Attention. You're listening to the Todd Huff Radio Show, America's home for conservative not bitter talk radio. Be advised the content of this program has been documented to prevents and even cure liberalism, and listening may cause you to lean to the right. Here's your conservative but not Bitter host, Todd Huff, Conservative not Bitter Indeed, welcome, my friends to this episode of The Todd Huff Show. I hope you had a great weekend. Email as always, well,
ever since we changed it, Todd at tod hufshow dot com. Questions, thoughts, opinions, feedback, always be sure to include that adoration and praise. You can also text us those things three one zero twenty eight dirty. Just be advised that texting and messaging rates, data rates, those sorts of things may apply. It's good to be here, my friends. So I want to start something that happened on on Friday. Something happened on Friday.
Tucker Carlson sat down with Mike Pence excuse me, and did an interview with Vice President Pence. And people are saying that this is the end of the Pence campaign, and well for twenty twenty four, I have to tell you that if you listen to this program, and I know folks listen, this is not I think it's popular with most of you. But even if it wasn't, and I thought it, I would say it. But it's not popular with some of the folks. You know that that I know here
in Indiana. This is Pence's Pence's home, This is Pence is from Columbus, which is roughly I don't know, an hour from me. I'm guessing anyway. But his campaign, as I said, as I said when he announced his candidacy, I said, he will not be the candidate. This is this is just maybe maybe one of the I want to be nice here. This is not personal. I promise it's not something I know for some of you it is. I know for some of you it is. It's
not for me, and I don't want to make it that way. But this is one of hundreds of things that would have proved thousands of things that would have prevented Trump from excuse me, Pence Pence, by the way, not Trump Pence from winning the nomination. And so he's on with Tucker Carlson, being asked a lot of things, and he's asked about about Ukraine. Now I want to say Pence is an old school conservative, and I mean in many ways I am too. But I think that one of the things
that the conservative movement has become more open to. I suppose that the way I want to say this is this idea, well, is the is using the military less. Conservatives traditionally have been quite hawkish on the military, a strong military as a conservative principle. Now that being said, that being said that that doesn't mean that we should accept any amount of money, any budget from any department in our government and just blindly fund it without any sort of
accountability and that sort of thing. In fact, I saw Democrat Representative Row Kana out there to actually, for the first time maybe in his history, Representative Kana is out there saying that we're out of bullets and the government's wasting it's money. By the way, that's in the stack of stuff today on the website if you want to see that clip. I think he's on with what's the I'm drawing a blank why he's seeing in I'm drawing a blank on
who the anchor was. I can see his face. It's the one that Trump Acosta, Jim Accosta, Jim Acosta Jim Acosta, I'm not gonna call you fake news anymore. Well, thank you, President Trump. I'm you're very fake news. I'll never forget that exchange they had during the Trump presidency. But anyway, but the left is even understanding that the government spending is out of control, even if they only see it on the issue of the military. The fact of the matter is, the fact of the matter is
the military spending can be cut back. It has to be cut back. I'm not saying exactly the same percentages, but it needs to be cut across the board. Now, obviously, we don't want to be in a situation where we're weakened militarily, and we have to be realistic as to how these other countries, these other nations, these adversarial nations like China, like Russia, like Iran, I wouldn't. I mean, you always have to keep an eye on North Korea, not so much for their military strength, but
just for their craziness. But you know, we have to stay ahead of them. We have to be able to we have to be able to display dominance across the world. I get all that, and I'm fine with that, not to use it as a form of aggression, but to use it to keep the peace. You know, it just goes back to the schoolyard. My friends, If if the bully is the toughest person on the block, a bunch of kids are going to be getting bloody noses and at recess.
