The Daily Signal - RFK Endorses Trump, Secret Service Places Agents on Administrative Leave, Kamala Harris Addresses DNC | August 23

Starting point is 00:00:00 Third party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just endorsed Trump. I'm Elizabeth Mitchell, and this is the Daily Signal, top news for Friday, August 23rd. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race in 10 key battleground states. He endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump. Kennedy made the announcement at a press conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Kennedy launched a campaign for the Democratic nomination in April and switched to being an independent candidate in October. This sparked accusations from the Trump campaign that he is a member of the radical left. But Trump more recently told CNN he would love a Kennedy endorsement and is open to Kennedy working in his administration if he dropped out and endorsed him. RFK is the nephew of former president John F. Kennedy. RFK is an environmental activist and a vaccination skeptic.

Starting point is 00:01:01 He vowed to end the war in Ukraine if elected and slashed the military budget. Here's RFK Jr. talking about how he's seen the Democratic Party change over time. It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money. The Secret Service placed at least five members on administrative leave in the aftermath of the July 13th assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a report from Fox News. This includes one member of Trump's personal protective team and four members of the Secret Service

Starting point is 00:01:40 Pittsburgh Field Office. The Asians are allowed to work but cannot be involved in operational tasks, including security planning. Inofficial told ABC News that more senior officials might get caught up in the review. Here's Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a Republican, talking about it. Now what we find out is that the very same secret service that was immediately pointing their fingers at local law enforcement, they now have five of their guys, I think it's five, whatever this number that today announced that are on leave after getting rid of Cheatel.

Starting point is 00:02:09 But the fact is you had local law enforcement, as we've seen from now the body cam footage, who are the ones saying, gosh, you know, we told those guys, you know, expletive, expletive deleted from their quote, we told those guys to post some guys up there on the roof, to post guys in the right place. The Secret Service told the Daily Signal on Wednesday that it is committed to investigating the decisions and actions of personnel in relation to the July 13th event. The Secret Services Chief of Communications said in a statement that the U.S. Secret Services mission, Assurance Review, is progressing. and we are examining the processes, procedures, and factors that led to this operational failure. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer demanded information from TSA about Tulsi Gabbard allegedly being placed on a suspected terrorist watch list. Gabbard is a former Democratic representative from Hawaii who has since left the Democratic Party.

Starting point is 00:03:00 In a Friday letter to TSA administrator David Pukosky, Comer requested documents, communications, and a staff-level briefing to increase understanding of TSA. say's use of resources and if it is retaliating against whistleblowers. Comer said the federal air marshals service abused its authority by assigning air marshals to surveil the spouse of a federal air marshal and a former U.S. member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard. The Daily Signal reported this week that Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is also attempting to get to the bottom of the Transportation Security Administration's watch list and blacklist programs. Paul wrote to Picoski He saying, recent disclosures from whistleblowers raise serious concerns that these mechanisms may have been improperly employed to target individuals based on their political views and participation in constitutionally protected activities, rather than legitimate security threat.

Starting point is 00:03:52 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris addressed the Democratic National Convention last night, touting her record on reproductive rights, a euphemism for abortion. The Daily Signal's newest edition, Bradley Devlin, covered the speech. Thanks so much for joining us for the first time on top news today. Thanks for having me. What were the main points of Harris' speech last night? Leaked before the speech, we knew it was going to break down into three buckets. It was going to be a biographical part of the speech. There was going to be a part of the speech that talked about the dangers of the Trump agenda,

Starting point is 00:04:24 and then finally the bucket of patriotism, if you want to call it that. It's more of a, that's not who we are ending of the speech, following all of the dangerous things that Trump's proposing, like, lowering gas prices and getting us out of foreign wars. So that is what she said last night. But yet again, she's still light on the details. Interesting. And was anything notable missing from her speech from your experience? Yes, some interesting words were missing from her speech last night. Inflation, energy, gas, oil, trade, fentanyl, addiction, constitution, infrastructure, roads, bridges. These were all words that were completely absent from Kamala Harris's speech last night, even on areas where she could boast about

Starting point is 00:05:14 President Joe Biden, hers record, right? Talking about passing an infrastructure bill, talking about the COVID vaccine, right? COVID pandemic vaccine. None of that was mentioned at all last night during the speech. And so for me, it seemed like she was trying to put as much distance between herself and Biden as possible as she tries to pull off this rebrand. Another thing that was missing from the biographical portion of the speech, she's pitching herself as this middle-class kid when she grew up, raised by two PhD parents. Her mother was a researcher at the Lawrence Laboratory at UC Berkeley. Today, jobs in that laboratory are well over $100,000. The neighborhood that she grew up in in Berkeley, well, the houses, that...

