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Jan. 27, 2025 - The Ben Shapiro Show
49:22
Trump Goes FULL FAFO!
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Well, over the weekend, President Trump was golfing, and then he decided it was time for Columbia, the country, not the university, to F around and find out.
So here's how it all went down.
It was pretty incredible.
So, Columbia had announced that they were not going to accept plane flights filled with deportees.
So, the Trump administration had moved very quickly when it came into office to start.
And the president of Colombia then suggested that he was not going to actually accept any of those deportees.
He announced that while President Trump was in the middle of a round of golf, apparently, and he decided to take a break on the front nine, just step off the green for a moment, and issue the following post on Truth Social.
I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States with a large number of illegal criminals were not allowed to land in Colombia.
This order was given by Colombia's socialist president Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people.
Petro's denial of these flights has jeopardized the national security and public safety of the United States.
Trump then added that he had directed his administration to, quote, immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures.
Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States in one week.
Those 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%.
A travel ban and immediate visa revocation on Colombian government officials and all allies and supporters.
Visa sanctions on all party members, family members, and supporters of the Colombian government.
Enhanced customs and border protection inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo on national security grounds.
IEPA treasury, banking, and financial sanctions to be fully imposed.
And then Trump continued.
These measures are just the beginning.
We'll not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligation with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States.
Now, Colombian President Petro had suggested on Sunday, quote, I cannot make migrants stay in a country that does not want them, but if that country sends them back, it should be with dignity and respect for them and for our country.
A migrant is not a criminal.
And while President Trump had had about enough of that, and within literal minutes, I'm not even kidding, within about 10 minutes of President Trump putting out a statement that he'd be increasing the tariffs on Colombian products.
225% this week, followed by 50% next week, the government of Colombia immediately caved, like totally caved.
Here's a statement from the White House Press Secretary, quote, The government of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump's terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on U.S. military aircraft, without limitation or delay.
Based on this agreement, the fully drafted IEEPA tariffs and sanctions will be held in reserve and not signed, unless Colombia fails to honor this agreement.
The visa sanctions issued by the State Department and enhanced inspections from Customs and Border Protection will remain in effect until the first plane load of Colombian deportees is successfully returned.
Today's events make clear to the world that America is respected again.
President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation's sovereignty and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.
Ultimate FAFO. Absolutely incredible.
Now, Petro on X, Gustavo Petro, the leader of Colombia, who is, in fact, a socialist, a big fan of Nicolas Maduro, a bigger fan of Hugo Chavez, a person who was elected by a very slim majority in the last presidential election in Colombia in 2022, and who has gradually attempted to accrete power despite his deep radicalism.
He is wildly unpopular in his own country.
He had sought to cast Trump's tariff threat as an affront to his country's freedom.
Quote, you don't like our freedom?
Fine.
I do not shake hands with white slaveholders.
He had said, adding later, you will never dominate us.
Well, there's only one problem.
They got pretty well dominated.
So Petro put out a big statement, like a long rambling statement.
And it demonstrates, by the way, how psychotic the far left is when they are in power and when they are out of power.
Here was Gustavo Petro's statement.
And again, this is after he had lost.
He had lost.
He basically said, we're not going to take the people you're deporting.
And Trump said, well, if you don't, I'm going to completely destroy your economy because you represent.
Like 1% of our market in terms of, you know, things like flowers or coffee or whatever.
And we can all handle that.
But we represent 25% of your entire market.
So if you want to play this game, we'll just wreck your economy.
And Petro back down almost immediately.
Well, he put out a full statement.
Here it is via Google Translate.
Quote, Trump, I don't really like traveling to the U.S. It's a bit boring.
But I confess, there are some commendable things.
I like going to the black neighborhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the U.S. Capitol between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me because they should join together.
I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky, there's a shock, and Miller.
I confess that Sackle and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA, and I follow them.
Sackle and Vanzetti were convicted anarchist murderers who were put to death.
In the Woodrow Wilson administration, so going pretty far back here, they were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my own country.
I don't like your oil, Trump.
You're going to wipe out the human species because of greed.
Maybe one day over a glass of whiskey, which I accept despite my gastritis.
What the?
We can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.
So if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period.
You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance like they did with Allende.
But I will die in my law.
I resisted torture, and I resist you.
I don't want slavers next to Colombia.
We already had many.
We freed ourselves.
But I want next to Colombia our lovers of freedom.
If you can't accompany me, I'll go elsewhere.
Colombia is the heart of the world, and you didn't understand that.
This is the land of yellow butterflies, of the beauties of Remedios, but also of the colonels, of which I am one, perhaps the last.
