Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all of the links, become
a patron, go to vpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you
hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right
to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so
much for your support. All right, so Donald Trump gets
sworn into office yesterday, goes to a whole bunch of parties,
dances with a sword, and then he starts signing a
whole bunch of executive orders. As promised, there were a lot.
I have a list from Reuters President Trump that remember
this is Reuter's So I'm just going to read these things.
I don't agree with the UH, with some of the
some of the ways that they are defining, you know,
what was done. So there's going to be some bias here.
So I'm going to run through these because there's a lot.
But in case there's one on this list that you've
been waiting to hear, you'll hear it. Okay, So here
we go. Direct the DOJ not to enforce the TikTok
divest or ban law for seventy five days. Not allowed
to do that, Halt seventy eight Biden era executive actions.
So he put a stop on seventy eight executive actions
from Biden. Withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, end all
federal cases and investigations of any Trump supporters. Revoke protections
for transgender troops. That's what they call protection, okay, whatever
part in about fifteen hundred people criminally charged in the
January sixth attack, while commuting the sentences for six By
the way, I'm seeing reports also that the DC jail,
where a lot of these j sixers are locked up,
they're not cooperating and releasing the people who have been
held there. Overhaul the refugee admission program to better align
with American principles and interests. Declare a national emergency at
the US Mexico border. Designate drug cartels and trend de
Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations, which, by the way, that
means the military can now target them. Reverse several immigration
orders from the Biden administration, including one that narrows deportation
priorities to people who commit serious crimes and are deemed
national security threats or were stopped at the border. RESCIND
a policy created by the Biden administration that sought to
guide the development of AI to prevent misuse. RESCIND a
Biden era So once again, all of these are framed
in sort of a Biden did the right thing context right.
Resind a Biden era policy that allowed federal agencies to
take certain initiatives to boost voter registration. Yeah, because why
are all these federal agencies like sending out voter material.
You know. Anyway, stay in your laying guys, do what
you're supposed to do. Recind the twenty twenty one Title
nine Order, which bans discrimination based on gender identity or
sexual orientation in education programs that get federal funding. Revoke
Biden's recent removal of Cuba from US State Sponsors of
Terrorism list. So that got undone. And if Biden had
actually cared about it, he should have done it way earlier,
but he waited to the last minute to do it.
Order federal employees back to work in office five days
a week. Order a federal hiring freeze, including exceptions for
posts related to national security and public safety, and the military.
Direct every governmental department and agency to adre us the
cost of living crisis. Restore freedom of speech and prevent
censorship of free speech. End the weaponization of government against
the political adversaries of the previous administration. Did you hear
that lefties? End the weaponization of government against the political
adversaries of the previous administration, the political adversaries of the
pre So I'm thinking that means we're still allowed to
go after lefties. I'm just kidding. No, he said it
would end, he said, he said, we are not doing this.
This is over. Impose twenty five percent tariffs on products
from Mexico and Canada as of February one. Reverse Biden's
sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Reverse Biden
order requiring fifty percent of new cars sold in twenty
thirty to be electric vehicles. Proclaim that there are two
biological sexes, male and female. Diversity, equity and inclusion programs
within federal agencies. Establish the Department of Government Efficiency or
the DOGE Institute Enhanced screening for visa applicants from certain
high risk nations. It's a buzzle. Bit are we still
doing that? I know it's been eight years, but are
we getting that band back together again? Where we pretend
that there are certain nations that really really hate us
and have been indoctrinating their populations to really really hate us,
and so maybe we should take another look at them
before we just let a million okay, reopen Alaska's Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration. Order Attorney General,
Secretary of State, and Secretary of Homeland Security to quote
take all appropriate action to prioritize prosecution of illegal aliens
who commit crimes. And by the way, we are already
seeing some operations now, I think out of Chicago today.
Withdraw the US from the Global Minimum Tax agreement. Why
are we entering into any deal with any other country
for a global minimum tax? Why would we do that?
