Speaker 1: So there's this whole little mini news cycle going on
Speaker 1: right now. It seems to already be losing oxygen. This
Speaker 1: claim from a writer in the Atlantic that Trump once
Speaker 1: vented that he said one time he wishes he had
Speaker 1: generals like Adolf Hitler had, that you want generals who
Speaker 1: will be loyal to him. Now, this quote seems poorly sourced.
Speaker 1: A lot of these sort of random one off quotes
Speaker 1: from Trump allegedly saying nasty things about the American military.
Speaker 1: I kind of view them with skepticism, a mixture of
Speaker 1: somewhere between skepticism too. That's unsavory, But I don't know
Speaker 1: that I fundamentally care to just flat out who cares.
Speaker 1: And this one in particular, I find to be sort
Speaker 1: of a non story, but it highlights things that were
Speaker 1: actually genuine problems during the Trump administration, where I think
Speaker 1: we have this assumption and conservatives can lean into this
Speaker 1: assumption that the top military brass. You know, conservatives respect
Speaker 1: the military. We like the military. We want to respect
Speaker 1: people who are generals and admirals. We like them, you know,
Speaker 1: we read Tom Clancy books. We think those guys are cool,
Speaker 1: and many of them are quite cool. But it was
Speaker 1: also true that there are a lot of problems during
Speaker 1: the Trump administration of these people ignoring Trump because they
Speaker 1: disagreed with him on policy. So there were whole stories
Speaker 1: from the Trump years about diplomatic and military personnel just
Speaker 1: ignoring Trump's wishes. There were a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: as admirable a person as James Mattis was, there were
Speaker 1: several stories about him just kind of ignoring Trump's orders,
Speaker 1: giving Trump defense officials limited options for what they could
Speaker 1: do in response to something where Mattis had sort of
Speaker 1: his own opinions and disagreed with Trump and with other
Speaker 1: Trump's subordinates like hr McMaster who was serving as Trump's
Speaker 1: National Defense advisor John Bolton, and other times where Mattis
Speaker 1: just kind of flat out didn't do what Trump told
Speaker 1: him to do for reasons that seemed to have more
Speaker 1: to do with policy than anything else. Here's a whole
Speaker 1: story from twenty twenty. It was published in a couple
Speaker 1: of different places. This was in The New York Post,
Speaker 1: written by Ebony Bowden. Retiring diplomat says defense officials misled
Speaker 1: Trump on troop count in Syria. US defense officials routinely
Speaker 1: misled President Trump into believing the American troop count in
Speaker 1: Syria was a lot lower than it actually was is,
Speaker 1: a retiring US diplomat said in a bombshell interview this week.
Speaker 1: We were always playing shell games to not make clear
Speaker 1: to our leadership how many troops we had there, James Jeffrey,
Speaker 1: US Special Representative for Syria Engagement said in an interview
Speaker 1: with Defense One, which is sort of military focused publication.
Speaker 1: In October of twenty nineteen, Trump ordered the withdrawal of
Speaker 1: US troops from northern Syria, a decision controversial among lawmakers,
Speaker 1: defense officials, and dippls. Pentagon officials convinced the President to
Speaker 1: leave approximately two hundred troops behind to protect oil fields
Speaker 1: in the country's east there were at risk of falling
Speaker 1: under ISIS control. Jeffrey said. However, the real number of
Speaker 1: troops in northeast Syria is a lot more than the
Speaker 1: two hundred Trump agreed to leave behind, Jeffrey said, with
Speaker 1: some officials putting the numbers high as nine hundred. What
Speaker 1: Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal, Jeffrey told
Speaker 1: the publication. When the situation northeast Syria had been fairly
Speaker 1: stable after we defeated. Isis Trump was inclined to pull out,
Speaker 1: He went on in each case, we then decided to
Speaker 1: come up with five better arguments for why we needed
Speaker 1: to stay, and we succeeded both times. That's the story.
