We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Shirpa on today's Quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at the Federalist dot
com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make sure to subscribe wherever
you download your podcast, and of course the premium version of our website as
well. I'm joined today by US Representative Glenn Grothman, Republican, representing Wisconsin's
fighting sixth Congressional district. The congressman also is a member of the House's Committee
on Oversight and Accountability. They had an eventful day, to say the least
today, a lot of questions on Monday for US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
Congressman Growthman, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of
the Federalist Radio Hour. Glad to be on the show. You're right,
a very long hearing today and an important hearing. We will delve into that
momentarily. Before we do, let me ask you this question, because you're
in DC, you're in the swamp right now. This is the question everybody
wants to know at this hour, where's Joe Biden. That's a good question.
Well, now that he knows he's not running free election, we may
never see him again. I don't know. Are you concerned about his health
at this point? Well, given his performance in his final debate, you
have to wonder who is running the country, And none of people ask that
question. But obviously he's being coached as to what to say. You know,
They'm shure they gave them scripts to read as far as debata is concerned,
or whenever he takes a position on anything. So I think it's a
question that reporters ought to be asking more. Assuming Joe Biden does not resign,
who is running the country for the next six months? Good question,
is it, doctor Jill? Well, I don't know. Maybe who knows,
but it's a good question. Well, we've certainly been to this point
in US history before. One need look only at the beginning of the twentieth
century to see then Democrat President would Row Wilson absolutely incapacitated in the final days
of his second term, and his wife, we know, ran much of
the day to day operations of the president that you know clearly stands out at
this moment with your question, who is running the executive branch right now?
And I think over the last three and a half years, for those who
paid attention, you know that it certainly wasn't really Joe Biden. Let's face
it. This was a guy that they brought in to be an empty vessel
in which the Left poured all of its agenda and its dreams and wishes into
and he was the figurehead that you know, performed the duties for them.
But that is an important question. If he is not fit to be the
candidate for the Democrats, how is he fit to be the president of the
United States in the interim until a new president takes over. Well, you're
exactly right. We don't know who's writing the show. The show he's obviously
very well. What can we say suggestible? Right, I'm sure other people
can tell him something he'll go along, particularly of doctor Jill. The thing
is, the United States is a much more significant country, and being president
means doing a lot more than when Missus Wilson ran the country in nineteen twenty.
Indeed, and the world is watching, which opens the door for all
kinds of things. And we've already seen the threats that the United States and
the people in positions of authority are subject to We saw that at a campaign
rally in Pennsylvania more than a week ago, a Saturday evening, in which
the former president of the United States and the GOP's newly nominated candidate for president,
was nearly assassinated. You and I spoke about that the night in which
that took place, after Joe Biden called for hitting the bullseye. Indeed,
and that was the kind of rhetoric that we've been hearing from the Democrats for
the last eight years in this country. Let's be honest. It has gone
on since before Donald Trump was elected the forty fifth president of the United States.
It went on through his administration, it went on through the election year
of twenty twenty, and it's gone on ever since. They deemed him to
continue to be a threat. They couldn't imprison him, they couldn't remove him
from the ballot. So the real concern, the rightful concern, is have
they gone to the last option to remove the President of the United States.
Your thoughts as we get to the hearing on Monday, Well, to be
honest, I think under normal circumstances, he should be removed. I have
to say my answer is colored by my opinion of Kamala Harris, because then
you make her the president, and either way it's just so horrible, almost
beyond belief. But do we want to make Kamala Harris the president? I
mean, very erratic behavior. I can't get along with her staff did nothing
on the border when being ordered to do something on the border. So I
certainly don't want her to be president either. I think maybe of the two,
we maybe better off muddling through another six months with Joe. Yeah,
that question, of course, is coming up even more so now about the
succession of Kamala Harris in that one particular area. You know, as we
shine a light on that we're hearing from border Patrol agents today that she has
yet to reach out to Border Patrol in terms of her position, so to
speak, as the borders are. There are a lot of questions that will
be coming up in the next several days about the fitness of Kamala Harris not
only to lead the Democratic Party but also to lead this country. But let's
talk about the Oversight hearing. You are a member of the Committee on Oversight
and Accountability. It a lot of fireworks, a lot of heated moments,
a lot of very pointed questions about the Director of US Secret Service, Kimberly
Cheatle. Your overall takeaway from the hearing, The sense that I'm gathering from
Republican members and some Democrats as well at this point is that this Director of
Secret the Secret Service, it's not very forthcoming still, and these agencies have
yet to be forthcoming about what do they know and when they knew it?
