More Biden Blanket Pardons? - In The Tank #475
Download MP3Alright. Welcome to the show. We are live, ladies and gentlemen. After promising not to for years, Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, in the waning weeks of his lame duck presidency. But it wasn't just a pardon.
Donald Kendal:It was a very broad blanket pardon spanning crimes and potential crimes dating back 11 years. But now we are hearing that Biden may not be done with his blanket pardons. Reports suggest Biden might hand out a number of pardons, perhaps most controversially to Anthony Fauci. Also, we're gonna be talking about Trump's latest cabinet picks and a new heartland report analyzing how socialist candidates fared in the 2024 election. We are talking about all this and more on episode 475 of the in the tank podcast.
Speaker 2:How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.
Donald Kendal:Oh, I'm sorry. I can't get enough of that one. Welcome to the In The Tank podcast. As always, I am your host, Donald Kendall. Joining me today, I've got VP of the Heartland Institute, Jim Lakeley.
Donald Kendal:How are you doing today, good sir? Oh my gosh. We are off to a good start.
Jim Lakely:It off right in the beginning. I muted myself. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Jim Lakely:But, you know, you know, I I saw today that they finally finished counting all the ballots in, the California election. And wouldn't you know it? Isn't this weird? Every single time that counting takes weeks weeks weeks on end, it always ends up being good for the Democrats. I just don't understand.
Jim Lakely:You know, I don't really believe in coincidences, but, boy, that's weird, isn't it? It's weird, isn't it? We need to fix that.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. There's big coincidences, and there's little coincidences. So, that one, you know, that might be the one the big column. Oh, I'm just telling us. We have Chris Salgo, editorial director.
Chris Talgo:I'm gonna have to take umbrage I have to take umbrage with your assessment of the spectrum of coincidences because Seinfeld actually devoted an entire episode to this, if you remember correctly
Donald Kendal:Oh, I remember.
Chris Talgo:When, it was the Eastern European woman writing the, dissertation that Elaine had to edit when she was working at Pendant Publishing. Mhmm. And, her boyfriend had had gone to clean Jerry's apartment.
Donald Kendal:Oh, we don't we don't we don't need a whole history of this.
Chris Talgo:Okay. But I'm just saying that that episode actually had a very good back and forth about whether you can have a big or small coincidence or whether they're just coincidences.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Chris Talgo:And if, if I remember correctly, Rana was her name. Rana made the argument that you cannot have big or little coincidences. There are just coincidences. Yeah. Elaine took Elaine took the other side of that argument and said, no.
Chris Talgo:You can have big or small. I think I'm gonna have to go with Ron on this. You cannot you cannot they're only they're only coincidences. They're not big or not small.
Donald Kendal:That's an absolute insane statement to make. It's a coincidence if we just happen to be wearing the same color. It's also a coincidence if, you know, some Mega Millions jackpot winner happens to also forget it. Forget it. We're getting one off course here.
Jim Lakely:It usually takes us a little longer to go off the rails, but let's get it back to the track.
Donald Kendal:You're not watching your bingo card. On your bingo card, the middle circle is Jim muting himself. That's right. Going off the rails is also on the bingo card. Anyways, we've got a lot to talk about.
Donald Kendal:Merry Christmas season, everybody. It is, post Thanksgiving, so I've got my tree up right over here. We're definitely in the in the Christmas season now. So if you don't like that, deal with it.
Chris Talgo:So you you still you don't have a Festivus poll? What's wrong with you?
Donald Kendal:Oh, I do have a Festivus celebration coming up, but, let's not get sidetracked in the Seinfeld stuff more. We have a lot to talk about. But before we get into it, I have to put out that message I put up the beginning of all of these episodes that is a call to action for you all. If you are listening to this podcast, probably on a Friday or later, first off, write a review for us on iTunes. That would be greatly appreciated.
Donald Kendal:And consider joining us a day earlier at Thursdays at noon CST where we are live streaming on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x. You could join the conversation, throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. And you can also support the show not by using super chats because YouTube has demonetized us, because we say things that make people mad, I guess.
Donald Kendal:I don't know. But you can support the show by going to heartland.org/inthetank. That way, YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut. Or you could just hit that like button, share this content, subscribe if you haven't already, or leave a comment on the video. All those things help break through the big tech algorithms and prevent content like this from being shown to more people.
Donald Kendal:Anyways, let's get to it. We've got a bunch of topics, as you can see on our sidebar there. I wanna get to the first one right away. So I originally only intended this first story to be more or less our opening chitchat. Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter Biden.
Donald Kendal:The news broke on this over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. So by 20 24 standards, the story is ancient. But I did wanna talk about it at least a little bit because I think that there is some nuance that is intentionally being skated over by most in the leftist media. So, many talking heads and commentators are just trying to gloss over this by saying, well, Trump did pardons too. Every president does pardons.
Donald Kendal:I didn't hear you complaining when Trump pardoned general Flynn, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And this intentionally ignores some major things that I just wanted to kind of address on this podcast. The the easy one off the top is Joe Biden's constant promising that he was not gonna pardon Hunter Biden, a line that was repeated by other Democrats and and probably most by press secretary, KJP. I don't, remember Trump promising that he wasn't gonna pardon anybody, and then, you know, went back on his word and then did so. I don't remember that.
Donald Kendal:Maybe it did. I don't think it did. But the craziest aspect of this pardon was the range and blanket quality of the pardon. So this pardon stretches back 11 years and provides immunity to Hunter Biden on any crimes and any potential crimes that Hunter may have committed during this period of time. Jim, do I have those details correct?
Jim Lakely:Unfortunately, you do have those details correct.
Donald Kendal:And, like, that's unprecedented. Right? I mean, this this isn't something that that normally happens. Am I correct?
Jim Lakely:No. This is something that has never happened before. You know, and and our our corrupt media, of course, was carrying water for Joe Biden promising that, no. I'll never, I'll never pardon Hunter Biden. I will not even commute his sentence.
Jim Lakely:And they just expressed shock, shock that he would go back on his on his word as a Biden, To actually go back to Seinfeld one more time, it was George Costanza who said, it's not a lie if you believe it. But this was actually a a legit lie because, you know, it was reported by NBC News, of all places, that, you know, right after Hunter Biden was forced to, forced to. But, you know, his deal, he he, plead guilty to felony charges, with firearms and with evading taxes. That was back in June. And immediately back in June, Joe Biden and his aids were discussing, whether or not he was going to pardon Hunter Biden.
Jim Lakely:And, of course, the answer to that was, of course, he is gonna, pardon his son. And the only question was whether or not he was gonna say so publicly or what he was gonna say publicly. And they had come to the agreement that he will just deny that he's gonna do that, all the way until he has to do it. And, normally, these sorts of pardons happen, you know, at the end of a presidency, and they're very controversial, but it dies down because everyone's focused on the new guy taking over, the presidency. But, Joe Biden was forced to do this over Thanksgiving weekend because, I think right now or maybe at this time, but this week was the sentencing for Hunter Biden.
Jim Lakely:And for all those lefties out there who call, Donald Trump a convicted felon, you are not technically or actually at all a convicted felon until sentencing. So Hunter Biden now, because he was pardoned before his sentencing for the felonies that he admitted to committing, is will now never be a convicted felon. So good, you know, that good good for him, I guess, now he can own firearms again, and he can also vote. He'll also be voting when he's dead because that's the way it works with the Democratic party. Sweet.
Donald Kendal:But And he can leave those firearms in garbage cans near schools too.
Jim Lakely:That's right. Well, big deal. Big deal. You know? And and, you know, it's it's when I saw this, I actually heard about it on Sunday.
Jim Lakely:I was, I was busy, and, actually, my mother texted me and said, I saw it on the text as you know, when I was done doing what I was doing on Sunday evening, she says, Joe Joe just pardoned Hunter. I'm like, holy moly. Okay. And it wasn't till I got home and started reading this stuff that I realized how outrageous this was and, because we all expected it. Right?
