Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 91 | What Now?

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

For the past two years, Democrats and their cronies in the media have spun a Russian collusion narrative that's just completely unraveled. We discuss their strategy going forward as well as a few other Republican victories this week. Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.  

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hello, relatable listeners. Welcome to the podcast. It is Wednesday, which means that it's newsday. And we do have a lot of news to cover. If you have been alive at all this week, you've probably heard at least murmurs of what's been going on. And of course, if you listen to the podcast on Monday, then you heard me at least briefly.

summarize Attorney General William Barr's summary of Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into Trump and his campaign, possibly colluding with the Russian government to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. And in fact, you didn't have to just be alive this week. If you just had a pulse for the past couple of years, you have heard this narrative spun by every single media outlet, probably besides Fox telling you that Donald Trump, yes, definitely probably absolutely colluded with the Russians because they cannot get over the idea that not just a Republican be the Democrat. I think that was astounding enough for them, but that Donald J. Trump, this guy who had an access Hollywood tape, come out just, I think it was a month before the

election saying that he wants to grab women by the genitalia that he beat Hillary Clinton, who really does have all the experience in the world. So now they are having to reconcile with the reality that they should have reconciled with a long time. ago that Hillary Clinton was such a terrible, unlikable candidate that she could not win. It's not that Donald Trump was awesome. I don't think. It's not that he was such a strong candidate. Hillary Clinton did win the popular vote, but that she wasn't likable enough to enough people

in the right places to win. They're finally going to have to come to terms with that. Now, whether or not they will come to terms with that, it's really hard to say. We haven't seen the media take a step back. and choose humility in their wrongs in a really long time. And this is definitely an example of them kind of doubling down on something that they have pushed for the past two years. Hey, this is Steve Day.

If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false. comfort, we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's

unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay. And so as you already know, Attorney General William Barr's summary outlined what Robert Mueller found and did not find and what what Robert Mueller did not find was collusion or any grounds for indictments for obstruction of justice. So here are the big takeaways from this summary, from what we know from Robert Mueller's report, or the summary of Robert Mueller's report by Attorney General William Barr.

The special counsel employed 19 lawyers, that's Robert Mueller, 19 lawyers assisted by a team of 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The special counsel issued 2,800, 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants and obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of PIN registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses. 25,000, 250,000. $18,853 were spent by the special counsel's office in investigating Donald Trump and his campaign for colluding with the Russians and possibly obstructing justice.

And after all of that, all of that time, all of that effort, all of those questions, all of our taxpayer money, they did not find anything. Now, it is important to say that this summary doesn't necessarily exonerate the president It doesn't mean that the president didn't do anything wrong. But what we know, at least from what we can tell from this summary of the report, there was no collusion, which is the thing that we've been looking for, and there was no grounds for indictment for obstruction of justice. But we don't have people taking this very well. And we'll get to that in just a second.

So the report outlines that the Russian effort to influence the election and documents. and it documents the crimes committed by persons associated with the with the Russian government in connection with those efforts. And so the report does say that Russian efforts were successful in hacking the DNC and getting certain emails and then disseminating those emails. The special counsel did not find, though, as we've said, the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the Trump campaign. Not a single person associated with Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in its

efforts to influence the 2016 campaign. This is a quote. The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activity. So the Russian government did interfere in our election, which should be a huge concern for us. I mean, that is the integrity of our republic. We should care about that. But Donald Trump, nor anyone associated with his campaign, did anything to conspire with the Russians. Yet this is what we have been hearing for the past two years from the leftist media from pundits and of course Democrats in Congress saying that not only not only might this have happened but this definitely happened this absolutely probably 100% maybe we don't have all the facts but totally happened

Donald Trump is guilty of this I mean you've had people say it like it is the gospel truth and now now they're not taking a step back and saying okay make maybe we jumped the gun. They're saying, well, well, and we'll get to all of that coverage in just a second. On the full Mueller report, this is a quote, the schedule for processing the report. So this is bar responding in the summary of Mueller's report. This is this is bar responding to Democratic and even a Republican request to make the report full because that's the thing or make the report public.

