Buck Back From China

Sexton Show. This is the Buck Sexton Show where the mission or mission is to decode what really matters with actionable intelligence. Make no mistakes American. You're a great American Again, the Buck Sexton Show begins. He's a great guy. No, Hello, everybody, welcome, welcome, great to have you here on The Buck Sexton Show. Man. I I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to take a moment here. I missed you all very much. I missed doing this show.

I love doing this show. Thank you for giving my excellent guest host your attention last week and through yesterday when I was still trying to get back on task and get back on schedule. And here I am, and I'm not going anywhere for a long time. So there it is. Back from China. Fascinating trip over there, really interesting timing because of all the back and forth over the trade deal. You see now Google just broke I

think the last twenty four hours. Google is not going to give all the software that it has been giving to Huawei, which is a major Chinese telecommunications giant that

people have very real national security concerns about. There are those who think that Huawei and the race for five G and these different battles that are playing out in the technology space will have a major impact on not just our economic competitiveness, but at some point in the future in terms of US matching up against the Chinese, could have national security implications, very very serious stuff. So I wanted to take some time that I know there's

some things going on in Capitol Hill. We've got some updates on immigration and some other stories that I'm thrown into the mix. Definitely have stuff to discuss all across the news spectrum. But I wanted to start today because I was gone for a week in China and spend a little time sharing some of my observations and what I saw, what I learned, and how that will I hope provide a little additional context where all of us here and our conversations going forward. I mean, let's just

start with this. China is the biggest economic and national security challenge facing the United States, bar none, without question. It is absolutely clear. And there were different aspects of my time there that were encouraging from what I saw

in different aspects that were discourding. Now, I did do some of the tourists stuff, and I can share some kind of more fun thoughts about that with you too, But I also was there for a two day conference with a lot of experts on the Chinese economy, investing in China, what China's going to do going forward, to try to prop up or grow depending on who you talk to. It's stock market and real estate prices. And and here's what I'll say to you, just right off

the bat. The China that you may have in your mind from watching as I did growing up, from watching movies. I know I've mentioned, which isn't even in China, Big Trouble in Little China many times, which is a kind

of ridiculous but fun to watch movie. The notion you may have of a China where you have people, millions of people on bicycles and running around with rickshaws and chickens that have just been had their heads chopped off hanging in the windows, or you know whatever you've seen in different China towns across the United States, and that that would be some the China itself would be some big version of it. No, it's not China. Now, I was in Beijing and Shanghai. You have expensive automobiles all

over the place. You have a tremendous explosion in wealth, you have massive department stores full of all of the most expensive luxury good it's a very consumer heavy, consumer driven culture. I don't think it's very noticeable over there. It's also noticeable that there are many many high end fake merchandise stores out there. They sell the different Louis Vauton bags and fake rolexes and all these different fake

designer items. And it's in part because and I spoke to some of the Chinese that I was interacting with when I was there, and it's because not everybody can afford this offense, so it's easier for them to just you know, churn it out for everybody. And there's different levels of the fakes. Is fascinating. I mean, it's also illegal in this country. You know you can't do this. It's a trademark. It's the patent infringement or trademark infringement.

It depends on what we're specifically addressing. But this is a country that has brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and essentially subsistence farming, and now they're moving into the cities and massive numbers, and they are going to be our competitor, There's no question about it. You can drive. I got on a high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai. You can drive for an hour and a half in Beijing in any direction and you'll

still see around you massive apartment buildings. I mean the largest apartment buildings you would see in any American city. You'll see them in Beijing, and they're just sprawling. They're all over the place. Some of the old stereotypes about the or the old the old things that come to mind about China. The smog very real. When I was in Shanghai. You could just see it hanging in the Airmy so, pollution is a is a major problem. Pollution still not something that Chinese have gotten and a gutt

in a handle on I did not. And this was interesting from a number of perspectives. I chose to go in sterile, meaning that I showed up in China. Granted I was there in a tourist capacity. I was not there as a representative of either of my media organizations. I did go to a conference, but I wasn't I wasn't acting as a journalist. I didn't bring a laptop,

I didn't bring a cell phone. Because we know it's it's well established now that the Chinese, in particular, if you work in the media, and in my case, somebody who works in media and had a previous career as an intelligence officer, you're gonna you're gonna be somebody who is of high counter intelligence interests for the Chinese. And that means that if you log onto their systems, if you use your passwords, if you go to WiFi, you are a target and you're living in their world. You're

living in their world. And that then brings me up today, waking up this morning excited that I get a chance to to read in and get back into my routine and do this show, the show that I love doing for all of you so much. I see this pole in the gallipole that you know four in ten Americans is or four in ten Americans are ok are favorable

to socialism. And it's a reminder one of just how little it seems that many of our fellow Americans have learned about about history and about recent history and around the world. But it's also an indicator that there's not all there's there's a lack of understanding of what it really means to live in a country where the government has real control over economics, real control over over private property, the means of production. You know, they have that in China.

And from a material prosperity side, the Chinese haven't getting wealthier and wealthier. There's no question the Chinese have created a much much larger what you would consider middle class. There's also a hyper elite of wealthy Chinese billionaires now. So from a material prosperity side, you really have one party capitalism or a kind of one party hybrid of capitalism and statism. But the statism component is still very strong.

When you ask people about China, you know that you bring up the government, you get something mutter muttered about you know, they mutter something about, oh well, you know, things are getting better and there's more prosperity all the time, and and he said, okay, well, but do you have free speech? And I was told by some of the China experts I talked to you over there, that you have to keep in mind free speech something that we

hold very near and dear. An individual rights, individual protections of those rights. That's what animates the American mind. That's what gets us all excited about about being Americans. Know that we have a society based upon the individual and the relation of the individual with the state, and the ability to appreciate and enjoy all these different freedoms laid out first in the Constitution, but also in our political

and social culture. You can go to China and there's not some clamoring for that, at least you're never able to hear it. You know, who knows it's one point four billion people. Just to stay that, you know, from a small sample size of experts here or there or wherever, you can really get a sense of what the Chinese people want. I don't think anybody really knows. I do know that the economic prosperity is something that you cannot ignore. It's it's very very real. It has happened, and in

a sense, as an economic miracle. I mean to go from when I was born, I think it's a seventy billion to now, or yeah, seventy billion to seven trillion dollars in GDP. I mean, that's just remarkable. It's a remarkable rise of economic power and with that the military power that comes along. But the individual there is not the basis for the polity. Individual rights don't really exist. Your rights in China or whatever the government says they

are at any point in time. That's an unsettling thing, even for me as an American, to be in a country like that where you recognize that you live your life by the leave of the government. So interesting too, just a cursory overview of of Google Maps when I was over there. Sorry, it wasn't Google Maps, of just maps, you know, using bay Do, which is their search under. You can't you can't use Google, you can't use Facebook, can use Twitter. Things are all blocked off. Part of

the Great Firewall. I went to the Great Wall too. We can talk about that in a moment. But you see all this, the peoples this and the peoples that in China, and they doth protest too much about how everything belongs to the people. It belongs to the communist part of the Central Committee, belongs to people in charge.

They make the decisions. Some of those decisions have obviously brought about a degree of economic prosperity, But economic prosperity in the absence of individual freedom and property rights and rule of law does not alone make for I think, a happy, healthy, and over the long term stable society. You need those other components human beings deserve. There's a there's an obligation on the state to give basic rights

and freedoms. And when you have a society where that has been swept aside, either with the consent at some level of the people or just because their fear of the big s state is so profound that they don't even want to voice any of these concerns, you wonder what else is this state capable of doing. What happens to the surplus that they believe will be in just a matter of years of twenty million unmarried Chinese men of marriageable age, What do they do, what happens to them,

what happens to this country? When what happens to China? Rather, when going forward they have an economic downturn, They've had all this growth and all this prosperity over a number of decades here, but things will change. What goes up must come down. How does it destabilize them if all of a sudden the Central Committee doesn't look like a bunch of financial wizards who just make everybody wealthier and happier all with them, or at least wealthier, I don't

know if they're happier. There is a lot. There's a lot that we have to unpack here. I mean, China is a fascinating, fascinating problem for US policymakers. I want to talk to you about some of the attitudinal things that I saw, some of the how I think the trade deal will play out after speaking to a lot of a lot of Chinese about about it and the ones that are least willing to talk to me, so we have much much ground to cover. Her team and some other just fun anecdotes from what I saw there.

