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REVEALED: How the Government Ghosts Its Own Records (Ep.220) · V

0:14
Speaker 1: To win with russian interference though that's what i'm scared
0:16
Speaker 1: about in 2020 but rightly.
0:18
Speaker 2: Because i think he's an illegitimate president that didn't really
0:20
Speaker 2: win so how do you you know fight against.
0:22
Speaker 1: That in 2020 you are absolutely right he is an
0:25
Speaker 1: illegitimate president in my mind would you be my vice president.
0:30
Speaker 2: Folks look i absolutely agree trump didn't actually win the
0:33
Speaker 2: election in 2016 he lost the election.
0:36
Speaker 3: And he was put in the office because of the
0:38
Speaker 3: Russians' interference.
0:39
Speaker 2: Trump knows he's an illegitimate president. The president-elect, although legally elected,
0:44
Speaker 2: is not legitimate.
0:44
Speaker 1: I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president.
0:49
Speaker 4: You said you believe that Russia's interference altered the outcome
0:53
Speaker 4: of the election.
0:54
Speaker 2: I do.
0:55
Speaker 4: We have a president who, if in fact it is proven,
0:58
Speaker 4: has been assisted by the Russians and may in fact
1:01
Speaker 4: not be a legitimate president.
1:02
Speaker 1: The one thing that Trump doesn't is fearful of when
1:06
Speaker 1: it comes to his being president is that finally we
1:09
Speaker 1: will see how illegitimate his victory actually was.
1:13
Speaker 2: In 2016, America was grappling with some shocking allegations. We
1:17
Speaker 2: were told that our election had been stolen. It was
1:19
Speaker 2: hijacked by the Russians, that the duly elected president of
1:23
Speaker 2: the United States, Donald J. Trump, had colluded with a
1:27
Speaker 2: foreign adversary to subvert democracy itself. It wasn't just political intrigue.
1:32
Speaker 2: It was framed as treason, the gravest of offenses, the
1:36
Speaker 2: unraveling of everything that we hold sacred, our vote, our sovereignty,
1:40
Speaker 2: our republic. And for months, the headlines screamed Trump-Russia collusion.
1:44
Speaker 2: Night after night, pundits assured us that the walls were
1:48
Speaker 2: closing in. There were secret meetings, dark dossiers, hidden tapes.
1:52
Speaker 2: The media spoke not of allegations but of inevitabilities. An
1:56
Speaker 2: illegitimate presidency bought and paid for by Vladimir Putin. And
2:02
Speaker 2: so we were waiting for the reckoning. But what came
2:04
Speaker 2: instead was silence, then confusion, and then real revelation. The
2:10
Speaker 2: Mueller report arrived and delivered what May didn't want to hear.
2:14
Speaker 2: No charges for conspiracy, no smoking gun, no collusion. Then
2:17
Speaker 2: came the Durham report. It told a darker tale, not
2:21
Speaker 2: about Trump, but about the investigators, that the FBI had
2:24
Speaker 2: launched a full investigation on thin, unverified intelligence, that the
2:29
Speaker 2: Steele dossier was the linchpin was funded by political opponents,
2:33
Speaker 2: that facts were bent to fit a narrative, that America
2:37
Speaker 2: had been caught in a hall of mirrors built not
2:39
Speaker 2: by Russia, but by our own institutions. And just like that,
2:43
Speaker 2: what started out as a scandal about Trump in Russia
2:46
Speaker 2: began to look like a scandal about the FBI, the
2:49
Speaker 2: intelligence community, and a weaponized political machine. Sound familiar? In
2:55
Speaker 2: the shadow of Watergate, Nixon fell not only to his
2:58
Speaker 2: own paranoia, but I guess to the creeping power of
3:01
Speaker 2: the bureaucracy that he thought he could control, but obviously
3:05
Speaker 2: could not. JFK decades earlier warned of the very monolithic
3:09
Speaker 2: and ruthless conspiracy that could emerge when secrecy trumps the
3:13
Speaker 2: will of the people. It's a pattern. The deep state
3:17
Speaker 2: always flexes when it fears losing control. And what does
3:21
Speaker 2: it say about America today? The truth is not sacred.
3:25
Speaker 2: that power continues to protect itself, that those who cry
3:28
Speaker 2: loudest about democracy's fragility may be the very ones cracking
3:33
Speaker 2: its foundation. Russia collusion was never really about Trump. It
3:37
Speaker 2: was never about Russia. It was about whether we as
3:41
Speaker 2: a people still care about facts, about process, about liberty
3:45
Speaker 2: over narrative. It solidified what many of us had suspected
3:50
Speaker 2: for years, that any American, irrespective of political affiliation, can
3:55
Speaker 2: be targeted, investigated, ruined based on nothing more than political convenience.
4:01
Speaker 2: And that's a real threat to our democratic republic. And
4:04
Speaker 2: the story keeps getting worse. We have more Russia collusion
4:08
Speaker 2: updates for all of you and so much more to
4:11
Speaker 2: discuss with Federalist CEO and my former boss, Sean Davis. Sean,
4:15
Speaker 2: thank you so much for being here.
