Thomas Grove on Reporting from Inside Putin’s Prisons with Evan Gershkovich, David Schweikert’s Meeting with Elon Musk, and Dan McLaughlin on Biden’s Pardons
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today is friend of the program Thomas Grove. He covers the confrontation between Russia and the West for the Wall Street Journal. You can follow him on X at TG Grove. Thomas Grove, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much for having me. So, front page story today, the Wall Street Journal tracking Putin's most feared secret agency from inside a Russian prison and beyond. It's about the Department of Counterintelligence Operations of Russia, or DKRO. One of the writers on it was Evan Gershkovich, who was released from prison recently. How was that experience, and what stood out about you in this in-depth, investigated piece?

Well, I mean, I think what mattered the most to us, you know, I think as a newspaper was the fact that, you know, we were able to, you know, shed light on what happened to one of our favorite colleagues. And, you know, whenever something like that happens, there's a tremendous sense of, excuse me,

There's a tremendous sense of helplessness and anger. Something awful has been done to somebody that you work with every day and somebody you care about deeply. It's wonderful to be able to do something about it. In our case, it happened to be dive into...

the unit that was behind it the agency that was um you know that had been tracking him and trailing him and and and and have something to say about it and not just about what happened to evan but really broaden it out to you know what is happening in russia right now you know a very big country an important country and you know to shed light on what's happening inside is is a you know

It's an increasingly rare kind of thing to be able to do, and we're glad we were able to. How many years did you live in Russia? I lived in Russia for 11 years. Would you go back now at all? It was a really long time. Would you go back at all now, Thomas? Well...

So there's a line in the story about two, two correspondents who have been banned from the country and I'm one of them. Congratulations. Thanks. No, I mean, I'd love to go. I think, I mean, I, I'm just fascinated by the country endlessly and the people there. And I, I,

treasure the time that I spent there. But it's, you know, I think for the time being, I think we both realize we have to take a break from the relationship and, you know, maybe later, we'll see. I think you got a little devil dare in you. We'll start calling you Indiana Jones. Let's segue into this. So you wrote a great article, Fall of Syrian Regime Exposes Limits of Russia's Global Ambitions.

Would Syria have fallen if Russia was not involved in Ukraine? That's a really good question. And I think that's one that I think a lot of people will be debating for, you know, probably years to come in the history books. We'll we'll be doing the same thing. Yeah.

I think undoubtedly if Russia wasn't so heavily invested in Ukraine, both financially in terms of its manpower, in terms of its attention and energy, then I think there's quite a possibility that

that Putin would have had to leverage the latitude and all the resources at his disposal to prop up Assad. Maybe he would have. I think there's been some interesting reporting about the frustrations that Moscow had with Assad, though. I think there was a sense in the Kremlin that after they saved him, starting in 2015, and they launched a years-long campaign

intervention of bombing rebels, bombing hospitals, bombing civilian population. It was awful. It was quite nasty, and it was quite intense. It basically turned Russia into a Middle Eastern power, so to speak, vis-à-vis its intervention.

You know, it saved Assad. And then I think there was a sense in Moscow that after that, they were expecting Assad to at least kind of

embark on some kind of political dialogue. You know, it doesn't mean necessarily embracing the rebels, but it just meant maybe in some way, you know, letting out some of the steam that had built up in Syria for so long. And there's been the reason for, you know, these awful and violent protests that came about in 2011. Right. And so I think, you know, there was disappointment with Assad in,

in Moscow, and I think there was a sense by earlier this year, whenever they saw

his group, Tahrir al-Sham, racing southward toward Damascus, Assad had kind of dug his own grave. And so, you know, maybe they had made a decision beforehand that it just wasn't worth saving him. Maybe if they had more attention, more money, they would have rushed him and done something about it. It's a good question. Thomas, explain, we're with Thomas, we're Thomas Grove, Wall Street Journal reporter, covers extensively Russia, Eastern Europe, and Middle East.

Explain what Russia's foothold in Syria means for the world. When it was there, it gave them carte blanche to be up to mischief in the Middle East, to help Iran, to help the militants. But it also was their stop towards Africa. What does it mean now if they do not have the same freedom in Syria for the African continent in the Middle East, if they do not have this foothold in Syria? Yeah. You know, I think it's interesting because a lot of the—if you look at—

If you look at the way Putin and Moscow, the way that they try to build the narrative of why they went to war in Ukraine and why they're fighting in Ukraine, obviously they're trying to get across their media narrative.

is, you know, we're fighting the good fight against, you know, colonial and interventionist West, right? It's exactly like the exact opposite of, you know, what I think we understand the war to be about. But nonetheless, that's their narrative. And so much of that narrative is directed towards, like,

Places like Africa and places like the Middle East, Southeast Asia, you know, it's kind of combined under this term, the global south, which is a really clunky term. And I don't particularly like it, but it gets used a lot. So, you know, having an audience in Africa that they can talk to is important. And having a, you know, a number of leaders in Africa, you know, who they feel are

friendly with and who they feel that they're on the same page with is also very important for Russia. And so that's what Himin and Tartu's space was all about. They were able to basically, from Tartu's sail across into a lot of different places in Africa, delivering weapons, delivering mercenaries, delivering money as well. Money kind of went back and forth as well. So it's

It was a really amazing and dynamic place for Russia to be during the years that it was there. And we're talking about in the past tense. I do want to make it clear that they're negotiating the future of those bases right now. So they could continue under what conditions and what terms is

Thomas, that actually leads – this is Sam. That leads me to the question I had to follow up because you do have a piece here. Russians say Syria rebels guarantee security of its facilities there.

Are we jumping the gun by assuming – this rebel leader and their leadership seems to be a little bit different than some of the other rebellions that have happened in recent years in the Middle East where he's not trying necessarily to change Syria's role in the international order, just its leadership. Yeah.

I think, you know, we're all trying to figure out exactly what the new leadership of Syria wants, both for the country, you know, domestically, regionally, and internationally.

you know, and when, and especially whenever it comes to the bigger powers in the neighborhood, like Turkey and, and Russia, Iran and all that. So, I mean, it's, it's, um, you know, I think, I think we're literally learning more and more every day about, you know, the direction the country's headed in. And for me, it's too early to say exactly what's going to happen. I think what's interesting here. And then one thing that we should probably think about is the relationship between Turkey and Russia. Um,

There was a lot of reporting and a lot of speculation about whether or not Russia had reached out to Turkey to allow some kind of interim deal for those bases, and provide some kind of basis on which they could negotiate the prolongation of those contracts on those bases.

