Transcript
Speaker: I'm Eric Bennett.
Speaker: I'm joined here by Joe Kent.
Speaker: Joe is a special operations veteran running for Congress in Washington's 3rd District.
Speaker: At Exit, we're interested in identifying places where we can still exercise voice as well as places where we need to withdraw.
Speaker: And I recently heard a Twitter spaces with Joe and Josiah Lippincott where he was discussing his opinions on foreign policy and elements of where we need to move forward as far as the security state and the political situation.
Speaker: I found him really, really candid, and so I wanted to get him on the podcast to discuss some of those issues.
Speaker: Welcome to the show, Joe.
Speaker: Nice for having me, man.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: So you've mentioned a couple times that you had to Google how to become a representative before you could get started.
Speaker: What was that process like and what have you learned about politics from your experience since then?
Speaker: Yeah, so for me, it was kind of trial by fire, build the airplane in flight, however you want to describe it.
Speaker: I found myself in a situation out here in the Pacific Northwest where because of
Speaker: Pretty much everything that happened in my life ended up moving back to where I'm from unexpectedly after my late wife was killed serving overseas.
Speaker: And then 2020 happened, the lockdowns, the riots.
Speaker: I saw things really deteriorating.
Speaker: I had started speaking out on behalf of really President Trump's America First foreign policy.
Speaker: That was kind of a gateway into working on the Trump campaign in 2020 a little bit.
Speaker: And then I got offered a job in the second Trump administration.
Speaker: All of that fell apart when what happened with the election, which we can go off on for as long as you want to talk about it.
Speaker: I think it was stolen.
Speaker: I think there was a lot of interest there that moved.
Speaker: I just say it right up front.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of interest that moved kind of in lockstep in a very frightening way between big tech, mainstream media, corporate corporations, unelected bureaucrats.
Speaker: And so I really felt we were on the cusp of losing our country.
Speaker: And then I just moved to a red district in the Pacific Northwest, which is very, very rare and very sacred.
Speaker: And then my congresswoman votes for the impeachment of President Trump.
Speaker: And so I was like, well, all these other avenues that I thought I had to go serve, work on the second Trump administration,
Speaker: all those who just disappeared kind of overnight.
Speaker: And then the one woman who's supposed to sort of protect us from, you know, what the left is doing, who's a Republican votes for the impeachment and goes along with it.
Speaker: So for me, I was like, well, I don't know how I'm going to go do this, but I'm going to try and do something.
Speaker: So that's, that's, that's where the whole, like I Googled, how do you run for Congress comes in?
Speaker: Um, so really I, I just hit it kind of as hard as I could.
Speaker: And it's, it's been, um,
Speaker: both motivating like kind of white pill um and then just you know opens up your eyes really at the end of the day getting out and talking to everyday americans it's it's good and refreshing especially as a guy who served overseas you know for this country fighting under the flag for so long it's good to see that like the america that you hope that you're fighting for is still alive and well well is relative i mean i think the spirits are high and we're attempting there's a um
Speaker: I'd say concerted effort right now, a campaign to put down that spirit, multiple facets to that.
Speaker: So it's overall good to see that the downside is, look, this whole thing runs off of money.
Speaker: It really does.
Speaker: I mean, I've had to, we've done really well on individual contributions to get me to this point where,
Speaker: you know, we've actually made some traction in the campaign, but the way that money's made, it's stuff that you're sort of aware of if you're politically active, but then seeing it at this level is, you know, it's enlightening and it's just kind of heightened to my resolve that the whole system pretty much needs to be burned to the ground.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: So, I mean, I'm with you there, but then the choice is to, like, I mean, you know, you see the election stolen.
Speaker: And then the recourse to that is to run for office, which some would say, you know, like, what's the point?
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I totally understand that.
Speaker: I think our system is still worth saving.
Speaker: I think the tenets of America, I think even our big institutions, some of the ones that I want to completely gut, FBI, CIA, for instance, DOD, I think that they are still very worth having and we need to fight to preserve them because we actually need these things.
Speaker: smart people with a decent amount of foresight and patriotism created these and they've been driven off the cliff just by corruption and human nature and so elections are the same way i think if we surrender elections if we surrender political discourse if we surrender uh peaceful protest to the left we are handing them just such a huge strategic victory you know and it's really because we we have bought into them being demoralized the whole election steal
Speaker: was a complicated thing.
Speaker: And I don't mean complicated in the sense that it w as a massive conspiracy.
Speaker: There's some of those elements as well.
Speaker: But one of the biggest, I think, psyops, for lack of a better term, the left is trying to pull off on all of us right now is that elections are pointless that don't even go and bother and vote.
Speaker: And if they can convince just 25% of regular Americans that, then they win big.
Speaker: The last thing they want is people like us involved in the process.
Speaker: And that was a big thing that was behind Trump's success and why Trump was such a threat
Speaker: He brought a lot of Americans kind of out of this political sleep and really energized them and kind of put them in the room in the deal.
Speaker: And I think that that's what the corporate hierarchy just couldn't stand.
Speaker: So I totally understand people's frustration, but really we cannot surrender the political realm over to the left like this because we're the majority of the country.
Speaker: And so simply we can beat them on a battlefield that they even have rigged against us if we just mobilize people to vote.
Speaker: So the theory is just to bring enough people to bear that it can't be plausibly stolen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I mean, that's, I think, harder for them to steal in a down-ballot race like mine because I don't think at the end of the day I'm that important.
Speaker: And it's a midterm.
Speaker: And so there would be a lot of shenanigans that would have to take place as opposed to you build up two or like four years worth of like Trump is the most evil guy in the world and we need to do anything to get rid of him.
Speaker: that steel becomes much less complicated and you put different layers in it, but to actually go after and get rid of, you know, guys like me at a lower level, I just, if we have enough people turn out, I don't think that's at, is it possible?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's possible.
Speaker: There's a lot we don't know that goes on behind the algorithms behind these machines that do the tabulation, all that totally understand it.
Speaker: But I think we still have a chance to fight back within the system by winning, especially in the midterm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so there's winning the election, right?
Speaker: Which I, you know, from what I'm seeing, it seems like all the energy is behind you.
Speaker: There's, there's, there's national energy behind you and I haven't seen really anything for your opponents.
Speaker: So like it's, it's, I think the odds are good there.
Speaker: But then there's when you show up and you're, you're in the room with the, with the Democrats and you're in the room with the GOP establishment and,
Speaker: There's always going to be an element of playing ball because you're, you're part of this, this huge structure and you're just one voice, but, but how are you going to deal with that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think being as transparent as possible with like my constituents, like I I've been fairly, whatever, however you want to put it based or just, I try and let people know exactly how I feel about things.
Speaker: And I really want to be able to carry that into Washington, D.C.
Speaker: Now, if I want to get something done, there is going to have to be a back and forth.
Speaker: I'm going to have to deal with people that maybe I'm not 100 percent ideologically aligned with.
Speaker: And I think most voters, they understand that.
