From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - How Congress Can Take Action Against The Democrat's Power Grab

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Sean and Rachel react to Congressman James Comer's request for the National Archives to release thousands of emails that contain alleged evidence that President Biden had direct knowledge of Hunter Bi...den's overseas business dealings.  Later, they discuss why House Republicans must fight to cut the federal budget by cutting funding to the FBI and Department of Justice, in order to rein in what they perceive as a two-tiered system of justice for Democrats and Republicans.  Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:35 BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, Rachel
Starting point is 00:01:19 Campos Duffy. It's so great to be back at our kitchen table and sean you had a really interesting interview with our friend senator ron johnson from wisconsin somebody that you and i consider probably the greatest fighter in all of the u.s senate right now he's fighting on debt and deficits and fought back on covid um he fought on behalf of the covid injured, the most forgotten group besides the unborn. By the way, he fights for the unborn as well. He's a fighter. He's a warrior.
Starting point is 00:01:51 And so we had a segment last night where we were talking about, and we're going to get into this, the lies around COVID vaccines and masks. And I was asking Senator Johnson, the real answer is that we should use the budget cycle. Well, so the American budget is funded through the end of September. And if you don't refund it, the government shuts down. The Congress has to do that. So I was asking Senator Johnson, why don't you use the power of the purse? And let's go to his answer to that. To get back at these agencies that aren't are are
Starting point is 00:02:26 lying to the american people okay listen again what i've been advocating for years is on one of these must pass piece of legislation having to do with appropriations or debt ceiling attached to it a bill called preventing government shutdown act i passed it at least once maybe twice out of my committee completely bipartisan It's a bill James Langford, Maggie Hassan were the sponsors. It would get rid of any threat of a government shutdown. By the way, Sean, it does exactly what we do in the state of Wisconsin. If there's dysfunction, you don't shut down the government. You just spend it last year's levels. What could be more common sense about that? We've never even got a legitimate vote on that yet.
Starting point is 00:03:04 common sense about that. We've never even got a legitimate vote on that yet. But don't you have to take their money away? I mean, they laugh at us that Republicans fund these crazy ideas. And to stay at last year's levels, they're rewarded. We've got to take their money away to get responses and responsibility. In order to do that, you need the leverage to be able to negotiate lower spending. Right now, Republicans don't have leverage. Let's face it. Who's the media going to blame for a government shutdown? They blame Republicans. So Republicans always blink.
Starting point is 00:03:32 If we had Preventing Government Shutdown Act in place, we'd just say, we're not going to shut down the government. You want to fund, if you want more funding for X, Y, and Z, come talk to us, we'll negotiate. If you think this is a higher priority, what's a lower priority? We'll stop spending there. You need that kind of leverage, which Republicans have never had. And quite honestly, Republicans weren't willing to produce that leverage in the debt ceiling fight.
Starting point is 00:03:54 It's very unfortunate. But here we are. Maybe, maybe in this government shutdown showdown, maybe we'll insist on getting a vote on preventing government shutdown act. Put that in place. Give us leverage in these budget fights. So, Sean, you love Senator Johnson. You hate this bill and you hate his approach. Well, I do.
Starting point is 00:04:14 And again, and I can't say it enough, the respect I have. And by the way, as we've listened to this clip, Rachel, you would say that sounds, Sean, like an answer you would have given when you were in Congress. Yes, I'm getting deja vu. Senator Johnson, I feel like I was married to Senator Johnson for like 10 years hearing that answer. So why is that? Well, so let's unpack what he was talking about, right? So he's saying, listen, we don't want the government to shut down. We're going to fund the government minimally at last year's levels. Last year's levels, remember the deal that was passed with Democrats and Republicans in the Senate in December before Republicans took control of the House?
Starting point is 00:04:56 They juiced up all the spending. You have massive increases in government spending that happened through COVID. So going back to last year's levels is no punishment at all for anybody in government. Because it was so bloated from COVID. And again, an answer I could have given, and I agree with them, the media is never going to be on your side. If there's a government shutdown, all of them are going to blame Republicans. No matter how credible their points are, Republicans are going to be bludgeoned and Democrats are going to be seen as heroes.