That's stupid, that's Biden. Anyway, institute a ninety day pause
and the issuance of US foreign aid order the Attorney
General to pursue. By the way, one of the things
that Trump talked about this too, like when we when
we give donations of aid, when when the government does that,
and like you can make an argument that you get
more bang for the buck by delivering palettes of rice
to people who need food, right, that that is a
higher bang for the buck for diplomatic outreach than you know,
building an embassy and you know, staffing it with the
people and all of that and hosting the fancy dinner
parties and stuff like, all of that expense. And you
could say that that you know, redounce to the benefit
of Americans and some way you have these foreign relations
all that blah blah blah. Okay, fine, but I am
open to the argument, and actually I lean towards the
argument that putting bags of rice and corn and food
you know, on planes and boats and delivering them to
people who are starving, giving them that kind of aid
is way more cost effective. But here's the thing, and
Trump talked about this. If you're going to do that,
you put our name on the aid, right, for the
love of me, why would you not do that? Well,
we don't want to offend the local populations. Okay, Well,
then you don't get the food, like seriously, seriously, if
you don't, if you hate us so much that you
would not eat a bag of rice that comes to
us and you'd rather starve to death, Okay, then that's
your choice. But there are other people that may not
make that same choice. And so let's give them a
bag of rice, and let's let them know where it
came from. Like, for example, let's take the example of China.
They put made in China on everything, even stuff that's
not made there. Right, they steal a whole bunch of stuff,
slap a made in China tag on it. Like why
can't we at least label the rice that we send
to them. By the way, I had a friend who
did a tour in the Peace Corps over in Africa,
and he said that the people I think he was
in Guinea, and he said that they would not eat
like you would see the palettes of rice stocked or
stacked up at the port and from all these different
countries that were sending aid, and the Chinese rice was untouched.
They would not eat the Chinese rice because I don't
know if this is true, but this is what they believed.
They believed that the Chinese fertilized their rice paddy with
human feces, and so they called it poop rice and
they would not eat it. See, that's the kind of
marketing that redounds to our benefit. Right, you have entire
you have an entire continent Africa that is open to us, like,
we could do a lot of stuff there by not
having poop rice. Here's a great idea. How about making
an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in
western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain
and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating
an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a
memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a
big old reunion, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot
for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones
and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath
taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their
cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the
Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville and the entrance
of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect
balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions
with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills,
outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from
thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas and a great lodge
with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the
ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have
pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three
six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there
is to offer at Cabins Offashville dot com and make
memories that'll last a lifetime. Thomas writes into Pete at
dpeteclendarshow dot com, Pete, are you tired of winning me either?
I cannot wait to see what the next twenty six
hours hold in making America great again. Well, these are
executive orders, so they only last as long as his term.
This is the problem with these types of orders. I've
always been highly skeptical and critical of the use of
these orders for that very reason. If you want stuff
to be permanent, and you've got, you know, common sense solutions,
then you put them into practice and you put them
into law. That's the way, and that codifies it and
makes it much more difficult to get stripped away because
everything there was and now we're going back and forth
every four years, for every eight years or so, right,
we're going to be swinging back and forth and back
and forth because Congress refuses to do its freaking job
because it's easier for them to fundraise off of YouTube
clips than it is to actually pass legislation. Right, let
me go over to the phone lines. Here's Larry, Welcome
to the show. Hey, Larry, Hey, how are you?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 1: I'm good man. What's up?
Speaker 2: Well? I can assure you one thing. A lot of
midnight oil was burned last night in law offices across
the country. Yeah, and I have I have since learned
that to get a pardon, one must be charged or convicted,
as of Hunter Biden, and that was done and there's
nothing one can do about it. But the Constitution, i'm told,
clearly states that a pardon cannot be given on a
presumption or an anticipation or something in the future. One
must be charged or convicted to get it. So therefore
the Biden family has been neither, and so that pardon
is not really worth the paper it's written on.
Speaker 1: Well, Hunter Biden was charged and convicted, so it would
apply to the cases where he was charged and convicted. Correct, right,
But the other members, and I don't know what you're
saying is true. My understanding is not that My understanding
is that the pardons are total, like the president has
this power. I read, I read a part of the
Constitution yesterday when we were talking about this, So I
don't know, I'm not aware of that. I've not done
I've not done the deep dive.
Speaker 2: And it's just the Constitution is not open ended to
where something might what's.
Speaker 1: The exact language, what's the exact language that you're you're
citing that says it's not to be not based on
anticipated or whatever, because that's what they did for Nixon.
Speaker 2: Copious or it basically boils down.
Speaker 1: To No, no, no, no, it's not what it boils down to.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't even go to the Supreme Court because it's
written in there that you can't you can't predict or forecast.
Speaker 1: No, well, it's saying that's for future someone is charged. No, no, no,
it's I think what you're I think what you're reading
is the part where it's like, it can't be for
future things. It can only be for things in the past,
any crimes committed in the past, and the crimes. Then
that's why Biden gave this. You know, for a Hunter,
it was a ten year window or whatever, and for
the rest of his family that got the part in
the other day yesterday was I think going back to
twenty fourteen, So I think that's the I think it's
a look back. They can't be charged. They have pardoned
for anything they may have done in that timeframe. It
doesn't pardon you for future things. I think that was
But like I said, I would have to go and
read the actual text of the Constitution and find out
if it's ever been adjudicated as such. All Right, I
hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me
if something like this happened at your house. Your family
and friends are gathered around, maybe y'all are in the
living room, You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, hey, Dad,
remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred?
