The Daily Signal - Praise for Pam Bondi, Another Trump Legal Win, Eliminating the Education Department | Nov. 22

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's week three of Canadian tires early Black Friday sales. These prices won't go lower this year. Maybe too long. Freezing. Save up to 50% November 20th to 27th. Conditions apply, details online. President-elect Donald Trump wasted little time in naming another attorney general after former Congressman Matt Gates withdrew his nomination.

Starting point is 00:00:20 I'm Rob Blewey, and this is the Daily Signal Top News in 10 for Friday, November 22nd, 2024. Pam Bondi, a former Florida Attorney General and prosecutor for nearly 20 years is Trump's new pick for U.S. Attorney General. Trump specifically hailed Bondi as a force against the weaponization of the federal government against conservatives. Trump wrote in a statement Thursday that, for too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans. Not anymore.

Starting point is 00:01:01 Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting crime and making America safe again. I have known Pam for many years. She is smart and tough and is an America First fighter who will do a terrific job as Attorney General. Bondi served as a prosecutor in Hillsborough County, Florida, served as Florida's 37th Attorney General from 2011 to 2019, and she was one of Trump's lawyers during his first impeachment trial in early 2020. Joining me to discuss Bondi's qualifications is Cully Stimson, Deputy Director of the Mease Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, and the co-author of the book, Rogue Prosecutors. Cully, what does Pam Bondi bring to the job of Attorney General?

Starting point is 00:01:45 There have been 86 Attorneys General of this country. Two women. We've had senators, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the War, governors, all sorts of different people. Some have been assistant U.S. attorneys. A couple have been the U.S. attorney. A couple like Ed Meese, who was the 75th attorney. Attorney General was an Alameda County Deputy District Attorney for eight years. Janet Reno was a Miami-Dade line prosecutor where she prosecuted no cases, and then she

Starting point is 00:02:18 was the state's attorney there and handled a smattering. But Pam Bondi has 18 years of criminal line county prosecutor experience, handling everything from domestic violence to child abuse, to capital cases, to homicide cases. Then she was the elected Attorney General of the state of Florida, which is the third largest Attorney General's office in the country, 1,300 employees, dozens of locations throughout Florida. So honestly, she is the most experienced trial lawyer who's been a prosecutor ever put forward to this job. And so if trial experience matters and leading a large AD's office matters, and it certainly

Starting point is 00:03:05 does to me, she's your pick. Trump has made cleaning up the Department of Justice a priority. What do you see as the big steps that Pam Bondi needs to take at DOJ when she's in the job? Well, this will be a new beat for her because it has 115,000 employees, 40 components. So learning the DOJ itself, which I'm sure she interacted with somewhat when she was the AG, and getting trusted deputies. the Deputy Attorney General, the number two, an associate attorney general, number three,

Starting point is 00:03:40 and department heads, antitrust, criminal division, civil division, will be key to her learning about the department and then enforcing some discipline and focusing the department back on its core mission, which is to handle the 10% of crimes that the Justice Department prosecutes, including personally selecting or having to say in the 94 U.S. attorney, is around the country which handle federal crimes. And so if she can do that and depoliticize the small number of rank actors who've been

Starting point is 00:04:16 overly politicized in the department, she'll get the department back on track. Collie Stimson, thanks for joining the Daily Signal and thanks for the work that you do at the Mease Center. Thank you. Donald Trump scored a decisive win today in a New York courtroom. Judge Juan Marchan won't hold a hearing next week as planned for Trump's sentencing. Instead, today, the in-battle judge granted the Trump legal team's request to file a motion to dismiss the case. They'll have until December 2nd to submit their paperwork, and then New York District Attorney Elvin Bragg will have until December 9th to respond. It's the latest legal

Starting point is 00:04:52 victory for Trump since winning the 2024 presidential election. Following that victory, Special Counsel Jack Smith announced plans to step down. His two cases against Trump won't move forward because of the Justice Department's long-standing policy not to prosecute a sitting president. Stephen Chung, the president-elect spokesman, called it a decisive win, saying President Trump won a landslide victory as the American people have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the witch-hunt cases. Fox News legal editor, Carrie Urban, said even though it's a victory for Trump, it doesn't