Speaker: And so I think being transparent and saying, hey, if there's this this thing I want to get done, I need to bring on these people.
Speaker: So it may have to be a little bit diluted.
Speaker: So I think transparency is a big part of that.
Speaker: But also the good thing about being a non-career politician, this isn't my entire life.
Speaker: I don't really have aspirations beyond Congress.
Speaker: I want to be able to make a difference in our country.
Speaker: I care deeply about the future for my kids, as I think most voters do.
Speaker: But threatening me with, hey, this is the end of your political career or whatever, that's not... I mean, the more invested you get in things, obviously, it's not going to be like, I don't care.
Speaker: However,
Speaker: This isn't the only thing I have going in my life.
Speaker: So I think a lot of folks, we elect these positions because of the amount of money and preparation and time it takes.
Speaker: You do get career politicians.
Speaker: And that's not always a bad thing.
Speaker: But I think overall, it's a very bad thing because there's leverage over them.
Speaker: But I think the times are really changing.
Speaker: I think our base, like your average American is going to come out and vote for a guy like me.
Speaker: I think that their eyes are becoming more and more open every day.
Speaker: And if I have to take a principled stand, which politically ostracizes me and ostracizes me from some typical means of funding, I think that they're going to be supportive and kind of repay me with small contributions for actually reflecting their voice as opposed to, well, I had to make this vote to get this PAC support for X, Y, and Z. The typical horse trading that I think was tolerated by people for the last, as long as I've been alive, but even 10 years ago, I think would have been more palpable
Speaker: So when you, you mentioned horse trading, uh, which horses are you willing to trade?
Speaker: In other words, what, what, what are the red lines that you won't compromise on even rhetorically?
Speaker: And what are the places where it's like, well, you know, these are the things that we have to do to get to, to move the ball.
Speaker: The thing is accountability, man.
Speaker: I think the 2020 election, like we talked about it is something that we can't back down on.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I want to have some form of a congressional hearing where we actually finish the process that was supposed to, the constitutionally appointed process that was supposed to take place on January 6th.
Speaker: That's something that like, I will not compromise on.
Speaker: I won't listen to Mike Pence or anybody come and say like, well, hey, let's just look forward to future elections.
Speaker: Like I want the full adjudication for that.
Speaker: The American people do too.
Speaker: I mean, you even have like, it's like 41% of, I think Democrats and independents with recent polling thinks that there was fraud, heavy, a heavy amount of fraud in our last elections.
Speaker: Like our country can't go on
Speaker: with that level of distrust in our election system.
Speaker: So those are things I wouldn't compromise on.
Speaker: I'm also a huge protectionist.
Speaker: I'm sick and tired of our corporations shipping our jobs overseas.
Speaker: I think that that has just led to this massive downturn with our country.
Speaker: Same thing with endless wars.
Speaker: Like if I'm, I'm not an isolationist.
Speaker: I know you want to talk about this later on, but if we have to use military force somewhere, I want to hear clearly defined what the national security interest is.
Speaker: I want Congress to vote on it.
Speaker: I want senators.
Speaker: I want senators and congressmen to put their name on the dotted line.
Speaker: Yes or no.
Speaker: Do you support this military action or not?
Speaker: It can't just be a war we slowly slide into and stay at.
Speaker: Those are hard red lines for me.
Speaker: I'm sure there's some other ones as well.
Speaker: Obviously, protection of our Second Amendment, defending life, those types of things.
Speaker: Very, very hard red lines for me.
Speaker: Something that I think there can be some horse trading on.
Speaker: Like I want to break up big tech.
Speaker: I want to absorb it as a public utility.
Speaker: make them a common carrier.
Speaker: However, there's a lot of tech reform bills that are being put out there right now by like members that some, even some being proposed by Democrats, like section 234 reform and all that.
Speaker: I think those things don't go far enough, but I would support them because they're actually starting to take a bite out of the, the elephant that is big tech.
Speaker: So I'm good with those types of things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think it's, it's, there'll be a little bit back and forth in there, but again, if I pull this off and I get elected, if
Speaker: I don't think I'm being hired by the people of Washington three to be like the ultimate deal maker.
Speaker: I think people are just really, my opponent, the impeachment voter, like she's part of the problem solvers committee.
Speaker: And she's like, well, I'm a problem solver.
Speaker: I'm like, well, that means you compromise every single time and you get paid off by the special interest group.
Speaker: So I kind of think people are just done with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm not from the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker: And I, to be honest with you, my, my,
Speaker: my visibility on like what a red district looks like out there is not very clear.
Speaker: So tell me a little bit about your constituents, your hopeful constituents, and what are the hot button items for them in particular?
Speaker: So pretty unique here.
Speaker: I know most people think when they think Pacific Northwest, they think Portland, Seattle.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: Those are our big urban hubs.
Speaker: The cool thing about the third congressional district, we're in Southwest Washington.
Speaker: If you get into Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon, very red, very conservative.
Speaker: We're actually on the west side of the Cascades.
Speaker: We're one of two districts that are red Republican that touched the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker: Our largest city, Vancouver, is right across the Columbia River from Portland and could be defined as either an extension of Portland or a suburb of Portland.
Speaker: However,
Speaker: The rest of the district is deep red timber country.
Speaker: So all of the same issues that have affected the deindustrialization of America, they affected our district as well, too.
Speaker: A slightly different guise was given for gutting those industries, the altar of environmentalism.
Speaker: but even shipping our timber mills and our production capability there, that's had the exact same effect as the automotive industry leaving the Midwest, steel and all that.
Speaker: So the same types of concepts there.
Speaker: We've also had a good deal of investment from the tech sector.
Speaker: So the H-1B visa issue of importing mid to high level tech workers, that's affected us heavily as well.
Speaker: So we get a bad rap for being
Speaker: So close to these very, very liberal cities, but we're a very conservative district right now.
Speaker: We're R plus 10.
Speaker: And really, it's people people want to have accountability from their government.
Speaker: I'd say some of the most hot button issues that we have right now is our vaccine and mask mandates.
Speaker: Our governor, Jay Inslee, he's elected by really the people of Seattle and the counties that surround Seattle.
Speaker: And he is, for those who aren't familiar, he's basically the Andrew Cuomo of the West in terms of how horrible he's been with COVID policy.
Speaker: He actually got ahead of, Inslee got ahead of Biden and everybody else with mandating the vaccine for state employees.
Speaker: So we've had people that have had to either, you know, take the jab or lose their jobs.
Speaker: So the vaccine mandates are right up in everybody's face every day.
Speaker: Election integrity is another massive issue.
Speaker: Deregulation of our timber industry is big.
Speaker: We have a couple of major ports here as well that could become hubs for international shipping if we just allocated some federal money in the right way.
Speaker: We have some failing bridges that are part of the I-5 quarter that affects interstate commerce that the federal government is just completely and totally ignored.
Speaker: So we have, I mean, I think we have some unique issues, but overall we are really the forgotten men and women of the country that President Trump and the populist right has spoken so strongly to, just like you find throughout the country.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: One of the biggest challenges that I see in pursuing family values in politics, I know that your district, it sounds like it's very kind of economic populist.