Starting point is 00:05:31 If the government shuts down. But he's saying, let's do a prevent the government shutdown bill. Well, he was also saying, so let me talk about this point first, though, which is the fact that the media is going to come after you as a Republican. No matter what. No matter what. But the media never voted for you. Your constituents voted for you to go to Washington and fight to stop the insanity. So, yeah, they're going to blame you in the media, but you can go home and message through your local media. You can have town halls and you can engage in a fight as a party and go around the media, almost like Donald Trump did or Ron DeSantis did down in Florida and talk directly to the people.
Starting point is 00:06:11 But I look at, so Rachel, I look at funding the government again at last year's levels. This is the mentality of our Republican, I think all of them, Republican members of the House and the Senate. And I'm like, we want to fund the FBI and the DOJ and the CIA at last year's bloated levels. These are the very same people who concocted Russia collusion with Hillary Clinton, leaked stories to the press to keep that alive for multiple years. for multiple years um these are the people who actually tried to uh this was this was a deep state coup yeah um on a duly elected president trying to take him down through the power of this very deep state you want to fund these people they're the same years levels the same people that you know won't hand over documents that would help you see whether or not Joe Biden was at the very minimum committing acts of corruption at the very maximum, treason. These are the same people coming up with, who refuse to hand over documents, by the way, that show that they knew the origins of COVID,
Starting point is 00:07:24 that they were actually funding the lab in Wuhan. They're holding on to all kinds of stuff. So we're talking about the people. The people. The deep state. Right. The agencies. We're talking about the National Archives
Starting point is 00:07:38 that won't turn over Joe Biden's emails that he used an alias to email Hunter Biden. By the way, you made this point before the podcast started. Who do those emails belong to? They belong to the American people. And they won't hand them over. The archives has like 4,000. And by the way, right now, I would 100% defund the National Archives. First of all, the National Archives put trigger warnings on our founding documents. They said our founding documents were, you know, insensitive. They put trigger warnings so that people reading our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, etc., wouldn't get triggered and hurt, get hurt feeling. So this is a place that has completely lost its way and its mission.
Starting point is 00:08:26 But they hold on to these documents. That is the agency that worked with the FBI and the DOJ to go after Donald Trump with the Mar-a-Lago raid. So they're happy to work with them on that level. But then when the Republicans come to the National Archives and say, hey, by the way, there's like 5,000 emails with a weird ass alias for Joe Biden that shows connections to him and Hunter and Burisma and the Russians and the Chinese. Hand over those. We want to see them. And they say, no, no, no, we need to see them first, which means we want to redact them first. We want to make sure that if they're damaging emails, we don't give them to you. We don't give them to you or we'll redact them so that they're of no use to you. We have to talk to Joe Biden first before we turn those over. Right. Not only that, this is the group that says we're going to go after Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but we're going to try to slow walk Joe Biden having classified documents, not as the vice president, which he was not qualified to have, but also as a U.S. senator.
Starting point is 00:09:19 Yeah, I remember they were in his garage by his Corvette. And by the way, they were also documents about Ukraine as we've come to learn, which of course his son was making deals with Ukraine and trying to prove that he had the inside track. So this is really corrupt stuff. It wasn't like what they claimed that Donald Trump did, which was he wanted to preserve
Starting point is 00:09:39 some letter from Kim Jong-un for his... So stick with us because we're going to talk about further what the Congress should do and how they do it. I know we're kind of going off on. No, but I think you have to lay out why this is so serious. I mean, the Department of Justice has refused to prosecute Hunter Biden. Now, special counsel Weiss has been appointed total scam. The Department of Justice doesn't want to prosecute Hunter, the president's son, for crimes that they have Hunter Biden dead to rights on. The gun charge, dead to rights. Tax evasion, dead to rights. Anyone else would be prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to whether it's four, eight, ten years in prison, but not Hunter Biden.
Starting point is 00:10:21 They wanted to give him a sweetheart plea deal where he had misdemeanor charges on the taxes, deferred prosecution agreement on the guns, and then he had immunity for everything else. I mean, this is crazy. It's the FBI who's going after her. And so your point in all of this, Sean, is that you're saying, here you are, you're the Republican Party.
