From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Kash Patel: Will Democrats Ever Be Held Accountable?

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

On this episode, Sean and Rachel are joined by former Federal Prosecutor and former Pentagon Chief of Staff under former President Trump, Kash Patel. Kash breaks down the FBI raid at former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, why he believes there is a weak legal basis for the search that was executed, and how this could be a way to dissuade the former president from running again in 2024.   Later, Sean and Rachel weigh in on why they feel there are now two standards of justice in America and the avenues that the Republican Party have to rectify what they believe is a miscarriage of justice. Later they discuss how the Mar-a-Lago raid could impact the 2022 midterm elections. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new. Get access to primetime dining reservations by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege Card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first-come, first-served spots at select top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at OpenTable.ca forward slash Visa Dining. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, but also my partner in life, Rachel Campos Duffy. host for the podcast, but also my partner in life, Rachel Campos Duffy. Hey, Sean. Thank you.

It's so good to be back at our kitchen table. And boy, has some news really been rocking the country this week. And that is, of course, the FBI raid of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence. And we have like the perfect guests. We really do. We really do. Because a few months ago, my buddy, Will Kane, said, I want to do something on the whole Russia hoax falling apart. And I said, I know the perfect guy. It's Kash Patel. And he thanked me later and said it was such a great interview. And Kash,

you were the first person that came to our mind when this happened, because you are an attorney, you're a former chief of staff to the acting United States Secretary of Defense. And we're just so lucky to have you today, even if only for a little bit of time, the acting United States Secretary of Defense. And we're just so lucky to have you today, even if only for a little bit of time, to give us your thoughts on this. Yeah, thanks so much, guys, to be with you. I was on Will's show. He's covering for Tucker. So we had some fun. And yeah, it's the hot topic that's just not going away. Cash, you also worked with Devin Nunes on the Intel Committee and did a lot of work in regard to the Russia collusion hoax. But first, give me your take on what this raid of Donald Trump's residence means to you and what's going on in the FBI and the DOJ.

Well, you know, as you said, as a chief investigator for Russiagate and as a former federal public defender and national security prosecutor, investigator for russiagate as a former federal public defender and national security prosecutor i'm just you know it the the credibility of the department of justice and the fbi is continuously eroded by its politicization and it's fully become the department of politics and that's just tragic for so there's so many men and women who actually know what they're doing in there and it's the leadership and whether it's russiagate or Impeachment One or Bountygate or Impeachment Two or Mueller or January 6th or Hunter Biden laptop, there seems to be a two-tier system of justice, which is on full display in the United States of America in 2022. And I never thought I would see that. I've worked in and around countries all over the world, third world countries, dictatorships, and they have seemed to be acceded and it's past our due process, which is scary because now you have these raids going on for political purposes. And I just think it's going to take a mountain of effort to get it all back.

So, yeah, you know, when you talk about how do we get it back, I'll tell you what I'm surprised about. Why aren't there more whistleblowers coming out of the FBI or or any of these intelligence agencies that are involved in this kind of a thing? I'm surprised that I get everyone goes, well, it's just the leadership. It's not the other guys. But obviously, these guys are following orders. And at some point, somebody gets that this is BS. Yeah. And I think they already know that. And that's what I called for yesterday was where are the FBI whistleblowers? And you saw Senator Grassley's great presentation of it. And, you know, Chris Ray's complete deflection of it so he can catch a private jet flight to his vacation home in the Adirondacks. That that just that little juxtaposition between Senator Grassley's concern for whistleblowers and their importance, and Chris Wray's deflection and unconcern, I know that's not a word, shows you the status of this FBI and where they care.

I think you're going to see more whistleblowers come forward to the House intel community, to the Senate intel community and judiciary communities, because there are FBI agents who work on these cases. And they just say, like there were at Russiagate, that say this is wrong and we we got it wrong. But we got to get the documents out. We got to get we got to get subpoenas ready. We got to get ready to take over the midterms with with force, like Kevin McCarthy's statement last night. I hope he's true to his word where he said, told Attorney General Merrick Garland to be ready. You're going to be investigating. You know, Cash, there's and I want to get to that in a second. What can we do with regard to oversight? What can Republicans do? But before I get there, when you look at the law, right, so there can be a violation of the law,