Right? Question after question was thrown at her again and again. I'm not
in a position to say that or be premature to say this, and you
know, it's been long enough ago that they've got to know a lot more
what's going on. But obviously she's hiding it. Obviously should be fired.
In so many ways here, they were completely incompetent. I believe she lied
twice to me. First of all, I did ask her a question.
She's one of these people in the Bide administration who's obsessed with diversity. Her
goal is to have thirty percent of the agency women. I asked her about
that. She denied ever saying like that, which she is on a record
as saying. The reason I asked the question, I'm a little bit afraid.
One of the reasons for the incompetence is she spent too much time dealing
on diversity and not enough time making sure she was doing a very good job.
So that's one of my concerns. Another thing that came out under her,
maybe before she was there. The Secret Services of place nobody wants to
work. It's ranged four hundred and thirteenth out of four hundred and fifty nine
federal agencies, and I would think it's kind of a rewarding place to work,
but apparently they have a hard time an getting anybody to work there,
which is another one of the problems. The other question, though, that
I asked, we didn't get an answer to, or you got to lie
out of her, is it is a parent A lot of the regular agents
were not there that day. Is that a coincidence or is that the reason
they didn't do a very good job, or is there another reason why they
wanted the agents most loyal to President Trump not there that day? They are
backfilled with other people, but those of us old enough to remember John Kennedy
being assassinated, and I've had to have read ten books on that topic.
You know, you never know if you can trust people. Everybody, of
course, fell over themselves today to say how much we appreciated what the Secret
Service did that day, But I just thought it was illuminating or interesting,
something that demanded follow up. Why were the people, the agents who spent
most of the time with President Biden not there that day or presumably once,
like I said, most loyal to them? So whatever. There were other
questions that were never at asked. Who got a decent response out of there
was a member of local law enforcement who apparently looked at the shooter, the
shooter pointed the rifle atomy he ducked back down, which is how could that
happen? We watched a film in which members of the crowd, we're trying
to screen this guy's got a gone, this guy's gone. Nothing was done.
So I think we have incompetence right up and down the Secret Service that
day, and I hope my chairman gives us another hearing. May it perhaps
another two or three weeks the head of the Secret Service will begin to give
us some answers. Well, the question I think that is on the minds
of America right now is was this just absolute incompetence? We know this was
a failure through and through? Was this just incontinence? Was this just incompetence
or was it willful? That's the question that some of your colleagues are asking.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna tweeted this after leaving the oversight briefing this morning.
I'm more convinced than ever that Crooks wasn't working alone. It's a pretty damning
statement. What do you think of that? That statement? Well, like
I said, I've read a lot about the Kennedy assassination, and I think
it's a parent the more you read about it. The federal government knew a
lot more, and maybe it was involved a little bit. It's only by
the grace of God, this was not an assassination. We don't have any
hard evidence at this time other than to say there were a lot of coincidences.
Right, she denied it, but a lot of President Trump's normal detail
was not there. Well, why would they be taking people who were most
weal as President Trump and not having them there that day? I don't know.
That's why I'd like to have another hearing. Other questions that could not
be answered, When did the rifle appear in that area? And where was
it? When did the latter appear in that area? Where was that hidden?