Jim Lakely:But then when you see that it's a blanket pardon for any and all federal crimes that could possibly be imagined starting in January of 2014, the very month that he started working for Burisma, the energy company for which he had, no qualifications to be on the board of directors, for which he was paid $1,000,000 a year, and which is was the most corrupt company in the most corrupt country in all of Europe, in Ukraine. Now why would you pardon somebody for any crimes they may or may not have committed if you are not pretty certain that he had committed federal crimes, and they just but your administration has done a great job of making sure that he's not held accountable for that, and there isn't a real investigation of it. But then a new administration led by Donald Trump and then Kash Patel, which we're gonna get to here in a minute, as the head of the FBI, is going to pursue criminal charges, is going to get down to the bottom of the influence peddling that is the, the Biden family business. I would like somebody somewhere to explain to me what it is that the Bidens do for money.
Jim Lakely:None of them have any any marketable skills. They seem to travel all around the world, have meetings, and then money comes flowing into their into their, what, 21 different shell companies to to hide where it's coming from and then where where where it goes. And then it goes to, you know, all sorts of different Biden family members, and then, of course, at least 10% for the big guy. You know, all of this stuff has been has been covered up. Biden's supposedly independent Department of Justice has not pursued any of these obvious, like, smoking smoking gun crimes that have been going on on influence peddling.
Jim Lakely:There is nothing else that Hunter Biden is qualified to do but to, be the bag man for a shakedown operation for the influence that Joe Biden can have on on foreign policy as vice president of United States. He pardoned his son for before he was president. 2014, he was vice president of United States and in charge of the Ukrainian, desk at the White House. And, you know, what happened and everybody knows this because he brag because because Joe Biden is so stupid. He bragged about it on camera that he told the, he told Ukraine, you fire that prosecutor who's coming after Burisma, which my son sits on and which we use for as a, you know, perhaps a money laundering operation.
Jim Lakely:You stop that investigation, or you're not getting any aid. And he says and then the famous quote, son of a bitch. They fired a guy. You know? So that's what the the Joe Biden has been in the business of for his entire life.
Jim Lakely:He was first elected to the senate at the age of 29 and has been a senator or vice president for all but 4 years for his entire adult life. He doesn't have any skills either, except being a bullshit artist and figuring out schemes in which he can enrich himself on a public servant salary. He still has multiple homes and 1,000,000 of dollars in his in his accounts. How does that happen for somebody who's just a center, a senator, or a vice president who is operating in the public interest and everything is on the up and up? I want Chris to get in here.
Jim Lakely:I got a lot more to say about this that makes me angry. But when you when you, because I wanna get into some of the stuff on that Hunter laptop, But one of the things about pardoning you from 2014 to, you know, I guess, Monday or or Sunday, one of the things that that covers is everything that was on that Hunter Biden laptop. There are a lot of crimes that were seen in plain view on that Hunter Biden laptop, which, again, the the corrupt deep state falsely called, Russian disinformation. So, yeah, that we'll get into some of those crimes, I guess. But this is outrageous.
Jim Lakely:This has never happened before in American history, and the only good shot the only upshot of this is that it gives Donald Trump complete carte blanche to do whatever kind of pardon stuff he wants, basically, about 30 seconds after he takes the oath of office.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I, I you know, based on something that you were saying there, I I I'm I'm starting to develop a little bit of a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, in my head, but give me a minute to to kinda sort it all out. And during that minute, I want Chris's reactions on on this particular story.
Chris Talgo:Well, I think one of the things, that Jim didn't mention, and I agree with everything that that he did mention, is that well, I mean, where do I even begin? There there there are there are so many problems with what Biden has done here. The breadth of the pardon, Fleischman said the fact that it goes back, you know, more than a decade and covers, basically, any federal crime that that he could be tied to, is, you know, just just breathtaking when you think about it. But I am I'm also just a little bit, you know, disappointed in the fact that, you know, Biden did this obviously on a holiday weekend. And then what does he do the next day?
Chris Talgo:He flies to Angola and doesn't talk to the press for 3 straight days. Basically makes a fool of himself. I don't know if we have any videos of that, but he fell asleep, you know, during the press conference. I mean, just just total, you know, like, amateur hour. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's, you know, pretty bad stuff.
Chris Talgo:Everyone knows the Bidens are corrupt. Everyone knows that Hunter Biden was, the bag man for the big guy, like, you know, Jim explained, and that he was, flying around on air force 2, while Biden, was vice president and, making money hand over fist, whether it's from China, whether it's from Ukraine, whether it's from Russia or other, you know, countries around the world. We'll never get to the bottom of that. That's just the way that it's gonna be. But one of the things that does stand out is that Joe Biden during or in his statement, regarding the pardon claim that the justice department, is corrupt.
Chris Talgo:And he said that this was all political. So that means that Joe Barr Joe Biden's justice department, under his watch, has been corrupt. And then that leads you to say, well, if it's corrupt, then they went after, Donald Trump for political reasons. They went after Trump for political reasons, then Joe Biden should pardon Donald Trump. Of course, he won't do this.
Chris Talgo:But, really, I think what what happened here is that Joe Biden has opened up a can of worms because now Donald Trump can come in and say president Biden himself said that the FBI and the DOJ is, you know, totally out of control, and we need to reform it. So thank you, Joe Biden, for doing that. I don't think he intended to do that, but that's, you know, one of the good things that happened here. Another one that I've been reading about is the 5th amendment. So now that Hunter Biden has been, pardoned of any crimes he committed from 2014 to 2025, he can no longer use the 5th Amendment because it can't because he he he's not in danger of prosecution.
Chris Talgo:So some people have, speculated that, actually, now this could backfire on the Bidens, and they could, haul in Hunter Biden into questioning, whether it's, you know, before the, house or senate or whomever and say, okay. Now you have to answer these questions. When you were on the barista board, did you, you know, receive basically, you know, bribes? He can't hide behind 5th amendment anymore. So some people are saying that this actually could blow the whole thing wide open.
Chris Talgo:I don't know if that's gonna happen. I don't know if Donald Trump's even gonna wanna go down this road when he becomes president or whether. He's wanna just gonna, you know, move, you know, move forward, turn the page, and, get into his, agenda. But, yeah, this is just unprecedented. And, you know, we all know Hunter Biden's guilty.
Chris Talgo:We all know that the the laptop was real. It was not Russian disinformation. And, you know, in the court of public opinion, which, you know, does matter, he's guilty.
Donald Kendal:Alright. So here here's my here's my tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. Jim, you you tell me if I'm too off base. If you tell me I'm off base, then I'll know that I'm way off base. But Alright.
Donald Kendal:So we've on this podcast, especially in the waning weeks, of the election season and even in the immediate weeks after the election season, we were kind of questioning the left strategy of painting Donald Trump as this, like, dictator and this fascist coming in. He's gonna use the military to round up his political enemies, all of this sort of stuff. And we thought it was kinda strange because it's like they almost painted themselves into a corner, and it's like, why are you having lunch with the guy that you think is gonna be the next Hitler? Like, all of that sort of stuff. Maybe the entire strategy of painting him as, like, the next Hitler, you know, authoritarian or whatever, was to give justification for these sorts of pardons.
Donald Kendal:The cover up the cover up of all the Biden crime family stuff, and as we're gonna get into some of the Fauci stuff and all of these other people. And it's just like, well, we we have to make it seem to to justify these blanket things. We have to make it seem like this guy has, like, you know, bloodthirst. You know, like, that's maybe that was the entire reason that they they really overextended themselves with painting him as the next Hitler was just to give justification for these blanket pardons that we're gonna talk about.
Jim Lakely:I'll What do
Donald Kendal:you think?
Jim Lakely:I'll I'll accept that theory in part, because I think, yeah, you're that you're hearing them go unhinged that that we're gonna talk about even more blanket pardons. But because they're so afraid of Kash Patel, who is, very qualified to be the new head of the FBI, earlier this week, the scuttle was that there's no way that the Senate, that Republicans who are gonna go turncoat on Trump on his appointments. Mark my words. And they're going to hopefully, they would pay a political price for that. They gotta get their they gotta get their asses, together here and get the American people, the cabinet that they voted for.
