Jason Willick on Harris’ Record and Fact Checking CNN's "Fact-Check" with Ashley Hayek
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Sam Stone. Chuck Warren out of the studio today, so filling in for him and thank you so much. Sean Noble, our good friend and host of his own podcast, Light Beer Dark Money.

I'm still jealous of the name. Yeah, it's a great name. Thanks for having me. Although you've got better bumper music because you get to have different music coming in. Did you pick it yourself? Yeah, we did. That's great stuff. Leading off today, and as always, we like to jump right into the conversation with our guests, a friend of the program, Jason Willick, is a columnist for The Washington Post. He writes about the law, politics, and foreign policy for Post Opinions. You can follow him on X at J.A. Willick. Jason, great to have you here.

Yeah, good to be back with you guys. Well, you did an article or op-ed or column yesterday, it looks like. That's when I saw it. We know that Joe Biden has introduced this idea of doing big reforms for the Supreme Court, and then Chuck Schumer dropped some legislation, which I'm sure no one has read other than you. But tell us about what exactly is he doing? I'm not even sure Chuck Schumer's read it. That's probably fair. It's probably fair.

But Jason, tell us, what does this legislation do? Why should we be concerned about it? Well, I actually think he probably has read it or somebody has done a very careful job with it because it's basically a plan to erode or even gut judicial independence by saying, so basically it's called the No Kings Act. It's focused on the Supreme Court's opinion in

in the Trump immunity case. So it says we're overturning that opinion. The Supreme Court says the Constitution means that a president can't be prosecuted for certain of his core official acts. We are going to say that's not true. In fact,

A judge can't even consider whether something the president is being charged for is a constitutional prerogative of his, like vetoing or pardoning or commanding the military. And this is...

This legislation, because Chuck Schumer knows that it's unconstitutional or that the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional, says, by the way, the Supreme Court can't consider the constitutionality of this legislation. We're stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. So it's quite a radical effort to.

make the Supreme Court not even have a say in a constitutional question. And, you know, once you do that on this issue, you can do it on any number of issues. Congress can say, we're doing this, and the Supreme Court can't say anything about whether it's constitutional or not. So you're really looking at an attempt by the legislature to

To seize power from the judicial branch. And that's really a fundamental revision of the constitutional order in the United States. So let me get this straight. So you this is a statute. This is not a constitutional amendment he's proposing.

Correct. It's a statute. How? That is outrageous. I mean, it's one thing to say this is what we want to do. We're going to we're going to propose a constitutional amendment. We'll pass it. We'll send it to the states, whatever. But for him to say by statute, we're going to gut the Supreme Court's constitutional authority is just a bald faced power grab.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, so so, you know, even a constitutional amendment on this immunity thing, I have doubts. Like, how are you going to say that the courts can't consider a president's constitutional authority? But you're right. An amendment is a way to overturn immunity.

the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution. President Biden, in his speech, said he wanted an amendment to do this. Schumer is saying, no, I can do this with 51 votes in the Senate. I can do this with a bare majority. And he's saying, I can do this by jurisdiction stripping the Supreme Court.

And that's a complicated issue that the Congress is allowed to make, quote, exceptions to the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. But at least in recent decades or, you know, ever, we've never seen a jurisdiction strip like this. This is just an effort to say, yeah. Jason, I want to go back and maybe the analysis hasn't gone this far, but you

You know, there was that very famous case where Obama ordered a drone strike on a U.S. citizen. I believe it was in Afghanistan, which was an extra legal action, I think even possibly adjudicated since then as such. But let's say, I mean, there's no the statutes don't expire on murder. Right. So could the family of this guy be.

Could a prosecutor related – who knows this family – start a case and prosecute Obama for murder, for instance, under this statute that Chuck Schumer is putting forward? So –

In the Supreme Court and in the immunity proceedings in Trump, this was raised a few times. And so the Biden administration, which was arguing against immunity, right, even it said in a lower court, well, look, if you were to prosecute a president for something like that, for ordering a military strike abroad, then maybe you should recognize some kind of immunity. So.

So, you know, so the Biden administration was not going as far as the Schumer legislation would go. You know, I would say in the case of Obama and the drone strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, you

uh the white house counsel's office put forward a careful memo about why you know any murder statute does not apply here blah blah blah but you're certainly right that a future administration uh could do could could say we disagree with that we're gonna uh bring this prosecution against former president obama of course under the supreme court's immunity ruling they could not bring that prosecution the president would at least presumably have have immunity for that and i think

that's part of what the supreme court had in mind we don't want um we don't want presidents you know for ordering military strikes which they you know to retroactively be uh be put in jail for but uh so it's a very tricky it's a very tricky area for sure it's a bit and you know the best the best thing to have

to control bad outcomes here is to just have prosecutors with good common sense. But the Supreme Court was kind of concerned that this was going to get out of hand. So, I mean, this seems like this would just open the door to an unending series of lawsuits around every decision a president makes.

Yeah, I mean –

Presidents issue orders that are ruled unlawful all the time. I mean, President Obama did on immigration. President Trump did President Biden's student loan order, his vaccination order, his eviction moratorium. I mean, all the time presidents take executive action that later judges say, no, that was unlawful.

And what the Supreme Court was trying to do in the immunity opinion was saying, okay, stuff presidents can do can be ruled unlawful, and we need to have that check on presidents, but we don't want them criminally prosecuted unless very stringent conditions are met and the government overcomes a significant obstacle. They tried to make it more difficult because they were very concerned that illicit things presidents do or –

you didn't enforce immigration law. That's a criminal violation of the law that says that you're impairing the function of the United States government. I mean, there are a lot of really vague criminal laws on the books. So yes, the Supreme Court was concerned about that. But in this Schumer legislation, the more concerning thing is that

that it's trying to gut the Supreme Court altogether. I mean, it's trying to say, you know, the Supreme Court, who cares what they say? We are going to ignore that. I mean, you know, if Donald Trump were to say, you know, I'll ignore court orders, that would be a big scandal. But here's Chuck Schumer putting, you know, he has a very careful plan and, you know, a real sort of

effort at doing this that he's sketched out. And it's what's frightening is that if Trump loses the election and it's President Kamala Harris and if the Republicans don't take the Senate and then they lose the House. All of which is possible. All of which is very possible. Frankly, if you ask me today, it's better than 50 percent possible. The

We have – I mean, look, we saw what Obama tried to do when he had full control. And in light of what the Democrats remember from that and also from Biden having full control in his first two years, I mean, this will be Katie bar the door. I mean, this goes through –

Who knows what could happen? The thing I'm wondering is, has there not been any consideration for what happened after Harry Reid knocked down the barriers to appointing judges? Because that has politicized the judiciary in a significant way. Every time we break down these barriers, Jason, it seems like it doesn't make the country better. Yeah, I know. And speaking of Harry Reid...

Kirsten Sinema is someone who's been who was against eliminating the filibuster for lower court judges. She's sort of a moderate on these issues of escalating and breaking down norms. She's going to be gone. She and Joe Manchin are going to be gone. So if you talk about Democrats controlling the Senate, not only they could have 50 seats, that's plausible. And Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema wouldn't be there to say no to things.

Right.

