The Daily Signal - President Biden Speaks U.N. General Assembly, Impeachment Inquiry Hearing Set for Next Week, Rep. Chip Roy Introduces Bill To Repeal FACE Act | Sept. 19

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Starting point is 00:00:24 Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. I'm Virginia Allen. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Thickle Top News for Tuesday, September 19th. Here are today's headlines. Today, President Joe Biden addressed the United Nations General Assembly, and he called on world leaders to stand with Ukraine and against Russia's naked aggression. Ukrainian President Volodymyra Zelensky was present in the crowd, but note. We're possibly missing were world leaders from Russia, China, and some European countries, including the UK and France.

Starting point is 00:01:14 During his about 27-minute speech, Biden asked the leaders this question, If we abandon the core principles of the United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? And he went on challenging the world leaders to support Ukraine. Take a listen. Ukraine to be carved up is the independence of any nation secure. I'd respectfully suggest the answer is no. We have to stand up to this naked aggression today and deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow. Here with us to offer his analysis on Biden's speech is Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs. Brett Schaefer, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. So you listened to President Biden's

Starting point is 00:02:06 speech. What did you make of Biden's call to world leaders and his statement that no nation can be secure if we allow Ukraine to be carved up? That was his words. Well, there's no doubt that Russia invaded Ukraine. They are committing serious war crimes, crimes against humanity in Ukraine. It's an atrocity and it's a horrible situation. I think the American people feel camaraderie with Ukraine. They sympathize with Ukraine and they want to support Ukraine. But they're also people that are concerned about how the money is being used, how long the conflict is going on, and those are legitimate questions to be asking. Unfortunately, we didn't get any kind of perspective from President Biden on those kinds of questions

Starting point is 00:02:51 that are being raised in the American public. And he needs to answer those, because if he wants to rally American support, much less international support for this, there needs to be a robust conversation and justification for what he's asking the American people to do, which is support, in essence, an open-ended commitment here. And that's not appropriate. He, as the President of the United States, must go forward and make the argument to the American people, what his vision is, what is he doing, how is his actions supporting a resolution to this conflict on a reasonable time frame.

Starting point is 00:03:24 And he has not made that case. And I think he needs to do that if he's going to overcome the skepticism that is present not only from Republicans in Congress, but also among the American people. It sounds like what you're saying is the president needs a plan. And he needs to articulate that plan to the American people and the world. Yes, he does. And I think that I'm not the first one to make this comment, obviously, but it's been absent. Where are the big speeches outlining what America's objectives are here?

Starting point is 00:03:57 Where is the big speech outlining what has been achieved? what have our contributions to this conflict resulted in. And some people in the administration have made those arguments, but the president hasn't. And the president ultimately needs to lead on this if he wants to rally support in the United States and beyond just what's going on in that assembly hall. And I will say that that was the only point of applause in his entire speech until the conclusion was his defense of Ukraine. And it seemed to be one of the areas where he seemed to experience.

Starting point is 00:04:30 actually some energy and some real conviction. Another one was climate change, unsurprisingly, probably to our listeners here. But if he does feel that strongly about it, and it does seem to inspire him to emotion in that moment, then why doesn't he make the argument more forcefully and more convincingly? In looking at the speech as a whole, was there anything that you were surprised that the president didn't speak on or didn't address?

Starting point is 00:04:58 Well, it was a relatively short speech. It was, as you mentioned, it was under 30 minutes. Traditionally, you know, the UN rules are you're not supposed to speak for more than 15 minutes, but U.S. presidents never abide by that. Well, actually, very few other countries actually abide by that as well. But like President Trump, President Obama, President Bush, they all generally spoke somewhere between 40 minutes, 50 minutes, that kind of. So it was a relatively short speech by current standards.

Starting point is 00:05:28 And I think that was smart because the president tends to lose steam toward the end of long speeches. What I guess I found somewhat surprising about it is sort of the lack of detail. He says, in essence, he was just sort of reiterating things that other countries also say. We support the sustainable development goals. We want to get developing countries more involved in international organizations and the international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMA. We want to have Security Council reform.

Starting point is 00:06:01 There are no details. How are you going to reform the Security Council? Because it's a pretty difficult and challenging thing that they've been wrestling with for three decades now. How are you going to reform the World Bank and the IMF? What do you want other countries to do specifically? There's none of that is in the speech. It's just these general bromides platitudes.

Starting point is 00:06:22 We support this, we support that. And then an oddly defensive way, he was sort of justifying the United States to the crowd, saying we've provided this funding for climate change. We've provided this funding for development. We've provided this funding for this, that, or the other. And it came across, and this, I was re-listening to the speech, and it came across as oddly defensive on the second listen

Starting point is 00:06:45 because he's sitting there. It's like he's having to justify what we're doing to the assembled states. Instead of saying, we're the United States, we're leading, we've done this, and we need you to do X, Y, and Z. If you want us to actually accomplish this, if you want us to succeed in these things that you say that you want us to succeed in, this is what needs to happen. For instance, on climate change.

Starting point is 00:07:05 The United States could cut all of its greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, and it will have almost no impact on climate change projections. Yeah. Why is that? Because most of the emissions are now coming from China and India and other developing countries. Where is the challenge in the room? Instead, he accepted, in essence, responsibility for this, saying that developing countries are developed countries

Starting point is 00:07:28 like the United States are responsible for climate change. Well, not going forward, we're not. And this is, and there's, and then on the sustainable development goals, they're badly off track. The Secretary General says they're badly off track. He says that we need to provide billions more dollars. You know, he said we need a surge in funding of $500 billion a year, which is more than we give in, not just the United States,

Starting point is 00:07:53 all the developed countries given development assistance every year. It's a huge ask for what? For a failed endeavor? They're not looking at the endeavor saying, well, what's going wrong here? Why haven't we been able to successfully accomplish these goals? Instead of that self-reflection and a reevaluation of how we can maybe focus the money that we have more effectively to accomplish these goals, instead they're just simply asking for more money. So why isn't President Biden going forward and saying, yes, they're off track, but they're off track why. We need to understand what's going wrong before we start committing more American tax dollars to this. Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation, we appreciate your analysis on this. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you very much.