Jim Lakely:And part of that is Kash Patel as head of the FBI. Well,
Donald Kendal:we'll definitely get to that.
Jim Lakely:We will think we will get to that. But they are scared, they are scared out of their minds, and they so their their their messaging now is that these blanket pardons, and we're gonna get into the blanket pardons just not for Hunter Biden, but for others that is being floated out there. Because elsewise, Donald Trump is going to, persecute and falsely falsely charge and persecute and try to jail his political enemies. The chutzpah it takes to to make that kind of argument right now when the the when the deep state and our department of injustice has done nothing but trump up BS charges against Trump and anyone close to him And and not to mention the January 6th, people, what is it, 1200 people, have been charged, and, most of them pursued way, way, way over what it warranted. People that were, you know, there were rioters or people who committed violence, but there are people who just walked into the building with open doors, doors opened by the police and basically waved in that have now now are convicted felons by an out of control department of injustice.
Jim Lakely:And for all of that to have happened over the last 8 years and for them to now be crying that, you know, Trump is going to weaponize the Department of Justice and go after his political enemies, no. It's not yeah. They they say it's gonna be retribution for what he has gone through. It's not retribution. It's accountability.
Jim Lakely:These people who have broken the law to use the, Department of Justice to go after their political enemies and to destroy Donald Trump. Look. We we tend to forget the Democrats' reelection strategy was to have Donald Trump in jail. He was never supposed to be president again because he was going to be in prison, and they figured not even, you know, not even every MAGA person would vote for a convicted felon who was sitting in Leavenworth, you know, to be president of the United States. They figured if we could just get him in jail, then he won't be president, and then we will be able to continue the way we have continued, not just for the last, you know, 20 years or so, but for many, many decades of the administrative state controlling this country instead of the American people choosing leaders to lead this country.
Jim Lakely:And so, you know, it it this has been happening for a long time. And the reason that Hunter Biden specifically needed a blanket pardon going back, 10 year 11 years is because, as Chris pointed out and we've mentioned earlier, is that that that Hunter Biden laptop was real. It had tons of information on it. You know, only Hunter Biden, you know, Joe Biden's, you know, crackhead son is so stupid that, he he drops he drops a computer off because it's broken at a repair shop, and it is just chock full of evidence of criminal activity, and then he just forgets all about it and walks off. You know, and just just forgets that I have all of this incriminating, evidence against me and my family for crimes sitting somewhere in a computer shop.
Jim Lakely:Whatever. I'll just grab all my stuff from I'll just buy a new, MacBook and grab all my stuff from the cloud and move on with my life. You know, stuff like there was stuff on that laptop. You might remember there were text, text messages between him and a family member where he complained. Poor Hunter.
Jim Lakely:Poor Hunter Biden. He was complaining that he has to go and collect the money and do all the work while dad just sits on his ass, and then, you know, I have he gets most of the money. You know, try giving up half of your income to dad when he doesn't do anything. I'm doing all the work. Oh, boohoo.
Jim Lakely:Boohoo. You know, Hunter Biden is like the Fredo Corleone of the, from the godfather of the Biden crime family. He's like, you know, I'm not dumb. I'm smart. You know?
Jim Lakely:You know, he's and I deserve respect. That's the kind of way he talked and thought in these text messages. He's freaking Fredo for crying out loud. And there was evidence of him using drugs, of giving drugs to others, of hiring, you know, getting prostitutes into hotel rooms. That is very, very awful.
Jim Lakely:That's human you know, sex workers are not voluntarily doing these sorts of things. That is almost in every case, a a, a very awful crime of human trafficking. Those sorts of things now will be investigated. Well, they were gonna be until, Joe Biden just gave a blanket, pardon for any of these activities. It's just absolutely outrageous that this this this poor guy, you know, the there's a a smidgen of sympathy for him because he's 54 years old, and he's never been able to get his life in order.
Jim Lakely:And he has to keep having daddy bail him out with the biggest bailout of personal responsibility we've ever seen in the United States.
Donald Kendal:Right. Yeah. There there's some, you know, we don't get to every article that I put in the show notes, but there's a good one from National Review, where it's like the judge that presided over Hunter Biden's tax case just kind of ripping into Joe Biden's statements
Speaker 2:suggesting that this was selective persecution and all of that. The judge just lays
Donald Kendal:waste to this. So if you're persecution and all of that. The judge just lays waste to this. So if you're interested in kind of the details of that, go check out the show notes. There's other there's other articles in there too that we just won't have time to get into, but, I do wanna move on to this, this this idea of potentially more blanket pardons.
Donald Kendal:So what we talked about just now is where I thought the story ended. But, I I I figured we'd talk about it for a little bit before we launch into some of the other stories that we're gonna get into on the show. But late last night, I saw an article that Jim sent me that was related to the story that caused me to restructure the entire podcast. I made a new thumbnail. I went through and changed all of the streams because this article I just thought was fascinating.
Donald Kendal:So this one was from Politico, and it was titled Biden White House is discussing preemptive pardons for those in Trump's crosshairs. According to this article, there is reportedly internal, discussions going on inside the White House as to whether or not Joe Biden should use what is left of his mental faculties in the waning days of his presidency to grant preemptive pardons to those people that are or theoretically may be on Trump's radar. According to the article, quote, those who could face exposure include such members of congress' January 6th committee as senator elect Adam Schiff and former GOP representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said Cheney, quote, should go to jail along with the rest of the unselect committee. Also mentioned by Biden's aids, for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the COVID 19 pandemic.
Donald Kendal:All of this is being discussed in the context of Trump's retribution tour, where he is going to lay waste to his political opponents. The idea puts succinctly by democratic representative Brendan Boyle, who was quoted in this article saying, quote, this is no hypothetical threat. The time for cautious restraint is over. We must act with urgency to push back against these threats and prevent Trump from abusing his power. So, Chris, one blanket pardon dating back 11 years to, you know, Hunter Biden is crazy enough.
Donald Kendal:But to theoretically just start granting these out, like like Christmas Day gift cards or something, as president Biden is leaving the office to anyone and everyone that might be on, you know, Trump's naughty list? That seems kinda crazy. What are your thoughts on this new development?
Chris Talgo:I've been around long enough to see that whenever what scandal like what happened in, the COVID, pandemic with doctor Fauci or whether it we're talking about Lois Lerner back at the IRS during the Obama years, and they were going after, Tea Party groups. I've been around long enough to realize that these people never get in trouble. So this really is just kinda, you know, not that big a deal to me. You know, doctor Fauci, I do think, you know, was, lied through his teeth and, you know, was doing all sorts of, things that might have been against the law. But to be to be honest, I mean, this is not that big of a deal to me.
Chris Talgo:I mean, these people, you know, this is years ago. They're out of government. I mean, I don't I I don't think it would be politically feasible for Donald Trump to even go on some sort of retribution tour to say we're gonna go after this, you know, this guy for what he did 4, 5, 6 years ago or for Lynne Cheney or Liz Cheney, excuse me, or even Adam Schiff. I mean, I disagree vehemently with, what they did, but I'm just not sure I want to prosecute, you know, them. But then on the other hand, I can also see that these blanket pardons for, you know, preemptive pardons, whatever you wanna call them, are an admission of guilt in some way.
Chris Talgo:Because, basically, why would Joe Biden, even fathom, pardoning someone like Anthony Fauci if he didn't have something, at least something, to be concerned about? So Right. You know, to me to me, I I'm I mean, I understand that these that these pardons are a big deal. I understand the the hypocrisy. You know, Joe Biden lied to the nation for months while he was, you know, still trying to get reelected saying he wouldn't pardon his son, but really deep down, I thought he would pardon his son.
Chris Talgo:It wouldn't surprise me if he does some blanket pardons, you know, in the waning days of his presidency. But once again, I mean, I'm just I mean, I'm just I am not I don't think that it's something that should be, you know, just, like, causing people to go into a panic. I think we've got much bigger things to worry about. And, also, at the same time, I think we've got some things to be very excited about.
