The Dan Bongino Show - Maduro Discovers Freedom In Handcuffs | Episode 197

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Maduro is shocked by his Miranda Rights; Walz drops out of race without taking questions; and the left roots for the pipe bomber to be released Watch VINCE Live on Rumble - Mon-Fri 10AM ET ⁠⁠��⁠ ⁠https://rumble.com/vince⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Judge Cuts Off Ousted Venezuelan Dictator Maduro As He Tries To Defend Himself In Court https://dailycaller.com/2026/01/05/judge-cuts-off-ousted-venezuelan-dictator-maduro-as-he-tries-to-defend-himself-in-court/ Trump May Have Accidentally Pardoned the Jan. 6 Pipe Bomber https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/01/06/jan-6-pipe-bomber-trump-pardon-column-00712039?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f103-dd93-ad7f-f90702030002 Alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber said he wasn't targeting Congress' certification of Biden's victory: DOJ https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/alleged-jan-6-pipe-bomber-targeting-congress-certification/story?id=128738143 Sponsors: Bon Charge - https://boncharge.com code: VINCE HomeServe - https://homeserve.com Brickhouse Nutrition - https://takelean.com   code: Vince American Financing - https://AmericanFinancing.net/Vince - NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 888-879-6460, for details about credit costs and terms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good morning and welcome to this edition of Vince on a Tuesday. Great to have you with us. As always, the best audience anywhere. We have a mighty show ahead for you. Of course, it's January 6th. You may know it as one of the high holy days of the left. Peace be upon them. It's a huge day.

We're going to go back and take a look at some of the ways in which they're obsessing over January 6, 2006. And don't you forget it? Also, Tim Walls, of course, announced that he's dropping out in Minnesota. That's wonderful. we've got Maduro going in before court yesterday in New York City and being stunned by what a functioning justice system looks like and Michael Knowles stops by. Yes, we have a very busy show for you. And I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being here with us. Coming up on the program. Okay, we've got great sponsors on this show. That includes bone charge. You're familiar with bone charge? You should be. Bone charge is incredible. Bone charge has this thing called an infrared sauna blanket. I've got it. My wife's got the bone charge. charge red light face mask and ever since they sent these products to us we can't love them and

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These statements and products have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. Yes, yes, it is January 6th, ladies and gentlemen. If you still have the tree up, I know what you can do with it. Adorn it with a Palestinian flag perhaps or a pride flag or put your COVID masks all over it. That's right. Or your Maduro poster. Put that up in a prominent place in your house. And celebrate January 6th. It's an important day. Sometimes I still wake up in terrors and think about when the Capitol police were leading the Viking guy, like a tour around the Capitol building. Or when the Capitol police, EGADS opened the doors to allow people in. I can't stop thinking about it. Do you remember all the assault selfies that were taking place? That's right. People were holding up their fully automatic assault cell phones and taking pictures. And taking pictures. of themselves inside of their own capital building. Disgusting. Disgusting. I can't believe that happened. And every day since then has been January 6th. Don't believe me? Well, today, Politico's,

one of Politico's idiots, a guy called Kyle Cheney, if that's even his real name. He posted the following to social media today. It was accompanied by a big piece that he's promoting, but it's hilarious. He wrote, new. Donald Trump's escape from accountability for January 6th has been the animating force in his second term. A president willing to test and cross constitutional lines knowing the institutions meant to check or punish him can't or won't. What is he talking about? Donald Trump has followed the Constitution and the law to the T, even to the point that has been frustrating to watch. He keeps following the law. That's the feature. Everyone around him was trying to destroy him has been breaking the law in the constitution but kyle goes on and he goes five years

later january sixth is every day now that's hilarious and what does he mean by that january six is every day where is january six every day inside of your house i mean maybe january six is every day inside of the miss now green room maybe that's where january six is every day or perhaps he means January 6th, a day where nobody was actually staging an insurrection. What kind of insurrection doesn't have weapons? The whole thing is so stupid. So maybe he means that the right continues not to try and violently overthrow the country because we prefer law and order.

Maybe that's what he means. January 6 is every day. Or maybe what he means is January 6th, in his view, is a violent insurrection. So are we getting violent insurrections all the time? Hmm. Yeah, from the left. So maybe that's what he means. No, we know what he means.

know that the left continues to cling desperately to January 6th as some sort of tool that they can use to expand their power. Nancy Pelosi launched an entire fake committee using January 6 as a pretext. Despite the fact she was the one who didn't even call the National Guard in. She resisted having the National Guard there precisely for this purpose. The left is desperate for handholds in order to rise back to power. So they'll use any pretext for it and Kyle Cheney is a willing little lick spittle for that for that purpose. Oh, January 6 is every day. He wants January 6 to be every day. His thing is to wish cast that January 6 be every day so that the left can get more power. And our answer to that is hell no.

We don't view it that way. In fact, what we fervently want is for a restoration of the rule of law. It's why we voted for Donald Trump in the first place. It's why we sent him back into office. despite your many theatrical and tyrannical protests. Yeah, no, we're sending that guy back. We want to restore order in the Constitution. And so we did. January 6th is every day. And they're still using anything they can desperately to try and undermine President Trump,

including it especially January 6th. Here's another one for you today. This is from Politico. Another one from Politico. I don't know what Politica. They woke up and they chose idiocy today. here Politico is rooting for the pipe bomber to go free today they're rooting for the pipe bomber to go free Brian Cole Jr who I don't know if you're familiar with this but there's a guy there's a fellow called Dan Bongino who is going to be back behind a microphone very soon and he comes into the FBI deputy director and he makes one of his most important priorities to capture the January 6 pipe bomber they just brought him into custody a month or so ago