And so I think the extent to which Turkey does seem to have a finger in what happened in Syria over the last two weeks, I think it's probably important to think about that relationship and the extent to which Russia reaching out to Turkey to help with something like that could potentially play a role in all this. This is all speculative information.

But at the same time, I think this is an important relationship. And I think the relationship between the rebels and Turkey is just as important. So Assad's family received political asylum in Russia. What does Assad do now? Does he try to get back to Syria? Or does he, in a year, fall out of an apartment window because he has bad balance, which happens to a lot of Russian people that they're not interested in anymore? Yeah.

Right. Well, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, I think a lot of that depends on what happens in talks between the new Syrian leadership and the Russian government, because I think, you know, what they're trying to do, there's a very interesting shift. You know, these rebels, you know, a year... We have a little technical difficulty here. We lost Thomas for a minute. Jeremy, let's try to get back in. Yeah.

It's fascinating that he's been banned from Russia. I don't know why I skipped that when I read the article. I must have missed that. No. Well, it's not surprising because he's been an honest broker about the Russian regime and about Vladimir Putin. And they do not allow any sort of – as you see if you read the article he wrote with Evan Gershkovitz, they do not allow any dissent in that country at this point. No, and that's the whole purpose of that article about the DKRO. You're back, Thomas.

Welcome back. Hey there. Yeah, sorry, the call just got dropped. No worries. No worries. Continue your comment.

Yeah, well, I was just saying that, you know, so these rebels that basically took over Damascus, you know, a year ago, Russia was calling them, you know, basically terrorists, you know, and so there's a, and these are the people that they're now, you know, negotiating the terms of their base with. So, you know, there's a huge charm offensive that Moscow is putting on right now and trying to kind of counteract

create some relations with this new group, create good relations with this new group. And, you know, I get the sense that Assad's fate is going to be a little bit beholden to how good those relations are. You know, I don't think they're going to extradite him anytime soon to Syria if, you know, if...

if things go well between Russia and the rebels, but, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't mean he's, he's, he's sitting pretty necessarily in, in Moscow either. I mean, he's probably going to, the best, the best case scenario for him, I think right now is just basically just to kind of,

I enjoy his irrelevance at this point. Keep his head down because he has a hot seat in the Moscow cold. We're going to be coming back with more from Thomas Grove here in just a moment. He covers the confrontation between Russia and the West for The Wall Street Journal. You can follow him on X at TG Grove. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

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We're continuing on now with our interview with Thomas Grove, friend of the program, covers the confrontation between Russia and the West for The Wall Street Journal. Thomas, when we went to break, we've been talking about the various implications for Russia with the changeover in Syria. I want to talk to the impact on two other countries, Israel and Iran, because obviously this is a –

major concern but potentially a major opportunity for their leadership the way they see it. So first, what are the implications for Israel and what are you hearing that they're looking at and trying to do here? Well,

Well, I mean, I think for Israel, I think first and foremost, they're going to make sure that they're going to degrade whatever military capabilities Syria had under Assad because they just don't know who's going to come to power and they can't be guaranteed that they're going to be, you know, have an easier relationship with them than they did under Assad. And so I think, you know, we've seen some strikes in the last couple of days. They've been hitting...

some bases, and we're seeing them basically trying to degrade Syria's military capabilities right now. And that is just basically to make sure that things go smoothly for them in the future. And specifically, one of the things they've done is really take out Syria's air defense network and air warning network, which, as I understand, it gives them much easier access if they choose to make further strikes into Iran. Exactly.

Exactly. Exactly. No, that's exactly what they're doing. And I think that gets them a lot closer to Iran and a much closer striking distance to whatever they feel they might have to strike in Iran.

You're based on Warsaw, Poland now. The Ukraine war has been going on. We're getting close to two years here. Are the people in Warsaw getting exhausted with the Ukrainian conflict? It seems like you've got in the south of Ukraine, you've got Romania, you've got Slovakia. Hungary is not sort of teetering between who it supports. How are they feeling in Poland? Are they getting tired of it and just want a peace agreement or what's going on?

So I think Poland has a pretty specific view of what's happening in the war. Definitely, as you say, there's been a lot of talk in Slovakia, Hungary. These are countries where talk about peace and talk about ending the conflict is important. People embrace that. Excuse me.

they would like to see it stopped. And that's mostly because the leaders are kind of, that's the position that the leaders have, popular and populist in both countries. In Poland, it's a little bit different. Poland was under what it considers to be Russian occupation, Russian imperial occupation in the 19th century.

and then under Soviet occupation in the 20th. And so they're very sensitive to the idea of a deal that would let Russia regain its strength and potentially strike again at Ukraine and even further west into Poland. So they're tired of it, no doubt, but they also realize that this is a fight worth fighting for them, and it hasn't really gone away. There may be...

There's been some talk about kind of what are the benefits of Ukrainian refugees that are here? How long should they go on? But I think by and large, the idea of the war is one that they feel is, you know, they feel like the war is still a

Existentially important question for them. Given that they feel that way, what is your sense? Because there's a lot of different reporting, obviously, out there right now. And frankly, I can't get a sense on the battlefield if we are just in a continued meat grinder stalemate or if one side is starting to assert its will more than the other. What is the information you have in that regard?

Well, I mean, if we're looking at what's happening in Ukraine, you know, we're seeing steady, slow and painful Russian progress. Basically, you know, not not up and down, not not uniformly throughout, but, you know, in some, you know, important, important, you know, pieces of the front line. And so, you know, that's interesting.

It's not very different from where we were a couple months ago, but Ukraine is extremely tired. The manpower issue is just absolutely critical for them at this point. And...

And Russia is just taking advantage of that. And obviously, Russia has its own problems, and then we could go into that. But it's really the Russian troops that are making the progress right now. And I think, you know, the longer this drags on, you know, without some sort of, you know, change in the calculus here, we're just going to see kind of more and more of small little towns and villages kind of getting taken over. Not at a very fast rate, but it's happening.

So we've got about three minutes left with you here, Thomas. Donald Trump is reelected. He's got a Republican Congress. What do you feel this means for Ukraine? And what does this mean for a resolution of the war in Russia and Ukraine? I mean, I think, you know, we're the greats.