but there's procedure and standards and history in place in how prosecutors enforce the law. So you look at FARA violations. Usually this is the Foreign Agent Reporting Act. So if someone's a U.S. citizen working for a foreign government, you have to report that. If there was a violation, oftentimes there was a settlement without prosecution until the Trump era, where we've seen Trump allies prosecuted. And here, even with regard to these documents, oftentimes these were negotiated settlements. What documents belong in the archives? What documents can a former president take. And again, they're not negotiating a resolution. They're actually

using the force of law and saying, we're going to actually, you know, go into Donald Trump's residence and take the documents. And you know, this as a federal prosecutor, you get a warrant and you go in for documents, you're going to take all the documents that you can find and say, well, this could have been a document that was covered under the warrant. And so I would imagine that this was a raid that was under the auspices of these documents that he allegedly held over from the White House, but actually it's in regard to January 6th. Yeah. So it's a twofold, from my understanding, it's a twofold investigatory effort by the FBI, let's call it that, putting it, giving them the benefit of the doubt. They say they were looking for classified information.

Well, Donald Trump issued a large sweeping statement on October of 2020 declassifying every document related to Russiagate and the Hillary Clinton email scandal. That's a pretty broad set of documents. Furthermore, in December and January, he issued more declassification of whole sets of documents within the White House. So the question is, and it's incumbent upon the government to prove this, is that the classified documents you're talking about

that were declassified? And let's not forget that the president has unilateral classification authority and is a final arbiter of it. And also as a security clearance for life. So what's the basis of this investigation on that parameter? What about flipping over to the National Archives issue? Well, as the Mark Elias, the guy who conjured up the entire Russiagate hoax and made millions for the Democratic Party, and who's been called by John Durham as a joint

venture criminal conspirator, has noted and shoved into the mainstream media this statute that says if you're a U.S. official and you take government documents and you're caught, you'll be banned from holding public office. Here's the problem. That statute doesn't govern the office of the presidency of the United States. Only the Constitution does and of constitutional amendment. The president of the United States is exempt from that statute. So these two bases of if these are their bases, are invalidated by the facts and the law. So I don't know what they're looking for. Are they looking for another crime? Is it a counterintel matter? If that's the case, why are they raiding his home in the

middle of the day with armed guards? So lots of questions need to be asked, but the underlying documentation has to come out. And I don't think we're going to get an explanation from this department anytime soon. So would you then say that the purpose of all of this, the bottom line, whatever they're doing, whatever the rationale behind what they're doing, that this is all about making sure that Donald Trump doesn't run again? Oh, that's absolutely it. That's absolutely the reason, whether it was Russiagate, Jan 6, Mueller, or what have you, if they can't get them on some bogus trumped up charge, they're going to try to get them on some bogus trumped up procedural maneuver, the national records thing. But we've covered why that's,

in my opinion, not possible. They just want to make it so that they can get them. And they're running out of time on the Jan 6 matter because it's almost November. So explain to me, I mean, it's almost November. So explain to me, I mean, listen, Democrats have always hated Republicans. The media has always hated Republicans. What is it? Just one more time. What is it about Donald Trump that would inspire this kind of vitriol, this kind of, you know, as everyone's saying, third world type disregard for the rule of law, this two tiered system. What is it about him that is this special, unique, awful treatment that he gets? What are they afraid of? They're afraid of his success. I mean, look, when he ran for president, they were afraid of his policies, which kind of surprised me as a national security guy.

You know, I've never really been a political guy. I worked in Democrat and Republican administrations, and national security doesn't really move too much left or right. So when he came in and secured the border and took on Iran, Russia, and China, and drew down our forever wars and, you know, defeated the cartels down in Mexico, you'd think, okay, that's a win. So they don't, I guess, like the way he operates or carries himself out. And now we see what happens when the Biden administration's national security policy has been, what did Donald Trump do? We're doing the opposite. Literally, look at the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Look at the border. Look at the opioid crisis. So I'm not, I think their hatred and their politics has blinded them to a simple America first strategy that worked for many Americans. And we're seeing the consequences, whether it's at the pump or in the grocery store. Totally. And Cash, I know we only have a couple of minutes left with you, but you and Devin Nunes were some of the most successful teams in doing oversight on the Intel committee. There's a lot of oversight that's going to happen when Republicans win in November and take control at the start of January, January 3rd. And frankly, a lot of Americans have