But if the toughest kid on the playground is the one that tells the bully to knock it off, and the bully knows he can't take him, well, guess what, There's gonna be less bloody noses on the playground. And that's kind of how I view the US military. Not again were the world's police, but just the presence and the threat of a powerful military that can be effectively acting in any theater around the world at a moment's notice is
a good a good thing. But we also don't just want to throw money at it and not question it. That's not that's not being you know, inconsiderate for the military or our troops. I mean, there's waste anywhere. I mean, that's just I guarantee there's waste. And it's not because of
what we're paying the troops. It's because of something that we're mismanaging. I mean, government is incredibly inefficient, especially when it does not have to be held accountable, and so there's a balance there, right, That's that's the bottom line. But I'm Pence is I think an older school conservative, and I think he's quicker, don't. I don't think he's learned that Many conservatives today, the Libertarians of course are in this group as well. Limited government
types were tired of wars. Now some of the I'm not saying that we shouldn't have fought any war or anything like that, but the conservative movement has become a little less hawkish in recent years, especially when you throw countries into
the like Russia and Ukraine. One of the quickest ways to irritate Odds that you can possibly come up with is to tell her another five billion, fifty billion, ten billion is being sent to Ukraine and whatever shape, manner or form that that may take, cash or tanks or cluster bombs or whatever. She's not a fan of this, and I'm not either, but it's I mean, it lights her fuse quicker than just about anything. But that message
does not seem to have gotten to Pence. Now this is interesting to me from a philosophical perspective, because you know, Pence is a guy that's been around for a while. He's studied politics. He understands even if I mean some of these things I agree with him on some of them, I don't. He understands geopolitical relations and some of these adversaries and risks around the world
and so forth. But the you know, back in the back in the eighties or even back before this, but we were we were engaged in trying to contain the fact, it was called the Containment policy, contained communism. After we ended World War Two, the Soviet Union, we knew was communists,
but they helped us. Actually they played a huge role. You can almost swell us and Great Britain and Russia defeated the Nazis in World War Two, and at the conclusion of that war, there was a lot of you know, there was the negotiation, the treaty and all that sort of stuff, and the Eastern part of Europe kind of fell under the I don't know the leadership or the I don't want to say authority, although that's what it
became. Quickly fell under the purview of the Soviet Union, and Western Europe fell under the purview of the UK and the United States, and there was a stark line drawn. In fact, in one place that line became a physical barrier separating East and West Berlin with the Berlin Wall, and on one side in East Berlin they were Communists. The wall was built so that people could not leave East Berlin and go to West Berlin. That's where everybody wanted
to go. So the wall was built to keep people in. The wall that was built by the Communists, which of course our kissing cousins to the socialists. The wall was built to keep people in, to keep people inside. Wasn't to keep people out or to keep people from crossing willy nilly, like we've talked about here or Trump has implemented here with his border wall. The wall was instead designed to keep people in. And so as such we
were very and understandably so the Reagans. Reagan's much of his administration was focused on talks with Gorbachoff, the Soviet Union, nuclear proliferation, all of these treaties, trying to keep World War three from happening, and that sort of thing. And so the way that we looked at the world, or many Conservatives did back in the eighties, right or wrong, was that we wanted to get involved if it looked like Soviet Communism was expanding. That's why I
mean things like the Iran Kantra affair pop up. I mean our involvement in political or military guess she would say military issues became more prevalent. It's why we helped Afghanistan, who actually helped Osama bin Laden the mujah Hadeen back in the nineteen what the early eighties, I guess, fight off the Soviet Union because the theory was, or the concern was that communism spreads, and communism does spread, It spreads by force. No one once they understand the total
totalitarian nature of communism. Really once communism, we're always told that it's going to be something else, but it takes this brutal form and it crushes the hearts and souls of the people within its country, and eventually, eventually the pressures and the weight of the obligation of communism is such that they have to
go get more people. They have to get more people to create an economy that can produce enough for the people, or they're going to starve or have extreme poverty, which is what happens every single time, except of course, for the ruling class and the political elites. They're totally fine. They are wealthy enrolling in the dough. So that's why we were concerned. We knew that it was just the nature of communism to spread like this, and anytime
it tried to do it, we at least tried. Now this dates back, the containment policy dates back way before Reagan. But that's I'm saying that Pence is from kind of that erast. So whenever he hears Ukraine and Russia, which is what he was asked about by Tucker Carlson on Friday, which many people are saying the response to that question ended his campaign, I think they're dead wrong. I think the campaign ended the second they announced it.