That's the thing that Democrats have been asking for. They've been asking, okay, we need to see the full report. We don't just want to see the summary by AG Barr. This hand-picked attorney general is something that Elizabeth Warren and other people on the left have been saying. Because, of course, the thing that they're connoting there is that he might be telling a lie, that the summary of the report might have huge discrepancies between the report itself. And so they have been demanding that the report go public. But Barr says in his summary, the schedule for processing the report depends in part on how quickly the department can identify the 6E material that by law cannot be made public.

I have requested the assistance of the special counsel in identifying all information contained in the report or all 6E information contained in the report. Separately, I must also identify any information that could impact other ongoing matters, including those that the special counsel has referred to, other offices. As soon as that process is complete, I will be in a position to move forward expeditiously in determining what can be released in light of applicable law, regulations, and departmental policy. So basically he's saying, I am going to release the report in its fullest form that legally I can as quickly as possible, but y'all just got to be patient because we have to go through a particular process in order to make that happen. But this is the talking point that we're hearing from Democrats over and over again that we cannot trust Attorney General Barr.

and that we need to see the full report. And you know what we're going to hear once we see the full report and we see that, yes, in fact, Barr was telling the truth, which is just a ridiculous idea that he wouldn't tell the truth and risk his job and his reputation that much, knowing that the report is probably going to be made public as fully as possible. They are going to say, they're going to say, well, can we even trust Robert Mueller? Robert Mueller is a Republican. can we really trust that he did a full and thorough investigation? Yes, tens of millions of dollars

were spent. Yes, 2,800 subpoenas were issued. Yes, they investigated for almost two years, but can we really trust him? No, we're going to have to investigate this ourselves. Just wait, that's going to be the talking point. So we know that the left has been obsessed with the Mueller investigation for a long time. It has been the road that they've decided to go down to say that this is an illegitimate president. He's not my president. We heard for a really long time. And that we need to make sure that he is impeached and we need to reinstate the rule of law that has been the Democrats talking point for a while. Here is a bedou of work, Andrew McCabe, the former FBI director, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, John Brennan, who is the former CIA director,

and DNC Chair Tom Perez in this order, all saying that collusion between Donald Trump, his campaign and the Russian government in the 2016 election for sure happened. You have a president who, my opinion, beyond the shadow of a doubt, sought to, however ham-handedly, collude with the Russian government of foreign power to undermine and influence our elections. Do you still believe the president could be a Russian asset? I think it's possible. I think that's why we started our investigation, and I'm really anxious to see where Director Mueller concludes that.

I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight. I call his behavior treasonous, which is to betray one's trust, and to aid and abet the enemy, and I stand very much by that claim. And over the course of the last year, we have seen, I think, a mountain of evidence of collusion between the campaign and the Russians to basically, affect our democracy. So that is an amazing compilation and that just scratches the surface of how definitively, definitively, people on the left have been speaking about this whole Russian collusion

scandal. And after two years of investigations and tens of millions of our taxpayer dollars, no collusion was found, no obstruction of justice was found, nor is there any possibility of further indictments to the left dismay. David Brooks is an opinion writer. at the New York Times, and he wrote an article entitled, We've all just made fools of ourselves again. And here's a quote from that. Democrats might approach this moment with an attitude of humility and honest self-examination. It's clear that many Democrats made grievous accusations against the president

that are not supported by the evidence. It's clear that people like Beto O'Rourke and John Brennan owe Donald Trump a public apology. If you call someone a traitor and it turns out you lacked the evidence for that charge, then the only decent thing to do is apologize. Of course this is true. Of course this is true. If you're a mom and your kid accuses his sibling or accuses his friend of doing something,

punching another kid in the face, of breaking a lamp, whatever it is. And that turned out not to be true. And that kid was lying. He was basing his allegation on something that was actually false or that he didn't know. you expect that kid to apologize. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. And the kid who was accused was probably going to get in trouble and get punished for something that he didn't do. Uh, it's the same principle here. We know that, of course, when we're parenting our little toddlers, that's something that we teach them from an early age. But apparently we forget it when we become adults and

enter into the halls of power. Are we going to get an apology from people like Beto O'Rourke and John Brennan? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. and that is revealed by someone like Corey Booker, who is a Democratic candidate for president. He said that he now suspects, he now suspects Cory Booker, Spartacus, that the attorney general and the special counsel may be wrong in their findings of the specific, quote,

fact pattern. Here's a video of him saying that. When I have a attorney general, who in my opinion is suspect, filtering a report that I have not seen, I'm not willing to conclude anything yet based upon a letter that he wrote. This is an issue for Congress.