Speaker 1: According to the Washington Post report published last October, Pentagon officials,
Speaker 1: unhappy with the withdrawal appealed to Trump's interest in oil
Speaker 1: to convince him not to withdraw troops. Blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: they can just keep going. So that they were like
Speaker 1: lying to Trump about the number of troops there. So
Speaker 1: here you have Trump wanting to do certain kinds of
Speaker 1: military and foreign policy and generals in his orbit. And
Speaker 1: the other thing was Trump appointed all these generals to
Speaker 1: all these different positions, is chief of Staff and Defense
Speaker 1: secretary and this and that and the other, and a
Speaker 1: bunch of them were conniving snakes who and you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to be, you know, too critical of James Mattis,
Speaker 1: this incredibly distinguished military career, But the reality is he
Speaker 1: was not really obeying what Trump told him to do.
Speaker 1: In various instances, he was kind of not really doing
Speaker 1: what Trump was asking him. And then he eventually resigned
Speaker 1: after Trump and after Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria.
Speaker 1: So for Trump to say he wants jenerals who are
Speaker 1: loyal to him, I don't think in a vacuum, I
Speaker 1: don't think that that's some awful thing. I think it's
Speaker 1: actually far more problematic that you had generals sort of
Speaker 1: blowing the president off or like lying to the administration
Speaker 1: about the troop numbers. I think that's actually a far
Speaker 1: more problematic thing than Donald Trump saying, Hey, I want
Speaker 1: generals who are loyal to me. Why would Donald Trump
Speaker 1: want generals loyal to him? Allow me to direct you
Speaker 1: to this little document that this legal document that has
Speaker 1: something to say about this question of the president and
Speaker 1: the level of control he's supposed to influence over the military.
Speaker 1: It's called the United States Constitution. Specifically Article two. Article
Speaker 1: two is about the powers of the President of the
Speaker 1: executive branch. Allow me to direct your attention to Article two,
Speaker 1: Section two. The President shall be Commander in chief of
Speaker 1: the Army and Navy of the United States and of
Speaker 1: the militia of the several States, when called into the
Speaker 1: actual service of the United States. That's it. That's he's
Speaker 1: the commander in chief. He directs the Army and the Navy.
Speaker 1: He directs the military, He is in charge of it,
Speaker 1: he oversees it, not the Secretary of Defense, not anyone
Speaker 1: that Constitutionally, it doesn't legally, it doesn't even make sense
Speaker 1: for anyone else to have the authority to not do
Speaker 1: what the President tells him with regards to the military,
Speaker 1: short of something that's flat out illegal. And so I
Speaker 1: could see Trump in a moment of peaque venting that
Speaker 1: Jesus for Hitler as generals did what they told him. Now,
Speaker 1: it's an unsavory comparison, but you know, we're talking about
Speaker 1: some private conversation. Look how many times have I, maybe
Speaker 1: in private conversation, said something stupid that I wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: want printed in a newspaper. Here's Trump. Did he actually
Speaker 1: say it or not? It seems highly disputable. But even
Speaker 1: the general principle of what he's saying I don't think
Speaker 1: is wrong. Yes, his generals should be loyal to him
Speaker 1: if he is president of the United States, because that's
Speaker 1: the oath to obey the Constitution, the oath that officers
Speaker 1: of the United States swear to follow the Constitution, and
Speaker 1: right there in Article two, Section two, one of those
Speaker 1: provisions of the Constitution, is the commander in chief of
Speaker 1: the military being the president, the president being the one
Speaker 1: who directs the military. So I find this whole controversy
Speaker 1: to be ridiculous. Now, is it crazy to think Trump
Speaker 1: might have said it? Again, I don't think it's actually
Speaker 1: that crazy to think he might have said it. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing he would have had it with the proviso of
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not to the extent of me,
Speaker 1: like ordering them to do the Holocaust and them doing
Speaker 1: a Holocaust or something, but the general principle being I
Speaker 1: would like my generals to do what I tell them
Speaker 1: to do and not lie to me, which clearly happened
Speaker 1: several times during Trump's first term. And it's not like
Speaker 1: we saw in the Biden administration, where a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys kept their jobs. But like Mark Milly and
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the Joint chiefs who have
Speaker 1: shown themselves to be incompetent boobs in various other respects.