I said that on this program. This was just one of again potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of ways that their campaign was going to come to a screeching halt. Now I don't know if they'll survive this phase of that or not. It's not looking very good. They're fundraising numbers or are absolutely
atrocious. They don't know for certain yet. As the last last time that I looked at three, I'm gonna make the first debate stage the certain the criteria that's set forth for that, they may not achieve that, so they're
in a pickle. That's the former vice president of this country should be in theory, taking away all the January sixth stuff and all that, but just in theory, if the former vice president of the United States as science to throw his or her hat into the primary process, they shouldn't be struggling to fundraise or get on the debate stage meeting certain criteria. But that, of
course, is where we are headed with the Pence campaign. And this, of course was maybe not specifically predictable, but predictable in the larger since they have a have an uphill battle. They're entire fire strategy and philosophy. And the crossing of the fingers is that Trump gets taken out. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. That's how I see it. It's the only chance they have is if Trump ends up I mean with these
indictments being taken out, whatever that means. That means I mean, I don't even want to speak some of these words, but ends up in prison, which I'm not predicting, but this is what the bet was. Trump ends up in prison. It's just too much baggage for Republican donors. To supports he's gonna just give up, and which again that's crazy talk to me, that Trump's gonna would quit. But that's the thinking his entire campaign,
entire campaign strategy for Pence is predicated upon that. Is there not to be a Trump. Then and only then does he think he has a shine. And I still don't think he does at that, as I've made clear before, So not personal, as kind of setting the stage for what I want to get to next segment, which is Tucker Cross and asking Mike Pence about Ukraine, Pence giving an answer, Tucker Cross and pushing back, and then Pence making a comment which is certainly not good, certainly not good at all
from from what he said, and maybe it was misunderstood. I don't know. I try to get folks even the benefit of the doubt here, but if you take the words and think, you know, if he meant those words, or even if he just let him slip or whatever, it's just not it's not good at all, objectively not good. So timeouts in order. When we come back, we will play that clip, talk about that and get to plenty of other things in today's news. My friends, you're
listening here to conservative, not better talk. It's good to be back here on this Monday, be back in just about it. Welcome back, my friends. So with nothing operating us from this Pence sound by many of you may have seen this, heard this over the weekend. Oz had told me that she had heard that people are saying it's been clipped. It's not been clipped it. I do think, I do think, and I know some of you don't want me to be fair, but I am fair, even
if it's even to a fault. I don't believe he really means what he says here. I think. I think through they're talking past each other. He understood there's a misunderstanding because Mike Pence is a he's a he's been a politician for a while. There's certain things that you know that you never that you never do. And again, as I've shared before, when you speak as much as these folks speak, you're bound to make some mistakes. Now,
I did see Biden stumbles going up the stairs. Again, that's something that doesn't normally happen. President face planning all over the place, but that is that is a little bit different. But you know, when you speak as much as these guys do, I give him some I do even Biden, but again, what Biden says and what Pence says here are nowhere in the same universe. Like I can, as a reasonable adult human beings say, I think he was referencing Ukraine instead of the United States in his response,
you know, like that that's a legitimate explanation. It's not the right words, because when you listen to what Tucker Carlson was asking him, Vice President Pence did not say the right thing. So, I mean, in one sense, it's not that big of a deal, but because I don't believe he meant the way that it came out. But in another sense, in the sense of the superficiality of politics in the SoundBite culture, I do think that it is probably a big problem. Now, the truth is the
people that there's actually more did I see this? I think there's more never Pincers in the Republican Party than there are never Trumpers. A higher percentage of people said that they will never vote for Pence, and I'm pretty sure I saw this. I think it was like twenty five percent or some such thing. It was a couple of weeks ago, probably right after Pence announced his candidacy, Anyway, all that being said, here's Pence sitting down with Tucker
Crosson. This is about a ninety second clip. He gives an answer on Ukraine Russia. Tucker Crosson pushes back. Pence responds, and it doesn't sound good at all. In fact, if you take him at his word, or take the words literally, and don't think he's making a mistake here he's basically saying, and I listen, I don't. I think it's just I think there was misunderstanding as to who they are in this example. But he says that. I guess he said that's not my problem or something like this,
very similar to that. So I think he was referencing Ukraine, but it could easily. In fact, it's technically constructed. With his answer, it sounded like he was talking about American cities. So that being said, here's a sound Biden along the way. The Biden administration has been slow in providing military support. Made no mistake about this. We promised them thirty three Abrams tanks in January. I heard again two weeks ago in Ukraine they still
don't have them. We've been telling them we'll train their F sixteen pilots. But now they're saying, maybe January, we'll let somebody transfer some jets. I'm sorry, mister Vice President, have you I know you're running for president, you aren't distressed that the Ukrainians don't have enough American tanks. Every city in the United States has become much worse over the past three years. Drive around. There's not one city that's gotten better in the United States. It's
