Glenn Greenwald
Politics • Culture • Writing
Debate Debrief with Vivek Ramaswamy
Video Transcript
August 25, 2023
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Watch the full episode here: 

https://rumble.com/v3bbaej-system-update-show-137.html

 

Glenn Greenwald: So first of all, thank you for joining us. We know you're deluged after your performance last night and we appreciate your taking the time to talk to us. I want to delve a little bit into some of the topics that got raised, but not very in-depth, which is the nature of the format. First of all, the pundit expectation, the consensus was that everything was going to focus on Governor DeSantis. Everyone was going to go on stage and talk to DeSantis, given his status, apparently, as the obvious alternative to Donald Trump. That most definitely did not happen. He was essentially ignored. Instead, the focus of the attacks almost entirely was on you. I know the obvious answer is it's because ‘I'm rising in the poll,’ ‘I'm considered a threat’ but beyond that, was there something else going on that caused there to be so much hostility and focus on you from the other candidates? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit inside baseball but I think if you look at certainly what our campaign is seeing, when you're looking at actually understanding who the likeliest voters are, who tend to be the most informed, the trends are very sharp in my direction. And so, I think if the other candidates – and one thing you did teach me is that the other candidates are serious about at least trying to win, right? If they weren't serious about actually trying to win, they wouldn't have even bothered. But I think their campaigns understand what our campaign understands, which is that this is effectively a two-horse race between myself and Trump right now, the dynamics of the most informed voter base – and that's where you see a trickle-down effect for everybody else – they're coming in our direction in droves. And so, the headline poll numbers that you'll see are diluted by the fact that most people in this country didn't know who I was four months ago. Right? But of the people who do, so, I'm starting two months ago with a very low name I.D. but seeing our polling against that backdrop, that is striking and largely unseen for a very long time in politics. And so, I think that the other campaign teams have probably smart people working for them, understanding that the DeSantis is not really going to be their obstacle if you roll this to where the puck is going two months from now, and I think they tried to get a head start on that last night, I don't think that it worked out too well for them. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Right. So that's the pundit analysis, the kind of horse race analysis to see the validity to that as well. Let me share with you my hypothesis and see whether or not you agree which is there were some very sharp ideological divisions on that stage, typically involving you on the one side and all of these other candidates on the other, because all of these other candidates have a long history in the Republican Party, predating Donald Trump, going back to George Bush, the kind of Reagan economics, Bush-Cheney foreign policy against which Donald Trump successfully ran. You were the only candidate essentially espousing this kind of new form of Republicanism. I sense there was a lot of hostility for real from these other candidates. Maybe it's in part because of resentment that you haven't been around for very long, and they have, but I'm wondering whether it's actually ideological in the sense that they want to wrench the Republican Party back from the new kind of “America first” populist ideology that the Republican voters are now simply insisting on.  

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Yeah, I mean, I call the ideology absolutely “America first” nationalist ideology, and this is going to be good for our party because it is a deep ideological division within the Republican Party and it's not even limited to the Republican Party. Like, Glenn, I mean, I'm coming in from the outside. I rarely talk about Republicans and Democrats. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Because you haven't been a Republican all that long, as you've talked. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: About. Yeah, I voted Libertarian in the first election I ever voted in. I find partisan distinctions rather boring because I don't think they capture the essence of real social, political, and cultural divides in this country and even across much of the modern West. I think the real divide is between the managerial class and the citizen, between those who are skeptical of the citizenry to determine and self-determine how they sort out questions from climate change to racial injustice. There's one worldview that says the people can't quite be trusted. It has to be a small group of elites, really, in the back of palace halls, that was done for most of old world European history and then the 1776 version of this, the post-1776, the American version said, No, we the People, sought out those differences through free speech and open debate in the public square where every citizen's voice and vote counts equally in a constitutional republic. That's a fundamentally different view. So historically, the Republican and Democratic Party, and the establishment wing of both, which is to say the dominant wing, at least as it relates to funding and most candidates who are propped up by it, are debating within the confines of the first view. We have one set of people that say, “Oh, well, we need higher taxes” and one people say, “We have lower taxes,” but we both agree that the people can't actually be trusted with the most important questions. My view is that the real thing we need to fight for today is the 1776 ideals, the rules of the road in the first place, it’s whatever the answer is, we the People get to determine it – not a federal administrative police state, not an ESG movement of a woke industrial cartel, but in the public and private sector, not multinational international institutions that impose that will on the sovereignty of sovereign nations. No, we the People, the citizens of nations, in the United States of America, the citizens of this nation determine that through our constitutional republic. And so that's what surfaced itself last night on the debate stage of the Republican Party but that even is too small of a description for what's really going on which is far deeper. And there's a version of this that at least should exist and I think does exist within the Democrat Party as well. That's not as much my concern right now but this is deep. It’s deep.

 

Glenn Greenwald: This conflict did play out in the 2016 election where Bernie Sanders on one side, Hillary Clinton on the other, represented, I think, that schism that you're describing. Bernie ended up getting crushed by a combination of kind of sort of cheating and rigging – that's Elizabeth Warren's words and Donna Brazile's words, not mine – and the Democrats kept hold of the establishment of the party. The Republicans didn't. They lost that with Donald Trump. They thought Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were the bulwarks. And then you look at the fact – and you've been talking about this a lot as well – that for all the kind of intense partisan discourse, we hear, where everyone's a Democrat or a Republican when you turn on cable news, and you go out into the United States, people don't care about that […] 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: They really don't. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: […] Well, lots of people said in 2016, my two favorite candidates are Trump and Bernie. Lots of people who voted for Obama twice, voted for Trump in 2016, which makes no sense from the partisan perspective if you're kind of a pro-partisan… And then you have this huge swath of people who just don't vote, a huge – millions and millions of Americans – not because they're impeded from doing so, but because they just don't think it matters. One of the arguments you're making is, look, I'm not auditioning to be Trump's vice president. I actually think I can make a better inroad into these kinds of voters than President Trump could, who did a good job in 2016 to bring in new voters. What is the reason for that confidence? Is it just generational? Do you have a specific message that resonates? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Yes. So, it's not just generational. I mean, that's an element of it. I think the fact is that Trump helped air a lot of that pent-up emotion that had been suppressed – and systematically suppressed by both parties – and Bernie tapped into that, too, in some of the ways that you described. This is where I would pick at one thing you said earlier, too: populism isn't really a philosophy. Populism is a response to an emotional current but I think there's a real philosophy underlying it, absolutely coherent on its own terms, a new political ideology […] 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Where you trust the people to make decisions? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Yes. And it's not one that I'm inventing. It's one that was born in 1776. And so, I think we live in a 1776 moment. But it's not just that we're going to go out with pitchforks because we're mad. It's because we're going out to revive the modern American revolution, on the principles written out in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the best operating manual for those principles, the U.S. Constitution. And so, I think what I'm aiming to do, and I believe in some ways we are already doing that – we're just getting warmed up – is leading that American revolution, that modern American revolution in our domestic policy. The only war I want to start is the war on the fourth branch of government, which should not exist. I will get in there and actually shut it down, and I think I have a deeper understanding […] 

