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June 18, 2024 - Dinesh D'Souza
48:24
Defending President Trump Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep 856
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Hi everyone, I'm Danielle D'Souza Gill, and I will be hosting Dinesh's podcast while he is away in Australia this week.
He's doing some very cool things on a tour with Tucker Carlson.
So, I am here to talk about news and all kinds of important things to get to today.
If you haven't heard me on here before, I am Dinesh's daughter.
I'm also the author of two books, The Choice, The Abortion Divide in America, and Why God?
An Intelligent Discussion on the Relevance of Faith.
Today, I am very excited to be having on Congressman Warren Davidson.
He is from Ohio's 8th congressional district, and we will also be talking to the Trump lawyer, Will Scharf.
We have interesting topics to get to, everything from house races, to talking about the House Freedom Caucus, to also talking about the Trump cases.
If you would like to follow me on social media, you can find me, I'm at DanielleDeSouzaGill on all the platforms, on Rumble, X, True Social, Facebook, Instagram.
Alright, well, let's get started.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
The times are crazy and a time of confusion, division, and lies.
We need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
All right.
Well, we have so much content to get to today.
So that's why today we are going to dive into both of our interviews.
We have two guests on today, because honestly, things are getting so bad in our country with lawfare.
The targeting of President Trump has reached an unprecedented level.
That I think everyone needs to know how bad it is.
Everyone needs to know that we are not really safe anymore.
We're not safe because President Trump is our leading candidate.
He is someone who is a former president as well.
And so the fact that the Democrats feel so emboldened to go after him shows us that nothing is really off the table for them.
So that's why I am bringing on a legal scholar today who is going to tell us all about this.
He's actually a lawyer for President Trump as well, and we're also going to dive further into the House Freedom Caucus.
So make sure to stay with us.
We have two very in-depth interviews, but they are fascinating because they really show us how dire the situation is.
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I am delighted to welcome to the podcast Will Scharf.
He is a lawyer for President Trump and he is also a candidate running for Attorney General in Missouri.
Will, thanks for joining us.
Really great to be with you.
Thanks so much for having me on.
Of course.
Well, I've seen so many of your interviews that were so good.
I saw you with George Stephanopoulos.
You were destroying him.
I was literally thinking to myself, I can't believe people watch him for news.
I mean, to think that someone like that is unfiltered.
I think that's the biggest thing.
They're obviously liberals, but they act like they're unbiased.
They want to pretend like They're really giving you the straight talk, and you were explaining to him how, you know, this is what's going on with the cases with President Trump, and he was acting like he was literally a talking point on MSNBC.
But anyways, I guess the point is just that, before we dive into the cases, because you're an expert on those, but how do we get our messaging to independents?
How do we get our messaging to voters who watch ABC?
I mean, it's great that you are going on shows like that, but how do we show them, hey, what is happening to President Trump is so unjust and unfair, and this could happen to you?
It's amazing the barrier that leftists create through their New York Times, through their TV shows, the celebrities, all the things, to really just make it so that the people who work for them repeat the same points, And a lot of normal people who don't tune in to a lot of things, they don't hear the truth.
So how do we get them to know the truth about these cases going on with President Trump?
Yeah, I think that's a really important point.
I think leftist control of the mainstream media has really become pernicious and destructive.
I mean, as you said, I was on with George Stephanopoulos a couple weeks ago on a Sunday morning show on ABC.
I mean, George Stephanopoulos is currently being sued by President Trump for defamation.
And yet he's on TV every week commenting on President Trump's cases, obviously not disclosing that, pretending to be just sort of an unbiased arbiter of the truth.
And as you said, what came out during our interview was, you know, he would sort of mouth these leftist talking points.
Joe Biden has nothing to do with these cases.
There's nothing political about these cases.
And we know that to be not true.
So to answer your question, I think there are two things.
One, we need conservative warriors who are willing to get in the arena, who are willing to take the tough interviews, who are willing to go to unfriendly places and carry our message forward.
Because for so many people, that's the only way they're going to get the news.
And I think the other thing that's just so important is outlets like this, is alternative media, podcasts, streamers, There are folks who are getting just millions and millions and millions of impressions because I think the American people are hungry for the truth and in a visceral level they understand that they're just not getting the truth from the mainstream media anymore.
So, as I've gotten around the country, you know, I've been on CNN, I've been on ABC, I've been on CBS.
And I've tried to sort of carry the message forth through those outlets.
