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April 30, 2025 - Dinesh D'Souza
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JUDGES IN HANDCUFFS Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1073
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Coming up, I'll talk about the two judges who have been arrested, and I'll discuss the left's hypocrisy in complaining about these judges who, in fact, seem to have been trying to circumvent the immigration laws.
I'm going to explore what's going to happen with the Catholic Church.
Will they name a conservative pope of the likes of the African Cardinal Robert Serra?
And Will Upton of the National Pulse joins me.
We're going to talk about how the FBI is working to identify Trump administration leakers.
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This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
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I want to talk about a few things in this opening segment.
The first one is that Amazon, under Jeff Bezos, there are very left-wing people at the top of Amazon.
Bezos himself is a little bit more to the center.
He's clearly a Democrat.
I think he's on board with the left, at least in some respects.
Maybe not on taxes and a couple of other issues.
He may be economically somewhat more conservative.
But Amazon is not.
And they were evidently preparing a kind of political strike against Trump.
And that is, they were going to list their products.
With a kind of description of the added price of the tariff.
So if there are tariffs on China, the idea would be, we're going to show you that this product costs $8, but because of the tariff, it's going to cost $16.
And of course, the idea here was to rub it in to the American consumer and make the American consumer angry at Trump for having these tariffs.
Now, initially Amazon presented this as, you know, it's full disclosure.
I mean, you know, we are just really being transparent and showing the American people where their costs are coming from.
But, of course, this transparency is a bit of a ruse.
And I say that because, all right, if Amazon wants to be transparent, why don't they tell you that the vast majority of the stuff that they sell is stuff that they buy extremely cheaply from China?
I don't see that on when I look.
When I scroll through Amazon, I don't see disclosure of where these products are all made, where Amazon is getting them.
So Amazon is not really into transparency.
The transparency is rather selective, and in this case was chosen as a kind of hostile strike against the Trump administration.
And so what does the Trump administration do?
They decide to call it out.
And there's Carolyn Leavitt up there in the press room bashing Amazon.
For this hostile political act because she recognizes instinctively that this is what Amazon is doing.
And so what does Amazon now do?
Well, they back off.
As often happens in these cases, they pretend like they were never really going to do that anyway.
That was simply something that was perhaps being planned for certain limited products, but now they're not going to do that at all.
Now, the guys on the left go Amazon, you know, bent the knee.
Amazon's, you know, essentially surrendered to Trump.
The left is so used to the media and the entertainment industry.
And giant corporations, all acting as sort of extensions of the Democratic Party, that when they don't, it's kind of like, why are you doing this?
Why are you behaving this way?
You're supposed to be a pawn of us.
So a prominent athlete, for example, goes to a game with Trump.
Well, how dare you do that?
You're supposed to be one of us.
He's a dictator, don't you know?
So the left tries to maintain this kind of, you could almost call it plantation control.
Over powerful people and institutions, and they've been getting away with it for a long time.
But what Trump is doing, I think quite effectively, is breaking their stranglehold on this kind of thing.
And Bezos clearly has made a calculation.
Listen, you know, I like being on the left.
I like the cultural trophies.
I like walking around.
I'm the owner of the Washington Post.
But I also don't want to cross the Trump administration too much because that could be very costly for me and for my business.
Now, let me talk about these two judges that have been arrested.
And about the left's complaint, which is that they are now arresting judges.
Can you believe it?
So for the left, this is a kind of pathway to authoritarianism.
Of course, for those of us who were not born yesterday, we recognize that this pathway has been long trod by the left itself.
They don't have to arrest judges because a lot of these judges, at least the ones we're talking about, are in their back pocket.
In fact, there's so much in their back pocket.
That they don't even function as judges at all.
Look at all the judges who are stymieing and blocking Trump actions.
Many of these actions are completely within the legitimate orbit or purview of the executive branch.
They're being blocked anyway.
And they're blocked anyway because the judge realizes I can't stop it.
But guess what?
I can delay it.
And so let me use my judicial power.
Let me play good soldier of the left.
Who cares what the law says or the Constitution?
Who cares if this is all legitimate executive?
I'll find some pretext to slow it down.
But it's one thing to do that, because when you do that, the Trump people will appeal to the appellate court and up to the Supreme Court, and it all takes time, and it's frustrating and even maddening, but at least the process goes forward.
