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Fauci Springs Surprise in Contentious Senate Hearing · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
0:04
Speaker 2: Greb a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
0:07
Speaker 2: and Jim Garritty of National Review.
0:10
Speaker 1: Free Martini's coming up.
0:13
Speaker 3: Hey, so glad you're with us for the Wednesday edition
0:15
Speaker 3: of The Three Martini Lunch, and Jim. For the past
0:17
Speaker 3: couple of days, we've expected a pretty significant clash up
0:20
Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill as Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci square
0:25
Speaker 3: off yet again Fauci subpoena by Senator Paul, who is
0:29
Speaker 3: the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
0:32
Speaker 3: But you know expected this intense back and forth all
0:35
Speaker 3: day long. That's not exactly what we're getting because in
0:38
Speaker 3: his opening statement, Anthony Fauci is basically saying, you know what,
0:42
Speaker 3: I'm pleading the fifth.
0:43
Speaker 4: Given Senator Pool's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution,
0:50
Speaker 4: his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly
0:57
Speaker 4: releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me,
1:07
Speaker 4: the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole
1:12
Speaker 4: reason he is calling me before this committee is to
1:16
Speaker 4: get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his
1:22
Speaker 4: repeated public pledges that I end up in his words
1:27
Speaker 4: quote behind bars unquote. Any reasonable person who has followed
1:35
Speaker 4: his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the
1:41
Speaker 4: same conclusion. Therefore, although it pains me to do so,
1:47
Speaker 4: because of the respect I have for the legislative branch
1:51
Speaker 4: of government and my decades long record of cooperating with Congress,
1:58
Speaker 4: under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my
2:02
Speaker 4: right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain
2:07
Speaker 4: from answering your questions.
2:09
Speaker 2: Thank you well.
2:10
Speaker 3: He does that constitutional right, Jim, But he does have
2:13
Speaker 3: to stay there and listen to things like this, as
2:16
Speaker 3: ran Paul laid out a pretty stinging indictment of him.
2:19
Speaker 2: But officials across the country invoked your authority to justify
2:22
Speaker 2: these decisions, and you presented your recommendations not as judgments
2:27
Speaker 2: open to debate, but as dictates of science itself. Your
2:31
Speaker 2: own words demonstrate that you understood the influence you exercised.
2:36
Speaker 2: On March fourteenth, twenty twenty, you wrote that the task
2:39
Speaker 2: force recommendations were driven by me, yourself, deb and CDC.
2:45
Speaker 2: The next day, you wrote that you had convinced Mayor
2:48
Speaker 2: Bill de Blasio to close the New York City schools.
2:51
Speaker 2: So you were involved. That same night, Governor Gavin Newsom's
2:55
Speaker 2: chief of staff told you that the governor had decided
2:58
Speaker 2: to close California schools, bar and restaurants after watching you
3:02
Speaker 2: on television. Presidents, governors, mayors, school boards, corporations, and congress
3:07
Speaker 2: all bear responsibility for the decisions they made. The COVID lockdown, however,
3:12
Speaker 2: could never have been inflicted without you aiding and abetting
3:15
Speaker 2: the crime. Children lost education, small businesses built over a
3:21
Speaker 2: lifetime disappeared. Patients delayed cancer screenings and other medical care.
3:27
Speaker 2: Families were separated from dying relatives. Workers were ordered to
3:31
Speaker 2: accept a medical procedure or lose their jobs. Worship, assembly, employment, education,
3:36
Speaker 2: and travel were restricted in the name of science. Well,
3:40
Speaker 2: you did not impose every restriction. You used your public
3:43
Speaker 2: authority to justify them.
3:45
Speaker 3: And then he goes into fauci, as we've already discussed
3:48
Speaker 3: this week, lying about the Lablik. So a couple of
3:50
Speaker 3: thanks here, Jim. First of all, it never looks great
3:52
Speaker 3: when you're invoking the fifth It is there for a
3:54
Speaker 3: reason in the Bill of Rights, but it never looks great.
3:56
Speaker 5: And then the fact that.
3:58
Speaker 3: Fautu, we got how dare you he used my writings
4:01
Speaker 3: in my diary to show that I was lying to
4:03
Speaker 3: you before.
4:04
Speaker 5: It's not the strongest case.
