So I am so excited for this guest. He is absolutely hilarious and brilliant as well. You might know him for some of his funny quips, like this from a twenty twenty two campaign ad.
If you hate cops just because of the cops, the next time you get in trouble, caw crackhead.
See you heard the man. The next time you get in trouble, call crackhead if you hate cops. But he's also known for eviscerating Joe Biden's judicial nominees and witnesses who come before him.
Tell me what Article five of the Constitution does.
Article five is not coming to mind at the moment.
Okay, how about Article two?
Neither is Article two missile?
What is collateral estoppele?
Collateral estoppel? I certainly do know collateral estoppable. I'm finding that the bright lights of the moment are for me to recall it.
Okay, So you don't recall it, okay. And the man on the bench he's going to decide my case, tells me to stand up and announce my pronoun that's not voluntary, that's oppressive. And that alone. Forget his writings which Senator from Cruise went through very eloquently. That alone tells me that he cannot exercise power maturely. If I could vote no twice, I would, I think.
Because the man is so hilarious, people forget how brilliant he is. The guy graduated in magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University. He got his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he was an executive editor of the Virginia Law Review and also elected to the Order of the KOI if which I'm told his very prestigious. He got his Bachelor of Civil Law degree with first honors
from Oxford Universe. He's written and published several books and articles on constitutional law, the Louisiana Products Liability Act, and the Federal Power Commission. But because he grew up in a small town, he has his finger on the pulse of the electorate. He seems to really have an understanding of what we all care about, of what Louisiana's care about.
So I think that's what makes him so interesting. To have all of these combine, sitting in the Senate, viscerating judicial nominees, bringing common sense to the Senate and the country, all while having a sense of humor. So I am so excited to interview him about the state of the country, his sense of humor, and where this is all going. Stay tuned for Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana. Well, Senator Kennedy,
it's so great to have you on the show. I got to meet you recently and I was like, please, please please come my MOP podcast. So I appreciate you making the time.
Thank you.
So you're you're a funny guy in a town that really lacks a sense of humor. You know, in fact, it seems like as a country we've lost or sense of humor. You know, you're famous for equips like a twenty twenty two campaign ad, Look if you hate cops just because they're cops, the next time you're in trouble called crackhead. You've joked about Joe Biden that voters don't
trust him to open a can of prinkles. About the one point three trillion dollars stimulus bill, you said, this is a great Dane size whiz down the leg of every tagspair. How do you come up with this stuff? Like, what's your creative process?
Well, there's there's not really a process. So what before I'm interviewed my my, My good team, my communications team knows they give me all kinds of facts and figures, do a great job with that, but they know to leave me alone for about five minutes for the interview so I can sort of think what I want to say, because usually the interviews, as you know, are very short period of time, and you don't want to waste people's time. And the American people don't read their Startled every day
because they're too busy earning of living. So when they do see on TV, they want you to make your points. I have always admired a clever turn of phrase and people who can write. I can write, but it's painful, and I don't know. The good Lord just gave me a brain that causes me to remember the way people cleverly put things sometimes, and some of it just comes to me from my upbringing. I was raised in a very small, blue collar town in the South, in Louisiana.
You know what, you know what a small town is. A small town is where where everybody knows whose check is good and whose spouse isn't. And that was the way that that was the way I was raised, and so I don't know. Also I can't think of a better way to put this. I've always believed you ought to always be yourself now unless you suck. If you suck, you ought to try to be something else, but always try to be yourself. And that's what I do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
I think it works more than not. You know, C do you think have we lost our sense of humor as a country.
A little bit? There are things that we can't talk about anymore with or without humor. I really regret that we can't talk more about, for example, race in America. I think we've made a lot of progress in our country in one hundred and fifty years. Uh. You know, we America caught, like every other civilization, caught the disease of slavery, but we beat it back, and since then we passed I don't know a dozen civil rights laws.