4:16
Speaker 5: Well, thank you for having me.
4:19
Speaker 2: So the Federalist has been on top of Russia collusion
4:21
Speaker 2: for a long time, like just excellent reporting on And
4:24
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to some updates from
4:27
Speaker 2: your website via the always impressive Margo Cleveland. So, Sean,
4:31
Speaker 2: the Federalist unveiled this troubling detail about how Special Counsel
4:36
Speaker 2: Robert Mueller's office hid information from investigators. I guess it
4:41
Speaker 2: turns out that the FBI's internal case management system contains
4:45
Speaker 2: a classification called prohibited access information. which is this coding
4:50
Speaker 2: that renders documents completely invisible to agents and investigators without
4:56
Speaker 2: certain special access. So unlike restricted access files, which still
5:00
Speaker 2: alert users to the existence of hidden content, prohibited access
5:03
Speaker 2: creates false negatives in searches, which I guess leads users
5:08
Speaker 2: to believe that there's no relevant records that exist at all.
5:11
Speaker 2: So basically the feature hid important information related to the
5:15
Speaker 2: Trump investigation. Sean, could there be criminal charges here if investigators,
5:21
Speaker 2: defense attorneys, congressional oversight bodies were denied access to really
5:26
Speaker 2: important information.
5:28
Speaker 5: I certainly hope so.
5:29
Speaker 1: I've been banging the drum for, gosh, eight years now
5:34
Speaker 1: that unless somebody goes to prison for what was done
5:37
Speaker 1: in the Russia collusion hoax, it's going to keep happening
5:39
Speaker 1: again and again and again. And what we had here,
5:43
Speaker 1: it wasn't just someone trying to hide stuff they didn't
5:47
Speaker 1: want other people to find. It was actually a wide
5:49
Speaker 1: ranging criminal conspiracy to deprive people of their rights.
5:53
Speaker 5: So think about this.
5:54
Speaker 1: Imagine you are a defendant and you've been charged by
5:58
Speaker 1: the federal government with something. You have a right as
6:01
Speaker 1: a defendant to know all the evidence against you. You
6:04
Speaker 1: also have a right to know all of the evidence
6:06
Speaker 1: that the government may have, which may exonerate you. And
6:10
Speaker 1: this is something that goes back a very, very long
6:13
Speaker 1: time in case law and in statutory rights. And the
6:19
Speaker 1: government has a responsibility to to go through and basically
6:24
Speaker 1: dig through all its files, do a census of everything
6:27
Speaker 1: it has, and turn over to the defense anything it has,
6:31
Speaker 1: whether exonerating or indicting. And then it's up to the
6:35
Speaker 1: defense to make the best case they can for why
6:38
Speaker 1: either the government wasn't allowed to charge someone with this
6:40
Speaker 1: or why the government maybe didn't have the evidence to
6:44
Speaker 1: support a charge.
6:45
Speaker 5: And what they did in.
6:46
Speaker 1: This case, over eight plus years, was they hid information
6:51
Speaker 1: that may well have led people to be exonerated in court.
6:54
Speaker 1: There may be people in prison or with criminal records
6:57
Speaker 1: today who had their rights violated deliberately by their own
7:03
Speaker 1: government in order to get these political charges to stick.
7:06
Speaker 1: So it is a massive, massive scandal. I think a
7:10
Speaker 1: lot of us who had followed Russiagate kind of suspected
7:13
Speaker 1: something like this was happening.
7:16
Speaker 5: Anyone who's ever done.
7:18
Speaker 1: Any sort of FOIA work, which is Freedom of Information
7:21
Speaker 1: Act work, or investigation into a government knows that they lie.
7:25
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had documents that I've requested in FOIAs,
7:28
Speaker 1: which I know for a fact exist, that I was told, oh, no,
7:32
Speaker 1: nothing like that exists at all. So we've known for
7:34
Speaker 1: a very long time that the government does this to
7:36
Speaker 1: normal citizens and journalists. trying to get information. What we
7:40
Speaker 1: didn't know and what is very new and very disturbing
7:43
Speaker 1: is that the government was actually conspiring to hide evidence
7:46
Speaker 1: that may well exonerate people that the government was trying
7:48
Speaker 1: to put into prison.
7:49
Speaker 5: And that's criminal.
7:51
Speaker 2: I mean, what you're saying here is that this is
7:52
Speaker 2: just beyond Russia collusion. I mean, certainly that's an important
7:56
Speaker 2: piece of the puzzle, but that more people, more cases
7:59
Speaker 2: are involved here. Do you think, could you just give
8:02
Speaker 2: me an idea if you have any thoughts on what
8:04
Speaker 2: other topics or people could have been targeted by this feature, right,
8:09
Speaker 2: that had information hidden with this feature?
8:13
Speaker 3: Oh, gosh.
8:13
Speaker 5: I mean, the sky's the limit.