In these two cases, the Milwaukee Circuit Court judge, Hannah Dugan, and then the other guy, which is a New Mexico judge, Joel Cano, You have actual efforts to subvert immigration law and immigration enforcement.
And the facts of these cases are almost a little bit hard to believe.
We'll start with Judge Cano.
And this is a guy who apparently had at least one illegal...
And not only that, but the illegal was apparently in possession of a firearm or firearms.
And not only was the judge, Cano, and his wife aware of this, they were helping to delete evidence so that it would not incriminate either them or the illegal.
And so as a result, they're facing not only the charge of obstruction, but also tampering with evidence.
And Judge Cano, of course, said, Was forced to resign.
The illegal in question is a fellow named Cristian Ortega, who is evidently a suspected Tren de Aragua member.
And listen to this.
According to the affidavit, Cano said that he, quote, destroyed the cell phone that belonged to Ortega by smashing it with a hammer and discarding the remaining pieces in the city trash dumpster.
Five weeks ago.
This is the behavior of a judge.
And somewhat in the same vein, you have Judge Hannah Dugan.
She was scheduled to have a hearing with an illegal, a criminal alien who had victimized, and the victim was actually in the courtroom, and the judge got wind of the fact that ICE was in the building.
To apprehend the illegal.
And so what does she do?
First of all, she goes out there and confronts ICE.
Second of all, she cancels the hearing.
Third of all, she shepherds or kind of smuggles the illegal into the jury room to help him make a kind of side or backdoor getaway to elude.
The ice people get wind of it.
They run around.
They see the suspect and his lawyer kind of making a getaway.
They kind of try to sprint.
The ice people chase him down.
The whole thing is unbelievable.
But what is most unbelievable is not the apprehension, of course, but the fact that you've got a judge, a circuit court judge.
Participating in this kind of thing and helping the guy to make a getaway.
Now, this judge is a confirmed left-winger.
It goes without saying that she's a Democrat.
She's evidently one of the senior officials of Catholic Charities.
And Catholic Charities is a left-wing NGO, a left-wing non-profit that has been making really tons of money from the whole, quote, of handling these illegals, providing illegal services,
providing illegal accommodation, providing all kinds of other types of services, including legal services.
And that explains Judge Hannah Dugan's legal background that made her supposedly qualified to be appointed to the judiciary as a judge.
I hope that the Trump administration proceeds full speed.
With these prosecutions, doesn't cut any kind of deals, makes an example of these judges because that's going to send an important message to other judges that, listen, you have certain types of judicial immunity, but you are not, as the left is always reminding us,
you are not above the law.
In fact, to use the slogan the Democrats have used for four years straight, no one is above the law.
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I want to cover in this segment a couple of things.
One is this Indian-American congressman named Tanidar, who has filed articles of impeachment against Trump.
I want to say a word about that.
And then I want to talk about the...
selection of a new pope to represent, not to replace, I mean Pope Francis.
So let me start with this Indian American guy who comes from Michigan's 13th Congressional District, Representative Sri Thanedar, because this guy is...
A suspect character.
And I've gotten to learn a little bit more about him.
I spoke yesterday about the fact that he is, you know, he seems like a guy who's like straight off the boat from India.
In fact, he seems like some guy who just showed up from some city in India to try to change the American political system.
It seems very incongruous to have a guy who speaks, I won't say broken English, but certainly English that is heavily accented.
It would be almost similar to some guy from America.
Imagine if, like, you know, Mike Pence or someone just, you know, some white guy off the street of Milwaukee shows up in the Indian parliament and demands the resignation of the prime minister.
The Indians would be not only bewildered, but probably be driven to a riot and drag this guy out in a straitjacket.
And that's the impression you get when you listen to the rants of this Representative Thanedar.
Now, in fairness...
The guy is a member of Congress, but he has a shady background.
And I found an article in the Metro News, and it's also in Huffington Post and elsewhere.
This guy...
He portrays himself as like he's living the American dream.
Well, it turns out that his former company, which was called Anaclin Preclinical Services, went bankrupt.
And as part of its clinical testing, they apparently had a huge collection of dogs and monkeys.
I don't know if these were for animal testing or testing on other types of devices.
But the moment that his company went bankrupt, he's like, well, I don't care.
And he basically just left these dogs and monkeys and welfare services to come in and get them adopted.
They apparently had inadequate care.
People had to climb the fence to get to these animals.
So the Humane Society deplored what was going on.