And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are
on Dad, who says, oh, you know, well, I've been
meaning to but I just having gotten around to it. Look,
don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for
another year. All right. Create a video has been helping
families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since nineteen
ninety seven. Simply bring in your old camquarder tapes and
Creative Video will transfer them to a USB flash drive
for just fourteen ninety five per tape. You have a
big collection, they've got a discount for you. And next year,
instead of talking about those memories, imagine gathering the family
to watch them together. Talk about a memorable gift. So
do what I did. Trust the experts at Creative Video,
conveniently located in mint Hill right off I four eighty
five and online at create a video dot com. And
thank you Monica for sending along also information about this
as well. But here is what the Constitution says about pardons.
It's under Article two, Section two, clause one, So two
two to one Article two, Section two, clause one, and
you can read the whole thing. It's a very long
run on sentence with a bunch of semi colons. The
first like ninety percent of it is not related to
the pardons. It's about presidents, the commander in chief of
the Army and the Navy. You know, he may require
the opinion in writing of the executive departments and blah
blah blah. And then it says the very last part
says and he shall have power to grant reprieves and
pardons for offenses against the United States, accept in cases
of impeachment. And that's it. That's it. He shall have
power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the US,
accepting cases of impeachment. So, as I suspected when I
was chatting with Larry there, I think what he was
thinking of is, you can't pardon things that haven't happened yet.
In other words, you can't say here's a pardon, and
now you get to do whatever you want and just
like use this pardon for future crimes. You can't do that.
It's for offenses against the United States, accept impeachment. And
so there are some limitations, though the Constitutions text provides.
This is by the way, according to Constitution dot Congress
dot gov, the text provides for at least two limits
on the power. First, clemency may only be granted for
offenses against the United States, which means a state could
charge you and the FEDS can't pardon you for that. Okay,
it's a state crime. And it's also not civil claims.
They're not covered, so just crimes, right, criminal acts. Also,
the other limitation here is that the president's clemency authority
cannot be used in cases of impeachment. Beyond the textual limits.
External constitutional and legal considerations may act as constraints on
this power. For instance, the Supreme Court has indicated that
the power may be exercised at any time after an
offense's commission, reflecting that the president may not preemptively immunize
future criminal conduct. So I think that's the thing you could, like,
the people that Biden pardoned have not been charged with anything,
but the pardon covers a period of time before yesterday,
So if they were to commit something after you today
going forward, that would not be covered. That's the limitation there,
not the fact that they haven't been charged. It's when
the offense occurred. And if the offense occurred during that
ten year window whatever it was, or five year window,
whatever it was, that he pardoned everybody for that window,
anything inside of that window gone. So that's what the
constitution says on that, all right. Other things that Trump
did yesterday, order the Attorney General to pursue the death
penalty for killing of a law enforcement officer or any
capital crime committed by an illegal immigrant. Order the Secretaries
of Commerce and the Interior to restart efforts to route
water from California's Sacramento San Joaquin Delta to other parts
of the state. Withdraw the US from the World Health Organization,
Order Treasury Department to explore creation of external revenue service
so instead of the IRS, it would be the ers.
We go to tax everybody else. Revoke security clearances for
ex National Security Advisor John Bolton and fifty one intelligence
officials who said Hunter Biden's laptop bore quote classic earmarks
of Russian disinformation. Yeah. See, here's the thing, and I've
said this about all forms of protest, virtually all forms
of protests. If there is no risk of penalty, it's
not really a protest. It's just a performance. Okay, Like
when you lay down in a grocery store and there's
no real threat that you're going to get arrested. If
you sit down on a freeway and there's no threat
you're going to be arrested, right, that's not really protesting
because there's nothing on the line for you, you know, well,
aside from getting run over by some angry motorists. But
as far as I know, that hasn't really happened yet.
But if there's no threat of a penalty, then it's
just a performance. You're just a theater kid basically. And
God knows, we're tired of being governed by the most hysterical,
neurotic segment of our society. I know, I am, and
I say that as one who did participate in theater
performances until like ninth grade, like from fifth grade through
ninth grade. Well sorry, fourth grade, yeah, fourth grade through
ninth grade and look in the k through six years.