You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours in the Americas.
We are people of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea, and of freedom.
You don't like our freedom?
Okay.
I don't shake hands with white slavers.
I shake hands with the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the black and white farm boys of the USA at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany after being saved from COVID. They are the United States and before my kneel, before no one else.
Overthrow me, President, and the Americas and all humanity will respond.
Colombia now stops looking north, looks at the world.
Our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time.
Of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the Republic, democracy in Athens, our blood has the black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you.
And then it just keeps going, like on and on and on.
I'm in favor that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.
Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world.
What in the hell?
Well, let's just be clear about this.
He lost, and now he's mad that he lost.
But this is what happens when you screw around.
With the greatest economic powerhouse in the history of the world.
And you happen to be a much smaller country with a much less robust economy.
Genius level stuff there from the socialist Colombian president who in fact is going to be on his way out as soon as the next election cycle.
Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, put out an excellent statement in a post on X in which he suggested, quote, President Trump has made it clear that under his administration, America will no longer be lied to nor taken advantage of.
It is the responsibility of each nation to take back their citizens who are legally present in the United States in a serious and expeditious manner.
Colombian President Petro had authorized flights and provided all needed authorizations and then canceled his authorization when the planes were in the air.
As demonstrated by today's actions, we are unwavering in our commitment to end illegal immigration and bolster America's border security.
Absolutely correct.
And President Trump, just for good measure, then put the following post up on Truth Social.
Just absolutely, what a troll master he is, my goodness.
It is a picture of President Trump.
In what looks like an Al Capone outfit.
And he's got like the Borsalino hat and the pinstripe suit and the red tie.
And in the background is a sign that says FAFO with a drawn happy face.
Yeah, well, here is the thing, folks.
The era of weak America is where President Trump pledged this in his second inaugural address.
He said we are no longer going to be weak.
We are going to be strong.
Here is how this normally would have gone under, say, President Joe Biden.
Colombia would have said no.
And then the State Department would have done an investigation.
And then the State Department investigation would have made several recommendations.
And then Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, would have suggested that they weren't sensitive enough, these particular recommendations.
They would have gone back to the drawing board.
Several weeks later, they would have come back with a series of recommendations, at which point there would have been a commission to do a study on what should be done.
And the end result would have been a deportation of like one quarter of the illegal immigrants, along with billions of dollars sent to Colombia.
Or you can have brutal, rude, nasty, arrogant President Trump.
Doing the thing that actually works, which is you screw with us and you get the sharp end of the stick.
It's not all that tough.
It's not all that tough.
Seriously.
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't thorny international issues.
China is a massive thorny international issue.
But Colombia is saying they're not going to accept plane loads of illegal immigrants back into their country.
That is not a thorny international issue.
That is one that President Trump could solve literally while tweeting from the golf course.
Because guess what?
This is something President Trump has always understood.
When you are the United States of America, the most powerful force in the history of the world, you don't need to play with the peons.
You don't.
Gustavo Petro is a peon.
He is a loser.
He is a representative of a failed ideology, and he doesn't have any power behind him.
There is no reason for the United States to screw around with him.
FAFO. That is the message.
And that message is being broadcast loud and clear by the entire administration.
Top to bottom, they're making clear that when it comes to illegal immigration, the buck stops here.
The day is over.
We are done.
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Tom Homan, our borders are.
He was asked about things like tariffs that have been placed on the United States or the additional cost of illegal immigration and tracking it down and all the rest.
And listen, what price do you put on national security?
Here he was on ABCs this week.
I think Congress has a mandate to give us money we need.
What price do you put on national security?
More detention centers.
What price do you put on all these young ladies that have been raped and murdered and burned alive?
What price do you put on that?
What price do you put on Lincoln Riley's life?
What price do you put on national security?
Like I just explained, when you have a surge like this, we don't secure that border.
That's when national security threats enter the country.
That's when sex trafficking goes up.
That's when, you know, that's when the fentanyl comes in and kills a quarter million Americans.
I don't put a price in that.
That is exactly right.
And most Americans do not.
Most Americans do not.
Well, J.D. Vance, the Vice President of the United States, who I think was created in a laboratory just to deal with idiots in the legacy media.
I mean, he is truly amazing at this.
Like, a unique skill.
So, he was on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, and he was talking about unvetted immigrants entering the United States.
And here is an exchange that went absolutely viral again.
One thing that J.D. does, better than pretty much anybody.
He refuses to accept the premise of the question being asked by the questioner, which is the key to doing legacy media interviews.
Again, I've done it professionally for years.
J.D. is as good as he gets at this.