Speaker: It's very concerned about brass tax issues.
Speaker: But this stuff matters too.
Speaker: And I think it matters maybe even more in those deindustrialized parts of the country because
Speaker: it's people who cannot afford always the social costs of the breakdown, right?
Speaker: If you're rich, then you can afford to live in a way that creates these problems over time.
Speaker: But the burden falls on working class people.
Speaker: And one of the challenges with that kind of politics is that the people with like the single mindedness and the ambition to make a difference politically, they tend not to be family values types.
Speaker: So like conservative power circles are dominated by like childless single, like confirmed bachelor types.
Speaker: Can you talk about like your approach to life and marriage and, you know, from a political perspective?
Speaker: I mean, obviously, 100% pro-life.
Speaker: I want to do everything I can to end up.
Speaker: I think abortion, I remember growing up learning about the civil rights movement and learning about slavery and all that.
Speaker: And it blew me away that my parents, the people that were raising me, they lived in an era where there was actually segregation.
Speaker: And then my grandparents were like, well, yeah, actually, we lived in an era where there were still people who fought in the Civil War.
Speaker: And I was like, holy crap.
Speaker: When you think about that, because slavery and segregation is such a horrible thing.
Speaker: it was hard for me to even fathom.
Speaker: And I think abortion is going to be that way.
Speaker: I think there's going to be a time when we tell our kids and our grandkids that, yeah, there was this really weird period we had in American history where you could go kill a baby and it was common and it was even celebrated.
Speaker: I mean, I, it's just like, we're going to have to explain that somebody to our kids and our grandkids.
Speaker: And I don't know how we're going to do it.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: So I think this is something that a huge moral issue that I think we just can't back down on.
Speaker: The family values thing is huge.
Speaker: I mean, when I was talking about Washington state, we've had a,
Speaker: a massive exit even before COVID from our public schools because of Planned Parenthood sex ed agenda, they call it comprehensive sex ed, and saying it's the whole transgender ideology being pumped into our children, really getting control of our kids, manipulating their concepts of what a man is, what a woman is.
Speaker: We could talk about what I think that the overall goal is there.
Speaker: I think it's really just to dilute our society.
Speaker: The last thing that the left and these major
Speaker: globalist corporations want is like strong, independent families.
Speaker: So you hack away at the economic base behind that, and then you hack away at faith, and then you also hack away literally at the sex roles.
Speaker: And that's what they're trying to do.
Speaker: So we've had people pull out, there's been a huge homeschool movement that's only grown because of COVID.
Speaker: So I think being able to
Speaker: And I talk about the economy, and especially with populist economics, I like to talk about it too from a moral perspective, because the free market right-wingers always come in and say, but man, this is the free market.
Speaker: You're talking about intervening in the economy that makes you some kind of a socialist.
Speaker: And I say, look, at the end of the day, our country has to be a sovereign nation that cares deeply about our people and not just an economy.
Speaker: I don't care about GDP.
Speaker: I care about what affects our people.
Speaker: And the fact is, our economic policies over the last at least 30 years or so
Speaker: have been a bullet aimed at the heart of the American family.
Speaker: And that starts with like, hey, can you get out of high school?
Speaker: Can you marry somebody and support a family on a single income?
Speaker: And by and large, the answer is absolutely 100%.
Speaker: No, you can't.
Speaker: Even if the culture wasn't aimed at destroying that, the economic situation is just not there.
Speaker: So we have to start bringing jobs back.
Speaker: I'm real big on school choice, a school voucher system.
Speaker: The state is the best vehicle for that.
Speaker: But I live in a
Speaker: I live in a blue state and that's just not going to happen.
Speaker: So I do want to provide some sort of a federal assistance where people can get the ability to pay for private school or even homeschooling resources.
Speaker: Obviously you can opt out if you want.
Speaker: Child tax credit vouchers where if you have skin in the game and like your family is not on federal assistance, I think getting $10,000 in a tax deduction, not money from the government, but a tax deduction, taking less money away from you per child to incentivize one parent to be able to stay home with their kids is
Speaker: is huge.
Speaker: The whole Democrat, if you look at their Build Back Better plan, especially of them wanting to give pre-K assistance to people, that sounds great on paper, but that's really just the government getting more control of your children even faster.
Speaker: What we have to be doing is strengthening the American family so that families are in the driver's seat.
Speaker: For the America First movement, I think our core unit that we're protecting has to be the sovereign American family.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I've seen Republicans frame the pre-K thing as like it's this pro-family, pro-family values thing.
Speaker: And that's insane to me.
Speaker: The idea that sending your four-year-old to a state institution is pro-family.
Speaker: So that's good to hear.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, as far as like, well, the circles that you have to run in
Speaker: as a politician.
Speaker: Um, how do you think that I'm thinking about people who might be interested in doing what you're doing.
Speaker: I'm thinking about people who not only want to, to vote and contribute, but who want to run.
Speaker: There's so much distaste for that whole world.
Speaker: And, you know, talking about those conservative power circles and like the people that you'd have to be around and the people, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker: Like, like,
Speaker: there's, there's a lot of contempt for that.
Speaker: And I wonder how you, you know, as a father, as somebody trying to raise kids, how you interact with that world and, and, and how you make that work.
Speaker: It's definitely tough, man.
Speaker: That was really the only thing that was holding me back that I had a second thought about doing this was like, okay, well, I have two young kids,
Speaker: Um, how, how do I make this happen?
Speaker: And so for me, it was like, okay, what's, what's going to be harder balancing that or in 10 years, looking them in the eyes and saying like, well, you used to have a great country that your, your mom lost her life for.
Speaker: Um, but it went to hell in a hand basket and I didn't do anything about it.
Speaker: So that was ultimately the, the issue for me.
Speaker: Um, I mean, a big thing is really just, I'd say, keep, keep the fringe you had before you started running for,
Speaker: for whatever office you're running from and be wary of new ones.
Speaker: Not to say there isn't good people out there because people are hungry for real people.
Speaker: And so we, you know, I'm very happy with like the network of volunteers and supporters, you know, that I've built.
Speaker: I think a big thing is really just trying to stay as true to yourself as possible.
Speaker: And then I think our community just needs to get way more engaged because the more that we can keep our politicians free of corporate interest by either supporting them with small contributions or just making sure people are mobilized to vote,
Speaker: the closer in you're going to be able to hold those politicians.
Speaker: When people just think, hey, I've done my civic duty by voting once every two years, once every four years, and then I'm done with it.
Speaker: Well, problem is then the people that are in your congressman or your senator or even your local representatives, those people are going to have more influence over them than you are.
Speaker: So I think having constant engagement is very, very key because that's going to keep your elected officials grounded.
Speaker: So it's a balancing act, staying
Speaker: Rounded between the people you need to court relationships with, I think, to make a lot of money versus like the people you need to court relationships with to make sure that you're plugged in to the community and to the voters.