Let's look at the fact pattern. Let's look at the report and come to our own conclusion. Okay, Corey Booker, you're right. You're right. You probably know more. Now, to be perfectly fair, if it came out that Robert Mueller, that he did come out saying,

okay, there's going to be further indictments and yes, there was collusion and yes, there was obstruction of justice, you would have Republicans saying, Robert Mueller isn't right, that after this long investigation, this isn't right, because Republicans have been calling this a witch hunt for a long time.

And now all of a sudden that it kind of went in our favor, you have Republicans who were calling this a witch hunt saying, well, Robert Mueller, of course, is trustworthy, which I'm not even sure that's hypocritical. I think you can simultaneously say that this was a witch hunt, that this investigation never should have happened in the first place because there wasn't even just cause to investigate and still agree with the findings of the Mueller report.

But that said, you would definitely have Republicans if this did not end in the president's favor saying, well, no, Mueller is absolutely wrong. And you would have Democrats and people on the left laughing at Republicans saying, wow, you just, you're so post-truth. You don't believe in facts. You don't believe in this investigation. That's what Democrats would be saying if this went the other way. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, you have Democrats saying, well, this guy, Mueller that we've hailed as a hero for the past two years and have said is going to save the Democratic Party and save America from the wily and evil.

Donald Trump, maybe not. Maybe we need to spend more taxpayer money. Maybe we just need a little more time. And maybe we in Congress, maybe we need to take this on because Robert Mueller, now that I think about it, probably can't be trusted. So here's Democrat strategy going forward besides not not apologizing and not showing any humility whatsoever. By the way, I do think maybe not with their base, but I do think that if someone like Beto O'Roy came out and said, you know what, I said this at one point, and I've been proven wrong. And I actually regret that because I wouldn't like it if someone accused me of something that wasn't true. I personally think that that would gain you a lot of integrity points and that that could work well for you, but maybe not with the

Democratic base. I mean, the Democratic base is so deranged some of them, not all of them, some of them with their hatred of Trump that they probably wouldn't respect that little bit of humility and honesty. I personally would, but I'm not voting for Beto O'Rourke anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter. But here's Democrat strategy. Number one, like we already said, they're going to beg for the full report. The Democratic Committee chairs wrote a letter to the attorney general saying, to the extent that you believe applicable law limits your ability to comply, we urge you to begin the process of consultation with us immediately in order to establish shared parameters for resolving those issues without delay. Well, Barr already said that he was going to do that. He said that in the

summary, this is just a talking point for them. This is a way to show that they're pushing back against this to show the Democratic base that they're not going to take this lying down. But Attorney General Barr already said that that's exactly what he is doing. He is working within the parameters of the law to make sure that the fullest extent of the report that is legally possible to be exposed is exposed or is is made public both to Congress and to the American people. And so this is just kind of a waste of time. Like he is already going to do what they're saying. But again, this is just a fighting tactic.

This is not something that's actually going to have any real effect or change anything. And then their second strategy is to insist that the president wasn't fully exonerated for obstruction of justice, which, yes, this summary doesn't, that's not the purpose of the summary to exonerate, to exonerate someone. But it does declare that the report from Mueller doesn't say that there is any justifiable cause to charge him for obstruction of justice. So I'm not really sure how Democrats are going to make this case.

Well, here's Charles Blow from the New York Times. He said the report did not, however, exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice. I submit that we witness that Trump obstructed justice in open view from the White House and on social media. Okay. So this is kind of the Cory Booker take that Robert Mueller must not really know. All he's old. He doesn't get Twitter.