visible. Our economy has degraded, the suicide rate has jumped, public filth and disorder and crime have exponentially increased. And yet your concern is at the Ukrainians, a country most people can't find out a map, who've received tens of billions of US tax dollars, don't have enough tanks. I think it's a fair question to ask, like, where's the concern for the United States in that. Well, it's not my concern, that's Tucker. I've heard
that routine from you before. But that's not my concern. I'm running for president of the United States because I think this country's in a lot of trouble. I think, Joe, so that's not my concern, he said. Now it certainly sounds like, again, what is that right? I mean, it can certainly be construed to say American cities. That is not my concern, Tucker. That can certainly sound like what he's referencing here. He should have done better at explaining that. I don't think that that's what he
meant. As I've said, he's not going to be the Republican nominee for president, but this may take him out this and the lack of fundraising has not potentially I don't know if they've gotten met the criteria yet to be on the debate stage, but all these things are piling up. It's early, I mean, it is early in the process, and they can't get the
wheels off the ground. And on top of that, I don't want to completely abandon the pens discussion here, but when you look over at what's happening with the de Santis campaign, does Santis campaign lays off some laid off some staff, and they've missed some fundraising goals. Now it also appears that everybody's fundraising goals maybe aren't as good as they had hoped or intended. But that's
kind of where kind of where we are right now. I mean, as we all know, as we all know, and as the people who are giving money to these campaigns. Also know this is still they have to know this. If they don't, I don't understand the thinking this is still in spite of everything going on, as we've said, as you know, this is still Trump's to lose. Now, there are a lot of concerning things
going on out there in a sane world. I'm not saying they're they're concerning, but in the world that we live in where one side of this, well, one side of the political debate has weaponized the government against the other side, I mean, it's a legitimate concern to be to think about what's going to happen with Trump and these indictments. In a sane world, I don't think anything would. I don't think we would be here now in a sane world. But here we are, and so that's what they're betting on.
But they've I mean, they stepped into this and I said it at the time. I said it about DeSantis, and it's not personal. I think I think de Santis has done some really good things. I think he's been strong. I think that's the most important. You want someone who's still conservative in their principles, someone who still endorses policies that are in line with
the constitution, with limited government. Someone who's gonna cut taxes, roll back the bureaucratic red tape, all that kind of stuff, find ways to cut budgets or get us back. Folks. We are borrowing. I saw this in the stack of stuff too. This is the we're in the third we finished three quarters. Yeah, we're almost We're in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, and we are borrowing right now five point one billion with a b dollars every day in the federal government, folks. That is, if
anyone doesn't think that's unsustainable, they need to invest in a calculator. Actually, just a dry race board, a chalkboard, a pencil with a pad of paper. This is unsustainable. And so of course the candidate needs to have conservative principles and values, but they have to have a fight. That is, it's necessary to dismantle as much of this bureaucratic state as possible,
and of course they're gonna make it next to impossible. So that's what I like about obviously Trump, That's what I like about De Santis, and it's worth Pence. One of the biggest glaring to me issues that he has is just that fight that is critically important. It doesn't matter if you have the best ideas in the world. Old if you're not prepared to go in there and try to literally dismantle this beast, we will not get anywhere. They
will throw wrenches in the gears. They the deep state, the bureaucratic state, whatever, the swamp, whatever you want to call it. I don't even care. The people that are working behind the scenes, that are doing things that we've seen the FBI do, for example, they throw a wrench in the gears of everything, any investigation, any pursuit of truth. I
mean, how many things have they gotten right lately? None? Now, again, these are things that are strategically controlled by the people in these positions of power, the James Comby's and the Christopher Rays and all that. So, but this is this needs to be addressed. We need someone that before day one HITS is chomping at the bit to get in there and to clean
house. And I just I mean, Pence doesn't have that. Pince doesn't I would obviously if it's Pence or Trump, or excuse me, Pence or Biden, I would clearly push the button, pulled the lever, check the box whatever. For Pence but this is not I just think it's living in a world of naive tay to think that that is going to solve the problem. I think a lot of people realize this. Couple that with what we've
heard and the fundraising numbers and everything else. Everyone else is in a world of hurt besides Trump right now, anyway, timeouts in order, So time about now. There's I do have one semi exception to that, and I'll talk about that after the break, but I gotta take a time out. My friends sit tight back in a minute. So who do I make the minor exception for? In my mind? In my mind as we look at the current field of Republican candidates, and again this is I don't want to
be misunderstood here. I'm I don't. I think it's a it's a what I want to say, a miscalculation to jump into this race when Trump had announced that he's running. I don't think that he's entitled to it. I just think it's strategically a mistake. I think, you know, and I understand in a sense where people think you know, who knows, who knows what will happen the next four years? You know is you don't you don't get to put these opportunities on pause if you think that you can run.