Starting point is 00:10:42 You only have one thing. You have a majority in the House. So you only have You're the Republican Party. You only have one thing. You have you have a majority in the House. So you only have half of the Congress. You have a majority in half of the Congress. And what you do have in the House is the power of the purse. And you have all these corrupt agencies that are working against you, that are trying to imprison your leading candidate for president, prison, your leading candidate for president that are imprisoning any activists who have worked on your behalf, like all the January 6th people who, you know, many are getting the flipping book thrown at them. Some of them even committed suicide.
Starting point is 00:11:12 So your protesters are going to prison. They're letting go and giving light sentences to all the leftist, you know, activists who were working on behalf of BLM and Antifa. So and you have, you know have all of this stuff happening. You're seeing the persecution, maximum punishment for your side, minimum, if nothing, to the left. And you're going, I'm just going to give you a little less money, which is essentially what the Republican Congress is saying.
Starting point is 00:11:40 And you're saying, defund these people. We're going to give you the same amount of money we're just not gonna we're gonna punish you by not increasing your budget even further right that's the point we'll have more of this conversation after this welcome to the business billy bob thornton demi moore and john ham star in a new paramount plus original series the world has already convinced itself that you are evil and I am evil for providing them the one thing they interact with every day. You're all right. Here we go. From Taylor
Starting point is 00:12:10 Sheridan, executive producer of Yellowstone. Get everybody back. Go! Go! You just put a giant bullseye on this place. We rolled the dice one last time. Landman, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Just to add one little salt in the wound, the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC,
Starting point is 00:12:30 they have lied to the American people about the effectiveness of vaccines. Completely lied. And masks. And masks. Misinformation, disinformation. And now based on those lies, which they've never corrected, they've doubled down on those lies, and they've tried to shut down the speech of people, great scientists, who actually were trying to tell us the truth. They silenced with the help of social media companies.
Starting point is 00:12:52 You want to fund them? So this is the point. Exactly, Sean. You have a U.S. Congress held by Republicans, and the old saying, the power of the purse, all these funding bills start in the House. Right. So just to take a step back, if I want to pass a bill on, I want to go really light. I want to name a post office.
Starting point is 00:13:13 Right. That's the lamest thing a member of Congress does, by the way, is name a post office. I committed. Have you ever named a post office? I committed when I went to Congress. I was never going to name a post office. And by the way, I did. I did name a post office.
Starting point is 00:13:24 That's like, Sean, that's like when I did the Price is Right. I was on the Price is Right, by the way. I was never going to name a post office. And by the way, I did. I did name a post office. That's like when I did The Price is Right. I was on The Price is Right by the way. I was a contestant and I swore I was never going to act crazy if they called my name. You don't know because you're surprised. You're not going to scream and put your arms in the air?
Starting point is 00:13:39 Oh yeah. They said, Rachel Campos, come on down. I went did all the stuff and I ran down the stairs and I waved my hands. I went, what? Did all the stuff. And I ran down the stairs. And I waved my hands. I did it too. So you did it in Congress. You went to, what did you name the post office? It was one I think over in Baldwin I did.
Starting point is 00:13:54 I can't remember. You didn't even name it after me. I know. Like you named your boat after me. They would have objected to that. Ah, damn it. I don't think you were a World War II vet that we named it after. But that aside, so here's what you have to do.
Starting point is 00:14:07 An easy bill like that. You have to have someone introduce a bill in the House. Then you need co-sponsors. It has to go to the House floor, and the House has to pass it. It has to go to the Senate. The Senate, all the senators have to pass that bill as well. It has to go to the president's desk, and the president has to sign it. That can be a very complicated process.