Speaker: I think you always want to be, I always want to be trending towards the community and the voters.
Speaker: Like I'm not taking any corporate special interests like PAC money or any type of stuff.
Speaker: To be frank, I'm not getting offered a lot of it because I'm going after an incumbent, which is like very taboo.
Speaker: Like people don't want to be associated with you because then you're, you know, all that.
Speaker: But even someday if those interests did cater to me, I want to be able to stay plugged in enough with the people in the district that I say like, hey guys, like it's going to take me $3 million to win this next election.
Speaker: So if you like what I've been doing so far and you can spare 50, 20, 30, 100, whatever, $100, like
Speaker: I can make it happen with you guys.
Speaker: So I don't need to even talk.
Speaker: I don't need to open the door to, you know, some special interest group or whatever super PAC, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's a huge piece of it is the freedom to say no.
Speaker: And that's, that's a big part of what I'm trying to do with, with my, with my group is, is build people the freedom to say no and, and to,
Speaker: to have an alternative to the power structures, whether it's their job, whether it's, you know,
Speaker: the need to be liked universally, which is increasingly impossible to do.
Speaker: I've thought occasionally about how I could get involved in politics, and I essentially came to the conclusion that based on, I could tell you a little bit about my story later, but I was doxed and fired.
Speaker: from a government contractor.
Speaker: And I've kind of concluded that I was burnt as far as that goes.
Speaker: But then I listened to your spaces with Josiah Lippincott and the things that you were saying, well, I mean, it's not like you were saying anything genuinely offensive, but you were saying things that were things a lot of people wouldn't want to hear.
Speaker: And so do you think that the wind is changing for for like the whole I mean, it's I hate even using the term, but cancel culture.
Speaker: Like, do you feel like there's there's space for people to be more honest now?
Speaker: I think we're going to I think right now we're getting a really good test of that, like with what's happening with Joe Rogan.
Speaker: Um, I, I do think we're gaining ground because like, if you're on the right in any way, shape or form, unless you were just like controlled opposition, Mike Pence or Lindsey Graham, like, you know, you're going to get like canceled at some point.
Speaker: Like I've been called, I mean, every day I pretty much get called like, like racist, whatever, you know, white nationalists, like
Speaker: So much to the point that it's like, it's so boring.
Speaker: And I think most people, it's just like, it's not even dumb anymore.
Speaker: It's just like, come on, man, like you can do better than that.
Speaker: You can listen to one of my, one of my speeches or something and pick on me some other way.
Speaker: But I feel like, I think at least people that are, they have their eyes opened up a little bit more.
Speaker: And then especially if you're on the right man and that can be used against you, like you probably should just pick something else to go do with your life.
Speaker: Cause like, it's going to happen.
Speaker: You're not going to make these people happy.
Speaker: The whole idea that we're ever going to be able to sit down and the New York Times, the Washington Post is like actually going to respect you.
Speaker: Like, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker: And then all the bots and whoever else they're going to, they're going to call you racist.
Speaker: They're going to call you horrible things.
Speaker: Like I, and so I do, I do believe that it's losing some of its power.
Speaker: I really think it only has the power that we give it.
Speaker: Now there is the whole other thing.
Speaker: censorship thing.
Speaker: Like Trump was very much that way.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Trump then was successful.
Speaker: He won the surprise victory, took over the white house.
Speaker: And then we saw what happened between the election.
Speaker: And then he literally got kicked off all of the internet.
Speaker: You know, if he wasn't independently wealthy, he may not have, I mean, like,
Speaker: And so it's a very real thing because if you or I, if that happened to us, could we survive?
Speaker: And probably not.
Speaker: And so you sort of do need a guy like Trump who's independently wealthy, who can actually endure being kicked off the internet.
Speaker: And now he has to have like his press secretary tweet out the PDF of what he said.
Speaker: So there is a, I think we're in a spot right now where it's like we've maybe created enough space that the cancel culture stuff isn't as powerful.
Speaker: And so now that the, now the regime is having to use other means like we will kick people off the internet.
Speaker: We'll say that they're spreading disinformation.
Speaker: It's a public health risk.
Speaker: they're trying to make it so like Madison Cawthorn and a couple of their representatives like can't run.
Speaker: They're trying to make it so literally they can't get access and get on the ballot, which is the next level of insanity, which again, for me is why like this next election and all other elections are very, very important because if we don't engage now and fight within the system, like they're going to switch over the system from us and then we won't have a, then we won't have a prayer beyond horrible things.
Speaker: So yeah, I think for right now it's losing a lot of its effect.
Speaker: That's an interesting, to say we won't have a prayer beyond horrible things.
Speaker: I mean, I feel like the mood in a lot of the country is that we're already there.
Speaker: That it would not be possible.
Speaker: And I wanted to talk to you a little bit.
Speaker: You know, you mentioned the value of CIA, FBI, NSA, and the
Speaker: But at the same time, we know that they get around domestic spying rules by collaborating with our quote-unquote allies.
Speaker: We know that they are heavily involved in not solving but generating attacks.
Speaker: And I want to know if you think there's anything that can be done to rein that in.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, accountability is heavy.
Speaker: We need to have...
Speaker: massive amounts of congressional oversight.
Speaker: I think using January 6th, because the regime's hand has been exposed so heavily on January 6th, the way that they lied from day one, that, you know, Officer Sicknick was beaten to death by crazy Trump supporters.
Speaker: And we find out months later, it's like, well, he didn't even, he didn't, we kind of caught you right-handed, you know, tragically for that man, he lost his life, but he didn't die on the steps of the Capitol.
Speaker: Like we were told that for months.
Speaker: And now we're finding out like all the other
Speaker: unindicted co-conspirators, the Ray F, Stuart Rodangle, all that that we can, you know, happy to go into.
Speaker: I understand what an intelligence operations looks like when I see one.
Speaker: And this is very much starting to look more and more like an intelligence operation.
Speaker: So I would use that as a reason to expose a lot of this corruption, work our way backwards.
Speaker: Russiagate too, the way that FISA and the power of the NSA was used by like in coordination with the DNC.
Speaker: And like you said, with some of our allies,
Speaker: to ruin the lives of American citizens who we just, we, the regime simply did not like the national security state simply did not like their, their political views.
Speaker: Probably a little more targeted against a guy like Mike Flynn, who actually knew how some of these things work.
Speaker: So they took him out first.
Speaker: So I think we need to go really heavily, like something like a church committee.
Speaker: There's been times where these, these organizations and these institutions got way out of control and they were reined back in by something like the church committee.
Speaker: I think we need that.
Speaker: And personally, I would have said the same thing five or six years ago.
Speaker: However, I would have erred more on the side of like, hey, these institutions, they still need to have a lot of secrecy and a lot of power because there's dangerous threats out there.
Speaker: I frankly think that these institutions now at this point, their corruption has been exposed to the point where I would lean way more heavily on like, nope, we are going to go with transparency over security.