Donald Kendal:Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, you know, some of them like, even that list that I read, like, the Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney, and granted, I don't, you know, know all the details of why they would theoretically be targeted with prosecution. Maybe there's some great examples. The Liz Cheney one, I've heard some rhetoric.
Donald Kendal:We're like, oh, he's already threatened to put her in front of a firing squad, which we've already talked about. It's just an absurd an absurd why, by the media. But, like, some of some of them, like, Fauci, Jim, I mean, he feels like he's got, some questions to answer and some consequences to pay. What do you what are your thoughts on on this story?
Jim Lakely:Well, at the very least, perjury. I don't know how many times you have to see the exchanges between the great Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky, and and Anthony Fauci to realize that he perjured himself, which is a which is a federal crime, on multiple, multiple occasions. And that's not even getting into the legality of the illegality, I should say, of what he did, basically, setting it up so that, around the law so that, gain of function research is done in a Chinese lab outside of any regulation. And, and then, you know, putting aside it's not a crime to call the entire country, and and of people who actually can see with their own eyes and understand what they're looking at, calling us all conspiracy theories and liars. That's not against the law, but to me, it would be, it'd be an enhancement on his sentencing.
Jim Lakely:So, yeah. So just just just on the base of perjury, Anthony Fauci should be in in big, big trouble. You know, maybe there and then, oh, yeah. That's right. He also used his personal email account, to evade the prying eyes of us, the public.
Jim Lakely:He is a public servant. He was, at the time, the highest paid federal government employee, of all, and, he works for us. See? And so we are supposed to hold our public officials accountable. If they're going to be in public service, they actually have to serve the public, not their own interests, not their own, narrow agendas, but to carry out, the the proper direction of the executive branch.
Jim Lakely:In this case, it would have been or in that case, back in the day, it would have been Donald Trump. So, this whole idea people here in the chat are wondering if, basically a preemptive pardon has any legal precedent and they and they pointing to, Gerald Ford, his pardon of, Richard Nixon to put the whole Watergate scandal behind us so that we you know, it's funny. Back in the 19 seventies, we didn't want to be seen. We thought it was important that the, that the American system not be seen as some sort of, Banana Republic, that we do things differently here. And while and he paid his political price, he, Donald, Richard Nixon pays the price in the eyes of history for what he had done or and didn't do in the, in the Watergate scandal, and that's gonna be it.
Jim Lakely:We're gonna move forward. We don't weaponize our, justice system against our political enemies in this country. That's the way we used to run things. And then, Donald Trump came down an escalator in 2015 and everything changed. Everything, so we had to stop this existential threat to our democracy and all of this other nonsense.
Jim Lakely:So, you know, the the idea now of, like see, this is this is why precedents like this are so bad. This the the unprecedented blanket pardon for 11 years of your own son, now has people openly like this political story that we brought up, people just openly just saying, well, okay. Well, if he's gonna do it for Hunter, for Fredo, why doesn't he do it for, Fauci? And why doesn't he do it for Adam Schiff? Adam Schiff is the biggest liar, and that takes him some doing.
Jim Lakely:He's the biggest liar in Washington and has been for the last decade. He would he would he abused his position as the ranking member of the senate of the House Intelligence Committee to come out day after day, night after night, week after week, and year after year lying about what the intelligence said about so called, Russian collusion between, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Lied openly, repeatedly. And so and and it was leaking information, false information to the press, maybe sprinkled with a little bit of truth. But all of that is also illegal.
Jim Lakely:So, Adam Schiff, this is this tells you how corrupt and stupid California is. He's now gonna be, the next, he's gonna be a senator for the state of California for the next 6 years. I guess, unless he gets impeached or, or charged with crimes and arrested and put in jail, wouldn't that be something? But, you know, this whole idea of this is so destructive, you know, from from the people that have spent the last several years wailing about threats to our democracy. I can't think of, of of anything more dangerous to our democracy in the United States than giving blanket pardons to a whole host of people who have, have evidence all around them of committing federal crimes.
Jim Lakely:That is how you destroy a democracy. That's how you destroy trust in the system. And it's just being floated like it's no big deal because Joe did it for his son. Why not?
Chris Talgo:Donnie, can I just chime in real quick?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sure.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, Jim brings up some very, very valid points, and I do understand that there's a temptation to want to prosecute Fauci and, Adam Adam Schiff and some others, because, you know, they lied through their teeth about, you know, the the Russia disinformation stuff and then COVID. And, you know, Fauci lied about masks and about the origin and, like, Jim was talking about the gain of function research. So I'm I'm divided on this. There's a part of me that that wants to see them actually, be prosecuted because that might be a deterrent effect to prevent this from happening in future administrations.
Chris Talgo:But then there's the other side of me that says, wait a second. When Donald Trump comes in office on January 20, 2025, he's gonna have a ton on his plate. And Kash Patel, who we're gonna talk about in a second, who's hopefully gonna be the FBI director, is also gonna have a ton on his plate. And there's only so much political capital that there is to go around. So if Donald Trump or I mean, technically, the FBI should not ask him, hey.
Chris Talgo:Do you want us to go prosecute this? But if Kash Patel did go and prosecute these people, I feel like that would, really, hinder the, Republican, you know, agenda, for the next couple of years. And, I mean, I am making sort of a utilitarian calculation here and just saying, hey. Maybe it's just better to let to let that rest and just, you know, turn the page and just, move forward. But I but I absolutely understand the argument against that to say no because these people, you know, people like him, with Lois Lerner being a prime example, have gotten away with this stuff for decade after decade after decade.
Chris Talgo:And the only way to stop it is to make an example of people who abuse their power, and doctor Fauci absolutely abuses power. So I I can under I can see it, but I just do think that you need to weigh the political, ramifications of doing that because they're gonna be, I think, immense.
Donald Kendal:Yep. It's, it's good points being made. Oh, look at that. Your number one fan just said interesting point, Chris. But, yep.
Donald Kendal:Let's let's move on, because this guy actually kind of ties into our next topic, which is a continuation of last episodes topic that we dedicated most of the show to, and that was Trump making his picks to fill out his cabinet. So, you know, we talked about in the previous, not last week, but the week prior to that that, you know, we covered a lot of ground on that. Some picks were better than others. Some picks were more controversial than others. You know, like I said, we we talked a lot about all the various picks.
Donald Kendal:And I think just prior to the episode going up, we had found out that Matt Gaetz was pulling his name out of consideration for attorney general. Then we found out shortly after the episode ended that Florida AG or former Florida AG, Pam Bondi, was nominated in, Gates' absence. We've also, in the past couple of weeks, seen doctor Oz was picked to head, Medicare and Medicaid. Scott Basant was nominated as treasury secretary, and Heartland friend, doctor Jay Bhattacharya, was named, NIH director. So like with the picks that we discussed in previous weeks, you know, some of these were met with various levels of outrage.
Donald Kendal:But the one that I think has drawn the most ire from the left was Trump's pick to lead the FBI, and that is Cash Patel. It's already been brought up a couple of times in this conversation already. But first, I mean, Jim, is that is that fair to say that, he's probably drawn the most controversy from the left as soon as his name was was, thrown out there for FBI director?
Jim Lakely:Well, him and, him and Pete, Hegseth for, for Department of Defense. Yeah. They're taking all the, taking all the fires. Actually, Donald Trump is actually pretty smart about this stuff, I think, because, you know, if if all the fire is gonna be at at Pete Hegseth and and Kash Patel, that means that, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK junior probably have a much easier time getting through. Not to mention the other uncontroversial picks, to get through.
Jim Lakely:So but, yeah. I mean, I think I said as I said earlier, you know, the the scuttle was that, Kash Patel, there was no way that the senate was going to, confirm him to be director of the FBI, but the last 48 hours or so, I see a lot of scuttle that, he is 100% going to get through, that this is the most important pick Trump is going to. He that's another thing is Trump hasn't even really started overtly leaning on any of these people, to make sure that he gets his desired picks for all of these key positions. And once he starts doing that, a lot of this is going to change. And, I just wanna say one more thing.
