WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Hart on the Hill: Accountability is Back

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

This week, Micah Hart discusses the first few weeks of the Trump administration.

Welcome back to another episode of Heart on the Hill. It is great to be back here in the studio this week, this great February day, talking to you about everything going on in politics and what there is going on in our country because a lot is happening. We have a relatively new president. We have a lot of chaos going on in the world. But we're going to talk about all of it. So let's just get into it right away then.

So first off, I have been promising you every week I just talk about how we're going to give some updates. So I want to give some updates as I promise, as we're seeing the presidency start, and we're seeing cabinets members being officially approved to actually start their jobs. So I want to go through out of the 22 that have been announced, this is according just to like something I pulled from AP and other services have all these lists too, but 13 have been confirmed out of the 22 announced. And so I'm going to just list them off for you and what they're actually doing. So Scott Besant at Treasury, Pam Bondi, Attorney General.

Doug Bergam Interior, Doug Collins, Veterans Affairs, Sean Duffy, Transportation, Pete Hegseth, Defense, Christy Noam, Homeland Security, John Ratcliffe, CIA, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, Scott Turner, HUD, Russell Vaugh, OMB, Chris Wright, Energy, Lee Zeldin, EPA. And now, Cash Patel is up for FBI director, and there's been some pushback on him. And so Democrats were able to get that to be stalled for another week. do I think that's going to actually change anything? No, I don't. I think that he'll still obviously get through and be able to move forward in the process of all. So I want to talk about some of the big people who have been talked about a lot. Tulsi Gabbard, National Intelligence, and RFK Jr.,

HHS. These are two people you have to remember who are pretty new to the Republican Party. They've been welcomed in, but it makes sense that they're having some controversy in their actual hearings. And in this process it. It makes complete sense to me that those are some concerns from both sides. Yeah, but we're seeing Republicans unite and moving forward. I mean, Susan Collins from Maine, Mill Cassidy, as well on Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. respectively on their different committees that they're on. They've been working together, getting these things approved, moving things forward. And there's a lot to balance here when we're talking about elections as well in all This isn't just about the official side of things, as we'll say, where it's like, we're going to get this person to prove this and that in the Senate, right? That's not this is just all about. There's also more to be considered in this whole discussion of what's going on with nominations. And that's talking about elections. 2026 seems like it is far away, but it is not. It's going to get here very quickly and you'll be like, oh, wow, we're already at another election, right? We always seem to say that like, oh, it's already here again, but we're also happy that it's here so we can move on with their lives. But then we start all over again. It's just a site.

that continues, and that's what I actually love about it, but I know a lot of people don't, but this is something to talk about is, let's look at it, where 2026 is close. I mean, you have these elections you have to consider in the Senate for these important states. You want to keep the majority if you're a Republican, so you have to work with balancing, working with your party, and also appealing to your constituents in especially swing states like Maine that Susan Collins is a Republican from. It's better to have a Republican in that seat than a Democrat if you're a Republican. even if she votes against you in a few things, it's still better.

And that goes for all of these people across the board, right? It's better to have somebody who is at least with you 50% of the time than 10%. Like, doesn't that make sense? Like, to me, at least that makes sense. Like, you'd want somebody on your side who's going to vote with you more and more. And that's what we're seeing, I think, though, is a unity too in the Republican Party. That I don't think we saw in Trump's first term. We're seeing a lot more unity this time around.

And they're giving the president his nominees, which is how it should be. the president, there should be this oversight, but the president should also get the people he wants if they're qualified and good to go to work, right? I'm not saying we get rid of this process. We need this process. It's actually a good check on the presidency. And I am very supportive of that. I don't care who the president is. We need to make sure we do have these checks and balances still in place, because that's also what keeps our constitution protected. It's what our founders wanted. It's what we should want as a country is to make sure we're balancing power, not putting power in the hands of one person that's never what we should want. So that's also a really big part of this that I wanted to just

talk about is the balance of power aspect as well, because that's something I think that gets talked about, but not enough. And I really, I really love emphasizing the balance of power, how power needs to be handled and making sure it's handled properly and still giving respect to leadership positions, but making sure you're also checking those leadership positions. And that doesn't mean you don't confirm them. That just means you go through the process. There's due process in all of this stuff. And I really appreciate that we've done that. And the Republicans have done it rather quickly, too, and made sure they're getting Trump his people in their places rather swiftly, because also you have to think these are people who need to get their jobs. And these are things that

can't just stop. We can get a new president. We can have a new administration. But things don't just stop because of that. Everything keeps going. The world keeps going. And we have to be able to adjust to that and make sure we're getting people in place to deal with all these situations. There's been a lot of craziness already in our world with this new administration just because life happens and horrible things happen. And so it's good to have people in place who can actually properly deal with those things. Now I want to talk about, we got our early on like Cook Political Report gave out there like leanings for the house and everything there with like which way it could go or not. And so they're really fascinating looks at like the Democrat to havest up versus

Republican toss-ups. So in those, there are 10 Democrat toss-ups and eight Republican toss-ups. Lean Republican, there are nine, okay? And lean Democrat, 12. Likely Democrat, 17, likely Republican, 12. So it's going to be an interesting to watch all of these different races throughout the country in the House. It's, again, the House really close right now. It's going to be close for this this cycle around. And 2026 is a time to grow that for Republicans or take it back for Democrats. Democrats would love to take something back so they can at least have something to counter Trump on. And that's probably their goal, obviously, through all this. But if you look, I'm very fascinated by that number. The Democrat toss up compared to the Republican toss up where it's 10 to

eight Republicans. That's pretty interesting to me to see that. And I think this is a different election too. Like, I've been looking at these things and I'm a big fan of House races. I love tracking them following, making sure we're seeing what's going on there. And I think, though, just an electorate as a whole, Trump won pretty handedly. He did a very good job this time around. He did much better than people thought. And so I think that's something to consider here is like, this isn't just the Democrats are taking. They're going to have to put up a big fight to get this. And I mean, I think there's going to be a lot of, a lot of work they have to put in to terror that the wall he's kind of created for his now base and he's expanded his base. So you're wondering

how much that's going to help. Parties do, the party who is in power tends to do worse in midterms. Like whoever has the president, they tend to do worse in the midterms. So we'll see if that plays out. But if I'm looking at this right now as a Republican strategist who's working on House elections, I am not terribly concerned right now. This is not a terrible list for them. It looks like it could actually go well for them. And there are some maybe pickups they could get. Same with Democrats. So they have some opportunities to pick up maybe as well.

But like I wouldn't be concerned as a Republican if I was a Republican strategist looking at this. Like it doesn't seem alarming to me at all. Actually, I think there's a lot of hope to gain on those things. And every time a Democrat says something you call them out on it, especially if they're on that pickup list. Same with Democrats can visit the Republicans too. It's going after those specific districts that are actually tossed up or leaning one way or the other. Those are where a lot of this money gets spent on these races, making sure that those are places you can actually take care of, especially with, I mean, a lot of modern Congress now,

it seems like, is much more for the House at least. It's closer. And same with the Senate, too, but like, they're closer. They're not bigger margins. So it's harder to get these seats. They're hard fought. There's a lot of money in them. And it just takes a bit of time to actually get going on all of that and make sure that those races go your way. So people start early too with them. So I think we'll have to watch as things should to heat up. It's going to start heating up, I think, in a little bit of let's look at these elections and let's look at how Republicans or Democrats win back or keep their majorities. So that's going to be something to keep on your radar as well and just watching. I remember all of these seats in the House are up for election every two years.

Senate have six-year terms. So your senator may be up. Michigan will have one up, actually. In Michigan, it will be an open seat. So that's also going to be one to watch in the Senate is look at Michigan. Michigan was very, very, very close this past cycle. Incredibly close. Mike Rogers almost beat Alyssa Slokin. It was a new senator here for the state of Michigan. He almost beat her out for that seat. But he was really close. So we'll have to watch Michigan now. It's an open seat now. And so it's going to be one of, I think, probably the biggest race in the country, in my opinion. Because Michigan, if you remember, went to Donald Trump this time around. then we had so it can get that seat.

So we'll see what happens in 2026 with the seat, but keep an eye on that already. And you have a governor's race here too in 20206, so it's not going to be a terrible day to be a Michigan vote. You're going to have a lot of power in your vote, and you're going to have a lot of choices to make in your vote. In a few moments, I'll sign a historic executive order to ban men from competing in women's sports.

You just heard it here. President Trump signs an executive order to make sure that men are not in women's sports. And it was an executive order he just signed talking about making sure that these spaces are for biological women only. Now, after this all happened, the NCAA, which does a lot of sports for college student athletes, all of those things, right? They came out with participation policy for transgender athletes. And so, So in their women's team section, it says competition, and I quote, a student athlete assigned male at birth may not compete on a woman's team.

Now, practice, it says a student athlete assigned male at birth, may practice on the team consistent with their gender identity and receive all other benefits applicable to student athletes who are otherwise eligible for practice. So that's all of that. A student assigned female at birth, a student athlete assigned female at birth, who has begun hormone therapy, testosterone, may not compete on a student. a woman's team. If such competition occurs, the team is subject to NCAA mixed team legislation, and the team will no longer be eligible for NCAA women's championships practice a student

athlete, assigned female at birth who has begun hormone therapy, may do practicing with a woman's team, and receive all other benefits applicable to student athletes who are otherwise eligible for practice. So things are moving rather quickly on this stuff. And look, this is a good day. This is a good day, but legislation technically now needs to pass two in House and Senate. Senate, I think it has it now, to actually get this all done, make sure it's all secured away for this. There still needs more work to be done on all of these things. But look, this is a good start. This is a great start. We need to protect women's spaces. Biological men should not be playing in women's sports, period. End of the day. It's unfair and it's not right.

this is not about anything other than that is that it's not fair it takes things away from women I thought that people on the other side of this were pro women pro making strong women women he can do all things but then you look at it and you're like they're actually prohibiting women from moving up because they're allowing biological men who are transitioning right to play in women's sports and I'm happy that the NCAA is taking these steps to move um this way as well and that President Trump did this right away and got on it because it's unfair and it shouldn't have happened in the first place. We need to protect these institutions and make sure that there's fairness in these things and that woman can move forward and that there is a quality in these things. It's not fair when you just see everything we've seen in sports recently.

So this is a good move by the president to protect the sports, protect athletes to and make sure we continue to protect them. And that is something that he promised to do on the campaign drill. He's keeping up to his promises, as I've said before, if you don't have to agree with them, but you have to give him credit for actually doing what he said he would do. And this is, in my opinion, it's a great day for America and for women sports and for women just in general, because it's giving them power back. It's giving them their voice back that had been taken from them from the left. The left had taken it and started saying they couldn't even really define gender.

So it all got blurred with the Biden administration and everything there. So this is definitely going back and trying to say, you know what, we're going to support women. We're going to make sure they know their voices are heard and that we are there for them. They have a president who supports them. So that's just something I wanted to also highlight there. Now, Trump has said, this is according to Reuters, that the UN has to get its act together. And so a lot of this has to do with President Trump has been critical of the UN. And he stopped U.S. engagement with the UN Human Rights Council, and he basically also extended stop.

He stopped basically for now, at least extending the stop on it for funding Palestinian Relief Agency UNRWA. And that's honestly pretty great, in my opinion. I think both of these things are great. Now, I want to go back to his ambassador in the United Nations back in his first term, one of them, Nikki Haley. She called that, and this is from 2023, she called the UN Human Rights, Council a farce. And that's exactly what it is. The UN Human Rights Council is a farce. I mean, she even brought up China and Cuba, and that they were re-elected last time around to an entity that's supposed to protect human rights. And these are countries that do not protect human rights.

So why would we even be a part of that supporting that? It's ridiculous. It's just giving awards to human rights abusers. That is not what we're supposed to be doing. That's not what we stand for. as a country we stand for life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. These countries, like China and Cuba, do not do that. So it doesn't make sense that we're in it. And it's good that Trump is like, you know what? No, why would we do that?