Starting point is 00:14:23 It takes a lot of time. But when you have must-pass bills, like you had the debt limit bill, or when you have the government funding that runs out at the end of September every single year, the Congress has to pass a funding bill, 12 appropriations bills. They have to appropriate money to fund the government. and if they don't do it these agencies don't get any money and the government shuts down the government shuts down and everyone's afraid of the government shutting down because when the government shuts down the media as you said gets on is always on the side of the democrats and if somebody doesn't get a
Starting point is 00:14:58 check if something doesn't happen if something goes wrong they'll say it's the republicans fault and it usually because senator johnson's right it usually works out not great for Republicans. They're blamed in the media. And so all of them are afraid of the media reaction. And so they are afraid. But I'm not advocating shutting down the government. What I am advocating is passing bills that say, you know what, FBI, you have way too much money. passing bills that say, you know what, FBI, you have way too much money. If you have money to go after and target parents who protest or want their voices heard at a school board meeting,
Starting point is 00:15:31 you have too much money. If you want to target traditional Catholics in Catholic churches, you have way too much money. Well, that aside, we hear insurrection. It's an insurrection. Donald Trump could have been, it's illegal to participate in an insurrection. They would have charged Donald Trump with insurrection in Washington, D.C. if he had committed insurrection. They did not charge him with insurrection. But they're using insurrection, Sean, to take Donald Trump's name off of ballots in certain states. I mean, so we have to get to the bottom of whether they're, you know, we have to come to a consensus as a country. Was there insurrection or not?
Starting point is 00:16:08 And you can also put guardrails around the money that you give. You can say, okay, you can, FBI and DOJ, you can use none of the money that we appropriate to go after anybody that was involved in January 6th. They can do that? They can do that? You're done. So why haven't they done that, Sean? That's the point of this conversation.
Starting point is 00:16:25 It's mind numbing, isn't it? I had no idea that they could actually put those kind of guardrails. So the Department of Health and Human Services that continues to lie to the American people, they shouldn't be funded at last year's levels. So I'm not saying let's defund all of government, but I'm saying you have to make these agencies pay for lying to us and misrepresenting the truth to us and being partisan activists on behalf of Democrats. That's the only way they're going to stop laughing at you.
Starting point is 00:16:51 That's the only way they're going to stop targeting you is if they think you're serious. And so again, Republicans have all the power they need. They don't need the presidency to do this. They don't need the Senate to do this. All they need is the House to take care of this issue. And it'll be a fight, and they'll be demonized, and they'll be criticized. But let me ask you the flip side, Rachel. Let's say that Republicans fund the government somewhere near last year's levels. And I guarantee you, almost all of them have gone home to town halls and they've been outraged at all of the abuse of the deep state and all of the abuse of power. And then they have to come back
Starting point is 00:17:31 after sending all of this money to these agencies that hate half of the American people. How do you go home and argue that to your constituents and say, and by the way, I want you to vote for me again because I'm a true fighter. I'm a grappler. I'm a scrapper. I'm going to fight for you. And if I'm a voter, I'm going to go, listen, I gave you a chance to fight for me. I gave you a chance to do what's right, to make sure we can right the American ship. And you didn't take that opportunity. It's one thing if Nancy Pelosi is a speaker and you have no power in the house. It's one thing if Nancy Pelosi is a speaker and you have no power in the house. I get that.
Starting point is 00:18:07 There's nothing you can do. It's a majority body. But you do have the power now. How are you going to use that power? Do they understand the crossroads that we're at in America? And I think we started going down the commie path. Can they bring us back? Do they understand that's the fight we're in? And will they use the power that the American people have given them? And I think the answer to that is going to be a resounding no.
Starting point is 00:18:45 there i've seen how they operate i see how the deep state works i see how the deep state is in the tank for the democrat party how they will go after and weaponize government against um republicans that was by the way before the mar-a-lago raid before the four indictments before the mugshot so this thing has gone like it is magnified to a level we can't even we couldn't have imagined back then and he said the answer was defunding, using the power of the purse to either shut down the government or, as you said, he actually suggested just taking enough away to where it's painful. So what I think is interesting, Sean, is that you had a conversation with, I think, the greatest warrior in the U.S. Senate, Senator Ron Johnson. And yet Senator Ron Johnson has that mindset, as we kind of joked about, that bubble. And what I think would be interesting for our listeners to try to understand is how do you get a guy like Ron Johnson, who's, by the way, independently wealthy, has an independent thinker, has an independent thinker was absolutely couldn't have been a bigger warrior during the COVID tyranny that we endured and still are enduring.
Starting point is 00:19:50 And he's still the only one trying to get to that. One of the only ones trying to get to the bottom of all the stuff. And yet he says things like, you know, we got to be worried about the media and is sort of concerned about the optics, the political optics of this. What happens in Washington, D.C.? Explain that bubble that happens. Because I think the American people are in the mood for revolution. I really do.