And then it's great to come on podcasts like this and get to speak to conservatives and really provide the necessary alternative narrative of what we believe is really going on in this country.
Yeah, for sure.
You're such a legal expert, so I want to dive into that.
But I saw something recently, which is that the Supreme Court is going to be releasing their decisions, and they're putting up this massive wall, this fence in front of the Supreme Court, because I guess they're afraid people are going to storm it or cause some kind of violence.
But I think the fact that we're at this point where one side of the country literally thinks our Supreme Court is full of people who are Evil pro-lifers or something.
And they think President Trump wants to create a fascist state or something.
And then we have these people on the other side who are saying, no, look, this is what the truth is.
These are what the facts are.
So when you see things like that going on, and as someone who is operating even within the legal system, it seems like our legal system Aside from our Supreme Court, has gotten so bad to the point where this could happen to President Trump.
We have people who are willing to threaten justices.
The leftist media is kind of, they sometimes stoke the flames of that to make it seem like the rule of law is not something to be respected, even though we try to operate within the rule of law.
We are trying to say, hey, we want to appeal this case and so on.
How do we operate when we're trying to color within the lines, they're coloring outside the lines, doing whatever they want?
Yeah, you know, the left's attacks on the Supreme Court, for one thing, they're totally unprecedented in American history.
We've never seen this sort of media and political drumbeat against the court.
It's an attempt to delegitimize the court, because I think the left is terrified that if the court just follows the law, that they're going to continue delivering Serious defeats for the left.
And we saw when the Dobbs opinion came down, I mean, the attacks on the court were relentless.
The walls went up.
There were protests outside.
Somebody showed up at Brett Kavanaugh's house with guns and zip ties.
Somehow that story got buried in the mainstream media.
But we're talking about it.
This is very serious stuff that the left in their efforts to delegitimize the court are creating real danger for the Republic.
But when I think I think when you look at the modern court today, I mean, the left is just so scared of conservative justices like Clarence Thomas, like Sam Alito, that they're willing just to distort the truth to try to attack them.
I mean, we saw this where, you know, Justice Alito's wife hung an appeal to heaven flag outside their house.
I mean, the Appeal to Heaven flag was, I believe, the earliest American flag.
It was flown by, you know, warships and continental regiments during the Revolutionary War.
It's a reference to John Locke's Second Treatise.
I mean, God forbid a Supreme Court justice and his family should, you know, believe something about natural law or know something about the Revolutionary Era.
But to the left, it's just this endless opportunity to attack justices, to attempt to delegitimize the court, and to attempt to delegitimize the work that they're doing.
President Trump the other day on Truth Social likened it to how Bobby Knight, the famous basketball coach, always used to work the refs.
That he'd be on the sidelines shouting and screaming, and eventually he'd get better calls out of the refs because of how aggressive he was being.
I think that's what the left is trying to do here.
Fortunately, I think the justices on the court are made of sterner stuff, and I think historically they've been pretty good at tuning out this sort of pressure, with notable exceptions.
I think probably most notably the Obamacare decision, which was a constitutional travesty.
But look, we have a case in front of the court right now, our presidential immunity appeal.
There's also the Fisher case, which is an absolutely A vital case relating to the way that January 6 protesters have been abused by the legal system.
I think we're going to get good opinions in both of those cases.
And I think that's why the left is just absolutely freaking out right now that their attacks on President Trump are failing in the courts.
The contortions they've sort of pushed our legal system through to persecute conservatives.
are failing.
And I think because of that, that's why we've seen the temperature of these attacks ramped up to the degree that we have.
And I'm just hopeful that between the end of the court's term in the next few weeks, and then frankly, the November election next fall, that we can restore some sanity to America's political system.
Yeah, for sure.
Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the immunity case.
I saw them, you know, peppering you with questions about President Trump having, you know, his personal capacity versus official capacity.
But can you explain a little bit to us about why you can't Hold a president accountable for for things he does as president in the sense that what if they try a president for murder crimes during a war or things like that.
So can you go through a little bit of why that doesn't make sense?
And maybe you can explain because some people also say, well, why does this never come up as an issue before?
Well, probably because our country was never at this point where people were willing to prosecute a former president in this way.
But the left hates Donald Trump, and so that's why.
But can you explain a little bit about what that immunity would involve?
Sure.
I mean, the reason this issue has never come up before is because in the history of the United States, throughout the entire history of our republic, no former president has ever been indicted, has ever been subject to any criminal process with respect to their official acts in office.
