Ep. 2129 - Did DEI Cause the DC Crash?!
en
January 31, 2025
TLDR: Trump criticizes DEI efforts for a plane crash, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel confront Senate Dems; an anti-Islam activist gets murdered, with discussion on 'Identity Crisis' film.

In the latest episode of the podcast, titled "Ep. 2129 - Did DEI Cause the DC Crash?!", the host discusses the tragic collision involving an American Airlines flight and a Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport, delving into the complexities of the incident and its potential implications regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in aviation.
Overview of the Incident
The episode begins with a harrowing account of the airplane crash that killed all 67 individuals on board a regional jet. The American Airlines flight, which was traveling from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a Black Hawk helicopter during what was described as a training flight. Key details from the incident include:
- Flight Details: The regional jet, Flight 5342, had 70 passengers and was navigating a narrow airspace typical for approaches to Reagan Airport.
- Helicopter Operations: The Black Hawk was reportedly flying at excessive heights and potentially using night vision goggles, which could have impaired visibility.
- Air Traffic Control Complications: There were concerns about communications between military and commercial air traffic, noting that each operates on different radio frequencies, complicating real-time warnings.
DEI Policies as a Discussion Point
President Trump sparked controversy by linking the crash to DEI policies implemented in aviation, suggesting that safety may have been compromised in favor of achieving diversity within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Key points from this discussion include:
- Criticism of DEI: Trump claimed that the emphasis on diversity at the FAA may have detracted from operational safety. He pointed to past practices that prioritized diversity over technical qualifications, potentially creating unsafe situations.
- Democrat Reactions: Trump's comments faced backlash from Democrats, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticizing the timing and nature of the remarks given that investigations were still ongoing regarding the crash.
- Impact of DEI on Safety: The episode examines claims that the FAA's focus on DEI has diverted resources away from critical safety responsibilities, affecting staffing levels and air traffic controller capabilities.
Expert Opinions on Aviation Safety
- Pilot Experiences: Experienced pilots shared insights about the challenges of landing at Reagan National Airport, citing issues with congested airspace and past near-misses involving military helicopters.
- Military Training Operations: Discussions also covered whether night training flights near populated airline routes should continue, noting the inherent risks associated with military operations in proximity to commercial traffic.
The Fallout and Future Actions
In the wake of this tragic incident, several actions and responses were highlighted:
- Calls for Review: There have been suggestions that the military should reconsider conducting training operations near Washington D.C. airspace to minimize potential future collisions.
- Trump's Executive Action: In the aftermath of the crash, Trump announced an initiative to reassess and potentially reform aviation DEI practices, pushing for competency as a priority over diversity in hiring.
- Continued Investigations: Ongoing investigations into the crash's circumstances are expected to clarify what went wrong and identify accountability within the FAA and military training operations.
Conclusion
This episode underscores the tragic complexity of aviation safety intertwined with socio-political discussions around DEI. While the investigation is underway, the implications of politicizing such incidents remain contentious and challenge how regulatory practices in aviation are perceived and managed. The need for maintaining stringent safety standards while promoting diversity is set against a backdrop of heightened scrutiny of government agencies and their operational priorities.
The tragic loss of lives in such incidents calls for a careful examination of policies and practices in the aviation sector to ensure such accidents do not recur in the future.
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Questions continue to abound in this horrifying tragedy outside Reagan National Airport, where an American Airlines flight coming from Wichita, Kansas was struck by a Black Hawk helicopter. By the way, Black Hawk helicopters are not small helicopters. Not talking about like a news helicopter. The big helicopter is a transport helicopter typically carries
VIP guests and such. And apparently the helicopter was swirling at possibly above 200 feet, which is usually the limit where they are testing in terms of the height and struck basically in the side. This American Airlines flight killing everyone aboard 67 dead, a horrifying scenario, obviously.
Flight 5342, a bombardier, CRJ-760 passengers and four crew members on board. The three troops on board, the helicopter, were apparently conducting a training flight and likely war night vision goggles. That may be relevant because if you're wearing night vision goggles, this could mean that perhaps you're...
vision to the sides is not nearly as good. Was this an air traffic control problem? Was this a pilot error issue? All of that is still very much up in the air. There have been near misses in the past. And the first question I think that a lot of people are asking is why the hell are black clock helicopters operating at night in an area where passenger jets are coming in?
That's totally insane, obviously. And there are some strange oddities about this particular flight path because it turns out that normally, apparently runway one is the one that is typically used to accept incoming flights into Reagan National. Air traffic control had called this flight, the CRJ, and told them that you should instead take runway 33, which brought them across the Potomac and then the helicopter struck them as they were coming across the Potomac. But apparently, near misses of this sort tend to happen a lot more often than expected. According to Reuters,
US commercial pilot Rick Redfern was preparing to land at Reagan and Washington National Airport about a decade ago when he spotted a bright red coast guard helicopter hovering about 50 feet above the Potomac River. Air traffic control promptly warned the helicopter pilot to stay clear. Redfern said he used evasive maneuvers to avoid it in a vertical potential disaster that was in daytime when visibility was clearer. And it's almost unthinkable that this happened considering how sophisticated the machinery is, how sophisticated our ability to see planes in the air even at night is now, but
To attribute it to anything other than accident at this point would be to move beyond the available evidence for sure. A collision on Wednesday night between the Blackhawk Military Helicopter and American Airlines subsidiary CRJ-700 regional jet has stirred haunting memories for Redfern and other pilots who have faced challenges at landing at Washington Airport. Apparently, planes approaching the airport must navigate a precise and narrow flight path to avoid restricted airspace around the nearby White House and Pentagon. That turned from the eastern side along the river to turn into runway 33 is very, very tight, said Redfern.
is unclear what caused the crash. Apparently the black boxes have indeed been recovered so we'll have a better window into what was going on aboard the two aircraft before they collided. Seven pilots told Reuters the landing at Reagan Airport is unique due to the congested space along with the inability to communicate directly with military aircraft which actually operate on different radio frequencies. The airport also has shorter runways including runway 33 that is generally reserved for smaller aircraft.
That means traversing narrow airspace because planes can't cross the eastern shoreline of the Potomac because that airport is also regularly used by the military for training. So again, this is a horrifying accident. It appears to be that that appears to be the story at this point. Now air traffic control was perfectly aware that these aircraft were in proximity with one another. We know this because their recordings of an air traffic controller heard asking the army helicopter to pass behind the regional jet.
Commercial aircraft use very high frequency radios to communicate military aircraft operate on ultra high frequency channels. So they can't actually directly communicate. But army secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll said during a Senate hearing the crash may prompt the military to reconsider conducting training operations in near the Washington DC airspace. Well, yes, that would seem to be the obvious solution to all of this.
It's just a horrifying scenario. There's an entire family that was wiped out in this plane crash. Obviously, everybody who's involved is innocent. It's just, it's horrifying on every possible level. Brad Bowman, military analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Black Hawk pilot said, quote, initial indications suggest this may have been a check ride or periodic evaluation by an experienced instructor pilot of a less experienced
pilot. A checkride, as opposed to a normal training flight, creates some unique dynamics in the cockpit. In a checkride, the less experienced pilot can be nervous and eager to not make mistakes, while the instructor pilot is watching to see how other pilot responds to different developments. Sometimes, an instructor pilot will test the less experienced aviator to see how they respond, but such a technique would have been unusual and inadvisable in that location, given the reduced margin for error.