The great thing is that we all understand exactly what Trump wants from both Russia and Ukraine in the short term. And that comes down to them both sitting down at the negotiating table and talking about some way to end the fighting. And I think that resonates with a lot of people in Ukraine, to some extent in Russia,

in Russia, but I think there's a... I would say that the expert community is kind of split on how much Russia really wants to negotiate right now. As I mentioned before, you know, it's... I wouldn't say winning, but it's gaining ground, right? And its position is increasingly better and better. And so for it to sit down and... I mean, the reason for it to sit down and kind of negotiate a deal to stop all that

you know, they may not be feeling it, if I can, if that makes sense. So, I mean, I think it's,

I think what worries people, countries like Poland, is the fact that once Russia does sit down at the negotiating table, support for the war will dry up. And countries like Poland, which see it as an existential fight, may feel as though other countries like Spain, France, others could back out from their support for Ukraine in favor of a negotiated deal.

We have just a minute left. Assuming, let's assume that there was some sort of negotiated deal. Is the West truly prepared? Do they understand how big a task they would have now to rebuild Ukraine into a functioning economy and country? Well, rebuilding Ukraine is, you know, that happens on so many different fronts. And, you know, I think...

I don't think anybody would really understand exactly how big the task that is. It's complicated.

And, you know, that's not to say that it's all going to fall on the United States. You know, probably be, you know, a lot of other countries that want to see, you know, get a foot in the country in reconstruction programs and things like that. But, you know, what kind of security environment are we talking about? There's just so many questions. There's a massive challenge coming up one way or another. Thomas Grove, thank you so much. We really appreciate having you on the program, folks.

You can find all his work on the Wall Street Journal. If you look up Thomas Grove there or at on X at T.G. Grove, Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, folks. Banks keep cutting your interest rate. Put your money where Chuck Warren has. Learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return in a secure collateralized portfolio. Go to invest, the letter Y, then rafy.com today and learn how when you invest with Y Refi, you're doing well for yourself and your family by doing good for others and helping students pay off their high interest credit card or high interest student loan debt early.

Fantastic opportunity to check them out. Invest the letter Y, then rafy.com. Our next guest up, friend of the program, Dan McLaughlin, senior writer at National Review Online, fellow at the National Review Institute. You can follow him, still the best ex-handle, at Baseball Crank. Dan McLaughlin, thank you for joining us. Welcome back to the program. Great to be here. So are you overfilled with joy during this Christmas season over the signing of Juan Soto to the Mets?

Yeah, that's, you know, it's some of the best news that Mets fans have had in, you know, on a hot stove league in many, many years. And you can be very happy for the next 10 years of that 16-year contract. Yeah.

Well, you know, they're only going to be paying him for four years after they're done paying Bobby Bonilla. They understand the accounting of the whole thing. When does Bobby Bonilla Day end? 2035, July 1st, to get his last $1 million check. Not that I'm counting.

Can we acknowledge that Bobby Bonilla is the smartest player from his era? Yes, he is. Yes, he is. The man managed his money well. Yes, he did. Well, look, we have lots to talk to you about today, including the assassination in New York, Daniel Penny. But I want to start with this. So Biden's given a bunch of paroles. OK, the one he did is he he's being really hit hard, as he should, for commuting the sentence of the kids for cash judge.

We've got two point one million in kickbacks. Why do you think he would give a pardon to somebody like that? I mean, he's a white judge. I mean, I don't understand what the politics are of it. Yeah. Yeah. And that and also also the woman who robbed Dixon, Illinois, of like fifty three million dollars.

I mean, I think the theory here, but that's egregious public corruption, but it's not as sort of directly abusive of individuals. I mean, I think the theory here is that they went through certain kinds of categories of people who had suffered, people who had been sent home for like home confinement during COVID, and they felt that they were more rehabilitated or something. There's...

There's an argument there, but it's not very persuasive. No, that's not a good argument at all. You're in New York, and this will carry over to our next segment with the podcast portion of it. But, you know, we have the whole Daniel Penny situation this week. And what has been the reaction of your colleagues in New York and your neighbors about it? I mean, I think, you know, most I mean, I think most folks feel that this guy who shouldn't have been shouldn't have been charged in the first place, you know,

You know, I mean, he's, you know, he's somebody who stepped up when, you know, other people were threatened. That's kind of serve and protect. That's the essence that, you know, that we want. Right. You know, and it's sort of it's sort of shameful that he was prosecuted.

Will that have any impact on the political careers of the people who made that decision? I mean, ultimately, these conditions where they let criminals run free on our streets are not going to change unless we get rid of the people who are allowing them to do that. Is this something that might help shift that in New York, even if they elect a different Democrat, just somebody who understands that law and order has a role?

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see. I think that there is I mean, I mean, there's there's still a lot of New Yorkers who are sufficiently alienated from Republicans at this point that the best hope for some sanity in law enforcement in the city is going to come from, you know, more moderate Democrats and maybe, you know, maybe that.

includes political outsiders sort of branding themselves as Democrats who might, you know, might run as Republicans in some other city. I mean, on the one hand, we've seen the progressive prosecutors have really done very badly over the past year, right? I mean, we saw that Chesa Boudin got recalled in San Francisco, right? The voters sacked the DAs of L.A., Oakland, Portland,

None of those people lost to Republicans, but they lost to Democrats who were basically saying, come on, let's restore some sanity here. And so you would think that Alvin Bragg would be a prime target for that because New Yorkers historically vote on public safety as like issue number one.

And in a sense, that's, I think, a good deal of what drove Bragg's legally bogus charges against Donald Trump, is that he was looking for a way to change the subject.

and make himself a hero of the resistance instead of just a guy who prosecutes law-abiding citizens and lets criminals go free. Yeah, he's there to defend the non-losses of a bank that had no problem with that deal. We're going to have more from Dan McLaughlin coming up in the podcast segment. We have Congressman David Schweiker coming up for the final on-air segment, so stay tuned for that. And then make sure, if you're not downloading the podcast...

What are you doing? BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back. Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. Our next guest, the Honorable David Schweikert. He represents Arizona and Congressional District 1. He is on the Ways and Means Committee and current chairman of the Oversight Committee. Welcome back, Congressman.