 

Glenn Greenwald: By the fourth branch of government, you mean the regulatory […] 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: I mean the shadow government. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: […] essentially out of control, plus the deep state, the part of the government that operates in the dark with no democratic accountability. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: That's right. The people who are never elected, but who wield most of the political power in this country. That is the war I'm starting while ending a lot of the meaningless deflection wars that we either start or fuel abroad, and that's a complete inversion of the way the traditional Republican Party has been doing, it is allowing the cancerous proliferation of this administrative state because it shunts elected representatives from political accountability while creating one more deflection tool of pointless wars from Iraq now to Ukraine. That's what's going on. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: So, let me ask about two specific examples that I thought expressed most vividly this kind of difference you're describing, the first of which was Ukraine, which was incredibly obvious. Only you on that stage were willing to say emphatically, “No, our money to Ukraine is not in our interest. We have lots of stuff to do here at home, including protecting our border.” DeSantis, as you kind of mocked him for putting his finger in the air, was taking that middle ground of let's have the Europeans pay for it. 

At the beginning of the war, overwhelmingly – and I know you were against it from the beginning – a majority of Americans, a vast majority of Americans were swept up in the propaganda and wanted the US support for that war. Now, you look at polls, overwhelmingly majorities are against that. They want no more money sent there, especially Republican voters. That's an overwhelmingly clear view. We don't want any more of this money being sent. And yet, every single person on that stage beside you, or maybe Ron DeSantis, doesn't care about that, doesn't care what the voters want, doesn't care what people think about where they want their tax money spent. They want to continue to lavish the landscape with all of the money that he wants until the end of that conflict, which won't be four years from now. Why do you think that, for politicians who do pay attention to polls, if they are going to be successful, but are nonetheless so willing to ignore the sentiments of their own voters to continue to insist on this policy that people oppose? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: So that's the easier answer. There's a harder question lurking behind it. The easy answer, I can tell you from experience: donors. The donor class of the Republican Party fundamentally disapproves of the message that I delivered on that stage. And it's the one thing that's holding Ron DeSantis back, right? His campaign is run by his super PAC, which is extremely well-funded and far better funded by this campaign, even for all the checks I've personally written. And so that holds him back. But the rest of the field is completely – as I said in the stage, made a lot of people mad – bought and paid for by the donor class, frankly, some of which is bipartisan. It's the same donor class that swings in the other direction at times, too. The deeper mystery, though, Glenn, and I don't have a great answer on this, is then why the donor class […]

 

Glenn Greenwald: Right. That’s what I was about to ask. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: […] so attached to this religion. Zelenskyism. “Ukraine-ism.” It's a modern cult in the United States of America. And the tempting answer – and I quipped a little bit, had a little fun with Nikki last night about, you know, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and there's an element of the military-industrial complex – but I believe in truth. And if I'm getting to the truth of the matter, I don't think that's really what's going on, because I know countless donors that I've lost over this issue. So, I can’t imagine that they're thinking about what the value of their stockholding is in some weapons manufacturers. I don't think that's it. It's just something else. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Isn’t it that there is embedded in the Republican Party for decades now, there's this ideology about the United States and the role it plays in the world for all sorts of selfish reasons… 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: It’s embedded in both Parties. Joe Biden and Liz Cheney! What’s the difference? 

 

Glenn Greenwald: […] There's a lot more support to the Democratic Party or a lot less opposition in the Democratic Party to the war in Ukraine than in the Republican Party, which I think is interesting. They want that war going on at least as much as the Republican establishment, if not more so. I just wondering, though, whether there's this kind of genuine conviction, which sounds naive when you're talking about Washington – people with actual convictions – that this ideology has been embedded for decades, going back to the Cold War, the War on Terror, that the way we maintain our dominance in the world is through foreign military operations. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: So, I think I have good I think I have a good finger on the pulse of what's going on here. I don't think they have convictions. I think that these politicians on the stage yesterday are puppets. I'm deeply convinced of that. I mean, you interact with people, they're good people, they're fine, but they're vessels, right? Listless vessels, if we may use the power of super PACs. 

I think that some of those people, though, in that donor establishment, ironically, are people who do have convictions in what that view of American hegemony should be, some of which is tied to self-interest, but not all. It's this attachment to a sense of self-confidence that's derived from superiority over the other. And I think that once you've earned a certain amount of money, moral superiority then becomes more important than financial superiority. The marginal return of the arguing piece of paper isn't worth as much but the psychological security of knowing that you are better than your fellow man is really what I think drives – it's the sick psychology […] 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Adam Smith wrote about that in “The Wealth of Nations.” The idea that there's this sort of […]

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: He did. Good point.

 

Glenn Greenwald: […] a sense of strength and purpose that comes from reading about the conquest of your foreign armies, especially, if you watch from a safe distance. Even if that means a little higher taxes. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Especially if you are insulated from the consequence as well. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Exactly. That’s the key.

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: It's not your kid that goes to fight, right?

 

Glenn Greenwald: It's neither you nor your family that's fighting. It's other people's families who are fighting […] 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: That’s a great point of Adam Smith. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: It's really – I'll show you. If you haven't seen it, I'll show you the passage it describes […] 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: It sounds familiar. It’s been years since I've read it... 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Well, yeah, it's from “The Wealth of Nations.”