So this kind of shameful behavior is pretty standard fare for these posturing Democrats.
And there was also, in fact, the guy was asked about it, Thanedar, was asked about who's to blame for these animals being neglected.
And he goes, Bank of America.
And then the reporter goes, Bank of America?
And he goes, yeah, because Bank of America foreclosed on my loan and took it over.
So the reporter goes, not your fault?
Quote, not my fault.
Tanidar answers.
So this guy is not only kind of a lowlife in the way that he treats animals, but he refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
And then Laura Loomer reports that when you look at his campaign, you discover that his campaign is like $700,000 in debt.
Now, the reason that's significant is that what Loomer suggests, Is that what he's trying to do here is use the impeachment, which he knows is going to go nowhere, right?
You've got a Republican majority in the House, so good luck impeaching Trump.
And impeaching him for what?
It's certainly going to go nowhere in the Senate.
And of course, so this is dead in the water.
So when something is dead in the water, but somebody is pushing it, you have to ask yourself, what's in it for them?
And the answer is money.
Because sure enough, I had in fact an exchange with this guy on X and he immediately turns around and goes, I'm being attacked by the right wing.
I'm being attacked by conservatives.
And then of course, give me money.
So, you know, it just takes a little bit of probing and poking and suddenly the kind of the real truth comes out, which is it's all about the money.
How can I convert this into a way to get cash flowing into my account?
So, according to Loomer, and I think she's probably right here, this is a mechanism...
And maybe it's because USAID is now not supplying enough money and the taxpayer, the looting of the taxpayer is being interrupted by Doge.
So Democratic congressmen have to look for sly new ways to sort of collect cash for themselves.
And what better than impeachment?
Because after all, think of it, you've got Trump derangement syndrome, you've got all these rich Democrats who are just yearning for someone to go after Trump.
They had put their hopes on, you know, Alvin Bragg and Judge Merchant and Judge Tanya Chutkin and all of that kind of went nowhere.
And they kind of must know deep down that this kind of weird Indian guy is not going to go anywhere either.
But they're like, hey, you know what?
Let's encourage him.
And so this could very well be nothing more than a financial scheme.
And now let me say a word about Pope Francis.
I think we all realize that this guy was, well, an unmitigated disaster, maybe going too far, but he was a left-wing pope.
And that's bad if you're a pope.
It's bad to be a left-winger anyway, but to be a left-wing pope is even worse.
Why?
Because the Catholic Church is the most conservative institution.
And I mean this in the most...
I don't even mean this in an ideological sense.
I mean that the Catholic Church is conserving a tradition that is quite literally 2,000 years old and goes back to the Apostle...
Peter.
And so to have a left-winger seems totally inappropriate.
And this Pope was, you know, he was careful not to flout openly any kind of Catholic or Christian orthodoxy.
But nevertheless, you could tell that he was more...
The world's missionary to the Church rather than the Church's missionary to the world.
If I had to sum up his legacy, that's what I would say about him.
And we obviously need a very different kind of Pope.
The world needs a different kind of Pope.
Now, the Catholic Church does too, but so does the world.
And my man for the job is Cardinal Robert Serra, who has clashed a couple of times with Pope Francis, particularly on the issues of doctrinal orthodoxy.
This is an African cardinal.
He'd be the first black pope.
He's from the nation of Guinea.
He's 79 years old, but he is quick-witted, and he would...
You know, look, in some ways the papacy has been kind of roaming around the world.
They had the Polish Pope, which was John Paul II.
Then they went to Benedict, of course, who was German.
And after that, Francis, who was representing in some way South America, Latin South America.
Well, hey, if you want to continue that kind of globetrotting in search of a new face to represent the papacy.
How about Robert Serra?
This would be remarkable to get a guy like that into the office.
We'll see.
My guess is that they won't go in that direction, even though I guess I'm recommending that they should.
The whole process, as you probably know, is rather secretive.
It's a funny thing because people are, quote, running for Pope, but you can't really run.
You can't campaign.
You've got to pretend like you don't really want the job.
Oh, no, I refuse the job.
Please take it and so on.
So the whole thing is an elaborate dance of modesty and power because ultimately the cardinals do vote.
And then, as you know, the smoke comes out of the chimney with the announcement that we have.
We have a new pope.
So the importance of this is that the pope remains an important cultural, moral, and even political figure.
And for those reasons, I hope that they do better.