a lot of faith in a new Republican Congress. I don't have as much faith as maybe the American people do that they're that smart on how to do oversight. So if Kash Patel, who did a great job on oversight, was able to give advice to say, this is what you have to do if you're going to hold the DOJ and the FBI accountable? And that's a starting point. We have to hold all of these agencies accountable. But what do Republicans have to do? What kind of people do members of Congress have to bring in to make sure they have smart people working with them to make sure that these agencies are held to account? Well, I think they might have to call Sean Duffy back to Congress. You're very kind. Or Cash Patel. I'm not even like mildly

kidding because you need guys who are in there who don't care about the politics of it or don't care if they take a bad headline for doing the work. And, you know, when Devin and I ran this investigation, look, it's simple. Whether you're a prosecutor or congressional investigator, your job is for the American people and to hold people accountable who break the law or mostly, more importantly, in Congress when government officials break the law. And mostly, more importantly, in Congress, when government officials break the law. And the only way you can do that and prove it to the American public is by getting the documentation and showing it to the American public. We did in the form of Nunes memo, we did in the form of declassifying whole sets of documents at Congress when we were

there, and through the Trump presidency. And so what you have to line up is a series of investigations from judiciary to intel, to foreign affairs, and you have to line up is a series of investigations from judiciary to Intel to foreign affairs. And you have to start hauling the people in. But before you haul the heads in like the AGs and the FBI director and the sex states and whatnot, you have to get the information and you have to do it with vigilance because these people did it to us. Why can't we go and subpoena all their documents and all their records? And you have to have Congress willing to do it. And Cash, I know when I did that, I was the chair of the Oversight Committee on Financial Services. They would

respond to my request for documents and send me news clippings. They'd send me their press releases. I mean, they're totally messed with us. And you need a speaker and a Republican majority that's willing to actually hold them to account on the House floor by holding them in contempt of Congress and then send those referrals to the Department of Justice. But Sean, how do you do that if they just, I mean, you saw them, they're permanent, you know, administrative state. They just refuse to send crap over. I mean, they do that. You know that. Cash did it. Cash, how did you do it? How do you get the documents? No, you're right. Look, it's like you said, John, you know, you have to basically use subpoena power,

congressional subpoena power like these folks have. And here's the other way you do it. Yes, you send over the referrals, but you don't even bother. There's a mechanism whereby you can appoint a special counsel and get those guys to bring the charges for anyone who violates a congressional subpoena. So that should be number one, right? Send it straight to federal Article III court for federal judges to prosecute because this Department of Justice has been wholly disqualified from representing congressional interest if the Republicans take charge. The other way you do this, and Sean, you know this, is you take their money. You fence them. You just say, hey, oh, FBI, you don't want to turn over documents? No money.

DOD, same thing. DOJ, oh, sorry, we ran out of money for you. And Congress can do that. They don't have to wait for the annual budgeting process, Sean, as you know. You set up fences around specific programs, and you'll see how fast the documents start flooding in. But you're right, you need a critical mass at Congress with the will to do that. The respective chairmen, yes, the speaker, but the respective chairmen have to be willing to hammer them and say, we are going to withhold funds till you provide the American people with the documents needed. We did that once because Paul Ryan only gave us the authority to do it one time from the FBI. And we got all the Bruce Orr 302s and all the FISA-backed documents, which now buttress our entire investigation, which showed it was a total fraud. And I bet you, Dollars for Donuts, that it will happen again if there's a will to get it. Cash, I know you got to go. That is the best point. Money talks. And if you take the money away, you'll see how fast they come in with documents. If you have no teeth in your threats, they're not going to provide the documents. The Congress has

to actually start figuring this out right now, thinking about it right now, having you consult with them right now to make sure that they can get the documents because no doubt they're going to be stonewalled by this administration. Kash Patel, listen, you are a great American. You did a great job and great service to the country when you served with Devin Nunes on the Intel Committee and then thereafter for President Trump. Thanks for joining us on our podcast. And again, thanks for all your great work exposing all the corruption of Russiagate and Russia Collusion. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much. We'll have more of this conversation after this. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example.