And that's the constitutional design.
That's what our framers understood the constitutional design was.
That for a president's official acts in office, we're not talking about personal or private conduct here, but for their discharge of their duties as president, they can't be held criminally liable, they can't be prosecuted, unless they're first impeached and convicted by the House and Senate.
That's the system that our Constitution sets up.
That's how Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison understood the system.
I mean, we have an uninterrupted stream of case law going back to the very beginning of the Republic, where the Supreme Court consistently said that a president's acts, his official acts in office, are not reviewable by the court.
absent impeachment and conviction.
Suddenly we get to President Trump and we get to this DC prosecution brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
When you actually read the indictment, I mean this is relating to President Trump's efforts to investigate election fraud in the aftermath of the 2020 election, a subject I know you're very familiar with.
President Trump was doing things like asking the Department of Justice to investigate election fraud and calling members of Congress and expressing his concern as president with the way that the 2020 election was conducted.
These are poor executive functions that really get to the heart of the president's responsibilities under Article 2 of the Constitution.
And yet Jack Smith indicted President Trump Four counts, four federal felony counts in Washington, D.C.
for exactly this sort of conduct.
So all we've said is that a president should have immunity from prosecution for his official conduct absent the constitutional process that's laid out, impeachment and conviction by the House and Senate.
And when we first filed this motion to dismiss last fall, All the liberal commentators said, oh, this is a stalling tactic.
This is ridiculous.
They don't know what they're talking about.
And then as we started moving through the courts and as we started filing briefs and making our arguments, we saw more and more people say, basically, hey, there is something to this argument.
This makes a lot of sense.
And then last spring or I guess last winter, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
And then in oral arguments, we heard really all the justices, including the liberals, Asking very serious questions about what the impact would be on the institution of the presidency if they did not recognize exactly the sort of immunity that we're talking about.
I mean, we said in an argument, Justice Gorsuch echoed this point, that we're not even really talking about President Trump here.
We're talking about our constitutional system that's been so crucial for our republic really throughout its history.
And ultimately, the office and the prerogatives of the President of the United States of America, President Trump, I think, has said it best.
If a president doesn't have immunity for his official act, every single thing he does in office, he'll be subject to effectively political blackmail.
His political opponents will say, if you don't do X, Y, and Z, the day you leave office, we're going to drag you into court and throw you in prison.
And what that will lead to is a total diminution of the office of the presidency, a destruction of the president's power to act with bigger and energy the way that the framers intended. And I think it will do real damage to our republic.
So we expect to get an opinion within the next couple weeks, perhaps even as soon as this Thursday or Friday. And we hope the Supreme Court sees things our way. I think they will.
Yeah. And if they do, I guess kind of goes back to the threats point, but what happens?
Because it seems like the left kind of, they keep bringing up, they have multiple cases.
So even if we win one, they, you know, say guilty on the New York case and so on.
It's like, they're never going to give up.
And then let's say he's president.
Do they?
Continue doing this while he's president?
I mean, how can you function as president when you are being prosecuted?
I don't know how long these appeals will take.
I've heard some of them could take two years to do an appeal.
I think that's on a different case.
Where does this end, I guess?
And how does someone deal with this as president?
Should that be something that's brought up?
Because it seems like that would really harm the country if he's the president of our country.
How is he going to be able to focus on foreign things he's supposed to be doing as president when he's kind of being handcuffed in that sense?
So you can't prosecute a sitting president, period, end of story.
So the day President Trump gets back in the White House, basically all of this stops.
And that's one of the reasons why the November election is so important.
When you look at the four cases, though, there are four criminal cases against President Trump right now.
They're all collapsing.
The New York trial was just, it was terrible.
But there's so much reversible error in it that it may take us a while.
We're going to move as fast as we can, but we're going to get that verdict overturned on appeal.
The Florida case, the Mar-a-Lago documents case at one point looked pretty threatening.
Now, you know, we've raised very serious issues of prosecutorial misconduct, of destruction of evidence, of evidentiary custody issues with the way that the investigation was conducted.
There is no trial date there.
Judge Cannon vacated the trial date, has not set a new trial date, because there are just so many issues with the way that the special counsel's office behaved, the way they brought that case.
That really it's almost like the prosecutors are on trial at this point.
The same is true in Georgia.
We've moved to disqualify Fonny Willis from that case.