Just two more questions, out of respect for your time. One is on the issue of China. Last night you described the Russia and China alliance as the greatest military threat we face. You said the only war you want to start is against this fourth branch of government, the deep state, the regulatory state, and yet, that kind of rhetoric leads people to wonder whether your opposition involving ourselves in the war in Ukraine is really about a desire instead to focus that kind of military confrontation with China, to start a new Cold War with China. What is your view of the U.S. relationship with China going forward? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: You know, look at what I've said in the recent weeks, which also was the source of some jabs that some other candidates were giving me for my views there, I want to pull Russia apart from China. I do think that China is a real threat to the United States. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: And in what sense are they a real threat? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Well, I think that they want to hold an economic gun over our head and ultimately exert leverage to advance geopolitical goals using the economy to do it. And so, I think the right answer is that there are a few different things. One is to declare economic independence from China. I think that we cannot live in a world in which we're dependent on an adversary for our modern way of life. We can talk about the role of India or Australia or other nations, bilateral trade relationships with other countries. I don't like the multilateral stuff because it comes with a lot of baggage and garbage about climate change but strong bilateral relationships from Japan to South Korea to India can play a role in this. Pulling Russia out of its military alliance with China by reopening relations with Russia. If we reopen economic relations with Russia. Russia doesn't have to rely economically on China. Freeze the current lines of control Korean war-style armistice agreement and end the war in Ukraine, permanent commitment for NATO not to admit Ukraine – it's a reverse maneuver of what Nixon did in 1972. He pulled Mao out of Brezhnev's little brother's arm... Well, Putin is like the new Mao. Let's pull him out of Xi Jinping's class and move from a bilateral international order today that favors China to a trilateral one where none of the three major superpowers, nuclear superpowers, are aligned. I think that's a good thing. As it relates to Taiwan, I favor moving from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity. Right now, the U.S. just does depend on Taiwan for semiconductors. Our entire modern way of life, the camera that's recording this interview to that laptop on your lap […] 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Which is the excuse as to why we need to defend Taiwan, but not Ukraine. So, the question then becomes […] 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Well, no, I want to unroll this forward actually.

 

Glenn Greenwald: Let's get away from dependence on superconductors and then the question becomes does that change our relationship with China vis a vis Taiwan and in general? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Yes, it does once we achieve semiconductor independence. So I'm going to lead us by the end of our first term to ensure that we have semiconductor independence in this country. And what I've said is I want to be very clear that there are a couple of reasons why China might want to go for Taiwan. But if one of them is to lord over the United States holding hostage our modern way of life, I'm not okay with that. And we will defend Taiwan. This does a couple of things. One is it makes Xi Jinping have to be a fool to invade Taiwan before we do have semiconductor independence. If he wants to fulfill the nationalistic goal from 1949 in Chiang Kai‐shek and Mao Zedong, that's a separate discussion. That's a separate discussion. But as it relates to lording over and squatting on the semiconductor supply chain, no, the answer is no. So, we'll pull Russia out of their hands. We’ll do a partnership with India, control of the Malacca Strait. We're trying to get this Middle Eastern oil supply. And then after 2028, the end of my first term, when I will lead us to semiconductor independence, our posture changes. And I think that being honest about that, as a U.S. president, to say that I'm advancing U.S. interests, that is credible. People can actually – not only people at home but even other actors on the global stage – take credible signals for that because I expect them to act in their self-interest just as they can expect me representing the United States to act in our self-interest. That is the single most effective way of deterring China from going after Taiwan while avoiding war, especially during the period that we literally depend on Taiwan for our modern way of life. And this also puts Taiwan on notice. I mean, this is a nation that's spending one point something percent of its GDP on military. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Because everyone knows it has the U.S. behind it, ready to defend it…

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: It should be at – 5% of Taiwan's GDP should be spent on its own military defense if that's what they want. They have an election in 2024. The KMT has different view Tsai Ing-wen. That's their nation's issue, to sort out democratically in terms of where they are. But this puts them on notice. Taiwan would have to be a fool not to increase its military spending as a percentage of GDP; Xi Jinping would have to be a fool to go for Taiwan before we have semiconductor independence in this country, if we move to strategic clarity. 

And then the traditional establishment came like a ton of bricks on me for this view. Oh, I mean, Nikki Haley referenced it last night, but the funniest part about this, Glenn, though, is that if we had more time in the debate I would have thrown it back in their face – and maybe I'll do it, the next debate – is this is under a status quo when the U.S. technically is espousing still the One China policy that would still drive Donald Trump for picking up a phone call from the Taiwanese president, in 2015, to congratulate him, that that broke diplomatic protocol and we embrace the One China policy. We can't say what we'll do in Taiwan, if I, as said I will defend Taiwan until we achieve semiconductor independence but as the implication that the posture could change after [...] 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Which is even kind of more hard line. From that perspective […]

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: But it's neither more nor less hard line. But it's laughable that they will point to that as being a softy position when all I'm saying is let's be honest and let's be clear, this is how nations can actually deal with one another diplomatically, if they can actually trust one another credibly that you're actually who would have ever thought following your self-interest. And that is how you avoid wars that are against the interests of the United States and if I may say it, against the interests of other nations as well. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Well, last question. I did think it was notable that people like Nikki Haley like to tout the fact that they have foreign policy experience when U.S. foreign policy over the last at least a year is a disaster for the world. I'd rather pick somebody randomly out of the phone book to run it. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: It’s the worst. I’d have a monkey running it.