They finally catch this guy after all these years. And to be clear, I want to remind people, it wasn't based on a bunch of new information. It wasn't based on new tipsters or anything like that. It was simply based on the information that the Biden-led FBI refused to act upon. They had it in their custody and they refused to take this guy into custody. That's the truth. And so they finally take Brian Cole Jr. in the custody, he confesses in his conversations with authorities that it was him. got him dead the rights if you go read all the available legal documents on the subject they've got

his cell phone patterns they got his license play they've got him all around this place they got him on video he's dropping the bombs on the evening of january 5th they got their guy and now politico's arguing Donald trump may have accidentally pardoned him I'm sorry come again he accidentally would he slip and he pardoned was he walking by the auto pen machine and had Brian Cole's name on it and he accidentally hit the button what are you talking about he accidentally pardoned brian cole junior look at this this is a real headline check this out from politico trump may have accidentally pardoned the january six pipe bomber what so you start to wonder what the hell are they even talking about so the what they hang their hat on is the fact that

president trump upheld a campaign promise to pardon the defendants on january 6th 2021. Anybody that the Biden administration went after and tried to destroy their life tyrannically just because they wanted to hurt Trump supporters, imprison them, lock them up for months on end. They were left with nothing but the ability to sing the national anthem to each other each evening from their jail cells. Donald Trump gave a pardon to all of these people because he ran on it and then he fulfilled that promise as soon as he got into office. Politico is now. hoping that the pipe bomber can walk free on that basis now this is insanity for any number of reasons but one of the clearest ones one of the clearest ones is ready for

this even Politico's piece quotes the pardon Trump's proclamation commuted the sentences of 14 individuals and also granted quote a full complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6th, 20201. I want to reiterate something. On January 6th, 2021, for those of you playing along, we've been following this story closely enough to know the details. When did Brian Cole Jr. plant the bombs? Which, day, which date. I'll wait as you process that. January 5th. Thank you. The shadow has it. Thank you. The shadow knows. Remember that? The shadow does know. It was January 5th that the pipe bombs replaced.

So the pardon wouldn't even apply. The text of the pardon. The plain syntax of the pardon says on January 6th. So it's like idiocy. The other piece here is that in this case, Brian Colt Jr., when he sat down with authorities, he straight up said that his actions had nothing to do with the congressional proceedings the next day. Who said that? The suspect said that. So in what world would a pardon that applies to the events that occurred on January 6th related? specifically to the United States Capitol building.

In what world would that apply to Brian Cole Jr.? It wouldn't. Now, am I saying that some left-wing judge is not going to buy this convoluted logic? No, I'm not saying that at all. We've seen that kind of garbage happen over and over and over again. And this may be a big assist from Politico as the defense team for Brian Cole Jr.

tries to find some way to get their guy out of this. But I'm telling you, this is, I mean, isn't it amazing? So the left who goes on a jihad against every grandma who waved an American flag inside of their own capital building on January 6th, now is working overtime once again to say stop focusing on the pipe bomber, let him go free? What is this? It's like the Ray Epps thing all over again. Where it's like, why wasn't that guy arrested? He's yelling for everybody to go on the Capitol. What is that all about?

And then the media goes full time in defense of that guy? I'm sorry, I thought the whole point was you guys are trying to absolutely crush. any Trump supporter wherever you can find them and then you know the second you know you see you take somebody into custody you drop some couple of pipe bombs you're like no this needs to go free you walk me through this exactly walk me through this Brian Cole Jr. by the way no Trump supporter he said he detested both political parties and that's again he was telling authorities this and then he planted the pipe bombs but in case you're wondering are they still delusional about January 6th hell yeah to this very day they're still

pumping this. And lastly, on this thing about Politico, you know, remember, like, you wondered yourself, was there ever a time that Politico has lied to us? Like, maybe Vince, maybe I should trust political. Maybe they're right about this. Let's see. How about this one? Do you remember this one? Justin, will you put this on screen for me? Remember this story? Hunter Biden's story is Russian disinformation, dozens of former intel officials say. Yeah, I'm not sure I reflexively trust Politico at on any of this. I mean, it's like, it's like, you know who's probably going to get away with it? The pipe bomber, yeah, because Trump pardoned him.

Yeah, sure. That makes a lot of sense. That makes no sense, actually, whatsoever. But that, that is. That is what's going on, just to keep you apprised, which, of course, is my job. We're keeping you apprised. All right. Let's see what else is going on other than the insanity of January 6th.

We've got, well, let me, let me, let me get to Maduro. Maduro showed up in a, speaking of the justice system, Maduro showed up in a New York City courtroom yesterday, and he pled not guilty to all of these various charges. And he was saying, I'm the leader of a country. I'm the leader of a country. First of all, you're not the leader of anything. Even in the first Trump administration, you guys remember,

President Trump didn't even recognize him as the leader of Venezuela. Juan Guaido, who remembers that name? Juan Guaido was recognized as the official leader of Venezuela by the Trump administration then. And in this current Trump administration, they've outright declared, because it's true, that he was fraudulently acting as the president of Venezuela. So any claim that we captured the leader of Venezuela is already on its face broken. It's just false. This guy was a guy who occupied, occupied the position of power inside of Venezuela unlawfully. It wasn't with the consent of the government.

They have a democracy there nominally. And he seized control of power without consent of the government. And so he shows up in court yesterday, and he's whining, I'm the leader of Venezuela. I was captured at my home. Uh-huh. Got it, buddy. And that said, this guy was stunned, apparently, by our justice system. He had no idea that in our justice system that he might be entitled to any sorts of rights in the process.