That issue is now up on appeal with the Georgia Court of Appeals.
So that case is really not moving at all.
And I believe that Fonny Willis and Nathan Wade, her special prosecutor slash lover, I think they're under more real legal jeopardy at this point than President Trump or any of his co-defendants.
The Washington DC case, we have an absolute stay of all of those proceedings until the Supreme Court decides our presidential immunity appeal.
I think if the court recognizes even any notion of immunity, even if it's more limited than what we would like, That should result in a remand back to the lower courts for us to litigate what exactly that immunity will look like in practice.
And that process could take a very, very long time.
But between immunity and the Fisher case that I mentioned before, this January 6 case, which actually relates to the interpretation of the statute, one of the statutes that's being used to prosecute President Trump.
That DC case could be dealt two essentially fatal blows or near fatal blows in the next week or two.
So overall, when you look at the entire campaign of lawfare being waged against President Trump, we're really winning on basically all of these fronts.
I think President Trump is going to have the opportunity to run for president.
I don't think we're going to have another trial before election day.
In fact, I'm pretty sure about that.
So he's going to have the opportunity to run, and I believe the American people are going to re-elect him, really just because of how terrible President Joe Biden has been.
And once he's back in the White House, we can really work to restore normalcy to our courts, to depoliticize prosecution, to really get the courts out of the business of being political actors the way the Biden administration and their allies have forced them to be.
Wow, okay, so you're saying you think this year that he will be able to campaign all of those things because it seems like they're trying to do the gag order.
They're trying to make it so that this year he's, I mean, I guess this is extremely expensive, but they're trying to basically make it so he's kind of like crippled this year and then hope he doesn't win, I guess.
But you're saying that you feel like this year he is going to be able to fully campaign.
Well, the attacks on him as a candidate have been profound.
I mean, remember, they tried to kick him off the ballot.
We took that case to the U.S.
Supreme Court and we won it nine to nothing.
I mean, the levels that the left is willing to stoop just to interfere with President Trump's ability to run, we've never seen anything like it in American history.
The gag orders.
I mean, we had a gag order in D.C., we had one in New York.
I mean, in the history of the United States, No gag order like the ones that we've seen have ever been upheld against a political candidate, much less a candidate for president before.
It's just totally unprecedented.
But again, I think we're fighting on all fronts and we're winning just about everywhere.
And I think we're going to keep on winning.
And ultimately, President Trump is going to have the ability to carry his message.
On the campaign trail.
I mean, we see him out there every night giving speeches and taking questions and doing rallies and events.
It's really incredible to see.
I mean, I think while he was on trial, President Trump had more people turn up to his rally in New Jersey than Joe Biden has gotten at all of his campaigns, all of his campaign events in the last probably five years combined.
I mean, it was like 80,000 people turned out to that.
So I think the American people see through what's going on.
I think President Trump is going to win decisively in November.
And again, I think one of the best things about that victory will just be that, you know, having defeated this leftist campaign of lawfare, we can get back to really the way the Republic is supposed to run, the way that our political system is supposed to run.
President Trump, I think, has said it best when, you know, our revenge will be success.
That he's going to get into office.
He's going to close the border.
He's going to unleash the American economy again.
He's going to deliver wins for the American people.
And I think that's the most important thing that while the Biden administration is focused on this political persecution of President Trump, President Trump has his eyes on the ball.
He wants to make America great again.
And I think that's exactly what he's going to do.
Absolutely, that is so exciting.
And my other question is, how do we prevent this from happening in the future to another person?
So whoever takes up the mantle of America first one day, how do we make it so that the Democrats can't just use lawfare against them?
Because not everybody is a billionaire or Able to deal with this kind of situation.
So I feel like President Trump is stronger than most, but most Republican politicians are much more normal people.
And so, how do you deal with, I guess, preventing this from, of course, taking President Trump, but also post-President Trump?
Yeah, I mean, I think President Trump says it best.
They're not after him.
They're after all of us.
And he's just in the way.
When you look at the way that the left has weaponized the Department of Justice, when you look at just all of the abuses of the Biden administration, it's absolutely clear that the modern left doesn't want to compete politically anymore.
They don't want to have to convince the American people.
They want to jail their opponents.
They want us all to shut up and sit down and just accept that they are going to establish this new leftist Marxist order in America.
And I think the American people are going to reject their vision for the future every single time.
So, I mean, I think the most important thing we need to do is win.