Isn't it absurd? You win an election, they call you honorable. I know. They're mad at you. That's why they do it. That's why they do it. Look, you have a three-seat margin. You just earned a new two-year sentence. Let's be honest about this. You have a three-seat margin in the House. What can get done the first hundred days? Literally, you think, realistically. Oh, it...

Remember, I'm pathologically optimistic. Remember, I have a two-year-old. If we keep up the channels of communication with each other,

Sometimes what happens is when you have a very close margin, you're forced to actually do a better job of listening to your members than a conference that has 30 votes margin. Hey, you just screw them. Don't pay attention to them. Now, what's harder and the public is going to get a sense. It's not conservatives versus moderates.

Every time you hear that you have someone that doesn't really understand how complex it is. It can be rural versus suburban, postal versus agriculture. You end up in all these little subgroups.

And my great fear, I gotta share with you, is in the past, the way you made people happy is you bribed them. You gave them money to spend. We do not have any excess cash laying around. So I'm optimistic, but you're gonna see some pretty brutal negotiations.

And then you have to deal with the last thing, you know, the troll farm that is today's media that just makes things up.

So what do you think, being the optimist and having a Republican-controlled Congress, a Trump administration, what do you think the two or three priorities are going to be? And what do you think realistically will get done those first hundred days that you guys can sort of hang your hat on and say, we got stuff done the first hundred days? What's the single biggest issue that hits us in 2025? Well, you have the tax cuts.

I would argue you just nailed it. It is the expiration of the individual portion. So if your individual tax rates, the tax rates for your LLC, for your small business, for your partnership, your subchapter S, all those are going up. And it's already the law. It's not a vote. It's already the law. Our job is how do we find the money

to pay for continuing current tax rates. And that's about $4.6 trillion over the next 10 years. And here's the great battle. We have a handful of senators on the Republican side who just want to say, just put it on the credit card. Don't pay for it, just extend it. And others on my House side would say they want every dime paid for

before we extend current tax policy, before it hits the cliff at the end of the year. Finding $4 trillion over the next 10 years as offsets is going to be a lot of work. Congressman, we know that the legacy media, if anyone tries to make real cuts to government, they force a shutdown, anything like that, the legacy media goes nuts. They're on the side of the bureaucrats.

Should Republicans in Congress take hope from this last election, look around and say, hey, this alternate media universe is so powerful now. If this is what we need to do, we can get our message out and fight back against this. It's not 1994 anymore. Yeah, it's both a brilliant comment, brilliant question. There's one difficulty we have to deal with.

How many people around the country, and you guys have been always incredibly kind to an idiot like me, Trish, trying to give out the math.

But how many candidates in America last election cycle told the truth about the debt and deficits? 90 percent did not. 90 percent. Yeah. I think I tried. Yes, I agree. But I would. And the political consultants back in Washington thought I was nuts. But the benefit of having a well-educated, smart congressional district, you can tell them the truth.

And there's your problem, is what happens when people want things, they want their tax cuts to continue, and now they want no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, they want lower corporates, all the other things that were part of the presidential campaign. And then you explain...

what that costs. And you pay for it two ways. You can either find a way to have cuts in government spending, either through modernization or getting rid of programs, or you can pay for it in higher interest rates. Because you think the debt markets, we need to bring about $10 trillion to market this year.

$2 trillion new issuance because we're going to add $2 trillion of debt, and the rest is refinanced. If we just get another point in interest, that ends up in our credit cards, our home mortgages, everything else. So there's no free lunch here. We've got to find a way to pay for it.

And people are going to lose their minds because there's a lot of businesses, individuals, groups out there that make their living off this government spending. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. Well, that brings up a point. I've always thought something like Doge, this government efficiency effort that Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are putting together when we try to do similar things at the city of Phoenix.

You run into this uniform opposition that just says we can't cut any of this stuff. I find it very telling. And how do we get this message out? The Democrats are so concerned with bureaucrats that they would rather keep them in their jobs, not save money that could then be spent on all this stuff you're talking about that people want. I mean, the way I look at something like Doge is if you go in and you save two bucks and

You could make a deal and say, here, we'll leave one on the table for specific spending programs that you all want, but we're going to save that other buck. I know that was some of the formulas discussed, and you can do some of that at the state or municipal level. At the federal level, remember, we're borrowing about $70,000, $74,000 a second every day. And so you're already –

um you know just max on many ways maxed out right and there's these folks out there say well look the economy is good you can keep borrowing okay fine but even just as a basic economist when you're pulling this much out cashed out of society and now you're going to increase it even more and you get a loan

How do you grow a business? Where do you find financing, let alone the cost of that financing? And what is shocking is it's Democrats who have lied to their left voters for so long that everything's a free lunch. But we have a shocking number of people you and I would consider on the right to

who wants you to go cut someone else's, but you can't even look at modernizing their business. Can I give you an example? Yes. If you guys are up in Flagstaff and you're snow skiing and you bust up your knee and you get a scan on your knee, you come down to Phoenix,

and you get another scam. Why? Why don't they just take that, attach it here, we're downloading the scam on your phone so you don't have to duplicate it. We believe there's billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars of duplicative scams. Okay, that's just a simple thing, but every billion goes someplace to hell. - Right. - And it's just, is that a cut or is that just the adoption of technology?

Now, if you're the company that sells the MRI machine, go on as many scans as possible. That's how you get paid. Right. And there becomes the problem. They're the ones that run out higher lobbyists. Radiologists also, yep.

But you end up in a – well, oddly enough, the radiologists are actually the ones that brought us this idea. Really? I got to give them some credit. Wow. Okay. Well, I'm eating crow because that's a heck of a move by their association because that's what they live on too. But –

But more so that in many ways they're maxed out. But they will point out the pieces of equipment. These are sometimes multimillion dollar pieces of equipment. And they get a fee, the manufacturers, every time you use one. But back to the point, that's more just a thought experiment. We have dozens. So when we met with Elon Musk last week, we gave him $200,000.

of these sorts of ideas, the first third of them were not cuts. They were modernization, the use of technology to make government faster, better, cheaper. And within hours, we had lobbyists coming to our offices explaining that we were blowing up their client's business model. Or it would be difficult. Oh, what about this?

Remember, before the pandemic, stopping telehealth was one of the most financed lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C. There were armies of lobbyists to stop you from talking to your doctor on your phone because it would force a change in business models. Yeah. And then all of those lobbyists, the people that they were paid by, found out they could profit more on telehealth than they do on in-person health. And so now they're all pushing it like crazy.