Watch this cut from yesterday as a Fox analyst breaks this down. Maduro stunned by how generous the United States is being to him. Got one. Interestingly, he said after the judge read him a version of Miranda rights and included the fact that he had the right to potentially be released on bail, Maduro said he was unaware of those rights and it struck me that he's coming from a very different legal system because it seemed like he had never even conjured the notion that he's entitled to an attorney. He may be able to apply for bail and he has the right to use to stay silent.

He has the right that none of the material that he has said outside the purview of counsel if necessarily has to come in. So it was interesting to see him sort of taking that in a system very different from the one I'm sure he's used to. He was like stunned. He's like, wait a second. People are entitled to rights. What is this? That's because Maduro doesn't govern things like this. But there, I mean, people are eating zoo animals because they don't have access to anything in Venezuela. Eight million people at least have fled that country in desperation because of Maduro and before that Hugo Chavez's tyrannical rule. And so he's being given, I'm telling you what, I've been saying this and I'll continue to say this. The Trump administration is being awfully nice to this guy.

The fact that we sent Delta Force there as a as a chauffeur service is pretty decent of us. You know, we didn't put a bullet in his head. We put him in a helicopter. You know, who gets to fly in a helicopter? That's pretty cool. Imagine getting to fly in a helicopter. they put him on a helicopter they fly into the united states he gets you know he's surrounded he's got a security detail everybody brings him in they bring him into a new york city courtroom they even mark

rubio said they read him his rights when they took him in the custody we're pretty decent country that's over the top generosity on our part and then we put him before a judge and then he gets to have his rights in a court of law now from my perspective this guy's out of control he's killed a lot of americans he's absolutely been dastardly he's been working with all these authoritarian regimes he's been empowering China. It's been a complete disaster. I'd be perfectly happy with us just dropping him off and Gitmo and forgetting an entire legal process for him. Because in my view, look, the American Constitution is for American citizens. I think it's pretty straightforward. But we're a decent country. And so we're affording him rights in a court of law. He's going through it right now. Fine.

But man, that's that's that's President Trump for you. Speaking of the guy was he's trampling the constitution and in the rule of law. Now, he's fine. following it to the tea. He's even giving Maduro his day in court, which Maduro was stunned by. So kind of fascinating to watch all that because it's like this guy is not accustomed to this at all. He was actually, you could tell he was like, he was fully stunned that he's being shown these courtesies at all. Pretty amazing. Oil tankers, by the way, are trying to break through the blockade outside of Venezuela because President Trump's got an armada there. and he's blocking everything up.

At least 15 U.S. sanctioned oil tankers have reportedly been breaking through the blockade. What they do is they've been going into something called dark mode tactics, and they've been trying to skirt the ships. They paint names of decommissioned vessels on their halls. They misrepresent their positions. They're trying to leave in coordinated fashions to escape the blockade. They're being tracked by U.S. satellites. I love how these guys think they're just going to get away.

we I mean we can see when like a fly takes off you know what I mean we can track B populations with our technology I'm pretty sure we're keeping an eye on these ships whether or not they get through the blockade but they all try and leave en masse but this is amazing for a million reasons but I tell you what this is something I was saying yesterday I'll reiterate today this is amazing because what we've done is we've shut down the world's gas station for authoritarian regimes we've shut it down this is a mass massive, massive deal. Cuba is absolutely struggling right now, trying to figure out what they're going to do. You've got China, which has been taking so much of this oil, key adversary on the planet. You want to talk about the big adversary? It's China. It's China. This disempowers them. And China, of course, has been working at our expense immensely. And so if we're going to be in a world where we defend American interests, it's certainly to stop China from buying underpriced illicit oil on the black market in order to hurt us that that's a huge deal so look this has been this has been obviously very dramatic it's been an historic event uh but president trump is

navigating it right now and i think you know just like a lot of this stuff it's just got a place trust that he's handling it the right way um and they're doing everything they can to make it so that this guy sees justice and that the Venezuelan people restore their historic traditions of democratic governance and this ultimately and most importantly serves the interests of the american people that's what this is all about and if there's anybody who can handle that juggling act handle juggling those chainsaws it's Donald trump he definitely who else pick somebody else it's that guy all right more in a moment um tim walls is bowing out uh he said i'm out i'm out i'm not running for governor anymore because i got to spend more time hunting down the criminals he claims uh and he's got a

big character witness who's come out to support him thinks he's a great guy uh you will not be surprised by his character witness and i pretty sure it was unsolicited endorsement uh which tim walls may be regretting more in a moment hey owning a home is a totally amazing thing totally amazing thing until it's not until it's not one minute you're enjoying that morning coffee love my morning coffee but then the next your ankle deep in water from a pipe that just burst in your house that's not good repairs they never care about your timing they definitely don't care about your budget look you protect your health your car even your phone but what about your home it's probably your biggest investment and when something breaks it can cost you big time that's where homeserve comes in

regular homeowners insurance it might not cover the everyday breakdowns like a furnace failure or a broken light switch or a busted water heater oh but homeserve they offer plans that do help to cover those kinds of repairs it's like a subscription for your home and it starts to just four dollars and 99 cents a month that's a great deal for peace of mind help protect your home systems and your wallet with homeserve against covered repairs plans start at just 499 a month you can go to homeserve.com to find a plan that's right for you that's it just go to homeserve.com it's not available everywhere most plans range between 499 to 1199 a month your first year terms apply on covered repairs see homeserve.com for details tampon tim walls has decided to wave with both hands and leave the governor's

race in Minnesota. By the way, does that guy not have the weirdest hand gestures you've ever seen? There's only one other guy who's got perhaps even weirder hand gestures. And that would be greasy Gavin Newsom from California. You know him, Gavin Newsom always looks like he's milking an imaginary cow. He's doing the cow milking thing. He's like moving his hands, gesticulating. Yeah, he's milking imaginary cows.