Whether it's winning in court for President Trump, whether it's winning at the ballot box, we need to be electing conservatives up and down the ballot from the lowest level, from the most local municipal election, all the way up to the presidency.
And if we can win, I think it will deal just a body blow to this leftist attempt to subvert our political system.
You know, every election cycle, you hear people say this is the most important election of our lifetimes.
I believe that the 2024 election is the most important election of our lifetimes.
I think if we don't win this time around, the future for America is going to look very bleak.
But on the plus side, if we do win, if we get President Trump back in the White House, if we elect good conservatives all over the country, I think we have a real opportunity to turn this country around.
And I think it can turn around a lot quicker than most people imagine if we get the right people in office.
For sure.
Now, you're running for AG in Missouri.
What are some things that the AGs can do?
Let's say, let's just assume that November happens and the Democrats, I mean, they're going to do whatever they can to stop President Trump.
But the AGs have power too.
So what are some things that the AGs can do, let's say, either way?
Let's say if President Trump wins, what are some things that you'd want to do?
And if, God forbid, he doesn't, what are some things the AGs can do?
Well, look, I mean, if President Trump is not back in the White House, AGs need to be suing the federal government every day.
Fortunately, I think President Trump will be back in the White House by the time I take office next January.
One thing that I think we need to be focusing on that we're not focusing on is the left-wing dark money nonprofits that have such a huge impact on American politics.
The Soros Network of Organizations, the Arabella Advisors Network, the Tides Foundation.
When you look, for example, at the crisis at the border, Obviously, Joe Biden's border policies are a huge driver of that.
But the people who are actually funding these caravans of migrants coming up from Central and South America, the people who are funding a lot of the craziness we see with these illegal immigrants being moved around the country and supported and being here illegally, it's these left-wing dark money nonprofits.
They're acting in violation of the law.
I think they need to be held accountable for that.
We've seen a huge influx of foreign dollars into the American election system.
Hans-Björg Weiss, who's a Swiss billionaire, is now one of the largest funders of American political non-profits.
He gives money to Arabelle Advisors, to Tides.
I mean, you can track us all.
Go to influencewatch.com.
I mean, we've seen this absolute influx of foreign money, of leftist money, that's infecting our political system.
And I think state attorneys general can play a very important role in investigating that, in untangling that web, in really getting in under the hood of how the left is co-opting our political system to achieve their leftist political agenda.
So that's one thing that's a particular kind of passion of mine.
I think it's something that the conservative movement hasn't done enough of that we need to do more of.
I think we need to restore law and order to our streets.
I mean, you have cities across America that are just absolutely overrun with crime.
And nobody seems to be doing anything about it.
I mean, I used to be a violent crime prosecutor in St.
Louis.
I prosecuted, you know, fentanyl dealers, armed robbers, carjackers, bank robbers.
I did fugitive apprehension work with the U.S.
Marshal Service.
I mean, there are very, very dangerous people who are being allowed to run free on the streets of American cities and increasingly in rural areas as well because prosecutors aren't tough enough on crime.
And we have a problem with leftist courts who see everybody as a victim.
Even if, in actuality, they're violent people who have created victims.
So that's another thing that I just think we as a country need to understand.
That we don't have an over-incarceration problem in America.
We have an under-incarceration problem in America.
There are too many violent criminals who are out there.
We need to get them into custody.
The American people have a right to live in safety and security in their own cities and their own homes.
And right now our government is just abjectly failing on that front.
Wow.
Well, you maybe have to be one of the Attorney Generals considered for the country because I'm not sure if Missouri is going to be enough, but thank you so much for joining us today and I really appreciate it.
Really great to be with you.
Thanks so much.
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I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast Congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio's 8th Congressional District.
Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks for having me on.
It's an honor to join you all today.
Of course!
Well, there's so much to get to today, but I wanted to start out by asking you about a political article that came out two days ago.
A lot of people who are listening to the podcast may not be embroiled in all of the different congressional races going on around the country, but this one was kind of a unique one because, for example, in my husband Brandon's race, he was endorsed by President Trump and the House Freedom Caucus, but there was a race going on in Virginia where The chair of the Freedom Caucus is running.
However, President Trump has endorsed against him and you chose to support President Trump.
So can you tell us a little bit about your decision behind that?
Well, look, President Trump, I won't say I've agreed with every endorsement President Trump's made, but this one I think he's got exactly right.
You know, Bob Good is currently the chairman of the Freedom Caucus.