You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces, a message from the government of Canada. Sean, he's also teaching us how to do it. I mean, and I think informing the American people so that they actually hold their members of Congress and these committee chairs accountable. I think a lot of times we're too polite as Republicans or there's a lot of collegiality that some of the especially some of the older members have. And I just think the time for that kind of politeness is over. And I think a lot of times I look at, you know, prior to this conversation with Cash, you know, I just was very after what happened with the raid. Cash, you know, I just was very after what happened with the raid and, you know, the history of these investigations, minus Devin Nunes and Cash Patels, which did draw blood and did draw some documents that really unraveled their hoax.

But for the most part, there's hearings and then nothing happens. And that's so frustrating. And a lot of Americans lose hope. But he's kind of laying out, this is how you can do it. This is how you can be effective in these investigations and actually hold people accountable, which I think a lot of Americans have lost hope on. Yeah, I think you bring up a good point. So the way that Congress works is there's a lot of history and there is a lot of collegiality, which is, frankly, it's a good thing. You want your members of Congress to get along.

They have to work together. They're all in service of the country. And that's been a long, long history in this country of having that collegiality. And I'm not opposed to that. You can like people and disagree with their politics. That's OK. You can like people and disagree with their politics. That's okay.

But what's happened in the past before this new majority and before Joe Biden became the president, Republicans didn't want to cross certain thresholds. So he's right. Paul Ryan was very resistant to allowing the House to issue subpoenas to threaten the withholding of money for documents because that was a new step that hadn't been taken in the past. And Republicans have been far more willing to stick within certain guardrails, not to break them. Okay, now we've seen that Democrats have completely shattered the guardrails that we thought existed and how the Congress should work. Again, they're going after a former U.S. president. This has been said multiple times, but this is third world stuff, going after former leaders, not because they did something wrong, but because you don't like them, you don't like their supporters. And so now because Democrats have shattered the guardrails, Republicans have a clear lane now to actually subpoena documents,

to hold money hostage, if you will, for these agencies if they don't provide the documents that are requested. And I want to make sure everyone is clear on this. The Congress has complete oversight of the executive branch. The Congress funds the executive branch. Remember, the Congress has the power of the purse. So the Congress funds all of government, including the executive branch, all the agencies, the DOJ, the FBI, the Department of Education, Health and Human Services. The Congress funds it all. And if they don't provide documents per our oversight requests, you can withhold money. And Republicans have not been as thoughtful as I think they could have been in the past.

They're going to have to be thoughtful now. could have been in the past. They're going to have to be thoughtful now. Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and as Cash mentioned, the committee chairman have to be thoughtful on what they're going to do right now and what tools they're going to use when no doubt these agencies don't provide the documents requested. And what's important here, Rachel, is transparency. We want to know what's happening and why. Why is there two different standards of justice, one for Republicans and one for Democrats, one for Donald Trump and a completely different standard for Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden? And Eric Swalwell. I just wanted to add that. Eric Swalwell. I just know, Sean, that if you slept with a Chinese spy, that you would not still be in Congress. I'm sorry. I just, as your wife that if you slept with a Chinese spy, that you would not still be in Congress.

I'm sorry. I just, as your wife, I know that for a fact. It's just that, or if you had married your sister, like Ilhan Omar married her brother, you would not still be in Congress. Listen, not being in Congress would be the least of my concerns if that was what I did. But none of that, I wouldn't be on for sure the Intel committee. You know, if I still made it through Congress and I still had body parts attached to me, I wouldn't be on the Intel committee. I mean, the insanity of the double standard is so rich. Go ahead.

Thanks for using me as an example in this story. I'm sorry. I'm going to use you as another example. I'm going to put you on the spot right here for a minute. Look, I know you were in Congress for 10 years. Everybody liked you. You liked everybody. I mean, you really had a community of people on both sides of the aisle. But even within the Republican conference, you have a lot of friends. You're a likable guy and there's a lot of likable people. So I'm going to put you on the spot because I know these are your friends, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, all these, you know, committee chairman. A lot of them came up with you in the ranks and are now at the tops of these committees that have to make these tough calls that Kash Patel is talking about. Do these members of Congress honestly, one, have the balls that it takes to do what needs

to be done to get these documents and to conduct these investigations so they actually have meaning and accountability? And two, do you feel like they're hearing the American people who I think have lost so much trust in institutions. This is like the end of the rope for them. So I'm going to answer that in a little bit of a roundabout way. So to make sure that this happens and happens effectively, Republicans have to hire smart staff. So just to think, members of Congress have a lot of skill sets, a lot of talents, and they're good at talking to people. They're good at giving speeches. They're pretty