Well, and you got to be a little careful because you immediately say, well, it was doctors and health care. In many ways, it was real estate. It was the real estate that had bought the urgent care centers, you know, the Real Estate Investment Trust or the venture capital group out of New York City that bought the emergency room practices around the country. So sometimes you got to understand Washington, D.C.,

You know, we like to think it's about Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals, you know, people that love the Constitution, people that don't care. And in many ways, it's all about the money. Yeah. We've got about two minutes left here, three minutes here. The question for you is you had this meeting with Musk.

How serious do you think they are about implementing these type of modernizations that would be a cost savings for people or doing cuts? I mean, how did you did you feel like this is a dog and pony show or just something they're real serious about? I walked in that door very cynical because, as you know, this has been my passion for years. I'm going to chair the Joint Economic Committee. So I'm the guy with all the economists. We work on this every day. Elon Musk.

absolutely impressed me. He understood the underlying math. He understood how much of our debt was actually driven by our demographics, how we've gotten older as a country. And that's the primary driver of debt in America. He, in some ways, knew the math better than the handful of some of my fellow members of Congress who were in the room. I walked in cynical, walked out hopeful. It

For their effort, one of the difficulties for their effort and for the Republican Party to continue those efforts going forward that I brought up with a few people, you understand this perfectly, is that

They have a year and a half, right, to make those real changes because it takes then about a year in the budget cycles for those things to work their way down. So you've got an election in four years. The only way Doge and this efficiency effort continues is if it shows real positive results. 100 percent. Which means you only have a year and a half.

How tight is that timeline and how do you, how does Congress help drive that forward to do that? It's much, it's much, much, much worse than that and much more complex. We also need, if we're going to do a budget reconciliation so we can do the extension of the tax cuts. So your taxes don't go up at the end of 2025. We need all those savings to be part of the budget reconciliation package as the pay force. Well,

Well, that's going to happen in the next four or five months. So you've got to understand, this is on adrenaline. And there's those folks who are already doing everything they can. They care more about their little fiefdom or their little bit of cash flow than your taxes going up. And it's shocking. It's already nasty.

And think about what Congress has already done in its first couple weeks after the election. The Republicans, by three to one, voted to put earmarks, extend earmarks. We just had a vote to take $200 billion out of Social Security. Now, there's an argument some of these people who are going to get it deserve it, but they

There was no attempt to pay for it. So we just reduced the life expectancy of the Social Security Trust Fund. Tiger zones change their stripes.

This stuff's amazing. Congressman Schweikert, always a pleasure having you on the program. We appreciate your time. Folks, we have Dan McLaughlin coming back. We had him for the six-minute segment. You're going to be able to get more from him coming up in the podcast. Make sure you stay tuned. And as always, go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote and sub stack Breaking Battlegrounds back on the air next week.

Thank you.

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Welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. We're going to continue on with our interview with Dan McLaughlin. He is a senior writer at National Review Online, fellow at National Review Institute. You can follow him on X at Baseball Crank. When we went to the break from him, kind of an odd format because we had Congressman Schweikert in this last segment. He was a senior writer at National Review Online.

But we were talking about kind of the law and order situation in New York. And I know, Chuck, you had a question specifically related to the pardon. Correct, of Hunter Biden. So, Dan, President Biden pardoned Hunter on December 1st. Generally, we have these pardons that could be controversial. You sort of do it over Christmas holiday where everybody's at home or you do it when you're leaving office the night before.

The night before New Year's Eve is a great night to drop that. You wrote a column on this, and I just want you to explain to our audience what your theories are on why he did it on December 1st. And also it's interesting that there was a note that you tagged your colleague on that when they don't go to sentencing, it's not listed as a felony. So explain that as well, if you could.

Yeah, I mean, it's and I think, frankly, my colleague Andy McCarthy kind of answered the question that I was asking in a certain sense, because, I mean, my concern was, you know, why would you do this early? You're going to get political blowback for it. Is it you know, I was I mean, frankly, I was starting to wonder if it was a sign that maybe Joe didn't think he was going to last until January 20th.

You know, and there's also maybe, you know, maybe Hunter cornered him over the holidays and whatnot. Yeah.

And obviously, one of the considerations here is that Biden may have been thinking that, you know, this one's controversial, but he can also sort of pave the way to do other things. You know, he may have other more controversial pardons coming later. So this might not even be even though this was the most sort of egregious breach of faith with what he said he was going to do. Right.

This might not even be the biggest one coming. But, you know, Andy's point was basically that Hunter was scheduled to be sentenced in his two convictions on December 12th and 16th. And so this was really to forestall him.

him having to go to sentencing. Now, there's a couple considerations that go into that. Yeah, one is that, technically speaking, you're not a convicted felon until you've been sentenced, which is true of Donald Trump as well, although I think most of us colloquially still refer to people that way. But, you know, until you've been sentenced, the conviction's not final.

But of more probably direct interest to Joe Biden, you know, sentencing, particularly on the tax charges, probably involved, you know,

you know, a little more public discussion of some of the embarrassing things about the Biden influence peddling business that Joe didn't want coming out. And so that, in itself, the desire to head off those sentencing proceedings from going forward and from, you know, letting the public see exactly how much jail time Hunter was getting out of, I think that probably adequately explains why he didn't wait. Yeah.

You mentioned potential other pardons. Some of those, you know, one of the things that the legacy media has sort of been avoiding in this pardon is that it is in some sense, as you alluded to, an admission that Joe Biden has been involved in this influence peddling scheme that Hunter was the bag man for. These other pardons you're talking about may be of government officials for actions taken within their official capacity that were illegal or

if he is part if he pardons them, for instance, potentially pardons a number of high officials in the FBI, DOJ, other areas, are they then I mean, because they're not been convicted either, they haven't gone to sentencing. Would they I mean, would they actually be convicted felons so that they would not be eligible for government return? I mean,

He'd essentially be admitting these people have committed felonies, but they would be, as far as I can tell, skate free from any consequence, including career real career consequence. Yeah. And and frankly, no, I mean, I don't know that. I mean, the whole idea of a pardon is it wipes the conviction off the books as if it had never happened. Right. For all legal purposes.