And, you know, my views on him have been well known inside Congress, but I didn't think he was a good pick for the Freedom Caucus.
I think in a lot of ways, you know, he's got similarities with the neoconservatives in the fact that, you know, they've never found a fight they don't want to get in.
And I don't know that our country is made stronger by being in every single fight.
We win more effectively by picking battles and winning them and setting decisive objectives and achieving them.
And, you know, I feel like, I feel like we could be more effective by growing our influence with our colleagues.
So I parted ways.
I left the board over that decision, and I was reluctant to get involved here, but I felt like this isn't a race where you've got a moderate versus a conservative.
You've got two pretty conservative guys, former Navy SEAL, and I really feel like John McGuire gives us a better chance to be more effective.
Obviously, Donald Trump feels that way, and that's who he wants to help him drain the swamp, and I look forward to working alongside John McGuire to do just that in the next Congress.
Yeah, and this race is going on in Virginia, and this takes place really pretty soon, so there should be some results coming out.
So maybe you can tell us a little bit about your vision for something like the Freedom Caucus.
Do you see it as something that should be operating kind of in more unison, or do you think it's kind of a way to put a check on Some of maybe you mentioned the neocons.
How do you foresee the Freedom Caucus, maybe moving forward past this race, but into next year?
Well, I mean, fundamentally, if you look at the founding fathers of the Freedom Caucus, people like Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Governor DeSantis, you know, there were people that didn't share every view, but they knew that we needed to move the Congress and frankly, the country back on track to the right.
So, the real question is, what tactics are most effective there?
And when we have a very narrow majority, often you can hold up things to be able to get a vote on something you wouldn't otherwise get.
So, for example, when Paul Ryan was Speaker, the House Freedom Caucus said, if you don't give us a vote on immigration, we're going to take down the Farm Bill.
He said we wouldn't do that, and we were reluctant to do it, obviously.
A lot of us are from rural parts of the country.
We said we will and we'll have support from the country.
So we did just that and we forced Paul Ryan who didn't want to vote on immigration to vote and think what a difference it would have made if we had gotten that across the finish line instead of being sabotaged from the center.
So, you know, there's a time and a place for the Freedom Caucus to get into a fight and win and do that and move the conference to the right with power politics.
But the other part is there's an inside game That is, you know, how do you build influence with your colleagues?
And at some point, if everyone only has contempt for you, and not just the way you're, you know, it's not just being right, but the way you go about being right, you poison the well.
So they don't even want to listen to you on anything.
So I fear that some of these kind of, you know, no one's righteous, but us tactics kind of alienate people.
And in a lot of ways, the same way Christianity, the way you go about sharing the gospel matters, You know, as well as whether or not you, you know, are right.
So I think, you know, there's ways to alienate people.
And I fear that's the path that the Freedom Caucus has been on for a while.
I hope we go back to A, being right, being willing to fight, but B, able to build influence with our colleagues.
Yeah, for sure.
And this is going to be such a crazy year with everything happening to President Trump, but I'm very excited.
It seems like most Republicans are accepting that we need to follow the lead of President Trump, and so that's great.
But maybe you could tell us a little bit about some of the issues that you've been focusing on.
I know that you are very much against additional funding for Ukraine, as are we.
Why aren't all Republicans on board with that?
Are they just Getting money from lobbyists.
Are they part of the Uniparty?
What is going on?
Why are billions of dollars going to Ukraine when our border is not being addressed?
Yeah, so when I first ran, maybe the brand boiled down to, you know, Army Ranger Business Guy.
So, you know, I enlisted in the Army out of high school.
I got to go over to Germany when the Berlin Wall was still up and got to be there when it came down.
And you see people experiencing their first hours of freedom.
You know, they were not looking for more government.
They were looking for more freedom.
And, you know, that was the contrast in the Cold War.
I think a lot of people still think of Russia as the Soviet Union and, you know, the idea that, oh, we could kill Russians.
You had them at that.
That's all they were really in it for.
And, you know, that's not really something that makes America stronger.
And when you look at Ukraine, this all goes back to, is it really, take Lindsey Graham as an example.
He's a Republican.
But he's for all the wars in all the places.
And it's a really part of the party than most of the freedom caucuses.
And, you know, we're not isolationists.
I don't think anyone in the group would describe themselves or accept that moniker.
But we're definitely America first foreign policy.
And I think that part of the party is definitely welcomed Donald Trump and his vision.