Apparently, the instructor pilot had 1,000 hours of flight time that's considered high. The co-pilot had 500 hours of going to NPR, which is considered average, although there have been some accusations that 500 hours in the air is actually considered below average. Apparently, it was a male pilot and a female co-pilot.
The Pentagon has not yet released the names of those who are on board. They are still apparently notifying next of kin. Officials tell NPR the Blackhawk was supposed to be flying at a maximum of 200 feet. Sources say it was flying at least 100 feet higher. So at the very least, what you're looking at here is significant pilot error.
All sorts of controversy broke out yesterday when president came forward to do a press conference on this particular issue. And he blamed the crash, at least in part, on the Biden administration and diversity, equity and inclusion procedures, particularly at the FAA. A group within the FAA, another story, determined that the workforce was too white, that they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it
Immediately, this was in the Obama administration just prior to my getting there. And we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans. We took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before. It's one of the reasons I won. But they actually came out with a directive to white. And we want the people that are competent.
Okay, now, was this crash related to DEI? It's unclear at this point. We simply don't have enough information to know who even the pilots were. What exactly were the procedures that led to this horrifying accident? What exactly happened? I mean, like all those details are unclear. It is, however, true that the FAA in particular, the Federal Aviation Administration has been direly affected by DEI protocols and procedures over the course of the last decade. I mean, truly in negative and horrifying ways.
According to the Washington Times, years before Wednesday's fatal collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, critics warned that the Obama and Biden administrations had jeopardized safety by prioritizing DEI at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Now, the suggestion of such, of course, has made Democrats insane, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. He said it's one thing for Internet pundits to spew up conspiracy theories. It's another for the President of the United States to throw out idle speculation, even his victims are still being recovered and families are still being notified. So is the criticism of Trump's timing or is the criticism of Trump's content? Those are two different things. You can make the case that President Trump shouldn't be talking about DEI and the FAA until we have more details in.
but i think what she was actually objecting to is the idea that d i is bad inside the f a a at all he thinks d i is good diversity equity and inclusion affirmative action protocols
systems designed to put people who are unqualified in positions of high authority. Democrats tend to think that sort of stuff is good. Of course, it pervaded every aspect of the Biden administration, according to Joe Biden. Critics warned, according to the Washington Times, that the FAA's focus on DEI's diverted time and resources from air travel safety. It hobbled the agency as a grappled with air traffic controller shortages, antiquated monitoring equipment, and an increase in near-misses on crowded airport runways.
An unidentified source told the Associated Press on Thursday, the air traffic controller in charge of monitoring the airspace at the time of the fatal collision was performing the work of two people. So in other words, because they couldn't get enough quote unquote diverse members of the FAA, they were simply under hiring for the FAA and that meant that there were short staffed during critical times. Air safety concerns, according to the Washington Times, prompted 11 Republican attorneys general to write the FAA administrator, Michael Whittaker, last year to question the administration's hiring practices and priorities.
They said, quote, unfortunately, the Biden FAA, under your administration, appears to prioritize virtue signaling diversity efforts over aviation experience. And this calls into question the agency's commitment to safety. And again, that is not wrong. It is true that the Obama and Biden administrations prioritized DEI over safety. The Biden era FAA website said, quote, quote, the FAA's mission involves securing the skies of a diverse nation. It only makes sense. The workforce responsible for that mission reflect the nation.
In 2022, the FAA pledged to diversify its workforce by rethinking its hiring practices. Administration officials assigned long-term goals to amplify diversity, accessibility, and LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign issues. A 2022 performance target required the agency quote, host a national symposium with internal and external stakeholders to socialize efforts on the use of gender neutral language at the FAA.
In 2013, under Barack Obama, the FAA started using a biographical assessment to increase the hiring of preferred minority racial groups at air traffic control centers. The assessment asked applicants about their participation in school sports. In fact, some of the documents from the FAA, according to one report named Trace Woodgreens, one of the documents that was asked, one of the questionnaires that was put forward by the FAA, and this was revealed in a lawsuit, a class action lawsuit, called Brigida versus Buttigieg.
Apparently the questionnaire awarded points for factors like lowest grade in high school is science, which is psychotic. If a questionnaire awards points for your bad at science and therefore you've got some sort of affirmative action appointment at the FAA, it seems to me you want the people who are explicitly good at science at the FAA. Call me crazy, but that's insane. Well, President Trump for precisely that reason slammed Pete Buttigieg on his handling of the Department of Transportation. The FAA.
which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner. That's a real winner. You're not badly. Everything's run since he's run the Department of Transportation. He's a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he's a disaster. Now, he's just got a good line of bulk. The Department of Transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation. Well, he runs it.
45,000 people and he's run it right into the ground with his diversity. Well, he is not wrong about any of that. That is for certain. Well, the president was asked, well, how do you know this had anything to do with DEI? And here was the president of the United States answering that question.
On DEI and the claims that you've made, are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims? It just could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brain power, you have to go by psychological
and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by Biden, and Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite. So we don't know, but we do know that you had two planes at the same level, you had a helicopter in a plane. That shouldn't have happened.
And we'll see. We're going to look into that and we're going to see. But certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that's psychologically superior. And that's what we're going to have.
As Steve Hilton points out, Pete Buttigieg's FAA got a scathing inspector general report just in June of 2023, quote, 77% of critical facilities are staffed below threshold. Quote, lacks a plan to address staffing challenges, posing a risk to continuity of air traffic operations. Quote, FAA cannot ensure it will successfully train enough controllers in the short term.
So again, the details are still emerging. We don't know exactly what led to this crash. And there is a lot of heartburn on the left because Trump is suggesting the DEI had something to do with this. Unfortunately, this is the way that politics now operates. And I can't name the number of times that Joe Biden came forth after some sort of school shooting before any of the evidence was available to discuss how gun control is obviously the solution.
He didn't have to wait for where the gun came from, or would sold it, or who operated it, or what the psychological status of the person who actually did the shooting was. Any of that can just come forth and immediately declare that his sort of all-purpose solution was the one in question. Now, here is the thing. It is very clear that the FAA is run like
That is for sure. The FAA has been run along DEI lines for a very long time. And regardless as to whether this crash was a result of DEI or whether it was an result of DEI, there is a reason why the blowback is coming in that form. President Trump was pushed on this by Caitlyn Collins of CNN, and he didn't have a lot of time for it.
And yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed. And you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control. And seemingly the member of the U.S. military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter. Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now? No, I don't think so at all. I don't think we're the names of the people. I mean, the names of the people that are on the plane. You think that's going to make a difference? They are.
They are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names, we can give you that. We'll be giving that very soon. We're in coordination with American Airlines. We're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military. But I think that's not a very smart question. I'm surprised coming from you. Well, then Trump was asked a smarter question by our own Mary Margaret Olahan, which was, it seems kind of important, given the fact that so many of these agents, their short staffs, actually get confirmed the nominees, like just confirmed the nominees. Here's President Trump on that.