Jim Lakely:Trump isn't even president yet. He's already having his first 100 days. Look how much he's already doing, and he's not even president yet. There's still 40, what, 40 some days to go until he's inaugurated, and, look at all the stuff that's already happening. It's pretty amazing.
Chris Talgo:Small small small just real quick. Small detail here. I don't I'm almost positive the FBI director has done a cabinet level position, so just throwing that out there.
Jim Lakely:It's not cabinet level, but it is they have to get senate approval. Of course.
Chris Talgo:Of course. But but but why I bring that up is because the current director, Chris Wray, is in the midst of a 10 year term. So, I mean, I understand that Donald Trump is going to fire him.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Chris Talgo:But I've been watching, you know, some reports that says it's not as easy as that may be. That's why Donald Trump is hoping he'll resign because that would just make the entire, endeavor far easier to do. Donald Trump did fire James Comey, if you remember, very early on when he became president in 2017. So we could see a repeat of that, but just just wanted to throw that out there.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Well, I I also have to make clear that Jim's this was a metaphorical this. Okay? I was just gonna make that very clear. But, yeah, I don't know.
Donald Kendal:I just feel like I've seen more official statements condemning this particular pick. I've seen a couple notable strong and immediately, immediate rejections of cash. But one of those was from John Bolton, so I take that as a good sign.
Chris Talgo:But
Donald Kendal:Go ahead. Go ahead, Chris.
Chris Talgo:No. I was just gonna say, all that matters is the republican senators here.
Speaker 2:Keep
Chris Talgo:that in mind. And, you know, there's gonna be 53 Republican senators, come 2025, January 3, 2025. And, as as the reporting goes as of now, these Republican senators, all 53 of them are are okay with, Kash Patel. There is talk that maybe 6 to 10 of them are not okay with Pete Hegseth, but Pete Hegseth is on a he's on a mission to make sure that he can change their minds. And according to him and I watched a really good interview with him on Megyn Kelly a day or so ago where he said, this is all being so blown out of proportion.
Chris Talgo:This is just not true, and this is a classic case of just the media trying to, you know, slam him with as much innuendo and as many really lies as can be. So I don't think that that Kash Patel is gonna have any trouble. Obviously, the blowhards in the media like John Bolton, but John Bolton doesn't matter anymore. Are you kidding me? Who cares what he thinks?
Chris Talgo:Yeah. I mean, too seriously, it's a joke. Nobody cares what he thinks. No. I agree.
Chris Talgo:I also think it's interesting that the well, not the original person who has floated, but Mike Rogers, who was running for senate in Michigan, tried to almost nominate himself to be the FBI director. Andrew McCabe, who is a piece of garbage, you know, who was throwing out of the FBI for so many, you know, reasons, was on CNN and immediately said, Michael Rogers would be a really good guy. Guess what? Trump, I guess, apparently, saw that interview and said, okay. He's out and Kesha Patel's in.
Chris Talgo:And as soon as Kesha Patel's name was started to be floated, Andrew McCabe, because he is a frequent contributor on CNN. And, hey, you know, my job is to watch this this this stuff, you know, on a daily basis. He was he was apoplectic about about Kesha Patel. So that to me is such a good sign. When Andrew McCabe is scared out of his mind that Kesha Patel is gonna come in here and really make some changes that need to be banged at the FBI, that is a really good sign.
Chris Talgo:So I'm excited that Kash Patel looks like he's going to have no problem being confirmed as the next director of the FBI.
Donald Kendal:Jim, I feel like a little bit of a a putting the cart before the horse thing because I'm like, like, other than these contextual things that I'm kinda picking up in this conversation and, you know, articles like The Federalist one that I have in the show notes where it says media meltdown over Trump's FBI picks proves that, Kash Patel is the perfect man for the job. Like, that that's, like, basically my read on the guy. I really don't know the details or anything. So can you fill me in a little bit more on just, like, who he is and why he's, like, good for this position?
Speaker 2:Well, why don't why don't we play a clip that we grab for this podcast and let Kash Patel
Jim Lakely:make the case for himself why he is needed to be the head of the FBI?
Donald Kendal:Alright. Is that what's you got you got that one, Andy? Is that the go be cops 1, Jim?
Jim Lakely:Go be cops.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Go ahead. Footprint has gotten so freaking big, and the biggest problem the FBI has had has come out of its intel shops. I'd break that component out of it. I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day 1 and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state.
Speaker 2:And I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. Your cops. Go be cops. Go chase down murders and and drug dealers and violent offenders.
Speaker 2:What do you need 7,000 people there for? Same thing with DOJ. What are all these people doing here? Looking for the next government promotion, looking for their next fancy government title, looking for their parachute out of government. So while you're bringing in the right people, you also have to shrink government.
Jim Lakely:100% correct. And that's the thing that these and I and I think the American people are going to let these, incoming Republican senators and the incumbents who won know that this is a different time we're living in right now. We have had to endure, you know, we've had to suffer through some very, very deep corruption in the Department of Justice and in the FBI. It's been it's been weaponized and sicked and sicked upon innocent Americans, to ruin their lives. The abuse of power is almost, it's almost too much to even comprehend how bad it is.
Jim Lakely:These senators need to understand that it is vital to protect the liberty of every American to send Kash Patel to the FBI to clean it out. We cannot have, not just in that position, but in so many positions. This the the time of having somebody with experience, an old Washington hand who just has happens to have an r next to his name to take, the lead of these, these organizations, those times are over. The basically, the, the the deep state has declared war upon the American people, in in all but firearms. It has been weaponized to the point of, you know, like like I said, people's lives have been ruined.
Jim Lakely:And now we have a president who is who is thinking about blanket pardons with yet yet even more abuse of of the American people and the trust that we should have in our government. And there is no other way to restore the necessary trust that Americans should have in their institutions, especially those like the FBI, which is an extremely powerful organization, like the entire Department of Justice, which is an extremely powerful organization, like HHS, like the Department of Homeland Security. These agencies have enormous power over the American people, and the American people have no reason to trust that they are working for our interests and not their own or some other that we can't even comprehend. These these agencies need to be completely upended, and it's gonna be messy and there there will be mistakes, and everything is not gonna be perfect, but the status quo cannot continue anymore. And if that if Kash Patel can be, you know, basically at the vanguard of reforming the FBI, I'm sure it's he was only being, facetious when he says he's gonna turn the J.
Jim Lakely:Edgar Hoover building into a museum of the deep state on day 2. And on day 1, he's gonna tell all 7,000 people in the building to get the hell out of there and go chase cops, but it's that mentality. That's what the FBI supposed to do. They were the untouchables. You know, watch the untouchables movie.
Jim Lakely:You know, they're supposed to be out there protecting American people and the and American society by rooting out corruption and criminal activity, on a federal level. And instead, we have an FBI that is itself a, a corrupt organization. And so it takes somebody from the outside, and Kash Patel has a long history of working in the intelligence community to go into the FBI, reform it, clean it out. And, if that doesn't happen, then nothing is really going to change, and the American people voted very strongly for change.
Donald Kendal:Donnie? Go ahead, Chris. No. No. I wanna I wanna go to the next topic pretty quickly, so make it quick.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. I I I just wanna add in just one quick point here. I think most of the rank and file workers at the FBI are probably good people who want to go and do their job, but the leadership in recent years, Andrew McCabe being a great example or James Comey being a great example, have politicized the FBI and that we need to stop. We need to make the FBI back into what was supposed to be, which is supposed to be completely nonpartisan and supposed to actually go after, you know, you know, common criminals who are in here in the United States, you know, committing crimes that, you know, we need to make sure that this this ends. Having the FBI go after, you know, school board parents and stuff like that, this is just ridiculous.
Chris Talgo:I mean, come on. It really is.