 

Glenn Greenwald: Exactly. And then, any of those people who are so proud of the role they played in all of these disasters. Last question. One of the things your campaign has done that is unique and you referenced earlier, I just want to delve into it a little bit more deeply is the last question, which is you've made a point of visiting not Kiev, but parts of the United States that typically the Republican Party ignores. There's a lot of people there who don't vote, who have a tradition of voting for Democrats, not because they're excited about the Democratic Party, quite the contrary, but they think the Republican Party is against their interest in ways that are kind of bigoted or that they've been told is very hostile. And one of the arguments you're making is I want to go into those places with a message that will liberate them either from not voting or from the Democratic Party. What is that message that you have to tell these people in African American communities, in lower-income communities, that the Republican Party and voting for the Republican Party will actually make a material difference in their lives? 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: The America First movement stands for all Americans. And so, no, I haven't talked to Zelenskyy, but I did pick up the phone and call the likes of Gregory and Janet Ards two small business owners in Hawaii who tragically lost their two small businesses in their family but had a third that was still able to provide the water supply to the rest of Maui. I think that this is a moment when people from the South Side Chicago to Kensington, to Hawaii, to Maui, to Ohio, to Iowa, to New Hampshire can unite around the idea that we have a government that sells out our own interests to advance some other multilateral interests internationally. And we can unite around the fact that, yes, we do believe that the southern border needs to be sealed, that we do believe that the money that we spend, the taxpayer resources that we spend, should be spent to fund U.S. interests and not pay the salary headcount of Ukrainian government officials instead. And I think I'm already seeing that, Glenn, as I'm traveling this country, that this is not about Republicans and Democrats. I think it's a 1776 moment where the question is, do you share the basic rules of the road in common – meritocracy, the pursuit of excellence, free speech, something that is a controversial idea that […]

 

Glenn Greenwald: That didn’t come up last night that this has been a centerpiece of your campaign obviously.

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Centerpiece. Absolutely. Self-Governance over aristocracy. Do we believe in three branches of government? Do we believe in the Constitution or do we believe in the other thing that we're living in today, where it's a quasi-technocratic monarchy in three-letter agencies in Washington, D.C. And I think the truth of the matter is easily 80% of this country agrees on the basic rules of the road. Maybe we will disagree on whether corporate tax rates should be high or low, but this debt. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: Limit abortion or things like that. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Yeah, but these are, in the scheme of things, actually, details […]

 

Glenn Greenwald: Right. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: […] compared to the basic rules of the road. And I say 80 - 20, half of the 20 is people younger than me who never even learned those ideals in the first place, we'll teach them and bring them along too. This is the stuff of a landslide election. The single most unifying thing that a leader could deliver for this country is a moral mandate, in 2024, to revive those basic 1776 principles. And honest to God, I think I'm the only person in this race in either party who can actually do it. And as much as a lot of my policies, certainly on foreign policy on the border, otherwise do overlap heavily with that of Donald Trump – and I said on the stage last night, I do think he was an excellent president – I think this can't be a 50.1 election. We're skating on thin ice as a country. This can't be the Monday after Election Day; they slowly trot out who won the election. No. This has to be a decisive victory: bring in young people, old people, black, white, suburban, rural, urban. Doesn't matter. We're all Americans. And the America First movement puts all Americans first. And so, yeah, Does that help to be a member of a different generation? Absolutely, it does. But it's not just a generational argument. It's a vision of what actually matters in this country, what the actual divide is. It's not between Republicans and Democrats. It's the everyday citizen. The great uprising saying, “Hell, no” to the great reset and the managerial class. That's what this is about. 

 

Glenn Greenwald: So, we were covering your campaign when you were 8.2% because I had a feeling that this message was going to start to resonate. It incredibly is now. So, we're going to keep covering it as I think you're going to continue to rise in the polls, especially after last night. So, congratulations on a great debate. Thanks for joining us. 

 

Vivek Ramaswamy: Thanks, Glenn. Good to see you. 


Glenn Greenwald:
Good to see you as well.

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What promoted Rufo's appearance tonight were comments that I had made about him and other right-wing figures in an interview I gave about the Trump administration to Reason Magazine. Rufo saw those comments, noted them and objected to them on X. It led to a back and forth but it became rapidly apparent - at least to me - that social media was the absolute worst venue to try to sort through those issues we were discussing, some of which have a lot of complexity and nuance to them: things like the core values of the American Founding, the values and views that most influenced the founders and how all of those questions apply to our current political debates, especially over civil liberties and the freedom of academic institutions. 

So, I suggested that we remove the conversation to a platform more suitable for a constructive exchange and he quickly agreed to come on this program for us to do so. 

His official biography does not really capture Rufo's influence and accomplishments, but for those unfamiliar with it, he is a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory at the Manhattan Institute. He is also a contributing editor of City Journal, where his writings explore a range of issues, including critical race theory, gender ideology, homelessness, addiction, crime, and the decline of American cities. He has been published in Fox and the New York Post and has been the subject of numerous corporate media profiles, the most recent of which is a lengthy interview he gave to the New York Times just last month. He's the author of the New York Times bestselling book, “America's Cultural Revolution,” and as a filmmaker, he has directed four documentaries for PBS, Netflix, and international television, including America Lost, which tells the story of three forgotten American cities. 

The issues we hope to discuss are, in my view, some of the most consequential for American politics and the West more broadly, and I'm very much looking forward to our exploration of our agreements and our disagreements on all of those questions. 


G. Greenwald: Chris, good evening, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on and agreeing to do this.

So, it's interesting, when I was thinking about how to do this, how to conduct our discussion, the issues that we discussed, even though it was just a few tweets, were so far reaching and kind of complex that I had so many things I wanted to talk to you about, so the hard part was figuring out what to kind of focus on. 

There was a series of tweets that you posted in response to that interview I had given in Reason, where I basically said, and it was part of a larger conversation, I was asked specifically about you, that I think you're very shrewd and influential and successful operative and journalist but, to me, it seems like you've gotten to the point where you care more about this kind of Machiavellian quest for power than you do about principles. 

And in response, you said this:

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NIH Ends Fauci's Brutal Dog Experiments; MTG and Massie Shut Down Law to Criminalize Israel Boycotts
System Update #449

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXfOxGUsg7A_S3ddqbTf0xdGX7VXJr8EwP92b1AKf4pGAlS-rPMMzfUP43cO8VRoSDJmtnjafkjZkWLr6PIa5Uw8gm-Mk5Lf-NKu01__8JfL6RrzjdjMp0ZP7WIjgfVuB7hH0qMHePVkOb0VjUNIXME?key=b0Z6bGXfV7ehSQkOWJEvWQ

Former senior health official who lurked around Washington for 40 years, Anthony Fauci was, well before COVID, highly polarizing and, in many cases, widely disliked. When many of the truths of COVID and his behavior during that pandemic were revealed, he was jettisoned into an entirely new category of the hero/villain narrative that plagues so much of our politics. 