We'd like to know these things, and it was shocking how little she
professed to know, given that we've had like ten days a look into this
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or wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, alarming a lot of things
about the hearing, very very alarming. Let me give you a for instance,
and you've witnessed this first hand, you can respond to this. I
appreciate it. But your colleague, representative Marjorie Taylor Green asking some very direct
questions of the director Cheetle told Marjorie Taylor Green this, an individual with a
backpack is not a threat. An individual with a rangefinder is not a threat.
I find those statements interesting because, yes, one could possibly say that
someone with a backpack at a rally may not be a threat in and of
itself. But as you all pointed out at the hearing today, this wasn't
a one off. This wasn't a guy with just a backpack. This is
a guy with a backpack and a rangefinder, which your colleague on the oversight
committee representative from Tennessee told me last week. You have a rangefinder if you
are out, you have a rangefinder for two reasons, either to locate a
titleist that you've lost out on the golf course or you're looking to shoot something.
And there wasn't a golf course for miles around, as I understand it,
What did you think of these explanations from the director? She never really
gave us a good explanation there other than kind of implying that there could be
other reasons to have the range finder, which is a frustrating thing. She
would not answer questions. A lot of the time was spent trying to ask
her to resign, which she refused to do as well. So I guess
I'd like to have you hearing that only word she was there, but maybe
bring back somebody just under her was maybe a little bit more forth the coming,
or somebody from the FBI, because they are certainly leaving things open to
suspicion of worse going on. And that's why I think the other Congressman,
Glenn Growthman, joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. Congressman
represents the sixth congressional district in Wisconsin. He is also a member of the
House's Committee Oversight and Accountability. Held a very important hearing, a lot of
frustration coming out of that hearing, not a lot of answers thus far,
and what we continue to see, Congressman, is not only the director,
but the FBI and others not forthcoming, not delivering the information that you've requested.
That does that continue to be a problem. Is there any movement on
that front this hour? Well? No, I think we just have to
keep following up and having another hearing. I have not talked to the chairman
yet, but I mean, this is one of those things they should be
talking about in American history. One hundred years from now, right, this
was almost on pop or the most significant assassination in American history, next to
Abraham Lincoln himself. So I don't think it's a matter like a regular hearing
when the administration Bob's and Weeds doesn't give the straight answers, just kind of
time marches on. We've got to demand these answers to what the genuine facts
are. But even as I look another colleague on the other side of the
aisle, Representative Alexandria Acassio Cortes, who certainly is no friend of Donald Trump,
certainly no friend of conservatives and Republicans in Congress, but even she stressed
at the hearing that the idea that a report from this agency would not be
forthcoming for two months is beyond the pale. I would assume you too are
not satisfied with no. This is being no, not at all. You
should have checked your interview and found out how quickly some of the people who
tried to assassinate Abraham Lincoln were even executed. I mean, here they take
some two weeks for a report. You know why. Now they have more,
they have more of his social media profile. They've got to right now,
not to mention more information as to how this guy got the gun so
close to the roof, how he got the ladder so close to the roof
right, So many questions left unanswered, and I would think within the next
couple of weeks they should know so much more. You said that Director Secret
Service Director Kimberly Cheedle should be fired, should resign. Do you think she
should be behind Barns Well, not yet right now. She just seems like
an incompetent affirmative action higher what she is in favor of more. By the
way, but that's what I took when I listened to her. In competent
affirmative action hider. Are you concerned about the movement that we had heard about.
Let's have a little background here, a little history. But to Kimberly
Cheatle, of course, as has been reported, a very close friend of
First Lady Jill Biden. In fact, she worked on the security detail for
Jill Biden when Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States. At the
same time, we hear that the Secret Service decided on Saturday to move some
of the Secret Service agents to redeploy them, as I understand it, to
an event that was relatively nearby where Jill Biden was campaigning on behalf of her
president. That is a concern in and of itself, but also a concern
knowing how close these two individuals were personally. Well, it's concerning to me
because the people who may have been most loyal to President Trump were not there,
right. I mean, there are agents that are always assigned to President
Trump, and we're going to have to answer these questions again, but it
appears to me like the people who were normally around Trump were not there.