And I'm again just so so so happy to be back with all of you. I enjoyed my time overseas and it was it was nice to switch it up, man that I missed doing this radio show. And I'm so glad to be back. And I appreciate that you're all listening, so let's hit it. Hit a quick beat here. We'll be back in a moment with much more on China. Stay with me. Just a bit of quick tips for those of you that are wondering, Like, all right, Buck, you were in China. What do you want to tell

us about if you're going to visit. Many of them have been to China a lot. Some of you've probably lived there. Beijing. I think you do two days in Beijing, maybe three if you're as unless you have some other reason to be there, two days, maybe three. Max. I was there for five, two days in Shanghai. Beijing is a massive city. Not to be unfair to it, but it is something along the lines of a twenty million

person traffic jam. And the joke when I was there was that everywhere you wanted to go, you'd ask a local, you know, how how far is it thirty minutes, and thirty minutes means anywhere from forty five minutes to an hour and a half. Anywhere you think about going in Beijing, you better be ready to just sit in traffic. There's traffic everywhere. There's a lot of people that's putting it mildly, but it's not a really international city in the sense

that it is very much Chinese dominated and centric. And I know it's the capital city of China's that'll make sense. But you know, you go to New York City, for example, and there's people from all over the world there, all over the world. You go to Beijing and you're basically going to walk around and see mostly people from China. There are some internationals, but it's not a truly it's not a true global city. Shanghai a little more so,

more visitors, more of an international feeling to it. Best stuff to see in Beijing, stuff that I saw of the Great Wall, which as soon as I posted a photo that I knew some of you were going to say this, you have the Great Wall, and people say, wow, Buck,

do you mean that walls work? Yes? In fact, we have known human civilization has known for a very very long time that walls are quite effective at what they are intended to do, either keep people in or keep people out, or prevent the free movement between two points. Walls are quite good at that. It is a marvel

of engineering. When you go and see the Great Wall itself, and I think they said, I didn't even know how many thousands of miles because there's all these different sections of wall and it wasn't built all at once, and these histories something that I should I should probably brush up on quite a bit. More fun parts about going to the Wall though, is that you have a lot of domestic Chinese tourists that go to these different historic sites.

So Beijing has the cool history stuff for sure. The Great Wall I think is top of the list of the stuff I saw that was that was the coolest it is. It is the most impressive single spot to go and see if you're doing the touristy thing. But you have these tourists from all over the rest of China who many many of whom are able to travel now because of the improvements in the economy, so it might be their first time ever going to the Wall,

especially for some of the older generation. And they did like seeing Americans, They like seeing western as many of them wanted to take photographs with me and take selfies with me, and not because they're buck sex and show listeners, although they should be. But it was an interesting experience for sure to see that. You also went to the Forbidden City, which was interesting to be sure. Was definitely

uh it's worth seeing. I did not get to go to Tianamen Square because it was closed for some security reason or something. I don't know what it was, but it was closed off to us. But the Forbidden City where the Emperor, the Chinese Emperor lived was you know, you see it, you walk around, you kind of done it. But Beijing. And I'm just gonna say this, if you're used to American Chinese food, you can get it in China,

but you don't go. It's not like they've got general sauce chicken everywhere and you're gonna order whatever you used to ordering. It's a little bit different than that. The food is fine after a few days it was. It's not easy to be gluten free in China. I'll tell you that you did not want to be a somebody with Celiac disease because they really like brown sauce and anything in a brown sauce basically has soy sauce, and

soy sauce has gluten. So that makes things tough. And to my fair share of banquet dinners where I think there was one where there was like an eight maybe a ten course meal, you know, a good old buckster was able to eat white rice. Oh yeah, I got to eat some white mice. So those are some of my tours and fists. You go to Shanghai, better food, It's fun down by the waterfront, more stuff going on there. If you're gonna if you're looking to kind of get

out and about I would say that a Shangha. Well, what does this all mean for the trade deal and for the Trump administration? And you know enough of Bucks Tourism guide here, We're gonna get into all of that and then talk about the showdown over who's going to testify in front of Congress, who's gonna win these cord battles, over what information the Democrats have access to? That and more coming up. Remember when the left called the Green New Deal bold? Or how about their bold defensive anti

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Riflecoffee dot com slash buck for twenty percent off. Just an update here on the battle over information and executive privilege. Here's the latest from the Department of Justice, courtesy of Clinton News Network. I guess, now, what do we call it? The DNCCNN or the d n CNN. There you go,

I like that the d n CNN. The Justice Department is trying to stave off an enforcement action against Attorney General William Barr this week, making a rare offer to out of the House Intelligence Committee review materials from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report if House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff

agrees to back down. Last week, Shift shared that he Schiff said that he would hold a business meeting to take an unspecified action against the Department of Justice for not providing the committee documents related to Volume one of Mueller's report on links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. And so now the DJ's thinking maybe they're going to have a different you know, they're going to try to come to some sort of accommodation here. Okay,

I want to go. I'm not done with China yet. I mean, I'm like I was there for a week. We I'm more to talking about on China. But I just this is the latest from today and it's getting a lot of getting a lot of attention, speaking a

lot of attention. Will also discussed the fight over abortion and where all that's going, because I was gone for that, so there's gonna be some Oh hey, I didn't get a chance to talk to you about this, so I want to take the time to talk to you about it now, obviously because I missed all of you very much. And here's what we got going on with the Democrats. I've realized this as I was away and had a lot of time to think and ponder, ponder the universe

in China. The Democrats, it doesn't really matter. I think the political calculations here are not that clear that they even know how all this will play out. No one really knows, but they didn't even think they necessarily know. How do you get how do you really assass impeachment? Let's just say let's start with that. I think what

three presidents have been impeached? Bill Clinton was impeached after his reelection, So that doesn't really give you much of a much of a way to compare things then and now. Because Trump would be at least theoretically impeached before trying to be reelected president. Would it blow back or would it take Trump down? Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows.

But what I do know is this the efforts that the Democrats are going through here to try and take all this information just pride from the hands of the Republicans, take it out of you know, President Trump's senior most advisor's minds, and just use the Congress to jam the Trump administration up with just request for documents and appearances and hearings and this and that, and this is all a throwing the proverbial wooden shoe in the gears of the factory, which is at least how some people say

the word sabotage came along, but I don't think that's actually true. So don't don't take that one. See, this is the problem with the internet. You read all this stuff, you know, like, is that even true? I don't know. I stought on the internet, and as we know, Abe Lincoln once said, don't believe everything you see on the internet. So this is the Democrats though, the gears of sand in watch of this administration. That's what all this stuff is. Does it win? Do people like it? I'm not even

sure that's the plan. I think the plan is much more to just make it as unpleasant and high pressure situation as possible for Trump and all the people around him whose power and opinions matter for this administration. And it's it's a slow and delay tactic. Slow things up, delay things, that's the main. That's the main effort. And by just forcing all these showdowns, either with the DOJ or later on or upcoming certainly in court, it's it

makes things harder for them. But I did want to just do a little more of what I think is going on in China, and what I took away from this, We're gonna have a problem, folks. At some point China is not going to stop the behaviors that the Trump administration is rightly i'd say calling out they do not. I don't think they're going to go for a trade deal before they see who wins reelection. Why would they.

They're able to try and wait this out. And if they know if they get a president Biden or you know, any of these different candidates and these Democrat candidates, they essentially reset the clock. They get a restart on. Oh now,

let's have a new series of negotiations. And because this issue is associated with Trump, because holding China accountable for its violation of intellectual property, theft and hacking and all these different and the tariffs that it has in place, and all the ways that it cheats so that it's state state supported enterprises, you know, state owned enterprises are able to be globally in some cases globally dominant companies

or close to it. All the different ways that China tilts the table toward itself that's not going to stop anytime soon. They're gonna wait and see what's going on with the possible incoming Democrat administration. And because it's all associated the fight against them, all this associated with Trump, any Democrat who comes into office is going to position

where it's like, well, that was a Trump issue. You know, think about Obama with the war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, didn't matter what was going on in Rock and Afghanistan. Bush was the Iraq war. And Obama was saying that he was all about the Afghanistan war, and that was that was never going to change because that was the

dynamic when he took office. Any Democrat coming in fighting China on trade trade war with China is a Trump thing, and therefore the Democrat has to take a different approach to that, which likely means going back to where we've been, which is a form of you know, suffering silence. Don't make too much noise about this. We need China, we don't want to, we don't want to, you know, ruffle

any feathers, rock the boat, you name it. But this is a country that has a really obvious reinvigorated not pride. I've heard from people that have been going there for a long time, that there is a sense of a kind of resentment toward the West and toward America now that was not really there before. The idea of being

the Chinese are. They're now wealthy and the second most powerful economy in the world, the largest by population country in the world, and they don't like taking a backseat the United States, and they've they're strutting their stuff a little bit. Can we compete with them economically and can compete with them in terms of innovation, We'll have to see. They are executing on a very aggressive program of expanding all of their different you know, the different industries that

they're already in. They have this this belt and belt and road policy where they're going around the globe working with regimes they don't care what their human rights record. Maybe they don't care, you know, what's going on in that country. They'll build infrastructure that do deals with the government as long as they have access to raw materials. It's kind of twenty first century Chinese mercantilism. Twenty first

century mercantilism. I mean, they are making sure they have access to all the raw materials they need to continue their growth and what does that look like going forward? How will they be able to control all of this and will they butt up against their neighbors and ways where what is now friction turns into something much hotter, much more dangerous, much more fiscile. We don't know yet, but this is it. This is the big challenge. This is a country that does not plan to be in

this junior role to America much longer. And what that means for us, what that means for the global markets. Who knows. There's certainly been a deception that American presidency stretching back for thirty years, have fallen for that China has no ambitions beyond just pulling itself out of poverty and everything's going to be fine, and they want to be a friend to the rest of the world. And

they don't view themselves as the pre eminent, preeminent. I mean, there is a clear Chinese nationalism that they are the pre eminent civilization in the world already and therefore it is only rightful for them to take their place as the Hegemont not thinking certainly comes across. You know, there are Chinese companies now that are top one hundred companies by earnings that are really just in the Chinese market.