President, is it helpful to have your Secretary of Transportation confirmed, and does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly? Is it helpful to have your Secretary of Transportation confirmed, and does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly as well? Well, sure. We want fast confirmations. And the Democrats, as you know, are doing everything they can to delay them.
taken too long. We're struggling to get very good people that everybody knows are going to be confirmed, but we're struggling to get them out faster. We want them out faster. It's a good question, actually. We've been pushing Sean. Everyone knows Sean for a long time. He got many, many Democrat votes, but they want to take as long as they can. They ask questions, like some of the questions that Peter would ask.
that were totally irrelevant and not very good questions, but they want to just keep it going. They want to keep it going as long as possible. I was very honored, actually, that you got so many Democrats. That was really good. Well, I mean, he's not wrong about that. Well, JD Vance, the vice president of the United States, he was also talking about air traffic control and DEI standards. Here's what the vice president of the United States had to say.
something the president said that i think bears reemphasizing which is that when you don't have the best standards in who you're hiring it means on the one hand you're not getting the best people in government but on the other hand it puts stresses on the people who are already there
And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought to Washington, D.C. is we want to hire the best people because we want the best people at air traffic control. And we want to make sure we have enough people at air traffic control who are actually competent to do the job. If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends on our Donald Trump's leadership because safety
is the first priority of our aviation industry.
So we'll have to see, again, what exactly is the cause of this particular plane crash? It is certainly the case that the procedures have to change, which is why yesterday, President Trump took executive action on aviation DEI, signing a memorandum to end DEI practices in the aviation sector and to assess aviation safety, as well as an executive order to appoint a new head of the FAA that is according to the Hill. Trump's new executive actions come in the wake of that deadly midair collision near Ronald Reagan at National Airport.
The memorandum on DEI orders for newly minted transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, and newly appointed acting FAA commissioner Christopher Rochelo to ensure they undo practices that may have been in place during the Biden administration around hiring. He said, in other words, competence what President Trump had to say.
You know, those procedures do have to change regardless of exactly what led to this crash. And again, we'll bring you all the information as it emerges on what did lead to the crash, what all the procedures were, who did what wrong? Because obviously something went very, very wrong. Well, meanwhile, speaking of President Trump's nominees, three of them were on the Hill yesterday in contentious hearings. All three of them had significantly contentious hearings. RFK juniors hearings continued yesterday.
And those hearings, again, went pretty well for RFK Jr. There's one particular exchange that he had with Bernie Sanders in which Sanders was going after RFK Jr. And RFK Jr is like, listen, you've been taking a lot of pharma money I've noticed. By the way, Bernie,
the you know that the problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies it's in congress too almost all the members of this panel are accepting including yourself are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry
I thought that that would... I ran for president like you. I got millions and millions of contributions. They did not come from the executives, not one nickel of pack money from the pharmaceutical. They came from workers.
In 2020, you were the single largest because I have seen four pharmaceutical money from workers all over this country. Workers with a single, not a nickel from corporate. I was the single largest except for pharmaceutical dollars. Oh, from workers in 1.5 million.
Honestly, these hearings are so non-illuminating. They're basically just an opportunity for various senators to grandstand. We'll get to more on this in just a moment. First, this country was founded on freedom. Freedom from a country that forced us to buy overpriced tea, then tried blockading us. We dumped their stupid tea into the ocean. How'd that work out for you, Great Britain? Well, it's time to throw your overpriced big wireless contract overboard as well. You don't need to pay a hundred bucks a month just to get a free phone. PureTalk, my cell phone company, says no to inflated prices.
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Our occasion was pushed on his theories about vaccines, particularly his theory of vaccines and autism are linked. Again, the evidence suggests that autism and vaccination are not in fact linked and many of the sort of
fact that RFK junior will attempt to marshal with regard to such a linkage has to do with a type of mercury that is no longer found in vaccines at all. It's not being used decades ago. In any case, the studies that link autism with vaccines have been debunked, at least the major one that originally suggested it was completely withdrawn eventually. But Bernie Sanders questioned RFK junior about this. There have been, as I understand it, dozens of studies done all over the world.
that make it very clear that vaccines do not cause autism. Now, you just said, if I heard correctly, well, if the evidence is there. The evidence is there. That's it. Vaccines do not cause autism. Do you agree with that?
As I said, I'm not going to go into HHS with any pre-artain. I answer your simple question, Bobby. Studies all over the world say it does not. What do you think? Senator, if you show me those studies, I will. Absolutely. As I promised to, Chairman Cassie, I will apologize. That is a very troubling response, because the studies are there. Your job is to have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job.
Now, the reason this could actually be a problem for RFK junior for Bobby Kennedy is not because of Bernie Sanders. Bernie was going to vote against RFK junior anyway because he's a Trump nominee. This could be a problem for Senator Bill Cassidy, who's a physician and chairman of the committee. And he points out that a 2014 meta-analysis of 1.2 million children concluded no link between autism and vaccines
Kennedy then responded, you show me those scientific studies. You and I can meet about it. There are other studies as well. I'd love to show those to you. Cassidy was troubled by that because he suggested, well, I mean, the overwhelming evidence is what the overwhelming evidence is. Cassidy showed, had a 71 year old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines, who's financially vested in finding fault with vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he'll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States? I've got to figure that out for my vote. And that is, in fact, a fair question from Senator Cassidy.
That is not, in fact, a crazy question or an oppositional question. Cassidy is a strong supporter of President Trump. And, you know, Kieran lies one of the sort of issues with some of the Trump nominees. And again, I support Bobby Kennedy for HHS. One of the problems is there are vulnerabilities for some of these nominees and many of the things that they've said in the past that could cause the Senate to use its advice and consent procedures to find fault with the nominees.
You know, for example, Tim Kaine, Democrat Senator from Virginia, long forgotten former vice presidential candidate for Hillary Clinton. He asked Bobby Kennedy about conspiracy theories about 9-11. Because you say, you go on to say, I won't take sides as president. I won't take sides on 9-11. Wow. I won't take sides on 9-11.
Let me ask you this, as a general matter, do you find it hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't? Is that kind of a general deficit that you find in your own analytical abilities? My father told me when I was 13 years old, he said people in authority lie and that the job of a citizen
in every democracy is to maintain a fear of skepticism. And you're an authority. And you're an authority, but you want to take sides on 9-11 and you're admitting, I have a hard time telling what is an conspiracy theory and what isn't. Senator, I haven't investigated it. If the things that I investigate, I take sides on.
People are allowed to hold that opinion. I'm not going to tell them they're crazy for holding that opinion. I'm going to say, what is your evidence? And if I hear the evidence, I'm going to say that doesn't make any sense. So you won't take sides on 9-11. Wow. OK, so again, I think Bobby Kennedy gets confirmed, but.
There is a difference between, let's say, the less controversial nominees on the Republican side and the more controversial nominees. Now, that distinction is not always clear from the Democratic reaction to that nominee. So let me give you a couple of examples. There are two other Trump nominees who are up in the hearings yesterday. Well, it's Tulsi Gabbard, who is up for the position of Director of National Intelligence. And the other was Cash Patel. Cash Patel is up for the head of the FBI. Cash Patel is wildly controversial on the left because Cash Patel has been a Trump supporter for a long time.
And he has made comments around January 6th that people on left don't particularly like. But Cash Patel is wildly qualified, like super well qualified. And in fact, in his hearing, just ran circles around Democrats over and over and over again. He is obviously extraordinarily intelligent. He's very combative. He was not willing to take any prisoners in this hearing.
In this hearing on the Senate Judiciary Committee, they tried to go after him about past comments, praising people who were there, January 6th at 2021, or his promise to go after current and former DOJ and FBI officials that he put on a list of corrupt actors. But again, the reason he's being put in this position is to clear out the FBI of any of those corrupt actors. So here was Cash Patel and his opening statement saying due process matters.