Here he was, Vice President of the United States, with Margaret Brennan.
When you talked to us in August, you said, I don't think we should abandon anybody who's been properly vetted and helped us.
Do you stand by that?
Well, Margaret, I don't agree that all these immigrants or all these refugees have been properly vetted.
In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks on our country.
That happened during the campaign, if you may remember.
So clearly not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted.
No, but there are 30,000 people in the pipeline.
Afghan refugees.
But my primary concern as the Vice President, Margaret, is to look after the American people.
And now that we know that we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country.
It's not good.
These people are vetted.
Just like the guy who planned a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago, he was allegedly properly vetted.
And many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted.
Clearly, he wasn't.
Okay, well, Margaret Brennan, she had suggested, well, they are vetted.
And he said, I don't care what you say.
I don't want those people in my country.
Why exactly is it that we should have any people who are unvetted in the United States?
This is a correct perspective on illegal immigration.
Again, the way that immigration in this country has changed over time is really, really significant.
When you have a United States, a vast welfare bureaucracy in which we have made it possible to accept people from all over the globe without screening them ideologically and in which the system does not naturally screen ideologically.
What you end up with are a lot of people here to take advantage of the system and who bring terrible cultures with them.
Not all cultures are equivalent and pretending they are is a massive mistake.
Well, Margot Brennan wasn't going to leave it at that.
She started bringing out the nostrums and the slogans.
She said, well, this is a country founded by immigrants.
And Vance was like, well, it's a little more complicated than that.
Well, this is a country founded by immigrants.
Well, this is a country founded by...
This is a unique country.
This is a very unique country, and it was founded by some immigrants and some settlers.
But just because we were founded by immigrants doesn't mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world.
Correct.
Correct.
By the way, he's making a really excellent distinction here.
Immigrants and settlers are not quite the same thing.
So an immigrant is somebody who comes into an established system of law.
And follows the laws in order to enter that established system of law.
A settler is a person who comes to a place where there is no law and then proceeds to settle.
So the original Puritans, for example, who arrived in the United States, Plymouth Rock, those people were not, in fact, immigrants.
Those people were settlers.
People who moved over the Appalachians and then settled were settlers.
They were moving into an area where there was no law and they were establishing law.
That is not quite the same thing as immigrants.
Now, of course, immigrants have had a heavy share of what it means to be American because so many amazing things in the United States have been created by immigrants.
But equating all of these particular categories is foolish.
And then adding on top of that, illegal immigrants is ridiculous.
Illegal immigrants are not even the same as legal immigrants and not all legal immigrants are created the same in terms of the systems that drew them there in the first place.
And immigrants aren't even the same as settlers.
So these are all a little bit more complex.
But the point that he's making is, regardless of how you think about that, there is no reason.
Why the United States ought to be an open borders country makes no sense at all.
Now, good for JD. Also going after the Conference of Catholic Bishops.
So, the Conference of Catholic Bishops came out.
The Catholic Church has been notoriously open border for generations at this point.
When I went down, I visited the southern border last year.
I went down to Arizona and visited the Mexican-Arizona border.
There were literal signs that were put up by the Catholic Church directing illegal immigrants where to find resources.
So, the Catholic Church and many of their subsidized groups, Let me ask this question, Margaret.
Let's separate the immigration issue.
If you had a violent murderer in a school, of course I want law enforcement to go and get that person out.
So what's the point of the question?
You changed the regulation this week.
That's the point of the question.
Exactly.
Giving the authority to go into churches and go into schools.
We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere to protect Americans.
But that also has a knock-on effect, a chilling effect, arguably, to people to not send their kids to school.
I desperately hope it has a chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming into our country.
You think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are actively hiding criminals?
I think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has frankly not been a good partner in common sense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for.
He's absolutely 100% right about this.
Absolutely 100% correct on this particular issue.
Let's be clear.
The Catholic Church is wonderful on many issues.
On this issue, the Catholic Church is a disaster area on the American southern border.
Great on pro-life issues.
Terrific on traditional marriage.
Awful.
On borders.
And ironically, doesn't apply those same rules to, say, Vatican City.
Speaking of which, the chairman of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Mark Seitz, he ripped the Trump administration's immigration policy on Sunday.
Is the Catholic Church in the United States taking a formal position on President Trump's immigration policies in recent days?
We are.
We think we have to speak to many of these policies, which we see as going against some of the basic tenets of our faith, frankly.
The fundamental right of every human person that needs to be respected, no matter their origin, no matter their situation.
Okay, well, respecting people does not mean accepting them into your country, regardless of their violation of law.
That's ridiculous.