I mean, the market is so big that internal dominance can mean there are a global b myth one point four billion people. We only have three hundred and twenty some odd million in this country. One point four billion. There's a lot of Chinese people, and they want material goods, they want prosperity, and they have a government that does not value as I was saying at the start of Show to individual rights, that does not You know, if you get picked up off the street by the Chinese government,

I don't care who you are. You're in a bad place. They decide that they're going to make an example of you, or that you're some kind of a threat to the plan that they're engaged in. You have very little, very little to come to your side. And that's true for anybody in that country right now. And that's an eerie thing. It unsettled It unsettled me when I was there. You're in a country that has not embraced these Western values of rule of law, that is, that is beyond political

ambitions of those in power. Look, I'm not saying our situation is perfect either, right, we could were I talked to you all the time, but I rule of laws being vited at our border and what we've seen from the deep State in their efforts to slow down and destroy if they can the Trump administration and use the law as a weapon and all that. But it's different in China and now now here's some of you probably knew this was kind of This is where I also

have to tell you, my friends. I know we've got this week will dive in the news as we always do. There's a lot more things I want to get to and talk to you about. But if you will, if you'll just let me for a moment, this country is amazing, America, this place is incredible. Just just give me a moment, if you don't mind, let me just say America is such an an incredible and we are all so fortunate to be Americans. You go, you's spend a week of a place in Chinese, say to yourself, I am so blessed.

We are all those I know. Not everyone who listens to the show is in America. There's some of you who live in Canada, some live in Israel, some live in Germany, some live in Japan. Usually it's basically America, Canada, and US military bases around the world. That's who listens to the Buck Sex and show Man. This place is incredible. You know, drink the water right out of the tap. I don't have to worry about that, you know, obviously that really gets betterally bothers me. I hate that stuff

where you can't treat the Laura the top. This is a country of just tremendous assumed freedom, and it is there. It's not perfect, but there is an assumption of freedom. There's an assumption that if something were to go wrong, you have a chance to make it right. You're not just an automaton doing whatever the state wills you to do. That is the existence that a lot of other people lead, and in China you do do whatever the state tells you to do. There is no other option. State gets

to determine what's going on in your life. State gets to make decisions for you. It was making decisions about how many kids you're allowed to have until relatively recently, made decisions back in the sixties with Mao and the Great Lead before they led to the deaths of tens of millions of people. It was a strange thing to reach into my wallet and pull out currency that had mouse dung on it? Who is a dictator and a

mass murderer? Really, But that's how your paint you know, we talk about grappling with our history in this country. Nobody on our money's got anything on Chairman Mao, that's for sure. What does this mean, by the way, for a country now that has the kind of power, influence and money that it's it's a global player, does it become a country that is moral on the world stage remains to be seen. Plenty of reason to doubt that.

Has it become an aggressor against its neighbors, How long before it thinks that America is not willing to pay the price to push back on Chinese aggression in its sphere of influence. You know, these are all the questions that I had as I was coming out of there. But the US pivot to China, forget about what the Obama administration said about it, It's already happened. We now face one near peer competitor, and it is the People's Republic of China. And I'm just so glad to be

back in America. Man. When you when you land in this country after you've been it was only there for a week, and look, I've been in I've been in war zones for many, many months on end, different war zones, and but there's something really special every time about touching back down in this place when you leave the land of the unfree and enter the land of the free. So just take a little moment, he be like, Man, this country is great. I'm telling you. It is worth it.

It is worth it. Remember how lucky we all are for all the problems that I see, for all things we talked about her on the show, This place is amazing and it's a great be back. You're doing the show, all right. I've got a quick moment here to catch breath and we come back. We'll talk about this Don McGann thing Capitol Hill. Oh. Also, someone's lying in the government. Well that's leaves a lot of open territory. A lot

of people are lying in the government. But there are some folks that have been caught up in this Russia collusion investigation and have lied, and they need to be held accountable because other people that lied during the course of that, who were civilians who were not part of the Roman apparatus, had the freedom taken away for pure time face felony charges. What about those in the government who do that? Shouldn't they be punish the same way. We'll get into that in more coming up. When you

have the best economy, probably that we've ever had. I don't know, how the hell do you lose this election? Right, gotta win this state. We did great last time. Remember the polls, the fake poles, Pennsylvania will go to Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately for them, didn't work out that. Upon my inauguration, I inherited one of the worst trade deals ever negotiated. It was ready to be put into action, the Transpacific Partnership,

and would have destroyed the state of Pennsylvania. Yet Sleepy Joe said that he's running to quote save the world. Well he was, He's gonna save every country but ours. They want Biden so that China can continue to make five hundred billion dollars a year and more ripping off the United States. They like it. The previous administration, what they did to our country, they should be ashamed of themselves. There.

Of how formidable President Trump is on stage at rallies on the campaign trail, Democrats are in for a little bit of a rude refresher course. I don't think I don't think they remember just how much Trump wiped the floor with his Republican opponents and then with Hillary. But that's what's going to be happening. That twenty twenty election, folks, is going to be quite a show. By the way, I mentioned McCann or McGann rather and the fight over

getting him to testify. Here's what our friend Lindsey Graham had to say, play it what they want to do in terms of claim, you know, executive privilege. If I were the White House, I would fight this effort because then may McGain available to Muller, and Muller to me, was the guy that we all considered to be fair. The Muller report is in m again testified thirty hours and what I see going on in the House is

more political revenge than it is anything else. Yep. This is just Trump's arrangement syndrome through the powers of the Congress to subpoena and therefore harass people and keep running us through this over and over again. What are the politics of this really though? In terms of who benefits we bono right, who's going to benefit from this? Will Democrats do well if they stay on this track? And will McGain end up testifying, among others. There's some other

from the world folks that have gotten subpoenas. We'll talk about that and immigration status of that fight, and so much more coming up. It's good to be back to stay with me. I believe that the president's conduct since the report was at least we respect him. Mister McGann's testimony and other information we have sought has carried this a pattern of obstruction and cover up well beyond the four corners of the Mueller Report. He took to Twitter

to call mister McGann a liar. His lawyers went on cable television to do the same to call mister McGan a liar. There are reports of the president and his lieutenants exerting other kinds of pressure on mister McGann. In short, the President took it upon himself to intimidate a witness who has a legal obligation to be here today. This conduct is not remotely acceptable. Everything that we're looking at today, even gabbling in today's hearing without a witness, is theatrical.

The camera's love us bactrical and well majority love the chance to run against the administration. I just am glad today to see that we don't have chicken on the dies. Well as I understand that they're doing that for the Office of the Presidency, for future presidents. I think it's a very important press segent And the attorneys say that they're not doing that for me, they're doing that for the office of the president. So we're talking about the future.

Will he or will he not testify? You got white former White House Council Don McGann, who, on instructions from the White House is not showing up at at this House Judiciary Committee or in response is how Judiciary Committee subpoena And he's saying, look, you know that the administration's position is there, it's what it should be, which they're going to fight every step of the way on every issue, which is exactly what they should be doing. Because the

Democrats are engaged. This is an oversight. This is not a good faith effort to get to the truth of how we're being governed and what's going on the executive branch. This is just trying to curate a spectacle. This is using the power of the House of Representatives, of a Democrat majority in the House of Representatives, to have the government all these government employees, their salaries being paid by you and me, the taxpayer act as a kind of

opposition research arm for the Democratic National Committee. This is this is a dnc APO effort you are seeing play out in real time. We've already had them all the report, which I read again on the plane ride over to China, and I gotta tell you is not more riveting reading the second time around. But we've already had them all the report. We already know that there's no there there,

but they keep going. And now it's either they won't give us the Democrats complain that they won't give enough information or the full scope of the information, or they just start other investigations that are spinoffs of this. You know, last week or the week before, I was obviously gone. Last week, it was all about seeing the unredacted report, the full report. He needs to see the full report.

That's what they were all saying. And then we're told, oh, okay, well, actually what we need are more witnesses to show up. And I know today you have Hope Hicks and also Donaldson, who are told that they have to according to Nadler, here you have they're they're supposed to show up. They are going to be questioned. This is going to be

a legal fight. This should be a legal fight because the president in waiving the executive privilege that he does have and could have asserted during the Muller probe in order to comply with a criminal investigation, that should not be a waiver of all privilege going forward for anything that was discussed by the President United States with his senior counsel. There's no good faith here at all from the Democrats on this though. I mean you you know this.

I was gonna say, you have to remember this, you know this. I mean the White House saying that McGann should not show up as an effort to at least slow, if not stop, what's going to be a spectacle where they're going to just ask Domagan what's already been hashed out of them all report They just they want it on TV. They want there to be opportunities to embarrass the president, opportunities to bring up things that are not

brand enhancing. I guess you could say that are not going to do anything to make people think that President Trump is a more adept and more skilled commander in chief. But fighting them every step of the way is what has to happen here. Fighting them is absolutely the path forward. Otherwise you're just going to keep getting pulled around and forced into things and forced into essentially damaging one's own presidency or damaging one's president. Yeah, you had now that.

