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start with a bit of the breaking news, and not
in order of importance. Here first piece of breaking news,
we have an announcement from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who
is going to replace Senator Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio tapped
to be Donald Trump's Secretary of State, which, by the way,
I watched yesterday. I watched the confirmation Q and A
with Rubio in the Judiciary. I think it was or
foreign Relations.
Speaker 1: I forget.
Speaker 2: I guess it was foreign relations. And he did a
fantastic job. And if you are, if you're interested in
the geopolitical stuff, high level discussions about threats and our
relations with various nations, well worth it. I mean it runs,
you know, three hours, but it it did not descend
into any of the any of the sparring that we
have seen in the other hearings. I suspect it's because
Marco Rubio has being in the Senate, cultivated good relations
with his colleagues over there and has worked, you know,
with many of them across the aisle, and so they
were not interested in, you know, a slash and burn
approach to him.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, he did a very good job yesterday.
Speaker 2: But he is obviously now vacating his seat in the
US Senate, and so the govern gets to appoint the replacement.
And DeSantis said that he intentionally waited until now to
make the announcement as to who would replace Rubio, so
the pick would not be thrown into as Brad Slager
reports it over at RedState dot com, But he would
not be that the pick would not be thrown into
the media meat grinder where they're just a pinata. As
DeSantis said it, he said he would make the call
just ahead of the inauguration, and he told some members
of Congress that he was not looking to pull a
name from the Florida delegation to the US House. In
other words, he was not looking to name a congressman
or woman, a congress person from Florida to be the senator,
because when you start moving some of these people around,
you're going to end up reducing the Republican majority in
the US House. And it's already very very close. Republicans have, like,
I forget what it is exactly, Is it a two
or three seat majority, something like that, And so if
you pull a member out from the House to move
to the Senate, then it reduces that majority in the
US House. And so he apparently told members of the
Florida delegation, he's not picking an interview, he's not moving
any of you because he recognizes the impact it would
have on the Republican majority in the US House. So
he opted instead for the Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody,
to take the Senate position. Moody, like her predecessor, Pam Bondi,
who is the nominee for Attorney General for Donald Trump,
has been looked at favorably in the state, a twice
elected attorney general who in her support in her reelection bid,
earning sixty percent voter support. So that's the first piece
of breaking news. Another piece of breaking news just came
out again, I'm not these are of equal importance. I
believe the New York Times has the big scoop here
that the Washington Post newspaper has adopted a new mission
statement and it is no longer democracy dies in darkness.
It is now quote riveting storytelling for.
Speaker 1: All of America.
Speaker 2: There you go, people, Now you can read the Washington
Post again, right, because it's for all of us, and
it's storytelling, well not just storytelling, it's riveting storytelling. And
surely the Washington Post would never lie to us about.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say about the nature of their reporting.
Speaker 2: But okay, so I'm sure that's going to make all
the difference that's going to turn around the sinking ship
that is the Washington Post. I am certain riveting storytelling
for all of America. It's very much like Joe Biden.
If we just say it, it will become true. We're
going to speak it into reality, into existence. It will
be rivoting storytelling because we call it riveting storytelling. Although
I'm not so sure storytelling is the best way to
frame it, especially if you're trying to win back an
audience that left you because they feel like you're making
up stories. You know, because I understand news stories are stories.
I understand that, but a lot of people also call
fictional stories stories too. Stories are also stories. Oh there
they go telling stories again, or Oh, I gotta make
sure I get home in time to watch my afternoon stories.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure this is going to have the impact,
But I guess democracy has not died, right, because why
else would you change your mission statement of democracy dies
in darkness and replace it with this one? They really
it does make me kind of say it, right, because
the New York Times they still go by the all
the news that's fit to print, right, that's their that's
their mission statement or whatever their branding effort, and that's
been their brand for a long time. And it feels
like the Washington Post just can't figure out what it
wants to be or what its mission statement should be.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of sad to me.
Speaker 2: But I mentioned Joe Biden, much like the Washington Post,
trying to convince people by saying something is true when
it is demonstrably not true and flies in the face
of our own personal experience. Another word for that is gaslighting.