Speaker: We are going to take away a lot of your power and your controls until you guys can prove to us that you're actually doing what you're supposed to be doing.
Speaker: And there has to be kind of, I mean, I think for what happened January 6th, Russiagate, we do need to see some charges and people do need to actually be punished and go to jail.
Speaker: It can't just be like, okay, well, you lost your government job and now you're going to go work at a think tank or now you're going to be the national security correspondent at freaking CNN.
Speaker: You know, like it can't be, it can't be that.
Speaker: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker: And so, I mean, I think about, I think about what classification has really bought us historically.
Speaker: Like it, it, it didn't protect the bomb.
Speaker: It didn't protect, like, there's just so many, there's so many leaks and so many holes in that system.
Speaker: And it, it almost seems to me like the only people that those secrets are being kept from is the American people.
Speaker: And so tell me what you think the value of maintaining that secrecy is at all.
Speaker: Liz, it's just been abused so much.
Speaker: I mean...
Speaker: it's the, the overclassification has been used to hide sometimes like how incompetent we are.
Speaker: Um, which, you know, that can be something we don't want the, I used to joke when I was in the intelligence community that like the deepest secrets we have is how incompetent and petty we are that like, if the enemy actually knew that they would stop being scared of us.
Speaker: So like, forget about our sources and methods and technology.
Speaker: Like they probably, they're going to, they're going to get that eventually.
Speaker: They can't know how fucked up we are.
Speaker: Sorry if I'm not supposed to swear here.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But that was like, I was kidding around when I was, you know, muddling my way through the war on terror about that.
Speaker: But no, I think that a lot of times the overclassification has been used to hide, like we just talked about the FISA thing, they classified the heck out of that, right?
Speaker: So that they, but what were they, what were they classifying?
Speaker: They were classifying the fact that they were abusing their power and they were doing so in a very criminal manner.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I think it needs to be subjected to way more oversight.
Speaker: And so I think we have to really look at how we are overclassifying things.
Speaker: Of course, we're a country.
Speaker: People want to attack us.
Speaker: We have to have secrets.
Speaker: We need to have operational security.
Speaker: That has to happen.
Speaker: But especially when things touch American citizens, I think we have to be much, much more transparent about that.
Speaker: And there needs to be the FOIA system, I think, needs to be much more robust and much less complicated.
Speaker: You know, like the real journalists doing real investigative journalism, it's absolutely essential, you know.
Speaker: And I think having more podcasts and more independent journalists and just eroding away at the corporate media as much as we possibly can, I think it's huge, man.
Speaker: But yeah, I think this is another thing where that we can cover sort of in a church committee like hearing.
Speaker: And Congress needs to exercise congressional oversight way more than they actually do.
Speaker: It's one of the core principles.
Speaker: you know, tasks that Congress has is oversight.
Speaker: And I just think for the last decades and decades, there's been a blank check that's been given to the national security state and the Department of Defense.
Speaker: Because if you say, if you get some spooky CIA guy or NSA guy that comes in there or a general with a bunch of medals and they say, well, we have to do these things.
Speaker: Otherwise, the terrorists are going to attack us.
Speaker: Like most congressmen and senators are just like, oh, crap, man, I don't want to be the guy to like let this happen.
Speaker: So a general or CIA, NSA guy, do whatever you want.
Speaker: And the problem is that
Speaker: the NSA director and the CIA director are probably political appointees.
Speaker: They're probably not even actual operatives.
Speaker: Like they're, they're political hacks by and large, you know, and then our generals at some point, they become political hacks as well.
Speaker: So it's a very corrupt system.
Speaker: Well, yeah, I mean, I, I, I had occasion to look through talking about Millie and, and I had occasion to look through the, the joint chiefs of staff and like, it's, it's all like,
Speaker: Carter era guys who, who signed up for a peacetime kind of bureaucratic military and they've been in there ever since.
Speaker: And, um, it's, it's, uh, it's so self, it's so, so transparently political.
Speaker: Um, and, and, and so, yeah, and I think, I think popular sovereignty, um,
Speaker: It has to be predicated on the idea that we are in possession of the facts, the American people.
Speaker: Because if official sources, if the people that work for us can lie to us, then they don't work for us.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: The only way that I can think of to square that circle is to say,
Speaker: Congress, it is your responsibility to go into the SCIF, look at the documents, look at the images, look at what they're telling you, and then you're accountable for that decision.
Speaker: And nobody wants to be held accountable.
Speaker: And I just don't know if that principal agent problem can really be overcome.
Speaker: But I mean, I think you're right that if it is going to be overcome, that's how it has to happen.
Speaker: And that's the thing is like when you get guys like Adam Schiff, who like we at this point, we know Schiff lied to us for like four years about Russiagate for him not to be held accountable for that.
Speaker: That's why no one.
Speaker: I mean, that's why like if I'm if I'm elected a congressman tomorrow.
Speaker: And like literally we get really good intel that something bad is going to happen and we need to use military force and put people in harm's way.
Speaker: And even if you guys trust me and I come to my constituents, I'm like, guys, I heard in the skip the CIA said something bad is going to happen.
Speaker: Rightfully right now, most American people will be like F all the way off.
Speaker: Like I don't even want to hear about it.
Speaker: We can't have that.
Speaker: So what we need to do is we actually have to –
Speaker: We have to lay it out for the American people that look, Adam Schiff and the DNC, they did this.
Speaker: They did this with FISA.
Speaker: We caught them and he will now be held accountable.
Speaker: And the next congressman that does some crap like that, they're going to share a sale with Adam Schiff, you know?
Speaker: So that's, that's how we restore accountability and trust.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I mean, what it will amount to, in my opinion, if it works is it will amount to an electoral revolution.
Speaker: It will have to be the entire,
Speaker: The wave of replacements in the Congress, in the Senate, in the presidency, would have to be so extreme to act in unison on a task like that.
Speaker: I think the trends that you're seeing as far as the red wave in 2022, or this year,
Speaker: it's encouraging.
Speaker: I'm not sure that it's enough.
Speaker: And then you get into the Supreme Court.
Speaker: And this is why I maybe I'd like to believe.
Speaker: I want you to sell me on this being solvable politically.
Speaker: But I look at some of the decisions that the Supreme Court has made and there's really no
Speaker: internal to the constitution recourse against those kinds of decisions.
Speaker: And, and they seem nakedly political to me.
Speaker: Um, and I, I, I wonder if you could comment on that.
Speaker: Like, is there anything that we can do about this whole like living constitution thing where the Supreme court just decides what, what, what they want to happen.
Speaker: And they say, well, I found a penumbra and an emanation and that's what the constitution says.
Speaker: I'm not going to have to vet our Supreme Court case.
Speaker: It's much, much better.
Speaker: But yeah, the whole lifetime appointment thing, I think that's an issue.
Speaker: I understand the logic behind it.
Speaker: But I really think having good – the legislative body because the people are the closest to the legislative body, especially Congress.
Speaker: Having them actually exercise a lot of oversight I think can prevent a lot of things from going to the court.