I just want to make sure two former White House officials Hope Hicks and uh Donaldson. I don't I don't know who who Donaldson is. I just learn this now. Who's Donaldson? Longest serving aids in the West Wing? So, oh, Annie Donaldson? There you go, served as chief of staff to former White House counsel Don McGann. Oh okay, So this is an end ron on they can't get mc McGann has said, no, it's another gonna get them again staff.

They're gonna disubpoena everybody. And to those who say, oh, buck, they have a right to do this, I just want to say, can they subpoena the same person a hundred times? Just subpoena of them, subpoena of them, subpoena of them. Can you be told you have to show up to Congress every day for the next year just because Congress says, so,

what are the limits? At what point do we say that the Congress should not be used as an open ended excuse, or the Congress's power cannot be used as an open ended excuse to do anything and everything to try and trash Trump destroy any Remember, it's not just the information that may come out from the questioning of

different senior Trump aids and these interactions. It's also that Trump will have in some cases, especially if there's still people that he either trusts outside of government or that still work for him in the government. It will strain relationships that he has with very senior advisors. How can any president going forward have any faith whatsoever in the very high level strategic conversations that he or she would

have with top advisors. When the Democrats have made it clear that they will try to break that privilege, they will fight everything. They will fight any sense of privacy, any sense of the president able to seek counsel without it ending up on the front page of the newspaper. I mean, this is going to change what at least any Republican president. You know, the Democrats would never do this, right,

I mean, they didn't even fight. They're suing and the media is suing too, for more access to these records and trying to get more stuff about Trump's finances, and I know the Deutsche Bank decision just came out recently, but they're just going to do what they've been doing, which is pretending that the information they have doesn't really matter. They always need more information. You know, they didn't go after Obama's college records with one and what one hundredth

of the gusta. They're going after Trump's financial records. You have to ask you why is that. We know the answers, but you need to ask the question anyway. I think that Trump's approach here is the one that is the only one at this point. Fight him every step of the way. Make them just make them pull it out of you, make them take it to court. No more compliance because you're trying to be helpful. And there's this oh yeah, government institutions, we all need to support them. No,

no more of that. That's done. That's over with now. This is political trench warfare. Every subpoenas should be dragged into court. Every witness should be told, don't show up until we've reached some kind of accommodation. I know Bill Barr is now negotiating something. It's not really clear what's going to happen yet for this testimony. But I like the way the administration has geared up for battle, because battle is what they face. I'm doing the show from

California this week, which is nice. Although the weather I think right now in New York and DC is believe or not better than the weather in California's a little cold here. I only brought like a couple of sweatshirts with me, you know, and it's it's actually a little cold in California, which I did not I did not sign up for that. But sure enough here I am an Immigration is still a massive, massive policy challenge. Nothing

has nothing's gotten better. In fact, I saw an Ann Culter column right when I got back, because you all know I really like Ann's work. But I saw an end Culter column where she said what I've been saying, or she wrote what I've been saying for a long time, which is that the border is is worse now than it has been perhaps ever, that our southern border is so porous and security has gotten to be so not.

I mean, I don't even know what the proper way to describe it as other than it just we cannot cure the border with the laws that we have right now. It is ineffective. We are ineffective right now in having an orderly southern border with all that going on, I come back. You know, Anne agrees that it's it's terrible. She's very upset with with Trump because of this. And guess what California is doing. I mean this is I should never say things like I couldn't believe this, because

of course I can believe it. California wants to give healthcare to What they write as here at NBC News is undocumented immigrants. We don't use the term undocument. Undocumented is a nonsense, politicized term. Undocumented is the equivalent for me of when people say that any criticism of radical Islam is essentially islamophobia. This is not a good faith discussion. This is not trying to have a worthwhile exchange, learn about an issue and come to good conclusions about policy.

This is meant to skew it in a certain direction. This is meant to make people feel a certain way about those who are in the country illegally. Oh, they're not illegal, they're undocumented. People aren't illegal, they're just undocumented. No. US Federal Code says that the term is illegal alien. That is the term, so they can keep saying undocumented. But what that shows you is an active that is an editorial choice. It is not an accuracy choice. It

is not a legally correct choice. It is an editorial choice that anyone who used the term undocumented is making every time they use that term. But here in California, which is the test tube, this is the experiment playing out. This shows us what happens with mass illegal immigration over a large period or long period of time. And what you have is a political system at the state level then where it's no longer even possible to view illegal

immigration as a problem. The state of California, the state government of California, does not have an issue with illegal aliens, meaning they do not have They have a lot of issues, but they do not have criticism of it. They do not treat it like it is a problem to be solved. They treat it like it is a situation to be addressed through the largest of the taxpayer. That's right, you and me, folks, California is considering giving free healthcare to

illegal aliens. That's what you got here. And this is a classic NBC move. They talk about a woman, it's a very sad story. Woman was cancer did not have access to healthcare. So I guess that means that now we have to pay for the entire world healthcare. That you must pay your taxes. You must pay them fully and accurately, even though the tax code is obscure, opaque,

doesn't make sense in a lot of ways. You must do that, and you must do it now, knowing that money that you are paying if you live in the state of California, for sure, and maybe the federal level, it depends on how they manage to go about this. You know, I'm sure that they'll want federal dollars kicked in for this. You know, there's a lot of ways that the states try to tip into the federal trough.

But even if they do all, you know, even if they fund this only through stead of California, that means if you live here, and a lot of you listening to the show, I know do live in California, you're going to be your tax dollars are going to go toward giving healthcare to people who are in the country illegally, which I would just I would want to ask questions of Gavin Newsom, the governor in this state, ask them things like, Okay, so what about somebody who just flies

here and then demands healthcare? What about anyone who gets a visa and then says, Hey, I can't get a heart transplant in the Sudan, but I'm in America now and I deserve a heart transplant. Mynderstanding has cost something like a million dollars all in, So do we pay for that? What about the Americans who are on waiting list for these things? What about the Americans who can't pay for things? The people that are in the country legally, do they just get whatever they whatever healthcare they I

need pay for. Look, it's very easy to offer free things that other people have to put the bill for. I know. This is also called the Democratic Parties platform. This is what they do. They make promises to people that are easy for them because it's always someone else who's going to pay. It's the rich, it's the Republicans, it's the fat cats, it's people with white privilege, whatever

it may be. But when you start to look at what this will do too, not just taxes, but to the healthcare system itself, I kind of want them to play out this experiment in California. I want to see what happens. I think it'll be a warning for the rest of the country. You already have ears that are

very crowded with illegal aliens. I've seen it myself. I've been I've waited in ears before when a lot of people that you know do not speak a word of English at thieves are coming in for routine medical care and you have to wait in line behind all this and deal with all this, and you know, if your eyes bleeding, sorry, you know you gotta wait because other people want to have a vision test and the taxpayers is going to pay for it. And these people aren't

supposed to be in the country at all. This is the future we're heading for. I just I want to ask, and we're gonna talk more about immigration after the break here, but I want to ask, where is the line drawn? When is it too much? If you can be in the country illegally, and the expectation is not only that you get to send your kids. If your kids are born here and you're illegal, they're US citizens. You get to stay in the country once you have kids here

because you can't separate families. And there are ways, there are ways to get access to benefits even if you're illegal if you have an especially if you have a kid here. But if that's not a problem, then I need the Democrats to explain to man, I really mean this,

why we don't just let anyone in? Why do we even have an immigration system if we have unlimited funds for this, if we have nothing but cash to throw at people that are violating our gracian laws, and they're going to make this country better, stronger, smarter, all the stuff, they say, why not just open the doors? Entirely, they don't have a reason why open borders is a bad idea because under the surface, in their hearts, the Democrats that the Left aren't open borders party. It just makes

them more powerful. They like they like the way that this plays out from an electoral politics standpoint. They like that there are people that are going to the Democrats. People the Democrats are going to benefit from this politically. They want greater levels of dependence on the federal government. They want the continued influx of particularly migrants from the Third World, who are going to take the left and become a part of the intersectional identity politics that they're

always promoting. And that's why today, when you had Ben Carson in this Maelstrom over the Democrats criticizing him because he was out of hearing talking about rules that would take public housing assistance away for illegal immigrants. I think a lot of people would stop and say, hold on a second, we have we give public housing assistance, We pay for illegals to have housing in this country. Here's what it says. This is one Fox News Today quote.

Quite frankly, I find it despicable, Congresswoman Maloney said of the plan, which would eliminate government aid for families with members who are in the US illegally, even if other family members, such as children our citizens, are legal residents. A HUD study found that roughly twenty five thousand households are in this situation, including approximately fifty five thousand children

with legal status. Yeah, that's right. This is getting rid of what is effectively a loophole, which is that if you're in the country illegally but you have a kid and they're a US citizen, you are not supposed to be able to benefit from the federal largess that comes

with having a US citizen child. You're not supposed to be able to receive money and receive the benefits for being here illegally, but that's currently the situation, Carson said, Look, if you're read the rule carefully, you'll see it provides a six month or furl on request if they have not found another place to live. He said, the renewal can be or the ferral can be renewed twice for total of eighteen months, which is plenty of time for

Congress to engage in comprehensive immigration reforms. So this becomes a moot point. Yeah, yeah, this is where we are now. It is politically radioactive. Democrats viewed as politically radioactive to oppose giving illegal aliens free stuff from the tax bearer. And a better way to say that is stuff that the taxpayer pays for that is then appropriated by the government and given to people who are not entitled to

be in the country legally. Tell me again, how the Democrats aren't the open borders party somebody police seem there's some stories, said, I didn't get a chance to address with you right when they came out, So I don't know if you've already heard a little bit of this, but I don't care because I have a take on it and I need to tell you about it. This is just from a couple of days ago when I was trying to make my way back from Red China.