It's hard to do worse than Francis, but there certainly are some very good guys in the wings, and none better than the cardinal from Guinea, Robert Serra.
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Guys, I'm always happy to be joined on the podcast by Will Upton, political editor at The National Pulse, former Trump administration treasury official.
The website, thenationalpulse.com.
You can follow him on X at W Upton, U-P-T-O-N.
Will, thanks for joining.
I really appreciate it.
I thought I might start by asking you what you make of these media declarations and self-congratulations to the officials.
You know, we must admit that we fell a little bit short in missing the story about Biden losing his mind and being essentially dysfunctional as president.
Some of them say, well, it still wasn't really our fault.
We were kind of misled by the White House.
There are others that take a small iota of responsibility.
But nevertheless, I mean, weren't these guys, like, close up to Biden?
Didn't they know about the fact that he was being handed note cards with giant alphabetical writings on them?
You know, kind of the way you treat a toddler?
They saw this even more vividly than you and I did, right?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, Tara Palmieri actually was on a podcast with Rahm Emanuel just the other day, and she asked him about this.
He kind of did his little, you know, waffling about it, but said that he claimed that he warned the White House that Biden was not well, wouldn't be able to run for re-election.
But Palmieri actually had a piece out several months ago where she basically admitted that a lot of her colleagues knew that Biden was not well, knew that he would not be able to run for re-election, knew that he couldn't fulfill the duties of office, and they just chose to bury it.
They chose to ignore it.
You know, you've got the White House Correspondents' Day, you've got Alex Thompson up there.
Glad-heading himself about this.
He's written a book now talking about Biden not being well, as if it's some big breaking scoop when anybody in the right mind could tell for years.
My theory on this, Will, is that the reason that they didn't tell is that they thought that they had a perfectly functional system.
In other words, it's kind of like, you know, you go, you and I go to Vegas and there's a ventriloquist and he has a ventriloquist doll, right?
And the doll is bobbing back and forth.
But we know that the ventriloquist knows what is coming out of the doll's mouth.
So we're not worried that things are out of control because somebody else is, in fact, steering the ship.
And I think that the media was like, you know what?
It's our gang that's running the place.
So what if Biden is their idiot mouthpiece?
The system not only is functioning, but we've fooled the American people for
Yeah, I mean, it's even worse than that.
I mean, it would be as if we were friends with the ventriloquist himself.
You know, it was basically Annie Tomasini, Ashley Williams, and Anthony Bernal.
They were all aides that were around Joe Biden.
Tomasini was the deputy chief of staff.
All longtime Biden-aids, very close to the family.
It appears that they were kind of the ones really running the White House.
And they're all a bit younger.
They're not like Ron Klain's age or anything.
They're all in their 30s and 40s.
So they're actually kind of the same age that a lot of these reporters are.
And they run the same circles.
They're friends of these people.
So for them, for the media to sort of turn on them, it would be like turning on a friend almost.
So it's that kind of personal connection there too, I think, that really sort of Let's turn well to this issue of the arrest of the two judges.
Now, interestingly, this was just, you know, a day or so apart.
And in one case, you've got the New Mexico guy.
Who was, you know, harboring an illegal.
Apparently, not only that, but he was making efforts to get rid of the cell phone of the illegal that apparently had all kinds of incriminating information on it.
In the other case, you've got the female judge, I believe, in Wisconsin.
And she was trying to slip another illegal out the, I don't know if it's out the back door, but certainly out a door where he would evade capture.
I find it interesting that the judicial establishment, like apparently the chief judge in Wisconsin has come out and said, hey, listen, this is a real offense, and if this in fact occurred, this arrest is in order.
Apparently the judges had to step down, as has the other guy.
But the left has taken this up as kind of a cause celeb, namely, they're arresting judges.
Having seen the Trump mugshot, their arresting judges doesn't have quite the same, you know, same force as it otherwise might.
What do you think is going to happen in these cases?
I mean, in the case of Wisconsin, so Judge Hannah Dugan, it's pretty clear that she broke the law.
She manipulated her docket.
The witnesses, the victim was actually there who was assaulted by this man.
And the prosecutor didn't know that the judge had actually basically canceled the hearing.
She was not going to hold the hearing because she was aware that ICE was in the building.
So they went through the seven other cases beforehand.
They get to this case, and the judge Hannah Dugan tells them, you know, we're done for the day.
And the prosecutor was like, what?