Speaker 1: So I and a lot of these guys who are
Speaker 1: far more interested in DEEI and various kinds of liberal
Speaker 1: buzzwords that probably were helpful to them in their ascent
Speaker 1: to the top of the military heap than actual fighting
Speaker 1: and killing. So I guess I just find the whole.
Speaker 1: The whole sort of mini controversy, which I think this
Speaker 1: was their grand October surprise. Was some quote that some
Speaker 1: poorly sourced quote from several years ago that John Kelly's
Speaker 1: kind of saying Trump one time said, I wish I
Speaker 1: had generals as loyal to me as Hitler as Hitler's
Speaker 1: generals were, which, by the way, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: Hitler's generals were that loyal to him even, I mean
Speaker 1: pretty sure didn't one of them try to assassinate him anyway?
Speaker 1: The guy with one eye, the guy with one eye
Speaker 1: that Tom Cruise played in that one movie. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think he tried to assassinate him anyway. That this is
Speaker 1: the Great October Surprise, which I feel like is not
Speaker 1: having any effects whatsoever. Everyone knows Trump says crazy things,
Speaker 1: nobody cares at this point, Like I think my wife
Speaker 1: and I have been laughing, We're like, gosh, after ten
Speaker 1: years or whatever, the Trump's been in kind of public life,
Speaker 1: like they've just run out of things to throw at
Speaker 1: him when it comes to like October Surprise esque allegations
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, I feel like they've got nothing left.
Speaker 1: There's nothing, no more bullets left in the chamber. But
Speaker 1: I think it does shed light on, you know, how
Speaker 1: is this Trump and Minute stration going to be staffed
Speaker 1: when it comes to the military and diplomatic side. On
Speaker 1: the diplomatic side, Trump got impeached the first time, I
Speaker 1: think on incredibly specious grounds. Why In large part, I mean,
Speaker 1: the underlying reason for it was a bunch of people
Speaker 1: within the foreign policy and defense blob who were terrified
Speaker 1: at the idea that Trump might not give the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: all the weaponry that they thought they needed. And they
Speaker 1: were so angry and upset about that that people leaked
Speaker 1: confidential discussions Donald Trump had with foreign leaders, with no
Speaker 1: one having the consideration of, like, hey, don't you think
Speaker 1: it's a bad thing for the United States in general
Speaker 1: if we have executive branch officials leaking private conversations that
Speaker 1: the President of the United States is having with the
Speaker 1: president of another foreign country. I mean the guy Alexander Vinman,
Speaker 1: the guy who started the whole and then turned into
Speaker 1: just a flat out left wing activist who started the
Speaker 1: whole Trump Ukraine impeachment thing. The thing in retrospect, I
Speaker 1: think the whole thing was a joke. I think Trump
Speaker 1: was actually one hundred percent within his rights to say
Speaker 1: to the President of Ukraine, Hey, maybe you should investigate
Speaker 1: this Hunter Biden thing, because clearly Hunter is guilty as
Speaker 1: sin or at the very least, there is a lot
Speaker 1: of smoke there and seems highly likely that there's fire.
Speaker 1: I just find so. Basically, though, the Trump administration the
Speaker 1: first time around was staffed by just an absolute snake
Speaker 1: pit of people who in the foreign policy side and
Speaker 1: the deploy almacy saw the State Department people who did
Speaker 1: not want to do the things Trump wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Appointing John Bolton was a disastrously dumb idea on Trump's part.
Speaker 1: Bolton never saw a country he didn't want to invade,
Speaker 1: and Trump didn't want to invade any countries. That's why
Speaker 1: Bolton only lasted a short time and then immediately got fired.