DNA tests This is the Washington Examiner reveal thirty percent thirty percent of suspected fraudulent migrant families were unrelated one and three. This is stunning. This is based on a pilot program with rapid DNA tests of immigrant adults who were quote suspected of arriving at the southern border with children who weren't theirs, and just revealed the adults were not co related to the children. Quote. There's been some concern are the stepfathers? Are they stepfathers or adopted fathers?

Officials said those were not the case in these cases. They were miss represented as family members. Pilot lasted a few days earlier this month and was used only in McAllen, Texas and al Paso, Texas, according to ICE officials. Partment of Homeland Security said they'll look at the results to determine if it will be part of its comprehensive solution to border issues. Homeland Security has not issued a public statement on its intentions going forward. What have I been

saying all along? This whole thing at the border is a massive, a massive scam. Of course people are going to abuse this system. It's an incredibly enticing offer to be able to show up with some kids at the border and find yourself all of a sudden, let into America without any without any real issue, without any problem. You are good to go. All you have you show up with kids. Of course people are going to do this.

It's exactly what's been happening. And I know that that Trump is working on there's this immigration, immigration plan that's getting some play. It's getting talked about here, and I know Ken hu Chanelli is expected to pick up a major immigration role in the administration. I think I think that's a pretty solid pick. I saw some weird stuff about Kobak, Chris Kobak saying he needed to have a private jet. I don't know if that was the case

or not. I was digging out, man, I had five hundred emails waiting for me after a week of being off the good five hundred emails, and lordly knows how many Facebook and Twitter and other messages, and I've been I've been digging out. So if there's anything today that I miss, You're like, Buck, you need to get to you. Please do let me know, Facebook dot Com, slash buck sex and I've I've tried. I'm trying to cover as much ground as I can is as quickly and efficiently

as I can. But it's it was fire host time when I finally had connectivity again. But so back to what's going on here in the immigration I mean, Trump is in a position where he's better than the alternative on this right, He's better than Democrats who are effectively open borders. But Trump hasn't delivered, and we need to be very clear about that. Trump has not delivered on his promises on immigration. Let's not delude ourselves. Let's not pretend something is true that is not true, and that

may be a problem for him going into reelection. That may be something that some of his base is not willing to accept. I don't know yet. But the massive scam, the more data we get on it, it keeps on becoming more clear that this is an active defrauding of the United States government. This isn't an active process of people showing up over one hundred thousand a month now

lying and trying to scheme and abuse things. I mean, they've got the cartels, that cartels are running tons of illegal drugs over the border, all the time trying to find ways to do it more efficiently, better costs for them. And now they realize the money even made from human smuggling, so that they have an incentive too in helping these individuals that they are transporting and getting a fee from to get into the country, that it's better for their business.

You know, I watched some movies on the plane. I know I'm making a little heat for this one. I couldn't even get through the Clint Eastwood movie The Mule, and I know people liked it. I just I'm sorry. He all of a sudden, he does like three trips with a bag in his car and a leader of a Mexican drug cartels, like he's our best guy. Come on, this is ridiculous. It's kind of a bad The plot's kind of a bad rip off of Breaking Bad. I know, I can hear some of you booing at me. That's fine,

that's fine. I saw Stars Born. I was on a plane for twelve thirteen hours there and roughly the same coming back something like that. It was long flights to get to China. I saw Stars Born. Very good, predictable, but very good. Well acted well done. And now you know what, I'm gonna lean into the boo right now, I'm gonna lean into your booze. That's right. I missed you. All right, you're my family. I can tell you things that's gonna upset some of you. That's okay. We can

do that. We have that kind of relationship. Aquaman was an unwatchable piece of trash. Oh, I know, it hurts me too. It hurts me too. Aquaman was terrible, completely and I don't remember who. I remember someone in conservative media writing nice stuff about it, and I think it was Twitter saying it was fun, and I want to find who it was, just so I can say, really, man, I can't remember who it is. Atom my heead. Aquaman was one of the worst movies. It's one of the

worst big budget movies I've ever seen. I mean there's worst movies, obviously, but for a movie that they spent a lot on, for a movie with over one hundred million dollar budget, maybe even over two hundred million dollars budget, Aquaman was Mark, have you seen it? I y am I being too harsh, way too harsh? What Oh my gosh, Mark, come on, man. But like all these weird fish running around. There's like lasers and stuff. It makes no sense whatsoever.

But listen, I prefer Marvel movies, and I think the DC movies have been terrible in comparison, but Aquaman was one of the better ones. When you're looking at DC movies. Oh my gosh, Mark, how can a man who's so skilled and so right about so many things we so wrong on this one. But you know, I think the audi, I think most of the audience who seen Aquaman is probably with you. Oh but I do have a recommendation for you before we go into the break. They will

not grow old. Fabulous, incredible. Really, it's Peter Jackson. It's World War One as told through the voices of people who were there into the trenches, literally there in the trenches, and they do a color update of the footage from it, and it's very well done. I mean, it's eerie, it's haunting.

You will watch this and think, how could so much, how could so much human misery and death and the infliction of these casualties, How could this meet grinder of humanity have been allowed to happen the way that it did. But they they will not grow old. If you have not seen it. Refee. This is when you get on a long plane, right, you watch a lot of movies. Right, I read books and watch movies. It's excellent. It's excellent. It's it's a Every history class that does World War

One should should watch that movie, every single one. It's a documentary. Really, but I mean every history class across the country, in my opinion, should have to watch that does World War One should have to watch. They will not grow old. It's excellent. We'll be right back. So it's not hypothetical. There's six thousand women a year who got abortions in the third that's right, representing less than

one percent of cases. Let's pick ourselves in so let's put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in that situation. If it's that late in your pregnancy, that means almost by definition, you've been expecting to carry it to term. We're talking about women who have perhaps chosen a name,

women who have purchased a crip. Families that then get the most devastating medical news of their lifetime, something about the health or the life of the mother that forces them to make an impossible, unthinkable choice, and the bottom line is as horrible as that choice is that woman, that family may seek spiritual guidance, they may seek medical guidance, but it's that decision is not going to be made any better medically or morally because the government is dictating

how that decision should be made. People were all excited about Mayor Pete's town hall on Fox News, at least that audience was, and a lot of you're like, Buck, I wasn't excited. I want to take on that one moment there that we just played for you, or he's talking about third trimester abortions. I know. I was gone when this law pass in Alabama. I was in China, and I was able to pick up some of the

media and left wing freak out over it. But now you have may Or Pete out there, and he's gained all He's the first Democrat candidate to not break out to the front of the pack, but go from being a kind of who cares candidate to being a top three or top four candidates. So he's he's obviously made his way up the ranks. And this is where I have to say that he's a guy who's willing to either pretend he's not as smart as we're told he is, or maybe he's just not that. Maybe he's not as

clever as we're led to believe. I don't know, because what he said there was nonsense, total nonsense. You know, the games and the and the half truths, miss truths, the effort to hide what's really going on whenever you talk to the pro choice side about any of these issues. And I'm out here in California, and I was actually out last night just having a drink at the hotel where I'm dang, and I was around some people who are chatting and chatted up some some folks here who

sure enough very very upset. I didn't bring up politics. They just started talking about it, turning a very very upset about the Alabama bill. It's getting a lot of attention among the Hollywood set. I think Tristan Wigg, who's from formerly of SNL still in SNL. I don't know, she said that she's taken her comedy show from there or something. I mean, there's all this stuff now, they're all upset about it. They want to do a women's march, you know, women's march for control of their Bodies or

something like that. But they have been fed all this propaganda, and Boodha Chig Buddha Chig there or Buddha Judge, he's engaging in that very same kind of propaganda by saying that one, it's a function, or this is an issue. Third tremester abortions, of which of which there are nestimate at six thousand a year. It's a lot of people,

a lot of little, tiny human beings, not nuts. Then you know, imagine if you said that you six thousand deaths from something that was entirely preventable, and he said, oh, it's only six thousand, and we're talking about dead babies. Oh it's only six thousand. That's what we can accept. That we could we could make it zero. But let's

not make it zero because it's only six thousand. That's that's the moral fallacy that Buddha Judge is engaging in there because he needs the planned paranoide, he needs the left wing abortion lobby behind him, or else he has no no shot at winning the nomination and certainly no shot at winning the presidency. He knows that, so he'll say whatever he has to say under the circumstances. But what he also said there about how it's the life

of the mother. That's a lie. There is, in fact, no known medical condition that arises in the third trimester of a pregnancy that requires the termination of the pregnancy for the safety of the mother. Induced labor, yes, bringing the baby out of the mother, yes, But there is no medical condition that exists. And you can check it. You can check this, you know, check my homework on