I mean, we all of us Twitter warriors, we know better. We journalists fighting out here for truth. We know the Trump obstructed justice. Oh, Robert Mueller in the past two years must have missed the tweets. He must have missed that. He probably just wasn't thinking about that. You know, he probably spent all this taxpayer money in the past two years, and he's probably realizing now he probably woke up in the middle of the night last night, Charles Blow, and said,

oh my gosh, I totally forgot to look at Twitter. Thank you, Charles Blow. Thank you so much. We need your investigative expertise. I mean, this is just all ridiculous. All of a sudden, everyone's an expert. All of a sudden, no one on the left trust Robert Mueller. Jeff Zucker is the CEO of CNN. He said, because, you know, the media has been really suffering a really big blowback from this completed total failure of reporting for the past two years. He said that he was entirely comfortable. That's a quote with the network's coverage. He stated, we are not investigators. We are journalists. And our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did. But that's not what they did. Some of the clips that I just played you were on CNN. We're on CNN's prime time shows. I mean, these are discussions that have been happening over the past two years that Donald Trump definitely colluded with the Russians and that it's such a scary time to be alive and it's such

a scary time to be in America. Zucker later said in an email, a sitting president's own justice department investigated his campaign for collusion with a hostile nation. That's not enormous because the media says so. That's enormous because it's unprecedented. yes, you're absolutely right. And if that's all you said, if that's all that was said about this, if those are all the facts that you reported or you truly only reported on the facts as they came out, okay, then you could say this. You could say this justifiably, but that's not actually

what happened. And yes, journalists are supposed to investigate for the fact. So you're just telling me that what? The CNN host, and I don't think this is true, but is this what Jeff Zucker is saying that CNN hosts just like read Mother Jones in the Washington Post and say, I'm not going to investigate that any further. I don't know if that's factual. I'm just going to report what I read. I would like for journalists to actually investigate what's true and what's not. Wouldn't you? I mean, I don't want them to learn secondhand about something and say, well, that sounds about right. That fits into the narrative. So I'm just going to keep going. But look, this was never a good look. I don't think for the leftist media. And even if I were a Democrat, I think that I would be saying the

same thing, I think, although it's, of course, impossible to put myself in that kind of crazy, crazy position. But I don't think this was a good look for the left. You notice that over the past few weeks, Nancy Pelosi and other people have started to say that impeachment may be not so much. Now, if they really thought, if they really thought that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election, then of course he should probably be a, or if he obstructed justice, he obstructed this investigation into collusion, then of course you would want him impeached. But now, over the past few weeks, she and others have been saying, oh, maybe impeachment isn't the best thing. Maybe we have more to worry about.

So that tells me they didn't really think that there was going to be anything that came out in these findings. I mean, James Comey had this whole op-ed that said, you know, even if nothing comes out here, the things that we should still care about. So you wonder how for how long some of the people in the know, some of the people in Washington knew that there was really nothing that was going to come out of Mueller's report. And so they've been backtracking ahead of time, coming out in front of it and saying, oh, you know, impeachment,

impeachment, maybe not so much. That tells me that they know that collusion didn't happen. And they're wasting their time. At this point, they look like crazy people. I mean, there's just nothing more to prove. The number of Americans that are hanging on to this story that really care about this story anymore and really probably ever cared about this story is so small,

I just don't think it's going to win Democrats in election. And with that logic, I would say, okay, keep going then. If this is what you want to run on, that is totally fine. But I do feel badly. Really, I do. I feel a sense of pity for the people who have spent so much mental energy over the past two years, insisting that this happened in putting these pieces together in this grand conspiracy theory to insist that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president because of this collusion.

I really feel bad for them, that maybe they sometimes woke up at night and thought that they found another clue, that some of these people probably have padded rooms where they have put all of these different pictures and articles up on the wall and they have strings attached to different thumbtacks trying to weave this large complex web of collusion with Russia and Donald Trump's campaign. I really feel bad for them. I really do. And they really thought that they came up with something. And now, of course, they're going to become these crazy conspiracy theories for the next 75 years. And they're going to say that Robert Mueller was really working for Donald Trump this whole time. And it kind of makes sense. like they don't want to believe that this thing that they have put so much hope in is wrong.