Tim Walls is doing spirit fingers and waving with both arms. and those guys are supposed to be the avatars for masculinity on the left. At any rate, Gavin Newsom has decided to endorse Tim Walls. Gavin Newsom, Greasy Gavin Newsom, dove in yesterday to thank Tim Walls as his time as governor of Minnesota. Gavin Newsom wrote this on his stupid X account. He wrote, Tim Walls is a man of character, strength and compassion. he has served Minnesota with heart and dignity everything about this is a lie Minnesota and America is better off thanks to his lifelong public service

wishing him all the best in this next chapter thank you Tim Wals America and Minnesota are way worse off because of Tim Wals Tim Wals is not a man of character he's a scumbag and a liar Tim Walls is not a man of strength, he's a man of weakness. Tim Walz is not a man of compassion. He's a man of villainy and cruelty. Tim Walz has enabled some of the most destructive fraud in our entire country's history. We're looking at upwards of $19 billion, and perhaps that's a low figure, stolen from you and from me and from the people of Minnesota, on Tim Walz's watch.

And clearly, with his implied approval at the very least, spare us. The whole thing is so stupid. But a character endorsement from greasy Gavin Newsom is probably the cherry on top of all of this. So who loves Tim Walls, Kamala Harris, and Gavin Newsom? Yeah. Tim Walls. Walls is on the way out.

Walls did a press conference yesterday. And when he did his presser to announce that he's stepping aside, would think that you were like, hey, I'm not going to be the governor anymore. I'm not running for office anymore. You think maybe you would, you know, answer a couple of questions about that subject. Walls took no questions. Here he is. Watch. No one's taking this away from us, not the fraudsters, certainly not this president, not on my watch. Tomorrow, I'll be back with you. I'll give you an update on America's best paid family medical lead program that is now a week into it. And at that time, I'll take all your questions.

Thank you all. Thank you, press. Stay back tomorrow. Thanks, folks. We'll have more tomorrow. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Wow. All right. Thank you, press. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you.

I thought you were going to take questions. By the way, that video keeps going and going and going. It's just reporters all grumpy that they're like, I thought this was a press conference. What the hell was that? So you tell me. I said this yesterday, and I'll reiterate it here. You tell me, you think Walls is leaving on his own terms? You think Walls is leaving because everything is great,

that he's just got to double down on excellence? Do you think Walls is leaving because I don't want to be distracted by politics? I just got to focus on the excellence of the people of Minnesota. You really think that's why he's leaving? No, of course not. Nobody thinks that. He's leaving under a storm cloud. This guy is leaving because the Democrats are giving him the heave ho.

he's a huge liability going into the midterms. The last thing they need is this cartoonish, Elmer Fudd goofball who has led to this massive fraud in America being front and center in the American consciousness leading up to the midterms. That's the last thing that they need. Additionally, who's to say that he doesn't get prosecuted soon and who's to say that he's not aware that the walls are closing in?

The walls are closing in. It certainly feels that way. And if anybody deserves it, it's him. the Minnesota U.S. attorney, by the way, is very clear that he's tackling fraud. He just did a huge press conference on the subject, and Tim Wals certainly deserves it. And Walsh isn't alone. You know who else deserves it? Gavin Newsome and every one of these other Democrat governors who are operating their states with utter impunity and letting fraud run rampant.

In fact, here's what President Trump had to say on the subject this morning. you ready for this here's a true social post 821 eastern time this morning president trump on greasy gavin newsome he says this california under governor gavinuscum is more corrupt than minnesota if that's even possible three question marks the fraud investigation of california has begun thank you for your attention to this matter president donald j trump oh but no the president's not allowed to tell the job Justice Department to investigate things like this. Yeah, you're not in any way familiar with Article 2 of the Constitution. Yes, he is.

He's in charge of the United States Department of Justice. If he detects criminality, he can order the Justice Department to investigate it. That's his right as the duly elected president of the United States. You only vote for that guy, him and the vice president of the United States. Those are the two. He's in charge and he's ordered an investigation into the state of California. you good good and cut them off and please for the love of god impose consequences impose real consequences i'm talking handcuffs orange jumpsuits jail time for people not just the people who

committed this fraud but the people who enabled it to advance their political careers i mean the reality is in minnesota for instance not only is tim walls the governor and he's been taking money from these fraudulent operations ilhan omar taking money from these fraudulent operations But also you got the Attorney General of the state, Keith Ellison. You know Keith Ellison is caught on tape? Keith Ellison, the Attorney General, was caught on tape talking to his donors who were a part of fraud convictions in the food scam telling them that he would protect them. This is all on tape. There's audio of all of this.

Sounds like evidence to me. and a predicate for imposing legal consequences on people like Keith Ellison and anybody else who's committed this kind of crime against the American people. All right. Coming up, Michael Knowles is going to join us. I want to ask him about the ongoing, well, pattern of trans violence in the country. Did you see that J.D. Vance's house in Ohio was just attacked by another transgender lunatic? how much of this i mean at what point do we have a a big national conversation about trans violence

you know how often do we see schools being attacked by people who have been overtaken by this demonic ideology we just saw a guy killed charlie kirk whose boyfriend was some sort of furry trans something again this just keeps happening are we going to put a stop to it are we going to actually like you know speaking of being empathetic and and being compassionate are we actually going to intervene or are we just going to keep affirming delusions until they manifest themselves in the most violent and destructive possible ways i'll talk to michael knolls in a minute about that can't wait to do that but first our great sponsors keep this program going um that includes brickhouse nutrition they're phenomenal you know this time of year a lot of people are really thinking clearly

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That's 888-879-6460. Americanfinancing.net slash vince. Thanks to American financing. Okay. Joining me now, I'm happy to have back with us. Michael Knowles, he's from the Daily Wire, of course. You can see his Michael Nulls show every day as well. Michael, great to have you with us back on the program, sir.