Let's uh, I want to get your thoughts on where we go from here,
because obviously there's been one bombshell event after another. In fact, I
think that the country is reeling right now with so much we use this we
overuse this word, but these truly are unprecedented times. So what happens now?
Joe Biden has dropped out of the race. He has well, let
us put it this way. We received an announcement ostensibly from Joe Biden that
he has dropped out of the race, an announcement that was made on Twitter
or the former Twitter now known as x. We have not heard directly from
the president. We've been told that later in the week he'll make a speech.
As of this recording, we don't have anything on the schedule where the
president will be showing up live. Those are concerns, But now we have
the president ostensibly endorsing the vice president. Some are very happy about that,
others aren't. Where does all of this go from here in terms of how
the Republicans approach the next three plus months of this election. Well, like
I said, as far as President Biden being president for the next six months,
I think Kamala Harris is so scary. People will talk about trying to
constitutionally remove President Biden, but I don't think they're going to do that.
I think of greater concern is, well, Kamala Harris wind up being the
Democrat nominee for president, and she is awful in so many ways, disliked
by her own staff, assigned to do something at the border and did absolutely
nothing radical weft woin Liberal. They may try to keep her hons the presidential
candidate. I personally have met Democrats in the House who do not want her
and feel that if they can hang on and get an open debate during the
Democrat convention, that they can knock her out. So could be very illuminating.
Now it's interesting for your listeners to wonder how we will want up in
this situation in the first place. Earlier, when I talked about the assassination
attempt, I talked about the degree in which the current director in the FBI
is a firm believer in affirmative action. She's going out of the way,
or claim to be going out the hire as many women as possible, and
like always of affirmative action, it means that you're hiring people not as qualified
as you normally would want. And do you think we have I mean,
I think the events, the events of Saturday last would indicate it. Do
you think that we have incompetence driven by DEI policies in place? I think,
for a result will be part of the problem with the Secret Service,
But it's the affirmative action. The pigeons are coming home to roost here,
right. The reason they're in a box is they pick Kamala Harris only because
she's a woman of color, right, And they're open about it. They
didn't even fight it. Right at the time we had that situation in Minneapolis,
and they said to themselves, because of what happened in Minneapolis, we
have to have a woman of color. So that's why Biden said as much.
Right right, it's not even pretending we went through the motions and this
is the most qualified woman. They said, we are going to put ourselves
in a straight jacket and say we could only make a vice president a woman
of color. Well, okay, now they're here. Now she's no longer
going to be vice president. We're looking at it a possible president, either
for the final six months or getting re elected next year, which is not
an impossibility. And I hope the American public realizes that's not only how we
got our vice president. All across the country today, people are being hired
medical, field, manufacturing, and field what have you, not on a
base of confidence, but on the basis of check the box out of the
form. And it really makes me respect President Trump. And then when he
picked a vice president this time, he picked the guy who he thought was
best for the job. He said, I'm going to pick the guy who
would make the best president if something happened to me. And the fact that
he happened to be a white guy, and the fact that he happened to
come from a state that's probably going to be Republican anyway, did not bother
President Trump. He says, I'm not going to be a politician. Heer,
I'm going to take the best guy I can. Obviously, four years
ago I did the opposite. His attitude was, I don't care if this
well, I don't care at all, but to a degree, it's not
as important to me as to whether this person is qualified. I want someone
where I can stand up by the stage and say, look at here,
I've got a woman of color, and this is why I'm picking her.
Well, if you want, yeah, if you want evidence to further evidence
to support that fact. And I agree with everything you just said. But
again, you mentioned that JD. Vance is from Ohio, deep red state.
It's not the calculus of the campaign does not require representation necessarily from from
Ohio. Trump, as has been talked about, could have certainly picked someone
from one of the swing states, maybe someone from Wisconsin, perhaps right.
A lot of people talked about a young kid from Virginia to put Virginia in
pleasure, young, a wonderful guy like his name. But Trump said,
you know, he is not who I think would make the best president.