That's ridiculous.
But again, this is the perspective of so many members of the left.
Now, they are claiming that they are fine with the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants.
I really don't think that that is correct.
So Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan, she purports to be a moderate Democrat.
So she says, listen, if you want to deport criminals, I'm fine with that.
It's if you want to deport, you know, just kind of your normal run-of-the-mill non-criminal illegal immigrant.
And meaning a person who crossed the border illegally, which is a crime, but hasn't committed some sort of a...
Other crime?
Well, then she's upset with it.
Here is Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan, supposedly a blue dog Democrat of some sort.
I mean, I just don't understand, you know, if the focus and the priority is on criminals, I'm not sure going after an 11-year-old is where you start.
And this is, again, the inconsistency between what they're saying and then what we saw happen in this past week, right?
Going after places that were not sanctuary cities, kind of in this sort of, what felt sort of arbitrary way.
So I think to me, you know, the idea of going into children and terrorizing children, I just don't believe in supporting that kind of action.
And I don't believe it that most Americans think that 11 and 12 year olds are the ones who are the hardened criminals that need to go back to their country.
OK, again, this is going to be the line.
How could you be so cruel?
Well, I mean, if you deport their parents, then the child might have to go with them because it's better that families stay together.
J.B. Pritzker, the rotund governor of Illinois, who has to be lowered into the Capitol building by Crane each morning, and who also has presidential aspirations based on the fact that his family is uber wealthy.
He is, in fact, the scion of a billionaire family.
But that's OK as long as you're a Democrat.
Inherited wealth.
In any case, here he was suggesting that he would help support illegal immigrant criminals, but not the quote unquote undocumented.
Those are just normal illegal immigrants.
You have a law in the books in your state that that requires maybe local law enforcement to rule.
Protect people that the federal law enforcement agents are coming in to try to deport.
That sounds like a recipe for a big problem.
No, what it requires is that our local officials will Not coordinate with federal officials on the arrest of people when they don't have a warrant associated with them.
Look, again, we want to get violent criminals off the street just like everybody else does and we're going to coordinate in that.
And if someone's breaking the law and they're in the process of breaking the law or we know they've broken the law, we want help from federal officials to arrest them.
Our local officials are not just going to say, well, that person seems like they're undocumented, so we're going to hand them over to you and you can figure it out.
Okay, now, there's one problem.
This is the claim that they're making, that they will cooperate with regard to criminal illegal immigrants, but when it comes to, quote-unquote, the normal undocumented, they won't help out.
I don't believe you.
I don't believe you.
I think that you are fine with criminal illegal immigrants.
It only becomes embarrassing to you on occasion.
I base this on the fact that the Biden administration left the border wide the hell open for four long years and you had nothing to say about it, nothing, until it bit you on the ass politically.
Plus, the fact that the new appointed senator for California, Adam Schiff, who's an awful, awful senator, who's an awful congressperson, he says that deporting people who steal toothpaste is an overreach.
So apparently some kinds of criminals it's okay to keep in the country.
Look, the administration already has the authority to detain people that have committed violent crimes for deportation, and they should.
But this bill is so broad that if you're a dreamer and you take a tube of toothpaste from the store, you can be detained for deportation.
That, to me, is a terrible overreach.
Okay, that's a terrible...
So, actual criminal shoplifting?
Apparently not enough to get you deported.
So this is why I don't believe you when you say that you only want to help out with criminal illegal immigrants.
I don't believe you.
I think that you're totally fine with mass illegal immigration.
And this is why President Trump was re-elected.
Because it turns out he pledged common sense.
And you guys are so off the beaten track on common sense.
It is absolutely insane.
So, I don't really trust Democrats when it comes to illegal immigration or pretty much anything else.
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Do not let the IRS take advantage of you if the help you need with Tax Network USA. President Trump made a visit out to California on Friday, according to the Los Angeles Times, in a somber scene lighted by an orange LA sunset.
President Trump walked through the ruins of Pacific Palisades on Friday, shaking hands with firefighters, speaking to a handful of residents as he took in the devastation wrought by firestorms that swept through L.A. County this month.
Trump said he was stunned by the devastation and vowed to partner with local officials to help victims.
So Gavin Newsom, who's been totally embarrassed by his own incompetence during this scandalous crisis in the Los Angeles area and throughout Southern California, he actually sort of hijacked President Trump arriving to show up on the tarmac to try and pretend that he and Trump were friends or that he's going to leverage Trump.
Yeah, good luck with that, Governor.
There's from both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans.
Mayor Bass is also going to be part of those discussions.