I mean, you have a witness there, you have the victim there.
They were ready to go.
And she literally caught wind that Ice was in the building and evidently took him out to the jury room and Ice eventually caught the man and his attorney as they were running from the courthouse.
It's absolutely unfathomable behavior by a judge.
A lot of people pointed out there's a certain amount of legal immunity that judges have, especially in their courtrooms, but this is sort of a bridge too far at this point.
She's no longer kind of acting from the bench as a judge.
She's now acting as, you know, a criminal, aiding and abetting a crime.
I mean, I must say I was kind of delighted by these two arrests because it seems to me that in some ways the Trump team, although they've been moving with great speed, with great kind of alacrity on so many different fronts,
the one front on which they haven't moved, and some people have like bashed Pam Bondi for this, is...
There's been no arrest of a prominent Democrat.
And it is probably not for lack of evidence, right?
Because, I mean, let's just take the case of the New York AG, you know, Letitia James.
She's been doing all these mortgage shenanigans and apparently researchers have, you know, they've got the chapter and verse on it where she claims to be living in Virginia while running the state of New York.
It would seem, I mean, if this were the Democrats, as you know, they would indict first and then open an investigation because they know that when you're indicted, the AG would probably have to step down.
But Republicans are, well, let's dot the I's and cross the T's.
So the reason I was actually pretty happy about these judges, at least somebody on the other side is getting some handcuffs, right?
Being pulled on them.
We need to see a lot more of this.
Don't you agree?
Yeah, oh, absolutely.
And I think actually with, you know, judges and some of these city officials, some of these sheriffs, you know, who are kind of perpetuating the sanctuary city policies, I think there's kind of an opportunity here because at the end of the day, you know, the federal government has purview over immigration policy.
And, you know, state and local officials don't have a lot of wiggle room there.
And I think there are kind of a lot of tools in the DOJ's toolbox that they can use to kind of go after some of these guys.
We saw this with Judge Dugan in Wisconsin and Judge Cano in New Mexico, which is...
I can't wait for the details to come out on that case because it's absolutely bizarre.
Evidently, the illegal immigrant was from Venezuela, was a Trinidad member, and evidently he had access to a firearm, a gun.
It looked like there was video of him with a rifle, which is illegal for an illegal immigrant to have a firearm.
And it looked like he was with the judge.
The judge was sitting right there as he's carting around his gun.
And I was like, the lack of judgment alone is criminal, almost.
I mean, there's another little irony, isn't there?
And that is that in the Biden years, you'd have states like Texas that would talk about deploying the National Guard down to the border.
And by and large, the courts, including the Supreme Court, came in and said, sorry, guys, but well-intentioned though you may be, this is a federal responsibility.
It's the federal government's authority to enforce or not enforce the laws as it sees fit.
And now...
In a way, the Trump administration can take advantage of that and say, hey, listen, since it is quite clearly our responsibility, you know, no Mayor Wu in Boston or no mayor of Chicago or Denver can interpose themselves in this process.
And if they do, they're going to be apprehended.
Yep.
And that moment was kind of crystallized.
This happened about a month ago, but it was actually back in February.
When Trump had a meeting with the governors at the White House and Janet Mills from Maine, the Democrat governor of Maine, kind of got into a tiff with Trump over the transgender sports stuff and letting biological males play in women's sports, compete in women's sports,
and she sort of said, we're going to comply with state and federal law, and Trump just fired right back, we are the federal law, you know, saying, I have signed an executive order that you can't do this.
And now the DOJ is pursuing that.
They're suing the state of Maine.
So we're seeing some action on that front.
I agree.
There's, I think, some room for expansion there.
We'll talk about what's going on in the FBI because we've had, you know, we've had Kash Patel in there now, not for long, of course, and Bongino.
There are some of the MAGA guys who are a little grumpy and are like, wait a minute, you know, how come people aren't like flying out of windows?
You know, how come they haven't set the place on fire?
Why is the FBI building?
It's fenestration from the Hoover Building.
Exactly.
Why is the building even still standing?
And, you know, why haven't all these people been sent to rural Iowa so that they can operate?
But you've been noticing that there are some things that are happening and probably a lot of other things that are cooking.
Talk a little bit about how the FBI is going about trying to identify leakers in the administration because there has been some of that.
Yes.
So the FBI right now is looking internally.
They've had a leak problem there.
We've seen it at the DOD as well.
We've also seen it within the intelligence community.
