People are saying this. Past Olympics has been one of the more politically significant since the nineteen thirty six per
Lynn Games, when Hitler and the Nazis ruled Germany. It does feel a lot more political than past Olympics, with some athletes even going on record saying they don't want people to get the wrong idea because they are representing the United States as an Olympic athlete, speedskater Hunter Hess, for example, explained, I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people
that supported me getting here. He later clarified, just because I'm wearing the flag, it doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the US. Using the very freedom of speech guaranteed by a nation to refuse to praise that nation while representing them is perhaps the ultimate display
of ingratitude. Two of the more compelling tales of this are the stories of Eileen Gou and Alyssa Lu On paper, the two are very similar, both are Californians of Chinese descent, and both are competing at the top levels events in the Milano Olympics. Both have left leaning political views, yet in terms of gratitude, it couldn't be more dissimilar. That's because Gou made the choice to represent not the country of her birth, the country where she was raised and trained,
but the communist dictatorship of China. This is her second Olympics, representing the red flag on the world stage. Lou, on the other hand, is the child of a man who's a refugee from China. He's wanted there for his involvement in the Tianaman Square protests. The last time she competed in the Beijing Olympics, she needed a security detail to protect her from PRC operatives who were targeting her and her father. Lou doesn't just represent the US. She's representing
the US very well. She competed on the ice with unfettered joy and pride and brought home the gold draped in the American flag. Gou won gold too, only she didn't bring it home in the same sense. It's China's gold medal, not ours. And that's a bit of a sticking point with Goo's critics because despite the fact that she competes for China, she still lives in the country where she was raised, and that's the US. She's not disturbed much by the fact that she lives in a
country she doesn't condescend to represent. She turns such criticism into an opportunity to brag, saying, if I wasn't doing well, I think that they probably wouldn't care as much, and that's okay for me. People are entitled to their opinions. Well, that's true in America at least. It's not just Americans who take issue with guz have your cake and eat it too attitude. Some of her Chinese critics also expressed dissatisfaction with the way she keeps the very country she
represents on the snow at arms length. Goo's Chinese name is gu is Ling, but the story is that mift Chinese are calling her gu Ei Chin, which turns her name into Goo loves money. So she is getting criticized from that ankle. I have to say that I sympathize with the average Chinese on this one. Sure, she won medals for China, but she won't even want to live here. She doesn't really want to be connected to China, and the insult isn't hard to detect. Goo doesn't care about
her Chinese critics. I don't think, considering she grew up in the US, and lives there. In twenty twenty four, she decided to try to shame them as well by taunting quote, in the past five years, I've represented China in forty one international competitions and have won thirty nine medals for China? What have you done for the country? So that is horror? Come back to the Chinese people.
Can we say that's very gu like of her. The really odd thing about Gou is that she shouldn't be in the US at all, honestly, unless she is just visiting tourist visa. According to Chinese law, she's not a native Chinese, but naturalized. And in China, when you become a citizen, you're required by law to give up your old citizenship. Yet here she is in Stanford, California. You see,
America recognizes her citizenship because she was born here. So even though she's a card carrying Chinese Communist national, she is an American because she was born on our soil. Why doesn't China enforce their side of the naturalization process by forcing gu just to render her US citizenship like the law demands money status medals, Or maybe that was part of some deal when she made her decision to represent China that gave her half her genomes but none
of her freedom or civil rights. Maybe it's not that unusual at all. It seems that Gou isn't so much the exception as she is the rule. You see. According to New York Times bestselling book and Visible Coup by Peter Schweizer, China has been looking the other way when it comes to her American born citizens a lot. And because this is the Chinese Communist Party we're talking about, you can bet this isn't your typical bureaucratic misstep. It's
very much deliberate and part of a larger plot. In an interview with Steve Bannon that was quoted by Breitbart, Schweitzerer pointed out that for the past thirteen years, roughly one hundred thousand Chinese babies have been born in the US. Back of the envelope math tells us that's easily over a million Chinese who also claim US citizenship. And this is not normal birth tourism, if that's even normal. These are children of party elites and military officers, says Schweitzer.