You see Governor Newsom there, that exchange that we were anticipating because of early reports saying that the governor wouldn't be there, then his office clarifying he would.
So it seems as if right now it's cordial, a handshake.
I'm not sure what they're discussing, but there's a lot on the table with all of the damage and all of the requests for federal aid that California is asking for.
Okay, some interesting body language there as he now greets the First Lady, and again, they will now head into the airport.
The body language there, by the way, is hilarious.
For those who can't watch, it's Gavin Newsom trying to play like he's the alpha in that particular relationship, and it doesn't work at all.
He's trying to lecture Trump.
He's making hand motions, and Trump is just solid as a rock, just standing there like, okay, whatever, Gavin, all right.
So, President Trump had many things to say about the handling of California.
During this crisis, one of the things that he said is, hey, you know, FEMA, which is always looked to as sort of the first line of defense here, maybe you guys should handle your own crap in the state of California.
By the way, this was the way the disasters were handled in the United States for a very, very long time.
It is a bizarre thing that area-specific crises ought to be thrust on the federal government.
Why is it that people in Kansas ought to be paying the bills of the rich people in Pacific Palisades when those people in Pacific Palisades...
They've been paying millions and billions of dollars over the years in order to protect themselves.
Why can't the state of California, you know, take care of its own residents?
This is President Trump's point.
Can you say more about signing the executive order to get rid of FEMA, please?
FEMA has been a very big disappointment.
They cost a tremendous amount of money.
It's very bureaucratic.
And it's very slow.
Other than that, we're very happy with them.
Okay?
And I think it's, I think...
When there's a problem with a state, I think that that problem should be taken care of by the state.
That's what we have states for.
They take care of problems.
I mean, yes, yes, but it didn't end there.
President Trump did this whole sort of roundtable discussion with a wide variety of Democrats because, of course, Republicans are an endangered species in the state of California.
One of the people who showed up was Congressman Brad Sherman, who actually represents the district that I used to live in, in California.
And here he was, absolutely blasting Brad Sherman, saying, you know, one of the reasons this happened is because you all made it impossible for people to buy fire insurance in the state of California.
Mr. President, without your help, they're only going to get $43,000 from the federal government, even if they have a half-million dollar in insurance.
Well, you know, you did something, Brad, where every insurance company in the country left California.
That's why you have no insurance, because you made it so impossible.
People that think like you made it so impossible.
And Brad, every insurance company, I don't know what you know about my thinking.
I've never seen a state where almost nobody has insurance.
And I said, what happened?
And they said like six months ago they all left.
And two years ago they had different, you know, quadrants, but they left.
And you have very little insurance here.
I mean, I've never seen anything like it.
We had a lot of insurance companies pull out, but I have no idea.
And the insurance companies actually have been warning you.
He is right about this.
The state of California made it nearly impossible for fire insurance to be bought in the state of California because they put price caps on what the fire insurance companies could actually offer to their customers.
And so many of those companies left because I can't insure a house if the cost of insuring the house is greater than the actual premiums I'm going to take in.
That's not insurance anymore.
That's just a subsidy.
Then he wrecked Brad Sherman over water usage in the state of California as well.
Here's the thing.
What he's saying here is so commonsensical, but Democrats are so alienated from common sense at this point that they're making Republicans look absolutely normal.
So you're going to see us proposing both of those.
Like water.
Little things like water.
You know, the party of common sense.
See, Brad, we're the party of common sense.
You're not, in all fairness.
Yes, sir.
We like water to put out fires.
It's really quite efficient.
Again, again, all common sense.
President Trump also had a very entertaining exchange with the awful mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, who, you'll recall, was at one point considered for Joe Biden's possible vice presidential pick.
This human.
Here was Donald Trump versus Karen Bass.
But we are going to move as fast.
As we can, but we want you to be safe.
We want you to be back in your homes immediately.
But the people are willing to clean out their own debris.
It doesn't cost a lot.
Yes, and they can.
You should let them do it because by the time you hire contractors, it's going to be two years.
If a family...
The people are willing to get a dumpster and do it themselves and clean it out.
And they can do that.
There's not that much left.
It's all incinerated.
That's right.
And, you know, it's just going to take a long time if you do.
You can do some of it, but a lot of these people, I know that guy right there that's talking.
I know my people.
You'll be on that thing tonight, throwing the stuff away and your site will be, it'll look perfect within 24 hours.
And that's what he wants to do.
He doesn't want to wait around for seven months till the city hires some demolition contract that's going to charge him $25,000 to do his lot.
I think you have to, you have emergency powers just like I do, and I'm exercising my emergency powers.
You have to exercise them also.
I did exercise them.