Speaker: I don't think everything is supposed to be litigated in the courts.
Speaker: I think we've just had so much gridlock and just so much incompetency in the legislative branch.
Speaker: And then into some extent, like with the executive branch as well, that a lot of things have ended up in the court's purview and the court is showing that like, they're not, these people aren't set up for that.
Speaker: Like they're, these guys are judges, they're academics.
Speaker: Like I don't think they're, I don't think they have the steel spines for the fight.
Speaker: I mean, Clarence Thomas is probably the exception.
Speaker: I think he's, I think that guy's, you know, he consistently is ready to tackle hard issues.
Speaker: The rest of them, they seem like they want to have these philosophical arguments and maybe write an interesting paper for a bunch of law students to debate.
Speaker: When it's like, hey, our country is about to literally implode because of what happened with the last election.
Speaker: Could you guys maybe look at this because there's states suing other states?
Speaker: I'm pretty sure that's somewhere in the Constitution.
Speaker: And they couldn't even be bothered.
Speaker: So to me, I lost a lot of faith in them.
Speaker: you know, that's why I say, Hey, Congress has to be the ones that actually go and adjudicate the election of 2020.
Speaker: Should it be the courts?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'll let some kids at law school debate that, but like the problem is they're not doing it.
Speaker: So I, I totally understand the, the, the issues of that.
Speaker: And I, maybe we look at how we appoint Supreme court justices.
Speaker: Maybe we look at like, can we impeach these people?
Speaker: Maybe we look at like, can we do term limits?
Speaker: I don't want to add judges.
Speaker: I don't want to take away judges.
Speaker: Nine is a good number.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's there for a reason.
Speaker: But man, I totally understand.
Speaker: And the problem is we can't vote them.
Speaker: We can't vote our way out of the Supreme Court.
Speaker: That's the problem.
Speaker: So I put a lot more faith on the people.
Speaker: Yeah, I put way more faith in the people that we can fire every two years because we can fire them.
Speaker: In theory, if we get enough political engagement, we can fire congressmen every six percent of us.
Speaker: Yeah, which again, I mean, the will to pass a constitutional amendment hasn't existed for decades.
Speaker: And we probably, I think there has to be a realization that like, you know, if we don't adjust this system, it's going to just be run by the Supreme Court.
Speaker: They're just going to litigate every decision.
Speaker: Congress is going to be gridlocked forever.
Speaker: Like, there's just not an obvious reason for that to change.
Speaker: So I want to move to foreign policy quickly.
Speaker: There's a pretty common take in dissident circles that since we don't like the people running the government, we don't like the security state, basically any regime that's antagonistic to that security state is based, and they're the good guys.
Speaker: And I know you have expertise in the Middle East in particular, but in general, I want to get your take on
Speaker: And, you know, we can go in whatever order you want, but I'd like to talk about Syria and Iran.
Speaker: I'd like to talk about Ukraine.
Speaker: I'd like to talk about China.
Speaker: Yeah, my overall take in foreign policy is that, like, the first country we need to worry about is America.
Speaker: And I mean that in the most national sense.
Speaker: Like, we need to have a very strong independent economy.
Speaker: If you look at the map, I mean, we're one of the unique countries in the world that we have.
Speaker: Two neighbors that are oceans we have.
Speaker: We are blessed by divine province of all kinds of natural resources.
Speaker: Like we're we're one of the countries that just really doesn't need that much from the rest of the world.
Speaker: And so for us to not capitalize on that is is just insanity.
Speaker: So that's where that needs to be our starting place.
Speaker: But yeah, there's going to be countries out there that want to do bad things to us.
Speaker: They want to do harm to us.
Speaker: We have interests in other parts of the country.
Speaker: But in general, our starting principle should be a strong and sovereign America.
Speaker: So seeking out foreign interventions and foreign adventures, like that has never worked out for us.
Speaker: I mean, there's going to be times where to save the world, like we did in World War II and World War I to a certain extent, like we actually do have to get involved.
Speaker: And that's legitimate.
Speaker: We're going to have to do that because eventually that will come to our doorstep.
Speaker: There's validity in that argument.
Speaker: But again, this does go back to trust.
Speaker: Trust.
Speaker: We have to trust that our government is not involved in just silly, foolish, nefarious activities overseas that don't directly benefit the American people.
Speaker: So I think right now, like for me, if we have to go and use military force, we have to be able to state what the vested national security interest is.
Speaker: Is it a clear and present danger?
Speaker: What's the actual plan?
Speaker: And like, when is that plan done?
Speaker: How do we actually get out of those types of things?
Speaker: And is there consensus from the American people via an actual vote in Congress?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: So like to start with Ukraine, I mean, the national security interest that I can see, I'm trying to, you know, give the devil his due, is that we've made these commitments.
Speaker: And these commitments were, they were made under different circumstances with a different geopolitical arithmetic.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: But there is a case to be made that if we have a line drawn in the sand and we let the bad guys cross it or the other guys cross it, whatever, then all of the other hotspots, whether it's Kashmir, whether it's the 38th parallel, whether it's the South China Sea,
Speaker: all of those spots become more dangerous to everybody, including our soldiers.
Speaker: And so I wonder what you make of, like, I mean, Biden is incompetent and probably not in charge, but I don't envy his position.
Speaker: Like, you know, we're extended in all these commitments and, you know, it's on paper.
Speaker: So what would be your take on how would you handle that situation in Ukraine?
Speaker: our national security state is done.
Speaker: And they do this with a lot of different problem sets is they, they say, Hey, this thing's a problem.
Speaker: And then the next thing, you know, like it gets kicked to the Pentagon and the Pentagon's like, well, we're the department of defense.
Speaker: So, you know, I, we could go to war if you want, but there's supposed to be an entire suite of things that policymakers have available.
Speaker: And this is something that Trump never got any credit for.
Speaker: Trump actually tried to use every single avenue of power that we have.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: For Ukraine, let's take the hypothesis that at its face value that if Putin goes and takes Ukraine, this is going to be a horrible thing for us, our allies in Europe, and we need to do something about it.
Speaker: Okay, well then what you, the first thing you do is you don't kill off the Keystone XL pipeline and make the one commodity that Russia has, oil and natural gas, go up in value by taking our production off the market.
Speaker: Like you don't do that.
Speaker: And then you don't go to the Europeans in green light, the NORAD stream two, you know, pipeline,
Speaker: So we did all these things.
Speaker: And then now we're supposed to believe that Putin is some form of this is a crisis.
Speaker: Like, it's just not believable.
Speaker: We're either so incredibly incompetent, which is possible with Biden, that we don't understand there's more tools to use other than war.
Speaker: But I think there's much more of a wag the dog trying to divert from the domestic issues.
Speaker: But really, it does go back to let's have a strong, sovereign America.
Speaker: And if we were producing, if we are a net producer of oil and natural gas, we can easily go to the Europeans and say like, hey, stop buying that crap from Putin.
Speaker: You can buy it from a bunch of other people.