Tulsi Gabbard's kind of cracking down on that.
But at the FBI, basically, Director Patel has mandated the use of polygraphs.
So people that they suspect of having communicated without authorization with the press, they're going to have to sit for a polygraph.
And they're going to ask them whether or not they have leaked sensitive information or non-public-facing information or classified information to the media or to PR contacts or Democratic operatives or what have you.
You know, there's been some pushback where people are saying, oh, well, this is a violation of whistleblower protections.
But not really.
FBI agents have to be able to maintain and hold a security clearance.
Most of them hold top secret clearances.
In order to get a top secret clearance, you have to undergo a polygraph to begin with.
So this is sort of a routine type thing for these folks.
So that's what they're going to start doing here, is basically anybody they suspect of having leaked or having, you know...
Let me clarify the distinction I think you're making here, and that is that if there's some guy in the FBI who thinks that there's, let's just say, corruption at the very highest ranks of the FBI, this guy can go to Congress, to the relevant committees, and say,
I am a whistleblower, and I have information, and then they would get whistleblower protections.
But the leaker is a whole different character, right?
The leaker is the guy who is in disagreement with the policies of the Trump administration and maybe Kash Patel.
And so what does he do?
He has coffee with the executive editor of the Washington Post and the New York Times, slips them information that they're not supposed to have so that they can then use that as a cudgel to bash the Trump.
And so that's what they're talking about here.
We're not talking about the revelations of corruption.
We're talking about policy disagreements that,
And it's an old practice to use the media in the insider game of trying to get policies exposed and discredited.
Exactly.
Yes, exactly.
A prime example of this that a lot of people are kind of familiar with were the Pentagon Papers back during the Vietnam War and Daniel Ellsberg.
He first went to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but that was the Times that eventually published it.
But they weren't actually able to do that until...
He also sent the Pentagon Papers to Senator Mike Gravel at the time, a Democrat from Alaska.
And Gravel called his subcommittee in and entered those papers into the congressional record.
But, you know, Elizabeth was originally prosecuted.
So first, he didn't go through that protocol of going to a member of Congress.
Instead, he tried to go to the media.
And that's what they're trying to prevent at the FBI.
Because, again, these are people who are entrusted with the care and the secrets.
Of information that is sensitive, that could potentially harm the United States, could enable and help our enemies.
So when you're entrusted with that, you can't just sort of go in and vent to the media as sort of your therapy session, which is what some of these guys do.
Well, let's close out by me asking you about your, you were at the White House.
There seems to be something brewing on the Ukraine front.
As you know, this has been a little bit of a back and forth.
I saw that Trump, in his most recent interview with Terry Moran, was talking about, you know, Putin's motives.
But what do you think is going to happen next in this back and forth with Ukraine?
Yeah, so I was at the White House yesterday for a briefing with the press secretary, Carolyn Levitt, that they did for kind of social media influencers and sort of alternative media and independent media instead of just sort of the corporate media folks that usually have access to the briefing room.
But I asked her about the minerals deal because we've had a little bit of movement on that over the past kind of...
Two weeks or so.
The Ukrainian government has sort of said, okay, we think we agree to the terms now.
But, you know, there hasn't really been a lot of official word from the White House or anybody else where it stands.
And Leavitt was very confident that a deal was imminent, that Ukraine's going to come to the table, sign this minerals deal, that we're basically going to get repayment for the aid that we have sent them in the form of sort of this joint venture in terms of extracting resources from Ukraine.
So, you know, as they're going to basically set up sort of like a sovereign wealth fund that we're going to have a stake in.
So, you know, I think that's a very positive development that we have.
But, you know, she also did say that the president is frustrated.
He's frustrated with Ukraine.
He's frustrated with Russia.
And that they've been very resistant to sort of coming to the table and just talking.
So she didn't kind of reiterate that, too.
So, you know, whether or not we get a peace deal here.
You know, they seem to be sort of a little more wary on that now.
But it does seem like we're going to get this minerals deal done.
I mean, it just seems, doesn't it, whether it's U.S. policy in Iraq, you're dealing with an oil-rich country, and if they're...
If they're drawing resources from the United States and they've got wealth with which they can defray some of these costs.
And similarly here, you've got a country rich in rare earth minerals.
I mean, Trump, it seems to me, is being very generous in saying, you know, we're not going to take your minerals.
We're kind of going to go into a joint venture with you.