4:05
Speaker 1: First of all, I should point out I want I
4:07
Speaker 1: just checked. The Joe Biden pardon of Anthony Fauci covers
4:11
Speaker 1: anything he did in relation to his duties from January first,
4:14
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, through the date of the pardon, which was
4:17
Speaker 1: January nineteenth, twenty twenty five. So theoretically, if Fauci were
4:22
Speaker 1: to lie to Congress or were to be in contempt
4:25
Speaker 1: of Congress or something like that, the pardon would not
4:28
Speaker 1: actually cover that. So he does have a certain amount
4:31
Speaker 1: of legal risk by testifying if he were to lie
4:33
Speaker 1: or something like that. I think this is undoubtedly frustrating
4:37
Speaker 1: for a lot of Fauci critics, but I think ultimately
4:39
Speaker 1: this is going to be seen as a useful day
4:43
Speaker 1: for the Fauci critics, and it's because you are Let's say,
4:48
Speaker 1: the diary ex strips came out over the weekend and
4:50
Speaker 1: really got digested on Monday, and if you're a Fauci fan,
4:55
Speaker 1: for the last couple of days, you've been probably been thinking, well,
4:58
Speaker 1: there's got to be some perfectly log reasonable reason that
5:02
Speaker 1: what Fauci said in his diary and personal writings and
5:05
Speaker 1: what he was telling the public were different. I can't
5:07
Speaker 1: wait to hear from him, to hear what that explanation is.
5:10
Speaker 1: And now you're not going to because I suspect there
5:12
Speaker 1: is no logical reasonable explanation for this. I think, you know,
5:16
Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci had some thoughts that he really conclusions he
5:19
Speaker 1: had come to, I e. This was not a virus
5:22
Speaker 1: that emerged from a wet market, and you know, but
5:25
Speaker 1: he went out and said, there's no evidence for the
5:27
Speaker 1: lab league, that's a crazy conspiracy theory, et cetera, et cetera.
5:30
Speaker 1: I think it is very It just became extremely hard
5:34
Speaker 1: to be the full throated Fauci fan that most of
5:38
Speaker 1: the media was during the pandemic. And I think the
5:40
Speaker 1: example exhibit A I'm going to point to is The Atlantic,
5:44
Speaker 1: which by the way, was like COVID panic central and
5:47
Speaker 1: Fauci cheerleading throughout the pandemic. The Atlantic magazine's Catherine mu
5:51
Speaker 1: article call titled the on Making of Anthony Fauci.
5:54
Speaker 5: This is a.
5:55
Speaker 1: Largely sympathetic portrait of Fauci that apparently he did not
5:59
Speaker 1: sit down for an interview you with But there are
6:02
Speaker 1: certain sections where you could almost see the gears turning.
6:05
Speaker 1: We're going to plead guilty to him being an egomaniac
6:08
Speaker 1: who loved reading his own press clippings. We're gonna plead
6:11
Speaker 1: guilty to him being a difficult boss and ruffling feathers
6:17
Speaker 1: and things like that. We're gonna plead guilty to that stuff.
6:20
Speaker 1: And we're going to hope to beat the rap on
6:22
Speaker 1: misleading the public on key points about this. There's another
6:25
Speaker 1: argument where they repeat this sense of like, look, at
6:27
Speaker 1: no point did Fauci order any schools to be closed. Now,
6:31
Speaker 1: as you just saw on the clip from Rand Paul.
6:33
Speaker 1: If you are the mayor of New York City or somebody,
6:35
Speaker 1: and you go out and you talk to Fauci and
6:37
Speaker 1: Fauci says, yeah, I'm really worried about the spread in schools,
6:40
Speaker 1: and then they announced that they are closing down the schools.
6:43
Speaker 1: That you can't say, oh, I left no fingerprints. I
6:46
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with this. This clearly was influenced
6:49
Speaker 1: by Fauci's decisions. And if Fauci ever thought closing the
6:52
Speaker 1: schools was a mistake, he'd never said so. Like the
6:56
Speaker 1: entire country was treating him as the Oracle of Delphi
6:59
Speaker 1: and that he had everything he said was going to be.