Starting point is 00:20:16 I think when Vivek Ramaswamy says, I'm not interested in reforming. I'm interested in revolution. I think it's resonating. And I'm not saying, like, I want bloodshed. But people aren't voting on the Republican side. They're not voting for Donald Trump at 60% because they want to reform around the edges. They want somebody to come in and shake up. Actually, they want somebody to absolutely change the system, disrupt, total disruption.
Starting point is 00:20:45 But to be clear, it's a revolution to go back to our founding principles. It's a 1776 revolution. We believe in ultimate individual freedom and liberty and limited government. And those ideas right now are revolutionary because that's not what we have. It's a good question. Like what happens in Congress? And I thought about it a lot because I'm like, why did I do some of the things that I did? Why did I vote sometimes the way that I did? And so it's a team sport, right? You succeed or fail as a group of Republicans and or Democrats.
Starting point is 00:21:14 And you got to kind of stick together. And sometimes, you know, you can take a certain vote on an issue. But there might be someone from upstate New York from a moderate district where they, you know, they can't take that vote. And, you know, so you'll moderate bills. So the more moderate members of your, of the Republican caucus can, it's more palatable for them and they can vote for it. And there becomes this, this, this, it's not, it's not not mob mentality in the sense of, you know, going out and riding it, but it's a mob mentality. It's not mob mentality in the sense of going out and riding, but it's a mob mentality. Is that like a mindset? Yes, where I think you lose some perspective.
Starting point is 00:21:50 You have a perspective of that institution. You have a perspective of the body. And you lose perspective of the true fight that you're in. And listen, I have a lot of friends still in Congress. And I think so many of them don't understand that we are at a critical moment in this country. And no one has the power that they as a group have to fix it, to stave off the crisis. And you can't stave off a crisis if you don't understand a crisis is existing. It's unfolding before your eyes.
Starting point is 00:22:25 don't understand a crisis is existing. It's unfolding before your eyes. And when, again, that Donald Trump is being prosecuted, they're going after their political opponent. There's nothing more divisive than that, separating the country and ripping the country in two, that you wouldn't go, hell no, we're not. Listen, we are going to severely curtail the money that we give you because you're going to go after the lead Republican candidate for the presidency. But that's not where they're at, Rachel. They're like, well, maybe we should fund them at last year's level. So I'm like, what planet are you guys living on if you don't see that they're going to take over the country? you guys living on, if you don't see that they're going to take over the country, the communist revolution is unfolding before your eyes and they're going to do it without you objecting, without you fighting, without a shot being fired.
Starting point is 00:23:13 They're going to take it all over and you're going to help them manage the great transition from freedom to communism in America. And you're just one little cog in the wheel slowing it down just a little bit. But it's inevitable to happen because you won't fight. Yeah. When you talk about communism, I think it's really important for people to understand that when we talk about communism, people always think about it in terms of economics. Communism is just there's only one ideology that's accepted. There's only one point of view accepted.
Starting point is 00:23:44 Stop thinking about it the way you learned about it in school. Communism is not an economic thing. It is an ideology thing. It means there is no opposition. You're all too good to the party. It's just the party. You've crushed your opposition. You've used
Starting point is 00:24:00 the power of the state to crush all opposing voices. And that is exactly what we're heading to. And I think, Sean, what the Republicans in Congress don't realize is that it's not just Donald Trump. They are on the menu, too. They are on the menu, too. And all the voters that vote for them are on.
Starting point is 00:24:18 And your voter and your exactly your voters are on the menu. We're all on the menu. We are the opposition. We are being crushed by the state. We are on the menu we're all on the menu we are the opposition we are being crushed by the state we are being having the power you know there is a there's maximum punishment if you're a republican you are a protected class if you're a democrat or a princeling like hunter biden um so that is absolutely happening and i think it was interesting you said what was it like when you were in the house i had an interesting perspective sean as as a spouse what was it well you got mad at me a lot
Starting point is 00:24:52 i was like his most annoying constituent was i you and my mom yeah you and your mom for different reasons she was a democrat and i was uh i i lived in was, uh, I lived in, I, my, I was lived in a little more red district than Sean actually lived in. Um, they would say so, but, but here's the thing is I think it's not, it's not because the guys in Congress are bad. It's not because you were bad.