Donald Kendal:I I got I got real real quick question before we go to the next topic, for you, Chris. It the the so, like, the senate confirmations of all of these different picks, that starts, like, after January 20th?
Chris Talgo:I'm not sure on that. Congress does congress does convene January 3rd, so there is a 2 week period. I'm not a 1000% sure, but they might, if if memory serves correct, they can start the process. This it takes, you know, days, if not weeks. Sure.
Chris Talgo:And, also, let's I mean, I know this is probably a topic for a whole different show, but recess appointments might happen. And Mark Levin Mark Levin has made a very, very good argument in favor of Donald Trump using the recess appointment clause, which is which has been used by presidents going all the way back to FDR.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Alright. Well, let's let's, I'm sure this is gonna be a topic that we're gonna continue on and all of that, especially as we get into the next year and all the cabinet positions and all that actually get confirmed and blah blah blah blah blah. But we got time, to move on to our next topic here. So let's talk about a new report, Socialism Watch 2024.
Donald Kendal:So Socialism Watch is a post election analysis that we started back in 2018, which seeks to show just how well socialist candidates have fared in each election cycle. So we've done this report now in 2018, 2020, 2022, and now we have our 2024 edition. What we do is look at all the candidates in federal, state, and even some local elections that have been explicitly endorsed by 1 of the, 1 or more of the 3 largest socialist organizations in the United States, the Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution, and the Progressive Democrats of America. So in this year's report, we found that there that, these 3 organizations only endorsed 51 candidates across 22 states and Washington DC. And of these 51 candidates, all but 3 won their respective races.
Donald Kendal:Among the candidates endorsed by these 3 socialist groups, 27 ran for the house of representatives, 2 ran for the US senate, 12 ran for state, statewide offices, and 10 ran for local offices. These races occurred in 22 states in the District of Columbia. California was leading state for socialist candidates in the 2024 election with 10 in total. The last thing I wanna mention before I turn the conversation over to Chris is that, the number of candidates endorsed by one of these 3 socialist outfits has declined significantly since 2020. So back in 2020, these organizations combined endorsed 266 candidates.
Donald Kendal:This dropped, substantially in in 2022 when they only endorsed a 132 candidates. And as I mentioned, only 51 were endorsed this year. We can speculate as to why soon, but, Chris, anything I missed in my introduction to this report and your initial thoughts on said report?
Chris Talgo:Yeah. Well, I mean, that was a great summary of the report, but I I I think that it needs a little bit of context here. So 2020, yes, was a high watermark, but first of all, that was a general election. 2022 was a midterm election, so you probably aren't gonna see as many candidates. But the biggest thing that, you know, I realized in when I was, you know, doing the research on this was the Democratic Socialists of America, who are by far the leading socialist organization in this country, decided this year for reasons that we can't speculate on.
Chris Talgo:And I've got my my guess is to not, endorse candidates at the national level. But they farmed it out to their statewide and their local chapters. Now I went to many of these websites. Some are statewide. Some are local.
Chris Talgo:Some are just like, you know, the democratic socialist of Chicago, some democratic socialist of Detroit, whatever. California, I think, had a had a a statewide website. They've made endorsements. But for us to keep this consistent because we've only done the big three that you said, our revolution, PDA, and DSA, the endorsements that they made at the national level. So for whatever reason, and once again, I've got some some, you know, guesses here, they decided not to shine a national bright spotlight on their endorsements for the 2024 election, but that does not mean that the total number of socialists running in the 2024 election was less than it was in years past.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. My my initial thought of it, because, you know, when you see the percentage, right, it's like, out of the 51 candidates, 48 made it through that that got elected. It's like
Speaker 2:a
Donald Kendal:94% success rate. Right? Yeah. And it's just like, wow. Like, socialist did great this year.
Donald Kendal:I thought there was a red wave. I thought this was like a, you know, like a massive Trump victory and all of that. And to see that they have, like, a 94% success rate almost seems like socialist had a great a great year this way. But when you put it into the context of these past election cycles, it it it kind of makes it seem like maybe maybe they didn't do as good as we thought. What what do you think?
Chris Talgo:I I I tend I I I disagree with that assessment because first of all, in 2024, and this has been happening for several election cycles, seats that are safe, you know, Democrat or safe Republican are are are are very, are are the vast majority of them, in one way of putting it. So the days of, you know, seats swinging back and forth in congress or even at the local or statewide level, whether it's a governor, whether it's a lieutenant governor, whatever, because we have all sorts of, positions that are elected offices here. The the the days of those just constantly swapping back and forth are long gone. So to me, it's, I think, a much better exercise to say, well, within those deep blues those deep blue, seats or whatever you wanna go political offices for lack of a better word, who's gaining ground? Are the establishment Democrats gaining ground, or are these socialist Democrats gaining ground?
Chris Talgo:And I think I can make a pretty good argument, a pretty compelling argument that the socialist wing of the Democrat party is, on the up and up, and the establishment is on the decline. And that's why I've written some articles about this. I think it's sort of akin to what happened in 2015 when Donald Trump entered the political arena and, really rattled the GOP. Because for decades, and I've been following politics for a very long time now, the GOP was seen they're the country club guys. They're the big, you know, big corporation guys.
Chris Talgo:Donald Trump flipped that on his head and said, no. Actually, we're for the working class. No. Actually, we're for the forgotten Americans who wanna have a job and wanna go to a factory and work and not be on the dull. The Democrats now have actually taken up the mantle that the GOP used to have, which is we're for the big corporations.
Chris Talgo:We don't really care about hardworking Americans. Yeah. We'll all always give, you know, free handouts to the, you know, to the poorest of, Americans who are gonna vote for us no matter what. But that that change, that political realignment, I think, is very striking, and I think that, it took 8 years. It took from 2016 to 2024 for the GOP to really finally embrace.
Chris Talgo:And, I mean, I'm sure that many GOP senators and congressmen are not full throated for this, you know, populist MAGA agenda, but they are on board finally. I think the Democrats now are gonna have to go through their own version of this, and we saw this with 2016. Bernie Bernie could have been the candidate. 2020 Bernie could have been the candidate, but the Democrat party used levers that they had at their disposal to prevent that from happening. And we see AOC being very popular.
Chris Talgo:We saw split tickets all across New York City in AOC's district where they said, yeah. We want Trump, and we want AOC. So I I think that the Democrat party is in the midst of what the GOP went through of you know, for 8 long years. And if we're up to you know, if you said, Chris, you gotta guess who's gonna, like, emerge as victorious in this, I think the socials are gonna emerge, victorious in this.
Donald Kendal:I know. Alright. Well, the this this this ties in well to kind of the last section that I wanna get into, which is this potential resurgence of democratic socialism. So, in in the office, you know, amongst ourselves, we have this conversation of just kind of speculating kind of where where the democrats are gonna go from here. And, there was a case that was made, I think, originally by Justin that, he thinks that we're going to be seeing a resurgence of so called democratic socialism.
Donald Kendal:So the argument goes and, Chris, if I'm missing misrepresenting Justin, feel free to feel free to chime in. But, it basically goes that they'll the left is going to have to make an appeal to the middle, to middle America. Trump and MAGA were able to tap into some core populace and anti establishment sentiments during this election in particular, but just generally speaking over the last, you know, 8, 12 years, whatever, 8 years, the Dems are going to need to tap into the same sort of rhetoric if they're gonna hope to regain any of the democratic, demographic advantages that they have recently lost. And the easiest way to do this, kick start the Bernie Sanders model, calling out the rich, promising more government, generally an anti establishment thing, promise more programs and and handouts, etcetera, etcetera. So, I think this is a personally, I think this is a perfectly logical response.
Donald Kendal:And, Chris, it seems based on your comments in the last section, you agree with this.
Chris Talgo:Oh, I absolutely agree with this. I think that the heart and soul of the, the American people is up for grabs. But see, I'm a little more optimistic than some of the people on the far left who think, well, if because I think it's so cynical to think, well, if we just offer them more free stuff, then they'll they'll keep voting for us. I think that most Americans are hardworking people with dignity who want to be able to provide for their family, and they wanna achieve the American dream. Socialism is not the means by which they can achieve the American dream.