So Joe Biden gave his farewell address, and my fingers
are crossed that this is in fact the last time
I ever have to hear from this man, unless, of course,
he's like being sworn in in a court proceeding. But
I don't know, because he could come across as a
sympathetic old man with a failing memory.
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: But the farewell address, I watched it last night, seventeen
minutes of my life that I'm not getting back, and
so I'm going to now rob you of your seventeen No,
I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to play I'm not going to play it.
It was let me. I do have three sound bites
that I did pull from the.
Speaker 2: From the legacy branding effort, from the marketing campaign to
tell us that we did not just live through the
four years we lived through. But I want to start
with Jeffrey Blair, who is a right over at National Review.
He described it fussly, a humiliatingly garbled ramble that read
like the sort of delusional, self exculpatory fantasy his caretaker
wife might whisper consolingly into his ear. He does have
a way with words. He also hosts a podcast called
Political Beats, where he does like music reviews and they
bring on political people and they talk music, and so
it's something it really is a gift. I think of
people who are able to write about music, it's something
I've never been able to do, even to describe music.
It's just like, oh, I really like that. Oh it's
got a good beat. You can really dance to it,
you know, stuff like that. That's the extent of my
ability to discuss music. And he is he's very good
at that kind of writing and communicating what a song
is in words, right, because think about that, You're trying
to tell people what a song or an artist sounds like,
and that's difficult to do because you're just writing it,
they're not hearing it. So he is sort of perfectly
positioned to write this because when it's just Joe Biden
sitting and staring at a camera with those dead eyes,
then so much of it is in fact sort of
like a song, right, and an artist. And so he
calls it humiliatingly garbled ramble that read like the sort
of delusional, self exculpatory fantasy that doctor Jill might whisper
consolingly into his ear right.
Speaker 1: Like you did a really good job, Joe you did awesome.
Speaker 2: By the way, when I play these sound bites, you're
gonna hear the room noise again, and you're gonna be
wondering what is that. That is the ambient room noise,
And you normally do not hear it because people speak
at a volume that the microphone captures and it doesn't
pick up that ambient room noise because the controls on
the mic filter it out, basically. But Joe Biden's voice
is so weakened that that's why you hear that ambient
room noise in every interview he does. They've got a
lapel mic on him that's about four inches from his
vocal cords, and his voice is so weak that you
still hear like the HVAC system running in the background. Oh,
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Pete at thepeteclendershow dot com and on Twitter at Pete
Calener I have a message. It's a pete male from Jonathan,
who says there was one point from last night's debacle
that Joe Biden performed. There was one point in the
address last night where you could actually hear Uncle Joey swallow. Yes,
that did occur, but you know nobody wanted to give
him a water bottle lest you end up like Marco Rubio,
Secretary of State. Yes, so let me play a clip here.
Let's start with a clip, because if I just keep rambling,
then I'm not going to get to the audio. And
I listened to Biden's speech two times in order to
pull this audio.
Speaker 1: So Dad gumt, We're gonna listen to it.
Speaker 2: Although I'm now seeing hmm, I only have two of
the cut saved and apparently missing one of my cuts. Anyway,
here's the first one. It's so he starts to wind
up for his whole in case you weren't to wear this.
This tech industrial complex is what he was calling it,
the tech industrial complex. Okay, and so he starts this
wind up to this warning about three minutes into his
seventeen minute speech.
Speaker 3: But we know the idea of America, our institution, our people,
our values, that uphold it are constantly being tested. I'm
gooing debates about power and the exercise of power. But
whether we lead by the example of our power or
the power of our example, whether we showed the courage
or stand up to the abuse of power, or we
yield to it. After fifty years, at the center of
all of this, I know believing in the idea of America.
I mean's respecting the institutions govern a free society, the Presidency,
the Congress, the courts, free and independent press, good one.
Institutions that are rooted. They just not to reflect the
timeless words, but they real they echo the words of
decoration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident,
rooted in the timeless words of the Constitution. We the people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get the flavor of it there. Yeah, you
can hear the background room noise, the ambient noise there, or,
as the Grateful Dead may have called it at one
point in one of their recording sessions, heavy air. That's
because his voice is so weak, the mic is having
a difficult time picking it up. And then he of
course talked about all of his awesome accomplishments that he
had in just four years man, what he could have
done with another four will never no. All right, I
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And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are
on Dad, who says, oh, you know, well, I've been
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another year.
