. That's all we're asking for. All right, Coming up today, I've got the big national radio show. Explore a lot more. We've got a lot more to get to the vinshow.com you can see your local listings for your radio stations there. We're on from 12 to 3 Eastern each day. We broadcast live on rumble from 1 to 3, the final two hours each day. Rumble.com Vince to see that, you can see Dan Bongino's amazing program that's coming up on rumble.com bongino 10am Eastern live each morning. And then the great Haley Carinea. She's live at Noon on Rumble Rumble.com Haley. Haley with two Y's. Why? Because she's incredible. That's at noon Eastern. You're gonna love that show too. It's great to have you with us. You really are the best audience anywhere. If you are here for the first time or if you've been here for a while and you haven't yet done it, would you please click subscribe on the program? Would you mind doing that for me? Subscribe to the Rumble stream. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get a podcast. Heck, sign up on multiple podcast platforms. Let's just juice the numbers all over the place. It really helps the program out and it makes it so that we can reach more people, which is always fun. We've got a great country. Great to see you today. Have a great American Day, and I'll be back with you tomorrow.