But the reality is this is a good day for America. It is. It's a good week for America. It is a good week for the rule of law. Shouldn't you be happy? And a lot of people have said this. I'm certainly not the first person to ask this question. But shouldn't you be happy that the president of the free world or the president of the

United States, the leader of the free world wasn't in cahoots with the Russian government to seal the election? Like, isn't that a good thing? Shouldn't that give you peace of mind? shouldn't you have a sigh of relief? Now, like I said, I don't think a lot of people have been holding their breath for the past two years. Like, I don't think a lot of people have really cared about this. I mean, you got to put food on the table. You are worried about your kids, about your family, about your job. You're probably happy that the economy is doing well. Like, you're probably not wondering what Robert

Mueller is up to. And so there's been a lot of people that have been saying, oh, this totally changes how the country thinks about the president. I think a lot of people didn't think about this. Now, there is a radical base of Democrats, again, that have cared about this, who are going to keep pushing for this, but do those people really matter? And did they represent the rest of the country? I don't think so. You know, I've always wondered, I've always wondered, if a guy was going to, this is what I kind of asked myself in the very beginning and then decided, okay, I really don't want to think about this until I know the results of the investigation. But the question I asked myself, if a guy was really going to go through all of the trouble of stealing the election, don't you think he would

have tried to swing the popular vote. Like, if you're really in collusion with the Russian government to win in 2016, don't you think a guy like Donald Trump would have been like, oh, we need the popular vote, Putin? Like, I'm not just going to win the electoral vote. Like, do you think that that's been fun for him

over the past two years to say he lost the electoral vote by, or the popular vote by something like three million votes? I just feel like if you're going to cheat, you might as well go all the way and get the popular vote, too. So it never just, it just didn't make that much sense to me. And plus, Democrats, Democrats have other things to be concerned about.

I mean, they have a very winning platform of killing newborn baby socialism and open borders. I mean, that is a winning message. Why would you, why would you ever need to talk impeachment when you've got things like killing babies and opening, opening the borders and confiscating private property to run on? I mean, come on, Democrats, you don't need this. some people have taken a satirical spin on the whole situation. The New York Post recently published their own bracket of March Madness, but this time it's called Mueller Madness, the media pundits, who got it most wrong.

That's really difficult game to play, who got it most wrong. I would say it was the people who were most confident that this happened no matter what. But here's what Donald Trump needs to do. Here's how he needs to use this. I think it would be better for him if he did not. let this go away. I think it should hold on to this because Democrats are going to pretend once the president is totally cleared, once they feel like, okay, they've gotten the full report to its fullest extent, which by the way, they're going to say that they never got the full report because it's going

to be redacted and they're going to claim that the parts that really indict Donald Trump are going to be the parts that are redacted. But once we see, again, reiterated, confirmed as much as possible that Donald Trump didn't collude, didn't obstruct justice. Democrats are just going to want this to go away because it's embarrassing. CNN, these other outlets are going to want it to go away because it's embarrassing. But Donald Trump needs to hold on to this. He needs to go in on this during the debates and on the campaign trail. He needs to say that Democrats hate America so much, so much that they wanted to believe that their own president was guilty of obstruction of justice and collusion. And Democrats think that you, this is also what he needs to say,

Democrats think you, American people are so dumb, are so stupid and so naive that you are willing to believe a narrative that is not based on fact. They hate America and they think that you're stupid. Now, I don't think that it's true that all Democrats hate America and think that you're stupid, but if Donald Trump were going to use a line and use this whole narrative spun for the past two years as a foundation for that, then if that's effective, then that's probably, if that's what he wants to do, if he wants to go down that road, then he needs to hang on to this to prove that point. They're going to, Democrats are going to just go back, I think. They're just going to go back to the tactic of calling President Trump an evil bigot.