Good to see you. Merry Christmas. Happy January 6th, which Christians call the Feast of the Epiphany, and liberals call the worst day in the history of this or any republic. So however you celebrate, you know, happy, happy day. It is, yes. No, I was, I started the show by saying it's one of the high holy days of the left for sure because, you know, they're hanging their COVID masks all over their houses.

Okay, so let's talk about this attack on J.D. Vance's home. This is what I'm interested in your thoughts on this. Because we just got news yesterday that J.D. Vance, although he wasn't at his house in Ohio, it is protected by the Secret Service. And some lunatic who has, you know, the characteristics. serial killer eyes went to the house with a hammer smashed a secret service vehicle then walked up to the windows of the house and began smashing the windows and finally I guess the sleepy secret service agents who were tasked with defending the property finally showed up took him

into custody here's the update on this the guy calls himself Julia he's transgender and his parents are both pediatricians who happened to be maxed out Democrat donors are you surprised by any this, Michael Knowles. Vince, it's always the ones you most expect. I think that's a good rule of thumb to live by. It's always the ones you most expect. And so, you know, we were talking about a month or so ago before Christmas about trans violence, which really came to the public for with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the subsequent justification and celebration on the left and more left-wing violence since then. But there do seem to be some common themes. violence is much more likely to be justified and perpetrated by ideological leftists than by the

right. It's not even close. Even the left-wing outlets like the Atlantic are admitting that now. Violence is much more likely to be carried out by people who have psychological problems, especially including transgenderism than people who are normal and who accept who they are. That's undeniable at this point as well. And so then the only question becomes, are we going to do anything about it? 20 years ago, this would not have been a controversial point at all. Yeah, if a guy doesn't know what his sex is, or if he thinks he's the opposite sex, he's probably got a skewed perception of the world, and he's probably more likely to behave in psychotic ways. This is the premise of like every horror movie. This is Psycho. This is Silence of the Lambs. This is Hannibal Lecter and all the rest of it.

So, you know, we all understood that, and now we have just willfully denied the reality that we've always kind of known. The question for us now, and frankly, this gets into the Maduro raid, this gets into the shift in foreign policy, this gets into the way we're talking about immigration. To me, the big political shift is, are we going to acknowledge reality and do something about it, or are we going to keep playing pretend on our domestic fantasies, our sexual fantasies, and our foreign policy fantasies? I think reality is winning right now happily, but that's the big shift. I agree with you. I think reality is winning. I think the right. As much as there's so many people who are pessimistic on the right for any number of reasons,

should acknowledge the victories that we've had, meaningful ones, when it comes to issues like the transgender delusions or the war on cops or borders or any of these other big issues. We've had a lot of victories, definitely. But the problem we continue to have is we have increasingly thin margins, for instance, in the House. We're dealing with the Democrats who continue to have way too much power in this country. And the Democrats are operating under a completely incoherent worldview. everything about it is incoherent they'll condemn americans for living on stolen land and then

when we go back and try and reclaim american energy companies in venezuela they pretend it's venezuelan so i mean it's like there's no coherence to this they they tell you that january 6 grandma's waving flags inside the capital building are evil villains but anyone who tries to convince someone they were born in the wrong body is just doing something totally normal so how do we have debates or anything approaching improvement when you've got an entire political party dedicated to that poison? Well, I think we should recognize, yes, apparently there is no cohesion here between, say, you know, the LGBT crowd and the pro-Hamas crowd or whatever, you know, whether we're talking

about Venezuela and the Lakota Sioux, same principle. But there is at a very deep level, a simple coherence, which is they all have a common enemy. And the common enemy is America. The common enemy is the church. The common enemy is the West generally. That's it. That's the common enemy. And so that's how you're going to get Greta Thunberg marching around in a Palestinian Kefia. And it kind of makes sense because they don't agree with each other on a lot, but they do have a common enemy. And so I think we need to think about politics in that kind of practical way as well. In these periods where you have a unified government, as we do right now on the right, there's often a lot of infighting. And there's more infighting on the right because we're more ideologically diverse than the left, which is progressives, super progressives, and John Federman. They're pretty much all on the same team.

And we less tyrannically enforce these views. I mean, we actually have more spirited debates, whereas the left will primary you into non-existence, if you dare say that securing the border is good. Yes, unlike in America broadly, when it comes to ideological coalitions, diversity actually is our strength. And we have benefited from that

because it allows us to react to changing circumstances. But it does mean that at the end of the day, when we're going to the ballot box, when we're bringing ballot watchers to make sure there's no fraud, we've seen a lot of fraud recently. When that happens, we do need to unify. You know, politics is about results. It's about actually getting things done in a real community. And this is where we could learn a lot from Mr. Cocaine Mitch McConnell, even though he's not so popular on the right right now. He made at least one very good observation, which is the winners

make laws and the losers go home. And so all the debates and the introspection can all be very, very good, but we do have to keep our eyes on the prize because if we lose, especially if we lose unified government eventually, they are going to ship us to gulags. They're going to treat us much worse than Trump treated Maduro. Amen. I totally agree with you. And by the way, there are seasons for debates. So usually in the wake of an election, that's the perfect time to have that sort of intra-party debate about what the future holds. And then you settle up on some of those scores and then you move on to unity as you head towards an election because in the end, the left is playing for keeps as you point out it's a power scenario for them and we should recognize it in the