After being born, they're wist away back to China, where they're raised as Chinese citizens. But thanks to birthright citizenship here in the US, they are still Americans when this million plus foard of Chinese Americans churn eighteen. They can do things like a vote in our elections, they can make political donations, they can work for our government, and is all perfectly legal. Well, hopefully the Supreme Court will take a look at this, because this is a very
serious national security issue. No other country has immigration policies that expose its citizen citizenry to this level of exploitation by the Chinese Communist Party. Something tells me that while these millions playing remote citizen in China would jump at the chance to work in DC, none of them are going to do us the favor of representing the US in a future Olympic game, for example. That's not the only area in which China is making waves these days.
It seems Beijing is absolutely furious over the results of the recent Japanese election that one conservative Takaichi an unprecedented conservative majority. Among other items on her parties to do list is the eradication of Article nine of the Japanese Constitution, clearing the way for Japan to build up its military forces. Of course, in some sense, the changes will be primarily linguistic.
Rather than a st army, Japan has a self defense force, which is, for all intents and purposes the same thing as military. The Japanese Self Defense Force currently ranks in the top ten overall among the world's militaries already. So is jettison ing Article nine really going to dramatically alter things? Leave it to China to find a reason to cut
a fit over a name change. In an attempt to stop Japanese remilitarization, the PRC has announced restrictions to twenty Japanese entities to ensure that they don't end up as components in Japanese military hardware. Japan isn't about to outsource its new army of giant fighting robots to Chinese manufacturers. I'm just assuming that Japanese remilitarization will include giant fighting robots. It's the twenty first century and it's finally time for that.
The affected Japanese companies include Sumiitomo, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Fujitsu Ihi Corporation, and sup So. China is getting a little nervous that the Japanese might recall their previous military might. The Chinese have been highly critical of the Prime Minister, especially since she called for Japan to develop nuclear weapons. A militarized in nuclear armed Japan certainly seems like it would add a few wrinkles to the Chinese goal of invading the
peaceful and free nation of Taiwan. It would also make it harder to enact a naval blockade of Japan in order to cut her off from the rest of the world, which is another one of China's long standing strategic goals. By the way, across the planet, the elements needed to realize China's goals have been steadily falling into place. They've been in economic support an arms dealer to the Ayatola and Iran for years, and they were in the process of negotiating with Venezuela as well when our little game
of cash the Dictator ended up ruining that point. Across the globe, from South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines in Asia to the South American countries of Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, China's engaging in exploited illegal fishing practices, I guess they wanted to make sure that everywhere had a reason not to like them. I mean, they certainly are
eating that much fish. No such gray zone tactics allow their vessels to function as a paramilitary force, thereby allowing Beijing to exert control just below the threshold of open armed conflict. It is a surg meeting in reserve, if you will. Just as their ubiquitous fishing fleets may be other than they seen, China's population may not be as large as reporting. Bushi Yan, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, asserts the country doesn't have as many people
as she claims. Why would a government want to keep its country's population size secret? Well, because the size of the Chinese market is one of its biggest draws. It also helps at the local level to fudge those numbers in order to get bigger government subsidies. Well, Fushion believes that China's population of one point four billion is actually about one point three billion. That translates to one hundred
and million fewer Chinese people than reported. Other estimates say that China's actual population is less than half of what it's reported to be. That may be a stretch, but it would explain why there are whole sections of cities where the buildings are completely empty. These topics and more will make for some very interesting research, and this is something Peter Schweizer has dived into in his recent book.
He has been looking into a lot of this and it's very interesting to see everything he's uncovered, because it just goes to show us that the Chinese Communist Party is using America's own laws, America's own rules, in order to actually subvert the country. I am delighted to welcome our guest today, Larry Taunton. He is an author, columnist, and cultural commentator. His work has been cut by the BBC, the New York Times, and many other places. Larry, thanks so much for joining us.
Great to be with you, Danielle.
Great well. I thought we could start off by maybe talking a little bit about the news that transpired this weekend with Iran, and maybe you can just start by telling us your initial reaction to all that.
Well, you know, I have so many initial thoughts, Danielle. One of them is I'm kind of tired of the so called America first crowd that really is America, only they don't quite understand that America first means that for your own house to be safe, you may have to burn down the crack house that's across the street. And I see this very much as authentic America first, just as I see that being the case with operations in Venezuela. I don't think the same thing about Ukraine, for example.
But you know, Iran has been funding terrorism. Have they funded hamas they funded the October seventh attacks in Israel? And I know that there's some will be listening who are not sympathetic to Israeli people who were murdered, mutilated, women raped.
I know that there's plenty that are within that.
Crowd and that thinking, but they're not understanding that Iran as the head of the snake and the Biden administration as well as the Obama administration is and no doubt the Biden administration, being directed by Obama himself, basically funded all of these kinds of attacks. Iran has directed tax against the United States more than ninety times just since twenty twenty.
Yeah, And it's very interesting because I noticed Trump recently was saying that he thought that Iran, you know, tried to get him first, and then he was saying, but I actually got you first. So in a way, it was very clear why Trump was going after community for example.
Yeah, well, he's he's privy to a lot of intelligence, of course that we don't see. But it's you know, I'm old enough, Danielle. You're quite young, and I'm old enough to remember when I was a kid, the storming of the US embassy nineteen seventy nine in Tehran and the holding for more than I want to say it was four hundred and forty five days, something like that, of American hostages that were paraded nightly, you know, on
our news screens. I'm also old enough to recall many of their attacks, murdering Americans, boarding American vessels, holding American sailors hostage, and successive ministration is doing virtually nothing about this, and I would get it. You know, if the United States were let's say, Cameroon, we might not have the
ability to do these things. But I'm appreciative of the fact that Donald Trump has taken seriously the care of the American people, the attacks on our soldiers, and the realization that I saw Matt Walsh tweeted yesterday, and that's a bright guy. But Matt had tweeted more or less implying that the attacks that are taking place in the United States and attacking I ran that those things are you know, kind of mutually exclusive, and you have to
choose one or the other. Well, I mean, who do you think is funding you know a lot of these kinds of things. So where do they think the weaponry, you know, is coming from. Who do they think is supplying the training as they did with October seventh, supplying the technical expertise for cyber attacks and things of this nature. You can go after both at the same time.
Right, do you think that it's interesting because we've seen kind of the left and the right are almost like especially like the woke right sort of, not that he is, but there are people on that side. Do you feel like they're basically becoming like the left because they are seeing a lot of the same kind of talking points.
Yeah, well, this actually be an interesting conversation with your dad because I hate the term woke right. That's an oxymoron. It makes no sense at all if you're woke your left, I mean, just period. I realized that we kind of get stuck with these kind of terms, and I realized the individual you know who came up with this, I said, idiotic, It's an idiotic notion. If you're woke you're on the left.
That doesn't mean that you can't hold views that are on the right, that you can't be a combination in some sense of the two. But the mob, they're totalitarian and their leanings. They're the kind of people that gather, you know, I was just at the World Economic Forum last month, or I should say now the month before last, in mid January, where these are the kind of people who meet and who want to dictate to the rest of us the manner.
Which we live.
But yes, I think we're seeing a lot of people that we previously fought, Danielle were solid conservatives who are not actually solid conservatives. And I don't think it's because they were lying about being conservative. I think it's what we're seeing is their worldview being exposed. That these weren't individuals who are actually rooted in an absolute that is
to say, in eternal principles. They were more kind of rooted in their feelings and how they you know, a kind of vague patriotism or a misty eyed Americana rather than actually being rooted in you know, ideals, the kind of ideals that we find expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution. And of course ultimately in scripture.
Yeah, and many of those people are actually just liberal. They pretend to be conservative, but they're not.
One name one, give me names, come on, give me oh.
Well, definitely like the Nick f Onetastes type crowd, because they're trying to undo the those they want us to over, the Democrats or whatever, so they're just very open about it, of course. But then there are some other people who are maybe normal people who are just kind of like confused or swept in the middle of this stuff and they're not really sure what they think about what's going on with Iran. Maybe you can tell us what's your kind of main argument for how this is America First?
What is your kind of way that you would explain it to someone who's maybe not against it, but is just kind of not sure.
Well, I think again, I'd want to make a distinction between uh, the the America firsters who really are America only. They're only concerned with anything that happens inside our borders.
And I get it.
I understand that at a very elementary level. But it's elementary kind of thinking, you know, as I was, you know, indicated earlier. You know, if your own home let's just let's just think of it like this. If your own home is constantly being you know, robbed, and there are people trying to you know, break through your front door, and you have you have a choice there. Yeah, I guess you can keep barricading it and try to make your fences higher and these kind of things. Or you
could try to clean up the neighborhood. You know, these things tend to not happen, uh when you're in a little better neighborhood. And I think Trump's approach here is the recognition.
Listen.
I was following caravans all over South America. I did this for five years. You know. I was going to cartel towns and Dairian Gap. I was following what we were mostly, or let's just say, a plurality of Venezuelans making their way up to Mexico City where they could board Labstia the Beast with a freight train where they would get on the roof of it and follow it to the six hundred miles north to the US border. I kept screaming that until we solve the problem in Venezuela,
this is going to keep happening. And anybody who's going to go through the dairy and gap in flip flops, holding a baby and carrying a bottle of water. I promise you, your wall is not going to stop them. Your wall isn't going to stop them. Now, according to CNN, this was all being caused by global warming, which we know is complete nonsense. It was being caused by Marxism that was turning economies one right after the other in South America, cratering them. So this was causing a problem.
So to me, Venezuela was America first. Well, the same thing is true. Well, we're talking about Iran and we're talking about the funding of terrorism. It doesn't seem like it's received much play in the United States, Danielle.
That again, just.
During the first two and a half years of Biden's term in office, there were eighty three attacks on American troops in the Middle East, either directly by Iran or sponsored by Iran. So to me, going after Iran as America first, we have to defend our people.
Yeah, definitely. And Trump has been so great on a lot of these foreign policy issues. And like you've said, he is very privy to a lot of information we are privy to, and he's very swept in his actions. He's very quick, very decisive, and I think does things that actually make a difference as opposed to maybe people fearing some kind of long dragged out war situation. But Trump doesn't really operate like that. How likely are you to see some kind of successful regime chain in Iran?
What do you think is going to be the next step for people there? Do you think people are kind of rising up? Or how do you see it?
You know, that's a that's a good question. It's a complicated question. Let me deal with the first part of that. You're right, you know, Trump is decisive. I don't think Trump spends a lot of time hand ringing, you know, over issues. I think he listens to the counsel of his generals and various other strategists and so forth and are involved here, and then he he uh, he takes action. I loved what he said yesterday, which was hilarious, that he was creating job openings, you know, in Iran, And.
There's no question that he's doing that. Now.
Nation building in the Middle East is not something that the United States has proven to be particularly good at. I don't get the impression that that's his intention here. That he's not intending to, you know, turn this into another Afghanistan or or or something to that effect, but rather kind of leave it, at least to some extent to the Iranian people. But Danielle something that I think
that Americans are incredibly naive about it. And presently I'm in Europe, I was in I was just in the Middle East, you know, so I just came here from the Middle East. Americans do not understand Islam. They don't. They're starting to understand it, you know, better. But the notion that you know, like, for instance, the Pope I'm I can look out a window right here and almost
see the Vatican. I'm here in Rome. Yesterday the Pope right here was talking about how there just needs to be dialogue and if we could all just get along. I mean, if only the Hobbits and the Orcs could just get together and have a conversation, I'm sure they could work out all their differences. Never mind the fact that that Orcs eat Hobbits. I mean, that's that's where we find ourselves in Islam. Islam is an ideology of hate.
It is an ideology of conquest, It is an ideology of misogyny, and the senator from my own state state of Alabama, Tommy Tupperval, who I can appreciate now more as a senator than I could when he was coach at the at Auburn University Tuberville, and he's starting to gather others around him are pushing for the banning of Sharia. I want to say to them, that's that's not the root of the tree. You have to ban Islam. And I know that they probably think, well, we can't do
that because it's covered under the Bill of Rights. As you know, you can practice, you know, your religion fairly
and openly in the United States. Therefore we can't ban it. No, I think we can, and I think we can with the Constitution, because when Islam is taken seriously in his practice according to the Qoran, according to the hdiv and to the life of Muhammad, which every Muslim is supposed to model themselves after, then it is by definition anti constitutional because it is by definition not about freedom of speech,
not about freedom of religion. It's not about freedom of the press, it's not about freedom of the assembly, it's not about freedom of petition. The entire Bill of Rights is nullified by Islam. When Islam is taken seriously, which is to say nothing of things like you know, child marriage, and you know, human trafficking and beheadings and these kinds of things. This is real Islam. And when people say that they know a Muslim who's a very friendly person,
I know plenty myself. But those are those are not Muslims who are practicing real Islam. Those are people that I liken to Methodists in not taking their holy scriptures very seriously. And I say that I could say that as a form of Methodist. Please don't pelt me the people who are listening out there, but you know, these are these are very we'll say liberal Muslims that we're talking.
About in this case.
Yeah. And I think when it comes to immigrants especially, we can decide who comes to this country. We can decide what criteria we want to use and bring them in because many of these people who are Muslim are very recent immigrants to the US. It's not like we just all of a sudden have these, you know, people who are converting to Islam here. Most of it really being imported here, So can definitely be stopped. Wanted to ask you about. So when it comes to kind of
the nation building. We sort of touched on them a little bit. How do you think this might be Do you think this might be similar, might be different to what happened in Japan. Do you think people in Iran are I mean, we've seen the videos because they're very much celebratory, they're very excited. Do you think that they're going to step up in this time?
Well?
I like the reference to Japan. That's an astute reference and a very good one. Japan serves as a model for us and a reminder, a historical reminder that we
have defeated these types of ideologies before. So the you know, the the Kamikazes of the nineteen thirties and forties were you know, the suicide bombers of that era, and the Japanese ultimately they some would argue they have the most democratic constitution in the world, was written by General Douglas MacArthur and his staff, and it remains in effect there to this day in Japan. Having been there, it's a
remarkable peaceful country. So we have done that before. I don't know, however, that the United States today is as committed to bringing something like that about as the United States was at the time. I want to say MacArthur was, I can't remember, but he was basically, you know, as William Manchester says, an American caesar in Japan for quite some time, with extraordinary power at his disposal. But the fact of the matter is Japan does serve as a
model that this can be done. These types of ideologies can be defeated.
Now.
One of the problems, unfortunately, is while Japan an Ireland and emperor worship in fascist militarism that characterized Japan at that time was isolated to Japan. Right now we're talking about, you know, a country that's surrounded, you know, by other countries that share the same type of ideology, which makes it much much more difficult. So I don't know, I'm not sure if the United States will try to follow
a policy like that. I tend to think as much as I like Trump, and I was Gotsha was at mar A Lago a few times and there to see
your father's movie, wonderful movie two thousand Mules. So I like I like Donald Trump very much, but I think Donald Trump shares one of the flaws that is common to Americans and to American foreign policy forever and that is that we're a fairly trusting, give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, and a little naive when we're dealing, particularly when we're dealing with ideologies like this, and and I think we can't be we can We dare not risk that in this case. Case in point
the Israelis. If anybody in the world should know better than to be naive, it would be the Israelis.
Yaya Sinoir, who who engineered the October seventh attacks, spent more than half of his adult life in Israeli prison, who's having fainting spells, headaches. The Israelis discovered he had a brain tumor. They took him to an Israeli hospital. Surgery was performed removing the brain tumor, saving his life, which he himself acknowledged. In twenty eleven or twelve, he was exchanged in a prison swap, that is, for Israeli hostages.
And how did he pay the Israelis. I'm sure they thought he would feel indebted to them.
He didn't.
He raped and murdered and mutilated their people. That's what we're dealing with here, and we can't let our guard down. We can't be naive in dealing with it.
Absolutely not. We cannot let our guard down be naive. Great point, well, Larry, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate your insights here well.
Thank you so much, Danielle, pleasure to be with you.