this if you like. No medical condition that exists that requires the termination of a pregnancy in the third trimester, No such thing. Does may or Pete not know that, or does he not care to know that? Does he just prefer to lie? Does he prefer to make it up as he goes along? And it's even worse than that. Notice how he uses words to describe a third trimester abortion like unthinkable and horrible. That's not how the abortion left describes any abortion. They don't think of it as unthinkable,

they don't say it's horrible. In fact, you do have the incredibly ghoulish and really satanic mentality among many of the pro planned parenthood set on the Democrat and the Democratic Party that abortion should be celebrated, that this is something that is the manifestation of a kind of empowerment of women, that you know, women are now free because of abortion. Therefore, you know, shout your abortion, celebrate your abortion. Horrible stuff. So why does mayor Pete say this is

terrible and then lie about why it's necessary. It's not medically necessary. That's not true. It is terrible. And if it's terrible and not medically necessary, why does he still supported eighty percent plus in all the reputable polling that I've seen of the American people say that there should not be any abortions in the third trimester eighty percent plus. This is an issue where there's really not a lot of not a lot of doubt when it comes to

the data about where the American people are. So, then why is the Democratic Party a party of abortion extremism, meaning that they will accept, they will sign on for, they will allow, without a fight, any restriction on abortion whatsoever. They will allow none, no restrictions whatsoever. So there de facto in the minority in a fringe here for their position.

But they because of the Supreme Court and because of the ways that they have been able to manipulate the levers of power to their advantage on this issue, They've skipped through the legislative process, They've skipped through the democracy that they profess to love so much. When it comes to defending our democracy, it gets Trump and Russia. Notice how the same this is, I know, a digression, but

we'll talk about this in the next hour. The same idiots who have been saying that Trump does Putin's bidding all the time don't have anything to say about now the story that they're running. I don't think it's a really, really a threat that Trump is going to go to war with Iran. Iran is a client state of Russia in many ways. I mean, Iran and Russia are closely allied. They work together to prop up the Assad regime. Putin does not want Iran to collapse, does not want regime change.

Putin is supportive of the Mullust. So if Trump were Putin's puppet, why would he do that? I just I would like some of the so called smart set in the media and the different you know, pundits and analysts on the left who hate Tryan on the right who hate Trump so much and say his Putin's puppet, explain that one. To me, taking out Russia's most important clients stayed in the Middle East, more important even than Syria, is that doing Putin's bidding? That must be fifteen d chest.

That must be some level of chess that no one's ever heard of or thought of before. That's how skilled the Russian manipulation of Trump is that no one could even imagine how it's a manipulation they would ever want to engage in anyway. Back to this situation with Buddha Judge, I have not been impressed with this guy so far. I found his answer on abortion to be intellectually indefensible and based on lies. And I think that we have to remember what is at stake here. The Democratic Party

is a party of abortion extremism. There's no question about this. And we are finally pushing back and fighting back, and things are going to get ugly around this issue. Just wait if a Supreme Court seat opens up too, It's going to get truly nasty out there. Let's talk about Iran and what's going on with the Trump administration, and also a plan to judge to assess how much adversity a person has faced when they're being considered for admission to a certain college. Oh sure, this isn't going to

be a huge invitation for abuse. Favor pulling all kinds of stuff. Oh no, no, this is going to be just great, isn't. We'll get into that and more coming up. Stay with me, Team You are now entering the Freedom hot Table Operation Center. All programs strictly need to know Team Buck is cleared and ready for the Buck brief. Don't kid yourself. You do have a military industrial complex.

They do like war in Syria with the Caliphaith. So I wipe out one hundred percent of the Caliphaith, That doesn't mean you're not going to have these crazy people going around blowing up stores and blowing up things. These are seriously ill people. They want to bring our troops back home to place when crazy they want to keep. You have people here in Washington. They never want to leave. I say, you know what I'll do. I'll leave a couple of hundred soldiers behind, But if it was up

to them, they bring thousands of soldiers in. Someday people will explain it, well, you do have You do have a group, and they call it the military industrial complex. They never want to leave. They always want to fight. No, I don't want to fight, but you do have situations like Iran. You can't let them have no clear weapons.

You just can't let that happen. So I come back from China only to find out that the the media is suggesting that the president wants a war with Iran, and I think this is just reckless, absolutely reckless stuff. And it reminds me of what I saw when I was When I was over there, you know, there were no channels really to watch in English. There were, I mean a handful. One was like soccer all the time.

Another had a lot of bad minton on it, which is really exhilarating, and watched that professional badminton stuff woo. But there was CNN International And I must tell you CNN International is anti American propaganda for the rest of the world. A CNN International's perspective on all the different news stories of the day is trash Trump and take the view of this administration. And I would argue anything that American does because this administration take the perspective that

what they're doing is terrible. Trump is a monster. Oh my gosh, this is all so bad. This is terrible, bad, bad things. And I mean, I just think CNN should be ashamed of itself. You know, from watching it in my hotel room, I had no choice. There was no Fox, there was nothing else that I could watch for the news, and I, as I've said, didn't have my cell phone or my laptop. So CNN International comes on and I say, oh, my gosh. You know, Trump wants to start a war

with they're on. Trump wants to start a war with North Korea. You know, the Trump administrations in disarray. Trump is a colluded with Russia, He's a criminal. All these stories, all this really terrible stuff about the commander in chief of the United States, coming from Americans, coming from people who you would think would have some sense of pride and loyalty to their country when they're presenting it to the rest of the world and people are gonna tell me, oh, buck,

they're being objective journalist bull crap. They take this very left wing globalist, internationalist point of view that America is no different from or better than any other country because they're pandering to the international audience. They're pandering to people in other countries that watch CNN, which is not that many people. But you know, CNN has managed to insert itself into airports and places all over the world where you have no choice, like me, stuck in a hotel

room in Beijing and then Shanghai. No choice really but to watch CNN if you want to get news. But they should be ashamed. But on this Iran piece, and really it really burned my behind. Man, it got me.

It got me very agitated because this stuff, you know, with bro Cuomo and Cooper and these people, I don't know how they don't understand that what they do justify eyes a lot of anti Americanism abroad and justifies a lot of the a lot of the sense in much of the rest of the world or some of the rest of the world, that we are the cause of

so many global problems. I mean, the truth is that the world, including China, should be thanking America every day, said thank you America for all the incredible stuff that you have done, not saying we're perfect. But on balance, the world has benefited immensely from the United States. China specifically has benefited tremendously from the United States from our sense of goodwill and our desire for prosperity and the

betterment of humankind. That's something that America has been profound in advancing over over many, many, many decades, over really centuries, but over many decades. For sure. But on Iran, I come back and I see what's going on. I think, well, wow, Trump must be doing all kinds of crazy stuff. All I can see is to see an inversion of it. Turns out to know what they're They're pushing sanctions, additional sanctions, Beyomba Obama had. The Iranians are trying to see what

they can get away with. They're pulling some nonsense here and there, and turns out that the Iranians start to squeal a little bit. They don't like it when the pressure is enough that it hurts. And what I would say to this, and I know I was on Shannon bream show last night talking about it, is, of course the Iranians don't like this. Of course the Iranians aren't saying, oh, you mean Trump is really going to hold us accountable for the terrorism that we not just support that they direct,

that they engage in themselves. I mean, the IRGC is a terrorist organization. The IRGC is the elite, so to speak, the wing of the Islamic Revolution. This is this is their equivalent, the Iranian Revolutions, equivalent of the Praetorian Guard and the SEAS now listed as a terrorist group as it should be. So this isn't just a state sponsor of terror, it's really a terrorist state, and that's what

you have in Tehran. And Trump takes the perspective that we're not going to allow them to just keep sending money to Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthi rebels and Yemen and fighters to Syria and propping up the Asido regime, all this different stuff that's going on. It's not okay, it's not all right. And to stop them from doing it,

you have to inflict pain on them. What does it tell us about what the Obama administration's approach was that the Iranians are shocked that there is now an administration, that there is now a White House that insists on an end to Iran acting as the you know, second worst access of evil country still in exists. I think you could argue North Korea is still worse, although you know, North Korea is worse to its own people and has the potential to be much worse on a national security level.

But North Korea, day in and day out, is not engaged in the same kind of subversion of our interests and attacks on our allies that you see the Iranians engaged in So there's different cases to be made here. But I just think that the way that this was presented, it was so interesting for me to have to rely

on very limited source of information. And I wasn't going to call my sources in you know, Langley, I wasn't going to call my sources in the White House, I because you know, the Chinese are listening to everything that I do, so I had to rely on what I was given. I'd rely on Chinese State News and CNN, which, no surprise to a lot of you listening, I'm sure line up a lot in terms of their editorial positions.