same way which is it's we need power because we're trying to restore decency law and order to our country yes you know look it's it's great to write white papers it's great to chat it's great to do podcasts and interviews and all the rest that all plays a role in the political order but when election time comes around we all need to keep our priorities in order you know politics is the art of the possible it's the art of inclusion the art of the second best it's sometimes called. And so I think we we conservatives need to keep that in mind. And there's no substitute for victory. And I think this is what the Venezuela operation shows you, is that the right, at least in the chattering class, had been mired in this kind of civil

war. And a lot of it was personal and vying for position. And then what happens? Trump sends in 150 airplanes and abducts the illegitimate leader of this foreign nation, the socialist country, in 88 minutes from arrival at the palace to being in international waters and it shows America on the move making moves on immigration on energy on fighting our geopolitical adversaries and it's just awesome and now you see virtually every conservative is backing that you know and so I think victory goes a long way and and I think this might have juiced us for the midterms yes and also president Trump is kind of he's hitting the sweet spot it's amazing like for instance I mean even like if you go back to the like the Iran operation, Operation Midnight Hammer. Coming out of the wake of that, it seemed like

people who thought that we should detach from Israel and think that, people who think we should be more sincerely involved in Israel's politics, like everyone was sort of kind of satisfied by the way President Trump handled that. Yeah, where there debates are about it? Sure. But in the end, I think people were mostly kind of satisfied, no matter where they fall on, on that question, which is like how entangled should we be with Israel? The other thing is like, with Venezuela, you know, I think back to like a lot, we're pretty well trained now by America's foreign policy failures to be cynical about regime change operations, which I think is well earned. Like I do think that's a good instinct for us to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what comes next? That's a perfectly good instinct to have as a voter.

Yeah. But I think what President Trump has done is he's learned from like the lessons, for instance, in Afghanistan. Remember, they go into Afghanistan. The original operation was just killed the bad guys and get out. That was one of the, that was what they wanted to do originally. And then it became a big nation building exercise. And then we go into Iraq on false pretenses. And then we throw out Saddam, and then we do nation building there.

And it's just failure after failure, tribal warfare, tribal warfare. Venezuela, what President Trump has done is he's done a quick strike. He grabbed an illegitimate occupier that the people detested and didn't feel they didn't vote for him. He just stole power. And then he promised that he's going to give them wealth from the oil that is being derived from underneath their territory. And subsequently, you think about it, it's a country with a unified culture and a history of Democratic institutions. I mean, we are being dealt a pretty good hand relatively. And President Trump has figured out, how do you hit the sweet spot without staying there forever and creating another quagmire

for the country? Yeah, the sweet spot is a great way to think about it. The via media or, you know, Aristotle says that prudence is the chief political virtue. So here, you really pacify all of the factions on the right. The people who want to restrain foreign policy or, you know, only want to stick to our neighborhood. Well, Venezuela is in our neighborhood. The Monroe Doctrine has been American foreign policy for over 200 years. The more neocon, aggressive foreign policy people on the right, well, they want to weaken Iran. They want a week in China. They want to weaken Russia. Guess what? Removing Maduro and Venezuela achieves that as well. The foreign policy realists who only want to intervene when there are material interests for the United States at stake here, yeah,

Maduro and Chavez stole our property. Energy is a real material stake. The fact that Venezuela's failures and this failure of the socialist system there had been sending so many migrants across the border illegally. That's a real material interest we have. The drugs, not to say, not to forget the drugs that were pouring across the border from Venezuela, which was effectively being run by a cartel. All of that, really this operation has something for everybody. He struck this sweet spot with prudence. And it reminds us, too, that politics is much more an art than a science. It's a practical science rather than pure science. Yes. And it repels China. influence in our hemisphere so that this is one of the biggest pieces of this i think i think often

there's a lot of the conversation is like well we don't want to get into any new wars okay fine but should we not defend ourselves against one that's currently being waged against us so china is clearly undertaking a lot of adversarial actions against the united states including filling our country with fentanyl that it ultimately comes from china it's poison that's killing over 100 000 americans and then they're buying illicit oil from venezuela in contravention of our embargo on that oil. So how about no? How about we stop that from happening? And so China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and certainly obviously the communist in Venezuela are all reeling now that the United States is actually asserting itself and defending itself. It's the same rationale,

by the way, that President Trump used in the trade war, which is, no, no, no, I'm not starting a trade war. I want to end one against the United States. Yeah, this is Trump's art of the deal in which he focuses on a lot and I think justifiably so. Because no one, other than the coochiest people or people who hate our country, no one doesn't want to see our adversaries weekend. No one wants to embolden our adversaries. The reason that some of us who want a more restraint foreign policy are skeptical of wars in the Middle East is because we think we're not that good at waging them and they're kind of far flung and we're ignoring our own territories and we're ignoring more urgent problems. But we still would like to see our adversaries weekend. And so if Trump can go in

in this extremely efficient way, I mean, historically efficient way, and weaken China by cutting off their oil, and weaken Iran, which has always had one foot in the, since the revolution has had one foot in the international order, one foot outside of it, weaken Russia, which is already occupied in Ukraine. Well, that actually probably will conduce to a more restraint foreign policy generally because it means that now China is probably less likely to get aggressive in the South China Sea. It means that Iran is probably less likely to get aggressive with American allies in the Middle East. It means that, well, Russia's already bogged down anyway. But what it means is the cascading downstream effects can be very good, can offer something for

everybody. You just have to know how to get a good deal, and Trump knows how to get a good deal. There's no denying it. So there's another reaction that I've seen to this that I kind of am sympathetic to, I definitely am, which is domestically. Okay, so I definitely think that this is in America's interest, what he did in Venezuela. I love it. I love that Maduro is standing trial and is confused by the rights he's being afforded in a New York City courtroom right now. I love a lot. But simultaneously, maybe not Delta Force, but close.