That doesn't mean that there aren't racists in our country, but I think most people in America today think more about about character than color. I think most people understand that that to to to a bear, we all taste like chicken. But you can't talk about race anymore, and you've got to be not that you want to use humor necessarily talking about race. But when you do use humor, you've got to think about it ahead of time because you don't want to you know, you don't want to
offend anybody and lose the point of your message. But there are a lot of I mean, the the moon owing. Well, let me back up. I don't hate anybody. I really don't. When I say my prayers. One of the things I asked God for. Don't want me hate because it's hard in Washington, DC, because the deck stacked against you if you're conservative. But I don't hate anybody, and I try to get along with everybody. But I do say what's on my mind, and some people like that, some don't.
But there are a lot of just professional victims out there in America today who hyperventilate on their yoga mats if you say something they don't like. I try to ignore them. In fact, I try not to worry too much about what anybody thinks about me except dogs. I really like dogs. I care what dogs think about me, but I just let it rip.
Well, and that's what I've heard. I've heard you're a big dog lover. You know, there is that saying if you want a friend in Washington and get a dog. Is that why as you talk about sort of the difficulty in Washington, d C. And sort of the hostility there.
Well, look, here's the problem in Washington. It is a democratic town. Ninety percent of the people in Washington, or or corporate phonies or entrenched politicians or academics or members of the news media, most of them are Democrats. I would have to say today that most of them are. They're they're they're deeply weird, They're nauserously woke. They they hate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and doctor Zeus and mister Patata. They they want to seriously
debate whether a man can breast steed. They think they're smarter and more virtuous than most Americans. And that's one of the reasons people hate Washington and one of the reasons our country is is divided. My experience in Washington, and again, I don't hate anybody, I do not. I would for grace wherever I can find it. But common
sense in Washington, DC is illegal. And when I when I feel inadequate in Washington, which I many times do, I console myself by just looking around, going well, you know, I may feel inadequate, but I don't understand how some of these people made it through the birth cannot and some of the things they come up with. But again I try. I don't hate anybody, I really don't.
You've got to take a quick commercial break. Stay right there for more of citer John Kennedy, you talk about how common sense is illegal in Washington, d c. But it really seems that way, you know, throughout the country. I guess, how did we get to this point where common sense is illegal? Why? While you know, how do we get to this point while we have so many Americans who seem to lack common sense or or ignore it.
Well, let me say firsts, that's a great question. Congress is divided because America is divided. Some have argued that while President Trump divided, mayor I think I think I think the country was was divided before President Trump. In fact, I think that's why President Trump was in part elected. I mean, I noticed two things about President Trump when he ran in twenty sixteen. And you may like him, you may dislike him, but this, to me, what I'm about to say, I think, at least for me, is
an objective fact. Though he is a wealthy man. President Trump, he never talks down to people. He really doesn't. He also in some again you may think this is good or bad, but he's authentic in the sense. In this sense he says exactly what he thinks, and people find that refreshing. Now a lot of my Democratic colleagues, well, he broke it all. He angered a lot of people. People were angry ahead of time before he took office,
but I think they're even angrier today. Nobody I know is better off to day than they were four years ago. With the possible exception of the illegal immorals, they're clearly better off. President Biden has been, in my judgment, breathtaking me awful. And he's mismanaged Congress. He's mismanaged COVID, he's mismanaged the border. He's mismanagedcrime. He's mismanaged economy. He's mismanaged inflation. He mismanaged Afghanistan. I could go down the list, and
all of this directly impacts the American people. I mean just inflation alone. You didn't have to be you didn't have to be mins material to understand that when you spend the extraordinary amounts of money that President Biden has spent and create all this demand without changing the supply, you're going to have inflation and it's not getting any better. Yes, the inflation rate is coming down, but what does that mean. That means prices are not rising as rapidly as they
once were. That doesn't mean that prices, these high prices are going to fall. They're just going up less quickly. And the American people viscerally instinctively know that they can't. They don't have time to sit down and look up the definition of deflation versus distintlation. But they know that even though inflation is coming down, prices are still high and they have to seriously think about selling blood plasma before they go to the groctree store. And that angers people.