Starting point is 00:25:15 It's not, it's not. What happens is really good people, really great people. The bubble is real. And so when you're in Congress, your schedule is super busy. And the people that are closest to you who help you develop your strategy, your bills, your legislation, your ideas are all people who live in D.C.
Starting point is 00:25:35 It's your staffers, right? Yeah. It's your staffers. And they are there. And your sounding board are D.C. staffers who, by the way, sometimes don't have your best or your constituents' best interest because they live in D.C. And they might want to have an afterlife in D.C. after you're done running for Congress or you're done being a congressman. So their interactions are different because their motivations, I should say say are different than your constituents and i think you start to just not be able to read where your people are at we would have this discussion all the time where because i lived in our hometown i would get a sense of where people
Starting point is 00:26:17 were at just by not not just because i talked to them but because i was one of them going to the grocery store going to the gas station going to to Costco, going to church, dropping kids off at school, doing all the stuff you do in a small, in a small rural Wisconsin town, you have a different mindset. And I would feel things that people were sensing and that I was sensing. And it would sometimes take two weeks before what was happening on the ground in your district would get to you and your team. And it's because there is that disconnect between D.C. and what's happening on the ground. And I would say to you, Sean, I feel like Kevin McCarthy and this team of Republicans who now are the last great hope, really, until, you know, a Republican is elected in 2024, which
Starting point is 00:27:02 looks like if a Republican is elected, it will be Donald Trump. And I think we might have a fighting chance here. But up to then, the hope is in the House. And the House is doing great. I don't want to attack them because I see what Representative Comer is doing, Sean. We want to inspire them. I see what they're doing. But I think you're so right. They're not reading. They're right. They're not reading.
Starting point is 00:27:26 They're not. They're not reading the room. We'll have more of this conversation after this. So let me ask you what you think would happen if a Republican administration went after the former Democrat president who is now running again and was the lead Democrat candidate. Imagine it was Barack Obama, for example. And Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House. And Donald Trump is prosecuting Barack Obama.
Starting point is 00:27:54 Do you think that for one moment, Nancy Pelosi would sit on the sidelines and go, the best we can do is fund Donald Trump's administration at last year's levels as they go after left-leaning voters, those who are unhappy with certain things in the country and might protest. We're going to allow that to stand. Nancy Pelosi, for a moment, would never let that happen because she fights too hard. But just here's an example. So just to unpack the Congress, Republicans don't have groupthink. They all have ideas. They all think they have the best ideas and it makes it a robust debate oftentimes. They're more individualistic. They're independent thinkers. They are. Democrats are sheep and they all move in one direction.
Starting point is 00:28:41 And an example of that is, think back to Obamacare, right? They had been working on this since Hillary Clinton back in the early 90s. They wanted, you know, government-run health care. And so they had an opportunity. They had the House, the Senate, and Barack Obama in the White House. And they took those votes. Members of Congress took those votes. And many of them, as they took the vote for Obamacare, they knew they were going to lose their seats because it was unpopular.
Starting point is 00:29:11 Even their constituents, their left-leaning constituents, didn't like it, and they took the vote anyway. And since then, Republicans have never been able to roll it back for a number of different reasons. And after that, Republicans, the Congress that I was part of in 2010, 87 new Republicans were elected. But that law still stands, right? They have a long game approach. They're like the Chinese. They think long term, they'll sacrifice their people for their ideology because that's how they think. Sean, it's a great example. Let me give you another example because I love how you set this up. Like what would Nancy Pelosi do if Democrat protesters were getting 22 years in prison for having done no violence at all just because they were organizing
Starting point is 00:30:08 a protest they online but didn't even weren't even at the capitol getting 22 years in prison for example henry enrique tarrio that's what he got um but there are others steven stewart roads um from the oath keepers or others who got it, who got these long sentences, 27 years. They were seeking 27 year sentences. They've gotten like 20 years, 22 years, 17 years. By the way, some of the protesters from January 6th have been in solitary confinement. Several have committed suicide. We don't hear enough about that.