7:00
Speaker 1: You know, basically his word was good. I know, by
7:03
Speaker 1: the way, he never actually said I am the science,
7:05
Speaker 1: but he did say I am science, right, which is not. Yeah,
7:09
Speaker 1: but it's one of those things where like there was
7:11
Speaker 1: this enormous public trust in him, and if he thought
7:13
Speaker 1: these moves were a mistake, he didn't say so. Although
7:16
Speaker 1: I guess we can now say, now that we know
7:18
Speaker 1: the diary entries, we know that he actually was not
7:20
Speaker 1: in the business of telling the public what he actually
7:22
Speaker 1: thought exactly.
7:23
Speaker 3: Because while he may not have made the official decision,
7:26
Speaker 3: because that's the job of the governor, the mayor or whoever,
7:29
Speaker 3: he was lobbying him pretty hard to shut it down.
7:32
Speaker 3: But since he didn't actually make the decision, he could
7:34
Speaker 3: go on later and go I never told him what
7:36
Speaker 3: to do, but he was obviously pushing pretty hard.
7:41
Speaker 5: Hat tip Graby in here.
7:42
Speaker 3: From July twenty fifth through July twenty eighth, here's how
7:46
Speaker 3: the media has handled this. No surprise, Fox News Channel
7:49
Speaker 3: has spent an hour and thirty nine minutes and twelve
7:51
Speaker 3: seconds on the Fauci Diaries CNN one minute and fifty
7:55
Speaker 3: one seconds, CBS News.
7:58
Speaker 1: Nothing from Tapper.
7:59
Speaker 3: Huh honey, it's CBS News thirty three seconds, ABC News,
8:05
Speaker 3: NBC News.
8:06
Speaker 1: Zip So astounding. How could you said? That's just nothing
8:10
Speaker 1: newsworthy in Ohio pages of Fauci's personal writings that contradict
8:17
Speaker 1: his public statements.
8:18
Speaker 3: Well, if you've still got sore muscles from carrying all
8:20
Speaker 3: the water for the for the Fauci narrative, it could
8:24
Speaker 3: get a little awkward, could get a little awkward. Anyway,
8:27
Speaker 3: We'll see what happens here. But I'm guessing this hearing's
8:30
Speaker 3: gonna be a little bit shorter than we expected. But again,
8:33
Speaker 3: he still does have to sit there and listen to
8:36
Speaker 3: everybody either rail against him or the Democrats still try
8:39
Speaker 3: to defend him in some way. But we'll find out
8:41
Speaker 3: how that goes. All right, Well, it's he's not getting
8:44
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8:47
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9:19
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Speaker 3: tell them that we sent you. All Right, Jim, it's
10:04
Speaker 3: been a few days since we've talked about Zooron Mamdani,
10:06
Speaker 3: and thankfully I've been pretty thankful for the break. But
10:09
Speaker 3: he's at it again here. Of course, he still wants
10:12
Speaker 3: to soak the rich, and right now he's touting his
10:14
Speaker 3: Peeda tare tax. Sounds very formal, but basically, if you
10:19
Speaker 3: own two residences in New York City, you're going to
10:21
Speaker 3: get nailed on the second one. Here, but here's the
10:23
Speaker 3: New York Post story. Mayor Zooron Mumdani's administration has published
10:27
Speaker 3: a searchable database of big apple properties that could fall
10:30
Speaker 3: under the state's new Peda taar tax, effectively dosing thousands
10:34
Speaker 3: of wealthy New Yorkers. The city's Department of Finance uploaded
10:38
Speaker 3: the comprehensive list, which purports to cover all unoccupied non
10:41
Speaker 3: primary residences in the five boroughs worth north of one
10:44
Speaker 3: million dollars, including the full names and addresses of every
10:48
Speaker 3: property owner. Council Minority Leader David Carr from Staten Island
10:53
Speaker 3: says it is a reckless and foolish move, especially considering
10:56
Speaker 3: there are potentially thousands of properties on this list that
10:58
Speaker 3: do not qualify a second home or whose owners will
11:01
Speaker 3: successfully dispute their inclusion.
11:04
Speaker 1: So Jim.
11:05
Speaker 3: Some might argue that this is just a public records Hey,
11:08
Speaker 3: check out to see if this is going to affect you.
11:10
Speaker 3: Others are saying, no, this is putting a bull's eye
11:12
Speaker 3: on the rich.
11:13
Speaker 5: How do you see it?
11:14
Speaker 1: So, first of all, pete is actually a good way
11:17
Speaker 1: to describe a lot of New Yorker's reaction to this.
