The Daily Signal - Rep. Cuellar Indicted and Taken into Custody, Biden to Give Dreams Health Care, Movie Review of Guy Ritchie’s Latest Blockbuster | May 3

Starting point is 00:00:01 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, May 3rd. Here are today's headlines. Texas Democrat Representative Henry Quayar and his wife have been indicted. NBC News was the first to report this morning that the Justice Department was preparing to indict Quayar on Friday. Quayar and his wife, Imelda, have been charged with bribery and conspiracy. The Associated Press reports that from 2014 to 2021, Quayor and his wife, accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. In exchange for the money, Quayr agreed to advance the interests of the national...

Starting point is 00:00:58 Quayor agreed to advance the interests of the nation of Azerbaijan and the bank. The Justice Department said today that the bribe payments were allegedly laundered through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Amelda Quayr, who performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts. The DOJ says that in exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Quayor allegedly agreed to use his office to influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan. And in exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican Bank, Congressman Quayor allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity

Starting point is 00:01:40 and to advise and pressure high-ranking U.S. Executive Branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank. Quayr and his wife were taken into custody today. Quayor has been serving in Congress since 2005, and he's co-chair of the Azerbaijan Caucus in Congress. NBC reports that Quayor's home and company office in Laredo, Texas were rated by the FBI in January of 2022. the raid was part of a federal investigation into Azerbaijan and a group of U.S. businessmen who have ties to the country. Quayor's office did agree to cooperate with that investigation. This morning, Quayor issued a statement before he was taken into custody in response to the forthcoming indictment. He said that he is innocent of all allegations and he added that the actions I took in Congress were consistent with the actions of many of my colleagues. and in the interests of the American people.

Starting point is 00:02:42 On Wednesday, we covered here on the show that Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark appears to have lied during her Senate confirmation testimony. During that Senate confirmation testimony, during that Senate confirmation, Clark specifically denied ever having been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime. But before she became one of the Justice Department's top leaders, Clark was allegedly involved in a violent domestic dispute. Court documents, records, and text messages obtained by the Daily Signal show that the incident ended in her arrest, which was later expunged.

Starting point is 00:03:21 The Daily Signals, Mary Margaret Ollahan, broke the news on this story Tuesday. She joins us now to provide an update on what has happened since the news broke. Mary Margaret, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark responded publicly to the story that you broke. What has she said regarding the fact that records show that she was arrested, but then she told the Senate under oath that she was never arrested? Well, we've been reaching out to Kristen Clark and the DOJ since February when I began working on this story. They did not choose to respond to us, though a few days ago they did tell me that they had received my press inquiries, but they still didn't give us any kind of answer.

Starting point is 00:04:02 Kristen Clark went to CNN and gave them an exclusive statement telling them, that she is a victim of domestic abuse and confirming our story that she did not disclose her arrest record or the expungement to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And it's also raised questions about whether she disclosed that to any of the federal investigations that she went under or background checks as she was being nominated to her DOJ position. Her ex-husband, Reginald Avery, has denied to us that he domestically abused her, which is one of the allegations that she made to CNN. Okay, so she has said publicly now, yes, I did in fact essentially lie before the Senate under oath. And this has been picked up and covered by a number of news outlets, including, as you mentioned, CNN.

Starting point is 00:04:49 How are some of these really large news outlets like CNN covering this story? Well, first of all, CNN and other establishment media types hate it when conservative media breaks news. They like to think that conservative media doesn't ever break news and they like to pretend that we only spread fake news. That is far from the truth. Conservative media often releases really groundbreaking investigative reporting, as we know. So CNN, the Guardian, and other outlets have avoided linking to our reporting. They've also avoided sharing exactly what we reported.

Starting point is 00:05:24 That is that Kristen Clark's ex-husband accused her of slicing his finger with a knife to the bone in an attack on him when they were having a domestic dispute several years ago in 2006. They did not mention any of that. If I had to guess that they had been given a little bit of direction on how to frame their stories since the establishment media stories on this topic so far have had very similar framing, headlines, and content. Okay. So now we're seeing that Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee has called for Clark to step down and resign. Is anyone else calling for her resignation?