Chris Talgo:We've we've seen socialism never works. It never has and never will. It's, it's immoral. It it it it it it's founded on, you know, immoral, grounds. And, the the the populist wave, this mega wave, I mean, it's I I I'm just, you know, in awe as to how, much it is resonating with different swaths of the American people, whether it's, you know, black people in Detroit or whether it's, you know, Hispanic people down near the border who say, wait a second.
Chris Talgo:That makes sense. It makes sense that we should have a small government that doesn't really do all these these things that it doesn't need to be doing. They should actually have a a a border. We shouldn't be starting new wars. We should probably limit our spending and make our government a little more efficient, and we should keep our taxes low.
Chris Talgo:I think that that is a profoundly powerful message that if if properly articulated and backed up backed up, this is key, backed up by by laws passed by the, you know, GOP and rules and regulations that are gotten rid of by, you know, Trump's, executive branch, that we could see a re a rejuvenation of America that's gonna make, you know, the 19 eighties look like nothing. I I I I strongly believe that. So I think that I was gonna say, I I think that it I think that the Democrats are in a very perilous position because if they stick with the status quo, they know that that's a losing proposition. They know that they that that, coalition that they cobbled together, you know, since FDR, it is they they they don't have that anymore. That is gone.
Chris Talgo:That is, you know, yesterday's news. So are they going to try to cobble together a new coalition based on well, if you vote for us, we'll give you more free stuff. I don't think that's gonna work, but I could be wrong.
Donald Kendal:So you think that they will pursue the strategy of kind of going the more Bernie Sanders
Chris Talgo:Oh, absolutely. Socialist reach,
Donald Kendal:but you don't think it'll be successful. Correct. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Jim Lakely:I I I agree with that actually a 100%. Because if
Donald Kendal:you look
Jim Lakely:at the if you look at you know, everybody knows that Kamala Harris was actually if she she wasn't on our our chart and on our thing, but she's a socialist. She's a hard leftist, but they tried to run a campaign in which they hid all that information, and tried to put her, you know, push her over as a as a centrist. They did the same thing with Joe Biden, actually, and then, you know, let the hard leftist all over the administration just implement all of this radical policy that ended up costing, you know, ultimately, Kamala Harris the presidential election. And so if you're a Democrat right now, you're thinking, well, we tried to fool the the country and and by that we're moderates, and that didn't work. And that's actually not even what we stand for.
Jim Lakely:So let's go out there and run as, as socialist. Let's all be Bernie Sanders now. It's really funny. After all these years, after all the ways the Democratic Party screwed Bernie Sanders over by rigging the primaries so that he couldn't win in 2016 and then doing it again, when he tried to get it in 2020. Now it's it's Bernie Sandy's, Bernie Sanders party now.
Donald Kendal:It's
Jim Lakely:just a matter of messaging at this point. See. So it's pretty funny.
Donald Kendal:You know, I I, I like I said, I get it. I think it's perfectly logical. In fact, I'm curious. Everyone listening in, type in a comment. Let me know if you think that the the the left is gonna swing more toward the populist route, or or if you think otherwise.
Donald Kendal:Because I think personally that it's makes total sense. I think that if it was just like logic that was that was, making the decisions, you know, at the top echelons of the Democratic party, then it's certainly what they would do, but I'm not convinced that they're gonna do what's smart. I think that their rejection of Bernie Sanders in 2 straight elections is proof of that. And I think, and I don't think I've mentioned this on camera before, but I know that I've mentioned it to some of you, off camera, but there was a, I make a habit out of watching every every election cycle, basically. The meltdown of the Young Turks in 2016 when Donald Trump won the presidency, and they started off so smug.
Donald Kendal:And then by the end of it, you know, the writing was on the wall. And the host of the show, Cenk Uygur or Uygur, whatever you wanna pronounce his name, he starts tearing into the Democratic party and basically saying that the reason why they rejected Bernie Sanders in the populism route is because they're just trying to, like, protect their little they're they're, like, all of their friends and in all their positions of power. And if it if the party did swing to the left, like, they would all be traded out for people that actually believe this sort of stuff. So he was basically saying that, like, the decision to prop up Hillary Clinton and and Joe Biden, if you wanna go 4 years later, wasn't because it was for the good of the party or for any reasons of better electability or anything like that. It was basically just to kind of keep those people in their current positions of power.
Donald Kendal:And I wonder if that's too hard of a hurdle to get across even if it's the right strategic approach. So that's where I'm coming at. Maybe we will see a a fight over the party, but I wonder, well, you know what, Chris?
Chris Talgo:Yeah.
Donald Kendal:Your response to my my thoughts on this. Yeah. I mean, I follow-up question after that.
Chris Talgo:So I think that the biggest reason that Bernie was prevent prevented from becoming the nominee in 2016 and 2020 was because the Democrats are totally in bed with, big banks and big corporations, and big banks and big corporations do not like the socialist agenda whatsoever. They love this this hybrid Democrat party that's, you know, that that that's all about granting favors and all these subsidies to the corporations. Bernie doesn't wanna do that. So, you know, that to them is, like, you know, just like anathema. They cannot let that happen.
Chris Talgo:So that that to me is one of the big things that are you know, what made Donald Trump so unique in in in many ways is that he didn't have to he didn't he didn't have any political favors or he didn't have to worry about donors or any any of that stuff. He was just like a political force in and of itself. So Yeah. I don't, you know, I I don't I don't know if the Democrat party because, I mean, look at look at what happened in the 2024 election. They were they raised 2,500,000,000 to Donald Trump's, like, 500,000,000.
Chris Talgo:So, I mean, you know, maybe maybe they're starting to realize that all that money and and all the, you know, the big banks and big corporations and these celebrity endorsements don't mean anything anymore. So, I mean, I don't know. It's like there's so many things happening in Donnie also, you know, not to go on a whole tangent here. But with the, new technology that's that that's that's coming on board, whether it's AI, quantum computing, and all this stuff, I mean, that's gonna have huge ripple effects in the US economy. So it could also be in 10, 20 years right now that we're gonna say, well, you know, the UBI that the, Democrat party is, you know, universal basic income is, you know, is is nirvana for the people because they don't even have jobs anymore.
Chris Talgo:So, I mean Sure. You know, I mean, like, that could happen. Like, I don't know. But Yeah. There's no doubt.
Chris Talgo:But I think right now Right. Of course. Yeah. So, you know, long term speculation's, you know, kind of pointless. But I think as of right now with, you know, what I've seen from the reaction from, you know, the political pundits and from ordinary Americans, they're not you know, they still want America to be the way it was, you know, and as it was intended to be.
Chris Talgo:And that's really, I think, you know, at the core of all this is what Donald Trump is trying to to do. He's trying to return us back to some of these norms. He's not a fascist. He's not a dictator. He's not trying to increase government.
Chris Talgo:He's trying to, decrease government. He's trying to give more individual liberty and freedom to people to make their own choices, which to me is, you know, what it's all about.
Donald Kendal:One one thing before Jim jumps in. Catherine Burke says, why is populism a dirty word? It is not a dirty word. We've done a podcast not that long ago that was centered around a debate about populism versus elitism, which I think for the most part, we defended the populism side. But it's also not necessarily a positive word.
Donald Kendal:It just depends on, you know, what person's in charge and what populist agenda points that they're that they're pursuing. But, Jim, let's say
Chris Talgo:I have a quick question for Katharine Burke. Why does she take such umbrage with my holding a pen and kinda using it sometimes? Stop it.
Donald Kendal:It's near and dear.
Chris Talgo:Excuse me. Yeah. Well
Donald Kendal:Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. So if the left does go like the populist Bernie Sanders route and the right stays kind of the MAGA, you know, hub or whatever, where all the establishment people go, Jim?
Donald Kendal:Where does Cheney go?