Starting point is 00:08:37 Well, in other news, next week is going to be a big week here in Washington, D.C., because next Thursday, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee will hold a hearing on the possibility of impeaching President Biden. A House Oversight Spokesperson told the Hill that the hearing will focus on constitutional and legal questions surrounding the president's involvement in corruption and abuse of public office. James Comer is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and he told the press today that next week's hearing will focus on the existing evidence the committee has gathered against the president. The announcement of the hearing, of course, comes after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the impeachment inquiry in the Senate. to President Biden last week. Republicans are considering impeaching the president on grounds that he used his power and position while vice president to personally benefit his family in financial business dealings.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Comer says he believes that Biden accepted a bribe in his dealings with Ukraine while he was vice president. Stay tuned for next Thursday's hearing. The influence of the Chinese Communist Party is rampant in America's classroom, Representative Aaron Bean, a Republican from Florida, said today during a hearing on Capitol Hill. Bean, chairman of the House Education Committee's subcommittee on early childhood elementary and secondary education, said in his opening statement that over 500 K-12 schools across the United States have allowed the CCP to establish itself in their halls under the guise of Confucius classrooms. The Florida Republican added that the risk posed by the proliferation of communist Confucius classrooms is threefold,

Starting point is 00:10:25 threatening America's national, geopolitical, and academic interests. Specifically relating to America's national security, being noted a recent report revealed that numerous Confucius classrooms are strategically located around U.S. military bases. Representative Michelle Steele, a Republican from California, who said her own parents fled from North Korea from communism and whose stories have impacted me forever, asked Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, why must we work to protect our kids from influences that come from CCP Confucius classrooms? Gonzalez replied,

Starting point is 00:11:06 This is a foreign political party that is totalitarian. Everywhere that communism has been tried, it has ended in tyranny with the suppression of people. people's rights and economic chaos. Gonzalez also said, what they want to do is influence our children into believing that, no, it's a good system, and China's a normal country that is not tyrannical. We cannot allow that to happen. As pro-life activists face prison time brought on by Department of Justice charges,

Starting point is 00:11:38 Republican members of Congress are introducing legislation targeting the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, also known as the Face Act. That's according to reporting from our colleague here at the Daily Signal, Mary Margaret O'Lehann. Republican Texas Representative Chip Roy introduced a bill today to repeal the Face Act, which prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services. The Daily Signal has learned that Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee will soon introduce a Senate version of the bill. Roy told the Daily Signal in a statement that free Americans should never live in fear of their government targeting them because of their beliefs. Yet, Biden's Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the Face Act against normal everyday Americans across the political spectrum,

Starting point is 00:12:32 simply because they are pro-life. The bill is co-sponsored by a slew of Republican representatives, including Chris Smith of New Jersey, Bob Good of Virginia, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Jim Banks of Indiana, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Doug Lamborn of Colorado. The Act protects both abortion clinics and pro-life pregnancy centers, but the DOJ has widely used it to charge pro-life activists with face act violations since the Supreme Court's June 22 overturning of Roeby Wade. We will leave a link to Mary Margaret's full report in today's show notes. As we reported on yesterday's show, the Senate will no longer have a dress code,

Starting point is 00:13:16 a move that Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Federman, who often wears hoodies and shorts, applauded. The first term senator told Fox News that I feel it's a little more freedom, which should be bipartisanship. I don't know why the right side seems to be losing their minds over it. Federman added, I think it's a good thing, but I'm going to use it sparingly. I hope other colleagues take advantage of it too. Eric Tietzel, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a recent piece for the Daily Signal, clothes aren't everything, but they do communicate something.

Starting point is 00:13:55 And that's why I think the new Senate dress code is perfect. Tietzl added, in recent years, the Senate has become a mostly unsurious place. Most senators spent the two and a half days they work evading the tough issues the name nation needs them to grapple with. What better symbol of the pathetic state of the Senate than a pair of sweatpants? Tietzel also said, in the day or two since Schumer's announcement, this story has garnered national media attention and birth a thousand op-eds, but the nation has more important things to worry about. The ongoing border crisis and our out-of-control deficit and debt come to mind. You can check out Tietzl's full piece in today's.

Starting point is 00:14:40 show notes. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal's Top News. If you haven't gotten a chance, make sure you subscribe to our morning show right here in this podcast feed where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Join us tomorrow morning. I am going to be sitting down with Congressman Mark Mark Green of Tennessee. He's the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. And we're going to be talking about the committee's investigation into the border crisis. It's a five-phase investigation, and on Wednesday, the committee is entering its fourth phase, and we'll be having a hearing looking at the financial cost of the border crisis.

Starting point is 00:15:22 Be sure to catch the conversation tomorrow morning with Congressman Mark Green. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read and appreciate all of your feedback. Thanks again for listening. Have a great night. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation.

Starting point is 00:15:52 Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - President Biden Speaks U.N. General Assembly, Impeachment Inquiry Hearing Set for Next Week, Rep. Chip Roy Introduces Bill To Repeal FACE Act | Sept. 19

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