You know, I think, you know, let's say something like this passed and the Senate says you don't have jurisdiction. The Supreme Court would probably say, yes, we do. We're considering it. And, you know, we're striking down your legislation. You say we don't have jurisdiction. We disagree. And then there would be, you know, sort of a real that's why I said constitutional crisis, because who does the Department of Justice listen to? Does it listen to the legislature or does it listen to the Supreme Court? Because they're saying, yes.

They're saying opposite things. So and if the Department of Justice doesn't listen to the Supreme Court, the leadership of the Department of Justice could then be or does listen to the Supreme Court. The leadership could then be replaced with someone who says, no, it's the legislature. I mean, that's a good point. Yeah, this this this is the hallmarks of just absolute chaos. And it's frightening. Yeah.

It's a really dramatic move outside the political norms of this country and our history. We only have one minute left. We're going to be coming back with more from Jason Willick here in just a moment. So you want to stay tuned for that. Folks, if you're not already on our podcast subscription list, go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or you can find us on Substack, Spotify, all the other good places you get your podcasts. Make sure you're signed up there.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your Sam Stone guest hosting today with me, Sean Noble. Thank you so much for joining us on the line. Jason Willick, columnist for The Washington Post, writes about law, politics and foreign policy for post opinions. You can follow him on X at J.A. Willick. Jason, you've done a lot of work covering Kamala Harris's record. Obviously, you're also tuned into what's going on with the election right now.

It seems like Republicans, Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, Republicans as a whole, are really back on their heels trying to make the shift from Biden to Harris. What do you see out there? Are they going to be able to hold up? Because Harris's, let's be honest, Harris's campaign rests on revising, is the kindest word I can use, revising a lot of her past opinions and positions and

Are they going to be able to hold up with that? Or will do you think Trump and his campaign will start chipping back into this momentum? That's a good that's a good question. I think it's surprising because you had the Trump campaign saying a

A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris earlier on. Well, now, you know, as if they wanted to make it a referendum on Kamala Harris. And now she's their opponent. And now they're struggling to make anything stick against her, even though she's certainly more liberal than.

Then Joe Biden, she's not old and not declining like Joe Biden, but her record is more liberal. So you'd think that in an election focused on

policy issues and the direction of the country, you'd actually have more to attack on Kamala Harris's past opinions. But she can sort of disassociate herself with the Biden administration's record, it seems, and they're having a harder time tying her to those than they would tying Biden to it. And meanwhile, Democrats are just euphoric and euphoric about the vibes. And there's not a whole lot of discussion about anybody's record.

How do Republicans push through and get that focus back on her record? I mean, I've said and people know I certainly vote for Trump. I've done it twice now or three times, whatever. But I have my qualms with him. Right. Fundamentally, does he need to extract himself and his personality from this race and just put the microscope on her?

to get that message across about what her track record really looks like.

It's, you know, I was, it's hard to give, um, hard to know politically, uh, what somebody should do. And Trump's political instincts that seem crazy to people often end up being less crazy in retrospect, but it certainly seems like he's, he's falling behind. He does the crazy, like a Fox thing. Well, it's, it's disconcerting. Yeah. And I mean, look, look, when,

When he's not getting attention and she's dominating the news and has the momentum, it seems that he starts saying crazy things. He starts attacking Brian Kemp. He starts making it a racial issue. And, you know, that doesn't seem to me like it'll like it's working for him. That seems like it's digging him a bigger hole. Well, I think that I mean, one of the things I was thinking about this yesterday was that

In 2016, all of this stuff that he was doing was just so shocking and so disconcerting. It was just like rattled everyone because it was just so outside the norm. But it was enough to get some people's attention who would otherwise not be paying attention. And it was like, wow, that guy's got some balls. Let's do this. And I think that that really helped against what was as –

you know, establishment, a figure as Hillary Clinton, as you could get. That didn't, you know, then there was a swing back because Biden ran as the, hey, I'm going to be the adult in the room. Let's get rid of the crazy. And it worked. And so rather than Trump saying, OK, well, let's focus on the issues where I'm clearly better, especially now that Kamala is the opponent, because

Her picking Tim Walz. I mean, it is the most progressively liberal ticket in the history of the United States. Jared Polis would have made a lot more sense to me if you needed a white governor in that same type of mold. But Walz is really out there. He is out there and she's out there. I mean, that's the thing is that she's super liberal, as you point out, Jason. So.

you know, Trump does this press conference yesterday in which he's kind of rambles on for an hour. It's good that he's doing a press conference. He's trying to make the point that Kamala hasn't, but kind of doesn't help himself when he says crazy things. Like I had more people on the January 6th rally than MLK had at his speech on. I have a dream. I mean, is there a worse comparison? What in the world is he doing there? I mean, I think, look, the, it,

It's a little hard for him to overcome the Democratic euphoria because nobody's even talking. Nobody's talking about what does she want to do as president? Does she have any policies on her website? What does she think about Taiwan? What does she think about the Middle East? What does she think about Ukraine? What does she think about Chuck Schumer's plan to gut the Supreme Court? What does she think about tax rates? What does she – we just –

It's not about that. She's winning the last few weeks based on vibes. And I think that the press...

His goal, I think, in the press conference yesterday was to start trying to pressure the press to ask her some questions to show, look, I'm a candidate. I'm out here talking to you and taking questions. Where is Kamala Harris? And I think, you know, she just said yesterday, I'd like to do an interview by the end of the month.

So I think the pressure is starting to maybe build somewhat, but he has trouble. He's going to have trouble on his own. And by the way, I think I'm on the record saying this. I don't think she's a very strong candidate. I do think whether it's after the convention or in September, I think voters are going to start to ask, hold on, I'm voting for a president here. I've got to know.

What are some of the positions? And so I, you know, famous last words, I'm often wrong, but I sort of expect this to be a little bit of a bubble here for Kamala Harris. So sometime, Jason, between now and the election, you would expect Kamala Harris's website to like trade out one of its seven donation buttons for its very first ever policy page? Right.

Yeah, there's nothing. Maybe. I mean, that would be something, wouldn't it? Because, you know, this isn't just she hasn't won a primary. So we don't there wasn't just the competition over policy even within her party. And now there's no competition, you know, over policy in the general election either. And there was a great piece in The New Yorker yesterday by Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker, you know, obviously no conservative outlets sort of making these points like we've

We've got to have a candidate. We've got to inform the public about what they're voting for here. And I think you may start to see a little bit more of that, but

But Trump certainly hasn't done himself any favors by, you know, spending the last few weeks flailing. No, absolutely not. Jason Willick, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate having you on the program, folks. Follow him on X at J.A. Willick. You can also, of course, subscribe to The Washington Post.

WashingtonPost.com. I'm probably getting the website wrong, Jason, but definitely folks. Yeah. Yeah. WashingtonPost.com. Okay. Yeah.

We always love having you on the program. Appreciate your insights. So thank you so much for joining us. And we look forward to having you back again in the near future. Thank you. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Jason. Take care. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be back with more in just a moment. Our next guest up is going to be Ashley Hayek of the America First Policy Institute and executive director of America First Works. So stay tuned for that. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds, folks.