Speaker 1: I hope the Trump administration the next time around, if
Speaker 1: he wins, which is still I feel like it's about
Speaker 1: a fifty to fifty proposition, if he wins, that he
Speaker 1: can staff this his administration with competent people who actually
Speaker 1: like agree with his foreign policy, which for the most part,
Speaker 1: I looking at the end result, I think I really
Speaker 1: liked what happened in foreign policy during the Trump years
Speaker 1: for the most part. So I find again I find
Speaker 1: this argument, Oh, Trump once general's loyal to him like
Speaker 1: Hitler's generals. I find that whole. I think it's a
Speaker 1: silly story. Oh, it comes out just happens to come
Speaker 1: out the October, you know, two weeks before the election
Speaker 1: or whatever. Not buying it. And also from a constitutional
Speaker 1: point of view, I think his generals should be loyal
Speaker 1: to him up to the point of doing something that's
Speaker 1: flat out illegal. Yes, they should be loyal to him
Speaker 1: and should do what he tells them to do when
Speaker 1: we return. How this idea of the executive branch being
Speaker 1: completely run by the president is not actually the fascist
Speaker 1: threat to democracy that people think it is. Next on
Speaker 1: the John Girardi Show, beyond this little mini panic that
Speaker 1: liberals are trying, this is just you know, the October surprise,
Speaker 1: the attempt to throw spaghetti against the wall and see
Speaker 1: if it sticks. With this alleged again, this alleged claim
Speaker 1: that Trump one time in private said I wish my
Speaker 1: generals were as loyal to me as Hitler's generals, which
Speaker 1: is both I think historically kind of laughable. I think
Speaker 1: one of Hitler's generals tried to kill him. And also,
Speaker 1: like stepping back from the unsavoriness of any comparison with Hitler,
Speaker 1: is not necessarily a wrong thing for a president to
Speaker 1: want generals to be loyal to him. I mean, short
Speaker 1: of doing something illegal, generals are supposed to obey the
Speaker 1: president of the United States. He's the commander in chief,
Speaker 1: not the generals. Okay, the general's job is to do
Speaker 1: what the commander in chief tells them to do. Again,
Speaker 1: short of something illegal, generals should be loyal to the
Speaker 1: president in that respect. Now, loyalty to like an individual
Speaker 1: personality is maybe not really the spirit of it. But again,
Speaker 1: we're talking about some quote poorly sourced in private from
Speaker 1: several years ago that John Kelly kind of remembers Trump saying,
Speaker 1: without the full context of exactly what did Trump mean
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. Also in the context of
Speaker 1: a bunch of generals around Trump who blew him off
Speaker 1: and kind of flat out did disobey him. There were
Speaker 1: stories after the fact that basically diplomatic officials and military
Speaker 1: folks were lying to the president about troop counts in Syria.
Speaker 1: It's this like, yeah, like there were demonstrated instances where
Speaker 1: Trump's generals or the generals that he appointed to different posts,
Speaker 1: like the Secretary Defense bl blah blah blah, blew him
Speaker 1: off and didn't do what he wanted. This leads me
Speaker 1: to there have been a number of stories about how
Speaker 1: terrifying it is that Trump wants to institute various kinds
Speaker 1: of plans to give him greater latitude to fire executive
Speaker 1: branch officials. Executive branch employees basically to reschedule if you will,
Speaker 1: the federal employees who work within the various executive branch departments,
Speaker 1: the EPA, the FDA, the DOJ, this that, but all
Speaker 1: the alphabet soup of all the federal executives, all the
Speaker 1: different federal agencies that are under the authority of the
Speaker 1: executive branch. Basically at the moment, it's sort of divided
Speaker 1: into career employees and political appointees. So let's take the
Speaker 1: Department of Health and Human Services. A lot of people
Speaker 1: who work at the Department of Health and Human Services
Speaker 1: are career employees. They stay in their job and it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily depend on who is president. They oversee certain things.
Speaker 1: They help with drafting regulations, They do this, that and
Speaker 1: the other. Then there are the political appointees. These are
Speaker 1: the people at the top who oversee things, who take
Speaker 1: guidance from the administration ultimately from the president, and set policy.
Speaker 1: The political appointees come and go with different presidential administrations.
Speaker 1: If a Republican administration comes in, all the Democrats leave.
Speaker 1: Democrat administration comes in, all the Republican appointees leave. Republicans
Speaker 1: have noted, particularly in the first Trump term, how a
Speaker 1: lot of the career employees, who are protected in various
Speaker 1: ways under federal law and federal regulations from being fired.