good on policy, but they probably haven't spent a lifetime on doing oversight. So you got to bring in smart lawyers, smart attorneys to join you on your committees to make sure you can be effective in doing this work. That's step number one. Step number two is you have to have a will to do it. Now, I think that the chairman and the leadership does have a will to do it. But if they don't, I guarantee you when they go home to their home districts, their constituents are going to say, listen, we gave you power. We gave you the house back. You're a chairman. Why aren't you using it to get information and transparency that we want as American citizens and as your constituents. I think the pressure

from the American people and the constituents of senators and House members will be overwhelming if they're not effective in doing this. And excuses will not work with the American people. Again, they have the tools to do it. They need to do it. And frankly, Rachel, again, if I look back, you know, in the Trump era and the Barack Obama era, do I think that Republicans were really aggressive on this front? Not aggressive enough. I think Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise understand how important this is. Again, just to shed light on what's happening and the double standards and the politics that has infiltrated into these agencies that for the most part didn't operate on a political basis, but now they do.

And you've weaponized the DOJ and the FBI to go after your political enemies, which is absolutely unheard of. And by the way, if Republicans don't do that, kiss your democracy goodbye. Kiss your right to free speech, to contribute to members of Congress or politicians that you want to win office. Kiss those rights goodbye because they are coming for you. And Donald Trump is the least of our concerns. It'll be you and your neighbors and your friends and your employers. They're coming for all of us. Yeah. And it's interesting that you say that, Sean, because as I talk to a lot of my friends about what happened in Mar-a-Lago and also what happened that this happened in the wake of the hiring of, you know, a 600 percent increase in IRS agents and just everything that's going on in terms of this two tiers of justice, I would say all of my friends think that what's happening to Donald Trump is a foreshadowing of what will happen to them. And they are really, really worried that, as you said, we're losing our democracy, that we're

sliding into an authoritarian and tyrannical state. In fact, Sean, the president of El Salvador, who the Biden administration can't stand because he's one of the few conservatives in Latin America, actually tweeted out, what would the Biden administration say if I raided the home of my opposition? That's right. Our government goes around the world, you know, wagging its finger at all these, you know, other countries, usually, you know, right wing countries. But, you know, you know, trying to show this is what democracy should be like. And this is embarrassing for us, Sean. And Rachel, it's not like he killed someone, that he robbed a bank. These are documents that, you know, there's an argument over whether they belong to him or if they belong in the archives.

And that's a reasonable dispute that a former president can have with the federal government. And Donald Trump, unlike Hillary Clinton, has the security clearance to possess all those documents. Hillary Clinton didn't have the security clearance to possess all of the classified information that she had on an unsecure server that, by the way, she shared with Uma Abedin and others who had access to her server. Far greater violation and nothing happened to Hillary Clinton. And they're raiding Donald Trump's homes with guns to go get these documents? It is political theater to the max. I want to, if I could, just talk about what you mentioned with the IRS. Let's be really clear.

Democrats are saying, we are going to, to your point, Rachel, increase the budget by 600%, $80 billion to the IRS, which, by the way, no Americans want to see more money to the IRS. There's a lot of things they're concerned about. They're not concerned about funding at the IRS. And Democrats are saying, well, this is a funding mechanism for a Green New Deal legislation that we've now passed in the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a complete lie in its title. But what this is about is empowering and bolstering the IRS not to collect more money from Americans. It's to collect more money from Republicans and to harass Republicans. We saw this with Lois Lerner in the politics at the IRS. But I saw this firsthand when I ran for Congress,

and you know it too, Rachel, because we've talked about this story often. When I ran for Congress, You know it too, Rachel, because we've talked about this story often. When I ran for Congress, listen, I was a state prosecutor. You were making a little bit of money on the side. We didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a lot of expenses. I ran for Congress. I got an audit.