Because I looked, I mean, you have a very powerful emergency power, and you can do everything within 24 hours.
Yes.
Okay.
Again, it is because of democratic malfeasance and mishandling that all this came about, and Donald Trump is simply pointing that out.
This is the most successful launch of any administration in my lifetime.
There's just no question about it.
We are, what, eight days deep into this administration, and the president has already unleashed dozens of executive orders clearing out dead wood from a wide variety of agencies.
He has already made moves to intimidate opponents of the United States into, for example, taking illegal immigrants back.
That's what he did over the weekend.
He has directed his own administrative agencies to look.
At the cost of various boondoggle programs, he has decided to overturn DEI throughout his administration.
All these things are incredible.
One thing that President Trump knows this time, that he didn't last time, is that it is very important for him to clear out the obstacles to his ability to actually govern.
So, there's a big controversy that broke out over the weekend because President Trump fired something like 17 inspectors general.
He's supposedly in violation of the law.
I'm going to explain that in a moment.
According to the New York Times, For the removal.
The move was the latest wave of abrupt upheavals following the inauguration of Mr. Trump that put the government in increasing confusion.
Apparently, the watchdogs that were removed included the Department of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor Transportation and Veterans Affairs, along with the EPA and the Small Business Administration.
Now, why exactly did they do this?
The answer is because the Trump administration in the first go-around was hamstrung by I personally know many members of Trump administration number one who were nearly bankrupted because of the legal costs they had to undergo thanks to, for example, the Robert Mueller report.
The number of hours that were dedicated to that stupid foray into mythical idiocy was exorbitant.
These inspector generals do not work for Congress.
They work for the executive branch.
It is probably unconstitutional for Congress to appoint inspectors general inside the executive branch that the president cannot fire.
The executive branch is its own branch of government.
It does not work for the legislature.
That is not how this works.
The president of the United States does not have...
The Congress has its own subpoena power.
The Congress has its own investigatory power.
The Congress has its own ability to dig into what's going on in the executive branch.
That's its oversight power.
Appointing independent inspectors general with a wide-ranging ability to dig and dig and dig and dig, not for the crime but for the man, is a massive problem, and President Trump knows that.
He saw it during his first administration.
Democrats, of course, are very upset about all of this.
They would not be nearly as upset if these inspectors general had spent their time deep-stating Joe Biden during the last administration.
They didn't, because these inspectors general tend to be democratic plans very often.
Here was the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ripping the firing of the inspectors general.
Quote, in the dark of night, President Trump fired at least 12 independent inspectors general at important federal agencies across the administration.
A chilling purge.
It's a preview of the lawless approach President Trump and his administration is taking to being president.
Okay, you know what was lawless?
The activation of the DOJ to go after Joe Biden's political opposition.
You know what else was lawless?
The activation.
of the intelligence apparatus of the United States government to go after the sitting president of the United States during Trump term number one.
You know what's not lawless?
The president of the United States firing people in the executive branch.
That is, in fact, not lawless.
And these inspectors general.
Now, there is a good case that there should never be independent inspectors general inside these agencies because independent of what?
To whom do they answer?
If Congress has its own investigative power, why are there executive branch agents who are not answerable to the president of the United States?
How do you fire them?
Precisely.
Now, of course, you have Adam Schiff.
Some of the most corrupt people in American government complaining about this.
Adam Schiff, who was a congressperson who went on air nearly every day during Trump number one and claimed that the Russians had bought and paid for Trump and that there would be evidence coming any moment that showed that Trump was basically a Russian agent.
Now, he is suggesting that the real reason that Trump is firing all these people, people that Adam Schiff helped sick on him in the first place, the reason he's firing all these people is because he wants rampant waste and fraud.
The American people, if we don't have good and independent inspector generals, are gonna see the swamp refill.
They're gonna see rampant waste fraud.
They're gonna see corruption.
It may be the president's goal here, when he's got a meme coin that's making him billions, is to remove anyone that's gonna call the public attention to his malfeasance.
Yeah.
Again, this sort of absolute hypocrisy.
is truly awful, and it's the reason why these people are getting fired today.
In just a minute, we'll get to other measures that are being taken by Trump Team 2 that they needed to take during Administration 1, but now they've learned.
First, President Trump hit the ground running in his first week, delivering on key promises, many of which were battles initiated and amplified by the Daily Wire.
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Speaking of President Trump making the changes that should have happened during administration number one, President Trump's DOJ is already cleaning house, according to the Wall Street Journal.
They replaced a Biden-era memo telling prosecutors to show leniency to some drug offenders with a new policy calling for the pursuit of the most serious charges and the stiffest penalties for all crimes.
