Best of the Program | Guests: Brian Bergen & Christopher Bedford | 12/12/24
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Aren't you that PBM? Middleman. At your service, doctor. Don't you get rebates that save money on medicines? Oh, PBMs like me get big rebates. So why do patients tell me they're worried about their costs? No one says we have to share the savings with patients. Ha ha ha ha.

Congress should make sure medicine savings go directly to patients, not middlemen. Visit PHRMA.org slash middlemen to learn more. Paid for by pharma. Hey, on today's podcast, the anger at the UnitedHealth CEO was misplaced. Who really should we be angry at?

And how do we solve that? Plus, Brian Bergen is on with us from New Jersey to talk about what's happening in the skies over in New Jersey and Washington, the Republican opposition to Donald Trump, with Chris Bedford, our D.C. correspondent for The Blaze, all on today's podcast. Let me tell you about the Burn It Launcher. It is great. It's great.

Mainly because it can be a lot of fun. For instance, probably a little too close, Stu, I'm going to make the desk a little bigger. So he's maybe about, I don't know, 40 feet away. So it really doesn't, I mean, it'll leave a mark, but it won't, you know, really hurt him. So every time he says something stupid, I can take out my burner launcher and just go shoot him in the chest. The burner launcher is a great, great alternative. You know, when you shoot, you have to shoot to kill.

That's just the way it is. You don't shoot to wound, you shoot to kill. And that's why you just don't ever want to pull your gun out unless you absolutely have to.

But there are situations where less lethal is the way to go. And that's why people have tasers or they have pepper spray, because they don't want to pull out a gun. The Berna launcher looks like a gun, and its barrel looks like it's a cannon coming out at you. It can fire rounds that will just hurt Stu really, really badly. But also tear gas. You hit anywhere, like five feet around this threat,

up to 60 feet away, and they'll be taken down by tear gas for about 40 minutes incapacitated. It is great. It makes a great Christmas gift for every member of the family over 18. You don't need a license, nothing. It's Burna, B-Y-R-N-A dot com slash Glenn, Burna dot com slash Glenn. ♪♪

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. You know, I really didn't think that we would have to start here. But America seems to be thirsty for blood. Now, I want to talk about those people who I believe are in the vast minority that are overjoyed,

Just, I don't know, all just hepped up on the lust of this guy. I mean, this is blood lust. What's going on? The guy who killed the UnitedHealthcare CEO, whose name should stop. People need to stop saying his name. Stop making him into a well-known hero.

or even a well-known individual. Stop saying his name. He's doing more damage. And the press, who we won't say the name of any shooter, unless, of course, they're a conservative, or they're a complete Marxist,

And that is exactly what we're talking about here. I don't care what his ideology is. I don't care who, you know, he took a picture in front of a Trump sign. I could give a flying crap. He is the embodiment of Marxism. And you'll notice that all of the supporters are all of the supporters of all of the deep Marxist ideas.

But Marx was the one who was saying to people, go in, get the bourgeoisie, drag them out in the street and kill them. This is a prediction you remember I made on Fox years ago. Many times, yeah. Yeah. And the first time I said it, it was out of frustration because I was watching the media hold these people up. And I said, are you out of your minds? You think they're going to think you're a friend? Yeah.

They're using you and they will pull you out of your cute little anchor seat and they'll pull you into the streets of New York and beat you to death. And that's exactly who they are. Now, let me start here. How many people do you know? Plus, how many people do you know? Because the death count was on the news every day. The death count of covid is

How many people do you know personally and just through facts of the United States died because of COVID? Whose fault was that? I will tell you. It was the fault of Fauci. Peter, was it not Peter Strzok? It was Eco Alliance. It was China. It was the Wuhan lab. It was China.

big, deep, secret science. It was our federal government and it was the healthcare industry. Some, some. We now know that they knew that this vaccine wasn't effective. We now know they made up many things. How many people had a grandparent die where they had to watch them die on FaceTime?

or standing outside of the nursing home with them not even understanding why you couldn't come in? How many people died because we followed what the government was telling us to do and the government was in bed with these giant pharmaceutical companies and the teachers' unions? Now, out of all of those people that lost a loved one,

And has every reason to be pissed. How many of them that you know or you have read about picked up a gun and killed somebody in the government or Fauci or the United Healthcare people? How many do you know?