Speaker 1: They can't be fired at will necessarily. They can only
Speaker 1: be fired for cause that a lot of the career
Speaker 1: employees of the federal government, well, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: an undisputed fact that the vast majority of them are
Speaker 1: huge liberals, and that their presence can hinder stemy thwart
Speaker 1: Republican priorities. I think one of the greatest examples of
Speaker 1: this was when during COVID Congress passed the legislation for
Speaker 1: the PPP loans. They specifically drafted the language to exclude
Speaker 1: planned parenthood and other big national abortion provider chains from
Speaker 1: getting PPP loans. They specifically wrote it so that Planned
Speaker 1: Parenthood wouldn't get the money, and Planned Parenthood still got
Speaker 1: all the money. Why because the Small Business Administration approved
Speaker 1: all their applications. So Trump has floated this idea of
Speaker 1: basically putting these career employees in a different kind of
Speaker 1: schedule of federal employees to allow the executive branch leadership,
Speaker 1: i e. The President to fire more of them and
Speaker 1: replace them with people who will do what he wants
Speaker 1: more effectively. This has been deemed by the left to
Speaker 1: be fascism. This is a horror, this is a threat
Speaker 1: to democracy. No, the president is elected through a part
Speaker 1: democratic part, sort of giving representation to states part, you know,
Speaker 1: the electoral college system. It's not pure democracy, but it
Speaker 1: is a democratic system. The president is elected in a
Speaker 1: democratic system. The career employees of the federal government should
Speaker 1: do what he says, because in the constitution, who has
Speaker 1: the executive power of the United States. It's not the
Speaker 1: president sharing it with career employees of the federal government.
Speaker 1: It's just the president. All of the career employees of
Speaker 1: the federal government are using the president's delegated power. Every
Speaker 1: single one of them are in an org chart that
Speaker 1: has at the very top the president. If you're some
Speaker 1: career flunky working for the Department of hhs', you're under
Speaker 1: this manager, who's under this manager, who's under this under secretary,
Speaker 1: this under super subsecretary, who's under this secretary, wh's under
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is under
Speaker 1: the president. That is true of every single executive branch employee.
Speaker 1: If you're not doing, or if you are slow rolling,
Speaker 1: or if you are subtly thwarting what the president i e.
Speaker 1: Your boss wants done, then you shouldn't work there. End
Speaker 1: of story. Just as a question of kind of constitutional order,
Speaker 1: the president should have the ability to ensure that all
Speaker 1: of his employees, exercising his authority, are doing what he wants.
Speaker 1: Executive branch officials thwarting the president, that is the threat
Speaker 1: to democracy. The president was elected, not this flunky. So
Speaker 1: should Trump's generals be loyal to him? They absolutely should,
Speaker 1: up to the point of doing something illegal. Trump's generals
Speaker 1: should do what he tells them. Should career officials of
Speaker 1: the federal government be loyal to the president, to President
Speaker 1: Trump if he gets elected, yes, they should up to
Speaker 1: the point of doing something illegal. They should do what
Speaker 1: he tells them, end of story. And if they don't
Speaker 1: do what he tells them, I think Trump should one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the authority to fire them. As a
Speaker 1: question of constitutional order, I think Joe Biden should have
Speaker 1: the ability to fire. If there's some right wing nut
Speaker 1: job working at HHS who's actively thwarting President Biden, makes
Speaker 1: sense for President Biden to be able to fire him.
Speaker 1: Obviously I would love that person. But as a question
Speaker 1: of constitutional order, the president should direct the executive branch
Speaker 1: when we return. When we return Kamala Harris the anti
Speaker 1: Catholic slash other threats to the Democratic Order. Next on
Speaker 1: the John Girardi Show, jd Vance had an op ed
Speaker 1: published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I think this is
Speaker 1: a pretty strategic thing on his slash the Trump administration's
Speaker 1: part to go after Kamala Harris for what they view
Speaker 1: as an anti Catholic prejudice. I think it's accurate, and
Speaker 1: I could discuss it on my own without jd Vance's.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been following Kamala Harris's career with great interest,
Speaker 1: and particularly her sort of various forays into anti Catholic activity.