It's put a conflict within the party, you know, in that kind of Liz Cheney wing of the party versus The more America-first focused foreign policy wing.
So I think that's one of the most important things that we're fighting for because, you know, in our nation, you know, we are being made less free, less safe, more burdened by debt, all in the name of these endless wars.
And not just the lack of focus in the war, it's the expansion of spying on American citizens with the justification, oh, just to keep us safe on the Patriot Act.
So it's eroding our freedom as well as bankrupting our country.
Right, absolutely.
Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your support of crypto, because I know that's been another another big issue that you've been focused on.
Yeah, so I mean, I was in business before I was in Congress.
And, you know, with payments, you start looking at how to do this more efficiently.
So I got on to Bitcoin in like 2012, 2013, and kind of thought that was a little bit late.
But When I got to Congress in 2017, 2016 really, and then in Financial Services Committee on 2017, you know, the market was really heating up.
You had something known as the initial coin offering market.
And there were really good use cases, but they were being tainted because there were people just running pump and dump scams.
And we thought, you know, we should pass a law and be able to get this focused.
So I've been working on that for a long time.
Finally got a law passed through the House last month.
And the other part of this is, Maybe the creepiest surveillance tool ever developed in history is the central bank digital currency.
And for a lot of people, when they hear cryptocurrency, they think central bank digital currency.
And the reality is it's 180 degrees apart, other than the fact it's digital.
But the central bank digital currency is controlled by a central authority.
And in China, they're using this to add to a social credit score.
It's a tool for coercion and control.
And unfortunately, our own Federal Reserve is actively hiring people to develop a central bank digital currency.
So we're trying to turn that off.
We passed through the House a ban.
It broke on party lines.
Two Democrats joined all Republicans in saying, we need to ban central bank digital currency.
And I really think that's one of the most important things, not just for America, but for Western civilization.
If people don't have direct access to their own money, I mean, it's essentially blocking their ability to have private property.
Everything becomes permissioned under the control of the government directly.
And so, you know, I think that's one of the most important things.
If you look at Bitcoin as an example, there is no central authority.
There's no corporate headquarters.
No one can filter your transactions.
And that's part of why big government people hate it, whether they're from the left or right, sort of like cash.
It gives you some kind of freedom.
Yeah, for sure.
trust the individual with freedom, not just the government.
And I think that's consistent with the Founding Fathers vision that our rights come from God, not from government.
Yeah, for sure.
And they're definitely trying to move us away from a cashless society.
You know, like if you go on an airplane, they'll say, oh, we can't take cash anymore.
I think because of COVID, they would use COVID as the excuse of why we can't exchange cash because it's going to get you the COVID or something.
But maybe you can tell us a little bit about if you look forward to expanding the majority this fall.
What does it look like if you are looking at the congressional map?
Because there are a lot of seats up and so on.
And if President Trump wins, we want to have, of course, a Republican Congress.
And right now it's so razor thin.
And so can you maybe give us some updates on how you think it's looking as far as expanding our majority?
Yeah, I mean, I think the House goes the same way the presidency goes.
So when Donald Trump prevails and wins, I think the House majority is going to grow.
We're going to have tough fights in individual states like New York, where we picked up five seats last cycle.
In a presidential year, we may lose some seats, but we have to pick them up in other places.
So I don't anticipate a giant swing in the majority one way or the other.
But whether we're in the majority hangs on whether we reelect Donald Trump or not.
And if you look at the Senate, though, I do feel like we have a really good path to Republicans regaining control of the Senate.
You know, Donald Trump's going to win Ohio by more than eight points.
He won by eight points in 16 and 20.
Ohio used to be a swing state.
But, you know, as the left has gone into crazy land over there, Ohioans are just saying, no, we're not.
We're not following that.
And Sherrod Brown is up for election.
And I think when Bernie Marino beats Sherrod Brown, that's going to break the Senate because Jim Justice is going to win in West Virginia.
That's essentially a foregone conclusion.
We win Ohio.
We now have a Republican majority in the Senate.
I think I feel good about some other races in the Senate, but that's so important because even if Donald Trump wins, if we don't take the Senate, we won't be able to get his team in place to run the federal government.
Yeah, right.
And it seems like a lot of the Democrats, and especially even, I don't know if you would say never-Trumpers, but they're very dialed into these local races.
They're dialed into the Congressional races, the Senate campaigns, and yet sometimes I feel like on our side we think, oh well it's okay if we're outspent by so much, we'll still find a way to win.