But one constant in his long career was that he was always a robust advocate for and a funder of – an ample funder of – some of the most grotesque, cruelest and pointless medical experimentations on animals in government labs paid for by the government, especially dogs. And when doing these experiments on dogs which have almost no medical value, they often chose on purpose for beagles as their breed of choice because as anyone who has spent any time with beagles will tell you, they have a particularly loving, docile and trustworthy instinct when they are with animals, which makes it very easy to deceive them. 

Justin Goodman is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at White Coat Waste, is our guest to talk about the major win animal advocacy groups led by the very bipartisan White Coat Lab group scored today. The National Institute of Health, now run by Jay Bhattacharya, under the direction of HHS Secretary RFK Jr., announced that they were eliminating the last government-funded lab experiments on beagles: that was the lab that conducted the so-called barbaric septic shock experiment, and I'll save you the description until later. 

Then, Reason's magazine Matthew Petti wrote an excellent article today, a really good piece of journalism that broke down and analyzed the statute in very clear detail and concluded that it "would arguably be the most draconian measure of this kind to date". He is our second guest tonight. 

Some laws are so extreme and shocking that you can't actually believe anyone in Congress actually proposed them, and for me, this is one. As is true for most of the pro-Israel measures in Washington, it had a long list of co-sponsors from both parties. 

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AD_4nXc_Yo8Z6iDXaF7iic4CpePaVf7WorA4k4PnGQf-KFz6rZx_D63EeI-qWYw9vMSLVYFmsC59ghot91KUV9BOGxAhX2N-4lQ6lhxqAzMqJvY7TlF2ymQm2wwiPOg1nphRSejLGOunmYjO-H9xesUN?key=b0Z6bGXfV7ehSQkOWJEvWQ

 

Justin Goodman is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at White Coat Waste Project, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that just got done heralding, explaining and it exposed and has held Dr. Fauci accountable for many things, including funding the Wuhan lab, as well as testing cruel, gratuitous, and pointless testing on dogs generally and beagles specifically. For more than two decades, Justin has led successful and award-winning grassroots and lobbying campaigns to end cruel taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs, cats, primates, and other animals. I've long been an admirer of that group and his work, and we're really delighted to have him join us tonight. 

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Glenn Takes Your Questions: Iraq War Lies, Judge Rebukes Trump, Ilham Omar Curses Reporters & More
System Update #448

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.  

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

AD_4nXcgqrI4khVWM9sL44S_5Npt2tVfz9ddQh-HNP_QjdziQ0WyQWMPiz1uiqZcYVuG-QC0WTCBk-OdNkCF_fmrlyR-6a08mQcA5ieUcToA2YU_WDFDuNMvf5kKnmZRmxA7MvBgNX0tEjfzL1atDLBNOeg?key=MrBQyTUNLJMvWrwHZK6IMQrI

As most of you know, Friday night is our Q&A show. We take questions submitted throughout the week by members of our Locals community. This week, the questions cover a very wide range of issues including the bizarre story told by former Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont about how he was secretly accosted by shadowy members of the deep state while jogging in 2003, and they directed him to proof that the Bush administration was lying about the proposed war in Iraq. Leahy cast a meaningless vote against the war because of what he saw, but never let the public know about the proof he was shown. 

We also have questions about yesterday’s very significant ruling by another Trump-appointed federal judge who ruled against the Trump administration. This one concluded that the administration lacks the authority even to invoke the wartime Alien Enemies Act, which is what the administration has been using to justify removing people from the U.S. and sending them to an El Salvador prison without so much as a trial. 

Finally, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota uttered very naughty words to a journalist from the Daily Caller, who walked up to her on the street, began filming her, asking her adversarial questions – a perfectly legitimate journalistic activity. Upon seeing the video and Omar's reaction, many conservatives – including many who have spent a decade calling journalists The Enemy of the People and cheering right-wing politicians who have scored journalists often aggressively and with verbal abuse – have now decided that Omar had failed to show journalists the respect and deference that they deserve as journalists. 

We'll examine this and other questions as well, as much as we can, time permitting. 

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The first question comes from @thefarside:

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I totally agree with that point of view and I've seen this happen many times before when senators and Congress members access classified material and they're too scared to show it to the public, even though they could do so on the floor of the Senate or the House enjoying absolute complete immunity: they cannot be prosecuted, criminalized, or arrested for anything said on the floor of Congress. It's legislative immunity. They could just go and reveal it, but they almost never do. They leave it up to people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, or other courageous whistleblowers to do it, even though they don't have immunity, while senators just conceal this information. 

So, here's what he wrote in his memoir, “The Road Taken” by Patrick Leahy. By the way, it's not a new memoir; it's from 2022, it was just a couple of years ago, but it just got resurfaced and started going viral on X. I think a lot of people didn't know about it. Who would sit down and read Patrick Leahy's book? I certainly didn't. 

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So, imagine you're just walking on the street with your wife. It's like an old couple walking in the street and out of nowhere, there are very fit joggers behind you. They are following you and they stop and say, “Hey, we hear you're bringing in briefings. How have those been going?” And you say, “Fine, but I can't talk about them.” They're like, “No, no worries. We don't want to talk about that. Just take a look at file 8. Have you seen that?”

He writes:

[…] It was obvious from the look on my face that I had not seen such a file. They suggested I should and that I might find it interesting. Quickly thereafter, I arranged to see File Eight, and it contradicted much of what I had heard from the Bush administration.

Days later, Marcelle and I were out walking again when the two joggers reappeared. After the opening greetings, they told me they understood I had seen File Eight and asked what did I think about it? It was the eeriest conversation I'd experienced in Washington. I felt like a senatorial version of Bob Woodward meeting Deep Throat—only in broad daylight.

I went through the usual disclaimers that I could not talk about any file and if such a file was available and so on. They said of course they understood, but they wondered if I had also been shown File Twelve, using a code word. […]

(The Road Taken, Patrick Leahy. 2022.)

 

They're like, “Hey, remember when we mentioned File Eight? We're glad you took a look at that. No, no, don't worry. We don't need to hear your opinion. We just want to know, you should look at file 12 too.” 

He says:

[…] Again, I think the look on my face gave them the answer. They apologized for interrupting our walk and jogged off.