Starting point is 00:06:02 Well, the New York Post editorial board last night called for her to resign. And only a few hours ago, we just published a story from conservative leaders, such as Brian Birch of Catholic vote, Kristen Hawkins of Students for Life, the American Accountability Foundation, and Advancing American Freedom, all calling for her to resign. I've heard rumblings that there are more to come, so we will see. Have you had any contact with Clark? Has anyone in her office reached out to send you a response to the situation? The only contact I've had with them was an ask for a little more information when we reached out for comment, I believe, on Monday. After that, we haven't had any kind of back and forth with them. Now, I should add, we reached out to the White House for comments since the White House nominated Clark for this DOJ position. Andrew Bates dismissed us and mocked the daily signal instead of giving us any kind of substantive response.

Starting point is 00:06:58 Mary Margaret, thank you for your work on this. We really appreciate your groundbreaking reporting. we're going to continue following this story as it unravels. Thank you for covering it. The Biden administration announced this morning that illegal immigrants who were brought into the U.S. as children will soon be eligible for federal health care within the United States. The new rule allows DACA recipients also often called dreamers to apply for health care under Obamacare. The Biden administration estimates that the plan will give 100,000 young people living in America the opportunity to apply. through health care.gov or state-based marketplaces and receive health care for as little as $10 a month.

Starting point is 00:07:40 President Joe Biden called the new health care rule a historic step to ensure that DACA recipients have the same access to health care through the Affordable Care Act as their neighbors. Under the new rule, DACA recipients will be able to apply for health care beginning in November. You can check out today's show notes for my full report on this news. While we're ending the show a little bit differently with a Friday movie review today, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is in theaters right now. It was released on April 13th, and I am joined by my colleague Jim Caraphano, and we're going to discuss the movie here and give it a little bit of a review.

Starting point is 00:08:24 And Jim is the leading expert in the National Security and Foreign Policy Center here at the Heritage Foundation. He focuses on those issues of foreign policy challenges and researchers and reports on them. Jim, thanks for being with us. And nobody loves movies more than I do. Most importantly. I am the perfect person to have on this. So hopefully people know who Guy Ritchie is. He's a very famous director who's done a lot of movies.

Starting point is 00:08:50 And I have to preface with this, no spoilers. A lot of people have not seen this movie yet. Oh, okay. So I won't do that. So the interesting thing, and I would say go see it quickly because sadly it's not doing well. at the box office, which is unfortunate because it's actually a really kind of entertaining movie and not a great history lesson, but a great introduction to some really important history. So it is worth saying.

Starting point is 00:09:12 And I don't understand what it is about Guy Ritchie Films. People love them or hate them, and they're all the same. You know, the gentleman on Netflix has gone really well. People love that. It's all kind of very Quentin Tarantino-esque. So if you like that Quentin Tarantino thing, you'll love it. It's definitely an action film. and with lots of interesting quirky characters.

Starting point is 00:09:33 So if you like that kind of film, you would love this movie. Absolutely. Well, and I do have to clarify, this is not a family-friendly movie. It's rated R. It's quite violent, but it is based on a true story, a true historical story out of World War II. Jim, give us the real quick synopsis background. So, and this part is true. Yes.

Starting point is 00:09:54 It's highly fictionalized. It's actually based on a book by the same name, which is actually a very accurate, really, really, excellent book and it's a dramatic read. And the real history is as fascinating as the movie. But the movie kind of fictionalizes it. So what is true is the Germans had a base on a Spanish island, a Spanish territory in Africa. They were using to supply the U-boats. And that was very important was that was the lifeline from the United States to Europe. Food, everything had across the Atlantic. And the U-boots sinking ship. ships was it was called the Battle of the Atlantic was actually a real problem, especially

Starting point is 00:10:36 early in the war for the United States. And so diminishing the capacity to support the U-boat fleet was a big deal. And so they attacked this base, because I don't want to give too much away, with this basically secret force. So these were unconventional warfare, people that were in the military. And what they did was really, it was unbelievable. If you actually, you actually listen to the real story, how they took out these ships is just incredible. And it really is, and this is not giving it away. And this is true. One of the characters in the movie is a guy named Ian Fleming.

Starting point is 00:11:15 Totally true. Ian Fleming was a real intelligence agent in World War II. So I shall actually station the United States. He really participated in these operations. And what it's also absolutely true is a lot of the characters that he developed for the James Bond series. including James Bond were from his experiences in the military intelligence service in the British during World War II. So like the character M is there really was an M and it's based on that.