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and save $10 a month every month. After that, again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit them for freedommobile.com. Okay, now continuing on with our next interview, another friend of the program, Ashley Hayek, Executive Director of America First Works. She's originally from the small agricultural town of Clovis, California.

and political strategist over 15 years of experience in the political nonprofit and organization strategy, most recently served on Trump-Pence 2020 campaign as National Coalition's director. Ashley, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. And my most important title, I'm a Marine wife and I have five kids. That's right. How does that not – I'm going to kick Kylie's butt. That should be at the very top of the bio. Yeah.

That's right. Exactly. Like, let's start with the important stuff. Well, Ashley, it's great to hear your voice. So listeners know Ashley and my wife, Alyssa, were sorority sisters at UCSD, University of California, San Diego. Awesome. Did you learn to surf? I wasn't there. No, Ashley, I'm asking. Did you like... Oh, from Clovis to San Diego, you learned to surf, right? Yeah.

Oh, man, I was not a very good surfer. And the West Coast water is much, much colder than the East Coast. So I'll say that. You'll appreciate this. I happened to drive not through Clovis, but I drove through Fresno, so I was close not long ago. I was helping my brother-in-law drive a moving van up to Oregon. Yeah.

So, Ashley, you recently did a fact check on X. And, folks, if you're not following her on X, at Ashley Hayek, you need to be.

CNN did one of their rather dubious fact checks of Tim Walz's service record. Can you start out by breaking down what they claimed and then what the truth that you put out with your series of tweets is? Well, yeah, absolutely. First of all, the article that CNN had put out was really fact checking the

Vance's claims, J.D. Vance's claims on Waltz's military service, one of the really blatant claims that I saw was that he dropped his papers after the deployment was

was scheduled, which is completely wrong. So I want to kind of go through really quickly. Tim Waltz reenlisted the National Guard in 2001 until in his contract went until 2007. And so we're talking like that was remember one week after 9-11. That was such a big time in our country's history. A lot of people were running to the service, you know,

filling the call to serve. My husband actually had enlisted in the Marine Corps before September 11th had happened. So he knew that he would be going into the same situation that so many people signed up for after 9-11. In 2003, he signed an agreement to attend the United States Army Sergeant's

major academy. So when you do that, they make you sign another contract to serve a longer period of time. And so he continually promised to serve, not to retire by doing that. And when you do that, you get to be frocked to command sergeant major. And when you're frocked, it means that, you know, you're selected for promotion, but it's before your official promotion date. So

So that was in 2003. In August 2003, he was deployed to Italy for nine months to serve with the European Security Force. One thing that's really important about this is that he, 15 years later, would go back and talk about weapons of war that I carried in war. He never went to war. He went to Italy. That is one of the most coveted

duty stations for the army. So just right out of the gate, you know, how he's framing his military service seems very opportunist to me. Go back to September 2004 was when he was frocked. He agreed to a new two-year commitment to serve until September 2006.

again he's contractually promised to serve not to retire less than five months later he filed paperwork to run for congress now we're in early two thousand five a month after that his campaign acknowledged it by putting out a press statement about the impending deployment to iraq

And he actually said in that press statement, which we posted on Twitter on X, is that, you know, I don't want to speculate on what shape my campaign will be in. But I have very enthusiastic supporters and they will be a part of my campaign, whether I'm in Minnesota or if I am in Iraq. Two months later, he bailed. He dropped his retirement papers. And that's just a fact. You know, the fake news is.

CNN article said that one 125th received alert orders to deploy to Iraq in July 2005, two months after Waltz retired. That's a lie. His campaign acknowledged that he could be campaigning from Iraq. And the fact that the mainstream media continues to peddle to cover for this. Ashley, I apologize. I have to cut you off real quick. We're going to be coming back with more from Ashley Hayek in just a moment.

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

digital security, and total freedom. And if you use the code BATTLEGROUND at checkout, you get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month of service after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit 4freedommobile.com to learn more.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your Sam Stone guesting in studio with me today, Sean Noble and on the line with us, Ashley Hayek. But before we get back to the interview, folks, you got to check out our friends at Invest, the letter Y, then REFY.com. Learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on a secure collateralized portfolio.

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When we went to the break, we're talking with Ashley Hayek. She is the executive director of America First Works. You can follow her on X at Ashley Hayek. Going through a tweet she put out, which corrects some of CNN's fact checking on some statements that were made by J.D. Vance in regard to Tim Walz, talked about when he reenlisted.

Uh, in 2003 signed a statement of agreement to go to the Sergeant majors Academy. Um, then stay for a minimum two years, did not do that, uh, left again after getting orders to deploy or knowing they were going to be deployed. So kind of abandoned his unit there and has spent years now claiming, uh, to have served in combat, carried his AR 15 in combat, which is used for various gun control arguments. Um,

Done that. That is not true. Never served in combat. Served in Italy. So, Ashley, you have a number of other points here. I'll kind of let you take it away from there. What else did you know? What other facts do people need to know about these claims?

I probably should have done this in the beginning, so I apologize, but let me just sum it up. He did a Cush tour in Italy. He came back. He literally signed a two-year contract and accepted a higher rank. During that time, typically what happens is, when you're especially at that rank, you go through planning at that point for upcoming deployments.

The media made you believe that the thought of running never crossed his mind, the deployment popped up suddenly. In September 2003, just two years after the attack on Twin Towers, as the wife of a Marine, deployment rotations were all we knew. That insinuation is insulting, which is why there's so much outrage from the military community. And there's a lot of planning that goes into it ahead of time. So at that point in time, he was very well aware of that loss.

very likely deployment underway. He filed papers for Congress, put out a statement saying he wouldn't abandon his guys, abandoned his guys. And then this is the tipping point. The cherry on top is despite breaking his contract, he used his E-9 rank to file retirement paperwork. He was

as an E8. That means he was selected for promotion. He didn't fulfill his contract. He was never entitled and he was never officially promoted to an E9 rank. He falsely filed that paperwork with the Minnesota National Guard. It wasn't until September of later that year that the National Guard came out and corrected the record and, you know, busted down his rank because he knew full well that he did not meet the obligations to retire as an E9.

And to be very clear, if you're in the Guard or a reserve service, you are absolutely allowed – there's no barrier to you running for Congress other than the use of your time, right? Yeah.

That's exactly right. And he acknowledged that if you look at his statement, his press release about running, he said in the press statement, you know, I have as a command sergeant major, which he was frocked at that point, not officially promoted. I have a responsibility not only to my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I don't want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am deployed, but I have no plans to drop out of the race.

So he acknowledged at that point in time he could run for Congress while he was deployed. He chose to drop out of his service and in his contract. Now, he's legally, he can do that. The Wall Street Journal article had said it was a bureaucratic issue since to retire at that rank required longer service.

You don't get to claim the rank if you don't fulfill your contract. He made the decision to bail on his guys before the deployment. He knew he could have ran for Congress while he was deploying, but he didn't want to do that. He chose a, you know,

a political opportunity over his service to his country and serving in Iraq. Now, one more thing. If J.D. Vance went to Italy instead of Iraq, the mainstream media wouldn't call it minor, deceptive, bureaucratic. If J.D. Vance used a different rank, the media wouldn't be saying, oh, well, you know, he would have reached that rank if he was in a little bit longer. There's no grace. There's absolutely no grace. And that is literally the definition of stolen valor.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's also with Walls part of a pattern of dishonesty when he's caught in things that he doesn't want to fess up to. You're probably aware of the DUI that he got, right? That's right. Going 96 in a 55 and he tries to pretend to the officer that he's deaf. Yeah, right. Like –

It's whatever is convenient for him. And the other thing that I think is important, just because I work in politics, and, you know, Sean, you would probably agree, too, it's most likely...