For the first eight years after law school, I served as a public defender, first for Miami-Dade County and later for the Southern District of Florida. During that time, I represented some pretty awful human beings, charged with some pretty heinous crimes.
But what I learned there was the core value that has been enshrined in me since. That due process must be provided without bias to all Americans. And if we cannot provide due process to the worst, then there can be no due process for anyone. And our constitutional republic fails. Now again, all of that should be wildly uncontroversial. And Patel points out that he's been a victim of weaponized government, which of course is true.
Senator, this may be one of the scenarios that most uniquely qualifies me to take command at the FBI. Having been the victim of government overreach and a weaponized system of justice and law enforcement, I know what it feels like to have the full weight of the United States government barreling down on you. And as the Biden Inspector General determined those activities by the FBI and DOJ were wholly improper,
and not predicated upon law and facts. I will ensure, if confirmed, that no American is subjected to that kind of torment, to that kind of cost financially and personally. And most importantly, I will make sure that no American is subjected to death threats like I was.
and subjected to moving their residences like I was because of government overreach, because of leaks of information about my personal status. If confirmed as FBI Director, Mr. Chairman, you have my commitment that no one in this country will feel that pain.
So Patel was tapped in 2017 by then House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes to join the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate the origins of the crossfire hurricane investigation. That was the Trump-Russia investigation. And in the process of that happening, he himself was dragged into crossfire hurricane. So he himself, his records were secretly subpoenaed apparently in this process. And so he was targeted.
And that is what he refers to when he says he doesn't want that to happen to anybody else. Again, Grassley, Senator Chuck Grassley, who's amazing. He's 91 years old and he is still with it. He says, this is affected you personally. You along with even members of my staff are the victims of FBI overreach when they secretly subpoenaed your records during the investigation into crossfire hurricane, which of course is right.
Now, Cash Patel vowed that he would also find out who inside the intelligence community was targeting parents during, for example, the assault on parents' rights in Virginia in the run up to the 2020 elections.
you find out who was involved in this policy within the FBI, who agreed with it, who implemented it, who encouraged it, will you find out that, Mr. Patel, will you do an internal investigation, and will you make clear that those who supported this policy are appropriately disciplined, and will you make clear that the FBI will never do something like this again? If confirmed and pursuant to your congressional request, absolutely, Senator. Thank you.
And there, of course, he's talking about the targeting of Loudoun County parents in 2021 and all the rest of it. Now, Democrats, of course, were very upset with Cash Patel, but here's the thing. Cash Patel's really good at this. He's really good at this. Plus, and Cash Patel is really smart, but I need to tell you about something else that is smart. Between work, family, everything else life throws at us, meal planning can feel like a full-time job, especially when you're trying to eat healthier. That's why I'm excited to tell you about cookunity.com, where award-winning chefs craft restaurant-quality meals that are delivered fresh to your door.
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you.
And Cash Patel, again, is incredibly smart. And here he was when Amy Klobuchar was trying to get him on a comment that he made about closing FBI headquarters and instead building a monument to FBI overreach, which, of course, is a bit of rhetoric. And she's trying to get him on this. And Cash Patel is just not going to play. He's just not going to play.
before I call on Senator Lee. Could he just answer the question if he said that the FBI headquarters where they investigate cyber crime and terrorism? Mr. Chair. Shut down and open as a deep state. Mr. Chair. As a museum. Did he say that the headquarters should be shut down? Mr. Chair. I deserve an answer to that question. He is asking to be head of the FBI and he said that their headquarters should be shut down.
Mr. Chair, parliamentary inquiry. You've got anything you want to say, Mr. Patel, before I go on to Senator Lee. Simply this, if the best attacks on me are going to be false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations, the only thing this body is doing is defeating the credibility of the men and women at the FBI. I stood with them.
here in this country, in every theater of war we have, I was on the ground in service of this nation, and any accusations leveled against me that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution or grotesquely unfair, and I will have you reminded that I have been endorsed by over 300,000 law enforcement officers to become the next director of the FBI. Let's ask them.
Mr. Chairman, I am quoting his own words from September of 2024. It is his own words. It is not some conspiracy. It is what Mr. Patel actually said himself. Facts matter. You forget that you had three minutes in the next round to say what you just said. OK, I'll say them again.
Well, again, this is not a great look for Amy Klobuchar. It also is not a good look for Sheldon Whitehouse, who is, again, one of the dumber members of the United States Senate, here in after Cash Patel, and it didn't go well for him either. The only thing that will matter if I'm confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, depoliticized system of law enforcement, completely devoted to rigorous obedience of the Constitution and a singular standard of justice.
And again, correct. Patel also did something smart. He was asked by Democratic senators about President Trump's pardons of some of the people who attack cops on January 6th. And Patel, who is in fact like a Trump loyalist, a Trump loyalist, totally loyal to the Magga agenda for sure. Cash Patel said, listen, or maybe I wouldn't have done it. I don't think that we should pardon people who attack cops.
As we discussed in our private meeting, Senator, I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement. And I have, including in that group, specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6th. And I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement. So do you think that America is safer because the 1600 people have been
given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities again. Senator, I have not looked at all 1600 individual cases. I have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities.
So, again, Cash Patel, I think, really, really outshown yesterday. I thought it was terrific yesterday in his Senate Judiciary hearing. Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, of course, is the other major controversial nominees. There were three controversial nominees. RFK, I thought, performed admirably, although there are still open questions about his positions on everything from vaccines to abortion.
I thought the cash Patel was just absolutely terrific yesterday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Tulsi Gabbard had some ups and she had some downs. So Tulsi is, of course, the nominee to head the directorate of national intelligence, which is basically oversight body for the CIA and the FBI.
It's more of a ceremonial position in many ways, but she does sort of determine what intelligent hits the president's desk. Although the truth is the president Trump can get intelligence from wherever he wants sort of famous for having various back channels inside his own administration. One of the reasons that you nominated Tulsi Gabbard is of course because she's been a long time opponent of the sort of overweening surveillance estate. Here she was talking about that yesterday.
Before I close, I want to warn the American people who are watching at home. You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that will challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country.
Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience, and the Constitution of the United States, accusing me of being Trump's puppet, Putin's puppet, Assad's puppet, a Guru's puppet, Modi's puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters. The same tactic was used against President Trump.
and failed. The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change. The fact is what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet. Now, again, I think that this is a very smart play by Tulsi Tulsi's incredibly bright, obviously, a former congresswoman from Hawaii and, of course, former military officer as well.
And there are many things that she would do as, as ahead of the DNI, that I think would be absolutely terrific. I mean, one of the things that she did that was really excellent yesterday is she lists examples of weaponization of the intelligence agencies, which is a major issue. Title one of Pfizer was used illegally to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page using a Clinton campaign funded false dossier as their so-called evidence.
Biden campaign advisor Tony Blinken was the impetus for the 51 former senior intelligence officials, letter dismissing Hunter Biden's laptop as disinformation, specifically to help Biden win the election. Former DNI James Clapper lied to this committee in 2013, denying the existence of programs that facilitated the mass collection of millions of Americans' phone and internet records, yet was never held accountable.