Remember, we're talking about people who know they've been betrayed by their government or these healthcare industry or the big pharmaceutical. They know they've been betrayed their families. Did anybody go after the governor of New York who knowingly put sick people into the nursing homes and killed? How many stew and arguably thousands thousands. Okay.

Do you know why they didn't pick up a gun? Because that is not American. That's not the way we do things here. That's the way they do things in Marxist countries. And when those kinds of people get in power, then government becomes force and a fire force.

And then the officials just tell you, see if this sounds familiar, just tells you exactly what to do and what to believe. And if you don't, they'll drag you out into the street. They'll discredit you. They'll make sure you can't work. And at the end, if you still won't comply, they'll beat you to death in the street to teach everybody else a lesson. That's who this guy is. That's who this guy is. This is that's who that's what he wants.

That's what everybody who is standing up now saying, well, it's I don't agree with murder, but they should be afraid. No one in a civil society should be afraid other than afraid for justice. They should be afraid of being exposed and the police coming to pick them up if they broke the law.

The reason why we have vigilante justice is because, why? Why? They're making him into Robin Hood. What's the story of Robin Hood? What is it? Oh, he stole from the rich.

and gave it to the poor. No, that's not the story of Robin Hood. The story of Robin Hood was the sheriff and the king and the nobles, i.e., the government at the time, was taking everything from the poor and feasting on it. They were robbing the poor because they controlled all of the laws.

Robin Hood took the money back from those guys, from the corrupt government, and gave it to the people. That's a story I think I'd like to make very well known that that's an anti-Marxism story. That's an anti-fascist story. That's an anti-huge-government-controls-everything story.

people are calling him robin hood he's not robin hood he wasn't a good guy who did he who did he help do you know what happens when people are afraid and they're already in bed with big government this is the largest public-private partnership probably ever in the history of the world our healthcare industry with the united states government you want to be mad at somebody be mad at the government that they won't let the healthcare industry

carry insurance across state lines. There's all kinds of things that could be done to make sure that our healthcare privately actually works. But because we've had so many damn Marxist and big government people in, they've made all these rules so it falls apart. Why? So they can jam you into something where you become beholden to them.

This is remarkable that there are so many, and I'm glad we're knowing who they are. I really am glad. I'm glad they're exposing themselves. Jimmy Kimmel, what Jimmy Kimmel did last night. I mean, I didn't need any more information on Jimmy Kimmel to know who he was, but we now know he's a guy that will preach against violence.

will preach against people who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, say they are violent, and then come out and hold up vigilante squads and encourage it and laugh at it and make it famous. Here's what Americans do. Americans see a problem. They tolerate it. Unfortunately, they tolerate it, usually way too long.

But nobody likes to step into the unknown. Nobody likes that. You don't like that. If I said, hey, you know, here's some facts that will make you completely change and make you a liberal. And I actually had facts, which don't exist, that would make you into a progressive or a socialist.

Even if I could make that point, most people wouldn't do it. And I could say that about anything. Let me change your religion, your belief. I can prove to you that God doesn't exist. Just say, I could prove to you, which I can't, that God doesn't exist or he does exist. Most people won't go there because it's uncomfortable and foreign. They know that they would have to change everything in their life.

That's why people come to Jesus usually only when they're on their knees, because they have no other option than to change. That's why rich people don't, you know, you don't see the rich people say, you know what, I think I should have some missionaries over and talk to them about Jesus, because their life is fine. What's happening here is we have Marxists praying for

on the people who have been shafted or have felt shafted. And I have news for you. Everyone in this audience has felt shafted by the pharmaceutical companies or the healthcare industry. Everybody. I do. Everybody feels it, one way or another. One reason is because they've made it now. The Marxists have a right now

You have a right to all of it. Well, you don't, but that's beside the point. The government has made it almost impossible for you to actually find ways to make it less expensive. And then the government partnered with these guys, and so they're all in bed with each other, so there's no cop to run to. Well, we ran to a cop because that's what Americans do.