We got audited. And by the way, I brought in a shoebox of receipts in the audit. I was like, oh, my God, you got to be kidding me. Really? So I got audited. But also we had four supporters that went to Congressman Dave Obie's town halls that he was hosting. And they asked him hard questions, fair but hard questions. And after the he was angry when he got the questions that were fair. This was about the $800 billion stimulus package, which was huge then and is chump change today. But they asked him questions

about it. After the event, he had a staffer ask the mayor who the four questioners were. He took down their names. And three months later, all four of them surprisingly got what, Rachel? Audits. They got audits from the IRS. And to think that this is a nonpolitical agency, there's retribution if you speak out, if you ask questions, if you make political contributions, the IRS is coming for you. I want everyone to pay their taxes, but they can find something in everyone's history that you violated something. And even if you didn't, the time it takes, the cost it takes, and the stress

it takes to go through an audit, which I can speak to firsthand when I had no money and very little receipts in my box, is immense. And it'll, the four people, my last point, Rachel, the four people were in essence, their conclusion was, we don't want anything to do with politics. This was such a horrible experience. We want nothing to do with politics. We're out. I know for sure two of them said, I won't, And I don't remember the other two, but two of them, I specifically remember said, I love your husband. Damn. I hope he wins, but I'm not donating to a political campaign again. I don't want to go through another audit. And, um,

and that's what they want to have happen. That's exactly what the left wants to have happen. We saw it happen, you know, back in 2009. And you can saw it happen, you know, back in 2009. And you can believe me with, you know, how many more IRS agents is it, Sean? Oh, the number I don't know. I know it was it was it was 80 billion dollars of increased funding, which to your point, the thousands of more. Yeah. Eighty seven thousand new agents on the beat. Eighty seven thousand new agents. new agents on the beat. 87,000 new agents. And Rachel,

they had a $12.5 billion budget in 2021. They're adding $80 billion to it. For what? Yeah, it's just outrageous. Wait right there. We're going to have more of that conversation next. Oh, interrupting

their playlist to talk about Defying Gravity, are we? That's right, Newton. With a Bronco in Bronco Sport, gravity has met its match. Huh. Maybe that apple hit me a little harder than I thought. Yeah, you should get that checked out. With standard 4x4 capability, Broncos keep going up and up. Now get up to $6,000 in rebates on eligible 2024 Bronco family models. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca. We have to get to one other topic, Sean, because it's a big one. And I know it's the Wisconsin election that happened this week, the primary election. We just finished talking

about what happened with the raid of Donald Trump's house and the outrage. I mean, there was universal outrage among Republicans, independents. And I think a lot of nervousness among Democrats who think, wow, we might have stepped too far on this and actually turned Donald Trump into the victim, which we all think he has been for the last six years that he's been in public life. But a lot of people who maybe weren't as sympathetic to Donald Trump are now like, this is ridiculous. So there was a primary election in Wisconsin. It was Rebecca Clayfish, and it was also Tim Michaels, who was a kind of unknown, not very well-known character in Wisconsin politics, but he was endorsed by Trump. And a lot of people expected Rebecca Clayfish to win. She was the lieutenant governor in Wisconsin, and yet she lost.

How much of that loss do you think, Sean, has to do with the fact that on the eve of that election night, Donald Trump's house in Mar-a-Lago was raided. It's a great question. So we have to look at what motivates people. So there was a conversation in politics. What did the Dobbs decision do to motivate the left? That was the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Are Democrats going to be more energized to vote in the November elections because of this Supreme Court decision. And there was some truth to that. There was a little more motivation by Democrats as we came into these late summer months. They're more motivated. raid is amplifying, energizing, angering Republican voters. And so you mentioned the Wisconsin primary. Tim Michaels, a business guy, Donald Trump endorsed him. Rebecca Clayfish, endorsed by former Governor Scott Walker, had the support of Mike Pence. A lot of observers, and she was the former lieutenant governor for Scott Walker, a lot of observers thought that this would be a one-point race that went in favor of Tim Michaels. But I think as this raid happened, the Donald

Trump endorsement became that much more pronounced. And to support Donald Trump, voters came out and voted for his endorsed candidate, number one. And number two, people who maybe wouldn't have voted in the primary actually showed up and said, you know what, I'm going to vote now and I'm going to support Donald Trump by supporting his candidate. And Tim Michaels didn't win by one point, which the pollsters thought it would be. He won by five points, a massive victory for Tim Michaels that the Mar-a-Lago raid only amplified his victory in margin over Rebecca Clayfish. And again, I think you're going to see the same thing now happen in November, and energy and motivation in Republican voters. Do you think that the memory of this is going to extend for another, what is it,