Under John Brennan's leadership, the CIA abused its power to spy on Congress, to dodge oversight, lied about doing it until he was caught and yet has never been held responsible. Under Biden, the FBI abused its power for political reasons to try to surveil Catholics who attend traditional Latin masks, labeling them as quote unquote radical traditionalist Catholics.
Personally, just 24 hours after I criticized Kamala Harris and her nomination, I was placed on a secret domestic terror watch list called Quiet Skies. Sadly, there are more examples. The bottom line is this, this must end.
Okay, now again, she is right about all of this. Now, she did make trouble for herself in this hearing. Again, sort of like RFK answering questions on vaccines. The reality is whoever Trump nominates for these positions is going to do the work of President Trump, which is the reason why I support the nominations. I think that Tulsi Gabbard is gonna work for President Trump. Bobby Kennedy is gonna work for President Trump. So I have qualms about many of Bobby's positions on some of these issues, but in the end, he's working for Trump, which means the Trump's agenda is gonna be the one that pushes forward or Trump will fire him.
The same thing is going to be true of Tulsi Garrett. That doesn't mean that in the Senate advice and consent procedures and protocols, they don't have to go through some of these questions. So we'll get to in a moment, Tulsi Gabbard running his headwinds inside her Senate Intelligence Committee hearing first, new and streaming right now on Daily Wire plus the making of MI racist, clearing the air.
Get an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at how Matt Walsh, director Justin Folk, and the cast and crew created the film that became a box office, hit comedy, and the number one documentary of the decade. There is only one way to see it. Watch it right now at dailywire.com with your dailywire plus membership.
If you haven't seen M.I. racist yet, start there, then stream the new special. The making of M.I. racist, clearing the air. Watch it all right now, only at Daily Wire Plus. Well, as I say, Tulsi Gabbard is in front of the sentence intelligence committee. She did some amazing things yesterday that were really pretty terrific. And she had a bit of a problem when it came to Edward Snowden. So Edward Snowden, of course,
One of the most famous leakers slash whistleblower slash traders in American history. One of the open questions for those who are very skeptical of our intelligence services for a very long time is whether Edward Snowden was a traitor. Now, as I've said, since literally the very beginning with regard to Edward Snowden, who revealed all sorts of information on the extent to which the American intelligence apparatus was gathering metadata on American citizens and such.
As I've said from the beginning, two things can be true at once. One, the information that we found out from Edward Snowden is really important for the American public to know, and two Edward Snowden is a traitor. Both of those things are true. Edward Snowden did not take any of the protocols and procedures necessary in order to be protected as a whistleblower. That is not me, that's Devin Nunes. So, as we mentioned, Cash Patel used to work for Devin Nunes. Devin Nunes is a very skeptical person when it comes to the intelligence apparatus, because he was actually targeted by it.
September of 2016, he presided over a report on Edward Snowden that found without a doubt that Snowden
had, in fact, committed treason. That Snowden did not do any of the things that would be necessary in order to qualify as a whistleblower. So there are actual procedures that are set up as a whistleblower that you can go through in order to ensure that you receive legal protection. Those procedures are there for a reason. They are there in order to prevent, for example, the dissemination of information that is incredibly damaging to American sources of information abroad, for example, or that uncovers information to America's enemies that ought not be uncovered.
The Intelligence Committee found at the time that Snowden caused tremendous damage to national security, and the vast majority of the documents he stole have nothing to do with the programs impacting individual privacy interests. They instead pertained to military defense and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries. Snowden insists he has not shared the full cash of 1.5 million classified documents with anybody, but in June 2016, the Zappity Chairman of Russia's Parliament's Defense and Security Committee publicly conceded that Snowden did share intelligence with his government.
The full scope of the damage inflicted by Snowden remains unknown. Again, this is according to the Republican House Intelligence Committee reporting on Snowden back in 2016. Snowden, according to this report, was not a whistleblower. Under the law, publicly revealing classified information does not qualify somebody as a whistleblower. Disclosing classified information that shows fraud, waste, abuse, or other illegal activity to the appropriate law enforcement or oversight personnel, including to Congress, makes somebody a whistleblower and affords them critical protections.
Contrary to public claims that Snowden notified numerous NSA officials about what he believed to be illegal intelligence collection, the committee found zero evidence Snowden took any official effort to express concern about US intelligence activities to any oversight officials within the US government, despite numerous avenues for him to do so. Snowden was aware of these avenues. Despite Snowden's later public claim, he would have faced retribution for voicing concerns about activities. The committee found laws and regulations in effect at the time of Snowden's actions afforded him protections.
Nord and Snowden remain in the US to face the legal consequences of his actions, contrary to the tradition of civil disobedience, he professed it to embrace. Instead, he fled to China and then to Russia. To gather the files he took with him when he left the country for Hong Kong, Snowden infringed on the privacy of thousands of government employees and contractors. He obtained his colleagues' security credentials through misleading means, abuse his access as a systems administrator, and remove the personally identifiable information of thousands of IC employees and contractors. From Hong Kong, he then went to Russia, where he remained a guest of the Kremlin.
Two weeks before Snowden began those mass downloads, he was reprimanded after engaging in a workplace spat with NSA managers. The committee found that Snowden was and remains a serial exaggerator and fabricator.
So, again, the pretty obvious implication here is that, yeah, again, you may like to know, and I like to know, some of the stuff that Snowden uncovered. However, that is not the extent of what he uncovered, and that's not the extent of what he passed on to Russian intelligence services. So, why is this a problem? Well, because Tulsi Gabbar has asked a bunch of separate times whether Snowden was, in fact, a traitor. And she could have said the same thing that I just said, which is, Edward Snowden violated all laws with regards to whistleblowing. Edward Snowden turned over information to America's enemies
that were in violation of American law by the technical definition. That's an act of treason. With that said, am I glad that we know about many of the things that it would stone uncovered? Yes, because there are excesses in the intelligence community. She could have said that she didn't. Michael Bennett of Colorado pushed her on this a lot. Again, this is the sort of thing that is going to drive senators away from her if they wish not to vote for Tulsi Gabbard.
So let me ask you again, do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe, that Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America?
Senator of Confirmed is Director of National Intelligence. This is when the rubber hits the road. I will work with you to make sure that there is not a moment in my leave. This is not a moment to propagate conspiracy theories or attacks on journalism in the United States. This is when you need to answer the questions of the people whose votes you're asking for to be confirmed
as the chief intelligence officer of this nation, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America? That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high. Senator, as someone who has served in New York. Yes or no, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?
as someone who has gone on to our uniform in combat. I understand how critical our national security is. Apparently you don't. In 2020, she had, in fact, pushed a resolution alongside Rep. Matt Gaetz, calling for the fence to completely drop charges against Snowden, even though, again, the charges were not just with regard to the stuff that we all wish that we knew and are glad Snowden actually talked about, there was regard to all the other stuff that Snowden certainly should not have revealed to America's enemies.
Again, this is not to say that Tulsi should not be confirmed. If I were on the committee, I'd vote to confirm her. Why? Because she's going to be doing the work of President Trump. And again, I think that the president is generally entitled to his nominees. But if you are a Republican senator and you are a thing of not voting for Tulsi, this is going to give you enough of a hook to not vote for Tulsi Gabbard, presumably. Now, with that said, many of the people who are the most hawkish on the Senate Intelligence Committee are defenders of Tulsi Gabbard. That includes Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Here he was slapping down accusation that Tulsi is a Russian agent, which of course, she's not.