I want to see Delta Force go after Tim Walls. I want to see like domestic operations. You know, again, they're American citizens. We afford them a little bit more, you know, courtesy, perhaps, but not much more. Because $20 billion in fraud against the American people and you just let it happen, you knew it was happening. You let it happen.

Keith Ellison caught on tape. saying that he's in a cover-up for Somalis to try and, you know, hassle people who were looking into them. I mean, you get, you get kind of these never-ending horribles. And there is, I think, a reasonable desire among the Trump voting coalition to see more aggressive action to take them down. What do you make of that? There's a hard political reality to this, which I know frustrates the White House, which is that it is in many ways easier to go in and depose the leader of a foreign country than it is to deport a single illegal alien. It is, in other words, easier for the president as commander-in-chief of the military to do basically whatever he wants around the world

than it is to deal with domestic politics, which has all of these extra rules and just kind of corrupt machine bureaucratic politics associated with it. So I'm impressed by what the president has done. You know, I know there's a lot of attacks on Trump, obviously from the left, but even from the more cynical factions of the right, and they say, the economy is not doing that well. The economy is doing great. GDP is way outperforming expectations that all the economists were wrong about the tariffs. Rents have fallen four months in a row. Why are the rents falling because of the mass migration? Some people are saying mass migration isn't happening. It is. The Trump administration was able to deport effectively two million people, maybe even a little bit

more in the first year. So it's good. People just don't feel satisfied given the scope of the problem, given the fact that there are at least 16 million illegal aliens in the country, given the fact that prices rose so much under Joe Biden because of inflation. I get it, yes. But you've got to go to war with the army you've got domestically as well as politically. The fact that HHS, or sorry, DHS was able to train up forces for mass deportations that have not taken place in decades. They just didn't even have that competency anymore. It's impressive.

But I hope that the White House is aware of this political risk because, you know, there's no excuse at the ballot box, no matter how hard it is. You've got to show those results at home. And even more so, you have to persuade people of the reality of the results that maybe you've already shown. Well, this gets back to what you were just talking about a moment ago in a different context, which is like, you know, as you mentioned, the chattering class and the debates outside of the White House, outside of Washington. But if there's ever been a time to have a debate between the White House and Congress, congressional Republicans, it's yesterday. I mean, President Trump is being very courteous to John Thune and Speaker,

Johnson because the impediment to what you and I are talking about, which is arresting bad guys in our own country, it turns out is the United States Congress. It is Republicans. The blue slip, which I won't go into every detail, but in the Senate is blocking us from having quality judges and U.S. attorneys. And President Trump, I think, is being way too nice to the Senate right now about that nightmare that's keeping us from getting what we need as a country. Yes, especially the Senate, because look, there are some great senators. Listen, some of my closest friends are senators, okay? There's some good ones there, but generally speaking, the Senate is a problem and they don't want to do anything. When it comes to the House, I have the utmost sympathy for Mike Johnson.

I love Mike Johnson because he has the worst job in politics. I would much rather be the dogcatcher in Palookaville than be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. It's hurting cats. He's got a two-vote margin as of today. Marjorie Taylor Green just left and a congressman just died. congressman in california just died uh they just came out this morning so now we're down to it's actually the first time hearing of it yes i feel like trump with ruth bader ginsberg that's very very sad politically and also for his family it was congressman doug lamalfa has died at the age of 65 they no cause of death has been given yet uh not they say he died suddenly uh and that means we dropped the 218 to 213 republicans can only to lose two votes in any in anything here uh and or else they

So you're right. Mike Johnson's got a difficult hand he's dealing with. But the reason I'm concerned about Mike Johnson, the one thing that stands out to me that I don't think people bring up enough is it requires both Mike Johnson and John Thune to put the Congress into a full recess to allow Trump to do recess appointments. And neither of those men have allowed that to happen. And they could if they wanted to. And it drives me nuts that they haven't because it suggests that they're not completely familiar with what time it is. And there is a fear heading into the midterm elections. One, it's going to be harder to wrangle. these people anyway, the ones who are up for re-election. So the entire House and, you know, members of the Senate. But this also shows you why the president is taking so many executive actions. You know, I know there are some principled ideologues on the right who aren't a big fan of executive orders and executive actions. And look, I wish that some of these had, you know, more teeth and longer legs. But what's the president supposed to do? You know, if Congress has over many decades delegated away a lot of its power and now it just doesn't even want to flex its muscles maybe because it

can't well someone's got to do something and that's going to be the president and the libs can whine about no king's protests all day but i'll take what i can get coming out of the white house yeah all right well michael knolls i've i've taken so much of your time already i always appreciate our conversations i get a lot out of them appreciate you and look forward to talking again soon sir good to see you sir happy january 6th yes and merry christmas thanks michael there he is Michael Knowles, always good to have him stop by, gets me thinking about a lot of stuff. But yeah, that is the news this morning. Congressman Doug LaMalfa has died suddenly at the age of 65, according to Republican leadership, meaning we are in a very, very tight territory right now, some vacancies and those things need to be resolved. But it's all the more reason that Republicans need to heed the message that you and I are sending, which is like, hey, do exactly what your voters sent you there to do.

and that includes accountability in our own country. You know, we mentioned in my conversation with Michael, we talk about the radical left and how violent and crazy they are. That has certainly been true in the left's threats against ICE agents over the course of the last year. I don't know if you know any lefties in your life or if you've talked to anybody recently who is even a mild disposition towards the things that they hear in the legacy press.