90 days till the next election, till the midterm election? I think you have a seething, burning anger and frustration in the inequity in the application of the law. And again, how they've gone after Donald Trump. You had four years of Russia collusion, which was a complete hoax. We know that it was a false story orchestrated by Hillary Clinton. By the way, just remember when we talked to Kash Patel, we didn't know who paid for this dirty dossier. We heard all the stuff about the dossier, but we're like, where did the dossier come from? And it was the work of Devin Nunes and Kash Patel that exposed that it was Hillary Clinton's work and funding and

the DNC's funding that gave you this false fake document of the dossier, which prompted this DOJ FBI investigation and then allowed the media to run with the story for four years on Donald Trump. The American people, I'm sorry, the Republican voter, the moderate voter that sees how Donald Trump, to your point, Rachel, has been treated and he's been victimized and he's being re-victimized again, not treating like an average, normal American, but treated as a pariah, that every aspect of every Democrat tool needs to be used against him to quash him and his supporters. And I think that's angering people and going to motivate them. They'll remember in the next

three months before election day, they won't forget. They are angry, they're frustrated, and they want to make sure they have a Republican House to to clean house in this administration. That's interesting. I think when he ran in 2016, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because he said what they were thinking. And now I think they have to vote Republican and and perhaps even for Donald Trump if he decides to run, which I think he will, because it's not even what you can say. It's what they'll do to you. I think it's even more existential. The democracy is on the line that you can't, you know, that these IRS agents will come on you, that the FBI, I mean, you saw so much unfair treatment of so many people who weren't, there were people that were put in jail on January 6th who never even entered the Capitol, that somehow you were shamed if you believed that

there was funny business in the election, that you weren't allowed to say that. And that then extended to, you know, you were shamed if you thought differently than the United States government on covid. There's just this censoring. But also this now I think it's escalated to just destroying you and they see what's happening to Donald Trump and they go, wow, gosh, they're coming for me next. And I think that's how people are feeling. I think I hope you're right that people still are channeling this anger in November. And if that's the case, what you said, there was going to be a tidal wave of support for Republicans. I think after Mar-a-Lago, if you're right, Sean, I mean, this this could be something we've never

seen in the history of the United States in terms of the amount of people voting for Republicans and putting Republicans in seats that maybe they never even had a chance of before. You know, Rachel, we talked about this as we were floating on our boat yesterday. If we don't actually hold them to account now, they just they got away with Russia collusion. They got away with COVID. They got away with they get away with raiding a former president's residence. They got away with COVID. They got away with they get away with raiding a former president's residence. The gates are wide open to what Democrats can actually do to the American people because there's no one, nothing that's going to hold them back. They're blowing the gates open and it's war on people who disagree with their politics. Have you been surprised at how few Democrats, I mean, literally zero, have pushed back on any of this. I haven't seen one Democrat push back on the COVID tyranny we just went through, the lies that have now been

confirmed by the documents that Kash Patel and Devin Nunes, you know, were able to get out to prove the Russia hoax, this raid, the fact that, you know, Hunter Biden is fine and the emails that say that Joe Biden is the big guy. I mean, I have to believe, Sean, that if any of these things happened, but especially like this raid, if this had happened on Barack Obama, I know there would have been Republicans that would have said this is wrong. And there were plenty of Republicans who pushed back on Donald Trump when they thought he was wrong. Why is there such unanimous consensus in the Democrat Party? What is it about that, that there's like no one with a conscience? Well, I think that these spaces have become so consumed with liberal groupthink, whether it's in the media,

whether it's in big tech, whether it's in Hollywood, and to speak out in a way that's contrary to the viewpoint of this liberal machine can be financial suicide, can be professional suicide. But on the positive side, Rachel, I think what's interesting is, you know, guys like Bill Maher, a traditional liberal, Elon Musk, I mean, a guy who voted for Democrats his whole life, Joe Rogan, a Democrat and a liberal. You're starting to get traditional liberals with some powerful positions and powerful voices to say, hold on. This is not I mean, again, I don't I don't like Donald Trump. I don't like Republicans. I'm a Democrat. I don't like Donald Trump. I don't like Republicans. I'm a Democrat. I'm a liberal. But this is not the way we behave as an advanced society, an advanced