Jim Lakely:They go to the they go to the Republican party. We talked about this in the kitchen, at the office. I think it was Monday or Tuesday, Donnie. You, me, and Jack McFerran, who also was in our emerging issues center. And, you know, I'm 54 years old.
Jim Lakely:I'm old enough, to remember very well the 1992 election where, you know, a a little tiny little gnome sized Texan named Ross Perot, you know, out there talking about NAFTA and the deficit and all that stuff, you know. He he he caught fire, and his his he was he was a bit nutty and his poles went up and down, but there was this idea, you know, he started the reform party, and there was this idea, well, why don't we have a third party? How come a third party candidate, can, you know, how come a third party candidate can never get any, any traction in American, presidential elections? And I think you can I think you can make the argument that we've already had a successful third party candidate, and he's won election to the to the presidency twice, and that's Donald Trump? It's the MAGA party now.
Jim Lakely:So your Liz Cheney's, are going to go with, the democrats, the the establishment democrats. The democrat party is gonna be split, basically into the socialist, and then you're gonna have the, old neocon Republicans and some of those, you know, hangers on of the old way the Democratic party used to be. That's gonna be over there. And what used to be called the Republican party, well, I guess will still be called the Republican party, is actually now the MAGA party. Everything on the Republican Party's agenda is all MAGA.
Jim Lakely:It's all, and, basically, this is the ultimate of the ground up agenda. The MAGA agenda is endorsed by the American people. A lot of it came from the American people. Yes. Donald Trump was the vessel of that.
Jim Lakely:He takes credit for MAGA. He made terrific hats. He invented the phrase, but all of those policies are things that the American people have wanted across the political spectrum. People that were Democrats their whole life are now voting MAGA. They may have an r next to their name, or they may just be independents, but to them, it's the MAGA party.
Jim Lakely:And so that we we've had our 3rd party victory twice with Donald Trump. And, well, Donald Trump's party, but that's it. Yeah. 3 yeah. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. This this channel's already demonetized. What what the hell? Yeah. Three times.
Jim Lakely:So so yeah. And so I think it's I think it's wonderful because, you know, the it it has been a third party resurgence. The the Republican party, you know, if you don't wanna take that analogy, but the Republican Party itself and its agenda has been completely transformed. This is not Ronald Reagan's party anymore. It is not anywhere near George w Bush's party anymore.
Jim Lakely:It's Donald Trump's party. And, really, it's America's party, which I think, the majority of America's party, which I think is a good thing. And as you said, we're we wanna restore those norms. We wanna, you know, one of the slogans of of Kamala Harris was, we're not going back. Well, yes, we are.
Jim Lakely:And the American people wanna go back to normalcy, to economic growth, to not having, the, you know, agency of the government weaponized against innocent Americans, again against not being scolded and locked down and all the other stuff that we've had to endure for the last decade. We are going back to to when it was normal, and people were happy again.
Donald Kendal:I just wonder if there's gonna be, like, like, the line separating the 2 major parties, whatever you wanna label them, will just become establishment verse populism. And that's how we'll do. We won't have 2 parties that are trying to be more populous than the other. What if it was just like we've already seen, like, a weird coalition surrounding, you know, Trump and MAGA. Right?
Donald Kendal:You got RFK Junior, who, like, 10 years ago, wanted Jim in jail for saying stuff about climate change. Now he's gonna be, like, theoretically in charge of health and human services. You've got Tulsi Gabbard who ran as a democrat, like, what, 4 years ago, and she's gonna be in charge of something defense or something.
Jim Lakely:Homeland Security Homeland Security. And none of them are welcome in their party anymore. None of them would be would be welcomed by the Democrats today. Right. Actually probably forever.
Donald Kendal:Of course not. But then and then that Cenk Uyghur guy, who's, you know, the Young Turks, he's, like, the biggest, like, socialist guy out there. Like, even he has, like, been getting red pilled a little bit and being like, oh, like, Elon Musk responded to my tweets talking about potential cuts we can make to, like, the Pentagon and all of that. Like, I've never heard I've never had anyone of, you know, the Democratic party reach out to me for, like, my ideas or anything like that. They got the article right here, The Hill.
Donald Kendal:Cenk Chang, signals optimism after Trump win. MAGA is not my mortal enemy. And I just wonder if, like, there could be this massive coalition, where he is even on board. Maybe maybe he's haunting some wing of the department of government efficiency or something like that. And then maybe bring bring Bernie Sanders on and and let him kind of level some charges against some big establishment banks and try to, reignite some of that, occupy Wall Street momentum when it comes to all of that stuff.
Donald Kendal:Come on, people. We need peace on earth.
Chris Talgo:No. It's it's funny that you bring that up because Bernie has said that he's on board with Doge in terms of the depart defense department cuts. And there have been John Fetterman said that he's interested in joining the Doge caucus. And there are a couple other Democrats in the house who said that they they've already on board with the Doge caucus. So this this this, I think, crosses party lines.
Chris Talgo:Everyone knows that the federal government has grown way, way too big, bloated, and inefficient, you know, in the in the past century or so. Right. It's time to downsize it. It's time to add technology. It's time to make sure that the federal government is not, you know, wasting taxpayer dollars.
Chris Talgo:You know, this year, the federal government spent $7,000,000,000,000 and still has a deficit of nearly $2,000,000,000,000. Our national debt is $36,000,000,000,000, and we need to do something about this. So I think that this is, you know, this is just another thing that I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been told, whether it's Obama or George W Bush, whomever saying, we're gonna go in there. We're gonna cut waste, fraud, and abuse. It never happens.
Chris Talgo:I'm I'm very excited. I I think this is a this is different. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and I think that they're gonna make substantial cuts and really reorient, the direction of the federal government for, you know, our lifetime at least.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. You know, it's easy to be pessimistic. It's a little bit more difficult to be optimistic. I choose optimism. So I especially if, you know, holiday season approaching and all of that, I choose optimism, everybody.
Jim Lakely:And I'm the biggest I'm the biggest pessimist on this podcast, and even I am getting optimistic about this. And what is, I think, hilarious is that of all the people in the world who took Donald Trump
Donald Kendal:Right.
Chris Talgo:To to
Jim Lakely:put forth an agenda that has consensus and and actually establishes political peace that I didn't think we'd see for a long, long time when you got you got leftists and and people on the right coming together for a common sense, America first agenda, and they're all kind of getting behind it. I never would have thought that was possible. And for Donald Trump to be the the person who make puts it together is just almost mind blowing.
Donald Kendal:It's it's wonderful. It is wonderful. Alright. That's gonna do it for this episode. I wanna thank everyone for tuning in to this latest episode.
Donald Kendal:Join us every week for a new episode of the In the Tank podcast. If you like our show, please subscribe. Write a review for us. If you're listening to the audio only version of this, you're probably catching it a day later. Join us a day earlier, Thursdays at noon CST, where we are live streaming this on Facebook, YouTube, x Rumble.
Donald Kendal:Join in the conversation. Throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. Also, you could help out the show not by using super chats because YouTube has demonetized us, but you can go to heartland.org/ inthetank and donate directly to the show.
Donald Kendal:That way YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut. Also, you can follow us on Twitter at in the tank pod. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for the show, feel free to email us at in the tank podcast atgmail.com. Jim Lakeley, where can the find people find you?
Jim Lakely:At jlakeley on x@, heartlandinst on x, and always visit heartland.org.
Donald Kendal:Fantastic. Chris Telgo, what do you have to pitch today?
Chris Talgo:I have to pitch a Heartland Institute pen, excuse me, that I just love the feel of it. It is so great, and I just love just doing this. Because you know why? You know you know why I'd actually like doing this? Because when I was a kid, I played drums.
Chris Talgo:And I used to love having the drumstick and doing the twirling thing. Whether it's a golf club or a pen, I just like to do that.
Donald Kendal:So It's a small coincidence. Alright. Thank you all for tuning in to this episode, and we will talk to you next week.
Chris Talgo:He's a lying dog faced pony soldier.
Creators and Guests