Somehow CNN is finding itself more often than not opposing the US perspective in US interests on a whole bunch of issues. What a what a journalistic abomination it is? I know, I know, I keep switching off from which do you hate more buck, Iran or CNN. It's a good question one I should give some additional thought too. You know, the Iranians are far away threats. CNN is right here for us, so I'm not seeing anything with

the moves administration taking with Iran. For those of you, I know you've been writing in and asking about this. I don't see anything that's out of line, that's going too far. Trump when he says all options are on the table, he means it, and there will be consequences for bad actions from the Iranians. But there's not going to be a ground troop invasion. We're not going to

send one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers into Iran. And I'll say this right now, and I will stand behind this if if it comes down to it, I would very much vocally actively oppose another US military intervention in the Middle East. We're not rebuilding another country for somebody else in the Muslim world. We're just not doing it. We cannot be dragged into that again. But Trump doesn't want to get dragged in. That's why we started off with his with his sound bite on what's going on

in Syria. And he understands. He doesn't want to leave troops in these places. He knows that it's endless. He knows that Afghanistan is never going to be what we've been promised by many people who have been in charge, stretching back for now going on twenty years. It's never gonna be what we've been promised. It's never gonna work the way they say it's gonna work. Trump knows that he wants out, so his instincts are right on this stuff.

We're not invading Iran. We're not taking over Iran. That's just fear mongering from people including CNN and see an international opposing US interest and making us look bad on the world stage, and any remember anything to hurt Trump. I mean, ultimately, that is the m O here is whatever the news story is, if it looks bad for Trump, that's what we have to That's what we have to go with. That's what they're gonna do. And just amazing to be subjected to it in a way where I

couldn't scare ape overseas. Man, it was so good to be back, So good to actually have real media people that I can talk to and rely on on. Behalf of the eighth generations of my family who have been in this country. We're gonna put a little fuel in your bus. This is my class twenty nineteen, and my family is making a grant to eliminate their student loans because we are enough to take care of our own community.

We are enough to ensure we have all the opportunities of an American dream, and we will show up to each other through our actions and through our words and through our deeds. Great story here about how billionaire Robert Smith, he's an African American founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners. How he said that at the graduation for Moorhouse College for this year, he was going to pay off all the student loans for all those all those in agels in that class with a great story. Um. And you know,

obviously a really really nice graduation gift. I don't I don't even know if I got a graduation gift, but it's it's a very you know, heartwarming and one of these things where I'm happy that we get to talk about it. Um. But it also brought up I think a lot of very interesting commentary from a left about how, you know, this shouldn't be seen as a as a band aid and this is and this doesn't really deal with the student debt. I'm you know, no good deed

goes unpunished, especially when the left is involved. And so this guy, people said, you know, he's I saw people on social media calling him a sellout for different things he's done in the past, like can't the guy help a bunch of African American students out without getting just trash for it by some bizarre turn of of of logic,

And that's what they end up doing. But you know, then then you realize how contentious this whole college debt, but also college admissions and and the academy and college campuses as the arbiters of who gets what in life. We need to really think about this more. They're credentialing academies. Largely, people don't learn all that much in these undergraduate programs anymore. I know that that's some will challenge challenge me on that,

but I know that I'm right. Overwhelmingly, what you have with these schools are they are very expensive ways to separate yourself from others and create some kind of brand value. Now for your undergraducations very valuable in the job market. It's really a prerequisite now for a lot of jobs.

But as more and more people get them, it's not as valuable, valuable as it used to be, And so you're seeing a bit of downward pressure on college degrees, so that now people are suggesting you got to go to get a graduate degree, you got to get a business school, you gotta do all these other things. But there's also this effort to say, well, if we're going to make school, elite schools more valuable in this process because more and more people are going to go to schools,

how do we determine who goes to elite schools? Ah, the admissions side of this. Now, I'm not going to talk about how Aunt Becky from Full House in a lot of trouble and Felicity Huffman from Desperate Housewives I think has already been she's already pleaded guilty of that might have happened right before I left for China. Now this is a different admissions story, and it has to do with something that until I read about it, I didn't think that it was possible. I didn't think that

this was something that they would really do. But sure enough, here we are. Now the College Board has announced that they will when they administered the SAT, they're going to append a quote adversity index to aptitude the SAT aptitude scores so they can create a handicap system for handicap

as in like golf handicap or standards of privilege. That's right, there's going to be an overall disadvantage level that is assessed here as part of your standardized scores, and it's going to create what they're calling a quote environmental context dashboard. My friends, this is going to be a disaster. This isn't right, It doesn't make any sense. It will not work the way it is intended to work. It will

only cause more problems. People need to stop trying to create a system where there is a lack of reliance on what is objective and replace it with what is entirely subjective or increasingly subjective in the minds of these admissions committees, based on social justice. That's what this is. This is a social justice balancing in college, in the college admissions process. And I would want to ask question.

It's like, okay, how do you how would you put how would you gauge the overall disadvantage level of a white middle class kid whose mom comes down with cancer and let's say she's the main breadwinner in the house actually, and then you know, the dad has to stop his job and then they lose their house. Does that person have white privilege or where do they fall on the disadvantage index. This reminds me of a leftist that I

used to read. I can't remember the guys, Oh, Freddie Debour I think was his name, talking about how trauma is something the left for a while tried to corner the market on that you could only have you can only use the word trauma and have trauma psychologically if you were in a press minority. And he said, well, what about losing your parents, what about dealing with serious illness, any number of different traumas that one can suffer over the course of a lifetime. Does that does that could

discounted if you're a white male. There are some leftists wh would say, well, yes, it can't reach the level of psychological trauma of being an oppressed minority in America. How do we assess this? How do you create a table, a chart, that's what they're doing here, that would assign some kind of numeric value to the degree of oppression.

You know, we've often here on the show talked about intersectionality and how it's the left's approach to well life in America, which is that there's all these different, intersecting and overlapping groups that either suffer from oppression or enjoy different degrees of privilege. But there really is a hierarchy, a clear hierarchy. This is the college board, which has a lot of power because it helps determine where people

go to school. This is the college board saying that they are getting into the social justice game in a big way and trying to balance the playing field more toward people that they believe are oppressed, that go to schools that have school lunch as a higher percentage, you know, provided by the government, that have more single parent households. That this is doomed a failure. It's going to be highly imprecise and incredibly politicide. And how anyone could not

see that is really beyond me. I mean, how anyone could think that this will be anything other than an ongoing fight and a disaster for an already cheetering on the brink of annihilation college emissions process with the end of affirmative action, which I do think is coming. I think affirmative action and college admissions is going to be I think it will be found unconstitutional at some point

in my lifetime. I can't tell you when. But the disadvantage, overall disadvantage level, the adversity index, now it's going to be applied to it. Oh and if it starts in colleges. You know, Ork's next. Folks, jobs, government hiring all over the place. You're going to see this. This is gonna tear us apart as a society if we allow this is very, very destructive. I gotta get into roll call because it's been a while, right back. Ain't no party like a Team Buck party, because a Team Buck party

don't stop. Yeah, we got bucks turned up to eleven. It's time for roll call. Roll call time, everybody. It's been a while in a while. It is so so good to be back. Man, I missed doing this. I will say that it's tough to take vacation when you feel like vacation takes you away from the thing you love. It's true. I know it sounds a little corny maybe to some of you, but it is true. Although it was really some think of a working vacation. Nonetheless, roll call is where we are now. Let's get to it.

Michael Rights. Even if nothing untoward happened while you were there, there's always a feeling of relief when the plane clears Chinese airspace. That's the thing about authoritarian regimes. You just never know. Knee how bub sextual well, Michael, I gotta agree with you, my friend. There's something that's always a little unsettling about going to a country where there is no such thing as due process, where you don't have the ability to challenge in any kind of true adversarial sense,

the whim of the government. You know, when I was over there, one thing that would come up is people said, and the locals wouldn't really say this, but some of the old China hands that I was traveling with, people that have been to the country a lot and know the country, would refer to how in some place is they would just clear out. They would clear out a

whole section of housing. And they called it a Chinese style approach to dealing with urban sprawl, urbanization, gentrification, which is the government says you leave now, you're done, and that's it, and you don't really have any redress. Now that's just about people's that's about people's homes, which is important. But you can imagine a situation where your freedom maybe in jeopardy, and it's very unsettling. You do not want to be on the wrong side of an authoritarian police state,

no matter how efficient and you know, economically powerful. It has become so I'm very much with you, my friend. It was it was a big sigh of relief when I cleared Chinese airspace, just because, as you said, I had no reason to be concerned. But you just you don't know my right. So Buck, how many continents have you been to? How many countries are you planning on visiting? An Antarctica at some point? Shield's high, you know, Michael, I've traveled a fair amount, but there's a lot of

places that you know. So I've been to now China, Southeast Asia, all over the Middle East, all over Europe. That's really it. I'm not somebody who's traveled in South America. I'm not somebody who has traveled in Central Eurasia much. Haven't been to Russia. I don't know when I'm gonna go to Russia anytime. But there's there's places that on my list, top of my list to go that I

haven't been to yet. Spain, Portugal, nice places. I'm at a point now in life where I really do prefer to go somewhere that I can drink the water and that I don't have to be worried about the day to day life support things that you do anywhere you know, I don't like when I have to brush my teeth with bottled water, for example, so I won't go to places like that on vacation. Usually China, I was using

bottled water. I think some people say you don't necessarily have to depending on where you're staying, but I did. I think that was probably the right move. I know there's a lot of places that I haven't been to that I really want to go do. And I know other people listening to this who have done a whole lot more traveling than me. Jeff, welcome back, Buck. Glad to see you didn't come back on your shield. Well, Jeff,