They halted much of the department's civil rights and environmental work, and they transferred more than 15 career employees to relatively marginal positions, part of a broader effort to ultimately thin the workforce.
That was just week number one.
Many department employees are on edge Senate confirmation of Pam Bondi, that's Trump AG, nominee.
Her chief of staff, Chad Mizell, is leading the department until then.
And they are already shaking up the DOJ in major ways.
This is good.
People should be living on edge.
The American people were living on edge.
When Joe Biden was president, career employees at the DOJ who are interested in pushing their own agenda should be living on edge.
Speaking of which, charges were dropped by federal prosecutors against a surgeon, Dr. Ethan Chaim.
We talked about this on the show a few months back.
He was indicted last May in U.S. District Court in Houston on four counts of obtaining under false pretenses personal medical information from the online system at Texas Children's Database.
He requested access to the hospital's record database in 2023, claiming he needed information to provide adult care services.
He then showed that this particular health care hospital was actually transing the children.
He disclosed the information to Chris Rufo, our friend.
Rufo then published an article saying the hospital was continuing to provide trans care to minors after it announced an end to the practice.
He said that he hadn't done anything wrong.
He was a whistleblower.
He had not actually revealed any patient information at all.
He just said, guys, this is still happening, which is sort of typical whistleblowing, right?
No private information was actually disclosed.
Just the information that Texas Children's Hospital was still doing the thing they said they were not actually doing.
Well, now the DOJ has dropped the charges as well they should have.
No crime was actually committed in the first place.
And a new day is dawning.
A new day is dawning.
And that new day was forwarded on Friday by the confirmation of Pete Hegseth as our new Secretary of Defense.
J.D. Vance had to break the tie.
Again, every vote mattered in the United States Senate.
That's why I went to six different states campaigning for a variety of Republican Senate candidates, a majority of whom ended up in the United States Senate.
The only Republican senators who did not vote for Hegseth.
We're Susan Collins.
And again, Susan Collins gets the majority of sort of the flack for this sort of stuff, which is always weird to me because she's in Maine.
So you're going to get a purplish senator in Maine.
Lisa Murkowski in Alaska is the one who should really be under the gun.
I mean, Lisa Murkowski represents a state that went for President Trump by one million points.
Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, who is, you know, on the retirement path, he voted against Pete Hegseth on the basis that Hegseth didn't have the experience to run a major department.
However...
That, of course, a bad decision.
J.D. Vance broke the tie.
Pete Hegseth was, in fact, sworn in.
Here was Pete making his statement after being sworn in as our new Secretary of Defense.
All praise and glory to God.
His will be done, and we're grateful to be here.
And as I said in my hearing, it was Jesus and Jenny.
I would not be here without you, sweetheart.
Thank you so much.
I want to thank the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump.
We could not have a better Commander-in-Chief than him.
It is the honor of a lifetime, sir, to serve under you.
We look forward to having the backs of our troops and having your back in executing peace through strength, in putting America first, and in rebuilding our military.
Hex has also pledged that the U.S. military will never back down.
Again, there's a reason why I so strongly supported Pete Hegseth for SecDef.
He's going to be an excellent Secretary of Defense.
You fight, you go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country, and sometimes that changes you a little bit.
And by the grace of God and my Lord and Savior, I had an opportunity to come on up out of it and do great things with great veterans organizations that fought for vets, that fought for reform at the VA and for warfighters, and at the Fox News Channel to advocate for those very same causes.
And I'm proud of what I fought for.
I'm not going to back down from them one bit.
I will answer all of these senators' questions.
But this will not be a process tried in the media.
Okay.
Hegseth, of course, is exactly right about all this.
If you want more on Pete Hegseth's view on our warfighters, what they require, go check out the Sunday special I did with Pete several months ago, well before he was ever nominated.
He's terrific.
Deb Fischer, the senator from Nebraska, says, listen, Pete Hegseth is peace through strength.
That is correct.
You know, I'm really excited that the President and the new Secretary have embraced that Reagan term, you know, peace through strength.
The Secretary and I, we talked about the priority for our nuclear deterrent, our nuclear triad.
That is the bedrock of our entire national security.
It's for ourselves, but also for our allies.
They depend upon our nuclear umbrella as well.
So we're going through a modernization program of all three legs of that triad.
And in my conversations with the secretary, we have really, really focused on the need to stay up on schedule on all three of those legs and make sure we have not just the weapons needed, but that those platforms are all ready to go to.
We cannot afford to fall behind on this.
That is true deterrence.
And it's deterrence to be able to show the strength, to show the commitment.