And I don't blame it. And that's just one example. The border. This has become a cliched expression, but cliches become cliches because they're true. Every community is a border state now presently.
Why do you think he's allowing it though? You know, because the Center for Immigration Studies recently found that the foreign born population in the United States is now at a high of fifty one point four million, accounts for fifteen point five percent. This has increased dramatically under Biden. Why why is he allowing this?
Well, of course I don't know for sure, but I will give you my best guess. I think the people who are advising President Biden believe in open borders. They won't say, but they clearly have to judge people by what they do, not what they say. They couldn't believe in open boarders, and it's worked. I mean, we have added I don't know nine million people that's for Nebraska's under President Biden. We don't have the slightest idea of who they are. We don't even know where they are
in our country. We just know that they are here. I think his advisors talked him into doing that. I'm not saying he's not responsible because he's the boss, but he went along with it. I think he depended upon the media to cover for him and for buying large the main street media did. But as an issue, it has broken clearly broken through, and now the president doesn't
know what to do about it. Now. He could solve seventy percent of it by just going back and doing things that were in place the day before he took over. For example, seventy percent of the people coming into our country through Asyblum claims or otherwise are not from Mexico. So if he implemented a say third country program, which we can talk about if you want to, that would
eliminate about seventy percent of the folks right there. But he stared to do it because the Moon wing of the Democratic Party has taken over the Democratic Party and Joe Biden believes that he has to have their votes to be relect That's what I think is going on.
Well, and of course you know it impacts the apportionment of House seeds and electional though some of us political Yeah, I mean because you had Youvet Clerk, a congressman from New York, who said that her district can absorb a significant number of these migrants, adding that I need more people in a district just for redistricting purpose. So I don't think as many Americans, you know, know that these non citizens, these legal immigrants are being included in that.
Yes, and that's I'm not saying that's the motivation of all people who believe in open borders, but you would be naive if you didn't believe it was the motivation of some When a state the number of state House members that a state has is determined by the number of people. So if you add more people, you add more House members. Uh. And that's what's been going on. And that's some motivation not of everyone, but of many people.
You know, I've got to get you with you know, of course, your your background in constitutional law and just you know, being a having your law degree and this being an area, and also just you stumping. You know, so many judicial nominees that have come before you, as well as just witnesses in general. You know, you tweeted last year that federal judges would know the difference between
a law book and an E. LO Bean catalog. But President Biden keeps nominating people who can't answer basic legal questions. I guess what if it tell you about the judicial nominees or the caliber of the judicial nominees that Joe Biden has selected, and having a lot of these people previously come before you, what can you tell us about the caliber and what does that mean for the future of the country.
Well, it tells me that President Biden's picks are primarily activists first and a judge's lawyer second. That's not the way our constitution is supposed to be set up. A judge is supposed to be a neutral arbiter. A judge is not supposed to be a politician in robes. The Supreme Court is not supposed to be a mini congress. It's supposed to be a neutral arbiter that calls balls and strikes. Now, when President Biden has nominated good people, I'm voting for it. But a lot of the people
that he has nominated, they don't know. They don't know the law, at least they I mean, I don't ask esoteric questions. I taught law school for fifteen years. The kind of questions I ask were the kind of questions I would ask my students if the subject came up in class. This is not some game to play, got you. This is what these people want to be judges. I mean, they're going to be there unelected, they will be there
for life. They will have the full power of the federal United States federal government behind them, and they they have an obligation, a moral analytical labligation to be neutral arbiters. If if I don't want a nominee whose whose goal in life on the bench is to try to rewrite the Constitution, every other Thursday to try to advance some social or economic agenda that that ought to be in front of Congress if it's going to be implemented. And
that's the way many of these activists approach it. Uh, you say, well, why don't you go to the Congress, to your legislature Because they know that they're half baked ideas aren't going to pass, so they try to do it through the courts. That's not the role of the federal judiciary in America, or the state judiciary for that matter. But President Biden has I would say seven to eight out of ten of his nominees have been activists first and lawyer's second. And you've got to know them law
to be a judge. And just because you've seen my cousin Denny, doesn't mean you're qualified to be a federal judge. You need to know the basic tenants of them all. And I think that's what I want. That's my job is to see if they know.