political arrangement that we have in this country. That's not what we do. And you're starting to see the traditional liberal stand up and push back against these ideas. And if there's more, I think that can tilt the scale against Democrats. But again, I think the group think, and they're in every space, universities as well, they control so much of culture today. I think it's really hard for free thinkers to stand up and push back against them. And so with that, there's no group left. Again, Democrats have taken over everything. They may not have small businesses. They may not have those of us who are over 40. But if you're going to stop Democrats, the only ones that are going to stop them and bring sanity back to government is going to be the voter. And can the voters stand up and give an overwhelming

victory to Republicans and then hold Republicans to account to actually expose this stuff. And if they don't, you got to throw them out and bring in better people. So I want to end with this because I think it's really interesting because it will affect the midterms and it will affect the next presidential election. Sean, there is a group of people who are not at all surprised by what happened at Bar Lago because they've seen this before. And they're sad because they know what happens next. And that is people who've lived under authoritarian dictatorships. A lot of them are Hispanics who are going to be going to the polls in November and in 2024. And they've seen this before.

They've seen the people in power, the authoritarians, go after the opposition party as soon as they come into power. And what they've also seen, and this is something that Marco Rubio has been talking about over the last 24 hours, and that is that Hispanics who have lived in Latin America and seen this know that the very next step of this playbook is they go after the supporters. So first they send a message by going after the leader, and that's what they did with Donald Trump. And now they're going to go after us. That's 100% right, which goes back to this point. How do they go after you? They go after you through the IRS. And it's a way that it's not very public. You don't know who's getting audited, who isn't. It's a silent way in which they can punish conservative voters and conservative donors.

And so if we're going to fix this, Rachel, it's going to be the American people who stand up and say, we're not going to take this anymore. It's American parents who are going to say, I'm not going to let my kids get indoctrinated in the school system. I'm going to do my best to get them out to a better school. Maybe it's a classical academy, a Christian academy. They're going to get involved in their school boards. It's going to be people saving their families and their schools and their communities and then voting for their House and Senate races that are going to save the country. But if we don't stand up and do it, tyranny is on the doorstep. And so, again, I just want to go back to where I start

with, you know, Kash Patel laid out what he did. And again, I hope people in the new Congress, when Republicans take over, and they're going to take over, we'll bring in guys like Kash Patel to say, hey, how did you do it? Give us the best advice. And then hire really good people to make sure that they deliver on the promise of holding this administration to account, holding the FBI to account, the DOJ to account. Justice is supposed to be blind. Justice is not supposed to be political. That's what our founders envisioned. That's what we've had for over 200 years. It's not that anymore. We have to get back to not having a political perspective in prosecution. And it's going to beans in this majority that can do that

they have to deliver yeah sean also really quick i think that's why ron johnson's um election in wisconsin is so important so many of the tyrannical things that happened to our country um over during covid um i think he's going to get to the bottom of it including um giving a voice to so many of the people who are vaccine injured, people who lost their jobs because they, you know, follow the science and believe they didn't need to take the vaccine because they were healthy or had natural immunities. There were so many evil things, unconstitutional things that were were brought on the American people under the quote-unquote emergency of COVID, something that, as you said, was serious, but no less serious than the flu in terms of its ability to kill people, especially young, healthy people. The flu was actually more dangerous.

So a lot of unconstitutional things happened. And I believe that Ron Johnson, more dangerous. So a lot of unconstitutional things happen. And I believe that Ron Johnson, probably more so than any other member of Congress, is going to be the one who is going to take that bone and not let it go until we get to the bottom. And if we don't get to the bottom of these questions, whether it's COVID or this two-tiered system of justice, it won't stop. It has to be exposed. It has to be investigated. People have to be held accountable or else we will lose this beautiful republic of ours. No, no doubt. And so we talk about this all the time. Like this is like a topic of conversation daily for us because we're so frustrated and we're sharing our views on the podcast here. But again, think small. Think about your family.

Think about your kid's education. Think about how you're going to vote. And think about your school board and your city council and your county board. Those are easy things to do in your community, in your life. And if we all do that, we're going to change America. We're going to get our democracy and our freedom and our republic back. So listen, I want to thank you all for joining us at our kitchen table. Again, our hair is on fire. We're losing our minds as a family over what's happening.

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