They're going to go back to the kids in cages stuff. They're going to go back to saying Republicans hate all minorities. well look unemployment for Hispanics for black people and for women they're at an all-time low this is a good time for every single person in this country no matter who you are where you come from in general of course people have their own personal issues and things like that but in general statistically this is a good time to be an american but democrats they they can't accept that because then they have really nothing to run on so you're going to see them painting continually this dark picture of where america is

This is what AOC does. So poignantly, they're going to say that we are going back to the times of slavery and the Jim Crow South. They're going to capitalize for the next couple of years or the next year and a half on every single tragedy that occurs from now until the election. Every single mass shooting, every single so-called hate crime, every single instance of Islamophobia, racism, sexism, whatever it is, they are going to harp on this stuff until the cows come home so they can say, look, we live in a. scary country because of Donald Trump and white nationalists and white supremacists are winning. And if you have any ounce of compassion in you, then you need to vote Democrat. That's the road that they're going to go down. They're not going to be able to use this Russian collusion stuff anymore.

And so they're going to try to make you very, very scared, very scared of living in the country. This is their tactic. It's one of bullying. It's one of emotional manipulation. And it's one of fear. Now, do Republicans also employ fear in their campaigning? They absolutely do because fear about. objectively is an excellent motivator. It is. That's part of why I voted for Donald Trump and not Hillary

Clinton because I was afraid of what the country would look like under four more years of a radical leftist. And yes, I do believe Hillary Clinton would have governed like a leftist. She is seen as by a lot of Democrats as more moderate. But no, I think that she would have been justice left if not even pushed it further to the left than Barack Obama if she had been elected to office. But yes, Republicans, they do use fear. One example is the border crisis. Democrats say that the right just stirs outrage and stokes fear about what's going on at the border. But the difference is illegal immigration is a real problem. But the idea that this is the most racist and horrible and scary and frightening time that America has ever been in is not a real

problem. That's just not true. That's not reality. So right now you can probably bet that Republicans or Democrats are pulling their teams together to go over their talking points. They're going to say, okay, what's going to be the message going forward? They don't have any positive messages. Really, socialism is like the only policy position that they've got right now. So I say, sure, run on that. But right now, right now is a good week for Republicans from the perspective of most people. So here are a few other things that happen. This is, according to the New York Times, on Monday, Patrick M. Shanahan, the acting defense secretary, authorized the first transfer of defense department money to fencing construction. That's a border wall. At the

southwestern border up to $1 billion from military personnel funding toward the construction of 57 miles of border wall, improving roads and adding lighting to Yuma, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas, according to a letter sent to the Department of Homeland Security. And so a lot of people are seeing this as a win. Now you probably remember that there was a fight in Congress over President Trump's emergency declaration to build the wall. Both Republicans and Democrats, some Republicans, all Democrats, had a problem with that. So we'll see where this goes. You've got a lot of people pushing back on this as well. But right now it looks like this $1 billion was authorized for the building of a border wall. This is a win in the eyes of a lot of Republicans. And then you also

have a story about Obamacare. The Justice Department is sized with court ruling. ObamaCare is invalid. So here are the points on that. The Department of Justice on Monday announced that it is citing with the district court that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. This is a move that is an escalation of the Trump administration's legal battle against the health care law, Judge Reed O'Connor ruled in December of last year that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is unconstitutional and the rest of the law is then invalid. A lot of legal experts are saying that legal precedent shows that even if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional, that the rest of Obamacare should remain unharmed. That is what Congress voted to do in the 2017

tax law that repealed the mandate penalty. But we'll see what goes on there. People have been saying on the right that Obamacare is unconstitutional. for a long time. They have been saying repeal and replace or just repeal period for a long time and they haven't been able to fully do that. And so this could be, they're hoping, you know, a step in that direction. Of course, there is going to be pushed back on that. But that's another, that's another win.

A lot of people are saying for the right. And here is just a beautiful, a beautiful example of what goes around, comes around in some cases. So remember Michael Avanotti. You might want to close your kids' ears for just a second. and I don't know if you permit them to say this name or you might just want to hit that 15 seconds forward. But Michael Avanotti is known as the creepy porn lawyer,

at least by Tucker Carlson on his show. He represented porn star Stormy Daniels. When she said that, you know, she slept with Donald Trump and they paid her hush money, all that good stuff. Michael Avinati, real stand-up guy. He was on the circuit, MSNBC,

CNN. He was a good friend of the leftist media partied with them. They took them seriously when it came to his attacks on President Trump. And of course, he was the one that represented Julie Sweatnick. That is the woman who came forward and said, oh, yeah, Kavanaugh was part of this gang rape crowd at all these parties that I went to in college. And oh, yeah, he was definitely there gang raping people. And then she went on, I think it was MSNBC, said, oh, actually I'm not really. sure. I don't really know if Kavanaugh was a part of that. Well, Michael Avanotti represented her and insisted that she was telling the truth. Even after she said she wasn't telling the truth, also, I think that she and he need to be a charge for that. I mean, that's absolutely ridiculous.