And that goes doubly if you're pardoning somebody who hasn't even been charged yet. You know, I think it certainly would complicate trying to do, you know, confirmation hearings for someone who has accepted a presidential pardon for their prior service in a high court.

position of government power. And it isn't just the other potential controversial pardons, by the way, don't just include government officials. They could also include somebody like Biden's brother, Jim, who was involved in the whole influence peddling business.

Although it seems to me, again, that to pardon Jim would really, really hang a lantern on the idea that, like, you know, it's not just you're not just pardoning Hunter because he's got a drug problem. Right. Or because he mishandled guns. Like, the only reason Jim would be facing any kind of criminal liability would be in investigations of Biden family influence peddling.

Dan, I got to throw this in there. Chuck, we've talked about this before, but crying out loud, this influence peddling scheme, how did the Bidens not look at the frickin' Clinton Foundation and go, oh, look, there's a way to do this legally? I don't think they're bright. Really, this is like the dumbest thing imaginable.

Well, my theory, actually, my theory here is basically what happened. Because I think the influence peddling was kind of going along for a long time at a lower level. But, I mean, you've got to remember the timeline here, right? A lot of this stuff happens in, like, 2014, 15, 16. Basically, it's happening as Joe's vice presidency is winding down.

He looks increasingly likely that this is going to be his last time in public office because Hillary is running. You know, Joe backs off from challenging Hillary.

So on the one hand, it looks like the end of the family gravy train. On the other hand, this is the point at which Beau Biden, you know, is diagnosed with brain cancer. He dies in the fall of 2015. And so it's not just that Joe's time in public office seems to be coming to an end, but that, you know, the family heir apparent is also being taken out of the picture. So there's really kind of an atmosphere, I think, here of a bit of a scramble to cash in while there's still time. And that...

that involves not doing something big and fancy like the Clinton Global Initiative that takes a while to stand up. And you've got, you know, you've got Bill who's able to run that from outside of government. You there? So, you know, so I think it's just, it's a different setting. And I think that time factor has to be understood in how this all went down. All right, let's quickly cover cabinet picks here. Who do you think on Trump's wish list for being cabinet members is?

gets through the confirmation process and who doesn't? Who do you see not getting through the confirmation process? I mean, you know, I would expect certainly that most of them do. I mean, typically a president that most is going to lose one or maybe two picks and Trump has already lost Matt Gaetz. You know, certainly RFK is going to be a very controversial one. It's possible he may actually get some Democratic support. Bernie Sanders has talked about it.

you know, possibly being open there. And the same may happen with Tulsi Gabbard. There may be a little bit of Democratic support for her as an ex-Democrat with somewhat unorthodox foreign policy views. You know, I think Pete Hegs is really on the bubble, but, excuse me,

Higgs really looks as if he is in a stronger position now than he was a week ago. I was about to say the same thing. A week ago, I would have said he's going to lose that. Now, I'd call it a coin tosser better in his favor that he gets it. I think there are enough senators who are worried about Higgs that they could stop him if they wanted to. I think Joni Ernst has a big say in this. If she comes out, I think she gives a lot of them cover.

Would you agree on that? She seems to be the symbol. Yeah, and she has more or less signaled that that's where she's heading. So, you know, I think Hegseth really, the problem, I mean, what has helped Hegseth is that he's being attacked in ways by the left and by sort of the institutions that trigger Republican instincts to circle wagons around. Well, the West Point acceptance letter, I mean, it just, I mean, immediately just blows up in their face, right? That was unbelievably stupid.

Yeah, just dumb. Just dumb. Well, let me ask you this before we sign off with you, my friend. What do you think Trump's actually going to be able to get done with the Republican Congress? Narrow margins, as it may be the first hundred days.

Well, I mean, obviously the easy things to do are, you know, get people confirmed, you know, pass things through the reconciliation process on budget and taxes, which some of that's going to take a while. But I think, you know, particularly because of the fact that his his

his tax cuts are up for reauthorization and they've got to do a lot of work, um, to figure out what they're going to do with, with the tax plans. But that's definitely going to dominate the legislative agenda this year. Um,

I think Trump has at least a window where he can get some Democratic votes for immigration bills, because I think there were some people who ran hard for reelection on, hey, I'm willing to cross the aisle and work for Trump to stop the border crisis. So I think he's got some room for that. So there are going to be a few things. I hope he's going to be able very early on to...

roll back you know every penny of remaining unspent money from joe biden's spending bills that that would be a huge step obviously one last thing to touch on before we let you go here you had a piece progressives are mad at what obama did to our health insurance system i uh

I connected with that piece personally because every year now when I renew my health insurance through the exchange and I end up with my UnitedHealthcare bronze plan, I have a desperate urge to send a FU tweet to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi for ruining my health care. So I understand the frustration people are feeling. But your piece pointed out like progressives are mad at what their own people did and what they continue to defend. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, they do this thing where, on the one hand, they... And this is the... You know, health care is not the only area where they do this, where they demand that something must be done in some particular area. And then as soon as they get it done, they start complaining that this particular area still...

It's still a disaster and something needs to be done. Like they're paying no attention to the mess that they've already made. You know, and a lot of this stuff, you know, pushes more and more issues into the, you know, into the hands of the insurance companies. So what are they supposed to do? Yeah, absolutely. And the vertical integration and horizontal integration in the health care industry, which was absolutely a program feature of Obamacare,

maybe one of the most difficult things to unwind. Are Republicans looking at trying to do that? I think you're going to see a lot less ambition from Republicans on health care. You know, it's not going to be a replay of 2017 when you had people who were trying to blow up Obamacare and start all over again, and they just didn't have the votes. And

But I definitely think there's still a lot of interest in reforms. And so I think probably what you're going to see is more reforms around the edges. But again, part of that depends on who's running the HHS department. If it's Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I think we're probably going to be looking at a lot of other health controversies, not insurance reform.

Absolutely good point. Dan McLaughlin, thank you so much. As always, we appreciate having you on the program, folks. You can follow him on X at Baseball Crank or at National Review Online. Again, Dan, always a pleasure. Thanks. Well, Kylie, we've had an interesting show today and, of course,

Yeah, I always want to keep the interesting show going.

They're saying she or he, I guess we don't know their gender, won't receive the tip money.