11:21
Speaker 1: Anytime your tax comes with a French, fancy French name
11:24
Speaker 1: that sounds like an order, you know, excuse me, so
11:27
Speaker 1: would you like a pe to tear? Then, then it's
11:30
Speaker 1: probably a bad sign. They said, Oh, this is gonna
11:33
Speaker 1: be on house's worth, your home's worth five million that
11:36
Speaker 1: are unoccupied the trito. This is actually a variation of
11:39
Speaker 1: kind of what Florida does. If you have a vacation
11:41
Speaker 1: home down there and you spend less than half the year,
11:43
Speaker 1: they you know, property taxes go through the zoo because hey,
11:45
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do vote against them? You don't
11:48
Speaker 1: live here, you know. So on the one hand, you
11:49
Speaker 1: could say this is a fairly standard move. On the
11:51
Speaker 1: other hand, this was going to be on Holme's worth
11:54
Speaker 1: at least five million, unless it's a condo or a
11:58
Speaker 1: or a co op. And then if it's worth one million,
12:00
Speaker 1: now you might be saying, oh, okay, it's a million dollars. Look,
12:03
Speaker 1: a million dollars goes less far in New York City
12:06
Speaker 1: than just about anywhere else in the country and arguably
12:08
Speaker 1: on Earth. A whole bunch of people who don't think
12:11
Speaker 1: of themselves as being super rich, who just happen to
12:14
Speaker 1: have owned, purchased a a condo or an apartment or
12:16
Speaker 1: a co op. Co op is when like you own
12:19
Speaker 1: a share of the building and usually at your share
12:22
Speaker 1: aligns with the amount of space that your apartment takes
12:25
Speaker 1: in the building. It's one more complicated, but you get
12:27
Speaker 1: the idea short versus a whole bunch of people who
12:30
Speaker 1: don't think of themselves as being rich. Now they're rich
12:32
Speaker 1: by national standards, but they're not rich by New York
12:34
Speaker 1: City standards. Or look at this and saying, wait, why
12:36
Speaker 1: the heck? Why am I getting targeted? I thought you're
12:37
Speaker 1: gonna tag the rich. Those billionaires are over there. Why
12:40
Speaker 1: are you hitting me? The second thing that's kind of
12:42
Speaker 1: interesting about this is that again, this need to put
12:44
Speaker 1: this information all out in public. A lot of people
12:47
Speaker 1: feel like this is, you know, vaguely bane in Gotham
12:50
Speaker 1: City in the dark Knight rises this sense of like,
12:52
Speaker 1: here are the rich people who you know and hoping
12:55
Speaker 1: to get this, you know, this resentment. We already saw
12:58
Speaker 1: Mom speaking of Gotham City, Mom Donnie with that weird
13:01
Speaker 1: you know, knocking the screen people of some people have
13:04
Speaker 1: got them joker video, you know, taped directly in front
13:07
Speaker 1: of Ken Griffin's very expensive condo in downtown Manhattan. Look
13:12
Speaker 1: you look at this, and this is you know, this
13:14
Speaker 1: is you know, more class warfare, more resentment of the rich.
13:18
Speaker 1: Resident's already pay an enormous amount of New York City
13:21
Speaker 1: taxes and stuff like that. I on the one hand,
13:24
Speaker 1: we're caught in this tension here because there's an unprecedented
13:29
Speaker 1: concern about doxing, right, you know. On the one hand,
13:32
Speaker 1: you know, when people have their home addresses. We've talked
13:34
Speaker 1: about the protesters outside the homes of Supreme Court justices.