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create a Video dot Com. All Right, Jeff Blair at
National review saying, Joe Biden concluded his career much as
he began it over half a century ago as a
venal pettisouled fool in denial about his own limitations and
failures in a thick, slack toned voice, stumbling over his
words from beginning to end as he squinted at a
teleprompter with vacant eyes, Biden slurred through the single most
incoherent speech of his life. He began by taking complete
credit for the breaking Israeli hostage deal with Kamas, which
was to be expected, and then launched into a sleepy
lecture awkwardly framed around the statue of liberty and how
it was built to sway in the wind, much like
America was built to be flexible enough to withstand his presidency.
One marble mouth cliche after another poured from his half
opened maw, smooth, featureless pablum with all the texture and
flavor of Gerber baby food.
Speaker 1: One of the quotes he had was.
Speaker 2: He said, shall America lead by the example of power
or the power of our example?
Speaker 1: An imponderable one for the ages, as it were. I believe.
Speaker 2: Well, he says, I want to worry. This is what
Joe Biden said last night in his warning to the
country of some things that give him great concern.
Speaker 3: This is a dangerous content and that's the dangerous conversation
of power in the hands were very few ultrawealthy people,
the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.
Today there was the swallow oligarchyse taking shape in America
of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threads our
entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair
shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences
all across America, and we've seen it before more than
a century ago. But the American people stood up to
the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They
didn't punish the wealthy, just made the wealthy pay that
play by the rules. Everybody else had to. Workers want
rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were
dealt into the deal and helped put us on a
path to build in the largest middle class, the most
prosperous century any nation in the world has ever seen,
and we've got to do that again. Me.
Speaker 1: It was with me.
Speaker 2: So he's talking about the I believe that word he
was trying to say, with concentration, the concentration of power
in the hands of an oligarchy. Guys, I've been in
talk radio, either as a reporter or as a host
since nineteen ninety nine, okay, and I can assure you
that this is not new. This has always been one
of the criticisms in our system. And by the way,
there is no system on the face of the earth,
past or present where this does not happen.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Power accumulates among a certain group of people until it
is diffused, and that was why the founders set up
the system as they did, recognizing this very real truth,
and so they diffused the power systemically. That's why they
made for example, US senators appoint did by state legislators.
But then people like Joe Biden decided, no, no, we
should have them elected by the citizens in each of
the states popularly elected, passed an amendment to the US
Constitution to do just that, and my entire life, that's
how US senators got their seats. They win elections, but
the Founders set it up differently. Why This is just
an example. I'm not arguing for or against this particular topic.
I'm just saying the founders had a different construct why
because they believed that that would protect state's' powers. In
other words, you put people into these positions of power,
and they will act as checks and balances. They will
act as guardrails against other people with different powers. And
so when those other people with the different powers try
to encroach on your turf, you seeking to protect your
will fight back, and in that fight, the people's freedoms
are protected. That's the idea, that was the concept. That's
the federalist model. Dana Perino over at Fox News she
watched it, and well, here was her reaction.
Speaker 4: You know that I try to be really nice and
I intended to find something that I could say, Wow,
that was great. So news of the day at the
top understandable, big soaring attempt at a rhetorical push for unity.
I'm like, okay, I'm following, And then like, what in
the world was he talking about? For example, when he
talks about dark money, does he not remember that just
last week he gave the medal of a Medal of
Freedom award to George Soros. They Also, he talked about
the fact that they had the biggest economic rebound than ever.
He never mentioned COVID, which was the entire premise of
his presidency. Today, I looked at a pool. Britt mentioned
our pool. There was another pool. The Gallup poll. They
asked about eighteen issues, which ones are you feeling better about?
Only one out of eighteen did people feel better about,
and it was gay, lesbian and trans issues. So he's
sitting there talking about all these things that he's done,
and I'm just like, this rings hollow to me. It
felt like the speech writers have already left the building
and that they asked chat GPT to write a speech
for Joe Biden in which he doesn't remember that he
was president for the last four years. If you ask people,
are you better off today than you were four years ago?
The answer is no, except for maybe the solar companies
and the Delta smelt.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think her assessment is spot on.
Speaker 2: That the speech writers left and chat GPT some AI
platform wrote this speech for him, like give me Joe
Biden's farewell speech, and this is what it's spit out out.
Speaker 1: That would not surprise me.
Speaker 2: It flowed about like an AI generated speech would all right.
If you're listening to this show, you know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
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as they make the media landscape more transparent. So last
night Joe Biden does his farewell address, can't come soon enough,
and he goes through this laundry list of all of
the things that he's done so amazingly well.
Speaker 1: Like good change, and he said there.
Speaker 2: Needs to be tax reform, and we got to get
the dark money out of politics.
Speaker 1: After he just gave George Soros the medal.
Speaker 2: Also he said he wants there should be a ban
on congress people trading stock, which I agree with that.
But he runs through all of these things, and Jeff
Blair over at National Review says, this warning against the
new oligarchy that is taking shape, as Biden called it,
before our very eyes, the tech industrial complex. He said,
this limp attempt to invoke Eisenhower's farewell address. By the way, hey,
everybody always forgets the second part of what Eisenhower warned against.
Speaker 1: Do you know what that was? The universities. That was
the second part.
Speaker 2: It's the military industrial complex and the university industrial complex.
And everybody forgets and ignores the second part. I wonder why.
But he says that this limp attempt to invoke Eisenhower
was followed by an equally tired rehash of every complaint
the mainstream media and the Democrats have been rehearsing against
Silicon Valley since they lost hammerlock control over it. Right now,
all of a sudden, Joe Biden is worried that they're
no quote fact checkers. Now, all of a sudden, there's
a concern about the social media spread of misinformation. Why
because they don't get to pressure or, as Mark Zuckerberg
told Joe Rogan, they don't get to yell and scream
at Facebook employees to get them to take stuff down,
to censor people on the platform. And now it's a
big problem. We're not controlling the narrative. I've talked about
this before. We are in a realignment of the political system.
We are also at a point now where maybe you've
heard it framed around like authenticity, right, Like people just
want somebody that's gonna talk to them like normal.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The idea of the or the caricature of the old
time politician that Joe Biden embodies, and Donald Trump most
certainly does not.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Trump is the new avatar of this, and Biden is
the old People do not want these kinds of rehearsed
political speech, these kinds of talking in sound bite speeches.
They're not moved by them, and we don't believe them.
We don't believe you. And when you couple this with
the behavior that we have seen while you're telling us
that you're the opponent of the very thing you're engaged in,
it's just more evidence of why we should not believe you.
Blair says Biden's delivery collapsed into utter incoherence near the
end of the speech, as he rambled on about climate
change and artificial intelligence and giving America a fair shot
quote unquote, before returning clumsily to his opening statue of
liberty metaphor Americans will remember nothing about it a day
from now and thus ends the Biden presidency. He claimed
that he had strengthened NATO, he pulled ahead of our
competition with China, mm hmm, and created affordable high speed internet,
which actually never got built. By the way, every president
tries to give a flattering account of themselves on the
way out of office, a way of contextualizing their time
and power into an upbeat narrative. The problem with Biden's
attempt had an apologia tonight isn't even just that he
is no longer physically capable of delivering it, but rather
that his account bears no relationship to the story the
American people saw throughout the four years of his presidency
or the threats they worry about presently. We didn't see
economic competence or foreign policy strength. Instead, in four years
experience with Joe Biden at the Helm, we saw a
venal cynic who lied about such basic matters of integrity
as pardoning his son when he wasn't violating his promise
to be abridged to the future. We saw an incompetent
bumbler who threw open the borders and watched the world
light itself ablaze as a detached spectator. Most of all,
we saw a frail, dependent old man whose mental and
physical condition had weakened to the point where he allowed
himself to be hidden from view and governed by a
coterie of his closest advisors who sought only to please
the activist gris groups whom they gleefully slopped favors to
from America's policy trough. And finally, remember, this man, who
was already collapsing in the first months of his administration,
sought another four years in office. All right, that'll do
it for this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. For listening.
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thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.