Speaker: We'll sell you some discounted stuff.
Speaker: We'll make a good deal.
Speaker: We're not going to green light that pipeline.
Speaker: And if we do, we're going to sanction it and we're going to threaten kicking NATO countries, maybe out of NATO.
Speaker: We'll look at the NATO treaty and say, hey, like if you guys are going to tell us in one out of one side of your mouth that Russia is a threat and you need our help and then buy oil from them, we're going to stop taking you seriously.
Speaker: You know, like that's that's actually using diplomacy and economic power in a way that we should, as opposed to being like, well, I guess it's war.
Speaker: I guess we're just going to have to rally up the Pentagon once more.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Take their oil and also never meet their defense commitments ever.
Speaker: Like the idea that they do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I mean, NATO in general, do you feel like NATO has kind of outlived its usefulness?
Speaker: I mean, once the Soviet Union,
Speaker: Empire fell.
Speaker: I mean, like it seemed like that was the whole purpose for having NATO.
Speaker: Like right now, I would understand if NATO said to us like, hey, we stepped up after 9-11 and we followed you guys to Afghanistan and then you kept us there for 20 years and we don't want to play anymore.
Speaker: That's actually if I were NATO, that's what I would be saying to us.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think in many ways it kind of has outlived its its usefulness.
Speaker: The blanket international organizations, I don't think ever really work out in our favor.
Speaker: or ever really in any kind of strong sovereign nation's favor.
Speaker: Like us having individual treaties and relationships with countries, that's fine.
Speaker: But I think these blanket international organizations, that is just on a slippery slope for getting people involved in things that don't directly benefit their nations.
Speaker: It's just this globalist mentality that a bunch of different elites sitting somewhere in Brussels or Davos, they know better.
Speaker: than their sovereign nations do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you could maybe make a case that NATO, you know, and even our position on the UN for a while was sort of an extension of our empire.
Speaker: And it was sort of in our national interest to maintain that because we were effectively in complete control of it.
Speaker: But then you have to get into the question of who's we.
Speaker: Like, you know,
Speaker: the American state was in control of those institutions, but the American people were not necessarily.
Speaker: And that creates that separation.
Speaker: And even then the crazy thing about like the American empire, I mean, like we were an empire because we, you know, won the second world war and then we won the cold war, but we are never really an empire.
Speaker: Like we're not imperialistic people.
Speaker: We, we, and if we are, we do a really bad job at it.
Speaker: We're good at extending our resources and not getting anything out of it.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: We went and we fought and we bled in the Middle East for 20 years.
Speaker: Like I spent like most of my 20s and 30s in Iraq.
Speaker: And did we get one barrel of discounted oil from it?
Speaker: Like we're really bad at empire.
Speaker: I'm not saying we should be doing that.
Speaker: But like even when the Brits had an empire, like the Brits actually got a good deal out of their empire.
Speaker: Our empire really just benefits people in the Beltway, on Wall Street, and it doesn't even benefit the country.
Speaker: So it's like we are bad.
Speaker: And it's a good thing that we're bad at empire.
Speaker: So we just need to like not even try it.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Moving on to Syria and Iran, I know that you have a very personal stake in that conflict.
Speaker: And do you think that we have or had a compelling security interest there?
Speaker: I think when Trump came into office, the ISIS situation was so out of control.
Speaker: You can reverse trace that to like Obama's capitulation and then all the way to Bush removing
Speaker: The guy who, right or wrong, stabilized the region, Saddam, kept the Iranians at bay.
Speaker: And then the steps we took in Iraq really led to al-Qaeda in Iraq and then ISIS eventually.
Speaker: But when Trump came in, it was really clear, like, hey, we had to go do something about this.
Speaker: There was ISIS.
Speaker: They had sanctuary.
Speaker: They had safe haven.
Speaker: They were able to plan attacks.
Speaker: Those attacks were aimed right at America.
Speaker: They were forcing a migration crisis into Europe.
Speaker: Yeah, this is a place where we actually had to do some international leadership and we had to go crush ISIS.
Speaker: My late wife was over there for the final push into that.
Speaker: And when we actually, so Trump actually did something very remarkable.
Speaker: He stated what the military objective was.
Speaker: He said, I'm going to crush ISIS.
Speaker: And that means I'm going to, I'm going to destroy every section of every inch of ground they control.
Speaker: They can't be allowed to control ground because he realized that like the ideology of a terrorist group or Al Qaeda or ISIS, like
Speaker: it's like the war on drugs.
Speaker: Like you're not going to win that.
Speaker: However, you can say, I'm not going to let these guys fly their flag and control ground.
Speaker: He did that.
Speaker: And so they, we went, we took, we took back every section of ground that control.
Speaker: And then Trump said like, and now we're out of here.
Speaker: I don't want anything to do with this foresighted civil war going on in Syria.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: Let's get our troops out.
Speaker: And that's when Madison and a bunch of the guys publicly resigned a month late.
Speaker: They were supposed to be out Christmas Eve of, uh,
Speaker: And then a month later, because of all the bureaucratic slow roll that went on, my wife and three other Americans were killed by a suicide bomber in a place that we really have no vested national security interest.
Speaker: So no, I don't think we have any more use for Syria.
Speaker: Like right now, we did that raid that went and took out the number two guy from ISIS.
Speaker: Like that happened closer to the Turks territory.
Speaker: I mean, that was probably done.
Speaker: I don't know anything, but with Turkish liaison intelligence.
Speaker: So could we be sitting in a place like Turkey and every now and again strike?
Speaker: I'm even skeptical about, do we need to put boots on the ground for these things?
Speaker: Or could we just like bomb places?
Speaker: Like I'm totally okay with that as well.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: if it's, if it meets the threshold of something, that's going to be a threat guys, like guys that are part of ISIS, like they're a threat.
Speaker: They do, they do actually want to come here and kill us.
Speaker: And so doing things like occasional bombings or targeted raids, that's fine.
Speaker: We take away all of our strategic advantage.
Speaker: When we go and we hang out in these places, like America has an ability to reach out and touch people like no country ever right now or ever in the history of the world.
Speaker: When we go and we occupy places, we take away all of our advantages.
Speaker: And so like right now, Syria, I mean,
Speaker: where our troops are, they are basically speed bumps between the Turks and the Kurds, Assad, Russia, Iran, and ISIS.
Speaker: Like these are not wars that we want to be a part of at all.
Speaker: So I think get out, like I wouldn't be against any kind of effort to remove Assad.
Speaker: Like if we haven't learned, if we haven't learned by now that like getting rid of strong men, especially in the Middle East is a very bad idea, then anybody who's advocating to get rid of Assad, like they need to be taken away from foreign policy and they have to go read
Speaker: everything about the Arab Spring and what we did with Saddam before they're allowed to come back into the conversation.
Speaker: It's just an utterly unserious point that we should be actively working towards getting rid of Assad in any way.
Speaker: Roger that.
Speaker: The toughest one
Speaker: that I'm aware of right now is, is Taiwan and the South China sea.