So I looked into it. Wait, why? Because it didn't go to the right hotline. Yeah, they're saying because they called 911 and not NYPD, Crime Stoppers, or the FBI who were offering the tips, they're not going to be getting the tip money. Okay, that's garbage. But this is what I've learned about the tip money anyways. It's slim to unlikely that people even receive tip money. I don't know if you guys have ever known someone that received the tip money, but there's two ways. I'm...

Snitches get stitches, Kylie. Snitches get stitches. So the total reward for this was $60,000. $10,000 was coming from NYPD and Crime Stoppers, and $50,000 was coming from the FBI. So to get the tip money from Crime Stoppers slash – which Crime Stoppers is –

I've learned where all the tip money comes from if you're working with an agency. So I looked into it in Arizona, and this is the same way that you would claim your money. So you call your tip in. It's anonymous, so they don't keep your information. They end up giving you a reference number. And after the conviction of this tip – so the person has to be convicted and in jail for your tip to even be considered for the money. So hopefully three years from now, you might be eligible. You might be eligible. Yes.

You're given a reference number and then you are supposed to call back and you give them the reference number and then they start discussing it amongst themselves if you weren't this reward. Oh, this is garbage. Okay. So that's how you get it through Crimestoppers. If you want to get the reward money through the FBI, it's a little bit more difficult. So same thing. You got to wait for the conviction. So we wouldn't even know. So this person, if they're saying this person, the McDonald's tip,

tipper offer is not receiving the money. They really have no idea because they have to wait till after the conviction. Which could take two years, three years. Yeah. But once the conviction happens, someone within the FBI agency then has to nominate the person who gave the tip. So the nomination has to come from within the agency.

The freaking big idiots here. This agency is just a disaster. You can't self-nominate. You can't have a family call in and say, hey, Kylie nominated a friend. Nothing. It has to come from within the FBI agency. And then it goes to an integrity review panel and they decide if it's ethical and legal to give this person the tip money. And then after they determine if it is

Then it'll go to the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State makes the final decision if you get the money. There are 17 employees. The Secretary of State makes it? The Secretary of State. So this would – if this happens – There are 17 employees in that chain Doge needs to fire. Right there. Right there we found. This is like a light bulb joke. How many FBI agents is it? I could. So if this crime happened in Arizona, it would go to Adrian Fontes at the end, and he would determine if –

Let's say I was the tipper if I would get the money in the end. So how do they determine – you probably don't know this. So let's get this for a show. I want to know how they determine the amount. I always crack up some of the amounts. It's like if I really want to find somebody, I'm just plopping down seven digits and say, go get it. And he's like, $20,000. I'll take someone $20,000. This ties to something I brought up, Chuck, the other day. We were having a talk. I forget what it was specifically about. But I said, look –

You're going to have to authorize government whistleblowers to come forward and report on all the fraud that's going on in the government, right? And the way you should do it is you should, as a whistleblower, allow them to pocket a third of that money or something like that, right? Up to a certain amount. Right. And it should be instant. Yeah. How does this –

Why would I ever bother calling into an FBI tip line? Well, exactly. That's just silly. I just can't believe there's just like, you know, they have the, they determine the amount and then you gave the tip.

Well, that was the joke about the CEO murder was because it was only 10,000 coming from New York. So they're like, do they even care to capture him? Well, no. And that's my point, too. How do they determine these amounts? Well, you know what? The other thing, too, companies, these companies have no balls because if I were the CFO of

of UnitedHealthcare, what I would have said is, here's a $250,000 award, and you'll have it tomorrow if you turn this guy in today. Correct. I agree. I agree. And we saw all his family members. I mean, look, honestly, they...

I would not blame UnitedHealthcare. And I have UnitedHealthcare and I hate UnitedHealthcare. So don't get me wrong. But I would not blame them. I would think it's the right thing to do for them to put out the bounty. I agree. And to pay it immediately because you're seeing this targeting by Democrats talking about targeting other health officials. They arrested a woman. I think it was in Tennessee yesterday. She did the same thing. He wrote the bullets. Right. And so look.

I don't have any problem. This guy, and Dan touched on this, Dan McLaughlin touched on this, but I

These health care CEOs, yeah, their job is to make money for the stockholders. That's their job. I get it. It's not great for patients, the current system, but that's not the fault of the CEO. The problem is there's not a good situation on any of this. No. As we've seen from England and Canada, socialized medicine is an absolute catastrophe. Well, you know, we had a pretty good system before. We just had a billing problem.

We didn't have a healthcare problem because you could go to the emergency room and get care even if you didn't have a plan. What we had was a billing problem with it following people around in debt. Instead, we killed the whole system. Well, I have another story if you guys want to hear that. Yeah.

This one's about Melody Ferris. She is a 64-year-old mother and wife who was just convicted last week of killing her husband on their working farm property. It's about 10 acres. This happened in Georgia. And so she was sentenced to life in prison with the option of being considered a parole after 30 years. But during her sentence hearing, Melody Ferris had told the judge that she has been concealing the true murderer's identity for six years. And this is what she had to say. This is what she said.

Not only did I not do this, I know who did. I know Scott killed his father. He took my husband, the father of Chris, Emily, and Amanda. He took Big Daddy from our grandchildren, Ella, Addison, Olivia, Jax, and James. Three of them who never got to know Gary. Scott, this is unforgivable. Scott, I have spent...

entire life of loving and protecting you. But this, I refuse to cover for you. My mother, your mom, begged me to take the blame for this. She said after she talked to you after Gary died that she knew you had done it. Her exact words were, you are his mother. You have to take blame for this. And I told her no, that I couldn't. I still have three other children.

And this is not a stolen credit card, a check, or a diamond ring that you've found, all of which you have done. So it goes on for, well, she keeps getting interrupted because the judge is saying you can't, she starts saying, when you came home this night, I saw you by the burn pile. And she's saying these facts are not facts. She's saying that her, what she believes happened. She's introducing evidence. Evidence that was not discussed. Yeah. And this was after she was already convicted of murder.

Being guilty. So this was like before the judge was giving her her... This is a pre-sentencing hearing. Pre-sentencing, yeah. So basically she's saying...

that she held on to it for the past six years that really this entire time it was her son and she was no longer going to cover for him. And the defense, apparently during the trial, I didn't watch this. I wish I knew that this was going on, but it was about 20 days, 21 days, and just ended last week. But they claim that the investigators never searched for...