I get all that I do, but I also think that a huge chunk of the American electorate falls into one of these categories. First would be someone like me, and I think many of you who agree with the sentiments that I articulated at the end of last segment, which is basically, we have a government that's out of control. We have known this for decades. No
one has decided to try to truly go after it and fix it. And then suddenly we see this guy named Donald J. Trump jump into the scene and to go after it, and you've seen what happens as a result. In fact, I thought about this the other day. Remember when Chuck Schumer,
I think I mentioned this. Chuck Schumer was on one of these political talk shows in an interview some time ago criticizing Trump back when he was president for angering or upsetting the intelligence community, and Chuck Schumer, Senator Schumer said, the intelligence community has what do he say, seven Ways to Sunday or some such thing to get back at you, which at the time was it's
just crazy to me. It was meant to communicate this idea, like to say, the president of the United States at the time, Donald Trump had no idea who he was messing with. And I'm thinking, even back then, and of course today, in light of everything that we've learned about our government, why would that be remotely even something a senator would want to utter.
Why wouldn't a senator say, we can't have an intelligence community that we think that about, my goodness, and we've seen absolute hell unleashed on Trump in every conceivable way, impeachments, Russian collision. I don't want to go through all of it. We talk about this, We've talked about it a lot, right, I mean, it's obvious spying on his campaign January sixth, Now the indictments, I mean, they are terrified of this guy.
And so someone like me, and I think many of you, would say the reason he's getting so much flak is because he is over the target. He is over the target, and they are terrified because if anybody can bring it down, it's someone well I wouldn't even say someone, I would say it's it's Donald Trump. And I don't mean in some catastrophic way destroy. I mean in a way that's actually liberating to the country to bring down the corruption. I'm not predicting even he can is. This is deep and thick
and problematic. That's why I said in the past I liked I don't know what I think now, but I liked the idea of having four years of Trump and then potentially eight years of desantist because DeSantis has demonstrated he's a fighter. I know some of you have some concerns and so forth. I've got
some questions about some things, but he has demonstrated he's a fighter. But the person that I've made an exception for in my mind, the person that I'm kind of glad is in this field, and the person that I get asked about. I got texted about it over the weekend. Someone asked me, because no one can spell his name, what do you think about this vivek Ramaswamy guy. And I like vivek Ramaswamy a lot. I think vivek Ramaswamy maybe someone who has a future as far as a political future. I
think he's got great ideas. I think he's he's principled. Again, I can't I don't know everything about him, but what I'm learning and saying I like. I like a lot. He's not afraid to go into the hornet's nest, if you will, or the belly of the beast and talk to some of these jokers at CNN and everywhere else. He's very articulate on conservative principles. I mean, he's got very good answers, can explain things. I just I like it. I think it really there's a lot of good
things there. But I think, you know, someone like him, it's good to be able to get some notoriety and for people to see who he is and what he believes. And I think that as a second phase or whatever tertiary phase to this movement of regaining control of our country, dismantling the political class, which includes both parties. By the way, I got a message last week. Some guy says I didn't go after the Republican part Give me a break. I feel like I'm harder on individual Republicans than I know
what I'm getting with the left. I know what I'm getting with the Democrat Party. I don't like these pretenders I name them on this show on a regular basis. Tell me you don't listen to the show without telling me you don't listen about the show. Listen to this show. If you say I don't say things about Republicans, I say I'm not a Republican. I vote Republican almost sometimes holding my nose. I'm a conservative, I'm an American.