Starting point is 00:05:59 there are well over a million dollars today. So obviously a lot has changed in Berkeley since that period of time. But how many middle class kids do you know that grew up with two PhD parents? I don't know many. I don't know if you know many. That is fascinating. And how did Harris's speech fit into the larger DNC narrative that we heard from other speakers throughout the week? I think the biggest revelation of the DNC was this is obviously not just a lot of the DNC, Joe Biden passing the baton to Kamal Harris, but the entirety of the Democratic old guard passing it on to the new guard. This is not only Joe Biden, this is the Clintons, right? Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton both addressed the DNC. This is Jim Clyburn. This is Bernie Sanders. Who are the

Starting point is 00:06:49 inheritors, though, of that mantle? Who make up this new guard? Well, a lot of prominent Democratic politicians right now are governors. So at the gubernatorial level, You have J.B. Pritzker, you have Gretchen Whitmer, you have Gavin Newsom, you have Josh Shapiro. But there are also some inheritors on Capitol Hill, Hakeem Jeffries. The House Minority Leader is obviously among them. So is AOC, the progressive member of the squad who has probably the most visible detente with the classic Democratic establishment. But the question then becomes, okay, these are the inheritors. What are these inheritors actually believe?

Starting point is 00:07:25 I mean, John Favro last night in an interview with Jesse Waters, said the best he could come up with, Kamala Harris was a mainstream Democrat. Well, 20 years ago, that meant something very, very different. And that, like, therein lies the challenge for the Trump campaign, right? How do you brand a product that isn't there? Kamala Harris still does not have any policy proposals on her website. So, luckily for Trump, he has spent most of his life branding things most often with his name on it. and they will have to find a way to brand this empty suit that is Kamal Harris and this new guard of the Democratic Party who haven't been in Washington for 50 years like Biden and the Clintons and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Starting point is 00:08:09 Wow. Well, thank you so much for watching this speech and for reporting on this. It's Movie Friday on the Daily Signal podcast. Joining us now is our managing editor, Tyler O'Neill, to discuss the upcoming season of Rings of power. As a huge Lord of the Rings fan, what do you expect for season two? Well, I've got to be honest. My hopes are not very high. Rings of Power, season one, really disappointed. They failed in the world building. They didn't have the same spirit as the Lord of the Rings movies. And now we've seen leaks and hints from season two that they're going to introduce a new type of the hobbits. and this type of hobbits, the stewards, in the books, they're described as the less nomadic ones.

Starting point is 00:09:00 And then in the show, they're portrayed as the more nomadic ones. And it's like whoever was deciding, you know, the showrunners on Rings of Power, whoever was deciding this, they didn't do their basic research of reading the Fellowship of the Ring, which talks about the different types of hobbits right toward the beginning, before they actually decided how these different groups of hobbits are going to be living. So that basic lack of, you know, lack of care was really the centerpiece of why rings of power failed and why the original movies. And I mean, I know Virginia likes to bring on people for this segment. And I love coming on because I can talk about things that I like.

Starting point is 00:09:45 And like the Lord of the Rings is one of the most fantastic movie trilogies in history. And it captures the spirit of Tolkien's work through and through. I mean, it's shocked with this message of, you know, the power of God, the mythic sacrifice of some of the heroes. And, you know, the way that Tolkien echoes the gospel without having one of these obvious alleges. allegories. It's a really powerful book series and an amazing movie series. And then, of course, they made The Hobbit films, which botched it. And then now they're making rings of power. My hopes are not high. Despite your concerns, will you be tuning in to season two? And why or why not? I will be. I have kind of this love-hate relationship with some of these big

Starting point is 00:10:39 franchises. You know, like Star Wars, I was on it for the the new ones and then now they've they've gotten so insufferable that I haven't watched the most recent things. I'm not quite at that level with Rings of Power yet, partially because this is just season two. And I think my wife and I are going to hate watch it to some degree. And, you know, and there's still part of me that hopes, you know, I long for these cultural artifacts to do what they should do to honor the canon to actually inspire the audience like the original trilogy did. And of course, I'm going to sound like an old curmudgeon, but I'm a sucker for these original trilogies, and I really hope that they can get that spirit back at some point.

Starting point is 00:11:31 Awesome. Well, thanks, Tyler. Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening in to Friday's episode of The Daily Signal podcast. I hope you all have wonderful weekends and we'll be back with you on Monday morning where my co-host Virginia Allen will be sitting down with an economist from the Heritage Foundation, E.J. and Tony

Starting point is 00:11:52 to discuss the dismal state of our economy right now. Please make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review to help us reach more listeners and leave some feedback so we can know how we can improve and better reach you. Thank you so much for listening.

Starting point is 00:12:10 Have a wonderful weekend, and we're back with you on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, Mary Margaret O'Lohan, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph Von Spakovsky. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - RFK Endorses Trump, Secret Service Places Agents on Administrative Leave, Kamala Harris Addresses DNC | August 23

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