That was mandatory. I can't help it if I was
good at it, you know. And then they wanted me
to do you know, alligators all around from really rosy
or yeah, chicken soup, Oklahoma jazz rock chorus. I it
was just to get into college, I swear. Next up,
he declared the border crisis and invasion and ordered the
Attorney General and Secretaries of State and Homeland Security to
take all appropriate action to repel, repatride, or remove any
alien engaged in such and formally renamed the Gulf of
Mexico to the Gulf of America and Alaska's Mount Denali
to Mount McKinley. Oh And, by the way, our Attorney
General Jeff Jackson aka Baby Jesus. He has joined with
other attorneys general to sue over Trump's immigration executive order already,
so that was they had that one already lined up
in the legal shoot as it were ready to be
deposited upon the executive order signing. So let the law
fair begin. I think the real winners and all of
this right now, the lawyers. All right, if you're listening
to this show, you know I try to keep up
with all sorts of current events, and I know you
do too, And you've probably heard me say get your
news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you
detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed
with ground News. It's an app and it's a website
and it combines news from around the world in one
place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You
could check it out at check dot ground, dot news
slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too.
I started using ground News a few months ago and
more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate
because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered
and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which
stories get ignored by the left and the right see
for yourself. Check dot Ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe
through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription.
I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to
every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast,
but it also supports Ground News as they make the
media landscape more transparent. Let me get Helen on real quick.
Hello Helen, Hi Pete.
Speaker 3: Hey, I love your show.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I appreciate that entertaining. I'm trying my hardest.
Speaker 3: Well, you do a good job. They need to give
you a raise.
Speaker 1: Yes, Mike Schaeffer, listen up. That's okay. Uh, probably not
gonna happen, but thank you.
Speaker 3: Anyway. My question is I was listening to you and
you said, baby Jesus is got in on this lawsuit. Yeh,
immigration lawsuit. Who pays for that?
Speaker 1: That is a very good question. I don't know the
answer to. I could see it being US taxpayers. If he's,
you know, acting on behalf of the state of North Carolina.
I could see them taking money from there the budget
that the Attorney General's office has to do it, or
maybe there's a third party nonprofit that's kicking money to
states for the litigation. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yet, all right, Well, I was just curious because if
President Trump is now the president from an overwhelming vote
of the people, shouldn't that say something?
Speaker 1: Well he would, I would say that Jeff Jackson would
argue that, no, this is the proper role of the
states to challenge federal actions and you know, overreach, and
if the federal government is acting in an unconstitutional way,
that's what the attorney generals are supposed to do. And
Republicans do this against Democrat administrations. Also, I'm look and
I'm I would agree with that argument that you do
want states to push back against the federal government on
things where the federal government is overreaching. The problem here
is that the federal government is in charge of immigration law,
and states have been disobeying and been flouting immigration law. Right,
So it seems to me like he is trying to
sue in order to prevent the federal government from doing
what the federal government is supposed to be doing. And
for that I haven't read. It just came down like
an hour ago, so I haven't read the lawsuit, but
I am curious how we would argue that this is
somehow in defense of the citizens of North Carolina, because
by definition, these are not citizens that we are talking
about exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, Pete, listen, thank you so much and keep doing
what you're doing.
Speaker 1: We love yet well, thanks Alan, I'm gonna try. That
is up to management, though now I appreciate the call.
Thank you, Helen. It's good to talk with you, and
thanks for listening. Can I use you as a reference.
I don't have time to play this clip, but there
was apparently a service Donald Trump his family, like his
whole family, his kids and their spouses, and Jade Vance
and his wife, and they all went to some service
at the National Cathedral I think or something, and yeah,
the National Prayer Service. And this was at an Episcopalian
church or there was an Episcopalian minister or preacher, and
she delivered a sermon chastising the president to have mercy
on the scared LGBT children and illegal immigrants, and just
made this overtly partisan political speech, which, by the way,
turns out this preacher check was also like an anti
Trump protester. They've got video of her out in the
streets screaming against Trump, so that's who they had up there.
She then chastises the President. He is on his way
back into the White House and somebody asks him what
he thought of the sermon. He said, not too exciting,
was it. They could do much better. They could do
much better. And Eric Erickson said, when were I presidents,
I would not go to a prayer service led by
an Episcopalian because I am Christian and I would prefer
to have a Christian minister lead the service instead of
a pagan. I didn't say that, Eric Erik said, I'm
just okay, all right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
the show without your support and the support of the
businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like,
please support them too and tell them you heard it here.
You can also become a patron at my Patreon page
or go to thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so
much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.