Speaker 1: There have been some particularly bizarre recent things. Gretchen Whitmer,
Speaker 1: who's a top Harris surrogate. It's hard to sort of
Speaker 1: blame Harris for this. I'm pretty sure she was not
Speaker 1: aware this was happening. Whitmer did this bizarre skit with
Speaker 1: a left wing podcaster who was interviewing her, where Whittmer
Speaker 1: looked like she was basically she fed this other woman
Speaker 1: a looked like a tortilla chip or something, but did
Speaker 1: it in a way that looked very similar to a
Speaker 1: priest giving someone holy communion. It was this weird, kind
Speaker 1: of bizarre skit, which Whitmer says, Oh, I didn't at
Speaker 1: all intend for that to be offensive to Catholic, sort
Speaker 1: to mark the Catholic, but Catholic bishops were like, well,
Speaker 1: that was super weird. Harris then skipped this thing called
Speaker 1: the Al Smith Dinner, which I've never particularly liked myself.
Speaker 1: But the Al Smith Dinner is this big New York
Speaker 1: City charitable dinner raise money for different kinds of Catholic
Speaker 1: aid causes, and traditionally in presidential election years, the two
Speaker 1: main presidential candidates show up and tell jokes and Harris
Speaker 1: just didn't go. It's sort of the first time in
Speaker 1: I think decades that one of the two major presidential
Speaker 1: party candidates did not go. She sent in some incredibly
Speaker 1: cringey video and that was it. You know, is that
Speaker 1: a super anti Catholic thing. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: it was more of a campaign thing of Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: is not very personable and is not good at telling
Speaker 1: jokes and is not funny and it's not relatable. And
Speaker 1: her team basically was like, Eh, let's just skip that,
Speaker 1: but let's get into her genuine record towards Catholics, because
Speaker 1: I I think given the states that are at play
Speaker 1: in the election, what are the battleground states? Pennsylvania huge
Speaker 1: Catholic population, Wisconsin and Michigan huge Catholic populations, Georgia not
Speaker 1: so much, North Carolina not so much, Arizona, Nevada large
Speaker 1: Catholic populations. So and it's no coincidence that JD Vance
Speaker 1: this op ed is published in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Speaker 1: So they need to win Pennsylvany. Pennsylvania is clearly the
Speaker 1: most important state in the whole election. If you win Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: I think odds are you're going to win the presidency,
Speaker 1: Vance writes. As a US Senator from California, Miss Harris
Speaker 1: racked up a record of bigotry towards Catholics and Catholic teachings.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, she attacked Brian Buscher, a federal District
Speaker 1: Court judicial nominee, over his membership in the Knights of Columbus,
Speaker 1: a one hundred and forty two year old Catholic paternal
Speaker 1: organization dedicated to public service. This was now just commentary.
Speaker 1: This was a hilarious thing. So this is when Harris
Speaker 1: was a senator. She's on the Senate Judiciary Committee. One
Speaker 1: of the big things the Judiciary Committee does is it
Speaker 1: vets the judges that the President appoints to the various
Speaker 1: different federal judicial openings throughout the country. So whether that's
Speaker 1: a federal district court judge who's you know, trying cases,
Speaker 1: a federal appellate court judge, so a judge who hears
Speaker 1: appeals from the district court. So someone on the first Circuit,
Speaker 1: the second Circuit, the third Circuit in California were under
Speaker 1: the Ninth Circuit Court of the of Appeals, or someone
Speaker 1: being appointed to the Supreme Court, the Judiciary committee's job
Speaker 1: is to vet them. Harris was on the Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: and this one judge was nominated to be a federal
Speaker 1: District Court judge. He was a member of the Knights
Speaker 1: of Columbus, and the Knights of Columbus, as was saying,
Speaker 1: it's a Catholic fraternal organization. The Knights of Columbus don't
Speaker 1: believe anything other than what the Catholic Church believes, and
Speaker 1: she was trying to say that, Oh, here it is.
Speaker 1: His membership of the Knight in the Knights of Columbus
Speaker 1: is very controversial and questionable. The Knights of Columbus have
Speaker 1: supported lots of political things. Well, no, there's nothing that.