So I'm not going to pick it. Even exactly in the right pick politically.
Yeah. And the further point is, if you remember, Kamala Harris
is not from a state that Joe Biden desperately needed. She comes from California.
You don't get any bluer than California. She came with all kinds of
warts as a candidate, driven home by the fact that she was what the
first one out in the twenty twenty contest for the Democrat nomination. So yeah,
I think that's absolutely clear. But to your broader point, the whole
Biden Harris push in the last three and a half years, the whole leftist
push in that administration, has been focused on diversity, equity, inclusion,
sometimes as we have seen quite frankly, to the peril of getting the job
done in the case at the highest levels of securing the life of a president
and the people who were there to see him campaign. We don't have much
time left. I wanted to ask you this. I've talked to you about
the election integrity issues for a very long time, and I just I think
You're Senator in Wisconsin told me this recently. He said that whoever the nominee
is going to be, Senator Ron Johnson said that he believes it will be
Kamala Harris. When the day is done. You'll see the accomplice media,
the Democrats obviously shifting to talk about just how wonderful Kamala Harris is, how
articulate she is, how visionary she is. Of course that is not reality,
but they don't care about reality. The ultimate issue here that we've seen
in this country for several years is it doesn't necessarily matter who the candidate is
on the left, it matters who's running the elections. Are you concerned that
the Biden Bucks that we've talked about the use of federal agencies to work a
get out the vote effort for Joe Biden, But now in this case,
whoever his replacement will be, will be even more aggressive. That machine will
be humming even more in these next three months. Right, people have to
remember the winner of the election to a degree, a big degree, is
not going to come down to the so called undecided votes. It's going to
come down to turn out and getting people to turn out who normally don't vote,
Marginal people who may not be familiar with the issues but can be told
particular an era in which we expect so many absentee ballots. It can be
suggested to them who they should vote, and I'm sure the Democrats are going
to do all they can to get everybody out to vote in both Dane and
Milwaukee County, including people who really don't care that much. But we've got
to make sure we get the working man out because right now, I think,
over time more and more, the Republican Party is the party of the
working man. We've got to make sure we get our people out. Yes,
I am concerned. I don't like absent de balloting. I've fought it
all the way through. But when you have so much absentee balloting, you've
got to worry if some people were told how to vote, which I'm sure
the plan is, and that is a big concern. I spent part of
the weekend in Mantua County, wonderful, super conservative county and like most counties,
filled with people who work for a living. It's overwhelming a Republican But
for us to win that election, we're going to have to turn out all
the working people, because the Democrats will do what they can to turn out
the non working people. In my opinion, now, how much more difficult
election integrity will it be knowing that in Wisconsin, one of the key swing
states, you have a left led Supreme Court that recently said there's no problem
with unmanned absentee ballot drop boxes right for example, and that leaves an opening
to me. Of course, you have the same thing happen if you mail
by a post office. But I think it is more of an obvious invitation
to have marginal people vote if you can just go over there and drop off
your ballot. So final question is the Republican Party in Wisconsin and nationally,
are they truly committed to doing what the Democrats have done, beating them at
their own people. They're putting more money into it, They're hiring more people.
I think we're going to be in better shape than last time in Wisconsin.
Were no longer going to have the foolish rule that you have people voting
in nursing homes, so without having a representative of both party president, so
that regard will be in better shape. I think we're in better shape than
we were four years ago. In perfect shape. No, I think you're
always going to have a problem when you have so many absentee ballots. Let's
face it, if Vladimir Putin got re elected in an election, and you
heard the eighty percent of the ballots for absentee, What would you think we've
got to deal with absentee ballots? Very good, sir, Thanks to my
guest today, Congressman Glenn Grothman from Wisconsin's fighting sixth Congressional district, also a
member of the very important, high profile House Committee on Oversight and Accountability,
trying to get to the bottom of get answers to the many questions that we
all have about the attempted assassination against former President Donald Trump. You've been listening
to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior correspondent
at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay
lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray.