On Skyans Australia. This is the winder Panalty Show.
Good evening and welcome to the Reader Paney Show. We've got a massive program for you. Joining me tonight is the great Douglas Murray and my word he has come back in top four.
We do not want to miss that interview.
Also tonight Gary Hargrave will tell us about the enormous luxury travel bill, Former Victorian Treasurer Tim Palace racked up and Josh Hammer will have the latest from the US and another extended edition of Left is Losing It featuring the leader of the Free World lying shamelessly and incoherently.
Look, let's catch up my mind a border. When I became president, the numbers came way down Ama.
But first, with the inaugurration of President Donald Trump just days away, there are growing concerns surrounding this strength of Australia's relationship with the US and how it's been undermined by not just the policy of the Albanezy government but also the very unwise anti Trump commentary we've heard from a number of senior ministers over the years. Joining me now for more on this, the Sky News contributor Gary Hardgrave Gary. How does the Prime minister fix this issue?
Guessing Kevin Rudd isn't going to be a great deal of help.
Yeah, well, I mean Albo is not one of the twelve world leaders invited to the inauguration, so there's that. The only way we've got an invite there is that. I think Kevin Rudd is helping with the catering core, and Penny wan is there obviously to keep an eye on Kevin Rudd. Look, I think we're going along purely because we're one of the quad countries. So was it
kind of they had to invite them along? But look, it's embarrassing, but the American people have made their decision, and I think the world is going to be a safer and better place a week or so from now. I actually think there's going to be a liber day for a lot of people and a lot of big companies. And unfortunately read it, there's a lot of companies in this country who are now still being now forced by government to do the things that this government wants them
to do. And we're seeing all this stuff out of California about you can't do this and you can't say that, and indeed, you look at where Zuckerberg were landed with Meta. You know, suddenly Biden's going and now he's a liberated, so free free speech guy. I think the same thing's going to happen in Australia a few months from now. Albow is going and people can't wait to see the
back end of him. He's not relevant, and I actually don't even think he needs to go to the inauguration because you've got you've got Biden there, and Albow is our Biden. We've got a few state and municipal leaders around this country who are our Gavin Newsom's. But you know, there are people in this country who are fed up to the back teeth see Trump as a liberator for this nation as well, and Albow is just well, we're
putting up with him for a few more months. That's what I pray and I think is the case.
Now, what do you think about former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop saying that Kevin Rudd stays as ambassador may be numbered. It was an interesting commentary from Bishop.
Do you share that point of view?
Well, I suspect it's true, and it's not up for Donald Trump to tell us who he will accept as our ambassador, but the Prime minister, this prime Minister Albanese, he cannot read any room he's in. He's chosen the wrong side of every argument. Did not know what to do after what happened in October of twenty three in Israel, did not know really what to do after the synagogue
fire in Melbourne. The guy has got no leadership understanding about how the world is now operating in the post Trump president or in the Trump presidency era that we're about to go into. So I suspect he'll hang in there with Kevin for a little while longer. But I think Kevin will have what we used to say in politics, a coughing fit, and he'll probably have to come home. He came to Queensland over the summer months to look
at his beachside apartment up on the Sunny coast. As I understand it, and good luck to him, But I just think that Albow can't read any room he's in in this country, so how can he actually read a room in another country? The guy just doesn't understand it.
Now, let's go to revelations that former Victorian Treasurer ty in Palace racked up over six hundred and fifty thousand dollars in taxpayer under luxury travel, including over seventy two thousand dollars GARY in travel and accommodation costs for his farewell tour, which included the UK, France, Italy, Spain all the nice spots. This was in October, shortly before he quit politics. I mean, how can he possibly justify that? And let's not forget he's a man who bears a
great deal of responsibility for sending this state broke. Victoria's got the biggest state debt of any state in this country.
And I was in Melbourne for a couple of days in the last weekend and read I got to tell you the great city of Melbourne is in a palace state because of Palace And I think that's really his name, Dim Palas. I mean, it's just the problem with all of these provincial leaders. They think that they are uber important, that there's supermen when it comes to anything, and that their view of the world must prevail. But what we need is for Victoria to be punched back into the
success that Australia needs it to have. A complete change of focus has got to come. I don't think there's the capacity within the latest premiere that the Labor Party have thrown up because the inbuilt attitude of too many Victorians is that it's doom and gloom. I think it's really sad. You know, there was a big rainstorm you might record it on Sunday morning as I was walking up Burke Street and even the eves of inner city
shops were leaking. There's no basic maintenance being done. You just know, reader, that there is a genuine lethargy in Victoria that Australia desperately needs an end to. And Tim Palace should hang his head in shame. And any opportunity Victorians have to tell a Labor Party so in a ballot box they should take.
Well, we had the new Opposition leader, Brad Batten on Sky News yesterday. He was interviewed by Peter Kredlin. I'm interested in your thoughts on him.
Could he pull a Chris of.
Foley and get the Coalition back into power.
Well, what he needs to do is to actually stand for stuff, be common sense, be value based, and actually offer an alternative viewpoint. I mean, reader, why is it that senior public servants in governments all around this country are being paid more than their ministers. You know, so ministers come and go, premiers come and go, but their senior public servants are getting paid much more than the politicians that are meant to be in charge on behalf
of us. You know, They're meant to be working for us, we the people, but instead they become the masters of us with their policy settings. So what Batman has got to do is the goat role and bring Victorians with him, and if he does, then he's deserving him.
You've got to tackle the bureaucracy, Marry, You're so right. He's got to tackle that bureaucracy that is at of control.
We've run out of time. Thank you so much for your time tonight, Gary. Thanks Now, I'm.
Thrilled to have my next guest on the Rita Pattery Show every week for another year. He is one of the finest thinkers of his generation, the author of international.
Best sellers including The Madness.
Of Crowds, The Strange Death of Europe, and The War on the West. Douglas Murray, welcome back. We've got plenty to discuss. Let's start in the US. We're a week away from the second Trump term. What do you say as the greatest priority of the president elect.
He has quite a mystic cleanup.
He does.
I mean, I think the priorities are obviously going to be what he said on the campaign trail. The priorities had to be have to be securing the southern borders, securing the borders of the United States of America, preventing the illegal migration that's gone on so extraordinarily in recent years.
Secondly, of course, there'll be.
The whole issue of the economy, of.
Rebuilding the American economy.
And as it was, the third thing, and as you say, it's a pretty big intray that he's got is going to be a world affairs. There's a lot that's gone on in the world in the last four years that Trump said would not have gone on if he'd been in the White House. Now he's going to be back in the White House, and it's his chance to show.
The difference between Trump and Biden.
Now, in many ways, California serves as a warning to much of the US of what can happen when the Democrats enjoy one party rule, when they can run a mark. It is the bluest of blue states and is embraced just about every far left policy, including DEI madness even in the fire department. Let's have a listen here to the Los Angeles Fire Department Assistant Chief Kristen Larsen talking about the.
Importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call, that looks like you. It gives that person a little bit more ease knowing that somebody might understand their situation better. Is she strong enough to do this? Or you couldn't carry my husband out of a fire, which my response is he got himself from the wrong place. If I have to carry him out of a fire.
He got himself in the wrong place.
That would be funny, Douglas if it was a Babylon b sketch, But sadly it's all too real.
Absolutely, and that's including at the very top of the fire department in LA, the head of the LA Fire Department. If you even now look at the website that she has her bio, it's all about the fact that she's a diverse woman, that she's a proud member of the LGBTQYA plus community, and that her priority is diversity and the numscu. We just heard from there also in the fire department. I mean, I hope very much that LA voters and others take note of this.
In the end, these people who talked for the diversity.
Talk didn't know what they were doing in the real world. Actually, it's not about somebody who looks like you coming to your house. It's about somebody coming to your house. It's about somebody saving your house from burning down. I spoke to residents of LA earlier this week whose home and all their belongings had been burnt to nothing, as had their whole neighborhood, and they said to me, not one fire.
Truck showed up, not one reta.
Now, if I was a resident there, and I'd heard this guff for years about how important it is that a diverse woman of color should come and how empowering it is that a lesbian is head of a No. No, you just want competent fire authorities. And that is exactly what LA has not had. And we'll see if the appropriate lessons are learned from that or not. But this goes right up to the top. It's Governor Nuisance who
is doing this nonsense. It's the local mayor who is doing this nonsense, heads of the fire service who are doing this nonsense. And in the end, somebody has to be responsible for the fact that there was no water. Somebody has to be responsible for the fact that there's no water coming out of the fire hydrants.
Somebody has to be responsible for all this.
And Governor Newsom has been standing intermittently, as we can see there in front of these fires, in front of these burned out buildings, talking about how we can all pull together and go forward, and all of the usual inane nonsense, and the whole neighborhood's burned down and is still burning.
I hope very much.
The residents who suffered from this realize that this stuff is not a joke, and things were always too late for this nonsense, and they're certainly too late for it now.
Now. For many years under the Biden administration, we've seen white supremacy spoken of as the greatest threat facing America.
We single out as the most dangerous terrorist about to our homeland.
There's white supremacy, and that divorce from reality worldview has for many many years infected institutions like a Department of Justice, the FBI.
How do you see that.
Changing under Trump, particularly after the shock of the New Orleans terror attack on New Year's Day.
Well, you know, a counter terrorism and counter extremism policy should be one of the most evidence based policies in government. It should not be about pushing an ideology. It shouldn't be standing in front of a particular demographic and an electorate and saying I've decided that X is the biggest threat.
It should be based on what the biggest threats are.
And you know this whole thing of you know that people people like Biden for years have known that they'd get a sort of Democrat round of applause if they started talking about being against white supremacy. I mean, like white supremacy is this thing where like everyone's agreed that they don't want it or like it, and nobody in the mainstream in politics or anything like that is pushing for the KKK to.
Have a resurgence.
When there is the occasional whacko white supremacist, everybody's joined in condemnation of them. But what's different, of course, is that when it's somebody who's an Islamist, as we had a number of attacks in America Europe over Christmas carried out by people who appear to be driven by Islamic extremism. Oh well, those same people stop being evidence based. In
fact that they run away from evidence. They don't want to talk about that, or we always get the thing of this isn't the time to talk about it, and further down the line also.
Isn't the time to talk about it? And actually it turns out there's no time to talk about it.
And I would just hope that there'll be a realistic weighing up of the threats the American homeland under the new administration and weighing up those threats wherever they come from and dealing with them wherever they come from. But we'll see. I mean, there's one of the things is that residues of administrations can last an awfully long time, particularly if they're of the left. They remain effectively in the trees and forests left behind by the retreating administration.
And there will be whole structures in CIA, FBI, the DHS, and others who will still be following the Democrat lead on this even once the Republicans are back in. And that's one to really look out for, because it's one thing to have the policy, it's another thing to actually have departments and institutions of government that actually see it through.
That of course, happened during Trump's first term, so I think he's hopefully learned from that.
I'm going to go scorched.
Earth from day one, and if cash Patel is there heading the FBI, I think you're going to see a little bit of that. But let's switch to the UK, where the kiirs starmer government seems to be more perturbed by the world's richest man, Elon Musk shining a light on the grooming gang scandal, then the fact that thousands of vulnerable girls were assaulted, were raped by mainly Pakistani Muslim men who were allowed for years to act with impunity due to political correctness. Douglas, we saw the rule
of law. We saw common decency sacrificed in the name of community cohesion and cultural sensitivity. Has the UK now learned its lesson? Could the Grooming gang scandal happen again?
Oh?
Of course it could happen again, because UK hasn't learned any lessons from it. And that's because, again, just like I was saying about the institutions in America, in Britain, it's not just the two tier policing system that kir Starmer has overseen since coming into office. It's the fact that the police, local counselor, local councils.
MPs and others have all overseen this.
And they all they've all overseen this. And actually it required perhaps Elon Musk and a few other high profile accounts in America to pick up on this and say, hang on, guys, what is it you've allowed to go on here for people to actually realize again in Britain what this was, which was the biggest sexual crime carried out in modern British history, all not just under the noses of but in front of the faces of all the relevant authorities.
And you know, at the.
Moment the big grand standing thing to do is to call for a full public inquiry into this. The truth is there are plenty of public inquiries that have been taken place that have taken place into these these these rape gangs, and nothing ever really changes that much because nobody nobody asks answers which.
They don't want.
Sorry, nobody asks questions rather that they don't want answers to. And the answers to this are, as I said in the Spectator this week, pretty straightforward. Actually there that if a man is found to have been a grooming raping, gang raping, molesting women or underage girls, that person should go to a prison for a very long time. And if they have dual nationality, they should be chucked out of the UK. They should have their British nationality withdrawn
and they should be deported. Now, most of these men should be deported back to Pakistan, but the immigration system in Britain is so rotten that, as I mentioned again in the Spectator this week, a number of the men were released from prison early, use the time to appeal against their deportation and use that time to give up their Pakistani citizenship so they could stay.
In the UK.
Because it takes so long to get people out of the UK, and in the end nobody does get sent out of the UK. Oh and then a couple of cases where people.
Actually were able to be turned to Pakistan.
Shock and horror. The Pakistani government didn't want more gang rapists in Pakistan, so they didn't receive them back. Well, any sensible government should say, you know what, Pakistan, we give you millions of pounds a year in foreign aid, as does our ally the United States of America, you'll take your citizens back. You'll take them back. Otherwise you can say bye by to any foreign aid or anything else.
But you know, none of that is coming from the government, and too little of it, in my view, is coming from the opposition either. They're all fixated on this. Let's have years of inquiries. Inquiries don't matter a damn when what happens is at the end of it, the inquiry is shelved, the person who's done the inquiry is thanked and nothing changes.
It is just so shocking, and I'm glad at least the American attention is saying the British public look at this again, because I was shocked. I wrote a lot about it at the time, seven eight years ago. This is in my mind, the greatest scandal in modern British.
History, and people treated it like it was nothing.
It was something that was worthy of a few headlines and when we get on with life, and I don't think they've really examined how this happened, what it says about modern British culture and.
There absolutely you're quite right. I mean, it's just astonishing.
And as I say, it's partly because this is one of those stories that runs straight against the credo of our time in countries like Britain, and i'd argue Australia, most of Europe and Canada and other places as well, and the credo is diversity is our strength, Diversity is our strength. The more diverse we are, the better we are. And the societies were in were desperately born, boring, bland
places until we brought some diversity into it. And you know, there's something to be said for the diversity argument, but not everything to be said for it. In fact, there are some things to be said against it. There are sometimes when you don't want to be more diverse.
There are certain.
Bits of diversity you don't really need, you don't really want. I would argue hundreds of thousands of people potentially who have seventh century attitudes towards women being imported into your society and being told to just get on with it
and being allowed to get on with it. And that's the problem for the authorities in all of this is that you know, for all of the police awareness diversity days and all the council diversity is our strength days, the rape gang's case showed there are actually downsides the diversity. There are negatives to it as well, and they didn't want to admit to that. They couldn't admit to it because there'd be a follow up question which would be what are you going to do about it?
And so they just ducked it.
They just ducked it, and they hoped in the immortal words of that queet that labor MP Naz Shah briefly retweeted and then took down. But the raped girls of Rotherham should quote shut up for the sake of diversity. They should shut up for the sake of diversity. No, some of us, like you and me Rita, always said that was wrong. These girls should have been listened to
and their complaints should have been acted upon. If anyone doubts that there is a double standard in modern Britain, as in many other Western liberal democracies these days, you just need to ask one question, what would have happened if it had.
Have been the other way round? What would have been the result.
If gangs of white working class men had been singling out underage Muslim Pakistani girls and gang raping them. Would we have passed it over? Would we have said that's a bit too awkward to talk about it? Would the police have just allowed it, Would the local councils have allowed it? Would that Pakistani community in Britain have allowed it. The answer to all of these things is, of course not. You just need to turn it the other way round.
And you see the two tier system in Britain at the moment, as in so many countries, because we cannot cope with the situation that generations of politicians have handed us.
Douglas Murray, thank you so much for your time this evening.
Great to see Rita.
Coming out another extended edition of Lefty's Losing It.
You might want to miss it.
Welcome back. Now it's time for Lefty's Losing It. And I think it's high time we checked in.
On the leader of the free world.
Yes him, Potus, that man the media told you was cognitively sound and a decent and honest and competent commander in check. If you can now add dangerously delusional to President Joe Biden's long list of ailments.
I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump, and I think that Carmen could have beaten Trump.
Would have been Trump.
Say what now, you could have beaten Trump?
No amount of fortifying elections could have seen you beat Trump, and as we saw, Kamala didn't come close either. So why is the president saying that now?
That's beyond me.
Also beyond me is why he'd be uttering a sentence like this. Listen here as he speaks about the California wildfire victims losing their homes before switching to his own happy personal news.
He got notification you're spend their home product today.
Parents that maybe still standing, I assure with the good news is I'm a pretty fanfile dead.
Their homes are gone, but yeay for me, I'm a great grandfather. Everyone clap, And if you.
Thought that was bad, listen here as the cognitive decline and compulsive line combine to see the President claim with a straight face that illegal border crossings came down when he became president.
This is next level lefty losing at lunacy.
Look, let's catch something in mind of a border. When I became president, the numbers came way down, number one, number two. We had a circumstance where I pushed very hard from buy a partnersal agreement to put more people on the borders, more more, more secret services. And guess what he's on the phone saying, don't do it. Don't do it? Make me look that.
Did he just claim to have put more Secret Service agents.
On the border. He has cooked folks.
The truth is, are the numbers exploded to record highs during his president agencies? The record numbers crossed illegally after Trump had overseen a sharp reduction in legal entries. And let's not forget this statement from Biden after Jimmy Carter's death. Will you use the occasion to you guessed it, attack Donald Trumps from President.
Carter deccy decency. Everybody deserves a shop, everybody. Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needs something to just keep walking.
It's from a man who doesn't even acknowledge his own granddaughter, Hunter's love child down in Arkansas, who the Biden's to this day refused to acknowledge, whose mother had to take legal action just to get some financial support for her. This is a man who wants to lecture us about decency. Okay, but whatever you may say about old Joe, at least he's.
Not Kamala here is the Veep and want.
To be president giving these words of advice to the victims of Californian wildfires, and so it's critically important that to the extent you can find anything that gives you an ability.
To be patient in this extremely.
Dangerous and unprecedented crisis that you do there.
You go basically amounts to sit down and calm down.
As authorities value.
Again, now this time with the inauguration days away, one must not forget the lengths the leftist media went to to cover up President Biden's and Vice President Harris's many deficiencies, though some of them are trying to rewrite history.
One of the things we also do in the year end correspondence round Tbile is dig into what was undercovered or under report.
Jim undercovered, underreported. That would be to me, Joe Biden's obvious cognizant decline that became undeniable in the televised.
At the presidential debate.
With unquestioned and you know, it's starting to emerge now that his advisors kind of managed his limitations been reported in the Wall Street Journal for four years, and yet he insisted that he could still run for president.
We should have much more.
Forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary for the Democrats. It could have changed the scope of the entire election.
It's starting to emerge now place it was obvious to anyone with eyes and ears that the president could barely function. We reported it here, and we were attacked for it over and over again. Let me quote Congressman Byron Donald, so had this to say for those in the media who have now decided to discuss Biden's mental condition. They decided to discuss it when it no longer mattered. They blamed it on a stutter. They blamed it on Russian disinfo.
They blamed it on cheap fakes. They hit him at every opportunity, They scripted every public event, They denied her report findings, They sent him on vacation for five hundred and seventy days. They brazenly lied to.
You for years.
This could be the biggest presidential cover up in American history, and the media defended it all until they got exposed at the debate. Don't let the media gaslight you. This story existed for years and they avoided it on purpose. Here here, I couldn't have said it better myself. Every single word there is true, and one of the very worst in the media. Don Lemon had this recent meltdown about Maga. He seems to have forgotten that Donald Trump actually won the election in a landslide.
He's I don't know. He thinks it's all fallen apart for Maga.
Dom idiots. Now you're just figuring this out. You're so stupid and you deserve it. You deserve it because you're so dumb.
Jim. It's hypocrisy. So go with me here.
Yes, I am gloating over your stupidity and how you were taken con.
I'm cracking. I'm cackling in Kamala.
You know what they're saying about the anti immigrant stuff, right, who's in to say that one of the jobs you might be seeking won't be one of those white jobs. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh ah.
It can only be a matter of time before the men in white coats come and take Don away to a nice paddned room. Good lord, And here is Jim Acosta with a human potato, where they both, surprise, surprise, believe the Biden White House should be censoring for a speech.
Meta has a lot of business before the US government, and I think that's als really what this is all about.
Yeah, he's complaining.
About the Biden administration, you know, yelling at them to say, you know, get some of this COVID misinformation off of their platforms.
I mean, isn't that.
That's sort of what the White House should be.
Doing, right dar Sticking with the media, here is sixty minutes Leslie.
Stone claiming the economy Trump.
Is inheriting is great, and trying again and again to get the CEO of JB. Morgan Chase to criticize Donald Trump's policies.
He is inheriting a pretty good economy despite what people feel. All these metrics that you see, But what about advice to him on some of the policies that he's threatening to do that could hurt the economy? For instance, tariffs. Have you talked to him about tariffs? If you could talk to him right now, what would you say.
I have not spoken about tariffs. I think you should be the art of the deal. He's the negotiator. He lays out some very tough things and sometimes it works. We have to worry more about now security resilience. The first fight supply chains and we didn't. And also we should worry more about who would hurt Tariff's ary way, every tool proper used that can help get some of those Isians result.
Oh, she wasn't done yet. She was going to try again.
Your relationship with him story. We all read that you called her, congratulated him, and he wouldn't take the call.
That wasn't true.
It was no, No, it wasn't true. Leslie should be used to that.
Remember when she claimed to President Trump's face that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, that there was no evidence of Joe Biden being the recipient of financial benefits from his son's dodgy business dealings. She also claimed there was no evidence that they spied on Donald Trump's campaign.
Don't forget this.
The biggest scandal was when they spied in my campaign.
They spied in my campaign.
There's no real evidence of that.
Of course there is.
It's all over the place, Leslie, they spied on my campaign again?
Can I say something? You know, this is sixty minutes and we can't put on things we can't verify.
Because it's Biden.
We can't put on things.
We can't verify my camp, we can't verify it totally verified.
And now that same journalist is upset that trust in the media is that his story glows. People do not trust these lifty active as masquerading as journalists.
I'm shocked if you watch the opinion of us, how many people trust the press anymore. I mean, we're way down there with the lawyers. This is really rough. As you know, your way down there with Congress exactly. I mean, we're way down there with Congress. But we're way down there, and I despair, seriously. I worry greatly, and I think there are other institutions that have been suffering. And you're right not to blame Donald Trump one hundred percent. Obviously
started many years before. But we're at a point where if the President of the United States is going to say legacy media is dead, well, I guess Musk said that legacy media is dead, and.
He wants it dead. He wants other media.
But it is kind of sort of hobbling right now, and I don't know how it recovers. I'm very just I'm very dark about it.
Ooh, she's very dark about it. The kids call that faffo fafo. Google it, Leslie. What you're saying is.
The consequences of your actions here is another grown man telling vulnerable kids that powerful drugs and irreversible surgeries are perfectly safe. Everything you're about to hear is a lie, a dangerous lie. And I've got to add this clown as a TV.
Host gender affirming here in maners. First of all, puberty blockers. Puberty blockers are safe, and interestingly, puberty blockers are given to cisgender kids.
Now when little girls are little.
Boys EXPERI it's precocious puberty, meaning puberty very early, around like four, five, six seven, they'll be given puberty blockers to delay puberty, not prevent it, so that when they're closer to like, you know, twelve thirteen, they can get off the puberty blockers and then puberty happens. As typical as far as long term fertility issues, puberty blockers have no link to long term fertility issues. And trans young people are not getting gender reassignment surgery. They're not getting
top surgery. They're not getting bottom surgery until they are seventeen eighteen, sometimes sixteen for top surgery, but they have to have parental consent.
That's clearized. Jonathan van Ness another celebrity gender propagandas who kin'd even stick to his own nonsense.
He says, kids aren't getting these top surgeries and bottom surgeries except when they're what's sixteen? That's under at eight in my book, if with parental consent, as if that makes it okay. And we're talking here about mutilating confused kids, removing healthy breasts at sixteen, perhaps a penis, and thinking it's justifiable. Goodness, me now saved the best for last.
Have a look at these absolute simpletons, these leftist agitators who think a member of her Mass and Islamus terror group would be more LGBT friendly than a typical Trump supporter. Just when you think that the left can't get any more stupid, that can't surprise you.
Between these two choices, who would you say is more likely to be supportive of the LGBTQ community? Okay, why would you.
Say that because he's a brown person and he's not for Trump?
Do you think the fact that he's part of how Mass would stop him from supporting that community.
Not at all?
Probably number one?
Number one? Why would you say that? Because Trump supporters are typically anti lgbt Do you think so somebody that's a member of how Mass would they support the LGBTQ community. You know, I'm not sure number one. Okay, what makes you say that they're just the kind of kinder Do you think that, you know, somebody that's saying them of hamas would be supportive of the gear community. Yeah, what do you think?
Yeah?
Maybe Hans number one, he lets all a friendly.
Still to come, more lefties losing at content, including California approving funding to fight Trump instead of relief for its wildfire victims.
Josh Hammer has the latest welcome back.
We've got plenty more lefties losing at content with my next guest, including some exciting developments for Judge Merchant.
You know that guy.
He oversaw Trump's sham trial in New York. But let's start with California, where you'd think they'd be focused on approving disaster relief, fixing their hopelessly inept fire response. But no, instead, they've just held a special session to prepare for Donald Trump, and they've.
Approved a twenty five million.
Dollar war chest for any potential legal battles with the Trump administration.
Despite several empty seats in the chamber because of the LA wildfires, the Democratic State Assembly gaveled into its special legislative session to prepare for incoming President Donald Trump.
I'd asked that you keep in mind.
Governor Newsom called the special session shortly after the election. As fires raged in southern California. State lawmakers still prioritized their anti Trump work. They established a committee and set a hearing for the legislation that sets aside twenty five million dollars to prepare for legal battles with the incoming administration.
Of course, Rainbow Flags Everywhere.
Joining me now is Newsweek's senior editor at Large and Article three projects Senior Council Josh Hammer. Josh, what can be done about California? And I do wonder whether this disastrous inept fire response is going to act as a red pill for for the state for so many who've just voted Democrat without him and thinking about.
It, well read a great to be back with you happy twenty twenty five. You know, look, I would propose a trade to the country of Denmark, to the Kingdom of Denmark here, why don't we trade you guys California, and in exchange you give us bad Greenland? Seems like a win win from my perspective there, I mean, Donald Trump seems to really want Greenland. I mean, California has been going down the tubes for decades now, but it
is really accelerated under Governor Gavin Newsom's tenure. He's the first governor in the entire history of the state of California. California became a state in the eighteen fifties, and literally from then until the twenty twenty United States Census, California always gained seats in the representation in the US Congress. This is the first time they lost seats. That happened under Gavin Newsom's tenure there. It's the highest cost of
living in the state there. But look as it pertains to this recent special session, Rita, he's been too busy trump proofing the state. He forgot to fireproof this state. I mean, look at what they've been doing in Sacramento. He forgot to put water in the water hydrants there. But No, in a media interview just a few days ago, now he says, Oh, you know what's it's the local person's problem. They're going to figure it out there. It's
a problem for the people on the spot. No, sir, you are the governor of the nation's largest state, the most populous state, the state that still has the largest GDP and so forth and so forth. There you are ultimately where the buck stops there. And I don't know
what's going to happen to the state of California. I wish I could come on your program read and say to you that I think California is going to be red pilled as a result of this, maybe on the margins, but I would be remiss if I made a confident prediction that that state is going to start voting for Donald Trump and Republicans anytime soon. But even a marginal shift away from just being a totalitarian one party state, I think will be something quite beneficial.
I think you're right.
I think by the time they're going to go back to the polls, this will sadly be forgotten. And so much more the fact that you've got a exodus of people. California is so blessed. It's just the most beautiful state. You've got the beach, you've got the mountains, you've got everything going for you, and yet you've got people leaving in record numbers, going to states like Texas and Florida and Tennessee Republican states because it is so difficult to
live there unless you're uber wealthy. Now, this is an important development. Incoming FBI Director Cash Battel has promised to investigate a progressive political consulting firm owned by Lauren Merchant, the daughter of one Merchant, the judge in Trump's hush money case. Here is a Cash Battel on Fox News earlier.
I'm calling for the subpoenas to be issued to judg Merchant's daughter's company, who made fifteen plus million dollars from the illicit information pouring out of her father's courtroom. I want to know all the bank records, because money doesn't lie. I want to know how deep it is and how much of it went to the family, and how much of it is going to the family after this false conviction.
And then we need to investigate the FBC actual violations that this judge and his family conducted because he should never have been overseeing this trial to begin with, because of the illicit campaign money that was flowing through there. And the unconstitutional due process violations are only the beginning.
Josh, what do we know about the money she was able to raise? Is it true she used.
The case her father was overseeing an email's soliciting donations.
So, first of all, this is exactly why cash Bettel is a perfect pit to lead the nation's FBI, and they try to bring the FBI back to a modicum of respectability because he cares about getting to the bottom of blatantly corrupt scandals, which the FBI has been ground zero of for the past seven eight nine years, going back all the way to the first Trump campaign in twenty sixteen. To your question, though, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Lauren Mrshan is her name. She she works
for a company called Authentic Campaigns. It is a Democratic Party aligned progressive fundraising vehicle. They distribute money to Democratic officials and left wing causes. There she was absolutely fundraising on her day job based on the fact that her daddy was to become the first judge to sentence a former and now soon to be president President President of the United States, Walmreshan himself. By the way, let's not let him off the hook easily. It's not just his daughter.
Wan more Shon himself donated twenty dollars to the Biden Harris campaign in twenty twenty. Seems like a small sum, but the fact that he donating in the first place he specifically earmarked that donation incidentally to the cause get Trump. This guy never in a million years should have been on this case. In the first case there, he had a million opportunities to accuse himself. He rejected it over
and over and over again. He should have declared a mistrial after the Trump versus the United States case at the United States Supreme Court in light of the presidential Meni decision there. He's done everything wrong since day one there. But ultimately he's an egomaniac. That's why he put in audio recording on sentencing day on Friday, because he wanted the history books readA to remember that he was the first guy who sentenced a former president of the United
States for one rashan. This thing is going to get tossed on a plasapp So this whole stupid convicted felon thing, unconditional discharge. Let them get their day in the sun. It's gonna last a matter of weeks, maybe even shorter than that.
I remember speaking to legal experts who observed some of this case, and they said it was an absolute sham. It was a travesty that this was happening in a first world nation, sort of thing you'd expect to see in some sort of banana republic. Now we've seen Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, deal away with the leftist activists masquerading as fact checkers on sites like Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg is now pretending to be some sort of defender
of free speech. Well, he is now that Americans have reelected Donald Trump. But should we trust him, Josh, because when it mattered, he was complicit in set answering and suppressing free speech. He donated hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money, I'd argue to fortify the twenty twenty election. I can't don't trust this guy as far as I can throw him. But I'm seeing a lot
of people be receptive to this backflip of his. What are your feelings about Meta and Zuckerberg in particular, because I'm just feel like he just goes with whoever's holding power. If Kamala Harris had won, none of this would be happening.
Yeah, I mean, let's off again, Mark Zuckerberg. You know, to your points about using this kind of tongue in cheek euphemism about Fortify and the twenty twenty election, you know he spent four hundred million dollars four hundred million dollars in so called Zucker Box. He did probably more than any individual in the world other than possibly George Soros himself to tip that election to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So a little bit of a Johnny completely
thing here to put him mildly. Nonetheless, he is on this grand elaborate Maya culpla tour at started this past August. He wrote this letter to Jim Jordan on House Judiciary Committee, finally fessing up for the first time to the fact that they censored COVID nineteen information, censored the Hunter Biden laptop. Now he's doing Joe Rogan's podcast, he's flying to mar A Lago. I'm not buying it. I'm with you. I
don't think this guy is sincere whatsoever. I guess the only additional points I would make is if he's actually making concrete changes, and he just made This guy Joel Kaplan a former George W. Bush White House attorney, a longtime DC Republican. He is now the head of Global Affairs of METAF. I have his title right there. So he's positioning he's trying to position his company well for
the second Donald Trump term. He's basically just trying to make sure that Donald Trump's anti trust cops don't start busting on Meta forcing them to divest Instagram, WhatsApp for the various other assets there. That's what's actually going on here. But as long as he's actually doing real steps to get free speech back on Facebook, Instagram, And to be clear, I have a distrust but still verify approach to this. I don't trust him for a second, but less I guess let's take the progress.
Absolutely it's a positive move.
Ann You look at the numbers of people who use Facebook every day, you use Instagram. If these changes are going to be implemented properly, then it is going to make a huge difference.
But yeah, I do not trust Mark Zuckerberg, not yet.
Now the musical lineup for Donald Trump's inauguration has been revealed. We've got country music superstar carry On Underwood taking part the Village People. We know he loves the Village People, as well as a couple of Trump's favorite country singer League Greenwood, opera singer Christopher Marcio.
They're all going to be performing.
I'm particularly excited Josh about Kerry Underwood, and it's pretty brave of her to do this. She is a mainstream star, she is a superstar, and we know how intolerant and far left entertainment industry has become. So is she going to get some blowback over this?
Well, I'm actually a country music mega fan. That's basically all I listened to. So let me just real quick say that Toby Keith should have been here performing for Donald Trump on his on his second inauguration. He performed back in twenty sixteen, but unfortunately Toby Keith Salley passed aways to come to stomach cancer far too young, back in September twenty twenty three, so made his memory be a blessing. I am very happy that carry Underwood is
performing here. I mean, she is an absolute megastar. I'll be honest with you. I had no idea that she was right leaning. I had no idea what her politics were. She hasn't really previously revealed them at all here. You know, country music as an institution based in Nashville, Tennessee, it's still based in the South. Their fan base is still by and large right of center. The kind of people that are salt of the Earth, go to church on Sundays. But you've had a lot of woke stuff still emerging
from the country music industry. So between Carrie Underwood here, Jason al Dean his hit Try That in a Small Town, his wife going on Tucker Carlson's old show on Fox News, You're starting to see some of the mega stars kind of come home to their own fan base there and again. As a longtime country music diehard fan, I'm loving it.
I'm with you one hundred percent, Josh.
I'm a huge country fan too, and it's good to be reclaiming the genre from the pretenders.
That's all the time we've got, folks.
I'll be going off to the inauguration tomorrow, but I'll see you Friday for LEFTI is Losing and don't miss that.
Up next is Newsnight,