And I think we have this administration now that has stepped up, and they are going to do that.
Okay, again, this is all excellent.
Now, just to show you how deeply embedded the deep state is.
One of the first things that Hegseth did when he entered as Secretary of Defense is he announced that DEI initiatives, as President Trump said, would be wiped out from the military.
So what did the deep state do?
Deep staters immediately announced that they would be removing teaching about the Tuskegee Airmen from the Department of Defense.
And that was not a decision made by Pete Hegseth.
Far from it.
That was somebody lowdown trying to undermine the order to get rid of DEI by removing something that everybody basically agrees on in order to create a fake controversy.
So Hegseth immediately suggested that that had been immediately reversed.
He posted the comment in response to concerns from U.S. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama about the malicious compliance we've seen in recent days.
Malicious compliance is exactly right.
They're members of the deep state, and these are people who are career appointees in a wide variety of administrative roles who are taking deliberately, literally, And to the extreme, many of the executive orders that are being put down simply in order to do humiliating things that then have to be identified and reversed by the actual appointees.
Hegseth said, we're all over it, Senator.
This will not stand.
Now, again, it is absolutely ridiculous that somebody tried to do this.
In the notion that somehow people on the right are against the Tuskegee Airmen is insane.
A few years ago, on this show, I interviewed Harry Stewart, who's one of the Tuskegee Airmen on the show.
Tuskegee Airmen are heroes to all Americans.
This notion that if you want to ban DEI, you have to get rid of this, it's just ridiculous.
But again, the goal of so many people in the federal government, career employees, is to undermine what Trump is trying to do.
That is why he is taking the measures that he is taking.
Now, speaking of this, Tulsi Gabbard is the nominee for Director of National Intelligence.
She has a bit of a checkered history when it comes to some of the foreign policy positions ranging from Syria to Russia.
All of these will be asked about, I assume, in the hearings that will take place this week.
The left's opposition to Tulsi Gabbard, however, is too rich.
It's just too rich.
So former CIA Director John Brennan, who probably, probably should be in jail for perjury, he claims that Tulsi Gabbard should not be DNI. Why?
Because she will violate the law and withhold intelligence from Donald Trump.
When there are National Security Council meetings that the president chairs in the White House Situation Room...
Usually, the first person to speak would be the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of CIA. They lay down the intelligence basis for any type of policy discussion that ensues.
And so if that intelligence basis, that briefing, is going to be skewed or is going to be lacking some very important critical information, the policy decision that ultimately comes out of it is also going to be...
Baseless.
And also, you know, it's going to be potentially threatening to our national security.
So, again, it's the President's Daily Brief, but also the role that the Director of National Intelligence, Director of CIA, play in order to ensure that the people who have to make those decisions in the National Security Council are fully informed about what the reality is, what the intelligence is, what our intelligence gaps are.
And if they withhold things or if they skew things, it really is going to be detrimental.
Real quick before we...
Now again, I might accept that from somebody else.
From John Brennan, I'm not going to take this.
Here was John Brennan in 2018 claiming that the Steele dossier, which of course was a compendium of nonsense, originally created at the behest of the Hillary Clinton campaign and then laundered into our intel community, which was run by people like John Brennan.
This is unbelievable.
Here was...
John Brennan, in 2018, claiming that the Steele dossier had no role in the early intelligence assessment with regard to the Russian collusion nonsense, which is a lie.
It's not true.
The Steele dossier was the original impetus for the launching of so much of the Mueller report.
I did not know what was in there.
I did not see it until later in that year.
I think it was in December.
But I was unaware of the providence of it as well as what was in it.
And it did not play any role whatsoever in the intelligence community assessment that was done that was presented to then-President Obama and then-President-elect Trump.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
And then this guy said the same thing in front of Congress, and it caused a lot of Republicans to think maybe this guy should be brought up on perjury charges.
And the same people in the intelligence agencies who spent years claiming that it was insane to suggest that the lab leak theory about the origins of COVID was real, those same people are now claiming that Tulsi Gabbard is a threat to the free flow of information in intelligence.
And I would take any critique I'm willing to hear, but I'm not willing to hear it from you.
If you're one of the people who covered up the lab leak theory, Then I'm not willing to hear from you that Tulsi Gabbard might cover up information.
That's a weird take.
By the way, the CIA has now concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic most likely arose from a lab leak.
It only killed 1.2 million Americans and 7 million people worldwide, and China reaped zero of the actual consequences for that.
So now the CIA is finally saying it.
It only took them a few years to get there.
All righty, in just one moment, we'll get into more American foreign policy, including...
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