Starting point is 00:30:48 Meanwhile, the DOJ actually advocated for leniency of BLM protesters. And one of the people that they advocated for leniency in their sentences was for a protester who back in the summer, back in May of 2020, his name was Montez Lee. He was out there protesting and screaming let's burn this down okay he ends up lighting up a building and inside of this first of all he loots a pawn shop yes thank you so he loots the pawn shop and then he starts the pawn shop on fire and and a father of five is inside and dies in the fire. So Mr. Lee has committed homicide, right? He's killed a father of five.
Starting point is 00:31:34 He was looting. And did the Department of Justice throw the book at Mr. Lee? No. The Department of Justice actually advocated for leniency against him. So this is a man, this is a protester who killed a man. Okay? I'm looking at this. Yeah, go ahead.
Starting point is 00:31:52 So the Department of Justice, during sentencing of Mr. Lee, wrote to the court and said this. There appear also to have been many people who felt angry, frustrated, and disenfranchised, There appear also to have been many people who felt angry, frustrated, and disenfranchised, and who were attempting, in many cases, in an unacceptable, reckless, and dangerous manner to give voice to those feelings. Mr. Lee appears to be squarely in the latter category, feels disenfranchised. So you might go, well, this could have been written about everyone on January 6th. They felt angry. They felt frustrated.
Starting point is 00:32:25 They felt disenfranchised by the election that happened. And the Department of Justice, who, by the way, Mr. Lee was sentenced per the recommendation of the Department of Justice for committing a homicide murder. Right. And burning down a building and looting it. He got 10 years, 10 years in prison. Yeah. Compare that to the 15s, the 18s, and the 22 years of January 6th, where they didn't kill anybody. Some of it was violence. Some of it was criminal damage to property. But some of these people just
Starting point is 00:32:57 walked through the Capitol, didn't go into the House chamber, the Senate chamber. They didn't break any doors or windows. They weren't confronted by cops. They just walked through, and they've been prosecuted. And so the Department of Justice is going to be lenient on a murderer, you're right, but under the auspices of, quote, insurrection, we're going to send a guy to prison for 22 freaking years. This is the shit that Republicans are going to fund. They're going to fund this.
Starting point is 00:33:23 And if you're in the Department of Justice and you can do this to Republicans, you can do this to Donald Trump, you can do this to parents, you can do this to pro-lifers, you can do this to Catholics, they sit back and they laugh and go, well, who in the hell is going to stop us? No one is going to. Even these guys
Starting point is 00:33:39 who we're going after, they're still giving us all the money we need to keep doing it. No one's going to end this. And then you hear Republicans, like you said in this interview, again, not trying to hit John Johnson because we love him, but they're afraid of shutting the government down. And it's like, what government? This isn't a government
Starting point is 00:33:55 buying for the people. This is a government being run by thugs, by Democrats, by the CIA, by the intel agencies, by the deep state. It's not buying for the people. What are you preserving here? I mean, that's sort of by the intel agencies, by the deep state. It's not by and for the people. What are you what are you preserving here? I mean, that's sort of like the Republican conservative thing. It's like we got to preserve the system. So Republicans all act by the book and and do everything by the book and they get to do whatever the hell they want. There's no way,
Starting point is 00:34:17 as you said, Sean, that Democrats would stand for their 60 percent candidate, Barack Obama, getting 60 percent given for indictments and mugshots and everything else that's happened. They wouldn't stand for their protesters being treated the way Republicans protesters. I see the Republicans, with the exception of, frankly, Marjorie Taylor Greene and what's the Gates from Florida. Really, they've been forgotten. The January 6th protesters. If you're not going to fight now, when are you going to fight? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:45 Is it going to be better two years from now or four years from now? The ground is never going to be fertile for Republicans to think they have the upper hand to fight. And if they do fight, what they're going to fight on is, we're going to lower your taxes. Listen, I don't give a damn. I do care about taxes. But that's not the fight we're in. We're in a fight for the heart and soul of the country, and I want to be really clear on this point before we go. I don't want to shut down the government.