8:15
Speaker 1: And the way I think about it is someone who
8:17
Speaker 1: goes and robs a bank, that's probably not the first
8:20
Speaker 1: crime they ever committed. They probably started stealing cash from
8:24
Speaker 1: a parent's purse or wallet. Then they might have moved
8:27
Speaker 1: to shoplifting. They didn't start by going and doing a
8:32
Speaker 1: massive heist on a bank vault. OK, so in this
8:35
Speaker 1: case here, the people behind this didn't just start hiding
8:38
Speaker 1: information on the Russia collusion case. I mean, for all
8:42
Speaker 1: we know, this may have been happening across the board.
8:44
Speaker 1: It may have been happening in terrorism cases. You know,
8:48
Speaker 1: the FBI got a bad rap. justifiably, for many years
8:53
Speaker 1: for creating the crimes it was going to prosecute in
8:58
Speaker 1: terrorism cases. They would go and find some lonely religious
9:03
Speaker 1: extremist somewhere. They would start grooming him. They would urge
9:07
Speaker 1: him to do crimes. They would tell him how to
9:10
Speaker 1: do them. They'd give him the whole plan. And then
9:12
Speaker 1: when that person finally said, oh, yeah, I'm going to
9:14
Speaker 1: go and do this, with the help of all these
9:17
Speaker 1: federal informants and Fed agents.
9:18
Speaker 5: Then they arrest him. They're like, ha ha, look at us.
9:20
Speaker 5: We got this terrorist. Aren't we great?
9:22
Speaker 1: We're keeping America safe. So I'm worried that I lack
9:26
Speaker 1: the imagination to think about all the different cases and
9:30
Speaker 1: subjects that they may have been doing this on. I mean,
9:32
Speaker 1: I assume they did it on J6. I assume they
9:35
Speaker 1: were doing it with COVID. I assume they were doing
9:37
Speaker 1: it on Russiagate. I'd love to know if they were
9:39
Speaker 1: doing it on the multiple assassination attempts on against Trump.
9:44
Speaker 1: It is a scandal of epic proportions. And I've been
9:48
Speaker 1: a broken record on this. If someone doesn't go to
9:50
Speaker 1: prison for it, if lots of someones don't go to
9:53
Speaker 1: prison for it, it will happen again and again and
9:55
Speaker 1: again until we don't even have a country anymore.
9:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. And at the very least, Sean, do you know
9:59
Speaker 2: if the ad is under any kind of process to
10:03
Speaker 2: dismantle this feature or release everything that's been hidden with it?
10:08
Speaker 2: Is there a process in place right now to stop
10:11
Speaker 2: this from continuing?
10:12
Speaker 5: I hope so.
10:13
Speaker 1: But think about how difficult it is. It's my understanding
10:17
Speaker 1: that these were some whistleblowers who either found it or
10:21
Speaker 1: were aware of it. They went and talked to Charles Grassley,
10:24
Speaker 1: who I think is probably the best investigator in all
10:26
Speaker 1: of Congress and who has a very well-earned reputation for
10:30
Speaker 1: protecting whistleblowers. But the thing is, how do you find
10:33
Speaker 1: something that's invisible? How do you go into a system
10:36
Speaker 1: which is designed to hide things from you and find
10:38
Speaker 1: what it's hiding? I've never been in the Sentinel system,
10:42
Speaker 1: which is what it's called. I don't know how it works.
10:44
Speaker 1: I would hope they have people going through it. They've
10:47
Speaker 1: got server experts and programmers and all that. But if
10:50
Speaker 1: somebody wants to hide something and make it invisible, I
10:53
Speaker 1: genuinely don't know how you find it. It's harder than
10:57
Speaker 1: finding a needle in a haystack.
10:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it kind of comes to this point
11:01
Speaker 2: that I think a lot of us have been banging
11:04
Speaker 2: the drum on that Trump is inheriting really a hostile government.
11:08
Speaker 2: I mean, everything is set up to prevent them from
11:11
Speaker 2: actually making the reforms that the American people have called
11:14
Speaker 2: for with the mandate in this last election cycle. One
11:17
Speaker 2: of the things that has stopped this president from actually
11:20
Speaker 2: carrying out the mandate has been judicial tyranny, Sean. This
11:24
Speaker 2: is another topic that The Federalist has been incessantly covering
11:27
Speaker 2: from the onset. You guys have been doing a great job.
11:29
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to Federalist editor-in-chief Molly
11:32
Speaker 2: Hemingway pressing Carolyn Levitt on the admin's actual plan to
11:36
Speaker 2: tackle what is essentially a judicial coup. Take a listen.
11:39
Speaker 4: The second Trump administration, to reference what you said at
11:42
Speaker 4: the beginning, seems to be subject to an effort to
11:46
Speaker 4: stymie the agenda using rogue lower court judges. You mentioned
11:52
Speaker 4: that the Supreme Court could and should do something to
11:54
Speaker 4: rein in these lower court judges. Also, Congress could do
11:58
Speaker 4: something about it. But they don't seem terribly.
12:00
Speaker 5: Interested in it.