The next day, I was back in the secure room in the Capitol to read File Twelve, and it again contradicted the statements that the administration, and especially Vice President Cheney, seemed to be relying on, and I told my staff and others that for a number of reasons I absolutely intended to vote against the war in Iraq.

(The Road Taken, Patrick Leahy. 2022.)

According to Patrick Leahy, he had been directed by mysterious deep state operatives, obviously, to classified files that had not been shown by the people briefing Congress on the Iraq War, both of which, he says, proved that the government was lying to the American people. 

You would think, I would think, that somebody in that position would be like, “Hey, I need to alert the American people to the fact that there are documents inside the government's file that prove that what Dick Cheney and George Bush were saying about the war in Iraq are lies.” 

Again, he had legal immunity; he could have read the whole file on the Senate floor and nothing would have happened. Even if he didn't have immunity, I would think you would be duty-bound when the government is selling a war to the population, a very serious invasion on the other side of the world, not a few bombs being dropped, and you have proof that what the government is saying is lying, but that's not what Patrick Leahy did and he admitted that in his book, not even realizing there's anything wrong with it. 

There's a woman on X who I find to be genuinely one of the smartest and most interesting X accounts to follow. Her X name is @villagecrazylady, but her name is Mel. She is very upfront. She does a podcast, a self-identified MAGA woman from the South. Yet, she believes the MAGA principle, she is vehemently opposed to all kinds of intervention, she's opposed to funding the war in Ukraine, funding Israel's war in Gaza, going to war with Iran, bombing Yemen, all the things that we were promised that Trump would do in foreign policy, she actually believes in it and insists on it and complains when it doesn't happen as it should. And she's just very smart. She's just always plugged into what I think are the right things, thinking about things that are really interesting, and I actually learned a lot from following her. I'm going to have her on the show soon. She was the one who alerted me to this. I think she was probably the one who alerted a lot of people to this, she said: 

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 I think what's really notable, too, is imagine that you're those two guys who obviously are risking their career, probably risking their liberty to try to make sure that Patrick Leahy sees, not just circumstantial evidence, but proof that the Bush-Cheney administration is lying about the key arguments they're trying to sell to the public to justify the invasion of Iraq. They put themselves on the line, they put themselves at risk because they apparently thought it was important for the truth to be known and they get Leahy to go read both of those files, and he just does nothing, nothing, to tell the public. He's just like, “Yeah, I'm going to vote no.” He didn't even tell his fellow senators. He didn't say a word. 

How pathetic is that? How cowardly is that? You run for the Senate, you're a career politician, you're old, you're in your 23rd term or whatever. Who cares? But don't you have any sense of duty at all? 

I don't want to be naive. I get that these are scummy politicians, very conniving. The more they stay around Washington, probably the fewer principles they believe they can operate on, the more kind of just pragmatic and cunning or whatever they become. But you're talking here about the most serious war that the United States has fought since it left Vietnam and you have the evidence in your hands that the government is lying yet again, like they did with the Vietnam War and the Gulf of Tonkin, and you just sit and say nothing? 

But there's a counterexample. When Daniel Ellsberg discovered the Pentagon Papers in the late 1960s, a multi-volume, tens of thousands of pages compiled by the Pentagon, the Pentagon Papers concluded and members of the highest levels of the government also knew under Lyndon Johnson and then Richard Nixon that there was no way the U.S. could win the war in Vietnam; at most, they could fight to a standstill. Yet they were constantly telling the public that was growing tired of this war, like, “Hey, we're losing all our young men who are being drafted, we're killing huge numbers of people, we're spending tons of money, there's social unrest. What is going on?” So, the Pentagon would say, “Oh, don't worry. We're close to winning. We're like six months away from winning. We're making immense progress.” In the Pentagon Papers, though, they were saying the exact opposite. They knew they could not win, so it's the same thing. 

Daniel Ellsberg had proof in his hands that the American government was lying to the people about the Vietnam War. Ellsberg had a very high position in the government. He had a PhD in nuclear policy from Harvard, zand he worked at the highest levels of the Rand Corporation, had some of the most sensitive documents inside the government and he did what Patrick Leahy wouldn't do.

He wasn't a senator; he didn't have any sort of parliamentary immunity, but he tried to get members of Congress to read it on the floor, as he couldn't, he went to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and they published parts of it. But then finally, he found Senator Mike Gravel, a Republican from Alaska, who was like, “No, you know what? I have parliamentary immunity, and this is what it's for. The public has a right to know that the American government is lying.” 

By the way, Daniel Ellsberg was charged with espionage, they tried to imprison him for life and the only reason his case was dismissed was because the Nixon administration was discovered to have burglarized the office of his psychoanalyst to try to find dirt on the private life of Daniel Ellsberg and the judge, because of that misconduct, dismissed the case, but had the judge not done so, Daniel Ellsberg probably would have been in prison for the rest of his life. He just died about 18 months ago at the age of 94. 

I had the honor of working with him when we created the Freedom of the Press Foundation together, he was unbelievably smart. One of the smartest people I've ever met. And even at like ‘91 or ‘92, he would attend these board meetings we had at the Freedom the Press foundation and just present the most complex arguments possible. 

So, he got Senator Gravel to read it from the floor of the Senate, and this is what that kind of bravery looks like. 

Video. Sen. Mike Gravel, US Senate Chamber. June 21, 1971.

So, that was the prelude to him then reading the Pentagon Papers into the record. You can be uncomfortable with, or even mock if you want, the very emotional display of Senator Gravel there. He was crying in the middle of that statement. But I would suggest that that is a far more admirable, noble and understandable reaction than what Senator Leahy did. 

I mean, every day, if you're a senator in the late 1960s, early 1970s, you're getting intelligence briefings about how unbelievably horrific the Vietnam War is: 58,000 Americans killed, two million Vietnamese, at least, killed. I mean, just the use of biological agents like Agent Orange, it was a brutal, savage, barbaric war, and the people who were in there, in the middle of the jungles and rivers of Vietnam, had no idea why they were fighting, why they were being killed on the other side of the world. 

So, if you're aware of information that the public can perhaps use to understand they're being lied to and hopefully stop the war, I think it's absolutely commendable to think about what's happening to human beings. I mean, that's a humanistic response. 

He didn't just cry about it, he actually tried to do something about it. Even though they have parliamentary immunity, reading top-secret Pentagon documents about a war in the middle of Washington, D.C., you would never know for certain that that's going to be honored. 