When he was running, he bragged about the fact that he was the highest enlisted guy serving in Congress. And that congressional race going back to 2006, it was a Republican-leaning ticket that he was unseated. There was nobody else in the primary. So he was having to defeat a Republican, so he was committed to take that rank to run against that Republican. Yeah.

Yeah, he was running against Gil Goodnick. Right, in a slightly right-leaning district. And really leaned in on his military service as the way to get elected in that district. And it was a complete lie. That's hideous. Ashley, as we were talking, our previous guest was Jason Willick for The Washington Post, talking about Chuck Schumer's plan to create a constitutional crisis with his reforms to the court.

The reason I bring that up is only that right now this campaign, you know, the Kamala Harris campaign has no substance of any type publicly. The press is not reporting any actual substance. They're walking back her statements for her. But meanwhile, what's going on below the surface and the things we know that Kamala Harris has stood for in the past are extremely radical. They are far, far out of any norm that any part of this country has ever seen that

How does the Donald Trump campaign, how do Republicans put the focus on those things and not on the feel-good vibes that the left-stream media is trying to promote for Kamala Harris? Well, it's interesting because the mainstream media shows Kamala Harris's rallies as like these end-all be-alls. But there are concerts. People aren't showing up to hear her.

They're there to show up to hear whoever whatever band they have or rap artist they have at that at that concert. It's not even a rally. The simple fact is they don't want to talk about their policies as American voters start to pay more and more attention during election season. They don't want to talk about the border, the economy, foreign wars. Congressman Lee Zeldin, Republican New York, was on CNN the other night. And it was so funny because he started talking about these issues and how Kamala Harris refuses to talk about them or even her her past experiences.

championing of Prop 47 and 57, which lowered the penalties on major crimes like rape of an intoxicated person, for example. And the host of the program looked at him and said, well, of course you want to talk about policies. And I thought that was such an interesting statement because it's like you just conceded everything in that one line. No kidding. You know damn well.

that you all don't have like a leg to stand on. And we're right now, America First Works, we have a ground game. We just passed over 750,000 doors in the battleground states. And everything we're hearing at the door is about how I can't afford

the cost of living. I'm having to make serious decisions. We're not taking a family vacation. On Twitter, I just saw one in three parents say they can't afford back-to-school shopping this year. They're forgetting the fact, I think the left realizes Kamala Harris was the deciding vote in two major bills that caused all of the inflation and cost of living and prices to skyrocket across this country. They don't want to talk about the fact that she's the border czar that's allowing fentanyl to

come into our communities and is the leading cause of death for young people. So I think as conservatives, if we stay mission focused, we're on the right side of all the things. One more point I just really quickly want to make. The left really thought that they could run on abortion and threat to democracy.

and abortion was like their main thing and they denied the fact that they were abortion extremists but when you put tim walsh on the ticket and you start hearing about these survivors of botched abortions coming out and how how extreme and radical he is we're on the right side of history and

And people don't want two people who are this far left, too far radical, too extreme, anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, baby-killing people in office. Yeah, that's pretty well said.

It really is. They do represent the Hamas caucus. Right. I mean, it's just he was the governor. He was the choice of the Hamas wing of the DNC. I mean, he's like the 10th best choice among governors. Right. I mean, they threw the best. The person I was the word the most worried about, Josh Shapiro.

They threw him under the bus because he's Jewish and, you know, good for us, bad for them. But that just that just shows you the level of anti-Semitism that that's permeating the Democratic Party right now. One of the things, Ashley, that we see, and I think it's been thrown into high relief the last few weeks, is how Democrats coordinate key wording in their messaging.

So the constant barrage of the word weird when describing J.D. Vance, who, by the way, might be the most normal seeming politician in Washington. Like he's not remotely weird. The other word is moderate for Tim Walz and he's not remotely moderate at all.

How do Republicans, A, like create this system of our own where we start pushing back with some of this stuff? But B, how do you break through that wall of noise they're creating? I've seen a lot of conservatives embrace the term weird, which I think is great. And I would even go so far to say is, yeah, we it is weird for people who don't want to

Other people, their normal is transing your kids without parental permission, late term abortion, prioritizing illegal aliens over American American citizens. You know, so anything that's pro family, pro America first, pro.

That's weird to them. And so I've seen a lot of conservatives lean into the weird, and I think that's a good thing. And I also am seeing Tim Walz. He's the worst candidate, the worst person they could have picked. I think even the left is starting to kick themselves. But when you hear that Kamala Harris met with Kelly in Arizona and he dropped out Shapiro in Pennsylvania and he said this isn't a good fit. This is literally the last option left.

She had. She had no date to the prom. No one wanted to be on her ticket. Yeah, that's a really good point because I think that while things look a little bit sketchy right now for the Republicans, she's on a sugar high. And I really do believe it's a sugar high. It's going to come down. The only thing that I'm concerned about, and we floated this on my podcast yesterday, is – and Ashley, you'll appreciate this. Alyssa actually has been thinking about this for a couple weeks –

She's worried. And and we talked about this on podcast yesterday, worried that there's a chance that if she starts to dip in the polls, that they're going to push Biden to resign to give her the presidency as the October surprise so that she's the president. That prevent her from running for a second term.

I mean, probably not years, five years down the road. Probably not. I mean, hope we could make that argument. I would certainly hope so if we got that far into the mass. But OK, I don't think she'll get reelected in the next one anyway. But the but that would that that could be a game changer in the race. And I think that looking at how flat footed the Trump campaign seemed to be with Kamala ascending, they need to be prepared for that contingency.

And the only reason I can't imagine that would be the case is because, as President Trump has said, I think that...

Joe and Jill Biden regret this. Yeah. I think that they're looking at this thing like you thought she can do better than us. Are you kidding? What a joke. So there's no way. I mean, there's no love lost between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I don't think that I'll tell you my conspiracy theory here. I think Joe Biden didn't want to drop out of the race because

They threatened to, they were going to do it. He did. And if you remember, the first statement he put out did not include an endorsement of Kamala Harris. It was the second statement. I truly believe that the Democrats wanted an open primary to show that they were for democracy. When Joe Biden put out that endorsement,

That was the nail in the coffin for them. They were stuck with Kamala, and that was his way to give everyone the bird. Yeah, and it was a giant standing bird. Ashley Hayek, thank you so much for joining us today. We always appreciate having you on the program. Folks, follow her on X at Ashley Hayek. You can also obviously check out America First Works. They're doing fantastic things supporting the America First Movement.

Thanks, Ashley. Stay tuned for the podcast segment. You won't want to miss it. Breaking Battlegrounds back in the air next week.

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The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. Welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds.

Sean Noble, thank you so much for joining us today. Jenna, as always, she's going to bring our sunshine moment by the end of this thing. Good. We need some sunshine. We do. I got to say, it makes me feel good to talk to someone like Jason Willick, who works at The Post, who's a real...