12:01
Speaker 4: It also seems there's not much of an actual coordinated
12:04
Speaker 4: effort from this White House to take and tackle this
12:07
Speaker 4: effort from judges, Democrats and other people using these judges to.
12:11
Speaker 1: Stymie the agenda.
12:12
Speaker 4: Is there an actual effort by this White House to
12:16
Speaker 4: tackle this issue in a comprehensive way? And if so,
12:19
Speaker 4: what is it?
12:20
Speaker 6: There is an effort to tackle these rogue judges and
12:25
Speaker 6: the injunctions and the blockades that we have faced in
12:28
Speaker 6: our broken judicial system in every case. We have seen
12:32
Speaker 6: time and time again these lower district court judges ruling
12:35
Speaker 6: against this administration and the president's basic executive authority and
12:39
Speaker 6: powers and this administration is fighting every single one of
12:42
Speaker 6: those battles in court including already the block that came
12:45
Speaker 6: down from the tariff court, the IEPA court last night.
12:50
Speaker 6: And as on my way out here to the briefing room,
12:52
Speaker 6: I understand that there was another district court judge right
12:55
Speaker 6: here in Washington, D.C. who ruled against the president's tariff power.
12:58
Speaker 2: Okay, so really important question by Molly, but Sean, I
13:01
Speaker 2: didn't even play the full clip here because Carolyn Levin
13:03
Speaker 2: didn't actually say anything In this answer, she kind of
13:07
Speaker 2: goes on for four minutes listing off the grievances from
13:12
Speaker 2: these lower courts, but not actually saying what the plan is.
13:16
Speaker 2: So she essentially just lists off all these radical injunctions.
13:19
Speaker 2: Molly presses her again. And then Molly says, I understand
13:23
Speaker 2: you're challenging the injunction in court, but is there going
13:26
Speaker 2: to be anything more than that? And then Caroline basically
13:28
Speaker 2: responds with nothing again. She says, there is an effort
13:31
Speaker 2: by this administration to tackle these rogue judges and the
13:33
Speaker 2: injunctions and the blockades that we have faced. and our
13:36
Speaker 2: broken judicial system, but she gives no specifics. What do
13:40
Speaker 2: you make of this exchange, Sean? And what do you
13:42
Speaker 2: suggest the admin do to actually tackle the judicial tyranny?
13:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was a really, really interesting question
13:50
Speaker 1: and very interesting answer for what it didn't include. And
13:54
Speaker 1: I think what's happening right now is that there is
13:56
Speaker 1: a major battle within the White House, an internal debate
13:59
Speaker 1: happening about what to do with all of these rogue
14:04
Speaker 1: district judges who are claiming for themselves powers that don't
14:07
Speaker 1: belong to them, that are acting like unelected kings and presidents.
14:12
Speaker 1: You see all these things that they do. Judge who
14:14
Speaker 1: was never elected, never won a single vote. has more
14:17
Speaker 1: power in these rogue districts than even a Supreme Court judge,
14:22
Speaker 1: which is crazy. Because you can't, as a Supreme Court justice,
14:27
Speaker 1: go and unilaterally put in a national injunction or a
14:31
Speaker 1: temporary restraining order preventing the president from doing anything. You
14:34
Speaker 1: actually have to get the whole court to go along
14:36
Speaker 1: with it. But what I think is going on is
14:38
Speaker 1: that there's an internal debate about whether they fight this
14:42
Speaker 1: through kind of the typical process of You go through
14:45
Speaker 1: the appellate process and you file briefs. And then maybe
14:49
Speaker 1: in a couple of years, it works its way up
14:50
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. And then if you're lucky, after
14:53
Speaker 1: three or four years, you get vindicated, by which time
14:56
Speaker 1: your presidency is over.
14:58
Speaker 5: So that's one option.
15:00
Speaker 1: And that seemed to be what Carolyn Leavitt was saying
15:03
Speaker 1: was the administration's plan. They were just going to keep
15:05
Speaker 1: doing what lawyers do, filing briefs and arguing in court
15:08
Speaker 1: and hope it worked out. The other side of the debate,
15:11
Speaker 1: I think, which is probably best represented by Stephen Miller,
15:14
Speaker 1: is that we have a specific constitutional order which gives
15:17
Speaker 1: specific enumerated powers to different people within the different branches.
15:21
Speaker 1: Those powers are being violated. The restrictions in the Constitution
15:26
Speaker 1: are being violated by these rogue judges and that it
15:29
Speaker 1: is an abomination both against the presidency and the Congress.
15:32
Speaker 1: but also against the American people. And therefore, the president
15:36
Speaker 1: has an obligation and a duty to ignore lawless, rogue,
15:42
Speaker 1: tyrannical rulings from a lot of these judges. And so
15:47
Speaker 1: I think what we saw in that question and answer
15:50
Speaker 1: was something of a nice terrain of battle. It would
15:56
Speaker 1: appear that the We'll call it the traditionalists, at least
16:01
Speaker 1: at this point, are winning in the administration. But even
16:05
Speaker 1: if you believe Trump should just go and ignore these
16:08
Speaker 1: people because what they're doing is nonsense, you have to
16:12
Speaker 1: understand that as a political matter, you just can't go
16:14
Speaker 1: and do that and assume it's going to work out.