Here in Brazil, there's just a very similar parliamentary immunity privilege that people in Congress and the Senate enjoy. A couple of months ago, a member of Congress went to the microphone to speak at the tribunal where he heavily criticized the authoritarian chief judge of the Supreme Court, even though he's not technically the chief judge; he acts that way, Alexandre de Moraes. And then, shortly after, Alexandre de Moraes ordered the police to investigate him and to try to convict him for having spoken there. And their argument was, “Yeah, they have parliamentary immunity, but it's not absolute.” 

There's another case that I'm very familiar with, that I've had personal dealings with, that to this day sickens me and I just want to tell you about. 

For about two or three years before the Snowden reporting started, before Edward Snowden risked his liberty to come forward and show his fellow citizens the truth about how the government was spying on them with no limits and no warrants, and risking his life in prison to do it, two different senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, went around hinting that, “Oh, the NSA is doing some really bad stuff that if the American public knew about it, would be enraged by,” but they never said what it was. They could have done what Senator Gravel did and gone to the fore, but no, they just kept hinting. They would write emails, be in interviews, they would go write up ads saying, “Oh, if you only knew how they were interpreting the Patriot Act and what they were allowing the NSA to do, you would be enraged.” But they didn't have the courage to say it. 

And it was only once Snowden came forward and we started publishing reporting about what the NSA was doing based on his courageous act, did they start coming forward and say things. The headline of The Washington Post, July 28, 2013, is: “With NSA revelations, Sen. Ron Wyden’s vague privacy warnings finally become clear”. 

I mean, you know what? I reported on this topic for three years. It was a very important part of my career. I still pay very close attention to this violence debate but I could barely get through that. It was so ambiguous, so bereft of anything substantive that you could really understand what the government was doing, because he, too, was just a coward and then the minute we came out with that report, he's like, “I tried everything.” Yeah, everything except disclosing what you could have disclosed to let the American people know way before Edward Snowden came forward, so that he didn't have to spend his life in prison or Russia. 

People in the government, in the intelligence community, were trying to alert the public through Leahy that this proof existed, but he was too much of a coward to do anything about it. And so were Senators Wyden and Udall, whereas Senator Gravel wasn't. 

I just want to say the final thing: when Edward Snowden did their job for them and he comes forward, he doesn't dump it all on the internet, he is as careful as he can be, he gives it to journalists with very conservative instructions about only to use this very carefully, don't put anybody in danger, only use it to reveal to the public what they should know. And then he, of course, gets immediately indicted on multiple felony charges, including the Espionage Act, which would send him to prison for the rest of his life. 

They would ask Senator Wyden and Senator Udall, “Well, he revealed what you said should have been revealed. What do you think of him? Are you defending him? Do you think the prosecution would be dropped?” And they'd be like, “I'm not really going to talk about Snowden. I mean, he disclosed classified information. You can't have that.” – basically calling him a criminal for doing what he did only because they were too afraid to. 

These people are propellant. They'll let wars happen rather than step forward and confront any sort of risk or warrantless unconstitutional eavesdropping, as the courts ruled on American citizens with no warrants. And that's the kind of people that, unfortunately, with some exceptions, but very few, get to Washington and sit in both houses of Congress. 

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All right, here's the next question, from @Andante423: 

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It's a great question. Thank you. 

Just to give you the context, because it's so important, all of you, of course, remember when Trump just picked up, ICE picked up, 238 Venezuelans, and then, just in the middle of the night, shipped them out of the United States on a plane to an El Salvador prison. They filmed these people having been dehumanized, being humiliated, having their heads shaved, kneeling on the floor and it's almost certainly the case that at least some of them weren’t guilty of being gang members, but they're in this prison that's designed to be permanent. It runs on slave labor; it's one of the most abusive ones. 

But when this got to the Supreme Court, the Supreme court said by a 9-0 ruling – so that includes Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, all the conservatives’ favorite judges – “Even if you want to use the Alien Enemies Act, you still have to give these people a due process. You have to give them a hearing, advance notice of their intent to be removed and then their opportunity to go into court and present evidence that they’re not a gang member.” 

So, they already said you have to give them a court hearing; in this court hearing, the judges should decide two things. Number one: Does Trump have the right to invoke the Alien Enemies Act? It's supposed to be a wartime statute. It's only for wartime. The only three times it was invoked previously were the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. 

Just to give you a feel for how extremist this power is, that's what FDR used to order all Japanese Americans interned in concentration camps because they were suspected of being loyal to Japan, which is generally considered one of the most shameful acts of the 20th century – but at least there was a real war going on. 

When the lawyers for the Venezuelan detainees sued in federal court to argue that this law was invalidly invoked and they weren't gang members, they got the best judge they could have gotten. They got a judge appointed by Donald Trump in his first term. So, he's a Trump-appointed judge and you can imagine how conservative judges Trump appoints from Texas are. 

Yet that's the judge who yesterday said that there's no legal foundation for adopting and invoking the Alien Enemies Act because we're not actually in war. 

The Trump administration had to concoct a theory and their argument was we're basically at war with these international drug gangs that are invading our country. They're like an invading army. 

Here's the ruling from this Trump-appointed judge issued yesterday. 

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There you see the caption. It is J.A.V., which is one of the Venezuelan detainees that they want to deport, versus Donald Trump. It's quite long, but it's not actually a long opinion. You can read it. The link is here.

It explains why, based on the statute, the president cannot invoke this law, because it's only for wartime and we're not at wartime. It's as simple as that. 

I've seen a lot of conservatives questioning why the courts get to decide this. In part, it's because that's been how the Supreme Court and the judicial power have been interpreted for more than 200 years, going back to Marbury v. Madison, and if you think about it, it has to be this way. 

The purpose of the Constitution is to limit the powers of the federal government, to limit the powers of the president and Congress. The government can't do this, it can't do that, it cannot do the other thing. So, if the president ignores the constitution, let's say Joe Biden orders that all Trump supporters be rounded up and imprisoned with no trial, obviously a violation of the constitution, if you can't go to the courts and seek relief and ask the courts to declare that unconstitutional, who does that then? Where do you go? Where do you get relief? The president just starts ordering his political enemies imprisoned with no trial, no due process. Of course, it's the courts who have to say this is unconstitutional, therefore, it can't be done. 