He's not a reporter, obviously. He's in Post Opinion. Yeah. But the fact that they allow him to have a platform. Yes. And he's as conservative as he is and as thoughtful. That's that's fair. I would I would call him right leaning, but very fair. He'll call, you know, he'll call a spade a spade. Yep. In doing really good work. And if you're not following him, folks, you need to be. And America First Policy is is Ashley Hayek has done a great job there.

They are – it's one of those things, Sean, you and I could probably have a long discussion about this, about the future of the America First movement past Donald Trump. I think we could do an entire podcast on that quite frankly and probably sit here for two, three hours and bat it back and forth. But if you believe in the America First policy platform, a more populist policy platform for the Republican Party –

then that's the type of vehicle that's going to move it forward post-Trump. Yeah, and that's the thing that's important for people to understand is that Trump is going to not be here forever. Right. If he wins, he's four more years. Four more years, and then he's gone. Right. And he better pardon himself for everything. Like every breath I've ever taken has just been pardoned. Right. Before he leaves office. But there needs to be something that moves –

Right. Go off into the sunset. You still have the movement. Right.

You know, it's part of that. It was what Reagan did for the Goldwater movement, you know. Yes. You know, in 64 when he gave the speech, you know, and then a time for choosing and then carried that banner as governor of California and then carried the banner in presidential elections in 76 and 80, then became president. Problem is, is that nobody picked up the Reagan banner. Right. Right.

It was, you know, you could say that Newt Gingrich picked up part of it and helped get it to. He sort of did. But it wasn't really. No, it wasn't. And that is, to me, the biggest mistake, if you will, the Republican Party has made in my lifetime is not having a better plan for. OK, this works. The country loves this.

It's one thing I think we're talking about with Ashley that Democrats are so good at using these sort of buzzwords that they pound them out into the public consciousness.

We're really bad at unified messaging. Oh, exactly. Well, because we're not communist. Right. As I've said to many people, I'm like, I'd love to go run a Democrat campaign sometime because I'm freaking tired of herding cats. Right. It's just like they just they all get together. They're pulling the same direction. It's all, you know, and it is in part because by nature as conservatives, we're

We are individualistic and we all think we have the best ideas and it's the marketplace of ideas, you know, that kind of thing. We take that very seriously to the point of division and dissension. Right. Which the left exploits. Yeah. And the media exploits. Completely. I mean, you know, one of the things we just came out of, obviously, a primary here in Arizona fairly recently, you know, recently, right.

People have this idea that because 40 percent of the party voted for someone other than Carrie Lake, that Carrie Lake doesn't have broad support. But that only appears that way. I mean, John McCain never got much, much over 60 percent in any of his primary runs. It wasn't a divided party come the general election. It doesn't have to be a divided party come the general election by any means. The left wants to promote that narrative and drive that wedge. Right.

But at the same time, like, I take pride in the fact that we have competitive primaries in virtually every major race that ever gets held in this country. Right. Whereas the Kamala Harris was the...

Well, I mean, basically uncontested primary for Biden. Right. Because they froze out the whole process. They changed the process to... To prevent anybody else. Yeah, to prevent anyone from coming in. Then he drops out and coronates Kamala. I mean, that is the very opposite of protecting democracy. Right. Well, and, you know, here, obviously...

In Arizona with the U.S. Senate primary on their side. Yeah, no one. They just wave the magic wand over Ruben Gallego and they're like, we're going to take the most radical communist member of the U.S. House and we're going to pretend that they're just a nice family man Marine and we're not going to talk about his record and we're going to anoint him and there's not going to be any primary. Primaries are dangerous for Democrats because they have to –

move to the left. And they have to articulate those views. So they just don't allow it. That's right. They could not have anyone running against Rubin because they couldn't expose Rubin to who he really is. He needed to be able to run to the middle from the beginning. And it's good for us on the Republican side to have these primaries. I think it's good

good for the process. It's good for everyone to have the argument. I think it's good for the candidates. It's good for the candidates. They need to get, you know, I think that Carrie is going to be better prepared going to go against Ruben by the fact that she had somebody against her in the primary. Yes. And yes, Lamb, you know, he was a good candidate. He didn't get as much as he wanted to, but

99% of people who voted for Lamb will vote for Kerry. Right. Right. Absolutely. And had that been reversed, the same thing would still be true. I mean, that's the thing. And I don't... Look, I do not... Getting 40% plus in a U.S. Senate race is no mean accomplishment. Yeah. That's... You know, you have broad-based support at that point. Let's not diminish that in any sense. And...

The competition between our candidates refines them in policy ways also. Yes. But it also defines them. Right. So that when you elect a Republican, they have a track record from their campaign that they have to be measured against. Right. Right.

And Democrats have just given up on the idea that there should be a measuring stick next to their candidates. Like they're like, oh, no, no. That measuring stick towers. Right. Over us. So let's just not have it. We're not going to we're not going to pay attention to the building next to us. The press stuff this past couple of weeks. Getting back to the point with Jason.

It's so refreshing to talk to reporters and journalists and opinion columnists who are journalists and columnists and not activists. Right. Because what has been done these last few weeks since Kamala Harris' anointing, you're talking about someone who nobody knows.

Nobody anywhere in this country thought deserved to be the next presidential nominee. Exactly. There is no circumstance in which she could win a primary to become the nominee for the Democrat Party. None.

Yeah. I mean, she was so bad that she was out before they even had a vote. With hundreds? Was it hundreds? I know it was well over $100 million. Yeah. It was a huge amount of money. Yeah. Like Scott Walker level. Like the DeSantis pack. Right. I mean-

But at least he got to Iowa, right? Yeah, no, he at least made it to a race. He got to a vote. Which to me, honestly, is that DeSantis again has substance. He could walk into any room in Iowa and have a substantive discussion with any of these people. Does anybody believe, Jenna, Jeremy, does anybody believe that Kamala Harris could sit down across from one of us at this table right now and have a substantive policy discussion on any topic? Jenna? Jenna?

Yeah, I don't think so. Jeremy? You guys would wipe the floor with her. That'd be trouble for her. I mean. It's not a chance. It's embarrassing. Joe Rogan referred to her the other day. I thought this was perfect as America's wine mom, which struck me as like, damn, he nailed that one right on the top of that.

Anything else we got? Well, I mean, I think that we touched on this in the show with Ashley. But I do worry about whether or not Biden does resign to give Kamala the imprimatur of president.

And I just want to make sure that I just want to make sure that the Trump campaign does. I expect a mid-August resignation. Mid-August? Mid-September. Mid-September. 30 days more or less from now. Yeah. I think. Yeah. It's late enough to apparently just disappeared from the off the role of the president. He's well in it and in all seriousness, I don't know that I want him to be the president right now.

And as much as it may help her in her election, I would much rather have someone who knows what's going on. You know how you could – you would actually strengthen her tremendously if she was part of this play. And this is like some 4D chess. So no one ever does this, even their side, which plays 3D chess while we're playing 2D checkers. The move would be this, for her to resign as the vice president.

to bring in another vice president who's a caretaker, who people trust and who they like. And, you know, bring in a Joe Manchin. Bring in a Democrat who's not scary in any. Bring in one of the governors. Say, listen, they're not running. They're going to take the seat. They're there for the next six months just to make sure. That would be the play of all plays. That would be a heck of a play. Now, the question is whether you could get – because that takes House and Senate vote, right? Yeah.