I'm a constitutionalist. I'm a limited government guy. I'm a guy that believes in liberty. Voted for libertarians before, not on the national level. I voted for the libertarian for governor of the state of Indiana. I couldn't vote for Eric Holcomb, which because of reasons that I'm decided he's to me. Those guys, those make believe conservatives or people that have I don't know.
They just they do more damage because people assume, well, if I vote Republican as a conservative and then they don't govern like one, and then someone says, we'll see, they don't have any different outcome, even when I do vote for him, but you're not implementing conservative policies. Sure wasn't a Rhoda Santis here with Governor Holcombe, that's for sure. Sure wasn't a governor
Abbot, I mean none. It wasn't Trump. It was much more closer to well, he was closer, Oh boy, he was closer to Whitmer. He was closer to Governor Whitmer than he was to Trump into Santa's Eric Wilcom anyway. So but Viva Ramaswamy, I like him a lot. I think he's got potentially a future in the party. I love a lot of what he's doing. But this, this battle is Trump's. This is Trump's to lose. It has been, it has been since two thousand and sixteen,
or you could say since two thousand and twenty. And I firmly believe that, and a lot of people do. There's another group of republic another vote, a group of voters too that will only vote for Trump and not anyone else. So that can't be overlooked. Also, I gotta take a time out there, quick time out my friends back in just a minute. Welcome back, my friends. So did you see I'm trying to I got
so many things here in the stack of stuff. But did you see that there has been a report that has been released that contradicts the claim that no fingerprints were found on the bag of cocaine that was found at the White House. So there's that was the announcement. The Secret Service can't figure it out. There's no cameras back there, which, by the way, by the way, why can I not walk down the street, Why can you not get to a traffic light in your city, in your state without a camera
staring you in the face. But somehow, some way you can get to the back door of the White House and there's no cameras. I just I have a hard time believing this, folks. I have a very hard time to believe this. And if that is the case, who are they sneaking in here? I mean, what's going on to where they don't want I mean, it has to be what it is they don't want people to see. Of course they would just hide it from us anyway, but they don't
want them to be any existing physical evidence. Whatever's going on at the club White House snorting cocaine topless, who knows what else. I don't it may be X rated coming through that camera. But anyway, so we've got a report that says there was a fingerprint found on the cocaine. So I mean, they just don't care that. It's Oh, I tell you, when I when I see this and I love this country, folks, and when I see the effort that is put into demonizing Trump and You don't have to
like him. You can hate the tweets, you can hate the way he talks. It doesn't even matter to me. But at least hate him for accurate reasons. Don't hate him because the media has stirred the rest of America or people who don't pay attention into a frenzy, people who don't think for themselves. Meanwhile, we've got a guy running the show now as commander in chief, face planning, having cocaine at club wide house and everything else, and no one cares. I mean you care, But it's the thing of
the outrage comparatively to what it was with Trump. It's just, uh, got an uphill battle as far as that goes. My friends, anyway, I gotta take a break, quick time out back in a minute. Welcome back from my friend. There's a whole bunch of other things and the stack of stuff that I would like to get to, but again including Trump. I was telling oz this during the break. Trump, during his interview with Maria Bardaromo, actually said, I said, I love this, well,
this is We're never gonna have another time in politics like this. We're just not. We're not. And I know it's his decision. To hire Christopher Ray. But he actually said in the interview to Maria with Maria bard Romo, Chris Christy's a guy that actually recommended that I hired Christopher Ray. I just I love it because I'm telling you, I do think in Trump's world, he's like, well, Chris Christie's a guy that is involved in politics. He's been on a prosecutor. He knows the stuff. Let me see
what he thinks. Anyway, folks, I've gotta go have a great day. STG. See them off.