I don't know if it's 50-50, but something like that.
So you benefit and we get reimbursed to some degree.
And apparently the Biden people had no interest in any of this, right?
They were just basically looting the treasury and forking over the money to Ukraine.
Yeah, it was a blank check.
They basically just decided they were going to give Ukraine a blank check.
And no, the minerals deal is, you know, we're going to be able to recoup some of this money that we have sent them in the form of weapons and aid.
And it's going to be beneficial to us because, again, these rare worth minerals are things that we need for our economy, that we need for our tech industry, that we need for...
We're revitalizing manufacturing in the United States, especially high-end, high-tech manufacturing.
We get a little bit of a benefit out of that as well.
Yeah, and in some ways it shows how, in Trump's mind, all this stuff ties together, right?
Because the Chinese are trying to block now some rare earth and some minerals deals with the United States.
So if we can't get it anymore from China, it would be kind of nice to be able to get some of it, at least from someplace else.
Hey guys, I've been talking to Will Upton, political editor of The National Pulse, thenationalpulse.com, that's the website.
Follow him on X at W Upton.
Will, as always, a real pleasure, and thank you.
Thank you for joining me.
Thank you for having me, Dinesh.
with pleasure.
I'm continuing my discussion of Reagan.
The book is Ronald Reagan, How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.
In my humble opinion, the most succinct
A book that captures the essence of Reagan.
And that's just not my view.
I'm looking at the back of the book here.
That's the view of Rush Limbaugh.
It's the view of P.J. O 'Rourke.
It's the view of the editor of the Wall Street Journal.
It's the view of Tom Wolfe, the novelist.
So even Bill Kristol, believe it or not, this is before Bill Kristol.
I won't say lost his mind because he hasn't lost his mind, but started getting big checks from prominent Democrats.
Even Bill Kristol liked the book on Reagan.
Now, where we left off, Reagan was giving talks for General Electric, and I have a little bit of commentary about how Reagan gave these talks and how he became what he would be later called the great communicator.
What was he great at communicating and how did he learn those skills?
Well, it turns out that when Reagan would speak for General Electric, a lot of times he would be speaking at a lunch or he'd be speaking at a dinner.
And when he, in some cases, he would do it in person and in other cases he would record a message.
When he recorded a message, he would outline his thoughts.
On note cards, typically four by six.
He'd have the note cards in front of him and he would work, rehearse his delivery.
So even though he's working off the cards, he would do it twice, three times, four times to make sure that he got the cadence, the trajectory, the timing right.
When he...
Spoke in person.
He realized the importance of being observant about the audience to whom he was speaking.
This is something a lot of speakers don't really realize.
In fact, as someone over the years who has spoken at a lot of events and has seen other speakers speak at events, I notice sometimes the speakers will come to an event and they will, particularly if they're a senator or they're someone in high office,
They show up to the speech like five minutes before they speak.
They go up on the dace, and then they start giving their speech.
This was not Reagan.
At one point, Michael Deaver, Reagan's top aide when he was governor, said to Reagan, you know, you speak at so many of these dinners.
You don't have to sit through the whole dinner.
You can just show up to give the speech.
And Reagan said, no.
He said, you'll be surprised how much I learn about my audience watching them during the meal and even during the early part of the program.
So in other words, for Reagan, it was not a passing of time or a waste of time to be sitting there.
Reagan was like taking it in.
He was observing what's going on and he was making judgments about how best to deliver his Now, in 1964, Reagan was invited by the Republican presidential nominee,
Barry Goldwater, to give a speech on behalf of Goldwater, the nominating speech at the Republican convention.
This was a momentous opportunity for Reagan.
He was, at that time, recognized as an important figure, but not seen as somebody who would be A presidential contender.
It was the speech in 1964 that kind of changed his life, changed his political life, put him on a course that would transform the Republican Party and indeed American history.
So now we move to a new chapter in the book, Chapter 3. It's called Mr. Reagan Goes to Washington.
And I begin the chapter by...
Framing a problem that was faced by Reagan.
And the problem is this.
How does a man who believes in principles that are out of touch with the prevailing public ethos get elected?
Now, the ordinary politician, I say, has an easy solution.
Modify your principles to suit the regnant or the reigning mood.
You find out where are the people going?
How do I run fast and get ahead of them?
And then just champion the things that they already believe in.
But the true leader doesn't think like this, because they're not just interested in getting elected.