Never searched his apartment. So Scott was their oldest son that lived on the farm above the barn in their apartment above the barn. And then, um, Melody and her husband lived in the main house together. And they're saying that he was killed on 10 PM around July 3rd to which, um, both of their phones were on the property. But Scott is claiming that he was called at, uh,

10.52 p.m. to come round up the farm animals because they got out. And then he said he got there at 11.30 p.m. and that there was no farm animals out and that they were in and that there was a burning pile of stuff that was on the property, but that it was normal. And he supposedly went and checked on it to make sure it wasn't spreading. And it wasn't spreading and it was good. And so then on July 4th, they all went to the lake. Apparently, missing dad wasn't an issue for any of them. He did not go to the lake. And

but in her closing statement or her statement before she got sentenced, she said, Amanda was my only daughter that told the truth. And during the trial, she testified that her brother was the only one with guns and was the only one that had a gun that would fit a 38 caliber, which was the bullet that was used to kill him. And, um, she said that when he returned back from the army or from the military, that he had very few friends and was very aggressive. And that after, or when they found Scott was the one that found his body in the burning brush. Um,

And he was the first one to mention he had a gun missing before there was even a bullet. I'm not sure I don't believe this woman. I'm not sure I don't. Yeah, it was like it's very. So they're saying she killed him because of a two million dollar life insurance. And she was having an affair since 09. And this happened in 2017. And apparently he knew about the affair. And so he the husband knew cut her back and was like, I'm not giving you money.

certain amount of money and that's they're saying that was the motive was because she wasn't getting enough money from her husband anymore and that she he was giving it to the adult children but there was also a bunch of text messages that were being read during the trial about him threatening his kids being like you're on your last straw with this money so it's a whole money situation issue it I mean basically

You know, they're not super smart because if they were, they could have got – shoot. I'm going to give criminals ideas here. Right. But you know how you all – everyone gets out of jail on this one? How? You all admit guilt individually. I didn't – they didn't have anything to do it. I did it. Every member of the family does that. You never get a conviction. Right.

Yeah, I think at one point maybe they were all on the same page because all their phones are pinging on their properties at the same time going around the property and whatnot. They did say that he was murdered inside the home and then pulled into the brush, which if you look at her, she's like this little tiny woman who's like a 64-year-old, like maybe 110 pounds. And then...

The husband who died is like a 300-pound 6'4 man. So they're saying how could she have moved his body alone? She can't. Yeah. About the same – did you – OK. Totally separate. Did you guys catch the little MMA female versus male bout they did on the Whatever podcast the other day? I didn't. Yeah. They had some woman who's been bragging on that podcast how she can whoop any man, right? Yeah.

And so they brought some totally untrained guy. Like she's an MMA whatever training. They brought some totally untrained guy who just was literally like grab her up, smash her to the ground. Okay, it's over. Right? Like that's what made me – that's what I thought about when you said that because I'm like, okay, she ain't moving a 300-pound man. That woman is not moving a 300-pound man. No. And apparently there was – Scott's apartment was never searched but that –

when, like, I guess the defense went over there that there was, like, the entire bathroom was spot-cleaned with a magic eraser cleaner that was left out. But, like, in his real bedroom, there was dog poop in there. It was disgusting, messy. But the bathroom was... Oh, boy. Spotless. Spotless. But nonetheless, she's in jail. She went to jail. They sentenced her to...

Pretty much life in prison. You know, there's a reason criminals are criminals, and it's because mostly they're stupid. Speaking of stupid, let's talk about Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for Biden. Jeremy, play the clip, please.

Just to put a fine point on it right now, for the 4.7 million Americans who have received this debt relief, the average, as you said at the start of this visit, was $35,000 their relief has been for. So I guess why don't those individuals who didn't receive $35,000 in debt cancellation deserve a $35,000 check from other Americans for what other means they would want to use it?

You're talking about the... Those people who didn't go to college, so they're not getting debt relief, the $35,000 that they don't get because they didn't go. I mean, we're talking about folks who are in debt who are literally being crushed. Literally being crushed because they took... They're not literally being crushed. Financially. Okay, is that okay with you? Okay. I know. But crushed financially. And so...

They're trying to get their lives back on track. First of all, has there been a worse press secretary than Jean-Pierre? I mean, Psaki was really bad, but not this bad. And the salient feature of both of them is that they'll just say anything. Yeah, they'll just lie. They're just inveterate liars. That questioning came from a White House briefing from an NBC reporter.

And it's very fair. And, you know, it came out, you know, we have now coming out that the debt under Biden increased 2.4, 2.14 trillion per year under Biden.

And, you know, it's amazing. You and I talked about this earlier. Now that Biden's lost, the New York Times, the media is like all of a sudden like, oh, my gosh, we have a debt crisis. Oh, my gosh, we had more illegal. The Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC. And they wonder why people don't trust them anymore. They've had these numbers forever. It's simply the height of hypocrisy and it's dishonest. And

So now, of course, you have – what's her name? Yellen coming out and saying, well, I'm really concerned about our debt problem. Well, yeah, she's leaving office, so let's just go blame this on Trump now. You know exactly what they're doing. That's what they're doing, and it's worse with Yellen, and this is where obviously the media won't catch up to this because it gets too technical. But Yellen –

only very short-term treasuries that are intended to expire right at the end of this year. And the reason you do that is, first, you're paying a higher rate on those than you would on the longer-term treasuries. So that's not a good financial move. It was literally a setup to level Trump with this debt when he takes office. 100%. And Janet Yellen is, I mean, frankly, has done massive hard work

harm to America and this country's future by that. She should never be anywhere near government again. But, you know, nobody is getting called out for this in the way they should be. And I still think Trump is staring down the barrel, potentially a very serious recession in his first year. I agree, too. So, you know, you have Democrats trying to do their autopsy and they blame this so-called right wing social media podcast network.

Well, that case is really out there. They all need to be harping on these facts, how they have set up the next administration for failure. Yes, because they absolutely have. And they're doing it on a number of levels.

number of other issues, which I think includes Ukraine and includes the Syria situation, which we are not yet taking as seriously as we need to. And we've talked about Haiti on this program. Yeah, no, there's some real problems. Well, folks, thank you for visiting with us this week. On behalf of Jeremy, Kylie, Sam and myself, have a great weekend. Please share the show. You can find us always at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can subscribe to us on Substack and wherever you find your podcasts. Have a great weekend.