Speaker: And the fact that so much of our transistors are built over there, not our transistors are, are, yeah.
Speaker: Microchips, some kind of semiconductors.
Speaker: Microchips, yeah.
Speaker: Semiconductor.
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: Tell me what you think the approach should be to the Chinese and Taiwan.
Speaker: I mean, I obviously, you know, step one I'm imagining would be bring that industry here because it's a great high paying industry.
Speaker: But in the meantime, how would you handle that conflict?
Speaker: Yeah, so obviously the semiconductors and the advanced microchip design, all that needs to
Speaker: like we even using the government to do it, get that capability back here in America.
Speaker: Actually, my district, because of the amount of water we have from the Columbia River, we used to build them here and we actually have companies that build parts of it and they ship the rest over there so that we can ship them back here.
Speaker: It's completely terrible.
Speaker: I think arming our allies in the region, obviously arming Taiwan,
Speaker: arming the rest of Asia Pacific that is not aligned ideologically with the Chinese, is the way to make it so costly that if the Chinese were to move on Taiwan, they would face a bloodbath from allies and neighbors who actually have real skin in the game because they live in the neighborhood, backed up by our fleet.
Speaker: That's absolutely key.
Speaker: The biggest thing though right now of China is they smell blood in the water and they smell weakness.
Speaker: I mean, they control
Speaker: Our supply lines, because of our means of production are over there.
Speaker: We rely on the Chinese to buy off our debt bonds.
Speaker: And like when we killed off the Keystone XL pipeline, that was just really a massive effort for us to keep dollars in circulation because we needed now to, we need to go back to OPEC and say like, hey, we're going to give you guys petrodollars.
Speaker: Can you ship us oil?
Speaker: Well, if we were independent, we wouldn't need to have that.
Speaker: And like, so right now, because we're back on this entire debt economy, we need the Chinese to buy off our debt bonds.
Speaker: So in terms of production, we have to get independent.
Speaker: And we also have to not rely on the Chinese to buy off our debt because they could, I mean, economically right now, they could, they're in the process of eating our lunch.
Speaker: So I think a combination of economic nationalism and isolation to a certain extent, decoupling from China,
Speaker: And then making sure all of our allies in the region have what they need in terms of mines, in terms of surface to sea type of missile defenses to really make it, to make them impose a cost.
Speaker: And this is a place where I would have some informal alliances with the folks in the region to say like, hey, if they do move on to Taiwan, it's going to be a bad and bloody day for them.
Speaker: But
Speaker: What just happened in Afghanistan, the stupid military adventure that the national security state is trying to take in Ukraine, the Chinese are laughing at that.
Speaker: And the fact that the Chinese and the Russians just signed a strategic agreement as allies, that should be what's throwing up red flags.
Speaker: But you don't hear about it.
Speaker: You just hear that we're sending a division over to Europe to flex on the Russians.
Speaker: Again, it's totally unserious.
Speaker: We should be taking every measure we can
Speaker: to drive a wedge between Russia and China.
Speaker: And we don't do that through, you know, aggression on the Russian flag.
Speaker: Do you think that means making friendlier overtures to Russia?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, Putin's Putin's he's Putin.
Speaker: Like we, we know the guy's never fully going to be our friend, but again, if we, if we're not, um,
Speaker: bowing down to NATO, or maybe we're even just listening, like NATO right now doesn't care about Russia.
Speaker: So, you know, we can, we can even take the advice of NATO and even take the advice of the Ukrainians who are telling us to calm the heck down about Putin.
Speaker: I mean, I think Trump did a great job with showing Russia that we met in business, like making us energy independent, going after Europeans for buying Russian oil.
Speaker: And then the Russians were flexing on our forces in Syria and Trump authorized us to do self-defense strikes against them.
Speaker: So Putin, I mean, game understands game.
Speaker: You're not going to sit down with a thug like Putin and show any kind of weakness.
Speaker: He has to see that every now and again, you're going to take decisive action and do it in a very smart, calculated way.
Speaker: So he respected Trump.
Speaker: And so, you know, we didn't get a lot of Russian aggression during the Trump era.
Speaker: I mean, that's not coincidental.
Speaker: And the second Biden comes back in, he does stupid things of our economy, you know, like they know weakness is on display.
Speaker: So you just can't display weakness with the Russians.
Speaker: I think the Russians advocating for themselves to be a strong sovereign nation, that's not a bad thing because then their strong sovereign nation is right on the border with China.
Speaker: Like those guys, the Chinese and the Russians are going to have way more just natural friction than we should have with either one of them.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Um, thoughts on serving in the military right now.
Speaker: I mean, I know that, uh, there's a lot to be said still for the quality of the training and the networking and, and we need, we can't, it's just like, it's just like you said with politics, we can't, we can't cede the military to our enemies.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: on the other hand, there's the prospect of like dying for a non-binary roller rink in Kabul.
Speaker: Like, so what, what's your take on, on should guys sign up or not?
Speaker: Of all the questions I get, I like actually hate this one the most because I had a very, even, even though I tragically lost my wife in the military, talk about that all day long.
Speaker: I still had a really positive experience in the military.
Speaker: Like
Speaker: If things were in a perfect world, I would still be in the military or paramilitary guy in the CIA.
Speaker: It was the greatest job ever, especially if you're a young man that wants challenge, you want to test your mettle, you want to serve your country.
Speaker: It's like the core of everything that makes America, America.
Speaker: And if we don't have people that are willing to step up and fight for our country, then I think we don't have a country anymore.
Speaker: All that said...
Speaker: What's happening right now between the so-called extremist stand down, that partisan witch hunt that Secretary of Defense Austin and Biden are leading the way on, and the vaccine mandate, and just the way our soldiers are being treated, the way that they were willing to put people in harm's way for that horrible withdrawal, and then we lost 13 and they won't even really acknowledge it.
Speaker: You know, all the way up to like, hey, maybe because Biden's domestically weak at home, we need to send American soldiers to Europe, potentially into Ukraine to, I don't know, see who blinks first.
Speaker: Like just insanity.
Speaker: So right now I have actually, unfortunately, and I hate doing this.
Speaker: I've told people like, look, you got to realize that's where things are right now.
Speaker: And I wouldn't necessarily recommend joining the military.
Speaker: Now, I know what it's like.
Speaker: when I was 18 years old, no one was going to stop me from joining.
Speaker: Like I hated Bill Clinton.
Speaker: I thought he was horrible.
Speaker: I enlisted under Bill Clinton, you know, times were different.
Speaker: The stakes were nowhere near as high.
Speaker: So, you know, I talked to young people at the time that I was,
Speaker: So unfortunately, Joe's audio cut out and we had to end it there, but it was wonderful to have Joe on the show.
Speaker: If you want to learn more about Joe's campaign, you can check out joekentforcongress.com.
Speaker: If you want to learn more about what we do here at Exit, you can check us out at exitgroup.us, follow us on Twitter at exit underscore org, or follow the podcast at exitgroup.podbean.com.