Senate only, I think. Is it Senate only? I'm not sure. Damn, I'm going to have to figure that out. Jenna has a computer, so we're going to trust her much younger. If it's Senate only, it's definitely possible. Right. If it's House and Senate, it's probably still possible. There'd probably be some Republican House members who would probably go for it. I think if you put the right person up, there would almost have to be. Yeah.

So, you know, I mean, for instance, in Joe Manchin, I didn't say. Well, I guess in some ways, if you if you're a House member who believe who has said if you're a Republican House member who says that Joe Biden is not capable of being president, how could you vote against? How do you walk it back? Yeah. How do you walk that back? Right. I think that's very tough. I think you're put in a very difficult position. That would be the play of all plays to me. Hell of a play. Because it.

You publicly say we're not trying to give her the advantage of being the VP. She's running on her own.

Meanwhile, you have this figure with a clean slate and a positive sunny figure. You're going to have to want someone who's very positive and unifying and non-conflict. And it gives her the ability to completely all she has to do is campaign. Right. Because if she does become the president, it actually is some stuff. There's stuff you have to do. And one of the dangers to her is that that stuff might expose her for being an idiot. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point.

And God forbid we'd have some major catastrophe that she then has to deal with. And I think we all know she's not up to that. Yeah. I mean, just to be clear. Which is why I agree with – I think Jason was the one who mentioned that he said –

She's still a bad candidate. Yeah. And I think that ultimately, I mean, there's a reason that she has not done a press conference. There's a reason she hasn't done a sit down interview. They talked about her needing many days of prep to do an interview. Well, they had that. I mean, I don't know if people read the story, but there was a when she was she was going to host a dinner.

They did a mock dinner prior to her hosting the dinner so that she could get comfortable with hosting a dinner. Right. And now she's giving talks, not speeches really, just these little one-liner talks. Literally like here's a group of school children. Here's Kamala. There's the teleprompter. Right. Like are you flopping kidding me? Are you – like –

The level of stupidity and incompetence that's required to not be able to speak to a group of 12-year-olds. Well, she had to get actors. They had to hire actors to do the NASA. Right, to do the NASA. She can't handle actual 12-year-olds. God forbid. Good grief. Had to be scripted actors. And she and her husband, by the way, gave $1,000 last year to a defund the police group in D.C. Oh, my God. Last year? Last year, 2023. Okay.

I was just doing some research this morning. I'm going to pull that one up. Yeah, I think you guys are right. I think it's the Senate would decide the next vice president. Well, that's – I think there's a play there. It sounds onto something. Jeremy, we may need to cut this entire segment.

Right. I'm not sure we want anybody on the left to hear this now. That's exactly right. Don't give them that idea. I'm not actually going to cut it. Just don't share this with any of your Democrat friends, okay? Look, normally I'm like share it with everybody. Today I'm like check their voter registration first. Right.

Set up a password or something. Yeah, exactly. All right, Jenna, do we have a we have a sunshine moment and then folks, we're going to close out a little bit differently. Something Chuck likes to do that I like to do also. But I thought this was particularly important. A lot of folks on the left, including the Harris-Walls campaign, have been using audio of a call between Donald Trump as president and Tim Walls as governor, along with a number of other governors who are on the call in the wake of the George Floyd riots.

They are using that to claim that Trump was praising Wall's response to the riots. What they're doing, of course, is chopping and editing up some video that doesn't include the context, that doesn't include what Trump said before or after specific chosen words. Megyn Kelly, who is a real journalist, continues to do fantastic work. Again, that's someone if you're not following, you should be.

She had a clip and they put up on YouTube where they went back and forth between the audio the Democrats are using and the actual unedited audio of these claims and what was actually said. So we're going to roll that at the end of the program. That's a little bit long. It's about 15 minutes because there's a lot of material they're using there.

So if you want to see just how badly the media is gaslighting the public today and how badly the Harris-Walls campaign is gaslighting the public, stick around for that. But first, before we kick that off, Jenna, bring a ray of sunshine into our lives. We need it.

You are my sunshine. So thinking about quintessential American things, which I've been thinking about a little bit recently, we found this article about a road trip to a father and son duo from Arizona that found something really cool on a road trip. So they were taking a road trip and they ended up at the Arkansas famous Crater of Diamonds State Park. Oh, yeah.

Which, it's so fun on road trips. Like, there's always something random you can find. I have driven by that, and I regret not stopping and doing some mud digging just for fun. Just to say I did it. I've driven through Arkansas, but I'd never even heard of it. Yeah, no, I've gotten sidetracked in Arkansas, Missouri, and there's so many interesting things out there. I probably wasn't paying attention because that's right after my buddy got us pulled over in my car. Oh, that's... It was one of those, like, I'm in the passenger seat, you know, he's going along, and all of a sudden we get pulled over, and he...

I'm like, man, what'd you, what'd you do? And blah, blah, blah. And he's like, no, I'm fine. I wasn't doing anything. And then this cop comes up to the window, Arkansas cop. He says, boys, you done passed everybody. Then you passed me. And I'm like, oh, crud. How did my buddy drive past this cop on the road? And I look back and it looks kind of unmarked. So I'm like, oh, okay. It's an unmarked car. No problem.

But then we finally get done. He gives us the ticket. He goes, he takes off. There's frickin three foot letters on the back of this thing that say police. I'm looking at my buddy, Kenny. I'm like, dude, dude.

You literally drove by a three foot by six foot police sign. That's hilarious. Sorry to sidetrack your moment there, Jenna, but that's such a good story. I had to tell it. That's a great story. So good. Yeah. No, we have to be careful on road trips for sure. Yeah. They Arkansas. They will pull you over in a heartbeat, man. Those those state troopers are hardcore. Yeah. Believe it.

So they were on a boys week road trip and they found out about this place through their uncle and they stopped by the site, like as you do on road trip, to try to find their luck at finding a genuine diamond. I think this was last week that this happened and they found a two carat rectangular diamond

In the state park. How much is a two-carat diamond worth? That is a great question. Does it say in the article? More than I am. It doesn't say in the article, but let me look it up. Man, reporters. What are you just talking about? You got to get the facts, people.

If you're reporting on something like this, you've got to get the important information. Obviously, it depends on the clarity. Right. There's a lot there, right? Yeah. So this one was kind of, they said it's about the size of a pencil eraser and a light brown color resembling iced tea, which it's still a diamond. That's still really cool. But yeah, no, a two-carat...

I'm looking at little engagement rings right here. They're like 3,000, 7,000, things like that. It's a few thousand bucks. That's a really good finding. But yeah, so they brought it to the Diamond Discovery Center. The staff confirmed the find.

And that's the 412th diamond registered at this state park this year. This year? This year. Oh, my gosh. What am I doing here? It's one of those flows that keeps pushing them up. No kidding. Yeah, so diamonds, when they come up, they come up in mud.

They're basically like mud flues. You have this sort of reverse volcanic thing, and it slowly just pushes them up. And so you have all this mud with the diamonds. I think it was Zambia. There's a great story from the days of the British Empire. They were actually called into this country to help quell a civil war that was going on during the colonial period, right? But it was one of those things where they didn't even want to be there. Right.

But everyone else in Africa was like, you've got to go fix this before this gets out of control for all of us. So they go there and the colonel who's leading it gets to the main town and sees a couple of kids playing by a tree with some rocks. And they're playing with these rocks and just picking them up and throwing them at, you know, whatever and doing all this. And he asked the kid to bring the rock over to him.

And it's a diamond the size of a softball. Oh, my God. Right? Like, they did not know what they were. So this entire region is, like, flooded with diamonds. I mean, they're just rocks to them, right? That's unbelievable. So, yeah, diamond flues are in the diamond industry. Man, you want to talk about bloody cut. Yeah. It's just crazy.

The DeBeer cartel is. It's legit. Yeah. The mafia ain't got nothing on those boys. Right. We got away from the sunshine. Sorry, Jen. No, no. It's good. Well, it's cool because we can go try our luck and see if we can find our own rocks. You know what? I guarantee we could – no, Chuck doesn't like dirt. Yeah. I was going to say, can we talk Chuck into a Breaking Battlegrounds field trip? We'll go all day for diamonds. He doesn't have to go. He doesn't have to. No, you're right. Yeah.

Well, they're also the father-son duo are apparently frequent gold panners. So they decided to name the jewel Miner Find with like mine O-R. Nice. Yeah. Fine. And so, yeah. So they're encouraging everybody to go out, like look for diamonds. Out here, I have not found much luck. I'm not going to lie. But there's some amethyst mines out.

I have a friend out here who was so excited one day. He found this big chunk of gold, he thought. Big, big chunk out in the desert, right? And he comes running, he's showing all of us. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, do I tell him it's iron pyrite? Or do I let him go into the assayer's office with it? Because that's a better story. Yeah, exactly.

Well, it's a great story. It's just a fun little thing. Oh, no, that's fantastic. I love those stories about families going out and just doing sort of random things together, right? The father-son, the mother-daughter trips, the whole family trips. Looking back on it just from growing up, I'll bet y'all are the same. I don't remember most of what I got at any Christmas or any birthday. I don't remember most of the clothes or the toys or the other stuff I had.

Man, I can tell you, I remember every minute of every trip we went on. Yep. Yeah, that's really true. I mean, and that's the thing that, you know, as for those of you that have younger kids that still have the opportunity to make memories, you

That's the way to do it. I'm on my second batch of kids, so I got a little ahead of myself. We decided to do a road trip a couple weeks ago from here to visit Alyssa's brothers up in Vancouver, Washington. And we have a five-month-old.

So that wasn't as pleasant. That's a lot of time in a car with a five-year. About seven hours into it, I was like, I've made a huge mistake. Right. But we just took our time up and back. So it was, we actually, it ended up being great. And it's making memories. And that's the point. And just spending time together. And I think that's good for these father and son. Yeah, they'll never forget that. That is a story they have together for the rest of their lives. I love that. Exactly. I love that.

Thank you, Jenna. That's sunshine. Yeah. All right, folks. Well, tune back in again next week, but stay on the podcast if you want to hear Megyn Kelly's breakdown, the audio between what Democrats and the Walz Harris campaign are saying. It feels like it should be Walz Harris. He's even as bad as he is because she's just a train wreck, but okay.

And in the counter actual audio. And thank you, Jenna, Sean, Jeremy, as always. Great to be here. We'll be back next week. I want to turn to the lies coming out of the Harris-Walls campaign about Trump.

and the Minnesota riots. Because one of the biggest strikes against Tim Walz is the way he handled them. He was governor of Minnesota in the post George Floyd riots and Minneapolis burned. The third precinct police department burned, they let it burn. And it wound up being a big fight publicly between the mayor, this left winger, Jacob Fry, and the sitting governor who was Tim Walz, who was responsible. And now of course, Trump and others are saying,

Tim Walz is largely responsible for what happened and doesn't know how to handle a crisis. When a crisis hits, he runs. See the deployment to Iraq that he dodged. See Minneapolis burning. He sat there and twiddled his thumbs and didn't have the guts to do what a leader would do. That's the accusation. OK, so Kamala Harris's team.

sends out online a version of a phone call between it was Trump. It was A.G. Bill Barr. It was the Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and a number of governors, including Tim Walz. And it happened June 1st, 2020. Keep in mind, George Floyd died May 25th, 2020. So it was about a week after everything had happened.

And here's do we have just her version? Do we have her whole version of it? We know we have it just cut. We do. OK, how long is it? All right. Yeah. OK. It's not the full version. We're going to break it down. I'm going to play it for you in chunks and then I'm going to play you the full actual version. OK, so you can see what she did. Here's the first part of what she's playing as Trump's praise of Tim Walz.

I know Governor Walz is on the phone and we spoke and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that and the whole world was laughing. Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor. The governor's, I think on the call, he's an excellent guy.

OK, so that's them saying that's Trump saying, I fully agree with the way Waltz handled it. He's an excellent guy. You know, case closed. That's according to Kamala. Here's the full version.

I know Governor Walz is on the phone and we spoke and I fully agree with the way he handled it the last couple of days. I asked him to do that. And a lot of men, we have all the men and women that you need, but people aren't calling them up. You have to dominate. If you don't dominate, you're wasting your time. They're going to run over you. You're going to look like a budget jerk. And the whole world was laughing.

Two days, three days later, I spoke to the governor. The governor's, I think, on the call, and he's an excellent guy. And all of a sudden, and I said, you've got to use the National Guard in big numbers. They didn't at first, then they did. And I'll tell you that, I don't know what it was, it was, governor, it was the third night, fourth night. Those guys walked through that stuff like it was butter. They walked right through, and you haven't had any problems since.

Okay. You see the difference there, Andrew, right? Right. Of course. He was waiting. It was three days before Walls called out the guard, despite the fact that the mayor was begging and the police chief was begging. And Megan, I think you're being too kind to him to call him a mere coward. I think that it was not that there was a crisis and he ran. It was his sympathy for him.

with the rioters. He said so. He said that, you know, if you call out the National Guard, the rioters are going to see that as part of the problem, you know, the police being the problem, not the criminals, not the people who are causing the police to have to do what they do. His wife said she opened the windows so she could smell the tires burning because it was such an iconic moment, and later said that she really felt America deserved what it was getting. I think they both did. They both really took that position that this was somehow an expression

of justice and talking about fantasy, you know, the George Floyd story is a complete fantasy. I mean, that's it was not even even if you take it, even if you believe and I do not believe this, but even if you believe Derek Chauvin murdered him, which I think is nonsense. But even if you believe that it's not representative of the way the police treat people, and it's certainly not representative of the way the police treat black people, and it's not representative of the way black people feel about the police because they know without the police, they're cooked.

because there's a lot of crime in poor Black neighborhoods, as there tend to be in many poor neighborhoods. And so the whole thing is a fantasy, and the idea that we needed to defund the police, which is insane, you know, that's a fantasy. And it's just...

a strange thing that we are now living in a world that is maybe so rich and so protected that when we come into contact with reality, we think it's offensive. We think that when people speak bluntly and say the things that we all know are true, it's somehow a bad thing to do. I mean, that's what they're getting J.D. Vance on. He tends to say things directly. But

But yeah, he really abandoned the poorest people in his community to the worst people in his community, many of them outside agitators. People were looking outside and seeing their favorite stores burn. Nicole, what's her name? Nicole, I can never remember her name, but from the New York Times, the lady who did the 1619 Project. Hannah Brown? Yeah, she's saying, oh, it's not really violence. Hannah Johnson, sorry.