Starting point is 00:11:45 The character James Bond is actually partially based on one of the characters in this movie. So cool. Well, I want to do a real fast scoring of this movie and go through some of the big categories that most people consider make or break a good movie. So we have a pretty all-star cast with this movie. Henry Cavill is one of the lead actors. How would you overall rate the acting on a scale of 1 to 10 in the movie, the film, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare? Well, these are characters. They're not, so these are caricatures of characters, right?

Starting point is 00:12:18 And they're quirky and interesting. So if you've ever seen all these movies like Force 10 from Navarone or Navarone or Eagles Nest, they're actually a little boring because it's kind of hard to distinguish one. person from the other. This is more like Star Wars. The characters are very individual, larger than life, and kind of really super interesting. Good description. How would you read the script? I honestly thought, look, it's a very, let me take a real history event and make it into a Quentin Tarantino film. So it has that kind of pacing, kind of jumpy, cutting back and forth. So if you like that kind of stuff, you'll love the film. I really appreciated the production quality.

Starting point is 00:13:04 I've seen the movie twice now, and I was impressed by how authentic they were in many of the scenes, and they did not use much green screen. When they're on a boat, they're really out on a boat. Right. I mean, there is some green scene in the movie, but it looks, it's pretty good. It looks very good, and it's visually very beautiful. It's a very well-due. So if you like that, you'll definitely like this.

Starting point is 00:13:32 Is it worth paying the money to see it in the box office? You know, I always think movies are better on a big screen. So my prejudice is always to say if you like it, see it in a movie experience, especially in action films. I think it's just better. Yeah, there's a lot of good action. I would describe this as a pretty solid mix of action comedy and drama. Yeah, again, it's very, it's very good. very much what you'd expect.

Starting point is 00:14:00 So if you liked Inglorious Bastards, so that was, again, kind of based on a real story. It was a Quentin Tarantino film on World War II, kind of his take on the Dirty Dozen, similar kind of big quirky characters. If you like that, you'll love this film. I will say this about the violent. It is a very violent film, but it's not, it's not grotesque, right? It's not visual. I mean, there's a lot of killing and murdering and stabbing, but it's not like, see. seeing the evil dead or something and see body parts ripped out like that.

Starting point is 00:14:31 So it's not bad. It's definitely R, but it's not a gross out film. Yeah. So maybe don't take the kids to see it. But if you're okay with a little bit of that, go see it. But what I would do, actually, if you had older kids, right? I would take them to see the film. And then I would say, look, now go and do a little bit of research and see what really

Starting point is 00:14:52 happened and come back and talk about this because, look, this is what very important is you don't make great films by trying to make, reproduce the book, or by trying to reproduce a historical film. You have to be true to the medium. It's a visual medium. And so you have to do that. You can't have 80,000 characters. So appreciate a film for what it is.

Starting point is 00:15:14 But then if you're really a historian, don't say, oh, well, that didn't really happen like that. What you really want to do is savor, what is the real history? And then if you're really clever, put yourself in the director's thing and say, why did the director make those choices? Why did he consolidate characters or condense things or eliminate events and make yourself into kind of a script writer, right? Why did the script writers make these kind of choices?

Starting point is 00:15:38 That makes a historical film which they're all fictionalized, much more interesting and I think engaging for an audience. Love it. The movie is the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Not about Heritage Foundation, by the way. Not about the Heritage Foundation at all. Very not connected. Jim, thank you.

Starting point is 00:15:55 much for your time today. We appreciate you joining us for our first movie review here on the Daily Signals Friday Top News edition. I hope it's not the last. I hope not either. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for being with us on this Friday for the Daily Signal's Top News. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. And hey, if you have a little extra time this weekend, would you take a minute to leave the Daily Signal a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you like to listen? We will be right back. here with you on Monday morning. I'm sitting down with the head of the Defense of Freedom Institute as we talk about their lawsuit against the Biden administration's new Title IX rule that tries

Starting point is 00:16:37 to redefine sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Be sure to catch that conversation Monday morning. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend. We'll see you back here Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinco. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Rep. Cuellar Indicted and Taken into Custody, Biden to Give Dreams Health Care, Movie Review of Guy Ritchie’s Latest Blockbuster | May 3

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