We've got to take a quick commercial break more with Cedator John Kennedy. But there are obviously a lot of problems facing our country right now. I guess what worries you the most, like what keeps you up at night.
I worry about our institutions. I mean, I worry about a lot of things, and I think moms and I try to focus my energy on the things that moms and dads worry about at night when they lie down to sleep and can But I mean, I could talk about inflation in the border and educating your children, but in a thirty five thousand foot view from that point of view. To answer your question, I worry about our institutions.
You mentioned the courts. Many, not all, but many of my Democratic colleagues, if they had their druthers, they would just pack the Supreme Court because they don't like the way the Supreme Court votes. I don't like the way the Supreme Court votes sometimes, and that goes back fifty years. But I read their opinions and I try to understand how they're deciding the case based on legal principles, not based on some political preference. I worry about the institution
of Congress. We haven't gotten this bad in the Senate, but I don't like it in the House. And I've got a lot of friends in the House, but I don't like it in the House when instead of legislating, people are calling each other an ignorant slut and throwing people off committees and censoring everybody and seeing who can get the most cliques. Now that's not all House members, but it's some House members. I don't think that's productive.
I worry about the institution of the presidency when you have a president of the United States who on a Monday lectures the American people about democracy and then on a Tuesday ignores, just ignores laws passed by the United States Congress, for example, the border laws. So we just talked about the Supreme Court already struck down President Biden's plan to forgive a student debt. They're coming back with another plan. They're taking a second run at it. We
already had a plan for student debt. It was called a job and the Supreme Court has said, mister President, you can't do this. Wellther he's going to try it again. That that impacts the institution of the executive branch, and it worries me. I think our institutions will hold. But but but let me put it another way. I don't mean to talk so long, but right now, and I find this very ironic. One of the few institutions left
in our country that people have respect for is the military. Now, I'm delighted that that is the case, but I can remember a time during the Vietnam era when when that wasn't the case. But when you pull it and say, we know, what do you think about the Supreme Court, it just bothers me that people don't respect it as an institution.
But I think some of these institutions have does some degree. You know, we've been lying to a lot by you know, by the people in charge, particularly during COVID, and so I think there's just a real lack of trust and faith in our institutions, and some of that's warranted.
Yes, well, look, I don't blame people. Doctor Fauci and many of his colleagues did more to set back public health than anybody in all of human history. I mean, now, if a directive comes from the public health community, you don't have people on both sides that you should go. I wonder if this is about science or if this is about politics. Uh. That's that's the institution of public health has been undermined, uh dramatically. And that's just that's just one example.
Sid Mary Kennedy, I want to be respectful of your schedule. I could talk to you forever. I really love to have you come back on the show. You're just such a smirky and I love your sense of humor. I just think that, especially with all the craziness going on in the country, in the world, I think levity is needed. So I appreciate your sense of humor.
We'll do to get through this. I mean, look, the United States of America is the greatest country in all of human history. And our institutions will hold. They will and and and the fever that we have will eventually break. But this is is in my lifetime. Uh this I can't I can't think of a time in our country when we faced greater danger, not just domestically but internationally as well. And it scares me. We'll be okay, but we've got to take it sers.
It scares me too, which is why you know we have these conversations on the podcast to try to address it and also bring people on like you. Who are you trying to make a difference in the Senate. So, Senator Kennedy, it's an honor. I really appreciate you making the time. Thank you so much.
Well, listen, tell all your listeners my last piece of advice, go vote, Go vote, go vote. If if dead, people can do it, so can you make your voice heard?
Exactly said people can do it, you can too.
There you go.
We're gonna thank you so much. Senator You're awesome.
Thank you.
That was Senator John Kennedy. Hilarious, brilliant. Really appreciate him making the time. It was such an honor. I want to thank you guys at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week. I want to think John Cassi or my producer for putting the show together until next time.