But have you noticed how, how poorly these people treat ice, the poor reputation that they impugn on ice, they treat ice like their Nazi brown shirts. They treat the men and women of immigration enforcement who are doing nothing but enforcing our laws, nothing but enforcing our laws and doing it with utter decency and respect for the Constitution.

They're treating them like they're Nazis. And the obvious second order effects of that has been a massive increase in threats and assaults and assassination attempts on ICE agents. That's just true. And to help along these vile lies, there are elements of corporate America, business America, who have helped push this garbage along. And that includes this week a Minneapolis Hilton franchise, which decided that it would stop ICE agents

from having a place to sleep at night in Minneapolis. Nope, you can't stay here, they said. This is a crazy saga. One that has Hilton, the parent company, the big banner company, Hilton, scrambling right now to try and mitigate the consequences of being associated with this. Here's what we got.

This is DHS yesterday. They posted some screenshots of email traffic. and they wrote no room at the inn speaking of christmas hilton hotels has launched a coordinated campaign in minneapolis to refuse service to dhs law enforcement when officers attempted to book rooms using official government emails and rates hilton hotels maliciously canceled their reservations this is unacceptable why is hilton hotels siding with murderers and rapists to deliberately undermine and impede DHS law enforcement from their mission to enforce our nation's immigration laws. Okay, to be clear, this was posted at 1227 p.m. yesterday afternoon.

So they basically, they're getting rejected from this one hotel because they're ICE agents, because they're DHS. And DHS has released this. God bless him for sharing this in public. All right. So we get that. Immediately after that, we begin getting statements from Hill at the national level. Hilton claims that they're addressing this. Oh, we're addressing it. And we're investigating, they said. And Bill Malusian got the statement.

Take a look here. Hilton Hotel serves as welcoming places for all. This hotel is independently owned and operator. And the actions referenced are not reflective of Hilton values. We're investigating this matter with the individual hotel and can confirm that Hilton works with government's law enforcement and community leaders around the world to ensure our properties are open and inviting to everyone. what followed after that was another statement from the owner of the hotel now this is the

specific owner of the hotel is using the hilton franchise name it's called ever peak hospitality and ever peak said oh we're welcoming to all this move was totally inconsistent our policy is being welcoming to all we're in touch with the guests to ensure that they're accommodated we don't discriminate against any individuals or agencies we apologize to those impacted so so as of that statement yesterday you start to think okay well maybe everything is improving i don't know trisha mclaughlin over at dhs you know her the spokesman over there she said you know it's funny we haven't heard anything from them so i don't know what they're talking about and then to clear things up last night the great nick sorter decided how about this how about i just go to the hotel and i'll pretend to be dhs i'll try and book

10 rooms and see what happens well here's what happened watch nick is it uh what agency is it for using the government rate. It would be a department home security? So we're not accepting people from immigration, I have agents, DHS into our property. It's just the management ownership. Okay, I thought that changed today. I just talked to my, the owner of the building and he didn't say there has been any changes. So, yeah, it's just, it's just policy.

It's just policy, but you know that. Yeah, I mean, that's not your fault. Totally, totally get that. So they actually said that was, it's like, I mean, honestly, this is the most convenient location. Right. So they, they told you no, that there's no. Yeah, no immigration. Well, DHS isn't all immigration.

Okay. Okay, so even with the thing that they said earlier, they mentioned that, there was a statement that they put out, you know, saying that they were, that they accept everybody. They didn't. Yeah, the guy even is like, I just talked to the owner. Nothing's changed. No, we're not letting DHS stay here. Now, again, that is in the service of demonizing ice, treating ice like they're doing something morally depraved.

When, in fact, they're the ones who are standing up for decency, for law and order, for restoring American communities, for making them safer. The left has so demonized them. It's unbelievable. It is demonic the way they've treated immigration and customs enforcement. But I have some good news in this story, and we'll see if it holds, but here's the update from Hilton. Now remember, this all started early yesterday afternoon, and we get an update 7.54 a.m. this morning. This is an official statement now from Hilton at the national level. Statement from Hilton on a recent video.

On a recent video. Come on. This is the most corporate speak ever. how about Nick Sorter's video they didn't they don't even refer to Nick but okay on a recent video Nick should call all of his videos a recent video that should be his whole series going forward the independent hotel owner had assured us that they had fixed this problem and published a message confirming this a recent video clearly raises concerns they are not meeting our standards and values as such we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems Hilton is and has always been a welcoming place for all. We are also engaging with all of our franchisees to reinforce the standards we hold them to across our system to help ensure this does not happen again. Ladies and gentlemen, what I just read is a sign of your power.

What I just read is a sign that corporate America, at all of its levels, is aware that we will mobilize if they screw us over. Hilton, in the course of just over, what, 15, 16 hours, has decided to remove this hotel entirely from the Hilton brand of hotels. They're no longer allowed to be a franchise of Hilton. They can go on, they could be, you know, Joe's Hotel or whatever else. But Hilton's removed them. They don't want the Bud Light treatment.

they don't want the cracker barrel fiasco they would just like to be a hotel that's what they're going for they said they just want to be welcoming to all including ice and they've notified every hotel that calls themselves a hilton franchise that yeah we we welcome ice here that's a good outcome keep up the pressure thank you to nick sorter for sending a camera over there uh hilton did the hilton pulled the right move here we'll see if it holds by the way it's not over till it's over never over till it's over but today this show is over it's great to be with you today as always you can watch the vince show that's the big national radio show coming up today that's 12 to 3 eastern time get your local listings at the vince show.com or watch us on rumble rumble.com

slash vince and then i will be back with you tomorrow for both shows can't wait to talk see you then