That's how our system works. And it's all balanced. It's not like the courts are the supreme branches that sometimes people try and claim. It's the president who appoints the judges who are on the courts. The Senate has to confirm them. If they start abusing their power, they can be impeached. And federal court judges have been impeached before, not often, but they can, and they have been. 

On top of that, the courts really have no way to execute their decisions. They don't have an army, they don't have guns, they don't have any way to force a president. The president or Congress respects the credibility of the courts, and that's why court decisions are abided by. But if you're going to have a constitution and a set of laws, you need to have somebody who interprets what those are and who decrees what they are. You can't ask the president to rule in his own case, like, “Hey, Mr. President, are you violating the law? Are you violating the Constitution?” 

Obviously, tons of conservatives, many times, under Clinton, under Obama, under Biden, ran into court and asked federal court judges to put a stop to what those administrations were doing. 

It is true that there are a lot more of those rulings coming under Trump. You could make the argument that it’s because he has so many new policies that have tested and pushed the limits of the law. But that's how our system works. It works that way under every president. I do think picking people up in our country and sending them for life in prison in a country they have nothing to do with and have never been to, from where they'll never get out, is an extremist power and we definitely need judicial review. 

As the Court said, the president, despite not being able to use the Alien Enemies Act, has all the legal authority in the world to deport people who are illegally in the country. There is another set of laws, the Immigration and Nationality Act and others. That's how President Obama deported millions of people. He didn't use the Alien Enemies Act; he used the set of laws that are normally used for that. That's what the court is saying: it doesn't mean you can't deport people in the country illegally, it's your obligation, your right and your duty to do that, you just can't use this wartime power to do so because we're not at war, as the statute describes it. 

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All right, this one is from @MarcJohnson125, who says: 

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All right, so just to set the stage for this, so you can see what happened, for those of you who haven't, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was walking on the street toward the Capitol, and it's very common for journalists to work there. That's one of the places you can ask members of Congress questions, even if they don't invite you into their office or agree to an interview. It's very often done. So, the reporter's not doing anything wrong here at all, I don’t think, but this is how Congresswoman Omar reacted: 

Video. Ilhan Omar, The Daily Caller. May 1, 2025.

Okay, it was a little bit of a snarky question. That's okay. Reporters can be snarky. They don't have to be super deferential, super respectful. He didn't assault her; he didn't do anything. But in return, yeah, she used a naughty word. It's a word you tell your nine-year-old kid not to use, but adults use that word. She wasn't aggressive about it. She wasn't violent, she didn't attack him, she didn't threaten him. He asked this question, she was bothered by it and she says, “I think you should fuck off.” And then he said, “Excuse me, what?” She didn't backtrack at all. 

And that was it, maybe not the best way to handle a journalist, I'll certainly accept that. Maybe a member of Congress should conduct themselves with more, whatever, decorum, if you want to say that. I mean, Trump campaigned throughout 2024 using every curse word he could think of in his rallies. So let's not invoke decorum unless the politicians you most admire are actually adhering to it as well. 

Here was Nancy Mace, who was questioned by a constituent, not a journalist even, but a constituent in her home district when she was at some sort of drugstore and here's what happened. 

Video. Nancy Mace, X. April 19, 2025.

All right, that seems unhinged to me, to be honest. He was very polite. He kept his distance. He wasn't the slightest bit aggressive. It's part of the duty of members of Congress and she's like very aggressive, right from the beginning, very hostile and out of nowhere, by the way, “I voted for gay marriage twice.” Why would you say that? I mean, yeah, he is pretty clearly gay but why would you bring that up? Why does that even enter your brain? And then by the end of it, she used the F-word for, I don't know, 10 times maybe, probably, and said other things as well. 

So, if you're going to be very upset by Ilhan Omar using an f-word with a journalist – we all know journalists deserve the greatest deference, the highest amount of respect – if that's the sort of thing that you really want to hold politicians to, like no naughty words, then you ought to be complaining about Trump, who curses more than any politician I've ever seen. And it doesn't bother me, by the way. Or what Nancy Mace did, which is, of all those things, like the most unhinged. 

Here's Charlie Kirk, yesterday, after he saw the video:

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Piers Morgan, the British subject who loves to spend his time commenting on American politics:

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Here's Libs of TikTok, always the beacon of perfect politeness and civility and respect for others. She says:

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That wasn't the question: whether they're going to. He said, “Should they?” Do you think that more should go? As I said, it was a snippy question, but who cares? 

These are the people – the Trump movement, the American right, Trump himself – who spent 10 years calling journalists the “enemy of the people,” which I don't disagree with and never bothered me. In fact, I can make an argument about why that's legitimate. But still, that's some very aggressive, hostile rhetoric to use about journalists. Republican politicians over the last 10 years have frequently scorned and insulted journalists. Trump insults every journalist who asks him a question. Everyone. And now they’re going to turn around and be like “A politician should not speak to a journalist in this manner. Journalists deserve the highest respect. She has no class.” 

How about Nancy Mace? Does she have class? Does Donald Trump have class? This is the kind of thing I really can't stand. I really can’t stand it. I just have some consistent standards, especially on these kinds of trivial issues, and to act like Ilhan Omar is some kind of heathen, some kind of threat to society! “She doesn't have gratitude toward America.” She's an American citizen. Yeah, she was born in another country and became an American citizen and the same is true of Elon Musk and Melania Trump and a lot of other people. She's still a full citizen like anybody else is.

To be honest, I thought what Ilhan Omar did was funny. I mean, I kind of thought that the whole thing with Nancy Mace was sort of funny. I think Trump is funny; like, loosen up. The rectum doesn't always have to be, like, so tightly closed when you're pretending to be offended by things. I think we want our politicians to be more human. This is how people speak. 

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All right, one last question. It’s from @Sambista. 

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So yeah, they're all doing great actually. All the ones you named and all the other dogs that you've gotten to know they're doing very well. I appreciate your asking. And yeah, I actually wish I could find a way to integrate the dogs into the show more, or something like wander around. Maybe Friday night is a good night to do it. We'll think about it. But yeah, appreciate your asking. 

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