Starting point is 00:05:29 necessarily mean the judge will dismiss the case. While today is certainly a positive development for the Trump team, we need to continue to exercise caution and how we approach what Judge Mershahn is going to do once these arguments are in before him. We're tracking the latest developments at the Daily Signal. Be sure to visitdailysignal.com to subscribe to our email alerts. You've heard Donald Trump say it. We're going to end education coming out of Washington We're going to close it up, all those buildings all over the place. And yet people that in many cases hate our children, we're going to send it all back to the states. And now a member of Congress is following through with the legislation to make it happen.

Starting point is 00:06:14 Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, introduced a bill that would eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. It's called the Returning Education to Our States Act, and it could serve as the legislative vehicle to carry out Trump's promise. Congress created the department in 1979, and it began operating a year later during President Jimmy Carter's administration. Today, the department employs 4,400 federal workers and has a $68 billion budget. Rounds wants to revert back to how things were done before, giving states more authority overeducation and reorganizing federal functions and other parts of the government. Here's the senator on CNBC this morning. States, for the most part, prefer to make their decisions on how they educate the children on their own. They really don't need a bureaucrat

Starting point is 00:07:02 in Washington, D.C., sending out a one-size-fits-all policy in order to receive federal funding in a particular program. Our goal is to take those critical ones, special ed, so forth, Native American education funds, put those back where they were in the first place, and eliminate the rest of the department. In doing so, we will save administrative dollars, but we will also, and most importantly, we'll get rid of a lot of the regular overreach that so many people in the United States have just been fed up with when it comes to the Department of Education. This week, Trump nominated W.W.E. founder, Linda McMahon for the top job at the Education

Starting point is 00:07:40 Department. She served in Trump's first term as administrator of the small business administration. Now for today's quick hits, where we share a brief rundown of the other top news of the day. Vice President Kamala Harris is raising money for a recount, the Daily Signal's Fred Lucas reports. But since the deadlines have passed for such requests in most battleground states, it's unclear if she'll actually follow through. The Harris campaign raised more than $1 billion in just over 100 days, but reportedly ended up with $20 million in debt. Read the full story at daily signal.com.

Starting point is 00:08:17 Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI director, Christopher Ray, refused to show up at a Senate committee hearing Thursday just one day after skipping a similar hearing in the U.S. House. Now they're facing a rare bipartisan rebuke from members who had to cancel it at the last minute, according to roll call. The hearing was supposed to focus on America's national security threats. A forensic pathologist working for Daniel Penny's defense testified that his chokehold did not cause the death of Jordan Neely last year.

Starting point is 00:08:51 Fox News reports. Penny is standing trial in New York for second-degree. manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after restraining Neely during a drug-fueled outburst on a subway car. McDonald's is doing its part to combat inflation with a new budget-friendly McValue menu, according to CNN. The fast food chain plans to roll out the new options in January. It'll feature its popular $5 meal deal with a new buy one, add one for $1 option that includes

Starting point is 00:09:22 breakfast. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signals Top News in 10. Coming up tomorrow on our special Saturday interview edition, my colleague Virginia Allen speaks with Camille and Emmanuel Kamporis, producers of the new movie about German theologian Dietrich Bonhofer. I remember my husband and I, we talked about it and we thought, how hard could it be to do a movie?

Starting point is 00:09:46 Like, how hard could it be to do a script? Well, we made this last word. So we decided to say, well, let's see if we could get a script going. we said we fund the script and then let them pick it off from there as well. Tune in tomorrow to hear their full interview and check out the movie Bonhoeffer, now playing in theaters. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcasts and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review.

Starting point is 00:10:10 We read all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great night and we'll be back with you tomorrow.

The Daily Signal - Praise for Pam Bondi, Another Trump Legal Win, Eliminating the Education Department | Nov. 22

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