But he has now been charged by federal prosecutors for extortion and conspiracy. This is according to the Wall Street Journal. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Mr. Avonotti with extortion and conspiracy alleging he told lawyers for Nike that he, in an unconstitutional, that he, in an unconstitutional, unnamed co-conspirator would release damaging information about the company if Nike didn't pay them to conduct an internal investigation and to settle a client's claim, according to a complaint unsealed Monday. There was also a separate criminal complaint. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles alleged that Mr. Avinati embezzled a client's money to pay his own expenses. That was then used to defraud a bank using phony tax returns. Michael Avenati was arrested in a steam operation conducted by the FBI alongside of Nike

where both Avinati and his co-conspirator Mark Gragos, I think that's how you say his last name. He is, by the way, a CNN legal analyst that also represents Jesse Smolet. They were both taken into custody. I mean, this is just all so crazy. Avanotti could be facing up to 107 years in prison. Okay. However, in a statement. he made late Monday, he believes that he will be fully exonerated. This is what he always says.

Of all charges involving the extortioned bank and wire fraud charges, he was released on $300,000 bond on Monday night. Oh my goodness. And so this guy is obviously in a lot of hot legal water. I mean, I'm not rejoicing in this. I truly hope that Michael Lavanati comes to know Jesus and then he is redeemed and that his life. has changed. He is a slimy guy and there is joy and found found in justice being served. And he has tried to ruin the lives with so many people by false allegations. He also had a scuffle with Tucker Carlson. I mean, this guy, he is just, he is no good. He's no good. So it doesn't surprise me at all. And by the way, Stormy Daniels even came out with the statement saying that this stuff doesn't

surprise her. Doesn't surprise me at all that this is happening. And I do look forward to justice being served. it doesn't matter who it is or what side of the aisle that they're on. I mean, this guy was going to run for president of the United States on the Democratic ticket. That's really amazing. And now he's going to jail for extortion and fraud. Wow. Wow. I'm glad that the truth is coming out.

And I hope that he is given a just sentence. Of course, that the punishment fits the crime. But maybe he will learn that being sketchy, being a creepy porn lawyer, doesn't pay. not for very long. So there's a lot that has happened this week in the news. And a lot of people would say it's a good week for Republicans. If you think Democrats are going to let all of this last, you're crazy. I mean, there are very few weeks, though,

that things like this happen back to back to back. And the media actually covers them. And so we kind of just need to soak it in just for a second. There's just a lot of payback that seems to be happening right now. And I'm not saying that vengeance is good. It's just that truth has come out in a lot of different ways. And of course, Republicans feel like the Constitution is being unheld with the Department of Justice saying that Obamacare is unconstitutional. And a lot of Republicans think it's a win that the $1 billion was transferred for the building of the wall.

And so we'll just see what happens with all of this. But for right now, Republicans and Donald Trump should just take the win, try not to gloat. keep going, keep working for the American people. Democrats are not going to let you wallow in this for long. And so just enjoy it while it lasts. But that is the news that we are covering for today. On Friday, I have an awesome, an awesome conversation with Eric Metaxis. He is the author of Bonhofer and Martin Luther as well as like 10 other amazing books

that you've probably heard of as well as if you can keep it. That's another book that I have by him. but it's a great conversation. We talk about his faith and his coming to faith in the Lord and just the intellectualism that he has been able to contribute to Christianity over the past few years and throughout his career. It's really a fascinating conversation. He's a great, a great person to talk to. So I hope that you'll tune in for that on Friday morning, and I will see you then. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues

facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed,

you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcast. I hope you'll join us.