13:37
Speaker 1: Lots of people have had swatting type incidents. So now
13:40
Speaker 1: you have this thing like I strugg I'm pretty darn
13:43
Speaker 1: sure that if you look hard enough on my name,
13:45
Speaker 1: you can find where I live. It's not super duper
13:48
Speaker 1: terrific because you know, property tax records are public are
13:51
Speaker 1: public records. On the other hand, I don't want everyone
13:54
Speaker 1: knowing where I live. That's why I refer to as
13:55
Speaker 1: authenticity woods. And it's one of those things where if
13:58
Speaker 1: you keep putting this in f like, we're going to
14:00
Speaker 1: have to have a reckoning on whether property tax records
14:03
Speaker 1: and property records should be public records, or whether the
14:07
Speaker 1: idea of knowing where someone lives has just inherently becomes
14:10
Speaker 1: something dangerous that the general public cannot be trusted with
14:14
Speaker 1: because there's so many nut jobs out there who believe that, ah,
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, if I go out and kill somebody, I'll
14:18
Speaker 1: make the world a better place. I'll kill that healthcare
14:21
Speaker 1: health insurance company ceo, the Luigiism movement and all that
14:25
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. This, you know, Mom Dami is a
14:28
Speaker 1: rhetorical arsonist. He pours gasoline on the fire. And this
14:31
Speaker 1: clearly was meant to say to all of these people,
14:33
Speaker 1: you are on the list, you are targeted. You could
14:35
Speaker 1: think there's absolutely no reason for the city to put
14:38
Speaker 1: this out unless they're trying to stir up public sentiment
14:41
Speaker 1: and intimidate these people.
14:42
Speaker 3: It's just absolutely ridiculous. But that's what the left does, right.
14:45
Speaker 3: They divide, They divide, They divide, They divide over gender,
14:48
Speaker 3: they divide over race, they divide over class, they divide
14:51
Speaker 3: over income, they divide, you know, gay versus straight. Everything,
14:55
Speaker 3: everything is a is a culture war with them, and divide, divide,
14:58
Speaker 3: divide is their strategy. And that's exactly what you're seeing
15:01
Speaker 3: from Zo run Mamdani. So I don't know what kind
15:04
Speaker 3: of reaction you're going to get. I mean, I guess
15:06
Speaker 3: the majority of people in the city don't own property
15:10
Speaker 3: of that much, certainly not second residence. So I don't
15:13
Speaker 3: know how much of a backlash there will be politically
15:15
Speaker 3: for this. But if one of these people actually ends
15:17
Speaker 3: up getting hurt, then you will see a massive backlash
15:20
Speaker 3: I think against Mum Donnie, and certainly it'll be deserved,
15:22
Speaker 3: but it's even deserved if there's not.
15:24
Speaker 5: A back We need to wait for that.
15:26
Speaker 1: Greg. Can we just jump ahead to that part to
15:29
Speaker 1: the backlash? You know? Yes, how about some preventive backlashes?
15:32
Speaker 1: How does that sound?
15:33
Speaker 5: So that sounds great? That sounds great.
15:35
Speaker 3: Well, the more he does, the less I'm sure you
15:38
Speaker 3: want to live in New York City, and if you
15:39
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16:51
Speaker 3: And this one's not getting a lot of network news
16:53
Speaker 3: coverage either since it's a Democrat. But the Lieutenant governor
16:56
Speaker 3: of Hawaii has been indicted.
16:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:59
Speaker 3: Her name is Sylvia Luke, and she was indicted Friday
17:02
Speaker 3: and bribery charges by the state's attorney general, who's also
17:06
Speaker 3: a Democrat. By the way, a grand jury on Friday
17:08
Speaker 3: returned to twelve count indictment, charging Luke with criminal conspiracy
17:12
Speaker 3: to commit bribery, bribery, and falsifying campaign committee reports. The
17:17
Speaker 3: charges stem from a month's long investigation by the Hawaii
17:20
Speaker 3: Attorney General's office into allegations the lieutenant governor accepted campaign
17:24
Speaker 3: contributions from business person and lobbyist Toby Solidom in exchange
17:29
Speaker 3: for helping advance a COVID nineteen testing contract while she
17:32
Speaker 3: served as chair of the state House Finance Committee in
17:35
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two. The Daily Caller reports that she accepted
17:38
Speaker 3: at least thirty five thousand dollars in campaign contributions in
17:41
Speaker 3: exchange for helping to advance funding for those testing contracts.
17:45
Speaker 3: So the Democratic governor, Josh Green is already asking her
17:49
Speaker 3: to resign. Don't know if that's going to happen yet,
17:51
Speaker 3: But once again, Jim, I guess we shouldn't be that
17:55
Speaker 3: shocked when there was so much money to be made
17:57
Speaker 3: during the pandemic. But I guess good on the attorney
18:01
Speaker 3: general for a sticking on this despite the party ties here.
18:03
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, you know, for those
18:05
Speaker 1: who think we are relentlessly negative about Democrats, good job,
18:08
Speaker 1: Hawaii Attorney General. Good job for following the evidence where
18:11
Speaker 1: it leads. Everyone deserves the day in court. But this
18:14
Speaker 1: certainly the idea that coincidentally the state awarded these contracts
18:18
Speaker 1: and the campaign to notions had nothing to do with
18:20
Speaker 1: it is kind of tough to believe. So I was
18:23
Speaker 1: thinking way back when, you know, you and I have
18:25
Speaker 1: been around for a long time the Clinton administration, really
18:29
Speaker 1: in the first term when Whitewater was a big deal,
18:31
Speaker 1: and occasionally you'd hear people trying to dismiss it, saying, ah,
18:34
Speaker 1: you know, it's this obscure Arkansas land deal involving who
18:38
Speaker 1: got per You know, here's the thing, like obscure. Land
18:42
Speaker 1: deals are like a big part of what state local
18:43
Speaker 1: government do zoning laws, what gets zoned to do this,
18:47
Speaker 1: who gets access to what eminent domain where road like
18:51
Speaker 1: These are really big important decisions. This is where I'm
18:53
Speaker 1: gonna say fortunes could be made, like not vast fortunes,
18:56
Speaker 1: but significant amounts of money can get made and can
18:58
Speaker 1: get lost depending on these and local decisions. So anytime
19:02
Speaker 1: somebody says that wrongdoing is obscure, your spidey sense should
19:06
Speaker 1: start tingling, right, you know, somebody, there's a reason that
19:09
Speaker 1: this state contractor really wanted to get this contract with
19:11
Speaker 1: the state because they're gonna make a lot of money
19:12
Speaker 1: on it, and it was worth it to them. Presumably
19:16
Speaker 1: you know, gets to day in court, but presumably it's
19:18
Speaker 1: worth it to make sure, oh I will bake these
19:20
Speaker 1: donations in order to make sure the lieutenant governor steers
19:22
Speaker 1: these contracts in my direction. The second thing going to
19:24
Speaker 1: note is that you and I try to periodically pay
19:27
Speaker 1: attention to governors what's going on in state legislatures. Obviously,
19:30
Speaker 1: big scandals like the ones up in Minnesota or even
19:32
Speaker 1: in Ohio, do you know call you know, get our
19:35
Speaker 1: attention to this. The number of journalists who cover state
19:38
Speaker 1: government has been dropping like a stone really for twenty
19:41
Speaker 1: to thirty years, and it's deeply frustrating in part because
19:44
Speaker 1: like a lot of money gets spent there, a lot
19:46
Speaker 1: of decisions get made there, you know. You know, Spanberger's
19:49
Speaker 1: gotten a decent amount of attention here and Richmond. A
19:52
Speaker 1: lot of it was focused on the redistricting referendum and
19:54
Speaker 1: things like that. A lot gets done. It's state government
19:57
Speaker 1: and it's not dramatic, it's not sexy, doesn't involve presidential politics.
20:01
Speaker 1: It doesn't, you know, it rarely involves a larger than
20:04
Speaker 1: life personality like Trump or AOC or something like that.
20:08
Speaker 1: But what it does matter, So good for the people
20:10
Speaker 1: who are reported on this, Good for the investigation of this,
20:12
Speaker 1: and hopefully the people of Hawaii will not get fleased again.
20:15
Speaker 1: There's fraud everywhere.
20:16
Speaker 3: I think that's what we've learned from Minnesota, California with
20:20
Speaker 3: the hospice fraud, Ohio.
20:21
Speaker 5: Same thing.
20:23
Speaker 3: You know, if you start scratching, you're gonna find something.
20:25
Speaker 3: It's just a matter of people willing to do that.
20:28
Speaker 3: So good on the people who have investigated this, and
20:30
Speaker 3: we'll see where the cases go from here. All right, Well,
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Speaker 3: void in Florida. All right, Jim, there's some dispute on
21:52
Speaker 3: this story, but it is being alleged not only by
21:56
Speaker 3: a Minnesota state politician but also his wife, that Congressman
22:01
Speaker 3: Angie Craig, who is now running for the Democratic nomination
22:03
Speaker 3: for Senate, did not wait long after Minnesota State Senator
22:07
Speaker 3: John Hoffin was shot and recouperating the hospital to ask
22:11
Speaker 3: for his endorsement in the primary. CBS News with the
22:14
Speaker 3: story here. Minnesota Senator John Hoffman says Representative Angie Craig
22:18
Speaker 3: approached him for an endorsement for the US Senate while
22:20
Speaker 3: he was in the ICU after a political assassin shot
22:24
Speaker 3: him and his wife. It's different from her opponent, Senator
22:27
Speaker 3: Hoffman said, while at a rally for Craig's Democratic rival,
22:31
Speaker 3: Peggy Flanagan.
22:32
Speaker 5: So take that with a great assault.
22:34
Speaker 3: When her opponent would check in on our family, she
22:36
Speaker 3: asked for my she asked that I endorse her campaign.
22:39
Speaker 3: She sent a dear friend out twice, once when I
22:42
Speaker 3: was in the ICU and once at our home. CBS
22:45
Speaker 3: says Craig disputed Hoffman's claim, as her campaign released a
22:48
Speaker 3: screenshot of a text conversation between her and Hoffin from June,
22:52
Speaker 3: saying that she was praying for the Hoffman family. Quote,
22:55
Speaker 3: we cannot imagine the pain and trauma that the entire
22:59
Speaker 3: Hoffman fan has and continue to experience, but the claim
23:02
Speaker 3: is categorically false. As a spokesman for Craig's campaign, Jim,
23:07
Speaker 3: this wouldn't shock me. Politics is pretty bare knuckles. And
23:10
Speaker 3: even in the text exchange that the Craig campaign shared,
23:13
Speaker 3: the first message that we're praying for you is on
23:15
Speaker 3: June fourteenth, then on August.
23:18
Speaker 5: Fifth, Hey, grateful for your progress.
23:21
Speaker 3: I do want to talk to you about the open
23:22
Speaker 3: Senate seat, though, so I don't know if that's exculpatory,
23:26
Speaker 3: think might not beef.
23:28
Speaker 5: But what do you think?
23:29
Speaker 1: You know? First of all, everyone kind of says, you know,
23:32
Speaker 1: what's what's the television show that really tells you what
23:35
Speaker 1: Washington is like. Sadly, counter terrorism is nowhere near as
23:38
Speaker 1: cool as twenty four. You know, a lot of idealistic
23:41
Speaker 1: progressives and liberals wish that it was like the West Wing,
23:44
Speaker 1: and it very rarely works out that way. I do
23:47
Speaker 1: think that VEEP was unnervingly accurate in the the ham
23:50
Speaker 1: handed clumsiness, self absorption, and doultishness of a lot of people.
23:56
Speaker 1: And this one I just wanted, how did that conversation
23:59
Speaker 1: go on? You're looking great. I've got the endorsement sheet
24:02
Speaker 1: right here, and I know your body's in traction. But
24:05
Speaker 1: if you could, if I could just stick my the
24:07
Speaker 1: pen in the in your cast, I'll just move the
24:11
Speaker 1: paper to make you have a sign or with these
24:14
Speaker 1: text messages, John, we're praying for you to endorse us.
24:18
Speaker 1: You know that kind of like how I like, like
24:22
Speaker 1: it's hilarious. It's also tasteless, and it's also you know,
24:26
Speaker 1: like ludicrously darcissistic and bad taste and all that kind
24:30
Speaker 1: of stuff, But it's kind of funny and this idea
24:33
Speaker 1: like oh and it's not like a minimum bring flowers
24:37
Speaker 1: when you bring the endorsement document, you know, just be
24:39
Speaker 1: a little you know, and like wait five minutes before
24:42
Speaker 1: bringing that up. Take your time. How you're feeling. You're
24:45
Speaker 1: looking good, You're looking endorsing good. That's how good you're looking.
24:48
Speaker 5: You're like, oh, you know.
24:51
Speaker 3: And the worst part is she didn't get it. I
24:53
Speaker 3: was out there, opponent now, So got to pace yourself
24:57
Speaker 3: on these things, you know. Oh man, fun times in Minnesota.
25:01
Speaker 3: Well at Primer is coming up on August eleventh. We'll
25:03
Speaker 3: find out soon who the nominee is there, anyway, Jim
25:06
Speaker 3: Happy Wednesday, See tomorrow, See tomorrow, Greg, Jim Garretty National Review.
25:10
Speaker 3: I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so much for
25:12
Speaker 3: being with us today. Please be sure to subscribe to
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