They are seeking public office to vindicate their principles, to realize their policy objectives.
And so this option of accommodation...
To public sentiment and to the fashion of the moment, this is like not available to that kind of a person.
And then I say, fortunately, there is a second option.
And you can rightly anticipate this is going to be the Reagan option.
The leader can remain true to his principles, refusing to yield even when the elites and the people are against him.
Here we are in a populist era with Trump and we like to contrast the people and the elites and our underlying assumption tends to be that the elites are either wicked or incompetent and that the sentiments of the people are inherently sound and we go with the people against the elites.
We go with Main Street against Wall Street.
But here's an interesting problem.
What if you're running for office and both Main Street and Wall Street are kind of against you?
And by against you, they don't know what you stand for.
They don't know where you're trying to take the country.
And they have this general idea that whatever you're for, they're against.
They don't like it.
This is really the atmosphere that Reagan was dealing with.
And I say that when the situation is like this, It doesn't mean that the leader has to give up.
It doesn't mean that he's condemned to virtuous defeat.
It does mean that he must be wily and opportunistic in finding issues that allow him to neutralize his strongest opposition and find common ground with his popular constituency.
So let me put this somewhat differently.
You have an ensemble of views.
Let's say, a ten-point platform.
And it turns out that the American people are not with you on all ten.
They happen to be with you at only three of those ten points.
And the elites are against you on, let's say, all of your ten points.
But the elites are kind of weak on two or three of those points where you can exploit their vulnerability.
Because what they're saying makes no sense or it's hypocritical or it's just been tried and it's just failed.
And so what you do is you build a platform that doesn't take all your 10 points up front.
Rather, you pick the three points that are kind of congruent with public opinion where you can find common ground with people and you can gain traction.
And then you pick the two points where you can humiliate the elites, you can expose them, you can force them to back down, and that becomes the front, the tip of the spear, the front edge of your policy platform.
Continuing in the book, he must be patient when circumstances are difficult.
Self-discipline in staying focused on his goals, creative in his selection and presentation of issues, until the moment of opportunity presents itself.
Reagan's political career from 1964 to 1980 illustrates this higher path.
Now, let me clarify.
Reagan started running for office in the early 60s.
He was, as I say, elected to two terms as governor of California, but that's not the same thing as winning national office.
Reagan tried to win national office starting in 1968.
He failed.
He tried again in 1976 to get the Republican nomination against the incumbent President Ford.
He failed again.
The failure was narrow.
He almost got there, but he didn't get there.
It was difficult to defeat an incumbent president, Ford.
Even though Ford hadn't been previously elected, he kind of inherited the position when Nixon resigned.
But nevertheless, Ford was in fact the president.
And he was able to clinch the nomination, so Reagan's chance didn't really come until 1980.
So look at this.
Here's Reagan in a 15-year period.
And he didn't make it along the way, but he made it finally in 1980.
And this is what I'm talking about when I say that when you are out of sync with the time, I mean, think of the 60s.
I mean, the mood was to the left, right?
There was a lot of popular sentiment that had been behind the Democrats, particularly after the Kennedy assassination.
The Democrats had swept the elections in 1964.
Lyndon Johnson had pretty much everything under control.
He had both houses of Congress.
He could pass pretty much whatever he wanted to.
And so the Republicans were really on the outs.
And then they went even more on the outs after Watergate, which was a major disgrace for the Republican Party.
Nixon resigned, of course, in ignominious failure.
Republicans lost a whole bunch more seats.
So this was really a bad time to be a Republican.
And that's what I mean when I say that Reagan was kind of...
Out there, he was a bit of a pariah, and he was a pariah not just from the point of view of the media or the elite.
He was also kind of a pariah.
As far as the prevailing sentiment on the part of the American people at the time.
So Reagan had to abide his time.
He had to wait for the moment to be right.
He actually had to wait for the other side to stumble and fall.
And sure enough, under Jimmy Carter, they did stumble and they did fall.
So Reagan's opportunity opened up in 1980.
And even then it was pretty close.
The 80 election...
There was a tide at the very last moment that swung to Reagan.
That's how he won 44 states.
But if you had looked at opinion polls and you had looked at the sentiment of the country, I, by the way, was just a 17-year-old at the time, and seeing all of this up close for the first time, it was not obvious to me, even two weeks or three weeks before the election, that Reagan would win,
let alone win decisively.
And yet he did.
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