Starting point is 00:35:13 I don't want to do that. I want Republicans to pass a bill to fund the government, but at very curtailed levels for very specific agencies. at very curtailed levels for very specific agencies, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, Department of Health and Human Services, to name the top for me. Those have been the most egregious thus far. Curtail their spending. And then if Democrats don't want to vote for it, you can still say, I passed a bill that says we're going to fund the government, but we're not going to give these guys so much money. And if you want to make sure the Department of Justice, that's ground that we can fight on, but you can't, I don't want to shut it down, but give a vision to how much money they should get. And that means passing bills that take their cash away. That's the only power you have.
Starting point is 00:36:00 So Sean, if I was your constituent, I'd still be fighting you on this. I like your answer better than Ron Johnson's, but I'm kind of with Vivek. I want to defund the FBI. I don't trust the FBI. I want to defund the DOJ. I think they're disgusting and they're partisan. I want to defund the education department because they're the ones driving all these policies that are, you know, basically indoctrinating our children and turning our schools into little indoctrination camps. I, I think the situation has gotten so out of control and yeah, maybe I sound naive. Maybe I sound, you know, crazy. I don't care what people say anymore because the same people, you know, go ahead. I'm sorry. The reason I'm not giving that answer is because if you want to reform, change up and stand up.
Starting point is 00:36:49 I don't want to reform. I want revolution. I already said that. But then you might want to stand up different organizations that are more responsive to the people. It might be a CIA-esque institution that is accountable to the Congress that this one is not. It might be a different prosecutory agency. You can't make those changes, those revolutionary reforms, unless you have all of government or Democrats join you, and they're not. So I'm laser focused on what actually can these guys do? What can they get done? And the power that the American people have given them, one more time,
Starting point is 00:37:25 is the power of the purse. They can take away money. Take away money, let them still do their jobs, but make them fire a whole ton of people. Get rid of the rock. That's what would happen. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But you know what they'll do, Sean? They'll fire all the good guys and the guys at the top who are ruining this whole thing, which we know who they are. And then one year, so this happens every September september next year we'll come back and go okay good to know and now we're going to take even more money away yeah i it all it's all moving too slow for me can i just can we just play one last clip that's what this is from g van fleet just a reminder of where we're going this is a g van fleet she is from um she's a lived through the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She saw the indictment of Donald Trump and she had steam coming out of her ears because she's like, boy, this is familiar to me.
Starting point is 00:38:14 I know what this is. This is why even if you don't like Donald Trump, you should care about the direction of your country. Listen, I lived through the most brutal communist regime in China, and I witnessed a lot. And now I will count one of the darkest moments that I witnessed is the day when the former president of the United States was indicted and mocked in Georgia prison. and mock shot in Georgia prison. I have to say, I think America is quickly becoming a communist country, and our rule of law has been turned into what Marxists called proletarian dictatorship.
Starting point is 00:38:57 The party in power is after its political oppositions, and it's not just the president, but people like activists. And they are now in jail. They are political prisoners in the free country of the United States. That's right. You Republicans in Congress are on the menu, too. Every single conservative, whether you were at January 6th protests or not,
Starting point is 00:39:26 your protests are, from this point point forward going to be criminalized. That's how you are viewed. This is exactly what is happening. And you know what? An America that is kind of like the one that we grew up in, maybe in the 80s, to let your kids and grandkids inherit, it's worth the fight. And it's worth maybe you could lose your seat. I know you worked hard to get it, but if you don't fight now, you are never going to fight. And so stand up, Republicans, push back, use the power of the person. The only power you have, the only thing that you can do is cut their funding. And so with that, we're imploring Republicans to put their armor on. Don't be afraid.
Starting point is 00:40:06 Don't be afraid of the media. As Sean said, they didn't vote for you. Who cares? Be not afraid. Be not afraid. Go do the right thing. Win back this country. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:40:15 Listen, everyone, thank you for joining us on the podcast. A little fiery one, a little hot and sassy, but you know what? You got to speak truth on these issues. And this is the truth about what Republicans can't can do. And they can't do everything, but they do have the power of the purse. So if you like our podcast, please rate, review, subscribe wherever you get your podcast. You can always find us at Fox News Podcast dot com. Stay tuned. All right. Bye, everybody.
Starting point is 00:40:39 Listen, ad free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to the show ad free on the Amazon Music app. From the Fox News Podcast Network, I'm Janice Dean, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean Podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine.

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