I'm dismayed by the attacks on Ms. Gabbard's patriotism and her loyalty to our country. For instance, Hillary Clinton has smeared Ms. Gabbard, calling her an asset of a foreign nation. Let me remind everyone that Ms. Gabbard has served in our army for more than two decades. She has multiple combat tours, and she still wears the uniform to this day.
She has undergone five FBI background checks. I spent more than two hours last week reviewing the latest, putting eyes on more than 300 pages. It's clean as a whistle. Okay. So how are all these votes going to come down? We don't actually know the answer to that yet.
What is clear is that obviously not all nominees are going to sail through with those same level of support. So I think that probably all three of these nominees will be confirmed. I think actually all three probably will be confirmed. However, it is certainly the case that some will get fewer votes than others. All right. Meanwhile, the Democrats continue to swirl the drain. I mean, it is just amazing. So last night there was on MSNBC a candidate forum to lead the DNC. So basically everybody who wants to lead the Democratic National Committee
the chairman's form. They had this event over at MSNBC and Jonathan Capehart asked
Everyone on stage, raise your hand if you believe that Kamala Harris lost because of racism and misogyny. Now, a normie might be like, no, she lost because she was a bad candidate. And guess what? If Joe Biden had been the candidate, he also would have lost, which is why they substituted the black lady for the old white man. But nope, this is not a normal party. You have to keep going in the intersectional direction. You have to keep claiming the American people are sexist and racist. So literally every person on the stage, the vast bulk of whom are white, raises their hand when asked if
Kamala Harris lost because of racism and sexism. Five minutes left in this round, so I'm going to have a show of hands. How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris' defeat? Okay.
So that's good. You all pass. I mean, Capehart, wow, wow, wow. And that remark right there, that very last remark is the one that matters, right? Very good. You all pass. That's the litmus test. The litmus test for Democrats always and forever is if we lose, it's because the American public are racist and sexist.
Keep doing this, guys. If that's your litmus test, seriously, keep doing it. Meanwhile, reality keeps clocking at the DEI movement directly in the head, I have to say. The downfall of the Merx Kendi is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So, Merx Kendi is one of the great grifters in all of human history. He wrote this bestseller called How to be an Anti-Racist, which is legitimately one of the stupidest things ever written. The man cannot even define the word racism. He was asked this on stage one point.
and his answer was so nonsensical as to be self-defeating.
He then was given $10 million to found an institution at Boston University called the Ibram X. Kendi Center on Anti-Racism in which he was going to do research on anti-racism. $10 million later, there was zero, zero research that had emerged from the center for anti-racist research. Boston University has now confirmed that Kendi will be departing and said the center for anti-racist research would close June 30th. The center and Kendi came under scrutiny in 2023 for alleged financial mismanagement.
Gloria Waters, the university's provost and chief of academic officers, I quote, we thank Dr. Kendi and the center staff and affiliated faculty for their contributions in advancing scholarship teaching and policymaking. The university wishes Dr. Kendi well on his next chapter.
Well, he, uh, he, he then promptly fell into a feather bed over at Howard University, which of course is the same university, historically black college university that accepted the excreable, Nicole Hannah Jones when she fell out of favor at the university of North Carolina.
So, Kendi is going to start at Howard this summer as a history professor and director of the tentatively named Howard University Institute for Advanced Research. He will also bring with him the emancipator, a digital magazine focused on racial inequity that was founded with the Boston Globe, but has since gone independent. And nobody has ever seen, heard from, read anything remotely like that. So, bye.
I just, you know what, good for him. Honestly, if you're a grifter and you can take all of these pathetic fools who believe that
Affirmative action and racial consciousness and all this ought to be at the top of the list of American priorities as opposed to being counterproductive and truly racist in the lessons. If you can take all those people for a ride, more power to you, Abram. And good luck over at Howard University. Speaking of the demise of DEI, joining us on the line is Christopher Rufo. There is no activist who's had more impact on America in terms of crazy radical gender ideology or fighting DEI than Chris Rufo.
Chris, I have to say, you know, as probably the most successful activist of our generation in terms of actually fostering political change in places like Florida on DEI or push it in government cuts, what do you make of the Trump administration really outtake taking your advice, moving fast and breaking things here?
Yeah, it's been a spectacular week. And, you know, we've been working on this campaign to abolish the EI to perform higher education, to get rid of trans ideology and America's institutions for five years. And it feels like a point of culmination. And I spent the interim after the president's electoral victory before he took office.
trying to talk to people, trying to get organized, trying to set the stage for reform, and they've taken everything to the next level. I mean, the sheer scope and scale of what the president has done and what his cabinet members have done, this is a totally different administration than Trump 1.0. It's probably the most effective first week of a presidency in my lifetime, and I know for a fact that there's more to come.
Chris, when we look at the stuff that they are doing right now, executive orders can be done and undone, but some of the things that they are doing right now, ripping out, for example, affirmative action by the roots, ripping out DEI. Either it's been a longtime crusade of yours. Obviously, when it comes to trans politics and trans ideology, that's something that daily wire, I mean, we've been fighting this thing since the initiation of our company in 2015. You say it's the culmination. It really is, but
You know, it takes more than that. It takes systemic know-how. This is something where you have been really an indispensable force. It's one thing to fight the ideology. It's another thing to know which buttons to push to actually end it.
Yeah, that's right. And I think this has been a learning process for me and for the right as a movement. I think it started with President Trump's executive order banning critical race theory in late 2020. Then the shift of politics went to Florida. Governor DeSantis really took anti-woke ideas and figured out how to turn them into anti-woke policies and administration.
And then this learning over the last four years has prepared Trump's team. And look, these are people who have spent the last few years waiting for this day, waiting for this moment. I was in policy planning sessions three years ago where they were talking about slicing Lyndon Johnson's executive order 11246 on affirmative action. And this comes such a long way. So we're now in the implementation phase.
And I think that this is just the beginning. And well, yes, executive orders can come and go. I think there will be a legislative component coming in the next few months to try to entrench some of these ideas, entrench some of these policies through the legislature, through Congress, so that they're perhaps more permanent and certainly more difficult to overturn in the future.
So Chris, one of the things that you've talked about for a long time and that obviously the administration has taken to heart is the idea that the policy is the personnel and the personnel is the policy. And the Trump administration, one, had no idea about this. They came in. There are a huge number of people in the executive branch. They just figured those are, you know, apolitical people who are just going to do their jobs and they're told to do their jobs.
Obviously, they learned the hard way that wasn't true during not only Trump won, but also during the Biden administration, when many of those people were activated against Trump even when he was out of office. And now they are coming in and they're recognizing that a huge number of the people that they've called deep staters need to go. And so some of the moves that they are making right now, for example, offering a buyout to anybody who basically doesn't want to participate in the changing of the country under the sort of MAGA emblem, these are bold and audacious moves. What do you make of it?
Yeah, it's really good executive management. I think that story in particular, this idea that you could send an email to all federal employees saying respond to this email with resign in the subject line and you're gone, is something that was unimaginable, not just in Trump's first term, but really in the first term of any previous president. I think this is really
the stroke of Elon Musk's influence. This is the kind of thing that Elon Musk demonstrated when he took over Twitter, he fired 80% of the staff and improved the product. They're taking that ethos into the Oval Office and into the White House. This is part of the new right coalition. They've brought in some of the tech leaders
There's, of course, squabbling on issues, tech leaders want concessions on, for example, H1B visas. But on the bright side of this partnership where we can all agree is a kind of ruthless administration downsizing the government, going after the deep state, dismantling the permanent bureaucracy. And that's something that I think really requires an audacious kind of leadership that Musk has demonstrated and now Trump has learned from and is demonstrating in government.