Speaker 1: There is nothing the Knights of Columbus believe other than
Speaker 1: what the Catholic Church believes. That's it. That's the limit
Speaker 1: of what they think and believe, of the ideology whatever
Speaker 1: of the Knights of Columbus. It's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I don't know some group that has
Speaker 1: Oh they have a couple of renegade teachings they believe
Speaker 1: outside of normal Catholic belief. In practice, no, their belief
Speaker 1: is entirely delineated as the beliefs of the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: That's it. If you're going to say someone can't be
Speaker 1: a judge because they're in the Knights of Columbus, you're
Speaker 1: effectively saying they can't be a judge because they're Catholic,
Speaker 1: which is against the rules. The rules in this thing
Speaker 1: called the Constitution. We're not supposed to do religious tests
Speaker 1: for office. As Vance says, any first year law student
Speaker 1: would tell you that her line of questioning qualifies as
Speaker 1: an unconstitutional religious test for public office. That same year,
Speaker 1: Miss Harris condemned the Masterpiece Cake Shop Supreme Court decision,
Speaker 1: in effect arguing that the government should be able to
Speaker 1: compel Catholics or believers of any faith to perform services
Speaker 1: that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs, or indeed, anyone's
Speaker 1: conscientious belief She disagrees with. Miss Harris's legislative record as
Speaker 1: a Senator was similarly antagonistic towards Catholics. She was an
Speaker 1: early co sponsor of the Equality Act, a bill that
Speaker 1: would render the Constitution's protections for religious liberty effectively null
Speaker 1: and void. Among many potential consequences, this legislation would demand
Speaker 1: that Catholic church's host same sex weddings, require Catholic schools
Speaker 1: in all federally funded education institutions to allow men to
Speaker 1: compete in women's sports and share women's restroom and locker
Speaker 1: room facilities, and strip faith based charities of their tax
Speaker 1: exempt status. In twenty nineteen, Miss Harris also introduced the
Speaker 1: equally misnamed Do No Harm Act, which would force Catholic
Speaker 1: hospitals to perform abortions and even transgender surgeries. If this
Speaker 1: bill were to become law, Catholic doctors and medical professionals
Speaker 1: who refused to perform late term abortions or subject miners
Speaker 1: to dangerous life altering surgeries could lose their license in
Speaker 1: face federal discrimination lawsuits. It gets worse. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: a whistleblower in California provided evidence that Planned Parenthood was
Speaker 1: illegally trafficking organs and tissue from aborted babies. Miss Harris,
Speaker 1: then the Attorney General of California, ordered a raid on
Speaker 1: the home of the whistleblower to seize the evidence. In
Speaker 1: the White House, Miss Harris has been an integral part
Speaker 1: of the most anti Catholic administration in living memory. Ironic
Speaker 1: given President Joe Biden's Catholic faith last year, multiple FBI
Speaker 1: field offices were tied to a coordinated effort to target
Speaker 1: traditional Catholics as potent shall quote, racially or ethnically motivated
Speaker 1: violent extremists. Despite this apparent clear cut instance of anti
Speaker 1: Catholic prejudice, a Biden Heron's Department of Justice declared that
Speaker 1: there was no malicious intent behind the memo. Then there's
Speaker 1: the case of Mark Howck, a Catholic pro life activist
Speaker 1: father of seven, who had his homes swarmed by more
Speaker 1: than a dozen heavily armed FBI agents in a twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two dawn raid that terrorized his wife and young children.
Speaker 1: Houck's crime shoving an aggressive, expltive hurling pro abortion activist
Speaker 1: away from his young son, charges which a jury unanimously
Speaker 1: acquitted him of. But while the Biden Harris DOJ wanted
Speaker 1: to throw Mark Howck in jail for more than a decade,
Speaker 1: they recommended no jail time for an unhinged pro abortion
Speaker 1: activist who attacked a church employee, smashed windows, and defaced
Speaker 1: religious statues in Washington. It's an absurd double standard. While
Speaker 1: this administration has been busy targeting suburban Catholic dads, it
Speaker 1: has essentially ignored the nearly three hundred attacks on Catholic
Speaker 1: churches since the leak of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme
Speaker 1: Court decision in twenty twenty two, and he keeps on going.