We ran to the cop after we take it and take it and take it. We finally get up off our butts and enough of us go to the ballot box and say enough is enough. That's why I'm so excited about cash Patel. Here's how Americans deal with things. We went to the polls and we voted for Donald Trump, right? We voted for Donald Trump. Why did we vote for Donald Trump this time? It was different than when we voted for him in 2020, right?

We were voting against the corruption in Washington, but we didn't even understand the corruption like we do now. Thank God he wasn't elected in 2020 because now we have a completely different understanding. And we have people from all walks of life joining this movement now going, this has got to stop.

So the reason why I'm so excited for Kash Patel, Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk is because I know those guys are going to expose it all. Now, they may never see justice because, you know, yesterday Biden did more pardons than any president ever in the history of pardons. And he's talking about pardoning people like Fauci. Pardoning him for what? He said he wasn't a criminal.

I don't want him to go to jail or anything else if he didn't break the law. All I want is the truth. That's all you should want. If these guys in the health care industry or pharmaceuticals or the NIH or whatever, as we're talking about the COVID stuff, I just want the truth. In fact, I'll go so far. If he pardons Fauci.

I want the truth about Fauci known, if it is the truth, if we can expose all of the stuff and shows what we believe today it says that he knew and he was covering up. I just want it exposed because I don't want him to have his good name for the rest of his life. People should know he knew and obstructed

He knew and falsified information. He knew and covered up while millions died. That should be known. Do I want somebody to shoot him in the street? Absolutely not. Do I want people to know who he is based on facts, even if the president pardons him and he can never go to jail? I'd rather have him tried and go to jail.

But I at least want it exposed. That's what you voted for. You want the health care system to be fixed. That's what you voted for. You want change? Believe me, change is coming. Only Marxists, only Marxists.

Want to peep to gun people down in the streets and say, get them. They're rich. They're powerful. They're rich. Did I mention they're rich and they're powerful? Kill them. Only Marxist Americans do not do that. Let me tell you about my Patriot supply. You want peace of mind, you know,

I talked to you about preparedness and a lot of people say, well, Donald Trump is in and so it's all going to be good. Well, the world, every time I've spoken to him one-on-one just two days ago, he brought up, if not twice, three times nuclear proliferation and Russia is our biggest problem. It could end everything in an hour. He is so concerned about war and all of the people that want war and

and all of the people around the world that don't want war. Things can change quickly. Please just take this off your plate. A four-week emergency food kit in as little as a day it can be at your house. Right now you can get it for $50 off. It's crazy times that we live in. The entire kit offers 2,000 calories a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks, everything.

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I want to bring in Brian Bergen. I saw Brian on, I think it was X yesterday. He's a New Jersey assemblyman that drove a couple of hours for this meeting with, you know, the DHS and, you know, the FAA and everybody that should know what the heck is going on with these drones. And he walked out early. He was so flaming angry. And I wanted to get him on today. Brian, how are you?

I'm doing great, Glenn. Thanks for having me, man. You bet. So why'd you walk out yesterday? What happened?

Well, so we got called down there, we being all 120 members of the state legislature of New Jersey, the assembly and the Senate, got invited to come down to this special legislator-only briefing down in the state police headquarters. And the state police was there, and the Department of Homeland Security was there, and they were supposed to tell us what's going on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on just a second. So they didn't even come to you?

They said to all of the legislators instead of how many guys were speaking, 10? Less. Less than 10. Okay. All right. That's good. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So we all went there. And then the first thing that they say is this is not a classified briefing. And in fact, we could have probably let the press in. And then they just went on and said that they know nothing. And.

And they have no understanding what's going on. They don't know where they're coming from, where they're going to, or who's responsible for it. And so I was just pissed that we're there to listen to such a Bush League amateur hour presentation that they could have given us by a text message. And what really got me upset was

was the primary reason why I left early was two things. The Colonel of the state police said that he had a helicopter of his hovering directly above one of these drones, which he called a six foot drone, but he felt unsafe for his pilots and had them land. 10 minutes later,

Ten minutes later, he says, hey, it'd be really nice to know where these things are coming from or they're going to. And I'm like, well, why did you follow the frigging thing when you had it in your sights? I mean, I have no idea why. I want the audience to know you were an Apache helicopter pilot in Iraq. You have a Bronze Star Combat Action badge, several honors. You graduated West Point.

You're not a nobody on what happens in the sky.

Right. Right. That's yeah, that's exactly right. And I mean, first of all, when he said is people are hovering above it, I was like, well, that's stupid. Who hovers above a target? You know, you want to get a standoff distance and follow it, you know, so you can use your systems to, to track it. And it was just, yes, I'm speaking from some level of experience here, but more importantly, it was just common sense. You have this thing in your sites that, you know, uh,

is potentially a threat because we don't know where it's coming from, where it's going to, where it's controlling it. And it's six feet big in the sky and you just let it go. I mean, it was mind boggling to me. And the second thing that they said that really,

sent me through the moon was the Department of Homeland Security has some device that they're going to give to the state police that will help them identify drones in the sky. And it's supposed to be pretty cool technology. It filters out birds and stuff like that. And it's supposed to be really good. Anyway, one of my colleagues said, well, when are you going to get it? And the colonel of state police said it should be here in a couple of days. And I was like, in my head, should be here in a couple of days. What the hell are you doing? Somebody go get in a van and

And drive it to frickin New Jersey right now. You know, I mean, Glenn, this is the level of stupidity that we're dealing with here. And that's why I was so frustrated. So let me run a couple of things by you. First, somebody came out, you know, a congressman came out yesterday and said, I've got it on good authority that it's Iran and they got a ship off Iran.

If that were true, would we not have followed these things back to the ship? If they're going back over the water and they're not ours, why wouldn't we be blowing them up over the water?

Well, so that's a great question. And it was Congressman Van Drew who said that. And I think very highly of Congressman Van Drew. And he's not someone who normally says something outlandish like that. Right. In this case, you know, I rag on our state government all the time, and in this case, Homeland Security. But our U.S. Navy is a force to be reckoned with. Correct. The best in the world. Now, I'm a West Point grad. It is Army-Navy week, so I hope we beat the hell out of Navy this weekend. But I got...

I got to give them some respect. They would not allow an Iranian ship of any kind to get close to us. I find that to be pretty unusual that that would happen. So the next thing is, if we couldn't track these things, I've been in the New Jersey and New York area. There's a lot of airplanes in the sky. And if you can't track these and you don't know where they are,

You would ground all of the planes because you don't know if they're hostile to planes. You don't know if one of them just gets into the flight path of another. There are planes everywhere in the sky. So, again, that leads me to believe you can track these and you know where they're coming from.

Yeah, I don't know all the technology available to them. What I do know is we're the United States of America, and I live in a state, New Jersey, which has a $56 billion budget. The fact that we don't have the resources available to us to figure this out is ludicrous. And you're right. There's a lot of – the concerns keep piling up.

Piling up now, one that you mentioned, what if they go dark, as the governor said? That's a danger to other aircraft that operate visual flight rules at night. There's a lot of potential issues here. Some lawmakers are calling for a shutdown of drone activity in the sky, but we don't even know who these people are, what they're doing. They're certainly not going to listen if we shut down the activity. Right.

Let's take all the guns from the good guys. Right, I got it. Yeah, right. But what we do need to do is common sense. It just needs to be an all-hands-on-deck approach. The state police, the National Guard, which can be mobilized by the governor, the Department of Homeland Security, and they need to

follow one of these suckers to wherever it goes and let's figure out who's responsible. So here's what, here's what baffles me, Brian, you get a one guy with a laser pointer in his backyard and he points it at an airplane and a pilot and the FAA tackles that guy. They, they grapple down from helicopters and make sure that never happens again. How do we, if this is some private citizen who,

or citizens doing it, how would we not know that? You're 100% right. And that's why in the interview I had yesterday and a couple of others, I said it's a lack of effort. It has to be a lack of effort. The FBI is an amazing organization that takes down people all the time before they do all kinds of crazy stuff.

You know, they have a litany of successes that they can point to of stopping things before they happen because of their counterterrorism efforts and their intelligence efforts. Why the hell they can't find anybody responsible for this or pick up any chatters crazy? Okay, so let me give you my theory, and please, if you think it's nonsense, shoot it full of holes.

My uncle used to be in military intelligence back in the 60s and 70s. And he did all of the nuclear stuff. And when the stealth B-1 bomber came out, the wing...

Uh, he said old technology. And I said, but, and he's cause remember it was first spotted and they were like, what is that? It's a UFO. And he's like, that's been available for a while. They'll announce it to the country and they'll fly it around and then people will speculate. And then they'll say, Oh yeah, we have a B one bomber. It's new. Um, I think, uh,

A good chance is we are sending someone a message or we're doing something with the, I mean, Russia just launched, you know, a hypersonic missile. It doesn't make sense that our government doesn't know what this is and can't stop it and doesn't see it as a danger. What makes sense is they're lying to us. They know what this is and it's not extraterrestrial and it's not any of that crap.

What do you think? - Yeah, well, so I don't disagree with the premise that you have here. One of the things that I will say is unique to this area and where all this is happening is we have a military installation called Picatinny Arsenal. And it's very important to Picatinny Arsenal that there's good community relations

because we want to maintain that here and it's a huge resource for the Army where it's at. Any uncertainty about what's going on military-wise around here is bad for them and bad for the future of Picatinny. So they have an incentive to...

to over-communicate when things are happening, and they often do that when they're doing testing. They over-communicate. So in this area here, it's probably unlikely that there would be anything that the government would want to do that would cause public concern. So then what are you left with that makes sense to you the most?

You know, to be honest, I'm not left with much. The only thing, before I went to this briefing, I would have told you it's FedEx or UPS or Amazon testing out delivery capabilities of aircraft, you know, and they want to do it at night so as not to freak people out. But then, you know, by this point, it's blown up so high you would think somebody would say something.

they would say, oh yeah, hey, it's us, chill out. So I really don't know. I'm legitimately concerned, and I am not a conspiracy theorist. I'm not one that jumps to conclusions, but the fact that nobody knows, and the people who are supposed to know give us no confidence. - And you believe they don't know. You believe they don't know.

Yeah, I do. Could the CIA know? Maybe. I wasn't briefed by them, but I believe the state police and the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon do not know. I really do. And that's scary. It's equally as scary if I'm wrong. And they do know when they're doing this to us. So...

But that's the world we live in today. Yeah. It's always like, it could be this, which would mean Jesus is coming, but it could mean this, which would end with Jesus coming. Yeah, that's right, Glenn. But in this situation, this is the part that frustrates me. They can just figure it out. I don't understand. I told him, give me a platoon of men, a couple Apache helicopters. We'll follow these frigging things, and we will figure it out for you. Somebody can get this done. They're just choosing not to do it.

I know somebody with an Apache, a private individual with an Apache helicopter. Well, let's get it over here, Glenn. I'm ready to go. A little rusty probably, but I think I can figure it out. They're probably listening right now. If you want to check in, we'll maybe line that up. Thank you so much. I love it. Appreciate it. God bless you, Brian. Thanks for having me. You bet. You're streaming the best of the Glenn Beck program, and you can find full episodes wherever you download podcasts.

So every day I get a newsletter, the Beltway Brief from TheBlaze.com slash Bedford. That's how you can sign up for it. But Christopher Bedford is the writer of the Beltway Brief, and he is our Washington correspondent, and he is up on things. He wrote a story today about Mitch McConnell and his secret war on Trump.

This is not going to improve your mood much, but this is why the deep state is not just on the left. It's on the right, too. This guy is the most, I think he has the highest disapproval rating or disgust rating of any senator.

It's Mitch McConnell. Chris is on the phone with us now. Chris, welcome. It's great to be here. Thank you. Okay. Tell everybody the story.

Absolutely. So Mitch McConnell is obviously a well-known figure. He's the least popular senator in the entire country. But he's also been the longest serving leader in the Senate of any party. And he's technically given up that title to John Thune, someone who was a longtime loyalist to McConnell. But he's sticking around. And he's not just sticking around in the peripherals. He's not just on the sidelines because he wants to finish out his term with the Democratic governor.

It's because he still has a lot of power. He's going to be getting in charge of the influential Senate Rules Committee. He's going to be in charge of Senate defense appropriations. And over the last month, literally since Donald Trump's resounding win, his national vote win, his win that put him in the pantheon along with Reagan and Nixon for real massive comebacks and real ability to get there.

He's already been publicly attacking Donald Trump. He went to the AEI dinner, which is a bunch of neoconservatives and kind of part of the old right. He went there just a week after the election and announced his intention to stand for Donald Trump's foreign policy and a populist reimagining of what's really been a failed foreign policy for the United States for the last 30 years.

He gave an interview that came out yesterday saying that he's going to try and do everything he can to keep this, the money flowing towards the wars abroad, Ukraine, Syria, the Middle East, which is against what the people just voted for. But he's a shadow operator. He's not someone who needs the limelight. He's not one of those people who chases the camera. So over the last couple months and years, oftentimes you'd see other senators come forward with his fingerprints all over it.

So how do you see this playing out?

So far, usually McConnell, he's only become so powerful because he wins. You'd see an example of this when Tommy Tuberville made his brave stand against the Department of Defense and said they had to end their illegal abortion rules or he wasn't going to confirm any generals. He was attacked by all these different Republicans. The person who orchestrated that was Mitch McConnell, who eventually won.

But he has been taking a bruising recently, too. For example, he's the one who's behind James Lankford's Senate bill, which was a complete disaster to try and give amnesty and work with Democrats on processing more border crossings. When that went down, you see McConnell just kind of flitter away. He's not really in the headlines. He even actually voted against the bill. He stabbed Lankford in the back. Oh, my gosh, this guy's a dirtbag.

It's wild. He never gave up anyone who wasn't going down at the end of the party. Now you see Joni Ernst kind of flipping in the wind here. She's in trouble. She's retreating. And you see McConnell kind of slithering away. But at the same time, he's giving these speeches saying he's intending to still be a stick in the mud. And it's not the House of Representatives. One powerful senator can really hold up the Trump administration. So it's going to come down to a battle of wills if he decides this.

to stick it out and actually really go at him. It's going to pit John Thune against Mitch McConnell, or it's going to put him in Donald Trump's crosshairs. Good luck with that. It's going to become a real battle for who controls Washington, D.C., long after the election's over. What do you think of the idea, Mike Lee floated this, and I think it's brilliant, what John Adams did,

When he was vice president, he just he went in and whoever's in the seat, whoever is the highest seated person is in charge of the Senate. And the vice president, you know, is a tie breaking vote. But he can do much more than that. He can actually take control of the Senate. If Donald Trump starts having problems like this, why wouldn't why wouldn't he just send over a very capable vice president?

And just say, here's our agenda. Here's what we're doing. Here's what here's what's happening. Why wouldn't he do that?

I think he ought to. I think that'd be a really great role for Senator Vance, I mean now vice president-elect Vance. He only spent a few short years in Washington, D.C., but he had an extremely capable team. He worked really hard and in that time he was going to butt heads with Republicans, rolling to butt heads with Democrats, and had an impact on that chamber, which you don't usually see in the first few years of someone who's new to Washington's Senate career. But

he could come back and he could really wreck that sort of thing i mean his deputy chief of staff james braden ended up becoming the director for legislative affairs for donald trump that's a good move this is the kind of guy who doesn't just listen to politics he also reads the books he's reading lbj's history of the senate he's digging through the rules he's digging through the history

People who actually know how to try and get things done there. You don't want... J.D. Vance is going to end up having a pretty big portfolio, it seems. He's going to have a lot of responsibilities, more than maybe the OVC with the vice president. So he may be a little busy, but he's certainly got some capable folks, and he's able to get in there. But even if you don't take it over forever, even if you just go in at the beginning, if they start to slow down, Donald Trump has to have...

His appointments has to have them quickly and he has to get his agenda done in the first hundred days or they are going to they're going to they're they will stop this any way they can. He needs the Republicans at the beginning, at least for the first hundred days to move and move quickly. That was the secret of the Obama administration.

That was, and this is really the time he's got to do it. This is why you see them right now. They're kind of arguing about how to approach this. You've got January when everyone's going to come back to town, get to work. And there are some Republicans who are trying to attach basically a whole litany of what the Senate and the House wants to do.

the early legislation. You see Jason Smith, for example, he's trying to add tax reform to Donald Trump's early agenda. And you've seen the Trump team saying, heck no, we don't want to bog this down with tax. We want to do tax reform, but you can do that next. The first step is the Trump administration's promise to the American people. It's a border bill. It's an immigration bill. It's a deportation bill. That's what we want. And we want our nominees across the board. And we don't want to mess around with that at all. But

But the people in Congress and the people in the Senate, they don't really like to listen that much to the will of the American people. So it is going to come down a little bit to a battle of wills. And it's also going to come down to how hard President Trump really wants to work on this. An engaged president.

who really cares about Capitol Hill and is willing to navigate it, can get a huge amount done. The ability for Trump to pick up that phone, the ability of Trump to send that tweet, to rattle that saber, to actually be engaged, that's going to be kind of key here. So give me the carrot that can be used, especially with McConnell, and the stick.

So McConnell's big thing is his legacy and his foreign policy legacy. He's trying to tie Donald Trump's hands on Ukraine. He's trying to tie Donald Trump's hands in the Middle East. And I don't know if there's many carrots that are really going to move him right now. He's too advanced in his career. He's obviously nearing the end of his career.

But there's certainly a stick. And McConnell, I'm going to write about this further for next week. But McConnell operates a massive influence network in Washington, D.C., a patronage network where his people are hired all over town. Just mid-level staffers don't need to be in charge. They have access to the money. They have access to the lobbyists. They have access to the power.

If you want to really crush an influence machine in D.C., you need to ban those people. You need to stop that. You need to stop the hiring. You need to say, we're not going to work with firms to hire these people. We're not going to hire those people. And you're going to have to push people like John Thune to stand out and stand apart from McConnell and show that they're their own man. Donald Trump will certainly have the will to do that. Can he just poison that well if he has to?

I think if he has to right now, this people are holding their fire. They're waiting. McConnell sent out a couple of smoke signals and warnings saying he intends to do this. But at the same time, when you read the interviews about Pete Hegseth, you read the interviews about Tulsi Gabbard, you'd see no interview. You see no mention of Mitch McConnell because he's kept quiet. He's not done taking the meetings. But at the end of the day, everyone's waiting to see, is the old man going to try and burn it all down? And if that's the case, I think you'll start to see open war. Yeah, I, I, um,

Have you spent much time with the president lately, Chris?

President-elect. Not since his election. Yeah, he is a different man, and he is dead serious. He knows now, unlike his first term, he knows where the bodies are buried. He knows his friends, his enemies. He knows what he wants to accomplish, and he has boned up on how Washington works. He's not going to take no for an answer. He will just slash and burn

to get things done because he knows. He's told me a million times, I have 100 days to get the big stuff done or it ain't going to get done. You know, I think that we are fortunate as a country that he lost that last election and came back now. The team he has around him, the seriousness of which they're approaching this, the mandate from the American people, the respect of the global leaders,

the dream team he's pulled together, all of it combined for what could be an absolutely historic lifetime presidency. I have to tell you, from here on out, I'm just, when something doesn't go my way, you know, or our way for politics, I will always look to 2020 because we wouldn't even have known how deep the infection was had Biden and Harris not gotten in. We wouldn't have seen how close they were and what

perversion they were planning for our country. We are so blessed he didn't win in 2020.

Absolutely. The enemy is laid bare. And it's a good time to be winning again, just in time for the Christmas holidays. Yeah. Chris, thank you so much. And thanks for your newsletter every day. It's really, really good. You can sign up for the Beltway Brief now at TheBlaze.com slash Bedford. TheBlaze.com slash Bedford. Na, na, na, na.

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