16:16
Speaker 1: It could be that the administration is waiting for the
16:18
Speaker 1: right case. They're waiting for the right judge to buck.
16:22
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, but I think there's absolutely a
16:25
Speaker 1: battle and a debate raging within the White House right now.
16:28
Speaker 1: And it's going to be probably the most important one
16:31
Speaker 1: that they have for all of his presidency, because in
16:34
Speaker 1: the first presidency, we had the deep state trying to
16:37
Speaker 1: take Trump out and stymie his presidency. And now we
16:39
Speaker 1: have a rogue judiciary doing it. And it's just simply
16:42
Speaker 1: not sustainable. If the only people who are allowed to
16:45
Speaker 1: be president and do things are Democrats, which is what
16:50
Speaker 1: is basically the precedent that has been set by the
16:52
Speaker 1: courts here, then you don't have a country at all.
16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think there's this narrative that we
16:57
Speaker 2: have to follow by the rules. We have to play
16:58
Speaker 2: by the Constitution. We'll just file these briefs. Meanwhile, the
17:01
Speaker 2: other side is not playing by the rules at all.
17:03
Speaker 2: I mean, they've done exactly the opposite of what the
17:05
Speaker 2: founding fathers intended for the judicial branch. They've just thrown
17:09
Speaker 2: the Constitution out the window. I think you've had a
17:11
Speaker 2: few pieces that you've published with The Federalist just quoting
17:14
Speaker 2: founding fathers talking about the danger of activist judges, of
17:19
Speaker 2: judicial tyranny that, again, the left is weaponizing currently against
17:23
Speaker 2: the executive. And it doesn't seem like the executive is
17:26
Speaker 2: doing very much meaningfully to fight back. I want to
17:30
Speaker 2: talk to you also, Sean, about Harvard, because Harvard has
17:33
Speaker 2: basically been synonymous with American academic excellence over the years.
17:40
Speaker 2: And yet a lot of elite schools... They're pretty trash,
17:44
Speaker 2: just to be honest. I went to one. They're pretty trash.
17:47
Speaker 2: And we know that they are still using affirmative action
17:50
Speaker 2: despite the SCOTUS ruling. Its professors and administrators are serial plagiarists,
17:55
Speaker 2: quietly accepting billions in foreign donations from China and Qatar.
17:59
Speaker 2: That's Harvard. And so now the Trump administration is fighting
18:02
Speaker 2: back on this issue. They're blocking federal funds. They're probing
18:07
Speaker 2: foreign influence. They're challenging DEI mandates, specifically at Harvard. My
18:12
Speaker 2: question to you, Sean, is do you think this is
18:15
Speaker 2: actually going to fix Harvard? Can the Trump admin strong
18:19
Speaker 2: arm Harvard and other institutions into being good schools again?
18:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm not sure Harvard is fixable.
18:29
Speaker 1: I'm not sure any of the IBs are fixable.
18:33
Speaker 5: I went to one.
18:34
Speaker 1: I happened to be in a kind of a niche
18:36
Speaker 1: program at one, which was great, but the institution writ
18:39
Speaker 1: large was just a gigantic dumpster fire of Marxist nonsense.
18:43
Speaker 1: And so I think the question is, is Trump doing
18:47
Speaker 1: this because he wants to fix Harvard, or is Trump
18:50
Speaker 1: doing this because he is using.
18:52
Speaker 5: Harvard as a way of fixing....
18:56
Speaker 1: All of higher education, which is a mess, whether it's
18:59
Speaker 1: the Ivies, whether it's private colleges, or whether it's state colleges,
19:03
Speaker 1: which even in red states, a lot of these state
19:05
Speaker 1: colleges are a total disaster. And so I think what
19:08
Speaker 1: he's done is he's gone after the crown jewel of
19:11
Speaker 1: American academia. For decades, Harvard was the gold standard of
19:16
Speaker 1: what education was meant to be. And I think its
19:19
Speaker 1: reputation has actually outlasted its utility and usefulness when you
19:27
Speaker 1: see what's being taught. And it's similar to the discussion
19:30
Speaker 1: we were having about judicial tyranny. To me, it's not
19:34
Speaker 1: a question of do we need to be more aggressive.
19:38
Speaker 5: And ignore the law.
19:40
Speaker 1: Harvard is the one ignoring the law right here. Higher
19:44
Speaker 1: education is ignoring the law. They're violating civil rights law.
19:47
Speaker 1: They're racially discriminating against people, especially whites and Asians. They're
19:52
Speaker 1: discriminating against men. And if a bulk of your money
19:57
Speaker 1: is coming from federal grants, from federal scholarships, if a
20:02
Speaker 1: huge chunk of your students are there at the pleasure
20:04
Speaker 1: of the federal government through various student visas, then you
20:09
Speaker 1: better be obeying federal law.
20:10
Speaker 5: When it comes to discrimination. And they're not.
20:13
Speaker 1: And they've been blatantly defying it for years, if not decades,
20:17
Speaker 1: in contravention of Supreme Court rules saying, hey, you can't
20:21
Speaker 1: just go and discriminate people based on race because you
20:23
Speaker 1: don't want to have white people there. That's kind of
20:26
Speaker 1: like a bright line you can't cross. in civil rights law,
20:29
Speaker 1: and they're doing it anyway. So I think Trump is
20:31
Speaker 1: using Harvard, which in my view is not fixable, as
20:34
Speaker 1: an example to every other institution of higher education that
20:38
Speaker 1: if you think you're exempt, watch what I do to Harvard.
20:41
Speaker 1: If you think you're going to escape this, watch what
20:43
Speaker 1: I do to Harvard. And it's probably going to be
20:46
Speaker 1: a little bit before we know whether it works, but
20:48
Speaker 1: I suspect that it has struck fear into the hearts
20:51
Speaker 1: of left-wing Marxist university professors all across the nation and administrators.
20:57
Speaker 2: Well, that makes me optimistic, Sean. I hope that it
21:00
Speaker 2: has that kind of effect on Harvard and all these
21:02
Speaker 2: other institutions. At the same time, I do believe that
21:06
Speaker 2: they have completely abandoned their core mission. Harvard was founded
21:11
Speaker 2: in 1636 with the intention expressly of establishing a school
21:16
Speaker 2: to train Christian ministers. If you read the original vision
21:20
Speaker 2: for Harvard, it's all about truth. pursuing truth, which is
21:24
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ himself. And a lot of schools started out
21:27
Speaker 2: that way. The University of Chicago, which is completely secular
21:30
Speaker 2: now where I went to school, started out that way.
21:32
Speaker 2: And these schools have just abandoned that goal. And so
21:35
Speaker 2: I think Trump is doing the most that you possibly
21:39
Speaker 2: can without really addressing the deeper, more spiritual questions that
21:45
Speaker 2: I think are plaguing our institutions. And I'm here for it.
21:48
Speaker 2: Speaking of institutions, Sean, I want to get your reaction
21:52
Speaker 2: to another institution that has completely fallen, an American institution
21:55
Speaker 2: that is Disney. And I think that, of course, Disney's
21:59
Speaker 2: numbers have gone down recently. They are producing very trash content,
22:04
Speaker 2: nothing original, nothing creative. They've abandoned, I think, parents and
22:07
Speaker 2: people that would be their go-to consumers by embracing radical wokeism.
22:12
Speaker 2: But I think that the problems with Disney have been
22:15
Speaker 2: happening a lot longer than most of us realized. I
22:18
Speaker 2: want to get your reaction to this video Disney put out.
22:21
Speaker 2: It was sort of a little PSA post 9-11 for kids.
22:26
Speaker 2: And they actually delve into what it means to be
22:29
Speaker 2: an American in this little PSA. Sean, I want to
22:33
Speaker 2: get your reaction to this. Take a listen.
22:38
Speaker 4: Everyone should be very sensitive to other cultures and religions.
22:41
Speaker 2: They're Americans too, you know, and we shouldn't treat them
22:44
Speaker 2: any differently.
22:44
Speaker 4: That's what makes our culture so great is that we're,
22:47
Speaker 4: you know, we're mixed up.
22:48
Speaker 3: We're not the same people.
22:49
Speaker 7: Because you'll hear people saying things, and sometimes people say
22:53
Speaker 7: things because they just don't know what else to do.
22:56
Speaker 7: They just have to point a finger and blame somebody. But,
22:59
Speaker 7: you know, we've seen through history that that doesn't work.
23:02
Speaker 4: Being an American means being very diverse.
23:04
Speaker 3: You learn so much about everything.
23:06
Speaker 2: This country is based on bringing people from all over
23:09
Speaker 2: the world.
23:09
Speaker 4: I have five different nationalities in my background. I have
23:12
Speaker 4: different religions in my background, and that's what this country
23:14
Speaker 4: is based on, and we need to remember that, and
23:15
Speaker 4: we need to remember that. Everyone is welcome in this country,
23:18
Speaker 4: and that's what makes it so great.
23:19
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what color you are or religion, we
23:22
Speaker 2: all kind of have, you know, the same belief in love.
23:26
Speaker 3: Now, more than ever, it's important for people like you
23:29
Speaker 3: to express themselves every day.
23:31
Speaker 2: 25 years ago. This was what Disney was putting out
23:40
Speaker 2: 25 years ago, and they're trying to answer this question
23:43
Speaker 2: of what it means to be an American, and their
23:44
Speaker 2: message to American children is basically nothing.
23:48
Speaker 5: Nothing.
23:48
Speaker 2: That's what it means to be an American, nothing, because
23:50
Speaker 2: it's all about diversity and nothing shared. Sean, what do
23:54
Speaker 2: you think about this message, especially today?
23:57
Speaker 5: Oh, my gosh.
23:58
Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't have the shot of me up
24:00
Speaker 1: there while that was airing because you would have seen
24:02
Speaker 1: my eyes roll out of my head. What a bunch
24:04
Speaker 1: of nonsense. But honestly, I actually want to defend Disney
24:10
Speaker 1: a little bit here. Now, they may be a good
24:14
Speaker 1: example of just how what it is to be American
24:17
Speaker 1: has been watered down with a bunch of leftist Marxist nonsense.
24:21
Speaker 1: But this has actually been going on in this country
24:23
Speaker 1: for probably 100 years.
24:23
Speaker 2: Okay.
24:25
Speaker 1: This idea that America, you know, the mixing bowl and
24:29
Speaker 1: the melting pot and all this and that. Let's be
24:32
Speaker 1: honest about what America was founded for. People, settlers came here,
24:38
Speaker 1: not immigrants, settlers, because there's nothing to immigrate to. It
24:41
Speaker 1: was just raw land. There's no society to immigrate to.
24:44
Speaker 1: Settlers came here because they wanted to be able to
24:46
Speaker 1: freely worship Jesus Christ how they wished. America was a
24:50
Speaker 1: Christian nation founded mostly by Scottish and British Protestants. It
24:57
Speaker 1: was created for the purpose of having a place where
25:00
Speaker 1: you could come and worship Jesus Christ. as you please.
25:05
Speaker 1: We have had this idea put into our heads through
25:08
Speaker 1: schools for probably 100 years that actually, no, no, no,
25:11
Speaker 1: America is a secular nation. They go and find some
25:15
Speaker 1: random letter from Thomas Jefferson talking about a separation of
25:18
Speaker 1: church and state. And they tell us, no, no, no, no,
25:20
Speaker 1: America is not Christian. America is totally secular. And in fact,
25:23
Speaker 1: you're not even allowed to call it a Christian nation
25:25
Speaker 1: because that would violate kind of this non-existent doctrine of
25:29
Speaker 1: separation of church and state. America was a Christian nation
25:33
Speaker 1: founded by Christians for the purpose of allowing Christians to
25:37
Speaker 1: flourish in their faith and in their work. And, you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: you can come here and you don't have to be
25:43
Speaker 1: a Christian, obviously. You can come here. You can believe
25:47
Speaker 1: what you like. But the entire foundation of the nation
25:50
Speaker 1: has been distorted and destroyed today. And it's just like
25:54
Speaker 1: any building. You have a weak foundation. Eventually, the building
25:57
Speaker 1: is going to crumble. If you want to take an
25:59
Speaker 1: agricultural metaphor, if you've got good soil, you're probably going
26:04
Speaker 1: to have good crops. If you have bad soil, you're
26:06
Speaker 1: not going to be able to grow anything. And our foundation,
26:09
Speaker 1: our soil is. were the Western Christian values that the
26:12
Speaker 1: founders brought here. And I think John Adams probably understood
26:17
Speaker 1: it better than anyone that this republic was designed for virtuous,
26:21
Speaker 1: namely Christian people. It was not designed for secular, godless people.
26:28
Speaker 1: And we are at the point now where we are
26:30
Speaker 1: not a Christian people anymore. I don't think we are
26:32
Speaker 1: particularly virtuous people. And yet we're expecting all of these
26:36
Speaker 1: institutions that we stood up and all these rules and
26:38
Speaker 1: all these laws, disservice the same way they did when
26:42
Speaker 1: we were a Christian nation. And it's just not going
26:44
Speaker 1: to work out that way. So look, I think Disney's
26:47
Speaker 1: a bunch of nonsense and I think a lot of
26:49
Speaker 1: what they do is garbage, but I don't fault them
26:51
Speaker 1: entirely here. I think they're kind of just like the
26:54
Speaker 1: flotsam and the jetsam floating on the waves of all
26:58
Speaker 1: this secularist nonsense that was designed to get to the,
27:02
Speaker 1: to destroy the foundation of this country.
27:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, Sean, I think it's such a good point.
27:07
Speaker 2: And As a young person, you really can't answer the
27:11
Speaker 2: question of who we are as an American because you're right,
27:13
Speaker 2: this has been a brainwashing enterprise for decades, for a very,
27:19
Speaker 2: very long time. We can't define who we are anymore.
27:22
Speaker 2: John Adams said that our system, our country is meant
27:25
Speaker 2: for a moral and religious people. They didn't want us
27:28
Speaker 2: to be sectarian. They didn't want us to be, as
27:30
Speaker 2: you said in the Federalist group chat all the time,
27:32
Speaker 2: no sectarian fights in the chat. The Catholics and the
27:35
Speaker 2: Protestants are supposed to be going at each other, but
27:38
Speaker 2: we are expressly a Christian nation. This has been completely
27:43
Speaker 2: abandoned and in fact is looked on quite negatively by
27:47
Speaker 2: our entire elite class for whatever reason, all of our institutions.