Speaker 1: I mean, the I think the biggest thing was in
Speaker 1: a recent interview, you know, well, you know, we'll say
Speaker 1: this to the next break, but Harris staking out basically
Speaker 1: a position that is more extreme when it comes to
Speaker 1: religious institutions and the provision of abortion, more extreme than
Speaker 1: basically any position you could possibly have. That is next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show. So Harris the other day
Speaker 1: has this interview where they're talking about abortion, and she's, oh,
Speaker 1: abortion's going, you know, blah blah, blah, blah blah, doing
Speaker 1: her whole spiel, and the interviewer asks her, you know,
Speaker 1: are there any points where you would maybe moderate, where
Speaker 1: you know, you'd work together with Republicans or try to
Speaker 1: get something done, like religious exemptions and things like that. Now,
Speaker 1: religious exemptions, first of all, I object to the question
Speaker 1: the idea that religious exemptions are a thing that Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris would compromise on. Religious exemptions are kind of like
Speaker 1: required by the Constitution, not forcing someone to violate their
Speaker 1: deeply held religious beliefs. That the norm, the baseline political
Speaker 1: norm in this country is to respect the religious exemption
Speaker 1: of say a Catholic hospital not to do abortions, of
Speaker 1: an individual healthcare provider who is Christian, to not do
Speaker 1: abortions all right. Obviously, Catholic hospitals are sort of the
Speaker 1: most prominent, the most common religious hospitals in the country.
Speaker 1: About one fifth of all hospitals in America are run
Speaker 1: by the Catholic Church. But there's also I mean there
Speaker 1: are There's a Ventis Health. There's a lot of different
Speaker 1: religious run healthcare systems throughout this country, and tons of
Speaker 1: doctors who, for ethical reasons, religious reasons, just don't want
Speaker 1: to do abortions. And Harris says, I don't see why
Speaker 1: we should compromise on a fundamental right of a woman
Speaker 1: to do what she wants with her body, which means
Speaker 1: one of two things. Either Kamala Harris is an idiot
Speaker 1: distinctly possible who doesn't realize exactly what she's saying. Is
Speaker 1: she actually saying, yes, I want to force every Catholic
Speaker 1: hospital to perform abortions. Yes, I want to force every
Speaker 1: doctor to do abortions, even if they conscientiously object to it,
Speaker 1: Is that actually what she's so she's either stupid and
Speaker 1: just trying to do the most pro abortion sounding thing
Speaker 1: she could say, because I mean, that's an extent to
Speaker 1: which even I don't think President I don't even think
Speaker 1: President Biden's going to that extent. Is she saying that
Speaker 1: and just being stupid and not understanding the impact of
Speaker 1: her words and just trying to dance in the way
Speaker 1: that her donors want her to dance. That's the other
Speaker 1: thing about abortion stuff. The big pushers of abortion in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party is the donor class. The super elite
Speaker 1: donors like Mackenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos's ex wife who gave
Speaker 1: like Planned Parenthood one hundred gazillion dollars. They're the ones
Speaker 1: who really want abortion, and that's what really pushes Democrat
Speaker 1: politicians to the super hardcore pro abortion stances. It's a
Speaker 1: donor driven thing, and Harris is more a creature of
Speaker 1: the donor class than anybody before. I genuinely think, like
Speaker 1: not that Obama or Hillary Biden like ignored the donors,
Speaker 1: but there was some sense to which they were their
Speaker 1: own person like Obama had ideas independent of the donor class.
Speaker 1: Biden had thoughts independent of the donor class. Maybe doesn't
Speaker 1: have as many thoughts these days. Hillary had, and his
Speaker 1: thoughts were never that sharp. Hillary had thoughts independent of
Speaker 1: the donor class. Harris has none. She is Her whole
Speaker 1: career is as this avatar for the donor class, propped
Speaker 1: up by pushed by the donors. As you can see
Speaker 1: by her clearly not quite ready for prime time performance
Speaker 1: as the Democratic nominee. The donor class wants all this
Speaker 1: pro abortion stuff. If she knows what she's saying, she's
Speaker 1: staking out the most insane, conscious violative position on abortion
Speaker 1: humanly possible. That'll do it for John Gerardy show. See
Speaker 1: you next time on Power Talk