So of course, one of the issues that seems to be rearing its ugly head is what people have called malicious compliance, which is people who are embedded in the executive branch who have decided that the way to quote unquote apply president and Trump's executive orders is to do things that earn him bad headline. So the best example of this that I've seen over the course of the past couple of weeks is Pete Haggsett, the new secretary of defense, promulgates an order to the department of defense to get rid of DEI in the department of defense. And some schmuck lower down says, well, this means that now we can no longer teach about the Tuskegee airmen. And Haggsett immediately says, well,
Obviously, that's not true. And so we are going to make sure that people are still taught about the Tuskegee Airmen, but this is constantly a reminder that again, the personnel are the policy. I think one thing that people have to keep in mind is that when you actually go in, you change policy in the way that Trump is doing right now, there are going to, it's a trial and error process. Things are going to break and then you have to fix them in the same way that when Elon came in, a bunch of things broke at Twitter and then they had to get fixed on the fly.
Yeah, that's part of the process. And I watched this up close in Florida. As we were doing some reforms in K through 12 schools and higher education in Florida, there were so many instances of malicious compliance from school administrators, school librarians, university officials.
And I think that the governor, Governor DeSantis, developed a pretty strong formula. It was to reiterate the principle, to have his rapid response communications team rebut the errors and lies and manipulations in real time, and then really just roll those through. Because he told me something very interesting one time as we were reforming one of universities. He said, look,
You're going to get a thousand negative news articles. And I have your back where this is the right thing to do and the voters can see through this. You just have to stand tough. And that's exactly what he did. He won reelection by 20 points. And I think his model of how to handle religious compliance is the right one. I would only add one small addition that I think could be relevant to the Trump administration.
Find the individuals who are responsible for malicious compliance, terminate their employment and make them an example so that you disincentivize malicious compliance further down the line. This is important because the federal government is so large, even a single instance of malicious compliance can deal damage and you need to really reset the incentives so that people not only follow the executive orders, but they do so in good faith.
So Chris, you obviously have been at the forefront of fighting things like critical race theory, which has become just poison to the public mind or radical gender ideology, which again has now been sort of ripped out by the roots. What is the next big battle front? Because it seems like Democrats are in retreat in a lot of areas, but they always come back. Well, what is the next thing that you've got your eye on?
Yeah, I think, look, I think the president has made incredible progress on DEI. He's going to be opening up investigations into discriminatory DEI programs at companies, school districts, universities. And so I think that the kind of abolish DEI movement is in really good shape. Where I think we can make sustained progress that will require more than an executive order is in higher education reform. Look, America spends billions of dollars a year subsidizing
monolithically left wing universities that produce these ideologies. And so I think that we need to have the Department of Education team once we have the confirmation of Secretary McMahon. I think we really need to start working together to reform higher education, to put pressure on these institutions, not only through policy, but financial pressure,
and pressure on how status and prestige are distributed within the higher education world. We have to incentivize scholarship, disincentivize left wing activism. And I think that we can do this through the various carrots and sticks that the secretary of education has available. This is something I'm going to be working on moving forward. And I think the time and the moment is right. That's Christopher Rufo. No one in America has done more to push forward the conservative agenda in truly active ways. And then Chris, Chris, really appreciate the time. Thanks for all your hard work as always.
Thank you so much. All right, folks. Well, it's been a long time since I did things I like, but it's the end of January. And I was doing a lot of travel, which meant I got to actually enjoy some culture on the airplanes. And so I want to recommend a couple of things that I like. I want to make this a regular feature of the show again. So I'm going to save some of these for next week because they're actually a fair number of things that I like. I'm going to pick two. One is sort of against the grain, and one of them is not.
my against the grain pick for things that I like. Gladiator two. Now, I know a lot of people were very down on Gladiator two. I know, I know. But it's fun. Okay, it's not as good as Gladiator one by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't really understand the extraordinary anger directed at Gladiator two.
Gladiators, sure, there weren't actual sharks in the Colosseum, but there were giant water battles in the Colosseum. That's an actual thing that actually happened. Insurance is not historically accurate or anything, but it's Denzel and his most Denzel. It's basically training day Denzel. So you now have kind of a couple of modes of Denzel Washington, who's really the star of the show here. You have the mode of Denzel Washington, where he's a much more serious actor. He's doing things like Macbeth, which by the way, I enjoyed the Cone Brothers version.
And there's the over the top, Denzel Washington, lay out all the stops, just go for it. And that's this Denzel. The battle scenes are pretty good.
It obviously misses Russell Crowe in a very serious way, but Russell Crowe died in Gladiator 1, spoiler alert. So he was not coming back. And of course, it was never going to be Gladiator 1, because how could it be? With that said, it's enjoyable. And I really don't understand the critical hate for this film. So here's some of the preview. I was only now I will control an impact.
Who will not waste another generation of young men for their family? Bring them all up! There's our own treatment here, all! Here's what the muscle in small!
Okay, so super historically inaccurate in terms of the actual emperors, the Roman emperors, right? There were emperors with the names of these people, and there was another emperor who did take over for them, but that's pretty much all that's historically accurate in this piece. At the end of the movie is basically the Roman Empire is restored under the great democratic power of Lucius. Yeah, that never happened, but it's fun. Anyway, Denzel is extremely Denzel.
Audacious and loud and all the rest. Pedro Pascal plays himself basically. He's the same in all things. And I enjoy Pedro Pascal, but he is exactly the same actor in every single piece. And so he is in this as well. Connie Nielsen makes her come back. She obviously reappears from from number one.
I enjoyed it. And it's like 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, 82% with the audience did about $461 million at the box office and not a massive hit, but also not a giant miss from Ridley Scott. More enjoyable than much of Ridley Scott's work to be fair. Okay. Other things that I like. So here is one that is pretty widely accepted as good TV. That is the season two of Severance. So I really enjoy Severance. I think Severance is a really clever TV show. It's on Apple TV for those who have not seen it.
The severance that the basic premise of it is that there is a company that has somehow created a procedure whereby they sever your work life from the rest of your life. So when you go into this office, it's almost this bizarre alternative world where you only live at the office and you have no connection with the outside world. You don't know anybody from the outside world. You have a different identity. And then in the outside world, you have your own life. So complete severance between your work life and your home life.
Now, that sounds like it would just be sort of a normal set. It isn't. It's a very weird show with all sorts of lost type mysteries. It's one of those shows where you really have to trust the writers. And I have to admit, I've been burned by this before. I was a huge fan of the show Lost that was on ABC for six seasons. And I got burned beyond belief by Lost.
I was super into it. I watched all the mysteries. I went and I interviewed Carlson Hughes. I was David Lemeloff guy, and they absolutely burned it to the ground in the last season. So that could happen in the severance. It could be they're setting up all these mysteries, and they have no actual solves for the mysteries, and the whole thing just falls apart. I always hope when a writer takes me a place where I'm not expecting that they know where they're going.
because I want to be along for the ride. I've seen so much TV and so many movies at this point that is very difficult for me not to predict the ending of pretty much every show or movie within the first 15 minutes of the movie. That is not the case of the severance. It's very weird. It's clever. It's got some good, some really good performances like across the board.