27:51
Speaker 2: And if you stand up and you say the things
27:53
Speaker 2: that you just said, Sean, you will be called by
27:57
Speaker 2: people within our own party, people on our own side,
28:00
Speaker 2: a member of the woke right. This is supposed to
28:04
Speaker 2: describe conservatives who they say, adopt tactics of the woke left,
28:09
Speaker 2: so cancel culture, moral absolutism, government intervention for the purpose
28:15
Speaker 2: of traditionalism and nationalism. Sean, what are your thoughts to
28:19
Speaker 2: this argument from people on our own side who would say,
28:22
Speaker 2: you are a member of the woke right, you bigot?
28:24
Speaker 1: Well, I don't I actually don't think it's coming from
28:27
Speaker 1: people on our own side. It's coming from people who
28:29
Speaker 1: were Democrats until five seconds ago. They got thrown out
28:32
Speaker 1: of their party. So they needed a new place to
28:34
Speaker 1: go to and a bunch of new people to manipulate
28:35
Speaker 1: so they could stay in power. And then when Trump
28:38
Speaker 1: won again, a lot of people on the right realized,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know, the intellectual dark web or whatever happened. Hey,
28:45
Speaker 1: we don't actually need you. You can go back where
28:47
Speaker 1: you came from to the left. And they've decided, oh, no,
28:50
Speaker 1: that's not fair. So in order to get our power back,
28:52
Speaker 1: we're just going to use nonsense words we made up
28:55
Speaker 1: like woke right to try and marginalize you.
28:58
Speaker 5: It's nonsense. OK, so woke is is an ideology.
29:01
Speaker 1: It is an ideology based entirely on identity that says
29:05
Speaker 1: your values and your beliefs and your thoughts are determined
29:09
Speaker 1: solely by your skin color or your sexuality or what
29:14
Speaker 1: you like having sex with. And that determines whether you're
29:18
Speaker 1: going to be in this part or this part of
29:20
Speaker 1: the power structure. The idea, this conflation that tactics and
29:24
Speaker 1: ideology are the same thing, so that if people use
29:27
Speaker 1: The tactics of one side, obviously that makes them that side.
29:31
Speaker 1: That's stupid. Like, that's just dumb and dishonest. Look, politics
29:36
Speaker 1: is about power. And for a long time, people on
29:38
Speaker 1: the right have been told that it's actually wrong to
29:40
Speaker 1: use power, that your job is to get into government
29:43
Speaker 1: and actually not do anything. The best thing you can
29:46
Speaker 1: do is just stop the left. That's not how power
29:49
Speaker 1: works and that's not how politics works. And so what
29:51
Speaker 1: you see are a bunch of people who are actually
29:53
Speaker 1: a defeat mechanism who don't like that people on the
29:55
Speaker 1: right are in charge. They certainly don't like to see
29:58
Speaker 1: the rise of true Christianity into the political realm anymore.
30:03
Speaker 1: And so what they're trying to do is prevent people
30:06
Speaker 1: who believe the things that we do from actually being
30:08
Speaker 1: able to exercise power. And they think they can do
30:11
Speaker 1: it by using this like emotionally extortive language like woke right.
30:15
Speaker 5: It's nonsense. It's stupid.
30:17
Speaker 1: And anyone who uses it unironically is someone who should
30:21
Speaker 1: be laughed out.
30:22
Speaker 3: Of the room.
30:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sean, I mean, this is this is going to
30:25
Speaker 2: be something we're going to have to tackle because I
30:27
Speaker 2: said the people on our own side. And you're right.
30:29
Speaker 2: The people who have been on our side for a
30:31
Speaker 2: very short amount of time and for some reason they
30:34
Speaker 2: think that they can dictate. what it means to be
30:37
Speaker 2: a right winger in America when they were on the
30:40
Speaker 2: political left, literally, like you said, five seconds ago. So
30:43
Speaker 2: great rebuff to that argument, Sean. And I want to
30:46
Speaker 2: be respectful of your time. So I appreciate this conversation.
30:49
Speaker 2: Where can people go to follow you? And of course,
30:51
Speaker 2: stay up to date with everything you are doing.
30:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, check us out at TheFederalist.com. And you can find
30:56
Speaker 1: me on X at Sean, S-E-A-N-M-D-A-V, where I do my
31:02
Speaker 1: best to make stupid liberals cry every day.
31:04
Speaker 7: Amazing.
31:05
Speaker 2: I love it. Sean, thank you so much for being here.
31:07
Speaker 2: To all of you listening, make sure to like and
31:08
Speaker 2: follow this podcast. If you want to follow me, my
31:10
Speaker 2: user is avitaduffy1 on Instagram and X, and I will
31:14
Speaker 2: see you all next time.
31:15
Speaker 5: The Dan Bongino Show.
31:17
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are underestimating the Trump
31:19
Speaker 3: effect in this midterm. You've heard it yourself. Act like
31:23
Speaker 3: I'm on the ballot. Why is he saying that? You
31:26
Speaker 3: think he doesn't know what he's doing? That is the
31:28
Speaker 3: X factor. Folks, elections are a math issue.
31:32
Speaker 5: That is it.
31:33
Speaker 3: This is not a football game.
31:35
Speaker 5: If you vote, we will win. It is not complicated.
31:39
Speaker 5: The Dan Bongino Show. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.