Yeah, Hannah-Jones, that's it. She's saying it's not really violence because it's only property. It's not people. Well, those property are people's dreams and people's jobs and the places that they go to get their medicine. Not to mention those cops' lives, Andrew. I mean, that precinct was burned to the ground.

- Yep, yep. And it was just abandoned by Walsh. And again, I don't think it was cowardice. I don't think it was, you know, there was a crisis and he ran for it. I think it was sympathy with the people burning his capital. - You know what, you're right. You're exactly right. That's exactly right. 'Cause his statements after the fact did suggest that. And how about the wife?

Well, I rolled down the windows and I smelled the tires. Oh, sure. Well, you're basically just like one of the protesters, ma'am. You totally get the plight of black America. You smelled some burning tires for a while, did you? But then it got noxious. So you put the windows right back up. Okay. Yeah, you get it. So let me keep going because there's more. There's more. So $500 million of damage, by the way, while Tim Wall sat there. And now he's claiming Trump said he did a good job. But again, for the listening audience, you could hear him saying that.

We've got all these men and women. We've got all the people you need, but people aren't calling them up. You have to dominate. He's saying, and I said to Tim Walz, this is what he's saying. I said, you got to use the National Guard and take the numbers. And they didn't at first. Then they did. And he said, I'll tell you.

Third night, fourth night, these guys, they walked through the stuff like it was butter, meaning the National Guard when they finally got there. They walked right through and you haven't had any problems since. That's the context in which he's praising them. You sucked in the beginning. Then I talked to you and told you what to do and you got better. Now here's version two. Kamala Harris and the same thing she's released, ostensibly showing how Trump loved Tim Walz and how he handled it, included this line.

Okay, here's the full version.

Tim is on the phone now. Tim Walz, again, I was very happy with the last couple of days, Tim. You called up big numbers, and the big numbers knocked them out so fast it was like bowling pins. Is Tim there? Because I'd like to maybe have him explain the difference between the beginning and the end. Tim, are you there? I am. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to do the thank you to Secretary of State General Milley for your...

And then just let me play what happens right after that. It's not 20.

24 years in the guard. So one thing I would say is that you could do is a lot of people don't understand who the National Guard is. And you need to get out there from a PR perspective and make sure that it's not seen as an occupying force. But it's their neighbors, school teachers, business owners, those types of things. That's a really effective method.

Okay, good. I think that's a good idea. I must tell you, it got so bad a few nights ago that the people wouldn't have minded an occupying force. I wish we had an occupying force in there.

For some reason, I don't know what it is, gophers don't like calling up a lot of the guy. We have thousands and thousands of people waiting to be called up. Is that a correct statement, General? 350,000. 350,000. We have 350,000 people and they call up 200. Tim did that the first night, which wasn't successful. What happened is after that he said, let's go. And I'll tell you, it was like magic.

Can you believe how deceptively that call has been edited? The whole point of the call was Trump saying you were screwing it up. Then you talked to me and my defense secretary. We told you to get the National Guard in there.

By the way, then you didn't call them up in enough numbers. And only when you did, did things get better for you? And he's talking with the other governor saying that's what you have to do. It has to be brute force in huge numbers, not brute force, but huge numbers in order to get the results that you want. And Kamala Harris has released that with just those little snippets of praise as if Trump endorsed Tim Walz's approach to this.

You just got to get with the fantasy, Megan. You're just striving for too much reality here. And I think it's going against the program. Also, I just want to add that Wall says to him, thank you for your guidance, Mr. President. Whereas later on, he made a speech saying the president had been unhelpful and he didn't know what he was talking about. And, you know, I don't need your help and all that stuff. So really, really deceptive all the way down.

Well, let me let me just give you a little bit of the timeline because you mentioned it. All right. Just to just to give you some color on this and why he was so grateful. You've got Monday, May 25th. George Floyd's killed Tuesday, May 26th. The protests first breakout. Fifteen hundred businesses burned.

Wednesday, May 27th. OK, this is Wednesday, two days later, second evening of unrest. That's when the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Fry, first asked Walsh, please, please, please deploy the National Guard at 629 p.m. Walsh did not say yes. We've seen statements from Jacob Fry later saying Walsh is hesitating. He didn't understand why. Hours later, the city's police chief submitted a written request for 600 troops not responded to.

And you've got Walsh acknowledging this is an extremely dangerous situation, but he's not doing anything about it. So Minneapolis burns on the night of Wednesday, May 27th. And it had already been in trouble prior to that because that was the second evening. Now we get to the third day, May 28th, Thursday.

Jacob Fry tweets, please, Minneapolis, we're asking for your help. Keep the peace tonight. His office follows up to Tim Walsh. Where are you? Where's our National Guard? We need help. Now he puts it in writing. Please send in the National Guard. There's widespread looting and arson. They're going into night three of this Thursday. Finally, in the afternoon, 230 Wall signs an executive order activating the National Guard.

saying he really wants to protect the peaceful demonstrators, the neighbors and the small businesses. And then at 4.13 p.m., National Guard's Twitter account says we're ready and prepared. That same night, the third precinct burns. Walz only sent in 90. He only sent in 90 of the National Guardsmen. He had hundreds that he could have sent and he didn't. Then Friday, Trump tweeted,

I can't stand back and watch this happen to a great American city, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak radical left mayor, Jacob Fry, gets his act together and bring the city under control, or I will send in the National Guard and get the job done right. Then he said, just spoke to Governor Tim Walz, told him that the military is with him all the way, any difficulty, and we will assume control. So that's reflected in what we would see a couple of days later. He was talking to Walz saying, send in the damn National Guard.

And now we do know that it wasn't Fry. It was Walsh who was ignoring Jacob Fry and not sending the guard. And then Saturday, May 30th, Tim Walsh finally activated the entire Minnesota National Guard. Trump had offered the use of active duty soldiers to assist. And then the next day, Monday, was Trump's call with those governors. I mean, it's just...

Can I just let me just give you one other thing and I'm going to give you the floor. I've been talking too long. This is the media rather than reading through the transcripts or going. This is not a secret call that we just got our hands on. The media is known about this call since 2020. Here's some of the write ups.

CNN, Trump in 2020 praised Tim Walz's handling of the George Floyd protests. AP News, Trump praised Minnesota Governor Walz in 2020 for response to unrest over Floyd's murder. Audio shows. ABC, despite new criticism, new criticism. Trump told Walz in 2020 he was very happy with his handling of George Floyd protests. The New Republic, newly leaked audio exposes how Trump truly feels about Kamala's VP. I could keep going. This is the game.

This is how it goes. They make up the lies. They deceptively edit. They push the lies with the help of all of the mainstream media, all of them. And then it's up to people like you and me on shows like ours to try to set the record straight.