Um, the, the kind of homages to 1970s paranoia film are, are pretty obvious. Things like the parallax view, the theme to this show, like the musical theme to this show is very obviously ripped off from a fantastic Francis Ford Coppola movie called the conversation, which if you haven't seen it is great. Gene Hackman celebrated his 95th birthday this week and the conversation is one of his best movies.
super creepy and kind of terrifying. The theme to this is pretty obviously ripped off from that, if not consciously and certainly unconsciously. In any case, it is well worth the watch. Super clever. Again, I'm hoping that it goes somewhere interesting. Here's a little bit of the preview. Mom, there'll be no honeymoon ending for you. The work will be remembered as one of the greatest moments in this planet.
You don't value them. You fear them. We fear no one. I'm tightening the leash. We let this happen to this case. It's super weird, it's bizarre. It's not even possible for me to explain what's going on in this preview unless you've seen season one. And it's like deliberately weird, deliberately strange, right? They're walking through office rooms filled with goats. And they're watermelon carvouts of the person who's supposed to be like the godlike figure at the head of the corporation.
Yeah, it's very strange. It's done by Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller is the producer on it. And Adam Scott is the star.
It well produced really good across the board. So it totally worked the watch, severance season two. Okay, and I will give one book recommendation as well, since we're at the end of the month. So I spent some time on the audio book app. I do that when I'm exercising, for example. I'm very excited, by the way, that the Apple audio book app now turns all the way up to three times speed. So I go all the way up to the maximum and that means I can turn out an 18 hour book in six hours, which is awesome.
It's just great. Well, I recently got through Tom Holland's dominion, have a Christian revolution remade the world. And the book is really quite fantastic. So I will say I do enjoy Tom Holland's history podcast. The rest is history. And Tom Holland and I, we have some conflicting politics, I would assume, but
He's a really, really good writer, a terrific writer, very evocative. He takes seriously religious claims, not that to the truth of the actual seriousness with which religious people take religious claims, he doesn't mock them, which would be the easy way out for so many historians. It's about writing about Judaism or Christianity. What Tom Holland does instead is he tries to view history through the lens of the people who are living it
such that they actually take seriously the claims of miracles in tours, for example, or take seriously the claims of Jesus and miracles in dominion. So basically the entire premise of the book is that pretty much everything in our lives is shaped by the Christian world, which of course is absolutely true. I make much the same claim in my own book about the history of Western philosophy, the right side of history, which came out a few years ago. Dominion is specifically about Christian philosophy and it is a history of church, right? It's a history of the church going all the way back to the time of Jesus and forward through
The so-called Dark Ages, which were not actually Dark Ages, poured into the medieval era through the Reformation and all the rest. Fascinatingly well written, it's, it's, I think a great reminder to people who are secular of exactly how little their own values spring from the ether. There's this weird perception. I've said this a thousand times in debates, whether it's with, you know, atheists like Alex O'Connor or whether it is with people who are sort of just secular liberals.
I've said a thousand times, the values that the left perceives, that the secular left perceives to be their values are values that are rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition. I say Judeo-Christian because, of course, half of the, half of the Bible is the Old Testament, which is Jewish in origin. And again, even Christians have rejected the Marcian heresy, which suggests, of course, a complete divide between Jesus and Judaism.
Christianity is the single greatest shaping factor in the history of the world in terms of how the world has been shaped politically morally theologically. That's just a fact. There's no way around it.
Islam is a reaction to Christianity. The way that markets are done in China is a reaction to Christianity. Marxism is a reaction to Christianity. So many things that we take for granted as just secular ideals or secular ideas. So many of those things are either reactions to or perversions of or quiet adoptions of Christian principles. And this is the point that Holland makes.
So he goes through the history of the 20th century, and really the only anti-Christian movement that he notes is the Nazi movement, which was overtly directed against Christianity. He says that the Soviet Union was, of course, anti-Christian as well. But the point that he makes is that many of the roots of Marxism actually lie in sort of early church writings, meaning that Marxism ends up being a rejection of religion while trying to
embody a sort of utopian viewpoint on what the world should look like in the best of all possible world. It's, yeah, I think it takes the argument too far. Sometimes I, for example, think that communism is an outright rejection of Christianity as opposed to a perversion of it. But those are sort of arguable sentiments.
What is really fascinating about Dominion is tracing these lines of argument all the way through Christian history. And so that's why the book has become very popular in Christian circles, even though Tom Holland isn't by any stretch of the imagination, like a right-wing Christian or anything like that. So check out the book Dominion, How the Christian Revolution Remade the World Came Out in 2019. Well, meanwhile, time for some things I hate. Yes, it's come back. Things I hate. All right, so the worst song in probably human history has now been released.
It is titled, I kid you not, fat, juicy and wet. It is not in fact about a solid hamburger. It is, it is in fact about what you would think that it would be about because it's a perverse rap slash pop song by Bruno Mars. Must be some excuse for why he would dame to do a number with sexy red she of the twice chlamydia.
who has on offer the lyrical genius of the colors of her anus. I'm not kidding. That's how she got famous. And that right there is a near rhyme that must at some point appear in one of her, in one of her songs, anus and famous. In any case, sexy red leads this number. Bruno Mars decides to go along with all of this. So instead of these sort of soft romance that Bruno Mars is more typically known for,
Instead, the collab features some of the worst lyrics in human history that I would not even dain to actually explain. There are also surprising celebrity cameos from K-pop star Rosé and also Lady Gaga. And it's not sexual innuendo, it's just graphic descriptions of pornographic sexual activity.
That's all it is. There's no subtle T to it. There's no innuendo. It's just an almost biological description of pornography. It also happens to be terrible musically. So there's nothing redeeming about this song at all. I'm going to play you like 10 seconds of it just so that you understand how bad it is.
because this is what our pop culture has come to. From the Gershwin brothers to sexy red and Bruno Mars in just a couple of generations.
I don't, so I've been asked by a producer to explain how much worse they can, I don't like, can it? I mean, I suppose they could make it more violent, right? That would make it worse.
But aside from that, I don't think it can get worse than this. I mean, the music is awful. Sexy Eret has no flow. She's truly an awful rapper. I speak as a chart-topping rapper myself. She has no flow at all. She has no talent whatsoever. None. Zero talent. Like negative talent. Like active antipathy to talent in sexy Eret. But it just demonstrates that if you are a woman willing to sexualize yourself for money, then apparently the money's just waiting for you. And so is fame around the corner. I can't imagine why our culture is in such serious trouble.
I swear to God, I cannot even read you these lyrics. It's not possible to read you these lyrics. They make Penthouse Forum look like Pilgrim's Progress. That's how bad these lyrics are. Oh my God, this makes Cardi B's wop sound like baby it's cold outside. It's so bad. It's so horrifyingly terrible.
Like not, by the way, not even like sexy and transgressive, just kind of off-putting and insane. I wish I could read you a single line from it, but there's literally not a single line that you can read from it other than do it sexy, do it sexy, do it, which is the outro. That's literally the only, that is the only thing that you can read from this.
Wow. And believe you me, I know how viral it would be if I read these lyrics, but I cannot bring myself to read you these lyrics. They're, they're, wow. You know what? I mean, the flood is coming. Get ready. God, God will not be mocked in this way. Oh boy. That's some horrifying, horrifying stuff in Bruno Mars, man.
already coming up.
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