And same thing with UNRWA. UNRWA is a mess in and of itself. There was an investigation done in the United Nations. I'm reading from their website, they completed an investigation on UNR staff. The UN said that nine staff working for its Palestinian refugee agency will be gone because they may have been involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks against Israel. This is an organization that's supposed to be helping for relief from Palestinians,

but then you get here and you're like, they're actually aiding this situation and being involved in it and the dangers that have happened to Israelis. What the heck? And there's also this thing called AJC, which is a coalition supporting the Jewish community, and they also have listed out all of the things wrong with UNRWA. And what UNRWA's links have been to October 7 and everything that they were a part of there. And that there was even like a Hamas tunnel found under UNRAS Gaza headquarters. And that was revealed by the IDF.

It was connecting UNRWA headquarters in Gaza there. And so that's ridiculous. and UNRWA was supposed to just be started as a Palestinian support agency and stuff like that, but you're actually seeing these crazy things. AP News saying here again, UN fired these additional staffers after they found potential involvement in this October 7. There are so many articles about this and everything there. And it's ridiculous that the U.S. was paying tons of money to them. Like, why would we be getting involved in that?

The Times of Israel saying Gaza records show that senior staff at UNRIS schools were members of Hamas, military wing. I mean, how much more info do I have to give on this? I shouldn't have to give any more info on this. It's sickening that we're even giving money to any organization like on run, helping fund them or anything because they're a farce and they're horrible. I mean, you know what? Some of their intentions may be good of helping people, right? But they're clearly having some serious issues there and to not deserve our funding. It's a joke to be funding them anyways. So we need to look at these things. And I think Donald Trump is exactly, or President Trump is exactly right on this of let's look at the UN. I think personally that the UN it has good goals,

there's good intentions behind it, but it's not working. It's not working for us. It's unfair. We're footing a lot of the bill and what are we getting from it? We ourselves and our allies like Israel are just getting pushed under the rug and getting yelled at and everything. We're getting treated. They're not like we do anything well for the world, right? We're just being treated horribly. So why would you stay in that and deal with all of this? And I think Alis Tafonik, she's up for this Ambassador Ruhl, she'd be great there. She fought a lot against anti-Semitism on on college campuses, which has been at a high lately with especially everything going on in our world with Israel on October 7. And that even comes into this Fox News story I was reading of

Trump's new executive order to deport Hamas sympathizers on campuses. Basically, he wanted to cancel student visas of those who are sympathizing with Hamas on these college campuses. And there's resistance coming to this. Of course, I mean, some saying they're just trying to protect their students and stuff like that, right? But I think this is right. President Trump should cancel student visas of these sympathizers. Hamas is a terrorist organization, period. I don't care.

There's no other way to put it. You can say whatever you want. Hamas is a terrorist organization. And we're letting these people come to our country to study at our schools, do these things, and they're just supporting a terrorist organization. We saw the chaos on college campuses last spring. We've seen a rise in anti-Semitism. Enough is enough.

And people are arguing free speech, free speech. You have free speech, but when it becomes hate speech, that's a crossing a line. There's a line that's being crossed, that it becomes dangerous. And when you're, when you are impeding on other people and their right to life, that is when you're out of line. No, no, no, no more. Especially if you're also just coming here and you're on a visa, like, enough is enough. Donald Trump is actually leading with strength and has a backbone. Unlike the past administration where we just saw everything go, everything passed, whatever happened, happened, really. there was nothing being done. Joe Biden did not have a backbone. He was spineless on these things.

Donald Trump has that backbone and is putting America back on track on these things. We need to stand with our allies. We need to stand with our people and we need to stand with those who are being persecuted honestly here. And I'm very happy to see what has been done so far in all of this. And these are things we need to have conversations about. Well, thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I know I get really passionate today about all of these things. It's because I care about everything going on in our world. And it breaks my heart to see a lot of the pain people are going through in our world. And a lot of the pain even people are going through in our country. So just always remember that we are so blessed to live in this country. And we are so blessed to have the opportunity to vote, to be involved in

politics, to do all of these things that we get to do in this country, in this free country. So always remember that. Just continue. to enjoy life. Don't make politics or your whole thing. I always say that every week and I'm going to keep saying is just don't make politics your whole life and keep enjoying life, but always just stay in touch with politics, know what's going on, make sure you just understand everything going on and know how to defend your views and your values because that's what's important here. So thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of Harda on the Hill.