And it becomes so tough for our side and so we have to win All the way down the ballot.
We have to win with President Trump, with our Senate, our Congress, the whole thing.
And so that way we can actually get things done once he's in office next year.
Yeah, and if you look at the state Supreme Court in every state, they've been using that to try to redistrict.
And that's flipped a lot of seats.
So in Ohio, we lost a seat because they had activists trying to redraw the court, redraw the district lines using the state Supreme Court.
And essentially, that's what Eric Holder has been doing ever since he left as Attorney General for Barack Obama.
And it is narrowing up the House because of activism in redistricting.
And so we have to win those state Supreme Court races.
In Ohio, we have to win a ballot initiative.
They want to take authority to redraw the congressional lines away from the state legislature and create some nonpartisan commission, which really is code for- We know what that would mean.
Yeah.
Wow.
So we really have to get involved at every level within the states because I think sometimes too we have so many amazing grassroots activists and they say, well, what can I do?
What more can I do?
But there actually is so much to do because there are all kinds of things that you can run for locally and somehow liberals find time to get involved in these things.
I don't know if George Soros pays them or something, but He certainly funds a lot of the DAs who are running in their elections, so we have to be more involved in those races.
Yeah, I mean, they have big money coming in, but they also have this ActBlue small dollar, so they have a lot of Democrats, apparently.
I think some of it's probably laundered money, but apparently they have a lot of Democrats who are giving small dollars, you know, 10, 20, 50 bucks a month on a consistent basis to candidates or to ActBlue that distributes out Yeah, for sure.
And that helps them win competitive races.
We've been trying to get a similar kind of low dollar operation on the right.
But those kinds of ways to fund the cause really do make a difference.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, it's crazy how much small dollar President Trump raised after his guilty verdict.
Obviously didn't want that to be the reason that that happened, but hopefully a lot more voters and a lot more people who weren't initially donors or weren't initially supporting President Trump are now coming into the fold.
And so I think we are reaching a lot of new people.
Congressman, what is one of your main goals for the rest of this year?
Because it seems like this year, I don't know if we're at a bit of a standstill, but it seems like It could be a little bit difficult to get some things done.
Is there anything that's kind of on the list this year before we get to the election?
Well, September 30th is when the government is funded until.
So October 1st, if we don't pass anything else, there would be a government shutdown.
And normally I'm for 100%, got to hit the deadlines.
But here, I think it's important to extend this out into the next Congress.
So we get into, say, you know, February, give the first 30 days for the president, to get him in place and the team in place, and we should be able to pass a Trump agenda early on in the next Congress if we can succeed.
Otherwise, you know, we just have to make sure at a minimum we don't get rolled and get even worse policies.
But it'd be a shame to continue funding the status quo one more day past September 30th.
So we're having that fight as we go into appropriations right now on every policy, whether it's handcuffing Homeland Security so they can't do any more interior resettlements.
I mean, they're Basically, free travel.
They've turned ICE into a travel agency, relocating people all over the country.
So we, at a minimum, want to turn some of those kinds of things off and get those wins.
And frankly, I think that's worth fighting.
I don't want a government to shut down.
I want to fund our government, but I do not want to fund a government that refuses to secure its border.
And I think we're all counting on the fact that Donald Trump is going to win in November.
So they're saying, oh, it's OK if we fund the status quo this year.
I'm like, no.
In the off chance we don't win in November, we have to have put handcuffs on Homeland Security and, you know, our weaponized Justice Department and every other kind of activity that we're fighting for in appropriations.
The main power of Congress is the power of the purse, and we have to use that.
Appropriation season's between now and September 30th, and I sure would hate to see, you know, another panic attack where the Speaker's like, oh, we can't risk anything.
If we don't risk anything, how are we going to change the status quo?
Right, for sure.
And the Democrats, they don't leave anything on the table.
They don't say, oh, well, our president's going to win, so we'll just, you know, ignore this other massive area of power and give it to the Republicans.
So, yes, great point.
Well, Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today and hope you have a great week and good luck with all of this.
Yeah, thank you.
God bless you and all your viewers and listeners.
Well, that wraps up today's show.
If you enjoyed it, make sure to find me on social media.
I am at Danielle D'Souza Gill.
I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, X, Truth Social, all the places.
So make sure to follow me on there so we can stay in touch.
I will see you guys tomorrow and MAGA.
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