that makes two of us. You didn't overdo it with the by j I don't even know what that is. I had visited China about ten years ago, and I've noticed that people really didn't like six foot three westerners walking around, even at a hard time catching a cab. Just wondering if things had changed at all, Jeff. You know,

you get a huge variety. You get people that come from the more rural parts of China, some of the outer lying provinces, who come into Beijing, who come into Shanghai, and they find Westerners to be a kind of exciting treat. They want to take photos with us. I mean, I

had people that wanted to take photos with me. Not because they're part of my beloved radio audience, although I guess that would theoretically be possible because they could listen to podcast, but because they just find the site of a Westerner and you know, my little scraggly red Beard

and everything else. They find it interesting. And I even had people tell me that they've had parents hand their kids to a Western because they want the kid to pose with the Western and a photographs because they think it's kind of funny or they like it for whatever reason. There's much less of that with the native Beijing population and with the Shanghai Shanghai Nie native Shanghai folks. So there you go. They're not and I think there's right

now because of the old trade war situation. There's a degree of hostility. Now there's a degree of you know, irritation and frustration at America and also a sense of a swelling nationalist and economic pride from the side of the Chinese. Where it used to be Oh America, McDonald's, Coca Cola, Hollywood, there was a more of a sense of how great America was or how there was a cultural fondness. Now I think the Chinese and this is what look, this is why they've shut off Google's well,

they've shut off Facebook. They want to do it their way and they want their approach, and as a result, there's a little bit of the other rising of America in the eyes of the Chinese. And you are definitely the other when you are there, that is for sure. Nathan, hey Bock, hope you're having a great trip. Your guest host are on point. But producer Mike know the volume on Stitcher is better and three commercials aren't for trend

gender issue podcast, great job shields high. Nathan, I don't know what the podcast commercials were, but I can tell you that I'm seeing a lot of very positive feedback about our guest hosts across the board. And that's that's my mission for all of you, is that when if I can't be here, I always want someone at the reins if I have to, if I'm sick or on vacation, which don't I don't like doing either of those things,

really vacation. Once in a while, I want somebody at the helm of the freedom hunt who is really good, who's doing a good show for you that you're going to want to listen to Other hosts do this thing, and I get the kind of the mediocre to weak host so that people, oh, I miss you know so and so so amazing. That's not my approach. I prefer to have somebody in who's really good and hopefully you

still always want me back. Brittany rights, Team Buck misses you, safe travels and if China tries to keep you, which I wouldn't blame them for, I'll join the bring Buck back movement. Well, Brittany, I very much appreciate that. Fortunately it did not come to that, so that's a good thing. But yeah, thank you so much. Missed all of you too, William right Cia analyst Jack Ryan Amazon Prime series. It

has John Krasinski from the Office in thirteen hours. I only watched the first episode and thought it was awesome. Jack Ryan reminded me of you because he's an analyst and he was walking around drinking coffee. Indeed, William, two things I was very good at. Watch it and give Team Buck your thoughts shields high. William, I think I've talked about that show before. I thought it was pretty entertaining. It's preposterous. I mean, it's wildly unrealistic, but it is

pretty entertaining. I can say that it's something that I think you will enjoy if you were to watch the rest of it. And John Krasinski does a good job. I wasn't. I know he was good in the office too. I should separate out. You know, do I like his politics? Knows he a big lib Yes, But overall I think he does a pretty good job on that show. And yeah, sometimes CI analysts do get the girl or the ladies, as the case may be. That's right, allo, all rights.

I just turned on the podcast from Monday with Charlie Kirk and liked the first few minutes about the China trade war. Sounded like a Rush Limbaugh regurgitation, but good information. Then Charlie went into the into the latest episode of Game of Thrones, which I haven't seen yet. I turned off the podcast and will not listen anytime Charlie's on his podcast. He doesn't even have the common sense not

to tell movie plots on national shows. Shields, I hope all as well in China, you know, also attacking China on your national show while you're in China could make you the next victim of a Chinese kidnapping. Just a thought. Well, all, I'm sorry if there was a spoiler for you about Game of Thrones, but you know that's gonna be, unfortunately, something that's an occupational hazard for people in media when when there's a big thing like that, people are going

to talk about it. But I can tell you I have not seen the last two episodes of Game of Thrones, and I'm not going to waste any of your time talking about it right now because I haven't seen it, so that wouldn't make any sense. But also, I've known for a while, and I've been saying it for a while that the show is it's not what it used to be. It's it's gone off the rails a little bit. It's just not as compelling. It's not the writing is not as good, the writing is not as tight, and

you just see that throughout. So that's where I am one of my friends. That's that's what I got for you on Game of Thrones. For now. I'll come back when I've got more and we'll hit a quick pause, come back to finish out the roll call strong, stay with me, all right, We're back in roll Call after the longest absence that I think I've had from this show since it began, and I don't know, I don't want to. I'm not taken off like that again for

a while because I missed you all too much. But let's get right back into it with all of your thoughts, all of your comments, suggestions, witticisms. Irene, right, it's glad you're home, safe and sound. The guys filled in well for you, but you are the Buck. Welcome back. We'll be listening tonight here you're on after Hannity. Well, I'm in great company then, and Irene, thank you so much for your kind words. Missed you all too. It is

good to be back, Terry, Welcome back. Buck. Question. I know when people modify their mortgages, the IRS views these forgiven debts as new income. Happened to my brother in law. Will this be the case if Liz Warren gets her college debt forgiveness plan. Would people get a letter from the IRS claiming they owe money because of this new debt modification? Shields high from Terry? You know, Terry, I always tell you when I don't know in the answers,

I have no idea. Now, I think it's fair to say that no one really has any idea, because if you're if we're really talking about a future Elizabeth Warren plan, you know, who knows what that's gonna look like when it's all when it's all said and done, I mean, who knows where that's really gonna shake out. I would say that it sounds to me like the IRS, unless they created some kind of a car about the IRS might consider that to be some form of new income.

This is why I'm still an advocate for We need the IRS to be much much smaller. We need the IRS to have a simplified code, all this stuff, but you have it, Stephen, Right, Hey, Buck, this a little out of left field. Okay, maybe the next zip code over. But I listened to Joe Rogan the other day and he had on Tulsi Gabbert. If Penns decided not to run, what do you think of her? She's all about the people like Trump. Plus, I think she'd be the perfect

Yang to his yang. I selected them to be with the Republican just wanted to hear your thoughts, shields high, Stephen. I will tell you of the Democrats and some of you might get mad at me for this. I kind of like Tulci Gabbert. I know that they they trash her over the whole Assad thing, but maybe that was bad judgment to talk to him, and maybe her positions on Assad are not in line with I can't even

tell you what their positions are. I'll be I've got to just say I know that the left and the right trash her for what she does and what she says, but because she agitates all the right leftists, I think

that there must be something to her. There must be something to recommend Dulcie Gabbert because the the establishment left and even many progressives hate her, absolutely hate her, and she seems pretty inoffensive to me on a number of a number of topics, and I think that her sense of where we are in terms of interview mentioned in the Middle East, I think she's on the right track with that. So I find Tulsie Gabert kind of interesting.

I also just have to note that the Democrats have really abandoned her and do not do not promote her. She is not a favorite of the Democrat establishment, either on the far left or the more DNC Hillary Clinton Biden of types. So that's what I got for you on Tulsi Gabert. Maybe I'll get her on the show. I'd love to have her on the show. We should reach out here. I don't think she'll ever do it. You know, people think, oh, here's our conservative. Yeah, I'm

a conservative, but I'm a smart, nice conservative. If anything, I'm too polite. Probably start crushing fools under my boot heel instead. I'm just oh so witty and cudley at the same time, Alan writes, but a great line up a guest host. Kudos to all of them, but will be glad to hear you back again on the air regale US with your stories from your China expedition. One quick question. If the Mexican cartells or make billions of dollars,

then what do they do with all that money. I don't see any stories about them buying yacht's, private jets and NYC condos overlooking the park. It'd be interesting to find out how they spend all that loot. Thank you, Alan. There's a whole book written on narconomics that might be able to answer this better than I can just off the top of my head, So if you want to check that out, that's one place. That's one resource I

can refer YouTube. And then as to where the cartel spends its money, one paying a massive array of different personnel, everything from accountants to assassins and politicians and policemen too,

and they stash their money all over the world. Remember that if you have a willing government and pretty lax banking laws, stashing cash now is an exercise, and moving electrons around you don't have to necessarily well, I guess at the initial phase when you get cash for a drug deal and a lot of people are putting drugs on their credit card, but they try to launder it, and then you're just and cash wherever you can. So there it is. Team. I am so glad to be back.

I'm out here on the West Coast for the week. I'm in Los Angeles, So how do you give Team buck that have any recommendations or if you want it? This weekend, I'm gonna be running around Santa Monica and Venice, so hey, reach out. Maybe I'll be able to grab a beer with you. Although I don't drink beer, as you know, I drink other things. But I'm here on the West Coast and so glad to be back. I'll be with you every day this week and every day going forward. I will talk to you next time. Shields High